Carl Deuker -- Books, Movies, TV

Jorge nearly killed, but survives. Implicates cartel and gets into witness protection program in USA--a new kind of prison.  Accountant comically asks about his home in the USA, not getting that the cartel is coming to kill him NOW. He also testifies.  President of Colombia implicated in corruption. Cartel members Checko and Pacho killed in prison. Brothers Gilberto and Miguel extradited to USA where they're sentenced to life.  Pena mixed feelings. Corrupt government still in power, so not a real victory. He turns in his badge, but can he stay out of the fray?  Narcos Mexico is next--I'm guessing Pena will be there. Terrific show.

Didn't read much today.  Our main character  (Nap Dumas) is learning that his friends, Augie and Ellie, have been keeping things from about the death of his brother--and Augie's daughter.  Maura on the run . . . from what? Reeves (Agriculture worker at the Nike Missile Base) is looking like the villain, but there's more to be unveiled.  Maura, for example.

Miguel captured. Jorge escapes (barely). The president of Columbia is on the take, as is the minister of defense.  The money launderer murdered in prison in Miami.  Pacho and Chacko (?) both turn themselves in after the capture of Miguel, and after killing the leaders of the North Valley group.  Episode 10 . . . will they all get light sentences and live in the lap of luxury? Tonight will tell!

"Great plot. It's 15 years after the death of two teenagers in a "train" accident. Now, more teenagers from the high school have died. Our policeman, the twin of one of the dead boys, investigates. A top-secret Nike base was near the tracks. The dead kids were all part of a "Conspiracy Club." Did they see something they weren't supposed to see? Have they all been murdered? Are more murders to come?"

Suburban New Jersey Detective Napoleon “Nap” Dumas hasn't been the same since senior year of high school, when his twin brother Leo and Leo’s girlfriend Diana were found dead on the railroad tracks—and Maura, the girl Nap considered the love of his life, broke up with him and disappeared without explanation. For fifteen years, Nap has been searching, both for Maura and for the real reason behind his brother's death. And now, it looks as though he may finally find what he's been looking for.  When Maura's fingerprints turn up in the rental car of a suspected murderer, Nap embarks on a quest for answers that only leads to more questions—about the woman he loved, about the childhood friends he thought he knew, about the abandoned military base near where he grew up, and mostly about Leo and Diana—whose deaths are darker and far more sinister than Nap ever dared imagine.

Film noir staple Charles McGraw stars as hard-boiled cop Walter Brown, who's assigned to transport a mobster's moll (played to perfection by Marie Windsor) from Chicago to Los Angeles -- where she's set to testify before the grand jury. Naturally, danger turns up on the train in the form of syndicate goons sent to silence the witness; trouble is, they have no idea what she looks like. Richard Fleischer helmed this fast-paced crime thriller. Could have been so much better.  A female cop is acting as the gangster's moll.  Walter Brown doesn't know it, and he treats her like a criminal.  Then . . . it all comes out and she is killed.  Should be quite a moral awakening, but her death happens and then is totally ignored.  In its place we get a coming romance between the real gangster's moll (who really wanted no part of the mob) and our cop.  Weak ending after a terrific set-up.

I found this very exciting--a thriller without a thrilling ending because it is non-fiction. Ackerman sort of wins vindication in his attack on the business practices of Herbalife.  They are fined 200 m by the FTC . . . but they stay in business, so Ackerman sort of loses, too.  Icahn, who stood by Herbalife, also does well. Somehow these guys do, don't they? This book was a great look into big stock deals and bigger personalities.  Rewritten as fiction with a clear victor (Ackerman--as he'd be bringing down the bad guy) this would make a great novel.

Herbalife under attack--spotted as a pyramid scheme.  But . . . other hedge fund guys go on the other side, betting it will withstand the attack.  Millions upon millions at stake in war of egos as well as analysis.  Very exciting stuff. Short sell:  Stock at 100.  Short seller goes to broker and borrows one share.  He immediately sells it and banks the 100.  If the stock goes down to 75, he buys the share for 75 and then returns it to the owner.  Owner gets his share back,  but the short seller has made $25.00.

