Ah, the post-war years. America’s golden age when things were so much better than they are today. When no injustice ever occurred, and no one was unfaAh, the post-war years. America’s golden age when things were so much better than they are today. When no injustice ever occurred, and no one was unfairly treated. Every pay check was a fortune, every meal a banquet, and the worst crime was the odd rapscallion stealing a pie off a window sill. Or maybe sometimes the bisected body of a woman who had been brutally tortured would be left in an empty lot which would put a wildly corrupt police force in a frenzied media spotlight as the cops fruitlessly tried to solve the murder.
It really was a simpler time…
This was the book where James Ellroy stepped his game up from promising mystery writer to a creator of epic historical fiction by mixing a famous unsolved murder with seedy LA history via flawed fictional characters. Our narrator is Dwight ‘Bucky’ Bleichart, a former boxer turned LAPD officer just after World War II. Bucky agrees to fight another cop named Lee Blanchard as part of a departmental publicity stunt. The boxing match makes them partners, but it’s Lee’s girlfriend Kay who unites all three of them into a family. It’s a dead woman that eventually starts to tear them all to pieces.
In reality Elizabeth Short was just another young woman who came to LA with stars in her eyes, but her unsolved murder became one of those crimes that stuck in the public consciousness. Ellroy has talked and written a great deal about how he poured a lot of his unresolved feelings about his mother’s unsolved murder into the Dahlia case, and if there’s one thing you’re sure of by the time you’re done reading it’s that he knows what it’s like to be obsessed and haunted by dead women.
Ellroy is also fascinated by the shady history of LA and its police department, and he uses that knowledge to craft a fantastically violent and corrupt world where the cops are often worse than the criminals they’re arresting. Almost everyone involved the investigation has their own agendas, and the methods used to get what they want are brutal. Nobody gets out clean when it comes to the Dahlia, least of all those who give the most while trying to learn who killed her.
This is a great crime story with a hard boiled edge that was one of the books that made me a huge fan of James Ellroy....more
I initially felt a lot of sympathy for Iron Man while reading this one. After all, Tony Stark isn’t a villain, and he genuinely thinks that he’s doingI initially felt a lot of sympathy for Iron Man while reading this one. After all, Tony Stark isn’t a villain, and he genuinely thinks that he’s doing the right thing while feeling guilty that he’s causing a lot of trouble for friends of his. Essentially he’s isolated and despised for doing what he sees is the only thing that will prevent the superhero community from being utterly destroyed so you can’t help but feel bad for him.
But then Iron Man gets into it with Spider-Man, a guy he manipulated into revealing his identity as a public relations move which promptly made Peter Parker's life hell, and yet Tony has the nerve to berate Spider-Man as a traitor. Oh, and we also find out that the special suit that Tony designed for Peter secretly recorded a bunch of data about his spider senses that enables Iron Man to kick Spidey’s ass. Yet he still acts like he’s the injured party.
Boooooooo! Go to hell, Tony! Ya big sneaky jerkface!
This was probably the strongest of the Civil War stories I’ve read because it did focus in on one of the most interesting factors of the whole thing in the way that Tony is both kinda right and yet completely wrong at the same time. His conversations with Captain America really bring that out that Tony is convinced he’s doing what’s best, and yet he’s completely sick about what’s happening because of it.
The subplot of Happy Hogan getting critically injured is strong but seems out of place in this, and most of the major events still takes place in the main Civil War books so there’s not that much action. This was still a solid read because of the way it shows Tony questioning what he’s done even as he refuses to stop....more
You know who doesn’t need your Civil War? Besides Axl Rose, I mean. Peter Parker could also do without it because it ain’t been nothing but trouble foYou know who doesn’t need your Civil War? Besides Axl Rose, I mean. Peter Parker could also do without it because it ain’t been nothing but trouble for the poor guy.
Most of the major events for Spidey in this event happened in the main CW books or Amazing Spider-Man so what this collection focuses on is how the public revelation of his secret identity has impacted the people in Peter Parker’s life. There’s some decent stories with Aunt May, Mary-Jane, Felicia Hardy a/k/a The Black Cat, and even a random student from the high school science class Peter was teaching. There’s also a fair amount of time spent showing all his old enemies start coming out of the woodwork to attack him now that they know who Spider-Man really is, and that also puts May and MJ in constant danger.
It all ends up being mostly a tease because it just flirts with the kind of stories I was hoping we’d get as on-going things to be explored after Peter came out as Spider-Man. However, since all this was wiped out about ten minutes after it happened and didn’t really matter it’s kind of like reading one of those What If…? issues. Not bad but ultimately pointless.
It’d also be messy to read by itself since the stories happen as Civil War progresses with little to no explanation given as to what’s been happening with Spidey there....more
During the Civil War event Spider-Man was ruthlessly manipulated by someone into deciding to reveal his secret identity as Peter Parker with devastatiDuring the Civil War event Spider-Man was ruthlessly manipulated by someone into deciding to reveal his secret identity as Peter Parker with devastating consequences. Am I talking about Tony Stark or the writers and editors of Marvel? Because it’s questionable as to who screwed poor Spidey over more by the end of it all.
