Number 59- Getting it Together- Grace, Spahi, Fine, Struble

 

I paid a whole one English pound for this and I feel ripped off.

I hated the story.

I hated the characters.

I hated the writing.

The art was perfunctory at best.

At least it was short.

It probably does have its fans.  You might like it, but I will judge you for it.

I've wasted too many keystrokes on this already.

Numbers 56-58- a mini-Lemire Marathon

 

Three of his graphic novels at least, continuing two of his series that I'm catching up on.

Bloodshot Reborn continues where volume 1 left off.  There's a twist though. Someone else is collecting the nanites and it's a race against time and the new killer to prevent more bloodshed.

British people of a certain age may recall a character called MACH 1- Man Activated by Compupuncture Hyperpower (IIRC) in Eagle comics.  That was a definite precursor to this concept. 

There is nothing particularly original in this story but lemire's writing and the amazing artwork by Butch Guice elevate the material so it feels like something fresh and new.  I will be ordering volume 3 ASAP.

 

Next up was volumes 2 and 3 of Lemire's own personal spin on the traditional superhero franchise. 

I love how he's simultaneously satirising the genre whilst giving us a deeper insight into the lives of these characters after they start to age out of their roles.

I genuinely give a damn about these people. We still have no idea what the village is where our heroes are trapped or why they're there, or how they can possibly escape. we finally discover the fate of the title character in the most gruesome frames of the series so far.

There are some other shocking turns of events and a totally unpredictable betrayal.

I'm loving every word and picture.  

Despite the title, this is indeed Black Hammer Volume 3. This gives us a flashback over 5 issues which help to extend and flesh out the worlds of Spiral City and the heroes who are currently AWOL by focusing on their villainous counterparts.

David Rubin's artwork is excellent throughout. Again, I will be ordering the next volumes ASAP.

Highly recommended for people who like their fiction with a slightly more than surreal side of craziness.

Number 55-55- James Delargy

Probably my purest iteration on the number theme so far.

The peaceful routine in Willbrook, a small town deep in the Australian outback, is shattered when Gabriel staggers into the police station. He tells Sergeant Jenkins that he was hitch-hiking and a man called Heath drugged him, tied him up, told him he was number 55 and was going to die. Gabriel escaped and made his way to the town for help.

Just as the manhunt is about to get underway, Heath is caught stealing a car, trying to escape the town.  He tells Sergeant Jenkins that he was hitch-hiking and a man called Gabriel drugged him, tied him up, told him he was number 55 and was going to die...

Which one is the killer? Can Sergeant Jenkins uncover the truth?  He's helped and hindered in not equal measures by his ex partner, now his superior officer who has returned from the big city to lead the case.

This is a fun set up for a mystery and I did find myself changing my mind as to which one was guilty several times.

Delargy manages to build up a good amount of tension, both in the case itself and Jenkins' personal issues with Mitch, his commanding officer. The barren landscape and the small town are almost characters in their own right.  There's a very good sense of place and atmosphere.

Jenkins is a great protagonist and we (I) feel every bit of his frustration and confusion.

It's a cracking psychological thriller. The explanations are satisfactory and the ending packs an emotional punch. What more can you ask for?

Number 54- the Retreat- Gemma Fairclough

 

The last of the books in the consistently good Northern Weird series from Wild Hunt Books. This one involves strange cults, miraculous cures, and mysterious disappearances.  

Richard's sister Julie was caught up in a cult like wellness centre in deepest Cumbria. Not long after she left, she was found dead.  Years later, Richard discovers the full story behind her death and starts investigating the Hartman centre.  He meets a recent escapee called Lucy whose story is scarily similar.

This is told in a mix of narrative styles, interview transcripts, letters, partial biographies etc.  The whole thing is the literary equivalent of a found footage as it claims to be a manuscript found in Richard's belongings.

I really enjoyed this.  The Northern weird series doesn't have a miss in the whole collection. The shifting viewpoints and styles are well handled and build tension nicely.

A quick and easy read with some unexpected twists and turns in the story.

Numbers 52&53- Royal City 2 & 3- Jeff Lemire

 

Two very quick cheat reads next in the form of the middle section and conclusion of this short series by Lemire.

Volume 1 introduced a family where each member was haunted by a variation of the ghost of their brother/child who died aged 14.

Volume 2 - Sonic Youth is the flashback story telling the last 5 days of the poor lad's life. 

Volume 3- We All Float On- picks up again where volume 1 left off and concludes the story.

Volume 2 does a great job of explaining why his ghost appears in the forms he does for the different family members. Without seeming contrived or convoluted, we see the start of every plot strand that made Volume 1 as good as it was.

Volume 3 had a lot to live up to.  Could Lemire possibly give this story the ending it deserves?  In my humble opinion it definitely does.  This is emotionally layered and complex storytelling and the ending left me wiping away a tear or two.

I'm still not a great fan of Lemire's artwork, it always seems quite ugly and abrasive to me.  However the storytelling is so good, I can forgive it all.  The artwork isn't pretty, but neither are the stories he's telling.

This is probably the most grounded and relatable series I've read so far by Lemire, and it's vying for that top spot.  I loved it. If you can find it, you really should give it a chance.

Number 51- The Block- Gerald Suster

 

After two incredibly overwritten and pretty tedious books in a row, I needed a bit of trash so I dug this off the shelves and dusted it down.

When I check google I find the only copy for sale on the interwebzes that I can find is going for £200 on eBay, so this is one of the less useful reviews since it appears to have the same general levels of availability as rocking horse poop.

That cover would look a lot nicer if the previous owner hadn't used it as a coaster and left coffee rings on it.

Anyhoo, the book...

It's a shame that it's so rare because I had an absolute riot with this one. 

A couple move into an apartment block with all the necessities including its own bar and supermarket. It also has an evil history and is built on the site of medieval ritual sacrifices. As these places tend to be. 

When a pair of psychics perform a ritual in one of the ground floor flats, they unleash an evil that they fail to banish, and steadily the violence starts. 

Unlike Rattlers with its great build up and anticlimactic ending, once this gets going, it never stops until the last sentence of the book. We have a whole cast of potential victims and some of the best Shreddies I've seen for a long while. There's a whole dramatis personae at the start of the book which isn't really necessary as the cast list reduces significantly as the story roars on.

