Review: SIMPSONS COMICS Showstopper

SIMPSONS COMICS SHOWSTOPPER
HARPERCOLLINS/Harper Design – @HarperCollins @harperdesignbks @TheSimpsons

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Ian Boothby; Mary Trainor; Len Wein; Chuck Dixon
PENCILS: Phil Ortiz; John Costanza
INKS: Mike DeCarlo; Phyllis Novin
COLORS: Art Villanueva
LETTERS: Karen Bates
EDITOR: Bill Morrison
COVER: Matt Groening
ISBN: 978-0-06-287877-9; paperback (February 5, 2019)
128pp, Color, $16.99 U.S., $21.00 CAN

“The Simpsons” created by Matt Groening

Since 2016, HarperCollins' imprint, Harper Design, has been sending me review copies of its full-color trade paperbacks that reprint comic books based on “The Simpson's” animated television series.  Those comics have been published by Bongo Comics since 1993.

Simpsons Comics Showstopper (the fifth that I have received) is the newest trade paperback in the series.  Simpsons Comics Showstopper collects stories from Simpsons Comics issues #127, #128, #129, #132, and #133 (published between February and August 2007).

“The Simpsons,” produced first run for the Fox Broadcasting Company,  presents a satirical depiction of a working class family which consists of Homer Simpson (the father), Marge Simpson (the mother), Bart (the oldest child and only son), Lisa (the precocious and brilliant elder daughter), and Maggie (a baby girl).  “The Simpsons” also parodies American culture, pop culture, society, politics, media, etc. via the denizens of The Simpsons home town, Springfield.

Simpsons Comics Showstopper opens with “25” (written by Ian Boothby and drawn by Phil Ortiz and Mike DeCarlo).  It is a parody of Fox's long-running, live-action television series, “24.”  Homer is late for work... again.  Meanwhile, at his place of employment, Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, his boss Montgomery Burns, believes that he has killed Homer.  His solution to cover up this supposed crime – set the plant to meltdown!  Now, only Homer can save the plant and Springfield, but can he make it to work on time – when he hasn't after being twelve hours late?!

In “Simpson Family Robinson Crusoe” (written by Mary Trainor and drawn by John Costanza and Phyllis Novin), we get a Simpsons spin on two classics of Western literature, Robinson Crusoe (1719) and The Swiss Family Robinson (1812).  In “You'd Better Sloth Around” (written by Len Wein and drawn by Costanza and Novin), Homer buys a “Hoveround”-like vehicle called the “Sloth-Around,” despite his family's objections to that purchase.  Homer becomes a menace on the thing, but karma might have a surprise for him.

“A Brand New Burns Part One!” and “Part Two,” are written by Chuck Dixon and drawn by Costanza and Novin.  In the story, Montgomery Burns and his loyal confidant, Smithers, travel to Mexico where Burns will spend some time at “Rancho Segundo Posibilidad” for rejuvenation treatments.  So why does Burns end up in a sweatshop?  Why is Smithers back in Springfield with a younger Burns?

The comic book stories in Simpsons Comics Showstopper are inventive, full-length tales.  The best of the lot is “A Brand New Burns,” if for no other reason than the famous and infamous people writer Chuck Dixon depicts as being denizens of Hell.  Artists John Costanza and Phyllis Novin and colorist Art Villanueva deliver a few graphically striking panels, especially the ones that depict Montgomery naked and floating/swimming towards the afterlife.

“You'd Better Sloth-Around” epitomizes one of the things that “The Simpsons” does so well, satirize the American desire to get over on people and to beat the system.  “Simpson Family Robinson Crusoe” is a cute send-up of the source material.  That may be the best way to define the comics in Simpsons Comics Showstopper – cute, nice, and entertaining, but none of this material is great.  This collection may satisfy Simpsons comic book fans, but it is not an exceptional Simpsons comics collection, which I can say about some of the others (like 2018's Bart Simpson Bust-Up).

7 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

-----------------

Book Review: THE HUNTING PARTY

THE HUNTING PARTY: A NOVEL
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins @WmMorrowBks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Lucy Foley – @lucyfoleytweets
ISBN: 978-0-06-288937-9; hardcover (February 12, 2019)
336pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S.

The Hunting Party is a 2019 novel from author Lucy Foley.  Although Foley has written historical fiction, The Hunting Party is her debut crime novel.  This new book focuses on a group of college friends trapped by snow on an isolated estate where one of them is killed by someone in the group.

The Hunting Party opens January 2, 2019, on the estate of the “Lodge,” an isolated retreat in the Scottish Highlands.  Heather Macintyre, the Lodge's office manager, has just learned that Doug, the estate's “gamekeeper,” has discovered a dead body.

Let's go back three days earlier to December 30, 2018.  A group of nine adult friends and a baby are arriving by train on their way to the Lodge.  They are Emma and Mark Taylor; Miranda Adams and her husband, Julien; Nick and his American boy friend, Bo; the new parents, Samira and Giles, and their infant daughter, Priya; and Katie Lewis, a single, professional, working woman.  Seven of the nine are old college friends who met at Oxford University over a decade ago.  The group plans to spend the New Year's Day holiday together, but they don't know that they will be snowed-in due to a record setting snow storm.  The friends also do not know that one of them is going to be murdered over the course of this holiday, and the murderer is one among them.

Describing The Hunting Party is at once easy and at once a bit difficult.  Author Lucy Foley sprinkles familiar mystery and crime novel tropes throughout this book.  The book's cover copy declares “... psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie...”  Indeed, The Hunting Party is something of a spiritual descendant of Christie's legendary Murder on the Orient Express.  The copy also recommends The Hunting Party to fans of British crime novelist, Ruth Ware, and Irish mystery writer, Tana French, neither of whom I have read.  That's the easy part.

The Hunting Party is a mystery novel, a crime novel, a murder mystery, and a suspense thriller.  However, the book is very much a work of modern fiction, as Foley delves into timeless and modern themes and issues regarding marital discord, long-term relationships, the rivalries and prejudices within groups of friends and acquaintances.  While the killer is something of a familiar type, the act of killing itself is complicated and is not as easy to judge as one might think.

That said, I can say that The Hunting Party is a enjoyable read, and the last one hundred pages are an immensely enjoyable read.  I tore through the last third of this book as if my life depended on it, and there were times while reading this novel that I felt uneasy and felt a sense of foreboding.

Foley uses five narrators to tell this story.  At first, that makes the narrative a bit disjointed, but as Foley gradually reveals the troubled histories of individual characters and of these people as a group, the narrative strengthens its ability to engage the reader.  As the chapters race by, Foley makes it obvious that everything is headed to one flash point – the discovery of a body.  She tells a riveting story, revealing just how fragile the thin line between love and hate is.  So join The Hunting Party.

8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

--------------------

Book Review: THE BLACK ASCOT

THE BLACK ASCOT (An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery)
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins; @WmMorrowBks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Charles Todd – @CharlesToddBks
ISBN: 978-0-06-267874-4; hardcover (February 5, 2019)
352pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S.

The Black Ascot is a 2019 mystery-detective novel from author Charles Todd, which is the pen name of American authors, Caroline Todd and Charles Todd, a mother-and-son writing team.  The Black Ascot is the twenty-first entry in the “Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries.”  The series is set in and around England, post World War I,  and focuses on Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard, who is a veteran of the “Great War.”

