Edited by Tinder James, SURPRISE is aptly named, not only because each of its two-dozenish tales ends in a twist, but because the stories are actually pretty good. See, they’re erotica — a genre in which many writers deliver the physical goods at the sacrifice of narrative ones.

Not so here. The sex is sexy, but it’s actually part of an honest-to-gosh story. Some even are satirical — especially the handful of flash-fiction single-pagers — tweaking the conventions of the genre, winking at the reader as they deliver a well-placed punchline. Better yet, the contents are varied, so it’s not like … oh, say, assuming the missionary each and every time.

In Kyoko Church’s “Adam Gets Perspective,” a novelist with writer’s block finds inspiration from the most unlikely of sources: his 60-year-old, prim, proper cleaning lady. Echoing current times, the laid-off protagonist of Jake Barnes’ “Burden in Hand” resorts to desperate measures to pay the bills, answering a Craigslist ad seeking “actors” for solo scenes, at $1,000 a (literal) pop. Also carrying the tone of today’s politics is “The Senator’s Perfect Wife,” in which S.T. Clemmons’ narrator laments the trophy spouse of a politician old enough to be her father, and wonders about their acts of congress.

Lilycat explores horror in the humorous “Why Zombies Make the Best Lovers,” while Stephen Smith treads sci-fi in the tomorrow tale “Detachable Penis,” in which a female doctor’s invention of just that causes men much frustration as the male member becomes just another accessory in ladies’ purses.

Give it a, er, shot. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

“Carolyn grinned and produced a hag so old, her ability to manufacture any type of vaginal juice faded just after the dinosaurs died. She smelled like an Egyptian exhibit.”

Not that I’ve seen that many sex how-to books to compare it to, but THE JOY OF MINDFUL SEX: BE IN THE MOMENT AND ENRICH YOUR LOVEMAKING seems more high-minded than others. In fact, Claudia Blake’s book subscribes to the same kind of philosophy that Oprah Winfrey and Eckhart Tolle preach about life in general: Live in the present.

It’s that attention to the moment, rather than worrying about the past or future, that allows people to focus, and that goes for acts of congress, too. This manual isn’t for those looking for killer techniques for one-night stands or casual encounters, because sex is at its very best when you connect with your committed partner on all levels — emotional, mental, spiritual — and not just the physical.

Although physical certainly doesn’t hurt! (In fact, it feels goooooood.) Through matter-of-fact language that’s straightforward without reading as neither naughty nor prude, Blake discusses being mindful, the importance of self-affirmation, setting pace, self-pleasure and dealing with anxiety, all before getting to the nitty gritty, so to speak, where one finds the issues of lubrication, toys, positions and all that jazz.

Monochromatic photos are tasteful, even arty — not quite to the point where you can leave it out without worry of kids’ peering eyes, but close. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Just because BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD: A WOMAN’S GUIDE TO SEXUAL PLEASURE AND SATISFACTION is written for the ladies doesn’t mean a guy like me can’t learn something from it. For instance, there are roughly five different shapes of a vagina, including “slug” and “pumpkin seed.”

Oh, and the book’s author, Kinsey Institute educator Dr. Debby Herbenick, was told to keep her vulva puppet far away from President Obama. For more on that story — as well as the skinny on sex noises, vagina tents and little somethin’-somethin’ called the towel trick — read the book.

Herbenick wants women to enjoy sex more (hear, hear!), and her advice is common-sense stuff. But common-sense stuff is sound, and Lord knows too many people fail to follow even that. It won’t hurt women to hear it again, especially from someone as frank, as no-nonsense and, yes, even as empowering as Herbenick (who, apropos of nothing, looks not unlike erstwhile WONDER YEARS star Danica McKellar).

And men, it’ll only benefit you in the long run to read it, too. Knowing what makes a woman tick — not just physically, but emotionally and psychologically — will help you press all the right buttons, G-spot included.

I must admit, I’m still a little horrified by the illustration on pg. 138. It’s of a sex toy … which appears to have been designed by David Cronenberg. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

If intelligence is sexy, I wish someone would’ve told all those girls with whom I attended high school. Marina Orlova claims smarts equal sex appeal, but then, she looks like Marina Orlova. She’s the author of HOT FOR WORDS: ANSWERS TO ALL YOUR BURNING QUESTIONS ABOUT WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS, which no one would be publishing if she were ugly.

The book does exactly what it promises: diving into the origins of words and phrases. But never before have roots been so seemingly raunchy, as each page is accompanied by a slick, full-color photo of Orlova in fantasy-ready poses, from schoolgirl uniforms and bikinis to lingerie and eating a banana.

“Birds and the bees”? That’s probably due to Cole Porter. “His name is mud”? One of John Wilkes Booth’s conspirators. The ampersand? It combines the two Roman letters for “and.” “Horny”? Because an engorged male organ looks like a horn. You’ll learn all these facts and more, including the nugget of trivia that “fuck” appeared in no English dictionary until 1965.

I suspect HOT FOR WORDS will be looked at more than read. Hey, whatever gets young males to put a book in their hands — or hand, singular — is fine by me. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Cinematically, werewolves are the coolest monsters. The man-to-wolf transformation scenes always play well, and then there’s the running through the forest and snarling and howling at the moon. You gotta love it.

But on the page, these elements don’t work as well. A novelist needs to bring something more to the party, and in WOLF’S GAMBIT, W.D. Gagliani doesn’t quite make it. His storytelling is fine and the main characters are well-drawn, but the book misses that visceral thrill we associate with tales of men changing into beasts.

Set in and around Eagle River in Wisconsin, the plot deals with conflicts over the potential construction of an Indian casino. Some tribe members want it, some don’t. Some locals want it, some don’t. Johnny Blackthorn — partially an American Indian, but fully a real-estate hustler — was brought to town by the pro-casino members of the tribe’s Elder Council to sway the others — a task he pulled off well enough to get the ground broken and building started. Then he gets ripped right out of his Guccis by what he thinks at his last moment are three wolves.

Close, but no cigar. Not that it matters to Blackthorn, because he doesn’t have any lips left with which to smoke it.

We soon discover that Mr. XYZ, who spends his free time as a sadistic serial killer of young women, has hired three werewolves from Europe to kill councilpersons until the survivors agree to cancel the construction.

Standing in his/their way are Sheriff Arnow, late of Chicago and Daytona Beach; Dr. Jessie Hawkins, coroner, for whom Arnow has a bit of a letch; and big-city cop on vacation Nick Lupo, in town to visit and renew old times with Jessie. Among the three of them, one is a werewolf. Who is it: Arnow, Hawkins or Lupo? Lupo? Oh, come on.

Maybe it’s a cliché by now, but I miss my protagonist werewolf having a profound personal problem with his lycanthropy. You know, like Larry Talbot in THE WOLF MAN. There are times when Lupo would just as soon be normal, but he can control when he changes and he’s able to use his wolfiness in his police work. At one point, he shucks his clothes and chases down a criminal, holding him at bay until the other cops show up.

Sorry, but for me, half the fun of a werewolf yarn is the threat that the change to wolf form may come over the hero at an inconvenient time. Lupo is so in control, he can hold down a steady job.

Gagliani is good at describing the violence wrought by the killer wolves. Try this: “Fangs slashing, the snarling beasts latched on to Clara’s throat and face, cutting short her screams. Tearing and swallowing whole chunks of skin and flesh, they used their clawlike forepaws to bore into her stomach and chest, fighting one another to tug out bloody swirls of intestines.”

The image is pretty gruesome. Unfortunately, it isn’t in the least scary, and the impact of the moment is lessened by the fact that we weren’t introduced to Clara Kee Walters until a couple of hundred words before she’s turned into Kee-bles ‘n Bits. It’s hard enough to care about the fate of real person we’ve never met, and it’s impossible to care for a character who is a total stranger.

For me, the book works best as a police-procedural thriller rather than as a horror story. The featuring alone of a traditional horror icon — the werewolf — isn’t enough to push what is essentially a cop novel (one in a series) over the edge and into the spook trade.

But if you want a fairly entertaining variation on the serial killer novel, this is a good bet. Be warned, though, that the sex is raw and nasty, and Gagliani pulls no punches. All in all, WOLF’S GAMBIT will keep you entertained for a couple of nights. —Doug Bentin

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• WOLF’S TRAP by W.D. Gagliani

In the future, when we hover in zero-gravity chairs, wipe away genetic imperfections and take vitamin showers, we also can have virtual sex with whomever we choose. In Nate Kenyon’s PRIME, there’s a machine just for that, whether you want a hunk or Henry VIIII.

But it’s killed three people recently. Is it due to a virus? Human tampering? The religious right? Celebrity bug-hunter William Bellow is brought in by the New London corporation to find out why its technology is short-circuiting its users.

Enlisting the help of a former sex-trade worker named Kara, Bellow investigates, taking him from tower to sewer. He learns that one of the deceased was involved in a top-secret program named Prime, and runs across vats of naked clones. How it all ties together is swiftly, smartly rendered.

Kenyon’s novella is just the right length, blending the sci-fi and mystery genres into a clean narrative that reminds one of BLADE RUNNER. With the exception of a confusing (albeit action-packed) prologue, the author maximizes a minimal page count, packing a lot of story into a small space. His vision of the future may not be markedly different than the writers the back cover name-checks (Philip K. Dick, Neal Stephenson and Richard K. Morgan), but his grasp of the material is strong. The guy can do more than mere horror. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• BLOODSTONE by Nate Kenyon
• THE BONE FACTORY by Nate Kenyon
• THE REACH by Nate Kenyon

from VARIOUS FLAVORS OF COFFEE by Anthony Capella:

“That evening, as I walked down Piccadilly, I passed a carriage horse trying to copulate with a mare. … It made a strange sight: the stallion, still harnessed to the shafts of the carriage, was attempting to clamber on to the mare’s back, prodding his great pizzle into her hindquarters. Each time he slipped off, pulled backwards by the unwieldy weight of the brougham; yet, nothing daunted, he immediately returned for another attempt, pulling himself clumsily up again with his front hoofs, like a Chinaman trying to clasp a piece of meat with chopsticks. The mare, for her part, stood for it patiently, barely moving when the stallion took the skin of her neck between his teeth. The back end of the carriage had ripped up, and was being crashed around on the road with every staggering thrust of the stallion’s rear legs. … Eventually the driver of the brougham returned and began shouting at his beast, trying to force it off. Of course the stallion had no intention of all at stopping, even when its master began laying into it with a whip. … Eventually the stallion was done, and slid off the mare of his own volition, the battered brougham returning to the level with a crash. The horse’s pizzle was still dripping onto the cobbles when the owner finally succeeded in trotting him away, to an ironic cheer from the watchers.”

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Guys, don’t even pretend that you’ve never thought of Lois Lane in “that way.” Perhaps one of your fantasies even mirrors those depicted in SECRET IDENTITY: THE FETISH ART OF SUPERMAN’S CO-CREATOR JOE SHUSTER. Here, comics historian Craig Yoe has uncovered a side of Shuster that no one knew existed: a desperate gig in the 1950s illustrating stroke stories for porno mags.

There’s a whole twisted story behind the crude, underground publications, which Yoe reveals led to a bizarre “thrill killers” murder trial. And to think that the co-creator of the clean-cut Superman was all caught up in it. It’s absurd! It’s inane! It’s the true-comics find of the year!

Yoe’s essay on the sordid matter kickstarts the book, but the bulk of it is devoted to full-page and full-spread (no pun intended) samples of the art in question. I’m sure it was shocking for its time, but today’s it’s mostly just titillating (again, no pun intended). Any shock generated — among non-hysterics, that is — stems from the fact that Shuster would be involved in such a venture that would have him draw, say, a woman’s hindquarters jutting into the air.

Page after page yields example after example of a comely, curvy woman — many looking not unlike Lois Lane — clad only in lacy, frilly undergarments, tied up or otherwise submissive — but not always — to a man (and, on occasion, another woman). Although the stories these pictures accompanied might have been pornographic, the art is strictly tease — Shuster exposes nothing more than a breast here and there, not daring to venture south. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• BOODY: THE BIZARRE COMICS OF BOODY ROGERS edited by Craig Yoe
• CLEAN CARTOONISTS’ DIRTY DRAWINGS by Craig Yoe

Having problems in your marriage? Buying a house isn’t going to solve things. And that goes double if that house is haunted.

‘Tis a lesson Conrad Harrison learns the hard way, in Christopher Ransom’s debut novel, THE BIRTHING HOUSE. He’s married — by a thread, it seems — to Jo, a successful L.A. businesswoman who has always outearned him. That paradigm shifts when Conrad’s father is killed in an accident and he inherits a huge settlement check, roughly half of which he plunks down on an old, Victorian fixer-upper in a Wisconsin small town.

Shortly after moving in, Conrad finds out the home used to be a spot where pregnant young women of another century went to have their babies. Eerily, a photo album containing sepia-toned snapshots from time reveals one of the ladies looks uncannily like Jo. On one of his first nights there, he’s horrified by a vision of a child’s wooden doll come to life.

Jo splits town for an extended work trip, and it’s during that time Conrad believes that the house doesn’t want death, like most haunted abodes, but life. One of his pet snakes in the garage lays a slew of eggs, despite having never been impregnated. And Jo calls with some news that she, too, is knocked up … and Conrad starts doing the math in his head, questioning her fidelity.

While she’s away, he befriends the girl next door, Nadia, a pregnant teen with a no-good boyfriend. Their relationship is a strange one, and he puts the moves on her, seven-month bump be damned. She reminds him of his high school girlfriend, Holly. Whatever became of her? Teasingly, between chunks of other chapters, Conrad reveals the tragic truth as he gradually pulls an AMITYVILLE.

