Knock knock! Migraine calling!

My head hurts. Between a lack of caffeine, the unbalanced checkbook, my daughter throwing up all over her bed and the walls (the walls!) and the discovery that my babysitter stole my one can of Coke's new Full Throttle Blue Demon energy drink I was going to take to work tomorrow, it's inevitable. So I'm making this short (besides, THE OFFICE is super-sized tonight); here are few things we covered this week at BOOKGASM. As always, a click o' the link'll getcha the super-sized review:

• THE BEAUTIFUL CIGAR GIRL: MARY ROGERS, EDGAR ALLAN POE, AND THE INVENTION OF MURDER by Daniel Stashower – "Having been all but lost to history (though her corpse immortalized in detective fiction), Rogers is a cipher, but Poe always makes for a great subject, and Stashower gets mileage out of emphasizing the writer’s darker shades of his oft-repellent personality. You’re getting two great mysteries in one. With the factual story veering into suicide, sullied reputations and secret-destroying unmentionables, it’s easy to see why Poe was so intrigued to it, even if its most scandalous factors wouldn’t even come to light until after his first draft. By the same token, it’s easy to see why Stashower wanted to devote a whole book to retell it. That he pulls it off makes this a mystery must."

• WILD TO POSSESS / A TASTE FOR SIN by Gil Brewer – "When I review books from Stark House Press, I get the feeling I should be wearing a solid color sweater with a megaphone and the letters 'SH' on it, screaming 'Give me a N-O-I-R! What's that spell? Stark House, Stark House, rah rah rah!' This company can do no wrong and – trust me on this one, folks – Gil Brewer's WILD TO POSSESS / A TASTE FOR SIN two-fer is definitely the best of the bunch. A bold statement, I know, but with Brewer's writing, you think things are going to start tying up, only to have him throw a big surprise your way."

• SHANNA, THE SHE-DEVIL by Frank Cho – "Not having heard any buzz surrounding Marvel Comics' revival of SHANNA, THE SHE-DEVIL, I asked a friend far more knowledgeable than me before deciding whether to pick up the trade paperback. He replied he was doing so already, and that a friend of his had given it his stamp of approval because Frank Cho's art 'makes me want to masturbate.' Damned if that wasn't the case."

Not enough? Then how about John Connolly's foray into fantasy, THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS? Pulp magazines? A crude "humor" title from the UK? THE 50 GREATEST MOVIES NEVER MADE? A werewolf mystery? THE PHANTOM STRANGER? Sword 'n' sorcery paperbacks? A good ol' police procedural? We thought so.