richardderus's second 2024 thread

no, no, no

Reviews 001 through 008 are linked here.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS
009 Mutiny On The Rising Sun: A Tragic Tale of Slavery, Smuggling, and Chocolate in post #53.
010 Domestic Darkness: An Insider's Account of the January 6th Insurrection, and the Future of Right-Wing Extremism in post #75.
011 Activating the Common Good: Reclaiming Control of Our Collective Well-Being in post #90.
012 John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community in post #99.
013 Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll in post #105.
014 Poor Deer in post #120.
015 All I See is Violence in post #135.
016 The Vote Collectors: The True Story of the Scamsters, Politicians, and Preachers behind the Nation's Greatest Electoral Fraud in post #183.
017 Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power in post #186.

All my threads in the 75ers linked somewhere here
My Last Thread of 2009 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2010 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2011 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2012 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2013 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2014 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2015 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2016 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2017 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2018 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2019 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2020 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2021 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2022 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2023 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

The horror! The horror!

My 2023 goals are here, for reference.

All previous Burgoine reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S BURGOINE REVIEWS:

#001 Trans-Mongolian Express in post #138.
#002 Ink & Sigil (Ink & Sigil #1) in post #189.
#003 The Old Man in the Corner (Teahouse Detective #1) in post #191.
#004 The Ingenious in post #201.
#005 Bone Park: The Golden Girls Meets The Godfather in post #208.
#006 Mission Churchill in post #294.

All previous Pearl Rule reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S PEARL RULE REVIEWS:

#001 @ 29% Bad Axe County in post #287.
#002 @ 44% The Old Sex Symphony in post #289.
#003 @ 85% And Throw Away the Skins in post #291.

My 2024 goals are here.

Reserved for January 2024 summary.

You are welcome to be yourself below. Everyone else is, famously, taken.

Happy New Thread, Richard!

Oh! I think I may have gotten the crown at last! I’ve been watching your thread! *smooch*

Happy new thread, Richard!

>8 vancouverdeb: You have indeed, Thread Queen Deborah! Let me see...what would be appropriate for a first timer...

>10 Familyhistorian: Thank you, Meg!

Happy new thread, RD!

Happy new thread, Richard!

Oh, that is quite the masterpiece of a crown , Richard! Thank you! I am not sure if the late Queen Elizabeth would have thought such a fabulous crown was appropriate for a first timer . Her new granddaughters in law were given “ starter crowns” initially, which were quite modest. But as I am at the advanced age of 62, soon to be 63, I shall wear the crown very happily. Thank you , Sir Richard.

>13 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie, and welcome!

I wanted that crown so badly Richard, you’ll never know . And I am having a good chuckle . It is an intimidating crown 👑.

>14 atozgrl: Thank you, Irene. *smooch*

>15 vancouverdeb: I thought it would be both grand and modest enough to suit...it is the Little Imperial Crown of Russia, a mere 248 diamonds and set in mere silver...so not the Best Crown...yet.

*smooch*

Mere silver, and me a gold wearer. 😂I am loving it! Thank you! *smooch*

>20 vancouverdeb: Those drinking you in will be too dazzled by the 248 diamonds to notice what it is set in, I feel sure!

You are too kind , good sir.

Happy new thread, Richard!

From your previous thread, you got me with Pleasantview. I've started to really enjoy stories that don't center me and say something completely different as a result.

*smooch*

Happy new thread Ricardo!! Smooch. You give out crowns and I give you this...

Happy new second second-thread of 2024!

Happy new one, Richard!

I was wondering when the dam was going to break and push you over to a new one.

Happy New Thread!

Well well well, threading away as usual, I see! Hilariously, I got as far as ONE thread last year.

Happy new one!

Geesh, I thought I had wished you a Happy New Year but it appears that I didn't. Mea maxima culpa. Got a kick out the lads in their tighty whities in their library in the first thread.

I really hope you avoid getting really really sick this year, Richard. Your guardian angels are still in recovery somewhere in the south of France. Happy reading, chum!

Happy new thread! (Already! Yikes!)

Happy New Thread. You got me a second time on thread one with the Epitome Apartments (is that right???) series.

Happy new one RD. 😘💖

Salutations on your new thread, dear fellow. I was going to hold out and try to do one thread per month but it is already a tad unwieldy so I may follow suit shortly.

>22 vancouverdeb: *smooch*

>23 bell7: Thanks, Mary, I suspect you will really resonate to the read...identity, home as a toxic place, politics as a dirty deal...good fictional grist. *smooch* back

>24 Berly: Red and green! Perfect, Berly-boo, my two favorite colors. Thank you.

Happy new one, Richard

>25 drneutron: Oh, thanks Doc! Katie took first, but I thought for sure PC would be second...guess he got busier than expected.

>26 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita! *smooch*

>27 mahsdad: I quit holding back to finish the review I was writing, so I have a new one to post it in. Funny little ritual, starting our threads, innit. Welcome, Jeff!

>28 LovingLit: But Megan...two jobs, a mum, a partner, AND keeping up around this chatty group is expecting a bit too much. You got to read almost a book a week in all that, surely that is a LOT more important! Always a chance to add more of everything in the new year, so maybe now...??

>29 tiffin: Thanks, Tui! You know that photo got me tutted at over on Bluesky (the Twitter competitor I use) and was hidden as sensitive content? I had a good long laugh at that level of prudery and made a note to avoid people in my images lest someone decide to come at me there, too.

*smooch*

>30 Storeetllr: Thanks, Mary, and yeah...pretty darn quick this year. I hope Tui has it right and I fail to throw a near death experience this year.

>31 EBT1002: YAY!! You will like Candas Jane Dorsey and her way with words, Ellen, thought starting with #1 is what the lady herself recommended that I recommend. She was quite surprised I felt so comfortable starting there...FWIW I believe her, she knows much more about it than I do.

>32 Ameise1: Thank you most kindly, Barbara! *smooch*

>33 PaulCranswick: Three hundred is, operationally, my upper limit on posts, it gets to be impossible to find what you look for. I admit I try to do little ritualistic things with my threads, but that is a 2024 resolution: Just do it the simple way, make life easy.

Start that thread, PC!

Happy Saturday, Richard. Happy New Thread. The snow has moved out, now the arctic temps arrive. Oh, joy. At least I have All the Quiet Places to keep me warm.

>47 msf59: Yuckickptui on the Arctic temps, Mark. Ice is my absolute worst nightmare. I have fallen and hurt myself more than once on ice. Hate it!

Stay inside is my advice...since it is not your job to tromp through it anymore, enjoy the extra frisson of retirement today. I am so glad you are liking Brian Thomas Isaac and his story.

ETA close tags

‘Morning, RD! Happy new thread, and happy Saturday.

>46 richardderus: I agree with 300 and most of mine are within 2 or 3 either side of that.

>49 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! I expect most of us kind of converged on 300 as a natural process of discovering what works. Thanks for the weekend wishes, of course heartily returned. *smooch*

Good morning, Richard dear, and happy new thread! It's 2 degrees here, feels like -21, and snowing lightly. Wish I didn't have to get out in it, but needs must. Have a warm cozy day reading!

*smooch*

>51 ronincats: Roni, that sounds VILE...is there no way to stay in your lovely home and just...be? I shall remain indoors because it is dank and unpleasant out there. I need to finish two non-fiction reviews. It is not that the books were not *good* just that the subject matter makes me feel shouty.

*smooch* back

Good morning, Richard, and Happy Weekend! Also, Happy Newish Thread!
I can't catch up, so I'll just jump in with congrats for the recognition of your reviews by two authors. OF COURSE, they're thrilled to have their bookbabies so thoughtfully admired!

We're now having a perfect day if a person doesn't mind a little wind. I don't. *smooch* for your Saturday!

009 Mutiny On The Rising Sun: A Tragic Tale of Slavery, Smuggling, and Chocolate by Jared Ross Hardesty

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: On the night of June 1, 1743, terror struck the schooner Rising Sun. After completing a routine smuggling voyage where the crew sold enslaved Africans in exchange for chocolate, sugar, and coffee in the Dutch colony of Suriname, the ship traveled eastward along the South American coast.

Believing there was an opportunity to steal the lucrative cargo and make a new life for themselves, three sailors snuck below deck, murdered four people, and seized control of the vessel. Mutiny on the Rising Sun recounts the origins, events, and eventual fate of the Rising Sun's final smuggling voyage in vivid detail.

Starting from that night in June 1743, it narrates a history of smuggling, providing an incredible story of those caught in the webs spun by illicit commerce. The case generated a rich documentary record that illuminates an international chocolate smuggling ring, the lives of the crew and mutineers, and the harrowing experience of the enslaved people trafficked by the Rising Sun.

Smuggling stood at the center of the lives of everyone involved with the business of the schooner. Larger forces, such as imperial trade restrictions, created the conditions for smuggling, but individual actors, often driven by raw ambition and with little regard for the consequences of their actions, designed, refined, and perpetuated this illicit commerce.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The first third of the book is explaining the mutineers, their lives, and their society to us; it is not the swiftest or most action-packed start. This was not a negative for this reader, as I was more than a little appalled and repulsed by the details of the lives chosen by dramatis personae in their access of greed.

The mutiny itself is an event that was documented well enough to give the author a lot of detail that he is not reluctant to share with us. As I am interested in the world these men inhabited, and as their actions and motives are so illuminating of the attitudes and the expectations of the time, I was again kept involved. Adequate citations matter to me in history reads and I was almost pleased with them here...could have had more in-line citations at times, but I was not left with the feeling he was making it up.

The last half was more the opinionating, and that was enough in line with my own strongly held opinions that I felt no dragging of my interest in the story of slaving, smuggling, and the awful human cost of people's love for chocolate (which I don't share). The mutineers were men of their time, they had no moral qualm with what was haening on the ship; they wanted more than they were getting of the proceeds from the captain's flouting of the laws of the Empire whose own greed was in conflict with all the men's personal greeds.

Edified, I was not. The so-called justice meted out on the mutineers appalled and disgusted me. It was, to my mind, a bit overplayed...but it was what factually happened to more men than these, and many better than these greedy fucks, whose moral compasses only saw the money that the moral outrage of slavery could bring.

This is a well-written and thoroughly researched (as far as records can go in this time, which is limited in both its completeness and survival). It is not action-packed, so look elsewhere for derring-do. It is a readable cauionary tale about the consequences to real human beings when their greed is untrammelled.

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

>53 LizzieD: Thank you, dear one. I am excited to say the dankness has drifted away and I can see a trip to the store in my future. I was chuffed as I always am when an author sees the points I try to make...so often they do not read reviews, or say they don't, and sometimes have FEELINGS about what I say that they feel the need to express...so it still makes me happy that sometimes it works.

I love a windy day! Enjoy yours, me lurve.

>55 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! *smooch*

>54 richardderus: It is SO IRRITATING that I can not copy the illustrations I sampled in my blogged review! Sometimes I want to scream blue murder when Blogger reminds me of how deeply crappy Google is about giving us features back that they took away.

Dropping off frozen smooches from the depths of the -40 polar vortex. Thaw them out and they're just as good as fresh ones. 😆

>59 MickyFine: MINUS FORTY!!! That is an outrage, a terrible infringement of your human rights, and grounds for a lawsuit in The Hague against the weather goddess.

Also, interestingly, the only number that is the same on fahrenheit and celsius scales, easily the best science fact I have ever learned.

Happy new thread.
Liking the look of the non-fiction. I admit to be a fan of the chocolatey stuff.

>43 richardderus: That goes without saying!

*smooches*

>61 Helenliz: Thanks, Helen! I think the book is one that will make a serious social history reader happy. He does get ahead of his material on occasion with opinionating...but since I agree, I fault him not. Dishonest of me intellectually. C'est la vie.

>62 Storeetllr: I guess it's the lingering superstitiousness of a rejected religious upbringing, but it feels more concrete to say it aloud. Cyberaloud, at least.

I placed a Walmart order to pick up this afternoon after our cross-stitch meet-up at the library. I was frustrated when I arrived because they were not answering the phone. I had to catch one of the persons bringing stuff outside to let them know I was there because they sure weren't paying a bit of attention to which cars had arrived. I know they are notorious about not checking the voice mail messages when they don't have someone "manning" (or "womanning") the phone because I've had to flag them down before. If I had not needed cat stuff, I would have just gone to the grocery store. I didn't have that many true grocery items though and most of what I got was better to get at Walmart. (The local pet store doesn't stock the kind of food my cats eat, etc.) I'm home now, and I hope I have enough to get through the snow predicted for Monday into Tuesday. Current estimate for my location (and it will change at least a dozen times before it arrives) is 4 inches. We'll see how accurate they are!

