crime drama – Mom Read It

Head Games, by Craig McDonald/Illustrated by Kevin Singles, (Oct. 2017, :01FirstSecond), $17.99, ISBN: 9781596434141

Recommended for readers 18+

This graphic novel adaptation of an Edgar-nominated novel gives us a little Hollywood and a whole lot of pulp fiction. Hector Lassiter is a hard-drinking, hard living novelist in 1957; he thought he was done adventuring, but an offer he can’t refuse drops into his lap: the chance to recover the lost skull of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Villa’s people want the skull, and so does the infamous Yale secret society, Skull & Bones; and they’re all willing to do anything to get it. Lassiter, poet Bud Fiske, and aspiring actress Alicia Vicente take a road trip across the American Southwest as they search for the highest bidder and dodge bullets.

I’ve never read Craig McDonald’s Lassiter books, so this was new to me. If you like pulp, or noir fiction, you’ll dig right into this book. It borders on satire at times; it seems like a send up of the Hollywood studio system, the Feds, and pulp noir. Lassiter is a larger-than-life figure that appears to be popped straight from Hemingway’s mold – and then you discover that Lassiter and Hemingway were contemporaries in this story. Marlena Dietrich is here, and Bud Fiske is so thoroughly written into the story’s mythology that I had to Google him to see if he was a real-life figure (go find out for yourself, I’ll never tell). Two-color yellow and black artwork give this an old-school, faded feel; you know this is a story that’s seen things. Head Games is crazy, over-the-top, and compulsively readable. There’s violence, alcohol abuse, and sex aplenty, so it’s not a graphic novel for the children’s room.

Cradle and All, by James Patterson, (Sept. 2016, jimmy patterson), $18.99, ISBN: 9780316315265

Recommended for 18+

Two teenage girls fall pregnant: one in New England, one in Ireland. Both virgins; one blessed with the child of God, the other, with the child of Satan, and no one knows which mother is carrying which child. It seems like the world itself is reacting, with outbreaks of polio, famine, floods, and droughts. Former nun turned private investigator Anne Fitzgerland is sent by the Archdiocese of Boston to investigate.

This is a 1980 James Patterson book that’s been “reworked” to be YA, but I have to be completely frank here: this is not YA. I don’t know what the original book read like, but the only thing that remotely makes this book YA is the fact that there are two pregnant teenagers who aren’t even the main characters in the story. There’s sexual violence, discussions of infanticide, let’s not even get into the religious issues, and the fact that a 23 year-old woman is a Harvard graduate, hard-boiled private investigator, and well-published authority on children and teenagers. Oh, and she’s a former nun who left the convent when she fell in love with a priest, who just happens to be assigned to the same cases.

There are huge plot holes. HUGE. One of which makes the entire premise of the book fall apart at the end, if you’ve read that far. There are over 100 chapters in the book, all ranging from about 1 1/2 pages to 4 pages, which makes for some choppy reading (at least for me). It was a disappointing experience for me, and it’s not because I read children’s and YA books over adult books (because I’ve seen that leveled at some folks, believe it or not) – it just wasn’t that good of a book, and I’m a little irritable that James Patterson and his people would even consider releasing this as a YA novel (again, because, pregnant teens).

I’m clearly not the audience for this book. I’m bemused that the jimmy patterson imprint will release this along with books like his excellent Middle School series, and the Maximum Ride YA series that disappears off my shelves. Read this one for yourselves and use your own judgement; I was not a fan. I’ll go re-read Good Omens next time I want to read about a rumble between Heaven and Hell.

Tag: crime drama

Pulp fiction goes graphic with Head Games

Religious thriller: Cradle and All