Our monthly depressing look at the search terms that bring pervs to BOOKGASM!

truTV – formerly CourtTV – recently held a “Search for the Next Great Crime Writer.” Winning the contest was English professor Hal McDonald. You now can judge for yourself whether the search was successful, as his debut novel has arrived: THE ANATOMISTS.

A first-person account set in 1824 London, the novel follows the exploits of two St. Alban’s med students: narrator Edward Montague and roomie Jean-Claude Legard. Being of the era when cadavers for study were not readily available, the two must go to dire lengths to acquire one: by paying for it, via a grave robber.

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A quick lesson: FLIGHT is the name for a series of loosely themed comic anthologies for older readers. The new FLIGHT EXPLORER: VOLUME 1, however, is a loosely themed comic anthology by the same creators, only for middle-school students. I happened to love it. As in, a lot. Does that make me 12 again? If so, I’ll take it – but this time, without the angst, please.

My only exposure to FLIGHT thus far (about to change, however) was from a sampler given away a few Free Comic Book Days ago. You need no introduction for FLIGHT EXPLORER; just open it, dive in and get lost.

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She’s back, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar!

LOST SOULS by Lisa Jackson – Four girls have disappeared at All Saints College in less than two years. All four were troubled, vulnerable girls with no one to care about them, no one to come looking if they disappeared. The police think they’re runaways, but Kristi Bentz senses there’s something that links them, something terrifying. All Saints has changed a lot; the stodgy Catholic college has lured edgy new professors to its campus and gained a reputation for envelope-pushing, with classes like the very popular “The Influence of Vampirism in Modern Culture and Literature,” and elaborately staged morality plays that feel more like the titillating entertainment of some underground club than religious spectacles. And there are whispers of a dark cult on campus whose members wear vials of blood around their necks and meet in secret chambers – rituals to which only the elite have access.

IMPLIED SPACES by Walter Jon Williams – Aristide, a semi-retired computer scientist turned swordsman, is a scholar of the implied spaces, seeking meaning amid the accidents of architecture in a universe where reality itself has been sculpted and designed by superhuman machine intelligence. While exploring the pre-technological world Midgarth, one of four dozen pocket universes created within a series of vast, orbital matrioshka computer arrays, Aristide uncovers a fiendish plot threatening to set off a nightmare scenario, perhaps even bringing about the ultimate Existential Crisis: the end of civilization itself. Traveling the pocket universes with his wormhole-edged sword Tecmesssa in hand and talking cat Bitsy, avatar of the planet-sized computer Endora, at his side, Aristide must find a way to save the multiverse from subversion, sabotage, and certain destruction.

BLOOD TIES by Pamela Freeman – A thousand years ago, the Eleven Domains were invaded and the original inhabitants forced on the road as Travelers, belonging nowhere, welcomed by no-one. Now the Domains are governed with an iron fist by the Warlords, but there are wilder elements to the landscape which cannot be controlled and which may prove their undoing. Some are spirits of place, of water and air and fire and earth. Some are greater than these. And some are human. As the stories of a village girl, a safeguarder’s apprentice and an enchanter unfold, along with the stories of those whose lives they touch, it becomes clear that they are bound together in ways that not even a stonecaster could foresee – bound by their past, their future, and their blood.

THE DEAD PLACE by Stephen Booth – “This killing will be a model of perfection. An accomplishment to be proud of. And it could be tonight or maybe next week. But it will be soon. I promise.” The anonymous phone calls indicate a disturbed mind with an unnatural passion for death. Cooper and Fry are hoping against hope that the caller is just a harmless crank having some sick fun. But the clues woven through his disturbing messages point to the possibility of an all-too-real crime … especially when a woman vanishes from an office parking garage. But it’s the mystery surrounding an unidentified female corpse left exposed in the woods for over a year that really has the detectives worried. Whoever she might have been, the dead woman is linked to the mystery caller, whose description of his twisted death rituals matches the bizarre manner in which the body was found.

