Boys Will Be Boys – Jeff Pearlman, 2008 ★★★½

Rise and Fall of an NFL Juggernaut

In his acknowledgements for Boys Will Be Boys, author Jeff Pearlman thanks a number of people for their cooperation, including 146 current or former members of the Dallas Cowboys organization. He then thanks others, including his young son, whom I suspect was a toddler at the time.

At the end of his mention of the young lad came a word that caught me short at first, before realizing it summed up the entire spirit of the book. The word is “fish!”

Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Cowboys, and Daddies should pay that some mind, too. Not if those Cowboys are like the crowd featured in Boys Will Be Boys.

Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming's Jamaica– Matthew Parker, 2015 ★★★★

007 in Jamaica

[This review comes from a copy of the book provided by its publisher, Pegasus Press.]

The origins of James Bond are fairly murky, being as he was the product of a Scottish father, a Swiss mother, and a peripatetic upbringing only dimly illumined by the Bond novels Ian Fleming wrote.

Much more is known about the origins of Bond as fictional construct; this new book by Matthew Parker puts it all together by paying special attention to the tumultuous tropical setting where 007 was conceived and nurtured.

Lady – Thomas Tryon, 1974 ★★★

Soft-Lit Nostalgia Bath Packs Punch

It’s not a Thomas Tryon novel unless someone is looking back with a mixture of sadness and nostalgia upon life-changing mistakes.

Lady is the ultimate backwards glance from an author whose oeuvre suggests chronic neck pains from same. Tryon’s intentions are so noble here, and his attention to detail so exact, you want him to pull off a masterpiece. At least I did, considering that he made my home state the setting; there’s not enough prize fiction celebrating the Nutmeg State.