LISBETH SALANDER IS BACK!!!

The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”It’s always the wrong people who have the guilty conscience. Those who are really responsible for suffering in the world couldn’t care less. It’s the ones fighting for good who are consumed by remorse.”

David Lagercrantz, a novelist and journalist, was asked to assume responsibility for the continuation of a trilogy of novels that frankly took the publishing industry by storm. The books left readers stunned with the marvelous insanity of the writing. More importantly Stieg Larsson created a character who is forever immortalized as one of the greatest anti-heroes to ever step out of the pages of a book.

Lisbeth Salander

It doesn’t surprise me that Lagercrantz is a little afraid of her. Who isn’t? His fear might be reflected in the fact that she is a shadowy figure in the book until about halfway through when she answers a call from Mikael Blomkvist.

”Shut up and listen,” she said.

Ahhh, yes, that’s my girl.

She doesn’t look like much, just an androgynous girl? with piercings, tattoos, and strange hair. She is undersized, but bristles with attitude. The outward appearance is not just for show...it is bone deep. She is blessed/cursed with a photographic memory. She doesn’t have the patience or sympathy for stupidity. She has no time for social niceties. If you were her “friend,” you would see her only when she wanted to be seen. If you are involved with her sexually, you will find that you are not really “involved” with her at all.

But the sex...well...is by all accounts...fantastic.

If you are someone who gets aroused by beating up women or children, you better pray to all that is holy that Salander doesn’t find out who you are because you will find yourself with her boot on your throat wondering how this diminutive creature incapacitated you so quickly. You’ll want to hurt her, but she is capable of not only hurting you physically, but also taking your whole identity away from you.

Because...

she is also a hacker. A vengeful hacker, but also a prideful hacker. When she gets the chance to hack the National Security Agency in Washington, D.C., she goes through their system like buttered bread.

All hell breaks loose.

Lagercrantz might have underestimated just how much America would overreact to such a breach of security. In reality, Sweden might have found themselves invaded by Marines, tanks, and Apache helicopters as the Americans turned over every stone looking for someone with the hacker handle WASP.

For the first part of the book, Lagercrantz puts Mikael Blomkvist center stage. It would make sense that he identifies with him since they share a similar profession. Not that I mind spending time with Mikael. Blomkvist, if he were a real person, would give me hope for journalism. He is a person obsessed with the truth. Other journalists either revere him or hate him. He is a target for those that loath him. ”Your uncompromising attitude makes people feel pathetic. Your very existence reminds them just how much they’ve sold out, and the more you’re acclaimed, the punier they themselves appear. When it’s like that the only way they can fight back is by dragging you down.”

Millennium, the magazine he founded, is in trouble. They had to sell out a portion of their ownership to keep the publication afloat, but now those same corporate people who bought them to add some integrity to their own list of titles suddenly want to compromise the integrity of Millennium by adding more human interest material.

For me, now that I’m one of the owners of the publication I work for, the trials and tribulations of a magazine to keep up subscription levels hit home. Any soften of the economy turns subscription renewals into luxuries, not to mention all the competition from free publications online that also erode print subscriptions.

So Blomkvist is in a funk; more is going wrong than is going right. He is spending most of his time, even the time he is supposed to be sleeping, reading Elizabeth George novels one after another. I can relate to that for there is nothing like escaping into the pages of a good book when life becomes TOO BORING, TOO DEPRESSING, TOO REAL.

A call from Frans Balder finally gets Mikael reinvigorated. Balder is a leading expert on Artificial General Intelligence or ”Something with the intelligence of a human being, but the speed and precision of a computer.”

The plot explodes.

It doesn’t take long for Salander and Blomkvist to realize they are working the same problem from different ends of the stick. With her behind the scenes, beyond the law approach to finding out the truth and his unflinching, uncompromising need to expose hypocrisy, the duo form a team that scares everyone from criminal elements, to large corporations, to governments. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between those elements.

There is techno jargon, but Lagercrantz does a great job of explaining everything. He also does a fantastic job talking about autism and savant tendencies in socially compromised children. I thought it was cool that an autistic child becomes an important plotting device. Lagercrantz did not have access to the notes left by Stieg Larsson for continuing the story. This probably was more of a blessing than a curse. Larsson’s, long time girlfriend ( that term seems so out dating and doesn’t quite explain the situation), has been in a legal battle to obtain ownership or rights to Larsson’s unpublished works. It seems the Swedes, so advanced in so many ways, might be lagging behind in the common law aspect of inheritance. I believe that Lagercrantz by using the first three novels as his only source documentation kept himself from being hampered by Larsson in making this novel his own creation.

