The Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1: Back to Basics by Nick Spencer (Writer), Ryan Ottley (Penciler, Inker), Cliff Rathburn (Inker), Laura Martin (Colorist), Pete Pantazis (Colorist), Jasen Smith (Colorist), Humberto Ramos (Penciler), Victor Olazaba (Inker), Edgar Delgado (Colorist), VC"s Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

This is one crazy comic that goes in many different directions at once.  With lots of different villains coming out of the woodwork to come at Spider-Man as he deals with something big;  It opens with Boomerang, Ellectrina, and Rhino tearing through downtown after stealing some important stuff when Spidey chases them.  The chase comes to an end when Mayor Kingpin explodes a light ending the fight and having the bad guys arrested but not before taking what Boomerang stole. However, Boomerang got away.  He shows up later when Rodney Robertson, the son of the newspaper writer and Peter who are looking to rent an apartment together decide upon a three-bedroom place and they rent the last room to Boomerang who turns out to be the worst roommate.

Someone wants to bring Peter Parker down and they know the way to do it is by damaging his reputation.  So at an event to honor Peter at his old college Empire State University his old friend Cindy Lawton uses one of his papers to show how the plagiarism machine works thinking that it would show that he didn't cheat. But this was when Otto Octavius took over Peter's body and decided to go back to school and get a doctorate and wrote some papers one of which they're testing now and does indeed come back to Otto.  Then he loses his wonderful job at the Daily Bugle as the Science writer because they can't have a plagiarist on the staff and he loses his doctorate. Even Aunt Mae cuts him down to pieces.

Meanwhile, Mysterio has been up to no good and he gets him arrested and he goes on trial with the Beetle as his reluctant lawyer.  She begins to spit up rodents and bugs and all sorts of really gross stuff.  Then he meets with someone who is behind it all who sends him back and convinces him to plead insanity which he does.

Peter Parker and Mary Jane finally get together which is important for Peter because he will need her help with all the problems he is about to face.  Cindy Lawton offers Peter a second chance by allowing him to take Dr. Connor's class. He has now found a way to control the lizard and keep it from hurting others. Dr. Conner's shows Peter this device that may separate him from the lizard forever. The class will be testing it. Two villains come by to steal it and Peter with nowhere to change bumps backward and uses chemicals to cause a cloud to form to hide him changing and he gets the bad guys and finds himself shaking hands with Spider-Man/  It seems that he accidentally bumped into the machine and set it off.  Now his personality and powers are split in half. Spider-Man has no idea who Uncle Ben is and therefore what the phrase "With great power comes great responsibility."   He just wants to have fun. At first, it's nice to have a life of his own back but soon he realizes that Spider-Man needs to be back inside of himself.  How does he convince him to rejoin?  And what about the Tri-Sentinal?

This is a real schizophrenic book that has us looking here there and everywhere.  Nonetheless, it is an interesting book choc-full of bad guys with a cool idea for a story. The art is dripping with color and is amazing to look at.   This book is the start of something new and exciting for Peter.  He has no job but at least he has Mary Jane.  He just needs to pick up the pieces and begin again.  I give it four out of five stars.

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Batwoman Rebirth Arms of Death Part One by Marguerite Bennett (Writer)James Tynion IV (Writer), Steve Epting (Artist), Jeromy Cox (Colors(, Deron Benneett (Letterer)

At a young age, Kate and her twin and her family is kidnapped and they are all killed except her.  She grows up to be strong and goes to West Point only to get kicked out for being a lesbian.  When she is twenty-three she discovers the island of Coryana off the coast of Malta and there she meets and falls in love with its manager Safiyah.  But she doesn't stay long and at the age of twenty-four, she meets Batman and finds her calling and begins training to become Batwoman.  Soon Batman tells her that Monster Venom has arrived on the black market and that whoever has it intends to spread it to as many nations as possible and what does she plan on doing about it?

Batwoman has searched for that last vial of monster venom and it has led her to Kapaucarsi, Istanbul, and a man who is just now taking the dose and turning into a monster.  Batwoman takes a magic necklace and throws it over his head to counteract the drug and he turns back into a man. But then a strange woman dressed all in black with white face paint throws a fact dagger into his eye and flies off.  Pennyworth, Batwoman's Alfred, runs the blood on the knife blade and it comes back to an island called Coryana where the monster venom comes from.  Pennyworth does a search on her computer for the island and the words "Tax Shelter". "Black Market", and "Wretched hive of scum and villainy" show up.

Tatiana, the woman in black who prefers to go by the name Knife now is working with the Arms of Death in using the monster venom.  The two get into a fight and Pennyworth lights the fire for the Dogs of War to come and they actually do come and help Batwoman fight off Knife.  They provide Batwoman with much-needed information such as a year ago the island was under siege by an industry called Kau and was being bought up; This is when Safiyah disappeared;  Could the CEOs of Kau be the ones behind the Arms of Deah? What is their agenda and can Batwoman take them down?

This Book review covers the two first Batwoman Rebirth Comics along with the second and third, Fourth, and fifth ones.  I've never read a Batwoman comic before and I find that I really liked it.  She was tough, yet able to show a softer side without being weak.  Because she's a lesbian she finds that the wold works against her as it did when she got kicked out of West Point,  But she doesn't let that stop her.  I'm not much for DC comics but Batwoman has made her way into my heart along with her sidekick Pennyworth.  I give this book five out of five stars.

