Treasure of the Rubbermaids 23: Rival Companies United!
The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containerTreasure of the Rubbermaids 23: Rival Companies United!
The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.
The Coca-Cola Company doesn’t have to worry about trying to come up with a crossover concept to Pepsi to make fans happy. Ford and Toyota don’t have to design a new car together.
But Marvel and DC both manufacture stories about superheroes which means that any kid who ever picked up a comic book wondered what would happen if Marvel Hero A met DC Hero 1, and since both these companies generally would murder their own stockholders to make a buck, they’ve put these crossovers together every now and then. The problem is that’s when the lawyers get involved, and you can almost see the contractual language in the dialogue balloons that guarantees that one hero isn’t going to win a fight between them or that one will be allowed to outshine the other.*
That’s what you get here when Doctor Doom cooks up a pretty ambitious scheme to take over the world that involves freeing the Parasite. Superman and Spider-Man end up working together to stop the threat with guest appearances from the Hulk and Wonder Woman (Who both feel kind of shoehorned in her for no real reason.).
This is all early ‘80s comic book cheese without even a nodding acquaintance to reality in it’s twists and turns, but it’s not horrible as these things go. There’s actually a few nice bits like the always turgid Doctor Doom saying that all his monologuing is recorded and that he reads his own transcripts at night looking for inspiration. Which just seems like the kind of thing that Doc Doom would do. Or Spider-Man feeling useless for a chunk of the book because what’s climbing some walls when compared to the Man of Steel? While that power imbalance prevents Supes and Spidey from having one of those Heroes-Meet-And-Have-To-Fight-For-Reasons things, there are a couple of battles between the Hulk and Superman and Wonder Woman and Spider-Man which of course both end without a clear winner.
The real oddness and what feels like a missed opportunity is that Clark Kent and Peter Parker don’t meet. While Superman and Spider-Man are on a completely different power scale and don‘t really have all that much to say to each other, I could see Clark and Peter having some things in common.** But for some reason the plot has Clark moving to New York and going to work for The Daily Bugle just as Peter goes to Metropolis and ends up free lancing at The Daily Planet. So they both interact with each other’s supporting cast, but never meet face to face. It’s a weird decision that makes the story kind of unsatisfying as far as fulfilling fan boy wishes.
* DC and Marvel would let their heroes engage in combat with winners and losers in the mid-90s as part of a crossover done as a desperation move when the comic industry was swirling the toilet bowl after the artificial collector’s bubble they created burst. Let‘s just all keep pretending that it never happened. Amalgam Comics? What‘s that?
** I guess this is the second crossover between Superman and Spider-Man, and the first one is even referenced here, but the impression is given that Clark and Peter didn’t meet in that one either....more
The thing I love best about Kurt Vonnegut is that he was both the ultimate cynic and the ultimate humanist. What better character for him to create toThe thing I love best about Kurt Vonnegut is that he was both the ultimate cynic and the ultimate humanist. What better character for him to create to embody those views than a Nazi with good intentions?
Howard W. Campbell Jr. was an American citizen who grew up in Germany and became a prominent Nazi thanks to his virulent anti-Semitic propaganda. However, Howard had actually been recruited before the war began to be an American spy who provided vital intelligence to the Allies via codes hidden in his frequent radio broadcasts. Years after the war has ended, Howard recounts the story as he is being held in Israel awaiting trial for war crimes. As he explains what happened before, during and after the war Howard repeatedly touches on the unasked question that haunts his life: Does pretending to be evil in the service of a good cause still make you evil?
I had always felt alone in thinking that his was actually Vonnegut’s best book so I was happy to be validated by the comments of several other Goodreaders sharing the same thought.
Vonnegut’s gift was looking at the world with clear gaze and acknowledging that people were pretty much shit, but still having enough compassion and empathy to look for moments of dignity. He did it with that that unique bittersweet sense of humor that allowed him to write about the horrors of something like the Holocaust and give it a tone of a very wise man shaking his head with a bitter chuckle at a dark, sick joke....more
I would like to have been in the room when Guy Gavriel Kay pitched this story to his publishers:
“It’s a historical fantasy novel based on the ByzantiI would like to have been in the room when Guy Gavriel Kay pitched this story to his publishers:
“It’s a historical fantasy novel based on the Byzantine Empire and the works of W.B. Yeats. The main character is an artist caught up in political schemes during a tumultuous time.”
“Uh….The Byzantine Empire and poems? And the hero isn’t any kind of an archer or a sorcerer? Some kind of bad ass like we usually see in these books?”
“No, he’s just a mosaicist. That’s a guy who glues bits of colored glass or tiles to walls or ceiling to create images.”
“Uh….that’s great, Guy. Why don’t you go write that up and maybe we’ll take a look at it right after we get through this pile of manuscripts featuring groups of swordsman, thieves, elves and magicians on heroic quests as they battle orcs and goblins.”
Set in the same world as The Lions of Al Rassan but several centuries earlier, Caius Crispus a/k/a Crispin is a talented mosaicist with a fiery temper who is still mourning the family he lost to plague. An Imperial Courier arrives bearing a summons from the emperor for his partner Martinian to come to the capital, Sarantium. Martinian claims that he’s too old to travel and insists that Crispin take his place instead. Crispin is reluctantly pushed into making the hazardous road journey, and soon finds himself being used as a pawn by powerful people.
Wait a second. If he travels by land rather than sea than why is the book called Sailing to Sarantium? Kay explains it like this:
"To say of a man that he was sailing to Sarantium was to say that his life was on the cusp of change: poised for emergent greatness, brilliance, fortune--or else at the very precipice of a final and absolute fall as he met something too vast for his capacity."
Ah, so that explains it…
This is the first book of Kay’s two-part Sarantine Mosaic, and as with the other one I recently read by him, The Lions of Al Rassan, he does a masterful job of building an intricate world full of political and religious conflicts as well as enough day-in-the-life details to make it all feel authentic and realistic. Having his lead character be a smart artist with a tendency of speaking his mind and putting him into the middle of a palace intrigue plot when he’s in over his head made for some interesting scenes that are different that the usual kind of hack-n-slash stuff you’d expect to be driving a story like this. There is just enough action and violence to make it feel dangerous and not just a bunch of people standing around talking, and Crispin’s journey as a way to get over his grief is a nice personal hook.
