Special Insert #9 - The Thrift Store Edition

I haven't done a Special Insert in almost two years (I had to look it up), but the situation here merits the acknowledgement. There's this Thrift Shop in South Plainfield that I visit on a regular basis, usually to check out whatever seasonal clothes they have on hand or to browse through the strange assortment of things that they have in their side room. I don't normally check out the books that they have but, one day last month as I walked down that aisle, a particular title just jumped out at me. I couldn't believe my luck and actually wound up picking out two more books. Here they are in the order that I read them and, coincidentally, in the three most common categories that I use.

Series

The Black Hand - Will Thomas ($14.00/$1.50, copyright 2008, 289 pages, Trade Paperback)
This is an entry in the Barker and Llewelyn series. I read the first one in the series many years ago and enjoyed it so, when I came across this, I scooped it up. Cyrus Barker is a private enquiry agent with a varied past and Thomas Llewelyn is his assistant.  This one is set in 1885 and they're called on by the police to check out a murder victim who turns out to be a former assassin Barker recognizes. This leads to their being hired by the Home Office to look into the appearance of the Mafia in London. There are other murders, attempted murders, threats ,attacks, and a couple of great fight scenes. There's also a good bit of humor and some insight into the characters' past. The characters are well defined and the writing is smooth.The only drawback is that - as part of a series- the author supposes that the reader doesn't need any introductions so it took me a while to come up to speed. I enjoyed it.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Alliance - Larry Millett ($10.98/$1.50, copyright 2001, 401 pages, Paperback)
Millett has written a series of books revolving around Holmes & Watson's adventures in and around the Midwest US. I read several of them many years ago and grabbed this as soon as I saw it. In the ones I read,  Shadwell Rafferty - a bar owner and part time detective - had played a part. In this volume, Rafferty takes center stage and Holmes & Watson are helpful but secondary characters. Rafferty is asked to look in to the lurid death of a union activist - simple enough, but it rapidly becomes complicated. Millett mixes in famous people, a Presidential visit, scandal, a potentially devastating explosion, cover ups, and more murders. I didn't like the fact that each chapter started with Watson's notes in a short-hand that I found distracting and there's lot of history I could have done without. The characters are well defined but I thought the ending was contrived. It was OK.

Miscellaneous

The Sea Hawk - Rafael Sabatini ($13.95/$1.50, published 1915, 372 pages, Trade Paperback)
This was the book that jumped out at me. I've read several of Sabatini's works and enjoyed them all. As I understand it, this book was to be the plot for the Errol Flynn movie but they decided on a different
 script and only kept the title. The "hero", Sir Oliver Tressilian, is a reformed pirate who helped defeat the Spanish Armada. He's now living a quiet life in the family home with hopes of marrying. Of course, in Sabatini's works,  things don't work out that way. He's betrayed by his half-brother, sold into slavery, and eventually finds himself freed by Barbary pirates. He joins them and becomes one of the best. (If this sounds a bit like "Captain Blood" that's because Sabatini wrote that too.) Sabatini weaves a great story and, eventually, brings all the character together for what would make a great cinematic ending. The language is a bit flowery, but the action is intense and Sabatini has created some really memorable characters. I enjoyed it.

I've been back to that Thrift Store several times since then but haven't found any other books that interested me. That's the kind of place it is. You can't go there looking for anything particular, but you can always find something.

That's it for now. Enjoy the summer and .......

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Chapter Fifty-three

Summer doesn't officially start until Saturday but, if you ask me, it's too hot already. And we may get our first 90 degree day tomorrow. There's only 3 things you need to remember - sun screen, water, and a good book - to varying degrees, depending on where you are. Here are the books that have occupied my time since last month.

Miscellaneous

The Anatomists - Hal McDonald ($9.99/$.50, copyright 2008, 306 pages, Paperback)
According to the blurb on the cover, this book won truTV's "Search for the Next Great Crime Writer" contest. It's premise is that 2 medical students in 1824 Victorian England arrange to buy a body from a grave robber which was a common practice at the time. The grave that's robbed belongs to a recently deceased, upper-class woman but the body they get is of a man who's been murdered. The 2 students must figure out what happened. For a contest winner, I found it very derivative. The one student - Jean-Claude Legard - is a Frenchman who dabbles in acting and seems to be a combination of  Holmes and Poirot. The other - Edward Montague - is the narrator and wannabe Watson, whose name isn't even mentioned until half-way through the book. There's some well-written stuff here and some of the extra characters are interesting, but it feels padded and could have been done in about 200 pages. It was OK.

