Tag: Rob Smith Jr
March 26th, 2015 – ‘Eight Hours to Die’ by William W. Johnstone
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Mar.26, 2015, under Books
Eight Hours to Die by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It is amazing how the Johnstone Clan of writers can draw a reader into a tale. They did it again here with this offering from the Johnstone Herd of books.
The tale is a fun ride of a town in trouble and Sixkiller rides in to try and save the day. After reading so many Johnstone books in the past two years, the tales do start to sound familiar when a weaker writer gets hold of it. That is the case here. As much fun as the story is and the pages turn faster and faster as excitement builds, this Johnstone tale is lacking.
As the book proceeds the story resolves itself a bit too easily. There’s little in the way of twists and turns to help the story have more meat to it’s bone. There is a significant twist in the story that comes at a very odd part of the book.
The characters make it all worthwhile. Most are well done. Though, many are given little background and some are never given names.
The two biggest clunkers of the product is a goofy cover and an unrelated book title.
Still the book is worth reading for the fun of it all.
Bottom line: i recommend the book. 5 of 10 points.
MArch 24th, 2015 – Book: ‘The Saint in Miami’ by Leslie Charteris
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Mar.24, 2015, under About Us
The Saint in Miami by Leslie Charteris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an outstanding book for many reasons.
It’s the first Charteris book I’ve read and I must seek more. The writing is very good.The characters are well defined. The plotting also intricately planned. Especially considering today there is the perspective of the past and how much Charteris was cobbling together of the larger World War to come.
Reading this book had me banging my head into the wall as to why authors just won’t write like this today???? Same thoughts while reading Slaughter or even Brett Halliday. Is it so hard to write with intelligence?
The Florida angle: This, for me, is the best part! Charteris went far, far, far beyond my expectations depicting Florida! Clearly he traveled the state and did careful research.
His weakest description is around Miami. The beach area and the coast are written loosely. Though, a commentary of Miami Beach tourists is particularly well done. Since the sketchy description is early on, I figured the Florida setting to get worse. It doesn’t. His driving narrative reflects well the roadways around Dade County in 1940.
He kicks it all up a notch with his writing of areas in the Everglades. A floating gambling pub and surroundings are well depicted. It’s their trip through the Gig Cypress (Which was yet to come and referred to as the Everglades) that Charteris really nails down the writing of sawgrass, swamp trudging, a rain storm, felled trees in the swamp and so much more.
So much of Charteris description of Florida is better than what celebrated Florida authors do today.
A couple of oddities in writing of Florida:
*) The sheriff is a main character throughout. But the more prominant law in the area, the Miami and Miami Beach police are barely mentioned. Seems that is for expediting the story.
*) A character is coming from “Olustee”, which is written as somewhat nearby. Olustee sems to stand in for Raiford.
*) Though heat and sweat are occasionally mentioned, the reality of a visitor from the UK in many situations exposed to heavy heat is not well covered.
The best part of the book is the accurate Florida setting.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 9 of 10.
March 17th, 2015 – Meetings and Artwork!
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Mar.17, 2015, under Cartooning
Been at a meeting for a few hours tonight and got a ton of time consuming artwork done! Yay!
March 10th, 2015 – Book: ‘Heywood Broun’ by Dale Kramer
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Mar.10, 2015, under Books
Heywood Broun – a biographical portrait by Dale Kramer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Heywood Broun has become a long forgotten whipsaw sharp humorist. Even the more notable Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, of the same Smart Set, are getting long lost nearly 100 years after blazing literary trails of wit.
I can’t even remember where I picked up this copy of Dale Kramer’s ‘Heywood Broun’, but I have never seen it again. I had to enter the book, here, into the Goodread’s shelves. That’s a true pity, for this book of Broun’s life is very well written and researched. The writing is better than most biographies. There’s a closeness felt in the writing to Broun that seems to be closer than Broun, himself, would have allowed.
There are the troubles: Lack of years noted, which, as usual, gets confusing while reading. There are asides of supposed dialogue at different points, that are very good, but for someone as guarded as Broun, have to wonder about the accuracy. The dialogue does fit well and well illustrates the narrative.
There seems to also be the noticeable edits throughout the book as names come out of no where with no explanation. The names are not recognizable, even with my knowledge of the circle Broun ran around with.
Bottom line: I recommend this book….IF you can find it.
An aside: The book is inscribed Christmastime 1949 by Maggie Bartel, long time reporter for the New York Daily News. She retired to Key West and became, and apparently is still, instrumental in recording Key West history. Something dear to my heart.
Bartel had inscribed the book to, what appears to be, “Bob Ring”, who I could find nothing about. Was hoping this might help me figure out where I had picked up the book. Possibly Bartel never gave the book to Ring and I found it during one of my trips to the Keys. The book does appear otherwise not to have been read, though the dust jacket is in terrible shape.
March 7th, 2015 – Caricatures in St. Augustine!
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Mar.07, 2015, under Caricatures
Here are a few photos from an event I performed this past Saturday in St. Augustine!