The concept of a house demanding life is an interesting one. It’s not scary, mind you, but interesting, and makes for a sexually charged narrative — one in which Conrad is riddled with explicit dreams that find him waking up with a chafed penis and evidence of expelled breast milk. For me, the climax — ahem — of the book comes — ahem — roughly three-quarters in — ahem — when a flashback details a most disturbing act of love perpetuated by Holly. Teenagers do the darndest things!

Although the ending didn’t quite work for me, elongated as it is, THE BIRTHING HOUSE is something of an unexpected gem. Ransom writes with great verve, where Jackson Pollock becomes a verb and lines of dialogue sing, even when they’re spoken out of cruelty. The novel reminded me of 2005′s underrated Abaddon Inn series, which similarly creeps as its floorboards creak. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Another website becomes a book in Pamela Redmond Satran’s HOW NOT TO ACT OLD: 185 WAYS TO PASS FOR PHAT, SICK, HOT, DOPE, AWESOME, OR AT LEAST NOT TOTALLY LAME. It does just what it says, with advice dished on everything from Facebooking to pop-culture references that instantly date you.

Whether these tips are to be considered purely practical or taken with grain a salt, I’m unsure, because Satran writes with admirable wit. Each topic is handled quickly, sometimes with a fun list as accompaniment. If you don’t know that SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization,” you’re exactly the target this work seeks.

The editor in me disagrees with her assertion that e-mails shouldn’t be written with proper capitalization and punctuation. Nor do I see why bringing donuts to share with co-workers makes you old; in mine, it makes you a friggin’ hero! But the one directed at women telling them not to save sex for the weekend — now there’s a piece of advice I could get behind. And on top. And … —Rod Lott

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Such a brilliant image on the cover of SEX, THUGS, AND ROCK & ROLL, that X-ray shot of a man blowing his brains out, only with the expelled gray matter represented by the book’s contributing authors. Don’t agree? Then you’re better off not even attempting to digest its contents, because this one’s not for the faint of heart or easily offended.

For the rest of us, however, it’s a big ball of awesome. Edited by Todd Robinson, who’s the mastermind behind the Thuglit crime-fic website, the book holds 23 tales representing “the best of neo-noir fiction.” It’s Thuglit’s second hold-in-your-hands anthology, following last year’s HARDCORE HARDBOILED. They’re so good, I hope they become annuals.

I can think of no better story chosen to start the book than the one that does: Jason Starr’s “Double Down,” a brief bit about a guy with a gambling problem who’s hired to tail another’s cheating wife, and quickly figures out a way to increase his fee. Next is Jordan Harper’s “Like Riding a Moped,” narrated by an obese woman who works in a jewelry store, which she’s agreed to help her no-good, out-of-her-league boyfriend knock over. The power and sadness behind this one reminded me of Sidney Lumet’s tragic heist film BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD.

In “A Flood of Mexican Porn Star Tits,” the book’s most over-the-top piece — and I mean that in a good way — Justin Porter’s protagonist flees to Mexico to beat a drug charge, makes some pesos drawing porn comics, and attracts a most unwanted fan in a male prisoner. The ending equates to a terrific punchline.

Its tonal opposite can be found in “Bullets and Fire,” in which the seemingly unsuckable Joe R. Lansdale details the lengths one young man will go to for the bitter taste of revenge. Here, it entails joining a dirtier-than-dirt gang, and his initiation is beating the crap out of a little girl. That’s just for starters.

Equally poignant is “The Days When You Were Anything Else,” by Marcus Sakey. It concerns an ex-con bartender trying to right the wrongs of his past when his estranged daughter is kidnapped, and the asked-for ransom is beyond his means and will require drastic measures. Same goes for the parole officer behind Mike Sheeter’s excellent “Violated” when one of his sex-offender clients gets a little too personal.

That desperation also informs Anthony Neil Smith’s “Cramp,” only comically, as a quartet of friends rob a state-line porn shop, but things don’t go as planned because one of them has food poisoning. It’s sick as, well, shit, but also darkly, deadly funny.

Richard J. Martin Jr. has the most experimental story among the bunch in “Eulogy for a Player,” in which the narrator schools you, the reader, on all you need to know about being a pimp. Allan Guthrie takes the most liberties in terms of setting — the 12th century! — with the Viking tale “Haermund Hardaxe Was Here.” Paintball informs Hugh Lessig’s “We All Come from Splattertown,” while an act of terrorism takes center stage in the nerve-racking “Black Sun,” from Gary Carson.

Another standout comes late in the book with “Customer Service,” in which Matthew Baldwin tells what happens when a hitman is asked to cancel a gig, but refuses to waver on his no-refund policy.

With some of these stories having been published online beforehand, length is not a problem. They set out what they intend to do and get out of there before trouble brews, much like a burglar ransacking a business. Occasionally, there’s one that’s a tad too obtuse to play like the rest, but such spots are minimal and, thus, not worth singling out.

Robinson’s done another bang-up job assembling this lineup. Here’s proof that the short story isn’t just alive and well, but kicking … you right in the balls. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• HARDCORE HARDBOILED edited by Todd Robinson

For BOOKGASM’s first-ever video review, Allan Mott looks at the collected works of Troma Films founder Lloyd Kaufman: ALL I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FILMMAKING I LEARNED FROM THE TOXIC AVENGER, MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE!: SECRETS OF A RENEGADE DIRECTOR and DIRECT YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE!, all in one NSFW clip.

Buy them at Amazon.

Similar to MariNaomi’s ESTRUS COMICS is uni-monikered, San Francisco-based artist Melaina’s DATER’S DOZEN. This indie mini-comic chronicles her efforts to date as many men as possible, following her breakup with her most recent boyfriend, who’s addicted to video games.

As expected, she finds more frogs than princes. Belonging to that former group are one who yells at her in public, a possible alcoholic, another quickly heading that way and, most hilariously, a bachelor who “was artsy and yet had a steady income. But I was less fond of his starfish hands.”

She starts to wonder if maybe she didn’t quite fully appreciate what she had with Mr. Joystick, but it’s too late. Still, she presses on, and finds if not true love, then true like, with a couple of Mr. Rights in the Running. As the introduction hints, her story doesn’t end in a rom-com happy ending, but at least she finds herself empowered.

Melania’s drawings are clean and simple — not too detailed beyond the focus of each panel. I admire women like her who can be this transparent about events so personal; even if that doesn’t always translate into laugh-out-loud humor, it’s always entertaining. Chalk that up to her insistence on being honest and real.

A 32-pager may be a bit pricey at $7 shipped, but this is one that readers — particularly of the female variety — will be happy to revisit. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Melaina Comics.

I have never read a Sherrilyn Kenyon novel, and they may be great, but the paranormal romance genre holds no appeal to me. Certainly, her stuff has its fans, so when I learned it had been adapted to manga format in THE DARK-HUNTERS: VOLUME 1, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it out.

It did.

A former Greek god named Kyrian is now a vampire hunter. He meets a girl named Amanda who also hunt vampires, yet she is not an immortal like he is. In fact, she’s an accountant whose whole family casts spells. Neither character is introduced well, nor are their backgrounds fleshed out beyond toe-depth.

Kyrian and Amanda meet cute when they get trapped in a room together by a vampire who vows to kill Kyrian. Escape, fall in love, fighting, etc., all ending in a cliffhanger. Exactly what and how it all happens throughout still baffles me, because the writing is rushed and clumsy. I’m assuming it makes perfect sense to readers of Kenyon’s series, which currently numbers 17. To this newbie, it was a frustrating introduction; I read and re-read several pages to get my bearings and see what I had missed.

Just my time, apparently. That’s through no fault of Claudio Campos, whose art is fine. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Scouring out the weekly singles scene … in comics!

Continuing Marvel’s ongoing seven-decade birthday party is CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS 70TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL #1, featuring a wonderful James Robinson/Marcos Martin story that delves into Steve Rogers’ early days of saving the country, but before he was the star-spangled superhero, and still a 98-pound weakling. In defying expectations, it soars with seemingly little effort. The second half is comprised of a Joe Simon/Jack Kirby classic from 1941, in which Cap and sidekick Bucky thwart a serial killer at a major-league baseball game, back when the game equaled patriotism.

And from Captain America, we go to Miss America — not the beauty pageant title — in MISS AMERICA COMICS 70TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL #1. If this was a real character from yesteryear, I wasn’t familiar with her before this. In Jen Van Meter and Andy MacDonald’s story, she’s like a cross between Wonder Woman and Rosie the Riveter, undercover on a shipyard during World War II, seeking German spies. She’s also engaged to be married to Whizzer, the star of two backup stories from 1943. His high-winged-head costume is as stupid as his name.

Horror novelist Jonathan Maberry certainly doesn’t flinch when it comes to scripting THE PUNISHER: NAKED KILL #1, a one-shot that more than earns its “EXPLICIT CONTENT” cover tag. When The Punisher discovers there’s a torture-porn snuff-film ring taking place near the top floor of a heavily secured tower, he kills his way through, level by level, having to improvise without his usual armory. Extreme violence and harsh language abound, and just wait until you see what the abused women do for a ladder! Maberry does a great job with Frank Castle, but Laurence Campbell’s art is a little too rough for my tastes — some fleshing out certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Batman goes to Barcelona in, um, BATMAN IN BARCELONA: DRAGON’S KNIGHT #1, written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Diego Olmos. On a tip from The Scarecrow, who’s locked up safely in Arkham Asylum, Batman flies to Spain to catch The Croc, who’s currently on a serial-killer-esque string of menace and murder. Luckily, Bruce Wayne has a secret Batcave in the country (who knew?), complete with costume, computered-out HQ and one muy fresco Batcycle. The story is thin, but the battle between the Caped Crusader and his reptilian enemy is brutal and bloody. —Rod Lott

Over in Japan, FAUST is considered a “mook” — that’s a magazine and a book — speaking to the disaffected otaku culture, with a mix of cutting-edge fiction and manga. You can see what you’re missing out on with Del Rey’s FAUST: VOLUME TWO, the sophomore edition of the translated anthology. (VOLUME ONE came out last year.)

It opens with “Magical Girl Risuka” by NISIOISIN, which is a pen name, not a brand of ramen. (Strangely, many Japanese authors hide behind these cryptic monikers; others here include VOFAN, x6suke and TAGRO.) The story is a quasi-Lovecraft tribute about a boy who witnesses four people throw themselves in front a moving subway at once, and the titular girl who has the powers to alter time.

Kouhei Kadono’s “Jagdtiger (PorscheLaufwerk)” is an odd, military tale about a new kind of robotic weapon for war, while Otsuichi provides the collection’s best piece in “Where the Wind Blows,” in which objects from years in the future — photographs, newspapers, letters, a cell phone — mysteriously show up at his home.

From Yûya Satô, “Gray-Colored Diet Coke” is a mere excerpt, but long enough for me, being a disturbing, depressing look at the life of a 19-year-old with no idea what to do with his life, beyond hearing stories from his grandfather about killing and raping in the war.

Kozy Watanabe’s “H People” is a brief fantasy about a recluse and the pizza-delivery girl who has sex with him, complete with an out-of-nowhere ending. Speaking of sex, Tatsuhiko Takimoto provides an essay about whether or not to visit a well-known, high-class brothel called Soapland, in “Tatsuhiko Takimoto’s Guru Guru Counseling Session.”

Other essays examine how otaku became big business in Japan; the ins and outs of translating fiction from Japanese into English; and the creators’ feelings of FAUST crossing the oceans to our shores.

Of more appeal to the casual reader will be FAUST’s section of manga in the back. The first three stories are little more than illustrated tone poems, until Katsuhiro Otomo and Katsuya Terada comically run down all the “Old Dudes” they’ve seen on the streets, and Ueda Hajime contributes “Iron Man Military Unit,” about a young soldier more than a little bitter at being the only virgin in his platoon.

This collection’s contents aren’t for everyone, but those with even an inkling of interest toward the Far East should give it a fair chance. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

As a rule of thumb, anthropomorphic animals aren’t my thing. That’s because — much more often than not — the device is used to be cute. But anyone who’s seen the work of uni-named writer/artist Jason knows that “cute” isn’t in his vocabulary. He’s the anti-cute, and LOW MOON is the best work I’ve seen from him yet.

The Fantagraphics hardcover collects five oddball tales, all told in four-panel pages with a majority of the cast being upright-walking, English-speaking dogs. There’s no apparent point for them being canines, since their stories are all-human. Yet the work wouldn’t have nearly the same punch with mere people.

I don’t care that “Emily Says Hello” is illustrated fiction, because it deserves to be on any year-end list of 2009′s finest crime stories, no matter what the format. In it, a hitman is routinely hired by a woman to bump off guys in return for increasingly sexual favors. Before he can grab a boob or receive a blowjob, the guy must play her tape-recorded proof of each mission’s success. Each piece of aural evidence ends with the same phrase, “Emily says hello,” followed by the blam of a bullet entering — one presumes — some poor sap’s head. The ending is sudden, shocking and remarkably poetic.

The second story, “Low Moon,” is Jason’s HIGH NOON — a Western in which every cliché of the genre is deftly parodied. The town sheriff is visibly unnerved when an old enemy re-emerges, meaning a showdown is inevitable. But it doesn’t involve guns — this war is to be waged on the chessboard.

