The Crown; The Last Stand; The Flight Attendant

I am totally obsessed with the Netflix show "The Crown" (fair warning: there are probably going to be a lot of books about the royal family in the upcoming weeks). This was a companion guide which helped separate fact from fiction on the show, along with pictures of the actors and the real life people they portray. It was a fun, quick read and I'm hoping they do it for every season of the show. This one just covered the first season.

Max Allan Collins polished up a few of Mickey's manuscripts to publish for the 100th anniversary of his birthday. This book contained two novellas, an early one and his "last" one. The first was the early Spillane, called "A Bullet For Satisfaction". A cop named Rod gets a little too close to discovering the truth about the Syndicate and their hold on his small town, and is fired for his trouble. He continues investigating, though, determined to bring the corruption to an end. "The Last Stand" was really different, but I enjoyed it. Set after 2001, a pilot named Joe crashes in the desert on an Indian reservation and is rescued by Pete. Pete takes him home and introduces him to his gorgeous sister, Running Fox. Joe and Running Fox fall for each other, but there's the little matter of a mineral deposit the government (and the bad guys) are keen to get their hands on and Joe knows where to find. Both were great, fun reads. I'm going to be sad when Collins runs out of Spillane's manuscripts to publish.

And finally, "The Flight Attendant" by Chris Bohjalian. Cassie is a flight attendant (shocking, I know! who would have guessed with that title?!) who makes terrible decisions. Like, horrible, awful, stupid, forehead slapping "why the $#@! did you do that?!" sort of decisions. She's an alcoholic who won't admit she has a drinking problem. She goes out binge drinking and sleeps with random guys as a matter of course. She wakes up one morning in Dubai after a night of hard drinking and finds her bed mate, Alex, murdered next to her. She panics, dives out of bed and rushes back to her own hotel, eager to get out of Dubai and back home before the body is found (okay, so that was a smart decision. It was her last one). She's *pretty* sure she didn't kill him in her blacked out state, but who knows? She hires an attorney who gives her excellent advise that she promptly ignores.
You know who Cassie reminded me of? My dad. My dad makes the dumbest decisions on the planet and yet always manages to come up smelling like roses. If I were Cassie, the ending wouldn't have been nearly as happy as it was. It kind of irritated me, because it always irritates me when stupid people make stupid mistakes and still end up okay in the end, I mean, if you make a bad decision and learn from it and DON'T DO IT AGAIN that's one thing, but if you persist in being dumb and everything still turns out okay for you, it's kind of frustrating. Oh well. It sounds like I didn't enjoy the book, but I really did, it was, as usual for Bohjalian, well written and entertaining. I'm just jealous I'm not as lucky :)