Married with Children vs. the World

 

I loved "Married...with Children". I watched it when it first aired when I was a kid with my dad, who really loved it. Rewatching it as an adult I realize how much of the raunchy humor went over my 10 year old head, but I found it to still be absolutely hilarious. 

It's hard to remember a time when there were really only three major channels with some local programming. A brand new network was a big deal. Fox launched with "Married...with Children" as its flagship series. It wasn't an instant hit, but since Fox didn't have anything else going for it, they kept it on the air. Ironically, an irate woman in Michigan who protested the show and threatened to boycott the sponsors helped launch its success. People tuned it after hearing the outcry and found it funny, so they kept watching. I attended a sub-par, Christian in name only private elementary school, and one day our teacher had us write protest letters to Fox regarding "Married...with Children". She wanted us to put how disgusting and inappropriate it was and how we would boycott all the sponsors. Since I loved it (none of my other classmates were allowed to watch it, so they didn't know), I instead wrote a glowing letter telling Fox how great it was and hoped it would stay on the air forever. My teacher was not thrilled, but hey, it's still America, last time I checked. If you don't like the show, change the station. If you don't like the book, put it down and get a different one. But you can't take away other peoples' rights to watch/listen/read whatever they want. Can you tell this is a topic I'm pretty passionate about, especially with all that's going on in libraries right now? 😊

Starkweather; The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel; The Bottoms

 

A couple of more on brand titles for me. First up, "Starkweather" by Harry N. MacLean. I saw a made for TV miniseries when I was a teenager about Charlie Starkweather and Caril Fugate, not to mention Stephen King was very taken with the crimes they (or just Charlie) committed and wrote about his fascination. So Starkweather became one of those topics I try to read as much about as I can. 

For those of you who don't know, 19 year old Charlie Starkweather went on a 8 day killing spree in 1958, taking his 14 year old girlfriend, Caril Fugate, along with him. Once the duo was caught, they both stood trial and were convicted of murder. Charlie got the electric chair, and Caril was sentenced to life in prison, but was paroled in 1976 and went on to lead a relatively quiet life.  

MacLean makes a pretty good argument that Caril most likely didn't actually kill anyone and was in fact so traumatized by watching Charlie blow people away with reckless disregard that she couldn't even form the thought to escape when the coast was clear. It was well written and very interesting. 

This one was interesting, too. Rudolf Diesel, of course, developed the diesel engine. He was universally known as a brilliant inventor and engineer. He disappeared off of a ship in 1913, just as the world was on the brink of war. His corpse was supposedly found floating in the ocean. The sailors who found him stripped the body of the items in his pockets and let the body sink into the ocean, never to be seen again. The items taken were identified as Diesel's. 

The official verdict was suicide, which seemed uncharismatic of him. Brunt has a great theory that he faked his death to defect from Germany and go to Canada and work for the British Navy designing diesel submarines. It's a plausible theory. 

And finally, Joe Lansdale's "The Bottoms". It's an older book, set in the 1930s. Harry lives with his mom, dad, and younger sister, Tom, in East Texas. They have a little farm and his dad owns a barber shop in town and is also the constable. Harry and Tom find a dead body tied up in a tree. Since the dead woman is black, Jacob (Harry's dad) takes her to the black doctor, who theorizes about her murder. There have been some others who were killed in a similar fashion and tied up. 

Lansdale plants many clues along the way. His characters are always fully fleshed out and entertaining. It was a good read. 

The Woman in Me

 

This book was a departure for me. While I love biographies, I'm not a super big fan of Britney Spears. I have nothing against her, but my musical tastes tend to run more toward grunge and classic rock. 

Britney was obviously used by a lot of people. During her very controversial conservatorship, when she was supposedly so ill she couldn't even decided what to eat and when to sleep, she was recording new music, performing on stage, and acting. For thirteen very long years her father dictated her every waking move. She was spied on. She felt powerless. She said she did it all so she could continue to see her children. Any backtalk, any rebelliousness, and they would threaten to take her kids away and never let her see them again. 

Her writing style was pretty unsophisticated, but her story was pretty heartbreaking. Obviously you have to take it with a grain of salt. I think there were times when she was being a little less than 100% honest. That's okay, it's not my business if she wants to gloss over things that make her feel bad about herself. I hope she's able to pull herself together and be happy. I wish that for everyone out there. 

Argylle

 

I saw a commercial for the movie they made last year based on this book and thought it looked interesting. I was right, it was a fun read. I did not, however, see the film, and it's my understanding that the film bears no resemblance to the book. 

Aubrey Argylle lives in Thailand, where he works as a tour guide. His parents were drug dealers who were killed rather horrifically. Argylle grew up thinking his parents were in the export business. He only found out about their real profession after they died. 

Argylle is recruited by the CIA and goes through training with their top spymaster, Frances. A Russian billionaire, hoping to become the next President, promises his people that he is going to find the Amber Room, which disappeared during WWII and has never been found. I've always been intrigued by the Amber Room, so that was a fun aspect. 

I don't want to spoil too much, so I won't get into any more of the details. I don't normally read this genre (spy novels), so I don't know how it would stack up next to say, James Bond, but I enjoyed the story and the characters. 

The Whole Truth and Nothing But

 

So, do you want to hear a really long and maybe boring story as to why I read this book? Of course you do!

