This review is written with
a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede
all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing
without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at
WordPresss & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Fingers of Death Series:
The Shadow #25 Authors: Maxwell Grant Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages:
137 Words: 42K Publish: 1933
Someone
is killing people and only the Shadow can stop it. I thought I knew
who the villain was part way through, because it wasn’t too
obvious. Then it became obvious who the villain really was. Only it
wasn’t, because it was obvious. Then I realized what was really
going on and what do you know, I was FINALLY right. Only took three
tries, hahahahahaaha!
See,
this is one of the things I like about these Shadow novels. I can
never tell what the correct solution is. The author is always
switching things up and doesn’t repeat a himself.
★★★✬☆
From
the Publisher & Bookstooge
One
by one, the city's most prominent citizens fell prey to an ingenious
and macabre series of murders. A mysterious, pitiless agent of evil
on a single-minded mission of destruction was at work - a terrible
power whom hapless victims, in their last living moments, came to
know and dread as the Fingers of death. Authorities grew more baffled
as the ring of horror spread ever wider. One man and one man alone
could penetrate the veil of secrecy and reveal the grim living
presence behind those murderous fingers. A man more spectral than
night itself, a phantom in a dark slouch hat and flowing cloak, whose
eerie laugh of triumph sowed terror in the hearts of criminals
everywhere.
Decades
ago a civil servant stole millions from a bank and hid the money
before dying without telling anyone where it was. The rest of the
people involved knew it was somewhere in the town. One man begins
killing off the others so when they figure out where the money is,
he’ll get it all. Only the Shadow knows what is going on and only
he put a stop to things and return the stolen money to the honest
townsfolk.
As far as I can tell, "Jandor" is not a named character in the Arabian Nights stories. He is a made up character exclusively for Magic the Gathering. That doesn't mean WotC didn't do a good job of creating a character out of just a couple of sentences on some cards :-D I'd love to have a modern version myself, called Bookstooge's Saddlebags. It would fill up with rockstar, eggnog and cold pepperoni pizza every night, with maybe a little bag of chips to fill things out ;-)
Oh hurray, another guy has started at my work place. I am calling him Short Guy, because he's only 5'4", which means he's my height, which is great for working. He has previous Land Survey experience and is in his late 20's, so those are both big checks in his favor. After my last disastrous experience with the Tattle Tale Guy who told my boss everything I said to him, I am reserving judgement AND keeping my lip buttoned up a lot tighter. Short Guy doesn't seem like a whiny complainer Gen Z'er, but fool me once. I remain hopeful though. But just in case you think it is ALL peaches and roses, he talks. We had a job 75 minutes away from the office one week. He talked the entire time there AND the entire time back. Non-stop verbal diarrhea about everything. All I had to do was say the occasional "uh uh, yep, oh that's interesting" and he just kept on going. How is it physically possible to even talk that much? I am hoping that my natural close mouthedness will rub off on him, once he runs out of original things to say. My fear is that he'll turn into one of those people who tell the same stories time after time because they just have to have words coming out of their mouths. I'll know for sure by New Years either way.
The Time Change at the beginning of the month took me a week to adjust to. I kept waking up at 4am and my body wanted to fall asleep by 8pm. It was not a fun week. Thankfully, once "I" got the message, things settled right down into the new time routine.
Partway through the month I came down with the flu, possibly covid. Either way, it was fever, headache, sore throat, muscle and joint pain and enough snot to make even Slimer go "ewwwww". I was out of work for 3 days because all I could do was lie on the couch, taking pain reliever and drinking hot tea. Once the fever and aches went away, I had to deal with a lingering cough. That sucker kept waking me up during the night every 30-90minutes. It was a 2 week process from start to finish and just tore me down to the foundations.
This past Thursday was Thanksgiving, and since I also had Friday off, meant I had a four day weekend this weekend. I really needed it just to finish up my recovery from being sick.
Went out to a Mexican/American place for Date Night with Mrs B. Had a good time talking and she gave me her thoughts on my taking a break from blogging in January. That was extremely helpful to me, as it gave me a place to work from. I've been feeling burnt out on blogging and several weeks of not writing seems like what I need most. How exactly that will work out is still to be determined, but I have the "big picture" now, which is already helping me.
