'CHAIN REACTION'......IT'S HIGH TIME THAT HI-TECH LEARNED NOT TO MESS WITH REACHER......

  Chain Reaction by Lee Child and Andrew Child (2026)

     Hardly breaking news that for all of us Reacher fanatics, 'Chain Reaction' provides another 5 star bonanza. And let me now also give authors Lee and Andrew Child a thorough round of applause for coming up with some ripped-from-the-headlines villains truly worthy of gettering Reacher-ized with a vengeance.

     In the midst of his wanderings through the USA. the big R manages (as he always does) to commit himself to an adventure that will pit him against a mix of common dumb thugs, highly trained ex-military operatives and the truly odious masterminds behind. them all. And you'll be assured to know he'll be fueling himself up with enough carb-heavy jumbo breakfasts and burgers that would send the rest of us lesser mortals into cardiac arrest.

     General Susan Turner, with whom Reacher served with (and much more...hint, hint) needs his help as she commands a new unit, a sort of Army version of the FBI. One of her men went out to investigate something odd in a middle-of-nowhere Colorado town consisting of little more than massively vast data centers and solar farms. So how did he end up brutally stabbed to death in a random mugging at the back of a seedy biker bar? Terrible bad luck? Or something far more sinister, with tentacles that stretch all the way back to white collar high-tech evil in California?

     As Reacher peels off the layers of this rotten onion, one hit team after another comes after him........ and you'll almost want to drop your book or tablet to rub your hands in uncontrolled glee as these foolhardy goons undergo plenty of well deserved maximum Reacher-ization. With so many heavily armed dopes to decimate, Reacher barely has time to fit in those steak-and-eggs breakfasts while re-kindling more than few sparks with General Susan.......

     This all leads to that much anticipated showdown with the worst of the minions and that deeply satisfying grand finale of cutting the head off the snake from which all this poison has flowed. I would doubt that any Reacher devotee will finish this book disappointed.

     For all of us armchair, lone wolf special ops Knight-Errants..........another 5 star bell ringer. Pass the steak, eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles and 2 gallons of black coffee......and throw in a burger and fries. Cause you never know when there's at least 6 more bad guys coming who need their various limbs re-positioned in all new directions...........

     5 stars (*****).

'THE KEY TO A KILLER'.....ROOMMATES, ONE LIVING, ONE GHOST, HUNT FOR THE DEAD ONE'S MURDERER....

  The Key to a Killer by Olivia Blacke (2026)

     If I'd forgotten how I became totally attached to young, newly-adult Ruby and her ghostly roommate Cordelia, this book served as a delightful reminder. . Sharing the deceased Cordelia's Boston apartment (not in the best of neighborhoods) the oddball dead & alive duo has managed to solve two murders in this this series' previous two books. The new mystery confronting them in the latest entry raises the stakes considerably. They're out to uncover who's really responsible for Cordelia's supposedly 'accidental' suicide death from a toxic mix of alcohol and sleeping pills.

     This is a finely crafted step up for this series, deepening the characters, creating a colorful cast of suspects amid the cutthroat high-tech world, and filled with underlying wit and genuine heartfelt emotion. And in the carefully created details of Cordelia's haunting abilities, and limitations, author Olivia Blacke has devised her very own unique 'Guide for the Deceased in a Tough Big City'.

     The mystery here somehow relates back to Ruby's current and Cordelia's last place of employment, a freewheeling little software development firm overshadowed by a bigger, ruthless competitor. There's enough backstabbing, adultery, and stolen corporate secrets going on to fuel an entire soap opera. So the question remains.......did any of these shenanigans lead directly to Cordelia's body being found in the apartment's tiny bathtub?

     There's endless amounts of fun, heart and ongoing suspense in Ruby and Cordelia's growing relationship. Cordelia has now devoted her afterlife to looking after and protecting the sweetly naive Ruby, who's not quite prepared to navigate adulthood. And there's more depth, some humor and understated sadness in Cordelia's encounters a fellow Bostonian ghost and her troubled but still loving ties to her wayward, chronically criminal younger bother Ian.

     That's an awful lot of stuff to be going on in one cozy mystery and that's what keeps Ruby and Cordelia's cases always 4 star reads for me. And I am pretty sure that those trying this series out for the first time, will want to catch up on the the first two right away.

