JFDI #50 STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS

STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS

Ted Chiang

JFDI #49 RED RIDING 1974

RED RIDING 1974

David Peace

RED RIDING 1974- REVIEW

Tom Wells

 

This is the city. I mean, the shire.  I mean, the administrative county.  Every two days, there’s a murder; every two hours, an assault; every two seconds, a secretion, a suppuration, an emission, a discharge. That’s where Edward Dunford comes in. He carries a badge. A press badge. 

In his novel 1974, David Peace wants West Riding to be James Ellroy’s Los Angeles only more. Or less. More corrupt, more dangerous, more deadly. Crazier, grittier, edgier. And less hygienic.  A lot less hygienic.  The result is a mama’s stew of pornography, gore-nography and pore-nography that in the end is so OTT as to make you reassess a book that starts out as a decent enough page-turner.

Not least because Peace writes in a punchy style that evokes LA mystery writers while staying true to its time and place.  The story is being told by an actual writer--not a cop with literary ambitions, but the newly minted North of England Crime Correspondent for a regional newspaper. Edward Dunford is fresh off his first Page One story and jonesing for more.  But it wouldn’t be proper noir if he didn’t have an amoral rival, didn’t run afoul of every form of authority and wasn’t his own worst enemy.

Blessed with the kind of intuition noir protagonists invariably have, Edward senses that the recent disappearance of a ten-year-old girl is tied to two similar murders in the previous five years. His editor wants proof. So do the cops. Edward sets out to find some. 

His desultory investigation gets a kick in the right direction when his colleague Barry, an investigative journalist with his nose in the business affairs of local developers, dies in a traffic accident involving a delivery van, sheet glass and decapitation.  Suspicious? Apparently only to Edward, who is bequeathed Barry’s horde of incriminating files.

Along the way to solving multiple mysteries, Edward treats everyone and everything very badly: girlfriends, witnesses, colleagues, his mother, his father’s memory, his father’s watch, office equipment, vehicles, home furnishings.  He is unable to have a conversation with a woman without it escalating into a knock-down drag-out fight or fuck. Coupled with his inability to keep bodily fluids—spit, snot, piss, pus, cum, blood, sweat, tears--from entering the eco-system and possessed of a two-word potty mouth, he is not exactly the poster boy for Northern hospitality.     

The local police therefore take every opportunity to knock some manners into the pesky busybody and, in the end, literally beat the shit out of him.  Yet, despite being on the wrong end of the mother of all brutality, Edward still manages to dust himself off and go on a rampage for justice that makes Buford Pusser look like the Dalai Lama.

Who would no doubt advise Edward, “Be kind whenever possible; it is always possible.” To which Edward would no doubt reply, “The Dalai fucking Lama.”

  **½

METROPOLIS Philip Kerr. Review

Tom Wells

Berlin, 1927. The Weimar Republic is in the middle of its so-called Golden Era, though you’d never know it if you walked a kilometer in Detective Bernie Gunther’s shoes. Purges of Jews, Communists and other undesirables would not begin for another six years, but someone is already beta-testing the Nazi social contract by targeting prostitutes and homeless WWI veterans, deemed embarrassing reminders of Germany’s defeat and decline since 1918.  New to the police department’s murder squad, Gunther can suffer the slings and arrows of standard procedure only so long before he hits on the idea of going undercover as a homeless veteran himself.  Along the way, he enters the seedy world of Cabaret and rubs elbows with the brightest artistic lights of the day, including Fritz Lang (director of the 1927 film classic that gives the book its name), his collaborator/wife Thea Von Harbou and the artists George Grosz and Otto Dix (who actually did paint homeless, disfigured veterans on Berlin’s straßes).  

Although it’s been awhile since I’ve read the first three of the eight Bernie Gunther books, my memories of them are fonder than those of Metropolis.  In the early books, the interweaving of historic figures with fictional narrative seemed seamless. Metropolis , on the other hand, reads as two books: a bog-standard police procedural; and a non-fiction description of a year in the life of the Weimar Republic. With the notable exceptions of Bernie’s day-to-day meetings with Bernhard Weiss, Berlin’s real-life Chief of Police, and Ernst Gennat, a legendary homicide detective, the intersection of fiction and historic figures/events too often feels forced.  Descriptions of real people and places read like encyclopedia entries, while the 21-page (in Kindle) summing up of events by the gangster Erich Angerstein is more newspaper account than storytelling. 

