There was a time that I would automatically buy Year’s Best anthologies as they were published: Year’s Best SF, Year’s Best Mysteries, Year’s Best Fantasy, Year’s Best Horror. But about 10 years ago, I stopped.

After over 50 years, I found the Year’s Best anthologies now contained stories I was not engaged with. And the writers I knew and respected were replaced by new names and writers whose talents didn’t connect with me.

The bright side of this situation is that I have many Year’s Best anthologies on my shelves that I bought long ago…and never got around to reading. The Best American Mystery Stories: 2001 is one of these books.

The most graphic story in The Best American Mystery Stories: 2001, not surprisingly, is Joyce Carol Oates’ “The Girl with the Blackened Eye.” The abuse is stomach-churning. T. Jefferson Parker’s “Easy Street” concerns bank robberies. I liked Bill Pronzini’s “The Big Bite” with a private investigator involved in a blackmail scheme.

For those who like historical mysteries, Peter Robinson’s “Missing in Action”–set at the beginning of World War II in England–focuses on a missing young boy whose father was aboard the fleet carrier Courageous which was sunk by a German U-boat off the southwest coast of Iceland. Over 500 men had been lost include the missing boy’s father.

Lawrence Block and Otto Penzler did a nice job with this anthology. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword by Otto Penzler — ix

Introduction by Lawrence Block • xiii

Jennifer Anderson “Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster” • 1

Russell Banks “Lobster Night” • 25

Michael Downs “Prison Food” • 43

Leslie Edgerton In the Zone • 61

William Gay “The Paperhanger” • 75

Jeremiah Healy “A Book of Kells “• 91

Steve Hockensmith “Erie’s Last Day” • 111

Clark Howard “Under Suspicion” • 133

Michael Hyde “Her Hollywood” • 157

Dan Leone “Family” • 169

Thomas Lynch “Blood Sport” • 182

David Means “Carnie” • 193

Kent Nelson “Tides” • 202

Joyce Carol Oates “The Girl with the Blackened Eye” • 228

T. Jefferson Parker “Easy Street” • 239

Bill Pronzini “The Big Bite” • 271

Peter Robinson “Missing in Action” • 285

Roxana Robinson “The Face-Lift” • 305

John Salter “Big Ranch” • 318

Nathan Walpow “Push Comes to Shove” • 327

Contributors’ Notes • 337

Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2000 • 347

Water For Elephants: The Musical is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Sara Gruen. Diane’s Book Club read the book and loved it. A young man loses his parents in a traffic accident and joins the “Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth” circus during the Great Depression. Jacob Jankowski was forced to withdraw from the Veterinary program at Cornell University after the death of his parents. The greedy owner of the circus, August, hires Jacob because of his veterinary knowledge to care for the circus animals.

The circus buys an elephant named Rosie and August beats the beast when it doesn’t follow his orders. Jacob solves that problem, but encounters another problem when he falls in love with August’s wife, Marlena.

I found the gymnastic exploits on the stage to be incredible! Think of Cirque du Soleil squared! The music was fairly bland and unmemorable. Clearly Water For Elephants: The Musical is more of a visual experience than an auditory one for me. The story was predictable. But the cast held my attention until the unsurprising end. GRADE: B-

Musical numbers:

Act I Overture – Orchestra Prologue – Company “Anywhere/Another Train” – Jacob, Camel, Wade, Company “The Road Don’t Make You Young” – Company “Easy” – Marlena “The Lion Has Got No Teeth” – August, Jacob, Company “I Choose the Ride” – Camel, Jacob, Company “Ode to an Elephant” – Mr. Jankowski, Jacob, Marlena, August “Just Our Luck” – Mr. Jankowski, Barbara, Camel, Walter, Vera, Sue “I Shouldn’t Be Surprised” – Marlena, Mr. Jankowski “Silver Stars” – Jacob “The Grand Spec” – August, Company

