Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Sunday, October 27, 2024

The Romanoff Jewels (The Shadow #19) 3.5Stars

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Title: The Romanoff Jewels
Series: The Shadow #19
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 142
Words: 43K

Commies, Czar’ists and The Shadow all collide! Man, this was a weird read. Russian Royalty simply hasn’t been a part of our world close to 100 years now and so to read a story about it just after its heyday, still a force to be reckoned with, really threw me. It was kind of hard to take seriously too.

The Shadow really plays up the human factor in this story. He’s fully Lamont Cranston as much as he is the Shadow and he gets shot and beaten up and generally manhandled as any one person would in these circumstances. I’m used to The Shadow utterly triumphing, not surviving by the skin of his teeth.

I’ve never heard of the Romanoff Jewels, so everything about them, (a fabled stash of jewels representing the sum wealth of the Czars that was hidden away for their eventual return) was brand new and any info in the book I just took at face value. I did have some problem with the revelation that they were all fakes at the end. I had to roll my eyes at the naivete and stupidity of both commies and czarists thinking they were real. One jeweler is all it would have taken to prove things. It was shown that The Shadow’s ghirasol ring WAS one of the originals, and while it seems to have no purpose or function, it has a mystical mystique about it that in turn conferred such a feeling on the rest of the horde (that turned out not to exist). It would be like finding out that my food pantry was made up of a piece of wood from the Ark of the Covenant and that Putin and Kamala Harris were both after it.

Another good read and I enjoyed it. Overall, I don’t ever see myself re-reading these Shadow books, but that’s ok. Not every book is written to be re-read. Once and done is sometimes ok…

★★★✬☆

From the Publisher

Click to Open

The lofty towers of the Kremlin loomed like spectral spires against a darkened sky. Senov – master spider in a web of espionage – was about to ensnare America in the most nefarious deal of all time: behind the guise of a trade detente, he and his treacherous American trusties will swap the Romanoff jewels for help in restoring the ancient Russian monarchy! Only a certain black-clad form, swept like the shroud of night itself across the oceans and mountains of a desperate world, could hope to challenge such global enemies… and from the mysteries of New York’s Cobalt Club to the thrills of a breathtaking submarine voyage the Shadow carves a dark and hidden path for the forces of justice: beware The Shadow as you beware the darkest unknown!

All of My “The Shadow” Reviews

Friday, October 25, 2024

11 Years or My Week XIV

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24261931/wordpress-matt-mullenweg-automattic-employee-pay-package

If you wonder why there is no support at WordPress.com now, it’s because the owner just kicked out almost 10% of the workers. He paid anyone who disagreed with him to leave. Awesome.

Where can I get some of that moulah? I’d leave wordpress for 30K in a heartbeat.

Oh, this was supposed to be a celebratory post? My bad. Let me switch the flip and go into happy mode.

Oh frabjous day, oh hurray, hurray. Everything is just perfect and wonderfully and happy. Yippee ki-yay, miserable frackers!

That’s what happens when I stay awake for 40hrs. It has taken me all week to get over that little episode.

Sadly, work was absolutely bonkers this week. Several of the project managers had big jobs coming due and they were panicking like chickens with their heads cutoff. On Tuesday we started out scheduled to stay at one job for the whole day. By the end of the day, we had gone to 4 different jobs, and because we’re so fething awesome, we finished them all! Of course, on Wednesday we got jerked around again, but accomplished almost nothing. That day I went home, ate a bowl of cold cereal and went to bed.

Thursday I had a “writer” encounter with a solicitation to review a book. Nobody gets to tell me how to review their book, period. Doesn’t matter if it’s as simple as “You have to be completely honest”. That is a “condition”, a boundary, a limiting of MY FREEDOM as a reader and reviewer. They weren’t necessarily bad conditions or even onerous, but NOBODY tells me how I review a book. I left devilreads (that wretched hive of scum and villainy) over that very issue. Thankfully, it ended up being ok, as I simply declined after the conditions were revealed and we each went our separate ways. No harm, no foul. But I really could have done without that bit of straw on this camel’s back.

This whole week I have wanted to go to bed and not bother getting up. Just 9 more hours to go…

Thursday, October 24, 2024

The Pirates of Salgari (Groo the Wanderer #33) 3.5Stars

Title: The Pirates of Salgari
Series: Groo the Wanderer #33
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 27
Words: 2K

Well, it turns out that Rufferto the dog is some sort of anti-kryptonite for Groo. If Rufferto is on a ship, it can’t sink, even if Groo is on board. But as soon as Rufferto leaves, if Groo is still on board, sploosh, that’s it for that poor ship!

