November 2009 Book Round-Up

SP : 181: Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier – Charlie Higson

MY: 182: Have Gat-Will Travel – Richard S. Prather

WE: 183: The Trailsman: Idaho Impact – Jon Sharpe

TH: 184: Alex Cross’s Trial – James Patterson & Richard Dilallo

WE: 185: Clayburn – Al Conroy

WE: 186: The Man In Black – Al Conroy

SF : 187: Under The Dome – Stephen King

MY: 188: Danger Is My Business – Stephen Marlowe

WE: 189: Three Rode North – Al Conroy

WE: 190: Last Train To Bannock – Al Conroy

MY: 191: Violence Is My Business – Stephen Marlowe

TH: 192: Blood Moon – Ed Gorman

AD: 193: The Whisperer: The Dead Who Talked – Clifford Goodrich

WE: 194: Creede of Old Montana – Stephen Bly

November 2009 Movie Round-Up

3:10 To Yuma(1957)

Invitation To A Gunfighter(1964)

The Hellbenders(1967)

And God Said To Cain(1968)

Blood and Guns(Tepepa)(1968)

The Ruthless Four(1968)

Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here(1969)

A Town Called Hell(1971)

Buck and The Preacher(1972)

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid(1972)

Blood Money(1974)

Star Trek(2009)

2009 NFL Week 12

Tags

Jets, Panthers, Redskins

Another bad week for my teams. It was already going to be a bad one as the Panthers and the Jets were playing each other. I was torn about who to pull for. Neither team is going anywhere but the end of the regular season. I’ve been a Jets fan for forty years and a Panthers fan for as long as they’ve been in existence.

It wasn’t a good day for Jake again. The last few games he’d played well with only one pick. This time around he had four, though the first can’t be laid at his feet. Who would expect the ball to bounce off the back of Steve Smith’s heel, when he doesn’t look around, and rebound at a ninety degree angle into a Jet defender’s hands, who then romps for a TD?

The Panthers saved one Jet score when a receiver tries to lunge into the end zone from the four, with a Panther defender hanging on him, only to fumble the ball with Carolina recovering in the end zone.

Still, final score: 17-6 Jets.

The ‘Skins held the lead most of the way against the Eagles and I had delusions that they might pull it out, only to let Philadelphia score late and make a two point conversion to tie it, then a field goal to win 27-24.

Ah well, this season is a lost cause for all three. I see changes coming in the off-season for both Carolina and Washington. Both coaches and quarterbacks. I feel, at best, Jake might remain as back-up. He’s getting a lot of bad press around here. And the shadow of Bill Cowher looms over John Fox’s shoulder. He lives in Raleigh and has a daughter in college.

The press says he might want the job. Of course, as any decent man would, he won’t say so while Fox is still the Panther’s coach.

The big one is tomorrow night. I’ll definitely pull for the Saints in that one. Never the Patriots.

Blood Moon – Ed Gorman

Tags

Ed Gorman, Robert Payne

Published originally in 1994, BLOOD MOON is the first novel featuring former FBI forensic psychologist/profiler Robert Payne. The copy I have is a handsome edition from Ramble House.

He takes a case that his friend and almost partner, Mike Peary, was working on when he was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The woman hiring him says the teenager arrested was the wrong person.

Nora Connors had hired Peary to find the one who’d killed her daughter. one of a series of young girls who’s necks were broken and bodies severely mutilated. She’d received a letter from him a couple of days after his death describing his investigation so far and three suspects he’d developed.

That was all Payne had to go on as he begins to look into it. As the case moves along, more bodies turn up, including the woman who’d hired him and her assistant, and he gets involved in looking for a kidnapped eight year old girl that seems tied into it all. Payne gets involved with a woman police chief, who though she likes him(and vice versa), is exasperated because he won’t tell her what she needs for her own investigation.

Torn, he needs to protect the kidnapped child by keeping the police out of it until he can find her. The parents want help, but seem reticent to tell him what he needs to know. Which frustrates him.

