Staying Sunny In Philadelphia

Silver Linings Playbook
by Matthew Quick

4 out of 5 crabby snacks.

Pat Peoples has been confined to the ‘bad place’, but he finally gets to leave and live with his parents until he can get back on his feet.  Pat’s main goal is to continue on a path of self improvement including working on being kinder, strenuous exercise and reading books so he'll be a better husband when he finally sees his beloved wife Nikki again after their ‘apart time’.

Pat likes being home, but his moody father refuses to talk to him unless the Philadelphia Eagles win.  Plus, his mother and his therapist are both encouraging him to spend time with Tiffany, a very strange woman who was recently widowed.  It’s almost like no one understands that he’s still married to Nikki.  As he works on becoming a better person, Pat gets to attend the Eagles home games with his brother and makes a lot of friends at the pre-game tailgates.  As they start winning, the superstitious fans think that Pat is good luck, and even his father becomes much friendlier.  As long as he can control his temper and continues to work hard, Pat is sure that he’ll get the kind of happy ending you see in the movies.

Since this is about a guy whose life has been shattered and he doesn’t even know it, you’d think Pat’s story would be incredibly sad.  Instead, the bittersweet humor that Mathew Quick has laced the book with makes it a pleasure to read instead of a depressing slog. Pat’s devotion to the cause of reuniting with Nikki can be simultaneously infuriating and endearing, and while we only get his usually slightly bewildered view point, you can also completely understand how those around him are feeling.

Quick also does a particularly nice job of detailing the highs and lows of sports fandom. Pat bonds with his brother and  becomes part of a community while tailgating. The team provides him a link to his emotionally distant and stubborn father.  Even his therapist is a rabid Eagle’s fan, and this helps Pat to trust and like him.  While the games provide great entertainment and instant connections, there‘s also a big downside to them.  An ugly incident with a rival team’s fan in the parking lot illustrates how sports fans can be merciless.  (It also highlights that wearing a rival team’s jersey to a game in Philly is a spectacularly bad idea.)  Pat’s dad is so wrapped up in the Eagles that a loss can make him even harder to live with.  When Pat makes a commitment to Tiffany that causes him to miss some games, everyone begins blaming him for the losses.

( However, I couldn’t be too critical of the characters being superstitious because I’m writing this on a Sunday afternoon waiting for the kick-off a Chiefs’ game while wearing the same red t-shirt I’ve worn for the last 6 games because they’ve won all 6.  As the commercials say, it’s only weird if it doesn’t work.)

I also very much enjoyed the movie version of this.  Even though it’s a fairly faithful adaptation there are also several big differences that made reading the novel surprising in several ways so this is one of those incidents where it’s well worth checking out both versions.

Toy Talk: A Fairy Tale With Profanity

Once upon a time, there was a carpenter named Otto who liked toys. Otto noticed that many people liked toys, but that for some reason there weren’t many public meeting places where these people could talk about them. Then he had an idea.

“I could build a large shed and put shelves inside the shed, and I’ll get pictures of all the toys in the land. Then I could invite toy fans to come pick out the pictures of the toys they’ve played with or are interested in, and they can put them on the shelf to display them, and other fans can walk around and look at them. This will spark all kinds of discussions. In fact, what if I give people a system to rate their toys so that passers-by will be able to see at a glance which toys are popular?” Otto told his friend Eliza.

“How much are you going to charge to do this?” Eliza asked.

“Nothing. It will all be free to all,” Otto replied.

“Are you fucking high?” Eliza replied. “Do you know what lumber costs? And how much work it will be to set all this up? Where are you going to get like a jillion pictures of toys? All this just so a bunch of toy freaks can sit around talking about them?”

“If I charge nothing, it will attract the toy fans. And I have some ideas about how I can make money from the toy sellers. The toy fans will have a place to gather with like-minded folk, the toy sellers will advertise there to their biggest potential buyers and be able to tell what kind of toys people like, and I might make a little money on the deal. It’s win-win-win.”

