INCOMING...AND A POEM

Incoming:

Yesterday, Open Books, the best used book store in Pensacola, held its annual Fall Book Sale, with thousands of books priced at one dollar.  Because one can never have too many books, I indulged.

• Robert Asprin, Dragons Wild.  Fantasy novel, the first in the Griffen McCandles series.  "a low stakes con man and killer poker player, Griffen McCandles drifted through college, earning himself the nickname 'Grifter.'  Wealthy and attractive, he always took it for granted that they'd be family job waiting for him after graduation.  He just never suspected what his family was...  His mysterious uncle drops the bomb:  Griffen and his sister, Valerie, are dragons -- and almost purebred ones to boot.  Needles to say, once Griffen's 'secondary characteristics' kick in, he'll no longer need a cigarette lighter.  Unwilling to let Uncle Mal take him under his wing, so to speak, Griffen heads to new Orleans with Valerie to make a living the only way he knows how.  And even the criminal underworld of the French Quarter will heat up when Griffen lands in town..."  Asprin wrote one other novel in the series and frequent co-author Jody Lynn Nye completed a third book following Asprin's death; Nye then went on to published her own book in the series in 2013.
• Robert Asprin & Jody Lynn Nye, Class Dis-Mythed.  Humorous fantasy, the sixteenth novel in the MythAdventures, series, and the fourth to be co-authored by Nye.  "After years as a court magician and inter-dimensional hero, Skeeve needed a rest.  So he took some time off to study magik and relax...  A few months later three young female Prevect students show up with a note from Aahz requesting that Skeeve take them on as students and give them a 'practical education'.  Then Massha sent him a friend of hers and Guidos [sic] to tutor, then Chumley sent someone, and before he knew it Skeeve's sabbatical had turned into a teaching job.  After the assassins attack, an unarmed bomb goes off, and a Manticore tries to eat them, the Khlad mage begins to believe there is a lot more going on than just a group of students wanting to learn magic.  There is!  Unknown to him, his students are preparing for a very deadly magical competition and you won't believe where.  Worse yet, it looks like the fix is in and not to the benefit of his students.  Soon Skeeve learns the only way to save his students [sic] lives is for him to risk his own."  Nye went on to co-author three more novels in the series and to write one of her own.
• Kerry Greenwood, Flying Too High.  A Phryne Fisher mystery.  "Walking on the wings of a Tiger Martin plane in full flight would be more than enough excitement for most people, but not for Phryne -- amateur detective and woman of mystery, as delectable as the finest chocolate and as sharp as razor blades.  In fact, the 1920s' most talented and glamorous detective flies even higher here, handling a murder, a kidnapping, and the usual array of beautiful young men with style and consummate ease.  And she does it all before it's time to adjourn to the Queenscliff Hotel for breakfast.  Whether she's flying planes, clearing a friend of homicide charges, or saving a child, Phryne does everything with the same dash and elan with woich she drives her red Hispano-Suiza."
• Sally Hepworth, Mad Mabel.  Suspense novel.  "Meet Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, eighty-one years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea -- or a cutting remark.  She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and whispers start flying.  Because Elsie hasn't always been Elsie.  Once upon a headline, she was Mad Mabel Waller -- Australia's youngest convicted murderer.  But was she really mad, or just misunderstood?  Either way, she's kept her secret buried for decades.  Enter seven-year-old Persephone, a relentless little chatterbox who has just moved in across the road (armed with stickers, questions, and no sense of personal boundaries); Joan, who appears to have it in for Elsie; and a healthy dose of public interest -- the sops are sniffing around, and the media is circling like seagulls at a picnic.  So Mabel does what she's always done best -- take matters into her own hands.  Is she a cantankerous old lady with a shady past?  A cold-blooded killer with arthritis?  Or just someone who's finally ready to tell her side of the story?  Sharp, surprising, and wickedly funny, this is an unforgettable story of a woman who's spent a lifetime being underestimated -- and is about to prove everyone wrong.  Again."  Winner of the General Fiction Book of the Year. Audio Book of the Year, and the Ned Kelly Award for Best Novel at the 2026 Australian Book industry Awards -- expect many more awards and nominations over the coming months.  The upcoming selection for our family book club.
