vel veeter – Page 37 – Cannonball Read 17

A post with some book reviews

Black Sunday by Thomas Harris

Suffer the Children by John Saul

Cecile is Dead by Georges Simenon

Maigret, Lognon, and the Gangsters by Georges Simenon

Maigret at Picratt's by Georges Simenon

November 14, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Black Sunday – 3/5 This is the first novel by Thomas Harris, of Hannibal Lecter fame, and it’s a weird one. The logline, especially if you’ve seen the movie, is that a madman is trying to blow up the Super Bowl with a blimp. And that’s kind of right. Instead of it being a madman, we’re in the middle 1970s and novels about terror groups is all the rage. I am thinking specifically of books like Day of the Jackyl, which while mostly about an […]

Bleak House

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

November 10, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Sometimes I can write a 1000 word post on a short story or even a poem, but taking a 1000 page novel and figuring out what to do with it is too big a task. This novel begins with one of the absolute best opening chapters in all of English literature. The slow, meandering walk down the street outside the chancery courts with the absolutely disgusting yellow fog creeping in as an extended metaphor for the inhuman corruption of the court systems. Then the description […]

Adjustment Team

The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 2: Adjustment Team by Philip K Dick

Second Variant by Philip K Dick

Jon's World by Philip K Dick

November 10, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is the second collection of Philip K Dick’s stories and novellas. In the first collection (and these collections goes chronologically for the most part), it was mostly rough and early stories with a couple of real gems like “Paycheck” among others. What I tend to find really good about Philip K Dick novels is that he often has a good central conceit that drives the stories, but the story itself is often more weird and bizarre and off the wall than that. That’s why […]

Shorts

Cape Fear by John D Macdonald

In the Suicide Mountains by John Gardner

More Better Deals by Joe R Lansdale

November 9, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Cape Fear – Oddly I first read this novel in like 7th grade and clearly don’t remember much from it. I also watched both movie versions about the same time and so my sense of what happens in the story is as much affected by those as this. This novel is much more straight forward in some ways and weird and digressive in others. The plot here is that Sam Bowden is a married man with two kids. He’s a successful lawyer, and is a […]

Himes

Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes

Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes

November 7, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Cotton Comes to Harlem 4/5 I am sometimes a little lukewarm about this series, but this one is great. Usually what I like about the series is that it wastes no time jumping into the action, especially offering up some crazy action right from the start. My favorite of the books really pull that off. Here we begin with a closed gate event in a parking lot where a minister (a grifter we know from a previous book) is selling people on a one-way trip […]

Mycroft Holmes 2 and 3

Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Anna Waterhouse

The Empty Birdcage by Anna Waterhouse; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

November 7, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Mycroft and Sherlock In the first book of this series, we mostly get Mycroft, who if I recall correctly was living abroad in the foreign service and solving his own little mysteries (they’re actually quite big mysteries really). Now Mycroft is returned to England and knows he needs to check on his brother, who is becoming quite the layabout. Well, only in the sense that’s refuses to be a grownup and figure out a career and its prospects. Sherlock is shown here as deeply frenetic, […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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