Listed on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Batwoman-Vol-Many-Death-Rebirth/dp/1401274307/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3J55MWVA5D9S9&dchild=1&keywords=batwoman+rebirth&qid=1596032322&sprefix=batwoman+reb%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1

I Know You Are But What Am I by Samantha Bee

This hilarious book covers a wide range of topics across Ms. Bee's life.  She talks about being prepared for old age since she grew up with a great grandmother and a grandmother who groomed her early for what to expect when she got old;  For example 1. Make sure you don't wear inappropriate footwear or shorts too early in the spring or you'll get rheumatism. 2. Get the "sad head-shaking" down. 3. If you're going to have young people over in their shorts put towels down on the couch to absorb the oils from their bodies; 4. Frowning causes wrinkles, and so does pushing your face into your pillow while you sleep; 5. Cosmetic plastic surgery is weird. Do not do it unless you are Wayne Newton.

Her mom, an avid animal lover, started off with a cat named Zenny who adored her and no one else.  She got Samantha some gerbils that kept on dying and then a hamster that kept having sex with its mate and killing it that way. She got sick of having these poor females being replaced and let him go into the wild.  Then they moved out into the country so her mother could expand her animal menagerie to include a dog, a goat, some roosters, and a horse, none of whom liked anyone but her mother and all of whom attacked anyone who came near them.  But Samantha would finally get her own cat that would love her the way Zenny loved her mother and she would name it Newton. She would chase it around her apartment and let it chase her.  It would eat her roommate's sandwich which she thought was cute.  Until one Saturday night after she had broken up with her boyfriend and gone to her bed which was on the floor and suddenly her cat began to make high pitched noises then he jumped at her back and bit her neck and clawed her back as he humped her back. She can't believe this is happening and get him off her back and put her arms up to block him from getting to her back which means that he latches on to her arm and humps her arm.  After several bouts, she gives up and goes to bed swearing that she'll make an appointment to have him fixed in the morning.  This whole episode leaves her feeling like a loser.

This book covers a lot of ground from her life as a young girl who wanted Jesus to be her boyfriend to live around penises to her life of crime stealing cars to when she was trying to make it in acting and got a job as Sailor Moon in a horrible production where she met her husband.  This is a truly funny book that is loaded in sarcasm and witticisms.  I have to admit that I have loved Samantha Bee since The Daily Show and I really love her solo show so I guess it's no surprise that I would love her book.  But it is well written and hilarious.  I give it five stars out of five stars.

Quotes

One day I walked into class, and all of these formerly scrubbed girls were wearing shimmery pink lip glosses in various shades of whore.
=Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 26)

The peripheral benefit of all this knowledge was a sharp uptick in playground popularity. Star Wars role-play was the game of choice in our neighborhood, but it was frustrating for me to be the only one who had actually seen the movie.  I had spent many a recesss trying to explain the fine points of the plot to my slack-jawed third-grade chorts, only to hear infuriatitng cries of “Fetch me the Siberian Emerald!” from the fat kid playin Uncle Owen. I tried to reason with them, but in the end, they played the game they wanted and certainly never let me play the coveted role of Princess Leia.  When everyone was sick of hearing me bitch about how poorly they were doing things, I was usually relegated to playing R2D2 and speaking in bleem-blop-bloops in my quest for verité.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I, p 49)

Even at an early age, I understood that part of forging a healthy relationship with people you don’t see all the time sometimes involves asking questions that you don’t really need the answers to and letting someone think they are helping you when you don’t really need their help at all.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 54)

We constantly debated who had the better chest, Jon Bon Jovi or David Lee Roth. Personally. I found Jon Bon Jovi too feminine and slender—translation: gay.  I was a mad David Lee Roth girl; I loved his hairy chest but wasn’t entirely sure why. I knew I wanted to rub my face in it, but that was about it.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 60)

Take a toque wherever you go and, don’t try to operate any machinery of any kind without a grandchild present.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 89)

Showers are like having water attack you. Civilized people take baths.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 92)

Also, full-seated panties are a must. Many People call them “granny panties”—this is inappropriate and disparaging. Think of them as a clean absorbent cotton insurance policy against what is going to happen to you in the future should you happen to laugh and sneeze at the same time.  At some point, your thong strap is going to disappear into the golds of your buttocks, and this is counterintuitive to the thong’s original purpose, which is to say sexiness. Embrace a broad cotton gusset and get on with your life.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 92-3)

A person can get away with anything if they’re dressed well and act like they belong, even when they don’t.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 95)

For me, shopping is like a purgatory in which I am eternally shopping for a bathing suit; only in this case everything is a precious hand-crocheted white string bikini two sizes too small.  Only super-bitchy drag queens will serve me, while blatantly twittering about the cellulite above my knees
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 96)

Sex with my first boyfriend was a little bit like learning how to put ina tampon, but only half as enjoyable! I could have taken it or left it, to be honest. I took it, I found it boring, and after we broke up, it took years and many successive relationships before I even remotely felt like trying again.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 99)

But home-crafted pornography is a completely different animal. It makes a person ashamed to be human.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 119)