THE HOUSES OF TIME by Jamil Nasir – David Grant has a singular talent: He can affect the course of his dreams. Quite by chance, he discovers the existence of the Trans-Humanist Institute and their lucid dreaming lessons. He discovers that under the tutelage of Dr. Thotmoses he has more control over his dreams. However, his talent soon runs away with him and he visits dreamplaces while awake. The waking world and the dreaming world collide. Grant ends up sedated in a hellish mental institution … but escapes through his lucid dreams, which he is beginning to control – though the control is far from perfect. Grant discovers, to his horror, that Dr. Thotmoses belongs to the Caucasus Synod Western Orthodox Church, and that they have been grooming him because of his fantastic dreaming talents.

COMPULSION by Jonathan Kellerman – A tipsy young woman seeking aid on a desolate highway disappears into the inky black night. A retired schoolteacher is stabbed to death in broad daylight. Two women are butchered after closing time in a small-town beauty parlor. These and other bizarre acts of cruelty and psychopathology are linked only by the killer’s use of luxury vehicles and a baffling lack of motive. The ultimate whodunits, these crimes demand the attention of LAPD detective Milo Sturgis and his collaborator on the crime beat, psychologist Alex Delaware. What begins with a solitary bloodstain in a stolen sedan quickly spirals outward in odd and unexpected directions, leading Delaware and Sturgis from the well-heeled center of L.A. society to its desperate edges; across the paths of commodities brokers and transvestite hookers; and as far away as New York City, where the search thaws out a long-cold case and exposes a grotesque homicidal crusade.

BLIND FALL by Christopher Rice – John Houck became a Marine to become a hero. But his life changed when he failed to notice an explosive device that ended up maiming the captain of his Force Recon Company, a respected Marine who nearly sacrificed himself to save John’s life. Home from Iraq, John pays a visit to his former captain, only to discover the captain has been gruesomely murdered. John pursues a strange man he sees running from the scene, but he discovers that Alex Martin is not the murderer. Alex is, in fact, the former captain’s secret male lover and the killer’s intended next victim. When it becomes clear that local law enforcement has direct connections to the murder itself, John realizes that to repay his debt of honor, he must teach Alex Martin how to protect himself, even if that means teaching Alex to kill.

M by Jon J. Muth – Behind every great suspense thriller lurks the shadow of M. In Fritz Lang’s first sound film from 1931, Peter Lorre delivers a haunting performance as a serial killer – a whistling pedophile hunted by the police and brought to trial by the forces of the Berlin underworld. In 1990, a young painter, Jon J. Muth, continued his rise in the comic book industry by adapting the story of M into a four-issue comic book miniseries. Muth’s photorealistic illustrations paved the way for the acceptance of painted comics, influencing a generation of artists who followed him. Long out of print, these four issues are collected together for the first time as a hardcover graphic novel.

Buy it at Amazon.

Our promised “best contest yet” is not even for a book. It’s for four books. And thanks to William Morrow/HarperCollins, we’ve got three full sets to give away.

Up for grabs are these new releases:
• THE SHADOW YEAR by Jeffrey Ford
• THE PHILOSOPHER’S APPRENTICE by James Morrow
• THE PRICE OF BLOOD by Declan Hughes
• HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR: THE BEST HEADLINES FROM AMERICA’S FAVORITE NEWSPAPER by the staff of the New York Post

How to get one? Easy, provided you’re a BOOKGASM regular: Use the comments section on this very post and give us a “state of BOOKGASM” summary. What do you like about the site? What do you not like? What should we do more of? Less of? Only informed, well-thought-out opinions will be considered for the random drawing. Winners will be announced Friday, April 4.

Having recently read our editor’s highly controversial list of “The 9 Most Annoying People I Always See at the Bookstore,” I couldn’t help but assume that its composition was the direct result of his chronic back pain (which, I admit, he’d probably prefer I not mention) . It’s a serious issue that can make people seriously grouchy –  enough so that simply seeing others drinking coffee is enough to fuel up their internal rage machine and get them in front of that keyboard to vent.

