Quick takes and capsule reviews from the dark suspense master himself, Ed Gorman!

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a sleek, handsomely illustrated, high-quality magazine that published first-rate horror, science fiction and crime tales – one which also featured in its first six issues work and interviews with such writers as Ray Bradbury, Ramsey Campbell, Robert B. Parker, Michael Marshall Smith, Stephen Gallagher, Robert Sheckley, Richard S. Prather, Lucius Shepard, Steven Ercison, Chaz Brenchley and the hottest new name in horror, Joe Hill?

Well, thanks to a fine writer-turned-publisher named Pete Crowther, such a magazine can be yours right now. It’s called Postscripts. For full details, visit their website, and while you’re at it, check out all the other PS Publishing books as well. This is a unique publishing venture that is a major player in England, but has yet to get the audience it deserves over here.

The August 2006 issue of Postscripts – its seventh –  features work from Lucius Shepard, Stephen Volk, Jack Dann, Rhys Hughes, Jay Lake and many others.

• • •

Two more magazines you should note are Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, though they both publish stories that stretch the definition of “mystery.” I mention this point so you’ll understand that they rarely do the old-fashioned, fair-clue, drawing-room type of mystery. Instead, you’ll find very contemporary stories here, treated in serious adult fashion.

In addition to name writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Jeffery Deaver, they also publish a list of people who are some of the best short story writers around: Ruth Rendell, Nancy Pickard, Brendan DuBois, Clark Howard, Doug Allyn and Ed Hoch, who manages to be in every issue of EQ.

Janet Hutchings is the editor of EQ and Linda Landrigan the editor of AH. That they’ve managed to survive the so-called “death of short fiction” is miracle enough – that they’ve done it while improving their respective magazines with virtually each issue makes their accomplishments even more amazing.

Here’s the magazines’ Mystery Place website. Give it a look.

• • •

I don’t know how many times I’ve reviewed LIVE GIRLS by Ray Garton, but now that Leisure’s brought it out again, I want to at least take note of its reappearance. There are two vampire novels I think you can put on the same shelf with DRACULA and I AM LEGEND. One is ‘SALEM’S LOT and the other is LIVE GIRLS.

What Garton has done is take the tropes of the vampire novel and sexualize them in a way that would have been impossible a quarter century ago. This is a raunchy, gritty, sometimes hilarious and always spellbinding novel set in the universe most of us inhabit. At least most of the time – bosses, lovers, budgets, relatives, etc. Where we depart company with the protagonist is when he starts going to live porn shows and, baby, that’s when he starts the long, dark slide into several kinds of death.

Garton nails every character. For all the praise laid upon the novel, I’ve never seen anybody talk about its people. They’re great. A few of them I’ve never seen before anywhere and I don’t mean just the vampires. Even the walk-ons have the stink and sass of real people – not necessarily people I’d like to have lunch with, you understand, but real nonetheless.

The other thing Garton does is make the sex here both truly seductive and truly scary. You think AIDS is scary? Wait ’til you meet this crew. This is one of the novels I give mystery readers who are leery of horror. It usually meets with effusive approval.
This is one you’ve got to pick up.

• • •

Millipede Press is one of the small publishing companies that have started doing big and important work. How big and how important? How’s this for its current offerings?

• SOME OF YOUR BLOOD by Theodore Sturgeon, with an introduction by Steve Rasnic Tem;
• THE FACE THAT MUST DIE by Ramsey Campbell, with an introduction by Poppy Z. Brite; and
• HERE COMES A CANDLE by Fredric Brown, with an introduction by Bill Pronzini.

I can still remember the first time I read SOME OF YOUR BLOOD. This was the summer of PSYCHO, theaters packed. I’d just seen it and had been disturbed by it. Loved it, but it scared me in ways a film had never scared me before. Same with the Strugeon novel. Blood is not only perverse, but perverted, in the dictionary sense of that word – a kind of pornography of oddness as the people involved try to determine the exact nature of a very strange man.

Or as Steve Rasnic Tem puts it in his thoughtful introduction: “I kept reading it becuse I knew what this fellow was – but I had forgotten what I knew. I had kept reading because truth had been unfolding here, an insight into homo sapiens the animal I didn’t like to think about. I had kept reading because this book had made me uncomfortable.”

I’ve long gotten over the shock of PSYCHO. But as I discovered a few days ago when I reread BLOOD, I’ll never get over the nasty grip this book has on me. It’s still shocking and still makes me squirm when I read it. I don’t think anybody has ever written a book like it.

• • •

Somebody on Book Talk mentioned novels that deal with the theme of marriages coming undone. He named three novels I’d never heard of.

So I started thinking about books that deal with that theme. First and foremost is MADAME BOVARY. If you’re too lazy to read the novel, rent the Claude Chabrol-directed movie. Isabelle Huppert’s performance is lacerating. What’s amazing is how Chabrol manages to pack in so much of the novel without ever slowing the story.

For me, the grandpappy of all American novels about marriages dying has to be REVOLUTIONARY ROAD by Richard Yates, who, in many respects, was the F. Scott Fitzgerald of his generation. He had a great social eye for all classes of Yankees and could writes senteces that hit you between the eyes like a bullet. (For one of the most important collections of American short stories ever published, pick up THE COLLECTED STORIES OF RICHARD YATES and start with “The B.A.R. Man.”

My third choice would be CUJO. Yes, Stephen King’s novel about a rabid dog. I consider this one of his six or seven immortal tales. And the husband and wife he gives us … crushing, because most of us have gone through relationships like that. Sad, bitter, scared, self-hating at times, confused … in his way, King gives us his own working-class MADAME BOVARY.

And the husband! King’s portrait of him makes me squirm every time I read it. Way too much like me. And probably at least a bit like you, guys. A painful picture of a less-than-perfect mate.

I rarely see CUJO mentioned on the list of King’s best; I’ve always wondered why. But then, maybe I read books for different reasons. The books I remember are those that mean something to me as a human being and CUJO certainly qualifies. The dog is interesting and sad. But it’s the husband and wife who won’t let go of you. –Ed Gorman

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE PRESENTS FIFTY YEARS OF CRIME AND SUSPENSE edited by Linda Landridge
• CELL by Stephen King
• THE COLORADO KID by Stephen King
• LIVE GIRLS by Ray Garton
• THE LOVELIEST DEAD by Ray Garton

Everyone’s out to get you! It’s all a secret plot. They’re after your kids and will experiment on them for evil purposes.

