Best Wishes

Just some quick end of year greetings from the not-very-busy but still-not-quite-dead Kindle Taproom and its cheerful creator. I think I did some decent posts in 2021, meaning I hope they were entertaining and useful, but I can still stand to do a lot more than one or two posts a month. And, of course, that will be my New Year's resolution for 2022. I was up a bit in 2021 versus the number of posts in 2020, but I can do better!

But for now, have a Happy New Year's Eve, and tomorrow consider yourself wished a Happy New Year! See you all, and hopefully more often, in 2022!

Ticker Tape Tips

Some quick thoughts and tips from the mind of your humble host... The newest James Bond film, No Time To Die, is a fine entertainment that provides both richness and thrills, and very intentional echoes of Bond's finer, past adventures... Marvel's Eternals also takes a richer, more nuanced approach than past MCU films and I think most viewers will find that at least somewhat interesting... In Robert B. Parker's Stone's Throw, Mike Lupica has once again shown that he is perfectly at home with Robert Parker's characters, as police chief Jesse Stone tries to solve the murder of his town's mayor, and figure out why a proposed land deal is causing other deaths, too... Stuart Woods' third Stone Barrington novel, Dead in the Water, opens up the series (which I've just discovered) in fresh new ways- starting with its tropical locale- and was probably a reason that the series is still going strong today, more than twenty-five years after it started... The Hulu mini-series Only Murders in the Building, starring Steve Martin and Martin Short, is a terrific light whodunit, set in an elegant Manhattan apartment building. No one actually lives like these people, but that's, well, actually part of the fun... And is anyone watching Seinfeld, yet again, now that it has returned to Netflix? Sigh, I am, and it's still just as much fun as always... end of ticker tape. More to come, but probably via more traditional multi-paragraph structure.

Finally meeting Stone Barrington

I've seen Stuart Woods' books around for years, as he is very prolific, but I never read him. But a new friend I met at a bar I go to, who has a passion for mysteries and thrillers like me, said I really ought to try the Stone Barrington series written by Mr. Woods. He said this after I mentioned that I always enjoyed thrillers that feature a central hero or protagonist that is excellent at his or her job yet often flawed and stumbling in their personal life. I just enjoy the contrast.

Well, I sought out the first book in this very long-running series, New York Dead from the early 1990's, and I really enjoyed it. The story reminded me a lot of what Lawrence Sanders used to do: write about sophisticated and polished businesses, fancy restaurants, the good life overall, but all laced with family secrets, dark crimes with weird motivations, and sex, lots of sex. All that is here in this tale of a beautiful network anchorwoman who either jumped or was pushed from her 12th story balcony, miraculously survived, but then disappeared from her ambulance as it was taking her to the hospital. Yes, the plot is original and ambitious.

And without saying too much, this first Stone Barrington book features a kind of origin story of our hero.  Barrington starts out as the police detective investigating the above crime, but then circumstances change for him and he ends up getting another job, all the while still investigating the crime. And Barrington's personal flaws and struggles? They're still being revealed in this first book, but as I'm now almost through with the second book in the series, Dirt, it looks like Stone's issues will be women-oriented. He likes, respects, and enjoys the company of women, but maybe can't commit to just one of them. He's also a bit contained and inward-looking, which sometimes annoys the women he's with because he's often not paying enough attention to them.  Also, talented though he is, Barrington is not perfect and makes mistakes in the course of his work. He can begin to doubt his own abilities when that happens, though so far he ultimately dusts himself off and resumes his work with renewed tenacity.

Anyway, New York Dead was really good, and the second book, Dirt, is also quite immersive and entertaining thus far, too. And, wow, if I continue on with the series after those, there are something like forty more entries to go. And Mr. Woods is still writing new Stone Barrington books even today, almost thirty years after initiating the series. I better get reading.

Breaking the wall of silence

Wall of Silence has been on my Kindle for a while (I think I idly picked it up as some kind of promotional freebie), but I finally got to it recently and I was wowed by its power. Tracy Buchanan created a dark, moody thriller that nevertheless moves quickly (despite its secrets being doled out in deliberately small, infrequent doses) yet is not without humor, just when it's needed to lighten the darkness.

Melissa Byatt returns home from a walk in her small and lovely English village to find her husband Patrick on the floor of their kitchen, felled by both a stab wound in his side and a head wound. A bloody knife is on the floor beside him. At least it is for a while until the knife disappears. Patrick is still alive but is soon put into a medically-induced coma to aid his recovery, so he can't immediately say what happened to him.  The book's title refers to the wall of silence Melissa experiences from her own children, a set of older twins and their younger sister, as it soon becomes clear they know at least something about what happened to their father but don't want to talk about it.