“Sounds pretty slim to me. But I like toys, too. What the hell, I’ll help,” Eliza said

So Otto cleared some land behind his house and built a large shed. Inside the shed, he put rows upon rows of shelves, and every shelf had a slot in front in which someone could put small wooden stars and write a label for them. Finally, he hung up a large sign over the entrance that said: Toy Talk – Free to All.

There were only small crowds of toy fans that showed up in those early days, and Otto would give the same spiel as they entered.

“Welcome to Toy Talk! We’ve created this place so that fans of toys can meet and talk about them. You can use as many shelves and toy pictures as you like. To help you organize the toys you already own or are interested in, we’ve given the shelves some basic names, but you can also add your own labels. Please use the star stickers we’ve provided, too. 1 for the worst and 5 for the best,” Otto would say. “Also, we have provided free pens and paper so that you can all write up reviews on the toys and tack them up next to the pictures. If you see a review you really like, you put this little I Liked It! sticker next to the review and you can write your own little note underneath the review if you have a comment.”

“Are there any rules?” some would ask.

“Yeah. We’d like you to stick to talking about toys. If you get into arguments where you use the really bad words or get abusive to another user, we’ll ban you. We wrote all this up and posted them on the wall over there, but it’s pretty long so most people don’t read it. Basically, it just says don’t be an asshole. I’m generally a pretty easy going guy who likes free discussion. But let’s be honest, it’s my shed so if you start pissing me off for any reason, I’ll change the rules to do what I want. What are the chances of that happening though?” Otto said sincerely.

“Only 5 stars? Can we have half-stars?” someone would inevitably ask.

“Dude, seriously? I built all this shit I’m letting you use for free, and your first question is about half-stars? Get the fuck out of here,” Otto would say.

Soon word of Toy Talk spread and more toy fans would came to the shed. The ones that liked certain types of toys began gathering into groups and discussing the subtle nuances of their favorite play things. Volunteers helped Otto organize the huge amounts of pictures. The reviewing became quite popular and the competition for I Liked It! stickers became such a driving force that Otto tallied up results weekly and posted the results on the bulletin board. Much silliness ensued because of this, but by and large they became a source of great entertainment for many in the Toy Talk community. Best of all, many of the toy lovers made new friends.

As Otto had thought, the toy manufacturers and sellers saw opportunities in the shed. Some began advertising their wares there and were interested in which toys were popular or disliked and so Otto was able to share the trends he noticed for a fee. Some toy makers set up their own shelves so that they could interact with fans of their work and share their thoughts on toys. Free advance prototypes of some toys became available to reviewers.

Then, Otto and Eliza, who had fallen in love during their hard work on the shed, got married. Even the most heartless and cynical Toy Talk users found this kind of sweet.

If this was a different kind of tale, that would be the happy ending. Unfortunately, this is not that kind of story.

That F'ing Flowers....

Storm Front 
by John Sandford
Putnam Adult

3 out of 5 stars made of counterfeit lumber.

Minnesota state investigator Virgil Flowers is working diligently on a case involving Florence ‘Ma’ Nobles and her sons selling counterfeit antique lumber. Of course, part of the reason that Virgil is working so hard is that Ma is very attractive and flirting shamelessly with him. So when a call comes in from his boss Lucas Davenport with another assignment, Virgil is more than a little miffed.

It’s no big deal, Davenport tells him. A Lutheran minister named Elijah Jones who is dying of cancer stole an ancient inscribed stone called a stele from an archaeological dig in Israel and smuggled it home to Minnesota. The Israelis want it back and have dispatched an antiquities expert to makes sure that happens. Virgil just has to play tour guide, pick up the terminally ill minister and locate the stele. Davenport assures Flowers that he’ll back on his counterfeit lumber case in to time at all.

Virgil really should know by now that Davenport lies…

Jones plans to auction the stele off to the highest bidder to get the money needed to care for his wife suffering from Alzheimer’s after he dies, and it turns out the old man is pretty wily. The stele’s inscription has historic implications that could be very damaging to Israel so Hezbollah has sent a representative to try and obtain it for propaganda purposes. A couple of tough Turks with fearsome reputations also show up. Two spotlight hungry media whores who pretend to be scholars also want in on the action, and the Israelis have a couple of dirty tricks at the ready. Even Ma Nobles gets mixed up in hunt for the stele, much to Virgil’s consternation.