Act II “Funny Angel” – Mr. Jankowski “Zostań” – Company “Squeaky Wheel” – Barbara, Walter, Camel, Jacob “You’ve Got Nothing” – August, Jacob, Marlena, Camel, Walter, Wade “What Do You Do?” – Marlena “Wild” – Marlena, Jacob “The Road Don’t Make You Young (Reprise)” – Wade, Company “Go Home” – Jacob, Company “Zostań (Reprise)” – Jacob, Mr. Jankowski, Company “I Choose the Ride (Reprise)” – Company

“Upon its release in 1977, Rumours became the fastest selling LP of all time, eight hundred thousand copies per week at its peak, that success makes Fleetwood Mac a cultural phenomenon. The million-dollar record that took a year and untold grams of cocaine to complete became a totem of 1970s excess, a yardstick by which to measure just how ’70s the ’70s were.” (p. 115)

“In short, Lana Del Rey is Amy Winehouse with the safety on.” (p. 59)

“I can still listen to Led Zeppelin and take joy in…James Brown. I condemn the things they did. I’m not reminded constantly in the art, because the art is not about it. But if you’re listening to ‘I want to marry you, pussy’ and not realize that he [R. Kelly] said that to Aaliyah, who was fourteen, and making an album he named Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number–I had Aaliyah’s mother cry on my shoulder and say her daughter’s life was ruined, Aaliyah’s life was never the same after that.” (p. 43)

Jessica Hopper has been a rock journalist for decades. Her articles in The First Collection of Criticism By a Living Female Rock Critic (2021) cover Major and Minor groups and singers over the past 30 years.

As you can discern from the passages above, Hopper has a crisp, snarky writing style. The third excerpt comes from an interview with Jim Derogatis, the reporter who covered R. Kelly’s molesting of young girls for years. Like Jeffrey Epstein, R. Kelly ruined the lives of many, many girls for many, many years before Justice finally prevailed.

Anyone who is interested in contemporary music will enjoy The First Collection of Criticism By a Living Female Rock Critic. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Forward by Samatha Orby — xi

Introduction: I have a strange relationship with music — xiii

PART I: Chicago.

Chance the Rapper (June 2013) — 3

Viva la filthy noise! : Coughs’ Secret passage (October 2006) — 7

Sweet things (January 2006) — 13

LIL’ SQUIRT: JUICEBOXXX TAKES HIS SHOW ON THE ROAD, RIGHT AFTER HE GRADUATES HIGH SCHOOL — 15

San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Oswego: An Up-and-Coming British Post Punk Trio Wows the Preteens of a Suburban High School Gym — 21

Pogoing Across Boarders — 26

The “Stomach-Churning” Sexual Assault Accusations Against R. Kelley: Conversation with Jim Derogatis (December 2013) — 31

Part II: Real/Fake

We Can’t Stop: Our Year With Miley (January 2014) — 49

Gaga takes a trip (April 2011) — 53

Deconstructing Lana Del Rey (January 2012) — 56

St. Vincent, Strange Mercy (November 2011) — 66

Kacey Musgaves, Pageant Material — 71

Louder Than Love: My Teen Grunge Poserdom (Spring 2005) — 76

Part III: Death/Redemption

The passion of David Razan (July 2009) — 83

Flirting with religion : Rickie Lee Jones (March 2007) — 94

Superchunk : I hate music (August 2013) — 99

Why Michael Jackson’s past might be Gary, Indiana’s only future (July 2009)– 102

Between the viaduct of your dreams : On Van Morrison (July 2008) — 106

Part IV: Nostalgia

When The Boss went moral : Bruce Springsteen’s lost album (November 2010) — 111

Fleetwood Mac, Rumours Box Set — 115

Shouting out loud : The Raincoats (October 2009) — 123

Chalk Circle: Reflection — 127

You’re reliving all over me : Dinosaur Jr. reunites (April 2005) — 131

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me — 137

Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation Deluxe –141

Nevermind already : Nirvana’s 20th anniversary boxset (September 2011) — 146

PART V: CALIFORNIA

Kendrick Lamar : not your average, everyday rap savior (October 2012) — 153

Lana Del Rey: HONEYMOON — 162

California demise : Tyler, the Creator and EMA feel the bad vibes (2011) — 166

Will the stink of success ruin The Smell? (February 2009) — 169

Part VI: Strictly business

Punk is dead! Long live punk! : a report on the state of teen spirit from the mobile shopping mall that is the Vans Warped Tour (August 2004) — 181

