Peter Pan Must Die by John Verdon

Peter Pan Must Die by John Verdon

Now here is a mystery that really makes your mind do some hard work.
Gurney a retired NYPD brilliant detective is persuaded by an old friend ,Harwick also retired to work with him to solve a murder. The murderer is the wife of the murdered business man. She is already in jail having been found guilty but has hired Hardwick to work on an appeal as she is innocent.

On looking at the evidence it seems that something is not right and before Gurney realizes it , he is drawn into the case and with each chapter the mystery gets more involved , more characters and clues are added and the reader becomes mystified at how this is going to end.
        And just where does the title fit in? 
Peter Pan is the murderer but who is he or she?

Today it's My Birthday

Today it's My Birthday

Oh dear- not to good.

I said on Mikes birthday doodle, my sketching was ultra poor and this is one of me .
Fortunately I will only have myself to grumble at for doing a poor job. but I won't grumble too much as it is my BIRTHDAY.

Today it's my birthday and this day  I have been on this earth, this time so far for 28.124days. That's a pretty long time when you think about it. I guess I've wasted a lot of those days as well without realizing I was actually wasting them.
I must try harder not to waste time. 

It's surprising as the days build up you notice time is going faster. It seems just like yesterday it was my birthday so how could it possibly be here again so quickly! 

I know for sure this January 2015 has just flown past and before I know it will be Easter  and Christmas will be here again and there it comes another birthday.
Believe me Valentines items are already in the stores and I bet if I look I can find Leprechauns and chocolate eggs as well.

The good thing about this year is it is full of my lucky numbers so I am expecting not just a good year but a Great year..

Happy Birthday Mike

Happy Birthday Mike

Mike , before hair cut !!

This is birthday weekend at my house. Grandson MIke is 24 today and it doesn’t seem that long since he was a tiny baby. So to celebrate his birthday we will be having a combined family and friends dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant this weekend. My birthday is on Sunday so this works out well.

What didn’t work out so well was my beginning sketches! I thought as I am not good at drawing especially people I will start doing some sketches. As you can see the sketch of Mike below  certainly was a bit peculiar.But hopefully I’ll get better if I keep practicing.

Wait until you see the one I did of me on Sunday,

I need a lot of practice!!

BJ's Brewhouse

BJ's Brewhouse

We were very happy when our friends Sally and Joe asked if we would like to meet them  to go out to eat especially when they said there was a new restaurant they wanted to try.
They were going to the movies and so we would meet them at the restaurant called BJ's Brewhouse and Restaurant  in Lewisville. We thought about it for a while and suspected it would be a place like Chilis or the old Bennigans and just the the place for a late lunch or early dinner.
We were right except it was a much larger place that either of these two other restaurants . It had large TV screens on the walls all showing different programs and I can see that it would be really a great place to be if there was a sports game on TV and everyone was cheering for their team.I expect rather a bit too noisy for me though!!

The sampler of 4 beers.

 It was fairly empty when we arrived at 4.30 pm with lots of empty seats and booths and we quickly saw by the display of the variety of beers that this was a place specializing in craft beers  as well as fairly regular beers. Mike was really surprised when he saw one of his favorite beers which we always have trouble finding to buy, was available here.

We also were surprised by the large menu of various appetizers, pizzas snack foods and entrees. It was a bit like reading a large book to read the menu as each of the meals and drinks comes with a description and it takes for ever to read it all.We certainly needed help from our server in finding out about our choices.

Mike and Joe chose the 4 beer sampler which was good value for just over $6 . I chose a sangria  but I truly wasn't impressed even though it was presented and dressed up nicely with a big chunk of pineapple.It was rather weak in taste.

The food we chose was mostly pizza which was an excellent choice. Very tasty. We sampled both the thick pastry pizza and the thin pizza and both were hot  and really good. Sally had ordered a gluten free pizza which was available.

Our server was very good and attentive as he explained the menu and was patient as we asked questions. Our drinks and meal came out in good time and he made sure we got everything we needed .

We enjoyed catching up on news with our friends and found this a good place to go for a pleasant meal.

Funerals make you think

Funerals make you think

I went to a funeral today.It was a beautiful sunny and warm day in January and it didn’t seem right that the friend who had suddenly died with a heart attack just wouldn’t be there to enjoy it .

Maureen was a lovely lady and younger than me by about 10years or so. She was a kind and generous person, who always had a good word for anyone she met and despite going through a life full of tribulation, always  through hard work and pure self determination had managed to cope  and not let life drag her down. I hadn’t known much about  her family or her early life as she was a friend that I would meet at occasional meetings so it was quite  a surprise when a good size crowd attended the funeral. I say that because some of the funerals I have attended have had only a very few in attendance.

This was not a funeral in the old fashioned way, it was more  a celebration of her life One by one her family, children and grandchildren and close friends came up to give  testimony for a person much loved, respected and honored. There were tender stories and fond memories and by the end of the service I felt that not only did I really know and understand  Maureen now but I realized why this type of saying goodbye is so important.

Yes, It gives closure to the family and friends but it brings  a thought to my mind that while you are living your life you just don’t fully realize what impressions you are making on the people that you meet on that journey. A lesson in life to learn.

This celebration of life showed this.

Alive Inside

Alive Inside

I saw a very interesting documentary on Neflix the other night. It showed how a man, Dan Cohen as he volunteered in a nursing home that catered mostly to Alzheimer's patients, wondered if he could bring some change and joy to their lives by giving them the opportunity to listen to music.
 Most  patients were sitting around having mostly withdrawn from life but as he put  headphones on them with music that they would have enjoyed in their earlier lives, it seemed to open the doors of long forgotten memories . It was really amazing to see the difference in the patients well being and their willingness to start interacting with life and people around them again.

When Dan saw what good results it brought  and how they enjoyed this small thing, he then went on to try to get his program into more nursing homes and accepted by other people.
If you get a chance, watch this program. It opened my eyes and my mind.
I enjoy listening to music each day as I walk and I can see how these old people must have had their inner souls and memories awakened if only for a short while.

Scandinavian Crime Fiction- a good read !!.

Scandinavian Crime Fiction- a good read !!.

A while back I read  Stieg Larsson’s  Millenium triology “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series  and got hooked on these very deep and involved mystery novels set in Sweden and Denmark.

Placed in a modern but unknown culture for me, the complicated  story lines and the brooding, odd, even quirky characters, turn into a book  which I just can’t put down.They are real page-turners.

I read the whole series and found the books actually more interesting than the movie series that came out later. I guess that is often the case.

I also watched “Wallander” on Netflix, This is a mystery/dectective series based on  mystery fiction by Henning Mankell. One series was produced by the BBC but I watched the original series  in  Danish so  I was watching it with sub titles but still found it just as intriguing.

Just recently I found the third book in the series by Jussi Adler-Olsen- 

" Purity of Vengance"

Having read his previous two books in the Department Q series  ,I knew this would be a great read as well. I wasn’t disappointed. “Purity of Vengance “ is complicated which I expected, funny sometimes, has weird type characters, is quite dark and  sinister in places and above all , the ending comes as a  complete surprise.

I am not sure why it is that these Nordik books entrance me but they do and  I recommend them to anyone who wants a mystery book that will keep you guessing.

Just be sure if it is a series to try and get the first book so you understand the complexity of all the characters.