I fell in love with Stephen Hunter’s Earl Swagger novels this year. Luckily I discovered the first one at the beginning and listened to them on audiobook in order. There are three of them so far. Hot Springs, Pale Horse Coming, and Havana.

The Swagger name may sound familiar to people. Mark Wahlberg just starred in the movie Shooter as Earl’s son, Bob Lee Swagger. Stephen Hunter has been intermittently writing novels about father and son over the last few years. Earl’s adventures are set in the 1940s and 1950s. Bob Lee’s are more in present-day, and the latest novel in that series, has just been released.

If you haven’t read any of the Swagger novels, I really recommend reading them in order. Both series tell a story that’s more mosaic than anything else. Both are pieces of the other. Hunter began with Bob Lee’s stories, then told the first of Earl’s. Obviously the author has become enamored of both his creations. Unfortunately, Earl’s adventures maybe at an end after Havana. I’m willing to bet that I’m not the only fan that hopes this isn’t so. I do know that The 47th Samurai has chapters in it from Earl’s point of view, and that the plot revolves around choices both Swaggers face.

Havana ends up being more spy story than either of the two previous books about Earl Swagger. I think Hunter had a hard time fitting Earl into the plot in some ways. The previous two books hit harder and were more driven by Earl’s choices. In this book, Earl seems to be reactive more than proactive.

Everything centers around the unrest in Havana in the 1950s. The United States government has a Central Intelligence Agency operation in place on the island and they’re carefully monitoring the political backlash surging against Carlos Batista, who is friendly toward the Americans. As long as Batista is in control, American companies will flourish there. At one time, Havana was referred to as the Disneyland for adults, referring to the gambling, prostitution, drinking, and drugs available.

The New York Mafia has bested interest in the island government as well. Meyer Lansky was there overseeing mob-related business throughout those turbulent years. Hunter uses the mob-influenced history to his advantage throughout the novel. There’s even a mob hitman working for Lansky who is called Frankie Horse after he gunned down a New York policemen and his mount. The mob bosses didn’t like the idea that Frankie had killed the horse. As punishment, he was sent down to Havana.

The story takes a little while to get started. There’s a lot of backstory to set up, but it’s all important to provide a picture of the political and economic climate of Havana during those years. Hunter obviously did his research well and enjoyed the subject matter.

Earl gets called in by the government to write shotgun for a senator while he’s down in Havana. Harry Etheridge is a southern congressman with a taste for prostitutes. Earl doesn’t really care for the assignment, but he’s tempted when those who hire him point out that he could provide a much different future for his young son and wife. Those two people mean everything to Earl, and that’s one of the reasons that I enjoy him so much as a character.

Earl is plainspoken and humble, and his world is black and white. He doesn’t drink because he knows he can’t handle it. When he fights, he gives everything he’s got because he knows nothing less will do. He’s one of the most decorated soldiers to ever come out of the Pacific theater in World War II. And he knows what killing’s all about.

This story is bigger than the previous two Earl Swagger novels. In the earlier books, the plot remained thin and Earl stayed in the spotlight nearly the whole time through. Havana offered up a richly textured series of events and characters that at times eclipsed Earl. I missed having him on the pages, but there was so much else going on that caught my attention.

Hunter also obviously fell in love with Speshnev, a Russian soldier that was freed from a Siberian prison camp. Spesnev became something of a political embarrassment to Moscow and was locked away in spite of his service during World War II. The old Russian is a wily and cunning man gifted with great, dark humor. I found myself wishing that Stephen Hunter would write a book about him at some point just so I can see everywhere Speshnev has been and what he has done.

So Stephen, if you’re reading this, know that you already have one fan waiting for that book.

The chemistry between Swagger and Speshnev is electric. I spent much of the book fearing the time they would meet over gun barrels. In the beginning, Speshnev saves Earl’s butt twice, but I knew that they were working at cross purposes and that conflict would at some point need to be resolved.

Hunter also seems to have great fun poking at the CIA’s presence in Havana. The intelligence agency seems to be primarily a joke as he shows the emergence of the new “laidback” agents the kind of fit the preppy model. But Hunter also gives them one of Earl’s oldest foes in the form of Frenchy Short, who betrayed Earl’s team in Hot Springs.