Soon there’s more allegiances declared and alliances broken than on a season of Survivor, and an increasingly frustrated Virgil can’t seem to make any of these double crossing idiots understand that someone’s gonna get killed if this foolishness doesn’t stop.

Sandford has a lot of interests other than writing and one of the them is archaeology. Per his bio on his web page, he has funded and participated in a large dig in Israel since the late ‘90s so it’s a little surprising that this is the first one of his books to feature an archaeological angle to it. Despite the international flavor with various groups and countries interested in the stele, this still has the same grounded style that you usually get in a Sandford novel. There are some great bits late in the book with Virgil interacting with the shadowy figures of some unnamed American security agency, but Flowers remains the kind of guy far more interested in reading a fishing magazine than worrying about international intrigue and national security.

There’s an almost playful attitude in this one, and while the story is treated seriously, it wouldn’t have taken much to turn this into an outright farce, kind of like one of Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder novels. Sandford’s always had a sense of humor, but this is the first one of his books where he almost seems to make light of the stakes involved. There also isn’t much of the usual momentum and tension you get in a Lucas Davenport or Virgil Flowers novel. This isn’t a bad thing since it seems like a bit of departure from the others and with this many books in play, I like that Sandford doesn’t feel obligated to stick to the formula that has worked so well for him in the past.

It isn’t my favorite Sandford novel but it’s a fun one.

Questing For Fun

The Quest
Nelson DeMille
3 out of 5 stars.

Apparently Nelson DeMille wrote the first version of this book back in 1975, and it’s about people having an adventure while trying to find the Holy Grail. Even though I’ve been reading DeMille since the ‘80s, I’d never even heard of it. So despite his best-selling career writing thrillers about cops, spies and terrorists, I’m gonna assume that the success of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code really chapped DeMille’s ass, and that he decided to rewrite and rerelease this to get in on that gravy train.

Set during the mid-1970s, three reporters are in Ethiopia trying to cover the civil war. Henry Mercado is an older British gent who spent several years in a Soviet gulag and credits his survival to his finding faith in Jesus while there. Henry is accompanied by the much younger and beautiful Vivian Smith, a Swiss photojournalist, and they invited veteran American correspondent Frank Purcell along to get a first-hand look at the fighting. Purcell is wary of dangerous situations thanks to a year spent in a Cambodian prison camp, but a few too many cocktails at the hotel bar and a long look at Vivian convinced him to go along.

While spending the night in the ruins of a spa, a wounded Italian priest staggers out of the jungle with an incredible story to tell of how he has spent 40 years imprisoned after coming across a mysterious monastery in the jungle that he claims housed the Holy Grail. The priest’s info gives the three journalists a starting point to try and locate the monastery, but traveling in Ethiopia during a war is a dangerous undertaking.

If you read the official summary of this it states:

"Thus begins an impossible quest that will pit them against murderous tribes, deadly assassins, fanatical monks, and the passions of their own hearts."

That is a complete lie that is trying to market this as a rollicking adventure such as other stories about looking for the Holy Grail like Brown’s book or Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade. It’s false advertising that seems to be biting the publishers in the ass based on the reviews from DeMille fans I’ve read.

While there is danger to the group, it mostly comes in the form of one crazy Marxist general, a badly maintained airplane and the Ethiopian jungle. The murderous tribes are much discussed but never seen. The fanatical monks are just a bit of stage dressing, and as for ‘deadly assassins’, I don’t know what they're talking about there.

Like a lot of DeMille’s work, there’s a lot of talk and discussion about potential dangers, but the actual moments of the heroes in jeopardy are few and far between. A long interlude in the middle of the book revolves around doing research at the Vatican where the biggest threat is the love triangle that could end the quest. There are no ninja monks shooting poison darts or albino assassins running around killing people. Mainly they eat a lot of meals and drink a lot of wine and talk about what they’re going to do.