It builds to a 70 something page battle for survival for the last few people who still class as human. It's all brilliantly contrived chaos. The writing is sometimes a touch overblown but it suited the OTT nature of the violence and bloodshed.

This restored my faith in the naff 80s horror novels. Would I pay £200 for it?  Not a chance. But if you have a copy lying around, definitely read it.  You won't regret it.

Number 50- The Transit of Venus- Shirley Hazzard

 

This was a book group choice.

My second DNF in as many books, for some of the same reasons. I managed 110 out of 340 pages before I got too wound up with the overcomplicated writing style that had started intriguing, but became more and more wearing as the pages wore on.

It was a better writing style than Pynchon, but not much. The plot was just a very basic pair of love triangles with two sisters, one at the apex of each of the triangles. The level of extra detail was ridiculous.  One character was introduced and we were presented with 10 pages detailing his father's war record in WWI, despite that having nothing to do with the story in hand.

Tedious, uninspiring characters and a dull and opaque writing style combined to make this a truly putdownable book for me. One of those books that when you put it down, you don't want to pick it up again.

Your mileage may vary, I'm sure some people out there love it.  The strange person who wrote the introduction apparently reads it at least once a year and this copy is in the Virago Classics range. It's not one for me though.

Number 49- The Crying of Lot 49- Thomas Pynchon

 

Again- no prizes for guessing the reason for this choice.

Apparently this is one of the great American novels, according to the blurb on the back.

I don't get it though.  I think there's some serious Emperor's New Clothes happening there.

This is only short, but I found myself DNFing after 70 pages. I thought the writing was terrible, overblown and hyperstylised to the point of obfuscation of even the simplest plot points. I've no idea what was happening. Something about an inheritance, but it was all over the place and not going near that plot line in before I gave up.

I hated it and refuse to waste any more keystrokes on it.

Number 48- 48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister- Joyce Carol Oates

 

No prizes for guessing why I chose this one.

I was a little bit worried because I wasn't entirely enamoured of the last (only  other) JCO book I read. But this sounded interesting, and fit the theme.

In small town uppstate New York, the beautiful Marguerite (aka M), Sculptor and older sister to our narrator Gorgene (aka G or Gigi), has vanished. Last seen as a reflection across a pair of mirrors, she seems to have waked out of the house and disappeared.

Each of the 48 chapters is a further piece of the puzzle of what happened to her.

There are unreliable narrators and there's Gigi. Her fractious relationship with her sister is revealed in glimpses and we are left to pick up the pieces of the truth from gaps and other people's reactions.

The first several chapters are very strange in their formatting and style. They're also very short. About half way through, the chapters start getting longer and we gain more clarity into the other characters on the sidelines of the story.

I zoomed through this book in two days.  Despite the oddness, this is a compelling read. G is an entertaining narrator who doesn't give up her secrets too easily. It's a very literary but still an incredibly easy read. 

I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes their psychological thrillers with more than a touch of weirdness and literary prowess.

Number 47- Remarkably Bright Creatures- Shelby Van Pelt

 

THAT octopus book indeed. This was a book group choice and not one I've regretted having to read.

Tova has been widow for decades, and also is still mourning for the loss of her only son in an unfortunate and mysterious accident 30 years earlier. She works in the local aquarium as a late night cleaner for something to do.

Marcellus is a Giant Pacific Octopus. He lives in the aquarium and likes to escape his tanks and go for a a wander at night.

Cameron is a bit of a loser in life, abandoned by his mother at an early age, he's crossed the USA to come to this small town after finding a photo of a local rich property developer he believes to be his father.

Their lives will soon mix and intertwine in a feelgood story of hope and revelations.

This was nicely written and never boring. The friendship that develops between her and Marcellus is amusing and surprisingly feels plausible as written.

BUT- there are so many coincidences going on in this book it fast becomes truly ridiculous. If you thought that Oliver Twist getting caught trying rob his own grandad randomly chosen out of the entire population of London was a bit of a stretch, that's got nothing on some of the coincidences that happen in this book. 

Also, there are too many instances where the book could have finished 200 pages earlier if character A had just said what they knew to character B- where they knew that character B was looking for this information.

There's a key part of the plot where I still don't understand how Marcellus knew the body it had once found under the sea was who it was.

The most egregious sin this book commits though, is when one of the characters drinks Scotch WhiskEy with an E.  That's a disgrace.  the copy editor should be sacked.  Scotch whisky NEVER has the E. That's for the imitators out there in the world to distinguish them from the real thing.

I had fun with this book despite the flaws. The premise is so silly, I suppose the flaws are forgivable. Except for the whisky obviously.  It was an easy read and I rated it 3.25 out of 5 at the group.

Number 46- Rattlers- Joseph L Gilmore

 

On the base of this book, there's a small dot in marker pen which tells me I must have picked this up from a bargain bin sometime in the distant past.  I have no idea how long I've had this or where that bargain bin might have been.  I do know that I got myself a real bargain since the cheapest copy of this online seems to go for £40 or so. Probably due to that remarkably tasteful cover.

These 80s/90s horror mass market paperbacks are a gamble. Frequently I tag them as I read them so you don't have to. This one though, is a lot better than that. 

This review contains some spoilers.

Big Sam DeBlase is a Vietnam vet and construction worker who knows that if the luxury lodge he's been hired to build doesn't go to plan, it will mean the end of his construction firm that he's struggled to start up. Unfortunately, quite early on in the build, the ground levelling machines unearth part of a nest of rattlesnakes.

After consulting the experts, he's assured that there are probably hundreds of rattlers in the nest and he's got a snowball's chance in hell of getting rid of them. The chief investor and owner of the lodge (who also needs this to go ahead or he loses everything he owns) disagrees and together, big Sam DeBlase and the owner settle on a plan to rid the site of snakes.  A plan that initially seems to work, even though big Sam DeBlase's business partner, best friend and alcoholic site foreman, is killed quite horribly in the process.

