Stephen J. Cannell (1941–2010)

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
Print: 12/1/2000; St. Martin's Press; 978-0312269595; 389 pages.
Audio: 7/18/2008; Brilliance Audio; B001D066EK; Duration 10:07:00
Feature Film: No.
Series: Shane Scully book 1

CHARACTERS:
Shane Scully—LAPD
Ray Molar—Shane’s former LAPD partner
Barbara Molar—Wife of Ray Molar
Alexandra (Alexa) Hamilton—LAPD Internal Affairs detective
Chooch—15-year-old that Shane agrees to take in for a friend
Sandy—An informant of Shane’s and the mother of Chooch.

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
Selecting this book was due to an earlier accident of having stumbled upon the third book of this series, “Hollywood Tough”. I’d been looking for other books by the author of Incendiary on Overdrive and forgot that when there isn’t anything, Overdrive tosses in the closest match. There are other books by Michael Cannell but not in the LAPL Overdrive collection, so it gave me Stephen Cannell.

So, now that we have listened to everything “Connelly”, and after having listened to the first book of Robert B. Parker, and needing a break from that author, I decided to return to this author, and pick up the first two books that I hadn’t realized existed when I picked up that 3rd book of the series. This is the second in the series. I enjoyed this first as much as that third. The characterizations are good, the dialogue is good, and the plot kept my interest.

AUTHOR:
Stephen Cannell (February 5, 1941 – September 30, 2010). According to Wikipedia, Stephen “was an American television producer, writer, novelist, and occasional actor, and the founder of Cannell Entertainment (formerly Stephen J. Cannell Productions) and the Cannell Studios.

After starting his career as a television screenwriter, Cannell created or co-created several dozen successful TV series from the 1970s to the 1990s, often with his creative partner Frank Lupo. Cannell's creations included The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, and The Commish. He also wrote novels, notably the Shane Scully mystery series.”
This book merits my reading the entire series. 😊
NARRATOR: Robert Lawrence. I find no details about this narrator online. I liked Robert’s narration.

GENRE:
Mystery, thriller, crime, police procedure

LOCATIONS:
Los Angeles, Lake Arrowhead

TIME FRAME:
Current-2008

SUBJECTS:
Fatal shooting, criminals, rogue police, conspiracy, corruption, Internal Affairs

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1 “Use of Force”
“Shane was in deep REM black. Way down there, but still he heard the telephone’s electronic urgency. The sound hung over him, a vague shimmer, way above, up on the surface. Slowly he made his way to it, breaking consciousness, washed in confusion and anger. His bedroom was dark. The digital clock stung his eyeballs with a neon greeting: 2:16 A.M. He found the receiver and pressed it against his ear.
‘Yeah,’ he said, his voice a croak and a whisper.
‘Shane, he’s trying to kill me,’ a woman hissed urgently.
‘What . . . who is this?’
‘It’s Barbara.’ She was whispering, but he could also hear a loud banging coming over the receiver on her end, as if somebody was trying to break down a door.
‘He’s trying to kill you?’ he repeated, buying time so his mind could focus.
Barbara Molar. He hadn’t seen her in over two months, and then just for a moment at a police department ceremony, last year’s Medal of Valor Awards. Her husband, Ray, had been one of the recipients.
A crash, then: ‘Jesus, get over here, Shane. Please. He’ll listen to you. He’s nuts, worse than ever.’
Shane heard another crash. Barbara started screaming. He couldn’t make out her next words, then: ‘Don’t, please . . .’ She was whimpering, the phone dropped on a hard floor, clattering, bouncing, getting kicked in some desperate struggle.”

RATING: I gave this book 4 stars 😊.

BEGAN LISTENING-FINISHED LISTENING
5/7/21 – 5/15/21… (más)

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
Print: 1/11/2002; St. Martin's Press; 1st edition; 978-0312269609; 400 pages.
Audio: 7/15/2008; Brilliance Audio; B001D066EA; Duration 9:50:00
Feature Film: No.

