Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

The Insulted and Humiliated (The Russians) 4.5Stars

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Title: The Insulted and Humiliated
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Translator: Garnett
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 534
Words: 145K

This was probably the most Russian of the Russian novels I’ve read to date. A fiance dumps the guy for some rich prince, but not because he’s a prince but “because she loves him”. And the main character helps them both. He becomes the shoulder for the woman to cry on when things go hard, he listens to the princeling when he is at his stupidest (all the time), the princeling has zero will of his own and completely lives his life in the moment and by his emotions, the parents of the girl and princeling are suing each other and the main character finds and befriends a sick orphan girl, who dies in the end. The princeling marries someone else and the girl and the main character are left knowing too much has happened for them to ever return together.

Oh man, how can you NOT love something like that? It was distilled misery, like Grade AAA Maple Syrup, but Misery instead. It was glorious and I found myself, on several occasions, pumping my fist in the air and mentally exclaiming, YES, that’s a new low, how can you beat that? And Dostoyevsky must have heard me from the grave, because he kept one upping me.

The story itself is very slow and this was all about the characters interacting. If you want interesting characters, read this. Dostoyevsky knew people and what’s more, he knew how to translate that to the written word. This reminded me very much of a Dickens’ story and I daresay that Dostoyevsky is just as good as Dickens about creating characters and situations.

While I am not sure I would recommend this as an introduction to someone who wants to get into Classic Russian Literature, I would recommend it just to see if they can handle the misery. This book is like a stress test to see if someone can handle CRL in general and not necessarily a test to see if they like CLR. There’s a difference and you need to be able to differentiate between what you can handle and what you like.

★★★★✬

From Wikipedia.org

Natasha leaves her parents' home and runs away with Alyosha (Prince Alexey), the son of Prince Valkovsky. As a result of his pain, her father, Nikolai, curses her. The only friend that remains by Natasha's side is Ivan – her childhood friend who is deeply in love with her, and whom Natasha has rejected despite their being engaged. Prince Valkovsky tries to destroy Alyosha's plans to marry Natasha, and wants to make him marry the rich princess Katerina. Alyosha is a naïve but lovable young man who is easily manipulated by his father. Following his father's plan, Alyosha falls in love with Katerina, but still loves Natasha. He is constantly torn between these two women, too indecisive and infatuated with both to make a decision. Eventually, Natasha sacrifices her own feelings and withdraws in order for Alyosha to choose Katerina. Meanwhile, Ivan rescues an orphan girl, Elena (known as Nellie), from the clutches of a procuress and learns that her mother ran away from her father's (Jeremy Smith's) home with her sweetheart, a man who abandoned her when Nellie's mother gave birth. It is later revealed that Prince Valkovsky is Nellie's father. Her parents were legally married, but Prince Valkovsky persuaded his young and innocent wife to rob her father, Jeremy. After moving to Petersburg, Nellie's mother asks her father for forgiveness, but he rejects them. Before dying, Nellie's mother makes Nellie promise to never go to her real father, whose name is on a document she leaves her daughter. In an attempt to make Nikolai (Natasha's father) reconcile with Natasha, Ivan persuades Nikolai and his wife to adopt Nellie. By telling them her life story, Nellie makes Nikolai's heart soften and he forgives Natasha and removes his curse, and they are reunited. Natasha's family plans to move from Petersburg, but just before they leave Nellie dies from a chronic heart condition; the little girl makes it clear to Ivan she does not forgive her father for his cruel treatment of her mother. She also tells him he should marry Natasha. The story ends with Nikolai and Natasha considering what a waste everything has been to that point and how they can never be together.

Thursday, October 19, 2023

The Colour of Magic (Discworld #1) 4Stars

Title: The Colour of Magic
Series: Discworld #1
Author: Terry Pratchett
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 270
Words: 89K

This is the 3^rd time “officially” that I’ve read this. And I still really enjoy it. The humor is right up my alley and it tickles my funny bone. Definitely not for everyone. Rincewind the Wizzard isn’t everyone else’s favorite Discworld character, but he makes me laugh my head off.

This wasn’t so much one singular story as a series of adventures by Rincewind and Two Flowers, a tourist from the Counter-Weight Continent. They burn down Ankh-Morpork and then proceed across the land landing into trouble everywhere they go. It’s insane, crazy, discombobulated and you can tell Pratchett was writing for the pure joy of being silly. I loved it!