After caring for Senator Etheridge, and getting shot up for his trouble, Earl gets pressured by the CIA to become an assassin and kill Fidel Castro. At the same time, the reader knows that Sheshnev has been sent there to educate young Castro and get him ready to take over Cuba as a communist partner.

Although the reader knows that Earl isn’t going to kill Castro, a lot of the story still yet remains to play through. Even without the mystery and suspense of how Earl was going to kill Castro, I stayed glued to my radio as the audio book played. I hated getting out at my stops and often found excuses to run errands that could’ve waited or go buy a Coke so I could get through a particularly exciting sequence. The problem was that most of the sequences in the book are exciting and is difficult to leave Earl in any one place after the action gets going.

Readers of the previous two books will know that this one has been done differently. Some may not like it because Earl is off screen so much, but if they hang around till after everything is set up, they’ll get to see Earl in his element: hunting men and struggling to stay alive under harsh circumstances.

I had a great time with this book. I hate to think that this is the end of it. I would love to see another novel of Earl any time in here. I would especially love to see a war novel recounting Earl’s adventures in the Pacific. After Earl returns home to his family in Blue Eye, Arkansas, it’s not long before he’s murdered while carrying out his job as an Arkansas State Trooper, though not in this book. And that gives me hope that another novel may yet be in the offing.

If this is all there is, I appreciate all the great stories. Hunter gives his readers a character that is at once real and ideal. There aren’t many like him, not in real life and not in fiction.

Stephen King’s new novel, Duma Key, arrives in stores nation-wide in January 2008. As soon as it was announced, readers began trying to guess what the book would be about. The title itself is highly interesting. My first guess was that the novel would be about a key, like a door key. Or maybe a key on a map. Given the fact that The DaVinci Code seems to still be on everyone’s mind, I had to recognize the fact that perhaps the key – especially when paired with the name Duma, which sounds close to Alexander Dumas – might have some literary bearing. I thought maybe the book would be a literary mystery of sorts.Now that the actual subject matter the book has been released, I find that I was wrong on all counts. The “key” referred to by the book actually turns out to be one of the small islands off the coast of Florida.

And the story sounds even more mysterious than I would have imagined. It sounds like it’s going to be one of those delicious, Twilight Zone-type of tales that King delivers every so often when he’s in the mood.The story also smacks of King’s own life. I love his writing when he veers off into something that could have been carved from his own experiences.

At first blush, Duma Key stands prepared to deliver exactly that.

The protagonist of the book is self-made millionaire Edgar Freemantle, a mover and a shaker in the construction business. While on the job, Edgar gets hurt and crippled. A crane smashes his truck and he loses an arm in the subsequent operations to save his life. Edgars struggles to get rehabilitated and adjust to his life, and I know a lot of what King when through after being struck by a negligent driver has to be in those pages.

Unable to get his life together, Edgar turns on his wife and family. After he attacks her and tries to kill her, his wife asks for a divorce. Edgar divides up his money among his family and seeks counseling. His counselor asks Edgar if there wasn’t something that he used to do that took the edge of during periods of stress. Edgar says that he used to draw. The counselor advises him to do that.

King deserts the familiar bleak countryside of Maine (although Edgar is from Minnesota) and sends his protagonist looking for solace and sanity down in the Florida Keys. Apparently, King has been vacationing down in that area for the last few years and has become quite enamored of it.

Unfortunately for Edgar, he’s a Stephen King character in a Stephen King book. He’s earmarked for weirdness and horrible things. It doesn’t sound like it takes long to happen.

Evidently Duma Key is already filled with restless malevolence just waiting to break loose. The island’s mistress, Elizabeth Eastlake, has been hiding secrets for most of her eighty-some-odd years. Her past, and it has to be a good one filled with evil things and twisted passions – otherwise this wouldn’t be a proper King novel, breaks free and comes to life through Edgar’s paintings.

Of course, the idea of paintings coming to life is old, and King has even touched on it now and again in different places, but the idea is as wonderful now as it ever was. And in the hands of a master storyteller like King, this is going to be one chilling, frightening ride.

King has stated that this novel came to him from the same cloth he used to write the bestseller, Lisey’s Story, and that many of the same themes are once again present. It’s also a big, fat book, totaling nearly 600 pages, according to the Amazon.com listing.

Personally, I can’t wait. Some people prefer the Stephen King that brings evil up from the graveyards and creates unkillable monsters. But I prefer the subtle evil and rich characterizations of his novels like Bag of Bones. I get the sense that this is going to be a book like that.

