December Reading Summary

There were 8 novels completed this past month, one of them a graphic novel.  

From 1985, Bulmer's 121 page novel Omens of Kregen continues the main line of two plots that have been on-going for several volumes now.  Firstly, the battle for freeing Vallia from its enemies from within gets settled, with several key battles being won and the rogue "king" of the northlands vanquished at last.  More importantly is Dray Prescott's return to the lair of the witch Csitra and her evil spawn Phunik.  Dray and Seg join yet another doomed treasure seeking expedition into the hellish cave system of Coup Blag, a trap-laden maze that would challenge the greatest player of the Lara Croft games.  Hardly anyone ever comes out alive, and this expedition is no exception.  At long last, however, the witch is finally dealt with, and Dray now needs to reunite with his own expedition, which was separated when they were attacked on route to the caves.  However, at the very end of the story Dray is recalled to face the anger of the Star Lords.  We will have to wait till next month to see how that encounter turned out.  A good entry in the series, finally closing some of plot lines that have been around for a long while. 

Haven of Darkness is from 1977 and is 173 pages long.  Two story threads eventually intertwine in Tubb's 16th entry in the Earl Dumarest series to form a highly entertaining novel.  The thread with Dumarest is pretty much like so many of his other adventures.  For one thing he starts out on a run down planet with virtual slave labour.  He is being hunted by the Cyclans, and there happens to be one on that planet.  To earn money to hire computer time to find the location of Earth he has a knife fight with a viscous killer.  But we are soon off that planet and en route to another one, again familiarly traveling in a beat up old spacecraft trading goods.  His arrival on planet 2 allows his story to unite with strand number two.  That story features a beautiful woman on the high council of a peaceful planet, but a planet where it is only safe to travel during daylight.  With two suns, a unique event termed Delusia causes hallucinations when they align, and after dark sudden death comes by the mysterious creatures that rule the planet then.  A pact has been arranged between the human daytime inhabitants and the aliens that take over at night.  One man is threatening that pact by attempting a coup.  Dumarest is just in time to put a stop to it.  This story has a different ending; it appears that Dumarest is going to stop off for a time, something that hasn't happened yet in this series.  Perhaps we will learn more about the mysterious deadly night inhabitants in the next story. 

 

Josh Kirby did the cover art for one of the editions. 

 

And now it's on to Delphi Classics!  I keep buying single Kindle novels but I get so engrossed in reading the classics that I seldom have time to consider reading something more contemporary.  So I am limiting myself to four classic authors per month, with any time left over for more recent literature.  We'll see how that works out.

 

First up were the tales of the Brothers Grimm.  The first English translation of the fairy tales was published in 1826, 55 stories in all told by Edgar Taylor.  By no means complete, this first foray into the collection covers most of the basic tales many of us grew up with.  The Cinderella story is the real deal, with the step sisters cutting off a big toe and shaving their heel to fit into the slipper.   Of course at the time the Brothers assumed they were collecting only German stories.  Not till later was it even suspected that most of these tales had origins far beyond Germany and even of Europe, many of them coming to us from the Near East and India.  Many of the tales share similarities, for instance three sons setting out to seek their fortune, with only the youngest succeeding.  We meet many kinds of folk critters, from elves, witches, talking animals, evil step mothers, imps and kindly old people who give magical gifts to the right person.  Having read the complete Joseph Jacobs collections (see the books read blog entry for May 2025), many of these are very familiar in some form or other.  I may not read more into this collection for a while because of this.  Still great fun, mostly for all ages.

 

