Showing posts with label Recommended reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recommended reading. Show all posts

Sunday, May 10, 2026

Recommended reading – Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2002):

Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

by Christiane Kubrick.
Foreword by Steven Spielberg.

Published in 2002.
Hardcover.
ISBN-10: 0821228153
ISBN-13: 978-0821228159

Description:

Few cinematic figures can boast the scope, breadth, talent, and influence of Stanley Kubrick. Visionary, auteur, artist, director.... His brilliant canon of films is unsurpassed in modern cinema, from the futuristic vision of 2001: A Space Odyssey to the dark artistry of A Clockwork Orange, from the black comedy of Dr. Strangelove to the psychological horror of The Shining, from the stark realism of Paths of Glory to the dreamlike romance of Eyes Wide Shut.

Now, the astonishing career of this cinematic legend is remembered in perhaps the most fitting way: in pictures. With an accompanying commentary by his widow, Christiane, Stanley Kubrick - A Life in Pictures is a wide-ranging and wonderful collection. Featuring a wealth of never-before-seen photographs, it offers a fascinating glimpse of Kubrick behind the camera, from his directorial beginnings in the early 1950s to his final film, Eyes Wide Shut, completed just six days before his death in March 1999.

Saturday, May 9, 2026

Recommended reading - Master Shots Volume 3, by Christopher Kenworthy (2013):


Master Shots

Volume 3
The Director's Vision: 100 Setups, Scenes and Moves for Your Breakthrough Movie

By Christopher Kenworthy.

Published by Michael Wiese Productions.
Published 2013.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 1615931546
ISBN-13: 978-1615931545

Description:

This book is a highly visual exploration of the best shots, moves, and set-ups in the industry. It reveals the secrets behind each shot's success, so it can be adapted to a director's individual scenes.

Your job is to create shots that reveal story, expose emotion, explore character and capture the unique feeling of your film. At the same time, you should stamp your film with your own style. This book can help you do that, whatever your experience, because it challenges you to imagine a creative solution for every scene in your film.

Thursday, May 7, 2026

Recommended reading - Master Shots Volume 2, by Christopher Kenworthy (2011):


Master Shots

Volume 2
100 Ways to Shoot Great Dialogue Scenes

By Christopher Kenworthy.

Published by Michael Wiese Productions.
Published 2011.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 1615930558
ISBN-13: 978-1615930555

Description:

Dialogue scenes are the most important moments in your film, but most directors get them wrong. If you block your scenes well, you do more than capture the basic scene; you echo the meaning, emotion, and drama of every moment. That is never more important than with dialogue. Whatever your budget, there is an exciting way to capture dialogue. It is a tragedy that so many directors are happy to open a scene with a moving master shot, and then just settle into dull coverage for the dialogue. You can do better than that and Master Shots Vol 2 gives you 100 ways to shoot dynamic dialogue.

Saturday, May 2, 2026

Recommended reading - Golden Age Detective Stories (2021):


Golden Age Detective Stories

Edited by Otto Penzler.
Published by American Mystery Classics.
Published 2021.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 1613162162
ISBN-13: 978-1613162163

Description:

"In addition to well-known contributors, such as Ellery Queen and Erle Stanley Gardner, Penzler presents memorable tales from the lesser-known [...] This sampler is an easy gateway to other volumes in this high-quality series." – Publishers Weekly.

"For some readers, the book will be a walk down memory lane, or a way to reconnect with writers they haven’t visited in a while; for others, it’s a wonderful introduction to some new writers―people who not only excelled at mystery fiction, but who also helped create and define the genre. The book belongs on the shelf of any true mystery fan, and in the collection of every library’s mystery section." – Booklist.

"Exemplary." – Kirkus.

The greatest detectives of the Golden Age investigate the most puzzling crimes of the era.

Sometimes, the police aren’t the best suited to solve a crime. Depending on the case, you may find that a retired magician, a schoolteacher, a Broadway producer, or a nun have the necessary skills to suss out a killer. Or, in other cases, a blind veteran, or a publisher, or a hard-drinking attorney, or a mostly-sober attorney… or, indeed, any sort of detective you could think of might be able to best the professionals when it comes to comprehending strange and puzzling murders.

