Back in the 1990s I spent a lot of time with Patrick and Katie watching animated TV shows. One of the shows was X-Men: The Animated Series. Even at an early age, Katie–who was eight years old–questioned the title of the series: “Dad, if Jean Grey, Rogue, Jubilee, and Storm are women, how can they be called X-Men?” “Limited thinking on the part of the writers,” was my answer then. Today, you’d have to say: sexism.

Now on Disney+ there’s X-Men ’97, a retro animated television series created by Beau DeMayo based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the X-Men. It is a revival of X-Men: The Animated Series (1992–1997), continuing the story of the X-Men who face new challenges following the loss of their leader, Professor X.  By retro, I mean the style of animation, the storylines, and even some of the voices are the same as X-Men: The Animated Series. Looks the same, sounds the same.

X-Men ’97  has DeMayo as head writer for the first two seasons, followed by Matthew Chauncey for the third season, and Jake Castorena as supervising director. The quality control operates at a high rate insuring the new animated series looks just like the 1990s version.

I always enjoyed the various forms of The X-Men–animated series, comic books, movies–with the theme of Being Different Has Consequences. The mutants–most of them–try to work with humanity while many humans fear the mutants and want to exterminate them. In this rendition, Cyclops, Jean Grey, The Beast, Wolverine, Jubilee, Rogue, Gambit, and some surprise mutants battle against the forces who want to eliminate them. Unlike the 1990s series, some X-Men get killed in X-Men ’97. I’ve watched six of the 10 episodes. Just as much fun at watching this series 25 years ago! Are you a fan of the X-Men (and women)? GRADE: INCOMPLETE, but trending towards a B+

“Ideally every text should be read twice, first to know what is said, second to appreciate how it is said, and from there to obtain the full aesthetic enjoyment. The crime story is a limited but exacting model of a text that, once you have discovered who the killer is, invites you implicitly or explicitly to look back, either to understand how the author has led you to build up false ideas, or to decide that after all he hadn’t hidden anything, only that you had failed to observe with the keen eye of the detective.” Umberto Eco, Chronicles of a Liquid Society, p. 112

I took Umberto Eco’s advice and read The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) again, even when I knew “whodunnit.” I watched as Agatha Christie, in her first Poirot mystery, cleverly sends the reader–especially the First Time reader–down Rabbit Holes and encounters with Red Herrings.

Back in 1964, I binged on a couple dozen Agatha Christie mysteries. When I read The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Christie faked me out of my jockstrap! She had me so confused, that I had THREE suspects for the murder…and all were wrong! But after reading a dozen Christie mysteries, I started to see certain patterns and my Picking the Murderer Rate went up to about 60%. By the time I’d read my 24th Christie, I was batting 900!

Are you an Agatha Christie fan? Do you have a favorite Christie mystery? GRADE: A

“Pure Gold Hits” is a little bit strong, but I remember all these songs especially Sammy Johns’ “Chevy Van” (backed by The Wrecking Crew) which inspired a lot of fantasies back in 1973. This compilation includes classics like The Lovin’ Spooful’s “Summer in the City” and Linda Ronstadt’s “(Love is Like A) Heat Wave.” I’m also partial to Seals & Crofts’s “Summer Breeze,” which I wish we had right now with temps in the 80s!

Do you remember these songs? Do you have a favorite Summer song? And what do you think of Obama’s Summer Playlist 2024? GRADE: B

TRACK LIST:

1	The Doobie Brothers–	Black Water
2	The Rascals–	Groovin’
3	Tommy James & The Shondells–	Crystal Blue Persuasion
4	Seals & Crofts–	Summer Breeze
5	The Mamas And The Papas*–	California Dreamin’
6	Christopher Cross–	Sailing
7	America (2)–	Ventura Highway
8	War–	Summer
9	The Lovin’ Spoonful–	Summer In The City
10	Sammy Johns–	Chevy Van
11	Mungo Jerry–	In The Summertime
12	Linda Ronstadt–	(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave

Matthew Hughes first introduced Margolyam, a young sorceress with great potential, in Cascor (you can read my review here). Margolyam decides to attend The Institute of Hermetic Studies to become a thaumaturge and learn more magical spells. However, her professors discover that Margolyam has a rare ability: she’s a “Tome-tickler.” Margolyam can open ancient spell books that other thaumaturges couldn’t access. This creates problems for Margolyam when her enemies frame her.