• Joan Hess, Damsels in Distress.  A Claire Malloy mystery.  "A Renaissance fair is coming to the relatively quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas, whish is not the sort of news that usually sets local bookseller Claire Malloy's heart racing.  But with Caron, Claire's perpetually petulant teenage daughter, being pulled into volunteering (either that or face the horror with doing homework over the summer) and her fiance, Police Lieutenant Peter Rosen, away, Claire finds herself drawn into the strange inner workings of the group putting on the fair.  But just as Claire decides that her time might be better spent fretting over the details of her upcoming nuptials, one of the volunteers helping with the Ren fair falls victim to arson, her  body found burned in the wreckage of her rented home.  Even stranger, none of the members of the local chapter of the Association for Renaissance Scholarship and Enlightenment (ARSE) -- the group putting on Faberville's first Ren fair -- has ever met the woman in the flesh, and none can provide any information about who she is or where she came from.  However, someone is definitely dead, and the fire looks very suspicious -- but is it murder?"
• Eric Idle, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life:  A Sortabiography.  "The year 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Pythons, and Eric is marking the occasion with his hilarious memoir chock-full of behind-the-scenes stories from a high flying life featuring everyone from Princess Leia to Queen Elizabeth."  The song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," which Idle wrote for Life of Brian, has since become the  number one song played at funerals in the UK.
• Stan Jones, Tundra Kill.  A Nathan Active mystery.  "Nathan Active, a top cop in a swarth of Alaskan tundra larger than fifteen other US states, has been assigned to bodyguard duty for Alaska's celebrity female governor, Helen Mercer, while her husband runs the Isignaq, a 400-mile lsled-dog race through the artic wilderness.  Against his will, Active is suddenly swept into her bizarre family affairs and outsized political ambitions.  And when he connects the death of a local dog sled musher to Mercer, her countermoves threaten to ruin the lives of Active's beloved Grace Palmer and her daughter, Nita.  With his career on the line, Active must outwit the governor and save the people he cares for most before time runs out."
• H. R. F. Keating, Inspector Ghote's First Case.  A prequel to the acclaimed series.  "Newly promoted Inspector Ghote of the Bombay police is thrilled to be granted casual leave until he takes up his post, as it allows him to spend time with his heavily pregnant wife, who is desperate to watch a showing of Hamlet at the cinema.  Their plans are ruined, however, when Sir Rustom Engineer asks Ghote to investigate the suicide of his friend's wife. Worried about his wife's imminent delivery, Ghote nevertheless travels to the home of Mr. Dawkins, where he is unconvinced by the story of Iris Dawkin's death.  Especially when he recognizes the officer in charge, Darrani, who is well known for his closedmindedness.  Ghote investigates further, with a hamlet-esque awareness of how deceiving appearances an be."
• "Lauren Kelly" (Joyce Carol Oates), Blood Mask.  Suspense novel.  "Wealthy, charismatic, and controversial 'benefactress of art' Drewe Hildebrand disappears from her estate on the Hudson River, seemingly abducted in the  night.  Her young niece, Marta, is found in a desolate wooded area close by, too traumatized to describe the kidnappers.  Soon after, a provocative exhibit of avante-garde 'bio-art' is disrupted by protesters -- an exhibit that includes a blood mask of Drewe Hildebrand.  In this, her third suspense novel, Lauren Kelly explores the startling world of private inscrutable motives with public masks of dominance and power, and the ways in which spiritual yearning may be transformed into worldly, erotic appetites that consume the innocent."
• Donna Leon, Through a Glass, Darkly.  A Commissario Brunetti mystery.  "It is a luminous spring day in Venice, as Commissario Brunetti and Inspecttore Vianello take a break from the Questura to come to the rescue of Vianello's friend Marco Ribetti, who has been arrested while protesting against chemical pollution of the Venetian lagoon.  But it is not Marco who has uncovered the guilty secret of the polluting glass factories of the island of Murano, nor he whose body is found dead in front of the furnaces which burn at 1400 degrees, night and day.  The victim has left clues in a copy of Dante and Brunetti must descend into an inferno to discover who is fouling the waters of the lagoon..."
