For mystery lovers who know what they want – and for those who haven't a clue!
If you remember back to when we used to stamp our plain, brown bags. We had a skull and crossbones, a Sherlock head, and a few others. One was a hardboiled image of a guy shooting a tommygun. I always wondered what the source for that image was and I just found it.
Seek and ye shall find, even if it takes a few decades….
JB
From Grand Master Lawrence Block ~
There’s been a fair amount of media attention paid lately to the decisions of the estates of both Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming to make extensive edits to their respective bodies of work with an eye toward improving passages that might strike a contemporary reader as racially insensitive or otherwise offensive. I don’t feel moved to comment on either the original texts or the seemliness of changing them, but wanted to share a comparable move by an overseas publisher; perhaps because the work in question is in a language other than English, the following announcement has been largely overlooked by the linguistically insular American press:
Frankfurt, February 26: Representatives of Mehliger-Mund Verlag, the esteemed publisher, announced today the impending publication of Unsere humanitär Aufgabe, slated for reissue in early 1925, exactly 100 years after its original appearance.
“The book has stood the test of time,” said Mehliger-Mund’s spokesman, Heinrich Labberig. “Written during its author’s forced isolation after his initial emergence as a philosophical and political innovator, it has long since earned a permanent place on the shelf of German classics. But times change, and various textual idiosyncrasies, perfectly acceptable in 1925, have the unfortunate effect of alienating the reader of today.”
The challenge, Labberig explained, lay in judiciously ameliorating the author’s text without diluting its timeless message. “It is undeniable,” he said, “that the original text singled out for disparagement a particular segment of the German population. In the author’s defense, one might point out that he was doing little more than expressing the national consciousness of the time. Our attitudes on matters of race and religion have changed dramatically over the course of the past hundred years, and strict preservation of the author’s original text could make him appear bigoted—even antisemitic—in the eyes of the Twenty-first Century reader.”
In addition, the text itself has been toned down. Consider the following selection, thus in the original: “The application of force alone, without support based on a spiritual concept, can never bring about the destruction of an idea or arrest the propagation of it, unless one is ready and able to ruthlessly to exterminate the last upholders of that idea even to a man, and also wipe out any tradition which it may tend to leave behind.”
In the new edition, it’s softened somewhat: “The application of force is by no means the only way to change people’s minds and open them up to new ideas.”
When asked about the book’s new title, Herr Labberig admitted the risk in changing a phrase that had indeed become part of the world’s consciousness. Unsere humanitär Aufgabe—in English, Our Humanitarian Mission—does not readily call the original to mind. “But we felt it was an essential modernization,” he contended. “The author spoke as a lone voice, and so used the first-person singular, but he was in fact speaking on behalf of a whole people, as the plural Unsere affirms. Similarly, Aufgabe stresses that he is writing about a mission, a task, a higher purpose; a hundred years ago, given his personal circumstances, it is more than understandable that he proclaimed this to be a battle—but the word strikes today’s ear as harsher and more confrontational than one would prefer. As for the adjective, humanitär—well, given the book’s history, we felt it important to label the author’s mission as humanitarian.”
Update—Frankfurt, February 27: Heinrich Labberig, speaking on behalf of Mehliger-Mund Verlag, said it was “quite understandable” that the announcement of the impending publication of Unsere humanitär Aufgabe had occasioned a groundswell of outrage. “For many people,” he said, “the original text has taken on the aura of Holy Writ, and amending it has been likened to burning a religious scroll. But all should be assured that the original will continue to be available, and, in fact, simultaneous with the new version, Mehliger-Mund will be bringing out a deluxe leather-bound edition with the original text. And, of course, its original title, Mein Kampf.”
And so it goes.
As does Twitter, apparently. I’m in the habit of tweeting a link to each newsletter, and I know more than a few of you find it through those links rather than bothering to subscribe. That’s always been fine—but now, with Twitter evidently falling apart, I’m no longer able to tweet anything, or even to read what others tweet. I suppose this will sort itself out eventually, but in the meantime I’ll respectively request that some of you with Twitter access tweet the following: ” @LawrenceBlock March Newsletter: https://lawrenceblock.com/beyond-roald-dahl-and-ian-fleming/ “
Cheers,
A Murder Mystery With Clothes to Die For
Codebreakers crack secrets of the lost letters of Mary, Queen of Scots
Wienermobile hit by catalytic converter thieves, stranding it in Las Vegas. ‘No way’
Take a video tour of the astonishing Walker Library of The History of Human Imagination
Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson is back.
Some of the Best Stories from a Century of Weird Tales (That You Can Read Online)
A Sci-Fi Magazine Stopped Letting Anyone Submit Stories After Being Flooded With AI-Written Content [but shouldn’t a sci-fi magazine welcome fiction from robots??]
Man facing jail over theft of almost 200,000 Cadbury Creme Eggs
Words of the Month
steal (n.): 1825, “act or case of theft,” from steal (v.). Meaning “a bargain” is attested by 1942, American English colloquial. Baseball sense of “a stolen base” is from 1867. (etymonline)
Serious Stuff
FBI wants more ransomware victims to report attacks
Can Community Programs Help Slow the Rise in Violence?
Is It Forensics or Is It Junk Science?
Native American Women Keep Turning Up Dead. Why Is Nothing Being Done?
‘The Nazi Conspiracy’ uncovers a little known WWII Nazi plot
Developers Created AI to Generate Police Sketches. Experts Are Horrified
Security News This Week: North Korean Hackers Are Attacking US Hospitals
Malcolm X’s family is suing the CIA, FBI and NYPD
Here Are Some of the Most Hacked States in America
Hackers breach U.S. Marshals system with sensitive personal data
Censorship/Terrorism
Neo-Nazi Lovers Charged in Plot to Nuke Baltimore Power Grid
Pennsylvania school librarian ordered to remove Holocaust survivor’s quote from the wall
Wikipedia ban in Pakistan over alleged blasphemous content lifted
Florida school district pulls children’s book on Roberto Clemente over passage that he faced racism
The ignorance is the point. Kids books about Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente get censored | Opinion
DeSantis Now Says Teachers Are Shelving Books to Make Him Look Bad
Critics reject changes to Roald Dahl books as censorship
James Bond Books Undergo Edit to Remove ‘Offensive’ Language
A Cappella Group Says Concert at Florida Christian College Canceled Over Member’s ‘Lifestyle’
Florida teacher who posted video showing empty bookshelves in school library gets fired
Jane Smiley: Why I’m Thrilled My Pulitzer-Winning Book Has Been Banned
Neo-Nazi Homeschoolers Defend Their ‘Wholesome’ Pro-Hitler Network
Art Exhibit Canceled After Florida College Demands Diversity References be Scrubbed
The Far Right Is Calling for the Execution of Teachers and Doctors
Jimmy Kimmel hits back over report that Trump White House pressured Disney to censor his jokes
Words of the Month
swipe (v.): 1825, “strike with a sweeping motion,” from swipe (n.). The slang sense of “steal, pilfer” appeared 1885, American English; earliest use in prison jargon:
The blokes in the next cell, little Charley Ames and the Sheeney Kid, they was hot to try it, and swiped enough shoe-lining out of shop No. 5, where they worked, to make us all breeches to the stripes. [Lippincott’s Magazine, vol. xxxv, June 1885]
etymonline
Local Stuff
Inside the hunt for a serial kidnapper, and a bloody finale
Erika Christensen on why ‘Will Trent’ is unlike other police procedural shows [based on novels by Karin Slaughter]
The books we love: Seattle’s reading habits reflect city’s diversity
From Mike Lawson: The Great, Always Bizarre Florida Crime Fiction Tradition
This Seattle bookstore draws design aficionados from around the globe
Calling Lucian Connally:
Timeline of Oregon Bourbon Scandal
OLCC Director Steve Marks Resigns amid Oregon Bourbon Scandal
Oregon Liquor Officials Are Accused of Hoarding Rare Bourbon
Odd Stuff
Photos of Obsessive Collectors With Their Collections
How fingerprints get their unique whorls
Spoken Latin Is Making a Comeback
Want to own a prison? Well good news — this one is for sale in Missouri. Check it out
SPECTRE
Amazon is taking half of each sale from its merchants
Town can’t refuse Amazon offer despite Robert Duvall opposition
FTC won’t challenge Amazon’s $3.49B One Medical deal
Jeff Bezos receives highest French honor in private ceremony
Amazon Is Already Selling Tons of Books Written by AI
Hundreds of AI-written books flood Amazon
Amazon has a donkey meat problem
As investigations mount, Kent worker describes Amazon’s ‘outrageous’ toll
Words of the Month
caper (n.2): by 1590s, “a playful leap or jump, a skip or spring as in dancing,” from caper (v.). The meaning “prank” is from 1840 via notion of “sportive action;” that of “crime” is from 1926. To “cut capers” dance in a frolicsome way” is from c. 1600, from cut (v.) in the sense of “perform, execute.” (etymonline)
Awards
Finalists for the Gotham Prize Are Revealed
All Shirley Jackson Award finalists get stoned.
Vote now for the new name of the Booker Prize trophy (Iris, obvs).
Book Stuff
The Best Crime Novels of 2022 (yeah, we’re late including this…)
A.I. uncovers unknown play by Spanish great in library archive
Want to be a writer? This bleak but buoyant guide says to get used to rejection
Famous poet Pablo Neruda was poisoned after a coup, according to a new report
Ancient Hebrew Bible May Fetch $50 Million, Becoming Priciest Book Ever Sold
An Author’s Guide to Stealing from the Books You Love by Stephen Hunter
The Strange Real-Life Mystery Behind Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”
Why Does the Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death Still Haunt Us?
X Marks the Spot: Literary Treasure Hunts
The Life and Legacy of James Ellroy
Marcia Muller: A Crime Reader’s Guide to the Classics
Why So Many Journalists Turn to Careers in Crime Fiction
The Year Ian Fleming Finally Started Writing His Novel
British independent publishers thrive despite Brexit and Covid pandemic
Book Stalls and Back Rooms: Traveling the World in Search of Literary Serendipity
How Failure Defines the Writing Life
World’s Oldest Near-Complete Hebrew Bible Goes to Auction
What Is It That Makes Used Bookstores So Wonderful?
William Kotzwinkle could never become a monk. So he created one in crime fiction instead.
New imaging tool confirms female scribe etched her name in medieval manuscript
The Best Plot Twists in Mystery
The Odd Career of the World’s Most Upsetting Book
Chip Gaines bought Larry McMurtry’s legendary bookstore to… fix up, we hope?
How the Armed Services Editions Created a Nation of Readers
X Marks the Spot: Literary Treasure Hunts
Penguin Random House Announces New Leadership After a Turbulent Period
Vicki Hendricks, Miami Purity, and the Making of a Neo-Noir Classic [when Vicki came into the shop to sign her debut, she was wearing a custom-made leather dress that matched her book’s dustjacket!]
Author Events (in person)
Mar. 6: Rupert Holmes signs Kill Your Employer, Powell’s, 7pm
Mar. 26: J.A. Jance signs Collateral Damage, Third Place/LFP 4pm
Mar. 28: Cara Black signs Night Flight to Paris, Third Place/LFP, 7pm
Mar. 29: Cara Black signs Night Flight to Paris, Powell’s 7pm
Words of the Month
rip-off (n):”an act of fraud, a swindle,” 1969, from verbal phrase rip off “to steal or rob” (c. 1967) in African-American vernacular, from rip (v.) + off (adv.). Rip was prison slang for “to steal” since 1904, and was also used in this sense in 12th C. The specific meaning “an exploitative imitation” is from 1971, also “a plagiarism.” Related: Ripped-off. (etymonline)
Other Forms of Entertainment
‘Columbo’ is the Ultimate ‘Rich People are Weird’ Show
Guns have been in motion pictures since the start. ‘Rust’ is only the latest to have a gun death
Over 100 Pieces of Rare James Bond Film Memorabilia Can Now Be Yours for $450,000
J.J. Abrams, Warner Bros. Team for Adaptation of Stephen King Crime Novel ‘Billy Summers’
Marcel Proust on What Writing Is
Gregory Peck’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Script Goes to Auction
‘Murder in Big Horn’ Directors on Why “Colonization Is the True Crime” in Their Docuseries
Harry Dean Stanton is the Hero of Every Noir
A trailblazer who brought a Black woman’s voice to comics
Liam Neeson says his late wife Natasha Richardson refused to marry him if he played James Bond
60 years later, ‘The Boston Strangler’ podcast revisits the murders
The New Serial Podcast Is a Return to Their Roots. It’s Going to Make Listeners Angry.
