Deb won’t have to worry about this game. The 6-1 Saints are coming off a bye and face the 3-4 Bills. The Saints are favored by 12 points. My sister Karen will be in attendance. Karen’s visiting her daughter, Tara, who has season tickets to the Saint games. I’m just hoping the Bills can keep the game close. But in the last three games the Saints have played after a bye, they’ve averaged over 40 points a game and won by an average of 17 points. Not good for the Bills prospects this week. This is Week Eight of the 2013 NFL season. How do you think your favorite NFL team is doing?

Rick Robinson suggested I read Mortal Lock back in June. It’s taken me months to work my way through Andrew Vachss’ latest collection of short stories. It usually doesn’t take me months to read a short story collection but Andrew Vachess stories follow a noir template where someone usually dies at the end of each story. I can only take so much of that. I started reading Andrew Vachss’ novels with the Burke series: Flood, Strega, Blue Belle, and Hard Candy. The books started to follow the same formula so I stopped reading them. I pick up Vachss’ books from time to time, but until Rick’s prodding, I hadn’t read any in years. Whether you’ll like these short stories depends on your mood. All of these stories are dark. In small doses, Vachss’ intent is effective. GRADE: B
Table of Contents:
•Ghostwriter
• Sure thing
• Bloodlines
• Passage to paradise
• Veil’s visit / with Joe R. Lansdale
• Dead reliable
• Choice of weapons
• They’re all alike
• Half-breed
• Pig
• A piece of the city
• Seeding the ground
• As the crow flies
• Blood test
• Profile
• Last rights
• Postwar boom
• Corazon
• Savior
• Blood orchid
• Underground: a screenplay.

Scott Cupp generously sent me a copy of Rayguns Over Texas, a collection of Science Fiction short stories written by Texas writers. I love the cover by Rocky Kelley (no relation)! Bruce Sterling provides a wonderful Introduction. Scott Cupp’s essay on his SF reading is masterful. Neal Barrett, Jr., Joe R. Lansdale, and Michael Moorcock wrote my favorite stories in this collection, but there are plenty of other enjoyable stories here. Pick up a copy soon before they’re all gone!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
◾Texas Over Rayguns by Bruce Sterling
◾It’s All Lew’s Fault by Richard Klaw
◾Books Are My Thing: Adventures in Texas Science Fiction by Scott A. Cupp
◾Babylon Moon by Matthew Bey
◾Texas Died for Somebody’s Sins But Not Mine by Stina Leicht
◾The Nostalgia Differential by Michael Moorcock
◾Novel Properties of Certain Complex Alkaloids by Lawrence Person
◾Rex by Joe R. Lansdale
◾The Atmosphere Man by Nicky Drayden
◾La Bamba Boulevard by Bradley Denton
◾Operators are Standing By by Rhonda Eudaly
◾The Art of Absence by Don Webb
◾An Afternoon’s Nap, or; Five Hundred Years Ahead by Aurelia Hadley Mohl
◾Grey Goo and You by Derek Austin Johnson
◾Defenders of Beeman County by Aaron Allston
◾Sovereign Wealth by Chris N. Brown
◾Jump the Black by Marshall Ryan Maresca
◾Timeout by Neal Barret, Jr.
◾Pet Rock by Sanford Allen
◾Take a Left at the Cretaceous by Mark Finn
◾The Chambered Eye by Jessica Reisman
◾Best Energies by Josh Rountree
◾Appendix A: The Essential Texas Writers
◾Appendix B: Other Texas Writers You Should Check Out
◾Appendix C: The Essential Texas Artists

I work in a germ factory. Every day my students cough and sneeze in my classes. I used to get the flu every year. A week of misery followed. But nine years ago I finally got smart and started getting a flu shot every October. Since then, I have escaped the flu despite being surrounded by sick students. My insurance covers flu shots so they’re free to me. Have you gotten your flu shot yet? What are you waiting for?

Diana Rigg fans, rejoice! Here are all the 51 episodes of The Avengers with Diana Rigg as Emma Peel on 16 DVDs. This complete megaset is a bargain at $39.95! I bought it at BJ’s Warehouse. AMAZON has it for $42.48 (still a bargain). Sure, it’s campy. But Diana Rigg still knocks me out! This video transfer seems cleaner than other sets of The Avengers I’ve accumulated over the years. This megaset would be a perfect present for that fan of The Avengers on your gift list. Check out the video below.

