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I’ve been reading books about Vlad Taltos for the last 23 years.  I’d like to say I started very young.  But Vlad and I have grown older together, much like many of my fictional heroes (except for those who refuse to age).

Dzur is the tenth novel in the long-running series.

The first book was Jhereg, whose improbable title first caught my eye, then the picture of the dragon on the cover.  In those days Vlad was a street-smart tough guy who had risen to the position of a crime boss.  His life was ordered.

So were the murders that had to take place around him.  Graft was well paid, and paid on time.

It’s just that things kept happening around Vlad.  Even though he knew it wasn’t his business, sometimes it involved friends of his.  Or associates.  And sometimes he just admitted to a certain amount of curiosity to propelled him into his next adventure.  He killed people.  People tried to kill him.  He bribed people.  He made a fortune.  And he made and lost friends.  It’s been wonderful being able to accompany him on the trips.

But here we are, Vlad and I, and we’re a bit older.

Dzur was a good book, a book where old friends (readers and characters) could get together, talk about new adventures and remember old tales that don’t improve with being twice-told, but do kindle a fond feeling.

However, Dzur is not a novel for a reader new to the series to start out with.  There’s simply too much history on every page.  Too many allies and enemies to sort out for a beginning reader.  If you’re new to Vlad Taltos, begin with the first and work your way through at least the first three before you take this book in hand.

For those of you anxious for a return visit:  Vlad finds himself once more up to his eyebrows in trouble.  He’s wandered back home Adrilankha after being gone for years.  He’s killed foes and even talked to his patron goddess, who has betrayed him in ways he’s yet to figure out.

But when he learns his estranged wife, Cawti, is having trouble with the old crime zone he used to run, Vlad steps once more into the fray trying to sort things out and save the people he cares about.

The story is extremely simple, with few twists and turns along the way, but the constant bickering/dialogue between Vlad and Loiosh is as sharp as ever.  After all these years, Vlad just seems real.

The book takes its time developing, though, and even old friends might get a little anxious for the tale to be told.  The pacing seems different, and even the story is a little off.  It’s been five years since Brust has written about his signature character, and maybe he was just enjoying sinking back into that mindset.

I just hope it’s not another five years before Vlad invites us to dinner with him and tells us another tale.

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Look!  A new cover by the legendary master, Robert McGinnis! 

That was what first drew my eye to this novel, but then I saw Max Allan Collins’s name and got a double whammy.  Then I saw that the book was indeed about Quarry, the rough-and-tumble hitman with nerves of steel and a blue collar worker’s mentality — he never takes on a job he doesn’t see through to the end.  I was sold. 

I first started reading the Quarry novels (there were 5 previous books featuring the character) back in the 1970s when I discovered MAC’s other works featuring Mallory (which I really should find and re-read at some point) and Nolan (a semi-retired heister who joined forces with Jon, a comic book artist geek).  Mallory was fun and Nolan was entertaining, but Quarry was just…HARD.  Like the mine where rock slabs are cut from the earth.  Quarry was definitely different, and not for the squeamish. 

The years haven’t softened him. 

In this novel, which MAC has confirmed in interviews as the “last” Quarry in the chronological order (though not the last book about the character he’ll necessarily ever write), Quarry is still recovering from losing his wife and unborn son to violence that he thought he’d walked away from by turning down an offer he couldn’t refuse.  He meets up with an old Army buddy from his
Vietnam days and ends up managing a resort for him. 

While in town during the off-season, going slowly bored out of his mind, Quarry meets a face he remembers from his Mafia days.  Following the man to a rental home, Quarry discovers the man and his partner are holding a kidnap victim:  a young, lush beauty.  Sizing up the situation, seeing a chance to eradicate any chance the man might have recognized him as well as make a few bucks himself, Quarry buys out the kidnappers’ interest with a bullet through the eye and a long walk across the thin ice of a frozen lake.  Then he ransoms the young woman back to her father, Joshua Green, a man with some semi-ties to the Chicago Mafia. 

