Digging deep

 So, as I've been slowly sorting boxes of books from the basement that came out of Mom's house, I found a high school favorite, Thrill by Patricia Wallace. Now, let me point out the obvious, it is a Zebra Imprint from the early 90's, and therefore generally regarded as supermarket pulp. To which I say, who cares? it's readable and memorable, even with a few formatting errors and a resolution that makes no sense at all. 

Anyway, the whole set up in that Billionaire Sheldon Rice has built an exclusive amusement park north of San Francisco, excavating a mountain to do so. ($3000 a day, 7 day stay for everyone coming.) Wesley Davidson, who's barely 20, designed all the rides. Part of Wesley's contract stipulates that once a month, 5 disadvantaged youth get to come for a week free. Which gives us child prostitute Celeste, tough guy Max, oddball Ben, good girl Betsy (who's being groomed by her principal), and Jesus, who slipped over the border from Tijuana after his family died. 

We have local doctor Taylor, who's father owned part of the mountain The Park is built on. When he sold it, he got harassed to death. We have Sheriff Young, who really doesn't want to deal with the headaches The Park brings. And then there's the enigmatic Ezra, the mountain man who Rice thinks is sabotaging The Park. 

Anyway, other than a few minor accidents on opening day, things go ok until the Thursday, when all hell breaks loose. There's quite a bit of "Did Ezra sabotage things? Did the insects do this acting on behalf of a deeper power? Was it an EMF pulse?" to go along with the known things, like the security guard who covers up crushing a man to death when the man breaks into a ride, or the software engineer who maybe was screwing with Wesley's code. 

I mean, it's a fun, in nonsensical at times ride, that brought back a sense of vicarious excitement I felt reading it years ago. Much love to an old classic.

Papa Loves Mambo

 I had picked up Greg Herren's Mardi Gras Mambo at Half Price Books a while back, but kept pushing it down the TBR pile for shinier books. While I will never regret my decisions on reading order, it wound up being better than I had anticipated.

Evidently there are two books in the series that precede this, and one follow up, so I jumped in at the middle of the ongoing metaplot. Scotty Bradley is the gay grandson of two wealthy New Orleans families, with very two hippie parents. As this book opens, he's works as a private investigator with his two boyfriends, which is his first real stable paycheck. (Evidently, both sets of grandparents cut him off from the family trust funds, thus why his previous jobs have been stripper and personal trainer.) One boyfriend is former FBI, the other has a rather cloudy past. Scotty can read tarot cards, and occasionally receives visions from the Goddess. 

Anyway, the book starts a few days before Mardi Gras. Scotty has convinced his two straight laced boyfriends to try Ecstasy for the festivities, while they run around in costumes that reveal how built they all are. Which is all well and good, until Scotty's dealer, Misha, winds up dead not long after Scotty buys the drugs.  

Which, since Scotty was the last one to see him alive, makes Scotty the prime suspect. 

There's a hell of a lot involved here, from nearly identical triplets all using the same name, to long buried family secrets. And the final disposition really doesn't make sense, since I can't figure out how a murderer could shoot someone from behind while standing in front of them. On the other hand, the tone of the book does a neat job of staying between total camp, total smut, and deadly serious, which is difficult to achieve in gay mystery fiction. 

Going to have to find the other 3 books now.

Violating a rule here

 So, normally I don't blog or list of good reads when I read something that qualifies as Intermediate Readings, since those reviews are generally better left to teachers teaching kids in the age range. However, after running across The Hardy Boys Ghost Stories while going through boxes in the basement, I'm going to go ahead and blog and log it, since I've actually had a lot of fun rereading this slim volume. 

Amazon has a better pic, but this is my copy.

 So I've probably owned this since second grade, and it remains in decent condition. (I have a few other volumes out of this particular set of adventures; you can click the tags on this to see the overly long essay I wrote about their history.) However, what surprised me on rereading was how well the stories in here have held up.

 That has nothing to do with the accidental homoeroticism involving Joe Hardy at all.

We start with "The Walking Scarecrow", which gave me nightmares as a kid. Boys are on their way home from hiking, break down, decided to walk to the farmhouse they saw to use the phone, but feel like the scarecrow warned them away from the house. Seriously, while not a ghost per se, the Scarecrow seems to be doing its best to drag Joe and Frank out the farmhouse. Which, at the end, we find out is because lightning strikes the house as they return from a wild goose chase and the house burns down. 

Next is "Mystery of the Voodoo Gold", in which Frank and Joe get told by a Fortune Teller in Underground Atlanta not to do a few things, which they promptly do, which leads to nearly drowning in a root cellar where Simbo, a voodoo protection doll, watches over his master's treasure. 

Then comes what it likely my favorite of all of them, "The Disappearance of Flaming Rock". Joe and Frank are in Arizona, near a town that vanished off the face of the Earth. Literally. Seems a prospector his Flaming Rock, and found the town deserted, but things like dinner on the stove still cooking, and a swinging light in the church bell tower. When people went to look, they found the town gone, as if it never existed. Frank and Joe drive up, and guess what they find? Seems the town hanged the local Apaches, so the Great Spirit cursed Flaming Rock and all its inhabitants to wander the spirit world for all eternity homeless. 

