Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane

Book Description
Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for help from the child's aunt led investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl—only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home.

Now Amanda is sixteen—and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Yet Amanda's aunt is once more knocking on Patrick Kenzie's door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, clever young woman—a woman who hasn't been seen in weeks.

Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most. Their search leads them into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, a mentally unstable crime boss and his equally demented wife, a priceless, thousand-year-old cross, and a happily homicidal Russian gangster. It's a world in which motives and allegiances constantly shift and mistakes are fatal.

In their desperate fight to confront the past and find Amanda McCready, Kenzie and Gennaro will be forced to question if it's possible to do the wrong thing and still be right or to do the right thing and still be wrong. As they face an evil that goes beyond broken families and broken dreams, they discover that the sins of yesterday don't always stay buried and the crimes of today could end their lives.

My thoughts
Moonlight Mile is a sequel of sorts of another book that involves Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. Although I haven’t read the first one, it doesn’t matter as this could well be a standalone since the author gives enough back story to understand the characters. Twelve years earlier Patrick is asked to locate missing four-year-old Amanda. He finds her and brings her back home. Now, she is gain missing and is asked to find her. Reluctant at first, but he does go looking for her. What he finds is the Russian mob, a identity theft ring, baby selling and a string of characters that take a toll on his already aging body. Lehane has written a novel that is character driven and a plot that keeps the reader wonder what is going on.

Disclosure: I borrowed this book from my local library.

The Monkees - The One Show - 2/21/11

I am all for nostalgia and loved the Monkees growing up, but they weren’t that great in 1986 (the last time I saw them). I can’t believe their touring again! What’s your thoughts?

I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson

Book Description
The new novel from the best-selling author of I Don’t Know How She Does It takes us on an unforgettable journey into first love, and—with the emotional intensity and penetrating wit that have made her beloved among readers all over the world—reminds us of how the ardor of our youth can ignite our adult lives.

Wales, 1974. Petra and Sharon, two thirteen-year-old girls, are obsessed with David Cassidy. His fan magazine is their Bible, and some days his letters are the only things that keep them going as they struggle through the humiliating daily rituals of adolescence—confronting their bewildering new bodies, fighting with mothers who don’t understand them at all. Together they tackle the Ultimate David Cassidy Quiz, a contest whose winners will be flown to America to meet Cassidy in person.

London, 1998. Petra is pushing forty, on the brink of divorce, and fighting with her own thirteen-year-old daughter when she discovers a dusty letter in her mother’s closet declaring her the winner of the contest she and Sharon had labored over with such hope and determination. More than twenty years later, twenty pounds heavier, bruised by grief and the disappointments of middle age, Petra reunites with Sharon for an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas to meet their teen idol at last, and finds her life utterly transformed.

Funny, moving, full of beautiful observations about the awakenings of both youth and middle age, Allison Pearson’s long-awaited new novel will speak across generations to mothers and daughters and women of all ages.

My thoughts
In 1974 Wales, Petra and Sharon are two fourteen year old girls obsessed with David Cassidy and want to attend his last performance in England. Bill is an aspiring journalist but works for a magazine entitled The Essential David Cassidy Magazine. When the magazine holds a contest for someone to visit David on the set of the Partridge family Petra and Sharon do their best to answer each questions correctly and it is one hard questionnaire. Petra’s bubble is burst when she sneaks off to the contest with friends where there is mass hysteria and one girl dies. Back at home, she is punished.

Twenty-four years later while cleaning the house of her recently deceased mother , Petra finds the letter from the magazine stating that she had won the contest. Although, the magazine and th publishing company no longer exists, she contacts the publishing company that bought out the old company and before she knows it (after being considered a kook), she is whisked off to the magazine to made up and soon to Las Vegas to finally meet David Cassidy. Recently, having been dumped by her husband, Petra needs something in her life.  And Bill is now the head of this publishing firm.  Funny how that is.

