The First 100 - A.W. Hill's "Nowhere-Land" (Counterpoint)

A streetwise shaman searching for a missing girl. Sounds like your typical mystery. Maybe even a bad mystery.

But 100 pages in you realize that A.W. Hill's Nowhere-Land is anything but typical. And no where near bad. It's incredibly well-written, scholarly, philosophical, and about as far out there as you can get in its subject matter. Hill's pioneering new ground here, and it's fascinating to watch.

One of the few mysteries that really attempts to engage the reader on an intellectual level.

The First 100 - Brandon Sanderson's "Warbreaker" (Tor)

100 pages into Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker, color me very impressed. An extremely imaginative magic system and some great world building has this one already shaping up to be one of this year's fantasy highlights. And the humor is great throughout, which is a pleasant surprise.

This is my introduction to Sanderson's work, and I'm cursing myself for not having taken the plunge earlier.

Live and learn.

"Lamentation" by Ken Scholes (Tor)

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Lamentation
Ken Scholes
368 pp. Tor. $24.95
Pub. Date: 2/17/2009
ISBN-13: 978-0765321275

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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A cataclysmic event. A city vaporized—instantaneously. One moment a city filled with bustling, teeming life: people strolling down wide cobbled avenues; vendors hawking their wares, shouting; children laughing; scholars poring over vast tomes in the Great Library, pensive, scribbling notes in the margins; then: nothing. A city gone. Destroyed. Eradicated. Replaced by a cloud of ash, dark as death’s panties, polluting the air, like a crematorium burping out an entire city. Only a dirty smudge left, as if a child suddenly dragged their eraser across the map, destroying everything.

As the ash settles—a glowering sun browbeating it to the ground, regaining its aerial supremacy—the aftermath is revealed. Once there was a vibrant city, the seat of the Androfrancine religion, the home of the Great Library that collected and housed most of the world’s knowledge. Now: dust. Buildings razed, blackened, shimmers of heat roiling across the ground; random fires dotting the landscape, crackling and hissing, orange embers swirling in the air like fireflies. Charred bodies are everywhere. In the streets, near the town squares, under the buildings. Everywhere. There are no survivors; no one to care for the dead, no one to say a prayer, no one to bury the bodies.

But there are two witnesses to this atrocity. This Desolation. One is a teenage boy, and one a mechanical man. Both are instrumental in the war that comes next.

Some stories end with a bang, some start with one. Literally. Wars are often the same way, starting with a pivotal event, a defining moment, a casus belli. Pearl Harbor. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. The Gulf of Tonkin. 9/11. Ken Scholes’s debut novel Lamentation starts with such a cataclysmic event—the obliteration of the city of Windwir—before documenting the many-sided war that arises out of this event.

That’s not to suggest that Lamentation is a novel-length description of a massive war campaign. Because it’s not. It’s better. More intelligent, more insightful, more intriguing than a typical sword-thrust-by-axe-blow description of a battle. Scholes’s novel concentrates, instead, on the politics of warfare, on the real power, the puppetmasters behind the scenes, controlling the players, guiding events and people. And their mysterious motivations for doing this. It’s court intrigue, amplified to a Spinal Tap-approved eleven; it’s powerbrokers wheeling, dealing, and, most importantly, stealing, with a grin on their face and blackness in their hearts. It’s the Usual Suspects meets K Street, where the biggest crook lurks in the shadows, hidden, unknown. A ghost.

The narrative is told mainly through the points-of-view of four central characters, with a few additional character perspectives tossed in along the way. It’s an effective way to document the behind-the-scenes political maneuvering without bogging the story down with too many characters doing too many things. Which makes the novel more personal than epic; more about a group of characters dealing with an extraordinary incident rather than the incident itself. More a view of the individual trees, and less of the forest.

The downside to such a tight focus on the characters is that there’s only moderate world building that can be accomplished. Still Scholes creates a full world, filled with religion, culture, and history, we just don’t get to see much pass the surface. It’s a shame because what is there is tremendous, and had me only wanting more. Hopefully future volumes in the series will give us a deeper plunge into this magnificent pool Scholes has envisioned.

This year has already seen some memorable debuts. Lamentation is definitely near the top of that pile. If not for Peter Brett’s The Warded Man, it would be in the conversation for best debut of 2009. An auspicious start for Scholes.

Final Grade: 85 out of 100

Winner of Eve of Darkness Giveaway

I've finally gotten around to selecting a winner for the signed copy of S.J. Day's Eve of Darkness. For those interested, I will be posting a review of the book shortly.

The winner is: Dottie Taylor from Illinois. Congratulations Dottie!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

"Labor Day" by Joyce Maynard (William Morrow)

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Labor Day
Joyce Maynard
240 pp. William Morrow. $25.99
Pub. Date: 7/28/2009
ISBN-13: 978-0061843402

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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Remember Labor Day as a child. The proverbial final weekend of summer, the dying breath of three months of summer vacation. The end of lazy summer days spent playing, laughing, living. As dusk darkens the sky, you’re down to your final hours, depressed, antsy, scared; the coffin nails being driven into summer’s casket, the owls outside hooting a requiem. Like a condemned prisoner waiting to make his last walk, savoring his last moments. Because tomorrow you start a new school year. Tomorrow is a beginning, a new stage in your life, a transition. You’re an eighth grader now—practically grown. You’ve come so far, learned so much.

Labor Day is a time for transition, for moving on, for growing up. Out of the death of summer vacation, you are reborn, changed. It’s a new year, and it feels like it. Feels like it more than New Year’s Day, or your birthday. Never have you felt the change more. It’s the feeling of coming-of-age as a yearly ritual.

But it’s not the day itself which affects this momentous change; it’s the people in your life, the ones there everyday, making an impression, helping you grow up. It’s parents, and friends, and family. The role models. The solid foundation your life is built upon. But sometimes there’s someone else, a person who enters your life for a short period of time, and stirs your soul, changing you tremendously. Their influence on you burning white-hot, a self-identity supernova; it’s there, pulsating, scalding, forging, and then—suddenly—it disappears. Gone like a memory. Gone like the summer days, vanishing in autumn’s cooling breath. Leaving you to a new future, having now made you a better person.

Some novels are personal; they ring true, stir memories. Because aspects of the story are something you recognize from your own past, something you intimately lived. Parts of the book feel like a biography, reminding you of emotions and experiences that have been buried and forgotten. Labor Day by Joyce Maynard is this type of book for me. It’s a special kind of magic, a personal magic, a magic for my soul. A happy nostalgia, filled with warm thoughts, and the feeling of being loved. It feels like home.

Maynard’s characterization of Henry, the novel’s thirteen-year old protagonist, is uncanny. Understanding the mind of a teenage boy is difficult enough, understanding the mind of a teenage boy living alone with his single mother—and lacking a guiding male role model—is even harder. I’ve been where Henry’s at, lived it, and was stunned how accurately Maynard captured the feelings and emotions of the situation. The displacement, the isolation, the hunger for guidance, the deep love. All true, and real. And brilliantly realized.

Henry’s relationship with his mother, Adele, is incredibly tender and powerful, a revelation about the human experience, about the special relationship a mother has with her only son. A relationship Maynard captures perfectly. A relationship that made me appreciate my own mother more, appreciate everything she did for me, every time she struggled for me. It made me want to call and say “Thank you, Mom.”

Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day is one of those rare novels that resonates deeply, emotionally and spiritually. It makes you feel. Feel what it means to be human, the laughter, the tears, the struggle. To comprehend the entire human experience, an epiphany about one’s purpose. Evocative and powerful, Maynard masterfully explores feelings of isolation, displacement, loneliness and love. It’s beautiful and awe-inspiring—like watching a child being born—and completely unforgettable. A stunning achievement.

Final Grade: 93 out of 100

Comic Break: Robot 13 #1 (Blacklist Studios)

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Robot 13
Issue: #1
Writer: Thomas Hall
Artist: Daniel Bradford
Blacklist Studios. $3.00

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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Robots, humanity re-shaped, re-imagined, by science. Transistors and microchips replacing blood and brains; a steel chassis for a spinal column, a mechanical heart pumping motor oil. Science’s continual quest to one-up Mary Shelley, to build a better Frankenstein monster, to storm Mount Olympus, wrestling away the power of life and death from the gods, to have the ability—finally—to create an artificial life.