      4 stars (****).....an extra high quality cozy to warm you on those upcoming chilly nights.

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP........SPECIAL EDITION - "I'LL BUY US DIESEL FROM OUR BELOVED LOYAL ALLY.....'HONEST' VLAD'........

BQ visitors:  Best of all possible weekends to you all.

Trumpanzees still showing up at Trump rallies: You do know that recently he bragged that he could say anything at all to you mouth breathers and you'd believe him.....

       With whatever active brain cells you still have left in operation, think about that for a moment......if he holds you all in such utter contempt as to make that statement...... what does that say about you?

       Just askin'........

THURSDAY CLOWN SHOW WRAP-UP......WHAT A BUSY WEEK FOR TERRIBLE PEOPLE......

       It struck us that this week seemed overloaded with ridiculous people who hit the public eye within the space of a few days.....

    And not in a good way. 

    We now, with deep shame and barely concealed contempt, present this week's rogue gallery, a trashy triumvirate of people we wish we'd never heard of......

      And hope to never again.

Shane Gillis's 3rd Saturday Night Live hosting...

     We're beginning to suspect that this monumentally unfunny, talentless lump has some scandalous photos or tapes he's using to blackmail SNL bigwig Lorne Michaels.

       What else could explain why this supposedly MAGA-friendly non-entity has now racked up three hosting gigs.....(and all of this happening after he'd already been kicked off the show as a potential new cast member.)

         After starting the 10/10/26 show with a desperately toxic, dead-on-arrival monologue, Gillis continued the wreckage by dropping an F-bomb during a skit and then walking off during the show's 'good-nights' final segment......(presumably to get himself back to Morgan Wallen's 'God's Country')

         He might be one of the worst stand-up comics we've ever endured......smirking and giggling to himself as he stumbles on, as if he believes it's enough that he thinks he's funny.  Uh.....nope. Not even a little bit. 

         MAGA can have him. And memo to Lorne Michaels....how about finally firing him for good this time?

Katie Zacharia, Trump's new Press Secretary

       How could Saturday Night Live possibly lampoon her?  When, to the astonishment and helpless laughter of millions, she introduced herself as a one-woman SNL skit. 

       Alfred Hitchcock's notorious obsession with blondes seems miniscule compared to Trump's. Thwarted from dating Ivanka, Trump has sent out a never ending assembly line of bubble-brained blondes as either Press Secretaries, Attorney Generals, or in Natalie's case, squeezy toy and diaper-changer. 

        You'll pardon us if we didn't chuckle at Katie's presentation, reading a prepared brief statement like a third-grader with a learning disability. 

        Think about what our country's become with a slew of brain-dead, bottom feeding slugs given important government positions......

         This is to shake our heads in disgust and sadness.....not to laugh at anymore.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, our former Ambassador to Greece.....

      Anyone notice that among the Trump Clown Car of useless, laughable scumbags, the men (Hegseth, Patel, RFK Jr.) get to freely carry out their lunacy unimpeded, unchecked.....while the women serve as nothing more than throw-'em-under-the-bus road kill.

     So we bid a fond "don't let the door bump your ass on the way out" farewell to rubber-lipped grifter Guilfoyle as she's now probably trying a  Honey Please Go Fund Me to cover her credit card debt while praying daily for a Trump pardon before the Big Macs and fries take their toll on him.

       (Don't forget to cast your vote this November!)

'DIGGER'.......CRUISE CONTROL SWERVES OFF AN ICE SHELF.......NO SURVIVORS.

 Digger (2026)

      Oh my.....oh my. Where do we even begin here?

      How do we even attempt to describe to a film destined to sweep the Golden Raspberry "Razzie" awards in every category......a film that makes Ed Wood Jr.'s "Plan 9 From Outer Space" look like "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Citizen Kane".

        It's a story we've all seen play out through the history of movies......where the massive hubris and ego of cinema's most celebrated heavy hitters lead to a catastrophic abomination of a film, a barely watchable punishment from hell to sit through. 

        The mighty duo of super-dooper star Tom Cruise and writer director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("The Revenant", "Babel") decided to sound the alarm on climate change and global warming. 

         They thought the best way to go about it was through satirical black comedy, just as Kubrick had done in "Dr. Strangelove". 

          But they were oblivious in the inherent problem they faced......that neither of them has anything even remotely resembling a sense of humor.

          Much like Steven Spielberg did in his reviled and maligned "1941", the dead serious Cruise/Inarittu combo thought that by having their entire cast of characters in a continuous state of frenzied hysteria, we'd convulse with helpless laughter. 

          And while we collectively choked on our guffaws, we'd take notice of the stern lessons the film proceeds to pound into our heads without mercy.

          Climate change.......bad.

          Corporate greed .....bad.

          Government officials.....bad (and real stupid, too)

          Keeping a severely suffering elderly cat alive, even as it's pissing and pooping in your bed.......bad.

          (And let us take a moment to praise the film's one and only performance of nuance, subtlety and heart rending pathos.......the animatronic entity portraying Cruise's terminal feline, Maggie. We worried, fretted and almost teared up over The Passion of the Maggie.....far more than we ever did for Tom Cruise in all his 'Mission Impossible' and 'Top Gun' outings....)

           Cruise, slathered like a mummy in prosthetics and heavy makeup, plays oil tycoon 'Digger' Rockwell. He's Jack D. Ripper, Foghorn Leghorn and Donald Trump all in one toxic package.  And for 130 tortuous minutes, Cruise chews up the scenery like he's performing in the longest ever 'Saturday Night Live' skit.

         As Cruise's Digger shamelessly cavorts in the hopes of an Oscar nomination, he sputters, fumes and rages as his Greenland drilling operation breaks off a city-sized chunk of ice. And it's drifting toward an extinction level collision with the European coastline.

        Digger gets little or no help from  his political/corporate partners-in-Earth-raping, headed by the equally apoplectic U.S. President (a bloviating, shriveled John Goodman).....who's also dying of rectal cancer, so cue the pain-in-my-ass jokes......

         And right about here's where the film pulls out what it considers its take-your-breath-away OH MY GOD A BIG TWIST WE NEVER SAW COMING!!

        We won't spill it, but it's not the first time we've laid eyes on this kind of twist. Inarittu probably swelled in pride at its deployment as a clever way to explain why Cruise and company carry on like they've all got their fingers stuck in a light socket. 

         But the twist doesn't in any way slow down the storyline, the characters' arcs or its grindingly slow path to an expected conclusion. Since from the beginning, "Digger" has already repeatedly hit you with its righteous anger like a perpetual jackhammer, you could feel free to doze off through entire sections of the film and not miss a thing.

Whoa, not so fast! After the 'Digger's-destroyed-the-world-as-we-know-it' trajectory reaches its presumed last gasp, the film yanks out its OH MY GOD, A FINAL TWIST I NEVER SAW COMING AND MAKES ME PAUSE AND THINK!!

         Yeah, right. Sure it does, Tom. Sure it does Alejandro. Oh my, did we pause and think......we paused and thought about how we'd seen this twist in dozens of  'Twilight Zone' episodes and countless dystopian sci-fi movies. Big. Effin'. Deal. 

         What truly irks us, what really burns our buns about 'Digger' is the smug, self-absorbed, self-satisfaction that it pours all over itself like thick syrup on overcooked pancakes.  We can't remember the last time we watched a film that so celebrated its own dopey cartoon-ishness as the best way to put its points across.  

          Like the methane gas escaping from its ice floes, 'Digger' arrives unfit for human consumption.

           It digs its own grave with the efficiency of a nuclear powered steam shovel.

           Rest in peace, Maggie......

            Zero stars (0).

         

'WRITTEN IN STARLIGHT'.....A SWEET CHAMBERMAID 'BOOKS' AN OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD ROMANCE......LITERALLY......

  Written in Starlight by Sloane Brooks (2026)

       I have no rational, reasonable explanations for why I fell so hard for this book. I just did. It must've been the softhearted mushy romantic deep inside that came bursting out of my chest like that disgusting little thing in "Alien". Speaking of which.......

     .....it also didn't hurt that there were ray guns, spaceships, aliens and robots aplenty. Which, in my considered opinion, you can never have enough of, especially to pop up smack in the middle of the plight of a put-upon 19th century chambermaid.

