It's like a Benji movie....

When last we left Atticus, Oberon, and Granuaile, two certain huntresses from the Greco-Roman pantheon were going to chase them to Briton. Which is pretty much where Hunted by Kevin Hearne starts.

And let me tell you, given that the run starts in Romania, it's a long trip by ground to Windsor Castle. Much of which is punctuated with occasional run ins with Diana and Artemis, the coven of witches from 4 books back, Loki, Hel.... It's almost old home week in this one.

We also get a few cameos of new antagonists, like the Life Leech who is more or less a psychic vampire; the Manticore out of Sumerian systems; and what's looking to be a conspiracy to bring about Ragnarok by interests with ties to Tir na nog. Oh yes. Mr. Hearne is settling in for the long run with this one, since the sirens of ancient Greece long ago prophesied the end of the world within a few months of the end of this book. Which gives him plenty of wiggle room to squeeze a few books out concerning the conspiracy, figuring out where and what Theosphlis the vampire is doing, what's going to happen with Ragnarok now that Thor's dead...

But, back in the current book, The Morrigan fights Artemis and Diana early on to give our trio room to start running.  (I'm sure a few Celtic fans will be annoyed with the character. However, one of her big plot arcs concerns trying to break out of patterns and personalities instilled by years of belief.) So, they run, including occasional narration from Granuaile, particularly after a run in with a vampire in the Black Forest. By the time they reach Windsor Castle and hook up with Herne the Hunter, the books 3/4 done, leaving us a bit of time for a resolution of the hunt and, later, a confrontation with the Manticore.

Really, this entire book, even during the chase, seems to be more of a transition into a larger metaplot that will extend beyond the trilogy system Hearne had been writing in. Which generally would suggest he just got a longer contract. (The first 3 got released every six months, then a year wait, then another 6 months between releases. I'm guessing this pattern will either continue, or we'll get a book a year, probably hardcover, if it follows the patterns of Jim Butcher and Laurell K. Hamilton and Kim Harrison.)

Any rate, the series is quite good, even if his portraal of Loki doesn't seem to fit the mythos. (Even is Loki was released from having snake venom in his eyes, and has been hiding and healing, he's still a god of chaos and trickery. That he seems to only show up and destroy godhomes with fire or throw a fireball at druids really doesn't do the Eddas justice. On the other hand, Hearne's portrayal of Thor probably annoyed his fan club, although Thor's mythos in no way really reflects Marvel's portrayal.)

 As and added bonus, there's a novella concerning some of the 22 missing years between Tricked and Trapped. It's pretty good.

He's so prolific that his first book was in 1939 and his latest was last year....

A few dollars on Ebay later and I seem to have bought a few lots of Hardy Boys novels.

Which, given this blog is mostly devoted to adult reading material, the works of unappreciated ghost writers needs some recognition from the youngster in me.

Given how long the Boys have been around, I'm fairly certain most of you are familiar with their exploits, or that of their occasional cohort Nancy Drew (or Tom Swift, or Cherry Ames, or The Bobbsey Twins...)(or the TV show, which I watched on DVD a few years back for no real reason) and so I should be able to get by with a fairly short synopsis here.

The basic premise is that the Hardy Boys are brothers, Frank, 18, with dark hair and Joe, 17, with blond hair. Depending on what series you're reading in and what year will bring out a picture of what they look like for that era. Some of the older hardcovers have them in chinos, while the newer paperbacks involve jeans and tee shirts. Frank and Joe are Fenton Hardy's progeny, Fenton being a famous detective. The family lives in Bayport with Mom, Fenton, and Aunt Gertrude. They have a fairly diverse group of friends, like Phil Cohen  (Jewish) and Tony Prito (Italian immigrant). Chet Morton was chubby to fat, and Iola Morton was Joe's girlfriend until she blew up in a car bomb in Casefiles #1, Dead on Target. Frank, on the other hand was dating Cassie. Almost all of these characters got dragged in at one point or another, and usually in some kind of jeopardy by the end of it.

