A recently retired English professor discovers a real knack for investigation and cannot help but interfere with the cases assigned to her police detective son.
Sarah Cook, who was a gorgeous teenage blond vanished fifteen years back, which was the same night her parents were brutally killed in their Ohio home. Brad Stockton (who is black, from the wrong part of town, and Sarah’s boyfriend at the time) is on death row, after being convicted for the killings.
Despite this, he always maintained that he was innocent of the crime. His execution date is just weeks away, and his sister, devoted to him, insists that she spotted Sarah Cook at a gas station in the town. She hires private investigator Roxane Weary to look at the case one more time. …
Though there’s no sex, no profanity — right wing snowflakes in Florida managed to get him banned from some appearances. Good publicity, of course. 😀
Hiaasen is one of the funniest authors working today. But humour is less important in this one.
A longtime journalist with the Miami Herald, Hiaasen simply takes actual stories from the Florida news — and fictionalizes them.
He mocks American culture and Florida politics, in particular.
Released on September 26, 2023, Wrecker is set in Key West during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kirkus Reviews called it, “A batten-down-the-hatches thriller anchored by critical real-life themes“.
Fifteen-year-old Valdez Jones VIII calls himself Wrecker, after his ancestors who made a living salvaging shipwrecks. He is thriving thanks to the online schooling during lockdown that allows him the flexibility to be out on his boat. …
This thrilling story featuring wry, witty writing also explores the history of racism in Key West, the environmental impacts of cruise tourism, and the effects of Covid-19 on both people’s lives and criminal activities. Wrecker is a sympathetic character whose intelligence, savvy, and strong moral compass lead to a satisfying finish.
Intelligent — you won’t be surprised that he hates Trump.
Author James Patterson offered this praise: “Carl Hiaasen remains the undefeated, unscored-upon conscience of Florida, maybe the conscience of the whole country.
FBI Agent Peter Sutherland is thrown into a vast conspiracy about a mole at the highest levels of the United States government.
To save the nation, he plunges into a desperate hunt for the traitor, while protecting former tech CEO Rose Larkin from the people who murdered her aunt and uncle. …
A terrific 2002 standalone novel by the author of the Harry Bosch books.
Would you risk your life for a woman you’d never met?
Henry Pierce has a whole new life — new apartment, new telephone, new telephone number. But the first time he checks his messages, he discovers that someone had the number before him.
The messages on his line are for a woman named Lilly, and she is in some kind of serious trouble.
Pierce is inexorably drawn into Lilly’s world, and it’s unlike any world he’s ever known. It is a nighttime world of escort services, websites, sex, and secret identities. …
Pierce’s skills as a computer entrepreneur allow him to trace Lilly’s last days with some precision. But every step into Lilly’s past takes Pierce deeper into a web of inescapable intricacy — and a decision that could cost him everything he owns and holds dear.
In December 1915, the American Museum of Natural History unveiled the very first mounted Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, irrevocably cementing the image of the towering reptilian carnivore in the popular psyche. For a generation, AMNH was the only place in the world where one could see T. rex in person.
The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World: Randall, David K
… the fossil-hunting exploits of Barnum Brown (1873–1963) …
Hailed as “the Father of the Dinosaurs” in his New York Times obituary, Brown discovered his first fossils in coal deposits his father dug up on the family’s Kansas farm. …
… famously discovered and excavated the first documented tyrannosaurus rex remains in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation. …
I’d only heard mocking reviews and wasn’t keen to watch it — before seeing a YouTube video on Sofia Boutella as Kora. Now age-41, she’s a badass. Former Rhythmic gymnast and dancer.
I mainly want my new Ace Pro as a primary VIDEO CAMERA.
BUT — finally tested it out as an Action Camera.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (only 720p resolution, by accident. Should be 1080p)
One feature I like is adding Telemetry data. IF you hit record from the iPhone app or Apple Watch, the Insta360 app tracks your GPS and can later add that information to the video.
I have speed and distance added in this example.
I also had the Insta360 app apply blur to make the footage look less digital, perhaps more cinematic.
As you can see, the stability is excellent for a bumpy bike path.
I threw in a couple of 4 second AI edited sections they call AI Warp.
Overall … I’m not all that happy. For some reason it exported in 720p rather than 1080p as I had expected. Also, the in-camera LUT is not nearly as good as it looked in the app on my phone.
Rick McCharles 