Books: The Long Call By Ann Cleeves (2019)

 

“In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father’s funeral takes place. Once loved and cherished, the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too. Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. The case calls Matthew back into the community he thought he had left behind, as deadly secrets hidden at its heart are revealed, and his past and present collide.”

The Long Call is the first in a new series of detective novels from the writer known mostly for the Vera Stanhope novels and the Shetland Island tales. It details the career and home life of Detective Matthew Venn. His back story is a bit interesting; at one time he and his family belonged to a strict religious community. When he was teen, though, he broke away when he finally realized he no longer believed in anything he had been taught. He was banished from the church and disowned by his parents. Eventually, he would become a cop and marry a man named Jonathan. But the death of father brings him back into the orbit of old life and with people he left behind. Now his job and home life are mixing, with the murder of a man who volunteered at the Woodyard, a community center where Jonathan is the administrator.  Per usual, there are many potential suspects, but Matthew’s team lack any evidence that connects anyone to the murder (and a few abductions of young women with Down syndrome, as well).

The story unfolds slowly, sometimes with tediousness, but ultimately a satisfying whodunit. It does not fully explore Mathew’s time after he left the church and his relationship with Jonathan is not that fully developed –they seemed more like best friends than spouses (Cleeves sort of neuters them, perhaps because most of the readers of her previous works are women who, while accepting a gay detective, don’t want to read passages where they show affection towards each other?).

Cleeves also does not offer any real opinion on Venn’s religious upbringing. Sure there are some typical lines about powerful men who make up rules because it brings them power and prestige, and his relationship with his mother is strained, but she plays it relatively safe here. Whether she plans to expand on this in the next book...well, we'll see. 

Anne Rice 1941-2021

I don’t think it’s flippant to say without Anne Rice’s 1976 best-seller, “Interview with a Vampire”, we would have had the TV shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, it’s spin-off “Angel”, “True Blood”, and the “Twilight” saga books and films would’ve never gotten as popular. She took a once Victorian style Gothic idea about repressed sexuality and transformed it into a highly erotic, still Gothic, but highly original premise and basically reinvented the tales of bloodsucking vampires. Her book, released a year after Stephen King’s “‘Salem’s Lot” in which that author tried to update the legends of vampires, was an immediate hit, but would be nine years before she produced a sequel, “The Vampire Lestat” in 1985. Between 1988 and 2018, she would release 11 more books in what became “The Vampire Chronicles”. She would write the screenplay for the adaptation of “Interview” in 1995, directed by Neil Jordan. While the film was a major success, Warner Bros. stalled on any potential continuation. A sequel would eventually be released in 2002, the standalone “Queen of the Dead” (the third book in the series), but that film more or less bombed at the box-office, despite heighted awareness that star Aaliyah had died in a plane crash several months prior to its release.

Rice would write a few spin-off vampire books, 1998’s “Pandora” and 1999’s “Vittorio the Vampire”, as well as creating “Lives of the Mayfair Witches” with 1990’s “Witching Hour”, 1993’s “Lasher”, and 1994’s “Taltos”. Eventually, the “Mayfair Witches” would be folded on the latter “Vampire Chronicles” books.

Her horror tales would expand with “The Ramses the Damned” series and “The Wolf Gift Chronicles”. She also wrote “Christ the Lord” series, “Songs of Saraphim” series, along with tales of erotica, “Sleeping Beauty”, published under the pseudonym of A. N. Roquelaure, and two other novels, “Exit to Eden” (1985) and “Belinda” (1986) under the pen name of Anne Rampling. Her standalone novels included “The Feast of All Saints”, “Cry to Heaven”, “Servant of the Bones”, and “Violin”.