That’s why it’s up to those of us who don’t know the terrible torment of constant agony to take up the slack and offer up the sunnier view. To that end I have composed my own list of the “The 9 Least Annoying People I Occasionally See at the Bookstore.”

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As the third novel from the man behind the online noir site Plots with Guns, Anthony Neil Smith’s YELLOW MEDICINE delivers in a big way. Deputy Billy Lafitte, a displaced officer from Mississippi, has made a new life for himself in Minnesota. The problem is, Billy is not what you would call a shining star on any police force. Bending the rules to the point of shattering them would be an understatement to how Billy operates.

We find out the circumstances that got him tossed out of his former department, post-Hurricane Katrina, and some of them come back to bite him on his ass. Only now, he’s pulling a whole new set of above-the-law activities, including taking protection money from meth labs.

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Only if your name is Nicole Reese of Irving, Texas!

She’s the randomly chosen winner of our contest for two books – THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA omnibus, containing all seven original novels by C.S. Lewis, and NARNIA CHRONOLOGY: FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE LAST KING, an “interactive timeline” – courtesy of HarperCollins to promote the upcoming PRINCE CASPIAN film.

Remember, if you’re not Nicole, you can always buy it at Amazon. Check back Monday for the single-best giveaway this site has ever seen!

Like many a youth of the ’80s, my introduction to H.P. Lovecraft and most things weird was through a late-night Skinemax viewing of that unheralded classic FROM BEYOND. I beat a path to the library to find more, only to be completely disappointed. Where was the S&M? The twisted body morphing? And where was the horny and sexually depraved Barbara Crampton character?  It took me a couple of years to come back to the fold and gain my appreciation. 

Elder Signs Press’ HORRORS BEYOND 2, edited by William Jones, reminded me a lot of that early experience.  The best encapsulated description I can come up with for this anthology of stories is the use of uncanny technologies beyond the control of humanity.
 
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Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!

Robert Louis Stevenson’s TREASURE ISLAND gets a retelling, but through its villain’s point of view, in SILVER: MY OWN TALE AS WRITTEN BY ME WITH A GOODLY AMOUNT OF MURDER. Its framing device has the nefarious Long John Silver held captive on a ship and en route to his own hanging; via his journals, this formerly illiterate pirate tells his life story, from a thieving orphan to scourge of the high seas. Much of it involves cracking codes and ciphers to find quite the booty, but there is typical swashbuckling adventure as well. As if the title weren’t already an indicator, debuting novelist Edward Chupack writes with a good amount of dark humor (”Do not become too fond of him, for I kill him forthwith”); particularly strong are the acidic exchanges between Silver and the stupid boy who brings him food. SILVER could stand a little pruning, as one of ISLAND’s strengths is its brevity, but those into old-school pirate fiction should find it rewarding.

What if you could not only see – but sense – other people’s dreams? It’s an intriguing premise explored by Lisa McMann in her debut novel WAKE, via her protagonist: a poor high school student named Janie. The girl doesn’t like it – not one bit – especially when those dreams become nightmares with awfully high stakes. Maybe it’s me, but I found it hard to identify with a teenage girl who shops at Goodwill and has *NSYNC posters on her wall. McMann’s prose is a little too simple, with many abrupt, one-sentence paragraphs (although that does make for lickety-split reading). In its defense, it’s written for young adults – not for males in their mid-30s.

Aside from “Obama or Clinton?,” the other important continuing debate in America is whether to serve beer or wine – a point taken to extremes in brewer Sam Calagione and sommelier Marnie Old’s HE SAID BEER, SHE SAID WINE. Both present the dish on their beverage of choice – ingredients, styles, tasting tips – before squaring off on which goes best in helping what food go down. Cases are presented for various pairings, with distinct ranking systems that shows real thought went into this. Closing out the book are a number of recipes for entreés, and their suggested liquid counterparts, of course. It’s a book that made me hungry and thirsty. And indecisive – why can’t we have both?