Coming in the middle is “&,” a pas de deux of sorts, with one narrative playing out on all the left-hand pages, and another playing out on all the right-hand pages, eventually intersecting on the final page. On the left, a man becomes a thief — and a rather bumbling one at that — to get $10,000 to pay for his dying mother’s operation. On the right, another man is head over heels in love with a woman engaged to another. So he kills her fiancé. And then she falls for someone else, so he offs that guy, too, and so on, and so on, until he gets his chance. It’s rather brilliant.

Similar in feel and funny is “Proto Film Noir,” which reads like a James M. Cain parody, as a wife and her lover plot to kill her husband. They do, but the bastard keeps coming back to life, so they kill and kill again.

Finally, there’s “You Are Here.” In it, a wife and mother of one is kidnapped by an alien who takes off in a rocket to outer space. Her shocked hubby vows to their only son to get her back, so he begins building a rocketship. Twenty years later, he’s still building, but a vow’s a vow. It’s more than a little heartbreaking to see the motherless boy grow into a fractured family of his own, and a lot more heartbreaking when Mom’s fate is revealed.

One and all, these are excellently told tales from a unique talent. —Rod Lott

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Tommy Russo has just seen a man about a horse, and not euphemistically. The tough-guy protagonist of Jason Starr’s FAKE I.D. has a bit of a gambling problem, so the idea of having ownership in a racehorse appeals to him when the opportunity unexpectedly arises in the opening chapter. All he needs to get in on the deal (scam?) is $10,000.

Employed as a bouncer at a New York bar, he’s short about, well, 10 grand. But he really, really wants this, so he does whatever he can to scrape together some coin. First, he makes off with a piece of jewelry of some chick he’s banging, but the pawn shop’s offer is petty. The bar’s Super Bowl pool of bets, however? Ka-ching!

Tommy robs the place in the middle of the night and, once the theft is discovered, points the blame on his boss’ son. To add insult to injury, he stops over at his boss’ place to screw his wife, just because he can, as some sort of celebration (and, for us, a riotously funny sex scene).

As if you couldn’t tell, yeah, this Tommy guy ain’t so kind. He starts out with our sympathies, but the more he gets himself in over his head — and believe me, the worst is yet to come — the less we like him. Such acts can be the death of a novel, but Starr bravely maneuvers it such a manner that we can’t help but stick around to see just how low Tommy will go. We don’t quite recognize what depths he’s capable of sinking to until he does it, and the effect as he attempts to talk/bribe/claw his way out of the situation — only to make it worse — is oddly comic.

As a general rule of thumb, Hard Case Crime books are kept slim on purpose, and FAKE I.D. is a case where a thrifty page count is almost a necessity. After all, one can only spend so much time politely tolerating a jerk before you have to vacate the premises entirely. Starr never reaches that breaking point, getting out while the getting’s still good.

This one was originally published at the turn of the century, and is getting its first American publication. Such importing was long overdue. FAKE I.D. moves with the breakneck speed of Starr’s three other Hard Case efforts (co-written with Ken Bruen) and bristles with the same style of dark humor. The ending’s a little abrupt and madcap, but just goes to show what a nut Tommy truly is. I wouldn’t change him a bit. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

“She pushed me down onto the bed and climbed on top of me with her drunk old lady’s body — sucking hard on my neck with her teeth. … She was holding down my arms, biting my nipples. ‘You like this, don’t you? Don’t you?’ She unzipped my pants and tossed away her robe. I wondered how I ever could’ve thought she was sexy. Her thin, bony body disgusted me. I was looking up at her lumpy, sagging implants and her wrinkled face. I closed my eyes, trying to shut everything out, but it didn’t help.”

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• BUST by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr
• THE MAX by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr
• SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

I should apologize to the sexual research team of William Masters and Virginia Johnson for confusing them with Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues. Now that I’ve read Thomas Maier’s fine bio MASTERS OF SEX: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM MASTERS AND VIRGINIA JOHNSON, THE COUPLE WHO TAUGHT AMERICA HOW TO LOVE, it won’t happen again.

And I also should salute them, for their fine work into … well, you know. In the 1950s and ’60s, the two undertook the first scientific research project into the human sexual response — something that back then, was unthinkable and potentially even illegal. My, how times have changed … partly due to them!

By the time Johnson went to work for Masters at St. Louis’ Washington University, the headstrong single mom had two failed marriages behind her. As her employer, Masters had already been peering into the nature of sex, from his first study of whether rabbits menstruate. That frustrating experiment had led to work helping couples with fertility problems, and then interviewing and observing prostitutes at work.

Johnson’s hiring basically boiled down to Masters needed a female “interpreter,” and with her onboard, they set out to look into — and we do mean into — the details surrounding vaginal moistening, extended nipples, enlarged testes and the like. This involved watching a woman pleasure herself with a camera-equipped dildo to see what was going on inside, with her identity shielded by a pillowcase with two eyeholes. It also involved observing couples having anonymous intercourse. Masters and Johnson themselves were not participants … except with one another, despite Masters being married at the time.

With their findings on the female multiple orgasm and the conclusion that sex was healthy, the Masters and Johnson study sent shockwaves through society, after being kept a secret from the press for 10 years. They became household names, made the cover of TIME, even got hitched. But every rose has its thorn, and Maier’s book chronicles their descent, personally and professionally.

There’s a real heart at the center of MASTERS OF SEX, and it comes from Johnson’s admission of heartbreak and regret to Maier that bookends the work. There’s nothing “dirty” about this one, either — just as Masters and Johnson approached their research with seriousness, so does the author. I wasn’t aware there was such a story here to tell, from serving as sexperts to celebrities (Barbara Eden and George C. Wallace among them) to controversial “conversion” work with homosexuals.

It’s a, er, probing piece of journalism, told with the verve of a round of heavy petting. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Books about being dumped are a double-edged knife to the heart. On one hand, it’s always fascinating to read about one man’s heartbreak and how he dealt with it, but on the other side, in mainstream books like this, the writers — especially the celeb writers — are always pulling the politically correct card, never talking about how much they absolutely hate the women who hurt them, instead spending too much time trying to be the “nice guys” to maintain their public image. They’d rather come off like hypersensitive pussies who still want to maintain “friendships” instead of dwelling on how much they’d like to see the bitch dead, which, if you ask me, is more honest.

I call it the “Nick Hornby Syndrome” and, well, fittingly enough, he writes the intro to THINGS I’VE LEARNED FROM WOMEN WHO’VE DUMPED ME. It is such a politically correct book, it never ever finds the balls to really let loose and explore the actual pain of a woman dumping you.

The first story, Dan Vebber’s “Sex Is the Most Stressful Thing in the History of the Universe,” brutally sets the tone, as Dan not only “brags” that he never learned to masturbate until his 20s, but that he wasn’t into sex with women throughout high school and college, having to beat the ladies off with a stick while ignoring to beat off his own stick. He wants to appear as the aforementioned sensitive funny guy, but instead comes off like a creepy eunuch who hangs around mall shoe stores drinking from the same Taco Bell cup all day. It’s a tortuous read, but once you learn that Vebber has also written for AMERICAN DAD, that makes more sense.

The rest of the stories aren’t any better. Hipster comedian David Wain — who I am genuinely surprised is into women — is here, with a small dialogue that is pointless, but not as pointless as Andy Richter’s “Girls Don’t Make Passes at Boys With Fat Asses,” the one story I felt like I could have identified with, and at first did, but then it veers off in a positive, self-affirmation-type thing. The overrated Stephen Colbert wastes five pages, and, even more overrated, Dan Savage is here, proving once again why alt-weekly editors think he’s so edgy by writing a story that uses the word “cock” 459 times, mostly just to get attention.

The worst of the lot? Matt Goodman and his “Being Awkward Can Be a Prophylactic Against Dry Humping.” It reads like an SAT essay, with plenty of that teenage overwriting diarrhea that can be found in any high school literary journal, which is apropos, because this kid graduated, like, last year.

The best story, by the way, is by Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, breaking down pop songs. It’s the only readable thing here.

So many of these comedians are just talking to hear themselves talk, They have nothing to actually say about relationships, and take three to five pages to say it. Even worse, it’s obvious that they are trying to appeal to the BUST, roller-derby crowd — all these guys seem to idolize the prototypical alt-chick with self-inflicted cuts, arms full of tats, multicolored hair and daddy issues. You deserve to fail in your relationships, assholes! Instead of trying to find a mate who is, I don’t know, a nice, sweet girl with a great personality, you go after these hipster-skanks who enjoy They Might Be Giants and an ironic love of ’70s porn more than they like you. Sorry, fatty, they’ll always choose drumming for the punk band and fashionable lesbianism over you, no matter how “funny” you are.

Yet you still want to be the “nice guy.” Edited by Ben Karlin, THINGS I’VE LEARNED is a hollow, false book that people will only pretend to relate to — a real waste of time and talent. Breaking up is hard to do, but it’s nowhere near as hard as making it though this collection. —Louis Fowler

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Test your knowledge at our elected officials’ poor judgment with Paul Slansky’s THE LITTLE QUIZ BOOK OF BIG POLITICAL SEX SCANDALS. It’s a multiple-choice test surrounding all the lurid details of presidents, Congressmen, governors and others who just couldn’t keep it in their pants.

All the huge headline-makers are covered, from Chappaquiddick to Monica Lewinsky, but I got more enjoyment reading about the hypocrites in the “Not Gay!” and “The Religious Wrong” chapters. (Ted Haggard, you card!) A contributor to THE NEW YORKER, Slansky knows his stuff, and the questions are written so they’re not so easily answered. It may look like a novelty, but it’s really a legitimate challenge for the NPR set. —Rod Lott

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SACRIFICE is a sequel to John Everson’s COVENANT. It definitely shows the author stretching his narrative muscles and taking on more challenging techniques. But beyond that, it is a disappointment.

Joe Kieran, the newspaper reporter and main protagonist from COVENANT, is aimlessly driving across country alone. But he’s not really alone. Imprisoned in his consciousness is the devious demon Malachai. Joe previously rescued the small, East Coast town of Terrel from its blood covenant with Malachai by discovering the demon’s secret and evoking its name. Now, Malachai is indentured to Joe, but the demon is hardly a wish-granting genie. While it is obliged to follow Joe’s bidding, it takes advantage of any devious loophole it can find.

Joe eventually picks up a teenaged girl hitchhiker named Alex. And as they grow to know each other, Alex reveals that she has the ability to see and converse with ghosts. It’s a trait that resulted in the violent death of her parents and put her on the road. But Alex can also see Malachai. And after a while, the demon reveals that he fully intended for Alex and Joe to meet.

Meanwhile, a woman named Ariana is on something of a personal, cross-country mission. She seeks out men, usually in bars, propositions them and takes them back to her hotel room. But while her intentions are erotic, she ends up killing the men in a ritualistic ceremony. We soon learn that Ariana is carrying out her murders in order to free a race of sadistic spirits known as the Curburide. With each sacrifice, the portal between our world and that of the Curburide grows wider.

The narrative switches back and forth between Ariana and Joe/Alex. With Alex’s help and Malachai’s caustic clues, Joe learns about the Curburide and Ariana’s aim to release them into our world. So he sets out to foil the attempt, and their paths lead to a climatic, but abrupt meeting back in Terrel.

Horror novels often ask us to accept a lot on faith, and this is no exception. We are supposed to be frightened of the Curburide, but after a bit, they come off as an excuse for lots of sex and violence. But the real difficulties here are not so much with the concept of the Curburide as with Everson’s characterizations. Malachai is not quite the smart-mouth brat he was in COVENANT, but his teasing attitude is still more irritating than frightening. But what’s even more difficult to accept is a secondary character who escapes Ariana’s seduction beats her nearly to death, and then becomes her accomplice in the quest to free the Curburide.

Then, too, most of the shock in the novel comes from the sexual gymnastics and resulting graphic stabbings and disembowelments than from the Curburide themselves or any other supernatural entities. And it all gets real old real fast.

On the plus side, Everson demonstrates genuine skill as he alternates the action between the two main characters and settings. And his locales are presented with convincing details and ambience. He is an imaginative author, but SACRIFICE feels more like a slasher gore-fest than an actual horror story. —Alan Cranis

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• COVENANT by John Everson 

I give Chuck Palahniuk credit for being original, for being daring, for writing whatever the hell he wants with no regard for potential controversy. But sometimes that freedom comes at a price: $24.95, to be exact, which is how much PYGMY would set you back.

The title refers to the nickname given to our otherwise unnamed narrator, a 13-year-old boy from another country — one presumes of Middle Eastern origin — fresh off the plane in Midwestern America, where he’ll spend time as an exchange student with a suburban family. In reality, however, he’s a terrorist in disguise, undertaking a mission he refers to as “Operation Havoc.”

He immediately takes a dislike to his new temp fam (maybe it’s the “Property of Jesus” T-shirt they gift him?), deeming them “cow father,” “chicken mother,” “cat sister” and “pig dog brother.” In this initial meeting, there’s a crackle of humor as he sizes them up individually, noting their various stenches (café iced mocha vanilla and Xanax for the matriarch) and thinking about the martial-arts moves he could kill them with (i.e. Flying Giant Stork Death Kick), if he so wanted.

The condescension continues as Pygmy is quickly indoctrinated into American life. Not a whole lot happens, at least not in service of a plot — scenarios just come one after the other until the end is reached. Pygmy visits Wal-Mart, where he anally rapes a bully in the bathroom. Pygmy participates in a spelling bee. Pygmy joins the Model United Nations. Pygmy plays dodgeball. Pygmy eats Thanksgiving dinner. Pygmy attends the science fair, where “cat sister” unveils her invention: a vibrator/MP3 player.

