Ducks fall to Lightning on Jake Guentzel’s shootout goal

• January 17, 2025

By ERIK ERLENDSSON The Associated Press

TAMPA, Fla. — On a season-long road trip that has not gone the way the Ducks had hoped, they salvaged a point by reaching overtime for the 12th time this season.

Jake Guentzel scored the only goal for either team in the shootout and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Ducks, 4-3, on Thursday night.

Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli and Guentzel scored for Tampa Bay during regulation, while Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 34 saves and stopped one more in the shootout, when the Ducks missed the target twice. Tampa Bay (24-6-3, 51 points) improved to 4-1-1 in its past six games and 14-6-1 at home.

Troy Terry, Robby Fabbri and Leo Carlsson scored for the Ducks (18-21-6, 42 points), who fell to 1-3-1 on a six-game trip that concludes on Saturday against the Florida Panthers. Lukas Dostal stopped 32 shots for the Ducks.

Tampa Bay held a 3-2 lead heading into the third period before Fabbri tipped in Jacob Trouba’s point shot at 9:53 of the third period to send the game to overtime.

Dostal had stopped a pair of Brandon Hagel short-handed breakaways on the same Ducks power play earlier in the third period to keep the Ducks within a goal, and Fabbri scored his equalizer about eight minutes later.

Both teams brought 3-4-1 January records into the game, and the Ducks scored first when Terry put in a caroming puck at 6:03 of the first period, with Ryan Strome and Brian Dumoulin drawing assists. Terry’s team-best 15th goal of the season tied him with Scott Niedermayer and Adam Henrique for 10th on the Ducks’ career points list (264).

The Lightning’s power-play unit tied the score when Cirelli scored at 14:19 of the first period off assists from Hagel and Victor Hedman.

The Lightning dropped down to five defensemen when Erik Cernak left just 34 seconds into his first shift, struggling after a hard spill during a puck battle. Cernak did not return.

Early in the second period, Kucherov swiftly whipped a pass to Guentzel, who scored his 10th power-play goal of the season at 2:51.

A hard forecheck by Mason McTavish behind Vasilevskiy resulted in Carlsson finding the net for the second tie at 11:26 of the second period.

Point stopped in front of Dostal and put in his team-high 26th goal four minutes later for the Lightning’s second advantage but Dostal was strong in the third, buying time for Fabbri to bring them even again.

Guentzel beat Dostal between the pads to open the shootout.

NOTES

Trouba recorded just his third point in 20 games since joining the Ducks on Dec. 9 after assisting on Fabbri’s goal. … Hedman became the first player in Lightning history to record 600 career assists and just the fourth Swedish-born defenseman in the NHL to reach the mark joining Nicklas Lidstrom, Borje Salming and Erik Karlsson. … Nikita Kucherov had two assists, raising his total with Tampa Bay to 598. … The Ducks’ Pavel Mintyukov had an assist in his 100th career game.

UP NEXT

The Ducks play at the Florida Panthers on Saturday at 3 p.m. PT.

​ Orange County Register 

Rams energizer Tyler Higbee on track to play against Eagles

• January 17, 2025

LOS ANGELES — After undergoing the first surgery of his life, Rams left guard Steve Avila found himself in an unfamiliar setting. Not on the practice field, but in the training room, going about the small tedious tasks of rehabbing a knee injury.

But there was a role model. Veteran tight end Tyler Higbee, seven months removed from surgery to repair a torn ACL, MCL and meniscus in his knee, went about his routine with the same intensity as if he were preparing for the coming game on Sunday, providing the example Avila needed in that moment.

“The way he carries himself, he didn’t allow any of this stuff to stop who he was. He attacked rehab the same way he attacks practice,” Avila said in late November, as Higbee was returning to practice. “I feel like he definitely sets the standard of how you’re supposed to be, whether that’s mentally or physically out there. … When you talk about cornerstones to this team, obviously Matthew [Stafford], [Cooper Kupp is] one, Big Rob [Havenstein], and I would also put him there, too. You need one of those guys like him to hold the team together. He’s been here a long time, he holds the standard.”

Higbee suffered that injury a year ago, in the Rams’ wild-card playoff loss to the Detroit Lions. Now, as the fourth-seeded Rams prepare for Sunday’s divisional round game against the second-seeded Philadelphia Eagles, Higbee is doing his best not to allow a different injury stand in his way of contributing to another playoff run.