The cases rarely involved murder, although they did seem to wind up breaking up smuggling rings quite frequently. The usual scenario was people would seek Fenton out to solve something, and he'd either ask the boys for help, or being unavailable, the boys would take on the case. And they traveled extensively. I wish I had their travel budget at their age. (Mind you, based on the very few Carolyn Keene books I read about Nancy Drew, she also had a travel budget from hell. The one book of hers I bought involved Nancy and Co. in Venice, Italy.)

I still remember my 1st grade introduction to the boys. My classmate, with the name Sixten Otto (who'd write it out as 610 and a picture of a car and who also taught me to play Canasta) brought in either The Mystery of the Chinese Junk or Night of the Werewolf. Which of course lead to one of my family's visits to Upper Valley Mall in Springfield, Ohio, where my brother would buy music at Camelot and my Dad would escort me to B. Daulton, wherein I found shelves and shelves of Hardy Boys books waiting for me to blow my allowance on. (And oh boy, did I blow money on them.) I usually bought the paperbacks, numbered from #59 up, since they were cheaper  than the hardcovers. Well, that and the hardcovers got tripped up in archaic language and the aforementioned chinos. (I kind of thought The Missing Chums would be about stolen shark bait, actually.)

I used to half-joke that Joe was my first crush and a strong indicator early in life that I was gay.  I found out later that I obviously wasn't the only one with feelings like that when I found Mabel Maney's Nancy Clue and the Hardly Boys: A Ghost in the Closet at one of the small bookshops near Wright State. I still laugh at that book, what with one modern lesbian trapped with stuck in the 50's Nancy and her "friend Nurse Cherry Aimless and the Hardly Boys... It was a spot on spoof of the genre made even funnier by the straight faces all the principles had.

Some notable titles in the original 190 + a few one offs series include While the Clock Ticked, which featured Joe and Frank tied to chairs while a mas scientist tried to blow them up; Cave-In, where Frank and Joe wound up in California during ski season trying to figure out who the ghost miners were; Sky Sabotage, where Frank and Joe go to Florida to figure out what happened to a missing satellite and a pair of missing dolphins; and The Hardy Boys Ghost Stories, which involved 6 cases of the boys encountering the actual supernatural.

That list title bears mentioning since pretty much every other book in any of the various series  that had supernatural elements ended up being a Scooby Doo mystery, wherein the element was not real, and easily explained during the resolution. In the Ghost Stories, we get real ghosts and phenomena, but they of course do no real harm. Like the Scarecrow that comes to life and chases them out of an abandoned farm house just before lightning hits and burns the place down. (May I add that one gave me nightmares for a few nights.) Or a later tale where the boys wind up on an 18th century Ghost Ship filled with whalers, wherein the ghost on the ghost ship gets them to safety.

I mentioned the Casefiles above, and I suppose I should mention them in passing. In Book 1, Dead on Target, Joe turns 18. His girlfriend blows up in a car bomb. The series was aimed at older kids, and read a bit like Rambo solves mysteries. It was more miss than hit for me, mainly because I got sick of the whining that tended to become vigilantism in Joe following Iola's death.

I guess they have a newer series aimed at millenials and the generation that are kids now, but I haven't bothered, since the updated graphics make the boys look like escapees from 1 Direction.

I still love the boys, even if I long since outgrew them. So many memories of my childhood are tied to them. And I really hope that other kids find as many happy memories in them when they grow up.

Can't we all just get along?

The answer as presented by The Shambling Guide to New York City by Mur Laferty, is yes, with a few qualifiers.

Zoë, our protagonist, has recently moved back to NYC from the Research Triangle in North Carolina not long after finding out her boss at the publishing firm (whom she was sleeping with) was not only married, but his wife, who is also a cop, is a little upset that Zoë has been sleeping with her husband.

So, being a good travel guide writer/editor, Zoë starts looking for out of the way places in the Big Apple. Which leads her to Mannegishi's Tricks, a run down bookstore in Manhattan, where the proprietor refuses to sell her anything. She does, however, find a flyer looking for someone with publishing experience to work for Underground Publishing. The owner, Phil, tells her not to apply. She wouldn't fit in.