Bookwise, my reading slowed down a lot. It wasn't helped that I had 3(!!!!!!!) dnf's this month, which totally tanked my average rating. April was the only month this year that has a lower average book rating than this one :-( With that said, my page and word count still went up because I read some big ol' chunksters and even taking the dnf's into account, I still read a lot of pages. The stress of "reading more" was taken care of by not posting on Wednesdays. That really helped a lot and is one of the factors that made me realize I need to stop blogging for a bit. I have a feeling my reading numbers will drop in December, but I'm really ok with that at the moment.
I did manage to participate in SciFiMonth2025 this year with a non-review post. Thank goodness for the Friday Five theme posts! I really wish I could have participated more, but the reading cards said "no" and who am I to disagree? Hehehehe. At least I got to use the cool banner, which is the main reason I wanted to participate in the first place :-D
Cover Love:
The Hand of Fu-Manchu is deliciously creepy. Sadly, this was the best and largest version I could find online.
Plans for Next Month:
READ LESS SO I DON'T HAVE TO WRITE REVIEWS. I know, that seems obvious to you, right? Well, it doesn't to me because I read so much (usually) and I record everything I read. So my goal is to deliberately cut down on my reading in December. Which I'm hoping will lead to a few more creative posts. Which actually leads into my next paragraph very well.
Let the Barbara Cartland Buddy Read begin! The schedule for A Rainbow to Heaven is as follows:
Chapters 1-3 discussion post on Friday, December 5th
Chapters 4-6 discussion post on Friday, December 12th
Chapters 7-9 discussion post on Friday, December 19th
Chapters 10-12 discussion post on Friday, December 26th
Book Review post on Friday, January 2nd 2026
Which means you have this week to read the first 3 chapters and write a post about it. I think this is what is going to monopolize most of my time in December. Given how November went for reading, having some light romance to browse through each week is something I am looking forward to. Unencumbered, uncomplicated and a happy ending. Please be sure to add the tag "Barbara Cartland Buddy Read" to any posts to make it easier for anyone else to find your posts on the WP Reader.
This review is written with
a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede
all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing
without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at
WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: First Love Series:
(The Russians) Author: Ivan Turgenev Translator:
Constance
Garnett Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre:
Classic Pages: 110 Words:
30K Publish: 1860
Wow, just wow. This was as horribly Russian as you can get! I was
equally horrified AND mesmerized as I read this. Turgenev makes sure
that the readers understand what is going on while the main
character, a 16 year old boy, is obviously oblivious. It is almost
funny, right up until the part when you realize the young woman he is
in love with is having an affair with his own father. And by the
books end, almost everybody but the young man (no longer a young man,
but a middle aged man retelling this story) is dead.
All I could think of while reading this was “How can a people who
think like this survive?” I’m giving Turgenev one more chance at
bat and if that story is just as depressing and wretched as this,
I’ll be giving up on him too.
★★✬☆☆
From Bookstooge
A 16 year old boy falls in love with a
neighbor girl, who is a 21 year old impoverished princess. She has a
flock of suitors that she uses mercilessly for her own pleasure,
including the protagonist. It is obvious to the reader that she views
the protagonist more as a younger brother than as a real suitor, but
he is too young to realize it.
Then it comes to light that she has
been carrying on an affair with the protagonist’s father. One of
her other suitors sends an “anonymous” letter to the man’s wife
and this causes a family rupture that is only kept from exploding by
the whole family moving back to Moscow. Our protagonist loses all
contact with the princess. She keeps up a secret correspondence with
the father until the wife finds out and the father dies of apoplexy.
The princess eventually marries someone else and dies giving birth to
her child, which then also dies.
The novella ends with the protagonist
pondering the inscrutable ways of love.
Another Thanksgiving rolls around and I have a LOT to be thankful. Just let me say, make a conscious decision each week to be thankful, it will help your mental health and allow you to endure. It will also reshape your perspective in a more positive way. So be thankful, OR ELSE! ;-)
This year, I am most thankful that I can see with both eyes right now. Earlier in July, when I had a nerve palsy in my left eye and was seeing double for two months and was out of work and couldn't drive or barely even take walks by myself, I was scared. What if it didn't get better? What if I was starting the rapid decline of the Type One Diabetic? But Jehovah in His mercy allowed my eye to heal and I am back to being right as rain. I bless Jesus for that.
