WONDERLAND by Robert B. Parker and Ace Atkins

Wonderland is the second Spenser novel by Ace Atkins, and it is possibly the most densely plotted of all the books. Usually I breeze through these novels, including Atkins’s last entry into this long-lived series, but this one took some time to digest. There are a lot of players, and there are a lot of plotlines.

I still have mixed feelings about Zebulon Sixkill, Spenser’s protégé, and I wonder where Robert B. Parker was headed with the character after he introduced him. Jesse Stone was supposed to be a younger, unformed Spenser, and I suppose Z is as well. Z takes over the backup role for Spenser during the investigation, and he’s no Hawk, but it was interesting to see Spenser dealing with a younger man who’s still learning all the ropes. I think I like that, but it could get old after a while. Depends on how many tricks Atkins has up his sleeve.

The plot seems straightforward at first. Henry Cimoli, Spenser’s longtime friend – and as we find out in this book – mentor during and after his boxing career, asks for help. That’s something Cimoli has never done before, which is immediately interesting to those of us who have been reading the books since they first debuted. It seems some toughs are putting the arm on Cimoli and the other people who live in the apartment building. Spenser and Z take up the task of discouraging said toughs.

The investigation flips a couple times during the course of Spenser’s efforts. In fact, when he figured out everything that was going on in the first third of the book, I didn’t see where the rest of the novel could go. Then things got really complicated as new lines were drawn and the battle for the apartment building – and the rest of the waterfront area – took on a whole new intensity. It’s hard to discuss much more about the plot without giving too much away, which is weird to say about a Spenser novel because those are pretty well laid out in the opening chapters.

Ace Atkins has done a really good job here of infiltrating Spenser’s world and friends and enemies, and he’s introduced a brand new one in these pages who is going to be interesting to watch, because I’m certain we haven’t heard the last of him. I do have to admit that this book wasn’t quite as breezy and fun as the last one. Wonderland has a lot of dark corners and sharp edges that Spenser fans may not be used to.

DOC SAVAGE: SKULL ISLAND by Will Murray

When I first heard that Doc Savage was going to meet King Kong in the newest Wild Adventures of Doc Savage book by Will Murray, I couldn’t believe it. Then, after I thought about it for a moment, I wondered why no one had ever thought to tell that story before.

Well, now it’s told, and Murray does a fantastic job not only of sharing the pages with King Kong and Doc, but also of presenting readers with the best view of Doc’s young life we’ve ever seen. Philip Jose Farmer showed Doc in the dark days of the Great War, but I had trouble with that one. Murray’s offering is really good.

The young Doc we have here has father issues (like we wouldn’t have known that after he’d gotten shipped off for scientists to train), but he’s also more vulnerable than we’ve ever before seen. Doc is also violent and almost bloodthirsty. Later in his career he opens his “crime college,” where he operates on the brains of criminals to make certain they never operate outside the law again (which begs a whole different set of questions about Doc’s right to do such a thing), but in this novel he kills a lot of people. He also kills them in lots of different ways.

This father/son not-quite-bonding is at the center of this novel, though it doesn’t slow down any of the action, and adds a facet to Doc that longtime fans had always suspected but never got the chance to see. The fact that the father/son issues were also there for Doc’s father and grandfather was enlightening. Stormalong Savage, Doc’s grandfather, is legendary, potentially the germ of the tall tales about the 30-foot tall sea captain in folklore. I kept imagining Popeye to a degree, which threw off the read a little for me, but I settled in after a bit.

The story also includes a nod to Doc’s inventive nature while he tinkers with his Annihilator, which sounds a lot like the pistol shown on the Bantam cover for Murder Melody and the pistols his aides use that are loaded with “mercy” rounds. Murray provides a lot of touchstones in the tale for fans of Doc Savage as well as a good entry point to the series for those who have never before picked up a Doc Savage book.

Skull Mountain Island is well done as well, and the place feels very much like one of those “lost” places that I read about in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger novel, The Lost World, as well as the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In fact, Murray has Doc often thinking of himself or referring to himself as Tarzan.

I had a lot of fun with this one, and it took me back to the days when I was opening those books up for the first time and discovering all the worlds of adventure that lay before me.

