Stuff

I was never A Man From Uncle fan and today Turner Classic Movies is reminding my why. They've been running Uncle movies and Uncle compilations peddled as movies all day. If Flint was a K-Mart version of Bond at least it had James Coburn and a certain merry Cold War cynicism. Uncle had Robert Vaughan, who always struck me as a singularly uninteresting mid-level corporate executive, and some of the chessiest sets outside of an Irwin Allen TV series. I watched a half hour of one of them today and the only fun was seeing Dorothy Provine again. Damn she was good looking. Those facial bones were perfect. Jack Palance was the overwrought bad guy and David McCallum looked sort of lost in all the to-ing and fro-ing. I didn't get it back then and I still don't.

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My old buddy John McCarty was on NPR this afternoon talking about the American fascination with mobsters. He did a damned good job as usual. I hope they have him on again soon.

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I have a link to Martin Edwards' blog. Very good writer, very good reviewer. He's of the old Brit school, which is to say he honors the past as well as the present. A few days ago he reviewed the first two volumes of my Collected Works, for which I've thanked him. But this isn't log-rolling. I really do like his fiction, which is rich with character, incident and a serious look at the world around us. He should be much better known in the States. I'm hoping we publish him in Five Star again. Poisoned Pen has done a few of his novels, too. Try the link. I think you'll find him interesting and erudite.

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I see that one of my favorite Elmore Leonard novels Killshot has been turned into a film with Diane Lane. Now that' may be worth seeing.