In a way the entire Civil War was a fight for the soul of Spider-Man with him caught between two men he greatly respects. Tony had been his friend and boss right before things went sideways, and he’d been warning Peter for some time about how increasing public sentiment against super powered people was turning into a real political problem. Captain America is the guy that almost every Marvel superhero admires and looks to for guidance when things get rough, and Spidey is no exception so it was inevitable that he’d start questioning what Tony was doing when Cap stood against him.
One of the things I did like about Civil War is the way it pointed out that a billionaire like Tony Stark didn’t get rich by just letting things happen, he makes things happen. Tony shows a kind of ruthless brilliance in politics and public relations as part of his support of the Superhero Registration Act. Nowhere was that more apparent than in the way that he used Spidey here to further his own cause. Even though Tony obviously likes Peter Parker a great deal he doesn’t hesitate to switch from the carrot to a pretty damn big stick to convince Peter that he needs to publically tell people he’s Spider-Man.
That stuff all plays out pretty well, and I have to admit that I was very excited back in the day about the idea that Peter Parker revealed he was Spider-Man. He’d been doing the whole secret identity thing for about 40 years at that point, and I thought it was a really bold and interesting way to do something new and different with Peter dealing with the world knowing who he really was. Plus, I didn’t think there was any way that Marvel would be able to walk that one back without a giant retcon to their entire universe. Which just goes to show you that you should never underestimate the lengths a major comic publisher will go to in order to get a character back to what they consider a baseline status.
So that’s my biggest disappointment with this whole event. Despite being an interesting conflict between Iron Man, Cap, and Spider-Man that opened up potential new story avenues to explore, all that was instantly jettisoned in order to not just revert things back to normal but to also wipe out about 20 years worth of Spidey continuity in the process. Like most crossovers it didn’t offer real change but only the illusion of change, and that’s the real pity about the Spider-Man story angle in Civil War....more
A lot of the blame for Civil War can be placed on Tony Stark, but in the Marvel history books there should also be a fair portion assigned to Reed RicA lot of the blame for Civil War can be placed on Tony Stark, but in the Marvel history books there should also be a fair portion assigned to Reed Richards, too. Which shouldn’t be a surprise because that guy has always been kind of a jerk.
The idea here is to show how Marvel’s First Family is torn apart by the conflict. Reed is a staunch supporter of registration and is using his big brain to help the government including building a prison in the Negative Zone to house super powered people who refuse to follow the Superhero Registration Act, and they won’t be getting a trial. Sue questions the new law as well as what Reed and Tony are doing, and she leaves to join Team Cap. Johnny was badly beaten by a crowd of civilians looking for a superhero to blame after the Stamford explosion, but he’s still on his sister’s side. Poor Ben Grimm is the one torn up the most about what’s happening to his friends and his country because he thinks the law is terrible, but he also doesn’t believe in fighting against his own government so he decides to just go hang out in Paris for a while.
These FF comics should have been a series of devastating stories if Marvel wanted to really sell readers on the idea of how the Civil War was splitting the ranks of its superheroes, but it never gets to that level where you fear that that irrevocable damage is being done. Sue leaves Reed for a while, but that’s happened before so while it’s sad there’s not that much bite. Johnny is strangely MIA for a lot of the story. I felt for Ben the most as he struggles with his conscience, and the best bit in the whole thing when he stops a battle between the two sides by pointing out the damage they’re doing all around them. This also includes some things celebrating the FF's 45th anniversary including a mildly funny meta story featuring Stan Lee. It's not bad, but it seems weird to have something celebrating the team in a story that should be about it disintegrating.
I did like the piece with Reed calling in his former foe The Thinker to essentially check his math on his projections about what would happen if they don’t accept registration, and he offers an explanation there about how both he and Tony are absolutely certain that following the SRA is the only chance to avoid bloodier conflict and possibly the entire destruction of the superhero community. It’s those moments that remind you that Tony and Reed are heroes and not just jackasses tearing Marvel apart for funsies....more
I’m usually not a big fan of solo Wolverine stories because his popularity has made him chronically overexposed, and I think that anti-hero types geneI’m usually not a big fan of solo Wolverine stories because his popularity has made him chronically overexposed, and I think that anti-hero types generally work better when they’ve got some other similar but different types to rub up against. Logan by himself is just a surly, homicidal Canadian with a bad haircut, but Wolverine with the X-Men is a guy fighting for a cause with his difference in tactics making for interesting internal conflicts.
However, this kinda works because Wolverine is a mutant, a member of the X-Men, and also an Avenger. (And just making jokes about his busy schedule doesn’t really explain that away, Marvel.) That gives him a unique perspective to this whole storyline with the government passing a law that makes any superhuman who doesn’t register and work for them a criminal. You’d think this would freak out the mutants since it’s precisely that kind of thing they’ve always feared, but since the House of M event has decimated their ranks the X-Men are just hoping to lay low on this one.
But Wolverine is determined to find Nitro, the supervillain who made everything go KERBOOM and led to the whole mess, and he isn’t letting anyone tell him he can’t do that. This puts him on a trail that leads to some interesting conflicts and alliances as well as the discovery that Nitro isn’t the only one who has things to answer for.
From a writing standpoint I was pleasantly surprised by this one because at first it seemed like reheated Frank Miller-style dialogue, but there’s actually some interesting stuff done with Wolverine’s personal code that incorporates both a sense of honor and a willingness to kill that is called into question when he's clashing with his fellow X-Men and the authorities.