>65 thornton37814: Attending the customers is NOT one of Walmart's notable skills, never has been, likely won't be, Lori. We always have to give something to get anything...money, time, frustration, something. Yuck.

I think the weather goddess is having her climacteric...we have sun, then rain, then clouds, then sun again in an hour. Like hurricane bands without the scary winds. Stay safe and indoors! *smooch*

>52 richardderus: No avoiding it, my sister's MIL's funeral, and I had to get my mom there. Made it there and back, though, and am safely inside and warm. It's -1 with a wind chill of -25 out there at this moment. Sun's out though.

>54 richardderus: Definitely going to put this on my WL. Chocolate is one of my favorite things in life. It doesn't require a long-term commitment, but it's always there for you! Also, it does not require care!

Can I possibly be wishing you a "happy new thread" at post 69? Good grief, how's a girl to keep up?

>67 ronincats: OIC

Well, you survived, so that worked out...still sounds awful to moi but I have no such obligations. *smooch*

>68 Tess_W: The read is very light on chocolatiness, Tess...more about smuggling it, how slaves were required to make it, that kind of thing. But it is interesting nonetheless.

>69 RebaRelishesReading: By not worrying about it, Reba! You should never feel like you MUST be here at any given time. Just know you are a welcome visitor whenever. *smooch*

Happy New Thread!

Happy New Thread, Richard. You and Paul are amazing.

010 Domestic Darkness: An Insider's Account of the January 6th Insurrection, and the Future of Right-Wing Extremism by Julie Farnam

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: After being named Assistant Director of Intelligence for the Capitol Police just days before the 2020 election, Julie Farnam warned its leadership of the upcoming insurrection, sharing that “Congress itself is the target on the 6th.” Tragically, her warnings were ignored.

Domestic Darkness takes us inside the explosive events of January 6, 2021, revealing how the Capitol Police disregarded intelligence about the right-wing extremists who would seize the capitol on that fateful day. In addition to offering a harrowing view of what it was like on the ground, watching the violence unfold and knowing it could have been prevented, Domestic Darkness also examines the specific groups and ideologies, such as the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, QAnon, and white supremacists, who were central to the events of January 6th and who, emboldened by Trump and other right-wing leaders, continue to be a threat to our democracy.

The book will also explore what happened within the Capitol Police in the wake of the insurrection, and how to address future dangers from domestic terrorism. With the 2024 presidential election just around the corner, we need to look at the lessons January 6th taught us to ensure something like that never happens again.

Julie Farnam served as the Assistant and then Acting Director of Intelligence for the United States Capitol Police during one of the most tumultuous periods in this country’s history. During her time there, she oversaw the identification and vetting of nearly 20,000 threats against members of Congress, most of which were made by U.S. citizens who adhered to extremist ideologies.

Prior to joining the Capitol Police, Farnam served with the Department of Homeland Security for over fifteen years.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Oh gawd, I hear y’all thinking, he’s off again, ranting about the MAGATs and their scum of a leader.

Yep. Sit down and eat your literary spinach. This is Important.

I will avoid the book report part of the read because 1. I hate doing it, b. I want to, iii. the details that Author Farnam presents made me sick to my stomach to read. That US citizens could be radicalized in this vile, scumbaggy way is a shock to my sensibilities, though in no way a surprise. I did, after all, grow up in Texas.

What I *will* discuss is the scariest, most infuriating bit of the story (to this reader, anyway)...the misogyny and unaccountability of the US Capitol Police. They dismissed a fifteen-year intelligence professional's substantiated warnings because she is a woman...they didn't have to give information to any other agencies because the Legislative Branch for whom they work is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act...they had the usual Police Department attitude towards those outside of mild contempt and utter disrespect. This is someone who came from the inside, and they treated her like she was a tourist who happened to find an unoccupied desk.

Why I want you to read it is simple: Author Farnam names names. There were those inside the US Capitol that bad, horrifying January day in 2021 who very carefully did nothing. She knows who, and makes a decent case for why. This is, by itself, worth the cost of the book. The manner in which the author makes her case for what to do with that information is a model of clarity and convincing authority. Her commonsensical call for this very important law enforcement agency to work collegially with other parts of the huge security apparatus the US is hagridden by seems modest enough, given the events of January 6, 2021. Her additional, very well founded calls for the US law enforcement establishment to expand its definitions of, and penalties for, terrorism of domestic origin are music to my cop unfriendly ears. This is a major problem and it will not go away if we just ignore it.

One of the most frustrating bits of the read was the realization that Author Farnam handed her critics a big cudgel to bludgeon her with: She had an intimate relationship with a man inside the department who, it later transpired, was feeding insider knowledge to the insurrectionists. This is in the end, however, one of the most important pluses of the read. She is upfront about it, she makes no bones about his fate of being Federally indicted for his role being just and proper, and thus assures us...possibly convinces those on the MAGAt side, too...that she speaks with real, sincere awareness of the many facets of the problems she delineates and offers solutions for.

There is no louder voice than the one from inside the house. This book amplifies that voice for us all to hear...and I very much hope heed as well.

>73 SilverWolf28: Thank you, Silver!

>74 ArlieS: Thanks, Arlie...we are a chatty bunch and Le Cranswick and I are the leading chatters, so it just sorta follows along that we collect thread additions...I will come look for your 2024 thread here directly.

>75 richardderus: I will be reading this, so I thank you for the review and bringing it to my attention. Over the past several years a significant portion of my NF reading has been Trump related. I cannot understand how any person with half a brain could vote for him or any Republican ever again. Had any Repub. been strong enough to stand up to him in 2017 (or before) we wouldn't be where we are today--facing the very real possibility of him being reelected. I'm terrified at the thought! (Sorry for the political rant--it's on my mind a lot).

>78 arubabookwoman: Deborah, this is one place that your political rant...I call it very moderate as it indulges in no ad hominem attacks, as I prefer to use...is positively welcomed. Someone who talked even moderately favorably about the seditious criminals and supine collaborationists of the Repulsivecans would be asked to leave. Your views are the ones I wish to amplify, so rant away.

Do read it soon, the current UD political events demand it.

Mr. RD, your thread is growing in length, and I do my best to keep up. Though in general I'm avoiding this sort of...hmmm...expose, I might read Domestic Darkness.

Well, I'd say happy new thread, but it's clearly not new anymore since you're halfway to another one lol
I'll say happy Sunday, instead!

>80 weird_O: It is one that I recommend even for the subject matter averse readers, Bill, because she was very much inside the System and saw the threat from a different view from the one I usually tout.

>81 ChelleBearss: It is still new to you, so no worries, Chelle. Things move fast around here for sure. *smooch*

Hiya, RDear! Happy Sunday to you. Yikes. 34 messages since yesterday. You’re way too popular!

>54 richardderus: Excellent review. I’ve always been interested in piracy and have several books about it on my shelves.

>75 richardderus: Sounds wonderful, I’ve added it to my wish list, may actually get it and read it one day after I pull my head out of the sand regarding current events/politics here in Amerika.

*smooch*

>84 karenmarie: Me, popular? Surely you jest, Horrible, folks merely come by to ogle the train wreck. Besides, a few more political posts and they will stay away like I gots the cooties. And there is another one tomorrow.

The Mutiny book is not about piracy, just smuggling and slaving. It is something you might like, but save it for a library run. *smooch*

ETA close tag

>64 richardderus: That makes sense, to another recovering from a superstitious religious upbringing.

>75 richardderus: I started tearing up just reading your review. Not sure how I’ll manage the book, but I will.

>86 Storeetllr: Courage, ma amie. It is, in the end, a worthwhile investment of your eyeblinks. And used tissues, too. I really *get* the desire to ignore, avoid, disengage...but the stakes are even higher than usual. We need to turn up in record numbers, and keep up the barrage against disinformation and distraction that keeps so many from acting as citizens must. *sigh* It all feels so incredibly effortful.

>75 richardderus: Wow! Sounds like a very important book...but I wonder if I can stand it...but then it may all happen again so I should read more about it...what a mess :(

Hi Richard, Happy New Thread dear friend.

011 Activating the Common Good: Reclaiming Control of Our Collective Well-Being by Peter Block

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A powerful, inspiring, and achievable vision of a society based on cooperation and community instead of competition and commodification.

This book counters the dominant and destructive story that we are polarized, violent, selfish, and destined to consume everything in sight. That is not who we are.

The challenge, Peter Block says, is that we are suffering under an economic theology that is based on scarcity, self-interest, competition, and infinite growth. We’re told we can purchase and outsource all that matters. Block calls this the “business perspective narrative.” It dominates not only the economy but also architecture, faith communities, journalism, arts, neighborhoods, and much more.

Block offers an alternative in the “common good narrative.” It embodies the belief that we are basically communal and cooperative. And that we have the capacity to communally produce what we care most raising a child, safety, livelihood, health, and a clean and sustainable environment.

This book describes how shifts to the common good perspective could transform many areas, fostering journalism that reports on what works, architecture that designs habitable spaces creating connection, faith collectives that build community, a market that is restrained and local, and leadership and activism that build social capital by creating trust among citizens. With these shifts, we would fundamentally change the world we live in for the better.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A business guru wrote this book, this loud call to rein in our enshrined attitude of greed and selfishness. That delights me more than anything else about the read. I resonate like a struck bell to the author’s call to rethink our cultural norms. Given how entrenched the mindset of me first, me on top is, the best thing to do is to begin the process of change at the personal and local level.

Visit the website, The Abundant Community.com, that the author and his collaborator John McKnight run. It is chock-a-block with ideas and resources to accomplish this. The book at hand is an excellent read to guide you to the areas that you most need to focus on, be they personal or community based. Our individual well-being is tied closely to our social well-being and this is a frequently discussed facet of life that the author is at pains to weave throughout the short book. From the Introduction, entitled “We Are Not Divided”, forward, Author Block makes the case for beginning one’s journey with the personal commitment to calibrating one’s mind to a "we are not alone" mindset. The difference between "alone" and "divided" recurs throughout the book, very much ringing through the ideas for actions we as citizens of this system of divide-and-conquer tactics can effectively take.

There is nothing at all unattainable in any of the goals Author Block offers to us as models for effecting change. That he offers them in actionable formats and in digestible, relatable examples makes the read both pleasant, easy, and short and offers real-world results to those willing to undertake his tried-and-tested steps toward a common-good focused world.

ETA typo in publisher copy

>88 RebaRelishesReading: What a stinkin’ mess alrighty all right! Luckily there is a small offsetting of the Gloom’n’doom right above this post... >90 richardderus: will cheer you a bit, Reba. But do read >75 richardderus: as well because this is not just going away any time soon. Dammit anyway.

>89 johnsimpson: Thanks, John! Good to see you here.

>91 richardderus: Yes, >90 richardderus: sounds like a pretty positive read

>93 RebaRelishesReading: I can say honestly that I feel much more sanguine about the future after reading it.

>90 richardderus: Of the books you've read recently, this is the one I'd be most likely to pick up. Not that the political ones aren't important topics, but I tend to avoid those books for my own mental health, while staying informed in other ways.

Sunday *smooch*

>95 bell7: I get the need not to engage with everything, Mary. No one can live at fever pitch 24/7. You do the best by knowing your limits and working inside them, so you are not the person I need to shout at!

It is a very good book, and would interest you, so I hope it will come to you soon. *smooch*

Hi RDear! Happy cold Monday to you, perhaps snow tonight and Friday. I.Want.Snow.

>90 richardderus: Gads, added to my wish list.

*smooch*

>90 richardderus: >91 richardderus: Anything that makes people feel more positive has to be good!

012 John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community by Raymond Arsenault

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: The first full-length biography of civil rights hero and congressman John Lewis

For six decades John Robert Lewis (1940–2020) was a towering figure in the U.S. struggle for civil rights. As an activist and progressive congressman, he was renowned for his unshakable integrity, indomitable courage, and determination to get into “good trouble.”

