Books
August 19th, 2014 – Book: ‘The Neon Flamingo’ by W.R. Philbrick
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Aug.24, 2014, under Books
The Neon Flamingo by W.R. Philbrick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The biggest plus to this book by Philbrick is his ability to capture the feel and look of the Keys with words. This is the second of the Stash series I’ve read and I’d say he captured the location better than other books set in the area, including James Hall’s Thorn series.
Otherwise the story is pretty straightforward with a mystery lingering of the main character, Stash, in search of a kid. Lots of layabouts in the story. Everyone was portrayed as having no ambition to do much of anything. Even a couple rich central characters were stripped of any future. It all gets a bit depressing and the story stumbles from layabout to layabout. Soon, it’s hard to care about what happened to the kid as even the Stash character seems to lose interest.
Again it’s the narrative of the location that is the highlight. Philbrick accurately describes natural areas, fishing docks, boats, seedy areas of the Keys, etc.
The story is of little energy, but the setting is great. Therefore…
Bottom line: i recommend the book.
August 14th, 2014 – Book: ‘The Garner Files’ by James Garner.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Aug.14, 2014, under Books
The Garner Files: A Memoir by James Garner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
You can hear James Garner’s voice as you read this book. As he relates stories of film and TV it’s clear that the stories are coming from him.
The book is well written obviously thanks to the co-writer. Parts of Garner’s life as broken into bits that have a logical order. Maybe a bit too organized. Though I like the last few pages where Garner comments through a specific list of his film career, it does also feel a bit micro-manages, too. I am glad the golfing and racing parts are delineated. That way, i can write here, if you don’t care for racing and golf, avoid these chapter. Garner gets into a lot of detail about each. Especially in the racing section about cars and tracks and all. I would alert any racing fan you know to pick up the book for just that chapter, in that it has a lot of trivia they are bound to enjoy.
There are quite a number of admissions in the book. These days such confessions don’t mean much in a coarse world, but would’ve made headlines twenty years ago.
Any movie buff will love many details revealed here. Unlike some more recent celebrity volumes, this one has only short trivial mentions as compared to lengthy stories.
Leaving the book, you will have a very complete view of Garner’s life. i knew it so well going into the book, that it’s a bit hard what to write and not write about parts of this book.
Bottom line: I recommend this book.
August 11th, 2014 – Book: ‘Last Train to Woodstock’ by Colin Dexter.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Aug.11, 2014, under Books
Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is what a mystery should be. Baffling throughout. I should go back and drop star for other mysteries I’ve logged into here.
If only the rambling messes being published today could be so smart. Police/detective work is nearly entirely research and hypothesis. So many dead ends. This does a terrific job of relating the job. The main characters have their service jobs and making the most of them. The writing of the police procedure is excellent.
This is my first Colin Dexter book and I really like his pacing of the story. There’s so much going on. Dexter has laid out so many leads for the characters and the readers. Some go places and some do not. Wonderful handling of all that!
Bottom line: I recommend this book!
July 31st, 2014 – Book: ‘Invasion U.S.A.: Border War’ by William Johnstone.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jul.31, 2014, under Books
Border War by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
‘Invasion U.S.A.: Border War” is the second book of, so far, a two book series. This second book is far superior to the first, that is also very good. This one is far better written with a much more involved plot.
Whereas teh first was chock full of gun play and explosions, this one is handled very differently. There’s more setup to explain the gun play and explosions. With the more involved plot there are more involved characters. Something the Johnstone Clan excels at is characterization. That occurs here even better than the first book.
This one does have less tension with the first. i was literally on teh edge of my seat with the first. This one I had to read much more carefully as the plot unfolded in more intricate and well written detail.
Wondered about giving it five stars, but the writing isn’t up to the par of a Faulkner or Slaughter.
Bottom line: i recommend this book.
July 27th, 2014 – Book: ‘Florida Land of Images’ by Nixon Smiley.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jul.27, 2014, under Books
Florida, Land Of Images by Nixon Smiley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Nixon Smiley has collected a series of informative essays of various historical markers in Florida history. Each is very well written and most provide a very good back story to the points in history. I wish he had more details not otherwise found in so many other volumes, but I’m not sure how unique this book was when this book was published in 1972.
There are certainly better books that cover the material here more thoroughly, but this is a nice volume to introduce people to our fantastic Florida history.
The illustrations by Bob Lamme are very good.
Bottom line: I recommend this book.
July 19th, 2014 – Book: ‘The Good, the Bad and Me’ by Eli Wallach.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jul.19, 2014, under Books
The Good, the Bad, and Me by Eli Wallach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Of the recent run of legendary celebrity biographies I’ve read, this is one of the more thorough and better written. The first half of Wallach’s life, is well covered, with lot’s of very good stories and insights. Wallach dispels some popular notions involving Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe.
It’s the rest of Wallach’s life that gets truncated to a short 30 odd pages, or the last 6th of the book. Seems maybe Wallach had written up to around his 50th year and editors said,”Hey! Keep this at less than 300 pages!”. So, Wallach did. I can see Wallach doing that.
Something else you can see while reading this book is Wallach narrating the book. The writing is very much in Wallach’s voice and seems to be nearly a transcript of an oral history at times.
I meant to read this book while Wallach was still alive. I realize I’d like to read some of my favorite actor’s stories before they die. I thought I would next go to a couple Doris Day books. Now James Garner has died and I’m going to ‘The Garner Files’ next.
Though, i wish there was much more recorded of Wallach’s life after the mid-60s, what is in the book as a whole is a delightful story of an accomplished actor’s life.
