Red Zone Rendezvous with a Yemeni Panther Read

Red Zone Gang

Yesterday I got an extra hour of sleep which I didn’t realize until my wife was asking me why I was getting out of bed at 5:30am on Sunday morning.  She was looking at the clock from the TV cable which automatically updated for daylight savings time while my bedside clock did not.  I gratefully slid back into bed until Buddy could be heard complaining about the late hour of his release – apparently he doesn’t get the whole daylight savings thing.

I had a lot of fun yesterday as my Keene friend came down and we traveled to Rhode Island to watch the Red Zone (thank you NFL!!!!).  The Patriots had the day off yesterday so my brother in law, a sports reporter, could spend time with us civilians.  We watched the Red Zone at the house of his sister.  I hadn’t seen her since I exposed her liaison with dark forces to doom the Red Sox season.  She assured us that she had not made any predictions concerning the Patriots or their secondary – to the immense relief of the entire room (still a little spooked by her 70 win prediction).

My wife had a gathering of the ladies of the Worcester chapter of the Panamanian mafia, which included some dancing (of course) so my escape south was doubly important.  We had a great afternoon watching football and eating too much food.  Since I had to work today there was no beer consumption but I still truly enjoyed the entire day with these extraordinary people which was even more fun than Red Zone (who thought that was possible?).

My Keene friend was spending the night at our place and we got back in time to watch the end of the 4pm games.  We then decided to watch a repeat viewing of the movie, From Paris with Love.  He is also a fan of over the top action flicks and this certainly fit the bill with Travolta chewing up the scenery as the supremely memorable character, Charlie Wax.  My friend said the movie is like a roller coaster with the slow climb of the first twenty minutes until Travolta arrives and the rest of the movie careens through action scene after action scene.  A true guilty pleasure and I was reminded of the lead character from the latest Nelson Demille book, The Panther, which I finished reading  yesterday.

Demille has featured the wise cracking, NYPD detective John Corey as the protagonist in a series of books.  This latest book has he and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, transferred to Yemen to hunt an Al Qaeda chief.  I was a little disappointed with the first part of the book in which Corey’s wise cracks (always the strength of the book) were given a little bit too much free rein.  It was almost as if the plot was unimportant if it didn’t set up his sarcastic repertoire.  This got much better when the story moved to Yemen and the action and plot twists were clearly up to Demille’s usual standard which is extremely high.  Demille also brings in the lead character from one of his other books, The General’s Daughter, Paul Brenner (depicted by Travolta in the movie – hmmmm?) to work with Corey and Mayfield, a dream team for Demille fans. 

This has been a very enjoyable literary week, both a Lee Child and Nelson Demille book.  I, as usual, ruined it by blowing through both books too quickly.  What can I say, I’m compelled.

Fantastic Book

The Bald Headed and Completely Crazy Charlie Wax