I love "Perry Mason", both the books and the original TV show (although I did enjoy the recent HBO series, but it wasn't what I was hoping for). I love Paul Drake in the books and of course, Bill Hopper did an excellent job playing him on the show. Bill Hopper is Hedda Hopper's only son. She was DeWolf Hopper's fifth wife and he was quite a bit older than her (Bill was born in 1915 and he had an older half-brother through his dad who was born in the 1880s so...). DeWolf died while Bill was fairly young. Hedda was an actor, as was DeWolf, and Bill became an actor to make his mother happy. She described him in her book as shy, reaching his final height of 6'4" at the age of 15. Bill also refused all help from his actor turned Hollywood gossip mother, so she never wrote about him in her columns. 

I read an interview with Bill online in which he said while he loved his mother he wished she wouldn't pry into people's personal lives so much. And that is why I read this book. Curiosity. Although, to be fair, I'm sure that's why I read most books. 

At any rate. Bill was not wrong about his mother. Hedda had a very high opinion of herself. According to her, she was best friends with everyone in Hollywood from James Dean to Elizabeth Taylor to John Wayne and gave them invaluable advice on their careers. Everyone was terrified of her saying something negative about them so they fawned over her and invited her to their parties and gave her expensive gifts. 

Now, you would think this kind of thing would be annoying to read, but I had to admit, I kind of enjoyed it. You know she's utterly ridiculous, but it was funny all the same. The woman knew how to tell a story.  

The Princes in the Tower

 

I am so incredibly grateful for people like Philippa Langley. Thanks to her tenacity and hard work, we've found and reburied Richard III with dignity, something I never thought I would see. And for the last 8 years, she's been working with teams of researchers all over the world to find documentation to show that Edward, Prince of Wales, and Richard, Duke of York, the two young sons of King Edward IV, were not murdered by Richard III. She's found some very interesting documents, especially in the Netherlands, that tends to point to the two so-called pretenders were actually Edward and Richard. The evil usurper, Henry Tudor, did everything he could to villainize Richard, destroying as many original documents as he could that pointed to the fact that he was lawfully crowned. He also did the same with any evidence that the boys were taken out of England for their own safety. 

Henry really put himself in a bind when he overturned the bastardization of Edward IV's children with Elizabeth Woodville in order to marry Edward's eldest daughter, Elizabeth. Doing that made her a lawful Princess again, but it also made her younger brothers lawful Princes with a better claim to the throne than he ever had. No contemporary surviving evidence from the time before Henry took the throne suggests Richard had his nephews murdered, it was only after Tudor came along that the rumors started. Many people who knew the boys as children attested to them being the real deal and Henry suppressed it. By 1499, both the boys were most likely dead, killed as pretenders. 

History is often rewritten by the victors, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Tudor dynasty, where everything possible was done to erase the good works of Richard III and the legitimacy of those young men. I love to imagine a world in which Henry did not defeat Richard at Bosworth and the world was never subjected to Henry VIII. I would at least love to see Richard's good name cleared and Langley is doing her best to get us there. This was a terrific start. I can't wait to see what else she and her teams are able to uncover.  

The Genius of Israel

 

Israel is such a fascinating country. Senor and Singer take an in-depth look at what makes Israel so unique and resilient. 

Israel, despite all of its internal and external strife, consistently ranks as one of the happiest nations in the world. Everyone is required to do some sort of military service, men and women alike, which helps them learn leadership skills. The authors talked about how the military worked to integrate autistic individuals into service, playing to their strengths, because in Israel it's an embarrassment *not* to serve. 

Israel also has a young society that has a higher than average birthrate. One of the reasons for this is businesses encourage mothers to bring their young children to work with them. They have an amazing system in place to encourage women not only to rise to the top of their professions, but to do so while raising a family. 

Israel is home to a rapidly growing number of tech companies and start ups. It's really impressive how global companies will allow their Israeli employees to stay and work in Israel rather than forcing them to move closer to their headquarters. Israelis who move elsewhere tend to move back because of how much they miss their homeland. One person interviewed for the book moved his three small children from Palo Alto back to Israel because he wanted his children to experience the history of living there. He said Israel was like no where else in the world. A very ringing endorsement indeed. 

Murder Crossed Her Mind; Nettle & Bone

 

The fourth Pentecost & Parker book ended on a cliffhanger, but I have to wait for book five. Boo 😖

A defense attorney named Witsun asks the duo to look into the disappearance of Vera Bodine. Vera's had a fairly interesting life and has an eidetic memory, meaning she literally remembers everything she's ever seen or read. Parker and Pentecost discover Vera worked for the FBI during WWII and helped uncover a Nazi spy ring. Poor Will finds Vera's body in a trunk in her apartment. Not missing, but murdered. 

A whole bunch of suspects and too many clues (Vera was a hoarder, so her apartment was crammed floor to ceiling) made for an interesting mystery with a satisfying conclusion and of course a whopper of a cliffhanger. These books are so much fun. I really enjoy them. 

I really loved this book and I wasn't expecting to. It's fantasy, but not super far out there fantasy that gets overly complicated. 

Marra is a princess in a minor harbor kingdom that is sandwiched between two more powerful kingdoms. Her father marries his oldest daughter off to the prince in the North, and tragically she dies. The second daughter, Kania, goes to wed the prince. Marra joins a convent, since the prince does not want her to marry and potentially have sons that would challenge his right to the harbor kingdom's throne. 

