Conspiracies by F. Paul Wilson

 

(pb; 2000: third book in the Repairman Jack series)

 

From the back cover

“Repairman Jack, F. Paul Wilson’s vigilante hero from 1984’s The Tomb and 1998’s Legacies returns in a thriller that thrusts Jack back into the weird, supernatural world that he thrives in. Looking for clues to the mysterious disappearance of leading conspiracy theorist Melanie Ehler. Jack attends a convention of bizarre and avid conspiracy theorists. It is a place where aliens are real, the government is out to get you, and the world is hurtling toward an inevitable war of good versus evil incarnate. Jack finds that nobody can be trusted—and that few people are what they seem. Worse yet, Jack’s been having vivid dreams that make him wonder whether he’s headed for a clash with his own past—maybe The Tomb’s evil rakoshi beasts are through with him quite yet.”

Review

Conspiracies takes place almost immediately after the events of Legacies, with Jack searching for a missing woman (Melanie Ehler) at an unusual conspiracy theories convention where danger, human-based and supranatural, threatens its attendees. Then there’s the nightmares—not just Jack’s, which center around the terrifying and fierce rakoshi, whom he thought he’d vanquished in The Tomb, leading Jack and others to wonder: why are its other attendees having nighttime terror visions as well?

 

Stephen King fans may especially enjoy Wilson’s vivid, cinematic writing (with its affectionate and pulpy-at-time descriptions of New York) as well as Conspiracies’s often suspenseful multicharacter B-storylines and neo-noir/conspiracy thriller elements. Conspiracies, lots of humor and Lovecraftian fear dominate Wilson’s prose and characters as they try to make it without losing their minds—and their lives.

 

Conspiracies, which runs long at times, expands on the characters, storylines and Wilson’s “secret history of the world” (which unifies his published work), while setting up future vigilante action and (possible) villains in later Repairman Jack books, the next one All the Rage.

Sugar on the Bones by Joe R. Lansdale

 

(pb; 2024: thirteenth novel in the Hap and Leonard series)

 

From the back cover

“Minnie Polson is dead. Burned to a crisp in a fire so big and bad it had to be deliberate. The only thing worse is that Hap and Leonard could have prevented it. Maybe. Minnie had a feeling she was being targeted, shaken down by some shadowy force. However, when she’d solicited Hap & Leonard, all it took was one off color joke to turn her sour and she’d called them off the investigation. Wracked with a guilty conscience, the two PIs—along with Hap’s fleet-footed wife, Brett—tuck in to the case. As they look closer, they dredge up troublesome facts: for one, Minnie’s daughter, Alice, has recently vanished. She’d been hard up after her pet grooming business went under and was in line to collect a whopping insurance sum should anything happen to her mother. The same was due to Minnie’s estranged husband, Al, whose kryptonite (beautiful, money-grubbing women) had left him with only a run-down mobile home. But did Minnie’s foolish, cash-strapped family really have it in them to commit a crime this grisly? Or is there a larger, far more sinister scheme at work?”

 

 

Review

Sugar, Lansdale’s follow-up to the last Hap and Leonard [H&P] novel, The Elephant of Surprise (2019), finds the longtime friends, along with Brett (Hap’s wife) investigating a suspicious arson-murder case, with (possible) help from friends (or frenemies) from past H&P novels and stories. These characters include: Jim Bob, Vanilla Ride, Veil and Kung Fu Bobby.

Reading a H&P story is like visiting old friends—they’re raw, sometimes salty and scary, but always interesting and sincere in their intentions, and Sugar is no exception. There’s plenty of quip-quotable dialogue, raw action, hissable villains, fully realized and often warm frenemies/friend, though this time out it feels like it “H&P and friends” reunion, with a few new characters. It’s also, like other books in this series, a burn-through read, tonally falling somewhere between darker and recent lighter H&P fare. If the last third ran a bit long for me, it might be because I listened to this an audiobook and wasn’t doing my usual series-beat-familiar fast/physical book read. Worth owning, this, as are other H&P works, book- and television-wise. Followed, in book form, by Hatchet Girls.

Conan the Barbarian: Marvel Treasury Edition #4 by various artists and authors

 

(oversized pb; 1975: Marvel Comics graphic novel. Based on two of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories: “Rogues in the House,” originally published in January 1934, and “Red Nails,” originally published in July-October 1933. . . This oversized graphic novel is a collected reprint of several Marvel Comic comic book issues: Conan the Barbarian #11 [1971: “Rogues in the House”] and Savage Tales #2 and 3 [October and December 1973: “Red Nails”].)