At least, that’s what the authors from the Golden Age of American mystery fiction would have you think. For decades in the middle of the twentieth century, the country’s best-selling authors produced delightful tales in which all types of eccentrics used rarified knowledge to interpret confounding clues. And for even longer, in the decades that have followed, these characters have continued to entertain new audiences with every new generation that discovers them.

Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler selects some of the greatest American short stories from era. With authors including Ellery Queen, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Anthony Boucher, this collection is a treat for those who know and love this celebrated period in literary history, and a great introduction to its best writers for the uninitiated. Includes discussion guide questions for use in book clubs.

Thursday, April 30, 2026

Recommended reading - Master Shots Volume 1, by Christopher Kenworthy (2009):


Master Shots

Volume 1
100 Advanced Camera Techniques to Get an Expensive Look on Your Low-Budget Movie

By Christopher Kenworthy.
Published by Michael Wiese Productions.
Published 2009.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 1932907513
ISBN-13: 978-1932907513

Description:

Master Shots gives filmmakers the techniques they need to execute complex, original shots on any budget. By using powerful master shots and well-executed moves, directors can develop a strong style and stand out from the crowd. Most low-budget movies look low-budget because the director is forced to compromise at the last minute. Master Shots gives you so many powerful techniques that youll be able to respond, even under pressure, and create knock-out shots. Even when the clock is ticking and the light is fading, the techniques in this book can rescue your film and make every shot look like it cost a fortune. Each technique is illustrated with samples from great feature films and computer-generated diagrams for absolute clarity.

Tuesday, April 28, 2026

Recommended reading - The Lew Archer Omnibus Volume 2, by Ross Macdonald (1994):


The Lew Archer Omnibus Volume 2

By Ross Macdonald.

Paperback.
Published 1994.
Published by Allison & Busby Ltd.
ISBN 13: 9780749002015
ISBN 10: 0749002018
ASIN: 0749002018

Description:

Omnibus of three novels featuring Lew Archer, "The Ivory Grin", "The Galton Case" and "The Blue Hammer".

Saturday, April 25, 2026

Recommended reading - The Lew Archer Omnibus Volume 1, by Ross Macdonald (1993):


The Lew Archer Omnibus Volume 1

By Ross Macdonald.

Published by Allison & Busby.
Published 1993.
Paperback.
ISBN 13: 9780749001094
ISBN 10: 0749001097
ASIN: 0749001097

Description:

This first volume of Lew Archer novels presents "The Drowning Pool", "The Chill" and "The Goodbye Look".

Friday, April 17, 2026

Recommended reading - My Kind of Game, by Marvin Albert (1962):


My Kind of Game

By Marvin Albert.

Published by Fawcett.
First published 1962.
Mass Market Paperback.
ISBN-10: 0449133885
ISBN-13: 978-0449133880

Description:

WANTED – Anyone with information about Louis Kovac may find it worth-while to get in touch with Anthony Rome at the Seaview Motel. Kovac met with an accident. His assignment will be completed by Rome.

The ad was Rome’s last hope, a stab-in-the-dark that someone might spill who had it in for Lou Kovac, and why.

Rome didn’t expect an immediate answer. He wasn’t ready to get it in his motel room, in person, from a beautiful girl, pointing a very loaded .32.

A new, trigger-sharp case in the fast, bullet-scarred career of detective Anthony Rome.

My Kind of Game.

Thursday, April 16, 2026

Recommended reading - Blue City, by Ross Macdonald (1947):


Blue City

By Ross Macdonald.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
First published 1947.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 0307740730
ISBN-13: 978-0307740731

Description:

“[The] American private eye, immortalized by Hammett, refined by Chandler, brought to its zenith by Macdonald.” – New York Times Book Review.

“Macdonald should not be limited in audience to connoisseurs of mystery fiction.  He is one of a handful of writers in the genre whose worth and quality surpass the limitations of the form.” – Los Angeles Times.

“Most mystery writers merely write about crime.  Ross Macdonald writes about sin.” – The Atlantic.

“Without in the least abating my admiration for Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, I should like to venture the heretical suggestion that Ross Macdonald is a better novelist than either of them.” – Anthony Boucher.

“[Macdonald] carried form and style about as far as they would go, writing classic family tragedies in the guise of private detective mysteries.” – The Guardian (London).

“[Ross Macdonald] gives to the detective story that accent of class that the late Raymond Chandler did.” – Chicago Tribune.

