Recent Books and Movies

Time to catch up on some recently read books and recently viewed movies.

First in the store will be Gillian Flynn's first novel, "Sharp Objects".  Ms. Flynn is the author of the amazingly successful best seller, "Gone Girl", which was her third novel and which I liked but found the characters to be remarkably unlikable.  I thought I would try "Sharp Objects", and guess what?  All the characters in this one were pretty much unlikable, too.  The story is about a young female reporter who returns to her small hometown in Missouri to report on a couple of murders of young girls in the town.  It is a good mystery, well written but, as I said, you can't really root for anybody in this one.  This won't stop me from reading Flynn's second novel, "Dark Places", but I'm going to wait a while before I do.  I mean, reading about the people about whom she writes kind of takes a lot out of you.

Next up is John Sandford's latest Virgil Flowers story, "Storm Front".

This one involves the theft of an archaeological relic from a dig in Israel.  The stone, and the guy who stole it, winds up in Minnesota, and Virgil has to recover the item and return it to the Israeli curator who has traveled to Minnesota to get it.  There is less violence in this one than usual in a Sandford story, and this one, in my opinion does not live up to the usual standards of a Virgil Flowers case.  Virgil is still a great character, and the dialog, as usual, is terrific, so if you are a fan, you need to read it.  However, if you are just going to dive in and "meet" Virgil Flowers and John Sandford, you need to start with earlier stories in the series.

A chance run through the TV remote last weekend landed me on C-SPAN's Book TV where I discovered a panel discussion about the JFK assassination, which led me to get this book:

Aynesworth is a Dallas newspaper reported/columnist who found himself in Dealey Plaza that November 22 morning fifty years ago.  He did some of the very first reporting on those events, and he has found himself pretty much wrapped up in this story ever since.  This book tells about the reporting that he did covering the shooting of the President, the shooting of police officer J.D. Tippett, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, his meetings with people like Ruby, Margueritte Oswald, Marina Oswald, and various cops, FBI agents, and others who were a part of that story.  Aynesworth also, for better or worse, has found himself tracking down every oddball conspiracy story that has emerged over these past fifty years.  (It started, believe it or not, when some nut showed up at Aynesworth's home on the very evening of 11/22/63 claiming he had evidence of a conspiracy to kill the President.)

If you are a conspiracy buff, this book will disappoint you, as Aynesworth tells you that he has never found anything that purports to show anything other than what the Warren Commission reported - that lone gunman / total loser Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed President Kennedy.  And he pretty much lays waste to New Orleans District Attorney  Jim Garrison and his theories, which were made more famous by Oliver Stone's "JFK" movie.  

I'm in Aynesworth's camp on this one.

As to movies, we took in two this past week, "Last Vegas" and "Gravity".  The silly one first.

Lifelong boyhood pals Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline, known as the "Flatbush Four" get together for a weekend in Las Vegas to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Douglas, who just got engaged to a woman half his age.  Old friendships never die, despite some resentments, is the theme of this one.  While the four stars can claim six Oscars among them, this is no Oscar winner, but it's always fun to watch four great actors do their thing, and the movie was funny and enjoyable to watch.  A good time!

We also took in box office and critical smash, "Gravity". 

I will start by saying that this movie is visually beautiful, almost stunning, with its views of Earth from outer space.  It will probably win a boatload of awards for design and cinematography.  It was also tension filled and gripping as you watched to see just what was going to happen. When it was all over, though, we both found ourselves saying, "wasn't much of a story".  I suspect that we will be outliers with this point of view, but before you push back at me, let me offer this juxtaposition.

In the car on the way home, I said that as really gripping space stories go, Ron Howard's 1995 movie "Apollo 13" was better than this one, and I made a mental note to pull out the DVD and watch it again soon.  Then, as fate would have it, the performance of the Pitt Panthers at Georgia Tech last night caused me to reach for the TV remote, and guess what was on one of HBO's sub-channels?  You guessed it:

Don't get me wrong, "Gravity" is worth seeing, if only for the technical wizardry that produced it, so go see it.  But "Apollo 13" will give you a better ride.

One man's opinion.

Book Review: "Silken Prey" by John Sandford (No Spoilers)

I have just finished John Sandford's latest Lucas Davenport novel, "Silken Prey", and, once again, Sandford and Davenport have hit one out of the park.

The novel begins with a political dirty trick in a knock down, drag out US Senate race in Minnesota.   Child pornography has been found on the office computer of the incumbent Senator.  Is it his? Or, was it planted there by an operative of the challenger's?  And  on top of everything else, one of those political operatives seems to have turned up missing.  The Governor of Minnesota, Elmer Henderson, asks Lucas to investigate the matter and try to clean it all up before Election Day, a mere eight days away.

In conducting his investigation, Lucas discovers just what a blood sport Politics is, and realizes how his career could be on the line depending on how the whole mess turns out.

