Books I’ve been reading

BPRD: 1947 is the follow-up to 1946 as the BPRD gets its first field agents (regular GIs, rather than the paranormal types it would late use), vampires scheme against humanity and the cute Russian demon Varvaya wonders if this “Hellboy” brat Trevor Bruttenholm has adopted it isn’t a bad influence (I think the implication is that Hellboy is steering Bruttenholm away from darkness as much as vice versa). Not the best, but even not-best Hellboy or BPRD is good stuff.
THE MAILMAN is an oddball horror novel from Bentley Little in which the suicide of a rural town’s beloved mailman brings a replacement whose appearance coincides with a wave of problems including bills that never reach their destination, misaddressed letters (“She says she’s your lover.”) and impossible missives (“I think my brother mailed this from Vietnam 30 years ago.”). Not Little’s best, but entertaining enough, and ingenious in showing how the occult can wreak havoc by interfering with something so mundane.
THE LITTLE SISTER is a prudish Kansas girl who hires Philip Marlowe to look for her vanished brother, which leads into a web of blackmail, glamorous starlets, Bad Girls and ice pick murders. Marlowe is exceptionally dour in this one (despite what I said here, I can’t help wondering if this reflects something in Chandler’s own life—especially when Marlowe starts grumbling about how much nicer LA was in the good old days). There’s also much comment about how everything happening seems like a bad movie, making me wonder if Chandler was aware how much film had turned the hardboiled dick into a cliche. Those considerations aside, this is too meandering a plot to be top-flight work—so many people are hiding evidence or covering up for someone else it ends up making The Big Sleep‘s plot look straightline by comparison
THE CAVE PAINTERS: Probing the Mysteries of the World’s First Artists by Gregory Curtis, chronicles the first discovery of some of the painting caves (and the suspicion at the time they were probably a practical joke), debates over whether they should be compared to primitive art or classical genius (“If you consider classical art the perfection of a long tradition, they certainly qualify.”), what the heck they actually mean (the “hunting magic” theory of my youth is apparently dropped, but there’s no consensus on what should replace it or even if the topic is worthwhile) and why you can’t really appreciate the work without seeing it in the original setting. A good job.
THE COBRA TRAP by Peter O’Donnell is a collection of Modesty Blaise short stories from shortly after she started working with British intelligence through the title story in which she and sidekick Willie Garvin go down fighting (and no question they’re dead, though if Donnell wanted to retcon in earlier adventures, that would be easy enough). The best stories are “Dark Angels” with its acrobatic team of assassins and “Old Alex,” which has a rather whimsical chain-of-events quality.
THE HAUNTED WOMAN by David Lindsay is a much duller work than his Voyage to Arcturus, mostly consisting of Bright Young Things discussing The Nature of Men and Women (which come to think of it was a topic in the other book too), occasionally enlivened by visits to a mysterious room that may not exist (and even that is primarily so that the romantic leads can chat freely). An effective climax beyond The Door They Shouldn’t Have Opened, but unimpressive overall.