This is for Rick Robinson.
A review of Cold Souls in on Crimespree Cinema right here. Am I the only person in the country to have seen this?
lished work can be found on his 
ed this week. Rather than try to jog my memory to speak about a book I read 45 years ago, let me refer you to a piece by Jonathan Yardly. Auchincloss may have written about and from a particular class, but he did it well.
able quarter Brian Moore never came close to getting the
Mr. and Mrs. Miniver reading (for Richard Wheeler). 
Review of Crazy Heart right here. Darn, I like that guy.
e Man Who Was magic when I was off school sick for a day and despite my (genuine - honest, guv!) illness, I could not put the book down. I've read it several times since, as often as possible in one sitting, and I enjoy it as much now as I did then. I think the reason is that this is perhaps the first book that really opened my eyes to the wickedness, the shallowness, the greed, the duplicity of which people are capable. Not bad people, the villains in black hats or with stubbly chins who skulk in shadows and menace gangs of smart kids: just people.
Bob Randisi is probably best known for his larky look at The Rat Pack, novels that aren't just fun to read but also map out show biz morality--or lack thereof--with skill and grace. Randisi's changed publishers for the next couple and I can't wait to read them.Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands: Snake in the Radio (Bloodshot Records 2006)
I wanted to approach this weeks Forgotten music with the thought "what would James Reasoner dig?" Which is to say, what could I write about that someone who likes crime and western novels and has written about enjoying classic country and Rock'n'Roll would like.
There were a lot of answers, but the one that kept coming to mind was the 2006 album Snake in the Radio by Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands.
I discovered the album after seeing an ad for it and reading a review in No Depression magazine. In the ad, Pickerel is shown lying on the floor a red telephone to one ear, a old pulp crime magazine in the other. A bottle of soda rests next to him. It's an image that evokes a time and a place and a feeling. I ran out to my local record shop and picked up a copy and have been hooked ever since.
The album runs the gambit of the 'Alt County' sound, a bit of classic country balladry, some up- tempo roots rock, and a dash of honky-tonk. Pickerel has a haunting plaintive voice that fits the songs. Sometimes he whispers, and sometime it's the voice of a barn-dance caller. My favorite tracks from the album are the title track with its lament about the state of radio, and the bouncy Sin Tax Dance.
A 2008 follo
w up album Cody’s Dream is also worth checking out.
More on Pickerel can be found at http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/artist/mark-pickerel
Jerry House lives in Southern Maryland. He can be reached at jerry@hotmailcom
Kent Morgan. Spotlight On Jacy Parker - Verve V-8424
I can't find a date on this record, but I must have picked it up in a delete bin in the late 1950s or very early 1960s. I knew nothing about Jacy Parker other than what was in the liner notes. She was described as " a pert pianist from Chicago who, although in her mid-20s, demonstrates ability and jazz sense well beyond her years." She moved to NYC in 1954 to study at Juilliard. Parker said she likes to play "hard" and admires Oscar Peterson, Billy Taylor and Horace Silver. I am attracted to piano players who play and sing the great American songbook and the songs on this LP were what got me to invest my $1.99. I've always said in my next life that I want to come back as a piano player and singer in a saloon. Parker doesn't have great range, but her version of Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill's My Ship is as fine a one as I've ever heard. She leads up to My Ship on side one with I thought About You, Guess Who I Saw Today and Here Comes Trouble Again. I often would play this record late at night back-to-back with Sinatra's Only the Lonely. Once I realized that this record would have a permanent place in my collection, I looked for other albums by Parker and tried to find out more about her without success. It's hard to imagine why an artist with so much talent would disappear after one record.
Robert B. Parker, R.I.P. Spenser is one of the great figures in crime fiction--and we sometimes took that for granted.What music are you listening to a lot lately?
With me, it's THE DEFINITIVE VINCE GUARALDI-bought it for my husband for Christmas, but it turns out he just like the ones associated with the holidays. (Peanuts music). I love Guaraldi's version of When You Wish Upon a Star.
Phil's listening to The Very Best of Victoria De Los Angeles (opera arias) and at a very high volume, I might add. If I put on the Stones at that volume, he'd have a fit.
How about you? What's on your turntable?
I have been extremely impressed by the first five episodes of Men of a Certain Age. It's on TNT Mondays at ten. Briefly, it deals with the lives of three men around age 50. Joe is a newly-divorced father and owner of a party store. Terry is a has-been actor and ladies man. Owen is happily married but works for his very demanding father in a car dealership. All of the men have issues, but are likable and believable. The dialogue seems right on most of the time.
I did this all the time as a child but can't recall immediately rereading any book as an adult. What books/movies inspire this devotion or study?
Does anyone else remember me saying we were doing forgotten music next week? Someone just wrote to tell me I said that in November. Since I have not mentioned it since, let's say either books or music next week. Or both. 
turing Grijpstra and De Gier and The Commisaris, their elderly boss who feeds an equally ancient and stately tortoise lettuce in his garden. I started this series back when I was in law school and read mysteries like bonbons as an antidote to the seriousness of the law. The gap between 1986 and 1994 was painful, but a reader coming to it now won’t have to suffer that pain.Grijpstra and de Gier novels
To my great sorrow, the author died in 2008. A few years before, I had the privilege of hearing him speak at a mystery conference, and he told the following story. He had gone up to Bangor from Surry, Maine, where he was living, to talk about a new book at a local TV station. He drove around town for a while, but he couldn’t find the station, so he gave up, and went into a diner. Stephen King was sitting at the counter, trying to eat, and his eating was awkward. Food kept falling out of his mouth. As though thinking he owed van de Wetering an explanation, he wrote, “Dentist” on a napkin and slid it down the counter.
Van de Wetering decided to share his dilemma. He wrote: “Can’t find Channel 6,” and passed it back.
Adams was mainly a writer of westerns and very good ones, too. Donald Westlake always pointed to Adams' The Desperado as one of the best of the Gold Medals (he was also right to note that its sequel, Noose For A Desperado, stunk).
Bookstores
Eve was to attend a performance of Seldom Scene (along with two other groups) at The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA. I know less about bluegrass than almost any other form of music. But I really enjoyed this event.
Natasha Richardson reading.