Marra discovers the prince has been beating and abusing her sister and decides she wants to kill him. She goes to visit a dust-wife, who gives her three impossible tasks. Marra is able to complete them, so the dust-wife agrees to go with her to the North to help her in her quest. Along the way they rescue a disgraced knight at the Goblin Market and pick up Marra's fairy godmother. 

It was so well written and entertaining. I would love a sequel!

The Amish Wife

 

Thirty years ago, Olsen investigated the sad case of Little Boy Blue, a little boy who was found dead in a field on Christmas Eve in 1984 in Nebraska. It took two years and an article in Reader's Digest about the unknown child for him to be identified as Danny Stutzman, son of Eli and Ida. 

Ida died in a barn fire in 1977 when Danny was just a baby. She and Eli were Amish. Eli left, taking Danny with him, and moved around a lot. When Olsen started investigating Danny's death, he realized there were a lot of questions about Ida's demise as well. Supposedly (according to Eli, not the most reliable narrator) she woke him up at midnight when she saw the fire through the window. She was already fully dressed in her traditional Amish dress, which includes straight or safety pins, not buttons or zippers. She went outside before him. He told her to go to the nearest neighbor who had a phone and call for help, she asked if she could save some things out of the milk house first and he said all right. That's where her body was found. Eli said she must have had a heart attack due to a weak heart. There are some problems with this: her childhood doctor said her heart was fine and the coroner's autopsy report was doctored. Olsen wrote "Abandoned Prayers" about it in the 90s (I've never read it), but the case always bothered him, so he decided to revisit it, despite most of the main players being dead. Eli died by suicide in 2007. 

It was very sad. All he had was rumors and gossip. The Amish don't believe in talking bad about anyone, so no one would come out and say they thought Eli killed Ida and Danny, they just hinted and pointed him to other people who might talk. There was no satisfying conclusion to it, like many things in life. 

Cocktails with George and Martha

 

I am fascinated by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and I love "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". It's such a great film. 

The book started out talking about Edward Albee's play, and then the journey to film it. Surprisingly, no one really thought Elizabeth would do a great job as Martha. She was too young (32, to Martha's nearly 50), too slim (poor thing had to gain 20 pounds and wear padding), and too pretty to pull off the boozy, flouncy, shrewish Martha. She ended up doing an amazing job, however, and won an Oscar for her performance (Richard was totally cheated, he was also fantastic in this film). 

The film was a commercial and critical success, and it seems like the troubles on the set were kept to a minimum somewhat. It was very interesting, I enjoyed the behind the scenes look. 

Secrets Typed in Blood

 

The third Pentecost and Parker book was very entertaining. 

There's a murderer on the loose who is copying stories from a popular magazine writer named Horace Bellow. Horace is a pen name for Holly Quick. Holly notices the similarities in the recent murders to her stories and goes to Pentecost and Parker to ask for their help. 

Parker is busy pretending to be a secretary named Jean in order to try to catch the fake professor from the first book, Olivia Waterhouse. So they hire a rival detective named Klinghorn to do the legwork. 

There were some good red herrings, and the final resolution was very satisfying. I really enjoyed the banter, it's so much fun. 

Case of the Crying Sparrow; Case of the Irate Witness; The Bad Weather Friend

 

This was another novella, and honestly it wasn't terribly good. The best part was poor Paul having to pretend to be a mining expert and riding a horse, which he strenuously objected to, only to have Perry tell him "tough". So rude, Perry. 

 A wealthy man asks Perry to find his wife, who has disappeared. The day before she vanished, they had a break in at their home and his wife's jewelry was stolen. Ironically enough, the day before the break in his wife cancelled the insurance policy on the jewelry. Weird. 

I, personally, would have told the guy to go to the police, but instead Perry, Della, and Paul cook up an elaborate story about mining investments so as not to tip off the man's mother as to what was going on. 

No courtroom scenes, so it was kind of dull. 

There were four short stories in this book, only one featuring Mason (I read all four, though). The Mason one was actually the least interesting. Perry is trying to have a weekend getaway and gets stopped at a roadblock. There's been a robbery in Jebson City. He ends up defending the accused. At least there was a courtroom scene. 

Two of the other stories were pretty good. "The Jeweled Butterfly" was about a young woman named Peggy Castle who writes a gossip column for the company newsletter. She gets an anonymous tip about two employees meeting up at a nightclub for a secret rendezvous, so she goes. Don shows up, but not Stella. She and Don end up finding Stella's body in her apartment when they go looking for her, and she has a mysterious jeweled butterfly pinned to her stocking. It was a fun story. 

The last story, "A Man is Missing", was a Western that played on Gardner's love of the outdoors. It was pretty good, too.

The third story, "Something Like a Pelican" was weird and out of character for Gardner. Lester Leith is a amateur detective type with a butler who gets involved in a case of missing blueprints. It involved a woman throwing a fur cape out a window. Like I said, it was odd and not very good. 

And that does it for Perry Mason. Bittersweet. But now I have a whole list of really fun ones to go back and reread when the mood strikes!

Okay, Dean Koontz. He's hit or miss. Some of his books are brilliant, others not so much. This one was decent, not one of my favorites, but not terrible. I think my main problem with this one (with several of his latest books) is how YOUNG the protagonists are. 

