The Introverted Detective

 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...

 i, Robot (autocorrected a lot of times to I, Robot despite the i being correct) is a book of short stories about robots and the three laws of robotics. It inspired the movie with Will Smith and is also a series of four books. Let's talk about it.  These short stories are in timeline order, have reoccurring characters, and are all easy sci-fi reads. My Mom is not too into sci-fi and she loved this one. I read this in a week, if you take out the time of working and doing other stuff in between. It was compelling, not intimidating.  Seeing that this is a series of short stories, I'm putting the short stories in their own sections. Each story has unique themes. I need to honor that. From this point on, I'll explore the themes and plot in each section, titled with the short story. I'll put the reviews in timeline order.  Robbie This one shows off a delightful scene of a little girl playing with her robot nurse maid, Robbie, an early model sold to the public. After this, ...

 This book was suggested by my Dad and my Pop, who have great taste in books. My Pop suggested the book to Dad, who then suggested it to me while we were in a bookstore. I read the first section in one go. Let's talk about the Osage murders.  This was an amazing nonfiction about the Osage Murders and the creation of the FBI. J. Edgar Hoover used the Osage Murders (or at least 24 of them) to build up himself and the FBI. This book details one man's deep dive into the whole period of Osage Murders. The Osage tribes picked land, kept oil rights, and then became rich in black gold (oil), which motivated the corrupt law and business owners to steal and kill. You could only inherit headrights, so there were multiple plots to kill Osage. The man who wrote this book found out that 100s of murders had happened to get headrights - and discovered some answers for some of the cases. Other cases hadn't been investigated at all, leaving no answers for the remaining Osage tribe in Pawhusk...

This is a fantasy book that features a sword that, when unsheathed, releases a magical warrior. This sword is then found by a woman trying to kill herself because her family locked her away to make her marry her wealth into the family. The whole concept is darkly absurd, humorous in a way that appeals to a slightly absurd sense of humor. I was dying laughing in the first ten chapters. Let's talk about it.  This book was fantastic, a slow burn romance with humor and ridiculous conversations. From the darker humor to the romance between Halla and Sarkis, it was fun to read. I buddy-read this with my best friend. My best friend has great taste. This was her wonderful idea and I loved the book.  This romance is about Bridgerton level, which means if you can read some steamy Bridgerton scenes, you can read this. It is for adults only, so keep that in mind. I wouldn't hand this book to a child. The best part about the romance is the build-up, which is far more realistic than some of...

 I watched another Oswald - a cartoon about a lucky rabbit. I noticed the opening image had the lucky horseshoe upside down, making him an unlucky rabbit. This one is a 10 out of 10. I'd have no problem watching this again.  Courtesy of intanibase.com Hell's Heels, made in 1930, is about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit going into Hella City to rob a bank. He gets caught, finds the sheriff's child, and is then forced to bring the child back to the sheriff. He gets there and runs back into the desert. It's a simple plot and I enjoyed it.  Do you get some weird stuff going on? Of course, it's 1930 and animation is new. It's a musical. That shouldn't shock anyone. All the lines connect to the music. You start with Oswald and two bandits going into Hella City. They shove dynamite the size of Oswald into Oswald's hands, make him rob the bank, and the sheriff literally jumps out of the safe. The bandits run off. He then runs into the dessert.  Now we get to the sheriff...

BIG NEWS! Morrow is out and available on Amazon, Kindle, and Kobo. Huzzah! Here's all the information you need to know.  Morrow is currently available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook (Kindle and Kobo). Whatever ereader you have, I have the Kobo and Kindle options for you. It will eventually be available at The Clever Quill in Carrollton, Ohio, but right now I have to order the author copies to stock that local bookstore. In the meantime, go visit The Clever Quill for copies of Wrenville, my first novel.  The Clever Quill is located here: 450 S Lisbon St, Carrollton, OH, United States, Ohio Behold the links to buy the book!  Amazon -  https://a.co/d/e5TrMw2 Kobo -  Morrow eBook by Cathy Baker - EPUB | Rakuten Kobo United States How you can help me I need all of you reading this blog, every one of you, to share this to your social media. Tell your friends, buy the book, leave a review, and draw attention to Morrow's release. I am only one person promoting ...