An Easy Death - Charlaine Harris

    2018; 306 pages.  Book One (out of 6) in the “Gunnie Rose” series.  New Author? : No, but a new series.  Genres: Alternate Timeline, Dystopian Fiction, Magical Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    Meet 19-year-old Lizbeth “Gunnie” Rose.  The “gunnie” nickname tells you her vocation—she’s a professional gunslinger-for-hire, working out of the city of Segundo Mexia in Texoma.  We’ll explain those weird place names in a bit.

 

     Gunnie lives in a “wild, wild west” world.  Traveling between settlements is a dangerous, almost suicidal undertaking.  There are oodles of bandits roaming the hinterlands, looking for victims, to say nothing of Indian hunting parties that may or may not decide to shoot travelers if game is scarce.  Finding work as a bodyguard is easy for the sharpshooter Gunnie.

 

    So let’s ride along with Lizbeth and her crew of fellow gunnies.  I sure hope it’s not too boring of an experience.

 

What’s To Like...

    An Easy Death is the first book in Charlaine Harris’s “Gunnie Rose” series.  It is set in an alternate timeline America where the United States has been shattered following an early assassination of President Franklin Roosevelt.  Various nations have seized large chunks of the fringe areas of the United States, and the remainder of the nation has pulled itself apart.  I don’t recall the time element being listed, but the setting has a1930s-40s feel.

 

    The story is told from the first-person POV, Lizbeth’s.  We tag along in her two most recent gunnie jobs, which both start in her native Texoma, a portmanteau of Texas and Oklahoma.  To give details here would entail spoilers, but the second job involves guarding the lives of two Russian Grigoris (think “magicians”, the term is derived from first name of the Russian mystic, Grigori Rasputin) who need to travel to Juarez, Mexico, in search of a “bleeder” for their ailing tsar.

 

    The tone of the story is darker and grittier than the other Charlaine Harris series I’m reading, the Sookie Stackhouse books.  Gunnie’s sharpshooting skills are complemented by her Grigori employers' abilities to cast spells, and both skills will be needed to the utmost against the numerous assassins sent to kill them.

 

    The worldbuilding is sparse, but adequate.  There’s a useful map at the beginning of the book to help you with the geography, and enough details in conversations by our three protagonists to give you some idea of the alternate history.

 

    The ending is suitably climactic.  Lizbeth returns home from her two jobs—well, you knew that because there are five more books in the series—and the matter of who sent all those assassins is cleared up.  Oh yeah, she may or may not have found a relative of hers along the way.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

    Hinky (adj.) : dishonest or suspect (a Yankeeism).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 5,5496 ratings and 484 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.85/5 based on 18,925 ratings and 2,428 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Before we went to sleep, Eli cast a spell around our campsite strong enough to keep a bear out, he told me.  His hands moved, and his lips, too.  I watched.  Paulina didn’t.  She trusted him to do it right.

    I’d never seen anything like this.  Eli seemed all wrapped up in strength.

    “If this spell of yours will keep bears out, why do you need me?” I said.

    “It won’t keep out bullets,” he said.

    That was a good answer.  “I’ll keep watch tonight,” I said.  (pg. 94)

 

    The witch the night before, she had been both a beautiful woman and an ancient crone, and I didn’t know which was her real face.  The not knowing, it made me queasy.

    Not only that, but the Grigoris could take life in weird and horrible ways.  Removing the blood.  Sucking away the soul.  In comparison, gunshots seemed honest and straightforward.  I knew that wasn’t fair.  Dead was dead.  (pg. 153)

 

Kindle Details…

    Currently An Easy Death sells for $9.99 at Amazon.  Books 2 through 5 cost the same; Book 6 is priced at $12.99.  Charlaine Harris has five other series where she is the sole author, plus several more where she collaborates with other authors.  Amazon lists a total of 169 Kindle titles by her.  Prices are generally in the $3.99-$14.99 range.

 

“What an interesting situation,” she said.  “Who killed me?”  (pg. 263)

    There was a fair amount of profanity in An Easy Death; but the 18 cusswords I noted in the first 20% were about what I expected.  There are also a number of adult situations, including a rape, several rolls-in-the-hay, and references to a certain part of the anatomy.  Needless to say, there’s a lot of bloodshed as well.

