Perfume, Powder and Lead, by Juliette Douglas
Juliette Douglas has missed her calling. She ought to be in Hollywood, writing scripts for the movies. All the way through this book, I could not help envisaging it as a film; it could be the Blazing Saddles of the 21st century. It has all the elements for a really fine comic film - the slapstick situation, the coarse humour, people disguised as someone they're not. In the Wild West, three prostitutes dress up as nuns in order to rob a bank. Just that one line tells you what you're getting, and the book doesn't disappoint.
Douglas is what we might call a Wild West specialist. She is noted for the Freckled Venom series, and characters from that popular series also make an appearance in Perfume, Powder and Lead. She lives on a farm with a number of rescued animals. Check out her other books HERE.
A Baby, A Man and Some Times and Other Random Thoughts, by Biju Vasudevan
Vasudevan has given us philosophy, horror, adventure and eroticism, and now in this small collection he gives us poetry.
It's a charming collection, with flashes of wit among some lovely imagery, and Vasudevan's passionate nature shines through every poem. I most loved Of A Lousy Boss; it's hilarious, and so effectively presents the unspoken frustration that every worker feels at some time in his life.
On the downside, the author is not a native English speaker and at times falls foul of the language. Occasional howlers, such as the unfortunate 'expectorations' instead of 'expectations' highlight the difficulty, and perhaps the unwisdom, of writing poetry in a language other than one's own. I should have liked to see these poems written in Mr Vasudevan's own language and then translated.
Biju Vasudevan, as well as being a writer, is an engineer and freelance musician. Check out his other books HERE.
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