Need For reads

The IRB's Celebrating 10 Years of Intelligent Reviews October 2007-October 2017 Fiction Scrape his balls with a holystone THE BLOODY BLACK FLAG A Spider John Mystery By Steve Goble 237 pp. Seventh Street Books Reviewed by Eric Petersen Journalist turned novelist Steve Goble makes his debut with the first in a series of mysteries featuring one of the most unusual sleuths ever to grace the printed page – an 18 th century pirate. It’s October of 1722, and honorable pirate Spider John Rush is rowing off the Boston coast along with his best friend Ezra Coombs and some other men on their way to the pirate ship Plymouth Dream , where they’ve signed on to work: As they rowed, in a rhythm they’d reached without the aid of a cadence or chantey, Spider threw many a nervous glance shoreward. He sought signs of a lantern or torch, and listened for shouts or musket fire. They were well away from the Massachusetts Bay Colony coast now, and the full moon showed nothing but its own ...

Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage By Ken McGoogan Toronto: HarperCollins, 2017 Reviewed by Kenn Harper Ken McGoogan has produced yet another worthy northern book. Dead Reckoning sets out to tell, as its sub-title proclaims, “The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage.” The book is peopled with the usual suspects in the history of Arctic exploration and the search for the elusive Northwest Passage. I needn’t name them here; if you are reading this, you already know who they are.  But this book introduces other names that will be unfamiliar to many readers, even some well-versed in northern history. Their stories are the “untold stories” of the sub-title. McGoogan points out in his Prologue that orthodox history only grudgingly acknowledges non-British explorers - he specifically mentions Amundsen, Kane and Hall - as well as “short-changing” fur-trade explorers - and here he mentions Hearne, Mackenzie and Rae. He has mentioned these explorers before, of course...

The IRB's Celebrating 10 Years of Intelligent Reviews October 2007-October 2017 Fiction Family betrayals DESERT REMAINS A Gus Parker and Alex Mills Novel By Steven Cooper 400 pp. Seventh Street Books Reviewed by Eric Petersen A new mystery writer makes his debut with the first in a series of mysteries featuring an unusual pair of sleuths. The novel opens with Phoenix homicide detective Alex Mills at the scene of an unusual crime. A young woman named Elizabeth Spears has been brutally murdered, her body deliberately placed in a cave in the Arizona desert. Her meticulous killer left behind no murder weapon or incriminating evidence of any kind – only a bizarre calling card. Carved into the cave wall is a huge mural depicting the murder and the victim’s last agonizing moments of life. Alex Mills has never seen anything like it, nor have his fellow detectives – not even star detective Timothy Chase, who used to work as a criminal profiler for the FBI. To help solve this ghastly and baf...

The IRB's Celebrating 10 Years of Intelligent Reviews October 2007-October 2017 Nonfiction THE UN-DISCOVERED ISLANDS: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes By Malachy Tallack, Illustrated by Katie Scott 144 pp. Picador Reviewed by Lynne M. Hinkey Un-discovered islands, those that once appeared on maps--either through an accident of navigation, an overabundance of imagination, or blatant lies--are the subject of this entertaining breeze through history and geography. Author Malachy Tallack explores two dozen islands that have shown up in cartography, literature, and mythology, many of them complete with elaborate and detailed accounts of their topography, flora and fauna, inhabitants, and culture, that were later discovered to be non-existent...un-discovered.   Beginning with islands of ancient legend and myth and continuing to the present day, the book provides brief vignettes of twenty-four islands that appeared on maps, but were eventually shown to not be ther...

The IRB's Celebrating 10 Years of Intelligent Reviews October 2007-October 2017 Fiction One giant leap for womankind ANDROCIDE INTEL 1 Series, Book 5 By Erec Stebbins 339 pp. Twice Pi Press Reviewed by Eric Petersen Techno thriller master Erec Stebbins is back with the fifth entry in his INTEL 1 series, (the previous entries are also reviewed on this site) taking it in an even darker and more compelling direction that reflects current events in the United States. At this point in the series, INTEL 1, once the FBI’s top counterterrorism unit, headed by former agent “Mad John” Savas and his wife, former agent Rebecca Cohen, has become a super secret “black ops” group, answerable only to President Elaine York, restored to power after a right-wing military coup had ousted her. The coup nearly plunged the United States into a full-scale second civil war, but thankfully, the insurrection was put down and the right defeated after INTEL 1 (and a mysterious computer hacker ca...

The IRB's Celebrating 10 Years of Intelligent Reviews October 2007-October 2017  Fiction An easy chair and a martini LET THE DEVIL OUT By Bill Loehfelm 302 pp. Picador Reviewed by Alan Goodman   The longstanding attraction of detective mysteries speaks to the easy read. If you're looking for a book to accompany you to your favorite easy chair, a nicely turned martini, and that rare evening that promises quietude, nothing beats cozying up to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot or Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch. Always on the prowl for a new detective, a new crime, and new characters of dubious moral persuasion, this reviewer jumped at the chance to accompany Bill Loehfelm's Maureen Coughlin through the dark alleys of New Orleans. Rookie police officer Maureen Coughlin and I are actually old buddies. That shadow you saw transfixed to her every motive and move in Loehfelm’s previous book, Doing The Devil's Work , was none other t...

The IRB's Celebrating 10 Years of Intelligent Reviews October 2007-October 2017 Fiction A zesty gumbo THE KILLER WHO HATED SOUP The Killer Who Series, Book 1 By Bill A. Brier 307 pp. Black Opal Books Reviewed by Eric Petersen Mystery writer Bill A. Brier, who made a memorable debut with his first novel The Devil Orders Takeout , (also reviewed on this site) is back with the first in a new series of mysteries set in an unusual time and place and featuring an unusual and colorful sleuth. The story begins with an ominous prologue, as a teenage girl named Marybeth runs through the woods with her baby, desperately trying to evade the man that’s pursuing them – the girl’s own father, who wants to take her child away from her. In the first chapter, we meet our unlikely sleuth. It’s January 1957, and an eager, scrappy young go-getter named Bucky Ontario has arrived in the prairie town of Defiance, Oklahoma. Convinced that Defiance is the next great American boomtown, he left his home in th...