A few months later, Joshua Green tracks Quarry down and offers him a quarter million dollars to kill a small-town librarian.  Intrigued, but wary of the “one-last-job” syndrome that generally befalls all the movie heroes, Quarry agrees to the contract and goes to spy on the librarian. 

The plot takes a real twist when Quarry falls for his intended victim and finds he really doesn’t want to kill her.  The problem is, he doesn’t want anyone else to kill her either, so he can’t just ride off into the sunset. 

Max Allan Collins’s writing is as tight and quickly paced as I’ve ever seen it.  This is truly one of those Gold Medal books I misspent all my youth on (of course, now that I’m a professional writer, maybe it was more of an education).  I absolutely loved the book and the fact that I could read it from cover to cover in about the same time it would take me to watch a movie.  For less than the cost of a movie.  Now this is entertainment. 

Currently, Max Allan Collins is writing the books about the
Las Vegas based CSI team.  I really recommend those books as well, and the “Disaster” novels he does that mixes history, a disaster, and a famous writer (such as The War of the Worlds Murder — which I’ll review here at a later date). 

Grab The Last Quarry for a weekend read, when you have an hour or so that you can devote totally to a purely fun investment of your time.  

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A few years ago, Spider-Man fought an incredible being who called himself Morlun, who was supposed to be an Ancient and a drinker of souls. More to the point, Morlun feasted on the souls of people who chose animals as their “spirit totem.” He wanted Spider-Man because of his connection to the spider spirit. 

The original story became one of the most intense arcs in the Spider-Man comics at the time, and it rebooted the character’s origins to a degree.  Spider-Man defeated Morlun with help, but now the rest of the Ancients, a sister and two brothers, are out for revenge. And maybe a midnight snack. 

After being assigned a temporary basketball coaching job with a troublesome star athlete (which I personally wish could have taken on a slightly larger role in the novel), Peter Parker (Spider-Man) arrives home to find more trouble: his wife MJ has taken on an acting job but now has to drive to get there. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a driver’s license (what native New Yorker does?) and just failed the tests. Peter tells her he’ll help her, then jumps into patrol as Spider-Man. He immediately gets jumped by Felcity Hardy, an old girlfriend who goes by the name The Black Cat. 

Black Cat tells Spider-Man that he’s being lured to his doom by the Rhino on a rampage. But, being a hero, Peter has no choice but to go — and nearly gets feasted on. Together, Spider-Man and the Black Cat have to figure out how to defeat the trio of Ancients without losing their lives in the process. 

Jim Butcher is the best-selling author of the Dresden Files, featuring wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden. A television show is being filmed now. He’s also the author of the Codex Alera fantasy series. 

Butcher hits some really nice licks with this book, capturing the humbleness and golly-gee of Peter Parker in his first-person narrative. Throwing the Black Cat into the mix with Peter and his wife MJ for a romantic triange of sorts was an especially nice touch, a romp down memory lane for old-time comics fans. 

The Rhino, always one of Spider-Man’s more simple yet complex villains, is played brilliantly in the book.  He comes across as very human and possessing more self-awareness than he ever did in the comics.  The exchanges of dialogue, the exploration of back story provided in The Darkest Hours is fantastic, demonstrating that all too often the line separating a hero and a villain is very thin. 

There are even a couple cameos with Dr. Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme (as well as an astonishing reveal about Wong, Dr. Strange’s majordomo, and the final punch of the novel featuring Wong is an all-out hoot that will leave readers rolling in the aisles). 

The pacing is frenetic, filled with the trademark quips as well as lots of dialogue among the characters, and surprising twists and turns of the plot that keep a reader moving along. Although these are comic book characters, they come across as surprisingly human on Butcher’s pages. While on a camping trip with my wife and my youngest son, I wanted some light reading, something I could pick up and lay down while we were at the lake.  But Butcher kept me nailed to the pages of the book and I finished it far too soon. 