Rutledge is trying to pick up the pieces of his career with the Yard, but he is hiding a secret.  Rutledge suffers from shell shock, and he lives with a voice in his head, that of Corporal Hamish MacLeod, a young Scots soldier Rutledge killed on a WWI battlefield for refusing an order.  In The Black Ascot, Rutledge seeks a killer who has eluded the Yard for years.

The Black Ascot opens at the Ascot Racecourse, England, June 1910.  This is the time of “The Royal Ascot,” the centerpiece of the racecourse's yearly schedule.  This year, the race is called “the Black Ascot” in remembrance of the recent passing of King Edward VII in May 1910.  However, the Black Ascot will be remembered for a murder that occurred after the race.

Blanche Richmond Thorne Fletcher-Munro is killed and her husband, Harold Fletcher-Munro, is grievously injured in a terrible automobile accident after leaving the Black Ascot.  Police investigators discover that someone tampered with the Fletcher-Munros' car, and the blame falls squarely on Alan Barrington.  Barrington was the best friend of Blanche's late first husband, Mark Howard Edward Thorne.  Barrington believes that Harold Fletcher-Munro financially ruined Mark Thorne, which led to Thorne apparently killing himself.  So was Barrington seeking to kill Harold in an act of revenge, but inadvertently killed Blanche instead?  Feeling the shadow of the gallows, Alan disappears and evades capture for a decade.  Some believe that he is dead.

The story moves to the present day, January 1921.  Inspector Ian Rutledge helps a struggling ex-convict reunite with his spouse.  Grateful, the convict gives Rutledge an astonishing, but seemingly implausible tip; he says that a friend of his has seen Alan Barrington!  Rutledge brings this information to his immediate superior, Chief Inspector Jameson, who promptly puts Rutledge in sole charge of a quiet reopening of the search for Barrington.  After struggling to make headway, Rutledge decides that he must get to known each of the major players in this case:  Barrington, the Fletcher-Munros, and Mark Thorne, much better.  He must delve into the past and into their past connections.  This case, however, will test Rutledge's sanity, threaten his career, and put his life at grave risk.

First, I must say that I am totally crazy about the idea of a mother and her son writing novels, especially mystery novels, together.  How effing cool is that?!

The Black Ascot is somewhat like a “cozy mystery,” a sub-genre of crime fiction associated with the so-called “Golden Age of Detective Fiction” (1920s and 30s).  The Black Ascot is set in the 1920s (1921) and much of the novel's action takes place in the small, socially intimate communities that are the settings of many cozy mysteries.  In fact, Charles Todd's beautiful and richly evocative prose will summon in the reader's imagination numerous small town and villages in glorious detail.  The farm near where the Fletcher-Munro wreck occurs is a place I would like to visit for a summer.

That said, Inspector Ian Rutledge is not really a cozy mystery detective.  He is a constant bloodhound, a relentless law dog in the eight-decade-plus tradition of hard-boiled detectives.  We can start with Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, and move to modern “private dicks” like Robert Towne's Jake Gittes, Walter Mosley's “Eazy” Rawlins, and Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski.

True, Ian Rutledge is not a private detective; he is an employee of the Metropolitan Police Service (also known as Scotland Yard).  Like the above-mentioned American private detective, Inspector Ian Rutledge is a big swinging dick with a fidelity to his vocation even in the face of an existential crisis.

We are always told about how important well-developed characters are to “great writing.”  Charles Todd makes Rutledge's career his character, and the harder Todd depicts Rutledge working a case, the more alluring a character Rutledge is.  The thrill in reading The Black Ascot is the story, and the story is Rutledge's investigation of the case of the missing Alan Barrington.  Charles Todd is so good at telling the story of Rutledge's investigation that I would follow Rutledge even if his case was finding clean socks.  The Black Ascot is a mystery lover's delight.

www.charlestodd.com

9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

------------------

Book Review: BRING ON THE BLESSINGS (Blessings #1)

BRING ON THE BLESSINGS (A Blessings Novel)
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins; @WmMorrowBks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Beverly Jenkins – @authorMsBev
ISBN: 978-0-06-168840-9; paperback (January 27, 2009)
384pp, B&W, $13.99 U.S., $17.50 CAN

Bring on the Blessings is a 2009 novel from bestselling author, Beverly Jenkins.  It was the first novel in what became known as Jenkins' “Blessings” novel series.  Bring on the Blessings introduces the fictional small town of Henry Adams, Kansas, which is largely the setting of all the following “Blessings,” books, including the recent (as of this writing) ninth novel in the series, Second Time Sweeter (2018).  Henry Adams is a fictional town established by freed slaves after the Civil War.  [Henry Adams is based on a real town founded by freed slaves, Nicodemus, Kansas.]

Bring on the Blessings introduces Bernadine Edwards Brown.  Two days after her thirtieth wedding anniversary and a day before her fifty-second birthday, she walks into her husband, Leo's office and finds him having sex with his secretary on top his desk.  One divorce later, she ends up with a $275 million dollar settlement.  Having been raised in the church, Bernadine believes that when much is given, much is expected, so she asks God to send her a purpose.

That purpose turns out to be a town: Henry Adams, Kansas, one of the last surviving townships founded by freed slaves after the Civil War.  The town is failing and has put itself up for sale on the Internet, so Bernadine buys it.  To the town's mayor, Trent July, Bernadine Brown is a savior.  After he meets Bernadine, Trent is even impressed by her vision and strength, and especially the hope she wants to offer to the town and its few remaining residents.  Bernadine also wants to offer hope to a handful of foster kids in desperate need of a second chance, changing their lives and the lives of the people who will become their foster parents.

But not everyone is down with Bernadine Brown and her vision for a promising future.  There will be bumps along the road – for her, for the residents, both old and new, and for the children.  In Henry Adams, Kansas, there is never a dull day.

As I have written in previous reviews, I had heard of author Beverly Jenkins, but had never read her work.  Then, I received a review copy of her 2016 novel, Stepping to a New Day (the seventh “Blessings” novel).  I immediately fell in love with the characters and with the town of Henry Adams.  I went on to read Chasing Down a Dream (2017 – #8) and Second Time Sweeter (2018 – #9).

Over a few exchanged tweets, Jenkins suggested that I go back to the beginning and read the series in order.  I was able to squeeze in the first “Blessings” book, Bring on the Blessings.  It was worth setting aside time to read this book, which I really love, and it may be my favorite.  That is difficult for me to decide because I have thoroughly enjoyed all the “Blessings” books that I have thus far read, especially Second Time Sweeter, which has some dark and edgy moments, belying its title.

Jenkins is an excellent character writer, creating a cast that the reader wants to know intimately.  I am exciting about all of the characters, even the detestable Riley Curry, and I must say that even the ill-fated Morton Prell is worthy of his own story.  I think that people who like Jenkins' books can't wait to get back to the characters, which is the case with me, dear readers.

Bring on the Blessings isn't all cozy and comfort.  Jenkins depicts the suffering of abandoned and abused children in stark terms.  My late aunt and uncle were foster parents to numerous children, and one of the many things that Jenkins gets right is the horrid situations from which many children in foster care came.  Even when foster children are placed in better situations, a whim or act of fate can threaten whatever good fortune... or blessings they found.  Jenkins is known as a romance writer, but readers should not underestimate the sense of verisimilitude that permeates her novels when it comes to depicting real-world dilemmas.

Bring on the Blessings is one of the best novels that I have read this past decade.  If the books that come after this first novel also keep it real, I say bring on more “Blessings.”

