Captain America: Sam Wilson: Not My Captain America by Nick Spencer (Writer), Daniel Acuna (Artist), Mike Choi (Aritst), Paul Renaud (Artist), Romuld Fajardo (Colorist), and VC's Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

This first comic opens with the former Falcon, Sam Wilson, who Steve Rogers passed down the mantle of Captain America too not to long ago, flying coach on a plane going somewhere and the story is told in flashbacks beginning with his takedown of Hydra.  Something really bad has happened between him and SHIELD that has caused the two of them to break off with the Hydra job being the last thing he seems to have agreed to do for them and then leave.  

Sam decides to go to the press and offer up his ideas on what can be done to make things better and gets raked over the coals for it.  His reputation is in tatters.  He still wants to help people so he sets up a hotline for people to call him if they need him. This turns out to be a bit of a mistake in a way because he gets calls from people who want him to do something about a cheating husband, a canceled TV show, and noise complaints.

But one of them is from a grandmother whose grandson, Joaquin is missing. He would go out into the desert to leave water and supplies for those who cross the border and he went out to do just that and hasn't come back home. The police won't help and the grandmother believes that he has been taken by the group the Sons of the Serpent.

Misty Knight his work partner (do not think of calling her a sidekick) refuses to go to the Mexican border because she thinks it's dangerous and a waste of time and money they don't have.  Dennis Dunphy, his pilot, mechanic, and field backup does not have much to do since there's no money for this mission. Sam's brother, a pastor, raises enough funds for him to take a plane trip to and from there (coach of course).

When he gets there he runs into SHIELD and discovers that the men he meets aren't the real power behind the Sons of the Serpent.  There is a doctor who has been taking some of the men who cross the border and using them for experiments.  The Sons of the Serpent are a corporation now run by Viper the criminal who now preaches hate and intolerance and has a hidden agenda. Of course, the once evil Diamondback makes an appearance, whom Steve Rogers dated for a while when she went straight.

The story is really great and Misty and Dennis are just fabulous characters.  Misty is a total kick ass and a smart ass, who takes no crap from anyone--including Sam.  Dennis is a sweet guy who has been through a lot in life and survived it and at the same time can just absolutely take down the bad guys.  The paneling for the fight scene at the end is very creatively done.  The colors are mostly glorious reds and oranges due to Sam's wings and the fight scenes. But some of the non-fight scenes are done up in those colors too to show the emotions of the scene. Overall this is a great start to the Sam Wilson Captain America.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Captain-America-Wilson-Vol-2015-2017-ebook/dp/B01DCJIW8C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498835336&sr=8-1&keywords=captain+america+sam+wilson+vol+1        

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Published in 1932, but set in the not too distant future for some obscure reason, this novel tells the tale of the now orphaned Flora Poste who does not wish to get a job, but cannot live off of the yearly sum of one hundred pounds, decides to write letters to relatives and see if she can live with one of them for a while until she finds a suitable husband--not that she's looking for one at the moment.  Her best friend the widowed Mrs. Smiling who has a coterie of suitors trailing after her with the oddest of nicknames such as Bikki and Swooth thinks she is nuts. But when Flora decides upon the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex due to the odd nature of the letter she received wherein her cousin Judith told her that they would take her in due to some debt they owed her father that had cursed the farm but to not ask her what it was about because she would not tell her.  Flora tells Mrs. Smiling that she will send word when she gets there if there is an oversexed Seth or a Reuben and if she'll need gumboots.  Her darling friend Charles tells her he will come in his aeroplane anytime she needs a lift back home.