Benny is 23. After a super rough and weird childhood, he inherited a small sum of money from his mother and moved to Newport Beach, where he became a very successful real estate agent with a nice house in a really nice area. Houses in that area are going for over $15 million right now, so you can figure that one out. At 23? I would have believed 33, but 23 is just too young, I'm sorry. Especially to be self-made and not doing anything illegal. But I digress. 

Benny is a nice guy and he's having a really awful day. He got fired from his job, his fiancée dumped him, and an uncle he didn't even know he had sent him a cryptic note about an inheritance. A giant, heavy box arrives. Inside is Spike, a craggle. Spike is there to turn Benny's life back around and vanquish his enemies, a mysterious cabal intent on ruining the lives of people too nice for this world. 

Okay then. It was a quick read, mildly interesting, but nothing to write home about. 

Hotel Kitsch

 

What a fun book! Husband and wife team Margaret and Corey Bienert visited a bunch of hotels and motels across the country (and even a few internationally) that have unique décor in at least some of their rooms. It's a niche market, but it seems to be thriving. Out of curiosity I looked a bunch up online and their rates are actually pretty reasonable, I was expecting them to be much higher for the experience alone. 

Case of the Crimson Kiss; Case of the Careless Cupid

 

In the interest of full disclosure, this is not a full length book, but rather a novella. And I think I've read it before, it certainly sounded very familiar.

Fay and Anita are roommates who were both casually dating the same man, Dane Grover (these names, Gardner! Seriously?!). Dane and Fay start to get serious and get engaged. Anita is jealous and upset. She's secretly seeing a married man, Carver, who has an apartment upstairs from them. Anita leaves to go out with Carver, who tells her to go wait down in the car. She does, but after twenty minutes she gets angry and goes back up to his apartment and finds him dead. She panics, since a lot of her things are in his place. She quickly hatches a plan. She goes back to her apartment, fixes herself and Fay cups of hot chocolate laced with sleeping pills. Fay drinks hers and passes out. Anita takes some of Fay's things upstairs and swaps them out for her things, comes back and drinks her chocolate and passes out. 

Carver's corpse had a big red lipstick print on his forehead, hence the name of the story, and that's how Mason catches the killer, too. It was a good story, I enjoyed it. 

I love this cover. Seriously, what the heck does it have to do with anything?! Nothing, is the answer. The main female character is a woman in her fifties. And no one played darts. Too bad, I bet Paul would have been very good at it. 

This is it. The very last Mason book I had left to read. I still have one more novella and a short story, but other than that, I'm done. 

Selma Anson and Delane Arlington are in love. Arlington's meddling niece, Mildred, is unhappy about it and thinks Selma is just a gold-digger. Selma's first husband died a year earlier from food poisoning after attending a barbeque at Arlington's house, but now the insurance company thinks he was poisoned with arsenic from Selma's bird mounting hobby (a really gross hobby, in my opinion, that part bothered me a lot. Hunting for food is one thing, but killing innocent little birds just to mount them for fun is icky). 

It had a happy ending (they usually do) and it was an interesting read. 

Ernest Shackleton

 

This is one of those on a whim books. Shackleton's exploration of the South Pole came up in casual conversation at work one day (we librarians are WILD) and I realized I didn't know much about him. I picked this particular book because it was written by George Plimpton, and I like the way he writes. He wrote a book about attending preseason training with the Detroit Lions that was hysterical. 

Shackleton tried to reach the South Pole a few times. The second time, his ship Endurance got caught in the ice and was twisted so badly she couldn't sail. He left most of his men behind on Elephant Island and took a small boat to an island called South Georgia to hopefully get help so they could go back and rescue the men he left behind. He did, and tried a third time to reach the South Pole, only to have a heart attack and die. He was buried in South Georgia. Plimpton took a trip to Antarctica and alternated between Shackleton's journey and his own 100 years later. It was interesting and the pictures were really breathtaking.  

Murder Under Her Skin; L.A.'s Landmark Restaurants

 

The second book in the Parker and Pentecost series (or is it Pentecost and Parker? I should probably look that up...) was really interesting. 

After a dramatic opening in which Lillian Pentecost goads an arsonist into showing his true colors while she's testifying at his trial, the dynamic detective duo deserve a break. Alas, it is not meant to be. One of Will's friends from the circus, Ruby, was murdered and one of her other friends, mentor and knife-thrower Val, is in jail on suspicion of having sunk one of his knives into Ruby's back. Will and Lillian travel to Virginia, where the circus is currently playing. 

Ruby was the tattooed lady and had plenty of secrets of her own. The odds of her being murdered only a day after arriving back in her old hometown (which she ran away from before finishing high school and didn't return, not even for her parents' funeral) seem a bit suspicious. 

There were some fun moments, and holy cow, can someone please render Will's outfits in color so I can see how awesome they look? The way Spotswood describes them...I'm so jealous!

This was a fun, nostalgic look back at some of the most famous restaurants in Los Angeles history. Geary wrote another book I liked so much that I bought it: Made in California. 

I wish my Dad was still alive--he would have gotten a kick out of this book. I recognized a lot of the places he talked about going as a kid: Barney's Beanery and Apple Pan. He took me to the Pantry (awesome pancakes), Du-Par's (also awesome pancakes), and Canter's (no pancakes but great hamantaschen). We talked about going to the Pacific Dining Car but didn't make it. I wish traffic getting up to L.A. wasn't so heinous. I would love to go to Phillipe or El Coyote. Someday 😀

101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered

 

I'm always on the lookout for new horror books to read. There were some pretty good recommendations in here I think. Obviously I haven't read them yet, but they definitely sound interesting. 

