Oy, Joy!; Lucy Frank

In her first year of high school Joy loses her best friend to a guy and her bedroom to her mom's uncle.

Fun to read.

I wasn't overjoyed to find the same cheap scare tactic in two books in a row, however.

Death Instinct, Phillip Emmons

Gruesome serial killer novel. Had a solution that I thought was pretty Dean-Koontz-ian, but taken to the next level of grotesque.

Phillip Emmons is a pen name for Bentley Little. Once you know this, you start seeing that the name pops up in a lot of his novels.

The Heights, the Depths, and Everything In Between; Sally Nemeth

Above-average story about best friends: overly tall Lucy Small and dwarf Jake Little. Tells about their first year in junior high (whatever that is) in 1977.

The Killing Man, Mickey Spillane

Mike Hammer walks into his office to find his secretary in critical condition and a dead man in his chair. The dead man has all of his fingers cut off. The killer left a note.

Though people keep telling him otherwise, Hammer is convinced the killing has nothing to do with him.

I didn't particularly like Hammer, and Spillane is living in a fantasy world. Any woman with naturally large breasts would not still be perky at forty. I learned this in my twenties.