 

Review, story by story

“Rogues in the House”: Betrayed by one of his many women (Jenna) after he “revenged” himself on “that priest of Anu,” Conan finds himself chained in a dungeon. An opportunity presents itself in the form of Murilo, a nobleman who offers to free Conan in exchange for the Cimmerian’s services as an assassin. Murilo’s stated target: Nabonidus, “red priest” and “master” of the unspecified city they’re in.

Conan accepts the offer, unaware that his liberator (Murilo) also has snuck into Nabonidus’s castle to make sure the targeted “man of science” meets a violent end—a mission further soured with a just-discovered horrific twist: Nabonidus is also a “wereman,” a giant ape creature calling itself Thak. Conan and Murilo immediately decide it’s best to flee the castle, as dealings with the supernatural rarely result in a survivable, positive outcome, something Conan knows all too well. They quickly find out escape is not an option for them.

Further twists in this illustrated tale make themselves known, making this fun, tightly penned and fast frame-paced comic, based on Robert E. Howard’s tale of the same name, originally published in Weird Tales magazine, January 1934.

Fans of Howard’s oeuvre might especially appreciate “Rogues”’s explicit reference to another Howard-penned Conan story, “The Tower of the Elephant,” originally published in Weird Tales in March 1933.

The artwork, perhaps because it was blown up for the oversized edition, has linework that is hazy, not solidly defined as well as slightly washed-out colors. This is not a complaint; I note this so readers of The Savage Sword of Conan magazine, which sports stellar, highly defined black and white artwork, don’t compare Savage to this more mainstream, less adult Marvel Treasury version.

 

“Red Nails [henceforth referred to as “Red”]”: Conan, trying to get into the loin cloth of a loath “Aquilonian she-pirate” (Valeria) he met in Sukmet, stalks her—he’s beguiled by her sword skills as much as he is by her wild beauty.

Just as she becomes aware of Conan’s creepy attentions, they sight a walled city in a barren plain. About the same time, Conan and Valeria fend off a horse-eating “dragon” (which looks like an uncommonly aggressive stegosaurus), compelling them to enter the mysterious, fortress-like city.

Upon entering the city-fort, Conan and Valeria encounter complicated dangers: they get caught in an intrametropolitan conflict between two feuding factions: the superstitious Xuchotl and the magick-wielding Xotalancs, whose long-term, internecine warfare is rooted in a broken brotherhood (Tecuhltli and Xotalanc’s), further betrayals and a seemingly ageless “witch,” Tascela.

“Red” is one of Howard’s most ambitious and character-complex Conan stories, even with its basic Hatfield/McCoys feud structure. Its original, print 1933 version, while impressive in intention, felt “weak. . . part of the reason for its disappointing delivery is because of its extended length—it’s a novelette, not a short story” (so I thought on 8/23/11, in my review of the print/story collection, Red Nails).

This Marvel Treasury Edition comic book version trims “Red”’s print-only excessive verbiage and length to its core, between its storytelling (if line-hazy and color faded) artwork and concise descriptions and dialogue. This makes the Marvel version of “Red” a better, more fun read, one that makes me appreciate Howard’s expansion of Conan’s world, along with his more fully realized characters, namely Valeria, whom even Conan recognizes as more than a beddable conquest by tale’s upbeat end.

(Valeria appears in director/co-screenwriter John Milius’s 1982 classic, Conan the Barbarian. Sandahl Bergman played the fierce “Aquilonian she-pirate.”)

This is a good, worth-owning read if you’re a Conan and/or early-1970s comic book fan.

“Red Nails” originally appeared in Weird Tales (July – October 1933, published in three serial parts).

Legacies by F. Paul Wilson

 

(pb; 1998: second book in the Repairman Jack series.)

 

From the back cover

“Repairman Jack isn’t your average appliance repairman—he fixes situations for people, often risking his own life. Jack has no last name, no social security number, works only for cash, and has no qualms when it comes to seeing that the job gets done.

“Dr. Alicia Clayton, a pediatrician who treats children with AIDS, is full of secrets, and he has just inherited a house that holds another. Haunted by painful memories, Alicia wants the house destroyed—but somehow everyone she enlists to help ends up violently killed. The house holds a powerful secret, and Alicia’s charmless brother Thomas seems willing to do anything to get his hands on that secret himself.

“But not if Repairman Jack can find it first!”

