#40: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter gets a heaping helping of teen angst in this installment, trying to figure out girls as well as murderous wizards in the fifth installment of the long-running series.

Although I don't think Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix held the dramatic tension of the prior two entries in the series, this novel does include who I think is (to date) the series' greatest villain in Dolores Umbridge, a sickly-sweet-acting teacher with a cruel streak who rises to prominence at the Hogwarts School as Harry's stock continues to plunge. Umbridge does help fill the gaps left by the lack of some of the other memorable characters, including Dumbledore, Hagrid, and Sirius Black, gone for unfortunately long stretches of the narrative.

I did enjoy how the storyline continues to pick up threads and minor characters from earlier novels to create its own rich, full world. I still find interest in the depictions of the casual cruelty of the British boarding school, though Harry Potter fans I have spoken to generally don't agree that Hogwarts, when looked at in a clear-eyed fashion, is a rather poorly-run and shabby-appearing school.

As with the other Harry Potter novels, I listened to the very good audio book version by Jim Dale, checked out from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#39: The Turnaround by George Pelecanos

A racial incident between teens that leads to murder in 70s Washington, D.C. reverberates in the lives of the adult survivors in George Pelecanos' compelling The Turnaround.

Although Pelecanos is often billed as a crime fiction writer, I have found his work a bit more philosophical, with few easy answers and fewer pat conclusions. I enjoyed his previous two novels, Drama City and The Night Gardener, and find here a lot of similiar themes, including parallel storytelling with events in the past and using Washington D.C. as almost a character onto itself. Pelecanos has a clipped style, but a knack for dialogue and interesting characterizations.

Pelecanos is a worthwhile read, and I will be on the lookout for his next novel.

#38: Short-Trigger Man by Merle Constiner

Former gunslinger turned barkeep gets framed for a murder and has to unholster his guns once more in Merle Constiner's agreeable Western Short-Trigger Man.

Constiner's sure-handed plotting, leavened by some surprisingly wry humor, made this an enjoyable read.

I have heard pulp writer Merle Constiner's name used in warm terms by fans but was only modestly impressed by the first novel of his I found (reviewed earlier). There were many similarities between the two novels, including a hard-headed protagonist with his own code of honor, a spitfire love interest, and an older, wiser man who helps out the hero. There is another Constiner on the flip side, so I will have to see if this trend continues. Constiner's personal story is interesting, so I keep looking for his work; and Short-Trigger Man I would recommend to fans.

This edition was again part of an Ace Double Western that I found for a quarter at a street fair. The pages were falling out as I read it, but I felt compelled to soldier on.

#37: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Excellent genre-bender from Michael Chabon (whose The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay remains one of my modern-era faves), about a washed-up cop who takes umbrage at a junkie's murder in the very flophouse he resides in. With his reluctant partner, and his ex-wife/commanding officer breathing down his neck, he unearths a wider conspiracy.

Against this background, with its noir conventions tracing a direct line back to Raymond Chandler, is an alternate future based on a real WWII-era plan to create a Jewish homeland in Sitka, Alaska. Chabon does some intricate and compelling world-building that again recalls a great writer in Philip K. Dick and his The Man in the High Castle.

I listened to an excellent audiobook version read by Peter Riegert. Although Jim Dale's Harry Potter readings are without peer, I would put Riegert's reading in my top five audiobook recordings I have encountered (with Paul Giamatti's presentation of Dick's A Scanner Darkly right there as well). This audiobook was given to me by a friend, and I plan on donating it to the Farmland Public Library.

Highly recommended.

#36: Zero Cool by John Lange

A doctor at a European conference is forced to perform a mysterious autopsy, then spends the rest of his trip outrunning a bevy of bloodthirsty pursuers in John Lange's Zero Cool.


I may be the last person to know this was actually written by Michael Crichton back in his peanut-butter days of the late 60s. Zero Cool is a suprising departure, not nearly as dense or intense as his later, more well-known work. Our physician protagonist is as quippy as any PI of the time, is accompanied by several mysterious women and a strange, colorful supporting cast of baddies, and jetsets around several exotic locales. The combination reminds me of the James Bond movies of the era more than any sort of medical thriller. A pretty fun read overall.


