Jungle is a British band closely associated with a dance troupe. Some of their videos, including this one, are one shot. Very cool.
Choreography by Shay Latukolan
Will West is the lead dancer.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Win by Harlan Coben
Win is a 2021 mystery/thriller novel by Harlan Coben.
Win is the most interesting character in the Myron Bolitar series. An anti-hero.
I was quite keen to learn his backstory.
Following eleven novels in Coben’s series featuring sports agent-turned-crime solver Myron Bolitar, this is the first novel to completely feature Myron’s best friend and sidekick, the wealthy and mysterious Windsor “Win” Horne Lockwood III. …
An elderly man who appears to be a recluse and hoarder is found murdered in his luxury Manhattan apartment.
The FBI contacts Win when two items connected to the Lockwood family – an original Johannes Vermeer painting that was stolen 20 years ago and a suitcase bearing Win’s initials – are found in the apartment.
The FBI’s interest becomes clear when the victim is revealed to be Ry Strauss, one-time member of the underground group known as the Jane Street Six, who were responsible for a fire bomb attack that killed seven people in the early 1970s.
Win runs his own concurrent investigation, as he “has three things the FBI doesn’t; a personal connection to the case; an ungodly fortune; and his own unique brand of justice. …
Win’s investigation has him searching for the four remaining members of the Jane Street Six, with two known to be deceased, while he also digs into family secrets over his father’s objections.
Along the way, a vigilante act Win carried out against a basketball coach and abuser leads to repercussions, nearly costing Win his life.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Deadline by John Sandford
The 8th book (2014) in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Deadline.
This is the one many people remember vividly.
Investigating kidnapped dogs. And a murdering School Board.
Very entertaining.
In Southeast Minnesota, down on the Mississippi, a school board meeting is coming to an end. The board chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed, due to personnel issues.
“Issues” is correct. The proposal up for a vote before them is whether to authorize the killing of a local reporter. The vote is four to one in favor.
Meanwhile, not far away, Virgil Flowers is helping out a friend by looking into a dognapping, which seems to be turning into something much bigger and uglier—a team of dognappers supplying medical labs—when he gets a call from Lucas Davenport. A murdered body has been found—and the victim is a local reporter. . . .
Spirit Crossing by William Kent Krueger
Spirit Crossing (2024) is the 20th book in the Cork O’Connor series.
Every new William Kent Krueger novel is a joy.
The disappearance of a local politician’s white teenaged daughter is major news in Minnesota.
As a huge manhunt is launched to find her, Cork O’Connor’s grandson stumbles across the shallow grave of a young Ojibwe woman—but nobody seems that interested. Nobody, that is, except Cork and the newly formed Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police.
As Cork and the tribal officers dig into the circumstances of this mysterious and grim discovery, they uncover a connection to the missing teenager. And soon, it’s clear that Cork’s grandson is in danger of being the killer’s next victim.
In college, Krueger had wanted to become a cultural anthropologist.
He became intrigued by researching the Ojibwe culture and weaving the information into his books.
His books are set in and around Native American reservations. The main character, Cork O’Connor, is part Ojibwe and part Irish.
An oil pipeline is being built through a sacred Ojibwe site in Minnesota’s north woods. Construction is at a standstill due to the Ojibwe/Anishinaabe protests. Tension in the community.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Cycling Denmark
My biggest surprise cycling Europe in 2024 was Denmark.
It’s fantastic.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I needed to cross Denmark south to north, coming from the Rhine river in Germany.
I had low expectations, basically planning to spend as few days in Denmark as possible while getting to the ferry to Faroe Islands.
NOW I want to go back to Denmark — the 2nd happiest nation in the world!
Highest priority is National Cycle Route 1, the West Coast Route. 560 kilometers from the German border.
National Cycle Route 12 ➙ Limfjord Route looks interesting, as well. I rode part of that from Aalborg summer 2024.
Third priority would be National Cycle Route 9 ➙ en route from Berlin to Copenhagen.
As I post, Denmark is my #1 cycling destination for the future. It would get me back to Germany, as well, which is fantastic with the Deutschland Rail ticket making public transit almost free.
Part of the attraction are the fantastic free campsites in an otherwise very expensive tourist nation.
I’m still brainstorming future cycling destinations.
Murder Never Retires by Faith Martin
I read the 1st book in this series —Murder on the Oxford Canal (2004) — and got pissed off with Faith Martin, the author.
I was turned off by the barrage of (mostly negative) comments about the looks of the female characters.
Trying again, I jumped to more recent books:
- Murder Never Retires (2012)
- Murder of a Lover (2013) … a sequel
The super star of the book series is Detective Inspector (DI) Hillary Greene.
Though she’s the best investigator by far anywhere near Oxford, England — I’m irked by Hillary’s ego.
Just like the author.
There’s still far too much criticism of the looks and weight of characters in the book, both women and men now.
Cross Kill by James Patterson
This is a 2016 — audio first — novella which fits into the lengthy list of Alex Cross books.
Free for Audible subscribers, I believe.
Surprisingly good.
Along Came a Spider killer Gary Soneji has been dead for over ten years. Alex Cross watched him die. But today, Cross saw him gun down his partner.
Is Soneji alive? A ghost? Or something even more sinister?
BookShots
Lightning-fast stories by James Patterson
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The Codex by Douglas Preston
One of those dumb, entertaining adventure romps.
The Codex (2003) is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston …
It takes place in the Southwestern United States and Central America. …
Maxwell Broadbent, an eccentric rich man with terminal cancer, has spent his entire life collecting valuable art and treasures from around the world.
One day, he writes a letter to his three sons telling them to … find his tomb, promising that the son that finds his tomb will receive all his treasures—worth approximately $300 million. …
Tom is the only one who is not interested in the treasure at all, until he is approached by a beautiful ethnopharmacologist named Sally Colorado, who informs … that his father tried to present an ancient Mayan Codex to a museum for translation years back, only to be rejected since no one knew ancient Mayan at the time.
Years later, after ancient Mayan has been deciphered, Sally and her fiancé, Yale professor Julian Clyve, have deduced from a single surviving photograph that the Codex may contain many ancient Mayan herbal remedies that, if studied and reproduced in present times, could revolutionize medicine and cure many diseases.
Tom reluctantly agrees to help her, and they eventually recruit a witty tribal elder named Don Alfonso, accompanied by the brother trackers Pingo and Chori.
Portugal. The Man – Feel It Still
Catchy tune.
But I post here for the brilliant choreography by Emma Scherer using that song.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
It’s a reimagining of Bob Fosse’s choreography from the Rich Man’s Frug in the musical Sweet Charity (1969).
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Click PLAY or watch the original video by Portugal. on YouTube.
Storm Front by John Sandford
The 7th book (2013) in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Storm Front.
Very entertaining.
In Israel, a man clutching a backpack searches desperately for a boat.
In Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a message from Lucas Davenport: You’re about to get a visitor. It’s an Israeli cop, and she’s tailing a man who’s smuggled out an extraordinary relic—a copper scroll revealing startling details about the man known as King Solomon.
Wait a minute, laughs Virgil. Is this one of those Da Vinci Code deals? The secret scroll, the blockbuster revelation, the teams of murderous bad guys? Should I be boning up on my Bible verses?
He looks at the cop. She’s not laughing. As it turns out, there are very bad men chasing the relic, and they don’t care who’s in the way or what they have to do to get it. Maybe Virgil should start praying.
Rick McCharles 