A couple of points kept this from getting to four stars. One of the things that set The Lions of Al Rassan apart from other fantasies was its lack of any kind of magic or supernatural elements other than one supporting character having some very limited telepathy and precognition. Here there is a full-blown alchemist who has created something that he gives to Crispin as a gift, and then there’s an encounter with a pagan entity. I was far more interested in Crispin navigating the political and religious mine fields of dealing with the Emperor’s court than any of these elements. (Obviously this was a personal preference, and I’m sure some readers will feel the exact opposite.)
Also, there are several strong female characters in positions of power here, and that’s to the book’s credit. However, after the third or four time that Crispin finds himself in the presence of one of these women and finds himself flabbergasted by their intellect and beauty, the conversations took on a rinse-and-repeat flavor. Essentially they have so much in common that they start feeling like the same character and that’s too bad because the first couple of interactions really worked well.
All in all I liked this but didn’t love it. I’d read it before but remembered little of the plot, and I can’t remember how it ends in the next book either so it obviously didn’t blow my mind. I’ll probably move on to Lord of Emperors again at some point, but I’m not in any great hurry....more
Treasure of the Rubbermaids 21: The Great Dixie Machine Gun Time-Mowing Adventure Crossover!
At long last! Because I need a gimmick to drum up some votTreasure of the Rubbermaids 21: The Great Dixie Machine Gun Time-Mowing Adventure Crossover!
At long last! Because I need a gimmick to drum up some votes to keep Patrick Rothfuss from passing me on the all time reviewer’s list the people of Goodreads demanded it, I proudly present the first crossover of two of my most popular features: The Treasure of the Rubbermaids and The Time-Mower Adventures!
The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.
1859 - Richmond, Virgina
“Hey, you just appeared out of thin air. You must be a time-traveler.”
“Yeah, after my laptop fused with my lawn mower by a freak lightning strike, I can use it to move through time. My name’s Kemper, and I’m from 2014. And since you immediately knew what was going on, I’m guessing that you’re a member of the club?”
“That’s right. I’m Sergeant Troy Harmon of the US Army. I’m from 1983. I‘m here on a mission that‘s vital to the future of America.”
“I’m just dicking around myself. So what’s the problem, Sergeant?”
“In ’83 I was brought in to a small secret government group that watchdogs classified projects. They were concerned that that a colonel named McCulloch in charge of the security of one of these operations started exhibiting odd behavior. He was buying large amounts of gold. When I interviewed him, he exhibited angry racist tendencies and was extremely uncooperative. Then he vanished suddenly after committing several criminal acts, and I learned that he had also stolen blueprints for an easily manufactured machine gun from the government archives.”
“Oh, shit! That crazy bastard was going to come back and give machine guns to the South in the Civil War!”
“Wow…. You figured that out remarkably fast. It took me a lot longer.”
“Really? I thought you when you put racist, time travel, machine guns and gold together it’s pretty obvious. But since the Union still won the war, and I never heard about any Confederate machine guns, it must never have happened, right?”
“That’s what we thought initially, too. One of the scientists working there told me that it could be that McCulloch started an alternate time line, but I wondered if the reason he failed was because I came back and prevented it. Plus, I hated the idea of his plan succeeding even if it was in a parallel universe. So I volunteered to come back and stop him.”
“You volunteered? Uh…Sergeant, forgive me for stating the obvious, but you’re African-American.”
“I’m not familiar with that term.”
“Oh, right. 1983... What I mean is that you’re black.”
“I am.”
“And you volunteered to come back in time when slavery was still legal and American society was incredibly racist?”
“I did.”
“Well, Sergeant, I gotta give you credit. That’s a brave thing you did.”
“Thank you. I admit that I have a few regrets about leaving 1983 forever.”
“You can’t go back?”
“No, our time travel method is one way…. Uh, that time-mower of yours, you can use it to go back to the future?”
“Yep. Once you settle McCullouch’s hash, do you want a ride?”
“Yes, please. This time sucks ass.”
*****
This particular Rubbermaid treasure is the result of Jeff's review of The Guns of the South which sounded incredibly familiar to me with it’s story of a time traveling racist giving machine guns to the Confederates in the Civil War, but I didn’t think I’d ever read any Harry Turtledove books. A little digging in the basement unearthed this paperback which I'd almost completely forgotten about, and I see that it was released almost a decade earlier than The Guns of the South. I don’t know what the story is there, so I won’t say that Turtledove completely LaBeoufed his book, but the plots sound more than a little similar.
This isn’t bad as far as time travel stories go. It’s fast paced with a light breezy style that doesn’t get too bogged down in any timey-wimey aspects. However, there’s a frustration to reading it that may not be entirely the author’s fault.
My copy of this has a picture of a Confederate soldier holding a machine gun on the cover along with the picture of a man in a modern suit with a Confederate flag as the background and the tag line “The South Will Rise” under the title. On the back, there’s a drawing of Robert E. Lee along with the schematic of a machine gun with this little blurb that asks what if the North could still lose the Civil War.
Then you start reading it, and there’s this racist colonel hoarding gold while working on a top secret project. Then he murders some people and vanishes when he realizes he’s being investigated. Troy Harmon learns about the time travel and the machine gun plans, and yet he still doesn’t figure out that he’s gone back in time until halfway through the book.
So any reader probably knows where this was going the entire time, but the first half of the book plays out like it’s a giant mystery. Anyone hoping for extensive action in the past will probably be disappointed because all of the 1859 stuff happens after that. The whole thing ends up feeling pretty lightweight and thin.
Maybe Harry Harrison intended for the book to start out as a modern mystery that took a sci-fi turn but the marketing gave it away. The book might play better if you didn't know what was coming. But when you’ve got Robert E. Lee and Confederate soldiers with machine guns on the cover, it feels like a huge let down when you don’t get more of that. ...more
If Quentin Coldwater stumbled on a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, he’d constantly complain about how heavy it was and how the coins didn’t fit iIf Quentin Coldwater stumbled on a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, he’d constantly complain about how heavy it was and how the coins didn’t fit in any vending machines and why couldn't they have just put the money into a nice cashier's check that he could have fit neatly in his wallet and then deposited in the bank?
In the first book, Quentin was a brilliant but disillusioned teenager who found life a boring slog and desperately wished that things were more like his favorite fantasy series set in a magical land called Fillory. (Think Narnia.) Quentin seemingly hit the fantasy geek jackpot when he learned that magic was real, and he was admitted to an exclusive school called Brakebills that trained magicians. Yet he constantly found himself disappointed that he never achieved his idea of true happiness even after graduating. When a classmate discovered that Fillory was real and a path to it, Quentin seized on the notion that going to Fillory was the only way he’d ever finally be complete. Unfortunately, Quentin learned the hard way that there‘s a big difference between reading about adventures and actually finding yourself in magical battle where various beasties are trying to kill you.
