Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
S.A. Cosby is one of my must-buy authors. I’m not alone. For the last two years, S.A. Cosby won the Anthony Award for Best Novel (Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears – both get my highest recommendation). Now Mr. Cosby’s next novel has been announced. All The Sinners Bleed will drop on June 6, 2023. Pre-orders are available now.
White Buffalo (1977)
Directors: J. Lee Thompson
Screenplay: Richard Sale based on his novel The White Buffalo
Starring: Charles Bronson, Jack Warden, Will Sampson, Kim Novak, Clint Walker, Stuart Whitman, Slim Pickens, John Carradine, Ed Lauter and Martin Kove
Tagline: Two legendary enemies unite to fight the charging white beast!!
The Overview: Beware of spoilers…
Wild Bill Hickcock (Bronson) tormented by dreams of being killed by a giant white buffalo, heads west to face his fears. While on the hunt for the beast, Hickcock meets Chief Crazy Horse (Sampson) who also wants to kill the creature. Although natural enemies, Hickcock and Crazy Horse slowly develop a mutual respect as they attempt to track and kill the monster.
While Hickcock did wear his guns in a sash, sunglasses weren’t invented until decades later and look so out of place in Bronson’s characterization. The White Buffalo is a giant creature that works best, and is almost hypnotizing in dream sequences. In the final scenes (where Sampson has jumped on it’s back), the buffalo looks silly. The most fun in the film is seeing star cameos by Kim Novak, Clint Walker, Stuart Whitman, Slim Pickens, John Carradine, Ed Lauter and Martin Kove.
White White Buffalo earns 3 of 5 stars.
Any time that Max Allan Collins has a new book coming out it is time to celebrate. If the new novel is a Nathan Heller tale, then plan an even bigger party. Collins takes true life cases, does intensive research and then writes a fictional account with Nathan Heller in the middle of things. Max Allan Collins’ new Nathan Heller novel is titled The Big Bundle.
True Crime detective Nathan Heller returns in a brand new case that connects a millionaire’s kidnapped child to Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign to bring down union boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Nathan Heller, star of MWA Grandmaster Max Allan Collins’ most acclaimed series of novels (more than 1 million copies sold to date!), comes to Hard Case Crime for the first time in an all-new thriller drawn from the pages of history. A millionaire’s son is kidnapped and private eye Heller is called in to help. But when half of the record $600,000 ransom goes missing, Heller must wade through a morass of deception and depravity to blow the lid off a notorious crime whose consequences reach into the corridors of power in Washington D.C., where Bobby Kennedy works tirelessly to take down crooked union boss Jimmy Hoffa…
Deal me in. Pre-orders are available now!
Bitter Root by David Walker, Chuck Brown and Sanford Greene is getting the deluxe hardcover treatment. Check this out…
BITTER ROOT IS A TWO-TIME EISNER WINNER FOR BEST CONTINUING SERIES!
For generations the Sangerye family has fought to protect the world from the evil plague of the jinooï¿9;hideous creatures born out of hate and racism. But now the family must face an even greater evil that has arisen to destroy humanity, and threatens to rip the family apart.
Collects: BITTER ROOT #1-15, BITTER ROOT Red Summer Special
If this sounds like something you’d like, then jump in. The water’s fine. Pre-orders are available now.
Too Dead to Die: A Simon Cross Thriller by Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin will be released on December 20, 2022. Here’s the lowdown…
Writer/artist team Guggenheim/Chaykin (BLADE, WOLVERINE) reunites for an all-new original that brings classic spy novels to the modern world.
In the 1980s, Simon Cross was America’s top super-spy. Today, his past has come back to haunt him, forcing him out of retirement for one final adventure.
I’ve been a Chaykin fan since the mid-70s. Anything he writes, or in this case draws, is worth a look. Pre-orders are available now. Deal me in.
Cold in July (2014)
Director: Jim Mickle
Screenplay by: Nick Damici, Jim Mickle based on the novel, Cold in July by Joe R. Lansdale
Starring: Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard, Don Johnson, Vinessa Shaw, Lanny Flaherty and Wyatt Russell
Tagline: How many men can one bullet kill?
