Drama, Humanity, and Unorthodox Mystery: A Review of "Eight Million Ways to Die"

I found my way to this book through Nero Wolfe. In the paperback Bantam Crime Line edition of one of my favorite Wolfe books, The Doorbell Rang, the introduction was written by Stuart Kaminsky, who said that the end of The Doorbell Rang was his favorite ending to any novel until he read Eight Million Ways to Die by Lawrence Block, published in 1982.

That was pretty high praise to me, so I picked up a copy and read it several years ago. Yesterday, I read it again and here are my refreshed thoughts.

A Weird Old Short Comedy! "The Generous Usurer"

A little bonus post for you all this week...

I was looking at historical books on cheesemaking (don't ask) over at the Internet Archive, and I stumbled onto this little manuscript that is almost too strange to believe.

A Bad First Impression, But it Turns Around Quite a Bit! "Alien: The Cold Forge" Review

I didn't expect to review this book this week. I needed something to kill half an hour and I thought I'd give this book a look. The same friend who gave me that three-novel Alien omnibus gave me this book, too, and I hadn't opened it yet.

The funny thing is, despite the relatively bad first impression I got from the book, it did a few interesting things that are worth noticing! I kept turning pages, and ended up finishing the book pretty quickly.

I'm talking about Alien: The Cold Forge, by Alex White, published in 2018. The front cover says it's an "All New Story" and "An Original Novel," and aside from a couple of early-on member-berries (mentions of Van Leeuwen and Carter Burke), it's true.