My overall number of books read was down again this year. (Thanks, Netflix!) However, what I lacked in quantity I made up for in quality because it waMy overall number of books read was down again this year. (Thanks, Netflix!) However, what I lacked in quantity I made up for in quality because it was a fantastic year for crime fiction. Here's the best of those in the order I read them.
In addition to great crime fiction I also read one of the best and most bittersweet true crime books imaginable. Michelle McNamara died before finishing this and without knowing who the Golden State Killer was. However, she predicted exactly how he'd be identified and arrested just months after the book was published. That should help anyone who reads this sleep better at night.
The trend of fantastic crime fiction continued into my comic book reading, and it's no surprise that it was Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips delivering another top notch installment in their Criminal series as well as wrapping up the Kill or be Killed story.
With all the great crime novels I didn't read much sci-fi this year, but this one was a winner. And now that I think about it also had some mystery elements to it. Bonus points for the best cover of the year, too.
This is a set of pretty good Star Wars stories that was completely ruined for me by the art. It’s not even all the art, it’s just one particular aspecThis is a set of pretty good Star Wars stories that was completely ruined for me by the art. It’s not even all the art, it’s just one particular aspect of it. So more’s the pity.
Apparently Salvador Larocca used photorealistic style on the major character’s faces so he did some kind of tracing off actual pictures of the actors and then these were colored in tones to make them look more like photographs, not drawings. The results at times look like a child scissored out the faces of the actors from magazine photos and then glued them into Star Wars comics.
What’s even weirder is that I could at least understand why it’s done for people like Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams. But at one point the same thing is used for a random Imperial officer who is in a few panels so then I’ve got some strange dude’s face stuck into my Star Wars comic. Why was this necessary?
It looks sooooo awful that it immediately took me out of all the stories it was used in which was too bad because there was some interesting plots here, especially the one about R2-D2 going on a one-droid rescue mission to save C-3PO after he’s been captured. That’s the only reason I didn’t give this one star....more
Luke Skywalker is still trying to find a way to become a Jedi, and rogue archaeologist Doctor Aprhra has a crystal containing the essence of an ancienLuke Skywalker is still trying to find a way to become a Jedi, and rogue archaeologist Doctor Aprhra has a crystal containing the essence of an ancient Jedi Master. Aphra has a plan to see a mysterious queen who receives visitors only once a year and will grant a favor to unique life forms. Since Luke is crazy strong with the Force, Aphra believes he’ll catch the queen’s eye, and she will help them unlock the crystal. Despite Aprhra’s previous employment with Darth Vader and their less than friendly previous encounter Luke is so desperate to gain knowledge about the Jedi that he agrees to go along with her.
Because what could possibly go wrong with teaming up with someone who has a history of double crossing every one she deals with at a place called The Screaming Citadel?
This is another entertaining story that blends the nostalgia of the original Star Wars trilogy with the best of this new Marvel line with Doctor Aphra and her companions. There’s a lots of good action, funny banter, and a pretty creepy storyline about what the queen is actually up to. It's nothing next-level great, but it's a solid Star Wars story....more
Shady space archaeologist Doctor Aphra has finally managed to quit working for Darth Vader without ending uA long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….
Shady space archaeologist Doctor Aphra has finally managed to quit working for Darth Vader without ending up dead. Now along with her two murderous droids and the fierce Wookie bounty hunter Black Krrsantan she’s just trying to find precious artifacts to sell so she can pay off debts she owes. However, her business plan gets delayed when her archaeologist credentials are revoked thanks to a person from her past. To get back in business Aphra will have to outwit Imperial forces and track down the mythical resting place of an ancient sect related to the Jedi.
Aphra is the best new creation in these Star Wars comics, and this title focusing on her was a lot of fun. My major gripe about this line of Marvel comics has been that by setting it between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back and concentrating on the major players from the movies that it's impossible to do real drama or tell us a story of importance since we already know how it all ends. By doing this we get to follow exciting new characters in the familiar universe without knowing what comes next.
It’s also liberating to get a story about a genuine scoundrel who has no allegiance to the Rebellion or the Empire. Aphra is solely out for herself doing her own thing which provides the opportunity to introduce other characters and concepts we haven’t seen before. Plus, she’s just an entertaining character as an anti-hero surviving by her wits and stubbornness. And her droids really want to torture and murder people which I continue to find hilarious....more
If this is love then I’d hate to see the Russian idea of hate.
The Soviets have suffered several espionage losses so they decide to run an elaborate opIf this is love then I’d hate to see the Russian idea of hate.
