Nice illustration on the cover of Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Death.

Here’s a cover by Harvey Kidder from Murder in the Cardais Coach (later named Murder on the Orient Express).

This version of Agatha Christie’s Three Blind Mice has a Mike Ludlow cover. The wiping away of the film on the pane is amazing painting work.

Had to get a flurry of artwork done today! Here’s a montage of some of it!

e_BouThe Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very enthralling and involved story of an amnesiac who finds out he is an assassin and wants to know why. Author Robert Ludlum created a very thorough story that, though a little wordy in dialogue, is otherwise concise in a long narrative way.

Unlike so many of today’s super spies who are out to kill, the main character, Jason Bourne, turns pacifist as an amnesiac. Though there is violence, it is far less than in current similar themed novels by Vince Flynn or Brad Thor. This is more of a study of a person trying to find themselves.

I love the series by folks like Flynn because they are so much fun to read. But, in light of Ludlum, they are missing the important parts of the story that makes the Ludlum book so much better in it’s writing and plotting.

About the movie: It might as well been named the Schwartz Identity. It’s a separate world than the one Ludlum created and made for the financial purposes of the film industry.

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Power Down by Ben Coes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a thrill ride! All that I read review wise of this book is true. It moves hard and fast. It also reflects much of what we are afraid of these days involving terrorists. The foundation of that is very real. Otherwise realism does have a hard time here, especially involving the financial issues dealt with. Author Coes knows a lot of details but misses some critical fundamentals that would occur due to actions in the plot of the book. Because of that and some logical issues, I’ll trim the rating a bit. Most reading wouldn’t notice the errors anyway. Despite that this is a not to be missed thriller for anyone who is a fan of those!

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The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first book of Hammett’s I’ve read and wish I’d read him in the past. This is a very good story. Well written. The skips in time by chapters does keep one wondering who might be involved with the central murder. There is no detective here. Just a fellow trying to help a pal. That fellow and just about everybody featured in the book are caught in an upcoming political election that is well described and helps move the story move beyond the average who-done-it. I look forward to reading more Hammett in the future.

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The Vanisher by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is my first Doc Savage novel. I read some of the comic books back in the 1970s. Those didn’t strike me even though I’m a fan of the main artist that drew it. This one also didn’t grab me. It is poorly plotted, written and, in general, conceived. It’s full of plot holes and bad literary devices. There is all kinds of nonsense where one minute Doc is thinking way ahead of everyone and then suddenly seems not to be able to think at all. The writer worked way to hard to keep the bad guy a mystery, though to me it was obvious what was going on. I hoped loose ends and needless action scenes added up to even a bad plot twist. Didn’t happen in that way. All of this is assembled to be one of the worst books I’ve read in many years.

However, two friends tell me not to give it up and track down the early adventures of the Doc. This I get. Sounds like a situation similar to the Mike Shayne series. It’s a powerful set of mysteries up until the original writer dropped it into the hands of a sea of freelancers brought in by Dell publishers. So I will wander back to the Doc Savage series as soon as I find one of the early parts of the series.

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I’m going through boxes and found this flyer from the 1980 Atlanta Comic-Con.

Above are the last 9 books I read through November and December. I went to simpler fiction to get to the 52 number. Quite different from the start of the year where the bulk of my reading was non-fiction. I’m aiming for 55 in 2010. Let’s see if I can make it.