Joe’s Book Club: Book Reviews, Reviewers and Other Strangers

Today’s Post by Joe Farace

“…I’m kind of sick of people telling me what the latest ‘must read’ must be because, quite frankly I find that the majority of them have bad taste.”— Lady of the Library

“I just feel that I can’t trust any book recommendations that I’m given…even from fellow readers.— .”— Lady of the Library

“If you’ve read one book in the entire month of January, you’ve read more than the average person.”—factoid

I started writing these (theoretically) ever-other-Saturday posts about books because I’ve had a love of books and reading since my second grade teacher took our class on a field trip to the Clifton Park branch of the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. You can read more about that experience in this post.

These book-related posts have proven to be relatively popular with readers of this blog. They’re maybe not as popular as my posts about photography that appear here six days a week but are slightly more popular than my movie posts that are part of Joe’s Movie Club both here and my YouTube channel, with a few exceptions. Guess what, unlike this blog, comments are permitted and welcome on my YouTube channel..

So What’s This All About?

I got to thinking about books and book reviews after watching Cinzia DuBois aka The Lady of the Library’s recent video Can We REALLY Trust BookTok & Bookstagram? She is one of my favorite YouTubers and someone who knowledgeably talks about history, mythology and literature. Lately she’s been on a tear about book authors and reviewers and I must confess that I worry—OK, I’ll admit that I am, by nature, a world class worrier—that I may be wasting your time talking about the books that I’m reading. The major exception seems to be when I review books about automobiles. The fans of my Car Photography website/blog seem to really envoy those posts and books, like my review of The Complete Book of AMC Cars: American Motors Corporation 1954-1988, from my post Books for Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday, which seem to have been favorably received.

I am not going to ask, beg or request that you send me emails begging, pleading or asking me, “Oh, no please keep writing those posts about books.” because that’s not my style, so please do not do that. Instead I’m going to keep writing these posts ever mindful that there may be a whole bunch of my regular readers who could care less about books and reading.

Books by Gary Phillips

I initially found Gary Phillips because of his book One Shot Harry and was attracted to it because the protagonist is a photographer who solves mysteries. There are not that many books about photographers that portray them in a positive light so I was excited to read about Harry Ingram, an African-American freelance crime photographer. You can read my review of the book here.

While waiting for the next installment of “Harry” I read Phillips’ Only The Wicked that features Ivan Monk, an African-American private detective. Ivan’s personality and investigatory style is different from Harry and is similar to a traditional private eye, if a little more introspective. The ending of this particular book features an exciting chase through a Southern swamp with an outcome that may be what you expect—the good guy is always going to win—but has some shifts in how it all plays out by keeping you guessing it it will!

Then I discovered that the next Harry book, Ash as Dark as Night, was already available and I immediately picked it up from the library. Unlike the Ivan Monk series, Harry’s book are set in the 1960’s, this time focused around the events of the 1965 Watts Riots or Watts Rebellion, if you prefer, and the events immediately afterward. In the book, Harry makes a photograph that proves to be integral to the plot and it all builds from that event. Harry and Ivan are different. One big difference is that Harry is, as my friend Barry Staver once described him, “more of a horn dog.” The occasional sex scenes in these books might offend some readers but they are not explicitly explicit, although everybody’s definition of “explicit” may be different than mine.

Ash as Dark as Night serves as much as an historical document wrapped around a mystery novel or vice versa; I consider an historical novel. Any way you look at it, this is an insightful and fascinating look of a place and a time that people of my generation may only remember, if at all, as the “flower children” era but for African-Americans living in Los Angeles and the rest of the world it could not have been more different. I love One Shot Harry and look forward to his further adventures and think many of you will too.

New and Noteworthy

For Michael Connelly fans: One of my favorite mystery authors launches a new book series featuring a new cop—Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell—who “relentlessly follows his mission in the seemingly idyllic setting of Catalina Island.” Called Nightshade, it will be released in May, 2025, the day before my birthday. Amazon and Barns & Noble have it for a pre-order price of $15.

In another series that has been hit and miss in recent years, Christopher Farnsworth is the fourth author to take over the mantle from the late Robert B. Parker in writing the Jessie Stone novels and does an acceptable job in his new book Buried Secrets. My favorite author in the series remains Michael Brandman, who was the first author to take over the series and remains, to my mind, the best, mostly because he maintained the mood and style of the Jesse Stone TV movies, which were not only based on Parker’s novels but had his involvement as well. If you haven’t seen any of these movies I urge you to look them up for streaming. Many of them are available on Amazon Prime and Tom Selleck. although maybe a bit too old for the Stone role, is pitch perfect as Jesse Stone.

In Buried Secrets, Mr Farnsworth does an acceptable job with the character but I found the novel to be uneven, alternating from being riveting to just being annoying. Yet he did a good enough job that I’ll be sure to get the next book in the series from the library, that is. if they don’t replace him in the revolving door of Stone writers.