“But now . . . he is a Giant Monster. Still Hungry. Still loves people.”

Colonel Don Maggert just wanted to get home to planet Earth but a vicious colony of space parasites had a different agenda and when they were done, Don was a hungry, raging giant monster.

TITLE:

GIANT MONSTER

WRITER:

by Steve Niles

ARTISTS:

by Nat Jones

PUBLISHER:

Boom! Studios

GENRE:

Graphic Novel (collection), Horror Fiction,

DESCRIPTORS:

Horror, Giant Monsters, Space Station, Space Shuttle, Parasites, Giant Robot, Nazi Scientists, General, Army, NASA, Secret Service Agents,

CHARACTERS:

Colonel Don Maggert, Astronaut on his first solo space flight but worried about his marriage at home.
Monica Maggert, Don’s wife and Paul’s lover. She seems uncertain if she wants the marriage or the NASA boy.
Paul, A NASA official and Monica’s lover.
General Gorgos, A blow hard general who reports to the president.
Dr. Scott, Official at Mission Control, in charge of the last few hours of Don’s mission.
Hector, Seventeen year old boy, brother to Korey.
Korey, Ten year old boy, brother to Hector.
Dr. Hans Fenstermacher, An old former Nazi scientist of the Third Reich and designer of the Super-Attack-Bot.
Agent Thompson, Men in black, possibly Secret Service, NSA or FBI, we don’t know.
Agent Fialkov, Men in black, possibly Secret Service, NSA or FBI, we don’t know.

SUMMARY:

Don Maggert is a space shuttle pilot who gets the assignment of a lifetime. But his marriage is falling apart, he just gave up drinking and he’s hungry for some pizza. He just wants to get home.

“I’m young, not retarded.”

Which is unfortunate as he’s attacked by a fast infiltrating parasite the destroys the shuttle and hurdles him down to earth where he lands in the ocean. What emerges is no longer solely Don Maggert and no longer capable of thinking like a human.

It encounters a shark and begins eating, which spills blood, drawing more sharks which provides a feast for the Magget-Thing.

It grows. Quickly.

When it rises out of the sea, it’s a giant, a monstrous parody of Don Maggert and it’s hungry. It finds that people make the best finger food.

However, an old military General is not going to just let this monster eat the nation out of house and home. He visits a genius forced to be reclusive at Area 51.

The scientist, a young darling of the third Reich in his youth, has a giant robot that he can use against the monster.

It’s monster against robot, but then a startling discovery is made. The goo off the skin of the monster has tremendous healing and life saving abilities.

APPEAL:

Originally published as a two-part comic, Giant Monster holds both parts and the script for book one at the end.

This graphic novel collection is a romp. Giant Monster focuses on plot and art to tell the story. This is little character development although there is attention to setting.

Script writer Steve Niles has already proven himself adept at creating a horror story with Thirty Day of Night, Remains and Freaks of the Heartland.

Mr. Niles tells a good one here, adhering to standard giant monster movie conventions: The monster (Maggert) arrives and threatens, a new monster is created or arrives which is a greater threat (Super-Attack-Bot) and the original monster redeems itself by destroying the new monster and saving the people.

This is the basic plot of many Godzilla and Gamera movies after the first one.

The characterization is thin in this story. The characters are stock — the blustering general, the plucky kids, the cheating and conflicted wife — but despite this limitation they were used well.

“Perhaps you could explain what you’ve discovered to the less cranial endowed.”

Perhaps the most interesting characters were the men in black. They weren’t the usually storybook CIA or NSA — they had humor, grim as it was. I loved the scene where they made bets on the outcome.

The art work was actually good but it was weak in service to this story. Nate Jones had several opportunities to go all-out gross and horrific and didn’t rise to the occasion. Maggert was the monster resembled Marvel Comic’s The Thing too much. From the script, this was what the monster should have looked like:

…a mish-mash of fatty pustules and borrowed flesh along with all manner of bone and odd fleshy debris.

Even scenes of human carnage — like a man bitten in half is a little too cartoony and glossed over to have a powerful effect.

Nat’s people, particularly Dr. Hans Fenstermacher are interesting. Yes, they too are cartoony but they’re not carrying the shock value of the comic.

He excelled, however, with a masterful Nazi robot. It felt steampunky with overtones — a gaunt, skull like face, with a field helmet — that hinted at Nazi metaphors better than the swastikas that they forgot to paint over.

Giant Monster is an enjoyable romp, transforming the giant monster movies of yesteryear into a comic today.

NOTES:

This is a color comic of digest size.

READALIKES:

If you enjoyed Giant Monster you should try 30 Days of Night Omnibus by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith or City of Others by Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson. You can also check out Steve Niles Omnibus for a bunch of smaller hard to find horror stories.