 

    There was one minor continuity issue.  Gunnie notices a woman carrying “Marcial’s rifle”, which was odd, since no one of that name had yet appeared in the text.  A backstory shows up a couple pages later, muchly appreciated, but it would’ve been better to have that explanation when Gunnie initially saw the rifle.

 

    The big issue I had with An Easy Death, and which was noted also by several other reviewers, was the repetitiveness of the storytelling.  We travel with Gunnie and her clients and friends through lots of towns, facing baddies galore, shooting them and getting shot at, but without any advancement of the plotline of who’s trying to kill them and why. Even when that answer is finally found, I was left with the feeling of “is that all there is?”

 

    Still, maybe this was just intended to be an introduction to an alternate world, with a compelling storyline relegated to the next book, A Longer Fall, which I have on my Kindle.  At both Amazon and Goodreads, the ratings do tend to trend upward as the series progresses.

 

    6 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point our travelers come across hex signs on a farm, being used to make sure no one steals its chickens.  I grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country, where such symbols can still be seen on the sides of barns, put there for good luck.  Awesomeness!

Once We Were Like Wolves - M. Todd Gallowglas

    2011; 300 pages.  Book 2 (out of 4) in the “Tears of Rage” series.  New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genres: Dark Fantasy; Epic Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Congratulations, Julianna Taraen!  The gods (well, just one god, actually) has just named you the new Lord Morigahn.  You’re now the leader of a warrior caste that call themselves “The Morigahnti”, and they’re quite a powerful fighting force.

 

    Interestingly, the previous Lord Morigahns have all been males.  I suppose the term “Lord” implies that.  I wonder why Grandfather Shadow, the deity that appointed you, chose to break with tradition.  I also wonder if the Morigahnti will give you time to grow into your new position, and whether they’ll accept a woman as their leader.

 

    Anyway, best of luck, Julianna.  Start learning how to lead, how to command, and how to delegate authority.  Also get started learning to use the magical spells that were imbued in you when Grandfather Shadow selected you.

 

    Oh yeah, there’s a bunch of rival warriors—Adepts led by Inquisitors—who are sworn enemies of the Morigahnti and headed towards your quaint little community of Shadybrook.  Each and every one of them would love to have the honor of chopping off your head.

 

What’s To Like...

    Once We Were Like Wolves is the second book in the (completed) 4-book series called the Tears of Rage.  I read the first book way back in 2013, and it is reviewed here.  “Tears of Rage”, refers to a set of magical runes etched on the blade of a magical sword.  “Once We Were Like Wolves” is a Morigahn greeting that a fellow Morigahnti warrior will properly respond to with “Our time can come again.”

 

    We follow events transpiring on both the Celestial and the Mortal planes. There are Lesser Gods and Greater Gods, and I liked that they seemed patterned after Greek and Roman deities.  That means they might be immortal, but they certainly aren’t paragons of perfection.

 

    There’s tons of action and intrigue to keep the reader turning the pages, but the main plotline is Julianna growing into the role of Lord Morigahn and her developing relationship with her sworn protector, Faelin.  The assault of Shadybrook rapidly breaks up into smaller clashes, which means there are quite a few characters to follow.  You might want to take notes of which warriors serve whom.

 

    I especially liked that both the good guys and the bad guys were well-developed characters.  I get tired of the baddies being relegated to being insectoid or robotic; here they’re humans just like the good guys.  There are a bunch of fascinating creatures, including nightbats and stormcrows both of which are useful.  But you do best to avoid crossing paths with the daemyn hounds.

 

    The story stops at as logical spot.  Shadybrook is successfully defended; Julianna has learned how to cast miracles; and she has started to gain the respect of the Morigahnti.  But on both the Celestial and the Mortal plane, the good-vs-evil struggle is just getting started.  The final chapter in the book is a segue into Book 3, Arms of the Storm.   Ith resides on my Kindle.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 61 ratings and 34 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.98*/5, based on 131 ratings and 18 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    At one point, just to get Damiam doing something other than grin at him while he ate, Faelin said, “So, gun running?” in between bites.

