WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL 'GRAB EM BY THE P****" EDITION.....

 Clarence and Ginni Thomas scandals continue to flow out, one after the other.....Democratic senators and Congressmen are looking into Ginni's full page contest ad  in "People" magazine, announcing "Win A Supreme Court Decision For Free!  Applications only 25,000 each!"

Heavily armed, trigger happy homeowners continue to blast away their guns at innocent neighbors and bystanders, either killing of critically wounding them.....In related news, suburban homeowner associations voted to replace the "Welcome New Neighbor" vans with Abrams tanks. as well offer free Kevlar vests to paperboys, mailmen and pizza delivery drivers....

Voters decidedly not enthused about a 2024 Trump Vs. Biden election.....Biden promises to still remember who he is and that he's running for President by the time of election day......in a gracious move, guards at Leavenworth Prison have furnished and decorated a solitary cell to serve as Trump's campaign headquarters, if needed. 

CNN to offer Trump a Town Hall forum......In the illustration above, BQ suggests a few topics and questions for CNN hosts......please feel free to use them....

In rape trial deposition, Trump defends his infamous "Access Hollywood" tape....."Come on, gimme a break," Trump pleaded in the deposition, "when I grab a girl's pussy, I'm very gentle, actually.....just a little rubby-dubby around the clit to make me feel good.....and they all get an autographed picture and a selfie... who else does that?."

'THE VAST OF NIGHT'....A CLOSE ENCOUNTER IN 50'S NEW MEXICO...

 The Vast Of Night (2019)   This very modest but hugely ambitious indie film knocked 'em dead at the Slamdance Film Festival four years ago. 

                 Finally, after the film parked forever on Amazon Prime, I caught up with it on the Freevee streaming site. (Yeh, plenty of ad breaks, but hey it's free) And I fully understand how it wowed the festival folk at Slamdance.  It dazzled me too. 

                 For director Andrew Patterson, it's the quintessential "calling card" movie......a film that announces to the world, "Here I am....with a ton of talent, creativity and visual directing chops to make your eyes go pop."

                  (I can only hope and pray this rising star doesn't get sucked into blowing 200 million on one of those now worn-out Marvel superhero snoozers.....which are beginning to bore the hell out of even the fanboys 'n girls....)

                  He certainly made my eyes to pop with this sci-fi suspense thriller that mashes up, with a knowing Speilberg-ian cleverness, an elongated "Twilight Zone" episode. Also in the mix - "The X-Files", "Signs", "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind", and every grim alien abduction thriller you've ever seen steeped in paranoid fear and loathing of  Area 51 government conspiracies. 

                   All of this stuff, a sci-fi fan's dream come true, is packaged up not only with some literally breathtaking cinematics, but with a classic film's buff's appreciation for simply letting an actor's bravura solo work provide all the special effects required.

                    It's 1958 in the tiny remote town Cayuga, New Mexico. On a Friday night, whole town's crowded into the high school gym for a big basketball game. But two people have to work  - Everett (Josh Horowitz) the town's young motormouthed, all-night radio station DJ and his teenage gal pal Fay (Sierra McCormick) the town's telephone operator and excited owner of a new portable reel-to-reel tape recorder.

                  Horowitz and McCormick, the  two beating hearts and souls of this movie, do superb work together as this oddest of couples. From the first minute on, you sense that their Everett and Fay are joined at the hip as Cayuga's nerdy outcasts.'.....he, the fast talking know-it-all and she, with her enormous cat's-eye glasses, brimming with news of future scientific wonders gleaned from 'Popular Mechanics'.  You'll need to stay extra alert to catch their overlapping, lightspeed dialogue exchanges, which make the byplay of Robert Altman's ensemble casts sound half-asleep in comparison

                   In a sequence that every actor dreams of doing, the camera holds on Fay for a lengthy sustained take as she furiously goes about her business of plugging and unplugging  multiple cables to connect phone callers. But what's that weird otherworldly electronic static coming from one of her phone lines?  Let the dread begin.....