And like humanity, robots can be good, or bad. Or more than meets the eye. It depends on their creator. Is it the kindly old scientist, benevolent and sweet, with crazy Einstein hair, and an eggshell-colored lab coat, wishing to help the world with his creation? Or the dark, brooding villain with evil infesting his heart, muttering crazily in a forest of Tesla coils, building a robot he can command to destroy, to maim, to kill? Or maybe something in between? If anything robots are versatile, a blank slate waiting for their master’s imprint, technological Jello waiting to be molded, chocolate chip cookie dough waiting to be baked. They can be anything.

Even a hero. A hero that kills monsters straight out of Greek mythology, living, breathing nightmares with big shiny teeth, the type of nasties that caused Homer to wet himself. So what if the robot has a human skull for a head, looking like Ghost Rider mated with Bender from Futurama. We all have our imperfections. What matters—what really matters—is that Robot 13 kicks ass. From cover to cover.

More accurately, Robot 13 kicks tentacles. Big, slimy tentacles with suckers the size of a horse’s head, dripping mucus like Paul Bunyan with allergies. At least in the debut issue where our robot protagonist gets his fight on with a well-endowed Kraken that gobbles ships like Goldfish crackers. And chases them with some sailors.

Writer Thomas Hall elevates the issue out of pure slugfest territory by injecting a mystery into the proceedings: Robot 13 has only a hazy recollection of his past. Like an alcoholic that blacks out, wakes up, and has no idea how he wound up in a grocery cart, naked, and missing a kidney. Like Jason Bourne in the Bourne Identity, if Jason Bourne was a robot. (And not just portrayed by one.) And fought mythological creatures. The search for answers about Robot 13’s past adds intrigue to the issue, and when they don’t come, you scream at the sky, shaking your fist, cursing the fates. Cursing them for making you have to wait for the next issue. Please, next issue, bring me answers. Oh, the cruelty.

Fans of Mike Mignola will love the visuals as artist Daniel Bradford channels his inner Mignola, offering an ode to the creator of Hellboy. Some will likely hate the similarity between the two, claiming this is style-jacking, but it’s a great artistic choice for this material, working beautifully with the epic and Gothic overtones of the story.

Taking chances is what the medium of comics is for; to be unique, different. Robot 13 is all these: risky, unique, and different. It’s what makes the issue feel fresh and new, even though many of its constituent elements are classical. The fact it succeeds is what makes it good. Really good. Can’t wait for the next issue.

Final Grade: 83 out of 100

Collector's Corner - China Mieville

China Mieville was in the area recently promoting his latest The City & the City. A perfect opportunity to grab some autographs.

News - Brandon Sanderson Talks "Warbreaker"

It's refreshing when an author is really excited about his new book. Like giggling schoolgirl excited. The excitement's contagious. Makes me want to drop everything and start reading Warbreaker.

News - Subterranean Press Announces "The New Dead"

File this one under forthcoming books I'm really excited about.

Subterranean Press has recently announced the zombie anthology to end all zombie anthologies. It just doesn't get any sexier than The New Dead. This new collection of undead stories will be published as a signed limited edition of only 250 copies. Edited by Christopher Golden and featuring stories by Joe Hill, Max Brooks, Mike Carey, Tad Williams, Joe R. Lansdale and more, this is another fantastic Subterranean offering. Plus it's signed by all the contributors. There goes another one of my paychecks. Soon my direct deposit will go straight to Subterranean.

Not convinced. Just peep the table of contents jacked from Subterranean's website.

“Lazarus” by John Connolly
“What Maisie Knew” by David Liss
“Copper” by Stephen R. Bissette
“In the Dust” by Tim Lebbon
"Life Sentence” by Kelley Armstrong
“Delice” by Holly Newstein
“Closure, LTD” by Max Brooks
“The Wind Cries Mary” by Brian Keene
“Family Business” by Jonathan Maberry
“The Zombie Who Fell From the Sky” by M.B. Homler
“My Dolly” by Derek Nikitas
“Second Wind” by Mike Carey
“Among Us” by Aimee Bender
“Ghost Trap” by Rick Hautala
“The Storm Door” by Tad Williams
“Kids and Their Toys” by James A. Moore
“Shooting Pool” by Joe R. Lansdale
“Weaponized” by David Wellington
“Twittering from the Circus of the Dead” by Joe Hill

More information about The New Dead can be found on Subterranean's website. Get 'em while they last. Which won't be long.

