In his informative Introduction, Francis M. Nevins traces the genesis of Captain Leopold, Homicide, from a solver of crimes to a detective who can see through deceptions and lies to discern the true puzzle hidden by the criminal. In “Circus,” the first Captain Leopold story, a 10-year-old boy is found dead, strangled by a rope. There’s pressure to solve the case quickly, but Leopold uses his unique method to discover the truth.

Nevins makes the point that Edward D. Hoch based Leopold on Simenon’s Maigret, a detective of insights. In fact, in a later story, readers find out that Captain Leopold’s first name is Jules–just like Maigret! This aspect comes into play in “A Place for Bleeding,” where a 15-year-old girl is kidnapped and her chauffeur is murdered. Only Captain Leopold figures out why there are TWO ransom notes.

I also enjoyed “Death in the Harbor” which is a homage to Agatha Christie. I’ve been reading a lot of Edward D. Hoch lately. His skill as a short story writer is on display in Leopold’s Way. Wonderful stories, such a delight to read! GRADE: A

Table of Contents:

Introduction — Francis M. Nevins
Circus,
Death in the Harbor,
A Place for Bleeding,
Reunion,
The House by the Ferris,
The Oblong Room,
The Vanishing of Velma,
The Rainy-Day Bandit,
The Athanasia League,
End of the Day,
Christmas Is for Cops,
The Jersey Devil,
The Leopold Locked Room,
A Melee of Diamonds,
Captain Leopold Plays a Hunch,
Captain Leopold and the Ghost-Killer,
Captain Leopold Goes Home,
No Crime for Captain Leopold,
The Most Dangerous Man Alive,
A Captain Leopold Checklist Francis M. Nevins, Jr.,

Black Magic Woman is the first book in the Quincy Morris Supernatural Investigation series. The book opens with a violent confrontation with a group of vampires. Then, Quincy Morris is hired by a family whose house is under Black Magic attack in Madison, Wisconsin.

Morris and his partner, White Witch Libby Chastain, manage to ward the house against the attacks. But to stop the evil happenings, Morris and Chastain need to track down the person who unleashed the deadly curse on the family.

The investigation leads Morris and Chastain to Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York. A bigger plot with sinister implications changes the whole focus of the mission. I’m also fond of the cover artwork on these books by Chris McGrath. If you’re a fan of Urban Fantasy, Black Magic Woman will entertain you. GRADE: B-

QUINCY MORRIS & LIBBY CHASTAIN INVESTIGATIONS:

   1. Black Magic Woman (2008)
   2. Evil Ways (2008)
   3. Sympathy for the Devil (2009)
   4. Play With Fire (2012)
   5. Midnight At The Oasis (2013)
   6. Strange Magic (2015)
   Play with Fire / Midnight at the Oasis (2013)

The Buffalo Bills are off today because of they squeaker of a win on Thursday Night Football, 24-18, over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bills have many injured players and need a little rest. How will your favorite NFL team do today?

With Halloween around the corner, I thought a moody, ambient CD like Coldplay’s Ghost Stories would fit with the season.

Ghost Stories is the sixth studio album by British rock band Coldplay. Co-produced by the band with Paul Epworth along with returning Mylo Xyloto producers Dan Green and Rik Simpson, it was released by Parlophone on May 2014. The album was recorded by the band throughout 2013 and 2014 at the band’s purpose-built home studios in London, England, and in Los Angeles. It features guest producers Avicii, Timbaland and Madeon, and the band’s frequent collaborator Jon Hopkins. The album was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 57th Grammy Awards and named Top Rock Album at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards.