I read this book in two days. I thought the plot was great. I thought the writing was very good, even if it did lack some of the flair that was such a Larsson trademark. It is hard to wear a dead man’s suit, but I have to say Lagercrantz, even if the jacket was too big in the shoulders or too short in the arms, still managed to make me believe that even as he left the funeral he was leading me back to a new beginning and creating a new life for characters that were relegated to retirement much too early.

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Strangers by Michaelbrent Collings
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To unwittingly become a part of this deadly game, you must have secrets, things that can never be known, something that can destroy your life and there's only one chance for redemption, you must confess.

A family suffering the loss of a son, drift through life growing further apart by the day, come the anniversary they attempt some semblance of normality, a stab at family interaction, with a simple meal and some TV. It can't repair that which has crumbled over time but their tainted lives are about to take a shocking plunge into sheer panic.

Someone's watching them.

They wake in the morning, somethings not right, someone's been in their home. They can't get out, doors won't open, Windows are barred, there's no way out. The nightmare has begun.

The first chapter is a crime scene, a sickening crime scene and there's no shortage of police officers waving goodbye to their lunch. This gives a mere taste of the stories assailant and he remains very much on the periphery, orchestrating events. What makes this a truly chilling experience is what happens with our family, two adults, two teenagers and their secrets slowly revealed.

It shows that you can never really know someone, not fully, not even those closest to you, especially those closest to you, your partner and even your children. The walls we erect to hide what must never come out and an antagonist who knows it all, everyfuckingthing.

This is a totally gripping psychological horror, you just can't put it down or stop listening in my case and I've never, ever, bitten my nails before. You drill it into your kids not to talk to strangers, yet you're never that vigilant as an adult, nothing can happen in your own home, well think again.

If you fancy immersing yourself in a truly terrifying story that layers so many shocks and stunning twists then you won't go far wrong with Strangers by Michaelbrent Collings. I've had a number of this authors work waiting to be read and my thanks to those who recommended it, I'll definitely be reading more from MbC.

Highly recommended.

A 4.5* rating

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People Are Strange by James Newman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

People are Strange is a short story collection by James Newman and its like Jeff Strand says in the foreword, this ain't the James Newman who wrote Midnight Rain, this is the James Newman who sits in a dark corner, giggling psychotically as he pens deviant horror filled tales.

The first story is a bit of a mouthful,The Honest-To-God True Story of Earl P. and a Bug Called Abraham Lincoln, Earl woke and 'stuck a hand down his boxers and gave his balls the ole’ first-thing-in-the-morning scratch as he watched the thing buzzing about above him' . Starts to become annoying, as all flies do but when it lands on his nipple and greets him with a good morning, it's safe to say today is gonna be a different kind of day. Talking to a fly called Abe and visiting his landlord with a gun are on the menu for today and Earl has definitely not been taking his pills.

The Good, the Bad, and the Severely Maladjusted is a naughty little Cowboy and Indian story with a bit of a horrific twist, John Henry Mason prides himself in never having lost a fight and when he gets jumped by an Indian, there's no way he's getting scalped.

Your Cold Black Heart is a deliciously murderous piece of flash fiction and Dirty Black Summer is a tale of secrets going back to the Nazi death camps when young Billy explores his Grandmother's attic. Secrets are dangerous for all concerned.
'His emotions seemed to hover over him in a thick black cloud, contradicting one another, conflicting with the love he had felt for his late grandfather'.

Bless This Meal, O Lord is another piece of flash fiction that quickly explores how to deal with troublesome offspring. Suffer the Children is a diary style story of a woman who tells of her love for her husband Frank and of his obsession with donating his wages to sponsor a child from Ethiopia.

Always Digging is another piece of flash fiction about, well, digging and burying. And Keeping Up With The Joneses is a bit of a precursor to the excellent story Animosity about normal people. People we see every day. People who are sometimes capable of terrible things.

A Town Called Hatred is a twisted place, a warped little town full of freaks, full of psychos and a great place to settle down, maybe start a family. Merrick is a serial killer with a body in the trunk, he drives past Hatred and the place beckons, calls to him and its a place he'll fit right in.

Next up is Holy Rollers and a visit from two religious nutjobs is just what you need as you're about to leave for work.
'He cocked the hammer then, said softly but firmly, “Perhaps I should rephrase the question, Mr. Morris. You will invite my brother and I inside… and you will listen as we share the Word of God with you.”
Now this is the word of God like you've heard before, violently accompanied by a nipple sliced off and thoughts purely of ‘fuck me’ that was heavy.

People Are Strange is a new release on kindle and 94 pages of twisted visions from the dark mind of an individual who needs help, help to get more of this stuff down on paper and released to all the little bunnies like yours truly who love this kind of horror. Top marks for James Newman.

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The Cold Dish

The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two years ago, four boys were put on trial for raping a Cheyenne girl. When one of them winds up dead, sheriff Walt Longmire finds himself in the middle of murder investigation. Plenty of people had cause for wanting Cody Prichard dead but who had the guts to do the deed? And are his three compadres next on the hit list?

In my never-ending quest to sample what series crime fiction has to offer, I decided to give The Cold Dish a try. After all, A&E wouldn't make a crime series about a dud, would they?

The setting sets the Cold Dish apart from most crime fiction on the racks. A sleepy Wyoming town next to an Indian reservation is a far crime from most metropolitan cesspools. Walt Longmire isn't a super cop by any means. He's out of his depth and he knows it. His feelings about his daughter, his deceased wife, and Vonna, the woman he's recently taken a shine to, make him seem human and vulnerable.

The supporting cast is also interesting, although I thought some of the Native American portrayals might be leaning toward stereotypes. I liked the backstory and I loved that I had no idea who the murderer was until Walt did.

And now here's the stuff I wasn't crazy about. This very much felt like a first novel, particularly in the first half. Also, the author overused pronouns and sometimes it was hard to figure out which "he" or "she" he was talking about. The pace also dragged. For the first 60% of the book, I thought it was so average that I couldn't pick it out of a police lineup.

The last hundred pages was the saving grace of the book. The story got the kick in the ass it needed and I wound up digging it quite a bit by the end.

All things considered, I'm awarding this a 3.5. It's good and I want to read more about Longmire but there are other detectives in line ahead of him.

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A History of Scientology

Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While I lived in Hollywood for a few years I would see Scientology buildings around town and I would wonder what went on inside. It was all very secretive. It still is, but due to books like this and, even more so, the internet the veil has been lifted. Which has left me wondering, if the incredible allegations are made against the Church of Scientology are true, why would humans allow others to do such things to them?

I read this in part to learn more about L. Ron Hubbard. I guess I could've just Wiki-ed him, but this book provided much more info. He reminds me of a Teddy Roosevelt character type. A brash go-getter, who could boast some impressive deeds. But where Teddy turned his wild energies and imagination toward public service, Hubbard turned his towards science fiction writing. That in and of itself isn't a bad thing, unless you let your imagination carry you away. Hubbard's mad desire for macho-man adventure so infused his ego as to warp his stories into tall tales of personal achievement that he himself started to believe. Again, that's no big deal, until you start getting others to believe you, others who then follow you and give you all their money.

When Hubbard passed on, the Church passed into even more controlling, determined, single-minded hands, the hands of David Miscavige, a diminutive, sickly youth who grew into a pint-sized dictator. Miscavige credits Hubbard's teachings for curing him of his youthful ailments and frailty. Such miracles will tend to instill an unbreakable devotion in a youthful, impressionable mind. If you isolate that mind early enough, it will forever believe the legend. It will progress no further, learn nothing new, for it has seen the light. If that mind belongs to a raging A-type personality, it will attempt to shove that light down others' throats.

Anywho, that's enough of that nonsense. I won't detail the entire history. That's what books like this are for.

Many reviews have called Inside Scientology boring. Granted, it is quite textbooky, but I feel like those people were looking for something more People-magazine-salacious with cover-to-cover celebrity stories. That's not what you get here. Famous names are dropped. Whole parts of the books are devoted to the topic of celebrities within Scientology, but this is more history than anything. Having said that, there's plenty on Tom Cruise, as you'd expect.

All the while I was reading, I kept in mind that this is one book and one person's take on the topic, so I'm willing to reserve complete judgement. However, Reitman sources a lot of people, mostly Church "defectors", who spent years, even decades within the organization. There are so many of them that it makes you doubt that they're all lying ax-grinders.

