Booked (and Printed): August 2025

 

Booked (and Printed) August 2025   August was a better reading month than it should have been. Although its four books—one non-fiction and three fiction—and two novelettes were far from a big month. This is because I tend to have late summer reading slumps as I catch up on everything I missed doing earlier in the season. This year I had a couple other complications, too. I started a new job and—well, my damned eyes kept me from the page again. I have a diagnosis, which I’ll keep to myself for now, and a follow up appointment in a few weeks. My fingers and toes are crossed that I’ll get some good news when it happens. While my reading totals were higher than I figured, my reviewing here at the blog was abysmal. In fact, the only review I wrote was for the two novelettes, “BAE-I” and “ROOM E-36,” by Douglas Corleone. These two dark tech scifi tales are the beginning of a series of eleven stories in Corleone’s Ghost Signal: Dark Frequencies. And if the first two are any indication, this is a series to watch. Read my detailed review here. The month started with Max Allan Collins’s shrug-inducing, THE DARK CITY (1987), which is the first in his four book Elliot Ness series. Set in Cleveland, Ohio, after Ness takes the job of Cleveland’s safety director, The Dark City is about an incorruptible cop on a mission to clean-up a vice-ridden police department. The plotting and characters felt like they tumbled out of a 1930s pulp magazine—which is cool—but by the halfway point it had grown rather dull and I found myself yearning for something more interesting. If you’ve never tried Collins, check out his Nathan Heller books. Interestingly, Heller makes a cameo as an incorruptible private eye in The Dark City.

The something more interesting came in the form of Brian Freeman’s INFINITE (2021). This thriller, which is seeded with elements of science fiction, is a breakneck antidote for boredom. Dylan Moran’s life started in the muck—as a boy Dylan watched his father kill his mother before killing himself. And his life has been hobbled by the trauma of that night ever since. Then when Dylan loses his wife, Carly Chance, in a car crash, Dylan sees a familiar man watching it all. A man that could have saved Carly if he'd tried. Infinite is a shocking and an almost surreal—without acting or reading surreal—thriller. It’s a journey into a world of what ifs and what-could-have-beens. The scifi elements, if you haven’t guessed already, are centered around the idea of alternate universes and at least one man’s ability to navigate from one to another. And boy is it fun. My lone foray into fact came with the young adult title, GEORGE WASHINGTON, SPYMASTER, by Thomas B. Allen (2004). This look at the espionage business of the Revolutionary War—which included cyphers, planting false information, stealing correspondence, and running spies throughout the colonies—is informative, fun, and (dare I say) even entertaining. I liked it so much it wouldn’t surprise me if I read it again sometime. August ended with Hank Phillipi Ryan’s psychological thriller, ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS—which is scheduled for release Sep. 9, 2025. Three years ago Tessa Calloway started a national online movement, #MomsWith Dreams, when she livestreamed quitting her job. Since then Tessa has spent more time with her family—husband Henry and their two children Linny and Zack—and written a bestselling novel with an indomitable protagonist named Annabelle Brown. Readers love Annabelle and Tessa, and while on a weeks-long book tour, Tessa, finds this new-found fame gratifying but as the days and events pile up the attention becomes cloying and claustrophobic. Even worse, Tessa believes someone is trying to unveil her dirty little secret: “The one her mother had warned would ruin her.” All This Could Be Yours is a solid thriller with an attitude that is all Hank Phillippi Ryan. Tessa is a complicated and likable character with real world fears, which all of us can relate to. The pacing, especially in the first third of the novel, is a touch slow but Tessa’s likability keeps the narrative interesting. Once the action begins—when the blackmail plot is revealed—all the early flaws are quickly forgotten. And that final reveal is a doozy. My favorite book of August? I’m going with George Washington, Spymaster. Fin— Now on to next month…