Now, I haven’t had sex with a ton of men, but I do have a couple of rules governing my choice of partner. One is that you may not even call it making love, or I will throw up. But the other, more important rule is that you may not have sex with me if your hips are narrower than mine. If you put on my jeans, and you are swimming in them, then you are not the man for me. It is not going to happen.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 125)

After a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and long after any sensible person would have given up hoppe, I had to ask myself, Was all the effort really worth it? The answer apparently, was a booming, resounding, deafening yes. If there’s one thing I took away from that job, it’s that a man will literally do anything to save the life of his penis and its various accouterments—no matter how dilapidated its condition.   And let me be clear, this phone line was not intended to be used for phone sex. It was an actual clinic, run by actual sleazy doctors who knew they could make a lot of money by focusing specifically on a man's inability to give up that particular ghost.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 159)

If you’ve ever seen a god towing a cart in place of its hind legs and thought, I wonder thow would put a dog through that?, the answer is, my mother. IF she had to change a dog’s colostomy bag seven times a day for twelve years, she would do it. She would squeeze clean the anal glands of her cat with one had, scrub the scum from the fins of a clownfish with the other, and endure the loss of a finger from a twenty-pound snapping turtle that she was trying to rescue from the side of the road before she would change the diaper of one of her grandchildren.
-Samantha Bee (I Know I Am But What Are You p 178)

It was so confusing for me because at first, I thought he was attacking me, and then I thought, No, he’ trying to make sweet, sweet cat love to me, and this is just what it feels like for female cats. Then I thought, Well, one thing I know is that I can never tell another living soul about this because this literally makes me a total loser. It’s Saturday night, I just broke up with my boyfriend, I basically sleep on the floor, and my cat is currently fucking me.
-Samantha Bee (I Know You Are But What Am I p 193)

Listed on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Know-But-What-Are-You/dp/1439142734/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1595856737&sr=8-2

Black Widow:Name of the Rose by Marjorie Liu and Daniel Acuna

Black Widow receives a black rose and a blue ribbon but doesn't know what to make of it.  Then a week later after talking to an old friend named Rose about it, she is attacked in the street and a vial is cut from her belly. This vial contains secret information about the Avengers among other people she has known in her past.   She wakes up during the operation to stitch her back together and when the doctors leave she quickly makes a phone call. 

Logan tracks the rose and ribbon to its source and is told that Black Widow must do this herself so he does nothing but comes back to the hospital.  Black Widow knows she must get out of that hospital and find the person who is behind this. The person who has the vial is the US government.  The Avengers are on her side until Pepper gets attacked then Tony and Hawkeye begin to have doubts and think that she put the hit on Pepper. 

But Black Widow knows who the assassin was and how to get the information as to who hired the assassin out of them;  She also knows the meaning behind the rose and the blue ribbon and who knew that information and they are all dead, but one of them left papers behind for a son to find and find a use for, bringing back a nemesis of the Black Widow.

This is an amazing comic. Black Widow really kicks ass and takes names.  She does realize that it probably wasn't the smartest move to keep tans on people she would consider friends.  However, James, the Winter Soldier, aka Captain America, never leaves her side and helps her out.  Also included in this book is a section on the history of the Black Widow which is really fascinating;  Black Widow is one of my favorite people to read about and in this comic she really shows you why she's worth reading about.  Majorie Liu is a great writer and has written many great comics including the Monstress series.  I really loved this book and I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

            Killing people is easy. Making them suffer is an art.

-Black Widow (Black Widow: Name of the Rose)  

Listed on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Widow-Name-Rose-ebook/dp/B00AAJQWZ8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2EMJAPAYK143P&dchild=1&keywords=black+widow+name+of+the+rose&qid=1595602167&sprefix=black+widow+name%2Caps%2C186&sr=8-1

Murder in the Locked Library by Ellery Adams

This fourth book in the cozy mystery series has Jane Steward stressing yet again about dead bodies ruining the reputation of the Storyton Inn when excavators breaking ground for the new spa she hopes to build on the grounds find a skeleton that is clutching a metal box which contains a ruined book.  Also inside are some coins.  The head of the project appears to have picked something up but it was witnessed by Jane's two sons--not exactly reliable witnesses, so Jane doesn't say anything to the Sheriff about it.  The Sherriff calls in a forensic anthropologist to examine the site and especially the bones and she determines that he is British, had rickets and tuberculosis, and was from the 18th century.

Sinclair and Jane examine the book but can't make heads or tales of it. Luckily there's a conference of old book collectors, sellers, book doctors coming to stay at the hotel.  The Robert Harley group is just the one to ask about the book. It contains the Sullivan brothers Arthur and Aaron, Levi Ross, Rosemary, and Bart.  They all look at it and give some clues but no one seems to know what it is, until later when Bart remembers where he has seen it before.   Bart suffers from OCD and has many ticks.  He also suffers from a latex allergy and brings his own gloves with him when he knows he might handle books.

So Bart grabbed a pair of his own gloves to show them the book and explain that it was in fact The Devil's Receipts Book, an old book of which that may be the only copy in existence that contains recipes that are poisonous to eat.  And the book is not ruined, Bart believed, but merely hidden from view and could be revealed with delicate care, making it worth a small fortune.  How many people did he tell this to?

