I was late to discover the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child. When Tom Cruise brought out Jack Reacher in 2012–based on Child’s 2005 novel One Shot–I read the novel before I saw the movie and was immediately hooked. Jack Reacher is a wandering adventurer with a military past. He’s 6’5″ and 250 pounds of muscle. Cruise took a lot of criticism for “pretending” to have the stature of Reacher.

Usually I read a series in chronological order, but with the Jack Reacher series I skipped around. I found a Jack Reacher novel was perfect for trips: reading in the Airport, reading on the plane. So I saved the Reacher books for travel. On my latest trip to New York City for Thanksgiving, I decided to read Persuader (2003), the seventh Reacher novel. AMAZON Prime Video will be releasing Reacher, Season Three in 2025 which is based on Persuader.

As usual, Reacher finds himself involved in a twisted plot where a figure from his military past looms large in criminal activities in New England. Reacher manages to insert himself into the crime ring by “rescuing” the leader’s son during an attempted kidnaping at the boy’s college.

Persuader shifts from Past to Present as the backstory of Reacher’s current quest is revealed. If you’re looking for a page-turner with compelling action and thrills, pick up a copy of Persuader. I can’t wait to see the AMAZON Prime Video version of the fight between Reacher and a 400 lb. giant! Are you a Jack Reacher fan? GRADE: B+

This new live album presents a performance by the band at the legendary Fillmore East from September of 1969. All four members of the band – David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and Neil Young – were involved in this release but it was Stills and Young who actually mixed, edited, and put the album together. While the actual performance had 24 songs, they cut it down to these 17 songs so they would fit onto the double vinyl album. All 17 songs fit on the CD version which I bought and listened to.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s first live LP–1971’s 4 Way Street–was a great album. In 2014 the band released the three-disc 1974 box which was consisted of performances from CSNY’s reunion tour in 1974 that Crosby called “The Doom Tour.”

I’m a big fan of  1974, but this “new” live album from 1969 has a lot of energy with CSNY at the height of their talents. The “Acoustic Set” is good but I prefer the “Electric Set” especially “Wooden Ships.” Are you a CSNY fan? Any favorite song here? GRADE: A

TRACK LIST:

ACOUSTIC SET:

1.    “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”
2.    “Blackbird”
3.    “Helplessly Hoping”
4.    “Guinnevere”
5.    “Lady Of The Island”
6.    “Go Back Home”
7.    “On The Way Home”
8.    “4 + 20”
9.    “Our House”
10.    “I’ve Loved Her So Long”
11.    “You Don’t Have To Cry”

Electric Set:

1.    “Long Time Gone”
2.    “Wooden Ships”
3.    “Bluebird Revisited”
4.    “Sea Of Madness”
5.    “Down By The River”
6.    “Find The Cost Of Freedom”

Back in the 1960s when I started reading Science Fiction constantly, my “Favorite SF Author” changed by the week…depending on what I was reading. One week it was Asimov, the next week it was Heinlein, the next Simak, the next Laumer, etc. But the author I would drop everything to read was Murray Leinster (aka, William Fitzgerald Jenkins). Leinster wrote consistently excellent SF stories and novels.

One of Leinster’s series, the Med Series, captured my interest early on. The Med Series consisted of four books: 1 The Mutant Weapon (1959)
2 This World Is Taboo (1961)
3 Doctor to the Stars (1964)
4 S.O.S. from Three Worlds (1966)

I could have picked any of these wonderful books, but Doctor to the Stars made a big impression on me back in 1964 as a 15-year-old reading addict. For a while, I thought about becoming a doctor. These stories revolve around Calhoun, a stellar adventurer, troubleshooter, and physician.

If you’re in the mood for galactic problem solving with a medical twist, you’ll enjoy these interstellar exploits. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

The Grandfather’s War — 7

Med Ship Man — 75

Tallien Three — 120

Maybe Happy Ending is based on  an original South Korean one-act musical with music composed by Will Aronson and lyrics written by Hue Park, and book written by both Aronson and Park.

The Broadway musical version Diane, Katie, and I saw follows two android helper-bots, Oliver and Claire, who discover each other in a Seoul warehouse for “retired” robots.

Oliver is a Model 3 who misses his owner, James, desperately. Claire is a Model 5 who knows more about the situation than Oliver does. The two helper-bots develop a connection when Claire’s charger and battery run low. Oliver, resistant at first, decides to help Claire. But Oliver’s Wi-Fi chip fails and no replacement parts are being produced to extend “retired” robots’ lives.

Oliver and Claire then have to deal with challenges that test what they believe is possible for themselves, their relationship…and love. Maybe Happy Ending has humor and profundity along with two brilliant actors: Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll think differently about Artificial Intelligence. GRADE: A

Tom Holt (aka, K. J. Parker) works the same side of the magical comedy street that Terry Pratchett did. Several cases at the commercial sorcerers firm of Dawson, Ahriman, and Dawson converge as a deadly asteroid is heading for the Earth in an Extinction Event when it hits.