Fourth story is "The Phantom Ship", wherein Frank and Joe's fishing boat dies and they get taken aboard an 18th Century Whaler. Inhabited by 18th Century Crewman. Who think the modern boys are insane, and somehow manage to get everyone really confused as to where the are. This is also an old favorite, since honestly, the ghost ship should have made them walk the plank for mutiny.

Then comes the illustration from the front cover, "The Haunted Castle", where Frank and Joe wind up in a Haunted Castle in Scotland. Their appearance winds up fulfilling a prophecy, which sets the ghost free of a witch's curse. 

We finish with "The Mystery of Room 12", in which Joe is haunted by the ghost of a sailor's son. Joe finally gets the boys flute back to him, and resolves the ghost's fetter. 

Now, while all of this is really really improbable, not the least of which is how two high school kids can be all over the globe for this stuff to happen (a problem with the entire series, that you don't particularly think about when you're in the age range), it's still fun reading, with more than a little learning hidden in the bare bones stories. (You get an age appropriate lesson in whaling, information on Widow's Walks, exactly how poorly settlers treated Native Americans, why you listen to the gypsy lady with the crystal ball.) Even nearing 50 though, this scratched a nostalgia itch I was unaware I had, and brought back some childhood wonder that the series of this era inspired in me. 

But Seriously, I blame Joe Hardy illustrations for much of my sexual awakenings.

Puttanesca

 I finally got around to reading Morgan Brice's Last Resort (which is what I meant to buy when I accidentally bought a book in another series I already own), and was not disappointed. 

We're joining Erik and Ben as they have officially moved in together in Cape May, New Jersey. While they're in love, there are adjustments to arranging a life together in one space. Add into this anonymous mailing of haunted poker chips to the store Trinkets, and the murder of a former mob accountant at Ben's rental property, and it's a bit more. 

Basically, the crux here is that the accountant hid a large stash of money somewhere in the area, and managed to get killed upon returning to Cape May to get some more. His ghost isn't happy. The Mob ain't happy because it was their money. The Accountant's nephew ain't happy because he needs to apy off a debt. 

Given this is Morgan Brice, you have a general idea of what's going to end up happening by the end, although this is the second book where I feel like the ending got a lot rushed. (I mean, the story is great and engaging, and I can see the ending, but it still feels a bit like "Oh shit, I'm over my word limit, so let's cut out some of the climax so I don't go over."

Still fun, and I love the connected world here. 

I've got that Evil Spirit DOWN IN MY HEART!

 When I was growing up, I missed reading the Fear Street Cheerleader cycle, which is sad, since the original cover art belonged in a Grady Hendrix review. 

I mean...

 

 The trilogy, now reprinted as one volume, unfortunately loses the cool cover art in favor of this.

 

 Not as cool.

 

Anyway, the story centers at first on Bobbi and Corky, two teenage girls transplanted from Missouri to Shadyside, where they audition for the Cheer Squad, against the wishes of a few of the girls. (This came out long before Bring it On, so I can't blame that for this.) They get on, which means the Freshman on the squad gets bumped to alternate. On the way to the first away game, Bobbi realizes she left the fire batons at her house, so the bus makes a run to Fear Street so they can grab them. Or attempts to, since the bush crashes into the Fear Street Cemetery, and Cheer Captain Jennifer gets thrown from the bus and lands on Sarah Fear's tombstone. Jennifer survives, but is paralyzed. Bobbi, the older sister, becomes cheer captain, sparking jealousy in Kimmy. Then Bobbi gets locked in a shower and drowned in scalding water. (This is one of the very few Fear Street novels with actual deaths of major characters. Generally, if someone dies, it's a villain or a random adult.) 

This of course, makes Corky go a little nuts, but she eventually finds out who did it, and gets the bonus of finding out the responsible party was possessed by and Evil Spirit. Said spirit supposedly gets trapped again in the grave of Sarah Fear. Except, no, in book two the spirit is back, possesing another cheerleader and tormenting Corky again. We eventually find out who's hosting, get rid of the spirit, and head into book 3, wherein someone else gets possessed, we go to cheer camp, we learn how Sarah Fear got rid of the spirit, and we get a few The Exorcist homages. 

So,m while I'm aware my love of the Fear Street series is mostly nostalgia, since most of the books don't quite hold up to my memories of reading them, these were not particularly good, even for nostalgia. The three installments, while continuing a story line, really have some fairly glaring continuity errors, or at least unanswered questions, like, if the possessed in book 2 doesn't remember anything that happened at the end of the book, why is she still besties with a girl she loathed in book one when she wasn't possessed in book 3? It all works best when we focus on the jealousy and envy in the squad, although when Hannah joins in book 3, Corky never acknowledges particularly that her feeling about the new recruit outshining her mirror how others felt in book one. That, and Corky and Bobbi's family are almost non entities, occoasionally popping up to give them something to worry about.

 

Honestly, I enjoyed it for what it was, but it really missed a lot of opportunities.