Of course, when she gets there she immediately sends a wire back to Mrs. Smiley that there is indeed a Seth and a Reuben and she has a definite need of gumboots.  Adam, the first person of the household that she meets, takes care of the cows and other animals on the farm and is about ninety-years-old.  He adores all animals and often sings to them.  Seth does nothing around the farm but gets the serving girl pregnant. He has four illegitimate children and loves to go the "talkies" (movies).  Reuben is trying to run the farm but is not being allowed to.  His father Amos has a fire in his belly to preach to the sinners of hellfire and brimstone which he does in town once a week.  Seth's mother, Judith stays in bed and moans about her son Seth.  Mrs. Beetle, the serving girl, Meriam's mother and Meriam on occasion, take care of the house and cook the meals other than breakfast, which Adam poorly fixes.  And then there was Mrs. Starkadder, Aunt Ada Doom, who has shut herself up in her room only to be seen twice a year by the family.  She has her meals brought up to her daily by Mrs. Beetle and the farm records are also brought up regularly.  As Aunt Ada Doom is fond of saying "There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm".  And as long as she is alive none of them are to leave to even go into the big town of Beershorn except when the money needs to be deposited into the bank.  They all bicker and fight with each other and the other Starkadders that I haven't named (there are many) that are married their wives live off the site because they are not welcome in the house.  

Flora immediately takes it upon herself to fix the problems that Cold Comfort Farm is having and make things right.  She starts with Amos and Reuben. She encourages Amos to go out and preach town to town and city to city in a Ford van, which would let Reuben have control of the farm. She also works on her woods-wild cousin Elfine to turn her into a lady so she can be made into a marriageable material.  But she doesn't stop there. She has plans for others as well and the whole thing snowballs. The only problem thwarting her plans is the mean and supposedly crazy Aunt Ada Doom who saw something in the woodshed when she was little that made her lose her mind.  

This book is a delight to read. It pokes fun at intellectuals (who seem to be obsessed with sex) as well as the country folk.  But it's a good-natured poke. The author makes up a lot of words in this book that you would think they belong to the language of those living in the area of Sussex and one of them was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.  But don't worry about being lost in the language as it is very easy to understand--hilariously so, I might add.  This book is a bit ridiculous and you just have to go with the flow as you will realize when the cows start losing hooves.  Just suspend belief and take a step into the unreality of this wacky novel.

Here's more information about the novel: http://www.bookdrum.com/books/cold-comfort-farm/9780140274141/bookmarks-1-25.html?bookId=1186

Quotes

 There are some things (like first love and one’s reviews) at which a woman in her middle years does not care to look too closely.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 7)

I am only nineteen, but I have already observed that whereas there still lingers some absurd prejudice against living on one’s friends, no limits are set, either by society or by one’s own conscience, to the amount one may impose upon one’s relatives.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 15)

My idea of hell is a very large party in a cold room.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 16)

Curious how Love destroys every vestige of that politeness which the human race, in its years of evolution, has so painfully acquired.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 31)

Never confront and enemy at the end of a journey, unless it happens to be his journey.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 47)

Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation!

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 100)

He said that a woman’s success could only be estimated by the success of her sexual life…

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 122)

Richard had realized, not that Elfine was beautiful, but that he loved Elfine. (Young men frequently need this fact pointed out to them, as Flora knew by observing the antics of her friends.)

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm)

She knew from experience that intellectuals thought the proper—nay, the only—way to fall in love with somebody was to do it the very instant you saw them. You met somebody, and thought they were ‘A charming person. So gay and simple.’ Then you walked home from a party with them (preferably across Hampstead Heath, about three in the morning)discussing whether you should sleep together or not. Sometimes you asked them to go to Italy with you. Sometimes they asked you to go to Italy (preferably Portofino) with them. You held hands, and laughed, and kissed them and called them your ‘true love’.  You loved them for eight months, and then you met somebody else and began being gay and simple all over again, with small-hours’ walk across Hampstead, Portofino, invitation, and all. It was very simple, gay, and natural, somehow.

-Stella Gibbons (Cold Comfort Farm p 190)

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Comfort-Farm-Stella-Gibbons-ebook/dp/B00ODEFPRM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498655458&sr=8-1&keywords=cold+comfort+farm

    

Kill the Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky

They never meant for things to go as far as they did. Narrated by a teen girl whose real name you never get to know (she changes them as she introduces herself to others as characters from 80s movies such as Diane Court from Say Anything) this book starts off with a group of four teen girls who have kidnapped the least liked of the most popular boy band in the world, The Ruperts.  The Ruperts were formed when they all appeared as contestants on the show So You Think the British Don't Have Talent?  One of the judges noticed all the Ruperts signs in the audience and thought the four of them should form a band together to finish out the competition.  So Rupert Lemon (who did an opera jazz song), Rupert Kirke (who did something on an acoustic guitar), Rupert Xavier (who combined singing with modeling), and Rupert Pierpont (the juggler) all got together and formed The Ruperts and won the contest and were an overnight success.

