Tales of the Star Republic -- Terence Faherty

This is a book I read and intended to review for my short-story column in Mystery Scene before I got my little health surprise.  I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to review it here and get the word out as much as I could.

In spite of the title, it's not a science fiction book.  The Star Republic is a newspaper, and the narrator of the stories is a reporter who writes the "nut stories" for the paper.  The weird news, that is.  He covers the UFO reports, the levitating rocks, the disappearing graves, that kind of thing.  About half the stories in the book have been previously published in EQMM, and half are original to the book.  I'd read some of them before, but I read them all again.  They're short, smooth, well written and plotted, humane, and just fun to read.  I like all Faherty's work, and all his short story series are worth looking for.  If you haven't tried them before, this would be a great place to start.