We then jump several months to the grand opening of the lodge.  No snakes have been seen for months. Everything seems fine. We're introduced to a full cast of potential shreddies on their respective journeys to the event of the century. Who will survive? Like all the best 70s and 80s disaster stories, these rich and famous attendees are a bunch of people with relationship crises that are going to be solved in the most efficient way possible at some point.

The snakes are back. A chemical leak from the refrigeration unit is driving them to the surface. From the moment one of the cleaners discovers one hiding in a linen closet, Joseph L Gilmore starts building the tension quite expertly. There are lots of close calls in the build up to the grand finale when the snakes invade the lodge and start biting.

This is all good fun. Joseph L Gilmore's writing is solid throughout. There are some downsides.  Throughout the first half of the book, every character is referred to by their full name every other time they're mentioned. Joseph L Gilmore seems to think we'll forget who Big Sam DeBlase is if we just see the name Sam. It's weirdly noticeable and distracting. There's some distinct homophobia in the book. There's no issue with the lesbian couple, but when two of the male characters are revealed to be a couple, there are several references to the other (apparently nice) characters feeling disgusted about it.

The big finale is a bit of an anticlimax. After such good build up, if kind of fizzles out. It's too short. There are just not enough deaths. The escape from the lodge is too easy. The character who pulls a Dennis Nedry gets away scot free. He certainly should have been snake food. The beautiful new wife of the famous baseball player is subjected to a very weird fate indeed and might well have been better off being eaten. 

In summary, this was a good read with a really frustrating last act. It's probably not worth the current online prices, but if you can get it for the price of a regular book, go for it.

Number 45- Pier 45- Scott Alderman

 

This is an ARC I was sent by the author a couple of months back, that I held onto for a while to fit it in with my numbers theme. Sorry Scott, silly reason for delaying the review.

Seth is a recovering addict and ex-rentboy on the streets of New York in the height of the AIDS epidemic. The book follows two timelines, 1981/2 when his career on the streets started, and 1988 where he works at an AIDS hostel/hospice opposite the eponymous Pier 45 where he used to turn tricks.

This sounds like it should be a depressing and gritty tale of tragedy but it isn't. It's packed full of memorable characters, some of whom you'll fall in love with. Hope shines through even the darkest parts of the narrative. 

It's laced with a decidedly wicked sense of humour amongst the tragedy. There's a scene where he goes to his sister's house (his sister managed to marry out of the life traps that Seth got stuck in) for possibly the funniest and most awkward dinner party scene I've read in years.

Alderman's prose is excellent. It dragged me mercilessly through the story. It's cliched to say it, but this book will make you laugh and it will make you cry.  Alderman will have you at his mercy. There are some ideas in this book that genuinely pull hope from one of the worst atrocities in human history.

It's not a perfect novel.  I'm not sure the ending worked entirely for me, but the journey to get there was more than worth it. It comes out next month and I highly recommend you get your dirty mitts on a copy ASAP.

Number 44- Bloodshot reborn- Lemire, Syayan, Allen, Baron

I may have made a slight tactical error on this one.  I suppose it should be obvious that a series called Bloodshot Reborn might be a sequel to an earlier series called Bloodshot... but that didn't occur to me. 

Lemire does give a very brief recap in the opening pages of all the salient events in the Bloodshot story to that point, which means when I do get around to reading it, I won't have too may surprises.

Bloodshot was a supersoldier for Project Rising Spirit. He was controlled by nanites in his body which made him super strong and able to heal better than Wolverine. He lost the nanites, making him fully human again. Now the nanites are loose, possessing new hosts and killing indiscriminately.

It's up to the OG bloodshot to stop these killing sprees and collect the nanites back into his own body, solving the mass killings, but possibly at the cost of his newly regained humanity.

This was nominated for a record breaking 8 Harvey awards the year it was released and I can see why.

Lemire's writing rarely been better, and the artwork is phenomenal (in issues 1-4). There's a change of artist in issue 5 and some of my favourite quirks of the artwork vanish- particularly the way that a character who only exists in Bloodshot's head is now drawn the same as all the other characters instead of the cartoony way he's drawn in the first 4.

That's no real issue though. Even the "lesser" of the artists is still excellent. Lemire's writing manages to be action packed and emotional. The impact of the deaths of one set of characters was somewhat lost on me since I didn't know the original series, but that's definitely a Me problem.

I have already ordered volume 2 and can't wait to get back into this blood soaked world.

Number 43- The Hunted- Kathryn Ptacek

This was a random grab from my TBR of a book that's been languishing for far too long as I know Kathryn is a reliably good read.

It's 1975, Jessie Morrison is a lonely young girl who's just moved across several states to a small town in New Jersey. Her parents are borderline abusive, and her only friend in town is her new next door neighbour Wendy. Jessie has started to experience strange inexplicable episodes and needs help.

Stefan, a Czech journalist and holocaust survivor is in town, apparently to cover the bicentennial celebrations where the local pediatrician is due to be honoured with a humanitarian award. Can Stefan and Wendy work out what is troubling Jessie in time to save her from the forces haunting her?

This is a slow burner, but once the pieces have all slotted into place, it becomes a tense and powerful race against time.

The closest writer I can compare Kathryn Ptacek to is Charles Grant. They both share the same talent for quietly building a sense of dread. Grant has long been one of my favourite writers and Ptacek is just as good at his style of horror.

She writes with a smooth and fluid prose, building her characters believably and sympathetically (except for her villains, who are truly evil in this book). Even in the slow build, this was always a compelling read. If there is such a thing as a slow pageturner, this is it- until the final act when it was truly unputdownable.

Highly recommended.

Number 42- Life, The Universe and everything- Douglas Adams

 

Book number 42 of course, legally has to be a Douglas Adams related read. So I went for a hugely delayed reread of book three, the midpoint of the trilogy.

Following on directly from the ending of Restaurant At The End of the Universe, Arthur is still stranded on prehistoric Earth. Soon after running into Ford prefect, he finds himself chasing a Chesterfield sofa across a field, which then, as these things do, transports him to Lords Cricket Ground in the middle of a match, about 2 days before the imminent demolition of the planet.

Another old character pops up and whisks them off on an intergalactic adventure to prevent an all out war across the universe that could wipe out existence forever.

This was adapted from a rejected idea for a Doctor Who serial and Adams had to really work hard in shoehorning the least heroic set of characters in literature into a story about  saving the universe.

