Russell Atkinson's Blog, page 96
February 27, 2016
Accordion master Alexandr Vilnius
I never thought I’d like an accordion performance, but this guy’s amazing.
February 25, 2016
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Any novel consists of three basic elements: setting, characters, and plot/storyline. Stephenson has conjured up a moderately interesting plot and some unique characters that fill about 100 pages of this 800+ page book. The rest is setting, and that’s way too much. Stephenson is determined to share with us an elaborately imagined post-apocalyptic world (and exo-world) in almost infinite detail. There is no denying that he is a skillful and prolific writer, but his obsession with writing epic-length novels simply doesn’t work here. It was actually a fairly quick read since I was able to skim and skip a great deal of it without missing anything important so far as I could tell.
I had to strain to give this a three-star rating. I was expecting science fiction and got fantasy. The characters and story are more akin to Tolkien than to something like The Martian. The richly imagined world is too silly, too tinkertoy to be credible or even slightly plausible. Even the apocalypse itself doesn’t make sense from a physics standpoint. It was only the author’s skill in narrative that held me to the end and then only barely. I loved Cryptonomicon and enjoyed Reamde but I’m afraid this book has put me off the author for a while.
February 24, 2016
Behead Me, Cliff Knowles #6, debuts big!
The sixth Cliff Knowles Mystery is now here and it sold really well on its first day. Thank you to everyone who bought it.
Retired FBI agent Cliff Knowles thought he was being hired by a Fortune 500 company just to find out why their sales of spare parts were down. He soon learns that where there’s money there’s mayhem – and murder. His investigation brings him to southwestern Utah where he finds that an employee of the company he’s investigating recently lost his head – literally. Coincidence? Not a chance. When Cliff decides to venture into the desert to hunt a geocache, he is unaware that he is being hunted, too. In this harrowing tale of greed and guile, Cliff’s survival depends on his only weapon – his wits.
Cliff’s FBI agent wife, Ellen Kennedy, returns to work after her maternity leave ready to pursue criminals of all stripes. Instead she finds that she is assigned to a convicted drug dealer and heroin addict who once attacked Cliff, but to investigate her for an entirely unexpected reason – to help her get a presidential pardon!
Once again Cliff and Ellen end up working together pursuing justice and geocaches in their own inimitable style.
To purchase, just click on the picture.
February 20, 2016
Hiding in Plain Sight
Pun
Geocachers will appreciate this.
February 19, 2016
The Anteater of Death by Betty Webb
The Anteater of Death by Betty Webb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In this cozy mystery our heroine, Teddy, is a zookeeper with a special relationship with the eponymous anteater of death, Lucy. Lucy is a giant anteater, a code red animal, meaning it is capable of killing a human. Indeed a dead man is found in her pen at the zoo, slashed by Lucy’s four-inch claws. Although Lucy takes the blame at first, we soon learn the victim died of a gunshot wound. In due course the lecherous and sleazy zoo director is similarly dispatched. Eventually the head zookeeper, Teddy’s boss and close friend, is arrested. Of course Teddy must find the real killer.
The author writes with a light, humorous touch and introduces plenty of suspects with motive and opportunity for both murders. We learn that the private zoo is dependent on a trust and the large family that benefits from the trust is split over whether to terminate the trust (and the zoo). Joe, The sheriff with the “long muscular legs” seems to be Teddy’s love interest despite a rocky past of that sort.
It’s all unlikely fluff, of course, but fun enough for a cozy mystery fan. I don’t count myself in that category, but I need a respite from the gore and dark mysteries now and then. It’s set in a fictional city and county that seems to be nestled on the Monterey Peninsula. The many local references kept me entertained since I live fairly close.
I listened to the audiobook. The actress is very good and I enjoyed her reading all the way through, but I must issue a warning. She has a nasal voice that some people might not be able to abide. My wife calls it a quack. It’s not as bad as newswoman Erica Hill or the AFLAC duck, but it’s pretty close. I know my wife wouldn’t be able to listen to this book.
