TRUNCATED BITS & PIECES

Openers:  

I'm going you tell you the real story behind Bloodrock and how we ended up with a dead man in a bathtub.  I was right there on location and saw just about everything.  More than anyone else, at least.  I'm sure you remember hearing about it, even if you are not a regular reader of the Hollywood traces.  You also probably remember that there were some questions floating around, the big one being:  Was it just an accident, or was it murder?

So I'll tell you everything I know, and then you can decide for yourself.

-- A Murder in Hollywood by Michael Crichton writing as "John Lange," 2026

Whoa, Nellie!  A new book by Michael Crichton?  The guy who's been dead for nearly eighteen year?  And writing as John Lange, the pseudonym he used when he first started publishing when he was a medical student, eventually totaling eight basically forgettable novels under that pen name?  The last being in 1972 (Binary), three years after he made his bones with The Andromeda Strain?  Yeah, that guy.  I think the dead sumbitch published it just to mess with my my mind because I had just completed earlier this year my read of all of his published books -- fiction, nonfiction, even a couple of screenplays.  Anyway, here's this new Michael Crichton book that had flown under my radar -- one I had never heard of, published this past May.

Well, there's a good reason. Evidently he wrote it back in 1973.  By then, all his pseudonymous work had been published (eight by "John Lange," one by "Jeffrey Hudson," and one collaboration published as by "Michael Douglas").  Also by then, some confusion had begun about the Lange pen name:  it turned out the John Lange was the legal name of "John Norman," the pseudonymous named used to publish a slew of best-selling incel (before that was created) fantasy novels heavy on sex and degradation.  With two bestsellers, one Edgar Award-winning novel and at least three films in the works, it was time to retire the pseudonym and the type of action-oriented novel that went with it.  So A Murder in Hollywood became a trunk novel, never seeing the light of day...presumably forever.

But, where there's a manuscript with Crichton's name on it, there is the possibility for cash...which brings us to 2026.

Don't get me wrong.  This isn't a truly bad book.  It just not a mature Michael Crichton book, heavily influenced by his time as a student author who was having an novel filmed (the Jeffrey Hudson A Case of Need, filmed as The Carey Treatment by Blake Edwards; also the same year, his collaborative novel Dealing was filmed by Paul Williams).  It's a decent, well-plotted, snarky book.  The main problem is with the title.  There is not a murder in Hollywood.  There is one in Tucson -- the dead guy in the bathtub.  But was it even a murder?  The guy slipped, fell, and hit his head.  But if it was an accident why was the bathroom completely wiped of fingerprints.  And there may not be a single murder; there may be two.  but as the second paragraph in the book said, you will have to decide for yourself.

I am glad I read it, but I sincerely hope there are no more trunk novels lying around.  This was the fifth posthumous Crichton book published, two of which were completed by other authors.

Incoming:

