David Geherin’s The American Private Eye: The Image in Fiction (Unger, 1985) delivers a quick and breezy history of Private Eye fiction in America. He takes a few unexpected turns that I appreciated. For example, I can’t remember many histories of Private Eye fiction that included Jo Gar, a hard-boiled detective whose cases in the Philippine Islands crackle with violence. Jo Gar, of Filipino-Spanish descent, stars in 24 stories that Raoul Whitfield wrote for the pulps. Whitfield, best known for his mysteries Green Ice and Death in a Bowl , produces his best work in his Jo Gar stories.

I also found Geherin’s analysis of Bill Pronzini perceptive. Like some of the other writers Geherin includes in this book like Frederick Nebel and Norbert Davis, Pronzini deserves more attention and readers.

Once again, Geherin neglects to include any female private eyes. But, for the range of this book, there’s plenty of information and analysis worth reading. If you’re a fan of Private Eye fiction, The American Private Eye is worth a look. Do you have a favorite Private Eye? GRADE: A-

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword: Galahad for hire — ix

1. Birth of a hero — 1

Race Williams (Carroll John Daly) — 8

The Continental Op (Dashiell Hammett) — 16

2. The pulpsters — 26

Jo Gar (Raoul Whitfield) — 30

Tough Dick Donohue (Frederick Nebel) — 36

Jack “Flashgun” Casey (George Harmon Coxe) — 42

Steve Midnight (John K. Butler) — 46

Max Latin (Norbert Davis) — 50

Dan Turner (Robert Leslie Bellem) — 56

3. Life beyond the pulps — 63

William Crane (Jonathan Latimer) — 64

Philip Marlowe (Raymond Chandler)

Rex McBride (Cleve F. Adams) — 78

Mike Shayne (Brett Halliday) — 84

4. Postwar P.I.s — 93

Paul Pine (Howard Browne) — 95

Max Thursday (Wade Miller) — 103

Carney Wilde (Bart Spicer) — 110

Shell Scott (Richard S. Prather) — 115

Mike Hammer (Mickey Spillane) — 120

5 . The compassionate eye — 132

Lew Archer (Ross Macdonald) — 133

Mac (Thomas B. Dewey) — 140

Brock Callahan (William Campbell Gault) — 147

Dan Fortune (Michael Collins) — 155

6. After Archer — 163

Spenser (Robert B. Parker) — 164

Nameless (Bill Pronzini) — 166

Albert Samson (Michael Z. Lewin) — 172

Dave Brandstetter (Joseph Hansen) — 176

Jacob Asch (Arthur Lyons) — 183

Matt Scudder (Lawrence Block) — 190

7. An enduring hero — 197

Notes — 203

Bibliography — 211

Index — 223

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family! Patrick, Katie, and their friends prepared a wonderful Holiday feast: chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, two different stuffings, pierogi, latkes, green beans, broccoli, pumpkin soup, homemade rolls, and cranberry jello salad.

Desserts: pecan pie, apple pie, banana cream pie (with a peanut butter crust and Carmel drizzle), homemake chocolate chip cookies, charcuterie board, and four different mini-cakes.

We had a great time on Thanksgiving and hope you did, too!

In 1964, Ballantine Books published Future Tense, a short collection of stories by Jack Vance. In 1981, DAW Books reprinted the collection under the title, Dust of Far Suns.

The first story in both books is “Dust of Far Suns,” one of Jack Vance’s most famous stories. A curmudgeonly old man named Henry Belt is assigned a small group of eight young men . These Cadets have signed up for a 2-year space voyage with Henry Belt who will test them for their ability to deal with the demands of space travel. Henry Belt’s tests are clever and diabolical!

In “Dodkin’s Job,” a young man named Luke Grogatch tries to fight a dysfunctional bureaucracy. After many failure, Luke tries a completely different strategy.

“Ullward’s Retreat” is another of Vance’s well known stories. Jack Vance admitted that “Ullward’s Retreat” was one of his favorite stories. On an overcrowded future Earth, privacy and living space is in short supply. In order to impress his friends, a vastly wealthy man named Ullward leases a continent from a spaceman who has laid claim to an entire habitable world. But Ullward finds more problems with this arrangement than he had considered.

“The Gift of Gab” is a mystery story. A group of prospectors search for minerals on a planet that is supposed to be devoid of intelligent life. But when a couple of the prospectors disappear, some of the prospectors start to suspect that the decapods, a creature similar to a squid, could have intelligence higher than expected. The solution to the mystery resolves some problems but creates others.

Jack Vance, known for his Demon Princes novels, shows in this collection he’s equally adept at writing compelling short stories. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Dust of Far Suns — 7

Dodkin’s Job — 37

Ullward’s Retreat — 78

The Gift of Gab — 104

I found this DVD set at a local thrift store for a dollar. I’ve seen all of these movies multiple times but The Good, The Bad and The Ugly stands out from the rest. Are you a Clint Eastwood fan? Do you enjoy Spaghetti Westerns? GRADE: A for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, B for the rest

Roz Chast is my favorite cartoonist in The New Yorker. I also enjoy Roz Chast’s books. I loved Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant (you can read my review here) which deals with Chast’s aging parents in both a funny and poignant way.

