Mark Lindquist (1)

Sad Movies, a post-college picaresque drenched in scotch and pop culture, has a reputation as a second-tier brat-pack novel. I think it's a pretty fair reputation. Zeke, the narrator, a writer of bad copy for bad movies, has resolved to kill himself. An old friend shows up out of the blue and takes him on a weekend-long series of adventures designed to help Zeke discover whether or not he has a reason to live.

Sad Movies is light on substance. Naively gloomy throughout, then naively hopeful show more at the end. The characters are not especially vivid-- for the most part they are types. This is not a vivid Los Angeles, either. About the only thing that's vivid, here, is the suffocating oppressiveness of 80s party culture. That's thick on the page.

What the book has to offer is mainly a brisk narrative that never gets bogged down in the excesses of some of his contemporaries. The heavy use of song lyrics and pop music references anticipates High Fidelity by nearly a decade. But unless you grew up on Siouxsie Sioux and Bauhaus, many of the references will seem dated or obscure, adding little.

If you haven't taken a special interest in the brat pack, there's little reason to read Sad Movies.

(Some of the core components of the story-- the alcohol fueled adventures and the shamanic figure who swoops in to organize the action-- are sort of pet peeves of mine. So it's possible I'm not giving Sad Movies a fair shake.) show less

This crime novel by a Pierce County prosecutor takes you into the lives of a meth manufacturer (and his associates) and the detective who pursues him. I appreciated the local angle and the portrait of the creepy meth maker. As is common among meth users and manufacturers, the drug crimes are not his only offenses -- he also engages in identity theft, theft, and domestic violence.

I loved his writing style- very Hemingway. And I usually pick these books so I can see what songs/music I do or don't know. But, the main character wasn't that likable and it was hard to sympathize with him. The plot, also, was seriously lacking in any driving force. Good for the beach, not much else.

Cooking meth and escaping conviction allows Howard Schultz to crown himself the King of Methlehem. Detective James Wyatt, former lawyer turned police officer, would like to bring Howard down. Backed by his best friend, Prosecutor Mike Lawson, Wyatt sets out to break up Howard's drug production and put the King in jail. Always one step ahead of the law, Howard is about to set up his largest drug kitchen to date all the while plotting to take out his enemies.