Several media outlets claimed that Chris Martin had said that Ghost Stories was inspired by his split with his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, in 2014. Are you a fan of Coldplay’s music? Are you fan of ghosts? GRADE: B+

TRACK LIST:

		Ghost Stories CD
CD-1		Always In My Head	3:37
CD-2		Magic	4:45
CD-3		Ink	3:48
CD-4		True Love Arranged By [Individual Arrangement], Strings – Davide RossiDrums [Extra] – Timbaland	4:06
CD-5		Midnight Co-producer – Jon Hopkins	4:55
CD-6		Another’s Arms	3:54
CD-7		Oceans Mixed By – Daniel Green*, Rik Simpson	5:22
CD-8		A Sky Full Of Stars Written-By, Co-producer – Tim Bergling	4:28

My favorite story in Murder for Halloween (1994) is Edward D. Hoch’s clever Nick Velvet heist, “The Theft of the Halloween Pumpkin.” Nick Velvet only steals worthless items so when a woman wants to hire him to steal a Halloween pumpkin, Velvet accepts. Only later does Velvet learn that sometimes a Halloween pumpkin can be more than a pumpkin.

I also enjoyed Ellery Queen’s “The Adventure of the Dead Cat” where a game at a Halloween Party turns deadly. Steven Saylor, who specializes in crime-solving in the Roman Empire, delivers “The Lemures,” a story about lemures (aka, the unquiet dead) and murderous deception.

It was fun to reread Robert Bloch’s “The Cloak,” a story he wrote back in 1939. Vampires are involved. Gahan Wilson, best known for his cartoons, made me laugh with “Yesterday’s Witch,” with a witch named Miss Marbles (a sly nod to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple).

Murder for Halloween offers a variety of stories with various settings and characters. If you’re in the mood for Halloween stories with an edge, Murder for Halloween certainly provides some memorial tales! GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

PREFACE — xiii

Monsters / Ed McBain — 1

The lemures / Steven Saylor — 9

The adventure of the dead cat / Ellery Queen — 43

The odstock curse / Peter Lovesey — 65

The theft of the Halloween pumpkin / Edward D. Hoch — 81

Hallowe’en for Mr. Faulkner / August Derleth — 99

Deceptions / Marcia Muller — 111

The black cat / Edgar Allan Poe — 135

Omjagod / James Grady — 147

The cloak / Robert Bloch — 173

What a woman wants / Michael Z. Lewin — 191

Yesterday’s witch / Gahan Wilson — 211

Walpurgis night / Bram Stoker — 221

Trick or treat / Judith Garner — 237

One night at a time / Dorothy Cannell — 243

Night of the goblin / Talmage Powell — 267

Trick-or-treat / Anthony Boucher — 279

Pork pie hat / Peter Straub — 297

ABOUT THE EDITORS — 363

After the 29-25 loss to the New England Patriots, the Bills now face a much better team on Thursday Night Football. Despite the loss at Foxboro, Vegas has the Buffalo Bills as an 8 1/2 point favorite over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After playing three terrible games in a row, this is Make-It-Or-Break-It time for the Bills in their Playoff quest. Go Bills!

Paula Guran’s 2012 anthology, Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful, provides a broad survey of stories involving women with magical powers. One of my favorite stories is Tanith Lee’s “Mirage and Magia” where a powerful witch uses her powers to steal the sight and thoughts of young men in her domain.

Neil Gaiman’s “The Witch’s Headstone”–a short story that Gaiman later included as a chapter in his The Graveyard Book–opens new depths to witchery. Madeleine L’Engle–best known for her classic A Wrinkle in Time–delivers a powerful story about a young boy who discovers a witch living in his neighborhood, but only he knows she’s there. “Skin Deep” by Richard Parks explores witchcraft and love.

If you’re looking for an entertaining anthology of stories to get you into the Halloween spirit, give Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful a try! GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction / Paula Guran — 7

