Diane and I have love theater and have been subscribers to packages of plays for decades. Shea’s Broadway Series brings some wonderful musicals to Buffalo. The schedule for next season was announced this week. Diane and I will be buying our tickets soon! Do you see any plays in this list you’d like to see?
Oct. 11-16, 2016 FINDING NEVERLAND
Nov. 8-13, 2016 AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
Dec. 13-18, 2016 A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE MUSICAL
Feb. 16-22, 2017 A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE & MURDER
Mar. 28-Apr. 2 2017 THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Apr. 25-30, 2017 CABARET

Bill Pronzini, in his excellent Introduction to this Stark House omnibus, argues that Fletcher Flora never achieved the fame and sales success he deserved. Flora wrote mostly paperback originals for publishers like Avon and Monarch. I liked Leaver Her to Hell (1958) best. A private eye is hired by a beautiful woman to find out why a couple disappeared. The detective finds himself embroiled in murders and double identities. The twisty plot kept me guessing until the end. Let Me Kill You, Sweetheart (1958) begins with a seduction that turns into an eventual murder. Three men are the prime suspects, they all had sex with murdered woman at various times. The crusty Sheriff figures out the crime, but the resolution is a surprise. The final book, Take Me Home (1959), is the weakest. A bisexual young woman escapes a possible murder attempt by her lesbian lover but then flirts with suicide. Very pulpy. But Leave Her to Hell and Let Me Kill You, Sweetheart are solid, enjoyable mysteries. You can’t go wrong with a Stark House omnibus!

Andy Martin, huge fan-boy of Lee Child, talks the author into allowing him to play Boswell to Lee Child’s Samuel Johnson. Martin sits in the room and watches Lee Child write Make Me which I reviewed yesterday. What do we learn from Andy Martin’s documentation of Child writing this 20th Jack Reacher novel? First of all, Lee Child makes up his novels as he goes along. No outlines, no clear picture of where the novel is going. This is the opposite of the Mickey Spillane method where Spillane would write the Last Chapter of his novels first. “That way, you always know where you’re going,” The Mick said. We also find out Lee Child drinks 20 cups of coffee a day. And he smokes like a chimney, both tobacco and marijuana. Andy Martin gives the reader a good sense of Lee Child’s worK methods and charm. I enjoyed this breezy, funny narration of the making of a novel. I’m always curious about the creative process. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
E-Face
1. The End
2. Chapter 1
3. That John Lennon Moment
4. Chapter 1 Continued
5. Finally Chapter 1
6. Exit Keever
7. Enter Reacher
8. Fuck You Lee Child
9. The Song of Reacher
10. The Launch Barnes Noble Union Square September
11. Then Reacher Stepped Off the Train
12. Mothers Rest
13. The Good the Bad and the Ugly
14. On the Money
15. The Quixotic Matador
16. An Objective Report Concerning the Relative Standing of Dr Lee Child and Dr Andy Martin
17. A Child Is Born
18. The Story of the Blind Woman
19. Long Beach
20. Underworld
21. The Stony Limit
22. No X No
23. At Last the Whole Point of Reacher
24. The Great Coffee Contest
25. One Thousand Words
26. Christmas Goodwill
27. Lee Childs New Years Resolution
28. Half a Bottle of Bourbon
29. The StitchUp
30. Never Go Back
31. My Life of Crime
32. Shane A Footnote
33. The Thaw
34. Only a Matter of Time
35. Reacher in Translation
36. A Theory of Everything
37. Morpheus
38. Biographeme
39. Metamorphosis
40. The Big Reveal
41. The Naming of Names
42. The Quiller Memorandum
43. On the Couch
44. On the Couch II
45. Why the Works of Lee Child Are Really Quite Useful
46. A Deals a Deal
47. End of the Third Movement
48. Quoth He
49. The Old Cemetery
50. Home Invasion
51. Knowledge by Description
52. They Think Its All Over
53. Also Sprach Lee Child
54. Two for the Price of One
55. Allegory
56. Reacher Visits a Bookstore
57. Thursday, March 26, 2015
58. Has Lee Child Done His Research?
59. Maigret et Moi
60. Napoleonic
61. Gardening Tips
62. Wittgenstein on Sixth Avenue
63. The Proposal of a Romantic Novelist
64. Where is the Pipe?
65. Stairway to Heaven
66. Risen Again
67. The Baldacci Program
68. On the Sofa
69. The End is Nigh
70. What’s It all About, Then?
71. No Exit
72. The Opposite of the Cern Large Hadron Collider Approach
73. Time-Lapse Photography of the Penultimate Chapter
74. Bombshell
75. Cliffhanger
E-log

Lee Child begins Make Me with Jack Reacher getting off a train in the middle of nowhere, a place called Mother’s Rest. Reacher stops there on a whim but soon finds himself being followed. Reacher meets Michele Chang, a former FBI agent who now is a private detective. Her partner has disappeared. Reacher is drawn into the search which leads to some very dark places. Make Me is the 20th Jack Reacher novel, but you don’t have to read the other novels in the series to enjoy this book. Lee Child has created a compelling character over the past 20 years. I’ve enjoyed the action and cleverness in this series. I found the conclusion disturbing and memorable. If you’re looking for a fast-moving suspense novel, Make Me is first-rate. It’s the best book I’ve read in 2016 so far. GRADE: A