Sprinkled throughout are chapters with this unknown killer, describing his life in prison and his planned escape with the help of one of those women who seem to love convicts.

Every time I think I had a handle on where the author is headed, he throws in a twist that sends one off in a new direction. It happens more than once which kept up the suspense until the final, bloody confrontation. I like stories like this. Not predictable.

I found the book very satisfying and now just have to find the other three in this series.

The Trailsman

Tags

The Trailsman

I don’t read a lot of the Trailsman series, but the four here are by two of my favorite writers under the Jon Sharpe house name: James Reasoner and Ed Gorman.

SEMINOLE SHOWDOWN

Skye Fargo is out to help an old friend, Billy Buzzard, with whom he scouted for the army with, years back. When the letter had caught up with him, he’d responded immediately. Someone is grabbing young women, a dozen, and they are never seen again. One of them is Billy’s sister, Wa-nee-sha. Two men who’ve gone investigating are missing as well.

The two men are determined to find them and the people responsible. And of course they will pay for their crimes. And, of course, there’s the lovely Echo McNally to contend with also, a task Skye is not averse to accomplishing.

RIVERBOAT RAMPAGE

At first, Skye is amused at the Trahearne brothers and their con games: the fight with the big but dumb brother while the other takes bets, finally giving the former a signal when they get enough so that he can “accidentally” when the fight. Then he’ll break out in big tears afraid that he’s hurt his opponent. Everyone is so embarrassed at the “slow” huge man that they pay up.

But they picked on the wrong man: the bully in town who won’t take the beating lying down. Deciding to help them, and their sister, the beautiful Laurie. A battle results in the bully’s death, then the brothers pull one more con on the way to the riverboat they’d booked passage aboard, resulting in a hasty departure ahead of an angry mob.

Going upriver, they are pursued by the dead bully’s brothers and something else is going on aboard the riverboat. Obviously military men in civilian garb guarding something under wraps.

These two are by James Reasoner and while the adult western series has never been a favorite of mine, I do like these. There’s plenty of action and a bit of sex thrown in.

A lot of fun.

IDAHO IMPACT

When Skye stopped the fight in the alley between Theo Mason and the good-looking Bonnie McLure, he din’t know what he was getting himself into. Bonnie was a rich man’s daughter, but she was also skilled in card games, cons, and other things.

When her father is murdered, Mason is accused and she wants Skye to find the real killer. Though he dislikes the man, Fargo believes him innocent also. They have to deal with townspeople that want to hang Mason and find the real killer. Another body turns up, a maid that knew a bit too much.

COLORADO CLASH

Near Cawthorne, Colorado, Skye Fargo comes across the body of a young man shot to death. Identifying papers were on the body and where he worked, so The Trailsman took the young victim into town.

There, he learns that the young man was the third of three friends killed and all had been suspects in a stage coach robbery in which folks had died. It seemed logical that there was fourth involved that was cleaning up loose ends.

The sheriff turns out to be an old friend of Skye’s, under a different name, who urges the Trailsman to help him find the killer. Agreeing on twenty-four hours, he starts his investigation.

The bodies start to pile up as the old woman who owned the land where he found the body is killed. A reporter looking into it as well is found dead..

The only clue Skye has is a button found near the first body.

These two are by Ed Gorman and, as usual, they are as much mystery as western.

All four are worth checking out if one hasn’t already done so.

A Town Called Hell(Una Ciudad Llamada Bastarda)

Tags

Martin Landau, Robert Shaw, spaghetti westerns, Stella Stevens, Telly Savales

A TOWN CALLED HELL( alternately, A TOWN CALLED BASTARD) seemed like a good bet when I picked it out to watch. It had a stellar Hollywood cast with Telly Savalas, Robert Shaw, Martin Landau, and Stella Stevens in the main roles. Filmed in Spain and released in 1971, it didn’t seem like it could miss.

