November 2024 Newsletter

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Life in Manzanillo

I remember as a kid growing up in Hamilton when, every spring, the skies over Cootes Paradise would be filled with Monarch butterflies. Unfortunately, when civic authorities launched a big clean-up campaign for the harbor, they cut down all the milkweed growing in abundance along its shores, putting paid to their habitat.

Things are still looking up in Mexico, however. When we arrived in Manzanillo, we were greeted by a fluttery collection of blue, white and yellow butterflies, as well as the majestic Monarch.

A few years ago, we trekked to Morelia to see their winter habitat. It’s well worth the visit; we stayed in Morelia’s old town, which has excellent, inexpensive restaurants and friendly people. The journey to the refuge and back takes an entire day, with several hours spent hiking up the side of a mountain, but the effort is worth it. The best time to go is between November and March, when they begin their long migration back to Canada.

Recipe: Red Curry Shrimp

This recipe is my version of a delicious dish served at Oasis Marina! It’s easy to make and very tasty.

INGREDIENTS

8 jumbo shrimp, peeled

1 cup of chopped zucchini

1 Tsp of sesame oil

1 can of coconut milk

½ cup of tomato sauce

¼ cup of fish sauce

2 Tsp of soy sauce

2 Tsp of brown sugar

1 tsp of red curry paste

1 cup of spinach

Chopped basil

Chopped Jalapeno peppers (optional)

Lime wedges

Cooked rice

PREPARATION

Fry the zucchini and shrimp in the sesame oil. Set aside.

Mix coconut milk, tomato sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar and red curry paste in a large pan. Heat on medium for five minutes. Add in shrimp, zucchini and spinach, place a cover on the pan, and continue to cook for two more minutes.

Garnish with basil and peppers and serve with rice and lime wedges. Enjoy!

Crystal Ball now Available on Amazon!

FBI AGENT JACK KENYON is back! When a bomb in Myron Buckstar’s software lab kills an innocent woman, Jack and the crew are called in to find out if terrorists are targeting the flamboyant billionaire. They soon discover that the victim was a member of Scotland Yard working undercover on a mysterious case. As Jack pursues her murder, he uncovers a race to steal the Crystal Ball, an invention that allows its owner to peer into the future. Follow Jack from San Francisco to London as he pursues a host of murderers, conmen and criminals who will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.

Book Review

I Only Read Murder

By Ian and Will Ferguson

Many of you are probably familiar with Will Ferguson; he is a native Calgarian and winner of the 2012 Scotiabank Giller prize for his novel 419, and a very funny guy. He has now teamed up with his brother Ian to write a cozy mystery series set in a small west coast town.

The novel revolves around Miranda Abbott, the former star in the TV series Pastor Fran, where she played a karate-chopping cleric who dressed in bikinis and busted marijuana drug rings.

Miranda has hit hard times, however; her long-suffering agent is reduced to offering her roles in constipation ads. Her fortunes take a turn for the better when she receives a postcard from her estranged husband Edgar, begging her to return to Happy Rock, an idyllic village on Oregon’s Pacific shores.

Miranda finds herself playing second banana to Annette, the local diva, in the local amateur theatre troupe. Things get frantic when Annette mysteriously dies of poisoning during rehearsals, and all evidence points to Miranda as the prime suspect.

As one might expect from the brothers Ferguson, the narrative has its tongue firmly placed in its cheek and the plot twists are delightfully bizarre. A second book in the series, Mystery in the Title, was published this spring, and I can’t wait to read it. I highly recommend I Only Read Murder!

TV Review

The Diplomat Season 2

Streaming on Netflix

This is a political mystery thriller starring Keri Russel as Kate Wyler, the American Ambassador to the UK. She costars with Rufus Sewell, who plays Hal Wyler, her husband.

In season one, a missile attack against a British destroyer kills 23 sailors. Fingers got pointed to the usual suspects – jihadists, Russians, Iran – but Keri uncovers a link to the British government through UK foreign secretary Austin Dennison, an ambitious politician.

But is Kate being played? In season two, husband Hal, no slouch to intrigue, hunts down the rogues who almost killed him with a car bomb. Allison Janney makes a surprise appearance as vice president Grace Penn in the final plot twist that I’m not going to spoil for you but you gotta know it’s a humdinger.

Excellent writing and acting all around has earned this series lots of accolades. I highly recommend both season one and two of The Diplomat!

2024 09 01

September 2024 Newsletter

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Life in Calgary

As many readers know, I started my professional writing career as a reporter for the Calgary Herald. Thanks to the Daily Oil Bulletin, being back in Calgary has given me the opportunity to practice being a newspaper hack once again.

