Review: The Trespasser

The Trespasser by Tana French
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When a pretty young woman winds up murdered, detectives Conway and Moran catch the case. Her boyfriend looks like a slam-dunk for it but why are they being rushed to book him? And why does Conway think she's met the vic before? Can Conway and Moran get the killer behind bars before the case eats them alive?

Antoinette Conway, second banana from The Secret Place takes center stage in this one. Conway, the odd (wo)man out on the Dublin Murder Squad, trusts no one and suspects everyone. From her tortured past to her tortured present, she may be one of the most complex French leads yet. Her relationship with Stephen Moran, her partner, Detective Breslin, the senior D shadowing them, and her absent father drive the tale.

Tana French's writing is as rich as every but flows really well. Unlike a lot of literary-leaning works, I never once thought the writing didn't serve the story. The style was accessible and went down like moderately-priced wine.

The plot seemed straight-forward. While I knew it couldn't be as simple as it initially appeared, French had me doubting myself quite a bit. Every twist exposed new wrinkles in the case, making the book really hard to set aside. There was one twist I should have seen coming half a mile away but I ran into it like a station wagon plowing a deer.

The last 25% was maddening! I looked around at my co-workers wondering how in the hell they could be so calm with all the shit going down! The last fifty pages or so were pure torture. Everyone was in shit up to his or her neck and I thought the whole squad might go up in flames.

The ending was the dog's breakfast I knew it would be, just like most Tana French books. While it wasn't happily ever after, life goes on with the Dublin Murder Squad. Five out of five stars.

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Review: Blister

Blister by Jeff Strand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After an unfortunate incident, cartoonist Jason Tray goes to his agent's cabin to hide out for a while. In the company of some drunken locals, he spies on local legend Blister, a woman with a disfigured, burn-scarred face. The next morning, he returns to her father's house to apologize and they become friends, which a lot of people are strangely against...

Jeff Strand earned his spot on my 'read everything by' list with such gems as Wolf Hunt and Kumquat. This one has been on my radar for a long time.

Based on the setup, I thought this one would be a lot like Kumquat. While there are some similarities, they're different kinds of books. While this one is also an unlikely love story, it's also about secrets in small towns and what people will do to keep them hidden.

Jason and Rachel, aka Blister, share a lot of witty banter and I thought their relationship developed pretty realistically. Blister's backstory was pretty twisted, as were a lot of the things that followed.
Strand could have phoned in the supporting cast as a bunch of small town rubes but I thought their motivations made a lot of sense in the context of things.

Jeff Strand's writing reminds me of a more serious Christopher Moore, hilarious when it needs to be and pretty horrific when the situation warrants. I was scared for Jason when the shit finally went down. Also, I felt like a rube a couple times since there were a few twists I should have seen coming. I kept looking at how much of the book I had left, wondering how there was so much book left to read. And then Strand would kick me in the gonads.

Blister was everything I hoped it would be and more. It's criminal that Jeff Strand isn't selling crazy numbers of books. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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Review: Siren of Depravity

Siren of Depravity by Gary Fry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When Harry Keyes learns his brother was adopted and actually his half brother, he starts digging into his family's sordid past...

I got Siren of Deparvity from DarkFuse via Netgalley. Darkfuse ftagn! Since I'm a sucker for Lovecraft-flavored fiction and whatever DarkFuse puts out, this one was a no brainer.

Siren of Depravity is a dark tale of a man digging into things best left unearthed, both figuratively and literally. Harry Keys learns a family secret and tugs on that thread, unraveling the curtain his father put between his family and himself, revealing the rotting corpses and otherworldly horrors on the other side. It's part extreme horror, part Lovecraft, like The Girl Next Door with echoes of cosmic horror. Black magic, torture, rape, and buried alien evil are all on the menu.

The writing is pretty powerful, although Gary Fry uses the word 'furtive' like he had a fistful of coupons for it. Harry's a little on the thick side, always a a leap or behind of where I was in his investigation.

The rest of the characters are a little on the thin side, not much more than stock characters, although a tale like this doesn't really call for subtle characterization.The ending surpassed my expectations and actually made me shudder a couple times. As in most good horror, there is no happily ever after.

At its best, Gary Fry's Siren of Depravity reads like Jack Ketchum writing a Lovecraft pastiche. I mean that in the best ways. Three out of five stars.



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Review: A Man Lies Dreaming

A Man Lies Dreaming by Lavie Tidhar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the Auschwitz concentration camp, a former pulp writer named Shomer imagines a world where the Nazis never came to power and a certain dictator is a down and out private investigator named Wolf. Wolf is hired to find a woman named Judith Rubinstein, who may have been smuggled out of communist Germany. Can Wolf find Judith and figure out who is pulling the strings of his former allies?

I stumbled upon this book during my brief alternate history binge during what 2.0 called my Summer of Love. Since I dug The Bookman and HebrewPunk, I gave it a shot.

Grown from the same literary roots as The Man in the High Castle, A Man Lies Dreaming is a tale of what might have been, if the communists had risen to power in Germany in the 1930s instead of the Nazis.

