Last Rites

 

Rest in peace, Ozzy. His last years were so heartbreaking. 

My dad loved Ozzy. "Crazy Train" was his ringtone for years. He loved "The Osbournes" on MTV. I would watch it with him every once in awhile. I just remember asking him if he could understand a word Ozzy was saying because I sure couldn't. Ozzy reminds me of my dad in some ways, so it was fitting that I got to finish this book this time of year, since today marks the sixth anniversary of the day my dad died. Rest in peace too, old man. Hopefully you and Ozzy ended up in the same place and you're having a good time together.  

Ozzy was touring in 2018 when he got a bad staph infection in his hand and needed surgery. Then he got the flu. Then he fell one night while trying to get back in bed and reinjured his neck, the one he broke in a quad accident in 2003. The original surgeon made things worse, so instead of getting better, he kept getting worse and having to delay his tour. He didn't want to disappoint the fans, but he also couldn't move. 

Years went by and he still wasn't in any kind of shape to perform. He did manage to make it to the closing ceremony for the Commonwealth Games in 2022, where he was able to stand on stage (leaning on a stick) and sing. You can see the pure joy in his face at performing. He was determined to give the Birmingham crowd one last show with his Black Sabbath band members and he did in July of this year, less than three weeks before he died. He couldn't stand, he could barely sing, but he did it. "Last Rites" chronicled that journey from being okay in 2018 to death's door 7 years later. It was sad but it was also inspiring to know that despite everything, all the pain he must have been in, that he was able to do it and say goodbye to his fans. He was genuinely overwhelmed by the love. He said he had no idea he was so well liked. 

Hopefully he was surrounded by love and peace his last few days.  

Picket Line; Mark Twain

 

Generally speaking, novellas and short stories are not my cup of tea. There have occasionally been exceptions to this. 

"Picket Line" was not one of them. 

It felt unfinished. Some things happened, but unfortunately it wasn't long enough for any real character development. Basically a group of melon pickers in Texas are striking, walking a picket line, demanding fair wages. A man named Chino comes to town looking for someone (I honestly wasn't clear who) and ends up working at the melon picking operation for a few days (not sure why). The cops come and hassle the picket line walkers. Then the kid on break from college, who was working on the farm, decides to leave.

The End.

At least it was short, so it wasn't a huge waste of time, but it was disappointing. 

The opposite of short and disappointing was Ron Chernow's very thorough biography of Mark Twain. 

Twain worked on his autobiography and decreed that it would not be published until 100 years after his death. In 2010, the autobiography was finally published in three massive volumes (which I own but have never read. A deep failing on my part, I freely admit). 

Twain, as most know, grew up in Hannibal, Missouri and was a pilot on a riverboat. He married an heiress named Olivia (Livy) and they had four children: a boy and three girls. Their son died when he was just a baby. Twain was beset by financial hardships (mostly of his own making) his whole life, blowing through his own considerable earnings as well as his wife's inheritance. He had a terrible head for business and was forever signing things without reading them and then getting taken to the cleaners. He also had grand dreams and was convinced the next big idea he had was going to land him on Easy Street (I was honestly surprised he wasn't born in April, he reminded me a lot of my dad). 

As a result of their financial hardships the family traveled a lot through Europe rather than living in their Hartford home. Apparently it was cheaper that way. Twain ended up outliving all but one of his daughters. It was a fascinating story and I enjoyed it, I just wish it hadn't taken me four months to plow through it. 

Book of Sheen

 

I watched the Netflix documentary a few weeks ago (which was good). This book was honestly almost exactly the same. There were a few things in the documentary that weren't in the book, and a few things in the book that weren't in the documentary, but for the most part they were so similar I don't think I would have missed much if I'd skipped one. 

This was a hard one to read. While I survived (mostly) unscathed from my childhood, I definitely have some bad memories and one of those was when my father tried to tell me that the only person he hurt by doing drugs was himself. I told him nothing could be further from the truth, he hurt *all of us*. Everyone who cared about him. Drug addicts are inherently selfish human beings. They have to be (at least when they're doing drugs). Otherwise if they paused and had the wherewithal to realize how badly they were hurting their loved ones they might stop for a minute and think about it. I saw that a lot in Charlie. His dad was ready to throw himself bodily in front of anything that would hurt his son (and good for him). His wives, girlfriends, kids, brothers and sister, parents, and friends all watched helplessly as he threw away a life thousands of others would have dreamed to have. I'm glad he's sober now and I hope it sticks. I hope he's able to enjoy what's left of his life and have a good relationship with everyone who tried to help him. But most of all, I hope his story is a warning to others.  

Who Killed These Girls?; The Case of the Shapely Shadow

 

I watched the new Netflix documentary a few weeks ago on the Yogurt Shop Murders and they interviewed Lowry. When she mentioned she wrote a book I immediately said: "Book?" and picked up my phone to put it on hold. Luckily one of the libraries I frequent had a copy. 