Two of Margolyam’s professors at The Institute, Vinciano and Quist, approach her with a proposal: if she will accompany them to Olliphract–a city of thaumaturges, wizards, sorceresses, and magical beings–they will reward her with more lessons and magic spells. Margolyam accepts their offer and finds Olliphract a bizarre city completely surrounded by mountains. Vinciano and Quist begin their experiments with Margolyam’s powers, but they attract a cunning thaumaturge, Fatezh, who also wants to use Margolyam’s powers…for nefarious reasons.

Margolyam’s adventures include meeting Skyrie, a magician from the Past aeons. Skyrie created a magic artifact, The Hat, that can totally destroy Reality. Margolyam needs to find The Hat before other thaumaturges find it and annihilate everything.

Matthew Hughes has the gift of creating worlds where magic makes sense in the hands of quirky magicians and sorceresses, some Good and some Evil. The wild adventures his characters undertake are both thrilling and intense as they confront challenges and dire perils! Margolyam is an imaginative and heartfelt story of a young girl learning about the power and dangers of her talents. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword — vii

1. The Touch — 1
2. Nescience — 43
3. The Institute — 88
4. Olliphract — 135
5. The Hat — 172
6. The War — 201
7. Skyrie — 233
8. The Boyfriend — 271

Epilogue — 302

Acknowledgments — 307

Bibliography — 309

A Note from the Author — 311

Diane wanted to see Despicable Me 4 in June, but we came down with Covid-19 so that plan was put on hold. When Diane checked the AMC website, she found that Despicable Me 4 would soon be leaving after this week so she booked some tickets to the 2:45 P.M. showing yesterday. When we arrived at our local AMC Theater, there were plenty of cars. When we entered the theater (Number 4 of 8 theaters in this complex) it was almost full of parents with young kids.

For those of you not familiar with the Despicable Me franchise, it’s a series of animated films featuring a former Villian, Gru (voiced by Steve Carell). Gru is a grouchy, brilliant, and arrogant former supervillain, who now serves as a secret agent for the Anti-Villian-League (AVL) in order to fight other supervillains. In Despicable Me 4, Gru and his family are sent to a Safe House when Supervillain and Gru’s old high school rival, the coackroach-obsessed Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell) vows to steal Gru’s baby son.

There’s a lot of silliness in Despicable Me 4 but the audience we saw it with loved it. Plenty of laughter and giggling! I laughed a few times, too. GRADE: B-

Jon M. Chu is the Director of CRAZY RIGH ASIANS and Wicked. Viewfinder is Chu’s story of growing up in Silicon Valley and working in his parents restaurant. Chu’s childhood was full of wonder as his mother took him, his brothers and sisters, to movies and plays and musical events. All of that culture motivated Chu to want to make movies. And, Chu started early in high school where his teachers allowed students to turn in assignments and projects in written form…or in video form.