Also, the Sullivan brothers stock has plummeted in the past year and rumors have them looking to merge with Bart's family's company before they lose theirs.  With Bart out of the way would it be easier to convince his board to go through with the merger?  And what about the skeleton?  Does he have a role to play in this drama?  Who killed him and does a modern-day killer want his murder to remain unsolved?

This book ticked me off in one respect and that is when it referred to Indiana Jones and his father as forensic anthropologists.  Indy was an archaeologist and his dad is a professor of medieval history with an emphasis on the Holy Grail.  I really hate it when people get it so obviously wrong.  A good example of a fictional forensic anthropologist is Dr. Temperance Brennan on the TV show Bones or in the books by Kathy Reichs, who is a real-life forensic anthropologist.  I did like the book despite that though it wasn' t her best work.  The suspects were boring and not exciting at all.   I wasn't worried about being killed by them in the least.  But the story of The Devil's book is interesting.  I just wish this had been a more exciting book, though it was really well written.  However, major SPOILER ALERT! she makes the killer someone you least expect at the very end of the book and throws you for a loop and out of that stupor you were in and for that I give it four stars out of five.

Quotes

You also said never fold the corner of a page to mark our place. Civilized people use bookmarks.

-Ellery Adams (Murder in the Locked Library p 1)

Adventure is not outside man. It is within.

-George Eliot

Jane, my dear. All partners have their secrets.  Earth-shattering or inconsequential as they might be, we all keep things to ourselves.

-Ellery Adams (Murder in the Locked Library p 14)

Beware of creating fiction, Miss Jane.  We may enjoy reading it, but we’re not writers.  I’m a Fin and you’re a Guardian.  We must work with facts or risk being led astray.

-Ellery Adams (Murder in the Locked Library p 36)

Another fall, another turned page; there was something of jubilee of that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes and failures and been wiped clean by summer.

-Wallace Stegner

A place is not really a place without a bookstore.

-Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A J Fikery)

You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, “What is your favorite book?”

-Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A J Fikery)

Allow me, Miss Jane.  It’s best to leave the preparation of tea to the British.

-Ellery Adams (Murder in the Locked Library p 138)

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

-Oscar Wilde

Our hands have met/Our lips have met/Our souls/ Who knows when the wind blows?

-William Morris (“Our Hands Have Met”)

  People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with basic goodness.

-Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)

A strange passion is moving in my head. My head has become a bird which searches in the sky. Every part of me goes in different directions.  Is it really so that the one I love is Everywhere?

-Rumi

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.   

-William Faulkner

One cannot be angry when one looks at a penguin.

=John Rushkin

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Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

Around two months ago I started this book so I could be finished with this behemoth of a book at 629 pages of tiny print in a tall book.  I kept having to put it down to read other books because I was making so little progress in it.   The problem was in its Dickosonian prose Which like Dickinson I believe they could both use a good editor.  Pretty soon I found myself skimming pages especially when it would go two or more pages without dialogue.  I found this to be the case with the book's prequel The Alienist, but not to such a degree.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed this story more than I did the one in The Alienist.

After The Alienist, the group scattered to the four winds.   Mr. Moore goes back to the paper, the Isaacson brothers go back to the police force where they are at first promoted under Roosevelt then demoted when he leaves, Cyrus goes back to work for Dr. Kreizler as does Stevie who studies under him as well.  Dr. Kreizler goes back to his children's institute helping troubled children, while Miss Sara Howard opens up a detective agency in the building they used for their work on the Beechum case.

It's Sara who brings them back together with a case she has stumbled across.  The Spanish Diplomat's secretary's wife has come in with a strange tale.  She had been to the History Museum and was sitting outside of it on a rainy night when the rain had momentarily let up when someone bashed her on the head enough to knock her out for a short while and take her child.  Later that night she saw her child in the arms of a woman on the subway.  Oddly enough her husband doesn't want to involve the police but wants to tell people that the child is dead.  She refuses to do this and goes to Sara in the hopes that she can do something.

Sara gets a woman artist to draw the picture of the woman that the Senora saw and the Isaccsons examine her wounds and determine that it was made with a pipe by a woman with limited strength.  The Doctor surmises that she is likely in a caregiver position so they begin by going around to places where nurses are employed to circulate the picture and they strike gold.  A nurse Elsbeth Hunter worked at a Lying-In Hospital for pregnant women and babies and the nurses they talk to say she killed the babies without mothers but the doctor said she valiantly tried to save the children. 

They find that she has a husband who fought in the Civil War whom she keeps dependent on morphine.  After a visit proves that the child is not there, Dr. Kreitzer believes that there is a hidden room in the basement that the child is behind.  One night when Elsbeth, or as she is known by the local gang she hangs with, Libby Hatch goes out to spend the evening with her gang leader boyfriend, Stevie, and the cops set up a way to get inside the house in the hopes of getting the child.  But Stevie can't find the way into secret passageway so he does the best he can and gathers as much information about her as he can.  And they find out there have been other babies she has kidnapped and killed and something mysterious that happened to her own flesh and blood that were older leading the group to believe they must go to this town she had lived in to find more answers to her past in order to figure out who she is.