The Darkest Hours is a solid Spider-Man novel, a great adventure read, and the very thing a comic geek or someone interested in Spider-Man through the movie venue needs to pack along to the beach. Harry Dresden fans will probably also enjoy this sideline jaunt Butcher takes through the Marvel Comics Universe.

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Jed Rubenfeld takes his place in literary entertainment with grand eloquence with his first novel, The Interpretation of Murder, published by Henry Holt.  Chockfull of history, biography and geography that would overwhelm a dandy psychological murder mystery story with political connections that would leave a lesser writer daunted, Rubenfeld’s mastery of the subject matter, pacing, and sheer storytelling verve propels the reader into New York 1909, and sets the reader into the chase for a vicious, sadistic killer.

The year is 1909, and renowned father of psychoanalysis Dr. Sigmund Freud arrives in New York to deliver a series of lectures on the – at that point – very controversial subject.  Dr. Stratham Younger, an American psychoanalyst, gets appointed by the university to act as liaison for Dr. Freud.  Several key members of Freud’s group of therapists are with him, including Carl Jung, Freud’s most ambitious student who ultimately tries to overtake his mentor’s glory.

Soon after Dr. Freud’s arrival, Dr. Younger is summoned to a case involving the attack on seventeen-year-old Nora Acton, daughter to two influential people in the city’s high society circles.  The victim of a sadist, Nora was choked, whipped and cut with a knife.  The experience has left her with amnesia and bereft of voice.  Dr. Freud offers the opinion that her case would be an excellent choice for Dr. Younger.

As he pursues therapy with the young woman, Dr. Younger finds himself entranced with Nora’s beauty and vulnerability.  However, Nora’s returning memory proves false when she accuses the mayor’s friend, George Banwell with attacking her.  Banwell is a married man and a rejected suitor of Nora’s who – she says – won’t take no for an answer.  However, the night Nora was attacked, Banwell has the perfect alibi:  he was with the mayor.

The mystery continues getting richer and deeper as Littlemore proceeds on a parallel course that turns up other clues.  As it turns out, Nora wasn’t the only woman attacked, tied up and strangled and whipped, in such a manner.  At least one other woman was, and she’s now dead.  However, her body has gone missing from the morgue.  Littlemore doesn’t know if the corpse was sold to the medical schools or if its disappearance is part of a cover-up.

Rubenfeld sets each scene with deft assurance.  While reading the novel, I easily dropped in images of the city.  I stood on the docks and awaited Dr. Freud’s ship, and could even smell the man’s harsh cigar smoke.  As the story progressed from the luxury hotels and high society events to the narrow twisting alleys and to houses of prostitution and police holding cells, those scenes came alive around me, filled without thousands of extras.  In the afterword, Rubenfeld acknowledges using the New York City geography as he needed to, but very few changes took place.

The book is elegantly resourced and researched according to the time and place and social mores.  Rubenfeld’s depiction of Freud is based on a familiarity with the man through a thesis he wrote while at Princeton.  Later, at Julliard, Rubenfeld studied Shakespeare, and Hamlet – which maintains a presence throughout the novel as well – becomes a topic that will interest many readers even if they’re not well-versed in the subject. Taking his marks from the current successful thriller writers, Rubenfeld gracefully intertwines Dr. Stratham Younger’s first-person narrative with third-person viewpoints of other characters (including the marvelous Detective Littlemore).

The book would have been interesting through the eyes of Dr. Younger alone, but by building in the larger cast of characters, each with their own parts to play, the story takes on added dimensions that really incite the reader to turn pages. An investment of time is required through the first quarter of the book.

Rubenfeld sets a number of things into motion and takes time to make his New York expansive and deep, the characters rich and vibrant (Detective Littlemore creeps in from nowhere, it seems, and very nearly succeeds in taking over the book at one point).  But after that initial investment, you need to block out the time to finish the novel because you’re in for a late night.  Rubenfeld exercises a siren call, working dexterously with a small cast of suspects, pulling blind after double-blind, with enough twists and turns to satisfy a James Patterson or Jeffrey Deaver fan.

