Double Takedown (A Mike Stoneman Mystery) by Kevin G. Chapman; Double Double Your Murder, Double Double Your Excitement

 

Double Takedown (A Mike Stoneman Mystery) by Kevin G. Chapman; Double Double Your Murder, Double Double Your Excitement 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: I apologize for the Doublemint ear worm. Believe me, I'm paying for it.

Anyway, things have changed considerably since this blog previously encountered Police Detectives Mike Stoneman and Jason Dickson deuteragonists of Righteous Assassin, the first of Kevin G. Chapman's Mike Stoneman Mystery Series. In that endeavor, the two were partnered to investigate a series of murders that corresponded to the Ten Plagues from the Book of Exodus in the Bible. During their investigation, they faced personal and professional hurdles as single men that acquired love interests during the course of the book. Not to mention they faced their own prejudices and biases as the wily experienced Caucasian veteran Mike clashed with the eager young African-American rookie Jason. They came together, made amends, and solved the murders.

Now in this volume, Double Takedown, things have looked up. The duo are thick as thieves, best friends. Mike is married to Michelle, a forensic pathologist. Jason is married to Rachel, a makeup artist, and is the father of three year old Jason Jr. AKA JJ, who refers to Mike as “Uncle Mike.” Their reputation as criminal investigators has acquired a wide network of friends, allies, informants, and acquaintances who give them the VIP treatment. They also acquire many enemies from the less law abiding crowd who recognize and fear them.

That network puts them right into the path of their latest cases. That's right cases, plural, as in more than one. 

During a night out at a Broadway Cares ballet production, Alex Bishop, Tony nominated star of Godfather: The Musical is murdered in public in the front row. Cause of death: poisoned by a fatal concoction of drugs. Director Nathan Matthews is subsequently investigated, charged, indicted and is now awaiting trial for Bishop’s murder but Mike and Jason think that the case is too easy and they have the wrong person. Their suspicions prove correct when TikTok influencer, Kayleigh Bronson is found murdered at a party after ingesting Montezuma's Delight, a drug concoction of the same drugs that killed Alex Bishop. The duo realize that the deaths might be connected when the same suspects and evidence turn up in both cases.

This is a solid double mystery in which two separate cases are connected by methods, suspects, and motives. It's not quite a serial murder because the circumstances are different but they do have similar patterns. They are also separated by a period of two years (Adam Bishop’s death occurred in 2022, Kayleigh Bronson’s in 2024). Also it's the death of an established nominated top billed theater actor combined with the death of a young flaky party girl social media influencer. That's definitely worlds apart. Many would not associate the murders with each other but Mike and Jason do. 

The investigation takes the detectives through interesting leads through Broadway productions, drag venues, and social media videos to interview a bevy of eccentric entertainers. There's a production of Sharknado: The Musical where they stake out a person of interest. Okay, I can buy The Godfather becoming a musical. It's operatic, Shakespearean, has a lot of raw emotion, and they can take advantage of the Italian folk style to write original songs. But Sharknado: The Musical? That's a line that no one should ever cross.

A drag performer gives Mike and Jason a lead which results in them comparing performances to see if a potential suspect was at a particular show. It's interesting as they compare things like vocal infections, makeup consistency, stance, and posture to see if they are watching the same person or a substitute in a costume, wig, and makeup. It's a test in observation skills for them.

By far the strangest person of interest is The Pharmacist, a mysterious character who peddles holistic remedies on his YouTube and TikTok videos. Many of his suggestions provide a bit more kick, much of it of the opioid and potentially illegal variety. The Pharmacist is an odd composite of Timothy Leary and a street drug dealer from an 80’s PSA. He is both charismatic and menacing, especially since he isn't above using a customer's interest in his endorsed products to his advantage. It's easy to see why he has a large Internet presence especially in a time where many reject traditional medicinal means.

Mike and Jason’s partnership is a highlight. Even though they have pretty happy home lives, their personal lives are still a focus. That family members like their wives, Rachel's brother, and Michelle's niece get involved in different ways show that criminal catching can be a family affair. There is a tense chapter where Michelle's niece, Star, is in the wrong place at the wrong time and finds herself in a potentially dangerous situation. What is fun and exciting for her is a job for Mike and Jason and she sees first hand what it's like to live a life of danger.

There is a constant theme of theater, putting on a performance, and pretending to be someone else. This climaxes in a sting operation where Mike, Jason, and their colleagues put on a performance of their own with acting, costumes, and disguises. Unfortunately, the suspects also know about performing too so the question isn't who's acting. It's who can put on the better performance and make the first and last move.

Double Takedown is double the excitement, thrills, suspense, and mystery fun.

