The Ninja's Daughter - Susan Spann

   2016; 240 pages.  Book 4 (out of 8) in the series “A Shinobi Mystery”.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Historical Mystery; Historical Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    “Last night I killed a girl and left her body by the river.”

 

    When someone pounds on your door before the sun comes up, and utters those words, you know it’s going to be a long day.  And when the visitor’s next words are, “I don’t want to die for a crime I didn’t commit,” you know it’s going to be a bad day as well.

 

    But Father Mateo is gracious and invites the man in for tea, and against his better judgment, Hiro Hattori, the priest’s ninja bodyguard, is forced to stand aside.  As the visitor, a young man named Jiro, tells his tale—at least as much as he remembers of it—both priest and ninja realize that someone ought to investigate the death.

 

    Unfortunately, Magistrate Ishimaki, the judge who oversees justice for the entire district of Kyoto, is about to declare the case already closed, that a murder never even happened, and looking into the matter by anyone is forbidden.

    Under penalty of death.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Ninja’s Daughter is another fine tale in Susan Spann’s captivating “Shinobi Mystery” series, which is set in mid-16^th-century Japan, where samurais and ninjas are plentiful and Western foreigners are rare.  This is the third book I’ve read from it, and I thoroughly enjoy being immersed in this medieval Japanese world.

 

    It’s going to be quite the challenge for Hiro and Mateo to get to the bottom of this seemingly straightforward case.  Yes, there is a corpse, a “teahouse entertainer” named Emi, and yes, she appears to have been strangled.  But Jiro is no help; he says he was passed out drunk when the murder occurred, and Ishimaki has delegated his assistant, Yoriki Hosokawa, with the authority to execute anyone who dares to look into the matter.

 

    I loved the interplay between Hiro and Father Mateo as they try to piece together what happened while at the same time evading Yoriki’s prying eyes.  Both protagonists form their own opinion as to who did it, and why, and they change their minds a couple of times as they gather more information.  But somehow neither ever agrees with the other as to whodunit.

 

    I continue to be fascinated with the historical aspect of this series.  Japan in 1565 has a strict caste system.  If you’re a ruler or a samurai, you can kill almost anyone you want for little or no reason.  If you’re not in that social stratum, you can be executed for anything less than total subservience and truth-telling to those powers that be.

 

    I enjoyed the frequent use of Japanese vocabulary in the story.  The author usually takes the time in the text to tell you what the words mean, and when she doesn’t, you can always find the translations in the “Glossary of Japanese Terms” section in the back.

 

    The ending is good. Emi’s murderer is revealed, as well as the reason behind the crime.  Things close with a bit of secondary karma being exacted.  There’s also a “bigger picture” storyline involving Father Mateo and Hiro being forced to flee Kyoto.  The story ends with them on their way to dwell in a new city, presumably where the next book will be set.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 107 ratings and 60 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.12/5 based on 291 ratings and 72 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “It appears the girl was an actor’s daughter, not a teahouse entertainer.”

    “An outcaste?” Luis said.  “You know, they have a word for that.  It translates, ‘pile of —‘ ”

    “Thank you, I’ve heard it.”  Father Mateo cut Luis off before he could speak the offensive word.

    “That’s not the proper term anyway,” Hiro said.  “For actors, we use—”

    “Don’t encourage him,” Father Mateo said.  (pg. 45)

 

    Hiro turned to Father Mateo.  “At least that ends the argument about where to go when we leave Kyoto.”

    Father Mateo frowned.  “There was an argument?”

    Hiro resumed his course toward the river.

    Father Mateo hurried to catch up.  “Hattori Hanzo may lead the Iga ryu, but he has no authority over me.”

    “Only a dead man refuses an order from Hanzo,” Hiro said.  “Some refuse because they are dead, and the rest are dead because they refused.  Which one are you?”  (pg. 205)

 

“The blade of grass that stands the tallest is the first to be cut down.”  (pg. 112)

    There’s not much to nitpick about in The Ninja’s Daughter.  There’s zero cussing, and I’m always impressed with any author who can write a captivating full-length novel without needing to use swear words.

 

    Some reviewers seemed to think the historical fiction aspect overshadowed the mystery-solving.  They have a point, but since I’m a history buff who knows next to nothing about Japan in the 1500s, I was okay with that.  Other reviewers didn’t like the rigidly arbitrary and unfair caste system presented here.  Yeah, it does suck, but I suspect it’s an accurate portrayal of Japan at that time.

