The Rogue Gentleman by Brian Drake

Great little novel.  Steve Dane is the kind of character I love - not attached to any particular country, cause, or agency.  Just a freelance agent willing to mix it whenever he can get behind the cause of the person hiring him.  He's got the looks, the skills, the courage.  He also has the girl (beautiful former Russian spy Nina) and friends all over the world.  And all over the world is where this story takes you: Italy, Greece, Mexico, France, Finland, New York City.  What a wonderful first story in this series.  I hope the rest of the series is just as fun and entertaining!

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Once again, it took me a few years to get around to reading a great book, but, at long last, I read this book and it was great.  This was one of those books that held my interest throughout, to the point that I was thinking of the book and about what might happen next when I wasn't reading it.  Gillian Flynn wove a tail of suspense that always had me guessing: who's the "good guy"?  Who's the "bad guy"?  What really happened?  Who's telling the truth?  Of course, it was hard to tell what the truth is because the author kept the truth from the reader over the course of book.  And that truth-withholding was an ingenious plot device here.  From chapter to chapter, she fills the reader in on what's really happening, then, she changes point-of-view and, at the same time, changes what's "really" happening.  This built suspense as the book went on and constantly changed which character(s) you liked and which one(s) you hated.  There was nothing boring in this book, that's for sure!

My one gripe is that I didn't like the very end of the book.  Maybe this is because of whom I liked and disliked by the end, but, if I had written this book (and boy, do I!), I would've ended it differently.  Nonetheless, I'm not going to change my overall impression of this book.  It was excellent from start til (almost) finish and I would recommend that you check it out!

The Pulptress by Tommy Hancock, et al.

This was a good anthology, but not a great one.  Some of the stories were good, some not so good.  However, the character - The Pulptress - is excellent and a great addition to the New Pulp world.  I liked the mystery of her background that is slowly revealed throughout the stories.  I wanted to read more of these stories to get more of her back story.  She's been trained by many others, including my favorite New Pulp hero, Dillon, but we still don't know a lot about her.  And despite the uneven quality of the various stories, they all had two things in common: the Pulptress was in them and they make the reader want to read more stories like these.

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

To think that this story is about 100 years old and it is still one of the best sci-fi stories ever told.  Burroughs has created an amazing world on Mars that rivals any world created by George Lucas.  In fact, I see a lot of Star Wars in A Princess of Mars.  The character of John Carter is wonderful, as he is heroic, swashbuckling, yet remarkably human. His quest to marry Martian princess Dejah Thoris drives him across Mars, with the action and adventure of his battles driving the story.  He meets numerous Martian civilizations, befriending people wherever he goes with his derring-do and benevolence.  Burroughs is a little over-the-top with the story, but he always is and makes the story work despite moments where suspension of disbelief is needed.  I suggest that anyone interested in outer space sci-fi stories should start with this one.  It's a great story from one of the 20th century's greatest storytellers.  Don't miss it!

The Lightning Stones by Jack Du Brul

It has been a while since I read a Jack Du Brul novel, and, after reading The Lightning Stones, I am trying to figure out what I have been thinking all these years.  Du Brul writes excellent adventures, as this one was full of action from start to finish.  The Lightning Stones is a globe-spanning rollicking escapade with protagonist Phillip Mercer taking the reader from the mines of Minnesota to suburban Washington, D.C., to the mountains of Afghanistan, back to the U.S., and off to the vast Pacific Ocean.  All this globetrotting is framed by the "true" story of what happened on Amelia Earhart's ill-fated attempt to circumnavigate the earth by airplane in 1937.  Du Brul connects Earhart's 1937 flight to the present day very well, and his use of the global-warming "conspiracy" in doing so is inspired plotting.  What a great story!

The story's hero, Phillip Mercer, makes the story even better.  After reading Du Brul's earlier Mercer stories (it has been several years since the last one), I thought that Mercer was an under-appreciated literary action hero.  Dirk Pitt, Jack Ryan, and Jack Reacher get a lot more publicity and acclaim, but Mercer is just as heroic, just as dashing, and just as ingenious as those other guys.  He is intelligent, daring, and has a keen sense of justice.  His job as a geologist allows Du Brul to place Mercer in situations that other heroes could not be in.  This story could not happen to Jack Ryan or Reacher, as neither has the scientific acumen to pull off the research and scientific aspects of this story.  He is certainly a 21st century action hero.