The Case of the Troubled Trustee

 

I can't believe I'm almost done with the Perry Mason! What on earth am I going to read next?! 

I'm sure I'll find *something* 😀

Dutton is the trustee of Desere's estate. Desere's father was afraid she would blow right through it, so he named Dutton as the trustee to keep his daughter's spending in check. Dutton comes to Mason for advice. He's done some shady things, namely embezzlement, but insists it was for Desere's own good (sure, okay). He's in love with her but she's too young and immature to realize how good Dutton would be for her, and instead is carrying on with a group of beatnik hippies. She's supposedly engaged to one of them named Fred (a no good beatnik hippie name if I ever heard one!). 

There was a pretty good courtroom scene in this one, where Hamilton got to cross examine Mason's witnesses, and did a darn good job of it, too. It looks pretty bleak for Dutton, but not surprisingly Mason pulls a rabbit out of a hat at the last minute. 

Case of the Reluctant Model; the Case of the Horrified Heirs

 

Apparently I read this one before. I didn't remember it, so it all worked out and I rather liked it. A little different from most Mason stories.

Art dealer Rankin wants to sue Collin Durant for slander. He told a former model, Maxine, that the painting Rankin sold wealthy art collector Otto Olney is a fake. Maxine told Rankin, who feels slandered. Perry cautions suing Durant himself and encourages him to tell Olney what Durant said and let Olney sue Durant, which is what happens. Then Perry starts to get a funny feeling about the whole thing, especially when the only witness to what Durant said, Maxine, suddenly skips town. 

There were a lot of loose ends that didn't get tied up, like Maxine's canary. No one ever found out what happened to it (it wasn't in her apartment, but Durant's dead body was). 

I remembered reading this one before. Wealthy Lauretta Trent has been having severe gastrological upsets and her doctor warns her one more episode might do her in. 

How Perry gets involved is actually pretty different. Virginia Baxter, a secretary to a recently deceased attorney, is arrested at the airport for smuggling drugs. She calls Perry, knowing him from her time working for her employer. He represents her in court and gets her case dismissed, but he's curious why someone would go to so much trouble to try to frame a nice lady like Virginia. He tells her to call him if anything weird happens. 

Virginia is approached at home by a man claiming to be George Manard. He says that Virginia's former boss drew up an agreement for him and another man, and he's lost the original and would like the lawyer's copy. Virginia tells him her boss' brother has the papers. She has the original typewriter from the office, however. 

Things roll along and it looks like now Virginia is being framed for the murder of Lauretta Trent after a motorist witnesses her car running Trent's car off the road. Oh, and the heirs are horrified to learn Lauretta's stomach issues were due to arsenic poisoning, not the spicy Mexican food she loved. It had a surprisingly happy ending, for a Mason story. 

Paul's constant whining about not getting to eat anything decent is getting old, though. I wish Gardner would move on. 

Surely You Can't Be Serious; The Case of the Daring Divorcee; The Case of the Phantom Fortune

 

"Airplane!" is such a fun film. I watched it again while I was reading this book and it still holds up extremely well. Even if I can quote parts of it by heart 😀

Brothers David and Jerry Zucker and their friend Jim Abrahams worked on making the movie for quite a while. It started after they caught a late night showing of a movie from the 1950s called "Zero Hour!". They thought the film was hysterical even though it was a serious movie. They were able to buy the rights to it and used a lot of the dialogue and plot, adding their own unique jokes. Their main desire was to cast serious actors and have them deliver the lines completely straight and it paid off. One fun bit of trivia is that they had to petition the Director's Guild of America in order to have three directors credited. Apparently that isn't done. 

This one hinged on an eyewitness, Perry's receptionist Gertie, and the woman in the dark glasses she saw leaving her purse in the office waiting area. Perry and Della go through it so they can contact the owner and find a recently fired gun. And as we all know in Mason stories: where there's a gun, a body is sure to follow. 

Adelle Hastings and her husband, Garvin, have reached an amicable conclusion to their marriage and Adelle is residing in Las Vegas in order to procure a divorce. Garvin turns up dead, and his second wife, Minerva, claims she never actually divorced him, meaning Adelle wasn't really his wife and therefore Minerva is the beneficiary to Garvin's business. 

The courtroom scenes were pretty good and the story was decent enough. Everything just feels super repetitive now. Of course there are two guns and two ex-wives and two wills, etc., etc. 

This one felt more fresh and original. Horace Warren comes to see Perry. He thinks someone is blackmailing his wife. He found a suitcase with $47,000 in her closet. Warren would like Perry and Della to come to a party at his house that evening. He's cooked up an elaborate backstory that Della is an acquaintance of his right-hand man, Judson. Judson is inviting Della to the party and tells her to bring a male companion, so she brings Perry. Meanwhile, Paul and a team of detectives in a dummy catering truck that's available to all PIs in L.A. will be fingerprinting and analyzing the dishes from the party to see if there are matches in the criminal database. I had a super fun mental image of like the Scooby-Doo van, only full of Paul Drakes. 