Chief Keef, King of Chicago’s Insurgent Rap Scene (August 2013) — 191

How selling out saved indie rock (November 2013) — 196

Not Lollapalooza : Rollin Hunt, Screaming Females & Abe Vigoda (August 2007) — 213

Part VII: Desire, power, pleasure

Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville, Expanded Reissue — 221

Cat Power : Sun (September 2012) — 228

Body/Head, Coming Apart — 238

Joanna Newsom — 243

Fiona Apple, The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do — 247

Nicki Minaj, Pink Friday — 251

Part VIII: Personal/Political

Emo : where the girls aren’t (July 2003) — 257

TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain — 265

SWF, 45 : Mecca Normal’s The observer (April 2006) — 269

An Interview with Lida Pimienta — 275

Robyn Knows What It’s Like to Feel Bad — 290

M.I.A.’s Maya (July 2010) — 295

Janelle Monae is Breaking Rules and Creating Space for Others to Do the Same — 308

Part IX: She said

You will ache like I ache : the oral history of Hole’s Live through this (April 2014) — 315

“It Was Us Against Those Guys”: The Women Who Transformed Rolling Stone in the Mid-1970s — 338

Joni Mitchell: The Studio Albums 1968-1979 — 358

Sleater-Kinney: A Certain Rebellion — 369

The Invisible Woman: A Conversation with Bjork — 379

A Woman Every Hour: How Nashville’s Women Are Fighting Country’s Bra Rule — 392

Kacy Musgraves, Janelle Monte, and the Year of the Woman…Again — 399

Afterword — 411

Acknowledgments — 425

— — — —-

About ten years ago, Diane and I bought a Breville Oven. It’s a handy unit that sits on our counter and is perfect for quick cooking. Instead of using our big Frigidaire oven, the Breville makes sense for baking pizza logs (15 minutes), chicken patties (15 minutes), and various veggies (usually 5-8 minutes).

But the other day, when Diane turned the Breville on, there was a loud grinding sound. Diane immediately turned it off and unplugged it. So I do what I usually do when an appliance fails: I ordered a replacement Breville from AMAZON. AMAZON set me an email that the new Breville would be delivered the next day. It was.

When I was telling my Pool friends about the Breville problem, Mark the Electrician asked, “Can I take a look at it?” I said, “Sure, it’s yours. We ordered a replacement already.” Mark drove over to our house and picked up the dysfunctional Breville. “I’ll take it apart and check it out,” Mark promised. We’ll see if Mark can fix it…and enjoy it as much as we did. Have you had an appliance problems lately?

I read a review of Tim Sullivan’s  Detective Sergeant George Cross series and decided to give it a try. Cross is a police investigator with Asperger’s syndrome. He struggles with conventional conversations and social mores but is a genius at solving crimes. The first book in the series, The Dentist, starts with the murder of a homeless man who is later revealed to have been a successful dentist. But the unsolved murder of his wife led him to leave his practice and investigate the death that police left unsolved. Now, Cross uncovers a connection to a 15-year-old cold case involving the dead dentist and his murdered wife. 

The Cyclist continues Cross’s investigations into seeming random crimes that turn out to be more complex and sinister. Cross’s partner, a black single mother, finds dealing with the odd antics of this gifted investigator irritating. But, like the head of the Detectives, she cuts Cross slack because he has a 97% conviction rate–the best in the Police Department. When a young amateur cyclist is found dead at a demolition site, Cross uncovers a maze of performance-enhancing drugs, jealousy, and family secrets.