One thing I do know, the next few months are going to be hard to get through while I’m waiting. The book cover is beautiful and haunting, and I’m going to be thinking about the story a lot. I’m sure other readers will be doing the same thing.

Pulp magazines – periodicals published on paper so poor that pulp debris in the form of wood chips was actually present on many of the pages – had their heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. During those years, they were the most popular form of portable entertainment available. People lined up every month at the newspaper kiosks to get the new editions of their favorite magazines featuring over-the-top heroes like Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Spider, G-8 And His Battle Aces, and others.

The pulp format ran the gamut of genres. The magazines featured adventure, crime, private eyes, romance, mysteries, fantasy, science fiction, and horror. They even specialized with tales of boxing, aerial combat, and sea stories.

Those old pulp tales saw the rise of several authors that became literary lions: Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales started in them, Dashiell Hammett established private eye characters that would later become Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, Raymond Chandler cobbled his first Philip Marlowe novel The Big Sleep from stories he’d sold to Black Mask Magazine, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury got their starts in those pages.

There was nothing like the pulps. But after World War II, when guys came back from war after seeing how harsh the world could truly be, they didn’t want heroes that were squeaky clean. They wanted tales about things that showed the darkness they’d discovered. As the paperback originals (like Mickey Spillane’s novels about two-fisted P. I. Mike Hammer) started coming out, the pulps gradually died till only a handful of science fiction magazines were left.

I grew up reading the paperback reprints of Doc Savage and The Shadow. I loved those stories. Short, compact, tightly written, filled with death, disaster, mayhem, and action, they filled my mind with endless adventure. You just can’t find stuff like that any more.

However, a new publishing venture, Astonishing Adventures Magazine is trying to bring those halcyon days back to old fans as well as new aficionados of this brand of fiction. They’ve published their first magazine as a PDF that they’re giving away for free on their website (www.astonishingadventuresmagazine.blog-city.com) and it’s jam-packed with stories that usually aren’t more than 3500 words long.

The issue features an interview with writer Joe R. Lansdale, whose own novella, “Bubba Ho-Tep” inspired a cult classic film of the same name. And that story could have been spun from the same fabric as so many of the stories during the pulp era. Just to prove that the practitioners of this kind of writing is still out there.

Another interview features Michael Wm. Kaluta, the artist who brought The Shadow to life in the DC comics run of the 1970s that comics fans remember so well.

There are additional features involving a discussion of Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola’s new book, Baltimore and Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of The Shadow in the movie.

And then there are the stories. Some of them are good, and some of them are thin and violent and off-beat. But that was how it was in the pulps. The buyer picked up a magazine and turned the pages to see what the writers delivered.

And did I mention that this one is FREE!?

The editors, John Donald Carlucci and Timothy D. Gallagher, even roll out submissions guidelines for any would-be pulp writers lurking out there. Entertainment and the possibility of having a pulp story you’ve written accepted? Be still my beating heart. They also offer the caveat that they’re partial to stories featuring monkeys.

Hmmm…

This is the kind of thing I’ve been waiting my whole life to write. So I’m going to send them a story or two at some point. In the meantime, when was the last time someone gave you something for free?

Go to the website and get your free copy. Dig in to see what treasures of story or art that you find. And be sure to spread the news to anybody you think might like this kind of material. There’s just not enough of it left in the world.

Fledgling has one of the best opening chapters I’ve read in years. I was hooked on the spot as the mysterious narrator tried to figure out what had been done to her. And why. From her descriptions of her injuries (a smushy head with the skull shattered), I knew immediately someone had tried to kill her. I also wondered how she’d survived such a thing, but I chalked that up to the willing suspension of disbelief required of a reader.But then things got seriously weird.

Given the mystery of who had tried to kill her, I was suddenly confronted with the even deeper, richer mystery of who this mysterious narrator was. And what she was. Because she definitely wasn’t human. I knew that at once from the injuries. When she ran down and killed a deer with her bare hands and ate it raw, I was even more convinced.

Besides having a killer opening, Fledgling also serves to open a whole new world of vampirism that readers will truly never get to see the rest of. As it turns out, the novel was award-winning science fiction writer Octavia Butler’s last book before her death.