“The thing about changing the world . . . Once you do it, the world’s all different.”

TITLE:

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SEASON EIGHT: THE LONG WAY HOME

WRITER:

by Joss Whedon

ARTISTS:

by Georges Jeanty (Pencils)
Paul Lee (Guest Pencils)
Andy Owens (Inks)
Dave Stewart (colors)

SERIES:

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight: The Long Way Home Vol. 1
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight comics #1-5

PUBLISHER:

Dark Horse Books

GENRE:

Graphic Novel (collection), Horror, Humor, Fiction

DESCRIPTORS:

Saving the World, Demonic Invasion, Military, Magic, Revenge, Torture, Underground Worlds, Look-Alike, Disguised,

CHARACTERS:

Buffy Summers, The Vampire Slayer who is leader of an army of vampire slayers.
Willow Rosenberg, Buffy’s friend who is also a witch.
Xander Harris, Buffy’s friend and former loser who has grown up.
Dawn Summers, Buffy’s sister.
Giles, Formerly Buffy’s Watcher, the only known Watcher left alive.
Andrew, Formerly a bad guy, he has reformed and leads a squad of slayers . . . sort of.

SUMMARY:

Once there was a council of Watchers that kept an eye on demonic activity and stored mystical lore that might be needed to save the world. Once there was a slayer — one young woman who inherited supernatural power, agility and the ability to kick vampire butt. But slayers inherited their power upon the death of the previous slayer and did not last long.

However, Buffy changed all of that. In season seven — the final season of the televised program — she shared her power, distributing it among eighteen hundred potential vampire slayers; young women who were slayers-in-waiting.

Now she leads an army of slayers against an upsurge of vampire and demonic activity. However, demons have become the least of her problems.

The military has taken an interest in eliminating Buffy and her slayers. To that end they’ve enlist a pair of horrors from Buffy’s past — possibly the only two survivors of the implosion that turned the town of Sunnydale into a crater. A deal is struck and an assault is leveled against the Scottish castle where Buffy’s squad resides.

But the target turns out to be — not Buffy — but Willow.

This first story arc introduces us to the name of the “big bad” of Season Eight: Twilight.

This first collection ends with a stand alone story about one of three slayers who volunteered to have themselves surgically altered to look like and pose as Buffy. This nameless woman descends into an underground labyrinth — home to myriad of creatures and demons.

She earns their trust, posing as Buffy, and teaches the creatures to band together into a protective community. When the time comes, she makes a stand against a demonic hoard to protect the other non-human denizens.

APPEAL:

The events in this series of comic books take place 6 months to a year after the series finale of the television show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As the show ran for seven seasons, this comic book series is called Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight to easily distinguish it from all the other Buffy comics published by Dark Horse.

The stories assume you’ve watch the television series. If you haven’t, they provide a quick explanation or a flashback to bring you up to speed, but it does make for a richer experience to have seen the series.

Buffy creator Joss Whedon wrote the scripts for the first batch of stories collected in this trade paperback. The first four stories form an arc introducing the big bad menace for Season Eight called “Twilight”. Next is a single issue story about the life of one of the slayers who was made to look like, and pass as Buffy.

The characterizations are spot-on and pure Buffy. From the unique use of vocabulary to familiar characters, in new and uncomfortable (for them) roles. Some new characters are introduced, especially Slayers who will get their stories as the season continues.

One difference from the television show is that Joss isn’t limited by a budget or the state of special effects technology. So he can open up the story with an attack of a squadron of slayers on three very big and very ugly demons.

READALIKES:

Nothing is quite like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so the best readalikes are the other Dark Horse collections of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You could start with the Omnibus collections: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 1, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 3, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 4, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 6, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 7.

“Glad to do whatever I can to contribute to the horror show.”

Steve Niles presents three stories that takes place before the movie 28 Days Later and the last one which takes place between 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Elements of the first three stories come together in the fourth.

Remember, if you are interested in this graphic novel or the movies, click the mouse on the book cover or movie titles to order it from your local CLEVNET library.

TITLE:

28 DAYS LATER: THE AFTERMATH

WRITER:

by Steve Niles

ARTISTS:

by Dennis Calero, Deigo Olmos, Nat Jones and Ken Branch

SERIES:

28 Days Later: The Aftermath Mini-series #1-4

PUBLISHER:

Fox Atomic Comics

GENRE:

Horror Fiction, Graphic Novel (Collection), Adventure.

DESCRIPTORS:

End of the World, Rage Virus, Fast Zombies, Horror, Comics, Prequels, Survival, Anger

SUMMARY:

Four stories written by Steve Niles, known for horror comic books like his 30 Days of Night series. In this four issue collection, he brings together three stories of the Rage Virus before the events in the first movie 28 Days Later and wraps it up with surviving characters in all three stories brought together in a fourth and final story that takes place after 28 Days Later and sets up the movie sequel 28 Weeks Later.