Netflix’s Murdaugh Murders Team Say They’ve Uncovered New Crimes
The FBI’s Persecution of Sidney Poitier
Words of the Month
heist (v.): 1943 (implied in heisted; heister “shoplifter, thief” is from 1927), American English slang, probably a dialectal alteration of hoist (v.) “to lift” in its slang sense of “shoplift,” and/or its older British slang sense “to lift another on one’s shoulders to help him break in.” As a noun from 1930. (etymonline)
RIP
Jan. 31: Carin Goldberg, 69, Who Transformed Book and Album Cover Design, Dies
Feb. 1: Allan A. Ryan, Dogged Pursuer of Nazi Collaborators, Dies at 77
Feb. 9: Marianne Mantell, Who Helped Pave the Way for Audiobooks, Dies at 93
Feb. 17: Donald Spoto, Biographer of Hitchcock and Many More, Dies at 81
Feb. 19: Richard Belzer, Extraordinarily Smart-Ass as a Comic, Author, and a TV Cop, Dies at 78
Feb. 20: Barbara Bosson, Emmy-Nominated Actress on ‘Hill Street Blues,’ Dies at 83
Feb. 22: Simone Segouin, French Resistance fighter, dies at 97
Feb. 23: John Macrae III, Eclectic Publisher and Rights Champion, Dies at 91
Feb. 25: Walter Mirisch, Former Academy President and ‘In the Heat of the Night’ Producer, Dies at 101
Words of the Month
pilfer (v.): “to steal in small quantities” (intrans.); “to steal or gain by petty theft” (trans.), 1540s, from pilfer (n.) “spoils, booty,” c. 1400, from Old French pelfre “booty, spoils” (11th C.), a word of unknown origin, possibly related to pelf. Related: Pilfered; pilfering. Pulfrour “a thief” is attested from mid-14th C., implying earlier use.
pelf (n.): late 14th C., “stolen goods, forfeited property,” from Anglo-French pelf, Old French pelfre “booty, spoils” (11th C.), a word of unknown origin.Meaning “money, property, riches,” with a pejorative or contemptuous overtone, also is recorded from late 14th C. It has no plural. (etymonline)
Links of Interest
Jan. 31: YouTube’s ‘Penis Enlargement’ Grifter Suffers Bloody Death in Thailand
Feb. 2: How a Champion Surfer Became a Notorious Jewel Thief and Murderer
Feb. 3: The Apache, the Irish Catholic Priest, and a 40-Year-Old Miscarriage of Justice
Feb. 3: Italian mobster, 16 years on the lam, is found working at a pizzeria
Feb. 4: The Great Gatsby of Gold Took Their Millions—and Vanished
Feb. 8: What’s a Japanese Mobster to Do in Retirement? Join a Softball Team.
Feb. 10: ‘Furry little bandit’ causes destruction in Oklahoma Department of Libraries building
Feb. 13: Podcast sleuths hope remains in plastic bag will solve 50-year-old Swedish cold case
Feb. 14: Forensic study finds Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was poisoned
Feb. 15: Ex-Mexico drug czar’s defense says accusers have ‘motives to lie’
Feb. 17: Who Corrupted a Top FBI Spyhunter?
Feb. 17: Spanish police nab art thieves, recover 100-year old Dali drawings
Feb. 18: How an Alleged Con Man Tore Apart One of the Nineties’ Biggest Bands
Feb. 19: As $1.6 million in rare photos vanished, the excuses piled up
Feb. 19: Guns, Grift, and Gore: The Life and Times of an Arms-Dealing Hustler
Feb. 22: The Unsettling History of Serial Killers in Colorado
Feb. 26: Elon Musk accuses media of racism after newspapers drop ‘Dilbert’ cartoon
Feb. 27: Hundreds of newspapers drop ‘Dilbert’ comic strip after racist tirade from creator Scott Adams
Feb. 27: The Con Artist and the American Dream
Words of the Month
shenanigan (n.): “nonsense; deceit, humbug,” 1855, American English slang, of uncertain origin. Earliest records of it are in California (San Francisco and Sacramento) [from that area’s Gold Rush? – eds]. Suggestions include Spanish chanada, a shortened form of charranada “trick, deceit;” or, less likely, German Schenigelei, peddler’s argot for “work, craft,” or the related German slang verb schinäglen. Another guess centers on Irish sionnach “fox,” and the form is perhaps conformed to an Irish surname. (etymonline)
What We’ve Been Up To
Amber
Round-up review of things I’ve loved watching/reading recently but are so popular they practically sell themselves!
First Up: The Glass Onion
The second installment in the Knives Out universe is absolutely awesome. Though I must admit, I was worried when I first started watching it. Very, very worried. All the cameos of well-known actors felt a bit gratuitous…but I’d looked forward to the movie for months — so I stuck with it, and boy, was my patients rewarded. The cameos enhance the feel of the billionaire jet set cast of suspects we are watching and make complete sense by the end of the movie. An end that I gotta say is one of the very best I’ve seen in a whodunnit…. since the original Knives Out movie.
Second: Desperation In Death by J.D. Robb
A page-turning, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller didn’t disappoint. Action packed from the first page to the last, if you’re looking for a good vacation read, you won’t go wrong with this installment. Though there is a trigger warning I must warn other readers about — the plot revolves around human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women and young girls. While Robb does a good job of balancing the horror of the subject matter with the mystery (without getting overly graphic), if this is something that you struggle with, I’d skip this installment and wait for Encore In Death which is out now.
Third: The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton
Jane Austen meets pirates meets magical flying houses — this is the best summary I can give. An amusing read full of action, swashbuckling, betrayal, and books, The Wisteria Society was a fun read. Though, if you’re well versed in steam-punk and fantasy, it’s not quite the groundbreaking book the New York Times made it out to be.
Lastly: Wednesday
A Netflix original that expands the Addams Family universe — is an exceptional show. Of course, all the traditional elements of an Addams Family story are present. Still, the writers have done a singular job of sprinkling them through the series and keeping them fresh (rather than simply regurgitating them in a cringe worthy fashion). Full of secrets, multiple mysteries, and interesting characters, this show is well worth your viewing time.
Fran
So, here’s the deal
I sometimes suffer from depression, the real deal, not just the blues or feeling down. If any of you follow Jenny Lawson, a/k/a The Bloggess, you know what I’m talking about: unable to move, almost literally, a deep fog, an endless circle of “why bother”, well, either you know or you don’t.
So I wasn’t reading because why bother, but I had to get out of bed and onto the couch because Lillian and Mazikeen insisted. Although it’s possible that Maz had ulterior motives.
Still, I wasn’t interested in much, although I did manage to lose myself in my writing, but that’s because I could think of plot pieces while doing physical therapy on my knee, which is healing better than expected, so there’s that.
But the point is, I was lethargic, so when Lillian turned on a Mexican series that’s on Netflix, I kinda shrugged and went with it.
It was great.
The series is based on books written by Paco Ignatio Taibo II, whom you might remember from our Bookshop days.
This is set in the 70’s, and it’s an homage to the classic noir stories. There is grit, there is backstabbing and double-dealing, there’s the possibility of romance, and there’s a lot of straight-up, laugh-out-loud humor. It’s captivating.
At first, I was shaking my head, thinking, “Oh no, it’s over the top and it’s just plain silly”, but it didn’t take me long to get hooked. Yeah, there are some wild things, but let’s face it, a lot of noir stories rely on head shaking moments.
Did Belascoaran lift me out of my depression? No. Only time can do that. But it helped. And it’s well worth your time, pinkie swear.
JB
Movie Review: I know the critics have been nasty about Neil Jordan’s Marlowe, I enjoyed it. I would imagine most of the critics never read a Chandler book, much less the Benjamin Black (John Banville) novel on which the film was based (The Black-Eyed Blonde, now republished as a tie-in with the title of the movie, just to confuse everyone…). I’ve gotten the sense that they were expecting an ACTION movie, where as a 1940ish private eye movie was always one of plot, menace, femme fatales and a slow unraveling of whodunnit. They went in expecting a different movie and blamed the movie.
Marlowe unfolds like any good private eye novel – steadily, with dead ends and red herrings, thumps on the head and, of course, south-of-the border intrigue. While the book was a sequel, of sorts, to The Long Goodbye, the movie drops those connections to make it a stand-alone story and it functions well. Liam Neeson is a fine Marlowe [the 8th? – D. Powell, Bogart, R. Montgomery, Mitchum (twice), Gould, Garner, B. Powers (on HBO) before him] . Jessica Lange is startling as one of the blondes; watch her eyes during her lunch with Neeson. All of the acting is great, the faces and fashion spot on and, though not filmed in LA, Catalonia provides the warmth and colors to make you think you’re in that time.
Two carps: Marlowe is given a secretary, for some reason. Gittes and Spade had one, but Marlowe made enough to keep him in cigarettes, not employees, and Neeson’s fake hair color is a distraction, it looked spray painted. Marlowe can show gray, but dull brown was a mistake.
See Marlowe. Go in expecting a good, noirish private eye story and you’ll have a grand time. I did. And keep an eye and ear open for all of the sly references to crime movies from the past. I call ’em homages. The youngsters say Easter Eggs…
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of the four other books about Watergate that I’ve read, one name kept cropping up as the writer to whom all others owe a great debt: Jim Hougan. His 1984 history of the affair, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA was the first to provide a counter history to what everyone had been exposed: that the break-in, arrests, and it’s exposure was not the focus of the White House “plumbers”; rather, there was a CIA operation to gather intelligence and the plumbers efforts were sabotaged in order to hide that operation. Indeed, did the plumbers really know what the point was?
The book, whether you want to buy his arguments, is a fascinating and
detailed account of the burglaries and the oddities that have always surrounded them. If nothing else, he makes clear how far and deeply the CIA had penetrated DC. Case in point: John Paisley was a career-long CIA agent who worked in the counter-intelligence wing of the Company. He “died” under odd circumstances (some theorize that the body said to be his hid his defection to the Soviets) and one recent book, Howard Blum’s The Spy Who Knew too Much argues he was the Great Soviet Mole at the heart of the CIA. Hougan writes that Paisley was the CIA’s connection to the plumbers. No other Watergate history even lists Paisley in the index.
Besides the oddities of the burglaries, it has never been historically agreed to what exactly the June 17th break-in was to accomplish. Hougan has his theory and gives details to support it. Again, believe him or not, his story is worth the time. Watergate is another Great American Historical Mystery that just keeps giving.
???????????????????????????????????????????
Once again, Mike Lawson has given us a smooth suspense novel, crackling with solid characters and a plot that has two major twists that are wholly unexpected. He’s also infused it with a poignancy that demands tears.
He’s also broken away from the “House” titles of earlier DeMarco books. Alligator Alley takes place mostly in Florida and has DeMarco and Emma trying to find out what happened to a Department of Justice worker, a young woman too eager to find out what the bad guys are up to. They’re asked by one of the most honored figures in DC to get the answers and Emma will stop at nothing to get them. DeMarco, of course, would rather be playing golf, but he adds important plans to their work proving he isn’t the dope he sounds to be.
And again, Mike ties the story to recent headlines with millions in Medicare fraud. Answers are found, the villains get what they deserve, but the cost is great, even if those paying the bill are at peace with it. That’s what is poignant and warrants the graveside tears.
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Book It Theatre’s world-wide premiere of Danielle Mohlman’s adaption of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd runs Feb. 8 – March 5
15th Noir City festival celebrates 1948 films at SIFF Cinema Egyptian
X marks the spot: newly released treasure map sparks hunt for £15m Nazi hoard
Town Forced to Tell Treasure Hunters to Please Stop Looking for Nazi Gold
Florence Pugh called John le Carré an “old f*cking fart,” which… inspired him?
~Something is afoot with copyright this Public Domain Day
~Here are the books that just entered the public domain.
A New Member Of Congress Explained Why He’ll Swear His Oath Of Office On The US Constitution With A First-Edition Superman Comic (borrowed from the Library of Congress!)
Amateur archaeologist helps crack Ice Age cave art code
World’s oldest runestone found in Norway, archaeologists say
Archaeologists discovered a new papyrus of Egyptian Book of the Dead
LeVar Burton to Host Children’s Podcast ‘Sound Detectives’
A collector was ‘bitten by the postcard bug’ 80 years ago; see some of his favorites
Somebody made an exact LEGO replica of this classic movie bookstore.
He tossed a message in a bottle. A family sent it back 37 years later.
They’re getting rid of ‘red tape’ in Washington. Literally
Font furore as State Department retires Times New Roman for retired Calibri
Edgar Allan Poe had a promising military career. Then he blew it up.
