Hollywood Nate Archives > recordedbookreview.com

It is not obvious that what happens to English in L.A. is natural, because what is natural in California is not natural anywhere else. But if nature is not local, what is? What localizes language? Why does Hollywood Nate understand another cop who asks him whether an Indian girl is feather or dot?

19 Years of Reviews

A delightful, witty murder mystery about a small-town gated-community studded with the usual sociopathic suspects, albeit wealthy, and gorgeous social commentary. Waldorf Pines is an exclusive ex-1920's ex-golf-course on which marbled kitchens and bathrooms have been built, bricked over with Tudorish frontage and populated by odd, classless, moneyed characters badlyBlood in the Water by Jane Haddam read by David Collacci

At what point can one say that a man is a cheat? When he buys a house from you, when he tells you how to avoid paying income tax, when you help him misrepresent himself, when he helps you find a woman you can marry, when he callsGood Faith by Jane Smiley read by Richard Poe

An intimate look at the arrangements, organization and order of small town French village life, through the eyes of the jovial, wise and well fed chief of police, for "...not a single pig made it to market without some part of it being offered as part tribute part toll toBruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker read by Robert Ian MacKenzie

Quiet, patient, relentless intelligence spills over the pages of this story about a girl geek, a journalist, a news magazine devoted to the critique of corrupt Swedish institutions, and an odd assemblage of Stockholm's thugs, bureaucrats, intellectuals, and cops. None are verbose. Men and women think. Thinking happens withoutThe Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larson read by Simon Vance

If ever there was a language of L.A., a language in which each noun, common or proper, is localized, dated, and cast in a Hollywood movie, it is the language of James M. Cain. And if Cain's L.A. had a voice, she would sound like ChristineJames M. Cain and 'Sexological Advertiser'

Wed Sep 15, 2004 Leave the Grave Green by Deborah Crumb. Narrated by Christopher Kay. Clipper Audio. c2001. Bland, unexciting, English pudding: a boy-inspector, his prissy girl partner, a murder and a family. The plot is overboiled, the storytelling unremarkable. But there are some fascinating droplets toward the end: the respectableLeave the Grave Green by Deborah Crumb. Narrated by Christopher Kay.

A mature, stubborn wealthy widow gathers up a group of brittle, neurotic or lonely girlfriends to help her daughter succeed as a journalist for one of the lesser entertainment magazines. The helpful project helps the girls in turn. A Red Hat Club imitation, without the charm.The Scoop by Fern Michaels read by Natalie Ross

Ever since Tracy Ullmann quipped that being in your early 50s was a wonderful time for most actresses, I've been watching for a script. Here it is. The next Meryl Streep movie: what better role for an over 50 actress than that of a politician's wife? That's right, one ofFly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner read by Judith Light

Read by Stephen Lang who is good doing liddle giwls and the monotones of the personal(it)y disordered but not wonderful doing Barty who is (we guess) the hero. Unless the real hero is: the theory of quantum mechanics as interpreted by Feynman and the possibility of understanding that things are always all theFrom the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz read by Stephen Lang

Let's just say that murders happened in the middle of other things: a cop, a lawyer, a fire investigator get up, they fight with their wives, they eat. Sometimes they think. The law is something they think about. How it came to be what it is, where it came from,ORIGIN & CAUSE by Shelly Reuben

It is truly comforting to hear good old Tony Roberts playing good old Stone Barrington sitting at good old Elaine's on 88th and Second, looking at the girls again, working another case. Stone is hungry. Hungrier than usual, for a rare hamburger, cooked for lawyers, not by lawyers. AndFresh Disasters by Stuart Woods read by Tony Roberts

The crisp precise language of the story irons out an implicit California-Palo Alto class structure, in addition to a real plot! A hairy doctor found dead in a $400 hotel room... a husband.Circle of Wives by Alice Laplant

Good idea, poorly executed.Stone Cold by David Baldacci. Read by Ron McLarty

A serious Swede, heir of a prestigious Accounting firm, talks to his tour bus driver who must, like him, return to an unwanted fate, a little farm waiting for him to take it over: "I'm no good at going out looking for sheep that have got stuck on their backA Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy read by Rosalyn Landor

The real lover is, as always, God.... Unerring, abundant, furiously hopeful story about the possibility of loving a woman to whom one is wed. No religiosity, just a well told well detailed tale of Irish Catholic erotic marital life. Greeley is as always superb.A Christmas Wedding by Andrew Greeley read by Jonathan Marosz

Tag: Hollywood Nate

Hollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh