A friend of mine noticed a copy of Poppy Z. Brite’s THE DEVIL YOU KNOW on my coffee table, picked it up and said, “That’s … different.” She was referring to the misshapen cat sprawled across the cover, but as I’d come to find shortly thereafter, her first impression was spot-on.

The stories within aredifferent. A couple of them, most notably the FIRESTARTER-esque “Burn, Baby, Burn,” may appear derivative upon first glance, but while readers are likely to think Charlie McGee for a time, they’re more likely to remember Liz Sherman from the Kansas side of Kansas City (Hellboy fans already know her, anyway) with as much fear and cautious adoration. And “System Freeze” is set inside the world of THE MATRIX movies, though Brite tells us in her introduction that the characters are hers. Not a big fan of the films themselves, it’s easily my least favorite story in this volume of gems.

The title story kicks things off after a telling foreword by the author (I sometimes skip these things but even after Brite’s permission to do so, I kept reading). “The Devil You Know” is strange, funny and, like most of the book, compulsively readable. In fact, if you’re looking for the slow, Gothic style employed in Brite’s previous collections like WORMWOOD, you’ll either be disappointed or pleasantly surprised.

Throughout the collection, the writing is tight, the author’s sense of humor soars and the dialogue especially rings true. I’d say that the style lies somewhere between the saturated trappings of the aforementioned WORMWOOD and Brite’s horror novels like EXQUISITE CORPSE, but even that’s not quite right. There’s a maturity here that was never actually missing from her previous efforts, with the best example of this probably being the poignant coming-of-age tale “Lantern Marsh.” Though I never read it in its original form, the author explains that it is an old story — written around 1983 — that she reworked for the Halloween anthology OCTOBER DREAMS.

“The Heart of New Orleans” is current and moving, and “Marisol” will have you remembering the old adage about dishing it out and taking it, and you’ll be smiling and cringing at once. Believe me, it’s possible.

If you’re familiar with the author’s post-horror offerings, you’ll find plenty of familiar characters and voices sprinkled throughout this thin volume. If you’re not, don’t worry — it’s still her best collection yet. –Jason Light

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Scouring out the weekly singles scene … in comics!

I’m really happy – if I were an imbecile, I’d be “jazzed” – at all the positive attention the first installment of SERIOUS ISSUES received. I guess the rumors are true: Positive attention whoops negative’s ass any day of the week. Except for the WEEKEND REGASM calling me a “weird kid.” How so? Because I wore an ERASERHEAD T-shirt in high school? I’d like to know!

ARMY OF DARKNESS #10 (Dynamite Entertainment) Despite Dynamite’s need for a proofreader (this issue is part three of the “Ash vs. Dracula” story arc, yet it’s labeled as part four, and, if that’s not bad enough, at one point the mag’s called ARMY OF DARKENESS), AOD is whole lotta fun, eschewing all logic in favor of a “fan fic” approach, with Ash being his one-lining, badass self, traveling through time, fighting not only Deadites, but in this arc, Dracula, werewolves and even Frankenstein. It’s everything VAN HELSING should have been. I’m looking forward to the DARKMAN VS. ARMY OF DARKNESS crossover.

BLADE #1 (Marvel) Hey, Marvel: Honestly, how hard is it to fuck up Blade? Apparently, judging from this first issue, not very. It’s starts off promisingly enough, with the bad mutha daywalker taking on a vampiric Spidey, but soon enough, that’s abandoned in favor of a tired tale about S.H.I.E.L.D. – and its supernatural branch, the Howling Commandos – being overrun by vampires. Yawn. And if that weren’t bad enough, Blade loses his leather threads and sword for a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform – talk about emasculating the black man! The immensely overrated Howard Chaykin does art duties, and not very well at that, but even that is forgivable when compared to Marc Guggenheim’s wholly unpromising start. And, as if to add insult to injury, in his letter to the reader, he tells us that if you’re a fan of the movie or of the old comics, you’re going to be sorely disappointed with this take on the character. Truer words were never spoken. Go back on that, Marc, and make it the Blade we know and love and I’ll give you another chance.

GHOST RIDER #3 (Marvel) Speaking of low expectations, here’s the newest incarnation of GHOST RIDER, just in time for the Nic Cage movie. Like BLADE, I love GR and all his supernatural elements, but they are doing absolutely nothing with the character – three issues in and he escaped Hell, went to a truck stop and now is messin’ around with Dr. Strange, in a manner that comes off like a rather played-out episode of THREE’S COMPANY. For whole pages, the two bicker back and forth: “I’m Dr. Strange!” “No, you’re not!” “Yes, I am!” Ghostie deserves so much better than this, especially with the upcoming film to piggyback off of.

HELLBLAZER #224 (Vertigo) I really want to like HELLBLAZER. I read issue after issue, but honestly, I have no idea what’s going on. Of course, I keep all that to myself because, in the comics world, HELLBLAZER is such a revered title that, if you don’t like, you’re a dumb asshole who should stick to reading ARCHIE’S PALS ’N’ GALS. So in that case, everybody read HELLBLAZER! It’s great! As the Brit John himself would say, “Pip, pip! Spit spot!”

EXILES #86 (Marvel) For the past five or so years, the one book that I have read consistently is Marvel’s alternate-universe-hopping EXILES. Sure, the artwork’s usually subpar and the storylines kinda lame, but much like that TV show SLIDERS – which also wasn’t very good – I love storylines about alternate universes and realities. The past few issues of EXILES, storywise and artwise, have been on an upswing, especially with the two-part “New Exiles” storyline wherein hundreds of alternate Wolverines are gathered into one superbeing, and it’s up to Weapon X, ORIGIN’s James, Zombie Wolverine, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Logan and Patch to bring it down. If they can keep this pace up, this book may finally live up to my expectations. Which are low to begin with.

Next time: Stan Lee! Zombie! She-Hulk! –Louis Fowler

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DARKLY DEBUTING ‘DEXTER’
For a sneak peek at DEXTER, Showtime’s new series based upon Jeff Lindsay’s novel DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER, the cable net has posted some clips on YouTube. SIX FEET UNDER’s Michael C. Hall stars as Dexter Morgan, a perfectly charming police forensics expert who moonlights as a serial killer. The series premieres Oct. 1. BOOKGASM was all hot and bothered to screen the entire rated-MA episode via an exclusive, super-secret link Showtime supplied us, but damn those online streams and their tendency to freeze up every three seconds. I couldn’t ev … en make it t … o the cred … its.