WARRIOR OF LLARN by Gardner F. Fox

As a kid, I was a fan of both Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Mars books as well as Gardner F. Fox, who created the new takes on many of the Silver Age DC Comics heroes and wrote a fair share of fantasy novels as well as the Golden Age comics. I became aware of the Llarn books (there are two of them) while still in high school and even picked up Thief of Llarn. But I discovered that it was the second book in the series and I didn’t want to read them out of order. Years later I finally came across the first book, but never got around to reading it for some reason. Lately I came across it again (though I’ve yet to find my copy of Thief), and picked it up.

The story of Alan Morgan’s journey to Llarn is very much a page out of Burroughs’s interplanetary romances, and the writing was pedestrian at best. Gardner F. Fox was a great comics storyteller, and I’ve enjoyed his Kyrik and Kothar books when I was a kid. But I couldn’t quite connect with this one.

The narrative style was more telling than showing. Much of the book is delivered almost secondhand, without the thrill of certain death looming, or setbacks looming on the horizon. The story just plodded along. Occasionally I saw flashes of Adam Strange type architecture in the story (Fox was handpicked by Julius Schwartz to kick off the “superhero of the spaceways’” adventures in the three-issue debut in Showcase Comics) and I enjoyed those when I was a kid too.

Fox puts a lot more science in his tale than Burroughs did. Of course, Fox was writing his story fifty-two years after ERB, and the exploration of space had progressed a lot. Only seven years after Warrior of Llarn came out, the United States put a man on the Moon. There’s also a lot of psi powers present too, which was becoming all the rage in comics and science fiction of the time.

In addition to the narration problems, strangely enough, it also felt like Fox put too much into the pot. Enemies sprouted up everywhere, but readers don’t really get much of an explanation of them. After a bit they became names, and I had to work hard to keep them all separated. The final showdown between Morgan and the psionic bad guy lacked at lot too, especially since Morgan’s triumph was a foregone conclusion. Some of the narrative became repetitive as well, the parts about the lesser gravity and how good he was at swordplay.

However, the book succeeded in taking me back to that twelve year old kid who first discovered sword-wielding warriors on other planets and I enjoyed the trip enough that I’m now looking for that second Alan Morgan novel.

SIX YEARS by Harlan Coben

I love Harlan Coben’s twisty suspense thrillers. I logged on with his first, Tell No One, and I’ve been through most of the rest of them with him, enjoying the surprising rides he’s offered. I show up every year just to get my breath sucked away as he launches into a chase with life or death stakes.

The opening chapters of Six Years has that same quality: a peek inside someone’s shattered life, then a re-emergence of some incredible coincidence that makes the main character re-evaluate everything he thought he knew.

That happens in this book as well when Jake Fisher finds out the man he thought the love of his life married wasn’t really married to her at all. Unfortunately, for all the surprises and twists that Coben presents in this one, he skids over the cliff’s edge a few times in ways that I just couldn’t buy into.

First of all, the opening chapter where Jake goes to the wedding of the woman he loves just to watch her go off on the arm of another man is an incredible stretch. I don’t know anyone that would do that and not be disruptive in some way.

Second, I can’t believe that a man still pines over a summer fling for six years. Of course, Jake hasn’t been a monk during this time, and that just stretches incredulity even more when he finds out things weren’t as he thought they were. Red flags abound.

Third, Natalie – the supposed love of his life – tells Jake to stay away after he almost finds her. Although we’ve seen it happen before, I think it might have played better if she had come to him for help, staying the night, then moving on and forcing him to go blundering after her. I don’t know a guy who would risk all that Jake does to find a woman he only knew for a few weeks – and didn’t know well at that.

So I had a somewhat jaded eye when I flipped the pages. I didn’t buy into the relationship, still don’t, but I certainly bought into the mystery that Coben parlayed into the book. More than once, I thought I knew what was really going on, only to find out that wasn’t what was unfolding after all. That part of the book was well done, especially since I had enough clues to figure it out only a few pages ahead of Jake.

The pacing and the dialogue were spot on as usual, but I felt many times events were more contrived than was necessary. I could see how Coben was weaving the story back through the characters in this one, and I knew how it was going to go, even though I wasn’t sure where I was being led.

An enjoyable, one-sitting read, but I just wasn’t as engaged with the characters as I wanted to be.