The Magician King picks up several years after that. Quentin is now one of the kings of Fillory and lives a life of ease and luxury with his friends. Of course, Quentin is never satisfied with a bird in the hand even when he’s relatively content, and he volunteers to go on a diplomatic mission to an island so he can seek the two birds he just knows are out there in the bush. His desire for a ’real’ adventure leads to him returning to Earth and finding that his wish for a high stakes quest have just come true. It’s much more than he bargained for and the consequences are enormous.
I loved The Magicians with it’s unique twist of what it’d be like if there were magic in the real world, but it seemed like a love-it or hate-it book with my friends here on Goodreads. And I totally understood why some readers could not stand Quentin at all. Here’s a guy who catches the biggest break in nerd history and yet he’s never satisfied and grateful for the opportunity he has.
In all honesty, I was starting to hate him pretty good through the first half of this book myself. It seemed like Quentin had forgotten everything he’d suffered and learned in the first book, and he was once again an obsessed nerd who is convinced that he’d be happy if he could live like he’s in a fantasy novel. However, that changes about halfway through with several big plot developments that I won’t spoil, but by the end of this one, I completely dropped my earlier reservations.
It also helped that Grossman is obviously writing Quentin to be an obsessed pain in the ass early on, and that he has several characters call him out on it. There’s a particularly nice bit where Quentin has traveled to Europe on Earth, and he has a moment of clarity where he realizes that he wrote off the real world when he’d seen almost none of it.
One of the things I also loved about this one in is the backstory of Julia, a former high school classmate’s of Quentin’s who had failed the Brakebills entrance exam, but went on to find another way to learn magic. If they were musicians, it’d be like Quentin went to study at Juilliard, but Julia learned in garage bands and punk clubs.
I can’t mention the stuff that occurs towards the end that made this book so cool to me and left me stunned by it’s conclusion. If you didn’t like The Magicians, this probably won’t change your mind. However, if you did like the first one, you’ll probably enjoy this book, especially it’s moving and incredibly dark third act.
Originally read Aug. 2011 Re-read Aug. 2014...more
Captain America and SHIELD struggle to stop a string of terror attacks that are part of a larger plan, and the architect of it has a very old grudge aCaptain America and SHIELD struggle to stop a string of terror attacks that are part of a larger plan, and the architect of it has a very old grudge as well as a devastating personal card to play against Cap.
I noted when reviewing Vol. 1 that the secret of the Winter Soldier has been out there for some time. I’ve written about him in several of my own reviews for Brubaker’s run of Captain America as well as the Winter Soldier’s own book. But the movie comes out next week and for once Hollywood hasn’t given away the whole story in the trailers so I’ll play along and keep my mouth shut too.
Suffice it to say that his is one of my favorite superhero stories I’ve read in recent years, and the events in it would have long standing consequences for Cap.
(view spoiler)[On the surface bringing Bucky Barnes back seems like the kind of stunt that has pretty much made death in mainstream comics a joke. But the idea that he was recovered, revived, brainwashed and used by a Soviet enemy as a way of flipping a covert bird to Captain America proved to be a genuine story and not just a way to pull a character out of the grave. It’s a concept that opened up a lot of possibilities between Bucky and Cap, and Brubaker did a superior job of making the whole idea of Bucky as the Winter Soldier a tragedy that he feels the need to atone for. (hide spoiler)]...more
Actually, I’m not sure how much of this one will be in the upcoming movie becauComing soon to a theater near you… Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Actually, I’m not sure how much of this one will be in the upcoming movie because it mainly sets the stage for what happens next. When I read it originally I gave it three stars, but looking back now you can see how much Ed Brubaker accomplished in arranging all the pieces to start his run of writing Cap. Considering that it was one of the longest and most satisfying eras of a mainstream superhero I’ve seen in some time, I’ve gone ahead and bumped this up a star.
Cap has long been the wise old man of the Marvel Universe, the guy that all the other superheroes respect and admire, but Brubaker wisely took the opportunity in his solo book to measure the weight that Steve Rogers carries around as not just a hero, but as a symbol.
This one starts with Cap reeling after the events of Avengers: Disassembled. When the Red Skull launches a new plot involving a damaged cosmic cube, it looks like Brubaker is going to follow some of the classic Cap story patterns. But things soon take a surprising turn that will find Steve confronting elements of his past and shocking revelations that will have a profound impact on his future. (view spoiler)[I was especially impressed on this second reading how it looks like the Red Skull will be the main villain but then he is killed by the Winter Soldier just as he’s getting ready to launch his scheme. Or at least as ‘killed’ as any major player ever is in mainstream comics.. (hide spoiler)]
As I stated before, this one is mainly set-up so don’t expect to get the whole story, you’ll have to turn to the second volume to find out how this ends. (Actually, you’ll probably have to read the whole Brubaker run if you want to get the whole story.) The entire Winter Soldier saga ends up being a critical part of the Captain America mythos, and it’s one of my favorite superhero comic stories.
One note about the movie version. The ultimate revelation about the Winter Soldier has been common knowledge to Marvel fans for years now. Hell, he has his own comic book these days. However, the movie marketing has done a surprisingly good job of not spoiling that so that people interested in seeing the film who aren’t familiar with the story or only know the film version of Cap might want to avoid reading the comics or reading reviews until after they’ve seen the movie....more
As I’ve previously stated, I firmly believe that anyone who hasn’t already completed the entire run of Preacher should NOT be reading any reviews or sAs I’ve previously stated, I firmly believe that anyone who hasn’t already completed the entire run of Preacher should NOT be reading any reviews or summaries of these later volumes. All I can safely say is that this is an interlude before the final volume in which nothing big seems to happen, but it’s critical for setting the stage of the ending. Also, if you ever find yourself performing oral sex in an alley in exchange for heroin, you might want to take a second look at your life choices.
If you have read it already or just like to live dangerously: (view spoiler)[ The main thing striking me as I reread this for like the third time is how much worse Cassidy seems. What he did to Tulip in the guise of ‘helping her’ after Jesse’s apparent death just comes across as sicker and more twisted every time as does the history that Jesse finds when he goes looking into Cassidy’s past.
Ennis did a masterful job of showing us almost from the beginning that despite seeming like a friend Jesse could count on that he really was a vampire in the truest sense. He charms and seems to offer loyalty when in reality he’s a monster who sucks every good thing from the lives of those he gets closest too. And what’s really interesting is that Cassidy doesn’t even think of it like that. He rationalized his treatment of Tulip as doing what was best for her and even when he’s previously confessed some sin to Jesse, it’s always been framed as some kind of boys-will-be-boys misadventure.