I found this one in a library book sale for a shiny quarter, with a silver, 70s-style cover. It is more recently seen as part of the great Hard Case Crime series with a more appropriately retro look.

#35: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage

The classic tale of Sir Gawain of King Arthur's court, and the knight's face-off with a mysterious, seemingly immortal foe, gets a muscular new translation from poet Simon Armitage.

I am a fan of Seamus Heaney's landmark translation of Beowulf and thought this one followed in its footsteps, from the hard-bitten prose (mirrored on facing pages with the original language) right on down to the clunky, rusty armor on the cover. But it will be hard to beat Heaney's idea of changing the traditional storytelling opening of "Once Upon A Time..." to "So..."

Still, Armitage's translation stands on its own merits. He has created a clean and easy read, and the storytelling is highly interesting for its various subtexts and nuances; overall an offbeat tale in the Camelot pantheon of stories.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#34: Money Shot by Christa Faust

A former porn star stumbles into a secret, illegal side of the sex trade and winds up--after a murder attempt--seeking revenge against those responsible.

Christa Faust's Money Shot is a contemporary tale in the Hard Case Crime series, a pulpy paperback line which, for the most part, features lost noir classics with retro covers. Faust's storytelling stands up well alongside her peers and is even more hard-nosed than some; and in the Hard Case Crime line, that's saying something. Like most of the line, Money Shot is not for the faint-hearted, but is well worth reading.

I read this on the recommendation of my pal Michael, who is a fan of Faust and loaned me his copy.

#33: The Wheat Field by Steve Thayer

A small-town deputy in rural Wisconsin finds himself the main suspect in a double homicide that leads him to become an unwilling accomplice to a larger conspiracy in Steve Thayer's riveting thriller The Wheat Field.

I picked this up on a whim at the Farmland Public Library and found myself an instant fan of Thayer, an author I had not heard of before. Deputy Pliny Pennington is a resonant character, a dark angel with sexual hang-ups and killing urges but his own moral code. The early 60s locale is strongly rendered as well. There are plenty of shocks in the storytelling, both pleasant and unpleasant. I enjoyed Thayer's writing style, probably most reminding me of Jim Thompson or James M. Cain.

I had been moseying along with fun, good enough reads for a while until this one jolted me into wakefulness again. I would strongly recommend The Wheat Field to thriller fans and will be nosing around for more of Thayer's writing.

#32: You Could Call It Murder by Lawrence Block

British ex-pat Roy Markham looks for a missing girl in a small, snowy New England college, quickly peeling back the veneer and exposing dark doses of blackmail and scandal.

An early detective yarn from Lawrence Block, this one featuring another one-off P.I. Curiously, a little googling turned up that the novel was a tie-in to an ill-fated television show that went off the air before the book came out.

Perhaps because I read this back to back with another Block in a matter of days on vacation (see previous entry), I saw a lot of connections between Markham and the other protagonist, Ed London. Both are more highbrow detectives not afraid to get their hands dirty, both centered in New York but frequently traveling.

In the end, a pair of entertaining novels in a collection called "Five Great Novels by Lawrence Block" that I purchased for five dollars on the specials rack at a San Diego bookstore.

#31: Coward's Kiss by Lawrence Block

Mystery writer Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder mystery series is a notable achievement (with When the Sacred Ginmill Closes being one of my favorite mysteries of all time), but back in Block's peanut-butter days he penned this potboiler with P.I. Ed London. London is a somewhat highbrow detective who, in the end, isn't above helping his brother-in-law ditch a dead mistress. Naturally this becomes more complicated, and London gets drawn into the dead woman's web.

Coward's Kiss is a muscular, fast-moving detective novel, but to date London has unfortunately never returned in a follow-up case.

My wife spotted this one in a bookstore in San Diego, in a collection of "Five Great Novels by Lawrence Block" at the good-bye price of five dollars. I am starting on the next one right away on this sunny vacation.