Plausible? No way. Hysterical? Yes. 

Della turns a lot of male heads at the party and ends up making quite a few female enemies. Oh, and Lorna Warren is being blackmailed. Turns out she worked for a conman who stole $47,000. Gideon, the conman, asked her to hide the money but she didn't, and it was stolen from the office safe. Gideon went to prison, Lorna was acquitted and moved, changed her name, met Warren, and started a new life. Now that Gideon is out of prison he wants his money and Lorna feels like it was her fault it was stolen since she didn't hide it like he asked her to. 

Gideon is shot in an abandoned warehouse and Warren is found holding a gun. The murder weapon, you say? Haha! Of *course* there are two guns. And a killer literally hiding in plain sight. 

Head Over Heels; the Case of the Stepdaughter's Secret

 

I feel kind of guilty putting this one on here, since it really was more pictures than words, but it was a lovely book, full of candid and casual photos of Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. They were obviously very enamored of each other and it shows. 

Wealthy businessman Bancroft comes to Mason for advice. He thinks his stepdaughter, who is about to marry a man from a very prominent family, is being blackmailed. Perry doesn't like dealing with blackmailers, so he makes Bancroft promise to let him do it his way and Bancroft agrees. 

Perry comes up with an elaborate scheme that involves using scantily clad women on a speedboat to cause a distraction while a water skier retrieves the blackmail money from a can tossed in the lake. Paul gets to have some fun driving the speedboat and being surrounded by the bikini clad girls, so good for him. Hopefully he got a little something to eat, too. 

The blackmailer ends up dead on Bancroft's yacht with Mrs. Bancroft left holding the murder weapon. It was okay, not as good as some of the earlier ones. It just didn't feel very original to me.  

Fortune Favors the Dead

This was a fun one, I enjoyed it. A coworker recommended it, since she knows how much I love noir and mysteries. 

Willowjean (Will) Parker ran away from her life in a circus and ends up saving the life of a famous female detective named Lillian Pentecost. Lillian sees potential in Will and takes her on as an apprentice. 

Twins Rebecca and Randall Collins along with their Uncle Wallace show up with a case. The twins' mother, Abigail, died in a fire at their home Halloween night, and Rebecca thinks the ghost of their father, who committed suicide a few years earlier, had a part in it. 

There were plenty of suspects. I did guess the ending before it was revealed (barely), but it was a good resolution.  
 

In Light of All Darkness; The Case of the Shapely Shadow; Charles III: the Making of a King

 

This one was really sad. I was a teenager when Polly Klaas was kidnapped, not much older than her. I remember everyone looking for her, in those pre-Amber Alert days. And I remember when they found her murdered body, and the trial of her killer (I feel no need to type his name, it's easy enough to look up if someone wants to know). 

Polly was a super low risk victim. In her bedroom with two other girls, in her own house, with her mother sleeping in the next room. A stranger abduction, which is really rare. And her killer was evasive and not at all forthcoming about how he chose Polly or what he did to her before he killed her. 

This book focused on the investigation and the personnel who searched night and day for Polly, hoping against hope to bring her home alive. It was very well told and extremely powerful. Her father, Marc, started a foundation to help other missing children and their families, while her mother retreated into anonymity. Everyone who had any contact with this case seemed to be forever changed by it. 

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? 

I feel guilty even including this one, because it was 99% pictures with very little text (in my defense, when I put it on hold I thought it was going to be a more traditional biography). It was mildly interesting to see King Charles throughout the years, but without much context it really doesn't have much going for it. 

The Case of the Blonde Bonanza; The Case of the Ice Cold Hands; Bogie & Bacall

 

Okay, new Perry Masons! 

This one was fun. Perry gave Della two weeks of vacation, so she heads to her aunt's house in Bolero Beach. Mason stops by since he's "in the neighborhood" (wink, wink). Della has an intriguing mystery for him. There's a lovely young lady named Dianne who is totally pigging out at the commissary every day. Della is mystified as to why she would ruin her perfect figure. Mason is just happy to be looking at her perfect figure. 

At any rate. Della's aunt knows Dianne and invites her over for dinner. Perry and Della learn that Dianne has signed a contract to model a new type of clothing for larger women, and agreed to gain weight in order to do so. Perry asks to see the contract, takes a look, and discovers an odd clause: the man paying Dianne is entitled to half of whatever she earns *or inherits* for the next six years. Perry quickly deduces that Dianne has a rich unknown relative and Mr. Boring (the man behind the contract) knows about it and is after her inheritance. 

Boring drops Dianne like a hot potato (leaving the poor girl to take off the extra weight she gained) and Perry decides he must have found a bigger meal ticket, like blackmailing the relative directly. Turns out Dianne's father, who was in a boating accident fourteen years earlier and presumed dead, is actually very much alive and very wealthy now, living the good life in Riverside with a new wife. When Boring turns up dead in a motel room and Paul Drake's own operative puts Dianne as the last person in the room, things get hot. 

