When the Wolf Comes Home

 

Jess, an aspiring actress in L.A., is having a terrible day. She's working the late shift at a crappy diner when one of their regulars makes a mess in the bathroom. She and her coworker make a deal: if Jess goes and cleans it up, she can go home. While cleaning the bathroom (which was described in all too graphic detail), she accidentally pricks her finger on the used needle the customer hid behind the toilet. 

Well that sucks.

Jess goes home and tries to work up the courage to go to the hospital to get checked out, but then all Hell breaks loose. A giant wolf rampages through the apartment complex, killing a bunch of people. Jess manages to escape, taking along a little boy she found hiding in the bushes. 

Jess and the nameless boy (he claims he doesn't have a name) go on the run but unfortunately, everywhere they go the wolf follows and kills. Soon Jess realizes that the little boy can make things happen by believing in them. His fears come true (hence the big bad wolf, who is actually just his dad). He watches a cartoon on TV and the characters jump out of the TV and start terrorizing the hotel they're at. Jess isn't sure how to keep him (and the rest of the world) safe from his own mind. 

It was really good, I enjoyed it, even if the ending felt a little anticlimactic. It's really hard with these types of stories. I've read a lot of them where the ending just falls flat. 

Black Dahlia

 

A friend at work asked me about my favorite true crime stories and I mentioned the Black Dahlia. Elizabeth Short's unsolved 1947 murder is one of my OG true crime interests. Manson, Dahlia, Lindbergh, and Lizzie Borden. Those are the four that I read everything I can get my hands on. 

About a decade ago, Mann wrote a book called "Tinseltown" about the unsolved murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor. Mann starts out by saying that he's not trying to solve the Dahlia case, but of course he does have his favorite suspect: Marvin Margolis. Marvin was a USC medical student and a known boyfriend of Betty's (despite being married). His wife's family were butchers. As a Jewish man, Marvin faced antisemitism at USC. Most likely due to his horrifying experiences in WWII as well as the trauma of being harassed for his ethnicity, Mann theorizes that he probably had a lot of rage in general. Combined with some knowledge of anatomy (it's pretty much a given that Dahlia's murdered knew something about dissection, given how neatly her body was sawed in half) and access to USC's medical labs, which were deserted at the time of year Betty was murdered, he makes a fairly compelling argument. 

The point of the book, however, was to rehumanize Betty. Teach us about the real life young woman behind the myth. Betty was an adventurous young woman who didn't want to stay home and follow the more conventional path of marriage and children, she wanted to see the world. She lived by her wits and made friends easily, friends who she could call on for a place to crash for a night or two, friends who could help her out with rent or food money in a pinch.

It was an interesting book, I enjoyed it. It is a shame that we'll probably never know for sure who killed this poor young woman whose life was just beginning. 

Best True Crime Stories of the Year 2025

Like most books of short stories, some of these were good, others not so much. 

One of my favorites was "The Heiress at Harvard", about wealthy Frances Glessner Lee, who started forensic science at Harvard. I've heard about her "nutshells" before: she created extremely intricate dioramas of crime scenes, little miniature dollhouses basically, and used them to teach crime scene investigators how to properly process a crime scene. Even though Lee died in 1962, her nutshells are still in use at the Maryland Medical Examiner's office. 

The last story in the book, "The BTK Killer's Daughter", was absolutely depressing. I've heard of "CrimeCon", where true crime aficionados go to network with other like minded folks and meet some victims and their families. When I first heard about CrimeCon, I thought "oh, that sounds like fun, I should try to go one year!". 

No. Nope. Don't want to go now. It sounds utterly heartbreaking. Some of the victims of less publicized crimes go in an attempt to drum up interest in their loved ones' cases. The thought makes me absolutely sick for those poor families and friends. I just can't even imagine going around, begging people to care. 
 

Return of the Maltese Falcon

 

I read Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" several decades ago when I was younger and didn't care for it much. I really tried to like it, after all, it was set in San Francisco, a city that I've always been fascinated by, and was deliciously noir. I'm willing to give it another chance now that I'm older, I just don't have time right now. 

All that is to say: I don't remember the book very well. I also tried to watch the Humphrey Bogart version movie several times and just couldn't get into it. So I wasn't terribly surprised that I had a hard time getting through this book, even though I like Collins and have enjoyed his other stories. 

