A bit of a light reading month, dominated by a big biography on Lorne Michaels, a graphic novel on Hitchcock, and the return of one of my favorite UK mystery writers and his signature chatacter, plus other stuff to do and deal with … like WonderCon!
The Wild Swimmers by William Shaw • 5 Stars on Goodreads
Author William Shaw took a few years off from his DS Alexandra Cupidi series to do a couple of standalone novels (as “G. W. Shaw”)—Dead Rich and The Conspirators—before returning to what—to me, at least—is his signature character. This time she’s investigating a murder off the coast of Kent, England, when a woman drowns under mysterious circumstances while swimming with a group of friends … “wild swimmers,” as they’re called. Cupidi’s daughter finds the body and her police partner, DC Jill Ferriter has to recuse herself from the case as she just … well, let’s just say she “knows” the main suspect. This book is different from the other Cupidi novels (there are four “official” ones, and one “unofficial,” which introduced the character), in that it has two separate mysteries, connected by Ferriter. Bill South, introduced in that unofficial novel, The Birdwatcher, looks into the man who claims to be Ferriter’s previously unknown father, while Cupidi—who vanishes for a portion of the book while the South story unwinds—continues her investigation of the drowning. This one is more of a slow burn than the previous novels, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Shaw has a very pleasing writing style, very direct and to the point, but he always has room for details that set the stage (there’s one lovely description of the back of someone’s house that involves lobster pots, that I can’t seem to find again, sadly). I’ve been collecting his books in British paperbacks—they are a bit hard to find here in the US, but there is one UK company who sells on ebay (rarewaves) and doesn’t charge for postage, which, in this day and age, often costs more than the book itself. Shaw’s next novel, The Red Shore, will introduce a new detective character, but I hope he returns to Cupidi soon, and for God’s sake, UK, wake up to this series: It’s crying out to be a TV series with Keeley Hawes or Suranne Jones or Gemma Whelan or some other great British actress, plus it takes place in a seldom-seen (on TV at least) picturesque area!
Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live by Susan Morrison • 5 Stars on Goodreads
I was hoping there would be a big history of Saturday Night Live in its 50th anniversary year, something along the lines of Live From New York: The Complete Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales … maybe even an updated version of that great oral history. But what I didn’t know is a great history of SNL would come disguised as a biography of producer/creator Lorne Michaels by The New Yorker articles editor Susan Morrison. This book gives the pretty much unknowable Michaels a voice, since it was written with his full cooperation and includes his own perspective. Morrison’s take on it is part biography, part show history. She was at 30 Rock for a week in 2018 when Jonah Hill was the host and each section of the book starts with revealing what happens day by day in the course of the week leading up to Saturday night and the big show. Spinning off each day is Michaels’ life story, and it’s pretty fascinating. It’s a big book (over 650 pages) and it certainly dominated my reading for the month, but it’s very readable, and not as stuffy as I would have thought for a biography of Michaels, who seems a little … well, stuffy to me, based on my limited observations of him on SNL. Kudos to Morrison for making his story so thoroughly enjoyable.
Batman Vol. 4: Dark Prisons by Chip Zdarsky, Jorge Jiménez, and Tomeu Morey (& Others) • 4 Stars on Goodreads
This is the penultimate volume of the Batman run by writer Zdarsky, and to be honest, I liked this weird collection of issues more than I did when I read them in the original single copies. For some reason, it collects Batman 145-149, 151 and 152, and a back-up story from 150, but no complete 150, and I can’t remember what was in that issue to exclude it from being collected in this volume. 151 and 152 are Absolute Power tie-ins, so maybe 150 will show up in the next volume, which will finish off Zdarksy’s run with issues 153-157. This volume contains the final word on Zur-En-Arrh, thank god, the partitioned part of Batman’s brain that contains an alternate personality that goes into effect if Batman ever kills someone (don’t worry … he didn’t). Jorge Jiménez’s art is the star of this particular book, though, and I was happy to find out he’ll be continuing his run on the character with a new number 1—written by Matt Fraction—when it relaunches after Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee’s “Hush” sequel in issues 156-161. I am slowly figuring out—after 60 years of comic book reading—how much better these continued stories are (most of the time) when you can sit and enjoy them all together in one package.
Alfred Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense by Noel Simsolo and Dominique Hé • 3.5 Stars on Goodreads
This rather voluminous (314 pages) graphic novel biography of film director Alfred Hitchcock didn’t quite grab me. While I liked Hé’s art, the printing on this American version is dark and muddy, almost as if it was originally published in France in color and just output in grayscale for the American version (I honestly don’t know if that’s true or not). It mixes truth with fiction, and it has Hitchcock alternately talking to his wife and collaborator, Alma Reville, and to Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in Monaco, while they were making To Catch A Thief. There’s nothing really new or revelatory here, and while it’s a fairly thorough anecdotal look at Hitch’s life and career, it’s actually a bit on the dull side, and a bit overpriced at $44.99 (I got it as a Christmas present, so I ain’t complaining.)
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