The Deadly Gems (Book) - 2/28/2018 1:06:28 AM
With ‘The Deadly Gems’ the author, Stan Carter, has his tongue very firmly in his cheek. This makes reading his short story a delight. Our heroine, Lady Eldelaide Crawson-Barrett, is clearly blessed with integrity and a decent dose of magical knowledge. When her bedtime reading is disturbed by a talking black bird, we learn of skulduggery afoot. An enemy has it in for the lady. Instead of killing her, he wants to send her mad by curse-murdering five innocent notables chosen at random. This is where the puzzles and deadly gems come in. Our heroine has to solve five obscure puzzles in turn so that she can identify each notable and then rush to their rescue. Here Stan Carter has shown his flare for creating names and situations. There are some real gems!
Throughout, the author has adopted a ‘period’ writing style that rolls effortlessly from one situation to another. For me, this style added to the story as it unfolded, giving it an extra edge of amusement.
I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Deadly Gems’ and have no hesitation in giving it 5 stars for its originality and wit.
Petchy Maligula (Book) - 10/19/2010 10:32:00 AM
Petchy Maligula - our heroine - occupies a world of science fiction and the paranormal. Petchy herself is a big and brawny gal that isn’t squeamish at all about using her fists to “persuade” criminals to answer her questions. Despite the tough exterior, she’s also nursing a near-terminal crush on a TV personality, an archaeologist by the name of Faladan Pala.
It’s Pala’s sudden disappearance under mysterious circumstances that propels the story. Petchy is hired to find him, but her unrequited love for the historian was more than enough motivation to put her on the case. What follows is a strange adventure that takes Petchy through a knot of strange religious orders, bizarre and exotic artifacts, several bowls of ice cream, and nose-busting action to find her beloved Pala.
Moving through the story, the lowdown criminals that Petchy encounters rarely pass up a chance to humiliate her for her size, but her response is a prompt dismissal. The body she has is the one the Goddess gave her, and who was Petchy to question that? I liked it when she took this stance. She doesn’t spend her days beating herself up about what she should or shouldn’t look like, but rather uses the advantages her body gives - extra size for extra strength and intimidation.
The author keeps this book moving at a really good clip, and I thought the plot did a good job of pulling the reader along with enough anticipation to propel them towards the end’s big whodunit reveal. I really liked the characters Stan Carter brought in to help Petchy with her surveillance, two ghosts, each with their own interesting histories. I’d really like to see more of them. If you’re looking for a tough-as-nails/sharp-as-a-tack heroine that doesn’t give a fuck about the caloric count in a bowl of ice cream, then Petchy is your gal.