SERIES:
Shane Scully book 2

CHARECTERS:
Shane Scully--LAPD
Alexandra (Alexa) Scully—LAPD
Chooch—Shane’s son, Alexa’s step-son
Jody Dean—Old boyhood friend

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
Selecting this book was due to an earlier happy accident when I’d stumbled upon the third book of this series, “Hollywood Tough”. I’d been looking for other books by the author of Incendiary on Overdrive and forgot that when there isn’t anything Overdrive tosses in the closest match. There are other books by Michael Cannell but not in the LAPL Overdrive collection, so it gave me Stephen Cannell.
So, now that we have listened to everything “Connelly”, and after having listened to the first book of Robert B. Parker, and needing a break from that author, I decided to return to this one, and pick up the first two books that I hadn’t realized existed when I picked up that 3rd book of the series. This is the second in the series. I enjoyed the first, “Tin Collectors”, as much as that third. This one was my least favorite. I did like that the author chose to write about a crime he felt strongly about, including a forward and a postscript explaining the existence of the crime that few people know exists. But I wondered if there was too much detail in the effort to join fact with fiction, and an over-compensation for those dry bits with long sequences of diabolical behaviors.
Also, in case, like me, you’re not fond of this, I’ll warn you that, I guess to be true to the reality of the situations, Cannell wasn’t one to hold back with the racial slurs or foul language.

AUTHOR:
Stephen Cannell (February 5, 1941 – September 30, 2010). According to Wikipedia, Stephen “was an American television producer, writer, novelist, and occasional actor, and the founder of Cannell Entertainment (formerly Stephen J. Cannell Productions) and the Cannell Studios.

After starting his career as a television screenwriter, Cannell created or co-created several dozen successful TV series from the 1970s to the 1990s, often with his creative partner Frank Lupo. Cannell's creations included The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, and The Commish. He also wrote novels, notably the Shane Scully mystery series.”
This book merits my reading the entire series. 😊

NARRATOR:
Dick Hill. According to Wikipedia: “Dick Hill has narrated over 1000 audiobooks, and has won three Audie Awards.[1] He is the recipient of a Golden Voices award from AudioFile magazine.[2] He has worked with his wife, Susie Breck, who is also an audiobook narrator and director.[3]”
Dick has read some Michael Connelly books, so I’m sure I’ve heard his narration before but just don’t recall what I’d thought of it. He’s quite animated—he really gets into the roles. I struggled, at times, to catch what was being articulated due to this enthusiasm to stick close to the author’s hints of mood and character.

GENRE:
Mystery, thriller, crime, police procedure

LOCATIONS:
Los Angeles, Aruba, Columbia

TIME FRAME:
Current-2008

SUBJECTS:
Under Cover policing, crime, money laundering, police procedure, tax evasion, parallel market, white-collar crime, corporate crime.

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1, “Jody”
“Alexa was looking into his eyes and must have seen his gaze gutter and dim, because she suddenly asked him what he was thinking, and that was how his best friend’s name came up the day before Shane’s whole world changed.
‘I was thinking about Jody,’ Shane said, not explaining how Jody entered his mind during postcoital sex, when his thoughts should have been on her. She lay in his arms and nodded, maybe frowning slightly, but it was hard to tell because they were so close together. He could see only her eyes and they had not changed, still soft with love.
‘Oh’ was all she had said, but she shifted slightly and Shane came out of her.
‘I was thinking how he would have been happy for us,’ Shane had tried to explain, still not confessing his real train of thought.
Alexa hadn’t known Jody, not really . . . station-house war stories, mostly, and opinions; there was certainly no shortage of either where Jody was concerned. Jody had been assigned to the Special Investigations Section—SIS—when he . . . well . . . when he did the unthinkable.
Alexa had been running the Southwest Patrol Day Watch back then. Of course, she knew how the event had busted Shane up, how it still deeply affected him. After all, Jody had been like a brother. Jody’s family had been like Shane’s family. The Deans, with their wealth and position, never once made Shane feel like what he knew he was—a socially inept, unclaimed orphan from the Huntington House Group Home. They had cared about him when Shane had nobody who cared. Jody had been like a brother all through elementary school, high school, and the Marines. Actually, if you wanted to be absolutely accurate, all the way from Little League through the Police Academy.”

