Jaws the Book vs. Jaws the Movie: Which is Better?

by

Scott D. Parker

I finally did something I’ve been wanting to do for many summers: read Peter Benchley’s Jaws. 

The original hardcover came out in February 1974 and the movie the following summer. I’ll admit that it took me quite a long time to see the movie. I can’t remember the first time I saw it, but it might’ve been on one of the network broadcasts. It wasn’t until the 1990s that I finally saw the whole thing. 

But what about the book? I remember my mom reading the paperback in the late 70s. This is one with the movie poster as its cover so you can imagine how much my pre-teen self enjoyed that cover. Wink. My library had both the ebook and the audiobook available last month so I decided this was the summer.

Oh, and book spoilers from here on out.

The Similar Things 

The story is the same one you know from the movie: a great white shark terrorizes the little summer town of Amity, New York. The deaths that follow threaten the town’s annual livelihood so something has to be done about the shark. 

Police Chief Martin Brody is from out of town, a former cop from New York, and his initial instinct is to close the beaches. He’s married and has three kids (the movie only has two). Harry Meadows is the editor of the newspaper and he and Brody are friends. Meadows calls in shark expert, Matt Hooper, to investigate.

Meanwhile, Mayor Larry Vaughn does not want the beaches closed because it’ll mean tourists and their money won’t come. And Quint is a fisherman who takes the job of hunting and killing the great white.

The overall plot of the book matches the movie but the film jettisons certain subplots.

The Differences

Ellen Brody grew up as one of the richer “summer” people. These are the folks who live elsewhere and come to live in Amity for the summer. Now she finds herself living full time in Amity and she’s having doubts about her life. She’s a mom of three kids. She’s married to a man that she’s not sure if she truly loves anymore because, partially because he “took her away” from that other lifestyle. 

Matt Hooper is decidedly not how Richard Dreyfuss is in the film. Where Dreyfuss is short and nerdy, in the book, Hooper is tall, handsome, and way younger. He’s also the younger brother of a guy Ellen dated. And he’s from that other life. All of that plays out against Ellen’s midlife crisis and, well, she cheats on Martin with Matt.

I kept thinking she’d turn away or that Matt would stop himself but no, they have their fling. But as the story plays out, Ellen does lots of soul searching and ultimately comes to realize that she likes the choices she made and is happy with her life. And she’s ready to turn the page and renew her relationship with her husband…if he survives the shark hunt.

Mayor Vaughn in both the movie and book wants to keep the beaches open, but in the book, there’s more than just civic pride. Turns out he’s in deep water with the mob and he needs the beaches open so that his day job as a realtor can be successful and he won’t get into more trouble.

Quint is still just as dedicated to killing the shark as Robert Shaw is in the movie, but it’s just for the money. Nonexistent is Movie Quint’s time aboard the USS Indianapolis and the Arab-like hatred of sharks. 

The ending is different as well. Hooper dies in the shark cage and Quint, rather than being eaten, is dragged underwater by a rope that snagged his leg and drowns. And the finale? Well, the shark is swimming to Brody as he hangs on the sinking boat and then just dies. And Brody swims to shore.

The Verdict

I won’t bury the lede: stick with the movie. And the vastly better movie poster.

The class-related sub-plot with Ellen is interesting as is the midlife questioning of her life’s choices. Having the mayor be in debt to the was a nice wrinkle, one that gave the character more motivation than the movie version. 

Quint is way better in the movie than the book as is the whole shark hunt final act. The camaraderie the three characters experience is wonderful and I like how each man comes to see the other two a little bit differently, especially when Quint and Hooper compare scars.

Robert Shaw’s monologue about the Indianapolis is spellbinding and remains one of the best parts of the movie.

And the ending, when Brody shoots the oxygen tank in the shark’s mouth the beast explodes is exactly the kind of ending you want in a summer blockbuster. And Hooper lives and they both swim to shore together.

I’m glad I read Jaws by Peter Benchley and I encourage others to give it a chance if you are curious. But I think I’ll be sticking with the 1975 film from here on out. The wife and I watched it again last week and it holds up remarkably well.

Sidenote: The wife read that Roy Scheider used his movie The French Connection to help Steven Spielberg to cast him as Brody. So I’ll give you one guess as to the next movie we watched.  

Reading Outside Your Usual Genre Can Deliver Surprises

by

Scott D. Parker

In his newsletter this week, author Rob Hart gave some recent recommendations, including one outside of his typical genre. I concur but mere days earlier, I had done the same thing.

To quote a wise man, I have taken my first step into a larger world.

How It Started

My wife has read nearly every book Elin Hilderbrand has written. Back five, six years ago, I even created a list on my phone with the books we had so that if I found myself at a bookstore and I happened upon one of her books, I knew which ones we owned. Heck, we even went to an event where we got to meet her and get her autograph.

Recently, I checked out Hilderbrand’s latest, The Five-Star Weekend, from the library and, predictably, my wife flew through the pages. A couple of Fridays ago, she put it on the kitchen table, a signal for me to return the book to the library. For whatever reason, I picked up the book and read the description on the dust jacket. 

