Book Log 2022 #58: A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin

When his daughter Samantha calls to say that her husband has been missing for a couple of days, John Rebus sets out for their remote village so he can do what he does best: be a pain in the ass until he can figure out who done it. Which is exactly what he does, while tying in the history of a local World War 2 internment camp and a newly-founded commune whose leader caused a bit of a row between Sammy and her husband.

Back in Edinburgh, Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox investigate the murder of a Saudi student, who traveled in a group of rich young jet-setters. Their taste for high-end clubbing and property development pulls in a disgraced politician and old friend "Big Ger" Cafferty. As so often happens, the two cases are connected, though (spoiler alert) not as closely as in past novels.

I did like this book, and appreciated the different way in which he was brought into an investigation (he couldn't dig into cold cases forever). The ending of the book suggests a significant change for at least one of the characters mentioned above - though we won't know what it is (or even if it is) until the next book.

 Book Log 2022 #57: 1989 by Val McDirmid

Allie Burns, the protagonist of 1979, is still working in journalism, no longer as an investigative reporter  but as an editor for a thinly-veiled version of Robert Maxwell. Still, her instincts for a story lead her to look into why so many AIDS patients from Scotland are winding up in Manchester (where she now lives with her partner), a question that ultimately leads her to Berlin, where she's also doing some digging around for her boss, who has a sense of the coming post-Soviet era and wants to get in on the ground floor. And along the way she also covers the Hillsborough stadium collapse, providing an eyewitness account of the chaos surrounding that disaster.

Reviews for the book were mixed, mostly complaining about the pacing and lack of tension compared to the first book. I don't recall it being that slow. It could be that the book tries to cover too much ground, though it would be hard to write a book set in 1989 and not talk about the AIDS epidemic or Hillsborough. Maybe trying to shoehorn the Maxwell story into this was one story too many?

I like the book fine, and am interested in continuing on (it's apparently planned as a five book series). 

 Book Log 2022 #56: Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story by Chris Nashawaty

On one hand, this book is a film history, as it details what went on behind the scenes of filming Caddyshack, from the excesses of its stars to the all the ways it could have been a much different film (such as having Mickey Rourke play Danny Noonan, or keeping the original script's stronger focus on class issues).

On the other hand, it's a film criticism, as it discusses Caddyshack's place among period films, comedies in particular. There are the obvious comparisons to films like The Blues Brothers and Animal House, but also distinctions with more mainstream comedies (such as Any Which Way But Loose, where Clint Eastwood costars with an orangutan).

In both senses the book is largely successful, giving great detail as to how the film got made while also discussing how it's place in film contributed to not being an instant success at the box office. The book also spends a fair amount of time on the film's writer, Douglas Kenney, whose gift for comedy was often countered by episodes of depression.