What got the girls in the mess they are in now is that The Ruperts decided to do a show called The Ruperts Learn About Thanksgiving! in New York City where the four girls, Erin, the gorgeous boss (who likes Rupert L.), Isobel the commanding crazy one with the all the info on the band and a website dedicated to them (who likes Rupert X) , and Apple (who likes Rupert P), who is overweight and whose parents have a lot of money, live.  Diane likes Rupert K.  The girls desperately want tickets to the show.  Apple's maid gets them a room since they aren't adults and can't get it for themselves, at the hotel the boys are staying at.  When Apple goes out to get ice she spots Rupert P and she tackles him and brings him back to the room.  They immediately tie him up with stockings and blindfold him.

Diane wants to do the right thing and untie Rupert P and let him go before they get into the kind of trouble that leads to jail.  But will she be able to beat the peer pressure beating down on her by her friends who are growing crazier by the second and taking her with them down a demented path that will go where you least expect it to?  This book explores the idea of boy bands and the good and evil that they inspire in their followers in a darkly humorous way.  I really loved this book and its originality and crazy ideas. I highly recommend reading it.

Quotes

I was holding someone captive and all that was going through my mind was a Billboard Top 40 love song. I was going to hell.

-Goldy Moldavsky (Kill the Boy Band p 11)

Happiness isn’t always easy, but it’s a priority.

-Goldy Moldavsky (Kill the Boy Band p 21)

Because the truth is, it isn’t worth loving something if you aren’t going to love it all the way.

-Goldy Moldavsky (Kill the Boy Band p 32)

The joy you find as a teen, however frivolous and dumb, is pure, and meaningful.  It doesn’t matter that it might ferment and taste different when you’re older. That’s the whole point of being a teenager—not worrying about the future.

-Goldy Moldvsky (Kill the Boy Band p 63)

Carrie Underwood, take the wheel—I was not okay.

-Goldy Moldvsky (Kill the Boy Band p 121)

Erin says girls apologize too much. We say “I’m sorry” almost as much as we say “Hello.”

-Goldy Moldvsky (Kill the Boy Band p 128)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Boy-Band-Goldy-Moldavsky-ebook/dp/B013504FBG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498482323&sr=8-1&keywords=kill+the+boy+band

Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill (Writer), Gabriel Rodriguez (Art), Jay Fotos (Colors), and Robbie Robbins (Letters)

The Locke family, which includes the mother, Nina, and her three kids Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode and Nina's dead husband's brother Duncan move across the country when two teens, Sam Lesser and Al Grubb shoot and kill Rendell Locke, the husband, and father because he wouldn't give them something they wanted.  He had always told them to go and live in the Keyhouse in Massachusetts with Duncan if anything ever happened so they packed up and did.  The Keyhouse is Duncan and Rendell's childhood home and a place of great mystery.

This comic tells the story of the day the horrible tragedy happened in flashbacks as it moves the current story in Lovecraft, Massachusettes forward.  Ty is trying to work himself to death in order to not think about what happened and Kinsey has changed her free-spirited appearance to something staider in order for no one to notice her.  Bode has discovered the magic of the place by placing a certain key into a certain door so that when he walks through it he can "die" and become a ghost and travel all over the house and watch people without them knowing it.  He also discovers the mysterious lady in the well who seems to know a lot and might have an agenda of her own.