The bad thing with this is the artwork which I absolutely hated. Wolverine and others look like monsters on steroids, and the artist has a thing for drawing huge open mouths that show more teeth than John Elway. Ick. I nearly dropped it to 2 stars just for that alone, but I ended up liking the story enough to keep it at 3....more
Apparently the roads to both Hell and Marvel’s Civil War are paved with good intentions…
This collection pulls issues from several comics to tell essenApparently the roads to both Hell and Marvel’s Civil War are paved with good intentions…
This collection pulls issues from several comics to tell essentially three stories that lay the groundwork for the upcoming conflict. The first shows a previously unknown piece of Marvel history in which the Kree/Skrull War that nearly destroyed Earth so rattled Tony Stark that he gathered a small group of influential figures to convince them that the superheros and mutants need to organize and join forces to prevent those kinds of events. When that idea doesn’t fly they instead form a cabal to share information and address problems like the Hulk’s rampages, and just to make this a dream come true for those who love conspiracy theories this group is known as the Illuminati.
The second story features the Fantastic Four battling Doctor Doom who thinks he can take Mjolnir after Thor has died. (Or at least died as much as anyone ever does in a comic book.) The final piece involves Stark recruiting Peter Parker to work as his aide when Tony has to testify in front of congress about the idea of superhero registration, and Tony provides him with a souped-up Spidey suit as part of the deal.
Because this is a prelude to Civil War there’s not a lot of resolution in this, but it does provide some solid build-up for what comes next. The stuff with the Illuminati does a lot to explain Tony’s fears and concerns that drive him to his conclusions, and the issues with Spider-Man, who’d prove a pivotal figure in the story later, really establishes the idea that Tony is willing to pull some seriously shady stuff when he’s convinced he’s right and the stakes are this high. The FF story is OK as a punch-em-up with Doom is at his bombastic best, but that piece seems a bit thin.
Overall, it makes for a decent prelude to Civil War, but it feels a bit padded....more
If you subscribe to Marvel Unlimited and look up the Civil War event on the app it tells you that there are 103 individual comics involved. 103!
This cIf you subscribe to Marvel Unlimited and look up the Civil War event on the app it tells you that there are 103 individual comics involved. 103!
This collection consists of the 7 core issues that tell the main part of the story. A group a C-list superheroes botch the capture of some bad guys and essentially nuke a school full of kids. That’s the last straw for the American public who has had enough of costumed crusaders running around with no accountability. A law is passed that states anyone with superhuman abilities is required to register with the government, and if they want to fight crime or help people they have to become trained agents on the SHIELD payroll.
Some prominent figures like Tony Stark and Reed Richards support the Superhero Registration Act and urge their comrades to sign up. Steve Rogers thinks that trusting the government with control of the powered community is a recipe for disaster and starts an underground movement to keep fighting the good fight without submitting to oversight. All the Marvel superheroes find themselves choosing to side with either Iron Man or Captain America, and while Spider-Man is at first willing to become the public face of compliance he soon finds himself questioning the side he’s chosen.
There’s definately a compelling story in the set-up for the this, and I like that both sides have very valid points of view. I especially found it interesting that intellectually I side more with Team Iron Man because you shouldn't have a bunch of walking weapons of mass destruction running around doing whatever they feel like, but I found myself rooting for Team Captain America more. A big part of this is because of how Tony Stark starts acting like the Pope of Chili Town. Tony is convinced he’s right and that the ends justify the means so while his intentions are good he uses increasingly questionable tactics.
However, since this is trying to boil down an insane amount of side stories into one coherent narrative thread it often feels rushed and as if things come out of left field. For example, the way that Captain America gets branded as uncooperative seems to happen extremely fast for a guy who is generally the most beloved and respected superhero of them all. Essentially it goes like this:
SHIELD Director Maria Hill: Captian America, are you going to support the Superhero Registration Act and lead our new government sanctioned Avengers?
Captain America: Well, I’m not sure. I have a lot of concerns so I’d like to take a moment to talk about what this course of action might…
SDMH: Agents, arrest this man.
CA: What the hell? I just said I need a minute here.
SDMH: Oh, you’re resisting? SHOOT HIM!
Perhaps the biggest problem I have with Civil War is that it doesn’t have the courage of its convictions. This was marketed as an event that would change everything in the Marvel universe. (Yeah, yeah. I know. We hear that one for every crossover.) But this actually did seem to profoundly alter the status quo. (view spoiler)[Like Iron Man as the director of SHIELD in charge of the superhuman community, Spider-Man revealing his true identity of Peter Parker, and Steve Rogers being killed although that doesn’t happen in this collection. (hide spoiler)]
To be fair, the fallout from portions of this story did linger for quite some time, but as usual the biggest things were eventually reverted back to baseline with the most egregious example being what was done to get Spider-Man back to ‘normal’.
There was a pretty intriguing idea at the heart of all this, and that does make it a bit better than most of the epic comic crossover events. However, it still couldn’t shake off the inherent problem of making the whole thing too huge to be readable for the average person except in this Cliff Notes version which feels like you’re only getting a small piece of a story that ultimately doesn’t matter that much anyway....more
This mini-series marking Deadpool’s first time as the main character in a title was written a few years after he was initially created in the early 19This mini-series marking Deadpool’s first time as the main character in a title was written a few years after he was initially created in the early 1990s. Unfortunately, that was a low water mark for the major comic companies from a creative standpoint, and this is no exception.
