Bills fans are still in shock with the Bills’ 23-20 surprising victory over the defending Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens. Of course, Joe Flaco had to throw a career high 5 interceptions to help the Bills to the victory. Tonight, in a rare Thursday night game for the Bills, the opposing team has won two games in a row. The short week could cause havoc with preparing the Game Plan. Injuries factor in to this game, too. The Bills secondary is depleted with three starters recovering from injuries. Rookie QB E. J. Manuel hasn’t won a road game yet. Maybe tonight’s the night…

The Bridge concludes tonight on the FX cable network at 10 P.M. EDT. The roller coaster ride that started with the discovery of a body in the middle of the bridge between El Paso and Juarez triggers several subplots: a smuggling operation between the U.S. and Mexico using a tunnel, a serial killer, the murder of a group of illegal immigrants, etc. I really like the two main characters: Diane Kruger as Det. Sonya Cross, a member of the El Paso Police Department who has Asperger syndrome and Demián Bichir as Det. Marco Ruiz, a homicide detective from Mexico. Of course, it’s odd that this series is based on the Danish/Swedish TV series of the same name. Like The Killing I think the pace of the series is slow. But there’s flashes of action and drama that holds the audience’s interest. I have no idea if The Bridge has been canceled, but if it returns next summer I’ll watch it.

One of the swimmers at the pool I work out at told me his daughter had a part in a movie. I asked, “What movie?” He replied, “In a World.” After a few months, In a World showed up at one of our arty theaters and I went to see it. It’s the story of a small group of voice artists who record the voice-overs for movie trailers. The King of this small world was the legendary Don LaFontaine (who died in 2008). In a World sets up a competition between three voice-over artists to see who will narrate the trailer to a new epic movie series. Director Lake Bell keeps the subplots spinning as the competition reaches its climax. I liked the surprises in this quirky independent movie. If In A World shows up in your town, you’l enjoy it. GRADE: B+

As much as I enjoyed George Scialabba’s essays on politics in this volume, the most powerful essay concerns Scialabba’s depression. Depression is a Taboo in our culture. People don’t talk about it much or admit they’re suffering from it. Scialabba writes about dealing with his depression over the years in detail. I also enjoyed Scialabba’s essays on George Orwell, Adam Smith, Gore Vidal, and Edmund Wilson. After reading Scialabba’s essays, I wanted to drop everything and read some Orwell, Smith, Vidal, and Wilson! Scialabba’s fine essays deserve a wider audience. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Forward by Jackson Lears

I. THEORIES
Afterthoughts of a Nader Voter
Starting Over (Robert Dahl/Ernest Callenbach)
Do the Right Thing (Micharel Sandel)
Only Fair (Stanley Fish)
Notice Thy Neighbor (Peter Singer)
Camping (G. A. Cohen)
Illfare (Tony Judt)
Immortal Bees (Roger Scruton)
Minimal Democracy (Charles Lindblom)
Outgrowing All That (Steven Nathanson)
Zippie World (Thomas Friedman)
Reasons and Passions (Johnathan Haidt)
Copywrongs (Lawrence Lessig/Siva Vaidhyanathan)
In Literacy We Trust (E.D. Hirsch)
Republic or Empire? (Andrew Bacevich et al)

II. THINKERS
The Workingman’s Friend (Adam Smith)
What Would Orwell Say? (George Orwell)
Socialist Without a Party, Christian Without a Church (Ignazio Silone)
The Common Fate (Victor Serge)
The Enemy of the State (I. F. Stone)
Just a Journalist (Edmund Wilson)
The Impresario (Irving Kristol)
The Zealot (Hilton Kramer)
The Fastidious Citizen (Gore Vidal)
Vanity and Spleen (Christopher Hitchens)
Human Scale (Christopher Lasch)

III. RANT
Plutocratic Vistas

IV. FIRST PERSON
Message from Room 101
Progress and Prejudice

After the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets played one of the most mistake-ridden games (the Jets had 20 penalties) in NFL history last week, the defending Super Bowl Champs show up at Ralph Wilson Stadium today. Although the point spread for this game is only 3 1/2 points, I expect the Bills to lose by a couple of touchdowns. The Bills’ secondary is riddled with injuries. The Bills defense gave up over 500 yards of offense to the Jets last week–and the Ravens are a lot better than the Jets. It’s shaping up to be a long, long season for the Bills. How is your favorite NFL team going to do today?

