Jeeves and the King of Clubs by Ben Schott

Jeeves and the King of Clubs: A Novel in Homage to P.G. Wodehouse by Ben Schott --- 316 pages, including Acknowledgements and Notes on Text.

It is a truth universally acknowledged among fans of British humor that no one rivals P.G. Wodehouse's ability to write piffle that leaves readers mopping streaming eyes and heaving for breath amidst gales of uncontrollable laughter.

But Ben Schott has done Wodehouse proud with his "homage" in Jeeves and the King of Clubs.  While he may lack Wodehouse's comic timing and ability to machinate a plot, he shares Wodehouse's genius for hyperbole.

The plot is easily summed up: feckless man about town Bertie Wooster and his peerless gentleman's  gentleman, Jeeves, are summoned to the service of King and Country against the likes of Roderick Spode and his "Black Shorts," who want to "Make Great Britain Great Again."

Click HERE to watch a "trailer" for the book on Youtube.

Click HERE to read the review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review in the Guardian (US edition).

Click HERE to read the review from the Book Reporter.

Noir by Christopher Moore

Noir: A Novel by Christopher Moore --- 339 pages including an Afterword.

The hard boiled hero of the detective story has become pretty much a cliche over the years. Christopher Moore demonstrates how to blow up that cliche in Noir.

Our hero, Sammy, is a sad and lonely loser who works at a seedy bar run by a small time crook in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The year is 1947, which is significant because a key element of the plot revolves around the mysterious crash of a government plane in Roswell, New Mexico in June 1947.

Sammy's life becomes complicated by the arrival of a crate that his nosy boss opens and the unexpected arrival of an amazing dame named Stilton (after the cheese).

Sammy thinks he's found the One in Stilton, and she reciprocates with equal enthusiasm. When suddenly Stilton vanishes, Sammy's desperate to find her. Aided by an amazing collection of friends and bystanders, Sammy rescues Stilton from a close encounter with prototype Men in Black.

Along the way we get a tour of 1940s San Francisco, from Chinatown to Dark Town, where African Americans, migrating from the South to work in the shipyards during the war, rented the houses left empty when Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps. We catch a glimpse of the female drag clubs of North Beach and the Bohemian Club, that all male bastion of privilege where rich men could indulge in privacy. Moore's recreation of the times and mores is, of course, politically uncorrect by today's standards, but accurate to the time and place of 1940s America. But since many of Sammy's friends are are among those who bear the brunt of discrimination, we are also seeing it from their perspective too.

Moore says in his Afterword that he set our to write "noir" but wound up with "perky noir" instead. Let's just say it's definitively vintage "Moore."

Click HERE to read a review from the Chicago Tribune.

Click HERE to read a review from the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Click HERE to read a review from  the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble

The Dark Flood Rises: A Novel by Margaret Drabble --- 325 pages

This is a scathingly funny and clear-eyed look at those so-called golden years in a world that celebrates youth and desperately avoids confronting mortality.

Probably you have to be old enough to really appreciate it.  If you read the first paragraph and find yourself laughing hysterically as you nod your head yes, oh yes! --- then you are old enough to brave the rest of the story. If not, then put it aside for another ten or twenty years.

Briefly, Drabble introduces us to Fran Stubbs and her circle of family and friends, of various ages and mental and physical frailties, all coping in their own distinct ways with the process of aging and its inevitable conclusion.

Click HERE to read the review in the Washington Post.

Click HERE to read the review in The Guardian (US Edition)

Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore

Secondhand Souls: A Novel by Christopher Moore --- 335 pages

Secondhand Souls, is a sequel to A Dirty Job (2006), and continues the adventures of the Death Merchants, the folks who collect and resell the souls of the departed — and their battle to keep the forces of the Underworld from taking over San Francisco.

Our hero, Charlie Asher, died in A Dirty Job, but his soul lives on in a 14-inch tall meat puppet that was put together in a hurry from spare animal parts and lunch meat by the arcane powers of Charlie's Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey.

Then there's Mike Sullivan, who paints the Golden Gate Bridge for a living. One day Mike is confronted by the 223-year-old ghost of a beautiful Spanish girl who is pining for the lover who never came back to claim her.  She tells him the bridge is crowded with thousands of ghosts of lost souls, waiting to be rescued. By Mike. All he has to do is find and foil the Ghost Thief.

And I haven't even mentioned Charlie's seven-year-old daughter Sophie, who happens to be the Luminatus, the Ultimate Death-Dealer. Sophie is guarded by two immortal Hellhounds, Alvin and Mohammed. Or the Taser-wielding banshee who is suddenly keening death and destruction all over town because Charlie's old adversaries, the Morrigan, are back with a mysterious yellow stranger in tow.