                  Fay enlists Everett in hunting the source of the noise.....and it doesn't take long for a couple of Everett's listeners reveal their unsettling, sad and downright scary encounters with the originators of the noise........something unknown. Something not of this earth.  And something currently hovering over Cayuga. 

                  Director and co-writer Patterson, while unafraid to let his camera settle on his actors for extended quietly powerful  monologues, also loves making your jaw drop with a spectacular camera shot that glides in and out of the entire town, from the eerie silent streets to the crowded basketball game and back again. It will .probably stand as the ultimate of the many homages to Orson Welles's legendary opening tracking shot in "Touch Of Evil"......(the shot that inspired who knows how many young viewers to become film directors....)

                    And best of all, even with its obvious low budget, the film manages to deliver the kind of finale it's been promising all along.  But unlike Speilberg's uplifting, awe-inspiring "Close Encounters" climax, ."The Vast Of Night stays true to itself....maintaining its aura of fearful mystery and the unease of unknowable forces beyond our comprehension.  (You'll hear no dreamy John Williams orchestration of "Wish Upon A Star" in this 3rd kind encounter)

                    So in case you haven't figured out BQ's opinion yet.....surprise, surprise, this film's a platinum-plated 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.  And now that Amazon's freed it up on Freevee, it's not to be missed. One of BQ's best streaming views of the year.

                   

'ROBERT B. PARKER'S 'BYE BYE BABY' BY ACE ATKINS'.....SPENSER VS. THE HATEFUL MINIONS OF......YOU KNOW WHO.....

 Robert B. Parker's 'Bye Bye Baby' by Ace Atkins (2022)

            I can hardly describe how much I loved and cherished the late Robert B. Parker's crackling, fast and witty mystery-adventures of his Boston private eye Spenser.  Usually taking no more than an hour or two to read, these gems featured the noble, stalwart, but ever wise-cracking Spenser deploying his perpetual razor sharp quips on both friends and foes alike.  Consisting almost entirely of whip-smart dialogue exchanges, the only bad thing about these books was coming to the end of them...and realizing I'd have to wait awhile for the next one......

             I was initially cheered and wary by the idea of Parker's estate commissioning author Ace Atkins to continue the series.  Could he really summon up the chops to not only replicate Parker's lean precise storytelling but the priceless extra dry humor of Spenser's patter?

              To some extent, he tried his best and results varied from book to book.  Sometimes Atkins nailed Parker's unique voice and prose, sometime he grossly overdid it, and a few times, he flat out failed. 

                'Bye Bye Baby' is problematic on multiple levels........starting with Atkins'  idea to  plunge Spenser into the boiling cauldron of today's ripped-from-the-headlines toxic political divisions. 

                Our aging but still formidable P.I. takes on the task of bodyguard to young, progressive Congressperson Carolina Garcia-Ramirez.....or CGR for short.  Yes, she's obviously a thinly veiled fictitious stand in for the provocative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And just like AOC, CGR and her ultra-liberal agenda  function as a veritable political lightning rod. Naturally, that puts her in the crosshairs of all the odious, far-right Neo-Nazi goons who hope to take back the country for white Christians. 

                To Ace Atkins, this must have sounded, on its surface anyway, like a surefire recipe for an incendiary showdown between Spenser and most dangerous, loathsome people in America  But he should have summoned up enough self awareness to realize what a no-win situation he put himself in. 

              Atkins didn't foresee that this country's divisions run so deep,  he'd infuriate and outrage a big part of the Spenser fanbase with his depiction of a stand-in for AOC......he must have thought the inclusion of the loathsome Nazi gang was enough to energize and galvanize them. After all, doesn't anybody with a moral compass or at lease 3 or 4 functioning brain cells hate Nazis?

                That's what the author no doubt counted on to dissuade any readers from thinking they were being force-fed a 'woke' liberal bill-of-goods. But that's exactly what many readers did feel   Atkins struggles to avoid that reaction by compelling the staunchly apolitical Spenser to constantly avoid any opinions on  CGR policies......but Atkins couldn't comprehend that the very presence of an AOC type would set off five-alarm bells for some folks, even the ones who despise Nazis.