Once a Floating Speakeasy, This Shipwreck Tells a Tale of Bullets and Booze
Meet the New Words Added to the Official Scrabble Dictionary
CNET’s AI-Generated Articles Riddled With Errors and Plagiarism
Before Folding 30 Years Ago, the Sears Catalog Sold Some Surprising Products
Katie Porter reading a book during the GOP’s House speaker fight is all of us.
Words of the Month
disgruntled: It started from the English barnyard, where gruntle was used to describe the noise made by a piglet (adults made a grunt). From there it became a term for a complaint. Dis got added as an intensifier sometime in the 17th or 18th C. (Says You, episode 1512)
Serious Stuff
Floods, fires and humidity: How climate change affects book preservation.
>Exclusive: Russian hackers targeted U.S. nuclear scientists
>Russia backs banning of maps disputing official ‘territorial integrity’
>Twitter Hacked, 200M User Email Addresses Leaked, Researcher Says
>Norton LifeLock says thousands of customer accounts breached
>PayPal: 35,000 Users Had Social Security, Tax Info Exposed to Hackers
>ChatGPT Is Pretty Good at Writing Malware, It Turns Out
>Hackers penetrated LAUSD computers much earlier than previously known, district probe finds
>Hacker Found FBI No Fly List on Unsecured Server
>Australia’s Health System Prime Target for Hacks, Minister Says
>The Unrelenting Menace of the LockBit Ransomware Gang
>US infiltrates big ransomware gang: ‘We hacked the hackers’
^Hiding History: Everyone talks about the need for transparency in public affairs, but what the government means by transparency turns out to be… not all that clear.
^JFK Murder: Evolving Strategies for Damage Control
They Called 911 For Help. Police And Prosecutors Used A New Junk Science To Decide They Were Liars
These Documents Reveal Abuses and Breakdowns in Rogue System of Global Diplomacy
LAPD Finally Decides Cops Shouldn’t Be Driving Around Totally Wasted
Paul Auster: ‘The gun that killed my grandfather was the same gun that ruined my father’s life’
2nd Colorado library closes due to meth contamination
Met Police missed NINE chances to stop sadistic serial rapist cop who attacked 12 women
Mexico’s former top cop on trial in New York, accused of working for Sinaloa cartel
Journalists Reveal the Horrors of Murdered, Lifeless Children in Ukraine
US to designate Russia’s Wagner Group as ‘transnational criminal organization’
=Neo-Nazis Are Hosting MMA and Boxing Tournaments to Recruit New Members
=Nazi Homeschool Network Under Investigation by Ohio’s Department of Education
Former FBI agent charged with violating sanctions against Russia, aiding oligarch
Ex-New Mexico state GOP candidate arrested in shootings at Democrats’ homes
Failed GOP Candidate Allegedly Hired Hitmen To Target Dem. Lawmakers
Michigan is Banning Inmates From Reading Totally Normal Books
Florida High School Cancels ‘Indecent,’ a Play About Censorship on Broadway in 1923
Secret Video Reveals Twitter Team Warned of ‘Shooting in the Streets’ Ahead of Jan. 6
Students want new books. Thanks to restrictions, librarians can’t buy them.
I Helped Thousands of Teens Impacted By Book Bans. Here’s What They Had To Say
Florida teachers forced to remove or cover up books to avoid felony charges
The Long Shadow of ‘American Dirt’
M&M’s accept Tucker Carlson’s invite to the culture wars
Words of the Month
comeuppance: Of British origin, you have come up before a judge to face the legal music. (Says You, episode 1512)
Local Stuff ~ From the Greater Pacific Northwest
Here are Seattle Public Library’s most-checked-out books in 2022
Fleeing driver calls 911, says chase violates her ‘rights,’ Washington cops say
I’m a Criminology Professor. I’ve Seen Students Like the Idaho Suspect Before. [a freaky, scary, and thoughtful article – JB]
Thousands lose power after shooting in South Seattle
Iris Yamashita on Writing a Murder Mystery About an Isolated Alaskan Town
Oregon-born Holly Madison hosts ‘The Playboy Murders,’ about crimes connected to the Playboy world
After a half-century, Elliott Bay Book Company is surviving and thriving
Seattle Morgue Struggling to Accommodate Glut of Fentanyl Deaths: Official
Ghost Herd: a KUOW Postcast – A true story of family, fraud, land and power
in the American West.
What if you gave a book signing and nobody came? Local authors and booksellers reflect on book signings – poorly attended or not
Words of the Month
furphy: A false report, a rumor. (Says You, episode 1512)
Odd Stuff
What Were TSA’s Most Unusual Finds in 2022?
An inflection point for GOATs: Please quiet quit these ‘banished words’ moving forward
This Rare Robert Burns Book Was Discovered in a Barber Shop, Where It Was Used to Clean Razors
‘Sopranos’ Actor Discovered a Famous Baroque Painting Hiding in Plain Sight
$Novelist Appears to Announce She’s Alive 2 Years After Faking Suicide: ‘Let the Fun Begin’
$Fan outrage at Susan Meachen, the romance novelist accused of faking her death
A college student created an app that can tell whether AI wrote an essay
“We Are Fake America”: Why So Many Christmas Movies Are Filmed in Canada
This Italian accountant holds the world record for most books typed backwards
Egypt foils plot to steal 10-tonne statue of Ramses II
An AI Lawyer Is About to Defend a Human in a U.S. Courtroom
Mike Pence’s PAC Spent $91,000 On His Book. It Became A Bestseller
The Underground Cooks of Singapore’s Prisons
Wyoming GOP Considers Declaring War on Electric Vehicles to Protect Fossil Fuels
Man arrested after uranium found at UK’s Heathrow Airport
Replika, the ‘AI Companion Who Cares,’ Appears to Be Sexually Harassing Its Users
Prince Harry’s Spare is fastest-selling nonfiction book since UK records began
Oyster mushrooms release nerve gas to kill worms before eviscerating them
‘The Label Misleads Consumers’: Fireball Cinnamon Producer Sued in Class Action Lawsuit
Flying saucers to mind control: 24 declassified military & CIA secrets
Donald Trump is suing Bob Woodward and Simon & Schuster over his audio interviews.
El Chapo’s Son Had an Anti-Aircraft Gun in His Bedroom
SPECTRE
Amazon Will Shut Down AmazonSmile Charity Donation Program
Amazon launches $5 a month subscription drug service
Words of the Month
trave (n): an inescapable structure in which to hold an unruly animal. In the world of espionage, a counterintelligence term to nullify a mole in your organization
Awards
Here are the winners of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Awards
The Griffin Poetry Prize Shakeup: New Rules, New Controversy
Here are the winners of the second annual Silvers-Dudley Prizes for literary and arts journalism.
Here are this year’s finalists for The Story Prize
MWA Announces 2023 Special Edgar Awards – Grand Master, Raven & Ellery Queen Recipients
Fuck the Poetry Police: On the Index of Major Literary Prizes in the United States
‘Hot Dog’ wins Caldecott, Newbery is awarded to ‘Freewater’
Here are the winners of the first Albertine Translation Prize
Julie Otsuka won a (much-deserved) Carnegie Medal!
Book Stuff
Filippo Bernardini: Italian admits stealing unpublished books
*After 44 years, London’s first Arabic bookshop closes down
A new indie bookstore named for Octavia Butler is opening in the author’s hometown.
This super cool, futuristic library is opening in the Bronx by 2025
My First Thriller: Diana Gabaldon
Here’s How Author James Patterson Writes 31 Books at the Same Time
When Fictionalizing True Crime, How Do You Avoid Exploitation?
9 Literary Classics for the Contemporary Crime Reader
These are the bestselling books of 2022 [from Publisher’s Weekly]
Mike Pompeo lands a coveted Mike Pompeo blurb for his forthcoming book.
UK’s independent bookshops survive Christmas but fear for the future
Mayor’s proposed library cuts will hurt New Yorkers, leaders say
Collector discovered Isaac Newton’s lost personal copy of Opticks
Stroll Through the World’s 11 Most Unusual Libraries
35 of the Best Bookstores in the USA
Bookstore goes viral for post about customer’s $800 return: ‘don’t do this to a small business’
How an Unorthodox Scholar Uses Technology to Expose Biblical Forgeries
This Library Design in Heyuan, China Features a Celestial Display
70k Books Found In Hidden Library In This Germany Home!
Rare illustrations from French classic ‘Les Fables de La Fontaines’ sold for €2 million
New York Public Library Acquires Joan Didion Papers
Writing wrongs: how true crime authors can fall victim to tragedy
*Bookseller ‘fundraising for a dream’ to open Arabic bookshop in London
For a Mystery Novel, How Much Sex Is Too Much Sex?
Wait, Channing Tatum is writing a romance novel with Roxane Gay?
Madeline McIntosh to Step Down as CEO of PenguinRandomHouse US
Author Events
Feb. 8: Jeff Guinn signs Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage, Powell’s, 7pm
Feb. 11: Mike Lawson signs Alligator Alley, his new DeMarco, Magnolia Books, 11am
Feb. 22: Matt Ruff signs The Destroyer of Worlds, Powell’s, 7pm
Feb. 23: Matt Ruff signs The Destroyer of Worlds, Elliott Bay Books, 7pm
Feb. 28: Matt Ruff signs The Destroyer of Worlds, Third Place /LFP, 7pm
Other Forms of Entertainment
French Cesar Film Awards ban nominees suspected of sex crimes and violence
“Kaleidoscope”: Netflix’s Mind-Bending Heist Is 2023’s First Great Series
Documentary examines lie detectors’ checkered history
That’s right! A new Philip Marlowe movie: ‘Marlowe’ Review: Liam Neeson Is The Old-School Gumshoe In Neil Jordan’s Frisky Noir Pastiche
Bernie Madoff Gets the Serial-Killer Treatment in Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street [JB says the contents of the show is great but the fakey re-enactments are a distraction]
7 Crime Movies That Should Have Been the First in a Series
Lone Woman and Cub: The Divergent Paths of Two Neo-Noirs
Dr. No’s Felix May Secretly Be The Reason For James Bond’s Coolness
Here’s Your 2023 Literary Film and TV Preview
Le Doulos: the violent French film that changed crime cinema
Stephen Colbert to Adapt One of George R.R. Martin’s Favorite Books Into TV Series
Alec Baldwin to be charged with involuntary manslaughter over Rust shooting
How Doug Liman Directed a Brett Kavanaugh FBI Investigation Doc in Secret
‘Riotsville, USA’ Shows the Birth of Police Militarization
Why cop show ‘Homicide: Life on the Street’ was revolutionary
The Most Popular Film Noir Festival in the World Makes Its Full Return to the Bay Area
New graphic novel explores the life of ‘Queenie,’ Harlem Renaissance mob boss
Tom Selleck Was Never Concerned About ‘Blue Bloods’ Airing On Friday Nights
‘Poker Face’: Natasha Lyonne Doing Columbo Is Weirdly Exactly What We Need
Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down: On the 1975 Thomas Harris Novel, Black Sunday, and Its Underrated Adaptation [For you Super Bowl fans!]
Chinatown Is Still a Thrilling, Clear-eyed Portrayal of the Arrogance of Power
Hollywood Flashback: The Corvette Debuted in 1955’s ‘Kiss Me Deadly’
Words of the Month
impend (v.): To hang or hover menacingly; to be about to take place; archaic use to overhang
RIP
We recently learned that one of our long-time supporters died last Sept. John Cashin stopped in a couple of times a week on his way to the Bainbridge ferry or a Mariners’ game. Couldn’t say when he first found us but it was probably on one of those trips home. He’d worked at a local printer for decades and he’d hand off a couple of notepads of a certain size that we’d use for daily bookkeeping. We called them ‘cashin pads’. John helped us out a few times as an auxiliary staff member during big events or if one of us had a health issue. Always cheerful, he slowly amassed a sizable collection. Adele stumbled on the news of his passing when dropping into Arundels Books. “Phil has not gotten through all the mysteries but said most he kept with the SMB signing band.” We got those belly bands through John. We also got our GM Ford limited edition pieces through John. John died five days short of his 74th birthday. As he said each time he departed, “Say goodbye, John!“
Jan. 6: Earl Boen, Actor in the ‘Terminator’ Films, Dies at 81
Jan. 7: Joyce Meskis, Tattered Cover Bookseller Who Defended Readers’ Rights, Dies at 80
Jan. 15: Al Brown, ‘The Wire’, Star Dies After Battle With Alzheimer’s Disease at 83
Jan. 16: Gina Lollobrigida, Legendary Italian Screen Siren, Dies at 95
Jan. 19: Jonathan Raban, adventurous literary traveler and Seattle resident, dies at 80
Jan. 29: Lisa Loring, Original Wednesday Actress on ‘The Addams Family,’ Dies at 64
Jan. 29: Annie Wersching, Actress in ‘Bosch,’ ‘24,’ ‘Runaways,’ and Borg Queen, Dies at 45
Jan. 29: Barrett Strong, “Money” Singer Who Wrote Motown Hits Including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” Dies at 81 [how could we NOT include this??]
