Prodigal Blues

After he finds himself stranded at a truck stop in Missouri, Mark Sieber gets one of the biggest shocks of his life when he recognizes the face of a missing child who winds up sitting his booth, waiting for him. After the media frenzy begins, Mark sneaks away to his hotel room to call his wife and let her know what's going on. There he is taken hostage by the same people who released the little girl. But his abductors are children themselves and have their own plans for him.

Gary A. Braunbeck paints a visceral tale of child kidnapping and abuse that sticks in your head for days after. While the basic plot of the story is questionable (Why did the kids need Mark to "return" them to their homes?), its execution is extremely well done.

Braunbeck shows to what depths a professional child slaver, known as "Grendel", will go to in order to ply his trade and establish dominance over his victims. The scenes describing the horrors perpetrated against the kids turns your stomach and twists your heartstrings. However, the kids turn out to be stronger than their abuser, and their unification allows them to triumph and gain their ultimate revenge.

Despite the somewhat contrived plot set-up, this book is extremely well-written and is highly recommended for anyone interested in real-world horror.

Available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Title: Prodigal Blues
Author: Gary A. Braunbeck
Year: 2006
Pages: 304

Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice

Detective Tony Chu is a cibopath, meaning he gets psychic feedback from anything he eats. This means he feels the life of any animal, plant, or anything else he ingests. Well, except for beets. Why? Who knows, but at least he can eat something guilt-free.

In a world where poultry consumption has been outlawed due to an outbreak of avaian flu, Chu is hired on by the Special Crimes Division of the USFDA to use his talents to solve otherwise unsolvable crimes. Teamed with a hulking mass of a man named Mason (who is also a cibopath), Chu is assigned to the most bizarre of cases, including a reporter who's food reviews make people physically ill, an Arctic outpost with a seemingly pointless assignment to audit their spending, and a Yakuza chicken smuggling operation. All the while, clues emerge that question the government's poultry ban.

Fans of bizarro fiction are likely to enjoy the sheer weirdness of the plot, while those used to more conventional stories may not appreciate the storyline. John Layman does a great job establishing the state of this world and makes the characters as believable as possible, considering the absurdity of the conspiracy and nature of Chu and Mason's powers.

The over-the-top artwork by Rob Guillory helps drive home the quirkiness of Chu's world. Chu is drawn relatively straightforward, while those around him are exaggerated caricatures of the traits they represent. It also helps that Guillory doesn't seem to be afraid of backgrounds, which often have little "Easter eggs" if you're paying attention.

All in all, a pretty good read. Check it out if you'd like to add a little strangeness to your diet.

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Things From Another World

Title: Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice
Author: John Layman
Artist: Rob Guillory
Year: 2009
Pages: 128

Domino Lady: Sex As a Weapon

After the murder of her DA father, beautiful socialite Ellen Patrick dons a white dress, black cape, and black domino mask to fight crime as the Domino Lady. Despite not a lot of original material, the Domino Lady has become one of the most iconic characters in pulp fiction. In Domino Lady: Sex As a Weapon, eight authors write all-new stories about Domino Lady's adventures. Her adventures also give her opportunities to team up with other pulp icons such as the Phantom, Airboy, the Black Bat, and even Sherlock Holmes.

The collection begins with K.G. McAbee's "The Domino Lady and the Crimson Dragon". An Asian girl escapes from a white slaver boat and by a lucky string of fate, runs into the Domino Lady, who agrees to help rescue the other girls on the ship. This was pretty standard fare, although quite enjoyable as Domino Lady had to use her wits (and her physical assets, naturally) to take on a large group of adversaries.

C.J. Henderson resurrects the Black Bat to help Domino Lady foil more white slavers in "Blondes in Chains". This took more of a sci-fi bent, and the resolution was a bit contrived.

Not content with Domino Lady working with the police, Bobby Nash frames Domino Lady for murder in "Target: Domino Lady". Again, Domino Lady is forced to use her brains to prove her innocence and bring the real murderer to justice.

Chuck Dixon teams Domino Lady with Airboy in "Stealing Joe Crick". I've never found Airboy very compelling, and he's more or less useless in this story. I had some higher expectations from Dixon, but with Airboy, he didn't have much to work with.

Ron Fortier presents a dumb little tale called "The Claws of the Cat" about some idiotic cat-nappers (yes, really). If this had been played more for laughs, I might have liked it more, but played straight, it was just silly.