That is not to say that Metropolis is not a good read.  There are more than a few passages that give Raymond Chandler a run for his money. “My brain felt like a half lemon in a bartender’s fist.” “A naval- style black cap with a shiny peak that probably resembled his soul.” “One of his ears reminded me of an unborn fetus.” It’s just a shame there wasn’t more Chandler and less Wikipedia.  

Three stars

AUSTRAVAGANZA-THE NO TREPIDATION TOUR

AUSTRAVAGANZA

Austria/Slovenia

12-15 Sep 2019

 

THE NO TREPIDATION TOUR

 

 

We meet in a bar. In the airport. Where else? And so it starts, like most manventures. JFDI’s first foreign foray. A book club on the razzle. Or two book clubs, actually, except one is a book club that reads no books. Okay. If truth be known this trip is James’ creation as a newly-minted 50 year old, a impresario’s dream to celebrate his half century and share his old haunts with his mates, of which JFDI is a subset. His other book club are long-standing drinking (and other things) buddies. We are thirteen strong. 

 

Stansted is the embarkation point, Ljublana the waypoint, and a hotel in Austria the final destination. But details are sketchy, and we are beholden to the not-inconsiderable talents of James (see below) plus WhatsApp for comms, Splitwise for finance, and Google Maps for guidance and comic relief. 

 

Taken on trust then. 

 

GLOBAL WARMING REQUIRES A COOL HEAD

 

Introductions over beer, a libation to be used again and again......and again over the next three days. 

 

Two casualties already. Bob. Commitments. Russell. Traffic. 

 

No matter. A painless 2hrs later and we are  in Ljublana, setting off in two vans, heading to Maria Wörth, a town on a peninsula on the Wörthersee, an inland lake in the south of Austria. Get used to the umlauts, by the way, they are endemic in these parts. 

 

We arrive just after midnight at the Hotel Linde, from whom we have rented two villas for three nights. Luckily, James knows the numbers of the villas which are ours, a fact which shall become apparent. 

 

The hotel is dark. Silent. The front glass doors are locked. There is no one at the desk. We ring the bell. Nothing. We call the hotel number and then another number next to the bell. Nothing. 

 

Now what?  There is a theory of mine called percussive maintenance, referring to the most basic of differences between males and females, illustrated by the example of a vending machine. A person puts money in a machine. Nothing comes out. A woman will generally push the buttons again, the coin return,and failing that, will look for a service number or a technician. A male, on the other hand, may make a cursory attempt at the first two, but his first inclination and most likely his actual plan of action, will be to kick the shit out of the machine. 

 

Otherwise put, men are extremely impatient, and when faced with a conundrum, will jettison the rules quicker than you can say grand larceny. 

 

I wander down the side of the hotel, trying other doors. Bingo. Whaddya know? Not breaking and entering, just entering, as it happens. 

 

I walk back to the front desk and the glass doors open. Everything is open. The office. The drawers. The bar.  We begin what can charitably be described as self check-in, otherwise known as rummaging through everything to find out where we can kip for the night. We make jokes, Jack Nicholson in the Shining. Here’s Johnny!

 

We continue to call out gently for the non-existent staff, mindful that the guests are all tucked up asleep. Woebetide that we should wake them. 

 

Strictly speaking, we should not be there. Strictly speaking however, a hotel should at least have a concierge. 

 

Boggie (Mark) rifles through the key drawers and emerges triumphantly with random keys (different each one) marked 1, 3 and 4. I take 1 and 4. He takes 3. James meanwhile has located the villas a couple of hundred yards down the lake. We all wander down the silent streets to the villas. I take my purloined key, try it in the front door of Number 4, and voilá!, we have entered. Ditto Boggie into Number 3. 

 

On the principle that possession is nine tenths of the law, we now have digs. We also discover that aside from one foldaway in Number 4, we are sharing rooms (and beds). Luckily Europeans have separate duvets. Tom and I commandeer a bedroom with an added feature of sliding panels which open onto the bathtub (uh-huh) for that odd occasion you want tumble out if the double bed into the bath, or vice versa, if you catch my drift. 