February 15, 2016
The High Window by Raymond Chandler
The High Window by Raymond Chandler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Raymond Chandler has a new fan. The High Window is pulp fiction at its finest. Private eye Philip Marlowe lives in a time and place where women are dames, restaurants are joints, lapels are wide as a two-car garage, and you could say that’s mighty white of you. Not a word emerges from his mouth that isn’t laden with witty sarcasm, cynicism, and a fearless moxie.
He’s hired by a rich, tough old biddy to find her missing Brasher Doubloon, a rare gold coin that was supposed to be in her late husband’s collection. Soon he finds a dead body and then another. The cops suspect him, of course. The story is almost bursting with dodgy characters – a coin dealer (he’s one of the bodies), a feckless private eye (the other body), the arrogant spoiled son of the biddy, a golddigging nightclub torcher, the owner of the joint where she sings, the goon who provides the muscle, a slick lothario named Vannier who’s making it with the club owner’s wife, a crusty elevator operator who notices a lot more than he lets on, and many more. You’ll need a chiropractor to straighten you out if you follow all the twists and turns of this plot.
The style takes some getting used to if you haven’t read pulp fiction before. Chandler must have been paid by the word because Marlowe never enters a scene without describing every square inch of the room and the features and clothing of everyone in it. It’s done with such hardboiled wit, though, it never feels like filler. Anson the private eye, for example, “… held a smeared glass in his hand. It looked as if somebody had been keeping goldfish in it. He was a lanky man with carroty short hair growing down to a point on his forehead. He had a long narrow head packed with shabby cunning. Greenish eyes stared under orange eyebrows. His ears were large and might have flapped in a high wind. He had a long nose that would be into things … a face that held the effortless composure of a corpse in a morgue.” Anson lived in a room that “… was painted egg-yolk yellow. All it needed was a few fat black spiders painted on the yellow to be anybody’s bilious attack.”
The book was made into a movie starring George Montgomery in 1947, but retitled as The Brasher Doubloon. Chandler’s first novel The Big Sleep is perhaps his best known movie oeuvre. He didn’t write the screenplay for that one, but he did for such classics as Double Indemnity, Strangers On a Train, and The Blue Dahlia.
February 13, 2016
Two for the Money by Blair Howard
Two for the Money: A Harry Starke Novel by Blair Howard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Chattanooga private eye Harry Starke is one tough SOB, a man’s man. He has hard fists, hard muscles, and at least one hard organ, with which he seems to do most of his thinking. He is contacted by an old classmate he hadn’t heard from in years to come over on account of some emergency. By the time Harry gets there, the caller is dead. It turns out the victim was a fund manager and millions are missing. From there it looks like this is going to be a closed door mystery, with a fixed set of suspects all of whom had motive and opportunity. Then you find that the door isn’t so closed. The number of potential suspects quickly balloons.
Harry teams up with an old flame police detective to work the case. Almost immediately the hated but gorgeous anchorwoman who previously did a number on Harry now wants to work with him, too. As mentioned, Harry lets his organ make that decision. The storyline is pretty standard stuff. The police detective does the legal sorts of investigation while Harry works outside those inconvenient legal niceties. I won’t spoil the plot by going into it further. This book is all about style anyway. Harry must be one hunky stud since every “stunning” (a word used to describe almost everything in the book from scenery to women) woman wants to jump in bed with him. Several succeed.
The author has a real knack for description. He’s able to evoke a vivid picture of every character and the Chattanooga area’s many charms. There’s plenty of action. The violence is only beginning when the first murder victim is discovered. Fans of gunfights, fistfights, and broken bones will not be disappointed.
A big turnoff for me, though, was Starke’s character. Out of the blue he tortures one of the suspects, someone who isn’t even clearly a bad guy. I don’t like gratuitous cruelty and sadism, but it’s to be expected in mysteries to demonize the bad guys. When the main character does it, I have a hard time liking him. He also is supposedly in a relationship with a woman who is out of town, but that doesn’t stop him from bedding the bevy of beauties that besiege him. So he’s a sadist and a cheat. I came away thinking of him as just as much of a thug as the guys he beats up.
