A big fan of the Joe Pickett novels by C.J. Box, I ASSuMEd I’d enjoy another of his series based on a rogue, a brilliant cop named Cody Hoyt, an alcoholic.
But for me they are too blood thirsty and violent.
I didn’t like either Hoyt or his protege, Cassie Dewell.
Back of Beyond is the first book. It’s set in Yellowstone National Park.
#2 is The Highway, somehow astonishingly connected to the bloodbath in Yellowstone.
Serial killers are picking up prostitutes at long haul trucking service stations.
The magnetic phone clamp is the best feature. The one thing that makes it better FOR ME than competitors like the Zhiyun Smooth Q4. I hate balancing phones on a gimbal. With the OM 4 and 5 you don’t need to.
Rather than pay for a replacement magnetic phone clamp (CAD $35), it was smarter to simply buy the upgraded OM 5 (CAD $149) which includes the phone clamp. I can use the same phone and clamp on either gimbal.
I do feel the OM 5 is slightly better:
NEW built-in extension rod for “selfies”
lighter and more compact — but at the expense of much shorter battery life
ActiveTrack 4.0 and gesture control does seem more reliable. An important feature for me.
In “selfie” camera mode, it smoothly tracks your face by default
The MAIN downside is a shorter battery life than the OM 4. Only about 6 hours.
I used iPhone 13 on the OM 5 shooting in portrait orientation to keep the footage as SMOOTH as possible. I’d intended to upload it VERTICAL to Instagram and Facebook. Facebook worked. Instagram wouldn’t upload over multiple attempts.
… the typewriter itself is a problem. Paul swears it’s possessed and types by itself at night. But only Paul can hear the noise coming from downstairs; Charlotte doesn’t hear a thing. And she worries he’s going off the rails.
Paul believes the typewriter is somehow connected to the murderer he discovered nearly a year ago. The killer had made his victims type apologies to him before ending their lives. Has another sick twist of fate entwined his life with the killer—could this be the same machine? …
I’ve been working my way through the books of Peter May.
In the Enzo Files series, half-Scottish, half-Italian Enzo MacLeod lives in lives in Toulouse, working as a university professor. Then decides to solve some of the great cold case murders in French history.
Book #1 is Dry Bones. (Also published as Extraordinary People.)
Next up is The Critic, much better in my opinion. Especially if you like wine. 🍷
The body of Gil Petty, America’s most celebrated wine critic, is found strung up in a French Gaillac vineyard, dressed in the ceremonial robes of the Order of the Divine Bottle and pickled in wine.
For forensic expert Enzo Macleod, the key to this unsolved murder lies in decoding Petty’s mysterious reviews, which could make or break a vineyard’s reputation. …
In the 3rd book — Backlight Blue — one of the cold case murders decides he should take out Enzo before he starts investigating the case from 19 years earlier.
Enzo is not the most likeable hero. But he certainly gets the women. 😀
In book #4 — Freeze Frame — Enzo heads for the tiny island of Ile de Groix off the coast of Brittany.
He wants to solve the cold case murder of tropical disease specialist and entomologist Adam Killian in his study.
The crime scene was left completely undisturbed for two decades as the victim said he left a clue to his murderer. Killian was dying of cancer when he was killed.
To complicate things, his sometime lover, Charlotte, arrives — with an important announcement.
During a blizzard one bitter winter night, just days before Christmas, the car belonging to the wife of a retired local judge is discovered abandoned on a rural county road in Tamarack County. After days of fruitless searching, there is little hope that she’ll be found alive, if she’s found at all.
Cork O’Connor, the ex-sheriff of Tamarack County, notices small things about the woman’s disappearance that disturb him. When the beloved pet dog of a friend is brutally killed and beheaded, he begins to see a startling pattern in these and other recent dark occurrences in the area. And after his own son is brutally attacked and nearly killed, Cork understands that someone is spinning a deadly web in Tamarack County. At its center is a murder more than twenty years old, for which an innocent man may have been convicted. Cork remembers the case only too well. He was the deputy in charge of the investigation that sent the man to prison.
Rick McCharles 