The Five-Star Weekend tells the story of a middle-aged widow, Hollis, who, as a means of moving on from her husband’s death the previous December, invites four women to her home on Nantucket Island for a weekend of curated food, wine, activities, and more wine. The catch is that she invites women who represent certain phases of her life. Tatum from childhood, Dru-Ann from college, Brooke from when they both were new moms in their thirties, and Gigi, a woman Hollis knows (but has never met in real life) via Hollis’s cooking blog. To document everything, Hollis hires her daughter, a film student, to create a documentary (and hopefully break down the wall that stands between them). 

Now, having read the dust jacket, I was intrigued. I opened the first page to see how it started.

Twenty-nine pages later, I walked into the next room, book in hand, and said, “I am in!”

The Relatable Characters

I’ll admit that one of the reasons I locked into this story was that the characters were my age. I even laughed out loud when, in chapter one, Hilderbrand mentions Hollis was part of the high school Class of 1987. That’s me. 

I saw aspects of myself in each character. I related to Tatum’s down-to-earth outlook on life. I lamented when Dru-Ann’s character experienced manufactured outrage that was completely false. I sometimes experience the imposter syndrome Brooke feels (don’t we all?), and I look at certain groups and pine to join them like Gigi. I also understood how each woman views the others. 

As you would imagine, each woman has things to hide and each woman has thoughts about the others and, over the course of a long weekend, it all spills out.

The bottom line: even though it’s a work of fiction, these five women are real people. And I really enjoyed spending time with them.

Effortless Reading

My wife loves Hilderbrand’s books because they are so easy to get into and read. I concur.

I ended up checking out the audiobook from the library as well so I was able to listen on my commutes and when doing yard work and read the hardcopy at night. Having the book in hand helped me see how Hilderbrand actually crafted her writing.

She changes points of view often, almost paragraph by paragraph if more than one character is in the given scene. She also writes in present tense, which gives the book an immediacy, especially when she writes phrases like “Brooke was thinking…[this]” and “Hollis was thinking…[that].” 

Loved it. As a writer who tends to write any given scene from the POV of a singular character, it was engrossing to be in the heads of all five characters, six when you include the daughter. 

The pages just flew by and I was completely enthralled with this story. Given last week’s post about books that pack an emotional punch, I’ll have to include The Five-Star Weekend in the list. While I got misty when it came to what happened to the characters, I really got the point where I didn’t want the fictional weekend—or the actual book—to end.

Readers of a Certain Age

The Five-Star Weekend asks questions of its characters and, by extension, its readers as well, but it clearly comes down on the side of friendship. They are special—at every phrase of our lives—and they need attention and cultivation and should never be taken for granted. This is a good thing for younger readers to understand but it’s also a gentle reminder for older readers as well. You know that friend you haven’t spoken to in years? Give them a call and catch up. You’ll be so glad you did.

The 1970s Come Alive in the Highly Entertaining Lowdown Road

by
Scott D. Parker

Look at that cover. Hard Case Crime might be the single publisher in this century who remembers how great painted covers used to be. This cover looks like a long-lost book you’d have found on the paperback spinner rack at the 7-Eleven in 1975 as you clutched a Slurpee in your hand, your favorite hero painted on the white, plastic cup. Or its the novelization to a 1970s movie you’d see at the drive-in.

The cover was pretty much all I needed to see to know this was a book I wanted to read. The plot was just icing on the cake. Let me see if I can boil it down for you.

Chuck and Dean are cousins. It’s August 1974. Dean operates a taco truck in San Marcos, Texas, for Antoine, the local boss who has a flourishing business selling weed. Chuck is less than six months out of prison when he “borrows” his cousin’s car and picks up a lady in a bar. She’s married to a local deputy who pulls them over for speeding. She shoots her husband, Chuck shoots her, and ditches the car. Now they have to get out of town.

But not before they hatch a plan: why not steal Antoine’s stash, valued at $1 million, drive it all the way to Idaho where Evel Knievel is set to jump the Snake River Canyon in his rocket cycle? I mean, that’s exactly what I’d do in their situation, right? What could possibly be the the problem?

Well, the sheriff is out to get the cousins. The more he has to travel, the angrier he gets and the more likely he won’t be satisfied just to arrest them. Then there’s Antoine. He’s majorly pissed at the theft and vows to hunt down Chuck and Dean, gets back what’s his, and make the boys pay for their misdeeds.

The chase is on.

I remember the Knievel jump but can’t remember if I saw it on Wide World of Sports during the actual weekend—49 years ago this month—but that was a nice moment at which to set this tale. In fact, in a bit of serendipitous timing, I listened to this audiobook during the actual anniversary weekend.

This book promised a fun time and man did it deliver. Narrator L. J. Ganser gives author Von Doviak’s words an little extra vibrancy, almost as if the story was being told a few years after the fact by a guy who saw it all happen. All the little things that bring the 1970s to life are here: the new book called Jaws, 8-track tapes, music cues, CB radios, Lone Star Beer, as well a peek into the culture of the era.

