The Introverted Detective

 I love the In Death series of suspense novels (written by JD Robb). I collect them. This is one of the smaller books. Let's talk about a return serial killer and a Christmas spent solving crime.  Eve Dallas is having a Christmas of love and new traditions with her husband Roarke, until a serial killer named Dave - specializing in torturing people for long periods of time - gets out of the mental health facility to get back at the people who put him away. He leaves the judge of his trial in a public area and kicks off an investigation that interrupts Eve's Christmas celebration.  Thoughts This was a shorter read, a ten-chapter read that reminded me how much I loved this series. I don't have anything negative to say. I won't spoil it. These do have a formula if I remember the series correctly. Eve is in some sort of danger, as always. In this case, she's on Dave's hit list.  It was only ten chapters. This one was compelling and short. If you need a quick suspense...

 Here's to the only Bond novel that made me cry. Let's talk about On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Blofeld's personal attack against James Bond.  This was a five star read. Yes, Fleming fantasized some dialogue from Tracy, but otherwise it was one of the best Ian Fleming Bond novels. I expect some sexist moments from him because every book has proved to have one or two. He wrote this in 1963 and grew up in the 1950s, a sexist era if I ever had to name one.  The plot of this one is James Bond meeting a woman named Tracy at a familiar casino (the one from Casino Royale). He then makes a deal with her father (after a surprise meeting) for information on Blofeld. After finding out that Blofeld sought a high title, he pretends to investigate such things as someone from that office, meeting Blofeld at a ski resort of Blofeld's making. He finds out Blofeld's researching allergies in some rural young women and escapes the place (after someone accidentally blew his co...

 This year's TBR was mostly rolled over from last year's list. I have learned that DNF-ing (Do Not Finish) a book is not a crime. Instead, it opens you up to more books you'll enjoy. Let's look at how the TBR went.  This year I knocked out about half the TBR, opting to not follow it after I was in a reading flow. In my reading flow, I decided I had no trouble deciding on what to read next and didn't need the guidance. Surprisingly, most of the books I read were picked up on a whim. I threw some challenges in this year, as usual.  Challenges The library challenge is when a book must come from a physical or digital library. Easy challenge, especially if you are not sure of some books and want to test-drive them before you buy them. It pays to see if your local library has a copy.  The One-Shelf challenge is picking a shelf, then limiting your reading options to what is on that shelf. It means you read what you have. It's an easy way to attempt reading only what yo...

 If you like a cute little owl singing Jazz, you'll like this. It's a Merrie Melodies cartoon about a young owl that likes to sing Jazz, gets kicked out, and goes viral over the radio. His cute little owl family hears him and they run to support him.  Courtesy of themoviedb.org This was so cute, but I had to go to Vimeo to find it. YouTube gave me trouble with finding it.  Here is the link to the one I watched.   If this link doesn't work, comment below.  What I loved about it There is nothing to dislike here. A cute little owl family comes around to liking Jazz. They hatch some owl eggs, get multiple little musicians, and one of them is singing Jazz. The others are singing opera, playing violin, and playing flute. They try to teach him not to sing Jazz, but instead, the father kicks him out. The mother calls the police to go find him. It sounds like the owls are Italian.  After a hilarious depiction of the Gong Show, our little owl (Owl Jolsen) succeeds in...

 I found this before, but didn't review it. This had enough cursed ghosts in it that any child would probably want to turn it off. The song is typical jazz you might hear in a jazz club, but the ghosts chasing Bimbo the dog are something else.  Courtesy of paramountcartoons.fandom.com This is a 1930 cartoon about Bimbo trying to steal a chicken, running away into a cemetery, then getting haunted by all the ghosts in the cemetery that want to kill him. Yep, Fleischer has more cursed content to give. I found this, then realized I'd found it long before. This is the second time I've seen it. It's still a little strange, even after all the Fleischer I've taken in.  The Good I did find some good in this, and that was the music. I was swaying to the jazz without thinking about it. Listening to the song alone is okay (despite some of the dialogue being about Bimbo's death). If you've ever swayed along to a song naturally, you'll know the music is not the proble...

 I watched another Betty Boop. Minnie The Moocher is mostly Cab Calloway singing and dancing.....as a ghost walrus. At least they showed you the music made in a film clip, so you could see where the Walrus got its jazz moves... Still, it was something else.  Courtesy of blogspot.com Once again, Betty Boop proves that it was a bit cursed. I'm not too phased by it anymore, not after more than three shorts. This one is all about Betty Boop not eating a horrible dinner, crying to inanimate objects after some bad family moments, and then leaving home with Bimbo. The two then get scared, go in a cave, and watch a ghost walrus sing Minnie The Moocher (the song by Cab Calloway) while it dances like Calloway himself. They then run straight back home after the ghosts chase them down the street. The end.  What I liked The song itself is weird and out of place in this cartoon, but the song alone is also good jazz. I liked the credits showing Cab Calloway and his orchestra performing....