Next came one of my favourite books from high school reading days.  H Rider Haggard is still a favourite of mine, and his first Ayesha novel, She (1886) is the one that helped start possibly the biggest fictional tradition in literature--the fantasy adventure novel.  Taken up by Edgar Rice Burroughs (whom I read as a youth before I discovered Haggard), and even influential with Tolkien's writing, this remains one of the great adventure novels of all time.  Lasting 28 chapters, the first three are taken up with preparations for a great journey into unexplored East Africa.  Chapter 4 is the great storm that washes the heroes upon the beach, from which they must make their way into the interior, first by small boat, and finally as prisoners.  Chapters 5-10 tells of the adventures they underwent (4 men) in the great swamp that must be crossed, and the terrible fever that ensued for some of them.  We finally meet She herself in chapter 13.  The setting is in an abandoned Kor, a vast group of cities built thousands of years before the Egyptians built their great monuments.  Canals that once reached to the sea and vast hollowed out mountains are only a few of the achievements of this once great society.  It ended in a plague, so that the ruins have not been destroyed by war or natural disaster, but were left to age more naturally.  We are given some information about this ancient society, whose survivors fled and likely founded Egypt.  She herself is 2000 years old when we meet her, and Kor ruled long before her time.  We spend several chapters among these caves and ruins.  One of the more interesting things to come from the novel are the discussions about philosophy and religion that She and Holly, one of the male adventurers, have.  She wins most arguments, as she has had a lot of time to develop her theories of religion and philosophy.  Her reason for wanting to live for so long is so that she can be reunited with the reincarnation of her one true love.  Leo fits the bill nicely, the other main member of the adventurous party.  In chapter 24 the journey to the great life-giving cave is made, and the final chapters tell how Holly and Leo managed to escape their doom, something that Ayesha was unable to do.  She tried to double dip in the flame of life, and things did not go well at all.  Great fun to read, with excellent pictorial descriptions, some lively and interesting dialogue, and main characters not too hard to swallow (compared to many modern fantasy novels).

 

This is the edition I read as a teen. 

 

The Maltese Falcon was first published in 1929.  This was my first reading of the Dashiell Hammett novel.  I had one major problem while reading the book: I could not help hearing Bogart's voice in the part of Sam Spade.  Spade looks nothing like Mr. Bogart, as he is blonde and has features that make him look almost satanic.  But as Bogart speaks many of the same lines, it is his voice I hear.  Same with the fat man, played by Sidney Greenstreet, and the kid, played by Elisha Cook, Jr.  I have seen the film so many times that the actors' voices speak the lines while I read.  The film does a credible job of making the story and characters come alive, too.  A bit more time is spent in the book explaining what exactly the Falcon is, but otherwise things pretty much follow the course of the movie plot.  Of course there are many more subtleties in the book, and it is a must read for lovers of the film.  Hard-boiled detective fiction and Noir film itself owe so much to this very story.  An easy read and great fun!

 

Kwaidan is a series of collected Japanese ghost tales translated and retold by Lafcadio Herne and published in 1904.  Once again we have a top knotch film of the book, or at least some of its stories, this time from 1964.  I will mention a few of the best tales.  The first story, "Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi", is the first story told in the movie version as well.  It is a great story about a blind ballad singer who is requested by a powerful lord to visit his palace and sing of times before his clan was wiped out by enemies.  The film version calls it "Hoichi the Earless," perhaps giving too much of a hint of what is to follow.  An all-time great ghost story.

"O-Tei" tells about a young couple engaged to be married, but the girl dies before it can happen.  She makes him a promise on her death bed, and in a creepy scene manages to fulfill her promise.

"Of A Mirror and a Bell" is somewhat humourous, but "Mujina" returns to the pure horror format, as a man wandering late at night encounters not one but two spirits, either one of which would be enough to destroy a man. 

"Jikininki" tells of  a priest's visit to a village just when their head man had died.  The villagers, by tradition, leave the village for a night, but the priest agrees to remain with the body.  An evil spirit comes and eats the corpse and the food left as offering.  The priest is able to solve the mystery of the hungry ghost, freeing the village from its curse and rescuing the man who had been cursed.

"Rokuro-Kubi" tells of a priest's encounter with five evil spirits who wish him harm.  When their heads separate from their bodies at night he listens in to their conversation and thus learns how to thwart them. The story continues in a bizarre fashion with the head of the lead rogue fastened to the priest's cloak, until a robber takes it from him.

"Yuki-Onna" is another of the filmed stories, this one a winter scene.  A woman in white saves a man from freezing to death during a bad snowstorm, but makes him promise not to ever tell what has happened.  Years later he opens his big mouth and tells his beautiful never-aging wife.  As usual in such fairy tales, there is no penance for the mistake, only sorrow and hardship.

"Aoyagi" tells the sad tale of three willow trees, two old and one quite young.

"The Dream of Akinosuka" takes us deep not only into the dream world, but the story leads to a further discussion of ants.  Yes, ants.  Don't ask yet.  Just read.  This is a pretty good story.

"Horai" is a brief story that reminded me of some Dunsany tales.