Next, Zoë hits Bakery Under Starlight, where Carl takes orders and Tenagne passes them out with constant insults. She sees another Underground Publishing flyer, and this time, John, a customer at the bakery who happens to work for Underground, talks her into sending in her resume, even as he tells her she wouldn't fit in.She also buys tea for Granny Good Mae, a slightly batty old woman who talks in riddles.

One interview later, Phil takes her to dinner in an attempt to explain why she won't fit in at Underground. Which consists of going to an Italian restaurant with Air Sprite waiters, a zombie Maitre d', and demons eating gerbils. Phil, on the other hand is enjoying a nice pint of A positive, as he is indeed a vampire.  He tries to hypnotize her with limited success.

As should be expected, Zoë gets the job at Underground, working with an all coterie staff. Phil gives her a reading list to help her wrap her mind around the various species she'll be working with. These include Phil, the vampire CEO; John, the incubus; Morgen, the water sprite; and Paul and Montel, the zombies.

Then we get the new CR (Coterie Resources...no humans, other than Zoë), Wesley. Wesley is a construct (think Frankenstein's monster, although in this setting they get lumped in with golems of all shapes and sizes) with the head of Zoë's ex-boyfriend.

We also have Zoë's strange next door neighbor, Arthur, who works for Public Works, kind of the human coterie police. (If coterie members break the rules, Public Works breaks the coterie.)

What follows is a really strange mix of mystery (who's behind the formaldehyde in the zombie brain supply?), invasion (the plot hinges on the person behind everything trying to take over the whole of the city), a bit of romance (There's almost an office romance when Zoë accompanies John to a succubus/incubus feeding ground/bondage club; later on Arthur and Zoë figure out they have a lot in common). For the most part, it works, although there are a few places where the narrative gets a bogged down, or characters vanish for no apparent reason. Or some foreshadowing that borders on spoilers in the excerpts from the guide Zoë is writing in the book.

Regardless of any narrative issues, and also regardless of the rape trigger inducing incubus scene that toddles a fine line between creepy and erotic (and was not meant to be read while on public transit), it remains a fun read, in the spirit of the InCryptid novels.

And after his divorce, he wrote Paradise Regained...

I dislike Paradise Lost. I've probably mentioned this before. Even with an English to English translation, Uncle Milton's seminal poem about Satan and his rebellion.

Wrong Uncle Miltie.

I understand why it remains popular; among other things, his version of Satan is one of the original templates for an anti-hero. Yes, Satan ruining Eden to get his revenge on God is a bad thing, but because he did that, God can send a saviour a few millenia later. 

Adam said, "Thanks. Thanks a lot."

And Satan, not understanding sarcasm wandered off sort of happy.

Which brings us to  The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper. 

Our narrator, David Ullman is one of the preeminent scholars on Milton and (you guessed it) Paradise Lost. David teaches at Columbia in New York City, when not going to various gatherings of people who want to know more about Milton. The irony here is that David, who also specializes in religious texts, is a big ol' atheist. David is married, although his wife is cuckolding him with a hot young Physics prof who specializes in String Theory. His daughter, Tess, shares his unnaturally dark melancholy. And his friend Elaine, who teaches psychology, is dying of cancer. 

All of which comes out as Spring term is ending and Professor Ullman receives a strange female visitor in his office after he finishes his last class of the term. The Thin Woman (there are more than a few characters in here who don't get names as much as descriptions. The Thin Woman is the first of several.) offers David a bunch of money to fly out to Venice the next day, go to a specific address, and then return to New York. David laughs it off and goes out for drinks with Elaine. Well, after a brief confrontation with the String Theory Studbiscuit. 

When David returns home, his wife announces that she wants a divorce. He can keep Tess, she wants the Physics professor. As such, David and Tess fly to Venice, Italy, the next morning to give wifeypoo the chance to start moving her crap. 

Oh, and what fun we have in Venice. David goes to the address, is given a camera, and lead upstairs to see a man tied to a chair. Said man pulls a full Linda Blair. The man, speaking in several different voices, says proof will be delivered on a certain date. It quotes Milton at him. At the end of his speech, the man in the chair's voice changes to that of David's father, echoing the father's last words to David. "It should have been you."