10 out of 10

http://www.beverlyjenkins.net/web/

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

---------------------

Book Review: FOREVER AND A DAY (A James Bond Novel)

FOREVER AND A DAY
HARPCOLLINS – @HarperCollins @HarperBooks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz – @AnthonyHorowitz
ISBN: 978-0-06-287280-7; hardcover – 6 in (w) x 9 in (h); (November 6, 2018)
304pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S.

“James Bond” is a fictional British Secret Service agent created by Ian Fleming, a British writer and novelist.  Fleming introduced James Bond in the 1953 novel, Casino Royale, and featured the character in 14 books – 12 novels and two short story collections.  Of course, most people know Bond because of the long-running James Bond-007 film series, which began with the 1962 film, Dr. No.

After Fleming's death, a number of authors continued to produce James Bond novels, including Trigger Mortis (2015) from author Anthony Horowitz.  Horowitz returns with a new Bond novel, Forever and a Day.  It is a prequel to Casino Royale and recounts the birth of James Bond as a “Double-0” agent and the formation of his identity.

Forever and a Day opens sometime in the early 1950s (1952?).  We find ourselves in the office of M, the head of the “Double-0” section of the Secret Intelligence Service.  His “Chief of Staff,” Bill Tanner is giving M information on the apparent murder of Agent 007, whose body was found in the water of the basin of La Joliette, in Marseilles, France.

Several mysterious figures seem to float in the periphery of this murder scene.  There is Jean-Paul Scipio, a Corsican crime boss.  He owns the chemical company, “Ferrix Chimiques,” but he is also known for his involvement in the heroin trade.  There is Irwin Wolfe, who is a major player in the creation of photographic film stock for movies via his company, “Wolfe Europe.”

There is a CIA agent, Reade Griffith, who also seems to be investigating 007's murder.  Most intriguing of all is Joanne Brochet a.k.a. “Sixtine” a.k.a. “Madame 16.”  She is a former British Special Operations agent who disappeared and then reappeared as some kind of free agent and go-between.  Sixtine looks out for herself rather than for any nation.

Into this intrigue arrives James Bond.  Fresh off an assassination, Bond is called before M, who makes the young agent and World War II veteran the new 007 and then sends him to France to find out who killed his predecessor and why?  Now, Bond must discover if any of the four previously-mentioned individuals is the ally or the enemy who killed the first 007.  It’s time for James Bond to earn his “Double-0” designation, which is a license to kill.

I have only read one of the fourteen James Bond books that Ian Fleming wrote and that was Dr. No (1958), the sixth book in the series.  I think that I have read two or three Bond short stories, although I cannot recall which ones (the result of four+ decades of reading prose fiction).

I found Dr. No to be a spy novel as much as it was a secret agent story.  I see spy novels as related to mystery-suspense and detective novels.  I think of secret agent fiction to be more action oriented – in some instances.  In Dr. No, Bond was secret agent with a detective's skills, and the book was a thriller with some “action scenes.”

Forever and a Day reminds me of Dr. No.  Yes, there is a fast, loud, and violent car chase scene that is straight out of the recent James Bond films which are often fast and loud with hyper actions scenes.  However, in Forever and a Day, Anthony Horowitz mixes secret agent, spy, and detective to create a novel with a measured pace that focuses on the development of Bond's character and personality in the context of being a “Double-0” agent.  Horowitz also gives us one of the best “Bond girl” relationships I have ever experienced as a Bond fan, although “Sixtine” is not anybody's “girl.”

I am a fan of Anthony Horowitz.  This is the third of his novels that I have read (although Trigger Mortis is not one of them), and I love his British television series, “Foyle's War.”  I am not going to claim that Forever and a Day is a great novel, but it is a good real that recalls the pre-film franchise, literary James Bond.  I enjoyed Forever and a Day enough to hope that Horowitz returns to Bond again.

7.5 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

------------------------

Book Review: WAR OF THE WOLF

WAR OF THE WOLF
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Bernard Cornwell
ISBN: 978-0-06-256317-0; hardcover (October 2, 2018)
352pp, B&W, $28.99 U.S.

War of the Wolf is a 2018 novel from Bernard Cornwell, a bestselling British author of historical novels.  This is the eleventh book in Cornwell’s “Saxon Tales” series, his epic story of the making of England and his continuing story of Saxon warlord, Uhtred of Bebbanburg.  “The Saxon Tales” series is also known as “The Last Kingdom” series (named for the first novel in the series).  The Last Kingdom has been adapted into a television series.  In War of the Wolf, Uhtred cannot enjoy the benefits of winning back his ancestral home because he is beset on all sides, by enemies both old and new.

It is the early 920s (A.D.).  War of the Wolf finds Uhtred cold-chilling in his family's fortress, Bebbanburg, which he recently recaptured from a usurper.  He will not leave, even to attend the funeral of cherished friend and former lover, Æthelflaed, the late Queen of Mercia.  Her brother, King Edward of Wessex, not long after his sister's body was walled into the family crypt, quickly took control of Mercia.  However, a mysterious monk arrives one day claiming that Prince Æthelstan, Edward's (bastard?) son and once favored to be the new ruler of Mercia, needs Uhtred's help.  His garrison at Ceaster is under assault.

Æthelstan grew up under the protection of Uhtred, so the legendary and feared pagan lord leads 90 of his fiercest warriors to the prince's aid, but the mission is not as he was told.  Now, Uhtred is surrounded and threatened on all sides, instead of being home and enjoying victory.  Edward's bid to cease power and to unite the Saxon kingdoms into one nation known as Englaland (England) has created a “Game of Thrones” like scenario.  Uhtred and his family may have to bend to the will of Edward and his demands by swearing fealty to him.

So Lord Uhtred is fighting on what he considers to be the wrong side... again, but a new, formidable, upstart and alien enemy will challenge the pagan's lord's place, heritage, and faith.  He is the young Norse warrior, Sköll Grimmarson, who wants to be King of Northumbria, and that means he must have the lands of both Uhtred and his son-in-law, Sigtryggr.  Uhtred has bested all his enemies, but in Sköll, he finds an enemy seemingly favored by the gods.  And if that does not give Uhtred pause, Sköll's crazed wolf-warriors, the “Ūlfheonar,” will.

I have read the seventh through the eleventh entries in “The Saxon Tales” series.  I never get tired of them, and I always want more.  Bernard Cornwell's novels have earned praise from many circles.  George R.R. Martin, the author of A Song of Fire and Ice (the inspiration for HBO's “Game of Thrones”), says that Cornwell writes the best battles scenes he has ever read.  USA Today has declared Cornwell “the reigning king of historical fiction.”  They are not lying.

I have practically run out of ways to praise Cornwell.  One would think that these novels about the events leading to the creation of England would have run out of steam – eleven books in.  How do you keep a long-running series fresh?  It is new plots?  Is it new adversaries?  No and no, the plots are more or less variations of familiar themes, it seems in the books I have read.  The enemies are basically the same, every novel featuring one major and at least a few minor land-grubbers.  Has Lord Uhtred changed?  Of course not.

What keeps “The Saxon Tales” fresh?  Bernard Cornwell does.  He is simply a gifted writer and a mack daddy, master storyteller.  It is as if every word he puts down on paper is the right word to advance the story.  Cornwell's prose is vivid and evocative without being lavish.  His plots are familiar but formidable.  His settings are epic; even when Cornwell places his characters under a grove of trees for the night, it feels as if that is the place where legends are made.