I remember thinking this was probably the best of the books on my first time through. On this reading, I realised how much of this book is infodump, and how little the characters actually do. That's not to say it's not a good book at all. It's still a great read and I was laughing out loud from the first paragraph. It's just that the story is not as strong as I remember it being.

That said, Agrajag and Wowbagger are two of Adams's greatest creations. The Agrajag chapter is possibly the single funniest segment in his entire oeuvre.  

So in summary, not as brilliant as I recall but still brilliant. 

Number 41- A Winter Grave- Peter May

 

Perfect reading for the midst of a month long heatwave- a thriller set in a snowstorm in the Scottish mountains.

It's the year 2151, climate change has ravaged the planet, huge swathes of land are underwater (including half of Glasgow, where the novel opens properly), refugee crises are worse than ever, the UK has split and Scotland is an independent state. In the middle of all this backdrop, a dead body is found frozen on a Scottish mountaintop.

Veteran cop Cameron Brodie has just found out he has a life ending illness. He volunteers to take the case. He has an ulterior motive since his estranged daughter is the person who found the body and he wants to reconnect before the end. He finds a lot more than family problems in the sleepy village, he finds a conspiracy worth killing for.

It's a very busy novel. May is juggling lots of plotlines and it has to be said that he does this with ease. The detective mystery bit of the story almost takes back seat. The number of potential suspects is very low so the answers are relatively predictable.

There are some unlikely elements to the story and the science really doesn't seem to have improved much since 2023 when this was written. The worldbuilding is done extremely well though. The politics are woven nicely into the story and the climate issues never feel like preaching.

This is much better than Lockdown by the same author that I read back in 2020. I will be trying more of his books as soon as I can get around to them.  This has shifted him up the readability meter by a fair distance. I will even overlook the fact that he describes a character as having thick pubic hair over his belly and chest...

Number 40- Don't Let Him In- Lisa Jewell

 

My first Lisa Jewell book, and probably not my last.

This is 400 pages but I steamed through it in 2 days. It's pretty much the definition of a pageturner. The short chapters mean you look to see how long the next one is and think 'oh sod it, one more chapter'- several times.

It's the story of a man who inveigles his way into women's lives, marries them, steals their money and runs off to join another family. 

I was reminded very much of the old film the Stepfather with Terry O'Quinn as a similar character- although when he got bored of his families, he didn't just run off with their money. He ended things much more finally.

This book did slightly lack that level of drama, but it was still a compelling and very very quick and easy read.

After all the build up, I did think the final showdown when all the plot lines converged was more than a little bit anti-climactic. But I can't deny that the journey to that ending was so much fun, it's not as much of a complaint as it might otherwise have been.

All in all, 7 out of 10. It takes talent to make the reader hate a character as much as I hated he of many names who was at the centre of all the storylines. I will definitely be reading more of hers.  This was practically a cheat read.

Number 39- Royal City Volume 1: Next of Kin- Jeff Lemire

 

And this was the second of the pair of Jeff Lemire graphic novels. Volume 1 of his Royal City saga.

A struggling writer returns to his roots in the eponymous city after his father suffers a stroke.

To say the family is dysfunctional would be a vast understatement. His little brother Tommy drowned several years earlier as a child, and his siblings and his mother are all haunted by a different version of Tommy.

We are thrown into the internal politics of the family and the city itself.  His family run the manufacturing plant which is the heart of the town's wealth, but they're struggling badly.

I was starting to feel real emotions for this cast of characters, and then the book finished. The characters are well drawn and utterly believable, even the ghost.

This is all illustrated by Lemire as well as scripted. His artwork is distinctive. I tend to find it quite ugly until I settle into the story, at which point it weirdly makes sense and starts looking strangely pretty. 

Again, I need to order part 2 of this sooner rather than later. This is Lemire at the height of his creativity.

Number 38- Black Hammer- Secret Origins- Jeff Lemire/Dean Ormston

 

It occurred to me that I've not read many graphic novels this year, so i thought I'd fix that with a pair of Jeff Lemire offerings.

This is Lemire's non-DC take on the superhero genre.

A group of Golden Age superhero types are stuck in a small town that they can't escape for reasons not yet disclosed. They've been there for 10 years, since they and Black Hammer defeated the AntiGod and saved Spiral City. They vanished from their own universe at the moment of victory and are assumed dead.

This is absolutely vintage Lemire. It's got great characters, a mind-bending premise (especially Colonel Weird's storyline) and an emotional heart the size of Texas. 

The artwork by Dean Ormston is top notch. I need to get volume 2 of this ASAP given the cliffhanger ending.

Number 37- Hampton Heights- Dan Kois

 

This is a strange little book. I'm not entirely sure why I bought it.  That cover is not particularly enticing.  But I must have thought so on the day.

Kevin is a newspaper distributor.  He decides to take a bunch of his paperboys to the Milwaukee suburb of Hampton Heights to try to sell some subscriptions. This is not his wisest decision. Hampton Heights is no ordinary neighborhood, and the boys find themselves facing werewolves, witches and trolls as they wander the streets.

This is more of a short story collection than a straight novel. Kevin has his story, and the three pairs of boys he sends off around the streets each have their own segments, which only really merge into one story in the closing pages.

I wasn't finding much to love about the book in the first two stories.  There wasn't anything to hate either, it just wasn't pushing any of my buttons. Then the Mark and Ryan story started.  This was a radical departure from what had come before, with a sleek fairy tale feel to the narration which was just brilliantly handled.

That segment saved this book for me. Dan Kois can really write when he wants to.

Kevin stars in the first story, meeting a mysterious woman in a bar and falling for her otherworldly charms. The weirdly named Sigmone (I assume pronounced Simon) and Joel meet up with warring gangs of werewolves. Ryan and Mark encounter a pair of witches who have a story to tell them. Al and Nishu run foul of a mischievous troll with an appetite for memories. then they all go to Burger King for the final short segment that ties the narrative together.

This is never scary. It's almost a YA novel and I would hesitate to call it a horror novel, despite all the tropes in play. It's more of an urban fantasy crossed with a coming of age story. I had fun with it, and the last half is very good indeed.