In this first book-length biography of Lewis, Raymond Arsenault traces Lewis’s upbringing in rural Alabama, his activism as a Freedom Rider and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, his championing of voting rights and anti-poverty initiatives, and his decades of service as the “conscience of Congress.”

Both in the streets and in Congress, Lewis promoted a philosophy of nonviolence to bring about change. He helped the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders plan the 1963 March on Washington, where he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial. Lewis’s activism led to repeated arrests and beatings, most notably when he suffered a skull fracture in Selma, Alabama, during the 1965 police attack later known as Bloody Sunday. He was instrumental in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and in Congress he advocated for racial and economic justice, immigration reform, LGBTQ rights, and national health care.

Arsenault recounts Lewis’s lifetime of work toward one overarching realizing the “beloved community,” an ideal society based in equity and inclusion. Lewis never wavered in this pursuit, and even in death his influence endures, inspiring mobilization and resistance in the fight for social justice.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Almost six hundred pages. That is a lot of reading time. It is also, peculiarly enough, less than I would have liked it to be because the life of Representative Lewis took place in such interesting times, and among such towering figures of US history, that I would gladly have read more.

Most all my readers know I am a committed atheist, and either know or can guess why. It is people like John Lewis, who used their christian beliefs to leave the world a better, more equitable place for as many as he could advocate for, that make me especially bitter about the sleazy rotten souled creeps who embody my idea of christians and christianity. Lewis was such a committed christian that he, the victim of a violent attack by a racist who later regretted his actions and sought forgiveness from Lewis, referred to the man as his brother in a television appearance they made together. This is a prime example of what a friend of Lewis’s called his "moral jujitsu," a means of wrong-footing the hate-spewing opponents who confidently expected him to return fire.

Author Arsenault sites Lewis in his historical milieu with thorough, fully attributed research. He has relied on personal sources who knew him. Thus they, who were there, can give him the real flavor of a Jim Crow rural Alabama upbringing, one filled with the ritual humiliations and deprivations so beloved of our scumbag brethren the white nationalists. While this did radicalize young Lewis, his christian beliefs channeled his radicalism into a serach for justice, fairness, equitability, and all achieved without the rage and hate that marked his opponents. Admirable to me, and to generations of voters who returned him to Congress for much of his adult life.

His skills as a politician were honed in the arena of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which he was instrumental in forming and from whom he broke away after they began calling for "Black Power," which he saw as provocative and counterproductive with its inherent message of conflict. Lewis opposed the simple reductive sloganeering of the Civil Rights Movement in its post-MLK era. This was, after all, one of the folk who thought they would be murdered in public on Bloody Sunday, in a protest on a bridge now named after him.

What that pointed to was a fact that I, no scholar of Representative Lewis’s life and career, had never known or even considered: John Lewis was not uniformly admired among his colleagues because he favored the cause of human rights over narrowly construed civil rights. He was, for example, taken to task for his vocal opposition to the confirmation of the Supreme Court’s first Black justice, Clarence Thomas...and how right he was about that! He was also a QUILTBAG ally in a community that does not, as a rule, support gay rights...at least not publicly. He very much did, and also supported the ongoing Jewish struggle against antisemitism.

John Lewis emerges from this telling of his life’s story as a man of high principles and powerful moral certainty. It did not make him universally loved, in fact made him a figure of hatred for many, but it gave him the grace of convictions not merely held, but lived. I hope you will spend some hours with John Lewis’s spirit by reading Author Arsennault’s wonderful telling of it. There are illustrative images in the text that enrich the older reader’s memory of the times he helped shape. It is a life worth knowing more about lived in times we still feel reverberations of...though not as positive a feedback as I myownself would prefer.

>97 karenmarie: Hey there Horrible. *smooch*

You are welcome for the book bullet...this is a read that I expect will appeal to you on many levels. May the snows of Kilimanjaro take up residence in rural NC this evening. If it can snow in Africa why not there, too.

>98 SandDune: This is my conviction as well, Rhian. Whatever it takes let us all do it! *smooch*

Happy Monday, Richard. Woke up to -10F again this morning. I was supposed to lead a bird walk today but of course, I canceled it. No Kids Kab today with the holiday, so no plans to go out again.

I am enjoying All the Quiet Places and should finish it today.

>102 msf59: Yay for the unexpected time to yourself, you busy man you. I am so pleased that you are enjoying the Brian Isaac book, too. It was a terrific read for me ao I am always happy when someone likes it.

>99 richardderus: looks like an excellent read.

013 Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll by Maureen Mahon

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: African American women have played a pivotal part in rock and roll—from laying its foundations and singing chart-topping hits to influencing some of the genre's most iconic acts. Despite this, black women's importance to the music's history has been diminished by narratives of rock as a mostly white male enterprise.

In Black Diamond Queens, Maureen Mahon draws on recordings, press coverage, archival materials, and interviews to document the history of African American women in rock and roll between the 1950s and the 1980s. Mahon details the musical contributions and cultural impact of Big Mama Thornton, LaVern Baker, Betty Davis, Tina Turner, Merry Clayton, Labelle, the Shirelles, and others, demonstrating how dominant views of gender, race, sexuality, and genre affected their careers.

By uncovering this hidden history of black women in rock and roll, Mahon reveals a powerful sonic legacy that continues to reverberate into the twenty-first century.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Get your pearl-clutching hand limbered up, y’all...white men grabbed a narrative and co-opted it again!

I know, I know...no one saw that coming, did they?

What I did not know about the history of women in rock and roll was a LOT. The underhanded way the gatekeepers would routinely mislabel Black women's music as soul or R&B, making it into an audience-awareness choice, reaching the natural market for these women's work, ie other Black folks. This made sure it all looked okay from the outside and still kept them separate from the white audiences that loved their music. Big Mama Thornton recorded major hits for white artists who got them from discovering her versions, eg Elvis re-recording "Hound Dog" after she did it, then refusing ever to acknowledge her as the source of the style and the rendition he made. She never got her public due, her deserved attention, or her merited rewards despite a many-decade career.

There is an entire chapter on the girl groups like the Shirelles and the Supremes, huge cultural forces in their day and now largely ignored or forgotten entirely. Diana Ross might be familiar to some younger folk (likely as a solo act), but neither Florence Ballard nor Mary Wilson are, and that is nigh on criminal neglect! The history of the women who worked behind the stars, and in the session studios, are equally unknown to the broad swath of listeners. Who knows who Merry Clayton is, by name anyway? But listen to the Rolling Stones' absolutely ubiquitous "Gimme Shelter" and they know that voice. An actual human woman, with a career, made those glorious sounds behind Jagger's howl of lust. Women like Claudia Lennear and Minnie Riperton were "muses" for white, famous men, and had tiny fractions of their success.

Of course no one can take a cursory look at this book and fail to see Tina Turner front and center. Rightly so. Her life and career were legendary from the beginning. Every action, every concert, was An Event. A life lived in the glare of publicity, though, is not always a career that works for the aritst. While Tina Turner did find justly given adulation and success for her talents, she worked for everything she ever got *against* the men resisting he input and rejecting her needs and wants. It was not until the 1980s, her fourth decade as a singer, that she finally shed the R&B ghettoization and became a megastar. The fact is that Tina Turner was a musical force of nature, and should have been lionized with the greatest of the British white men who gave the US white audiences covers of the Black women's originals.

I think I leaarned most from Author Mahon's chapter on Betty Davis, one of Miles Davis' wives. Her astonishing music was a YouTube rathole I had not known existed. Listen to "If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up" and tell me you don't feel deprived that you are hearing it for the first time in the 21st century. That is my—our—loss, and a bitter privation indeed. It slammed home the grotesque waste of Black women's talents and gifts this book was written to highlight.

For this MLK Day of reviews, this read was both fascinating and infuriating. The misogyny, the racism, the sheer hideous waste of so much life force, all left me more hell bent than ever to seek voices, experiences, and talents in as many corners that are not spotlit than ever. Join me and let's start shoutin’ about it.

ETA typo

>104 bell7: It was indeed, Mary! Give it a whirl sometime...learn a lot about our shared past.

>99 richardderus: John Lewis is someone I would very much like to have met RD. I read his autobiographies, the first of which is an all time favourite book. Putting this on my list.

It comes out here md-Feb.

>107 Caroline_McElwee: All the YAY, Caro. I hope it hits you in the positive way it did me!

>75 richardderus: >90 richardderus: Dang it, you got me with 2 BBs, RD. Looks like I really need to read both. There seems to be a never-ending stream of books recounting the horrors of the Trump years, especially at the end. And it looks like the Block book may explain how we've gotten to this point in America, and maybe what we can do to fix it.

>96 richardderus: It felt to me like we were "living at fever pitch 24/7" during the entire Trump presidency. What a relief when Biden took over and we could return to normal, without having to think about the president every single day, worrying about what insanity was going to spew forth from him. I *really* do not want to return to those days.

>109 atozgrl: You and I had similar responses to 45 and his administration, Irene. I do not ever want to see what a second round would bring.

I am as always very very pleased that you got bookbulleted, especially by those two books! They are very much poles on the spectrum of my reading this past week. Both feel very urgent to me. I really hope you can get to them soon.

>75 richardderus: Sounds like a tough read but I will add it on my list.

You got me with the book about John Lewis as well as Black Diamond Queens, Richard.

>110 richardderus: Neither do I! God forbid!

>111 figsfromthistle: Oh good, Anita! Hope they work for you the way they did me.

>112 Familyhistorian: YAY! Happy that you will be on the bus with me, Meg.

>113 atozgrl: Absolutely that.

>99 richardderus: You well and truly got me with that one. Thank you, Richard!

Just posted in your first thread and realised...I am not keeping up here! :)

Happy Wednesday, Richard. School was closed again yesterday because of the bitter cold. Back open today as it gets back into the high teens, which should feel almost balmy. Hope your week is going well.

014 Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A wondrous, tender novel about a young girl grappling with her role in a tragic loss—and attempting to reshape the narrative of her life—from PEN/Faulkner Award nominee Claire Oshetsky

Margaret Murphy is a weaver of fantastic tales, growing up in a world where the truth is too much for one little girl to endure. Her first memory is of the day her friend Agnes died.

No one blames Margaret. Not in so many words. Her mother insists to everyone who will listen that her daughter never even left the house that day. Left alone to make sense of tragedy, Margaret wills herself to forget these unbearable memories, replacing them with imagined stories full of faith and magic—that always end happily.

Enter Poor Deer: a strange and formidable creature who winds her way uninvited into Margaret’s made-up tales. Poor Deer will not rest until Margaret faces the truth about her past and atones for her role in Agnes’s death.

Heartrending, hopeful, and boldly imagined, Poor Deer explores the journey toward understanding the children we once were and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of life’s most difficult moments.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: What dies when a child dies? A parent dies thousands of deaths while their child is alive: fear, worry, the desperate pride in the pain that they suffer because of the child’s process of individuation from the Terrible Twos to *shudder* adolescence, or the death of a thousand cuts as I describe it; the death of the child is, however, the absence of these once-suffered pains, now become the hideous trackless void of grief. Many, maybe most, suffering parents turn to some sort of formal ritualized observance. The difference is of kind, not sort. Whether they choose religious, or secular, fellowship they seek comfort based in groups that cater for the vast needs of those grieving. But the dead child’s peers, lacking the perspective of adults, do not have the same outlets for their intense and passionate feelings.

Margaret, after the death of her best friend and neighbor Ruby, has developed versions of many of these coping behaviors: chanting, counting, seeking and seeing omens. Her mother makes the error common to many parents of her station and low educational attainment, using threats and bullying to keep Margaret in line. The result is predictable to the reader.

Margaret uses fantasy to put her feelings into tolerable emotional perspective. Her world is made up of adults who strive...I’d say "struggle" but they would never agree to such a freighted negative term...just to make some semblance of a life. Thus they, and Margaret, are always under tremendous stresses from many angles. The usual suspect for their adult coping mechanism in this kind of toxic soup is some religious and/or spiritual system, either mainstream or off the beaten path. Margaret’s mother and aunt, with whom she lives in their childhood home, are of the very old-fashioned Old Testament christian believers ilk. Her own coping mechanism is, as expected, in alignment with that kind of belief system, though its substance is not christian looking.