The book is rather short, and perhaps to lengthen it enough for publication he includes three essays: Butterflies, Mosquitoes and Ants.  The butterfly chapter discusses butterflies in Chinese and Japanese lore, and is quite fascinating.  A few more tales are included as well.  The mosquito chapter is fairly amusing, as Hearn discusses ways of eliminating the pests, which particularly bother him where he lives.  Then comes the chapter on ants, one of the more unique essays I have ever read.  The author compares ant society to human, wondering if humans will ever learn to work together the way ants do.  A good followup to reading this chapter would be to read T. H. White's 2nd volume in his Arthurian tales, The Queen of Air and Darkness, the darkness referring to life as an ant.  All in all, a most remarkable book, and highly recommended.  Make certain that the three extra chapters are included in the edition read.

 

One of many cover editions of this still popular book. 

 

In 1986 writer Frank Miller collaborated with artists Klaus Janson (inker), Lynn Varley (colorist) and John Constanza (letterer) to create the new and much darker Batman.  Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was a 4 series comic that changed forever the direction that comics would go.  My edition was the 30th anniversary one, with all 4 comics contained within one graphic novel volume.  The comics spawned the new Batman series and spinoffs.  This story features a Bruce Wayne who is now 55 years old and has been out of the loop for some 30 years.  Most civilians have forgotten him or think he was just a myth.  His comeback is at a time when Gotham city is at its lowest, most crime-ridden era.  He is soon joined by a new Robin, a 13 year girl gymnast.  Superman plays a major role in the story, and even Green Arrow makes appearances.  The story is darker than almost anything I have ever read.  Batman is hunted as a cruel vigilante by the police, and public opinion is turned against him.  Gangs of young people calling themselves Sons of Batman roam the streets acting against crime in his name.  The city is a complete mess, and then things get worse.  The Joker escapes prison and goes on a major killing spree.  Superman fights against Russia in a war, but after defeating them they unleash a nuclear bomb, a neutron bomb, that devastates the planet.

Many people still think that Batman is a superhero; he is not, and he has no superpowers.  His inventions are all science based, his luck in escaping dangerous situations is supreme, and he has good help.  But he is human.  I was never much into superheroes in my day.  My comic reading trended towards Tarzan, Conan, Magnus Robot Fighter, and their ilk.  The only other comic I have read on this return of Batman level of literary value and artistic quality has been The Watchmen.  Both graphic novels are well wroth seeking and reading.

 

Finally comes a novel from 2004 (trans. English 2007) by acclaimed Japanese writer Haruki, Murakami called After Dark.  It's a strange novel and hopefully far from the best by this prolific author, whom I am just discovering.  To me it seems like one of those novels that could fool readers into thinking they are reading something profound, when actually it's all rather prosaic with a few puffs of mist and smoke to dazzle us.  A 19 year old girl spends a long Tokyo night in family restaurants.  A young man who barely knows her and her sister invites himself to her table and they talk.  He is a jazz trombone player on his way to an all night practice session.  This meeting leads to most of the other events that occur in the novel, which is fairly short and easy to read.  I find very little to recommend this novel, though it won't stop me from trying a few of his more famous ones, such as Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.  While it's common for great authors to write works of lesser quality, it's a bit disheartening when one of them is the first one read.  The novel might work for younger readers who are ready to try something different than young adult novels or Harry Potter.  A 19 year old reader could possibly find this novel mysterious and fascinating in so many ways.  But not this old buzzard.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Sometimes at the end of a month I have a day or two extra, not enough time to begin a new novel.  In the past I have used the Oz stories and other quick reads, or the massive volume of fairy tales by Joseph Jacobs, taking many months to complete.  This month I began reading Stephen J Gould's 8th book of science essays, called Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and The Diet of Worms, compiled in 1998 from monthly articles he writes for Natural History magazine.  In the past I have read some of his earlier collections and found them fascinating and highly readable.  I don't know why I got away from them, but I am happy to be back.  The book is divided into six sections, and I read section 1 which contains three essays.  There is also a long intro by the author.  "The Upwardly Mobile Fossils of Leonardo's Living Earth" discusses how the great thinker discovered the fact that fossils, often found on high mountains, were once beneath the sea.  Leonardo's greatest efforts were towards proving the connection between man and planet, something he worked on till his dying day but never solved.  His fossil discovery, however, proved half of his theory.  Quite a fascinating read.  "The Great Western and the Fighting Temeraire" discusses how technology often progresses at the cost of earlier ways of achieving goals.  But of even greater interest is his discussion of Turner and artists in general, and how they are remembered as compared to great engineers or scientists.  Though a fun argument to read about, Gould forgets the fact that many artists, musicians and writers are totally forgotten today, though were once the talk of the town.  Finally comes "Seeing Eye To Eye, Through a Glass Clearly."  Here he points out how the invention of the aquarium not only popularized the study of sea and lake creatures, but how our point of view affected the study of natural history.  Seeing fish eye to eye was a new perspective and it revolutionized how we study such creatures today.  Before that, scientific illustrations usually showed the sea creatures looking like they do, but washed up on shore or leaping up out of the water.  All three essays make for a fascinating beginning and I look forward to continue with part 2 next month.

