WELCOME TO A NEW YEAR
WELCOME TO A NEW DECADE
We’ve recently learned that Sandy, the creator and original editor of our quarterly newsletter and one-time bookkeeper, has moved back to town.
Welcome Back! We hope to see you soon.
‘It’s really flattering’: Obama picks Spokane’s Jess Walter for favorite books of the year list
Extra! Extra! Pike Place Market newsstand to close after 40 years
Serious Stuff
Bone-Marrow Transplants Alter Genetic IDs, Complicating DNA-Based Criminal Analysis
Evidence Scandal In Orange County Stirs Conflict Within Law Enforcement
How This Con Man’s Wild Testimony Sent Dozens to Jail, and 4 to Death Row
Is this cave painting humanity’s oldest story?
Stop Believing in Free Shipping
New Research Identifies Possible Mass Graves From 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
From The Guardian’s Editor’s Best Stories of 2019: ‘Blood on their hands’: the intelligence officer whose warning over white supremacy was ignored
Words of the Month
Book Stuff
An Algorithm Can Tell Us How Much Shakespeare Was Actually Written by Shakespeare
In Greenwich Village, the Perfect New York Bookstore Lives On
Latin Dictionary’s Journey: A to Zythum in 125 Years (and Counting)
Janet Evanovich wins big with Stephanie Plum series and TV deals
Alaska: Northern Noir ~ Crime fiction has found a strange home in the cold wilds of Alaska. (have to say these people are way behind the curve if they think this is new…)
Couth Buzzard Books, celebrating a milestone anniversary, has become the ‘Cheers’ of Greenwood‘
New book claims Albert Camus was murdered by the KGB
7 Things Crime Readers Will No Longer Tolerate by Christopher Fowler
From Gar Anthony Haywood: I Wrote the Kind of Character I Wanted Most to Read About
Jeff Lindsay Has a New Anti-Hero ~ The Dexter Author Talks Craft, Character, and Cannibalism
Peter Pan’s dark side emerges with release of original manuscript
George RR Martin opens bookshop next to his cinema in Santa Fe
America 2019: Area man steals rare books in order to pay for cancer treatment.
How Do Some Authors “Lose Control” of Their Characters?
The (Quiet) Death of a Legendary Parisian Bookstore
These are the 10 Best-Selling Books of the Decade
From Portland, another bookshop closes: Another Read Through is leaving Mississippi Avenue
The tricks that can turn you into a speed reader
Booksellers get holiday bonuses from James Patterson
Rediscovering Dorothy B. Hughes’ Brutal Hollywood Take-Down, Dread Journey
A Romance Novelist Spoke out about Racism. An Uproar Ensued
Here are the most popular books checked out of the Seattle Public Library in 2019
Author Events
January 11 – Candace Robb and Kim Zarins, 4pm, UBooks
January 21 – Chad Dundas, 7:30pm, Powell’s
January 29 – Mary Wingate, 7pm, Village Books
January 30 – Russell Rowland, 7:30pm, Powell’s
Other Forms of Fun
Motherless Brooklyn: Ed Norton on the film it took him 20 years to make
How Olga Kurylenko Won ‘Bond’ and Narrowly Lost ‘Wonder Woman’
The Evolution of the Femme Fatale in Film Noir
The Bone Collector, Jeffery Deaver’s first book with forensic anthropologist Lincoln Rhyme, was made into a 1999 film staring Denzel Washington as Rhyme and Angelina Jolie as the young cop who becomes his “legman”. Rhyme is a quadraplegic and needs Amelia Sachs to visit the crime scenes. The books are a true updating of the armchair detective story – it’s a great series. Now, starting Friday, Jan. 10, the book comes to the smaller screen when ‘Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector’ debuts on NBC. As they say, check your local listings!
The Most Underrated Crime Films of the Decade
Coming in February: ‘Narcos: Mexico’: Scoot McNairy Hunts Diego Luna in Season 2 First Look
From “Making a Murderer” to “Don’t F**k with Cats,” the evolution of true crime this decade
BioShock returns for more gene-enhanced gaming
Words of the Month
Ignis fatuus: a light that sometimes appears in the night over marshy ground and is often attributable to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter or a deceptive goal or hope.