The nine-year veteran left Monday’s 27-9 playoff victory over the Minnesota Vikings with a chest contusion that, after spitting up blood, required a trip to an Arizona hospital. But he was discharged that night, flew home with the team and told head coach Sean McVay that he expected to play against the Eagles.

On Thursday, after Higbee took part in practice in a limited fashion, McVay confirmed that the tight end is on track to play against Philadelphia.

McVay also said he expects cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon (thigh, no practice Thursday), defensive tackle Bobby Brown III (shoulder, no practice Thursday) and left tackle Alaric Jackson (chest, full practice Thursday) to all play against the Eagles.

All four played critical roles against the Vikings, and all figure to be big parts of the game plan in the divisional round, too. But Higbee set a tone for the entire Rams team on Monday, with five catches in the first quarter to ignite two scoring drives for a team that has found first-quarter points hard to come by this year.

“Whether it’s catching a seam early or a flat route late and making somebody miss, he did a nice job with his opportunities on Monday,” Stafford said, “and hopefully he’s feeling great and can go.”

The on-field impact from Higbee has been evident. His size and after-the-catch ability make him a reliable red-zone option for a team that struggled to close out drives early in the season. The Rams capitalized on that in his first game back this season with a designed play to him for a red-zone touchdown.

But still, his greatest impact is felt behind the scenes, in those moments when he shows a young player like Avila how to move forward.

“I don’t know if there’s many people that embody what we want, what [McVay] has talked about being a Rams football player is, I don’t know if there’s a better example than Tyler Higbee,” Kupp said. “Battling through things, but also just the teammate that he is, the work horse that he is on the field, the energy he brings. He’s a special football player.”

BRIEFLY

The Rams opened the practice windows for linebacker Troy Reeder and defensive tackle Larrell Murchison to return from injured reserve. Both were full participants in Thursday’s practice.

​ Orange County Register 

Long Beach State can’t keep up with UC San Diego in Goldmine

• January 17, 2025

LONG BEACH — The Long Beach State men’s basketball team proved no match for UC San Diego as the Tritons took control early for an 80-54 win on Thursday night in a game that was played in the Goldmine.

Tyler McGhie had 26 points on 10-of-16 shooting to go with five rebounds and Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones scored 18 for UCSD (15-3 overall, 5-1 Big West Conference), which was playing its first game since its 12-game winning streak was snapped by UC Irvine last weekend. Justin Rochelin added 11 points, including seven straight during an early first-half run.

Varick Lewis tied his career high with 12 points off the bench to pace Long Beach (7-11, 3-3), which was playing in its smaller, older auxiliary arena because of a facility issue with the Walter Pyramid. Devin Askew added 11 points and five assists, and Cam Denson had 10 points and four rebounds in 18 minutes while battling foul trouble.

UCSD took control early with a 10-0 run. Kam Martin cut LBSU’s deficit to 15-10 midway through the first half, but the Tritons unleashed a 14-2 run to push the margin to 29-12 with 5:34 left in the half. UCSD hit eight consecutive shots while pushing the lead to 33-15 before taking a 38-23 halftime lead thanks to a McGhie floater as time expired.

UCSD shot 60% in the first half (15 for 25) and a season-best 57.7% for the night (including a 9-for-19 showing from 3-point range), leaving Long Beach with no real opportunity to mount a comeback. The visitors took their largest lead of the night at 74-43 with 3:44 left.

LBSU shot 43.2% overall but just 4 for 15 from behind the arc.

UCSD had a 30-24 rebounding advantage, outscored the hosts 32-18 in the paint and had a 17-4 advantage in points off turnovers.

The Tritons’ Hayden Gray, the national leader in steals, had eight points and four steals.

UP NEXT

Long Beach State hosts Cal State Fullerton on Saturday at 4 p.m.

​ Orange County Register 

Alex Turcotte’s fast start leads Kings past struggling Canucks

• January 17, 2025

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Alex Turcotte scored twice and added an assist – all in the first 10 minutes – as the Kings thumped the struggling Vancouver Canucks, 5-1, on Thursday night.

Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala each had a goal and an assist, Warren Foegele also scored and Darcy Kuemper had 20 saves for the Kings (25-12-5), who avoided what would have been their first three-game losing streak since Oct. 12-16.

Turcotte’s first goal came 51 seconds into the game. And before the midpoint of the first period, the 23-year-old winger had helped stake his team to a 3-0 lead. The first multi-goal game of his career helped the Kings score five or more goals for the eighth time this season.