If you're looking for something a bit out of left field, give this a try.

Number 36- (Don't) Call Mum- Matt Wesolowski

 

Another cheat read from last weekend. It's another of the novella's in Wild Hunt Books' Northern Weird Project. I think I only have one more till I've read the full set, and very good they've all been so far.

This is set almost entirely on a train. Our protagonist Leo is trying to get home to the remote town of Malacstone. An obnoxious man boards the train thinking he's headed for London, but he couldn't be more wrong.

When the train starts breaking down in the middle of nowhere, they can hear noises from outside. There are local legends surrounding the next stop, if they ever make it.  Could there be truth to the stories of the mysterious Underwood?

This short novel manages to build an incredible atmosphere, as well as making us well and truly loathe the man who initially thinks he's headed south.

It's a masterpiece of how to create convincing characters with minimal brushstrokes. I raced through this book in a couple of hours and loved every page.  

Highly recommended.

For reference, the other Northern Weird Project books are This House isn't Haunted But We Are (Stephen Howard), The Off Season (Jodie Robins), Good Boy (Neil McRobert), Turbine 34 (Katherine Clements), all of which I have reviewed in the past 12 months or so, and The Retreat (Gemma Fairclough) which is close to the top of my TBR. It's an excellent selection of short novels.

Number 35- A Short Stay in Hell- Stephen L Peck

Another cheat read- trying to get my numbers up before the halfway point in the year ( I finished this on Saturday just gone- 5 days ago)

The title tells you in an ultra-sarcastic way what this book is about. When Soren Johanssen dies, he assumes he's going to heaven since he's been a good Mormon boy all his life and followed all the rules.

However, in a waiting room hosted by a genial demon, we find out that Mormonism isn't actually the one true faith, and therefore he's going to hell to repent. I won't reveal which faith it is that gets the free pass to heaven, you will need to read the book to find that out for yourself.

He finds himself in an almost infinite library and tasked with finding the book that describes his life. If he can find that book, he can move on. That's easier said than done though.

It appears that mystical, infinite (almost) libraries are almost becoming a subgenre of their own. And it's one I approve of.

This is a much better example of the genre than The Midnight Library was. The humour works and the whole treatment of the theme is much better. I think Mark Lawrence's Library trilogy might still hold the edge for me though.

I really liked the characters in this. The scope of the task they face becomes horrifically clear very quickly. The fact that Peck manages to make a hell of eternal tedium into such an intriguing and more than vaguely disturbing story is nothing short of miraculous. It's difficult to say if the Hell of other people is better or worse than the Hell of Loneliness that Soren also endures.

The Hell in this is based on a short story by Borges  this is openly admitted to in the book by the demon who decides which Hell to send our poor protagonist.

The world Peck builds is truly Hellish.  Far worse and more imaginative than any lakes of fire and brimstone.

I know this is a book that is going to stick with me.  It's also a dead easy read and very short- just over 100 pages, but more satisfying than a lot of novels four times that length.

Highly recommended.

Number 34- Turbine 34- Katherine Clements

 

Another entry in the numbers theme so quickly...

The year is 2050 something. The world is baking.  On the West Yorkshire moors, an environmental scientist is trying to determine the impact of a controversial wind farm on the local peat bogs. She camps up by Turbine 34. However, there is something else on the moors, something that knows her, something that shouldn't be there.

This is a nice quick read that builds its atmosphere with great efficiency. The images and visions she experiences are at times genuinely unnerving.

The acknowledgements highlight the strong environmental message that runs through the story about the importance of the peat bogs as habitats for the wildlife, and flood defence etc. The book manages to carry these messages without overloading the story.

However, I do think the ending was fluffed quite badly. The twist to the tale really doesn't work for me.  It's a shame because I was really enjoying it up until that point.

Your mileage may vary.  This was a damned good trip, even though the destination was a bit of a letdown.

Number 33- 33 Place Brugmann- Alice Austin

 

This book was specifically chosen for the number in the title, and it sounded interesting. The next part of my occasional numbered books theme for the year.

Set in the second world war, this follows the inhabitants of the eponymous Belgian house in their various experiences of wartime Europe. The Jewish family from the first floor flee to the UK. Other inhabitants join the army or the resistance. Others are more sympathetic with the invaders.

This is all very nicely written, but it's such a slow burn I struggled to get involved with any of the characters or their dramas. The second half of the book is definitely much more interesting, especially when the residents start running foul of a traitor.

Each chapter is written from the point of view of a different character, including two chapters told posthumously, which allows for a first person narration of the character's death. That was an interesting twist.

However, this falls foul of the old trap of all the characters talking with the same narrative voice. Older characters will not talk in the same way as younger characters. The old colonel will not have the same voice as a Russian immigrant Jewish girl. But in this book, they all sound the same. It robs the book of a lot of its potential.

I can understand why people would like this. The prose is undeniably good, even if it should be varied and isn't. The story, when it gets going, is good. The slow unravelling of plot points is actually very nicely handled where a passing comment from one character can take a whole new meaning later on. However, I just didn't get on well with this book.

Lots of potential, but for me it fell well short.

Number 32- Make Room! Make Room!- Harry Harrison

 

When this was chosen for a book group, I was very excited. I'd not read a Harry Harrison since a few of the Stainless Steel Rat books several decades ago.  Plus, when I looked for it on google, I discovered that this was the basis for the film Soylent Green.

As a result, I went into this book expecting a light hearted science fiction adventure with a dark twist in the tail.

That is not what you get from this book in the slightest. This is a grim dystopian novel set in a massively overcrowded future version of New York.  The far distant future in question here being 1999.

Andy Rush is a New York detective. When he's asked to solve the murder of a local criminal with high up connections, he finds himself caught in a whole heap of trouble- although he does has the benefit of a fresh love life in the shape of the victim's ex-mistress.

The world building in this book is brilliant.  It all feels so grimy and horrible that you find yourself wanting to take a shower after some sequences. 

The story seems to take second place to the world-building as there's not really that much happening in relation to the case. In a city this crowded, with 50s style technology that isn't up to even supplying water to the whole population, detective work won't go far. 