With a great plot and a great hero, Jack Du Brul has hit a home run with The Lightning Stones.  Go check it out soon!

Kill Shot by Vince Flynn

A great prequel to the Mitch Rapp series! I thought this was much better than the previous prequel, American Assassin. This time, it feels more like a Mitch Rapp novel, just with a younger and less experience protagonist. Whereas American Assassin felt like a Stan Hurley story to me, this was has the adrenaline-pumping adventure that I loved in the first 10 novels. After American Assassin, I was ready to write off Vince Flynn as having lost the touch. He certainly regained it for this episode and has me looking forward to his last novel, The Last Man, and for Kyle Mills' first foray into Mitch Rapp's world, which is coming soon.

The Adventures of Lazarus Gray, Volume 5 by Barry Reese

Barry Reese has gone and done it again! He has produced another wonderful New Pulp adventure. This one is filled with the usual rollicking action sequences and supernatural wonders that we expect and enjoy from Barry's works. In the installment, he weaves a number of short stories into a tableau of Sovereign City goodness. The way he ties all these stories - which are great a stand-alone stories - into a cohesive storyline is amazing. Of course, each story has the Lazarus Gray and his compadres in Assistance Unlimited. The depth he has brought to these characters over five volumes has made the stories very comfortable. At the same time, though, the action scenes and constant suspense keep you on the edge of your seat for the duration. Go get this book. Nice job, Barry! Keep these awesome stories coming.

Quarry's Choice by Max Allan Collins

Max Allan Collins is probably best known for writing the Road to Perdition series, especially since that was made into a major motion picture.  His Quarry series, even though less widely known, should qualify him as writing superstar.  If you like hitmen and the criminal underworld, this is the series for you.  More importantly, this book typifies Quarry's life as a hitman in the criminal underworld.

For the uninitiated, Quarry is a somewhat mysterious hitman who works for a broker who is referred to as the Broker.  Quarry narrates the stories, but reveals little about his real identity (Quarry is the name the Broker knows him by) or his past (except having served in Vietnam).  He seems to have no qualms or second thoughts about killing the people he is paid to kill.  He is a no-nonsense assassin (though he would probably hate being called an assassin).

This story takes us back to Quarry's early career.  He is meeting with the Broker when another hitman tries to kill the Broker.  The Broker soon sends Quarry to kill the man responsible for the shooting.  This requires Quarry to go to Biloxi, Mississippi to deal with the "Dixie Mafia," and that's where the real fun begins.

In Biloxi, Quarry begins working for Mr. Woody, a small-time gangster who is a frequent customer of the Broker.  Mr. Woody wants Quarry to kill Jack Killian, his business partner and supposedly the person who tried to knock off the Broker.  Mr. Woody gets Quarry a job with Killian and gives Quarry an escort - both in the literal and biblical sense - to show him around town and to keep him company.  The escort, a 19-year-old stripper/prostitute named Luann, becomes a helpful piece for Quarry, though she also complicates the story by getting in the way of his "work."

Lest I spoil the story, suffice it to say that the rest of the story involves a lot of killing (done mostly by Quarry), a lot of sex (again, done mostly by Quarry), and a lot of action (all of it involving Quarry).  This book was fun from beginning to end.  I didn't want it to stop.  Of course, it had to stop when Quarry killed everybody he needed to kill to complete the job and wait for the Broker to call with the next one.

Collins' Quarry series is one of the best in crime fiction.  Quarry's Choice is no exception.  I highly recommend it.

The Adventures of Lazarus Gray Volume 4: Satan's Circus by Barry Reese

Read in April 2014.

Wow! It doesn't get much better than this! Barry Reese knows how to write New Pulp. This edition of Lazarus Gray was excellent. 

There were only two stories in this volume, but they were both dynamite. First, Lazarus Gray and his team link up with Thunder Jim Wade and his pals for a globetrotting battle with "Leviathan". Of course, the action didn't stop the whole time and Barry brought another great "old pulp" character into the Reeseverse - Thunder Jim Wade - and brought him in with a bang. 