The Soviets have suffered several espionage losses so they decide to run an elaborate operation in which they’ll kill British agent James Bond in such a way that will embarrass all of English intelligence. The two big pieces of cheese in this mousetrap are a code machine used by the Russians and a beautiful code clerk named Tatiana Romanova who doesn’t realize what kind of pawn she actually is. Will Bond take the bait? Well, he is James Bond, and did I mention that that Tatiana is a beautiful woman? Yeah, take a guess how this goes.
I’m a big fan of Bond on film and generally like those a lot more than the Fleming novels I’ve tried. With this one being the basis for one of the best Bond movies I didn’t find anything to change my mind about that. Bond is usually a bastard in both forms, but there’s something even worse and apt to make me roll my eyes in the way that he’s even more of a privileged sexist bigot on the page then any time on screen.
Plus, the structure of this novel is just weird. It’s only 191 pages, but Bond doesn’t show up until halfway through it. Instead we spend a lot of time getting all the details about how the Soviets came up with this plan. Even when Bond finally appears we get a long segment about how he’s been bored at the office and what his domestic life is like when he's not killing people or having sex. Another problem is that since we’ve been told in detail exactly what trap awaits Bond there’s not a lot of mystery for the reader even when 007 is trying to figure it out.
Although to be fair, the movie also lays out the plan, but there it’s done much more quickly so that Bond gets involved much sooner. In fact, the basic plot beats from the book are used in the film, but the film did a better job of pacing and adding action to the mix. Since I do like the movie a lot I guess that means the basic plot works as long as it moves briskly.
Still, it is one of the classic Bond stories, and there is some charm to this including some spy vs. spy games in Turkey. It also has a top notch thug in the form of Red Grant, a psychopath from the United Kingdom who defected to Russia and became their chief executioner. If there was more of him in here I think I would have liked it more....more
A small Florida community is stunned when a housewife in a seemingly happy marriage murders her two children and then kills herself. Reporter Richard A small Florida community is stunned when a housewife in a seemingly happy marriage murders her two children and then kills herself. Reporter Richard Hudson writes up the story and thinks his work is done, but his managing editor wants an in-depth piece on the rising suicide rates using the dead lady as a local angle.
With that as the starting point and considering that this is a Hard Case Crime reprint of a Charles Willeford novel you might be expecting the book to be about this intrepid reporter uncovering something related to these deaths. I certainly was. Surprise!
This isn’t the first time that HCC has published a book that subverts expectations. Donald Westlake’s Memory isn’t really a crime novel at all. Neither is this. Instead it’s more of a character study of Richard and his own domestic situation. What we learn is that he’s pretty much an enormous jerkface. He’s not much a husband or father who deliberately stays on the night shift so he can avoid domestic responsibility. He’s also content to drift along as an unambitious reporter who has developed a variety of shortcuts to avoid actually doing his job. Richard rationalizes this as being necessary for him to work on his true calling of being a playwright, but it’s quickly apparent that just the dodge he’s using to feel better about being perfectly content to just coast along with minimum effort.
What evolves through Richard’s skewed perspective is a pretty interesting snapshot of life in the early ‘60s. It’s no shock that it’s filled with casual sexism and women are treated as second class citizens. Yet as Richard considers why a woman who had everything that American society said she needs to make her happy would kill herself, he finds himself increasingly thinking about his own life and marriage.
Some readers might complain that this is bait-and-switch since it’s not technically a crime novel, but I found it well-written and somewhat compelling. There’s nothing fantastic or groundbreaking to it, but it’s like a time capsule that gives you a sense of the time and place as well as a glimpse of white male entitlement at its peak....more
If someone offered me the choice between taking a long road trip with a couple of kids or being murdered by the mob, I’d have to really think it over.If someone offered me the choice between taking a long road trip with a couple of kids or being murdered by the mob, I’d have to really think it over.
It’s November 1963, and Frank Guidry is living well in New Orleans thanks to his top position with Carlos Marcello’s mob outfit. However, one of Frank’s recent chores was leaving a car in a parking garage in Dallas very near the spot where President Kennedy would be assassinated just days later. It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection especially when several other people on Carlos’ payroll start turning up dead. Frank just became a loose end, and he flees west with lethal hit man Paul Barone hot on his trail.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Roy has been trying to raise her two daughters in a small Oklahoma town which isn’t easy thanks to her drunken loser of a husband. When Charlotte has enough she takes the girls and starts heading to California, but she’s consumed by guilt and uncertain if she's done the right thing. After Frank meets Charlotte at a motel he realizes that traveling with a lady and two kids would make him a lot less conspicuous so he engineers circumstances so that they all go together. Frank is surprised when what started as a con to help him get away begins to turn into a real relationship with Charlotte and the kids. But that pesky hit man is still right behind them…
I read Berney’s The Long and Faraway Gone earlier this year and enjoyed it quite a bit. Then I heard a tremendous amount of good buzz about this one before it released, and I’m pleased to report that it lives up to the hype.
