L. A. Fires

A Chatsworth neighborhood is destroyed in the Clampitt Fire, which started Sept. 25, 1970

I didn't find any science fiction that appealed to me while I was at Powell's on Saturday, so I went across the aisle to the Mystery & Thriller section where I found three books by MacDonald:

• The Underground Man a 1971 novel by Ross Macdonald
• The Rasp from 1979 by Philip MacDonald
• A Flash of Green from 1962 by John D. MacDonald

I picked up all three. I've heard of Ross and John D. before, but Philip is new to me. We shall see how they pan out. No, they are not related. Ross is a pen name.

I started reading The Underground Man and like many of Ross MacDonald's books, is a story about Lew Archer, a private investigator in Los Angeles. And guess what's happening? The city is on fire. Huh.

Popular Killers

I consumed three murder mysteries this week. Avoiding me responsibilities, me was. Janet Evanovich's first one, if the title is to be believed, and two by the MacDonald twins, Ross & John. Seems to me that when I was in school I learned a rule about alphabetizing books by author that said names that started with Mc or Mac were all to be placed together, so when I was in Powell's the other day looking for these guys I looked under Mc and found nothing. I asked at the desk and they told me they were filed under Mac, never mind the rule. I poked around a bit in the Ether and found a whole lot of contradictory opinions about rules for alphabetizing, most of which are wrong.

One For The Money     by   Janet Evanovich, 1994, starring Stephanie Plum in New Jersey
The Lonely Silver Rain by John MacDonald, 1985, starring Travis McGee in Florida
The Blue Hammer      by    Ross MacDonald, 1976, starring Lew Archer in California

Janet's book got made into a movie recently, I haven't seen it. I have read a couple of her other books and they are great fun. I've read both of the MacDonald books before, but I wasn't sure until I came across a passage that I recognized. In John's book the part I recognized was a scene with a bungalow on the other side of a small wooden bridge across a canal. The part from Ross's book was about families and letters.

Verbatim

Slam The Big Door
by John D. MacDonald

I picked up a couple of books from the Detective Book Club at Post-Hip recently, and they have provided some enjoyable reading. They appear to be about 20 years old, and being book club books, the pages are turning yellow and feel fragile, but they aren't falling apart yet.

I am reading one story, Slam The Big Door by John D. McDonald, and I come across this line:

"He had always been able to remember dialogue, the special way people fit words together, so that in repetition it has the distinctive flavor of truth."

I have never been able to do that, or I have never been interested in trying to remember what people say. I attempt to extract the significance of what they are saying, and I can remember that, but the actual words vanish instantly.

This is a problem for me sometimes when I am trying to explain something to my wife. My explanation for some reason will be unsatisfactory, and she will ask me to tell her "what they said", which throws me for a total loop because I have no idea what was actually said.

P.S. John D. MacDonald was born two years before my dad, and died shortly after him.

A Flash of Green by John D. MacDonald

A Flash of Green by John D. MacDonald

Finally finished this book, and I have to say, it ended strangely. Jimmy Wing, local newspaper reporter, falls in with Elmo Bliss, local mover and shaker. Elmo is trying to put together a big land development deal and wants to Jimmy to nose around, find out what the opposition is up to, and maybe discourage them a bit. Things are all going along smoothly, but then we start getting some small annoyances, trash being dumped, harrassing phone calls, that sort of thing. And then there are couple of incidents where some thugs get rough with some people and one woman ends up in the hospital. Well, Jimmy doesn't cotton to this kind of thing, so he writes a story denouncing Elmo as a thug and grifter, but he can't get it published in the paper on account of everyone is lining up behind this big new development that is going to make everyone a bunch of money. So Jimmy beats up the publisher and kidnaps him and slides his story into the paper.

Jimmy loses his job, as he expected, but it has no effect on the project. It does make a bunch of people angry with him. So now he is deflated and he just lies around the house for a week or so. Everyone, including me, kind of expects him to pack up and move on, but he doesn't. Instead he starts going out to bars where Elmo's supporters congregate and denounces Elmo. As you might expect, he gets the snot beat out him and ends up in the hospital, not once but thrice. Finally Elmo comes to see him, he wonders what Jimmy thinks he's doing, what is he going to do, what is he thinking? Jimmy? Jimmy is going to be Elmo's life long enemy. He wants his job back at the paper, and he knows Elmo can arrange it, and here's the kicker -  Elmo does. The explanation makes a certain amount of sense, but just barely. It's just weird man.

Previous post about this book.

The Blue Hammer

by Ross MacDonald. I finished this book yesterday. There were a couple of memorable lines which I neglected to mark, but which went something like this: The members of some families should all live in different states and write letters to each other once a year. The members of some families should all live in different states and write letters to each other once a year and then tear them up.

I thought, yes, that is very true. I wonder if it applies to my family. I live with my wife and kids. The only other relatives who live in the area are my cousin and his family. My brothers, Aunts, Uncles and other cousins are scattered all over the 50 states, well, not Hawaii. I wonder why that is. Are we more disagreeable, or just more independent? Some families all stay in the same place. Why is that? Comfort? Family ties? Having a reliable sparring partner?








Update May 2012: Rereading this book and I come across the same passage, which I once again failed to mark. Looked it up on Google Books, which found it on page 187. Reading it there gave me enough context to find it in my paperback copy on page 194.

Update November 2015. Replaced missing picture.

War

Norm Macdonald - Scared of Germany
Fanatical Comedy

America and Israel attacked Iran, and Iran's response is to... attack everybody?
The Daily Show

Name of the Day

QUONSET, R.I. (May 17, 2014) A C-130 Hercules, affectionately known as "Fat Albert", assigned to the  U.S. Navy flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels, performs the C-130 Low Transition/Maximum Effort Climb during the Rhode Island National Guard Open House Air Show. The Blue Angels are scheduled to perform 68 demonstrations at 34 locations across the U.S. in 2014. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kathryn E. Macdonald/Released)

Quonset, Rhode Island?!?! I didn't know there was a town named Quonset. The only place I had heard the name used was Quonset Huts, which it turns out come from (are you ready?) Quonset R.I.

Books

Books I've read recently that were pretty good. The links go other places if you want to find out more about them. I have something to say about them, but my energy supply is a little low these days.
Flash at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser
The Secret Place by Tana French
The Heist by Daniel Silva

Previous posts about books by the same author(s)
Broken Harbor by Tana French
In the Woods by Tana French