GA asked me if I would list the TABLE OF CONTENTS for the Ellery Queen Masterpieces of Mystery series since they can’t be found on the Internet. After giving the matter some thought (it’s a lot of typing!) I agreed to do it. So here are volumes in the Ellery Queen Masterpieces of Mystery series and the stories included in each volume:
DETECTIVE DIRECTORY–1
“The Young Doctor” by H. C. Bailey
“The Singing Diamonds” by Helen McCloy
“Lawyer’s Holiday” by Harold Q. Masur
“Mr. Smith Protects a Client” by Fredric Brown
“From Another World” by Clayton Rawson
“The Oracle of the Dog” by G. K. Chesterton
“Man on a Ladder” by Harry Kemelman
“P. Moran, Shadow” by Percival Wilde
“The Hedge Between” by Charlotte Armstrong
“The Boy and the Money Box” by Daniel Nathan
“A Knife Between Brothers” by Manly Wade Wellman
“The Theft from the Empty Room” by Edward D. Hoch
“The Dublin Mystery” by Baroness Orczy
“Author in Search of a Character” by Phyllis Bently
“Jericho and the Silent Witnesses” by High Pentecost

DETECTIVE DIRECTORY–2
“The Man Who Never Told a Lie” by Isaac Asimov
“Thirteen Lead Soldiers” by H. C. McNeile
“The Cold Winds of Adesta” by Thomas Flanagan
“The Problem of the Covered Bridge” by Edward D. Hoch
“The Man Who Lost His Taste” by Lawrence G. Blochman
“Mr. Omega” by Jacob Hay
“The System” by Michael Gilbert
“Jeeves and the Stolen Venus” by P. G. Wodehouse
“The Ordeal of Father Crumlish” by Alic Scanlan Reach
“Blessed Are the Meek” by Georges Simenon
“Mr. Strang Takes a Hand” by Wiliam Brittain
“Philo Gubb’s Greatest Case” by Ellis Parker Butler
“Percival Bland’s Proxy” by R. Austin Freeman
“My Queer Dean!” by Ellery Queen
“Diamond Dick” Jon L. Breen
“The Twelve Little Pickaninnies” by Maurice Leblanc
“Sir Gilbert Murrell’s Picture” by Victor L. Whitechurch
“Mom Sings an Aria” by James Yaffe
“Seed of Suspicion” by George Harmon Coxe

THE GOLDEN AGE–1
“Dead Man’s Mirror” by Agatha Christie
“The Hunt Ball” by Freeman Wills Crofts
“The Yellow Slugs” by H. C. Bailey
“A Perfectly Ordinary Case of Blackmail” by A. A. Milne
“A Lesson in Crime” by G.D.H. & M. I. Cole
“The Haunted Policeman” by Dorothy L. Sayers
“The Wood for the Trees” by Philip MacDonald
“The Man Who Sang in Church” by Edgar Wallace
“The Dollar Chasers” by Earl Derr Biggers
“The Green Goods Man” by Leslie Charteris
“One Hour” by Dashiell Hammett
“The Death of Don Juan” by Ellery Queen