A few weeks ago, I attended an energy conference at the Banff Springs Hotel. The featured speaker was Stephen Harper, former prime minister and current international consultant.

I had never heard him speak before, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he has a very sharp sense of humor. In his opening remarks, he lamented the name change of the Edmonton Eskimos to the Elks due to political correctness.

“What’s next?” he queried. “Are they going to start calling the Oilers the Renewables?”

Crystal Ball Now Available on Amazon!

Read an Excerpt Here!

Movie Review; 50th Anniversary

Blazing Saddles

Streaming on Prime

Half a century ago, Blazing Saddles made its debut. Directed by Mel Brooks, it was a desperate attempt to revitalize his career after a number of flops had pushed him to the edge of bankruptcy.

Undeterred, the comic genius set out to spoof Westerns, a staple of Hollywood. The premise of the movie was standard fare; the town of Rock Ridge hires a sheriff to save them from the clutches of evil politician Hedley Lammar (Harvey Korman), when a railroad is routed through their town.

Brooks then ran the genre completely off the rails. Sheriff Bart, played by black actor Cleavon Little, is almost lynched by the town’s residents but manages to escape their clutches by threatening to shoot himself first.

Bart then enlists the legendary talents of The Waco Kid (Gene Wilder), and Mongo (NFL star Alex Karras), to battle Hedley’s thugs. Along the way, Brooks mixes in Nazis, motorcycle thugs, a Bavarian seductress and a Yiddish Indian Chief. Oh, and the fart scene.

Critics universally panned the movie, but audiences fell out of their seats laughing and the picture took in over $100 million, placing it among the top ten grossing films for that time. It was subsequently nominated for three Academy Awards.

Gross, tasteless and raunchy, Blazing Saddles is considered by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 funniest movies ever made. It has stood the test of time; I highly recommend you watch it!

Book Review

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

By Benjamin Stevenson

You have to admit, that’s a great title. The murder mystery is written by an Australian stand-up comedian, and it’s very funny.

The mystery takes place in a ski lodge on the tallest peak in Australia. The Cunningham family has gathered there to celebrate the release from prison of Michael Cunningham, who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of a lifelong criminal.

The Cunninghams are notorious throughout Australia after the family patriarch killed a policeman during a botched robbery in which he was also gunned down in graphic fashion.

His widow subsequently raises three young boys amid public scorn. Ernest, the middle boy, is the narrator of the novel, frequently cataloguing the victims of his siblings and in-laws in satiric fashion through direct observation and flashbacks.

Obviously, a stand-up comic uses stage communication with the audience as their primary means of story-telling, and Stevenson frequently pauses the narrative to seek out the sensibilities of you. The technique can be quite disruptive in the wrong hands as it deliberately suspends the reader’s sense-of-disbelief, but the author uses it to great effect.

Anyway, the family reunion is thrown into disarray when a stranger is consumed by flames during a raging blizzard. Who is the murderer stalking among them? Is it the anal sister-in-law, or her dweeb husband? Constable Reynolds, trapped by the blizzard, must suss out the guilty before they strike again!

I won’t give too much away but the narrator finally pieces the puzzle together just in time for a fiery finale. I highly recommend Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone!

TV Series

The Perfect Couple

Streaming on Netflix

Yes, I know I reviewed this last month, but that was really about the book, and this is about the series, plus I never pass up an opportunity to post a photo of Nicole Kidman.

As you recall, Greer and Tag Winbury (played by Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber), are hosting the wedding of their son Benji and his bride Celeste at their fabulous beachside mansion on the island of Nantucket. Hundreds have been invited to the lavish affair, which is expected to be the talk of the island.

The eve of the wedding is tragically marred by the death of the maid-of-honor, however. Merritt is found on the beach below the mansion, apparently drowned. But when the Chief of Police begins to investigate, he soon discovers an undercurrent of deceit and chicanery that belies the reputation of ‘the perfect couple’ and their family.

I was greatly impressed by Nicole’s portrayal of the steely matriarch Greer (she can win an Emmy with the wiggle of one eyebrow), but I was unexpectedly pleased by the performances of two secondary characters, the wedding planner (Tim Bagley), and the maid (Irina Dubova). When the police call them in for questioning, they spill the cattiest gossip you can imagine in straight face; the series is worth watching just to see these two veterans perform.

The critics, of course, are calling The Perfect Couple mindless soap-opera trash, but it’s all done in the over-the-top, prime-time tradition of Dallas, and you’re not going to find a better performer of a wily villain than Nicole Kidman!

Join me for a reading of Crystal Ball on Sunday, September 15, 4 pm at Owls Nest Books!

beautificia

August 2024 Newsletter

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Life in Calgary

Back in the summer of ‘67, my pal Bennie bought Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and invited me over to hear it.

