Stephanie is looking for a car dealer named Poletti and nobody seems to be missing him or know anything, except Randy Briggs who needs Poletti in jail.
The plot at least amps up this time to include human trafficking. And when someone starts eliminating loose ends, the threat quotient goes up.
A sub-story with a consulate was ludicrous, and the overall ending was way over-the-top.
Didn’t feel much like a Plum novel.
Stephanie is trying to bring in an aging mob-boss who is Morelli’s godfather.
Everyone loves Uncle Sunny so nobody wants to help…not his goons, not Morelli, not Morelli’s family, not anyone in the burg. But that’s not unusual. But dead old ladies showing up in dumpsters and a giraffe running through the burg? Now THOSE are unusual.
The plot was okay, although I didn’t find the end motive particularly great, nor the resolution. And the constant focus on the giraffe was just plain odd.
Good, but not the best of the series.
A reporter, Liam Mulligan, investigates a series of arsons around his hometown.
Mulligan makes an intriguing sleuth, and he has lots of interesting characters running around the woodwork. He is far from Sherlock Holmes, nor is he Spenser for Hire taking on the tough guys. A bit more Donald Lam or Trace…slightly incompetent, but not Plum-funny. His partners-in-sleuthing are generally good.
There are quite a few “foreshadowing” hints dropped, and it made me figure out well-in-advance sometimes when certain things were likely to happen and how. Although, to be fair, a couple never happened (red herrings). And I thought the bad guys were all relatively obvious for the overall plot and motive.
A decent introduction of a new sleuth.
Kottler reflects on literature and his personal experiences as a psychologist about the elements that lead people to not only make changes in their life but also sustain those changes over the long-term.
I had the pleasure of hearing Kottler speak as an honoured guest at my wife’s university graduation ceremony, and he intrigued me enough on the subject of “change” — what we know and what we don’t know — that I bought his book. It was the perfect book for me at this point in my life, as I’ve been wanting to make a significant change that has been holding me back for at least 30 years. I’m great at the day-to-day goal-setting stuff, but I needed to understand large-scale change on a deeper level, and this book was ideal for that education.
In the beginning, I was struck by a central question — when does an alteration in attitudes, beliefs, behaviour, thinking, or feeling “count” as change, and how long does it have to last in order to qualify? In shorter terms, when does a temporary change become permanent and sustainable? Chapter 2 was an eye-opener — hidden benefits from my current approach that resist change. Not the obvious ones but more internal ones that might even seem like positive traits in someone (being strong, standing up for oneself disguising some issues with temper, for instance). And some baby-step coping techniques. Chapter 3 dealt more with the conditions that allow you to transition from temporary to permanent change, almost pre-conditions in some cases.
Other chapters were relatively straight-forward: the power of story-telling (chapter 4); hitting bottom in various forms (chapter 5); how you react to trauma and whether it can be a positive catalyst (chapter 6); the limits to psychotherapy (chapter 7); change through physical travel or spiritual journeys (chapter 8); moments of clarity (chapter 9); and resolving conflicts in relationships (chapter 13). The last chapter — Why Changes Don’t Often Last (Chapter 14) — was the one that I was most looking forward to in the book, and while he goes into various spins and examples, most of it seems to come down to varying forms of fear. It certainly did for me, and I find the chapter fantastic for presenting it quite concisely. In the end, the price of the book is worth it just to get the 7 pages at the end, if you have time for nothing else (308-315).
I managed to use it to create a six-part “to do” list / game plan for the change that I’ve been wanting to make, and for the first time in my life, I’m doing it. I’m six months in and it seems to be holding. It’ll take another 18 months to “finish”, but the book helped me get there. Onward to the journey!
Several chapters didn’t really sing as well as the rest. Being happy (chapter 11) and transformation while helping others (12) were relatively bland, and a chapter on the importance of social capital (chapter 10) seemed almost like an afterthought.
It gave me the courage to get unstuck after 30 years.
Someone’s threatening Ranger and his soon-to-be-married army buddy, so he hires Stephanie to help with security for the bride.
Stephanie has some of her worst experiences yet and only once turns into a cupcake. The rest of the time, she’s rocking and rolling — missing patients, a Hawaiian tiki god, and a Yeti barely faze her. And when it’s all said and done, she’s like a machine wrapping things up.
The storyline with the guy after Ranger ends a bit quickly.
If you make Plum wear pink, it ain’t going to be pretty.