Butler was the author of several science fiction books that focused on the relationships humans might have with alien cultures. Her world-building skills were sharp and keenly directed at the social problems that might crop up, as well as the individual’s struggle to remain alive against desperate odds.

Fledgling maintained Butler’s story interests as she explored the world of vampires she created. Obviously from all the backstory she included in the novel, there were plenty of other stories to tell.

Shori Matthews, the first-person narrator of the book, is a stand-out character. Her voice rings true from the first page to last. One of Butler’s gifts as an author was the ability to focus entirely on the character and bring the world to life through that character’s eyes. She did that again with Shori.

However, Butler obviously chose to be extremely provocative in her choice of characters. Shori is physically a twelve-year old child. Meaning that she is the same build and size as a human pre-teen. In actual years, she’s 53, they even then she’s counted as being young among the vampire culture.

I struggled with some of the graphic sex scenes that were written in the book. Although Butler dismissed the age and size difference between Shori and her human lover, I found I could not for a time. It just jarred too much, and felt wrong. Gradually, I distanced myself from that feeling and concentrated on the mystery and the threat that surrounded Shori and the vampire culture that was at risk.

Butler’s tendency was to acknowledge that the events she was writing about were world-shaking, but she always seem to choose to reveal that story on a small stage rather than a large one. Fledgling could have been epic in scope, sweeping from Shori to several other characters that were involved in different actions. A choice of multiple narrators to tell all the story instead of just Shori’s piece of it would have been welcome. I would have liked to have seen more of the worldview. However, Shori’s story is immediately compelling and draws the reader in almost effortlessly.

The book was a fast read despite the number of pages involved. Shori is one of those characters readers can identify with almost immediately. There are some rough edges – regarding the age issue and a few other things – but Shori feels human and real.

Butler’s fans will have to take this one to complete their collection, and vampire junkies will definitely want another, fresher look at their favorite species.

Rodney Carrington has been a slow-burning fuse in his career, but is successes have exploded him onto the standup comedy scene while allowing him another career as a rednecked country singer specializing in “blue” songs that some consider pornographic.

Granted, the man has a warped and strangely wonderful sense of humor that you can’t exactly showcase to anyone.

In fact, many of Rodney’s initial CDs seemed to be sold out of the tool boxes of suspicious-looking pickups. You couldn’t just buy them anywhere. Now they’re everywhere, but they come with warning labels. If you’re sensitive or easily offended, or if you’re giving one as a gift to someone who is sensitive or easily offended, pay attention to the warning labels.

Rodney goes where other comedians fear to tread. And you won’t find any angels there.

Still, for all that, he’s a keen observer of humanity and society. In order to be a successful comedian, I think those skills are necessary. You can’t make a joke out of nothing. The best jokes are always those that are based on the truest things in life. Rodney does that. The problem is, he looks at those things the way many of us do but would never comment on. At least not in polite or mixed company.

I had the good fortune to meet Rodney backstage one night back in 1993. His career was just getting started and he had a baby on the way. In addition to doing standup comedy, he was hawking shirts to help pay for the baby. I bought one and still have it. One of my older boys was talking about one of Rodney’s CDs and I mentioned that I had met Rodney. Then I told him about the shirt. It was everything I could do to hang onto that shirt. I guess someone to have to leave it to someone in my will.

Rodney’s career has blossomed, and he’s deserved every bit of it. There’s no one in the standup comedy business who’s worked harder or more diligently to make his career happen. He spent two years in Hollywood starring in a television show based on his standup comedy. Of course, he toned down a lot of material he was dealing with to get it passed television censors.

Today he’s back in the standup comedy circuit and doing well. He’s a fellow Oklahoman and a fellow artist, and I’m right proud of him! I just know I can’t never take him to meet my momma. Because she’d wash out my mouth and Rodney’s with soap and maybe tan our behinds. I know Rodney would understand.

His new book, Coming Clean, written with Bret Witter, just came out on the stands. Rodney, as genuine and giving as a man can be, admits that he had nothing to do with the book and that the writer did all the work. Of course, the book is based on the stage material that Rodney presents routinely. But that’s the kind of guy Rodney is.

At times while reading the book, I felt certain that it should have come in a brown paper wrapper. And it’s not gonna be a book I’ll leave lying around so my momma can find it. I’m not sure I want my wife to know I own it.

