Supersonic; Gravedigger's Almanac; Gandolfini

 

I've been reading over the past few weeks, just not *finishing*. I finally finished a few this weekend. Yay, me!

I love Oasis and always found the relationship between brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher funny. I thought Liam was a pompous jackass but it turns out Noel kind of is, too. Their poor mother. Noel was definitely more on task and got frustrated quickly with Liam's antics. Liam made fun of Noel for always going to his hotel room and working on songs instead of partying in the pub like he did, but Noel pointed out that Liam wouldn't have had anything to sing if he didn't. I went back and rewatched the MTV Unplugged (from 1996, I think?), where Noel had to sing because Liam claimed he had a sore throat (Noel said he was just hungover). Liam sat in the balcony, smoking and drinking and heckling Noel, who did a commendable job of singing, considering he had, like, five minutes notice and was not comfortable in that front man role. Then Liam bitched that Noel wanted to sing more and more, which left him nothing to do but shake his tambourine on stage. Well, sweetie, that's on you, isn't it? At any rate, it was funny, even if I didn't know half the slang they used and had to keep looking things up. 

I really enjoyed Potzsch's "Hangman's Daughter" series and I was excited to see this new one by him. It didn't disappoint! I hope he ends up writing more of them. 

Augustin Rothmayer is a gravedigger in Vienna in the 1890s. Herzfeldt is a new inspector to town. Vienna seems to have a serial killer (although the term wasn't coined yet) on the loose: young woman are dying with their throats slashed and stakes shoved into their privates. Herzfeldt is all about modern criminology and collects evidence, takes photos, etc., which doesn't go over well with some of the old fashioned police on the force. Rothmayer calls his attention to a corpse that appears to have been buried alive and Herzfeldt starts thinking the two cases might somehow be connected. 

It was super interesting and I actually guessed the killer before it was revealed, so I was very proud of myself. 

And finally, the late, great James Gandolfini. While I wasn't a huge fan of Bailey's writing style, I powered through because I was interested in Jim's life. 

He seemed to be a genuinely good person. Literally everyone who was interviewed had nothing but amazing things to say about him. He would call up directors after he'd been cast in a project to make sure they didn't want him to bow out. "Are you sure I'm the right person?" he would ask. "There's probably someone else who could do it better". Yes, he had his issues with drugs and alcohol, but who wouldn't, under the pressure of being Tony Soprano for ten years? He bought the crew on that show dinner every Friday night. He dropped everything on Christmas to go to the hospital to be with a friend whose wife was hospitalized unexpectedly. There were a million little stories like that in this book. The world lost a good one the day he died, much, much too soon. RIP, Jim. 

Sister, Sinner

 

Why Aimee Semple McPherson, you ask? Well, it's because I watched the HBO version of "Perry Mason" that aired a few years ago for two seasons. While I loved the art deco architecture and the costumes and the actors, I was disappointed the show didn't stick to Gardner's books. The original show was great in that regard, but it was missing a lot of the fun, flirtatious banter between Perry and Della and Della and Paul. The new show didn't have any of that, either. But what it did have was a storyline about Sister Alice, which was based on Aimee Semple McPherson. 

McPherson was a Pentecostal who founded the Angelus Temple (which just celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023). McPherson was a charismatic preacher who gained a huge following, not just in Los Angeles, but around the country. She was swimming off Venice Beach one day when she vanished without a trace. Her secretary, who was on the beach with her, sounded the alarm. Divers and police tried to find her to no avail. No body washed ashore. Her mother, who worked with Aimee at the Temple, claimed she'd been "raptured" up to Heaven. 

A month later, Aimee turned up in a border town in Arizona, claiming she'd been kidnapped out of the ocean and held captive. Police were skeptical of her story for many reasons (her garments were clean, no dust or sweat stains, she had her watch and her silk hairnet, she wasn't dehydrated, no one was ever able to find the shack where she was held captive, etc.). Rumor had it that Aimee ran off to Carmel with her married lover for an illicit tryst but was discovered and came back to concoct the kidnapping story. The truth never made its way out. 

Aimee ended up having a falling out with her mother and her daughter and died relatively young. If not for the weird kidnapping interlude her story would have been inspirational. She was groundbreaking in many ways, forging her way in a life that wasn't open to women at the time. Of course she swindled a lot of poor people out of their money while she lived high on the hog, but hey. Details 😂