Zoo - James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge ($10.00/$$.50, copyright 2012, 372 pages, Paperback)
Here's another of Patterson's collaborations. As I've said before, I'm a fan of his but have found his collaborations iffy. This one revolves around a scientist, Jackson Oz, and his unorthodox theory about why animal behavior around the world is changing. No one believes him, of course, until the animals start to attack. I found the beginning slow but the episodes of animal violence around the world are interesting. The lead up to the ending was exciting but I thought that the solution was kind of slapped together and  the actual ending I found to be pat. It was OK.

Sherlock Holmes

It's no secret that I'm a Holmes fan so you can imagine my surprise when I came across these 3 in a library rubber-banded and priced together at $1.00. I've  allocated the price based on the size of the books.


The Last Sherlock Holmes Story - Michael Dibdin ($10.00/$.50, copyright 1978, 190 pages, Trade Paperback)
Dibdin has set this book in 1888, and it's his contribution to the Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper body of stories. All of the traditional Holmes elements are present. The characters (real and fictional) and the London atmosphere and scenarios feel like Doyle's. In fact, I felt that a lot of the narrative was lifted almost word-for-word from "The Canon" . Also, it starts well after the 3rd murder which seemed strange to me and, I have to admit, I didn't care for the direction that the ending took. It was OK.

Sherlock Holmes and the Egyptian Hall Adventure - Val Andrews ($9.00/$.25, copyright 1993, 112 pages, Trade Paperback)
Andrews has set his story in 1898, after what is called "The Great Hiatus" when Holmes has returned from his "death" and seems more relaxed. Here, he's hired by a magician performing at the Egyptian Hall, a theater for magicians and other similar entertainers. He needs help in recovering a valuable ring he'd borrowed from an audience member during a performance and then lost.  Holmes and Watson go  to see the act and the magician winds up dead. Andrews gives us contortionists, midgets, locked rooms and Lestrade. It's all great fun. I enjoyed it.

 Sherlock Holmes and the Houdini Birthright - Val Andrews ($9.00/$.25, copyright 1995, 160 pages, Trade Paperback)
This one starts in 1922, when Holmes comes out of retirement to help Harry Houdini "rescue" their
mutual friend Arthur Conan Doyle from a crooked spiritualist. (What's interesting here is that Doyle and Houdini were great friends until Doyle's interest in spiritualism drove them apart.) Then, the story jumps ahead to 1927. Houdini is dead but Holmes is asked by the widow Bess to prove that it was murder. It's an interesting problem and there are some great Holmes/Watson moments in England, America, and Europe but the solution is a bit far-fetched. Still, I enjoyed it.

That's it for now. Stay cool, seriously. I think we're in for a long, hot summer. Until next month ...

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Chapter Fifty-two

The sun is brighter and the days are longer and warmer. That long, harsh winter has faded into memory. And I have quite a mix of books to share with you this month. There are similarities and there are differences but every one of these is interesting in it's own right.

Miscellaneous

Finbar's Hotel - Dermot Bolger ($9.99 IR/$16.88*/$.50, copyright 1997, 273 pages, Trade Paperback)
I don't usually pick up short story collections but I did come across a couple over the last few months that
sounded interesting. This collection is actually Bolger's brainchild and he got 6 other Irish authors to go
along with him. The action (for want of a better word) takes place at a down-at-the-heels hotel in Dublin
over the course of one night. We get the middle-aged married man who'd just like to have something interesting happen to him.There's the art thief who prowls the halls, waiting for some buyers. There's a stereo-typical dying woman. A night manager who gets even with a tormentor from his past. There's triumph and tragedy. It's an interesting mix and they don't tell you who wrote which story (I only know Roddy Doyle so I was at a loss). It's a bit uneven, but I enjoyed it. (* The book was priced in Irish Pounds so I used a conversion rate for the copyright date.)

Series

The Bookwoman's Last Fling - John Dunning ($9.99/$3.99, copyright 2006, 507 pages, Paperback)
I found this on Thrift Books while looking for something else. It's another volume in the Cliff Janeway series. Here he's been hired to evaluate the books left by a deceased woman - a woman who's death is now in question. The books, however, are not the main focus here, just the motive. To find out what happened Cliff finds himself in the world of horse racing. Not the up-front stuff but the behind the scenes doings - the mucking of stables, the warm walking, etc.. There are a lot of red herrings, and I felt that the ending

was way too forced but Dunning does well by the host of characters that people this world. I liked it.

