I finished Miracle at Speedy Motors last night. This was the first No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book I’ve read and I have to say that I can’t remember ever reading a more charming novel. A crime story where the crimes are more like personal insults than injuries, an interesting look at a different culture, and people with big hearts. The resolution to one situation was particularly endearing. Picture Miss Marple without murders. Perhaps there have been violent crimes in the earlier books, I don’t know, but this book didn’t suffer from the lack of viciousness. I really enjoyed it, especially because it’s not saccharine. In cases where the author might have gone for the easy resolutions, he found a better way of handling them.
Next up: I received a copy of Trauma by Patrick McGrath from the publisher. He’s the author of Asylum, which was turned into a movie with Natasha Richardson and Ian McKellen a few years ago. I had some issues with the story in Asylum, but I’m willing to give McGrath another try.
I wrote the first draft of my Storytellers Unplugged essay this morning. I hope to revise both it and my Gila Queen essay tomorrow, send one in, time-delay post the other and forget about ’em so I can get to novel revisions after the weekend. I’m making a quick trip to D.C. on Friday to attend the Three Kings event.
I hope Sharon (Big Brother) is playing smarter than the snippets late in last night’s episode seemed to imply. She seems confident that Josh will be evicted, but Josh is scheming and dealing to keep that from happening. Up to this point, she’s been one of the smartest players in the house. It’d be a shame to see her get blindsided without at least putting up a fight. Props to James for winning the PoV. His clever strategy worked out.
Criminal Minds is back tonight. Slowly but surely the dead are rising from the ashes of the strike.
