I got this book directly from the author as he wanted me to read it and provide feedback before it’s published. It’s the third book in this series.
A year ago, he posted in the Goodreads Society Facebook page, if anybody would read one of his books, and share a review on Goodreads, Amazon, and any other platform. I know how hard it is to get people to leave reviews as I am also a published writer, so I replied, yes, I want to read your memoir of being a law enforcement officer. His other books were humor fiction. So, both genres appealed to me, and I am glad. Had it been science fiction or romance, I never would’ve reached out.
Obviously, I enjoyed his memoir and graduated to the humor fiction books. I was honored when I saw his email asking if I would read this one.
I am absolutely in love with all the characters, and all the things that happen to them. My favorite character is Ma, a descendant of the founding family and the owner of Ma’s Diner, where everybody in the town congregates to. She doesn’t put up with any crap, and her voice is loud.
I enjoyed all the stories and happenings, and can’t wait for next installment. One of my favorite stories was the farting contest, where she cooks up hot and spicy foods and then 4 contestants are judged on, well, you know what it! Oh, another funny one involved a trial where Ma is accused of shooting somebody. Wait, I almost forgot about shithead, the bear, getting shot and Ma taking him home to take care of him. The skiing accident that Ma got involved in was extremely funny. You can tell I had a lot of LOL moments.
I did ask the author how he came up with some of the names as they are really interesting.
Ma was a nickname that I came up with early on when I decided to write the books. Originally, way back before I was a police officer I worked for a local municipality that put out a weekly newsletter. ‘Ma’ was created in a comic strip that I’d write regularly for the publication. Originally, her last name was ‘Scratchy’, but I changed it for the books. Puut Voisine is actually a real name, and a real ‘character’. He’s a guy that I was introduced to by a fishing buddy. I did a lot of fishing with the very same character that’s depicted in the books. Runyon was a kid in my neighborhood when I was a child, and just an unusual name so I used it. Smirnoff is from the vodka
The mayor’s name, Wiggleswort, is derived from a name I heard on a reality tv show and I tweaked it a bit. Father Winkin is from the children’s poem of Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod. Marmaduke was a dog in a newspaper comic strip. Other names are simply what I came up with when I was originally creating the characters from the books. The character of Bob, though, is a real cop that I worked with. Ma’s dead sister, Grizelda, is from a Monkees song by Peter Tork
So, I then asked him who would play Ma? In one of my reviews, I thought Meryl Streep.
There are a few that could play her. Unfortunately, some of them aren’t alive anymore. Nedra Volz would have been good. Clara Peller too. As far as who would play her now? I think we’d need to put a wig on Danny Devito!