It’s not a terrible read. I find DeMille’s stuff generally enjoyable even in ones where not a helluva lot happens at times other than his protagonist sitting around being suspicious of the motives of others. The early stuff with the priests and the journalists being caught up in the Ethiopian civil war was exciting and compelling, and the third act with the actual hunt for the Grail wasn’t bad. I also learned a lot of interesting stuff about Ethiopia that I didn’t know.

But the middle section is almost entirely dialogue about research, relationships and faith which killed a lot of momentum and went on far too long. Overall, this didn’t provide much excitement for a book marketed as a thrilling adventure about the hunt for a religious artifact. Indiana Jones made it look like a lot more fun when he did it.

Grave Diggers & Wild Hogs

The Thicket
by Joe R. Lansdale

4 out of 5 stars

(I received a free copy of this from NetGalley.)

At the tail end of the cowboy days in East Texas, sixteen year old Jack Parker and his sister Lula have a helluva bad week.  After their parents die in a smallpox epidemic, their grandfather is murdered by a gang of bank robbers who kidnap Lula.  The only help that Jack can find is a grave digging black man with a drinking problem named Eustace and the midget bounty hunter Shorty.  Along with a giant hog, they set out to rescue Lula.   Jack tries to hold to his Christian beliefs that the gang should be caught and tried, and he is horrified at Shorty and Eustace’s willingness to kill and ignore common decency in the name of a greater good, namely their own.

As they meet more victims of the gang along the trail and see how cruel they truly are, Jack starts to realize that there’s no way to get Lula back without getting blood on his hands and that his traveling companions may have a better understanding of the world than he does.  His young puritan ways are also tested when he meets Jimmie Sue, a hooker with a heart of gold who takes a liking to him.

There are elements of this story that will probably sound familiar to anyone who has read or seen one of the two film versions of True Grit with a young person venturing into a hostile wilderness with some salty frontier types, but Lansdale also adds some bizarre and violent turns that feel more like Django Unchained at times.

My favorite part was the character of Shorty.   He may be the smallest member of the posse, but he’s the smartest and hell on wheels with a gun in his hand.  He’s also a misanthrope who came by it honestly after a lifetime of dealing with people who treat him like a freak or a child, and he gets most of the best lines in the book.

It’s also got all the hallmarks of Joe Lansdale with a profane sense of humor that provides plenty of action but with a sense of responsibility about the damage done by all the violence.  In fact, my one complaint about the novel is that it’s a little too Joe Lansdale.

If you’ve read his Hap & Leonard series, then a lot of this will seem somewhat familiar in that you’ve got some characters who while being ‘the good guys’ are perfectly content to dish out punishment if they feel it’s been earned while someone provides a softer hearted conscience that urges some compassion.  In fact, this isn’t even the first Lansdale book to feature a midget involved in a vicious pistol whipping along with a strange wild animal bonding with people since he worked similar stuff into Rumble Tumble.

However, if the worst thing I can say about it is that it’s a typical Joe Lansdale story, then you know you’re still getting an entertaining tale.

Didn't These Guys Ever See Fargo?

Out of the Black
John Rector

4 out of 5 kidnapped stars.

(I received a free ARC of this from NetGalley.)

Matt Caine must have crossed a black cat’s path before walking under a ladder and opening an umbrella indoors while breaking a couple of mirrors because he is one unlucky son-of-a-bitch.

His wife was killed in a car crash that badly injured and traumatized their daughter, and Matt had to take out loans against his house to pay the medical bills.  When the banks threaten to foreclose, Matt borrows money from his old buddy Murphy who dabbles in loan sharking, but he can’t find steady work and the interest on the debt is piling up.   Murphy doesn’t want to hassle Matt, but it’s bad for business to let someone slide and his partners are getting antsy.