Conjuring the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Nancy Holder presents a tale of Sherlock Holmes teaming up with Domino Lady in his late years. While the plot wasn't anything spectacular, the scenes between Holmes and the Domino Lady were rather enjoyable and provided a lot of entertainment in the couple's banter.

James Chambers's contribution, "The Devil, You Know" was probably my favorite story in the collection. An underworld contact betrays her and Domino Lady finds herself aboard a yacht of Satanists with her identity fully exposed.

Martin Powell finishes out the book with "Masks of Madness", where Domino Lady washes adrift on the Phantom's island. Normally, this wouldn't have been too bad of a story, but the decision was made to reveal the killer of Owen Patrick and end with Domino Lady getting her revenge. This denouement fell a bit flat to me, and I think a revelation that was more conventional would have been more suitable to the character.

As with all anthologies, some of the stories are better than others, but overall, all of the stories were fun reads and maintained the proper tone of the pulps. I would've like solo stories more than the team-ups, but that's really more of a personal preference.


Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Things From Another World, and Moonstone

Title: Domino Lady: Sex As a Weapon
Editor: Lori Gentle
Authors: K.G. McAbee, C.J. Henderson, Bobby Nash, Chuck Dixon, Ron Fortier, Nancy Holder, James Chambers, Martin Powell
Year: 2009
Pages: 222

361

Recently discharged from the Air Force, Ray Kelly and his father spend some time in New York City. One day, as they're driving down the road, some men pull alongside and open fire. Ray wakes up in the hospital with only one eye, a stiff ankle, a dead father, and a chip on his shoulder. Discovering his sister-in-law was also killed recently, Ray recruits his brother into a scheme of revenge that takes a wicked twist when they abduct the man who they thought orchestrated the attacks.

Westlake is well-known for his easy-reading style. It takes nearly no effort to read this book, and you'll be surprised how many pages you can flip through in an hour. However, Westlake's trademark twists keep the reader guessing throughout the entire story.

Considering this is one of Westlake's earliest books, it doesn't quite have the polish of his later work. If you're a fan of the Hard Case Crime novels or just hard-boiled crime/detective fiction in general, you'll enjoy this book.

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.

Title: 361
Author: Donald E. Westlake
Year: 1962
Pages: 208

The End of the Night

Told in almost reverse chronological order, The End of the Night tells the tale of four youths (called the "Wolf Pack" by the media) travelling from Mexico to New York who decided to embark on their own mini-murder spree. Eventually, the Wolf Pack is caught, tried, and executed for their crimes.

Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Spider Robinson have highly praised MacDonald's work and listed him as one of their favorite authors. Stephen King went as far as to say: "John D. MacDonald has written a novel called The End of the Night which I would argue is one of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century. It ranks with Death of a Salesman, it ranks with An American Tragedy."

Fans of police procedural television shows would likely enjoy this book, as the facts of the story are presented in a very straightforward manner. Because the first chapter deals with the Wolf Pack's executions, there isn't much surprise to the story. However, the most educated member of the Wolf Pack, Kirby Stassen, recounts much of his experiences, and the transition from a group of ne'er-do-wells into a murderous quartet seems like a natural progression.

The plot and tone do show their age somewhat, but it's still an entertaining read. If you enjoy true crime literature, this might be one you should check out.

This book appears to be temporarily out of print, so you might check eBay and see if you can find it there.

Title: The End of the Night
Author: John D. MacDonald
Year: 1960
Pages: 192

Silent Partner

Written partially as a crime drama and also as a love letter to the author's recently-deceased dog, 'Silent Partner' tells the tale of K-9 detective Jack Davis as he tries to work his way through a series of murders with his near-perfect police dog, a Lab named Keno.

While this book had its good moments, mostly in the characters' dialog, it suffered too much from trying to emulate modern movies. Some of the personal interactions and plot points were very clichéd, and the dogs behaved entirely too perfect for animals. I realize police dogs get a lot of training, but they're still animals with basic animal instincts. In addition, the final scene in the warehouse was absolutely ludicrous and practically undermined everything the book accomplished up until that point.

There are also some severe editing mistakes that occur at two or three different points in the book, which make me wonder if last-minute edits were done, but no proofer was available to clean these up.

Overall, the book is an enjoyable, quick read. If you're just looking for something light that you don't want to have to think about too much, Jennifer Chase's novel should do the trick. If you're one of those people who like more realistic stories, then this book probably isn't up your alley.

Note: This book was received for free through Goodreads First Reads.

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.

Title: Silent Partner
Author: Jennifer Chase
Year: 2010
Pages: 308