Lock Every Door

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

When Jules is down on her luck, she scores the opportunity of a lifetime - occupying an empty NYC apartment overlooking Central Park for three months in exchange for 12 grand? What's the catch? And what happened to the previous tenant?

According to the piece of paper inside that I used for a bookmark, my mom got me this in Christmas 2019. Time flies when you have an autistic toddler and the world is ravaged by disease, I guess.

Okay, I didn't think there was anything wrong with this but I didn't exactly like it either. Sure, it was engaging enough at times. Free apartment, lots of strict rules, sinister goings on, etc.

The first of my problems was with Jules. She's a cypher with no real personality and nothing memorable about her except her dead parents and probably dead sister and a book she was obsessed with as a kid. On the heels of reading two Roxane Weary mysteries, I needed something more that Jules was giving me.

It was an average thriller for the most part, although the glimpses of the future built up the suspense a bit. Jules does something incredibly stupid near the end which made my eyes nearly roll out of my head. I detest when people do stupid things because the plot requires it.

Unremarkable, underwhelming, unimpressed. I think that covers it. Two stars. This one's definitely going into the half price books box.

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Once You Go This Far

Once You Go This Far by Kristen Lepionka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Roxane has a chance encounter with a hiker who winds up dead shortly after, she gets hired by the deceased woman's daughter to look into her mother's death and uncovers a lot more than that...

As I said in my last review, I'm chewing through the backlog of books I've accumulated in the last few years now that I have some extra time on my hands. I wish I would have tackled this one immediately because it was pretty damn good.

In this volume in the ongoing saga of Roxane Weary, she gets entangled with a runaway kid, an evangelical group, and finds out she has a half sister. Some other stuff happens too.

The Roxane Weary books are good mysteries but the main attraction for me now are the characters. Roxane and her two bothers, Tom, Shelby, and probably Blair in the next book even though she hasn't stepped on stage yet. Roxane is a tough lady with problems but that's what makes her so interesting. More importantly, her relationships are in a constant state of flux, something that doesn't always happen in a mystery series. There's no perfect love for Susan Silverman here.

Well, two Roxane Weary books in two days. I'll find some way to amuse myself until the next one comes out, hopefully soonish.

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The Stories You Tell

The Stories You Tell by Kristen Lepionka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When her brother calls her in the middle of the night, Roxane Weary is thrust into a web of mysteries involving a missing girl, a hookup phone app, and lots of people lying about various things.

So a few years ago, my reading time partially dried up and I mostly started reading comics and other things I didn't pay a lot of attention to. Now that my son is older and I don't lose two hours of my life to the commute, I can read actual books again.

Enough about me, though. This is the third Roxane Weary book and it's some good shit. Kristen Lepionka writes a good gritty mystery. I wouldn't exactly call it noir but it's darker than the average mystery. Lepionka has definitely read her Chandler, though.

The mystery isn't really a solvable one, although there are some pretty big hints out there. A one time hookup shows up at Roxane's brother's place and he's quickly in the soup. Roxane pokes around, uncovers a lot of unsavory things, and eventually things are set as right as they're going to get.

Roxane is a great lead character, flawed as hell but still determined. Her relationships with the other characters make this a cut above a lot of books of this type. From her toxic relationship with her girlfriend Catherine to whatever her feelings for Tom, her father's former partner are, to her somewhat motherly role with her teenage neighbors.

I don't know what else to say without giving away too much. There's a lot of catfishing in this so be careful who you're talking to online would be the core lesson of this, if there is one.

Four out of five stars. I'm going to blaze through the second one today pending unforeseen interruptions.

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John Severin: Two-Fisted Comic Book Artist

John Severin: Two-Fisted Comic Book Artist by Greg Biga
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As the title indicates, this is a chronicle of Jovial John Severin: birth, death, and everything in between.

Like a lot of guys my age, I first stumbled on John Severin in Cracked. It wasn't until decades later that I saw his EC stuff and learned of his vast output over the years. Anyway, the book starts with John Severin's birth and is loaded with photos and art, from John's early stuff printed in Hobo Times all the way to his final professional jobs in his 80s.

Every time I run across some Severin work I haven't seen before, my esteem for the man grows. After reading this, I have Severin esteem leaking out of every orifice. The war comics, the westerns, Kull, Cracked, the man could draw anything and seemed like a good guy to boot.

My favorite piece of art in this is probably the restored American Eagle stuff but it's all great work. I might have to break down soon and get that Blazing Combat hardcover since Severin has a few stories in it.

I'm not sure what else to say. The name on the cover is John Severin and that's what you're getting. Four out of five stars.

