10. Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Truly Devious #1
listened to on Audible
2018 Harper Collins
432 pgs.
YA CRF/HF Time Flipping back and forth
Finished 1/22/2018
Goodreads rating: 4.16 - 838 ratings
My rating:  4.5
Setting:  Contemporary middle-of-nowhere Vermont

First line/s:  "Fate came for Dottie Epstein a year earlier, in the form of a call to the principal's office."

My comments:  Terribly mixed feelings about this book.  The ending drove me nuts, though I must admit I had a little bit of a clue about one part of it.  Some of the story dragged a bit, but it was a good mystery, and it was time for a good mystery.  At first I wasn't really sure whether I liked the protagonist, Stevie, but she grew on me.  I liked her uncertainty and her quirkiness and her totally obsessive love for crime-solving.  I loved her quick comebacks and her snoopiness - even though she didn't want to be snoopy she felt she had to be and couldn't stop herself.  More and more she felt like a real person to me.  She supposedly had anxiety, but that didn't really work for me.  And the ending did piss me off - I didn't know this was not a standalone.  Note to self:  it'll be awhile before the second book in the series comes out, so I need to make sure I either re-read this or read a really thorough summary of it before I read the next.

Goodreads synopsis: New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson weaves a delicate tale of murder and mystery in the first book of a striking new series, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and E. Lockhart.          
          Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.”     
          Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.
          True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.   
          The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.

1. Crime of Privilege - Walter Walker

audio cd back & forth from school January 2016
audio read by Stephen Hoye
11 cds/14 hours
2013 Random House Audio
432 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 1/22/16
Goodreads rating: 3.30
My rating: 3/ definitely kept my attention, got tired of the protagonist
Setting: Cape Cod, Massaachusetts

First line/s: "Almost everyone had heard of the family mansion on Ocean Boulevard, but very few had been there."

My comments:  It did seem like there were some cumbersome/drawn-on-too-long places, but overall, this was a very good read.  I never really liked the protagonist especially (maybe it was the way he was read) and although there were no real surprises, I enjoyed listening to how the story unfolded.  I know the story was a parody of the Kennedy family (I know there were all sorts of scandals and secrets) but I hated to put them in the place of this Gregory family, for some reason.  I guess I really like the Kennedy family....

Goodreads synopsis: A murder on Cape Cod. A rape in Palm Beach. 
All they have in common is the presence of one of America's most beloved and influential families. But nobody is asking questions. Not the police. Not the prosecutors. And certainly not George Becket, a young lawyer toiling away in the basement of the Cape & Islands district attorney's office. George has always lived at the edge of power. He wasn't born to privilege, but he understands how it works and has benefitted from it in ways he doesn't like to admit. Now, an investigation brings him deep inside the world of the truly wealthy--and shows him what a perilous place it is. 
Years have passed since a young woman was found brutally slain at an exclusive Cape Cod golf club, and no one has ever been charged. Cornered by the victim's father, George can't explain why certain leads were never explored--leads that point in the direction of a single family--and he agrees to look into it.
What begins as a search through the highly stratified layers of Cape Cod society, soon has George racing from Idaho to Hawaii, Costa Rica to France to New York City. But everywhere he goes he discovers people like himself: people with more secrets than answers, people haunted by a decision years past to trade silence for protection from life's sharp edges. George finds his friends are not necessarily still friends and a spouse can be unfaithful in more ways than one. And despite threats at every turn, he is driven to reconstruct the victim's last hours while searching not only for a killer but for his own redemption. 

MOVIE - Black Mass

R (2:02)

Wide release 9-18-15

Viewed 10-1-15 at ElCon with Sheila and Connie

RT Critic:  76  Audience:   76

Cag:  5/Loved it 

Directed by Scott Cooper

Warner Bros. Studios

Based on the true story of Jimmy "Whitey" Bulger,  South Boston crime lord

Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Dakota Johnson, Julianne Nicholson....and even Peter Sarsgaard

My comments:  This was a good one.  A true story I could relate to (being "from" Boston) - excellent story retelling and super actors.  Enjoyed every minute.  Interesting to watch the goodness in someone collide with the badness and watch a psychopath become crazier.  And then there's corruption.  Cops.  I grew up in the 60s and cops have always given me the heebie-jeebies, my 60s residue.  This movie reminded me of so much - especially Southie vs. the North End.....

RT Summary:  In 1970s South Boston, FBI Agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) persuades Irish mobster James "Whitey" Bulger (Johnny Depp) to collaborate with the FBI and eliminate a common enemy: the Italian mob. The drama tells the story of this unholy alliance, which spiraled out of control, allowing Whitey to evade law enforcement, consolidate power, and become one of the most ruthless and powerful gangsters in Boston history.

17. Two Graves - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Pendergast #12
read by Rene Auberjonois
14 unabridged cds/ 16.5 hours
Hachette Audio, 2012 $39.98
484 pgs.
TPPL
Goodreads rating: 3.93
cag rating: 3/Liked some of it....

My comments:  I was on and off about this one. I think that if I had read even one previous story about this odd FBI agent I might have liked him better. I didn't really like him at all until the last chapter, when his personality took a complete turnaround, almost unnaturally. The fighting scene, which the entire book was building up to, may have been enjoyed by lots of readers but for me it dragged on and on and on. The antagonist is still on the loose, so I'm sure an upcoming title (or titles) will include him. I do like the way that two other stories were woven into the book along with the main plot. I'd love to read more about Corey....  (Oh, one more comment.  Although I love the flawless reading the Mr. Auberjonois gave it, the way he read the protagonist helped instill in me the feeling that Pendergast was incredibly pretentious!) 