This was a great misadventure of Groo ending up fighting for both sides and not having a clue, as usual. And the ending was just SO GROO. People are fighting, so he just jumps in, hahahaha.

I included this picture because of the first two panels specifically. It was SO expressive of just what was going on. It is simplistic but it conveys everything needful of that situation. From Groo (who isn’t even pictured but is kicking butt!) to the Leader of the Pirates to the onlookers. You read those two panels and you know exactly everything everyone is doing and feeling. How incredible is that? And I think that is why I keep reading this comic. Aragones is good at telling a short story and making his art support it every step of the way.

★★★✬☆

From Bookstooge.blog

Synopsis – click to open

A town is plundered by pirates and offers a reward for the return of all their goods. Groo hears about it and with his dog Rufferto’s help, sails to the pirate island, where he inevitably becomes the leader of the pirates. And leads a raid on the town who is offering the reward. Groo doesn’t get his reward and goes off to sulk. Soldiers from the king attack the pirates cum villagers and Groo ends up attacking everybody. The End.

All of My “Groo the Wanderer” Reviews

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Doctor Syn Returns (Doctor Syn #3) 3Stars

Title: Doctor Syn Returns
Series: Doctor Syn #3
Author: Arthur Russell Thorndike
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 154
Words: 74K

Syn is not so bloody thirsty and hypocritical in this one, but I still had serious issues with the liqueur smuggling going on. While I’m not a fan of the government taxing the soul out of us (one of the reasons America kicked the Brits ass back in ‘76 after all), I don’t feel that the smuggling of alcohol is in any way justified. Alcohol is almost as evil as drugs and I’ll go so far as to say that it IS a drug, as bad as meth, crack or marijuana. While we have the God given right to defend ourselves (why I AM in favor of gun running, ghost guns and other such libertarian ideals that are opposed to a tyrannical dictatorship run by a woman who was not actually elected), He did NOT give us the right to get shit faced drunk. So do yourself a favor and get rid of it.

This was the story where The Scarecrow is given life and while we only see him in action once or twice, he’s as great a character as Captain Clegg was. Considering they are both Syn, it’s no wonder.

I’m still on the fence about this series. I can see myself waffling about it right up until I finish it and I can see myself just throwing it away in disgust and dnf’ing at a moment’s notice. Taking this one book at at time.

Even if I do finish the series, it’s not one I’ll ever recommend.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia & Bookstooge.blog

Synopsis – click to open

It tells the story of Syn, who has tired of piracy, tries to settle down as the vicar of the little town of Dymchurch in Kent, England.

Syn’s attempt to live an obscure life fails when he is drawn into the local smuggling trade. To protect his parishioners from the agents of the King’s Revenue, Syn becomes the masked Scarecrow of Romney Marsh and becomes leader of the smugglers.

During this time, he falls in love with the oldest daughter of his best friend only for her to die. He also finds his wife, who is on death’s door. She has a daughter by her lover. Said lover pretends to be the Pirate Captain Clegg and dies so that Syn will take care of his baby daughter.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (June 2012) 3Stars

Title: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine
Series: June 2012
Editor: Linda Landrigan
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 123
Words: 47K

Slightly better than the previous magazine, but not by much. Weighing in at only 120+ pages, this doesn’t feel like a collection; which to be fair, it isn’t, it is a magazine. But that has made me realize that I’m not a fan of magazine length collections of stories.

Also, these really feel like reject stories that weren’t good enough for anywhere else. My bias is definitely playing a big part of that, but these stories just don’t have the verve, the snap, the creepiness that the stories in the old “Alfred Hitchcock Presents…” books had. Part of that is because the stories are trying to ape those by using the 1920’s through the 1980’s as their setting but with 2010’s sensibilities. You can’t do that successfully and none of these authors did.

I’ll read the rest of what I’ve got available for this magazine, but after that I’ll go deep diving on the dark net and dig up whatever old collection of Alfred Hitchcock’s collections from back in the day that I can find.

I guess this magazine just leaves a faint aftertaste of disappointment in my literary mouth.