Though mostly negative, Inside Scientology does include a few positives in the Church's favor, such as the charity work they've done during natural disasters. Reitman interviews a Scientologist teenager who grew up in the organization and remains there, and the girl comes off as one of the most well-adjusted people in the whole book. And taking into account that it is such a large, many faceted organization spanning the globe with different divisions, departments, whatever you want to call them, so surely one individual's experience will differ from another. No doubt some have derived positives from their association with the Church of Scientology. There, that's my charitable act for the day.


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Rubble and the Wreckage

Rodd Clark
Driven Press
Reviewed by Nancy
3 out of 5 stars

Summary

Gabriel Church knows you can’t take a life without first understanding just how feeble life is, how tentative and weak it stands alone. If you desire murder, you hold a life in your hand. Whether you release it to grant life or grip tighter to end it, it is at your command and discretion.

Gabriel is a serial killer with a story he wants told.

Christian Maxwell studied abnormal psychology in college but chose instead to focus on a career in writing. His background comes in handy when he thinks of writing about a serial killer. He can’t think of anyone more qualified to write the story of Gabriel Lee Church, and do so in the murderer’s own words. It’s been done before, but never with a killer who has yet to be captured or convicted.

There was never anything more than a gentleman’s understanding between the two men that Christian would record Gabriel’s life story. The killer did not ask for his complicity in any crimes, nor did he ever ask for his silence. Christian’s interest in the man, though, is fast becoming something more than academic. When the writer and his subject become unexpected friends and then lovers, the question remains: What is Gabriel’s endgame . . . and why does he want his story told?

My Review

Can a man who has killed 40 people without a shred of remorse fall in love?

Can the socially awkward writer of his story separate his growing feelings for the killer from his ghastly deeds?

Christian Maxwell is a very smart guy. He’s college educated, has a way with words, and has exceptional research skills. By finding patterns in random killings around the country, he comes to the conclusion that they are the work of one man.

Gabriel Church is not well educated, but he is very shrewd, confident and charming. He is adept at reading emotions and body language, skilled at persuading people to his way of thinking, pursues his goals with ruthless determination, and so far, has eluded capture.

When the two men meet at a coffee shop and begin the work of recording Gabriel’s life and crimes, they are gradually changed in unexpected ways.

While I enjoyed the premise of this novel, the execution failed in many ways. Very little dialogue and lots of internal monologue really slowed down the story for me, causing me to abandon the book for an entire week. I enjoyed being privy to Christian’s and Gabriel’s thoughts and learning their history. I just wished the author had a better way of including their backstory while building dialogue and suspense to increase the pace of the story and make it more interesting for the reader. Grammatical errors, spelling errors, repetitive sentences, and awkward phrases abound. I believe this novel could have been an exceptional one if it had been fine-tuned by a good editor.

Nevertheless, I do not regret reading this. The story captured my interest and ended conclusively and plausibly, with no frustrating cliffhangers, or dangling loose ends. I am not convinced that Gabriel Church can change, but I am curious to see how his character develops and whether his story will be written.

Lords of the Sith

Lords of the Sith: Star Wars by Paul S. Kemp
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Twi'lek Freedom Fighters Cham Syndulla, Isval, and the Free Ryloth movement find themselves with an opportunity too rare to pass up on...the chance to kill The Emperor and Darth Vader. The leaders of the Empire are traveling together to Ryloth, the home of the Free Ryloth movement. Cham will use every resource he has to strike the head from the Empire and watch the body die so Ryloth can be free once more. The resistances ambush leaves The Emperor and Darth Vader stranded in the forests of the planet while being hunted by the planets apex predators and the resistance. Despite all the loss of imperial life and being stranded on the planets surface, The Emperor's unconcerned gaze and half smile makes it appear as though all is going according to his plan.

Lords of the Sith was easily one of the best Star Wars books I've read. Paul S. Kemp delves deeply into the mind and abilities of Darth Vader letting us see his anger fueled into the force in different and deadly ways. Kemp writes some of the most awe inspiring moments I've read on Darth Vader's abilities.

The sound of a man on a respirator never feels quite as terrifying as when Darth Vader is chasing down protagonists as the grim reaper of the Empire. Darth Vader is the bogeyman, the scary story at the campfire, and the symbol of danger to every species in the galaxy. He is the physical manifestation of the force in a universe where the Jedi are practically extinct. The story constantly reinforces that few have seen a force practitioner by making statements such as he's not a man and he does things no one should be able to do.

