It's June. School is out - or will be shortly. The days are longer. TV shows are in reruns. Right now we're in a weather pattern that's been giving us more rain then sun. And - tomorrow is Father's Day - my first as a Grandfather. There was a bit of medical drama over "live virus" vaccinations but everything worked out and I can't wait to hold my Granddaughter tomorrow.
Anyway, let's get into this month's books.
Series
To Kingdom Come - Will Thomas ($4.98/$9.95, copyright 2005, 275 pages, Trade Paperback)
This is the second volume in Thomas' Cyrus Barker/Thomas Llewelyn series. Barker is a Private Enquiry Agent in Victorian England and Llewelyn is his assistant. In this one, a militant group of Irish blows up part of Scotland Yard. Barker and Llewelyn - for a fee - go undercover as a bomb maker and his assistant in order to find out who the perpetrators are and what their next move is going to be. Thomas has a great way with accents and includes some historical figures to make the story interesting - Charles Parnell and William Butler Yeats being the most prominent. I enjoyed it.
Off The Shelf - The Movie Edition
I got the urge to re-read a particular book so I started to dig through the shelves. It took me 2 days and I didn't find it but I did come across these 2 books that - strangely enough - were stacked pretty close to each other.
A Coffin For Dimitrios - Eric Ambler ($1.95/$1.95, copyright 1937, 214 pages, Paperback)
Charles Lattimer is a professor turned detective story writer who, while vacationing, meets a police inspector who introduces him to the story of a criminal known only as Dimitrios. It fascinates him so much that he decides to try and fill in some of the missing pieces by traveling through Europe where he meets with some people who can supply answers and some people who can supply only threats. Ambler has made a career out of writing books that deal with international intrigue and this is one of his best. (The movie based on this book was called "The Mask Of Dimitrios" and starred Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, and Zachary Scott.) I enjoyed it.
The Treasure of The Sierra Madre - B. Traven ($.50/$.50, copyright 1935, 311 pages, Paperback)
Dobbs is a down-on-his-luck American veteran trying to eke out a living doing odd jobs in Mexico shortly after World War I. He picks up some short-time work here and there but mostly has to beg for some money in order to get by. He teams up with another American - Curtin - and a grizzled old prospector - Howard - and they go up into the Sierra Madre mountains to search for gold. Traven takes this simple story and gives us a brutally honest example of what greed can do to any one of us. (The movie based on this book starred Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt, and Walter Huston.) I enjoyed it.
Up next - Summer. I hope you all get to enjoy it and - while you're out at the beach or lounging in your back yard -
keep reading!
