March 2015 Book Round-Up

52: CR: Those Who Know Too Much (A Nicholas Fallon Story)(ebook) – K. R. Eckert

53: CR: Angel Hotel: A Novella (MIke Calhoun Book 1)(ebook) – K. R. Eckert

54: GR: The City On The Edge of Forever – Harlan Ellison

55: TH: Last Hand (Las Vegas Mystery Book 8)(ebook) – Rex Kusler

56: TH: Whirlwind – Rick Mofina

57: CH: Jokes for Kids: A two-in-one collection featuring Yo Mama Jokes and Knock Knock Jokes(ebook) – Steve Evans

58: WE: Hell Town Shootout (Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Book 10)(ebook) – Edward Grainger

59: CH: SNAKES: Fun Facts and Amazing Photos of Animals in Nature (Amazing Animal Kingdom Book 2)(ebook) – Emma Child

60: WE: Holt County Justice(ebook) – Richard Prosch

61: MY: Wading Into War(ebook) – Scott Dennis Parker

62: CR: Thieves Fall Out – Gore Vidal

63: CH: DOLPHINS: Fun Facts and Amazing Photos of Animals in Nature (Amazing Animal Kingdom Book 5)(ebook) – Emma Child

64: CH: Angel and Granny: The Broken Winged Butterfly(ebook) – Doreen Linda Funk

65: TH: Die For Me: A Bragg Thriller(ebook) – Jack Lynch

66: CH: Oliver and Jumpy, Stories 10-12(ebook) – Werner Stejskal

67: Ch: FOXES: Fun Facts and Amazing Photos of Animals in Nature (Amazing Animal Kingdom Book 10)(ebook) – Emma Child

68: RE: The Middle Kingdom Ride: Two Brothers, Two Motorcycles, One Epic Journey Around China – Colin Pyle and Ryan Pyle

69: TH: Stranger at Sunset(ebook) – Eden Baylee

70: CH: DINOSAURS: Fun Facts and Amazing Photos of Animals in Nature (Amazing Animal Kingdom Book 3)(ebook) – Emma Child

71: WE: Redbuds and Bullets (Jo Harper Book 6)(ebook) – Richard Prosch

72: CH: Maya & Filippo Show Aloha: Free Books for Kids Ages 4-8(ebook) – Alinka Rutkowska

73: WE: To The Gallows (The Legend of Cole Winters Book 1)(ebook) – G. S. Luckett

74: AH: The Blood of the Fallen(ebook) – James Reasoner

75: CH: CHEETAHS: Fun Facts and Amazing Photos of Animals in Nature (Amazing Animal Kingdom Book 9)(ebook) – Emma Child

76: HU: World’s Funniest Jokes (Omnibus): Huge Collection of mainly dirty jokes, puns and humor for adults(ebook) – Steve Evans

77: TH: Shoot To Kill(Young Bond # 6) – Steve Cole

78: CH: Children’s Book: Stories for Children 7 (WONDERFUL STORIES FOR CHILDREN)(ebook) – Francois Bissonette

79: CH: SPIDERS: Fun Facts and Amazing Photos of Animals in Nature (Amazing Animal Kingdom Book 6)(ebook) – Emma Child

80: HR: BROTHERS: A Short Story(ebook) – Daniel Boucher

81: TH: The Defenseless (Brandon Fisher FBI Series Book 3)(ebook) – Carolyn Arnold

82: SF: Dragon of The Stars – Alex J. Cavanaugh

83: TH: Mike Hammer: Kill Me, Darling – Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins

84: CR: The Voodoo Murders(ebook) – Michael Avallone

85: TH: The Forgotten Room: A Novel – Lincoln Child

86: TH: Black Boat Dancing (Con Maknazpy) (Volume 2) – Gerard Cappa

87: CR: Wayzata – Ted Korsmo

88: TC: The Man in the Monster: An Intimate Portrait of a Serial Killer – Martha Elliott

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March 2015 Movie Round-Up

Kill and Pray(1967)

Machete(2010)

Today’s Humor: Big Bang/DC Style

New In The House

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1: Kill Me, Darling – Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins: the latest Mike Hammer novel completed from a chunk left by Mr. Spillane.

2: The Children’s Story(review copy) – Robert A. Krueger: The Children’s Story is a mix of fantasy and reality, a tale of good and evil and innocence that takes place in an imaginary world and in the real world, an entertaining story both serious and funny. One morning teen sisters go for a walk not realizing their outing will change them forever. Not typical teens, they become trapped in a strange land where they are subjected to outrageous and bizarre and sometimes almost normal experiences and to unusual people and talking animals.

and the ebooks:

3: Headstone Sonata, verse 1(review copy) – Jorge Bocanegra: Joel has long been a victim to the viscous teeth of the assumptions and misconceptions conjured in his own mind concerning his relationship with his girlfriend, Alex. After three years together, things just haven’t been the same. But now, those monstrous doubts in his head will become personified in the form of risen corpses in the city of Orchard. Will he and Alex be able to put aside their differences and survive together? Or will this apocalyptic event spell the perfect opportunity for the couple to go their separate ways?

4: The Crime of Our Lives(review copy) – Lawrence Block: a collection of nonfiction pieces centering on the crime fiction genre.

5: Victim City Stories: Collection 1(review copy) – Dale Hammond: Victim City Stories Collection 1 contains the first three issues jammed with thrilling pulp action, chilling splatter noir, and depraved crime horror. Nine heart-stopping stories and over 130,000 soul-numbing words

6: The Ghost Riders – James J. Griffin; latest western from Rough Edges Press

7: Five Shots Lft – Ben Bridges{ a collection of short fiction.

