Dark Night of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This excellent volume of Smoke Jensen wraps the 20th anniversary of the death of William Johnstone. The writer of this creates a tale and writes quite differently than Johnstone, but with the same panache and skill the pull a reader through. Some recent johnstone books have been missing this.
This writer also pulls in elements of Johnstone’s earlier horror books, but includes humor often absent in those. Overall one of the best of the last ten years or so.

The plotting is very well done. Writing in the attacks and the town organizing and pursuit is well paced with a very satisfying conclusion. Whereas I’ve noticed far too much extraneous material in many recent Johnstone Clan novels, this one is far better tightly written.

The expected well-written characters are included and the settings also better depicted. A few new characters are written in with such ease, I wasn’t sure whether I had or hadn’t read of them before. Great!

The ending is also better than most. Not the typical Johnstone ending with the reader feeling nearly in free-fall. Satisfying.

Overall, this is a great book!

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 10 out of 10 points.

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The Dark Side of the Z (Volume 20) by Fabien Vehlmann
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A very good Spirou tale that continues from earlier tales. The graphic take of the moon-tale is particularly good. Simply moving characters from earth to moon without a lot of explanation than the underlying tone of universal evil works well.

The artwork well continues the excellent work of earlier tales. A little sloppy here and there. Forgiven with such a large complex to create and illsutrate.

Great job and something the ‘Big 2’ need to note and work toward. The 2 are at such a low level, it’d be better to just shut down and let CineBook take over it all.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 10 out of 10 points.

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It’s a Sin to Kill by Day Keene
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very good tale of somewhere along the central gulf coast of Florida.
The story draws the reader in immediately and the mystery is intriguing.
A few pages later, a similar action that opened the book is repeated in a different way.
After that, the action takes off and it’s not nearing the end that a resolution seems to be occurring.

I believe Keene was dressing Ames, the main character, as a dopey guy who is caught in something he can’t figure out. Suddenly he does. Why was law enforcement not looking into what Ames did? Keene used that loop-hole to move the plot.

The story is still fun to read.

The Florida part: Keene is not specific as to the location in Florida. He titles it Palmetto City and then confuses municipalities and county government. I’ve read quite a number of writers doing this of Florida in books of the ’50s and ’60s.
The location swings to Tampa and there’s mention of Boca Granda Pass, that waaaay south of Tampa. The setting is somewhere in between.

Keene’s writing of the fishing village is excellent. Barnacles and all.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 7 out of ten points.

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10 years ago, my friend, Ann Gold turned 90 years old. Since then she’s up and died.
This would’ve been her 100th birthday.
She was a good lady who was a leader and worked hard. Her hero was Ronald Reagan.
I loved talking to her and hearing her stories of her decades in Dade County, Florida.
I sure do miss ol’ Ann.

This was Markette ink & watercolor on Strathmore watercolor paper.
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#CAricature #CArtooning #RonaldReagan #Art #Watercolor

From Sunday’s live broadcast.
Made up as I drew, reacting to comments in the chat area.

Somehow ‘Top Secret’ came up during the program.
I showed an odd ‘Daffy Duck’ candy dispenser by the Pez folks. Sure looks more like the Roadrunner than the duck.
Also, Sunday was ice cream day.
Inking, I just added the rest as I drew.

Kuretake brush pen on sketch paper from Miller Pad and Paper.
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