Long time no blog (2)

Have recently read a book that concerned spys in the second world war. The microfilm was hidden in the spine of the book Tristram Shandy (see earlier post!). The book by Joel Ross "Double Cross Blind" was a pleasant read. It was a first book and perhaps I will read the second when it comes. One of the reasons for a long pause since the last posting is that my daughter is moving and we have all been busy with various things. The Swedish midsummer festival has also been celebrated. I have also read another Margaret Drabble, "The Peppered Moth" - another very enjoyable novel by this wonderful writer. I had to read it because of the famous entomological reference! It will send me back to the library also - hoping the shelves are not too picked over by the summer loans. The other reading - or re-reading - business that has kept me busy is the 4 Kate Martinelli novels by Laurie R. King. My daughter has all the King books and moving has brought them to light again and kept me entertained.

Keeping up with a series

I think that one of the attractions of detective novels (as with fantasy) is that you can have expectations of the next book. I was lucky this past week, three series that I have followed came out with new installments - either as paperback (that I usually wait for) or as a great deal on my internet bookstore site. The long series has been complemented by a new Alan Banks novel "Piece of my heart" and those of us that remember the sixties were not mislead by the allusion to rock concerts via Janis. Peter Robinson has once again written a satisfying Inspector Banks novel. I was lucky and came to them late - and had a lot of fun catching up. All the books have lots of music references and on PR's website you can find lists so that you can suplement your CD collection.
Another much shorter series by Julia Spencer-Fleming (only on book 4, book 5 expected out in the fall) is about Millers Kill in New York. "To darkness and to death" is yet another book with lots of bodies and a rather mismatched love story between the reverend Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ van Alstyne. As an aside - for me - lots about logging and environmentalists. I still don't know what I think about the religion connection, but it is interesting.
The shortest series is about bus riding Samantha Kincaid. "Close case" is the third book in this series and an example of the fact that in no mystery novel is anything a coincidence - all is connected, sometimes in a bit convoulted manner. Arthropods play a role in this book, Sam's boss gets Lyme disease (spread by ticks). The author of this series, Alafair Burke, is no stranger to mystery series - her father is James Lee Burke.

Shoes and movies

This afternoon I went shoe shopping, not for me - for my son. To round the day off we went to see a movie "Tristram Shandy". Quite funny and interesting to read what is on the web about the original The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman a novel by Laurence Sterne. Wonder if our young writer Foer got some ideas from Sterne? The scribblings on the right are from the original - that includes a set of sketches indicating the non-linear path of a well-told story; narrative digressions appear as deviations from a straight line.

Mary and Sherlock

I haven't written anything for awhile. I've been rereading Laurie R. King's Mary Russel series. The first book came out over 10 years ago and although I've read each subsequent book as it has arrived I have not paused to reread the previous books. Now I have and with 8 books it has taken some time, but well worth it. I enjoyed the books so much the first time around that I thought, naturally, that I would remember them - but so many details got lost. One thing that I have really enjoyed this time around is the banter between the girl and the man, at times it is quite funny. The other nice touch is the appearance of both real and literary characters from the time of the books. Kipling's Kim plays an important roll in "The Game" and Sayers' Peter Wimsey play the piano for us. We meet Allenby in "O, Jerusalem" and Dashiell Hammett get an idea for the Maltese Falcon in "Locked Rooms". For those of us that are interested in history and read mysteries these books are filled with fun references. Generally series tend to get tiresome - but this series is one I hope will go on and on.
Not being able to find all the books in the series at once, I have also read Amy Tan's latest book "Saving Fish from Drowning"; it was an interesting pause in the oriental world - a contrast between the geographical oriental worlds and the worlds created by the immigrants to the US. A modern day interlude to the teens & twenties in the Russel novels.