I’m not big on anthropomorphic animals headlining fantasy tales, but it’s easy to cut MOUSE GUARD: FALL 1152 some slack. David Peterson’s six-part graphic novel – now with value-added bonus material in the back, including maps, pin-ups and character profiles – concerns a few good mice who don sword and saber to protect their kingdom and fellow rodents from other animal threats, be it snake, crab or weasel. Peterson shows much imagination in his detailed art, and the story is treated seriously rather than cutesy, much to my relief. It’s an adventure that will have all-ages appeal; I only wish the lettering weren’t so assembly-line-looking. It’s about the only drawback to this beautiful book.

Elizabeth Peters is well-known for her string of Amelia Peabody mysteries, all set in Egypt, so it’s no wonder that the author – real name Barbara Mertz – has a natural fascination with the ancient land. Okay, it’s safe to say she’s an expert on the subject, and RED LAND, BLACK LAND: DAILY LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT is one of two nonfiction books she’s written that stand as proof. Originally published in 1966, this revised hardcover edition contains what reads like insider info on the time where mummies dare tread. Those interested in the era’s burial procedures, sexual politics and tomb construction are going to find this as gripping as fiction. A section of full-color photos and sporadic illustrations shed further insight on a riveting subject.

There are tons of books that tell you how to write a novel, but the main problem is that you can’t teach creativity. To my knowledge, Howard Mittlemark and Sandra Newman are the only ones who had the bright idea to tell you how not to do it, in HOW NOT TO WRITE A NOVEL: 200 CLASSIC MISTAKES AND HOW TO AVOID THEM – A MISSTEP-BY-MISSTEP GUIDE. Eschewing rules, the authors ask you to think of the work as a GPS system when you’re left wondering “How the fuck did I end up here?” They use pretty funny excerpts to illustrate where so many would-be writers go way wrong, from cheat endings and vocabulary flaunting to overwrought sex scenes. Even if you’re not working on the Great American Novel – or some Passable Paperback to Pay the Rent – you’re likely to be amused. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

S.J. Rozan’s IN THIS RAIN is political noir, and will be an entertaining read for those who love stories about the building trade or political intrigue. Ann Montgomery, a previously disgraced building inspector because of the actions of her partner, is determined to clear both her and her innocent partner’s name. The chance comes when she’s put on a case that seems to implicate multibillionaire Walter Glybenhall, one of Ann’s long-standing nemeses.

But her careful and deliberate investigation seems to go all haywire when Glybenhall can prove he was wrongly arrested. Now he’s suing the city for $50 million, and Ann herself for $5 million.

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Ah, the fairer sex is once again the topic of discussion in this, my 99th column. (To paraphrase Jay-Z, I’ve got 99 columns … you know the rest.) We have a trio of novels all dealing with women and their troubles. None of these, I’m guessing, are on the NOW reading list.

THE COMPANY GIRLS by Mona Williams – Hey, it’s typical bait-and-switch tactics with a Gold Medal cover. What promises to be a sleazy look at working office girls is more like a Douglas Sirk melodrama, heavy on the drama. The 1965 story is very much slice-of-life storytelling, with three women working for a hotel chain and vying to become the head of the operation when the boss is sent overseas for a few weeks.

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Did you hear the one about LOLITA’s pedophiliac Humbert Humbert being confronted by DATELINE’s “To Catch a Predator” segment? If not, consult THE MCSWEENEY’S JOKE BOOK OF BOOK JOKES pronto. This slim but satisfying anthology pokes a number of holes into the often-inflated world of self-important literature and writing with dozens of brief biting bits.

From the start – namely, the introduction by John Hodgman – you can tell you’re in for a good time. “It is hilarious that Herman Melville wrote MOBY-DICK,” he writes. “It is hilarious that it has a tattooed cannibal in it named ‘Queequeg’ and also a guy with a peg leg, and what’s more, it’s GODDAMNED TITLE IS MOBY-DICK. Priceless. I know, as we all do, that MOBY-DICK is hilarious, and I HAVEN’T EVEN READ IT.”