Walpurgis afternoon / Delia Sherman — 11

Nightside / Mercedes Lackey — 34

The cold blacksmith / Elizabeth Bear — 50

Basement magic / Ellen Klages — 59

Mirage and magia / Tanith Lee — 85

Lessons with Miss Gray / Theodora Goss — 101

The world is cruel, my daughter / Cory Skerry — 127

Ill met in Ulthar / T.A. Pratt — 138

The witch’s headstone / Neil Gaiman — 157

Boris Chernevsky’s hands / Jane Yolen — 180

Bloodlines / Silvia Moreno-Garcia — 188

The way wind / Andre Norton — 199

Poor little Saturday / Madeleine L’Engle — 227

The only way to fly / Nancy Holder — 242

Skin deep / Richard Parks — 248

The robbery / Cynthia Ward — 270

Marlboros and magic / Linda Robertson — 276

Magic carpets / Leslie What — 294

The ground whereon she stands / Leah Bobet — 307

Afterward / Don Webb — 320

April in Paris / Ursula K. Le Guin — 328

The goosle / Margo Lanagan — 339

Catskin / Kelly Link — 352

About the Authors & Acknowledgements — 376

Diane and I enjoyed watching Frasier during the 1990s. Although the series lasted until 2004, the Millennial Frasier episodes were NOT “Must See TV.” Now, nearly 20 years later, Kelsey Grammer reprises his role as Frasier Crane and returns to Boston to accept a professorship at Harvard University. One Big Difference between the old Frasier and this new Frasier is the absence of David Hyde Pierce as Frasier’s brother, Niles.

After watching the two episodes shown on CBS (now the series shifts to Paramount+), you have to wonder if you can really go home again after decades in Seattle. One of Frasier’s motives for returning to Boston is to develop a better relationship with his son, Frederick. One of the several areas of conflict between Frasier and Frederick is that Frederick dropped out of Harvard…to become a fire fighter. The elite mentality of Frasier finds this move incomprehensible…and idiotic.

But, in order to establish closeness with his son, Frasier buys the apartment building Frederick lives in…and moves into the apartment across the hall from his son’s apartment. This promises to be a flashpoint for the series.

Will this new iteration of Frasier draw enough of an audience to survive? Do today’s streaming audiences want to see a 1990s format sitcom? We’ll see. Were you a fan of Frasier? GRADE: Incomplete (but trending towards a B)

I loved Airplane! when I first saw it in 1980! It was silly and snarky and uproariously funny. I have watched Airplane! several times over the decades and it still makes me laugh.

The film directors, David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, who brought Airplane to the silver screen, deliver an uproarious account of the making of their ground-breaking film, which, in the words of Abrahams, elevated “stupidity to an art form.”

This clever book, like Airplane! and many other ZAZ productions, is multilayered and full of surprises. The authors tell how they created the sketch comedy group Kentucky Fried Theater in Wisconsin before moving the operation to Los Angeles and gaining a wide following. They also write about their beginnings in filmmaking, including their relationship with director John Landis.

Surely You Can’t Be Serious features numerous photographs, stills from Airplane!, published reviews, and comments from David Letterman, the creators of South Park, and other comedians and actors who react to the massive significance of Airplane!  I forgot about the role the strait-laced and largely forgotten airline drama Zero Hour! had on the structure and spoofs of  Airplane! 

Even more astounding was how the young, virtually unknown trio of would-be directors and screenwriters convinced actors like Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and Lloyd Bridges to keep playing it straight while uttering their ridiculous lines. The authors recount tales of their adventures with Paramount Studios, how Airplane! changed the public perception of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the lasting fondness for the film’s stars, particularly their longtime colleague Stephen Stucker.

I really appreciated the detailed backstory of ZAZ’s journey from Milwaukee to Hollywood and the process of getting Airplane! to Paramount and in theaters despite many problems. If you’re a fan of Airplane! you’ll enjoy the backstory of how the iconic movie got made. Highly recommended! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION — 1

The premiere — 3

“Get me Rex Kramer!” — 5

Kentucky Fried Theater — 18

Bob and Julie — 36

Madison — 50

Leslie. — 58

Dial-A-Fart — 66

Hollywood — 76

Stucker — 90

The Tonight Show — 112

Zero Hour! — 123

Landis — 132

Kentucky Fried Movie — 148

Beaver’s Mom — 158

The movie business — 169

Back to the drawing board — 178

The studios — 190

Michael Eisner — 198

Paramount — 213

Howard — 238

Kareem — 246

Culver City Studios — 259

There are no rules — 283

Postproduction — 303

Success at last — 321

EPILOGUE — 338

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS — 344