treeduck Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 Ok this is an all-new thread and it's what I'm going to be doing during my hiatus from the King fest... I'm reading some stuff I read ages ago plus some new books, hopefully I might give some people some ideas for reading material, maybe introduce a few authors to other people and so on... The books range from thrillers to mainstream, from westerns to mystery novels, from horror to sci-fi-suspense. And in length from 150 pages to 1000... After those Stephen King 500 page (on average) slabs I'm going to start with something short and sweet, only 150 pages of Elmore Leonard one of my favourites... http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/1874/mrmajestykuq0.jpg I remember they made this one into a film starring Charles Bronson and Linda (High Chaparral) Crystal and it was pretty good but as is usual it's not as good as the book... In this story a local crime kingpin messes with the wrong melon grower... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Aubrey Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 Oh yeah, sure. I mean, why waste your time posting in the 'What are you reading' thread when you can spam up the forum by starting a whole new useless thread dedicated to the books you and you alone are reading! Post whore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 5, 2007 Author Share Posted January 5, 2007 QUOTE (Jack Aubrey @ Jan 4 2007, 09:43 PM) Oh yeah, sure. I mean, why waste your time posting in the 'What are you reading' thread when you can spam up the forum by starting a whole new useless thread dedicated to the books you and you alone are reading! Post whore. Get it right at least Jackie boy, THREAD WHORE, not post whore, posting this in another part of this subforum would amount to the same post count and wouldn't change the nature of the post content. I could just spam random letters one after the other endlessly in GD if I just wanted a ton of posts, you know that. Unfortunately you've developed the dreaded "spam spotters disease",it appears anything and everything looks like spam to you, no matter what it is, it looks like a terminal case as well I'm afraid... Ps you've just made an extra treeduck post... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Aubrey Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 QUOTE (treeduck @ Jan 4 2007, 10:57 PM) QUOTE (Jack Aubrey @ Jan 4 2007, 09:43 PM) Oh yeah, sure. I mean, why waste your time posting in the 'What are you reading' thread when you can spam up the forum by starting a whole new useless thread dedicated to the books you and you alone are reading! Post whore. Get it right at least Jackie boy, THREAD WHORE, not post whore, posting this in another part of this subforum would amount to the same post count and wouldn't change the nature of the post content. I could just spam random letters one after the other endlessly in GD if I just wanted a ton of posts, you know that. Unfortunately you've developed the dreaded "spam spotters disease",it appears anything and everything looks like spam to you, no matter what it is, it looks like a terminal case as well I'm afraid... Ps you've just made an extra treeduck post... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Necromancer Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 I just read the shampoo bottle while taking a dump. Can I start a thread about it??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 5, 2007 Author Share Posted January 5, 2007 (edited) QUOTE (Necromancer @ Jan 5 2007, 04:15 PM) I just read the shampoo bottle while taking a dump. Can I start a thread about it??? People start threads about allsorts on this forum one thread's as good as any other I reckon... I'm pleased to see your reading is coming along nicely Necro, the shampoo bottle is a big step for you... Edited January 5, 2007 by treeduck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelcaressed Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 QUOTE (treeduck @ Jan 5 2007, 04:17 PM) QUOTE (Necromancer @ Jan 5 2007, 04:15 PM) I just read the shampoo bottle while taking a dump. Can I start a thread about it??? People start threads about allsorts on this forum one thread's as good as any other I reckon... I'm pleased to see your reading is coming along nicely Necro, the shampoo bottle is a big step for you... Hey...tri-sodium di-sulfate and sodium laurel sulfate isn't exactly what I would call beach reading. Keep up the good work necro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deadwing2112 Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 QUOTE (Necromancer @ Jan 5 2007, 04:15 PM) I just read the shampoo bottle while taking a dump. Can I start a thread about it??? Go post it in the What You Are Reading thread. ps. What intrigued to read the shampoo bottle while your unleashing the beast? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelcaressed Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 Now...to actually address this thread. My favorite mystery series is written by a gent named Michael Jecks. It's a series set in the west country of England, about ten years after the demise of the Knights Templar. The opening book gives us Jacques DeMolay's execution from the perspective of a knight who successfully fled from the Order when the French King, with the blessing of Pope Clement, destroyed the Order. The knight, who knew DeMolay, watches as DeMolay (in his 70's at the time) refuted the allegations against his Order and curses the Pope and King while he burns. (Both of them died w/i a year, the King childless.) After that, the knight returns to Devon and takes up his inheritance, due to the death of his elder brother a couple of years previous. The knight befriends a stannary bailiff, and together they solve quite a few murders. Generally, it is w/o the so-called gallantry oft attributed to the times, rather focusing on the knights ingenious deductions and the bailiff's stubborness. The books are well crafted and not presumptuous. A great read for anyone interested in the time period (1310-1320.) Enjoy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 6, 2007 Author Share Posted January 6, 2007 QUOTE (steelcaressed @ Jan 5 2007, 11:00 PM) Now...to actually address this thread. My favorite mystery series is written by a gent named Michael Jecks. It's a series set in the west country of England, about ten years after the demise of the Knights Templar. The opening book gives us Jacques DeMolay's execution from the perspective of a knight who successfully fled from the Order when the French King, with the blessing of Pope Clement, destroyed the Order. The knight, who knew DeMolay, watches as DeMolay (in his 70's at the time) refuted the allegations against his Order and curses the Pope and King while he burns. (Both of them died w/i a year, the King childless.) After that, the knight returns to Devon and takes up his inheritance, due to the death of his elder brother a couple of years previous. The knight befriends a stannary bailiff, and together they solve quite a few murders. Generally, it is w/o the so-called gallantry oft attributed to the times, rather focusing on the knights ingenious deductions and the bailiff's stubborness. The books are well crafted and not presumptuous. A great read for anyone interested in the time period (1310-1320.) Enjoy! Sounds interesting SC, much better than Necro's shampoo bottle, which I was thinking about adding to my list until I really thought about it and realised that if Necro's hair is such a mess then the shampoo bottle couldn't be much of a read so here's one I read earlier... http://www.aerostar.com/coldair/images/KMS_Shampoo_Bottle.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earthshine Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 I am glad to know that some TRE people actually read something other than TRF. Neil would be proud of the readers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 6, 2007 Author Share Posted January 6, 2007 http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/1874/mrmajestykuq0.jpg Wow this has been a fast read so far, I'll finish it off later on. Leonard is a master of dialogue I'll type a bit out: 'I just told you, I hire who I want.' 'Yeah, well the thing is you want me,' Kopas said, 'only it hasn't sunk in your head yet. Because everything is easier and less trouble when you hire my crew. if you understand what I'm saying to you...' There it was a little muscle-flexing. Hotshot dude trying to pressure him, sure of himself, with two strong-arm guys to back him up. Majestyk stared at him and thought about it and finally he said, 'Well you're making sounds like you're a real mean little ass-kicker. Only you haven't convinced me yet it's true. Then again if you say anything else and I don't like it I'm liable to take your head off, so maybe you ought to consider that." I think they used this part in the film version with Bronson and an actor called Paul Kolso who won't sound familar but you'd know his face he always used to be play nasty pieces of work... Here's this scene in the film and here's a pic of Kolso too... http://www.ne.jp/asahi/betty/boop/mecha1.jpg http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/5724/kolsofy7.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 7, 2007 Author Share Posted January 7, 2007 Mr Majestyk, yes a good simple little mano e mano tale; the melon farmer with the silver star vs the crazy, burnt-out hitman. Spare prose, nicely done with nothing wasted, each paragraph moving the story forward relentlessly. It's kind of like a western in a modern setting with a great blue-collar character in Vincent Majestyk not his best novel perhaps but certainly a good one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 7, 2007 Author Share Posted January 7, 2007 And now a man who's done horror, short stories and children's stories, Joe R Lansdale. I know him mostly for his excellent and very funny Hap Collins and Leonard Pine mystery series, most of which I'll be re-reading. Next though is one of his stand-alone novels, another short, no-nonsense journey into the hard-boiled, suspense genre... http://www.geocities.com/almaric/fecovers/coldin-uk.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 8, 2007 Author Share Posted January 8, 2007 (edited) QUOTE (treeduck @ Jan 6 2007, 11:04 PM) And now a man who's done horror, short stories and children's stories, Joe R Lansdale. I know him mostly for his excellent and very funny Hap Collins and Leonard Pine mystery series, most of which I'll be re-reading. Next though is one of his stand-alone novels, another short, no-nonsense journey into the hard-boiled, suspense genre... http://www.geocities.com/almaric/fecovers/coldin-uk.jpg I like this Lansdale guy, he has a certain cold clarity, a dry deadpan sense of humour. Witness this paragraph of background about a bar the main character visits... "I couldn't go into Kelly's without thinking about Stud Franklin who went in there one Saturday and shot himself through the head with a .22 pistol. I didn't see it, but I heard about it from plenty who did. He just walked in there and, said, "f**k him and his pig too," and put the gun to his head. He was upset because he didn't win the FHA contest. He raised the pig for it, worked all year on that pig and put all his money into it, bought fancy food and