He was a son who hadn’t known his father very well.  It was a town shaken by a grisly murder – his father’s murder.  Johnny Weatherly was home from a war and wandering.  When he found out that his father had been assassinated on a street corner and that his father’s seductive young wife had inherited a fortune, he started knocking on doors.  The doors came open, and Johnny stepped into a world of gamblers, whores, drug-dealers, and blackmailers, a place in which his father had once moved freely.  Now Johnny Weatherly was going to solve this murder – by pitting his rage, his courage, and his lost illusions against the brutal underworld that has overtaken his hometown.

Thursday, April 9, 2026

Recommended reading - The Name Is Archer, by Ross MacDonald (1955):


The Name Is Archer

By Ross MacDonald.

Part of the Lew Archer mystery series.

Paperback
Published by Grand Central Pub.
First published 1955.
ISBN 13: 9780446361569
ISBN10: 0446361569
ASIN: 0446361569

Description:

Anthology containing the following stories: Find the woman; Gone girl; The bearded lady; The suicide; Guilt-edged blonde; The sinister habit; Wild goose chase; Midnight blue; Sleeping dog.

Sunday, April 5, 2026

Recommended reading - The Blue Hammer, by Ross Macdonald (1976):


The Blue Hammer

By Ross Macdonald.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
First published 1976.
ISBN-10: 0307279065
ISBN-13: 978-0307279064

Description:

The desert air is hot with sex and betrayal, death and madness and only Detective Lew Archer can make sense of a killer who makes murder a work of art.

Finding a purloined portrait of a leggy blonde was supposed to be an easy paycheck for Archer, but that was before the bodies began piling up. Suddenly, Archer find himself smack in the middle of a decades-long mystery of a brilliant artist who walked into the desert and simply disappeared. He left behind a bevy of muses, molls, dolls, and dames-each one scrambling for what they thought was rightfully theirs.

Friday, April 3, 2026

Recommended reading - three books on movies, by George Stevens Jr:


Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age at the American Film Institute

By George Stevens Jr.

Published by Vintage.
Published 2007.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 1400033144
ISBN-13: 978-1400033140

Description:

“Impressive and entertaining … A sweeping and valuable compendium of picture-making and picture lore.” – Peter Bogdanovich, The Wall Street Journal.

The first book to bring together interviews of master moviemakers from the American Film Institute’s renowned seminars, Conversations with the Great Moviemakers, offers an unmatched history of American cinema in the words of its greatest practitioners.

Here are the incomparable directors Frank Capra, Elia Kazan, King Vidor, David Lean, Fritz Lang (“I learned only from bad films”), William Wyler, and George Stevens; renowned producers and cinematographers; celebrated screenwriters Ray Bradbury and Ernest Lehman; as well as the immortal Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini (“Making a movie is a mathematical operation. It’s absolutely impossible to improvise”). Taken together, these conversations offer uniquely intimate access to the thinking, the wisdom, and the genius of cinema’s most talented pioneers.


Conversations at the American Film Institute with the Great Moviemakers: The Next Generation

By George Stevens Jr.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Published 2014.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 0307474984
ISBN-13: 978-0307474988

Description:

“Magnificent … A collection that is compendious, illuminating, and utterly indispensable.” – Director’s Guild of America Quarterly.

A rich companion volume to George Stevens, Jr.’s much admired book of American Film Institute seminars with the pioneering moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age, this time with a focus on filmmakers of the 1950s to present day.

The Next Generation brings together conversations with moviemakers at work from the 1950s – during the studios’ decline – to today’s Hollywood. Directors, producers, writers, actors, cinematographers, composers, film editors, and independent filmmakers appear within these pages, including Steven Spielberg, Nora Ephron, George Lucas, Sidney Poitier, Meryl Streep, David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky, and more. We see how the filmmakers of today and those of Hollywood’s Golden Age face the same challenges of both art and craft – to tell compelling stories on the screen. And we see the ways in which actors and directors work together, how each director has his or her own approach, and how they share techniques and theories.

“An entertaining in-depth look into the art, economics, and politics of filmmaking for those of us for whom film still has the impact of being struck by lightning … Essential reading … A sine qua non of film books, one that belongs on the shelf of every film student or serious fan.” – New York Journal of Books.

“Cuts across the spectrum of genres and artistic attitudes … A rare treat [and] an eclectic one … A treasure-trove to flip through and savor.” – Los Angeles Times.