Von Doviak makes an interesting choice in how he ends this book. At first, it took me a little by surprise, but then I realized what he did and I thoroughly got it. And loved it. It’s a little inspired by a very famous movie released twenty years after the events of this book. (How’s that for cryptic?)

When Hard Case Crime started, they promised the return of old, out-of-print books that haven’t seen the light of day in decades. The newly written titles are the modern equivalent to those wonderful old books you could carry to the DMV in your back pocket and read when the line was too long.

Lowdown Road is exactly in that latter category. It is one of the most fun books I’ve read this year. If you lived through this time or just want a peek into life on the road during the late summer of 1974, this is book to get.

Drowning by T.J. Newman is the Best Movie You'll Read This Summer

By Scott D. Parker

From the opening, harrowing moments of the first three chapters to the last 30 minutes of the audiobook, this book did not let up.

A few weeks ago, I finished T. J. Newman’s debut, FALLING and eagerly jumped into her brand-new book, DROWNING. In the book, a plane suffers mechanical failure two minutes after takeoff from Honolulu and crashes into the ocean.

Unlike those famous airplane disaster movies from the 1970s that takes a quarter of the movie to introduce the characters and get the plane in the air, Newman puts you on the plane just after takeoff from the first sentence. By Chapter 3, the plane is down.

And those three chapters are incredibly harrowing and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful. How suspenseful you might ask? Suspenseful enough to elicit an emotional response. Heart pounding in the chest and a sting of tears in the eyes.

And that was only the beginning.

The race against time aspect never let up, even in the flashbacks where we see what makes these three individuals tick. A father and his daughter are on the plane as it goes down. The estranged wife is an underwater construction expert. Naturally, you can see how this goes. Even the other characters were given enough to make you root for them or not.

But the drama was organic and relentless.

By the end of the audiobook, I had a driveway moment where I slowed the car down. I then sat in my garage in Houston in the summer for about five minutes as I finished a chapter. When I walked into the house, my wife asked if I was just sitting in the garage. “Yeah,” I confessed, “and I’m going to have to finish this book now.”

I did. And it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

You won’t need to wait for the movie. You can see it all in your mind. It’s a definite summer blockbuster of a story.

What Are You Going To Do With the 99 Days of Summer 2023?

Veteran writer Dean Wesley Smith dubs the summer months the Time of the Great Forgetting. It’s that point in the year when the good intentions of New Year’s Resolutions made in the depths of winter fall by the wayside in bright light of hot summer days when the pull to do just about anything other than writing draws writers away from their keyboards. It’s only in later summer and early fall when writers remember their annual goals and either charge full-stream ahead and barrel to the end of the year, desperately hoping to achieve their milestones, or just give up and do something else.

He speaks the truth.

But I’ve come to see the summer months as an almost perfect time capsule to get things done, including writing.

Bookended Time

Starting with Memorial Day and ending on Labor Day in September, summer has a definitive beginning and ending. The only span of time that rivals this is Halloween-to-New Year’s Day. Unlike the holidays—which a chock full of known events and Christmas pageants visits to friends and family—the summer months are largely unstructured. School’s out, vacation season is in, and we all get to collectively breath deep for a few short weeks before we do it all again in the fall.

The summer vibe is looser. We wear different types of clothes. We read different kinds of books, the beach reads if you will. And we watch certain types of movies. I’ve already seen one of my favorite movies of the year—Fast X, a rollercoaster in a movie theater—and canNOT wait until both Michael Kenton’s Batman and Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones share the multiplexes for the first time since 1989. 

The clearly marked beginning and ending of summer also is the perfect time to do something creative, including writing. There are 99 days this summer—97 if you don’t include Memorial and Labor Day. Just imagine what you can do. Write a 99,000-word novel if you write 1,000 words per day. Or maybe two shorter works of, say, 45,000 words each. In the 14 weeks we get this year, you could write 14 short stories. Writing is merely a habit, and if you get into the habit of writing, it will be difficult to stop it.

Just imagine, come the Monday of Labor Day, the tremendous sense of accomplishment you’ll feel when you look back over Summer 2023 and marvel at what you’ve done. It’s just like your New Year’s Resolutions but for a shorter period of time.

Your Summer Resolutions

Come to think of it, why not think of them as Summer Resolutions. Or your Summer Goals List. 

So spend some time this weekend thinking about what you want to write or accomplish this summer. Make a list—on paper—hang it on the fridge, and look at it everyday. Then, each day, when you open the fridge, ask yourself if you have moved the needle forward on those goals. When you do the incremental daily work, the end result will be greater than you could imagine.

A Few Recommendations for Summer 2022

by
Scott D. Parker

Every now and then when it comes time for me to write a Saturday post, a large, overarching one about a single topic, I realize I don’t have one. So I’m going to provide a few recommendations of things I’m listening to, watching, or reading.

Top Gun: Maverick

Now THIS is how to do a legacy sequel. Age up the characters in real time, address the passage of time, and provide a wonderful piece of closure with a legacy co-star. Oh, and incredible action sequences. Holy cow was this a great movie. I took my wife who didn’t necessarily want to see it but she emerged very entertained. Not as entertained as I was: now I want to see this film in IMAX.