IT’S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP
Hard Case Crime is profiled in the current issue of Time magazine in the “Innovators” section. Says editor Charles Ardai, the article comes “complete with a full-page photo of me trying desperately to look stylish and noir. It’s a doomed attempt – I’ll never look like anything other than the scrawny, effete New Yorker I am – but the handsome Remington manual typewriter in the foreground and the willowy blonde in a slinky red dress in the background make up for it.” We’re glad to see Hard Case get some big-time national publicity, but we didn’t even notice anything in the photo beyond the blonde.

R.I.P. JOSEPH HAYES
Joseph Hayes, author of the novel THE DESPERATE HOURS, died Sept. 11. Once adapted to a Tony Award-winning play starring Karl Malden and Paul Newman, HOURS also became big-screen material twice, first in William Wyler’s 1955 film with Humphrey Bogart, and again in 1990 with Michael Cimino’s Mickey Rourke-led remake.

CHESS: THE HOME GAME
If you haven’t read David Shenk’s THE IMMORTAL GAME: A HISTORY OF CHESS like we told you to, get on it. And you can also play along at home, if you’re the lucky winner of Shenk’s chess set giveaway. The set is “a reproduction of the 12th century Lewis Chessmen, the most vivid and important historical chess pieces of all time. Found in early 1831 on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland they are believed to be a Norse design carved from walrus tusk and whale teeth.” You can register to win here, and if you’re picked, you have to gift it to us. Deal? Deal.

CUE THE SILVER SHAMROCK JINGLE…
With Halloween now a month away, get ready for BOOKGASM’s 2nd Annual Halloween Horror Anthology Month. Last year, we covered a dozen of them. This year, while we aren’t likely to hit that many, we’re digging back in time a little and have a few gems already picked out. Just look for the disturbo pumpkin-head graphic at right; it’s your seal of approval for short-attention-span scares!

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A look in the life of your BOOKGASM editor: Sees it’s the last weekday of the month. Remembers that means it’s time for the monthly roundup of incoming search terms to the site. Runs the report. Reads the results. Shakes his head. Weeps for our nation.

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Children’s books these days aren’t quite the same as when I was growing up. You’re more likely to run across MAGGIE’S FIRST DATE RAPE or BOBBY’S ENCOUNTER WITH AL-QAEDA than you are titles like THE POKY LITTLE PUPPY. That’s why George R.R. Martin’s THE ICE DRAGON is so refreshing.

This is a traditionally styled tale featuring fantastical dragons and children who have angst because they are different from those around them – a staple of most children’s fiction. Though the blurb notes the book is geared for children ages 10 and up, it should also play well with the younger crowd, as well as appeal to both boys and girls. Martin does not write down to his readers and includes some nicely difficult words (such as “translucent” and “rime”), which I think is a better tactic than deliberately trimming the vocabulary. The only caveat is that the book is a bit unsettling and isn’t a happy romp through fun candy land.

Adara is a young girl who lives with her father, elder brother and sister on a farm in an unnamed land. While the family seems fairly normal, Adara is distant. She identifies with the cold and icy winter, while all around her are summer people. Adara is literally cold to the touch. Her love of the winter season and its weather allows her to play with the delicate ice lizards, which burn if a warm-blooded person touches them, and it also allows her to befriend an unusual ice dragon.

While dragons are fairly commonplace in this world, and even are used as mounts for warriors, ice dragons supposedly have never been tamed and thus, can’t be ridden. But Adara manages to do just this, and she finds keeping company with her new reptilian friend to be the haven she has longed for. She hates for the winter to end because the dragon flies to the north and Adara must stay behind. But she patiently waits for the cold weather to return every year, and to bring with it the ice dragon.

This parable of companionship, emotional distance and empathy gets twisted around a little in the book’s short 100+ pages. It’s a strong story, well told, with layers of meaning that can be explored with a young reader who may have some questions at the end. Overall, the illustrations by Yvonne Gilbert are serviceable, though they have too light a line in my advance reading copy, and it’s a shame that chapter headings are the same throughout.

This is Martin’s first children’s book, even though it was written in 1980 and published as part of the book DRAGONS OF LIGHT. Martin is a phenomenally popular fantasy writer and one can see why from this work – he also should be a popular children’s author and one hopes to see more along these lines. This title is certainly recommended for your tykes. –Mark Rose

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Being more familiar with the work of Margaret Millar’s husband Ross Macdonald than Millar herself, I was quite surprised to find out she is the better writer. Again, AN AIR THAT KILLS / DO EVIL IN RETURN is a case of Stark House Press uncovering another pair of long-forgotten gems. The added bonus this time around is an essay by Tom Nolan, who calls Millar’s writing “post-Freudian.” Do yourself a favor and read the stories first before the essay, since he does discuss some plot points.

The first novel in this two-for-one collection is 1957’s AN AIR THAT KILLS. It’s the story of a seemingly perfect couple, Harry and Thelma Bream. Harry and his friends head out for the weekend out to a lodge in the woods. While waiting for another member of their party, Ron Galloway, to turn up, things take a turn. First comes the notion that their pal Ron is still nowhere to be seen. They call his house and speak to Ron’s wife to see what’s keeping him; she tells them Ron left a long time ago. Then Thelma drops a bombshell: She is pregnant with Ron’s child.

For a book from this era, this is pretty heady stuff. From here on out, you feel like you’re watching a Cassavettes-like couple’s marrriage crumble. AIR continues on like this, mainly playing with more emotion then the kind of bang-bang that you normally expect from this kind of story.

That is until one day, Ron’s car is dragged from the water with Ron still in it, buckled into the front seat. From this point on, I just did not know what to expect. You watch the marriage totally dissolve to the point of Harry threatening his wife with a cap gun. The couple splits, each going their separate ways. Life goes on for both Harry and Thelma, with Thelma running into Ron’s widowed wife, and Harry meeting a new woman while working in the states.

It’s not until the last 15 pages that I finally figured it out. Millar tells you the story she wants you to – to see only certain things. To say you are reading with blinders on is nothing. She leads you down the garden path as if she were leaving a trail of candy, and there you are, following right along.

