Books: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (2023)

“Florida. June 1950. Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens Jr. is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules, but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.” 

Channeling real-life history of blacks fight for their humanity under the dark boot of racism, the Jim Crow era and horrors of everyday existence, Tananarive Due’s gives us a maddening, breakneck tale of one 12 year-old boy who must survive a viscous six-months “imprisonment” in hell on Earth that is a Florida reformatory. Here, the sins of the father, a sadistic Superintendent named Fenton J. Haddock, and the past collide. But young Robert has a talent –he can see the ghosts of those who died at the Gracetown School for Boys. And there are only two things that scare Haddock: someone finding the pictures he has in desk drawer, and the haints that haunt the reformatory. Because if anyone finds out what a horrible man Haddock truly is, his way of life, the dark desires he has, then they will undue all power he so loves.

While I’ve never read a book by her, every time I saw the book on the shelves or online, it kept calling to me. Now, I’ve not read much of the Jim Crow era in detail, but know enough of its history that tears me apart about a time, soothe of Mason/Dixon line, where blacks were imprisoned, lynched, murdered and hunted like dogs for the most minor infraction. The one thing that still today rings through my head was how this was still happening only some 70 odd years ago and continues today, in 2025. How did the supposedly Greatest Nation on the Planet allow this happen? 

I suppose, for us whites, the only real way to get us to read about this terror is through novels like The Reformatory or Lovecraft Country, is to clothe it a tale about ghosts. But it’s an emotional read, as the characters, vividly brought life in three dimensions by Due -along with the black community itself- have overcome so much injustice, have to deal daily with so many travesties, and all that they never seem to end. 

It’s a stunning book, heartbreaking, devastating, and horrifying, a historical fiction wrapped up as a ghost story. 

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Much like The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland and the Catholic boarding schools run in Canada by nuns for Indigenous children which were aimed at assimilating Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture, the straight line through all of them is how many children lost their lives and were buried in unmarked graves, to be lost to time and God. 

Gracetown School for Boys is based on the real-life Florida School for Boys, also known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. It was reform school operated by the state of Florida in the panhandle town of Marianna from January 1, 1900, to June 30, 2011. For a time, it was the largest juvenile reform institution in the United States. 

According to Wikipedia, “Throughout its 111-year history, the school gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture, and even murder of students by staff. Despite periodic investigations, changes of leadership, and promises to improve, the cruelty and abuse continued. After the school failed a state inspection in 2009, the governor ordered a full investigation. Many of the historic and recent allegations of abuse and violence were confirmed by separate investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2010, and by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice in 2011. State authorities closed the school permanently in June 2011. At the time of its closure, it was a part of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. 

“Because of questions about the number of deaths at the school and a high number of unmarked graves, the state granted permission for a forensic anthropology survey by the University of South Florida in 2012. The team identified 55 burials on the grounds, most outside the cemetery, and documented nearly 100 deaths at the school. In January 2016, USF issued its final report, having made seven DNA matches and 14 presumptive identifications of remains. Three times as many black as white students died and were buried at Dozier. USF's report noted that excluding a 1914 event in which an estimated six to ten white children were killed in a fire, the racial balance of deaths was consistent with the school's overall population demographics. 

“After passage of resolutions by both houses of the legislature, on April 26, 2017, the state held a formal ceremony to apologize personally to two dozen survivors of the school and to families of other victims. In 2018, bills were being considered to provide some compensation to victims and their descendants, possibly as scholarships for children. In 2019, during preliminary survey work for a pollution clean-up, a further 27 suspected graves were identified by ground-penetrating radar. In 2024, a bill to compensate the victims of The Dozier School for Boys carried by Representative Michelle Salzman and Senator Darryl Rouson was approved by the state legislature and signed into law.” 

The book is dedicated to her great-uncle Robert Stephens, who died at the Dozier School for Boys in 1937 at the age of fifteen, her late mother, Patricia Gloria Stephens Due and her father, John Dorsey Due, Freedom Lawyer.