Conversely, the more times I go through this, the less patience I have for the Arseface storyline. It was crudely hilarious the first time through with moments of poignancy, but the joke has gotten stale by now. (hide spoiler)]
Anyone who has not read the entire Preacher series but thinks that they might someday should heed this warning: Do NOT read this or any other review aAnyone who has not read the entire Preacher series but thinks that they might someday should heed this warning: Do NOT read this or any other review and/or summary for any of the volumes after War in the Sun. Even the best attempts to prevent spoilers will give away too much just by telling you the set up and this is one of those things that the less you know the better.
All I can safely say is that that this volume briefly turned me into a vegetarian after reading.
For those of you who have read it or just don’t care: (view spoiler)[Even though this is story about a quest to find God that contains a vast international religious conspiracy as well as vampires, at its heart Preacher really is a western. Only a cowboy would have the sheer redneck gumption to set out for a reckoning with the Almighty.
So it makes perfect sense that when Jesse is reeling after losing an eye and seemingly betrayed by the two people he cares for most that his idea of a break would be taking on the job of a sheriff in a small Texas town being oppressed by a rich man. And since this is a Garth Ennis story there’s also Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and a guy having sex with a pile of meat...
I especially love the ultimate reveal of what happened to Jesse after he fell out of the plane at Monument Valley. God shows himself again and tries to play the kindly creator, but Jesse is having none of it and literally spits in his face. It costs him an eye, but damn is it a ballsy move.
My only complaint is that I never really bought the idea that he found his presumed dead mother. It was nice seeing Jesse recover a bit of happiness from his supremely messed up childhood, but it felt a little too coincidental and neat. (hide spoiler)] ...more
If I scored my nerd tendencies I’d fall much closer on the scale to comic books and Star Trek than to Lord of the Rings and other swords-n-sorcery kinIf I scored my nerd tendencies I’d fall much closer on the scale to comic books and Star Trek than to Lord of the Rings and other swords-n-sorcery kind of fantasy which is weird because I do enjoy the kind of world building and political intrigue that is often a big part of the genre.
My hesitation about reading more of this kind of stuff is due in no small part to how it seems like common practice for fantasy authors of turning those stories into multi-book epics, but then stalling out in the middle of a series and leaving fans hanging for years while they work on other projects. That’s why I watch Game of Thrones but will not read GRRM’s books until he finishes what he started. Years of frustration waiting during Stephen King’s glacial pace on Dark Tower left me a broken and bitter shell of a man who refuses to put up with that nonsense ever again.*
*Any rabid fan boy comments trying to shout me down for daring to offer a criticism that could be applied to their particular lord and master will be deleted. Life’s too short.
I haven’t read all of Guy Gavriel Kay’s work, but not only does he do the kind of intrigue I enjoy, one of the big selling points to me is that the guy finishes a story. He says he’s writing a fantasy trilogy? BOOM! There’s The Fionavar Tapestry. All three books were published from 1984 to 1986. He’s doing a two-parter called The Sarantine Mosaic? BAM! Started in 1998 and finished in 2000. Sorry that the second one wasn’t out in ’99. He’s creating a historical fantasy based on Moorish Spain that requires elaborate world building involving political and religious intrigue? Easy. The Lions of Al-Rassan. One and done. You’re welcome.
This fictional land has three religions with a bloody history, but an era of uneasy peace is in place among various factions split among them. The Asharites worship the stars and their prophet Ashar while their northern neighbors the Jaddites believe in a sun god. The Kindath worship the two moons, but they have no land or power of their own and exist in both territories as second class citizens who are routinely discriminated against. Prominent people in both the Asharite and Jaddite religions often find it a convenient distraction to blame the Kindath for any problems going on and let their citizens take out their frustrations on them rather than the actual leaders.
A female Kindath physician named Jehane bet Ishak has a very long and eventful day in which she meets two legendary men. Ammar ibn Khairan is an Asharite warrior and poet who is famous for having murdered the last caliph which turned formerly united Al-Rassan into independent city states. Rodrigo Belmonte is a Jaddite who leads a lethal company of horseman charged with keeping the peace and protecting the border cities who pay protection to his king.
A series of events begin to change the political landscape of Al-Rassan and ambitious leaders begin plotting while the dour clerics of Jad try to promote a holy war and some of the fanatical desert Asharites see opportunities to sweep away the decadence they believe has infiltrated their society. Rodrigo, Ammar and Jehane wind up in the same city and forge a bond despite their differences, but they soon find that it’s hard to be loyal to your friends when duty comes calling.
Kay does a superior job of laying out all the complex political and religious alliances so that you have a clear understanding but aren’t overwhelmed by it. His religions are obviously based on the Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths, and he mines the history of them to make a lot of points about bigotry, hypocrisy and the use of faith to manipulate people. It’s also an exciting tale featuring all kinds of hacking and slashing in tense action scenes. I also liked that this has a lot of the trappings of a fantasy novel and a fictional world, but there’s no magical or supernatural elements other than one character having some very limited telepathic and precognitive abilities.
The best thing is the relationship between the three main characters. Rodrigo and Ammar are done as the kind of bigger-than-life people that emerge during times of great historical conflict whose actions have huge consequences, but he never makes them seem outrageously heroic or unrealistic. Jehane is as strong and independent female character as you can reasonably have in a story set in a society where guys with swords are still in charge. Her being one of the Kindath could have made her seem like a likely candidate to be victimized, but instead, Kay uses her as the voice of sanity caught in the middle of events completely outside of her control.
It’s not perfect though. Kay gets a little too cute sometimes in drawing out suspense like withholding the names of characters who have been killed and trying to fake the reader out. Also, while I’ve praised this as being a single self-contained story, most of the book is spent setting up a conflict that plays out in an incredibly rushed final act in which we see almost none of the action and learn about the deaths of important supporting characters as single lines reporting larger events. I suspect that Kay wanted to keep his focus on his three main players and that the point of the book was the impact on them, not so much a blow-by-blow account of it happening. However, he went to a lot of effort to suck a reader into this world so it seems odd that he was in such a hurry to finish it up.
Still, it’s a highly entertaining and engrossing read that combines the best of fantasy world building with historical fiction....more
"When the going gets tough, try to unload it on that fuckin' Flowers."