Jan. 30: Cindy Williams, Star of ‘Laverne & Shirley,’ The Conversation, Dies at 75
Links of Interest
Jan.1: Inside the Life of a Career Con Man Who Couldn’t Stop
Jan. 3: The Most Glamorous Gang in London History
Jan. 4: Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 yrs for selling body parts
Jan. 4: Gloria Trevi Sex Cult Claims Revived in New Lawsuit
Jan. 4: ‘Varsity Blues’ mastermind Rick Singer sentenced to 3.5 years in prison
Jan. 4: Judge dismisses sexual assault suit against Marilyn Manson
Jan. 8: They Hunt Cartel Killers
Jan. 9: Vatican reopens investigation into teenager who went missing in 1983
Jan. 9: Real-Life ‘Training Day’: Inside the Corruption Scandal That Brought Down the Oakland PD
Jan. 9: South Africa’s Eskom says police investigating alleged poisoning of CEO
Jan. 12: New York Firefighter Accuses Chief of Raping Her as a ‘Birthday Present’
Jan. 12: 11 Gang Members Arrested for Failed Motorcycle Hit on Famous Mexican TV Anchor
Jan. 14: Security News This Week: A Russian Ransomware Gang Attack Destabilizes UK Royal Mail
Jan 14: Unemployed Lawyer Settles Years-Long Grudge by Stabbing Rival Attorney
Jan. 16: Sicilian Mafia’s ‘Boss of Bosses’ Arrested After 30 Years on the Run
Jan. 18: ‘Godfather’ mafia boss’ secret hideout had condoms, Viagra and ‘well-stocked fridge’
Jan. 18: Websites Selling Abortion Pills Are Sharing Sensitive Data With Google
Jan. 18: How Fine Art Has Become a Tool for the Bad Guys
Jan. 18: The Montreal Mafia Murders: Blood, Gore, Cannolis, and Hockey Bags
Jan. 19: Two men killed during cockfighting event after armed-roosters attacked them
Jan. 19: Umbrella Guns and Fake Poop? Cold War Spies Thought of Everything
Jan. 22: Paintings in Colorado Art Theft Recovered After Hotel Room Search
Jan. 22: He wanted a hit man, feds say. One stole his money; another was an FBI agent.
Jan. 25: U.S. Authorities Return Dozens of Looted Artifacts to Italy, Including 27 Objects from the Met
Jan. 27: Scientology Leader David Miscavige Appears to Be Missing
Jan. 28: Murdaugh Trial Upstages Bride’s Dream Wedding
Words of the Month
clothes horse (n): Mid-1800s in England, the wooded racks were sold so that one could lay out clothes to air or dry. (Says You, episode 1512)
What We’ve Been Up To
Amber
A Christie Bookshop Mystery: Dead and Gondola — Ann Claire
Okay, so the pull of this mystery title is obvious. Whilst not about Dame Agatha directly, the tangential tie intrigued me, so I settled down for a read…. and found myself enjoying the book rather a lot.
Ann Claire, our author, does a great job of keeping the mystery focused on the mystery. Knitting tidbits about the famous authoress in seamlessly and as needed — by using a Mary Westmacott book as a critical clue, naming the bookshop cat Agatha, and occasionally invoking our sleuth’s inner Miss Marple to help push the story forward.
The characters are well-rounded and interesting, as is the town of Last Word itself. The mystery, a variant of a Patricia Moyes plot I once read, works well.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mysteries set in a bookshop, around a ski town, or with a strong family vibe. Seriously, I cannot wait until the next book in the series, Last Word To The Wise, comes out in October!
Fran
For any number of reasons, I’ve been in a funk this month, and it’s been a bad one for me. Therefore, I don’t have a book recommendation this month because I pick them up and set them down again. Yeah, I can’t even read.
Although I can write, so that’s something, and one of these days I’ll tell you what I’m writing, but for now the fact that I am seems encouraging. And, of all weird places, I find inspiration while I’m doing physical therapy for my knee, especially during my pool time.
So I decided to do a Best Of 2022 review, but then realized that it’s a recap of authors I’ve recommended through the years. Apparently I spent last year reading authors I know and love, and honestly, I’m really good with that.
Louise Penny
John Connolly
Thomas Perry
Walter Satterthwaite
Craig Johnson
Well, you get the drift. Tried and true authors who never let me down. Or if they do, it’s a minor drop because none of these folks can write a bad story if they had to.
So instead, I’m going to resurrect a recommendation from years ago, with a slight twist. I’m going to tell you to read anything and everything by Jenny Lawson, a/k/a The Bloggess. Why? Because I’m in a funk, and Jenny Lawson is perfect for those times when our mental health is iffy. She isn’t afraid to tackle mental health issues, which I admire endlessly, but she’s funny as hell too, which I also need.
This is one of her books, and starting here is a good place. It’s funny, and decidedly weird, and uplifting in an unusual sort of way, and for January and February doldrums, well, you just can’t ask for better than that.
JB
Entertainment recommendations:
“Slow Horses” – Apple TV adaptation of Nick Herron’s books – is fabulous – both seasons.
“The Pale Blue Eye” – adaptation of Louis Bayard’s 1830 murder mystery with West Point cadet A.E Poe – is a a good evening’s entertainment. On Netflix.
Also on Netflix, “Kaleidoscope” is astonishing. Episodes are by color and you can/are supposed watch them in any order. They direct you to save White for last. I would recommend that you save Pink to watch just before White. It was created, and some of the episodes were written, by Eric Garcia (remember Anonymous Rex?).
After sitting on my “to be read” pile for FAR TOO LONG, I picked up the new hardcover by Michael Mann and Meg Gardner, Heat 2. When I first heard they were releasing the novel, I was curious about what was left to tell. Well, there was LOTS. It goes both into the past, the period right after the end of the movie, and into the future. We get Vincent Hanna’s (Pacino) past in Chicago, Chris’ (Kilmer) escape from LA and his future, and then how their lives collide in the future.
The writing fits the characters very well and mirrors the stylings of the movie. And just like the movie, the plot and characters are full and rich and the result is terrific. Hard to put it down to eat or sleep!
Loren D. Estleman has been one of my favorite authors since Bill recommended when I first started working with him. His Detroit PI series with Amos Walker is the closest we’ve been able to get to Chandler since he started the series. It’s as reliable, durable, and hardboiled as the private eye himself. Looking on my overloaded shelves for something to read next, I spied The Sundown Speech, from 2015. I hadn’t gotten to it when it was released as that was the time of true stress at the shop. It appears to be out of print but it you can find a used copy, get it. Amos is hired by an Ann Arbor couple to recover an investment they made in an independent film and the director has gone missing. Great fun, especially Walker’s by-play with the homicide detective on the eventual case. I’ll be gathering the Walkers that I’ve missed over the last five years, no doubt about that!
Max Allan Collins has another Nate Heller book just out, The Big Bundle. As usual, Collins puts his fictional Chicago private eye, Nate Heller, into actual, historical true crime events. It starts out with Heller called into assist with a famous kidnapping case in 1953 Kansas City. I was astounded by this because I grew up maybe 7 minutes from the family’s house and drove by it maybe 10,000 times over the decades. Never heard anything about the case at any time, anywhere from anyone. The issue of missing ransom money continues into second half of the book and becomes entangled in the Bobby Kennedy/Jimmy Hoffa war, which will lead into the next book and RFK’s assassination.
I did find a few geographical things in the book that I thought were mistakes but the author insists they’re correct. If you know the streets of Mission Hills, KS, and the geography of eastern Kansas, you may run into things that clank when read. They are as the author insists they should be. Except for them, it was a great read.
and, finally, one last word for the Month of Romance
shotten: exhausted from a recent, romantic encounter (Says You!, episode 1402)
BUY SMALL ~ SUPPORT SMALL
Now, granted, the Seattle Mystery Bookshop hosted hundreds and hundreds of “book launches”. None, however, were quite like this – – – –
Book Stuff
An Exhibition Exalts the Book as a Bedrock of Cultural Memory
Smithsonian exhibit digs out the ‘nature’ in old books
These 5 Words Have Been Selected As 2022’s “Word Of The Year”
Woman’s Name and Doodles Found Hidden in 1,200-Year-Old Religious Manuscript
AI Bot ChatGPT Stuns Academics With Essay-Writing Skills.
The Baby Names Authors Chose for their Own Children
The Murky Path To Becoming a New York Times Best Seller
Want a Lesson in Hitchcockian Suspense? Look to Mr. Bean
Preserving Western Pulp fiction with Centuries of Western Dime Novels
Iconic Wizard Of Oz Prop Sells For Half A Million Dollars (don’t worry, some crime movie stuff sold, too. Take some time and look through all that was in the auction, it is astonishing and fun!)
Words of the Month
fiddle-faddle: 1570s, “trifles” (n.); 1630s “busy oneself with trifles; talk nonsense” (v.), apparently a reduplication of obsolete faddle “to trifle,” or of fiddle in its contemptuous sense.
Serious Stuff
How Language Can Be Used to Destroy and Dominate, and How It Can Be Used to Remember and Reclaim
‘Shadow Libraries’ Are Moving Their Pirated Books to The Dark Web After Fed Crackdowns
High-Ranking Prison Officer Aided a Neo-Nazi Gang Attack on Black Prisoners
*What’s More Important for This Town: A Library or a Police Station?
4 Indigenous Women Slain by Alleged Serial Killer But Cops Won’t Search for the Bodies
InfraGard, FBI Program for Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, Breached by Hackers
How Dallas homemaker Mary Ferrell became main collector of JFK assassination records
DEA seized enough fentanyl to kill every person in the U.S. in 2022
Censorship Terrorism
*Louisiana Launches Tip Line to Accuse Librarians of ‘Sexualizing Children’
A Threat Against Justice For Emmett Till Protesters Led To The Cancellation Of A Christmas Parade
A Fast-Growing Network of Conservative Groups Is Fueling a Surge in Book Bans
How Your Book Club Can Fight Against Books Bans and Censorship
Drag Queens Are Fearing For Their Lives As Right-Wing Extremist Attacks Intensify
J.D. Vance Is Coming for Your Porn–Watch Out
*Huntsville Public Library (TX) Privatized After Pride Display
‘A streak of extremism’: US book bans may increase in 2023
Words of the Month
drivel (v.): Old English dreflian “to slaver, slobber, run at the nose,” from Proto-Germanic *drab-, perhaps from a PIE *dher– (1) “to make muddy, darken.” Transferred meaning “to speak nonsense” is mid-14th C., driveling being characteristic of children, idiots, and dotards. Related: Driveling, drivelling.
drivel (n.): early 14th C., drevel “saliva, slaver,” from drivel (v.). Meaning “senseless twaddle, idiotic speech or writing” is by 1852.
Local Stuff
National forensic pathologist shortage slows autopsies in WA
Has the SS Pacific’s gold-laden wreck been found 150 years after it sank?
Major King County drug bust nets $10M worth of meth, fentanyl, heroin
Two Tacoma Power substations, one PSE facility vandalized Christmas Day, authorities say
Armed robberies at WA pot shops hit decade high
Odd Stuff
On this day in literary history, Anthony Trollope died of the giggles. (For real.)
The Darkness Within: 8 Novels About the Devil
AI Reveals the Most Human Parts of Writing
‘People think I’m stupid’: the story of the man who shot himself 192 times
Someone paid $95,000 for this pair of jeans recovered from 1857 shipwreck
Words of the Month
fib (n.): “a lie,” especially a little one, “a white lie,” 1610s, of uncertain origin, perhaps from fibble-fable “nonsense” (1580s), a reduplication of fable (n.).
SPECTRE
Amazon CEO says company won’t take down antisemitic film
Amazon Says It’ll Pay You $2 Per Month to Spy on Your Phone’s Internet Traffic
Amazon buyers beware: Scammers are targeting the bestseller badge
Amazon Agrees to Change Some Business Practices in EU Settlement
OSHA: Amazon failed to record some warehouse injuries
Amazon’s plastic packaging could circle the planet 800 times. Can it be stopped?
Amazon Has Conquered Christmas—but Its Reign May Be Ending
Amazon Investors Demand Answers About Its Cloud’s Human Rights record
Amazon Nightmare Is Reminiscent of the Dotcom Collapse
Amazon is ubiquitous. But it isn’t invincible anymore.