                  And here's what I found truly appalling and disingenuous about this book.. Atkins has Federal agents weighing in on the rising tidal wave of Neo-Nazi alt-right domestic terrorists....all of this happening within the last 6 years or so......

                  Nowhere in the book or in the voice of any character does Atkins speak of WHY this infestation of human cockroaches began to crawl out of the woodwork in record numbers.....WHY they felt suddenly enabled and legitimized.  And WHO told this lethal convergence of fascist morons to march on the Capitol building on January 6  of 2020 to overthrow a free and fair election. 

                  Ace Atkins wanted to shoehorn in political villains without any explanation for their existence......kind of like watching a Bond movie where there's lot's of minions running around, but Brlofeld's nowhere in sight.  I do realize that if Atkins found the guts and cojones to actually mention Donald Trump as the Neo-Nazis patron saint, (you know, the guy who thinks they're very good people"), he'd anger readers who don't want politics in their thrillers. 

                 But he chose to go down this road to begin with.......and thought he could get away with using the creep brigade as prop bad guys without ever daring to mention who brought them out of their caves in the first place......

                 Furthermore, in terms of imitating the original style of Parker's Spenser-verse, the book's only a so-so effort in duplicating the beloved rat-a-tat-tat of Parker's beloved characters......enough said. 

                A mis-fire in every possible way, say bye bye to 'Bye Bye Baby'....1 star (*).

                   

'I WILL FIND YOU'.....ONCE AGAIN, COBEN FRAYS YOUR NERVES....AND RAISES THE DEAD.....

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I Will Find You by Harlan Coben (2023)     For anyone who's picked up one of Harlan Coben's page-turning thrill rides.........do I even need to sell you on this?

                 This is one author who guarantees you an up-all-night, I-gotta-see-what-happens-next reading experience.......and I can't remember when he ever disappointed. 

                  From perusing the description, you might be tempted to own this book immediately and tuck it away as a prime beach read. But I defy you to contain yourselves once you've read that inside cover flap.

                 Once again Coben returns to his all-time favorite plot device......in which the emotionally damaged lead character discovers a missing/presumed dead loved one is, in truth, very much alive. And from that point on, the hunt commences, fraught with danger, vicious villains and twists galore. 

                 "I Will Find You" dials up this trope to the max and on top of that throws in Hitchcock's favorite obsession - the innocent man, wrongly accused, forced to survive police capture and attempts on his life from the real evil conspirators. . 

                   This time, our rider on the Coben rollercoaster is David Burroughs, serving out a life sentence for the horrific clubbing murder of his own 3 year old son.  But his soul-crushed existence changes when his sister-in-law visits with a newspaper photo of a festive day at a theme park......  which includes a boy in the background with an uncanny resemblance to David's supposedly murdered little boy.....and sporting an identical birthmark. 

                    By this time, you just know that somehow, against all odds, David will break out of prison in a last ditch attempt to get to the bottom of things.....finding his son, finding the perpetrators and, finding out the identity of the poor murdered child buried in his son's place. You also just know that his quest will become as harrowing and nail-biting as Harlan Coben can devise. 

                     And as usual in Coben mysteries, brace yourself for devouring the pages at light speed until the final chapter. Prepare yourself for a whole lot of breath holding as David (a la Harrison Ford in "The Fugitive", conducts his desperate search barely escaping the clutches of cops and a relentless,  perpetually wisecracking oddball pair of FBI agents.

                    As a thriller junkie, I can't think of a better way to kick off the Spring-Summer reading season then to dive into one of Harlan Coben's double-beef-whoppers of a read.  Even if you get ahold of it before you hit the beach, it's still more fun to consume faster than a whole bucket of Boardwalk fries.  Easily 5 stars (*****) a BQ FIND OF FINDS.

'THE FERRYMAN'....UTOPIA FOR THE "HAVES".....DYSTOPIA FOR THE "HAVE-NOTS"......