I am thankful that I am back to reading my Bible on a regular basis. Without a steady infusion of the Word of God, it is all too easy to drift away from the standard God has set for our lives.
How would I survive without Mrs B? I just don't know. I mean, I would have to do my own grocery shopping again! I HATE grocery shopping. She also gives me some seriously good outside perspective when I get all wrapped up in myself and am having a pity party for po' po' ol' me, boohoo. She's never slapped me, but I've definitely deserved it at points, acting like a selfish teen when I'm closer to 50 than 40 now. I'm just glad she puts up with adult me AND childish me. Neither of those are the easiest to deal with.
I am thankful for the almost unlimited number of books I have access to that I can read. They are not all good books (as evidenced by the multiple dnf's these past several weeks) but they exist and I have the chance to read them. That is a huge blessing.
Finally, I am thankful for all the bloggers who I interact with. Your words mean a lot to me and while the whole "Comments are worth more than gold" might seem a bit much to you, to me, that is completely accurate. Keep up the good work!
This
review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained
therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to
copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions.
Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted
Permission
Title:
The Hand of Fu-Manchu Series: Dr Fu-Manchu
#3 Author: Sax Rohmer Rating: 3 of 5
Stars Genre: Pulp Mystery Pages:
192 Words: 59K Publish: 1917
This
BARELY squeaked over the 3star line, by a mere whisker in fact. Dr
Fu-Manchu survives getting shot in the head from the previous book
and kidnaps Petrie and some other famous doctor. He forces them to
operate on him and remove the bullet. Outside of that, Dr Fu-Manchu
barely features. This was originally titled “The Si-Fan Mysteries”
and was about the group that Fu-Manchu was part of, the Si-fan. A
group of Asians bent on world domination. * insert eye roll
Anyway,
Nayland Smith and Petrie face off against various members of the
group and survive even while acting like complete idiots most of the
time. I have to say, if Rohmer had some sort of “white savior”
complex, he couldn’t have done a worse job if he had tried.
Buffoons and clowns are how I think of Smith and Petrie now. Rohmer
forces them into idiocy to propel the plot and it just gets down
right ugly sometimes.
The
whole “Yellow Threat” tones down even more and we’re not
slapped in the face with it every chapter like in the previous two
books. That was welcome, as it was becoming rather stale since there
was no evidence of it actually coming to pass or happening at all.
Kind of like the boy who cried wolf, except this would be the author
who cried yellow threat. Ha! But like I said, it was really toned
down.
Karamenah,
Petrie’s exotic love interest, has run her course and Rohmer can’t
figure out how to use her any more, so she makes a few desultory
showings here and is pretty much a non-entity. Petrie needs to marry
her and then build a castle around her so Dr Fu-Manchu can’t keep
kidnapping her like he’s been doing. I swear, she’s been
kidnapped, brainwashed, etc like six times now. Get that woman a gun!
Preferably a repeater so she can shoot Fu-Manchu multiple times in
the head next time he tries to kidnap her. Nobody survives a double
tap to the forehead!
Finally,
I’d like to talk about the cover. For each of these books I am
trying to find the cover that I like the best. Not necessarily the
same publisher or artist, but something that stands out to me. This
time around, we get this truly creepy spiderlike rendition of Dr
Fu-Manchu. He’s not brilliant looking like in the first cover. He’s
not residing over the scene like in the second cover. This time, he’s
just plain horrifying. And that makes him a great villain in my books
:-D
★★★☆☆
From
the Publisher
Sir
Gregory Hale returns to London from Mongolia with a mysterious
Tulun-Nur chest that holds the ‘key to India’, a vital secret of
the Fu Manchu’s notorious Si-Fan organization. Unfortunately Hale
is murdered before he is able to disclose the secret to Nayland
Smith. The Burmese police commissioner and Dr. Petrie launch a
mission to affront the brilliant but deadly master criminal before he
succeeds in his malignant and fantastic plot to take over the world.
I never used this card nor do I remember ever actually seeing it used.
What this brings to my mind now are scenes from the epic fantasy series, Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. In that massive series, jade statues play a significant role. In The Bonehunters (book 6), the world is bombarded with massive jade statues, which are an invasion force from another reality (I think). I wonder if there is a universal jade statue myth I'm not aware of that both the artist for this card and Erikson drew from? Otherwise, I'm going to say Erikson was totally influenced by this card.
