Now it can be told. I turned 65 in 2020, so I got Medicare (!) and a lovely United Healthcare AARP Mosaic® Medicare Supplement (!!!), all paid for by my SS. I thought that would be a great standby in case I ever needed med coverage. I never dreamed it would happen so quickly. it all began two days after Christmas—December 27, 2020—when my lifelong best friend, Larry Pontillo, went downstairs for breakfast in his in-laws’ kitchen. According to his wife, Kathy, one moment Larry was standing in the kitchen, and the next moment he was lying in the kitchen: It was that fast. The EMTs arrived in min ..read more

The late, great Jerry Herman gave Broadway some of its most memorable musical scores, notably HELLO, DOLLY!. MAME, and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES. But he wrote several other shows that were not smash hits, even though they had interesting–and in some cases, inspired–music and lyrics. These were called “problem shows” by most critics, and the problem was usually the book, not the score. MACK AND MABEL and THE GRAND TOUR are two excellent examples of the “problem,” with sparkling songs shining through the general dark pessimism and ennui of the stories: the tragic affair of a self-absorbed genius movie ..read more

After all the hype, I just had to give THE UNDOING a look. HBO’s most recent lavish miniseries about the trials and tribulations of rich, privileged white people (or RPWP, for short) was just too provocative to ignore. Nicole Kidman! Hugh Grant! Really big houses! 20-room duplex Upper East Side (UES) apartments! The clothes! The servants! The exclusive schools! The unlimited credit! To say nothing of adultery, insanity, bad manners, lower-class gatecrashers, and…MURDER! As a writer of mysteries and thrillers, how could I resist? Well, I couldn’t. I jumped right in, and I’m now 4 episodes into ..read more

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All of us who were alive then remember exactly where we were and what we were doing at approximately 10:20 pm (EST) on the evening of July 20, 1969. I was 13, in summer camp on Long Island, and instead of “lights out” at 9pm, we were allowed to stay up and watch it on TV. This wasn’t easy in a summer camp on a lake in a forest—there was only one TV, in the recreation hall/snack bar at the other end of the camp from the cabins where we slept. All the cabins had to form lines in our pajamas, with flashlights, and march single-file across the baseball field beside the lake and down the road to ..read more

My publisher, Penguin Random House/Alibi, is offering the ebook of MRS. JOHN DOE at a special bargain price for a limited time. This is the first title in the series, the one that introduced Nora Baron, my actress-drama teacher-wife-mother-homemaker…and CIA operative. Get it now while the offer lasts. Enjoy! CLICK ON AD FOR SELLER LINKS ..read more

Nora Baron’s fourth adventure, The Devil and the Deep Blue Spy, is now available everywhere ebooks are sold. Nora and her husband, Jeff, are on a “second honeymoon” cruise in the Caribbean—but that’s merely their cover. They’re actually on a mission for the CIA, following and observing a shady French business tycoon named Claude Lamont and his mysterious wife, Carmen. The Company is hoping that Lamont will lead Nora and Jeff to his associate, an international terrorist known only as Diablo. When she and Jeff are forced to separate, Nora continues investigating on her own. From Miami to Puerto ..read more