Book 25 of 52: "Moriarty" by Anthony Horowitz

A fiction book!  And a book set in the same universe as Sherlock Holmes, just after the famous consulting detective has vanished, locked in the clutches of his foe Moriarty, over the Reinenbach Falls?  How could I pass this up?

"Moriarty", as I mentioned, is set in the same era, where our hero is Frederick Chase, a detective with the Pinkertons, sent across the pond to England while tracking Moriarty's American equivalent.  Now that the evil professor is gone, Chase fears that Clarence Devereaux, the American version, will move into the power void and create an evil empire spanning both continents!

Unsettled

When I stepped outside, the squirrel raised its head to stare at me.  Even though I was close, however, it showed no fear as it watched me with unblinking eyes.

*

It wasn’t until the third turn of the key in the ignition, my heart pounding in my throat, that the engine finally turned over, coughing and sputtering to life.

*

I glanced down at my feet, only to see a winged shadow pass directly over me.  When I looked up, there was nothing in the sky.

*

She didn’t say anything, but I caught her looking at me out of the corner of my eye, a resigned frown on her face.

*

It wasn’t until I had closed my eyes and laid back down that I heard the sound again - a faint scratching from somewhere in the dark room.

*

As I felt my foot descend on nothing, panic blossomed in my mind.  There had only been twelve steps, I thought, not thirteen.

*

A smudge on my glasses, I thought, as the shape loomed at the corner of my vision once again - but then I remembered I was wearing contacts.

*

When I stepped onto the subway car, a dozen pairs of eyes scrolled over me.  One pair, however, seemed to linger far too long on my face.

*

Sitting uselessly in the waiting room, I stared blankly at the painting on the wall across from me.  Somehow, the face seemed to be sneering back.

*

A sudden, faint pressure against my skin made me jerk, as though I’d walked through a spider’s web, even though I stood in my own kitchen.

*

My eyes snapped open.  I was still in bed.  But for a moment, I felt as though the blankets were bindings, preventing me from moving even a finger.

Danni California, Part 18

Continued from Part 17, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

When I next awoke, I was able to sit up, groggily lifting up my hand to press it against my forehead.  My eyes scanned around and I saw that I was still in the same room, still sprawled out across the same rough bunk, as where I last remembered being, just as Danni...

Danni had kissed me!  My mind seized onto that fact, clung to it like a drowning sailor clings to a spar of wood.  There were a million other thoughts circling around the periphery of that fact, a million ways to interpret it, but I didn't let them emerge from the shadows.

Looking around, my eyes caught a flash of red-orange hair.  There she was!  But as I turned towards her, I immediately saw that something was wrong.

Book 24 of 52: "The Reputation Economy" by Michael Fertik

Sometimes, especially when I read non-fiction books, I feel a bit of despair (especially when the book discusses some large-scale environmental, governmental, or economic problem).  But other times, after I've read a book, I feel galvanized to take action, to get out into the world and start working on improving my status.

"The Reputation Economy," by Michael Fertik, falls strongly into that latter category of books.

"Grandpa, tell us a story!"

"Urp.  Johnny, stop hitting Miranda with that!  What even is that thing, anyway?  Some sort of foam cross?"

"No, Grandpa, it's a Minecraft sword!"

"Minecraft?  You kids and your TV games.  Whatever it is, stop hitting Miranda with it.  Give it here.  Let's see.  Ugh, this is the sort of toys they give you?  No wonder everyone's declaiming your generation as lazy."

"Wot's declamming?"

"Nothing, angel.  Okay, get into bed, and I'll tell you a story.  Come on, tuck in the covers.  There you go.  Now, what do you want to hear about in a story?"

Danni California, Part 17

I wonder how long this is going to end up being...

Continued from Part 16, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

When I next woke up, my first thought was a fervent wish that I had remained unconscious.

Everything was pain, almost blinding, sparks of red and white shooting across the blackness of my inner eyelids.  I couldn't hold myself still, and immediately curled forward, wincing and gritting my teeth to keep from screaming.

Then I felt something cool and damp press against my forehead, and a soothing voice murmured words I couldn't understand.

I opened my eyes.

Book 23 of 52: "Junkyard Planet" by Adam Minter

When I picked up Junkyard Planet, a book with a bright cover showing a huge heap of garbage (see the image above), I was expecting to find a doom-and-gloom depressing story about how we are creating far too much garbage, our current lifestyle is unsustainable, and how our world is basically going to fall apart in the near future because of our current practices.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this book is nothing like what I expected.

Strange Loops

I sat up with a gasp, a rush of adrenaline suddenly flooding through my veins as I clenched down at the stained table beneath me, staring around.

All around me, the bar looked just as it always did - shoddy, uncleaned, and with a smell all its own that slowly crept in and pervaded the nostrils.  I'd seen it a hundred times before, had spent more money here than I liked to think about.  I'd gotten drunk more times than I could count, had stumbled out across the uneven floor towards the sliding front door lock enough times to know every rut and pit in the synthstone that covered the ground underfoot.

I'd woken up here many times.

But none of them had ever felt like this.

I stood up, my legs erupting underneath me so violently that the cheap chair tumbled backwards onto the floor behind me.  My hands flew up to my chest, patting at the surface through my thin black shirt and all-weather Flex jacket, searching for a bullet hole that was no longer there.

No, I corrected myself.  Saying that the bullet hole was no longer there was wrong.

The hole wasn't there... yet.

Danni California, Part 16

Continued from Part 15, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

Most people, seeing the bridge ahead of their speeding train explode in a wave of fiery ignition, might have paused in shock, gasped, or wasted time on some other useless activity.

Those people weren't trained Priests.