My Place in the Sun: Life in the Golden Age of Hollywood and Washington

By George Stevens Jr.

Published by University Press of Kentucky.
Published 2022.
Hardcover.
ISBN-10: 0813195241
ISBN-13: 978-0813195247

Description:

The son of a celebrated Hollywood director emerges from his father’s shadow to claim his own place as a visionary force in American culture. George Stevens, Jr. tells an intimate and moving tale of his relationship with his Oscar-winning father and his own distinguished career in Hollywood and Washington. Fascinating people, priceless stories and a behind-the-scenes view of some of America’s major cultural and political events grace this riveting memoir.

George Stevens, Jr. grew up in Hollywood and worked on film classics with his father and writes vividly of his experience on the sets of A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953), Giant (1956) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). He explores how the magnitude of his father’s talent and achievements left him questioning his own creative path. The younger Stevens began to forge his unique career when legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow recruited him to elevate the Motion Picture Service at the United States Information Agency in John F. Kennedy’s Washington. Stevens’ trailblazing efforts initiated what has been called the “golden era” of USIA filmmaking and a call to respect motion pictures as art. His appointment as founding director of the American Film Institute in 1967 placed him at the forefront of culture and politics, safeguarding thousands of endangered films and training a new generation of filmmakers. Stevens’ commitment to America’s cultural heritage led to envisioning the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors and propelled a creative life of award-winning films and television programs that heightened attention to social justice, artistic achievement, and the American experience.

Stevens provides a rare look at a pioneering American family spanning five generations in entertainment: from the San Francisco stage in the 19th century to silent screen comedies, Academy Award-winning films, Emmy Award-winning television programs and a Broadway play in the 21st century. He reveals the private side of the dazzling array of American presidents, first ladies, media moguls, and luminaries who cross his path, including Elizabeth Taylor, Sidney Poitier, the Kennedys, Yo-Yo Ma, Cary Grant, James Dean, Bruce Springsteen, Barack and Michelle Obama, and many more.

In My Place in the Sun, George Stevens, Jr. shares his lifelong passion for advancing the art of American film, enlightening audiences, and shining a spotlight on notable figures who inspire us. He provides an insightful look at Hollywood’s Golden Age and an insider’s account of Washington spanning six decades, bringing to life a sparkling era of American history and culture.

Friday, March 27, 2026

Recommended reading - Sleeping Beauty, by Ross Macdonald (1973):


Sleeping Beauty

By Ross Macdonald.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
First published 1973.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 0375708669
ISBN-13: 978-0375708664

Description:

# 17 of the Lew Archer Series.

"Ross Macdonald is either part or wholly wizard. . .conjuring the magic of real mystery. . . . A masterpiece." – Chicago Tribune Book World.

"Sleeping Beauty is particularly complex and satisfactory. . . . It is a marvelous formula that Macdonald has found; the wonder is that he keeps improving it." – Newsweek.

"Ross Macdonald remains the grandmaster, taking the crime novel to new heights by imbuing it with psychological resonance, complexity of story, and richness of style that remain inspiring." – Jonathan Kellerman.

In Sleeping Beauty, Lew Archer finds himself the confidant of a wealthy, violent family with a load of trouble on their hands – including an oil spill, a missing girl, a lethal dose of Nembutal, a six-figure ransom, and a stranger afloat, face down, off a private beach. Here is Ross Macdonald's masterful tale of buried memories, the consequences of arrogance, and the anguished relations between parents and their children. Riveting, gritty, tautly written, Sleeping Beauty is crime fiction at its best.

If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, it is Ross Macdonald. Between the late 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his predecessors had only hinted at. And in the character of Lew Archer, Macdonald redefined the private eye as a roving conscience who walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin.

Monday, March 23, 2026

Recommended reading - The Underground Man, by Ross Macdonald (1971):


The Underground Man

By Ross Macdonald.

# 16 in the Lew Archer series.
Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
First published 1971.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 0679768084
ISBN-13: 978-0679768081

Description:

"There are certain books that bide their time, like plants, waiting decades to flower.... If a copy of The Underground Man, a novel from 1971, by Ross Macdonald, has been sitting on your shelf for ages, unread and barely noticed, try opening it now. Suddenly it's a book in full bloom." – Anthony Lane, The New Yorker.

