Some years ago, Judy and I read the manuscript of Here Lies a Wicked Man (under a different title), and we both thought it was really good and that it had a great chance for publication. About that time, however, the author, Chris Rogers, got a very nice deal for her series featuring Houston bounty hunter Dixie Flannigan, so Here Lies a Wicked Man got set aside. Now it's been revised and published, so I read it again. It's still a good one.
Booker Krane was a corporate investigator, rooting out fraud and corruption. One bank exec didn't take too kindly to being found out and put a bullet in Krane. When he recovers, Krane decides to find new pursuits, so he moves to Turtle Lake, a small country community with a lake stocked with bass, a golf course, and a lot of archery enthusiasts. His intent is to reinvent himself as a photographer. He's working on a choice assignment when his dog drags a dead body out of the lake. The body is that of Chuck Fowler, the wicked man of the title, and Krane's life is about to change again.
Krane's investigative instincts take over, and although the sheriff insists that Fowler's death is an unfortunate accident, Krane thinks Fowler was murdered. He can hardly resist wondering about who might have killed Fowler. It seems like just about everybody in Turtle Lake has a motive and the ability with a bow necessary to put an arrow in to Fowler, even though the sheriff believes that Fowler fell onto his own arrow.
Krane has other problems, too. He's divorced, and his teenage son shows up on his doorstep. Krane has to learn how to be a father to someone who's a bit like a stranger to him. And then there's Roxanna, the owner of a struggling B&B, to whom Krane's strongly attracted. My favorite character in the book is probably the nosy Emaline Peters, who's into astrology and who knows all the dirt on everybody in Turtle Lake.
Here Lies a Wicked Man is a solidly constructed mystery with romance, some laughs, and a strong cast. I suspect it might be the first of a series, and a return visit to Turtle Creek would be welcome.
Richard Villanova, A Game for Grownups, Softcover Library, 1966
Yahoo: Jason Wingreen, who played Harry the bartender on All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place and provided the voice of the bounty hunter Boba Fett in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, has died. He was 95.
Atlas Obscura: On New Year’s Eve in 1903, there was no countdown to midnight, no ball drop, and no partygoers wearing silly hats in Times Square. In fact, there was no “Times Square.”
NY Daily News: Chart-topping R&B singer Natalie Cole, who followed her famous father in the music business with hits like “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) and “Unforgettable,” died at age 65.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Marco Malaponte (Peter Rabe), New Man in the House, Softcover Library, 1966
The stories in this volume of The Year's Best Science Fiction were copyrighted in 1998, making them 18 years old now. As you can see from the cover blurb, it's a hefty volume of over 250,000 words, which either does or does not include the 59-page intro by Dozois. I know the blurb says the words are all "fantastic fiction," but I don't trust the blurb. No matter. It's a fat book. My copy is a book club edition, and I don't know if it's any shorter than the regular printing. I do know that it's 602 pages of tiny print, not including the intro and the several pages of "honorable mention" stories. I didn't read all the stories in the book, but I did read a few. Dozois provides solid introductions to all of them.
My favorite was "Craphound" by Cory Doctorow. It's about an alien and a earth guy who are pickers, or craphounds. Anybody who likes looking for stuff at antique malls or garage sales might like this as much as I did. The two make some amazing finds before they have a falling out. The feelings about nostalgia and flea-market finds are exactly right.
Robert Charles Wilson's "Divided by Infinity" begins ordinarily enough, with a man going into a used-book store and finding some old SF paperbacks by authors whose names he knows. The thing is, those authors never wrote these books. The books shouldn't even exist in this world. Where Wilson goes from there, you'll have to find out for yourself, but I can tell you that it won't be anywhere that you expect. It's complicated.
Howard Waldrop's "US" is an alternative history with three possible futures for the Lindbergh baby. Funny and impeccably researched.
Ursula K. LeGuin's protagonist in "The Island of the Immortals" is warned that the price of immortality isn't worth the costs, but when did that ever deter anybody? I was reminded a little of the story of the Sybil by this one.
I like everything I've read by William Browning Spencer, so I figured I'd like "The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness. And I did. It's about becoming addicted to virtual reality and about trading one addiction for another to recover.