In the wrong hands this concept could be just some cheesy tale about a ‘bad man’ who sees the error of his ways after becoming part of a family, but the strong character work done with Frank, Charlotte, and deadly Paul Barone is where this really shines. You thoroughly understand all of them, and despite the historical backdrop it all feels grounded and realistic with Frank and Charlotte struggling to deal with how their lives have been forever changed while Barone has to deal with a variety of setbacks as he just tries to complete his mission.
I particularly liked how Berney used the JFK assassination as the jumping off point, not the center of the story. It’s obviously the thing driving the plot, but what’s presented comes across as a believable scheme by one pissed off mobster instead of some vast shadowy tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory. So we’re not dragged into some Oliver Stone style fever dream.
The work done on the settings and time is top notch, too. We get an authentic sense of the places like New Orleans, Las Vegas, crappy motels, and roadside tourist traps. It all builds the mood of what it must have been like back then. There’s nice touches of how the mob operated at the time, too.
It’s a damn fine piece of crime fiction, and I’ll be tracking down more of Berney’s work....more
It’s another brutally hot summer day in Phoenix, and homicide detective Sean Richardson has to spend it fishing a headless and armless torso out of a It’s another brutally hot summer day in Phoenix, and homicide detective Sean Richardson has to spend it fishing a headless and armless torso out of a canal. The only good news is that it still has the feet including a toe ring, and this clue leads Sean and his partner to suspect that a missing housewife, Becky Miller, is probably the victim and her cheating husband looks awfully guilty.
In the interest of full disclosure I need to note that James Thane is a longtime friend of mine here on Goodreads so I’m not even gonna try to pretend that this is an objective review. Please take my word that if it stank I’d just quietly ignore it, but fortunately it’s pretty good so I can talk about it.
There’s two parallel stories at work in this. One is the first person narration from Richardson which mixes a straight-up realistic police procedural with some on-going developments in his personal life which has been built up over the last couple of books. The other third-person story focuses on Becky in the weeks leading up to the discovery of the body in the canal. Regular readers of crime fiction can probably guess where the story is going yet there’s a couple of good twists and turns in there, and the ending was a nice surprise.
Overall, it’s a solid piece of crime fiction that has a good page turning vibe to it, and while it’s obviously a little gory with the whole chopped up body in the canal thing it doesn’t wallow in that like some books would. It’s also got an interesting shifting tone to it. The police stuff is a straight line narrative that you might see on something like Law & Order, but the Becky plot dealing with the crime has a much messier and emotional feel to it. It’s an unusual way to play it, but I particularly enjoyed Becky’s story which had a lot of clever crime elements. There’s also some nice detail work done that makes the reader really feel the desert heat as the characters roam around the city....more
Is money the root of all evil or does it make the world go round?
The answer to that is yes.
Annabel is American living in Geneva with husband Matthew wIs money the root of all evil or does it make the world go round?
The answer to that is yes.
Annabel is American living in Geneva with husband Matthew whose job with a secretive Swiss bank keeps him away from her too much, but the trade off is the wealthy lifestyle they’re living. Marina is journalist engaged to Grant who comes from a very rich family, and his father is about to become a candidate for the presidency of the United States. It might seem like both these ladies won the trophy husband lottery, but Annabel is bored and lonely while Marina feels like she’s have to have to give up the job she loves to really be part of Grant’s family. Yeah, I know. Rich people problems.
However, things take a turn for both women. Annabel’s husband is killed in a small plane crash with home of his wealthy clients, and she starts questioning exactly what he was doing at the bank. While on a vacation trip to Paris, Marina does a favor for her old friend and editor by picking up a USB drive with encrypted data, but this errand leads to her ending up with information on money laundering done for international criminal types. Both Annabel and Marina quickly find out that these are not the kind of people who like you asking questions about their business.
This is a solid thriller whose biggest strength is in the idea that there’s a vast ocean of blood money being hidden and utilized by some of the world’s most powerful people. If you’ve been paying attention to current events that’s a story with the ring of authenticity to it. I mean, a rich asshole with presidential aspirations and shady international business connections isn’t much of a stretch these days, and it gives the whole book an honest hook to it.