"A more serious and complex writer than Chandler and Hammett ever were." – Eudora Welty.

"Ross Macdonald is an important American novelist!" – San Francisco Chronicle.

"I should like to venture that Ross Macdonald is a better novelist than either...Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler." – Anthony Boucher, The New York Times Book Review.

As a mysterious fire rages through the hills above a privileged town in Southern California, Archer tracks a missing child who may be the pawn in a marital struggle or the victim of a bizarre kidnapping. What he uncovers amid the ashes is murder – and a trail of motives as combustible as gasoline. The Underground Man is a detective novel of merciless suspense and tragic depth, with an unfaltering insight into the moral ambiguities at the heart of California's version of the American dream.

If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler, it was Ross Macdonald.  Between the late 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his predecessors had only hinted at.  And in the character of Lew Archer, Macdonald redefined the private eye as a roving conscience who walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin.

Saturday, March 21, 2026

Recommended reading - After Midnight, by Helen Nielsen (1966):


After Midnight

by Helen Nielsen.

ASIN: B0007E0IM4
Published by Morrow.
First published 1966.
First Edition.
Hardcover.

Description:

A beautiful suspect with an intense desire to kill. The murder of Roger Warren seemed like an open-and-shut case.The evening before, Roger and his dazzling wife Wanda had moved from one bar to another, fighting loudly and publicly. The next morning, the dead figure of Roger was slumped in a living room chair … while Wanda lay sleeping in bed, a bloodied knife on the pillow beside her. At the District Attorney’s office, the bereaved beauty could remember nothing . . . except an intense desire to kill.

Sunday, March 15, 2026

Recommended reading - The Goodbye Look, by Ross Macdonald (1969):


The Goodbye Look

By Ross Macdonald.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
First published 1969.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 0375708650
ISBN-13: 978-0375708657

Description:

"The American private eye, immortalized by Hammett, refined by Chandler, brought to its zenith by Macdonald." – The New York Times Book Review.

In The Goodbye Look, Lew Archer is hired to investigate a burglary at the mission-style mansion of Irene and Larry Chalmers. The prime suspect, their son Nick, has a talent for disappearing, and the Chalmerses are a family with money and memories to burn. As Archer zeros in on Nick, he discovers a troubled blonde, a stash of wartime letters, a mysterious hobo. Then a stiff turns up in a car on an empty beach. And Nick turns up with a Colt .45. In The Goodbye Look, Ross Macdonald delves into the world of the rich and the troubled and reveals that the past has a deadly way of catching up to the present.

If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, it is Ross Macdonald. Between the late 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his pre-decessors had only hinted at. And in the character of Lew Archer, Macdonald redefined the private eye as a roving conscience who walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin.

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Recommended reading - Unknown Man #89, by Elmore Leonard (1977):


Unknown Man #89

By Elmore Leonard.

Published by Mariner Books.
First published 1977.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 006218928X
ISBN-13: 978-0062189288

Description:

“The greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever!” – The New York Times Book Review.

“An absolute master.” – The Detroit News.

“No one is Leonard’s equal,” declares the Chicago Tribune – and anyone who might doubt it would only have to read Elmore Leonard’s riveting noir classic, Unknown Man #89, to become a true believer.

Detroit process server Jack Ryan has a reputation for being the best in the business at finding people who don't want to be found. Now he's looking for a missing stockholder known only as "Unknown Man No. 89." But his missing man isn't "unknown" to everyone: a pretty blonde hates his guts and a very nasty dude named Royal wants him dead in the worst way. Which is very unfortunate for Jack Ryan, who is suddenly caught in the crossfire of a lethal triple-cross and as much a target as his nameless prey.

The twisty tale of a Detroit process server whose search for a missing stockholder leads him into more serious peril than he ever imagined possible, Unknown Man #89 is a gourmet stew of mystery, suspense, and double and triple cross, peppered with the razor-sharp dialogue for which Grand Master Leonard is justifiably famous.

Exhilarating old-school crime fiction that the late, great John D. MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Robert Parker would have been proud to call their own, Unknown Man #89 is a gem – nothing less than we’d expect from the man who created the incomparable U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens of the hit TV series Justified.

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Recommended reading - The Instant Enemy by Ross Macdonald (1968):

The Instant Enemy

By Ross Macdonald.