• Joe Abercrombie, The Devils.  Fantasy.  "Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain  a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him.  But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters.  The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures rom them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.  Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing bit their own ambitions and comfort.  With an epic, hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side."
• Lloyd Alexander, The Wizard in the Tree.  Juvenile fantasy.  "When Mallory notices something funny sticking out of an old oak tree, she takes a closer look -- and before she knows it, she's broken a magic spell.  Arbican the wizard has been trapped in the tree for thousands of years.  All his fellow enchanters are gone.  And so are his powers!  Will he get them back in time to save Mallory's village from greedy Squire Scrupner?"  Alexander was the author of the noted Prydain Chronicles, The Westmark Trilogy, and the Vesper Holly Adventures.
• Patrick Anderson, The Triumph of the Thriller:  How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction.  Nonfiction.  What Anderson thinks works and what doesn't.  The most interesting part is where he skewers, perhaps rightly so, six novels:  The Beach House by James Patterson & Peter de Jonge, Hour Game by David Baldacci, Trace by Patricia Cornwell, The Face of the Assassin  by David Lindsey, The Eleventh Commandment by Jeffrey Archer, and The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks.
• Robert Jackson Bennett, The Company Man.  Thriller.  The McNaughton Corporation:  "They built the guns that won the Great war before it even began.  They built the airships that tie the world together.  and, above all, they built Evesden -- a shining metropolis, the best that the world has to offer.  But something is rotten at the heart of the city.  Deep underground, a trolley car pulls into a station with eleven dead bodies inside.  Four minutes before, the victims were seen boarding at the previous station.  eleven men butchered by hand in the blink of an eye.  All are dead.  And all are union.  Now, one man, Cyril Hayes, must fix this.  There is a dark secret behind the inventions of McNaughton and a was brewing between the executives and the workers.  The truth must be discovered before the whole city burns.  Caught between the union and the company, between the police and the victims, Hayes must uncover the mystery before it kills him."  Also, Mr. Shivers.  Thriller, Bennett's first novel.  "It is the time of the Great Depression.  Thousands have left their homes looking for a better life, a new life.  But Marcus Connelly is not one of them.  He searches for one thing, and one thing only:  revenge.  Because out there, riding the rails, stalking the camps, is the scarred vagrant who murdered Connelly's daughter.  No one knows him, but everyone knows his name:  Mr. Shivers."
• "Benjamin Black" (John Banville), The Black-Eyed Blonde.  Mystery, an authorized sequel to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novel The Long Goodbye, and the basis of the basis of the 2022 Liam Neeson film Marlowe (not to be confused with the 1969 James Garner film Marlowe, which was based on Chandler's novel The Little Sister).  "It is the early 1950s. Marlowe is as restless and lonely as ever, and business is a little slow.  Then a new client is shown in:    young, beautiful, an expensively dressed, she wants Marlowe o find her former lover, a man named Nico Peterson.  Marlowe sets off on his search, but almost immediately discovers that Peterson's disappearance is merely the first in s series of bewildering events.  Soon he is tangling with one of Bay City's richest families and developing a singular appreciation for how far they will go to protect their fortune."  Black borrowed the title from an otherwise unrelated Marlowe short story by written by Benjamin M. Schutz for the 1998 tribute anthology Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe:  A Centennial Celebration, edited by Bryon Preiss.  I am hopeful that Black's book will read much better than the two previous authorized Marlowe books by Robert B. Parker.
• Steven Brust, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille.  Science fiction.  "Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille is a great place to visit, bit it tends to move around a bit -- from Earth to the Moon to Mars to another solar system -- and always just one step ahead of whatever mysterious conspiracy is reducing whole worlds to volcanic ash.  Still, Cowboy Feng's is worth tracking down.  Not only does it dish up the best matzo ball soup and Irish music in the known cosmos,  but it may be humanity's last hope for survival..."