The reader is excellent. His rich voice and folksy, homespun accent is reminiscent of Andy Griffith. It has an authentic-sounding southern charm, although he can do a dead on east coast mobster accent just as well. He’s able to do the women’s voices without sounding squeaky or silly, too. He does read at an exceptionally leisurely pace, which is appropriate for the setting and character, but if that pace bothers you, I recommend doing what I did – turn up the speed on your Kindle. I’d never used that feature before but I’m sure I will in the future.
This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of Audiobook Blast.
Two for the Money: A Harry Starke Novel by Blair Howard
M...
Two for the Money: A Harry Starke Novel by Blair Howard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Chattanooga private eye Harry Starke is one tough SOB, a man’s man. He has hard fists, hard muscles, and at least one hard organ, with which he seems to do most of his thinking. He is contacted by an old classmate he hadn’t heard from in years to come over on account of some emergency. By the time Harry gets there, the caller is dead. It turns out the victim was a fund manager and millions are missing. From there it looks like this is going to be a closed door mystery, with a fixed set of suspects all of whom had motive and opportunity. Then you find that the door isn’t so closed. The number of potential suspects quickly balloons.
Harry teams up with an old flame police detective to work the case. Almost immediately the hated but gorgeous anchorwoman who previously did a number on Harry now wants to work with him, too. As mentioned, Harry lets his organ make that decision. The storyline is pretty standard stuff. The police detective does the legal sorts of investigation while Harry works outside those inconvenient legal niceties. I won’t spoil the plot by going into it further. This book is all about style anyway. Harry must be one hunky stud since every “stunning” (a word used to describe almost everything in the book from scenery to women) woman wants to jump in bed with him. Several succeed.
The author has a real knack for description. He’s able to evoke a vivid picture of every character and the Chattanooga area’s many charms. There’s plenty of action. The violence is only beginning when the first murder victim is discovered. Fans of gunfights, fistfights, and broken bones will not be disappointed.
A big turnoff for me, though, was Starke’s character. Out of the blue he tortures one of the suspects, someone who isn’t even clearly a bad guy. I don’t like gratuitous cruelty and sadism, but it’s to be expected in mysteries to demonize the bad guys. When the main character does it, I have a hard time liking him. He also is supposedly in a relationship with a woman who is out of town, but that doesn’t stop him from bedding the bevy of beauties that besiege him. So he’s a sadist and a cheat. I came away thinking of him as just as much of a thug as the guys he beats up.
The reader is excellent. His rich voice and folksy, homespun accent is reminiscent of Andy Griffith. It has an authentic-sounding southern charm, although he can do a dead on east coast mobster accent just as well. He’s able to do the women’s voices without sounding squeaky or silly, too. He does read at an exceptionally leisurely pace, which is appropriate for the setting and character, but if that pace bothers you, I recommend doing what I did – turn up the speed on your Kindle. I’d never used that feature before but I’m sure I will in the future.
This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of Audiobook Blast.
It’s silicon, dummy, not silicone
I heard a character on TV talk about returning from a stint working in Silicone Valley. Silicone is the viscous liquid used in breast implants among other things. Silicon is an element and serves as the substrate used in making integrated circuits, hence the name Silicon Valley for the Santa Clara Valley where the chip industry first took off. So unless he was employed in adult filmmaking, he wasn’t in Silicone Valley.
February 11, 2016
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This classic noir novel deserves its place in history. Told in the first person by a drifter who falls for the beautiful young wife of a Greek diner owner, it has more twists and turns than the road to Malibu, a road that plays a critical role in the story. Frank, the drifter, and Cora, the young wife, fall hard for each other and soon devise a plan to knock off the Greek. The plot is too complex, and too much fun to read, to spoil it with further details.
Written in the 1930’s, the style has an earthy retro feel you just won’t find anywhere in today’s writing. The characters inhabit the lowest rungs of the social ladder and talk with an ungrammatical patois that’s crude without being obscene. The mood is all about hard fists, ripped blouses, lust and love, yet the plot is anything but simplistic. Just when you think you know how it’s going go, you get thrown a different direction.
This is a very short novel at 116 pages, and thus a quick read. In case the title rings a bell, but you can’t place it, it’s been made into a movie twice, once starring Lana Turner, and again starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. I started this book with a skeptical eye, but loved it by the end. I highly recommend it.
