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Friday Fun Facts!

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Author: E.B. White (Elwyn Brooks)

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Born: July 11, 1899

Died: October 1, 1985

 

Fun Facts: He was a contributor for the New Yorker, co-author of “The Elements of Style”, and writer of “Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, Stuart Little 2, Call of the Wild, and others

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Quote: “If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

― E.B. White

 

Many have grown up with Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little being some of the first books we were introduced to as children. I wish more children today still felt the enjoyment and wonder of walking into a library and seeing nothing but shelves full of adventure, mystery, heartbreak, and miracles.

So, to cut to the chase……

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Barry offed Vanhi. Ed set up another, yes, another, double-deal (how many does that make now?) and is going to have Peter Sudgen kill Barry, therefore eliminating that connection. Unfortunately, Barry is more of the murdering type than I would have first suspected of him. As Peter meets Barry at the docks and is going to inject him with a needle full of insulin (and then toss him over the railing into the ocean) Barry sees the needle before it gets near him, and wrestles with Peter, knocks him over the railing into the ocean below, and that’s that for Mr. Peter Sudgen(-sometimes-Jones).

Ed catches this information on the news, and realizes he now has a bigger problem than he first thought. Really Ed?

So now Yosef is in the picture, trying to find someone to kill his tay-sachs disease-riddled son; he is suffering way too much. So Yosef just tosses himself right into the middle of this web, along with Anthony (known as Ant), remember, he spent 3 years in prison and came out with a really bad attitude, and HIV to boot (maybe I didn’t mention him?? He took the fall for the drug bust at the college…..ahhh, nevermind, he is likely to get it before the end of this story too).

So Ed’s got several people on the line waiting to kill someone in return for their target being killed. There is also an issue of money being involved now; because Ed needs money.

So, I did get a good chunk of this book read, and will give the final update on whose left standing at the end, who’s in jail, and who didn’t make it.

Confused yet? Yep. Me too!

Casting Call For Dead on Demand

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Before I get any further into this story, I thought I would put out a list (I was going to say short list, but that would be a huge lie) of all the characters who seem to be somehow tied together in this little London town because of Edwin’s urge to off his wife. So here goes:

 

Edwin: master plotter (Can we just call him Ed, already? Thanks!)

Eleanor: unfortunate wife to Ed, who bit the dust fairly early

Drew: Ed and Eleanor’s son who passed away

Chelsea: The daughter who is now motherless

Betty: Ed’s secretary

Derek Wood: Newspaper owner, and former employer of Ed, until he let him go

Caroline Flack: Ed’s newly hired divorce attorney (talk about a bad day; divorce papers, then getting canned)

Wood’s personal assistant: so-far unnamed, but the way this story is going, likely to be the plotter of someone else’s demise or a poor sap to get offed pretty soon

Mark: Ed’s brother-in-law, Eleanor’s brother

Palmer: another employee of the paper, in the advertising department (so-far unimportant, but why else did the authors’ give him a name?)

Jeremy Kyle: television news reporter, and by Ed’s comments, Eleanor’s boyfriend?

Yosef Gershwin: father to a son with tay-sachs disease, who vows he will not let him suffer

son: not yet named, but obviously on the wrong end of his father’s plot to “not let him suffer”

Vanhi: prostitute in London, and killer of Eleanor

Jaison: Vanhi’s boyfriend

Mr. Pockmarked-Face: dweller in Vanhi’s nightmares, she is determined to get rid of him for good (which is how Eleanor ended up dead, and Ed finds himself in quite the pickle)

David Morton: Detective Chief Inspector, trying to solve one murder, likely to have the bodies piling up on his desk fairly quickly as things seem to be getting out of hand

David’s technician: another unnamed, but who knows, he may have a whole chapter to himself in a few pages, so I am mentioning him

Dr. Jensen: A psychologist who suspects everyone, he is right to think Ed has something to hide from studying his phone conversations and interviews

Peter K. Sudgen (Jones): Racist Bigot Idiot (my words, not the authors’) who is determined to get rid of his foreign neighbors (His name was Sudgen-Jones for a minute in the book, then it disappeared. Honestly, I am not lying)

Mrs. Sudgen: apparent wimp of a woman and enabler of her Racist Bigot Idiot husband

Barry Chambers: lovelorn fool who is going to propose to Jessica, if she ever shows up for their dinner reservation

Jessica: Dumper of Barry by the next weekend, and likely to be on the receiving end of someone’s poorly-planned execution plot

 

So there you have it, less than halfway done with this story and it has more characters then a quiet game of “Guess Who?”

