Since my last update, I've completed 3 books and got a few more in the mail. I'll update those and also the latest books I've started reading.
Just Finished
"I continue to enjoy this excellent graphic novel series. Each volume is different and seems to get better. Fables and Reflections is Volume #6 of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. Most enjoyable.
As the title indicates it consists of fables and historical reflections. Each story follows a different character (for the most part). There is a 3 chapter portion featuring Sandman's son Orpheus and his journey to Hades to find his dead wife, Eurydice. It's a sad story for the most part.
The other stories feature diverse characters such as a werewolf, Caesar Augustus, Marco Polo, Joshua Abraham Norton, the only Emperor of the US of A, Haroun Al Raschid (King of Kings). Dream (aka Sandman) appears in each story but you also get to meet some of his family in others, Despair, Death (my favorite), Eve, Cain, Abel, etc.
Each story is interesting, well - crafted and drawn. The stories are rich and actually provide you with some history / mythology. Neil Gaiman has such a fantastic imagination and he really knows how to tell a story that holds your interest and attention until the very end. I'm looking forward to Vol #7), Brief Lives. (4.0 stars)"
"I haven't been reading this series in any particular order. I've read two previous books in this spy series. Quiller Barracuda by Adam Hall is the 14th book in the series and finds Quiller on assignment in Florida. His mission is to find and bring home an agent, Charles Proctor, who seems to have gone off the radar, after starting to act irrationally. Quiller will find himself involved in political intrigue and also with Florida drug dealers as he gets involved in this story.
The Quiller books are quite different in tone from other spy series I've read. Quiller spends much of the book in his own self-analysis, at the same time moving the story along. I also find it interesting how they conduct the 'administration' (wrong word, I think) of conducting a mission. Quiller is the Executive, his name on the big board at MI6, assigned to Barracuda. Ferris is his Controller, sent to Florida to debrief Quiller, to assign followers, to maintain security and to provide the link back to London. The whole process is fascinating.
Quiller finds himself in an international plot, a group that wants to affect an upcoming Presidential election, affect the World order. Proctor is involved, he's hooked on drugs, he wants Quiller dead and has set a contract out with the local drug lord. The Russians may be involved. It's a complex, interesting plot. There are various intelligent, independent, beautiful women who help Quiller in various ways to advance his investigation. There is a terrifying episode involving a shark.
It's an interesting take on the spy story and I will continue to explore the series. (4.0 stars)"
"Gun Honey, Vol. 2: Blood for Blood by Charles Ardai continues the adventures of gun smuggler, Joanna Tan. In Vol 1 of this Hard Crime graphic novel series, she discovered who murdered her family. In this volume, Joanna is a target of an assassin. She and her new partner, Brook, hunt for a female assassin (she used to work with Brook in the 'CIA'), who is trying to frame Joanna for murders.
The adventure takes Joanna and Brook to Montana, South Dakota, Italy and even Monaco. There are drug manufacturers, the type who make ecstasy... a really powerful version. They bear some responsibility for a rave that resulted in many deaths. So, basically someone is out for vengeance, against Joanna and against the drug dealers. (maybe... )
There is action on action. There is violence. There is nudity. Hard Case crime, a thriller on high speed. Just a break from reality. (3.0 stars)"
Currently Reading
"Toronto shopkeeper and amateur sleuth Lara McClintoch heads to Ireland to assist a friend at the reading of the will of an eccentric businessman, who sends his friends and family off on a bizarre treasure hunt, whose clues are drawn from an ancient Celtic poem, but Lara soon discovers that the grand prize could just be murder."
New Books
"Jimmy Kennemore, of the U.S. Army's Counter-Intelligence Corps, woke up in hospital and could not move for plaster casts. Twenty-four hours earlier he had been a normal, pleasant young man, working on a completely routine investigation. Regaining consciousness, he found himself injured and disfigured, and his red hair turned to white.
Now, through his pain-fogged mind, he had to begin the desperate and tortuous piecing together of the monstrous events that had led to a shocking night of violence and deprived him of identity, friends, and future. But there were other events to come, events that were to assume the proportions of a nightmare and to carry him forward into that international No-Man's Land where human life is the cheapest and most expendable commodity."
"It all began with the phone call asking former porn star Angel Dare to do one more movie. Before she knew it, she'd been shot and left for dead in the trunk of a car. But Angel is a survivor. And that means she'll get to the bottom of what's been done to her even if she has to leave a trail of bodies along the way..."
Women Authors Whose Work I've Been Enjoying - Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was born in Oxford, England in 1893 and died Witham, Essex, England in 1957. She is best known as one of the four Queen's of Crime during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. The other authors were Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh. She is best known for her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series. I've read four books of the 15 books series, written from 1923 - 1939. I have another 8 or 9 books awaiting my attention. It's been a few years since I visited the series so I hope to read at least one this year. I'll highlight the three books I purchased most recently to give you an idea about this entertaining series.
Dorothy L. Sayers
"Ninety-year-old General Fentiman was definitely dead, but no one knew exactly when he had died—and the time of death was the determining factor in a half-million-pound inheritance. Lord Peter Wimsey would need every bit of his amazing skills to unravel the mysteries of why the General's lapel was without a red poppy on Armistice Day, how the club's telephone was fixed without a repairman, and, most puzzling of all, why the great man's knee swung freely when the rest of him was stiff with rigor mortis."
"When ad man Victor Dean falls down the stairs in the offices of Pym's Publicity, a respectable London advertising agency, it looks like an accident. Then Lord Peter Wimsey is called in, and he soon discovers there's more to copywriting than meets the eye. A bit of cocaine, a hint of blackmail, and some wanton women can be read between the lines. And then there is the brutal succession of murders -- 5 of them -- each one a fixed fee for advertising a deadly secret."
"Society’s eligible women are in mourning. Lord Peter Wimsey has married at last, having finally succeeded in his ardent pursuit of the lovely mystery novelist Harriet Vane. The two depart for a tranquil honeymoon in a country farmhouse but find, instead of a well-prepared love nest, the place left in a shambles by the previous owner. His sudden appearance, dead from a broken skull in the cellar, only prompts more questions. Why would anyone have wanted to kill old Mr. Noakes? What dark secrets had he to hide? The honeymoon is over, as Lord Peter and Harriet Vane start their investigations. Suspicion is rife and everyone seems to have something to hide, from the local constable to the housekeeper. Wimsey and his wife can think of plenty of theories, but it’s not until they discover a vital fact that the identity of the murderer becomes clear."
You can check out all the books written by Dorothy Sayers at this link.
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