This philosophy is put into practice when several men are murdered and the bodie"When the going gets tough, try to unload it on that fuckin' Flowers."
This philosophy is put into practice when several men are murdered and the bodies are left prominently displayed on various veteran’s memorials with lemons in their mouths. With Minneapolis about to host the Republican National Convention it’s a bad time for a bloody murder spree. Since Lucas Davenport is wrapped up with all the convention planning he puts his man Virgil Flowers on the case. Virgil finds connections that indicate the killings are linked to Vietnam veterans, but bodies keep dropping.
I liked but didn’t love the first three Virgil spin-offs from the Prey series when I originally read them, but this one gets a big boost from a reread of it. There was a lot more action than I remembered, and Virgil’s laid back manner is severely tested in interesting ways by the increasing pressure to solve the crimes. I particularly liked how seeing Davenport in his role as Virgil’s boss makes him seem like more of a bastard than usual.
The ending brings about some unexpected twists, and there was a lot more of the tense action and sense of momentum that Sandford is so good at delivering. All in all this another remarkably solid thriller that adds a lot to the on-going adventures of Flowers....more
Even a super cop like Lucas Davenport can’t solve every murder in Minnesota so John Sandford helped him out by doing this spin-off to the Prey series.Even a super cop like Lucas Davenport can’t solve every murder in Minnesota so John Sandford helped him out by doing this spin-off to the Prey series.
Virgil Flowers is not your typical law enforcement officer. He has a thriving side career as an outdoor writer for hunting and fishing magazines, he frequently tows his boat around the state as he works his cases, and he usually forgets his gun under the seat of his truck. He also has a taste for rock band t-shirts and enough charm with the ladies to leave him with a string of ex-wives. Brought into the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension by Davenport with the promise that he’d only be given the most challenging cases, Virgil’s laid back manner masks a shrewdly perceptive detective.
Dispatched to the small town of Bluestem to investigate the murder of one elderly couple, Virgil arrives in time to witness a raging house fire that has claimed the life of the richest and most hated man in the area. Virgil suspects that someone with a very old grudge is settling up as he works through a maze of gossip and secrets. He’s also got to keep an eye on the sheriff who had enough reason to kill the rich guy to make him a valid suspect, but that doesn’t stop Virgil from romancing the guy’s sister. Hey, there’s a reason most everyone refers to him as ‘that fucking Flowers’…
If a writer with a successful series is going to spin it off then they have to hit the tricky balance of being similar enough to have the elements readers liked in the first place but also with something slightly different to offer. Here at the beginning of the Virgil Flowers books, Sandford mostly pulls this off with the kind of story that should appeal to most Prey fans, but making Virgil different enough from Davenport not to just feel like a clone.
Both characters are deft manipulators of people, but Virgil’s form is slyer than the Davenport’s. Flowers also tends to be more reflective about the whole good and evil thing than Lucas ever has been. While Virgil can be tough and cool under pressure he isn’t as comfortable with violence as Davenport is, and he doesn’t shake it off as easily. Davenport even tells Virgil at one point that he worries about him because he’s too sensitive at times.
Even though Sandford mainly succeeded at launching this new series, the first three Virgil books seemed a little lacking to me. There’s nothing I can put my finger on other than maybe that Sandford used various co-writers to help plot these books, and maybe that subtly threw him out of sync. And while I liked Virgil as a character immediately, there was a feeling that some of his character traits were bits tossed in just to differentiate him from Davenport. However, by the time he did Bad Blood, Sandford seemed to have worked out whatever kinks there were, and I’ve found the books after that the equal of most of the Prey series.
Overall this is an enjoyable crime thriller with an interesting lead character and some good action scenes, and eventually the series clicked up to the level I’ve come to expect from Sandford....more
”The only really important thing that I came in to tell you was that life is very monotonous. Things happen the same way over and over again. I think ”The only really important thing that I came in to tell you was that life is very monotonous. Things happen the same way over and over again. I think it’s more monotonous in this part of the country than it is other places, but I don’t really know that – it may be monotonous everywhere. I’m sick of it myself. Everything gets old if you do it often enough.”
Set during the early 1950s in the small Texas town of Thalia, the story revolves around Sonny, an independent high school senior who plays football, hangs out at the pool hall and goes to the movies at the town’s only theater. Sonny’s best friend Duane is dating Jacy, the local rich girl, and Sonny harbors his own secret and guilty crush on her. As their last year of school plays out, Sonny is often disinterested and bored with the predictable routines of the people he’s known his whole life, but he begins to learn that many of them have depths he never suspected.
McMurtry does an excellent job of immersing the reader in the kind of ennui that can come with living in a small town where it seems that nothing ever happens, and the occasional shocking event is smoothed over by the soothing blanket of the mundane. Even the smarter characters like Jacy’s mother Lois and Sam, the owner of the pool hall, seem to have piled up the weight of their regrets to the point where they are unable to break free of the lack of inertia that keeps them all rooted in Thalia.
This is a terrific short novel and one of my favorite McMurtry’s. However, this reread has presented me with a dilemma. I’ve read the sequel Texasville before, but it’s been a while and I think I generally liked it. I didn’t realize that there are three more books after that. I’m tempted to read them all, but McMurtry has burned me before with the sub-par sequels and prequels to the excellent Lonesome Dove. I'm on the fence as to whether I should give them a chance or not....more
In the early ‘80s a group of Irish terrorists seize St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take hostages during New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. It’s hard toIn the early ‘80s a group of Irish terrorists seize St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take hostages during New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. It’s hard to believe that this never got adapted into a movie starring Bruce Willis.
Maybe it’s because this isn’t the story of a single action hero trapped with a group of bad guys. In fact, this is more like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three than Die Hard with its depiction of how political agendas and public relations creep into a hostage situation. It seems like this early novel of DeMille’s was influenced by the gritty ‘70s New York crime films as well as the terrorist attacks of the time, and so it plays out differently than you’d expect in this era where we expect these stories to center on the lone bad ass stuck in a situation with a group of enemies.
Reading a book about terrorism in America written before 9/11 also makes you realize how the times have changed. It’s kind of hard to believe these days, but there was a time when many Americans had a certain amount of sympathy for the IRA and were one of the chief sources of their funding. While the book does feature the idea the terrorists are unknowingly playing into the hands of a British intelligence officer who is trying to discredit the IRA with America (Which makes this yet another fictional story about a terrorist plot that is some type of false flag operation.), it’s somewhat eerily prophetic in that it was a large scale terrorist attack in the US that generally did sour the public on supporting the IRA.
