Book Reviews by Elizabeth A. White

The rock world lost a true visionary with the passing of Bill Aucoin yesterday of complications from prostate cancer. Though most well known for having discovered legendary rock band KISS in 1973 – and for launching the merchandising juggernaut that has come to be as associated with the band as their music – Aucoin was also the manager for Billy Squire and Billy Idol among others.

Most recently he had formed a new management company called Aucoin Globe Entertainment, which includes award winning Finnish metal band Lordi and the Louisville, Kentucky based Tantric among its roster.

Through my (then) co-ownership of the KISS Asylum website I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to interview Aucoin back in 1999. The interview coincided with the release of a 13 track interview CD called “Bill Aucoin: 13 Classic KISS Stories” and gave me a chance to put a grab bag of questions to him, many of which had been floating around KISS fandom for years but had never before been addressed to Bill directly.

Ultimately the interview is just a drop in the ocean of a life that influenced many, but I am proud to share it again now as my tiny contribution to the remembrance of a man who had an impact on the rock world that will last forever: Bill Aucoin – The KISS Asylum Interview

“Man, I know our job is to protect and serve, but sometimes I wish we could just let nature thin out the herd.” – Terry Biggs

LAPD Detective Terry Biggs can be forgiven for not being overly enthusiastic about the prospect of locking up the killer he and partner Detective Mike Lomax find themselves tracking in Cut, Paste, Kill, the fourth entry in author Marshall Karp’s consistently excellent Lomax & Biggs series.

After all, the victim at the crime scene they respond to at the book’s opening turns out to be a woman who recently caused a crash while driving drunk that killed a child. But since she was the wife of a foreign diplomat she walked away from the accident without facing any charges because of her husband’s diplomatic immunity.

To remove any doubt as to why she was murdered, the killer leaves an elaborate scrapbook at the scene chronicling coverage of the accident, as well as the devastating impact it had on the family.

Lomax & Biggs soon learn that it wasn’t the first such scrapbook to show up at a murder scene when the F.B.I. informs them that there have been two other “scrapbook murders.” In both prior cases the victims had also escaped any punishment for crimes they had committed.

During the course of the investigation they get a tip from a prison informant which seems to point the way to the killer, as well as reveals that the killer is working from a list, and from there it’s a race for Special Agent Simone Trotter, Lomax and Biggs to find the vigilante scrapbook killer before they can add more victims to their collection. And just when everyone thinks they’ve got it all figured out, Karp serves up a wicked swerve that keeps both the reader and the investigators guessing right up to the very end.

Special Agent Trotter’s introduction to the mix allows for some marvelous exchanges between her and the “always on” humor of Biggs: “You sound like a man who knows a few things about women.” “Agent Trotter, I’ve been married four times, which means that I really don’t know shit about women.” The other major new player in Cut, Paste, Kill, Sophie, the wonderfully precocious 7 year old daughter of a friend, ends up with all concerned wrapped around finger.

Blending edge of your seat mystery and laugh-out-loud humor in such a way that neither steps on the other’s toes is not easy, yet once again Karp proves himself a master of that delicate operation in Cut, Paste, Kill. So what are you waiting for? Buy, Read, Enjoy!

Cut, Paste, Kill is available from St. Martin’s Griffin (ISBN: 978-0312378240).

It’s not unusual these days to find authors on Twitter sharing information about their books, upcoming appearances and just being sociable with their readers. R.N. Morris, whose latest Porfiry Petrovich mystery A Razor Wrapped in Silk was released in April, is one such author.

In addition to socializing with his readers, however, Morris has thrown down a unique challenge for himself and his followers: he writes murder mysteries in 140 characters or less (Twitter’s limit, for those who may not know), his followers try to solve them. As he explains, he felt compelled by the challenge:

“One of the things that appeals to me about Twitter is the creative challenge. You get 140 characters in which to say what’s on your mind. Of course, for some people that isn’t a challenge at all, because it turns out they don’t have that much on their mind to begin with. If all you want to say is “Had tuna bagel for lunch, tasted a bit icky”, then 140 characters is more than enough. But I’m a storyteller by instinct. When I see an empty communication medium – however big or small – I want to fill it with story.

