Number 75 - Chasing Spirits - John Llewellyn Probert

 

75 books seems to be a nice figure to end the year on. 

I've reviewed a few of Mr Probert's books so far.  His Dr Valentine books are must reads.  Dr Valentine is one of the most fun serial killers you'll read about.

In this book, we're introduced to John Glory, a screen writer who keeps running into various supernatural entities and finds himself saddled with a reputation as a psychic detective.  Think of an unwilling, unemployed alcoholic British version of Kolchak with a great line in sarcasm and you're pretty close.

There are three stories, all interlinked, and they detail Glory's first three cases.  From the quick throwbacks in the second and third stories to the details of the previous tales, it seems like these may have been published separately at some time and collected here for the first time.  

Glory is a brilliantly funny character.  After the shitty time I've had this week, this book gave me the first good laugh I've had in days.

It's only short. Each story is only about 40 pages and I blasted through each of them in no time. 

If you need a quick and easy read, with a sick sense of humour and the occasional bit of gore thrown in for good measure, this is ideal.

I still want to know what the rude mnemonic for the external branches of the carotid artery is though.  

This has been a great last book to wind the year up with.  I have his other new book - How Grim was ny Valley positioned very high up in the TBR for early next year.

Number 74 - A refrigerator full of heads - Rio Youers et al

 

This is the follow up to Jo Hill's rather fun A Basketful of Heads from a couple of years back.

The story of basketful of heads revolved around an ancient Norse axe that left its victims still alive and able to talk regardless of how many pieces they happened to be in.  Given that our plucky heroine had a tendency to aim for the neck, she managed to solve the mystery around her with an ever growing collection of talking heads in a basket.

The axe is back again in this equally fun follow up. This manages to increase the insanity levels by a factor of 10 with the introduction of three more weapons, a dagger, a sword and a belt, each with their own powers which I'll not spoil for you.

There's a much bigger head count, necessitating the titular fridge for storage. It's not just humans that get chopped either. 

There are bad guys trying to collect the full set, and they'll stop at nothing to get it. 

This is big, daft, gory, violent and totally unnecessary. I loved it. 

Number 73 - Billy Summers - Stephen King

 

No it's not horror.  Get over it.

Yes King is still a horror writer, even if he does branch out.

OK, mini rant nearly over with.  I hate when people complain that King has written something other than a flat out horror novel or that he's not a horror writer any more.

He can write what he wants to.  He doesn't owe any readers anything. As long as he keeps up his regular standards, that's all we should expect.

This is a crime novel  An assassin for hire on his "one last job" that goes horribly wrong. King even mentions very early on how the "one last job" is practically a sub-genre of its own. And his contribution to the sub genre is vintage King.

Billy Summers only kills bad people. he's known for his ability to blend in, get the job done and escape into the shadows. He wants to retire but the offer of $2m is too much to resist so he takes the infamous one last job. 

Once on the job, waiting in his temporary assumed identity, he suspects that something is not quite right on this one. After the hit, things turn bad quickly and he finds himself evading justice and his ex employers and seeking vengeance on a very bad man indeed. 

This is a book of two halves.  The first half leading up to the hit, and the second half is the fallout. He finds himself teamed up with an unexpected companion and the second half is part buddy movie (with a difference) along with the revenge story.

As per usual, King takes his sweet time in telling the story. He builds the characters and their relationships intricately and convincingly.  By the end of the book we know nearly all there is to know about the eponymous Billy. There are emotional highs and lows throughout and we (this reader for definite) really want him to succeed with his shot at redemption.

Despite the genre, this is unmistakably Stephen King, and (as previously mentioned) vintage King at that. The plot unfurls at a leisurely pace and picks up momentum as it goes.  It's a challenge to put the book down for any reason in the last 150 pages.

There's a nice couple of Easter Eggs for the constant readers, with some non-too-subtle references to other King novels.

If you like King's writing, you'll like this. I like him.  I have 70 of his books on my shelves. and this ranks in with the best of them.

Number 73 - The Summer Book - Tove Jansson

 

I can't think of a more appropriate book to read during the recent bout of minus 6 degree weather. This month's book group book and one I was looking forward to.

I knew Tove Jansson from the Moomins. One of my most magical memories from childhood was the Moomins on TV. I was a bookworm even back in those days and no doubt will have read any of the books that were available.

Sadly, I just didn't particularly like this book. It's not badly written. The prose is actually very good. It's lyrical and poetic and all very nice. It's just not very interesting to this reader.

It's not what I would call a novel.  It's a series of very short anecdotes about a little girl and her Grandmother living on an island off the coast of Norway in the summer months. There's no single story, no real continuity, not even any call backs to previous events. It all feels very choppy and episodic.

It's all very prettily written and lots of metaphors for life happen to the characters and it's all very meaningful and lovely. It has a deep ecological message from well before such things were fashionable. But this is one book where I have to admit that it wasn't written for me. 

Sophia doesn't always ring true as a character. She's a preteen child but has chapters where she talks like a university lecturer. 

For such a short book it took me a week to read it.  I think if it had been close to 200 pages I would have given up. For all the nice writing, it's just too cloying and sentimental. There are a few laughs, but few and far between for me and the book never hooked my interest or made me care for Sophia or her Grandmother. 

Number 71 - Holy Ghost Road - John Mantooth

 

This was a NetGalley read and another brand new author for me.

Some books take their time in establishing a setting and the characters and the plot will slowly develop as the location etc become clearer.