medical supplies. He was beat out by some backwoods farmer who raised his pig on stale bread and cakes and fed him chewing tobacco to kill worms. Later they found Stud's pig hung up in the fancy concrete pen Stud had built for him. No one suspected the pig of suicide. Stud had seemed stable up to then." The main story is about a small town Texas businessman who wakes up one night and finds a burglar in his house in the dark. The burglar pulls a gun and fires but misses, our main character, Richard Dane, raises his own .38 and fires back and hits the guy in the right eye and kills him. The police come and tell him it's a closed case of self-defence but he feels guilty. Later they tell him the convict father of the dead man has just been released from jail. it turns out the old man is after revenge, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a son for a son. He meets him at the funeral and things go downhill from there, the old man threatens him and his family, especially his young son and this culminates in the old man attacking them in their own home even in spite of police protection. I'm in the middle of the book now and things have taken an amazing turn: Dane and the old man have teamed up together. But why and against whom? Edited January 8, 2007 by treeduck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 10, 2007 Author Share Posted January 10, 2007 Cold in July was really good and better than I remembered it. It's tense and exciting and also very funny. It features a five star character in redneck private eye Jim Bob Luke who steals the show once he appears about 100 pages in... As I said it was really funny and had me laughing out loud numerous times. Lansdale has a real storytelling country boy style that is sort of a cross between James Crumley, Cormac McCarthy and Daniel Woodrell. If you haven't read this guy yet do yourself a favour and pick one of his books as soon as you can. I'm really looking forward to re-reading the best of the Hap and Leonard series... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 10, 2007 Author Share Posted January 10, 2007 I'm not a fan of Carl Hiaasen these days but he used to be really excellent in the early 90s with his eco-comedy thrillers set in Florida, so I thought i'd remind myself by reading one of his early good ones... This is how my copy of Skintight looks (thank God I found the cover on the net my webcam pics suck!!): http://www.nnbh.com/base/03/images/0330314203.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 15, 2007 Author Share Posted January 15, 2007 http://www.nnbh.com/base/03/images/0330314203.jpg Skin Tight is an enjoyable read that's heavy on the bizarre; bizarre bad guys, bizarre murders and bizarre happenings in general and it's all quite funny. Of course being funny is Carl Hiassen's forte but I think he sacrifices depth to get that humour, keeping it surreal rather than suspenseful, lightweight to my mind. Whereas Joe Lansdale (for ease of comparison since I just read him) can make you laugh and scare you at the same time, Hiassen seemingly cannot. He lacks a little of the gravitas needed to pull it off. His other forte the ecology element, that usually gives his stories an interesting edge isn't so much in evidence here. Still the seven-foot wacko bad guys with rice krispie complexions, crooked county commisioners, unscrupulous courtroom-shy lawyers, body-disposing tree surgeons, ultra-vain Robert Plant wig-wearing TV reporters and incompetent money-grubbing plastic surgeons make for an entertainingly chuckle-fueled diversion. I read this originally back in 1992ish along with the other three Hiassen novels that were available at the time (Tourist Season, Double Whammy and Native Tongue) and I always thought that this one was the weakest of the bunch even though it was still quite good. It's not even quite as good as I remember somehow. Carl's finest work was his debut solo novel Tourist Season with Double Whammy coming in a close second, but it was downhill from there with his fifth novel Strip Tease being the last one that was any good at all. I'll read that one in a few books time and I hope it helps purge my memory of that abysmal film they made out of it starring Burt Reynolds and Demi Moore... Useless trivia: Oh yeah one more trivial thing, back in the 80s the weapon of choice for villains in suspense novels was the infamous Uzi, which always seemed to pop up in a Dean Koontz novel for instance (back when he was Dean R Koontz anyway), but here Hiassen breaks the pattern by featuring an Ingram sub-machine gun instead... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 15, 2007 Author Share Posted January 15, 2007 http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/5531/coverfreefalllargevx9.jpg Robert Crais writes detective novels in the tradition of Raymond Chandler, John D Macdonald and Robert B Parker. Of the three though I most closely associate him with Parker because his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike characters more closely resemble Parker's Spenser and Hawk, only I'd say they're better. Elvis is more charming, funnier and tougher than Spenser and Joe Pike is even more dangerous and enigmatic than Hawk. The stories have more depth too and are on the whole stronger plus as the series goes along Elvis becomes more and more troubled and therefore more complex. The one I'm gonna go back to and read here is the fourth one in the series which was the best up to that point (1993) a tale Robert entitled Free Fall. My version is the 1994 American paperback edition, there was no British editions in the early-mid 90s... A cool bonus as far as I'm concerned is there's some cool sitting DUCKS on the cover, what more could I ask from a detective novel? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 16, 2007 Author Share Posted January 16, 2007 (edited) I've started Free Fall and it's pretty good so far but I remembered something interesting about Robert Crais. Unlike Robert Parker and all the the other detective authors he refuses to sell the TV/film rights for these characters (Cole and Pike) which is interesting so don't expect to see an Elvis Cole TV series any time soon or a movie. Ironically Crais used to write for television in the 70s and 80s having penned several episodes of Quincy ME and Miami Vice plus a few other things... Edited January 16, 2007 by treeduck 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 19, 2007 Author Share Posted January 19, 2007 http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/5531/coverfreefalllargevx9.jpg And there it was, Free Fall a tale of South Central Los Angeles gangs and dirty cops and a young girl, with Elvis Cole keeping his cool amongst it all. Joe Pike rules though, he's more powerful than GOD!! And there's good news for Joe Pike fans (like me), after all these Elvis Cole novels, seeing everything from the Elvis point of view, Crais' latest novel is a Joe Pike novel. So now we're gonna see Crais' LA through Joe Pike's eyes for a change and we'll know what he's thinking and feeling (and what he really thinks of Elvis Cole) instead of Joe just making a few fleeting appearances about halfway through the story. This is dangerous though, the more you expose the hitherto shadowy existence of a mysterious character the more his power diminishes. I mean look at Hannibal Lector for instance. So it's a daring move by RC and it's a fresh idea that Robert B Parker never used, imagine a novel starring Hawk instead of Spenser, that would have shaken Parker's work up I think. In fact I'd rush out and get a hawk novel tomorrow if he did it. But for now I'll be snapping up the Watchman when it comes out at the end of Feb. Here's the cover... http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/9285/thewatchamnru4.jpg Meanwhile... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 19, 2007 Author Share Posted January 19, 2007 http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0786889055.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg I'm going to continue with the Elvis Cole series with the follow up to Free Fall, Voodoo River. I can't remember the story of this one at all but I know it's the tale that takes Elvis out from the glitter and smog of LA and off and away to bayous of Louisiana (of course I'm gonna read a book set in Louisiana when THE SAINTS are preparing to win the super bowl whooo hooo). Crais is actually orginally from Louisiana so he was probably able to draw on his old memories of the place to colour the story... Yep I'm looking forward to reading this and I've got three more Elvis Cole novels after that, that I'll read later on in this MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE FEST plus there's two more recent ones that I haven't read at all yet. All I'll say to you people if you haven't read Robert's stuff yet is get going!!! Get busy!! Get Crais!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 22, 2007 Author Share Posted January 22, 2007 Fave characters so far: Martha Guidry the dotty old lady obsessed with annihilating bugs real or imaginary with great gas cloud sprays of Raid... Luther the 100 year old 200 pound snapper turtle... Jimmy Ray Rebenack the redhead, ridiculously pompadored, would-be private eye/blackmailer with the worst tailing technique in the world... Rene the 400 pound freak show on legs, leg breaker for the local bad ass business man and giant turtle handler... No Joe Pike yet, surprise surprise and on page 125 I've almost totally forgot the story altogether on this one, it's like a new book, with Free Fall it all came back to me but here there's just one or two bits filtering through... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0786889055.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg One thing about Elvis Cole I noticed from reading Voodoo River and Free Fall is he listens to Jim Ladd in Los Angeles and he often asks when listening to George Thorogood or someone: what could be better? Well Voodoo River is slightly better than Free Fall but didn't Jim Ladd do an interview with Neil Peart recently? Hmmm. Anyway yeah, while Free Fall had more action and a few more exciting moments, Voodoo River was a stronger, more in-depth story, with more interesting characters and even though it took 236 pages before he appeared more from Joe Pike than usual. I'll return to Elvis Cole's LA not too far into the future but that's it for Robert Crais for now... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/8382/lovedeath7zn.jpg Dan Simmons is best known for his sci fi and horror novels but he's turned his hand to suspense in a Robert Crais style with his Hard Freeze and hard and Nails novels. This one here, Lovedeath, (that's how my 1993 UK trade paperback looks) is in the horror genre but as I remember more of the subtle variety rather than the gory one. This isn't a novel but a collection of 5 tales, involving romance and death, hence the title, 4 short stories and 1 100 page novella in a 300 page book. Looking at the back, the tales are quite varied: from the first world tale to the story of a sioux warrior. So quite a change of pace to the first few novels featured here... This isn't my favourite Simmons book but hey I'll get to my favourites later for now this'll do nicely... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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