And you can’t read this book in public despite the disarming and somewhat cute cover of Rodney in the bathtub with the little rubber ducky. It will make you laugh out loud, snort Coke through your nose, and make you a Depends candidate way before your time. People will ask you what you’re reading. Then you’ll be in trouble. If you try to tell them and they’re easily offended, you’re going to get slapped for stomped on. If you show them, they may confiscate the book and burn it at the next Moral Majority weenie roast.

Just as bad, they may take your book so they don’t have to be seen buying a copy of their own. Because if you’re going to own a Rodney Carrington book, you’re going to have to Man Up at the bookstore and reveal part of that twisted nature that you’ve been hiding from everybody.

The book is a delight to read. Witter has captured much of Rodney’s speech patterns and sense of timing. It reads like episodic on stage performances captured on the page. Not only that, the chapters are really small, so you can read it while on the go, in the truck while nobody’s looking, or while taking your morning constitutional. (And Rodney’s had some words to say about that too.)

You just can’t get passages like you’re going to find in this book anywhere else in the world. Take Rodney’s bit on guys telling hunting stories, for instance:

“Killed a deer this weekend. He snuck up on me, I couldn’t get to my gun, so I beat him with a stick. Rode him three miles, chased him another two, finally broke his antler off and stabbed him through the heart with it three times.”

But along with the laughs, Rodney also pours out some heartfelt truth about how he learned things. Such as his brief tour as an Amway representative, how he got into standup comedy by lying about how much material he had, the seduction of erotic dance clubs while he was miles from home, and being broke – a lot.

Rodney is genuine and warm and truthful. This book is a lot like that. But, when he’s got his game on, he takes no prisoners and you can’t have him in mixed company or over to your momma’s house. Pick up the book, though, and have a laugh on Rodney –while nobody’s looking.

Declan Hughes is an Irish playwright turned novelist. His latest book, The Color of Blood, is the second novel to feature private eye Ed Loy. Loy debuted in Hughes’s first novel, The Wrong Kind of Blood when he returned to Dublin, Ireland to bury his mother. At that point, Loy had lived in Los Angeles for twenty years. That bit of business led to an investigation that was covered in the first novel. Loy is still rediscovering his roots in the town where he grew up.

In the new novel, Loy is hired by Doctor Shane Howard, a well-to-do dentist that runs a very successful practice. From the onset, Loy – and the reader – are treated to mysterious happenings. Although he’s been retained by Doctor Howard, Loy is questioned and treated suspiciously by the family lawyer.

When he does meet with Doctor Howard, Loy is hired to find the dentist’s nineteen year old daughter, Emily. Someone is blackmailing Howard. He’s been sent an envelope containing pictures of Emily engaged in various sex acts. Doctor Howard is convinced she was held against her will and forced to participate in the acts of degradation.

On the other hand, the dentist appears way too calm to Loy. Howard hires the private detective almost too casually, and seems to brush the whole thing off as a nuisance.

The whole setup of this novel reminded me immediately of Raymond Chandler’s first novel about his signature private investigator, Phillip Marlowe. Like Loy, Marlowe was brought into a highly dysfunctional family filled with sexual secrets and substance abuse problems.

In no time at all, Loy finds himself lied to and treated like hired help. But, like Marlowe, he’s deeply drawn into the investigation and the layers of lies that are woven around the Howard family.

Hughes’s riding also reminded me a lot of another great private eye writer. Ross MacDonald also covered the crime beat with his perennial shamus, Lew Archer. Although Ross McDonald’s novels started off as imitations of Chandler and Hammett, the writing deepened and tended to reflect more of the sociological problems going on in the world at that time. At least the problems as they were presented in southern California.

Hughes seems bent on doing the same thing for Dublin that Ross MacDonald did for southern California. The city comes alive through Loy’s eyes. We get a chance to learn the history and see the sights that Loy does. Not only that, but we get two sets of values: the way things are now in Dublin, and the way they were twenty years ago when Loy last lived there.

The pacing in the novel is quite good. Hughes is a master storyteller and dense plotter. Although Loy finds Emily quickly in the beginning, that only leads to bigger problems and higher stakes. Despite the family’s tendency to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that money can make any problem go away, Loy knows he has to take a hand and continue his investigation in order to save those that he can.

Ed Loy’s history is painted across the pages of the book. His friend Tommy carries a lot of weight in the story, and has direct bearing on how Loy handles things. Despite the fact that Tommy is helping him, Ed can’t totally trust his friend either because Tommy has his own agenda and is involved in a lot of what is going on.