"Return of the Maltese Falcon" picks up where Hammett's book left off. PI Sam Spade is contacted by multiple interested parties who would like him to find the fabled gold and jewel encrusted statue. Everyone's lying, including Spade, people are getting killed right and left, but in the end Spade untangles everything and there's a somewhat happy ending. The book picked up towards the end, the last fifty pages or so were engrossing, but it was a bit of a slog to get there. 

Lost Story of Eva Fuentes; Chorus of the Union

 

I've enjoyed Cleeton's novels so far, and I enjoyed this one up until a certain point. When I explain why, I'll try not to spoil too much. 

Margo lives in London in 2024. She's recently divorced and has a business where she tracks down lost treasures for clients: furniture and artwork and the like. A client contacts her about a book, apparently very rare. There is only one known copy in existence and it's called "Time of Forgetting" by Eva Fuentes, a Cuban author. 

Margo reaches out to a bookseller she works with to see if he's familiar with the book. He's not, but he gives her information about a woman who's tracking lost Cuban possessions from families who had to flee Cuba. And then he's murdered. Margo's office is ransacked and she's wondering why this book is wrecking havoc and considers telling the client she's out. 

The book is told from three points of view: Margo, Pilar, a librarian in Cuba in 1966 who is hiding books from families fleeing Castro's regime, and Eva herself, in 1900. Eva was a schoolteacher who participates in a program to travel to Boston for the summer to attend classes at Harvard.

All right, here's the dicey part. About 2/3 of the way through the book, a character is introduced who says he's Eva's grandson. His mother, her daughter, was born in 1901. He's in the 2024 part of the book, and he's in his sixties.

My brain screeched to a halt. How is that possible? I started doing math in my head: if he's in his sixties, he was born in the 1960s, right? And his mother was born in 1901, meaning she was in her *sixties* when he was born? 

Huh?

I hoped I misread, that he was actually Eva's GREAT grandson, but no, very clearly, grandson. 

Did no one stop and do the math? Surely I'm not the only one who picked up on that, right? 

At any rate, I barely paid attention to the end of the book because I was so flummoxed trying to figure out the math. I hate when things like that happen. It ruins an otherwise good story. 

"Chorus of the Union" was pretty good. It reminded me of a book I read a few years ago about the 1860 Republican convention, "The Lincoln Miracle". 

Lincoln and Douglas were longtime political rivals in Illinois, with Douglas always beating Lincoln. They debated often and both of them were great speakers. They went head to head in the 1860 Presidential election and Lincoln won due to the Democratic party splitting up into three separate faction over the issues around slavery. Despite not even being on the ballot in most of the Southern states, Lincoln still carried the day, and the South immediately started talking secession.

Despite losing, Douglas was a Unionist through and through. He cautioned the states to give Lincoln a chance and not secede. He was willing to work with Lincoln (and Lincoln was willing to work with him) to save the Union. Unfortunately, Douglas died just a few months into Lincoln's first term and the nation broke out in Civil War. It was a fascinating look at how men who were different in almost every other way could come together on a topic that they both felt strongly about. I don't know much about Stephen Douglas but I'm interested in reading more about him now. 

 

We Did OK, Kid

 

First off, it's killing me to type "OK" instead of "okay". My work prefers "OK", and I refuse. It's just *wrong*. 

That minor grammatical irritation aside, Hopkins' memoir was really good. I can't believe he's 87! I had no idea. Silence of the Lambs just came out what? two, three years ago? Something like that. 

Anthony is Welsh and his dad was a baker. He was an only child and not terribly bright in school. Everyone kind of wrote him off, didn't think he'd amount to much, which made him determined to prove them all wrong. He was good at memorizing and losing himself in poetry, and he managed to parlay that into a successful acting career. 

He has a lot of good life advice and terrific taste in poetry. And I love how down to earth he is. So refreshing. 

Ain't Nobody's Fool

 

Unfortunately, this one was disappointing. 

I love Miss Dolly and was really hoping for an engaging biography about her life, but it read like a dry academic paper (complete with teeny tiny footnotes I had to strain to read). As someone who has read a lot of dry academic papers for school and work, I can attest that it's not really the genre I want for casual reading. 

