Ed'd Mini Book Review: The Blue Blazes (Mookie Pearl Book #1)

Hot off the heels of the latest Sandman Slim novel, the LL was jonesing for more. So I pop into the Google, "books like Sandman Slim". Out of the Google pops a book about some cat named Mookie Pearl, a book called "The Blue Blazes".

"The Blue Blazes" is a mix of a mob book with the "urban fantasy", supernatural thing that is all the rage nowadays. Ok maybe it's died down a bit but still, you know what I mean. Front and center is mob leg-breaker, Mookie Pearl. But, you see, Mookie isn't just your run of the mill leg-breaker, no siree. He takes care of the Underworld's underworld. The place beneath New York City where the demonic, supernatural underworld creeps into our world and what that world has to offer ours is The Blue Blazes. It's a drug mined from the dangerous depths beneath our world that is not only addicting but it makes you aware of the denizens beneath in their true form. It gives you the sight, which most would think is a drug induced hallucination, but those in the know can see the creatures from the Great Below that have come up to live in the city. And, that's what Mookie does and is good at, dealing with that world and all that it entails.

Half way through the book, I was clamoring for a Mookie Pear/Joe Pitt team up (For those that don't know Joe Pitt, I mentioned those books a while back.). Both set in NY, deal with the supernatural and both have a penchant for solving things with their fists. C'mon, it's a no-brainer.

What I really like about Mookie is that he's a blunt instrument. He's not your wise cracking, smart alec, fast-talking, scoundrel of a hero. No, he is who he is and he knows who he is. He's not the smartest and he's not funny, though that is not to say that the book is devoid of humor. He's a different hero, one that you don't see that often as the focus of a book.

"The Blue Blazes" is a fun ride, one that starts off with a toe in the water of the supernatural but then gets pretty deep into it. It didn't matter one bit if it did or didn't for me, and I know some like that sort of thing and some don't like too much of it, I was just along the ride for Mookie. I think you'll connect with him that way too and that's the hallmark of a great character.

More Mookie? Yes, please.

My Grade" A-

LL

Ed's Mini Book Review - Sleepless by Charlie Huston

Cover of Sleepless: A Novel

I'll start by saying that Charlie Huston is one of my favorite writers so I may be a little biased in this review. Having long been a fan of the Joe Pitt casebooks as well as his Henry Thompson books, needless to say I was rather stoked at a new Huston book and this time a stand alone like The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death.

While reading Sleepless, I couldn't help but feel like I was reading something with just a ton if different influences, many of which I have an interest in as well. We have a look into the online MMO gamer world (i.e. World of Warcraft and the like) and I am sure the research for that must have been a lot of fun. Just plug yourself down in front of the computer and game til your eyeballs dry out, get some more Mountatin Dew and get right back at it. Huston also treats the reader to something that has been a bit on our minds, in a collective sub-conscious and that is the whole 'viral thriller' trope with the spread of a disease that has no cure. As an aside, this has been something that I have been reading a lot of lately though more into the zombie virus theme but I think that this is something that our collective society has had on the brain (mmmm, more brains!!!) with the fear of chemical weapons and such. This might explain the popularity of zombies again with best sellers such as World War Z. Eh, just my two cents.

We also get some typical Huston good ol' crime fiction as the story centers around an idealistic undercover narcotics officer as he investigates the possible underground distribution of a drug that can possibly cure the Sleepless virus that has spread around the world. And what a world Huston paints for us. We get a dystopian future not unlike the Escape from New York film or even yet, Strange Days, where private security protects the rich from a world with little order due to the spread of the Sleepless virus.

Weaving all of these elements may seem a bit ambitious but more and more, with every book, Huston is proving himself a master of his craft. Tight, suspenseful and ultimately heart wrenching, Sleepless is a book I can't recommend enough and it will leave you just that, sleepless, as you won't want to put it down.


A+

LL

My Dead Body

Charlie Huston's new book, My Dead Body, the last of the Joe Pitt casebooks is out now!

If you haven't read any of Charlie Huston's work, go do so forthwith. If you haven't read any of the Joe Pitt casebooks, then do so forth-soon. Stephen King raves about Huston's work and I do too, though people may take Stephen King's word for it more than mine.