 

Don’t get any ideas, I warn Tom.

 

Both Boggie and I have separately bluetoothed the Marshall speakers, and I briefly put on Thunder Road and then Edelweiss (what else?) in number 4 to mark the occasion.

 

People pair off randomly with people they have just met, and there you have it. Not smooth, but a splendid start to an adventure. 

FIRST CLASS ACCOMMODATION

 

Now at this point you maybe wondering: Jeez, how long is he going to ramble on for about this boy’s weekend? 

 

You’re right. This account needs some structure. So how about PEOPLE, ACTIVITIES & PLACES, and FOOD. No need for a separate heading on DRINK. Other than to mention that there was ample. 

 

PEOPLE

 

 

So here we are, a motly crew. Eclectic.

 

James Pollock- the Fearless Leader- Birthday Boy. Austria aficionado. Organiser par excellence. Already pictured once, but hey ho, it was his idea! This one might show a slightly different side.

 

 OUR FEARLESS LEADER

 

 

and the whole Cast(minus Russell, a late arriver):

 

THE CREW

 

From right (Phil took the picture) to left. 

 

Philip Maton- The youngest. The Quizmaster. The most newly married. The most up to date on Splitwise. A designated driver. 

 

Eckart Löffler- A doctor. The wardrobe consultant as long as you like a white shirt and black trousers....no matter what the occasion (think Amish or Mormon). Boundless enthusiasm. Skips down mountains. A bona-fide German. Luddite without a smartphone (see Amish reference....and why not?)

 

Tom Wells- A curmudgeonly gruffalo and all around great guy. Sardonic wit. Californian to a fault. Prodigious memory. Great low maintenance roomie. And definitely not into the bathtub/bed combo. Whew!

 

Eric Pettigrew(me)-The undisputed lightweight in the drinking sweepstakes. Likes to fast, especially when there is delicious Braai chicken as an alternative (not). 

 

Malcolm Clarke-A former banker with a ready smile and a twinkle in his eye. Apparently has not weighed himself since 1979, by his own admission. 

 

ERIC,TOM & MALCOLM 

JOE & ECKART

 

Alex Felthouse-HR man. Able to resolve an office situation whilst hiking up a mountain. Steady as she goes, by this brief sample. 

 

 

Joe Igoe-New Yorker and Yankee fan. Deutsche mensch in disguise. A Pilatus guru who says RELAX!!!!! Sourcer of single malt devilwater. 

 

James Morris (Moz or Mozz or Mozzer) Along with Boggie, James’ oldest friends I believe. Moz and Boggie....

 

Mark Bailey (Boggie) ...Boggie and Moz. The terrible twins. A good laugh. Full of tales and partners in crime ( or at least filching keys which were rightfully ours). 

  MOZ, BOGGIE & ME

 

 

Alastair Hall-Comrade in arms. Always the voice of reason. Saves us a half hour on our return journey due to his local knowledge of Bled.

 

Ritz Steytler-The Saffa braai man. Software guru. Incipient WimHoffer maybe. The only man who could handle the sofabed. Prolific snapper of pics. 

ALASTAIR &TOM

 

 Russell Barker-A late arrival. Never met a body of water he wouldn’t jump into and start swimming. Pentathlete. Interesting driving habits... hard on the rental car. Maybe a future Austrian boy racer...

 

 

CREATURE FROM THE LAGOON-BLED

  THE JFDI CREW

ACTIVITIES AND PLACES

 

Crikey. James didn’t half have us organised on the activity front: Swimming. Hiking. Stair climbing. Sliding. Biking. Climbing. More climbing. Art exhibition. Castle and Museum. 

 

Whew. Don’t take my word for it. Look at a screenprint of my Fitbit:

 

 

That’s almost 60,000 steps over three days or app.45km. And a high of 199 floors (the World Trade Center had 110 for comparison). 

 

 

DAY ONE

 

We start by climbing the mountain behind the hotel to the Pyramidenkogel, a tower with a spectacular panoramic view.  

 

 PYRAMIDENKOGEL

 

We arrive there with a nice sheen in the 28 degree heat...and discover that we have to climb the 325 steps to the top. Worth the effort for the spectacular view, Slovenia to the south, the Alps to the north. 

 

And the a slide down. 22 seconds or thereabouts. 