The effective moodiness of the book comes from the many dark secrets we slowly learn about the immediate Byatt family, their extended family, and many of the other residents of their village. It also comes from the dark, primeval forest on the edge of the village, where all sorts of darkly dramatic things have happened over the years and continue to happen. And the humor I mentioned never overtakes the book, just appearing from time to time when we need it. It mostly (almost entirely) comes in the form of the village's chatty Facebook group, where the village's residents just say what they want in typical gossipy fashion, not caring how increasingly outrageous their comments become.

Anyway, I don't want to say much more, just that this is an immersive little book with a good central mystery revolving around family secrets and prejudices, all of which feel like the real types of family issues we've all either witnessed or experienced, though hopefully without the violence on display here. But of course this wouldn't be a crime thriller without the violence and dark doings, right? And this is quite a good little crime thriller. I'll be on the look-out for more of Ms. Buchanan's works.

Cops and crooks and crime, oh my

I read a lot of detective and crime thrillers, so I guess it makes sense that I also often enjoy that type of thing when sitting in front of the television. And I also tend to enjoy shows more than movies, because they feel more like a book, with the way most shows these days tell one big story stretched over a ten-or-so-episode arc. All the dramas on the various streaming services have really embraced that type of narrative, so I feel sorry for those who miss the old getting-a-new-and-complete-story-every-episode way of doing things (I sometimes do, but not often).

In any event, Amazon Prime has a lot of good crime dramas of this type that you might find worth your time. Recently, I watched all three seasons of Goliath (the fourth season is dropping any day now, if it hasn't already), which stars Billy Bob Thorton as a defense attorney- supremely flawed personally and mostly brilliant in court- going against a huge, powerful, and connected lawn firm, which is probably where the title of the show comes from. Yes, you've seen this type of thing before but it's done well here. Quirky and interesting characters abound, most not all good or all bad, and Billy has a nice relationship with his teen daughter, who looks after him. Cynical crime-related legal shows need a little warmth, after all.

Bosch just included its seven-season run on Amazon Prime, and latecomer me lapped up all 68 or so episodes in, well, about 68 days (my idea of binging a show I really like is doling out one episode per night, so I watch it fast but not that fast, so it'll last a bit). Again, you've seen all this before... colorful cops with their various quirks, lots of station-house politics that often impede the real job at hand, dangerous criminals, and a central protagonist who isn't the easiest to deal with or the best at following orders, yet gets the job done. But, like Goliath, it does all its familiar tropes well. Oh, and Harry Bosch also has a devoted teen daughter to lend a little warmth to the proceedings.

Finally, I just completed the first of the two available seasons of Tin Star. Good show so far, though saying it's a show one likes might not be quite right. It's more like it draws you in despite your often wanting to look away. If Tin Star were a lurid paperback on one of those old drug store spinner racks, the promo copy on the book might be something like: "He took a nice job in a nice town, but Jim Worth is a cop with a secret... a secret that will spell doom for him and his family!" The show really embraces its gritty pulp/noir vibe, and Tim Roth really bites into his character, a nice guy (but not too nice) on the outside, with a darker side that slowly starts bubbling upward, especially when revenge becomes a factor. This one has a supportive daughter character, too... at least she's supportive at first. Remember, it's a dark show. But it's very involving and I'm looking forward to starting season two.

That's it for TV suggestions for now. I might actually get back to discussing a book or two next time!

 

Take it away...

For your brief amusement, here's what some writers say about books. And they should know, right?

Definition of a classic: a book which people praise but don't read.

Mark Twain.

*     *    *

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.

Jane Smiley

*     *     *

If you don't like to read, you haven't found the right book.

J.K. Rowling

*     *     *

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

Carl Sagan

*    *    *

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

Neil Gaiman 

Statham on the attack

Here's another quick movie tip before I get back to talking about books and adult beverages.  I recently caught Wrath of Man, starring Jason Statham, at my local multiplex. The film opened in early May, but due to the last gasp (I hope!) of the pandemic, didn't make it to my theater until late June. In any event, I found it to be a smart, interesting action thriller.