The Interpretation of Murder is truly a magnificent book.  Sprawling and epic and jaw-dropping all at the same time.  Anyone who can put it down 150 pages from the end has more willpower than I did.  After Littlemore figured out how Seamus Malley met his death, the plot simply explodes into action and I had to struggle to keep up with all the twists and turns that made perfect sense after I was apprised of them. The mystery is satisfying, but so is the commentary on society at the time, the resistance of scientific thinking to psychoanalysis, and even the relationship between Freud and Jung.

I can only hope Rubenfeld gets more opportunities to return to this exciting world and bring his readers more adventures of Dr. Younger and Lieutenant Littlemore.

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Scott Smith’s new book is a gut-churner of the first-degree.  The novel starts out slow and builds, introducing the reader to each of the four characters.  Eric is the party guy who has settled into his future, planning on marrying Stacy, teaching school and being a high school sports coach.  Stacy is okay with her lot in life, but she’s still sowing a few wild oats when Eric’s not looking – but only up to a point.  Jeff is a survivor, a guy who always has a plan no matter what the situation.  Amy tends to be selfish and needy, a good person in a good situation, but this group left “good situation” back at the edge of the jungle.

While vacationing in Cancun, the four meet Mathias, a young German man who is also vacationing on theYucatan Peninsula.  But he’s there with his brother.  While they talk, Mathias tells everyone he’s worried about his brother, who started crushing on a young female archeologist and ended up going on a dig with the team into the interior of the forest.  Taken with Mathias’s plight, they pack up and go with him to search for the missing brother.  Also along for the trip, packing plenty of tequila, is a Greek man who calls himself Pablo.

Unfortunately, the nature of the novel precludes talking about the plot much beyond this point.  The reader really needs to experience it first hand.  Suffice to say that pleasant things are not encountered out in the wilds of the jungle.

Scott Smith, author of A Simple Plan, a novel that came out thirteen years ago, struck gold with his first book.  He also went on to write the screenplay, which featured Bill Paxton, Bridget Fonda, and Billy Bob Thornton.  Smith may take time between projects, but he scores big when he plays. I meandered through the first fifty pages or so.  Smith took time to set up the characters and establish their relationships with each other.  But it was easy to put the book down and go off to other things.  However, once our heroes entered the jungle, ran across the mysterious Mayan village with people that ignored them, then finally found the archeological dig site – which someone had tried to hide from them – I was white-knuckled and nailed to the pages.

Smith handles the suspense with a deft hand, ratcheting up the stakes like a skilled master.  It’s no wonder that Stephen King went on at length about this book.  When they find out that someone hid the dig site from them, warning bells started going off in my head.  But their reason for going ahead with the search was well done:  they were looking for Mathias’s brother, and if no one was around when someone should have been, it became even more important to find him.  When Jeff noticed that no living thing was in the area, not even flies, the weirdness level blossomed.  By that time the group had an injured party and were ready to leave.  Unfortunately, that option was no longer in play.  They were trapped.

Several reviewers seem to complain about the lack of explanation for some things, and some even say there’s a certain shallowness to the characters.  My argument is this:  Smith isn’t selling explanations here; he’s selling entertainment.  In this case, he’s selling horror, and there’s plenty of it here.  In the case of the characters, he’s writing about realistic people, not superheroes or spies or even – really – heroes at all.  They’re just people, and they come across that way.

It’s a foregone conclusion that The Ruins will become a movie.  The only question is when. Pick up the book if you like horror or suspense, because The Ruins is actually equal parts of both.

Stephen King fans will eat this one up.  Just make sure you leave yourself plenty of time to finish the book once you start it.  And you may want to leave the lights on afterwards as well.  And that cute little ivy plant that seems determined to take over your house?  Well, you just might not feel the same way about it!

