The Elliott Bay Book Company

This "gem" of a novel introduces readers to Westlake's long running John Dortmunder series. Dortmunder is a bit like Donald Westlake's/Richard Stark's other series, Parker, but while Parker will probably slit your throat if you cross him, Dortmunder is more likely to devise some clever scheme to outsmart his opponents and achieve his end. In The Hot Rock though, it proves very difficult for Dortmunder and crew to achieve that end - which is the successful heist of the Balaboma Emerald. After assembling his crew of Andy Kelp, Stan Murch, Roger Chetwick, Alan Greenwood; all of whom bring their own special skills to the job, the guys steal the emerald, then they steal it again, and again, striking by helicopter, car, train, and hypnotism. A brilliant comedic caper. See also: Bank Shot, Good Behavior, Road to Ruin, and the novels of Richard Stark.

This book has a bit of everything; it is a haunted house story, but there are no ghosts nor anything supernatural. It is a locked room mystery, it's a dark and stormy night whodunit, it's a buddy cop story, it has sadistic mad scientists, criminally insane murderers, fear, obsession and paranoia. Shutter Island is the stuff of nightmares, and it has some of the finest noir psychological suspense ever written. Read it before seeing the Scorcese movie.

Long before the space age came to lower Queen Anne Hill and we were all invited to take a peek at the 21st century (where's my jetpack?) and required to take visiting relatives up 605 feet, Seattle was host to the Alaska Yukon Exposition in 1909, on what is now the UW campus. This incredibly illustrated and well-researched book chronicles the history of Seattle's first World's Fair, an event that ran four months in 1909 and attracted 3.7 million visitors. Interesting facts: it was the first World's Fair to make a profit, it provided a national platform for women's suffrage, and was designed by the Olmstead brothers. This book is full of fun and interesting history for both locals and out of town guests.

The Last Good Kiss is a hard hitting, gritty, and graphic hard-boiled novel about some pretty nasty people doing some very nasty things. It is squarely on the P.I. tradition established by the likes of Hammet, Chandler, and Ross MacDonald, but C.W. Sughrue is no cleverly quipping cynic in a fedora. Sughrue is a detective who lives in a broken world yet seems to be hoping that the next case might lead to one good thing on the horizon, one good reason to live, one good thing to believe in. An exceptionally well-written modern hard-boiled pulp novel.

In Kirino's English language debut Out, four women get together to dispose of an abusive husband, inbetween the tedium of their factory jobs and oppressive home life. In Real World, Kirino has turned her eye to four high school girls. In a hot, muggy, crowded Tokyo suburb, Toshi, Terauchi, Yuzan, and Kirarin spend their time in endless cram school sessions trying to get into a good college. A neighrbor of Toshi's is found murdered and from that point on the girls lives are forever altered. Focusing on these four characters, Kirino is able to portray the blatant as well as subtle acts of violence done to and by teenagers as well as evoke the tedium, pressure, and angst her characters fuffer. Psychologically intricate and unflinching, Real World is a searing and eye-opening portrait of teenage life in contemporary Japan. Think The O.C. meets the Manson family.

This book is for "Adults of Low Ethical Standards." So reads the heading for chapter one. Well, I don't know about you but I'm sold, sign me up, where do I join.
These days we enjoy this exploitative genre for its campy kitsch, hilariously bad writing, and outlandish misinformation, but at one point these drug themed paperbacks were an extremely transgressive medium inspiring editorials, sermons, and senate hearings.
Dope Menace collects together hundreds of these lurid tomes, from turn of the century yellow fear, to beatniks smokin' reefer, to spaced out hippies trippin' the light fantastic.

My legs are still a little wobbly and I can still feel the sting of sea spray on my cheek after reading this painstakingly researched historically accurate account of the famous mutiny that occured aboar The HMS Bounty in April of 1789 and the remarkable chain of events that followed; including Lt. Bligh's perilous open boat voyage, the pursuit and capture of the mutineers by The Pandora, and a suspensful court-martial.
Reading this book blew apart my notions of the events that transpired aboard The Bounty; fostered primarily by movies; that William Bligh was a tyrannical sea-faring monster sadistically brutal toward his crew. What emerges instead is a man who cared deeply for the safety and welfare of his crew, and although he may have had his faults, was a brilliant navigator who saved many lives. The book reads like an entertaining sea-faring yarn, much like the fiction of such masters as Joseph Conrad, Jack London, Patrick O'Brian, C.S. Forester et al. This book will appeal to fans of Alexander's award winning Endurance.