At least those are the major thoughts that run through protagonist Charlie Fields in Matthew Warner’s EYES EVERYWHERE, a novel chronicling the total breakdown of a man who can no longer deal with reality.

It starts out simply enough in our post-9/11 world. Charlie works in a dead-end job for a law firm in Washington, D.C. Everyday, he is scared that they will just let him go. (Anyone who has toiled in the cutthroat corporate world will really relate to these scenes.) Charlie’s suspicion kicks in right away when he is told a comment he made in a meeting reflects badly on him, leading him to believe he is first being followed, then constantly watched. Even when he is home with his family, he gets the feeling that his own wife is in on the plot.

Charlie builds up a paranoid fantasy in his head that is truly horrifying. Even though the book is told in third person, you’re really only getting Charlie’s point of view throughout. Slowly but surely, the madness in his head takes over; he leaves his family, takes all their money and tries to start a new life in a new apartment. Once “settled,” his obsession completely takes over his every waking moment, bearing awful consequences in situations which will just make you cringe. It’s like FIGHT CLUB, but with no fights and no Tyler Durden.

Warner definitely has done some major research into paranoid schizophrenia and all its symptoms. But this also raises a burning question: To whom is this book supposed to appeal? While far from Oprah’s Book Club material, it doesn’t seem geared toward the suspense crowd, either. I guess people who want to watch a man slowly deteriorate before their eyes will grab at this, or maybe those with a psych background. But I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be one of those books passed around like an underground classic. –Bruce Grossman

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This month’s BOOKGASM incoming-search-term roundup is just like last month’s, so there’s really not much more to say.

Except this: All totaled, an ungodly 5,955 of you came to us looking specifically for nude pics of Charo. That’s an exponential increase, up from July’s mere 147. Somewhere, Carol Burnett cries, realizing her R.I.F. program was all in vain. We join her.

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Timed to coincide with the current Neil Gaiman-scripted ETERNALS miniseries featuring the same characters, Marvel has assembled all 19 issues (plus one special) of Jack Kirby’s 1976-1979 blast of bombastic galactic goodness in one remastered hardcover collection, ETERNALS OMNIBUS. Upon diving into this massive tome, I am 10 years old again, albeit a 10-year-old who can afford to plunk down $75 (or even an Amazon-discounted $47.25) for an oversized book whose content originally cost $6.25 total.

So what’s the book about? It’s about gods and demons and giant, robotic “Celestials” from outer space. Various cover blurbs promise, “DEVIL IN THE SKY!,” “GODS AND MEN AT CITY COLLEGE!,” “HE’S…THE KILLING MACHINE!,” “THREE AGAINST THE TIME KILLERS!” and “…TRAPPED BY THE THING IN THE BIG CITY CRYPT!” It’s about Kirby drawing big guys with big fists, sexy supergals in shiny skirts, faceless robots towering over massive cityscapes. It’s about the King of Comics at the top of his craft, shooting a whopping dose of four-color smack straight into the veins of Marvel Comics’ true golden age. Kirby Bless America.

BIZARRO WORLD is a worthy follow-up to 2001’s BIZARRO COMICS, DC’s first anthology of superhero stories written and illustrated by alternative comics creators. Though a few of the entries kill the momentum of the book, most – or least – notably, Maggie Estep and Dylan Horrocks’ “Supergirl,” which lasts 10 pages but reads like an eternity, and Ben Dunn’s “Lantern Sentai,” a manga take on Green Lantern that, basically, reaffirms my utter distaste for the unreadability of the form.

The best stories cast the characters in situations dealing with the minutiae of modern bullshit. The hilarious “Ultimate Crisis of the Justice League” has the Martian Manhunter battling his perceived lameness by cracking and incapactitating or killing the other members of the JLA; “Legion.Com” explores the horrors of corporate culture infiltrating the 30th-century Legion of Super-Heroes, and “Bring Your Kids to Work Day” is another Justice League yarn featuring the bored, tweener children of the heroes and villains who’d rather play with their Gameboys than fight each other.

The anarchic spirit of classic Mad magazine runs through the veins of these BIZARRO books, and my only hope with future editions is that they reject any stories that ain’t funny, ‘cause these indie folks spend enough time mopedly navel-gazing in their own books.

Speaking of mopey navel-gazing, my favorite publisher Drawn & Quarterly has released DRAWN & QUARTERLY SHOWCASE: NO. 4 in their series which showcases up-and-coming alternative talent. This one, like the previous three, is a mixed but gorgeous bag.

Gabrielle Bell’s lead story of an art student’s relationship with a famous sculptor and his neglected son starts moderately interestingly, but devolves into a subpar episode of SIX FEET UNDER. Martin Cendreda’s two-color “Dog Days” is a slightly sweet, slightly spooky, ultimately inert tale of kids and dogs and a Filipino barber shop on a hot summer day.

The final story is by Dan Zettwoch (who also provides art for the cover and endpapers), and he’s the true find of the collection. His two-color, historical fiction “Won’t Be Licked! The Great ’37 Flood in Louisville” combines elements of Chris Ware (densely structured layouts highlighting mechanical details), Seth (early/mid-20th-century sociology) and Joe Matt (slightly cartoonish-looking characters in realistic surroundings). Though the story does drag on slightly, it’s an engaging slice of historical fiction, expertly told, and it’s gotten me very interested in Zettwoch’s future work. –Brian Winkeler

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MISS EARLIER INSTALLMENTS OF ‘PANEL DISCUSSION’? REGASM THESE:
• PANEL DISCUSSION >> 1.06
• PANEL DISCUSSION >> 9.05

Have you ever read a book and discovered that you weren’t sure if you liked it or not? I mean, you start reading it and think it’s really kinda “eh,” but you keep on reading it in case it gets better, and it doesn’t really but it’s got enough weirdness to make you want to, at least to see if you know what the hell the author is doing, and by the time the old exposition bus pulls up to the stop and explains everything to you, you realize you’re pretty much finished with the damn thing? But it wasn’t half-bad. And you still think you might have liked it.

That pretty much sums up my experience with Nikki Persley’s SERPENT OF ETERNITY. And that’s a pretty apropos title, because it felt like it took an eternity to finish it.