  The Ferryman by Justin Cronin (Release May 2nd, 2023)

       Come tomorrow,  May 2nd, you're likely to see towering stacks of this hefty-sized, instant bestseller prominently displayed on bookstore shelves......and thanks to NetGalley and Ballentine Books/Random House, I received an advance copy.......so here's the absolute red hot scoop on what's sure to become one of the big book events of the year.....  

            In truth, this book, falling into the 'apocalyptic epic' category  ultimately proved a mixed bag as a reading experience.....so let me break it down for you, cause there's a load to digest......  

           I'm forever in awe of authors who take on the formidable task of world-building. And I knew Justin Cronin, whose 'Passage' trilogy thrilled me, would not disappoint in that daunting task.  

           His gorgeous, idyllic, utopian island of 'Prospera' I can only assume is all that's left in a post-apocalyptic world........ or is it?

           But like many other utopian never-neverlands, Prospera's a heaven-on-earth only for its wealthy upperclass residents. Toiling to support and service all their needs is an oppressed underclass of working stiffs. In that regard, it resembles the stark, toxic societal divisions of Fritz Lang's classic silent film "Metropolis".....the privileged frolic while the toilers sweat for scraps. 

 
           The 'haves' live in Club Med luxury until their implanted monitors indicate they're old enough to expire. (by that time, they've passed 100 year plus!)  When "time's up" rolls around, they're off to a ferry ride to a mysterious neighboring island, where some new scientific miracles wipe their memories and physically reconstitute them as newly re-conceived adolescents.....think of it as enforced reincarnation.  But meanwhile, the Prospera proletariat, fed up with their  impoverished,  enslaved lives as third-class citizens, seethe with near boiling point fury,  ripe for revolt and revolution. 

             The book's central figure Proctor Bennett, holds the exalted position of overseeing and calming Prosperans on their life-renewing ferry rides, But when his own father's passage goes strangely awry, deep dark impenetrable riddles about Prospera emerge. And Proctor finds himself plunged into uncovering long hidden truths while he's unknowingly enlisted by leaders of the lower class rebellion about to explode the island. 

              I did truly love this part of the story, which takes up about two thirds of the book......it throws in all the mystery, action and suspense of all those similar sci-fi/action-adventure Dystopias...(like 'Logan's Run', 'Soylent Green' and even 'The Time Machine'. 

                Even if you're tempted to guess the secrets behind Prospera, nothing can prepare you for the Double Whopper of a giant Twist that Justin Cronin detonates here.

                But this is where the book stopped being fun to read for me and turned into more of a laborious chore.

                As staggering as the reveal is (a mindblower, take my word for it), Cronin then audaciously attempts a parallel double-narrative structure, forcing you to keep track of his pre-Twist and post-Twist world building and characters. I'm sorry to say it developed into a sometimes confusing, tiresome slog and after awhile, seemed endless.

                 While I admire the sheer ambition on display, as well as Cronin's meditations on the nature of humanity,  the book's propulsive engine slows to a crawl after the reveal. And that results in turning "The Ferryman" from a  zippy, page-turning thriller into dense, hardcore science fiction.  (with much description and minimal dialogue interaction) 

               Thought provoking, yes.......but not written to make you stay up late, eager to find out what happens next. In fact, I couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief after finally finishing the long-time-in-coming epilogue.....(a wrap-up, I might add, that you may or may not take issue with.....)

                 There's so much I enjoyed, thrilled to and stood in awe of here, that I can't help but give out 3 stars (***).  But the book's third-act voyage into....well, whatever, I wouldn't dare say........left me not engrossed, but reading it from a respectful distance.  It's a feast of a book for sure but every reader will need to make up their own minds about whether all the courses served up are equally digestible.....

 

'WITH MY LITTLE EYE'....A STALK TO REMEMBER....

 With My Little Eye by Joshilyn Jackson (2023)

           I'm well aware of all the books, films and TV episodes that deal with that ever popular suspense generator - celebrities endangered and driven into fear-stricken anxiety by unhinged stalkers obsessed with them.