Bottom line: I recommend the book.
July 16th, 2014 – ‘The Case of the Sleepwalking Neice’ by Erle Stanley Gardner.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jul.16, 2014, under Books
The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece by Erle Stanley Gardner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This was the first of the Gardner books that I wasn’t crazy about. Seems to me that Gardner had the ending more in focus than building the rest of the book in a coherent manner. A lot of stretches of the imagination, especially involving plane flight schedules (recognizing this was written in the 1930s).
Also the characters weren’t as sharp as in other Gardner books. There are a number of twists that could leave a reader confused as to who is who.
The idea of the conclusion is sharp, but wonder if it could’ve been better presented for a dramatic touch.
Still this book is better than most and certainly better than the bulk of books written today. Though, I’d point to other Mason stories than this.
Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book.
July 6th, 2014 – Book: ‘Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants’ by Rob MacGregor.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jul.06, 2014, under Books
Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants by Rob MacGregor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve heard great things about MacGregor’s contribution to the Jones series. They are hard to find. I just found one and dug right in!
This is a very good story with a tight plot. There are all sorts of angles the book takes, which really adds to the excitement. Lots of history, fiction & non-fiction, well told and not confusing or too deep for average readers. I love reading history and it’s a real bonus for me in this book.
Clearly MacGregor did his best to get the feeling of Harrison Ford’s depiction of the Indian Jones character. You can picture Ford in your mind as you read through.
I wish this book didn’t hit such a climax mid way through. The ending isn’t as good as the mid-point. It’s still a great boo. that’s the only criticism i have.
Overall, great writing, dialogue and story.
Bottom line: i recommend this book.
July 1st, 2014 – Book: ‘Courage of the Mountain Man’ by William W. Johnstone.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jul.01, 2014, under Books
Courage of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
As usual the writing is good and the characterizations are very good. It’s just that it’s much same plot as so many of the Smoke Jensen series. Town taken over, Smoke comes to save the day. The bad guy is getting really repeated as another who kills puppies and eats children, or something along those lines.
What’s really disappointing is not even a twist in the story. There are a few alteration of characters, but that is all to lead to a conclusion we ‘Mountain Man’ readers know too well. Seems to me one alteration was Smoke in general. Smoke, seems to me, acting very different in this book from how he handles the bad guys and the interaction with other characters. This could be a sign of a different ghost writer.
Another trouble is the length of this one. I think about a third could’ve been cut out and focus more on the sheriff and Smoke and make this a tighter volume. There’s way too much nearly identical narrative and dialog from other books.
The volume before this, ‘Pursuit of the Mountain Man’, was a terrific diversion from this town takeover template and I hope the other volumes I’ve hunted down take more the ‘Pursuit’ trail.
Bottom line: Well, I see I need to have two.
1) If you’ve been reading the ‘Mountain Man’ series – No, don’t read it. This is more of the same.
2) If you haven’t read any or little of the series, Yes, read it.
June 25th, 2014 – Book: ‘Hickory Dickory Death’ by Agatha Christie.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jun.25, 2014, under Books
Hickory Dickory Death by Agatha Christie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
‘Hickory Dickory Death’ is a nice mystery with a slew of suspects, but a suspect plot. Hercule Poirot rather stumbles into what seems to be a mere issue of theft until turning into murder. His involvement seems a bit of a stretch to begin with, but as the story goes the narrative seems less Poirot and more the authorities as if Poirot seemed more interested in the theft than the deaths.
There area long string of suspects that Christie does her best to discern, but still seems a bit too similar and that confused me while reading. In today’s radicalism view of political correctness, it’s likely younger folks will needlessly cringe at Christie’s attempt to distinguish her characters. It is not one world. We are not one people. Unfortunately, Christie doesn’t do enough to kick up a notch the differences.
Something else Christie doesn’t expound enough about is the basis of the solution to the mystery. There’s a lot to it and could have been far better defined involving dangers which leads to murder.
The writing is good as Chrisite is, but she sets too much up with the assumption that all know Poirot. The rest of the plot becomes far too convoluted due to what i commented about above. There’s a very good plot here and the underlying mystery has been done many times. Just done far better than Christie has done. Though, in that this is from 1955, Christie is early in handling subject matter far more common today.
Christie is a legend and i hate to write this involving legends, but…
Bottom line: i don’t recommend this book.
June 21st, 2014 – Book: ‘Spanish Bayonet’ by Stephen Vincent Benet.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jun.22, 2014, under Books
Spanish Bayonet by Stephen Vincent Benét
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a very well told tale of Florida in the late 1700s. So much is historically accurate, as we know it. The writing is beyond superb. So much care is taken in describing scenes and people. There is a bit of over writing in certain parts, but they are well-written certain parts.
The best part of this book is that it is so very far from the formulaic style of today. My head started to carry the story forward with various typical, cliched outcomes of novels today, but this story has it’s own path to take. None of the Politically Correct entrapments and censors are around to get in Benet’s way to tell a terrific story.
I do wish the story wrapped up differently. It’s a bit short.
The story is about a landowner’s family that grows indigo, amongst other things, has a Minorcan harvesting crew and a guest that enters the scene from overseas and finds himself in more than he bargained for. All is set during British occupation of Florida on the heals of the American Revolution.
Interesting to note is that author Benet’s grandfather was a St. Augustine native of Minorcan decent. Would love to know more about that and if any of this story stems from family legend that might have become part of this book.
Bottom line: I recommend this book.
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