I Must Be Dreaming, Chast’s new book, is pure silliness. Chast’s dreams feature Ted Less-So and a romantic interlude with Danny Devito. (see below). Chast makes browsing her dreams easier by grouping them by themes in her chapters.

Do you remember your dreams? Do you have reoccurring dreams? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION — 1

I Must Be Dreaming — 13

Recurring Dreams — 15

Lucid Dreams — 18

Celebrity Dreams — 22

Cartoon-Idea Dreams — 37

Nightmares — 45

Body Horror — 51

Food Dreams — 59

Everyday Dreams — 67

Dream fragments, or Ones That Got Away — 91

A Note about The Dreams — 95

A Brief Tour through Dream-Theory Land — 97

Recommended Reading — 118

After the Buffalo Bills’ disastrous loss to the Denver Broncos–24-22–on Monday Night Football, Head Coach Sean McDermott fired Offensive Coordinator, Ken Dorsey. The Bills Offense has struggled for two months and the terrible plays on Monday night sealed Dorsey’s fate.

But, Ken Dorsey was not responsible for the 4 turnovers in that game against the Broncos. Dorsey was not responsible for the 12-men-on-the-field penalty that seized Defeat from the jaws of Victory. This Bills team has many, many problems and seems doomed to missing the Playoffs this year. Yet, for some bizarre reason, Vegas has made the Bills 7-point favorites over the Jets! Ridiculous!

How will your favorite NFL do today?

There are 33 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) owned by Disney. But, in a recent interview, Bob Iger–the CEO of Disney–stated that going forward there will be fewer movies, but the quality will increase. Given the flop of the latest MCU movie, The Marvels, this sounds like a sound strategy. The Marvels cost $220 million to make but only took in $47 million during its opening weekend–marking the worst domestic weekend debut in MARVEL franchise history.

The other concern for Disney revolves around the unsettling prospect of “Super Hero Fatigue.” Are audiences abandoning MARVEL movies the way they abandoned Westerns and Rom-coms?

Joanna Robinson, David Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards provide a detailed history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from its start to it current state. To make these Special Effects movies costs a lot of money. If audiences don’t respond, Disney is looking at huge losses. Are you a fan of MCU? Do you have a favorite Super Hero movie? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

MCU Timeline x

Prologue: Origin Story 1

Chapter 1 Phoenix Saga 13

Chapter 2 Gifted Youngsters 27

Chapter 3 Once Upon a Time in Mar-a-Lago 43

Chapter 4 Plausibility 57

Chapter 5 Proof of Concept 73

Chapter 6 Post-Credits Scene 86

Chapter 7 Extraordinary Levels of Toxicity 96

Chapter 8 Some Assembly Required 111

Chapter 9 Demon in a Bottle 122

Chapter 10 No Strings on Me 136

Chapter 11 Our Brand Is Chrises 147

Chapter 12 The Runaways 164

Chapter 13 Earth’s Mightiest Heroes 175

Chapter 14 House of M 191

Chapter 15 The Forbidden City 202

Chapter 16 Remote Control 215

Chapter 17 On Your Left 229

Chapter 18 We Are Groot 241

Chapter 19 Where’s Natasha? 253

Chapter 20 Marvel Studios vs. The Committee 262

Chapter 21 Wright Man, Wrong Time 278

Chapter 22 Tangled Web 293

Chapter 23 Long Live the King 309

Chapter 24 Higher, Further, Faster 322

Chapter 25 Snap 336

Chapter 26 A Year without Marvel 357

Chapter 27 Department of Yes 370

Chapter 28 K.E.V.I.N. 385

Chapter 29 The Clone Saga 395

Chapter 30 Into the Multiverse 406

Epilogue: How Much We Have Left 427

Acknowledgments 431

Notes 433

Index 481

The logical question for David Geherin is: Where are the daughters of Sam Spade? No Sue Grafton, no Sara Paretsky, no Marcia Muller. And, did Sam Spade only have three sons in the Seventies?

David Gerherin does a nice job with his choices of the three Private Eye novelists from the 1970s: Robert B. Parker, Roger L. Simon, and Andrew Bergman. Sons of Sam Spade was published by Unger in 1980. No Joseph Hansen, whose Dave Brandstetter–a gay private eye–broke new ground in the 1970s. No Lawrence Block with his unconventional private eye, Matthew Scudder. And, don’t forget that Ross Macdonald published three Lew Archer mysteries in the 1970s.