 Then, in the second story, Barry wraps up a story line he's been developing since Volume 2 by having Lazarus and company tangle with Doctor Satan and Satan's Circus. Other great Reeseverse characters are back here, including the Darkling, Eidolon, and Abigail Cross. Again, this story was action-packed and the fun didn't stop until the end. And was I sad to see it end! 

 I know Barry has finished Volume 5 of this series. I hope Pro Se Press has the smarts to get it published soon. And I hope you have the smarts to start reading Barry Reese and all his New Pulp goodness.

Skull Island (Doc Savage) by Will Murray

Read in April 2013.

This book was excellent, but at the same time disappointing.  Let's start with the disappointments first, and there are two: One, Will Murray seems to be hell-bent on dispelling the Wold Newton Universe.  He makes numerous, seemingly gratuitous references to characters such as Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, and Nick Carter just to say that these characters are fictional and, thus, cannot be part of a shared universe like the Wold Newton Universe, a universe I particularly enjoy.  My problem is not that I really care that Murray wants to keep Doc Savage out of the WNU, but the blatant, obvious manner in which he does so seems childish. It could've been done with more subtlety so that it didn't seem like LL Cool J calling out Kool Moe Dee on an 80's rap album.

My only other complaint, which is very minor, is that Doc's aides played so little a role in this story.  I understand that it takes place prior to the aides being the aides.  I also understand that some people actually enjoy the focus being placed on Doc without the buffoonery of the aides.  I just like to see Monk and Ham verbally fence; to see Renny pound things with his abnormally large fists; to hear Johnny use words I have to look up in an unabridged dictionary; and to see Long Tom fight people even though he looks like he couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.

Those complaints aside, this book was still pretty awesome.  Young Doc is clearly not the Doc we see in The Man of Bronze a decade later: he is more brash, more talkative, more impetuous, and more violence-prone than the Doc we are used to reading.  He's also more than a dozen years younger.  Nonetheless, he is clearly Doc Savage, with superhuman strength and stamina honed from years of training.  We see Doc in his youth, like watching a home movie from a superstar's youth; we see bits and pieces of the man Doc will become.

We also learn of Doc's family.  We see his father Clark Sr., long before he is killed in the Empire State Building.  He is the austere, hard-ass father who one would expect to push his son to be a superman from birth.  He sees Doc as weapon or tool in his battle to right the wrongs of the world.  We also see him realize, over the course of the story, that Doc is his flesh and blood, not just a means to an end.  Clark Sr. shows, by the end, that he actually loves his son, something that might not have existed in the early chapters.

There is also Doc's grandfather, Stormalong Savage.  A giant of a man, and a giant of a person, apparently.  He is very old, but has led a full life, even if that last several years have been on Skull Island.  Murray uses him as a window into Doc's early life and family tree, as well as inspiration to young Doc to follow for years to come.  I wish we could see more of Old Stormy.
Then there is Skull Island.  What an island.  It's both a pre-historic animal preserve, full of classic dinosaurs and evolved quasi-dinosaurs, and the home to at least two unknown human civilizations.  How any humans survive on this island, unless their name is Savage, is beyond me.  The island was a character unto itself.

Finally, we meet Kong.  He is so much more than just an enormous ape.  He is closer to human than one would think and he is, at the same time, godlike.  He rules the island with a large, furry fist.  The ancient creatures on the island know who is in charge.  The humans on the island know he is in charge.  Despite his great power, or maybe because of it, the humans seem to adore and worship Kong.  Of course, the sea-faring headhunters who are hunting his head throughout the story don't worship him, but everyone else does.  Kong is the "king" of Skull Island and he knows it, literally throwing his weight around whenever he needs to exert his power.  Murray shows us the grandeur of Kong, but foreshadows his vulnerability too.

This was a wonderful romp showing the early years of Doc Savage with King Kong playing a gigantic supporting role.  The Wold Newton Universe barbs aside, Murray nailed this one.  Possibly his best Savage story yet.

The Adventures of Gravedigger, Volume 2 by Barry Reese

Another Barry Reese masterpiece. I enjoy the way Barry writes. He writes action well, he writes characters well, he's good with giving new stories that old pulp fiction feel.

I have to admit that when he first introduced the Gravedigger character, I was a little skeptical. He already had the Rook (oops, I mean the Peregrine) and Lazarus Gray in his Sovereign City world. How would the Gravedigger fit into that universe? Well, I loved the first Gravedigger volume, and I loved this current one as well.