Threaded in are bits with a school shooter and a sexually predatory preacher, seemingly included just to piss people off. But those who would be offended aren’t the kind who read Palahniuk, and if they tried, they wouldn’t get that far; the homosexual anal rape scene on page 17 almost guarantees it.

As much as I loved the gut-sucking HAUNTED, the car-crashing RANT and the gang-banging SNUFF, his latest is a huge disappointment. PYGMY is up there with those in terms of button-pushing, but minus one great element: readability. That’s because the book is told from Pygmy’s point of view, but Pygmy’s grasp of English is limited at best.

Here’s an example of his clipped, awkward narrative, describing his observations of the school dance:

“Occasional male student approach female, request mutual gyrate to demonstrate adequate reproductive partner, fast gyrate to display no cripple. No genetic defect to bequeath offspring. Demonstrate coordinated, plenty vital to provision impregnated female throughout gestation period. Provision subsequent offspring until matured. Females flaunt dermis and hair to depict viable vessel for impregnate, paint face so appear most symmetrical. Best likely produce frequent alive births.”

It sounds like the voice of Beldar Conehead, right? Well, the entire book is like that, all 240 pages. It reads like a work that was originally written in a foreign language, then translated to English, but only by a first-year ESL student. I never got used to Pygmy’s voice, so even in the last chapters, I couldn’t tell whether some of what he relays actually was happening, or whether he just wished it were. With tense problems like that, the flow is doomed.

There’s a ripe premise in a teenage terrorist, but the comedic potential is ruined by a narrative that reads like a code only halfway cracked. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should, and I believe any author below Palahniuk’s stature would have been given the red light, or at least a heavy edit. One wonders if his considerable cult will take to this as easily as everything else he’s produced, no questions asked. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

“All body of bully suffocated, only still seizure every muscle as straight fingernail drill through pucker and pull sideways to stretch open hole. Pry. Force open, dry, all friction, all peel of tender membrane until dripping head of weapon wedge room in twist of muslce. One stroke. Hips of operative me shove full deep, belly deep, ram until bully stand only on foot toes try to escape.”

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• HAUNTED by Chuck Palahniuk
• RANT: AN ORAL BIOGRAPHY OF BUSTER CASEY by Chuck Palahniuk
• SNUFF by Chuck Palahniuk

For seven years, Cemetery Dance’s has kept readers abreast of the best in modern horror short fiction with the Richard Chizmar-edited SHIVERS anthology series. After a short delay that derailed the franchise’s annual publication, SHIVERS V is now out, and definitely worth the wait.

It doesn’t take long to get properly unsettled, either, once Sarah Langan relates a road-tripping couple’s backseat encounter with “The Burn Victim,” an unwitting passenger who’s awfully messy after having his skin burnt raw by the desert sun. However, the cringes it induces are nothing compared to those generated by the acts of perversion in Mick Garris’ “Forever Gramma.” It’s worth repeating: The guy’s talents are best suited to the printed page, not the silver screen.

John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow team up for “Hazel (Reduxed),” a brief tale involving the torture of someone with Alzheimer’s. With its slightly experimental structure and fill-in-the-holes situation, one wishes for a tad more lucidity. Its fever-dream machinations are put to better use in Brian Freeman’s “One More Day,” with children at the mercy of horrific, repeated punishment from someone called “the Big Man.”

The collection really picks up steam in the middle, starting with “Dog Days,” an odd love triangle — or make that quadrangle — between two doctors, the woman they both love, and one of the docs’ canine companion. Graham Masterton’s twists here are more unexpected and demented than any novel of his I’ve read.

Nicholas Kaufmann treads David Cronenberg territory — and does it well — in “Mysteries of the Cure,” about a newly dumped guy who finds his skin rotting and peeling … until he has sex again. Its grotesqueness is topped only by R. Patrick Gates’ “Dead Head,” in which a military general is keen on testing a virus that not only reanimates the dead, but makes them sexual predators. And by “testing,” we mean using himself as a willing subject on the receiving end.

The protagonist of Steve Rasnic Tem’s “The Stench” is obsessed with a fear of terrible smells; I’m ashamed to say that I and my overly sensitive olfactory nerves can sympathize. Mania of another kind consumes the man in Rick Hautala’s haunting “True Glass”; he finds a thrown-out window that, when looked through, reveals people on the other side for whom they truly are.

Most of the two dozen-ish pieces in SHIVERS V are worthy of the title. Only a few failed to click with me for lack of focus or overly muddled narratives (and sorry, Robin Furth, but I’m not into poetry). Other names contributing to this collection include Al Sarrantonio, Scott Nicholson, Kealan Patrick Burke, Chet Williamson, Simon Clark, Steve Vernon, Stewart O’Nan and Sarah Pinborough. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon or Cemetery Dance.

“The panel in the wall in front of him began to slide open. Behind it, the beautiful new girl was on her knees, chained to a platform that would slide out to where the general stood, bringing her head right to his crotch. The general unzipped his pants and exposed his swelling commanding officer.”

I love that we live in a society where “douchebag” is used so freely and openly, it no longer refers to a feminine hygiene product, but that broad brand of self-absorbed jerk. You know — the guy no one should be.

Now there’s a guide dedicated to differentiating between these asses: DON’T BE THAT GUY: A COLLECTION OF 60 ANNOYING GUYS WE ALL KNOW AND WISH WE DIDN’T, written by Colin Nissan and illustrated by Sean Farrell. That subtitle rings fairly true, too, which is why the book is so pointedly funny, even when it’s juvenile.

Separated into five categories — fitness, sex, fashion, etc. — THAT GUY sets its targets on these guys: those who are way into their company softball team, who propose to the girlfriend in hot air balloons, who strike up conversations at urinals, who impersonate Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Each one gets skewered via Nissan’s open-letter approach. For example:
• for the guy who brings his own pool cue to a bar: “You better be fucking amazing at pool. I’m not talking beat-your-friends amazing. I’m talking trick-shots-with-flaming-rings amazing.”
• for the incredibly gay guys who are the last to know it: “You have a mustache. You make scones. You say, ‘You go, girl.’ You bang dudes.”
• for the guy who always has a new shitty band for you to listen to: “Have I heard of the Gracious Baboons? No, I can’t say that I have, but I’m sure you have a CD of theirs you want me to listen to. What joy do you take in scouring the nether regions of the music industry for the most obscure garbage out there? You’re 0 for 20 so far.”

Farrell pens an accurate cartoon for each, but the best entries are those with sidebars, when both get the chance to break out and lay in with even more heated fervor. So watch out, non-Amish guys with Amish beards, guys in pornos who don’t wear condoms, guys who sing along to Dave Matthews Band lyrics and fat guys who lose to skinny ones in eating competitions: You’re about to be “pwned,” as the kids of today text.

Actually, guys who use the word “pwned” without irony merit their own chapter. Sequel! —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

I’ve got news for all the 14-year-old girls out there: Those vampires in TWILIGHT? They’re not vampires. But Jacques Chessex’s THE VAMPIRE OF ROPRAZ. Now there’s a vampire!

To wit, his damage: “The left hand, cleanly severed, is lying beside the body. The chest, hacked with a knife, has been entirely butchered. The breasts have been cut off, eaten, chewed and spat into the sliced-open belly. The head, three-quarters detached from the torso, has been pushed down into it after bites were made in it in several very visible places: the neck, the cheeks, the base of the ears. One leg — the right one — has been hacked up the thigh to the genital cleft. The pubic area has been sliced away and chewed, devoured.”

To summarize: Edward Cullen is a wussy.

Chessex’s short novel — 100 pages — was first published overseas in 2007, but Bitter Lemon Press now brings the Swiss author’s work to these shores, with a matter-of-fact, unfussy translation from the French by W. Donald Wilson. The story is based on an true-life event that happened in 1903.

In the Swiss village of Ropraz, a young woman is discovered mutilated, exactly as you read above. The town is all abuzz about who would do such a thing — a vampire is the logical conclusion. He must be caught before he kills again. But he’s not. Another victim is soon found, and another, all the same type of female, all destroyed in the same manner of savagery.

A break in the case arrives when some farm animals are found to be have raped — by one instrument or another — with saliva and sperm left behind in a manner matching that found on the dead women. When a socially inept farmhand named Charles-Augustin Favez is caught in the act of “having his way with a hobbled heifer,” authorities think they have their vamp.

Or do they?

The book works because of its simplicity. Keeping the page count low makes the tale taut. Because it adheres to the true story, ROPRAZ doesn’t follow the traditional, three-act thriller structure, so it doesn’t culminate in a climax, but on a note of irony. You’d be disappointed if that were a novel, but in a slim volume such as this which can be digested in half an hour, it’s rather fitting.

Chessex’s — and Wilson’s, one must assume — prose is lyrical, even for such a gruesome subject. Leave it to a literary treatment to remind us that real-life horrors are scarier than any fiction can conjure. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Ray Garton sure knows how to get a reader’s attention. The prologue to BESTIAL involves an overweight girl in a trailer park who decides to let a mentally disabled black youth take her virginity. Somewhere in the course of the intercourse, the boy is … replaced. By a werewolf.

Luckily, Garton knows how to keep your attention, too. After all, the halfway point has a baby werewolf snacking on a man’s nether regions, and just wait, dear reader, for another character going a little — make that a lot — too far with his fingers as he bathes his elderly mother. Yes, sir, that unmistakable Garton touch, if you’ll pardon the pun, is back.

The novel is a sequel to last year’s howlingly good RAVENOUS, but also kinda his vampire tale NIGHT LIFE, which itself was a sequel to LIVE GIRLS. Vampires aren’t the name of the game here, but the freelance investigators hired by horror writer Martin Burgess in NIGHT LIFE are back for BESTIAL, now sent to the small town of Big Rock, Calif., where the curse of the werewolf is transmitted solely via nooky. Practically all the authorities of Big Rock have turned, and are inclined to use all their power to keep it that way.

One unwitting pawn is Bob, a serial masturbator with one friend in life, and who lives with his Adventist mother and grandmother, both of whom he cares for, even if they don’t exactly care for him. He’s got an eye on a rather voluptuous hussy at church, until he learns she’s, um … a little hairier than humans would like. That doesn’t stop the inevitable forced sex at the werewolf-run house of worship, as someone bangs out “Born to Be Wild” on the organ for accompaniment.

Over-the-top? You betcha! And Garton being Garton, we wouldn’t have it any other way. Despite a few too many characters to keep track of — some with a few too many details on the ol’ backstories — his novels and short stories are pure pleasure. For his devotion to delivering serious horror without taking the horror too seriously, he’s one of the most reliable brand names in modern fright fiction. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

“‘Now take your pants off,’ Penny said. Byron stood and dropped his pants as she stretched out and spread her legs. ‘Now you lay down between my legs, Byron.’ ‘Tween your legs?’ He thought about that a moment, giggled, then got down on top of her. Penny reached over her fat middle and grabbed his cock, which was already erect — it seemed to be most of the time — and put it in her. An explosion of breath came from her lungs. She whispered, ‘Okay, Byron, in and out. In and out. Fuck me.’ ‘Fuck you?’ he laughed. ‘Momma says that’s a dirty word an’ I shouldn’t never say—’ ‘Just do it.’”

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• LIVE GIRLS by Ray Garton
• THE LOVELIEST DEAD by Ray Garton
• NIGHT LIFE by Ray Garton
• RAVENOUS by Ray Garton
• SERPENT GIRL by Ray Garton
• SLIVERS OF BONE by Ray Garton

Don’t know about you, but whenever some group seeks to censor, ban or just plain gripe about a movie, that only makes me want to see it more, even if my interest beforehand was nil. After all, this is America, isn’t it? Land of the free, right?

Film historian Stephen Tropiano chronicles virtually every right-wing and left-wing hissy fit in motion-picture history in the informative OBSCENE, INDECENT, IMMORAL, AND OFFENSIVE: 100+ YEARS OF CENSORED, BANNED, AND CONTROVERSIAL FILMS. I am thoroughly embarrassed that his introduction deals with the 1997 ruckus over THE TIN DRUM, because it happened right here in my town of Oklahoma City, yet that instance best encapsulates the book’s entire subject.

Hard to believe people can still get so worked up over movies in this enlightened day and age, but it’s equally hard to believe how overly sensitive we were in cinema’s infancy, when virtually everything — even the suggestion of, even portrayal offscreen — was a big no-no. Tropiano’s first chapter covers this early history. Even the brouhaha over Jane Russell’s big (but clothed) bosoms in THE OUTLAW seems entirely unmerited by today’s standards.

Then it’s on to chapters organized by category of offense: profanity, violence, sex and sacrilege. Each is comprised of brief essays — as short as a paragraph, as long as several pages — devoted to a particular title’s surrounding dispute. While all are informative and well-researched, your enjoyment will increase with your interest in one vice or another. The occasional list is welcome, including “Twelve Memorable Sexually Charged Moments” to the forbidden words established by the 1939 amendment to the Motion Picture Production Code (“fanny,” “hold your hat,” “nerts” — all verboten).

Despite nearly 100 pages of appendices and notes in the back, this book isn’t to be associated with a dry, academic tome. Anyone will a serious jones for film history — especially of the tawdry and torrid variety — will find it fascinating, even if you’re already familiar with the cases it covers. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

In detail so graphic, it could get you arrested, Eurotica’s FIRST TIME is a comics anthology depicting 10 first encounters with some sort of sexual involvement. There’s the devirginizing of a young woman, but there’s also a woman’s first dildo, a man’s first sex doll, a woman’s first strap-on dildo for her man, a woman’s first affair, a woman’s first threesome via the personals, and so on.

