According to my Avalon Ballroom 2010 calender, on this day in 1967 Quicksilver Messenger Service played the Avalon Ballroom and in 1968 Cream, Jeremy and the Satyrs
and Blood Sweat and Tears played Winterland. Ok proof that I didn’t just start liking jam bands but liked jam bands before they were labeled jam bands. Quicksilver’s album Happy Trails and their cover of “Who Do You Love” are all time favorites and Cream’s fourteen minute drum solo “Toad” would make any of today’s jam bands proud!
Parnell Hall doing research for his puzzle lady series attends a Crossword Puzzle Tournament. A funny writer of mysteries and songs!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBJdU7mxrEY
While this book is my first read of a book by James W. Hall it is the sixth book in the eleven book series featuring Hall’s iconoclast beach bum fisherman Thorn. (Anyone know his full name?). The book centers around the senseless slaughter of eleven dolphins at a Key West park that Thorn and his current girlfriend Monica had visited a few days previous. The slaughter is tied to the experiments in pain alleviation being performed on wounded veterans by an old boyfriend of Thorn’s Bean Wilson Jr. Wilson is also being investigated by the DEA for illegal actions and they have placed an undercover agent Greta Masterson in Wilson’s clinic. As Thorn starts to investigate he becomes a target and the rest of the story revolves around solving the mystery of the slaughter of the dolphins and rescuing Greta!
It was a good read and I enjoyed the character development of many of the characters including Bean Wilson, Pepper Tremaine and Thorn. However, I know that there’s a lot of background on Thorn’s life that was missing, so overall I don’t think I enjoyed the book as much as I would have had I 
started at the being of the series. So now, I have to go back and learn about Thorn from the first five books before I travel forward to the next five. Like I need another series. So check James W. Hall out but start with Under Cover of Daylight.
While this book is my first read of a book by James W. Hall it is the sixth book in the eleven book series featuring Hall’s iconoclast beach bum fisherman Thorn. (Anyone know his full name?). The book centers around the senseless slaughter of eleven dolphins at a Key West park that Thorn and his current girlfriend Monica had visited a few days previous. The slaughter is tied to the experiments in pain alleviation being performed on wounded veterans by an old boyfriend of Thorn’s Bean Wilson Jr. Wilson is also being investigated by the DEA for illegal actions and they have placed an undercover agent Greta Masterson in Wilson’s clinic. As Thorn starts to investigate he becomes a target and the rest of the story revolves around solving the mystery of the slaughter of the dolphins and rescuing Greta!
It was a good read and I enjoyed the character development of many of the characters including Bean Wilson, Pepper Tremaine and Thorn. However, I know that there’s a lot of background on Thorn’s life that was missing, so overall I don’t think I enjoyed the book as much as I would have had I started at the being of the series. So now, I have to go back and learn about Thorn from the first five books before I travel forward to the next five. Like I need another series. So check James W. Hall out but start with Under Cover of Daylight.
Last night my wife and I treked to the Electric Factory to see her favorite band Flogging Molly. This is either the eight or ninth time we have seen them live. We have gone several times to Philly venues, the Electric Factory and the Trocadero, twice to the House of Blues in Atlantic City and once to Sayreville, NJ. As always the show was great. Last night, I thought that the leader of the 
band and lead vocalist Dave King was in rare form and had a really good time. The band played for about two hours and played a set that consisted of standards like “Drunken Lullabies”, “Requiem for a Dying Song”, “Float”, “Seven Deadly Sins”, “Rebel with a Sacred Heart”, “Factory Girl”, with Bridget singing the Lucinda Williams part, a short acoustic set and a few songs that they typically don’t play like “The Wanderlust” and “Lighting Storm” and I am sure a couple more and since they don’t play them I don’t know them. The show ended with the typical encore song “Black Friday Rule”, which was one of the first songs they wrote when they formed the ban and as usual King played the bodhran in the song.