Given all the above, it makes sense that Margaret makes her grief, guilt...what religious system works without guilt?...and shame into an entity that judges and abuses her. That it was Poor Deer, an animal spirit named with the often overheard characterization of Margaret that she reimagines, was inspired. Different in affect, the same in effect. All of it was hard for my similarly afflicted self to read. Did Margaret cause her best friend Ruby’s death? contribute to it? or is Margaret simply a child whose always turbulent emotional world has been completely upended by a tragedy she has no framework to process, to get any kind of handle on? Since we meet Margaret and Poor Deer, that animal spirit aforementioned, as the latter has finally bullied the former into writing a confession of her guilt...for what? I wondered what can a child really be held resonsible for?...we are never on solid narrative ground.

I contend we never get there. This is, for me as a reader, a feature not a bug.

Margaret is an unusually bright person. Her coping mechanisms all fill the places that more intelligent, more emotionally adept parent figures...no father anywhere to be seen...would have resulted in her finding a direction forward into her life, instead of circling endlessly the disfiguring self-doubt and suspicion she swims through daily. Margaret creates, or finds, or discovers Poor Deer to fulfil the role of cicerone, mentor, and conscience.

Poor Deer is a story. All of us live out stories. Margaret has built her own world of stories because she can control them, can make sense of them, can mold them into the kind of purposeful, positive paths that she has so sorely lacked. So is this a story about how awful a childhood this one girl has led? Are we expected to follow this path from tragedy to mental illness then just...go on about our day?

If you haven’t read Chouette, you might wonder. Author Claire does not Do pointless suffering. Suffering you will do. There is, in fact, a Point. That we come to the end of the story in a manner not wholly predictable is just the expected way Author Claire works. That we come to the end of Margaret’s childhood without the sense of being smothered in a bow tied around our readerly eyes as we face the firing squad of Predictability’s story soldiers is vintage Author Claire.

Does childhood end? Do we wake up one fine day all adulty and fully prepared for life? Are you kidding? Margaret doesn’t do that either, she slugs it out with demons internal and external, and Margaret...becomes Margaret. You are investing in the journey into selfhood of a person who survives her life and becomes herself. It is a journey that never, ever grows less important or less lonely. Going with Margaret, whose beginnings reminded me a great deal of my own, on her trip through the story she and Poor Deer massage into ever evolving shapes and sizes as needed, left me very rough at the end of the book.

The spots I have polished into a high gloss by reinventing the stories I needed to survive got sanded down to the original story. Like Margaret, I didn’t grow up, I grew larger by reinvention. That process, once begun in survival mode, does not...can not...end.

All five stars.

>117 LizzieD: Heh...it is a costly one, dear lady, do a library borrow unless you like handing over $25 for a Kindlebook....

*smooch*

>118 sirfurboy: Heh! Things move fast around here, Stephen. Glad you visited no matter the detours it took.

>119 msf59: School closed because of cold...been a minute since that has happened. Stay warm, Birddude. I am ensconced and have no thought to de-ensconce. I like my nose hairs where they are, thanks. Besides, my current book review is being stubborn so I need to cajole it into shape. Who knew books about plagues would be so hard to review?

Hi RDear!

>105 richardderus: Fantastic review. I frequently sing bits of songs by the Supremes to Jenna, even occasionally getting her to listen to a YouTube recording or two. Minnie Ripperton’s 5-octive range slayed me, Lovin’ You still gives me chills. I just looked her up and didn’t realize she used whistle register, didn’t know what it was. There’s always something here, of course! And, added to my wish list.

>120 richardderus: Excellent review, of course, and you really got me the with the last two paragraphs. I’ll pass, but that might not surprise you.

>123 richardderus: SoCal girl that I still am, I was shocked when I flew into the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport in the ‘80s to visit a friend and my nose hairs froze on the way to her car.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>124 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! I am always pleased when I aim true at your TBR.

The Supremes are, IMO, the most criminally neglected musical superstars of the 60s. Wayyy too much adulation directed at the Guitar Gods for my taste, too little at the groups that worked hard and made glorious sounds. Riperton, maker of truly glorious sounds, dying at 31 of breast cancer is one more piece of misogyny...research on effective chemo for breast cancer was not undertaken for decades after the industry got going, because it did not afflict men.

I do not think >120 richardderus: is any great loss to your reading list...strikes me as not the style of writing you would enjoy enough to go on that journey.

Here by the sea, it is not common to have the nose hairs freeze, so it remains an affront to my dignity.

>120 richardderus: I'll have to wait for that one, Richard. I'll also have to wait for Chouette and the John Lewis. I don't think I can bear the first two, and the second, as you say, is too pricey. Our library might buy it if I asked them to, but I'd have to read it and give it back in a couple of weeks. I don't think I want to do either.

Be warm! *smooch*

>120 richardderus: Your 5 star rating got me with that one. I now have it on hold at the library.

>127 arubabookwoman: Oh, excellent news, Deborah! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

>90 richardderus: >99 richardderus: >105 richardderus: BBs. All three. Yes. I hope they’re all available from the library. I’ll be filling out forms if not.

Hope you’re staying warm. I kept Ruby home from school today because I just couldn’t face the frigid temps and icy roads.

>129 Storeetllr: Oh HECK yeah!! Triple score...I feel like I am in a first person shooter game with book bullets not gross metal ones.

Facing the frigid air sounds like a NO to me as well. I canceled a followup appointment for my back thingie because NO. An emailed photo might make the whole exercise unnecessary.
***
My hospital roommate from South Nassau/Mount Sinai, also named Richard, called me to catch up a year after we met in last year’s nasty circs. It was good to chat with him...he’s in Florida basking in the 70s they call cold. Fun!

>120 richardderus: Wow - Poor Deer sound well worth a read. I've added it to the WL.

>131 SandDune: I hope HarperCollins brings it out in the UK soon, Rhian, it was a very good read indeed.

Schools are closed here too, today. It's about -1 C, so not the cold but about 6 inches of snow fell over night and more is falling. A reprieve from the tooth grinder tomorrow as they cancelled my crown appointment. Too much snow. Always a silver lining, but I still have to go next week.

>133 vancouverdeb: UGH on six inches of snow...after it has fallen, I think a well ordered world would have conditions of actively snowing then *wham* straight into the aquifer. None of this icky middle bit.

Well, nobody listens to *me* that is certain....

>130 richardderus: It's quite frigid here too today at -10c right now (14f). It was -18c when the kids were getting ready for school and we were very much not interested in walking to school today.

015 All I See is Violence by Angie Elita Newell

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A woman warrior, a ruthless general, and a single mother―three stories deftly braided into the legacy of a stolen nation

The US government stole the Black Hills from the Sioux, as it stole land from every tribe across North America. Forcibly relocated, American Indians were enslaved under strict land and resource regulations. Indigenous writer Angie Elita Newell brings a poignant retelling of the catastrophic, true story of the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn and the social upheaval that occurred on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1972 during the height of the American Indian Movement.

Cheyenne warrior Little Wolf fights to maintain her people’s land and heritage as General Custer leads a devastating campaign against American Indians, killing anyone who refuses to relocate to the Red Cloud Agency in South Dakota. A century later, on that same reservation, Little Wolf’s relation Nancy Swiftfox raises four boys with the help of her father-in-law, while facing the economic and social ramifications of this violent legacy.

All I See Is Violence weaves love, loss, and hard truths into a story that needs to be told―a journey through violence to bear witness to all that was taken, to honor what all of our ancestors lived through, and to heal by acknowledging the shadows in order to find the light.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Alternating PoV narratives are hard to pull off. A balancing act among three voices is even harder. What Author Newell sought to do, it seems to me, was done by giving the reader all the points of view that shore up her point: Fight for or against something, whichver you like, and you will still end up reinforcing the violence and the rage our world is swimming in. She does this best by presenting each character's story to us in the same first-person present tense.

To be sure, her Indigenous people's points of view are clearly presented as they are, the victims of an aggressive colonial project that requires them to die. The truth here is that women are not passive victims of this project, but use every tool available at the time they exist to fight against the dual prongs of racism and sexism.

Custer's PoV is, at first, an odd choice given the theme of the book. His perpetration of violence against Indigenous people did nor give me any clues about why he was included...until his (much shorter) sections led me to see that the story was about the violence committed, not about victimhood. Custer was part of an Imperial project, and a believer in it...through cluelessness, sociopathy, or an Eichmannesque just-following-orders soldier's ethos is an open question.

I landed on a four-star rating because I was not entirely convinced by the narrative inclusion of Custer...it jars with my expectations, and more to the point it is not prefigured or required in Little Wolf's contemporaneous narrative parts...and because I very much wanted more of Nancy Littlefox's family relationships. These lacunae were not fatal to my enjoyment of the read, obviously, but noticeably lessened my smooth sailing through it.

Cavils, really, concerning a read I was drawn to, and held within, for several pleasurable hours.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Thursday to you.

>136 richardderus: I shall be cranky and say that since I've read nonfiction about both events don’t feel an urge to read fiction. Having said that, I do appreciate your comments about alternating POVs. Inclusion of Custer’s POV is an interesting concept and perhaps smacks a bit of hubris unless the author read any and all source letters/dispatches/etc. by Custer.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

BURGOINE #1

Trans-Mongolian Express by David L. Robbins

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In the harrowing aftermath of Chernobyl's meltdown in 1986, the fate of Eastern Europe hangs by a thread.

From Beijing, American radiation scientist Lara, once a thorn in the Russian mob's side, is drawn back into the shadows of the Soviet Union on the Trans-Mongolian Express. She isn't alone. Anton, a Soviet scientist exiled for predicting Chernobyl's catastrophe, is on a quest to expose the truth. Amidst them, Timur, a Chechen giant fueled by vengeance, plots to destroy the already crumbling Soviet Union.

Suddenly, a murder on the remote tracks of the Gobi thrusts them into a deadly game of cat and mouse. As Chief Sheriff Bat races to solve the murder, their lives are thrown into jeopardy. Lara finds an unexpected ally in Gang, a reluctant assassin sent to end her life, and an illicit romance blooms amidst the chaos. But Gang isn't the only killer onboard. A hidden menace lurks, threatening to unravel all their plans.

In this electrifying ride across a historical backdrop, suspense and passion collide in an unyielding dance of survival and redemption. Who will survive the Trans-Mongolian Express?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Set in 1986, the time of Chernobyl, this "Murder on the Orient Express" story grandchild is mostly successful in its aim to entertain and, incidentally, inform the reader in the same vein as Warren Adler's Trans-Siberian Express, which I reviewed two years ago. Not telling tales out of school! The same publisher brought this book out, and is marketing it as insired by Adler's earlier work.

Again, as with that book, one knows what's in store because thriller, and because it is set at the time the US and USSR were fighting their Cold War. Like Adler's book, this is another richly embroidered atmospheric-detail-heavy read. The characters are unmemorable, the situation is familiar to thriller readers, but folks needing a few hours off from coping with the Real World should give it a go.

So, if you like that kind of read, here you got a good one.

>137 karenmarie: That does not strike me as cranky, Horrible. I think it marks a great deal of common sense because, when one knows the facts, fictions hold different amounts of interest. I think if one likes the author and their style it is easier to absorb the opinion in its intended spirit, and that is literally impossible with a debut author.

*smooch*

>135 ChelleBearss: We are in a cold, wet, and windy January, Chelle. Since it had been almost two years since we had had any kind of decen snow cover, I am actually really glad to see it! *smooch*

Your MLK day readings sound superb, Richard dear. And so many other interesting readings...you are keeping busy! Glad the quality has been so good.

*smooch*

Joining the chorus of folks who got about 6" of snow yesterday -- lovely, sparkly, light, freezing cold snow. It really is pretty. And tomorrow we fly to Lihue so there is that. Of course, they are now predicting more snow tonight and our flight is scheduled for 5am (yes, getting anywhere from this small town with a one-gate airport requires inhumanly early rising). Fingers crossed for sunshine and Mai Tai's!!!

>141 ronincats: It has been a good year so far, Roni...I really want it not to throw me any ugly shocks and scares, but that will be as it may be. Good to see you, dear lady! *smooch*

>142 EBT1002: Mai tais ho-o-o!

Not envious of your traveling, truthfully, but of your arriving in such a great locale. Snow again tomorrow, bleurgh, and the concomitant ice under it. No outdoorsiness for my achy icky joints until it is nicer, thenkewveddymahch.