• Archer Mayor, Chat and Open Season.  Joe Gunther novels.  Chat:  "News travels fast in the small state of Vermont.  In this tight-knit society, police officers and investigators proudly maintain a kinship that transcends the boundaries of their jurisdictions.  When an unidentified body is found in the peaceful town of Brattleboro, local police and the Vermont Bureau of investigation both appear at the scene.  But before Investigator Joe Gunther can begin to gather evidence of murder, a family emergency sends him to his hometown, where the lives of his mother and brother have suddenly been threatened.  Gunther reaches out to a network of police officers who know him only by name and reputation as he attempts to discover the source of this imminent danger.  Meanwhile, his investigative team chases an elusive murderer who has no apparent ties to the victim.  In a state that is more like a neighborhood community, secrets are difficult to keep, and it's sometimes impossible to know who can be trusted.  Gunther soon finds himself opposing criminals more menacing than any he has ever encountered in order to save those he holds closest to his heart."  SIGNED COPY.  Open Season:  " In an explosive moment that shakes the town of Brattleboro, Vermont to its roots, Jamie Phillips creeps up top Thelma Reitz's door in the middle of the night, only to have that frightened old lady blow off his bead with a shotgun.  Obviously a setup, thinks Joe Gunther, but the crime soon takes on even more shocking dimensions.  First, Gunther discovers that the shooter and victim were co-jurors on the sensational Harris murder trial three years earlier.  The, several more vicious assaults lead Gunther to suspect that whoever planned Jamie's grisly death won't quit until the Harris affair is reopened, even if it meanskkilling every juror...and the cop on the case."
• Barbara Neely, Blanche Passes Go.  A Blanche White novel.  "Praise the Ancestors!  After three years in Boston Brahmin territory, Blanche White is finally coming home to Farleigh, North Carolina, for an entire summer.  And, like a sign from above that she's indeed headed in the right direction, she's already lined up a date with the handsome train conductor she met somewhere between Boston and Baltimore.  The summer holds lots of promise -- including a long-awaited reunion with her best friend, Ardell, as she helps out with Ardell's bustling new catering business.  Then, like a slap in the face on her first night back, Blanche is reminded of a part of home she's rather forget:  David Palmer, the man who raped her eight years ago and who has tormented her mind and spirit ever since, shows up as a guest at her very first catering event.  The time has come,,,she must exact her revenge so that she can finally move on.  Then a young woman is murdered and there are signs that David Palmer may be involved.  so Blanche sets off on a hunting expedition -- for clues she hopes will finally convict David Palmer and put an end to his legacy once and for all.  While Blanche is busy pursuing all possible leads, there's Thelvin, the train conductor, patiently waiting for her.  Will Blanche's wariness of men prevent her from knowing a good thing when it's staring her smack dab in the face?" 
• Chris Offutt, Shifty Boys.  Southern noir, a Mick Hardin novel.  "Army CID investigator Mick Hardin is on leave in his hometown in the hills of eastern Kentucky, recovering from an IED attack, when a body is found in the center of town.  It's Barney Kissock, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see it as an occupational hazard.   But then Barney's mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a look, it becomes clear that there's more to the killing than it seems.  Mick should be rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce paper, and getting out of town -- but he keeps on looking, and suddenly he's getting shot at himself.  Meanwhile, Sandra, Linda's dispatcher, has taken a special interest in Mick."
• Thomas E. Sniegoski, Dancing on the Head of a Pin.  A Remy Chandler fantasy.  :Once he was known as the angel Remiel, but generations ago Boston PI Remy Chandler chose to renounce Heaven and live on Earth, where he found a secure place among us ordinary humans...  But now, having lost the love of his life, Remy finds himself turning more and more away from his human friends and his everyday existence.  He's begun to seek out dangerous jobs -- those that involve the supernatural, those that bring him into contact with his past.  Like his latest case:  the theft of a cache of ancient weaponry stolen from a collector who deals in antiquities of a dark and dubious nature.  The weapons, Remy knows, were forged aeons ago and imbued with unimaginable power.  If they fall into the wrong hands, thy could be used to destroy not only eaven but also Earth."
