Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Reviewed by Steven Torres-Roman
Humanities Librarian, Central Library
San Diego Union-Tribune, April 6, 2025

Charlie Fitzer is having a difficult time getting his life back together – he’s been through a difficult divorce, lost his job as a business journalist, and has been reduced to living in his old family home and trying to make ends meet as a substitute teacher. His only friend is his cat, Hera. When his estranged, wealthy Uncle Jake dies, Charlie finds himself the inheritor of Jake’s businesses – and his multi-trillion-dollar supervillain empire, complete with secret volcano headquarters. After a failed assassination attempt and a meeting where the other world-class villains attempt GDP-level extortion, Charlie must quickly learn who to trust and how to handle hostile takeovers at this monumentally deadly level. This breezy, funny, and fast-paced novel is the perfect choice for bibliophiles looking for a summer blockbuster read!

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
Reviewed by Isabella Wood
Librarian II – Youth Materials Selector, Central Library
San Diego Union Tribune, March 23, 2025

Every lesson Hana Ishikawa's father ever taught her was meant to prepare her for the day he retired and she inherited her family's pawnshop. This particular pawnshop does not trade in antiques, jewelry, or other typical valuables. Instead, the customers that find this pawnshop are carrying a regret - one choice that they made, or didn't make, that altered the entire course of their life. These regrets weigh heavily on the minds of Ishikawa's customers, who choose to pawn their regrets away and wake up the next morning with more peace of mind. Hana spent her entire life learning to run the pawnshop, to meet with customers and convince them to sell their life choices to her. She was not, however, prepared to wake up on her first morning as the pawnshop's owner to find the store ransacked and her father missing - alongside a valuable Choice from the shop's vault. There are darker forces at play, and Hana's life depends on finding her father and retrieving the Choice before it's too late. The world-building in Water Moon truly shines in this brilliant blend of fantasy, mystery, and romance.

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
Reviewed by Joel Bakker
Collection Development Librarian, Central Library
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 9, 2025

No one has ever written about Southern California with the weary, evocative grace of Raymond Chandler, and no one has walked its mean streets like Philip Marlowe, the model of the hard-boiled detective: half wise guy, half knight errant. The Long Goodbye, Chandler’s penultimate novel, written while he lived in La Jolla, begins with Marlowe tentatively befriending Terry Lennox, a well-mannered alcoholic, and aiding Lennox in a no-questions-asked escape to Mexico. For his troubles, Marlowe finds himself entangled in the murder of Lennox’s wife Sylvia, then almost immediately stumbles into the potentially lethal woes of another unhappy couple, the disgraced writer Roger Wade and his erratic wife, Eileen. Chandler keeps the twists coming, but it is the melancholic mood, Marlowe’s hard-bitten wit, and an L.A. so real you can taste the gimlets and feel the hot, dry Santa Anas blowing through that truly stick with the reader.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Reviewed by Steven Torres-Roman
Humanities Librarian, Central Library
San Diego Union-Tribune, March 2, 2025

After her aged parents die in a tragic car accident, Louise Joyner is left with her grief, the responsibility of dealing with her parents’ estate, and a frustrating contention with her estranged and irresponsible younger brother, Mark. Returning to Charleston, Louise is reminded of a disconcerting feature of her childhood home: the house is utterly filled with the products of her mother’s obsession--hundreds upon hundreds of dolls and puppets hanging from the walls, seated on the furniture, and occupying every room. While taking inventory and cleaning out this creepy hoard of felt forms and dark, reflective eyes, Louise experiences a host of bizarre phenomena--strange noises throughout the house, a television set that seems to switch itself back on once she’s left the room, and dolls reappearing after she’s disposed of them. Is Mark playing pranks in an attempt to drive Louise away? Or is she trying to sell a haunted house?

Harlem World: How Hip Hop’s Super Showdown Changed Music Forever by Jonathan Mael
Reviewed by Robert Surratt
Manager of Access Services, Central Library
San Diego Union-Tribune, Feb. 9, 2025

Before Kendrick Lamar versus Drake, before Jay-Z versus Nas, there was the Fantastic Romantic Five versus the Cold Crush Brothers at the Harlem World nightclub in 1981. In Harlem World: How Hip Hop’s Super Showdown Changed Music Forever, author Jonathan Mael explores the early phenomenon of rap and hip hop—from its community room beginnings and summertime park jams to its emergence in the late-night club scene as the disco era waned. The organic rise of hip hop’s underground culture created an echelon of “ghetto celebrities,” such as inventive DJs who looped record breaks for acrobatic dancers and showcased masters of ceremonies who enchanted listeners with braggadocio rhyme routines aimed at keeping the party live. While the book centers on the now-infamous onstage battle between the rival crews, it foreshadows the event by recounting a pivotal moment in hip hop’s history: the 1979 release of Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” which ultimately changed how people encountered and engaged with the music.

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson
Reviewed by Steven Torres-Roman
Librarian, Central Library
San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 26, 2025

Earth’s future has some interesting challenges: rising sea levels, an unsteady economy, absurd levels of social media saturation and surveillance, and contact with an alien species, the Logi. Lydia works as a translator for the Logi cultural attaché, Fitz. Translating for the Logi is rather demanding – very few humans have the ability to perceive the aliens’ thoughts, and the training is rigorous. Fortunately, Lydia is very good at her job, though telepathic translating can be tricky, as the aliens’ projected thoughts can induce a state of inebriation in a human mind. When an exhausting evening of interpreting leaves Lydia’s memory a blank, she finds herself at the center of an intergalactic incident! As various factions maneuver to take advantage of the situation and manipulate events for their own purposes, Lydia’s only hope is to do some amateur sleuthing. Robson successfully takes the pulse of present social media trends in depicting a convincing (and absurdly humorous) near-future, and the character of Lydia is a delightful, relatable working-class woman who, though out of her depth, perseveres and discovers surprisingly impressive reserves of courage and ingenuity.

The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized Crime Boss by Margalit Fox
Reviewed by Angie Stava
Catalog Librarian, Central Library
San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 12, 2025

Imagine landing in New York in 1850 with no money, knowing that no matter how hard you peddled, you would be doomed to poverty in the tenements. Would you accept it? Or, like Fredericka Mandelbaum, would you make your own luck? Within just twenty years, German Jewish immigrant Mandelbaum rose from a street peddler to become the leader of the largest organized crime network in New York. With a single store as a front, she moved millions of dollars worth of luxury goods - silks, jewelry, anything that could be stolen by the thieves she mentored. Later, specializing in diamonds and then bank robberies, she was untouchable for decades because Fredericka cultivated not just thieves but politicians, police, and businessmen who could all be bought. This is an unforgettable story of how one woman’s personality intersected with Gilded Age New York to create a dramatic, remarkable and criminal life.