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The Woman Who Would Be King: The MADUSA Story

The Woman Who Would Be King: The MADUSA Story by Debrah Miceli
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was never that into women's wrestling back in the day but Madusa always seemed legit. I don't usually take on ARCS anymore but ECW Press hit me up and I couldn't refuse.

There's a lot of dark stuff in this. Madusa grew up in a rough home with an unaffectionate mother, raped by her alleged father at a young age, and was in trouble a lot as a teen. Her life turns around for the most part when she gets involved in wrestling, first with Ed Sharkey, then the AWA, then Japan, WCW, and finally the WWF. Things weren't always great there either.

The last big Madusa moment I remember was when she threw the WWF Women's title in the trash on Nitro. The WWF acted like a victim but they already told her they weren't renewing her contract and scrapping the entire women's division at the time so it's not like she had a lot of options.

From there, Madusa finishes up in WCW and becomes a monster truck driver for over twenty years. She was married a couple times, had some medical issues, and finally got inducted into the WWE hall of fame.

BUT WAIT! There's more. Madusa eventually learned the identity of her real father. He'd passed years earlier but she now has half-siblings she never realized existed! So there's a happy ending.

Madusa doesn't really pull any punches but doesn't go out of her way to get sued either. I feel like she could probably fill another book with a look of shady shit that went down with the Kliq. The stuff she does reveal was dark enough, like Eddie Gilbert being on pills constantly and the Kliq shitting in her bag to teach her a lesson.

I didn't realize how long Madusa was driving monster trucks. Time flies once you're in the steady job grind, I guess. The monster truck stuff was weirdly interesting to me. The Japan stuff was probably the most interesting to me. Like I said earlier, I wasn't that into women's wrestling but I'd like to track down some of her Japanese stuff. She seems like a bad ass.

Four out of five stars.



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The Charlton Companion

The Charlton Companion by Jon B. Cooke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've long been fascinated by Charlton Comics, the second tier comic company that finally went under not long after I really got into reading comics. This book contains everything you want to know about the operation and then some. There are tons of cover shots but more interesting are all the quotes from people who worked there.

From the founder's prison stint and probable mob connections to paying the lowest page rate possible, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. I can't imagine running my own printing operation and shooting for putting out as much passable material as possible instead of a handful of quality titles but I'm not in the printing business either.

On the other hand, the creative freedom compared to Marvel or DC had to be a big attraction. Still, Santangelo seems like the shifted prick this side of J. Jonah Jameson. Imagine having flood insurance on your building, collecting on it, and still cutting your employee's page rates IN HALF to compensate for damages. Dick Giordano's assertion that Charlton was more interested in saving five dollars than making five dollars pretty much sums up the Charlton philosophy.

A lot of pros cut their teeth at Charlton, like Steve Ditko and Denny O'Neil, so they had some value. On the other hand, imagine cluttering up your printing area so much with old engraving plates that no one could get past them while you're waiting for scrap metal prices to go up?

I've strayed far from whatever point it was I was trying to make. This is a great look at a shitty operation that somehow remained open for decades and spawned a lot of great talent. Five out of five stars.

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Fairy Tale

Fairy Tale by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So my wife was listening to the audio book for this and wanted to talk to me about it so I wound up with a homework assignment.

The book started slow, with Charlie Reade looking after his injured elderly neighbor, Mr. Bowditch. For the first 200 pages, that's pretty much all the book is, though I enjoyed it. The rest of the book is Charlie going down the hole and getting involved in the affairs of another world.

Overall, I liked the book. King has lost none of his Shine over the years in the technical writing department. Charlie was a well crafted character, although I had a strong "Hello fellow kids" vibe from him at times. I think a degree of that is to be expected when a septuagenarian writes a teenager.

Radar getting old was a perfectly understandable motivation for Charlie to go down the hole for me. There was good dramatic tension at times and for once, I didn't feel like people sat around talking for hours and hours knowing that the world was about to end.

The meat of the book was a good fairy tale influenced fantasy story. I think the good guys got off a little light, though, as I have in many a book since Stephen King got hit by that van years ago. A lot of cool stuff went down but I get waiting for that final kick in the balls that never came.

Fairy Tale was a good read but I don't imagine I'll feel compelled to read it again any time soon. 3 out of 5 stars.

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Player's Handbook (D&D Fifth Edition)

Player's Handbook by James Wyatt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I haven't played D&D since they brought out 3.5 edition way too soon after 3.0 and said piss on it. I've been eyeing this book from afar for a couple years and jumped on it when it got marked down to around 16 bucks for Black Friday.

I don't know when I'll ever get to use this with no gaming group and an autistic three year old running around but I enjoyed thumbing through it. Obviously, it's an RPG manual so I didn't read EVERY page but I read enough to digest the mechanics.

