Laird Barron writes weird. Barron is a good writer, but the stories contained in his collection, The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, are sometimes hard to figure. You’ll need a dictionary, good map skills, and a working knowledge of mythology, world religions, philosophy, horror fiction, and crime pulps to make heads or tails of these… Continue reading The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron
These stories are a throwback to a simpler time; a time when people drove around in faux wood panel station wagons, wore bell bottoms, and read fiction magazines for entertainment. That’s right. People used to read. Fiction. For fun! In magazines! The first Richard Laymon story I ever encountered was “The Champion” published in an… Continue reading Short Stories: The Mystery and Men’s Magazines by Richard Laymon
I’m always the last one at the party when it comes to hot trends. I don’t jump on the bandwagon—I follow well worn ruts down a deserted highway. So when I found a battered copy of Stieg Larrson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on vacation this summer, I decided to see what all the… Continue reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrson
We’ve all read gritty, NYC crime dramas and police procedurals before, but Joseph M. Monks’ Torn to Pieces, hits harder and cuts deeper than most. The chemistry between Detectives Jack Whelan and Burton Carver is similar to Joe R. Lansdale’s brilliant Hap Collins and Leonard Pine novels; I hope Monks has more Whelan/Carver tales to… Continue reading Torn to Pieces by Joseph M. Monks