Perry is visited by a young woman named Audrey who gives him five $100 tickets from a horse race the day before and asks him to collect the winnings for her. Perry suspects a set up, but he agrees and takes Della with him for a fun day at the track. They actually stayed for two whole races! Perry goes to collect the $14,000 Audrey won the day before and is immediately accused by a man named Fremont, who claims that the tickets were bought with money embezzled from his company. Since Fremont doesn't have a leg to stand on, Perry leaves with the money and contacts his client. He learns her name is really Nancy, and her brother, Rodney, is currently cooling his heels (I love that expression) in jail, having been arrested the day before at the track for the same thing Fremont accused Mason of doing (Rodney actually is guilty though, Nancy used her own money to place her bets). Turns out Rodney's been helping himself to a little of Fremont's cash now and again, and finds himself up to his eyeballs in debt. Nancy, knowing about it, scraped up every dime she had and played a long shot at the track, hoping to win enough money to pay Fremont back and get her brother out of Dutch. 

Fremont is playing hardball, though, and wants to prosecute. Then he turns up dead in the bathroom of the hotel room Nancy rented. She keeps lying to Perry, which got him super annoyed. Of course in the end it all worked out. 

Side note: I read an interview with William Hopper (who played Drake on the original show) and he said after the show became so popular Gardner started making Drake more like how Hopper played him. I saw that in these last few books, with Drake coming into the office and saying "Hello, Beautiful" to Della, which Gardner never had him do until he did it on the show. Fun little inside tidbit. 

It took me ages to get through this book. Not that it wasn't well written, it was, I just knew absolutely nothing about Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. I don't think I've seen a single movie either one of them has been in. So why did I check it out? you ask. Yeah, I don't know either. Curiosity, I suppose.

The first third of the book talked about Bogie, his early life and rise to stardom. He was on wife number 3 when he met the Hollywood newcomer, Betty Bacall (her real name, Hollywood changed "Betty" to "Lauren", thinking it sounded sexier. I disagree). Their attraction was immediate and he divorced his wife and married "Baby" (there was a twenty-five year age difference, so the nickname was apt). 

They weren't together very long before Bogie tragically died of cancer, but they had two children and made some movies together. Bogie died a legend, and Bacall took it upon herself to make sure that legend stayed shining. She went on to marry again and have another child, but her later years weren't very happy. She lived at the Dakota in 1980 when John Lennon was murdered out front and all she did was complain about how "inconvenient" it was for her to get to and from rehearsals. She sounded like a very unpleasant person. 

Love & Pain

 

I'm a big Silverchair fan. If you don't know who Silverchair is, why are you reading this instead of listening to "Israel's Son"? Seriously. 

Back in the early '90s (just a few years ago), three surfer boys from Newcastle, Australia formed a band. Ben on drums, Chris on bass, and Dan on guitar and lead vocals. Ben and Dan wrote most of the songs, although Chris also contributed. Their breakthrough hit "Tomorrow", helped propel them into international superstar status (side note: I hate that song passionately. Literally every other Silverchair song is better). 

Dan struggled with the sudden fame. They all did. Dan developed anorexia and almost died. Ben and Chris tried their best to help him. It was especially tough for Ben, since he and Dan had been best friends for years, long before the band. Dan shut him out, he shut everyone out. He insisted on complete control of the songwriting and Ben and Chris went along with it. Chris didn't really seem to care but Ben did. They both felt like they couldn't even make suggestions without Dan flying off the handle. 

Management issued a press release in 2011, saying Silverchair was on an "indefinite hiatus". Dan has since said that he would never play with his former bandmates ever again. He's alluded to their betrayal, and they've alluded to his. Honestly, I feel like it's all a giant misunderstanding but I wasn't there, so what do I know? I just think it's so sad that something that brought so much joy to so many people, including themselves, is now the cause of so much pain for all of them. At least we'll always have the music.  

Silent Film's Last Hurrah

 

I was sad I had no new Perry Masons to read this weekend 😞

I have no idea why I wanted to read this book. I am not a film buff in any way. I think I've seen maybe two silent films in my life. But you know what? It was really interesting. 

Once "The Jazz Singer" came out in late 1927, major studios realized that "talkies" were the way to go. Some movies were reshot either partially or entirely, some had musical soundtracks added for the theater (hybrids), but some movies were released as silent in the 16 months following. Know (at least to Meuel, I don't know if it's a real thing or not) as "the long 1928", some of the greatest silent films of the era came out during that period. Some stars were able to transition successfully to talking films, while others could not. It's amazing to think how quickly it all changed. 

The Case of the Haunted Husband; Jessica Lange: an Adventurer's Heart; The Case of the Calendar Girl; The Case of the Signing Skirt; The Case of the Duplicate Daughter; The Fourth Rule; The Case of the Spurious Spinster

 

Okay, let's get this party rolling!

This is one of the best Mason books I've read so far. Stephanie is hitchhiking from San Francisco to L.A. The first driver who picks her up and leaves her in Bakersfield was a nice guy, but the next guy who picks her up is a wolf. He's drinking, driving too fast, and can't keep his hands to himself. He causes a terrible wreck, and when Stephanie comes to she's behind the wheel of the car with the man nowhere in sight. She's taken to the hospital and accused of vehicular manslaughter, despite her insistence that she wasn't driving. 

Perry comes on the case and starts looking for the driver. Turns out the car belongs to a wealthy Hollywood producer who claims it was stolen earlier in the day and he has no idea who could have been driving it. There were some really fun scenes with Lt. Tragg being part of the gang, and Paul, Perry, and Tragg shamelessly flirting with Della all at the same time. 

