Murder Most Delectable: Savory Tales of Culinary Crimes from 2000 features several clever murders involving food. No anthology on this topic would be complete without a Nero Wolfe story and sure enough, Martin H. Greenberg includes “Poison a la Carte” by Rex Stout. A producer of Broadway plays is murdered at the annual dinner of the Ten for Aristology and Wolfe has to determine which of the dozen beautiful girls who served the food fed arsenic to one of the members.

I also enjoyed “Gored” by Bill Crider where Sheriff Dan Rhodes is confronted by a murder at a Texas BBQ. Edward D. Hoch plays with memory in a boy who doesn’t realize until years later he knows who committed a murder in “Day for a Picnic.” Also clever and funny, Barbara Collins’ “Dead and Breakfast” features a B&B where murder is on the menu.

If you’re looking for an entertaining anthology of murder mysteries and food–and every story includes a recipe!–Murder Most Delectable might just satisfy your hunger. GRADE: B

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction / John Helfers — vii

The last bottle in the world / Stanley Ellin — 1

Takeout / Joyce Christmas — 23

The case of the shaggy caps / Ruth Rendell — 39

The cassoulet / Walter Satterthwait — 67

Tea for two / M.D. Lake — 81

The second-oldest profession / Linda Grant — 91

Connoisseur / Bill Pronzini — 105

Gored / Bill Crider — 115

Day for a picnic / Edward D. Hoch — 131

Guardian angel / Caroline Benton — 143

The main event / Peter Crowther — 151

The deadly egg / Janwillem van de Wetering — 163

Dead and breakfast / Barbara Collins — 181

Recipe for a happy marriage / Nedra Tyre — 197

Death cup / Joyce Carol Oates — 215

Poison peach / Gillian Linscott — 245

Of course you know that chocolate is a vegetable / Barbara D’Amato — 265

Poison à la carte / Rex Stout — 277

Authors’ Biographies — 333

Copyrights and Permissions — 339

I’ll watch anything with Kate Beckinsale in it no matter how silly. Beckinsale plays CIA agent Avery Graves who has John Wick-type moves and is handy with a number of weapons.

Here’s how The Guardian views Canary Black:

Canary Black review – Kate Beckinsale kicks impeccably chic ass in gender-flipped Taken

Unaware he’s married to a spy, Beckinsale’s husband is kidnapped – cue the baddies demanding a secret file, fancy action sequences, lots of gunshots and a nice trenchcoat.

Pierre Morel, who oversaw the making of the first Taken film–the action thriller where a former CIA agent, Liam Neeson, pursues Bad Guys who kidnap his teenage daughter–is Director of this movie with the same motif.

Car chases, shootouts, fist-fights, and a great deal of mayhem result when Avery searches for her kidnapped husband David (Rupert Friend) and is required to steal a super secret computer file called “Canary Black” in order to satisfy the kidnappers.

No deep messages, no platitudes, no subtlety…just a fun action movie. GRADE: B

Charlemagne Tha God (aka, Lenard Larry McKelvey), cohost of iHeart Radio’s The Breakfast Club and cohost of the podcast The Brilliant Idiots, uses Get Honest or Die Lying to rant about the dangers of Small Talk. Charlemagne hates small talk which he defines as “a symbol of our lack of authentic communication. Both as individuals and collectively.” 

Charlemagne finds most people waste much of their lives engaged in “Blah, Blah, Blah” conversations with no real meaning. And marinated in those small talk conversations are rumors, Fake News, exaggerations, recriminations, snide remarks, and outright lies.

Meaningful conversations today seem to be a rarity. Charlemagne provides dozens of examples of false claims in political conversations–both conservative and liberal. Our culture accepts lies as “normal” and inflated claims–both Good and Bad–as just the way business and commerce is conducted today.