Ian R. MacLeod's "The Summer Isles" is a pretty long story, another alternative history, about England losing WWI and being in a sad state. Edward is on the throne, but the people are thrilled about a dictator. It can't happen here, of course.
There are many more stories in the book, and maybe I'll get around to reading some of them. Or maybe I'll just go on to the other volumes in this series that I've accumulated.
Here's the whole ToC:
Gardner Dozois: "Summation: 1998"
Greg Egan: "Oceanic"
Geoffrey A. Landis: "Approaching Perimelasma"
Cory Doctorow: "Craphound"
Tanith Lee: "Jedella Ghost"
Bruce Sterling: "Taklamakan"
Ursula K. Le Guin: "The Island Of the Immortals"
Paul J. McAuley: "Sea Change, With Monsters"
Robert Charles Wilson: "Divided By Infinity"
Howard Waldrop: "US"
Ian McDonald: "The Days Of Solomon Gursky"
Robert Reed: "The Cuckoo's Boys"
William Browning Spencer: "The Halfway House At the Heart Of Darkness"
Michael Swanwick: "The Very Pulse of the Machine"
Ted Chiang: "Story Of Your Life"
Liz Williams: "Voivodoi"
Stephen Baxter: "Saddlepoint: Roughneck"
Rob Chilson: "This Side Of Independence"
Chris Lawson: "Unborn Again"
Tony Daniel: "Grist"
Gwyneth Jones: "La Cenerentola"
William Barton: "Down In the Dark"
Jim Grimsley: "Free In Asveroth"
Cherry Wilder: "The Dancing Floor"
Ian R. MacLeod: "The Summer Isles"
Honorable Mentions
'MASH' Star Wayne Rogers Dies at 82: Actor Wayne Rogers died on Thursday surrounded by family after suffering complications from pneumonia, his rep exclusively tells ET. He was 82 years old.
Rogers, who hailed from Alabama, is best known for playing the role of Captain "Trapper" John McIntyre in the classic television series M*A*S*H from 1972-1975. He also had recurring roles in City of Angels, House Calls, and Murder, She Wrote.
Harold Robbins, Stiletto, Dell, 1964
Frank Malzone, former Boston Red Sox All-Star third baseman, dies: BOSTON -- Former Red Sox third baseman Frank Malzone, a six-time All-Star among the club's best hitters in history, has died, the team said Tuesday. He was 85.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
. . . and now it's the Fast Food Dispute: South Carolina authorities say a husband and wife's fight over a chicken dinner landed them both in the hospital. Richland County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Lt. Curtis Wilson says the wife wanted to get food at Church's—a fried-chicken chain—and the couple got into an argument that ended with the husband knocking her out with a punch Tuesday night.
Hat tip to Deb.
The 19 Greatest Movies Of 2015: This year wasn’t a year for consensus in anything, movies included. The Oscar race is up in the air, no one knows what a lead role is anymore, and most of the entries below could be moved around and swapped out for multiple runners-up. Some that almost made the cut: The Hateful Eight, Inside Out, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Room, Magic Mike XXL, Steve Jobs, Amour Fou, Clouds of Sils Maria, The Look of Silence, Bridge of Spies, and About Elly.
Martha Gellhorn, Liana, Popular Library, 1954
This is a reprint from last December 29.
Judy and I met on December 29, 1960, on a blind date arranged by her friend Loibeth Black and my friend Fred Williams. On the left you can read what Judy wrote in our wedding book about that night.
I remember exactly what she was wearing, and though she doesn't mention it, she also wore what was then called a mouton coat. Just about every girl had one of those back then. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were in a closet somewhere in this house. I don't know if she was impressed by me, but I was certainly impressed by her. She was a senior in high school, and I was a freshman in college. She was black-haired beauty. I was a short-haired, four-eyed geek. It didn't take me long to learn that she was also very smart, and if I didn't fall for her on that date, it wasn't long before I did. After a few dates I could tell that she liked me, too, for reasons I'll never understand.
We always celebrated December 29 as an anniversary and gave each other a gift every year. This is the first time since 1960 that we won't be together on this date. I miss the old days.