RATING:
I gave this book 3 stars 😊.

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
5/22/2021 – 5/29/21… (más)

Listened to this a second time to get it in context after finishing books 1 & 2 in the series.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
Print: 4/1/2003; Wheeler Pub Inc.; 978-1587244162; 508 pages.
Audio: 12/27/2011; MacMillan Audio; 9781427223616; Duration 9:58:18; 12 parts.
Feature Film: No.

Series: Shane Scully book 3

Main characters:
Shane Scully--LAPD
Alexandra (Alexa) Scully—LAPD
Chhoch—Shane’s son, Alexa’s step-son
Nora—family friend

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
Selecting this book was a happy accident. I was looking for other books by the author of Incendiary on Overdrive and forgot that when there isn’t anything Overdrive tosses in the closest match. There are other books by Michael Cannell but not in the LAPL Overdrive collection.
So, this book was very similar to a Michael Connelly book. In fact, the story even references Connelly, and Amazon says that people who like books by this author like books by Michael Connelly. Too, the protagonist, Shane, has a similar background to Detective Bosch’s.
This was book 3, so now I have to find the first two.
It’s about a husband and wife who both work for the LAPD. The husband, Shane, is just back from a leave of absence and agrees to attend a party hosted by their friend Nora, and her new fiancé. This begins a complex and multi-faceted tale of suspicion and crime fighting. We get a lot of police procedure and terminology, some of which is explained, some not (so one is glad to have learned the lingo from Connelly).
It got a little excessive with descriptions at times. For example, it did nothing for the story, in my opinion, to learn that someone was putting on clean underwear after his shower. I would have expected that.

AUTHOR:
Stephen Cannell (February 5, 1941 – September 30, 2010). According to Wikipedia, Stephen “was an American television producer, writer, novelist, and occasional actor, and the founder of Cannell Entertainment (formerly Stephen J. Cannell Productions) and the Cannell Studios.

After starting his career as a television screenwriter, Cannell created or co-created several dozen successful TV series from the 1970s to the 1990s, often with his creative partner Frank Lupo. Cannell's creations included The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, and The Commish. He also wrote novels, notably the Shane Scully mystery series.”
This book merits my reading the entire series. 😊

NARRATOR:
Paul Michael. According to audiobookstore(DOT)com, “Paul Michael, winner of several Earphones Awards, has also won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He has acted on stage, radio, television, and in feature films in Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. He has had leading roles in series and made-for-television movies and has guest starred in such series as VIP and Alias. He has been nominated for a Canadian Emmy and has recorded over 150 audiobooks, including the international bestseller The Da Vinci Code..”
Paul did a superb reading here.

GENRE:
Mystery, crime, police procedure

LOCATIONS:
Los Angeles

SUBJECTS:
Gangs, Mafia, movie industry, crime, police procedure, drugs, prostitution.

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 3, “The Promise”
“How she could do that still mystified him. What on earth had he said that had tipped her? He hadn’t even been looking at her. She’d done it off one sentence and some body language. No wonder she’d been such a great detective.
‘Well, something sorta happened at the end, while I was getting out of there.’
‘What?’ She had turned to face him now, staring at him in the driver’s seat of the Acura, face lit only by passing freeway signs.
‘I want to know. Please, Shane, Nora is very important to me.’
‘Well, on my way out, I was going through the pool house and some guests were in there smoking Cohibas.’
‘Oh my God. You didn’t bust them for having contraband cigars?’
‘Do I look like a drooling idiot?’
‘Okay, go on.’
‘They didn’t know I was there, then some guy asked Farrell if he was getting Nora to sign a prenup. And Farrell said he didn’t have to . . . that he’d had two wives already, and when he got tired of them, they both conveniently died of food poisoning.’
She sat there and looked at him. He didn’t have the nerve to return her gaze, so he kept his eyes front and center, carefully navigating the transition onto the 110.
‘That’s it?’ Alexa asked.
‘Yep. That’s it. Except when he saw me standing in the back of the room, he got all froggy. Told me it was just a joke, not to get my handcuffs out.’
‘That’s what it was, a joke.’ He hasn’t had any ex-wives. He’s never been married before.’
‘You sure?’
‘That’s what Nora said.’
‘Well, then we’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘Honey, it was just a joke.’
‘A bad joke. It didn’t go over too well, even with his Cohiba-smoking buddies.’
‘Shane, don’t mess around and start looking into this . . . .’”