The story, such as it is, revolves around the mouthy merc and assorted other bad guys all trying to find an ultimate weapon left around after the death of Deadpool’s old boss. The plot is essentially just Deadpool being confronted with one adversary after another including one guy called Commcast which made me laugh and wonder if his evil plans include overcharging people for their cable plan and making them wait for hours on end for technicians to show up at their house. There are also a few revelations about Deadpool’s past tossed in as well as an old girlfriend which is what passed for character development back in the day.
Deadpool himself fares fairly well in this since his shtick is essentially to murder people while making a string of funny comments, and that's well suited this kind of story and the era overall. But his humor is limited to mostly dated pop culture jokes and doesn’t have any of the self-aware meta commentary that the character would develop later. ...more
You gotta admire Joe Lansdale’s gumption. If you write one short crazy-ass horror novel about an entire Texas drive-in filled with people being trappeYou gotta admire Joe Lansdale’s gumption. If you write one short crazy-ass horror novel about an entire Texas drive-in filled with people being trapped in the limbo of an endless night that devolves into a frenzy of violence and cannibalism that pales in comparison to the horrors unleashed in it by the supernatural Popcorn King, then most writers might put their pencils down and not try to follow it up. So how do you top that madness? Easy. Add in some dinosaurs!
Three survivors of the first story leave the ruins of the drive-in only to find that the highway now leads through a prehistoric wilderness complete with the occasional T. Rex sighting. After some traveling and recuperating they eventually run across a woman named Grace who also lived through the terror of the never ending movie marathon but met something even worse afterwards in the guise of a deranged guy whose head has been turned into a television and calls himself Popalong Cassiday.*
* It'd been a long while since I read this, and I'd completely forgotten about Popalong Cassiday. Now I'm wondering if Brian K. Vaughan might have drawn inspiration from this for his robots with televisions for heads in Saga.
Grace is determined to return to the drive-in and stop him, and the guys agree because one of them has the hots for her and real friends don’t let a buddy go alone to confront a psychopathic guy with a TV for a head while trapped in an episode of Land of the Lost. I’m pretty sure that’s in the Guy Code somewhere, or if it’s not, it should be. Anyhow, hilarity ensues.
Like the first Drive-In this bizarre set-up sounds like it might be something meant to be comedy-horror, and there are some good laughs since Lansdale can create dialogue and descriptions to make the most awful of people, events, and circumstances funny. However, despite the goofy premises both books have a seriously dark streak of nihilism and misanthropy. The ending is a bit anti-climatic by design with Lansdale deliberately trying to stand a lot of the tropes of TV and movies on their heads. There’s a real anger and ugliness lurking just below the surface of these books, and that makes them interesting.
However, I liked this one slightly less than the first one because there the story begins with the normality of a bunch of people going to the movies and then descends into chaos. Here, the story starts off as crazy town banana pants, and then tries to take that up a notch. Once you’ve shown that people are shit who will cheerfully shed the thin veneer of civilization in the midst of a bizarro meat grinder then it’s really hard to make that any worse although Lansdale gives it a mighty effort.
It’s still a short and disturbing horror novel that will make you laugh at inappropriate times, and I’m curious to get to the third book to see how it gets wrapped up....more
With a new Hap & Leonard book out and the TV series based on their adventures coming soon it seems like Lansdale Fever is sweeping Goodreads these dayWith a new Hap & Leonard book out and the TV series based on their adventures coming soon it seems like Lansdale Fever is sweeping Goodreads these days. I blame Dan for infecting me with this particular strain of the virus.
I’d read the first two parts of The Drive-In saga way back in the ‘90s when I first discovered the Champion Mojo Storyteller, but I’d forgotten most of the story and never even gotten around to checking out the third installment. Then Dan spread his contagion all over the place, and I found myself rediscovering the gruesomeness of the Popcorn King all over again. Thanks a lot, Dan!
During the late ‘80s in Texas four young men head out to the local drive-in where they plan to spend the night watching a horror movie marathon. In the middle of their films a comet with a smile roars by, and the entire drive-in is suddenly surrounded by an inky darkness that dissolves anyone who tries to leave. With no other options the trapped patrons watch the movies over and over in an endless night as the food starts to run out. That’s when things get even weirder and more horrible.
This is a very short book, and that’s a good thing because I don’t think spinning the concept out much longer than 150 pages would actually work. (Although I’m sure Stephen King would have taken a 700 or 800 page swing at it if he would have thought of this idea first.) What really sells it is that Lansdale quickly provides the details that ground things in reality among the most mundane circumstances of people going to the movies before unleashing the batshit craziness. Then he uses the most terrible of creatures, human beings, to set the stage for the real horror show which becomes a gory supernatural B-movie spectacle.
Lansdale mainly uses two characters to represent different points of view. Our narrator Jack holds the desperately hopeful belief that there is some inherent goodness and meaning in humanity’s existence, but the counterpoint is his buddy Bob who operates under the basic assumptions that people are just bastard covered bastards with bastard filling and that believing in anything other than yourself is a waste of time. This is pretty much the same dynamic that defines the soft-hearted Hap and the pragmatic Leonard so you can almost see Jack and Bob as an early trial run at those two characters.