BYE BYE, BABY by Max Allan Collins

Bye Bye, Baby isn’t a detective novel as much as it is a love letter from the author, Max Allan Collins. Collins makes no bones about his attraction to Marilyn Monroe, her story, or the mystery that surrounds her murder or suicide. Most of America is still split over exactly how the movie star’s death happened, but Collins puts up a convincing argument through his series sleuth, Nate Heller.

Heller is older in this one, still not quite settled down or too jaded to enjoy the world of the 1960s unfolding around him, but he’s not the young man he was in the early books in this series. His teenaged son gets some screen time in this one, and it’s nice to see Heller is a decent father as well as a detective.

Collins takes his time getting to Marilyn’s murder, introducing the movie star and the surrounding battles over her and her future, as well as her romantic life. He also presents Marilyn as equal parts innocent and master manipulator, so much so that by the end of the book I wasn’t sure if she was overreaching her ability to control the events and people around her or if that need to control was a knee-jerk reflex from all the stimulus of her life. How could anyone be caught up in as many things as Marilyn was not want to exercise some control over her life?

But I think that’s a large part of the message Collins is conveying with this novel. And there is a message here. Collins has an ax to grind with those in power, who were the Kennedys back in the day. He continues that grinding in the latest Heller novel, Target Lancer where he deals with the Kennedys again and moves through the assassination of J. F. K.

People who are looking for a quick read and a breezy mystery might be disappointed in this book, but those who was a deep look into the potential of Marilyn Monroe being murdered – as well as a long list of potential suspects, an insider’s view of the Kennedy family and Hollywood of the 1960s – are in for a great, informative read.

I was blown away by the amount of research that had gone into the book. Collins had evidently created a well-developed time-line of the days leading up to and following after the discovery of Marilyn dead in her bungalow home, and he wedges his scenes and conjectures seamlessly into the mix. You really can’t tell where the fiction begins and the truth ends.

Of course, that’s part of the mystique of Marilyn Monroe and this highly publicized suicide. Or murder. You will walk away from this novel knowing Marilyn Monroe better, and more than willing to believe she was murdered if you weren’t thinking that already.

SWORD-DANCER by Jennifer Roberson

This is one of those books that I picked up again and again, and ended up buying all of the copies in paperback. Then boxed them up. Somewhere. Now that there is a new book out in the series, I wanted to read them again. And they’re on ebook so it’s much easier to buy a copy than to sort through boxes of paperbacks. I don’t know why I never read it before. I think maybe I didn’t want to get hung up in the middle of a series, as so oftentimes happens.

Jennifer Roberson first caught my eye with her Cheysuli series (loved those early covers) but I liked the idea of the ongoing saga of Tiger and Del. When I finally opened the ebook and settled in to read, I knew at once I was in good hands. Roberson’s story isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but back when it was published in 1986, the fantasy wasn’t used to seeing strong-willed women capable of saving themselves. C. J. Cherryh was breaking new ground with her books, but things just weren’t equal back then.

Which is why, I suppose, Roberson chose to tell the story through Sandtiger’s eyes instead of Del’s. The first-person narrative smacks of a lot of books I’d read before, stretching back to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter novels to Lin Carter’s fantasy book that were contemporary when this novel was first released.

There’s nothing flashy or sophisticated about Sword-Dancer. It’s a sprawling book that’s as much sword-and-planet storytelling as it is fantasy. In fact, I’d say it’s much more like those old adventure serials that used to pop up on Saturday mornings than anything remotely like The Lord of the Rings.

I enjoyed the view I had of Sandtiger’s Southron world, of how inhospitable the land and the climate were, and of the various tribes and cities that survived in spite of the heat and the sand. The characters rode from one frying pan to the next with a strong development of character and a gradual release of the mysterious pasts of both.

The book spans more time than most fantasy novels do these days, unless they’re doorstoppers like George R. R. Martin or Robert Jordan’s series. The action is paced out well and I zipped through the pages at a good clip. I wished there had been a bit more exploration of some of the cities, but there really wasn’t time.

Tiger and Del are pragmatic characters, dealing with harsh circumstance and even disappointment as they search for Del’s missing brother. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the book is that it truly does stop at a good place in the narrative instead of forcing you on into the next book. Of course, I’m wondering how Tiger will fare once he’s out of his native element in the sequel, but I got a finished story in this one. These days, filled with cliffhanger opuses, I was happy to leave the characters in a good place till I take up the next book – and I will be reading it soon.