 

This painting in the Detroit Institute of Arts by Jan Van Kessel illustrates how water creatures were usually depicted before the invention of the aquarium 

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November Reading Summary

A pretty normal month for reading, as astronomy nights were few and far between.  I read nine books, and parts of others.  Since I seem to have run out of works by Silverberg (at long last), my reading now begins each month with a pulp novel by Kenneth Bulmer, followed by one by E. C. Tubb.  Then comes Barry Malzberg, and, every other month, a novel by Michael Moorcock.  Following those four authors I am in free reading mode for the remainder of the month, choosing whatever I feel like reading.  I have a large pile of real books to get through, as well as literally hundreds of Kindle novels.  So here we go....

 

Rebel of Antares is from 1980, this continuing saga of Dray Prescott by Bulmer is 151 pages.  One of the things that can get tedious in a long series such as this (this is #24) is the types of predicament into which the hero can be placed.  A favourite with Bulmer (and Tubb) is the arena, where the Roman tradition of gladiatorial combat is intensified in sadism and cruelty.  Once again Dray finds himself in the arena, starting out yet once more at the bottom of the barrel.  This is the same arena where he escaped from in an earlier volume, and rescued Delia.  Though it does advance the plot somewhat, Dray still ends up in the dungeon, and he could have got there without all the trouble of fighting in the arena.  But what do I know?  I haven't published 24 books (not even one).

The action is high pitched, and often humourous, as when Dray must rescue a princess from a high tower.  This is a fantasy story trope, but it is quite updated and well done nonetheless.  It is a dark and stormy night, and Dray sneaks, climbs, and fights his way to the princess.  She has been a captive a long time, and has often fantasized about who her rescuer would be, and how it would be accomplished.  "I see they've give you books to read," comments Dray.  It goes without saying that the rescue does not exactly fulfill the dreams of the young lady, especially when Dray grabs her and they jump from the castle wall into a muddy moat.

This book actually comes to an ending, not a cliffhanger, though we know that Dray has more work to do.  He reconciles with one of his lost daughters, and his son gets married (to the rescued princess).  A happy ending!

 

The Kindle reissue usually features 4 novels.  The updated covers are a reprint of one of those volumes.  This was the cover of the original Rebel of Antares, by Ken Kelly.  Though the cover art may make it appear that females are helpless critters who need rescuing by manly men, more often than not the women in this series can take care of themselves quite nicely.
 

 From 1994 comes Zenya, a 157 page story, #11 of the on-going adventures of Earl Dumarest, a man searching for his birth planet, which happens to be Earth.  Earth was essentially a disaster area when Earl left it as a child stowaway, and since then has been searching for clues as to its location.  We are never told why he wishes to revisit a worn out, stripped down, ecologically dead world, but on he goes, adventure after adventure.  He's had many opportunities to settle down and enjoy a bit of life, but Earl would rather risk that life hopping from planet to planet, asking questions about Earth's location.  In this story, on the very last page, he gets some clues.  Big deal.  This has become a very thin thread trying to hold together a series of individual stories of adventure.  We visit two new worlds this time, with most of the action occurring on the 2nd planet.  Farming settlers appear to be having some problems with the primitive natives, and Earl gets himself hired to end the war that is ready to explode.

It's a good enough story, but not one of Tubb's best Dumarest ones.  Two female characters form a backdrop to the manly action scenes, but they are shallow and only interested in themselves.  In addition, they both have mental health issues.  So no great women characters here, I'm afraid.

