Today’s NFL Division games feature four teams that could make it to the Super Bowl. Last year, the Cincinnati Bengals did make it to the Super Bowl…and almost won it! The 49ers may have the best defense in the NFL and certainly the rookie phenom, Brock Purdy…who is everything to San Francisco’s chances to going to the Big Dance. But, don’t count the Cowboys out!

The Buffalo Bills are 4-point favorites, but on some betting sites, the line has moved to 5 1/2 points. The Bengals have an injured Offensive Line while the Bills have an injured Secondary.

The 49ers have won the last two meetings with the Cowboys and are favored by 4 points. I’m expecting two close games. Who do you think will win?

The Kansas City Chiefs, after getting a week off to rest, face the Jacksonville Jaguars who pulled off an incredible come-back after being being over 20 points behind the LA Chargers. The Chiefs are 8 1/2 point favorites…but better be careful!

The Philadelphia Eagles have also been resting, but face a familiar rival in the NY Giants. This is the third time these two teams meet this season. The Eagles are 7 1/2 point favorites. Can the Giants pull off another upset like they one they achieved last week over the Minnesota Vikings? Who do you think will win these games?

I’ve read over a dozen Hugh Pentecost (aka, Judson Philips) mysteries and have at least a dozen more of his books sitting on my shelves waiting to be read.

Since I am an Uncle George to my nephews and nieces, I though I might try one of Pentecost’s Uncle George series.

Retired lawyer-philosopher George Crowder was a brilliant prosecutor who made a disastrous mistake that caused him to leave the legal profession and become a recluse.

But death of a wealthy local woman–killed by someone driving over her body…twice–lures Crowder out of his New England cabin to investigate. Another death soon follows: the prime suspect–the woman’s husband. Then Uncle George’s beloved twelve-year-old nephew Joey disappears.

George joins the search for Joey, but knows the boy is being held hostage by a suspect who wouldn’t hesitate to kill the boy. If you’re looking for a twisty mystery with plenty of old fashioned suspense, check out Choice of Violence. Have you read any of Hugh Pentecost’s mysteries? GRADE: B

Uncle George Series:

Choice of Violence (1962)
Around Dark Corners (1970)
The Copycat Killers (1983)
The Price of Silence (1984)
Murder Sweet and Sour (1985)
Death By Fire (1986)
Pattern for Terror (1990)

What a difference 17 years makes! A decade is an eternity in the Music Industry and what was hot in 1960 was pretty much forgotten by 1977. When 1977 rolled around, the Disco Era made in-roads on the BILLBOARD charts.

While Roy Orbison made the 1960 compilation, he only shows up as co-writer of Linda Ronstadt’s hit “Blue Bayou.”

New Orleans gets plenty of love from “Walking to New Orleans” by Fats Domino and “New Orleans” by Gary “U.S.” Bonds.

Styles in popular music come and go. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: B (for both)

TRACK LIST:

Mike Resnick launches preacher, explorer, and con man Lucifer Jones on adventures where he crosses paths with dragons, drug lords, white slavers, gamblers, ghouls, assorted magical creatures, and beautiful movie stars. Put Indian Jones in a blender with Hunter S. Thompson and you’ll get the Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones.

Mike Resnick’s accomplishments include 64 novels, 21 short story collections, 40 anthologies, two screenplays, and approximately 250 short stories-resulting in a couple of shelves of major awards (including five Hugos from 35 nominations).

The blurb on Lucifer Jones says it all: “Being a Thrilling Chronicle of Romance, Danger, Spectacle, High Adventure, Narrow Escapes, and Uplifting Triumphs Over Sinister Villains and Mystic Mages in the Exotic Continent of the East, as Recounted by the Bold, Daring, Handsome and Modest Christian Gentleman Who Experienced Them.”

If you’re in the mood for some wacky, funny, bizarre, and slap-stick adventures, this is the book for you! GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

PART I: EXPLOITS (1926-1931)

• The Master Detective — 3
• The Sin City Derby — 20
• The Insidious Oriental Dentist — 39
• The Great Wall — 55
• The Abominable Snowman — 71
• The Land of Eternal Youth — 83
• Secret Sex — 96
• The Flame of Bharatpur — 111
• The Scorpion Lady — 126
• The Other Master Detective — 141

PART II: ENCOUNTERS (1931-1934)

• The Home-Made Man — 157
• Doubled and Redoubled — 172
• Treasure Hunting — 190
• The Lost Continent — 204
• Exercising Ghosts — 219
• The Werewolf — 231
• The Clubfoot of Notre Dame — 242
• The Crown Jewels — 257
• The Loch Ness Monster — 275
• A Tabernacle Is Not a Home — 286
• Death in the Afternoon — 297

Slow Horses, Season Two is even better than Slow Horses, Season One which made my list of FAVORITE TV SHOWS OF 2022. Based on Mick Herron’s Dead Lions, this six-episode series on Apple TV+ features the brilliant Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, the head of a team of dysfunctional MI5 agents at Slough House. But when a Cold War retired agent is killed, Lamb investigates and finds a complicated plot of Russian sleeper spies.