Although Hughes prefers not to be a violent person, he doesn’t have a problem going there once there’s no other recourse. He’s a physical man as well as a cerebral and emotional one. He’s not exactly Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, but both men travel the same dark alleys and know how to take care of themselves.

On the surface, the plot seems simple enough. But Hughes twists and turns characters and events so much that even a close reader has to stay on his toes in order to keep that. And the writing is packed with detail, emotion, and history. This is a gifted storyteller at work.

The Color of Blood is the first book I’ve read by Declan Hughes. Thankfully I caught him early in his career. When I read his first book, I’ll be caught up with him – and anxiously awaiting his next Ed Loy novel.

William Lashner’s new book, A Killer’s Kiss, is a rollicking blend of old school noir and today’s lightning-fast pacing. The plot announces itself with the authority of an unexpected sucker punch in the gut then connects in the jarring manner of a well-placed hook to the jaw.

I was new to Lashner’s writing and didn’t know what to expect. I picked the book up to read just a few pages to get an idea of what he did. Instead, he hooked me with one of the most intriguing beginning chapters of read a long time. It wasn’t over the top, and it didn’t immediately get your attention. Rather, it quietly crept up on you and wove its magic. I defy you to read the first eight pages and simply put the book down. Unless someone else has a gun to your head. In that case, the challenge doesn’t count.

At first, I didn’t know what to make of Lashner’s series character, Victor Carl. He seems a little lightweight and not exactly morally-oriented. But that’s his first impressions. Then you find out that Victor one’s what’s best for Victor, and you can’t help liking him for that because you totally understand him. He’s an attorney, but he’s not Perry Mason. He’s not altruistic, either. Victor one’s good things for other people, even more so if he gets a share in the good things.

In this book, Victor hooks up with an old flame. Her name is Julia. At one time they were going to get married, then Julia left Victor for Wren Denniston, a doctor of urology who stole Julia away with a drink and the fact that he wore a Rolex watch. As it turns out, Julia is every bit as materialistic as Victor is.

And hardnosed homicide detectives Hanratty and Sims believe Victor or Julia – or both – shot Wren Denniston to death in his house. The swift, obnoxious, and cutting interview by the two detectives harkens back to the good old days of the 1940s films and the best smart-guy private eye fiction that’s been written.

The narrative flow in the novel feels very much like an old pulp tale that’s been updated for the current market. I loved the writing and found myself mesmerized by it. Before I knew it, I was a hundred pages into Victor’s search through maze of lies and twisted half-truths. And I was questioning the loyalty of everyone involved. Including Victor’s old flame. But that was okay, because by that time Victor was pretty much questioning it as well. I loved the fact that Victor wasn’t blinded by love and not much got past him. He’s an easy guy to root for, but also one you love to see take the occasional pratfall as the plot twists and turns.

In no time at all – because pulp novels and Lashner move almighty quickly – Victor’s in trouble up to his eyebrows not only with the old/new girlfriend and the police, but also with Eastern European gangsters that learned their trade from The Godfather and wouldn’t mind dropping Victor’s body in a convenient large body of water or freshly poured concrete.

As it turns out, Wren Denniston had been doing some lying too. He was hovering on the edge of being financially destitute. Julia says she didn’t know that, and Victor would like to trust her, but she sells him down the river to the two homicide detectives. Of course, that was after he sold her down the river to the same two cops. All in her best interests, of course.

Lashner is a prince of witty repartee. I loved his dialogue exchanges and how he was able to bring a character to life with just a few lines. When Victor gets joined by Derek Moats, a recent client he kept out of jail, the fun really blossoms as the two become – for a time – one of the most offbeat investigative teams ever.

In an afterward to the novel, Lashner announces that he’s going to be taking a break from Victor Carl for the next few novels. I was truly disappointed. However, I’ve got six other books to read that I hadn’t known about before this one. And, like the Harry Potter series, I can at least own all the Victor Carl books that have been written.

For a time.

Because I can’t believe that Lashner is going to let Victor lie fallow for long. The writing style is just so reader-friendly and must be a hoot to work on.

If you want something breezy and easy to read, that has some attentiveness and speaks of the human condition, A Killer’s Kiss is a great book. Fans of Robert B. Parker and Michael Connelly will eat this one up and want more.