In alternating chapters we follow Andy and the killer as they live their lives over several months leading to the dawn of the new century. It's not a cat and mouse situation, literally just their lives in different parts of the city. That's not to say it's not interesting.  The writing is top notch. The world Harrison creates is a character in its own right and the novel is never even close to boring.

As predictive dystopias go, it missed the mark by a huge distance, thank goodness.  It failed to take into account that technology would improve. This is a nightmare vision of a world that could have been. It doesn't have the famous twist from the film, and I think I only recall one or two events from the book being used in the film although it's been a long long time). 

If there are any flaws, I would say that the repeated lectures from Andy's flatmate about reproductive control near the end of the book seem to come from nowhere, and the second time he rants on the subject could almost be a cut and paste from his rant 5 pages or so earlier as it covered all the same points again, just with the character talking to someone else. 

Despite being entirely different to what I expected- a bleak dystopian warning about overpopulation- rather than a light and fluffy adventure with a twist- I still really enjoyed this. And just check out that gorgeous cover art. They don't make them like that any more.

Number 31- At Risk- Stella Rimington

 

As you can see from that cover quote, this is the debut novel by Stella Rimington, the former head of M15. Stunning is a matter of debate.

Liz Carlyle is an intelligence officer in MI5. When a report says that an attack is about to be carried out by an "Invisible" operative, an ethnic native terrorist who therefore can pass through borders unchecked and access our institutions freely, the stage is set for a race against time.

This was published in 2003 (therefore probably written in 2001/2, in the wake of 9/11, which probably explains the complete lack of any balance in the narrative about Muslims. There are three in the story, the non-evil one is sidelined very early on and forgotten about, and the other two are sociopaths dead set on killing innocents. There could have been the use of the word extremist, but I don't recall it in the book. that would at least have served to tell us that these characters are at the fringe of their group and not representative of the faith. 

Anyhoo... rant over.

It's a slow burn of a story, with little action for the first two hundred pages or so. When one of the killers commits a murder in self defense after paying to be smuggled in, our plucky Liz is on the case, sleuthing around and finding clues to the exact nature of the treat to the country.

It all plays out rather sedately, which is probably more realistic than an all action shoot-em-up type thriller, but it doesn't make for a compulsive read until about 100 pages from the end. Liz does a lot of ringing around and asking people to find information for her, or receiving a fresh message from one of her sources rather than actively finding out for herself. The section with the passenger manifest would have been better if she'd done it herself instead of trusting subordinates to check it for her for example.

The prose is unremarkable, but not actively bad.  The book is never less than readable.  I don't personally think it ever reached the heights of "stunning" as stated on the cover. It's worth reading. Given who she is, it's probably a better insight into how these things actually work. It's a shame that it does highlight why these types of books do embellish detail.

6/10 if I'm feeling generous.

Number 30- Pictures of You- Josh Malerman

 

Another ARC- this one of my most anticipated book of the year. I've been hugely lucky to be sent a copy of this and many many thanks indeed.

And check out my beautiful bookmark I'm using at the moment.

As usual from Josh Malerman, this is nothing like anything else he's written.

Emily and Jack are a young couple a few months into their relationship.  After a sublime night out in a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan, Emily wakes up in strange bed, in a strange room, with a strange woman watching her through a picture frame. She is going to be the subject of this woman's art whether she wants to be or not.

The blurb calls this a Hitchcockian thriller and I cant think of a more appropriate description. This perfectly captures that atmosphere, with the steady build of tension on every new revelation.  The multiple storylines revolving around each other, and the well placed shocks are a masterpiece of suspense writing.

Not only does this work brilliantly well as a tense thriller, it's also a meditation on the nature of art itself. What is art and why do we need it in our lives? How far can an artist go to produce the perfect work?

I think we can probably agree that the antagonist is taking things a sight too far.

If I was forced to pick any fault with this, one of the parallel storylines does seem to be noticeably longer than the other by the point at which they intersect, but that's a minor issue. I was hooked from the first chapter and fairly raced through this book.

I mentioned in my review of Watching Evil Dead that there were shades of Bradbury in his prose in that book.  Those shades are here as well, fleshed out in more vivid colour.  If Bradbury and Hitchcock got together to write a mystery thriller about art induced insanity, the result wouldn't be much different from this.

I love how Josh writes such different material every time.  It really does make him one of the most exciting writers in the horror field today. This one feels old fashioned but completely modern at the same time. 

Number 29- Bad Things Happen Here- Mark Morris

 

As you can see from the picture , this is a review copy of the new Mark Morris novel, due out some time next month. 

Mark Morris is one of those writers who deserves to be a household name. His novels are consistently excellent and there are a lot of them.

This one is no exception.

A familiar set-up, 6 students meet with an evil force.  Bad things happen, they separate. Years later, the evil returns and starts trying to pick them off.  Can they team up and defeat the evil forces before it's too late?

The set up may be familiar but the execution is far from generic. The story jumps between the five survivors of their student days (this isn't a spoiler, it's on the back cover) as their lives are slowly torn apart by a mysterious force.

They don't instantly work out what's going on and get in touch which is the usual in this set up. Morris is a much better writer than that. The lucky ones doubt their own sanity as cracks appear in their very well drawn day to day existences. The others start to crack themselves. Their reactions to the events surrounding them seem real and grounded and completely believable. 

Morris is definitely channeling his inner Ramsey Campbell in this novel and creates some truly nightmarish sequences. This is one of the most atmospheric books I've read in a long while. It's a great example of how horror doesn't need to be blood soaked and violent.  The psychological impact is far greater than endless descriptions of gore would have been.

This is out next month and I recommend it to anyone who like character based, creepy as hell horror. 

Number 28- Polaris- Timothy Brown

Another cheat read- this time from the reliable stable that is PS Publishing.

I've never heard of Timothy Brown and I think this book was sent as part of one of their cut price bundles I ordered a while back. Science fiction isn't my genre of choice but then I find books like this and I realise it's not all Cowboys and Indians in space.

IN 2074. an old man sets out on a road trip through Death Valley in his highly advanced computerised car, complete with a robot drone "Fetch Unit" that does anything the car needs to do that would need hands- including processing food for the old man in the front seat to eat. 

What seem like inconsistencies in the story early on, quickly become important clues into what is happening.