THE GOLDEN AGE–2
“Mind Over Matter” by Ellery Queen
“The Footprint in the Sky” by Carter Dickson
“Mr. Bearstowe Says” by Anthony Berkeley
“The Man on the Iron Pailings” by David Frome
“The Riddle of the Black Museum” by Stuart Palmer
“Puzzle for Poppy” by Patrick Quentin
“The Clue of the Scattered Rubies” by Erle Stanley Gardner
“The Crimson Letters” by Margery Allingham
“The Darkest Closet” by Irvin S. Cobb
“The Phonograph Murder” by Helen Reilly
“The Gun With Wings” by Rex Stout
“The Assassin’s Club” by Nicholas Blake
“Lesson in Anatomy” by Michael Innes
“Off the Face of the Earth” by Clayton Rawson
“I Can Find My Way Out” by Ngaio Marsh
“Inspector Maigret Deduces” by Georges Simenon

CHERISHED CLASSICS
“The Hands of Mr. Ottermole” by Thomas Burke
“The Red-Headed League” by A. Conan Doyle
“The Avenging Chance” by Anthony Berkeley
“The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Absent-Minded Coterie” by Robert Barr
“The Problem of Cell 13” by Jacques Futrelle
“The Invisible Man” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Doomdorf Mystery” by Melville Davisson Post
“Suspicion” by Dorothy L. Sayers
“The Sweet Shot” E. C. Bentley
“Arsene Lupin in Prison” by Maurice Leblanc
“Two Bottles of Relish” by Lord Dunsany
“The Gutting of Couffignal” by Dashiell Hammett
“The Rubber Trumpet” by Roy Vickers
“The Specialty of the House” by Stanley Ellin
“The Adventure of Abraham Lincoln’s Clue” by Ellery Queen

THE PRIZEWINNERS
“The Return of Imray” by Rudyard Kipling
“The Curse of the Fires & of the Shadows” by William Butler Yeats
“The Miraculous Revenge” by Bernard Shaw
“The Willow Walk” Sinclar Lewis
“The Neighbors” by John Galsworthy
“Ransom” by Pearl Buck
“An Error in Chemistry” by William Faulkner
“The Corsican Ordeal of Miss X” by Bertrand Russell
“The Murder” John Steinbeck
“Coroner’s Inquest” by Marc Connelly
“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
“It Takes a Thief” by Arthur Miller
“The Murder in the Fishing Cat” Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Tabloid News” by Louis Bromfield
“The Amateur of Crime” by Stephen Vincent Benet
“A Daylight Adventure” by T. S. Stribling
“Goodbye, Piccadilly” by John P. Marquand
“Only on Rainy Nights” by Mark Van Doren
“Clerical Error” by James Gould Cuzzens
“The Hunting of Hemingway” by MacKinlay Kantor
“The Bottle Mine” by Kenneth L. Roberts

THE GRAND MASTERS
“The Tragedy of Papa Ponsard” by Vincent Starrett
“Help Wanted, Male” by Rex Stout
“Mum is the Word” by Ellery Queen
“The Case of the Crying Swallow” by Erle Stanley Gardner
“The House in Goblin Wood” by Carter Dickson
“A Routine Night’s Work” by George Harmon Coxe
“Maigret’s Christmas” by Georges Simenon
“5-4=Murderer” by Baynard Kendrick
“Gideon’s War” by J. J. Marric
“The Baby in the Icebox” by James M. Cain
“I Always Get the Cuties” by John D. MacDonald
“The Day the Children Vanished” by Hugh Pentecost
“Guilt-Edged Blonde” by Ross Macdonald
“The Case of the Emerald Sky” by Eric Ambler

