When mighty Odysseus encountered the powerful, one-eyed giant Polyphemus, he tricked the Cyclops into believing Odysseus’ name was effectively “Nobody” and then gouged out its eye. The second feat allowed the Achaean warrior to save his captured men and the first allowed him to escape because when the other cyclopses asked what he was shrieking […]
Read more "Keeping Your Eye On The Prize: Jeff Strand’s Cyclops Road"When Hard Case Crime released Memory, it was not necessarily billed as the last unpublished novel by the late grand master. However, readers might have built that assumption. Then, another unpublished novel from the late author was announced titled, appropriately enough The Comedy Is Finished. Was this the book the author intended as his final […]
Read more "Things Done in Violence Have to Be Done Over Again: Donald E. Westlake’s The Comedy is Finished"Synopsis: Once the dust settles on Eternia, Skeletor (Frank Langella) occupies Castle Greyskull and evil is triumphant. Only He-Man (Dolph Lundgren), Man-At-Arms (Jon Cypher), Teela (Chelsea Field), and the mystic keymaster Gwildor (Billy Barty) oppose him. When their paths lead across a mystical bridge to an alien world, our heroes find themselves in weird territory […]
Read more "Movie Mondays: Masters of the Universe"The fourth Andrew Mayhem novel took a while to gestate, but when it arrived it seemed like no time at all had passed for our plucky, beleaguered hero. After a brief and surprisingly touching introduction, which recounts Andrew Mayhem’s relationship with his parents as well as the imparting of such nuggets of wisdom as “I […]
Read more "Blood, Bewilderment and Bad Luck: Jeff Strand’s Lost Homicidal Maniac (Answers to “Shirley”)"After his death in 2008 and the posthumous release of Get Real, readers held no expectations of seeing anything new from author Donald E. Westlake ever again. However, this was not to be the case. To date, publishing imprint Hard Case Crime has been a strong champion for Westlake’s works, reprinting early material while the […]
Read more "Considering Westlake: Memory"Synopsis: Following his self-imposed removal from office, Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) left the nation mired in doubt, cynicism and uncertainty. Because he would be later pardoned for any crimes by acting president Gerald Ford, the nation would never receive answers to the many questions it had about the former president’s activities that culminated with a […]
Read more "Movie Mondays: Nixon/Frost"For the third installment in the chronicles of Andrew Mayhem, Jeff Strand gives us a quieter Andrew Mayhem, a weary one, a guy who looks at trouble and prefers not to get involved. Of course, loose ends from his previous book show up in the form of The Headhunter, and he cannot help but get […]
Read more "Don’t Go In the Backwoods: Jeff Strand’s Casket For Sale (Only Used Once)"On December 31, 2008, Donald E. Westlake suffered a heart attack while on vacation with his wife Abby in Mexico. The final Richard Stark novel Dirty Money had been on stands in hardback for eight months at that point. The final novel Westlake worked on for publication would not appear for another seven months and, […]
Read more "Considering Westlake: Get Real"Synopsis: Frank (Frank Langella) is a “retired” jewel thief and second story man, a father of two, lover of many women, divorced/separated, and living alone in an upstate New York of the near future. His memories are slipping a tad, restaurants he can remember eating at last week have been gone for months or years, […]
Read more "Movie Mondays: Robot & Frank"After the quirky, likable Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) introduced us to the world of Andrew Mayhem, guy for hire, Jeff Strand returned with the next adventure, Single White Psychopath Seeks Same. We open with Andrew “tied to a chair in a filthy garage while a pair of tooth-deprived lunatics” (page 5) torment him with […]
Read more "A Second Helping of Mayhem: Jeff Strand’s Single White Psychopath Seeks Same"
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