Western Star

 

I can't really believe Larry's been gone for five years. I remember when I heard the news and I was devastated. Even though he'd quit writing for several years before he passed, it was still sad news. 

Larry was born into a family of cowboys at the end of the cowboy era. His uncles and dad all worked with horses and cattle. He grew up in a small, dusty town, devoid of books, desperate to escape, and did, often for years at a time, only to keep coming back. He got married and had a son, James, but cheated on his wife and they ended up divorced. He also ended up raising James, since his ex-wife wasn't really interested in being a mother. I imagine that was a rather interesting and commented upon arrangement in the 1960s. He knew a lot of writers from that era that you wouldn't necessarily connect with him, like Ken Kesey. 

He wrote, but he also was a book scout and would go on long road trips and just buy books. He ended up opening Booked Up in Archer City, a giant four building bookstore (sadly, when he died, the bookstore went under, which I didn't know, I thought he'd sold it a few years earlier. But Chip and Joanna Gaines bought it and used some of the books to "furnish" their hotel in Waco. That probably hurt more than anything else I read in this book). He continued working for as long as he was able. 

It's hard to sum up a complicated, mesmerizing, incredible life like the one McMurtry led, but Streitfeld did a great job and I think Larry would have liked it. 

 

Here Comes the Judge; The Girl and the Gravedigger

 

"Here Comes the Judge" was a fun read. It was a teensy bit overstuffed with characters that I had a hard time keeping track of, but that's sort of how real life is too, isn't it?

Nancy Gardner lives in Newport Beach and is a local character (in the best possible way). Her father, Judge Robert Gardner, was also a colorful character in the early years of Newport. He wrote a few books about the history of the area as well as a passion of his, body surfing. 

Nancy and her dad wrote a book about a father/daughter private investigation team back in the '60s and had a publisher interested, but it didn't pan out. Nancy updated and revised the book and published it on Amazon, so it's only available as a Kindle book, but it was worth the nominal cost. 

On to the actual book! Samantha (Sam) Harris is in between jobs, so she's keeping herself busy by following her retired judge father, Jake, around town, dragging him out of bars. Jake loves his martinis and holding courtside at the local taverns, regaling the regulars with his stories. Then Jake presents Sam with an idea: they can start a private investigation firm. In fact, Jake already has a client. 

Sam protests, but ends up being dragged along for the ride. It starts off as some shady investment scheme, but people keep ending up dead. Sam and Jake travel all over: down to Mexico, over to San Bernadino (with Jake knowing every bar on the route, apparently. I would like to be Jake's best friend), in search of the truth. They have several close calls themselves, which don't seem to faze Jake, but Sam isn't as cavalier. 

Supposedly Nancy and her dad were going to make it a series if the first book did well, and I'm hoping for more. I like the characters and it's fun to read about places I know. 

Potzsch wrote a sequel to "Hangman's Almanac", which I enjoyed. I hoped there would be more. I liked this one, too. 

Rothmayer and Herzfedlt are back with another baffling case. A professor who is supposed to be in Egypt is found in the local history museum, mummified. At the same time, local young men are being murdered in the streets and brutally disfigured. And if that wasn't enough, the new zoo just opened and already one of the keepers has been killed. 

There was a lot going on, and Potzsch somehow managed to tie it all together and have it make sense. There wasn't a lot of Rothmayer in this one, but he came in just in the nick of time to help solve the various cases. It was an exciting ride. 

A Deadly Episode

 

I enjoyed the sixth Hawthorne and Horowitz book. Horowitz has really done a clever job with these stories. 

Their first book together, "The Word is Murder", is being filmed. Anthony isn't really excited about the project: the scriptwriter is making a lot of changes to reflect her passion for the environment, the actor who is playing him is washed up, and no one seems to want or care about his opinion. When the actor playing Hawthorne is stabbed on the set, the two of them find themselves embroiled in a new case (and, for Anthony, a new book). 

Turns out David Caine (the actor playing Hawthorne) had made a lot of enemies, so there are no shortage of suspects. Not just the people on the set, but someone who lives in the village where the movie is being filmed who has a grudge against the real Hawthorne: a woman whose husband Hawthorne helped get convicted of murder a decade ago. She claims he was innocent. Hawthorne stands by his belief that he was guilty, although he does admit there are some lingering questions in his mind. 

