Time Out of Mind
Richard Cowper

My local comic shop has a small selection of old paperbacks. I was poking around among them the other day.  There were several volumes by Richard Cowper (real name Colin Murray).  I’d seen copies in used book shops for decades but had never read one.

On something of a lark, I picked up Time Out of Mind.  With a gorgeous Don Maitz cover like that, how could I resist?  Plus it was only 175 pages.  Not anything I would end up investing a great deal of time on., so I was willing to give it a try.

It turned out to be a good investment.  Time Out of Mind was first published in the UK in 1973.  The US edition was published by Pocket Books in 1981.  The story shows its age in places.  The book opens in 1987, but most of the action takes place in the late 1990s.  Every now and then there’s a bit of outdated slang.  None of that was enough to put me off. Continue reading →