David, understandably upset by this, races back to his hotel, concerned for Tess, who was left in the hands of an Au Pair. Said babysitter isn't in the room, and Tess is poised to take a dive off the balcony and into the canal below. Tess speaks first in the voice of The Unnamed, and then in her own voice, telling David to find her.

And oh boy, does it get weird from here. The Venice police are convinced Tess was washed out to sea. David returns to the states, and we meet The Pursuer. We don't find out until the end much about this guy, who claims to be a fairly good Altar Boy from Brooklyn. He wants The Document from David. David says he has no idea what the guy is talking about. 

Somehow, David begins a very long journey that starts in North Dakota, winds its way across much of the US and into Canada, and all of which is framed by passages from Milton that give David clues as to where his next stop is. He has six days to save his daughter. He has six days to figure out who The Unnamed is. He has six days to stop the Pursuer from trying to stop him.

While the climax is quite satisfying, the actual ending falls more than a little flat, as at least one part of the conclusion makes absolutely no sense at all. But then, given the nature of the narrative, I suppose this is to be expected.

All of this is narrated in first person present tense. Which takes more than a little adjustment. 

Amusingly, for a book about demons, religion is downplayed. It's about at the level of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wherein it exists as background noise, present, but not really the focus of the narrative. G-d's part in this narrative is exceptionally quiet, only really showing up in quieter moments. Interestingly, organized religion gets knocked a few times in the process, and not just by The Unnamed.

And the horror aspects really weren't all that horrifying for me. Then again, I don't have children, and most of the horror is centered on the idea of "Demons ate my baby!"

I'll also admit I was a bit disappointed that The Unnamed wasn't Louis Cypher, the rather enigmatic character in Angel Heart, who basically wanted Mickey Rourke to find the devil and prove he exists.

Overall, a good read, even if I did feel like the author (despite having a good grasp on the concepts of Milton) was treating Paradise Lost like a salad bar, grabbing out passages that best suited narrative needs.

The Last Midnight

One of the reasons people try to revoke my gay card is that I proudly announce that I really don't like Sondheim. I find much of his music and musicals trite and annoying, There is one he wrote that I did enjoy though... Into the Woods. Even then, I'm not sure it was the musical itself as much as the plot that made me like it. (Because, really, I almost walked out after the first act. Then the second act started and I was all like, "OK, I kind of like the idea, even if the execution sucks.")

For those who've never seen it, the First act is a retelling of several fairy tales. The second act...well, the narrator dies and suddenly, the characters no longer have any guides to what they're supposed to be doing.

Like I said, loved the idea.

I bring this up, because a similar idea is at play in Death's Apprentice, what is evidently the first book in K. W. Jeter and Gareth Jefferson Jones' new Grimm City series. According to what's available on the book jacket and in blurbs, the unnamed city the book is set in is supposed to based on all of  the Grimm Fairytales and other writings by the Bros. Interestingly, while I recognized elements that might have been part of a Fairytale at one point or another, the only out and out storyline I actually recognized in this was Rumpelstiltskin.

We start with Nathaniel, Death's Apprentice. Nathaniel's dad sold him to Death at a very young age in exchange for 10 more years of life. Sadly, daddy sobered up, realized what he did, and jumped off a bridge. Anyway, after witnessing Death claim the soul of a drug addled lawyer in a nightclub bathroom, Nathaniel passes out in pain.

Then we meet Blake, who's come to the nameless city, seeking The Devil. Blake's looking to pay back Lucifer for a rather nasty trick the devil played on him in Afghanistan that ended with Hank getting trapped in the Devil's Overcoat. Said coat more or less makes Hank immortal, although Hank can be wounded quite severely.

And Hank, who gets hired by a dwarf lawyer who works for Lucifer. (Don't they all?) Hank is a man with no fear, making him a fairly unstoppable hit man. Hank gets hired to kill the 3 champions prophesied to kill Lucifer. This gives him carte blanche to pretty much kill anyone he wants.