Joe Hill is a favorite author of mine and in this comic, he really shines.  The artwork is quite graphic and gothic which is perfect for this type of comic. The dusty colors add to that gothic sense of being attached to the special house. The fight scene that lacks any paneling is a genius in its chaotic dance.  Overall this is a fabulous comic and I can't wait to read the next one in the series.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-Vol-Welcome-Lovecraft-ebook/dp/B007KDHKZ8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1498217058&sr=8-3&keywords=locke+and+key

Mrs. Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detecive and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation by Brad Ricca

Grace Winterton Humiston was born in Greenwich Village, New York on September 17, 1869.  While she was practicing law at the turn of the century she would be only one of a thousand female lawyers in the United States. She was appointed the first female U.S. district attorney in history and the first female consulting detective to the New York Police Department.  She dressed all in black with a veil and her motto was "Justice for those of limited means."  She helped many immigrants who came to her door needing assistance that they could not get anywhere else without being swindled.  She freed one man from death row and proved his innocence and in her very first case she got a woman's sentence commuted from death to seven years right before she was to be hanged.

She also, with the help of her trusted detective, Julius J. Kron, went after the peonage system that was mostly in the South where they lured immigrants to come and work there then they had it so they bought everything they needed at the company store at a marked up price. By the end of the month, they owed the company money and needed to keep working to pay off the debt unless someone could send money to them. The worst of them whipped them and made them work and kept them from leaving.  It was just another form of slavery and the two of them took down a large part of the system.

Her biggest case, though, was the Cruger case.  Ruth Cruger went out one winter's day in New York City on February 13, 1917, to run some errands. She had to go to the bank and to pick up her ice skates from the motorcycle shop where they were being sharpened.  She never made it home.  Her sister, Christina raised the alarm to her other sister Helen who was at work that Ruth hadn't come home yet and it had been hours.  Helen told her she had probably gone ice skating but that she would look for her. Helen could not find her either and more importantly, Ruth had never made it to the bank.  She called the lawyer their father, an accountant knew and he called their parents who were in Boston and then the police.

Helen retraced her steps the next day including the mysterious stop at a stationary store. She stopped by the motorcycle shop twice before it showed signs of being open and talked to Alfredo Cocchi the owner who said that he returned her skates and that she went east.  The police received a report from a cab driver that Ruth was seen getting into a cab with a man.  Now, Ruth was a sweet innocent young girl according to her family and while she talked about a boy she knew at Columbia University it wasn't serious enough to name him to her family or for her to run away with him.  The police were now seeing this as a runaway case and not a kidnapping.

But because the case was so high profile and the victim so young and beautiful the mayor of New York made sure to get her picture out there and people saw it nationwide on the movie screen and in papers. She became known as the Heatherbloom Girl.   Leads went nowhere. Mr. Cruger himself combed the area where she was last seen to be going and where the cab was said to have dropped her off and found nothing. There were girls who were called in about that looked like her but turned out not to be her.  He had hired a detective at the start but that didn't work out so he fired him.

In June Mr. Cruger would hire Grace to help him find his daughter and help him she would.  She didn't believe that his daughter had run away. She was quite sure that she was already dead and it was a matter of finding where the body was and she had a pretty good idea of where to look.  While Grace would solve this case, the complexities of it would tie up the court system and make it hard for Ruth Cruger to get justice.  This case really puts Grace on the map and she could do no wrong. She championed her pet cause of white slavery and helping young girls escape the clutches of forced prostitution.  But the higher the pedestal, the greater the fall. And fall she would by her own hand. But she still never stopped helping people in need throughout her life and she was a woman to be admired for all her flaws.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Sherlock-Holmes-Detective-Captivated-ebook/dp/B01H03I7KE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498056295&sr=8-1&keywords=Mrs.+Holmes

When All the Girls Have Gone by Jayne Ann Krentz

When Louise Flint is found dead in her condo of what appears to be a drug overdose her cousin doesn't buy it and hires PI Max Cutler to look into it. Cutler has just left his job as a profiler back in D.C. where he burnt out on his job and blew up his marriage.  Seattle is his chance to start over.  One night Charlotte Sawyer shows up with a key to Louise's locker at her condo. Charlotte works at an old folks home as the entertainment director.  Her sister and Louise were really close friends and Louise had sent Jocelyn the keys with the cryptic message that her copy of the hard drive would be in the locker in case anything happened to her and now she was dead.  Jocelyn was away on a retreat that did not allow technology so there was no way to get in contact with her.