If Cornwell replaced Lord Uhtred with Bob Newhart, his books like War of the Wolf would still have a strangle-hold on the reader's imagination.  In War of the Wolf, someone uses the term, “lord king,” and I like that.  So I will say that Bernard Cornwell is the “Lord King of historical fiction.”

9 out of 10

www.bernardcornwell.net

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint syndication rights and fees.

------------------------------------

Book Review: SECOND TIME SWEETER

SECOND TIME SWEETER (A Blessings Novel)
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins; @WmMorrowBks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Beverly Jenkins – @authorMsBev
ISBN: 978-0-06-284617-4; hardcover (August 28, 2018)
302pp, B&W, $19.99 U.S., $24.99 CAN

Second Time Sweeter is a new novel from bestselling author, Beverly Jenkins.  This is the ninth novel in Jenkins' “Blessings” series (following 2017's Chasing Down a Dream).  Set in the fictional small town of Henry Adams, Second Time Sweeter focuses on a too-proud man seeking forgiveness and redemption and a single-father hoping that he can get a second chance with an old high school flame.

In Henry Adams, Kansas, there is never a dull day, especially when someone is trying to resolve events that occurred when we last visited our friends in Henry Adams.  Malachi “Mal” July betrayed the town by stealing $70,000 (and promptly losing it in an investment scheme) and also the woman he loves, Bernadine Brown, the owner of Henry Adams.  Now, Bernadine has dumped Mal and refuses to talk to him, and Mal's son, Trent, is both furious and hurt as a result of his father's actions.  Even Trent's sons (and Mal's grandsons), Amari and Devon, are disappointed and exasperated with their grandfather.  Mal knows that he needs to make restitution, but he has prideful notions that everyone should simply forgive him and move on from his... indiscretions.  However, the revenge of another woman he spurned will force Mal to reconsider his uppity attitude.

Meanwhile, single-father, Gary Clark, is looking forward to his thirtieth high school reunion.  Although he deeply loves his two daughters, Leah and Tiffany, Gary feels that his life is in a rut.  He hopes a reunion with Elanor “Nori” Price, the high school girlfriend he was forced to give up, will prove that there is still a spark between the two of them.  However, the woman he did end up marrying, his ex-wife, Colleen Ewing, is demanding a reunion of her own.  Is the second time sweeter?  Witness all this and more, plus the arrival of a mob hit-woman...

I had heard of author Beverly Jenkins, but had never read her work until I read her 2016 novel, Stepping to a New Day (the seventh “Blessings” novel).  I immediately fell in love with the characters and with the town of Henry Adams.  Adams is the kind of small town that Norman Rockwell or Walt Disney could have loved.  Unlike a Disney small town idyll, however, Henry Adams has a diverse population.  Henry Adams' predominately African-American population is descended from slaves, freemen, Native American, and assorted rascals

Second Time Sweeter is the third Blessings novel that I have read.  It is also the darkest of the trio, as several characters are confronted by the consequences of their actions and/or by their troubled pasts.  Jenkins also references some violent and troubling incidents from Henry Adams' past that I really do not remember her doing (or doing as much) in Stepping to a New Day or in Chasing Down a Dream (Blessings #8).

But damn, in Second Time Sweeter, every word of the good times, the bad times, and the ugly times is a joy to read.  Jenkins' prose is efficient, but also elegant and is straightforward, but also evocative and emotive.  In articles and courses that try to teach and guide budding authors on writing, creating engaging characters is emphasized.  Jenkins offers the most lovable protagonists and the most engrossing antagonists.  Jenkins captivates her readers with good guys and gals and bad folks alike, as always, especially in Second Time Sweeter.

Beverly Jenkins is a fantastic teller of tales of the heart.  I recommend her novels without hesitation, and Second Time Sweeter is a sweet read times three.  If Ms. Jenkins stopped writing “Blessings” novels, I might have to act like that crazy-ass woman in Stephen King's Misery.

9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint syndication rights and fees.

--------------------

Book Review: THE SEA QUEEN

THE SEA QUEEN
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Linnea Hartsuyker
ISBN: 978-0-06-256373-6; hardcover (August 14, 2018)
464pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S., $34.99 CAN

The Sea Queen is a 2018 novel from author Linnea Hartsuyker.  It is the direct sequel to The Half-Drowned King.  The novel is set during Norway's “Viking Age,” specifically the time that marks the ascendancy of the first King of Norway, Harald Fairhair (called Harald Halfdansson in this novel).  The Half-Drowned King focuses on a brother and sister who both play pivotal roles in Harald's campaign to defeat his enemies and unite Norway under one king.

Ragnvald Eysteinsson was known as “Ragnvald the Half-drowned.”  Now, he is king of Sogn, the land his late father claimed, but he has been away from home fighting battles for King Harald.  That has allowed a usurper, Atli Kolbrandsson, to make a claim on Sogn, a move that is just one example of a political landscape that grows more treacherous.

Meanwhile, Ragnvald's sister, Svanhild, has found freedom and adventure as the wife of rebel explorer, Solvi Hunthiofsson.  Sailing the seas at her husband's side, Svanhild is known as “the Sea Queen,” because she is more capable at the helm of a ship than most men.  However, Solvi has desires and ambitions; he wants to recapture lands he claims as his own, but that is controlled by Harald or his allies.  Solvi returns to Norway, which leads to tragedy and drives a wedge between he and Svanhild.

A rebellion grows and unites Harald's enemies and also some he thought to be allies.  Ragnvald suspects that some nobles are not really loyal to Harald's dream of a unified Norway.  He sets a plan in motion to bring down enemies and traitors alike, but like his sister, he will make decisions that will cost him in the most personal ways.

I wrote in my review of The Half-Drowned King that my summary of the novel focused on Ragnvald, although his sister Svanhild played a major part in the novel.  Svanhild is the lead character in about a third of the first novel, but The Sea Queen is as much her story as it is her brother's or Harald's.

The Sea Queen is allegedly only author Linnea Hartsuyker's second novel.  I say allegedly because Hartsuyker either previously wrote under a pen name, or she is just simply a natural at this novel-writing game.  Hartsuyker not only provides a deeply intimate portrayal and depiction of Svanhild and Ragnvald, but she also bares the souls, the cores, and the naked ambitions of numerous characters in this novel.  Truthfully, many of them, including Solvi, Atli, and King Hakon (a frenemy), to name a few, could be the lead in this series.

Hartsuyker gives readers the details and local color in droves, as she mixes myth, legend, and history to transport her readers to a time in “pre-history” Norway of uncertain duels, fierce battles, sudden raids, and ancient blood feuds.  It is her wonderful cast of characters, however, that truly makes The Sea Queen a page-turning, electrifying read.  Linnea Hartsuyker is subtle in the way she pushes Svanhild to the front, but she is equally crafty in creating a book full of characters that you cannot stop thinking about even when the story moves from one to another.  I heartily and highly-recommend The Sea Queen to readers who just love a good book just filled with superb and engaging characters.

9 out of 10

www.linneahartsuyker.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint syndication rights and fees.

-------------------------

Book Review: THE WORD IS MURDER

THE WORD IS MURDER
HARPCOLLINS – @HarperCollins @HarperBooks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz
ISBN: 978-0-06-267678-8; hardcover (June 5, 2018)
400pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

The Word is Murder is a 2018 detective novel from bestselling author, Anthony Horowitz (The House of Silk, Moriarty: A Novel).  Horowitz is also known for creating the acclaimed British television series, “Foyle's War.”  In this new novel, Horowitz unites a fictional version of himself with a taciturn former London detective in a kind of crazy Holmes-Watson-like team.

