Finlay Donovan is Killing It

 

I loved this book. It was hysterical. It reminded me a lot of the early Stephanie Plum books, where Stephanie would just get into these crazy mix-ups. Finlay is very similar. 

Finlay is a single mom of two whose soon to be ex-husband is engaged to Theresa, a real estate agent. Theresa and Steven are not making it easy on Finn. She's up to her eyeballs in bills and trying to take care of two little kids while working on her book. She's way, way past her deadline, as her agent keeps reminding her. Finlay goes to a local Panera to meet her agent to discuss pushing back the deadline or perhaps getting a little more advance money, and the answer to both is a hard "no". When Finlay gets home she discovers a note in her diaper bag with a phone number on it. Curious, she calls and talks to Patricia, who was sitting next to her at Panera and overheard her conversation with her agent. Patricia would like to hire Finlay to murder her husband, Harris. 

Finlay is shocked and tries to explain to Patricia that she misunderstood the conversation: she didn't mean *that* kind of contract. But Patricia is stubborn and insists Finlay can do it, and what's more is she'll pay: $50,000. 

Curious as to why Patricia would want her husband dead, Finlay goes out to a bar in disguise and sees Harris in action. When he slips a roofie in his date's drink, Finlay waylays her in the restroom, "accidentally" spills a drink on her, then joins Harris and manages to switch cocktails, getting him to drink the drugged one. She gets him out of the bar and into the back of her van before he passes out, but now what? Not sure what else to do, she takes him home. She leaves him in the back of the van while she goes upstairs to change and when she returns, he's dead: choked on the exhaust fumes because she left the van running and the garage door is closed. Only...she didn't close it. Someone else killed Harris. 

I don't want to recap the whole thing, but as you can imagine, it spirals from there. Finlay gets deeper and deeper into the mess she created and can't figure a way out. It doesn't help that when she writes about what happened (using fake names, of course) and sends it to her agent, she loves it and is able to sell it for a $150,000 advance. A hot cop plus a hot bartender/law student and a terrific nanny/accountant sidekick round out the cast of characters. I'm excited there's a sequel. Too much fun. 

Revolutionary Summer

 

I realized a few things while I was reading Outlander book 9. One is that while I love certain parts of history (King Richard III immediately leaps to mind) there are other aspects I know very little about, like the Revolution. I learned the basics in school (a very long time ago) but I really don't know more than that. 

"Revolutionary Summer" by Joseph Ellis is a good introduction to the Revolution and the following war with Great Britain for our independence. He covered a very narrow window of time: part of 1776, without getting too deep into the weeds about how the whole thing came about. It was interesting. Someday I'll get around to reading more about American history, I promise :) 

Bourdain: the Definitive Oral Biography

 

I remember reading "Kitchen Confidential" when it first came out and being blown away by Bourdain's depiction of what it was really like in the kitchens of high-end restaurants. His writing style was so engaging: clever and witty and sarcastically funny. I didn't watch all of his TV shows, off and on over the years, if I caught it, great, but I didn't go out of my way to see them. They were always interesting and fun, though, and I learned a lot.

Like everyone else I was stunned when I heard that he'd killed himself in 2018. It seemed completely unlike him, but of course it's not like I really knew him. This book is told by the people who did really know him. He had his ups and downs, he was an addict who was always chasing the next big high. It's a damn shame he left us when he did, I could tell he had a lot of people in his life who loved him and wanted to help him. It was an interesting tale, like the man himself, with an all too sudden and abrupt ending. 

Authentic

 

When I first started working and got my very first credit card (I think I had a limit of all of $500, which seemed like a fortune at the time) the very first thing I bought with it was a pair of Vans. I think they were $40. I love Vans. Growing up, all the guys in my neighborhood were skaters, and they all wore Vans. There was a store just down the street from us. I honestly don't think I've ever not had a pair of Vans, they last forever. 

Paul Van Doren started House of Vans after working for a shoe manufacturer on the east coast for 15+ years. He was super savvy when it came to business and helped them fix issues they had in manufacturing and warehousing, but he was unappreciated so he left to go start his own shoe business in California. He tapped into an unserved market when he went after skateboarders. These were kids who were being chased out of parking lots by adults, and here was this business who not only listened to them, they also supported their sport. Vans quickly became the shoe for skaters. Fast Times at Ridgemont High helped cement Vans as the shoe all the cool kids wore when Sean Penn's character wore his checkerboard pair in the film. Paul raised his kids with a strong work ethic. At one point, they were opening up Vans retail stores so quickly they didn't have a manager trained to go to one, so his 11 year old son, Stevie, ran the store for a few days until the new manager was up to speed. Paul had a lot of great stories and a lot of good advice. Sadly, he passed away earlier this year at the age of 90, just a few days after this book came out. He left behind a legacy hard work, staying focused, and achieving your dreams.  

