For you Kindle readers, two novels of mine are being offered by Amazon this month. The Million-Dollar Wound, the third Nate Heller novel, will be promoted via Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals in the US marketplace, starting 2/1/2024 till the end of the month for $1.99.

Supreme Justice, the first novel in the trilogy of Reeder and Rogers novels by Matt Clemens and me, will be promoted via Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals in the US marketplace, starting 2/1/2024 till the end of the month at $2.99.

These are books I’m particularly proud of, respectively the novel in which Heller is a WW 2 Marine, and a political thriller that hasn’t dated a minute.

I am working on the script for am Antiques novel that, if all works out, will be my next indie movie. Blue Christmas really got my juices going. Much more later.

Once again, here is where you can get advance tickets for the Des Moines and Muscatine showings of Blue Christmas. The Cedar Rapids and Davenport advance ticket availability will be posted soon.

Advance tickets are on sale for the World Premiere of Blue Christmas in Des Moines at the Fleur Theater on February 24.
And the Muscatine, Iowa, premiere tickets are available here.

Barb and I are beginning to return to our habitual moviegoing ways – which post-Covid had till now been few and far between – and this weekend we took in Argylle.

We had enjoyed director Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman movies very much – cheerfully over the top, reminiscent of Guy Ritchie’s best films. We weren’t disappointed in this latest effort. In fact, we were pigs in excrement throughout.

But apparently a lot of people weren’t.

This twisty tongue-in-cheek take on the worlds of pop fiction writing and James Bond has already been deemed a flop (it brought in $18 million at the box office first week out). Rotten Tomatoes shows only a quarter of the reviewers liked the film, and only (?) seventy-five percent of the public liked it.

What does all of this prove? First, the critics have absolutely no taste much less sense of humor in these wretchedly humorless times. Second, the public is better, but not a big enough share of them went to this exciting, witty movie. And third, Barb and I have impeccable taste.

Basically (very basically) Argylle is about a young female writer’s romantic spy series (very much modeled on Bond) that begins to come to life. That’s all I’m going to tell you. This has more credible (in the world of this film anyway) twists than any film I can remember.

It slightly resembles the John Sand novels written by Matt Clemens and me, though I doubt the creators were familiar with those. The Sand novels, the sales of which have not set the world on fire (despite great reader and critical sense) (those critics know what they are talking about) is available here. If you like my work, or the Fleming Bond novels, you will probably like these.

The complete series is available on Kindle here.

Anyway, Argylle. Don’t listen to the critics or that 25% of readers who didn’t like this film. Apple produced it and it will turn up on that streaming service fairly soon, but you really should take this in on the big screen.

Without spoiling anything, I can say that one of the reasons that 25% didn’t like the film is the advertising that focuses Henry Cavill as the Bond-like Argylle. But Cavill is the fantasy version and the reality version is portrayed by the great Sam Rockwell, playing opposite Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron’s talented daughter. Both Rockwell and Howard are fantastic in Argylle, and neither is exactly the Hollywood model of lead actors. Rockwell is scrawny and scruffy, and Howard – stunningly beautiful in my opinion – is what we used to call zaftig. Her fetching but undeniable heaviness has worked against her here, in this supposedly more inclusive culture. So does that advertising campaign that is at heart a bait-and-switch job.

Lemme tell ya: this is not a culture inclusive where old white guys are concerned. And apparently not to forty year-old actresses who aren’t anorexic (the female star of Argylle does not look even close to forty, by the way). Ms. Howard, you are welcome in Iowa to make a micro-budget movie with us any old time.

You really should check out this terrific review of the last (to date) Caleb York novel, Shoot-out at Sugar Creek, in a series Kensington chose not to continue. The only way this review could have been better is if I wrote it myself.

Check out these five interesting things to love about Dick Tracy…I’m one of ‘em!

Yes, these first two links take you to places that praise my work right before (a) one of my series got dropped, and (b) where the S.O.B.s fired me right before Christmas. On the other hand, the latter inspired me to write “A Wreath for Marley,” the basis of Blue Christmas – so thank you, Chicago Tribune Syndicate!

Here’s a great Killer Covers column by the great J. Kingston Pierce about the great Paul Mann, the artist who has done several of my recent covers at Hard Case Crime (three of the originals are on my office wall!).

This column credits the graphic novel Road to Perdition as one of the works that redefine Hollywood. You’re welcome!

And, finally, I’ll bet you didn’t know I was one of the 27 most famous people living in Iowa. I sure didn’t!

M.A.C.