Statham plays a guy who gets a job as driver/security officer for an armored car company, and quickly distinguishes himself as really cut out for the job when he almost immediately foils an attempted robbery. Anyway, to make a long story short- and not reveal too much- the audience soon learns that Statham, whose character is simply known as "H" to his colleagues, wanted to get hired by the company in the hopes that a very specific set of robbers would attempt a robbery so that he could confront them (unfortunately, the initial robbery he thwarted involved different crooks than the ones he was looking for).

Why does "H" want to confront that special group of robbers? And why is he so darn comfortable and competent when confronting dangerous outlaws?  That's the foundation of this gritty, entertaining thriller, which I do think could have been about 20% less complicated plot-wise. But the movie never loses you, and you always wonder what will happen next. In the end, Mr. Statham, director Guy Ritchie, and the rest of the film's creative team delivered a nice afternoon at the movies.

Venturing to the movies

As the pandemic has been finally and thankfully waning, I've started to venture back to the movies as theaters have been creakily reopening. Most of the movies out there seem to be things that are already showing on HBO Max, though, but I still managed to find a couple theater-only exclusives that caught my eye.

Back in April I caught The Unholy, a creepy PG-13 possession thriller that I found to be a little better than simply watchable. The clever gimmick here is that the possessing spirit disguises itself as the Virgin Mary and initially inspires people with healings and other miracles. Why? The answers are creative enough to keep you watching.

Even better is the film I caught this Memorial Day weekend: Here Today, starring Billy Crystal (who also directed) and Tiffany Haddish. He plays Charlie, a veteran comedy writer who still has a cool job writing for TV well into his senior citizen-ship and she's Emma, a singer whose modest career in New York has been taking off lately.  The film is about their unlikely friendship and how Emma ultimately helps Charlie through some personal and health issues. 

Don't worry, Here Today is not too heavy, is often very funny, and as a bonus includes many interesting scenes showing how television sketch comedy is created (Charlie works for a show not unlike Saturday Night Live).

Both The Unholy and Here Today aren't huge hits, but both are still in many theaters due to the fact that new films are still slow to appear.  This will probably change as we hit June and July and fresh material arrives more regularly.  But for now these two movies are worth your time if you run across them.

Dark but fun tales

Max Allan Collins is a master of mysteries of all flavors and stripes. He does historical mysteries (his Nate Heller and Disaster series), funny mysteries (the Trash 'n Treasures mysteries he writes with his spouse under their Barbara Allan masthead), violent mysteries (his Quarry novels), etc. So it was no surprise to see that his take on horror stories also feature a variety of flavors, and entertaining ones at that.

In these ten creative and fast-reading stories, we get classic monsters coupled with, respectively, a gangster plot, a tale of a real rock-and-roll legend, a Christmas setting, and an urban legend-type highway story, to name a few offbeat examples. This variety of flavors made for a fun reading experience, as I never knew what kind of mood or scenario was up next.

And while I wouldn't say that the "carnal" aspect referred to in the title is relentless throughout the book, it's certainly not understated, either (to your delight or dismay, take your pick; I guess my positive review tells you where I fell). But it, too, is done creatively. In the case of a female vampire on the rock-and-roll groupie circuit, quite creatively.

If you like horror, decent short-story collections, or both, you can't go wrong with this snappy, enjoyable book of dark tales.

 

Fighting, fighting, always more fighting

I have HBO Max, so I've been paying attention to all these 2021 movies that, due to a corporate decision in the face of the pandemic, have been premiering simultaneously on that service and in theaters. It's kind of funny that some of the movies have been Oscar contenders like Judas and the Black Messiah (a very good movie, by the way) and some of them have been popcorn fare like this. But, hey, entertainment is entertainment, whether it's serious or popcorn.

Godzilla vs. Kong is perfectly good fun, though I thought the plot was way more complicated than it needed to be for a movie about two big monsters battling each other. But it's not a huge problem and I went along for the ride. But I hope it's not a huge spoiler to tell you that, like Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, the movie isn't really about the battle highlighted in the title, but about other stuff.

Anyway, this movie was decent fun, and will only be more so if you have a really big TV screen to watch it on. HBO Max also features the movies leading up to it: the 2014 and 2019 Godzilla movies and 2017's Kong: Skull Island, which I thought was good in itself, but got extra credibility due to Brie Larsen and Samuel L. Jackson doing their best to elevate the whole affair. You don't need to watch those earlier movies to enjoy this one, but- as they say- it helps.