I was apprehensive about doing this re-read of Discworld, but this wonderful start has put my mind at ease and while I know I’m not going to enjoy every single book, I do think I am going to enjoy the series as a whole.

★★★★☆

From Wikipedia.org

The story begins in Ankh-Morpork, the biggest city on the Discworld. The main character is an incompetent and cynical wizard named Rincewind, who is hired as a guide to naive Twoflower, an insurance clerk from the Agatean Empire who has come to visit Ankh-Morpork. Thanks to the abundance of gold in his homeland, Twoflower, though only a clerk, is immensely rich compared to inhabitants of Ankh-Morpork. Initially attempting to flee with his advance payment for agreeing to be Twoflower's guide, Rincewind is captured by the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, who forces him to protect Twoflower, lest the tourist's death provoke the Agatean Emperor into invading Ankh-Morpork. After Twoflower is kidnapped by a gang of thieves and taken to the Broken Drum tavern, Rincewind stages a rescue alongside the Luggage, an indestructible, enchanted and sentient chest belonging to Twoflower. Before this, Twoflower convinces the Broken Drum's landlord to take out a fire insurance policy; the landlord subsequently attempts to burn down the tavern to claim the money, but ends up causing a fire that destroys the whole of Ankh-Morpork. Rincewind and Twoflower escape in the chaos.

Rincewind and Twoflower travel towards the city of Quirm, unaware that their adventures on this journey are actually the subject of a boardgame played by the Gods of the Discworld. The pair are separated when they are attacked by a mountain troll summoned by Offler the Crocodile God. The ignorant Twoflower ends up being led to the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, a being said to be the opposite of both good and evil, while Rincewind ends up imprisoned in a dryad-inhabited tree in the woods, where he watches the events in Bel Shamharoth's temple through a magical portal. The pair are reunited when Rincewind escapes into the temple through the portal, and they encounter Hrun the Barbarian, a parody of heroes in the Swords and Sorcery genre. The trio are attacked and nearly killed by Bel-Shamharoth, but escape when Rincewind accidentally blinds the creature with Twoflower's magical picture box. Hrun agrees to travel with and protect Twoflower and Rincewind in exchange for heroic pictures of him from the picture box.

The trio visit the Wyrmberg, an upside-down mountain which is home to dragon-riders who summon their dragons by imagining them, and are separated when the riders attack them. Rincewind escapes capture but is forced by Kring, Hrun's sentient magical sword, to attempt to rescue his friends. Twoflower is imprisoned within the Wyrmberg, and because of his fascination with dragons, is able to summon one greater than those of the Wyrmberg riders, who he names Ninereeds, allowing him to escape captivity and save Rincewind from being killed in a duel with one of the three heirs of the Wyrmburg. Twoflower, Rincewind and Ninereeds snatch Hrun, but as they attempt to escape into the skies, Twoflower passes out from the lack of oxygen, causing Ninereeds to disappear. Hrun is saved by Liessa, but Rincewind and Twoflower find themselves falling to their deaths. In desperation, Rincewind manages to use the Wyrmberg's power to temporarily summon a passenger jet from the real world, before he and Twoflower fall into the ocean.

The two of them are taken to the edge of the Discworld by the ocean currents and nearly carried over, but they are caught by the Circumfence, a huge net built by the nation of Krull to catch sea life and flotsam washed in from the rest of the Discworld. They are rescued by Tethis the sea troll, a being composed of water who had fallen off the edge of his own world and onto the Discworld, where he was subsequently enslaved by the Krullians. Rincewind and Twoflower are then taken by the Krullians to their capital, where they learn that the Krullians intend to discover the sex of Great A'Tuin by launching a space capsule over the edge of the Disc, and plan to sacrifice Rincewind and Twoflower to get the god Fate to smile on the voyage, Fate insisting on their sacrifice after they caused him to lose the earlier game. Rincewind and Twoflower attempt to escape, but end up stealing the capsule, which is launched with Twoflower inside, the tourist wishing to see the other worlds of the universe. Rincewind is unable to get into the capsule in time, and falls off the Disc alongside it, the Luggage following them soon after.