"The Red Wolf Conspiracy" by Robert V.S. Redick (Del Rey)

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The Red Wolf Conspiracy
Robert V.S. Redick
464 pp. Del Rey. $26.00
Pub. Date: 4/28/2009
ISBN-13: 978-0345508836

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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Conspiracies. Love them or hate them, they make for good drama. Whispering deep in the dark belly of the shadows, the sound of nefarious plots hatching, hissing into the world like a sibilant newborn. Secret meetings behind closed doors, far away from prying eyes, a cadre of conspirators, sweat pooling on their brows, plotting, scheming, dreaming of fulfilling some mysterious objective, bringing some crazy plan to fruition, getting their inner evil genius on and taking over the world. Dreaming like a three-year old fantasizes about road trips to Toys R’ Us and filling up a red convertible with a gaggle of Tickle-Me-Elmos.

Now place that conspiracy on a ship. And not just any ship, but a really big ship. The type of ship an aircraft carrier wants to be when it grows up, beefy and burly, a syringe filled with Stanozolol sticking out of its poop deck; a Carnival party ship built for Paul Bunyan, a sailing continent, a tectonic plate cruising under clear blue skies. The Titanic? It’d fit in the cargo hold. Along with its nemesis: the Iceberg. And still there’d be room to spare for an impromptu football game. So who’s the real King of the World now?

A ship with the population of a large city on board, some of them conspirators, some heroes, but most of them clueless. Like a Disney cruise liner, filled with oblivious camera-wielding tourists, covered in big happy grins, while Mickey and Goofy are scheming to take over the world, Steamboat-Willie-Gone-Bad style. And no one knows. Except for you. You know what they’re plotting, planning. Horrified, you fight back, to stop them, to protect the Happiest Cruise Liner on Earth. By putting a size 12 up some cartoon keister.

A monstrous ship. A deadly conspiracy afoot. Rampant paranoia. Sounds like the beginning of a wildly imaginative fantasy adventure, part Titanic, part Apocalypse Now, as re-imagined by Charles Dickens. It sounds like The Red Wolf Conspiracy, the debut offering from promising writer Robert V.S. Redick. An offering worthy of your attention.

Why? To begin with Redick’s novel is memorable and engaging, a reading experience that’ll stick with you long after you’ve finished. Like a happy fungus that affects your mind, filling it with bright and exciting colors, killer adventures and cool ideas. It’s both unique in structure and epic in plot. Consider how many other epic fantasies are set almost solely on a ship, the heroes scrambling to unravel a conspiracy, to uncover a mystery, each puzzle solved met by a new deeper enigma? It’s a short list, possibly singular. Definitely unique.

And there’s a level of depth to the proceedings—a largeness—beyond most epic fantasy. Intriguing subplots are stacked upon subplots, and the cast of characters nearly matches the enormity of the novel’s gargantuan ship, the Chathrand, making The Red Wolf Conspiracy a kitchen-sink type novel, one in which everything including the kitchen sink is thrown in, mixed together into something new, something forcefully creative. Something awe-inspiring.

While some of the elements work, some don’t. Sometimes it feels like too much, almost too creative, too fanciful, one idea too many. Like the story needs to be reigned in, tightened up, simplified. Smaller steps, instead of giant leaps. But the attempt is engaging. And appreciated. Redick undeniably aims for the fences here; calling his shot like Babe Ruth on the first page, writing with a flair and swagger. And a charming self-assurance. He aims extremely high, and is generally successful in fulfilling his ambitions.

The writing is top-notch throughout. Redick writes with a Dickensian flair: stylistic, powerful, and with a fair serving of melodrama. The young tarboy—and protagonist—Pazel Pathkendle easily connects with the reader, winning over your heart as he struggles with an ever-growing mountain of adversity, spirited and plucky in the face of each new challenge. He’s a character you’ll root for, and find yourself caring about. He’s the underdog, the waif, the bullied. But he never uses that as an excuse, always keeping his chin high, always trying to succeed.

There are a few characters in the book best described as talking animals, something I find annoying in fantasy as it comes off as cartoonish, childish and distracting. It’s great when your five years old watching Saturday morning cartoons; it’s out of place in an adult novel, though. And it’s distracting enough that connecting with these characters is difficult, causing me to glaze over during these parts, and interrupting the flow of an otherwise incredibly solid novel.

