"Tricky Business" by Dave Barry (2002)

 

This book was one of the "$2.99 Kindle specials" that I get in my email every day.  It looked interesting, but for some reason I was too cheap to spring for the two-ninety-nine so I did something that I should do more often:  I got the book out of the library.

Take a crummy past-its-prime cruise ship, retro fitted and turned into a gambling ship that leaves the Florida coast every night and sails behind the three mile limit to suck money out of tourists and local suckers.  Throw in a lousy house band, a down on her luck cocktail waitress, two hilarious senior citizens (picture Morty Seinfeld and Jack Klompus from "Seinfeld"), and assorted mobsters, drug runners, money launderers, and other only-in-Florida characters, put them on this tub of a ship and send it out into the Gulfstream as a tropical storm is raging - and a theme throughout the book is the hilarious dead-on over the top coverage that a local television news team provides during this weather "emergency" -  and what you've got is a comic crime novel of classic proportions.

Keep in mind that this book was published in 2002, so some references may be dated.  For example, with casinos now being so ubiquitous, who needs a ship that sails into international waters every night to be able to gamble?  That's just nitpicking, though.  It took me all of two days to read this one, and there were times where I was shrieking out loud with laughter.  You probably would too!

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

So, What Have I Been Reading Lately?

I am saddened to say that the twenty-fifth and penultimate book in Sue Grafton's series about private investigator Kinsey Milhone proved to be a big disappointment.

The crux of this story involves a ten year old crime that involved a videotaped sexual assault, and left one teen aged girl dead, and sent two teen aged boys to prison.  Ten years after the fact, the young man has been released from prison, but the tape has resurfaced and the young man's family is being blackmailed. There is also a secondary story that picks up a loose thread from the prior Milhone novel.

The story of the ten year old assault and murder is told in flashbacks, and that is a pretty neat technique, but it takes way to long to tell it (the book is 480 pages long), and when you combine the secondary storyline, it really takes too long to tell it.

I love this series, and am saddened to know that it will end when "Z is for_____" will be released in 2019, but if "Y" is any indication, perhaps it is time for Kinsey to call it quits.   

It pains me to do this, but only one star from The Grandstander on this one, but that won't stop me from buying "Z" the moment it becomes available.

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This book consists of series of essays by Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry wherein, as the title suggests, he "defends his homeland", the state of Florida.  The essays include ones on various Florida attractions that are not part of Massive Corporate Theme Parks.  Things like Gatorland, a town whose main business is psychics, and a park that features mermaids, among others.  Perhaps the best essays, though, are ones describing the town of Key West, and another that describes The Villages, the enormous senior living community.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

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Through the magic of Facebook, I have gotten to "meet" a number of interesting folks, including author Lou Sabini, a teacher and author who administers a terrific classic movie site on Facebook called "My Reel Life".  Lou has authored the above book that catalogs over 100 films from Hollywood's "Pre-Code" era, before the notorious "Production Code" was put into effect, a code that had all married couples in the movies sleeping in twin beds, if you know what I mean.  The book includes listings of cast and crew, as well as a synopsis of each film, and photographs from each movie. 

If you are a fan of movies, and classic movies in particular, this book belongs on your movie reference shelf.  You  just might discover, as I already have, that that unfamiliar title you see on Turner Classic Movies some night, just might be an unknown gem from the Pre-Code era.  

"Sex In The Cinema" is available through amazon.com and also from bearmanormedia.com.

Four stars from The Grandstander.