The book was organized fairly well, although explanation of advantage/disadvantage before they were repeatedly mentioned would have been nice instead of saving it for the abilities chapter. The art pretty good but not anything I feel compelled to get tattooed on my back. There's even a nice appendix of recommended reading material in the back.

Everything about this edition seems to be geared toward simplifying things and spending less time making characters and more time playing, which I love. So many hours of potential gaming have been lost when somebody can't decide what skills to take, etc.

There aren't as many skills and feats are optional so character creation is sped up quite a bit. I like that race, class, and background all contribute to a character's skills, languages, starting equipment, etc. I thought 3.0 had too many choices and this reins things in a bit. Hell, there's even a quick build if you really don't want to put much thought into character creation.

I was skeptical about the new Warlock class but it's different enough to be interesting now, a spellcaster who gets their powers from a pact with an extradimensional creature is right up my alley. The monk feels more like the 1st edition monk than anything else but also has some cool features as you advance. While I'm on the subject, the way characters have ability choices as they advance is pretty cool. Wizards and Sorcerors now have a d6 hit die instead of a d4 and rogues are now d8s. That should make for fewer deaths at low levels.

I'm not crazy about what Tieflings have become since 2nd edition but I guess it's not that big of a deal. The new Dragonborn race has potential for abuse but seems interesting enough. I'm sure there are more optional races and classes than you can shake a yew wand at in later supplements but I'll have to wait until those drop into my cheapness zone.

Four out of five stars.

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Don't Call Me Chico

Don't Call Me Chico by Tito Santana
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Don't Call Me Chico is the biography of WWF wrestler Tito Santana.

One of my early wrestling memories is Randy Savage cheating to win the Intercontinental belt from Tito Santana so I had to snap this up.

Tito seems like a class act so you'd think his story wouldn't be that interesting but not so. Tito, aka Merced Solis, grew up the son of migrant workers and became a wrestler after his would-be football career hit the rocks. He knew Tully Blanchard from college and Tully was his foot in the door.

Tito is pretty humble when it comes to telling his story but has a good sense of humor so the book is pretty engaging. It talks about Tito's stints in George, Texas, the Bill Watts territory, Japan, the AWA, and finally the WWF. Tito wasn't a big partier with a wife and kids at home but there are still some great road stories in here.

Did anyone like working for Ole Anderson? I thought it was interesting that one of Tito's early names was Richard Blood, the real name of Ricky Steamboat, given to him as a way to connect him to Steamboat after he left the territory. I also thought it was interesting that when Jimmy Snuka had some legal woes, Santana got tapped to replace him high on the card on house shows before he was even a regular in the WWF. Tito also gives his account of backstage events such as Danny Spivey handing Adrian Adonis' ass to him and various ribs.

It gets a little sad after the Strike Force run when the WWF was running out of things to do with him. The Matador gimmick is covered. It's interesting to think about the WWF pushing into Mexico instead of Canada and pushing Tito Santana instead of Bret Hart.

The end has a silver lining, though. Tito got out of the business before it destroyed his life and left with enough money to start a new life as a teacher that also owns a hair salon.

Like all wrestling books, there's stuff that wasn't mentioned that I wouldn't have minded hearing about, like Tito teaming with Pedro Morales or Tito teaming with Danny Spivey. There were a good amount of road stories but I'd always read more. I really liked that the pre-wrestling chapters were interesting and not Tito patting himself on the back, though he doesn't seem like the type to do that anyway.

Four out of five stars.

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On the Savage Side

On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Born into a hell of addiction and prostitution, can twins Arcade and Daffodil Doggs escape their fates and live a normal life?

I loved Tiffany McDaniel's previous two works, The Summer That Melted Everything and Betty, so I dropped everything when this showed up in my mailbox.

On the Savage Side contains everything I expected: characters with odd names, flowery prose, and soul crushing despair. Arc and Daffy meander through a hell created long before they were born, soon becoming mirror images of their drug addicted prostitute mother and Aunt Clover.

Born out of the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six, On the Savage Side is a statement both about the power of women and their place in a world made by men. Arc and Daffy are caught in a whirlwind spawned long before they were born, disposable women in a factor town. There's an undercurrent of hopelessness and powerlessness to the story. Poor Arc and Daffy never had a chance.

Even though I started reading this the night before Thanksgiving, I was finished before breakfast on Black Friday morning. The plight of the Chillicothe street girls was a gripping read. As they were pulled out of the river one by one, I wondered if any of them would be alive at the end.

Speaking of the ending, it's not cut and dry and I could see that disappointing people. However, this isn't one of those airport thrillers so anything goes. There's no unnecessary romantic subplot and no one gets carted off to jail. There's only grim finality. I'm reminded of Jim Thompson and Flannery O'Connor once again, both in the prose and the final fate of some of the characters.

Four out of five stars.

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