“When Mr. Teasdale was a young junior trainee at JWW, one of the first jobs he’d been given was tidying up the firms main archive and storage area, generally referred to by the partners as the Abyss and the junior staff as the Caves of Khazard-Dum…. The Abyss certainly provided him with [challenges] but he survived, his left arm grew back eventually and he learned several valuable lessons about self-reliance, ingenuity, and never turning your back on a thermal binder.” (p. 20-21)

Mr. Teasdale has a good heart and is willing to help clients who can’t pay the high rates at Dawson, Ahriman, and Dawson for free. But, Teasdale has a conniving ex-wife named Consuela who works for a rival firm but always has her own ambitious agenda. Despite the imminent Apocalypse, Consuela tricks Mr. Teasdale into revealing a potential magical discovery that would give her a magical university professorship.

“Mr. Dawson was a man of many talents. He could turn water into Chablis and policemen into terrapins. He could wind back the clock, transmute base metal into government bonds, summon spirits form the vasty deep, pull a rabbit out of a hat, conjure up tempests, raise the dead, restore lost youth and adjust the fabric of reality so that his Rolls Royce River Ghost counted as an agricultural vehicle for tax purposes.” (p. 148-149)

Along with Dawson, Mr. Sunshine, Gina, Tiamat the Destroyer, and the shape-shifting Tony Bateman and a cast of quirky characters propel the plot in various surprising directions.If you’re in the mood for some wacky Christmas fun, take a ride with the eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse! GRADE: B+

The 9-2 Buffalo Bills are coming off their Bye Week to take on the visiting 5-6 San Francisco 49ers. The Bills are 7-point favorites.

THE SKINNY is Jim Gaffigan’s 11th stand-up special. The 60-minute TV special begins with Gaffigan making fun of his losing weight…with the help of Mounjaro. Gaffigan then moves on to his problems with being a parent and the confrontations with teenage angst. My favorite routine was Gaffigan’s story of how he and his family acquired a dog during the Pandemic despite his wife’s allergy to dogs.

Diane loves Jim Gaffigan’s humor. I’m a bit more reserved. I find Gaffigan mildly entertaining. His sardonic wit is okay in small doses. You might enjoy this new comedy special if you have HULU. GRADE: B

Alan Grofield is career criminal and professional thief. But he yearns for a career in theater. While Grofield is handsome and charming, his main passion–life on the Stage–remains elusive. Hence, Grofield’s involvement with professional thief, Parker. Grofield owns a summer stock company based in Mead Grove, Indiana which struggles to survive. He takes part in heists to get the money to keep his theatre company running,.

During the events of The Score, Grofield met his future wife and acting partner, Mary Deegan–a hostage taken during the heist in that novel. Surprisingly, Deegan insists on staying with Grofield after the heist. In Lemons Never Lie, Deegan helps Grofield run his summer stock theater and even stars as his leading lady.

Grofield appeared in eight out of twenty-eight Richard Stark novels–I’ve read them all. In Lemons Never Lie, Grofield is working at his own small theater and talking to Mary Deegan about plays they might put on and the actors they might recruit…if they had the money. That’s why Grofield considers a caper when Andrew Myers presents a plan to knock over a brewery. Grofield considers this heist unworkable and walks out on Meyers. This triggers a cascade of violence and retribution.  

Lemons Never Lie is a much darker novel than The Damsel, The Dame, and The Blackbird. But I consider Lemons Never Lie the best of the Alan Grofield books. Don’t miss it in this wonderful new Hard Case Crime edition! GRADE: A

I was surprised to learn in Peter Tremayne’s Introduction that Sister Fidelma made her initial appearance in short stories in 1993. The novels came later.

Tremayne’s Sister Fidelma mysteries are set in the Seventh Century, mostly between 664 and 666 A.D. Sister Fidelma is a member of the Celtic Church (who has conflicts with Rome over theology and rituals) and a dalaigh— an advocate of the law Cours of Ireland. Women could be equal with men in the legal profession of that time.

Sister Fidelma has a talent for investigation and these short stories display her rare ability to solve puzzling crimes. In the title story, “Hemlock at Vespers,” Sister Fidelma probes the death of a man connected to gold mines when he dies of hemlock poisoning.

I also enjoyed “The High King’s Sword” which challenges Sister Fidelma’s skill at solving problems. Politics plays a key role in the theft of the sacred sword.

If you’re a fan of Middle Ages (although these stories are more accurately placed in the Dark Ages) mysteries, I highly recommend Hemlock at Vespers. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction — ix

Hemlock at Vespers — 1

The high king’s sword — 35

Murder in repose — 69

Murder by miracle — 97

A canticle for Wulfstan — 127

Abbey Sinister — 167

The poisoned chalice — 203