Books: Doctor Who: Frankenstein and The Patchwork Man by Jack Heath (2025)

“When an unsettling folk tale leads the Ninth Doctor and Rose to a remote village in Wales, they get more than they bargained for. A scientist has taken it upon himself to create new life – imitating Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a book that has sent shock waves around the country. But, much like his fictional counterpart, this doctor is playing god, and with forces beyond his understanding. As the Doctor and Rose attempt to put the brakes on the experiment before it gets out of control, a sinister supernatural presence reveals itself.”

Frankenstein and The Patchwork Man is a nice slice of Gothic terror that once dominated the early years of the Fourth Doctor. Heath is able to grab onto the voice of Billie Piper and make her Rose Tyler more realistic in book form – less so the Ninth, but that’s nitpicking here. 

It’s a well paced take that evokes the Mary Shelly title very well (even, though like Rose, I’ve not read the book, but have seen the film adaptations). It’s a solid young adult novel that will give both old and new fans a delightful treat. I like how much Rose grows here and why she became such a favorite of fans who had doubts about the actress and her role in the live-action show. Heath gives her plenty of heart –though she too becomes another companion willing to sacrifice her life because the Doctor puts her in great danger. Still, it’s done with creepy style and panache. 

Also, not one to questions an authors intention, but Heath is Australian, and I’m curious if he knew Wales probably does not have lochs. 

I’ve also read this is probably the last Puffin Crossover Classic for the Doctor, which is pretty sad. I think they’ve done well, and there could be more tales with different Doctors, but this appears to be the end of this lineup. 

Books: Gerald's Game By Stephen King (1992)

“Gerald and Jessie Burlingame have gone to their summer home on a warm weekday in October for a romantic interlude. After being handcuffed to her bedposts, Jessie tires of her husband's games, but when Gerald refuses to stop she lashes out at him with deadly consequences – he has a coronary. Still handcuffed, she is trapped and alone. Painful memories from her childhood bedevil her. Her only company is a hungry stray dog (the former Prince) and the sundry voices that populate her mind. As night comes, she is unsure whether it is her imagination or if she has another companion: someone watching her from the corner of her dark bedroom.”

 

When this book came out in 1992, I was rather turned off by the premise. I knew this was more a psychological terror novel than one of his supernatural ones, but the whole idea of a full-length novel about a women handcuffed to a bed did not seem like something I wanted to read then. Even today, some thirty years later, I’m still doubtful about some of his books. If only because there are a handful of King titles I’ve not read, this being one of them, as well as Delores Claiborne (a sort of “sister” novel to this one) and Misery, mostly because the premises did not seem to interest me (though, now that I think about, maybe because the "villains" of those books are more human than the supernatural kind, and real life is sort of horrible, especially now in 2025). It is also part of the reason I’m still going through his Bachman titles.

 

I do like Gerald's Game, but it’s a weird one, seemly more of an experimental one on King’s part to see if he could set a tale within the confines of one room. I also felt weirded out by his obsession with Jessie’s Dad and event of the (actual) eclipse of July 1963. King’s parents, in particular the mothers, are always a bit off. They all seem to have difficulties relating to their children. Most are mean and unpleasant. And for the longest time, I thought Jessie was imaging the “space cowboy” who hid in the corner of her room. I was sort of disappointed it turned out to be a real man. Scary? Maybe. But no so scary if the whole book was just focused on the serial killer.

 

It’s a another brutal book (again, perhaps started as Bachman title?), a bit overlong (alright, just too long), but beyond the idea of being handcuffed to a bed and almost no way to escape is a great metaphor for those who hate being confined, I found it a difficult read at times and wished for a different version. 

 

Books: The Impossible Fortune (The Thursday Murder Club #5) By Richard Osman (2025)

“It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favorite criminal. But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who’s in trouble, kidnap and death are hot on their heels once more. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code, and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into action once more, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time?” 

