Blood Standard
Blood Standard is a beautifully written slow-moving hardboiled noir. Isaiah Coleridge is an enforcer with the Chicago mob. Since he is Maori, he can never be truly part of the Family. When he falls out of favor, he is sent to Nome Alaska, the “Mafia penal colony”. After letting hisContinue Reading
Fix Freeze Feast
Extremely comprehensive family cookbook that includes both freezable meals and meals to be eaten immediately after preparation. Fix Freeze Feast has a huge variety of recipes. It has 84 meat-based main dishes: 37 with chicken, 23 with beef and 24 with pork. There are 24 seafood and vegetable main andContinue Reading
Maggy Garrisson
Maggy has been without a job in London for two years. Her neighbor sets her up as a secretary to Mr. Wight, an alcoholic private investigator. When he sends her home minutes after her arrival on her first day, Maggy cleverly solves one of his cases and pockets the fee.Continue Reading
His Name Was Ptirou
In 1929 France, an orphaned acrobat becomes a cabin boy in His Name was Ptirou. Slice of 1929 cruise ship life, this comic provides a fictional backstory to the creator and main character of Spirou Comics. Spirou et Fantasio is a famous Franco-Belgian comic begun in 1938 and still inContinue Reading
Kamo Vol 1
Kamo, a sixteen-year-old boy, is dying from a defective heart. Crimson from the underworld offers him a deal. Trap twelve spirit souls that will allow Crimson to live again and Crimson will repair Kamo’s heart permanently. Despite a non-Japanese author, the artwork has an authentic manga feel. The ambience isContinue Reading
Night’s Dominion Vol 2
Another sword and sorcery tale without the quest from Vol 1. Emerane and her friends destroyed the Cult and saved Umber in Vol 1. But who will rise from the ashes to run the city now. The government is corrupt and working solely for the rich. The city’s peacekeepers areContinue Reading
Spectacle Vol 1
Unusual artwork is used effectively in a murder mystery set in a traveling circus. Spectacle Vol 1 is good until the unsatisfactory conclusion. Twins Anna and Kat are members of a traveling circus. Anna is the fortune teller. Kat is a knife thrower. When Kat is murdered with her ownContinue Reading
Dark Days: Road to Metal
“It all started with a tooth. A metal tooth that could bring the dead back to life.” Green Lantern senses an evil presence emanating from the deep recesses of the Batcave. The Joker escapes from his electronic cage. Batman is given a dagger by his ex, Talia, to help himContinue Reading
Night’s Dominion Vol 1
Night’s Dominion Vol 1 contains great artwork and an interestingly imagined medieval world. However, the plot contains a rather generic revolution story reminiscent of Les Miserables. Emerane is a master thief. When she and a band of other rascals led by a minstrel take on the cult of Uhlume, violenceContinue Reading
Hog Wild
Well-researched story of the fight for union representation in Smithfield’s North Carolina hog slaughterhouse. All the players in the union vs. Smithfield fight are examined in Hog Wild. The book also describes how modern vertical integration moved from chicken to hog slaughtering. It includes cringeworthy details of what the hogsContinue Reading
The Fallen
Another great police procedural, #4 in the Memory Man series. Amos and his partner, Alex, are on vacation when Amos sees something in a nearby house and investigates. Two bodies are found and Amos and Alex join the local police in searching for the murderer. Soon the opioid crisis, anContinue Reading
Chickens in Your Backyard
Chickens in Your Backyard is all anyone needs to know to raise chickens! Chickens in Your Backyard is newly revised and updated. It includes how to set up a coop, a run and a home for your new chickens. There are chapters on feed, eggs, water, cleaning, disease, breeding andContinue Reading
Archie Coe Vol 1
Archie Coe, hypnotist, cat whisperer and sucker to every dame he meets. The art and dialogue both up the 1940s noir feel in Archie Coe Vol 1. Jack Midland hires Coe to find the reason his wife, Hope, is frigid to him since their marriage. Hope insists that she andContinue Reading
Charmed Bones
Southern paranormal cozy mystery with ghosts, witches and a murder or two. Hope, Faith and Charity plan to open a Wiccan school and white witches’ potion shop in rural Sunflower County Mississippi. Sarah Booth Delaney and her partner in the Delaney Detective Agency, Tinkie Richmond, are paid to dig upContinue Reading
All the Answers
Families are messed up. Even, maybe especially, famous ones. The author of All the Answers is Michael Kupperman. He is a famous, Eisner Award-winning artist and writer. However, he continues to be haunted by his father’s aloof attitude toward him throughout his childhood and adolescence. The author believes that hisContinue Reading
Favorite Sister
Great finish almost makes it worth reading the rest of The Favorite Sister. Brett, Stephanie and Jen are the sole remaining season 1 cast members on the new season 4 of the Real Housewives-esque reality show, Goal Diggers. The show ostensibly empowers women, while provoking as many fights among themContinue Reading