38. The Mystery Of The Yellow Room

The Mystery of the Yellow Room: Extraordinary Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille, Reporter - Gaston Leroux   An old mystery novel first published in 1908. Think Agatha Christie who-dun-it detective novel and you will be dead on.   This one is about a crime committed that is impossible to solve, but it does get solved eventually. There is the massive explanation in a court of law to save the day and prevent the conviction of an innocent man...all in the nick of time. Whew!   It was a good story and a decent who-dun-it. I could not figure it out at all.   Once again though, a detraction for me was all the French words and name pronunciations. French really bothers me for some reason. It is probably due to bad memories from Miss Roberts class in Junior High School and not actually caused by anything with a rational explanation. :-)

16. Kiss Me, Judas

Kiss Me, Judas - Will Christopher Baer

"The judgement of Phineas Poe, ex-cop, is not at its best. Just released from a psychiatric hospital, he is lured into bed by a beautiful and menacing woman who calls herself Jude. He wakes up in a hotel-room bathtub packed with ice, holding a damp note that reads, "If you want to live, call 911." Jude has stolen one of his kidneys. "Don't worry," she whispers in his dreams, "you really only need one." This brilliantly minimalist novel follows Poe--a grungy, seductive, and deeply vulnerable antihero--as he pursues the mysterious Jude and is plunged into an edgy, drug-blurred underworld where he almost feels like he's come home. Falling helplessly in love with a cruel but tender killer, he fights to avoid becoming her accomplice as well as her victim. As Kiss Me, Judas propels its cast of comic and sinister characters toward a shocking climax. This rare new voice glitters with corrosive wit and razor-sharp images that invade the mind with the arrogance and sexual intimacy of film. Will Christopher Baer doesn't describe arousal and vertigo--he evokes them."

That is what made me want to read this book. It lived up to everything I thought it would be and more. It is dark and disturbing. It is unpredictable. I was constantly trying to figure out what was going to happen next and getting it wrong 90% of the time.

If you want to go for a wild ride in a book that kept me engrossed and turning pages, this is one to do just that.

The characters throughout this book were outstanding. I could really hate them, or feel for them, or be disgusted by them...and sometimes it was multiple feelings at one time. Rarely would I feel bad for a dude that is a big a douche as Phineas Poe, but I did.

Here is the books description from the author's website: "Have you ever loved someone who's mortally wounded you? Phineas Poe, disgraced cop and morphine addict has just been released from a psych ward. He meets a beautiful woman and killer-for-hire named Jude in a hotel bar. Red dress. black hair, body like a knife. He takes her back to his room and wakes the next morning in a bathtub full of blood, missing a kidney. Dragging himself from a hospital bed, Phineas discovers he wants to get close to Jude like a hunger--and he wants to kill her. Finding her is a downward spiral. Falling for her is the start of a twisted love story that takes him from the snowy streets of Denver to the high plains of Texas where the boundaries between victim and torturer — killer and accomplice — become nightmarishly distorted."

If you are looking for any happy-happy/joy-joy, look elsewhere. It will not be found in these pages, but it is a great read.

96. Don of the Dead

Don of the Dead - Casey Daniels

OK, so, like,  this young woman, Pepper Martin, works as a tour guide at a creepy old cemetery in Cleveland. One day she falls and smacks her head at the mauseleum of the Don of a Mafia family. He was killed about thirty years earlier. After the head trauma event she is now able to see and hear the ghost of this Don, Augustine "Gus" Scarpetti. He tells her he needs her to find out who killed him. She decides to investigate and gets herself into lots of trouble. He was the Don...and the family still exists...and they don't like people investigating...but she can't tell them that Gus wants her to do it because she will look insane...and she can't stop because Gus won't go away...and it is just ridiculous.

This is total chic literature. Who in their right mind would care that the mafia goon frisking them at the door is not wearing the proper color shoes with his suit? Who would look at the way a person decorates thier office and make judgements about their character? Who cares about what color highlights someone has or what perfume they are wearing? Totally chic!

I will not be reading any more of the Pepper Martin Mystery series. I don't care if she is going to solve more decades old crimes for folks who can't seem to move on from the world. Whatever!