But her impact on the horror genre, much like Stephen King, should be acknowledged though. Again, she turned the “Dracula” idea on its head, creating creatures of the undead that are “about people who are shut out life for various reasons,” she noted in her 2008 memoir. “This became a great theme of my novels - how one suffers as an outcast, how one is shut out of various levels of meaning and, ultimately, out of human life itself.” It was while grieving her daughter Michelle’s death that Rice wrote “Interview With the Vampire,” turning one of her short stories into a book. Rice traced her fascination with vampires back to the 1934 film, “Dracula’s Daughter,” which she saw as a young girl.  “I never forgot that film,” Rice told the Daily Beast back in 2016. “That was always my impression of what vampires were: earthlings with heightened sensibility and a doomed appreciation of life.”

And while her novels were part of that genre, she commanded such power that she got mainstream bookstores to shelve her books in the Fiction/Literature section instead of the horror sub-section. That is quite a feat.

Her passing at age 80 from complications of a stroke is sad for many fans, but her legacy and legend is all but assured. Her son Christopher, a best-selling author himself, is working with the cable network AMC and AMC+ to bring The Vampire Chronicles and The Mayfair Witches to streaming in 2022.

Books: The Damsel by Richard Stark (1967)

The eighth Parker novels was The Handle. At the end of that book, partner Alan Grofield is wounded and Parker gets him safely to a hotel in Mexico City and has a doctor tend to the wound. Then Parker returns to the U.S., leaving Grofield with his share of the cash from the job, to recover.

It's at this point, The Damsel (the first of four tales spun-off from the Parker series) begins. Grofield is lying in bed in his fourth floor hotel room when, seemingly out of nowhere, a very attractive young woman climbs through the window. She's apparently fleeing from someone and thinks the room is empty because it is dark. Grofield surprises her and demands to know what she's doing. She tells him a few obvious lies; he tells her a few in return, and the story is off and running.

However, It doesn’t take the thugs long to figure out where Elly is hiding, and soon both are on the run.  The rest of the plot revolves around a complex web involving three fathers and three grown children, an imminent political assassination, a former governor of Pennsylvania, the current dictator of a banana republic, and a one-eyed scarred ex-convict running around half-naked with a very large knife.

There is an odd mix of violence and witty dialogue here, a far-fetched plot, and a bit of a travelogue thrown in as well. It seems, from my perspective, The Damsel is also a dry run for what would become the Dortmunder tales a few years later. Alan is an interesting character and Elly is perhaps Stark’s first genuine female character who is not out for herself.

So Grofield falls somewhere between Parker and Dortmunder. He has some dark aspects of the violent world of Parker, but offers a somewhat cheerful outlook, with some wittiness here and there. A fun diversion away from Parker and his killer takes all world.

Books: Swashbucklers By Dan Hanks (2021)

 

"When Cisco Collins returns to his home town thirty years after saving it from being swallowed by a hell mouth opened by an ancient pirate ghost, he realises that being a childhood hero isn’t like it was in the movies. Especially when nobody remembers the heroic bits – even the friends who once fought alongside him. Struggling with single parenting and treated as bit of a joke, Cisco isn’t really in the Christmas spirit like everyone else. A fact that’s made worse by the tendrils of the pirate’s powers creeping back into our world and people beginning to die in bizarre ways. With the help of a talking fox, an enchanted forest, a long-lost friend haunting his dreams, and some 80s video game consoles turned into weapons, Cisco must now convince his friends to once again help him save the day. Yet they quickly discover that being a ghostbusting hero is so much easier when you don’t have schools runs, parent evenings, and nativity plays to attend. And even in the middle of a supernatural battle, you always need to bring snacks and wipes"

Author Dan Hanks describes Swashbucklers as “Ghostbusters meets Goonies meets Stranger Things meets IT.” Indeed, this book plays homage to many things 80s, which often reminded me of Ready Player One –except less complex and smug. It plays out like a sequel to a previous novel, where the kids, now adults with lives, with their own children, and worries more grounded in reality than magic, must return back to their small town and confront the evil that they thought once stopped, only to discover the villain clings to the skin of the world –or worlds, as the idea of the multiverse is included here. It’s packed with a lot of charm, nostalgia, witty dialogue, and weird things. Dark Peak is right out of Stephen King’s Derry, a town that exists in ether, ignoring the dangers that surround them, and quietly passing them off as “gas leaks” or with other lies.