• Michael Cadnum, Daughter of the Wind.  Young adult historical adventure novel.  "Hallgerd is the seventeen-year-old daughter of the Norwegian village leader.  A group of Danes, acting under the orders of a powerful, warring-king's daughter, kidnap her and intend to marry her to this noblewoman's son.  After a sympathetic young Dane helps her to escape, Hellgerd avenges her kidnapping by setting fire to the town and steals a small rowboat.  As she is rowing through the marsh, she meets Guk, a young hunter, along with a young blacksmith from Hellgerd's village who has come to rescue her.
• Larry Correia & Kacey Ezell, editors, Noir Fatale.  Original science fiction and fantasy anthology with thirteen tales of dangerous female archetypes.  Authors include Christopher L. Smith & Michael J, Ferguson, David Weber, Kacey Ezell, Steve Diamond, Griffin Barber, Hinkley Correia, Laurell J. Hamilton, Alistair Kimble, Sarah A. Hoyt, Mike Massa, Patrick M. Tracy, Robert Buettner, and Larry Correia.
• Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl.  Yeah, the best-selling science fantasy Lit RPG novel that has spawned seven (thus far) sequels.  Following the destruction of most of the world, Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, are force to enter "the World Dungeon, an 18-level dungeon crawl borrowing ideas from tabletop role-playing and video games."  In this first book, Carl and Donut are only on the first and second levels.  The book has been nominated for an Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the series is overwhelmingly popular.  This was Amy's choice for the upcoming family book club.  I may or may not have the fortitude to complete the series.
• Stephen R. Donaldson, The King's Justice.  Collection of two fantasy  novellas.  "In 'The King Justice,' a stranger dressed kin black arrives in the village of Settle's Crossways, following the scent of a terrible crime.  He even calls himself 'Black,' though most certainly that is not his name.  While the desire of the inhabitants of quiet villages to cooperate with strangers is not common in their land, people find that they have a surprising urge to cooperate with this stranger.   But this gift will not be enough to protect him as he discovers the nature of the evil concealed in Settle' Crossways.  In 'The Augur's Gambit,' a daring plan is created by Mayhem Gordian, Hieronomer to the Queen of Indemnie -- a plan to save his Queen and his country.  Gordian has the gift of reading entrails, and in the bodies of chickens, lambs, piglets, and one stillborn human infant he sees the same message:  The island nation of Indemnie is doomed.  But even in the face of certain destruction a man may fight, and the Hieronomer is loyal to his Queen -- and to her only daughter."
• David Drake, The Far Side of the Stars.  Military science fiction novel, the third in  the RCN series with Lt. Daniel Leary.  "While the Republic of Cinnabar is at peace with the Alliance, warriors like Lt. Daniel Leary and Signals Officer Adele Mundy must find other work -- like escorting a pair of wealthy nobles on an expedition to the back of beyond!  The Princess Cecile, the corvette in which they carve their reputations in letters of fire, has been sold as a private yacht, but she still has her guns, her missiles, and her veteran crew.  Daniel and Adele will need all of those things as they face winged dragons, an Alliance auxiliary cruiser, jealous lovers, and a mysterious oracle which really does foresee the future.  That won't be enough, though, when they penetrate a secret Alliance base and find a hostile fleet ready for a war that will sweep Cinnabar out of a strategically crucial arm of the galaxy.  Preventing that will involve skill, courage, and more luck than a sane man could even pray for; and it will require a space battle on a scale that a tiny corvette like the Princess Cecile has no business  being involved in."
• Loren D. Estleman, The Branch and the Scaffold and Billy Gashade.  Omnibus of two westerns.  Branch:  "Based on the true story of the West's legendary Hanging Judge!  For two decades, notorious federal judge Isaac Parker's stern and implacable justice brought law and order to the West...and made him plenty of enemies.  Over the years, he and his marshals ran up against colorful and dangerous outlaws, including the notorious Dalton Gang; Belle Starr, the Bandit Queen; the  murderous Cherokee Bill; and Ned Christie."  Gashade:  "From the ravages of the Civil War to the early years of the twentieth century, a piano player wanders the old west, singing for his supper in saloons and bawdy houses.  Along the way, he meets famous people, such as Frank and Jesse James, Oscar Wilde, and William 'Billy the Kid' Bonney, and finds that they, and others, were neither as bad nor as good as their reputations suggested."
• Bill Fawcett, editor, Bolos Book 5:  Cold Steel.  Science fiction; the cover and title page proclaim this to be "Created by Keith Laumer"; Fawcett is only given credit (in smaller type on the title page and the copyright page -- such is marketing.  Bolos are giant, almost unstoppable, war tanks controlled by artificial intelligence; they never surrender.  This volume includes a novella by J. Steven York & Dean Wesley Smith, and a full novel by Linda Evans.