Lucifer himself sits atop a large tower in the center of town, refusing to extend people's contracts and generally proving Milton right again. (Which is to say Lucifer is probably the most interesting character in this.)

The stories coalesce around a woman who made a deal with the dwarf to get answers to her law exam to make her parents happy. The dwarf ends up stealing her baby. (Not exactly spinning straw into gold, but...) 

This is one of those books I finished and felt really at odds about what to think. There's a lot of Christian allegory in here (not quite as obvious as say, Left Behind, but still present in a Narnia type way), and there's also a lot of fate vs. free will discussion, particularly towards the end. There are also a few parts that feel like The Seventh Seal.

By the time I finished and found out what the heck the point of all of this was, I felt cheated in some ways, although there really was no other solution to the whole mess.

Interesting read, but you may want to bookmark a page with the Grimm tales for reference.

Fhtagn

(Note: This is a concurrent post with Candy-Coated Razor Blades by my friend Bob. He's covering movies. I'm covering the writing.)

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.

I'll confess, I'm a Cthulhu groupie. (There used to be cultists, but since Cthulhu went mainstream... It used to be one had go diving beneath the waters or go hit up profane cults in isolated places to get icons. These days, one can go to a store and buy all the iconography you want of he who lies dreaming.)

Like this.

 Or this.

I'll also confess I'm not fond of H. P. Lovecraft's writing. It's a bit like reading Hawthorne, if Hawthorne had Hester giving birth to alien babies after Dimmesdale himself found out he was a hybrid of normal isolated New Englanders and underwater fish people.

Seriously. That's Baby Pearl up there.

 
(This must just be a Southern New England thing. Writers from Northern New England tend to write like a tabloid reporter. "Captain Trips is taking out 99.4% of the world's population, and Frannie's pregnant!!")

Lovecraft is quite a bit like Bob Dylan. I much prefer his stuff when it's done by someone else.

(I'll be citing examples here in a sec.)

But, the real reason I'm writing this has to do with The Lovecraft Anthology Vol. 1, edited by Dan Lockwood, that turns HP Lovecraft's words into illustrated graphic novels. Or graphic short stories, to be more precise. This particular collection includes " The Call of Cthulhu", " "The Haunter of the Dark", "The Dunwich Horror", "The Colour Out of Space", "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", "The Rats in the Walls", and "Dagon". It makes Lovecraft's words much more accessible to the readers who may have run across Cthulhu in other places and tried to find the source.

But then, based on what I've read, Lovecraft never really set his pantheon in stone, preferring to use it as  background noise, for lack of a better term. What does emerge from what he wrote (usually based around Arkham, Massachusetts, or Miskatonic University, or some isolated New England backwater) is the idea of the Outer Ones (Like Azathoth, the blind idiot god at the center of the universe), Great Old Ones (like Cthulhu, sunken in his house at R'lyeh), and lesser horrors (The shoggoths, more or less used as slave labor and the Mi-go, who either worship Nyarlathotep or are at war with the elder gods. Given how many people who have worked in the mythos, this kind of confusion is bound to arise. However, just keep in mind that this is like Alien vs. Predator. Whoever wins, we lose.)

We also have what generally remains a pattern in Lovecraft's fiction. The narrator reads someone else's mad ravings, investigates, then goes mad himself. Mind you, if I, like our narrator in "At the Mountains of Madness" ran across 5 foot tall penguins being used as cattle for either the shoggoths or Cthulhu himself, I think I might go a little mad as well.

Cthulhu has become a cultural icon of sorts the farther from the original writings we get. From the RPGs The Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu Tech to movies, books and graphic novels...

Cthulhu shows up briefly in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. Cthulhu shows up fighting beat poets in Nick Mamatas's Move Under Ground. An entire graphic novel series entitled The Fall of Cthulhu concerns The Harlot fighting Nyarlathotep as the latter tries to wake up Cthulhu.

We have Brian Lumley's non-vampire series concerning the Dreamlands. (I liked these a bit better than Necroscope. That one got a bit confusing after a while, what with time travel, psychics, vampire planets and all. Fun to read, but I really needed a damn flow chart to keep up with it.) 

