Taking the energies and the impulses, the logics and inevitabilities behind oppression and rebellion and tying them up in a merciless package of science fiction superheroics makes The Omega Men a stunning, riveting, remorseless read. The Omega Men kidnap peace envoy Kyle Rayner as part of a plot to bring about the downfall of the Citadel, which rules a system of five planets, only source of a vital element. The Omega Men are going to expose horrible crimes and terrible conspiracies and they are justified in anything they do, no matter how ugly, bloody or ruthless. They just have to make Kyle Rayner, the superhero dedicated to fighting evil and bringing justice, one of them.

With the smokestacks and water mills of industry closing in, the Cragg Vale Coiners, lead by their King David Hartley, flooded the Yorkshire Moors with clipped and forged coins, nearly undermining the economy of the entire country. Across the wild moors they create a little kingdom, enforcing their authority with threats and violence but giving money to the poor and the needy. An excise officer and a lawyer are determined to bring them down.

An incredibly hefty and powerful evocation of time and place and voice, centering around the charismatic and visionary King David Hartley.

Well, I enjoyed that. Big and meaty and filled with murder and intrigue and peril as Matthew Shardlake is drawn in, against his better judgement, for a the hunt of a dangerous book written by and stolen from the sixth wife of Henry the 8th, Catherine Parr. Shardlake is ever so slightly besotted with the Queen, which is why he's willing to jump into the midst of warring religious factions, but it's the people he drags along with him whose safety and well being cause him guilt and worry. There's also a vxatious court case, a dying enemy and impending celebrations to celebrate a new treaty with the French to keep things interesting.

Solid, well-plotted historical mystery with likeable central character and a the squalor, pageantry and domesticity you need to keep you in the world.

Three friends do some slightly illegal night-time archaeology at an old house and find a strange disfigured skeleton of a baby. Weird stuff starts to happen, including a few random dismemberments. What, exactly have they stumbled on? The Twilight Pariah is a sort of slacker horror. The three friends are college students still stuck in their home town for the summers with dead-end jobs and there isn't much going on except hanging out and drinking and smoking pot, so this novella feels like a twilight world all its own, just within waving distance of YA and pulp but wandering through a more literary and listless coming-of-age story. I thought it lost this twilight charm a bit as it went full pulp in order to tie up the plot and execute the showdown, and the horrible murders seemed a little distant, as if they should have been a more visceral part of the story but wouldn;t have suited the tone. So not entirely successful but a quick fun read.

I keep misspelling Sheriff as Sherrif for some reason. This an absolute gangbusters of a comic, a dirty, sophisticated thriller set in post-invasion Iraq as a US contractor trying to train recruits for the new Iraqi police investigates the murder of one of his students. Drawn into this are Sofia, a high-level fixer and Nassir, who was once in Saddam's secret police. All the horror and futility and danger are brutally depicted with nuance and humanity and tortuous explosions of violence.

This feels like a very definite effort to tackle the themes of the film The Cabin In The Woods, from the title to the setting to the story, but whereas that engaged with a whole load of filmic horror tropes that didn't leave the reader in much doubt about what was going on, this takes a more subtle approach. When the four strangers appear outside the holiday cabin of the two husbands and their adopted daughter carrying their nasty-looking weapons, I was a bit concerned that this was going to turn into torture-porn. Luckily we get a harrowing and suspenseful game of psychological and existential terror that gradually slips into bouts of brutalising violence. Haunting, twisted and ugly, yet satisfying with strong writing and characterisation.

Review to come.

See here for my review:

https://childrensbooksireland.ie/review/the-mapmakers-race/

A YouTube host who goes poking around the unexplained mysteries takes a trip with his crew down the Grand Canyon looking for a cave discovered by long-ago explorers then lost. Against all expectation, because it's that sort of show, sincere in its search for the odd, but low-rent, the find a cave and as is traditional with these sorts of things very soon begin to wish they hadn't. Being Michael Marshall Smith this is very well written, psychologically astute, well-crafted prose, atmosphere to burn, funny dialogue. It's also a full on horror adventure with a sort of Fortean theme, albeit with a long, slow build-up that really does pay off largely because he builds the setting brilliantly and makes you care about the characters. refreshingly, when the going gets tough the cast don't get all Lord-Of-the-Flies, as is often the case in these sorts of things. They're not prepared or equipped for what happens, but they;re not stupid either, another refreshing change for this sort of set-up. I really hope The Anomaly Files return for more adventures soon.

A 1929 dance hall explosion in a small Missouri town leave 42 people dead and many more maimed and wounded, but nobody knows who did it, how it was done, or why. Except maybe Alma, the maid, living in poverty but labouring in the houses of the well-off, who many years later tells the story to her grandson. Her wayward sister, a love-struck banker, an ex-con who can't shake his old life, Alma's parents and husband, Alma's sons, all their lives intertwine with others in this astonishingly powerful and sweeping book, laying bear a community and a society and ways of life that are exploded by an unsolved catastrophe.