For the second half of this double feature we have 1950’s DO EVIL IN RETURN. The story of Dr. Charlotte Keating, it opens with a girl named Violet showing up late in the day, needing to talk to her. Violet is “in trouble” and needs the doctor’s help. The word “abortion” is never mentioned, but it’s a given that why Violet is there. After Keating explains she can’t help her, Violet goes on about how it’s not her ex-husband’s baby, and that her uncle sees it as an opportunity for a get-rich-quick scheme, as he plans to blackmail the real daddy.

Keating can’t leave well enough alone and this plunges her into dark territory. She explains what happened to her boyfriend, a married man she is fooling around with and whose wife is a patient of hers. So she pays a visit to Violet’s home, only to be thrown out and told that Violet has left … until the girl’s body turns up in the ocean the next day from a “suicide.”

Keating then has to deal with the uncle and ex, who are trying to blackmail her, as they know about her affair. Then there is the cop who is quite certain that Keating knows more than what she lets on. Again, Millar sets it up so halfway through the book, you are so certain who the killer, only to get sucker punched by the real ending. –Bruce Grossman

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Though I play chess about as well as my 9-year-old (and about as often as Americans elect as a president), I love to read non-fiction books about the game. Among those I’d highly recommend would be THE CHESS ARTIST, BOBBY FISCHER GOES TO WAR and THE TURK. Now one can add to that list David Shenk’s THE IMMORTAL GAME: A HISTORY OF CHESS, OR HOW 32 CARVED PIECES ON A BOARD ILLUMINATED OUR UNDERSTANDING OF WAR, ART, SCIENCE, AND THE HUMAN BRAIN.

With vintage illustrations, Shenk traces the game’s shadowy origins, interestingly considered sacrilegious by some religions and world leaders. But the more recent (comparatively speaking) the book gets, the more interesting it is, as so much of its early history comes off as purely apocryphal. The last half delves into chess’ true obsessives, like the rare player who could play multiple games blindfolded, the presumably schizophrenic antics of Bobby Fischer, others driven to lifelong mental illnesses and institutions.

Among the more fascinating tidbits and stories Shenk relates include influential surrealist Marcel Duchamp abandoning art once he caught the chess bug, Garry Kasparov’s celebrated matches against the IBM computer Deep Blue, and one Freudian disciple who saw chess as a sexualized metaphor, in which the goal was the castrate the king.

But the best part of THE IMMORTAL GAME comes from what’s interspersed between each chapter: a play-by-play account of an 1851 practice session between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. Considered so brilliant it’s dubbed “the immortal game” itself, the men’s match generates much suspense as Shenk simply and clearly describes each of its 23 moves with startling drama. I seriously could have read a whole book just on that one game.

By the time Shenk ends his book with a bittersweet observation of elementary school students learning the game, you’re sorry to see it end. But for true aficionados of the game, it doesn’t; appendices galore remain, including diagrammed recaps of five historic games and Benjamin Franklin’s “Morals of Chess” article from 1786. Though it’s not the definitive work on the subject, Shenk’s GAME earns high marks in the departments of organization, research and style, written on a level enjoyable for any reader regardless of his chess mastery or disastery. –Rod Lott

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Robert Littell is often categorized as a writer of “literary spy fiction,” but don’t let that fool you. His latest novel, LEGENDS, which recently has been reprinted in trade paperback form, is another masterpiece, with the detail and realism of John le Carré (without the boredom) and the action and intrigue of Robert Ludlum (without the B-movie dialogue).

LEGENDS is the story of Martin Odum, a former CIA deep-cover operative now living as a private eye in Brooklyn. Martin isn’t quite himself these days, mostly because he doesn’t remember who he really is. Lost in a waterfall of former aliases, each with his own distinct personality, skills and memories, Odum unwittingly gets pulled into a cat’s cradle of lies, secrets and bloody murder.

From there, it’s a global whirlwind tour, and each new locale elicits some awesome flashbacks that are simultaneously chilling and heartbreaking. Much like my favorite recent spy movie, SPY GAME, or le Carré’s THE SECRET PILGRIM (one of the few of his that I cherish, partly for the section on Cambodia), the bits and pieces of each former secret identity split and reform around each other as Odum unravels the plot and tries not to get killed by the CIA or the bad guys.

LEGENDS functions as such a superior thriller that I am somewhat mystified by the “literary” tag, because Littell’s style isn’t pompous or padded – this is an eminently readable book that most readers will cruise through in no time at all and be better for the experience. Maybe that’s the
difference: The Ludlums and Clancys out there are totally empty calories, but LEGENDS imparts a sly kind of wisdom, making it a hard book to be finished with. It’s going to linger on the edge of the bookshelf for awhile, with sections that scream for dog-ears and marginalia. If you dig spies, good writing or both, get on it. –Ryun Patterson

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Any red-blooded American male worth his weight in Dad’s hidden stack of Playboys can spot an Alberto Vargas painting, even if he doesn’t know Vargas’ name. Because with the artist’s paintings of nude women so realistic they may as well be photographs, who’s looking at signatures?

Though he did more than paint the naked ladies, the Peruvian-born Vargas remains inexorably linked with the groundbreaking magazine of Hugh Hefner (who provides the introduction), and helped define the very image of the publication. Arranged chronologically, Reid Stewart Austin’s ALBERTO VARGAS: WORKS FROM THE MAX VARGAS COLLECTION boasts dozens and dozens of full-color, full-page (and sometimes full-spread – that means two pages, you perv) reproductions of some of Vargas’ finest work, beginning in the 1920s, with scantily clad models and less clad Ziegfeld Follies Girls that had to be extremely explicit in their day, to his Hollywood work in the 1930s, where he did portraits of Shirley Temple and Marlene Dietrich.

The 1940s saw work with advertisers and an exclusive relationship with Esquire which quickly and bitterly degenerated into a protracted legal battle. And then there’s Playboy, to which he contributed a healthy pool of work before passing away in 1982, and it is from this pool where the last half of the book culls most.