This is a story about the struggle of life, whether a teen or adult. It is never easy. I enjoyed the nostalgia first half because I remember David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman and the girls all going gaga over them. The second half of the novel when Petra is an adult losing love and finding it again makes it all the more romantic.

The actual interview with David Cassidy at the end of the novel was an added bonus.

Disclosure: I borrowed this book from my local library.

Tyler (The Secret Life of Cowboys) by C.H. Admirand

The book will be released on March 1, 2011

Book Description
Faced with a mountain of bills, rancher Tyler Garahan takes a night job with a lot of trepidation. But being a male performer at a strip club does come with at least one beautiful compensation-and feisty red-haired bookkeeper Emily Langley seems to understand Tyler even better than he understands himself...

My thoughts
Wanting to save the family ranch, Tyler takes a night job at a local club. The pay is better than he could get anywhere else, so Tyler becomes a male stripper. Before long he and the bookkeeper Emily take to one another. There is some friction with the local business committee who wants the club to join. Otherwise, it is your typical romance novel set in cowboy country.

Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.

The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard

Book Description
Americans have way too much Stuff, and way too much of it is toxic. That’s the message Annie Leonard has been spreading ever since her college days, and most recently in her short Internet film The Story of Stuff, which has been viewed by over 12 million people. But the film is only the tip of the iceberg.

This astonishing, inspiring book takes her message to an even higher level. In it she outlines the perils of overconsumption as she traces products back to their sources, through their life spans, and forward into their disposal. The Story of Stuff works on all levels as it brings together information on the environment, the economy, and cultures around the world.

With her trademark compassion, curiosity, and playfulness, Leonard gives firsthand accounts of sneaking into dumps and factories around the world; chronicles the lives of Haitian textile workers and Congolese kids working in deadly mines; shows how our health and well-being are compromised by neurotoxins in our pillows and lead in our children’s lunch boxes; and most important, tells us that this is not the way things have to be. She presents concrete steps for taking action that point the way toward saving our health, our communities, and the planet.

From high school kids to their parents in the suburbs, from government officials to people working in corporations, schools, and churches, The Story of Stuff is a life-changing book. Like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, it will transform the way you think and act.

My thoughts
Annie Leonard’s book The Story of Stuff is filled with facts and practical advice on how we can make this a better planet by recycling and managing our consumption of both natural and artificial goods. I believe in what she writes about and am a big fan of freecycling. But to get the rest of the planet to believe is going to b a difficult task. Many people find it easier to consume and throw away than recycle and reuse. One day it will be late. Such is the world of consumerism. Maybe the corporations should learn a thing or two.


Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.

When The Thrill Is Gone by Walter Mosley

This Book will be released March 8, 2011

Book Description
The economy has hit the private-investigator business hard, even for the detective designated as "a more than worthy successor to Philip Marlowe" (The Boston Globe) and "the perfect heir to Easy Rawlins" (Toronto Globe and Mail). Lately, Leonid McGill is getting job offers only from the criminals he's worked so hard to leave behind. Meanwhile, his life grows ever more complicated: his favorite stepson, Twill, drops out of school for mysteriously lucrative pursuits; his best friend, Gordo, is diagnosed with cancer and is living on Leonid's couch; his wife takes a new lover, infuriating the old one and endangering the McGill family; and Leonid's girlfriend, Aura, is back but intent on some serious conversations...

So how can he say no to the beautiful young woman who walks into his office with a stack of cash? She's an artist, she tells him, who's escaped from poverty via marriage to a rich collector who keeps her on a stipend. But she says she fears for her life, and needs Leonid's help. Though Leonid knows better than to believe every word, this isn't a job he can afford to turn away, even as he senses that-if his family's misadventures don't kill him first-sorting out the woman's crooked tale will bring him straight to death's door.

