I've been a bit lazy with this BLog for the past week. So today as Jo and I watch the Blue Jays try to beat Minnesota, I'll catch up on a few items. Very disappointed with the Jays yesterday, losing the 1st game of the series with the Twins. Well, not disappointed in the team, per se, but just disappointed that the other teams (Yanks & Red Sox) won their games. It's such a close wild card race, nobody can really afford to fall behind as the season winds down.
We had a day of steady rain yesterday. We basically hunkered down in the family room. The dogs didn't really get a walk until their night time walk. It has finally stopped raining for a bit. Today is much nicer. I even has a good run this morning.
So time to catch up on books; new books, completed books, currently reading and my ongoing look at Women authors whose books I've been enjoying. LET'S GO!
New Books
"Fast-talking,
backstabbing, womanizing, and fiercely ambitious art critic James
Figueras will do anything—blackmail, burglary, and beyond—to make a name
for himself. When an unscrupulous collector offers Figueras a
career-making chance to interview Jacques Debierue, the greatest
living—and most reclusive—artist, the critic must decide how far he will
go to become the art-world celebrity he hungers to be. Will Figueras
stop at the opportunity to skim some cream for himself or push beyond
morality’s limits to a bigger payoff?
Crossing the art world with the underworld, Willeford creates a novel of dark hue and high aesthetic polish. The Burnt Orange Heresy—the
1970s crime classic now back in print—has lost none of its savage
delights as it re-creates the making of a murderer, calmly and with
exquisite tension, while satirizing the workings of the art world as the
ultimate con."
"Police Chief Fellows sets out to track down the killer who left his victim's mutilated corpse in an abandoned building, and begins a difficult and frustrating police investigation."
Just Finished
"The Woggle-Bug Book was a sort of comic-book written by L. Frank Baum that brought Oz characters to the US for various adventures. (Warning - the text of the book has been controversial for its use of ethnic stereotypes).
The book was written in 1905 and features H.M. (Highly Magnified) Woggle-Bug, a overly large bug from Oz, who visits an unnamed US city. The initials after Mr Woggle-Bug's name, T.E. stand for Thoroughly Educated, although the book says 'You will notice that our insect had a way of using big words to express himself, which leads us to suspect that the school system in Oz is the same they employ in Boston.' (I offer no judgement on Boston's education system, just present the facts.)
Anyway, Mr W-B, while wandering down the street in his colorful clothes (he does like bright colors) sees a department store manikin in the most fantastically patterned dress and falls in love; not realizing it's the dress he loves, not the lady. This begins a most amazing adventure with Mr. W-B chasing after various women and men, getting stuck in a balloon trip, ending up in the Sahara desert and the African jungle, etc. It's all fun, no dogs were killed during the adventure and it ends happily. Good fun, good entertainment and it kept kids minds on the other Baum, Oz stories, I imagine. (3 stars)"
"I started reading the Modesty Blaise thriller / adventure series in 2014 when I found most of the books at a local Rotary Club Book sale and thought they might be worth trying. Think of James Bond and other spy series and you've got Modesty Blaise, except in this case the hero is a fascinating, larger-then-life woman. In an earlier life, Modesty ran one of the most successful crime syndicates in the world, along with her right hand man, Willie Garvin, but by the time the series starts, she has closed the syndicate down and is living a retired life in England, sometimes helping the head of a UK secret service department, Sir Geoffrey Tarrant, deal with 'malcontents' around the world. They are always fantastical adventures but also entertaining, page - turners.
In this 5th book, Modesty is flying down to South Africa for business when she makes a stopover in Central Africa and ends up helping a somewhat hapless doctor, Giles Pennyfeather, work with the natives. Just before she arrived, a man (a Russian) straggled into the camp, obviously having been tortured, and he died before Pennyfeather could save him. Two men show up to force Pennyfeather to disclose what the Russian (Novikov) told him. Modesty deals with them quite satisfactorily and escapes with Pennyfeather back to London, where he begins to live with her.
Ultimately, this story will result in a major confrontation with Monsieur Brunel, a sociopath if I've ever seen one, who wants the information Novikov possessed (basically a location to a gold field somewhere in Africa. It will involve Willie, Pennyfeather and Modesty against Brunel, his albino 'girlfriend' / slave, and Brunel's gang of 'evil' henchman. There is beaucoup action, a journey from London back to Africa, a grievous tragedy in Modesty's life, etc. It's all larger - than - life, but it doesn't matter. Modesty is a wonderful character and Willie an excellent partner in crime (in the good sense, of course). The story is well-written, moves along nicely and ends, as always, quite satisfactorily. I still have 7 stories in the series to enjoy and look forward to getting to them. (3.5 stars)"
"House of Leaves by American author Mark Z. Danielewski is difficult to describe. It's definitely a unique, strange, fascinating story; extremely stylized. Basically (can you say 'basically' when referring to this story), you've got a documentary movie about a 'haunted' house, an author's review of the film and the events and another person's efforts to put together the notes from the middle person, when that person dies and leaves his apartment a clutter of trash. Oh wait, you've also got a running commentary by the latter about his own life and the impact of the book on it. (Simple?)
Documentarian Navidson moves with his wife and two young children to a house on Ash Tree Lane somewhere in Virginia. One day they discover that when they open a closet door in the front hallway, that there is a dark hallway that wasn't there before. This is the basis for this story. It begins a series of films by Navidson, aided by friends and family as they explore the house, and discover that the interior is ever changing, in size and shape. It's freaky and spooky. The interior of the house doesn't match the exterior. The group begin to explore this dark, new interior, hiring an explorer and his companions to help. The movies that are made are obviously turned into a cult documentary that is shown in theaters (made me think of the video in The Ring). The whole interior of the house made me think of Lovecraft's weird worlds under houses and in caves and such.
