On the fate of disfigured women
Dead No More, by Pete Adams and Alejandro’s Lie by Bob van Laerhoven Both of the books I have read this week feature disfigured women. They are – let me make clear at the outset – very different books. Dead No More, by British author Pete Adams, is an eccentric and fanciful crime story, cut […]
Choice Cruise Lines
Jack Kregas . I gave this book to an elderly friend (I’m great on birthday presents – book about assisted dying? Just the ticket, happy birthday!) She told me off. She said it was a very depressing gift, this book about death. Whatever was I thinking of? I felt aggrieved. Hadn’t she been giving me […]
Ronin Cleans His Room Like a Ninja
Chris Roy Well this is a bit of a turn-up for the books! I’ve crossed paths with this delicious author a few times in my trek through the darker corners of storytelling. Racy pacey fighting books, realistic crime with a suspiciously transgressive sense of justice, some decidedly dodgy horror stories. So Ronin Cleans His Room […]
Fractured Lives by Russ Colchamiro
Interview with the exceptionally talented author of “The Other Side of the Mirror”
Love Like Bleeding Out… with an empty gun in your hand
Stephen J Golds Purchase link: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Like-Bleeding-Empty-Your-ebook/dp/B0917LZHYG To be published by Close to the Bone 30 April 2021 The publisher kindly provided an advance copy of this book as part of a book tour. The rating above and the thoughts below are all my own. . I’m not generally known as a sensitive soul who gives […]
A Viva with Indy Perro…
Interview with the exceptionally talented author of “The Other Side of the Mirror”
Heart Fever
Bob van Laerhoven . Bob Van Laerhoven is a veritable Pied Piper, probably in the pay of the devil. His writing mesmerises. He takes us by the hand, dances around us, amuses us even – such sharp, clever, dialogue, such captivating sentences. Yet all the while, he is leading us away from safety, towards some […]
Nite Fire : Flash Point
C.L.Schneider . Well, one of my parents was a dragon, too, so I feel for Dahlia Nite: it is difficult living in the wrong dimension, and having to hide one’s scales and superpowers. One gets misunderstood. I also share her problem with compassion: it’s a curse. The need to save the world as well – […]
Captain Clive’s Dream World
Jon Bassoff . Review by De Gevallene Captain Clive’s Dreamworld – Jon Bassoff They will tell you this book is dark, and it is. OK, read it as a horror story if you like and thrill at that: it works well. Bassoff writes beautifully. He’s good at atmospherics. Read it as magical realism, as bizarro […]
The Plot Against Heaven
Mark Kirkbride The question going through my mind is…. Well why shouldn’t one do God and the Devil as opposing tin-pot dictators, being driven around in limos and buying up arms, each ruling over their own little territory? Why should I be feeling (though I was feeling it!) that it’s not very plausible to do them in quite this […]
Scarred
Damien Linnane “Can you imagine a world without men? No crime, and lots of fat happy women.” Nicole Hollander Here is a chilling book about male violence. It is written by a man, though it offers as grim a depiction of the male psyche as any I have read from the most radical end of […]
Everyone is a Moon
Sawney Hatton . Everyone is a Moon – Strange Stories: Sawney Hatton, Dark Park Publishing Oh yes indeed, what very strange stories! So what can I say? The man can write. (As my friends know, I am inclined to forgive the devil as long as he punctuates correctly, knows the exact moment to finish a […]
The Speed of Life
James Victor Jordan “OK, so you’re a rocket scientist. That don’t impress me much” (Shania Twain) “OK, so you’re a rocket scientist, a shaman, and a future Booker Winner. I guess I’m a little impressed” (De Gevallene) . The Speed of Life, James Victor Jordan, Turning Leaf Books I’m glad that I’m sufficiently bloody minded […]
Review: Crackle and Fire, Russ Colchamiro
Crackle and Fire, Russ Colchamiro, Crazy 8 Press This very readable little book is billed as a science fiction detective story. Ha! OK. Here’s the scenario. For a long time the world (OK, the universe) has been reasonably led and controlled by a broadly benign oligarchy of rich and powerful beings, “The Minders”. These beings […]
Review: A Dying Wish (Razor, book 1)
A Dying Wish – Razor book one, by Henry Roi, paperback, e-book, audiobook (narrated by: Jamal West) You may in these pages have seen me refer to “boys’ books”, invariably, I have to confess, in a righteously dismissive tone. I mean to refer to books whose gratification comes from fighting and motor vehicles and weapons and […]
Matthew Cox – Of Myth and Shadow
An epic fantasy that I loved, despite myself
Lex H Jones comes to call…
Interview with the exceptionally talented author of “The Other Side of the Mirror”
Lex H Jones – The Other Side of the Mirror
A glorious crime novel , rich, multi-layered and compelling.
Heddy Frosell da Ponte: The Frosell Affair
a book about money and privilege and entitlement, and the loss of these
Lee Matthew Goldberg: Slow Down
A truly wonderful hall of dark mirrors – somewhere between The Great Gatsby and Doctor Faustus
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