All the art is in black-and-white, and each story drawn by a different illustrator. Dave McKean is the only name I recognized — and his “X-Rated” story works some photography into his drawings — but every contributor here is tops with the ink … not to mention other fluids.

Take that as a warning: FIRST TIME more than earns its “adults only” label. There are fingers and tongues and wangs inserted here and there, in acts still illegal in some states. Some of the stories are quite tasteful (Alfred’s “First Time” being one), while others delight in being anything but(t). Some tell a story, while others barely do more than illustrate an act of coupling.

If you’re an erotica comics aficionado, this seems like a natural fit (then again, this genre is pretty much virgin territory for me). Anyone even remotely skittish about the subject, steer clear and stick to your Archie and Jughead. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

A couple of years back, Ian McDonald wrote RIVER OF GODS, a triumph of speculation and characterization set amid the India of 2047. It endures along the decade’s high-water mark, but as big as the book was, the world McDonald created was so rich and layered that you always knew that a myriad of stories remained to be told.

And told they were, trickling out in periodicals and anthologies since the novel’s publication and winning awards along the way. CYBERABAD DAYS is the culmination of the saga begun in RIVER OF GODS; it collects all of McDonald’s previously published short fiction set in this universe and includes “Vishnu at the Cat Circus,” an unpublished story that wraps up most of the unanswered questions posed by RIVER, and brings the curtain down on that universe.

A caveat to prospective readers: If you pick this one up and like the first story or two, do yourself a favor and get RIVER OF GODS. Not only will you save yourself from spoilers, but you seriously owe it to yourself. The creation of and interaction between manufactured societal divisions is McDonald’s bread and butter, and the high-tech castes he created for RIVER serve as a sharp commentary on the lengths humans will go to to make them feel better about themselves.

Anyway, CYBERABAD DAYS is everything a RIVER OF GODS fanboy could want: battlemechs, artificial intelligences, bizarre sex, revenge — it’s all here. It’s got:
• A woman who falls for an artificial intelligence and then pays the price in the Hugo-winning novelette “The Djinn’s Wife”;
• McDonald’s take on the plight of demobilized child soldiers, “Sanjeev and Robotwallah”;
• “Kyle Meets the River,” in which an insulated boy growing up in a fortified compound comes to realize that his Indian friends live in a world far removed from his own;
• “The Little Goddess,” which has a formerly venerated girl trying to figure out if there is indeed life after being divine; and
• cold, cold revenge being served up between warring corporate clans in “The Dust Assassin.”

Every single one of these tales is incisive and wonderful, but the triumph of CYBERABAD DAYS is “Vishnu at the Cat Circus.” It could easily have been a letdown — readers have had plenty of time to imagine their own extensions of RIVER’s plot. But McDonald does himself proud with this one, as it traces the life of a genetically modified boy as he lives a life of aging at a rate far slower than normal humans and seeing humanity slowly veer toward posthuman existence. Like all of McDonald’s India stories, it’s weird, sad, sexy and wonderful. And it’s the perfect wrap-up for the painstakingly real future that McDonald started with RIVER OF GODS.

So pick up CYBERABAD DAYS if the hugeness of RIVER OF GODS intimidates you. Pick up CYBERABAD DAYS if you think RIVER OF GODS is the best thing since the Singularity. The chance of regretting it is negligible. —Ryun Patterson

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• BRASYL by Ian McDonald
• RIVER OF GODS by Ian McDonald

If you ask me — and, by reading this, you kinda are — director Zack Synder (300) put himself in a no-win situation when he took the can’t-miss approach to making WATCHMEN. In adapting the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel as closely as possible, he’d please its rabid fanbase, but doing so requires a running time beyond what it should be, alienating critics.

It’s hard not to sympathize with mass audiences who don’t “get it,” not having read the novel. The story is huge — epic in scope, with roughly five main characters all vying for time — and there’s more on the screen that can be taken in with one viewing by those heretofore unfamiliar with the material. That crowd might even like it better on a second viewing, but they’re unlikely to give it another chance.

Too bad, because I enjoyed WATCHMEN, even in the parts when it lagged, of which there are several. Its core storyline of the mystery surrounding retired superhero The Comedian remains as compelling as it was in the book, but the soul searching and deep characterization that made that comic so different doesn’t always make for great cinema. Panel-by-panel purists will cry blasphemy, but several scenes could be excised and/or trimmed without harming the overall film.

There’s a lot to admire in Snyder’s version, including:
• the aforementioned Comedian homicide;
• the stylish opening credits that encompass decades’ worth of events into the span of a Bob Dylan song;
• the awfully realistic sex scene between Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) and Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman), fucking to Leonard Cohen;
• practically anytime the enigmatic masked man Rorschach (Jackie Earl Haley, giving the film’s best performance) appears onscreen, but especially the prison sequences; and
• Dr. Manhattan’s (Billy Crudup) purposefully narrated origin, calmly but fervently scored to Philip Glass cuts from KOYAANISQATSI; and
• the nuclear destruction of New York City.

Chances are, your favorite scene from the book has made the leap — shame on you if that’s the attempted rape of the original Silk Spectre, although it allows Carla Gugino’s goods to swell the full proportions of the screen — as Snyder has bent over backwards to include just about everything. The TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGHTER comic sequence didn’t make the cut (but instead merits its own DVD release), and the ending is simplified, but generally, WATCHMEN in print equals WATCHMEN in screen.

Snyder is to be applauded, even if the end result is flawed — not deeply, mind you — for filming a work that has long been tagged unfilmable, and almost getting it dead right. There’s one thing his movie does even better than the terrific yet overpraised source material: It looks absolutely fantastic, popping with a look that makes the book’s muted colors seem flat. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER RECENT BOOKS 2 FILM REVIEWS:
• BOOKS 2 FILM >> Death Race
• BOOKS 2 FILM >> Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
• BOOKS 2 FILM >> The Spirit

Recently I went to a comic book store I’d never been into before, and the horror section was littered with lots of independent efforts I wasn’t even aware existed. “Littered” is appropriate, because they were pretty awful in execution — I’d pick one up, thumb through it, be appalled at its lack of quality, and put it right back.

THE ASYLUM OF HORRORS #1 is not one of them. In fact, it’s one of the better ones in terms of four-color fright, regardless of publisher. Asylum Press makes quite a splash right out of the gate with this new title, making it a 96-page trade paperback for the low price of $4.95.

This one’s an anthology, and the wraparound story has a Dr. Frankenstein-esque madman injecting an unwilling subject with a “meth-based cocktail,” prompting hallucinations. Those hallucinations are the stories that play out on the following pages, scripted and illustrated by various writers and artists, most of whom are wildly talented.

Aaron Rintoul’s “Black Milk” is a photorealistic piece that recalls the work of Dave McKean. It involves octopus tentacles, but its meaning is lost on me; it’s more visually captivating than lucid. It’s probably intended more as mood … or perhaps I was distracted by several misspellings: “to” instead of “too,” “your” instead of “you’re.” (Rintoul also offers the creepy “The Dollhouse” later in the volume.)

Szymon Kudranski’s “My Diary: Love or Obsession” is a chilling narrative about a man so infatuated with his girlfriend that he wishes to “crush” her with his love. He can’t stand anyone so much as looking her, so you know her OB/GYN appointment can’t go well at all.

With a buxom babe investigating an evil house that leads to another dimension, Billy George’s black-and-white “Ruined Earth” reminded me of the work Richard Corbin used to do for Warren Publishing, while Marcin Ponomarew ventures into the wilds of the Amazon — and there be demons — in “Baazumatuu.”

Speaking of demons, a woman gives herself completely to one — sexually speaking — in Kevin Colden’s “Caveat Emptor …,” something she may regret. Some would be horrified by its twist end, but they’re probably not the type of people who’d be reading ASYLUM OF HORRORS, anyway. And another devil is summoned in Riste Sekuloski’s “The Parts,” which plays in the style of old horror comics, but is marred by rather ugly lettering.

Several one-pagers are scattered throughout, most with a humorous bent, which helps with pacing and levity. Visiting the ASYLUM is fun, with all the inmates in charge, and few missteps made. I look forward to the second issue, even though I already wish its page count weren’t smaller than this debut. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon or Asylum Press.

DTOX #0 is a prelude to a series that has yet to come into fruition, but hopefully will, based upon the ingenious insanity of this sneak peek. Set in a postapocalyptic Detroit world where nuclear rain has turned the populace into mutants, the story sports a hulking hero in the titular DTOX, who roams the ravaged land in his super-vertical tank, detoxifying the town.

That means melting mutants with green goo, and there’s plenty of them to go around. In this 12-page story, a flaxen-haired hottie named Killvixen is molested and nearly killed by a band of monsters before being saved by DTOX, who’s clad in camouflage, a gas mask and a helmet, and carries lotsa weapons.

Creatures include the “asexual abomination” Hypnorg, who shoots poison darts from his chest, and Helldog, a canine with a human hand where his head should be. Concept art comprising the second half of this magazine-sized “special biohazard edition” reveals more villains, presumably to come into play later, such as the Ukranian refugee turned turd known as Sfinktor. Inspired moniker, that.

DTOX plays like a HEAVY METAL adaptation of a Troma film written and directed by Rob Zombie, and I mean that as high praise. In just a dozen pages, writer Frank Forte and artist Nenad Gucunja have established a nutty, nasty world full of crazed characters. I hope they intend to revisit it, because I’d brave life and limb to be there. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Asylum Press.

Koren Shadmi is Israel’s answer to Charles Burns. His graphic stories in the collection IN THE FLESH link sex with death to an absolutely hypnotic effect, like Burns’ masterpiece BLACK HOLE. Although FLESH comes adorned with a cover that makes it look like a GRUDGE-style exercise in terror, it doesn’t belong in the horror genre. It is, however, wonderfully disturbing.

In 10 tales, Shadmi plumbs the depths of love and lust with dark humor and a unique, slanted vision. For instance, are you apt to read another story this — or any — year quite like “The Fun Land,” in which a sexy woman invites a dumpy, kid’s show actor to her bed … but only if he brings his dog costume?

“Antoinette” details a date between one nervous man and one easily inebriated woman, who keeps her head to her side at all times. It’s metaphorical, just like the following “The Date,” in which a first-time couple dines, drinks and does the deed with paper bags over their heads, as if hiding their true selves from one another. (Similarly, “Grandpa Minolta” features a creepy old man with a camera for a head.)

Sexual politics is explored further in “What Is Wrong with Me?” It depicts the day after a night of sex between two people who don’t know each other that well. Through side-by-side panels, we see how the previous evening affects them both: The guy becomes increasingly obsessed and paranoid; the woman is oblivious, clicking through stupid TV shows, zombie-like.

Set in a high school, “Radioactive Girlfriend” refers to the young woman who’s socially shunned after being the only one who wasn’t below ground when a bomb hit her town. That intrigues one of her fellow classmates, who ignores everyone’s warnings about potential health risks by courting her.

After getting hit by a car, a female college student finds orgasmic passion in baked goods, in “Pastry Paradise,” much to a platonic friend’s chagrin. The carnal pull of food also figures into “Satisfaction Ave.,” in which a woman who bit the head off a rat as a child undergoes sexual therapy to shake that memory.

Two pieces late in the book aren’t as satisfying as those before them, because they don’t so much tell stories as they do experiment with form and function. “Cruelty” and “A Lavish Affair” are both surreal and touch on nerves, but leave the reader just a little underwhelmed. That’s only because they’re alongside works of comparative excellence.

Shadmi gets the power of illustrated fiction, simultaneous shocking you with words, pictures and ideas. This is storytelling far beyond “comics.” Shadmi is not only one to watch, but one to actively watch out for. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Ever since I heard the concept of I SAW YOU …: COMICS INSPIRED BY REAL-LIFE MISSED CONNECTIONS FILLED WITH NEAR MISSES, BRIEF ENCOUNTERS, LUSTY LONGINGS, AND A LITTLE HOPE FOR LOVE, I wanted to fall in love with it. Editor Julia Wertz had a terrific idea in adapting selections from that subgenre of personal ads into cartoon format, so she rounded up a host of talented artists to take a crack at it.

The results probably fare better than the success rate of those ads, but it’s still rather scattershot. Art is great all around — including such indie giants as Peter Bagge, Jeffrey Brown, Shannon Wheeler and Jesse Reklaw — so what’s the problem? Repetition, mostly, and scripts that aren’t nearly as imaginative as they should be (although some are, raising the bar). If this book were a blind date, you’d might not be all that disappointed halfway through dinner, when you could tell that sex wouldn’t in the cards later. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Oil, that is … black gold, Texas tea. Now that everyone is probably still singing the rest of that theme song, onto this week’s column. Real simple, it’s about oil — the stuff that heats some homes and makes the car go vroom. It also gives me a chance to clear out a few more books from my never-dwindling pile.

THE OPEC OBJECTIVE by Michael Hammonds — What looks from all accounts to be some never-ran men’s adventure series actually is a pretty good 1981 thriller — not great, but enjoyable nonetheless. I went into it with low expectations. It starts out with a prisoner being held by some local sheriffs waiting for the FBI to come pick him up, only to have both the cops and prisoner being killed by men in suits. That definitely piqued my interest.

It then moves into a giant conspiracy story dealing with kidnapped Arab princes and secret organizations that plan on destroying OPEC for their own needs. The story mainly focuses on a former Air Force pilot named Jake McCabe, who receives a strange message from an old pal of his named Stark (sadly, no relation to Tony) from his Air Force days, saying to come to a hotel in San Francisco to meet up and that he has a job offer.