I finished it just to say I did it.

80. The Snake

The Snake - Mickey Spillane

A quick romp through solving a crime with an over confident lawman.

Mike Hammer is his name. With a name like that would you expect anything but over-confidence? To tell you the truth, that is exactly what I expected when I picked this book up. I did not think it would be outstanding writing or an intricate plot. I expected a "wham bam thank you maam" kind of book. That is exactly what this is.

It was called pulp-fiction back when it was written. I hear Spillane and Hemingway had a few arguments about if these books were worth publishing. Spillane didn't claim to be a great author. In fact, he even said once "I am a commercial writer, not an author."

Some other Spillane quotes:
"Authors want their names down in history; I want to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney."

"Hemingway hated me. I sold 200 million books, and he didn't. Of course most of mine sold for 25 cents, but still... you look at all this stuff with a grain of salt."

"If the public likes you, you're good."

"Now I'm not an author, I'm a writer, that's all I am."

"Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book."

"My work may be garbage, but it's good garbage."

 and my favorite:  "I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends."

So, when I read this book from a perspective that Spillane is writing it to make a buck rather than write the best book...then this is outstanding. It makes me want to read "I, The Jury" and "Kiss Me, Deadly". I will find them both and follow Mike Hammer through those ridiculous, never gonna happen, no way in the world scenarios that he kept getting into and out of a million times.  :-)

I couldn't help but think if the old Dragnet TV show. This guy was like that, but cockier.

It was fun. I will give it a rating of good, but it is a different kind of good. It is good because the expectation was not to find another Vonnegut type of writing.

32. Sweeny Todd and the String of Pearls

Sweeny Todd and the String of Pearls - Yuri Rasovsky

This was an aduio book of a play performed by The Hollywood Theater of the Ear. It says it is "an audio melodrama in three despicable acts".

It is the story of the same barber that has been portrayed in many different versions of this story. This one is a little different than what I remember. Sweeny is a bit more insidious than I recalled. He robs and kills hundreds of customers in his barber shop and then carries them into underground tunnels which connect to his accomplices business. Mrs. lovett owns a bakery a few blocks away. The two businesses are connected through these caverns.

Mrs. lovett's bakery makes the best meat pies in the entire city. Customers are always raving about the flavor and coming back for more.

They have no idea that the secret to her recipe is that she grinds up the cadavers supplied by Sweeny Todd and uses them as stuffing for her pies.

This was an interesting story that I enjoyed listening to. Partly because the actors portraying the parts were excellent. The writer, Yuri Rasovsky, used the original "penny dreadful" version of this story when writing the play, which makes it closer to the original than many of the more famous of contemporary versions.

13. Shutter Island

Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane

Two US Marshals are assigned to investigate and assist after the breakout of a mental patient from a maximum security prison/mental hospital built at an old civil war fort on an island off the coast of Massachusetts. They arrive and things get creepy right from the start. The story takes place in the 1950s.

A hurricane comes and strands them on the island without communications outside the hospital/prison. The power is out, so all the prisoners escape their cells. I kept thinking about the dude that shakes his head really fast in the movie "Jacob's Ladder". That guy freaks me out.

These prisoners are the worst of the worst. Extremely violent psychotics sent there because other places can't handle them.

The story evolves into a huge government conspiracy and secret experiments done on the patients to make super soldiers.

The main character has come back from WWII with some serious problems of his own due to memories of the war and the death of his wife. He talks about these things with his partner and reveals a lot about himself. One thing being that the arsonist who started the fire that killed his wife is supposedly a patient on the island, but the hospital personnel deny his existance.

It gets really weird.

It is an exellent story and the end was totally unexpected. I did not see it coming. Not in a million years. Very very good.

I hope the movie that is coming out soon doesn't destroy this story. I recommend you read it before seeing that film.

60. Screwball

Screwball - David Ferrell

I read this book because it is baseball season. I am a life long Red Sox fan and this book is about the Red Sox. Well, it is a novel about fictitious events, players, and characters that are supposed to be the Boston Red Sox.

This is one of those crime books that is looking to target a specific audience. Red Sox nation in this case. The story itself SUCKED! Being that it was the Red Sox is the only reason I did not throw it away. :-)

It seems that every player is a dysfunctional misfit with attitude and a total disregard for rules or normal behavior. The acting owner and general manager are way to willing to pay of huge extortion demands and cover up murders in order to win a world series. The coach is a bumbling old fool who wins by luck more than anything else. The retired player that was the greatest ever from Boston is just an egotistical ass.

Then there is Ron Kane...the rookie phenom. He can pitch, hit and play the field. He throws 112 MPH fastballs and fills the designated hitter spot on days when he is not pitching. 15-20 strikeouts per game is the norm. He is supposedly going to be the greatest player to ever put on a uniform. He has some serious personality flaws and is generally just a dick. The biggest problem is that he is a serial killer that beheads a fan in each town the club visits.

Blah blah...the cops end up catching him. Oh, and the Red Sox win the World Series for the first time since 1918 (the book was written in 2003).

I wrote what I wrote because there is no way any of you people reading this are going to pick up this stupid book.

I am only saying this one is OK because the Red Sox won the championship. If it had turned out otherwise I would have said I wasted my time. :-)

39. Visits From The Drowned Girl

Visits From The Drowned Girl - Steven Sherrill

This book is about a guy who works at great heights, cell phone towers, water towers, etc, who witnesses a girl's suicide. The girl happened to video tape the whole thing. Her saw this from 200 feet above while changing a bulb on top of a tower. He goes down to the site and gathers her belongings, including the tape and a backpack full of other tapes she had made. He does not call the police. He does not inform the family. He ends up becoming involved in the lives of the girls family.

1. The father is a hard-core evangelical preacher.

2. The mother is a mousy woman who can barely finish a sentence.

3. The sister is a dwarf.

4. The guy himself, and all his friends, and everyone he knows, are Red-Neck country folks with very crass ways of living.

The book says it is "blunt", "gutsy", and full of "rough humor".

I think the book is more rude than blunt, more obnoxious than gutsy, and full of nasty people doing nasty things and thinking it is normal (rough humor?). I do not think a small person being knocked down and humped by goats while others watch is funny. I don't think taking that same small person and trapping her in a giant jack-o-lantern while she is screaming is funny. I don't think a retarded man at the car wash givng $5 blow-jobs is funny. I don't find the "art" of "beautiful women shitting" is funny. Rough humor just wasn't funny. It was crude and disgusting in many parts.

I liked reading it because the story was interesting. I wanted to find out what was on the video tapes from the suicidal girl. I wanted to know what would happen to the man who found them. When the story ended it ended abruptly. What happened? Not a damned thing really. 241 pages and there is no ending. There is no closure. There is no body. There is no epiphany that causes the man to do the right thing.

In fact, it is exactly the opposite. Maybe calling the dead girl's mother and saying "Your stupid daughter is dead. The dumb bitch drowned herself. She's dead. Gone. Ain't comin' back." is supposed to be some of that "rough humor"? Sorry, I missed the part where I was supposed to chuckle at that.

There were some funny things. There were some interesting characters. The setting was very interesting, since it takes place where I live. I was surprised by that. Crowder's Mountain is about five miles from my house. The surrounding area is where this story takes place. That made the book better for me I guess.

I think this book was OK. I was expecting a bit more humor though. I guess now I know what to expect when they say "rough humor".

(Reading over my post, I realize I enjoyed this book more than the post makes it seem. It was better than what I have written. I picked on the negative aspects a lot. It really was an OK book.)

26. Hot Laps

Hot Laps - Steve Eubanks

This book was given to me by my Dad. He was reading it once when I called on the phone. He read the synopsis on the back cover to me. I thought it would be fun to read.

"Once Robert "Redball' Redding was a legend on the stockcar circuit- until a brutal crime made him hang up his helmet and race suit. Now he draws big crowds and good press as one of North Carolina's hottest prosecuting attorneys. But just as he's poised to move up to a federal gig, someone throws a monkey wrench into the machinery...