GODS OF RISK by James S. A. Corey

I’ve been seeing the James S. A. Corey name on science fiction books for a few years and just hadn’t had time to take on one of those monster doorstoppers. After reading this novella, I’m more inclined to pick one up as soon as school lets out for the summer and I have more time. Looking forward to that.

Gods of Risk isn’t that enthralling, but the prose is highly readable. Unfortunately, the pedestrian plot doesn’t really spark any suspense either. Once the setup is in place, with all the players on their marks, the story is really predictable. In fact, it could have probably been written in half the pages the author(s) uses.

I liked David’s character overall because he’s a kid any reader can understand. He’s in over his head and up against a bad situation he never saw coming. If the plot had stayed focused on that, and if David had been smart enough to get himself out of the threat, the story would have been more interesting to me. Instead, another character comes to the forefront and takes over the action. That sequence is more for setting up the next book in the Expanse series than anything else, in my opinion.

The book meandered a little too, bringing in David’s family and some existential thinking that takes the edge off the suspense story. The development of the Martian background and the Mars/Earth complications are interesting and well-done, though, but didn’t have anything to do with David’s story.

Overall, I’m really encouraged to read more books in the series and see what else is developing, as well as what has gone on before. But I think I’d suggest starting at the beginning of the series, which is what I plan on doing now.

NIGHT OF THE TOADS by Dennis Lynds

Night of the Toads is a Dan Fortune private investigator novel by Dennis Lynds writing under the pseudonym Michael Collins. Legend has it that Lynds created one-armed PI Fortune after another private eye who was nicknamed “Slot Machine.” Because of the one arm, you see.

I read my first Dan Fortune novel back in high school. Private eyes have always been one of my favorite hero archetypes, and I explored a lot of writers and series back in the day. I still do, though with a more practiced and critical eye these days.

I have to admit, Dan Fortune wasn’t one of my faves back when I was a teenager. There wasn’t enough action, too much circular investigation. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin did a lot of circling too, but those two had a great sense of humor to them as well. I was more interested in what Archie and Nero were doing than in who killed whoever got killed that story.

Re-reading this Dan Fortune novel, though, I discovered a deeper appreciation for the private eye. I’m older than he is these days, which is weird to me, but the introspection he provides during the narrative really touches home now.

Night of the Toads came out back in 1970, which I remember quite well, and feels a little dated, but I had no problem being part of that world where you had to stop for a phone on the corner and information wasn’t at your fingertips. However, the emotional quandaries of the characters are pretty much the same that you’ll find in the world today.

Fortune’s investigation starts out as a vengeful one, instigated by Marty, the woman in his life. She’s an actress looking for a job at a play whose director/writer/producer is a known lothario. Things don’t go well for Fortune, and he ends up tossed out on his ear but meets a woman who leaves an impression on him – who later turns up missing. Fortune is still looking for dirt on Ricardo Vega, but his investigator’s instincts won’t let him leave the woman’s vanishing unchallenged.

The book covers very little ground in some ways. Fortune returns again and again to the same places and same people, but he peels back the layers of the missing woman’s life to get at the truth.

I read the book over a couple nights because it’s not too long and the story moved along quickly. I enjoyed the mystery pretty well, but I think it was touching base with Dan Fortune on a different level and returning to 1970 and all the things I remember going on that really carried me through the read. The early books are all out on ebook format now and I plan on picking them up along the way.

SONGBIRD by Colby Jackson (Bill Crider)

As part of the writing team for Rancho Diablo, I’ve made it a point to not post reviews of the books my fellow writers have written. Thought I would just stay conveniently out of the way and let readers find the books on their own – which they’ve been doing quite nicely, thank you.

However, now that we’re three years and counting into the series, I’m going to start voicing my thoughts on the books – only because my fellow writers deserve to have everyone beating the drum for their efforts.

Bill Crider’s newest addition to the stable of books we’ve corralled (see what I did there!) is absolutely one of the finest I’ve read. Bill sent the manuscript to me for review before he published it, as we do, if for no reason than to have others to share the blame when and if we miss something. Usually more on the when side, but we do our best to tell good stories.