My thoughts
P.I. Leonid McGill takes on the case of a beautiful woman and artist who hands him a bundle of cash, saying she is afraid someone is trying to kill her. Soon he finds out she is not who she says she is and yet she still may have been murdered. He also takes on the case of locating a William Williams that no one has seen in over twenty years. Enough to keep him bust, there is still his private life having to deal with his stepson who has disappeared, his wife and girlfriend and his best friend. So much going on, yet Mosley gives an entertaining and mysterious tale that is colorful and descriptive. This is another one of those novels that I am glad to have been introduced to or otherwise would have missed. Mosley is a master of his craft.

Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.

Dave MacDowell “Scooby Hughes!”

acrylic on canvas

24 x 12 inches

Inspired by The Breakfast Club for "The Road to Shermer: A Tribute to John Hughes" at Gallery1988: Venice

My type of painting! You can check out Dave’s blog here.

Gallery 1998 has some unique and interesting exhibits. They also have three locations: Los Angeles, Venice and San Francisco. Too bad I live on the east coast or I go there all the time.

Three Seconds by Roslund & Hellström

Book Description
Dark, suspenseful, and more riveting than any thriller at the local cineplex, THREE SECONDS is the latest novel from best-selling Swedish duo Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström-heirs apparent to Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell as the masters of Scandinavian crime.

Piet Hoffman, a top secret operative for the Swedish police, is about to embark on his most dangerous assignment yet: after years spent infiltrating the Polish mafia, he's become a key player in their attempt to take over amphetamine distribution inside Sweden's prisons. To stop them from succeeding, he will have to go deep cover, posing as a prisoner inside the country's most notorious jail.

But when a botched drug deal involving Hoffman results in a murder, the investigation is assigned to the brilliant but haunted Detective Inspector Ewert Grens--a man who never gives up until he's cracked the case. Grens's determination to find the killer not only threatens to expose Hoffman's true identity-it may reveal even bigger crimes involving the highest levels of power. And there are people who will do anything to stop him from discovering the truth.

Winner of the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers' 2009 award for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, and a #1 best-seller there, THREE SECONDS captures a nefarious world of betrayal and violence, where a wise man trusts no one and even the most valuable agent can be “burned.”

My thoughts
This book is about the criminal underworld in Sweden and how the authorities try to place Piet Hoffman (an ex-criminal turned informant) deep undercover in the Polish Mafia. And once he’s there he’s on his own; hiding from one investigator who doesn’t know he is working for them. As with other foreign books that I have read, I had a difficult time with the translation but putting that aside, this novel starts slow but picks up quickly. The authors give a detailed description of the workings of both the Swedish police and the criminal element.

Disclosure: I received this book from my local library.

Revolution by Deb Olin Unferth

Book Description
Rising literary star Deb Olin Unferth offers a new twist on the coming-of-age memoir in this utterly unique and captivating story of the year she ran away from college with her Christian boyfriend and followed him to Nicaragua to join the Sandinistas.

Despite their earnest commitment to a myriad of revolutionary causes and to each other, the couple find themselves unwanted, unhelpful, and unprepared as they bop around Central America, looking for "revolution jobs." The year is 1987, a turning point in the Cold War. The East-West balance has begun to tip, although the world doesn't know it yet, especially not Unferth and her fiancé (he proposes on a roadside in El Salvador). The months wear on and cracks begin to form in their relationship: they get fired, they get sick, they run out of money, they grow disillusioned with the revolution and each other. But years later the trip remains fixed in her mind and she finally goes back to Nicaragua to try to make sense of it all. Unferth's heartbreaking and hilarious memoir perfectly captures the youthful search for meaning, and is an absorbing rumination on what happens to a country and its people after the revolution is over.

My thoughts
This memoir is about a young woman’s journey to find a revolution in Central America with her boyfriend. George and Deb are two lost young Americans who are looking for a war to help fight and maybe love along the way in 1987 Central American. The writing is witty and fast paced. This short book though is really about first love and why this one year in the life of the author seems to be haunting her some twenty years later.

Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.

Indefensible by Pamela Callow

Book Description
When Elise Vanderzell plummets from her bedroom balcony one gorgeous summer night, her children awaken to a nightmare.

Their mother is dead.

Their father is charged with her murder.

