The Hyperbole

Gaston Leroux The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1908) *** An early locked-room mystery, the first Joseph Rouletabille novel. Very Sherlock Holmesy-ish. A young woman is attacked in her locked room, when her father breaks into the room the attacker is gone and there is no visible means of escape, very curious. Even curiouser (more curious?) is that all the characters refer to this attacker as ‘the murderer’ even though the victim wasn’t killed, maybe it’s a bad translation (it’s originally in French) or an archaic use of the word, either way it was kind of distracting.

KEN BRUEN A Fifth of Bruen: Early Crime Fiction of Ken Bruen (2017) *** Title say it all, as with most compilations the quality of the stories varies. You can definitely see the bones of his later works in some of these.

Ian Rankin Strip Jack (1992) ***Ā½ Inspector Rebus Book 4 (or five if you count the collection of short stories (which I don’t)) Politician gets caught in a brothel then his wife is killed, investigation ensues.

Yevgeny Zamyatin We (1920) *** The OG dystopian novel, set in the 30th century, people have numbers not names, and are under constant State supervision and control. A loyal State scientist falls for a woman who is part of a resistance movement and his world falls apart.

 

Fourscore

“The Other Custers” lurked in the shadows of the famous General George Armstrong Custer.
Bill Yenne has filled in some of the blanks in a sort of tell all way. Three Custer brothers, a nephew and a brother-in-law were all left dead at the end of the day.
A good bit of background on the Custer family, interesting for fans of history. The biggest complaint is that Bill Yenne could have used Tonio or Mojeaux as a proof reader. A number of misspelled words were included at no extra cost. It’s a quick read
If anyone is interested I’ll be happy to send it your way with free shipping. I’m not a collector, read, enjoy, pass on.
Swiss Servator
https://www.finma.ch/de/dokumentation/finma-publikationen/berichte/risikomonitor/
I am living the dream.