Closing in.  Pena arrests money launderer.  North Valley cartel spots weakness, tries to kill Miguel.  Gilberto, in prison, is losing power.  Now Cali Cartel is fighting back, attacking North Valley. At the same time, DEA agents are moving in. Jorge has flipped and is helping DEA. Christine, money-launderer's wife, has been captured by cartel. Jorge's wife thinks he is making a mistake.  Very exciting stuff.

Rodrigo captured and in jail.  Cali big four in state of disbelief/fear.  CIA not happy.  Pena now has to get the conviction, which means getting people to testify against Roderigo.  Not easy

Still not enamored with this one. Nice comic moments with Mrs. Montague and her "automatic writing."  Eleanor asks Theodora if she can live with her when the Hill House experience ends. Theodora says: "I don't take in stray cats." Seems like a straight-forward ghost story

Haunting begins.  Names in chalk, then blood. sounds in the night.  Psychodrama being played out with Eleanor and Theodora.  Ghost family picnicking at night on lawn. Flowers turn to weeds; family disappears.  Writing is great, but I don't see that this is headed anywhere--other than a good thrill read.  I'm hoping for more from Shirley Jackson.

Cali family continues to plan on getting out in six months.  Underlings, and some of the upper echelon, are having their doubts.  What will they do out of the game? Second string DEA agents almost seize money from cartel. They do get documents, but corrupt Colombian cops won't release them. Rodriguez is spotted. Pena wants to go get him.  End of show

The haunting has begun. The writing is excellent, but it's pretty much just a ghost story so far.  Lacks the menace of WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE.

Cali cartel brutally kills Domincan rivals operating a beauty shop in NYC. They also kill children by dumping chlorine gas improperly (use the containers for cocaine).  Pena has had enough. Sends new recruits to go after them.

Cali cartel. Agent Peña is back. Cali leaders want to go legitimate. Call business meeting in which they tell their 2nd tier guys that they have only six months more of criminal activity.  then they listen in on (and kill) those that seem reluctant to give up the $$$.  Good start. Subplot involves security guy (good guy) who wants out to start his own firm.  Will the Cali Cartel let him go?  Not likely. In this episode, they more or less threaten him, forcing him to stay six months. 

"So far, this feels a little like an Agatha Christie novel. The various characters are all being assembled at Hill House. There were some creepy moments at a coffee shop--Shirley Jackson at her unsettling best. Now that everyone is at Hill House, my guess is that the rest will be nothing like Agatha Christie."

Discussions of AIDS, Ebola, 9/11, Hurricane Sandy Terrific book; terrific hospital

Prohibition: govt adds poison to rubbing alcohol . . . result is death of the poor who can't get real alcohol from Europe. Electro-shock therapy used, even on children.  LSD used before Leary. Women doctors have a better chance, as do Jews. Cardiac catheterization leads to Nobel Prize for doctor at Bellevue.  Just moving into AIDS epidemic.

Set in Granite Falls, WA.  Chris gets out of jail because of the work of his high school teacher, Edie Falco.  He was a participant in a murder, but not the murderer and not even aware a gun was involved. Falco has miserable marriage; Chris is in love with her. She's in love with him. Will she leave her husband?  Chris is hanging out with her daughter--will he end up with her?  Chris is miserable, trying without much success to get his life back in order.

Full title

Nine and ten could have been one episode.  Pablo is discovered and shot dead by Colombian police.  Peña is in Miami--perhaps about to lose his job?  Tata begs for help from the Cali! cartel. Interesting that they try for sympathy for Pablo, realize it is ludicrous, and then show some of the photos (real) of the victims of his various bomb attacks. Next episodes (Narcos 3) will be about the Cali cartel.  There are many "leaders" so it will necessarily lack the focus of Narcos 1 & 2.

