Graphic Novel Review: Pandemonium & Whispers in the Walls
My interest in comics ebbs and flows. So much that is published is embarrassingly bad, but I still love the medium, and so I want there to be books that are good. English language comics publishing remains dominated by superheroes, an exhausted genre which was great when the stories were aimed at young lads, but which stinks now that the target audience is 30/40something anally retentive boy-men. Nor have I ever been able to develop a taste for autobiographical “indie” comics, which are often (though not always) a) boring b) poorly drawn and c) solipsistic. As a result, I search hopefully for European comics in translation, where the standard of craft is usually higher, there is a broader spread of genre and there are no images of Cyclops in a red thong. [Read more →]
— I see a lot of flight attendants in the course of a week’s work, and it looks like an interesting, exciting job. Like most jobs, though, it’s not quite what it seems. 
marks the beginning of yet another new mystery series for me. I was unfamiliar with Deborah Crombie, but she has apparently written a whole shelf full of novels featuring two interesting detectives, Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. The newly-married couple are both police officers (Gemma is a Detective Inspector and Duncan is a Superintendent with Scotland Yard) and they are drawn into a case involving an Olympic hopeful, a disabled veteran, and a decades-old secret.
, the wonderfully fun and zany novel that Lisa Lutz wrote with her ex-boyfriend. (
is pretty entertaining, for the most part. It’s a continuation of The Spellman Files, a series of novels about a rather dysfunctional family detective agency. Isabel Spellman, a 30-something year old detective, working for the family agency, is in the middle of several cases. Her father has a secret. Her mother is behaving bizarrely and no one seems to comment on it. Her brother and sister are feuding and neither will tell Isabel what the problem is. Her boyfriend’s mother is coming to visit and her tiny niece, Sydney, calls everything a banana. It’s enough to push anyone to a breakdown. 
is the kind of book that you get about 75% through, then you set it down because you don’t want it to end…then you spend the next hour looking at it, sitting on the table, until you can’t take the suspense and you grab the book and finish another chapter or two. I cannot wait for the movie.
has a dramatic beginning: it’s the evening of Carmen and Matt’s wedding and they are surrounded by their family and friends. It’s a non-traditional, very Bohemian wedding at a farmhouse owned by Alice, Carmen’s sister, and Jean, both artists. It’s the wee hours of the morning and several party guests — drunk, stoned and sleepy — are making their way home when there is a tragic accident. A young girl is killed on a dark country road. One guest will take the blame, but they will all carry the guilt.
, but it’s hard not to root for him.
by Thomas Enger, Henning Juul is a veteran investigative reporter, returning to work after a series of personal tragedies left him changed and fragile. An apartment fire killed his son, ended his marriage and left him physically disfigured. He is struggling to deal with his fears and a case of PTSD that has left him unable to work for more than two years. A lot has changed in the world of internet news, he feels shaky, his sources and contacts may have moved on, but he needs to prove himself, prove that he can still do the work — even if his new partner is dating his ex-wife. He’ll have the perfect opportunity: a gruesome murder committed in one of the city’s public parks. As Juul is drawn deeper and deeper into the case, both the danger — and the potential payoff — increase. 
. Bailey’s boyfriend is out of town (and Bailey isn’t sure she believes his story about it) so she takes off with her good friend Jessie. Jessie has the hots for music mogul Scott Cohen and Scott has invited her and a friend to a weekend house party at his retreat in the woods. It’s exactly what you’d expect: a rock star, a couple of models, a couple of journalists…and maybe a murderer. 
is intriguing as soon as you look at the cover — it took a second or two for me to realize the little girl on the cover (her name is Olive, by the way) is floating. Floating. And such an odd expression on her face! She made me want to open the book and turn the pages.
by Eli Gottlieb, Margot is a promising young journalist. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that the lavish lifestyle she can glimpse from her assignments is just out of her grasp…but there are ways to extend her reach. 
that I really liked. For one, I love the way that author Emily Arsenault portrays the friendship between Nora and Charlotte, both as children and later as adults. I love the mystery storyline, the way the children pursue their “investigation,” the difficulty that Nora has dealing with it as an adult. I thought the portrayal of Nora was especially good, the way she has grown away from her childhood home and the difficulties she has going back to it and seeing her classmates as adults. And most of all, I enjoyed the skillful way that Arsenault leads you from one suspect to another, the way that she subtly points the finger at different players in this game, so that it is easy to believe any one of them could have murdered Rose.
