Ranger's Folly

Ranger's Folly by J.T. Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Northern Ranger Fadis is heading home from war. The war has ended, but the King's men haunt his steps insisting he is a deserter and a thief. Fadis just wants to live in peace, see his wife, and meet his son. Unfortunately the King will not allow any of it.

Ranger's Folly is aptly named. Fadis was sent to war before his wife gave birth and he hasn't met his son. She stopped writing while he was away and now he fears the worst. He was one of the few rangers to survive the war and he only has an elven bow to show for his trouble and years away. It wasn't explicitly stated, but it appears that the King is unnecessarily cruel as he has sent ravens placing a bounty on Fadis's head. It seems for the exception of being alive everything has gone wrong for Fadis.

Ranger's Folly was a good short story. While most people have never gone away for war many can relate to being treating unfairly for no particularly good reason and that's what has happened to Fadis. I'm interested in seeing what's next for Fadis.

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THE HYPNOTIST BY LARS KEPLER

The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”They’d thought he was dead when they found him among the other bodies in the terraced house. He’d lost a great deal of blood, gone into a state of shock, and hadn’t regained consciousness until seven hours later.

He was the only surviving witness.

Detective Joona Linna was certain that the boy would be able to provide valuable information, possibly even identify the killer

But if the other circumstances had not been so exceptional, it would never even have occurred to anyone to turn to a hypnotist.”



Erik Maria Bark has seen his career go up in flames. His relationship with his son is changing and not for the better. His relationship with his wife is on life support. To cope with all of this, he is taking too many “legally prescribed” drugs.

When Detective Joona Linna calls him and wants him to hypnotize the one remaining witness in the bloody carnage that happened at the Ek home, his first response is to say no, not just no, but an emphatic no. Josef is suffering from more cuts than can be counted and is floating in a coma. Linna needs to know two things: where is the older sister Evelyn, and who was the perpetrator? Bark made a promise that he would never hypnotise anyone ever again after one of his patients went berserk, blamed him for everything, and turned public opinion against him.

Hypnotists are seen in the same light as charlatans, clowns, illusionists,and parlor tricksters, so when something goes wrong, people are just confirmed in their natural suspicions of them in the first place.

The circumstances are dire, and as Joona Linna always says, he is a stubborn man. He convinces Erik to use his gifts to find out the truth.

But the truth is so insidious that even these hardened professionals are shaken.

”Josef had a particular smell about him, a smell of burning rage, of burning chemicals.”

What the hell is going on?

To add to the already freakish circumstances Benjamin, Erik and Simone’s son, is taken from their home. Simone enlists the aid of her retired police officer father, Kennet Strang, to help try and find him. Is this connected to the Josef Ek case or does this have something to do with a crazy patient from Erik’s past? ”The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.”---William Faulkner

I’m not going to tell you anymore because this is such a plot based book, but I will say, when I was down to the last 100 pages, I didn’t stop until I turned the last page moments before the grandfather clock chimed twelve times.

I think the biggest issue that readers have with this book is that it was so overhyped before it was released. There were all the comparisons to Stieg Larsson and how Lars Kepler was going to be the next biggest thing since the invention of Swedish meatballs. For certain readers, this backfires big time. By the time they read the book, they almost resent having to read it, and their reactions to the book are colored by those resentments. The worst thing you can do is tell someone, emphatically, that they must read a book. The blitz of ads was doing just that. It is the equivalent of assigning a book to be read in school.

The second thing is all the subterfuge over who Lars Kepler is. People were first pointing the finger at Henning Mankell, which in itself is quite the flattering comparison, but Mankell denied that it was he. Lars is in fact these people.



Aren’t they just adorable?

Lars Kepler is the pseudonym of Swedish husband and wife team Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril. The two Alex’s. Some readers start to get Milli Vanilli vibes. Ah yes, we remember those two front men who were faker than Facebook News. The Alex’s were both writers before they decided to team up to write mysteries, so I think we can safely set that speculation aside.

