Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

First Among Sequels

By Jasper Fforde.

This is the followup to Something Rotten and takes place 14 years later...so I'm going to bypass the ol' "can't talk about the previous without spoileration" space this time. It sets off another quartet of books, which looks like it will be very interesting.

Thursday Next is now 52, has a few kids, and after the heavy dismantling of Spec-Ops, now works for Acme Carpets (secretly a front for Spec-Op freelancers) and still works in Jurisfiction, where she has to be the trainer for her fictional counterparts. Apparently books 1-4 written about Thursday made her into a slutty, single, badass longcoat and book 5 (which Original Thursday insisted be much less violent) turned her into a tree-hugging hippie, so...this is a pain in the neck for Original Thursday. Especially since her fictional counterparts really don't seem up for the job.

In her home life, Original Thursday has to confront a few old enemies, sees the ghost of her uncle Mycroft and can't figure out what she needs to ask him, and her son Friday has turned into a teenage layabout. The latter is kind of awkward because he's REALLY SUPPOSED TO join the ChronoGuard, which is about to run out of time and need Friday's future self (nicknamed "Apocalypse Next" for how many times he's saved the world) to fix the problem ASAP. However, what the ChronoGuard is up to is tied to the fate of the declining BookWorld, and not just in a "oh, by the way, we're turning Pride and Prejudice into a reality book show, watch out" sort of way...

Oh, and there's a bit of scary killer cheese.

This is complicated fun, especially with the various Thursdays and what Original Thursday's kids are up to (the development with one of them is particularly...interesting...), and it looks like it will be going into some very interesting territory in the next one. Note: this book ends on a cliffhanger, so be prepared...

Four stars from me.

P.S. I really want a book to be called Apocalypse Next.

Curse of the Spellmans

By Lisa Lutz.

What's the "Curse of the Spellmans," you ask? TERMINAL ADDICTIVE SNOOPINESS. I thought I'd just answer that question for ya right off the bat.

Like The Queen Gene, this doesn't have massive amounts of plot, per se. It kind of follows Isabel around through her life (though again, her life is more wacky than yours is), and while it doesn't have massive amounts of badass action and whatnot, it's still intriguing to read.

The mysteries in this one boil down to, "why the heck is _____ acting the way s/he is?" Isabel is totally unable to stop herself from investigating the following:

• Why is Dad on some kind of health kick?
• Since when did Rae get friends?
• Why is David moping around the house and why has Petra totally disappeared to Arizona?
• WHAT THE HELL IS THE NEIGHBOR UP TO?!?!?

None of this goes very well, especially when most of the people she's investigating are relatives and the main non-relative she's investigating is very much On To Her.

Isabel's main trouble in this one is when a gardener named John Brown (that's way too generic of a name- SUSPICIOUS!) moves in next door to the Spellman house. Isabel's once again spending more time at home ever since her AWOL roommate left his wife and moved back in, so she starts dating the guy and getting VERY SUSPICIOUS at the one locked room in his place. Or what he's digging up in the yard. Or how he shreds everything in his trash. Or how women he talks to disappear. Or how he doesn't seem to have a verifiable birthday or birthplace or anything in the way of ID that she can get ahold of. John Brown is on to her pretty damn fast, and starts fighting back, to the point of getting a restraining order out on Isabel. Four arrests later, it's clear that Isabel just. can't. stop. until she knows what the hell this man is up to! And it doesn't matter what the cost is to her...

On a more touching note, there's the bosom (albeit kinda one-sided?) friendship between Rae and Inspector Henry Stone from the last book, who she's pretty much adopted as her best friend. Never mind that she's 15 and he's 44 and her mom (Olivia) has to continually explain to CPS why she allows them to hang out- Henry is clearly a good influence on Rae, or at least gets her to do her homework. Henry is at least somewhat driven crazy (and driven OVER, literally) by Rae and the other Spellmans, and he frequently calls on Isabel to rescue him from Rae. Spending so much time around the guy, Isabel, well... there's a quiet little surprise later on that I am looking forward to seeing play out in a later book.