Made in California

 

I love books like these, they're so much fun. I had no idea how many food places got their start in California. It's sad how many of them are gone now, but quite a few have become popular not just in the U.S. but all over the world. 

I have to admit to not really understanding the whole In N Out thing. My Dad loved them, so we went all the time when I was growing up. I never really thought the burgers and fries were that good, but I know I'm in the minority. I wasn't a big hamburger person before I stopped eating meat. I've never had a Big Mac, when I was a kid after McDonald's introduced the chicken McNuggets, I used to get those all the time instead of burgers in my Happy Meals. Once I got to be an adult the only things I would get were French fries occasionally, although I do like their coffee. It's one of those things I'll get if I'm driving by one but I won't make a special trip to go get it. 

Carl's Jr. was the first fast food place that put in self-service soda machines, I remember when that happened how excited we were. We used to fill our cups with every kind of soda, mixing them all up. It brought back a lot of good memories. 

Written In My Own Heart's Blood

 

I was trying to reread this one before book 9 came out a few weeks ago, but I didn't quite make it. I had a wild thought of finishing this one before starting book 9, but of course *that* wasn't going to happen. But I was so close to being done with this one that I still wanted to finish it, even though I already read the next one. So I finished it. 

William is wrestling with the knowledge that he's Jamie's natural son. Poor Lord John is wounded after his fight with Jamie and he's darn lucky he didn't lose his eye. Ian marries Rachel and Dottie marries Denzell, both ladies become pregnant in due time. Roger travels back through the stones with his ancestor, Buck, thinking Jem went back, and they land in 1739. Brianna, in 1980, decides she needs to go back to get Roger, since he'll never come back if he thinks Jem is still missing in the past. Like all the Outlander books, it had moments of pure happiness and heartbreak. 

Any chance book 10 is coming out soon? 😂

Woke Up This Morning

 

I love the Sopranos. Hands down one of the best, if not the best, show ever (it depends on my mood when you ask: I also might respond that the X-Files was the best show ever 😄). It blows my mind that it's been off the air for almost 20 years. I started subscribing to HBO so I could watch it and never stopped. I remember when the series finale aired, when it abruptly cut to black and I thought (like everyone else in the world) that my goddamned cable went out at the worst possible moment. Then the final credits started to roll and I had my breath knocked out of me at the sheer brilliance of the ending. I actually started applauding. I know the ending divides a lot of people, I've argued with them over the years about how amazing and perfect it was. And of course Tony died. The whole show was about him and his experiences and then his life was cut short without warning, just like that, black. That's how it must be when someone dies unexpectedly. 

Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher (you know you read that with Adrianna's accent) and Steve Schirripa, who played Bobby, started a podcast right before COVID in 2020, where they talked to various cast and crew from the show and gathered up their fond memories. Lots of fun stuff, like how they shot the entire first season before it aired, so they were basically anonymous, running around New Jersey, no one knew who they were yet. Everyone had wonderful things to say about James Gandolfini (RIP, sir). How generous he was and how he looked out for everyone. It made me very nostalgic for all those great shows that were on cable a decade or so ago. One of the things that really stuck with me was how different HBO was (at least back then) from network television. The book I read a few weeks ago about Buffy the Vampire Slayer talked a bit about how the network would butt in and wants changes to scripts. HBO didn't do that with the Sopranos. They stayed out of it. Very smart decision, I think. 

Dexter is Delicious

 

I have a ton of new books that just came in at work, so this is probably it for the Dexter rereads for now. It was fun, though!

There are a group of cannibals at work in Miami. Debs is saddled with a new partner named Deke, who is gorgeous but dumb (at least according to Deb. I didn't think he was that bad). Dexter is delighted to be a new dad to little Lilly Anne and wants to quit killing. Cody, Astor, his brother Brian, and his Dark Passenger are all very dismayed at this development. 

Debs is determined to find one of the girls that went missing, Samantha, after her friend turns up a victim of the cannibal party. Dexter does manage to find her and discovers that she *wants* to be eaten, it's a big time fantasy of hers.

Okay. Sure. 

Miami sounds like an interesting place.

In the end Brian rescues Dexter, Deb, and her boyfriend Chutsky when they are kidnapped by the cannibals, but unfortunately Samantha doesn't make it. Chutsky is so dismayed that he let Deborah get kidnapped and almost eaten that he vanishes. Super bad timing: Deb is pregnant.