But see, this is exactly what I mean. That sounds bad, but it’s not really, as the book is actually pretty good. I’ll admit I groaned a little when I read the copy on the back cover and saw that it calls itself an “urban fantasy,” because when I hear the word “fantasy,” my mind automatically goes to a place where there are pixies and fairydust and unicorns that shoot rainbows out of their butts. And when you throw “urban” on top of it, the pixies start carrying gats and the unicorns are covered with grafitti tags. (It’s not a pretty place, my mind.)

So maybe I went into this one with a wee bit of an attitude. At first, the plot seemed like a retread of WAITING TO EXHALE, with a group of strong, gorgeous, successful African-American women sharing their romantic and professional ups and downs. Perfectly normal urban drama … except for the fact that one of the women, Anya, is the reincarnated goddess Ayalanna and she’s being tortured by dreams of her past lives (and deaths). Oh, and she’s being stalked by an incubus named Iakouta (a name that my eyes insist on reading as “Iacocca” for some goofy reason) that wants to kill her before she can realize her powers and lead the human race into untold advances in evolution.

Yeah, it’s just like WAITING TO EXHALE.

This is Persley’s first novel, and it’s written quite well. My only problem was the amazing amount of background information that she dribbles out in too-small quantities. At times, I actually had to go back and read a chapter after an explanation is given, just so everything would make sense. The whole mythology of the Epkoro Society (the name of the followers of Ayalanna and Amadi, her brother/husband … I know, ewww) is dense, complicated and difficult to follow, but it’s ultimately interesting enough to keep you reading.

There are two more proposed volumes following the adventures of Anya/Ayalanna, and I would imagine they’ll be more plot-driven now that all the explanation is out of the way. Which is good, because Persley is a talented writer who will probably only improve as she continues her trilogy. While I might not have savored every page, I have to say that I really respect the effort it took to self-publish this book. –Rebecca Brock

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Greg Keyes delivers another great STAR WARS novel with STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – EDGE OF VICTORY II: REBIRTH. I don’t know why this is the second volume in the EDGE OF VICTORY series, because it really works as a stand-alone book. Whereas the previous book focused on Anakin Solo, this book brings all the beloved movie characters back to center stage. For one of these books to really “feel” like a STAR WARS movie, it needs lots of characters and lots of subplots – REBIRTH delivers both in spades.

One of the main subplots is the impending birth of the child of Luke and Mara Jade. Mara’s sickness returns, placing the baby in grave danger. This thread is really handled brilliantly and sensitively. Kyp Durron and his renegade squadron discover an in-progress Yuuzhan Vong superweapon and recruit Jaina Solo’s help in destroying it. Anakin deepens his relationship with Tahiri, who is recovering from her treatment at the hands of Yuuzhan Vong shapers. And Han Solo reverts to back to true form as an intergalactic smuggler, with Jacen and Leia at his side.

On the Yuuzhan Vong front, we follow a shaper named Nen Yim, who was introduced in the last book. She is a heretic because she doesn’t simply follow religion, but conducts experiments that go against the Yuuzhan Vong beliefs.

There is so much going on here that it would be easy to let it get bogged down. Instead, Keyes keeps things moving at a breakneck pace and brings all the story threads together for an amazing climax. This is one book in the series that easily could have been 100 pages longer and still remained a great read. –Chris Sharpe

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – AGENTS OF CHAOS I: HERO’S TRIAL by James Luceno
• STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – AGENTS OF CHAOS II: JEDI ECLIPSE by James Luceno
• STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – BALANCE POINT by Kathy Tyers
• STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – DARK TIDE I: ONSLAUGHT by Michael A. Stackpole
• STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – DARK TIDE II: RUIN by Michael A. Stackpole
• STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – EDGE OF VICTORY I: CONQUEST by Greg Keyes
• STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – VECTOR PRIME by R.A. Salvatore

This time out, as the headline suggests (and if you don’t get the reference, you should be ashamed), we have three books with a common theme: Nazis! They’re the ultimate bad guys, from books and comics to movies and, unfortunately, real life. Is there any more apt portrayal of evil incarnate? I don’t think so.

HAWK #6: THE SEEDS OF EVIL by Dan Streib – This 1981 book is part of the 14-book series featuring reporter/investigator Mike Hawk. Definitely one of the cooler covers is featured here; I just wish the book could have lived up to it. I know I harp on books being predictable, but this one was so obvious; the big “shock” was more “ho-hum” than “oooh, did not expect that.”

SEEDS opens with a 1945 prologue set in a certain bunker, from where a nurse is escorted with a package to a plane leaving Germany ASAP. Fast-forward to present-day Venice (or at least 1981 Venice), where a journalist is on a lake with a team of Italians. They’re searching the bottom of the lake – for what, we don’t know – when all of a sudden, another ship turns up and kills everyone there.

Enter Mike Hawk, reporter, called upon by an editor who wants the scoop on the death. This sets Hawk off to that region, where he meets a former Mafia princess, whom he will bed later on, this being just typical men’s adventure stuff. She’s staying in Venice with a man called Attila La Scala. Once they introduce him into the story, I knew exactly what was on the bottom of the lake and why people were killing over it. This book easily fits the mold of the PENETRATOR or Mack Bolan series, the latter of which Streib served as ghostwriter. SEEDS is just some mindless fun with no big surprises if you have half a brain.

HORSE UNDER WATER by Len Deighton – Sometime the answer is staring at you the whole time. Case in point: the title to this 1963 book. No, it’s not about Seabiscuit swimming in a pool. It’s the other kind of horse; you know, the one that usually involves a needle. HORSE is part of Deighton’s no-named spy series (others of which will be covered in a future column).

We’re not really told what the spy’s mission is – just that he is being trained in scuba diving so he can travel to Portugal. So for about the first 100 pages or so, they are scouring the sea for a sunken German U-boat where a steel canister was recovered. Said canister must be really important, since someone blows up the spy’s car, then later sinks the boat they were using for scuba diving, killing one of his team.

It turns out the U-boat carried a huge cache of heroin, plus there is an ex-Nazi spy operating under an assumed name and blackmailing some Brits for their actions during the war. He is also under the belief he has come up with a way to melt ice and freeze ocean-sized amounts of water. Our protagonist also stumbles upon a drug trafficking ring, but he’s more interested about the blackmail operation. But once all is said and done, he’s just gathering info for his own government to use. See, folks, not all spy novels have huge body counts or exotic locales.