It’s well written by airport thriller standards, and the presentation of the lives that Annabel and Marina are leading is very well done. There’s some interesting thematic stuff in that Annabel truly loves her husband is now filled with regrets about the independent lifestyle she gave up even if she is living in the lap of luxury. It fits nicely with Marina’s story since she’s on the verge of essentially making that same choice.
Unfortunately, the weaker side comes with the thriller stuff. There’s a few scenes with characters being followed and some lightweight chase scenes, but this isn’t an action story. It’s more about paranoia and dread which is fitting for a book about the money and power lurking behind world events, but I could have used more of a sense of danger to it.
And frankly it seems like a book that real world has outpaced in terms of how much trouble we’re all in. The characters here have faith that a free press and government oversight can ultimately stop and punish people who break the law like this. It doesn’t take into account that the evil rich doing this stuff are now the ones in power, and that institutions we counted on to protect us have been corrupted or neutered.
So it’s a decent read with an interesting idea and above average characterization, but it comes across as too naive a story to really accomplish what it might have just a few years ago....more
Has a college student become a masked vigilante killer because he’s been cursed by a demon or because he’s mentally ill? Maybe a little Column A and aHas a college student become a masked vigilante killer because he’s been cursed by a demon or because he’s mentally ill? Maybe a little Column A and a little Column B?
The third volume finds Dylan coping with revelations indicating that the whole demon thing might be all in his head which leads to him trying to put down the shotgun and try to get back to some kind of normal life. Which actually kinda works for a while, but it’s hard to just quit being a vigilante when you’ve got the Russian mob looking for you.
The team of Brubaker and Phillips is probably the best working in comics right now, and as always the writing and art combine to create a great story. I continue to admire how this takes the air out of the fantasy of a good-guy-with-a-gun cleaning up the streets. It’s all brutal and messy and ugly, and they manage to make Dylan sympathetic while still also seeming like a danger to himself and everyone around him. There’s a gritty realism to the way that it’s all handled that is very different then what you usually get in a story of this type.
I absolutely loved this, and I’m extremely glad I’ve got Vol. 4 on deck right now to keep reading....more
A young man who puts on a mask and kills criminals because he thinks he’s been cursed by a demon ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Who could have seeA young man who puts on a mask and kills criminals because he thinks he’s been cursed by a demon ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Who could have seen that coming?
After Dylan has a meltdown in his personal life he’s been locked up and doped enough to keep him foggy, and it also seems like someone has taken his place on the outside as a masked vigilante killer getting headlines for murder. However, Dylan is still haunted by the idea of the demon who drove his killing spree because whether it was real or not he’s got plenty of evidence that the world is steaming pile of garbage and that maybe somebody should do something. And just because he’s locked up doesn’t mean that there’s not bad guys around he could take care of….
If this was a Marvel or DC creations we’d go through an endless continuation of Dylan including revelation after revelation about his past and he’d probably die at some point and come back. With a story by Brubaker and Phillips we get an actual ending, and that’s part of what makes their stuff so great. With a conclusion we have consequences and themes, not just an infinite and increasingly pointless character.
I also admire how this story threads a tricky needle. It certainly isn’t a ridiculous Death Wish style fantasy about how one determined man with a gun can clean up the streets, but it’s also not a simplistic morality tale about how murder is wrong either. Dylan’s world view gets increasingly complex as he goes from a guy who thinks he’s killing to avoid his own death at the hands of demon to someone who is increasingly disgusted by a world that seems to get progressively worse by the minute thanks to the corruption of the basic systems that are supposed to protect us.
If you’re looking for murder and mayhem in temporary lodgings then the Charlesgate should be mentioned along with the Overlook and Bates Motel.
The ChaIf you’re looking for murder and mayhem in temporary lodgings then the Charlesgate should be mentioned along with the Overlook and Bates Motel.
The Charlesgate was once the swankiest hotel in Boston, but by 1946 it’s become a wretched hive of scum and villainy. After a poker night for gangsters gets robbed the guy running the game wants revenge. By 1986 the Charlesgate is student housing for a local college when one of the residents begins looking into the building’s history for a series of articles in the school paper, and he gets a very juicy story from a man recently released from prison. Cut to 2014 and the Charlesgate has been renovated into high priced condos, and a murder in one of these apartment seems to be linked to paintings worth millions that were stolen back in 1946 and never recovered.