Using Shomer as a framing device, Lavie Tidhar shows who Hitler might have become without power, a fearful, hateful, pathetic man with little direction. Parts of the tale are darkly funny, which makes sense since Shomer is dreaming the tale to forget about the horrors of Auschwitz.

I'm not sure why Wolf being a loser private detective in London works so well but it does. Wolf takes a more blows to the head than Lew Archer as he tries to track down Judith Rubinstein, making a lot of enemies in the process. Wolf is a slightly sympathetic lead until you remember how things went in real life. It's pretty satisfying to read the ass-kickings he takes and to see his impotent rage. Not to mention the kinky sex...

The books ends a little differently than I thought it would but it was still satisfying. Tidhar's copius research is apparent in the afterword, which I normally don't read. Thankfully, he doesn't suffer from the "work all research into the book" syndrome a lot of authors suffer from.

Lavie Tidhar has come a long way in the short time I've been aware of his work. A Man Lies Dreaming is both a great alternate history detective tale and a commentary on racism and the way we treat immigrants, something that sadly never goes out of style. Four out of five stars.





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Review: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking is about being an introvert in today's society.

Confession time: I'm a tremendous introvert. I know you're all thinking something along the lines of "What? A guy who reads constantly and writes over a hundred book reviews a year is an introvert?" Shocking but true. I could easily go days without human contact. At parties, I'm the guy hanging out near the food or snooping through the host's books or medicine cabinet. I could go into more detail but since I have a feeling most Goodreaders are also introverts, I'll skip it.

Basically, the book is a flashing neon sign that says it's okay to be an introvert. Susan Cain chronicles her own struggles as an introvert, as well as showing how America went from being about character to about personality, right around the time movies and TV started getting popular. It covers introverts in all areas, like corporate America, and how introverts are treated in other societies. There's a lengthy section on raising introvert kids, which a lot of parents could use instead of shoving their kids into the shark-infested extrovert waters.

Honestly, I could have used this book as a teenager, when people were constantly badgering me to go out more. Scientific discoveries and works of art are rarely made by people who are constantly talking. Cain covers topics like being an introvert in the business world, where people who talk the loudest get their way more often than not, something I see every day in cubeland.

Actually, the book gave me insight into the behavior of some of my family. Until he retired, my dad was crabbier than Red Foreman all the time. I used to think he was just an angry asshole but now I think he was an introvert with nowhere to unwind. Now that he's retired, I see how much alike we are. He's actually pretty friendly as long as the visits don't go too long.

Susan Cain's writing style is engaging. I felt the repeated examples may have padded the book a bit.
While I felt validated by reading it, sometimes it felt like a book a kid named Matthew, who happened to be missing a finger, wrote about how nine-fingered Matthews are the best at everything. I liked it but most of what Cain says seemed pretty obvious. There are no mind-blowing revelations for introverts within. I do recommend extroverts read it, however. 3.5 out of 5 stars.


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Review: The Case of the Bleeding Wall

The Case of the Bleeding Wall by Joe R. Lansdale
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When supernormal investigator Dana Robertson invites her to Italy to work on a case, Jana immediately accepts. Now she just has to avoid being killed in The Case of the Bleeding Wall...

I got some interesting goodies in the 2016 Subterranean Press Grab-Bag and this one was one of the more compelling ones. Mister Mojo and his daughter collaborating on novella?

It's a pretty seamless collaboration as it turns out. Dana Robertson's prim and proper nature contrasts nicely with Jana, her Watson, a Texas country girl. The Lansdale humor is in full effect, with gems such as "It's hotter than a goat's ass in a pepper batch."

The case seemed pretty straightforward at first. Dana's ex has a mansion that incorporates some ancient ruins and happens to be haunted. Isn't that always the case? Anyway, things weren't on the up and up and Dana and Jana have to do some magic to save the day. Even though I was certain neither of the leads would die, things got pretty tense.

The Case of the Bleeding Wall was a fun novella to read on a gloomy Sunday morning. I wouldn't mind reading more of Dana Robertson's supernormal adventures. 3 out of 5 stars.

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Review: The Animal Factory

The Animal Factory by Edward Bunker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Ron Decker is convicted of selling narcotics, he winds up in San Quentin. Earl Copen, a long-time resident, takes him under his wing. As friendship buds between the men, can Ron stay alive long enough to get paroled?

Prison life has always held a strange fascination for me. By most accounts, The Animal Factory is one of the better prison novels.

Written during one of his prison stints, Edward Bunker crafts a tale of two men trying to get by in San Quentin. Not surprisingly, it carries an air of authenticity. There's an undercurrent of despair and desperation beneath Earl Copen's bluster. In Ron Decker, he sees hope that he long abandoned for himself.

Prison life in The Animal Factory is navigating a maze of violence, drugs, and death. Earl teaches Ron to survive in prison and what it is to be a man and a friend. It's a little deeper than I thought it would be going in.

The ending was a good one, one of self sacrifice and showed that a glimmer of goodness resides within prison walls. All things considered The Animal Factory was damn good. Edward Bunker's depiction of prison life in the 1970's is stark and brutal and I can't imagine that prisons have gotten better since then. Kids, stay out of jail! Four out of five stars.

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