Christopher Moore is NOT --- I repeat --- NOT for everyone, but if you enjoy no-holds-barred, wickedly deranged black comedy, you will not find anyone better.

Click HERE for a review from the Dallas News.

Cold Storage, Alaska by John Straley

Cold Storage, Alaska by John Straley --- 298 pages

John Straley calls himself a crime fiction writer, but this is a novel that is almost impossible to categorize. It reminds me of the work of Carl Hiassen, Christopher Moore, Dave Barry, Cory Doctorow, and Elmore Leonard, all authors who like to mix humor, suspense and satire. Cold Storage is the kind of story that would make a great Coen brothers' film. 

The author says the book is about compassion, two brothers trying to reconnect, and people in a small town on the edge of nowhere attempting to cope with a world that's a lot stranger and more bizarre, when you stop and think about it, than they are. You'll know within the first few pages if this book is meant for you, because either you will crack up completely or you will shove the book back on the shelf in total bafflement. Straley is definitely a love him or loathe him kind of author; there's no in-between.  But for those who love him, there is a sequel, The Big Both Ways. It was actually published before Cold Storage, but Straley says it's a sequel, and hints that there may be more stories about the denizens of Cold Storage in the future.

I also found two videos of John Straley talking about the book.  Click HERE and HERE to hear more from the Writer Laureate of Alaska!

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore --- 326 pages

A comic mash up of Shakespeare (Othello, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear) and Edgar Allan Poe (The Cask of Amontillado) with Marco Polo and a Chinese Water Dragon thrown into the mix, along with a large dollop of ribald sexuality and Moore's distinctive snarky humor flavoring the stew.

This is a sequel of sorts to Moore's 2009 novel, Fool, although it can be read on its own. Moore may be an acquired taste but it's one that a lot of people are starting to acquire. Even if you HATED Shakespeare in high school, you will bust a gut laughing at Moore's version of events, complete with bloody ghost --- because there's ALWAYS a bloody ghost! Will would approve.

Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks

Jeeves and the Wedding Bells: An Homage to P.G. Wodehouse by Sebastian Faulks --- 243 pages

Skip the homage and go to the source --- read Wodehouse. Although this is a competent imitation, it's but a pale spectre of the Master himself.

The She-Hulk Diaries, by Marta Acosta

The She-Hulk Diaries, by Marta Acosta , 328 pages

Imagine a person who enjoys "chick lit" (not a big fan of the term, but humor me); now imagine a person who enjoys superhero comic books.  Okay, if those were a Venn diagram, the people who occupy the portion where those overlap are the individuals who might enjoy this book.  Jennifer Walters is a successful lawyer, but she loses her jobs and apartments frequently due to her alter-ego, She-Hulk, who has a tendency to destroy things and not think long-term.  She's determined not to blow this new job, even though the love of her life has resurfaced, the Avengers have distanced themselves from her, and she still can't find a new apartment.  I found this kind of annoying and hard to get into at first, and then it grew on me and I couldn't stop reading it, like a piece of candy that isn't that great but every now and then has an interesting flavor.  P.S., this was all words, to all of those comic book haters out there.  

Full House by Janet Evanovich

Full House by Janet Evanovich, 334 pages


I love Janet Evanovich's books.  They are light, feel good reads.  This was a romantic comedy that has Billie Pearce, a divorced mother of two, falling for millionaire Nick Kaharchek who is teaching Billie to ride horses. When Billie gets injured, Nick steps in to watch over her.  With surprising twists, his cousin Deedee moves in with Billie, and she ends up double dating with Nick and Deedee's boyfriend professional wrestler Frank.  Surprises follow when Nick's car and stables end up on fire that leads Nick to believe his delinquent cousin Max is responsible.  But, the end will reveal who the real bomber is and Billie and Nick will live happily ever after.

Sacre' Bleu: A Comedy d'Art by Christopher Moore

Sacre' Bleu: A Comedy d'Art by Christopher Moore --- 403 pages

I became a fan of Christopher Moore when I read The Stupidest Angel, his scathing lampoon of the zombie jollity of the modern holiday season. In this latest novel, Moore has created an alternative universe for the Impressionists, and a hilarious meditation on the nature of the artist, the compulsion to create, and the power of  inspiration.

On the surface this is a bawdy and epic tale of how aspiring painter Lucien Lessard and the notorious Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (immortalizer and immoralizer of Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge) team up to investigate the supposed suicide of their friend Vincent Van Gogh in 1890, and just why so many artists throughout history seem to end up debauched, diseased and dead, losing their lives in the pursuit of an elusive muse. Not for the faint of heart, Moore is a modern Rabelais, and his view of the human condition is ribald, risible --- and revealing.