This is a very solid debut novel from Scott Von Doviak who lived in the actual Charlesgate as a student in the ‘80s. He mixes in some of its real history with the spooky stories that surrounded it along with a famous Boston museum heist (Although he’s used creative license to move that from 1990 to 1946.) to create an intriguing puzzle box of a book. We shift through the three different time frames with the narratives eventually combining into one large story. It’s very well written and has a good page turning quality to it. There’s also some nice work done to establish the tone of each time period and the characters in it.
At just under 400 pages it’s a shade too long, and while I liked the ultimate resolution and theme the ending seems a little anti-climactic. The book also suffers from a common problem when the author is a Red Sox fan in that they think that the rest of us are just as interested in reliving their tales of woe over the years as they are. Yeah, yeah. You had it tough for a long time, but since Boston has won about 417 championships in various sports including baseball in the 21st century I don’t have a lot of patience or sympathy for it anymore. (However, I will be glad to talk to about the ups and downs of being a Kansas City Royals fan.)
Overall, it was still a good piece of crime fiction, and I’d like to see more from Von Doviak. I’d call it 3.5 stars if Goodreads gave us the option, but since they don’t I’m going with 3....more
George Pelecanos may be working more on television than books these days, but the man still knows how to write one damn fine crime novel.
Michael HudsGeorge Pelecanos may be working more on television than books these days, but the man still knows how to write one damn fine crime novel.
Michael Hudson has been in jail awaiting trial for taking part in the robbery, but doing time has been made easier by prison librarian Anna who helped him discover a love of reading. Fortunately for Michael his case is dismissed thanks to private investigator Phil Ornazian who gets the man he robbed to drop the charges. All Michael wants to do is clean up his act and spend his time reading some good books, but the PI didn’t spring him out of the kindness of his heart. In fact, Ornazian has a side business stealing from pimps and other criminals, and now he wants Michael to start helping.
It’s been a fantastic year of crime fiction for me, and this one continues my winning streak. I’d be happy enough to get an average Pelecanos book, but I think this is one of his best, maybe my favorite, even if he’s not doing anything particularly new here.
There’s the usual stuff like all the detail of life in Washington D.C. mixed in with a bit of nostalgia about how things used to be even if the way things used to be wasn’t always great. The characters are also pure Pelecanos, who always likes to stress a strong work ethic and simple pleasures. Michael fits this template as a guy who has realized that he’s been going nowhere fast, and who now has goals and starts planning. He may be starting at square one as a dishwasher, but as long as he can kick back with a book in his spare time, he’s content.
This even applies to Ornazian who you might expect to be a sleazy jerk, but he’s written as not that bad of a guy. He’s got a family that he’s trying to provide for and only robs criminals. Anna is also interesting as a lady with a seemingly perfect marriage who finds herself more than a little intrigued by Michael when they bump into each other after he’s released.
At less than 300 pages it’s also quick and tight as a drum. It’s a great blend of character and setting with a bit of action from the rip-offs that Ornazian pulls with his partner. As a constant reader I also always love it when an author manages to get across what makes it so great, and Pelecanos really sells the idea that Michael has fallen in love with books.
I also got to meet Pelecanos at a signing for this, and he had a lot of interesting things to say including talking about the prison reading program that he’s involved with and was obviously one of the inspirations for this book....more
Eli Sisters and his older brother Charley are a couple of killers working for the Commodore in 1850s OregoThe Sisters who kill together stay together.
Eli Sisters and his older brother Charley are a couple of killers working for the Commodore in 1850s Oregon. Their new assignment is to journey to San Francisco during the latest gold rush and kill a chemist named Hermann Warm. Along the way they kill some people and Eli learns how to brush his teeth.
I’d been meaning to read this one for years, and the trailer for the movie finally got me off my ass. Unfortunately, I found myself a shade disappointed in it. Which is weird because one of all-time favorite books is Lonesome Dove, another well written and highly acclaimed western filled with sudden violent death as well as casual brutality amidst some humorous moments so this would seem to be right in my wheelhouse.
I think it’s a matter of degrees. There’s plenty of dark stuff in this genre that I love such as the aforementioned Lonesome Dove, Blood Meridian, Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, and the HBO series Deadwood. However, there’s other quality things of a similar nature like Bone Tomahawk or The Revenant that for me slide into areas that feel more like misery porn or torture based horror movies. That’s what this one seemed closer to.
So I know it’s good, but it’s just not my cuppa tea....more
There are many ways to r“What kind of book is this?” he asked.
I thought about the answer to that a moment.
“What kind of book is this?” he asked again.
There are many ways to respond to that question. I should think about this for a second longer.
