Friday, May 27, 2016

UNDER THE INFLUENCE by Joyce Maynard ***

This was intriguing (for me) only for the fact the writer used to write about her home life for the Concord Monitor in NH. She screwed her way into JD Salinger's life -I'm sure long enough to piss off his wife all the while (I'm sure) thinking of herself as a young female temptress of a retiring, shy man who had little use for her interference. Then she wrote about it, doesn't believe in kiss and not tell.

Most people don't see her actions that way. They are mostly disappointed in her fame-fucking & bragging. She doesn't believe in keeping things to herself.  She was looking for an easy piece of ass to boost her career and since she wrote about her tryst and sells books, I'd say she was a successful fucker.

This novel isn't a mystery. It's about some dumb bunny Helen with a kid (Ollie-horrid name) who drinks away her child in a divorce then goes to AA and falls in with the wrong type of people. Wealthy getchu-anything-honey type of people. Then she finds out they're fake. WOW biggie news story there. O hell ya, rich people don't really GAS about the peons in the world. Surprise!! Pretty much nothing goes on at all during this story. Not a thing worth reading.

So this was disappointing. No murder, no excitement whatsoever. Even the accident was a let down here I was suspecting child rape but nope. Even Helen's boyfriend Elliot is steadfastly boring and she finds herself attracted to that at the end. Boring is now her middle name and life in general- all good wishes from Joyce, it must be how she sees other people.

And BTW the book wasn't all that and a bag of chips. I would get it at the library or not even bother. Watch the movie To Die For instead. Much better story about murder and it had some amusing on screen moments. Unknown if she wrote the movie script but the book wasn't all that wonderful for me either. When I read her stuff I feel her arrogance, her disdain for most of the characters in her stories-which I translate to people IRL. That may be why I'm not crazy about her writing style.




Sunday, May 22, 2016

BREAKDOWN by Johathan Kellerman ****

This is an Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis novel. Alex is slumming around after he meets some chick Zelda and her son Ovid-whom he bonds with. Later in time (5 yrs), he finds Zelda (aka Jane Smith) died claiming ownership of some mansion (her mom is Zina Rutherford) then is found poisoned on the exact premises (why did they check for poison? No coroner ever does that UNLESS strong, strong reason). There was never, so far as I remember, any check for poison, it seems Alex assumed so due to the many deadly plants growing on the property. So apparently this dame living the high life killed people to keep her inheritance. Her own half sister, the half sisters kid, other people who saw killings you know .... once you kill someone you end up with a houseful of strangers...dead or dying.

I guess this novel was a bit confusing. There were areas I forgot who was related to whom, what the F they were poisoned with and why. There are similar sounding names, he has to go back 5 years or more to study past deaths and people involved. It was difficult to keep up with the shenanigans when you're trying to fight your sleep meds to figure this crap out. So I gave it 4 stars for the confusion. What confused me most is WHY did everyone assume the dead were poisoned? Why? By what means? Can you tell from a 5 yr old or older body that they were poisoned? IDK. Kind of on the outer edges of believability.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

MIRRORWORLD by Jeremy Robinson ****

This begins with a patient who has no memories at all, he's in a mental hospital but someone working for the gov't knows about his penchant for seeing into a parallel universe and gets him out. At first because he has no idea who he is, he's called Crazy. He is ex-military and has some supposedly incredible moves in that he is so over confident he walks into any situation and KNOWS absolutely how to kill everyone in the room in case they decide to "take" him.

I didn't mind the start but when he begins "seeing" into the parallel universe it got very confusing. His girlfriend is lost over there. Don't ask me how he recovers his memories, it's beyond my capabilities but somehow with someone he does. Then he's like superman of the between worlds, holding off enemies until even the leader of the "Dread" is using him as an ally. This part I don't get. Why would an alien with monsters who can plant deep fears into people in this world want to stay in their own world? Why show up at all? Was there a pizza party going on or what?

It was kind of different, I wrote a book called Deadly Magic and I wrote it years ago. It was self published and is on Amazon. It's about a magician stuck between a mirror world and the real world. Somewhat similar. I wrote mine in the early 90s. This is sort of similar but he has different type of monsters interested in what I have no idea. Anyways, get it at the library. Not as good as mine....I don't start off with a guy famous for not feeling fear and immediately facing the enemy is scared shitless. Whatever!