Bag of Bones by Stephen King

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

I only read the first third of this book. I normally find King books to be superb storytelling — but too long.

I quit at the point where the ghost story started to get too weird and violent.

Bag of Bones is a 1998 horror novel … about an author who suffers severe writer’s block and delusions at an isolated lake house four years after the death of his wife. …

He decides to confront his fears and moves to his vacation house on Dark Score Lake, known as “Sara Laughs”.

On his first day, he meets Kyra, a 3-year-old girl and her young widowed mother, 20-year-old Mattie Devore.

Mattie’s father-in-law is Max Devore, an elderly rich man who will do anything to gain custody of his granddaughter. He was the bad guy when I quit the book.

Pierce Brosnan plays the writer in the TV mini-series.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Swiping Hearts by Jeffrey Deaver

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Swiping Hearts (2023) is a short story by one of my favourite writers.

Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are called upon to tackle a crime unlike any they’ve ever faced.

An unknown subject is using his formidable skills to work his way into the lives—and hearts—of his victims, all with the goal of utterly destroying them psychologically and emotionally . . . for his pure pleasure.

jefferydeaver.com

Cycling Iceland’s Westfjords

On By Rick McIn cycling, travelLeave a comment

I’ll be arriving Seydisfjordur on the east coast via ferry on Aug. 8th, 2024.

Some buses and vans in Iceland transport bicycles. So I’ll probably cycle and bus, working my way to the west coast.

The most popular cycling area is the westfjords.

I really enjoyed a brief stop on the Westfjords (or West Fjords) during my 2011 rent-a-car tour of Iceland.

Very mountainous; the coastline heavily indented by dozens of fjords surrounded by steep hills. These indentations make roads very circuitous. Sounds like the west coast of Norway.

Total total population in 2020 was 7,115.

CHRIS BURKARD put together a gravel tour of the region he called WESTFJORDS WAY.

  • 575 Mi.(925 KM)
  • 40% unpaved
  • pushing your bike about 10% of the time

Biggest worries for me riding solo are the weather — “Riding in fjords guarantees a headwind and a tailwind. The wind can be so severe that it will push you off your bike …” — and the remoteness. Not many bike shops or resupply points.

BUT I downloaded Lael’s map from the adventure to Komoot. So I’m ready to try it if I get the chance one day.

In a perfect world where everything goes right 😀 … I might even try it summer 2024 as part of my planned Norway & Faroe Islands cycling tour.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

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Debut novel by Eva Jurczyk.

Too slow. Too long.

Liesl Weiss, the protagonist, was simply not a character I could cheer for.

The resolution no kind of surprising twist.

I downloaded this mystery because it was set in a library. And Jurczyk herself is a librarian at the University of Toronto and worked in its rare books library as a graduate student.  

She knows of what she writes.

Amazon

Skip this book — unless you are REALLY into libraries.

Click PLAY or watch an interview with the author on YouTube.

ANTHRACITE: limited series TV

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Not recommended.

Weird. Some sort of horror from France.

Well … there is humour, mainly around quirky Ida — some sort of online detective hacker. She’s terminally ill so doesn’t much worry about anything she does.

The plot is confusing.

Opening Shot: “1994.” The camera pushes in on a house on a lake. SWAT teams arrive in rafts and put up their weapons.

The Gist: The SWAT teams are there to invade the house, in the French Alps village of Levionna, which is the headquarters of a cult led by Caleb Johansson (Stefano Cassetti). Johansson ends up being the only survivor after a mass suicide …

Decider

30 years later the village economy is dominated by a mysterious company, apparently an anthracite (coal) mine.

A journalist looking into the past cult deaths is kidnapped.

His daughter — Ida — arrives to rescue her Dad.

After another seeming cult murder, Jaro Gatsi is blamed by the townspeople. He’s an ex-con who was hired to work at the ski resort.

There’s Jaro’s friend. Who’s got relationship problems.

Next — a troubled police detective, who seems to be the only cop actually trying to solve this thing.

An evil nurse in an insane asylum.

Too many fights. Gunshots. A car chase. …

The whole thing is pretty dumb. Who approved this script?