“What kind of book is this?” he asked a third time.
It’s the kind of book that has somebody repeating questions a whole bunch of times while other characters ponder things so if you’re already irritated you should probably avoid it.
Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher has been living in Key West where he’s earning a living digging swimming pools, and his idea of a good time is drinking a bunch of mineral water. (No, seriously.) Reacher has no interest in disrupting his quiet routine, but when a private investigator comes around looking for him it kicks off a chain of events which eventually lead Reacher into digging up the secrets of a murderous man in New York City with a dark history that leads back to the Vietnam War.
My experience with this series is weird. I hated the first book, but people I trust told me the series gets much better. Then I saw the Jack Reacher movie and enjoyed it quite a bit so I tried the second book, and it was OK but still didn’t blow my hair back. So here I am trying the third one, and it had about two dozen things that made me roll my eyes. Yet I didn’t absolutely hate it.
I get the appeal of these. The idea of the manliest man to ever walk the face of the earth randomly stumbling into adventures is fun if you like a certain style of action thriller. Child has made big improvements in these early books already like moving from first person to third means that I don’t have Reacher himself telling me how awesome he is on every page. Plus, he’s scaled back the idea that Reacher is a Sherlock Holmes level of detective genius who can make incredible leaps based on the slimmest of clues.
The core story here is pretty good, but as with the first couple of books there’s a constant parade of things that are just so ridiculous or outright stupid that they take me out of the story. One of the biggies is that the main villain in this is a complete cartoon sadist straight out of James Bond with a burned and scarred face as well as a hook used in place of an amputated hand, and it’s so far over the top that it’s hard to take him or the book seriously.
There’s also a very icky subplot where Reacher reconnects with the daughter of his old Army mentor who has recently died. Jodie was a teenage girl, and Reacher was in his mid- twenties when they were around each other back in the day. Yet it becomes very clear that they both had that the hots for each other, and they both still have these old feelings. Child spends a lot of time justifying and rationalizing this plot, and yeah, now they’re both adults and nothing physical happened when she was underage. But it’s just so unnecessary to play it this way.
Why couldn’t Jodie have been in college and Reacher only a few years older when they met and were attracted to each other? Then it’s not an issue at all and makes Reacher far less creepy. (The only thing I can think of is that Child had a Hollywood idea of what a couple in this kind of story looks like, and god forbid we have a lady over thirty hooking up with the hero even though he’s pushing forty himself.)
Another thing is that the book constantly contradicts itself and then goes out of its way to underline that it’s doing so in the most forehead slapping way possible. For example, at one point Reacher thought he knew how some thugs would come after him and Jodie. Yet they use a different tactic which takes him by surprise and almost works. Afterword, Reacher calmly notes that he hadn’t thought about them doing that which was almost a fatal mistake. Yet later in the book when it looks like an assumption that he made was wrong Reacher has a complete meltdown about it where he bemoans the loss of his once perfect record at following his hunches and wonders what he’s supposed to do in life now that his skills have so obviously failed him. So Reacher shrugs off making an error that almost gets them killed, and yet when a blue sky guess he made that has no immediate potential impact looks like it might be wrong he falls apart.
There’s lots more like that, but I’m going to spoiler tag these next few. I’m not giving up the ending, just some things that happen along the way. (view spoiler)[
I mentioned at the start of this review how Child had a habit of characters repeating questions constantly. Reacher is as bad as anyone else in the book about making people ask the same question over and over without answering as well as repeating himself multiple times. In fact, at a climatic point in the book when someone has called him with critical information Child has Reacher asks this person to explain it to him FOUR TIMES to be sure he understands it.
Then in the next chapter Reacher has beaten up a bad guy that he desperately needs information from. He essentially tells the guy to help him or die. The bad guy refuses. Reacher again states that the guy will either help him or die. Then Reacher remembers how his mentor once told him, “Ask once. Ask twice if you have to, but by God never ask a third time!” And so he immediately breaks this guy's neck.
I guess it’s a good thing Reacher decided to ignore that rule when he made someone repeat themselves FOUR TIMES in the previous chapter or else he might have had to kill himself on the spot.
Another example, at one point Reacher and Jodie do some traveling as part of their investigation. First they go to St. Louis where Reacher makes buddies with an Army guy named Conrad in charge of a records department. This leads them to Dallas, and the next clue makes Reacher insist that they have to go to Hawaii even though Jodie has to be back in New York the following day for her job. (They have been attacked by bad guys so it does make sense that Reacher doesn’t want her traveling alone.) This trip involves a whole lot of airline miles, and only gives them four hours in Honolulu before having to jump on another plane back to New York.