I liked how in the end, Isabel (who's more Peter Pan-ish than even I am at the same age) seems to grow up a little, or at least to make a few changes in her life to try things out differently. I will be intrigued to see how this plays out in the future. There will be a third book, right?!

Four and a half stars from me.

Neptune Noir

By a bunch of people.

I adore the Smart Pop books, but I think this one may be my favorite and the most well-done of the lot I've read so far. I think it helps that the editor of the book is the creator of Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas, and he puts in his own introductions at the start of every essay (plus the occasional footnote/aside in other essays explaining why the show did such-and-such a thing, usually due to budget cuts). Plus, Veronica Mars is a GREAT show for analysis. (Though privately I am glad the book stops after season 2, given how season 3 went. Thanks, budget cuts and cancellation!) Fans of the show will want this one.

Favorite essays:

• "Welcome to Camp Noir," Lani Diane Rich's analysis of the camp factor in the series
• "Daddy's Girl" and "Daddy Dualities", on the show's use of fatherhood
• "The Noir of Neptune," a more serious take on guess what
• "Reality on Mars and Neptune," more noir life
• "I Cannot Tell A Lie. And If You Believe That..." (self-explanatory)
• "Lawless Neptune," on the utter and total corruption of Neptune and how the Mars family fight against the tides
• "The New Normal," on vigilantism
• "The United States of Veronica," taking a different tack on vengeance vs. healing
• "I'm In Love With My Car," analyzing the cars on the show. (I have zero interest in cars, Rob Thomas admits to having little interest in them...but this totally works and kept ME interested!)
• "Boom Goes The Dynamite: Why I Love Veronica and Logan" (self-explanatory)
• "Innocence Lost", comparing Veronica to Angela Chase and Buffy
• "From Golden Girl to Rich Dude Kryptonite," a what-if-Lilly-never-died analysis of Veronica.

As you can see, it was hard to narrow down the pics. Only one essay, one on Mallard Fillmore being a fan of the show, kind of lost me.

Four stars. Great for fans!

Lord John and the Hand of Devils

By Diana Gabaldon.

This is a collection of short stories/novellas featuring Lord John Grey, a minor character in the Outlander series who's gotten his own series of mysteries now.

The stories are:

• "Hellfire:" After seeing a fellow get murdered, Lord John looks into the local Hellfire club to see what they had to do with it.
• "Lord John and the Succubus" is billed as more of a fantasy story, but not so much. In this one, Lord John is stationed in Germany, where everyone's going nuts because they think a succubus is blazing through town. (Amusingly, John's the one guy around not terribly worried about succubus attack.) Meanwhile, the local princess is propositioning him, and he's trying to figure out if a hunky German officer is more interested in the princess or in him.
• "Lord John and the Haunted Soldier." This takes place after "Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade" (which I have yet to read), after there has been an Incident where a cannon blew up during a battle John was in. He's being investigated as a cause of it, mainly because he has an older half-brother with a munitions factory. At the same time, he tries to track down the whereabouts of the girlfriend of a soldier that got blown up by the cannon.

I was pretty well entertained by the stories, even though calling them "supernatural" is kind of a stretch here. Sometimes the stories seem to end a bit abruptly,  but otherwise I was entertained.  I was pretty touched at times by John's dilemmas, especially with regards to the is-he-naturally-friendly-or-what-exactly German soldier. As others have pointed out, yeah, John's pining over the straight/married/really traumatized by gay sex anyway Jamie Fraser does get...old. And yet, even I was touched by John's "writing" letters to Jamie in the third book.

I'll give the collection three and a half stars overall, which is what I'd rate them all separately, I think.

The Star: A Tarot Card Mystery (Tarot Card Mysteries)

By David Skibbins.

Previous book here.

For a book about a tarot card reader, tarot sure has dropped out of this plot. Anyhoo... It's around Christmas, and Warren gets a present: more time spent with his snappish, also-bipolar daughter Fran. Unfortunately, it's not under good circumstances, as it turns out that her asshole husband has made off with their kid. And then he gets killed soon after, and Fran was too drunk to even know if she did it.

