Thursday, May 10, 2012
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee . . .
ARLnow.com: A man was arrested outside the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton hotel early this morning after police say he became upset at the hotel’s rates and brandished two handguns.
Or Maybe We Do
I, for one, never get tired of Bob Seger's songs, even the one on this list.
Readers’ Choice: 10 More Classic Rock Songs We Never Want to Hear Again
Readers’ Choice: 10 More Classic Rock Songs We Never Want to Hear Again
Uh-Oh
German drops Mayan skull, endangers mankind: An ancient Mayan skull stolen from Tibet by Nazis - said to have magical powers to enable humanity to survive the December 2012 apocalypse - has been dropped by a lab assistant in eastern Germany, chipping its chin.
Ernest Warren, R. I. P.
VVN Music: Ernest Warren, one of the five original members of the Spaniels, passed away on Monday in Gary, Indiana. He was 78.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Criminal Geniuses of the Day, Arkansas Edition
FOX16.com Little Rock, AR: Police say the suspects ordered delivery, had the food dropped off at their house, and paid for it with counterfeit bills. One phone call later from the restaurant to police – and the case was closed.
Hat tip to John Duke.
Hat tip to John Duke.
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Interesting Books to Your Attention
Amazon.com: Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel (9780765332370): Bruce DeSilva: Books: Prostitution has been legal in Rhode Island for more than a decade; Liam Mulligan, an old-school investigative reporter at dying Providence newspaper, suspects the governor has been taking payoffs to keep it that way. But this isn’t the only story making headlines…a child’s severed arm is discovered in a pile of garbage at a pig farm. Then the body of an internet pornographer is found sprawled on the rocks at the base of Newport’s famous Cliff Walk.At first, the killings seem random, but as Mulligan keeps digging into the state’s thriving sex business, strange connections emerge. Promised free sex with hookers if he minds his own business—and a beating if he doesn’t—Mulligan enlists Thanks-Dad, the newspaper publisher’s son, and Attila the Nun, the state’s colorful Attorney General, in his quest for the truth. What Mulligan learns will lead him to question his beliefs about sexual morality, shake his tenuous religious faith, and leave him wondering who his real friends are.
Cliff Walk is at once a hard-boiled mystery and an exploration of sex and religion in the age of pornography. Written with the unique and powerful voice that won DeSilva an Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Cliff Walk lifts Mulligan into the pantheon of great suspense heroes and is a giant leap for the career of Bruce DeSilva.
Vidal Sassoon, R. I. P.
CBS News: (CBS/AP) LOS ANGELES - Vidal Sassoon, the celebrity hairstylist whose 1960s wash-and-wear cuts freed women from endless teasing and hairspray, has died. He was 84.
New Blog of Note
Something is Going to Happen is the new blog from Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Check it out!
Digby Wolfe, R. I. P.
Digby Wolfe, Actor and ‘Laugh-In’ Writer, Dies at 82 - NYTimes.com: Digby Wolfe, a writer and actor whose acerbic wit, absurdist sensibility and political edge helped shape “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” the zany collage of televised comedy that captured the tumultuousness of the 1960s, died on May 2 in Albuquerque. He was 82.
Hat tip to Jeff Segal.
Hat tip to Jeff Segal.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Free for Kindle -- 3 Days Only!
Amazon.com: Every Precious Thing (A Logan Harper Thriller) eBook: Brett Battles: Kindle Store: From award winning author Brett Battles comes the second Logan Harper thriller. It was supposed to be a fun weekend, a celebration of a marriage and growing family. Alan Lindley couldn't have been happier...until his wife Sara disappeared. Asked by a mutual friend to help look for her, Logan Harper is sure he'd discover a wife who simply wants out of the marriage. What he finds instead is a woman who didn't exist, a diabolical plan, and people who would do anything to keep it a secret, including taking the life of the person most important to him. What would you do for those precious to you?
Lin Carter, Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos, Ballantine, 1970Maurice Sendak, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn.
Hat tip to Toby O'Brien.
Hat tip to Toby O'Brien.
Tintinology: The Ongoing Adventures of Tintin
AbeBooks: Tintin was born, figuratively speaking, on January 10, 1929 when Georges Remi’s comic strip hero appeared in a children’s supplement of the Belgian newspaper, Le XXe Siecle. The strip has survived various political regimes, a world war, changing consumer tastes and accusations of racial stereotyping and colonialism.The youthful Belgian reporter is still going strong. Movie, TV, radio and theatrical adaptations, exhibitions and books about Herge – Remi’s pen-name – keep the cult of Tintin alive. It has been translated into dozens of languages and featured a series of characters that have become iconic in popular culture – for instance, there are few more famous fictional dogs than Snowy, or Milou as he is known to French readers. Tintin’s fame can also be measured by the good number of parodies that abound.
