News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Friday December 19th 2025
Book Review
Angela Henry Offers Another Thriller, “Doing it to Death”
By Dwight Hobbes
Fans of mystery novelist Angela Henry”™s Kendra Clayton series, rejoice. Delightfully intrepid, crime-solving sleuth Clayton is back, flying by the seat of her pants and as usual, two steps ahead of police detectives on the trail of a murderer.
Also par for the course, the closer she gets to figuring things out, the more her own life is in danger. On top of everything, Kendra would just as soon be left in peace, minding her own business, which is exactly what she”™s doing when circumstance hurls her headlong, up to her neck in someone else”™s troubles.
Far from formulaic, this time around Henry has come up with yet another way for Kendra to stumble into difficulty that she”™d rather have nothing to do with but can”™t see herself avoiding.
In “Doing It to Death” (Boulevard West Press), Dibb Bentley, about as unsavory a sort as you”™re apt to come by, is freed from prison after a 30-year stretch.
Hell-bent on retrieving what he hid in the home of sad-sack, self-imagined “Mack Daddy,” Lewis Watts, he ends up dead in the trunk of Watts”™ Cadillac. The evidence points to Watts, who is tossed in the clink and comes whining and crying to Kendra that he didn”™t do it.… Read the rest “Book Review”
TRANSIT””Transit Changes in the Med City
By JOHN CHARLES WILSON
Unfortunately, there is no significant transit news in the Phillips neighborhood, or even the Twin Cities, for me to report this month. Therefore, I am going to digress from my usual local focus and talk about changes coming to the transit system in Rochester as of the 12th of July.
The last time I wrote about Rochester Public Transit in the Alley was about three years ago when I first started this column. RPT was in the midst of a major service improvement from six days a week to seven. That”™s right: until a few years ago, buses didn”™t even run on Sundays in the Med City. Now, RPT is rectifying another shortcoming of their system: the complexity of routes. Most weekday routes don”™t run the same at night or on weekends: for example, to go to Apache Mall on weekdays, Routes 7 and 7A are the way there. At night it is route 7N, and on the weekends it is Routes 23 and 24. The minor variations between them are a lot to remember.
The new system unifies the daytime, night, and weekend service so the same route number will always go to the same places.… Read the rest “TRANSIT””Transit Changes in the Med City”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
Raise Your Voice
The Elders Have Spoken
By PETER MOLENAAR
Little Earth, Phillips Community Center, Ebenezer Towers on Portland and Park Avenues, and Anderson Community School ”“ for the Phillips Neighborhood, these were the Primary Vote polling places. Thanks to the volunteers who made it happen, those who had navigated the information overload were privileged to exercise their right. It can now be said with certainty: the elders have spoken.
To his credit, Joe Biden shook many hands in South Carolina. African Americans, especially the elders, bore witness to his having played second fiddle to President Obama, and trust him not to play a treasonous game with mass bigotry. Moreover, many believe Biden to be the likely candidate to defeat Donald Trump.
(We are not in a revolutionary situation at this time!)
From the standpoint of our ”˜Popular Front”™, looking back, many were initially drawn to the candidacy of Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth was recognized as perhaps the first person to wrap a mind around the 2008 financial crisis. She formulated and implemented a policy to reign in the criminal elements of the financial sector. Power to her. Right? Truthfully, when Bernie Sanders entered the race, many of us were conflicted.
To be sure, Bernie is our best agitator.… Read the rest “Raise Your Voice”