The story follows the various investigations, explorations, tragedies that result. All of this has been the subject of a book, put together by a blind author, Zampano. Zampano dies in his apartment, which is cluttered with his notes, drawings. This brings Johnny Truant into the picture. He takes over the apartment and begins to collate Zampano's notes and as he puts it all together, provides footnotes and also his own insights into his life and also the effect that living in the apartment has on his own well-being. You can see his descent into insanity through the course of the novel.
It's a fascinating, at times spooky story. What is also fascinating is how the layout of the book often mirrors the various journeys into the depths of this creepy house. As hallways narrow, the writing on the pages narrows, as the ceilings disappear, the writing crowds the top of pages, etc. At times I think the story is more form over content but the story never stops being unique. If you don't mind a bit of trek through this expansive tome, you'll find a story worth trying out. Give it a try. (4 stars)"
Currently Reading
"This seventh novel in the Modesty Blaise series will not fail to please any of Modesty's innumerable fans. Modesty and her partner, Willie Garvin, are hot on the trail of a captured British Intelligence agent, but when they confront the agent's bizarre captors--a criminal tycoon, a genteel lady assassin, two inscrutable Chinese killers, and the invincible Mr. Sexton, the world's premier combatant--even Modesty begins to doubt that she can succeed in this operation. Her task is further complicated when Willie's girlfriend and a young pilot also are taken hostage. Their situation seems hopeless until the Silver Mistress appears, bringing this thrilling saga to an astonishing climax."
"Winner of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, an Amazon Best Book of the Month, and one of the Guardian’s Best Crime and Thrillers of the Year, Rubbernecker is a can’t-put-it-down page-turner from one of the finest voices in UK crime, about a medical student who begins to suspect that something strange is going on in his cadaver lab. “The dead can’t speak to us,” Professor Madoc had said. But that was a lie. The body Patrick Fort is examining in anatomy class is trying to tell him all kinds of things. But no one hears what he does, and no one understand when Patrick tries to tell them. Life is already strange enough for Patrick—being a medical student with Asperger’s syndrome doesn’t come without its challenges. And that’s before he is faced with solving a possible murder, especially when no one believes a crime has even taken place. As his determination to uncover the truth grows, so do the suspicions of his classmates, teachers—even his mother wonders if Patrick is all right. Now he must stay out of danger long enough to unravel the mystery. But as Patrick learns one truth from a dead man, he discovers there have been many other lies closer to home."
Women Authors I've Been Enjoying - Frances Fyfield
Frances Hegarty (who wrote under the pseudonym Frances Fyfield) is a British lawyer and crime writer. She was born in Derbyshire in 1948. She was one of those writers I discovered in the days I haunted ABC Books in downtown Courtenay. I still miss the store which closed down a few years back. I've read one of her mysteries so far and have spent the last couple of years trying to find the first books in her series. I'll take a look at a few of the books I've got sitting on my bookshelves.
Frances Fyfield
"Cunning and evil, poisoned by a lifetime of love withheld, Eileen Cartwright has an unrivaled passion for revenge. When the rich middle-aged widow falls in love with her solicitor, she cold-bloodedly arranges for his wife's murder, and Helen West and Geoffrey Bailey are assigned to investigate the case."
"Prosecutor Helen West's relationship with police officer Geoffrey Bailey is becoming more serious, but the couple is at odds because Bailey's protege, Sergeant Ryan, is suspected of rape. As the evidence slowly mounts against Ryan, West and Bailey examine the seemingly open-and-shut case; a terrible crime warrants justice regardless of their feelings toward Ryan. But as they dig deeper, a new suspect emerges--one who possesses a cold-blooded intuition about women. West and Bailey quickly find themselves trying to clear Ryan's name and avenge a series of crimes with no evidence."
"Crown Prosecutor Helen
West is doubly frustrated. Her lover, Geoffrey Bailey, is off to a
police education course, with weekend visits only a slight possibility.
And she has just failed for the fifth time to convict a menacing little
man called Logo. Brought before the magistrate for trying to lure young
girls to the cemetery, Logo blames all his troubles on the daughter who
ran away four years before. If she returned, he could stop chasing the
others.
Until Logo misbehaves again and Geoffrey returns, Helen
can just stew. Or she can strike up an unlikely friendship with Rose, a
smart office clerk who has slept with most of the young constables in
the area. Tart-tongued Rose lets down her guard for Helen. But neither
one of them is prepared for the terror just around the corner in Rose's
life--."
"Richard Beaumont hoped to see the elusive crow on the Dover cliffs. Instead he sees a young woman falling to her death. No one recognizes her, and no one has reported her missing. Richard returns, shaken, to his wife, but instead of seeking comfort in Lilian's presence, he locks himself away and obsessively paints the scene of the woman's broken body on the rocks.
Unable to forget what he has witnessed, Richard finds solace in Sarah Fortune's seductive company. As they are drawn into a search for the dead girl's identity, they stumble upon a trade that is both breathtakingly lucrative and chillingly cruel."
"The author of Blind Date and Staring at the Light pens a taut psycho-drama that explores the dark borders between love and hate. Attorney Sarah Fortune is sent to a seaside town to sort out a family feud over an estate and ends up confronting a ghost from her own past."
The complete listing of Fyfield's books can be found at this link. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Stay safe.
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