The Overview: Beware of spoilers…
When Richard Dane (Hall) accidentally shoots and kills Freddy Russell, an intruder in his home, the Chief of Police assures Dane that he did nothing wrong. The intruder is a known thief who comes from a family of criminals. In fact, the intruder’s father, Ben Russell (Shepard) will be released from prison later in the week.
Ben Russell ins a real hard case. He confronts Richard about killing his son and makes a veiled threat to get retribution. When Richard goes to the police, the Chief says that until Ben does something to break the law, nothing can be done. Richard starts to storm out of the police station when he sees a wanted poster for Freddy Russell… and the photo on it is NOT the man that Richard killed!
Richard discovers that the Police Chief is lying to him and Ben Russell… but why? If he can convince Ben that they’re both being played, perhaps they can solve the mystery… if they’re not killed first.
A Cold Day in July is a great adaptation of Joe Lansdale’s novel. Hall and Shepard are excellent. Wyatt Russell has a small, but important role and nails it. Don Johnson was born to play Jim Bob Luke. I could see a movie or series based on his character. A Cold Day in July starts as one thing, morphs into a mystery of why the cops are lying and ends as a rescue mission by three men who would have never been friends.
Cold in July earns 4 of 5 stars.
Joe Lansdale is on my must-read list for ANY novel that he writes. I emphasize any because Lansdale writes in whatever genre strikes his fancy. His upcoming novel is titled The Donut Legion. Here’s the synopsis…
Edgar award-winning author Joe R. Lansdale beams a light on an East Texas town held in the grip of conspiracy.
Charlie Garner has a bad feeling. His ex-wife, Meg, has been missing for over a week and one quick peek into her home shows all her possessions packed up in boxes. Neighbors claim she’s running from bill collectors, but Charlie suspects something more sinister is afoot. Meg was last seen working at the local donut shop, a business run by a shadow group most refer to as ‘The Saucer People’; a space-age, evangelist cult who believe their compound to be the site of an extraterrestrial Second Coming.Along with his brother, Felix, and beautiful, randy journalist Amelia “Scrappy” Moon, Charlie uncovers strange and frightening details about the compound (read: a massive, doomsday storehouse of weapons, a leashed chimpanzee!) When the body of their key informer is found dead with his arms ripped out of their sockets, Charlie knows he’s in danger but remains dogged in his quest to rescue Meg.
Brimming with colorful characters and Lansdale’s characteristic bounce, this rollicking crime novel examines the insidious rise of fringe groups and those under their sway with black comedy and glints of pathos.
Pre-orders are available now. Deal me in.
I’m Still Alive by Roberto Saviano and Asaf Hanuka just came onto my radar. I’m a fan of crime stories and this is a true one.
For the first time since the publication of his internationally bestselling novel, Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano shares his early-life experience with the violence of the Neapolitan Mafia and how exposing them irrevocably changed his life.
Italian journalist Roberto Saviano was twenty-six years old when he published his first book, Gomorrah, to international acclaim. The book, which has gone on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, was a detailed exposé of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, whose organized crime tactics have permeated all matters of industry in Naples: government, infrastructure, high fashion, and drugs. Over fifteen years after Gomorrah’s release, Saviano’s life has been under constant threat from would be assassins who forced him to leave his native Italy and to live under constant police protection. For the first time since then, Saviano shares his deepest thoughts and experiences of early life in Naples, witnessing the power and violence of Camorra firsthand, his current existence living under guard, all the while continuing to call attention to the deeply rooted crime and corruption that plagues his home. Collaborating with award-winning cartoonist Asaf Hanuka (The Realist, The Divine), both writer and artist examine a life behind armed guard whose best recourse against oppression is through old fashioned pen and paper.
I like the art style that Hanuka is using to tell the story.
I’m Still Alive drops on October 11, 2022. Pre-orders are available now.
Killadelphia took the comic world by storm. If you know, you know. If you don’t know, here’s a summary…
Finally, the acclaimed horror title which was nominated for an Eisner Award for “best new series” is collected in a stunning hardcover featuring the first 12 issues and more!
