We discuss Who Is The Doctor by Graeme Burk & Robert Smith?, an unofficial episode guide to the new series of Doctor Who and more.

Your hosts: Paul Alves, Greg Otte, Sir Jimmy, Professor Alan Middleton

Guest: Michael Luoma

You can visit Michael Luoma’s web site HERE (And you can get tons of free comic books, audio books and more there, too!)

Once there, the firm gets involved in a mass-tort case, against a huge pharmaceutical firm. This is supposed to be a slam-dunk, where they will rake in big bucks from a settlement with the many injured person who have taken the drug. As the book wears on, both the legal case and the legal firm begin to unravel, and Zinc ends up litigating what looks like a losing case against a high-priced and highly-skilled opponent.

This one covers similar ground as some of Grisham’s prior novels, but since he has written some two dozen legal thrillers, that is bound to happen.  And there are enough differences to keep the plot unpredictable and the suspense mounting, both in the legal case and in Zinc’s own character development.

The ending is satisfying. The case, the law firm, Zinc and the other characters all end up in places that make sense, given how the novel progressed.

His passing came as a result of complications from a stroke he suffered after his recent stroke.

For more information on Maurice Sendak’s passing ….  EW.com

I recently had the pleasure to start a website with a few other writers, called Ink Slingers Press. We are authors Spencer Brokaw, Elise Stokes, John Rykken, Martin Gibbs, Monica La Porta, and Vered Ehsani. Our main goal is to provide writing tips, writing news, and to support Indies! Come and subscribe by entering your email address in the widget on the side of the page or email usand put “Subscribe” in the subject line!

Also, if you haven’t already, subscribe to my blog by using the widget on the side of my page.

We’ve posted about Comixology’s domination of comic book content on iOS before — it’s certainly not the only app that lets you read and even buy comic books, but it’s by far the most popular, and keeps getting even more so. The company has just announced that it’s reached 65 million downloads across the platform as a whole, which is just a huge amount of content delivered. And Comixology keeps locking down plans to deliver even more — their latest deal is with Marvel, and allows Comixology to exclusively release Marvel’s single issues digitally through the app. That means every single issue English comic that Marvel puts out is available digitally only through Comixology.

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In this novel, Spenser investigates a strange death of a woman in a hotel, where all the evidence points towards a Hollywood actor. But Captain Marty Quirk thinks there might be more to the case than meets the eye. Rita Fiore is the actor’s defense lawyer, and she hires Spenser to investigate.

Most of the novel revolves around Spenser’s relationship with Zebulon Sixkill, the native American who served as bodyguard to the actor. Showing Spenser as a mentor to this man served as some of the strongest character development in this series in many novels. I worried at first about the lack of Hawk in the novel, but the presence of Sixkill made up for this absence.

The only problem I had with this novel was the unrealistic way in which this celebrity murder charge was treated in the novel. There was no Nancy Grace, no paprazzi, no reference to this celebrity actor facing any public backlash over this suspicious death. It was as if this book was taking place forty years ago, before OJ, before Phil Spector, before the 24-hour news cycle. But these novels are set in the present day, so that was odd.

The solution to the mystery was interesting. And as always, Joe Montegna’s narration was strong.

This review first appeared on Alan’s Eyes & Ears.

The most recent episode, episode #28, breaks from this format. For the second time, the Michaels did a year-in-review special, discussing all of the Caped Crusader’s comic book appearances during 1940. In episode #10, they did the same thing for 1939, the year of Batman’s debut. This is a nice change-of-pace episode, allowing the hosts to step back and take a bigger picture view of the character. A nice touch is that they also include world events in this year-in-review episode.

As the hosts point out, 1940 was an important year for Batman, who appeared in 26 stories in 17 separate comics book issues. This year featured the introduction of Batman’s solo comic, the first appearance of Robin, and stories that featured both Catwoman and Joker. By this point in the character’s history, the design for the Batmobile had not been standardized, but a proto-Batplane had appeared. Even Commissioner Gordon showed up a few times.

The hosts talked about the favorite and least favorites of the year, in categories such as cover art, story, and villain. Sometimes they agreed, and often they did not.

There are lot of comic book podcasts, and many of them are very good. But there are not enough that cover the Golden Age era, and among those, Legends of the Batman is one of the best.

The podcast can be found in iTunes and here, the podcast episode page.

As Scarpetta investigates, it becomes clear that there is a connection between the murders, and that perhaps the imprisoned woman is innocent. When a former colleague of Scarpetta (who had lured her to Georgia to investigate this case) is fatally attacked, the tension ratchets up. Again, Scarpetta finds herself a potential target as she tries to uncover what exactly connects these disparate cases.

I like that the last few Scarpetta novels have built on each other plot-wise, and how actions in one novel have consequences in the next. The end of this novel come a bit out of the blue for my taste, but that does not diminish the overall enjoyment of reading it. It was a very good read.

As always, narrator Judy Kaye does an excellent job narrating the audiobook version of this novel.

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