Australian Penthouse

Book reviews from the pages of Australian Penthouse. This month, The Scarecrow, Repossession Mambo, The Absolute Sandman: Volume 3 and Royal Marine Survival Handbook

The Scarecrow

John Connolly
Allen and Unwin

Crime reporter Jack McEvoy, who made his career when he broke the story of The Poet, is facing the axe due to the new media sensibility of hiring cheaper staff. But not before he stumbles across his final story, one that will bring him face to face with evil in the new thriller by bestselling author (and former crime journalist) Michael Connelly. Jack’s story focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer jailed after confessing to murder. But the facts don’t gel and it seems like the uneducated kid is just a convenient patsy for a smarter criminal. Jack is soon unpicking his biggest story since The Poet made his career–tracking a killer who operates below the radar and seemingly inside the system, reuniting Jack with former love, FBI agent Rachel Walling, who is no longer keen to indulge the writer with her assistance. A cracker.

The Repossession Mambo

Eric Garcia
Scribe

Set in a future where people live well into their hundreds, rarely dying of disease or old age. There’s big money to be made in the “artiforg” (artificial organ) business—the buying and selling of artificial organs that prolong life. Companies, like banks, are happy to extend credit to anyone with financial means. Caveat emptor: if you fall behind in repayments, these organs will be repossessed. Like many former US soldiers, Remy makes his living reclaiming organs from debtors who can no longer afford them. He’s one of the best, and business is good until Remy finds himself hunted by the same people he once worked with, and running out of places to hide.

Now, he’s holed up in a deserted building, writing his life story on a beat-up typewriter in the hopes of getting it all down on paper before the Bio-Repo Man shows up to collect on his debts.

The Absolute Sandman: Volume Three

Neil Gaiman
Vertigo/Peribo

An involving effort from the master of surrealist fantasy graphic novels. It’s difficult to find fault with such an iconic and perfectly presented book, other than to say that Volume Three is more a bridging-middle to the series rather than the snap-crackle-pop story arcs of the two preceding books. Naturally, it’s wise to begin your Gaiman journey with Volume One. Volume Three’s major story arc is Brief Lives (it also features the single-issue prequel “Song of Orpheus”), the plot sees Delerium searching for her missing brother, accompanied by Dream (who has a hidden-agenda), in a fruitless search that leaves more questions than answers. The addition of World’s End—travellers’ stories about how they became moored at the Inn at Worlds End, is an interesting touch. The book also features several single-issue stories, including the acclaimed Ramadan, and A Parliament of Rooks, a prequel focused on the childhood lives of Dream and Death.

Road Dogs

Elmore Leonard
Hachette

New York Times bestselling author Elmore Leonard returns with three of his favourite characters: charming banker-robber Jack Foley, from Out of Sight, Cundo Rey from LaBrava, and Dawn Navarro from Riding the Rap. Road Dogs tells the story of Foley, who got caught by a die-pack on an easy robbery and is back in prison doing a 30-year sentence after a week-long escape.

Foley was captured by Karen Sisco, US Marshall. Jack and Karen have a thing for each other. Jack is resigned to doing time, lots of it, until his jailhouse pal, Cuando Rey, a Cuban refugee and criminal, doing time for murder, who is impressed with Foley’s chutzpah and fronts stacks of dough to get Foley’s sentence reduced; however, he also has favours to ask when they’re both released.

Survival Handbook: Endurance Essentials For The Great Outdoors

Dorling Kindersley in association with Royal Marines Commandos
DK

Learn to stay alive with the Royal Marines. Want to know what to do if you met a bear in the woods, how to light a fire in the rain or what to do in shark-infested waters? Get the answers to these and many more questions with the ultimate guide to survival techniques as experienced by the Royal Marines Commandos. Pick up survival basics, from staying fit, to planning your expedition and packing an essential kit. Discover what to do on a trail, from navigating and using pack animals to hiking or even skiing to your destination. You’ll pick up wilderness techniques and learn to make shelters, find water, spot, catch and cook wild food. And when there’s an emergency you’ll be glad you learned how to mount a rescue, use essential first aid techniques and even how to get found. Learn survival techniques from the men who’ve been there, done it and survived. And take on the most testing challenges nature can throw at you.