On the upside, it’s original and not often boring.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The #1 Lawyer by Patterson & Nancy Allen

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He’s America’s Best Lawyer Until He’s Its #1 Murder Suspect

Can this actually be James Patterson?

It reads to me more like John Grisham.

Excellent.

Stafford Lee Penney is a small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation for winning every case he tries. In his sharp suits and polished Oxford shoes, Penney is Biloxi, Mississippi’s #1 Lawyer and top local celebrity.

Just as Penney notches his latest courtroom victory, his wife is scandalously killed. He spirals into a legal and personal losing streak, damaging his reputation and ruining his career.  …

Perhaps this 2024 novel had a LOT of influence from co-author Nancy Allen.

She practiced law in the Ozarks for fifteen years as Assistant Attorney General and Assistant Prosecutor. She served on the faculty at Missouri State University for sixteen years, teaching law classes.

All the Light We Cannot See – book & TV

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

All the Light We Cannot See (2014) is a war novel by American author Anthony Doerr.

… set during World War II. It revolves around the characters Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl who takes refuge in her great-uncle’s house in Saint-Malo after Paris is invaded by Nazi Germany, and Werner Pfennig, a bright German boy who is accepted into a military school because of his skills in radio technology.

It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Overall, I was disappointed.

Too long. Poor storytelling. It rambled too much.

There were dozens of scenes that could have been left out — leaving the core story stronger.

WHY have 4 diamonds? That added nothing but unnecessary pages.

I’m astonished that the Pulitzer judges were impressed.

The mini-series — 4 episodes — is MUCH BETTER.

Don’t listen to the critics who gave it only 27% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I commend the screen writers for improving so much of the messy book.

Werner Pfennig is a much stronger character on screen.

Hugh Laurie is excellent as the World War I veteran suffering from PTSD.

Marie-Laure is played by Aria Mia Loberti who is legally blind. She responded on a whim to an All The Light We Cannot See open global casting search posted online. An amateur. Well cast.

I’d agree with critics that the NAZIs are cliche in the TV series . No nuance.

That was my biggest complaint with the mini-series.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Fletch Won by Gregory Mcdonald

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

Fletch Won (1985) is a mystery/comedy novel written by American Gregory Mcdonald.

It is the eighth book to star the character Fletch, but is a prequel set before the events of first seven books in the series.  …

 Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher is moved off of obituaries and wedding announcements at the News Tribune and is assigned his first journalistic interview, only to have the subject turn up dead in the newspaper‘s parking lot. He investigates, beginning his dual profession of journalist and investigator.

Amusing. But I don’t think I’ll continue with any of the other Fletch books.

The book series was twice adapted for film:

Chevy seems the perfect fool to play this role.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Juror #3 by Patterson & Nancy Allen

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I’ve really enjoyed the James Patterson books with co-author Nancy Allen.

The difference is Nancy Allen.

In this book, there are two separate trials.

Ruby Bozarth, a newcomer to Rosedale, Mississippi, is also fresh to the State Bar — and to the docket of Circuit Judge Baylor, who taps Ruby as defense counsel.

The murder of a woman from one of the town’s oldest families has Rosedale’s upper crust howling for blood, and the prosecutor is counting on Ruby’s inexperience to help him deliver a swift conviction.

Ruby’s client is a college football star who has returned home after a career-ending injury, and she is determined to build a defense that will stick

Ruby never belonged to the country club set, but once she nearly married into it. As news breaks of a second murder, Ruby’s ex-fiancé shows up on her doorstep — a Southern gentleman in need of a savior. As lurid, intertwining investigations unfold, no one in Rosedale can be trusted, especially the twelve men and women impaneled on the jury. They may be hiding the most incendiary secret of all.

Amazon

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Pilot Of The Airwaves (1979)

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Blast from the past.

Charlie Dore is my age.

An English singer-songwriter.

Pilot of the Airwaves went on to become an enduring radio favourite, reaching No. 13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, earning Dore the Record World New Female Artist of the Year, an ASCAP award and charting in Canada, Australia, and Europe.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.