This is a beautifully written and surprising little novella. You can almost feel the heat of the desert baking off the pages.

There's tragedy and comedy, and some hugely surprising plot turns. To say much more would be pointless as I think this is a book you need to go into pretty much blind.

If you can get hold of a copy, I highly recommend it.

Number 27- Blood On Snow- Jo Nesbo

         

A quick cheat read, and my first Jo Nesbo book.

Olav is a contract killer for a local crime lord- your classic killer with a conscience. He's contracted to kill his boss's wife because she's having an affair. However, he goes against those orders when he falls for her himself, and soon finds himself on the run with her, trying to survive the attentions of his now ex-boss and protect his new lover.

Although it sounds a bit cliched (and admittedly it is), this is an exciting and twist filled little thriller.

I really liked the characters, who rose above the stereotypes.  Nesbo's prose style (Neil Smith the translator's prose style) is classy and easily readable.

I'm normally good at seeing plot twists, but missed them in this book, which has to be a compliment.  The misdirection was performed admirably.

It packs a lot of action into its 180 pages. I am looking forward to my first full length Nesbo novel.

Number 26- We Are Always Tender With Our Dead- Eric LaRocca

 

Last year I read his short collection Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and dropped hints to all friends and family to buy me LaRocca books for Christmas, and they did.  this is one of them.

Eric gives good title on most of his books, and this is no exception. This is part one of a new trilogy set in the town of Burnt Sparrow.

Even by the standards of horror towns, Burnt Sparrow is a strange place. It's layered with strange rituals and traditions, not many of which are explained, they just add to the feeling of desperate unease that soaks through the pages of this book.

Rupert Cromwell has lived all 17 years of his life in Burnt Sparrow. When a tragedy strikes in the town leaving dozens of corpses in the streets, Rupert's father takes on the job of taking care of the bodies, and he drags Rupert along for the gruesome task as well.

Meanwhile, the perpetrators are captured and the town elders are persuaded into a cruel and unusual method of punishment.

The supernatural elements in the story are as unexplained as the traditions of the town. There are no easy explanations to be found here.  We need to take this on trust and it's a journey I'm all in for continuing.

There is some very shocking content in this book, but none of it ever feels unnecessary. This might be his best book that I've read so far and I can't wait for the next installment. 

With 30 pages to go I had no idea where he was going to go to find an ending, and I have to say there is no way I would possibly have guessed at it. It's an almost perfect ending to a volume 1 of a trilogy.  It closes off enough plotlines to feel like the end of the book, and leaves enough open that I need to know NOW what happens next.

This was a concentrated exercise in strangeness, unpleasantness and atmosphere. It's certainly a book that has lingered since I finished it last week and I think it's going to stick in my head for some time more.

Number 25- Feeding Time- Adam Biles

 

My first exposure to Adam Biles was the rather brilliant Beasts of England, a modern day version/update/sequel of/to George Orwell's Animal Farm. That is still one of my favourite books of the past several years.

This is his debut novel- also available from Galley Beggar Press. It's definitely one of the Press's first releases too, considering how short the list of names of the GBP buddies is at the end of the book.

I've been meaning to read this since I read Beasts of England. Indeed I bought it immediately after finishing that book. Has it been worth the wait?

This one is set more in the real world and is about a revolution in an absolutely horrific old folks home.

Dot is a new resident. She's just about given up on living since her husband contracted dementia and she could no longer look after him. Ruggles is convinced he's a wartime hero from the Boy's Own Adventure books he reads constantly. The other residents are in varying stages of waiting for death. The entire staff are either incompetent, insane, sadistic, or all three. 

This is not a nice place and, as you might have guessed, and, if it was real, would be closed in a week. That's probably one of the biggest issues with this book. despite being set in the real world, the setting is unrealistically grim. There's a line in there about it being somehow exempt from inspection to cover that, but it doesn't really hold water.

This was my choice this month for my book group, and it did not go down well in the slightest, with only me and one other finishing it. The fact that I'm the youngest in that group by at least a decade may have something to do with it considering the subject matter.

Things get very gruesome in places, and there are a few extremely graphic sexual scenes. The writing is excellent throughout. but the story is not a pleasant one and doesn't offer much hope at any point. Ruggles's sections are written in the style of the old style Boy's Own Adventures and don't always reference the real world story, leaving the reader to infer what's actually happening. In short, this is a book that requires effort to read and understand, and you need the constitution of a concrete elephant to digest some of the detail.

I enjoyed it throughout, but even for me this is a one and done. I graded it 7/10 at the book group, and I think that's fair.  Everyone else there scored it 2 or 3.  Whoops.

Number 24- A Matter of Death and Life- Andrey Kurkov

 

Another cheat read to get the numbers up, and more proof that short books can be just as satisfying as epic volumes spanning thousands of pages.

The second book in a row starting with a suicidal man deciding to end it all.  This time, however, our narrator decides to go for something dramatic, and to ensure people remember him.  He hires a hit-man to murder him.

Unfortunately, he soon decides that he actually wants to live. This leaves him with a predicament since the contract killer is on his trail.

This didn't take any of the narrative paths I thought it would from the plot description, and I loved it for feeling so original despite being over 30 years old.

George Bird's translation from the Russian reads very nicely. There's a lovely sense of black humour running through the narrative along with some real tension in places.

This is my second Kurkov novel and I will be buying more. I noticed in the By the Same Author bit that there is a sequel to Death And The Penguin, and that is now high up on my to be bought list.

 

Number 23- Coup De Grace - Sofia Ajram

 

A cheat read to catch up after taking 2 weeks to read Catch 22. 

This was my first Ajram book and probably wont be my last.

Vick is a depressed man who has decided to end it all by drowning himself.  However, when he gets off the metro train, he finds he's not in the station he expected but a cavernous labyrinthine station with no exits.

I really loved this book and tore trough it in one day.  I felt for poor Vick and his increasingly strange predicament. 

The prose definitely reminded me of Eric LaRocca and Wretch that I read earlier this year. However, there is a truly original switch up in narrative style with about 40 pages to go that caught me completely by surprise and raised this book to another level completely.

The sequence in the elevator is one of the weirdest things I've read this year so far. 

I recommend this unreservedly.