Turcotte’s first goal came when Kempe poked the puck past Vancouver defenseman Filip Hronek just inside the Canucks’ blue line, setting up a two-on-one rush with Turcotte. Kempe waited until Turcotte neared the crease before centering a pass that was redirected into the net.

Turcotte scored again at 9:18 of the first period for a 2-0 lead. Fiala took a shot from just inside the blue line that Canucks goaltender Thatcher Demko saved with his left pad, but the rebound went directly to Turcotte cutting through the right circle. Turcotte lifted the puck into the net for his seventh goal of the season.

The Kings, who scored just one goal in their previous two games combined, scored 24 seconds later to stretch the lead to 3-0.

Kings center Anze Kopitar made a one-hand centering pass from the right circle to Turcotte cutting to the net. Stationed below the goal line, Turcotte didn’t have an angle to shoot, so he made a beautiful behind-the-back pass back toward the slot, and Kempe pulled the puck across the crease and tucked it in past Demko’s outstretched skate.

It was the second straight poor start for the Canucks (19-15-10), who gave up three goals in the first 13:37 of a 6-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday.

Quinn Hughes scored with a wrist shot from the high slot during four-on-four play to cut Vancouver’s deficit to 3-1 at 14:52 of the second period.

The Kings re-established a three-goal lead when Fiala scored off of a two-on-one rush on a power play at 15:58 of the second.

Foegele pushed the puck across the goal line from the side of the net to stretch the lead to 5-1 at 11:36 of the third period.

The Canucks have dropped six of their past seven games to fall out of a Western Conference wild-card spot, and the team’s once-potent power play has dried up. Vancouver was 0 for 5 with the man advantage and is 0 for 10 over its last four games.

Vancouver has allowed five or more goals in 12 of its 44 games this season.

UP NEXT

The Kings play at the Seattle Kraken on Saturday at 7 p.m.

​ Orange County Register 

Longtime Hollywood movie extra killed in Eaton fire remembered as ‘jewel and blessing’

• January 17, 2025

As a longtime bit player and movie extra, 95-year-old Dalyce Curry hobnobbed with Hollywood A-listers and appeared in blockbuster films such as “The Blues Brothers” and “The Ten Commandments.”

But in her starring role she was the matriarch of an extended, adoring family who affectionally called her “Momma D.”

“Our beloved Momma D touched so many lives with her grace, love and resilience,” said her granddaughter, Lorée Beamer-Wilkinson of Fort Collins, Colorado. “She was full of vitality, elegance and an unmatched zest for life. Her presence graced our family gatherings, her wisdom guided us through challenges, and her laughter brought joy to every moment.”

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1929, Curry relocated to Los Angeles, where her vocal and dancing skills caught the attention of some of Hollywood’s top Black actors and performers. She backed up singer Pearl Bailey and appeared in a scene with Diana Ross in “Lady Sings the Blues.”

“She would have done a lot more in Hollywood but had high integrity and wasn’t going to sell out to become become a star,” Beamer-Wilkinson said, adding that her grandmother once refused a producer’s demand that she hike up her skirt to spice up a movie scene.

Curry, who eventually settled for a nursing career, died alone in her small Altadena home after the Eaton fire tore through the community on the evening of Jan. 7.

Curry had spent part of that day undergoing medical tests at an area hospital. Following the appointment, Dalyce Kelley, who is Beamer-Wilkinson’s half-sister, drove her home, arriving around midnight.

Although flames were visible in the distant hills, the fire seemed to be far away from Curry’s residence.

There was no evacuation order in place, so an exhausted Curry went to bed. She doesn’t text and was likely asleep when emergency notification messages were sent out telling residents to immediately leave the area, Beamer-Wilkinson said.

Kelley, who requested that Curry’s neighbors alert her if there were evacuations, awoke to a group text around 5:30 a.m. the next morning asking whether her grandmother had made it out safely.

Kelley raced frantically toward Altadena to find out if Curry was safe, but was blocked by law enforcement personnel. An officer told her Curry’s home had been destroyed, sending her to frantically check out evacuation centers and hospitals looking for her.

Three days later, the Los Angeles County medical examiner confirmed to family members that Curry had died. She is among at least 27 people killed in the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires. At least 36 people remain missing.

Although all of Curry’s family mementos, including numerous scrapbooks, were destroyed in the blaze, one prized possession — a 1981 blue Cadillac parked in front of her home that she had planned to rehab and rent to Hollywood production companies — was unscathed.