SLIP SLIDING

Then after a quick stop for a beer, another 3k or so hike to a restaurant (see FOOD). And then another post-lunch and scrumpy 6k hike back to the villas. 

LUNCH AT THE FARM

Then dinner outside. Nighthawks, like the Edward Hopper painting. A braai by Ritz. Ribs. Scrumptious. Day 1 in the hopper, no pun intended. 

 

DAY TWO

 

Haven’t climbed enough? Try this castle on for size. 

BURG HOCHOSTERWITZ

 

Who knew? 

 

Our next visit on Saturday was to one of Austria’s premier medieval castles, Hochosterwitz. Visible from 30km, it is perched on top of 179m hill (we walked up). As such, it made an inviting, though challenging, target for invaders. Apparently its garrison convinced one set of besiegers to give up by slaughtering its very last ox, filling it with corn and throwing it over the wall, pretending they still had so many provisions in stock that spares could be used as projectiles. Now that is confidence in a strategy...

 

The current family (Khevenhüller) bought the castle in 1571. To deter invaders they built an armory and 14 gates replete with numerous obstacles: drawbridges that fall away, iron gates, spikes, cannon etc. This put a stop to any further incursion. Now there are just tourists. 

 

The nobles look suitably severe, even compared to their ancestors. 

 WHAT IS DON’T MESS WITH US IN GERMAN?

 

 ARMAMENTS TURNED LIGHT FIXTURE

SOME OF THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS

 

Each gatehouse has a bas relief of the Stations of the Cross. Apparently no invader made it past the fourth gatehouse since the 1600s. And if they did, this is what would await them. 

 

TOM PLAYS INVADER

 

HILLTOP CHURCH

 

Meanwhile, at the top there is a self-contained community with church, museum, quarters, courtyards, and latterly, a restaurant. 

 

Not for us, we were off to a microbrewery. 

 

 

Do you know what the difference between beer and piss is? Five minutes. 

 

Food and beer terrific(see FOOD) and a trip to the loo amusing. 

 

A couple of James’ Austrian mates met us at the restaurant/brewery and gave him his very own hat, quickly modelled by Ritz and Malcolm. 

 

FOR FOREST: AN EXHIBITION

Next we were off to a live art exhibit. FOR FOREST, a living description of a 1971 painting called The Attraction of Nature by the Austrian artist Max Peintner, highlighting (even back then) a dystopia where a forest is something only to view in a post-industrial world. His collection of works was called Contributions to the Future. Critics of Technology and Civilisation under the Guise of Utopia.

 

Located in the football stadium of FC Austria Klagenfurt, the exhibition will be on for a month and contained 300 fully-grown trees, some weighing up to 6 tonnes. 

 

Frankly, the most impressive work of art I have ever seen, especially given that is it temporary. 

 

Amazing and all the more relevant in a country where climate change is melting all the glaciers.

 

 

THE UNENDING ATTRACTION OF NATURE COMES TO LIFE

 

A SALUTARY WARNING TO CLIMATE CHANGE

 

The night finished with a splendid braai by all accounts (me inadvertantly not partaking of the feast whilst upstairs watching my son’s med school white coat ceremony on my iPhone via live streaming in Maine), a vicious pub quiz brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed by Phil, and then whiskey-fuelled impromptu concerts by Tom and Joe lasting well into the night.

 

DAY THREE

 

My day started early, unlike the rest who were sleeping off the late night revelries. I was starving, and showed up as the first person at the hotel breakfast buffet, helping myself to a half of their entire portion of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on their hard rye toast. Mmmmm.. Then I was off for a 20km bike ride around Worthersee. I hung out on a bench “talking” with my two weeks of university german with an elderly gentleman while waiting for the ferry to take me back across the lake. I managed to garner from him that a) his father was in the Wehrmacht and died in Stalingrad, and b) he had been to the States as a student where he rode Greyhound buses with black people. So much for not discussing the war (he brought it up). 

 

Upon my return, everyone was busy checking out.  

 

We then were off in a three car caravan, this time to have another climb up a mountain to Tscheppaschlucht falls. 

 

This amble was strenuous, up stairs fashioned into the rock. Not for the faint of heart or sore of joint. Think the Stairmaster from hell.