But as soon as he arrives, he is told to pick up Stark’s daughter, since there is trouble brewing. The reader is never told the exact trouble — it’s only hinted about that Stark was involved with something very bad and wants to make sure his daughter is safe. From here, it moves into chase mode for McCabe and Stark’s daughter, Kelly, since once they return to the hotel, her father has checked out and gone missing. While all this is going on, we are given glimpses into the bad guys’ plans as they kidnap an Arab prince, then lay waste to anyone who tries to stop them.

All of this comes together in the big climax involving a helicopter chase in Texas. Again, for what the book was, it was fun — better than expected, which, for this column, doesn’t take a lot. It actually comes off like a lightweight version of a Jack Higgins or Frederick Forsyth novel, just with a lower budget. Think of it as a B-movie version of the BOURNE films.

MICHAEL SHERIFF: THE SHIELD #2: ARABIAN ASSAULT by Preston MacAdam —  It’s father-and-son bonding/spying time. That best sums up this 1985 entry into this totally forgotten series. Michael Sheriff works for a secretive organization called Management Information Services — MIS for short. It seems to be a sort of amalgam of Axe/CURE/whatever dept. Evan Tanner worked for.

The book opens with a bombing at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston during an exhibit of Jewish art that was stolen by the Nazis. Sheriff is called into action to investigate over in the Middle East, since there seems to be a tie-in with some terrorists named the Qatari. While this is going on, Sheriff’s college-bound son, Roger, has come to live with him in Boston and is being groomed to work for the same MIS organization. Sheriff is none too happy about this.

So the book switches between Sheriff’s adventures in the Middle East, where he is attacked by a whore who is actually some sort of Mossad agent, and Roger busy making time with a girl named Stasia, whose father is a higher-up in the Israeli government. But unbeknownst to Roger, he is actually working on his first assignment: being some sort of protection for her.

Sheriff’s storyline deals with gun running and the destruction of Israel. Of course, these two storylines converge in a way that ties it to the bombing of the museum. It seems as though MacAdam took the idea of the men’s adventure book and make it into a father/son affair, with both of our leads bedding down the women in graphic description, while the plot itself is just there, to be honest. It’s nothing new in the storytelling department, but passable enough to entertain the reader. Still, it’s easy enough to see why this series never really made a mark, since there were better books out there in the same genre.

DEATH MERCHANT #33: ALASKA CONSPIRACY by Joseph Rosenberger — This 1979 novel is my second attempt at trying to warm up to this long-running series went as expected: a frustrating mess of nonstop action and no character development whatsoever. Richard Camellion is the Death Merchant, a man so lacking in personality and presence, he can operate undetected. This time, he is sent to Alaska to investigate the strange goings-on in the pipeline: attacks and bombings that have been disrupting the operations up there.

First, he thought it might be environmental terrorists, but sadly, no, it’s just a secret group of rich Europeans trying to start shit. Literally as the book starts, Camellion is attacked, once he starts poking his nose around as an agent from the Federal Wildlife something or other. This book made me lose interest more than a few times, which is quite weird since it seems every other chapter features some huge gun battle that no one has to answer for. I mean, the man lays waste to some casino/bar operation and no one questions it.

But then, we find out the reasons of the attacks on the pipeline: that the U.S. would blame OPEC and then attack the Arabs so this group of Europeans known as the Council Six can swoop in and provide the oil for America. But most readers probably would have tossed the book aside by then, from some of the truly awful writing and gun-porn mentions.

How this series survived so long is the true mystery that should be looked into. It feels as though these books had to fill some sort of weird quota of gun mentions, location mentions and how many times Camellion comes off as a total prick. But thankfully, there are no mentions of how anyone can see Russia from their house. I know there are fans of this series, and some of the entries are supposed to be laugh riots with Rosenberger’s conspiracy rants, if you could point me to those, I’ll check them out, but as of now, no more DEATH MERCHANT for me!

Next time: State your name! —Bruce Grossman

Buy them at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF JOSEPH ROSENBERGER:
• EATH MERCHANT #5: SATAN STRIKE by Joseph Rosenberger

This is the book I’ve been waiting for Brian Keene to write. I know that sounds a little condescending, but trust me, I don’t have visions of the guy wiping sweat from his brow and grinning in gratitude because he’s pleased me. The thing is, I enjoyed CASTAWAYS so much, I’d like to slap its author on the back, tell him “you really had me going this time, you bastard,” and then buy him a beer.

The novel’s setup is perfect: Would-be celebrities in quest of a million-dollar grand prize and the crew for a reality TV show called CASTAWAYS are on a small island in the bugfuck quadrant of an ocean somewhere. The program is a SURVIVOR clone. Contestants play a game that draws from them the worst elements of human nature: greed, duplicity, arrogance, insincerity and just plain ol’ screw-you meanness. Alliances form and everyone gears up for several weeks of backstabbing fun.

Then three things happen that put cast and crew in real danger — or, as it’s known in the trade, “create good television”: One of the contestants turns out to be a domestic terrorist in disguise; a full-throttle cyclone hits the island; and the place turns out to be crawling with sub-human Things with razor-like claws, sharp teeth, a taste for human flesh and a letch for human women.

Yes, it’s a rousing B movie of a novel. Think Sci Fi Channel on Saturday night, only with higher production standards and hairy monster penises. Toss in the way slasher flicks count down to Last One Standing by eliminating the supporting cast through memorably gruesome means of murder, and enjoy the pacing of a professional adventure story as Keene pushes the pedal to the metal and chortles gleefully as he runs over anyone who’s not quick enough to get the hell out of his way. You better hop on the running board when he catches up to you or he’ll mow your ass over and not give it another thought.

In an author’s note, Keene tells how this tale originated as a short story of the same title that was written as a tribute to the late Richard Laymon. The satire of reality television — which this in part is — wouldn’t leave him alone, so here is the expanded version. In addition to Laymonesque touches, you may see subtle references to H.P. Lovecraft, and even to some of Keene’s other novels. I caught a wink at TERMINAL, and there are some others as well.

I got a day off work this week due to an ice storm and spent it in my comfy chair reading CASTAWAYS. Much more rewarding than going to work. My recommendation is that you buy a copy of this book immediately, but don’t wait for a storm to blow in. Just phone in sick. Curl up. Enjoy. —Doug Bentin

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE CONQUEROR WORMS by Brian Keene
• DARK HOLLOW by Brian Keene
• DEAD SEA by Brian Keene
• GHOUL by Brian Keene
• KILL WHITEY by Brian Keene
• TERMINAL by Brian Keene

Admit it: Every red-blooded American male who’s ever read the comic strip Beetle Bailey has thought, “I wonder what Miss Buxley looks like naked?” Creator Mort Walker no doubt thought the same, because he drew her that way, and Craig Yoe has the proof in CLEAN CARTOONISTS’ DIRTY DRAWINGS.

This one-of-a-kind collection gathers up the R-rated cartoons and sketches — most never intended to be seen — by the squeaky-clean creators of the country’s favorite comic strips and characters. Now you can see the men behind Nancy and Prince Valiant draw nipples and pubic hair.

It’s definitely bawdy, but mostly pretty good-natured. Maybe this stuff would be shocking in 1950, but today, it’s tame. (Still, I’m not going to leave it out where my kids could thumb through it.) That doesn’t mean it can’t be sexy or amusing or funny, because plenty here qualify. Only a handful fall into the OMG realm, and Wally Wood provides a majority of those, particularly a sketch of Ming the Merciless taking Dale Arden from behind, while Flash Gordon watches helplessly behind bars.

Artists include Charles Schulz, Bob Kane, Al Jaffee, Johnny Hart, Walt Kelly, Alex Raymond, Dan DeCarlo, Alex Toth, Chuck Jones, Jack Kirby, Milton Caniff, Carl Barks, Rube Goldberg and even Dr. Seuss! These mean loved their curves, and exercised that love on art that the general public wasn’t meant to digest. DIRTY DRAWINGS works both as a cultural artifact and in providing ribald ticklers of the rib (not to mention the unmentionables). —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

With the economy dragging its heels, perhaps now’s the time to get a more recession-proof job. For instance, a health care practitioner and a liquor store clerk. Or why not a purveyor of dildos? Karen Bedinger will show you how in START & RUN AN ADULT BOUTIQUE.

Despite the clip-art-esque illustration of a very buxom babe on the cover, this is a straightforward, no-nonsense business book … albeit a business where you’re required to know the difference between pasties and breast petals. And if you don’t know that difference, this text will fill you in.

A good portion of this paperback offers practical advice applicable to any business, really — writing a business plan, obtaining financing, paying taxes, assorted legal mumbo-jumbo. Then it settles into the nitty-gritty that comes only with owning a toy store for big kids.

That’s when Bedinger gets into establishing store policies, stocking a most unusual inventory and, best of all, questions to ask prospective employees. Her suggested sale techniques are unlike any issues you’ll ever have to deal with at a 9-to-5, i.e. “Does your partner like to wear long gowns, babydolls, camisoles, corsets, or teddies?” (Note to reader: If you do have to deal with such questions at your desk job, notify HR immediately.)

An accompanying CD-ROM attached inside the back cover includes handy worksheets and a resource guide, but it’s not readable on Macs (boo!). Other than that, Bedinger’s how-to is user-friendly. Oh, it’s definitely niche, but if you’re trying to fulfill that niche, I can’t imagine there’d be easier help. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Joseph Larkin is one sick individual. He should be committed or incarcerated — perhaps even strung up in the middle of town. His crime? Making me laugh out loud at things my better judgment tells me not to, in the sure-to-offend THE ARCADE OF CRUELTY, an awfully funny, exquisitely designed collection of un-PC cartoons. Even its copyright page is funny, for God’s sake, not to mention its subject classification, listed as “Queer Studies/Occult” over the back cover’s UPC code.

This slick trick is structured as a look back at the late Larkin, except he’s alive and well, which very well may change once people from his life see the things he’s written about them and put in a book for all the world’s perusal — starting with one Kristy Lee Caldwell, to whom the work is dedicated, “even though she’s kind of a cunt.”

Larkin’s work is largely autobiographical, falling into that voyeuristic realm of confessional comics. In simple drawings and self-mocking wit, he produces raw, real strips depicting moments from his checkered past, like “Awkward Yet Adorable Things Said Whilst Fuckin’” and “The Most Romantic Thing a Girl Has Ever Said to Me.” (For the record, the latter was “I bled this morning cos of the sex we had last night.” Awww …)

But Larkin’s life gets even more transparent, when he — pardon the pun — ballsily shares pages from his pubescent “beat-off binders,” which were notebook pages filled with images cut out from magazines, catalogs and elsewhere. There are photos of Hanes bra models, classmate cheerleaders, Spice Girls, Courtney Love, Melissa Joan Hart, chicks in X-Men Halloween costumes, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan and Mary Tyler Moore. The caption for each? “This is deeply troubling.” And hilariously brave.

There are vicious parodies of cartoonists Jeffrey Brown, Chris Ware, James Kochalka and Bil Keane, all drawn in their style. A number of post-9/11 pieces fill the back of the book; they aren’t in poor taste (well, most of them), but rather serve as wicked satire, depicting people’s various reactions to the terrorist attack. More seriously, there are sketchbook pages, abstract monotype prints and a few really good collages (one of which I’d love to have framed on my wall). But before all the drawings and scrawlings, there’s the grade school yearbook.

Ah, yes, the yearbook. For the kickoff of CRUELTY, Larkin reprints pages from his 1986-1987 St. Margaret Mary School yearbook, which he and a childhood friend had, um, “revised” with raunchy doodles and R-rated word balloons, misspellings abound. It’s completely juvenile … and yet completely funny.

The funniest pages for me — and I hesitate to say this, which I why I’m burying it here toward the end — detailed “The Adventures of Clarence, the World’s Most Considerate Rapist.” I’m of the belief there is nothing funny about rape … but there is something funny about Clarence, who looks like a pretentious, poetry-spouting grad student who drinks organic coffee. After all, he’s so thoughtful that he “plays Sarah McLachlan whilst doing the deed.”

Alright, enough of that. Lotsa laughs in this one, no matter how many you try to suppress. Like Clarence says, “If loving a woman without her consent is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.” —Rod Lott

Buy it at Also-Ran.

He’s back! The man behind the mask! And he’s out of control! We speak, of course, of Jason Voorhees, machete-happy antihero of the comics anthology FRIDAY THE 13TH: BOOK TWO. This collection is comprised of four stories, three of which were originally two-issue arcs, and a single one-shot; all should satisfy the F13 fan in you.

“Pamela’s Tale” is first at bat, and it serves as prequel of sorts, telling the story of Jason’s mom and his birth. Fans of the original movie will note with delight at how writer Marc Andreyko and artist Shawn Moll begin and end with recreations of scenes from that horror classic, and fills in the blanks with new material that actually makes Mrs. Voorhees sympathetic, no matter how much blood she lets (note: which is an awful lot).

In the only single-issue story, “The Abuser & the Abused,” Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andy B. adopt a refreshing Pop Art comic style to tell the tale of a high school girl who’s been smacked around one too many times by her boyfriend, so she plots a final rendezvous with him at Camp Crystal Lake.

Ron Marz and Mike Huddleston tackle “Bad Land,” which is unique in that it follows the fates of three friends who seek refuge in a cabin during a snowstorm, and find Jason instead, and juxtaposes this story with a trio of hunters taking over a teepee in a harsh winter as well. The latter group rapes and pillages before a Native American takes his revenge; the earlier group suffers at the blade of Jason.

Never do these two storylines intersect; I suspect they don’t even take place in the same period. I enjoyed reading it, but have to wonder what the point is? That white men screwed over the Indians? Tell me something I don’t know.