Again, this book is in dire need of an editor and you will find yourself skimming.  But the plot is so good that I can't say don't read it.  It's a fascinating look into the psyche of a serial killer who isn't crazy but continuously kills children, especially babies and you want to know why.  I'll finish this book eventually over time while I watch it on TV most likely.  It is a well-written book and the characters are incredibly drawn.  Told through the eyes of streetwise young Stevie you get to know Sara and her hidden gun that can pop out to do damage if necessary or the Isaacsons who are so smart yet they argue as only brothers can, or Mr. Moore who is a womanizer and gambler yet he cares greatly for the group and for the city, or Dr. Kreitzler who cares deeply about people and often gets hurt, or Cyrus who takes care of the doctor and has to live life as a black man in 1895 New York City.  You really come to care about the characters.  I just wish this book was around a hundred to a hundred and fifty pages shorter.  I give this book three and 1/2  stars out of five stars.

Quotes

 But I do find that things what do angered me as a boy still rankle all these years later.  So if it seemsthat some of what I’ll have to say in the pages to come doesn’t reflect the mellowing of age, that’s only because I’ve never found that life and memories respond to time the way that tobacco does.

-Caleb Carr (The Angel of Darkness p 12)

All in a rush and for the first time in my life, I felt like someone over the age of fifteen truly gave a good goddamn about my existence.  You don’t really know that you’ve been living without that commodity until someone makes you aware of the possibility of it; and when they do it’s a very peculiar sensation.

-Caleb Carr (The Angel of Darkness p 60)

Lazlo, you know what Russian cuisine is like. I mean, they only eat it over there because they have to.

-Caleb Carr (The Angel of Darkness p 71)

Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the only woman who’d had the nerve to go so far as to rewrite the Bible from the woman’s point of view.

-Caleb Carr (The Angel of Darkness p 113)

I couldn’t tell whether that woman wanted to fuck me or kill me.

-Caleb Carr (The Angel of Darkness p 168)

“You wouldn’t fall for a fool?” “No miss,” I answered. “Too busy being one.”

-Caleb Carr (The Angel of Darkness p 220)

Listed on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Darkness-Novel-Laszlo-Kreizler/dp/0345425316/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1595180978&sr=8-1

     

Locke and Key Vol 6: Alpha and Omega by Joe hill (Writer). Gabriel Rodriguez (Artist), Jay Folos (Colorsist).RObbie Robbins (Letterer) .

This volume is the last in the series and therefore should be the climax and the apex of good storytelling and excellent art.  But there is neither of that here.  The storytelling is boring and art? Well, the art is bland especially when you compare both to volume five.  Speaking of which. here is what happened in that volume:  Bode's friend at school, Jay seems to sense that he isn't who he says he is and so he shoves him in front of a school bus and kills him;  Then while he's in Kinsey's room he breaks her jar of grief and pain hoping it will find it's way into Ty's head where it will drive him mad, which it does.  So Kinsey uses the head key to open his head and Bode is hoping for a look inside his head to find out the location of the Omega key but instead, he finds the key itself and takes it;  Kinsey takes her grief and pain and puts it back into her own head. Ty and Kinsey go to the clock and use the time key to travel back in time to the Revolutionary time period to see the keys being made and then they go to 1999 when their dad was a teen and had the keys along with his friends, including Zach and what happened there.

Rufus sees Bodie's ghost and knows that the person inside Bodie's body is not him and begins to strangle him causing him to be sent to the insane asylum for a long time.  Nina, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bodie's mother stop drinking.  Everyone is getting ready for prom. Kinsey is going with Jamal and Jamal and Scott reenacting the scene from Carrie with Scott as Carrie;   Tyler will eventually go alone and meet up with Jordan. 

There's a party going on in the cave and Dodge plans on crashing it and killing most of the people there and making slaves out of the rest.  Rufus escapes the asylum with the help of Miss Voss and heads towards town to stop Dodge.  Tyler also has a plan for stopping Dodge who has a plan for stopping everyone else by using the Shadow Crown and causing shadow demons to attack everyone; 

Not everyone will make it out alive.  This volume, however, was not the grand finale I had hoped for.  For those that are curious Netflix is currently airing their version of this comic.  I haven't seen it as I wanted to read the comic first.  This book is well written, after all Joe Hill did write it.  But the plot is lacking and so is the art.  This series did not go out with a bang but with a whimper. I give it three out of five stars.

Quotes

“I hope you know your dad loved you.  Your dad thought you were made of solid gold. And so do i.” “I wish. Gold is soft.  It would be easier to hammer me into a new shape,  People are a lot harder to change.

-Joe Hill (Locke and Key Vol 6 p 8)

Secrets are hell. Secrets are the prisons we make for ourselves.

-Joe Hill (Locke and Key Vol 6 p 14)

Falling in love in high school is like thinking you can fly a 747 because you know how to fly a kite.

-Joe Hill (Locke and Key Vol 6 p 67)

Listed on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-6-Alpha-Omega/dp/1631401440/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=1W7TFJM0DHU8F&dchild=1&keywords=locke+and+key+volume+6&qid=1595008910&sprefix=locke+and+key%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExSDY4SzdYQ1JKR1dUJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNjU1NDYxMjJMS09ZQU1MQTFSWSZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMjY3MzA1MTZUMjJSU1daMk8wSiZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

Close Up by Amanda Quick

Let me just say that this book, written under Jayne Ann Krentz's nom de plum is a great deal better than The Vanishing written by Krentz months ago that I reviewed very negatively here on this site.  Maybe it helped her to be writing under another name.  I don't know.  This book is sorta one of her Burning Cove books only most of it takes place in Adeline Beach where Vivene Brazier works as a photojournalist by night but doesn\t tale the credit for her pictures because sh's trying to make it into the art world and the art galleries won't accept you if they know you've been doing photojournalism.