There is absolutely no reason that they couldn’t go to New York to keep Jodie’s appointment first, and then fly to Honolulu. There is a clock on the bad guy’s side of things, but Reacher doesn’t know that. There’s no logical story reason for him to demand that they go to Hawaii right that second, but that’s what Child needs for the plot to work so that’s what they do.
In Hawaii they meet an old Army friend of Reacher’s and eventually some information is gathered in another ridiculous scene where the guy at first won’t tell him anything because it’s classified, then he makes Reacher deduce a few things from looking at some recovered remains of servicemen, and then he just goes ahead and tells them the whole story anyhow. Then they jump on a plane to New York. After arriving there Reacher gets some more information which causes him to say, “I have to go back to St. Louis.”
What we learn later as part of the twist at the climactic moment is that Reacher doesn’t actually go to St. Louis but is still in New York. Why didn’t he go? And this is the actual quote in the book: “Why fly himself all the way down there when there were telephones, and he had already built a working relationship with Conrad?”
So the guy who made another person fly from Dallas to Honolulu to New York just to meet with an old friend of his for four hours suddenly realizes that telephones exist and that he can call up people to get information on them, particularly if you actually know the person at the other end of the line.
And you can’t even say that Reacher viewing the remains in Honolulu was critical because he just figures out what his old buddy already knew, and that’s not even the really important part of the story. The classified stuff that the guy finally gives up is the key stuff. Which he could have done OVER THE GODDAMN TELEPHONE!
There’s another factor that made me cringe a few times while reading, but this wasn’t Child's fault. The book was published in 1999, and the main villain has an office in the World Trade Center which is where a lot of the action takes place. Plus, at one point Reacher pays cash an airline ticket to New York using a fake name. Those were big reminders that the world was a very different place back then, and while there’s no way Child could have known what was coming it does give the book an uncomfortable vibe at times.
There are other nitpicks to make, but these are the major ones that took what started out as a very solid action thriller/mystery and turned into a hot mess. Child has storytelling skills, and at their best these books are a hoot. But did no editor every look at this and suggest some changes that would tighten up the story and keep him from highlighting the things that don’t make sense? It would have helped a lot....more
Literary agent Josh Blake is having a bad day at the office. He’s hungover, one of his secretaries is late, and a very pushy aspiring writer won’t takLiterary agent Josh Blake is having a bad day at the office. He’s hungover, one of his secretaries is late, and a very pushy aspiring writer won’t take no for an answer. Oh, and he also finds his partner murdered in his office and their most valuable contract that’s about to be worth a fortune in movie rights is missing.
Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays!
This is a hard boiled mystery novel that has everything you’d expect from this kind of thing written in the ‘50s. Ed McBain created a solid noir character in the jerkish Blake who is more concerned with the missing contract than the dead partner. There’s a suspicious cop, some surprisingly polite thugs, and several gorgeous dames thrown into the mix, and it works well enough as an entertaining story. Good, but not inspired would be my usual judgement on it.
Yet there’s a surprising little bit right at the end that puts a whole new light on everything, and lifts it up a notch. I won’t quite go 4 stars on it, but it’d be an easy 3.5 if Goodreads would let us do that....more
It’s the early ‘50s and British intelligence is worried about unusual activity in Marseille’s underworld so they send one of their elite agents to cheIt’s the early ‘50s and British intelligence is worried about unusual activity in Marseille’s underworld so they send one of their elite agents to check it out, but 007 is murdered. His replacement? A young man named Bond. James Bond.
Anthony Horowitz already wrote one retro Bond novel based on some unused Ian Fleming material with Trigger Mortis. Here, he takes us even further back to give us the story of Bond’s first mission after earning his license to kill. Bond finds himself trying to unravel a dastardly scheme as he encounters colorful characters like a morbidly obese Corsican mob leader, a wealthy American businessman, and beautiful ex-British agent who has become a major player by running her own freelance espionage business. Along the way Bond does a little gambling while wearing a tuxedo, drinks some martinis, has a bunch of sex, and kills some people. So Bond got a pretty good idea of what his job would be like early on.
Bond fans will find a lot to like here, especially those whose favorite film version is Sean Connery because that’s the vibe Horowitz is going for. As in Trigger Mortis he cleverly skirts the problem of Bond coming across as a dated jerk by leaning into it and actually having Bond be a dated jerk in many ways. The thing that makes it tolerable is that he’s usually called out for it so it still lets Bond be the classic bastard he usually is without feeling like his behavior is being excused.