On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls were brutally murdered in the back of an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas. The killer(s) then set the building on fire. Firefighters arrived to put it out and in the wreckage found the girls' bodies. 

From a police detective's point of view, it was a nightmare. The evidence was either burned or washed away, the building was completely soaked. They did manage to collect some things that ended up helping them finally solve the case LAST WEEK (wild, just wild). Of course this book was written before the killer's identity was revealed. Advances in DNA technology led to the testing of material found under Amy's fingernails and matched a serial killer who committed suicide in 1999.  

It is, and remains, a truly heartbreaking story because those four young women on the cusp of life were not the only victims. The police ended up arresting four young men and two of them went to prison for ten years before being released due to lack of evidence and the way their trials were mishandled. They both made false confessions, which admittedly didn't look good for them, but they also both got a lot of the facts wrong. 

I know the pressure must have been immense and it's unfortunate that it happened that way and stole all those years from those boys. My dad hated the police and thought everyone in prison was innocent because all the police do is lie. I had so many arguments with him about how not *every* cop is crooked. When things like this happen it just reinforces that negative stereotype. 

Hopefully the families of Amy, Jennifer, Sarah, and Eliza have some peace now, knowing that the man who murdered their girls is dead. 

I needed something light and quick, so I turned to a perineal favorite, Perry Mason. I know, I just reread it in January of 2024, but that's okay. It was fun to revisit. Here's the review I posted then: 

I'm almost done with the Perry Mason books, which seems hard to believe. The ones from the 60s don't have as much detail or originality as the ones from the 50s. They're still pretty good, but not as good. 

Janice comes to Perry's office with a heavy suitcase. Her boss, Morley Theilman (okay, Gardner, you're just making up names now), asked her to put it in a specific locker. She wants to open it to see what's in it and kept one of the keys that came with it when she bought it for him. They open it up and the suitcase is crammed with $20 bills. Perry and Della quickly turn on separate dictation machines and start reading as many numbers as they can before Perry sends Della with Janice to deposit the suitcase in the locker and send the key to an A.B. Vidal. Janice thinks Vidal is blackmailing her boss (she found a blackmail letter in his trash). 

Janice tells Perry that Theilman is missing, and naturally he turns up murdered (shockingly, neither Perry nor Paul find the body). Janice is a suspect, as are Theilman's first and second wives (the man got around). The key to the whole thing is the $20 bill a cab driver in Vegas is carrying, one of the bills from the suitcase. Who gave it to him and how did they get it? 

 

Ready for My Close Up

 

A behind the scenes look at the making of the Hollywood classic, "Sunset Boulevard", starring silent film star Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a washed up actress of a forgotten era, rambling around a falling down mansion, waiting for her big comeback. It also starred William Holden as an aspiring screenwriter who ends up being Norma's kept man. 

It was a fun look at how the movie was written, cast, and made. He did pad the book out a bit by describing multiple scenes in detail (without adding anything) as well as repeating himself a few times (he *really* loved the suit salesman's line about taking the vicuna wool, since the lady is paying, humiliating Joe Gillis, her paramour. He mentioned it many times). But all in all it was a fun read. I really enjoy these books about famous films. 

Can You Solve the Murder?

 

A Choose Your Own Adventure type murder mystery? Yes, please! What fun!

And it was fun. I already knew that I am terrible at figuring out mysteries. Literally, hit me over the head with clues and I get to the end and I'm almost always stunned. So I wasn't terribly surprised that I had an awfully hard time solving the mystery. But that's okay. Having to follow along and keep track of clues in a notebook made me really pay attention more than I normally would and I went back and reread a lot of pages to see if I missed anything. 

Harry Kennedy is murdered at a wellness retreat known as Elysium. There are a number of suspects. Almost everyone is lying in some way. There are also limitations on how many people you can interview, so you get the option to pick 3 of the 4 and of course if you don't pick the right one you miss valuable clues. 

Like I said, it was a lot of fun and the ending made sense. I hope he writes more of them. I enjoyed it. 

Road Dogs

 

A newer Leonard book (I was startled when they started talking about things that happened in the 1990s and 2000s, I'm so used to his books taking place in the '60s and '70s). 

Jack Foley is in prison for robbing banks when he meets Cundo and they become "road dogs", which is prison speak for watching each other's backs. Cundo ends up paying his high priced attorney to get a deal for Jack and he gets out early. Cundo asks him to go to Venice (California), where Cundo owns several mansions, and keep an eye on his wife, Dawn, until he gets out soon. 

Jack doesn't like being beholden to anyone, so he's trying to think of a way to pay Cundo back without robbing a bank. A local cop hers he's out and starts keeping an eye on him, assuming he'll go back to the life. Meanwhile, Jack "keeps an eye" on Dawn by sleeping with her. I don't think that's what Cundo had in mind. At any rate, Cundo gets out of prison and returns to Venice, but Dawn has plans. I don't want to spoil it, but the ending was great.