At least the author did a nice job of showing how smart Dolly is. She said no to Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis when they wanted to record her song "I Will Always Love You". As much as she wanted Elvis to sing it (me too. Can you imagine how amazing that would have been?) she wasn't willing to give up 50% or all of her copyright, which was the only way the Colonel would let Elvis record it. Smart move in the long run. 

She's been working hard her whole life and brings a lot of joy to a lot of people and sadly, she deserves better than this. Hopefully a better biography will turn up one day. Or she could update the one she wrote a few decades ago. 

They All Came to Barneys

 

Sadly, I never got to go to Barneys. Apparently there was one at South Coast Plaza but by the time I was old enough to know about such things it was long gone. I went into Neiman's once and immediately turned around and went out. I could see it was definitely too bougie for me (my budget, not my tastes. As far as tastes went, it was right up my alley). I'm pretty sure Barneys would have been similar.

Barney Pressman started Barneys in New York in the 1920s as a discount men's suit store. His son, Fred, decided to take the store in a different direction and focus on quality and up and coming designers. Fred loved well made clothes. When his son, Gene, turned twenty-one, he joined his father and grandfather at the store. Gene was the one who convinced Fred to branch out into women's clothing, and the store flourished for decades. Barneys became known as the place to go to see the newest, coolest things. Not just clothes, but home furnishings. Barneys sold things that you couldn't get anywhere else and discovered some major designers and brought them to America for the first time. 

So how did it all fall apart? Part of it was ambition. They wanted to open more stores throughout the country and of course the stores had to be built with the finest materials and designed by famous architects. They ended up going into a partnership with a Japanese firm. They couldn't pay the bills and Barneys declared bankruptcy. By then Barney was gone and Fred followed not long after. Gene and his younger brother, Bob, ended up losing the company their grandfather built from nothing. 

From what I understand, Bob is also writing his own tell-all book, and Gene doesn't come out of it looking well. So Gene struck first.

One of the best parts of the book was when Gene talked about hiring a woman for the store who thought nothing about wearing tiaras to work as business casual and how she was the only one he'd ever met who thought that way. That's me too! I don't honestly understand why more people don't wear tiaras (and crowns) to work on a regular basis. You only get the one life. You should enjoy it.  

The Last Death of the Year

 

I have to say, I was disappointed by this one. Normally I really enjoy Hannah's Poirot mysteries, but for some reason this one just didn't hold my interest. 

Catchpool and Poirot go to the Greek island of Lamperos for New Year's Eve. They're staying at a house known as the Spitty, inhabited by a group of people who, forty years later, would be called a commune. It's a ragtag group of people who subscribe to a philosophy of forgiveness above all else. 

Their leader, Austin, proposes a game in which everyone writes down their New Year's resolution and puts it in a container. Catchpool will them read them one by one and everyone has to try to figure out which resolution belongs to which person (sounds dreadfully boring to me, but hey, it was the 1930s). 

Catchpool comes to one resolution about murdering Matthew, one of the male members of the group, and he and Poirot are horrified at the prospect. Matthew takes it in stride, laughs it off as a joke, but no one confesses to having written it. 

So of course Matthew is murdered that evening. 

I can't say too much more without giving it away, but it was just lackluster. 

Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear

I finished this book on Sunday, which was National Winnie the Pooh day. I found that an interesting and unplanned coincidence!

I love Pooh bear. There's just something about him that makes me smile. I have a Pooh bear, he's my constant companion. He's a good friend. 

Christopher Robin Milne received his teddy bear for his first birthday, the other friends from the Hundred Acre Woods followed later. His father, A.A. Milne, wrote children's stories about Christopher and his bear. Milne was also a successful poet, playwright, and adult author as well, but of course he's best known for Pooh's stories. 

Christopher was his only child and while they were close when Chris was younger, they drifted apart once Chris became an adult. There was some resentment on Chris's part about how he helped his father gained success. He made his peace with being "Christopher Robin" in his later years, especially after having a daughter with cerebral palsy. The fortune he inherited from his dad's stories allowed him and his wife to get Clare the medical attention she needed, and to this day the trust in her name helps others with disabilities. 

