Murder House by Patterson & David Ellis

On By Rick McIn uncategorizedLeave a comment

James Patterson does love to co-author.

No doubt David Ellis gets a bump in his writing career.

Detective Jenna Murphy comes to the Hamptons to solve a murder — but what she finds is more deadly than she could ever imagine.

Trying to escape her troubled past and rehabilitate a career on the rocks, former New York City cop Jenna Murphy hardly expects her lush and wealthy surroundings to be a hotbed of grisly depravity.

But when a Hollywood power broker and his mistress are found dead in the abandoned Murder House, the gruesome crime scene rivals anything Jenna experienced in Manhattan.

And what at first seems like an open and shut case turns out to have as many shocking secrets as the Murder House itself, as Jenna quickly realizes that the mansion’s history is much darker than even the town’s most salacious gossips could have imagined. …

jamespatterson.com

Life … ENJOY the Ups and Downs

On By Rick McIn philosophy, travelLeave a comment

The rain. And the rainbows.

Sean Kitching, one of my favourite YouTube editing experts, is giving up his house. Going full-time on the road in a camper van.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Simply Lies by David Baldacci

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Much better than the average Baldacci.

The April 2023 one kept me guessing.


Mickey Gibson, single mother and former detective, leads a hectic life similar to that of many moms: juggling the demands of her two small children with the tasks of her job working remotely for ProEye, a global investigation company that hunts down wealthy tax and credit cheats.  

When Mickey gets a call from a colleague named Arlene Robinson, she thinks nothing of Arlene’s unusual request for her to go inventory the vacant home of an arms dealer who cheated ProEye’s clients and fled. That is, until she arrives at the mansion to discover a dead body in a secret room—and that nothing is as it seems.   …

In the blink of an eye, Gibson has become a prime suspect in a murder investigation—and now her job is also on the line until she proves that she was set up.

Before long, Gibson is locked in a battle of wits with a brilliant woman with no name, a hidden past, and unknown motives—whose end game is as mysterious as it is deadly.  

Amazon

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

This may have been the first Agatha Christie I ever read.

As a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book back when I was a kid.

Quite groundbreaking as one of the first serial killer stories.

10 people on an island. No way to leave.

One by one they are murdered in this spooky house.

Like most upper middle class Brits of her age, Agatha was somewhat racist. And even more antisemitic.

She got better over the decades, eventually casting homosexuals in positive roles. Surprisingly, the famously conservative old lady even voted to join the EU.

It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1939, as Ten Little Niggers,[3] after an 1869 minstrel song which serves as a major plot element. The US edition was released i 1940 with the title And Then There Were None, taken from the last five words of the song.

The book is the world’s best-selling mystery, and with over 100 million copies sold is one of the best-selling books of all time. 

While reading the book, I simultaneously watched the 2015 mystery thriller television serial that was first broadcast on BBC One ➙ And Then There Were None.

Quite good.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Good Omens – season 2

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

I couldn’t get through season 1.

But somehow managed to finish season 2.

Fantasy is simply not one of my favourite genres.

Good Omens is a British fantasy comedy series created by Neil Gaiman based on his and Terry Pratchett‘s 1990 novel of the same name.  …

Like the novel, Good Omens features various Christian themes and figures and follows various characters all trying to either encourage or prevent an imminent Armageddon, seen through the eyes of the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley. …

Some of the irreverent dialogue is entertaining. Much is too absurd for me.

In particular, the ending of season 2 does not work.

Count me out.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Police by Jo Nesbø

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Police (2013) is the 10th novel in Nesbø’s Harry Hole series.

OK — not great. My review.

The only thing worse than a serial killer is a serial killer targeting cops.

Arguably the most densely packed and ambitiously plotted novel in a series that has been getting darker with each volume, the tenth novel featuring Harry Hole is a companion sequel to its predecessor (Phantom, 2012).

That book had left the former Oslo detective no longer a member of the police force and perhaps no longer alive …

The police who investigated the original crimes and failed to solve them are lured back to the murder scenes, on the anniversaries of the murders, and are then themselves killed in an equally gruesome manner.

Is the killer the same as the first, covering his tracks? Or is he “an apostle of righteousness,” an agent of justice, insisting that those who failed to solve the crimes must pay for them?  …

Kirkus Reviews

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Life … Live A Good Story

On By Rick McIn happiness, music, philosophyLeave a comment

Original song by Brendan Coulter.

@BrendanCoulter17 on Instagram.

Brendan remembers his friend Josh Neuman, who died in an Iceland plane crash.

Only age-22.

Josh created the most popular skateboarding videos of all time, and his YouTube channel had approximately 1.2 million followers at the time.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Identity by Nora Roberts

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

The May 2023 book by Nora Roberts is great.

Great story telling. Engaging.

My theory is that Nora is increasingly moving away from romance. In this book no bodice is ripped until well into the second half of a long book.

This one is about identity theft. The conman not only takes the identity and steals the money — but also murders the victim.

Morgan Albright … bought a small house in the perfect neighbourhood outside of Baltimore, living with a friend and working two jobs to make ends meet.

Morgan’s life is happy and fulfilling, and she is making progress on her financial and career goals.

Her perfect world is shattered when someone breaks into her home and murders her roommate.

At first, the police assume it was a random act of violence, but after discovering the killer stole Morgan’s identity and her entire savings, they realize the crime fits the profile of a serial killer named Gavin Rozwell. …

Kirkus

l learned a lot from this book. Roberts does a lot of research into the back stories of her characters. In this case, Morgan has to move home with her Mom and Grandmother and reinvent her life working in a small town.

Yes the plot is a bit cheesy. And the characters a bit cliche.

But the story kept me going. It’s entertaining.

Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

I enjoyed the 2023 biography of Agatha Christie.

A surprising life story for such a successful author.

Enter historian Lucy Worsley, whose declared intention is to rescue Christie, who died in 1976 at the age of 85, from the misperceptions that cling to her life and her works of fiction. …

… she revisits the most notorious episode of Christie’s life: her disappearance for 11 days in December 1926 …

Her gift for dialogue and for manipulating social stereotypes, as Worsley demonstrates, was formidable, keenly attuned to the proliferating class anxieties of the 20th century; numerous characters are, interestingly, transitional or dispossessed in some way …

Guardian Review

Over the past few years I’ve been reading her 70+ books. Many are very good.

Agatha Christie 1950

Despite the books, magazines, TV adaptations, movies — Agatha had money troubles most of her life.

When asked “occupation“, Agatha stated “House Wife” her entire life.

She loved buying and maintaining homes. Loved shopping. Did have a social life.

Yet she was incredibly prolific and productive as a writer. Her plots she jotted down in notebooks.

One of the things I like best about Agatha are her books in exotic settings. She loved to travel. And her second husband was an archeologist. Agatha spent a lot of time with him on his digs in the Middle East.

Click PLAY or see a preview on YouTube.