Suspense
”Rebel Island,”By Rick Riordan
Bantam Books ($6.99 paperback, 330 pages)
It’s just a measure of how well endowed the mystery bookshelves are at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library that I am just now getting to read anything by Rick Riordan, a New York Times bestselling mystery author from my old stomping grounds of South Texas.
When the new library opened up, I reveled in the old books — S.S. Van Dine, Brett Halliday — that used to be hidden away in the stacks.
That’s my excuse for not being up on the latest mystery bestsellers, and I’m sticking to it.
But I’ve clearly missed some fun, because this latest Riordan opus has enough twists and action and interesting characters to definitely make me want to go back and peruse his previous work in the Tres Navarre private eye series.
In this case, Tres Navarre has officially given up his private investigation business to work as a full-time faculty member at the University of Texas at San Antonio (whence my nephew graduated — he’s now a Texas State Trooper). And Tres has just married his so-pregnant-she’s-ready-to-pop lawyer girlfriend, Maia, who happens to be a Chinese American.
50 States of Literature, Adventure, Bestsellers, Mystery, New in Paperback, Review, Suspense
“Blood Trail,”By C.J. Box
2008, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
$24.95 hardbound, 301 pages
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Here’s a book that probes some of the less-noticed wounds of America’s culture wars with all the delicacy of a 105 mm howitzer.
It’s part of a series of eight detective/mystery novels about a Wyoming game warden, Joe Pickett, who works directly for the governor — a Democrat, oddly enough — named Spencer Rulon.
In this story, someone’s killing hunters and mutilating their bodies in particularly nasty ways. With a state economy that depends so much on the hunting industry, Rulon gets Pickett involved in the hunt for the hunter who hunts hunters.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
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“The Black Hand: A Barker & Llewelyn Novel,” by Will Thomas
(2008, Touchstone, 289 pages, $14, paperback)
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At last, I find a new story and cast of characters after my own heart — albeit with a Sicilian dagger.
This is the fifth in a series of historical mysteries set in England in the 1880s. The heroes, Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn, would have been contemporaries of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson (no relation to yours truly, although that happens to be the same name as my father, and my grandfather was a doctor — of veterinary medicine). Also, Barker and Llewelyn bear a surface resemblance to the venerable duo.
But while Holmes shows his remarkable mental acumen (e.g., concluding people’s activities from pet hair on a pant-leg) regularly throughout a story, Barker, who plays the lead sleuth in this series, spends much of this story, at least, teaching his apprentice, Llewelyn, about the sociology of London’s underworld.
And that’s just fine with me.
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Adventure, Historical Fiction, Mystery, New in Paperback, Review, Suspense, Uncategorized
“Spook Country,” by William Gibson(2007, Penguin Group, 373 pages, $15, paperback)
I confess that I’m one of many people who have not read William Gibson’s first novel, “Neuromancer,” so I had little more than the cover art and blurbs on which to build preconceptions when I sat down to read this book.
“Neuromancer,” according to Wikipedia, is one of the seminal works of cyberpunk science fiction, some of which I’ve enjoyed very much.
But “Spook Country” is not science fiction. In fact, it more resembles highly tech-oriented noir.
The book begins with a former rock musician — still famous in the story — named Hollis Henry, who is trying to get started as a journalist. In her first big assignment, she visits the scene of River Phoenix’s death with an artist who asks her to don a visor that looks like a welder’s face-guard. She then sees a three-dimensional virtual-reality recreation of Phoenix’s death scene.
This brings us into the concept of linking virtual reality with global positioning systems, creating the possibility of somehow inhabiting a world that is not at all what it seems.
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”Indiana Jones and the White Witch,” by Martin CaidinBantam Books (paperback, 1994, 329 pages).Those of you who saw my review (which you can see HERE) of a previous installment in this series of adventures based on the George Lucas-Steven Spielberg movies may remember that my standards aren’t very high.
I don’t ask for much.
Just don’t bore me.
This one failed on that score.
Btw, these paperbacks were reissued this spring to capitalize on the latest movie.
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”Shinjuku Shark”By Arimasa Osawa
Translated by Andrew Clare
Vertical Inc.
Paperback, $14.95
285 pages
Both my kids have taken four years of Japanese under “Irigashi Sensei” at White Station High School, and I sincerely hoped I would like this book, the first English translation of a series of police procedurals that are extremely popular in Japan.