The Striker - Clive Cussler ($9.99/$.50, copyright 2013, 402 pages, Paperback)
Cussler is the James Patterson of action/adventure novels. He has several different series' going on (some
with co-authors), the most notable being the Dirk Pitt series. This book is from his Isaac Bell series.
Bell is a detective with the Van Dorn agency. The story is book ended by sections that take place in 1912, but the bulk of the book is set in 1902. Here Bell is tasked with finding out who's sabotaging mines in
West Virginia. He gets involved with the struggle between the miners and the mine owners (and it's easy
to see which side Cussler is on). The case turns out to be more complicated then it first seems, and
there are fights, explosions, and run away trains keeping the book moving along briskly. I enjoyed it.

Separate From The World - P. L. Gaus ($16.94**/4.50, copyright 2008, 201 pages, Trade Paperback)
This is part of a series set in a college town in Ohio and featuring a professor (Branden), a local preacher (Cal), and the sheriff (Bruce)- life long friends who get involved in different situations. What sets this series apart from similar, small town ones is the presence of a large, local Amish community. This book has a murder, then a suicide, and then a kidnapping. How they interconnect and how the Amish deal with things fill it out. At times the writing seems to be disjointed as if Gaus had left off in some places and when, he came back, started at a different place. But Gaus' treatment of the Amish kept me interested enough to keep going. All in all, I liked it. (** I couldn't find a price anywhere on the book so I got a cover price off of a discount book site that I frequent.)

Well, Summer's on it's way. Some indications are pointing to a real hot one this year. My advise? Crank up the air conditioning, grab a cold drink, and ........

Keep Reading.

Chapter Fifty-one

Happy Easter, all!

I hope you're enjoying your Spring, although the weather hasn't been all that cooperative. (After all, we did have snow earlier this week). Still, the days are getting longer and the temperatures are getting warmer. Soon you'll be doing your reading outside. Here are some suggestions for you.

Series

Rebels of Babylon - Owen Parry ($7.99/$.50, copyright 2005, 384 pages, Paperback)
This is another volume in the Abel Jones series from Parry. Jones is a major in the Union army during the Civil War who's tasked by the President to look into certain things. Here, he's been sent to New Orleans to find out how and why the daughter of a rich, political donor from the North wound up dead under embarrassing circumstances. Parry has a great knack for bringing the locale of his stories to life, and he does a great job of writing the dialog in the different "dialects" that exist in that melting pot of New Orleans from the French patois through a lower-class British accent and up
to Jones' Welsh. This one starts off with a chase and never slows down. There are characters that ooze New Orleans.  There is a side note of voodoo. There is the negro question. And there is more of Jones religious beliefs and some interesting counterpoints. I enjoyed it.

Murder at Fenway Park - Troy Soos ($14.00/$.50, copyright 1994, 252 pages, Paperback)
Though the opening and closing chapters take place in the present day, the bulk of this novel is done as a  flash-back to 1912. Soos' main character is Mickey Rawlings, a utility baseball player just picked up by the Boston Red Sox. He's late getting to Fenway Park for his first day and stumbles across a dead body. That's the set-up. I have to admit that I'm not a big baseball fan, and I know next to nothing about it's history, but Soos seems to. He peoples this story with players and references that I assume are real. And he has a real feel for the times - how people dressed, what things cost, etc. In between traveling from city to city on the hunt for the World Series title, Mickey tries to piece together what happened while dealing with another murder and the suspicions of the police. I  enjoyed it.

Rogue Island - Bruce De Silva ($14.99/$3.99, copyright 2010, 302 pages, Trade Paperback)
About a month or so ago, I read a book review in the Star Ledger that was about the most recent book in De Silva's series. I was interested and spent some time trying to find the previous volumes, finally ordering the first one from Thriftbooks. The main character is Liam Mulligan, a reporter for a newspaper in Providence, Rhode Island. He's old school, and has connections on both sides of the law. In this book, He's investigating a string of fires in his old neighborhood and dealing with a soon-to-be ex-wife, a new girlfriend, and politics. Then things get worse. People he knows die in the fires, and his life is threatened. De Silva's characters, in many cases, are stereotypes, but he gives them quirks that set them apart from the usual ones. Especially Mulligan, who's not as tough as he'd like people to think he is. I have to admit that I could see where De Silva was going with some of the characters and situations but I was surprised at the ending. I enjoyed it.