The Word is Murder opens in London on a bright, spring morning.  Wealthy Londoner, Diana Cowper, arrives at Cornwallis & Sons, a funeral home, to plan her funeral.  Six hours later, Diana is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home.  Unable to solve the case, London police turn to a “consulting detective,” disgraced detective inspector (DI) Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, but eccentric investigator who rubs people the wrong way with his arrogance and insults.

For this case, Hawthorne wants his activities documented, and he needs a ghost writer.  He turns to Anthony Horowitz, bestselling author and creator of acclaimed British television series, such as “Foyle's War.”  Horowitz had previously hired Hawthorne as a consult on his TV series, but he does not like the pushy former cop.

Reluctantly, Horowitz agrees to follow Hawthorne, from one place to another, as he investigates Mrs. Cowper's murder.  Thus, Horowitz soon finds himself at the center of a story he cannot control and is forced to silently follow the brusque, temperamental, and annoying Hawthorne.  Complicating matters further, the case of Diana Cowper's murder is filled with twists and turns, which do prove to be irresistible to Horowitz.  But this unusual partnership will place Horowitz in great peril, working with a man who may have his own dark secrets.

I read Anthony Horowitz's 2014 mystery, Moriarty: A Novel.  I thought the novel was brilliantly written, but I hated the resolution.  I gave Moriarty a grade of “B,” although I probably would have given it at least an “A,” if the ending had not irritated me so much.

I think that The Word is Murder is also brilliantly written and structured, but I absolutely love this book's final three chapters.  There are so many twists and turns and more twists and turns, and I do want to be careful about spoiling anything.  However, I can attest to the fact that this novel is a hugely entertaining piece of meta-fiction in which Horowitz creates a captivating fictional version of himself, a kind of modern-day Dr. Watson.  The Horowitz of The Word is Murder seems like a perfectly reasonable and relate-able man.  As the first-person narrator and storyteller, he is a delightful guiding companion for readers.

As a Sherlock Holmes-like character, Daniel Hawthorne is also fascinating, especially because Horowitz does not give us much about the personal Hawthorne.  Of course, we can only rely on fictional Horowitz to tell us about Hawthorne.  This detective may pry into everyone's business, but he does not like people to pry into his.  So I found myself desperate to know more about Hawthorne simply because he is worth discovering.

As a work of crime fiction and as detective fiction, The Word is Murder is playful and experimental, even when it is being brutal and shockingly violent.  I would not mind a sequel, but I think that a sequel might ruin the original spirit of The Word is Murder.  Let's not worry about that, however; let us enjoy a truly original mystery novel.

8.5 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

-----------------------------

Book Review: ABRIDGED CLASSICS

ABRIDGED CLASSICS: BRIEF SUMMARIES OF BOOKS YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO READ BUT PROBABLY DIDN'T
HARPERCOLLINS/Harper Design – @HarperCollins @harperdesignbks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR: John Atkinson
ISBN: 978-0-06-274785-3; hardcover – 5.813” x 7.813” (June 5, 2018)
160pp, Color, $19.99 U.S., $24.99 CAN

Abridged Classics: Brief Summaries of Books You Were Supposed to Read But Probably Didn't is a new book of cartoons from author John Atkinson.  The book presents more than a 150 cartoons that offer humorous commentaries on a little over 100 well-known novels and works of literature.

Abridged Classics: Brief Summaries of Books You Were Supposed to Read but Probably Didn’t is exactly what the title says.  It is a summary of over 100 well-known novels and books, but these are irreverent summations in which author John Atkinson cleverly describes the plot or story of each book in the fewest words possible.  Each summation is accompanied by one or two funny, color illustrations, which you can also describe as cartoons.

In what his publisher describes as “humorous super-condensed summations,” Atkinson takes on and skewers the work and writings of some of the most revered authors from the United States, Great Britain, Europe, and Russia.  Atkinson's laugh attack takes on authors who wrote from several hundred years ago to more than a millennia ago (the Bible, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare).  He pokes fun at authors of the modern literary cannon (Jane Austen, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain) and at world famous and beloved authors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, Ayn Rand, and J.R.R. Tolkien).

Did you know that Henry David Thoreau's Walden is really about a man who sits outside for two years and nothing happens?  Did you know that William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch is simply a story about heroin and an orgy?  To Kill a Mockingbird is about the fact that neither kids nor adults really understand racism.

Can you sum up Shakespeare's Macbeth in a single sentence? John Atkinson says “Old ladies convince a guy to ruin Scotland.”  For Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, Atkinson gets it in less than six words? “Everyone is sad. It snows.”  This may be what you need, dear readers, – the classics and irreverence.

John Atkinson describes the perennial classic novel, Catcher in the Rye, by author J.D. Salinger as “Moody teen complains a lot. He has a red hat.”  I discovered, many moons ago, that a close friend of mine had tried several times to read Catcher in the Rye and hated it too much to keep reading.  I was surprised that he felt that way because I did also.  After the third attempt at completing the novel, I realized that I just didn't give a f**k about Holden Caulfield and cared even less about what he had to say.

I like Atkinson's Abridged Classics, and not because his commentary says “I don't give a f**k,” but because he takes the starch of being classic and revered out of the novels.  He pokes fun, and mostly in an accurate way.  The Scarlet Letter may not necessarily be a “Puritan tale of adultery, mockery, and embroidery,” but it is fun to think of it that way.  However, when Atkinson says that Gulliver's Travels is a story about a “Hapless sailor is stranded on different lands inhabited by sociopolitical metaphors,” well, he is telling the truth.  When I first read the novel, a long time ago, I found myself thinking of it that way.  Important work of Western literature or not, Gulliver's Travels can accurately and humorously be described in exactly Atkinson's words.

With its mock, leather-bound cover design, Abridged Classics is right on target.  I wish it were a longer book, and hopefully, Atkinson will offer a future volume.  There are so many more books and novels, classics, beloved, bestsellers, etc. that need to be abused or skewered by one of his “humorous super-condensed summations.”

8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

--------------------------

Review: HOW TO DRAW Characters for the Artistically Challenged

HOW TO DRAW CHARACTERS FOR THE ARTISTICALLY CHALLENGED
HARPERCOLLINS/Harper Design – @HarperCollins @harperdesignbks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR: John Bigwood
ISBN: 978-0-06-269152-1; paperback – 5.31” x 8” (May 22, 2018)
96pp, Color, $14.99 U.S., $18.50 CAN

How to Draw Characters for the Artistically Challenged is a new how-to and art book from author, illustrator, and graphic designer, John Bigwood.  It a book for budding artists who can hone their skills and learn to draw character portraits in an original interactive guide.

Do you love to create art, but feel a little unsure about your skills?  Well, there is a small art book that can help you master the ability to draw all kinds of people and faces.  How to Draw Characters for the Artistically Challenged includes 46 different looks to sketch.  Each entry is a drawing guide and is a two-page spread.  The right-hand side features a painted watercolor outline of a face or body.  On the left side of the spread is a corresponding page of suggested facial and body features, limbs, hairdos, clothes, and adornments that a budding artist can use to finish creating the painted outline of a face or body on the opposite page.