 

From 1975 comes the 168 page sequel we've all been waiting for in Malzberg's vigilante crime series.  In Harlem Showdown (#10) Burt  Wulf returns to New York to figure out his next move.  He has taken out drug kingpin after kingpin, and lived to tell the tale.  Lying low in a Harlem rooming house, he begins to take on small time dealers, before realizing that his game is up.  He has done all that one man could ever hope to do.  Malzberg, in an afterword, says the same thing.  Events could not continue, as they just began to repeat themselves.  What to do next?  Williams, the ex-friend of Wulf, is back on the NYPD force, this time part of a special unit to find and capture Wulf.  They were once patrol car partners, until Wulf left the force.  Wulf finally figures out who killed his girlfriend, even though we've strongly suspected it from the start (no, it's not Williams).  He goes after the bad lieutenant cop, and the end comes soon afterwards.  I won't spoil the ending, but it's got to be either Williams or Wulf, right?  Wrong.  Mostly.  Let's just say that with four books remaining in the series, Wulf likely isn't going to die yet. I have a feeling I know what will happen to him, and it involves some kind of arrangement with the police.  There is a lot of introspection in this story, something that has been happening more and more in the series.  Malzberg is very good at writing about inner thinking, especially within crazy minds.  The series will continue for a bit longer, but likely with a different spin on things.

 

I also read 2/3rds of the last Colonel Pyat novel by Moorcock.   This has been a very rewarding and fun series to read.  I will report on it in the December reading summary.

Doctor In The Swim by Richard Gordon is from 1962, and makes for very light reading.  This book has been on my shelf for years, and is finally on its way to the charity shop.  In this episode the doctor gets engaged not once, but three times, twice to the same girl.  He also gets Sir Lancelot Spratt out of a a New York prison cell, helps his cousin to not get a divorce, and manages a troupe of delinquent girls at a holiday camp.  More or less in the tradition of Wodehouse, the novel can be read at one or two sittings.  Some very funny moments, and some not so much.  Not the finest of the series, by any means.

 

The Shaman's Game is a crime mystery novel by James D. Doss from 1998.  Influenced heavily by the Navajo mysteries of Tony Hillerman, Doss writes about a Ute reservation in southwestern Colorado.  I found the book at an antique store on our recent road trip, and picked it up along with a Hillerman novel.  The plot concerns strange deaths that occur during tribal Sun Dances at various reservations.  Rumour has it that a Native witch is responsible, making everyone nervous.  Officer Charlie Moon, a Ute who has some difficulty in believing old timers' tales about the power of witches, is about to learn some lessons.  The character of Moon himself is not a very interesting one, at least compared to the officers in Hillerman's novels.  He is quite bland, in fact, though efficient in his own way.

The most interesting characters seem to be two old women, Moon's Aunt Daisy, a shaman, and Popeye Woman.  Aunt Daisy provides a lot of the interest in this novel.  There are also two young women who are after Charlie Moon for a husband.  One of the things I enjoyed about Doss's writing style is his following up spoken dialogue with the inner thoughts of the speaker immediately afterwards.  A speaker might smile and say hello, but their inner thoughts carry a very different message.  I also like how he builds towards his climax, though perhaps it takes just a bit too long, especially after a very slow opening exposition.  The book is part of a series, the third volume.  I may look out for at least one more before passing final judgement.  I did like the book, and most of the characters, especially the women, were very well drawn.  The ending keeps on surprising, even after the alleged bad guy is caught.  The book, like Hillerman's novels, also offers a chance to learn a bit about Native American culture.  By the end of the novel, my thoughts were also turning towards the writing of M R James, a writer of ghost stories.

Next came a collection of ghost stories by M R James from 1919.  A Thin Ghost and Others contains five tales: The Residence at Westminster; The Diary of Mr Poynter; An Episode of Cathedral History; The Story of An Appearance and A Disappearance; and The Two Doctors.  All are quite good, though not equally spine tingling.  The Appearance/Disappearance one is probably the strangest tale of the set, involving a Punch and Judy show; the first tale is probably the scariest of the bunch, though I suppose it depends on what frightens a particular reader.  Always worth reading, James' style is sometimes mundane and matter of fact, though he can build up nicely to a suitably grim finale.

Original 1919 publication. 

 