A busy detective

In this fine, involving crime novel, Lawrence Block's unofficial private investigator Matthew Scudder takes on a missing persons case, falls in love, and on his own starts investigating a sad tragedy involving one of his friends at Alcoholics Anonymous.

All three plot lines are compelling, with the love story being particularly effective because it's interesting and sweet on its own, but also gives the reader pleasant time outs from the dark, gritty investigative details we're used to seeing in this series. Shudder has had relationships before, but Mr. Block extra feeling and depth into this one.

Also adding richness to the book is Scudder's continued efforts to remain sober, which he sees as both a challenge and something to be fascinated by. He's always thinking about his drinking days- what he drank, where he drank, why he drank, etc.- and often seems amazed that something that was so central to his existence before is now something that he pretty much is fine with doing without now. He does remain vigilant, though, and frequent participation at AA meetings are regular parts of these books.

I'm about halfway through the Matthew Scudder series now, and still very much look forward to starting each one. The entire series is available in print, on Kindle, and on unabridged audio.

Satisfying

 

Kendra Elliot's The Last Sister was a decent, polished page-turner, no more or no less. I enjoyed it, so there's nothing to complain about. I also got to read it for free on my Kindle because I'm an Amazon Prime member. Well, I do pay for Amazon Prime, but you get the idea.

A violent double murder with hate-crime overtones shakes the residents of a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When the employer and friend of one of the murder victims doesn't feel that the local police are investigating the crimes with proper diligence, she calls the FBI. 

The rest of the book is basically the FBI working with the town's police department to solve the murders. After some initial resentment, the local sheriff and police department end up working well with the Feds, which made the book more enjoyable. Federal and local law enforcement don't always have to knock heads. Also, a romance blooms between FBI agent Zander Wells and local resident Emily Mills, the young woman and diner owner who discovered her friend/employee and her husband dead at their home when her friend didn't show up for work at the diner.

Anyway, I can go on about the story, but you'll enjoy this fast, enjoyable thriller more if you discover its modest pleasures for yourself. Besides the crime investigation and the romance, the story has a decent array of colorful supporting characters (mostly among the town's residents) and the town has some dark history, including an old violent crime that might be connected to the new ones, which lends additional mood and drama to the proceedings.

Apparently The Last Sister is currently book one of three of the author's Columbia River series. Again, this one was good, so I'll probably check out the other books in this series before too long.

Barefoot in the house

I tend to drink inexpensive though always passable wine at home, and spend a little more for wines by the glass when I'm out. I guess when I'm home I'm watching TV or reading and my full attention isn't on the wine, so something simply crisp and refreshing is fine.  And since I usually drink white wine, the fact that it's always nicely chilled can distract from any shortcomings, as long as they aren't egregious.

Barefoot, an economical California wine, is a decent wine for my at-home purposes, and I buy the winery's Chardonnay a lot.  The other day at the liquor store, however, I saw that Barefoot is now getting a little ambitious and is now offering a new "Buttery" Chardonnay along with its regular one.  So of course I had to buy it, and of course I had to do a little comparison tasting using the dregs left from my existing bottle of regular Barefoot.

The result? I can't say there is a huge difference between the two. Regular Barefoot Chardonnay is crisp and refreshing, maybe a little fruity. And Barefoot Buttery Chardonnay are all those things, but maybe a little less crisp and a tiny bit more smooth. It certainly didn't taste all that buttery. But maybe that's a good thing: sometimes less expensive wines take short cuts to get a tasting note they're after, usually by simply adding an artificial flavor rather than complicating the fermentation process. So Barefoot could have simply added some artificial buttery flavor, but based on the lack of obvious butteriness, I don't think they did.

In the end, I guess I like both and will probably alternate between them, based on what I'm in the mood for and, let's be honest, which one might be one sale. For drinking at home, though, I'm basically fine with either a crisper wine or a smoother wine. And for what it's worth Barefoot's Pinot Grigio is pretty good, too, and definitely crisper- and more tart- than either of its Chardonnays.

Large (1.5 liter) bottles of Barefoot usually top out at $14.99 per bottle, but are often on sale (at least here in Pennsylvania) for $10.99 to $12.99.

Last call

When The Sacred Ginmill Closes is Lawrence Block's sixth Matthew Scudder novel, and another fine, interesting reading experience.  This 1986 entry in the ongoing saga of the unofficial PI who roams the streets of New York was a little different from its predecessors, however, but not in any bad ways. Just ways that made it, well, again, interesting.  Anyway, here's what's different:

1)  Unlike the previous five books, which took place one after the other, this story goes back in time a bit to tell an untold story from Matt's drinking days, which had finally (and pretty inarguably, fortunately) started to come to a close at the end of the last book, Eight Million Ways To Die. It's all very clear, though: a still-sober Scudder at the outset tells us that he's going to talk about a period of time from his drinking days, a time when several notable things happened to him. Once it's clear that Scudder hasn't relapsed since the last book, we can sit back and enjoy this story from his more out-of-control days.

2) The novel is richer, longer, and more literary than the others, which weren't exactly fast, mindless, slam-bam action thrillers, either. It features Matt working three different cases (two more than usual), moving back and forth between them, with the glue holding the novel together being many, many conversations in bars among Matt and his friends and colleagues.  While the cases are often the subject of these conversations, they're also frequently about, well, life, the universe, and everything. Hence, the literary feel. It's also sort of a deliberate tribute by the author to the one undeniably good thing about being a heavy drinker who hangs out with other heavy drinkers: the camaraderie and wonderful conversations.

3) This is the first novel to recycle a plot from a previous work, namely one of the author's more entertaining short stories: By the Dawn's Early Light. One of the three cases Matt works on here is the same case from that short story. Not a similar case, not somewhat adapted from that case, but the same case, right down to the dialog during the investigation. I mean, it's not a big deal, the short story was a good one (it's free for customers to listen to on Audible.com, by the way) and Block probably wanted to give the story the wider audience of a novel. It was kind of interesting, in fact, to see how Block doled out the story in small helpings throughout the novel instead of giving it the full, uninterrupted attention of a concise short story.

4) The novel ends by again reminding us that this story was being told to us from a point in the future, and many years in the future we're finally told, when Matt's young sons (a frequent fixture in the past novels) are now grown up and in college and the military, and Matt's ex-wife Anita has remarried. Again, just kind of interesting. I guess that means that the rest of the Scudder novels I need to read (and any others Block may write) might also be looks back to particular times in Matt's career, during both his drinking and non-drinking days. Or maybe not. The rest might be about the older Scudder who narrates this story. It'll be fun to see!

In any event, When The Sacred Ginmill Closes was another great visit to the streets of New York of decades past (the mid-1970's when we're fully into the flashback), with Matt Scudder again walking those streets and figuring out what needs to be figured out, as we get all the pleasure and entertainment.

All aboard for some thrills

Ruth Ware's The Woman In Cabin 10 is a decent thriller, not super propulsive but not slow, either. A travel writer covering the maiden voyage of a luxurious "boutique" cruise ship believes she witnesses an assault and murder aboard the vessel, but when she looks closer into the matter, there is no evidence to back up her claim.  The bulk of the book is writer Laura ("Lo" to her friends and colleagues) running around the ship, while it's at sea, trying to piece together what happened. And, yes, there are eventually dangerous consequences to her snooping, I don't think it's too much to reveal.

I enjoyed the book, but was intrigued to see that many readers, via Amazon customer reviews, complained that they just couldn't enjoy the book because the main character was too miserable and depressed all the time, and not enjoying her glamorous job at all. It's true that Lo is a bit down at the start of the cruise, due to a scary encounter with a burglar who invaded her London flat while she was home. She also had a history of depression before that. But all that didn't bother me.  The mystery is good and the supporting characters are interesting, and that's all I really needed. Lo being a bit down throughout the story wasn't a big black mark for me. Sure, a bubbly, happy travel writer caught in a dangerous situation would be good, too, but that wasn't the story here. And I also found Lo battling both inner demons and outer dangers kind of interesting. But that's just me, I guess.

I moved efficiently through the trade paperback version of the novel, though I understand that the unabridged audio version, ready by Imogen Church, is pretty effective, too. But whatever version you select, this dark thriller, which takes some creative inspiration from two Hitchcock film classics, Rear Window and Vertigo (I'll say no more), will deliver some immersive escapism whenever you need it most.

The Woman In Cabin 10, which originally appeared in 2016, is available in print, Kindle, and audio versions.

Thoughtful thrills

On this snowy day in the U.S. northeast, here's a quick movie tip: If you enjoy crime thrillers in either book or movie form or both, you might like The Little Things, which was just released simultaneously in U.S. theaters (the ones that are open, anyway) and on HBO Max. While not slow or dull, the literary nature of the story in reminiscent of a good thriller novel, one with interesting characters and thoughtful themes.