The air was as clean as it gets, and in spite of the cool water a whole lot more than a sheen was raised.  Eventually after an hour and a half we got to the falls, and boy was it worth it! Some intrepid rock climbers were schussing down from one pool to the next, secured by a rope. And a good thing too. That 15ft drop would have been followed by an 80ft plunge. Maniacs....(see below video). 

And then to lunch at Deutscher Peter, a Schnitzel place, in its infinite variety. Which brings us to food. 

 

FOOD

 

My shit German (scheisse deutsche or some such) notwithstanding, I would have to describe the food as Fleisch mit Schlag of the highest quality. Meat with whipped cream.  A good thing there are mountains to climb, lakes to swim, blue skies and clean air, because otherwise the place would be a huge cardiologist’s waiting room. Vegetables hardly get a look in. Vegans should go elsewhere. 

 

But my oh my was it good!

 

ALL FROM THE SAME FARM

 

The stuff in the middle of the platter above (see the mug for scale) was congealed pig drippings with crackling in the middle. Oh dear! Might as well get a line with some builder’s cement on a drip…one bite and my arteries were saying what the hell so you think you are doing? But hey…..in for a penny, in for a pound. Not one morsel of food was left behind. These pigs did NOT give their lives in vain.

And if the meat was not enough, how about some cheese.

And for variety this was for breakfast….the sausage on the right is a meat cheese combo…yep, you read it right…a meat cheese combo.

 

And then the schnitzel…veal…pork…veal and pork…kiev…wrapped and fried in potatoes...

 

Or the mixed grill at the microbrewery. 

 

And then the strudel mit Shlag, the custard mit Schlag, the Cream cake mit die more Schlag. 

 And all of this washed down with beer…or scrumpy.

A VERITABLE SCHLAGFEST

 

 

Well, you get the drift. 

 

TRANSLATION:MEN HAVE FEELINGS TOO. THIRST, FOR EXAMPLE

 

But all delicious. and if you are going to walk 44km, bike 20k, and swim to offset this, Austria is your place, and Carinthia, this part of Austria is the perfect place to have an Austravaganza. 

THANKS, JAMES, FOR A TRULY MEMORABLE THREE DAYS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JFDI #48 METROPOLIS Philip Kerr

 

JFDI #47 THE WOLF OF THE PLAINS

THE WOLF OF THE PLAINS

by Conn Iggulden

The early story of Genghis Khan. 

MUSINGS ON THE CRICKET AND WIMBLEDON

In the unlikely event....

We hear these words repeatedly issued as a warning, on a plane apropos of a forced landing on water ( which by the way has never successfully occurred from 35,000ft with an jetliner). But for those who make up the rules in sport, the committees who determine what will have to be done in order to separate a winner from a loser in contest where there is literally no difference...those words are paramount. In the unlikely event, we have to decide. 

And so it was on two hallowed greens in London, where two epic contests took place at the same time whose denouements also arrived concurrently, finishing within seconds of each other. This confluence posed the greatest of technical challenges for those wanting to savour both events, alternating between channels, mobile phone coverage, and competing family activities. 

And both outcomes were decided by the rules makers in some room well before the event, a grab bag of regulations and tricks that the sporting gods reached into in order to fashion the most incredible series of sporting moments this year, or perhaps ever. A super over. A fifth set tiebreak at 12-12. Hawkeye. Reviews of points, of throws, of catches, of serves, of line calls with arms extended or umpire’s fingers pointing to the sky. Arcane decisions about the ball ricochetting off of a prone and diving batsman’s bat to score the most unlikeliest of six runs. Or whether or not a line call was late. Stepping on the boundary to concede another crucial six. Hitting the tape three times in one game and dropping kindly over the net. Match points saved (the tape again).  Big run targets on last overs. The perfect throw for the ultimate runout. A countback on boundaries to decide a world championship. 

And all designed to eliminate ambiguity but instead having the side-effect of shredding nerves and taxing the heart. To enthrall while at the same time to sicken with the fear of falling short.  To feel the agony and the ecstasy pile up one after the other in excruciating sequences. Sequences of unlikely events not even the boffins could possibly have dreamed up. 

Contests which eventually came down to razor thin margins of sporting immortality which stretched credulity to the breaking point.  The boffins were a part of the unlikely process, but one could almost hear the gods smirk aloud as they contrived yet another implausible twist into an impossibly taut string. 