And please tell me I’m not the only one who saw the movie and kept having to slow down the car while driving home.

Def Leppard: Diamond Star Halos

Taking a page from the legacy artist idea I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, Def Leppard released their newest album last Friday. Fifteen tracks (17 if you buy from Target) of classic rock goodness. Much like the modern band, The Struts, the Joe Elliott-led five piece band wear their influences on their sleeves, and it starts with the album title.

There’s a whimsical vibe to these songs from the opening chord progression of “Take What You Want” to open the album to the last few notes of “From Here to Eternity.” Allison Krauss lends her vocals to a pair of tunes but make no mistake: this is a rock/pop/metal album just like the band used to make in their heyday.

Lyrically, the guys know their age and acknowledge it throughout the entire record. This was an album I looked forward to ever since it was announced and boy did they deliver.

And yes, we listened to Def Leppard on the way to and from seeing Top Gun: Maverick.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

The third thing released last Friday, this is a Star Wars series I’ve been eagerly anticipating since it was announced as well. In fact, I even held off reading the old Extended Universe novel.

We knew what we were going to get from the trailers: an older, wiser(?) Obi-Wan, living on Tatooine, watching over a ten-year-old Luke Skywalker. What I didn’t expect was his sister, Leia. In fact, it is her plight that propels the series.

I appreciate the slower roll, just like I did for the Mandalorian. I have zero issues with the actors on the show either (so a certain segment of the Star Wars fandom can just go home).

As big a Star Wars fan as I am, I didn’t watch the animated shows so everything in Obi-Wan Kenobi is new to me.

Oh, and so great to see Darth Vader back to being the feared force he is. But I’ll say something that might make a few of y’all look at me askance. I’m fine with James Earl Jones voicing Vader, but how about some more intense inflection, huh? I mean Vader/Anakin finally lays eyes on Kenobi after ten years and it’s like their talking over tea. The last thing Anakin yelled at Kenobi in Episode III was pure hatred. Where’s that emotion in Vader’s inflection?

No Time to Spy by Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens

If you like James Bond, might I point you in the direction of this trilogy of book by Collins and Clemens. The premise is pure fun: the main character is John Sand, a real spy who worked with Ian Fleming and the latter author based James Bond on John Sand. Sand, now outed as a spy, marries a rich Texas oil heiress. Despite his retirement, action and adventure follow Mr. and Mrs. Sand.

While I’ve not read all three books—Come Spy With Me; Live Fast, Spy Hard; To Live and Spy in Berlin—a compilation ebook is on sale *this weekend* for only $0.99. You read that correctly: for a dollar(!), you get three novels. Seriously, it’s an impulse buy at that point.

Here’s the Amazon link.

Roll With It by Jay Stringer

Yesterday, Jay broke the news that his latest novel is now available as an audiobook on Audible. As a person who primarily consumes books in that manner, this was great news.

But Jay went above and beyond and made available a few promo codes. These are US only—UK codes will be forthcoming—so if you haven’t had a chance to read his post from yesterday, head on over and see if any of those codes are still available.

Even if they’re not, the book is only 1 credit ($13.96 if you just want to buy it) so get on over to Audible and get a copy. Also, for you library folks out there, be sure to request your library to buy the book and help spread the word.

The Summer 2021 Box of Comics

by

Scott D. Parker

If there's one great thing about ebooks and electric comics is that you can carry potentially your entire library on vacation. 

But that wasn't always the case back in the days before Kindles and iPads. No, back then, you'd have to be judicious with what you wanted to read while on vacation because you'd have to carry everything. In my adulthood, I would spend almost as much time deciding on what books and magazine to bring on a vacation as I did on my entire vacation's wardrobe. I know I'm not alone here. I mean, as much as I enjoyed the 800-page, hard cover history book was I reading, there was no way it found it's way into my backpack for reading on a plane. 

Before adulthood, however, there was another factor that determined what we might bring on a vacation: our parents. I remember my youth in the 70s when we'd go on vacation, my parents would not let me take EVERY comic I owned. Even as an only child, it was just not feasible to bring them all. A friend of mine were talking this week and he mentioned his mom told him he could only bring ten comics on their annual trips. He always prioritized the 100-page giants and the like so he could maximize his reading experience. I did something similar. 

Most of the time, those issues would have a then-current story backed with multiple reprints ranging from the 1940s to the 1960s. In an era where back issues were few and far between, these issues rocked. Well, unless is some crappy story feature Prince Valiant or some Viking nonsense. Didn’t like it then. Still don’t. 

Summer 2021

One of my summer projects is to catalog all my comics. I’m almost done. A nice side effect was seeing all these old issues. Some of them have distinct memories associated with them. Others—many others—do not. In fact, I started culling many issues. “Why the heck did I buy that one?” I asked myself more than once.

Seeing all these issues made me want to read them again. Sure, I could keep all my long boxes in the front room all summer, but I think we know how that would go over with the rest of the family. So I made my own Summer 2021 comic box. I’ll probably go back and pull a few other issues, but mainly, the titles I want to read are in this box.