Deighton’s hero is a blue-collar spy more concerned with making sure the scuba gear is accounted for so he won’t be charged for it. And then bedding as many women as possible. HORSE is probably the weakest of all the Deighton I’ve read, and I’ve read plenty. Still, even weak Deighton is better then some of those other big-name storytellers.

SECRET MISSION #20: THE BAVARIAN CONNECTION by Don Smith – For a book called SECRET MISSION, this 1978 offering is more private eye then spy. The first of this series I’ve ever read, the book opens with Gunther Vogel, a son of a former German who fled to Brazil after World War II. Gunther arrives at a Swiss Bank to cash in some bonds his father left him in a safety deposit box. It seems the bonds were stolen in the war from a Jewish man, whose son Werner wants to find out what really happened to his father. Being the neighbor of our spy, Phil Sherman, Werner asks Phil to go over there and find out anything he can. See, more detective story, then super-secret mission.

Once Phil makes it over to Europe, Werner’s father’s real past becomes more apparent, as Dad ran to Brazil after the war not for war crimes, but to hide from other Germans who wanted him dead. Gunther is killed, a crime made to look like a robbery. This sets Phil on the trail of a group of old-time Nazis who want to bring back the Fourth Reich. Phil runs into all sorts, including corrupt art dealers, two Swedish female backpackers, corrupt police and more Nazi-loving Germans.

I really did not know what to expect from BAVARIAN CONNECTION, but was amused for the whole afternoon it took to read it. It’s more in the vein of a Sam Durrell novel than the Nick Carter books they name-check on some of the covers.

Next time, spy vs. spy. –Bruce Grossman

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MISS EARLIER INSTALLMENTS OF ‘BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS’? REGASM THESE:
• #18: Watching the Detectives
• #17: Lights! Camera! Action!
• #16: Go West
• #15: Speedy Reading in the Summertime
• #14: Direct from the Death Cloud Peril

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• AN EXPENSIVE PLACE TO DIE by Len Deighton
• FUNERAL IN BERLIN by Len Deighton

Released in 1912 (as a serialization in Field & Stream!), Zane Grey’s RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE enjoys a reputation today as being one of the finest Western novels ever written, often mentioned in the same breath as Jack Schaefer’s SHANE or Alan Le May’s THE SEARCHERS. Thanks to Leisure’s new “uncut, uncensored edition,” edited by Western expert Jon Tuska, it’s easy to see why.

The hero of Grey’s sweeping tale is Lassiter. You know the archetype: a mysterious loner who rides in unannounced, dressed all in black, carrying only his guns, which he uses for “snuffing Mormons.” In a village that finds the Mormons and Gentiles constantly at war – thanks to the villainous Oldring’s cattle thieving – Lassiter takes an immediate shine to Jane Withersteen, a kindly, weathered soul who once had eyes for Venters, who is nearly hanged by the corrupt Bishop Tull until Lassiter’s fortuitous intervention as the novel opens.

SAGE is much a dual romance as it is an adventure: Though out to avenge his sister’s death, Lassiter pursues Jane (who doesn’t exactly put up a fight), while Venters shoots Oldring’s Masked Rider, discovers this peculiar figure is really (gasp!) a girl, nurses her to health and proposes marriage. Throw in gold, gunfights and the love of an orphan girl, and SAGE has “lasting influence” written all over it.

Grey’s language is not as staid as you would expect for something nearly a century old. In fact, it’s rather alive and bristles with the ambience of the skies and plains (PURPLE prose, perhaps?). Sometimes that proves too much of a good thing, as Grey goes on for lengthy paragraphs and numerous pages with overdone descriptions of the landscape. Dialogue was not the man’s forte, as some characters get veritable soliloquies, with each strained pause intact. Oddly, though, I found this quaint; after all, if you’re looking for a true old-fashioned Western, you might as well go straight to the source.

As for being “uncensored,” all this means is that it’s finally as Grey originally wrote it. If you’re looking for R-rated material, look elsewhere, although one female character is now less virtuous than earlier editions made her seem. –Rod Lott

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Crafted as an aside to his harder-edged, singularity-driven science fiction and as a throwback and homage to Roger Zelazny’s Amber books, Charles Stross’ Merchant Princes cycle is simply great reading.

The setup is this: A modern-day woman named Miriam finds out one day that she has the ability to steps across dimensions and is considered royalty in one such reality. This family has amassed great riches and power by carefully breeding children with said dimension-shifting ability, and they use these shifters as mules, taking huge payments in our world to move drugs and other valuable cargo from place to place, undetected by Earth authorities.

In the third book in the series, THE CLAN CORPORATE, events first put into place in books one and two start coming together, and Miriam not only has to deal with family squabbles and royal etiquette, but a nefarious conspiracy and, unlikely as it seems, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

You see, the fuzz have an extradimensional stool pigeon. He’s telling them the secrets of dimensional travel, and homeland security doesn’t stop at the borders of our dimension.

Stross is a great writer, and it’s a testament to his other work that the convoluted family ties and plot seems somewhat simple in comparison. But THE CLAN CORPORATE – one of the Sci-Fi Channel Essential picks – stands along with its predecessors as a fresh reimagination of a subgenre that had gone stale years ago. It’s one of those science fiction books that has much broader appeal than, say, IRON SUNRISE, but is in no way less satisfying. My only gripe is the cliffhanger: With one volume coming out every year or so, it’s going to be a long wait to find out what happens next. –Ryun Patterson

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THE SCI-FI ESSENTIAL SERIES:
• CHILDREN OF CHAOS by Dave Duncan
• OLD MAN’S WAR by John Scalzi

Having Harlan Coben’s name big and bold on the cover of this anthology is going to be the main reason it moves copies, which is a little ironic since his contribution is about one of maybe three stories that doesn’t quite click. But other than that, the Coben-edited MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA PRESENTS DEATH DO US PART: NEW STORIES ABOUT LOVE, LUST, AND MURDER is a top-notch collection of crime tales centering around relationships gone sour. On second thought, make that “gone rancid.”