From RODNEY BARNES, the breakout star comics scribe and television writer behind HBO’s Winning Time, and the show-stopping artist who redefined SPAWN for a new generation, JASON SHAWN ALEXANDER.
When a small-town beat cop comes home to bury his murdered father, revered Philadelphia detective James Sangster Sr., he stumbles into a mystery that will lead him down a path of horrors and shake his beliefs to their core. The city that was once the symbol of liberty and freedom has fallen prey to corruption, poverty, unemployment, brutality…and vampires.
Now, it’s up to Jimmy and an unexpected companion to stop long-thought-dead President of the United States John Adams from building an undead army and staging a bloody new American revolution.
There’s a reason they say you can’t go home again. Welcome to Killadelphia.
Collects KILLADELPHIA #1-12 and chapters 1-5 of the terrifying werewolf tie-in story ELYSIUM GARDENS
I’m glad that Killadelphia is getting the deluxe hardcover treatment. I’m looking forward to mine. Pre-orders are available now.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The Deluxe Hardcover by Quentin Tarantino
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Harper
First sentence…
The buzzer on Marvin Schwarz’s desk makes a noise.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the fictionalized account of Hollywood actor and tv star, Rick Dalton, his stuntman and best friend, Cliff Booth and the famous/infamous folks they run into in Hollywood in the late 60s. If you’ve seen Tarantino’s movie of the same name, then you know the story… or at least most of it. The novel goes into greater detail especially in regard to Cliff Booth. If you liked the movie, you should enjoy the book. If you think, I’ve seen the movie, I don’t need a rehash in a novelization, you might be surprised. There’s a different story structure in the novel than the film and time to dig a deeper into the characters.
If you haven’t seen the movie, let me get you up to speed. Rick Dalton was a rising movie star. He had a western tv series called Bounty Law. It was popular and ran for a few years. Dalton then went into feature films, but that was then. Now Dalton appears to be on his way down. He’s been regulated to guest starring in television shows and usually ends up beaten and beaten up by the star of the show. Dalton hopes he’ll get another run at feature films. Cliff Booth is a World War II decorated vet, a stuntman and Rick’s best friend. Booth may or may not have killed his wife (we find out for sure in the novel). He also went toe-to-toe with Bruce Lee in a challenge that pretty much ended Booth getting stunt work. Rick and Cliff will also have run-ins with the Charlie Manson family, Sharon Tate and others. To say more would be to say too much,
Tarantino is more of a story-teller than a writer. Someone said if the novel was better written, it wouldn’t be as good. That may sound strange, but I get the sentiment. As you read Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, there’s the feeling that we’re hearing the tale from an insider and not a writer somewhere trying to polish his prose. I loved the inside stories/legends of real life actors/actresses in Hollywood.
The Deluxe Edition also features a Rick Dalton Bounty Law episode script; Photos of lobby cards from two of Rick Dalton’s feature films, two Bounty Law stills, two Bounty Law TV Guide covers, two Bounty Law comic book covers, a Bounty Law lunchbox, Bounty Law production art, a Bounty Law board game, 8 movie posters featuring Rick Dalton and other real-life stars, and a MAD magazine Bounty Law parody featuring the cover and story by Andrew Secunda and Tom Richmond.
I enjoyed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and hope that Tarantino writes more novels. I’m a sucker for a good story.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood rates 4 of 5 stars.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The Deluxe Hardcover
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Paperback
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Kindle
Created and written by David Stephan and Marysol Levant
Additional writing and dialogue by Brian Phillipson
Art by Alex Cormack
Colors by Ashley Cormack and Alex Cormack
Letters and book design by Alex Murillo
The Overview: Beware of spoilers…
Train 8 is a high speed train traveling from Seattle to Chicago a few days before Thanksgiving. It is barreling along when a passenger infected with a virus dies and reanimates as a zombie. Soon things are out of control as passengers fight an ever-increasing number of the undead. Surviving the zombies may not be enough, since the government plans to destroy everyone and everything on the train!
