The Grouchy Editor

by Robert Kurson

When I was a kid, I’d watch TV shows like Sea Hunt and movies like Thunderball. I would eagerly anticipate the undersea action scenes. And then I’d be underwhelmed by what I saw.

Not even Sean Connery as James Bond could inject much life into the sluggish scuba-diving scenes in Thunderball.

Which brings me to Shadow Divers, Robert Kurson’s chronicle of “one of the last mysteries of WWII.” Having read the book, I think back to those shows I watched as a kid and speculate. Do some things simply translate better on the page than on the screen?

Pros: Kurson delivers numerous tense, claustrophobic episodes in which “wreck divers” attempt to identify a World War II U-boat languishing on the bottom of the ocean near New Jersey. People die in these watery excursions. Kurson makes the reader feel as though he’s with them, 230 feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic.

Cons: To a landlubber like me, the stakes of this pursuit (aside from perishing on the ocean bottom) don’t seem all that high. We are told that the two heroes of Kurson’s tale want most of all to bring “closure” to descendants of the submarine’s crew. But does it matter that much to learn that grandpa died off the coast of New Jersey, rather than off the coast of Gibraltar?

I suspect the divers’ motives might have been a tad more self-serving than simply providing closure.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Walter Tevis

The word “wonderful” is so overused that it’s become meaningless: “That meal was wonderful.” “Our running back had a wonderful game.”

But I think wonderful applies to Walter Tevis’s novel The Queen’s Gambit, about a fictional chess prodigy named Beth Harmon.

The story, set primarily in the 1960s, traces young Beth’s rise from her childhood in an orphanage to her ascent to the top of the chess world. She’s a phenom at chess — but life is another matter.

The term “on the spectrum” was not a thing in 1983, when Tevis penned his book, but it seems to describe pill-popping, socially awkward Beth, who is only comfortable sitting at a chessboard. She’s a fascinating character.

By the way, the miniseries starring Anya Taylor-Joy is remarkably faithful to the novel.* And Taylor-Joy’s performance as Beth is — you guessed it — wonderful.

*Note: I recently rewatched the Netflix miniseries, and I’d amend this to say that the first part of the series is “remarkably faithful” to the novel. There are scenes in the second half of the series that expand on the book’s themes and could be construed as a bit “woke,” but mostly these scenes are subtle and do not detract from the production’s overall excellence.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by J.D. Haakenson

It’s not often that I read a book dozens of times — and have absolutely no desire to write a “review” of it.

That could be because, in this case, I wrote the blasted thing. And edited it. And proofread it. And designed it (with the assistance of evil A.I. for illustrations). And so, all the blame rests with me.

If you still want it (of course you do!) find it on Amazon here.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Harlan Coben

Just to give you an idea of how out of touch I am with bestseller lists, I had no clue who Harlan Coben was until movie adaptations of his books became a fixture on Netflix. I enjoyed the film version of The Stranger; some of the others, not so much.

Missing You is my first Coben book, and it’s easy to see why he’s so popular. He tells you just enough about his characters to generate interest in them, then pops them (and us) with a shocking surprise. And another, and another. Or, as the book’s blurb says, he’s the “master of the hook-and-twist.”

The protagonist of Missing You is a female cop who reminded me of Stephanie Plum, sans the goofy slapstick. A single woman with a messy love life, she’s also haunted by the murder of her cop-father. Oh yes, and she has an old flame who vanished without explanation 18 years previous. But now it seems he might be back.

The novel is fast-paced and peppered with sharp dialogue. The twists are frequent and not too implausible. Missing You is the perfect “beach read” — entertaining, but a bit shallow and forgettable.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Mary Higgins Clark

Clark’s debut novel has a decent premise. After her guilty verdict for the murder of her two children is overturned, a young widow flees California, changes her identity, and begins life anew in New England.  Seven years later, her new children also go missing. Guess who the cops consider their prime suspect.

That’s an intriguing plot. Unfortunately, too many other elements of Children cry out, “first-time novelist.” Clark’s characters are shallow and dull, the dialogue is often stilted, and the atmosphere is dated (the book was published in 1975).

At times, I felt like I had stumbled onto an ABC movie of the week from 50 years ago. Not exactly boring, but also not memorable.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Edited by John Belton

I believe I have an answer to this old poser: If you were stranded on a deserted island and could have just one book/movie/song, what would you choose?

I’d probably opt for my favorite director’s 1954 crowd-pleaser, Rear Window. It’s wildly entertaining, deeper than surface level, and epitomizes 1950s Hollywood glamour. As far as I’m concerned, it contains James Stewart’s and Grace Kelly’s finest work.

