In which the reader shares his thoughts on the books that possess his imagination throughout the year.
Comparisons to authors like Dashiell Hammett and a fantastic cover by artist Chris McGrath were the initial things that made Warren Hammond’s debut novel, KOP, catch my attention. Then The Bourne Ultimatum was released and I was in the mood for this kind of fiction. I wanted to lose myself in something with action and intrigue. Thus KOP came home with me during my recent book buying orgy. It was a good choice.
There are moments when you go to the bookstore with a specific purpose in mind, and you come home with the treasure you set out to find. There are other moments when one can wander around the bookstore experiencing myriad temptations, but nothing speaks to you. And then there are times like I had yesterday afternoon. Times in which you wander quite aimlessly to and fro and then a book catches your eye and you feel its pull and you just know that you will have to leave with that book. Yesterday that book was Freaks by Annette Curtis Klause. The full title of the story is Freaks: Alive, on the Inside, but I prefer the simple title and will thus refer to it in that regard for the remainder of this review.
There is no mystery regarding my initial attraction to this book:
Enter a world of beauty and darkness… I was intrigued by the beautiful cover image and the enigmatic tag line of Natasha Mostert‘s novel, Season of the Witch, when it arrived in my mailbox courtesy of Hendy Zucker from Penguin USA several months ago. That is, until I turned the book over. It wasn’t the completion of the tag line: Two sisters. A mysterious house. And a man searching for the truth. That sounded positively gothic, a niche of fiction I thoroughly enjoy. It was quotes like, “A mesmerizing blend of alchemy and sexuality. Prepare to be seduced.” and phrases like “fraught with eroticism” and “dangerous sex” that brought forth mental images of a witchy menage a trios that put me off the idea of diving right into this book. Strange, inner jacket comparisons with The Matrix, Interview with a Vampire, and The Historian did not evoke much confidence that this would be a book that I would ultimately enjoy.
A Non-Spoiler Review
It seems ages ago that I read and reviewed the first book in Colleen Gleason’s Gardella Vampire Chronicles, The Rest Falls Away, but it was actually the first book I completed in 2007. Waiting for books in a series to come out can be an agonizing experience for readers, wondering just when the author and publisher will get together to let the reader know just what has happened to the characters since they closed the page of the previous book. Mercifully the wait for the further adventures of our favorite Victorian Venator has not been too long.
(Book 3 from my list for the Once Upon a Time Challenge)
In August of last year I reviewed the first book in a new series by author Liz Williams, Snake Agent. My introduction to that review read:
Described as “John Constatine meets Chow Yun-Fat”, the series follows the exploits of Detective Inspector Wei Chen and his demonic law enforcement counterpart, Seneschal Zhu Irzh, as they solve occultic crimes set in a near-future city called Singapore 3.
The Demon and The City is the second in this series of buddy-cop/mythological/supernatural thrillers.