The Red Wolf Conspiracy is an extremely promising debut. Most of the issues I have with the book are quite minor, and arise mostly from the ambitious scope of the novel. It’s wildly creative, intelligent and powerfully written, filled with memorable characters and an engaging and intricate plot. It doesn’t always work, but I want to be there when it does for Redick. Because that book is going to be special. Which has me eagerly anticipating the sequel.

Final Grade: 82 out of 100

Related Posts:
"The Warded Man" by Peter V. Brett (Del Rey)

Comic Break: The Wolverine Files by Mike W. Barr (Pocket)

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The Wolverine Files
Mike W. Barr
160 pp. Pocket. $40.00
Pub. Date: 4/14/2009
ISBN-13: 978-1439100141

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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SNIKT!

The most fearsome sound in the world of comics. The sound of impending death, of gross bodily violence, of severed limbs, shattered bones and crushed arteries. The sound of Wolverine, adamantium claws bursting forth—like a set of dyslexic IV needles—from the back of his hands. A character so larger-than-life, so legendary, he has his own onomatopoeia. How many people can claim that?

Wolverine’s had a long and colorful history in the Marvel universe, stretching back to his first appearance in The Incredible Hulk in 1974. That’s thirty-five years of thrilling adventures and world-saving heroics featuring everyone’s favorite Canadian superhero, the maple-leaf mutant. Thirty-five years of back story, of twists and turns, of lovers and arch-enemies, of what ifs, alternate realities and interstellar butt-kickings. A staggering amount of information, enough to fill a library with leaning mounds of books haphazardly stacked from floor to ceiling, a befuddled librarian in the corner muttering about Dewey decimal numbers. So much information to digest, to comprehend. Maybe too much. If only it could be condensed, summarized. And celebrated. Like an episode of Biography. Wolverine—this is your life.

Enter The Wolverine Files, a handy-dandy compendium authored by Mike W. Barr which tackles the enormous task of collecting the entire Wolverine mythology and documenting it in one place. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Wolverine’s fictional life, now at your fingertips, thoroughly researched and easily accessible, presented in a beautiful coffee table edition.

And that’s the first thing you’ll notice about The Wolverine Files—how absolutely stunning the book looks. It’s a gorgeous, high-quality volume, complete with a cardboard slipcase ravaged by faux claw marks. It’s a book built to last. And impress, making for a nice conversation piece for any comic geek’s mantle. (You do have a comic geek mantle, right?)

The layout of the book mimics a SHIELD top-secret dossier, with ten sections, each covering a piece of the Wolverine puzzle. One section details Wolverine’s history, another focuses on his origin, others tackle various topics like the women in his life, his friends, enemies, interstellar adventures, and any alternate timelines involving him. It’s vastly effective as an informational repository, a Wolverine data warehouse, a one mutant encyclopedia.

But unlike a stuffy old encyclopedia, this one’s filled with oodles of great art covering Wolvie’s thirty-five year history in the Marvel Universe. Reproduced on high-quality, glossy paper, the visuals pop, bright and colorful, never looking better. This is how comic artwork was meant to be presented. And celebrated. Big. Vibrant. Dynamic. None of that cheap newspaper print—with the dull and bleeding colors—making even the best pencils look like Rhesus monkey cave drawings.

The Wolverine Files will make the fanboys happy. And that’s the real audience here; the guys and girls addicted to Wolverine, the ones who can never get enough of the adamantium-laced superhero. Who need to know everything. Well Wolverine fans—here’s everything.

Final Grade: 85 out of 100

Winners of The Wolverine Files Giveaway

Five winners have been selected to receive "The Wolverine Files" by Mike W. Barr, courtesy of those fine folks at Simon & Schuster.

The winners are: Ashley Hood from Indiana, Bridget Hopper from Kentucky, Gaby Lapus of New York, Mishel Zabala of Virginia, and Shane O'Neil of Texas. Congratulations to all our winners!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Collector's Corner - Marc Blatte

Author Marc Blatte has made quite a splash with his debut novel Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed, a entertaining mystery which takes a nasty look at murder and the hip-hop music business. So it was exciting to see Marc out promoting the book at the Los Angeles Times' Festival of Books in April recently. So a Big Up to Marc for the sig.

"Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed" by Marc Blatte (Schaffner Press)

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Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed
Marc Blatte
275 pp. Schaffner Press. $24.95
Pub. Date: 3/1/2009
ISBN-13: 978-0980139419

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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The Big City. New York City. Center of the universe.