Charlemagne concludes his book with a desperate entreaty: “Now I want to encourage you to make rejecting small talk a priority in your life,” he pleads, “because small talk is killing us as a society.” How do you feel about small talk? GRADE: B

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction: no more small talk —xi

Small talk to you nice — 1

Put some respek on the tortoise — 9

The pursuit of ignorance — 15

Father time — 23

Evolutionary revolutionary — 29

DEI (not that one) –37

The language of politics is dead — 45

Self-destruction– 51

Tree-hug the block — 57

Astronaut kids, featuring Elliott Connie — 65

Funny or die — 71

The lying game — 77

World wide nigga net — 83

Listen to the elders, bro — 91

Small minds — 101

Death of a nation, featuring Aaron McGruder — 107

Talkin’ loud and sayin’ somethin’ — 119

Same-day service — 127

Ego strength — 135

Headlines — 143

The point! — 151

I hear dead people — 159

Small town, small talk — 167

The gossip files — 175

Time 4 sum aksion — 181

Imposterism — 187

Echo — 197

True intentions — 205

The blessed don’t beef with the miserable — 209

Acknowledgments — 215

The 5-2 Buffalo Bills travel to the West Coast to take on the 4-3 Seattle Seahawks who sit atop the NFC West. The Bills are 3 point favorites, but I see this as a very very close game. How will your favorite NFL team perform today?

If you put Agatha Christie and Lee Child’s Make Me in a blender, you’d get Catherine Steadman’s Look In the Mirror. In alternating chapters, we follow three women on a harrowing experience complete with danger and deadly puzzles.

Nina Hepworth is grieving the death of her father, a brilliant but enigmatic professor, when she receives a letter from a legal firm informing her of a property her father has left her: a 3-bedroom Beachfront Estate in Pond Bay, Gorda, British Virgin Islands. Mystified because she knew nothing of her father’s activities in the Virgin Islands, Nina accepts the legal firm’s offer to fly her to tour the property.

Meanwhile, Maria, a Cornell Medical School dropout, has a contract to be a nanny for the super-rich. The money is better and the variety of exotic locations appeals to her. But as the days go by in the Virgin Island estate, Maria relaxes in the pool and the sauna waiting for the wealthy clients as her imperilment increases.

Lucinda, an executive type, is the linchpin of the story. She’s the beautiful, elegant contact between Nina and Maria who knows the perils that await them.

If you’re in the mood for a suspenseful, twisty, and mysterious novel with a nefarious plot featuring puzzles in the form of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, give Look In the Mirror a try. GRADE: B+

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I’d feature one the best horror novels I’ve ever read. Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959), is certainly the most influential haunted house tale of all time. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and has been made into two feature films (The Haunting, directed by Robert Wise, and its remake), a play, and is the basis of a Netflix series.

Jackson sets up a scary situation when a group of four supernatural phenomena researchers stay at a haunted house. The reader is confronted with the question: do ghosts really exist? The researchers all perceive the haunted house in different ways with plenty of dread and horror.

In 2018, The New York Times polled 13 writers to choose the scariest book of fiction they have ever read, and Carmen Maria Machado and Neil Gaiman both chose The Haunting of Hill House. You can add me to that list! Are you a fan of Shirley Jackson? GRADE: A

Back in 1979, I moved back to Western NY from Madison, Wisconsin. I was about to start a new career as a college professor. Diane and I were looking at houses in the neighborhood we wanted to live in. The mortgage interest rates were 13% back then! And, I listened to a lot of songs on the radio as I was driving around from job to job.

Naturally, I heard The Cars’ “Let’s Go” many, many times. And Smokey Robinson’s “Cruising'” while I was cruising around North Tonawanda.

We’ve all been hearing “YMCA” at Trump rallies lately. And when I see Laura Loomer hanging out with Trump, Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” seems appropriate for the moment.

Back in 1979, Nicolette Larson’s “Lotta Love” received heavy airplay on our local radio stations. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: B

TRACK LIST:

1	The Cars–	Let’s Go
2	Foreigner–	Dirty White Boy
3	Blondie–	One Way Or Another
4	Rickie Lee Jones–	Chuck E.’s In Love
5	Smokey Robinson–	Cruisin’
6	The Doobie Brothers–	Minute By Minute
7	Raydio–	You Can’t Change That
8	Earth, Wind And Fire*–	After The Love Has Gone
9	The Knack (3)–	Good Girls Don’t
10	Peter Frampton–	I Can’t Stand It No More
11	Foreigner–	Head Games
12	The Babys–	Every Time I Think Of You
13	Hot Chocolate–	Every 1’s A Winner
14	Ashford And Simpson*–	Found A Cure
15	Bell And James*–	Livin’ It Up (Friday Night)
16	Peaches And Herb*–	Shake Your Groove Thing
17	The Village People*–	Y.M.C.A.
18	Joe Jackson–	Is She Really Going Out With Him?
19	Bonnie Pointer–	Heaven Must Have Sent You
20	Nicolette Larson–	Lotta Love