Ignis fatuus is a Latin term meaning, literally, “foolish fire.” In English, it has come to designate a hovering or flitting light that sometimes appears in the night over marshy ground that is attributable to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter. Other names for this light are jack-o’-lantern and will-o’-the-wisp—both of which are connected to folklore about mysterious men, Jack and Will, who carry a lantern or a wisp of light at night. A Scottish name for ignis fatuus is spunkie, from spunk, meaning “spark” or “a small fire.” It has also been told that ignes fatui (the Latin plural form) are roaming souls. No doubt these stories spooked listeners by candlelight, but in time, advancements in science not only gave us electricity to dispel the darkness but proved ignis fatuus to be a visible exhalation of gas from the ground, which is rarely seen today.
‘But thou art altogether given over, / and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter / darkness. When thou ran’st up Gadshill in the night to catch my / horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a / ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O, thou art a / perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! ‘
— William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, ca. 1597
(Thanks to Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
Links of Interest
November 26: Lee Child: How Jack Reacher Fits Into a Long History of Folk Heroes
December 2: Great Film Composers: The Music of the Movies: How the rise of the Nazis gave us the best film noir music
December 2: Judge tosses $71-million verdict against NBC Universal over ‘Columbo’ profits
December 2: ‘The Irishman’ Left Out the Full Story of the Disastrous Angelo Bruno and Frank Sidone Murders
December 3: ‘He Had It Coming’ looks back on the ‘Murderess Row’ that inspired ‘Chicago’
December 4: Five ‘hot mic’ moments that got leaders in trouble
December 5: The murdered ‘handsome’ priest with a decades-long secret
December 5: Spassky vs Fischer: How the chess battle became a theatre event
December 6: How to conquer work paralysis like Ernest Hemingway
December 9: ‘Perfect’ Scotch whisky collection could be worth £8m
December 10: Failed plot to steal domain name at gunpoint brings 14-year prison term
December 11: “Portrait of a Lady” ~ Stolen Klimt mystery ‘solved’ by gardener in Italy
December 11: Art Forgery Is Easier Than Ever, and It’s a Great Way to Launder Money
December 11: Buyer returns Grease jacket to Olivia Newton-John after auction
December 12: The CIA’s Former Chief of Disguise Drops Her Mask
December 13: Hosting an Orgy? This 1970s Cookbook Has You Covered
December 13: Octopus and eagle square off at Canadian fish farm
December 16: Christopher Reeve’s ‘Superman’ Cape Sells at Auction, Sets Record
December 16: Mice watching film noir show the surprising complexity of vision cells
December 16: Babe Ruth: Baseball player’s landmark home run bat fetches $1m\
December 16: Meet a Bad Man Who Became a Truly Great Spy
December 16: Grave of top Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich opened in Berlin
December 17: A New Way of Looking at ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’
December 17: Judge rules in favor of US effort to take Snowden book money
December 19: James Blake uses unseen Planet Earth footage in new video
December 19: Is the Netherlands becoming a narco-state?
December 20: Democratic lawmakers pushed Spy Museum to alter CIA torture exhibit\
December 21: Police department finds furry culprit behind toy theft
December 22: Take a look behind the ‘small doors to imaginary spaces’ within bookshelves
December 22: The night Samuel Beckett was nearly stabbed to death by a pimp
December 23: LS Lowry: Lost painting to go on sale after 70 years
December 23: I was a teenage code-breaker at Bletchley Park
December 23: Daniel Craig Wanted to Resign as Bond After ‘Spectre’. Here’s the Real Reason He Returned For ‘No Time to Die’
December 27: Sriracha hot sauce recall over ‘exploding’ bottle fears
December 31: Lawyers: Robert Durst Wrote Incriminating ‘Cadaver’ Note
December 31: Human remains found in Idaho cave identified as outlaw who died over 100 years ago
Words of the Month
terroir: the combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives wine grapes their distinctive character. First known use was in 1863. From Old French tieroir, from Vulgar Latin *terratorium, alteration of Latin territorium. (thanks to Merriam-Webster) [what a difference and “i” makes…]
R.I.P.