 The Old Mill is about the animals living in an old mill during a thunderstorm, yet, it held my attention. As all the characters (all animals) get distressed at the storm itself, there are no words. The music tells the entire story. Let's get into it.  Courtesy of film.nu The Old Mill, made in 1937, is purely music and images. It was in Technicolor. This was a silly Symphony where the plot was a thunderstorm hitting an old building (the mill). It begins with you seeing the mill in daylight and the animals at peace, introducing all the characters in a few minutes. From here, we get bullfrogs singing with crickets. This peaceful symphony is interrupted by wind, wind that hits the mill's windmill.  This is where the animals begin to get distressed. You see a little blue bird (don't know the species, sorry) who had a nest on the mill cog in the opening scenes. The owl is also distressed as the cogs begin to move, but not as stressed as that poor sweet little bird on a nest. T...

I have way too many free romance novels in my digital collection. Some are probably good, but others are free for a reason. This challenge is exclusively reading and unhauling the digital romances I collected and might be afraid to pick up. Let's see how many of them are smut and how many have a plot. Let's dive in. I thought this would at least be a laugh. Frankly, I'm pretty sure I picked up some smut by accident. Today I'm telling you what is worth reading and what is not worth picking up. Let's wade into dangerous waters together and see what is good, bad, and just plain wrong.  I'm giving the spice rating in a 1-10 range, 1 being the suggestion of sex or less, 5 being a few sex scenes, and anything above 7 being mostly spice. 5 is the average Bridgerton and 1 is Christian romance, if that helps you understand my system.  The Agreement by S E Lund It starts with a young woman going to a fundraiser with a friend, who styled her to be a little sexy. In convers...

 I'm doing more research while I wait for beta readers to finish. Today I watched Bimbo's Initiation from 1931. It was something else and could have been a whole Cuphead level. Let's get into it.  Courtesy of intanibase.com The first thing I noticed watching this cartoon was the mouse that locked Bimbo below the street. It looked an awful lot like Mickey. Was this a dig at the joke animators used to make? The joke made, for reference, was that a tunnel led to Disney. This was because Fleischer Studios lost many animators to Disney. It crossed my mind that this might be a reference to Disney converting Fleischer's animators. I say this because it starts with Bimbo falling into a manhole and getting padlocked in by a mouse.  This whole cartoon is unhinged. The whole concept is Bimbo the dog being converted into a cult, saying no multiple times, and being effectively tortured into saying yes. He only says yes when Betty Boop performs an anatomically questionable dance, the...

 This book is about a mysterious person taking revenge on St. Oswald's, a private boys' school, because of their unbalanced mind. It starts with their perspective, switches to the teacher that will eventually suspect them, and then goes back and forth. Let's talk about Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. This contains spoilers! My review is not spoiler free. Please read it yourself before reading this review.    St. Oswald's is a private boys' school that our first character is forbidden from going near. One day they cross the grounds, another they sneak in, another they start to blend in and hide there, and eventually they know the school and covertly listen to lessons. Their own school is a bullying nightmare they avoid.  The second character is a teacher, Roy Straitley, who teaches classics and Latin. He himself is a little pessimistic, but he reads people more than others do. He keeps to himself, hates to share his classroom, and is observant. He already rea...

 Today I'm finally getting to more Disney stuff, which is quite okay with me. Today I review Lonesome Ghosts, made in 1937. Let's dive in.  Courtesy of IMDB.com Lonesome Ghosts is a Disney cartoon featuring a group of ghosts, Mickey, Goofy, and Donald Duck. Some ghosts get bored, call the main trio (Goofy, Mickey, and Donald) to come so they can mess with someone, and then run off after they get scared of our trio covered in flour and molasses. It's so much fun. I loved it. The sound quality had also gone up and it was in technicolor.  What I liked There was nothing to dislike here. Mickey, Goofy, and Donald all come to get chased around by bored ghosts At the end they run into Molasses, get covered in flour, and scare the ghosts out on accident. It's so funny. It really doesn't have much to comment on, except that shotguns, axes, and your fists probably don't help you hunt ghosts. It just adds to the comedic element.  There is one thing I'll say. Goofy says...

 I watched another Oswald. It was not the most cursed one. I prefer to watch Hell's Heels (another Oswald), but not the most cursed. Honestly, it's an 7 out of 10. Stars are missing because it is still a little cursed. Courtesy of intanibase.com This is remarkably similar to another cartoon I watched - the one that Betty Boop was debuted in. This is not Fleischer, though, it is universal. We have some cursed images in this one. A tin of milk with udders, Oswald being shoved into a cow through his mouth, a hippo that definitely can't sing...I don't love that.  I'm not commenting too much on sound quality. 1930 was not known for high sound quality or excellent voice acting. We're looking at the early years of cartoons and sound combined. We're looking at the start of a journey, not the high quality we're used to in our 2025 entertainment. Let's be real. I couldn't understand most of the hippo's song and I'm not too surprised.  What wasn...