Jul 28, 2022

I’m Tired of Keeping My Mouth Shut 

Here I go again. 

I’ve been way too quite for way too long. I’m tired of seeing radical opinions from both sides. I’m tired of the co-opting of the English language by people who want to say something bad about someone else. I’m tired of the flim-flam and the misdirection. I’m tired of the lies and the liars. 

I’m an independent because I make up my own mind on every candidate and issue when I vote. I don’t care if they’re a democrat or a republican - and yes, I made those lower case on purpose – I’m not of the opinion that either party has stayed true to their historical claim of what they stood for. When I first started voting, it was the Republicans who felt they had to watch out for the marginalized, the people of color, and the poor. At that time, Dixiecrats were the party of States Rights who were segregationists. They didn’t like the idea that Truman, a Democrat, ordered the military to integrate. They wanted to retain the Jim Crow laws and promote white supremacy. Does this ring a bell about some of the Republicans today? 

At the time, most ‘blacks’ (and remember if you had the slightest trace of African blood, you were called black and worse) were disenfranchised by the Dixiecrats and were members of the Republican party. As people of color migrated to the North and the West, they found the Democrats in those areas more accepting. 

When I started voting, the word conservative meant you were careful about making radical change or spending what you couldn’t pay. Now it seems to have taken on additional meanings like bigotry and trying to disenfranchise the poor, the minorities, the elderly and claiming that anything said by anyone else to be fake or a lie simply because they don’t agree. 

Here's my advice to everyone who thinks they can’t do anything about the ‘politics as usual’ – VOTE, and do it in every election. 

If you don’t like laws that prevent a woman from standing up for her own body for whatever reason, then vote for candidates who want to change those laws 

If you don’t like that people find ways around security and psychology checks and are able to buy arsenals of weapons, and laws that say they must be allowed to do this, until and only until, they take those weapons to a public place and shoot innocent citizens and children, then get out and vote for candidates who will change the laws. (Read the second amendment carefully and then decide yourself what it says and what it doesn’t say). 

Yes, I’m an independent, that means I don’t take the word of other people to make my decisions. I read the source material; I check the candidate's voting record. Then I make up my mind. 

If you don’t vote, don’t cry about who got elected, you could have made a difference. 

 

Jul 27, 2022

A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (1937) Alfred A. Knopf

A classic detective story about a man who wears many names.  He is wanted for the murder of a Jewish money lender, an attempted assassination of a Prime Minister, various robberies, drug smuggling, even the betrayal of his own criminal gang.  A British writer of detective stories becomes friends with Turkish commander of secret police who shows him the body of the notorious Dimitrios.  The writer, Latimer, wonders if such a man’s activities can be traced backwards, as an academic exercise to see how his own story plots match with reality.  This quest takes him from Istanbul to Athens, to Bucharest, Geneva, and Paris.  People help, but people are suspicious of the motives of a man looking into such a criminal.  During his quest, he meets one of the people Dimitrios betrayed and is caught-up in a blackmail scheme.  Will he survive?  Was the corpse he saw really Dimitrios?  If not, will Latimer become the next victim in this sordid tale?

Jul 24, 2022

Crescent City by Sarah Maas (2020) Bloomsbury Publishing

In a world where there are shapeshifters and vampires and fae and angels, Bryce, a half-human-half fae is the illegitimate daughter of the Fairy King.  Her best friends are an alpha wolf shape shifter, an assassin and a faun who is a famous dancer.  It’s the angels who run things and they’re not very nice.  Mix this with someone causing rifts into Hel, letting demons into their world who kill people.  When the wolf is killed along with her entire pack, by a demon, Bryce is blamed by the wolf’s mother who is in line to be the Prime wolf.  When a vampire is killed the same way, Bryce becomes a suspect.  The Angel’s fallen angel assassin is assigned to help her find who is summoning the demons.  Only things don’t go the way anyone expects.
The Plot is well done, the basic outline is that of a murder mystery, but there is too much bodice ripper imagery and way too much unnecessary foul language that does not move the plot forward.

Jul 15, 2022

Stick by Elmore Leonard (1983) Arbor House

In which Ernest Stickley, or Stick, has just got out of prison for armed robbery and is back in Florida hoping to see his little girl.  He is riding with his friend who is delivering a package to a drug dealer.  They don’t know they’re supposed to be killed.  His friend is shot down and Stick escapes.  He goes to work for a very rich guy who drops hints about who to invest in on a regular basis.  His advisor is also an advisor to the man who wanted Stick killed.  People are crazy to invest in things they can’t pass up.  Stick is no dummy and he finds a way to make the killer his friend and invest in a movie that will never be made.  He’ll be rich if he can stay alive and ahead of the law.

Jul 13, 2022

The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly (1995) Little Brown

Bosch has done an almost unforgivable thing by attacking his lieutenant.  Now he is on paid involuntary leave pending a report from the department’s psychiatrist.  And he’s trying to get around his home having been condemned because of an earthquake.  To keep busy, he starts investigating the twenty‑five-year-old murder of his mother.  But there are people still alive who don’t want that done.  Old detectives are either dead or clear across the country.  Witnesses and workers start getting killed – including Bosch’s boss.  How can he uncover the truth without losing his job and his self-worth.

Jul 5, 2022

The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas (2020) Berkley Books

In which Charlotte Holmes, the pretend sister of the fictional Sherlock Holms, is seen through by a former friend of Mrs. Watson.  They embark on a dangerous mission to retrieve a particular piece of artwork that will be up for bid at auction.  The auction takes place in a chateau in France outside of Paris and has heightened security.  Which seems reasonable since it is owned by Moriarty. 

Jul 4, 2022

Blue Moon by Lee Child (2019) Delacorte Press

In which Reacher comes into a town run by two rival foreign mobs and sees an old man treated unfairly and harshly by a loan shark.  When he helps, he finds a much deeper problem going on that involves a whiz kid who didn’t pay his employee’s health plans – and the old guy’s daughter is in the hospital with cancer and no coverage.  When he tries to provide help, it spirals into the kind of situation only Reacher can solve.