David Standish’s Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations and Marvelous Machines Beneath the Earth Surface is an amazing book.

When I first saw the cover, I didn’t think I would be interested. Then I noticed the names that were thrown out with almost careless abandon. Jules Verne. Edgar Rice Burroughs. They weren’t the names of scientists, although scientists are frequently and fairly referenced throughout the book, but I recognized those names at once.

Verne and Burroughs, at one time or another, have been my favorite authors. I loved Verne’s far-fetched adventures. Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea are the ones of his that I read the most.

Burroughs, though, taught me an idealistic love because his heroes – John Carter and Carson Napier and David Innes – all fell in love with the most beautiful woman in two worlds. Not only did those women look great (especially the way Frank Frazetta drew them), but they were the bravest and fiercest women you could ever hope to meet.

So Standish drew me in with one of my favorite “conspiracy” theories – that there is another world inside the one we live on as well as promising new dissertations about two of my one-time favorite authors. In fact, the hollow earth theory is still so popular there are a number of websites on the Internet devoted to it. I find it particularly amusing that Adolf Hitler believed in the hollow earth idea so much that he sent troops and expeditionary forces to uncover the entrances. Most speculation was that the openings to the hollow world were at the north and south poles. That’s what drove most of the exploration in those areas.

The book is one part scientific history, one part science fiction history, and one part sheer love of the whole hollow earth theory. Standish does an admirable job of keeping all these elements balanced. If the book and merely been a scientific history, I think I would’ve been put off. But he kept mixing it up with fact and fun. More than that, some of the theories the early signs is came up with about how the world worked are to die for.

I sat down with the book with the intention of reading a chapter or two the first time. Instead, I blazed through over 80 pages of it without stopping. Standish has a really good sense of how much pure information to dump on a reader before reaching critical mass. He changes up from presentation of facts to speculation on his part so smoothly that you don’t notice the transition. Before you know it, you’re thinking right along with him and totally understanding where he’s headed.

Although the chapters are long, with all the illustrations and pictures involved they read quite quickly. I loved learning about the Royal Society’s arguments over how the earth is constructed in the early days. And it was even more fascinating to see how many of the historically important people that we remember for other things also weighed in on the issue of whether or not the earth was hollow.

While reading the book, I was fascinated on a multitude of levels. I couldn’t believe all the scientific conjecture that had gone into such a thing. But I grew up knowing (at least by current belief) that the earth is solid and that the center is a liquid mass of molten iron and nickel. However, another theory that’s lately in the news suggests that there are more cave systems throughout the earth than had been previously believed.

Standish’s book leans heavily on science and the early thoughts of the earth’s composition, from core to exosphere – see, I’m learning, at the beginning of the book. Near to the end, he switches gears and relies heavily on science fiction thinking by popular authors. I found I knew more about the science fiction and the things that I did the early science part. I don’t think I learned anything really new in the last part of the book, but I definitely enjoyed the first part and seeing how it all live in the science fiction novels the loved while I was growing up.

The book is handsomely packaged in hardcover and oversized trade softcover, so you can have either edition for your home library. Scientists and science fiction fans would probably both agree this is a must have for the serious “hollow earth” bibliophile. Even for someone who is neither, Standish’s book is such a pleasure to read that it should be read.

Discovery Channel or the History Channel should take this book up, use it for resource material, and make one of those specials that they do so well. Or potentially even a series. The subject matter is a hoot and Standish reveals so much of the science and history behind the search for the hollow earth that it wouldn’t be hard to put such a project together.

Tess Gerritsen’s third Jane Rizzoli novel (which should, in all fairness, be described as a Rizzoli and Isles novel at this point) starts out with a bang by showcasing Dr. Maura Isles, the forensic pathologist of the team, as she walks up to a murder scene. The imagery and the sadness the author creates that clings to Isles is so strong it’s stayed with me every time I imagine her.

The mystery moves into high gear and Gerritsen gets to showcase some of her medical knowledge with a weird birth defect on one of the two nuns that have been attacked and left for dead. Both nuns had their throats slashed. One of them is dead from her wounds. But the other, whose carotid artery was also severed, was saved by the genetic deficiency. As it turns out, people are sometimes born and live all their lives without their carotid arteries ever functioning. Its knowledge like this that’s part of why I enjoy Gerritsen’s books so much.