Goodreads synopsis:  For twelve years, he believed she died in an accident. Then, he was told she'd been murdered. Now, FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast discovers that his beloved wife Helen is alive. But their reunion is cut short when Helen is brazenly abducted before his eyes. And Pendergast is forced to embark on a furious cross-country chase to rescue her.
But all this turns out to be mere prologue to a far larger plot: one that unleashes a chillingly-almost supernaturally-adept serial killer on New York City. And Helen has one more surprise in store for Pendergast: a piece of their shared past that makes him the one man most suited to hunting down the killer.
His pursuit of the murderer will take Pendergast deep into the trackless forests of South America, to a hidden place where the evil that has blighted both his and Helen's lives lies in wait . . . a place where he will learn all too well the truth of the ancient proverb:
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

31. The Jasmine Trade - Denise Hamilton

Eve Diamond, LA Investigative Reporter, Book 1
Pinnacle Books, Kensington Publishing, 2001
pap $6.99
328 pgs (with about 20 more following the story, the first of book number 2, The Sugar Skull.)
For : Adults
Rating:  5

Eve Diamond is 29, smart, quick, and  little bit dare-devilish.  She writes for the LA Times, particularly in the San Gabriel Valley. Her JOB is to horn her way into people's lives so she can get the down and dirty.  And she does her job well.

The whole suburban area around LA is the setting, and Denise Hamilton uses it well.  The descriptions became so real that I found a suburban LA map and spent a good hour pouring over it, glad to have it handy when I encountered a new place that Eve had to cover.  She describes her home in Silverlake so well, I can hear it, see it, smell it.

The book begins when she is asked to write a story about a 17 year old Chinese-American girl that was murdered during a car jacking.  The girl was rich and pretty, but only Eve sensed that there was more to the story than a simple car jacking.  Along the way I learned so much, about "parachute kids", kids whose parents have moved them to southern California to go to good schools to get into good colleges, ensconcing them in huge, fancy, homes....and then going back to China or Hong Kong or Malaysia and being a long-distant parent.  I learned about Asian gangs, brothels, and the kidnapping sex trade......as bad as the slave trade from Africa.  It was well written, and every single one of my questions was answered by the end of the book.  Nothing was left hanging.  Characters became real, hearing Eve's thoughts were an added bonus.

This was a great story, truly interesting, informative, well-written, and suspenseful.  I can't wait to read number two!

MOVIE: Pride and Glory

Rating: A good-murder-mystery on film
Viewed: Oct. 28, 2008
El Con with Sheila
Rotten Tomato Rating: 34%
Mine: What do they know? This was good!
EW: B+ cag: A
Genre: Crime/Cop movie
Released Oct. 24th, 2008
R (2 hrs 9 min.) a long one
Directed by: Gavin O'Connor
Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight


Matinees before 6 pm have gone up to $7.
Dirty cops are everywhere.
Edward Norton and Colin Farrell are really good actors.
All fact, not opinion.

Okay, this movie has a horrible, sappy title. I thought it had something to do with the Civil War when I first heard it. I had no idea it would be a shoot-em-up NYC cop crime thriller. Sometimes these kinds of movies go careening around NY, giving the audience clues that don't fit because they've not understood all the slurred, rapid-fire cop discussion. You understand all that's going on in this one. It's of the "thinker" type. You're rooting for the hero, the good cop, but you're sure he'll have bad secrets or get killed. Yippee, neither happens. Satisfying ending (at least there are no shocking or sad deaths, only ones that fit into a it-had-to-happen-to-make-things-right scenario).

The Tierney family cop dynasty. Father, two sons, son-in-law. A head honcho, a detective, a patrol cop, a squad commander. Family men. Good cops. And a bad cop.

I really love the way this movie was shot. Lots of close-ups and unusual angles. It was dark. Set in the Washington Heights section of NYC (way, way north on the tip of Manhattan,under the George Washington Bridge), mostly at night, it was d-a-r-k. Even during the limited daytime shots it was dark. Inside the homes it was dark. It was dark inside the bars and drinking establishments. Well, look at the story. One wife is dying of cancer (these parts may have been the toughest to handle for me), another is up to his neck in bad deeds, another is melancholy and sad. Drug addicts, poverty, murders. Dark. Dark.

Edward Norton plays the detective, the thinker; troubled and sad about the upcoming divorce from a wife he still loves. Cooerced into statements made on the stand in a situation two years earlier that he has always regretted. It's lost him a lot. He's a loner now, smart and thoughtful. He lives alone on a tiny boat that's always rockin' and rollin' on the waves, leaking water, and cold. He's our protagonist.

How far do we go to protect family? What does honesty and integrety really mean? What is this....code....that police officers seem to have that makes them instinctively protect each other even if it's wrong? How can someone be an ultra-protective and loving father one minute and a murderer - maybe even a child murderer- the next? The plot was intriguing, but the things it make you think about are even more important.

This was a good, entertaining, well-acted film. I really don't understand movie critics. What are they looking for?