Short Stories By Louis L'Amour

“Four Card Draw
“Desert Death Song”
“Trap of Gold”
“Keep Travlin’ Rider Louis L’Amour

Louis L’Amour has entertained me for many years and I keep finding little gems that I missed. These four short stories involve a murder that the people of the town want to keep secret, a hunted man who tries to survive in the desert, a prospector who finds a rich gold vein, and a stranger riding into a town controlled by bad guys. Always great characters and great fun!

The Magicians By Lev Grossman

This is the story of, still another, magical world. A bit like C. S. Lewis but more liken to J.K. Rowland. The novel details the adventures of precocious young people selected to attend “Brakebills College of Magical Pedagogy” an invisible (to to uninitiated) place where students spend some five years learning to be magicians. As compared to Harry Potters Hogwarts, Brakebills was a lot rougher; the training was very rigorous and the professors were very strict. For the final exams, the students were led to the roof of one of the buildings, removed their clothes and were transformed into geese whereupon they flew to the frigid South Pole area where they were told that now they would begin to really learn to do magic. Difficult and harsh times were ahead. I enjoyed the interplay between the students which was very adult and interesting. Overall, a good read.

Follow Me Down By Shelby Foote

Southern writer, Shelby Foote writes of a “crime of passion”. Farmer Eustis, leaves his family and runs off with a young girl to a deserted Mississippi island where, after a week, he drowns her. Foote uses the convention that Wilkie Collins first used in the mid 1800’s where, as the novel unfolds, each of the characters involved narrates their own history and the role they played until everything all comes together.

Hothouse Orchid By Stuart Woods

With the exception of “Chiefs” a very early Woods novel, I have steered away from this author because of the way he handles his female characters. Woods always portrays them as slutty, overly aggressive women who jump in and out of bed throughout the story. This is his latest novel; found it at the library; he is still at it.

The Woman Who Would Be Pharaoh By William Kline

A well researched and very interesting piece of historical fiction about Ankhesenamun (the name means – “she lives through Amun”), the beautiful wife of Tutankhamun. She was one of the daughters of Pharaoh Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) and his queen Nefertiti who eliminated all of the old Egyptian gods and replaced them with a single god Aten .

The Egyptians were not happy with this change and after Akenenaton’s death, they went back to worshiping their old gods. Tutankhamun and his wife supported this change.

The novel deals with the younger life of Ankhesenamun and Tutankhamun as they grew up together and the political power struggles that brought Tutankhamun to the throne for seven years until he was killed by power hungry relatives. His widow queen Ankhesenamun fearful of her life, enlisted the aid of a powerful Hittite king in an attempt to protect the throne against her scheming grandfather who would force her into marriage in order to become Pharaoh.

As a companion, one might want to read “Nefertiti” by Nick Drake and “Nerartari, The Heretic Queen” by Michelle Moran.

Frankenstein Book Three dead and alive Dean Knooze

Claudia, Rick and I have been waiting and looking for this final installment in Koontz’s fascinating series.

Victor Helios’ (Victor Frankenstein; over 200 years old) “New Race” creations are beginning to think for themselves and acting contrary to the way they were programmed when they were made. They are still cold blooded killers but they are killing out of control and some are beginning to mutate. At the same time, some of Victor’s “monsters” are questioning their programming. Victor’s wife, “Erica 5” is secretly reading books (forbidden by the creator) and becoming curious about her husband’s activities; she has discovered hidden rooms and has talked to mutants who have given her ideas that may cause Erica 5 to betray Helios.

The “New Race” was organized into specific classes; workers to do the menial tasks (maids, cleaners, those who ran the dump where they buried town people and Victor’s mistakes), replicates, those who were made to replace important people in the community; police chiefs, Mayors, priests, etc., and enforcers and guards who did the killing and dirty work for Victor. All were very strong and possessed great speed and agility. Victor Helios was building new “factories” to mass produce his creations that would eventually kill all humans.


This final book of the series deals more with several of Helio’s creations , particularly, the mutants and follows them as they go on killing sprees and react with others of their kind. Detectives, Carson and Michael continue to work with Victor Frankenstein’s original creation, Deucalion, to find a way to finally stop Helios and destroy the “new race”. There is some dark humor and some very exciting and tense action and one can feel a certain sympathy for the creatures, evil and misguided as they are.

There is an interesting twist and a prologue which may or may not make this the last we hear of the immortal Deucalion and his nemesis Victor Helios.

Frankenstein Book 2 City of Night Dean Koontz

Claudia and Rick have read both books of this reworking of the classic tale by Mary Shelly and “Jill Baby” is deep into the first book. There will be a third volume, there has to be because this one had no ending, it just fades away at what should be a very important stage of the story.

The time is 240 years since Victor Frankenstein who now calls himself Victor Helios created his first “monster”. The creature still lives and calls himself Deucalion (the son of Prometheus). Apparently, Deucalion has learned to control his rage through years of study at a monastery and he has learned that his creator has managed to keep himself alive for over 200 years and has created a special race of non humans to serve him. Deucalion has vowed to kill his maker. Victor Helios is one bad guy!! He has managed to make duplicates of major figures in the city of New Orleans this includes the Mayor, the Police Chief and many others in authority. These non humans are programmed for special duties; they are stronger and faster and eventually, Victor Helios will turn them loose to kill all humans. Frankenstein continues to perform bizarre experiments some of which turn out very badly; he destroys them and buries them in a special dump that is used for both human and non human bodies and is run by disgusting low class non human people who hate humans and savor the opportunity to perform evil deeds and mutilation on the human bodies that are sent to them.
There is a man and woman detective team who know about Frankenstein and are intent on destroying him with the help of Deucalion. The team is followed by an assassination couple who bring very dark humor and brutal conversation to their characters. Frequently, the dialogue in this novel is repugnant especially when it gets into descriptions of killing and burial rituals by the non humans.
Victor is mad; he is looking for perfection but he can not find it in the culture or makeup of the human race. He has made five wives, none of which are good enough for him. It is, not yet, clear how he expects things to be when he has killed off all humans because one of the prime motivations of his non humans is to kill humans and when humans are gone how will the monsters fare?