"Get Smart"

After viewing the last of "Get Smart" with my grandchildren at their home, I decided I wanted to see the movie in its entirety so found a copy at my local library.  It stars Steve Carell as Agent Maxwell Smart, an analyst who desperately wants to work in the field.  When most of CONTROL's agents are "outed," Max gets his chance in the company of Agent 99 (played by Anne Hathaway) who has recently undergone a complete plastic surgery makeover so her identity has not been compromised.  Head of CONTROL is played by Alan Arkin and Dwayne Johnson is another agent who is frustrated by having to stay in the office when he's always been a field agent.

KAOS has come up with a nuclear scheme that threatens the U.S. and it is up to rookie, Max, and Agent 99 to thwart the scheme.  It's a fun ride throughout that I recommend you don't miss if you enjoy slapstick comedy.  The DVD offers bonus scenes throughout which I did watch but they really weren't worth the effort!  pazt

"Found"

"Found" by Harlan Coben is the third book in his Mickey Bolitar series.  Coben is the number 1 New York Times bestselling author of a lot of adult novels but this is his young adult series starring Mickey Bolitar, a high school basketball player, and his friends who help him solve mysteries and/or find people.  Coben has won the Edgar Award, Shamus Award, and Anthony award -- the first author to receive all three.  You can visit him at www.harlancoben.com or www.mickeybolitar.com.

Mickey is convinced his dad, who reportedly died in a car accident, is still alive but there's really no one to believe him except a "batty" old woman who says she heard his father's voice although she's never heard the voice of a dead person before and she has plenty of ghosts in her past.

In the meantime, Mickey is living his dream of staying in one place so he can attend school, make friends, and make the basketball team.  When he makes the varsity team, life isn't as easy as he thought when the players who have been together all their lives shun him -- until they need his help.

When one of Mickey's close friends asks for his help, he learns that helping someone else may also help him.

I'm disappointed that I've not seen anything about a 4th book in this series -- I don't want it to end!  pazt

"The People of Sparks"

"The People of Sparks" is the second "Book of Ember" in a series written by Jeanne Duprau.  If I remember correctly, I discovered the first book, "The City of Ember," because my ten year old granddaughter was reading the series and it looked interesting to me.  So....although this is a young reader's book, it appealed to me, too.

In the first book Lina and Doon lead their people up from an underground city, Ember, because the systems in the city that sustain them are beginning to fail.  They find the clues to getting their people out of the city but are bewildered by a world above ground.  They walk until they find another city, Sparks.  In the book, "The People of Sparks" are just as bewildered by a group of people who have never lived above ground as the Emberites are by all they are finding above ground.

The People of Sparks agree to take in the Emberites for a period of 6 months while sharing their food with them and teaching them the survival skills they'll need to grow food and build shelters.  They are mostly housed in an old building and assigned to families who share food with them.  As time goes on, both sides begin to be disgruntled -- Sparks citizens at having to share with these people when they have just begun to reach the point that they've been able to put a little food ahead for lean years.  Emberites are unhappy with the small portions of food they are given and their treatment.

In the meantime Lina takes off on an adventure and discovers a ruined city and begins to undertand what happened that led to the destruction of this world and why her people were sent to live underground for survival.  She also receives wisdom from a fellow traveler about what leads to war and ways that might have prevented it.

While she is gone, Doon is accused of something he didn't do and tensions begin to grow even more between the two cities.  Tick, from Ember, has put together a group that he wants to lead into a fight and as hard feelings escalate, the Emberites are asked to leave.  But...where will they go and how will they survive?

A dramatic event brings everything to a head and choices have to be made that will either lead to fighting and death for some of the citizens of both cities or peace that will allow them to co-exist.

Duprau has a gift for sharing ways to stand up for oneself nonviolently and the ability to describe the consequences of violence -- excellent lessons for youth to learn -- OR all of us to learn!  pazt

"2nd Chance"

"2nd Chance" is the second book in The Women's Murder Club series authored by James Patterson with Andrew Gross.  Lindsay Boxer is just returning to duty after solving "the biggest murder case since Harvey Milk" and she is now Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer, head of San Francisco's homicide division.

When a young black girl is killed just as the choir she was practicing with is leaving church, it is first thought to be an accident and a miracle - a miracle that she is the only one who died when the whole front of the church is shot up and no other child nor the minister, Andrew Winslow, are even seriously injured from the hail of bullets.

Is this a hate crime?  However, as Lindsay and her team begin their investigation, they find a link to the killing of an elderly black woman then their own Chief Mercer becomes a target.  What is behind these killings?  It appears that all victims are policemen or have links to the police and one clue leads them to "chimera"  which leads Lindsay to one of the toughest prisons in the state and one of its most vile prisoners looking for clues.

In the meantime, life goes on as Jill announces she is pregnant, Claire becomes romantically involved with Rev. Andrew Winslow, and Lindsay's father shows up after a 20 year absence.

This is another brilliant mystery -- just when we believe Lindsay has solved her case and the murderer is no longer a threat more clues complicate that assumption and we're taken on another whirlwind ride seeking the truth.  pazt

"Don't Look Twice"

"Don't Look Twice" is the second novel in Andrew Gross' Detective Ty Hauck series and I found it just as exciting as his first, "The Dark Tide".  To learn more about Andrew Gross go to www.andrewgrossbooks.com or www.myspace.com/andrewgross books.

Detective Ty Hauck has taken his daughter, Jessie, to an Exxon station  convenience store that he likes to frequent so they can make purchases before they head out on his skiff for a final jaunt in preparation for taking it out of the water for the winter.  As they wait in line to pay, a man in a green down vest with his arms full of soda waves them ahead of him in the line.  Ty sees a red truck jerk to a stop outside right in front of them and the heavily tinted passenger window rolls down.  When he sees a man leaning out with a gun extended, Ty throws his daughter to the ground and covers her body with his own and yells for everyone to get down just as the shooting starts.