Examples of the entries includes the “Elvis Impersonator,” which includes a lip curl and three different hairstyles to choose from: "day-off Elvis," "stage Elvis," and "dressing room Elvis," (that features his signature coif topped with foam curlers).  Another example is the “Wrestler,” which features athletes of three different body types: "heavyweight," "featherweight," and “holiday weight.”

A publicity agent for Harper Design sent me a copy of How to Draw Characters for the Artistically Challenged for review.  At first, I was put off by this book, but as I flipped through it, I became really impressed by what it offered.

Honestly, I think How to Draw Characters for the Artistically Challenged will work for artists who are already drawing or is comfortable with tracing.  You don't have to be a master, but you should at least be able to draw basic cartoon shapes and objects and also be able to cartoon the human figure and face at a minimal level.

I think that people who like to draw cartoons and use how-to-draw books will find a lot to like about this book, even if it is just to appreciate the off-beat and quirky drawings in this book.  How to Draw Characters for the Artistically Challenged is fun and accessible and different.  And I can't stop thumbing through it.

7.5 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

-------------------------------

Book Review: BARRACOON

BARRACOON: THE STORY OF THE LAST “BLACK CARGO”
HARPER/Amistad – @HarperCollins @AmistadBooks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Zora Neale Hurston
EDITOR: Deborah G. Plant
ISBN: 978-0-06-285508-4; hardcover – 5 1/2” x 8 1/4” (May 8, 2018)
208pp, B&W, $24.99 U.S.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and playwright, who may be best known for her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, one of her four novels.  Hurston was and still is noted for her contributions to African-American literature, for her portrayal of racial struggles in the American South, and for her research on Haitian voodoo.

Hurston was also an anthropologist and folklorist and authored two books of folklore, Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938), and her autobiography, Dust Tracks on the Road (1942).  There was one work by Hurston that mixes anthropology, folklore, and biography.  It is the story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade, a story Hurston told in the vernacular in which that survivor spoke.

It was unpublished... until this week (May 8th, 2018).  Now, in a hardcover from Amistad Books (a HarperCollins imprint), comes the book entitled Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.”  This is the story of a man who was help captive aboard the last slave ship, the Clotilda, to come from Africa and deliver African captives into slavery in America.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, an African-eccentric community just outside Mobile, Alabama, to interview an 86-year-old African man named Cudjo Lewis.  Lewis' birth name was Oluala Kossola, and he was one of millions of men, women, and children who were transported from Africa to America as slaves.  By 1927, however, Cudjo (born sometime around 1841) was the only person still alive who could tell the complete story of being captured, transported across the Atlantic (the “Middle Passage”), and forced into slavery.

Hurston recorded Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid on his African hometown (Bantè) by the Fon of Dahomey, who were among the African people who resisted the British-led effort to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  [Up to the beginning of the Civil War, some Americans still sailed to Africa to get slaves that they smuggled into the United States.]  In this raid, Cudjo was captured and transported to Ouidah, a town along the West African coast, where he was held prisoner in the “barracoons.”  A “barracoon” was a hut or structure where captors detained Africans who were to be sold and exported to America or Europe as slaves.  In 1859, Cudjo would leave Africa for America, where he would spend five-and-half years in bondage as a slave in Alabama until he was freed in 1865.

In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, which had been founded by Cudjo and the other former slaves that had been transported to America in the Clotilda.  Hurston spent more than three months with Cudjo, talking in depth about the details of his life.

During this time, Hurston, the young writer, and Cudjo, the elderly former enslaved man, talked about Cudjo’s past.  He recounted the memories of his childhood and young adulthood in Africa and then,  the horrors of the raid in which he was captured.  He narrates the story of his time being held in a barracoon and his eventual selection by American slavers.  Cudjo recalls the harrowing experience of the “Middle Passage,” packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda.   He finally reveals the years he spent in slavery and his troubled life after helping to found an Alabama town for Africans like himself.

Based on those interviews, Hurston tells the story mainly from Cudjo's point of view, transcribing Cudjo’s unique vernacular diction.  Although she wrote the text from her perspective as she heard it, Hurston spelled the words as she heard Cudjo say them, using the former slave's rhythm, expressions, and phrases.  Rejected by publishers in the 1930s, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” sees the light of day thanks to the bold vision of Amistad Books and HarperCollins.

Amistad Books is proving to be a year-round “Black History Month” celebration, thanks to publications such as the recent, brilliant non-fiction tome, Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires, by Shomari Wills.  It is best not to underestimate the importance of Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.”  In the literary world, there are people (like Alice Walker) who worked to restore Zora Neale Hurston, who died in obscurity (more or less), to a place of honor in American literature.  Deborah G. Plant is among those people, and Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” is important to the ongoing restoration of Hurston.  It is also a fantastic book and a riveting read.

Hurston's text, which includes the body of Cudjo Lewis' story, an introduction, and appendix, makes up 112 pages of this book.  By the time I finished reading, I was not sure what part of the story impressed me most, but by recording Cudjo's recollections of his life and trials in Africa, Hurston informs today's readers of her place as an anthropologist.  The tale of the raid on Cudjo's village and the forced march from his captors' village to the barracoons is harrowing.  I think that this part of the narrative will be imprinted on my memory for a long time, but I found every part of this book fascinating.

Hurston's decision to keep the story in Cudjo's vernacular was the right choice, and potential publishers to whom she hoped to sell this book apparently did not agree with this.  Cudjo's story is so powerful and unforgettable precisely because of the manner and language in which Hurston committed it to text.  I think Hurston's decisions regarding this text assure her place as a hugely important twentieth-century contributor to American history and culture.

Hurston's appendix contains some folktales Cudjo related to her, the recording of which testifies to Hurston's place as a folklorist.  Deborah Plant's introduction is a must-read for readers before they enter Hurston's text.  The glossary and notes will help readers grasp many of the terms, phrases, names, and words included in Hurston's text.  At 200+ pages, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” is a slim text, but it packs a wallop of a punch both as history and as a document of a particular facet of American slavery.

Readers looking for great tales of “Black History” and for books that reveal an untold corner of American history must have Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.”  And no Zora Neale Hurston library or collection can be without it.

[This book includes an introduction by editor, Deborah G. Plant, and a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Alice Walker.]

9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

-----------------------------

Book Review: CAVE OF BONES

CAVE OF BONES
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

[This review was originally published on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Anne Hillerman
ISBN: 978-0-06-239192-6; hardcover (April 3, 2018)
320pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S., $34.99 CAN

Cave of Bones is a 2018 novel from author Anne Hillerman.  It is the fourth novel in the “Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito Series,” which began with Spider Woman's Daughter (2013).  This series is a continuation of the “Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee Series” written by Hillerman's late father, bestselling author, Tony Hillerman (1925-2008).  In the new novel, Navajo Tribal cops, Jim Chee and Bernadette “Bernie” Manuelito, investigate missing men, pilfered funds, and desecrated graves, and again call on the assistance of the now-retired Joe Leaphorn.

Cave of Bones finds Tribal Police Officer Bernie Manuelito paying off a favor by agreeing to speak to the young people who are participating in “Wing and Roots,” an outdoor character-building program for at-risk young people.  Bernie arrives at the site of the program in the Ramah Navajo district, and she finds chaos.  Annie Rainsong, a young participant, is missing.  When Bernie and Rose Cooper, the program's director, find Annie, the girl is clearly traumatized.