The story segues into the beginning of The Light Fantastic

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Beat to Quarters (Horatio Hornblower #1) 3.5Stars

Title: Beat to Quarters
Series: Horatio Hornblower #1
Author: Cecil Scott Forester
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 204
Words: 76K

I have heard about the Horatio Hornblower series my entire life. Some friends of mine were big naval buffs and loved all the history of this series. That was enough, even back in highschool, to turn my interest away from it. Then I read some of the Seafort Saga, which was touted as “Hornblower in Space”. Seafort was an antihero who everything turned bad for. He rescues a space princess. She dies horribly and he’s sued by her brothers and his wife divorces him over it. That’s just a made up example, but that’s how Seafort went. There were no happy endings. So that turned me off of Hornblower yet again.

But here I am, 30 years later. My tastes have changed, broadened, narrowed and expanded. While readers/reviewers like Mogsy can churn through the latest pile of new releases like a voracious horde of pirahannas, I am finding myself going the opposite direction. I don’t WANT the new books. Give me those old books! I used to think that meant the 1980’s. But with Riders introducing me to the Shadow and the fantastic luck I tend to have with those, well, the 1930’s started looking good. Throw in the original Conan stories by Howard, also in the ‘30’s and yeah, backwards in time seemed the way to go. And Hornblower was published in ‘37. So I gathered unto myself the collection of 12 novels, even if the last one wasn’t completed due to the author dying. Hmmm, sounds kind of like Sunset at Blandings, the final Blandings Castle novel.

Hornblower is a competent but totally self-conscious and utterly class aware kind of character. I had a hard time relating but just had to accept it. He had a bad experience trying to be friendly with an officer below him one time and the lesson he took from it was to be silent, enigmatic and uncommunicative with anybody on the ship. This makes him lonely and miserable. But all he can think about is how talking to his officers might somehow bring dishonor on him. It was utter balderdash. But it made Hornblower a real character. He HAD character.

I’ve also heard how wonderful these are for homeschoolers and middle graders. That’s balderdash too. Hornblower is a married man but almost gets involved with a noblewoman who forced her way on the ship to get a ride home. Before he cuts things off for good, Forester tells how Hornblower has a train of thought that “ended in rapine and murder”. It was much darker than I was ever expecting. It wasn’t bad, but it was adult in its theme and was not at all appropriate for middle graders. We’ll see where Forester sends Hornblower in future books in that regards.

Finally, I am reading these in publication order and not in internal chronological order. While there can be benefits to reading books in chronological order, I have found that reading them as the author wrote them allows for a fuller journey in regards to how a series matures. Instead of skipping all over the place in terms of skill and even style, you simply walk along the path and experience the change as it happens. It’s not always obvious and many times might have zero bearing on one’s enjoyment of a particular author (Dickens for example), but for it sets my mind at ease knowing I’m reading the story the way author thought it. With this paragraph I am closing in on the 600 word mark for this section of the review. That’s too long so I shall end this now.

Except.

That cover. Is that awesome or what? Gaaaaahhhh! I shall commit seppuku with a dull spoon for dishonoring myself, my family and my cow for being so wordy. I just went to 639 words; make that spoon rusty!

★★★✬☆

From Wikipedia.org

June 1808 Hornblower is in command of the 36-gun frigate HMS Lydia, with secret orders to sail to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua (near modern Choluteca, Choluteca) and supply a local landowner, Don Julian Alvarado ("descendant" of Pedro de Alvarado by a fictional marriage to a daughter of Moctezuma), with muskets and powder. Don Julian is ready to revolt against the Spanish. Upon meeting Don Julian, Hornblower discovers that he is a megalomaniac who calls himself "El Supremo" (which Forester translates as "the Almighty"), views himself as a deity, and has been killing those who he regards as "unenlightened" because they do not recognise El Supremo's divine status. El Supremo claims to be a descendant of Moctezuma, the holy god-made-man of the Aztecs, and also of Pedro de Alvarado, one of the Spanish invaders of Mexico.

While Hornblower replenishes his supplies the 50-gun Spanish ship Natividad is sighted off the coast. Unwilling to risk fighting the much more powerful ship in a sea battle, Hornblower hides nearby until it anchors and then captures it in a surprise nighttime boarding. El Supremo demands that it be turned over to him so that he may have a navy. After hiding the captured Spanish officers to save them from being murdered by El Supremo, Hornblower, needing his ally's cooperation, has no choice but to accede.

After offloading war supplies for El Supremo, Hornblower sails south. Off the coast of Panama he encounters a Spanish lugger, from which an envoy arrives to inform him of a new alliance between Spain and England against Napoleon.