Other Sandford characters make appearances, including Virgil Flowers, and Kidd, an artist and part time computer hacker, and his wife, Lauren, who has a very interesting background herself.  Kidd is the subject of about a half dozen other Sandford novels.  I have not read any of those, but I think I am going to have to give them a whirl.  My favorite character, however, may be that of Governor Henderson.  He has some great lines of dialog in this book, and I kept picturing him  as John Slattery, the guy who plays Roger Sterling on "Mad Men".  His lines are that good!  The door is also left open so that one of these characters may appear again to bedevil Lucas in future "Prey" novels.

As I said, "Silken Prey" is another home run for John Sandford.  Read it.

Book Review: "Mad River" by John Sandford

John Sandford has delivered to us another book featuring Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Virgil Flowers, and, as always, Sandford has hit another solid extra base hit to his loyal readers.

In this book, three young rural Minnesota kids, two guys and girl, begin a spree of murder and robbery in rural Minnesota that has the press dubbing them a modern day Bonnie and Clyde.  BCA Chief Lucas Davenport (the star of Sandford's  other series) dispatches Virgil to track down these killers before the death toll gets higher.  

In "Mad River" we get to see Virgil interact with his parents, meet up with an old girl friend, do battle with the local police as well as the three punk killers, tries to find out just what started this killing spree in the first place, and makes some very interesting observations about how people turn out and deal with the lot in life that has been dealt them, often times from the moment of their birth.

Once again, if you like to read thrillers/mysteries/police stories but have never read John Sandford, I urge you to do so. There is a great body of work out their featuring Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers.  You will not be disappointed.

Book Reviews: John Sandford, Robert Crais, and Robert J. Randisi

I had mentioned a few days back that I did a lot of reading on my vacation last week, and I know that you have all been anxiously awaiting what I have to say about what I read.  Here goes...




Let's start with John Sandford's newest Lucas Davenport novel, "Stolen Prey".  Regular readers know what a big fan I am of this series, and this latest entry doesn't disappoint.  It seems that soldiers from the Mexican Drug cartels have found their way to the Twin Cities, and are involved with the theft of vast sums of money via money laundering and leaving a path of horrible, violent death and destruction in their path.  It is up to Lucas and his BCA to work with both federal and Mexican law enforcement agencies to bring these people to justice, and, in the process, recover some $22 million in stolen, laundered money.


There is also a smaller, secondary crime under investigation and Lucas enlists his man Virgil Flowers to resolve it.  While this is a personal matter to Lucas, he is too busy with Mexican drug case, so from time to time, we hear, via Lucas' and Virgil's phone conversations, how this case is being investigated and eventually resolved.


If I have one beef with this book, it is that Sandford spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the mechanics of money laundering.  I know what money laundering is, but, even though I consider myself a reasonably intelligent fellow, I get lost when someone tries to explain how  money laundering gets done.  Just tell me "these people are laundering money" and spare me the pages and pages of how-to details.




The next book was Robert Crais' "The First Rule". Crais writes about a Los Angeles private eye named Elvis Cole and Cole's sidekick, Joe Pike.  Some of the books have Cole as the  featured character, while others have Pike.  As you can see from the cover, this was a "Joe Pike Novel" with Cole being the secondary character.  While it was an eminently readable story - i finished it in two days - I can't say that I'm crazy about the characters.  Cole seems reasonable enough, but Pike is so unbelievably smart, tough, indestructible, and unbeatable, that he is also unbelievable.  He is Steve McGarrett on steroids, and, in fact, he makes McGarrett look like a world class wuss.  So, if I try Crais again, it may be one of his novels wherein Cole, and not Pike, is the star of the show.


However, the most interesting book that I read last week may have been this one:


 

This is an old book, published in 1999 that I found in the second hand book store when I was looking for beach reading before we left for the Outer Banks.  The story itself was nothing special - a serial killer is on the loose in New York City and one determined NYPD detective is determined to track him down and bring him to justice.  It was entertaining and quick reading, another that I read in just two days, and it did have a surprise twist at the very end that was a bit of a "wow", but the real intriguing part of this book is the author himself.  Something made me Google Robert J. Randisi when I finished the book, and what I found was a revelation.


Randisi is 61 years old, has been writing since he was in high school and was first published when he was 23.  Since that time he has written, and written, and written some more.  He has had over 500 novels published in his life, and short stories too numerous to even count.  There have been years when he has had as many as 27 novels published.  He founded a professional organization called the Private Eye Writers of America, but he also has written over 300 westerns.  He has written a series of a half-dozen or so books called "Rat Pack Mysteries" where, yes, Frank, Dean, and Sammy, solve crimes.  There was even a period back in the '70's where he wrote a series of short stories for an adult publication called "Beaver Magazine".  Yes, he created a Porn Private Eye!  As he put it, they enabled him to make the mortgage payments for those months back then.


He has been called the "last of the great pulp writers", and he has been called a hack.  However you want to label him, I am in awe of someone with the ability to churn out, if not great literature, then at least entertaining fiction, at such an astounding rate.  Amazing!