Beamer-Wilkinson — who only became acquainted with Curry in 2021 while attending the funeral of her biological father — whom she found through Ancestry DNA, said she wishes she had more time with her grandmother, who had one son, seven grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.

“We became really close,” she said. “I’m saddened by the fact there is not the opportunity to continue that. I thought she was going to be around a lot longer and she did, too.”

Beamer-Wilkinson, who is a motivational speaker, said she learned many valuable lessons from Curry in the short time she spent with her grandmother.

“Kindness affects our lives,” she added. “She lived her life being kind and spreading positivity. She is a jewel and a blessing.”

The family has launched a GoFundMe account to ease their financial burden and honor her memory

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

This week’s bestsellers at Southern California’s independent bookstores

• January 17, 2025

The SoCal Indie Bestsellers List for the sales week ended Jan. 12 is based on reporting from the independent booksellers of Southern California, the California Independent Booksellers Alliance and IndieBound. For an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.org.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Small Things Like These: Claire Keegan

2. Intermezzo: Sally Rooney

3. All Fours: Miranda July

4. James: Percival Everett

5. The God of the Woods: Liz Moore

6. The City and Its Uncertain Walls: Haruki Murakami

7. The Women: Kristin Hannah

8. The Ministry of Time: Kaliane Bradley

9. The Wedding People: Alison Espach

10. Creation Lake: Rachel Kushner

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook: Hampton Sides

2. The Creative Act: A Way of Being: Rick Rubin

3. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones: James Clear

4. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World: Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Burgoyne (Illus.)

5. Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts: Oliver Burkeman

6. The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About: Mel Robbins

7. Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose: Martha Beck

8. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI: Yuval Noah Harari

9. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse: Charlie Mackesy

10. Brothers: Alex Van Halen

MASS MARKET

1. Animal Farm: George Orwell

2. Dune: Frank Herbert

3. The Great Gatsby: F.Scott Fitzgerald

4. The Name of the Wind: Patrick Rothfuss

5. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams

6. Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen

7. 1984: George Orwell

8. Mistborn: The Final Empire: Brandon Sanderson

9. The Well of Ascension: Brandon Sanderson

10. Hyperion: Dan Simmons

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital: Samantha Harvey

2. Martyr!: Kaveh Akbar

3. You Dreamed of Empires: Álvaro Enrigue

4. The Vegetarian: Han Kang

5. The Alchemist: Paulo Coelho

6. The Frozen River: Ariel Lawhon

7. My Brilliant Friend: Elena Ferrante

8. The Midnight Library: Matt Haig

9. Hello Beautiful: Ann Napolitano

10. Fourth Wing: Rebecca Yarros

​ Orange County Register 

With ‘Karma Doll,’ Jonathan Ames goes deeper into the world of LA noir

• January 17, 2025

Like a classic hard-boiled detective tale, the origin story for Happy Doll, the private eye at the center of Jonathan Ames’ series of crime novels, begins with the arrival of an unexpected offer.

The invitation Ames got came from Lee Child, the best-selling author of the Jack Reacher thriller series, who asked him to contribute to “Nicotine Chronicles,” part of Akashic Books’ series of noir fiction, this one to feature cigarettes at the heart of each story.

Ames, who knew Child from a reading they’d done together, was a quick yes.

SEE ALSO: Like books? Get our free Book Pages newsletter about bestsellers, authors and more

“I got this assignment to write a $250 short story, and was very excited to be in an anthology edited by Lee Child,” Ames says on a video call from his Spanish bungalow in Beachwood Canyon. “And I started writing what became ‘A Man Named Doll,’ because the premise of that book is a friend of his, through excessive smoking over decades, smoked himself out of two kidneys.

“I got about 10, 15 pages in and I thought, you know what? This is longer than a $250 short story,” he says. “I think I have something here. I’ll write something else for the anthology, which I did.”

“A Man Named Doll” landed in 2021, and a second book, “The Wheel of Doll,” a year later. This month the third book in the series, “Karma Doll,” arrives, the latest in Ames’ series of modern-day hard-boiled noir fiction inspired by his deep love of the genre.

Happy Doll is his real name though the circumstances of how he got it are anything but joyful. A retired LAPD detective now in private practice, he exhibits many of the classic traits of the type – a damaged soul who drinks a bit too much, wisecracks at the wrong people, and constantly finds himself on the wrong end of a bad guy’s knife, gun, fist, you name it.

In “Karma Doll,” which, like its predecessors includes moments of black comedy, Doll has headed to Mexico to get a bullet wound patched up – he’d been shot at the climax of the previous book, which ends 12 or so hours before this one begins.