I do like the characters and the story, but the translation has serious problems.
The Shinjuku Shark is the nickname of the book’s hero, Samejima, a rogue, loner cop who won’t kowtow to his go-long-to-get-along superiors in the Japanese police hierarchy.
He has a beautiful rock singer girlfriend, Sho, who seems to be poised to launch into stardom.
The plot involves a gay, sadistic maker of illegal firearms and a mysterious serial killer who targets young police officers.
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“Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates”
By Martin Caidin
First published December 1993, Bantam reissue April 2008
Paperback, $6.99
311 pages
Just in time for this week’s release of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” Bantam has reissued a series of adventure novels based on the George Lucas movie character.
I came across five of them in what could be called the “slush pile” of books considered inauspicious candidates for reviewing in TheShelfLifeBlog.com.
I’d had my fill of reviewing books outside my reading “comfort zone,” and wanted something I was pretty sure to enjoy — at least not to actively dislike.
My modest expectations were not disappointed by this book by an accomplished British aviator whose earlier novel, “Cyborg,” was developed into the “Six Million Dollar Man” and “Bionic Woman” TV series.
2 Comments
Books on Film, Historical Fiction, Mystery, New in Paperback, Review, Science fiction, Suspense
BSI-Starside: Final Inquiries
By Roger MacBride Allen
Bantam Spectra, 2008
Paperback, $6.99
421 pages
If you’re looking for something light, not too disturbing, that combines police procedurals with speculative science fiction, this may be worth picking up.
“Final Inquiries” seems to be the second in a series about a couple of “space-cops,” as it were, in an organization called the Bureau of Special Investigations, which has the duty of looking into crimes involving humans outside of the Earth system and those that involve interactions between humans and alien intelligent beings.
Allen is the spouse of a U.S. Foreign Service operative, and he uses that experience to build interesting details into this particular work, involving high-stakes interstellar diplomacy and death.
The human heroes of the story are Hannah Wolfson, the senior BSI agent, and Jamie Mendez. (Romance isn’t really a factor in this story.)
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One has to be careful reviewing a novel by Patrick McGrath. From the first page, he begins laying clues and dropping hints about the bomb he’s going to drop on readers at the end of the book, though he’s also clever enough that some of his hints and clues lead to false trails, a feat particularly easy when he manipulates the device of the unreliable narrator as well as he does (and perhaps turns that device inside out). So a reviewer constantly has to parse what he’s revealing to make certain not to give away the multi-layered game.
Let’s say this: Patrick McGrath’s new novel “Trauma” (Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95) is narrated by a psychiatrist — as was “Asylum,” his fourth novel — who cannot follow the dictum, “Physician, heal thyself,” though he understands that some horror hidden inside is making his life increasingly untenable. The setting is New York in the 1970s and ’80s; Charlie Weir specializes in treating Vietnam veterans and other patients suffering from post-traumatic syndrome. One of the most traumatized of his clients is Danny Magill, whose terrors brought back from Vietnam leave him almost silent, strenuously alcoholic and severely depressed.
The movie “The Ruins,” based on Scott Smith’s 2006 best-selling novel, will be in theaters on April 4. That gives you a little time to read the book before you see the movie. After watching the trailer for the movie, I’m a bit afraid that Smith’s absolutely riveting and wickedly spooky book might turn into just another cheesy horror flick.
In the novel, two young American couples visiting Cancun make friends with a German whose brother has gone off to join an archaelogical dig in the area. Searching for him, the small group find themselves in the jungles of Yucatan at a deserted Mayan site where they encounter something sinister and terrifying. The story becomes one of survival as the characters react in different ways to the life-or-death situation.
In the book, there’s a slow and suspenseful unveiling of a menace that will be difficult to reproduce on film. The good news, though, is that Scott Smith wrote both the book and the screenplay, and this double duty worked well for his last film venture. His screenplay for “A Simple Plan” based on his 1993 novel was nominated for an Oscar in 1998.
Also, Carter Smith, the director of “The Ruins,” said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, that “the movie is significantly different from the book. There’s definitely lots of changes, so it’ll be a new experience for readers.”
My advice is to read the book now (it’s in paperback), and then wait for the Beifuss review before you see the movie.
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