With The Patient, Tim Sullivan expands George Cross’s personal Life with his father–a retired engineer who worked on the Concorde. His father has become a hoarder and Cross takes action when his father falls amid all the stuff he’s collected over the years. Also, Cross reaches out to the mother who abandoned him and his father years ago. The Patient is a young woman whose death has been ruled a suicide but Cross–with his intense focus on Logic and Data–believes she was murdered. Uncovering the complicated past of the victim and her “drug overdose” death requires Cross’s skill to solve the puzzle.

The Politician is former Mayor, Peggy Frampton. Initially, Frampton’s death looks like a burglary gone wrong. But Cross finds indications that the former Mayor was murdered. After Frampton retired from office, she became a controversial on-line influencer who gave “advice” to her many followers. But she was threatened by trolls issuing death threats. Also in the mix is Frampton’s gambling addicted son, her philandering husband, and Albanian gangsters. Because this is a High Profile case, Cross and the rest of the detectives are under intense public pressure to solve the case. Using proven police procedures and impressive detection skills, Cross cuts through the web of suspects and motives to find the real killer.

Tim Sullivan, a veteran director and screenwriter, has created a sympathetic autistic detective, Detective Sergeant George Cross, who struggles with social situations, but is a wizard at solving intricate crimes. I’ll be reading the rest of the books in this excellent series! GRADE: A

DS Cross Mysteries:

1 The Dentist (2020)
2 The Cyclist (2020)
3 The Patient (2022)
4 The Politician (2022)
5 The Monk (2023)
6 The Teacher (2023)
7 The Bookseller (2025)
The Basket Case (2025)
8 The Tailor (2026)

Back in the 1960s, I listened to my transistor radio all day long. All of these songs became the soundtrack of my teen years. Loved The Dixie Cups’ version of “Chapel of Love.” And The Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”

The Drifters’ “Under the Boardwalk” was a favorite. As was Martha Reeves and The Vandellas’ “Heat Wave.” I couldn’t get enough of The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar”. The Sixties also featured instrumentals like The Ventures’ “Walk, Don’t Run” and The Champs” “Tequila.”

Do you remember these songs of the Sixties? Any favorites here? GRADE: B+

TRACK LIST:

1-1	The Beach Boys–	Surfin’ Safari
1-2	The Dixie Cups–	Chapel Of Love
1-3	Fats Domino–	Blueberry Hill
1-4	The Diamonds–	Little Darlin’
1-5	The Chiffons–	He’s So Fine
1-6	The Crests–	Sixteen Candles
1-7	The Shangri-Las–	Leader Of The Pack
1-8	Gene Pitney–	Town Without Pity
1-9	Chubby Checker–	Limbo Rock
1-10	The Shirelles–	Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
2-1	Jan & Dean–	Surf City
2-2	Gary Puckett–	Young Girl
2-3	John Fred & His Playboy Band–	Judy In Disguise
2-4	The Drifters–	Under The Boardwalk
2-5	Martha Reeves–	Heat Wave
2-6	The Diamonds–	Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
2-7	The Champs–	Tequila
2-8	The Archies–	Sugar, Sugar
2-9	The Ventures–	Walk, Don’t Run
2-10	The Swinging Blue Jeans–	Hippy Hippy Shake

I started reading Robert Silverberg stories in the late 1950s. Little did I know Silverberg started writing Science Fiction in his teens. Now, over 70 years later, Silverberg is still publishing collectIons of his vast output: 82 SF novels, over 200 erotic novels (as “Don Elliott”), and hundreds of short stories.

 Between 1956 and 1959 alone, Silverberg routinely averaged five published stories a month, with over 80 stories published in 1958 alone. Take the first story in A Multitude of Worlds (2026), “Collecting Team” (Super Science Fiction, December 1956) for example. A human crew is search for planets with Life. They discover a planet that teems with various species. But when the crew tries to depart from the planet, they discover their rocket engines have been sabotaged.