One of her murder scenes is the Dagger Killer.  She must have caught his eye at a crime scene because he followed her home and tried to kill her there, but she fought him off and injured him and the police caught him and put him in the hospital to heal.  He escaped the hospital and was run over by a car and died. 

Nick Sundridge is a PI who just finished working on a case where this guy would marry a woman then take a life insurance policy out on her and then take her out on a cruise and then an"accident" would occur and she'd die leaving him rich.  But this particular young bride's aunt was suspicious and wanted him looked into.  Now the guy may be going to jail.

Nick and his partner Rex, his trained dog, are off on their next case: Viviene Brazier.  Luther Pell of Burning Cove who has mobster connections has come across a book of poems that is actually a record of a hit list and Viviene's name is on it, though her entry is incomplete.  He has no idea who wants her dead and while they're working on deciphering the poems they have no idea who the hitman is.

Vivienne's sister Lyra is getting married to Harrison, the very man that Viviene was going to marry but broke it off with. Is Harrison seeking the extra money from the inheritance?  Also, Viviene dated an artist who stole her idea. Viviene could expose him;  There are others out there who stand to profit from Viviene's death.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters of Nick and Viviene and Rex were utterly delightful.  Viviene is going against her rich parents and being cut off financially in order to follow her dreams.  Nick worries about his gift and whether he can ever be with a woman without scaring her away.  Rex is the best dog anyone can hope to have.  Lyra, the sister is a hoot.  And of course, we have the usual cast of characters from Burning Cove that show up later in the book;  I give this book a solid five stars out of five.

Quotes

People say passion is a reckless, potetionally destructive force, and I’m sure that is frequently the case.  But I think love is infinitely more dangerous.  Passion blazes hot and fierce and then it burns out.  You’ll ger scorched but you’ll prpbably survive.  Love is more complicate. More mysterious.

-Amanda Quick (Close Up, 169)

Okay, that sounded like progress, he decided.  He tried to think positive.  There were no innocent third parties involved here, just a hired killer and the client who paid him to murder Vivian.  No relationship was perfect.

-Amanda Quick (Close Up. 170)

He spoke her name as if it held a kind of magic; a name to conjure with in the darkness of night.  He scooped her up in his arms and carried her Through the scented garden to the front door door of the villa.

-Amanda Quick (Close Up. 203)

The desire for revenge is an acid that destroys everything it touches.

=Amanda Quick (Close Up. 212)

People rarely use a lot of logic or common sense when they indulge in an affair.

-Amanda Quick (Close Up 214)

 Nothing like a road trip to give a woman a new perspective.

             -Amanda Quick (Close Up p 277)

 

 Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Close-Up-Amanda-Quick-ebook/dp/B07WCKL629/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3E2AV27YEEAL8&dchild=1&keywords=close+up+amanda+quick&qid=1594826184&sprefix=close+up%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-1

The Defenders Vol 1: Diamonds Are Forever by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer)., David Marquez (Artist), Justin Poonsor (Colorist), VC's Cory Petit (Letterer)

Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Matt Murdoch all get attacked by a man named Diamondback who is supposed to be dead.  They get together and figure out who has done this and head out into the city to find him.  Luke Cage finds him first and gets poisoned while at Black Cat's place and left to die. Black Cat takes him to the local clinic.  Blade shows up with an antidote and he administers it; When Daredevil, Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones go after Diamondback together The Punisher shoots Jessica Jones.

You learn the history of Diamondback or Willis, and Carl Lucus, or Luke Cage, who ran with a group called the Rivals.  Then a girl came along, Reva Connors who claimed to like them both.  She rejected Diamondback for Cage and it drove him wild.  Diamondback planted diamonds on Lucus and it sent him to jail where he was experimented on.  When the mob found out about the diamonds they killed the woman in retaliation.  When Cage got out of jail he couldn't forgive Diamondback.

How is Diamondback alive? And where do Black Cat and The Punisher's loyalty lie?  This is a very interesting book that shows how the superheroes come together to form the Defenders of New York City much like the Avengers take care of Earth.  I really liked this book and I give it five out of five stars.

Listed on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Defenders-Vol-Diamonds-Are-Forever/dp/1302907468/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3OLM0LVB52ZZL&dchild=1&keywords=the+defenders+vol+1&qid=1594391969&sprefix=the+defenders+vol%2Caps%2C231&sr=8-1

Star Wars Darth Vader Dark Lord of the Sith Vol 2: Legacy's End by Charles Soule (Writer). Giuseppe Camuncoli (Penciler), Daniele Orlandini (Inker), David Curiel (Colorist). VC's Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

In the previous comic, The Clone Wars are over and Anakin was left for dead by Obi-Wan on Mustafar where the Emperor picked him up and restored his body in a cybernetic creation.  Anakin is devastated that Padme is dead and can't be brought back to life.  The Emperor tells him he must pour all thoughts of revenge into the building of the Empire. The Emperor becomes rather pissed when he finds that Darth Vader doesn't have his lightsaber. This means that he'll have to defeat a Jedi and win his lightsaber and then take all the grief and anger in him and turn the kyber crystal red, giving him a Sith lightsaber. He attacks the Jedi historical collection housing base in order to pursue the database of Jedis who took the vow to stay out of it or those who before the conflict and taken the Barash Vow to live outside the Jedi Order until his path becomes clear to him.  Now that the Jedi are gone and the man standing before him is one of those responsible for the destruction of the Jedi his new path seems clear: to take him out and his master.