Uh-oh.

Turns out her husband was a REAL asshole, one of those guys who will do anything to get to the top, and tends to save information about people and then turn on them. He certainly needed some killin', but who did it? Warren runs into an old Black Panther friend of his who ended up on Orrin's bad side, the local preacher who turns out to be secretly gay, his wife who shuts down real fast if Orrin is mentioned, and his old cop partner, who's really hot to arrest someone (preferably Fran, but Warren will do). Things, as they are wont to do, really do blow up at the holidays...

There's also a subplot in this one that's mildly interesting, but pretty much gets short shrift: Warren runs into his dad's old gay lover (as it turns out, Dad was bi. And much nicer once he came out of the closet.), who suspects that dear old dad was murdered by his second wife*. This isn't a bad plot, but it pretty much gets drowned out by the much more urgent-seeming Fran plot. Maybe it would have worked better if it had gotten more depth and a book of its own.

Anyway, it's a good read. I wanted to share one quote from it, one of the two tarot-related remarks from this one:

"You know, a funny thing happened when Fran showed up at my table last week. One of the cards dropped out of my deck. It was the Star card. That didn't make much sense at the time, but I'm beginning to understand.

"What's it mean?"

"It's about life purpose, about having a sense of purpose. My dad kept denying his truth until he had to break everything apart to reclaim it. Fran lost her reason for living, and just wanted to die. I think I buried mine for years, just keeping on the run and under everybody's radar. But I think I'm starting to find mine. This fatherhood thing, it's got to me. I really want to save my girl."

Awwwwww.

Four stars.

* Who, incidentally, HAS THE LAST NAME OF HIGHTOWER, JUST LIKE THE SATANISTS IN THE LAST BOOK. And yet, somehow, NO commentary or "Huh, coincidence, eh?" or "I hope they're not related" remarks are made about this. You'd think this would be uh, something to mention. Yes, I think it's cute that in a series about a  tarot reader, the suspected baddies are all named Hightower, but you can really only get away with using that once. It's not a last name like Smith, for chrissake.

The High Priestess

By David Skibbins.

Previous book here.

This book goes to some dark places. Which is to say, hey, look! Satanists! (And yet, the Devil card NEVER COMES UP IN THIS BOOK. What the heck?! Really, this book should have been called the Devil.)

Warren gets approached on the street by a fellow who turns out to be the twin brother of an old girlfriend of his from his hippie days. More specifically, the girlfriend who ruined his life. Edward and Veronique are now Church of Satan bigwigs, and some serial killer is offing their members. Naturally, they'd like to blackmail Warren into doing the job, since they knew him back in his old blowing-things-up days. Adding to the fun, Warren gets a really ominous tarot card reading from a fellow he knows proclaiming that he'll lose everything in this case. Ai yi. His shrink thinks it may be a rare female serial killer (indeed, the book gives this part away from the getgo), but Warren manages to find THREE likely prospects: a chick in the yakuza who's foaming at the mouth to get him, a rabid preacher with scary thugs, and a really strange (and living under a fake identity) woman running an angel shop. All three of them are badass enough to foil attempts at surveillance. Uh-oh. And then there's the return of Veronique, which leads to him getting dumped by Sally, his hacker girlfriend and best source of information.  In other news, Warren also ends up meeting his daughter for the first time, and...oh lordy, does she ever take after him, in all the bad ways.

It's kind of an ominous mess, but an interesting one. The unraveling of the puzzle takes turns I wouldn't have expected. There's also some interesting comparisons between the preacher and the Satanists. At the back of the book, the author admits to making up the entire Church of Satan thing and that he has no idea what they do for real, but the ideas he came up with... This is interesting because Edward is actually rather friendly towards Warren, and is all, "Hey, let me tell/show you what my religion is really like. It's not what you think." There are two major scenes, one of which is a more public setting and is all, "Hey, we're not all THAT different!", and the other of which is in private and is all, "May all those do-gooder religions stare into the sun and go blind. Revenge! Revenge!" The funny thing is that the one scene set in a church is equally as scary as the latter Satanist scene (major feature of it: "Hey, God won't mind if you alter the commandments a little..."). Hoo boy.

