George Orwell At a point near the end of The Blue Rat, an extraordinary novel by Michael Hartnett, I was transported back many decades to my boyhood, when I sat with my dad on the living room floor next to a radio as we listened to a dramatization of George Orwell’s 1984. The only […]
Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth Curtis and Marjorie Chillingworth The most sensational, lurid crime in the history of Florida occurred in 1955 in the town of Manalapan, just south of Palm Beach. A revered judge, Curtis E. Chillingworth, and his wife, Marjorie, were forced at gunpoint from their ocean-side home after midnight and ordered into a […]
The Breakers hotel, Palm Beach Tribalism and elitism go hand-in-hand. As the rich get richer, to the point where 1 percent of the country’s population now owns 99 percent of the wealth, they separate themselves from their material inferiors with ever-increasing exclusivity. No better illustration of this is found than in Palm Beach, Florida. […]
Thomas Paine Dear Friends, And y’all are mah friends, be you from the South where I am (well, Florida) or, as Woody Guthrie would have it, from the California to the New York island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters. This land is your land, this land is my land. Alas, […]
If you have any interest in national politics, I think you’ll find Mark Spivak’s political thriller, The American Crusade, captivating. The book is a roman à clef (say clay), a term you’re probably unfamiliar with unless you’ve written one or are steeped in literary jargon. It simply means: a novel based on real events and/or […]
Voila! I’ve got it. A book – or books. The holidays are over, but winter sure as heck isn’t. With the shopping and celebrating done, and the cold weather (even down here in Florida – sort of) continuing for a few more months, there’s not much reason to venture outside. Television shows these days are […]
Mark Herman today A big new development has just occurred in the murder case that my novel MURDER IN PALM BEACH: The Homicide That Never Died is based on. But before I delve into the exciting news, I want to extend a warm welcome and thanks to all of the new subscribers to my […]
Mark Herman today In my last newsletter (http://bobbrinkwriter.com/all-categories/9645/), I broke the news that the main character in my roman à clef MURDER IN PALM BEACH: The Homicide That Never Died had been declared innocent of the crime by the six adult children of the victim, and they had petitioned Florida’s governor for a full […]
We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this special message: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#inbox/WhctKJVqqqPGsPnXllkWnGhNqqRVscCPzBXxkdXGHJJNqWMJxqvfJSQTphJWPjzcHzJcZBV, or https://tinyurl.com/wvatfct. Folks, this has nothing to do with my books or anybody else’s. But I felt it was important enough to get the word out to you. A post actually related to the subject of books — that is, a book, i.e., my book […]
Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinnie Two movies that I enjoyed immensely were Gran Torino, starring Clint Eastwood, and my all-time favorite comedy, My Cousin Vinnie, with Joe Pesci knocking it out of the park as Vinnie. In 2008, the year Gran Torino was released, a computer specialist at a well-known office supply store came […]