Finally, Jason finds a friend — no, really! — in Jason Aaron and Adam Archer’s “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” His unwitting pal is a camper with a bone disease that deforms his face, thus saving him from the slaughter. Meanwhile, the meth-addict sheriff hunts both, hilariously thinking there are spiders crawling all over him.

None of these stories are scary — although the final one manages a pure creep-out of a panel for those with arachnophobia — but they’re fun … well, assuming you find the mass murder of sexually active teenagers by a hockey-masked hulk to be fun. I do. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• CRYSTAL LAKE MEMORIES: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF FRIDAY THE 13TH by Peter Bracke
• FREDDY VS. JASON VS. ASH by Jeff Katz and Jason Craig
• FRIDAY THE 13TH: BOOK ONE by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Adam Archer
• FRIDAY THE 13TH: CARNIVAL OF MANIACS by Stephen Hand
• JASON X: TO THE THIRD POWER by Nancy Kilpatrick
• MAKING FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE LEGEND OF CAMP BLOOD by David Grove

One supposes it was inevitable that James Bond be spun into the world of newspaper comics, as he was for nearly 30 years in England. That doesn’t mean it worked for all that time, as JAMES BOND: POLESTAR — the latest collection of these strips — shows.

POLESTAR is comprised of five original story arcs, all consecutive and from the 1980s. The first installment continues the proud 007 tradition of odd titles by being called “Flittermouse,” and it pits literature and film’s favorite superspy against a horde of vampire bats in a spooky old castle.

The titular tale “Polestar” places Bond in Arctic territory, where he finds a nude woman mysterious frozen upright in a block of ice. Sharks and narcotic gas figure into “The Scent of Danger,” while deadly reptiles reign in “Snake Goddess.” That one and the final “Double Eagle” are drawn by Yaroslav Horak, whose art pales compared to John McLusky, who’s responsible for the first three.

A couple of interesting things here:
• Bond sure does get laid a lot. Keep in mind, these are newspaper comics, yet chicks are taking off their shirts and dresses for him every few pages, baring their breasts and wearing nothing but skimpy panties. Nothing graphic is ever shown, but still, you’d never see that in U.S. papers.
• Reading these adventures in two- and three-panel increments with 24 hours in between would be maddening. I don’t know how you’d follow it, especially because in several strips, absolutely nothing happens. That makes Titan Books’ black-and-white collections like POLESTAR essential for those who want to follow 007′s broadsheet exploits.

The book also contains a pointless introduction by Bond girl Valerie Leon, an essay on Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye estate and a more welcome article on the comics in Chile. If you dig POLESTAR, there’s a checklist in the back of other volumes, which now measures 15. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF JAMES BOND:
• FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE by Ian Fleming
• OCTOPUSSY AND THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS by Ian Fleming
• ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE by Ian Fleming
• QUANTUM OF SOLACE: THE COMPLETE JAMES BOND SHORT STORIES by Ian Fleming

If nothing else, the fifth issue of OUT OF THE GUTTER gets points for consistency. Like all four volumes before it, it holds true to its “degenerate literature” label, offering story after story that dares to go even further than you thought anyone today had the balls to do. What other magazine prints fiction with titles like “Just Look at What the Bitch Made You Do”? Lucky for you, OOTG earns far more points than mere consistency.

For #5, revenge is the theme, and it eases you in with Bruce Cooper’s “The Gambler,” a funny flash piece in which a bar patron meets — and accidentally insults — country singer Kenny Rogers. The sharp, dark humor continues with Mike Sheeter’s “Unstable,” where a guy confronts the girl who’s just turned his wife into a quadriplegic … and said culprit is a horse … who’s jealous … and wants to have sex with him (“But bring me sugar. And apples. I like apples, too”). Yeah, how ’bout them apples?

The theme then hits full power with the jarring “In the Projects” by Shane Ryan Bailey. It’s one of those stories that OOTG specializes in — that you’re bound to read nowhere else: Mixed-race illegitimate baby. A microwave. Say no more.

Dana C. Kabel’s “It Doesn’t Always Go Like You Want It To” is a table-turner between a female hitchhiker and the cop who picks her up, while David Cranmer’s “Blubber” is a nauseating yet entertaining account of a woman hired to give a blowjob to a bed-bound fat guy. And that’s not the only tale that hinges on the corpulent. In “Dead Man’s Prerogative,” Charlie Stella explores a most unconventional love triangle between a shady hospital orderly, a hot blonde nurse and the morbidly obese patient who’s sexually obsessed with her.

From Matthew P. Mayo comes “Kin,” where a guy attempting to retrieve a football under his porch is instead greeted by the fangs of a poisonous snake. His attempts to drive to the hospital for help as the toxins swim through his bloodstream achieve rollicking, bizarrely comic heights.

My favorite piece this issue was “Headquarters Likes Your Style,” a dark-humored workplace number in which an office plebian — just for kicks — tries to convince the guy in the adjoining cubical that all the corporate-speak from a pantsuited woman is actually laced with intercourse-inviting advances. It’s funny, like an OFFICE SPACE spinoff devoted entirely to sexual harassment.

On the nonfiction front, OOTG’s behind-bars regular Seth Ferranti delves into the exploits of the Aryan Circle prison gang. A humor piece sees its debut with “Dear Brian,” a faux advice column whose one joke is taken about four pages too far, and there’s another R-rated comic (more, please) and a workable crossword puzzle. And all the fake ads continue to get better (and more political), particularly with one for baby cigarettes (“Put that tit away, Mom! I got me a Li’l Puffer!”) and a women’s fragrance called Republican Bitch, which contains blood of the poor, Ben-Gay and a hint of racism. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Out of the Gutter.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• OUT OF THE GUTTER #1
• OUT OF THE GUTTER #2
• OUT OF THE GUTTER #3
• OUT OF THE GUTTER #4

When you brazenly put a superlative in the title of your book — whether “best,” “worst” or whatever — you’d damn well better be ready to back that shit up. Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury knew this, obviously, when compiling HOLY SH*T!: THE WORLD’S WEIRDEST COMIC BOOKS. About the only sin of omission in this hilarious hardback is the cake-taking crossover THE PUNISHER MEETS ARCHIE.

From all stretches of the globe and stretching back about eight decades, our duo has unearthed some unique issues that will give you a serious case of the WTFs. Just flip open to a random page. There’s YOU NAZI MAN, a 1930s parody in which Hitler is served a severed penis on a plate … and he asks for ketchup! See what I mean?

With each of the dozens of examples, the cover and a sample panel are reprinted on a full-color spread, and supplemented with a half-page explanation for background purposes … because, believe me, you’ll want to know how a Malaysian comic book graphically depicting the tortures of Hell ever came into being. Gravett and Stanbury have clearly done their homework … assuming you can call research on comics of amputees enjoying carnal relations homework.

A smattering of the books spotlighted are from major publishers — DC is represented by the hippie-dippy BROTHER POWER: THE GEEK; Dark Horse gets singled out for GODZILLA VS. BARKLEY (as in Charles) — but most are from unknown and underground outfits, plus hired-hand gigs for Christian publishers and various safety boards. There are a few “names” involved, including Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel (here with “superlover” JON JUAN), Steve Ditko (MR. A), Otto Binder (TOD HOLTON, SUPER GREEN BERET) and, for those auto maintenance mags he did for the military, Will Eisner.

On one end of the spectrum, you have something as happily innocent as TEEN-AGE ROMANCES (with now-amusing lines like “That little cheat will do anything to hold Dick!”). On the other end — far, far on the other end — there’s something like SH-T COMICS, which is a glorified Tijuana bible update. For every THE GOSPEL BLIMP, there’s a TALES FROM THE LEATHER NUN.

Other oddballs include Cold War scare stories, a Mexican Batman parody, an anti-smoking creed, 1947′s ALL-NEGRO COMICS, a topless Spider-Woman from Italy, a career primer starring Popeye, a Jeffrey Dahmer biography, Ronald Reagan as a superhero and a sex-fantasy thing with an ultra-niche “special extra large lesbian unicorn issue.” (In case you were wondering, it’s the issue that’s extra-large, the authors note.)

For the antiestablishment names on your holiday shopping list, this would make a perfect gift. Name one other title that will school them on Elsie the Cow and gay truckers within a single flip of the page. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST CRIME COMICS edited by Paul Gravett

Ever read J.G. Ballard’s CRASH and thought, “You know, if they took away all the car accidents and just left the sex, this would be a better book”? I’m here to answer, “No, it would not.” The proof is Daniel Davies’ THE ISLE OF DOGS, and I believe the term “soulless” popped into my head more then a few times while reading it.

The story deals with Jeremy Shepherd, a man who gave up a high-paying job in London to move back in with his parents. He does so to simplify his lifestyle into only the basic needs: food, shelter and the anonymous sex on which he thrives. The type of sexual exploits we are talking about entails hanging out in deserted parking lots, waiting for other couples to show up.

It’s called “dogging,” where people meet up for these sessions where names are usually fake and people are extremely cautious. The story explains the process of how Shep — as Jeremy calls himself — operates in this world, including numerous message boards and websites that cater to this culture of dogging.

THE ISLE OF DOGS is told through Shep’s experiences and meet-ups, be it with an older couple or a former boy band singer who does it with his mistress. Throughout the story, you see this world closing in on itself, as people are attacked and even blackmailed to keep things quiet. All of it leads to a massive police raid one night at a new and supposedly safe location.

But the final outcome — with what looks to be Shep’s last attempt at dogging — was so telegraphed, it’s anticlimactic. Davies’ writing is breezy enough and shows some talent, but this novel is just a cheap excuse to push sexual morays and taboos. I’m hopeful his next one will have a bit more meat to hold it together, rather than being what seems like some sort of expanded PENTHOUSE FORUM letter. —Bruce Grossman

Buy it at Amazon.

The hardest thing about reviewing horror novels is that when you write out the plot in a pitch sentence or two, and than you sit back to look at it, it’s almost invariably silly. Of course, the meat of the matter is not usually the plot, but what the writer is able to do with it in order to — if not reduce that essential goofiness — at least make you forget how silly it is while you’re reading. Richard Laymon, due to the fact that he was an absolute master of momentum, could cover the absurdity of his plots better than anyone.

BEWARE begins with weird doings at a small grocery store. After hours, people are becoming the featured cuts of meat in the butcher block. An invisible beastie of some sort is attacking them. Curious gal reporter Lacey Allen is raped by the unseen whatever-it-is. When she gets home, she is attacked and raped again, and she finds out that her abuser is a sociopathic invisible man, someone she knew in high school.

Note that Laymon ignores the same inconvenient truth of invisibility that H.G. Wells did: namely, that an invisible person would be blind. It’s got something to do with optics and refraction. What am I, your science teacher? Go look it up.

Anyway, the no-see-’im guy has the hots for Lacey and is determined to turn her into a sex slave. Sex is something else in which Laymon is very interested. Sex is always skulking around in his books, and when it comes, you’ll swallow it whether you like it or not. (Where else but BOOKGASM will you find a review sentence like that one?)

When she figures out what’s going on, Lacey skips town and meets a writer named Scott, who falls for her instantly. He calls a pal of his, Matt Dukane, a private detective who serves as a silent collaborator for Scott’s crime fiction, to lend a hand. This turns out great for all concerned, because Matt is already involved with busting a degenerate black magic cult — the very group that turned the culprit invisible in the first place. This “Spiritual Development Foundation” comes across as a blend of Scientology and the People’s Temple by way of Cloud Cuckooland.

Silly. Plot. Right?

That said, I also need to add that chapters 4-6 are a stunning example of brilliantly sustained suspense. The rest of the novel is no slack, but this is the section you’ll remember. It’s a poor Laymon story indeed that doesn’t provide at least one episode that is so good it makes everysillything else seem inconsequential.

BEWARE was originally published in 1985 and has shown up now as part of Leisure Books’ Laymon reprint series. Add this one to your collection. It’s a fast read and you probably won’t stop to realize how wacky it all is until you’ve turned the last page. And by then, you won’t care. —Doug Bentin

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• AFTER MIDNIGHT by Richard Laymon
• THE BEAST HOUSE by Richard Laymon
• THE CELLAR by Richard Laymon
• COME OUT TONIGHT by Richard Laymon
• CUTS by Richard Laymon
• ISLAND by Richard Laymon
• THE LAKE by Richard Laymon
• SAVAGE by Richard Laymon
• TRIAGE by Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon and Edward Lee

After taking my one-week vacation from the column, I’m back in action. So saddle up, little buckaroos, as we once again peruse the pulp piles of the Old West. All three books are from series, none of which have been covered here before. The only thing I do know going in is that they are all purported to be adult Westerns.

GUNN #23: BEDROLL BEAUTY by Jory Sherman — Sherman is one prolific writer, with more than 300 books to his name. But today we will focus in on one of the series he created for Zebra Western: GUNN. As Sherman states, it was not as raw as some of the compatriots in the genre, like Longarm and Jake Logan. Gunn is your quick-draw good guy who likes the ladies — nothing different from any other adult Western, but there is something not found in those other series’ continuity that plays an important part of this 1985 book during the climax.

Gunn is called back to his land, and is almost trampled by a herd of sheep. He meets up with a Mexican who has been shot in the leg and Gunn searches for help, leading him to find out someone has built upon his land. And not only that, but the area seems to be under the control of these two brothers named Bickle. Gunn has a run-in with one of them and kills him. No surprise to anyone who has read any Western — I mean, anytime there is a pair of brothers, one will always get killed while the other swears revenge.