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is neither fish nor fowl. Its pace is too slow for an action movie. Tina Fey and Martin Freeman (who plays a Scottish photo-journalist) have great on-screen chemistry, but that romantic comedy potential is never realized. The movie veers from comic moments to serious war footage. Tina Fey plays a reporter in Afghanistan from 2004-2006. Billy Bob Thorton plays a Marine General; he’s not given enough to do. Alfred Molina plays an Afghanistan politician. There’s plenty of Star Power in the cast, but the rambling story doesn’t take advantage of their talents. Tina Fey proves she is more than a comedic actress. This is her best movie, but she should have chosen a better movie to star in. GREADE: B-

In our unending quest to stimulate the American Economy, Diane and I contracted with a local company to replace 15 windows in our house. This is the same crew that installed the new vinyl siding and windows on the front of our house last summer. You can see how they did here. We liked the Seaway windows with their high insulation factors and appearance. They’re easy to open and close. Plus the company offered us a 30% discount on the project (to keep their crews busy during the winter months). We saved over $5,000. Are you planning any home improvements?

Bill Crider reviewed A Simple Twist of Fate here. This is the Steve Martin movie based on George Eliot’s Silas Marner which I reviewed yesterday. Steve Martin not only stars in A Simple Twist of Fate, he wrote the script. There are some significant variations between the movie and the novel. The movie opens in 1979. Steven Martin is a music teacher in a public school. He gets some Bad News from his wife. He divorces her and moves away. He leaves the teaching profession and becomes a furniture maker. Like Silas Marner, Steve Martin becomes a miser (buying rare gold coins) and a recluse. He hides the gold coins in his house but a thief finds them anyway. The three-year-old child shows up and Steve Martin becomes the Ideal Father. But trouble lurks for Steve Martin and his adopted daughter.

I missed this movie back in 1994. A Simple Twist of Fate has a great cast: Steve Martin, Gabriel Byrne, Laura Linney, and Catherine O’Hara. I bought this Blu-ray edition on AMAZON for an incredible $4.58! I’m glad Bill Crider recommended A Simple Twist of Fate and Silas Marner. I enjoyed both the movie and the book it was based on! GRADE: B+

Bill Crider reviewed A Simple Twist of Fate here. A Simple Twist of Fate is a movie starring Steve Martin that’s a modern update of the plot of George Eliot’s Silas Marner. Bill Crider said he read Silas Marner in High School and loved it. I couldn’t remember if I’d read Silas Marner in High School. We read Boswell’s Life of Johnson in 10th Grade (which was the wrong book for that age group). My experience with George Eliot was slight: I read The Mill on the Floss for a Victorian Novels course. Of course, I have all of George Eliot’s books so it was a matter of finding Silas Marner. It was a quick read so I see why Silas Marner found its way into the High School English curriculum.

Silas Marner is a weaver who gets framed for a theft and leaves town. He sets up a new residence in the town of Raveloe. But Silas Marner is bitter from his experience so he becomes a miser and a near-recluse. Over the years, Marner’s hoard of gold mounts. And, of course, not trusting banks Marner keeps all that gold in his cottage. You can figure out what happens: the gold gets stolen and Marner is crushed…again. But, through a simple twist of fate, a three-year-old child enters Silas Marner’s life and completely transforms it.

Yes, Silas Marner caused my eyes to get misty. George Eliot knows how to tell an emotional, sentimental story. I enjoyed Silas Marner and if you read it, you will too. GRADE: B+

I met Ruth Rendell at a BOUCHERCON. I think it was in Philadelphia but I’m not positive. Ruth Rendell spoke with me for about five minutes. I told her how much I enjoyed her mysteries. She told me her favorite writer was Henry James. Ruth Rendell was courteous and personable to a random fan like me. I’ve read over a dozen of Rendell’s books over the years includes some of her “Barbara Vine” suspense novels. But I decided for this special Ruth Rendell FFB to read one of her books that has been on my shelf for years. I chose the 1985 mystery, An Unkindness of Ravens. A marketing executive with secrets is found dead. Detective Chief Inspector Wexford finds himself in an uncomfortable position because the dead man was a neighbor. As a subplot, Wexford’s dour partner, Burden, struggles with a domestic problem. Like all the Rendell novels I’ve read, this book is carefully constructed. Wexford untangles the twisty plot with his usual intelligence and patience. If you enjoy clever British mysteries, An Unkindness of Ravens provides plenty of entertainment.

I’ve used Turbotax for about 20 years. Some years are better than others. But this new version was easy to install and get up and running. My tax return is relatively simple. The only complication this year was Social Security. Diane is collecting her full Social Security benefit while I’m collecting “Spousal Benefits.” But other than that complication, the process was quick and easy. I was done in 45 minutes. Yes, we have to pay the Feds and New York State, but not much. My goal is to break even. And, I came pretty close. I used the “Deluxe” edition which I purchased at Sam’s Club for $35 which includes the free NY State module. Have you done your taxes yet? How are you going to spend your tax refund?