Travel safe and *smooch*

I'm glad you're enjoying the snow, Richard. I was enjoying ours for the first couple of days but I'm quite ready for it to leave now. The freezer is well cleaned out and I need to go buy little-grandson a birthday present!

>145 RebaRelishesReading: "Enjoying" might overstate the case, Reba, except permaybehaps in a schadenfreude kind of smirky way. I hope the weather goddesses let you out in time to get the present! *smooch*

Have you read Less by Andrew Sean Greer? I'm in its early stages but I'm making little snorfling noises in my brain so far.

Hello and smooches to the reviewing king!! I am glad you balanced out your Trump book with some more optimistic reads. Stay warm and inquisitive!! : )

>147 tiffin: I did read it...I was screeching, not snorfing...just not my thing.

>148 Berly: How do, smoochling! Good books abounding, thank goodness. Stay warm and electrified.

>149 richardderus:: Ok. I'll finish it and let you know what I think. Did you screech from the get-go or did you increasingly screech as it went on?

>151 tiffin: My irritation grew and grew. By about halfway, I was hate-reading.

Waking up to more fresh snow and the temps dropped back into the high single digits. WTH? Can't catch a break here in the Midwest. At least I can find some comfort on Jackson Day. ❤️

Happy Friday, Richard.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Friday to you.

I had fun sorting through the boxes of books donated to the Friends yesterday, and did not feel bad at all that I took 13 for me and 1 for a friend.

Your weather is definitely stay-inside weather. Mine is too, although it's not snowing.

*smooch*

edited to add: You slay me. I just saw what you posted on Rhian's thread on the 16th: *trudges off to Amazon to heal book bulleting*

>153 msf59: Jackson Day will keep your heart warm even as the rest of you freezes, Polar Vortex Man. It is not that cold here, but is definitely not going to see my lily white self out in it until Monday when it unfreezes.

Read hearty!

>154 karenmarie: Heh...well, only a book-bandage can heal a book-bulleting.

That was a great haul, both for you and the Friends sale! I am not even a little bit jealous.

now where is that voodoo dolly kit anyway....

'Morning, RD. Happy cold and windy Saturday to you.

>156 richardderus: the voodoo dolly kit is in a box in storage under other boxes that make it difficult for you to get to. Plus, it only works on men.

*smooch*

>157 karenmarie: It worked a treat on me. Dog sick today, off to sleep off the gastrointestinal distress.

only a book-bandage can heal a book-bulleting

Ain't that the truth! Happy weekend *smooches* and hope you feel better soon.

>158 richardderus: That was NOT the news I wanted to hear here. I'll hope against hope that you can sleep it off.

*smooch*

>152 richardderus:: I wish we could meet in person to have a chat about this. His tsunami of descriptive one liners is definitely taking its toll, although they are clever.
>158 richardderus:: Much sympathy.

"only a book-bandage can heal a book-bulleting" -- I love that idea!!

>158 richardderus: Hope you’re feeling better, RD. It’s no fun feeling bad. Hugs!

Karen O

Feel better, Richard.

*Saturday smooches*

>158 richardderus: I hope you're feeling better by now, RD. *smooch*

Sorry you are not feeling up to snuff today. Feel better!! Smooch.

Feel better soon, Richard.

>167 jessibud2:, >166 Berly:, >165 atozgrl:, >164 Storeetllr:, >163 klobrien2:, >161 tiffin:, >160 LizzieD:, >159 bell7: The good news is that I had an Rx for loperamide, the anti-diarrheal med, in house from last year, and it worked a treat. Within six hours the events were over and the recovery-sleeping had begun. It only cost two underpants this time.

I know it was bad because Old Stuff was worried enough to ask if I was okay! Modern medicine is a wonderful thing for which I am grateful every day.

>162 RebaRelishesReading:, >159 bell7: The idea of a book-bandage seems so obvious now, but it never occurred to me before and I have not seen it anywhere else, so I think we can safely call it neologized.

Cold, windy Sunday *smooches* to all!

Glad to hear you are doing better today, Richard. I hope that continues. Old Stuff does have a soul after all, albeit a tiny one. 😁

>169 msf59: Heh...I was sure I was very ill when he *noticed* I was unwell, and even more convinced when he asked after me, and all this through his addled beer-soaked brain. Shocking!

Although it is true he does not have a high bar to clear, he has not cleared it before.

Glad to hear that you are a lot better!!!! You'll help OS move up into human territory in spite of himself.

Be warm and well! Read! *smooch*

>171 LizzieD: You'll help OS move up into human territory in spite of himself.

Horrifying thought...I might have to *interact* with the old jerk then! No, no, no!

*smooch*

Sorry to hear about the internal workings going off piste. Hope you're still taking it easy.

Love the book bandage idea. That's fab!

>173 Helenliz: Hi Helen! I am doing nothing taxing today, although I did resume mobility exercises because they make me feel so much better.

Seems completely inevitable, now that it is out there. Very surprised no one thought of it before!

‘Morning, RD.

>158 richardderus: Well, crap. I didn’t mean for it to give off its energy on you. Sorry you had gastrointestinal distress, hope that as I read further down your thread I read that you’re better today.

>168 richardderus: Only 10 messages later, and I read that you’re recovered. Wow, OS asking if you were okay. This is as close as I can get to a book bandage, from Archie McPhee:



>170 richardderus: Clearing the bar is good.

*smooch*

>175 karenmarie: The bandages are hilarious, Horrible! Since a bandaid that size would never cover any wound I need bandaged, I will not be buying the but I am very glad they exist.

Clearing the bar is astonishing.

>168 richardderus: Glad you had the drug, and that it worked.

I very much agree that "Modern medicine is a wonderful thing for which I am grateful every day." Without it, I'd like as not still be in the process of dying from the cancer that was successfully treated 2 years ago. Or already dead, but they caught the cancer early enough that it probably have taken at least this long to kill me. Or something else would have gotten me even before the cancer.

>172 richardderus: ;-)

So glad you're feeling better, Richard. Let's keep it that way, OK?

>177 ArlieS: Those are strong reasons to be very, very grateful indeed, Arlie. I remind myself that all the days I have ahead are entirely on credit...no guarantees on any of them.

IK,R??

>178 RebaRelishesReading: To the very best of my ability, Reba! I solemnly swear.

'Morning, RDear! Happy Monday to you.

I've got a busy day ahead - Friends Board meeting, treadmill, car inspection/2 new tires. Plus all the good stuff relating to reading, of course - LT, actually reading, and catalaging the ARC score I got the other day.

*smooch*

Happy Monday, Richard!

Sorry you were not feeling well on the weekend. Glad you are now better :)

016 The Vote Collectors: The True Story of the Scamsters, Politicians, and Preachers behind the Nation's Greatest Electoral Fraud by Michael Graff and Nick Ochsner

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: In November 2018, Baptist preacher Mark Harris beat the odds, narrowly fending off a blue wave in the sprawling Ninth District of North Carolina. But word soon got around that something fishy was going on in rural Bladen County. At the center of the mess was a local political operative named McCrae Dowless. Dowless had learned the ins and outs of the absentee ballot system from Democrats before switching over to the Republican Party. Bladen County’s vote-collecting cottage industry made national headlines, led to multiple election fraud indictments, toppled North Carolina GOP leadership, and left hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians without congressional representation for nearly a year.

In The Vote Collectors, Michael Graff and Nick Ochsner tell the story of the political shenanigans in Bladen County, exposing the shocking vulnerability of local elections and explaining why our present systems are powerless to monitor and prevent fraud. In their hands, this tale of rural corruption becomes a fascinating narrative of the long clash of racism and electioneering—and a larger story about the challenges to democracy in the rural South.

In their preface to this second edition, Graff and Ochsner bring the story up to date, as accusations of voter fraud continue to pervade our national discourse. The Vote Collectors shows the reality of election stealing in one southern county, where democracy was undermined the old-fashioned way: one absentee ballot at a time.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: While I did not love the book’s structure, I *did* resonate to its message and purpose: documenting and publicizing the voter fraud committed in the 2018 election by the North Carolina GOP in search of a national majority in the US Congress to further their regressive agenda. I have reaffirmed my belief that guilty people accuse others of their own crimes as a result of reading this book.

You should read it, too, as we approach the 2024 elections. If you imagine that catching these perpetrators of voter fraud is enough to scare the others out there into compliance with the law, think again...these are True Believers in A Cause, men—mostly—on a mission. Vigilance of the citizenry is the only resource we have left to combat this criminal undertaking. The authors are at pains to detail the toothlessness of oversight allowed by the state’s law on North Carolina’s local elections. It is not terribly different in the rest of the country.

The center of the 2018 plot was a man the authors seem to have a lot more sympathy and affection for than is warranted in my observation of their own descriptions of him: McCrae Dowless. A convicted insurance fraudster who transitioned to political fraud with apparent ease, Dowless was a Democratic operative who switched sides and ramped up the lawbreaking after he learned the ropes. His early death has failed to elicit from me more than a "what a relief at least one is gone" response.

Not a book to be dipped in and out of, because the level of detail can grow hazy in one's mind after too much time away. Also not a light little romp through one event in a bygone election. This stuff is going on now, and it will not stop until the silent, bored, apathetic parts of the electorate get off their "ignorance is bliss, if we don't think about it, it will go away" poses.

Voter suppression is real, and a real problem. It is time to Vay attention to it. Start here. The second edition is $23.00 for a trade paperback, preorders for March 2024 at the UNC website|first edition $8.53 on Kindle, available now

>181 karenmarie: Hiya, Horrible! New week orisons back.

That ARC score was *eic* and enviable indeed. You will be in fonders heaven this week, what with those and the usual session tomorrow.

Be well *smooch*

>182 figsfromthistle: Morning, Anita. Thanks for the return to wellness wishes! I am ever so glad that it was not a lot hsrder to get rid of this issue. Takes a LOT out of my old man body to have that occur.

*smooch*

017 Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power by An Xiao Mina

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A global exploration of internet memes as agents of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda on- and offline, and how they will save or destroy us all.

Memes are the street art of the social web. Using social media-driven movements as her guide, technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina unpacks the mechanics of memes and how they operate to reinforce, amplify, and shape today's politics. She finds that the "silly" stuff of meme culture—the photo remixes, the selfies, the YouTube songs, and the pun-tastic hashtags—are fundamentally intertwined with how we find and affirm one another, direct attention to human rights and social justice issues, build narratives, and make culture. Mina finds parallels, for example, between a photo of Black Lives Matter protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, raising their hands in a gesture of resistance and one from eight thousand miles away, in Hong Kong, of Umbrella Movement activists raising yellow umbrellas as they fight for voting rights. She shows how a viral video of then presidential nominee Donald Trump laid the groundwork for pink pussyhats, a meme come to life as the widely recognized symbol for the international Women's March.

Crucially, Mina reveals how, in parts of the world where public dissent is downright dangerous, memes can belie contentious political opinions that would incur drastic consequences if expressed outright. Activists in China evade censorship by critiquing their government with grass mud horse pictures online. Meanwhile, governments and hate groups are also beginning to utilize memes to spread propaganda, xenophobia, and misinformation. Botnets and state-sponsored agents spread them to confuse and distract internet communities. On the long, winding road from innocuous cat photos, internet memes have become a central practice for political contention and civic engagement.

Memes to Movements unveils the transformative power of memes, for better and for worse. At a time when our movements are growing more complex and open-ended—when governments are learning to wield the internet as effectively as protestors—Mina brings a fresh and sharply innovative take to the media discourse.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Definition of a meme, via Wikipedia:

A meme (/miːm/; MEEM) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme.

Which has given rise to the Internet meme, again via Wikipedia:

An Internet meme, or simply meme (/miːm/, MEEM), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations. Characteristics of memes include their susceptibility to parody, their use of intertextuality, their propagation in a viral pattern, and their evolution over time.

I doubt a lot of my readers are unfamiliar with the concept of a meme, in its initial formulatiion by Richard Dawkins, or in its new sense from the internet. It pays not to be caught out by omitting the definitions, partial though they may be. There will always be someone who wants to invalidate any information that offers context for judging modern information culture.