Stage One: Development is the story of how the Rage Virus was created – c’mon, you knew it was man-made didn’t you? It’s the tale of two scientists trying to isolate the neuro-chemicals that trigger aggression in humans and find a way to block them or reduce their effectiveness. Both scientists have their own issues with anger management – one flies off the handle when provoked while the other is preternaturally calm. How they compromise themselves well before and after the virus is developed held my attention in the story since the outcome was . . . inevitable.

Stage Two: Outbreak is the story of a family of five celebrating a birthday in the park when the outbreak occurred. It was one of those precious family moments you never forget until Liam, the youngest child is attacked and bitten by a strange monkey. In minutes the rest of the family finds themselves fighting for survival. The days of precious family moments are over.

Stage Three: Decimation takes place 29 days later when London is decimated by the Rage Virus and only a few lone humans remain, making war on the infected. Hugh Baker suits up everyday and hunts the infected. He’s learned quite a lot about how they track and kill prey. He knows how to safely take them down. However, when his gun jams at a critical moment and he gets a last-minute save from another lone human hunter it is not appreciation but outrage that Baker feels . . . then he begins to hunt the human . . .

Stage Four: Quarantine occurs sometime after the events of the first movie and sets up the second movie. Survivors from the first three stories find themselves gathered together in a mysterious quarantine camp. They have no idea who is running the camp or why or what their final fate may be. It seems like the Rage Virus may not be the only thing they have to worry about.

APPEAL:

In all four stories, Steve Niles tells self-contained stories of death and survival. Like the best zombie stories, they show some of the best and the worst sides of humanity under extreme pressure. And they tell a good story — especially when you consider that these stories had to begin and end in the span of one comic book issue.

The artwork is very good. In reading comics, the art is as much a part of the story telling as the dialogue. All of the artists painted beautiful pictures which told the story. They had clean lines save for Nat Jones who brought a dark grunginess to his deep-in-the-epidemic tale. All of them, including Jones, were easy for the reader to interpret.

The only problem was that three different artists worked on the first three stories and then one returned for the last story. He has to work on three characters we’d met in the two stories that he didn’t work on and probably hadn’t seen. If there was a weakness, it was identifying the familiar characters in the last story.

This was a good quick read and a nostalgic trip for those of us who enjoyed the movies about the Rage Virus.

“Poor soft-headed child. Eaten’ll be a blessin’ for her.”

Courtney Crumrin is forced to move in with her creepy Uncle Aloysius. What she finds, however, is the key to her heritage.

TITLE:

COURTNEY CRUMRIN AND THE NIGHT THINGS

WRITER:

by Ted Naifeh

ARTISTS:

by Ted Naifeh

SERIES:

Courtney Crumrin and The Night Things Mini-series #1-4

PUBLISHER:

Oni Press

CHARACTERS:

Courtney Crumrin, A girl in middle school who discovers she could be a witch.
Courtney Crumrin Parents, Courtney’s parents aspire to climb the social ladder and are as vapid as humanly possible.
Uncle Aloysius Crumrin, A mysterious old man who turns out to be a lot more than he seems.
Butterworm, A goblin who enjoys eating children — like Courtney. He is also the narrator of the four stories.

GENRE:

Graphic Novel (collection), Horror, Dark Humor,

DESCRIPTORS:

Witches, Goblins, Talking Cats, Changelings, Love Spells, Teenage Girls, Night Things, Familiars, Yuppies, Doppelgangers, Magic,

SUMMARY:

This graphic novel collects the four stories in the Courtney Crumrin and The Night Things mini-series which introduces us to Courtney. Courtney is a rude, bad-tempered middle school girl who basically doesn’t like people. Her parents, who live beyond their means and try to climb the social ladder, move in with their Uncle Aloysius Crumrin “to help him in his old age.”

At first Courtney is unimpressed. Then she is terrified of the strange creatures she sees out of the corner of her eyes. Looking for answers, she sneaks into her Uncle’s study and discovers a book that explains what a goblin is and how to trap it. Then she uses the information to trap a goblin named Butterworth — who is also the narrator of these stories.

In the second story Courtney turns to her Uncle’s spell book to deal with her peers ostracizing her. What happens is that Courtney creates too much attention and realizes that being popular and a curmudgeon don’t mix — not to mention that the spell turns out to have some dangerous side effects.

“That’s right. I lost my wings in a freak accident. Okay? Back off.”