SOS Podcasts by Rosamaria Mancini; Gingered by Ryan G. Murphy; Two Hilarious Memoirs About Life, Love, Podcasts, and Red Hair

 

SOS Podcasts by Rosamaria Mancini; Gingered by Ryan G. Murphy; Two Hilarious Memoirs About Life, Love, Podcasts, and Red Hair

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Because I am very behind on my work, both this and the next review will feature two books with similar topics and themes.

When you want to laugh about life's daily routines and problems, you may want to turn to a memoir. Some deal with darker aspects and are dramatic as they discuss the author's struggles. Then there are some that discuss struggles with a smile, nod, and a chuckle or two. 

The books, SOS Podcasts by Rosamaria Mancini and Gingered by Ryan G. Murphy are the latter. They are hilarious memoirs about life, love, learning and communicating through social media, and living with the curse of having red hair.

SOS Podcasts is a lighthearted witty memoir about author Rosamaria Mancini’s life in Italy and Germany with a military husband, two young children, and a growing interest in listening to podcasts.

Mancini describes herself as “a big pain, a lot to deal with, and overbearing” and a born worrier. She attributes these traits to a life of constant change. She moved to Italy for a career in media where she married Marco, an electronics specialist in the Italian Air Force and had a young daughter. They moved to a NATO Base in Germany where Mancini gave birth to a son. 

In Germany, Mancini felt a tremendous culture shock. Since she came from an Italian-American family, she was able to adjust to life in Italy, speak the language, and adapt to the culture though she was mocked for her American ways and disliked many things about the country like the constant red tape. Her time in Germany however was a much more stressful situation. She was worried about the language, the cold weather, and the rumored preciseness and efficiency.

 To combat these anxieties, Mancini made sure her family stuck to various rules like wearing layers of sleep during a scheduled time. These rules, her overbearing nature, and difficulty in making new friends made Mancini a “fish so far out of water that (she) might as well be in the Gobi Desert." In her loneliness, Mancini made a new friend, one that became, as she described it “a new savior: Podcast.

Through podcasts, Mancini learned about important topics like femicide, wrongful convictions, climate change, immigration, student loan debt, and vaccination controversies. She learned about cooking and child care to help her with household responsibilities. She practiced prayer and meditation for stress relief. She got hooked on comedy and Fiction shows. Podcasts proved to be a source of education and information for Mancini.

There seemed to be a podcast for every occasion to help with Mancini’s various conflicts and questions. For example, she had trouble getting along with the other military wives. The podcast, Life Kits proved to be such a valuable source of comfort so much that Mancini considered its host, Julia Furlan, to be a friend.

Podcasts like the Pregnancy Podcast and The Birth Hour soothed any fears and answered any questions that Mancini had about her pregnancies. Podcasts like The Longest Shortest Time and Care and Feeding provided advice on parenting when she had difficulties raising two small children. Skimm This gave her a youthful perspective on popular culture and social trends. Dear Sugars helped her process her guilt and grief about her father's death. It seemed that any life change had a podcast to go with it.

Mancini also found podcasts that reflected or created various interests in her life. A beautiful chapter on Mancini and her family observing Christmas markets and traditions adds to her recommendation of Rick Steves Germany and Austria. Listening to cooking podcasts like La Scossapizza gave her a chance to get in touch with her Italian roots by preparing the cultural food. Mancini became fascinated by storytelling podcasts like Serial because of their ongoing serialized format.

Mancini has some recommendations for advice on spiritual and emotional well-being. Journeys of Faith with Paul Faris helped center her into her Catholic faith. While NPR’s Up First, BBC’s Global News, and New York Times’ The Daily are useful for the current news, The Good News Podcast is an antidote for lighter, hopeful, and more humanitarian stories. 

SOS Podcasts is a love letter from a woman to her favorite media source. It lets the Reader know that there is a podcast and a story for just about every feeling, activity, interest, and experience.

Gingered is a hilarious side splitting memoir about something that I am quite familiar with:  having red hair.

Ryan G. Murphy's red hair was an asset in his young years when he modeled for stock photos and acted in commercials and bit parts. Unfortunately when he began school, his hair became less of an advantage and was a means for other kids to bully him. This chapter reminds Readers that schoolchildren will find any reason, any excuse to pick at something different to ostracize and bully others.

Even as an adult Murphy still felt scrutinized because of his hair. Many strangers remarked on it. Girls refused to date him because of it. He is often asked if he is one of several red haired people such as Damien Lewis, Prince Harry, Ed Sheeran, or Kevin-”not a famous Kevin or anything. Just Kevin.”

Murphy had a colorful childhood with two doting parents and particularly his charming and conniving grandfather who created and sold bootlegged VHS. Much of Murphy's stories depict his loving relationship with his outrageous, impudent but devoted grandpa. 

