One of my favorite stories in Murder Is My Business is Max Allan Collins’s “Guest Service” featuring his well known killer, Quarry. Quarry has semi-retired and is working as a manager at a resort. Circumstances eventuate that bring Quarry back to his killing ways.

My other favorite story is Lawrence Block’s “Keller on Horseback” where Block’s professional hit-man, Keller, is sent on an assignment to a small town in Wyoming. Keller doesn’t know who hired him to kill a popular, wealthy resident of the town. The assignment is fraught mystery and Keller makes some unusual decisions in this unconventional tale.

There are many solid stories in Murder Is My Business by a number of “name” writers. If you’re in the mood for murder, this book is the place to find it. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION: MURDER WAS HIS BUSINESS By Max Allan Collins — 7

The bishop and the hit man / by Andrew Greeley — 13

The man who shot Trinity Valance / by Paul Bishop. — 29

With anchovies / by John Lutz — 47

Guest services / by Max Allan Collins — 65

The matchstick and the rubber band / by Lynn F. Myers, Jr. — 89

Hitback / by Wayne D. Dundee — 101

Undercover / by Carolyn Wheat — 125

Angel face / by Daniel Helpingstine — 141

Improvident excess / by Barry N. Malzberg –153

The king of horror / by Stephen Mertz — 165

A nice save / by Edward Wellen –183

Without a trace / by Warren Murphy — 187

Runner and the deathbringer / by Teri White — 211

The operation / by Henry Slesar — 223

Surrogate / by Ed Gorman — 235

Keller on horseback / by Lawrence Block — 245

Everybody’s watching me / by Mickey Spillane — 275

Hurricane Beryl, after ravaging the Caribbean, is now poised to dump a lot of rain on Western New York tomorrow. The storm track takes Beryl up the Ohio Valley and into the Buffalo area. It’s rare that hurricane/tropical storm remnants make it all the way from the Caribbean to Canada! What wacky weather!

Are you concerned about Climate Change?

Whether Trump or Biden (or someone else) wins, the Future is already programmed for the next decade. In his Foreword, Niall Ferguson summarizes Larry McDonald’s prophesies: “a new era of persistent inflation, an escalation in global conflict, a multipolar world teaming up against the United States, the horror of a weakening dollar, a series of sovereign debt crises, and a thundering of capital out of fiscal assets into hard assets, not to mention catastrophic shortages of natural resources.” (p. xiii)

Sure, scary finance books are a dime a dozen, but McDonald’s book provides examples and statistics to back up his positions. McDonald has a long history in financial markets. He was a Lehman Brothers VP when the firm ignored warning signs and collapsed. Since then, McDonald founded the economic research platform,The Bear Traps Report, that tracks all this alarming economic activity.

Inflation is back. The world will soon be facing catastrophic shortages in natural resources. The U.S. dollar will lose its status as the world’s reserve currency as China, Saudi Arabia and Russia lead a move away from the American-led financial system. And rising government deficits are increasing the risk of a U.S. default especially if Trump and his MAGA are in control. Things look bleak! How to Listen When Markets Speak: RISKS, MYTHS, AND INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN A RADICALLY RESHAPED ECONOMY provides a roadmap to the monetary disasters ahead so you can prepare for the worst! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Author’s Note — xi

Foreword by Niall Ferguson — xiii

Introduction — xvii

1. The End of an Era — 3
2. America Crosses the Rubicon — 22
3. The Dazzling Obamas–and the Dying of the Light — 43
4. The New Washington Consensus — 59
5. Fossil Fuels Paving the Way to the Green Meadow — 84
6. The Dark Side of Passive Investing — 117
7. The Psychology of Bubbles and the Mania of Crypto — 140
8. The Decline of the U.S. Dollar — 166
9. Cold, Hard Assets–the Portfolio for the Next Decade — 197

Acknowledgements — 227

Notes — 231

Index — 235

As I continue to fight to recover from Covid-19 (Diane has already tested negative and is close to 100%), I’ve been eating plenty of veggies and fruits. While most of my Covid-19 symptoms are more respiration related–cough, sneezes, runny nose–many of my friends who’ve survived Covid-19 warned me that gastro-intestinal problems could be part of the recovery. So I stopped eating meat and focused on a daily regimen of grains and vegetables and fruits–the cherry season produced some delicious crops!

Jess Damuck’s Salad Freak also provided some helpful advice in choosing vegetables and preparing them carefully to avoid most tummy issues. Are you a fan of salads? Do you have a favorite? So far, Covid-19 hasn’t caused any “lower body” problems for me with this approach. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword 8

Well, hello 10

Light, fresh, and truly delicious, or about this book 12

A note on mindfulness 14

What to have on hand, always 17

Setting yourself up for salad success 22

Questions to ask yourself when shopping for salads 26

Washing and storing greens: a guide 27

Music to make salads by 28

Winter 33

Spring 83

Summer 129

Fall 207

All about dressings 252

Condiments, crunchy stuff & other things that go with salad 256

Gratitude list 265

Index 266

“Gaslighting is the manipulation of someone using psychological methods to induce them to question their own sanity or powers of reasoning.” Kate Abramson’s On Gaslighting analyzes the strategy and tactics of gaslighting. Abramson breaks down the various means used in gaslighting and shows how the methods can induce confusion and madness.

Gaslighting got its name from the 1944 film, Gaslight, where Ingrid Bergman’s Paula is told by a detective: “You’re slowly and systematically being driven out of your mind.” 

Abramson shows how gaslighting is done, step-by-step: “What do the eight central tools of gaslighters that I’ve mentioned in this chapter–trust, human sociability (and its dangerous counterpart, isolation), working presumptions of deliberative fallibility, love, empathy, practical considerations, authority and purported authority, and oppressive tropes and stereotypes–all have in common? They are all fundamental ways of organizing and orienting ourselves…” (p. 87-88) The gaslighter uses these tools to disorganize and disorient the target in order to get what they want.

Have you ever been gaslighted? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Acknowledgements — ix

Introduction to Our Topic — 1

What Is Gaslighting? A First Pass — 9

What Gaslighting Looks Like — 25

Gaslighters and Their Aims — 37

The Methods and Means of Gaslighting — 61

Social Structures, Subjugation, and Gaslighting — 89

The Multidimensional Moral Horror Show of Gaslighting — 117

Trust and Gaslighting, Revisited — 161

Bibliography — 203

Index — 209

“John Flagg” (aka, John Rex Gearon) wrote a series of paperback thrillers that Stark House has reprinted. The Hart Muldoon series features a mashup of private eye elements and spy elements. Muldoon worked for the O.S.S. during World War II but left the agency and went freelance. Muldoon still works occasionally for various governments, but also works for wealthy individuals who require his lethal skill set. Most of the Muldoon adventures are set in Europe and the Middle East.

A British spymaster tells Muldoon, “…sad that at your age and with your experience you should still carry with you the delusion that you can return to decent society … You and I – we belong outside. We belong to the hunters and the hunted. We belong to a world of violence and deception, a world that makes its own laws. We lie and we steal and we kill because it is our job to do it. And you can’t go back, Hart, you simply can’t go back.” That pretty much describes Hart Muldoon’s situation in the series of five thrillers. He’s drawn to danger and is willing to risk his life in dangerous circumstances.