Those thicks ones are those awesome black-and-white reprints where you get 500 pages of comics in a single volume, the modern equivalent to those old 100-page giants.

I’ve been reading through the Master of Kung Fu collection for a little while, but I’ve sped up knowing the movie is on its way. The others are just hankering I’ve been having: 70s-era Marvel books I never read back in the day.

Marvel also published eight magazine-sized Doc Savage issues, all black-and-white. I have them all, but I’ve only read the first one.

This is one where I remember buying it but have zero memory of it. I like the 70s and 80s when comics artists and writers would just try anything, like apparently making a quarterback into a super hero. Sure.

I have a ton of Superman tiles, second only to Batman. But this Time and Time Again series is something that looks interesting.

Then there are titles like this. Have to read it for the historical value.

I discovered a few X-Files comics which are in the box, but that also led to re-discover this entry where the Dark Knight is abducted. 

This issue of Detective is one of the earliest I ever had. Can’t remember the story, but I will this summer. You can see the frayed edges of a well-loved book.

I’ve got a few novels lined up to read, but I think the Summer of 2021 will be comic heavy.

So, did your parents limit the number of novels and comics for your trips? Did you get to buy some on the road? And what specific comics can you remember reading during the summers?

Year 5 of an Indie Writer: Week 21: The Summer Writing Season

The Gray Ghost by Clive Cussler and Robin Burcell

by
Scott D. Parker

Clive Cussler is one of those authors I admire. He cut his teeth on his Dirk Pitt novels before expanding his universe to include the NUMA series (Kurt Austin) and Oregon Files (Juan Cabrillo). These three series have numerous crossovers (if my paltry reading of the entire run is any indication). But it’s his Isaac Bell series, set in the early days of the 20th Century, that I really enjoy. The fourth series is the Fargo adventures, featuring Sam and Remi Fargo. They’re a charming pair of millionaires (thanks to Sam’s invention) and they travel the world, searching for treasure and doing good. I had only read one novel of theirs to date (THE TOMBS) but the latest novel, THE GRAY GHOST, features not only them, but Isaac Bell.

How, might you ask, can a story set in the present also include Bell? Well, it’s a very clever conceit. In 2018, someone steals the Gray Ghost, a Rolls-Royce car from 1906. In the course of the story, Sam and Remi get involved in the search for the priceless car. You see, there has always been a legend that treasure exists in the car, but no one has found it for over a century. As soon as the Fargos get involved, they have bad guys trying to stop them, even while they try to help the actual present-day owners locate the vehicle.

Where Isaac Bell comes in is through a journal. Back in 1906, Bell helped an ancestor of the present owner thwart another attempt to steal the Gray Ghost. That ancestor kept a journal of the exploits, but that volume of the journal is missing in the present day. Stolen. Cussler and co-author Robin Burcell keep the action going not only with the Fargo adventures but the Bell investigation as well, interspersing passages of the journal with the current action.

As with all Cussler novels, I listened to the brilliant Scott Brick narrate the story. It was interesting to hear slight variations between how Cussler and Burcell treat Bell versus Cussler and Justin Scott, the team who writes the Bell novels. Brick brings so much to his narration that it enlivens the story above the mere prose.

If I have one criticism of this series, it’s in the back-and-forth dialogue of the two main characters. Often times, you don’t get the spark of passion between husband and wife. I’m not calling for a bunch of intimate scenes, and I’m completely fine with them walking to a hotel room with the knowledge of what they’re about to do, but I would like to see a little more fire to their relationship. In one of the dire moments in this book, I got the sense of it, but I’d like to see if when they’re not fighting for their lives. It’s a little thing, but noticeable.

For a good summer beach read, THE GRAY GHOST is a humdinger, and it’s propelled me to my next Fargo adventure, THE MAYAN SECRETS.

The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

By
Scott D. Parker

Almost from the day it was announced, I knew I wanted to read THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. On the one hand you have one of the all-time best-selling authors who has created his own fiction factory. On the other, you have a former president who served for eight years in the office and could provide vital details as only a man who sat in the Oval Office could. It was a match made in heaven.

But would the book be any good?

It’s an honest question, but let’s be honest: if it’s got Patterson’s name on it, the story will at least be serviceable.

And I’m here to tell you it’s more than serviceable. It’s pretty darn good.

The story opens as President Jonathan Lincoln Duncan, newly widowed, is facing the prospect of a compelled testimony in front of a Congressional committee. Impeachment is in the air because Duncan recently ordered a special forces raid seemingly to save notorious terrorist Suliman Cindoruk, leader of the Sons of Jihad group. The Speaker of the House—a member of the unnamed ‘other party’; Duncan’s party affiliation also remains unnamed making it more bipartisan—who has designs on the presidency smells blood.

But Duncan has an even greater problem. Somehow, Suliman’s cyber hackers have implanted a virus in the computer systems of the Pentagon. Codenamed “Dark Ages,” if released, the resulting damage would be catastrophic. It would literally plunge the US into a modern dark ages. And one of six members of Duncan’s inner circle—including the Vice President—is a traitor because a young girl from the Republic of Georgia is asking to meet with Duncan. Alone. And she utters “Dark Ages” to prove her point.