Proving he can do more than Jack Reacher novels, Lee Child provides the book’s first home run with “Safe Enough,” about a construction worker intervening in a woman’s abusive marriage, which he’ll regret. Halfway through, I was so engrossed, I totally forgot I was reading Child. Next is Hard Case Crime mastermind Charles Ardai with “The Home Front,” a WWII-era period piece in which a gas-ration enforcement officer ends up having to hide out with the family whose son’s death he caused, and gets involved with the boy’s mother.

The lesser-known authors prove their mettle, too. In “Heat Lightning,” William Kent Krueger tells a moving story about a doomed-from-all-sides love triangle, in which one of the points is a terminally ill wife. Similar in generating honest, aching sorrow is Rick McMahan’s small-town tragedy “The Cold, Hard Truth.” Just as absorbing – albeit for entirely different reasons – is Tim Wohlforth’s seuxally charged mystery, “The Masseuse.”

Tim Maleeny offers a bit of levity in the clever, cutthroat “Till Death Do Us Part,” a veritable buffet of black humor among two long-married (and long-suffering) scientists. Matching it in originality if not quite wit is Tom Savage’s “Cyberdate.com,” taking the form of transcripts of instant-messaging sessions. And Jay Brandon takes a cue from current headlines with “Pushed or Was Fell,” in which a couple’s cruise-ship honeymoon yields fatal results.

With Steve Hockensmith proving the highlight of the current FIFTY YEARS OF CRIME AND SUPSENSE anthology, I expected a repeat performance, but his “Blarney” marks one of DEATH’s few drab spots. And though his story isn’t quite amongst the cream, the surprise here is R.L. Stine. Knowing him only from GOOSEBUMPS and other greasy kid stuff, he shows gleeful flashes of the macabre in “Wifey,” about a guy who inherits his best friend’s dog.

P.J. Parrish, Ridley Pearson and Jeff Abbott also number among the 18 contributors, all of whom turn in never-before-published works, except – oddly enough – Coben, who lazily trots out a nine-year-old piece from the pages of Mary Higgins Clark’s Mystery Magazine. Shame on you, Harlan, but glory to you in the highest for assembling this ace treasury. –Rod Lott

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• DEAL BREAKER by Harlan Coben
• THE HARD WAY by Lee Child

Tom Franklin’s SMONK can be described as a Gothic Western, one which I found to be more miss than hit. And I love Westerns.

The title refers to one E.O. Smonk (the E.O. stands for Eugene Oregon), a rapist. In the year 1911, Smonk is on trial in the town of Old Texas, Ala. The author really never clarifies the reason for the trial, which looks to be a setup just to kill Smonk. But Smonk figures this out and lays waste to the whole town with the help of a brand-new invention called the machine gun. On his escape, he takes the baliff’s son with him as a hostage.

The story then switches gears in a major way, with the introduction of Evavangeline, a teenage whore in a neighboring county who is so flat-chested, she is mistaken for a man throughout the book – the first time being when a group of Christian deputies break in on her and a customer. We follow her adventures being incorrectly thought of as a male by men who want to have sex with her and by cowboys who try to rape her.

Meanwhile, Smonk leaves the kid on his own, giving him a knife and telling him to go away. Having heard of an orphanage where the kids can have sex and do whatever they like, the kid takes this deal. He and Evavangeline meet at the orphanage, which is really a white slave trade operation, in which the husband-and-wife team running the show steal ‘n’ sell the kids for high prices.

The book is all over the map, with long passages about Evavangeline’s past and Smonk hiding out from the law. Once it comes back to the town of Old Texas and we learn its dark secret, I could not have cared less. Had Franklin stuck more to the story and plot instead of simply having characters disscuss bodily functions every chapter, SMONK might have emerged a winner. The town’s so-called “secret” isn’t even shocking – just disgusting, involving women so deluded by one of their town elders and his bizarre visions. Other mysteries are revealed to tie it all up in a little package, but this just makes it more farcical, in my opinion. Franklin tries hard to establish a mood of creepiness; it’s just not the right kind of creepiness. –Bruce Grossman

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I love these kind of books. Whether it’s the myth-busting work of James Loewen (LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME and LIES ACROSS AMERICA), the myth-busting work of John Stossel (GIVE ME A BREAK and MYTHS, LIES, AND DOWNRIGHT STUPIDITY) or, heck, the myth-busting work of MYTHBUSTERS, these “what you know is wrong” works are fun. They challenge you to confront long-held beliefs and present you with facts that you haven’t considered before. At their best, they are mind-openers. At their worst, they make you mad because they cause you to lose faith in their credibility and research.

Brian Thomsen’s THE AWFUL TRUTHS: FAMOUS MYTHS, HILARIOUSLY DEBUNKED falls in the middle here. There are quite a few bits of goodness, but it’s all tempered by a few lame chapters. To be fair, that’s par for the course in this genre. Not every section or sidebar can be a winner. For some, these myths have been busted long ago; for example, the canard that Abner Doubleday invented baseball or the historical inaccuracies of Shakespeare. There are some seriously lame and almost irrelevant sections on Oliver Stone’s first film and the irony (yawn) of calling talented comedians the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. Perhaps the worst example of this is the chapter on FEMA’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina, which contrasts FEMA official statements with what the media reported. That chapter would carry credibility if Thomsen also contrasted what the media reported (rampant murder and sexual abuse in the Superdome) with what actually occurred.

More worrisome are the lack of sources (even a network-based populist like Stossel manages to include references so you can check up on his statements) and some out-and-out falsehoods. For instance, Vince Lombardi did not go out “a loser” (p. 155), as his record in his final season of coaching was seven wins, five losses and two ties. While that’s not “a win ratio of more than 50 percent,” it is also not a losing record when tie results are possible. And where he gets the line about Joe DiMaggio being the only “athlete in North American professional sports history to be on four championship teams in his first four full seasons” (p. 103) is beyond me.

Let me see, half of the Cleveland Browns did it from 1946 to 1950 (five years – four in the AAFC, one in the NFL – and then quarterback Otto Graham led the Browns to seven championships in 10 years), a bunch of the Houston Comets did it in the WNBA (first four years the Comets were the champions), and hey, what about John Havlicek, who played for the Celtics and won championships his first four years (not to mention Gene Guarilia and Tom Sanders for the same team)? This is the kind of thing that makes a reader go “huh?”

