I've been writing this blog for almost 10 years now and I intend to continue doing this for a long time because, frankly, it's a lot of fun. I've told you about all the books I've read - some were great and some not-so-great. I'm not a professional reviewer, just a regular guy sharing his opinion on social media and, if I had to guess, I usually have 2 or 3 books to tell you about each Post. This month I only have 1.
A brief explanation: I love to read and I have no shortage of material to choose from. In fact, I added 6 more books to my TBR pile 2 weeks ago. But reading takes concentration and mine has been focused in a different direction lately. I'm going to presume that anyone reading this is aware that I write another blog as well. It's fiction but based on my personal life. I have to admit that it was getting into a rut so I spent some time trying to come up with a way to get back on track. I found a new direction to go in and added the latest post to this blog just last week. From the reactions I received, I'm back on track.
Now I was able to devote more of my concentration to reading and I went back to the books I had already started. One of these was a political thriller that I mentioned previously. I won't go into specifics but it was published in 1965 and, at that time, the basic plot must have been intriguing to readers. Now almost 55 years later given what we've seen of politics and politicians nothing is surprising anymore. Without that surprise factor driving the book, I lost interest in getting back into it, at least for now. I've put it into "The Pile" for future consideration.
Here's what I did finish.
Series
Several months ago, I wrote about a book that I'd found on my shelves. I enjoyed it but it was the 3rd in a series and I like to know how these things start. I checked my usual discount sites for the first volume but they didn't have it so I wound up ordering it from Amazon.
Bullet For A Star - Stuart M. Kaminsky ($10.65/Gift Card, copyright1977, 141 pages, Trade Paperback)
This is that first book in Kaminsky's Toby Peters Series. It's set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1940. Toby is an ex-cop, ex-security guard for Warner Brothers who's scratching out a living as Private Investigator. Here he's contacted by a producer at Warner's who remembered him and has a job that he needs taken care of. Seems that a major star is being blackmailed and he wants Toby to handle the payoff (a similar concept to the book I've mentioned before). Turns out that the star is Errol Flynn and the blackmail involves a picture of Flynn with a very young female. The studio wants it swept under the rug. Of course, nothing goes right and Toby winds up being suspected of murdering the blackmailer. From there, things snowball. Kaminsky does a good job of setting up 1940's LA but his strong suit is the characters. Toby is well defined, as are the "extras" specifically his brother Phil Pevsner a police detective with anger issues and Shelly Minck, a slovenly dentist he rents office space from. To me, what sets this series apart from others is that Kaminsky mixes in a fair number of movie stars which I get a kick out of. In this book, Toby not only deals with Flynn but has conversations with Edward G. Robinson, Peter Lorre, and Humphrey Bogart. I thought I had it figured out midway through but was totally wrong, though close. I would recommend this series to anyone. I really enjoyed it.
That's all I have for now. If I pushed things I might finish one of the other books I'm reading but I don't think I would enjoy it. I'm just gonna let things flow naturally and we'll see what we come up with next month.
It's officially summer and it's definitely hot. Stay inside with the AC cranked up and ….
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