There's also Mick Ferrin's very wonderful Victor Renquist Quartet, where Cthulhu shows up in Book 2, Darklost. In that appearance, Cthulhu ties in with the vampire mythos Ferrin created as something of an enforcer the Nephilim created to keep the Nosferatu in line. Mind you, Merlin shows up in book 3, and book 4 concerns Nazis in the Hollow Earth, but the series itself is a wonderful read. The vampires aren't mindless antagonists, nor are they Twilight sparklers. (Seriously. Find copies of The Time of Feasting and keep reading.)

If you like a little humor with your insanity inspiring pantheon, there's The Eldritch Pastiche From Beyond the Shadow of Horror by Christopher Welch (from the Blood Lite anthology. This one gets a shout out, since I've felt much like the narrator on more than a few occasions.)

There's even a Dr. Seuss version of Cthulhu out there.

And of course, more recently, there's The Six Gun Tarot by R. S. Belcher, which I reviewed previously on here.

In all honesty, as bad as his writing is, H.P. Lovecraft's influence is felt far and wide in contemporary horror. And really, if you can find a good introduction, the writing gets easier to plow through.

I leave you and your sanity with the following.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.

Why anyone would live in small town Maine is beyond me.

If fiction is to be believed, coastal Maine has a very high homicide rate.

Which brings us to Leslie Meier, who's Lucy stone seems to stumble into a murder on almost every holiday.

In this case, Easter.

Easter Bunny Murder is the 21st book in the rather long lived cozy mystery series. Lucy, her husband, and 2 of their 4 children live in the same house in the outskirts of Tinker's Cove, Maine, that they lived in way back in Mistletoe Murder. (One child now lives with his wife in a subdivision not far from Lucy, the other child not at home lives in Florida.)As we open on the week before Easter, Lucy is taking her grandson to the annual Easter Egg hunt at the Pine Point Estate. Only to watch the Easter bunny come out, fall down, and die in front of all the children.

What follows is a really ugly story of elder abuse (already covered once in an earlier book, but here warned about in terms of identity thieves posing as lost heirs [and no, that has nothing to do with the plot. Due to the central abuse going on, Lucy ends up discussing other forms of abuse]), families squabbling over inheritance, and two accidents that Lucy are convinced are homicides.

As in most of these Holiday murder books, the plot is fairly straightforward, with a look at a particular social issue tucked in with the older reader in mind. (I'm under the impression that a 30something gay man is NOT the target audience. I am, however, a sucker for a decent mystery, and I've held on for 21 of these bloody things.) And, really, after 21 mysteries with only one really going well far afield (New Year's Eve Murder, in which we wound up with Jessica Fletcher meets Phillip K. Dick), it's not a bad way to spend a few hours. Lucy's fairly likable, and several of the books include recipes for the holiday involved. (I do not recommend the one for the cookies made with Cool Whip, though.)

Oh yes. Tune in  Wednesday for a special event as Bob from Candy-coated Razor Blades and I do a trope crossover.

Bon Temps roulez

For those of you who watch True Blood, I'm sure you're aware that the series is based on books, but given how much of what goes on the show came from somewhere other than the book... (Billith? Really?)

I'll admit, what I've seen of the show is good, which admittedly is about 3 episodes from the first 2 seasons. (I haven't really watched Showtime since Queer As Folk, and even then, I wound up having to download the last season or 2 just to find out what was going on.)

From what I've seen, about the only TV show that's remaining fairly faithful to the source material is Game of Thrones on HBO, and maybe The Walking Dead on AMC. (The latter did a switch up on one of the bigger surprises in the books though.) (I also won't mention Lifetime's adaptions of Blood Ties based on Tanya Huff that ignored the fact the vampire was bisexual in the books or SciFi's The Dresden Files that only ever got into the source material for one midseason episode.)

None of which is really related to Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris (aka the next to last Sookie Stackhouse book, although the last one is aupposed to be more or less an extended epilogue). I just tend to go off on tangents occasionally.