You might be curious about the origins of the pseudonym. Wikipedia kindly gave me that information. ”Lars is a homage to the Swedish crime fiction author Stieg Larsson as he inspired the duo to start writing crime fiction. The name Kepler comes from the German scientist Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), who solved one of his time’s greatest mysteries: it was his calculations of the planets’ orbits that paved the way for Newton’s theses about gravity.”

Oh no, not Stieg Larsson again! Being compared to Larsson is almost as big a curse as having your book compared to Harry Potter or the The Hunger Games.

*Sigh!* Don’t be manipulated by your own manipulating mind.

The staccato short chapters drove me bonkers until I adjusted, though other reviewers have said how much they like that writing style. It probably does pick up the pace of the reading, but I’m more of a Victorian reader who doesn’t mind nestling down into a chapter for twenty or forty pages or so. I do adore Nordic Noir, and this plot ticks all the boxes for hardboiled and grit. Detective Joona Linna kind of takes a backseat in this one, but I’m looking forward to seeing him move up to the front seat for the next book. He is annoyingly good at his job, which to me is also a nice nod to Kurt Wallander.

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A Gripping Tale of Escape

Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The story of a man escaping a prison camp would pique my interest at any time, but add the detail that it's a North Korean camp and I'm definitely interested. After all, North Korea's been in the news lately. Perhaps you've noticed.

Shin Dong-hyuk was born into a prison labor camp. It's totalitarian rules and draconian punishment was life to him. He barely knew his father and viewed his mother as competition for food. He was raised to snitch out his fellow prisoners to the guards. This included family. Spying and reporting on others was the only way to receive kind treatment at the prison. Working hard and never screwing up merely kept one from being beaten.

Thousands have fled the destitute country, but few have escaped from one of these prisons and successfully navigated their way into China and then South Korea, an especially difficult undertaking for a young man who knew next to nothing about the world beyond his prison walls. This is what made me hesitant to read Blaine Harden's Escape from Camp 14. How could this seemingly impossible tale be true? Then I heard that Shin had lied about certain details regarding his story and I thought, oh boy, here we go...

However, Harden did a good job in allaying my fears. It turns out Shin's lies did not change the details of his escape or the horror stories of his confinement. No, his lies were for self-preservation. He lied out of shame for the deaths he had caused as a boy who knew nothing of compassion.

This is a truly remarkable story and a nicely constructed book. It is compact and sticks mostly to the prison camp aspect of the situation in North Korea. Some pertinent recent history and political information is relayed in order to frame Shin's story, but this is not the book you are looking for if you seek out a well-rounded and deeply detailed account of...well...how the hell North Korea got so fucked up. I did come away with a better understanding, however, and it made me want to find out more.

One last thing before I finish up. This is a tough read. It's brutal. "Heart-wrenching" ain't the half of it. To put it into perspective, these camps are akin to the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet gulags, and they have been in operation since the 1950s. The prisoners within them are now mostly the children and grandchildren of those who fought for the South during the Korean War, because political prisoners of this nature are doomed to this life for three generations before the family is deemed to have paid the price of their transgressions. Only humans could create such a Hell.

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Zombie Boyz

T.J. Klune et al.
Wilde City Press
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

Board up the windows, push an old dresser against the door and load your shotgun. A zombie apocalypse is about to hit Wilde City, and if you want the best survival tips, six of Wilde City’s boys are here to help.

You’ll never want to exercise again as Eric Arvin and TJ Klune turn a gym full of hunks into a smorgasbord of terror in GHOUL’S GYM.

Gather your friends and fight for the man you love, as Ethan Stone and Daniel A Kaine turn Vegas into a zombie nightmare in SURVIVING SIN CITY.

And bring a date to dinner to celebrate Grumpy Grampy’s 90th birthday and introduce your family to your new zombie boyfriend in Geoffrey Knight and Ethan Day’s GUESS WHO’S COMING AT DINNER.

You’ll scream with terror and howl with laughter as Wilde City’s boys bring you our first undead anthology ZOMBIE BOYZ.