In the third story, Courtney’s parents volunteer her for a babysitting job on the night that the real baby is stolen and replaced with an ill-tempered changeling. Feeling responsible for getting the baby back, Courtney enlists the aid of the Changeling and the talking family cat Boo, to take her to the goblin market to rescue the infant. But can she save herself from becoming one of the auctioned?

Finally, Courtney gets sick. Instead of getting better, she gets weaker and weaker. When she finally forces herself out of the house, she finds people are treating her differently. The reason is startling — while Courtney has been sick in bed, another Courtney has been living her life and doing a better job of it than Courtney herself.

APPEAL:

I enjoyed this collection. Courtney as a pre-teen curmudgeon was fun to read. Her relationship with her Uncle Aloysius evolves through the course of the collection.

The first story laid the groundwork for all subsequent stories. Of the four tales, the first is the slowest. The pace picks up afterwards as Courtney dives head first into one situation after another.

Except for Courtney and Uncle Aloysius, the characters are fairly stock characters with little depth. This serves the humor aspect very well — as when Courtney’s parents act like fools, we don’t pity them. Since the stories are about Courtney, she gets the most character development. We often get her take on life through her fairly uncensored mouth. However, what is really telling is her actions.

Terrified of the Night Things that only she can see, she raids her Uncle’s study. When she finds a book open to the page on goblins, she doesn’t question why its there, she captures one and forces a boon from it. In dealing with the other kids in her school, she tries a love spell on her own, without consulting her Uncle.

The storyline are both charming and intriguing. Courtney is a resourceful little girl although she does have to rescued by her Uncle once or twice.

The mini-series is framed by a page introducing the goblin Butterworth, who makes snarky comments in the intro but serves as a fairly impartial narrator throughout the stories only to finish up with a page where he wraps up the stories and suggests Courtney will get her comeuppance.

READALIKES:

Besides Courtney Crumrin and The Night Things, there are other collections in this series written and illustrated by Ted Naifeh.

You could try Courtney Crumrin and The Coven of Mystics Vol. 2, Courtney Crumrin In The Twilight Kingdom Vol. 3, and Courtney Crumrin’s Monstrous Holiday Vol. 4.

“By encasing a living subject in a body cast of our polymer at the moment of death we have been able to trap the life force inside this cast, or coffin, as we call it.”

In life, Dr. Ashar Ahmad was dedicated only to his science. Now encased in one of his own coffins at the moment of death, Dr. Ahmad has a chance to redeem his life, or let his soul slip away to Hell.

Remember, click the mouse on the book covers to order these books from the Heights Library system webcatalog.

TITLE:

THE COFFIN

WRITER:

by Phil Hester

ARTIST:

by Mike Huddleston

SERIES:

The Coffin Mini-series #1-4

PUBLISHER:

Oni Press

CHARACTERS:

Dr. Ashar Ahmad, A scientist driven by pride to create a cast that would trap a soul inside a dead body.
Dr. Liv Goldenthal, Dr. Ahmad’s remaining partner and mother of the child he won’t recognize.
Mr. Oliver Heller, A very old, very rich man who funds Dr. Ahmad’s experiments for his own reasons.
Ms. Keen, Mr. Heller’s personal assistant and pet assassin, she is fast and deadly with knives.
Mr. Blunt, Another killer in Mr. Heller’s employ, he is slow and uses firearms.
Dr. Lynde, Mr. Heller’s watchdog who monitors Dr. Ahmad’s research..
Billie Goldenthal, The daughter of Liv and Ashar — she is very intelligent.
Dr. Barry A. Bell, Dr. Ahmad’s ex-assistant who left the research.
Dr. Graham, Mr. Heller’s assistant who is trying to replicate Dr. Ahmad’s work with little success.

GENRE:

Graphic Novel (collection), Horror,

DESCRIPTORS:

Souls, Hell, After Life, Death,

SUMMARY:

Dr. Ashar Ahmad barely tolerates Dr. Lynde’s audit as he works on a dog encased in one of his coffins, the life force still trapped with the dead body.

Dr. Lynde reports to Mr. Heller that Ahmad is much further along than anyone realized and that the doctor might bail at any time. For his efforts, the old man Mr. Heller has the doctor pithed. Mr. Heller then harvests Dr. Lynde’s internal organs for his ancient body and then encases what’s left in one of Dr. Graham’s coffins.

Meanwhile, Ms. Keen and Mr. Blunt are dispatched to Dr. Ahmad’s lab where they kill Liv and mortally wound Ashar. While they download his data, he crawls to the pit where his one working human suit, based upon the latest designs, awaits. He encases himself in the coffin as he dies, thus capturing the soul within it.

In death he meets a demon bent on torturing him> He also encounters Liv who explains to him that he can go back and fix things — give himself a second chance — if he wants.