 

Review

Legacies, with its multicharacter B-storylines and neo-noir/conspiracy thriller elements, continues almost directly after the events of The Tomb. Gio DiLauro, his love interest in that book, becomes an indirect conduit and constant ally in this corporate, sometimes sorrow-laced thriller where a world-changing piece of technology leads to a strange cycle of killings, every one of them a corpse closer to Jack and those he cares about. Was glad to see Abe Grossman, also from Tomb, play a vital part in the novel’s fast-paced, swift-reader-immersion events and characters, with plenty of layered story to go along with its strong action sequences. As is often the case with Wilson, the writing elements feel deftly balanced and melded, making for a sequel entry that matches, and expands upon, its source work. Worth owning, this.

Followed by Conspiracies.

Where's There's a Will by Rex Stout

 

(pb; 1940: eighth book in the forty-six book Nero Wolfe series)

 

From the back cover

“Why did the late multimillionaire Noel Hawthorne leave his sisters, April, Maym and June, a peach, a pear, and an apple? And why did he will the bulk of his considerable estate to a woman who was most definitely not his wife? Now Nero Wolfe, able, astute, and unscrupulous detective that he is, must get to the bottom of a will that’s left a whirlpool of menace. . . and a legacy of murder that’s about to be fulfilled.”

 

Review

Will is a fun, roller coast ride of a Wolfe book, with inconvenient, plot-complicating corpses, lively, complicated and could-be-dangerous characters, Stout’s clever writing, Goodwin’s ego-puncturing humor and Wolfe’s brilliance in the face of blustering deception, death and others’ frustrations. It’s not my favorite Wolfe work, but Will is entertaining, smart, with some memorable lines and characters, which makes me excited for the next Wolfe entry, Black Orchids.

Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks by Terrance Dicks

 

(pb; 1974: first book in the Dr. Who series. Based on Louis Marks, Terry Nation and Sydney Newman’s screenplay.)

 

From the back cover

“Exterminate! Exterminate!

“The Daleks. Doctor Who’s oldest and most ruthless enemies, have one goal—total world power. Their prime weapon is time travel. In the late Twentieth Century, they attacked the Planet Earth. Their plan: alter the course of history. Start World Wars. Wipe out the human population. They were very effective.

“Can Doctor Who, trapped in the Twenty-Second Century, reverse history’s course in time to save our planet and every living thing on it, including himself, from the devastating and evil force of the Daleks?”

 

Review

Day is a fun, fast-moving and action-blunt adaptation of the four-episode Doctor Who storyline, which aired between January 1, 1972 and January 22, 1972 on England’s BBC channel. Jon Pertwee, father of actor Sean Pertwee, was the titular, time- and space-traveling Gallifreyan at this point in the series, and the book succinctly captures the spirit of Pertwee’s portrayal of said character, as well as the cold malevolence of one of the Doctor’s key nemeses, the Daleks.

Breezy and overall entertaining, this adaptation is worth reading, especially during this estival season. Followed by Malcolm Hulke’s adaptation of Doctor Who: The Doomsday Weapon.

Escape from New York: Volume Four by Christopher Sebela and various artists

 

(pb; 2017: fourth graphic novel in a series of four. Alternate title: Escape from New York: Escape from Cleveland. Collects issues #13-16 of the limited-run Escape from New York comic book. Publisher: Boom! Studios.)

 

From the back cover

“After Snake Plissken gave the President his comeuppance in incredibly public fashion, he retreated to a quiet life, away from the battlefield. That lasted for years, until Federal forces attempt to seize his land via eminent domain, which brings Snake once again at odds with his nemesis—the U.S.P.F. This time, Snake’s got a plan to strike back. . .”

 

Review

The fourth and final volume of Escape takes place fourteen years after the events of Volume 3. Snake has settled down in Ohio, with his faithful dog (affectionately called “Dummy”). But then the day he suspected would come: federal agents come for him after he repels two agents trying to foist an eminent domain order on him. Snake, with help from a few fellow bandits, embarks on a blitzkrieg cycle of robbery, death and other mayhem that leaves few in his sphere untouched.

As with the three previous Escape graphic novels, there’s plenty of humor, twists, explosions, dead people (many of them deserving of their fates) and Snake’s taciturn resistance to those “taking what they think is theirs.” The ending leaves Snake’s journey open to future adventures while providing a character- and story-true denouement of sorts. Excellent, fun wrap-up to a bang-up graphic novel/movie tie-in series.

Locked In by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 

(hb; 2023, 2024: tenth book in the Department Q series. Translated from the Danish by Caroline Waight.)

 

From the inside flap

“On the day after Christmas, head of Department Q Detective Carl Mørck finds himself handcuffed in a police car headed for Copenhagen’s Vestre Prison. After fifteen years, a violent case from his past has caught up with him. Charges of drug trafficking and murder threaten to destroy his life and career. Buthe is being framed. Someone has a million-dollar bounty on his head to make sure he doesn’t talk, putting him in grave danger among the prison’s incarcerated criminals and corrupt officers. The question that remains is: Why?

