
HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2024!

Murder Most Delectable: Savory Tales of Culinary Crimes from 2000 features several clever murders involving food. No anthology on this topic would be complete without a Nero Wolfe story and sure enough, Martin H. Greenberg includes “Poison a la Carte” by Rex Stout. A producer of Broadway plays is murdered at the annual dinner of the Ten for Aristology and Wolfe has to determine which of the dozen beautiful girls who served the food fed arsenic to one of the members.
I also enjoyed “Gored” by Bill Crider where Sheriff Dan Rhodes is confronted by a murder at a Texas BBQ. Edward D. Hoch plays with memory in a boy who doesn’t realize until years later he knows who committed a murder in “Day for a Picnic.” Also clever and funny, Barbara Collins’ “Dead and Breakfast” features a B&B where murder is on the menu.
If you’re looking for an entertaining anthology of murder mysteries and food–and every story includes a recipe!–Murder Most Delectable might just satisfy your hunger. GRADE: B
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction / John Helfers — vii
The last bottle in the world / Stanley Ellin — 1
Takeout / Joyce Christmas — 23
The case of the shaggy caps / Ruth Rendell — 39
The cassoulet / Walter Satterthwait — 67
Tea for two / M.D. Lake — 81
The second-oldest profession / Linda Grant — 91
Connoisseur / Bill Pronzini — 105
Gored / Bill Crider — 115
Day for a picnic / Edward D. Hoch — 131
Guardian angel / Caroline Benton — 143
The main event / Peter Crowther — 151
The deadly egg / Janwillem van de Wetering — 163
Dead and breakfast / Barbara Collins — 181
Recipe for a happy marriage / Nedra Tyre — 197
Death cup / Joyce Carol Oates — 215
Poison peach / Gillian Linscott — 245
Of course you know that chocolate is a vegetable / Barbara D’Amato — 265
Poison à la carte / Rex Stout — 277
Authors’ Biographies — 333
Copyrights and Permissions — 339
I’ll watch anything with Kate Beckinsale in it no matter how silly. Beckinsale plays CIA agent Avery Graves who has John Wick-type moves and is handy with a number of weapons.
Here’s how The Guardian views Canary Black:
Unaware he’s married to a spy, Beckinsale’s husband is kidnapped – cue the baddies demanding a secret file, fancy action sequences, lots of gunshots and a nice trenchcoat.
Pierre Morel, who oversaw the making of the first Taken film–the action thriller where a former CIA agent, Liam Neeson, pursues Bad Guys who kidnap his teenage daughter–is Director of this movie with the same motif.
Car chases, shootouts, fist-fights, and a great deal of mayhem result when Avery searches for her kidnapped husband David (Rupert Friend) and is required to steal a super secret computer file called “Canary Black” in order to satisfy the kidnappers.
No deep messages, no platitudes, no subtlety…just a fun action movie. GRADE: B
Charlemagne Tha God (aka, Lenard Larry McKelvey), cohost of iHeart Radio’s The Breakfast Club and cohost of the podcast The Brilliant Idiots, uses Get Honest or Die Lying to rant about the dangers of Small Talk. Charlemagne hates small talk which he defines as “a symbol of our lack of authentic communication. Both as individuals and collectively.”
Charlemagne finds most people waste much of their lives engaged in “Blah, Blah, Blah” conversations with no real meaning. And marinated in those small talk conversations are rumors, Fake News, exaggerations, recriminations, snide remarks, and outright lies.
Meaningful conversations today seem to be a rarity. Charlemagne provides dozens of examples of false claims in political conversations–both conservative and liberal. Our culture accepts lies as “normal” and inflated claims–both Good and Bad–as just the way business and commerce is conducted today.
Charlemagne concludes his book with a desperate entreaty: “Now I want to encourage you to make rejecting small talk a priority in your life,” he pleads, “because small talk is killing us as a society.” How do you feel about small talk? GRADE: B
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction: no more small talk —xi
Small talk to you nice — 1
Put some respek on the tortoise — 9
The pursuit of ignorance — 15
Father time — 23
Evolutionary revolutionary — 29
DEI (not that one) –37
The language of politics is dead — 45
Self-destruction– 51
Tree-hug the block — 57
Astronaut kids, featuring Elliott Connie — 65
Funny or die — 71
The lying game — 77
World wide nigga net — 83
Listen to the elders, bro — 91
Small minds — 101
Death of a nation, featuring Aaron McGruder — 107
Talkin’ loud and sayin’ somethin’ — 119
Same-day service — 127
Ego strength — 135
Headlines — 143
The point! — 151
I hear dead people — 159
Small town, small talk — 167
The gossip files — 175
Time 4 sum aksion — 181
Imposterism — 187
Echo — 197
True intentions — 205
The blessed don’t beef with the miserable — 209
Acknowledgments — 215
The 5-2 Buffalo Bills travel to the West Coast to take on the 4-3 Seattle Seahawks who sit atop the NFC West. The Bills are 3 point favorites, but I see this as a very very close game. How will your favorite NFL team perform today?
If you put Agatha Christie and Lee Child’s Make Me in a blender, you’d get Catherine Steadman’s Look In the Mirror. In alternating chapters, we follow three women on a harrowing experience complete with danger and deadly puzzles.
Nina Hepworth is grieving the death of her father, a brilliant but enigmatic professor, when she receives a letter from a legal firm informing her of a property her father has left her: a 3-bedroom Beachfront Estate in Pond Bay, Gorda, British Virgin Islands. Mystified because she knew nothing of her father’s activities in the Virgin Islands, Nina accepts the legal firm’s offer to fly her to tour the property.