Belton has compiled essays on every aspect of Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller: the fascinating set design, the fashion statements, a feminist perspective on the story, contemporary film reviews, etc.

The most impressive thing to me about this movie is how well it holds up. One of my favorite YouTube pastimes is checking out “first-time watching” videos, in which young people, usually in their 20s, record their reactions to — you guessed it — first-time viewings of classic films. Judging from their delighted experiences, I’m guessing more than a few of them would consider taking Rear Window to their deserted islands.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Alex Michaelides

Painter Alicia Berenson seems to have it all: a successful career and a happy marriage. Until one evening when she shoots dead her husband — and then remains mute for the years that follow. Can psychotherapist Theo Faber get the enigmatic Alicia to open up about what happened that fateful night?

As I read Michaelides’s debut novel, I was put in mind of the 1944 movie, Laura. Instead of watching the film’s detective fall in love with an apparently dead woman, we experience narrator Faber’s obsession with his living, but silent, patient. Is Faber falling for Alicia? Is something else afoot?

The thing about fictional twists is this: If you buy into the story as a whole, you’re more likely to accept what might otherwise seem far-fetched. You can be gobsmacked by plot reveals. If you don’t buy into the story, the twists can feel like cheating.

I found The Silent Patient intriguing enough. If I ever re-read it, I might discover plot problems; as it is, I thought the book was clever. I got gobsmacked.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

It’s been 25 years since I read Crime and Punishment. Most of the plot details escape me today, but I do recall thinking that Fyodor Dostoevsky had written a masterful novel.

This is what I wrote about it in 2000:

“[Crime and Punishment] reminds me a bit of Lolita; whereas Nabokov puts you inside the mind of a pedophile, Dostoevsky puts you inside the head of a murderer — not a very pleasant place to be, in either case. It’s a frequently fascinating place, however, and never more so than when Crime’s killer protagonist is playing cat-and-mouse with his foe, who is a sort of 19^th-century, Russian version of Columbo.”

Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, on the other hand, was somewhat disappointing. This might be because the plot concerns (primarily) the squabbles and jealousies of an all-male family: a father and his three sons. I grew up with two older sisters, no brothers. The male interplay in Karamazov felt alien to me.

Of course, there’s more to the novel than the Karamazov family dynamics. There is a murder and subsequent trial. There are lengthy cogitations about Christianity, atheism, and the dual nature of man. Maybe it’s just me, but I am more interested in present-day Russia’s stance on those lofty themes.

I do know that, unlike other 19th-century classics like Anna Karenina, The Count of Monte Cristo, Crime and Punishment, and most anything by Dickens, I did not particularly enjoy this reading experience.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by J.D. Vance

I can’t explain why, but J.D. Vance remains something of an enigma to me. Netflix produced a movie based on this book, and I watched it. I also follow politics, so I’ve witnessed Vance’s rise from obscure politician to vice president of the United States. And now I’ve read this autobiography, the book that brought Vance to national prominence.

And yet, I have a tough time saying what I think of the man. His resume is certainly impressive. But what really makes him tick?

Hillbilly Elegy chronicles Vance’s life in the hills of Kentucky and in southern Ohio, from his childhood to early adulthood. It was a rough upbringing. For a kid like Vance to not only survive “hillbilly” culture, but to go on to bigger and better things (Marine, Yale Law School, and a little thing called the vice presidency) is borderline miraculous.

Vance’s description of his family life is absorbing. But he comes off somewhat detached from relatives and all the lower-middle-class chaos he endured. Maybe it’s this detachment that serves him so well in politics — and which makes him such a tough egg to crack.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Gypsy Rose Lee

I was in the mood for a curiosity, so I read Mother Finds a Body, by Gypsy Rose Lee. What and Who? you might ask.

Lee was America’s most famous burlesque-and-striptease star of the mid-20th century. She penned a memoir titled Gypsy, which became a musical play and a 1962 movie with Natalie Wood and Rosalind Russell. Oh, and she wrote two murder mysteries, including this one.

I consider murder-mystery novels written by famous strippers to be a “curiosity.”

The plot:  A handful of comics and dancers traveling east with a trailer make a pit stop in Ysleta, Texas, and discover a body under the bed in their mobile home.

If you’ve watched any screwball comedies from the 1930s, what ensues is very much like those. Lots of tough talk, quaint jargon, and quirky characters.

Like one of Lee’s costumes during her act, there’s not a lot of material here — but it’s an enjoyable watch.

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)