Words of the Month
fable (n.) c. 1300, “falsehood, fictitious narrative; a lie, pretense,” from Old French fable “story, fable, tale; drama, play, fiction; lie, falsehood” (12c.), from Latin fabula “story, story with a lesson, tale, narrative, account; the common talk, news,” literally “that which is told,” from fari “speak, tell,” from PIE root *bha- (2) “to speak, tell, say.”
Restricted sense of “animal story” (early 14th C.) comes from the popularity of Aesop’s tales. In modern folklore terms, defined as “a short, comic tale making a moral point about human nature, usually through animal characters behaving in human ways” [“Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore”].
Biblio Stuff
When No One Turns Up To Neil Gaiman Or Stephen King’s Book Signing
Thrilled and Intrigued: An Appreciation on Classic British Thrillers
A Foretaste of Culinary Cozy Mysteries
Martin Edwards on Murder in the Basement, A Pioneering Work of Suspense
How Edgar Allan Poe Reinvented American Literature – and Science Writing
Review: Louise Penny is beloved. Her latest novel reminds us why.
Interview: ‘Hillary and I were both broken women’: Louise Penny on writing a political thriller with Clinton
Louise Penny Wrote a No. 1 Best Seller During Her Year Off
Markus Dohle Steps Down as Penguin Random House CEO
Hundreds of authors give support to striking workers at HarperCollins
Saying Goodbye to Magic Realism
Legally bookish: Reese Witherspoon and the boom in celebrity book clubs
Nazi-Looted Beethoven Manuscript Returned to Original Owners
Evan S. Connell: The Man Who Mastered Minor Writing [if you like American history and haven’t read his Son of the Morning Star, treat yourself to it ~ JB]
In the Era of iPhones, Is Rare Book Collecting an Increasingly Quixotic Mission?
Signed, Sealed, But Not Always Delivered: The Lost Art of Letterlocking
Ancient grammatical puzzle solved after 2,500 years
PEN America Town Hall Asks “Do Publishers Have a Moral Obligation to Diversify Literature?”
Elise By Olsen Delves Into the Extraordinary Print Archive of Vince Aletti
*Librarian Archives All of the Things People Leave Behind in Books
Kate and Greg Mosse look back: ‘The shirt I’m Wearing Has Since Been Made Illegal’
*One of the World’s Most Beautiful Libraries Was Born Out of Tragedy
Barnes & Noble Opening 30 Stores in 2023, Leading Big Real Estate Wave
*The Most Borrowed Books from New York Public Library in 2022
What’s it like to own a bookstore in our digitized age?
Author Events
Jan. 5: Gerald Elias presents ‘Murder at the Royal Albert’, Third Place/LFP, 7pm
Jan. 12: Seanan McGuire in Conversation With Amanda Cherry, Powell’s, 7pm
Other Forms of Entertainment
How Hollywood Made J. Edgar Hoover and the F.B.I. Into the Mythical “G-Men”
“True Detective” Season Two: An Unholy Mess, or Better Than You Remember?
Courtroom Drama: New Legal Battle Over ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’
Matt Damon, Casey Affleck to Star in Doug Liman’s ‘The Instigators’
Canceled “Man Of Steel 2” Sequel Would Have Had The Best Superman Villain
“Watchmen” Prequel On The Way From HBO?
Bernie Madoff’s Historic Ponzi Scheme Focus of Upcoming Netflix Docuseries
10 Best Neo-Noirs Of The 1980s
What the Mall Scene in ‘Jackie Brown’ Can Teach Us About Tarantino’s Quietest Film
Veronica Lake’s Long Escape: A Deeply Sad Page from Hollywood History
Golden Age Whodunits Are Back—and a Sign of Our Times
Why ‘Jackie Brown’ Remains Tarantino’s Coolest Movie
‘The Pale Blue Eye’ is a truly macabre military murder mystery movie
Tom Cruise’s Only Directing Credit Is A Bizarre ’90s Noir Short
Why Clint Eastwood Never Considered Another Song For Play Misty For Me
Words of the Month
falderol (n.): also falderal, falderall, folderol, etc., 18th C. nonsense words from refrains of songs; meaning “gewgaw, trifle” is attested from 1820.
RIP
Dec. 5: David Lifton, respected JFK assassination researcher, dead at 83
Dec. 12: Stuart Margolin, Director, Emmy-Winning Actor on ‘The Rockford Files,’ Dies at 82
Links of Interest
Dec. 2: Japanese Cannibal Who Got Away With Eating and Raping a Dutch Woman Is Dead
Dec. 5: ‘Torso Killer’ admits killing 5 women decades ago near NYC
Dec. 7: DOJ watchdog finds missteps by prison officials ahead of Whitey Bulger’s killing
Dec. 7: Man Who Mysteriously Vanished Turns Up Dead a Decade Later Under New Name
Dec. 8: Philadelphia police identify body of ‘boy in the box’ after 66 years
Dec. 9: Georgia girl, 12, killed by father after family court grants him custody
Dec. 10: How Did ‘the Father of the Western’ Die on William Randolph Hearst’s Yacht?
Dec. 13: A DEA agent tracked the source of fentanyl in Mormon country — a Mexican cartel
Dec. 13: Unassuming N.H. Craft Shop Owner Helped Run Sprawling Russian Spy Ring: Feds
Dec. 13: Chinese Police Bust Massive $1.7 billion Crypto Money Laundering Ring
Dec. 13: Lawmakers introduce bill to ban TikTok in US
Dec. 16: Glenda Cleveland – How She Tried To Stop Jeffrey Dahmer
Dec. 17: A Gruesome Mutilation. A Global Manhunt. Inside One of the Most Twisted Crimes Ever
Dec. 17: He Googled ‘How to Get Away With Murder’—Then Wife Vanished
Dec. 21: Hackers Swatted Victims and Taunted Police Through Ring Doorbell Cameras
Dec. 21: The US Is Trying to Take Down the Family Behind the Notorious Gulf Cartel
Dec. 21: Botched Executions Aren’t New—but Americans Finally Seem to Be Noticing Them
Dec. 23: GirlsDoPorn Founder and FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Spain
Dec. 23: Retiree Accused of Offing Her Boyfriend With Toxic Milkshake
Dec. 24: Russians Hacked JFK Airport Taxi Dispatch in Line-Skipping Scheme
Dec. 27: How America’s Biggest Heist, the Great Brinks Robbery, Fell Apart
Dec. 30: Britain backed plan to kill Osama Bin Laden nine months before 9/11
Words of the Month
twaddle (n.): “silly talk, prosy nonsense,” 1782, probably from twattle (1550s), of obscure origin.
What We’ve Been Up To
Amber
Mia P. Manansala – Blackmail and Bibingka
The third installment in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series finds Lila in a much better head space. Both the Brew-Ha Cafe and her personal life are starting to take off in extremely happy directions. (If you hear nerve-jangling music at the end of the sentence, there’s a reason.) On the other hand, her family life has hit a rather large speed bump — in the form of her cousin, Tita Rosie’s son, Ronnie. The teenage ne’er-do-well has returned home, still carrying all the emotional baggage he left with, to start a new business with some college chums. This powder keg of past resentment blows when Ronnie’s primary investor is poisoned, and he becomes a suspect in her murder….and Lila feels duty-bound to snoop despite Ronnie’s insistence she stays out of his affairs.
Blackmail and Bibingka is an excellent read! With just a fringe of the winter holiday season on display and a well fused food motif, neither theme ever threatens to overwhelm the book’s main plot. Blackmail and Bibingka is a thoroughly engaging mystery I enjoyed reading, as it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen poison other than arsenic, cyanide, or thallium used as a murder weapon.
A Note From The Office of Fair Warning: Our author also deftly fuses genuine family tensions and resentments in ways that push the plot forward rather than stopping it cold, which isn’t an easy feat. But they could prove a tad uncomfortable for readers who’ve dealt with similar situations.
That said, I really can’t say enough nice things about this book. Technically speaking, you don’t need to read the first two books in order to understand what’s going on in Blackmail and Bibingka — but you should just because they are both awesome reads!
Fran
What Goes Around
Back in 2020, when we were all locked down and feeling grumpy, John Connolly helped ease us through the time with a serialized story that he released weekly (if I recall properly) to keep us alert and giving us something to look forward to. He called it “The Sisters Strange”, and oh my, they certainly were.
But not everyone who loves John’s work gets his newsletter, so he decided to flesh the story out a bit and put it into a book called The Furies. Because “The Sisters Strange” was more a novella than a novel, he added another story, “The Furies”, and the two of those stories comprise the book, The Furies.
During my knee replacement recovery, I was basically locked down again, so I jumped into The Furies with wild abandon. It was good to meet up with the Sisters Strange again — well, as good as meeting them can be, what with their troubles and all — and it certainly took me away from the required exercising.
Jumping into “The Furies”, I was once again reminded why John Connolly is so good at writing creepy stuff. He picks up on our collective awareness and turns it sideways. What he writes is absolutely relatable, but also just odd enough to hold you hostage.
But it’s not just that. John has created some amazing recurring characters, and there’s a special place in my heart for the Fulci brothers, as I know is true of many of you. There’s something endearing about two bear sized men with anger issues who completely adore their mother that just makes you smile. And be glad you don’t have to repair what they break.
John knows this, so with this book, he included a little something extra, if you ordered at the right time from the right place, and I did. So I’m the proud owner of a Fulci tote bag.
Don’t look too closely at the number of fingers on the fist. *grin* Otherwise their slogan will come into play.
If you haven’t read John Connolly, what the hell are you waiting for? Start with Every Dead Thing and I promise, you’ll just keep going. If you have, but you didn’t pick up The Furies because you already read “The Sisters Strange”, it’s time to rectify that oversight because the sisters are stranger than you remember, and the furies set free in the other story will haunt you. Best get to it!
JB
I don’t have a book to write up so I’m recommending a few of songs that I’ve fallen for this year. A couple of years ago when Mom was dying, I asked my cousin Tom to recommend a radio station I could tap into when in the car running errands. He said “The Bridge, 90.9”. It’s the same type of station as KEXP here in Seattle – independent, listener supported – but I like their music more. Why? – just good rock, maybe not so “experimental” as just joyful. I listen to it everyday on some computer-like device. (Be Warned~ it’s out of KC, so all the ads and concert announcements are from there.) Monday’s are great as, mid-day, it’s all new music, I can’t link the songs themselves but I’ll like the youtube videos. In no particular order:
Samia’s “Mad at Me” (my latest obsession)
Hiding is easy, it’s like a daydream/You can be nowhere all the time
Hurts to be somewhere, ’cause you gotta stay there
After you say what’s on your mind
Aida Victoria’s “Ain’t Killed Me Yet”
She turned this house into a tomb/Ghosts rattle in every room, they’re doin’ their best
But they ain’t killed me yet
The National’s “Weird Goodbyes”
What was I even leaving for/I keep going back and forth
I think now I’m about to see/Didn’t know how sad it’d be
Panda Bear & Sonic Boom’s “Edge of the Edge” (for some reason, it reminds me of Beach Boys…)
One taste to break the fall/One wave to take us all to the shore
Can’t say it’s what you bargained for/It’s forever at the push of a button
Talk’s “Run Away to Mars”
What If I run away to Mars?/Would you find me in the stars? Would you miss me in the end/If I run out of oxygen When I run away to Mars
LCD Soundsystem’s “new body rhumba” (great dance tune!)
Yeah I try not to hide it/I try not to buy it
But you can’t just sit on the fence/It’s true
And, finally, my anthem for the year:
Paramour’s “This is Why”
This is why I don’t leave the house/You say the coast is clear
But you won’t catch me out/Oh, why? This is why
BUY SMALL ~ SUPPORT SMALL
Like what we do? Spread the Word!
And, of course…
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!
Yes, Incredibly, Another 10 Crime Movies You Forgot Take Place at Christmas
Myrna Loy as Nora Charles in Dashiell Hammett’s comic classic (Christmas) tale The Thin Man
Staring John Cusak, Billy Bob Thornton and Connie Nielsen in a dark noir heist that takes place on Christmas Eve. Great noir novel.
Words of the Month
maundered (v): talked in a rambling, foolish, or meaningless way.
Interesting Stuff
Today in AWWWW: Reading out loud to dogs improves literacy in kids.
Professional cornhole world rocked by ‘BagGate’ cheating scandal
Jazz the dog helps victims of crime as they navigate court system
Milwaukee Police Will Stop Using Gun That Keeps Going Off by Mistake
There Are Still Codes Throughout Ancient Roman Literature
How Well Do You Know Sherlock’s London?