“Carl’s colleagues at the Copenhagen Police Department instantly turn their backs on him, leaving the ever-loyal Department Q team as his only hope. In search of answers, Rose, Assad, and Gordon must disobey direct orders from way up the chain of command to try to unravel the case. With only one another to trust and Carl’s battle against the unknown mastermind’s henchmen worsening by the day, they must work faster than ever before if they are to clear his name—and save his life.”

 

Review

Locked keeps with its predecessor novels’ slick, entertaining police procedural thriller execution, with well-written characters worth hissing at or rooting for (or somewhere in between), making for a deft suspense and action book worth not only reading but owning. Not only that, Mørck’s high-tension dilemma directly deals with  events that led to the formation of Department Q, and a series entry that will decide Mørck’s immediate, life-or-death fate—as well as the fate of this overall series. Great, wild-ride of a mainstream police procedural.

The Lost Valley of Iskander by Robert E. Howard

 

(pb; 1934—1936, 1974. Three-novella/prequel fantasy anthology to Son of the White Wolf. “Introduction” by Darrell C. Richardson.)

 

From the back cover

“It lay hidden from the world, beyond the far ranges of the Himalayas. Yolgan! Forbidden city of unspeakable vengeance and unimaginable treasure, where the goddess Yasmeena waits for the only force on earth that can free her—the curved and thirsty blade of the blue-eyed desert warrior El Borak!”

 

Overall review

Caveat: Iskander sports an amplified sense of colonialism, racism and sexism that was bold-face inherent in the 1920s and 1930s, but it’s not quite as repellent/intense as one might see in Sax Rohmer’s fourteen-book Dr. Fu-Manchu series and H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. It’s downplayed in these Francis X. Gordon stories but it’s still there. In short: If the concept of appropriate context (judge a work by the standards during which it was created, not by modern standards), you might want to skip Howard’s work as well as those mentioned earlier in this “Caveat.”

Iskander is one of the better Howard collections, more tightly edited than some of his other works (notably certain Conan stories and books), with Howard’s ever-present focus on machismo, bloody and savage action, constant twists, the overall superiority of Caucasian culture, and all-caps PULPY prose. There’s less focus on Howard’s usual display of sensual and/or treacherous women in these Gordon stories than one might see in one of Howard’s Conan works.

Iskander is worth buying if you’re a fan of older pulp, can look past/stomach its biases, and appreciate its hyperbolic, action-packed stories and Howard’s clear love of bordering-on-poetic-prose language.

The remainder of Howard’s Francis X. Gordon stories are collected in Son of the White Wolf.

 

Review, story by story

“The Daughter of Erlik Khan”: Legendary, American adventurer Francis X. Gordon (aka El Borak) and his small army of savage Turkoman face treachery, supernatural elements, physical deprivation and constant violence on the way to (and inside) Mount Erlik Khan after Gordon’s tricked into guiding two Englishman (Ormond and Pembroke) through wild lands to satisfy their secret, murderous greed. Within the walled, gold-rich and mountainous city of Mount Erlik Khan, he must also confront the priests of the god Yolgan, who threaten his former lover (thought by some to be a goddess), Yasmeena!

This twisty, cinematic-rich, action fantasy tale is a constant-endorphin-hit work that succeeds in its epic-tone ambition, a great read if you can get past its inherent, imperialist racism.

 

“The Lost Valley of Iskander”: Gordon, pursued and shot at by Gutsav Hunyadi, the wily and “satanic Hungarian,” and his Central Asian hoards, carries Hunyadi’s proof-of-future-invasion letter to Hunyadi’s Central Asian allies—Gordon means to warn Hunyadi’s initial prey (those commanding Fort Ali Masjid) of the incoming threat. But first Gordon must elude and, if possible, stop his devilish foe and his men!

While fleeing said invaders, Gordon encounters newly met Bardylis, a blue-eyed blond young ally and one of many “Sons of Iskander”—the descendants of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian soldiers who, left in this isolated location thousands of years prior, built the Grecian-influenced, walled town of Attalus. . . which is now Hunyadi’s new target.

As is often the case with Howard’s better-edited works, “Iskander” bristles with vivid images, machismo-fueled intensity and immediate threat/action, woven through with a fantastic sense-melding of real-world and imagined-realm history. Great, short-for-Howard story.

 

“Hawk of the Hills”: The Himalyas. After some of Gordon’s Afridi friends are betrayed and slaughtered by Khorouk Orakzai and his Pathan henchmen in a “holocaust of murder,” Gordon must escape their bloodthirsty numbers and regroup his surprising allies who’ve been scattered. Can he do so in time to defeat the treacherous Orakzai and Afdal Khan, who controls the region?