• Steve Frazee, Nights of Terror.  Collection of eight western pulp stories, seven of them from 1951 to 1959.  Frazee always provided a good read.
• Alasdair Gray, Poor Things.  Fantasy novel, subtitled "Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer."   "In the 1880s in Glasgow, Scotland, medical student Archibald McCandless finds himself enchanted with the intriguing creature known as Bella Baxter.  Supposedly the product of the fiendish scientist Godwin Baxter, Bella was resurrected for the sole purpose of fulfilling the whims of her benefactor.  As Archibald's desire turns to obsession, his motives to free Bella ae revealed  to be as selfish as those of Godwin, who claims her body and soul.  But Bella has her own passions to pursue.  Passions that take her to aristocratic casinos, low-life Alexandria, and a Parisian bordello, reaching an interrupted climax in a Scottish church.  Exploring her station as a woman in the shadow of the patriarchy,  Bella knows it is up to her to free herself -- and to decide what meaning, if any, true love has in her life."   The book won both the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Whitbread Award in 1992.  A 2023 film adaptation starred Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe; the film won the Golden Lion at the 80th Venice Film Festival, as well as four Academy Awards.
• G. T. Karber, Murdle Jr.:  Curious Crimes for Curious Minds.  Forty puzzle mysteries for young readers.
• Elmer Kelton, Buffalo Wagons and Cloudy in the West.  Omnibus of two western novels from a master of the genre.  Buffalo:  "For gage Jameson, the summer of 1873 has been a poor hunt.  A year ago, he felled sixty-two buffalo in one stand, but now the great Arkansas River herd is gone, like the Republican River herd before it.  In Dodge City, old hide hunters speak in awe of a last great herd to the south, but no hunter who values his scalp dares ride south of the Cimarron and into Comanche territory -- none but Gage Jameson."  Cloudy:  :In the Texas backlands of 1885, twelve-year-old Joey Shipman's father dies under mysterious circumstances.  After the death of a second man -- a farmhand and friend -- and another 'accident' that almost takes 
  Joey's life, the boy runs away and joins forces with his only kin, Beau Shipman, a drunk and a jailbird.  Beau, a San Antonio prostitute, an outlaw, and a sheepman become Joey's unlikely partners as the boy is trailed by the murderous Meacham, who is in league with Joey's stepmother in a scheme to take over the Shipman farm."
• J. A. Kornrath, Origin.  Horror/thriller.  "In 1906, a crew of workers at the Panama Canal unearthed something that could not be identified or explained.  Something sinister.  And very much alive...One hundred years later, a team of scientists gather at an underground facility in New Mexico to determine what this being is -- the most amazing discovery in the history of mankind -- and how it has managed to survive.  A biologist will examine its structure.   A veterinarian will study its behavior.  A linguist will translate its language.  But even the greatest minds in the world can not answer one inescapable question:  Could this ancient creature, this mockery of God and nature, actually be the ancient demon known as .. the Beat?"
• "Emma Lathan"  (Mary Jane Latsis & Martha Henissart), three John Putnam Thatcher financial mysteries.  By Hook or By Crook.  "A rivalry sealed in blood triggers a subtle and deadly revenge plot that links a powerful business and a vast estate to a double murder...John Putnam Thatcher is faced with two murders -- the result of a bitter family feud.  John Putnam Thatcher knows who the  murderer is -- but has  no proof.  John Putnam Thatcher remembers the words of a man about to be murdered.  John Putnam Thatcher is dangerously close on the tracks of a murderer." Green Grow the Dollars.  'John Putnam Thatcher's out in the field -- to harvest a crop of patent thievery, corporate scandal, and million-dollar death!  All because a newly developed tomato promises a six-month yield -- guaranteed to revolutionize agribusiness with juicy new profit.  Until the patent rights, claimed by Sloan Guaranty Trust's respected client, are challenged in court by an upstart seed company.  After one murder and a second attempt, Thatcher's got only one chance -- to find the killer, insure the patent, and nip the case in the bud!"  Murder Against the Grain.  "Before John Putnam Thatcher can recover the  missing million dollars the Russians have made as a down payment on wheat, he has to answer some rather peculiar questions:  - What was the Cuban Navy doing in New York harbor?  - Why was the Leningrad Symphony practicing on a basketball court?  - How on earth did a performing troupe of Russian otters that drink only vodka, dance the mazurka, and merrily assemble a three-stage rocket get into the picture?  -And, above all, who is the grim reaper dead set on MURDER AGAINST THE GRAIN?"