How could this young woman know that? Who is she? And, after Duncan goes incognito and meets at the baseball stadium, who is this other guy pointing a gun at the President of the United States?

THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING clocks in at over 500 pages, but they read extremely fast. Duncan’s prose is all in first person and the entire novel is written in the present tense, giving it an urgency. Having Duncan narrate his own scenes is great, especially with his asides when he gives details you know came from Bill Clinton’s memories. There are other characters and all those scenes are related in third person. It’s the first time I can remember reading a book like this. Granted, as a writer, I noticed the differences at first, but as the story went on and my reading speed increased, it faded away and I was solely in the action.

By now, Patterson is a master at crafting a story and, while I’ve read few, I could see how one of his stories is made. And I really loved how the tension was racketed up. Sure, there were lots of cliffhanger chapter endings, but this is a summer thriller. It’s supposed to have cliffhangers.

And there was one passage of about five chapters that completely fooled me. I thought one thing was happening and it was something else entirely. Much like watching “The Sixth Sense” a second time when you know the truth, I re-read those chapters just to see how Patterson did it. Brilliant. Also brilliant was the skillful way Patterson kept the truth behind the traitor and other characters, revealing their identity at precisely the right time. This guy can tell stories!

I purchased this book from my local grocery store and I pointed out something to some friends who noticed the book in my basket. I indicated all the other Patterson novels on display—eight?—and then at THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING. Patterson’s name was listed on top of all save the new one. It takes a president’s name to shift Patterson to second billing.

I very much enjoyed this book and would easily recommend it as a good beach read.

Packing Books for a Vacation

By
Scott D. Parker

We’re all readers here, right? This is a safe place where we can disclose our most treasured secrets about books and our habits. Well, tell me if you do something similar.

Last weekend the family and I traveled to Texarkana, Texas, for a late summer vacation before school starts. None of us had been up there and we used the town as home base as we scoured flea markets and antique stores. We also headed up to Arkansas to dig for diamonds and quartz.

Whenever I travel, I like to find a book set in or around the region of the vacation. Last year when we went to Big Bend, I read RETURN OF THE RIO KID by Brett Halliday. What would I bring this year?

Texarkana is on the border of the piney woods of East Texas and the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. I’m reading a lot of westerns as I write my own (THE KILLING OF LARS FULTON was released this week) so I had the perfect book: LONGARM AND THE OZARK ANGEL. I hadn’t read it and with it set in Arkansas, what better book to read?

But I’ve also been in a contemporary bestseller mood this summer. I read a couple of Janet Evanovich novels and wanted to keep on that trend as well. The latest paperback from John Grisham is THE WHISTLER. I haven’t read a Grisham novel in a long time, so when I was at Kroger stocking up on supplies, I threw a copy into the basket. I shrugged. As much as I like to pack light, I still want to have my bases covered if a particular mood strikes me on the road.

That was also where my Kindle came into play. I’ve got the Paperwhite chock full of westerns and a brand-new-to-me author Avery Duff and his book BEACH LAWYER. Sure I wasn’t’ going to the beach but I had a good summer read on hand.

I think I had most bases covered. I even threw in my latest copy of Men’s Journal. I brought my laptop of course. I am between books, but I wanted the Mac on hand if lightening struck.

Well, lightening struck, but not in any of the aforementioned ways.

We stopped in Jefferson, Texas, and shopped at a few antique stores. Our favorites were the ones with air condition! In one of them, I hit the jackpot. I found a motherlode of old paperback westerns, maybe two hundred or more, all for a dollar each. I ended up buying a couple. One of them was FOUR MUST DIE: A WALT SLADE WESTERN by Bradford Scott.

And that’s the book I read on my vacation. It’s a slim volume, 127 total pages. I read 110 in Texarkana and finished the morning after we returned. I reviewed it yesterday.

So much for all that pre-planning on reading material. I’ll get to those books, especially the Longarm one since the countryside of Arkansas is fresh in my mind.

Do y’all spend almost as much mental activity on what book you’ll read on vacation as you do on everything else? And do y’all stick with that reading material or find something along the way?

Books of Summer

by Holly West

On Saturday night, I saw James L'Etoile at Claire Booth's book launch for ANOTHER MAN'S GROUND. We got to talking and he asked me what I'd been reading lately. Authors do love to talk about books. Anyway, on the drive home I decided the question--what have you read and enjoyed recently--would make a good Do Some Damage post this week.

As I so often do, I turned to my author friends (or as I think of them, the Usual Suspects) and asked them to tell me what the books they've enjoyed recently. We'll start with James, since this was all his idea in the first place.

   

James L'Etoile (AT WHAT COST)

EVERY DAY ABOVE GROUND by Glen Erik Hamilton
A terminally ill ex-con talks Van Saw into a quick score. The job backfires and Shaw has to question if he’s one of the good guys, as he tries to recover from the botched robbery. Van’s background story also comes into play in this third installment of the series.

