Riverwords

Midnight’s Children is a rich and fascinating book. Rushdie channels dreamy visions of Kashmir and Mumbai, but his real masterpiece is the cast of characters — mostly the narrator’s family. In a variety of magical realist encounters, Rushdie manages not to let that fantasy unravel the dysfunctional, tragic and sometimes touching human dramas surrounding his [...]

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I discovered Arturo Pérez-Reverte earlier this year with his endearing Spanish adventure novel, Captain Alatriste. My discovery started a chain that ended most recently with The Club Dumas. I now gather that Pérez-Reverte is a wildly successful author in Spain and elsewhere, and more recently finding success in the U.S. Of course, American editions are [...]

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Last time I covered A Gentleman’s Game by Greg Rucka, an espionage thriller with a solid graphic novel pedigree from Rucka’s Queen & Country. I also tore through Private Wars, the next novel in the Tara Chace series. Here, Tara Chace is out of the service with a baby. This is serious business given the thriller [...]

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Several months ago, I was flipping channels and watched coverage of a comic book convention on the G4 channel. One of the reporters shared her favorite pick of the convention with the show hosts in the studio. It was something called Queen & Country, a  hard-boiled modern espionage comic featuring female protagonist, Tara Chace. The [...]

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The Iowa weather’s turned cold again. We had wonderful weather, spring waking up the ground and the trees. Now, there are lazy fat flakes in the morning sky, just enough to remind me that April likes to tease. I got used to the warmth, actually. Seven days in the Carribbean will do that, extreme sunburn [...]

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