A couple years ago while shopping in a Sam’s Club, I happened to see an intriguing cover for a PC game called Torchlight. The game sounded like a clone of Diablo, a game I enjoyed playing. The price was around $14 so I bought it, installed it, and had hours of fun playing it. About a month ago, I discovered there was a sequel: Torchlight 2. STEAM offered it for $9.95 so I downloaded the game and installed it. Same Diablio game-play and hours of fun. If you’re in the mood for a great looking and diverting PC game, consider Torchlight 2.

My daughter Katie lives in the Boston area so of course Diane and I were completely involved in the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing from the beginning. Fortunately, Katie was working in Newton, Massachusetts when the bombs went off. Katie found about about the tragedy when Patrick sent her a text that said, “Are you okay?” Katie texted back, “Why wouldn’t I be?” That’s when Patrick sent video of the explosions to Katie’s iPhone. Then came the release of the photos of the suspects by the FBI. Then came the 7-11 robbery, the shooting of the M.I.T. security officer, the car-jacking of the Mercedes SUV, the fire-fight in Watertown, the death of Suspect #1, and the manhunt for Suspect #2. Ironically, Katie had planned a trip home this weekend. And she made it home! Diane and I gave her an extra-big Welcome Home hug! Our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and their families.

Ed Gorman is back home from the Mayo Clinic and recovering. Our best wishes go out to him. In the March issue of Mystery Scene magazine, Ed wrote an article on “My 10 Favorite John D. MacDonald Standalone Novels.” And here’s the list:
1. Dead Low Tide
2. Soft Touch
3. Deadly Welcome
4. Murder in the Wind
5. The Executioners
6. Slam the Big Door
7. The End of the Night
8. A Key to the Suite
9. A Flash of Green
10. The Drowner

This week, we’re up to Number Eight on Ed’s list, A Key to the Suite published in 1962. No suspense writer captures the business world the way John D. MacDonald did. You can see this in A Key to the Suite where a business executive, Floyd Hubbard, attends a convention. Hubbard is supposed to act as a corporate hit-man and end the future employment of Jesse Mulaney, head of the sales department. Mulaney hires a high class call girl named Cory to seduce Hubbard and then to embarrass him in a desperate attempt to save his job. If you ever wondered how business executives operate behind closed doors and at business conventions, just read A Key to the Suite.

As a kid, I fell in love with C. S. Forester’s The Horatio Hornblower series of naval adventures. Forester’s hero, a young Englishman, finds action and thrills (as well as disappointments) in the Royal Navy. Decades later, I read Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey–Maturin series featuring an ambitious Captain in the Royal Navy and his friend who is both a doctor and a spy. I’ve heard good things about Dewey Lambdin’s Alan Lewrie naval adventure series which spans the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Lambdin is an American writer (he lives in Nashville!) so there’s a different flavor to the Lewrie books. I highly recommend The King’s Coat where 17-year-old Lewrie is tricked into joining the Royal Navy by his unscrupulous father. Lambdin uses a clever technique to both educate the reader and Lewrie about the parts of the ship, the way sails are set, and other details of life aboard a naval warship in 1780. I liked The French Admiral less well because Lewrie is taken off his ship and becomes involved in the Battle of Yorktown. Lambdin does not shirk from showing the graphic aspects of war including atrocities that are historical facts. I hope Lambdin keeps Lewrie on the seas in the next books in the series (up to 19 volumes so far) which I intend to read periodically. If you’re in the mood for some spirited naval adventures, try Dewey Lambdin’s Alan Lewrie series.

Generous Rick Robinson sent me a copy of Jacques Bonnet’s Phantoms on the Bookselves. This book is for bibliophiles who tend to their own libraries. Jacques Bonnet is a French publisher, translator, and author. Bonnet’s spent forty years building a private library of more than forty thousand books. Bonnet writes about the problems of classification and organization of a book collection. If you have a lot of books, Phantoms on the Bookshelves provides plenty of useful information on getting the most out of them.