    Daiman nodded.  “Seemed like the thing to do.  The Kingdom’s been hunting me ever since my father’s execution.  When I figured out where his shop was, I sort of took over his business.  Not because of any self-righteous call to free Koma, but rather mostly because the Kingdom is going to catch me and execute me for my father’s crimes, I figured I might as well earn it.”  (loc. 1770)

 

    “Who do I address?” the Inquisitor asked.  “And what business do you have traveling on such a night and hour like this.”

    Damian would have to choose his words with care.  “The people of Shadybrook call me Zephyr, High Blood, ever since they’ve known me.  I’m traveling this late because of a possible squabble that I don’t feel interested in getting drawn into.  I’m the kind of man who likes to keep myself to myself, and I’ll endure more than a little wind and rain to stay out of trouble.”

    “Well spoken, man who the people of Shadybrook call Zephyr,” the Inquisitor said.  “Not a word of it specific enough to be completely a truth or completely a lie.”  (loc. 2347)

 

Kindle Details…

    Once We Were Like Wolves sells for $4.99 right now at Amazon.  The other three books in the (completed) series are in the $3.99-$5.99 price range.  M. Todd Gallowglas has more than a dozen other fiction e-books, ranging in length from short stories to full-length novels, and in the $0.99-$5.99 range, plus several non-fiction books on writing for $7.99 apiece.

 

“That’s the problem with tradition.  It doesn’t like innovation.”  (loc. 5165)

    There’s only a smattering of cussing in the text; just 14 instances in the first half of the book, all but one of which was a damn.  In places where profanity is called for, M. Todd Gallowglas often uses topical phrases, such as “What in Shadow’s name!” and “Gods and Goddesses!”  I’m a big fan of that.

 

    The main problem with Once We Were Like Wolves is the editing.  To be blunt, it was atrocious.  I counted 19 typos in the first half of the book; then things went downhill from there.  The second half contained at least 80 errors, which was highly distracting.  One example:  the name of one of the characters is spelled four different ways: Jenice, Jenise, Janise, and Janice.  Sheesh.

 

    Hopefully those typos were fixed in subsequent versions, in which case you’ll be entertained by a gritty, exciting tale with well-developed characters and convincing worldbuilding on three levels: celestial, mortal, and infernal.  Just learn from my mistake and don’t wait thirteen years between reading Book 1 and Book 2.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  On Amazon, the titles for Books 1 and 3 have been changed from what’s listed on my Kindle.  "First Chosen” and “Arms of the Storm” are now “An Imbalance of Shadows” and “As Fugitive as the Wind”.  At Goodreads they still use the original titles.  I presume the text is identical in books of both titles.  But maybe it wass a matter of ownership to the titles.

The Better Mousetrap - Tom Holt

    2008; 345 pages.  New Author? :No.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Time Travel; Satire.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Wouldn’t it be great to own a time machine?

 

    You could go back into the past and observe great events, while being careful, of course, not to do anything to change history.  Computer simulations should avoid that.

 

    Or you could go forward in time, watch some future Super Bowl or World Cup tournament, come back, and bet on the winners.  Although that might draw unwanted attention to your rapid monetary gains.

 

    But the smartest thing might be to do what Frank Carpenter does.  Get a job with an insurance company, go back in time, and prevent fatal accidents to clients which would result in huge payouts on their life insurance policies.  Insurance companies would gladly pay you a portion of the premiums and you would get rich without attracting attention.

 

    It is/was/will-be a foolproof plan.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Better Mousetrap is the fifth book in Tom Holt’s 8-volume “J.W. Wells & Co.” series, of which I’ve read half, although not in any particular order.  I read Book 1, The Portable Door, way back in 2012 (reviewed here, so I appreciated the author inserting a recap of that plotline into this book early on.  J.W. Wells & Co. specializes in providing magical items, beings, spells, and full-fledged sorcerers to their clients, although by the time of this fifth book, the corporation was pretty much defunct.

 

    The storyline commences with a relatively easy task for Frank: go back in time and prevent a girl named Emily Spitzer from falling out of a tree to her death while trying to rescue her pet cat.  Emily’s in the pest control business, meaning she gets tasked with removing pests such as trolls, hydras, goblins, and dragons from our dimension.  She’s good at it, so it’s weird that an easy-peasy act of falling from a tree proves to be her downfall.  Frank adjusts the timeline, saves Emily, but she dies again shortly thereafter.  Hmm.  This smells of evildoers determined to snuff her out for some reason.