The meme machine is decades old at this point, and a book six years old is going to miss some modern context...the internet moves very fast and seldom stays in one lane even when it isn't moving at top speed. That is clear, and undeniable, but it in no way invalidates the author's thesis that the internet and social media have a large, possibly growing, influence on how much and what kind of attention we pay to different cultural memes on the internet as well as in real life. There are examples of internet-inspired real life actions, eg The Arab Springs of the Teens, so her thesis is that governments began to use countermemes to spread doubt, dissension, and overwhelmed apathy among internet users. The hashtag culture that looks for its own people via searching hashtags on Twitter (still refuse to call it X), and the multivarious pretenders to its throne, to find those whose views align with their own, and whose voices they wish to amplify by reposting or remixing their memes, has proven distractable and cooptable. This was at an earlier phase when the author was writing the book, and thus gets comparatively little play. I would have been more satisfied had there been illustrative memes in the text, but it had, I feel sure, pragmatic reasons like copyright clearances and the sheer exposure to malicious actors challenging the book. In other words, a species of the self-censorship the author discusses, as a consequence of state-sponsored botfarms etc. etc. that act in search of diluting messages they do not like.

That being more of a reason for the publisher to bring out a second edition, one including climate denial in its evolving, still spreading, form, than for you to skip reading it. I encourage you to get your eyes on the author's trenchant, intelligent analysis of the intersection between meme culture and personal resistance to oppression and totalitarian ambitions and actions.

>183 richardderus: You do realize that that was my voting district, right? I live in the neighboring county of Robeson, and I'm sure that I have spoken about our lack of representation for most of that year. I'll require myself to read it.

*smooch* for your day

>187 LizzieD: Given your close connection to the subject, I would encourage you to get the second edition with its updates, me lurve.

*smooch* back

BURGOINE #2

Ink & Sigil (Ink & Sigil #1) by Kevin Hearne

The Publisher Says: Al MacBharrais is both blessed and cursed. He is blessed with an extraordinary white moustache, an appreciation for craft cocktails – and a most unique magical talent. He can cast spells with magically enchanted ink and he uses his gifts to protect our world from rogue minions of various pantheons, especially the Fae.

But he is also cursed. Anyone who hears his voice will begin to feel an inexplicable hatred for Al, so he can only communicate through the written word or speech apps. And his apprentices keep dying in peculiar freak accidents. As his personal life crumbles around him, he devotes his life to his work, all the while trying to crack the secret of his curse.

But when his latest apprentice, Gordie, turns up dead in his Glasgow flat, Al discovers evidence that Gordie was living a secret life of crime. Now Al is forced to play detective – while avoiding actual detectives who are wondering why death seems to always follow Al. Investigating his apprentice’s death will take him through Scotland’s magical underworld, and he’ll need the help of a mischievous hobgoblin if he’s to survive.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I am in two minds about this read. I thoroughly enjoy Author Hearne and his world built around Celtic mythology. Moving from Ireland to Scotland did nothing to diminish my enjoyment. The issue I have is, the world building has been done in the Atticus and Oberon books, nine or so in number. I do not know if this story truly stands apart from those enough to ensorcel a new reader who does not wish to go through that much initiatory reading.

I think, on balance, you know yourself best...read the story, because it is really, really fun to do, or wait until you are caught up on the kind of world this is. Mythology based fantasy reads are certainly popular enough that they are not fresh to your eyes. If you enjoy the idea of the Fae and the gods interacting with mere humans, and exacting prices from those humans for their patronage, this story will delight you.

>168 richardderus: Modern medicine is a wonderful thing for which I am grateful every day. Definitely! Mr SandDune came home today and gave me all the gruesome details about medicine in WWI from a video that he was watching with one of his classes (they have a topic on the history of medicine). Didn't like the sound of it one little bit!

BURGOINE #003

The Old Man in the Corner (Teahouse Detective #1) by Emmuska Orczy

The Publisher Says: A classic collection of mysteries by the author of The Scarlet Pimpernel

Mysteries! There is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation.

So says a rather down-at-heel elderly gentleman to young Polly Burton of the Evening Observer, in the corner of the ABC teashop on Norfolk Street one afternoon. Once she has forgiven him for distracting her from her newspaper and luncheon, Miss Burton discovers that her interlocutor is as brilliantly gifted as he is eccentric—able to solve mysteries that have made headlines and baffled the finest minds of the police without once leaving his seat in the teahouse. As the weeks go by, she listens to him unravelling the trickiest of puzzles and solving the most notorious of crimes, but still one final mystery remains: the mystery of the old man in the corner himself.

The Old Man in the Corner is a classic collection of mysteries, featuring the Teahouse Detective - a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes, with a brilliant mind and waspish temperament to match that of Conan Doyle's creation.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The stories are much of a muchness when read at a gulp, so don't do that! Space them out, one a week or so, and they become less predictable and more pleasantly familiar. I made the mistake of gulping and paid the price of thinking, halfway through, that I would not be finishing the read. I took a long time off, and mirabile dictu, returned with a happy heart.

Pushkin Vertigo does a lot of excellent mystery publishing, though I suspect these very old-fashioned tales won't be bestsellers. They should please us Golden Agers who read Mary Roberts Rinehart.

Kindle editions are only $9.99, and honestly if read as they were originally published...occasionally...you can have better value for money spent.

>183 richardderus: Ugh. Another BB, though not one I’m looking forward to, even if the subject matter is très important

I just posted some pics of Ruby’s birthday party over on my thread. They are treacle sweet, so I don’t mind if you skip them.

>190 SandDune: ...and they thought how much better it was than their grandfathers' battlefield treatments in Crimea were...even thirty years ago, I might not have had the outcome I've enjoyed from my THREE strokes, and that's just mindboggling to me!

>192 Storeetllr: Yeah, it will not be a read you savor and mull over on frustrating days, Mary, but it is very worthwhile.

I'll coddiwomple thitherward here directly. *smooch*

*give up. line in the sand time*

Hey Richard! Happy new thread.

What happened to your first post up there?

Can't possibly keep up, Richard, so I'll just send you a hearty hello here! Hope you're having a lovely week. :)

>195 humouress: It was the first anniversary of the strokes, so it seemed a good thing to say...sort of an incantation if you will.

Thanks, Nina! *smooch*

>196 PlatinumWarlock: Hi Lavinia, thanks for the loveliness wishes...honestly I am pleased when it is simply uneventful at this point.

"Ice Ice Baby!!"

Waking up to a sheet of ice. Temps are hovering just above the freezing mark, with a snow/rain mix coming down. Some schools are closed, including my "kids" school. Hey, I am not complaining. Sue made it out but our driveway looks completely glazed.

Enjoy your day, my friend.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Tuesday to you.

>191 richardderus: I’ll pass because I thought The Scarlet Pimpernel lurid and over the top – not its fault, because it was a stunner for its time. However, I removed it from my catalog as soon as I’d finished it.

*smooch*

BURGOINE #004

The Ingenious by Darius Hinks

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Political exiles are desperate to escape from the impossible city that imprisons them, in this bloody and brilliant epic fantasy

Thousands of years ago, the city of Athanor was set adrift in time and space by alchemists, called "the Curious Men". Ever since, it has accumulated cultures, citizens and species into a vast, unmappable metropolis.

Isten and her gang of half-starved political exiles live off petty crime and gangland warfare in Athanor's seediest alleys. Though they dream of returning home to lead a glorious revolution, Isten's downward spiral drags them into a mire of addiction and violence. Isten must find a way to save the exiles and herself if they are ever to build a better, fairer world for the people of their distant homeland.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: It was okay. It hit almost all its beats. It had a nice, dark, uncelebratory tone that I liked. The characters got a bit whiny for my taste, but that is a feature of every grimdark story I have read, literally all of them. What lifted the dead weight of whininess from my opinion is the way the author constructed his shifting, mobile city: he did not explain it, or introduce it explanatorily, just put its effects into the tale. Kudos for that. There are nuances in the way this world full of truly crappy people is run that had me nodding along approvingly.
Did not lift my dissatisfaction with the whinging, sorry.

If you like Robert Jackson Bennett, China Miéville, and Scott Lynch, this is a winner for you.

>199 msf59: How much fun is that...like living in a Krispy Kreme bakery, all glazedglazedglazed everywhere! The sandy field beyond our parking lot is still completely white with snow but it will be fortyish today, so it will not last.

Have a lovely, Birddude.

>200 karenmarie: Wise...the old Baroness never changed her style or her politics, and that grates on my 21st century ears. Might on yours, too.

Tuesday orisons, Horrible! *smooch*

>197 richardderus: Ah, I get it.

>204 humouress: *smooch*

^I just saw that Wild Houses came out earlier this month. You were also a fan of Young Skins, right? I thought it was a fantastic collection.

>206 msf59: I have not yet read it, but it is on my list because you liked it so well. Its turn will come, permaybehaps sooner now there is a novel, as well.

BURGOINE # 005

Bone Park: The Golden Girls Meets The Godfather by Sandy Robson

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In 1991, the quiet Florida retirement community of Cicada Hollow was the perfect place for seniors to relax and enjoy their golden years. It also was the place where four retired women joined together out of necessity, to become the biggest crime syndicate in American history.

Love, sex, dreams, revenge and regrets have no age limit. Friendship and loyalty get stronger with time and these four bad-ass broads are about to draw a line in the Florida sand that no one will ever cross.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Decently entertaining, and while I *abominate* the use of long, promotional subtitles that read like advertising copy written by an overeager intern, I can't fault this one for accuracy.

Approached with the expectation of having some good-spirited chuckles with your revenge fantasy fulfillment, this is a very successful read. The hole in ones heart left by The Golden Girls and the yawning gap of Jessica Fletcher's, (of Murder, She Wrote fame) endless supply of keen observation and devotion to justice are herein plugged. My very favorite thing about the read was the series title: Grand-Mafia Series! Apt, appropriate, and very much on brief. Book 1 will not, and should not, be book only, I predict.

>201 richardderus: I do like Robert Jackson Bennett and China Miéville, so I'll be on the look-out for this winner. I doubt that I would have paid it much attention if I had run across that description on my own. Thank you, Richard, I think!

I totally missed your topper. Congratulations and Great Rejoicing for your being a year away and being splendid. *smooch*

>209 LizzieD: I am very glad you will be on the lookout for it, Peggy me lurve.

I deliberately left it unmarked because, honestly, I do not feel any huge, overwhelming desire to do some noisy celebration of my incredible luck. It is enough for me that I had that luck, and had the sense and the drive to take advantage of it by working my butt off to build back better...thanks, President Biden!...because I **COULD**. So many can not.

*smooch*

>191 richardderus: Ok, I'm tempted. And the library has a copy.

>211 Helenliz: That is the perfect way to experience the Baroness's prose stylings...the books are cheap if you end up being enamored. Happy to see you today, Helen.

>191 richardderus: The Old Man in the Corner stories are much fun and i've read most of them.
Ditto the "Thinking Machine" Stories from the same period and also mostly forgotten. But also sometimes regrettably falling into repetition and like that. Easy to see why Sherlock caught on and these didn't

Year ago PBS had a series called "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" that dramatized some of these. Crackling good fun if you can get your mitts on it.

As for modern medicine - not that you asked - if i had been born even a few years earlier i would now be either (a) blind or (b) dead.

When someone wants to get into the time machine and go back to the golden age i always whisper "Take a good dentist along with you".

You have posted a nice string of reviews from which I got way too many BB's. I always enjoy reading about the political shenanigans of the American South so that was one of the BB's.

The weather here has been miserable but it is that way allover the middle part of the country. I confess I haven't been paying much attention to what has been happening on the extremities of the US.

>208 richardderus: Hey, Richard, I'm looking at this and wondering if my mother would like it. She's 92 and the only author I can be sure she always likes is John Grisham, but she complains about how long his books are. You are much more widely read in that genre than I--can you recommend any Grisham-lite books she might enjoy?

>213 magicians_nephew: No need for invitations here, Jim, joining in is the ethos I want to establish for anyone with something to say. You do not need any further invitation than having something to add.

You also do not need the advice that, if you insult or annoy the host or the other guests, you will be shown the door, but some lurkers might.

I remember that series on KLRN in Austin! That is going back a looong time. Had no memory of any of these being done for it, but she wrote A LOT of them....so many of the shows I enjoyed in that era have evaporated.

The idea of time travel without perfect teeth, all the vaccinations there are, and a HUGE hoard of gold and silver ingots, actually sounds unpleasant and deeply scary to old man me.

>214 benitastrnad: We have not been remarkably anything so far this winter, Benita, so I fail to be surprised you have not noticed our weather. A few of us in the group have had some Issues, but the northeast has been fairlt typical for wintertime.

