Happy New Year everyone!
I’m back at work now, after a very relaxing week or so off that feels like a distant memory. Hope you all got some downtime over the festive period too.
In case you missed it, I’ve started a new series of shorts on YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook. Each day I’m posting something notable which happened in the bookish world on that day. Hope you enjoy them!
Books I’ve Read This Week
Hank & Muddy by Stephen Mertz
A fun, fast-paced novel that teams up the Hillbilly Shakespeare Hank Williams with Blues genius Muddy Waters for an unlikely but enjoyable crime thriller. Author Stephen Mertz has spent decades writing men’s adventure books and he brings that same pulpy energy to this novel, whilst also inserting a little of each man’s biography and bringing them to life as characters.
They’re pitched against a formidable band of opponents – corrupt sheriffs, g-men and the KKK – and the plot moves with the velocity you’d expect. The 50s US south setting is well done and there’s a real colour and vibrancy to the backdrop. Throw in a whole bunch of twists and turns and a little emotion and you have a very entertaining read.
The Thicket by Joe R Lansdale
This was a reread for me, and I enjoyed it just as much second time around. It’s a sometimes brutal, sometimes touching, often very funny western that plays like an offbeat version of True Grit, with the “offend everyone” sensibilities of late 90s/early 2000s comedy.
It features a youthful protagonist on a quest to rescue his sister, a cast of characters that manages to be both eccentric and very likeable, some decent action and a charming found family vibe.
All in all an enjoyable and satisfying read and a great introduction to Lansdale if you haven’t read him before.
Murder, She Wrote: The Murder of Twelve by Jessica Fletcher and Jon Land
This is basically ‘Murder, She Wrote’ does ‘And Then There Were None’, with a high body count to match, and is as much fun as that sounds. It sees writer turned sleuth Jessica Fletcher stuck in a local hotel during a blizzard, the other guests being a wedding party who are gradually getting bumped off.
It’s silly but pacy and entertaining, even if the peril is never ramped up quite as much as it could have been and the mystery is less than perfect.
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
This is one of those books that feels like it deserves a better review than I can give it. A deeply personal memoir about domestic abuse in a lesbian relationship, it’s far outside my own experience. As well as being intimate, it feels very well considered and researched. The author draws on other texts, but also quite brilliantly on universally recognised (or at least familiar) cultural references to give more impact to her points.
I found it moving, insightful, important and very very readable.
The book’s dedication states “If you need this book, it is for you”. I didn’t need it, but I’m very glad I read it. I’m struck by the fact that it’s a book that has been banned/challenged in US schools/libraries (I read it for a banned books challenge). This kind of censorship is almost always about closing down the very idea of ways of existing that are different to those of the people doing the banning. This feels like a book that some people really would need, which makes trying to hide it away even crueller.
Goosebumps: Night of the Living Dummy by RL Stine
A fun early entry in the Goosebumps series with some enjoyably creepy moments. There are the usual Goosebumps elements – sibling rivalry, well-meaning but useless adults, tried and tested horror tropes. In this case there’s a haunted ventriloquist’s dummy and a pair of competitive twins. I was expecting a better twist at the end, but it was still an entertaining quick read.
Sweet Valley High: Tall, Dark, and Deadly by Francine Pascal and Kate William
The first book in the notorious Sweet Valley High vampire trilogy, this was a fun read but didn’t quite match the delirious highs of the SVH werewolf books I read recently. Published 9 years before ‘Twilight’, it reads a lot like ‘Twilight’, with a brooding, dark haired young man who is romantic one minute and standoffish the next moving into a small town and making the local girls swoon. One of the swooners is SVH twin Jessica, and naturally her sister Elizabeth is suspicious of newcomer Jonathan Cain, not least because a dead body with holes in its neck turns up in town just after he arrives.
All a lot of fun and builds to a pretty great cliffhanger climax.
Sweet Valley High: Dance of Death by Francine Pascal and Kate William
The second instalment in the Sweet Valley High follwos on neatly fromn the first, gradually building the mystery and suspense. Is heartthrob Jonathan really a vampire? It’s certainly starting to feel like it, and the body count continues to rise. It’s a lot of fun seeing the SVH twins go up against something like this. The books so far haven’t had quite as much stuff going on as the werewolf trilogy, but they’re still an entertaining mix of mystery, horror and yearning teenage romance.
CriminOlly 
Leave a comment