Matt’s in-laws are making noises about taking his daughter away because his grief and a case of PTSD from his time in the Marines have left him unfit and unable to provide for his daughter.  When his friend Jay starts talking about a foolproof plan to kidnap the wife of a wealthy man for a payday that would solve all his problems, Matt knows that it’s a bad idea, especially since Jay is an untrustworthy junkie.  As his options dwindle, he eventually convinces himself that it’s his only way he can keep his daughter.  The kidnapping plan goes about as well as you’d expect as Matt’s lucky streak continues.

In John Rector’s The Cold Kiss, he took the old crime story scenario of someone finding a bag of money and trying to get away with it and made a fresh story out of it.  He does a similar thing here with the idea of a decent guy forced by circumstances into taking part in a crime in which things go screwy.  It’s a fast-paced story with a relatable main character and some good twists and turns along the way.

I wish a bit more about Matt’s history as a Marine had been explained because other than a comment from his mother-in-law about his wife had told him about his nightmares, we don’t get much more than that.  While he knows his way around a gun, there’s nothing in the action stuff to suggest that he’s been in combat before.  There’s also a cute neighbor who is a little too good to be true that loves his daughter and is always available to babysit when he needs her to.  Of course, she’s also attracted to Matt who is too conflicted about his dead wife to act on it.

I’m focusing too much on the flaws here and nitpicking this more than I meant to. It really is a solid story with good action and a fast pace to it that should make any crime fan happy.

Also posted at Goodreads.

Light My Fire

Clean Burn
by Karen Sandler
Published by Exhibit A
Available Aug. 27

3 out of 5 burning stars.


(I received an ARC of this from NetGalley.)

Janelle Watkins sure is a HOT mess!

Get it?  Because this book is called Clean BURN and it has about fire and arson?

Oh, never mind.  I don’t know why I even bother trying to entertain you people.

Anyhow, Janelle used to be a cop in San Francisco who had a knack for finding abducted children, but a freak injury ended her career and left her with a bad leg.  She also has personal issues like being haunted by visions of a boy she failed to save and an unhealthy fascination with fire that includes a habit of burning herself with matches for funsies.

Janelle now works as a private investigator who gimps around handing cases involving cheating spouses, and she wants nothing to do with missing kids until a personal plea leads her back to her old hometown of Greenville where her former partner and lover Ken is now the sheriff.  Being in Greenville triggers a lot of unpleasant memories of her childhood as well as the awkwardness of dealing with Ken.  At first Janelle just wants to leave as soon as possible, but a series of fires and several missing kids draw her into an investigation that has her working with Ken again.

Since this is a crime novel featuring a damaged main character, it’s going to work or fail depending on how much you sympathize with Janelle.  Overall, I found her pretty compelling.  She’s messed up, but she doesn’t wallow in self-pity and generally she’s still trying to do something worthwhile even though her own life is a disaster.

However, giving Janelle the quadruple whammy of being an abused kid, having an old case that haunts her, dealing with a painful physical injury and an unhealthy obsession with fire was a little over the top.  Her level of self-loathing and insistence that something is wrong with her seemed a bit much at times considering that the worst thing she does is burn herself with matches, but self-hatred often doesn’t need a logical reason so this didn’t hurt the book much.

The rest of the story is a pretty standard thriller, but it’s competently done.  The crazy character Mama makes for a decent enough villain, and the kids in jeopardy angle adds tension to it.

The plot contained a few elements that had me nitpicking.  Despite being a small town with a near constant string of arsons and a missing kid, Ken seems to be able to just deal with all of this via a few radio calls and able to knock off work or chauffer Janelle around whenever he feels like it when it seems like a county sheriff would be living at the office and crime scenes.

There was also an odd scene where Ken takes Janelle to a dance that is being done to raise money for the funeral expenses of a kid who drowned in a river.  I’ve seen small town fund raising for tragedies that have included pancake breakfasts, auctions, bake sales and just donation cans placed around local businesses.  However, I’ve never heard of a having a dance where the people going into drink and party drop a couple of bucks on the parents of a dead kid sitting at a table by the door.  Maybe someone would do a concert of some kind to raise money, but the idea of having a full-on dance in front of the parents who just lost their son the day before seemed insane to me.

Aside from the minor gripes, this was a solid thriller with a main character I’d be interested in reading more about.