Dr. Ahmad returns and finds his dead body inside of one of his coffins. He realizes he’s had his priorities messed up and that he needs to save his daughter Billie and his former partner Dr. Bell from Mr. Heller’s insanity.

But people are coming for him — bad people like Ms. Keen and Mr. Blunt — people who are themselves, locked up inside of coffins.

APPEAL:

I enjoyed this story. It is a bit of a take on the Frankenstein story. Dr. Ahmad starts out as a very flawed character and after his death; he is open to change for the first time since, probably, childhood. However, he has obstacles set before him, including a clunky “box” that he can never get out of as well as Mr. Heller’s forces arrayed against him.

The story starts out slow as exposition is used to bring the reader up to speed with the science and the relationships between the main characters. But soon it gains speed and you’re zipping through it like an adventure tale.

The characters are mainly one-dimensional except for Dr. Ahmad and Mr. Heller who get fleshed out somewhat. Still there isn’t much room for character development. Dr. Ahmad’s “transformation” from being a self centered scientist driven by pride to something more human is given short shrift, focusing instead on his actions to try and make amends.

The artwork is black and white pen work. The humans are rendered with some detail but the coffins are fairly simple and look a little steam punk-like, with steam blowers attached to the back. The images of souls were confusing and I wouldn’t have deemed them beautiful if the narration hadn’t told me otherwise. However the depiction of Dr. Ahmad’s demon and various levels of Hell were very interesting.

BOOK COVER:

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Today we look at the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Short Story nominations.

Best Short Story

	“Marley’s Revolution” Author: Boland, John C. Format: Print Magazine Type: Short Story Pub. Date: June 2011 Published in: Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Short Story “Marley’s Revolution” is a short story by John C. Boland published published in the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
	“Tomorrow’s Dead” Author: Dean, David Format: Print Magazine Type: Short Story Pub. Date: July 2011 Published in: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Short Story “Tomorrow’s Dead” is a short story by David Dean published published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
	“The Adakian Eagle” Author: Denton, Bradley Format: Mystery Anthology Type: Short Story Pub. Date: October 4, 2011 Published in: Down These Strange Streets: All-New Stories of Urban Fantasy
Nominated for the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Short Story The eBook is available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. “The Adakian Eagle” is a short story by Bradley Denton published published in the Down These Strange Streets: All-New Stories of Urban Fantasy.
	“Lord John and the Plague of Zombies” Author: Gabaldon, Diana Format: Mystery Anthology Type: Short Story Pub. Date: October 4, 2011 Published in: Down These Strange Streets: All-New Stories of Urban Fantasy
Nominated for the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Short Story The eBook is available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies” is a short story by Diana Gabaldon published published in the Down These Strange Streets: All-New Stories of Urban Fantasy.
	“The Case of Death and Honey” Author: Gaiman, Neil Format: Mystery Anthology Type: Short Story Pub. Date: October 25, 2011 Published in: A Study in Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon
Nominated for the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Short Story The eBook is available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. “The Case of Death and Honey” is a short story by Neil Gaiman published published in the A Study in Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon.
	“The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train” Author: Turnbull, Peter Format: Print Magazine Type: Short Story Pub. Date: March-April 2011 Published in: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Short Story “The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train” is a short story by Peter Turnbull published published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

The 2012 Edgar Award Nominations Series:

Part 1 — Best Novel
Part 2 — Best First Novel By An American Author
Part 3 — Best Paperback Original
Part 4 — Best Fact Crime
Part 5 — Best Short Story
Part 6 — Best Critical/Biographical
Part 7 — Best Juvenile
Part 8 — Best Young Adult
Part 9 — Misc. Edgars
Part 10 — The Simon and Schuster – Mary Higgins Clark Award
Part 11 — The 2012 Edgar Award Winners

Today we look at the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime nominations.

Best Fact Crime

Remember, click the mouse on the book covers to order these books from the Heights Library webcatalog.

	The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars Author: Collins, Paul Format: Hardcover Type: Non-Fiction Page Count: 336pp. Pub. Date: June 14, 2011 Publisher: Crown Publishing
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime The audio book and ebook are available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. Summary provided by publisher: On Long Island, a farmer finds a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discover a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumble upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime are turning up all over New York, but the police are baffled: There are no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era’s most baffling murder mystery. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus. Reenactments of the murder were staged in Times Square, armed reporters lurked in the streets of Hell’s Kitchen in pursuit of suspects, and an unlikely trio — a hard-luck cop, a cub reporter, and an eccentric professor — all raced to solve the crime. What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial: an unprecedented capital case hinging on circumstantial evidence around a victim whom the police couldn’t identify with certainty, and who the defense claimed wasn’t even dead. The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale — a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that have dominated media to this day.
	The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge Author: English, T.J. Format: Hardcover Type: Non-Fiction Page Count: 496pp. Pub. Date: March 15, 2011 Publisher: HarperCollins/William Morrow
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime The audio book and ebook are available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. Summary provided by publisher: In the early 1960s, uncertainty and menace gripped New York, crystallizing in a poisonous divide between a deeply corrupt, cynical, and racist police force, and an African American community buffeted by economic distress, brutality, and narcotics. On August 28, 1963 — the day Martin Luther King Jr. declared “I have a dream” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial — two young white women were murdered in their Manhattan apartment. Dubbed the Career Girls Murders case, the crime sent ripples of fear throughout the city, as police scrambled fruitlessly for months to find the killer. But it also marked the start of a ten-year saga of fear, racial violence, and turmoil in the city — an era that took in events from the Harlem Riots of the mid-1960s to the Panther Twenty-One trials and Knapp Commission police corruption hearings of the early 1970s. The Savage City explores this pivotal and traumatic decade through the stories of three very different men: George Whitmore Jr., the near-blind, destitute nineteen-year-old black man who was coerced into confessing to the Career Girls Murders and several other crimes. Whitmore, an innocent man, would spend the decade in and out of the justice system, becoming a scapegoat for the NYPD — and a symbol of the inequities of the system. Bill Phillips, a brazenly crooked NYPD officer who spent years plundering the system before being caught in a corruption sting — and turning jaybird to create the largest scandal in the department’s history. Dhoruba bin Wahad, a son of the Bronx and founding member of New York’s Black Panther Party, whose militant activism would make him a target of local and federal law enforcement as conflicts between the Panthers and the police gradually devolved into open warfare. Animated by the voices of the three participants — all three of whom spent years in prison, and are still alive today — The Savage City emerges as an epic narrative of injustice and defiance, revealing for the first time the gripping story of how a great city, marred by fear and hatred, struggled for its soul in a time of sweeping social, political, and economic change.
	Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President Author: Millard, Candice Format: Hardcover Type: Non-Fiction Page Count: 352pp. Pub. Date: September 20, 2011 Publisher: Random House/Doubleday
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime The audio book and ebook are available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. Summary provided by publisher: James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power — over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.
	Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender Author: Miller, Steve Format: Mass Market Paperback Type: Non-Fiction Page Count: 304pp. Pub. Date: June 7, 2011 Publisher: Penguin Group/Berkley
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime Summary provided by publisher: Sarah Pender was an attractive, outgoing, intelligent woman with great potential. But the straight and narrow had no appeal for this depraved young woman dubbed “the female Charles Manson”, who knew how to get what she wanted from men — even if it meant murder.
	The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor Author: Seal, Mark Format: Hardcover Type: Non-Fiction Page Count: 336pp. Pub. Date: June 2, 2011 Publisher: Penguin Group/Viking
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime The audio book is available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. Summary provided by publisher: A real-life Talented Mr. Ripley, the unbelievable thirty-year run of a shape-shifting con man. The story of Clark Rockefeller is a stranger-than-fiction twist on the classic American success story of the self-made man — because Clark Rockefeller was totally made up. The career con man who convincingly passed himself off as Rockefeller was born in a small village in Germany. At seventeen, obsessed with getting to America, he flew into the country on dubious student visa documents and his journey of deception began. Over the next thirty years, boldly assuming a series of false identities, he moved up the social ladder through exclusive enclaves on both coasts — culminating in a stunning twelve-year marriage to a rising star businesswoman with a Harvard MBA who believed she’d wed a Rockefeller. The imposter charmed his way into exclusive clubs and financial institutions — working on Wall Street, showing off an extraordinary art collection — until his marriage ended and he was arrested for kidnapping his daughter, which exposed his past of astounding deceptions as well as a connection to the bizarre disappearance of a California couple in the mid-1980s. The story of The Man in the Rockefeller Suit is a probing and cinematic exploration of an audacious imposer — and a man determined to live the American dream by any means necessary.

The 2012 Edgar Award Nominations Series:

Part 1 — Best Novel
Part 2 — Best First Novel By An American Author
Part 3 — Best Paperback Original
Part 4 — Best Fact Crime
Part 5 — Best Short Story
Part 6 — Best Critical/Biographical
Part 7 — Best Juvenile
Part 8 — Best Young Adult
Part 9 — Misc. Edgars
Part 10 — The Simon and Schuster – Mary Higgins Clark Award
Part 11 — The 2012 Edgar Award Winners

“Her name was Sondra, and when she asked me to kill Whitey, I said yes. What else could I say?”

Brian Keene is unleashed in this gleefully violent tale of lust and murder . . . well attempted murder . . . as Larry tries to help Sondra escape the clutches of Whitey but finds out that no matter what they do to him, Whitey won’t die.

Remember, click the mouse on the book covers to order these books from the Heights Library system webcatalog.

TITLE:

KILL WHITEY

WRITER:

by Brian Keene

GENRE:

Horror Fiction.

DESCRIPTORS:

Violence, Murder, Homicide, Immortality, Fear, Escape, Organized Crime, Strip Club, Police, Torture, Unborn Child, Money, lust, Manipulation, Stripper, Obsession,

CHARACTERS

Larry Gibson, The narrator of the story who couldn’t say no to one simple request.
Sondra Belov, The obsession of Larry’s life — Sondra is a stripper at The Odessa.
Zakhar “Whitey” Putin, Owner of The Odessa club and connected to the Russian mob.
Darryl Moore, A friend of Larry’s who works at Globe Package System with him.
Yul, A friend of Larry’s who works at Globe Package System with him.
Jesse, A friend of Larry’s who works at Globe Package System with him.

SUMMARY:

When Larry first sees Sondra Belov stripping on stage at the Odessa, he falls head over heels in lust. He can’t control himself so he returns again and again to watch her.

“That was how I finally met Sondra. And it was the last time I was ever truly happy.”

One night as Larry and Darryl leave Jesse at The Odessa to go home, they discover a bruised and bloody Sondra hiding in the parking lot. On impulse Larry has Sondra climb in his jeep and they take off being chased by the Russians. They escape and Larry takes her to his apartment with Darryl in tow. He thinks they’re safe there.

Unfortunately, Whitey has no trouble tracking them down. Whitey’s goons burst in the apartment at an inopportune moment but with a little luck — and desperation to be Sondra’s hero — Larry gets her out alive.

Darryl and Jesse had no such luck.

Whitey wants Sondra back and will stop at nothing to get her back. Even severe bodily injury only seems to slow him down. Larry and Sondra are left with only one alternative. For Sondra to have a life and for Larry to avenge his dead friends, they must kill Whitey.

But killing him . . . proves to be a lot harder than Larry ever imagined.

APPEAL:

As I mentioned above, Kill Whitey gleefully violent tale of lust and murder. Brian Keene does a superb job of setting up the friends — Larry, Darryl, Jesse and Yul — as truly blue-collar workers who swear, have sometimes dim opinions about women and politics and so forth. Larry is perhaps a little more educated than his friends, a little more thoughtful but he is still easily manipulated by Sondra.

The story takes place in Lewisberry Pennsylvania, in a blue-collar city. You get a good look at that run-down slightly depressed part of the country. As the story progresses, you get to see Larry’s apartment, the strip clubs, a deserted factory building — all of Lewisberry’s highlights. You get a good feel for a town where jobs are hard to come by, where the education level is rarely above high school and where clubbing is the only recreation available.

Kill Whitey is told in first person past tense from Larry’s point of view. It’s Larry telling the story and you know from the very beginning that he survives although he is still in bad shape. You don’t know who else makes it through and he eludes to the fact that he tried to kill Whitey but Whitey was difficult to kill.

There is a supernatural element to this story. It’s slowly introduced — the reveal comes in pieces but Keene does explain why Whitey is so hard to kill. Larry, unfortunately, has no supernatural aid to help him. He has to put Whitey down all by himself — if that’s even possible.

NOTES:

In one of the story notes in the Unhappy Endings short story collection by Brian Keene, he describes the basic pattern his novel-writing has taken. He generally writes a dark, grim book, often putting a lot of himself into the story. The Rising, and Ghoul are stories of such darkness and dispar, he often writes a novella or a novel that is lighter in tone afterward. Kill Whitey is one of those lighter novels.

READALIKES:

Actually this story puts me in mind of two movies: Terminator and Terminator 2 — Judgment Day. It’s a story about an ordinary man facing seemingly insurmountable odds. Moreover they are kill-fests where the monster soaks up massive damage, and can’t be killed. I’ve been wracking my brain for some book that reads like this, so far to no avail.

Today we’ll take a look at the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominations in the Best Paperback Original category.

Best Paperback Original

Remember, click the mouse on the book covers to order these books from the Heights Library System webcatalog.

