Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Taxi!

The Asphalt Warrior by Gary Reilly

by Leave a Comment

Found out about this one in a social media reading group I’m in. A fan of the series referred to it as “slacker-noir”, in the vein of The Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice. While it has no tonal similarities to those, I appreciated the reference. Because I really like and relate to the lead character, a Denver taxi driver who thumbed his nose at “real world” corporate and academic jobs in order to do as little work as possible. Nowadays, I’ve got a job and people to support […]

That New Author…Read

Act of Fear by Dennis Lynds/Michael Collins

by Leave a Comment

Ask any compulsive reader what one of their great thrills is and I would hazard to guess many would say “discovering a new author” lands before “discovering a good book.” For when you discover a new author, you discover the possibility of many good books. I picked this one up on a recommendation from Ross Macdonald. Macdonald’s Lew Archer series is my all-time favorite mystery series. He called this one of the most unique crime novels he’s ever read. Hearing such laudatory words from the master himself, […]

Elementary, My Dear Douglas

Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abul-Jabbar and Amy Waterhouse

by Leave a Comment

This is the story of Mycroft Holmes, older brother to the famous Sherlock Holmes. If you are a fan of Sherlock at all you know Mycroft as the meddling older brother, the suit, the government lackey who is constantly pestering and annoying Sherlock by trying to get him to do things. How do you think Mycroft sees the situation? This book actually starts before that. Sherlock is still a teenager (possibly early 20s) and living at school and Mycroft is the young Secretary to the […]

Oooooh New York…

Twisted City by Jason Starr

by Leave a Comment

After several false starts, I was finally able to finish a Jason Starr novel. The results are about what I expected. Jim Thompson, whom Starr is no doubt cribbing from here, is one of my favorite writers. He writes psychological thrillers in which characters are forced into difficult circumstances that are largely beyond their control and all of their choices are bad. No one is better at identifying the dark heart of chaos beneath what we as humans pass for order. Starr is no Thompson […]

I Loved Laura, Except for . . .

Laura by Vera Caspary

by Leave a Comment

Another book from my personal challenge of reading the source material for favorite classic movies: Laura, by Vera Caspary. This book is a detective noir, as hard-boiled and cynical as any of the genre, but written by a woman. It was originally published, a la Dickens, as a serial, “Ring Twice for Laura,” in Colliers Magazine in 1942/43. The  classic film noir, starring Gene Tierney as Laura and Dana Andrews as a detective who finds himself falling in love with a dead woman as he […]

Ah Memories

The Lost Night by Andrea Baartz

by Leave a Comment

Giving this one a new-author-graded-curve 4 stars. Because while there are several things in The Lost Night that don’t work, I think Andrea Baartz is a talented writer and I’d like to see more of what she can come up with. Let’s focus on the positive first. As I said above, Baartz can write. It’s rare for a first-time novelist, especially one writing a low grade thriller, to have the hang of their style but she knows what she’s doing. It helps that she’s an accomplished journalist; […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo