Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“History is…tragedy without catharsis.” – Barry Gewen

Wolverine: Road of Bones by David Mack

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One of our local used bookstores has an aisle of trade paperbacks dedicated to tie-ins with video games, TV shows, comics, and the like. I’ve found some fun stuff there, including books based on the Splinter Cell and Halo video games, Tron, 1960s Star Trek, and 1990s Batman. These books are never a bad time. The last time I was browsing that section, I picked up with Wolverine story for a couple of bucks. It made for fun bedtime reading with some unexpected pathos. In […]

Quick Thinking (Also: yay, full cannonball!)

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

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River Cartwright is an MI5 prodigy; his grandfather was a famed higher-up in the organisation and he’s set to follow in the man’s footsteps. He’s nearly done with his training when his final exercise goes drastically wrong and before long, he is banished to Slough House, an MI5 outpost where those who have fallen into disgrace are sent. It’s unclear what the Slow Horses, as Slough House’s employees are known, do all day, except that it is tedious and senseless work. But then a young […]

The Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

A Shadow Intelligence by Oliver Harris

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I was telling my wife this morning that the British write the best spy novels and it’s not even close. Le Carré. Deighton. Herron (I’ve never been able to connect with his but I’m trying desperately). And now, this guy Oliver Harris, who I had never even heard of until I read Max Read’s indispensable Substack. I was initially intrigued by a spy novel set in Kazakhstan. I like to read books where espionage takes place outside the glamor centers of Europe or the misunderstood […]

Found Family with Spies, Killers, and Secrets but It’s Cozy

Spy X Family Family Portrait by Aya Yajima, Tatsuya Endo

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For some reason I really needed a cozy read not long ago; I’m part way through something that sounded like it should have but is turning out to not be that. I put down book #1, and went for option 2: manga. Or to be more precise, a series of short stories based on the manga (and also now anime) Spy X Family titled Spy X Family: Family Portrait. If you know the series it helps but it’s not totally mandatory as there is a […]

If James Bond Was Into Go Instead of Baccarat…

Shibumi by Trevanian

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Trevanian’s Shibumi is an international-man-of-mystery-spy-thriller. I think it’s also a sendup of the genre, capitalism, Orientalism, etc. But in a fun way. Like a Shaun of the Dead way. Here’s the back cover blurb form the 1983 printing of the 1979 book: Shibumi: The Code of the Perfect Assassin The Secret of the Perfect Lover If you think that sounds cool then you are in. If you think it sounds dumb, don’t bother. The protagonist of the book is the mysterious and suave and condescending […]

Turns out Tropes Can be Saved if Self Aware

Mission Yozakura Family vol. 1 by Hitsuji Gondaira

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So I read a preview chapter of this new mange last year, and later when I wanted some kind of mindless entertainment I went and got the published first volume of Mission: Yozakura Family. The premise is almost as goofy as the story: painfully shy and traumatized Taiyo can hardly function in school except with his childhood friend the pretty and popular Mutsumi Yozakura. It turns out she’s part of a family of spies and they end up “married” to save both of them from […]



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