Overlooked Movies -- The Assassination Bureau
Once upon a time Jack London started writing a book based on an idea he'd bought from Sinclair Lewis. London couldn't finish the book, so he put it aside. Many years later it was completed by Robert L. Fish, and then it was made into a movie. A pretty entertaining one, too. The Assassination Bureau was founded by the father of Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed) to rid the world of people the world needed to be rid of. You know the sort, tyrants and such. Now the Bureau's lost sight of its lofty beginnings and become pretty much just a murder-for-hire business. So Sonia Winter (Diana Rigg) hires Dragomiloff to assassinate himself. He accepts. (See the clip embedded below.) But while he does think it would be a fine idea to but an end to the Bureau, he doesn't really plan to have himself killed. Instead, he issues a challenge to the employees: Kill me before I kill you. And we're off on a rop around Europe as Dragomiloff, with Winter along, too, of course, begins to wipe out the members of the Bureau.
There's lots of great scenery, a good bit of suspense, lots of clever stuff, and a big ending with a zeppelin. It's all a lot of fun if you're in the right mood. Check it out.
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Monday, May 07, 2012
Free Book for Your Kindle!
Amazon.com: The Captain Must Die eBook: Robert Colby: Kindle Store: For twelve long years they remembered. For twelve long years they plotted. And now Captain Driscoll was going to pay for what he had done to them during the war.They weren’t going to kill him right away. First there would be only little things, irritating things, that would build and grow and tighten until Captain Driscoll became afraid. Then they’d begin their reign of terror. That would be the best part. The three revenge-hungry men would savor those moments like a good wine.
And when Captain Driscoll was a broken, sobbing man, when his sanity was almost gone, they would murder him.
Jim McCrary, R. I. P.
Rock photographer dies at 72 - latimes.com: Jim McCrary was staff photographer for A&M Records, shooting more than 300 covers for groups including the Carpenters and the Flying Burrito Brothers.
Hey, It Could Happen
Daily Star: JAMES Bond has survived 4,662 shots fired at him in 22 films – an almost impossible feat, say experts.
Antiques Disposal -- Barbara Allan (Barbara Collins & Max Allan Collins)
Brandy Borne and her mother/grandmother, Vivian, are back. So is Sushi, Brandy's blind, incontinent dog, and also Brandy's mother (it's complicated), Peggy Sue, now living in the house with Brandy and Vivian. Brandy and Vivian win a bid on a locked storage unit, which contains, among other things, a pencil drawing of Superman, signed Siegel and Shuster and dated 1946. There's also a cornet that belonged to Bix Beiderbecke. Somebody's eager to get hold of it, and when that someone burgles the Borne house, both Sushi and Peggy Sue are injured. Oh, and there's now a dead body in the storage unit. Once again the intrepid Borne detective team goes into action, with Vivian leading the way, as usual.
Another body turns up, and a number of story arcs are covered. It's all very funny, with lots of great dialogue. At the conclusion there's even a Nero Wolfe homage, with Vivian, who can't resist a good role, acting the part of Wolfe. The criminal is revealed, but there are a few threads still dangling. Those, along with the cliffhanger ending, assure a sequel, which is good news for us fans.
If you've been needing a break from all the noir fiction you've been reading, here's something to brighten your day.
Michael “Iron Man” Burks, R. I. P.
Arkansas bluesman Michael “Iron Man” Burks dies after collapsing at Atlanta airport - The Washington Post: LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Alligator Records says Arkansas bluesman Michael “Iron Man” Burks has died after collapsing at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. He was 54.
Sunday, May 06, 2012
George 'Goober' Lindsey, R. I. P.
George 'Goober' Lindsey -- 'Andy Griffith Show' Star Dead at 76 | TMZ.com: George Lindsey -- who appeared on such classic TV shows as "The Andy Griffith Show," "Gunsmoke" and "Hee Haw" -- died Sunday morning after an extended illness. He was 76.
Free Today for Kindle
Amazon.com: Found Money eBook: Trent Zelazny: Kindle Store: Have you ever randomly come across $3,087? Nick did.Problem is, it's blood money. And now unemployed Nick finds himself involved in way more than the money is worth.
NOTE: This is a novelette, not a full-length novel. It also appears in The Day the Leash Gave Way and Other Stories.
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