Jack McEvoy kinda troubles me...(NOT!)

Of course, one doesn't have to love a character to appreciate a book or series.  And Jack McEvoy didn't trouble me until The Scarecrow.  I really did enjoy The Poet but then I didn't like Scarecrow so much I was surprised by how much I really did enjoy Fair Warning. But FW was so good that I will read the book about Jack.  Even though I do find him troubling...I don't remember why...but there were some things in Scarecrow that really made me raise my eyebrows...but maybe I am just being picky.

NO NO NO WAIT!

Dude while I didn't like Scarecrow, it wasn't Jack that bothered me...it was the guy from the other book by that woman who writes about a woman priest and a sheriff.  And the sheriff guy is a HUGE Blame-the-Victim dude.  BIG Time!  This one! 

So I had to change my title of the "review."  Jack is just a regular dude.  I mean, do feel bad for him because he lacks a lot of self confidence, especially when it comes to love.  But he isn't a creep like the law guy in that other series!  Sorry! 

Hieronymus Bosch

was a wacky painter.  I mean, this dude was doing his thing a WAY long time ago.  He died in 1516!  To the left is one of his most popular paintings.  I bet you have seen it.  It's The Garden of Earthly Delights.  Harry Bosch's full name is Hieronymus and, yes he was named after the painter.  The Wrong Side of Goodbye is the 21st in his series.  It was good.  I liked it a lot.  It did make me cry.  There was a story about Bosch remembering when Bob Hope and Connie Stevens did a USO Tour while Bosch was in Vietnam.  and Hope ordered his helicopter to land on the naval ship even though it was super dangerous to do so.  This just moved me to tears.  Then last night there was a PBS special on tv about Hope's USO tours.  I want to learn more about this.  I couldn't watch the show, so I need to try to catch it the next time it comes on.  I am not sure if it was this one or this one. 

GREAT collection!

The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Blue Religion:  New Stories about Cops, Criminals and the Chase was a great book!  One I found after reading Face Off, which was good but not as good as this, to me, anyway, because I love police procedurals!  It is edited by Harry Bosch creator, Michael Connelly.  His contribution to the collection is especially good.  I liked Alafair Burke's story, too, even though it was one that was predictable, it was really, really good and so that says a lot.  I liked her writing a lot.  Paul Guyot has an especially great story.  Man, it was just so good.  I LOVE how his website describes him as "fair selling author!"  There were just so many GREAT ones here.  SO MANY.  And all of them were at least good.  Just a must-read!

Clint Eastwood

So I never really liked Clint Eastwood.  I mean, he is hot and everything, but I just never really liked him.  I especially didn't like like him after the ridiculous stunt he pulled at the Republican National Convention.  The anti-veteran ticket of Romney-Ryan was so ridiculous that anyone affiliated with it, really dropped in my estimation.  I guess that a Dirty Harry kind of guy would be anti-veteran, maybe.  I am not sure.  I don't know much about Dirty Harry.   It just surprised me that a guy who really likes the patriot image could support an unpatriotic candidate like that Ryan who wants veterans benefits to be cut.  So Clint Eastwood truly is an unpatriotic, anti-veteran cartoon.

Once upon a time I loved Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch.  I loved that he was named after one of my favorite painters.  I loved everything about him.
But then Clint Eastwood ruined it for me.  He was in the movie Blood Work.  And he was so awful and wooden and way too old to play the main character.  And the book was written by Connelly.  And so in my mind I tie up Harry Bosch with Terry McCaleb.  Which is ridiculous I know.  But I have tied Connelly and Eastwood so tightly in my little mind that I just can't even read a Bosch book without thinking of the comedian Clint Eastwood and his dislike of veterans.
So going into Suicide Run, the book already had that against it.
Also going against it was that this week I had just finished another short story by Lawrence Block and one by Brian Freeman.  I love Freeman and Block and Jonathan Stride is way cooler than Bosch.  And even Keller, though a killer and bad dude, is way cooler than Bosch as well.
But over all, these were good stories.  They were just good, not awesome, but then again, remember what this book was up against!