My Review

I was a huge fan of The Walking Dead. I’m not sure what happened in the last few seasons. While I am happy that Rick’s gang is no longer a passive victim of Negan’s menacing Saviors, I’ve become unhappy with the show’s direction. The episodes feel long and drawn out, with no surprises or forward momentum. There are far too many secondary characters that I’ve lost track of them, plot threads left dangling, and weak dialogues. Yet, I will continue to watch until the end. Despite their predictability, I enjoy zombie stories for their exploration of human behavior when society falls apart, the challenges of survival when vital supplies diminish and zombies multiply, and the violence and mindless action that allows one to escape from the world’s problems for a little while.

Zombie Boyz is a collection of three very different zombie tales:

Who’s Coming at Dinner ★★★★

Told from the perspective of geeky teenager, Chandler Cox, we get to meet his hunky jock boyfriend, Zane Addison, celebrate his grandma’s 90th birthday, and learn why eating hamburgers is bad for you. I love how this starts with a birthday party and ends with a birthday party. This is a lighthearted and very humorous zombie romance that focuses less on gore and more on family relationships, falling in love, coming out, and...coming. Chandler’s family was priceless.

Surviving Sin City ★★★

Though this was more of a classic zombie tale, strong characterization and blistering action scenes made it shine. Told in alternating perspectives by Kaleb and Cooper, we get to see how both their worlds gradually fall apart. They were so peevish and Cooper so fiercely independent that it took some time for them to grow on me. There was hot sex too. Fear not, dear readers, no zombies were involved.

Ghoul’s Gym ★★★★★

Uly and Jake are going through a little rough patch. Despite that, there is no question that after a year they are still deeply in love and have an agreement not to go to bed angry. While this is by far the most romantic story in this collection, there is plenty of gore, erotica and despair to go around. After meeting the Alphabet Twinks, you will never look at zombies the same way again. This exquisitely written story was a balm for my horror-loving and romantic soul and definitely a unique take on zombies!

Nighthawk

Nighthawk by David F. Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A serial killer is targeting Chicago's worst and most racist high profile citizens. Nighthawk contemplates if he should intervene.

Meanwhile Nighthawk protects Chicago from itself and those who intend to arm the people to murder one another.


First I want to say I'm absolutely amazed Marvel comics published this volume of Nighthawk at all and I'm not surprised it only lasted 6 issues. David F. Walker pulled no punches and stepped deeply into the problems facing Chicago. He covers police brutality,

illegal weapons,

gun violence,

gangs, and the possibility that perhaps it's simply best to let Chicago burn.

The undertaking of discussing these massive issues in a comic book is immense yet all sides are shown. The issue shows good and bad people in all walks of life along with those with questionable actions like Nighthawk himself.

This version of Nighthawk as always reminds me of a deadly version of Batman. In this comic I felt as though he was clearly a mixture of Batman and the Punisher. Nighthawk like Batman has a command center, someone to assist him from afar, and a slew of expensive high tech gadgets. He's like Punisher in that when he has the opportunity to end a problem he ends it instantly rather than providing it an opportunity to strike again.

It was interesting to see Nighthawk deliberate over how to handle the serial killer taking out Chicago's worst. Nighthawk seemed a wee bit hypocritical in that he went after the serial killer even though he himself killed similar people for similar reasons. I guess the difference is that Nighthawk never went out of his way to kill someone, he only killed those trying to kill him first.

Nighthawk is not for the faint of heart, but it's a good volume for those who enjoy real life political problems in a comic book world.

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GUNPOWDER MOON BY DAVID PEDREIRA

Gunpowder Moon by David Pedreira
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

”Life is so tenuous on Luna’s desiccated expanse that staying alive is an endeavor practiced with almost religious fervor. No one ever deserts another man on the Moon. Race, creed, religion, flag---none of that crap matters. Dechert would risk his life for any Chinese digger in distress, as long as they were within range. And he knew they would do the same for him.

At least until what happened to Cole.”