Rotten Tomatoes rates Slow Horses, Season Two at a 100% on the Critics Tomatometer, 95% on the Audience score. This series received the Green Light for Seasons Three and Four. And, if you’re a spy fan, this series about a group of spies who screwed-up and are now exiled in a dead-end division of MI5 lead by a boss who looks like a vagrant, offers something unique and special. And, this TV version actually enhances Mick Herron’s books. GRADE: A

My favorite chapter in Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation is “The Outfit” (1973). Tarantino writes about how his obsession with movies began as a 6-year-old kid when his mother used to take him to see films on a weekly basis in “Little Q Watching Big Movies.”

The Outfit, based on a “Richard Stark” (aka, Donald E. Westlake) caper novel, follows the professional thief who takes on criminal syndicate. John Flynn directed The Outfit, starring Robert DuVall as Macklin (aka, “Parker”), Karen Black as Bett, and Joe Don Baker as Cody.

Tarantino prefaces his review of The Outfit with an analysis of the Parker series of caper novels and the movies based on them. Tarantino disagrees that Lee Marvin is the quintessential Parker in Point Blank. He doesn’t like the Mel Gibson remake, either.

Tarantino considers the best movie Parker as Robert De Niro as “Neil McCauley” in Michael Mann’s Heat. But, he doesn’t like the conclusion of Heat.

Whether you like Quentin Tarantino and/or his movies or not, reading Tarantino’s opinions on many classic movies provides insights and acute observations. If you’re a movie fan, there’s plenty here to delight you! I hope Tarantino is working on a sequel. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Little Q watching big movies — 1

Bullitt (1968) –31

Dirty Harry (1971) — 47

Deliverance (1972) — 69

)The Getaway (1972) — 89

The Outfit (1973) — 117

Second-String Samurai: an appreciation of Kevin Thomas — 137

New Hollywood in the seventies: the post-sixties anti-establishment auteurs vs. the movie brats — 159

Sisters (1973) — 177

Daisy Miller (1974) — 199

Taxi Driver (1976) — 211

Cinema speculation: What if Brian De Palma directed Taxi Driver instead of Martin Scorsese? — 235

Rolling Thunder (1977) — 247

Paradise Alley (1978) — 273

Escape from Alcatraz (1979) –299

Hardcore (1979) — 313

The Funhouse (1981) — 331

*Floyd Footnote — 351

INDEX — 373

No Tua who still is in Concussion Protocol after his third concussion this season. The weather, around 32 degrees, should be rather benign for mid-January: sunny with little wind. The Bills are 13-point favorites.

When Brian Daboll, former Offensive Coordinator of the Buffalo Bills, was named the NY Giants’s new Head Coach, I told Jeff Meyerson to expect improvement in the team. I did not expect Daboll to take the Giants to their first Playoff game since 2016! The Vikings are 3-point favorites, but I’m rooting for the Giants!

No Lamar, who stills suffers from a knee injury–and no contract–so the Ravens will take on the Bengals and hope their defense can cause an upset. The Bengals are favored by 8 1/2 points. Many Bills fans expect the Bengals to show up here next weekend! Who do you think will win these games?

Wild Card Weekend is aways fun with the prospects of upsets and surprises! The Seahawks managed to squeak into the Playoffs when the mighty Lions defeated the Packers on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field a week ago. But, the Seahawks are 10-point underdogs to the 49ers.

In what might be the closest matchup of the Wildcard Weekend, the Chargers are 1 1/2 point favorites over the surging Jaguars. Who do you think will win these games?

I’m a big fan of the British Library/Poisoned Pen Press British Library. Crime Classics series. One reason I’m fond of this series is Martin Edwards’s wonderful Introductions that illuminate the authors of these vintage books.

Murder After Christmas was published in 1944 by an obscure writer. The author then died and Murder After Christmas remained out-of-print for over 75 years.

“Rupert Latimore” was the pseudonym of Algernon Victor Mills (1905-1953). According to Martin Edwards, Latimore and his family, while on a trip to France, ate tainted strawberries and contracted typhoid fever. Latimore survived, but his elder sister and their nurse both died. As a result of the typhoid, Latimore was lame and suffered from epilepsy for the rest of his life.

Latimore had success with Death in Real Life which resulted in his writing Murder After Christmas. But after that book was published, Litimore was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died in 1953.

Murder After Christmas centers around a young couple, Frank and Rhoda Redpath, who invite Rhoda’s stepfather, rich old Uncle Willie, to spend Christmas with them. Usually Uncle Willie spent his winters in Italy, but “the current European unpleasantness” (aka, World War II) made that impossible.

Uncle Willie is worth more to his family dead than alive so it comes as no surprise that soon after he arrives at the Redpath home, he is found dead. Superintendent Culley and Chief Constable, Major Smythe, spend the rest of Murder After Christmas trying to figure out what happened.

If you’re in the mood for a tradition English murder mystery, don’t miss Murder After Christmas with all its hijinks! GRADE: B