Train 8 was originally written as a film script. It probably would have made a cool movie. It’s not bad as a graphic novel. Although the writing is a bit redundant/clunky in places, the story moves. Some scenes are colored a bit too dark, but that’s expected when the lights go out. ; ) Props for the ending which is foreshadowed but is still a surprise and sets up a potential sequel.
Overall, I enjoyed TRAIN 8. If you’re a zombie fan, you should give it a look.
TRAIN 8 – The Zombie Express earns 3 of 5 stars.
Anthony Neil Smith has a new book out. It’s a sequel to Slow Bear titled, Slower Bear. Here’s the lowdown…
Micah “Slow Bear” Cross returns in another breathless slice of pitch-perfect pulp from noir legend Anthony Neil Smith.
After successfully faking his own death, we catch up with Micah “Slow Bear” Cross standing in a field in Nebraska with his boot on the neck of a Ukranian human trafficker.
So far, so Slow Bear.
After handing out some of his trademark summary justice, Micah finds himself the temporary custodian of two very young, and very scared victims of trafficking.
Along with his latest one-night stand Abeline, Slow Bear and the girls launch themselves into a desperate fight for survival as they do all they can to escape the clutches of the ruthless trafficking gang who are out for revenge and restitution.
What follows will absolutely delight fans of Anthony Neil Smith and pulp-noir lovers everywhere…
I’m a Anthony Neil Smith and am happy for the return of Micah “Slow Bear” Cross. Slower Bear sounds like another winner. My order is in. If you’d like to get on board…
Slower Bear Paperback
Slower Bear Hardback
Slower Bear Kindle
Nick Kolakowski’s Hell of a Mess is dropping soon and the fact that it’s a Love & Bullets Hookup makes my smile even bigger. Here’s the synopsis…
The heist should have been a simple one: infiltrate the top floor of a luxury New York City penthouse, steal a server with compromising data from under the noses of the unsuspecting guards, and slip back out. Fiona, master thief and occasional assassin, has pulled off similar jobs dozens of times. But with a massive hurricane bearing down on the East Coast, the timing is tight and the escape routes are limited-and that’s before she discovers something horrific in the penthouse’s master bedroom.
Now Fiona’s on the run, trying to stay one step ahead of rising floodwaters and an army of hired assassins. Her husband Bill, the finest hustler between Florida and Maine, can’t help her: he’s been kidnapped by a group of dirty cops who want the secret millions left by his former employer. The night will take the two of them from the heights of money and power in Lower Manhattan to a haunted island in the East River where no secrets stay buried forever.
It’s going to be one hell of a night… and one hell of a mess.
If this sounds like something you’d like, pre-orders are available now. I’m in.
Hell of a Mess Trade Paperback
Hell of a Mess Kindle
Blood and Bullets by James R. Tuck
Trade Paperback: 258 pages
Publisher: Falstaff Books
First sentence…
Some nights are just destined to go to hell.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Deacon Chalk hunts things that go bump in the night. Yeah, that’s right. Monsters. Chalk didn’t even believe in such things until his wife and daughter were killed by vampires. Now he’s a monster hunter.
When a young woman tries to hire Chalk to kill someone who calls himself Nyteblade, Chalk gets enough information to warn the wanna-be vampire hunter that he’s been marked for death. When Chalk shows up for a meeting with “Nyteblade” he finds himself in an ambush. The most powerful vampire Deacon Chalk has ever heard of plans to make Chalk her slave!
James R. Tuck has created a winner. Blood and Bullets is the first in the Deacon Chalk series. I’d never read a Tuck book before, but after reading a few paragraphs of Blood and Bullets, I picked up the Deacon Chalk trilogy. (There are more books coming.) Tuck’s Deacon Chalk and his supporting cast come across as real people placed in unreal situations. I had a blast with Blood and Bullets and look forward to more Deacon Chalk adventures. (Oh, and before I wrap up this review — how about that cool cover by Natania Barron!)
Blood and Bullets rates 4 of 5 stars.
Blood and Bullets Hardback
Blood and Bullets Paperback
Blood and Bullets Kindle