Lawyer Kate Lange knows all about nightmares. She's survived the darkest period of her troubled life and the wounds are still raw. Now she's been handed a case that seems utterly unwinnable: defending her boss, high-profile lawyer Randall Barrett. A prosecutor's dream suspect, Randall is a man who was cuckolded by his ex-wife. A man who could not control his temper. A man who had argued bitterly with the victim the previous day in full view of the children.

With limited criminal law experience, Kate finds herself enmeshed in a family fractured by doubt. Randall's teenage son is intent on killing him. His daughter wants only to feel safe again. And the entire legal community would like nothing better than to see Randall receive a public comeuppance. As Kate races to stay a step ahead of the prosecution, a silent predator is waiting for the perfect time to deal the final blow.

My thoughts
Kate Lange, an attorney is asked by her boss Randall Barrett to defend him when he is accused of murdering his ex-wife. And this is no simple case. Kate doesn’t say no to her boss when he asks her to watch his dog and she seems to get in the middle of it. Randall’s son Nick thinks his father killed his mother and tries to kill him, not once but twice. Thank goodness, that Kate was there to stop him the second time. Did Randall kill his wife or not? His partners, his mother and his daughter have their doubts. Although there are twists and turns and some suspense and lot of action, I wasn’t surprised by the outcome. Enjoyable story though.

Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.

Lips Unsealed: A Memoir by Belinda Carlisle

Book Description
The women of the iconic eighties band the Go-Go’s will always be remembered as they appeared on the back of their debut record: sunny, smiling, each soaking in her own private bubble bath with chocolates and champagne. The photo is a perfect tribute to the fun, irreverent brand of pop music that the Go-Go’s created, but it also conceals the trials and secret demons that the members of the group—and, in particular, its lead singer, Belinda Carlisle—struggled with on their rise to stardom.

Leaving her unstable childhood home at the age of eighteen, Belinda battled serious weight issues, having been teased for her pudginess throughout grade school, and grappled with her confusion about being deserted by her biological father as a child. This talented but misguided teen found solace in the punk rock world that so openly welcomed misfits—even though acceptance had its price.

Not long after forming, the Go-Go’s became queens of the L.A. punk scene—they sold out venues, attracted a fiercely loyal fan base, and outpartied almost every male band they toured with—and in the process kicked down the doors to the all-boys’ club of eighties rock and roll. With a chart-topping debut album, Belinda found herself launched to international superstardom—and with that fame came more access to A-list parties, and even more alcohol
and drugs to fuel Go-Go’s mania. Inevitably, Belinda began to self-destruct.

Lips Unsealed is filled with the wild stories that Belinda Carlisle fans are dying to hear—stories about the band’s crazy days on tour with acts like the Police and Madness and the fabulous parties and people to whom the Go-Go’s had exclusive access. But more than that, this candid memoir reveals the gritty flip side to the glitz, as Belinda shares her private struggles with abusive relationships, weight, and self-esteem, and a thirty-year battle with drug and alcohol addiction.

This spellbinding and shocking look at her rise, fall, and eventual rebirth as a wife, mother, and sober artist will leave you wistfully fantasizing about the eighties decadence she epitomized, but also cringing at the dark despair hidden behind her charming smile. One of the rare adventures through rock stardom told by a woman, Lips Unsealed is ultimately a love letter to music—to the members of the Go-Go’s, who’ve maintained lifelong friendships, and to the beloved husband and son who led Belinda to sobriety—and the story of a life that, though deeply flawed, was, and is still, fully lived.

My thoughts
Belinda Carlisle writes of her upbringing, life in school, life in the clubs of LA, the formation of the Go-Go’s and the life of a rock star. But what she constantly writes about is the heavy alcohol and drug abuse and her dependence on drugs throughout her life. Although, it was know that she did drugs while with band, I didn’t know that was still doing it up until five years ago. This book is a swift look into her life and her struggles and loses while doing drugs. She writes honestly and I learned a little about the life she led.

Disclosure: I received this book through www.paperbackswap.com