N is for Nasty - three books with super-nasty villains

N is for Nasty, and what's nastier than a really evil villain in a work of fiction? I'll tell you what. Nastier than any fictional villain is a real-life one, and this is what we are shown in the first of today's offerings.

POLITICAL AFTERMATH, by C.H. Meyer.

This was meant to be satire, but tragically, the main event has now come true. It's no longer funny, especially for America. However, for students of history, it will no doubt in years to come provide a useful and concise summary of the early part of the 21st century. Read it and weep.

RODDY MURRAY - A Snow White Scenario and Body And Soul

 In A Snow White Scenario, but even more so in Body and Soul, we are treated to some truly egregious nastiness. In fact, I do believe that the crime perpetrated in Body and Soul is the most evil crime I've ever encountered in fiction, and those responsible are some of the most repellent characters I've seen. Thundering good reads, both of them.

M is for Music and also for Manning

Bernie Manning's seventh album is quite a departure from his previous work. Heroes is a tribute to, as the name suggests, Manning's own heroes. The lineup is an eclectic one: there's one political hero (Gough Whitlam, of course, who else - the hero of every thinking Australian), but most of the lineup is from the arts: a painter (Albert Namatjira), a filmmaker (Alfred Hitchcock), an author (Philip K Dick) composer George Gershwin, singers Billie Holiday and John Lennon, and the fictional James Bond.

The album opens easily with a spoken introduction by Manning, just as if it were a book, and this literary feeling persists through the album. Spoken tributes read by Manning are backed by music and sound effects, in each case reflecting the flavour of the subject. The artist's feeling for his subjects comes through loud and clear, but Manning is never mawkish; his love of his heroes is expressed throughout with dignity and restraint.

Several of the tributes include a tribute song, and these are so cleverly done, reflecting the unique styles of each artist, but never copying. I was particularly struck by the deft way the characteristic feeling of Hitchcock's theme tune was evoked. 

I don't share myself all of these heroes, but one whom of course I do share is that great man, Gough Whitlam, and his tribute brought tears to my eyes. My personal favourite, though, was the James Bond one. It has the unmistakable Manning humour; that same sharp, but ultimately kindly, humour that brought us Men's Secret Business. Those who have come to know Manning through his earlier work will not be disappointed.

Bernie Manning's Greatest Hits, Volumes One, Two and Three, are available from  Bernie's own website, however I could not find any links to the later volumes in the series. The site does have a contact form, however, and the records are also available at Readings bookstore.

L is for Love, Literature and Letting Go

Three disparate elements, yet oddly linked, for are not love and loss two of the great themes of literature? Today, I have three books to offer you, one for each of these concepts.

LOVE

Stolen Hearts and Muddy Pawprints, by Georgina Ramsey, is a romantic comedy, yes, and it's got a love story - two, actually. It is also the second volume in the About Three Authors series, which is a series united by theme, and written by different authors. You never know, one day I may write one myself! I actually know who is going to be writing the third one, and I'm quite excited about it. But that is not my news to tell. In any case, this one, like the first book, is well worth a read. There is a reason I always call Ramsey the Queen of Rom Coms.

LITERATURE

The Fourth Wall, by Tabitha Baumander, is a collection of short stories that, if you have any taste at all, will knock your socks off. I don't know when I've been so impressed with a new writer. Sadly, the book seems now to have been withdrawn from publication following some kind of contretemps with the publisher; it was published by JEA, who seem to be always squabbling with everyone, so I only hope Baumander has a decent reversion clause in her contract. It would be a tragedy if these stories were lost.

LETTING GO

I was conflicted about this book. It's quite well done, but I found the notion of overhauling one's friends as one does one's wardrobe rather repellent. Nevertheless, where this book can be really useful is in evaluating one's own behaviour and performance as a friend. You wouldn't want to be one of the toxic people described in this book, no indeed. And with that thought, I leave it to your consideration.

K is for Killer - Killers in Fiction

Of all the crime fiction that is written, murder occupies a disproportionately great part of the field. I've never really understood why that is. Is it our fear of death that makes murder such a fascinating subject? And yet many devout Christians, who ought not to fear death, devour Christie and all her get by the truckload. Is it simply that murder is the worst of all crimes? And yet, many consider rape a fate worse then death, but there are not the number of crime books about rapists that there are about murderers, not nearly. Is it just that death, physical death, is the worst thing that can happen to a person? And yet that isn't even an universal belief. History is full of people who considered, for example, dishonour worse than death. We wear poppies every year to honour them.

Be that as it may, when it comes to crime fiction, murder is always the chef's special. 

Killers in fiction, however, are not limited to murderers, and in the group of works I have to present to you today, other killers are also represented.