A brain-dead hayseed named Troy Slackherd's been caught red-handed trying to hijack a eighteen-wheeler filled with die-cast toy race cars. The culprit's the step-brother of pro-racing's most popular speed demon, Junior Senior Jr.- which means Redball's returning, against his will, to the 180 mph world of gas fumes, adrenaline, and treacherous curves. When the truckful of toys leads to a locker of cash- and to perfidy, porn, loser Louisiana wiseguys...and murder- Redball realizes he's back in the race for good or ill. And he'll have to keep moving...or die."

That description sounds interesting, but that is not what really happens in the book. It is misleading. Redball never goes back to racing. He drives a car one time when he visits his old team during a test session. He jumps in the car for a few laps. That was the extent of the return to racing, 180 mph, drive or die...blah blah.

The book was a crime book more than a racing book, but it was centered around race teams in Charlotte. The places were actually in and around Charlotte. The roads were right. The stores were right. Tennis played at Piper Glen. The Wachovia golf tournament. It brought the book home...because I live here in Charlotte.

The names of the characters were interesting. Junior Senoir Sr, Junior Senior Jr, Jett Jordan, Piston Stackheus, Rusty Twain, Mudfish Dupree, and many more. My favorite was an English man named Twigfarter. LOL

The crime? It involved an organized crime family with a hot-tempered and very violent head of operations in Savannah. Things went wrong in Charlotte and he ends up killing a State Trooper, one of the best defense attorneys in the state of North Carolina, and attempts to kill Redball and his wife, who just happens to be a retired stockcar champion turned prosecutor and is under federal vetting for a national post.

It was an interesting book, but it took a step in the wrong direction for me and did it almost immediately. I happen to be a racing fan. I know the rules. I know how it works. In this book, on page two, the first racing scene is being broadcast on the radio. The announcer says it is lap 333 and the white flag is flying under caution. Once it goes green they run about five more laps before a winner is declared. That can't be correct under the old or the new rules. Old rules...white flag flies under caution...race ends when the cars get back to the finish line (1 lap). New rules...white flag never flies under caution unless the race has already run a green-white-checkered finish one time...the green would be shown, then the white. So, for a book written by a man who has been published in Racing Fan magazine I thought that was a pretty blatant error. You could at least get the rules of the game correct when writing a book based on the game.

Is a foul ball a home run just because it went over a wall?

Interesting and fun story, but not a great book.

7. Monstrum

Monstrum by Donald James

This one was a total shot in the dark. I grabbed it off the shelf at the used book store. I wanted to read a book from an author I had never heard of. Mixed in with all the Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, etc., was a single copy of this book. I think I picked it up because the name of the beast in the book "Night Church" was called Monstrum. I didn't know the story took place in Russia. That was a pleasant surprise.

Russia. 2015. A revolution between the Nationalist-Democrats and the Anarchist-Communists has ended with the former victorious. Inspector Constantin Vadim, a nationalist policeman, is the ex-husband of Julia Petrovna, an infamous anarchist general who leads an all female army. Vadim is assigned to lead a homicide unit in Moscow and must catch a serial killer who is murdering young women and stealing their organs. Vadim is also a double for the new vice president and fills in as the later at some events.

There are multiple plots in this story. The murders and the serial killer are completely separate from the story line concerning Julia and the heads of government. In typical thriller fashion it all gets tied together in the end.

The story was pretty good. It took me a while to get interested, but after reading the first two thirds of the book it got very exciting. I had to turn the page to see what happened. I could not put it down for the last 150 pages.

I found something interesting. There are characters in the book that are street children. They live in an old abandoned metro station with other displaced people. In the story the street kids have strange names. Sex-change, Doc Marten, Sparkplug, Lemon, Burger King. It explains that the children have been orphaned and lived there for so long that they did not know their own names. They gave themselves names. These are the names they chose for themselves.

I know these street kids really exist. They live in the sewers and metro stations in Kiev. We have seen them walking around. The book made me think. I wondered if any of the people I saw did not know their own names. How many have no idea who they are?

SAT Words:

Sozzled drunk; inebriated

Anathema a person or thing detested or loathed

Satyriasis Excessive, often uncontrollable sexual desire in and behavior by a man.
Sinecure an office or position requiring little or no work, esp. one yielding profitable returns.

Detritus any disintegrated material; debris.

Insouciant free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.

Bacchanalian used of riotously drunken merrymaking