To show his range, there are pieces like Scheherazade – a colorful depiction of the ARABIAN NIGHTS heroine – and a nipple-popping takeoff of Batgirl. But sex equaled butter on Vargas’ bread, and his Moderne Bride – a non-nude but lingerie’d work circa 1948 – has to be one of the sexiest pieces of art I’ve ever seen. This impressive coffee-table book provides an exciting (nudge, wink) overview of one of modern art’s best painters of the female form. –Rod Lott

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U.N.C.L.E., C.U.R.E., CIA – All kinds of letters, all kinds of agencies. This column brings to a close our “Spies in September” run. We’ve read a lot of espionage this month, and we’re going out with some old favorites here.

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E #2: THE DOOMSDAY AFFAIR by Harry Whittington – Yes, the one and the same Whittington from my glowing Stark House review. I wanted to see what the king of the paperbacks could bring to characters we all know and love. This 1965 tie-in is a more balanced book than the previous one, with both Solo and Illya having equal roles. It starts out with a THRUSH agent who is going to defect, until the lei she is wearing kills her.

From here, Solo is on the hunt to find out who killed her, while Illya works another angle. The book is packed with mindless fun, be it a couple being driven off a road to Solo going to a strip bar. And I can’t forget Illya breaking out from a prison, only later to become a gibbering mess who can’t control his body because he is drugged. That’s one thing about this series: They actually use cool gadgets. Most of the stuff I read this month was pretty well based in reality – nothing super-cool for the imagination.

The plot moves along to what THRUSH is plotting this time: blowing up Washington, D.C. They have set up a secret base where all these scientists have come to over time to sell out their countries –  I won’t give away the surprises of where. There is also a super-secret agent that in reality is a double agent that you won’t see coming. Well, you might if you pay close attention. Whittington has fun with the spy genre; I just wish he got to play a bit longer in it.

THE DESTROYER #49: SKIN DEEP by Warren Murphy – This 1982 paperback was the first Remo Williams adventure to feature only Murphy’s name on the cover, even though it was co-written with two ghost writers. It open on a ship where a hush-hush stealth plane is kept. We meet a pilot by the name of Caan who gets a mysterious visitor at night bearing instructions and a protective liquid. Cann thinks it was some weird nightmare until he sees the bottle in his hand the following morning. Then the ship and crew are all attacked by giant killer birds, pecking out and ripping the rest to shreds. Using the liquid, Caan saves himself … for a even worse fate, one that involves the plane.

Remo and Chuin go on the search for the aircraft, which was taken by a former Nazi doctor who makes Josef Mengele look like Florence Nightingale. This man is so evil, he experiments on a village of lepers. I mean, don’t these people already have it bad enough? It seems Dr. Zoran also shares a history with Remo’s boss Harold Smith from back in WWII. In a plot that eerily foreshadows the tragic events of 9/11, Zoran has brainwashed Caan, a Jewish pilot, to become a Nazi supporter and to crash his plane into the World Trade Center.

Murphy and company do not lose a step in this tight little adventure, filled with all the excitement and fun this series is known for, plus a nice helping of bickering between Chuin and Remo. These books just get me all set for another, but that’s got to wait. Plus, once the DESTROYER series moves over to a new publisher next year (Tor/Forge), we’ll be seeing a reissue of some of the early titles.

ASSIGNMENT SCHOOL FOR SPIES by Edward S. Aaron – Well, I finally read one of the very first ASSIGNMENT books I ever bought. Not knowing the series when I picked it up with a few others, I was slightly mad at myself since this 1966 entry deals with Sam Durell going into rogue agent mode – not a book to start a series with for a new reader, since Durell is such the company man in his department. So I put it to the side and figured I’d get a few of the others in before tackling it.

Glad I did, since Durell is of one mindset in this book, as his former love Deidre has gone off and gotten married. But not to some normal American, but a European count who seems to have some shady things going on. Durell is told to report back to the States countless times during his search for her, but he continues, not caring what the consequences will be. He is joined by two fellow agents, Xanakias and Marge Jones. Xanakias joins up since a previous enemy from another ASSIGNMENT novel has reared his head again, while Marge joins because she works in one of the offices, stuck in a daily grind but wanting more adventure.

SCHOOL FOR SPIES is another fine read from one of my faves. The school here is kinda reminiscent of another hideaway packed with girls (namely, 007’s ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE). Also, it’s great to see Durell just go all rogue and on his own. It reminded me of the Bernard Samson novels of Len Deighton. If you have read a few of the books in this series, then sure, grab this one – it’s packed with action. But if this would be your first exposure to the raging Cajun, put it down and read at least three other ASSIGNMENTs before it so you’ll have a taste of the real Durell in his normal troubleshooting role.

Next time: Shyamalan is a hack. –Bruce Grossman

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MISS EARLIER INSTALLMENTS OF ‘BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS’? REGASM THESE:
• #22: For Queen and Country
• #21: Red Spies at Night
• #20: September Is for Spies
• #19: I Hate Illinois Nazis
• #18: Watching the Detectives

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• ASSIGNMENT BANGKOK by Edward S. Aarons
• ASSIGNMENT BURMA GIRL by Edward S. Aarons
• THE DESTROYER #14: JUDGMENT DAY by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
• THE DESTROYER #22: BRAIN DRAIN by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
• THE DESTROYER #48: PROFIT MOTIVE by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
• GRANDMASTER by Warren Murphy
• A NIGHT FOR SCREAMING / ANY WOMAN HE WANTED by Harry Whittington

The only thing more amazing than Neil Gaiman’s excellence in the short story format is that he does it so damned often. As if he weren’t prolific enough in the arenas of novels, screenplays and comics, he seems to be a requisite and welcome part of every other genre anthology issued these days. If you can’t keep up with them, no worry; every few years he’ll collect them, sort them, recall them and issue them in a collection. He did it once with the beguiling SMOKE AND MIRRORS: SHORT FICTIONS AND ILLUSIONS, and now he does it again with FRAGILE THINGS: SHORT FICTIONS AND WONDERS.

There are 31 pieces here – many of them award winners and a few of which I had already read before in books like FLIGHTS, 999, MCSWEENEY’S MAMMOTH TREASURY OF THRILLING TALES, THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF VAMPIRES, NOISY OUTLAWS… and THE MATRIX COMICS.

It both begins and ends with excellence: respectively, the Sherlock Holmes/H.P. Lovecraft pastiche “A Study in Emerald” and the AMERICAN GODS novella “The Monarch of the Glen” (if ANANSI BOYS wasn’t the GODS sequel you wanted it to be, this totally is).