In the unlikely event? 

Don’t make me laugh. 

REVIEW OF HOPE:A TRAGEDY Joe Igoe

Hope- A Tragedy

Shalom Auslander

 

 

Enough already !  Very funny, but just a bit over the top at times.  

I laughed out loud- always a good thing to do on the tube – in several parts, but at the end of the day I thought the booksomewhat outdone by its cleverness.  

There were some decidedly innovative – and negative-explorations of philosophy, after all who would have imagined that Hitler was the greatest optimist of the 20thcentury !  In a way this book is an exploration of Angst.  Angst as a Leitmotiv, unfounded (?) paranoia as the consequence.

The book also has some very good bits of social commentary.  

Very clever dialogue particularly on Anne Frank’s part when you thought she was more or less just a comic figure (that in itself is an achievement).  I also found the real estate agent’s rant quite memorable, but…..enough already.

Stereotypes abound in this book and if, unlike me, you didn’t grow up on Long Island or somewhere else with a decent whiff of Jewish culture and humour, you may have not gotten all the references and schtick.

Kugel is a nice guy, Woody Allen would love him (I’m sure he’s read the book- wait for the film).  Nice guys, however, according to the legendary Dodgers manager Leo Durocher, finish last and this is exactly what happens to our hero.  God bless him.

I liked this book, but would have liked it better if it had been a bit shorter and perhaps better edited.  It is funny, hilariously so in places, but also overegged in other places.  In a way like a joke that is a bit overlong.  Nonetheless the viewpoint and humour were very clever.

Three. Five out of five, just because I’m from Long Island.

REVIEW OF A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW

A Gentleman in Moscow

Reviewed by Joe Igoe

 

A very touching, well detailed account of a man exiled to the microcosm of Moscow’s finest hotel.  A man of surprising experience, intelligence and resourcefulness living in a time and place where his origins- and the origins of his self- have been repudiated, outlawed and often executed.

It is a fairy tale and an engaging one at that.  In a way reminiscent of The Avengers in that the main protagonist is incredibly erudite, experienced and cultured.  In a way reminiscent of The Princess Bride in that all the pieces and people come together just so to let the good triumph over the bad and banal. Discrepancies are conveniently glossed over.

While not sacrificing too much to realism, there are elements of the outside world which are allowed to creep in.  Allusions are made to the upheavals of the Russian revolution and the depredations of Stalin as well as the effects of these events on people.  But, somehow, our hero survives and ultimately prevails – with the help of his inexhaustible supply of luck, sophistication, knowledge and money.  He is additionally very sympathetic.  His kindness and ability to connect with people of all sorts and sizes is what makes him appealing as a character.  He also manages to positively affect all deserving souls who meet him as well as outwitting those of a more sinister nature.

The strength of the book is its well-constructed narrative combining events in the hotel, the Soviet Union outside and the insular world of the hotel.  Glimpses of man’s ability to survive, innovate and, at least to a certain extent, prosper in difficult circumstances with kindness and humour are plentiful.  Even the ostensible bad guys, or at least one of them, is allowed a sense of humour and sympathy in his interactions with Alexander, his intervention to save Nadia and his instructions to “round up the usual suspects”.

In the final analysis this “Harry Potter” of a Russian tale is very enjoyable, finely crafted and with a fine bit of Menschlichkeit or humanity.  It’s not “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, but doesn’t purport to be.  I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable book to read.

JFDIBOOK #45 HOPE:A TRAGEDY Shalom Auslander

HOPE:A TRAGEDY

Shaolom Auslander

JFDI BOOK #46 A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW Amor Towles

A Former Person, an aristocrat, is forced to spend the rest of his years in the Hotel Metropole under house arrest after the Russian Revolution. A microcosmic look at how one man’s life straddles the age in which he lives, and how a physical limit is no match for a limitless imagination. 

JFDI BOOK #44 MCNALLY’S SECRET Lawrence Sanders

Florida rich people with too much time and money on their hands. Donald Trump, maybe? Sadly not. That might at least have been interesting. 

 

 

One of the lowest rated entries in JFDI history. Oh well.  

Possibly 1.5 stars 

Can't remember exactly, like much about this book.