If you’re a fan of the Private Eye genre, you’ll enjoy this brief survey of three popular writers of the 1970s. GRADE: B

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Acknowledgments — vii

Introduction — 1

ROBERT B. PARKER –5

The Godwulf Manuscript — 9

God Save the Child — 23

Mortal Stakes — 39

Promised Land — 54

The Judas Goat — 69

ROGER L. SIMON — 83

The Big Fix — 86

Wild Turkey –– 101

Peking Duck –– 115

ANDREW BERGMAN — 129

The Big Kiss-Off of 1944 — 130

Hollywood and LeVine — 140

Notes — 155

Bibliography — 159

Index — 163

I’ve reviewed several CDs of singers covering Bob Dylan songs. There’s Baez Sings Dylan (you can read my review here, Songs of Bob Dylan by Joan Osborne (you can read my review here), Judy Collins Sings Dylan…Just Like a Woman (you can read my review here), and BOB’S BACK PAGES: A NIGHT OF BOB DYLAN SONGS By Lucinda Williams (you can read my review here). And then there’s EVERY GRAIN OF SAND: BARB JUNGR SINGS BOB DYLAN (you can read my review here) and A NOD TO BOB (you can read my review here).

Cat Power (aka, Charlyn Marie “Chan” Marshall) takes a unique approach to her Dylan album: she recreates the famous The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert by Bob Dylan from 1966 (you can read my review here). The first CD reproduces Dylan’s acoustic set. The second CD has Cat Power backed by electric guitars and a full band just as Dylan did it (and Dylan got booed for it–you can hear it on Dylan’s concert CD).

I enjoyed Cat Power’s singing. She captures the essence of Dylan’s music convincingly, both acoustic and electric. Cat Power recored FOUR CDs of covers. I’ll be ordering them and you’ll see some posts about them in the months ahead. Why do you think so many female singers cover Dylan songs? GRADE: A

TRACK LIST:

A1		She Belongs To Me
A2		Fourth Time Around
A3		Visions Of Johanna
A4		It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
B1		Desolation Row
B2		Just Like A Woman
B3		Mr. Tambourine Man
C1		Tell Me, Mamma
C2		I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
C3		Baby, Let Me Follow You Down
C4		Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
D1		Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
D2		One Too Many Mornings
D3		Ballad Of A Thin Man
D4		Like A Rolling Stone

Jeff Tweedy, of the band Wilco, writes about his favorite (and unfavorite songs) and what music has meant to him over his 53 years.

I’m impressed that Tweedy admits his dislike (bordering on hatred) of some songs…but in later years he changed his mind and found he actually loved those songs. Two examples: Abba’s “Dancing Queen” and Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.”

Tweedy identifies Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” as the first song that really resonated with him. And that song influenced Tweedy to pursue a musical career.

Other key songs in Tweedy’s life are Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.”

What songs influenced your Life? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Look… — xi

A Note on Rememories — xv

Smoke on the Water — 1

Long Tall Glasses — 4

Spitting on the Bar Mirror — 7

Takin’ Care of Business — 8

Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right — 11

Is There a Merit Badge for Shame? — 14

Mull of Kintyre — 18

Loud, Loud, Loud — 22

Oliver Gothic — 28

Both Sides Now — 32

Lucky Number — 34

Hat-Wearing Kind of Guy — 38

Gloria — 39

As If It Always Happens — 43

Terry — 47

Somewhere over the Rainbow — 48

Death or Glory — 50

Schadenfreude Buffet — 54

My Sharona — 57

In Germany Before the War — 62

The Un-copied Copy — 66

Dancing Queen — 68

The Message — 72

Overdubs — 75

Balancing Act — 76

Frankie Teardrop — 79

Seventies Caprice Classic — 82

I’m Not in Love — 85

Connection — 88

Traumatizing Toilet — 91

Forever Paradise — 92

Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down — 96

Brown Recluse Spider Bite — 101

God Damn Job — 103

Ramblin’ Man — 109

Blue Note — 114

History Lesson-Part II — 118

Little Johnny Jewel — 122

Scottish Alarm — 126

4ʹ33ʺ — 130

Anchorage — 132

Reno, Nevada — 136

(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay — 137

You Are My Sunshine –139

Raunch Hands — 142

I Will Always Love You — 143

Wanted Dead or Alive — 146

Spin Shoot — 147

Before Tonight — 149

Shotgun — 153

Rock Club Ghost Ship — 155

The Weight — 157

Will You Love Me Tomorrow — 160

German Burger King — 162

Free Bird — 163

The Star-Spangled Banner — 165

The Mary F***ing Celeste — 167

Radio Free Europe –169

I’m Against It — 171

Coachella — 174

Bizcochito — 175

The Beatles — 180

Abbey Road — 184

Close My Eyes — 186

Happy Birthday — 190

Banana Pancake Recipe — 192

Love Like a Wire — 193

I Love You — 196

Portland Story — 200

Who Loves the Sun — 203

I’m into Something Good — 207

Heart of Glass — 210

I’m Beginning to See the Light — 213

I’ll Take You There — 215

Acknowledgements — 219

Song Credits — 221

Permissions — 231