The Moon---”Earth’s naked shadow.”

When survival is paramount, we are drawn together in the interest of mutual survival. We forget all the things that divide us. It is only when we have the luxury of existing at a certain level of comfort that we start to figure out ways to separate ourselves. There are plenty of natural resources for everyone on the moon. There are several countries participating in mining the moon, but the two elephants are the Chinese and the Americans; all the nations of the world have a stake in extracting enough Helium-3 to keep the lights on back on Earth.

And the Earth is still in recovery from an apocalyptic event.

”Asteroid collisions you can prepare for, carbon emissions you can legislate against, but who expected a subsea methane eruption would plunge us back into the Dark Ages for more than a decade?”

As if I don’t have enough things to worry about, now I have to add methane eruption to the list?

Caden Dechert is the chief of the U.S. mining operation on the edge of the Sea of Serenity. He is a veteran of wars in the Middle East and is reminded of his tour of duty with every breath he takes. ”The gunpowder smell of moondust filled his nostrils.”

Dechert has a good relationship with his counterpart over on the Chinese side of the moon. They have similar military backgrounds and both have no illusions about the simmering politics on Earth that could spill out into the universe, even to the moon. They have enough to worry about keeping some catastrophic event from wiping out their stations, such as solar flares or something as seemingly mundane as moondust crippling their power supply.

They don’t have time for murder.

But murder is what they got.

When that hatch explodes and kills the first surfer dude on the moon, the ramifications go well beyond just the extinguishing of a life. Dechert has dealt with death his entire adult life, but never has he had a death mean so much. ”The dead settle in our mind like cooling embers. After a time they diminish, snuffed out by the immediate, and then a puff of memory rekindles them and for a moment they are hot and near once again.”


A boot print is one of the few clues.

That explosion that blew that hatch on the moon is the equivalent of the bullet that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. The tinder is so dry that it only takes a spark to light a conflagration that could burn up not only all the progress Earth has made recovering from the methane eruption, but could level us back to the Stone Age.

Dechert has experienced being in the middle of a war, but he has never been at the flashpoint of the beginning of a war.

Was it the Chinese?

Doesn’t make sense.

Then who was it?

Before everyone dies on the moon, maybe we should take a moment to look at the sky.”How to explain the Moon’s thunderous star field to the uninitiated? It would be like describing the yellows and reds of Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows to a blind man.” Maybe we all need to look at the sky more often and clear our minds of the deluge of testosterone driven patriotism. Dechert’s loyalties, never in question before, are wavering as he tries to sift through the evidence and find a solution before there is no turning back.

The American marines arrive. The Chinese equivalent of super troopers arrive. Weapons that have never been allowed on the moon are now bristling on every person’s body. Who killed Cold Benson is becoming irrelevant to everyone, except Dechert. How many times does a war start and, within a short amount of time, everyone forgets how it ever started? Why are we fighting? Ask the Hatfields and the McCoys why they hate each other. It is like we are all just waiting for a reason to give in to our most primordial instincts.

The smell of fear on the moon is mingling with the acrid stench of gunpowder, like lovers reunited over the expanse of history.


The Sea of Serenity is not so serene after murder comes to visit.

What I really enjoy about this book is how real it feels. This isn’t some science-fiction universe that exists in some future that is beyond our own scope. This future is tomorrow or next year or certainly within our life spans. President John F. Kennedy asked us to go to the moon; now all someone has to do is ask us to go to the moon and stay. I was very aware of the constant danger of eminent death. One mistake and not only will you kill yourself, but you might kill your whole team. It is a fragile and invigorating way to live. Where David Pedreira really shines is in his descriptions of pulse pounding, moon blasting action. I was so involved in what was happening that I needed my own space suit to monitor my vitals. ”Mayday, mayday, mayday”was a metronome that blasted through the comms in my dreams for several nights after finishing this book.

Buckle up, squeeze your cheeks together, pour a pitcher of Tang, and put your cell phone on silent. You won’t have time for Earthly concerns once you land on the moon.