This doesn't. we're plunged into the action on page one and it never lets up.

When we meet our central character Forest, she's on the run. She needs to get to her Gran's house.  her Gran can help her, she always has done in the past. Surely her dreamwalking powers will save Forest now. What is she running from? She's not sure herself.  It's scary though. It has something to do with the strange preacher Nesmith who has an uncanny influence on everyone in the county, and indeed has shacked up with Forest's mother.

The only thing worse than Nesmith, is his sister Ruby Jewel, a blind old woman who still seems more alert and aware than any human should be. Or maybe the goat-headed thing that is following Nesmith as he searches for Forest to deliver her into a fate possibly worse than death.

Together with a friend she meets on her dangerous run, Forest must travel the Holy Ghost Road to her Granny's house and her only hope of salvation.

This is gorgeously written southern-gothic horror. The atmosphere of dread and mystery is sustained through every word of the book. 

There are familiar elements to the story but they feel fresh under Mantooth's restrained prose and perfectly nuanced storytelling. 

There are layers upon layers to the story and this will certainly reward a reread sometime. There are dark themes running through the book, loss and grief, the negative side of family, the power of belief vs logic.  These make for a compelling coming of age story as Forest travels her own spiritual journey as well as the grueling physical trek down the eponymous highway.  All the while she needs to avoid the grasps of the villainous trio who dog her footsteps the whole distance.

I will certainly be buying a physical copy of this for my reread, whenever that might happen. Mantooth is a major talent. By all the gods and demons, he can spin a damned scary yarn.

Number 70 - Free Country, A Tale of the Children's Crusade

 

This is the book I needed to buy after the incomplete story in the big Books of Magic omnibus.

The story in that book told how Timmy was persuaded to travel to the Free Country, which was part of a big Vertigo Comics crossover event in the early 90s. 

This book follows the Dead Boy Detectives as they investigate the disappearance of an entire village worth of children. As well as this village of missing children, all the children of power are being kidnapped from our world too. there is a dastardly plan in action and only the two dead children have any inkling that anything untoward is happening.

Eventually they cross paths with Tim and all the plotlines are resolved satisfactorily. 

There are a whole host of writers and artists in the mix here. Surprisingly it still makes for a coherent and consistent experience, both in terms of artwork and writing.

This is partly due to some story tinkering that Gaiman talks about in the introduction. We don't get the full details of all the kidnappings, or indeed three of the children of power being returned to the real world. these were  details that were fleshed out in the individual issues of the assorted comics at the time. It seems a shame that more of those details weren't incorporated here, but I suppose pages were limited. there is still a feeling of incompleteness left behind though.

What remains of the story (including a new middle section, written specifically for this volume) is still very good and thought provoking. There are some disturbing concepts flying around and the identity of the true villain surprised me, even though it was more than signposted from fairly early on (plus I think I probably read the comics beck in the day so it's doubly annoying).

It's a good and entertaining read, and made me realise that my first experience of reading Toby Litt was several years earlier than I thought...

Number 70 - The Ladybird book of the Zombie Apocalypse

 After the Alice Sebold, I needed a palate cleanser.

This was ideal.  Short, pithy, masterful understatement in the humour. The first page suggests that, in a zombie apocalypse, there's a chance that shops may offer reduced services and stock. That's the level of the humour here and I liked it a lot.

Anyone who grew up with the old Ladybird Books will recognise the format and style of this one. Every page is accompanied by a picture in the style of, or taken from, an old Ladybird book, but with horribly inappropriate text on the page opposite. As pisstakes go, this is really quite effective. 

It kills 10 minutes easily enough. 20 if  you stop to examine the pictures in detail.

Nothing more to say- it was only 20 pages of text.

Number 68 - Lucky - Alice Sebold

I try to read at least one biography a year to shake things up a little. I realised I was nearly in December and hadn't read one yet so I grabbed this one off my shelves where it's been sat for many many moons.

When Alice Sebold was a student, she was viciously attacked in a local park. The attack formed the basis of The Lovely Bones. However, while she was writing that book, she realised she needed to put the true story out there as well and she stopped her work on The Lovely Bones to write this.

I have to say that this was a very difficult read. Not because of the prose, the language used is clear and concise, with no flourishes.  It couldn't be easier to read on that level. Indeed, it's a compulsive read on that level.

What makes it difficult is the subject matter. As previously mentioned, this is about a violent sexual attack and its aftermath.

The attack is described in vivid detail with nothing left to the imagination. She keeps the writing cool and dispassionate. This makes the horror of what happened to her so much more acute.

The rest of the book deals with the aftermath, including family and friend reactions (none of which are good enough or can be), the trial and conviction of the rapist, and a seeringly honest description of her life with PTSD even after her allegedly successful outcome of the story.

It's a long time since a book put me through the emotional threshing machine quite as much as this one did. Her description of the trial made me physically angry and the cross examination she was given regarding her identifying her attacker - particularly since they had samples of his hair in evidence which proved it was him almost beyond doubt. At the end of the trial chapters I had to put the book down and cry.

Thankfully, there is a thread of hope running through the book, or this would have been a truly unbearable read. As it is, this is emotionally tough, but compulsive and one of the most heartfelt biographies I've had the "pleasure" of reading.

I can't recommend this book too highly. It doesn't come across as a misery memoir.  It's far too well written for that. There's nothing sensationalised about any of the details of her life. It's a book that will stay with me for a long time.