Books: Curtain Call to Murder by Julian Clary (2024)

“It is opening night at the London Palladium, and tensions are running high amongst the feuding cast of "Leopard Spots." Amongst them are an ageing lothario, a national treasure, an amateur psychic and a comedian-turned actor all vying for the spotlight. When an on-stage accident forces an unexpected intermission, it is clear only to dresser Jayne that the drama has turned deadly. Can she step out of the wings and identify the killer before it is too late? Or will murder make an encore.” 

Clary does take an interesting, if often tedious, route setting up this whodunit. Instead of starting with the murder, we go roughly 170 pages into the backstory before we get to Peter Milano’s death on stage. I mean, it’s another way to set the table for the murder by giving all the exposition upfront instead of incorporating throughout the book. It tries hard to give the reader a better chance of figuring out who the killer “will be” instead working it out through the rest of the tale. 

Also the story is told from different perspectives: first person diary entries from the protagonist, WhatsApp chats, newspaper articles, and notes from Clary, who exists as a minor character within the tale (I’ve always had issues with authors who insert hyper-reality versions of themselves into their own books. It’s weird and arrogant). 

Clary also gives a piss-poor look at a certain gay character, who while probably does exist in real life, but I still found Gordon a terrible human being. There are a few plot holes that made me role my eyes at, and that’s not even counting some of the typos and sentence structure that should’ve been caught by a better editor. 

In the end, despite attempting (as noted in the prologue) to upset the apple cart in telling these British cosy mysteries, Curtain Call to Murder, while sometimes funny and odd, never fully gels and becomes more than just a bit too campy and trashy, and not very deep, for my tastes.

Books: Falling By T.J. Newman (2021)

“You just boarded a flight to New York. There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard. What you don't know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot's family was kidnapped. For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die. The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane. Enjoy the flight.” 

Over the decades, there has been a lot of fiction set on airplanes, from the melodrama of Airport (and it’s mostly silly sequels), to the action films like Passenger 57 and Snakes on an Airplane, to the sobering tale of United 93, and to parody classic that is Airplane!. Unfortunately, Falling becomes a parody of different kind. Former Flight Attendant T.J. Newman wrote this book during her years flying red-eyes, and in the post 9/11 world, she brings a great eye for detail and some action, but the premise is so problematical and unrealistic, that you can’t help but wonder if maybe she should’ve just worked the idea out more. 

Now, I was sort of expecting this to be a bad book, but for $1 at the Friends of the Library here in Culver City, I thought I would give it try. The characters are right out of Stereotypes R Us, all thinly-drawn, all shallow characterizations you expect from 1950s B films. The heart of the books many problems is the motivations of bad guys (I didn’t really think of then as terrorists, but I’m sure the Universal movie version will pump that up). It’s a huge and problematic plot hole. I guess it can be hard for any American who has lived the last 100 years in a fairly stable country with no wars and no real sacrifices of family and home life, but both Sam and Ben’s choices for why they’re doing what they’re doing seem not that deeply explored. 

The books also uses the trope of flashbacks (which pop up is the weirdest times), which sets up a plot point that somehow is usable in the present. Which itself not bad, but it’s so paint-by-number that I swear this book came out the same factory James Patterson uses to push his trashy tomes out of. 

Yes, it is a good book to read on a long flight, but you won’t remember much of it once you’re done. And would also be remiss if I didn’t add that I give a lot of kudos to the publishers of Falling for creating a great marketing for what is, in the end, an utterly dull action novel.

Books: Sandwich by Catherine Newman (2024)

“For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too. This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers. It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.”

I’m not sure what I was expecting from this book, though it looked fun and interesting. And after two long books, I thought a fluffy free comic novel would be a great palate cleanser. I’m not exactly the target audience for this book (mid 50s menopausal woman), but, again, I thought it looked amusing and I don’t often read a lot of women writers. As I read, as I pondered Rocky’s situation, I felt the relationship with her two kids, well, adults (24 year-old son Jamie and 21 year-old lesbian Willa) too open and not believable. Perhaps it’s just me; I did not grown up with a very close family. We were not upper middle class folks who could drop the amount of cash this family does once a year. Plus, what 24 year-old modern male, with a successful job and a beautiful girlfriend, still honoring such a family vacation tradition? It makes no sense. 

It reminded me of little seen TV series Wonderfalls where psychiatrist Dr Campbell asks Jaye Tyler (who was in crisis after having a wax lion talk to her. Long story.) “When's the last time you told your sister you loved her?” and she responds “I don't know how you did things in your family, but we weren't raised that way.”

I’ve never run into a family that is so open and maybe even a bit crude (and I’m not that prissy, or a pearl clutcher, but Newman took it to a bit extreme) about relationships and sex. It’s very liberal, which will limit the audience, and very creepy at times because I can’t grasp the closeness of this family. There is no real plot here, as well, just a monologue short novel about one woman’s struggle with her feminine body; abortion, depression, menopause. 

And the title? I get it: Rocky is “sandwiched” between her millennial kids and her aging parents, and not sure where she feels comfortable with. 

So I’m not going to read the sequel, Wreck. Because I think this was one already.

Books: The Devils By Joe Abercrombie (2025)

“Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters, and the mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends. Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.” 