Doll settles into a remote village on the Mexican coast with his beloved part-Chihuahua George, studying Buddhism and fishing for his dinner, until trouble turns up and he returns to L.A. to face the past he’d fled.

Gateway to crime

Ames, who was born in New York City and lived both there and in New Jersey until moving to Los Angeles a dozen years ago, published his first novel, “I Pass Like Night,” in 1989. His second, “The Extra Man,” arrived in 1998, and was later adapted into a film starring Kevin Kline, Paul Dano and Katie Holmes. A third novel, “Wake Up Sir,” landed in 2004.

All fell generally under the genre of literary fiction, and that might have been where he stayed but for the gift of a Raymond Chandler book some years earlier.

“A friend of mine was a huge Chandler fan, and he must have given me ‘The Big Sleep,’ in probably 1987,” Ames says. “I began reading and re-reading all of Chandler’s oeuvre, and then at some point, I switched to (Dashiell) Hammett.

“Those were my gateway drugs, as it were, into the world of the private detective story,” he says. “In both cases, I loved their prose.”

With his 2007 short story “Bored To Death,” which was adapted into an HBO series starring Jason Schwartzman and Ted Danson, Ames cracked open the door to detective fiction.

“The short story was about a writer – I used my own name – who so loves detective fiction that he wants to be a detective and puts an ad on Craigslist,” Ames says. “It was my first attempt at anything a little bit hardboiled, but I was also using the voice of the comedic autobiographical essays I had written at the time.”

Ames had stopped writing novels while the show was in production, but sometime after HBO canceled it he decided to return to prose and go all in on crime fiction. He wrote a novella, “You Were Never Really Here,” which was adapted into a movie starring Joaquin Phoenix as its Jack Reacher-esque hero.

Not long after that, Reacher’s creator Lee Child called, and Ames took up the trail of Happy Doll.

Turning pages

The archetype of the solitary private investigator, struggling to see the world through all its shadows, increasingly appealed to Ames. The speed at which detective fiction moved was equally attractive.

“It’s this thing of wanting to create the sensation of a page-turner. I’m a huge fan of the Richard Stark novels, the Donald Westlake pseudonym about the character Parker. Same thing with Michael Connelly. The propulsion, loving that as a reading experience.

“The investigator, he’s on a mission and trying to figure something, and so it can become like a metaphor for figuring yourself out,” he says. “The struggle we have to know who we are, or the mystery of being alive.

“I remember taking a literature course in college where the professor said that Oedipus was the first private detective because he was trying to solve this mystery of his father, this murder,” Ames continues. “What did he discover? Oh my God, he had killed his father and slept with his mother. I mean, what a revelation he came to.”

The structures of crime fiction, especially in a series, also felt comfortable.

“It gives you a form, which I think as an artist can be helpful,” Ames says. “To know, ‘I’m in these parameters. I’m presented with a problem, a case, and eventually have to solve it. Then, in the middle, you can do other things like describe nature or inner conflict.

“I once said this to a fellow novelist, who every book she writes, she’s reinventing the wheel,” he says. “My friend, she’s got to reinvent how she’s going to tell the story every time. With me, with these detective novels, someone’s going to come to him with a problem. That becomes his problem, and he goes on a journey. So I don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”

In Chandler’s L.A.

“Karma Doll,” like the two Doll books before, is well grounded in Los Angeles. Doll’s home in Beachwood Canyon beneath the Hollywood Sign is based on Ames’ own home.

Doll drinks at the Dresden Room, a mid-century time capsule of a bar and restaurant in Los Feliz, and keeps a small office across Vermont Avenue. In the new book, key scenes take place at the El Royale Apartments, a 1929 historic building on Rossmore Avenue in Hollywood.

“What you see out your window, and maybe it was Hemingway who said this, you kind of want to capture,” Ames says of the real places and history salted throughout his books.

“As a New Yorker, I had maybe certain biases against L.A. or dismissed it,” he says. “Then I came out here for work, and it was beautiful for my eyes and my mind to be in a new environment. There’s that French term, ‘jolie laide,’ ugly beautiful, because you have a lot of the ugliness of over-development and dreary urban blight. But then you have some glorious architecture, and you have all this nature that just wants to overtake everything, and the flow of humanity.”

And as a crime novelist, you have touchstones, real or fictional, everywhere one looks, he adds.