If you don’t know Flogging Molly you should! They are a seven member American Celtic Rock Band and have their own unique sound. From their website Dave King the leader says about their music:
“If it didn’t have mandolin, accordion, fiddle and whistle, it would be punk rock, and if it didn’t have guitar, bass and drums, it would be traditional Irish music,” King admits, adding, “You can’t be bothered being labeled.”
“We used to play there every Monday night and we felt like we were flogging it to death, so we called the band Flogging Molly.”
Frank Turner (born 28 December, 1981) is an English folk/punk singer-songwriter from Meonstoke,Winchester. Initially the vocalist of post-hardcore band Million Dead, Turner embarked upon a primarily acoustic-based solo career following the band’s split in 2005. To date, Turner has released three solo albums, a rarities compilation album and two EPs. His most recent album, Poetry of the Deed, was released on September 7, 2009.
Book 7 of 2010 – Dark Tiger is most likely the last Stoney Calhoun novel by William G. Tapply. Tapply passed away in July of 2009 after a battle with leukemia. Tapply is best known for his Brady Coyne series which spanned twenty-six years and twenty-five books.
Dark Tiger is the third book in the Stoney Calhoun series. Stonewall Jackson Calhoun is currently a fishing guide in Maine and runs a bait shop with his lover Kate Balaban.
Stoney has a past that he doesn’t quite remember, a result of being struck by lightening years ago. Through glimpses of muscle memory and other memory flashes Stoney knows he was a trained agent of some sort. Now though he runs his bait shop and occasionally serves as a deputy sheriff when the need arises. Keeping an eye on Stoney is “The Man in the Suit” who knows about Stoney’s past but he’s not telling and every so often pops into Stoney’s life checking on Stoney’s memory.
As this novel opens, Stoney is told that he and Kate will soon loose their lease on the bait shop and Kate is told her husband Walter, who suffering from MS and lives in a rehabilitation center will soon be kicked out! Stoney soon figures this is the work of “The Man in the Suit” ,which turns out to be correct. “The Man in the Suit” and his boss tell Stoney they will make everything in his life OK, if he takes an assignment to go to Loon Lake Lodge in the wilds of northern Maine and solve the murder of one of their agents. The agent was found dead along with a sixteen year old girl in what was made to look like a murder suicide. Only problem is Stoney can’t tell anyone where he is going or why, which does not endear him to Kate! But off he goes. I didn’t think this was a great read, but it was a comfortable one! I enjoy the characters and the story line was ok!
I liked the series and it ended before we learned the complete story about Stoney’s past and if Stoney and Kate will have a life without the guilt they both feel about their relationship in light of Kate’s husband’s illness. Stoney, Brady Coyne and William G Tapply you will be missed!
In honor of the opening of Shutter Island (which from the trailers looks great) today based on the book by Dennis Lehane. I thought I’d write something about his series featuring Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro.
Before he turned to standalones after the success of Mystic River, Dennis Lehane wrote five novels featuring Kenzie and Gennaro, starting with A Drink Before the War, which won a Shamus award and ending withPrayers for Rain , including Gone, Baby Gone turned into the movie starring Casey Afleck.
The books are gritty and deal with the underbelly of Dorchester a suburb if Boston, but the writing is terrific and the story lines are fast paced. I think I read these books about as fast as any I’ve read.
They are the kind you just can’t put down and when you do you can’t wait until you can pick them up again! Lehane said he wasn’t going to write anymore of these books but from what I understand his next book will be a Kenzie and Gennaro, can’t wait! So if you’ve never read them and enjoy gritty novels pick them up you won’t be disappointed!