Glad that my aim is still true!

>215 ronincats: Roni! How lovely to see you!

I would say your mother might get a kick out of >208 richardderus: if she is down with the humor...go read the Kindle sample and that should tell you whether it fits her sense of humor. Some others to look at might be Ann Cleeves's Shetland Islands Mysteries. They aren't as long as Grisham's books, but are very well paced. White Nights is the first.

I would also see if the Kindle sample tells you if THE LAST REFUGE, first of Chris Knopf's Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery series, suits her known taste. I think it has a Grishamly spanking action edge but in fewer, more pungent words. I shall cogitate further and advise of other suggestions, shall I? *smooch*

>198 richardderus: Haha - yes, I get that. As my dad always says about airline travel: "The best you can hope for is 'routine'."

>219 PlatinumWarlock: I told the surgeon who did my last operation that I hoped I was his most boring surgery ever.

>218 richardderus: Thank you! *smooch*

>221 ronincats: de rien, ma amie

Election shenanigans. Gotta read that!

>223 drneutron: Oh, this will be a banner year for you around here, then. I have not yet begun to force spinach reads on all y'all. The stakes are too high not to.

>212 richardderus:, I read most of the Scarlet pimpernel books as a teen. If the slightly angsty style suits as an adult, I'm not so sure, but I remember them fondly.

Happy Wednesday, Richard. We have light rain and fog here which sure beats snow and ice. Sadly, it will still keep me off the trails. School was canceled yesterday, due to very icy conditions but I will be seeing the kiddies today. Keep warm & snug.

>225 Helenliz: I think the most wonderful reading memories are of books encountered at *just* the right time. Once that time has gone, they should stay wonderful reading memories. The disappointment of some wonderful experience being unrepeatable can be intense. I try to remember to leave them as memories.

>226 msf59: Wednesday orisons, Mark. It is drizzly and cold and I really should go out to do one errand but...yuck. Maybe tomorrow.

Enjoy the kidzkab!

To my surprise, Darius Hinks, author of >201 richardderus:, liked my review of his book. I did not expect he would ever notice it, still less be appreciative. More proof that I just do not know what will ring other peoples' bells.

Good morning, Richard. So many 5-star reviews here! The ones that hit me particularly are >90 richardderus: and >99 richardderus:. So thank you.

'Morning, RDear. Skippety-skip. BBs avoided.

I'm cranky today. I hope you're not.

*smooch*

I will bet most of us have memories that include...even center on...BOHEMIAN RHASODY. My own are almost fifty years old, like the song.

It was a treat to hear it done in a way that made it fresh by the Italian guitarists in 40 FINGERS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW3jsH6Csmg&ab_channel=40Fingers

>230 AMQS: That is excellent, Anne! Those are excellent, positive reads that will not leave you all puddled up in nastiness.

*smooch*

>231 karenmarie: *smooch*

May it end soon, Horrible.

>232 richardderus: Thanks for the link, Richard. That brought back memories.

>232 richardderus: Nice! Now I’ve got to go listen to Freddie singing it.

Happy Hump Day! I usually watch the kids today, but their dad stayed home from work so I got the day off and was able to sleep in. Heaven on a dreary rain-filled day!

>235 Familyhistorian: Does it not? Music is so defining of its moment. Glad it spoke to you, too.

>236 Storeetllr: Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, eh what, Mary? I, like you,am flattened onto my bed waiting for the gloom to lift. Tomorrow, I hope.

*smooch*

>208 richardderus: Since I loved both Golden Girls and Murder She Wrote this sounds like a perfect vacation book so I bought the Kindle version and will save it for our spring trip :)

>239 RebaRelishesReading: All the YAY, Reba! I hope you will like SNOW BIRDS, #2, just as much. *smooch*

Aloha Richard! Just swinging by to be sure you're surviving all the snow.

>208 richardderus: That looks rather fun!

'Morning, RD! Happy Thursday to you.

Today's a better day for sure.

*smooch*

>241 EBT1002: Mahalo, Ellen! the snow snew, slushed, slid away...now it is dank, cloudy, somewhat rainy and drizzly. I had no ill effects except being achy.

>208 richardderus: is rather fun and #2 is out now, so it is safe to dip in.

Have a lovely time!

>242 karenmarie: Very pleased to hear it, Horrible. It is still dank here, but warmer and just drizzling, so I will go out to do my one errand and get it accomplished. Still slugging on that damn review, but just decided that I will have to Burgoine a 5 star read because I get so damn mad....

Be well, lovey. *smooch*

>232 richardderus: I found the link to the Forty Fingers group on Drneutron's thread, and was very impressed. However, I don't know where I was when Bohemian Rhapsody was a big hit, it's one I do not recognize the song at all (gasp) though I see it referenced all the time. I did love the renditions of Sounds of Silence, Sultans of Swing, and Hotel California. I was a music major and classical guitar was my instrument, so I love acoustic guitar music of all genres. Though I did notice that one of the guys was playing an electrified guitar in the Bohemian Rhapsody set. I passed the link onto my son, also a guitarist, who was in a rock band for many years, playing gigs in various venues around Seattle and NYC, but never making it big. He is now "adulting" (though occasionally getting together with other musicians). He also liked the group.

Sweet Thursday, Richard. I will be sweetening the pot even more, as I head out to see my little Jackson. Warming up here but still plenty of snow and ice around. I am sure missing the trails.

>245 arubabookwoman: Their appeal is broad, Deborah, musicians and civilians alike. Your son sounds like the dad in Michael Cunninghams novel DAY! I hope he is happier, though.

Maybe the summer of 1975 was not memorable to you? It was ubiquitous in that year and the next. We could not take a car trip of more than a half hour without it coming on the radio. Was that a time you were not in the US or the UK or Europe or...the rest of the planet? I have no idea how one could have avoided hearing it if alive then!

Gladdened by your visit! *smooch*

>246 msf59: Oh wow, an extra Jackson Day! How excellent. We have nothing but rainish stuff plonking down now. No residual slush even. It could be ugly next week, especially for our Katie, but for now it is just bog standard late winter cold rain. Ick.

I hope the trails open up to you soon, all iceless and walkable as you please.

Morning, BigDaddy! I love the thread topper on your previous thread - very happy making.

I am glad to read that you are feeling better. Your reviews were wonderful to read through, and you hit me with two book bullets already this year - John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community and Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll. Both of these sound most excellent.

May your Thursday be filled with only good things. *smooch*

Good morning, Richard! I'm another one who missed *Bohemian Rhapsody* in the mid-70s. '75 was a hard year for me. The county moved me from a school I loved to one that they were giving one last chance. I taught 10th and 12th grade English with the doors locked and the smell of marijuana floating in from the smoking area just outside my windows. The principal was a disaster. The principal the year before had been a disaster; he had turned off his hearing aids and locked himself in his office. The new man exhausted his disciplinary supply the first week on tucked-in shirts and socks. Somebody chopped up the curtains in the auditorium, slit the chairs in the teachers' lounge, set fires in the big garbage cans at the ends of the halls (my seniors told me that if "they" had wanted to do real damage, they would and could have set the fires in the attics), and eventually shot at the principal on campus. One of my senior girls was having an off/on affair with the history teacher. I didn't go back.
Anyway, I commuted with a couple of young black teachers, and we didn't listen to Queen.
That wasn't my worst year. I had some really good ones too.

Sorry about all that. You mentioned the year, and I was back.

I'll look for the difficult-to-write review and wish you a happy rest of the day in which you generate your own sunshine, you curmudgeon you! *smooch*

>245 arubabookwoman: I Took Judy to the Bohemian Rhapsody - The "Queen" movie a few years back

She was convinced she had never in her life heard a Queen song but knew every note of the Rhapsody.

So these things seep into our collective consciousness.

My first exposure to 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was in the movie, Wayne's World. I thought it was made up for the movie, which my father thought was hilarious.

https://youtu.be/thyJOnasHVE

>232 richardderus: I'm exactly the right age for Bohemian Rhapsody. Remember going to (what I considered at the time) my first grown-up teenage party when it was No 1. (Actually I was 14, so it wasn't very grown up at all!)

>249 Crazymamie: Sweetiedarling! So pleased to see you! I am delighted you liked the reviews, and extra glad those two will be on your list now. Thursday had a trip out into the nast, dank weather for me, but it accomplished something a week overdue, and getting pressing. All to the good, then, just not pleasant.

Hoping we will see more of you!

Deirdre calls Bohemian Rhapsody "that weird song with the opera, you know." It makes me giggle every time.

>250 LizzieD: Hi there, Peggy me lurve! 1975 was a shit year for me, too, but the dealing with was and is ongoing, and not escapable. My goddesses, how complex a thing it is to live a life....

We have all done it, though, and that is a thing to celebrate. My level of screeching fury is not abating, so that book is going back onto the review later pile. I genuinely fear for my blood pressure. An innocuous nove, then....

>251 magicians_nephew: I suspect she heard it a lot but never cared what it was. That happens to me with TV references all the time.

>252 katiekrug: OMG

IJBOL

That actually hurt me from the laughing, so this proves generational solidarity is a Real Thing. *smooch*

>253 SandDune: It was just...there...when we were teens. Did not need to be sought out or thought about, just WAS in every one of our cultural spaces. Does that happen now? Or is the fragmentation of society more complete nowadays? I wonder if it will recur or is that kind of monolithic generation defining artifact doomed?

Gawd, I feel gloomy! Sorry, Rhian!

>250 LizzieD: Reading this makes me incredibly glad that I was never a teacher, and never wanted to be one either.

Have some belated sympathy from me.

>168 richardderus: You have such a good sense of humour, great actually, Richard. I'm really glad the lopermide worked and you had an RX for it. I'm very happy to read you are feeling so much better. Friday * smooch*

Smooches and Rhapsody!!

>260 ArlieS: Concur.

>261 vancouverdeb: *smooch* Thanks, Deb. Have had no recurrences and no issues except weather related soreness as it is still icky today.

>262 Berly: Rhapsodic smoochings back, Berly-boo!

Happy Friday, Richard. We are going away for the weekend. Glad to see us inching back into the 40s. Yah!

Hiya, RDear. Happy Friday to you.

>244 richardderus: I guess a Burgoine is better than no review from your point of view, and stress reduction is always good. I’m working on the well stuff for sure.

>250 LizzieD: Yikes, Peggy.

Queen just seeped into my consciousness sometime in the 70's and 80s, and I have some very old CDs of their greatest hits. And of course I obsessed over Bohemian Rhapsody the movie and Freddie Mercury and their music all over again.

*smooch*

>266 msf59: Have a lovely weekender, Mark, and revel in the 40ish loveliness. It is about that here, but rainy. Ick.

>267 karenmarie: I just get sooooo angry when I read the facts about how vile the societal manipulators are, and how disgusting their greed is, that I just CAN NOT COPE....

Well, no one else can FORCE me to do this, so maybe I just should not do it. I do not feel right about that. I might be forced into it by self preservation. That internal battle is ongoing. Stay tuned.

The omnipresence of Queen was something that always made me happy. Freddie Mercury was so evidently queer and so widely adored...just like Liberace for our generation...that it felt validating. Elton John is now in that spot, doing the OTT stuff that a straight man just would not.

Happy weekend, Horrible!

Geez, Richard. I have my pencil in hand, ready to jot down the book title. You are just manipulating us, your loyal followers. Perhaps you can consider the review done and just type the title. :-)

>270 weird_O: CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN (3rd edition) by reformed bastard JOHN PERKINS...frothing just thinking about it.

Happy Friday, Richard. I haven't heard of 40 Fingers and can't find their album(s) in my local library system, so shall have to see what I can come across one YouTube at home one of these days.

I knew bits and pieces of Bohemian Rhapsody (mostly from a... Mountain Dew commercial, if I recall - my mom had to explain where the original came from), but only listened to it in its entirety in the last couple of years. A few of my friends and I went to a solo show by a guy in my brother's band, and he had three songs that he'd play for a $20 tip. We all pitched in to make him play Bohemian Rhapsody, and he did a surprisingly good job on it for a solo guitar player/singer.

>271 richardderus: Thank you, thank you, Mr. Derus. ETA: Ordered.