The part that really got to me this time was that period before things really go sideways when everyone is just stuck watching the movies over and over again while living off concession stand hotdogs and popcorn. While drive-ins were pretty much dead in my area by the time I was a teenager I’ve attended some movie marathons, and I think Lansdale really nailed that weird dreamy limbo state that sets in if you spend hour after hour staring at a screen in a theater as you shove popcorn or candy into your mouth.
Like most things Lansdale it’s got some funny stuff mixed in with some sharp edges that unsuspecting readers might cut themselves on. Overall, it’s weird and gory in ways that are different than most horror stories you’d read, but it’s also got an ugliness to it that definitely cuts into the fun factor you might expect from something this bizarre. ...more
*Update 10/14/16 - Three years ago John Sandford published this book which features a wealthy political candidate for a major office campaigning while*Update 10/14/16 - Three years ago John Sandford published this book which features a wealthy political candidate for a major office campaigning while suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder. Here's the Mayo Clinic's definition of that condition:
"Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism.
I think it's obvious that John Sandford has either invented time travel or has the gift of prophecy.*
-Original Review: Lucas Davenport has faced all kinds of dangerous homicidal maniacs in his long career, but he may have finally met his match when going up against a beautiful billionaire with political ambitions and a couple of killers on her payroll.
Incumbent Republican Senator Porter Smalls hasn’t let his conservative politics keep him from having a couple of sex scandals, and he just got caught with child pornography on his laptop. It seems like his challenger, the uber-wealthy heiress Democrat Taryn Grant, will easily win the election.
However, Minnesota’s governor fears that Smalls has been framed, and not only could that kick off an unacceptable escalation of dirty politics, it could also turn into a major scandal that would rock the Democratic party. So the governor quietly calls in Davenport and asks him to quickly determine if the kiddie porn was planted on Smalls’ computer. Lucas has a long history of dealing with the political and media angles on behalf of his bosses, but this one could be a whole new level of trouble with both campaigns just waiting to cry shenanigans at any hint of wrongdoing. When a missing Democratic operative and a police connection to the porn become part of his investigation Davenport finds himself in a political minefield.
As usual in a Prey novel, the readers know who the bad guys are from the beginning, and in this one Taryn Grant and her bodyguards have the potential to be among the worst that Davenport goes up against. Taryn is smart, rich, ambitious and completely nuts with a narcissistic personality disorder. One of her ex-special forces henchmen will do anything for money, and the other will do anything for her.
Fortunately, Davenport has a lot of friends to call on like his artist buddy Kidd who is also a computer expert and has a more interesting history than Lucas realizes. Virgil Flowers also lends a hand as Lucas scrambles to learn the truth before election day.
I found this to be one of the more interesting installments in the long-running Prey series. The political challenges of a case like this added an extra dimension as did a villain who wields a helluva lot of power and influence. Getting other Sandford main characters like Kidd and that fuckin’ Flowers was a very nice bonus that made Lucas’s world seem a lot larger.
My only complaint is that (view spoiler)[ leaving Taryn out there as a loose end made this a bit incomplete. It certainly seems to be angling towards another confrontation and seeing Lucas going up against a US senator has some interesting potential, but it made the ending a little unsatisfying. (hide spoiler)]
Once again Sandford proves himself to be one of the kings of the thriller genre.
Next: Lucas goes way down in the hole and finds a whole bunch of bodies in Field of Prey.
After all these John Sandford books I’m starting to wonder how there could possibly be anyone left alive in Minnesota.
Three young people try to pull aAfter all these John Sandford books I’m starting to wonder how there could possibly be anyone left alive in Minnesota.
Three young people try to pull a burglary that turns into murder and starts them on a killing spree through a rural area. State cop Virgil Flowers is in hot pursuit, but it’s impossible to predict where they’ll go next and many an innocent person winds up dead as the kids rampage across the countryside.
Sandford continues to add new layers to Virgil and differentiate him from the Lucas Davenport character so that this series is seeming less like a spin-off side project and more than capable of standing on its own. The ending really illustrates how far apart the two cops are. (view spoiler)[ Davenport’s reaction to Virgil’s outrage at the sheriff’s ambush of Jimmy and Becky is especially interesting when you consider some of the things Lucas has done in his career. (hide spoiler)]
Virgil’s roaming around the area he grew up and interacting with people from his past reminded me a bit of the dynamic of Justified. Flowers isn’t a shooter like Raylan Givens, but he’s equally good at laying on the good ole boy charm and knowing precisely how to work a redneck to get the info he needs.
It’s another fast and furious thriller from Sandford that ends up going in some surprising directions....more
John Sandford’s Prey series has had no shortage of brutal crimes in its long history, but this one hits an new level of That-Is-Messed-Up! by startingJohn Sandford’s Prey series has had no shortage of brutal crimes in its long history, but this one hits an new level of That-Is-Messed-Up! by starting off with an entire family including young children being extensively tortured and then killed. Hell, even their dogs get whacked! You know it’s going to be a rough ride when not even the pets are safe.
Lucas Davenport may be a tough ass cop, but apparently even he isn’t immune to street crime when he is mugged while out jogging. (The muggers aren’t aware of how lucky they are that Lucas doesn’t carry his gun while running because he’s killed more criminals than the electric chair at Sing-Sing.) Left with a broken wrist and wounded pride, Lucas makes tracking his assailants down his new hobby until the aforementioned massacre of an upscale family occurs and puts him on the trail of the killers and a group of clever thieves running a complicated scheme.