Gunn discovers that the cabin built upon his land houses a mail-order bride, while her husband lives in a nearby town, sending supplies to her once a month. I think you can figure out what happens when he makes it there. Again, no surprises per se, until the final outcome, where Gunn confronts the bad guys.

Sherman’s writing is playful enough for someone who wants to dip their toes into the genre, but doesn’t want some of the explicit descriptions you would find in other series. That’s not to say that the story skimps; it just never gets to the point of overkill. If I come across more of the GUNN series, I’ll probably grab a few more to join my never-ending piles of Westerns, because nothing makes a day go by faster than six-guns, horses and ladies in bodices.

RENEGADE #4: DEATH HUNTER by Ramsay Thorne — Welcome to another case of a prolific writer under an assumed name; Thorne is actually Lou Cameron, who wrote a variety of titles, including a few movie novelizations (the one I would love to get is CALIFORNIA SPLIT). The cover of the 1980 book proudly states it’s an adult Western; that is the understatement of the day.

He is called Captain Gringo, but his real name is Richard Walker, a soldier-of-fortune type in the Old West who is wanted by a variety of governments for his actions. There are 36 books in this series and it seems to have continuity, since in this one, Gringo works for someone he has had run-ins with before.

The story opens with Gringo in Costa Rica, just passing time. But this being an adult Western, it does not take long to get to the saucy parts. Gringo meets up with a woman who is “Australian” and is looking for some love, but it’s all a setup to take out Gringo and roll him. Of course, he’s too smart to fall for that. He not only takes down the alleged attacker, but then forces himself on the woman, who is really British.

In fact, every woman he meets in this book, he sleeps with or forces himself onto, be it mother or daughter, a 13-year-old with daddy issues, a married mine owner, a Chinese immigrant who poses as a boy, and some Costa Rican women.

The reason Gringo was set up was that a British officer named Greystoke has been chasing him around before. But now he has a mission for Gringo: finding a German submarine base on the island. Gringo and his partner in crime gather a group of men to fight in this underground mission, and DEATH HUNTER follows their exploits and Gringo’s sexploits.

Where the base is hidden will be so obvious to readers. With its ridiculous plot points and gratuitous sex scenes, this book delivers in spades. Cameron seems to enjoy mixing the historical aspects of the time into this tale of old-school soldiers of fortune. Hopefully, I can find more of these books on the cheap.

SHELTER #2: HANGING MOON by Paul Ledd — The SHELTER series was actually written by Robert J. Randisi — yes, the man behind the GUNSMITH series just two years later. It seems Randisi was just getting his feet wet in the genre of adult Western and finding his footing.

SHELTER seems to be a forerunner to his GUNSMITH series, in that we have a lone gunman who is quick on the draw and a magnet to the ladies. Unlike his later series, this 1980 novel comes off kind of prudish in that area. Of course, he does sleep with women in the book, but it in no way compares to anything that was to come later on.

Shelter Morgan — aka Shell — is on the hunt for a soldier who double-crossed him years ago. But on his way to find this man, he takes a job looking for some missing gold stolen from a friend of his. Shell meets up with a Quaker wagon train headed toward the area he planned on going to — the more the merrier, but in this case, one too many. The missing gold is actually part of the wagon train under everyone’s nose, thanks to a brother-and-sister team under the belief that no would ever suspect them as being thieves … until the great reveal two-thirds in, when Shell finds out who these two really are in league with.

It’s a fine oater, but I’ve read better from Randisi. Again, it seems as though he was just getting his bearings in this type of genre, since the sex is only there as page filler — nothing too titillating. But still, everyone has to start somewhere. I’d say stick with the GUNSMITH books for the simple reason that there are so many and easier to find, plus the lead is not as one-dimensional as Shelter.

Next time: the good ol’ days of spying. —Bruce Grossman

Buy them at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF ROBERT J. RANDISI:
• LONE STAR LAW edited by Robert J. Randisi
• THE GUNSMITH #23: THE RIVERBOAT GANG by Robert J. Randisi
• THE GUNSMITH #44: THE SCARLET GUN by Robert J. Randisi
• THE GUNSMITH #128: THE CALIENTE GOLD ROBBERY by Robert J. Randisi
• THE PICASSO FLOP by Vince Van Patten and Robert J. Randisi

Lawrence Block would rather you not read ONE NIGHT STANDS AND LOST WEEKENDS. After all, it’s not his best work — and he tells you that right up front. At least there’s a good reason for it: This anthology represents his earliest work of super-short stories, cranked out for men’s magazines of the 50s and 60s. Understandably, he’s more than a little critical of stuff he wrote decades before he really knew what he was doing. (Hell, I sometimes cringe at things I’ve written a week ago.)

But curiosity rises above any mediocrity, and Block fans will want it regardless. Considering the $14.95 price tag, they’ll be amply rewarded. Some of the stories exhibit a real clever streak, like “Just Window Shopping,” told from the point of view of a serial Peeping Tom who’s taken one eyeful too many.

“Frozen Stiff” is a new take on the cuckolded-spouse concept, with a wronged butcher plotting revenge on his wife that certainly takes a slice of the unique cake, and “Ride a White Horse” chronicles a guy’s love affair with a girl who deals smack — a career choice he begrudgingly accepts because he can’t live without her. Meanwhile, “Bride of Violence” is a disturbing tale of a rape that occurs while the victim’s boyfriend can do little but watch; its table-turning, shock-for-shock’s-sake ending is something today’s more mature Block likely wouldn’t pen.

In these tales and roughly less than two dozen others lie glimpses of the Block to come — not just in diabolical plots with crack timing, but playful turns of phrase and hardboiled metaphors like “as queer as rectangular eggs” (the first of many references to the breakfast item, followed closely by breasts that threaten to burst through items of clothing). His then-green experience rears its head here and there, in opening lines that fail to hook (“The shorter of the two boys had wiry black hair and a twisted smile”) and a tendency to use the same names in a couple of stories (i.e. Benny, Brad, Rita), but both come with the territory and are expected.

Closing out the collection is a trio of three longer stories, all starring droll private investigator Ed London. He’s no Keller or Scudder or Rhodenbarr, but he’s a Block creation through and through. In “The Naked and the Deadly,” he’s hired by a woman claiming to be blackmailed, and then approached by guys seeking a missing person: his blackmailed client. Yep, things are not what they seem (one clue: the client’s willingness to fuck on the first meeting).

The intriguingly titled “Stag Party Girl” kicks off with a man at his bachelor party, where the stripper is shot dead. Oh, and she happens to be his mistress! Finally, “Twin Call Girls” refers to a pair of prostitutes someone wants killed. One-half is offed, at least, so the other half hires London to find out who and why. (One guess as to how she pays …)

ONE NIGHT STANDS is not the book for Block newbies, but like an early Christmas gift for his regular, devoted readers. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

“It was very soft and very warm. It rubbed its hips against me and purred like a kitten. I growled like a randy old tomcat. ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ it said. ‘I’ve been wanting to go to bed. Take me to bed, Ed London.’ … We were a pair of iron filings and my bed was a magnet. … Her body welcomed me. Her breasts, firm little cones of happiness, quivered against me. Her thighs enveloped me in the lust-heat of desire. Her face twisted in a blind agony of need.”

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE BURGLAR IN THE LIBRARY by Lawrence Block
• THE BURGLAR IN THE RYE by Lawrence Block
• THE BURGLAR WHO THOUGHT HE WAS BOGART by Lawrence Block
• A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE by Lawrence Block
• A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block
• THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART by Lawrence Block
• GRIFTER’S GAME by Lawrence Block
• HIT AND RUN by Lawrence Block
• HIT PARADE by Lawrence Block
• LUCKY AT CARDS by Lawrence Block
• ME TANNER, YOU JANE by Lawrence Block
• THE SCORELESS THAI by Lawrence Block
• TANNER ON ICE by Lawrence Block
• TANNER’S TIGER by Lawrence Block
• TANNER’S TWELVE SWINGERS by Lawrence Block
• TANNER’S VIRGIN by Lawrence Block

As the second novel in Lee Weeks’ Detective Johnny Mann series, THE TRAFFICKED is a solid page-turner. It starts with a Chinese schoolgirl being kidnapped at her English boarding school, but takes our characters into the land of sex clubs in the Philippines. See, that youth was not just some run-of-the-mill girl, but the illegitimate daughter of C.K. Leung, a high-ranking Triad member.

C.K. calls in a few favors to get Mann on the case, even though Mann wants nothing to deal with this Triad leader. Mann is sent off to England to help the investigation, knowing full well the case is not just some mere kidnapping plot, but a power play with the child as a pawn that will be cast aside, unless he can figure out who the kidnappers really are.

Mann is teamed up with British officer Becky Stamp, whose marriage has more bumps than an unpaved road. Their investigation takes them to the heart of the sex trade in the Philippines, dealing with the local boss, aka The Colonel — a man who is not only a sadistic boss, but a pervert in the highest degree. Even when confronted by one of his early conquests, he will use all his power to put them back in their place.

While all this goes on, we follow the kidnapped girl Amy, who sits quietly, doing what she is told. She seems to be an innocent girl who can barely fend for herself … but remember what kind of person her father is. It’s determined that her captor is a new Triad trying to move in and claim all of the Philippines as his own, trying to cut out everyone else, especially when someone with whom Mann has had a previous experience (from, I’m guessing, the previous book, THE TROPHY TAKER) shows up with his own agenda.

THE TRAFFICKED never gets too graphic, which can always throw some readers. It plays up more of the thriller aspect for the bulk of the plot. Weeks never goes for the cheap thrill or titillation to keep you hooked, saving what little graphic depictions for the end of the story. Weeks is a talented writer whose prose breezes along so quickly, you won’t realize how fast you go through this lengthy tale. For a book more than 400 pages, it did not feel like it in the least. It never drags, which is a godsend for that length.

Weeks paces the story perfectly, balancing all the little plots that are all interconnected to the central story, with Mann being a standout lead character and not some generic police officer. He has his demons, but it appears as though the author will slowly reveal the truth behind her creation as the series continues. She is definitely a writer who will gain a new audience when her books become available in the States. —Bruce Grossman

Buy it at Amazon UK.

Director Alfred Hitchcock had a knack for picking projects — a remarkable streak of luck that did not extend to real life, particularly with the opposite sex. The master filmmaker’s uneasy relationships with the women he employed is examined in unexpected detail, film by film, in Donald Spoto’s SPELLBOUND BY BEAUTY: ALFRED HITCHCOCK AND HIS LEADING LADIES.

This is, of course, not Spoto’s first foray into Hitchcock biography, but his third. While those earlier efforts delved into the art of his films and the history of their creator, this work charges itself with concentrating specifically on its title theme. Don’t dismiss it as a rehash of prior bios. For instance, the famed story of Hitch presenting Melanie Griffith with a toy doll of mom Tippi Hedren in a coffin? Nowhere to be found.

It seems impossible to believe, but when Hitch was shooting his first feature in his 20s — and in the 1920s — women were such a mystery to him that when an actress announced she couldn’t get in the water for a scene because she was on her period, he claimed not to know what she meant. His naïveté changed little from there; although he married wife Alma in 1926, they failed to consummate the union until a full year later, and only then to get pregnant with their lone child.

Hitch claimed to have had sex with his wife this one and only time, but later there were rumors of a mistress in assistant Joan Harrison. It’s likely that with Alma being more like a sibling than a lover to Hitch, their sexual dry spell lasted decades. Thus, Hitch was sexually frustrated, and vented his aggravation on his actresses via belittling comments, lewd jokes, acts of filmed torture, refusal to acknowledge their presence and/or, in later years, outright obsession and harassment.

Three ladies bore the brunt of it, in different ways: Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and finally Hedren. By all accounts, Hitch was so in love with Bergman that he even listened to her opinions — something he never did with other actors, whom he famously branded “like cattle.” He even floated a story that she had begged him to make love to her, refusing to leave his bedroom until doing so. Not likely, but what’s indisputable is how betrayed he felt when she left him — meaning their collaborative relationship, rather than a personal one —  for another director, Roberto Rossellini.

With the elegant Kelly, it was more of the same. And when the REAR WINDOW star left Hollywood for the Prince of Monaco, Hitch again felt as if a divorce had once again taken place. So when he handpicked the unknown Hedren to headline THE BIRDS, he was determined to keep her to himself, keeping her segregated from the rest of cast and crew when the cameras weren’t rolling. At one point, he makes a shocking demand of her that I won’t reveal here, which changes their relationship — and, Spoto argues, Hitch’s very being — forever.

This is not a sordid hatchet job on a cinematic icon. Spoto still reveres the artist, as he notes in the introduction, but now chooses to spill some secrets he had agreed to keep quiet while some of the sure-to-be-embarrassed principals were alive. There are quite a many uneasy and uncomfortable moments, such as Tallulah Bankhead’s penchant for not wearing underwear and exposing herself on the set of LIFEBOAT, which, quips Hitch, is perhaps a matter “for hairdressing.”

Those looking for lurid, between-the-sheets details aren’t going to find any, primarily because its subject appears not to have had any kind of life in them. This fair treatment extends to other people as well, as VERTIGO‘s Kim Novak is mentioned as being “carnal,” yet Spoto gives no details as to why and what degree.

But SPELLBOUND is not a book about sex, nor is it intended to be. Rather, it is a book about sexual obsession — a theme that, especially in hindsight, permeated a great many of Hitchcock’s films. From harboring a glasses fetish to fantasies of strangulation, the director was not without his kinks and quirks, and now that they’ve presumably all come to life, one has to wonder how different his career — and film history itself — might have been if he hadn’t been so passionate … or greatly wishing to be. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.