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Science fiction-fantasy is a particular genre that’s hard to pull off.  Both stand alone as genres, so mixing the two is awfully hard to do.  If the delicate balance is upset, nothing works. A few writers – Roger Zelazny (his Amber series), Marion Zimmer Bradley (her Darkover books especially), and Andre Norton (any where she mixed the two genres, but especially her Witch World novels) – pulled off the blending with spectacular success that will stand the test of time and probably go on to become literature others will study.  In some universities, that’s already happened.

A relatively brand-new newcomer – at least to novel writing because he’s written several short stories, Kelly McCullough has delivered a grand debut in WebMage.  The novel effortlessly blends science and magic, especially in the form of his webgoblin, Melchior, who is equal parts sorcery and programming.  Imagine, if you will, a notebook computer that can turn itself into a bipedal creature and keep up with you wherever you go.  Not only that, it can be your best friend, know your every need, and can think when you can’t.  The sarcastic personality is just a small price to pay.

WebMage is Kelly McCullough’s first novel.  His second, also featuring Ravirn and company, comes out next year.  Several of his short stories have been published, and he was one of the Writers of the Future.

The main character, Rivirn is a cutting-edge sorcerer/computer hacker who combines both skills to stay alive after he inadvertently becomes locked in conflict with one of his great-to-the-nth-degree-aunts, Atropos, one of the three Fates from Greek mythology.

As it turns out, all the Greek gods, goddesses and demigods truly exist out in the world. Ravirn is part of the family and possesses both magical ability and incredible strength and healing that set him far beyond anything human.The problem is, although potentially immortal, he can still be killed.

That’s a fact that Atropos plans on using against him after he declines her offer to code a program called Puppeteer, designed to steal away all free will in the world.  Taking away free will, Atropos believes, will lessen chaos in the world. Rivirn signs his own death warrant when he decides to stop his aunt from unleashing the program.

She knows the instant that he turns her down that he’s going to tell his grandmother and other great-aunt.  So Atropos binds Rivirn with a spell. Blocked by the Cassandra spell (no one will believe anything he says, especially against Atropos), Ravirn tries desperately to locate and shut down the magical program known as Puppeteer.  Aided by the few friends he has (including a laptop/demon he created/programmed named Melchior), Ravirn speeds through shadowy side-worlds both magical and cybernetic in nature — usually with fierce foes nipping at his heels.

The action kept me reading way past my bedtime.  Every time I thought I had Rivirn safely tucked away for the night, something else would happen and I’d end up reading a few more pages.  I finished the book before I’d known it, completely pulled into the story. Gripping and imaginative, rooted carefully in the real world, WebMage is an exciting chase novel filled with techno jargon the cyber-crowd will enjoy as well as Greek mythology for the fantasy enthusiasts.  The first-person narrative rings especially true and drives the tale. Dialogue between Ravirn and Melchior is sharp and cutting, and sounds like two old friends who constantly pick at each other.  The add-on features to the real world are consistent (always a plus in fantasy) and well thought-out.  Thankfully a second book is already on the way and will be out sometime next year.Intentional or not, WebMage reminded me most of Roger Zelazny’s Princes of Amber books about Corwin.  I loved those books when I was growing up, and it’s nice to find someone who can deliver that same sort of magic and characterization.  I think McCullough and Raven (as the character becomes known) are in for a nice long run.  After all, he’s got a really big, really powerful immortal family, and vengeance lasts forever.

Welcome to my library!

The “girl in green” theme reminded me of the private eye and suspense novels I grew up reading.  Those heated, sultry covers of women with guns and strappy underwear that Robert McGinnis made so popular long before Victoria’s Secret came along.

Check out the fan page (http://www.graemeflanagan.com/robert_mcginnis/index.html)

I think the covers speak quite eloquently for themselves.

 I’m kicking this off to share books with other readers.  If I find something I like, it’ll be posted and reviewed here.  Come along for the ride.  We’ll compare notes.