Although Annie has returned, Domingo “Dom” Cruz, a beloved instructor who went searching for Annie, is now missing in the wilderness that is the volcanic landscape known as El Malpais.  In addition, Annie tells Bernie that she found a cave with bones inside, and Bernie fears that Annie may have disturbed a Navajo burial site – a no-no in several ways.  Now, Bernie finds herself caught up in the search for Dom, ensnared in the politics surrounding Wings and Roots, and forced to confront the face of true human evil

Meanwhile her husband, Sergeant Jim Chee is in Sante Fe at the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy for training, where he is forced to confront troubles from home.  Bernie's sister, Darleen (Jim's sister-in-law), is also in Sante Fe, attending the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and taking part in the college's program for prospective art students.  Darleen is an especially gifted artist and illustrator, but her boyfriend, Clayton “CS” Secody, who is also attending the college, is working with Clyde Herbert, a vengeful man Chee sent to prison for domestic violence.  Chee also discovers something troubling about CS, and now the Navajo police sergeant must balance police work and family and use his medicine man training to discover the truth behind Darleen's latest troubles.

Previously, readers had to wait two years in between “Manuelito, Chee & Leaphorn” novels.  I was delighted to find that only a year after the release of the third book, Song of the Lion, the fourth book, Cave of Bones, was to arrive.

I have praised the previous novels to the high heavens because I loved reading them.  I sometimes stopped reading in the middle of the books just so that I wouldn't get to the end.  That's crazy, right?  When I get to the last page of each “Manuelito, Chee & Leaphorn” novel, I feel that I am unwillingly leaving my friends.

Anne Hillerman makes the characters seem so real.  They are frail, imperfect, and bittersweet – like us real folks.  Hillerman's fantastic stories of murder, mystery, family drama, and the Navajo could be just another genre house.  And as the late Luther Vandross said, a house is not a home.  However, Hillerman's complex and marvelous characters make her novels a welcoming home for readers.

Crawl in caves with Bernie.  Confront the reality of a reformed man.  Deal with a vociferous tribal councilman who is also a pushy mother.  Comfort a troubled teen.  I also found myself wanting to crawl into the lives of the new and supporting characters, from the troubled Merilee Cruz and Michael Franklin to the irascible Elsbeth Walker and the... sinister ones.

Kudos to Anne Hillerman for making it clear that Navajo fictional characters can be as interesting and as lovable as classic mystery novel characters.  And Cave of Bones... it is simply a pleasure to read.  It is Hillerman's best novel yet, and maybe the best is still to come.

10 out of 10

http://annehillerman.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

---------------------------------------

Review: BART SIMPSON Bust-Up

BART SIMPSON BUST-UP
HARPERCOLLINS/Harper Design – @HarperCollins @harperdesignbks @TheSimpsons

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: John Zakour; Carol Lay; Sergio Aragones; David Seidman; Tom & Henry Gammill; Mary Trainor; Max Davison; Ian Boothby; Peter Kuper; Tony Digerolamo; John Jackson Miller; Evan Dorkin
PENCILS: John Delaney; Carol Lay; Sergio Aragones; Hilary Barta; Tone Rodriguez; John Costanza; Phil Ortiz; Peter Kuper; Jason Ho; Eric Shanower; James Lloyd; Rex Lindsey
INKS: Dan Davis; Carol Lay; Sergio Aragones; Hilary Barta; Tone Rodriguez; Phyllis Novin; Mike DeCarlo; Andrew Pepoy; Peter Kuper; Jason Ho; Eric Shanower
COLORS: Nathan Hamill; Peter Kuper & Minah Kim; Jason Ho; Art Villanueva
LETTERS: Karen Bates
COVER: Matt Groening
ISBN: 978-0-06-269255-9; paperback (April 3, 2018)
128pp, Color, $16.99 U.S., $21.00 CAN

Bart Simpson Bust-Up is a new trade paperback comic book collection from Harper Design.  Bart Simpson Bust-Up collects 18 comic book short stories and short gags that were published in various Bart Simpson comic books during the second half of 2012.

Bart Simpson is a character on the animated television sitcom, “The Simpsons,” produced first run for the Fox Broadcasting Company.  “The Simpsons” present a satirical depiction of a working class family which consists of Homer Simpson (the father), Marge Simpson (the mother), Bart (the oldest child and only son), Lisa (the precocious and brilliant elder daughter), and Maggie (a baby girl).  “The Simpsons” also parodies American culture, pop culture, society, politics, media, etc. via the denizens of The Simpsons home town, Springfield.

In 1993, Matt Groening (creator of “The Simpsons”), Bill Morrison, and Steve and Cindy Vance founded Bongo Comics Group (or simply Bongo Comics).  Over the course of a quarter-century, Bongo Comics has published numerous comic book series and single-issue publications based on “The Simpsons.”  The comic books have starred and featured all the characters that are part of this franchise, from the Simpsons clan to the various supporting characters, including Ralph Wiggum and his father, Chief Wiggum; Bart's pals, Milhouse and Nelson; Ned Flanders; and Principal Seymour Skinner, to name a few.

Harper Design, an imprint of HarperCollins, has been publishing a line of full-color, original trade paperbacks that reprint select stories from Bongo Comics' various Simpsons comic books.  The latest trade paperback, Bart Simpson Bust-Up, reprints issues #73 to #77 of Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson (July 2012 to November 2012) and The Simpsons Summer Shindig #7 (May 2013).  Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson or simply Bart Simpson was Bongo Comics' long-running comic book series starring Bart Simpson that ran from 2000 to 2016.

Bart Simpson Bust-Up opens with “Everybody Really Hates Bart,” and it is Bart's fault after one of his pranks creates a nightmare right out of a horror movie.  Then, Bart is the victim of Lisa's sociological experimentation in “Decisions, Decisions.”  It is a disaster of shoe proportions in “There's No Business Like Shoe Business,” with a little help from baby genius, Maggie Simpson.

Bart and Milhouse go “Into the Woods,” showing that these two boys are not scout material.  Bart, Milhouse, and Nelson are among the boys trying to impress the “New Girl in Town.”  Bart uses old coupons and causes a disaster in “ For a Limited Time Only.”  Finally, Bart uses all his wiles to bring comfort to his family in “Railroaded.”

Harper Design has been sending me review copies of its Simpsons trade paperback originals for the past few years.  Bart Simpson Bust-Up is the fourth one they have sent me, and I am delighted to say that it is the best.  That is saying a lot because I really liked the previous three Simpsons collections that I read.

Bart Simpson Bust-Up is filled with stories that are funny (obviously), but are also imaginative and inventive.  “Good Cop, Bart Cop” (story by Ian Boothby and art by John Delaney and Andrew Pepoy) is funny in a way that recalls the best entries in the Lethal Weapon film franchise (the first two).  “Into the Woods” has a killer “special bonus” panel to end the story.  No two stories are the same; each one is a surprising and novel treat.

In my review of the previous volume, Simpsons Comics Game On!, I wrote that one does not have to be a fan of “The Simpsons” to like it.  It is the same with Bart Simpson Bust-Up, which is filled with excellently crafted humor comics.  If you want funny comics, buy this collection.  If you are a fan of “The Simpsons,” Bart Simpson Bust-Up is too funny to pass up.

