Sendoff for a Snitch by KM Rockwood

Jesse Damon spent twenty years in prison—he went in at sixteen and is now on parole. He’s trying hard to keep on the straight and narrow, but trouble just seems to find him. It’s not that he makes bad decision—sometimes stuff happens.

Jesse’s got a job at a plating factory, has a little basement apartment, and a girlfriend of sorts. When a monster storm causes flooding and power outages in the city, Jesse panics. While trying to pack up his meager belongings to keep them from destruction, Jesse discovers the ten year old brother of a co-worker sitting on his steps. While trying to help the boy, he gets picked up by the police and fears he will be going back to prison on a parole violation. Unwittingly he’s a suspect in a murder and drug operation.

Working class heroes are hard to find—Jesse is no computer whiz, martial arts champion or master of disguise. The author does a masterful job of portraying Jesse as someone who tries to do right but can’t catch a break. Even the minor characters, like the owner of a head shop, are vivid and achingly real. Fourth in this compelling series.

Bryant and May off the Rails

When an elusive criminal known as Mr. Fox kills a police officer while escaping from a holding cell, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is outraged. As they attempt to track the murderer down, they discover Mr. Fox has been using different identities and altering his appearance.

Meanwhile, an attractive young woman in a polka dot dress dies from a fall in a London tube station. She was on her way home from her job at a department store cosmetics counter, and security camera footage shows that although she was wearing four inch high heels, she didn’t stumble. But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May dig deeper, and wonder if there is any significance to a sticker found on her coat. When a university student goes missing in a tube station, another sticker is found, and the detectives are sure there is a connection.

Bryant is a rumpled, aged detective, who pours over his books but is not opposed to using new technology, as long as he’s not the one tapping the keys. May is the silver haired ladies’ man, a stylish dresser, and smooths over the mussed feathers caused by his unorthodox partner. A thoroughly entertaining series, a police procedural uniquely British.

Gin and Daggers by Donald Bain

Can’t get enough of “Murder, She Wrote”? In the first of the book tie-ins with the television series, Jessica Fletcher leaver Cabot Cove for England to visit Marjorie Ainsworth, the world’s queen of mystery writers. Joining Jessica at the country house are Marjorie’s sullen niece Jane, her sister and her husband, a charming but penniless Italian count, a critic, two book publishers, a theatrical producer, and a handsome young protégé of Marjorie’s. The household staff is on hand too, but when Marjorie is murdered, no one present thinks that the butler did it. It’s a classic English country house murder, and Jessica is right in the middle of it. Fans of the television series will be pleased to follow Jessica through the streets of London and meet up with all sort of characters.

Gimme Five! Presidents Day

Looking for a film for Presidents Day? Here are a few classics.

The Crossing (2000)

It is Dec. 17, 1776. Hounded by superior British forces, his army decimated by disease, desertion and lack of funds, General George Washington (Jeff Daniels) faces the unthinkable: he is losing the war for American Independence. A week later, on Christmas Eve, Washington will make one of the most bold decisions in military history. Staking everything on a  surprise attack against a garrison of battle-hardened Hessian mercenaries, Washington sets out across the icy Delaware River. The Conspirator (2011) In the wake of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, seven men and one woman are arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the President, the Vice-President, and the Secretary of State. The lone woman charged, Mary Surratt, owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and others met and planned the simultaneous attacks. Newly-minted lawyer Frederick Aiken, a 28-year-old Union war hero, reluctantly agrees to defend Surratt before a military tribunal. As the trial unfolds, Aiken realizes his client may be innocent and that she is being used as bait and hostage in order to capture the only conspirator to have escaped a massive manhunt--her own son.  With James MacAvoy and Robin Wright. Lincoln (2012) Steven Spielberg's Lincoln chronicles the final four months in the life of the man regarded as America's greatest President. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role, the story focuses on a defining moment in Abraham Lincoln's life - as commander-in-chief of a country in chaos; as a husband and father afraid of losing his own son to the war; and as a man guided by his conscience to end slavery. With the Civil War nearing conclusion, President Lincoln fights to convince Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment that will change the course of history. Facing fierce opposition, he wages a battle of strategy, persuasion, and political force to build a coalition out of his team of rivals. Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (2012) Filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov  bring a fresh and visceral voice to the bloodthirsty lore of the vampire, imagining Lincoln as history's greatest hunter of the undead. Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) Views Lincoln's life, from his early days as a young woodsman to his election to the presidency in 1860. Includes his first love with Ann Rutledge, his marriage to Mary Todd, his early law practice, and his debates with Stephen Douglas. Starring Raymond Massey and Ruth Gordon.

Gimme Five! My Funny Valentine

Must Love Dogs stars Diane Lane as a divorced kindergarten teacher whose sisters place a personals ad for her. This can only get better after she discovers her father is her first date. She eventually meets John Cusack, with both of them bringing dogs they have borrowed to their first date. Based on the novel by Claire Cook.

 In Murphy's Romance, Murphy Jones (James Garner) is the eccentric drugstore owner in a small town who is smitten by the younger Emma (Sally Field). Emma is working hard to get her stables off the ground, but when her ex-husband drops in, she has a hard time convincing him that their marriage is long over.

Secret emails between a discount chain bookstore executive (Tom Hanks) and a children's bookshop owner (Meg Ryan) lead to romance in You've Got Mail. Of course, when they meet in person they argue about how the big bookstores are driving her out of business, but eventually love wins out. Great supporting cast, including Greg Kinnear and Parkey Posey.

Who could have imagined that a widowed surgeon would be like catnip to women? Charlie (Walter Matthau) didn't, and he's busy dating every female employee in the hospital. House Calls teams him with Glenda Jackson, as a patient with a broken jaw, who demands he give up other women if he wants to date her. Richard Benjamin and Art Carney round out the cast.

In Overboard, Goldie Hawn is an heiress who falls off her yacht and suffers from amnesia. Kurt Russell is a carpenter who did a job for her and didn't get paid. He claims her from the hospital, pretending to be her husband, and intends to have her work off the debt by playing mom to his four sons. "I didn't marry very well," muses a depressed Goldie as she sits on the porch of Russell's rustic cabin.

January's Books

Augusten Burroughs, author of “Running with Scissors,” has had an interesting life. In "Possible Side Effects" he writes about dogs, his mentally ill mother, dating, quitting smoking, alcoholism, and his career as an ad writer. If you’ve read everything by David Sedaris and want more, try this book.

 

A Little Murder by Cindy Davis
Skeleton in the Closet by Judith Ivie
It Happens in the Dark by Carol O'Connell
Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club by Liz Stauffer
Death Will Extend Your Vacation by Elizabeth Zelvin
Moon Signs by Helen Fanick
Rock Point by Carla Neggers
Dead Head by Rosemary Harris
The Topless Tulip Caper by Lawrence Block
Pushing up Daisies by Rosemary Harris
Death of a Country Fried Redneck by Lee Hollis
Slugfest by Rosemary Harris
Father Knows Death by Jeffrey Allen
The Colonel and Little Missie:Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the beginnings of superstardom in America by Larry McMurtry
Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs
Murder with Ganache by Lucy Burdette