December 3: D.C. Fontana, famed writer for Star Trek, dies at 80
December 7: Friends actor Ron Leibman dies at the age of 82
December 8: Winston Lawson, Secret Service agent with JFK in Dallas, dies at 91
December 8: Caroll Spinney: Sesame Street’s Big Bird puppeteer dies
December 9: Overlooked No More: Rose Mackenberg, Houdini’s Secret ‘Ghost-Buster’
December 9: Battle of Britain pilot Maurice Mounsdon dies aged 101
December 10: George Laurer, an Inventor of the Modern Bar Code, Dies at 94
December 11: Jeanne Guillemin, pioneering researcher who uncovered a Cold War secret, dies at 76
December 13: Danny Aiello, beloved character actor and Oscar nominee for ‘Do the Right Thing,’ dies at 86
December 13: Elisabeth Sifton, editor and tamer of literary lions, dies at 80
December 16: Nicky Henson: Stage and screen actor
December 20: Claudine Auger: French actress known for Thunderball role dies aged 78
December 20: Acclaimed Author and Journalist Ward Just Dead at 84
December 25: Allee Willis: ‘Friends’ theme songwriter
December 26: Sue Lyon, teenage star of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Lolita,’ is dead at 73
December 31: Sonny Mehta, visionary editor and head of Alfred A. Knopf, dies at 77
December 31: M. C. BEATON: R.I.P.
Words of The Month
What We’ve Been Up To
Amber
Finder of Lost Things
This coming Friday we come to the last post for series one! Can you believe it? And we will see how Phoebe and Joseph cope with the after effects of the Woman In White’s attack.
Series Two – will drop in about two-ish months. I will give you guys plenty of warning when I’m going to start posting! Though on the upside if you haven’t started reading my story yet – this is the perfect time to catch up!
Chloe Neill – Wicked Hour
The second book in the Heirs of Chicagoland series is a fun, fast-paced romp that is stronger than its predecessor by a factor of five. While a few of the original cast make their presence felt, they only enter into the narrative when necessary. Rather than making gratuitous and/or distracting appearances – which is really lovely.
The mystery presented in the second installment is also solid. Part of the Pack living in Northern Michigan is experiencing problems…and that’s putting it mildly. So Connor Keene, heir apparent to his father’s position as Apex, is sent to figure out what exactly is going on.
What he finds is a hornet’s nest.
Into this mess of resentment, issues, and anger Conner’s also brought, Elisa Sullivan. Because if things aren’t already stressful enough, let’s bring along the girl you’re more than just a little interested in and see how the pack reacts.
Elisa is more than capable of staring down a few shifters – katana in hand.
Then we get to the murder…and the other murder…and bad magic.
Seriously this book was a whole lotta fun to read. Neill introduced us to a quasi-new character named Alexei Breckenridge – who next to Lulu and Elisa’s cat Eleanor of Aquitaine (who will exact revenge if called by anything less than her full title) – is my favorite thus far. Mostly due to his dry sense of humor, the fact he enjoys needling Elisa by continuing to sneak up on her and the fact you never know where any of his sentences will take you.
If you are looking for a new-ish shifter/sorcerer/vampire mystery series to read, without needing to go back and read the original Chicagoland series (which honestly you should because it was great), you should start with Wicked Hour!
Fran
I’ve been trying to figure out how to sell M. R. Carey‘s post-apocalyptic thriller THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (Orbit) to myself, if I was still selling books. Because on the surface, I’d have turned it down, despite the whole post-apocalyptic thing. I guess it’s a “Trust me” book.
See, it’s written in present tense, and we all know how weird I am about that. But worse, it’s about zombies. I really don’t like zombies. Bleah. I know lots of people do love them, and they’ll jump all over this book, but I find them boring.
However, I really do like the TV series “Lucifer”, and M. R. Carey is the writer behind that. He creates amazing, three dimensional and compelling characters, and I’m a sucker for great characters! And twisty, well told stories. He does those brilliantly.
Oh, short synopsis, yeah. In this devastated future in a military base in England, children are strapped into wheelchairs, arms, legs and heads. Then they’re wheeled into classrooms where they’re taught all the things school children learn. Melanie is about ten years old, and her favorite teacher is Miss Justineau. Miss Justineau makes learning fun, and she really interacts with the children. Melanie loves Miss Justineau, the other teachers not so much.
