Black Mischief – Evelyn Waugh, 1932 ★★★★

Perils of Western Civilization

Nothing prepares one for the spritely acid bath of Evelyn Waugh’s third novel less than reading it after his first two novels. Yes, those are black comedies, too, but there’s something extra-chilling about the whimsical savagery found here, where life is cheap and violence constant.

Off the coast of northeastern Africa, the island nation of Azania stands athwart the march of progress, its people enmeshed in bloody feuds and quick scams. Seth, the new emperor, seeks to change that by looking to to Europe for inspiration. He happens upon a mash-up of Marxism and family planning that blows up sooner than you can say: “THROUGH STERILITY TO CULTURE.”

Counting on the help of an opportunistic Brit, Basil Seal, Seth’s road to nowhere implicates both Africans and Europeans as well as the hope they might have anything to learn from each other.

Saturday Night Live – Edited by Anne Beatts & John Head, 1977 ★★★★

Still Funny After All These Years

The late-night TV show “Saturday Night Live” is officially 50 now, as it debuted on October 11, 1975. Its legend as a comedy-culture dynamo is almost as old, captured for the first time in book form in this collection of sketch scripts from Seasons 1 and 2.

Today, it reads like an old family album, a hodgepodge of stray jokes and scrawled banter by its original cast, writers and other creatives. The website Vulture called it a “samizdat scrapbook.” Amusing it is, cohesive it isn’t. What it captures is the afterglow of brilliance that made the show such a must-see for Boomers and Gen Xers back in the day.

How does it read in retrospect? Depending on your age, either very poignant or rather dated. This was a show that took pride in its ability to be offensive back when the price for such line-stepping was minimal.

Tricks – Ed McBain, 1987 ★★★★½

McBain's Masterful Medley of Mayhem

A riveting showcase of hard-boiled crime-story technique blending suspense and wit, Tricks is a genre novel that dares to be great. From start to end, author Ed McBain keeps pulling surprises that are brutally twisted and wrenching yet also supremely fun.

It’s Halloween and the children of the 87^th Precinct are running wild. This goes beyond the usual shenanigans. Four costumed small fry bounce out of a car into a liquor store yelling “Trick or treat!” Before the owner can shoo them off, they shoot him dead and clean out his register.

The novel’s title has several meanings. A magician disappears after a final magic act, leaving body parts across town. A mysterious caller bothers a lone woman by claiming to have legitimate questions about her bust size. A slasher stakeout turns deadly for a detective disguised as a sex worker.