★★★☆☆

Table of Contents:

Click to Open

Department: EDITOR’S NOTE: CRIME TIME by Linda Landrigan

Department: THE LINEUP

Fiction: THE SELLOUT by Mike Cooper

Fiction: THEA’S FIRST HUSBAND by B.K. Stevens

Fiction: CUPS AND VARLETS by Kenneth Wishnia

Fiction: LAST SUPPER by Jane K. Cleland

Department: MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH

Fiction: THE POT HUNTERS by David Hagerty

Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn

Mystery Classic: AFTERNOON OF A PHONY by Cornell Woolrich, Selected and Introduced by Francis M. Nevins

Department: THE STORY THAT WON

Department: COMING IN JULY 2012

All of My “Alfred Hitchcock” Reviews

Monday, October 21, 2024

Enter a Murderer (Roderick Alleyn #2) 3Stars

Title: Enter a Murderer
Series: Roderick Alleyn #2
Author: Ngaio Marsh
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 163
Words: 57K

The next in the “Inspector” Roderick Alleyn books. I enjoyed this more than the first book, but it still had that “edge” that unsettled me in the first book so I’m not raising my rating, not yet anyway.

This time around we’re dealing with a group of actors (stage actors, not movie actors, because of the times this is taking place in), but they are just as insufferable, arrogant and in general as much jackasses as any actor today. They are almost without fail horrible people and I didn’t feel sorry a single one of them at the inconviences, etc they had to endure while the investigation went on. It also didn’t help that Nigel, one of the characters from the first book, was here and basically being a complete idiot at every turn. Alleyn had to handle him without appearing to handle him. It was like watching a master craftsman turn a lump of turd into a turd statue. Not exactly pleasing, but still, shows skill.

I enjoyed the writing itself this time. There is something that pleases me down deep when an author shows their complete grasp of the English language and it’s multitudinal rules. It is an art and it is an art that I can actually intrinsically appreciate. Probably because “words” is my primary love language, so seeing them used absolutely correctly just pleases me.

Murder mysteries are a window into the heart of darkness and it never ceases to amaze me what people will murder for. Yes, this is fiction, but anything that some author can “think up’, well, the reality is that that has actually happened in some form or another. I don’t want to become jaded but at the same time I know I can have a rose tinted view of just what people can actually do, so it is good for me to be reminded of the reality of fallen human nature. Because if you think people are basically good, then they don’t need to be saved. And if they don’t need to be saved, then they don’t need a Savior. And if someone doesn’t think they need a savior, they will never consider turning their life over to Jesus. And that decision has eternal consequences I’m afraid.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

Synopsis – click to open

Journalist Nigel Bathgate accompanies his friend Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn to a production of “The Rat and the Beaver” at the Unicorn Theatre. The star of the show is Felix Gardener, a friend of Nigel’s, who plays the titular Rat. The production is fantastic, and Alleyn and Bathgate’s eyes are glued to the stage. In the climactic scene, the Rat makes a dramatic entrance and shoots the Beaver, played by Arthur Surbonadier. The Beaver stares angrily at the Rat and drops dead. Only, this is not part of the show. Surbonadier really is dead, having been killed because the prop bullets in the Rat’s gun were secretly replaced by real ones.

Alleyn takes control of the investigation and learns nearly everyone in the cast hated Surbonadier. He fought with Gardener about several things, most importantly actress Stephanie Vaughn. The prop bullets were stored in a desk and must have been switched when the lights went out before the play began. Everybody seems to have an alibi. A pair of grey woolen gloves are found, smeared with stage makeup. The prop bullets have a similar substance on them. Alleyn learns very little from his interviews but suspects that Props, the prop manager, knows more than he lets on.

Alleyn, aided by Bathgate and Inspector Fox, begins to look into Surbonadier’s personal life. The actor’s uncle, Jacob Saint, owns the Unicorn and was once the target of a libelous accusation of being involved in a drug smuggling ring. The letter was allegedly written by a journalist named Edward Wakeford, but many people believe Arthur wrote it himself as an attempt to blackmail his wealthy uncle. When Alleyn searches the actor’s flat, he finds a what looks like a sheet of paper used to practice forging Wakeford’s signature. Alleyn arrests Saint, but is coy publicly about what the exact charges are.

Alleyn asks for a recreation of everyone’s movements backstage before the play began. The night before the recreation is to take place, a police deputy tracks a suspect back to the Unicorn, where he is soon found dead. Although it looks like suicide, Alleyn knows it is murder and uses the reaction from his prime suspect to the discovery of the body to prove that it was murder.

Fissure - MTG 4E

Come on guys, build a flipping bridge, you can do it. I don’t care what that Plato dude claims, you CAN build a bridge, I believe in you!

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Plot It Yourself (Nero Wolfe #31) 4stars

Title: Plot It Yourself
Series: Nero Wolfe #31
Author: Rex Stout
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 152
Words: 56K

I’ve been giving these Nero Wolfe books 3 ½ stars for just about the entire series so far. But I’ve realized that every story is solid (even if I don’t care for it) and that I KNOW I’ll be re-reading these (but not like Fraggle, who read them back to back to back. You go girlfriend!) and thus I’ve realized something. These totally deserve 4stars as the base rating and thus from here on out, that’s what I’m planning on doing.

