Sunday, April 25, 2021

Now reading...

 "The Chessman" by Jeffrey B. Burton


From BarnesandNoble.com:

Hidden forces are willing to kill any and all who stand in the way of untold billions. To toss the authorities off track, they borrow the modus operandi of a brutal serial killer — 'The Chessman' — who stalked the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. some years earlier. The ruse is working brilliantly except for one minor detail. The real Chessman is not pleased — not pleased one iota — that someone has stolen his M.O. Enter Drew Cady, ex-FBI agent, who finds himself being sucked back into the very case that almost took his life, a case that crippled him both physically and emotionally. By capturing 'The Chessman' and his blood-spattered copycat, Cady has a last shot at redemption. If he can find a way to survive, that is.

Thursday, April 15, 2021

Now reading...

 "The Vesuvius Club" by Mark Gatiss


From BarnesandNoble.com:

Meet Lucifer Box: Equal parts James Bond and Sherlock Holmes, with a twist of Monty Python and a dash of Austin Powers, Lucifer has a charming countenance and rapier wit that make him the guest all hostesses must have. And most do. 

But few of his conquests know that Lucifer is also His Majesty's most daring secret agent, at home in both London's Imperial grandeur and in its underworld of despicable vice. So when Britain's most prominent scientists begin turning up dead, there is only one man his country can turn to for help. 
Following a dinnertime assassination, Lucifer is dispatched to uncover the whereabouts of missing agent Jocelyn Poop. Along the way he will give art lessons, be attacked by a poisonous centipede, bed a few choice specimens, and travel to Italy on business and pleasure. Aided by his henchwoman Delilah; the beautiful, mysterious, and Dutch Miss Bella Pok; his boss, a dwarf who takes meetings in a lavatory; grizzled vulcanologist Emmanuel Quibble; and the impertinent, delicious, right-hand-boy Charlie Jackpot, Lucifer Box deduces and seduces his way from his elegant townhouse at Number 9 Downing Street (somebody has to live there) to the ruined city of Pompeii, to infiltrate a highly dangerous secret society that may hold the fate of the world in its clawlike grip—the Vesuvius Club.