| Title | Series/No. | Year Published | Date Read | Review |
| A Drink Before the War | Kenzie & Gennaro#1 | 1994 | 2/01/2002 | |
| Darkness Take My Hand | Kenzie & Gennaro#2 | 1996 | 3/20/2002 | |
| Sacred | Kenzie & Gennaro#3 | 1998 | 3/31/2002 | |
| Gone, Baby Gone | Kenzie & Gennaro#4 | 1999 | 5/18/2002 | |
| Prayers for Rain | Kenzie & Gennaro#5 | 2000 | 3/25/2002 | |
| Moonlight Mile | Kanzie & Gennaro #6 | 2010 |
| Title | Series/No | Year Published | Date Read | |
| The Given Day | Coughlin #1 | 2008 | ||
| Live By Night | Coughlin #2 | 2012 | ||
| World Gone By | Coughlin #3 | 2015 |
| Title | Date Published | |||
| Mystic River | 2001 | |||
| Shutter Island | 2004 | |||
| The Drop | 2014 | |||
| Small Mercies | 2023 | |||
A Whisper to the Living may have been the last novel in Stuart Kaminsky’s long-running Porfiry Rostnikov series, and reading it felt like returning to old friends. Kaminsky once again blends mystery, Russian politics, and family drama into a tightly woven 256 pages.
In this entry, Porfiry tracks the Bitsevsky Park Maniac, a serial killer seeking notoriety, while his team splits across parallel cases: Sasha and Elena protecting a British journalist investigating a prostitution ring, and Arkady with Iosef pursuing a heavyweight boxer wanted for murder. As always, Kaminsky mixes crime with the human side of his detectives—their families, flaws, and loyalties—set against the backdrop of a changing Moscow.
At just over 250 pages, it’s not War and Peace, but Kaminsky never needed that. He gave us believable characters, intriguing cases, and a window into Soviet and Russian life. Spending time again with Porfiry and his circle reminded me why this series has been a favorite—these characters will be missed.
Parnell Hall writes one of my favorite all-time series starring “Stanley Hastings, the world’s most reluctant private eye, is a failed actor/writer, who chases ambulances for a negligence lawyer in between gigs, which is most of the time” – (from ParnelHall.com). the books are just downright fun reads and a new one is due in July titled Caper! He also writes the Puzzle Lady series featuring Cora Felton also a good time. He obviously also can write music and sing as shown in the following video! I think I have the majority of those LP’s he’s looking at!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov9pa8H4GiM
Abandoned (A Thriller) Abandoned is the fourth book in the Smokey Barrett series by Cody McFadyen and in my opinion it may be his best!
About the Smokey Burnett Series
Smokey is an FBI agent and leader of the LA branch of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). They hunt down the worst men and women who murder men, women and children and serial rapists too. Smokey is also a survivor. She lives with the scars on her face, left after a killer broke into her house and killed her husband Matt and daughter Alexa.
The previous books, Shadow Man, The Face of Death, and The Dark Side have all been outstanding. I thoroughly enjoy McFadyen’s writing and the characters that live in these books.
These characters include members of Smoky’s team, Callie Thorne, Alan Washington, James Giron, and Leo Carnes, who plays a big role in this book. Smokey’s adopted daughter Bonnie, who is also a survivor, having been tied to her dead mother for three days, and Tommy, Smoky’s new husband, all combine to make the novels extend far beyond the chase of a killer. MaFadyen’s first book, Shadow Man was a particular favorite and one of the best debut novels I have ever read.
In Abandoned, Smoky faces possibly the most difficult adversary she has ever faced. The novel opens on the wedding day of one of the members of Smoky’s team, Callie Thorne. Smoky receives a text message saying “I’m sending something to you, Special Agent Barrett.” As Father Yates is presenting Mr. and Mrs……a black Mustang pulls into the parking lot the door opens and a woman is tossed out. She’s shaved bald and is wearing a white nightgown and as she approaches the wedding party “she puts her hands to her face, turns her head to the sky, and begins to scream. A fingerprint check reveals that she has been missing for eight years – that she once was a wife, a mother and a cop! So begins Smoky’s hunt for a psychopath who keeps his victims in absolute darkness and doesn’t derive pleasure from the killing. From an interview at Amazon, Cody McFadyen says this about the killer:
I saw him, he terrified me, and then I wrote him. He lies within the pages of Abandoned. It’s my hope he’ll terrify you as well.–Cody McFadyen
Well, he did terrify me at times and I know he terrified Smoky….so if you are a fan of great writing definitely pick up this one!! 5 out of 5