As in “The Lost Valley of Iskander,” the tale begins in the middle of the action, this time with the legendary “High Scotch and black Irish” adventurer hanging off the side of a cliffside while his enemies stand below him. In the middle of all this crazy scramble plotting and intense fighting is an Englishman, Sir George Willoughby, who’s been sent by his government to quell the expanding dispute between Khan and Gordon’s forces.

“Hawk,” like Iskander’s other stories, is a fun, fast-paced, and plot- and character-twisty read.

Trading Bullets with the Devil by Kirsten Cross and Mark Steensland

 

(oversized pb; 2024)

 

From the back cover

“Former Marine Rebecca ‘Beck’ Tibbet needs help.

“Her ex-husband has taken their daughter to live with The Lightbringers.

“But what seems like a harmless bunch of Jesus Freaks is actually a devil-worshipping doomsday cult bent on igniting Armageddon.

“And with less than 36 hours to go, Beck must reassemble her squad and lead them on one mission, deep into the cult’s hideout in an abandoned gold mine where she will soon be trading bullets with the devil.”

 

Review

Trading is a fast-paced, tightly edited novel, a fun, genre-true read, with its 1970s cinematic devil cult-meets-Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan action books** (I’m a fan of both genres and Pendleton in particular). I hadn’t read Trading co-author Cross before, but I have read Steensland’s other, excellent works, and I’m looking forward to reading further works from them. Trading is a good read, worth purchasing.

(** = Pendleton created the Mack Bolan/ “Executioner” character, writing the first thirty-eight novels detailing Bolan’s initial “Mafia War,” starting with The Executioner #1: War Against the Mafia, 1969; ghost writers penned the rest of the 600+ novels, put out by HarperCollins’ Gold Eagle imprint, to whom Pendleton sold his Bolan/character rights in 1980, according to Wikipedia.)

Cruel Jaws by Brad Carter

 

(pb; 2020, 2024: movie tie-in novel, “based on the [1995] screenplay by Bruno Mattei, Robert Feen and Linda Morrison.” Publisher: Severin Films/Encyclopocalypse Publishing.)

 

From the back cover

“New terror surfaces.

“Something sinister has come to the coastal town of Hampton Bay. Something horrifying and colossal that refuses to stop killing until the white sand beaches are blood red. Now, a renegade shark expert and a down on his luck lawman are all that stand between a genetically engineered killing machine and thousands of blissfully unaware tourists. It’s a race against time, bureaucratic red tape, and the mafia to stop a homicidal shark from turning a holiday weekend into a nightmare of carnage.

“. . . Includes a foreword by Stephen Scarlata, director of Sharksploitation [2023].”

 

Review

Cruel, based on the screenplay for director/co-screenwriter Bruno Mattei’s 1995 film, is a wildly entertaining, story- and character-improving expansion on its silver screen counterpart. The book’s characters are more fleshed out, their often-sleazy motivations more clearly spelled out in a way that doesn’t slow the action of the story or its sleazed-up, abbreviated Jaws rip-off plot points; Carter also smooths out the choppy editing of the film version, makes the story flow better, in a more organic way, its genetically engineered shark storyline (something that isn’t in Jaws) expanded upon as well—with an ending that’s more fleshed out, distinctive and horrifying than the generic finish to the film version.

Yeah, it’s a Jaws rip-off but don’t hold that against Cruel. It’s just Italians doing their distinctive, cinematic exploitation thing and, when combined with Carter’s genre-true, all-around-good writing, it’s a worthwhile summer read for fans of sharksploitation works.

The film version was released in Italy on September 26, 1995. Its official stateside release was on April 28, 2011.

Cruel can be purchased directly from the publisher here.

The New York Ripper 2 by Stephen Romano, Alex Sarabia and others

 

(pb; 2025: limited release, for mature audiences only graphic novel. Graphic novel-only sequel to director/co-screenwriter Lucio Fulci’s 1982 film The New York Ripper. Publisher: Eibon Press/Vinegar Syndrome.)

 

Review

Caveat: spoilers in this review if you haven’t seen The New York Ripper (1982).