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
ASIN: B07R5PYF7Q
Published by Alfred A. Knopf.
First published 1968.
First Edition.
Hardcover.

Description:

“Moves fast and is full of surprises. . . . The best work Macdonald has done in years.” – The New York Times.

“A more serious and complex writer than Chandler and Hammett ever were.” – Eudora Welty.

“Archer has seldom been in better form, and neither has his estimable creator.” – The New Yorker.

“Lew Archer is back, careening down the bloody trail of women who were beaten to death, a murdered cop, and a dead hobo who is the key to a 15-year-old family secret that won't die. "(The) American private eye, immortalized by Hammett, refined by Chandler, brought to its zenith by Macdonald". – New York Times Book Review.

Lew Archer is hired by Keith Sebastian, a Los Angeles business executive, to find his daughter Sandy, a high-school senior who has run off with a homeless boy. Sebastian and his wife, living on the on the edge of affluent bankruptcy, seem unable to communicate with their daughter. Archer finds the runaways easily enough, but before he can return Sandy to her parents, she has participated in a violent crime. Archer’s efforts to save the girl from the consequences of her actions, and to understand those actions, involve him in a savage plot twisting deep into the past. At least one old murder and some new ones confound him and the police. Archer himself is very nearly killed by an ex-cop who wants to keep the case closed, but he finally manages to open it and let some daylight in. The Instant Enemy is Lew Archer at his toughest, and Ross Macdonald at his most trenchant in his observations of California society.

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Recommended reading – The Owl: Justice Never Sleeps & The Owl: Scarlet Serenade:


The Owl: Justice Never Sleeps

By Bob Forward.

First published in 1984.
Republished in 2014.
Published by Brash Books.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1941298052
ISBN-13: 978-1941298053

Description:

Justic never sleeps.

Alexander L’Hiboux is a man who lives on the streets, who never sleeps, who never stops hunting his lawless prey… he is The Owl.

The most daring and original hero in crime fiction… in a debut novel that’s a relentless, pure-adrenaline rush.

It’s the mid-1980s. Crime in Los Angeles is running rampant. When the law can’t help you, there is one man who can: Alexander L’Hiboux, whose ability to sleep was destroyed in the ghastly tragedy that cost him his family. Now he’s justice-for-hire, prowling the streets and solving crimes with deadly finality. A desperate, grief-stricken shipping magnate hires The Owl to find the scum who brutalized his daughter…a quest that uncovers a shocking conspiracy that will rock the city.

“Mike Hammer is a wimp compared to The Owl,” – Bill Crider, author of Outrage at Blanco and the bestselling Sheriff Dan Rhoades mysteries.

----------


The Owl: Scarlet Serenade

By Bob Forward.

First published in 1990.
Republished in 2014.
Published by Brash Books.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1941298214
ISBN-13: 978-1941298213

Description:

Alexander L’Hiboux is a man who lives on the streets, who never sleeps, who never stops hunting his lawless prey. He is…

THE OWL

Haunted. Lethal. Unstoppable. Justice incarnate.

The most daring and original hero in crime fiction in a scorching, action-packed adventure.

SCARLET SERENADE

It’s the mean-streets of L.A. in the mid-1980s. When The Owl rescues a young punk-rock starlet from being kidnapped, he considered it just a minor good deed with a few dead bodies left scattered around. But he soon discovers that she’s the target of a gangland conspiracy that has half of the city’s underworld after her. Now the only thing between her and certain death is The Owl.

“Exhilarating! A pure action high unlike anything I’ve ever read before. The Owl is a cross between Batman and The Terminator…but he’s even more deadly and relentless,” –  Lee Goldberg, New York Times bestselling author of The Chase.

“It starts off over the top and builds from there. There’s action aplenty. The Owl absorbs more punishment than any two or three or four people in other novels,” – Bill Crider, author of Outrage at Blanco.

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Recommended reading - Archer in Hollywood, by Ross MacDonald (1967):


Archer in Hollywood

By Ross MacDonald.

Published by Knopf.
Published 1967.
First edition.
Hardcover.
ISBN-10: 9997402529
ISBN-13: 978-9997402523

Description:

Anthology of three of Ross MacDonald’s novels, featuring the character private detective Lew Archer: The Moving Target; The Way Some People Die; The Barbarous Coast.