A Field Guide to Jewish People

Normally I really enjoy Dave Barry, but this book wasn't great. I was disappointed. At least it was a quick read, so I didn't waste too much time.

Lazarus Files; Second Chance Supper Club

I read a lot of true crime, and this one was pretty damn disturbing. Back in 1986, newlywed Sherri, who worked as a critical care nurse in Glendale, was brutally murdered in her home in Van Nuys. Detectives theorized that it was a botched burglary attempt, but Sherri's parents were adamant that it was Sherri's husband's ex-girlfriend, an LAPD cop named Stephanie Lazarus. The lead detective assigned to Sherri's case dismissed the theory out of hand, never even speaking to Stephanie about it. In 2009, the case was reopened due to advances in DNA technology. Whoever killed Sherri viciously bit her arm and left behind enough saliva to type, and it was female DNA. Sherri's killer was a woman. The new detectives started looking into Stephanie, and were able to get a DNA sample, which matched. Stephanie went on trial and was convicted in 2012. About 3/4 of the way through the book, McGough introduced another murder: in 1988, a young woman named Cathy. I thought "My God, did this dirty cop kill *another* woman?!". No, but the reason he mentioned Cathy's case is because the last person to see her alive was an LAPD cop, and the lead detective on Cathy's case was the same one who was on Sherri's. A truly heartbreaking turn of events all the way around. It was a little redundant in places, with better editing it could have been 50 pages shorter, I thought. But it definitely kept my attention, I couldn't put it down.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Nichole Meier's "Second Chance Supper Club". Julia is a high profile news anchor on a popular New York morning show who makes a bad blunder on a live broadcast one morning, accusing the mayor of corruption without any actual facts to back it up. Her bosses at the network are less than thrilled and tell her to take some time off while they try to fix the mess she got them into. Julia slinks to Arizona to her older sister Ginny's house. They've been estranged for the last several years, after their parents died, but Julia doesn't have anywhere else to go. Ginny was a famous chef in New York before she had to move back to Arizona to take care of their parents' estate, and now she's running a semi-illegal underground supper club out of her house (I got serious house envy reading her descriptions of it. My dream house!). Unfortunately, the supper club isn't really profitable and Ginny is on the verge of losing everything when Julia shows up on her doorstep. The ending was a little too neatly tied up in a bow for my taste, but I still enjoyed it.

Lock Every Door; People v Ferlinghetti

Two very different books, but both were good. "Lock Every Door" by Riley Sager is his third book, and it did not disappoint. Jules has recently been laid off from her crappy job and came home to find her boyfriend with another woman, so she moved out. Crashing on her friend Chloe's couch, she scours the want ads looking for another job and responds to one for an apartment sitter. She ends up at an exclusive New York City apartment building known as the Bartholomew. For Jules, it's the chance of a lifetime: not only will she have a beautiful place to live for three months, she'll be paid $1,000 a week to do so. Sure, the rules are a little disturbing and draconian, but she's desperate.
Right after she moves in, Jules realizes the Bartholomew isn't what it seems. For one thing, apartment sitters disappear at an alarming rate, never to be heard from again. And they're all people like her: young, single, without families, not likely to be missed right away if they disappear. Sager is great at placing red herrings, I really thought I had it figured out. I was wrong, of course, but the ending was so much worse (and so much more believable) than I had guessed.

Back in 1955, Allen Ginsberg wrote "Howl", and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, agreed to publish it under his imprint. "Howl" was unlike anything published before, and Ferlinghetti, along with one of the clerks in his store, was arrested by the police for selling obscene material. The book told the story of the publication and arrest and trial. It was very short (barely 100 pages), but interesting. The rest of the book was the judge's written decision in the case (I didn't read it, it was too full of legalese and I couldn't understand it) and a published transcript of an interview Ferlinghetti did on the 50th anniversary of the case back in 2007. The radio station wanted to play a recording of Ginsberg reading his epic poem (since Ginsberg died in 1990 he wasn't around to read it in person), but the FCC wouldn't allow it. I did read the interview, in which Ferlinghetti lamented how as a society we seemed to moving backwards instead of forwards when it comes to free speech.

I will leave you with a quote from Ginsberg: "Whoever controls the media, controls the culture".

Queen of the World

Not a traditional chronological biography of the longest reigning monarch in the world, but rather a look at different aspects of her reign: the trips she's made, the world leaders she's entertained at Buckingham Palace, the family who have supported her along the way, and the role of the monarchy in an ever changing world. It was a bit dull in places, to be honest (I should care more about certain things, but I just don't), but otherwise pretty good. 

Man with the Candy; Garden of Shadows; Mycroft and Sherlock: the Empty Birdcage; Forbidden Hollywood

I had never heard of Dean Corll until I watched "Mindhunter" on Netflix and they mentioned him. It's amazing there is really nothing written about him, I ended up buying this book off Amazon, and it wasn't terribly good, but better than nothing, I guess. Corll lived in Houston and murdered at least 30 young boys before one of his victims killed him. He owned his own candy manufacturing business (hence the name of the book), and he lured a lot of kids that way. 

After reading the atrocity of "Beneath the Attic", I wanted to reread the real thing. There were still some glaring inconsistencies, since the ghostwriter had taken over at this point, but it wasn't nearly as bad.

I loved the third installment in Abdul-Jabbar's Mycroft and Sherlock series. Mycroft goes to Vienna to have his heart repaired, and upon arriving back to England he is visited by Deshi Hai Lin, father to Ai Lin, the Chinese woman Mycroft developed feelings for in the second book. Lin asks Mycroft a big favor: his future son in law, the man who is marrying Ai Lin, has been arrested by the Chinese government and charged with treason. Lin would like Mycroft's help rescuing him. Mycroft agrees to do what he can. Meanwhile, Sherlock has gotten himself expelled from school so he can investigate a string of murders committed by the Fire Four Eleven killer. Mycroft puts his foot down when his brother tells him he doesn't want to return to school, but when the Queen herself asks him to look into them, he reluctantly agrees to allow his younger brother to play detective. It was super clever and tons of fun, and I love the developing sibling rivalry between Mycroft and Sherlock. 

"Forbidden Hollywood" was a fun look at pre-Code movies and how risque they were. It had a lot of gorgeous black and white stills of major stars from the 1920s and 30s.