Ripper 2 picks up seven years after the grisly, especially nasty and sexual serial murders shown in Fulci’s 1982 source film. The Ripper (Peter Bunch) is officially dead, killed by the world-weary Lt. Frederick Williams near the end of Ripper. Now, it seems someone—a somehow-not-dead Bunch?—has resumed a relentless, similar spate of gut-spilling, crudely surgical killings, sometimes boldly executed in front of the cops even as they’re helpless to stop them. Nobody is safe in this lots o’ nudity, character- and plot-twisty tale, certainly not Paul Davis (the academic psychiatrist who helped hunt Bunch) nor Fay Majors (Bunch’s ex-girlfriend). A new player is equally traumatized by the Ripper’s offal-stench rampage also: Bob Hansen, Williams’ younger, thirty-something partner, whose life is about to seriously go off anything resembling rails.

Ripper 2 is a "for mature audiences"-fun, Times Square sleazy, gory and wild story, with over-the-top extreme horror illustrations (often involving a big knife ripping through red-splatter flesh), one that lives up to the source film’s screenplay, penned by director Lucio Fulci, Gianfranco Clerico and Vincenzo Mannino. This is a “Video Nasties” flick in graphic novel form, worth purchasing you’re into that sort of thing. One of my favorite reads of 2025.

Ripper 2, a limited release, can be purchased (in three package options) here.

The Tomb by F. Paul Wilson

 

(pb; 1984, 2004: fourth book in the Nightworld Cycle a.k.a. the Adversary Cycle. First book in the Repairman Jack series. Re-released in 2004 under its original title, Rakoshi, by Borderlands Press.)

 

From the back cover

“Much to the chagrin of his girlfriend, Gia, Repairman Jack doesn’t deal with appliances: He fixes situations—situations that too often land him in deadly danger. His latest job is to find a stolen necklace, which, unknown to him, is more than a simple piece of jewelry.

“Some might say it’s cursed, others might call it blessed. Jack’s quest leads to a rusty freighter on Manhattan’s West Side docks. What he finds in its hold threatens his sanity and the entire city. But worst of all, it threatens Gia’s daughter, Vicky, the last surviving member of a bloodline marked for extinction.”

 

Review

Tomb, with its realistic-neo-noir-meets-supernatural-thriller elements, is an immediately immersive novel, one of my favorite Wilson books thus far. Like the best thrillers, it’s timeless (in its underlying themes and character motives) and (especially) timely, with interesting and relatable characters (even, initially, its main villain) and Wilson’s dependable, better writing: fast-paced, with salient, not-too-detailed emotional scenes and a main protagonist worth remembering. Excellent fourth entry in Wilson’s Nightworld/Adversary Cycle, one that serves as the first book in the Repairman Jack series as well. Followed, chronologically speaking, by the second Repairman novel, Legacies. (The events in the fifteen-book Repairman series take place between Adversary/Nightworld Cycle’s The Touch, 1986, and Nightworld (1992, revised and republished in 2012.)

The Fifth Profession by David Morrell

 

(pb; 1990)

 

From the back cover

“Two masters of protection.

“Savage, a former Navy SEAL and American state-of-the-art security specialist. Akira, Japan’s most brilliant executive protector and a master of the samurai arts.

“Their mission: the retrieval of Rachel Stone, a beautiful American woman whose ruthless millionaire husband is out to destroy her. But quickly Savage and Akira realize they are trapped in a mission more far-reaching than the protection of one person.

“For they are bound together in a common nightmare, a set of horrifying memories, a terrifying past that never happened., but is somehow inextricably real. Only together can they confront the mystery. Yet when they do, an even more chilling scenario awaits them—one with the power to shatter not only their world but ours as well.”

 

 

Review

 

Fifth is one of my favorite Morrell novels, as excellent and gripping as his Abelard trilogy (1984-1987:The Brotherhood of the Rose; The Fraternity of the Stone; and The League of Night and Fog). Like them, Fifth is a top-notch action/conspiracy thriller, with interesting, deeply realized characters (I especially liked Akira, whose Japanese background was fascinating). Morrell’s use of and respect for Japan’s history is also evident, with Akira and his home country adding new and exotic layers to Morrell’s oeuvre. This is a stunning read, the work of a culture-expansive author, a standalone novel worth owning, and one of my favorite reads of the year.

Over My Dead Body by Rex Stout

 

(pb;1940: seventh book in the forty-six book Nero Wolfe series)

 

From the Amazon site description

 

“Over My Dead Body. . . first appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine. By the time it was published, the Wolfe/Goodwin books had become an established series but Wolfe's background had never been explored. Here Stout starts to do clarify Wolfe’s youth by bringing in in a number of characters, including some from Montenegro.

“Carla Lovchen and Neya Tormic, two young women from Montenegro, come to Wolfe's office asking for help. Miss Tormic has been accused of a theft of diamonds from the locker room where she works. She claims the accusation to be false and cannot afford to pay Wolfe’s fee, but she has a document that shows Wolfe adopted her when she was an infant. Although he has never seen her since, Wolfe agrees to undertake the investigation. As Archie is dispatched to investigate, murder is discovered. In the end Wolfe gets the main characters together in his office and, in the manner typical of the series, he will expose the murderer and the motive.”

