New year, new books! Well … a few of them, at least. January was a bit of a lost month for me, with a bout of the flu and preparation for a major event in my life (more on that on this here blog in the near future). Here are the three books I did manage to fit in in the first month of 2026.
The Dentist by Tim Sullivan • 3 Stars on Goodreads
This is book one in a popular detective series in the UK that is just now starting to be published here in the states, and I, quite frankly, am very much on the fence about reading any more of them. DS (Detective Sergeant) George Cross has a finely-tuned analytic mind … and Asperger’s Syndrome, which means he is oblivious to social graces and niceties, to say the least. I get the whole autistic detective thing, it makes for an interesting read (Sherlock Holmes has a touch of it, Monk definitely did, maybe even Columbo, who knows?), but author Sullivan kind of beats us over the head with it in every chapter, telling us why Cross can’t or won’t do this or that, how his long-suffering partner is adjusting to him, how his dad puts up with him, etc., etc,. ad infinitum. Sullivan also has a kind of formal, old-fashioned way of writing, which I suppose perfectly complements his main character, but it gets a bit annoying at times. And this story in particular, about the murder of a dentist who was living homeless on the streets after his wife’s murder years before became his obsession, is all one long set-up for an extended bout in the interview room with the main suspect, that staple of British copper shows (and I guess Law & Order, but I never watched any of those American shows). I’m guessing that the interview room scene is probably key to all of Sullivan’s books, and maybe I’ll download a sample of the next book, The Cyclist, and take it for a spin, but to be honest … if I want an interview room experience, I’ll wait for the new season of Line of Duty, thank you very much.
When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy by David Margolick • 4 Stars on Goodreads
I’m a bit too young—believe it or not—to have actually experienced Sid Caesar in his prime on television, in the beginning years of that medium. But I’ve always been curious about him, even though the few bits and pieces I have seen of Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour have been not exactly my cup of tea. He was certainly the toast of the town at one point when it came to his weekly variety and sketch shows, but then … what happened? Caesar was TV’s biggest and most critically lauded star in the early to mid 1950s, and then, POOF!—he was pretty much gone. David Margolick’s book traces Caesar’s rise and fall and paints a picture of what early network television was like. In Caesar’s wake, he gave us people like Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon, and even a little bit of Woody Allen. The book bogs down a bit with lengthy descriptions of skits and Caesar’s therapy history, but it’s still a fascinating look at an era when everything was brand new, including the concept of a comedy/variety show and the people who became stars doing it.
EC Comics: The New Trend by Grant Geissman • 5 Stars on Goodreads
This almost-pocket size (if you have BIG pockets!) edition of Taschen’s giant $200 History of EC Comics by EC scholar Grant Geissman is everything you need to know about the company, for only 30-bucks (CHEAP!). A great overview of both the New Trend and the New Direction books, it’s filled to the brim with art, photos and an added bonus: Every EC New Trend cover at the back of the book! Geissman writes honestly about some of the friction in the company between Kurtzman and Gaines and Feldstein, and there’s lots of original art, sketches, and more. An absolute must-have book for anyone that loves comic book history!
Dick Tracy: 1941 by Chester Gould • 5 Stars on Goodreads
This is the first volume in a major project from Clover Press and the Library of American Comics, reprinting Chester Gould’s masterful syndicated newspaper comic strip, Dick Tracy. It’s predecessor, The Complete Dick Tracy reprinted the entire run by Gould (from 1931 to 1977) in hardbound editions, with a lot of historical material, including essays by Tracy author Max Allen Collins, who took over the writing of the strip after Gould retired. In this new series, we get paperback editions encased in fancy slipcases, and each volume represents one year of continuity, pretty much from January 1st through December 31st, dangling storylines be damned, and it’s strips only: no essays. I’m fine with that, although the slipcases and new interpretations of Tracy on each volume (Clover is publishing them four at a time) leave me kind of cold. I do love re-reading these tales and 1941 is certainly the demarcation line for when Tracy started to become really good, with the introduction in that year of two of Gould’s famously freaky bad guys: Little Face Finny and The Mole. I like the four volumes at once production schedule, too, although I will probably skip everything before 1940 and everything after 1960. Clover Press offered these on Kickstarter first, so buying all four volumes at once gave readers a bit of a price break (retail price is $29.99/volume; Kickstarter made it about $25.00 each). I’m looking forward to getting more of these and restarting my Dick Tracy collection … or at least some of it.
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