Like every individual who's lived through a moment of terror those that have seen Vader fight have nightmares about it all throughout the novel. Who wouldn't though? If a man in all black choked me with an invisible hand that I can't fight against then I'd have nightmares too. One difference between me and the characters in the book is if I lived through that I'm running home sitting in the shower fully clothed hugging my knees with the water soaking me. I would NOT be chasing after the man with magical powers!

The scariest part of this is the reinforcement that regardless of how scary and deadly Vader is his master aka Emperor Palpatine aka Darth Sidious aka THE Lord of the Sith is even more dangerous. I've seen all the movies, Palpatine was not young when Luke and Leia finally became a bump in their mother's stomach. The people of the universe think he's a helpless old man, but this book, The Revenge of the Sith, and The Return of the Jedi clearly proved otherwise. It was interesting to see that The Emperor purposely makes people believe he's helpless likely so if anyone made it past Vader they'd be electrified with force lightning before they knew what was happening. Palpatine sits, smiles, cackles, and depresses the poor people and beasts that just want to kill him.

I feel for the Free Ryloth movement because knowing they're never mentioned in the movies means things can't go well for them. Cham is a wise leader and he makes the most of his opportunity. It would be interesting to see if any of the Free Ryloth movement members appear in any future expanded universe books.

I was surprised and slightly disappointed to learn that The Clone Wars cartoon show is canon. Darth Vader thinks of Ashoka and her nickname Snips. The cartoon show always seemed a bit too kiddy to be part of the canon, but it clearly must be.

My only actual complaint against the book is I wanted to see a lot more from Darth Vader's point of view and I wanted to see from Palpatine's point of view. Cham, Isval, Belkor, and Mors all were strong point of view characters in a memorable story, but I really just wanted to be in the heads of the Lords of the Sith.

Lords of the Sith was a fun Star Wars adventure in the new expanded universe.

4 out of 5 stars

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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The Autumn Republic

The Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Autumn Republic starts shortly after the end of The Crimson Campaign. Field Marshall Tamas has returned to Adro to find Brudanian Forces under the command of Lord Claremonte have taken control of the city.

The war with the Kez continues on, but Adro's forces are divided.

Taniel and Ka-poel are in hiding all the while being hunted by brigades of his treacherous country men.

The Autumn Republic is a great yet at times sad conclusion to the Powder Mage trilogy. All the familiar elements of the series return with magic, mystery, betrayal, shock, family, and of course gods. The finale does not disappoint.

While most books start out slowly, The Autumn Republic beings in a sprint. Battles rage in the first few chapters and all throughout the book as Brian McClellan packed this one full of action. I had the chills more than once through some of the battle scenes.

I really enjoyed seeing the depth of many of the characters in this one particularly Tamas, Taniel, and Nila.

Tamas had the feel all throughout the book that he'd grown tired of all the fighting and betrayal. He shares a ton of sentimental scenes with Taniel, Bo, and Vlora throughout which just seemed right since they are all his kids. Tamas still had his edge, but he's really showing his kindness and caring more than ever before.

Taniel shows plainly that he's grown up even at the beginning of The Autumn Republic. Gone is the pompous powder mage replaced by a young man who cares deeply for those he loves and he even shows respect for others too.

Nila was really a shining star in this one. The newly minted privileged shows resolve far beyond what a young woman with zero training in war or fighting should have. Over and over she steps up in this one to protect herself and others. Prior to this one Nila's chapter seemed somewhat unimportant, but she was an essential part of the team in The Autumn Republic. Her interactions with Bo were also some of my favorite scenes.

The big reveal and conclusion in The Autumn Republic was unreal. Brian McClellan saved some massive twists that I hadn't considered for a moment. I love when I'm pleasantly surprised by any stories twists and McClellan had some great ones. The conclusion left me saddened and stunned, but McClellan captured the moment beautifully.

The only thing I didn't like was a certain plot point that I saw through instantly, but it really didn't effect my overall enjoyment of the book.

The Autumn Republic brilliantly caps the end of the Powder Mage trilogy. I'm looking forward to all of Brian McClellan's future works particularly his next Powder Mage trilogy which is already in the works.

5 out of 5 stars

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THE HOURS BY MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM

The Hours by Michael Cunningham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

”We throw our parties; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep--it’s as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we’ve very fortunate, by time itself.”