As soon as my eyes registered that burst of flame, I knew the train was going down.  I spun around, rising up from my seat as I shoved my gun roughly back into its holster and out of the way.  One arm shot out, wrapping into a fist around a handful of Danni's shirt, and I hauled her up and out of the compartment.

A moment later, even despite the screeching of brakes as the train conductor frantically attempted to bring the massive vehicle to a halt, I felt us starting to tip.

The train was going over the edge.

Book 22 of 52: "The Mirror Crack'd" by Agatha Christie

Sometimes, I pick up a book because it has an amazing tagline or introduction, but I soon find that the author has failed to deliver on the potential of his or her plot premise.

For Agatha Christie's novels, on the other hand, I find that the opposite is what tends to be true.  Take this mystery, for instance.  This is a Miss Marple story, and already I'm less than interested - it's tough for me to see eye to eye with an elderly woman who has never even left her village, and tends to rely mostly on gossip to solve her murders.  And in this story, obviously written later in Christie's career, Marple is getting up in years, to the point where she is nearly house-ridden, and must rely on a nurse for much help.

If that was all I knew about this story, I would have put it down.

But I kept reading - and I'm glad that I did.

God and Lucifer switch places for a day....

Sometimes, Mephistopheles (Mephisto for short) reflected, souls arrived down at the Gates of Hell claiming that they could talk their way out of things, that this was all just one big misunderstanding.  These people were known to have "silver tongues."

But if these mere mortals had silver tongues, Mephisto's boss, Lucifer, possessed the singular golden tongue.

Mephisto had seen his boss charm them all.  He could talk a priest into becoming a killer, could convince the most selfless saint to turn his back on his fellow man.  Once, Mephisto swore, he'd seen his boss charm the very wings off of a butterfly.

And yet, right now, Lucifer was speechless...

Danni California, Part 15

Continued from Part 14, here.
Start the story here.

* * *

Jenny still didn't look fully convinced, but the young woman knew her place.  She closed her mouth, and although the man in black could tell that she was still full of unasked questions, she chose to let him continue with his story.

So, after giving her one last second to expel any outbursts, the man began speaking again.

*

I slid into the luxury car compartment across from Danni, making sure that she saw my pistol drawn and pressed against my thigh.  "One wrong move, and I'll shoot you before you can even think of standing up," I warned her.

The girl barely spared the gun a glance.  "I'm sure, Priest," she replied back to me, tossing her hair back over her shoulder.  She was the picture of carefree.

I waited perhaps a second longer, and then opened my mouth again.  "What do you have to say?" I asked.

Danni pursed her lips for a minute before replying.  "It just seems a bit cliche, doesn't it?" she finally remarked.  "I mean, I'm out here running around, living life, and you're the plodding hunter, sent here to chase after me and put an end to my fun."

"Fun?  You're stealing people's livelihoods!" I exploded back, surprising even myself with the intensity of my reply.  "Don't you think this is the punishment you deserve?"

But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, the girl was leaning forward, her eyes alive with blazing fire.  "I'm not stealing from anyone who doesn't have enough to give it up!" she shot back, glaring at me.  "The bank replaces all the money - and besides, if we all weren't dirt poor, I wouldn't be bothering with theft in the first place!"

"We?" I repeated.

Danni waved an arm around her.  "What, you don't think I'm hauling all my ill-gotten gains around with me, do you?" she asked, her tone making this remark seem cuttingly obvious.  "Where do you think it all goes?"

To my surprise, it was a question I hadn't considered.  And as I tried to figure out the answer, feeling my brain squirm as it was forced down new and unexpected pathways, Danni leaned forward.  She reached out, and I jumped slightly as her fingers landed on my knees.  My gun was still resting along one thigh, but she ignored it completely.  Her eyes burned holes straight through mine, into my soul.

"There are people, thousands of people, starving and dying out there," she murmured to me, her eyes not blinking or pulling away.  "There's no one helping them.  No one except me."

For a long moment, I was paralyzed.  I could do nothing but gaze into the bright, burning eyes of this young woman in front of me.

Finally, one of her hairs shifted a little, crossing her gaze, and the moment broke.  "That may be," I retorted, staring back at her, "but this isn't the way to help them.  You're going to get caught, and they'll be right back where they started."

The girl didn't back down.  "Caught by you?  Because this doesn't seem so bad."

I shook my head.  "After I missed, that first time, the Company sent others after you," I told her.  "They're probably hunting you, right now - I doubt they're far behind me."

"And what would they do?  Storm the train?" the girl asked.  Fortunately, she didn't ignore the serious tone of my voice, and she glanced around.

Once again, I shook my head back and forth.  "Trust me - I'm selective compared to some of their methods.  They're not above dynamiting the entire track, not caring about collateral damage."

Leaning forward, I glanced out the window of the train car.  "There - see that bridge, up ahead?  A few sticks of dynamite at the base of that, and the whole train would go tumbling into the river below.  A few hundred deaths, but you're the only death that matters.  That's a likely choice."

I caught Danni starting to open her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, a flash of orange lanced into my sight.

And just ahead of the train, that bridge I had pointed out was now disintegrating in a roar of flame...

To be continued . . . 

Book 21 of 52: "The Unmaking of the American Working Class" by Reg Theriault

I've been reading a lot of books about the fall of the middle class.  Why?  Well, I suppose because I fit pretty well into the middle class, and if the class is disappearing, I want to make sure that I get squeezed out the top, not the bottom.

Most of the books I've been reading are outside looks into the fall of the middle class, presented by the elite authors and with plenty of statistics to back up their claims.  This book, however, is different - since it's instead authored by a man who's been in the working class all his life.