But to counteract those huhs, the book does have good sections on the Emancipation Proclamation, the Pledge of Allegiance and female astronauts in the 1960s. Maybe the book just needs a strong editorial hand, someone who is willing to jettison the truly awful cartoons and ensure that the debunking gets a bit more hilarious than the current text. I read a pre-release version, so I presume that the stunning amount of typos were fixed in the final product. A little tighter rein on the subject chapters with more relevance (the first two sections on St. Patrick and an Irish nationalist song don’t capture the interest) would be helpful. Even with the caveats mentioned above, this might be a good book to get if you enjoy having the things you “know” be proved wrong. –Mark Rose

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Our end-o’-week roundup of what you missed while working for The Man!

As you may have noticed, it isn’t Friday. And while there might not be a good reason for that, there is a reason nonetheless: The BOOKGASM corporate overlords have decided that there’s just too darn much content during the week, and have pushed this recap to the weekend. That’s the bad news; the good news is the fact that it’s always so hard to get started on Monday mornings, and now you’ll have a great way to kick off the soul-sucking trudge to Friday. Enjoy!

MONDAY >> 8.21.06
I love too-spooky-for-children children’s books, and GOD’S ACRE: BOOK ONE – THE RAVENS & THE RHYME hits it on the head. Omnibucket has created, at least according to Rod Lott, a multimedia masterpiece fitting for the original dark fantasy of the Brothers Grimm. If you’ve ever wished that the POKY LITTLE PUPPY got impaled or that the LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD couldn’t, this is the book for you.

Whenever I read stories about a world on the inside of our hollow planet, I always get hung up on light sources. Nobody has ever explained this to my satisfaction. There’s a mini sun in there? Really? Then where does all the hot air go? There obviously isn’t a vacuum inside our planet, because then our planet would collapse. And another thing … oh, never mind. Anyway, Rod took a liking to David Standish’s (take a deep breath) HOLLOW EARTH: THE LONG AND CURIOUS HISTORY OF IMAGINING STRANGE LANDS, FANTASTICAL CREATURES, ADVANCED CIVILIZATIONS, AND MARVELOUS MACHINES BELOW THE EARTH’S SURFACE (whew), which takes a look at the manifold incarnations of this fantasy and sports a cover that, at first glance, looks like a diagram of the human eye.

The one good thing about my obsessive collecting of THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE as a slightly introverted child is that I know more about the second- and third-tier Marvel characters than most humans. Marvel, having found out about my superhuman genius, is trying to negate it with its ESSENTIAL line, and the latest one to get reviewed in these virtual pages is ESSENTIAL SAVAGE SHE-HULK: VOL 1. Rod thinks it’s pretty great, aside from the odd Man-Wolf incoherence. My special knowledge has been severely degraded, however; with Nova, Moon Knight and now She-Hulk revealed to the general public, the only guy I really have good info on is The Whizzer*, and that’s pretty sad.

TUESDAY >> 8.22.06
Mark Rose kicked off Thor’s day by casting his critical eye toward Lynn Abbey’s swords-and-sociology tale RIFKIND’S CHALLENGE. Apparently this is the women’s action fantasy version of the movie ROAD TRIP. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though; and if the setting interests you more than individual character development arcs, this is right up your alley. And no, there’s no Tom Green.

Bruce Grossman got back to basics in last week’s BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS, taking on detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner, Jonathan Gash and a ghost writer posing as Brett Halliday. Despite having the week’s best cover, NEVER KILL A CLIENT falls to the bottom of the stack, while Gardner and Gash rise to the top.

WEDNESDAY >> 8.23.06
Voting is open for the Quills awards, at least according to NEWSGASM. I haven’t taken the time to wonder if sales numbers are the main criteria for ballot inclusion, but Tyler Perry will inevitably win in the humor category; after stuffing a bra year after year, stuffing a ballot box should be no biggie.

When I saw the news release announcing Virgin Comics, I have to admit I was disappointed. Limiting your comics to one mythology, even one as deep and rich as India’s, never seems to work out. It’s really in the cross-pollination — the clash of cultures – that things get interesting. That said, it remains to be seen if VIRGIN COMICS #0 is an accurate measure of how the entire line will evolve. There’s big money behind it, so we’ll take the long view.

Word to the wise: When Bruce Grossman says Stark House Press is on his shortlist for favorite publisher, you’d best take note and buy some books. He is effusive in his praise for their latest release, Harry Whittington’s two-book volume A NIGHT FOR SCREAMING / ANY WOMAN HE WANTED. Grossman knows his noir, and what he says goes. Or else.

THURSDAY >> 8.24.06
Rod Lott likes what Steve Niles is cooking in his THE CRYPTICS one-shot, but $3.50? Come on. If you’re making a comic for kids, print it on cheap paper, stuff it with Twinkies ads and sell it for 60 cents. It’s the American way.

Bruce Grossman, if you didn’t know, loves his rock and roll music. If The Ramones had known him, one of their first hits would have been “Bruce Grossman is a Punk Rocker,” and woe betide the man who takes Jann Wenner’s side in the ages-old Rolling Stone vs. Creem debate. Therefore, it’s a no-brainer that he gets his hands on GRIT, NOISE AND REVOLUTION: THE BIRTH OF DETROIT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL. He says it’s good, though I can’t get past the awkward hyphenation on the cover.

It seems like every day I learn something new from BOOKGASM, and on Thursday I finally found out what the deal is with all those Harlan Coben books: The recurring character is a sports agent. DEAL BREAKER is a reprint of the first book in a long series, reprinted to serve as a jumping off point for new readers. That’s a great idea, and if you’re a fan of these books, pick up a copy to lend to friends. I have three copies of Robert B. Parker’s THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT, and they’re always out on loan to someone or another, and they always come back for more.

FRIDAY >> 8.26.06
Among the phrases I love to read, “balls-out revenge tale” is a new addition, and it’s near the top. Bruce Grossman, who never requires sleep, and thus, can read and review books 24 hours a day, uses this phrase in describing LAST SHOT by Gregg Hurwitz. Balls thusly exposed, Hurwitz made Grossman jump with glee and giggle like a schoolgirl. Needless to say, it was good.

I’ve finally managed to get off my rapidly expanding ass and write some more book reviews; the first of this batch was of ECHELON by Josh Conviser. There’s a lot to like about this book, but it’s really only of the skin-deep, “cinematic action” variety. Still really cool, though, so click that link for further reference.