There have been some rather ugly accusations leveled at Ms. Harris about how unenlightened and sexist Sookie is, but really, it rather fits the character. Sookie is at heart, a fairly sheltered white trash woman in a remote part of Louisiana. To expect that kind of character to behave like an urbane socialite would be rather silly. Even if Sookie has dated just about every kind of "super" in the universe. (Vampires, shifters, weres...don't think she dated a fairie, mainly because most of the ones in the books were relations...)

Anyway.

This, the latest book, starts off in Mexico with some plotting to get a major artifact from Sookie that got used in the last book, the Cluvial Dor. Mainly, it involves the father of a recurring character and his bodyguard selling their souls to a devil (not The Devil, he rarely goes above ground anymore). When they find out the artifact is no more, it instead sets off a rather convoluted plot to get revenge on Sookie.

Sookie, completely clueless to all of this, is dealing with the aftermath of using the Cluvial Dor. Namely, Eric moving to Oklahoma, and Sam (her boss who turns into a collie on occasion) being alive and not being all that talkative with her.

What follows is almost like the Quantum Leap series finale, wherein just about every character who's appeared in the series but hasn't died, makes a cameo at the very least. Arlene, last seen going to prison for trying to get Sookie crucified for her choices in supernatural bed partners, get released by the conspirators and tries to get a job at Merlotte's, the bar Sookie works at and partially owns. Needless to say, she doesn't get her job back, and in fact gets found garotted with Sookie's scarf in Merlotte's dumpster the next morning.

Which of course ends up getting Sookie arrested on murder charges. Making it more akin to the Seinfeld series finale, actually.

Anyway, with Sookie out on bail (paid by Eric, who of course has a few ulterior motives), many recurring characters show up to help clear Sookie's name.

Which, given the book has a semi-happy ending,  they end up doing.

My only real problem was that the ending seemed rather rushed. I mean, everything gets tied up in the course of a chapter. That and I wasn't clear on how related all the conspirators were at the end. Because, one of the big surprise baddies seems to be completely unrelated to the  Devil subplot. Also, as Sookie herself points out, it would have been easier for any one of them to show up on her soorstep with a gun rather than go through all the convoluted plotting that forms the plot of the book. Of course, had they not, the book would have been a heck of a lot shorter.

In all honesty, when I read book 8, From Dead to Worse, I thought that it would be the series finale, given how many loose ends she tied up. Thankfully, 5 books down, she wound up writing something better inclined to wrap up all the dangling plot lines, and give us Karin, Eric's other daughter. Who's almost as awesome as Pam.

Satisfying, yes. But I can imagine that more than a few folks will be annoyed with the resolution. I was not among them, since it actually showed good sense on Sookie's part, which seems to be a rarity in Urban Fantasy.

The sun goes down the stars come out...

So, I discussed book 1 of Sergei Lukyanenko's Watch trilogy a while back.

Today, as I waited to clock in, I finished Day Watch, which is obviously Book 2.Obviously.

Much like the first one, the book is really 3 novellas wrapped around the machinations of the Night Watch and the Day Watch, groupings of "Others" who either fight for the light or for the dark. This volume is focused on the Day Watch, the Dark Others like vampires and witches, and their perspective on things.

For the most part, the Dark ones are very survival of the fittest. Make your own destiny. Serve no one.

They're kind of like the Shadows to the Light ones' Vorlons. Because, really, the Light ones aren't much better. (Seriously, by the end of the book, when all is revealed, I was annoyed with both Watches.)

The first story deals with the witch Alisa, who spent most of the last book screwing with the protagonist Anton. In this, Alisa manages to drain her powers during a group working to save a fellow witch from the Night Watch. As such, Zabulon, head of the Moscow Day Watch, sends her for some R&R at a summer camp. (I am not all that familiar with all things Russian, but it sounds like the camp started off as a camp for young Communists.) She falls in love with Igor, they rut like rabbits, then as she regains her powers, she realizes he's also feeding off the campers because he's a Light one in similar straits to her.

