Will o'the Glen on Books

Given that   The Murder of Marion Miley   is about the murder of a talented and in her time, well-known, American amateur golfer, I debated whether to place this review in my golf-related blog, Will o'the Glen on Golf, or my book-review blog, Will o'the Glen on Books. Solomon-like, I decided to have it both ways and post it in both. *************************************** Though this book reads like fiction, Marion Miley was a real person, and the broader outline of events described in the book actually happened: 27-year-old Marion and her mother, Elsie, were shot and killed during a late-night break-in and robbery at the Lexington, Kentucky, country club where they shared an upstairs apartment. Marion’s father, Fred Miley, formerly employed at the Lexington Country Club, was still married to her mother, but had taken a job at another golf club, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and lived apart from his wife and daughter. Marion was a well known amateur golfer who competed against, and oft...

Under the Wave at Waimea  was my first Paul Theroux book. I have heard of him over the years, and I may even have seen the movie that was made from his book Mosquito Coast , but had never read any of his work before picking up this book—and honestly, I may think twice about picking up another. A quick synopsis: We meet protagonist Joe Sharkey as a 62-year-old former pro-surfing star, living the good life on Oahu’s North Shore: surfing, drinking, getting high, getting laid, etc. One rainy night, driving home after three beers and a little weed, he hits a homeless drunk who staggers into the road in front of his car. He lies about the circumstances to the police, gets off with no punishment—and then his life starts to spiral out of control. Whether due to karma, bad vibes—what have you—things just start to go wrong, culminating in an incident at Waimea in which Joe experiences a long hold-down after wiping out, and nearly drowns. At this point, the book started to lose me, because it...