I was especially intrigued by one song; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

“What’s that all about?” I asked.

“LSD,” said Bennie.

“Ooh.”

Before it was banned in the late 1960s, chemistry undergraduates at McMaster University were enthusiastically whipping up batches of a potential stress reliever called lysergic acid diethylamide. While the relief of stress was negligible, a microgram of LSD did have the side effect of glorious hallucinations.

Alas, that era is long past, but the visual effects live on in Beautifica, a highly entertaining music and visual extravaganza created by the musician James Hood.

We caught a showing at the TELUS Spark Science Center in Calgary, and were treated to the wonderful sensation of zooming through the universe in a psychedelic starship. The show is on its last leg in Calgary, but you can catch it at various locations in the US this summer.

Available this Fall!

Click Here to Read Excerpt

FBI AGENT JACK KENYON is back! When a bomb in Myron Buckstar’s software lab kills an innocent woman, Jack and the crew are called in to find out if terrorists are targeting the flamboyant billionaire.

They soon discover that the victim was a member of Scotland Yard working undercover on a mysterious case.

As Jack pursues her murder, he uncovers a race to steal the Crystal Ball, an invention that allows its owner to peer into the future. Follow Jack from San Francisco to London as he pursues a host of murderers, conmen and criminals who will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.

Recipe: Veal Burgers

This is easy to mix together and creates a delightful summer BBQ meal!

Ingredients

1 lb. of minced veal (if the butcher doesn’t have it, check the frozen food section).

2 oz. of parmesan, grated

1 tsp salt

1 tsp of paprika

Garnishing

Cob’s Bakery buns.

Directions

Mix parmesan, salt and paprika into the veal. Let it sit for 10 minutes, then form in to patties.

Grill on the BBQ, and garnish with onions, pickles, caramelized onions etc., and serve on lightly toasted buns from Cob’s Bakery.

Enjoy!

Book Review

A Death in Cornwall

By Daniel Silva

This is the 24th  book in the Gabriel Allon series, and it’s a peach.

Allon is an Israeli secret agent who served for many years as a Mossad assassin, rising through the ranks to become the boss of ‘The Office’. His legendary exploits took him around the world, hunting Israel’s sworn enemies in Europe, the Middle East and North America.

Now retired, he devotes his life to restoring the Masters, whether it’s an altarpiece by Raphael or a painting by Rothko. He lives the quiet life with his wife Chiara in Venice with their two children, striving to stay out of the limelight.

Until something royally pisses him off, that is. The effrontery in question is the brutal hatchet murder of an Oxford professor. Allon soon discovers she was on the trail of a Picasso painting, looted from a Paris art collector by the Nazis in WWII.

His investigation leads him to the Geneva Freeport, a tax-free haven where billionaires and crooks store their tax-free loot, including gold and valuable paintings.

Naturally, the bad guys hiding trillions would rather not have the light of the law shone on their shenanigans, and the body count starts to climb. Allon relies on his coterie of contacts and faithful sidekicks to stay one jump ahead of the pack as he dashes across Europe, pursuing his goal with laser focus.

You don’t have to read any of the previous series; each book stands on its own. But it you aren’t familiar with Silva’s work, I highly recommend you start at the beginning and peruse through the lot; you won’t be disappointed!

TV Series Review

The Perfect Couple

Streaming on Netflix September 6, 2024

I don’t normally review something I haven’t seen yet, but there’s a first time for everything!

The Perfect Couple is based on the novel of the same name by Elin Hildebrand. She has written several dozen books set on the island of Nantucket; they chronicle the lives of both the rich summer residents as well as the full-time citizens who (literally) cater to them.

Greer and Tag Winbury (played by Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber), are hosting the wedding of their son Benji and his bride Celeste at their fabulous beachside mansion on the island of Nantucket. Hundreds have been invited to the lavish affair, which is expected to be the talk of the island.

The eve of the wedding is tragically marred by the death of the maid of honor, however. Merritt is found on the beach below the mansion, apparently drowned. But when Chief of Police Ed Kapenash begins to investigate, he soon discovers an undercurrent of deceit and chicanery that belies the reputation of ‘the perfect couple’ and their family.

The novel is a very entertaining mix of whodunit and soap opera as the author explores both the backstories and the unraveling of the mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and I look forward to seeing the mini-series!

Upcoming Book Launch in Calgary!

Join me on Sunday, September 15, 2024, 4 pm., at Owl’s Nest Books for the launch of Crystal Ball. I’ll be doing a reading and signing and greeting all our pals from Calgary!