The second part deals with an Ukrainian Day Watch member coming to Moscow with no real memory of who he is, and what he's doing in Moscow. His story revolves around a stolen artifact that was being held by the very neutral Inquisition (the Inquisition is made up of both Dark and Light ones. Their job is to enforce the treaty and keep the balance.) Said artifact, Fafnir's Talon, is a pretty powerful Dark artifact that Vitaly, the Ukrainian, winds up in custody of after it lands in Moscow. His actions end up having some serious repercussions for the Night Watch.

In the third story, we focus in on the Estonian, Edgar, as he is sent to Prague for the Inquisition trial of both the thieves of the Talon in the second part and of Igor for his crimes in the first part. Anton (protagonist from the first book) is also in Prague for the same trial. The two wind up finding common cause over Czech beers (in the process making fun of American Budweiser and American airmen on leave from Kosovo. This book is set in 1999, and the third part takes place near Christmas.)  As the trial approaches, we finally figure out what Gesar (head of the Night Watch) and Zabulon have been plotting over the past two books.

Which annoyed me, since the author more or less builds up how tricky the two magicians are, then has the characters figure out it was exactly what they were discussing, rather than any number  of twists I was coming up with reading the discussions.

And really, the plot revealed, which is caught in Millennial fever, kind of annoyed me. Then again, the final resolution is from a framework well outside of where I am. I won't go into detail here, merely state that Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHay would be proud. Sort of.

I'm also guessing that since I am not a Muskovite, nor am I part of Russian culture, there is probably quite a bit of allegory to post USSR life that I'm missing in the narrative. Much like Y Tu Mama Tambien, where I missed several commentary notes on Mwxican culture because I'm not part of it.

It's still a fun read. I'll eventually have to get the final book when my TBR pile shrinks a bit.

Espresso yourself

The world must be ending. I've now managed to update 3 days in a row.

Finally finished Cleo Coyle's new Coffeehouse Mystery, A Brew to a Kill. (As I understand it, Cleo Coyle is a pen name, and the same author also writes the Haunted Bookshop Mysteries as Alice Kimberly. However, give a few plot elements that crop up in a few books, I'm alsmost wondering if there isn't some ghostwriting going on as well. We'll come back to that.)

The series takes place in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. Claire Cosi runs The Village Blend on behalf of her octogenarian ex-mother-in-law, Madame Dreyfus Allegro Dubois. Her ex-husband, Matteo, travels the world buying coffee beans for the business. They have a daughter named Joy, who's currently in culinary school in Paris. As the series has progressed, so has Claire's relationship with Mike, the Homicide detective who now runs the OD squad for NYPD. And Joy has been dating Franco, one of Mike's subordinates. Matteo, on the other hand is now married to a wealthy socialite. (Mind you, it's an open marriage, but hey...)

The current book starts with a hit and run accident outside the blend following a meeting between Claire, Matteo, Madame, and Lilly Beth Tanga. Lilly Beth, a woman of Philippians decent who is consulting on healthier options  for the Blend's new food truck, gets struck by a white van following a confrontation with the Kupcake Kween's food truck. The Kupcake Kween food truck is run by a business rival, and blasts the names of cupcakes sold in a bad French accent to the tune of "Ma Vie in Rose".

On top of this, Matteo's new Brazilian bean shipment seems to have picked up a few surprises, namely a new form of Brazilian crack-cocaine the dealer wants him to distribute.

Over the course of the rest of the story, we get our usual blend of red herrings as to who was behind both the first hit and run as well as the second (at a food truck reception), plus a conclusion that features the series' hallmark, Claire finding out at least one mystery by becoming a woman in jeopardy at the hands of the bad guy.

Oh yes. Much as I love this series and the recipes both in the book and at her website, I honestly feel the NYPD homicide squad should just covertly tail Claire whenever a murder happens anywhere near the Blend, since she'll inevitably get kidnapped, assaulted, etc by the bad guy.

Also, one of the traits that leads me to believe that a few books are getting ghost written here or at least edited is the occasional brief mention of the supernatural in a few books in the series. In the first book, she reads coffee grounds. That's never shown up again. Occasionally, we get a mildly prophetic dream that half the time only tangentially relates to the plot.

The series as a whole makes for a nice afternoon read, even if it does require a visit to whatever local coffeehouse is nearby.