 

    Overall, I found The Ninja’s Daughter to be a quick, easy read.  The chapters are James Patterson-ly short (56 of them for 240 pages), but that just means you always have a convenient place to stop for the night.  I’m a big fan of the Murder-Mystery genre, and love it even more when the author also takes me to another historical time and place.  When witty dialogue is added to the text, and the whodunit keeps me guessing (full disclosure: I guessed wrong.), I’m just all that more entertained.

 

    8 Stars.  I started reading this series because my local library carried two of the books, Blade of the Samurai, (Book 2) and Flask of the Drunken Master (Book 3).  Those are reviewed here and here.  I have since acquired the rest of the series, and look forward to reading more about the adventures of the recently-displaced duo of Father Mateo and Hiro Hattori in the near future.

Off To Be The Wizard - Scott Meyer

   2014; 271 pages.  Book 1 (out of 6) in the “Magic 2.0” series.  Illustrator: Liz Pulido.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Historical Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Good news!  Martin Banks has discovered the answer to the question that has plagued philosophers for centuries: is this world in which we live real or is it just an illusion?

 

    Bad news!  It’s an illusion!  Even worse, it’s a cyberworld created by a computer program.  We are all merely computer constructs.  Nothing more.

 

    Kinda good news!  Martin’s a computer geek.  He’s figured out how to hack into that cosmic computer file and alter attributes in its cyber characters.  Want to have blue eyes instead of green?  How about owning a Camaro instead of a Honda Accord?  Feeling a little short?  Let's add five inches to your height.

 

    But be careful what you change, Martin.  For instance, making yourself five inches taller might stretch your internal organs until they rupture, which would kill you.

 

    Magic can be a tricky thing.

 

What’s To Like...

    Off to be the Wizard is the first book in Scott Meyer’s fascinating time-travel series called “Magic 2.0”.  We peek over Martin’s shoulder as he fiddles with the attributes the computer program has assigned to him.  Unsurprisingly, he quickly finds himself in all sorts of trouble with the authorities, and has to hightail it to another point in time.

 

    Martin does his research and finds that medieval England is the best place for a wizard to lie low.  So off he goes, only to find that he’s not the first hacker to stumble across that computer program.  Mayhem ensues.

 

    I liked that Scott Meyer, and Martin, and other wizards, have no qualms about creating time paradoxes.  Their logic is persuasive, no matter what they do in 12^th century England, somehow things will always work out to that which we call the present.  Past-, Present-, and Future-Martins can coexist and interact, and yet we never suddenly find ourselves in an alternate timeline.  Well, at least we won’t be aware of such a thing happening.

 

    Martin learns lots of neat magic tricks to dazzle the medieval British with.  We’ll only mention one: flying, which wows the local villagers.  But think about it.  How do you write a computer program that enables you to fly?  In Martin’s case, it’s a matter of trial and error.

 

    Things really take off after Martin attains the coveted status of “official wizard”.  Other wizards have other agendas, and some are not shy about violating their own self-regulating rules, the main one being the Star Trekky “Prime Directive”.  Changes occur, casualties accrue, and everything builds to an exciting, clever, and heroic ending.  The good guys – whoever they turn out to be – win, and the main storylines in the tale are tied up.  We close with a three-page epilogue that also serves as a teaser for the next book in the series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 3,438 ratings and 1,739 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.99*/5, based on 37,885 ratings and 3,057 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    He knew that the things the file allowed him to do would seem like magic to anyone who witnessed them.  If he was going to escape to a point in the past, it should be a time when magic was believed to exist.  That way, instead of people yelling, “Magic!  It must be some kind of trick! Let’s beat him until he tells us the secret,” hopefully they would yell, “Magic!  I’ve heard of that!  I’ve never seen it in person, though!”

    The trick was finding a time and place where the next sentence wouldn’t be “Let’s burn him!”  (loc. 320)

 

    “Buck up, Martin!  Two days from now, you’ll be a fully trained wizard with full shell access.  Or you’ll be in jail.  The point is, you’ll know.  All the uncertainty will be over.”

    Martin asked, “Have I told you that I’m going to miss your little pep talks?”

    Phillip said, “No, you haven’t.”

    Martin said, “There’s a reason for that.”  (loc. 2882)

 

Kindle Details…

    Off to be the Wizard sells for $3.99 at Amazon right now.  The other books in the series are all priced at $4.99 apiece.  Scott Meyer has another half-dozen or so e-books available, ranging in price from $1.99 to $13.19.  The maximum price may seem steep, but it’s for graphic novel versions of his fantastic comic strip, Basic Instructions, of which I’ve been a fan for a long time.

 

He had spent a lot of time thinking about himself, and had come to the conclusion that he was definitely not self-absorbed.  (loc. 29)

    There’s not much to gripe about in Off to be the Wizard.  The cussing is sparse—I counted only 5 instances in the whole book, 4 damns and one bitchin’—and that last one was a shout of joy, not an epithet.  The book was well-edited, the only typo I recall was a lead/led miscue (pronounced the same way) and my OCD grammar-brain has learned to ignore that one.

 

    My one beef is with the story’s pacing.  Martin’s first time-traveling trip comes suitably early (15% Kindle), but then we spend a whole lot of time observing him in training, and it’s not until 70% Kindle before we start into what I consider the main storyline.

 

    But hey, let’s chalk that up to world-building, both past and present.  All is forgiven if the sequel, Spell or High Water, plows right away into an exciting adventure.

 

    Enough quibbling.  Off to be the Wizard is pleasantly lighthearted in tone, and full of wit and tongue-in-cheek humor.  The pacing is brisk, despite the protracted training sessions, and the story kept me reading chapter after chapter (there are 29 of them).  I highly recommended this book for anyone in the mood for a whimsical time-travel tale.

 

    8 Stars.  You have the option of reading Off to be the Wizard with or without animation.  I chose “without”, but Amazon indicates the file size for this book is 222,158 kb.  That’s a pretty sizable chunk of Kindle memory.  Amazon says the sequel, Spell or High Water, is only 1,002 kb in size.  Methinks the animation experiment ends with Book One.

White Night - Jim Butcher

   2007; 495 pages.  Book 9 (out of 17) in the “Dresden Files” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Urban Fantasy; Paranormal Thriller.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    At first glance it looked like just an ordinary suicide.  There was even a plain-as-day suicide note.  It read: I’m so tired of being afraid.  There’s nothing left.  Forgive me.  Janine.

 

    All so very tidy.  Almost a bit too tidy.  Sergeant Karrin Murphy of the Chicago PD wonders whether some paranormal activity isn’t involved.  So she’s asked Chicago’s resident wizard, Harry Dresden to come have a look.

 

    Harry does some magical sleuthing and sure enough, there’s a hidden second message near the corpse.  Ordinary humans can’t see it, but wizards can.  All it says is Exodus 22:18.  Harry knows the verse.  Suffer not a witch to live.

 

    Someone apparently has gone out of their way to deliver a message to Harry.

 

What’s To Like...

    White Night has the standard Harry Dresden structure, and that’s a compliment, not a criticism.  The single murder investigation rapidly expands into a serial killing spree, which then further spreads out into a complicated game of paranormal politics.  Harry has to sort through all three levels, as well as figure out why his brother Thomas is acting so strange and withdrawn lately.

 

    It was nice to see the Wiccans get some attention, even if they are badly overmatched against their paranormal predators.  I also liked the deepening of the character Johnnie Marcone, the local gangster kingpin.  And the rebellious streak in Molly, Harry’s recently-acquired apprentice, made me chuckle.

 

    Action and intrigue are both present in satisfying quantities.  Alliances within the vampire community are rather “fluid”, which makes for plenty of deception and bloodshed.  Harry gets lots of chances to cast lots of spells, and even uses his soul-gazing talent at one point.

 

    As always, the story is told from the first-person point-of-view, Harry’s.  The chapters are relatively short, with 43 of them covering 495 pages, so there’s always a good place to stop for the night.  Jim Butcher’s stellar musical tastes once again shine through, with nods along the way to an eclectic assortment including Weird Al Yankovic, The Police, Santana, Aerosmith, Metallica, and one of my favorite classical composers, Vivaldi.

 

    Everything builds to a drawn-out (80 pages or so), exciting ending.  Plot twists abound, and both Harry and the Vampire factions bring hidden resources to the final confrontation to aid in their cause.  The last chapter serves as an epilogue, which I thought was a really nice touch.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.8/5 based on 4,530 ratings and 698 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.39/5 based on 113,896 ratings and 2,926 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    Anna’s eyes suddenly widened.  “You two were together.”  She turned to Elaine.  “That’s how you know him.”