RATING: I gave this book 4 stars 😊 and will look for the other books in this series.… (más)

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
Print: 1/15/2008; St. Martin's Press, First Edition; ISBN 978-0312366278; 336 pages.
Audio: 5/13/2008; Brilliance Audio; ISBN; Duration 9:33:00; Unabridged
Feature Film or tv: Not that I know of.
Series: Shane Scully book 7

Major characters:
Shane Scully--LAPD
Alexandra (Alexa) Scully—LAPD
Chooch—Shane’s son, Alexa’s step-son
Secada (Scout) Llevar – An Internal Affairs detective
Truit Hickman – An addict and small-time criminal

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
My husband and I enjoyed this 7th book in the Shane Scully series where an internal affairs detective tries to recruit Shane to assist in an investigation of an incarceration that looks all wrong, in the hopes that Shane can, in turn, recruit his wife to pull strings and assist with the problem of the detective’s boss having called her off the case. Alexa has her own problems and has no interest—in fact she continually rebukes Shane for his growing interest in the case. Brain injuries, politics and criminals always make for intrigue.

AUTHOR:
Stephen Cannell (February 5, 1941 – September 30, 2010). According to Wikipedia, Stephen “was an American television producer, writer, novelist, and occasional actor, and the founder of Cannell Entertainment (formerly Stephen J. Cannell Productions) and the Cannell Studios.

After starting his career as a television screenwriter, Cannell created or co-created several dozen successful TV series from the 1970s to the 1990s, often with his creative partner Frank Lupo. Cannell's creations included The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, and The Commish. He also wrote novels, notably the Shane Scully mystery series.”
This book merits my reading the entire series. 😊

NARRATOR:
Scott Brick. (January/30/1966).
Sn excerpt from IMDB:
“Actor, screenwriter and audiobook narrator Scott Brick definitely gives new meaning to a hyphenate career with credits in film, television, stage and radio. Born on January 30, 1966 in Santa Barbara, California, Brick studied both acting and writing at UCLA, and joined the ranks of working professionals upon leaving school in 1989.”
Scott’s “and THEN, would you believe . . .” edgy tone is perfect for this series.

GENRE:
Fiction, Mystery, thriller, crime, police procedure, suspense

LOCATIONS:
Los Angeles, Venice Beach

TIME FRAME:
contemporary

SUBJECTS:
Drugs, corruption, gangs, incarceration, brain injury

DEDICATION:
"This one's for my two girls.
Tawnia, you always see the truth and show me how to succeed with grace. You have enriched my life in so many untold ways.
Chelsea, you put a smile on my face, keep me young, and with your generosity show me how to be a better friend.
No father has ever had two more beautiful daughters. I love you guys."

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1:
"Let's talk about the meds you found yesterday."
"I found them in her purse. She'd peeled the label off the bottle so I wouldn't know the doctor or what they were for. I had the police labe identify them. The results came back this morning. Carbamazepine and Sodium valporate."
"Do you know what those are commonly prescribed for?"
"According to the labe, they're for seizures."
He nodded. "Has your wife been having seizures?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen one, but if Alexa was taking this stuff, maybe. She stopped driving her car last week. She gets picked up and brought home by a department driver now. I was hoping she'd tell me on her own what's going on. So far she hasn't."
"Your wife was abducted last July and suffered a gunshot wound to the head resulting in a severe traumatic brain injury. That was less than eleven months ago. TBI seizures often crop up months afterward and can continue for years. And you say she's already back to work?"
"She had a lot of stuff pending. It's a big job. She supervises two hundred people."

RATING:
4 stars. I’m attached to these characters now.

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
12-19-2021 to 12-27-2021… (más)