In between you get a slew of the good stuff (save for a few skippable poems and Tori Amos-related nonsense): a Ray Bradbury-esque story contest between the months of the year (”October in the Chair”), a self-referential parody of the Gothic format (”Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire”), a odd encounter between an unemployed man and the stranded anthropologist he aids (”Bitter Grounds”), a trip to a haunted circus (”The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch”), a demented love story (”Harlequin Valentine”), a fictional malady (”Diseasemaker’s Croup”), a otherworldly coming-of-age tale (”How to Talk to Girls at Parties”), a gory horror yarn (”Feeders and Eaters”) and even the last book of the Bible (the single-page “In the End”).

Discounting the BEOWULF-flavored “The Monarch of the Glen,” my favorite of the tough-to-pick-from bunch is “How Do You Think It Feels?,” a twisted take on the ol’ doomed-lovers story, in which a very married man falls for a young, beautiful actress. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy does unspeakable things to a clay gargoyle. The joy in reading a Gaiman story for the first time is that you aren’t quite prepared for whatever wicked tricks he has up his sleeve. FRAGILE THINGS gives you a good two dozen or more shining examples from one of modern fantasy’s absolute finest practitioners. –Rod Lott

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• ANANSI BOYS by Neil Gaiman

I’ve never read a Nancy Drew book (or, for that matter, the Hardy Boys), but it didn’t keep me from greatly enjoying GIRL SLEUTH: NANCY DREW AND THE WOMEN WHO CREATED HER, Melanie Rehak’s history of the kiddie-lit pop-culture phenomenon.

Nancy Drew, of course, was the teenage good-girl sleuth who starred in a string of successful “fifty-cent juveniles.” Created by children’s book mogul Edward Stratemeyer in the late 1920s, she made her debut in 1930, barely escaping being saddled with the name Stella Strong. Speaking of names, the books were credited to Carolyn Keene, but that was merely a house pen name for Mildred Wirt, a stay-at-home mom who managed to crank out manuscripts at a breakneck pace despite all her other obligations (and eventual tragedies). She’s the unsung hero of the whole Nancy Drew affair – a wrong GIRL SLEUTH seeks to right.

Though a hit from the start, the series was waylaid by a one-two punch soon after its debut, with the onset of the Great Depression and then Stratemeyer succumbing to pneumonia. This left Nancy – as well as his other properties, like The Hardy Boys and The Bobbsey Twins – in the hands of his daughters, Harriet and Edna. Though lacking business backgrounds, they inherited a readymade cash cow. However, the arrangement soon would cause irreparable damage in their sisterhood.

Much of GIRL SLEUTH reads like a mystery, as one wonders how the Keene pseudonym became exposed, how Wirt came to prominence and how Harriet managed to keep things afloat despite a slew of bad business decisions, including selling off all movie rights rather than by the book, and taking out expensive ads in Playboy to decry the magazine’s nude pictorial of Pamela Sue Martin, then the freshly ex-Nancy Drew of a short-lived TV show.

Harriet comes off as both shrewd and prude; Wirt a bit naive and loyal to a fault. Somehow, these two managed to bring Nancy Drew to life, thereby bringing joy to the hearts and minds of generations of American girls. Aside from an overly lengthy account of the ladies’ college educations and women’s rights issues at the time, which causes Rehak’s magnifying glass to lose its focus temporarily, GIRL SLEUTH is an engaging and lively chronicle of one of publishing’s most enduring icons. –Rod Lott

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

Autumn is upon us here in North America, and with the change of season comes a chance to reflect: Have we been doing our best as humans to make sure genre fiction survives for our children to read with a flashlight under the covers? Take a hard look in the mirror. If you don’t like what you see, take a time trip with me through the past week’s genre gems – redemption is only a Hard Case Crime away.

MONDAY >> 9.18.06
Bruce Grossman kicked the week off with a thoroughly lukewarm review of Robert Harris’ IMPERIUM. I’m all for writers exploring their literary boundaries and all, but if there’s one thing Robert Harris does well, it’s Nazis. IMPERIUM is a self-proclaimed “novel of ancient Rome,” so there’s nary a goose-stepper to be seen. Seeing the steaming pile of mediocrity that resulted, I can’t help but think how awesome the book would have been if it had ended with Hitler and Caesar fighting each other and a pair of man-eating lions in the Coliseum. Are you not entertained?

You know all those great ideas for books that you have all the time? They’re better off as ideas. Witness Michael Norman’s HAUNTED HOMELAND, a book that’s way better as a happy-hour conversation than as an actual book.

Author: “What if I wrote a book of ghost stories from every one of the United States, plus Canada?”
Yes Man: “That would be awesome! You’d sell a least a couple of books in every state, and you’d be set for life!”
Author: “I’m totally doing it. Get me a pen, a dictionary, a map, a thesaurus and a shitload of those cocktail napkins.”

Hence, a gimmick is born, and despite her inclination toward all things otherworldly, Rebecca Brock found HAUNTED HOMELAND to be a soulless read, indeed. It happens.

TUESDAY >> 9.19.06
A role model for disfigured cowboys everywhere, Jonah Hex is right up there with Edward Munch’s painting of that HOME ALONE kid as an expressionist icon. He’s a human battle between light and dark, struggling to find peace in the duality of his soul. In short, he’s a badass, and anyone disputing that will quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a six-shooter. Eschewing the post-apocalyptic and horror themes of previous incarnations, JONAH HEX: FACE FULL OF VIOLENCE is straight-up Western, and in the capable hands of Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, Rod Lott found much to appreciate. Also, Rod has the temerity to write “There’s gore in them hills.” That’s good, dude, but I had the nerve to write “pulled a Rabbi out of his hat,” so we’re even.

Spies are a cornerstone of genre literature in the Western world, and Bruce Grossman uses this week’s BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS to take a look at British spies specifically. Len Deighton and James Munro come up winners, and even I could have told him that Desmond Cory’s JOHNNY FEDORA novels were probably crappy and derivative. Just look at the cover: it’s a total Destroyer ripoff, except that the art is by a drunken third-grader. It’s this kind of keen observation that makes my criticism so incisive.