 

I will have this book finished before the weekend is out. I have to say, I am rather curious now how Ed is going to get himself out of this mess (or try to, I should say) but it is still a bit of a difficult read.

Dead on Demand – and on we go……

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We catch up with Edwin on a flight to Vancouver, where his job prospect in Human Resources is located.

It hops right back to Vanhi, in the middle of a nightmare, seeing nothing but a pockmarked-faced man who has her bound and gagged. Waking up, and finding no cocaine to ease her nerves, she decides to get on her darknet account and find an anonymous dealer. Of course, she finds Edwin’s posting about needing a problem taken care of. Vanhi decides she has a problem that needs to be taken care of as well; Mr. Pockmarked-face. She quickly replies with her own message.

And we are back again to Edwin, who nails his interview for the HR position, and returns home to see his computer flashing with a received message.

OK, now here is something that really bugs me when I am reading. When something seems to just fall out of the sky and right into the story. Like facts, or information. Here is the next part I read, word-for-word.

‘Seems like a fair swap. What is your problem?’ he read.

Did she understand what she was proposing? Was she an undercover cop? Did it make a difference even if she was? He was, after all, anonymous (Campbell & Campbell, page 30).

How does he know that the person replying is a woman? (I re-read this section several times thinking I had to have missed something where she identified herself to him as a woman. Nope). Did she sign her name? Attach a picture of herself? This is the kind of thing that bugs me. I am used to the grammatical errors that seem to be in every single book I pick up lately (Do we not hire editors anymore people?) but random stuff like this is just ridiculous.

…….OK. Putting my soap box away…….

Back and forth Edwin and Vanhi continue to message. It seems like they can both close on this deal. Vanhi has a picture of Eleanor and her morning jogging schedule. Edwin decides to hang out in Vancouver for a while longer; not only for an alibi, but also because he needs to start getting used to his future home.

Vanhi preps a hypodermic with cocaine and ethanol, enough to get the job done. She starts staking out Eleanor’s morning jogging path, vowing to herself to take care of the problem the first clear chance she gets. She has a week to get it done and over with.

Beginning of “To Catch a Bad Guy” by Marie Astor

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This book seems like it is going to be a fun read. I have to say though, I did read a sentence that made me cringe.

“Her shoulder length blond hair was flowing down her back.”

Huh? How could she write this sentence, and how in the world did the editor miss it? LOL Anyhow, what I’ve gotten through so far….

Janet Maple-29 years old, a law-degreed professional, about to start a new job working for her high school best friend, Lisa Foley, the “Queen B” as Janet puts it. A downsizing at the District Attorney’s office became known to Lisa, who called and offered Janet a job just as she was losing hope.

Enjoying her new office, and her new raise, she is on the job a few minutes when Lisa lets her know they are having a business meeting with a man who she may be interested in. (Lisa was always controlling, and apparently she still is). Tom Wyman is his name, and as she tells herself she will not date this man, she finds him appealing just the same.

We briefly meet Dennis Walker, disguising himself as a computer ”geek” (his words, not mine!) to start working an investigation case involving Bostoff Securities. (I wonder what that’s about?). As Janet meets him while he is sitting at her desk the next morning, he introduces himself as Dean Snider, IT Analyst.

As Janet learns the in-and-outs of Bostoff from Tom, who is a legal counsel for Bostoff as well, she is uneasy about the fact that all transactions are taken care of in off-shore accounts. Tom telling her it is all completely legitimate does not ease her mind.

We go back to Dennis/Dean, who bugged all the necessary computers, and is watching as live data is being fed to Treasury office computers. He is looking for a money laundering scheme, and he is looking at Bostoff.

Janet remains uncomfortable, and goes to Lisa’s office, asking about the structure of the company. Lisa tells her to not worry about it, Tom does all the work, and they are basically there for appearance sake. Oh. And Lisa’s mom called Janet’s mom. That is why she now has a job. Yes. Janet is furious. It seems like Lisa is just as clueless about what is likely going on at the company as Janet. (At this point, I am saying that Tom is knee-deep in this mess, orchestrating it from behind the scenes).

Not being one to sit around and do nothing, Janet is determined to learn everything she can about Bostoff. (Nothing bad can come of that, right?) After meeting the powers-that-be, we sit in on a conversation where they are not happy with the new hire, and what if she is a whistle-blower? Hmmm.

There is some background information on the Bostoff family and where they came from, but nothing that I think is going to have any bearing on the story. If it does, I will fill you in!