Murphy goes through many of the milestones in a young person's life with a light comic touch. Things like first kiss (“Adult kissing is not really kissing at all. It's opening your mouth into someone else's mouth, wrestling your tongues and then spending the next few minutes wondering what the Hell you are supposed to do with your hands”), getting punished (“My Dad was angry three times when I was a kid”), getting into fights with other kids (“I was punched in the face on a Sunday. Punched in the ear if we are being specific.”), receiving sex education in a Catholic school (“They tried to scare the puberty out of us by guaranteeing that we'd all get AIDS then separated the boys and girls into different classrooms.”), attending high school (“High school was a lot like grammar school only with more penises.”), his first girlfriend (After he shaved his red hair, she gave him a baseball cap and he responded: “Even with only peach fuzz on top of my head, she still couldn't stand my red hair.”), college adventures (on taking three girls in a date to see Passion of the Christ: “The dinners were great. We got buzzed sipping on Bahamaritas-feeling all fancy and flirty-the perfect tone setter. Then Jesus had to ruin everything like always.”), finding a long term partner (He knew that his future wife, Pam, was The One after they quoted Zoolander to each other.), his difficulties with anger management (“When a UPS truck is chasing you at eighty miles an hour down the Staten Island Expressway, you start to evaluate your life choices.”)  

These universal milestones are individualized by Murphy's deft writing and witty observations. 

With red hair and a sharp wit, Murphy knows how to stand out in a crowd.

There's Something Weird Going On: Ten Existentialist Science Fiction Stories by ego_bot; Science Fiction Stories Reflect Tropes and Human Condition

There's Something Weird Going On: Ten Existentialist Science Fiction Stories by ego_bot; Science Fiction Stories Reflect Tropes and Human Condition 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: There is very little information that I can find about ego_bot, the author of the Science Fiction anthology, There's Something Weird Going On: Ten Existentialist Science Fiction Stories. All that I have found is that he is human and in this day and age that is not always a certainty with AI being able to reproduce the arts. 

He is also very private with very few details available online. Somehow the scant information on him adds to the overall eeriness of this anthology’s tone. It also plays into many of the book’s themes, particularly about the contrast between artificial intelligence and human experience. The book is about technology, space travel, the cosmos, simulated reality, colonization, social media, AI, love, family, tyranny, faith, rebellion, creativity, and what it means to exist. It's a wonderful anthology that does what all good Science Fiction does: uses Science Fiction concepts to comment on our current world state 

The stories are all wonderful but the best are:

“Parable for the Lovelorn”-This beautiful descriptive story about intergalactic travel and the nature of love puts you in the driver’s seat, literally. The story is in second person addressing the Reader and putting them on this fantastic journey to a distant planet filled with lush forests, cobblestone walkways, gorgeous waterfalls, and a wise friendly guide named Nath. Nath once lived on Earth and spent some time in Ancient Egypt. She gives the Protagonist/Reader a few words about love, the concept of soulmates, and the nature of existence in a vast Universe. 

This story is like a conversation with a wise guru as Nath’s words prove to be contemplative and meditative, making one think and feel. Since we aren’t given any details over who the person is that Nath is speaking to, the Reader can insert their own previous broken relationships and bad experiences making the story very personal but also universal. It is simultaneously about anyone and everyone. 

“Idle Eyes”-Many of these stories have fun with multiple narratives and this story is the most inventive for its points of view. It alternates between an Employee Instructional video for Ethitech Solutions’ newest Cognitive Systems Technician and various moments in the life of an unnamed protagonist who discovers that his life isn’t what he thought that it was. 

The technician’s job is to facilitate emotional intelligence into Ethitech Solutions’s social viability software and run the simulated reality of a customer’s consciousness. The Protagonist’s quest for answers runs counter to and overlaps with the Technician’s video in interesting ways.

The multiple narrative style puts us ahead of the Protagonist so we have at least some idea, if not a perfect understanding of the whole picture, before he does. The video’s descriptions give a wry commentary on the Protagonist’s life by predicting what will happen to him. For example, the video talks about other people in a customer’s life who are simply code or just there to provide atmosphere for the customer’s experience. This is revealed before the Protagonist meets Ricardo, a man who could be the love of his life. It is both amusing and heartbreaking to read about this man’s whole life including interests, romances, friendships, occupation, hobbies, and free time that are planned to the last detail. 

The quest for the Protagonist’s existence culminates in him experimenting with drugs, meditation, dream therapy and other sources. This is also predicted by the video as something that would be a fluke problem but isn’t worth worrying about. That is until it is.

“Mom's Message” -Despite the constant presence of technology, space travel, and other Science Fiction tropes, these stories never lose sight of the human element. This short story is a good example of interesting characters living in a futuristic world. Minnie recounts her relationship with her loving but intrusive mother over Konvo, an outdated app as compared to Holorift which is the latest in Social Media technology.

