Jo is watching Law & Order re-runs. We were happy to discover that one of our local stations has started showing them. So while she's doing that I'm going to do a quick post, update a book I've just finished, provide the synopsis for the next book in line and also the synopses of some books that arrived in the past couple of days.
It's a cool, windy, wet day, has been all day, gloomy and dark. Oh well.
New Books
1. Emperor Fu - Manchu by Sax Rohmer (Fu - Manchu #13). This is the last book in the Fu - Manchu fantasy / thriller series. I've enjoyed a few so far.
"During the Cold War of the 1950s former allies Russia and China turned communist, their threat casting a shadow over the free world. Yet another enemy lurked in the shadows—the deadly secret assassins of the Si Fan, led by…
In remote Northern China, the dead walk again. American agent Tony McKay finds himself face-to-face with these “cold men,” zombies who exist to do the bidding of the Devil Doctor. It falls to McKay and Nayland Smith to defeat their eternal foe, and to destroy a biological warfare facility the Russians have hidden deep in the Chinese jungles."
"Phryne Fisher is bored. So when she is asked to investigate some strange goings-on in Farrell's Circus and Wild Beast Show, her curiosity gets the better of her. Stripped of her identity, wealth and privilege, Phryne takes a job as a trick-horse-rider, wearing hand-me-downs and a new name. But what connects the circus with the particularly nasty murder in Mrs. Witherspoon's house for paying gentlefolk? Or with the warfare between rival gangs on Brunswick Street? Piecing together fragments from the seedy underworld of twenties Fitzroy and the eccentric life under the big top, Phryne proves her mettle yet again, aided only by her wits, an oddly attractive clown, and a stout and helpful bear."
"The rocket was still approximately eighty miles above the surface, but the outlines and contours of the mysterious red planet were staggeringly clear. A terrain of what could only be described as blood-red boulders scattered accidentally across a huge swathe of terracotta colored sand. It was a landscape that defied the senses, a cacophony of stains and pigments, but overwhelmingly pinks, Venetian reds and rich mahoganies.
An alien world where man had never dared to set foot, but in the days to come he would attempt to do… exactly that."
4. The Other by Thomas Tryon. A bit of a convoluted story on this one. Jo and I were watching Natalie Wood movies on TCM. Two were directed by Robert Mulligan; Inside Daisy Clover and Love with a Proper Stranger. So as I looked at his other works, I saw this movie, The Other. It sounded interesting and I saw it was also a book. Hence, I decided to try it. Sounds like an October horror read.
"Entranced and terrified, the reader of The Other is swept up in the life of a Connecticut country town in the thirties—and in the fearful mysteries that slowly darken and overwhelm it.
Originally published in 1971, The Other is one of the most influential horror novels ever written. Its impeccable recreation of small-town life and its skillful handling of the theme of personality transference between thirteen-year-old twins led to widespread critical acclaim for the novel, which was successfully filmed from Thomas Tryon's own screenplay.
This edition features original artwork by surrealist artist Harry O. Morris."
Just Finished
"I bought In the Evil Day by Peter Temple because I've been looking for his Jack Irish mystery series and when I found this standalone thriller, I thought I should give it a chance. It was a bit of work getting into the story but once I got into the flow, I found it to be an exciting, fascinating read.
The gist of the story. Ex-South African soldier, Con Niemand, is now a bodyguard in Johannesburg South Africa. Things turn ugly when he escorts his latest client home. The family and Niemand's partner are attacked and killed by robbers and Niemand kills the robbers. While leaving, Niemand discovers that the husband has in his possession a video of a mass murder committed by American troops somewhere in Africa. Niemand heads to England to sell the information to a reporter. That is the main story line. There are others. One follows intrepid reporter, Caroline Wishart, as she tries to find Niemand and get the information. And the 3rd plot follows John Anselm, who works for an information - gathering company in Hamburg. All the stories are eventually intertwined in a sometimes complex story.
Each character is well-developed, each dealing with events from their past (lots of flashbacks, especially with Mr. Anselm). There are many fascinating peripherals. I especially enjoyed Anselm and his team and how they hunt down information for their clients, so interesting. The story is intense, lots of action but also lots of introspection.
As I said at the beginning, it does take a bit of getting into the flow, but it is ultimately worth the effort. The story is well-crafted, the characters are interesting and sympathetic and the story has more than enough action and is just technical enough to hold your interest but not lose you. How these individual threads come together makes for a most satisfying ending as well. Try it. Now to find one of his Jack Irish mysteries. (4 stars)"
Currently Reading
"A plane crashes in the vast Northern Territory of Australia, and the only survivors are two children from Charleston, South Carolina, on their way to visit their uncle in Adelaide.
Mary and her younger brother Peter set out on foot, lost in the vast, hot Australian outback. They are saved by a chance meeting with an Aboriginal boy on walkabout, who teaches them to find food and water in the wilderness, but whom Mary can’t bring herself to trust.
Though on the surface Walkabout is an adventure story, darker themes lie just beneath. Peter’s innocent friendship with the Aboriginal throws into relief Mary’s no longer childish anxiety, and together raise questions about how Aboriginal and Western culture can meet."
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