    “It was a long time ago,” I said.

    Elaine winked at me.  “But you never really forget your first.”

    “You never forget your first train wreck, either.”

    “Train wrecks are exciting.  Fun, even,” Elaine said.  She kept smiling, though her eyes turned a little sad.  “Right up until the very last part.”  (pg. 112)

 

    A large man came through the door.  He was built like a bulldozer made out of slabs of raw, workingman muscle, thick bones, and heavy sinews.  He had a neck as thick as Murphy’s waist, short red hair, and beady eyes under a heavy brow.  His expression looked like it had been permanently locked into place a few seconds after someone had kicked his puppy through a plate-glass window.

    "Hendricks," I greeted Marcone’s primary enforcer with convivial cheer.  “’Sup?”  (pg. 279)

 

“I’m getting dumber by the minute,” I confirmed.  “Ask anybody.”  (pg. 358)

    There were about a dozen cusswords in the first 10% of White Night, which is about normal for the series.  There were no rolls-in-the-hay or other adult situations, which was much to Harry’s dismay since his ex, Elaine, plays a prominent role in the story, and he still is fond of her.

 

    One of my favorite characters, Bob-the-Skull, doesn’t get much ink, and we don’t spend much time in the always-interesting parallel dimension called The Nevernever.  But that’s offset by Harry’s dog, “Mouse”, having a major role in the story.  I remain convinced that Mouse is no ordinary canine.

 

    That’s about all I can think of to gripe about.  Overall, I found White Night to be a solid addition to the Harry Dresden series, full of thrills, spills, and chills and above all, replete with Jim Butcher’s wry wit and masterful storytelling.

 

    8 Stars.

Under A Colder Sun - Greg James

   2014; 204 pages.  Full Title: Under A Colder Sun: A Grim Dark Fantasy Adventure.  Book 1 (out of 3) in the “Khale the Wanderer” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Grimdark Fantasy; Action-Adventure.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

 

    By all reports, Khale the Wanderer is a nasty guy.  A brigand.  A killer.  A rogue.  A sorcerer.  A mercenary.  And some say, an immortal.

 

    Leste, a member of the City Watch of Colm, is aware of all that.  But orders are orders, and King Alosse has sent her on a mission to locate Khale, establish contact with him, and arrange a meeting between the brigand and the King.  Alosse has an errand for Khale.

 

    The King understands mercenaries, of course.  He is willing to pay Khale for his time.  One thousand golden-eyes.  That should get Khale’s attention.

 

    It does.  Khale laughs at the offer.  He’ll accept nothing less than twenty thousand golden-eyes.  It is, after all, a royal errand.

 

What’s To Like...

    The subtitle says it all.  The tone of Under A Colder Sun is grim and dark, with plenty of bloodshed, a lot of which falls into the category of “senseless”.  Khale’s task seems like an easy one: deliver King Alosse’s daughter, Milanda, to the Autarch, the despotic ruler of a neighboring city, Neprokhadymh.  Yeah, try saying that six times real fast.

     Milanda is to be wedded to the Autarch.  To get there, she and Khale will have to cross dangerous territory.  It is filled with lawless men and creatures, and two other neighboring kingdoms, Barneth and Farness, might think it in their best interests to put a stop to the marriage.

 

    Greg James is a British author, which means the book is written in English, not American.  For American readers, this entails encountering strange spellings such as humour, centre, knick-knacks, draught, foetus, and haemorrhaged.  Personally, I think it adds a touch of classiness to the narrative.

 

    The world-building is great, albeit mostly limited to the two cities, Colm and Neprokhadymh, plus the wilderness in between.  I liked the otherworldly creatures that beset Khale and Milanda, including the blood-banshees and the ultra-deadly mirror-beasts.  It was fun trying to figure out the character-alignment for Khale.  It’s quickly apparent he has both good and evil traits, but is he mostly "dark" or mostly "light"?

 

    The saga stops at a logical point, more like a pause than an ending.  It included a couple of neat plot twists, and the main plotline was wrapped up, albeit not happily.  I got the feeling the main purpose of Under A Colder Sun was to introduce the reader to the main characters in the series and set the stage for the main storyline in the sequels.  That might sound negative, but hey, it’s also the way I felt about Book One in The Lord of The Rings.