THE GRAND MASTERS UP TO DATE
“The Third Floor Flat” by Agatha Christie
“Man in Hiding” by Vincent Starrett
“A Dog in the Daytime” by Rex Stout
“The Three Widows” by Ellery Queen
“Danger Out of the Past” by Erle Stanley Gardner
“The Other Hangman” by John Dickson Carr
“Death Certificate” by George Harmon Coxe
“Stan the Killer” by Georges Simenon
“A Clue from Bing Crosby” by Baynard Kendrick
“Gideon and the Shoplifting Ring” by J. J. Marric
“Dead Man” by James M. Cain
“Postiche” by Mignon G. Eberhart
“The Homesick Buick” by John D. MacDonald
“The Contradictory Case” by Hugh Pentecost
“The Missing Sister Case” by Ross Macdonald
“The Case of the Pinchbeck Locket” by Eric Ambler
“The Destructors” by Graham Greene
“Danger at Deerfawn” by Dorothy B. Hughes
“The Old Man” by Daphne du Maurier
“Death on the Air” by Ngaio Marsh

THE SUPER SLEUTHS
“The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” by A. Conan Doyle
“The Dream” by Agatha Christie
“The Case Against Carroll” by Ellery Queen
“The Zero Clue” by Rex Stout
“The Case of the Crimson Kiss” by Erle Stanley Gardner
“Inspector Maigret Pursues” by Georges Simenon
“The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allan Poe
“Too Many Have Lived” by Dashiell Hammett
“The Man in the Passage” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Footsteps that Ran” by Dorothy L. Sayers
“The Pencil” by Raymond Chandler
“The Proverbial Murder” by John Dickson Carr
“Midnight Blue” by Ross Macdonald
“One Morning They’ll Hang Him” by Margery Allingham

THE SUPER SLEUTHS REVISITED
“The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” by A. Conan Doyle
“The Double Clue” by Agatha Christie
“The Dauphin’s Doll” by Ellery Queen
“The Cop Killer” by Rex Stout
“The Case of the Irate Witness” by Erle Stanley Gardner
“The Most Obstinate Man in Paris” by Georges Simenon
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe
“A Man Called Spade” by Dashiell Hammett
“The Blast of the Book” by G. K. Chesterton
“A Matter of Taste” by Dorothy L. Sayers
“The Adopted Daughter” Melville Davisson Post
“The Locked Room” by John Dickson Carr
“The Bearded Lady” by Ross Macdonald
“Murder Under the Mistletoe” by Margery Allingham

BLUE RIBBON SPECIALS
“The Ghost Patrol” by Sinclair Lewis
“The Master of Mystery” by Jack London
“Crime Without Passion” by Ben Hecht
“If the Journey Had No End” by Rebecca West
“The Perfect Plan” by James Hilton
“Mr. Loveday’s Little Outing” by Evelyn Waugh
“The Expense of Justice” by Guy de Maupassant
“The Gioconda Smile” by Aldous Huxley
“The Man Higher Up” by O. Henry
“The Happy Couple” by W. Somerset Maugham
“Suicide Hotel” by Andre Maurois
“A Deal in Ostriches” by H. G. Wells
“The Silver Mask” by Hugh Walpole
“Murder on the Waterfront” by Budd Schulberg
“The Best Policy” by Ferenc Molnar
“Death of an Old Man” by Arthur Miller
“How Mr. Rogan Robbed a Bank” by John Steinbeck
“Smoke” by William Faulkner
“The Dance” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Crime Passionnel” by Louis Bromfield
“An Arabian Night in Park Lane” by J. B. Priestley
“The White Rabbit Caper” by James Thurber
“A Bottle of Perrier” by Edith Wharton
“Back for Christmas” by John Collier
“Diplomatic Crisis” by Orson Welles
“The Sheep” by Joyce Cary
“The Luminous Face” by Mark Van Doren

THE FORTIES
“His Heart Could Break” by Craig Rice
“The Man in the Velvet Hat” by Jerome & Harold Prince
“Chinoiserie” by Helen McCloy
“Malice Domestic” by Philip MacDonald
“The Adventure of the Dead Cat” by Ellery Queen
“You Can’t Hang Twice” by Anthony Gilbert
“Challenge to the Reader” by Hugh Pentecost
“The House-In-Your-Hand Murder” by Roy Vickers
“Don’t Look Behind You” by Fredric Brown
“Fingerprints Don’t Lie” by Stuart Palmer
“The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges
“The Lady and the Tiger” Jack Moffitt
“A Study in White” by Nicholas Blake
“The Cat’s-Paw” by Stanley Ellin
“Lacrimae Rerum” by Edmund Crispin
“Double Exposure” by Ben Hecht
“The Arrow of God” by Leslie Charteris
“Dust to Dust” Wilbur Daniel Steele