When it's all over, the man in the green vest is dead and others injured and Jessie is in shock with the dead man's blood all over her.  As Ty and his team begin their investigation into the shooting, what seems to be a straight forward motive turns out to be a red herring and they will find many more red herrings along the way to learning the truth and seeking justice.

Ty sends Jessie to the hospital then to her mother's while he's in the throes of the investigation.  His most recent girlfriend, Karen, is in Florida where her dad is gravely ill with Parkinson's.  Ty's brother, Warren, who he has very little contact with, invites him and Jessie for Thanksgiving but, when that doesn't work out, he shows up unexpectedly on Ty's doorstep.  As the two brothers reminisce about the past and reconnect, the investigation is ongoing and Ty also receives a very lucrative and interesting job proposition but, with his mind focused on finding a killer, he puts the offer on the back burner.

In the meantime, there are more killings and, as they identify the shooters, they end up dead, too.  Ty has to discover what is going on and who is behind all these killings.  Just when Ty and his team think they're ready to break the investigation wide open, someone else dies.  Are the deaths random or is there a pattern?  pazt

"Blackberry Winter"

"Blackberry Winter" appears to be Sarah Jio's third novel.  She heard the song "Blackberry Winter" by Hilary Kole on the radio and thought it was beautiful and piqued her interest.  Sarah also grew up in the northwest and has fond memories of hunting for blackberries with her family.  After hearing the song she decided to find out what a blackberry winter was and discovered it is "old-fashioned weather jargon for a late-season cold snap--think of plunging temperatures and snowfall in May, just when the delicate white flowers are beginning to appear on the blackberry vines."

Out of that research and some personal experiences the story she has written came to her.  It starts in 1933 in Seattle when a single mother, Vera Ray, has to leave her 3-year-old son Daniel home in their apartment alone or risk losing her job.  She needs the income for them to survive and reluctantly tucks him into bed before heading off to work the night shift as a maid in a local hotel.

When Vera leaves work, there has been a late spring snowfall and arriving at her apartment she discovers Daniel is gone.  Frantically she searches for him without success and the police do little to help her find her son.  They think he's just wandered off and will return.  Sara is distraught and turns to anyone who might be willing to help her find her son.

Fast forward to Seattle in 2010 when May 1st brings another "blackberry winter" to Seattle and a Seattle Herald reporter, Claire Aldridge, is assigned to write an article about it.  During her research, she discovers the story of Vera and Daniel and decides she must learn what happened.  As she digs deeper into the story, Vera's loss becomes her loss and she can't let it go until she discovers what happened to them.  Little does she know that she will discover a link between them and her present life.  pazt

"Little Failure - A Memoir"

"Little Failure - A Memoir" by author Gary Shteyngart was not particularly an easy read for me but the fact that it was on my library's "Best Picks" list encouraged me to finish it and I'm glad I did.  I've also decided to read one of his novels, too.

Gary was born Igor in 1972 in Leningrad so he's a year younger than my son who was adopted shortly after he was born in 1971.  Although Gary and his family moved to the United States when he was 7 years old (thanks to President Reagan reaching out to exchange grain to Russia in return for their letting Jewish families leave), he continued to struggle with what it was like to be a Russian American and not quite fitting in.  At the same time my son was probably struggling with what it was like to be a biracial child in a white family in a mostly white neighborhood.

Gary's struggles of not quite fitting in with his hand-me-down clothes, learning a new language, no real friends while his parents were working hard to support him and themselves in a new country could probably be the story of any child who has left the country of their birth and emigrated with their family to a new and strange country.  He was lucky that his paternal grandmother (who thought he could do no wrong) also came with them and showered him with food and love after school until his father could pick him up after work.

As an only child, all of his parents hopes are pinned on Gary and their wish for him to get into a prestigious college and become a lawyer or something equally respectable.  I doubt that the word author ever crossed their minds but his maternal grandmother rewarded him for writing stories while he was still in Russia.

Gary was well aware of what was expected of him and also constantly reminded by his parents of the "little failure" they saw him as.  Although the messages he received from them sound cruel, in retrospect I received similar messages from my parents but they weren't spoken out loud.  I grew up feeling that I wasn't good enough and that I didn't have the ability to succeed despite my good grades in school.  I had to keep proving to myself that I was worthy by finishing college and even going on to obtain my master's.  Maybe all parents have a way of conveying their disappointment even when they don't mean to -- was I also that parent?

Gary ended up at Oberlin College -- not the prestigious college his parents had hoped for - and proceeded to drink and smoke his way through a hazy education where he did excel at writing, made friends, and had his first real girlfriend.  I suspect neither one of us impressed our parents!

Out of college Gary found a friend and mentor who supported him in his writing efforts but also had enough "tough love" to get him into therapy ultimately.

In his late thirties and married Gary and his parents return to Leningrad to walk down memory paths and begin to see each other as individuals and adults.  I saw in him the same struggle I had of needing to become independent of parents who never wanted to let me go to lead my own life even after I was married.  I said and did some cruel things trying to force my emancipation while struggling with a love-hate relationship with them.  So...Gary's struggles became my struggles as I read his story but I didn't have the added burdens of having to learn a new language.  Like Gary I knew I was loved by my parents but sometimes that love was smothering.  Unlike Gary I was surrounded by friends and had boyfriends before college. So...my life seems much easier than his.  I wonder what he'd have to say about the hatred being spewed at the moment by some of our presidential candidates about allowing refugees to come to the United States?  pazt