If you love movies as much as I do, you’ll enjoy the interviews on Side By Side: Can Film Survive Our Digital Future. James Cameron (Avatar), David Fincher (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive), Martin Scorsese (The Departed), Robert Rodriguez (Sin City), Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight), and other directors speak their minds about the changes in the movie industry happening today and in the future. I picked up my copy at Sam’s Club for $11.95. Worth every penny! Check out the trailer below. GRADE: A

Two weeks ago, the last used bookstore in North Tonawanda closed (we used to have two, now we have none). Only a handful of used bookstores survive in Western New York and they’re all on life-support. There are only two used bookstores within driving distance in Canada (Fort Erie and Port Colborne). So my used book searches have been reduced to thrift stores and library book sales. Last week I went into a Salvation Army store and found a copy of Karl Haas’ Inside Music: How to Understand, Listen to, and Enjoy Good Music. Diane and I have listened to Karl Haas’ radio program for years. I also found a Conan novel I’d never seen before: Conan: The Sword of Skelos by Andrew Offutt. Francine Prose’s Bigfoot Dreams is one of the few novels I haven’t read by this talented writer. John Creasey’s Toff and the Trip-Trip-Triplets surprised me; I’d never seen this book before in hardcover or paperback. And, how could I pass up a First Edition of Block’s The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams with baseball season starting. I’ve read good reviews of Jeffrey Ford’s work so now I have The Shadow Year to look forward to. The total cost for all these books: $4.00!

In 2008, Paul Auster (author of the New York Trilogy) and J. M. Coetzee (winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature) started faxing letters to each other (Auster hates the Internet so these are actual letters, not emails). You would think that in the exchange of letters, literature would be at the heart of their communication. But, you would be wrong. Coetzee mulls over the state of the international economy a lot. Auster is a huge sports fan so many of his letters have sports commentary. Some of the letters are profound, some are just nutty. Auster suggests that the United States move all the Israelis from Israel to Wyoming to solve the Middle East problem. There are also surprises: Auster praises Charles Willeford’s New Hope for the Dead. If you enjoy reading other people’s letters, you’ll enjoy Here and Now. GRADE: B

As a diabetic, I’m always looking for tasty, low-carb snacks. One of my recent favorites is Archer Farms Dark Chocolate Espresso Trail Mix. The mix consists of chocolate covered and praline almonds, mocha pecans, chocolate chips, hazelnuts, and chocolate-covered coffee beans. Yummy! And a quarter cup serving only has 15 grams of carbohydrates. Not bad. I’m been grabbing a handful of this wonderful trail mix between classes to perk me up (maybe it’s the chocolate-covered coffee beans!). Dark Chocolate Espresso Trail Mix is only available at TARGET stores. I’ve searched the Internet, but no one has it so TARGET must have an exclusive contract. You can check out other delicious Archer Farms goodies by clicking here. And this week, all of the Archer Farms trail mixes are on sale 2 for $8. A bargain!

It looks like Ed Gorman will be heading home from the Mayo Clinic. Our best wishes go out to him. In the March issue of Mystery Scene magazine, Ed wrote an article on “My 10 Favorite John D. MacDonald Standalone Novels.” And here’s the list:
1. Dead Low Tide
2. Soft Touch
3. Deadly Welcome
4. Murder in the Wind
5. The Executioners
6. Slam the Big Door
7. The End of the Night
8. A Key to the Suite
9. A Flash of Green
10. The Drowner

Last week, I reviewed Number 10, The Drowner. This week, it’s Number 9, A Flash of Green from 1962. A Flash of Green is set in the 1960s when the Florida real estate market was exploding. A conservation group managed to turn back a group of developers who wanted to turn a pristine bay into a housing development. But now, two years later, another group of businessmen wants to develop the bay. A Flash of Green shows how politics and business interests can subvert the common good, how corruption at the highest levels blurs the ethics of even Good People. Although this novel is set in the Sixties, the political techniques are no different now than they were back then. Only now we have Facebook and Twitter to help the process along. Bill Crider says a movie based on A Flash of Green came out in the 1980s, but I haven’t seen it. I will be looking for it. You can read Roger Ebert’s review of the movie version of A Flash of Green here (thanks for the link, Bill!)