Never Boring by Ed Willes
“Had they been thinking clearly, hockey fans in British Columbia would have been suspicious of the A 1 (front page) that appeared in the Vancouver Sun (newspaper) on May 8th, 1964. Why, for example, would Stafford Smythe, the obnoxious president and co-owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, want to build a –gasp– $8 million arena in downtown Vancouver?”
Why, indeed? Back in May of 1964 our family was living on the west coast in Crescent Beach, B.C., just before our planned move to Saskatoon. I had been a delivery boy for the Sun and had read the paper almost daily since maybe grade one. But I don't recall this particular story. No problem. Former sports reporter Ed Willes answers this question, and eleven others, in this engrossing story of the wild and wacky history of the Vancouver Canucks, my boyhood favourite hockey team, even before they officially entered the NHL in October of 1970. And they have yet to win the Stanley Cup, but at least the guys have made it to the final three times in their NHL tenure. As one review put it, this is “an irreverent look back at the sometimes thrilling, often infuriating and always fascinating history of the Vancouver Canucks.” And I devoured it in one day.
Before retiring, the author spent nearly four decades in sports journalism, including years more than 20 years following the Canucks. The publisher is Harbour Publishing, and the book was printed in Canada. You can contact them at www.harbourpublishing.com But, yes, the Canucks continue to be cursed.
One Shot by Lee Child
“Friday. Five o'clock in the afternoon. Maybe the hardest time to move unobserved through a city. Or maybe the easiest. Because at five o'clock on a Friday nobody pays attention to anything. Except the road ahead. The man with the rifle drove north.”
What happens in this one a bunch of people are shot dead and the authorities think they have successfully nabbed the culprit. Not so fast. The guy in custody says he didn't do it. Then he says, “Get Reacher for me.”
Reacher is Jack Reacher. No middle name. No fixed address. He bounces from town to town, righting wrongs, kicking butts and taking names. In this story, he comes to the aid of James Barr, the accused. Soon Reacher is involved in the case (of course he is) which is described as a complex battlefield.
Since first hitting it big with Killing Floor, Child has piled up one chart topper after another. Two motion pictures have been made based on Reacher novels but the lead – Tom Cruise – is hardly the 6 foot 5, 250 pound behemoth outlined by Child in his Jack Reacher series. Forget the Cruise movies. Better bet is the TV series, simply called Reacher, with Alan Ritchson as the big guy.
Find out more by visiting www.leechild.com or www.jackreacher.com. One Shot is number nine in the Reacher series, which is now closing in on 30, with the last few co-written by Andrew Child, Lee's brother.
August Into Winter by Guy Vandherhaege
“One blustery, rainy evening in the spring of 1939, Mr and Mrs Turcotte, upstanding citizens of the town of Connaught returned from a card party at the home of friends and discovered a half-eaten cheese sandwich abandoned on the kitchen counter.”
This is Vanderhaege's sixth novel, along with four short story collections, two stage plays, and his recent non-fiction book called Because Somebody Asked Me To: Observations On History, Literature, and The Passing Scene. Among a slew of other honours, he has three Governor's General Awards for three works of fiction.
August into Winter is set in 1939, with World War Two looming on the horizon. It kicks off with the mystery of the cheese sandwich, and then hits high gear when Constable Hotchkiss confronts the spoiled, narcissistic man-child Ernie Sickert about a rash of disturbing pranks in their small prairie town. One thing leads to another. violence happens. And a chain of events follows that will forever change the lives of all involved.
August into Winter is not an easy read, but it is engrossing, a tad complicated, but ultimately rewarding. It came out in 2021 from McClelland and Stewart/ Penguin Random House. A trip to www.penguinrandomhouse.com will provide you with all you need to know about the author. Or, listen to our chat with the author in episode 150 of the talking books and stuff's podcast on a number of platforms, including Apple Podcasts at http://podcasts.apple.com
Thank you and keep reading!
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