Chu encounters problems while working on his degree at USC and more trouble when he graduates. “But the collapse of Hollywood is one of the dislocations that have upset my world–and everybody else’s. The 2020s have seen the rise of forces that a lot of us never thought possible: the pandemic, broad social undress, threats directed tat Asian Americans. The more dangerous the country gets for us, the more I quest the belief in the place that I inherited from my parents. Is this still where we belong?” (p. 6-7)

Fortunately, Chu has some powerful connections to help him succeed. I was blown away at Chu’s encounter with Steven Spielberg. Chu not only gets a boost from his favorite Director, he learns important lessons by spending a day on set with Spielberg. “Just as he’d made me fall in love with movies when I was five years old, just as he’d reveal al that they could do–move people, bring them together, harness a power much bigger than any of us–he’d now show me the right way to make them. My teachers could lecture me, but they could really make me understand what it was like to direct a movie. Neither could my peers. Only another. director could do that. And in Spielberg, I had the best of all possible guides. He proved, in that instant, that you could make giant-scale movies with kindness, patience, joy. ” (p. 112-113)

Later, Chu meets one of his heroes, Steve Jobs, and comes away inspired at a time when he was struggling. Life is about struggle. But Chu’s story shows how one nerdy kid overcame his obstacles to become a successful movie maker. Inspiring story! GRADE: A

How is the state of your world?

It took me about 10 minutes of watching Episode 1 (of 6) of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder to recognize Emma Myers, who plays Pippa “Pip” Fitz-Arnobi (aka, Modern Nancy Drew)–the girl who delighted me in her former role as Enid Sinclair, a late-blooming werewolf and roommate of Wednesday Addams in another Netflix series (you can read my review here).

I was faked-out for 10 minutes because Emma Myers is an American actor playing a British nerdy teenager. But, once I got past that and Emma’s British accent, I was ready to plunge into the Netflix series. It’s based on A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, a Young Adult mystery novel by Holly Jackson. The novel is the first in a series of three novels and one novella: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (2019); Good Girl, Bad Blood (2020); As Good As Dead (2021); and Kill Joy (2022).

Five years after the murder of a well-liked, attractive 17-year-old girl, Andrea ‘Andie’ Bell, in the sleepy English town of Little Kilton, Buckinghamshire, Pip is determined to uncover the facts and find the real killer. Pip’s investigation, hampered by her high school commitments and college prep, includes the suspicious suicide of the perpetrator, Salil ‘Sal’ Singh. Pip enlists the assistance of Sal Singh’s brother, Ravi, to help crack the case.

I know I’m not the target teen audience for A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder but the characters involved me in Pip’s sometimes hapless investigation where she takes far too many risks. Pip is a Good Girl with a strong motivation to solve puzzles and find the truth. And the murder/suicide of two people she knew drives Pip to some extreme actions in the four episodes I’ve watched so far. I can’t wait to watch the other two! GRADE: INCOMPLETE, but trending towards a B+

 

I’ve been reading Bill Pronzini since 1971 when I picked up the first Nameless Detective novel, The Snatch, and loved it! Ten of the 26 stories in Cream of the Crop are Nameless Detective stories. At the beginning of the series–which grew to 41 novels, three collections, and several uncollected stories–the Nameless Detective was a pulp-magazine collector operating a one-man private investigator agency. Over time, the Nameless Detective series grew more complicated and thrilling to read from novel to novel!

I’m also a fan of the Carpenter & Quincannon Western series–9 novels and numerous stories–set in the 1890s. Pronzini collaborated with his talented wife, Marsha Muller, on these mysteries featuring a duo of detectives who solve some unique crimes.

The “Standalone” stories show Pronzini’s broad range of interests: impossible crimes, dark suspense, and puzzle stories. The common factor is all these stories are character-driven and compelling.

Bill Pronzini, one of the best mystery writers ever, personally chose all the stories in this collection. He did a great job! I’ve always admired Bill Pronzini’s craftsmanship. I admire him as a consummate professional writer whose long and successful career is epitomized in Cream of the Crop. Are you a Bill Pronzini fan? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

9 * Preface * 

Standalones 

13 * Opportunity * Bill Pronzini * ss * Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine December 1967

24 * Proof of Guilt * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 1973

33 * Sweet Fever * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 1976

38 * Smuggler’s Island * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 1976

53 * Under the Skin * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine October 1977

58 * Strangers in the Fog * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine June 1978

66 * A Craving for Originality * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 17 1979 

