Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (840)

Content

Will Young recommended David Live by David Bowie in Music (curated)

"An odd one and another charity shop purchase actually, and another one that would be played at house parties. The musicianship on it is incredible. It's not the best recorded record, and a lot of things were redubbed apparently, and not massively well reviewed from what I can gather. The first half of the tour had been Spiders From Mars and then he came back with the artwork for Young Americans and he was moving towards things all the time. It's the tour that's featured in Cracked Actor - although I hadn't seen that when I first heard the album. I remember watching him come out across the crowd on a crane on the phone and that was amazing. He's got some amazing musicians on it too, with Michael Kamen who was the MD on it, and he's a legend, so that alone was great. And the most incredible piano parts too. Apparently the story goes that there was a mutiny backstage when the management hadn't told the musicians that they were doing a live recording and would only be paying them the standard $70 fee for a performance. And so they all said that they weren't going on, and so 20 minutes before they went on they agreed to $500 and I wonder if you can hear that incentive in the performance. For some reason I really noticed the band on that record and they really stand out."

Source

Kudos

Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2353 KP) rated The Gift of the Magpie in Books

Dec 13, 2020

Who Used a Helping Hand to Murder?

This year at Christmas, the churches in Caerphilly, Virginia have started a Helping Hands for the Holidays charity event, and Meg is right in the thick of it, organizing and helping. One of their projects is helping Harvey the Hoarder declutter and fix up his house before the county is called to intervene. Day one goes pretty well, but when Meg shows up for the second day, she finds him lying in a pool of blood in the garage. Are the rumors of a treasure hidden in the house true? Did that get Harvey killed?

I always enjoy visiting Meg, and this book was no exception. The sub-plots involving her large family slow down the main mystery early on, but as a fan of the series and the characters, that’s a minor complaint. Once the mystery gets going, it is strong with several good suspects and twists before we reach the great climax. The sub-plots still weave in and out of the main mystery, and I really enjoyed them and the Christmas spirit they give us. I didn’t find this book quite as funny as some of the others, maybe because it left me contemplating which side of the hoarder or collector line I’m on. If you are looking for an entertaining mystery set at Christmas, there’s still time this year to cozy up to the fire and enjoy this mystery.