     What we've got here is an achingly star-crossed romance grandly conceived on an epic scale.......where crossing eras, planets and galaxies can be accomplished by simply losing yourself in the pages of a good book. Come to think of it, isn't that what everyone reading this review likes to do anyway?

     Cinderella-like Della Farley ekes out an impoverished, hard scrabble life, mopping and scrubbing her way through a Dickens-like bad dream of a grey grimy British town. Until she stumbles upon a book that sweeps her into the fantastic, sci-fi i swashbuckling of galactic rogue Ansel Tulzok....(think Han Solo crossed with Peter Quill of "Guardians of the Galaxy"). Ansel, as inevitable criss-crossed fate would have it, has found a mirror image book detailing Della's own heart rending story of romantic longing as she struggles to earn a paltry wage to help care for her ailing mother.

     These two strangely unique books not only give Della and Ansel the power to correspond with each other through the pages, but alter their own lives........and in Della's case, enable her to write herself directly into Ansel's amazing adventures, sharing his dangers, his vicious adversary and bonding with his oddball, wisecracking crew of aliens and robots. This unlikely intergalactic pairing of the spunky chambermaid and the rough 'n ready space outlaw touches off sharply humorous banter that soon deepens into overpowering, seemingly impossible romance.

     I can't help but fall in love with a book that goes all out in its impressive world-building, heart-stopping romance and action thrills that either take your breath away or make you lough out loud. When "Written in Starlight" finally reveals its mythology of the origins, details and purpose of Della and Ansel's extraordinary books, it's a heartfelt meditation on the power of each individual's personal stories to tell.........yet still keeps a reader fervently hoping that nothing on Heaven, Earth, or thousands of galaxies will serve to keep our lovers apart.

      A lot to absorb here and not for everybody, I'll admit. But if you're willing to let yourself fully succumb to it, this book can serve you up a 20 course meal of adventurous romance. I couldn't stop reading it at full starship warp speed myself.

       For this one, blasting off 4 stars (****). 

'PLEASE ENJOY YOUR STAY'......JUST STAY ALIVE FOR CHECK-OUT TIME.....THAT'S THE KEY TO ENJOYING YOUR STAY.....

  Please Enjoy Your Stay by Tara Goedjen (2026)

     What could possibly go wrong in re-opening a spooky Austrian castle-hotel that already boasts a history jam-packed with multiple murders, scandals and who knows how many ghosts? Feel free to break out into delicious bwa-ha-ha-ha evil laughter while rubbing your hands together in glee.

     EMT first responder Mia surely has her owned haunted history with that place. Years ago her Aunt Iris, a true crime author who adopted Mia after her mom's death, took her son Tristan and Mia for a stay there. Already famous for three other deaths in its infamous past, the castle also claimed Tristan as another murder victim, with the castle's manager accused, tried and jailed for the crime. And now a new generation of true crime podcasters are whipping up doubts and conspiracies about Tristan's death, and Iris's true motives, considering it was 13 year old Mia's testimony that helped lead to a conviction..

     Determined to get to the truth and help her Aunt, Mia boldly plunges into her own undercover mission, securing a position as a nanny to the young daughter of the hotel's new owner. Great timing too.......right on the eve of of a the hotel's Grand Re-opening. Luckily, as an adult, Mia remains unrecognized by many of the castle's same employees who only knew her briefly during her fateful visit as a child. All the better to probe and delve into the many mysteries, potential suspects and possible paranormal entities populating the all new 'Hotel Renew, as it's called.

     After setting up this intriguing premise, author Tara Goedjen makes sure her gothic puzzler teems with baffling new clues, red herrings, twists and any number of bump-in-the-night/"Who's there?!" moments. There's no end of murderous mysteries that stretch out over generations to untangle.......and if there's a killer still running loose through the castle corridors, maybe Mia's made herself a prime target.

     Had a fine old time with one. And my eternal thanks to the author for creating a properly perilous atmosphere without resorting to the increasingly tiresome trope of afflicting the castle with a hurricane. power failure, earthquake, plague or washed out roads and bridges that no one can navigate Otherwise I might've dropped the rating down by 2 stars. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay with "Please Enjoy Your Stay'......even those extra creepy, mold covered rooms, too.

     4 stars (****).