Compare that with a more recent story, “Defenders of the Frontier” (2010). A garrison that once numbered in the thousands defends a fort on the edge of a desert. For 20 years, the garrison has fought the Enemy. Time after time they have won battles and stopped the invasion. But the Empire has lost touch with the soldiers. The garrison, after so many years of fighting, is now reduced to 11 survivors. Their Seeker, a soldier with the power to locate Enemy troops by telepathy, claims there is no more Enemy. The soldiers have to decide whether to stay in the fort or return to the Empire.

A Multitude of Worlds is a good place to start if you want to experience one of the best Science Fiction writers. You’ll be awed by the range of themes and settings in these 13 stories. David Gerrold provides a laudatory Foreword about Silverberg’s long and successful career. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

FORWARD By David Gerrold — vii

INTRODUCTION By Robert Silverberg — xiii

I. Collecting Team — 1

II. World of a Thousand Colors — 15

III. Death’s Planet — 39

IV. Spacerogue — 55

V. The Sixth Place — 95

VI. These and the Ghayrog — 107

VII. Symbiont — 147

VIII. Sunrise on Pluto — 167

IX. We Are for the Dark — 179

X. The Tree That Grew From the Sky — 247

XI. Travelers — 293

XII. The Colonel Returns to the Stars — 311

XIII. Defenders of the Frontier — 373

About the Author — 403

Diane and I eat a salad almost every day. Diane usually prepares the salad with leafy greens like lettuce and spinach. She adds tomatoes, celery, peppers, carrots, and sometimes cheese.

But sometimes, we’re in a hurry so we resort to Wegmans Cole Slaw. It’s a fast, easy, and tasty substitute.

But a few weeks ago, Wegmans was totally out of Cole Slaw. Diane decide to buy Broccoli Slaw and give it a try.

Delicious!

The Broccoli, Carrots, Red Cabbage come together in a flavorful blend that’s satisfyingly crunchy. We add a dab of Marie’s Cole Slaw Dressing and it’s a salad fit for a Queen (and King)!

Do you like Salad? What kind?

With the havoc Trump’s tariffs have caused, with the chaos Elon Musk and DOGE have inflicted on our Government, and the sense of DOOM in the air as a result of Trump’s Iran War, David Spiegelhalter’s useful The Art of Uncertainty: Living with Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck (2024) brings some clarity to dealing with all this pandemonium.

David Spiegelhalter is a professor emeritus of statistics at the University of Cambridge. He was knighted in 2014 for his services to medical statistics. The key to dealing with uncertainty–which increases by the day under Trump–is understanding how to handle ignorance and risk.

One of the problems with today’s ignorance is determining what is True and what is Fake News. The Internet floods our lives with bogus facts, rumors, conspiracy theories, and bullshit. Sorting out what is Real and what is Fake requires time and energy. But, as in the old computer saying: GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT. If you make decisions based on false “facts” the end result will be wrong. Just look at the people who didn’t inoculate their kids with Measles vaccine and opted for castor oil and Vitamin-A.

The other key factor to deal with is risk. Again, there’s a shitstorm of deceptive and misleading “news” flooding our computers and cell phones daily. Spiegelhalter shows how to assess risks in various instances despite the counterfeit data.

Spieglehalter believes the old adage formulated by Pascal: “Chance favors the prepared mind.” In essence, we make our own Luck by choosing the right times and places to act based on preparation. If you want some tools to deal with the current (and future) catastrophes, The Art of Uncertainty is a good guidebook. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION — 1

Uncertainty is personal — 11

Putting uncertainty into numbers — 21

Taming chance with probability — 38

Surprises and coincidences — 65

Luck — 84

It’s all a bit random — 102

Being Bayesian — 122

Science and uncertainty — 142

How much confidence do we have in our analysis? — 164

What, or who, is to blame? : causality, climate, and crime — 174

Predicting the future — 194

Risk, failure and disaster — 214

Deep uncertainty — 232

Communicating uncertainty and risk — 241

Making decisions and managing risks — 258

The future of uncertainty — 276

Acknowledgements — 283

Notes — 285

Glossary — 299

Index — 309