However, outside the base, things are bleak. A fungus, Ophiocordyceps, has mutated – or has been mutated – so that it no longer just infects ants, and has taken over mankind. Well, most of mankind. And the fungal infection moves quickly, thoroughly, no chance of recovery ever, and makes the new hosts mindless and hungry.
I don’t want to say too much more because THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS takes off at breakneck speed, and it really doesn’t slow down. M. R. Carey understands timing and plot and tension, but he also understands how complicated people are, and how powerful love can be.
So yeah, this is a “Trust me” book, but I really do want you to trust me on it! The science is disturbingly cool (I kind of want to watch the David Attenborough documentary about the ants, but I’m afraid it’ll just creep me out), the story revolves around a teacher and her pupil, and the writing is simply brilliant.
Trust me.
JB
Shop dream on the morning of Xmas Eve: what I remember was looking into a box of books, a shipment all jumbled together, and realizing that reserves hadn’t been pulled so I was digging through the books and flipping pages in the reserve book, trying to match up authors to lists of customers who wanted a copy. The books in the box were in no special order, so I was flipping back and forth in the reserve book as I fished out a hardcover, for some reason not taking all the books out first and organizing them… Where do these dreams come from !
Could there be a better way to end the year, and to relax over a few days away, that to catch up on a 
favorite author’s book you’d missed???? I doubt it, I really do.
I had ordered what I thought was his latest book last Spring to take on a trip back to KC but it ended up being the story from the year before. What the hell – I read it again on the trip, the books are that good. So it had always stuck in some shadowed part of my brain that there must’ve been a DeMarco from this year that I’d not read. Finally, I started to wonder when there’d a be a new one next year and that’s when I finally cleared to mush from my cabasa and got a copy of House Arrest.
It’s a very different DeMarco story, even while it is another great DeMarco story.
Arrested for the murder of a congressman in the Capital, DeMarco sits in jail with a target on his forehead. In many ways, this is Emma’s book, as she swings into action to prove he was framed. To do that, she’s gotta provide the FBI with the real killer. So she relies on her years of training and work and those she’s gotten to know to save DeMarco. Why? She abhors his love of baseball and golf, thinks his wardrobe is ridiculous, and is pained to know he works for a man she detests but, really, Emma likes DeMarco. She appreciates his spirit, his ethic, and his willingness to put himself in the line of fire to help someone – as he has with Emma a couple of times.
There are big changes in DeMarco’s life mandated by publicity of the arrest and I have no idea where Mike will put him. It could be the end of the series – any of books could – but I think he has freed DeMarco to do other things.
And I can’t wait.
I know, I know, you’re going to say, “Oh look, Fran’s touting a book by William Kent Krueger. So what? She always does.” It’s true. I do.
A while ago, I wrote a couple of posts about a trip to San Francisco and taking the Dashiell Hammett Walking Tour. It took me a couple of weeks but I hunted down a copy of Don Herron’s 
That’s the premise of Ben H. Winters’ latest bit of speculative fiction, 
“It is difficult to confront madness, because insanity is a stranger to reason and any reasonable response would be insane.” Henry’s approach to the world is sometimes difficult for Walt – and us – to follow. But the questions of reason are real in 
I finally got to a book I’d picked up months ago. I’d heard the sad story of Michelle McNamara, how she’d spent so long investigating the wolf she tagged the Golden State Killer, started writing 
She’s always remarkable, taking on some really tough topics in that genteel Southern way she has.
Never Have I Ever is much darker than a body dumped in kudzu or an airport gypsy explaining that murder is the best solution. Amy Whey’s life starts unraveling in the first chapter. Are you familiar with the game “Never Have I Ever”? It’s kind of a middle school game, like Three Truths and a Lie, that can be adapted to an adult game quite easily. Someone says, “Never have I ever (fill in the blank with something you’ve never done)” and anyone who HAS done it has to drink. Kind of embarrassing but fun, right?
One was Donald Westlake’s 
I blame one of our customers, Helen T., for this one. Yes, Helen, it’s all your fault, and I’m not sure if I’m deeply grateful or want to rough you up. In the nicest possible way, of course. I mean, there I was, reading the first in one of her series, and Lillian walked past, stopped, stared for a moment, then asked, “Are you reading a bodice ripper?”
David Handler’s
My review in that Friday’s newzine a dozen years ago started with “WOW”.