That’s it for this weekend. My list of chores is running into two columns, and my wife is still convinced this is a porn site, so I’ve got to run. Until next week. —Ryun Patterson

*EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m about to take the precious Whizzer away from Ryun, with next week’s review of ESSENTIAL SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP.

Made nigh-immortal by nanobots and working for a super-secret shadow dictatorship called ECHELON, Ryan Laing is, of course, going to get tangled in a web of deceit and corruption. The fund lies, however, in unraveling the web, and author Josh Conviser doesn’t let us down.

Highly reminiscent of THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, THE BOURNE IDENTITY and plenty of other on-the-run-from-a-hugely-powerful-organization films and novels, Laing and his partner, a spunky girl who’s obviously in over her head, have to find a way to defeat an organization that knows everything going on at any given second around the globe. Fortunately, Laing is infested with nanobots that can heal nearly any injury, and this allows Conviser to find asymmetrical solutions to the traditional action set-pieces. Laing doesn’t need to avoid bullets and bombs – he just needs enough time to heal afterward.

Dialogue consists mostly of sharp-tongued tough talk, and little time is wasted describing events outside the main attraction. Characters sometimes jump from place to place with little explanation, but ideas and action fly at you so fast that there’s almost no time to sweat about what’s missing. From offshore data havens to a plague-infested rogue’s gallery and back, there’s all sorts of awesome action in ECHELON, and it’s a great way for sci-fi fans to cap off the summer. –Ryun Patterson

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LAST SHOT is part of Gregg Hurwitz’s Tim Rackley series, but don’t let that stop you if you have not read the others. I hadn’t, and now I’m ready for more. This book can easily be summed up as a balls-out revenge tale – we’re talking ’70s-type revenge, like Charles Bronson on a bad day revenge – as well as a story of total corruption in the world of pharmaceuticals.

We’re introduced to Walker Jameson, who is quietly serving time in jail. One day, even with short time in front of him, he escapes in a manner that perplexes all (including the reader – it’s totally ingenious). Being a former marine, Jameson has the training to pull it off, so he can embark on the search for his sister’s killer and anyone else remotely involved. He is a can’t-stop/won’t-stop type, obsessed with seeing it through until all is said and done. The way he disposes of people is such cold-blooded payback – brutal killings that made all those revenge flicks of yesteryear so great.

U.S. Marshal Rackley and his partner are on his trail as soon as the escape occurs, and Rackley realizes there must be some reason Jameson escaped with so little time left. As they investigate, a bloody trail of conspirators turn up. Nevertheless, Rackely has genuine respect for Jameson throughout.

I can’t go further into details without ruining some great stuff. In LAST SHOT, Hurwitz has written a total page-turner, to the point where I finished the book the same day I started it. Hurwitz never tips his hand in advance of what’s going to happen until it absolutely needs to be shown. For that, I’m so grateful; finally, a writer who can keep a tight pace and great surprises. –Bruce Grossman

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As Burt Bacharach once said, “What the world needs now is more sports agents.” Well, maybe if they’re only the really upstanding kind like Myron Bolitar, the star of Harlan Coben’s DEAL BREAKER. And maybe only if they’re accompanied by a near-psychotic sociopath who tends to deal out justice when justice is too rarely to be found. Maybe then.

DEAL BREAKER is actually the very first novel featuring mid-level sports agent Myron Bolitar, originally published in 1995. Titles that followed included DROP SHOT, FADE AWAY, BACK SPIN, ONE FALSE MOVE, THE FINAL DETAIL and DARKEST FEAR. But Coben stopped writing about Bolitar in 2000 and went on to other characters. His first book is now being re-released in hardback by Delacorte to coincide with the publication of a brand-new Bolitar novel, PROMISE ME. If you want to get involved in the series, it’s always more fun to start at the beginning, and DEAL BREAKER is the perfect entry point.

Bolitar isn’t a flashy agent, and most of his clients aren’t superstars. But star rookie quarterback Christian Steele is going to change all that. He seems a sure thing for the pros with a national collegiate championship under his belt; he’s a good looking, polite kid who will be a sponsor’s favorite; and he’s going to get Bolitar into the big time.

But Steele has a tragic past. His girlfriend went missing a while back and now the girlfriend’s father has been found dead, the result of a random robbery. Or was it? All of a sudden, the girlfriend seems to reappear, as her nude photo has been found in a porn magazine advertisement. Is she still alive, and if so, why doesn’t she come out of hiding? The pornographers aren’t talking. No one seems to have the answers, but there are lots of people who want to hurt Steele: his collegiate teammates, his new franchise owner who would like to bring down the amount of Steele’s contract and even a couple of loose mob goons who want to hurt Bolitar for interfering with one of their own cash cows.

It’s a complicated world. And Coben is at his best here with the complicated plot, slowly steering Bolitar and the reader through the investigation while not allowing us to get too lost in the details. The text is breezy with lots of dry, sarcastic humor and whipcrack dialogue, and the characters have a likable vulnerability that doesn’t wear thin. Bolitar’s half-crazy partner, Win, seems invincible and unrealistic, but he serves as the amoral muscle next to Bolitar’s upright squeamishness, combining to form a vibrant team.

If you’re looking for non-stop literary football action, you won’t find it here but you will find the debut of a great series character, a promising start to a career that continues to flourish. –Mark Rose

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When I was offered GRIT, NOISE AND REVOLUTION: THE BIRTH OF DETROIT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL for review, it did not take five seconds for me to say “yes!” I knew right from the cover shot of Fred “Sonic” Smith exactly what this book was going to cover. For those expecting a detailed history of Motown, there are plenty of other books that tackle that. This book, my friends, is really all about the rock.

The first few chapeters in this tome cover the early Detroit music scene, including John Lee Hooker, 1950s acts, a dash of Motown and the burgeoning garage movement featuring a young Bob Seger. Once that’s all said and done, GRIT hits the meat of the matter: the MC5 and all their exploits. From here on out, that is the band which all the others mentioned orbit around like satellites.

I could spend the rest of this review telling you folks what albums to pick up and why, but this is a book review site, not Creem (the greatest rock mag started, incidentally, in Detroit.). Author David A. Carson expounds on the exploits of the legendary MC5 and other bands of that era. Yes, The Stooges have their say in this tale, but it seems Carson took the MC5 ball and just kept rolling. So one must thank Carson for that alone. Since the only MC5 stories I’ve read before – dealt with here in greater detail – were in PLEASE KILL ME: THE UNCENSORED ORAL HISTORY OF PUNK, another great book for music fans.