WEDNESDAY >> 9.20.06
If you haven’t noticed already, Rod Lott loves to think that everything’s about sex. Like a high school freshman in his first health class, Rod can turn the utterly innocent utterings of Batman’s sidekick into dirty lizard-brain lust. In spite of my never being able to look at Robin’s fist the same way ever again, Rod’s look at SHOWCASE PRESENTS BATMAN: VOLUME 1 has spurred my interest. But it’s for the explosive gorilla, not the tiger licking, I swear.

I was just about to read Jay Bonansinga’s FROZEN when I stumbled across Rod’s review of the author’s new book, TWISTED, which totally gave away the plot. Way to go, dude. You want to shake my Sea Monkeys while you’re at it? Ill-advised reveals aside, the book is apparently not as good as FROZEN, though I will probably never know.

THURSDAY >> 9.21.06
Hard Case Crime is a cornerstone of the BOOKGASM universe, and seeing a new entry to the line makes me all weepy and nostalgic for 2005, when we were all vaguely innocent and unspoiled by the sex, drugs and corruption of the blogosphere. That said, Pete Hamill’s THE GUNS OF HEAVEN is another solid entry to the series, reprinting a 1983 tale of political intrigue and murder in Northern Ireland. With all the killing in that conflict, why didn’t they kill Bono before he became immense and immortal? The only thing that can hurt him now is a fragment of the True Cross, and that shit’s expensive.

The first time I met Louis Fowler, it was a furtive exchange amid the stacks of some library of other in the metro Oklahoma City area. My second
thought upon meeting him* was that his skull’s shape perfectly lent itself to clipping out and sticking on a column-heading graphic. Lo and behold, I was right (again!). Feeling left out after seeing Bruce Grossman’s bevy of BBB&B groupies, Louis started his own column. LOUIS’ SERIOUS ISSUES made its debut last week, with plenty of Western musings, a hippie-filled zombie prologue and another spinoff from Michael Chabon’s THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY.

FRIDAY >> 9.22.06
There were plenty of happenings chronicled in Friday’s NEWSGASM, with Marvel beginning the hype for its adaptation of Stephen King’s DARK TOWER series, some juicy Hannibal Lecter tidbits, and Tolkien’s last epic work finally getting a release date. BTW, Christopher Tolkien can bite me.

Some would say it’s strange that we can have flattering reviews of both JONAH HEX: FACE FULL OF VIOLENCE and Michael Cox’s THE MEANING OF NIGHT within days of each other. That’s the BOOKGASM difference: Comics and literature are equal in our unflinching gaze, and even a 700-page doorstop of Victorian rivalry will get a good look if it passes the 100-page test. That said, NIGHT might not be for everyone, but if you’ve got the time, we’ve got the books.

That’s it. Remember to take stock as the leaves change – there’s more out there than can be seen by the naked eye, and lots of the time it involves decapitations, exploding gorillas or spies named Johnny Fedora. –Ryun Patterson

*The first: “What a weird kid.”

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On the very first line of anthologist Michael Cox’s debut novel THE MEANING OF NIGHT, our narrator has admitted to killing a total stranger just to see how it feels, then following it up with a delicious oyster supper.

His name is Edward Glyver (or Glapthorn, depending on his ruse), a 19th-century gentleman who believes his crime is unseen, but quickly receives clues and outright notes of blackmail that strongly suggest otherwise. Thus, his first-person murder mystery isn’t a whodunit, but a whosawmedunit?

Before he can answer, Edward jumps back in time to relate the story of his upbringing, as well as that of his longtime rival from school, famed poet Phoebus Daunt. They weren’t always enemies; indeed, they were friends until Edward was wronged by Phoebus, resulting in our narrator’s expulsion – an incident he has vowed never to forget and spends the book making good on that promise as he comes to terms with his secret lineage.

Sprawling and mannered (and sometimes, with a wink, delightfully ill-mannered), THE MEANING OF NIGHT is an accurate representation of a Victorian “sensation novel,” a la Wilkie Collins. As such, the dense work tops the scale at a wrist-aching, toe-breaking 700 pages. Its length may put off some, but the overall journey is quite rewarding.

In voice (and predisposition to footnotes), its first 100 pages reminded me of Susanna Clarke’s JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL, though absent of all elements of the fantastic. Admittedly, the pacing suffers a bit once the clock is wound backward (where it remains until it works itself up toward the climax); one could argue much of the information being dealt is superfluous, but Cox rather ingeniously has a hidden purpose to it all, with the final 100 pages packing as much of a feverish punch.

Another minor quibble may be the abundance of names; then again, what Victorian novel wasn’t rooted with huge family trees? But essentially, Edward’s confession stands as a revenge story between two – perhaps three –  players, and they’re all that truly matter. When boiled down to that cold-hearted core, MEANING is uniformly excellent. –Rod Lott

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‘DARK’ LIGHT ON THE POCKETBOOK
Marvel Comics will be giving away – fo’ free! – copies of THE DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER BORN SKETCHBOOK in December, whetting fans’ appetites for its 2007 adaptation of the popular Stephen King fantasy series. The 16-page freebie will include artist Jae Lee’s character designs, penciled pages, commentary and a primer on the DARK TOWER world.

R.I.P. CHARLES GRANT
Shocklines reports the passing of horror writer Charles L. Grant on Sept. 15. He died of a heart attack in his home. Among his books were the BLACK OAK series, the GALLERY OF HORROR anthology and THE X-FILES: WHIRLWIND.

ENOUGH WITH THE MASK!
This Christmas season, readers can celebrate the yuletide with the heartwarming tale of a cannibal in training, as Thomas Harris’ SILENCE OF THE LAMBS prequel HANNIBAL RISING finally hits stores, a year later than it was supposed to. Bantam Dell will be publishing this early adventure of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, just prior to an Anthony Hopkins-less YOUNG HANNIBAL: BEHIND THE MASK hitting theaters Feb. 9, 2007. Harris also wrote the film’s screenplay. Sniff, sniff – do I smell turkey?

TOLKIEN LIVES … IN PRINT
Despite being long deceased, J.R.R. Tolkien is about to have a new book out. The deified LORD OF THE RINGS author left behind an unfinished epic entitled THE CHILDREN OF HÚRIN, which his son Christopher has been shaping into a finished piece for three decades. The book contains characters from the RINGS trilogy. Houghton Mifflin plans to publish it next spring, to the delight of fanboys everywhere.