COVER ME IN DARKNESS by Eileen Rendahl
Leaving the cult behind is more difficult than it seems. After Amanda Sinclair’s cult survivor mother commits suicide in a mental facility, Amanda discovers family secrets that connect to a cult leader's upcoming parole hearing.

SILENT RAIN by Karin Salvalaggio
Grace Adams tries to leave the past behind and gets pulled into a murder of a prominent novelist, who wants to turn the details of Grace's past into a salacious best seller, over her objection.The investigation unravels an entire town. This is the fourth in the detective Macy Greely series.

Then of course Danny [Gardner's] book [A NEGRO AND AN OFAY]. I really love that one.

 

Claire Booth (THE BRANSON BEAUTY)

I'm going with a terrific YA thriller, CITY OF ANGELS, by Kristi Belcamino (who's also a DSD alum). It’s set in Los Angeles, but a bit further back – during the 1992 riots. It’s a perfect backdrop for the story of a teenager who flees trauma in the Midwest only to get swept up in a movie director’s twisted child porn ring. Nikki Black rescues a twelve-year-old and they land in a residential hotel in LA’s gritty downtown. The whole novel has a fantastic sense of place and a great mystery as well. I loved it.

At the top of my TBR pile is THE SHATTERED TREE by Charles Todd. It's the latest in the mother-son writing duo's Bess Crawford mystery series. Bess, a WWI battlefield nurse, tends to a wounded soldier whose allegiance is mysterious. Is he French? German? When the soldier disappears, Bess starts to investigate. Todd's portrayal of a determined and intrepid heroine won them the 2017 Mary Higgins Clark Award for this book.

Eric Beetner (CRIMINAL ECONOMICS)

Everyone is going to say this but SHE RIDES SHOTGUN by Jordan Harper. I also enjoyed the second Nick Mason book from Steve Hamilton, EXIT STRATEGY. THE RIDGE by John Rector for something different but entirely compelling. THE SMACK by Richard Lange. His work is so good I haven't even read it yet but I can recommend it.

 

Neliza Drew (ALL THE BRIDGES BURNING)

Zoë Sharp's latest comes out next month, so I finally read ABSENCE OF LIGHT, the novella in between her last and her next.

Holly's note: Read Neliza's Criminal Element review of A NEGRO AND AN OFAY here.

 

Steve Weddle (COUNTRY HARDBALL)

I read DOROTHY MUST DIE [by Danielle Paige] recently, the story of a Kansas girl who gets transported to Oz only to find out that Dorothy seems to have ruined the world and the witches are attempting to set things right. It's the first in what appears to be a lengthy, well developed series. The author has a degree from Columbia and wrote for soap-operas, so that should tell you how the book moves.

I also revisited ADRENALINE by Jeff Abbott, the day after finishing his new book, BLAME. Both are top-shelf stuff, and I was struck by how strong the pacing of ADRENALINE is. As with DOROTHY, the hook for this one is irresistible: A spy gets a call from his wife to meet outside the office building. When he gets to the street, his office explodes above him and kills everyone there. He looks across the road to see his wife leaving with another man, who seems to be holding her against her will. And, we're off. 

Thomas Pluck (BAD BOY BOOGIE)

THE FORCE by Don Winslow is the summer crime blockbuster this year, and deservedly so. Winslow mastered the crime epic with THE CARTEL and now he aims his investigative skills northward to look into the abyss of the failed American Drug War.

I also enjoyed WORLD ENOUGH, by Clea Simon, which comes out in a month or two. It's a nostalgic trip back to the '80s Boston rock scene by someone who was there. Simon's best known for her cat mysteries like hardboiled (or should I say tough mouser?) THE NINTH LIFE but she is equally adept evoking the gritty past of the sleazy rock clubs of our youth. 

Susanna Calkins (A DEATH ALONG THE RIVER FLEET)

Jeff Abbott’s BLAME—super fascinating read...the kind of book that keeps “page-turner” from being a cliché.

Lisa Alber (PATH INTO DARKNESS)

I've got a thing for girls' schools, and my current work-in-progress features a kinda-creepy girl's school in which there's a murder (of course!). So, I'm re-reading two of my favorite girl's school mysteries: THE LAKE OF DEAD LANGUAGES by Carol Goodman and THE SECRET PLACE by Tana French. They're so different, but each illustrates an aspect of craft that interests me: Goodman deploys a gothic-style mood and atmosphere in most excellent fashion, including lore and myth. French is more about voice, and she deploys a parallel plot line like no one's business. Know any other girl's school mysteries that I should read? Let me know!

Lori Rader-Day (THE DAY I DIED)

This is not what I'm reading this summer, just books that came to mind when you said "books" and "summer" in the same sentence.

-THE HEAVENLY TABLE by Donald Ray Pollack. Difficult and lovely and holy crap.
-THE WRITING CLASS by Jincy Willett. Fun and oddly instructive on how to write a mystery.
-HEADS YOU LOSE by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward. I suggest this book any chance I get.
-THE END OF THE WASP SEASON by Denise Mina. Wasp season is summer, isn't it?
-THE WOMEN IN THE CASTLE by Jessica Shattuck. Beautiful and slow, like summer should be.
-THE QUIET WOMAN by Terence Faherty. Like a refreshing drink on a hot day. Or maybe I just read it for the first time on summer vacation.
-THE SHIPPING NEWS by Annie Proulx. When else are going to read about such cold surroundings?