I have one annoyance at the ending at this one, which goes below the cut.

But still, four stars.

Perfectly Plum: An Unauthorized Celebration of the Life, Loves and Other Disasters of Stephanie Plum, Trenton Bounty Hunter (Smart Pop series)

By a bunch of people.

I love you, Smart Pop Books.

This is a collection of essays regarding the Stephanie Plum books. It's great fun. And considering that I've kind of gotten bored of the Plum books of late (haven't even gotten around to reading Thirteen), it actually was a refresher that (a) got me interested in the books again, as well as (b) acknowledging that the books stay static- or as one of the essays put it, Stephanie might as well be on a hamster wheel of her own.

Topics include:

• "Destiny: Disaster!" and "Why Can't You Be More Like Your Sister"- the Plum women are doomed to crazy!
• "Life on the Hamster Wheel," how Stephanie doesn't change too much from being a doofus newbie bounty hunter who can't pick a guy.
• "The N in New Jersey Stands for Noir"- self-explanatory.
• "Laughing Her Way Out Of Trouble"- also self-explanatory, but especially well done.
• "From Disaster to Diva"- why Lula should be the next self-help guru
• "Stephanie Plum's Trenton"- a mobster's analysis
• "Ranger as Hairy Godmother"- wouldn't argue that one.
• "The Gun in the Cookie Jar"- arguing that Stephanie isn't nearly as bad at her job as she seems. A good argument, too!

There are, of course, the requisite essays involving Stephanie's love life. One argues for Joe, one argues for Ranger, one argues for both, and one argues for...Rex the hamster. Well, I guess someone had to do it. The only one I didn't like too much was "Could Stephanie Plum Really Get Car Insurance?" (obvious answer: no), which uh...seemed to have been written while the author was tripping on something.

A good read for fans. Four stars.

Plum Lucky

By Janet Evanovich.

I haven't reviewed Visions of Sugar Plums or Plum Lovin, the other two "between the numbers" Plum books. I have a hard time explaining them.

What it boils down to: these are the books where Stephanie Plum ends up dealing with a... semi-supernatural bounty hunter/third hottie hanging around named Diesel. Diesel hunts down people with wacky powers, called Unmentionables. Where this fits in the continuity, I have no idea (though Valerie got married in one, so I guess some of it has something to do with reality), especially since Plum Lucky apparently takes place a month after Plum Lovin. Argh. I dunno, I just think the whole concept of the "between the numbers" books is flipping weird compared to the usual Plumness, plus they kind of reek of "let's make double the money on really short books with some wacky paranormal in them that doesn't fit!" (Let me just say, buy 'em at Costco, don't pay for the full price hardback or you'll feel really annoyed with yourself.)

That said, I wasn't too thrilled with VoSP, thought Plum Lovin wasn't too bad, and Plum Lucky is also not too bad (and oddly, not all that supernatural this time).

You'll look at this title and go, "Gee, lemme guess, leprechauns are real now?" Thankfully, no, though there is a character who thinks he is one and isn't. He claims that his special power is talking to animals (he's a former jockey trying to save a horse), but really, his ability is great luck combined with zero ability to make a decision. In this case, the fellow stole money from a mobster to save a horse, and Grandma Mazur ends up with it and takes off to Atlantic City. This leads to Stephanie, Lula, Diesel, Connie, and the occasional other Burg characters going after her, trying to get ahold of more money for the mobster, etc. The whole Unmentionable aspect is pretty much kept to a minimum in this one, other than Diesel's gambling skills and his bra-removing ability, so mostly it's a traditional Stephanie Plum yarn, except that Ranger and Joe aren't in it all that much (mostly via phone).