Murder Most Feline: Cunning Tales of Cats and Crime is another volume in Martin H. Greenberg’s Murder Most … series. This time, Greenberg is assisted by Ed Gorman and Larry Segriff.

My favorite story in Murder Most Feline is Bill Crider’s clever “It’s In the Bag.” During a trial, a cat in a bag becomes a key element in solving the crime. I also enjoyed Parnell Hall’s “The Witness Cat” where a murder gets resolved with the aid of a kitty.

As with the other Murder Most… volumes, Greenberg and company present a variety of stories, some serious, some funny, but all featuring a cat in a pivotal role in the solving of a crime. If you like mysteries and cats, Murder Most Feline is the cat’s meow! Are you a cat person? GRADE: B

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction — vii

The witness cat / Parnell Hall — 3

Justice knows no paws / Jon L. Breen — 23

It’s in the bag / Bill Crider — 35

Animal sounds / Dulcy Brainard — 49

Blue eyes / Janet Dawson — 65

Cat, the jury / Catherine Dain — 79

The memory pool / Tracy Knight — 91

The lawlessness west of the Pecos / Jan Grape — 105

Catnip / Dick Lochte — 123

Hoskin’s cat / Shirley Rousseau Murphy — 147

Missing the cat / Mat Coward — 159

Prints / Ann Barrett — 171

Mr. Biggles for the defense / Matthew J. Costello — 185

Family ties / Richard Chizmar and Barry Hoffman — 197

For the benefit of Bootsy / Jeremiah Healy — 207

In the lowlands / Gary A. Braunbeck — 221

Author Biographies — 245

Copyrights — 248

Diane and I took our 14-year-old Oreck vacuum cleaner for its annual maintenance checkup at Supervacuums in Hamburg, NY. The young technician looked at our Oreck and said, “I could give you a $150 rebate for your Oreck if you buy a new Riccar SupraLite Standard Lightweight Vacuum (R10S).”

Diane and I tried out the Riccar R10S in the store and liked it. So we traded our old Oreck for a new Riccar. Diane, who does most of the vacuuming, tested it in our living room and liked its maneuverability and suction. So far, so good. How do you like your vacuum cleaner?

Hugh Milford is a Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach. Milford is a gifted writer and I love his snarky approach to the CIA. Here’s an example:

“In Indonesia, the hoped for mutiny in the military failed to materialize and Sukarno actually benefited from psychological warfare measures intended to discredit him. In one notorious instance, the CIA had sponsored the production of a pornographic movie featuring an actor made up to look like president [Sukarno]. Rumor had it that the movie backfired because Indonesians were so impressed by the the virility of the Sukarno look-alike.” (p. 91-92)

Wilford’s approach is designed to give the reader an accurate history of the CIA–both Good and Bad. Wilford starts with a brief description of international conditions that lead to the forming of the CIA in 1947. The focus then shifts to the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s. The CIA declined in the 1970s as part of the anti-imperial backlash against the CIA at home. But President Reagan reinvigorated the CIA in the 1980s as the Cold War with Russia was ending. Finally, Wilford examines the CIA’s role in the United States’s Global War on Terror and the menacing resurgence of Cold War-like tensions with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

I found The CIA: An Imperial History (2024) compelling and informative. If you want to know more about the CIA, this is the place to look. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION — 1

Prologue: Imperial precursors — 11

Part 1. Overseas:

Intelligence — 35

Regime change — 69

Regime maintenance — 107P

Part 2. At Home:

Counterintelligence — 147

Publicity — 193

Unintended consequences — 239

Epilogue: The Global War on Terror — 279

Conclusion — 305

Acknowledgements — 315

Notes — 319

Index — 349