This is my first attempt at reading a Joe Abercrombie book. I’ve seen his books for some time, aware they were more violent than what I’m used to in standard fantasy, though I’m not sure if that is good or bad, as the mainstream fantasy field has not surprised me for years (the usual suspects of being too many volumes, most overlong, and, ugh, romantasy). The Devils is also part of a subgenre of fantasy called Grimdark. That variety features a more darker, grittier, morally ambiguous world with violent and often nihilistic themes. It is defined by its bleak settings, anti-heroic and selfish characters, and frequent depictions of corruption, violence, and tragedy, blurring the line between good and evil. 

So the book follows a monk, a cursed knight, a pirate, a werewolf, a vampire, a magician, and elf whom are tasked by the church to escort a former thief to Troy, where she is heir to the throne. So all the ingredients are here for the perfect novel, but something feels off and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Perhaps, part of the problem, lies with the feeling I’ve read this all before – like some forty years ago. It reminded me a lot of David Eddings The Belgariad and The Malloreon, which is not bad, as I enjoyed those novels. While Eddings work was not super complex, as it is here, both writers have a sense of humor and created memorable characters. The Devils is also episodic, despite the fact is has fast paced action, with barely a breath between set-pieces, and short chapters. And it works, but for someone reading a novel by him for the first time, I do not fully love this book, the first in a new trilogy. 

Also, it’s a bit overlong, but I’ve finished it, and got at least a year wait for the next book. We’ll see if I will pick up book two or maybe, like other fantasy novels of late, have found nothing new to want me to continue on.

Books: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (2023)

“Florida. June 1950. Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens Jr. is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules, but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.” 

Channeling real-life history of blacks fight for their humanity under the dark boot of racism, the Jim Crow era and horrors of everyday existence, Tananarive Due’s gives us a maddening, breakneck tale of one 12 year-old boy who must survive a viscous six-months “imprisonment” in hell on Earth that is a Florida reformatory. Here, the sins of the father, a sadistic Superintendent named Fenton J. Haddock, and the past collide. But young Robert has a talent –he can see the ghosts of those who died at the Gracetown School for Boys. And there are only two things that scare Haddock: someone finding the pictures he has in desk drawer, and the haints that haunt the reformatory. Because if anyone finds out what a horrible man Haddock truly is, his way of life, the dark desires he has, then they will undue all power he so loves.

While I’ve never read a book by her, every time I saw the book on the shelves or online, it kept calling to me. Now, I’ve not read much of the Jim Crow era in detail, but know enough of its history that tears me apart about a time, soothe of Mason/Dixon line, where blacks were imprisoned, lynched, murdered and hunted like dogs for the most minor infraction. The one thing that still today rings through my head was how this was still happening only some 70 odd years ago and continues today, in 2025. How did the supposedly Greatest Nation on the Planet allow this happen? 

I suppose, for us whites, the only real way to get us to read about this terror is through novels like The Reformatory or Lovecraft Country, is to clothe it a tale about ghosts. But it’s an emotional read, as the characters, vividly brought life in three dimensions by Due -along with the black community itself- have overcome so much injustice, have to deal daily with so many travesties, and all that they never seem to end. 

It’s a stunning book, heartbreaking, devastating, and horrifying, a historical fiction wrapped up as a ghost story. 

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Much like The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland and the Catholic boarding schools run in Canada by nuns for Indigenous children which were aimed at assimilating Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture, the straight line through all of them is how many children lost their lives and were buried in unmarked graves, to be lost to time and God. 

Gracetown School for Boys is based on the real-life Florida School for Boys, also known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. It was reform school operated by the state of Florida in the panhandle town of Marianna from January 1, 1900, to June 30, 2011. For a time, it was the largest juvenile reform institution in the United States. 

According to Wikipedia, “Throughout its 111-year history, the school gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture, and even murder of students by staff. Despite periodic investigations, changes of leadership, and promises to improve, the cruelty and abuse continued. After the school failed a state inspection in 2009, the governor ordered a full investigation. Many of the historic and recent allegations of abuse and violence were confirmed by separate investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2010, and by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice in 2011. State authorities closed the school permanently in June 2011. At the time of its closure, it was a part of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. 

“Because of questions about the number of deaths at the school and a high number of unmarked graves, the state granted permission for a forensic anthropology survey by the University of South Florida in 2012. The team identified 55 burials on the grounds, most outside the cemetery, and documented nearly 100 deaths at the school. In January 2016, USF issued its final report, having made seven DNA matches and 14 presumptive identifications of remains. Three times as many black as white students died and were buried at Dozier. USF's report noted that excluding a 1914 event in which an estimated six to ten white children were killed in a fire, the racial balance of deaths was consistent with the school's overall population demographics. 

“After passage of resolutions by both houses of the legislature, on April 26, 2017, the state held a formal ceremony to apologize personally to two dozen survivors of the school and to families of other victims. In 2018, bills were being considered to provide some compensation to victims and their descendants, possibly as scholarships for children. In 2019, during preliminary survey work for a pollution clean-up, a further 27 suspected graves were identified by ground-penetrating radar. In 2024, a bill to compensate the victims of The Dozier School for Boys carried by Representative Michelle Salzman and Senator Darryl Rouson was approved by the state legislature and signed into law.” 

The book is dedicated to her great-uncle Robert Stephens, who died at the Dozier School for Boys in 1937 at the age of fifteen, her late mother, Patricia Gloria Stephens Due and her father, John Dorsey Due, Freedom Lawyer.