9.5 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

------------------------------------

Book Review: TO DIE BUT ONCE (Maisie Dobbs)

TO DIE BUT ONCE
HARPER (HarperCollins Publishers) – @HarperCollins @HarperBook

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Jacqueline Winspear
ISBN: 978-0-06-243663-4; hardcover (March 27, 2018)
336pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

To Die But Once is a 2018 novel from author Jacqueline Winspear.  It is the 14th novel in the series starring “psychologist and investigator,” Maisie Dobbs, a former British nurse whose adventures begin during World War I and continue in the decades that follow.  To Die But Once finds Maisie investigating the disappearance of a teenage apprentice working on a hush-hush government contract, while Great Britain prepares for an attack from Germany following Britain's declaration of war.

To Die But Once opens in May 1940.  It is spring and the worries of a nation at war blooms as much as,  if not more than the flowers of the new season.  A neighbor of Maisie's, Phil Combes, the landlord of a pub, visits her and asks the respected investigator to look into the disappearance of his 15-year-old son, Joseph Combes.  Young Joe is an apprentice of a painting concern, Yates & Sons, which has gained a government contract to go about the countryside and paint a special fire retardant chemical on important and strategic governmental and military buildings.

Maisie's investigation takes her from the London underworld to the countryside of rural Hampshire (a county on the southern coast of England).  There she will find wartime opportunism and the biggest banking institutions, reminders that money and war are inextricably linked.  Meanwhile, the son of Maisie's closest and dearest friend makes a monumental decision, one that will affect him and his family forever.  Meanwhile, Great Britain worries as word reaches British shores that her fighting young men and women are stranded on a beach in Dunkirk, France.

To Die But Once is the third Maisie Dobbs novel that I have read.  It seems like it is the most personal, and while the central mystery is quite engaging, the novel grapples with so much more.  To Die But Once is a story of the family ties, those family ties that bind, family obligations, the burden of a family legacy, and the creation of a family outside of blood ties.

To Die But Once is at once poignant and then, absolutely thrilling.  I found myself tearing through the book to discover whodunit, but I was eager for the twists and turns of the family melodrama.  Not to mention, but I must mention:  To Die But Once is also a rousing story of Great Britain coming together in the early months of its war with Germany, and it is also a recollection of how the people of the United Kingdom worried about their boys trapped at Dunkirk.

The previous novel, In This Grave Hour, was a straightforward murder mystery, although the novel dealt with themes concerning families.  To Die But Once is a straightforward family drama, period piece, and historical novel, but it also offers some of Maisie Dobbs' most wily moves as an investigator.  To Die But Once is every bit the great read that In This Grave Hour was, and at times, for me, it surpassed anything of Jacqueline Winspear's that I had read prior to it.  So I eagerly await the return of Winspear and her first lady of period mystery, Maisie Dobbs.

10 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

----------------------------

Book Review: BLACK FORTUNES

BLACK FORTUNES
HARPER/Amistad – @HarperCollins @AmistadBooks

[This review was posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Shomari Wills – @ShoWills
ISBN: 978-0-06-243759-4; hardcover (January 30, 2018)
320pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S.

Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires is a non-fiction book written by journalist Shomari Wills.  Black Fortunes tells the story of the first six African-Americans who were born into slavery and then went on to become millionaires

According to Black Fortunes, there are an estimated 35,000 black millionaires living in the United States.  That includes celebrities like Beyoncé, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James.  Some are billionaires (Oprah Winfrey) or are near billionaires (Michael Jordan, Jay-Z).

However, these rich folks are not the first black people to become the “one percent.”  Between the years of 1830 and 1927, there was a small group of people among the last generation of blacks folks born into or during slavery.  Smart, tenacious, and opportunistic, these daring men and women broke new ground for African-Americans by attaining the highest levels of financial success.

These are the first six to escape the holocaust of American chattel slavery of African-Americans and find wealth:

1. Born in Philadelphia in 1814, Mary Ellen Pleasant built her wealth in California during the “Gold Rush” and used that wealth to further the cause of abolitionist John Brown

2. Born in 1939 on a cotton plantation outside Memphis, Tennessee, Robert Reed Church was the child of a slave who was a fair-skinned black woman and a married white man who owned a fleet of steamships.  Church would go on to become the largest landowner in Tennessee and a man of such political influence he was acquainted with President Theodore Roosevelt.

3. The daughter of a respectable professional family in Philadelphia, Hannah Elias, was the “Black Cleopatra” who “exhibited a peculiar influence over white men.”  She became the mistress of a New York City millionaire and used the land and money her lover gave her to build a real estate empire in the city, and in Harlem, in particular.

4. Born in Illinois in 1969, Annie Turnbo-Malone was an orphan who dreamed of making a business of doing people's hair.  She became a self-taught chemist and went on to develop “Poro,” the first national brand of hair care products and a franchise of beauty shops.

5. Initially an employee of and salesman for Annie Turnbo-Malone, Madam C. J Walker began her journey to riches by stealing her employer's hair care formulas to start her on hair care business.  She would go on to earn the nickname America’s "first female black millionaire,” and she openly flaunted her wealth.

6. The son of slaves, (Ottawa) O. W. Gurley was born in Huntsville, Alabama on Christmas Day 1868.  He moved to Oklahoma during the “oil boom” and using his business acumen and political savvy he developed a piece of Tulsa, Oklahoma, into a “town” for black craftsmen and tradesmen and wealthy black professionals.  Named “Greenwood,” this unofficial town that would become known as “the Black Wall Street,” before jealous white racists looted and destroyed most of it.

The astonishing untold history of America’s first black millionaires is now told in the new book, Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires.

We need books like Black Fortunes, and by “we,” I mean Americans in general, and black Americans specifically.  American history as taught to me at the elementary and high schools I attended was piss-poor.  Every school year, we began with Christopher Columbus and had barely began studying the 19th century by the time the school year ended.  I think we only once got anywhere near the Civil War, and slavery was touched upon only a few times.

Luckily, I had Black History month and African-American teachers who had graduated from Southern University and A&M College (in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) and legendary Grambling State University who were determined that we ''learn about our ancestors and the people who came before us.”  In spite of their best efforts, I found that white kids from pricey private and parochial schools knew more about “Black History” than I did.

I have learned a lot from books like Black Fortunes, which are both history and story books.  And the truth is that Black Fortunes and books like it tell stories that are as much American as they are specifically African-American.  In the case of these six individuals here, their lives are often in the center of the maelstrom that was the time period from the administration of President Andrew Jackson to the 1920s (the “Roaring Twenties), a time of great change and growth for the United States of America.  You cannot read this book and understand these six individuals and the scope of their achievements without grappling with the larger context of a turbulent 100 years.

On an individual level, the thing that surprised me most about these men and women is how much they hustled.  The term “hustler” has a negative connotation, being related to black criminals and male sex trade workers.  But the stars of Black Fortune were always hustling more jobs, investments, and opportunities.  Mary Ellen Pleasant was a rich woman in California, and she was still catering on the side.  Robert Reed Church was a real estate magnate, a rich landlord, and he still operated his bar/jook joint from behind the counter.  The black women chronicled here built mansions and took in tenants to earn some extra cash?!

There is a lot to learn from Black Fortunes.  The history of black Americans is America's history.  The most important thing that one can learn from this book is this:  always hustle, grab that extra job, snatch  every opportunity, embrace a helping hand, and don't stop – even when the racists and haters are trying to hold you down.

I will also go so far as to say that every black high school student in America should have a copy of Black Fortunes.  It should be required reading for incoming freshmen at all HBCUs and at many other American universities and colleges, especially the ones that benefited from slavery and the oppression of black folks.

10 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

------------------------------