Comic Books

Runaways -Brian K. Vaughan, writer; Adrian Alphona, illustrator (($9.99, $.25, first published in single issues in 2011, issues 1 - 6, Trade Paperback)
Vaughan made a name for himself on two previous series' - "Y: The Last Man" and "Ex Machina", both of which he wrote, and I  have to admit that I only read a few issues of each. The "Runaways" was a series he created for Marvel. It revolves around 6  teenagers who only meet when their parents get together several times a year. As it turns out, their parents are a group of Super-villains and the kids have found this out. When the parents find out that they know, the kids are in trouble and they hit the road. Oh, and the kids have all developed powers that they didn't realize until now. I wanted to like this but I found the characters to be one-dimensional and there's no real action. I didn't like it.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man - Brian Michael Bendis, writer; Sara Pichelli, illustrator ($7.99/$.0, first published in single issues in 2012, issues 1-5, Trade Paperback)
This is not my Spider-Man, nor is it my Marvel. Several years ago, Marvel started the Ultimate line to draw in new readers who might be confused by all the years of back-story that their characters had. But, somewhere along the line, they started to take chances. This is one of them. They killed Peter Parker. And some young kid named Miles Morales - a likable, Hispanic guy - gets bit by a radioactive spider and takes up the mantle. OK, it's not quite that simple and it involves Norman Osborn, Nick Fury, Spider-Woman, Electro and others but, still, the end result is the same. Again, this is not my Spider-Man and I'm pretty sure Marvel has bailed on the whole Ultimate line, but Bendis is a great writer and it flows well. I did find it hard, at times, to follow which way the illustrations went, though. I didn't want to, but I liked it.

I've picked up some really large books recently that look very interesting and I hope to be able to tell you about some of them next month. Until then, go outside and enjoy the Spring and ...

Keep reading.

Chapter Fifty

We made it!

It's March and the long winter is over (although I understand that there's another storm coming in Tuesday into Wednesday). Still, the sun is out and the temperature may hit 60 tomorrow. I'll take it. Now for the books that kept me going during the last few weeks.

Series

Chinaman's Chance - Ross Thomas (95 pence ($2.50)/ $.25, first published in England in 1978, 318 pages, Paperback)
This is the first appearance of Artie Woo - the fat man who claims to be the rightful emperor of China - and his friend Quincy Durant - the thinner one, who's past is shown by the scars on his back. They've been together since they escaped from an orphanage when they were 14. They are hired by a wealthy guy to find his wife's sister - both women having had been members of a popular female trio back in the day. It seems like easy money to the guys, but Thomas throws in grifters, the CIA, and millions of missing dollars. I'll say this for Ross, he really knows how to create some very memorable characters. There's suspense here and a whole lot of humor. I enjoyed it.

Treasure Hunt - John Lescroart ($9.99/$.50, copyright 2010, 434 pages, Paperback)
I wasn't impressed with the first book in this series but I am a big fan of Lescroart so I gave it another try. The focus here is on Wyatt Hunt and his detective agency - The Hunt Club - which has fallen on hard times. The action revolves around his "junior" associate Mickey Dade, who stumbles on to the body of a bigshot in the charity business and comes up with a way to try and save Wyatt's agency. Unfortunately, It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Some of Lescroart's other series characters make appearances here, including his most famous - Dismas Hardy - but they don't really help, and there's way too much attention paid to Mickey's hoped-for career as a chef for me. I stuck it out till the end and - I have to admit - that was pretty good. But, all in all, I didn't like it.

Miscellaneous

Cathedral - Nelson DeMille ($7.99/$.50, copyright 1981, 575 pages, Paperback)
I've finally gotten around to reading a DeMille book and I'm gonna have to go out and find some more. I picked this one up last month and read it right away due to the subject matter. It takes place on St. Patrick's Day in New York City and, while the city celebrates and the parade goes on, a group of former IRA members take over St. Patrick's Cathedral, demanding the release of family and friends from prison. DeMille has created some great characters from all sides of the situation including the police and the hostages - specifically Brian Flynn as the leader of the IRA men. The chapters move back and forth between all the players, and the action and suspense build nicely. Plus, DeMille blends in some great historical information about the "Struggles" and the Cathedral itself. I enjoyed it.

Next up - Spring! And there are some family celebrations coming up that I'm looking forward to.

Get out in the sun everyone and ...

Keep reading!

Chapter Forty-nine

Well, it's almost the end of February and I'm happy to see it go. It's been a tough one considering that my car was buried by the plows during the first storm and I've had to rely on local stores and family. But, they say this weekend should be warm and I'm hoping to dig out tomorrow. And Spring is just around the corner. And St. Patrick's Day, too, so there's hope in sight.

Let me tell you about what I've been reading to occupy myself.

Series

Lost on Venus - Edgar Rice Burroughs ($2.75/$3.95, 224 pages, Paperback)
This is the second in the Carson Napier series and picks up where the first one left off. He's been captured by the enemy and must escape in order to go after the Princess, Duare. This is the literary equivalent to an Indiana Jones movie - with the hero bouncing from one predicament to another - including the River of Death and a mad scientist and his kingdom of zombies. This is a classic Burroughs' book but there's an element of humor and it's a bit more political then I've seen from him. I enjoyed it.