Interesting description of Garfield's death.  Shot by an assassin, he was then treated by a leading doctor--but a doctor who did not believe in Lister's antiseptic treatment.  Garfield dies.  (Doctor put his unwashed fingers into the body looking for the bullet.) Author suggests that had Garfield been a pauper and brought to Bellevue, where cleanliness was practiced by doctors, he would have lived. Founding of Johns Hopkins (rich man with no children) and the move of pathologist from Bellevue to Baltimore.

Civil War trauma cases advance medicine.  Period of time with anesthesia but without antiseptic measures leads to more surgeries ending in death from infection afterward.  Squalor of poor in NYC under Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed. Lister (1870) touts cleanliness. He's a Brit; Americans don't want to listen.  In the audience is Johnson of later Johnson & Johnson fame.  Nursing takes hold.  Florence Nightingale in the Crimea; Dorothea Dix closer to home. 

You can't go home again.  Pablo goes to his father's subsistence farm, stays for a lengthy time.  He tries to reconcile with Dad, even suggesting that he'd like to bring his family and farm next to Dad.  Dad tells him he's ashamed of him.  Limon kills Maritza when he steals the money he gave her.  It's accidental, sort of.  Tata is out of money and will be forced onto the streets where she and her family will be killed.  Pablo and Limon return to the city--I think Bogota, though it's not clear.

Pablo's family tries to get out, but is turned away in Germany due to efforts of Murphy.  Cali cartel, Castenas, DEA--all closing in.  Colombia cops want to be the ones who stand over him when he's dead.  Hard to see how Escobar will make it two more episodes.  filmmakers do try to make him sympathetic with his love of family.

I will definitely read another by Baldacci.  This one was great for 75%, but endings matter, and I didn't find this one satisfying.  Our murderer--and intrasexual raped in her small Utah town as a teenager--has been talked into symbolically killing her victimizers by shooting up another school in another town.  That's a stretch. She hates Decker because, at a counseling session, he said he wanted to be a cop and help people. Another stretch. Her accomplice is really a murderer/thief with a phony website supposedly for victims to find ways to revenge themselves. Decker blames himself for the murders because he mentioned wanted to be a cop and thereby set off all these terrible events . . .  a stretch. Decker understands why Billy killed his family and sort of forgives him/her. Another huge stretch.  The writing is great; the plot . . . not so much

"Bellevue reminds me of Seattle's Harborview but with a longer history. Book becomes a medical history of NYC. Typhus, Cholera, introduction of ether, slums, bleeding, leeches, etc. Book also follows the movement of medicine from a disreputable field to where it is today.  Very interesting book."

The anti-communist thugs and the police are both after Pablo.  Mom goes to church . . . breaking his directions . . . she's followed home and Pablo's safe house is shot up.  More and more die around Pablo. He now plans on sending his family out of Colombia and taking on the Cali cartel, the anti-communist murderers, and the police.  Hard to feel sorry for Pablo, but also hard to feel any admiration for those who bring him down.

I was a little concerned that the ending might be a little hard to pull off.  Spoilers follow . . . so stop reading if you intend to read this. Murderer is also gifted with total recall after trauma.  Her trauma was a rape in Utah high school.  Belinda/Billy shot up the high school killing in Burlington the "equivalent" of those who raped her back in Utah. So, football players, coach, vice principal.  A bridge too far for me, as is the connection with the Austrian Leopold.

Pena goes against his code and involves the communist-killers in the hunt for Escobar.  They are vicious--responsible for the massacre of entire "communist" villages in the countryside.  Pena has no confidence in the new commander of the special police, so . . . Maritza helps Pena/friends find some of the Escobar group.  Kills some. Drug trafficker from Miami is kidnapped by the same group.  What happens to him is not clear from this episode.  Velasco, a major Escobar player, is killed. Escobar flees with his family.  Noose is tightening.

Excitement builds.  Great plotting.  Probably two murderers . . . reference to IN COLD BLOOD.  Men meeting in prison.  Killer hates Decker . . . but why?  FBI agent is latest to die as killer steals Decker's old cop uniform and uses the uniform to get her to drop her guard. My worry is that the ending will be unsatisfying.  Our murderer has killed a dozen people . . . vendetta . . . and Decker has no idea why? HMMMM.