THE FIFTIES
“The Trial of John Nobody” by A. H. Z. Carr
“Woman Hunt No Good” by Oliver La Farge
“The House That Nella Lived In” by Mabel Seeley
“The Gentleman Caller” by Veronica Parker Johns
“Born Killer” by Dorothy Salisbury David
“House Party” by Stanley Ellin
“The Couple Next Door” by Margaret Millar
“Anything New on the Strangler?” by James M. Ullman
“The Splinter” by Mary Roberts Rinehart
“Miami Papers Please Copy” by Rufus King
“Dig That Crazy Grave!” by Robert Bloch
“And Already Lost…” by Charlotte Armstrong
“Miracles Do Happen” by Ellery Queen
“Cop on the Prowl” by Thomas Walsh
“The Income Tax Mystery” by Michael Gilbert
“The Women in His Life” by Whit Masterson
“Carnival Day” by Nedra Tyra
“The Love Connoisseur” by John Collier
“Blonde Beauty Slain” by Cornell Woolrich

THE SIXTIES
“Easy Money” by Evan Hunter
“Crime on Mars” by Arthur C. Clarke
“Too Clever for Scotland Yard” by Edmund Crispin
“Too Die With Decency” by Geoffrey Household
“Ordeal in Darkness” by William P. McGivern
“The Sunday Fishing Club” by Victor Canning
“The Terrapin” by Patricia Highsmith
“Funny the Way Things Work Out” by John D. MacDonald
“Tough Cop” by Borden Deal
“I’d Know You Anywhere” by Edward D. Hoch
“The Washington Party Murder” by A. H. Z. Carr
“The Purple is Everything” by Dorothy Salisbury Davis
“The Tiger’s Stripe” Julian Symons
“The Splintered Money” by Charlotte Armstrong
“Sleep is the Enemy” by Anthony Gilbert
“The Special Gift” by Celia Fremlin
“Line of Communication” by Andrew Garve
“The Last Bottle in the World” by Stanley Ellin
“For the Rest of Her Life” by Cornell Woolrich
“Goodbye, Pops” by Joe Gores

MORE FROM THE SIXTIES
“A Case for Gourmets” by Michael Gilbert
“The Memorial Hour” by Wade Miller
“Inquest on a Dead Tiger” by Harold R. Daniels
“The People Across the Canyon” Margaret Millar
“In the Middle of Nowhere” by Hugh Pentecost
“A Sense of Dynasty” by Holly Roth
“Another Bridge to Cross” by Patricia Highsmith
“The Nameology Murder” by A. H. Z. Carr
“The Inner Voices” by Jean Potts
“It Only Takes a Minute to Die” by Cornell Woolrich
“The Twelfth Statue” by Stanley Ellin
“The Secret” by Phyllis Bentley
“Match Point in Berlin” by Patricia McGerr
“Project Murder” by Steven Peters
“For Want of a Nail” By Berkley Mather
“That WAs the Day That Was” by Jacob Hay
“Love Affair” by Julian Symons