Over there’s the Empire State Building, tourists huddling around, gazing skyward, mouths agape. Just around the corner—Times Square, a living, breathing television commercial; big brassy theater marquees grinning overhead. Hungry? Hop on the subway, grab yourself a coal oven-fired Margherita pie at Grimaldi’s under the Brooklyn Bridge. Or maybe a Major Munch Alpine mac’ and cheese at S’Mac on East 12^th. Pure heaven in a bowl.

And over there, in the shadows, in the dark underbelly of the city, in a parking lot adjoining one of New York’s trendiest nightclubs, the hip-hop music pulsating, bumping, a line of eager partygoers stretching around the block, laughing, waiting—over there is a body. Dead as the Roman Empire. A gunshot victim: male, Eastern European, big as Godzilla if Godzilla lifted weights, one of the club’s bouncers, working the door nightly with his equally gargantuan cousin, keeping out the tweakers and the nobodies. The spoiled brats and the drama queens. The crews and the posers. Then Death reached the front of the queue, punched ticket in hand. And wouldn’t be denied, wouldn’t be held back behind a red velvet rope. American bullets finally cutting one immigrant’s American Dream short. Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Because America has a bullet with their name on it.

Cue the Law and Order theme; we got ourselves a mystery—New York, New York style. Because if you can murder here, you can murder anyway. A head-scratching homicide who-dunnit—one that could only happen in America. One with a list of suspects nearly as big as the city itself. Because in America, Humpty Dumpty didn’t fall. No way, man—Humpty Dumpty was pushed.

And it takes a special type of man, a special type of detective to uncover the truth, to find out who shoved our jolly little egg. To find out who’s on the handle end of this skillet of scrambled eggs. A man like Salvatore Messina, one of New York’s most decorated detectives, also known on the streets as “Black Sallie Blue Eyes.” Coal black hair with a disposition to match, hard and unbending. A rock. Riveting blue eyes able to penetrate a man’s soul, reading him, knowing the answers before the questions are even asked. A man who can wade through the filth of the city, plucking out the piece of refuse responsible. A man whose life’s about to change. Forever.

Mysteries are often redundant, formulaic. Read enough and police procedure becomes second nature, investigation feels like old hat. What often sets mystery novels apart is the setting, the world in which the detectives suddenly find themselves investigating. A world sometimes foreign and unknown. Maybe it’s a snotty upper class slice of society, elitist and condescending. Or the poor and downtrodden immigrant classes, society’s bottom rung, the perpetual victims. Not often do our police surrogates find themselves in the inner circle of the hip-hop music world, in the studios, in the marketing meetings, in the cut-throat dealings. In his entertaining debut novel Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed, Marc Blatte gives us a guided tour of the hip-hop culture. Of those who live it, of those who market it, and of those who consume it. And it feels fresh, new, and exciting. Like Columbus wiggling his toes in the soft, squishy sand of the New World. A new day, a new dawn.

Blatte displays a flair for writing convincing character psychology. For writing characters that don’t just act real, but think real. Making them feel real. It’s a strength of the novel, and it gets the reader invested, engaged—less emotionally—more through curiosity, like roaming through a freak show, gawking at the human accidents. There’s the Bearded Lady, next to Reptile Boy, across from the Human Pretzel. And Blatte definitely piles up the freak quotient; events becoming exponentially weirder as the novel progresses.

The novel doesn’t feel gritty, though; it shows us the filth sliming the walls, coagulating in the gaps between floorboards, befouling the air. But it doesn’t wallow in it. It doesn’t stick your nose down in it, whacking your bottom with a newspaper, screaming “Bad Dog.” It’s a journey through the circles of hell wearing an Asbestos suit. Protective. A slight feeling of safety. Showing some restraint.

When I tackle a new mystery novel, I want something different. I want a backstage pass to someplace I haven’t been before. Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed is the cool roadie, the one that lets you backstage, lets you into the party. A party not filled with people, but with Characters. Capital C-type characters. Like the crazy grandpa everyone refers to “as quite the character.” Larger-than-life people in which the word captivating understates their magnetic personalities. It’s enjoyable, fun. And a promising start for a new writer.

Final Grade: 79 out of 100

Related Posts:
"Beat the Reaper" by Josh Bazell (Little, Brown)
"The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death" by Charlie Huston (Ballantine)