Something odd I liked about this one: I'm currently reading Perfectly Plum (review to come soon), and a lot of the descriptions in this book really kind of summed up things for me in an enjoyable way. Especially a certain spoilery phone conversation between Stephanie and Ranger toward the end, hee.

I dunno, it's a fun fluff read, though I would certainly not recommend paying hardback for this. (Good lord, hardback for these is a ripoff.) I'm giving it three and a half stars.

T is for Trespass

By Sue Grafton.

In this book, Kinsey alternates between two situations. In one of them, she's investigating an insurance case that reminds me a bit of H is for Homicide, but with old people. The other one is a lot closer to home.

Kinsey's old crank neighbor Gus ends up in the hospital, enough to force his lone remaining relative, a niece in NYC, to have to fly out there and deal with the situation. She hires a nurse to take care of him, "Solana Rojas", and Kinsey is paid to do some bare confirmation of her resume. Which she does.

Unbeknownst to Kinsey (but known to the reader, because like the last book, we are getting scenes from someone else's POV. In this case, the POV of "Solana"), the Solana she's reviewing the references of is not the chick that the niece just hired. Faker Solana is a former coworker of the original who's stolen her identity and resume. She nursemaids old people, steals their money, and then kills them.

The interesting thing about this one is what it does to Kinsey. She's a clever liar, but she's also pretty face-forward and blunt, while "Solana" is sneaky and devious...and she manages to outwit Kinsey a good chunk of the time. Uh-oh. Who's the one who looks crazy now?

I've read that this book is supposed to be scarier than the usual Kinsey books, but I'd disagree. Like the other books, there's moments at the end with this one that are freaky, but it's not out of character. I do kind of think that showing scenes from "Solana's" point of view was mostly unnecessary in this one. I suspect Sue Grafton is now throwing in POV's from other people to keep herself from getting bored after so many books, and I can't blame her for that. On the other hand, I almost think it would have been creepier to not know from the very beginning what "Solana" was up to and how she was doing it, rather than already knowing and having Kinsey find out from the other side later. I can think of one scene towards the end where you do need to hear about it from "Solana's" POV, but other than that, her chapters didn't add much for me. Oh well.

I do have to give Sue Grafton credit for keeping me interested in this story, despite it covering subject matter that I probably wouldn't want to read about too much (I've spent too many years of my life dealing with eldercare issues), though. I definitely liked it better than the previous book, so yay for improvement.

I'm going to give it three and a half stars. A good read.

An Incomplete Revenge

By Jacqueline Winspear.

(Disclaimer: this was sent to me by an agent.)

I hadn't heard of the Maisie Dobbs novels before, but now I think I'll have to keep an eye out. This was interesting.

In 1931, Maisie Dobbs is a psychologist/PI, as well as a former nurse in the Great War. She's managed to do pretty well for herself, but is still emotionally reeling (in a calm, quiet sort of way) from both the impending death of her first love, who was mentally destroyed in the war, and from being on the outs with her mentor.

Maisie takes a quiet-sounding job from an old friend- he wants to buy an estate in the village of Herondene and wants to find out if things are on the up-and-up there. No, they are indeed not, but for reasons it's hard to put your finger on. The lord of the manor is a drunken ass, but why is everyone else there so secretive? And why do fires keep breaking out at the same time every year?

Maisie suspects it has to do with the totally random zeppelin that fell on the town during the war, which landed on a bakery and killed almost all of the family that lived there except the son who died in the war at the same time. As an ambitious local reporter tells her, people have been acting weird about it ever since. But why would that be?

And then there's the local gypsy population, who of course are getting blamed for stuff. Maisie's a bit psychic thanks to having a gypsy grandmother, so she hits it off with the head of the tribe. And Beulah has a feeling that Maisie can help...

It's interesting to read. I enjoyed Maisie's bits of psychic detection, particularly when she talked about dowsing for silver. The plot itself is personality detection, which I enjoyed. I do wish Maisie showed a wee bit more of emotion, but for all I know, that might have happened in earlier books.

Anyway, I liked this, will keep an eye out for more. Four stars.