It seems while writer Richard Osman was off starting a new series, some significant time has passed in Cooper’s Chase as well. Elisabeth is in deep mourning due to the passing of her husband, while Ron has seen his two children’s lives, along with his grandson, getting worse.  

But then there is Joyce and seeing to her daughter Joanna’s marriage to Paul. It is during the reception that Elisabeth meets a man named Nick Silver who believes someone wants him, and a woman named Holly Lewis, dead. The two are business partners who years earlier were paid to do a job (they being in the business of “cold storage” – essentially hiding things people don’t want other people to know) in Bitcoin. As risk takers –they acquired it from a drug dealer- they took a wait and see attitude with whether it would lose money or profit from it down the line. Eventually, as we all know by now, Bitcoin has become very valuable. Now they have a quarter of a billion pounds and want to cash it in. But trust among thieves is never a best bet. And this Impossible Fortune leads to much mayhem. 

The fifth Thursday Murder Club is crackling good and it’s clear that Osman is opening the series a bit more, making it less cozy whodunit in a small village in the English countryside and adding more layers (again, I think the characters of this series will eventually crossover into the We Solve Crime folks). There is added layer of poignancy here, with Elisabeth deep in grief over the loss of Stephen – so much to the point she has lost some interest with her club. The mother/daughter relationship shines brightly here, because while Joanna has had a recurring role in the previous four books, here she gets to shine and is more center to plot (meanwhile, Donna, Chris, and Bogdan take a back-step here). And like all familial relationships, Joyce and Joanna have their difficulties. It’s fairly realistic, I think. Another sub-plot involves why Ron’s son Jason has been taking care of his nephew and what has happened to his daughter Suzi (something that has been on the back-burner for a while in this series). 

The return of Connie –who remains not my favorite character- mentoring 18-year-old Tia in the ways of being a crime lord turns out to be surprising, as Ibrahim’s mentoring has seemly made Connie more human (but once a criminal, always a criminal?).  

The humor remains, though less laugh out loud than before. And Osman, wisely, has opened the premise of the series, which reassures a few more books, but the characters continue to develop nicely. 

Also, while I enjoyed Netflix’s adaptation of the first books a few weeks back, I was not happy with changes made, especially who the killer was. At this point, I’m unsure they’ll be following up with a sequel, partly because of the changes and ages of the cast have to be considered. It’s clear that Osman was writing this book during the movies production, because there is a funny in-joke involving Ron and Ibrahim talking about their favorite James Bond – with Ron choosing Pierce Brosnan.

It’s a fun ride.

Books: Doctor Who: Dracula! By Paul Magrs (2025)

“On what they hope is going to be a holiday, the Doctor and his companions arrive in a quiet, unassuming seaside town called Whitby, a civil parish in the English county of North Yorkshire. The terrible significance of the place evades them, until they happen upon a theater production that captivates their attention: Dracula! Suddenly, murders are occurring left, right and center, each victim with trademark puncture wounds on their neck. Ian is soon missing, and a town shrouded in myth and legend is beginning to live up to its name. Clearly there is a Dracula at large. But the TARDIS team quickly realizes: you can never trust a vampire.”  

The next Puffin Book that has the Doctor crossing-over with public domain characters continues with Dracula! There is more to this tale than meets the eye and longtime fans, who can read between the lines, will be treated to more than just the TARDIS crew interacting with a “supposedly” fictional character. It’s entertaining and fun and moves along at a good pace. I would be remiss in not pointing out that it does have massive bags of atmosphere, and uses the Bram Stoker tale story as a jumping-off point, rather than as a straightforward riff on a familiar tale. Set sometime during the first season of the classic series, Magrs does something unusual here, by having the vampire focus on Ian instead of –what generally happens in this genre- Barbara or Susan. A great twist. 