Darth Vader is continuing his mission of killing off Jedis.  When Palpatine gives him a job to do which involves getting a hold of Jocasta Nu, who was the Jedi Guardian of the files of information that the Jedi had.  If you watch the movies she's the librarian that you see telling Obi-Wan that his planet is missing;  Jocasta in this comic is trying to get down everything she can in Holocrons to set up a school to train new Jedi.

She goes back to the library to get the list of names of those who have the potential to be Jedis but can't resist attacking Vader's Head Inquisitor who is a Jedi who has turned to the dark side, who is going through the Holocrons.  This mistake is costly as Vader shows up and captures her even though the Inquisitor wants to kill her but Vader has orders from Palpatine to bring her alive.  Vader does something that will piss off Palpatine if he finds out about it and the next thing you know a death threat is being made against him that traces back to the highest reaches of the Empire.   

This is a pretty good comic.  I really enjoyed reading about Jocasta Nu who is a real badass.   She will die to protect the list or the information in the library.  And I find it interesting that Vader will go against Palpatine.  I give this book five stars out of five stars.

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

This book is a favorite of mine and I've read it countless times but this time was special as my daughter is reading it with me.  It begins with a house.  Arthur Dent's house to be precise.  It is being torn down to make way for a bypass.  This is the first Arthur is hearing of it and he is determined to stop the bulldozers from rolling.  His best friend Ford Prefect has other things on his mind, like hitchhiking his way off this planet before it blows up to make way for an intergalactic bypass and he plans on taking his best bud Arthur with him.

Sadly the only ship available to hitchhike on is the Vogon one that is currently blowing up Earth and who hate hitchhikers.  But their workers the Dentrassis loved to piss off the Vogans and they let hitchhikers on. This is an important detail that Ford notes for the entry on Vogons because he is a writer for that amazing book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He was doing research on Earth when he got stranded. Earth's entry used to read Harmless.  Now it reads Mostly Harmless.

Meanwhile, Ford's semi-cousin Zaphod Beeblebrox, who is president of the galaxy, and Trillian is currently stealing the Heart of Gold a spaceship that has an Infinite Improbability Drive that when you first take it out takes you all over the universe.  But even that can't explain the unlikely odds of the two of them picking up Arthur and Ford just as the Volgons are about to shove them out the airlock after reading them poetry which, Vogon poetry is the third-worst poetry in the universe and painful to hear.

Once the four get together the real adventure starts when they discover a legendary planet that isn't supposed to exist and decide to explore and get into all sorts of trouble.  My favorite character in this book is Marvin the depressed robot who was created to express human emotion for the Heart of Gold spaceship and instead only expresses depression with phrases such as "Sorry, did I say something wrong? Pardon me for breathing which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it Oh God, I'm so depressed. Here are another one of those self-satisfied doors.  Life.  Don't talk to me about life." In the poorly made movie version of this novel, he is played to perfection by Alan Rickman.   This hilariously written book with fabulous characters and fun entries into the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy makes this book a must-read.  It's on my top ten of all-time favorites.  I highly recommend this book.  I give it a ten!

Quotes

  And then one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place.  This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.  Sadly, however before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terrible, stupid catastrophe occuried, and the idea was lost forever.

-Doulas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 1-2)

Time is an illusion.  Lunchtime doubly so.

-Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 24)

The ships hung in the air in much the same way that bricks don’t.

- Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 34)

Because Ford never learned to say his original name, his father eventually died of shame, which is still a terminal disease in some parts of the Galaxy.

-Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 48)

This is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of.

-Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 50)

He would have felt safe if alongside the Dentrissis’ underwear, the piles of Sqornshellous matresses and the man from Betelguese with the small yellow fish offering to put it in his ear he had been able to see a small packet of cornflakes.  But he couldn’t, and he didn’t feel safe.

-Douglas Adams (The Hithhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 56)

“Space,” it says, “it big.  You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it it.  I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist but that’s peanuts to space.”

=Douglas Adams (The Hithhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 76)

Do you realize that most people’s lives are governed by telephone numbers?

-Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 101)

“We’ve met,” said Arthur sharply. When you’re cruising down the road in the fast lane and you lazily sail past a few hard driving cars and are feeling pretty pleased with yourself and then accidently change down from fourth to first instead of third thus making your engine leap out of your hood in an ugly mess, it tends to throw you off your stride in much the same way that this remark threw Ford Prefect off his. 

-Douglas Adams (The Hithhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 105)

He turned unfathomability into an artform.

=Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 110)

Curiously enough the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias was Oh no, not again.  Many people have speculated that if we knew the exactly reason why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

-Douglas Adams (The Hithhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 134)

Computer if you don’t open that exit hatch this moment I shall zap straight off to your major data banks and reprogram you with a very large ax, you got it?

-Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 137)

“Life,” said Marvin dolefully, “loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it.”

-Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 140)

Look would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?

-Douglas Adams (The Hithhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 163)

“Now see here,” said the voice,” you’re not dealing with and dumb two-bit trigger-pumping morons with low hairlines, little piggy eyes and no conversation, we’re a couple of caring guys that you’d probably quite like if you met us socially!  I don’t go around gratitutiously shooting people and then bragging about it afterward in seedy space-ranger bars like some cops I could mention!  I go around shooting people gratituously and then I agonize about it afterward for hours to my girlfriend!”

-Douglas Adams (The Hithhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy p 206)

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Locke and Key Vol 5: Clockworks by Joe Hill (Writer), Gabriel Rodriguez (Art). Jay Fotos (Colorist). Robbie Robbins (Letterer)

In the previous comic, Kinsey begins to change some. She dyes part of her hair green and makes friends with some misfits from school. But things go wrong with her friendships when she uses her key to take away her grief and agrees to share a memory with one of them, then does so with the other as well making the first one jealous.  Also, she is looking at getting back together with Zach, who it turns out is the Dark Lady of the Well and a bad person who is just using her to get the Omega Key that her brother Ty has.  Ty has been hanging out with Zach and others and been noticing odd things like the pack of wild dogs that happen to come by.  Or when he visits his gay friend in the hospital and he describes on to the people who hurt him as having a lip ring like Zach's.   Or how Kinsey is now begging him to let her have to Omega Key to hold for a while which was Zach's idea.   Also, Bode has been taken over by Zach when Kinsey and Ty get together and kill Zach.  His spirit goes into Bode and he's still looking for the Omega key.

The beginning of this book goes back to the Revolutionary times and the Redcoats have killed Ben and Miranda's parents for not telling them where the rebels are hiding.  Their brother Joshua is one of those hiding in the caves and they sneak off to them to bring the men a goat to eat and find that their brother is dead and that soon the other men will be too due to a doorway into the caves that the men opened up that let in a demon.  Now, the demons that tried to get in were turned into an unusual metal but one of the men got too close to the door and looked inside and the demon got inside of him that way and he's been killing people ever since. Also, the door, though shut and covered in rocks, call to the men to open it and look inside.   Ben decides to make a lock for the door with the demon metal and to make keys with the remaining metal; Then they'll flood the cave back up the way it was and Ben and Miranda will go and find someplace to hide until the Redcoats leave in a couple of weeks and the rebels will turn themselves in.

Bode's friend at school, Jay seems to sense that he isn't who he says he is and so he shoves him in front of a school bus and kills him;  Then while he's in Kinsey's room he breaks her jar of grief and pain hoping it will find it's way into Ty's head where it will drive him mad, which it does.  So Kinsey uses the head key to open his head and Bode is hoping for a look inside his head to find out the location of the Omega key but instead, he finds the key itself and takes it;  Kinsey takes her grief and pain and puts it back into her own head. Ty and Kinsey go to the clock and use the time key to travel back in time to the Revolutionary time period to see the keys being made and then they go to 1999 when their dad was a teen and had the keys along with his friends, including Zach and what happened there.

This was a really good book with so many amazing stories to tell.  Also, the artwork is so incredible. There is a picture of Kinsey's grief and pain and it looks like a black demon wearing a newspaper dress with a sash reading Rampage and he's/she's sitting on an old fashioned white facet that is on top of a black hooded figure with metal fingers and hands;  I really can't do it justice. It's just an amazing piece of artwork and it's just one of many in this book.  This book is really worth buying for the art alone, but the story is stellar too. How Zach wasn't always evil, but he sure is now.   I give this book five out of five stars.   

Listed on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-Clockworks-Joe-Hill/dp/1613776993/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=3GK721U4Z2FYD&dchild=1&keywords=locke+and+key+volume+5&qid=1593787168&sprefix=locke+and+key%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyTlhBNVZGVDFCUk1NJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMTk3OTE0MU0xUTI3RDE4TEhHJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyNjc0NjFENVcwMVhHWE5IWjMmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes is presented with a case by Peterson the commissionaire who comes across a goose with a tag on it labeled Henry Smith and a hat.  Holmes investigates the hat and discovers that it belongs to a man who has just had a shave and shows he had a big intellect due to its large size.  He also showed foresight by doing something to the hat to protect it from the wind.  He once had money but now he does not.  His wife does not care for him anymore or else she would have dusted the hat.  That is why he was bringing home such a fine goose.  

When Peterson finishes off the goose he finds inside a blue diamond. He rushes over to Holmes to see what he can make of it.  Holmes recognizes it as the Countess of Morcar\s Blue Carbunkle that was stolen from her hotel room days ago and whom John Horner is being held in police custody for the robbery because he had been there near the jewel and because he had a history of robbery.  Henry Smith came to pick up his hat and his goose and he seemed innocent so how did the Blue Carbuncle wind up in his goose and who is the real thief?

This was a delightful little story that takes place right after Christmas leaving Holmes in a charitable mood.  It was fun trying to figure out who stole the diamond and how they got it out of the hotel and how it somehow wound up in a goose.  I thoroughly enjoyed this story.  I give it four out of five stars.

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