PLUS: Well that didn't take long. E. Jean Carroll's defamation suit against Drumpf is over. Jury hits him for 83+ million dollars. Took the jury a matter of hours to reach a unanimous decision. The judge advises the jurors to keep their identities private.

>273 weird_O: Good!!

Not know 'Bohemian Rhapsody'? 1975 was about 5-10 years before I was aware of chart music but I do know 'Rhapsody'. Live Aid anybody?

‘Morning, Rdear. Happy Saturday to you.

>271 richardderus: Hmmm. I’m intrigued by the title, but if you’re frothing just thinking about it…

>273 weird_O: He’ll appeal, of course, the jurors will get outed, and will then require 24/7 security.

>275 humouress: I used the YouTube video of Queen on Live Aid for almost a year as I used a treadmill at the senior center.

Dropping off happy weekend smooches!

>272 bell7: That is most likely the way that most of your generation knew it, Mary...its ubiquity was over, and its pervasiveness had begun, at about the time you would have been aware of pop music.

A solo version sounds like something I am sorry I missed out on seeing! Saturday orisons, my dear lady.

>273 weird_O: Don't say I didn't warn you, O Weird One. I read the first edition decades ago and blew a fuse...this update soothed none of my fears or furies.

Ain't life grand when 45 gets kicked in the financial balls?

>274 Berly: Awomen, Berlyboo. *smooch*

>275 humouress: TBH it surpasseth my meager understanding of the world how that could even occur, Nina, so I am all the way with you.

>276 karenmarie: Good Saturday, Horrible. You know how readily frothed I get when confronted with that kind of systemic greed and manipulation, so take that into account. I am incandescent when I read about that level of selfish entitlement. I was the kid who thought gawd taking that bar bet to torture Job was the single most damning (!) thing in the entire edifice of evil called the bible. YMMV, of course, taking all that into consideration.

>277 MickyFine: Thank you, Micky me lurve! *smooch*

>276 karenmarie: Yes, he will appeal. But in the meantime, he's gotta pony up the $83,300,000 which the court will hold until the case runs its course through appeals. The court has been holding $5,000,000 he paid in the aftermath of the first trial last May. I bet he'll find banks more wary of loaning him $83,300,000 on short notice. Too, the judge in the New York State civil suit about fraudulent business practices has promised to deliver his ruling by Wednesday (Jan. 31). The state attorney general asked for a penalty of $370,000,000 (I think). Coming up with that amount to deposit with the court pending appeal will be a challenge.

This could be an interesting week.

>284 weird_O: This is the vice 45 is caught in, and it is entirely of his own making. The vig he has to pay to the banksters on his earlier loans is *immense* already, and the AG's lawsuit that the fines of hundreds of millions are set to be levied from is centered around the lies he told those banksters to get lower interest rates. The NEW loans he needs to put up bonds in the judgments will not be at the old interest rates...does the Fed lowering interest rates in a time of inflation suddenly make more sense?...so he will need A LOT more money for the rest of his life just to service the new debt. Also does the sheer desperation of 45 and his court to delay or dismiss any and all document handling cases make more sense? does the screeching imbecility of total presidential immunity make sense at last? The richest markets for secrets are China and Russia, the fact that he has taken money from them, no matter how they have convoluted the paper trail, will come out...he should have run away to Moscow or Beijing rather than run for president again.

This rodent in human clothing is fighting for his literal lifestyle. Melania has already vanished, and no one is wondering where to...she cut a deal, her anchor baby and she are right out of it from here forward. He and his brood are slinging as much shit as they can to confuse and obfuscate the fact that these cases represent Doom for them and their luxury life. If the MAGAts really do put him back in power, the world of 1933 Berlin will look like Disneyland.

"he should have run away to Moscow or Beijing rather than run for president again." -- He would have been financially better off and it would have been totally, completely wonderful for the world. It would not have fed his bottomless ego, however, so we're stuck with him. Only one thing will free us from him I fear...please God!

PEARL RULE #001 @ 29%

Bad Axe County (Bad Axe County #1) by John Galligan

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Dennis Lehane meets Megan Miranda in this tense, atmospheric thriller about the first female sheriff in rural Bad Axe County, Wisconsin, as she searches for a missing girl, battles local drug dealers, and seeks the truth about the death of her parents twenty years ago—all as a winter storm rages in her embattled community.

Fifteen years ago, Heidi White’s parents were shot to death on their Bad Axe County farm. The police declared it a murder-suicide and closed the case. But that night, Heidi found the one clue she knew could lead to the truth—if only the investigators would listen.

Now Heidi White is Heidi Kick, wife of local baseball legend Harley Kick and mother of three small children. She’s also the interim sheriff in Bad Axe. Half the county wants Heidi elected but the other half will do anything to keep her out of law enforcement. And as a deadly ice storm makes it way to Bad Axe, tensions rise and long-buried secrets climb to the surface.

As freezing rain washes out roads and rivers flood their banks, Heidi finds herself on the trail of a missing teenaged girl. Clues lead her down twisted paths to backwoods stag parties, derelict dairy farms, and the local salvage yard—where the body of a different teenage girl has been carefully hidden for a decade.

As the storm rages on, Heidi realizes that someone is planting clues for her to find, leading her to some unpleasant truths that point to the local baseball team and a legendary game her husband pitched years ago. With a murder to solve, a missing girl to save, and a monster to bring to justice, Heidi is on the cusp of shaking her community to its core—and finding out what really happened the night her parents died.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Competently written, uninspiringly typical example of a man-designed and -aimed plot centering on a female law-enforcement officer discovering girls are being sexually exploited by a cabal of sociopathic rich men. This is subject matter that is not my personal choice for entertainment reading in 2024. The style is, as noted, competently executed but I recall not one sentence as a sentence.

There are four novels in the series, so I am the outlier in finding this not to my taste.

>286 RebaRelishesReading: I honestly wonder if, in fact, he was not ready to bolt to Saudi, and his SiL was sent back with a few billion to keep the wolves at bay and a flea in his ear about living up to his promises to deliver more weapons to Them and stop support for Israel and Ukraine.

PEARL RULE #002 @ 44%

The Old Sex Symphony by Vincent Kane

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The auditorium is hushed. The conductor raises his baton…

Chaucer meets Masters and Johnson in a humane and hilarious novel about overage sex—including the joys, aches and fearlessness that it entails

Middle-aged people wonder what sex will be like over 60.

Young people think that sex is against the law after 60.

All are agreed that old age does not come alone. It brings with it aches, pains and illnesses—which are either peculiar to old age or more deadly, even fatal, than at other times of life.

But libido remains. It never goes away. Can I still? Should we really? Might she, perhaps?

The answers to these questions make for a symphony of differing moods, tempos and movements. Bawdy, Pathétique, Mock Heroic, Tristesse, Farce. These are the movements of The Old Sex Symphony.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Mawkish. Not as funny as the very relatable subject matter...after all I am an old man, in a relationship with a young one. Instead it felt to me as though the "movements" were more excretory than celebratory, even if they were meant to be in a light, jesting tone.

Very, very disappointed because this is very much an idea aimed directly at me.

Saturday smooches, Richard. Yesterday’s quickly rendered verdict made my day. The crazed rantings of TFG and his “attorney” were music of another stripe to my ears. There’s so much to consider, but I’ll leave it up to actual attorneys to parse. Suffice it to say this is turning out to be worth all the popcorn I’ll have consumed before this ugly circus is over.

PEARL RULE #003 @ 85%

And Throw Away the Skins by Scott Archer Jones

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: Bec Robertson is starting over. She's broke, recovering from breast cancer, and lives in a rundown cabin in northern New Mexico. Her husband is deployed in Afghanistan as a chaplain, and can't stand to touch her.

The people she meets, her villagers, are batty if not wacko, and her hawk Amelia can't keep up with the mice. She lives next door to a dubious veterans' center. As if she hasn't invented enough problems for herself, she has a love/hate connection with an unstable Marine. Being Bec is tough, but survival is in her bones—and she lives under the numinous skies of New Mexico.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: That is not a typo above. Nor am I a complete nutter. I threw in the towel at that late, late date because it was clear that Bec was a man-centered fantasy girl, one whose marriage being sexless was hurtful to her so she starts a sexual relationship with a wholly inappropriate man. One whose damaged mental health should have warned her off ANY intimacy. More especially since she is involved in the care home he is living within.

CWs for past rape, PTSD, breast cancer used as a Plot Point only.

>290 Storeetllr: It should only be the beginnig of the overture, Mary, not the last notes of the coda.

>292 richardderus: Yep. I’ve got a nice supply of popcorn that will probably last at least till November. I should buy stock in the company.

BURGOINE #006

Mission Churchill by Alex Abella

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In 1933 Cuba, a deadly game of cat and mouse unfolds. An IRA sharpshooter, driven by vengeance and a relentless mission, has Winston Churchill in his crosshairs. But just as the assassin is about to strike, Churchill's tenacious bodyguard, Walter Thompson, intervenes, forcing the killer into the shadows.

Years later, amid the fiery rain of the German Blitz on London, Thompson locks eyes with a ghost from Havana—the very same assassin. But now, the stakes are higher. As Thompson dives deeper into the city's underworld, he uncovers a chilling conspiracy within the British government, threatening to topple Churchill and hand victory to Hitler.

Racing against time amidst the backdrop of a city in chaos, Thompson must decipher the twisted web of treachery to save his nation and the man he's sworn to protect. But at what cost?

Dive into a high-octane thriller where history hangs in the balance, alliances are tested, and one man stands against the darkness.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Top-shelf prose and superior grasp of the telling detail, and the timing necessary to deploy them together. I had to go look up stuff to see how much fiction and fact resembled each other...a really high compliment from me. I don't give it more stars because the antagonist is a cipher to me, and that really seriously reduces the internal tension of the narrative.

I recommend the read to Alan Furst and W.E.B. Griffin readers. This is one y'all will be glad to read by a writer most of y'all won't have encountered before.

excellent, positive reads that will not leave you all puddled up in nastiness. That's pretty much just what I need from my reads right now. Have a wonderful weekend!

>295 AMQS: You found 'em, Anne, from the giant sticky morass of truthful negativity. Good lookin' out, Search!

Join me in February's thread here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/357858

I see you have a new thread (your threads move so fast) but I thought it made more sense to post my response here because it refers to >247 richardderus:. Coincidentally I just finished Day, and thankfully although my son is Dan's age (will turn 41 this year) and formerly aspired to be a rock star, the similarities end there (I didn't like Dan). Fortunately my son is happily married with a 5 year old son he thinks walks on water. He also is very successful at his job, and in fact seems to love it (at least from the way he talks about it). He gave up his rock star aspirations by the time he was 30, but he still loves music, still plays with friends and former band members, and every once in a while plays in a small club. I haven't reviewed Day yet but I don't think I liked it as much as others on LT.
On Bohemian Rhapsody, in 1975 I was one year out of law school, and I took the bus for my commute, so I wasn't listening to the radio. I also didn't listen to the radio much at home. Most of the music we listened to was our LPs.
>251 magicians_nephew: Unlike Judy, when I listened to the Forty Fingers version I didn't recognize it at all. Say Hi to Judy.

>298 arubabookwoman: I can see not being fond of Dan, and not therefore being much into the read as a whole. The little world that they made was claustropobic even before the plague...and that weird social media fantasy world...some very off putting details.

Great that your son was not mired in the frequent musician trap of mighta coulda shoulda. There are few more toxic traps to fall into. I remain bumfuzzled how anyone could have lived in that time, even NOT listening to the radio, and just never gotten very full ears given how huge Queen was. Still, it happened because here you are!

*smooch*

>130 richardderus: So good to have caught up with your roomie on the one year anniversary RD. i hope you continue to stay in touch.

>229 richardderus: It's special when a writer takes the time.

>232 richardderus: Loved it. Especially as so few people can sing it well, Freddie being able to jump almost four octaves.

>300 Caroline_McElwee: Hi Caro...Freddie had a once-in-a-generation voice, and he was clear about how to use it to dazzle the audience. I miss hearing new music in his unique register.

It is special when a writer takes the time. I have become friendly with Claire Oshetsky because she resonated to my mildly critical review of Chouette and, so she tells me, even subtly changed one character in Poor Deer as a result. It seems writerws like to feel understood.

*smooch*

Three Pearl Rules already this year?

>302 humouress: I'm ahead of schedule. I really, really wish I wasn't.