Phenomenons

Political comedy continues, headline from nypost.com: “Bill de Blasio to form exploratory committee for potential run at Congress.”

Caving? Headline from NYP: “Spotify has removed over 100 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast.”

I’m not going to pretend to understand cryptocurrencies, but here’s more validation of their genuineness, newsmax.com headline: “Florida Home to Be Sold in Novel Crypto Transaction.”

Born in Canada in 1943, David Morrell hit the jackpot with his debut novel in 1972, First Blood, which eventually spawned the wildly popular Rambo film series. At the time he was teaching English at the University of Iowa, a post he held until 1986. He has written more than 30 other books, including non-fiction and comics. I just finished The League of Night and Fog, a thriller published in 1987. To my surprise, it’s the third and final installment of a series. Knowledge of the previous entries is not essential to enjoyment of the last. It’s set circa 1980. Old Jewish men, survivors of the death camps, are missing. Several factions investigate. There are many twists and turns along the way, solid storytelling. My only quibble is that it could have been tighter, although its 396 pages read like a lot less. There are a lot of blanks in the mass market paperback version. The prologue has four short parts. Only one is essential. There is a lot of repetition throughout the narrative, although that may serve to help keep track of the large cast of characters. There is a high body count but no profanity. The novel has broad appeal: fans of the genre, WWII, the Holocaust, and feminists, the female characters as deadly as the male. The action takes place in Israel, Canada, Egypt, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and, briefly, the USA. The author must be well-traveled. 281 users at Amazon have rated The League…, forging to a consensus of 4.4 on a scale of five. Whenever I read such material or see it on film, I wonder if such frightening events actually occur behind the scenes. If so — what a world. IMDb lists 23 titles under Morrell’s name, most based on Rambo. He adapted the first part of the series, Brotherhood of the Rose (1989), to the small screen, collaborating with Gy Waldron. In 2009 he received the ThrillerMaster Award from the International Thriller Writers. He became an American citizen in 1993. His work has been translated in 30 languages. Kudos.

More art from Mother Nature. Check out this natural phenomenon that occurred in the Texas panhandle after the temperature plunged to eight degrees following a snowstorm. Photo from foxweather.com:

It was supposed to be a bit warmer today, but it didn’t feel like it. Still, there was brilliant sunshine, and I didn’t have to spend too much time in the car out of the cold. My thanks to the young woman who bought Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett; and to the one who purchased How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims, Happy Parents Happy Kids by Ann Douglas, Garment of Shadows by Laurie King, Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein, and a hardcover in Russian; and to Lorraine, who took home Rescue by Nicholas Edwards; and to the couple who selected a Sherlock Holmes translation in Russian.

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