Last year I littered the Twitterverse, or my own section of it, with a sentence-by-sentence serialisation (let’s call it a Twitterisation) of my 2007 novel, A Gentle Axe. Insane endeavour. And now that it’s behind me, I’m not quite sure why I did it. I can only say it seemed like a good idea at the time. Having laid that project to rest, I tried using Twitter like everyone else does. Passing on news of my lunch options, commenting on other people’s updates, waving to strangers, and encouraging friends.
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“During my career I’ve found leaders a scarce commodity. The world is full of managers and directors, but they’re not leaders.” – Colonel Nathan Zinsky, M.D.

A young man is brought into the ER at University Community Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky suffering from what appears to be a particularly nasty case of the flu. Upon learning that the man is employed at a poultry farm, Infectious Disease specialist Dr. Mercato Marcus is the first to recognize there is something much more serious going on.

Suspecting a case of H5N1 avian influenza (“bird flu”), Dr. Marcus sounds the alarm to the Centers for Disease Control. Her bosses, however, are more concerned with the hospital’s image should a panic ensue and it turns out that Dr. Marcus was wrong… she is not.

Unfortunately, the virus’s point of origin being a poultry farm allows for its lightening fast spread: migrant workers, infected but not yet symptomatic, disperse home for the holidays; long haul truckers who truck out the season’s last shipments unwittingly spread the virus at every stop along their routes; a group of global investors looking to acquire the farm are exposed during a tour of the facilities and take the virus back to their home countries with them.

The President tries to control the situation on the domestic front by quarantining several counties surrounding the hospital, but he is met with resistance from the Governor of Kentucky who sees the crisis as a chance to make a show of power for his constituents. So much time is lost to the posturing and playing of politics that by the time Colonel Nathan Zinsky, M.D. from the Centers for Disease Control finally arrives in Louisville University Community Hospital has become ground zero for a global pandemic, the worst since the “Spanish Flu” pandemic of 1918.

Author D.W. Hardin’s unique background in both emergency medicine and law enforcement lends Hidden and Imminent Dangers an unmistakable aura of legitimacy. Every action taken by the medical personnel and police officers rings true, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the character of Mac MacIntosh, a former medic in the Special Forces currently working as an RN in the ER of University Community Hospital.

Given today’s highly mobile society the scenario presented in Hidden and Imminent Dangers is not only entirely possible, it’s just a matter of time some experts argue. An immensely enjoyable medical thriller, Hidden and Imminent Dangers will leave even the most levelheaded reader with flashbacks to the recent H1N1 influenza (“Swine Flu”) scare and questions as to just how ready we are for the next super-virus that comes along.

“Everyone’s patience has its limits.” – Rampart

The fourteen tales that comprise author Amy Grech’s second collection of short stories, Blanket of White, are all about finding people’s limits. Grech takes common themes – love, death, coming of age, sex, family relationships – and drags the reader across the line of comfort on an exploration of the dark side of those familiar situations.

In some, Grech forces the reader to confront that darkness head on, sparing no detail in the horror that people can inflict upon one another: “Prevention,” a demonstration of how the pressure of decades of sibling rivalry and parental neglect can explode horribly sideways; “Raven’s Revenge,” a supernatural tale that tips its bloody cap to the master, Edgar Allan Poe; “Russian Roulette,” in which a love triangle turns decidedly deadly; and “Perishables,” a post-apocalyptic exploration of just how far one man will go to survive.

In others, however, Grech builds her stories around the more nuanced psychological and emotional traumas that people encounter: “Blanket of White,” the title story, is a poignant look at the desperate measures people are willing to take in the name of love; “Initiation Day,” in which a young man makes a life altering choice between fitting in and standing alone; “Crosshairs,” where a father learns, with devastating consequences, just how much his young son has taken his teachings to heart; and “EV 2000,” a clever, futuristic tale of an electronic vampire run amok in its desire to understand what it is to be human.

It is in exploring those emotional shades of gray where the true power of Grech’s writing shines through. As such, it is the wonderfully understated “Damp Wind And Leaves” that is far and away the standout of the collection. Set against the backdrop of a Halloween party, the story skillfully unfurls the emotional evolution of a seventeen year old, over the course of a single evening, from that of a child trying to hold on to his delight in the manufactured scares of Halloween to that of a young man ready to let go of childish things and take the truly scary step forward into adulthood.

While each stands on its own, taken collectively the stories in Blanket of White represent a complete journey through emotions that everyone has experienced – love and hate, jealousy and rage, pride and shame – and does so in an unflinching way that packs a huge emotional wallop.