But watching, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was watching different movies cobbled together. It jumped around a lot with clumsy changes of time.

The movie opens in 1895 Mexico. A peasant revolution is going on led by Robert Shaw and Martin Landau. They raid a garrison in a small town, shooting up the army and a church there with some sort of service going on. They slaughter the congregation and the priest.

Then the movie jumps ten years and the same little town is run by a man named Don Carlos(Telly Savalas). The priest is Robert Shaw(no reason is ever told for this change). A widow(Stella Stevens) arrives there wanting to visit her husband’s grave. She has a hearse driven by a deaf mute servant and sleeps in the back in a coffin(no explanation for this is ever given). She’s also offering $10,000 when the body of her husband’s killer, a man known only as Aguila, is delivered to her in the States. No, she explains, she doesn’t carry that amount around with her.

Don Carlos has already been established as loving money from an early incident. He gets the idea that if she will pay that amount for the dead, how much will she pay for her life?

Here’s where the movie takes an incomprehensible turn. Savalas’ character has already set up in perfect villain mode. When he attempts to grab her, she and the servant take refuge in Shaw’s church, who refuses to hand them over. In the battle that follows, one of Savalas’ men turns on him, shooting him and stringing him up on a cross, offering him to the priest as he seems to dies. We’re not sure, though he’s never seen again.

Here comes another strange twist. The army rides in at that moment led by the Colonel, Martin Landau, now part of the army. He’s looking for a revolutionary named Aguila. Delighted at first to see his old comrade, he offers him a position as an officer and seems less than pleased to be refused. Shaw prefers to remain a priest.

Landau is as much a sadist as Savalas was and threatens to torture the information from his old partner, only to realize he’d never tell. Then he demands of the town that Aguila be handed over, hanging five of the townspeople and promising to do the same every morning until Aguila is found.

The rest of the film is awkwardly handled. There is a flashback sequence badly done(we’re not even sure for a while) that shows Shaw in a third identity. He’s dressed like a gunfighter down to low slung pistol, chasing a man that had been sent to the States to buy weapons and ammunition, only to blow it on liquor and whores.

Finally, out of nowhere, a battle breaks out between the villagers and the army with Shaw and Landau setting it out in the church and betting on the outcome. The ultimate identity of Aguila and his fate I won’t mention in case anyone wants to find this one and watch.

I can’t recommend it.

Happy Thanksgiving To Everyone

Tags

Thanksgiving, WKRP

I’m off to spend the day with family, so I’ll leave you with this memeorable quote:

“As God is my witness, I thught turkeys could fly!” Arthur Carlson

The Ruthless Four(Ognuno per se)

Tags

George Hilton, Gilbert Roland, Klaus Kinski, spaghetti westerns, Van Heflin

THE RUTHLESS FOUR is a 1968 western that starred Van Heflin, Gilbert Roland, Klaus Kinski, and George Hilton as four partners after gold.

Sam Cooper(Van Heflin) is a prospector that had spent twenty years looking for gold only to be double-crossed by his partner when he finally made a strike. Forced to kill him in self-defense, he tries to pack all the gold they had mined out by himself. Deep in the Nevada Desert, he nearly dies trying to get out, then drinking at the river he finally reaches, is waylaid by desperate bandits who take his horses, weapons, and food, leaving him alive but knocked out with his gold.

It’s never explained why these men don’t take the gold as well. But then we wouldn’t have a movie, I guess, if they had. Cooper caches the bags and takes only a couple that he can carry out safely.

Once he gets back to town, after hiding the two bags he brought with him, he starts planning an expedition to the mine. Trusting no one, he sends for his adopted son, Manolo Sanchez(Hilton) who he hasn’t seen for years since he got tired of traipsing through the desert after the old man.

The young man comes and, as the plan is shaping up, reveals Brent the Blond(Kinski), insisting he’s going along. The relationship between the pair is never fully explained, but Manolo seems afraid of him and there is something else. Kinski plays his usual cold-blooded role, though he dresses as a priest and has that death-like start that he does so well.