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Scouring out the weekly singles scene … in comics!

So most of the crew here at the BOOKGASM stable likes their trade paperbacks. And who can blame ‘em? A whole run of issues in a value-priced bunch! Whatta deal! And while I, too, subscribe to that notion, I feel like I have to go against the grain here and admit that I still buy individual issues. Sad to say, but not all comics are going to make it to the trade format and some are just worth buying anyway.

And that’s the purpose of this column: To tell you what’s worth buying because, dammit, that’s what I bought. If it sucks, I’ll tell you to avoid it, but if it’s great, then maybe I just might give you something extra to spend that $2.99 on.

ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD: AIRBORNE #1 (Avatar) I like Avatar’s takes on the established New Line characters in their Freddy and Jason comics, so, on that strength, I picked up the first issue of their new LIVING DEAD mini, and, while it was written by one of the original cinematic LIVING DEAD masterminds John Russo, very little zombie action happens, but lots of hippies get naked and frolic. Not too scary. I’ll stick around for issue two, but if nothing happens, I’m quitting.

AMERICAN SPLENDOR #1 (DC/Vertigo) It’s good to see Harvey Pekar getting the respect he deserves with this new black-and-white miniseries featuring the splice-of-life stories that we’ve come to love from the curmudgeon. I’m sure most comic readers will be either baffled or annoyed by Pekar’s style of writing – in most of his stories, practically nothing happens, endings aren’t these big to-dos and no one is given glorified treatment – but to me, that’s almost the hardest storytelling of all. No embellishments, no punch lines – just the absurdity of day-to-day life. In this debut issue, Pekar relates stories of his parents getting Alzheimer’s, his insecurities with his foster daughter leaving the house without telling him and an airline’s new peanut bargains. Sure, this may sound boring to you, but for me, this is why I buy comics.

THE ESCAPISTS #3 (Dark Horse) A spin-off based on Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer-winning THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY, THE ESCAPISTS takes place more than 50 years later and deals with Maxwell Roth, a comics fan who buys the rights to the now-long-defunct and out-of-style Escapist and his attempts to bring the character back into the limelight. While I like it when the story does its behind-the-scenes look at trying to start a comic, writer Brian K. Vaughan falls into the trap of trying to mistakenly turn the Escapist into a real hero. This book doesn’t need it.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK #98 (Marvel) The CIVIL WAR-shunning Planet Hulk storyline is about to come to an end in this final arc, “Anarchy,” wherein the Jade Giant leads a rebellion against the totalitarian government that pits monsters together for fun. Admittedly, I’m lost half the time in this new arc, but really, this is one case where it doesn’t matter; this isn’t about story as much as it’s about wall-to-wall action and dammit, this title delivers. I’m eager to see what they have planned for issue 100.

THE LONE RANGER #1 (Dynamite) Speaking of Westerns, I am really liking Dynamite’s reimagining of the Old West standby, THE LONE RANGER. Like HEX, it’s gritty and not for kids, with a blood-splattered cover pretty much telling you what you’re in store for. While I am not too familiar with the origins of the original character, this incarnation is forged after a bloody ambush, and a chance meeting with a familiar sidekick on the last page makes this a new title that I’m definitely adding to my subscriptions list.

JONAH HEX #11 (DC) Let’s get this out into the open: JONAH HEX is the best book DC is putting out right now. I never thought I would be into Western comics, but it seems to make up a bulk of my buys now, all thanks to this title. What makes it work is that not only is each issue a self-contained story, but Hex is a pure, no-BS badass. In issue 11, he wants revenge against a cadre of circus freaks who have hung him, and this time he has a little help from El Diablo, who I’m sure was a goofy character in the ’50s or ’60s, but here, he’s a perfect antithesis for the troubled Hex. I can’t say enough about this title other than buy it now!

Next time: Blade! Army of Darkness! Ghost Rider! –Louis Fowler

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE SERIES:
• GIANT-SIZE HULK #1
• JONAH HEX: FACE FULL OF VIOLENCE
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS JONAH HEX: VOLUME ONE

Pete Hamill’s THE GUNS OF HEAVEN marks another first for Hard Case Crime: an overtly political thriller. Though previous titles may have flirted with political themes, this novel couldn’t exist without them.

It’s about a New York reporter named Sam Briscoe. Of Irish heritage, he travels back to his homeland to cover its ongoing internal strife – namely, the Irish Republican Army and the paramilitary group Ulster Volunteer Force. (Don’t worry about the players; even if your knowledge of Ireland conflict is limited to U2 songs, you’ll be able to follow along.) While there, two significant events happen: 1) his kindly old uncle is murdered, and 2) an IRA leader named Steel asks him to deliver a letter to someone back in the Big Apple.

Sam thinks it has to do with smuggled weapons. Oh, if only it were that simple. Because not long after he’s back on American soil, he’s done what Steel requested and met the requisite femme fatale in the process, leading to a massive explosion and other near-fatal brushes with danger. This soon has the unfortunate consequence of extending to Sam’s young daughter, who attends private school.

Perhaps best known for the memoir A DRINKING LIFE, Hamill first published GUNS in 1983. With our world’s countries as angry as ever at one another, the political powderkeg aspect still holds true, and the first half of the novel moves with admirable speed. Oddly, when the emphasis shifts to avenging his daughter’s kidnapping, the narrative starts to sputter and, eventually, stalls.

I admired GUNS’ sober, serious tone, which takes an abrupt, “oh, no he didn’t” hit on page 148, with one of the worst possible groan-inducing jokes in existence:

“And then what” I said. “You have dimbrain here shove me in the river?”
“We’re waiting for orders.”
“Then order me a ham on rye, no mayo, pickle on the side.”

Rimshot! By the time the denouement rolled around, I had stopped caring about Sam’s plight and mission. It’s not that the book is bad – in fact, it’s more literary than most Hard Case offerings – but that second half loses the uniqueness of the first. –Rod Lott

“She fingered my hair, brushed her pink hard-nippled breasts against my face, held me against her belly, thrust against me with her wetness, saying nothing, panting, making deep animal sounds of loss and need.”

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At a point in the early 1960s, DC Comics gave Batman a slight overhaul, outfitting him and Robin with all-new Bat-branded gadgetry – a move which directly inspired the Insta-Smash TV show, so says the back cover of SHOWCASE PRESENTS BATMAN: VOLUME 1.