I want to thank Harper Voyager for sending me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

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The Magos By: Dan Abnett

The Magos by Dan Abnett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Last Warhammer for a bit, I (kinda) promise.

Eisenhorn is a bad man, an inquistor (for those not familiar with the universe) basically a cop. This is a collection of short stories and a new one that shows the world that most of Warhammer books don't cover, the dirty underside of an already dirty world, (yup..that bad)

This is great stuff, if you are a scifi fan and crime noir type fan..this is a good read for you and it is spring break...you need something to read.



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Fulgrim By: Graham McNeill

Fulgrim by Graham McNeill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

yes, I am still in my Warhammer deep dive, and WOW. I got into the Emperor's Children legion mostly due to the Fabius Bile book I read, I found him very interesting. At first glance, you can totally see why the legion falls into the clutches of chaos. They for the most part, are TOTALLY the over achievers, pretty boys that succeed in everything they touch. You kind of want them to fall, but then when it happens............boy does it happen.

I give Graham McNeill credit for making me cringe at the change of the Emperor's Children, while not overly graphic, the end game of this book make me very uncomfortable. Still a very good read and hopefully I will surface from this deep dive soon

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Travel to Boston's Sleazy Side with Lehane

The Drop by Dennis Lehane
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I just love this guy! Dennis Lehane writes the stuff I want to read. He could write my obituary and I'd be like, "Man, that was great!"

Even when his material isn't top shelf, his prose and characterization still knocks it over the green monstah....Uh-oh, I've started to slip back into my roots. Hell, it can't be helped. Lehane's Boston-based books mesh sublimely with my Masshole upbringing. I love his settings because they remind me of home.

With The Drop we enter a typical Boston dive bar and hang out with typical Southies. Like pretty much everybody else in the fuckin' place, the bartender is a hopeless nobody. But hey, this is a frickin' fairytale, so the guy finds a little ray of sunshine in the form of an emaciated dog. Yeah, that's blue collar Boston for ya, a fucking half-dead dog is enough to add some hope in this schmuck's life.

But this is a Lehane book. It ain't gonna be as simple as all that. Mobsters, petty pricks, and psychopaths gotta wave their dicks around and people are gonna die for it. Let's hope it's the douchebags, but who knows. You never know with this fucking guy. And that's why I love him!

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The Gifts of O. Henry

The Gift of the Magi and Other Short Stories by O. Henry
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I spent a month in Austin in 2016. It was good. Thanks for asking. While there my wife and I visited the William Sidney Porter House museum in the downtown area just one block south of the super busy party-central 6th St.


(Kind of odd to come across this little, old house in the middle of bustling downtown Austin)

William Sidney Porter is the real name of O. Henry, who lived only briefly in Austin before moving on to Houston. Nonetheless, it was cool to go into the house and see the old place, as well as his special writing nook.

Porter was a clever guy. His short stories often end with a surprising little twist, a little more subtle than your typical M. Night Shammalammadingdong movie. This collection is...well, it's not the actual collection I read, but it's close enough. There are tons of O. Henry collections listed on GR and I can't find the one I read. But the length is about the same and I believe the stories mostly match up.

Once upon a time when I was a young man, I read "The Gift of the Magi" and really enjoyed it. I promised myself I'd read more of his stuff. Then I let about three decades slip by until deciding I'd let the notion marinate long enough. I'm glad I finally got around to reading more. Although, I was a little confused at the start.

The first story was "The Voice of the City" and I was not prepared for it. His style, language, and pure-and-simple smarts had me befuddled and jogging to catch up. However, after that it was smooth sailing. I believe "The Gift..." was up next, and it was nice to revisit that one. Then the book slides into delight tales like "The Ransom of Red Chief", "The Romance of a Busy Broker", "The Green Door", "The Hiding of Black Bill", and "The Cop and the Anthem".

Not every story is a winner. Sometimes I got a bit bored. But overall this is a good collection and a nice primer for a prolific short story writer.

Rating: 3.5 stars

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