It’s about the hours right? Those few precious hours over a lifetime when we feel we have a chance to do something special, to prove that we can do something that will forever immortalize us as someone exceptional.

It was Charlotte who pressed this book upon me. We were at a party conducted by a Mrs. Clarissa Galloway.

“I hear you are on a reading binge.” She’d leaned in close, as she had a tendency to do with me. Her lips mere millimeters away from my ear. It made me shiver somewhere in the core of me.

When I was between assignments, which was all too frequent, I would read book after book; usually I would be in the middle of at least three at any one time. I was getting about four hours of sleep a night which right now was making me a cheap drunk. One martini was going to be more than enough.

“The Hours by Michael Cunningham, didn’t they make a film out of it with Kidman?”

She nodded. She leaned in close again. I often wondered if she knew what she did to me. “The book won a Pulitzer Prize. Catherine told me you just finished reading Mrs. Dalloway. This is a terrific follow-up.“

The sisters.

You couldn’t really be involved with one without being involved with the other. Catherine, my girlfriend, was writing a novel. It was brilliant in fact, but now was somewhat weighed down with its own brilliance. She was happy with the beginning and the ending, but the middle was not living up to the standards of the rest. Charlotte designed book covers for publishing companies. She had a gift for it, but frequently had to endure someone further up the chain asking for modifications, her masterpieces often becoming something more commercially appealing and soulless. When I was doing research on Virginia Woolf, before reading Mrs. Dalloway, I couldn’t help thinking of Catherine as Virginia and Charlotte as Vanessa.

”Vanessa laughs. Vanessa is firm of face, her skin a brilliant, scalded pink. Although she is three years older, she looks younger than Virginia, and both of them know it. If Virginia has the austere, parched beauty of a Giotto fresco, Vanessa is more like a figure sculpted in rosy marble by a skilled but minor artist of the late Baroque. She is distinctly earthly and even decorative figure, all billows and scrolls….”

As usual, I wasn’t really sure why I was at this party. I thought with remorse of the lost pages of reading the party had already cost me. I could see the books strategically scattered around the room of the flat. A book by each of my favorite reading places. This party was bad for me, and if it was not good for me, it had to be an absolute torture for Catherine.

I looked past Charlotte’s large, attentive eyes and could see that Catherine was pale. Her complexion was always pale, but there were various shades of pale that would tell me exactly what was going on with her. She closed her eyes and took too long to open them. I could tell it was time to go.

I leaned in and kissed Charlotte’s ear, raising the stakes, and then muttered in the sea shell of her ear that I was going to take Catherine home. Charlotte always smelled so good, but I was never able to quite identify the scent, something old, something new. Somehow it would be breaking the rules of the game to ask her. I walked over to Catherine and put my arm around her and kissed her on the side of her mouth. She looked at me with surprise. I could see the slender flutes of her nose flutter as she took me in. Could it be that she could sense her sister’s scent even among the mingling fragrances of flowers that filled Mrs. Galloway’s party?

She put her slender, fluted fingers on my shoulder. “I can feel one coming on.”

“I’m here to take you home.”

”She can feel the headache creeping up the back of her neck. She stiffens. No, it’s the memory of the headache, it’s her fear of the headache, both of them so vivid as to be at least briefly indistinguishable from the onset of the headache itself.”

I went to see Robert the next day. I’d read most of The Hours last night. Charlotte had been right. It was the perfect followup to Mrs. Dalloway. Robert had been my friend almost my entire life or at least for the segment of my life that I still wished to claim. He’d had a good career on the stage, had mother issues of course, and had always been unapologetically gay. The young nurse from Hospice was taking a vial of blood from him when I arrived. There was something so intimate about blood letting. I averted my eyes as if I’d just caught her furtively giving him a hand job.

“I’m so weak. This is it, my friend.” His voice, the voice that had boomed out to theaters full of people, had been reduced to a whisper.

I patted his hand. He weakly grasped it. I left my fingers there surrounded by the parchment of his hand. “You’ve rallied before.” I’d meant to put exuberance into that sentence, but somehow it all went wrong. My voice cracked and tears sprang to my eyes.

“Oh, come on now. Tears now? You should have wept with joy when I looked like a young Marlon Brando. Not now, not over this decrepit body. If you were a true friend, you’d pick me up and hurl me out that window.”

I thought of Septimus from Mrs. Dalloway and Richard from The Hours. It was almost too much.