Beyond the action and the Sovereign City setting that I really dig, I liked learning more about the Gravedigger's associates in this one. Li Yuchun, Mitchell, Cedric were really filled out in this one. But more importantly, I liked how Mortimer Quinn was a focal point of this story, and that he will play a role in both Gravedigger Volume 3 and the next Lazarus Gray story as well. I like the idea of a former Gravedigger who doesn't age taking a prominent role in these stories.

Barry Reese truly knows how to write. Gravedigger Volume 2 is not a long book; it won't take more than a day or two to read. But that day or two will be great. Get this book and anything else Barry Reese writes!

Painted Black by Greg Kihn

This book was a veritable time machine. Greg Kihn brought me back to the 60's and the last days of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones. The atmosphere of London, Baltimore, Monterrey, and Morrocco felt genuine. Kihn adds in so many real-life cameos - Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Janis Joplin, The Who, etc. - that I felt like a rock and roll groupie, hanging out with the best rock acts of the 60's.

Beyond the incredible, realistic atmosphere, the story was well-written, too. Dust Bin Bob, while fictional, feels real, as if Kihn was simply writing a non-fiction account of Brian Jones' downfall. I credit that to good writing. Dust Bin Bob isn't campy or over-the-top; he seems like he simply fits into the tapestry that is the late 1960's.

My only real "problem" with Dust Bin Bob is that there is not enough of him in the book. While he is present for a good amount of the book, there are many scenes told from other characters' points of view. I would have liked Bob to be the lens through which the reader views the story. He needs to be more of a main character, not just a supporting actor.

Knowing that this is a fictional account, I do have a few problems with the content of the story, mostly with the mystical and supernatural aspects of the story. I didn't like the use of a ghost or the whole scene with the enchanted mirror. That is not to say that these parts were poorly written, because they were well-written, but I'm just not a fan of ghosts or things like that. I think the inclusion of this material was a little hokey. However, that's my peccadillo, not everyone's problem. For those readers who enjoy that sort of paranormal content, these aspects may add to the story.

I did like the conspiracy plot that underscores the story, particularly the way that the author blends Brian Jones' paranoia with an actual plot to get rid of him. Don't they say that it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you? Kihn plays on that theme nicely here.

In the 80's, Greg Kihn sang a song about not songwriters not writing them like that any more. Here, Kihn does write like that still. His novel brings you back to the late 60's in a wonderful way, filling the story with the people and places that made the 60's a monumental period in pop culture. I enjoyed the novel immensely and wonder when I'm going to see Dust Bin Bob again and which rock legend he's going to try to save.

Review of War Against the Mafia by Don Pendleton

I first heard of Mack Bolan, the Executioner, about 15 years ago. For some reason, despite the fact that the series sounded interesting, I finally got around to reading my first Executioner story when I saw that the stories were being re-released as e-books. Boy am I sorry I waited so long to read this series!

Maybe this wasn't the first action novel ever written, but it's a damn good one. Mack Bolan didn't want to be a vigilante warring with the Mafia, but he seemingly had no choice after he discovered the Mafia is responsible for the deaths of most of his family. And despite being only one man, he fights quite the war against the Mafia.

Mack Bolan enters this first story already known as the Executioner from his decorated military career in Vietnam, where he was a expert sniper during two tours of duty. He returns to the U.S. to bury his parents and sister after his father, driven to madness by the Mafia, kills the two women and then himself. Bolan is given leave from the military to care for his now-orphaned younger brother. Instead of simply taking a job as an Army recruiter and raising his brother, the Executioner decided to raise hell with the Mafia. That's where the action starts.

Bolan starts by showing off his sniper skills by killing several Mafia members from long range. Then he infiltrates the Mafia by getting a job with the same mobsters that he is trying to eliminate. From the inside, Bolan continues his one-man war. I didn't keep track, but he must've killed about 50 mob men throughout this story.

This is a great beginning to a series that now has some 600+ entries. Of course, the war against the Mafia isn't over by the end of the book, but it's clear that the Executioner is going to continue fighting until he wins the war. And I'm going to be sure to follow his wartime exploits in future volumes. You should too!