Some might find the supernatural elements in this science fiction series a bit odd, but here it actually fits in pretty well, as DOCTOR WHO has had a long association with the vampire lore dating back to STATE OF DECAY, a 4^th Doctor adventure from the Classic series. It was there that we learned that the Time Lords, during the earliest days of their time travel experiments, accidentally released the Great Vampires from another dimension into our dimension and how they spread throughout the galaxy, which is why almost every planet the Doctor has traveled to has some lore about creatures of the night.   

There is also a lot of real life history attached to it to this tale, though Magrs does not go too deep here. In some sense, this tale could whet the appetite of some young reader into looking at the real-life history of the origins of Dracula and writer Bram Stoker. 

A few notes: 

Paul Magrs was born and raised in Jarrow, which is little less than hour and half north from Whitby, but he has set his Brenda and Effie Mysteries supernatural series in Whitby. Those novels often incorporate elements of the town's Gothic atmosphere and its connection to Bram Stoker and Dracula, making Whitby a central character in those stories. Also, this book contains a character named Kristoff Alucard (a anagram of Dracula), who was created for his Iris Widlthyme character, a self-styled "transtemporal adventuress" of contentious origin who travels the multiverse in an age-old London double-decker bus, commonly known as Celestial Omnibus. She often resembled various television and film actresses throughout her many paradoxical incarnations. She met the Third Doctor in Extended Universe title Verdigris, also written by Magrs.

Books: The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6) by Dan Brown (2025)

“Accompanying celebrated academic, Katherine Solomon, to a lecture she’s been invited to give in Prague, Robert Langdon’s world spirals out of control when she disappears without trace from their hotel room. Far from home and well out of his comfort zone, Langdon must pit his wits against forces unknown to recover the woman he loves. But Prague is an old and dangerous city, steeped in folklore and mystery. For over two thousand years, the tides of history have washed back and forth over it, leaving behind echoes of everything that has gone before. Little can Langdon know that he is being stalked by a specter from that dark past. He must use all of his arcane knowledge to decipher the world around him before he too is consumed by the rings of treachery and deception that have swallowed Katherine. Against a backdrop of vast castles, towering churches, graveyards buried twelve deep and labyrinthine underground passages, Langdon must navigate a shadow city hiding in plain sight, a city which has successfully kept its secrets for centuries and will not readily deliver them. This is a battlefield unlike any he has previously experienced, one on which he must fight not for his only life, but for the future of humanity itself.” 

After an 8-year hiatus, Dan Brown returns with the sixth novel featuring Robert Langdon. As with the previous five, this one features his sometimes-difficult to read pulpy prose style, in a book that could be easily turned into a screenplay. However, the endless monologue-like TED Talks and the frequent use of the words “brilliant” and “stunning” would need to be altered. 

Brown sets up another “what if” scenario that borrows heavily from the real world study of neuroscience and turns it into some sort metaphor on hidden realities. He uses real people and locations, including delving into the Project Stargate (which involved the CIA and the military, and explored the potential use of extrasensory perception {ESP} and remote viewing for intelligence gathering during the Cold War) and other secret CIA projects that tip this novel more into science fiction, and try to make these experiments sound plausible. 

There is some interesting stuff here, though, including the parts about the subconscious mind and what happens to human consciousness after death. That was neat reading, because it is the undiscovered country, as Shakespeare once said, and it haunts everyone. However, much of the metaphysics that this book tries to WOW you with is not fully explained; it seems mostly there to force the reader into doing his or her own investigations. 

Like a broken record with a lot of today’s writers, at 677 pages, it’s overlong and it got annoying that was mostly due to Brown’s choice of reminding the reader of the plot of the book again and again (also the TED Talks). It’s not a total bloated mess, by far, and these books are fun (I’ve read them all and generally have the same opinion on them), but the pacing is a bit off here from the previous books. And I sometimes think Brown takes himself too seriously. I think he might actually believe in what he writes – no matter how wild the idea.