The last couple in this series and the Virgil Flowers spin-offs had been some of the best stuff I’ve read by Sandford yet, and this one was on pace to join it’s ranks. There’s an interesting and complex crime behind the killings to unravel and as well as a suspenseful manhunt angle with plenty of twists and turns. Davenport is at his best while juggling all the elements of the case as well as pulling one of his most devious moves yet late in the novel. As a bonus, we also get a fair amount of interactions between Davenport and Flowers when Lucas asks him to track down the muggers who broke his arm.
Unfortunately, Sandford fumbles the ball a bit at the end of this one. (view spoiler)[ This is the third time in four books that there’s been a serious threat to Davenport’s family. It probably would have been most effective in this book with the brutal murders at the beginning and then this attack on the Davenport homestead at the end, but overall he’s just gone to that well too often.
There are also some moments that seem out of sync here. Earlier in the book, Lucas and his adopted daughter Lettie go to the gun range, and we get a recap of Lettie’s background as a tough kid who has had to defend her life before. Yet later during the attack when Lettie is getting the gun safe open, Sandford yet again tells us that Lettie grew up as a tough farm kid who has had to fight before. Did he forget that he covered that already and it didn’t get caught in editing? I don’t know, but it’s kind of jarring to get the info repeated during what should be the tensest moment of the book. (hide spoiler)] Still, this yet another highly entertaining crime thriller from one of the masters of the genre.
Can we please find out what John Sandford is eating and put every other thriller writer on the same diet? It’s insane that over 30 books into his careCan we please find out what John Sandford is eating and put every other thriller writer on the same diet? It’s insane that over 30 books into his career the last two he’s done, Bad Blood and Buried Prey, were among his very best. Now he delivers another top-notch crime story in Shock Wave.
The small city of Butternut Falls, Minnesota, is an uproar over a new big box discount store called PyeMart being built. Someone decides to do more than write angry posts on the Internet and powerful bombs go off at PyeMart’s corporate headquarters and at the construction site in Butternut.
Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension sends Agent Virgil Flowers to investigate. Virgil finds that there are plenty of suspects from the business owners who know they won’t be able to compete with PyeMart to angry environmentalists claiming that the store will pollute a nearby pristine creek and lake. There are also wide spread rumors that the city council got paid off to allow the store’s construction. As he hunts down the mad bomber Virgil will get tangled up in small town corruption and try a controversial experiment in identifying suspects.
While not quite up to the level of last year’s Bad Blood this is still another terrific page turner from Sandford and continues the growth of Virgil from spin-off character from the Davenport Prey series into a fun and off-beat protagonist.
And I owe a big ‘Thank you!’ to Dan for this one. I attended the Bouchrcon convention and Dan joined me for a day where we saw the likes of Eion Colfer and Robert Crais, and also learned that eating a big lunch and drinking beer at an Irish pub will impede your ability to stay awake at the afternoon panels.
Dan got an ARC of this in the freebie bag full of books you got for registering. My jealously was instant and enormous. I am not proud of the way I threw myself on the ground and began kicking and screaming that it wasn’t fair. Dan quieted my tantrum by offering me a bottle of beer and generously giving me this book. So thanks, Dan!...more
In the best of the John Sandford’s Prey novels, there are usually two or three scenes where he brings the reader to a kind of momentum nirvana. This iIn the best of the John Sandford’s Prey novels, there are usually two or three scenes where he brings the reader to a kind of momentum nirvana. This is a point where you’re turning the pages as fast as your eyes can scan the words. These aren’t necessarily action scenes, although Sandford can do action as well as anybody. More often these are times in the story where some break in the case has happened or some other critical event has left the police scrambling. People are being rousted out of bed. Phones are being shouted into. Police cars are rushing around with sirens blaring. The hunt is goddamn ON! And more than once I have found myself rising out of my chair or sitting up in bed with the urge to shout, “Go! Go! Go!”
With over 30 books to his credit, including this 21st Prey novel, you’d think Sandford would have started to run out of gas at some point. He’s managed this with only a few duds along the way and maintained a level of sheer entertainment that's pretty amazing. Even more surprising is that that I think the last two books he wrote, this one and last year’s Bad Blood, are among his very best.
When Lucas Davenport was introduced way back in 1989 in Rules of Prey he was a hot shot Minneapolis police lieutenant who got called into the high profile shit storm cases that sold newspapers and cost politicians elections. Lucas is smart and tough as well as a master manipulator with a natural feel for media and politics that helps him make his bosses look good, but what he really lives for are the cases that allowed him to hunt the worst kinds of killers. Over the years he’s advanced in law enforcement and settled down a great deal while still loving to jump into the interesting investigations. Here, Sandford gives us a look at Lucas before we met him in that first book.
In present day Minneapolis, the bodies of two girls are found buried in a basement during a housing demolition. The case goes back to the ‘80s when Davenport was still a patrolman. Young Davenport liked being a cop but was starting to find patrol boring and thinking about a career change. When the two young girls went missing he was temporarily assigned to the detectives and sent to go around knocking on doors. Thanks to a little luck and his own ambition Davenport ended up being a key figure in the case, and his career took off. Lucas wasn’t satisfied with the resolution at the time, and with the discovery of the bodies he fears that he’s responsible for letting a child killer roam free for over twenty years.