 

Review

As mentioned in the above description, Over expands on what has been previously revealed about the titular character’s past. Not only that, there’s a strong pre-WWII outbreak/political intrigue aspect which darkly underscores certain character motivations, murders and elements present within Over’s series-continuing storyline. Its middle section, as is Stout’s wont, is a bit chatty, but it—like much of Over—is mostly entertaining, often humorous, erudite (Wolfe) and sarcastic (Goodwin), or (in a word) worthwhile. Another great entry in the Wolfe series, it’s followed by Where There’s a Will.

Escape from New York: Volume Three by Christopher Sebela and various artists

 

(pb; 2017: third graphic novel in a series of four. Collects issues #9-12 of the limited-run Escape from New York comic book. Publisher: Boom! Studios.)

 

From the back cover

“As Snake Plisskin continues his quest for revenge, he leaves behind the frozen tundra of Siberia to enter the last place anyone, least of all those looking to kill him, would ever expect: Manhattan. Snake returns to the middle of New York city for one last word with The President!”

 

Review

The third volume of Escape, alternately titled Escape from New York: Escape to New York, finds Snake Plissken making his way back into that city prison so that he can kill the former U.S. President (from the original 1981 film and the first two Escape graphic novels). Seems that this President has been put in prison for his illicit activities during those earlier stories and is now touting himself a new version of the New York-ruling Duke, whom the former President killed at the end of the 1981 film—having succeeded in this “I’m the new A-number one!” role, it’s fallen to Snake to fell the man who initially set him on his current fight-and-pursuit situation. Not only that, Snake must (once he’s deposed the Duke) find a way out of New York, before the new U.S. President (President Sutter), who has reasons to hate the former President, bombs everyone in the citywide prison to hell.

Complicating matters are other, sometimes crazy characters. Fortunately for Snake, he has allies, some unexpected, e.g., the members of the Lenape [Native American] tribe, led by Lappawinsoe (aka Johnny), who control one of the World Trade Center towers. Can Snake get the former President, end his delusional reign, and leave New York, to finally live a quiet life?

The third volume maintains the same tone and elements that make its first two fun and tonally consistent with their source film and characters: wild-card characters, humor, well-timed and potent action, and overall good writing. For fans of the 1981 film and the first two graphic novel volumes, Volume Three may prove to be a worthwhile purchase. Followed by a fourth and final volume, Escape from New York: Escape from Cleveland.

Trailer Park Noir by Ray Garton

 

(pb; 2022)

 

From the back cover

"Welcome to Riverside Mobile Home Park, where there is plenty of shade but no escape from the heat.

"Marcus Reznick watched the love of his life blow her brains out and then dove to the bottom of a bottle of vodka. Now he’s living in Riverside Mobile Home Park and trying to pull his life together ... until a powerful temptation comes his way. Steve Regent is an internet pornographer who has moved to Riverside Mobile Home Park to work on a new website, Trailer Park Girls. He is looking for beautiful women ... but instead, he finds something very ugly.

"Sherry Manning is a drug addict living in the trailer park with her boyfriend, Andy Winchell, who is a dealer. When a friend of a friend ODs in their trailer and turns out to be the son of a powerful politician, the truth about his death is covered up in the media. But Sherry and Andy know that truth ... and she fears what might be done to silence them.

"Anna Dunfy is trying to make ends meet by doing temp jobs and stripping at night to support her mentally handicapped daughter, Kendra ... an astonishingly beautiful girl with a woman’s body, a child’s mind, and a dangerous urge to do something naughty.

"It is a run‑down little trailer park in northern California, but it could be anywhere in the United States. It is unassuming, unremarkable, and looks like a million other trailer parks. But do not let the sleepy appearance fool you. It is a nest of dark secrets, boiling lusts and murder waiting to happen."

 

 

Review

Trailer is an excellent, immediately immersive and tightly edited neo-noir with well-developed characters worth caring about and/or hissing at, a palpable-build-toward-tragedy-and-bloody-violence pace, and constant, vivid descriptions of locations, motives and especially near-X-rated sexuality. In short, it has all the makings of a top-notch Garton book. (Trailer, in its own weird, great way, put me in the mindset of William Friedkin’s 2011 film Killer Joe.)