Cooper suddenly wonders if he can trust the boy and hires Mason(Roland), an ex-army buddy, former friend who believes Cooper turned him in after they deserted for the reward, leaving him with several years in a prison in the Florida swamps and a case of malaria.

The four men never fully trust each other. Manolo and the Blond hang together, Mason makes it plain he’s really along to make Cooper pay for turning him in. Cooper insists he didn’t.

Cooper is the only one who can get them to the mine and, once there, greed starts to overwhelm the four men. If this all seems familiar, and I’m sure it does, the movie reads like a spaghetti western THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.

As opposed to a lot of these genre, it has a nice, tight script by Augusto Caminito and Fernando Di Leo and was directed by Giorgio Capitani with some nice acoustic guitar work in places. Highly recommended.

In My Childhood: Father Knows Best

Tags

Father Knows Best, In My Childhood

I liked the idea for this when Patti first mentioned it. I though about this one a lot since then. My favorite television series would depend on what time in life I was discussing. This one is childhood and there were only two possibilities for me. Since Patti had already claimed one of them, I had to go for the second.

I identified strongly with this show as the family dynamic was close to mine. Three siblings, a boy and two girls, a mother and father. In my case, the big difference in order was I was the oldest and there was no father in my case( he was an uncaring SOB that left every chance he got and for good when I was the eldest of three). But that’s a whole other story.

As I thought about this post, I realize that was what made these two a must watch. There was a caring father in each. I was surprised at how much I remembered as my mind cast back. Jim Anderson was the father. The kids were Betty, Bud, and Kitten. I didn’t remember the mother’s name and wondered why.

I came to the decision that it was likely because I had a mother who cared a great deal for my sisters and myself and sacrificed a great deal to raise three kids alone. My focus was on the element lacking in my family.

Our first television was a black and white, a gift from our step-father when we were very young. We’d never have been able to afford something like that otherwise. I must have been five or six and still recall him toting the set, a floor model, in by himself. It was shortly after that that he stopped coming around and didn’t reappear until I was eighteen. I didn’t know why until much later(which is a whole ‘nother story as well). They married the summer I graduated from high school, July 5th, and celebrated their forty-first anniversary this year.

Father Knows Best had what I was missing in my life and that drew me in more than anything else I believe. Jim Anderson was the caring father that fixed all problems in his children’s lives. Or smoothed them over at any rate. Something I had no idea what was like. Mom did a great job and still looks after her children, at eighty, probably more than we’d like to admit.

Other than Beaver, I don’t recall any other of that type of show when I was very young. I watched a great deal of television. Well, as much as you could with only three networks. Other than the two family “comedies,” it was mostly westerns for me.

2009 NFL Week 11

Tags

Jets, Panthers, Redskins

Not a good week for my teams.

The Panthers played Miami Thursday night on the NFL network(Time-Warner doesn’t carry it; I don’t think a lot of cable does for that matter). Jake had a pick deep in Dolphins territory, but the defense was a little suspect this time.

Ricky Williams rushed for two TDs and had one passing TD that really hurt. One long rushing one late in the game that, had the Panthers held them, would have gotten the ball back.

Result: a 24-17 loss that left the Panthers at 4-6. The Saints didn’t have a lot of trouble with the Bucs to stay undefeated and the Falcons lost to the Giants 34-31 in overtime.

The ‘Skins defense played pretty good, although a couple of easy picks were dropped in the first quarter. Two missed field goals, the first of the year for their kicker, cost them though as the Cowboys scored a TD late for a 7-6 win.

The shame of losing to the Cowboys(sigh).

The Jets are still playing New England, but are heading for a loss. Despite returning a Brady fumble for a TD, they are down 24-7 early in the third quarter and show no signs of being able to mount a comeback.

Ah well. Congratulations to the Lions for their second win, though it was over the hapless Browns.