THE SEVENTIES
“One Clear Sweet Clue” by William Bankier
“Miss Paisley on a Diet” by John Pierce
“The Old Shell Collector” by H. R. F. Keating
“New York Blues” by Cornell Woolrich
“A Specialist in Still Lifes” by Carole Rosenthal
“The Gobineau Necklace” by James Powell
“The Real Shape of the Coast” by John Lutz
“The Leopold Locked Room” by Edward D. Hoch
“The Payoff” by Stanley Ellin
“The Island of Bright Birds” by John Christopher
“Three Ways to Rob a Bank” Harold R. Daniels
“Woodrow Wilson’s Necktie” by Patricia Highsmith
“The oldness of a Thousand Suns” by Celia Fremlin
“The Panic Button” by Michael Gilbert
“Mr. Joslin’s Journey” by Mary Hocking
“See How They Run” by Robert Bloch
“A Judicious Half Inch” by Ursula Curtiss
“In the Secret Hollow” by Florence V. Maryberry
“Proof of Guilt” by Bill Pronzini
“Carrot for a Chestnut” by Dick Francis
“Right On, Chick!” by S. S. Rafferty
“Depreciation Allowance” by Henry T. Parry
“Screams and Echoes” by Donald Olson
“All in the Way You Read It” by Isaac Asimov
“The Cabin in the Hollow” by Joyce Harrington
“The Fallen Curtain” by Ruth Rendell

AMATEURS & PROFESSIONALS
“Chambrun and the Electronic Ear” by Hugh Pentecost
“The Poisoned Dow ’08” by Dorothy L. Sayers
“The Stripper” by H. H. Holmes (Anthony Boucher)
“The Affair at the Bungalow” by Agatha Christie
“Wally the Watchful Eye” by Paul W. Fairman
“The Happy Days Club” by James M. Ullman
“They Can Only Hang You Once” Dashiell Hammett
“Wild Goose Chase” by Ross Macdonald
“File #1: The Mayfield Case” by Joe Gores
“About the Perfect Crime of Mr. Digberry” by Anthony Abbott
“The Devil is a Gentleman” by Charles B. Child
“A Winter’s Tale” by Frances & Richard Lockridge
“Clancy and the Shoeshine Boy” by Robert L. Pike
“Smash & Grab” by Henry Wade
“The Motive” by Ellery Queen
“Cause for Suspicion” by George Harmon Coxe
“The Stollmeyer Sonnets” by James Powell
“The Botany Pattern” by Victor Canning
“H As in Homicide” by Lawrence Treat
“Nightshade” by Ed McBain

STORIES NOT TO BE MISSED
“Dime a Dance” by Cornell Woolrich
“Footprints in the Jungle” by W. Somerset Maugham
“The Liqueur Glass” by Phyllis Bettome
“The Cablegram” by T. S. Stribling
“The Motive” by Ronald Knox
“Never Trust a Murderer” by Quentin Reynolds
“Up the Garden Path” by Barry Perowne
“Blackmail” by Stephen McKenna
“Love Lies Bleeding” by Philip MacDonald
“Extradition” by Brett Halliday
“Loveday’s Secret” by L. J. Beeston
“One Hundred in the Dark” by Owen Johnson
“The Six Mistakes” by Holly Roth
“Death Was a Wedding Guest” by Charles B. Child
“Stay of Execution” by Michael Gilbert
“The Man in the Blue Spectacles” by Michael Harrison
“Twist for Twist” by Christianna Brand
“Moment of Power” P. D. James

CHOICE CUTS
“The Man Who Explained Miracles” by Carter Dickson
“Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl
“Accident” by Agatha Christie
“Haircut” by Ring Lardner
“The Stolen White Elephant” by Mark Twain
“Driving Home” by Margery Sharp
“The Property of a Lady” by Ian Fleming
“The Trailor Murder Mystery” by Abraham Lincoln
“The Supreme Court Murder” by Leslie Ford
“Cemetery Bait” by Damon Runyon
“The Man Who When to Taltavul’s” by David Alexander
“The Greyling Crescent Tragedy” by John Creasey
“A Point in Morals” by Ellen Glasgow
“Human Interest Stuff” by Brett Halliday
“Object Lesson” by Ellery Queen
“Bring the Killer to Justice” by Ross Macdonald