When Hornblower visits Panama City to meet with the Spanish Viceroy, the Englishwoman Lady Barbara Wellesley, a (fictional) sister of Marquess Wellesley and Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington), comes aboard. The packet ship she was on in the Caribbean had been captured some time before. Freed by Spain's changing sides, and fleeing a yellow fever epidemic ashore, she requests passage back to England. Hornblower reluctantly takes Lady Barbara and her maid Hebe aboard, warning her that he must first hunt and destroy the Natividad before El Supremo can capture a Spanish ship carrying funds crucial to the Spanish war effort from Manila to Acapulco.

In the subsequent battle Hornblower uses masterful tactics to sink the Natividad, though the Lydia herself is heavily damaged. Limping back to Panama to effect repairs, Hornblower is informed that, now that there is no further threat from the Natividad, he is not welcome in any Spanish American port. He manages to find a natural harbour on the island of Coiba, where he refits.

After completing repairs, Hornblower encounters the haughty Spanish envoy once again on the same lugger. He is invited aboard the lugger and finds El Supremo chained to the deck on his way to execution.

Hornblower sets sail for England. On the long voyage home he and Lady Barbara become strongly attracted to each other. She makes the first overt advances and they embrace passionately, but Barbara's maid Hebe walking in on them brings Hornblower to the realisation that a ship's captain must not indulge in sexual dalliance with a passenger. He tells Barbara, truthfully, that he is married. After her rejection Barbara avoids him as best she can. The Lydia arrives at Saint Helena soon afterwards and Lady Barbara transfers to a more spacious ship.

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Antonina 2Stars

Title: Antonina
Series: ----------
Author: Wilkie Collins
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 629
Words: 167K

For anyone who doesn’t know, Wilkie Collins is known for writing The Moonstone, sometimes called the first detective novel. He was also a contemporary and friend to Charles Dickens. As you should know, Dickens was known as quite the wordy author, always using 5 or 6 words where 1 would have sufficed. Some find this trait of his insufferable, some love it. I happen to love it. When it is done by Dickens. This was also Collins’ debut novel and in it he tries to out-Dickens Dickens. If 1 word would suffice, Collins crams in 10-15. Usually of the most purplish prose possible too. I found it insufferable.

What is worse, this was also boring. Rome is surrounded by a barbarian horde of goths and everyone just sits there and starves to death. Collins can barely be bothered to scare up some drama for us.

The struggle between Paganism and Christianity, as portrayed, also betrayed Collins inherent apathy for either. He was no believer in anything. It should have had some real pathos, some “zing” instead of two old men living their lives out according to their principles.

This was the first book in one of those “Complete Author X” collections. Bad choice, even though I know they’re going alphabetically. If I hadn’t already read Moonstone and had my interest whetted by that, and this was my first Collins, I’d have tossed it into the rubbish heap and not read anything more by him. Really hope the next book is a little more interesting.

★★☆☆☆

From Wilkie-Collins.info and Bookstooge.blog

The plot revolves around two separate but related struggles. That of the old pagan and new Christian religions, seen as equally destructive, embodied in the opposing characters of Ulpius and Numerian; and that of the strong figure of the Goth, Goisvintha, (modelled on Norna in Scott's The Pirate) seeking revenge against the weak heroine, Antonina.

In the Rome of 408 AD, the young Antonina lives with her father Numerian, zealous in his aims to restore the Christian faith to its former ideals. Numerian's steward, Ulpius, brought up in the old religion, secretly lives only to restore the forbidden gods of pagan sacrifice. Vetranio, their wealthy neighbour, has designs on the innocent Antonina. When they are surprised by Numerian in an apparently compromising situation, Antonina flees outside the city walls just before Rome is blockaded by the encircling army of the Goths.

Antonina is captured by the chieftain, Hermanric, who falls in love with her. His sister, Goisvintha, was the sole survivor of a Roman massacre in which her children perished and has vowed revenge on Rome and its people. She attempts to kill Antonina but is prevented by Hermanric who allows Antonina to escape. During the weeks of the siege, she lives in a deserted farmhouse, visited nightly by Hermanric. Goisvintha betrays her brother to the Huns who kill him, while Antonina escapes for a second time.

Ulpius, meanwhile, has discovered a breach in the city wall and attempts to betray Rome to Alaric in exchange for his destruction of the Christian religion. Alaric is interested only in humbling his enemies into surrender and seizing a large tribute of gold. Returning towards the city, Ulpius discovers Antonina and accompanies her to Rome where she finds her overjoyed but starving father. Antonina begs the last morsels of food from Vetranio at a macabre and suicidal 'Banquet of Famine', preventing him from making a funeral pyre of his palace.