February 25th, 2015 – Book: ‘The Broken Gun’by Louis L’Amour
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.25, 2015, under Books
The Broken Gun by Louis L’Amour
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I see a well illustrated old west themed cover to a Louis L’Amour book, the title ‘The Broken Gun’ and I plunge into a novel that instantly confuses me. It takes a few pages to realize when in time this novel falls. There is no mention of it. There is a mention of 90 years before…but, before what?
By the third page the Korean War is mentioned.
Involving stroytelling, time should be established in some way off the top if a story about different time periods is being unraveled. Instead L’Amour leaves the reader at drift trying to figure out what’s going on.
Making the early part of the book worse is L’Amour’s poor approach to literally illustrating an urban setting.
Once the novel goes out to ranch lands of sand and rock, L’Amour hits his stride in describing the setting. But, time gets away from him again. L’Amour clearly had trouble with writing about his present.
A number of things bother me about the writing of this book. One involved an over long chase near the end. Another was one sentence involving a character that vanishes. Though clearly not the intent, the line is more surreal than consistent with the rhythm of the story.
The story is shakey, at best, and the conclusion over obvious.
Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 4 out of ten.
February 23rd, 2015 – Book: ‘The Family Jensen’ by William Johnstone.
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.23, 2015, under Books
The Family Jensen by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The first book of a series by the Johnstone Clan, that I’ve read, are usually excellent. This one missed that mark. There certainly are some great stories inside and even a good overall story. It’s just that in an effort to weave four stories together as a whole doesn’t work. The three individual stories of the three main characters read as stories meant for another purpose. So that the main underlining story also seems like a separate novel. Seems to me the Johnstone Clan could’ve just fleshed out all four stories into separate books that might not run the typical 300 pages. Maybe that was the initial idea.
The writing is OK. Though it does seem as if, at least, one of the three separate stories was written be an also separate author.
The characters are as good as always. Especially good work done for the indian characters. The bad guys were lacking in this case.
I’m going to recommend the book due almost entirely with the last fourth of the book. I do recommend reading the book as separate novels. Might be best to skip the prologue, I think it makes more sense that way.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 5 out of 10 points.
February 20th, 2015 – Book: ‘Poirot Loses a Client’ by Agatha Christie
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.19, 2015, under Books
Poirot Loses a Client by Agatha Christie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
‘Poirot Loses a Client’ lost me a bit in viewing Christie as a great author. The formula is mostly the same. Someone is dead. Group of people are suspects. Everyone is overly talkative about what they think is going on. Suspects gathered. Resolution. After reading Edmund Crispin, I wish Christie thought of fleshing out a plot, characters, setting and writing.
This story has Poirot, and pal, enter the story with little explanation as to who they are and why they would be involved in the plot. For those of us that know the characters, we could say we don’t need the background. I feel a book needs to anticipate new readers and not make assumptions.
Moreover, the story feels like it has been pushed through a template, as referred to above.
Getting to the conclusion is a plodding roaming of Poirot finding one talkative character after another. Not all suspects would spill so much. One way Christie could have made the story more interesting story would be having the characters stonewalling Poirot.
The resolution was a bit frustrating after getting through the rest of the book.
There is good character development, with the exception of proper introduction of the two main characters.
Bottom line: I do not recommend this book. 4 of ten points.
February 14th, 2015 – Valentine’s Day Handrawn cards at Silver Springs State PArk
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.14, 2015, under Cartooning, Florida Attractions
I spent the day at Silver Springs State Park hand drawing and painting Valentine’s cards for a special price. While there I also promoted our Silver Springs Festival and Marion County Museum of History and Archaeology. I, as usual, fumbled trying to sell cards and went about cheerleading what I was promoting. Finally, folks got wise they were missing out on a great deal involving Valentine’s Day cards and I was put to the test to knock out many as the day closed. Notice it is nearly dark in one photo.
February 6trh, 2015 – Book: ‘The Moving Toyshop’ by Edmund Crispin
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.06, 2015, under Books
The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a rollicking good literary time as author Crispin takes you along for a weird mixture of mystery and hijinks. There is a mystery in it all but it’s more than forced. The fun is reading Crispin’s writing of the characters and settings. Both extremely well done.
The embedded story is a bit complex and certainly strains credibility. Considering this book is from the mid-1940s and set in tiny Oxford, England, the tale would be far easier to pull off today.
Included are chase scenes written like few others. The best part of those are further descriptions of the locales.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 7 of 10.
February 5th, 2015 – Another of my Romer, the Recycling Squirrel #cartoons !
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.05, 2015, under Cartooning
Here’s another of the Romer, the Recycling Squirrel series from the City of Orlando’s City Hallways. This one includes folks here on Facebook. Like Robert Spindler, Pamela Swinehart Duffy and Ed Richter. Don’t know if Barbara is here on Facebook or not. This was the graphics section of the City of Orlando in the latter days I was there.
This is #2 of 3 of day #4 of #5 of a Facebook Art Challenge.
Linked In
Networked Blogs
Web Stat