 

    As is true for all Tom Holt novels, things rapidly get more complicated.  Frank’s dog disappears.  Frank colleague disappears.  A dying dragon seems to value a small artifact more than the millions of dollars he’s nesting on.  Office politics threatens to turn deadly.

 

    As is also true of any Tom Holt novel, the writing is replete with wit, absurdity, and fascinating characters; all of which keeps the reader turning the pages.  Please note that the book is written in English, not American, which leads to weird spellings (such as tyres and chequebooks), and weird words, a couple of which are given below.

 

    Everything builds to a surprise ending, via the entire final chapter, which somehow manages to tie up all the plot threads.  Well, with one exception, which involves a surprise visit by two new-yet-recurring characters.  This may or may not be a teaser for Book 6, May Contain Traces of Magic, awaiting my attention.

 

Excerpts...

    ”I was round at your office just now.”

    “Oh yes?”

    Nod.  “When I say just now,” he went on, “I mean about an hour and a half in the future.  You hadn’t shown up for your lunch, you see, and I was . . . Well, anyway, I asked if you were in your office and they said no.  Actually, they said that you’d been killed.”

    She took it quite well.  True, her eyes widened and her mouth fell open like the tailgate of the lorry off the back of which all good things fall, but she didn’t faint or scream or any of the things he was fairly sure that he’d have done in her shoes.  “Oh,” she said.  (pg. 146)

 

   “Hello, are you there?”

    En route to the kettle, Frank stopped and watched Emily.  She’d gone ever such a funny colour, and she seemed to have forgotten about breathing and stuff.  Then she smiled.

    “Mr. Gomez,” she said.  “I’m glad you called.  I’m going to kill you.”

    “What?  It’s not a terribly good line, you’ll have to speak—”

    “And when I’ve done that,” Emily went on, “I’m going to chop you up into little bits and feed you to the piranhas in Sally Krank’s office.  Oh, and I quit.  Goodbye.”  (pg. 242)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Pipped to the post (phrase) : overcoming a strong competitor in a sporting event.  (British slang)

Others: Doddle (n.); Moggy (n.); Havered (v.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 534 ratings and 28 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02*/5, based on 1,232 ratings and 76 reviews.

 

When you’re Amanda Carrington you don’t need to be subtle, in the same way elephants don’t need wellington boots.  (pg. 209)

    There’s not a lot of cussing in The Better Mousetrap.  I noted just 8 instances in the first 10%, all of which were variations of the common four-lettered cusswords.  Later on, the “female dog” term showed up about a half-dozen times.  I don’t recall any adult situations.

 

    I spotted only one typo, and strangely it occurs on the back-cover blurb, not in the book itself.  There, a damsel named June is touted as a major character, but she never appears in the story.  It turns out “June” is really the character “Emily”, and who knows when and why her name was changed.  I'd blame this on the English-to-American conversion, except I was reading the British publication.

 

    Overall, I thought this was one of Tom Holt’s best efforts at Absurdist Fantasy.  I loved that fact that, where most authors in this genre caution doing anything that will change our historical timeline, Tom Holt seems to revel in doing so.  I’m gradually working my way through Tom Holt’s existing novels, the latest of which came out in 2023.  Wikipedia lists his age as 64 as of the writing of this review.  Here’s hoping that he is working on his next bestseller.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  On page 176, there’s a passing mention of a writer named Hasdrubal.  I proud to say that’s also my literary son’s name.  Kewlness!

Curses! - Aaron Elkins

    1989; 198 pages.  Book 5 (out of 18) in the “Gideon Oliver Mysteries” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : International Crime-Mystery; Mesoamerica; Forensic Anthropology.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    The excavation was started in 1980 at an ancient Mayan ceremonial center in Yucatan, called Tlaloc.  It was both the high and the low of Gideon Oliver’s archaeological career.

 

    The highlight was finding an ancient Mayan codex in almost pristine condition.  It was only the fourth Mayan codex ever found.  It made all that digging worthwhile.