The first half of this book is a flashback to the younger Davenport, and as a long time fan of the character it’s a helluva a lot of fun. Sandford shows us a younger, hungrier Lucas who still has the qualities we’ve always known in the older character, but he makes him a bit rougher along with being more ruthless and reckless. Younger Davenport is still figuring out the detective game, but this first case is his introduction to the thrill of the hunt. It’d turn him into a stone cold junkie for the chase, and Davenport’s addiction to catching bad guys is still present as a middle aged husband and father. This also functions as a soft reboot of the Davenport timeline that allows Sandford reduce the character's age a bit.
Sandford is still my favorite of the thriller writers you’ll see on the best seller lists, and he doesn’t show any signs of slowing down yet.
* Update 10/5/16 - I didn't catch this the first time I read this, but I've been going through a few of the Sandford books again lately, and there's an absolute whopper of a continuity error here. (view spoiler)[A previous Prey book had established that Marcy was married and had a kid. Here, she's still single and thinking about children. (hide spoiler)]
Next: Lucas gets mugged and investigates the massacre of a family in Stolen Prey. ...more
Storm Prey is the twentieth entry in the Prey series. Add in the four books about Kidd, three with Virgil Flowers, two stand-alone novels, and that’s Storm Prey is the twentieth entry in the Prey series. Add in the four books about Kidd, three with Virgil Flowers, two stand-alone novels, and that’s a total of twenty-nine John Sandford novels. I’ve read them all, and I’ll probably keep reading if he writes another twenty-nine. So yeah, I guess you could say I'm a fan.
When a group of bikers rob a Minneapolis hospital pharmacy for a fortune in drugs it seems like the perfect plan. Except that they manage to kill a hospital employee in the process, and one of them gets spotted without his mask by a surgeon, Weather Karkinnen. Weather just happens to be the wife of Lucas Davenport, the Minnesota state cop and hero of this series.
With a felony murder charge hanging over all of them the thieves turn on each other, and a young psycho biker gets brought in to act as an ad hoc hit man. Despite concern for Weather’s safety Davenport and his people quickly identify the gang and seem on the verge of wrapping up the whole thing when an unexpected act by of one of the thieves surprises the cops and kicks off a string of ever more violent murders. It’s every man for himself, and Lucas and his friends (Including Virgil Flowers popping in from his own series.) will have to try and figure out who is killing who while watching Weather’s back. And they’ll also have to keep an eye out for the inside man at the hospital.
At this point reading a new Davenport book is like getting a visit from an old friend. Sandford is still a master at plotting the cat-and-mouse game between the cops and the criminals, and he still keeps me turning pages way past my bedtime to see what happens next.
My only complaint is that this is the second book in a row to feature a threat to Davenport’s family. He’s used that plot device before in other books so it’s more than a little repetitive that he goes to it again so soon, and it won't be the last time he'll play that card. I do give credit to Sandford for coming up with a logical reason why the very wealthy Davenport simply doesn’t fly Weather out of the country while they deal with the threat. She’s a key member of a surgical team doing a series of tricky operations to separate two conjoined babies so she can’t leave town. That subplot also adds some more drama to the story and helps keep Weather as a vital character and not just a damsel in distress.
Summing up: Smart, tough and funny cops. An innocent surgeon in danger. A motorcycle gang. A cold blooded killer. A drug addicted doctor. Conjoined babies. Operating room drama. Robbery. Drugs. Shoot-outs. ‘Roid rage. And hand grenades. All set during a brutal Minnesota winter.
What more could anyone ask for in a crime thriller?
Next: Lucas flashbacks to the case that made him a detective in Buried Prey. ...more
Ed Brubaker was in the middle of his excellent run on Captain America when Civil War occurred, and you’d think he’d have had some input on it since CaEd Brubaker was in the middle of his excellent run on Captain America when Civil War occurred, and you’d think he’d have had some input on it since Cap was such a key figure. However, you get the distinct impression when reading this now that Brubaker saw it merely as an annoying interruption to his story flow and just wasn’t that interested in participating.
Instead, we get some solid side tales with Sharon Carter a/k/a Agent 13 and Bucky Barnes a/k/a Winter Soldier dealing with the implications of Civil War. There’s really not all that much with Cap and his main contribution involves him taking down a Hydra base rather than fighting with Tony Stark. Brubaker seemed perfectly content to ignore the crossover and focus on laying the groundwork for the next big event on Cap’s horizon which was (view spoiler)[dying. (hide spoiler)]
A reader looking for more insight into Cap’s mindset like we got with other characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man in their tie-in books might be disappointed. If you’re like me and enjoy Brubaker’s work on Captain America a lot more than Civil War then it’s kinda satisfying to see how he just kind of breezed by it here....more
Lucas Davenport, the Minnesota state cop featured in 19 John Sandford novels, has his hands full this time. The Republican National Covention in is inLucas Davenport, the Minnesota state cop featured in 19 John Sandford novels, has his hands full this time. The Republican National Covention in is in Minneapolis to nominate John McCain for the presidency so the police are stretched thin. Lucas is dealing with reports of a right wing radical test-firing a sniper rifle in the area, a professional robbery crew with a history of killing cops has come to town to steal the illicit slush funds that come with political events, an old enemy has targeted Davenport's family for revenge, and his adopted daughter has decided to deal with that threat herself.