 

    My Kindle version came with two bonus short stories at the end, Timestone and Each Dawn, I Die.  They are both worth your reading time, and Timestone in particular gives you some background to the foreboding world the story is set in, although the main story also gives some hints about earlier kingdoms.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Ordure (n.) : something regarded as vile or abhorrent.

Others: Canopic (adj.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 3.9*/5, based on 63 ratings and 50 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.25*/5, based on 146 ratings and 22 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Hospitality?  Is that what you call it when your men ride down my own, run them through, and toss their bodies in the marshes to rot?”

    Leste spoke before she could check herself.  “They are brigands.  They steal and kill.  They get what they deserve.”

    Khale turned on her and his face was tight with rugged lines.  “You seem very sure of dealing in life and death, girl.”

    “Those who kill without honour deserve the same fate.”

    “Ah, deserve.  There’s another word you don’t understand.”  (loc. 250)

 

    “Aye, we rode together before things in the world got this rotten.  We hunted, we pillaged, and we stole.  Don’t believe your father, the good King Alosse, could be a thief, do you?  Well, he was.  All kings are thieves; it’s how they get to where they are.  People, land, ideals: you’ve got to steal these things yourself before you can convince someone else to believe in them and fight for them on your behalf.”  (loc. 852)

 

Kindle Details…

    Under A Colder Sun sells for $0.99 at Amazon right now.  The other two books in the series, Lost is the Night, and Hordes of Chaos, cost $2.99 apiece.  Greg James has two other series and several standalone books available on Amazon, ranging in price from free to $2.99.

 

Yes, she thought, for an idiot I’m very lucky.  (loc. 1018)

    As shown above, Under A Colder Sun has garnered some less-than-stellar ratings, particularly at Goodreads.

 

    Several Goodreads reviewers were turned off by the dark tone of the storyline.  Lots of characters die, including some I didn’t expect to, and there are references to rape and sexual assault.  I wouldn’t recommend this book to a 5-year-old, but for adults, well, the subtitle does warn you to expect a story grim and dark.  OTOH, the cussing is surprisingly sparse.  I counted just 11 instances in the whole book, although that included a pair of f-bombs.

 

    Other reviewers mentioned the frequency of typos, although I only noted one, a breath/breathe miscue.  Either the book has undergone another round of editing subsequent to its initial release, or else some readers might have been mistaking British grammar and spelling for outright errors.

 

    For me, the biggest drawback was the storytelling, which I (and others) found to be a bit weak.  Our protagonists go on a quest—to deliver Milanda to the Autarch—things go awry, and that’s about it.  The plotline as a whole is rather “un-epical”.

 

    Still, the story held my interest enough to continue reading this series.  I'm anticipating Khale's character undergoing some significant changes before this story runs its course.

 

    It will be fun to see.

 

    6½ Stars.  There really is a literary subgenre called Grimdark.  Wikipedia has a page about it.  You can read about it here.

Call Me A Cab - Donald E. Westlake

   2022 (but written in 1977/78); 244 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Humorous Fiction; Satire; Romantic Satire.  Overall Rating: 7½*/10.

 

    For New York City Checker Cab driver, Thomas Fletcher, it was a good fare.  Not only was the run from East 62^nd Street to Kennedy airport a long and lucrative one, but the woman who had just sat down in the back seat of his cab looked pleasant in his rearview mirror.

 

    She was, however, a little bit weird.  She spent much of the ride muttering to herself, and kept putting up both hands to the sides of her face, like blinkers on a horse.  A troubled soul, perhaps, or maybe even a suicidal one.  Maybe it would be prudent to make some small talk with her.

 

    Not to worry, though.  It turns out she’s on her way to Los Angeles to get married and she’s having second thoughts about the whole thing.  She’s got five hours on the NYC-to-LA flight to sort things out in her head.

 

    That isn’t enough time to make an important decision.  It calls for a change in plans.  Instead of taking her to the airport, the woman requests Thomas to take her to Los Angeles.  In his cab.

 

    I wonder how Thomas is going to calculate the cab fare for this job now.

 

What’s To Like...

    The plotline in Call Me A Cab is easily described: We ride along with the cabbie, Tom, and his fare, Katherine, on their cross-country jaunt.  The former is divorced, stuck in a mind-numbing job (and that only because his dad owns a Checker cab franchise), and pragmatic.  The latter is single and well-to-do (she’d better be, she’s paying for this coast-to-coast cab ride), with a successful career as a landscape architect, and nervously idealistic.