 

    The lowlight was the excavation’s director stealing the codex and fleeing with it while the others slept.  The Mexican government was furious.  They shut the project down immediately.  That was in 1982.

 

    Almost a decade has passed since, and only now has the government of Mexico allowed the excavation to start back up.  Dig deeper.  Into an earlier time.  Maybe find another codex!  And now Gideon has been invited to rejoin the effort.  You know he’ll jump at the opportunity.

 

    Who cares about some sort of Mayan curse protecting their sacred site.

 

What’s To Like...

    Curses! is the fourth book I’ve read in this series, and I’ve loved the settings chosen for each one: Egypt, France, England, and now the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.

 

    Since I’m a history buff, I enjoyed the story being set in an ancient Mayan ceremonial center called Tlaloc.  ANAICT, the site is fictional, but the name is that of the Nahuatl god of rain, and M. Todd Gallowglas’ worldbuilding for such a place was convincing.  Lots of real Mesoamerican places and gods are injected into the story, including Quetzalcoatl, Popol Vuh, Teotihuacan, Palenque, and my favorite: Chichen Itza.

 

    The book’s title refers to an ancient curse allegedly imposed on anyone who disturbs the site.  It was dismissed as primitive superstition by all but one in the excavation team.  Attitudes changed somewhat when each of the five steps in the curse starts to come to pass.  Was the superstition true, or is some mortal deliberately setting up incidents to fulfill the prophecies?  Hmm.

 

    The mystery aspect was well done.  A set of bones is unearthed, and Gideon, aka “the Skeleton Detective of America”, is called upon to determine the Who, When, and hopefully Why the corpse came to be buried in the temple.  A murder occurs, and the reader gets to tag alongside Gideon and try to determine the perpetrator before he does.  I failed miserably.

 

    The ending logical, twisty, and did not go down as I expected.  Gideon comes within an eyelash of dying, due mostly to his not examining the details of the final prophecy seriously enough.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,281 ratings and 61 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.05*/5, based on 1,990 ratings and 101 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word…

Cenote (n.) : a natural deep sinkhole or pit.

Others: Pelves (n.) : the plural of pelvis.

 

Excerpts...

    “Just what is a codex?  A manuscript?  A book?”

    “That’s right.  From the Latin caudex, meaning a split block of wood, kind of like a shingle, which the Romans coated with wax and then inscribed.”

    She looked at him quizzically.  “You know the damnedest things.”

    “I,” he said with dignity, “am a full professor.  My mind is replete with scholarly arcana, some of which, I can safely say, are even more useless than that.”

    “I know.  It’s ruining our social life.  Nobody wants to play Trivial Pursuit with us.”  (pg. 35)

 

    Many years before, when he had nervously turned in the first draft of his dissertation to his doctoral committee members, Abe had penciled in some comments across the title page: “Very inventive.  Considering the lack of data, the inconclusive results, and the ambiguous statistical analysis, you did a wonderful job.  Not everyone can make two hundred pages from nothing.  I predict you’ll go far.”  (pg. 94)

 

Kindle Details…

    Curses! sells for $8.99 right now at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series cost anywhere from $5.49 to $9.99, with the prices generally higher for the books in the latter half of the series.  Aaron Elkins has several other Mystery series for your sleuthing pleasure, with the e-books generally in the $3.99-$7.99 price range. 

 

“You have to live your own life.  You can’t let the creeps and cruds of the world run it for you.”  (pg. 120)

    The profanity level is light.  I counted ten instances in the first 25% of the e-book, all of which were of the milder, four-lettered variety.  Later on, several Spanish cuss of a more powerful ilk are used.  We’ll let you google them for their translations.

 

    I don’t really have any nits to pick about Curses!  The pacing is good, there are no slow spots, and in this historical mystery, M. Todd Gallowglas gives just as much attention to creating a spellbinding whodunit and he does to the worldbuilding and character development.  The wannabee-archaeologist part of me loved it just as much as the wannabee-detective part of me did.

 

    9 Stars.  One last tidbit.  In addition to the “Kewlest New Words” listed above, I also learned the proper word for the inhabitants of the Yucatan peninsula.  They’re called “Yucatecans”.  Who'd've thunk it?