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.

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Here are a few photos from an event I performed this past Saturday in St. Augustine!

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.

The Long Divorce by Edmund Crispin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As much as I really liked ‘The Moving Toyshop’ for the playful way with the story and characters, ‘The Long Divorce’ has far less engaging characters and story. I can still clearly recall many parts of ‘the Moving Toyshop’ and can hardly recall much of ‘The Long Divorce’.

The writing is fine for a mystery. The setting is well defined, especially the rural areas. The characters are also illustrated well but with less spark than in ‘The Moving Toyshop.

There is a significant and needless plot device used, it seems, because there is little engaging in this book. I’d say, that is what hurts this book. The writer was so busy setting up to reveal the plot device that certain characters and situations got washed out.

Bottom Line: I recommend this book. Checking 5 of 10 points.

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More Romer, the Recycling Squirrel I scrawled out for our City Hallways more than 20 years ago while I was with the City of Orlando. This one is a favorite of mine. John Everhart was a co-worker who had one heck of a sense of humor. That last panel is an exact pose you might find him in if you came through the engineering department.

The cartoon involved a bit of editorial that employees were told one day that we no longer had a place to park and had to park blocks away and walk to City Hall. I didn’t mind the walk. It’s that the City was slowly giving away all the land around the building to business investors. I remember so well after the old City Hall was visually imploded at the beginning of the film Lethal Weapon 3, Lew Oliver arranged the new City Hall to have property around the building that might be built and then leased to help City taxpayers. Within ten years Lew was gone and the opposite happened.

This is Day 4 of a 5 day challenge that I got flipped in my head. That and I’ve been busy. This is #1 0f 3 for the day. Heck, I almost need a legal description to work this thing out!

I’m apparently supposed to ask another artist to post 3 bits of artwork for 5 days and also ask another artist to post work. OK, AE Sabo​ – You’ll likely follow the rules better than I. 😀

Here’s something else I did while at the City of Orlando, though i did a bunch of this with my own time. It was for the puppet theater the City used to have at the City Community Centers.

Each of the characters shown was also a puppet. I remember going out to get photos for this.

This for Facebook Art Challenge #3 of 3. Pam Treadwell

My pal Pam Pam Treadwell wants me to post 3 pictures here I drew. Well, I’ve been hunkered down again in the past few hours reworking a Swampy project. Got 18 pages penciled and inked. So, here’s them and three close ups.

Here’s one of the Valentine’s Day cards I produced today. This is for her skin diving husband who looks for sea life of the octopus variety when he isn’t otherwise collecting guns. Nothing worse to encounter undersea than a well armed octopus. Should have had him say, “You kids keep off my lawn!”

I spent a few hours this evening inking a stack of pages involving a number of projects. I’m back in a local coffee shop. Second time this week with major accomplishments as a result. Been reading books of favorite writers, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley & others of the Round Table and their need for a place to hole away and get work done. Realized I need to do the same again.

It’s been exactly a year since I stopped going to my old coffee shop haunt due to political reasons. Since then have bounced around at chain spots and other places. Seems I have found a new spot- or as pals Craig Zablo & John Beatty call my “office” – to hunker down and really get work done

Here’s Molly and Ainsley with Julie of Julianne’s Coastal Cottage and their hand painted cards!

After knocking out hand-made, watercolored Christmas ornaments this past Christmas, Julie Pointer,of Julianne’s Coastal Cottage in Mount Dora, brought up the idea of me creating similar Valentine’s Day cards. We set a date and that was this past weekend. It was supposed to be three hours on Friday and three hours on Saturday. Turned out to be Friday through Sunday and I turned out to be exhausted.

Love drawing trains and this one covers all the items this fellow mentioned. I didn’t get his name, but will tomorrow when he and his wife come back to have me paint a few more cards for them.

My main goal was to harken back to the days when we, as young folks, exchanged well illustrated Valentine’s Day cards with punny sayings.

Most of the overtime was catching up with requests. Some that even came through Facebook.

All were inked and watercolored while folks watched. I used a Koi portable watercolor set to add color.

The photos are all requests for the various names noted on the cards.