DeMille fans should recognize some early versions of characters. Patrick Burke is the NYPD intelligence cop with enough common sense and decency to be the hero of the story, and you can see the DNA of other DeMille main characters like John Corey and Paul Brenner in him. The slimy Major Martin is the kind of arrogant double-dealing prick that DeMille usually creates as spies in his books.
Probably the best character is IRA veteran John Hickey who uses Irish charm and bullshit to cover a nature of pure evil. Hickey is a devil delighting in the desecration of a holy place even as plays the good Catholic. He likes to crack jokes and sing Irish folk songs while quietly doing everything he can to make sure that things end with the maximum body count.
Unfortunately one of the weaker characters is Brian Flynn, the leader of the terrorists. Flynn is conflicted because the woman he loves, Maureen, left the IRA to try for a diplomatic peace with the British, and she’s one of the hostages he’s taken. However, while trying to make him somewhat sympathetic, DeMille creates a muddle around the character in which his true motivations get lost throughout the story. You can’t really tell what he actually wants by the end, and there’s no correlation between what he does and what he says.
There are also some real story issues. (view spoiler)[In the early stages, it’s stated that Martin got Flynn to mount the attack after capturing him as part of his plan to turn America against the IRA, but Flynn double-crossed him by doing something much larger than he was supposed to. Yet by the ending this has shifted to the idea that Martin had planned every detail to the point of being able to stroll into St. Pat’s, take care of his inside man and then get into position to watch the bombs go off. So why would Flynn, or even Hickey who hated the British, go along with this plan if they knew they were doing exactly what Martin wanted? And once Burke warned all the officials that Martin was working against them, why would they bring him back in and listen to his advice? (hide spoiler)]
Still, this is an above average thriller in which DeMille actually took the time to lay out the underlying issues of the larger problems rather than just painting most of the terrorists as generic bad guys, but he still keeps to a larger perspective that these are still criminals and murderers despite any claims of noble causes. While creating a believable scenario in which politics play a large part, he also delivers some great action although it does seem to take too long to finally get to the final showdown. It’s not his best work, but it’s an early indicator of what he’d do later when he was really on his game. ...more
(This is one of those books that’s a little tricky to review because I have to give up a fair amount of plot to discuss what I found so ridiculous ab (This is one of those books that’s a little tricky to review because I have to give up a fair amount of plot to discuss what I found so ridiculous about it, but it's all part of the basic set-up. If you know that you’re reading a crime novel and/or are familiar with Travis McGee it’s pretty obvious how things will play out. Plus, I’m not giving up anything about the ending so I’m not going to spoiler tag the whole review, but if you haven’t read and you don’t want to know too much, you should probably skip this one.)
The old Sea Cock really outdid himself this time….
When Pidge Llewellen was a teenage girl she had a huge crush on Travis McGee and her treasure hunting father once saved his life so he feels more than a little protective of her. After her father was killed in an accident, McGee and his friend Meyer made sure she received the sizable inheritance she was owed as well as vetted her prospective husband Howie Brindle. After their wedding Pidge and Howie set off on a cruise around the world in a small boat.
Months later Travis gets a call from Pidge in Hawaii asking for help. When he arrives Pidge tells him that either she’s crazy or Howie is trying to kill her. She claims several weird incidents happened at sea, but when Travis talks to Howie the big friendly lug is hurt and confused at his wife’s claims and behavior.
Convinced that the man is telling the truth, McGee gets Pidge drunk and to admit that she doesn't love Howie. Travis assures her that all the odd stuff was just her poor little female mind being unable to cope at failing when she picked a mate. Reassured, Pidge bangs McGee for a couple of days to prove his theory right. She then tells Howie that they’ll need to split, but he convinces her to sail the boat to meet a buyer at Poga Poga before they call a divorce lawyer.
Satisfied at his efforts as a marriage counselor and psychologist, McGee returns to Florida where he immediately begins nailing even more women than usual. Whatever could have driven him to this state? Examining his own heart, McGee finds that he has fallen in love with Pidge, and coincidently he gets a letter from her proclaiming her own love and saying that they’ll start a life of bliss together right after she gets done with this risky ocean voyage alone with the husband she recently informed of her wish to divorce and that she once thought might be trying to kill her…..
At first, McGee is ecstatic, but then he belatedly figures out that Howie is a total sociopath involved with a complicated scheme regarding Pidge’s inheritance. With no way to reach Pidge, all McGee can do is investigate Howie’s past and be waiting to see if Pidge is still alive when the boat reaches Poga Poga.
This could have been a great story, maybe even a turning point in the series if it had played up the angle of how badly McGee botched this and left a woman he cares for at the mercy of a killer. Heroes are interesting when they make mistakes and having the star of a series like this completely fail and try to atone for it should make for an entertaining book.
The problem here is that MacDonald makes McGee such a goddamn know-it-all. The off-topic monologues that Travis indulges in are usually one of the charms of the series for me when he was reflecting on life in an increasingly homogenized and corporatized America. However, in this one it seems like ole Trav knows best about everything from boat maintenance to hotel management to the safety records of cable cars. Since his work involves mixing it up with various kinds of shady people, he also frequently points out all the ways that the simple sheep of the world get slaughtered by the wolves and how he’s much too cautious and smart to fall for any of those tricks.
So he looks pretty damn ridiculous because he never once seems to consider the idea that he gave his blessing to a young man he knew little about so that he could marry a wealthy young lady and then sail away with her. After Pidge tells him she’s worried about being murdered including one incident where the husband admitted that he fired a gun in her direction, McGee is so certain that he’s diagnosed and treated (with sex) Pidge’s problem that it never even crosses his mind that Howie might be a bad guy. Even if you believed that there was no possibility that Pidge had been in danger before, it seems odd that McGee doesn’t show the slightest concern that she’d be alone for weeks at sea with the husband she's leaving.
I mean, what the shit? I would expect a cynical student of nature to maybe think that putting a couple with a pending divorce alone in a goddamn boat in the middle of the goddamn ocean wouldn’t be a great idea under the best of circumstances, let alone when either the husband has tried to kill her already or the cheese has slipped off her cracker….
McGee has had some pretty severe character defects through the course of this series, but this is the first time I just thought he was a complete moron from page one....more
Thanks to this one and Lawrence Block’s Keller series, I know more about philately then I ever thought I would.
Travis McGee is coming off of one of hiThanks to this one and Lawrence Block’s Keller series, I know more about philately then I ever thought I would.