Times getting tougher for Pablo, but he is resourceful and a murderer.  He kills the colonel who was out to kill him by an ambush -- one of the conspirators who brought the police to the ambush was, in fact, not part of the conspiracy.  She thought she was bringing Escobar to his death.  World of deceit and wealth. Not much on psychology, but an incredible story.

Amos Decker puzzles out the actions of the school murderer--discovering an unused (except by the killer) bomb shelter passageway under the school.  The school murderer is the same killer who murdered Decker's wife and daughter. Two killers?  Met in prison?  Now, an FBI detective haas also been murdered.  The plan seems to be to kill people around Decker and then kill him last. Procedural crime thriller--like it. Decker is autistic after football injury.  Remembers everything; not much on empathy.

Escobar is a hunted man, making him more dangerous than ever.  He declares war on the police, killing hundreds in Medellin in response to the government's refusal to negotiate with him. All the time, he professes his love for his wife and family.

My first Baldacci.  Like it so far.  Vicious murder of cop's family.  Cop (Amos Decker) falls to pieces. Now (18 months later) a confession to the murder--but nothing is right about it. Decker was blindsided by a vicious hit in football which activated memory capabilities and color-number associations.  This makes him doubly suspicious of confessed murderer as he has no memory of the murdererer, yet the "murderer" insists that he killed Decker's family to avenge a slight.

Escobar escapes and reestablishes his tyranny of violence. Connie leaves Murphy and goes back to Miami.

Doug Stanton Remarkable events, and a remarkable book. Doug Stanton treats the subject with great respect while at the same time telling a gruesome story that needs to be told.  I first heard of the Indianapolis when I was in the city, walking along the river, and saw a plaque commemorating the dead.  It was all knew to me, and lingered.  Now, years later, to read this story . . .  One incident that will stay with me forever.  Sailors are on the verge of rescue. Water is supplied. A cup is filled and passed down to the end of the line. All of the sailors are near death from lack of water. Not one drinks out of turn. The greatest generation

A dark, choose-your-own adventure story about a programmer who relives his own childhood and his feelings of responsibility for the death of his mother while he attempts a complicated video game. Set in 1984. Finally, boring. 

English princess kidnapped.  Kidnappers demand the P.M. have sex on TV with a pig or they will kill her. PM goes from never to (after the princess's finger is cut off). . . I have to to keep her alive, my career alive.  Nation, fascinated, watches the sex.  Response--humorous, then repelled. PM's wife is repelled by her husband. Princess released.  It was all performance art.  The "artist" hangs himself.

Entire History of You involves a chip implanted that records all actions during the day.  People can rewind encounters to look for things they might have missed the first time and to confirm/deny memories. Main character has a lousy job interview. . . goes to party where he sees his wife talking easily with another man . . . jealousy . . . correct . . . wife has had an affair with the man . . . MC, drunk, goes to the man's house and nearly kills him.  He demands the man erase all recordings of his wife.  Man does.  MC returns home . . . still green monster . . . confronts wife . . . The chip is ruining his life.  He takes a razor and cuts it out of his neck.  Too late? Hard to tell

Pablo Escobar, growing paranoid in his gilded prison, murders two visitors/narcos partners.  When the men don't return to their families, word gets out about their possible death.  Minister of Justice goes to gilded prison to try to trick Pablo into leaving and facing justice. Pablo takes him hostage. Columbian special forces attack. Pablo escapes, though most of his men apparently are killed or captured. Murphy & Pena.  Pena apparently sold Murphy out (taken hostage) to another cartel in order to facilitate the capture of Escobar.  I didn't follow how all this worked. Murphy's wife wants to go back to USA.  Murphy says Columbia is his home. Divorce coming up? Murphy and his wife seem to be about to adopt a Columbian child left orphaned after the murder of her mother.