Miscellaneous

The Barbed-wire Kiss - Wallace Stroby ($6.99/$.50, copyright 2003, 334 pages, Paperback)
What drew me to this book is that it's set along the Jersey shore, specifically southern Monmouth and Ocean counties. But this is not the "Jersey Shore" that was seen on TV. This is the shore of boarded up buildings and blue collar workers in places like Asbury Park that rubs up against the white collar, new money set of Colt's Neck. It's about ex-cop Harry Rane who tries to help his boyhood friend Bobby out of a jam. Bobby's problem is a drug deal gone bad, and now he owes a local mobster money.  Stroby keeps things moving along briskly and throws in lost loves, mafia connections, double crosses, violence, and revenge that make for a satisfying read. I enjoyed it.

Spade & Archer - Joe Gores ($15.00/$0, copyright 2009, 337 pages, Trade Paperback)
I'm not a fan of a writer signing on to do a sequel to a deceased writer's classic work like what was done to "Gone With The Wind". I'm also not a fan of continuing with a popular character even after the creating writer has passed on (James Bond, for example). This is a slightly different situation. Gores has created a prequel to Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" and gives some interesting background to Sam Spade and his detective agency. Gores actually wrote a fictionalized book about Hammett and his career so I was willing to give this a shot. What we have is a series of cases that get more and more complicated as Spade builds his reputation. The characters ring true (even if, like me, you envision Bogart as Spade) and there's a master criminal involved that makes things even more interesting. I enjoyed it.

I was watching the weather while writing this. There's another cold front coming in on Monday with, maybe, more snow by Wednesday. I'm really tired of this. But it's the weather and there's nothing we can do about it except carry on and ...

Keep reading.

Chapter Forty-eight

Happy New Year!

We made it through the holiday season and into 2014 unscathed, but I can't say I'm too happy with it so far. It's been nothing but heavy snow storms and sub-zero temperatures. Still, it is winter - just a worse one then we've had for a while. Let me tell you about a couple of books you might want to hunker down with until Spring.

Series

Drown All The Dogs - Thomas Adcock ( $5.50/$.25, copyright 1994, 342 pages, Paperback)
This is part of a series that I recently came across. The main character is Neil Hockaday - Hock - an Irish-American detective with the NYPD. In this volume, Hock and his girlfriend Ruby - an African-American actress - fly to Ireland to visit his dying uncle, Liam. Hock is hoping to find out more about his father who died when he was very young. While he's dealing with this, there are a series of murders, suicides, and assaults that take place on both sides of the Atlantic. Of course, as in all books involving The Irish, there's a lot of drinking and a lot of politics. The payoff is interesting but the characters are such stereo-types that I couldn't bring myself to invest in any of them. It was OK.

Dark of The Moon - John Sanford ($9.99/$.50, copyright 2007, 418 pages, Paperback)
Sanford is more popularly known for his Lucas Davenport series of "Prey" novels involving the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Here, he's spun off a subordinate character in those novels - Lucas Flowers - and taken the action out of the city and into the country. Flowers is a laid-back kind of guy given to wearing rock T-shirts and liking women. He's sent to the small town of Bluestem to investigate the murder of a retired doctor and his wife and comes across several other murders. It's interesting to see how Flowers works his way into the lives of the locals while building up a whole list of suspects and Sanford throws in some misdirection to keep things moving along. There's not much action until the very end, but it's all tied up neatly. I enjoyed it.

Miscellaneous

Mr. Arkadin - Orson Welles ($3.50/$2.10, copyright 1956, 256 pages, Paperback)
Yes. That Orson Welles. As I understand it, Mr. Arkadin was the last movie that Welles produced and directed and this was his own novel on which he based the screenplay. The main character, Guy van Stratten, is a small-time smuggler in Europe and Mr. Arkadin is one of the richest men in the world. But, Arkadin claims to have amnesia and doesn't remember a large chunk of his past so he hires van Stratten to look into it. It's an easy 10 Grand until the people that he's interviewed
start dying and Van Stratten starts to get suspicious. It's a pretty good noir novel, but I did some checking and there seems to be some doubt as to Welles' authorship. There's  also speculation that it's adapted from several episodes of a radio series "The Lives of Harry Lime" (which Welles wrote and performed in) and that Arkadin is based on the Harry Lime character (Lime being Welles' role in "The Third Man"). Still, I enjoyed it.

That's it for now. I better get started on the next book since February is a short month.

It's cold out there so stay inside, stay warm, and...

Keep Reading!