You can judge for yourself in this 550-page collection of two years’ worth of consecutive issues of BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS (minus that title’s backup stories starring Elongated Man, having already been collected), all featuring the Dynamic Duo keeping Gotham City clean and neat. My opinion is yes, I can see how these stories gave rise to the über-camp TV series, although they don’t have the self-aware humor. They’re corny, alright, but in a completely naïve manner than doesn’t wink at the audience. And they’re also as harmless and irresistible as its cover is bright.

As with Elongated Man, the mysteries they encounter are preposterously plotted, involving a man who turns into a cyborg, a booby-trapped castle and an elephant goddess in Africa. My favorite stories were the three involving the Mystery Analysts Gotham City – kind of a poor man’s version of Isaac Asimov’s Black Widowers – a condundrum club of which Batman is a charter member.

Expect lots of jewelry thefts, mind-control schemes, gimmicky traps, secret-identity close calls and baddies in TG&Y costumes. The Penguin and The Riddler each show up for one issue, and The Joker for two (tell me the cover of DETECTIVE COMICS #341 at left isn’t mega-disturbing), but that’s about it for Batman’s usual rogue’s gallery. The craziest opponent may be Klag, a frozen caveman – though still enclosed in a block of ice, he goes several rounds with “the sinewy sleuth.” Or maybe it’s the talking gorilla strapped with explosives. (Oh, Batman, don’t you remember that some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb?)

Throughout all the fun, Robin’s chock full of the unintentional double entendres (pg. 74: “I could lick a cageful of tigers right now!”). My favorite might be when Robin complains, “Whew! My fist aches!,” but that’s another story entirely. –Rod Lott

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE ELONGATED MAN: VOLUME 1
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE HAUNTED TANK: VOLUME 1
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY: VOLUME 1
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS JONAH HEX: VOLUME 1
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS METAMORPHO: VOLUME 1
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN FAMILY: VOLUME 1

In TWISTED, Jay Bonansinga brings back FBI profiler Ulysses Grove, having just survived 2005’s FROZEN, which had him tracking a serial killer with a prehistoric M.O. and unwittingly getting possessed. Now a demon-purged Ulysses is brought to a post-Katrina New Orleans for the funeral of an old friend, a gay college professor. During the service, Grove’s always-working mind notes the corpse is missing an eye, leading our copper to assume the man was murdered.

He’s right, of course, and then some: The killer, a cloaked figure referred to as the Holy Ghost, has a penchant for offing citizens during ferocious storms and popping out one of their eyes. Once Grove figures this out, a massive hurricane is about to hit Louisiana all over again, so he’s prepared to travel into the eye of the hurricane to keep the Holy Ghost from taking more lives.

TWISTED actually has more in common with FROZEN than a first glance suggests, as threads are carried over along with characters. It could be argued that Grove’s love interest – reporter Maura County – plays an equal role this time, especially since Grove spends way too many pages driving around New Orleans, looking for street signs and parking places – activities that don’t exactly make for nail-biting scenarios.

All things considered, TWISTED is FROZEN’s inferior little brother, for two main reasons. First, though the supernatural again comes into heavy play, the plot is more conventional initially, so it lacks that hook – say, a 6,000-year-old mummy –  that made its predecessor instantly engrossing. You will get into it, but it takes a little time. Second – and this is just personal preference – the New Orleans setting. No offense to the city; it’s just a culture that doesn’t click with me, so I found it off-putting.

Those criticisms aside, I still enjoyed the novel. Grove is an interesting character, and it’s nice to see a heroic African-American for a change. Clearly, Bonansinga created him with hopes of a franchise, and I hope that continues. Without such big shoes to fill before it, TWISTED might have been more of a rush than a buzz. –Rod Lott

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• FROZEN by Jay Bonansinga

Continuing BBB&B’s all-spy month, we take a lookie-loo this week at British secret agents. My fascination for the British spy genre goes back to an old TV show called THE SANDBAGGERS, which is probably the closest depiction to what real spies have to do. Then, years later, a comic book by the name of QUEEN & COUNTRY came along – a total rip-off of SANDBAGGERS and a great one at that. Hell, creator Greg Rucka even copped to it in the first issue.

THE BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN by Len Deighton – What British spy column could not include some Deighton? From 1966, THE BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN is his fourth and last of the nameless spy series. This time out, our spy is sent off to convince one of their agents to fly right or else. But when he turns up, the man is already dead. Our spy is then given a chance by a young lady to join her organization, not realizing she already is dealing with a well-trained spy – that is, until a man by the name of Harvey Newbegin sets her straight. It seems Harvey works for a Gen. Midwinter, leads a private army called Facts for Freedom, a total anti-Communist group that believes 90 percent of the population is a Commie.

Midwinter’s operation – based in San Antonio, Texas – trains men to such an extreme that they become schizophrenic. The brain of the title is a giant super-computer who is responsible for the scrambling. Midwinter’s plot involves the smuggling of viruses in eggs to free the people of Latvia, but the problem is Harvey has his own ideas and is not playing with a full deck.

Deighton has some fun with this book, taking slight little jabs at the whole spy genre that by then was in full swing. You have a bad guy who is Bond-like, another spy who thinks a wig and glasses can pass himself off, and then there is the return of some characters from his other book, FUNERAL IN BERLIN. If you have only seen the Michael Caine film, read the book; it’s vastly superior and the plot is different.

JOHNNY GOES WEST by Desmond Cory – On the set of JEOPARDY!:

“I’ll take ‘Spy Series’ for 200, Alex.”
“This series wants to be Ian Fleming, but feels more like a bad Terence Hill/Bud Spencer film.”
DING!
“What is the Johnny Fedora series?”
“Correct! Pick a category…”

I can safely cross off all future volumes of this series from my to-read list. When I go on used-book-buying sprees, I keep a little list of authors I want to read. Since this series has been advertised so much in other paperbacks, I had written it down. My mistake! This is one of the lamer spy series out there.

Nothing happens. There was more action in WAITING FOR GODOT. Alright, that might be stretching it, but it does not “out-Bond Bond.” From 1968, it more sits in the same setting for about 70 percent of the story – that being some sort of house in Venezuela – as the team of <