75 * Stacked Deck * Bill Pronzini * nv * The New Black Mask No.8  ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli & Richard Layman, HBJ, 1987

95 * Liar’s Dice * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine November 1992

102 * Out of the Depths  * Bill Pronzini *ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine September 1994

117 * Possibilities * Bill Pronzini * nv * The Strand Magazine #17, October 2005/January 2006

131 * The Cemetery Man * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 2013

139 * Hooch * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine June 2014

147 * Snap * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 2015

162 * Goodbye, Ms. Damico * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine January/February 2023171

 * Carpenter and Quincannon

173 * Gunpowder Alley * [John Quincannon & Sabina Carpenter] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 2012 

195 * Nameless Detective

197 * Thin Air [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine May 1979

214 * Cat’s-Paw [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * nv * Waves Press, 1983, chapbook

233 * Skeleton Rattle Your Mouldy Leg [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * nv * The Eyes Have It ed. Robert J. Randisi, Mysterious Press, 1984

256 * Incident in a Neighborhood Tavern [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * An Eye for Justice ed. Robert J. Randisi, The Mysterious Press, 1988

263 * Stakeout [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Justice for Hire ed. Robert J. Randisi, Mysterious Press, 1990

274 * Souls Burning [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * New Crimes 3 ed. Maxim Jakubowski, Robinson, 1991

281 * La Bellezza Delle Bellezze [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Invitation to Murder ed. Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg, Dark Harvest, 1991

305 * Home Is the Place Where [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine November 1995

313 * The Big Bite [Nameless Detective]  * Bill Pronzini * nv * Shots Winter 1999

326 *  Who You Been Grapplin’ With? [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 2014

339 * Bill Pronzini Bibliography (1943- ) * Bill Pronzini *

I’ve enjoyed CDs in the TIME-LIFE Body + Soul series and I pick them up whenever I run across them. Body + Soul: Love and Tenderness from 1998 includes–according to the cover–Twenty-four Sensual Grooves.

If I had to pick one of these songs as “sensual” I’d have to go with Major Harris’s “Love Won’t Let Me Wait” from 1974. Of course, Sylvia’s “Pillow Talk” from 1973 has its moments, too. Also included is an extended version of Barry White’s “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby.”

Although I wouldn’t categorize it as sensual, I like Grover Washington, Jr. and Bill Wither’s version of “Just the Two of Us.”

There’s plenty of variety on Body + Soul: Love and Tenderness. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: B+

TRACK LIST:

1	Barry White–	I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby	7:13
2	Larry Graham–	One In A Million You	4:12
3	Aretha Franklin–	Until You Come Back To Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)	3:28
4	Quincy Jones Featuring James Ingram–	One Hundred Ways	4:21
5	Regina Belle–	Baby Come To Me	4:14
6	Bobby Caldwell–	What You Won’t Do For Love	4:47
7	Force M.D.’s*–	Tender Love	3:56
8	Earth, Wind & Fire–	That’s The Way Of The World	5:46
9	Stacy Lattisaw–	Love On A Two Way Street	4:11
10	The Delfonics–	Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)	3:23
11	Dorothy Moore–	Misty Blue	3:42
12	The Spinners*–	Love Don’t Love Nobody – Pt. 1	7:13
13	Roger*–	I Want To Be Your Man	4:05
14	Shirley Murdock–	As We Lay	5:58
15	Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly–	Can’t Get Over You	4:42
16	Lionel Richie–	Truly	3:23
17	Blue Magic–	Sideshow	4:14
18	Major Harris–	Love Won’t Let Me Wait	5:32
19	Karyn White–	Superwoman	4:35
20	Atlantic Starr–	Always	4:03
21	GQ–	I Do Love You	4:48
22	The Stylistics–	You Are Everything	2:57
23	Sylvia*–	Pillow Talk	4:09
24	Grover Washington, Jr. And Bill Withers–	Just The Two Of Us	7:24

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