Tony Hillerman novels are now quite expensive, considering that they are all reprints and require no further editing etc.  Even Kindle costs are quite high.  So I was pleased to find a bunch of his novels at an antique store in Moriarty NM on our recent road trip.  I took The First Eagle, a later work from 1998.  Having just read a copy cat novel by Doss, and not having read a Hillerman in many years (he has passed on and his daughter now writes the new ones), it was good to revisit the old days.  I think by chance I picked up a novel I hadn't read before, as I remembered nothing about this Navajo mystery.  As usual, two stories intertwine.  Joe Leaphorn, retired from the Navajo police force, takes on his first private investigation.  A woman is missing and he is asked to find her.  The second story sees a police officer killed in the line of duty, and acting lieutenant Jim Chee, who was Leaphorn's protege, is convinced he has arrested the write man.  But of course he hasn't.  Hillerman weaves his magic, taking us deep into Navajo landscape, this time in Arizona.  I can't say if this is one of his best novels, but it was really good.  I have one more sitting on my shelf, one I know I have read.  So I will read that one, and perhaps keep looking for more Hillerman on second hand shelves.  Hillerman teaches as well as entertains.  We learn much about traditional Navajo ways in most of his novels, and this one is no exception.  He also tackles the thorny problem of reservation cops having to respond alone to most calls, with backup often up to an hour away.  In First Eagle we also learn a bit about Hopi traditions.  And there is science, in the form of flea catching.  Bubonic plague is still a threat in the southwest, due to infected fleas that bite rodents, which then get into people's homes.  So there is a sprinkling of microbiology, too.  Highly recommended, even if you've never read one of his books before.

 

A recent used book purchase. 

 

Thanks to a 36 part lecture series on mystery writing and its long legacy, we have been jotting down several authors of interest.  The first of these I have explored is about the Swedish police detective Martin Beck.  The first book of a series is called Roseanna, from 1967.  The books were co-authored by Maj Sjowall and Per Whaloo, and are among the favourite mystery books of the lecturer.  Beck is a detective on the national police force, like the FBI in the US or Scotland Yard in the UK.  He is called in when local police don't have the resources to deal with a serious and unsolvable crime.  And this one really seems unsolvable.  A woman is murdered on board a tourist cruise boat and her body dumped overboard in the canal.  The body is found soon afterward during a dredging operation.  The book is a police procedural,f and we soon realize how difficult and how boring the job can be.  The body is found in July, soon after the murder, but it is not until after Christmas that the case finally gets resolved.  Sometimes the authors write with a grim and very dry humour.  Beck himself is a physical wreck; he smokes too much, he never eats properly or sleeps much, and is often sick.  He has no meaningful relationship with his wife and two young children.  He is away from home nearly all of the time, either in his Stockholm office or travelling to other towns to investigate leads.  I have a few problems with this first book, though overall it is a very engrossing story and generally very well crafted.  First all, Beck only seems to have one crime on his caseload, with all the time in the world to solve it.  He must be the envy of a lot of detectives.  Secondly, the climax of the story, while gut-wrenching, is hardly plausible.  On their way to catch the criminal in the act of murdering a decoy policewoman, on a quiet Sunday morning, they are suddenly involved in a massive car pileup, and all their doors won't open.  When they finally get out, they have to run the 650 yards to the scene.  This past is quite amusing, anyway, though so improbable as to be laughable in itself.  And it's quite inexplicable as to how the killer just manages to walk into the apartment, considering it has always been locked and chained up till now.  I will read the second book eventually.  We'll see if any of these quibbles get ironed out, or if they will repeat.  

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Lastly comes another first book of a large detective series.  Ed McBain's 50+ book series about the 87th precinct takes place in a fictional city remarkably like NYC.  Whereas the Martin Beck novel was gritty and showed a realistic look at European crime solving, the 87th precinct novels are far grittier, and show a realistic look at American crime solving.  Cop Hater is from 1956, and McBain (real name Evan Hunter; before that he was Salvatore Albert Lombino) attempts to show the workings of a busy police precinct (district) when one of its detective is murdered, shot from behind when he was going to work.   A police procedural, there are virtually no clues at the beginning of the serial cop killer's rampage.  When all is said and done, three detectives are murdered.  However, the third, aware of the danger, manages to wound the perpetrator, and leave a few other clues behind before he dies.  Being 1956, the women are all wives of cops, so McBain, at least in the first novel, shows us a man's world, ruled by violence, bad jokes, and lots of cigarettes.  McBain/Hunter wrote the novel Blackboard Jungle, as well as the screenplay for Hitchcock's The Birds.  I purchased the first ten books in this series from Kindle for a bargain (less than 2$ per book).  So I will likely read the first ten, at least.  This recommendation comes from our television lecture series on great mystery writers.

 

I'm also chipping away at two large books, the fairy tale one by Joseph Jacobs, and a compilation of short stories edited by M. Jakubowski and M. Christian, called Tales From the Road.  It's a Mammoth Book, one of their series.  It includes chapters or stories by Moorcock, Ballard, and Kerouac, among others.  Some of the stories have been very disturbing.  More on this book when it is finished. 

 

Mapman Mike