Two Book Reviews: When Eight Bells Toll and Puppet on a Chain

[nuranar]

I've had a few friends-list additions (Yay!) since I last wrote about Alistair MacLean, one of my Favorite Authors Evah. To sum up, since explaining would take too long, he wrote action/adventure/spy novels from the 1950s to the 1980s. They particularly appeal to me because they (1) are really exciting, (2) are complexly and carefully plotted, (3)

Comments

[jordannamorgan]

You get gift certificates for used book stores, and I who have zero closet space get them for clothing stores. :Þ

(Not that a certificate for any UBS around here would do me any good, since I seem to own the only Saint books in Florida...)

[nuranar]

Funny the way things work! *giggle*

Those ones I picked up for you were definitely the exception. I suspect someone dumped a deceased relative's collection, for I haven't seen any since then. They're actually fairly available on ebay, both paperbacks and hardcovers. I got a 1935 Saint in New York for $.99. One at a time that's not great, because of shipping, but many are in bulk lots with other Saint or detective books. If there're a couple you're really anxious to get, I'd be happy to keep a lookout/snag them for you. I'm always on ebay, so it's not much trouble.

[jordannamorgan]

Aww, thanks. :D For now I'm not in too much of a hurry to hunt them... except for The Last Hero. *g* (And maybe The Saint's Getaway, which several people have listed as their favorite on the Saint fanlisting--making me curious.)

If you do get anything you want to send my way, you're going to at least get BookMooch points. *g* My surplus there is ridiculous. I'm *still* getting requests from there instead of PBS, where I'd much rather be getting points. :Þ

[prettychicken]

this is probably old news to you, but i stumbled across this and thought of you. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Award

[polemically]

Your comment box is broken on your latest update (the quiz) so I thought I'd comment here instead!

That is a fun quiz!

I did laugh at this line though:

Unfortunately, the ship was attacked by Spanish pirates who did not wear puffy white fencing shirts and hardly knew what a bath was.

And I love the picture. I miss the sea.

[nuranar]

Yeah, it was very weird! It's now readable to me in both IE and Firefox; I hope it works for everyone else.

It's goofy and crazy and witty and silly and really pretty accurate all at once. Quite an achievement! (That line was a special favorite of mine. Very nice. *g*)