• Henning Mankell, The Man from Beijing.  A standalone thriller that spans two centuries and four continents.  "In the far north of Sweden a small, quiet village has been almost entirely wiped out by a mass murderer.  The lonley clue left at the scene is a red ribbon.  Among the victims are the grandparents of Judge Birgitta Roslin, who sets out to find the killer.  Despite being brushed off by the police, Birgitta is determined to prove that he murders wee not some random act of violence  but are part of something far more dark and complex.  Her investigation leads to the highest echelons of power and into the recesses of history where the seeds of evil deeds were planted."  Translated by Laurie Thompson.
• Tom Piccirilli, A Choir of Ill Children.  Southern Gothic.  "Kingdom Come is a decaying backwater that draws the lost, the ill-fated, and the damned.  Ever since his mother's disappearance and his father's suicide, Thomas has cared for his three  brothers -- cojoined triplets with one shared brain -- and overseen the town's only industry, The Mill.  The superstitious townsfolk look to him with a mix of fear and awe.  But Thomas suspects that not even he can protect them from the evil that's coming.  In this lyrical tale of loss and redemption, Thomas will have to face down his own tormented past if he's to stop damnation itself from conquering Kingdom Come."
• Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, The Cabinet of Curiosities.  An Special Agent Pendergast novel, the third to be published.  An ancient mass grave is discovered as workmen prepare for a new skyscraper.  The bodies link back to Dr. Enoch Leng, a distant relative of Pendergast's, and a man who may still be alive after a century and a quarter.  We are also introduced to Constance Green, who may also be immortal and who supposed threw her baby overboard during a transatlantic crossing, and to Nora Kelly, the anthropologist who would soon have her own series from the authors.
• "J. D. Robb" (Nora Roberts), Betrayal in Death, Judgment in Death, Promises in Death, and Random in Death.  Entries in the author's lengthy futuristic romance/police procedural series featuring Lieutenant Eve Dallas.  Betrayal:  It's Eve against Sly Yost, a virtuoso of music and murder and a hitman for the elite.  But there's also an unknown person involved, and it might just be Rourke, Eve's husband.  Judgment;  A cop is bludgeoned to death and his hidden secrets lead Eve to a vice-ridden private club.  Promises:  This time Eve comes face-to-face with a cop killer.  Random:  An aspiring seventeen-year-old musician has been injected with poison while at a nightclub; Eve fears there will be more deaths to come.  I started reading this series in order a few months ago and have read the first seven books so far; there are currently 63 novels  in the series so I have a long way to go.
• John Saul, Perfect Nightmare.  Horror novel.  "If you open your house to strangers, who knows what might come in.  And what they might be after.  Or whom.  Now, ponder the unthinkable and surrender to your darkest dread, as sinister storyteller extraordinaire John Saul weaves a heat-stopping tale of lurking terror and twisted intent.  Every parent's nightmare becomes reality for Kara Marshall when her daughter, Lindsay, vanishes from her bedroom during the night.  The police suspect the Mary Jangirl is just another moody teenage runaway, angry of behind left behind her school and friends because her family is moving.  But Lindsay's recent eerie claim -- that someone invaded her room when the house was opened to prospective buyers -- drives Kara to fear the worst:  a nameless, faceless stalker has walked the halls of her home in search of more than a place to live.  Patrick Shields recognizes Kara's pain-- and carries plenty of his own since he lost his wife and two children in a devastating house fire.   But more than grief draws Patrick and Kara together.  He, too, senses the hand of a malevolent stranger in this tragedy.  And as more people go missing from houses for sale, Patrick's suspicion, like Kara's, blooms into horrified certainty..."  Another riff on Saul's patented children in jeopardy theme.
• David G. Smith, Arcane Arts and Cold Steel:  Writing Sword-and-Sorcery Fiction.  This book "teaches how to write sword-and-sorcery by breaking it down to its working parts.  Drawing on a century of fiction -- from the foundations laid down by Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, to the gritty reinventions of Karl Edward Wagner and Charles Saunders, and into the 'New Edge' renaissance pioneered by Howard Edward Jones -- Smith explains how the form achieves its distinctive power on the page."  I was heavily into the genre many years ago but have not kept up with the latest developments and was interested in seeing what I might have missed.
