Though it has its moments, The Darkest Place is disappointing.  Rich with noir, it fails to deliver, and the villain’s revelation is anticlimactic. Despite this, Judson tells an entertaining tale, but it’s best enjoyed as a whole, and not for its “ironic twist” ending that falls flat.

Deacon Kane is a professor and sometime author drifting on the edge of self-dissolution. Grieving his son’s drowning and his ruined marriage, he’s ensnared in a torrid affair with a married woman, drowning himself in booze, risking both his position and career. When a string of “suicides” emerges in Southampton, Kane finds himself inextricably involved in a Draconian plot that makes no sense, one in which he’s drugged and set up as a suspect.

In an age before political correctness, in 1936 Warner Brothers released The Green Pastures, a movie in which an all black cast play out Bible stories as told in the Deep South. We see white-robed winged angels at a grand fish fry. One still has his cook’s cap still on. They’re waiting for De Lawd, a white-haired and bearded black gentleman in a black frock coat, who smiles and says, “Let the fish fry begin!”

J. Stephen Lang’s The Bible on the Big Screen has many such wonderful details in it. Lang, a prolific author perhaps best known for his Complete Book of Bible Trivia, has compiled a thorough look at films that deal with Bible themes or stories. Running from 1897 to 2007, Lang gives a synopsis, background to the making of the film, and includes a short evaluation without providing an absolute “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.”

Damnation Street is a gritty novel superbly blending contemporary themes with traditional pulp fiction.  With crisp narration, it takes readers to a familiar place: the world of noir/crime fiction, but in new ways.  Sporting archetypal characters that are fresh and inventive, this is a crime fiction delight.

Scott Weiss is a private detective with an instinctual sixth sense giving him special insight into human nature. He’s always one step ahead of clients and suspects alike. A Nero Wolfe of the streets, Weiss lives a lonely life – which makes his obsession with runaway prostitute Julie Wyant dangerous. Even though Weiss “knows” it can only end badly, he pushes on in his pursuit anyway.

Oil! is the inspriation for Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie, There Will Be Blood.

 

Upton Sinclair’s prophetic and humane Oil! begins on the new but empty winding roads of Southern California in the 1920s.  “Dad” (also known as J. Arnold Ross) is an oil operator, cruising over the hills and plains with his son “Bunny” (Arnold Ross Jr.).  As they coast along, future possibilities appear open, free, serene and as unpredictable as every bend and turn wrapping around the glorious and twirling Southern California hills.  Bunny observes this freedom as a dreamer, explorer and most importantly, as young child ripe with a teachable eye for what’s right and good.  He admires his father’s plain and practical business approach, and yet is also keenly aware of the money rushing greed behind every oil strike he makes. 

Jacen Solo is a very bad man.  What started as a series of calculated steps down the Dark Side ladder has escalated into a full-scale freefall.  After the burning of the forests of Kashyyyk, his torture of Ben Skywalker, and his attack on the Millennium Falcon there is only person left in the galaxy who loves him… his young daughter, Allana, currently in the custody of his jaded lover, Tenel Ka.

Desperate for the affection he once held, Jacen makes a desperate bid to keep close the last thing in the galaxy he holds dear.

Fury, as is appropriate to the title, focuses on Jacen’s slide into irrational rage as the Dark Side of the Force begins to cloud and shift the noble ideals that initiated his fall to darkness.  In the beginning of the series he used his power in subtle ways, making surgical strikes to upset the balance of power in his favor, maintaining the mantra that his actions were for the betterment of the galaxy.  Now he seems to be crumbling under the division of his attention between winning a galactic civil and keeping his daughter safe, using his power less like a scalpel and more like a club.

For Nathan Hurst, a music store detective, "miracle" isn't a word in his vocabulary. But when Nathan meets a young woman whose child seems to have some very special abilities, he finds himself believing in things he never thought possible.

The story begins with Nathan remembering his childhood, haunted by family trouble, Tourette’s syndrome, and an overwhelming sense of guilt over his brother’s death. These early wounds have shaped the person that he has become, a man who is both cynical and emotionally fragile. Stuck at the airport while traveling for his job, Nathan shows uncharacteristic kindness towards a woman named Addison Parker. In return, her young son Collin gives him such an extraordinary gift that Nathan doesn’t even believe it at first. Collin gives Nathan his health back.

Some books are fun to read, but others are downright beautiful.  Author/artist Nick Bantock’s books are always stunning, sometimes more so visually than anything else.  His double-set of trilogies following the exotic lives of Griffin Moss and Sabine Strohem will amaze you from start to finish, both through the story and the visuals. 

Griffin & Sabine was the first of six books published in the series.  It was released in 1991, and no one had seen anything like it.  Like each of the other books in the series, it is made up entirely of letters and postcards written between characters.  One page will feature the gorgeous front of the postcard, and then on the back you can read the writer’s words.  Occasionally, the reader literally pulls letters from the envelopes, creating a sense of closeness to the characters, as if she was pawing through Griffin and Sabine’s actual belongings.

When No Country for Old Men was published in 2005, critics absolutely loved it.  They praised it as Cormac McCarthy’s latest masterpiece and one of the greatest books of the year, if not the decade.  The story follows an everyman who finds a lot of abandoned drug money, the serial murdering hitman hired to recover that money, and the aging Texan sheriff who’s trying to piece together the seemingly endless murders connected to the case.

I can’t argue with the critics that this is an incredible book.  The writing is clearly masterful, even if it does feel a bit showy at times.  Even though I found myself frustrated by certain writing tricks, I had to admit that they were very well done. 

There is one word I found used over and over in people’s reaction to No Country: haunting.  People find it haunting because the story is so dark and hopeless.  Survival simply doesn’t happen.  I don’t want to ruin the end of the book for you (or the recently released Coen brothers movie, for that matter), but I think it’s safe to say that it’s not a happy book.

Town tells the story of thirteen young people in one small town, somewhere in Australia.  The specific city and state are never named, which allows it to have a feel of familiarity.  Each of thirteen short stories is told from a different perspective, and they all take place over the course of a year.  It is another book for young adults by James Roy, an award-winning Australian author.

 

Of the many different stories, I found several memorable, a few rather boring, and one quite difficult to read.  Roy explores different techniques and aspects of the short story, telling some in the first and some in the third person.  

 

I really ejoyed the stories of Veronica, Hattie, and Malith.  Malith is a Sudanese refugee, living with his brother and sister in a poor part of town.  Hattie, on the other hand, is the daughter of the mayor and a pharmacist.  Soon after her sister loses her battle with anorexia, Hattie has to figure out whether she should stay with her grieving parents or escape to another part of the country to live with an aunt. 

When author Iris Chang committed suicide in 2004, those who knew her were shocked and grieved. Paula Kamen’s biography Finding Iris Chang is both a memoir of Chang and the chronicles of Kamen’s personal quest to reconcile the image of a successful writer and exciting personality with the depressed, paranoia-prone person that she witnessed her friend become at the end of her life.

Iris Chang was a controversial young researcher who published The Rape of Nanking, an influential book shedding new light on Japanese war crimes in China during World War II. Although I was not familiar with Iris Chang’s writings before beginning this book, Finding Iris Chang drew me in from the start with its engaging (and sometimes painfully honest) narrative. Who was Iris Chang? What made her such a strong individual? Why did she kill herself? These are the questions that Kamen asks as the book progresses. Perhaps the most gripping question she asks herself is: Could I have done something to save her?