MURDER

By an odd coincidence, both of these particularly fine murder mysteries are also historical fiction. The Summertime Dead, by Robert Engwerda, is a beautifully drawn portrait of life in a small Australian town in the 1960s. The Bookseller's Tale, by Ann Swinfen, is set in 14th Century Oxford. Both are meticulously researched and both are wonderful reads. 

DISEASE

In Trish Dawson's I Hope You Find Me, the killer is a deadly plague, presumably viral, which wipes out nearly everyone in the world. A handful of survivors is left to make their way forward. It's an exciting story, enlivened by a touch of the paranormal, but this is not allowed to dominate and the action remains firmly centred around the interactions between the human survivors.

MONSTERS

This chilling short story deals with an unexplained plague of vicious monsters, who overrun everyone in their path, leaving a swathe of - well, not corpses - bloodstains on the ground after their prey has been ravenously devoured. Despite the extremity of the premise, it is written with restraint and beautiful timing. A teasing sampler of Tobin's work.

J is for Joseph Picard - the Lifehack series

If you've read one zombie apocalypse book, I've always said, you've read them all. I didn't know when I picked up Lifehack that it was going to be about zombies; had I known it, I wouldn't have started reading the book. And I would have missed out, badly.

The thing that makes these books special is the characters. They are, all three of them, real novels, teeming with the pain of the human condition, and yet always lightened by the author's wicked humour. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll be occasionally grossed out - but gruesomeness is never slathered in merely for its own sake; there is an essential good taste to the writing of these books that makes them worthy to be considered independently of their genre. 

Although my personal favourite is Watching Yute, I can recommend all three without reserve. They are all properly standalone, as a novel ought always to be; Picard is no amateur. Nevertheless, I read them in order, and as with any series, even the long series of the Waverley novels, I do think this is the best way to maximise one's enjoyment.

Find them, and Picard's other work, at AMAZON.

I is For Injury, by Val Tobin

A nice, fast-paced story, Injury for me was chiefly distinguished by its nicely rounded protagonist. Typically in books of this type, movie-star heroines tend to be rather cardboard and interchangeable, but Daniella Grayson is a real, live, actual person, and this makes the book.

I did feel that the development of the relationship between Dani and Cope, although believable, was far too rushed; I actually went back to see if I'd accidentally skipped two or three chapters. It felt as if a section had been ripped out of the book. The ending, too, I felt was a little weak, but a nice, entertaining read all the same.

Get it HERE.

H is for Humour - Four Authors Very Well Worth Checking Out

If you're anything like me, and if you are reading my blog I assume we must have something in common, you love to laugh. Here for your consideration are four authors I've recently discovered. They're all very different, but all funny, and all well worth checking out if you haven't encountered them before. Do yourself a favour!

Paul Kater - Hilda The Wicked Witch series

This wonderful series, which so far runs to sixteen books, is a sheer delight. It follows the fortunes of the title character, Hilda the Wicked Witch, sometimes in our own humdrum world (which Hilda finds crazily exotic) but mostly in her own world of magic and dragons. 

The characters are delightful, particularly Hilda and her bestie, Baba Yaga. There are cameo appearances by characters from popular fiction, most notably Magrat Garlick and Granny Ogg from Pratchetts's marvellous Discworld series. This is particularly appropriate, since Kater's style and approach are bound to recommend themselves to fans of that series.

Kater's books can be found at AMAZON and SMASHWORDS.

P.J. Jones - Romance Novel

A deliciously wicked satire on the Twilight series, this book is reminiscent of Mad Magazine at its best. Written with an almost complete absence of the fourth wall, it's packed with laugh-out-loud moments for anyone who has struggled through Twilight. There's just nothing not to love.

Get it at AMAZON

Janet Josselyn - Thin Rich Bitches

A very entertaining account of an impoverished divorcee moving into a community of the rich, struggling to find her feet and forge a new life in a tumble-down old country house. It's a fun, medium-paced read with some good characters, plenty of animals, good lines and a romance subplot. Well worth downloading for a relaxing read, however I somehow felt the book just missed being as good as it might have been. I thought there could have been more variance in the level of tension, and also that perhaps the book ran just a little long for its content. An entertaining read, though, and the ending is very, very satisfying. 

Get it at AMAZON.

Erica Lucke Dean - Suddenly Sorceress and Suddenly Spellbound.

Who could fail to fall instantly in love with a series that opens with the heroine being molested by a goat and accidentally turning her boyfriend into a skunk? It's like this all the way through both these delightful books - always just that little bit over the top, always going just that bit farther than one expected. Ms Dean thinks big, and doesn't quail at the most outrageous situations. I am absolutely hooked on this series and can't wait for the next book.

Get them at AMAZON.