Meanwhile, Maria, a Cornell Medical School dropout, has a contract to be a nanny for the super-rich. The money is better and the variety of exotic locations appeals to her. But as the days go by in the Virgin Island estate, Maria relaxes in the pool and the sauna waiting for the wealthy clients as her imperilment increases.
Lucinda, an executive type, is the linchpin of the story. She’s the beautiful, elegant contact between Nina and Maria who knows the perils that await them.
If you’re in the mood for a suspenseful, twisty, and mysterious novel with a nefarious plot featuring puzzles in the form of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, give Look In the Mirror a try. GRADE: B+
With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I’d feature one the best horror novels I’ve ever read. Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959), is certainly the most influential haunted house tale of all time. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and has been made into two feature films (The Haunting, directed by Robert Wise, and its remake), a play, and is the basis of a Netflix series.
Jackson sets up a scary situation when a group of four supernatural phenomena researchers stay at a haunted house. The reader is confronted with the question: do ghosts really exist? The researchers all perceive the haunted house in different ways with plenty of dread and horror.
In 2018, The New York Times polled 13 writers to choose the scariest book of fiction they have ever read, and Carmen Maria Machado and Neil Gaiman both chose The Haunting of Hill House. You can add me to that list! Are you a fan of Shirley Jackson? GRADE: A
Back in 1979, I moved back to Western NY from Madison, Wisconsin. I was about to start a new career as a college professor. Diane and I were looking at houses in the neighborhood we wanted to live in. The mortgage interest rates were 13% back then! And, I listened to a lot of songs on the radio as I was driving around from job to job.
Naturally, I heard The Cars’ “Let’s Go” many, many times. And Smokey Robinson’s “Cruising'” while I was cruising around North Tonawanda.
We’ve all been hearing “YMCA” at Trump rallies lately. And when I see Laura Loomer hanging out with Trump, Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” seems appropriate for the moment.
Back in 1979, Nicolette Larson’s “Lotta Love” received heavy airplay on our local radio stations. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: B
TRACK LIST:
1 | The Cars– | Let’s Go |
2 | Foreigner– | Dirty White Boy |
3 | Blondie– | One Way Or Another |
4 | Rickie Lee Jones– | Chuck E.’s In Love |
5 | Smokey Robinson– | Cruisin’ |
6 | The Doobie Brothers– | Minute By Minute |
7 | Raydio– | You Can’t Change That |
8 | Earth, Wind And Fire*– | After The Love Has Gone |
9 | The Knack (3)– | Good Girls Don’t |
10 | Peter Frampton– | I Can’t Stand It No More |
11 | Foreigner– | Head Games |
12 | The Babys– | Every Time I Think Of You |
13 | Hot Chocolate– | Every 1’s A Winner |
14 | Ashford And Simpson*– | Found A Cure |
15 | Bell And James*– | Livin’ It Up (Friday Night) |
16 | Peaches And Herb*– | Shake Your Groove Thing |
17 | The Village People*– | Y.M.C.A. |
18 | Joe Jackson– | Is She Really Going Out With Him? |
19 | Bonnie Pointer– | Heaven Must Have Sent You |
20 | Nicolette Larson– | Lotta Love |
Murder Most Feline: Cunning Tales of Cats and Crime is another volume in Martin H. Greenberg’s Murder Most … series. This time, Greenberg is assisted by Ed Gorman and Larry Segriff.
My favorite story in Murder Most Feline is Bill Crider’s clever “It’s In the Bag.” During a trial, a cat in a bag becomes a key element in solving the crime. I also enjoyed Parnell Hall’s “The Witness Cat” where a murder gets resolved with the aid of a kitty.
As with the other Murder Most… volumes, Greenberg and company present a variety of stories, some serious, some funny, but all featuring a cat in a pivotal role in the solving of a crime. If you like mysteries and cats, Murder Most Feline is the cat’s meow! Are you a cat person? GRADE: B
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction — vii
The witness cat / Parnell Hall — 3
Justice knows no paws / Jon L. Breen — 23
It’s in the bag / Bill Crider — 35
Animal sounds / Dulcy Brainard — 49
Blue eyes / Janet Dawson — 65
Cat, the jury / Catherine Dain — 79
The memory pool / Tracy Knight — 91
The lawlessness west of the Pecos / Jan Grape — 105
Catnip / Dick Lochte — 123
Hoskin’s cat / Shirley Rousseau Murphy — 147
Missing the cat / Mat Coward — 159
Prints / Ann Barrett — 171
Mr. Biggles for the defense / Matthew J. Costello — 185
Family ties / Richard Chizmar and Barry Hoffman — 197
For the benefit of Bootsy / Jeremiah Healy — 207
In the lowlands / Gary A. Braunbeck — 221
Author Biographies — 245
Copyrights — 248
Diane and I took our 14-year-old Oreck vacuum cleaner for its annual maintenance checkup at Supervacuums in Hamburg, NY. The young technician looked at our Oreck and said, “I could give you a $150 rebate for your Oreck if you buy a new Riccar SupraLite Standard Lightweight Vacuum (R10S).”
Diane and I tried out the Riccar R10S in the store and liked it. So we traded our old Oreck for a new Riccar. Diane, who does most of the vacuuming, tested it in our living room and liked its maneuverability and suction. So far, so good. How do you like your vacuum cleaner?