I especially enjoyed this story because it was about authors and plagiarists and murder. If you don’t know, I have a “complicated” relationship with authors. As long as they write their books and entertain me, me and authors get along famously. But as soon as they try to become “people” and use their books for whatever cause they happen to believe in at that moment, well, then I despise, detest and generally am ready to throw them off a cliff. Throw in an entitled attitude or two and usually I just do my best to avoid authors as people. So in this story several authors get murdered and that made me very happy. All of the people involved, authors to publishers, in the plagiarist side of things lie to Wolfe and each other and thus I was perfectly ok with them being killed. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch.

That really added some relish to my reading. Sometimes an idea or plot point just clicks and makes the whole book that much better. This was one of those times.

I have also come to realize that I am not a Do It Yourself Detective either. I don’t WANT to solve the mystery myself or before the main character. I want the author to do all the work and I just sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s tough to do that with Agatha Christie novels or Ellery Queen mysteries, which is why I’ve given up on both those authors. They think (technically, thought, since they are dead and not thinking at all right now) they were clever, but the reality is that they were just doofuses who enjoyed confusing people. Rex Stout enjoys telling a good story first and foremost. Which is why I’m still reading Nero Wolfe stories 31 books later 🙂

★★★★☆

From Wikipedia

Synopsis – click to open

Someone has been getting away with a different spin on plagiarism. It’s the old scam – an unsuccessful author stealing ideas from an established source – but it’s being worked differently. Now, the plagiarists are claiming that the well-known authors are stealing from them (as Wolfe puts it, “plagiarism upside down.”[2]). And they are making their claims stick: three successful claims in four years, one awaiting trial, and one that’s just been made.

These claims have damaged both the publishers and the authors. The Book Publishers of America (BPA) and the National Association of Authors and Dramatists (NAAD) form a joint committee to explore ways to stop the fraud, and the committee comes to Wolfe for help. The first four claims have shared certain characteristics: in the first, for example, the best selling author Ellen Sturdevant is accused by the virtually unknown Alice Porter of stealing a recent book’s plot from a story that Porter sent her, asking her suggestions for improvement. Sturdevant ignores the accusation until Porter’s manuscript is found in Sturdevant’s house. The writing and publishing industry is convinced that the manuscript was planted, but the case was settled out of court.

That scenario, with minor variations, is repeated four times, with other authors and by other plagiarists. The latest complaint has been made only recently, and the target of the complaint wonders when a manuscript will show up somewhere that it wasn’t the day before.

Wolfe’s first step is to acquire and read the manuscripts that form the basis for the complaints. Wolfe’s love of literature turns out to be useful in his investigation: from the internal evidence in the manuscripts, Wolfe concludes that they were all written by the same person. Aspects such as diction, punctuation and syntax – and, most convincingly, paragraphing – point Wolfe directly to the conclusion that one person wrote all the manuscripts.

At first, this seems like progress, but then it becomes clear that it’s the opposite. The task initially seemed to be to show that the first fraud inspired a sequence of copycats, and the universe of suspects was limited to the complainants. But now that Wolfe has determined that one person wrote all the fraudulent manuscripts, that one person could be anyone. Wolfe meets with the joint committee to discuss the situation.

A committee member suggests that one of the plagiarists be offered money, along with a guarantee of immunity, to identify the manuscripts’ actual author. The committee concurs, and asks Wolfe to arrange for the offer to be made to Simon Jacobs. The next day, Archie goes to make the offer to Jacobs, but finds Sergeant Purley Stebbins at the Jacobs apartment: Mr. Jacobs has been murdered, stabbed to death the night before.

In short order, Archie discovers two more dead plagiarists. Wolfe blames himself for not taking steps to protect Jacobs and the others, who had been made targets by the plan to pay for information. The only one left is Alice Porter, who first worked the fraud successfully, and who is now repeating it with Amy Wynn and her publisher. Wolfe, concentrating on Porter, catches her in a contradiction that identifies the murderer for him.

All My “Nero Wolfe” Reviews

Friday, October 18, 2024

[Journal] Renoir, Letter to Morisot or My Week XIII

This is the first journal from the 8 Journals I ordered last month. It is a letter from Renoir to Morisot with Renoir’s famous “Bed of Anemones” as the backdrop. I included front, back, fully extended and then one of it open so you can see how flat it lies on its own. I mentioned that in the 8 Journals post so I wanted to show you what I meant. It is practically like having a writing desk included.