Antonina is stabbed but recovers, her father stays alive, Ulpias dies, Goisvintha goes completely insane and Vetranio retires to the country side.

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Groo and the Ambassador (Groo the Wanderer #22) 3.5Stars

Title: Groo and the Ambassador
Series: Groo the Wanderer #22
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 24
Words: 2K

Groo gets into trouble, causes trouble and eventually just wanders out of the picture leaving death and destruction in his wake, as usual. Hhaahahahahaa!

Ahhhh, I love this comic :-D

★★★✬☆

From Bookstooge.blog

Groo the Wanderer is wandering around and at the same time an Ambassador named Gru is accidentally following the same path. Gru ends up taking all of the consequences that Groo creates by not paying for anything. Eventually war breaks out between two kingdoms and Groo is left wandering in the woods, clueless as ever.

All of My “Groo the Wanderer” Reviews

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Savage Son (Terminal List #3) 3Stars

Title: Savage Son
Series: Terminal List #3
Author: Jack Carr
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 464
Words: 134K

This was a love letter to the short story “The Most Dangerous Game”. Carr starts his introduction talking about it in fact. He mentions that the idea came to him first, but he needed Reece to get to that point and so he had to write the first two books. If you liked TMDG, you’ll like this story.

Much like Carr’s previous books though, he takes a while to get to where he’s going. Reece faces down a large group of russian mobsters in some mid-western state out in the middle of no-where and it was awesome. But Carr felt like he had to set things up like a SEAL operative. Too much detail to things that don’t matter in a novel. This would have been a fantastic 350 page novel. I probably would have given it 4 stars. But there was simply too much setup.

I found the fight against the mobsters in the US to be the better fight, as the one in Russia on the deserted ice island where the Crazy Guy was hunting Reece and his buddy Raife turned out to be rather anti-climactic. Carr should have taken a page from TMDG and tried for a three day fight and flight narrative instead of a six hour in and out escape narrative.

Overall, I was pleased with this read and am satisfied with how it turned out. While I still have one more book to read, Jack Carr is doing a much better job with James Reece than “Dalton Fury” did with his Delta Force series. That might sound like faint praise, but praise is praise and Carr should be thankful.

★★★☆☆

From OfficialJackCarr.com

Deep in the wilds of the Russian Far East, a woman is on the run, pursued by a man harboring secrets, a man intent on killing her.

A traitorous CIA officer has found refuge with the Russian Mafia with designs on ensuring a certain former Navy SEAL sniper is put in the ground.

Half a world away, James Reece is recovering from brain surgery in the Montana wilderness of his youth, learning to live again, putting his life back together with the help of investigative journalist Katie Buranek and his longtime friend and SEAL teammate Raife Hastings.

For reasons both personal and professional, the Russian intelligence-mafia consortium has their sights set on removing a player from the board before he can return to the battlefield, targeting Reece on U.S. soil.

With an unknown entity inside the U.S. government compromised by Russian intelligence, Reece is forced to recruit a team of former commandos to bring his unique brand of vengeance to the Russian Mafia on their home turf, turning the hunters into the hunted.

All of My “Terminal List” Reviews

Sunday, October 08, 2023

The Misfit Soldier 1Star DNF@28%

Title: The Misfit Soldier
Series: ----------
Author: Michael Mammay
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars DNF#28%
Genre: SF
Pages: 270/76
Words: 89K/25K

DNF’d at 28% for the usual reasons.

★☆☆☆☆

Thursday, October 05, 2023

Mutineer (Empire Rising #7) 3.5Stars

Title: Mutineer
Series: Empire Rising #7
Author: David Holmes
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 389
Words: 151K

I enjoyed this even though it wasn’t the transition of power from Awesome-Admiral Happypants to Ensign Mighty Niece like I thought. Das Admiral is front and center and takes a mighty hit from the bad politicians. He’s hurt, he’s down but he’s not done, not by a long shot! There’s dastardly politicians still to kill. There’s dastardly Really Bad Aliens to kill! There’s thrills and chills as new good aliens pop out of the woodwork like weevils from a biscuit!

Das Space Battleos gets biggemized, to the point where thousands of missiles get fired but thankfully we don’t have to follow every single one to their destruction. We do still get “then X missiles made it through and exploded and destroyed/damaged X ships”. So if that’s your space jam, bring your own toast.