This novella provides the world of the 2050’s as a backdrop to comment on the constant use of social media. Holorift is connected to people’s brain waves and through visors. Working from home is the norm and working outside is the oddity, unlike the opposite in real life. People like Minnie invest their time in Sims-like games which hover close to reality. Since people live, work, date, and receive sustenance online, they never have to leave their homes. Technological addiction runs rampant as Minnie observes it in her roommate who looks at her with a dead expression and in people on the air transits who don’t have their devices present but are clearly mentally focused on them. Not that Minnie has room to talk. She admits that her simulated reality is more comfortable and real to her than her physical reality. 

While “Mom’s Message” is a witty and savage satire of modern technology and the dependency that it can bring, it is mostly a family story between mother and daughter. Minnie and her mother’s online conversations are both warm and funny. Mom’s insistence on wanting grandchildren and Minnie’s resolution on not having any children are among their conversations that are humorously repetitive and intimately revealing. They imply and reveal much about their previous experiences and generational outlooks that are the sources of much of their conflict. Their love for each other is present as well, particularly when Mom’s messages become more desperate and a worried Minnie learns about her troubled health.

“Trinity”-This story is a Cosmic Horror filled with suspense and terror from otherworldly destructive creatures and the darkest side of humanity in its struggle to survive them. On what might be her last night alive, the unnamed narrator is huddled in a shed hiding from terrifying aliens. They are a terrifying bunch that the Narrator calls the Trinities because they have three long arms that spread out in clockwork spirals and three eyes which peer down on their victims that may be the last things that they ever see. 

The Trinities have the power to fire electromagnetic pulses so any type of technology or communication ends the second that the Trinities become aware of it. Because of this, humanity is left unprepared and instantly weakened. Now, it’s simply a question of mere survival as the Narrator has to run from her alien captors.

As terrifying as the Trinities are, the toll it takes on humanity is far worse. The Narrator converted to Christianity right before the Trinity's arrival and she thinks of the aliens in strictly Biblical terms as signs of the Book of Revelation. Her faith gives her courage in these troubling times but becomes a detriment when she passively accepts circumstances as part of God’s plan. When she is faced with these creatures, they contradict everything that she once believed in: that Earth was created by God so he could be worshiped and that humans were to be the dominant beings. The Narrator’s constant repetition of Biblical concepts reveal her as someone who clings to her faith but never gives it any serious thought. 

Religion takes on an even more sinister tone as Earthlings create a cult based on their new Trinity overlords. Their loyalties shift from friends, family, their Gods, their country, even their own planet towards the Trinities. The Trinity worshippers travel in threes and carry walkie talkies to alert the Trinities of the presence of any human that has not assimilated into the Trinity Cult. It’s terrifying how quickly they break all ties and become willing worshippers and killers just to live a few extra days under the authority of aliens who will probably kill them anyway. 

“Paint the Stars”-One of the current controversies is AI technology being used for creative means like art, music, and literature. Naturally, many involved in arts and entertainment are worried about what it could mean for the future. Luckily so far AI produced art is pretty easy to discover since many of these works still lie in the Uncanny Valley and are riddled with errors that require decent revision and editing. But that day may come when consumers may not be able to tell the difference. 

Artemis, the newest AI artistic companion is programmed to work one on one with creators to collaborate on their works. She works alongside Alex, a painter, Sonja, a musician, and Pari, an author, to bring their works forward. Each has his or her own personal experience with the difficulties in an AI-run artistic world. Alex is disconcerted by the substandard art and his own internal debates about his creativity. Sonja is irate because Artemis sampled her music for other songs and worries whether she actually owns them or not. Pari relies on Artemis to help her write her books but she longs to write something meaningful and substantial rather than the quick formulaic books that she and Artemis pursue. 

This story is a strong character driven narrative that puts the protagonists on different sides of the AI debate and makes them individuals instead of simply microcosms reflecting different points of view. Even Artemis is well written as an almost maternal figure willing to cooperate with her human artists and helping them pursue their deepest potential even if it means pursuing them without her. 

Alex, Sonja, and Pari recognize that AI helps make their presences known but to what extent? Are they really creating or just typists with Artemis as the real artist? Are they producing real art or just products for people to buy? If there was no AI, could they make art on their own and would the public know the difference? Would they? 

 What is particularly meaningful is how the story presents different perspectives and opinions about this issue and lets each character speak for themselves. This suggests, like many controversies, there are different people who have different beliefs and opinions to say about AI and creativity. Just like in real life, opinions change and people on one side shift towards another when faced with alternative information.

 In some ways, this whole anthology presents a height of creativity: looking at some aspect of the human condition, creating a meaningful plot, setting, and characters around it, and finding a new way to say it.