To add more confusion and emotion to the mix, Dr. Isles’s ex-husband turns up and rekindles the old romance between them that has never quite died. This is the first time in the series that Isles weighs in heavily in the story. In the previous two books, the focus has primarily remained on Rizzoli.

Rizzoli returns with her usual tougher-than-nails demeanor in this one. She, and the reader, never forgets for an instant that she’s a woman working in a man’s world. Things get complicated for her in this one too when FBI Special Agent Gabriel Dean puts in another appearance. As it turns out, Rizzoli is pregnant with his child and she doesn’t want to deal with him or the pregnancy.

The pregnancy and issues of the men in their lives alternately pull Rizzoli and Isles together and push them apart. While these subplots are interesting, and do help keep the pages turning, they also tend to get the way and deflect from the main mystery at hand.

The hidden agenda involved in this one is also farther away from Boston then the previous two books. The Sinner leans more toward an international thriller in its complexity. The pacing in the middle field off, because it slows down to degree when compared to the other two books (and even books later on in this series). It feels a little like Gerritsen had a good idea for an international thriller, then scoped that into a Rizzoli novel. But it works really well to bring out this new relationship (relationships, actually, as it turns out) between these women.

Although the prologue gave away a lot of the story, Gerritsen’s skill as a writer remains formidable. Although I had most of the mystery figured out, I still found myself staying up later than I should have to keep turning pages. Her prose, even when the plot sags a little, remains easy to read. She’s one of those authors that you can trust to deliver every time you open the book.

I’ve been told that you can give an artist the most hackneyed, the most overused, and the most simple idea and they can make something new of it that’s worth looking at. I don’t know that everyone can do that, but there are a select few that can.Most writers are told there are only a handful of plots in the world. Literary professors seem convinced that every plot that has ever come out in America novels can be found within Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. I’m not going to disagree with that assessment, but I am going to doubt it a little.

One thing for certain, Tess Gerritsen’s fourth Boston Police Department Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli novel at first appears to be a writer in search of a plot. Medical Examiner Maura Isles came to the forefront of the last novel, The Sinner, and she remains the focus of this one.

The idea of a “mysterious twin” or “dark twin” is one of the oldest plot tricks in the book. Mark Twain performed his magic on the plot device in The Prince and the Pauper. Before that Alexandre Dumas did it with The Man in the Iron Mask and Anthony Hope used it in The Prisoner of Zenda.

Just as these other masters of fiction pulled successful rabbits out of their hats, Gerritsen does the same with Dr. Maura Isles and her murdered twin. During the course of this novel, Jane Rizzoli is sidelined to degree while in her eighth month of pregnancy. Her relationship with FBI Special Agent Gabriel Dean continues to grow and this one, although they have problems back and forth.

Isles’s provocative relationship with Father Daniel Brophy (barely touched on in The Sinner) looms larger in the series as both Isles and Brophy have to fight against temptation and old feelings that haven’t gone away.

The story opens in a gripping fashion with Isles arriving back at her house after a forensic conference in France. Police cars and Rizzoli are already at her address. When Rizzoli reveals the dead woman, Isles is blown away. The woman looks just like her.

Enough to be her twin.

In fact, subsequent forensic investigation reveals that the dead woman has to be Isles’s plan. Their blood work and even their DNA matches. Isles was raised as an adopted child and had no clue that she had a blood family, much less an identical twin.

After digging into the dead woman’s background, Isles and Rizzoli discover that sheet – like Isles – was adopted. In fact, the same lawyer attended to the placement of both children.

Driven by her need to know who she really is and who her family was – not out of curiosity, but out of self-preservation – Isles begins the painful search for her true roots. The trail is twisted and filled with a lot of unpleasant surprises. More than that, Rizzoli becomes convinced that Isles is tracking a serial killer whose work fantasies involve killing pregnant women – which makes Rizzoli a prime target.

Body Double is a compelling experience that drags the readers through the pages at a frantic gallop. Although some of the plot at times feels familiar, Gerritsen brings so much to it that is new. This novel is definitely one of the most tense of the series and delivers a slambang ending.

Gerritsen’s newest novel, The Bone Garden, is a stand-alone and not a Rizzoli and Isles book. However, from the description it sounds like a roller-coaster ride waiting to happen. Unfortunately, fans of Rizzoli and Isles are going to have to wait at least one more year for another tale.