The book is fun, not necessarily too dark –most of it leans into the idea of adults (some who have never grown up) being too old to confront the magical evils of the world. The trope works here most of the time, but because Hanks is borrowing a lot from these 80s pop culture media and he’s having fun. The reader will have fun as well, even if they were not born or lived through the 1980s.

Hanks does one last 1980s homage here –the ending: a little Back to the Future and Quantum Leap, as someone “leaps” into their younger self and then goes off to right what once went wrong. I’m unsure if Hanks will write a sequel or just figured out a neat way to end the tale. It’s frustrating, if only because there is no real resolve, but also daring as well. I mean, not everything has to be a franchise. 

Books: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (2012)

 

"Dante can swim. Ari can't. Dante is articulate and self-assured. Ari has a hard time with words and suffers from self-doubt. Dante gets lost in poetry and art. Ari gets lost in thoughts of his older brother who is in prison. Dante is fair skinned. Ari's features are much darker. It seems that a boy like Dante, with his open and unique perspective on life, would be the last person to break down the walls that Ari has built around himself. But against all odds, when Ari and Dante meet, they develop a special bond that will teach them the most important truths of their lives, and help define the people they want to be. But there are big hurdles in their way, and only by believing in each other―and the power of their friendship―can Ari and Dante emerge stronger on the other side." 

There is so much to love in novel for the YA (and adult) crowd. A lyrical tale of two teens who meet at the time the universe needs them most, one a light skinned Mexican and the other, a darker skinned one. Light and dark, one who has open and supportive parents, one who is also supportive ones, but both Ari’s parents have dark secrets that have been –unintentionally- transferred to their youngest son. I can understand Ari a lot –a teenager who has no friends (and doesn’t want them) - who is angry at the world. And he has no understanding exactly why this is, why he feels this way. But Ari understands that the world has written his story, knows its ending, and easily accepts he’ll travel down the road his older brother Bernardo went –who is in prison, but Ari’s parent refuse to talk about it.

Dante is the light that Ari has been searching for and it’s very clear early on that he’s in love with Ari of -course the Ari does not catch on right away. Their friendship is portrayed very honestly here, with realistic dialogue and writer Benjamin Alire Sáenz gorgeous prose filled with poetry and visual trickery. Set in El Pasco in 1987, Alire Sáenz captures the era with fine detail and almost dream-like feelings. It will remind many older readers of time when things were complicated, but still simple. When friendship meant everything and where you can –if you try- learn to reject what the outside universe expects of you

Books: The Goblin Emperor By Katherine Addison (2014)

"The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an "accident," he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir. Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment. Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody. Amid the swirl of plots to depose him, offers of arranged marriages, and the specter of the unknown conspirators who lurk in the shadows, he must quickly adjust to life as the Goblin Emperor. All the while, he is alone, and trying to find even a single friend...and hoping for the possibility of romance, yet also vigilant against the unseen enemies that threaten him, lest he lose his throne – or his life.

While this standalone fantasy novel is way different than anything I’ve read before in this genre, I found the book extremely well-written, even if I found it dull most of the time. It’s like two separate stories unfolding here, the day-to-day activity of running a kingdom, and a story about the tragedy that brought Maia to power. And to be honest, the “accident” that did do this seemed more interesting and wished a more parallel story than what unfolded here.

Still, I did appreciate Katherine Addison’s extraordinary world-building, the internal politics that Maia is forced to deal with, but has no idea how to do because he was brought up in such a terrible abusive way. Maia is gentle-hearted and despite some of the unbalancing issues that follow him into court, he is able to quickly pick some politicking very well. The prose and cadence is a bit off-putting for me –I never grew to appreciate of like it, but The Goblin Emperor is certainly a good enough fantasy novel that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And that’s something very rare in this genre.