The second half of the book went back to that crime, before Hawthorne and Anthony met. Horowitz was able to tie it all together in a very interesting way. 

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales

 

Book three of the Emily Wilde series was very good, I enjoyed it. Emily and Wendell have traveled to his fairy kingdom so he can reclaim his throne from his stepmother. The former queen fled, but cursed the kingdom, so it's rotting and Wendell and Emily can't figure out how to stop it. 

Emily turns to her trusty research, and discovers a tale that seems to mirror their situation. The problem is that the solution is for Wendell to sacrifice himself. 

Well, no one wants *that*. Emily finds an alternate solution: for Wendell to kill his stepmother. That's more palatable, if they can find her. 

All in all it ended on a happy note and I went online to see when book four is due out, only to discover that it's a trilogy and book three is the last one. Aw (sad face). I really liked Emily and Wendell and their world, but I suppose it's enough to know that they live "happily ever after" 😉

Sisters in Death

 

Another new book that claims to have "solved" the Dahlia case. Frankel has a different suspect than William Mann does, and he also connects Beth Short's murder to one that took place six years earlier in Kansas City: the brutal murder of Leila Welsh. There are definite similarities in the two: Leila's head was nearly severed from her body while Beth was bisected at the waist. Both victims bled out. Leila had a horseshoe shaped piece of flesh cut out of her thigh, the tattoo on Beth's thigh was removed. Leila was killed in her bedroom, a really bold move on the part of the killer, considering her mother and brother were both home. We don't know where Beth was killed, we just know her body ended up in the vacant lot on Norton Ave. Beth's last few days on Earth are a mystery, we don't know where she was or who she was with. 

Frankel makes the case that the killer in both cases was a man named Carl Balsiger. Carl grew up in Kansas City, not far from Leila. They vacationed in the same lakefront area as children and went to the same college. Six years later, Carl shows up in L.A. and becomes a suspect in Beth's murder. He knew her, admitted to having spent time with her very close to her death. He owned a property in a remote area of Benedict Canyon, where Frankel theorizes he could have held Beth and tortured her and took his time killing her. 

It's all plausible, all of the theories I've read over the years have their merits and I'm starting to understand why some cases never get solved. All in all it was an interesting read. 

NFL Moments

 

There are few things I enjoy more than watching a good football game (good meaning Green Bay is winning 😊) but reading about football is also very fun. 

These types of books are always subjective. How do you narrow down over 100 years of history and terrific players to just 125? It's tough. While I agreed with many of his choices, there were a few things he left out that I thought should have been included. For instance, talking about amazing Hail Marys, he didn't even mention Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre. Rodgers was literally known for winning games for GB on a last ditch, three seconds left on the clock Hail Mary. And in talking about terrible officiating, he neglected to mention the time that the referees robbed Green Bay of a win against Seattle by calling an touchdown instead of an interception (it was a huge travesty--it literally has its own Wikipedia page). 

But all in all, it was fun to remember some of the great players and games from the past. 

John Candy: a Life in Comedy

 

There's a really great documentary on John Candy on one of the 1,000,000 streaming services I subscribe to that I enjoyed watching. Of course none of the aforementioned 1,000,000 streaming services have any of John Candy's movies (at least, not without paying even more than I already do), so that's useful and not the slightest bit frustrating /s.  

At any rate, John Candy. What a treasure he was. I still have the People magazine from when he passed away in March of 1994. "Uncle Buck" was one of my dad's favorite movies, we used to watch it all the time. I also really loved him in "Summer Rental" and of course his amazing cameo in "Home Alone". Myers talked to a lot of his old pals from SCTV (which, again, not streaming anywhere. In this day and age!), many of whom remained friends with John his whole life. They worked together on projects whenever they could. It was such a shock when he died, so young, just 43. I remember watching the funeral procession on TV where they shut down the 405 for him. Everyone loved John and it sounds like they had good reason to, he was a genuinely nice guy who was always looking out for everyone. It was a lovely tribute to a man taken much too soon.