The only thing that prevents me from listing Trailer as one of my favorite reads of 2025 (and of Garton’s work) is the near-third act transformation of one of its key characters, who goes from being a decent character wrestling with his personal devils and tragedies to an unrepentant exploiter/blackmailer. It feels forced (even with all that character’s baggage and stuff that’s going on); this hard turn into pitch-black darkness stands out all the more in Trailer because of everything else that works in this otherwise stunning-in-its-execution tale. Worth owning, despite that minor character-shift nit.

Tribe of the Dead by Gary Brandner

 

(pb; 1984)

 

From the back cover

“Quintana Roo means death.

“Ignoring this grim warning, Johnny Hooker plunges deep into the tropical jungle in search of a missing millionaires. And then the horror starts.

“For Quintana Roo means danger from venomous snakes, lethal jaguars, alligator-like caymans—and a thousand different lurking insects.

“Above all, Quintana Roo means the lost city of Iztal, and tales of human sacrifices. . . and walking dead.

“But, as Hooker discovers, the terrifying reality surpasses the worst legends.

“For Quintana Roo means far worse than death.”

 

Review

Tribe, a fun, hard-to-set-down jungle adventure novel, set in 1939. It's a relatively fast, sometimes spooky read, with its bar-loving hero (Johnny Hooker) and a few of his adventure-sharing friends facing off against Indios sublevados (rebellious, deep-in-the-jungle and possibly cannibal tribesmen), dysentery and muerateros (undead) and, of course, Nazis.

The prose is tight, its action, barely-there character development and twists are solid and fun, with its eve-of-WWII Men’s Adventure inspired storyline. Great subgenre book from a consistently entertaining writer, both worth reading, possibly owning if you need to own your thrills.

The Avengers by Julie Kaewert

 

(pb; 1998: movie tie-in novel, based on Don Macpherson and Sydney Newman’s screenplay)

 

From the back cover

“She’s Dr. Emma Peel, an auburn-haired beauty clad in black leather and boots. He’s John Steed, the immaculately dressed dandy with the trademark bowler and umbrella sword. Together they’re the hippest, sexiest, and oh-so-deadliest duo of secret agents the world of international espionage has ever produced. They are. . . the Avengers.

“It’s called the Prospero Project: an ultra-top secret program conducting weather-control experiments with contributions from the eminent Dr. Emma Peel. Now someone has sabotaged the project, aiding a sinister group of conspirators who hope to control the weather as the ultimate weapon of world domination.

“The saboteur: one Dr. Emma Peel. Agent John Steed has been summoned to the Ministry by Mother to infiltrate the ominous Wonderland Corporation. To do so, Mother has assigned to Steed the most dangerous of partners: the irresistible Emma Peel. Is she suffering from a split personality? Or, even worse, does Emma Peel have an identical double, an exact replica who will use her lethal beauty for pure evil? Steed and Peel have only forty-eight hours before the detonation of massive weather bombs in every major city will signal the beginning of the end of the free world. With time already running out, the Avengers must learn the shocking truth before they themselves are terminated by the diabolical leader of the Wonderland Corporation. . . or by Mother Herself!”

 

Review

Avengers (1998) is a whimsical, flirty spy-action movie tie-in read with a touch of the strange, keeping with the tone and structure of the original 1961-1969 television / ITV show. Lots of unspoken heat between Dr. Emma Peel and John Steed in this iteration, with Kaewert providing plenty of their interior emotions behind their cool, sometimes icy dialogue. Unfortunately, the editors of the theatrical version didn’t see fit to put Don Macpherson and Sydney Newman’s screenplay up on the screen; it might’ve made for a better film, helped update Avengers for then-modern audiences. Solidly written and fun, this movie tie-in might appeal to fans of the show and/or the 1998 movie, who want to see what the filmmakers originally intended for it (its original running time was 115 minutes; the theatrical, only available version was trimmed to 89 minutes).

 

#

 

The source film was released stateside on August 14, 1998. Jeremiah S. Chechik directed the film from a screenplay by Sydney Newman and Don MacPherson. The theatrical film was a studio/Warner Bros.-cut version of film at 89 minutes; its original running length was 115 minutes. According to the film’s Wikipedia page, “Warner Bros. has no plans to release a director's cut or special edition in any form, despite the fact that director Jeremiah Chechik has offered to recut the film for free.”

Ralph Fiennes played John Steed. Uma Thurman played Dr. Emma Peel. Sean Connery played Sir August de Wynter.

Patrick Macnee, who played John Steed in the original television / ITV 1961-1969 series, played “Invisible Jones.” Jim Broadbent played Mother. Fiona Shaw played Mother. Eddie Izzard played Bailey, one of de Wynter’s thugs. Black Grape/Happy Mondays vocalist Shaun Ryder played Donavan.