Travis McGee is coming off of one of his periodic retirements and looking for a new salvage gig in which he’ll try to recover items that people were scammed out of for half their value. His client this time is a stamp dealer named Hirsh who puts together collections for people looking to use them as investments. Hirsh had been working with Frank Sprenger who is well-connected to the kind of people you don’t want to double cross lest you find yourself sharing an oil drum with Jimmy Hoffa.
Unfortunately, the dealer got a look at the collection he’s been buying for Sprenger during his last transaction, and someone swapped the rare stamps for junk despite the display book being kept in a locked safe deposit box that requires that both of them access it together. Their agreement leaves Hirsh on the hook to reimburse Frank and since this would bankrupt him he’s desperately trying to learn how it was done and who was responsible before Frank figures out that something is wrong. Suspects include Hirsh’s two assistants, and it also seems possible that Frank could have been running some elaborate con to get the stamps as well as clean Hirsh out.
Travis also has other things on his mind since the Lauderdale city council has just passed a measure designed to make living on a house boat illegal so he has to decide whether he’ll become a landlubber or move his beloved Busted Flush to a new permanent berth. Since this is a Travis McGee book we’re talking about, there also has to be a lady for him to romance and his latest victim candidate is Hirsh’s assistant Mary Alice.
I was having a fun time with this one through the first half of it as Travis tried to figure out how the stamps could have been switched as well as checking into Sprenger’s background. As always, half of what I like is McGee’s inner monologues about various aspects of the modern life of his time. Since the series was well into the 1970s by then, the sexism was toned down to a more tolerable level then many of the previous installments.
But things go downhill in a hurry once the book shifts to the romance with Mary Alice, and McGee seems to develop a terminal case of the stupids. (view spoiler)[ For being a guy who lives by his wits and much has been made about his instincts for reading people, Travis comes across as a complete dumb ass in this one. He somehow falls for Mary Alice despite her being a sociopath, and he completely misreads what’s going on with Sprenger. MacDonald does a decent job of dropping some hints about Mary Alice’s true nature along the way, but once the realization is made, any hint of subtly or pretense is gone. She’s seems stupid and obvious after this point so it makes McGee seem incredibly gullible for not picking up on it sooner. (hide spoiler)]
It’s somewhat redeemed by a decent last act that features a fairly tense action scene, but it’s far from the best example of this series.
As always when I review a Travis McGee book, I urge people to check out Amanda's review on the old Sea Cock, but she’s not a fan so don’t read it if criticism makes you angry or you don’t have a sense of humor.
And because this title demands it, here’s an exchange from Archer.
Rip Riley: I'm setting the autopilot, but this better not be a ruse.
Sterling Archer: A ruse? Brrring, brrring. Hello. Hi, it's the 1930's. Can we have our words and clothes and shitty airplane back?...more
Travis McGee bills himself as a salvage consultant, but this time out he’s trying to salvage someone’s reputation rather than their money.
McGee is appTravis McGee bills himself as a salvage consultant, but this time out he’s trying to salvage someone’s reputation rather than their money.
McGee is approached by an old acquaintance named Van Harder who was held responsible for the death of his employer Hubbard Lawless. Supposedly Harder got drunk while skippering Lawless’ boat which indirectly led to Lawless being lost overboard. Harder is a born again straight arrow who left his hard drinking days behind him years ago, and he swears that he must have been drugged. Since Lawless was in deep financial trouble there are rumors that he faked his death and ran to Mexico with what was left of his fortune. McGee and his best friend Meyer head to the town of Timber Bay to see if they can uncover some proof that Harder was set up.
This is kind of an odd plot because it seems like Harder would be cleared even if Travis had done nothing since the entire town is convinced that Lawless ran to Mexico, and the sheriff already has plenty of evidence that he’s investigating to prove that. Travis doesn’t even have to do much conning in this one since Meyer has provided them ample cover in the guise of businessmen potentially interested in Lawless’s holdings if the title issue can be cleared up so all the bigwigs in town are anxious to talk to them.
Still, there’s a nice rhythm to this one with McGee’s typical musings about life and his own nature. Even the sexism inherent to the books is toned down considerably. Hey, it only took until 1978!
McGee only bangs one random woman as part of a tawdry one night stand, and it causes him considerable emotional angst since he’s experiencing a bit of a mid-life crisis. (It also let MacDonald engage in his usual trick of letting Trav bag the babes but make him seem better than just a man-ho because he’s sensitive enough to feel guilty about it, damn it!)
And when Travis has got the blues, what’s the cure? Why another woman of course. Only in this case, the old Sea Cock actually tumbles head over heels for a lady. Granted there’s some unbelievable insta-love going on here, and McGee still has to be kind of a d-bag at times, but this is real progress for the series. Particularly when (view spoiler)[at the end Gretel insists that she doesn’t want to be the cure for what ails him and while willing to be in a relationship, is not going to just move onto his houseboat and be his on-board snuggle bunny. (hide spoiler)]...more
When Travis McGee goes undercover it’s usually in a bed with some cute beach bunny, but this time McGee has a more serious reason. REVENGE!
The series When Travis McGee goes undercover it’s usually in a bed with some cute beach bunny, but this time McGee has a more serious reason. REVENGE!
The series has reached 1980 and with the free love and disco days gone McGee has settled down and is in a relationship with Gretel Howard. Just as he’s getting ready to sail off into the sunset with his lady love, Gretel tells McGee about having a chance encounter with a man she’d seen in an odd situation years before. Suddenly, Gretel dies of a mysterious illness. A heartbroken McGee is grieving hard when the appearance of a couple of strangers makes the circumstances of Gretel’s demise seem very sinister.
What’s a Sea Cock to do? Why, pretend to be someone else, go back to the place where Gretel originally met the mystery man and kill a whole bunch of people, of course!
This is a real departure from the rest of the series which usually featured Travis drinking some gin and bedding some babes as he went toe-to-toe with a ne’er-do-well who had swindled somebody. As the Reagan era dawned, it was almost like MacDonald could sense the wave of action heroes on the horizon and wrote a story that casts McGee in the mode.
That means getting Travis involved with a kooky plot featuring spy games and terrorism, and that’s just too much for a character like McGee who was at this best when working the cracks and crevices of American society while lamenting how the system was rigged. Travis even has a couple of moments in this where he admits that he’s over his head, and that even a cynical bastard like him can’t comprehend people willing to commit mass murder for vague ideological concepts.
Still, this one is a milestone in the series because it was such a marked contrast to the rest with the death of Gretel and the huge action movie like ending to it which, looking back now, makes me wonder how many Hollywood types read this and were influenced by the book’s last act. In the end, I think this one stands out for McGee readers just because it was so different from the rest of the series.