Jessica Lange is a terrific actress, I absolutely loved her in "American Horror Story". I had no idea she was with Sam Shepherd for as long as she was: over two decades, and they had two kids together. She also had a daughter with Baryshnikov, the famous ballet dancer. It was a very interesting story about a woman who doesn't lead a typical Hollywood life. 

This was another terrific one, I loved it. Contractor Ansley is being given rough treatment by the crooked inspectors. He's been resistant to paying out a bribe to Meridith Borden, a self-proclaimed "public relations expert". He finally caves and goes to visit Borden, pays him off, and goes to leave. As he's turning out of his driveway, another car is turning in and hits him. He's fine, but the other car turns on its side. It's dark, so he goes fumbling around trying to see if the driver needs help. He can just make out an unconscious female in the grass, and he starts for the house to get help. The woman starts yelling, so he turns back and helps her up. She claims she's fine and he offers to give her a ride home. She gives him a phony name and address and he drops her off. 

Afterwards, he goes to restaurant and starts wondering if he should report the accident to the police. Luckily (for him, obviously, not so much for them) Mason and Della are eating dinner, and he interrupts to ask for advice. The three of them return to the estate. Perry suggests there may have been two women in the car, but before they can make a really thorough search, the automatic gates close and lock and some ferocious dogs come running. They barely make it over the wall in time. 

Borden is found murdered the next morning and Perry was right: there were two women in the car, each telling a very different story. Ansley is arrested for the murder and Perry is able to successfully prove his innocence. Burger turns around and charges one of the women, Dawn, with murder. Perry ends up defending her and also gets her acquitted. I think that was the first time Perry defended two people for the same crime. 

I liked this one a lot, too. Ellen Robb is a singer and cigarette girl in a gambling joint in Rowena (a stand in for Gardena, which was apparently quite the local spot for illegal gambling back in the day). Her boss wants her to help him cheat a man named Ellis during a poker game and Ellen refuses, so he frames her for theft and throws her out. She goes to Mason for help. 

Ellis's wife turns up dead, and Ellen is the prime suspect. Ellis had a thing for her, but according to Ellen, it was one sided. A gun shows up in Ellen's bag (one of many in this book, I think there were five total). Perry pulls some fast tactics with the guns. Nothing *technically* illegal, just not 100% on the up and up. 

As usual, Gardner makes the D.A. look like a chump. Two bullets were recovered, and he seems rather blasé as to if they were fired from the same gun (spoiler: they weren't). 

A fun twist that hasn't been used in a Mason book before (at least not that I recall): identical twins! Although we don't find that out until the end, I felt like I really should have guessed it. 

Carter Gilman asks his daughter, Muriell, to fix him another egg and sausage for breakfast. While she's in the kitchen, her father disappears, leaving behind his briefcase and a note not to call the police, but rather go to Perry Mason. 

Muriell does, and Mason is intrigued. He goes out to visit the house and finds $10,000 in one hundred dollar bills strewn around Gilman's woodworking shop, along with a broken chair and a spilled can of red paint. 

Vera Martell, a P.I. from Las Vegas is found murdered. Word on the street is that she was blackmailing Gilman's second wife because her daughter, Glamis, is illegitimate. There were some fun scenes with Mason and Tragg again and of course the awesome courtroom battles. 

Taking a brief break from Perry Mason, I finished the fourth Riley Wolfe book by Lindsay. It was pretty good. 

Riley is in London to steal the Rosetta Stone. Why? Well, why not? He needs a new challenge. While casing the Museum of London he meets a young woman named Caitlin. The two of them get along like a house afire, and even though Riley realizes there are red flags all over the place, he lets Caitlin get close. Typical man. Throw a pretty girl in front of them and they lose all common sense. 

Riley barely manages to get away when the heist goes sixes and sevens, and Caitlin is kidnapped by a uber villain named the Cobra. So now he has to save her from the Cobra. Fun twist at the end that I didn't see coming. 

And finally (whew!) "The Case of the Spurious Spinster". Sue Fisher is Endicott Campbell's assistant, and the wealthy majority stockholder of their company is due to show up Monday from South America to look over the books. Sue comes in on Saturday to make sure things are in good order. Elizabeth Dow, Campbell's nanny, drops by with Carleton, Campbell's little boy, and asks Sue to keep an eye on him for a little bit. Sue agrees and Dow leaves. Sue asks Carleton about the shoebox he's carrying, and Carleton tells her he and his dad switched treasures. His dad has his, and he has his dad's. Curious, Sue finally manages to get a peek inside the box and finds it's stuffed with hundred dollar bills. She manages to convince Carleton to put it in the safe. 

Dow comes back for her charge, and just in time, too. Amelia Corning, the wealthy stockholder, calls from the airport, disgruntled that no one is there to meet her, claiming she cabled that she was coming early. Sue hops in a cab and meets the frail woman in the wheelchair and gets her set up in her hotel. She frantically tries to find Campbell to warn him that Miss Corning wants to see him, but she can't find him anywhere. Amelia insists on looking at the books right then and there, so Sue takes her to the office. Amelia sends her out to buy suitcases so she can pack up the books and papers and take them back to her hotel room. Then, of course, she vanishes. Oh, and so does the shoebox full of money. 

But wait! On Sunday *another* woman claiming to be Amelia Corning shows up. Which one was the imposter? Where did the money that was embezzled from the company go? Oh, and by the way, who killed Ken Lowry, the manager of the fake mine that was at the cause of the whole mess?