Because I Like It: The Pretty Reckless

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The Pretty Reckless

Kill and Pray(Requiescant) 1967

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Lou Castel, Mark Damon, spaghetti western

He looks like a hick, a sort of traveling preacher, riding a horse more suited to a plow. His gun holster is on a rope and hangs near his knees. But he’s unnaturally good with it.

He’s known only as Requiescant, Latin for Rest In Peace.

Lou Castel plays the odd man who remembers nothing about his past. We, though, see that he’s the only survivor of a massacre of a band of Mexicans by a group of Confederates late in the war, 1864, a small boy creased by a bullet across the top of his head. He’s found wandering by a traveling preacher and his wife and daughter and raised as a son.

Ten years go by and the daughter has left, run off with a group of actors into Missouri. The young man goes to find her and bring her back.

And begins to build a reputation.

Quite by accident, he disrupts a stage hold-up right in the middle of a town, learning then of his abilities with a pistol, a good eye without any training, dispatching two of the robbers when he snatches a gun out of the air when the driver is killed, then later killing the two leaders, brothers, when they come after him. He gets the name Resquiescant because he makes the sign of the the cross and prays over every kill.

In the town where he finds the girl, Princy(Barbara Frey), she’s working as a prostitute, held prisoner by a man named Dean Light(Ferruccio Viotti). Requiescant goes to the big boss, George Ferguson(Mark Damon), who agrees to let the girl go. Though they never say it, an undercurrent surrounds Ferguson and Dean Light. One gets the distinct impression that Ferguson is a homosexual. He has a singular disdain for women, marrying only to get an heir, and has an affection for Light that goes beyond friendship. He even promises Light that “one day all this will be yours.”

Things are never as easy as they seem. Light doesn’t want his moneymaker to leave and tries to have our hero killed, costing Ferguson three of his men.

Requiescant, with the help of an old Mexican mute who recognizes the scar on his head and knows who he is starts to remember the slaughter when he was a child. And also that Ferguson was the officer in charge that day.

That’s when all hell breaks loose. An old priest recruits him and helps bring down the murderers. Our hero plays a deadly game with Dean Light called Hangman’s Noose. Each man stands on a stool with a noose around his neck. At the stroke og midnight, they draw and try to shoot the stool from under the other man.

A much better film than I expected. Directed by Carlo Lizzani, the list of writers involved runs to eleven. Usually a bad sign. Not in this case though.

FFB: The Voodoo Murders – Michael Avallone

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Ed Noon, Forgotten Books, Michael Avallone

Somebody was trying to tell ed Noon something and he was trying hard to listen. First, the telegram asking hin to come to the Calypso Room that night. Ten words: CALYPSO ROOM TONIGHT OR YOUR DOLL WILL DIE WITH PINS. It was signed Calypso.

Then the redheaded doll named Evelyn Hart wanted an escort to the same joint and was offering five hundred dollar bills for the job. Pick him up at nine-thirty.

Three other things were the clincher though. The knifing pain that suddenly struck his gut as he was leaving was the first. The giant black man with three machetes he handled very well warning him away from the club was second. The third was the department store mannequin tossed through the window of his favorite bar. Dressed like Noon, it had a knife through the throat with a message attached: TONIGHT YOU DIE CALYPSO ROOM. BLACK DOLL WILL BRING YOU DOOM. and it was signed count Calypso.

Oh, I forgot to mention the blond named Peg Temple, publicist for the Calypso Room telling him to stay away.

The Voodoo in question is the hottest dancer on the circuit, the six foot six giant is her jealous boyfriend, Then Evelyn Hart tries to run him down, not remembering it, she claims.

The whole mess gets Noon’s hackles, not to mention curiosity, up and a whiz-bang finale in Trinidad gives us an interesting read.

Mike Hammer: Kill Me, Darling

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Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane, Mike Hammer

Max Allan Collins had less to work with this time around in completing Spillane’s Hammer novel. About half the previous works and a first chapter used for another published novel: The Girl Hunters.

Reworking the beginning with another fragment, Collins has given us a superb story that finds Mike on another bender because Velda walked out on him four months previous with a one word note: “Good-bye.”

It takes Pat Chambers to clue him in after Mike learns of the murder of an old cop friend of the both of them. Velda is in Miami keeping company with a hood named Nolly Quinn.

Velda had been a vice cop when Mike met her and the murdered cop had put them together. They had to be some connection there.

An out of shape Mike, four months of drinking and not working will do that, heads to Miami to figure it out.

Author Collins continues to add to the Hammer tales and add to the legacy of one of the genre’s best writers.

Recommended. Now on sale.

Dragon of The Stars – Alex J. Cavanaugh

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Alex J. Cavanaugh, Science Fiction

Lt. Commander Aden Pendar thought his whole future was laid out. As First Officer of the Hyrathian warship Ryzell and the son of a Duke, expected his coming evaluation would earn him a Captain’s rank and his own ship. The plan then was to ask the Queen for her daughter’s hand in marriage, securing his rise in power.

Two things waylaid those plans.

The alliance declared war against Hyrathia over their claim to the planet Kavil and his captain told him, while technically proficient at command, he wasn’t ready for a captaincy. He had no people skills when it came to dealing with the crew. That would come in time.

But not now.

And the war began going badly for Hyrathia. While no other race could stand up to them, the combined Alliance was getting it done.

Hyrathia’s salvation lay in a ship that had disappeared twenty years before. The Dragon had had a new weapon system that laid waste to an enemy, giving Hyrathia victory, then the scientist that had developed it, had flown off without a word. No one knew where or why. It had not been seen, found, since.

Aden’s new mission was to take a handpicked crew, find the lost Dragon, and save Hyrathia from being wiped out.

A tall order.

But there was much more going on Aden was to learn.

Space opera by one of the finest young writers going today. Release date is April 7th.

2Cellos: Every Breath You Take

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2Cellos