This is another great Sandford thriller, and there isn't much to add past that description without spoiling anything. If you've read him, you know what you're getting, and if you haven't, you should give him a try if you like these types of books.
I'm sometimes puzzled at how much I like Sandford. On the surface, it seems like he's just another mystery hack with a couple of books hitting the NYT bestseller list on schedule every year. But his books, which are so plainly written as to almost be screenplays, have tightly constructed plots and a great page-turning vibe to them. When things get rolling you simply have to see what happens next.
One reason I'm such a fan is the Davenport character himself. Lucas started 20 years ago as what would now be almost a stereotypical modern fictional detective. He was smart, tough and rich due to his development of role playing games (later computer games) and cruised Minneapolis in his Porsche. This could have been like a bad character from an '80s TV show, but Sandford saved it by giving Davenport a dark, ruthless, manipulative side that has the character sometimes using people in dangerous ways to get his man. Plus, he's never been above pulling some kind of illegal act, including murder.
What also makes Davenport interesting is that Sandford has allowed him to age and grow. Lucas started as a playboy bachelor who sometimes flirted with a crushing clinical depression. Over the years, he has taken new law enforcement jobs, gotten married, had children, and gotten more involved in the political side of the job. So unlike other characters from long running series who remain static (Like Robert B. Parker's Spenser did in his later books.) Davenport continues to seem fresh. I'm always glad to pick up a new book, aside from the story, just to check in and see what's going on in Lucas's life.
Next: Lucas tries to protect his wife from a biker gang in Storm Prey....more
I kind of blame Stephen King for reality television.
That’s not fair because he certainly wasn't the first person to do stories about murderous games dI kind of blame Stephen King for reality television.
That’s not fair because he certainly wasn't the first person to do stories about murderous games done as entertainment, and it’s not like he produced Survivor or Big Brother. However, two of the books he did under the Richard Bachman pen name before being outed are about death contests done to distract the masses in dystopian societies. So whenever I see an ad for those kinds of shows I can’t help but think that the people who make that trash read those books but saw them as great TV concepts rather than horrifying visions of the future.
The scenario here is that 100 teenage boys volunteer to be part of an annual event called The Long Walk. The rules are simple. You start walking and keep up a speed of 4 miles per hour. If you fall below that pace you get a few warnings. If you don’t get back up to speed immediately, you get shot. Easier than checkers, right? Here’s the real rub: You absolutely cannot stop. All 100 boys walk until 99 of them are killed. Last one still teetering around on whatever is left of their feet then wins the ultimate prize.
On the surface you could say that this concept that could seem silly or absurd. Why would anyone volunteer for this? Answering that question turns out to be one of the best parts of the book as King moves the walkers through stages while things get progressively worse for them on the road. What King tapped into here is that realization that deep down we all think we’re special, that things will always work out for us, and this is especially true when we’re teens with no real ideas about consequences and our own mortality.
While the story focuses on one character it really becomes about all of the walkers, and we get to know them through their conversations and how they deal with the death that is literally nipping at their heels. Eventually the grim reality of their situation sets in, and we also view how the boys react to realizing the true horror they signed up for. We also learn a bit about the world they live in, and it’s an interesting minor aspect established in a few stray bits that this is essentially some kind of alternate history where World War II played out somewhat differently.
I’d read this several times back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but hadn’t picked it up in the 21st century so it felt like there’s a dated element to the way that Long Walk functions. The boys essentially just show up in whatever clothes they have and they start walking with little fanfare. It almost seems like a contest at a county fair instead of something that captures the nation’s attention. There’s some explanation given about how they don’t want crowds or TV cameras around as distractions at the start until the walkers get settled into the routine.
However, that doesn’t seem to fit with the idea that the event is being orchestrated as a distraction and weird kind of motivational tool. If the story were told now there would be a lot more about the media coverage, and the whole thing would probably have a corporate sponsor. Plus, the walkers would have matching shoes and uniforms designed to look cool and keep them walking longer. They’d also probably have a more sophisticated method than soldiers with rifles and stopwatches dispatching the lollygaggers, too. This doesn’t hurt the story at all, though. Instead it gives the whole thing a kind of dated charm like watching a movie from the ‘70s where everyone is smoking and people have to wait by the phone.
One more note about Stephen King: The man really needs to have a spoiler warning branded on his forehead. I had to stop following him on Twitter after he spoiled major events on both Game of Thrones and Stranger Things. My friend Trudi had part of The Killer Inside Me ruined for her by King's introduction in which he described several key twists. I was listening to an audible version of this that had an intro from him talking about why he did the whole Richard Bachman thing. In it, he casually gives away the end of The Running Man novel. Fortunately for me I'd already read that one, but Uncle Stevie clearly just doesn't get the concept and why it pisses people off.
Overall, The Long Walk held up to my memories of it as one of the better King books as well as having a chilling idea at the heart of it. Sure, some might say that the idea of contest that dehumanizes people for entertainment to make things easier for a fascist ruler is far-fetched. On the other hand, this TV show will be premiering a few days after a certain orange pile of human shaped garbage takes power.
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