I’d intended only to get a feel for the story, maybe read four or five chapters before turning in for the night. Instead, I got swept away by the storytelling. I’ve read Bill’s Truman Smith and Sheriff Dan Rhodes books enough to know I ought not think that way. Instead, I was nailed to the pages, following interesting characters wending their way through the dusty streets of a town I helped create, feeling like I was seeing the place again for the first time. Kinda like déjà vu all over again.

I don’t know what’s happened to our series because the last book I wrote had a meandering point of view that clicked in and out of the various people living in Shooter’s Cross, as well as those just passing through and others destined to die there. Bill evidently picked up on it too, because he takes readers through our usual cast of characters, pings on a couple of new ones (Songbird and Ying), then cuts down the back alley to show us the bumbling efforts of what has to be the worst group of outlaws this side of the Apple Dumpling Gang.

I was mesmerized by the story because even though Bill and I had talked about it before he wrote it, I still couldn’t tell for sure what was going to happen – or who it was going to happen to. I couldn’t stop turning pages, and I couldn’t stop laughing out loud as the shenanigans Bill churned the characters through. Who knew that our ferryman, Eustace Kendall, had such a funny turn? Well, obviously Bill did, because right there it is in those pages.

I love working on this series, and I love working with Bill Crider and James Reasoner. I love the fact that even when you think you know something, the guys you think you know it with can turn things on their ear – and still not upset the applecart.

Shooter’s Cross and the Blaylock family are a great bit of place and history that I’m part of, and the fact that the three of us as writers can step in and muddy up the town and still leave elbow room for everybody just amazes me. I don’t know if it’s because that little town is so big, or because we’re just that good.

What I do know is that I enjoy every trip to Shooter’s Cross and Rancho Diablo, whether I laid down the tracks or I’m following those made by my compadres. Hope you readers feel the same way.

DEAD THINGS by Stephen Blackmoore

Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore was recommended to me by an editor friend who not only reads my books, but also reads a lot of the same stuff I do. So I have her to thank for this one. After I saw the cover and read the description, I ordered the book immediately.

I’d been aware of Blackmoore’s other book, City of the Lost, but seeing as how the Kindle version was pricier than the trade paperback edition, I let it pass even though it caught my eye. I’ve since rectified that and that book is waiting on my iPad as I write this. Blackmoore is a guy I’m gonna be reading.

This book has an interesting premise, though by no means original. Which is fine. I enjoy the same kinds of things, as long as they don’t get repetitive. Eric Carter smacks me as a John Constantine riff (Hellblazer comics), and that’s also fine because I love Constantine when he’s on – although the comics have now since ended a 25-year run only to rebirth him as a kinder, gentler soul, maybe?

Eric Carter, much as Constantine, is a man torn apart by his gifts and the choices he’s made in his life. Some fifteen years ago, after avenging his parents’ death, Carter left Los Angeles, never intending to return. He stayed alive using his wits and his powers as a necromancer, putting things back in the grave that inadvertently – or maliciously – wandered out of their coffins now and again. But Carter also speaks for the dead, taking vengeance on the living who preyed on others.

The first-person narration is spot on for the character and the milieu, though the present tense does grate my nerves somewhat. I’ve read plenty of books of late that persist in present tense, but I just don’t care for the verb conjugation because they tend to call too much attention to themselves.

Carter has the same kind of friends readers of these stories have seen before, the disenfranchised, people who no longer trust him, and those who will forever hate him for what he’s done. The author does a good job in establishing those, and does a good job of twisting and turning variations on a theme when he opens the doors to the various magical places tucked away in arcane corners of Los Angeles. Blackmoore’s love/hate relationship with the city is an added bonus to the story because he tucks in interesting tidbits of information and color to the tale.

The plot is an old one: someone has killed Carter’s younger sister and he rides back to L. A. to seek revenge on a foe that he thought he’d already killed. Therefore we get Carter’s history while working our way through the adventure. It’s a nice setup that allows readers to explore the hero along the way.

The plot is heavy on action, keeping the pace up and the pages turning. All through it, Blackmoore skill blends in color and backstory, adding layers to the layers till you can almost second-guess the moves he’s going to make. Of course, he’s expecting that too, and he stays just one step ahead of you.

I also like the way Carter meets up with Santa Muerte and the twists and turns that relationship is obviously going to have. I’m looking forward to what the author has in store for his character and his readers.