So you’ve got all the classic elements in an action filled story that provides an old school origin story. It’s a good dose of Bond to fill the time until the next movie finally gets made....more
I was in the middle of reading this volume when I the news broke that Chris Pine is not going to do the next movie so now I’m left wondering if these I was in the middle of reading this volume when I the news broke that Chris Pine is not going to do the next movie so now I’m left wondering if these comics are the only new stories I’m going to get set in this version of Star Trek. It’s like 1969 all over again! Except I guess I still have Discovery. And this new show that they announced with Patrick Stewart coming back as Picard. OK so it’s not all gloom and doom as far as the future of the Federation goes.
This is another pretty solid volume. It relies less on retelling new versions of the TOS stories, and that makes it more interesting. There’s one decent arc that plays off the fall out of the first two movies that involves Section 31. Then there’s several other shorter side adventures that would all make pretty good episodes like the Enterprise itself being given a humanoid form after an encounter with advanced alien tech. My favorite involves a crossover to an alternate universe in which the entire crew has been gender swapped so that we get to see Captain James T. Kirk meet Captain Jane T. Kirk. (And no, they don’t have sex although I’m pretty sure they were both thinking about it.)
Getting away from just retelling the TOS adventures and building off the alternate timeline helps this a lot, and the writers are coming up with some fun new ideas that feel like Trek stories. ...more
The new/old adventures of the starship Enterprise continue…
The focus in this volume is mainly on filling in the backstory of many of the supporting chThe new/old adventures of the starship Enterprise continue…
The focus in this volume is mainly on filling in the backstory of many of the supporting characters although there’s still some re-telling of classic TOS stories in the Abrams timeline along with it. Most of it’s OK, but nothing that’d breach anyone’s warp core. The one I enjoyed most was about Keenser, the little alien that is Scotty’s pal in engineering.
The odd thing here is that even though this is a thick volume with a dozen issues of the main comic that several of the stories are based on other spin-off projects that aren’t included, and there’s little explanation provided as to the background. So even though I’ve read both volumes so far I was clueless on some things about Kirk dealing with some crooked Starfleet guy who was in some Into Darkness side story they did. And I apparently missed them meeting the Gorn race for the first time. Which is just wrong. If I’m reading a rebooted Star Trek line of comics you gotta give me that Gorn intro! ...more
But which one? ‘Cause you’ve got the original Enterprise from TOS, then came the renovated one in theThese are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.
But which one? ‘Cause you’ve got the original Enterprise from TOS, then came the renovated one in the first couple of movies. But that one got blowed up real good so then we had the Enterprise-A. Of course there’s Next Generations which had the Enterprise-D and E versions. Oh, and we got to see the Enterprise-B and C, too. Then there’s the Enterprise from the prequel series of the same name. So exactly which Enterprise are we talking about here? Kirk’s original Enterprise? Cool! Wait, it’s the one from the rebooted Abrams timeline though….
This is why nerds eventually lose their minds.
So yeah, this is a comic that takes place after the events of the 2009 Star Trek reboot featuring a young Captain Kirk and his original crew, and a lot of the stories are retellings of TOS like Where No Man Has Gone Before, The Galileo Seven, and The Return of the Archons. The twist is that since we’re in an alt-timeline things play out differently than the original versions.
This is a tricky proposition. If you don’t change things enough then you’re just doing a boring pointless remake. If you change to much then you risk messing with something that fans might feel very strongly about. (Into Darkness ran into this when they tried to do another version of the Khan storyline.)
Overall, these are pretty fun that come up with interesting changes based on the way things have already been shifted because of the events of the first movie. For example, McCoy isn’t in the episode Where No Man Has Gone Before but here he’s already on the ship so his presence changes how it all goes even if much of it is still familiar. The Return of the Archons takes this even further because it seems like even the backstory of the events there are altered which would have taken place long before the timeline was changed. So that’s the writer essentially rebooting a piece of Trek history which is then used to set up a whole new plot thread going forward. Their version of The Trouble With the Tribbles also happens very differently, and there’s another story that’s entirely new and based off the events of the first movie so they aren’t just doing updates of old stuff.
The artwork is very good and really helps sell all this. They’ve got the look and feel of the new cast and Enterprise down exactly, and then they introduce other cool sci-fi action. A comic book adaptation is never going to be as satisfying as the move or TV show its based on, but this one does provide some fun supplemental action if you liked the Abrams version of the characters. (And if you don’t, I really don't want to hear about it.)...more
Loading...