What I’ve Learned: John Grisham
Jack Ruby’s wallet, JFK’s rocking chair will go up for sale in vast 1963 auction
A Detroit woman is on a mission to promote literacy with this erotic ABC for adults
This 2,000-Year-Old Inscription Changes Our Understanding of the Basque Language
‘Wizard of Oz’ Hourglass, Chris Evans’ ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Shield Go Up for Auction (oh man does JB want that shield!!
Hand-Colored ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ Strip Sells for $480,000
Serious Stuff
37 governments band together against ransomware
Feds Seize One of the Largest Sites for Pirated Books and Articles, Z-Library
}The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns
}Autonomous Vehicles Join the List of US National Security Threats
}Opinion | Why artificial intelligence is now a primary concern for Henry Kissinger
A Cartel Used Armed Drones and a Plane to Bomb Police
Judge blocks Penguin Random House-Simon & Schuster merger
Paramount scraps $2.2bn sale of Simon & Schuster publishing to Penguin
Opinion: Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t read. That tells us everything.
“Slasher Mary”: A Brief Introduction To Political Vandalism In Museums
Censorship Terrorism
Tulsa Donut Shop Hit with Molotov Cocktail After Hosting Drag Show
The Right-Wing Mothers Fuelling the School-Board Wars
To make matters worse, an iconic L.A. bookstore was targeted by arsonists this weekend.
Help! I’m a Librarian. Local Conservatives Think I’m an Ally in Their Book Wars
Why Read a Book When You Can Ban It Instead? Inside Florida’s Clay County School District
Jamestown Library Defunded (Again) Over LGBTQ Books, Will Likely Close
A Small Town Librarian Spoke Against Censorship. Then the Dark Money Came for Her
It Only Takes One Parent to Get All The Graphic Novels Removed From a School Library
Local Stuff
10 bookseller-approved giftable books this holiday season
Vancouver playwright wins Governor General’s Literary Award
Beautiful books are important historical records of Northwest Coastal art
Ruth Hayler, longtime programmer for Seattle moviehouses and SIFF, dies at 74
Oregon senator’s fiery words test free speech limits
WA attorney general seeks $1.5M to combat organized retail crime
Words of the Month
sesquipedalian (adj): a word with many syllables; to use big words habitually
Odd Stuff
Are Chemicals From Dead Bodies Oozing Into Tap Water?
Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy’s clown painting sells for $10k at spooky auction
Why is Everyone Fighting Over the Skull of ‘Brigand Villella’?
El Chapo’s Hometown Is Building a Narco Museum
‘George Kaplan’ Based On Hitchcock Character Opens At New Ohio Theatre
Oldest known sentence written in first alphabet discovered – on a head-lice comb
Delphi Murder Suspect Says He’s Flabbergasted by ‘Expensive’ Private Attorney Fees
Michael Lewis is writing a book about crypto hamburglar Sam Bankman-Fried, who doesn’t read books.
Lit Hub officially endorses “Goblin mode” as Oxford’s Word of the Year.
Gaslighting: Merriam-Webster picks its word of the year
Scrabble: The Last Real American Dictionary
The Fake Scorsese Film You Haven’t Seen. Or Have You? Tumblr is obsessed with the mafia film “Goncharov.” The problem is it isn’t real.
How Leonardo’s “Monstrous” Drawings Inspired Modern Caricature
Ex-Mobsters Can’t Escape Their Criminal History — So They Promote It on YouTube
Emperor Charles V’s secret code cracked after five centuries
Gold coin proves ‘fake’ Roman emperor was real
Surrounded by Beauty – Can an Object Ask you to Commit a Crime?
Words of the Month
sedulous (adj): diligent in application or attention; persevering; assiduous; persistently or carefully maintained
SPECTRE
Amazon Drivers Are Still Peeing in Bottles
A Drug Cartel Is ‘Selling’ Lawn Decorations on Amazon to Hide Their Meth Shipments
Amazon plans to invest $1 billion a year in movies for theaters
It’s not your imagination: Shopping on Amazon has gotten worse
Words of the Month
tergiversation (n): The act of abandoning something or someone, of changing sides; desertion; betrayal; to change repeatedly one’s attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc
Awards
2022 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction
Actor wins 2022 Bruntwood Prize for debut play
Book Stuff
Judge blocks Penguin Random House-Simon & Schuster merger
A $10 million gift to the Library of Congress brings a new exhibition space
Denby Fawcett: We Should Support Independent Bookstores. They Open New Worlds To Us
Parliamentary report calls for government to support and modernise libraries
On Ed Lacy’s Room to Swing and Early Representation of Black Sleuths in Crime Fiction
Megan Abbott on Writing for the Reader
The Unspoken Criminality of the Female PI
What is Roman Noir? A Brief History of the Genre
The Story of a Cheat Deserves to be Remembered
HarperCollins union goes on strike over wages and benefits, diversity policy and union protection
8 Great Thrillers with Effective Twists
The Struggle to Unearth the World’s First Author
Noir Detective Comic Books Are In A Great Place
Anthony Horowitz calls for investment in school libraries as he receives CBE
Fans aren’t happy about their $600 autopen-signed copies of Bob Dylan’s new book.
To find great female novelists, stop looking in Jane Austen’s shadow
For Emily Dickinson’s Birthday, Visit Her New England Home
Types Of Customers You Find In Bookstores
The Art of the Cozy Mystery: Six Cozy Mysteries Featuring an Art Theme
The world’s most extraordinary libraries
Is Mick Herron the Best Spy Novelist of His Generation?
John le Carré’s Letters Show the Author at His Witty, Erudite and Pugilistic Best
Washington Post: The 12 best thriller and mystery novels of 2022
Recently discovered Wind in the Willows illustration to be sold at auction
Author Events (In Person)
Dec. 9: John Straley presents Blown by the Same Wind, Third Place/Ravenna 7pm
Words of the Month
depauperate (adj): lacking a variety of species, or enough of them; badly developed
007
Spectre’s Original Story Brought Back Craig’s Best James Bond Plot
James Bond exhibit features 25 cars from 007 movies
Aaron Taylor-Johnson May Be The Frontrunner To Play The Next James Bond
[ There’s the Marvel Universe, the Star Wars Universe, and any number of other Universes – why then isn’t there be a “00” Universe? There are so many actors who could be a great 00, whether they are Bond or not, so why can’t there be other 00 movies in between Bond? Why can’t Lashan Lynch have her own 00 movie, or Tom Hardy, Regé-Jean Page, Charlize Theron, Henry Cavill?? Sorry, but Idris Elba is now too old, but he’d make a great M. I don’t think other 00 movies would dilute the brand. If anything, it’d enlarge the brand. It appears that there will be room as we’re not likely to get any more Bourne movies and how many more Mission:Impossibles does Tom have left before one of the magnificent stunts kills him? I assume there are nine OOs: 001-009. Take out 007 and that leaves EIGHT other 00s open for their own movies. I listed five actors and it’d be pretty easy to add three more. Besides, we have to wait too damn long between Bonds! – JB]
Other Forms of Entertainment
[Somehow, we think we missed including it in the Sept. newzine!] The 80 Greatest Con Artists in Movies and TV, Ranked
Recommended listening: If Books Could Kill, a podcast about terrible airport books
‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ Sequel Flopped After Dropping Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig
Mean, moody and magnificent: film noir studio portraits – in pictures
And then there were more: Knives Out, Agatha Christie and nonstop murder mystery boom
Hollywood Is Trying to Remake Escape From New York Again
The Best Cars in the History of Fictional Detectives
14 Horror Noirs To Watch If You Loved Angel Heart
TV’s True Crime Obsession Is Reaching a Tipping Point
Libraries Are Launching Their Own Local Music Streaming Platforms
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s sister has a romance adaptation and streaming company called Passionflix.
A Beginner’s Guide to Identifying Movie MacGuffins
Harrison Ford Will Be De-Aged to Fight Nazis in ‘Indy 5’ (don’t worry, only for a flashback scene, not the entire movie)
‘Narcos’ Revenue Split Battle Between Executive Producers Settles
Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’ to Debut on Broadway in 2023
Alan Rickman Almost Turned Down Die Hard But One Thing About The Script Changed His Mind
Walter Mosley on Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet
>“Three Pines” Puts a Darker Lens on Louise Penny’s Series
>Alfred Molina Thinks He May Have Found the Best Role of His Career
Words of the Month
friable (adj): easily reduced to powder, fragile and easy to crumble
RIP
Nov. 1: Julie Powell, Food Writer Known for ‘Julie & Julia,’ Dies at 49
Nov. 3: Andrew Prine, Actor in Westerns Including ‘Chisum’ and ‘Wide Country,’ [tied to infamous unsolved Hollywood homicide] Dies at 86
Nov. 3: George Booth, whose cartoon dogs became a New Yorker staple, dies at 96
Nov. 9: Paul Schrade dies; union leader injured in RFK assassination
Nov. 7: Ernie Lazar, Who Trawled for Secret Government Documents, Dies at 77
Nov. 11: Kevin Conroy, Longtime Voice of Batman, Dies at 66
Nov. 16: Robert Clary, Corporal LeBeau on ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ Dies at 96
Nov. 19: Sci-fi Novelist Greg Bear Has Passed Away
Nov. 29: Clarence Gilyard, ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,’ and ‘Die Hard’ Actor, Dies at 66
Nov. 30: Christine McVie, Keyboardist and Singer for Fleetwood Mac, Dead at 79 (not mystery related – other than how they created that incredible music through all of their internal chaos – but it seemed to be a great omission to leave her off the list)
Words of the Month
isohyet (n): a line drawn on a map connecting points having equal rainfall at a certain time or for a stated period.
Links of Interest
Nov. 1: Amanda Knox Media Circus Hits Peak Weird on 15th Anniversary of Murder
Nov. 2: US authorities bust catalytic converter theft ring that raked in over $545m
Nov. 4: A Woman Accidentally Killed Her Rich Husband In The ’50s. A New Book Uncovers What Came Next
Nov. 4: Boston’s Combat Zone: Why Two Authors Were Drawn to the Same 45 Year-Old Crime
Nov. 7: ‘It’s him’: Lord Lucan hunt continues 48 years after nanny murder
Nov. 7: ‘Era-defining scandal’: Ireland revisits ‘Gubu’ murders 40 years on
Nov. 7: Feds Seize Over $1 Billion in Crypto Originally Stolen from Dark Web Drug Marketplace Silk Road
Nov. 9: The Macho Theater of Spies for Hire
Nov. 15: The Truth About Snitching Our legal system is intensely reliant on informants and the unregulated, mostly unknown deals that guide them into an ever-more dangerous life.
Nov. 15: First “Star Trek” comic book sells for record $46,500
Nov. 16: Shakespeare portrait said to be only one made in his lifetime on sale for £10m
Nov. 16: Trending crimes: “Check washing” and “mailbox fishing”
Nov. 16: How ‘Dexter-inspired’ Delhi murderer was tracked down by victim’s friend
Nov. 20: He wiped out his entire family — and changed California criminal law forever
Nov. 20: Bob Dylan’s teenage love letters sell for over $650,000 at auction
Nov. 21: Book review ~ J. Edgar Hoover, Public Enemy No. 1
Nov. 22: How wild was this city near Miami? Check out the ‘sin strip’ and the steakhouse mob hit
Nov. 22: An iCloud Feature Is Enabling a $65 Million Scam, New Research Says
Nov. 22: Richmond locals are not happy with a new Virginia Woolf statue
Nov. 22: French tax inspector killed during visit to antique dealer
Nov. 22: How a Forgery of a Forgery Began a Career in the Artistic Underworld
Nov. 22: Woman Who Flew 3,000 Miles for Online Date Killed, Allegedly for Her Organs
Nov. 23: Police Finally Arrested This 65-Year-Old Transnational ‘Drug Queen’
Nov. 25: Charles Darwin: Autographed document could fetch record price
Nov. 26: Grifter Boasts of Fraud ‘More Wild’ Than ‘Inventing Anna’
Nov. 26: The 100-Year Mystery of Missing Perfume Heiress Dorothy Arnold
Nov. 28: Brett Favre files motion to dismiss Mississippi welfare lawsuit
Words of the Month
scissile (adj): capable of being divided easily
What We’ve Been Up To
Amber
Sarah Addison Allen – Other Birds
I read Sarah Addison Allen’s Other Birds back in September, and I’ve struggled to figure out how to review it ever since then. Not because it’s terrible — but because I enjoyed it so very much. And the fact that Sarah Addison Allen’s style, magical realism, is done with such a deft hand, I don’t want to ruin the book for you!
What can I tell you?
