Black to Reality

Authors: Russell Blake
Narrator: R.C. Bray
Duration: 7H 16m
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌑
Tags: Detective - Comedy - Thriller

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This book reminds me more of the Scooby Doo type detective than anything else. Everyone around black is dumb and do not notice that by accidents contestants are sabotaged. (4 times in a row!!!)

Formula for detective still works - there’s a little of everything - cute cat action, Roxy’s complaints, parents with their crazy business, drinking, relationships.

This time there is also Reality Show and Rock stars.

I like how each book takes Black into new setting and uncovers details of different businesses.

Also I like how author uses totally stock images for his books.

Quotes:

He’d contemplated taking the bus, but nobody except crazies, illegals, and the homeless resorted to public transportation in Los Angeles, and he didn’t count himself in their number. Yet.

The drive to Bobby’s office took half an hour with lunchtime congestion clogging the streets, an endless stream of luxury vehicles on parade in a city where appearances were everything.

Roxie led Black into the darkened interior of the Red Pony Saloon, where a small crowd milled around, the flotsam and jetsam that called the strip home – bikers, pimps, blue-collar workers drowning their sorrows, retail clerks dressed up like rockers, everyone participating in the same illusion that enabled them to be whatever they wished away from the harsh light of day.

you want to be the dominant one at all times, and it blinds you to reality. Men are competitive, and they forget the negatives in order to blunder forward.

(About Black) The man’s a frigging stealth fighter. Silent but deadly.

He’d thought playing would be the hard part, but each time he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror, he realized that he was in unfamiliar territory – what was fun at twenty was horrifying at forty-something.

(LA Parking) he’d asked Sylvia to move his Cadillac from its position in front of the complex once a week so it wouldn’t get ticketed and towed

The volume of Mugsy’s purring increased, now resembling the shifting of tectonic plates.

Black could smell beer coming off Ed in waves and wondered whether he was always this high on life even when sober. Still, there was something infectious about his smile and childlike joy, and Black decided that he’d rather have a guy like that keeping the beat than a sourpuss.

Mugsy moved like Ali, a tabby blur, and was devouring the meal so fast Black was afraid of losing a finger.

Ed would have been delighted under any circumstances. He approached life with the wonder of a child

That performance was followed by a boy band that featured five smooth-skinned young men, each with a stereotypical look made obvious by their wardrobes. On Top was the brainchild of an obese fifty-something entrepreneur from Louisiana who minted a new boy band every six months, invariably following the same formula: every member could dance and sing, and each group had the lover, the bad boy, the brooding thinker, the nice guy, and the flashy showman.

(About sound’s man) It sucked and reminded Black how vulnerable they all were to the whims of the mixing board – even the best delivery could be ruined by lousy sound.

Kelso could avoid a direct answer more effectively than a politician, which Black supposed they taught first year in shrink school.