The original Pooh and his friends live at the New York Public Library. Milne sent them on a publicity tour to the US, and they ended up at his New York publisher's office. Chris didn't want them back, so there they stayed until the publisher donated them to the library. They are the number one attraction, out of all the amazing things at NYPL. Over the years attempts have been made, including President Obama and the Prime Minister calling to ask the library to send the bear back home, and the library has politely declined. Pooh is theirs, and he's staying. 

The first story featuring Pooh bear was published on December 24, 1925, so we are celebrating 100 years of Pooh bear. I'm sure he will be around for 100 more 😊

 

Trixie Belden and the Mystery off Glen Road

It's been a hot minute since I reread this one, so I figured why not? It's quick and it makes me laugh. 

A storm blows through Sleepyside, and a tree knocks out part of the roof of the Bob Whites newly restored clubhouse. The kids don't have a dime to their name, having spent all their money on fixing up the clubhouse, except for Brian, who has saved $50 for Mr. Lytell's old Ford. Brian, being all noble, insists that he spend the money on supplies to fix the clubhouse.

Trixie doesn't want Brian to lose his car, and since the Wheeler's game keeper quit abruptly, she suggests the Bob Whites take over patrolling the preserve for the week, since it's the Thanksgiving holiday. That way, they can earn the $50. The only problem is, how to keep Mr. Lytell from selling the car before then? 

Trixie has a solution, of course! Jim gave her his great-aunt's diamond ring, which her father put in a safety deposit box. All Trixie has to do is convince her dad to let her have the ring for the week, give it to Mr. Lytell for security until they earn the $50, and then Brian can still have his car. Honey agrees it's a fine idea, but how to convince Mr. Belden to let tomboy Trixie have her ring? It's not like she dresses up or wears jewelry.

Honey has a solution, of course! Her cousin, Ben Riker, is coming to spend the holidays with the Wheelers, so Trixie must pretend to have a crush on Ben and therefore, become more feminine and want to wear jewelry, like her ring. Trixie hates the idea (mostly because Ben is a big pest and no one likes him) but without another solution forthcoming she rolls with it.

It works! Mr. Belden gets the ring for Trixie, who turns it over to a very suspicious Mr. Lytell, and the kids start patrolling the preserve. When Trixie and Honey discover a deer carcass, they're convinced they've come across a poacher on Mr. Wheeler's land!

It was lots of fun and the kids tease each other mercilessly (in a nice, clean cut, 1950s kind of a way), so that's always amusing. I love Trixie and her friends. 

The Last Devil to Die; Dolly Parton: Star of the Show

 

I swear I've been reading over the last few weeks, just not *finishing*. But I did finish two over the weekend, and they were both really good.

First up, the fourth Thursday Murder Club Mystery by Richard Osman (I watched the Netflix movie about the first book a few weeks ago and it was really good! I'm hoping they'll make more, but since they changed Bogdan's story in the movie I'm not sure what they can do going forward). This book had a lot of sad moments that I don't want to spoil, but I cried several times. 

One of Stephen's (Elizabeth's husband) friends is murdered after discovering heroin in a box that someone left at his shop. Now the box and the heroin are missing, and there are quite a few people looking for it. And even more dying. 

And Garth was wrong. The best Nirvana songs are not "Sliver" or "Heart Shaped Box". I'd put "Heart Shaped Box" in the top 10, but not "Sliver". The best Nirvana songs are: "Blandest", "Drain You", and "Lounge Act". 

All in all, it was a solid story with a good ending and I'm looking forward to the fifth one. I think that gets me all caught up, so Osman will need to write faster now 😊

Speaking of great songs: National treasure Dolly Parton. I will listen to "Jolene" on repeat for days. There's a legend that she wrote "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" on the same day. If it's true, then she accomplished more in 24 hours then I have in *mumble mumble* years. Just amazing. 

What a classy lady and she has such great style. This book was full of terrific photos and her memories of performing over the last sixty plus years. It wasn't a traditional biography per se, but it was fun to hear her remember some of her favorite moments from her shows. She's been working her butt off her whole life. I was exhausted just reading it. 

She's approaching her 80th birthday and I know she's having health issues. She isn't going to make her celebration at the Grand Ole Opry. I hope she'll be okay. I don't think any of us are ready for her to go just yet.