Max is interested in Charlotte because she is the first person to show up to have known Louise.  Charlotte doesn't believe that Louise was using again after she had gone through so much to quit and built up a new life that meant so much to her and besides Jocelyn would have noticed and done something. Besides, the theory that her apartment was robbed by a dealer since her computer was missing doesn't hold up when you notice that her jewelry and the cash in her wallet were still there.  Charlotte and Max decide to join forces to get answers.

The hard drive Louise refers to is a map with five cities circled on it and a printout of two women's obituaries where their deaths were listed as drug overdoses, but Louise had written on the paper that they had been murdered.  Also included were documents of women who had been raped where drugs were involved.  When Max tells Charlotte that Louise's last destination on her car's GPS was Loring, Washington, Charlotte freaks because that is where her sister was raped over ten years ago back when she attended college there.  The suspect came at her from behind and put a bag over her head and a knife at her throat and she wasn't able to identify him. However, she did go to the hospital immediately afterward to do a rape kit, but the evidence box would conveniently disappear.

Louise and Jocelyn belonged to a mysterious investment club that also included Emily, who works in HR in a big business, Victoria, who works in marketing in the fashion world, and Madison, an investment banker.  Charlotte doesn't know the real purpose behind the group or why they might fear that their activities would lead to Louie's death or their own which has them running scared because Jocelyn isn't at the retreat she is on the run and the rest will soon follow.  Or is one of them killing each other off in order to get a bigger piece of the pie on a rather large investment that they are working on that is coming together?

There is plenty here to keep Charlotte and Max busy as they try to unravel the many strands of this mystery and nearly get killed doing so.  Of course, they slowly get closer to each other physically as well as romantically.  I've read better Krentz books, but this one is still pretty good.  I like the characters of Charlotte and Max and the people at the retirement home are a delight.   While it is a little predictable it does hold some surprises that make is worth reading.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/When-All-Girls-Have-Gone-ebook/dp/B01COJUHBQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497873695&sr=8-1&keywords=where+are+the+girls+have+gone

Wonder Woman: The New 52! Volume Two: Guts by Brian Azzarello (Writer), Cliff Chiang (Artist), Tony Akins (Pencil), Dan Green (Ink) Matthew Wilson (Colorist), and Jared K. Fletcher (Letterer)

Wonder Woman along with a wounded Hermes and the strong Lennox (his body is the consistency of rocks and he is the son of Zeus) are looking to find a way to get the pregnant Zola out of the Underworld where Hades has her.  But they will need weapons first and those can only come from Hephaestus, god of the forge.  So they go to Eros, his son and ask him to get them in to see his father.  While there Wonder Woman finds out that the men who work there are all Amazonian men that were traded away for weapons rather than be killed as they were seen as useless to the Amazonians.  She is shocked and tries to free them from what she perceives as their bondage, but really they are free to work there and they like to work there and Wonder Woman makes a fool of herself in her ignorance.

But Hephaestus does agree to loan them some weapons and even Eros lets them borrow his special guns.  But only Wonder Woman and Hermes will be going down to the Underworld. Hermes because he can take someone there and Wonder Woman to get Zola.  While there things go horribly wrong of course and while Zola is saved, Wonder Woman is stuck in the Underworld with Hades to be his bride.  A rescue mission is underway but as Hephaestus says Wonder Woman can take care of herself. Meanwhile, there is a rush for who will take Zeus's throne.

The moody blues and bright oranges and reds really set the tone for Hades and the river of blood is something to behold.  The drawings are incredible and Hades does not quite look like what I would imagine. The images of the dead are creepy as they ought to be and a person I won't name that they run into down there is unbelievably drawn and created here.  This book is a great follow-up to the first book and makes you wonder where the series is going to go next.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Vol-2-Guts-ebook/dp/B00B07LJWA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1497616629&sr=8-3&keywords=wonder+woman+the+new+52