Had a situation this week where I thought I was doing the right thing only to find out that someone else thought I was doing the wrong thing, on purpose. It really set me back for a couple of days. I volunteer once a month and after December will not be able to continue it due to various reasons. So I began approaching some of the younger people I know asking them if they had any interest in getting training and beginning to volunteer themselves. I presented the volunteer leader with a list of teenager’s names with a note about each’s seeming interest (from highly interested to not really but said yes just to get rid of me, hahahah). Well, boy howdy did I get raked over the coals by him for that! He replied to my email, leaving out key people who I had initially included so as not to step on anybody’s toes, and impugned my motives and told me that kids weren’t welcome as the program being done right was more important than anything. Sadly, I’ve seen this kind of behavior before and it always ends in a death spiral for whatever program is in question. That just kept me in a state of low level turmoil until Wednesday.

Injections in both my eyes on Wednesday. Amazing how some pain and suffering can wipe away emotional baggage in about an hour. Can’t say I was particularly thankful for that, but I was glad to stop thinking about the volunteer situation. I do not need to get bitter about it.

Today I have some more Endo (endocrinology for my diabetes) appointments. After that, going to try to catch up on some blog posts, as I didn’t write for most of the week because I didn’t feel like it. It still amazes me, after all these years, just how much work a hobby can be 😀

But for some surprisingly GOOD news. We are having Mac-N-Choose for dinner. I am getting the philly steak and cheese mac and cheese. Oh yeah baby!

Thursday, October 17, 2024

The Death of Ivan Ilyich (The Russians) 3Stars

Title: The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Translator:
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 82
Words: 22K

While I found this engaging and well written (ie, translated), I also had issues with it on multiple levels.

On a literary level, Ilyich is an unpleasant man who becomes even more unpleasant as he sees his death approaching. I did not enjoy reading about him. And as he got sicker and became more and more unpleasant and unbearable, it was not cathartic knowing he was going to die. The story starts AFTER his death and even that was unpleasant as the people he associated with were just as unpleasant as him.

On a spiritual level, I also found this unpleasant. Ivan Ilyich is dying and somehow magically sees God’s Plan and loses all fear of death, or something like that. There wasn’t one mention of Jesus Christ or His death, resurrection and redemption of humanity. This is one ongoing issue I have with old time’y Russians who claim to be Christians. Most of their spiritually is as mystical and unknowable as any pagan religion. This was one of the more egregious examples and it totally rubbed me the wrong way.

Thankfully, at just over 80 pages it didn’t last long. I’m glad I read this but like a lot of these Russian novellas, have no plans to ever re-read it.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

Synopsis – click to open

Ivan Ilyich lives a carefree life that is “most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” Like everyone he knows, he spends his life climbing the social ladder. Enduring marriage to a woman whom he often finds too demanding, he works his way up to be a magistrate, thanks to the influence he has over a friend who has just been promoted, focusing more on his work as his family life becomes less tolerable.

While hanging curtains for his new home one day, he falls awkwardly and hurts his side. Though he does not think much of it at first, he begins to suffer from a pain in his side. As his discomfort grows, his behavior towards his family becomes more irritable. His wife finally insists that he visit a physician. The physician cannot pinpoint the source of his malady, but soon it becomes clear that his condition is terminal (although no diagnosis is ever stated by the physician.) Confronted with his terminal condition, Ivan attempts every remedy he can to obtain a cure for his worsening situation, until the pain grows so intense that he is forced to cease working and spend the remainder of his days in bed. Here, he is brought face to face with his mortality and realizes that, although he knows of it, he does not truly grasp it.

During the long and painful process of dying, Ivan dwells on the idea that he does not deserve his suffering because he has lived rightly. If he had not lived a good life, there could be a reason for his pain; but he has, so pain and death must be arbitrary and senseless. As he begins to hate his family for avoiding the subject of his death, for pretending he is only sick and not dying, he finds his only comfort in his peasant boy servant, Gerasim, the only person in Ivan’s life who does not fear death, and also the only one who, apart from his own son, shows compassion for him. Ivan begins to question whether he has, in fact, lived a good life.

In the final days of his life, Ivan makes a clear split between an artificial life, such as his own, which masks the true meaning of life and makes one fear death, and an authentic life, the life of Gerasim. Authentic life is marked by compassion and sympathy, the artificial life by self-interest. Then “some force” strikes Ivan in the chest and side, and he is brought into the presence of a bright light. His hand falls onto his nearby son’s head, and Ivan pities his son. He no longer hates his daughter or wife, but rather feels pity for them, and hopes his death will release them. In so doing, his terror of death leaves him, and as Tolstoy suggests, death itself disappears.