“Chandler made L.A. this fertile ground of light and dark, of beauty and Hollywood, glamor and the darker side of human nature,” Ames says. “And like a Chandler addict, I live in Beachwood Canyon, which is prime Chandler country, because that whole Franklin Avenue corridor is where Marlowe lived. And his office was on Argyle and Hollywood.

“Up the street, on Heather Road, is the central location of his short story, ‘Find the Girl,’ which then became the story he cannibalized to write ‘Farewell My Lovely.’ I would drive past Heather Road, which he described, and I saw the house he described.

“You know, there are people who love the Bible and love going to Israel and the Middle East and walking through biblical places. For me, I’m like in Chandler biblical territory here. This is where Marlowe was running around.”

Complicated character

While the landscape that Doll moves through might be familiar to Philip Marlowe, Ames decided to have the character of Doll stray from the stoic template of the classic noir detectives.

“It was like, ‘How do I do something that Chandler and Hammett and Ross Macdonald, who were maybe the three big role models, didn’t really do?” Ames says. “Or Richard Stark with Parker? We don’t really know what makes these guys tick. We get maybe some of their backstory. Maybe a little bit with Ross Macdonald and Lew Archer, but not much.

“I felt like, not that I was doing something modern, but like I need to understand this guy,” he says. “Why does he make these bad choices or confused choices?”

So just as he’d used his own home as a model for Doll’s house, and his own beloved dog Fezzik as inspiration for Doll’s George, Ames pulled small bits and pieces of his own personality into the mix of Doll’s.

“I’ve had a long-standing fascination with psychoanalysis – I’ve done it, still do,” he says of the four or five-day-a-week sessions Doll does with his analyst. “I had developed a real interest and appreciation for Eastern philosophy and Buddhist philosophy.

“I was very fortunate as an undergraduate to have Joyce Carol Oates as my teacher,” he says. “She told me very early on – I was writing my thesis for her, which became my first novel – that I could take an element of myself and create a whole character out of it.

“Always in my mind, I imagine, almost like taking a little bit of DNA, putting it in some petri dish, and then creating a human being,” he says. “I take ingredients from my own life and give them to Doll, but then they change because he’s not me.”

Doll in Hollywood

Ames has recently started work on the fourth Doll book, this one taking place about a year after the events of “Karma Doll.”

“I could give away the title, I guess, I hope it’s not premature,” he says. “It’s tentatively ‘Hollywood Doll,’ because, you know, Marlowe and Archer, they often get involved in the movie business or situations there.”

Someday, Doll might be part of Hollywood, too, Ames says, noting that while an option Netflix held for the first book has lapsed, he’s still interested in seeing Doll adapted for a movie or TV series.

“Michael Connelly, what a universe he’s created,” Ames says of the best-selling author of books featuring characters such as Harry Bosch, Mickey Haller, and Renee Ballard, all of whom have or will have their own series.

“Also Robert Crais,” he says of the creator of the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike characters, for which the 20th book in the series was just released. “I was reading Crais before I discovered Connelly. I imagine Crais has had his books optioned.

In addition to “Bored To Death,” Ames also created the Starz series “Blunt Talk” starring Patrick Stewart, which provides a realistic understanding of what it takes to get any project made in Hollywood.

“I’ve called it like a Swiss watch of luck,” he says. “Like all the pieces have got to move just right, as beautiful as a Swiss watch, and then you need this little ingredient of luck.”

​ Orange County Register 

2 Brea Canyon High students rushed to trauma center after speeding E-bike hits brick wall

• January 17, 2025

Two Brea Canyon High students were rushed to a trauma center when their speeding single-person E-bike crashed into a brick wall in Brea, authorities said today.

The rider suffered significant, life-threatening injuries, and the passenger suffered major injuries. Neither were wearing a helmet, according to Brea police Lt. Chris Harvey. The age and gender of the teens was not disclosed.

Officers responded at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday to reports of an injury collision on State College Boulevard near Avocado Street, Harvey said.

The single-person E-bike was speeding south on the west sidewalk on State College Boulevard from Lambert Road when the handlebar clipped a tree, causing them to go out of control and strike a brick wall, he said.

“The Brea Police Department and Brea Olinda Unified School District extend their thoughts and support to the family and friends of the injured and are grateful for the passersby who stopped to render aid,” he said. “Brea Olinda Unified School District counselors and staff will be offering support to the students and their families as they recover from their injuries.”

Anyone with any information regarding the crash was urged to call the Brea Police Department at 714-990-7640 or [email protected].

​ Orange County Register