           What can I say? I'm a sucker for all of them, and like everyone else, I demand a seriously loathsome, psychotic stalker whose surprise identity, once revealed, will stun me.......and I also would ask for a hopefully sympathetic, vulnerable celebrity victim, somebody worth fearing for and rooting for.  While authors of stalker=thrillers usually never forget to dial up the psychosis on their villains, not all of these books present a celeb you can care about. 

             Joshilyn Jackson does well enough in that department. Her bedeviled celeb Meribel Mills is cleverly conceived as no giant superstar - she's only  a mid-level working actress, carving out a career of playing secondary, but unforgettable roles in TV shows and movies, achieving a moderate amount of fame. But unfortunately, it's enough fame to attract a murderous lunatic who's sending her creepy, threatening anonymous letters right out of the stalker handbook. Hoping to avoid this loon's attention and potential proximity, Meribel accepts a series role filmed in her home town Atlanta, taking along Honor, her adopted, autistic 12 year old daughter.

               And guess who hits the road to come right after them.....to make Miribel his and his alone.

               When the terrorizing and scary letters resume in Atlanta, there's no shortage of men popping up in Meribel's life to choose from as suspects -  a mysterious heavy-set guy in a raincoat on the street,  the friendly next door neighbor in her apartment building, the bodyguard=security expert who's an ex-boyfriend she still feels for, and her Atlanta-based, now remarried ex-husband....on whom Mirbel's practiced a bit of innocent, amateur stalking herself. 

                  As I'd expect and require in a thrill-ride like this, the pages fly by quickly, leading to the finale jaw-dropping reveals and excruciating nail-biting,  encounter between Meribel and her odious tormentor.  The genuine double-whammy of an extra twist that author Jackson throws into the finale comes a little too close to far-fetched overkill, but I couldn't help but admire the sheer audacity of it.  

                  Besides, I surely don't pick up stalk-o-ramas like "With My Little Eye" for their documentary-like reality. I'm looking for nothing less than a 5 star(*****) armchair theme-park ride with loads of hairpin turns.  And this one's just the ticket. 
                  
                   
                 
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'MOOREWOOD FAMILY RULES'.....YOU GRIFT ME UP WHERE I BELONG.....

Moorewood Family Rules by HelenKay Dimon (2023)

           If you can't resist a mystery thriller set amongst a pit-of-vipers family, all of whom are up to no good to varying degrees, welcome to the Moorewood clan. 

            As an extended shady gang of conniving grifters, these familial  sociopaths specialize in marrying wealthy heirs and heiresses, with a cold eye centered on their victims' bank accounts. Jillian, one of their few non-psychopathic members, made a futile demand for them to give up the grifts and go legit. For her troubles, one of them anonymously set her up for an FBI arrest, resulting in a grueling, miserable prison stretch of almost 3 years. 

             Out on parole, Jillian's back and seething with a vengeful agenda to thwart all the family's illegalities.....control their money, claim ownership of their mansion home and thwart their newest two grifts to marry into separate fabulously wealthy families. 

              But the Moorewoods  aren't likely to take Jillian's 'go-legit-or-or-else' demand sitting down. When mysterious, murderous 'accidents' begin to befall her, her few family allies supply Jillian with hunky bodyguard Beck.......and a predictable but still amusing  slow burn romance simmers while literally everybody's deepest family secrets start coming out.

             While the set-up seemed to promise a deliciously dark comedy, I felt surprised to find  the book spent more time on the soap opera conniving and the all too serious drama of the Moorewoods'  dysfunctional family histories. True,  there a good amount of wit in many of the dialogue exchanges, but the 'Knives Out' type laughs, if that's what your expected, don't occur  with any frequency.   And Jillian, along with the storyline, both take an awful long time to finally get where they're  going. 

            Even with the dawdling plot, the chapters do zip along fast enough. Plus, I'm right there for any book that offers the fun of watching a sprawling household of toxic rascals meet their match.  Best saved for a warm lazy spring afternoon.....or even the beach.  3 stars (***)