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THE SILVER SWAN marks the second time Booker Prize-winning author John Banville has used a pseudonym for a mystery. Placed two years after the events of CHRISTINE FALLS, Black’s 1950s pathologist Quirke is contacted by someone from his distant past: old classmate Billy Hunt, who has a huge favor to ask.

It entails performing an autopsy of Hunt’s wife Deidre, who was found floating in the ocean. From all looks of it, it’s a suicide, until Quirke discovers a needle mark on her arm. This is the novel’s central mystery, which, I’m sad to say, is not that much of a mystery as events move ahead.

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She’s back, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar!

BEFORE THEY ARE HANGED: THE FIRST LAW – BOOK TWO by Joe Abercrombie – Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It’s enough to make a torturer want to run if he could even walk without a stick. Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem: He commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world.

THE ALIBI MAN by Tami Hoag – The Palm Beach elite go to great lengths to protect their own – and their own no longer includes Elena Estes. Once upon a time a child of wealth and privilege, Elena turned her back on that life. Betrayed and disillusioned by those closest to her, she chose the life of an undercover cop, the hunt for justice her own personal passion. Then a tragic, haunting mistake ended her career. Now Elena exists on the fringes of her old life, but a shocking event is about to draw her back into the painful vortex she’s fought so hard to leave behind.

THE ACCIDENT MAN by Tom Cain – For a certain sum of money, Samuel Carver will arrange a death. A ruptured gas line, an automobile crash, a fall from a window; anything can look like an accident. But when Carver is to carry out a job in a tunnel in Paris, and when the job goes wrong for him, and when he is pursued by the very forces that hired him, Carver must execute his most daring feat yet. THE ACCIDENT MAN races above and below the streets of Paris, across Europe, and through storms at sea.

THE ELYSIUM COMMISSION by L.E. Modesitt – A brilliant scientist on the planet Devanta has created a small universe contiguous to ours, and a utopian city on one of the planets. But a utopia for whom? Blaine Donne is a retired military special operative now devoted to problem-solving for hire. He investigates a series of seemingly unrelated mysteries that arise with the arrival of a woman with unlimited resources who has neither a present nor a past. The more he investigates, the more questions arise, including the role of the two heiresses who are more – and less – than they seem, and the more Donne is pushed inexorably toward an explosive solution and a regional interstellar war.

TWISTED by Andrea Kane – Former FBI Special Agent Sloane Burbank trains law enforcement and private organizations in crisis resolution. But when one of her closest childhood friends mysteriously disappears, and the woman’s devastated parents beg for her help, Sloane takes the case, even though her ex-lover Derek Parker is the FBI agent in charge. Parker has no time to spare for a year-old case he sees as a dead end. He’s pursuing the leader of a Chinese gang and trying to solve a series of grisly murders in Chinatown. But as more women disappear and others turn up brutally murdered, Derek’s priorities shift, and he and Sloane come to the sickening realization that these random crimes are linked to the same crazed killer.

THE NIGHT FOLLOWING by Morag Joss – Driving along a winding country road, the wife of a doctor fails to see 61-year-old Ruth Mitchell riding her bicycle. She hits her, killing her instantly. And drives away. The hit-and-run driver is never found. But the doctor’s wife, horrified by what she has done, begins to unravel. Soon she turns her attention to Ruth’s bereaved husband, a man staggering sleeplessly through each night, as unhinged by grief as the killer is by guilt. Arthur Mitchell does not realize at first that someone has begun watching him through his windows, worrying over his disheveled appearance, his increasingly chaotic home. And when at last she steps through his doorway, he is ready to believe that, for reasons beyond his understanding, his wife has somehow been returned to him.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE GAME’S AFOOT edited by David Stuart Davies – In 20 new adventures, the celebrated detective, along with his friend and biographer Dr. Watson, investigate a variety of baffling mysteries that will delight fans of the famous sleuth. Striding through the foggy gas lit streets of London, Holmes tackles such cases as the puzzle of the Green Skull, the secret of the Brown Box, the conundrum of the Dragon of Lea Lane, as well as coming face to face once again with the Sussex Vampire. We also learn what really happened at the Reichenbach Falls when Holmes had his fateful encounter with Professor Moriarty. David Stuart Davies, Denis O. Smith, Mark Valentine, Matthew Booth, M.J. Elliott and the other talented writers who have contributed to this collection have followed closely in the footsteps of Arthur Conan Doyle.