Each chapter in GRIT covers one subject, then moves onwards, with insight about Mitch Ryder’s rise to a little mention of Grand Funk Railroad (but don’t let that dissuade you). My only quibble with Carson’s text is that toward the end, it feels like he tried to cram too much in there and not forget anyone, with pages about Alice Cooper and Parliament Funkadelic. If you are a fan of the Detroit scene from the late ’60s or early ’70s, you won’t regret grabbing this one. For the kids out there who don’t know any better, put down that infernal Kid Rock CD and pick up a copy of KICK OUT THE JAMS or FUN HOUSE; you’ll be much better off. –Bruce Grossman

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Imagine: a Steve Niles comic for the whole family. Imagine no more: THE CRYPTICS, a one-shot from Image.

Written by Niles and illustrated by Benjamin Roman, THE CRYPTICS are a friendly gang of kids who are monsters. So you have miniature versions of Dracula, a Black Lagoon-esque creature, a Jekyll-and-Hyde nerdy boy and a Frankensteinian werewolf. They mean well. They get into mischief. Their eight adventures – ranging from playing in a wading pool to battling scary snowmen – can be as brief as one page, like an old Mad gag.

And something like this is almost review-proof: It’s cute, inoffensive and well-done all around. However, $3.50 for something that can be read in five minutes flat is steep. Then again, it contains no ads. –Rod Lott

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• BIGFOOT by Steve Niles, Rob Zombie and Richard Corben
• THE NAIL by Steve Niles and Rob Zombie
• 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: RUMORS OF THE UNDEAD by Steve Niles and Jeff Mariotte

Stark House Press is quickly becoming my favorite imprint, and A NIGHT FOR SCREAMING / ANY WOMAN HE WANTED shows off two lesser-known novels from the king of the paperbacks, Harry Whittington. His list of published works would make Stephen King, Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy jealous.

You ever wish you could find a book that resembles early Coen Brothers movies? Well Stark house has opened my eyes in a big way and helped everyone out. Well, 1960’s A NIGHT FOR SCREAMING will make fans of BLOOD SIMPLE rejoice. Mitch Walker is a man on the run for a murder he did not commit. He arrives at a town where vagrancy is no laughing matter and the only work available is at a farm complex run by a no-nonsense businessman named Barton M. Cassel.

The operation is pretty much a glorified work camp, but with no guards. However, the farm also employs convicts from the local prison. So who is really better off: Mitch or the convicts? Slowly it becomes apparent that Mitch can easily move up in the farm hierarchy if he wants to, but all that’s on his radar is getting some money and hiding from the law – namely, his old partner, who is hunting him down. That’s until the day Barton hatches a scheme for Mitch which will get him enough money and maybe escape from all his problems.

I wish I could go into greater detail, but I don’t want to take away from the sheer brilliance of Whittington’s writing. For those who just crave the seedy noir world, A NIGHT FOR SCREAMING delivers like a 2 x 4 to the head.

The burnt-out cop tale has been the subject of many a film and story, but I don’t think any probably pack as much of a punch as 1961’s ANY WOMAN HE WANTED. Mike Ballard is a cop who, four years earlier, cleaned out the mob. He even might have been on the take, but there was no real concrete evidence; all they could do was demote him to a low-grade detective. Ballard goes through the daily routine of his job, not trying to outdo himself or even make any kind of name for himself. He’s stuck in the same rut day after day and seems to be happy with that.

Then one day he is called to see District Attorney Tom Flynn, whose wife used to have a thing for Ballard. Flynn wants Ballard to work with him on a task force to clean up the town and get rid of corruption. But Ballard wants nothing to do with it, which he makes perfectly clear. A day later, Flynn turns up dead in an apparent suicide – at least that’s what the higher-ups want it listed as, despite the huge bullet hole in the back of his head.

Ballard can’t believe the cops are content to hush it all up. But then other cops involved with the investigation turn up dead as well. Plus, you have a secondary story of a young Spanish girl knocked up by the son of the most powerful man in town. Whittington weaves a story so well with such characters, they just pop off the page. Ballard in particular is a man who knows his past is not all clear but cloudy, and sees if he can redeem himself anyway once it all hits the fan.

Stark House is the Criterion of the pulp world. They’ve done it again, providing the world with some much-valued reissues. They use top-quality material that’s not going to fall apart like the ones you can pay top dollar for at a used store. Not only that, but you get an exhaustive bibliography for all of Whittington’s writings, including for all his pseudonyms. Also included are two essays by Bill Crider and David Laurence Wilson. Each gives a history lesson about Whittington, but Crider’s focuses on the publishing side, going into details of advances and certain titles to be on the lookout for.

And with this one, Stark House improves upon the cover art. Stick with the photos of girls on the covers, guys! –Bruce Grossman

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All the news that’s fit to capsulize!

QUILL YOU PLEASE VOTE?
Nominations for the 2nd annual Quills Awards were announced yesterday, honoring the best in books among 20 categories. Well, at least they say “best,” but Tyler Perry is nominated in the humor category for DON’T MAKE A BLACK WOMAN TAKE OFF HER EARRINGS. (Really? Were only five humor titles published last year?) The nominees are all over the board and appear to have been picked randomly, although they did have the good sense to nominate James Swanson’s MANHUNT in two categories, and it remains our favorite non-fiction title of the year (for damn good reasons, hoss). Other titles nominated that we’ve reviewed here include Stephen King’s CELL, Christopher Moore’s A DIRTY JOB and Raymond Khoury’s startlingly mediocre THE LAST TEMPLAR. So go vote now in their laborious one-category-at-a-time process before Sept. 30, at quillsvote.com. The awards ceremony will be televised on NBC stations Oct. 11, to even fewer viewers than the least-watched episode of JOEY. However, if we can get Elizabeth Kostova (a winner for last year’s THE HISTORIAN) to show up in a slightly more revealing dress than she did before, that could change.

DIVIDING UP YOUR ‘TRANSGRESSIONS’
While we’re on the subject of last year’s best, the Ed McBain-edited anthology TRANSGRESSIONS