Irving George, Nadine, Intimate Editions, 1963
Woman points rifle at boyfriend over Facebook posting: Kaufmann alleges in court records the couple was "just joking around" and they point rifles at each other "all the time."
Amazon.com: Deal Of The Day: Movies & TV: Gold Box Deal of the Day: Save up to 72% on Classic TV Collections
The critics hated this movie. Lillian Hellman, who wrote the first version of the script, hated it. Arthur Penn, the director, wasn't fond of it, either.
Naturally I loved it.
How could you possibly go wrong with a cast like the one named on the poster to the left in a frenzied Texas melodrama about a small town coming apart? The whole cast is overacting to beat the band (except for Brando, who's either underplaying or bored, not that it matters since he's great here). Throw in racism, sex, fear, cowardice, and some graphic violence, and you just couldn't do better.
Robert Redford is Bubber, who breaks out of prison along with a pal. The pal kills a man, and Bubber goes on the run, but he's not running away. He's returning to the town he came from, where his wife, played by Jane Fonda, is having an affair with the son of the town's bigwig, played by E. G. Marshall. Everybody has a reason for wanting Bubber to be caught, and apparently only Brando, the town sheriff, wants to do it the right way. Just about everybody else wants Bubber to wind up dead. Mob rule takes over easily enough, and Brando gets a beating you have to see to believe. Then the mob goes after Bubber.
There are a lot of great scenes in the movie, including a wonderful '60s party. The mob at the junkyard is great. [SPOILER ALERT] Things do not end well for a lot of people. Hardly anybody escapes unscathed either physically or mentally. [END OF SPOILER ALERT]
I doubt that anybody will like this movie as much as I do, but I consider it one of the great bad movies of all time.
Heavy metal icon Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister dies at 70: Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister, the seminal frontman for heavy metal band Motörhead, died on Monday. He was 70.
. . . and now it's the Penis Pump Beef!
Stevie Wright: Stevie Wright, who fronted rock outfit The Easybeats in the 1960s and is widely regarded as Australia's first international pop star, has died at the age of 68.
Flavorwire: Ellsworth Kelly, one of America’s greatest abstract artists, died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Spencertown, New York. He was 92.
L. K. Scott, Backstairs, Pyramid, 1954
Jim O'Toole, Reds 1960s star pitcher, dies at 78: He was the National League's starting pitcher in the 1963 All-Star Game. O'Toole called that one of his proudest career moments, recalling that manager Alvin Dark chose him to start with a roster that included future Hall of Fame pitchers Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Juan Marichal and Warren Spahn.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Yahoo News: Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, the socially conscious two-time Academy Award winner who lensed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and many other masterpieces, has died. He was 93.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
NY Daily News: Meadowlark Lemon, a talented athlete and minister who poured three decades of comedic basketball showmanship into the Harlem Globetrotters, died at his Scottsdale, Ariz., home Sunday, according to a report.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
NY Daily News: If not for the Mets’ famous two-out, 10th-inning rally in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, Dave Henderson would have been forever celebrated in Boston for hitting the home run that broke the Curse of the Bambino.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Just Different Devils (Hetta Coffey Series Book 7) - Kindle edition by Jinx Schwartz. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. Hetta Coffey is a sassy Texan with a snazzy yacht, and she's not afraid to use it—most of the time.
She's an intrepid cruiser, but wild rumors of marauding gangs of flesh-shredding giant Humboldt squid on a rampage in the Sea of Cortez could keep even Hetta tied to an expensive dock.
However, when the opportunity for an intriguing and highly lucrative charter arises she talks her best friend, Jan, into signing on for a mysterious cruise.
Damn the calamari! Full bank account ahead!
Why You Should Read 'Bazaar of Bad Dreams' and Stephen King's Other Recent Work Stephen King published nine books in the last five years, including this month’s collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. If you haven’t picked up any, then shame on you: you’re missing out on some killer writing. That level of productivity, while leaving his fans satiated, invites criticism from detractors. Quality not quantity is a fair enough flag to wave, but what if that maxim falls apart when you’re an author capable of both? King’s best work is not behind him. Here’s why you should dig into his newest material.
Ethel Lina White, The Lady Vanishes (The Wheel Spins), Paperback Library, 1966