	The Company Man Author: Bennett, Robert Jackson Format: Trade Paperback Type: Mystery Novel Page Count: 464pp. Pub. Date: April 11, 2011 Publisher: Hachette Book Group/Orbit Books
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original Summary provided by publisher: The year is 1919. The McNaughton Corporation is the pinnacle of American industry. They built the guns that won the Great War before it even began. They built the airships that tie the world together. And, above all, they built Evesden — a shining metropolis, the best that the world has to offer. But something is rotten at the heart of the city. Deep underground, a trolley car pulls into a station with eleven dead bodies inside. Four minutes before, the victims were seen boarding at the previous station. Eleven men butchered by hand in the blink of an eye. All are dead. And all are union. Now, one man, Cyril Hayes, must fix this. There is a dark secret behind the inventions of McNaughton and with a war brewing between the executives and the workers, the truth must be discovered before the whole city burns. Caught between the union and the company, between the police and the victims, Hayes must uncover the mystery before it kills him.
	The Faces of Angels Author: Grindle, Lucretia Format: Trade Paperback Type: Mystery Novel Page Count: 352pp. Pub. Date: December 16, 2011 Publisher: Felony and Mayhem Press
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original Summary provided by publisher: On a sweltering day in Florence, art student and newlywed Mary Warren wandered into a shady tunnel of trees. Within minutes, she was brutally attacked and her husband murdered. And within months the killer was identified, caught, and dead. It’s now two years later, and Mary has returned to Florence at the invitation of her lover — a relationship that predates what she insists on calling the “accident.” Crumbling and beautiful, Florence is eternally compelling. But more and more, what Mary sees is not the glories of the city, but its dark underside — specifically, one dead young woman after another. She also can’t help seeing a terrifying pattern: Either this is a copycat killer, or her husband’s murderer is still on the loose.
	The Dog Sox Author: Hill, Russell Format: Trade Paperback Type: Mystery Novella Page Count: 180pp. Pub. Date: February 28, 2011 Publisher: Pleasure Boat Studio/Caravel Mystery Books
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original The audio book is available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. Summary provided by publisher: Ray Adams buys his girlfriend, beautiful Ava Belle, a baseball team for her birthday. She loves dogs and baseball. Ray’s gift is a broken-down semi-pro team in California’s Central Valley, with a 70-year-old Jewish manager who’s been in baseball for 50 years and breaks into Yiddish homilies when the going gets tough. He assembles a rag-tag lineup of sheetrockers, farm laborers, wanna-be big leaguers, and a freak submarine pitcher — 19-year-old Billy Collins. The only problem is that Billy has a drunken, abusive father who, when he shows up at the ballpark, causes Billy to fall apart. How to get rid of Bucky Collins becomes a primary goal not just for the team’s sake, but for Billy’s. Rough him up? Pay him off? See that he has an “accident”? With him around, the team and Billy are simply not functional.
	Death of the Mantis (Detective Kubu Series #3) Author: Stanley, Michael Format: Trade Paperback Type: Mystery Novel Page Count: 448pp. Pub. Date: September 6, 2011 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers/Harper Paperbacks
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original The ebook is available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. Summary provided by publisher: In the southern Kalahari area of Botswana — an arid landscape of legends that speak of lost cities, hidden wealth, and ancient gods — a fractious ranger named Monzo is found dying from a severe head wound in a dry ravine. Three Bushmen surround the doomed man, but are they his killers or there to help? Detective David “Kubu” Bengu is on the case, an investigation that his old school friend Khumanego claims is motivated by racist antagonism on the part of the local police. But when a second bizarre murder, and then a third, seem to point also to the nomadic tribe, the intrepid Kubu must journey into the depths of the Kalahari to uncover the truth. What he discovers there will test all his powers of detection . . . and his ability to remain alive.
	Vienna Twilight (Max Liebermann Series #5) Author: Tallis, Frank Format: Trade Paperback Type: Mystery Novel Page Count: 368pp. Pub. Date: April 11, 2011 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Nominated for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original The audio book and ebook are available from the CLEVNET eMedia Collection. Summary provided by publisher: In the dynamic and dangerous Vienna of 1903, a brilliant psychoanalyst and a brave detective battle to catch criminals who commit the most clever and brutal crimes. Detective Inspector Oskar Reinhardt finds that young women are being slain in an unnerving — and ingenious — manner, with a small, almost undetectable, hat pin. For Dr. Max Liebermann, the killer is unique in the annals of psychopathology, one who murders in the midst of consensual love. Is the culprit a patient, one who swears he has a double, a shadow figure that is far more forward (in fact, indecent) with women? As danger mounts, Liebermann must find the answer while struggling with his own forbidden desire for a female patient.

The 2012 Edgar Award Nominations Series:

Part 1 — Best Novel
Part 2 — Best First Novel By An American Author
Part 3 — Best Paperback Original
Part 4 — Best Fact Crime
Part 5 — Best Short Story
Part 6 — Best Critical/Biographical
Part 7 — Best Juvenile
Part 8 — Best Young Adult
Part 9 — Misc. Edgars
Part 10 — The Simon and Schuster – Mary Higgins Clark Award
Part 11 — The 2012 Edgar Award Winners