What I'm HOPING to read this summer, yet:

-AMERICAN FIRE by Monica Hesse
-THE CRIME BOOK by DK Publishing
-KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON by David Grann
-WHERE CAN I SEE YOU by Larry D. Sweazy
-The last TWO Tana French novels, pre-ordered in hardcover and staring at me from my bookcase.

What I'll be reading as soon as it lands on my porch: the new Dandy Gilver mystery [A SPOT OF TOIL AND TROUBLE] from Catriona McPherson, ordered from the UK, as to get into my hands as fast as possible.

 

Nadine Nettmann (UNCORKING A LIE)

I just finished SINCE WE FELL by Dennis Lehane and really enjoyed it. The story captivated me from the start and I couldn’t wait to find out the answers as the main character, Rachel, untangled them.

I also recently listened to the audiobook of THE PRINCESS DIARIST, written and narrated by Carrie Fisher. Because it was her voice, the words came out just like she meant them to and it felt as though she was still here with us. Even if you read it on the page, her wit still comes across and there’s some amusing tidbits about the filming of Star Wars.

Holly West (MISTRESS OF LIES)

Ending with Nadine is fitting since I've just read her two sommelier mysteries, DECANTING A MURDER and UNCORKING A LIE. They both tick all the right cozy boxes and I actually learned a lot about wine. The only problem is I wanted to open a new bottle every time I read a chapter's suggested wine pairing.

***

Vacation Reads

It's Dave, taking over the Tuesday posting slot because Jay has... I don't know... a job or something.

Anyway, I'm back safe and sound from Cabo, and as I like to do, I'll recap my vacation reads.

AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaiman: Simply one of the best books I've ever read. Gaiman mixes crime, fantasy, romance and horror together for a fantastic book about immigrants bringing their gods to America. There's more to it than that, but you have to read it for yourself if you haven't already. It's funny, charming, full of emotion. Just a well done modern classic.

GAME OF THRONES by George RR Martin: I gave up on the TV show two episodes in and wanted nothing to do with the novel. But a friend of mine let me borrow it and insisted I'd love it. And you know what? I was pleasantly surprised. There are a ton of characters, and it's hard to keep track of them all. The writing, however, is smooth and compelling. When I was done, I wish I had brought the second novel with me as well. I'll be starting that soon.

CARTE BLANCHE by Jeffery Deaver: The newest Bond novel. I don't have much to say about it. It's an entertaining novel in it's own right. I've read all the Fleming novels and seen the movies multiple times. This felt like Deaver went out of his way to modernize the Fleming Bond, but it was missing something for me. I loved the twists and turns and the action, however. Finished it in a day.

Also started GOOD OMENS, but am not anywhere deep enough to give my thoughts yet.

I also scanned what others around the pool were reading. When we were on our honeymoon last year, I noticed a ton of "THE GIRL WITH THE---" series. This year, there didn't seem to be one popular book. A lot of airport paperbacks, and some non fiction.

Not many e-readers around either, which I found surprising.

Is there a BIG BOOK out this summer?

Summer Reading (and Watching)

by
Scott D. Parker

What is it about the sun and heat that makes us want to read and watch something different? I'll admit that I trend towards seasonal reading. When it's winter, I like British mysteries and thick, dense books that engage the brain. Dickens is among my favorites at that time of year.

But when the weather turns warm--or hot, since it's already hit 100 here in H-Town--something churns and turns in my brain. Gone is Dickens, gone is "intellectual" reading. Hello to entertainment of a different sort. Action. Adventure. Thrills. Chills.

As we are now in the first official weekend of summer, I'm looking across this wide, broad swath of three months of sunny joy and I'm loving what I see. Turner Classic Movies is running "Creature Features" AKA Drive-in Double Features every Thursday. On 9 June, on of my all-time favorites is airing: "Them!" Giant ants! Before we have Cowboys vs. Aliens, I've got the complete series of "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." cued up for the wife and I.

On the music front, I just discovered a new album by saxophonist James Carter. It's a Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra and a separate piece entitled Caribbean Rhapsody. I've heard segments on NPR Music and, boy, I have to tell you, you can feel the summer sun on your face when you hear this music.

Bookwise, I've got a few on the list. The new James Bond novel, Carte Blanche, by Jeffrey Deaver lands this month. Jeff Abbott, a fellow Texan who I discovered last year with Trust Me, is back with Adrenaline. Both Jeffs are visiting Houston's Murder by the Book this summer as is Megan Abbott and Duane Swierczynski for Noir Night 2011.

I know I'll discover more along the way. Last week, I stumbled on to my current history book, Dominic Sandbrook's Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right. And, as soon as my wife finishes it (it is her book after all), I'll read through Jeremy Wade's River Monsters book.

What are some of the books you are looking forward to this summer? Do you change your reading habits when you are more likely to visit a beach rather than the ski slopes?