AIRMAN by Eoin Colfer – Conor Broekhart was born to fly. In the 1890s, Conor and his family live off the Irish coast, where he spends his days studying the science of flight with his tutor and exploring the castle with the king’s daughter, Princess Isabella. But the boy’s idyllic life changes forever the day he discovers a conspiracy to overthrow the king. When Conor tries to expose the plot, he is branded a traitor and thrown into jail on the prison island of Little Saltee. There, he has to fight for his life as he and the other prisoners are forced to mine for diamonds in inhumane conditions. There is only one way to escape Little Saltee, and that is to fly. So he passes the solitary months by scratching drawings of flying machines into the prison walls. Eventually the day comes when Conor must find the courage to trust his revolutionary designs and take to the skies.

Buy it at Amazon.

To help promote the upcoming PRINCE CASPIAN film, the fine folks at HarperCollins sent us a CHRONICLES OF NARNIA prize pack to give away to one lucky reader. Someone’s walking away with two books: THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA omnibus, containing all seven original novels by C.S. Lewis, and NARNIA CHRONOLOGY: FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE LAST KING, an “interactive timeline.”

To enter, just send your name and mailing address to editor@bookgasm.com. We’ll announce the winner on the morning of Friday, March 28. If you don’t wanna wait, you can always buy it at Amazon. Don’t forget to visit the new NARNIA site, where you can register to win a trip to the premiere, play games and more.

One of my favorite books of 2006 – Joseph Wambaugh’s HOLLYWOOD STATION – gets a welcome sequel in HOLLYWOOD CROWS. The title’s only dumb until you know what it means.

CROWS revisits the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Station, where the usual mix of thieves and junkies is supplemented by costumed superheroes on the Walk of Fame. And when their new, chicken-lipped sergeant muscles in on – and botches – talking down a suicidal jumper, a couple of the cops feel demoralized enough to go elsewhere.

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Who knew the works of H.P. Lovecraft would one day be so ripe for plundering by DIY filmmakers? Lurker Films has made a cottage industry out of primarily releasing compilations of these features and shorts onto DVD, and the fifth now is available in THE H.P. LOVECRAFT COLLECTION: VOLUME 5 - STRANGE AEONS: THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP.

The centerpiece of the disc is 2005’s feature-length STRANGE AEONS: THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP, based on Lovecraft’s well-known – but not always well-liked – 1937 story “The Thing on the Doorstep.” I was looking forward to seeing the adaptation, but that’s because I had it confused with “The Outsider,” for some reason.

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Few things are as peaceful or enjoyable to me as just hanging out at the bookstore for a while. Unless you’re there. And by “you,” I mean one of the nine groups of people on this list, increasingly driving me toward Amazon. You are, in no particular order of annoyance …

COFFEE DRINKERS
Who goes for a bookstore just to get coffee? Isn’t that like going to an AutoZone for a Coke? I don’t do the java, so I’m more than a little put off by how fucking noisily you drink it. But, hey, at least you’re buying something to compensate for all those magazines you hauled over to your table to read while you suck down the joe. Just please stop smacking after every slurp. And since coffee moves the bowels, something tells me you’re part of the next group, too.

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There are only a handful of books I’ve read that made want to scrub myself with a wire brush, having put me through the halls of creepiness. Declan Hughes’ second novel THE COLOR OF BLOOD is one of them, with some last-minute revelations that will make most readers queasy. This is not the type of reading one would do for light entertainment.

Private detective Ed Loy has moved back to Dublin after spending 20 years plying his trade in L.A. It felt to me that Hughes based his character on another L.A. detective: one Lew Archer. It became more apparent when, in one of the chapter breaks, Archer’s creator Ross Macdonald is quoted.

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