Murder Is My Business by Brett Halliday
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love to start the year with a Michael Shayne mystery. I’ve already read most of the series in the early 2000s. I didn’t get to many that didn’t take place in Florida and the ones being pumped out by ghost writers post-Dave Dresser or 1960. I did have this as already read as I mixed this title up with another in the series. Just to note: I hadn’t read this before and somehow have two now marked here.

This was a great Shayne novel. This one taking place in Texas. As usual Dresser knows his terrain and locations seem real as well as the characters. The mystery is very good with many layers involved. The reader is kept guessing until the end, though this one has a key clue flipped at a little too opportune time. Still a very good mystery well worth the time – If you can find it.

Bottom line: I recommend this book.

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As i signed a couple sets of Swampy’s Florida books for the Silver River Museum to sell, I added a critter or two along the way. You can get your copies by going by or contacting the Silver River Museum. Click here to learn more. Here’s a happy raccoon. I have no idea what he’s so happy about. That’s what psychiatrists are for.

Rob Smith Jr – Turtle Signing – Daily inks 7

As i signed a couple sets of Swampy’s Florida books for the Silver River Museum to sell, I added a critter or two along the way. You can get your copies by going by or contacting the Silver River Museum. Click here to learn more. Here’s a turtle resting along the waters of the Silver River.

This is a part of the birthday card I made for my dear friend Lucile Fair’s 106th birthday in two weeks. If you are nearby or crossing my path in the next two weeks, it’d be great if you would sign her card. Please send me a message and let me know if you would like to sign her card.

This is the painting my father got for his birthday this year. Each year the painting involves a frog and some other subject matter. This year it’s frogs and Weeki Wachee mermaids..

The Weeki Wachee mermaids are legendary in Florida. It all goes back to over fifty years ago when young ladies donned some hand made fins to promote Weeki Wachee Springs, a tourist attraction featuring the natural springs that flow out to supply the Weeki Wachee River. The ladies used an underwater breathing apparatus developed by, inventor, Newt Perry, to be able to perform swimming routines underwater that visitors could watch in a specially made theater.

The theater is still there today as are the mermaids. The park is now part of the Florida Park system and visitors still travel there today to watch mermaids dance and swim :

Jack Lemmon by Michael Freedland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Michael Freedland does what so many authors do that create a series with a similar theme. Much like a snow ball gets larger as it rolls down a mountain, as Freedland interviews the various celebrities for the various biographies he produces he picks up other stories and quotes involving other celebrities. He obviously stores the snippets of others lives. Then when he feels he has enough to construct another biography, he flings open the filing cabinets, digs out the gathered information and constructs a book.

There’s nothing wrong with what he does. Most all authors do this when creating a series. However, most work to take earlier research notes, string it together and fill in the gaps to create the whole story in whatever the subject is.

Freedland leaves wide gaps in Lemmon’s story. The book at times leaps from one point in Lemmon’s life to another. The inconsistency is a bit irritating. For instance very little is written about Jack Lemmon’s filming of ‘Some Like It Hot’ but plenty is filled out about ‘Save the Tiger’. There is also the lacking hindsight issue. Freedland expands the Lemmon story as it reaches his book’s publication date. The earlier history is far less complete.

Despite all this criticism, I like the end result because, though there is much lacking, what is there is well written, presented and obviously celebrity stories and quotes would be lost to time if Freedland hadn’t bothered to gather them over time and present them in this volume.

So, if you want a thorough Jack Lemmon biography, this isn’t it. If you want an over view packed with nifty stories of Lemmon’s life, track this now out of print book down.

Bottom line: I recommend it.

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Tomorrow’s my father’s birthday and each year he get’s a watercolor painting by me. More recently he’s got paintings having to do with Florida and frogs. I’ll show the final painting Monday or so. For the Daily Inks, I’ll show the fish I inked after painting the fellow a bit ago today.

This week’s Swampy’s Florida cartoon has to do with wolves. Here’s the wolf I inked earlier that will be in the panel.

Swing over to the Swampy’s Florida site or Facebook page on Sunday to see what Florida area is named after wolves.

The Swampy Machine decided to take a break from it’s operating procedures Monday as I made my way to a meeting in a Palm Bay, Florida , with Tim Reynolds of The Knowledge Exchange. That had me staying at my friend Jim Fern’s house during the time it took to fix the catalytic converter.

Was I surprised when I drove the car a mere few miles away and it kinked out again in a Publix parking lot. Tim Reynolds and his wife were too kind to drive out to the stilled vehicle during New Years Eve. But not before a number of Publix customers gathered around the car trying to figure the trouble. A group consensus was that the starter had gotten clogged with oil that had gotten loose under the hood.

The crowd dispersed and Tim had the real answer to my trouble and that’s what we did. I bought a new starter and Tom and his son inserted the replacement.

To do this meant doing it at Jin Fern’s house, where I was staying. Thus I drew the drawing above as Jim’s home became a mechanic’s den.

Aunt Dimity Digs In by Nancy Atherton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really do like Atherton’s writing style. It is so well done. To avoid repetition, please see my review of the previous Dimity book I read, Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed.

Had a discussion about authors and the appeal of the writing seen more prior to about 1930. Atherton is much like that in description and style. As I read her books I often forget the time period of the story is current.

This story is a weaving of many elements that is better accomplished than ion the first two I read. There’s no murder or explosions. Just a theft of a brochure. What that theft leads to is one revelation after another.

Another element I like, which gets added to in this volume, are the stuffed animals involved. You have to be reading the series, to understand what this means.

I’m anxious to get to the next book. Though wonder how the setting where this story takes place and where the main character lives can be used again after mining so much of her neighborhood’s past.

Bottom line: I recommend this book.

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Gonna get back to Daily Inks in a couple days and thought I’d add this of the Swampy’s Florida cartoon I inked today. I’ll post the Swampy’s Florida cartoon in a couple days.