• Nancy Springer, The Case of the Missing Marquess.  The first of ten books in the YA Enola Homes series about the 14-year-old sister of Sherlock Holmes.  "When Enola Holmes, sister to the detective Sherlock Holmes, discovers her mother has disappeared, she quickly sets off to find her in London -- but nothing can prepare her for what awaits.  For when she arrives, she finds herself involved in the kidnapping of a young marquess, and must flee the murderous villains and elude her shrewd older brothers -- all while trying to piece together clues to her mother's disappearance.  Amid all the chaos, can Enlola find he marquess and her mother?"  Nominated for an Edgar for Best Juvenile Mystery in 2007.  The book was adapted for the 2023 film Enola Holmes, the first of three films based on the series and starring Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, and Helena Bonham Carter. 
• Helen Tursten, Winter Grave.  An Embla Nystrom Investigation.  "When a little girl in the small town of Stromstrad disappears weeks before Christmas, suspicion falls on the teenage loner who last drove her home after school.  But detectives can hardly get a word out of him.  Soon, a second child disappears, and a police officer is found dead.  Detective Inspector Embla Nystrom has just returned to work after her brush with a killer, and as she searches for the missing children, she can't help but think back to the disappearance of her own childhood best friend.  could the incidents be linked?  Embla must find answers before the parents of Stromstrad take matters into their own hands."  Tursten is also the author of the Irene Huss mysteries.
• David Weber, The Honor of the Queen.  Military SF novel, the second of fourteen novels in the Honor Harrington series.  "It's hard to give peace a chance when the other side regards war as he necessary prelude to conquest, and a sneak attack is the best means to that end.  That's why the Kingdom of Manticore needs allies against the so-called 'Republic' of Haven -- an the planet Grayson is just the right strategic place to make a very good ally indeed.  But Her Majesty's Foreign Office had overlooked a 'minor cultural difference' when they chose Honor Harrington to carry the flag:  women on the planet Grayson are without rank or rights; Honor's very presence is an intolerable affront to every male on the planet.  At first Honor doesn't take it personally; where she comes from, gender discrimination is barely a historical memory, right up there in significance with fear of the left-handed.  But in time such treatment as she receives from the Graysonites does become wearing, and Honor would withdraw if she could -- but then Grayson's fratricidal sister planet attacks without warning and she must stay and prevail, not just for honor's honor, but for her sovereign's, for THE HONOR OF THE QUEEN."
• Martha Wells, The Emilie Adventures.  Omnibus of two young adult novels.  Emilie and the Hollow World.  "Running away from home and stowing away on the wrong ship, Emilie learns that the crew hopes to use an experimental engine to journey to the interior of the planet.  When the ship becomes damaged on arrival and evidence points to sabotage, they encounter the treacherous Lord Ivers, along with a strange new race.  Can Emilie and her newfound friends possibly reach the surface world again?"  Emilie and the Sky World. "When Emilie arrives in Silk Harbor, the eminent Professor Abindon warns her of something strange an potentially deadly in the sky.  On further investigation they realize it's a ship from another aetheric plane.  Join Emilie as she navigates the strange landscapes of the upper air, and the deadly menace that inhabits the sky world."  Wells is best-known as the author of the successful Murderbot Diaries.

"It's Florida, Jake.":

• Allie, a local "emotional support" alligator beloved by many has been murdered.  Allie resided in a fenced off and locked water retention pond in Garcon Point in Milton, Santa Rosa County.  Residents said that Allie had lived there for year and was no danger to anyone because the six-foot-tall fence was locked at all times.  One neighbor, Jennifer Dory, told reporters, "She was a danger to no one...little did I know that she was in danger."  Three men have been charged with entering the area, capturing Allie, binding her, and killing her with a power drill through the skull.  Include former U.S. Navy Seal Kevin "Dauber" Lacz (44), Richard Reder (57, and Jason Griffin (49).  The three men face second-degree misdemeanor "conservation" charges of violating Florida's administrative code on taking and disposing of nuisance reptiles. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said that the three were not legally authorized to determine whether Allie was a nuisance because none had valid alligator nuisance permits.  Some neighbors and wildlife advocates are demanding stiffer penalties for the three, wondering whether the light charges are due to Lacz's status as a decorated former SEAL who once worked with noted sniper Christopher Kyle.  The attorney for the three said that they had long been authorized to perform alligator removals but that their licenses had all expired.  Residents meanwhile consider the act to have been inhumane and unnecessary.