Well, there’s a peculiar death, a series of strange occurrences unrelated to the four ghosts who also call Dellawisp home, and a cantankerous flock of birds flitting about the property. Add in the living human happenings in the small block of apartments, and you’ve got a riveting read!
Seriously, Sarah Addison Allen is one of my all-time favorite writers. Who, in fact, penned my all-time favorite novel, The Sugar Queen. In Other Birds, as with Allen’s other novels, she brushes up against several writing styles, like mystery and urban fantasy — which creates a story that’s more than a sum of its parts. (Or literary techniques in this case.)
Sitting here writing this review, I realized all the nice things I wish to say about this book boil down to this: I enjoyed every page of Other Birds. And I cannot wait to revisit the Dellawisp apartments and its inhabitants again and again.
Seriously, if you’re looking for a mysterious and lovely read this festive season, you cannot go wrong with Other Birds.
Fran
There are a lot of things I miss about the shop – and I do keep dreaming about it (last night it was where Diva Dolls is/was) – but one of the things I really miss is being in the know about what’s going on.
So I had no idea that Thomas Perry‘s The Old Man was a series on Hulu. But then, I don’t have Hulu either. I’m becoming a hermit. Send cookies.
But in my lack of knowledge, there are delights to be had. You all know I’m a dedicated Thomas Perry fan, and I’d follow Jane Whitefield anywhere. When JB sent me a copy of The Old Man, I figured it’s because he knows what I love. Also he wanted to give me something to think about other than my knee, which is fine so far, thank you for asking.
The old man in question has been living his life quietly in Vermont, his dogs Carol and Dave keeping him company. He seems like a harmless older man, but obviously he’s not. Dan Chase has a past, and not your ordinary one, even when you think about thrillers. See, when Dan was stationed in Afghanistan, he saw something go wrong, and he tried to make it right.
Seems simple enough, except that by doing what he did, Dan ran counter to the US government’s wishes, so he became a fugitive. Now they’ve found him, or at least they think they have.
Yeah, that’s vague and generic, but Thomas Perry delivers an amazingly complex and twisted story. Dan Chase’s name isn’t Dan Chase, and he goes through several name changes throughout the book, but you never once lose track of who’s who. I promise you, that’s masterful writing.
And I love that I thought I knew how it was going to go, only to discover I was wrong. I love being wrong for all the right reasons!
I have no idea how the TV show plays out, and if someone has watched it and read the book, I’d love to hear from you. But in the meantime, definitely pick up The Old Man by Thomas Perry.
JB
For years I’ve been meaning to read Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert. I’ve had enough time; it was published originally in 1986. Considering all of the dire drought news, especially concerning the Mississippi (you may recall I read a book by Rinker Buck about drifting down to New Orleans from Pennsylvania earlier this year which made the later drought stories more vivid), it was time to get a copy. And it is a startlingly majestic book.
Reisner covers the entire history of the US government fiddling with nature to move water from areas where it flowed freely to areas that were naturally arid, the infighting between departments to get the job, the pork-barrel spending to keep the projects moving, and the folly and damage caused by it all.
The worst of it is that Reisner writes about a future he hopes will not unfold, and his future is our present. So you get to see where much of our current problems start. He’s entirely caustic about it all, the politicians, the government actors, the developers, the big farmers, and the inability of them all to look ahead at what their actions will cause.
For us in the Northwest, there were the frightening plans to cull off a fair amount of the Columbia to send it to the Colorado River system (read California), as well as to divert much of the Klamath for the same purpose. If you’ve paid attention to the news of late, you may have read of a plan to start removing dams on the Kalamath, the Mississippi has begun to flow better as we head into Winter but it is still dangerously low, and the pie-eyed math that divvied up the Colorado River is coming back to bite back hard. Reisner explains all of that with harsh and infuriating clarity (How a 100-year-old miscalculation drained the Colorado River). From the LA Times on Nov. 25: As California droughts intensify, ecosystems and rural communities will bear the brunt
Another thing he refers to is the 100th Meridian. That’s the imaginary line on the continental US map that marks the climate divide between the humid east and arid west in North America. Well, for the last half dozen years there has been thought that this divide is shifting EAST. This has massive implications for the crops grown in the Great Plains, what we eat, the health of farms, the economics of food, and where people live. Again, when he wrote the book, is was just a fear – now, apparently, it is our reality.
Reisner is a wonderful writer, sprinkling his story with an impressive vocabulary. I kept a pen nearby to write down words I did not know on the back of a shop bookmark. The Words of the Month are all from his book.
coterminous (adj): having the same boundaries or extent in space, time, or meaning.
And if you do read it – I highly recommend that you order a copy of the trade paperback from your local independent bookseller – you’ll find the machinations of the big shots of LA to “acquire” more and more water familiar: it’s the plot of Chinatown.
BUY SMALL ~ SUPPORT SMALL
We Wish and Yours Peace and Happiness in this Season of Silliness, Sales, and Shindigs
Bookish DIY Kits To Buy and Make for Holiday Gifting
Calling Dr. Hiaasen: Pro Fishing Roiled by Wild Walleye Cheating Scandal
Chess star Hans Niemann accused of cheating by rival has likely done so in more than 100 games, report claims
Mad magazine’s oldest active artist still spoofs what makes us human
Michael Jordan Fleer rookie card sells for record $1 million
The Rosetta Stone: The real ancient codebreakers
A film scholar uncovered the oldest footage from a Black film company at the Library of Congress
Rediscovered Hollywood Film Archive Offers Collectors the Chance to Own a Piece of Cinematic History
A Medieval Manuscript Has Revealed the Oldest Known Map of the Stars
Looking at Enheduanna, the World’s First Known Author, and the Women of Mesopotamia
“Rogue” Employee Replaces Pro-Choice Book Orders with Christian Books
New York Post Fires Staffer Who Posted Racist, Violent Messages to Website and Twitter Account
Two Ultra-Rare Calvin & Hobbes Works Head to Auction
Serious Stuff
Publishing Company Starts School Year by Removing Over 1,000 E-Textbooks
Did American Business Leaders Really Try to Overthrow the President, Like in Amsterdam?
The Globetrotting Con Man and Suspected Spy Who Met With President Trump
U.S. Supreme Court mulls line between art and theft in Warhol case
Self-Proclaimed Incel Plotted to Murder 3,000 Ohio Sorority Women
It’s Time for Moralistic True Crime to Die
Is this the sign of something bad happening in the book industry? Barnes & Noble is Offering Buy One, Get One 50% Off on Hundreds of Books
Following Supreme Court’s Lead, Judge Finds Right to Remove Serial Numbers From Guns
Analysis shows women who publish physics papers are cited less often than men
How the FBI Stumbled in the War on Cybercrime
Salman Rushdie has lost vision in one eye and the use of his hand.
Japanese bookstores are closing at a much faster rate than here in America.
The Neglected Tale of the Tougaloo Nine and their 1961 Read-In
Defense Team for Ex-Black Panther Discover Evidence Withheld from Trial
Lost John Steinbeck essay about American democracy published
The Killer Robot Future is Already Here
China Operates Secret ‘Police Stations’ in Other Countries
Scientists Discover Unmarked Coffins During Search For 1921 Tulsa Massacre Victims
Words of the Month
danger (n.) mid-13th c., daunger, “arrogance, insolence;” c. 1300, “power of a lord or master, jurisdiction,” from Anglo-French daunger, Old French dangier “power, power to harm, mastery, authority, control” (12th c., Modern French danger), alteration (due to association with damnum) of dongier, from Vulgar Latin *dominarium “power of a lord,” from Latin dominus “lord, master,” from domus “house” (from PIE root *dem- “house, household”).
Modern sense of “risk, peril, exposure to injury, loss, pain, etc.” (from being in the control of someone or something else) evolved first in French and was in English by late 14th c. For this, Old English had pleoh; in early Middle English this sense is found in peril. For sound changes, compare dungeon, which is from the same source. (etymonline)
Censorship
New Right to Read Bill Expands School Library Access, Students’ Rights to Read
He’s known as Chile’s greatest poet, but feminists say Pablo Neruda is canceled
Conservative Muslims join forces with Christian right on Michigan book bans
Today’s book bans echo a panic against comic books in the 1950s
Libraries Are Beefing Up Security After a Series of Violent Threats (which means less money for books…)
Booker Prize Winner: Attack on Salman Rushdie caused me to self-censor
Book Ban Vote Unleashes Mayhem at Michigan School Board Meeting
Florida Puts Raging MAGA Moms on Book-Banning Council
A reporter’s memoir of her jail time gets banned in Florida prisons
Jay Ashcroft, potential Missouri governor candidate, floats library book ban proposal
Anti-LGBTQ Groups Are Helping Enforce a ‘Book Ban’ Law in Florida
Local Stuff
Magus Books Is Coming to Wallingford
This Week in History, 1977: Frank Baker invites you to dine with James Bond and his Aston Martin
Moira Macdonald returns with her mystery column, The Plot Thickens
Pegasus Book Exchange is where the past and future of bookselling collide in West Seattle
Shelf Talkers: What the Booksellers Are Reading at Elliott Bay Book Company
The Young Woman Behind a Last Mystery of the Green River Killer
NPR reporting on Oregon theater death threats prompt local and national response
Odd Stuff
What We Know About ‘The Watcher’ Case Four Years Later (seriously spooky!)
Three chimpanzees kidnapped and held to six-figure ransom in first known case of its kind
We’re getting a Wrinkle in Time stage musical
Liam Neeson to bring his very particular set of skills to Naked Gun reboot (?!?!?!)
My Eight Deranged Days on the Gone Girl Cruise
Scientists Found a Way to Predict Your Death by How You Walk
On TikTok, Charles Manson Is a Cozy Fall Vibe
Strip Club Death Trial Delayed by Lawyer Dying in Same Strip Club
Forget bank robbery. These men stole $9 million in meat, feds say.
Turkish garbage collectors have created a library from discarded books.
Words of the Month
peril (n.) “danger, risk, hazard, jeopardy, exposure of person or property to injury, loss, or destruction,” c. 1200, from Old French peril “danger, risk” (10th c.), from Latin periculum “an attempt, trial, experiment; risk, danger,” with instrumentive suffix –culum and first element from PIE *peri-tlo-, suffixed form of root *per- (3) “to try, risk.” (etymonline)
SPECTRE
All the ways Amazon’s home gadgets are spying on you
“Get Big Fast.” How Amazon Accelerated the Commodification of Literature
France sets minimum book delivery fee in anti-Amazon struggle
This Seattle woman is fighting Amazon to help domestic violence survivors
Amazon Changes Kindle eBook Return Policy, Ends Lending Between Kindle Users, and More
Russia’s Wave of Ridiculous Fines Finally Comes for Amazon
Words of the Month
alarm (n.) late 14th c., “a call to arms in the face of danger or an enemy,” from Old French alarme (14th c.), from Italian all’arme “to arms!” (literally “to the arms”); this is a contraction of phrase alle arme.
Alle is itself a contraction of a “to” (from Latin ad; see ad-) + le, from Latin illas, fem. accusative plural of ille “the” (see le); with arme, from Latin arma “weapons” (including armor), literally “tools, implements (of war),” from PIE root *ar- “to fit together.”
The interjection came to be used as the word for the call or warning (compare alert). It was extended 16th c. to “any sound to warn of danger or to arouse,” and to the device that gives it. From mid-15th c. as “a state of fearful surprise;” the weakened sense of “apprehension, unease” is from 1833. The variant alarum (mid-15th c.) is due to the rolling -r- in the vocalized form. Sometimes in early years it was Englished as all-arm. Alarm clock is attested from 1690s (as A Larum clock).
alarm (v.): 1580s, “call to arms for defense,” from alarm (n.) or from French alarmer (16c.), from the noun in French. The meaning “surprise with apprehension of danger” is from 1650s. Related: Alarmed; alarming. (etymonline)
Awards
BBC unveils winner of National Short Story Award Story
Annie Ernaux wins the 2022 Nobel prize in literature
Here’s the shortlist for the 2022 T. S. Eliot Prize.