Secret wars in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, as well as the continuing war in Afghanistan are the focus of Jeremy Scahill’s excellent book and movie. Scahill shows how Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) fight undeclared wars all over the world. Drones, SEAL Team Six, and secret operatives assassinate targets on the “Kill List” that Scahill finds just keeps getting longer. Scahill’s book and the movie based on the book gives us all plenty to ponder. GRADE: A (for both)

Making a musical out of the old Patrick Swyaze/Demi Moore/Whoopie Goldberg movie Ghost must have sounded like a great idea to the producers of this touring version. But, if you’re going to have a musical, you should memorable tunes in it, something this musical lacks. The actors have good voices, but none of the songs stay with you other than the old classic “Unchained Melody.” There’s plenty of flashing lights, video, and special effects. None of these can cover up the lack narrative momentum and the forgettable music. Skip this one! GRADE: D

The 2-4 Bills travel to Miami to take on the 3-2 Dolphins. Practice Squad quarterback Thad Lewis hopes to learn from his mistakes in last week’s loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Vegas had the Dolphins favored by 9 points early this week but the spread has dropped to a mere 7 and 1/2 points. The Bills haven’t won an away game yet in the 2013. I hardly know what to expect this week. My heart tells me the Bills will pull off an upset…but my head says the Dolphins will prevail. What’s going to happen to your team today?

James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are the reasons to go see Enough Said. Director and writer Nicole Holofcener delivers a predictable romantic comedy. Gandolfini plays a chubby divorced man with a daughter who is about to leave home to study fashion at an eastern college. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays a masseuse (divorced, of course) with a daughter who is about to head east to attend Sarah Lawrence College. Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus meet at a party and start dating. At the same party, Louis-Dreyfus meets a poet (Catherine Keener) who becomes one of her clients. The triangle of Gandolfini, Louis-Dreyfus, and Keener power this movie, but it’s predictable. No surprises here. But Gandolfini, in one of his last roles before his untimely death, is genial and clever. I had forgotten how expressive Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ face is. Her magical eyes steal just about every scene she’s in. Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus lift this mediocre movie into something worth watching. GRADE: B+

This 1965 Lawrence Block novel was reprinted in 2005. It’s the story of a con: two men and the girl with the long green heart work a real estate scam on an investor. Plenty of maneuvering and double-dealing result. Lawrence Block impressed me with his knowledge of real estate transactions (the land in question was located in Canada) and banking regulations. These are little things in the totality of the confidence game, but it shows Block did his homework. I also appreciated Block’s attention to detail in using Western New York and Toronto as the setting for most of this novel. Block knows this area well. The only jarring note happened when the narrator has to hide a gun on an airplane. There wasn’t much security at airports back in 1965. If you enjoy well-written, well-plotted suspense fiction, give The Girl With the Long Green Heart a try. And I really like the Bob McGinnis cover!

I’m pitch-hitting for Patti Abbott this week (Happy Birthday, Phil!). Don’t worry, Patti will be back to host FFB next week. If I’ve missed your contribution to Friday’s Forgotten Books, please let me know and I’ll add you to the list.
Sergio Angelini, DICK BARTON: THE CASE OF THE VANISHING HOUSE (1978) by Alan Radnor

Brian Busby, Red Maple: How Canada Became the People’s Republic of Canada in 1981 

Bill Crider, Emerald Flash By Charles Knief

Martin Edwards, Escape to Quebec By Milward Kennedy

Curt Evans, The Fourth Postman By Craig Rice

Ray Garraty, Big City Girl By Charles Williams

Ed Gorman
Jerry House, Shanadu Edited by Bob Briney
Randy Johnson, Coersion By Tim Tigner
Nick Jones, The Switch By Elmore Leonard
B.V. Lawson, Science and the Detective By Brian H. Kaye
Evan Lewis, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar By Edgar Rice Burroughs
Steve Lewis. Arson and Old Lace By Patricia Harwin
Todd Mason, Halloween
J.F. Norris, To the Devil–a Daughter By Dennis Wheatley

Juri Nummelin,

James Reasoner, The Second Life of Monsieur the Devil By H. Bedford-Jones

Kelly Robinson,  Tales of St. Austin’s By P. G. Wodehoouse

Richard Robinson, D-99 by H.B. Fyfe
Gerard Saylor, Jitterbug By Loren D. Estleman
Ron Scheer,The Doctor By Ralph O’Connor
Kerrie Smith, M.O. Crimes of Practice Edited by Martin Edwards
Kevin Tipple,  Flank Hawk By Terry W. Ervin II
TomCat,
Prashant Trikannad,  The Draw By Jerome Bixby
James Winter,

Yvette,  The Man in the Tricorn Hat By Delano Ames