“Don’t say that.” My voice was still shaking. I freed my hand from his grasp to wipe my eyes. When I put my hand back on the bed, his hand was gone.

“Do you think six floors would be enough to kill me? God, what a tragedy if it only breaks my bones, and leaves me somehow alive with fresh sources of pain. I was thinking about it the other day. I wouldn’t want to fall on the concrete. I want to land on a car. I want to explode through the top like they show in the movies. You own a car, don’t you? Couldn’t you park it beneath my window?”

“You are hurting me, Robert.”

He sighed. Closing those magnificent blue eyes that had mesmerized women and men in equal numbers, “That is the last thing that I want to do to you, my friend.”

When I got back to the flat, they must not have heard me. Catherine was leaning over Charlotte. ”Virginia leaned forward and kisses Vanessa on the mouth. It is an innocent kiss, innocent enough, but just now,...it feels like the most delicious and forbidden of pleasures. Vanessa returns the kiss.” I wanted to wrap my arms around both of them and nudge them across the room to the bed. I wondered if Leonard Woolf had ever had such desires? They might have willingly went, but then what? By trying to hold them closer, I’d only lose them both.

I cleared my throat and hung up my jacket. When I turned around, they were both looking at me with clear, intelligent eyes. Two sisters, so different, but so much alike as to be indistinguishable when standing in the same space.

It was hard not to think about the big stone. ”She selects one roughly the size and shape of a pig’s skull. The one that took her down to the depths of the river. The one that would not let her escape the embrace of the water even if her natural desire for self-preservation had kicked in. The stone was too real to be denied.

Catherine had read Mrs. Dalloway and was now reading The Hours. She had needed a break from her own writing anyway. Reading sometimes gave her a fresh source of inspiration. I wasn’t sure about her reading either book, but both together could enhance her already acute suicidal tendencies. I’d seen her more than once raking a butter knife across her wrists as if testing how it would feel. I’d had the gas oven taken out and replaced it with an electric one.

I read her diary.

She wasn’t particularly careful with it. She left it out all the time, rarely tucking it back under the mattress on our bed. I don’t know if she trusted me not to read it or she, being a writer, always wanted an audience for her writing. ”Everything she sees feels as if it’s pinned to the day the way etherized butterflies are pinned to the board.” She was obviously feeling trapped. Like Leonard Woolf decided to do with Virginia, I arranged to take Catherine to the country for a month. She was being overstimulated in the city.

Robert threw himself out the window.

He asked the nurse to open the window to give him some air. The stubborn bastard crawled across the floor, pulled himself up the wall, and threw himself out the window. Though he would have preferred a Rolls Royce, he landed on a Mercedes.

Six floors, as it turned out, was enough.

Two days after we reached the country Catherine disappeared. As I walked the river, along with every other able body in the county, I kept thinking about a stone the size of a pig’s skull.

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Tenebris by Tim Curran
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

They don't call Route 50 'the loneliest road in America' for nothing, it's not a road you want to break down on, no phone signal and you could end up with the worst kind of sunshine break. Jim, Rita and Dinah are traveling down Route 50 when a shape swoops down on them from out of the blackness, first disbelief, then dismissal and then 'it's coming' . An intense feeling of impending doom.

'It was like being in a dark room and knowing, knowing someone was in there with you sharing the space. You could feel them but you could never really be sure where they were until they reached out and touched you.'

Then something hit the SUV, scraped along the roof with claws and Route 50 suddenly turns into the road to hell, and not due to Chris Rea singing. Panic stations, absolute terror and the vehicle flips of the road, Jim's friends are literally ripped from the vehicle by something just a little bit frightening.

Conspiracy theorists are us contact him and Jim is drawn, quite willingly back to the scene of the incident, where he really, really shouldn't go within a million miles of. It becomes an obsession that is never going to end well.

As monsters stories go this wasn't one of Tim Currans best efforts, I kinda rode with it but, well, it was a gentle ride not one fraught with unnerving danger or scares. As folklore myths go, it was just too easy to find. I felt that if I went down Route 50 in a tank wearing a blindfold with earplugs in, I'd still run into this nightmare monster. I mean if you stood there and felt a sudden draft followed by a stench of death, then yep, it's just flown over you. I wasn't really bothered with any of the characters, they never felt real and I didn't care whether any of them survived. In conclusion, it's well written as all Tim Curran's stuff is, some will love it, I didn't.

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