The story involves a hotshot detective (Rami Malek) looking for a killer of young women, who is not making much headway until he teams with an old-timer detective (Denzel Washington).  The two meet in an unrelated, minor police matter, and the hotshot (refreshingly, in a movie like this) is not territorial and welcomes the experience and perspective of the older detective.  Soon they have a suspect, a definitely creepy appliance repairman (Jared Leto).  But though unambiguously weird and creepy, is he a killer?

Written and directed by John Lee Hancock, the story moves along nicely but is ultimately a vehicle to examine how the police- through these characters- feel about failures in past cases, what lines should and shouldn't be crossed in police work, how to handle yourself if you do cross a line or just make a tragic mistake, and other psychological issues related to being a cop.  

Some people might not like the slow-burn nature of the story (it takes its time and there isn't much physical action) and the fact that all questions aren't neatly answered. And we're also not clearly told how to feel about some of the controversial decisions some characters make.  But if you don't mind these things, and in fact welcome the nuance they bring to the story, then you'll probably find The Little Things worth your time.

The Little Things is currently in theaters and will be streaming on HBO Max until the end of February.

An observation or two

I might touch on some of the following at a bit more length at some point, but for now here are some quick impressions of a few diversions that have recently crossed my path...

I'm still quite enjoying Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series, and found the latest one I've read, Eight Million Ways To Die, to be the best yet. This one is pretty much equal parts Scudder trying to solve a series of prostitute murders and overcome his alcoholism.  It's longer and more nuanced than past Scudder entries, but still a fast, engrossing read.  It looks like I'll be firmly on the Scudder train through the remainder of 2021.

I picked up a copy of Michael Chabon's The Final Solution, an original Sherlock Holmes story set during World War II when the great detective has seen better, livelier days. At only 131 pages (with several of featuring full-page artworks), I thought it would be fun to read an entire novel in only a couple of days, something I haven't done in a while.  But, no.  While moody and somewhat interesting, this mostly dry and self-consciously literate take on Holmes took a little effort to get through, but I was glad that I finally finished it in a week or so. 

The plot involves a little boy's missing parrot, with said parrot somehow in the possession of missing codes used in the war effort. Prior to the bird's disappearance, the bird would often cackle the seemingly nonsensical codes aloud, until someone figured out the value of the cackling and absconded with the bird.  While in the end readable and okay, I'm making the book sound more interesting than it was.

On the streaming front, We Summon The Darkness was a perfectly watchable thriller on Netflix.  It involves three young women heading to a Metal concert (the 2020 movie is set in the 80's), the three guys they meet at the concert and eventually party with, and some satanic killers roaming the countryside. While certainly not Citizen Kane, the movie isn't as junky as it sounds and has a couple of decent twists (the first one of I guessed, though it wasn't bad).  At 90 minutes or so, the movie doesn't overstay its welcome and wouldn't be a bad choice in you're in the mood for a drive-in style horror thriller to distract yourself from the only slightly less intense horror of the outside world these days.

Spenser is on the case

Ace Atkins' newest Spenser novel is a decent, engrossing read.  In it, Spenser takes on a Jeffrey Epstein-type character who is abusing young girls in the Boston area. Nothing like a villain you love to hate, right? But keeping things from being too neat and simplistic plot-wise is the fact that the antagonist of the piece decides to fight back, and using his vast financial resources to do so.

So, soon it's Spenser, Hawk, and a bunch of law-enforcement types trying to get the goods on the powerful billionaire who spirits away impressionable young girls to his private island. Then, to add one more fly, and a particularly deadly one, to the ointment, the billionaire hires Spenser's old nemesis The Gray Man to get Spenser out of the way. The Gray Man is a great villain from past Spenser adventures and he even gives Hawk pause.

If you've enjoyed some of the past Ace Atkins books that continue the adventures of Robert B. Parker's classic detective hero, you will probably enjoy this one, too.  I won't give you more plot details, as discovering them will be half the fun.  Same with the nicely done surprise or two that Atkins will throw your way- you'll enjoy saying "Oh, wow, that's cool" a time or two before the book is over.

Robert B. Parker's Someone To Watch Over Me, by Ace Atkins, is available in hardback, Kindle, and audiobook editions.  The audio, incidentally, is nicely read by actor Joe Mantegna, who has played Spenser lots of time on TV.  This particular Spenser story I did on audio, though I can see myself going back and reading it in prose form to enjoy the story again at some point.