Here are this year’s literary MacArthur fellows
The 6 2022 Booker Prize Finalists On Their 3 Favourite Books Of All Time
TS Eliot prize announces a ‘shapeshifting’ shortlist
Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka wins 2022 Booker Prize
Book Stuff
Early Interviews With Cormac McCarthy Rediscovered
Prelinger Library keeps print alive for 19 years and counting
France’s royal library welcomes families after majestic makeover
Publishing Wants To Cash In On BookTok. Creators Say No
Book Cover Confidential: A Roundtable with Designers
Denise Mina: ‘All my reading is comfort reading’
Watchmen author Alan Moore: ‘I’m definitely done with comics’
The NY Art Book Fair Returns Home to Chelsea
Shelf Talkers: What the Booksellers Are Reading at Boswell Book Company
Meet the Man Who Wants to Build You a $200,000 Library of Books
Bored with a book, I set off for New York, where I … bought more books
Seventy-five years of richly illustrated literary classics – in pictures
How Dynamic Shelving Can Change Your Library
How a Tiny British Publisher Became the Home of Nobel Laureates
Book prices set to rise as production costs soar, say UK publishers
Costco’s Decision To Stop Selling Books In Hawaii Is A Blow To Local Authors
So You’re Stuck in a Cozy Mystery: A Survival Kit
Fifty Forgotten Books: An original take on the joys of second-hand books
#BookTok: A hashtag changing the book industry
Read 7,000 Historic Children’s Books for Free in This Online Archive
Phyllis Nagy: ‘Knowing Patricia Highsmith changed my thinking about how a female writer could live’
Inside a New York Literary Golden Age
Lee Child and Andrew Child on Discipline, Dread, and Writing Late at Night
Veteran Reporter Margaret Sullivan’s Favorite Books About Journalism
Open letter to top publisher condemns $2m Amy Coney Barrett book deal
Charles Darwin’s Rare Autographed Manuscript Could Sell for $800,000
Author Events
Nov. 2: Cherie Priest, Island Books, 7:30pm
Nov. 3: Cherie Priest with Seanan McGuire, Third Place/Seward, 7pm
Other Forms of Entertainment
The 15 Best Film Noir Movies, Ranked According To Letterboxd
Kenneth Branagh Sets Impressive Cast For His Supernatural Thriller A HAUNTING IN VENICE
Edward Zuckerman On Writing the Funny Episodes of “Law & Order”
Martin Scorsese to Helm ‘Gangs of New York’ TV Show
Harrison Ford Joining ‘Captain America 4’
Reassuring, timeless, safe: how Angela Lansbury set the style for female TV sleuths
Reservoir Dogs at 30: Tarantino’s canny contained act of provocation
‘The Name of the Game’: The Vintage Show That Asked, What if People Magazine Writers Solved Crimes
TikToker Lands the Role of a Lifetime: Playing Dead on TV
Why a Brilliant New Doc Will Make You Radically Rethink “Blaxploitation”
007=’
Iconic 007 posters up for sale as James Bond celebrates 60th anniversary
Perfectly ridiculous explanation of the iconic “James Bond Chord”
‘Dr No’ at 60: Who Was the Real James Bond?
The Search for the New James Bond Is Officially Underway, and It’s Gonna Be a Long One
‘No Time to Die’ Aston Martin DB5 Raises $3.2 Million at Auction
The Ultimate James Bond Sticker Set Arrives
007 Director Reveals Which Rock Stars Have Secret James Bond Songs
Ten Years on, the Next Bond Film Has a Lot to Learn From ‘Skyfall’
Every James Bond villain’s sports owner counterpart
Words of the Month
warn (v.) Old English warnian “to give notice of impending danger,” also intransitive, “to take heed,” from Proto-Germanic *warōnan (source also of Old Norse varna “to admonish,” Old High German warnon “to take heed,” German warnen “to warn”), from PIE root *wer– (4) “to cover.” Related: Warned; warning. (etymonline)
RIP
Oct. 3: Robert Brown, ‘Here Come the Brides’ Actor, Dies at 95
Oct. 6: Lenny Lipton, “Puff the Magic Dragon” Lyricist and 3D Filmmaking Pioneer, Dies at 82
Oct. 10: Austin Stoker, Star of John Carpenter’s ‘Assault on Precinct 13,’ Dies at 92
Oct. 10: Michael Callan, Actor in ‘West Side Story’ and ‘Cat Ballou,’ Dies at 86
Oct. 11: Angela Lansbury, Entrancing Star of Stage and Screen, Dies at 96
Oct. 17: Benjamin Civiletti, 87, Attorney General in Iran Hostage Crisis, Dies
Oct. 28: Jerry Lee Lewis, Influential and Condemned Rock & Roll Pioneer, Dead at 87 [ok, it’s a stretch, but he needs to be honored and, after all, he was called The Killer!]
Links of Interest
Sept. 26: Archive of Ernest Hemingway Writings, Photos Opens to the Public for the First Time
Sept. 28: ‘Womaniser’ May Have Fed Wife to Pigs to Be With Another Woman, Court Hears
Sept. 30: Mexican government suffers major data hack, president’s health issues revealed
Oct. 2: Tylenol murders: daughter tells of toll of unsolved killings, 40 years on
Oct. 6: The Journalist and the Psychopath: The Story Behind Edward Howard Rulloff’s Crimes
Oct. 11: The Founder of 8chan Is Facing Death Threats for Going After QAnon
Oct. 13: When $500,000 Disappeared from a Small Town
Oct. 14: The Trouble with Amateur Hired Killers
Oct. 15: California governor blocks parole of Charles Manson cult follower
Oct. 15: The Geoffrey Chaucer News That Rocked Academia This Week
Oct. 16: Postal worker holdup leads to muscle car theft ring arrests
Oct. 16: Cops Say They Nabbed Stockton Serial Killer as He Was ‘Out Hunting’
Oct. 16: Inmate Stole $11 Million in Gold Coin Scheme While in Prison, Officials Say
Oct. 19: A Fabled Map of the Cosmos Lost for Thousands of Years Has Been Found
Oct. 21: How Entomologists Use Insects to Solve Crimes
Oct. 25: The Manhattan Well Mystery: On America’s First Media Circus Around a Murder Case
Oct. 26: Evidence ‘Invalidated’ in Explosive Report on Mexico’s 43 Missing Students
Oct. 26: MAGA Conspiracy Tours Plagued With ‘Grifter’ Allegations
Words of the Month
safe (adj.) c. 1300, sauf, “unscathed, unhurt, uninjured; free from danger or molestation, in safety, secure; saved spiritually, redeemed, not damned;” from Old French sauf “protected, watched-over; assured of salvation,” from Latin salvus “uninjured, in good health, safe,” which is related to salus “good health,” saluber “healthful” (all from PIE *solwos from root *sol- “whole, well-kept”). For the phonological development of safe from sauf, OED compares gage from Old North French gauge.
From late 14th c. as “rescued, delivered; protected; left alive, unkilled.” The meaning “not exposed to danger” (of places, later of valuables) is attested from late 14th c.; in reference to actions, etc., the meaning “free from risk,” is recorded by 1580s. The sense of “sure, reliable, not a danger” is from c. 1600. The sense of “conservative, cautious” is from 1823. It has been paired alliteratively with sound (adj.) from c. 1300. In Middle English it also meant “in good health,” also “delivered from sin or damnation.” Related: Safeness.
safe (n.) “chest for keeping food or valuables” safe from risk of theft or fire, early 15c., save, from French en sauf “in safety,” from sauf (see safe (adj.)). Spelling with -f- is by 1680s, from influence of safe (adj.). (etymonline)
What We’ve Been Up To
Amber
Raquel V. Reyes – Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking
The second installment of the Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series is fantastic! Set during Halloween and the trials and tribulations that plague a household with a five-year-old during said month of the perpetual sugar rush, Miriam finds herself juggling her on-air cooking show career with her mother-in-law’s demands upon her time. So when a body magically appears on her front lawn, amongst the fake plastic tombstones, our intrepid sleuth decides to sit this mystery out. Until…You’ll need to read the book to find out what happens next!
I enjoyed reading Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking very much. The food, the hook of this cozy, is written seamlessly into the story — adding to the narrative without detracting, distracting, or diverting one from the actual focus of the story — murder. (And if you enjoy this particular subgenre of mysteries, you understand how difficult this feat can be to achieve.) Above and beyond, watching Miriam making dishes I’ve not attempted before in her home kitchen (in my mind’s eye) makes them feel more accessible and far less daunting to attempt in my own kitchen.
(Don’t ask me why I find guava paste intimidating. I just do.)
Now, unlike Mangos, Mambo, and Murder, whose final pages succumbed slightly into the realm of saccharin (which one could ignore because the rest of the book was so splendid), Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking does not possess this flaw. Even featuring both Halloween and Thanksgiving between the pages, Reyes found an outstanding balance between the holidays and criminal intent.
However, because this is a review, I need to point out a minor flaw (again) in the final few pages. The penultimate summing up felt a tad muddled, in so far as untangling which crimes we could attribute to whom. Though, to be fair, I could’ve been so excited to find out whodunnit I skipped a few crucial deductions…But I don’t think so. That said, I think the slight tangling of plot threads has more to do with Reyes furthering an ongoing storyline from Mangos, Mambo, and Murder than anything else. And this minor flaw will in no way impede me from picking up this tome up for a reread in the near future or politely throwing money at my local bookseller when the next installment is published!
From the Office of Fair Warning: I do need to tell you that you do need to read Mangos, Mambo, and Murder before Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking as the latter narrative builds directly upon the bones of the former and gives away the solution to the first mystery in the second. Which, again, makes sense as background nefariousness is afoot in Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking that will hopefully burst into the foreground in Reyes’s next book!
Fran
I don’t have a review this month, but wait! Wait now. I have what I believe is a relatively good reason.
In a few days, I’m having a knee replaced. I know, right? I needed this back when the shop was going strong, but I’m very good at putting off things I don’t want to think about.
So anyway, Things have had to be done to make this work. Like, say, renovating the bathroom from tub to shower. Don’t you just love the paneling we found behind the tub wall?
But it was successful, and we’re quite pleased. However, much of my time during this process was keeping Mazikeen from freaking out every time the contractor walked through the door. You’d have thought he was a bunny or something.
Despite Mazkeen’s hyper-vigilance, we did get it done.
She does love protecting me. In fact, the other day while I was at the bathroom sink taking my multitude of pills, the heater kicked on, and she placed herself at my back, leaning against my calves, ready to take on whatever that new sound was – provided I’d guard her too. She really is a sweetheart.
But anyway, the shower now has bars and a chair, the toilet is all gussied up to make sitting there easier, and we’ve rearranged furniture to give me unobstructed access to the floors, since I’ll be walking a lot, I gather.
The weather is nice and cool down here in sunny New Mexico, and I think I’m going to enjoy my new knee during the upcoming holidays, although I’m using it as an excuse NOT to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year. *huge grin*
Happy November, everyone, and remember not to eat all yesterday’s candy at once. Take your time. But don’t wait too long! Have you noticed that Christmas candy’s already on sale?
JB
I hate to say I was disappointed in Joe Ide’s Marlowe novel but I simply kept groaning at what he was doing.
I suppose it isn’t that big a deal to bring Marlowe into today’s world but The Goodbye Coast changes much about Marlowe’s life. First, he dropped out of the LAPD training after a very short time and became a PI. In Chandler’s books, he was an investigator for the DA before going private. That isn’t a huge deal. But then he saddles Marlowe with a father who is a cop but suspended due to drinking, never really recovering from the death of his wife. The family trauma/drama set off my soap opera alarms and they buzzed throughout the book.
But the worst part for me was describing characters by the actors or celebrities they resembled. I found that lazy. There is so much about today’s world in the book that there’s no way for it to age well, no way for it to become timeless, as Chandler’s have.
Ide is a good writer and he’s got a feel for similes. In that way, the sentences sparkle as Chandler’s did. He described a piece of fast-food orange chicken as looking like a burnt ear. OKAY! But the writing isn’t enough, to me, to save the novel from the weaknesses of how he’s presented the rest.
I was SO looking forward to reading this. The day I found out it existed I went out and bought it. Sorry I did. If you want to read it, wait for the paperback. But I hope other contemporary authors will continue to write new Marlowe novels. He’s too great a character to say goodbye to.
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I believe Fran and I directed interested folks to John Connolly‘s 2020 on-line project called “The Strange Sisters”. In the midst of the first covid wave, it was to be a short story written and posted on-line in real time, that is as he wrote it daily, not once it had gone through the publishing mill. As interesting plan, he would create the story as he went, not knowing where it would go.
Now he’s released a new book called The Furies. It’s not a novel, but a volume with two “short novels”: a reworked “The Strange Sisters”, which he notes in an afterward is twice the length of the original; and “The Furies”, a new short novel.
Both are Parker stories, both full of the odd Maine characters we’ve come to know, as well as visitors. If you read “The Strange Sisters” on-line as we did, it’s worth reading this expanded version. And “The Furies” has Parker working to help two women who are at the end of their options. Both are a delight, even when dealing with otherworldly issues. Though Halloween has passed, don’t let that keep you from the on-going creepiness that is Charlie Parker’s world. You’ve got Louis and Angel to keep you safe…
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Seattle Mystery Bookshop 