THE OLD MASTERS
“The Dog and the Horse” by Voltaire
“The Man of the Crowd” by Edgar Allan Poe
“Hunted Down” by Charles Dickens
“The Biter Bit” by Wilkie Collins
“The Blue Wash Mystery” by Anna Katharine Green
“Markheim” by Robert Louis Stevenson
“The Reigate Puzzle” by A. Conan Doyle
“The Flitterbat Lancers” by Arthur Morrison
“The Criminologists’ Club” by E. W. Hornung
“The Stolen Rubens” by Jacques Futrelle
“The Red Silk Scarf” by Maurice Leblanc
“The Missing Mortgagee” by R. Austin Freeman
“The Queer Feet” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Mysterious Death in Percy Street” by Baroness Orczy
“The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel” by A. E. W. Mason
“The Eastern Mystery” by Ernest Bramah
“The Bloomsbury Wonder” by Thomas Burke
“Bickmore Deals with the Duchess” by J. S. Fletcher
“The Age of Miracles” by Melville Davisson Post

How do you commit the perfect murder? This question has obsessed Patricia Highsmith for her entire career. Highsmith first approached the perfect murder in her classic Strangers on a Train. She returned to this theme in 1955 with another classic: The Talented Mr. Ripley which also was one of the first books to explore identity theft. In 1970, Highsmith set Tom Ripley, sociopathic killer, loose on the high-end Art Market. Ripley’s Game, published in 1974, features Tom Ripley manipulating a terminally ill man into committing murders. Patricia Highsmith is legendary for her psychological approach to crime fiction. In many of her stories and novels, the criminals escape justice. If you’re interested in the randomness of murder and justice, Highsmith shows you just how unpredictable Reality can be. I’m also fond the the John Malkovich performance as Tom Ripley in the movie version of Ripley’s Game. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing a startling performance.

Honey West meets The Matrix. That was my first thought while reading Thomas Pynchon’s loony new novel, Bleeding Edge. The story takes place in and around New York City in the year before the events of September 11. Maxine Tarnow operates a fraud investigation business and becomes involved in the possible terrorist conspiracy. Plenty of secret agents, drugs, computer hacking, and paranoia. For those of us who read Pynchon’s V. back in the Sixties, Bleeding Edge resembles a semi-sequel without the alligators in the sewers. I’m not sure who the audience for this book is. It’s too long–477 pages–for my students to bother with (and it doesn’t have any dwarfs or dragons). The rambling plot is sure to frustrate the casual reader who isn’t attuned to Pynchon’s tricks. Pynchon still displays his brilliance, but few and few readers are going to appreciate it. GRADE: B

Organizing Crime Classics is one of the wonderful books I found at BOUCHERCON in Albany. This handy little volume lists over 3900 titles in over 200 mystery series. The book starts with a listing of all of Edward S. Aarons’ Sam Durell spy novels (all 42 of them) and ends with L. R. Wright’s Karl Alberg series (all 9 books). Sure, you can use Wikipedia for this stuff, but here’s a neat little book of lists that you can carry in the pocket of your jacket or in your purse. The earliest listing is Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series and latest listing is the Dixie Hemingway series (2005-2012) by Blaize Clement. Organizing Crime Classics just makes the collecting life a little easier. Highly recommended!

Most of the new Fall TV programs look lame. But tonight’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. promises to deliver the action fix that I used to get with Nikita for before it got dopey. Josh Whedon was involved in the first few episodes of this series so that bodes well. Whedon says: “There’s always the struggle between spectacle and a TV budget. What attracted me to ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ were the gadgets. But after the gadgets was humanity: The idea that there is an underside, a darker side, a more human context. Phil Coulson always represented the everyman, the schlemiel in the world of the fabulous or the mighty, gods and billionaires and legends. And that’s what the show is for, it’s for those people who, as remarkable as they may be, are not the supers, are not A-list.” Sounds like my kind of Guilty Pleasure. Check out the trailer below.