Number 22- Catch 22- Joseph Heller

 

Continuing my occasional theme of matching the number to the book, here we are with one of the most famous books ever written.

Not many books introduce entire new phrases to the language, but this one obviously did.

Yossarian is a cowardly bombardier in WWII, and the book basically follows his misadventures over the course of a year as he tries to avoid flying any more missions.

It's packed full of odd characters and violence. 

It's frequently laugh out loud funny, but I struggled to get through it. It felt like I was being shouted at the whole time I was reading it and I could rarely manage long sessions reading it without feeling mentally drained.  Despite that I was actually enjoying it almost the whole time.

It's very much a product of its time.  The humour is occasionally extremely rapey and there's not a single sympathetic character in the book except for possibly Major Major Major Major who does the sensible thing and avoids contact with everyone as much as possible.

I'm glad I read it, but I do think it's a one and done, and I'm not really tempted to read the sequel.

Number 21- Reality Check- Dave McReery

 

The self publishing world is a bit of a crap shoot.  For every Adam Nevill with his beautifully produced carefully packaged work, you get 100 books like this which I wouldn't touch with a bargepole and refuse to post a cover like that on this page.

This one here falls somewhere in the middle.

It's clearly been edited nicely, it looks generic but work has clearly gone into it.

Some years after World War Three decimated the planet and all countries decided to work together, Ryan is a sim racer, he takes part in remote motorcycle races via virtual links. He's recruited by the military when a threat from beyond the stars is identified.  Can he tame his reckless nature to become a valuable tool in the fight against the alien invaders?

Of course he can.

This is decently written, but is as generic as that cover. Take a bit of Enders Game, a bit of Starship Troopers, a bit of Star wars, a bit of Trek and stir it all together and you'd get something like this.

It's not a bad book by any stretch.  It just doesn't do anything special with the very familiar ingredients.

Dave (the writer) is a nice guy though. This was his first novel and it's an achievement to put out something this readable. The rest of the book group I read this with were all won over by it, whether or not they were sci-fi fans. 

Number 20- Rose/House- Arkady Martine

 

Another cheat read for me to get my numbers up by the end of March (I finished this last week but life has been distracting me from doing the write ups).

I'd never heard of Arkady Martine before, this just sounded interesting, and it's short.

As per that Guardian quote, this is a smart mix of science fiction, gothic horror and crime.

Rose House is a house haunted by it's almost omniscient AI. Only the original architect Basit Deniau and Dr Selene Gisil, the woman he named in his will to inherit the house when he died a year ago, can enter the house.

Detective Maritza Smith is notified that there is a dead body in Rose House, probably murdered. How can she gain access, and can she solve the crime? 

This is an entertaining slice of fiction, a new take on the locked door mystery. In it's short number of pages it manages to pack in an awful lot of good ideas, all well executed. There are some genuinely creepy ideas, and even if the end payoff isn't the best, the trip to get there was satisfying enough that I don't really care.

Martine's writing is a real pleasure to read, stylised but still easily readable. The characters are believable and act as you would expect them to. The plot is convoluted but makes overall sense. I thought the AI was plausible enough to be quite disturbing.

I'd give this an easy 7/10. Recommended if you're looking for a quick read with a bit of bite.

Number 19- Engines Beneath Us- Malcolm Devlin

 

Another cheat read to get my numbers up last month. 

I bought this for two reasons, the length, and that intriguing cover. And the plot sounded offbeat enough to be interesting. Alright, that's three reasons.

I'd never heard of Devlin before, but I will be checking out to see if he has anything else I can get my grubby paws on.

This is how you do a story that's mysterious, and doesn't explain everything without making it feel like you have no idea what's happening (looking at you Murakami and Armfeld).

Rob is a boy living in The Crescent, a suburb of an unnamed city. The Crescent is where the people who work at the City Works live. They're not liked much outside of the Crescent for reasons that aren't stated, but we can guess at by the end of this short book.

The engines thrumming beneath the houses have been the soundtrack to Rob's entire life. When a new boy, Lee, moves onto the Crescent, an outsider in this strange close knit community, Rob starts to discover how odd his life has always been whether he knew it or not.

One of he things this succeeds amazingly well in is that it reverses the usual role of the outsider coming in to a strange subculture/society.  normally the outsider becomes the stand in for the audience and has everything explained to them. In this, Lee basically shows Rob how the world normally is and provides the catalyst for the story rather than the usual almost passive observer.

Devlin's prose is polished, spare and evocative. At no point in this book did it ever feel like Devlin couldn't answer the questions that abound in the story. He is in complete control of his narrative and revealing subtle glimpses into his world. I loved this unreservedly and read it in just two hours or so.

well worth seeking out a copy.

Number 18- The Cutting Season- M W Craven

 

These quick reads books are a bit of a lottery. This is my first taste of an MW Craven book and I'm not convinced I want to read another.

This opens with a detective named Poe strung up on a hook in a meat packing warehouse waiting for a serial killer to arrive. We then flash back to the events leading up to his predicament.

Although I did kind of enjoy the story, I have a lot of issues with this book.

The style of writing is very very basic. That seems to be a common factor in these Reading Agency quick read books. It wouldn't kill the editors to allow some style in the wring.

The characters in this are drawn with very very broad strokes.  They're complete caricatures. Poe is your good cop who can't stick to the rules, permanently at odds with his superior officers.

His assistant in crimefighting, the civilian Tilly Bradshaw is an autistic genius to a ridiculous degree. You might as well say she's a magician, the number of impossible things she does that are just explained away as "she's a computer genius". She can do literally anything with computers, it takes her 4 seconds to open a complete stranger's laptop, she has no special equipment to do this, she's just a genius. It takes me 10 seconds to log in to my laptop and I know the password. It really does take the mickey. The author has decided that computers can do absolutely anything and that she doesn't need to explain how in anything but the most surface level detail.

The gangsters have the most ridiculous nicknames. they're comically bad and make it very difficult to take them seriously as a threat to our intrepid inspector.

Despite all this, Craven manages to make an interesting story with a twist in the tale and overall I enjoyed the read, despite cringing through most of the pages. I am probably going to read something full length by Craven and hope that the issues in this book are not typical.