Charlie Martz and Other Stories

I'm not a big fan of short stories, but I read another collection of Leonard's short stories and I liked it, so I thought I'd five this one a go. It wasn't bad, the stories were mostly a mix of old West tales with some stuff from the 1950s. A lot of "trespasser in the woods" type of stuff. Most were pretty forgettable but a few were good. At any rate, it was a quick read. I just wish he would have written more Raylan Givens stories before he passed away. I really enjoyed those.

The Last Town

"The Last Town" by Blake Crouch is the third Wayward Pines book, and hopefully, based on how it ended, not the last. It veered off sharply from the TV show in this one. After David Pilcher shut off power to the fence and opened the gate to let the abbies in, most of the town is slaughtered. Ethan Burke and his family manage to hide and escape the massacre, and Ethan is able to bring in reinforcements from David's mountain to kill the abbies in town, restore power, and close the gate. Adam Hassler has returned from his scouting mission with grim news: abbies are everywhere, and the rest of the world is gone. The town is facing a real dilemma: their food supplies are running out, and within four years they'll be facing starvation. They can't move the town, based on Hassler's reports, and they don't have enough time to grow food to stock their reserves, so the townspeople make a bold decision: they'll go back in suspended animation and wake up in the future, hoping that it will be kinder and not as bleak. All right, Mr. Crouch, let's get crackin' on book four please! :)

Normal

"Normal" by Graeme Cameron is about an unnamed serial killer who likes to keep women locked up in a cage in his basement. He's playing a dangerous game with the local police, who have him on their radar after the disappearance of a prostitute leads them to him. The killer has also fallen in love, of sorts, with a girl named Rachel. At one point I thought I had the twist figured out: that Rachel would be a serial killer and be trapping *him* but I was wrong (and disappointed, that would have made for an excellent book!). The killer also has a young woman named Erica locked up in his cage, and because of his distraction with Rachel it's causing him to do stupid things with Erica. The book lost a little bit of believability for me at the point when Erica had a chance to escape and instead came back to him, because living with a guy who keeps you locked up in a cage is better than living with your stepfather. Um...no. It was still a good story and I liked the ending.

Dexter is Dead; The Good Girls

The final volume of Jeff Lindsay's highly entertaining Dexter Morgan series did not disappoint, unlike the ending of the TV show. Jeesh. Anyway, poor maligned Dexter is in jail, accused of a crime he didn't commit: the murder of actor Robert Chase. Detective Anderson is determined to nail Dexter for the crime, going to great lengths to frame him. Even Dexter's sister Deborah thinks he's guilty. Luckily his biological brother Brian comes to his rescue and hires a high powered attorney to represent Dexter. Dexter is suspicious of Brian's motives, and soon learns why he's being so generous: he stole a great deal of money from a drug lord named Raul, who is sending hit men after him. Brian wants Dexter's help in getting rid of these killers. Dexter keeps being mistaken for Brian and has a couple of close escapes before Raul kidnaps his and Deborah's kids. Desperate to get them back, Deborah agrees to team up with Dexter and Brian and goes on the hunt for Raul and the kids. The ending was highly satisfying, although I will be sad to see Dexter go, he was always so much fun to read about.

I wasn't really into Sara Shepard's "Good Girls", the sequel to "The Perfectionists", until about 2/3 of the way through when she tossed a wicked good twist in there. One by one, the people the girls wished were dead in film studies class are turning up murdered. They don't know if someone overheard their discussion and is killing people off for them, or, even worse, if one of them is the killer. Julie is worried for her friend, Parker, who is getting more and more uncommunicative. After being missing for several days, Julie finally tracks Parker down, and Parker confesses to the crimes. Julie promises to protect her best friend. The other girls confront Julie at a Halloween party, convinced she's the killer, and Julie tearfully breaks down and admits it's Parker. The other girls are horrified: Parker's been dead for over a year. Julie refuses to believe it, and is arrested, sent to a mental hospital for treatment, but she escapes. All right! Now we're getting somewhere :)

I, Fatty

This was a great fictionalized account of the poor maligned Roscoe Arbuckle, silent film star of the early days of Hollywood who was falsely accused of raping and murdering a girl named Virginia Rappe. Roscoe endured three trials, the first two ending in hung juries, before finally being acquitted in the third one. Unfortunately the damage to his reputation was done, and while Roscoe tried hard to get back into Tinseltown's good graces, he didn't have powerful enough friends to do so. It was a great story, well told by author Jerry Stahl.

Preparation for the Next Life; Pines; Wayward

Atticus Lish won the 2015 PEN/Faulkner award for "Preparation for the Next Life", and it was well deserved. He reminded me a bit of Faulkner (high praise indeed, coming from me). Brad Skinner is a young vet recently back from Iraq. He is suffering from PTSD, but he's slipped through the cracks and is now wandering around New York, unsure of what to do with himself, when he meets Zou Lei. Zou Lei is in America illegally and after having been arrested once she's not eager to repeat the experience. Improbable though it is, the two start a relationship of sorts and even discuss marriage so Zou Lei can be a citizen.
Meanwhile, Skinner's landlady's son, Jimmy, is home after spending time in prison. Jimmy is an instigator and a troublemaker, and knows how to push all of Skinner's buttons. Their stories collide in a terrible way with devastating consequences. Finely written, I enjoyed it.

I started watching Wayward Pines on TV, and noticed that hey, it's based on a series of books, so of course I had to read them. The first one, "Pines", will be familiar if you're up to date with the show: Secret Agent Ethan Burke wakes up after a car accident in a remote Idaho town called Wayward Pines. Something about the town is very off, Ethan senses right away. He spends a few days evading authorities who are less helpful than they should be and discovers there's an electrified fence surrounding the town with no way out. He manages to scale the fence and is attacked on the other side by a creature he has no name for. He manages to fight it off and kill it, and stays alive long enough for David Pilcher to rescue him. Pilcher is the scientist responsible for the town, and he tells Ethan the truth: Wayward Pines is the last town of surviving humans on earth. Back in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Pilcher sunk people into suspended animation and woke them up 2,000 years later. Aberrations, known as Abbies, roam the earth now, dangerous and fierce predators. Pilcher asks Ethan's help in keeping the town safe.

Blake Crouch's second book picks up where the first left off: Ethan is the new sheriff of Wayward Pines, and he's home with his wife and son. Pilcher asks Ethan to investigate a dangerous faction of residents who want to bring down the fence and escape. Ethan knows how dangerous it is beyond the fence. He wants to tell people the truth, but Pilcher insists that they can't handle it, they're too fragile. Ethan disagrees and takes a risky gamble in order to expose Pilcher. Will it backfire? I guess we'll see!

Walking Dead Vol 23: Whispers Into Screams

Robert Kirkman's latest Walking Dead, Vol 23 "Whispers Into Screams" was pretty good. Carl is settling in on Maggie's side of town when they capture a young girl who is part of the group of people who call themselves the Whisperers: they walk among the dead in zombie skins. Carl gets to know Lydia while he's cooling his heels in their makeshift jail, locked up for going a bit overboard and almost beating two guys to death who were hurting Sophia. He convinces Maggie to let Lydia out, saying she's harmless, and Maggie does. Carl spends the day with Lydia, and like a typical teenage boy assumes he's in love with her. Lydia's mom comes to get her and Maggie trades Lydia for the prisoners the Whisperers have, much to Carl's chagrin. When Sophia goes looking for him later, he's vanished, gone off to rescue Lydia.