Stark House’s Murder in Monaco and Death’s Lovely Mask captures the opulence of Europe amid exotic settings and treachery. Murder in Monaco begins with Hart Muldoon being hired by Nancy Trippe of the National Alert magazine to find stolen letters. The search for the letters leads Muldoon to the murdered publisher of National Alert. Blackmail, betrayal, and breach of trust lead to more violence and death. GRADE: B

In his excellent “Introduction” Nicholas Litchfield, Litchfield writes that Death’s Lovely Mask is “the jewel of the series.” Anthony Boucher wrote that Death’s Lovely Mask is “much the best of the International adventures of Hart Muldoon.” I have to agree. Muldoon is hired by Hiram, a government official, to go to Venice and investigate Linda Pawling whose husband, George Pawling, is a troubleshooter for the powerful German-American Oil company who controls the Donned-Arabia oil reserves.

Pawling and other interested parties want to stop Prince Sir-el-Donrd “Ali” of Donned-Arabia, a graduating Yale senior who is the favorite son of aging King Donrd, from marrying a Jewish woman. The marriage would cause disaster for American oil interests and the political fallout could destabilize the Middle East. Beautiful women and ruthless men of the worlds of money and power scheme to exert influence over the delicate balance of politics and oil.

Death strikes during a masked Ball and the masquerade leads to a chase from Venice to Spain to end in murder, mayhem, and vengeance. Death’s Lovely Mask takes the reader through opulent and alluring European settings with Hart Muldoon putting his life on the line to save the innocent and punish the malevolent. GRADE: A

THE HART MULDOON SERIES:

A Woman Of Cairo Copyright: 1953

Dear, Deadly Beloved Copyright: 1954

Murder In Monaco Copyright: 1957

Death’s Lovely Mask Copyright: 1958

The Paradise Gun Copyright: 1961

“What He’s Poised to Do”–the first story in this collection–presents a business man who leaves his wife and son to travel to the city for work purposes. The business man stays in a hotel where he mets a female bartender. They connect and the result is a torrid love affair. The end of the story leaves the reader wondering if the business man will return to his wife and son or stay with his new-found love.

Most of the stories in What He’s Poised to Do explore the twists and turns of relationships between men and women. The lies, the half-truths, the simmering violence all fuel Ben Greenman’s stories where love almost always. goes wrong.

If you want to try to solve the mysteries of intimacy, infidelity, and romance gone wrong, What He’s Poised to Do will take you down some strange labyrinthian pathways. GRADE: B

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

What he’s poised to do — 1

Hope — 5

Barn — 13

Against Samantha — 31

Hunter and the hunted — 41

From the front — 55

Seventeen differents ways to get a load of that — 63

Down a pound — 81

Govindan Ananthanarayanan Academy for moral and ethical practice and the treatment of sadness resulting from the misapplication of the above — 93

Country life is the only life worth living : country love is the only love worth giving — 101

Bunch of blips — 111

To kill the pink — 123

What we believe but cannot praise — 135

Her hand — 167

Acknowledgements — 171

Season Two of Star Trek: Prodigy moves from Paramount+ to Netflix, but the animated series of 20 episodes still feature a group of young aliens who join Admiral Kathryn Janeway (voiced by Kate Mulgrew) to find the original crew of the USS Protostar. Yes, Star Trek: Prodigy is aimed at a younger audience, but it appeals to my 12-year-old self that enjoys these Star Trek series. Are you a Star Trek fan? GRADE: Incomplete but trending towards a B.

Andrew Cartmel–best known for his popular Vinyl Detective series–returns with the second book in his The Paperback Sleuth saga.

Cordelia, a paperback book addict, is hired by the leaders of a West London yoga ashram to recover stolen yoga paperback books. Since Cordelia is always short of money because she buys vintage paperbacks all the time, she agrees to find the missing books.

A murder connected to the theft occurs and Cordelia wonders if she’ll be the next victim bludgeoned by a whiskey bottle. Later, Cordelia finds help in a Thrift Shop but the helper dies from poisoned curry!

After a couple of close calls, Cordelia finally discovers the plot behind the stolen books and has to defend herself from the murderer. If you like vintage paperbacks and rooting around Thrift Stores for old books, check out Ashram Assassin. Fun and entertaining! You can read my review of the first Paperback Sleuth mystery here. GRADE: B+