The Wrong Side Of Goodbye by Michael Connelly
“Bosch didn't mind the wait. The view was spectacular. He didn't bother with the waiting room couch either. Instead he stood with his face a foot from the glass and took in the view that ranged from the roof tops of downtown to the Pacific Ocean. He was fifty nine floors up in the U.S. Bank Tower, and Creighton was making him wait because it was something he always did, going all the way back to his days at Parker Centre, where the waiting room only had a low angle view of the back of City Hall. Creighton had moved a mere five blocks west since his days with the Los Angeles Police Department but he certainly had risen far beyond that to the lofty heights of the city's financial gods.”
Harry Bosch is at it again. The one time irascible but usually successful detective with the Los Angeles Police Department is now out on his own. He is the newest California private investigator, at least in this crackerjack addition to the Bosch oeuvre by Connelly, himself a one-time newspaper reporter in Los Angeles.
The man known to us initially only as Creighton wants Bosch to find out if he, the reclusive billionaire, has an heir. Creighton is dying, and he needs answers. Bosch is ready to provide them, while at the same time helping a local police department solve some cold cases.
The Bosch novels have been turned into a successful television series available on many streaming services. I have watched them all, and am starting to watch all of them all over again. And I think Crate and Barrel should have more screen time. If you know, you know.
The Wrong Side of Goodbye was published in 2016. The author's website is www.michaelconnelly.com I leave the rest up to you. Happy reading.
Not The Girl Next Door by Charlotte Chandler
(Joan Crawford: A Personal Biography)
“When I became famous and had enough money to buy anything, Joan Crawford told me, do you know what I would have bought if I could have? My childhood. But I learned a valuable lesson from the childhood I had. It wasn't the way I wanted my life to be. // According to Joan, she was born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, on March 23. 1908.”
Screen legend Joan Crawford is profiled in this book, described as being “fresh and revealing” as it supposedly draws on remarkably candid interviews with Crawford and others who knew her, including her first husband ( Douglas Fairbanks, Junior) and her daughter Cathy.
Starting out in those good old black and white silent movies, where people yakked at each other but we couldn't hear a thing they said – so why speak at all? — and had to read inserted title cards here and there to sort of figure out what was going on, Crawford clawed her way to glorious motion picture stardom in the thirties and forties, culminating in her Academy Award for her role in Mildred Pierce, one of my all-time favourite movies. Crawford lived from 1908 to 1977 and her fourth and final husband was Pepsi-Cola executive Alfred Steele.
I am always fascinated by tales of the old days of the movie industry, from the 1910's to the 1950's, and so this title is a welcome addition to my Hollywood-centric home library.
Not The Girl Next Door by Charlotte Chandler came out in 2008 from Simon and Schuster. Author Chandler has written several biographies of actors and directors, including those of Groucho Marx, Bette Davis and Alfred Hitchcock.
The Water Boy by Bobby Ackles (with Ian Mulgrew)
(From the sidelines to the owner's box: inside the CFL,XFL, and the NFL)
“Telephone calls have changed my life, and usually on a Thursday for some strange reason. Maybe that's why I don't usually answer the phone at home. At least when my business line rings, I'm prepared. I'm ready, and they want to talk to me. The home phone though, it's rarely for me -- why pick it up? Still, once in a while, and I don't know what possesses me, I do answer. I did this morning. A Thursday, wouldn't you have known it. Now I'm in the thick of it again. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. But I can be slow to appreciate a point.”
Ackles was born in Sarnia, Ontario, in 1938 and joined the B.C. Lions ( my all time favourite gridiron football team ) as yes, a water boy in 1954, at the age of 16. He went on to administer the Lions from 1975 to 1986, followed by high-level front office jobs with the Dallas Cowboys, the Phoenix (Arizona) Cardinals, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Miami Dolphins, and the Las Vegas Outlaws of the short-lived XFL.
In 2002 he returned to his home-town Lions as President and CEO from 2002 until his untimely death at the age of 69 in 2008. He was the only non-player to ever be handed the Schenley Award, normally given to the outstanding player in the Canadian Football League.
Growing up, Ackles played all kinds of sports, from football and rugby to hockey and lacrosse. In fact, he says he bought his first pair of hockey goaltender skates from the legendary Gump Worsley.
As for the B.C. Lions, Annis Stukus was their first head coach. Stuke is a legendary figure in Canadian sports, have played, managed, and coached football. He was later the general manager of the Winnipeg Jets of the old World Hockey Association, and he was instrumental in getting The Golden Jet – Bobby Hull-- to break away from the Chicago Blackhawks and sign with the Jets. He later went into broadcasting and I was lucky enough to work with him at CFUN Radio in Vancouver.
The Water Boy came out in 2007 from John Wiley and Sons. Look for it at second-hand book stores everywhere. Over and out.
