Tip #1: Meet Harry Bosch

Happy New Year's Eve! In honor of the coming new year, I'm going to- with no muss and no fuss (and no photos, too!)- give you fifteen short posts recommending fifteen things I enjoyed over the past year. And away we go!

I've been enjoying the Bosch detective series on Amazon Prime these past years, so it was a treat to finally try out one of Michael Connelly's original Bosch novels, The Black Echo. I actually listened to the novel, which was a recently-produced special edition featuring Titus Welliver, who plays Harry Bosch in the series, narrating the book. It's the first novel in the series, and it was immediately fascinating to note how the Bosch of the printed page was adapted into the Bosch of the show. And it made me want to read or listen to more of the novels. So I guess this tip is promoting both the show and the books, but especially that first novel, which was a moody, solid detective thriller. A great Q&A featuring the author and the actor rounds out the audiobook.

Tip #2: Discover Lew Archer, P.I.

Been doing some classic Ross MacDonald detective fiction lately, and though some are way too convoluted for my taste, if you just sit back and let them wash over you they aren't bad and you can see why they have a good reputation. All the ones I've read were part of MacDonald's Lew Archer series, including The Wycherley Woman, Sleeping Beauty, and The Blue Hammer (the last in the series). The first one I mentioned was actually quite clever, plot-wise (and I was able to follow it!), but generally all the Archers are worth your time.

Tip #3: 007 in Russia

With a Mind To Kill, the latest James Bond novel by Anthony Horowitz, is set immediately after Ian Fleming's final Bond novel, The Man With The Golden Gun, and I liked it a lot. Bond is sent to Russia to confront the generals and doctors who had previously brainwashed him into almost killing his boss, M, in Golden Gun. It's a good spy story, with moody, effective descriptions of daily Soviet life in the 60's. I hope Horowitz will write a few more Bonds here and there.

Tip #4: Matt Helm as he's supposed to be

Courtesy of Audible (Amazon's audiobook service), I recently discovered Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series, and they are nothing like the Dean Martin/swinging 60's movie series of years past. These are serious spy thrillers, with thoughtful characterizations, especially of the main character. Check out the first one, Death of a Citizen, and see if you agree. The Wrecking Crew was another good one. I'm looking forward to listening to a lot more entries of this long-running series in 2023.

Tip #5: Thunderbolts assemble!

I still read graphic novels and comics sometimes, and I recently caught up with a popular series of a couple of decades ago when I enjoyed a collection of the earliest issues of The Thunderbolts, a superhero series with a twist (and it's better if I don't say more) that debuted in the late 1990's and remains popular today. Check out any of the various trade paperbacks collecting the early issues of this mainstream but offbeat series and enjoy, then you can see what you'll think of the upcoming Marvel Studios television adaptation coming soon to Disney+.

Tip #6: French is always a decent read

I liked Tana French's The Searcher, so more recently I dived into her novel The Witch Elm. Various cousins hang out with their uncle at his welcoming home, and one day a body is found in his yard... and it's been hidden there a while, in the tree of the title, in fact. Is the body tied to something in the cousins' or uncle's past? The journey to find out is quite involving, but the destination and solution are good, too.

Tip #7: Good kids, evil parents

As well as discovering The Thunderbolts (mentioned somewhere above), I also recently caught up with a another popular comic book series of a couple of decades ago when I enjoyed Marvel's Runaways, The Complete Collection, Volumes 1 to 3. A group of teens discovers that their parents are basically gangsters and super villains so they, well, run away from them. But then they confront them. It's good, mainstream comics with an edge and I hope my library soon gets volume 4.

Tip #8: Do a weighty movie for a change

The Banshees of Inisherin, now on HBO (or HBO Max, in my case) after a brief theatrical run, is well worth your time. But this tale of two friends who are having a bit of a crisis, is not the light, whimsical tale the trailers and ads promised. The movie, set in 1920's Ireland, is literate, allegorical, complex, violent, and frequently tragic. It's a good movie, though, and worth talking about. Just be aware of what you're getting if you tune in.

Tip #9: Fantasy laced with horror delivers

Stephen King's Fairy Tale pushes 600 pages, and in a genre I don't read very often, but I tore through it pretty quickly.  I found the non-fairy tale part set in our world (encompassing about the first 200 pages) as good as the fantasy story that eventually kicks in. But I thought the whole thing, a story of a boy and his dog and how they try to save a dying kingdom, was pretty entertaining reading from beginning to end.

Tip #10: A space opera for adults

While Star Wars often delivers excellent all-ages entertainment, the new series Andor (now streaming on Disney+) is unapologetically Star Wars for adults. The plots are complex so you need to pay attention, and we really see the brutality and moral compromises of war. Surprisingly, Star Wars has demonstrated that it is flexible enough to accommodate the more nuanced fare presented here.

Tip #11: Follow Matt Scudder around town

With my recent enjoyment of All The Flowers Are Dying in print and A Drop of the Hard Stuff on audio,  I only have one book left in Lawrence Block's classic Matthew Scudder detective series. If you read crime fiction, you really should dip into these books. They are talky but never tedious, nicely balance plot with Scudder's own interesting life, and feature New York itself is a major character: we see how the city changes over the course of this long series. I really hope Block writes another one or two of these.

Tip #12: Weather the long running time

Avatar: The Way of Water surpasses the stunning visuals of the first film, in both craftsmanship and in the variety of things we see, and I found the story to be a little more compelling and involving, too. But, yeah, it's long, more than three hours. But it really should be seen on the big screen. Just go already.

Tip #13: Stone Barrington still delivers

After reading the first dozen or so entries in the late Stuart Woods' (sadly, he passed earlier this year) Stone Barrington series, I'm still enjoying the different types of stories- some moody, some funny, some exciting- featuring Woods' lawyer, investigator and adventurer. Two Dollar Bill and Dark Harbor were two recent good ones. 

Tip #14: Weird horror is always good

Barbarian, which has nothing to do with Conan, is a decent, offbeat horror film now streaming in various places, following a theatrical run earlier this year. It starts off as an unsettling two-person drama but then launches into crazy horror that you won't soon forget.

Tip #15: Take vacations while watching TV

The two short seasons of HBO'S The White Lotus are literate, fun, and visually striking. Set in the first season at The White Lotus Resort in Hawaii and in the second season at its resort in Italy, you'll enjoy the various stories of the lavish resorts' guests and staff. The show demonstrates that smart can be fun.