On a personal note, this is one of those milestone books in my own reading history. It came out when I was 10, and someone (I think my grandfather.) had a paperback copy laying around. I was at a point where the kiddie books had lost their appeal, and there was no young adult genre at the time so I would try to read the grown-up books with varying degrees of success.
This one intrigued me because of the cover. “Why does that ghost have a gun?” I wondered. And I tried to read it. Man, did I try to read it. But the opening chapter is about the economist Meyer gloomily telling Travis how the world’s dwindling resources and increasing population pretty much mean we’re all doomed. That’s not the kind of thing my young mind was looking for. So I finally gave up and thought I’d never know why that damn ghost had that gun. Years later when I was reading the Travis McGee series and came across The Green Ripper, I knew it instantly. It’s still one of the most iconic covers in my own memory so this one always brings about a rush of nostalgia whenever I see it....more
I know it’s the old Sea Cock Travis McGee we’re talking about here, but this is a whole new low….
Hang on. We all know that I’m going to do anoReally?
I know it’s the old Sea Cock Travis McGee we’re talking about here, but this is a whole new low….
Hang on. We all know that I’m going to do another rant about the sexism, but let’s change things up and talk about the good parts first.
Carrie Milligan is an old friend of McGee’s who shows up very late one night at his houseboat and asks if he’ll hold a large sum of money for her. If she doesn’t come back and get it by a certain date, Travis should hand the cash over to her sister, and he gets ten grand for his trouble. McGee agrees and stashes the cash, and Carrie departs. Before her deadline McGee gets the news that she was killed after being hit by a car in another Florida town. Suspecting that something is going on and feeling that he owes her something more for the ten thousand, Travis and his best friend Meyer take his houseboat to Bayside and start poking around. However, they’ve walked into the middle of a scheme with an increasing body count.
This is one of the best plots in a McGee novel yet. Puzzling out where Carrie got the money and if her death was the result of foul play involves McGee running a variety of small cons on people to get them talking, and it allows the book to indulge in one of the best aspects of the series, conversations between McGee and Meyer. There’s a vivid discourse by Meyer at one point about learning the true nature of death and guns that has stuck with me in the 20-some years since I first read it. There’s also a couple of very good action scenes.
Plus, after being something of a know-it-all bore in his observations in the last couple of books, Travis is back to fine form in his cynical musings about American life and society. Here’s a bit where he’s describing the town:
"It was easy to see the shape and history of Bayside, Florida. There had been a little town on the bay shore, a few hundred people, a sleepy downtown with live oaks and Spanish moss. Then International Amalgamated Development had moved in, bought a couple of thousand acres, and put in shopping centers, town houses, condominiums, and rental apartments, just south of town. Next had arrived Consolidated Construction Enterprises and done the same thing north of town. Smaller operators had done the same things on a smaller scale west of town. When downtown decayed, the town fathers widened the streets and cut down the shade trees in an attempt to look just like a shopping center. It didn't work. It never does. This was instant Florida, tacky and stifling and full of ugly and spurious energies. They had every chain food-service outfit known to man, interspersed with used-car lots and furniture stores."
This is what a Travis McGee book reads like when it’s firing on all cylinders. So this should be an easy example of a fast-n-fun crime novel in a series that would be an easy 4 stars.
But…..
As usual, we got to talk about McGee and the ladies. For example, Carrie trusts Travis because he once saved her from being raped at a party, and that’s certainly understandable. But of course the ole Sea Cock nails her right after that. OK, it’s not quite that bad, and Travis does note that it’s highly unusual that a woman would be aroused right after being attacked. Besides, he’s Travis McGee! What lady could resist his charms even in those circumstances?
There are also two separate incidents of women being hit in front of Travis in this book, and he doesn’t seem that upset about it. In the first one after witnessing a drunk man deck his wife, Travis does fight the guy, but he makes it clear that he’s really just trying to get away from him. After the cops show up he follows her lead in not asking that charges be filed because that's always the best play in domestic abuse. Then a sleazy lawyer pimp-slaps an annoying woman and knocks her to the floor right in front of Travis, and while McGee doesn’t like it, he doesn’t bang the guy’s head off a wall or call the cops either. Yeah, yeah. I know. Simpler times. When a female just had to expect to take a really solid shot to the mouth every once in a while.
There’s a nice patronizing piece of Letting-The-Man-Take-Charge-Here-Little-Lady when Travis steps in at the funeral home when Cindy’s sister is getting screwed over on the bill. That could have been played as him looking out for her because she’s just so overcome with grief, but Travis and the funeral director have to go in the other room without her because obviously it’s man talk. Travis does include her finally to prove she isn’t some simpering little fool who will pay anything because she’s falling apart. Then she immediately falls apart after the funeral director leaves. There, there, little girl. Don’t worry. Daddy Travis is here to take care of everything.
Speaking of Cindy’s sister Susan, although McGee is protective enough to haggle over a bill for her, he neglects to inform her that he’s learned that a male character she’s interacting with is a ruthless pursuer of sexual conquests and his behavior has been reported as borderline rapey. Way to look out for the sister of your dead friend, McGee. (view spoiler)[And of course after Susan ‘gives in’ to this guy McGee is right there to take charge again, but that doesn't include calling the cops or getting her any kind of help. (hide spoiler)]
Worst of all is that McGee pulls one of his slimiest moves yet when he puts the moves on a woman who was widowed like a week before. Yeah, she admits she didn’t love her husband, and it seems a bit too soon, but hey, it’s the Sea Cock so the two are banging in no time. Unfortunately, she breaks into a crying jag at the beginning of their first session which is a total bummer, and when she finally stops Travis is worried that she might be ‘too tired for love’. That doesn’t stop him from peeling her clothes off, and guess what? She wasn’t! The Sea Cock scores again!
Then Travis is offended at several points when he feels like she isn’t reciprocating his lovey-dovey feelings strongly enough. He also acts like a petulant child when he asks if she’ll go on one of his long houseboat cruises and she tells that she not only needs to work, that she likes to work and doesn’t think taking off with a shady guy she doesn’t know that well would be the best life choice. Plus, that dead husband isn’t even cold yet. In Travis's view this is the wrong decision.
*sigh*
I was hoping this kind of stuff would get better as the books moved into the ‘70s and ‘80s, but I think it’s getting worse. Still, I really did like the other aspects so I’ll split the difference and call it 3 stars....more
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