The Bad Politicians left a bad taste in my mouth. Just like they should. But I still didn’t enjoy that aspect of the story, even though it was very necessary. Going number two is ALSO necessary but it doesn’t mean I have to like it, or like hearing other people talk/write about it.

But don’t worry, this series is Number One in my books!

★★★✬☆

From Bookstooge.blog

Awesome-Admiral Happypants (because there are lots of admirals but only the most Admiral’y of them all gets to be in charge with that title) saves humanity from a bunch of bad aliens, finds even more good aliens, and finds the Really Bad Aliens.

Politics gets involved, Awesome-Admiral is court-martialed by jealous incompetent and totally stupid Politicians and the Powers That Be blow off the new good aliens and pretend that the RBA’s don’t exist.

Awesome-Admiral doesn’t take it lying down and goes to his wife’s space system to start preparing humanity, along with his niece, Ensign Mighty Niece. Of course, she’s some sort of lowly officer now, but she’s going to stay Ensign Mighty Niece from hereon out in my books!

The End!

All of My “Empire Rising” Reviews

Tuesday, October 03, 2023

Mirror of the Night and Other Weird Tales 3Stars

Title: Mirror of the Night and Other Weird Tales
Series: ----------
Author: Edwin Tubb
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Horror Anthology
Pages: 148
Words: 59K

I was talking with somebody, at some time (I think it was Snapdragon Alcove) and she asked if I’d ever read anything by E.C Tubb. I hadn’t, so I decided to rectify that situation with this standalone collection of short stories by him.

Tubb was quite interested in the supernatural and more specifically, the occultic supernatural. But he was also just fine writing about messed up humanity.

One of the stories is about an older man who has had a stroke. He is convinced his wife has been taken over by an alien and in the end kills her. Only the reader knows everything the narrator is seeing and thinking has been corrupted by the stroke he had. That was the non-occultic kind of scary.

Then you have a story about a guy who robs a cultic temple and takes the jewel from the idol’s forehead. It is a snakegod and he convinces a friend to help him get back to Britain. On the ship ride back, he is mysteriously crushed to death in a locked cabin. The friend returns the jewel and becomes an adherent of the snake god cult.

Tubb is better known (or so I gather) for a science fiction series called Dumarest. I don’t know a thing about it, but after this collection, I’m going to track down a couple and see how they compare. While I wasn’t particularly wowed by this collection, it kept my interest and made me want to check out more by Tubb.

★★★☆☆

Table of Contents:

MIRROR OF THE NIGHT

THE ANCIENT ALCHEMIST

THE ARTIST’S MODEL

SNAKE VENGEANCE

THE ENEMY WITHIN US

STATE OF MIND

SELL ME A DREAM

THE WINNER

THE WITCH OF PERONIA

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

Sunday, October 01, 2023

Dead Skip (The DKA Files #1) 2.5Stars

Title: Dead Skip
Series: The DKA Files #1
Author: Joe Gores
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 167
Words: 55K

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. This series (DKA stands for Dan Kearney Associates) is about a business that tracks down and repossesses cars that have been stolen or not paid up on.

Unfortunately, Joe Gores, the author, seems intent on dwelling on the seamy side of such a business and everyone under questioning is some sort of filthy wretch. Every woman’s bosom comes under scrutiny from at least one of the men in the agency and apparently all anyone can think about, man or woman, is how they’re going to get laid next.

Add in the racism (EVERYBODY in this story is a racist, from the black woman to the mexican car owner to the white policeman) and the language used and I was done by the time the story was done. I realize there is a point where you are describing “events on the ground”, but it is beyond unnecessary to write out a whole paragraph using every racial slur I’ve heard to date (given, that’s not that many, but it’s enough). All I could think of was “why was this included?”

The story itself was intriguing. DKA is chasing down a missing car and in the process uncover an embezzling scheme and murder. It was great. But Gores just couldn’t help but dirty things up. As such, I won’t be tracking down any more stories by him.

★★✬☆☆

From the Publisher

In the first book of Joe Gores's razor-sharp Daniel Kearny Associates series, a DKA investigator clings to life after a devastating car crash. The police are ready to write it off as a drunk driving incident, but the DKA team knows it was an attempted homicide. Now they have seventy-two hours to search the backstreets of San Francisco and find the truth about the "accident" from a stripper, an embezzler, an ex-con, and other unsavory characters