• Paul Tremblay, Survivor Song.  Horror novel.  "In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious virus that is spread by saliva.  Like rabies, the infection causes confusion, loss of inhibition, terrible hallucinations, and gives rise to hydrophobia -- an aversion to water.  But unlike rabies, the disease has a terrifying incubation period of an hour or less.  Those infected -- both animals and humans -- quickly lose their minds and are driven to bite and infect as many others as they can before they die...or are killed.  As emergency protocols are faltering, rations are being distributed, and the commonwealth is under quarantine and curfew to try to limit the spread of the new virus.  Hospitals are inundated with the sick, and hysteria has taken hold.  Dr. Ramola 'Rams' Sherman, a soft-spoken pediatrician in her mid-thirties, receives a frantic phone call from Natalie, her best friend from college who is due to give birth in a matter of days.  Natalie's husband has been killed -- viciously attacked by an infected neighbor -- and in a failed attempt to save him, Nats, too, was bitten.  Her only chance of survival is to get to a hospital as quickly as possible to receive a rabies vaccine -- and to deliver her child.  No one knowns better than Rams that the clock is ticking for Nats and the baby.  The fight to save their lives becomes a desperate odyssey as these friends make their way through an hostile landscape filled with unexpected dangers beyond their worst nightmares -- terrifying, strange, and sometimes deadly challenges that push them to the brink.  But even if Nats gets the vaccine, will it be too late?"
• Andrew Vachss, Everybody Pays.  Collection of 38 crime stories from a master of the white-knuckle read.
• Martin Walker, Bruno, Chief of Police.  The first of (thus far) nineteen novels about Bruno Courreges, Chief of Police in the French town if St. Denis.  "It's market day in St. Denis, a small town in the Perigord region of south-west France.  The locals are on the alert because inspectors are about to make a 'surprise visit',  hoping to enforce the unpopular and bureaucratic EU hygiene rules.  But for Captain Bruno Courreges, St. Denis' Chief of Police, this particular market day turns into something far more serious.  An old man, head of a local immigrant North African family, is found viciously murdered.  Suspicion falls on the son of the local doctor, but Bruno isn't so certain.  He believes it to be an act of vengeance, with its motive hidden deep in France's divisive Vichy past.  As rumour and mistrust grow, Bruno must look beneath the surface of this normally calm community to find a brutal killer."
• "Patricia Wentworth" (Patricia Wentworth Turnbull), The Chinese Shawl.  A Miss Silver mystery  "At twenty-one, Laura Fane comes into her inheritance and travels to war-torn London to meet with her solicitors.  There she is introduced to her lovely, charming, yet poisonous cousin Tanis Lyle who invites her to the Fane family estate, The Priory, for a house party.  Miss Silver is among the many weekend guests.  Laura also meets Carey Desborough, a wounded R.A.F. pilot, and the two fall deeply in love.  Their happiness is complicated by Miss Agnes Fane, who mistakenly believes that Tanis and Carey are engaged.  Miss Agnes, who brought up Tanis, blindly and bitterly perceives Carey's love for Laura as reminiscent of her own broken engagement to Laura's father twenty-two year earlier,  But there are many hearts that have been broken.  And when Tanis is killed, it becomes apparent that there are several individuals with strong motives for her murder, including Carey Desborough.  Miss Silver offers to assist the police with her astute powers of observation and her keen sense of human nature since she is on the spot.  She strives to find justice and to save the young lovers from the dark shadows of the past, which are haunting them so persistently."
• Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger, Volume III:  My Life After Death.  I'm not even going to try to categorize this one.  "This, the long-awaited third volume of the Cosmic Trigger trilogy includes Wilson's witty and humorous observations about the widely spread (and, happily, premature) announcement of his demise.  And, of course, what Wilson masterpiece would be complete without synchronicities, religious fanatics, UFOs, crop circles, paranoia, pompous scientists, secret societies, high tech, black magic, quantum physics, hoaxes (real and fake), Orson Welles, James Joyce, Carl Sagan, Madonna and the Vagina of Nuit."

Today's Poem:

INVENTORY OF HADES

1.

Statesmen and apothecaries,

Poets, plumbers, antiquaries,

Premiers with their secretaries,

Home and foreign missionaries,

And writers of obituaries.

2.

Mediaeval disputants,

Mystics in perpetual trance,

Philosophers in baggy pants,

Puritans to who the chance

Had never some in life to dance

Save when the dreadful circumstance

Of death removed their maiden aunts.

3.

Scribes with wide phylacteries,

Publicists and Sadducees,

Scholars, saints, and Ph.D.'s.

4.

Doctors, auctioneers and bakers,

Dentists, diplomats and fakirs,

Clergymen and undertakers.

5.

Rich men, poor men, fools and sots,

Logicians, tying shades in knots,

Pagans, Christians, Hottentots,

Deacons good and bad in spots,

Farmers with their Wyandots.

-- from The Witches' Brew by E. J. Pratt, 1925

Edward John Dove Pratt (1882-1964) was a three-time recipient of Canada's Governor General Award for Poetry.  He has been called "the foremost Canadian poet of the first half of the century."   The Witches' Brew was the third of 23 volumes of poetry published during his lifetime.