Manga Review: Master Keaton, Volume 1 art by Naoki Urasawa, story by Hokusei Katsushika & Takashi Nagasaki Taichi Hiraga Keaton is a mild-looking fellow with a bumbling exterior personality. You’d never guess that he’s a brilliant archaeologist, ex-SAS soldier and freelance insurance investigator. He often takes leave of his day job as a poorly paid… Continue reading Manga Review: Master Keaton, Volume 1
Tag: murder
Book Review: Pearlhanger
Book Review: Pearlhanger by Jonathan Gash Lovejoy is a “divvy” (presumably from “diviner”), a person who can just feel if an antique is genuine by standing near it. This is a great help in his career as an antiques dealer. But just because he’s got a gift of his own doesn’t mean he believes in anything… Continue reading Book Review: Pearlhanger
Book Review: Republic of Thieves
Book Review: Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch Note: This is the third book in the Locke Lamora series, and this review will contain spoilers for the first two. If you haven’t already read them, you may want to check out my review of the first volume, The Lies of Locke Lamora. We return again to… Continue reading Book Review: Republic of Thieves
Book Review: The Silence of the Loons
Book Review: The Silence of the Loons edited by The Minnesota Crime Wave The long-time reader may by now have realized that I have something of a weakness for anthologies. Collections of short fiction are an excellent use of limited lunch reading time. And I am also a faithful son of Minnesota. So this book… Continue reading Book Review: The Silence of the Loons
Manga Review: Batman: the Jiro Kuwata Batmanga
Manga Review: Batman: the Jiro Kuwata Batmanga by Jiro Kuwata In the mid-1960s, the Batman TV show was a huge hit not just in America, but also in Japan. As a tie-in, 8-Man creator Jiro Kuwata was hired to create a manga version of Batman for the local market. While the television show was more based on… Continue reading Manga Review: Batman: the Jiro Kuwata Batmanga
Magazine Review: Detective Yarns April 1939
Magazine Review: Detective Yarns April 1939 This is a facsimile reprint by Adventure House of a pulp magazine. Pulp magazines tended to stick to one genre, so you knew what you were getting from the beginning; in this case action-mystery. Great literature was rare, but they really got the blood pumping. And a dozen stories… Continue reading Magazine Review: Detective Yarns April 1939
Book Review: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Book Review: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner Economics can be a deadly dull subject, at least when dominated by stuffed shirts talking about trade deficits, returns on annuities or fiat currency. But the basics of economic theory can be used to learn… Continue reading Book Review: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Manga Review: Vinland Saga Book Four
Manga Review: Vinland Saga Book Four by Makoto Yukimura SPOILER WARNING: This review contains spoilers for earlier volumes. If you have not read them, please see my earlier reviews. This manga’s main protagonist to this point has been Thorfinn, a young Viking serving in the mercenary band of Askeladd. Years before, Askeladd treacherously slew Thorfinn’s… Continue reading Manga Review: Vinland Saga Book Four
Book Review: The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries
Book Review: The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries edited by Otto Penzler The title of this volume is slightly misleading; “locked room” stands in for the general idea of impossible crimes in mystery stories. A man is found stabbed in the back in a windowless room with the door locked from the inside.… Continue reading Book Review: The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries
Book Review: 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories
Book Review: 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg & Martin H. Greenberg This was my Halloween season read this year, an anthology commissioned for the Barnes & Noble stores in 1995. There are indeed one hundred stories in this hefty tome, averaging about six pages. They are not all about… Continue reading Book Review: 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories