Friday, May 25, 2012

Double Dose of Max Collins Plus One Comic Book

Fiction

Lady, Go Die by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane.  The long lost sequel to Spillane's I, the Jury.  Spillane wrote this one after I, the Jury came out in 1947 but he shelved the manuscript.  Collins has been taking old Spillane manuscripts and finishing them.  Sometime Collins just has to polish up a draft.  Other times Collins does a lot more work with a partial manuscript.  Collins has done press and interviews to promote Lady but I've ignored it all to avoid any spoilers before I read the novel.

Antiques Bizarre by Barbara Allan.  Barbara is Max Allan Collins's wife.  They collaborate on this cozy mystery series. I spoke very briefly to Barbara at Bouchercon.  She is a very nice lady.

The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry.  This is supposed to be quite good.  A thriller with a kidnapping and search for 500-year-old secret.

Wild Thing by Josh Bazell.  I don't remember what this is about.  Let's take a look...oh, yeah.  A former mob hit man in hiding in Minnesota helps a paleontologist in trouble.  This, too, is supposed to be quite good and funny, fast, and furious.

Waters of Star Lake by Sara Rath.  Rath lives in Spring Green, WI.  Natalie Waters vacations in the northwoods in the center of Dillinger rumors and timber wolf turmoil.  Whenever I see the word northwoods I think of Leinenkugel.

Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess by Simon Brett.  Kind of like Jeeves and Wooster but with a mystery.  I think Brett used to be a race car driver but I am too busy to check.

The Singles by Meredith Goldstein.  Bride-to-be wants no single guests.  I don't know if this is a comic novel or what.

Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray.  How do you know when they arrive?

Jack of Ravens by Mark Chadbourn.  Fantasy novel.  Modern guy walks into a mist and emerges into Celtic Britain.  He finds his way to the timeless Otherworld and figures to bide his time for two thousand years.

Dark Magic by James Swain.  Swain's Miami based mysteries do well.  Dark has psychic who is part of a crime prevention group.

Black & White by Raymond Benson.  Part of the Black Stiletto series featuring 1950s crime fighter Judy Cooper.  The Stiletto has to rescue a kidnapped girl.

Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell.  Archeologist is looking for stolen Mayan artifacts.  Federal cop named Hunter helps her out.  Romance happens.

Redemption by Kate Flora.  Portland cop Reggie's holiday weekend is cancelled to recover a drowned body.  The body is a homeless man and former classmate and fellow Vietnam Vet Reggie.  Reggie's death may not have been accidental.

City of Rocks by Michael Zimmer.  Western novel.  What happened out there in City of Rocks wasn't clean.  It was grimy and smelly and gut-numbingly cold.  And it was scary.  Men died for stupid reasons, and when they did, they didn't just grab their chests and fall over.  They got knocked down hard and the life spilled out of them like blood from a butchered hog.  I guess I ought to know since I was there.  Since it was me who did most of the killing that day.

Graphic Novel

Troop 142 by Mike Dawson.  "Join the Boy Scouts for a week of campfires, merit badge courses, group showers and merciless hazing at Pinewood Forest Camp, New Jersey, in the summer of 1995."  Camp Drake used to have Mountain Dew in old style glass bottles.

NonFiction

Guttenberg Bible by Steve Guttenberg.  Hilarious memoir of life in Hollywood.

1 comment:

dunedin said...

Wild thing by Josh Bazell is very good. Gets weirder and weirder as the story progresses. Don't know if you have his first book but that was great too.