Last Sunday, June 1st, was in many respects a typical Sunday for Barb and me. We had an early lunch at the Riverside Café, Barbie did yard work and sunned, and I worked on a Mike Hammer chapter. We had supper at the Peking Restaurant, and watched the first two episodes of PENNY DREADFUL (did not care for it, despite some fine actors). She went to bed early to read, and I went back to helping Mike Hammer kill thugs for a couple of hours.

Two things made June 1st special. First, and of secondary importance but pleasing, SUPREME JUSTICE became available to Amazon Kindle readers a month early and quickly rose to #1 on the Kindle bestseller list. As I write this, it’s still there. (I only knew this because my co-author Matt Clemens gave me a call while Barb and I were grocery shopping) (left that off the list of events above).

By the way, that means anyone who received an advance copy of SUPREME JUSTICE can post a review any time now. The reader reviews so far have been great, with the exception of several (including comments) from conservatives who dismiss the book as “liberal drivel.” Most of them proudly admit that they haven’t read the book, and are responding to Amazon’s description of it. This only proves my theory that are plenty of idiots on the far right to along with my corollary theory that there are plenty of idiots on the far left. (The latter often review my Mike Hammer novels as right-wing drivel or words thereabout and, yes, without reading them.) Since the detecting team of Reeder and Rogers spend the entire novel trying to save the lives of conservative justices from a leftist attempt to re-stack the Supreme Court, these rightist reviewers just may be misguided. Call me crazy, but I think you should at least try to read the book itself before posting a review on it, negative or positive.

The really important thing about June 1st is that Barb and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary. As you may have guessed, we did not actually celebrate on the 1st, choosing instead to take Friday the 30th off so that we could go to two of our favorite restaurants that aren’t open on Sundays. Those restaurants are Lagomarcino’s in the Village of East Davenport, a home-made candy store that has been around forever and serves great lunches (any place with Green River at their soda fountain is jake by me). For supper we went to an old favorite, the French bistro Le Figaro, which began decades ago in Muscatine as Rachid’s. We’re talking serious food here – Dover Sole for Barb, Veal Oscar for me. Whether the goofy smile on my mug is for the veal or my beautiful wife, I leave for you to decide. Whatever you come up with, you’ll be basing it on more evidence than certain nincompoops writing Amazon reviews.

“Nincompoops” was one of my late father’s favorite words, by the way, and I find I use it more and more because (a) it reminds me of him, and (b) there really are a lot of them out there.

Speaking of SUPREME JUSTICE, this blog announces the book and uses our editor’s Alan Turkus’s nice take on why he bought the novel.

The film version of ROAD TO PERDITION continues to make the lists of best comic-book movies. Here’s just one of the recent ones.

Finally, this straight review of the film shows how PERDITION is only gaining in stature with the passing years.

M.A.C.

Tags: New Releases, Road to Perdition, Supreme Justice