 

    The story is told from a first-person POV (Tom’s) and our two protagonists engage in discussions that are both insightful and witty.  Beneath the banter, though, Donald Westlake gives some enlightened views on feminism.  They might be pretty normal in today’s world, but in 1977, when Westlake was writing this book, they were cutting edge.  One example: a headwaiter who simply can’t bring himself to present the bill for a meal-for-two to the woman at the table.

 

    Needless to say, there aren’t a lot of characters to keep track of, just Tom, Katherine, and her beau that’s eagerly awaiting her arrival in Los Angeles, a successful plastic surgeon named Barry.  I thought the descriptions of the countryside the cab passes through along the way was a charming bit of Americana.

 

    Equally charming was the step back into time, with things like phone booths, smoking in restaurants, roadmaps, Stuckey’s, a towing fee of only $65, 25-cent jukeboxes, and “dry” spots in the Midwest (counties where you couldn’t buy alcohol legally).  I enjoyed meeting Boyd and Laura Chasen, and chuckled at Tom’s attempts to learn chess from Katherine.  Hey, Tom, you’re first clue that she was good at chess was the fact that she carries a “travel set” with her on trips.  Your second clue was when she announced “mate in three”.

 

    The ending is satisfying and hopeful, albeit not particularly exciting.  I wouldn’t call it “twisty” either, although I have to admit things didn’t close the way I expected.  Call Me A Cab is a standalone novel, and not part of any of Westlake’s series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 154 ratings and 15 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.96*/5, based on 313 ratings and 64 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “It’s about getting married.”

    “Married?”  I don’t believe in marriage.  “Good luck,” I said, and some irony may have crept into my voice.

    “It isn’t right,” she said.  “I just keep turning the poor guy down.”

    “Maybe he’s the wrong guy.”

    “He’s the right guy,” she insisted.  “He’s sweet and understanding, he’s handsome and rich, he loves me and I love him— what more could I possibly want?”

    “Thursdays off?”  (loc. 151)

 

    “My car quit.  I think it’s the starter.”

    “Does it go gruh-gruh-gruh?”  The sound he made was uncannily like a car when the battery is low.

    “No,” I said.  “It goes click.”

    “Sounds like the starter,” he admitted.  “For openers, you’re gonna need a tow.”

    “For starters,” I punned.  Or tried to.  (loc. 1980)

 

Kindle Details…

    Call Me A Cab sells for $8.99 right now at Amazon.  There are dozens of Donald E. Westlake e-books available at Amazon; they range in price from $1.99 to $14.99.  If you’ve never read any Donald Westlake novels, a good place to start is anything from his Dortmunder series.

 

“Don’t laugh, this is serious.  We may have started a new religion.”  (loc. 1916)

    There’s not much cussing in Call Me A Cab.  I noted only 19 instances in the entire book, with only one of those an f-bomb.  There’s one roll-in-the-hay, but the participants are not the pair you’d think it would be.

 

    A bigger problem for most readers is what isn’t in the book.  Those who are already acquainted with Donald Westlake’s stories, such as the Dortmunder series, might be disappointed to find no crimes occur here.  And readers new to Westlake may be bored by the lack of any thrills-and-spills in the storyline.

 

    Those concerns have merit, but fortunately Donald Westlake’s storytelling skills save the day.  Call Me A Cab was a quick and easy read, and held my interest from start to finish.  It may be a bit short on the excitement, but when it comes to personal interactions and well-written drama, it shines.

 

    7½ Stars.  Call Me A Cab was written in 1977-78, but wasn’t published until 2022, 14 years after Donald Westlake passed away.  Kudos to publisher Charles Ardai at Hard Case Crime for developing this manuscript into a full-length book (it previously appeared in a shortened version in Redbook magazine) and sharing this lost gem with the public.

The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin, Volume 1 - published by Charles F. Millhouse

   2022; 308 pages.  New Authors? : No.  Genres: Anthology; Pulp Fiction; Action & Adventure; Short Stories.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Captain Steven Hawklin!

    His daring feats, which  have saved the world from an assortment of bad guys, are chronicled in Charles F. Millhouse’s New Pulp series titled “The Captain Hawklin Adventures”.  The series has reached ten full-length novels now, and it’s taken just ten years to do so, which is no small feat.  This calls for a celebration.  What shall we do?

 

    Hey, how about having five veteran writers from Stormgate Press (the publishing house that’s responsible for bringing Captain Hawklin’s exploits to life) each write a short story as tie-ins to the series?  It would be neat to see how other authors portray our hero.  All we need is a catchy title for the endeavor.  How about: The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin?

 

    That sounds good, but let’s add Volume One to the title as a hint that it would be neat to see more short story collaborations by the talents at Stormpress Press spring up about our intrepid  Captain. 

 

What’s To Like...

    The titles of the five stories (and authors) in The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin, Volume 1 are:

  1.) The Skyhook Remnant – Brian K. Morris

  2.) The Banshee Barnstormer – Clyde Hall

  3.) Smuggler’s Run – Bobby Nash

  4.) The World Asunder – Charles F. Millhouse

  5.) The Night Raiders – Marlin Williams

 

    The tales vary in length from just under 40 pages to just under 100 pages.  All of them are set in the 1930s, but there’s a nice range of settings, some real, some fictional, one over the Atlantic coast, another in the middle of the Pacific.

 

    Captain Hawklin does a lot of flying, sometimes in conventional aircraft for that time period, sometimes via his trademark jetpack strapped to his back (see the cover image above),  Our hero often gains the element of surprise advantage with that jetpack, but it doesn’t make him invincible.  Enemy planes can ram him or shoot him down, and some of the baddies are developing their own version of the rocket-propelled gizmo.  It adds a touch of realism to the adventures, and I like that.

 

    The writing is professional in all five tales, which came as no surprise since I’ve read short stories by all these authors in Pulp Reality 2, another anthology published by Stormgate Press.  A couple of the stories set up sequels, and one is a sequel of an earlier Captain Hawklin installment.  I read the fifth story, The Night Raiders, as an e-book single late last year and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Its review is here.

 

    Here’s a “non-spoiler” teaser for each tale:

The Skyhook Remnant:  not all Pulp Fiction adventures close with a “happily ever after” ending.

The Banshee Barnstormer: is Hawklin fighting a natural or a paranormal foe?

Smuggler’s Run: when you’re outgunned, try stealth.

The World Asunder: when you don’t have your jetpack, use your wits.

The Night Raiders: when’s the last time you saw Eva Braun cast as a feminist?

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  *.*/5 based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews.

    Goodreads: *.**/5 based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “So, what do you guys do for fun on these long, slow rides?” he asked.

    “Funny you should mention that, Steven,” Cannonball said.  “Mr. Brick and a couple of the boys are getting a poker game together.  Thought you might like to sit in.  It’s been too long since we had that big pilot money in the game.”

    Hawklin harumped again.  “What makes you think I’m going to lose?”

    “Because you don’t want to swim home,” Cannonball joked as they headed back inside.  (pg. 154)

 

    The second man snorted and spoke as if he had a cold in the back of his throat.  “He sounds like a dandy,” he said.

   “I took a wrong turn,” Hardy said backing up the way he came.

    “We’re on a train,” the boxer said.  “There aren’t no turns.”

    “That’s a metaphor,” Hardy explained.

    “What did you call us?” the second man said., as he snorted and spat on the floor.

    “Why is it, when a bad guy wants to hire thugs, they are always dimwitted?” Hardy asked.  (pg. 174)

 

“Did you call me in to hunt down a ghost plane?”  (pg. 59)

    Anthologies with different authors are usually up-and-down reads, but here the writing is consistently good.  The years within the 1930s and the plotlines are varied, but each author’s “take” on the Captain Hawklin character was remarkably consistent.  There’s plenty of thrills-&-spills in all five stories, and the secondary characters were surprisingly well-developed. 

 

    The cussing was sparse, which is the norm for Pulp Fiction: thirty-five instances in the whole book. Some authors employed it more than others, but there were no f-bombs and I don’t recall any “adult situations”.

 

    The biggest issue is the editing.  Some of the stories had very few typos; others were in dire need of another round of proofreading.  I’m not sure if each author was responsible for the editing of his manuscript or not.

 

    Enough of the quibbles.  This was my introduction to Captain Hawklin, and I enjoyed getting introduced to a new pulp hero.  Here’s hoping The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin, Volume 1 spawns annual sequels.  I had fun tagging along with him, especially when I was hanging on for dear life as he was soaring through the skies via his jetpack.

 

    8½ Stars.