I finished Devil Red by Joe R. Lansdale. Now reading Hitch-22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens. I didn’t know much about him until a recent 60 Minutes profile. I like reading books by people who are clearly smarter and more widely read than I am. He grew up during interesting times and seems to remember things well. Interesting so far. Reminds me how brutal the British private school system was. Reached the point where he’s starting to find a political voice and get into trouble.
Also reading The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, the new No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novel by Alexander McCall Smith.
The full length trailer for the upcoming season of Doctor Who was posted this morning. Favorite part: ominous voice says, “Fear me — I’ve killed hundreds of time lords,” to which the Doctor responds, “Fear me — I killed them all.”
Burden of Proof, the new Dana Delaney vehicle, is neither great nor terrible. It’s in that hinterland of mediocrity and derivativeness. It’s Bones. No, wait, it’s CSI. No, more like The Mentalist. And, obviously, it’s House.
Delaney’s character isn’t quite as despicable as House, but she sure does enjoy rubbing people the wrong way and she has no friends. She goes way beyond the call of duty and gets involved in police business in a fashion no one would ever allow. She identified with the corpse of the week who became a more caring person after suffering a crack on the noggin. She had her own crack: a car accident that left her unable to continue as a neurosurgeon after which she became more interested in her patients, even if they happened to be dead people. She’s estranged from her 12-year-old daughter (and her ex-husband likes it that way), but she isn’t callous. I might check it out again next week, but it’s iffy.
I liked NCIS this week. The killer book concept was fun, providing Tony with references to both The Ring and Ringu. It’s always good when Gibbs and Fornell get together. Too bad there wasn’t a way to make Fornell a member of NCIS. The glue that binds them is a common ex-wife, who was getting married again and sending them both invitations (three to Gibbs alone). After Gibbs makes several disparaging remarks about her, Fornell says, “Before things got bad, there must have been some good times.” Gibbs smiles at a fond memory and says, “Yeah. She caught her finger in a car door once.”
The case had a batch of twists and turns and red herrings that kept me off stride. I suspected the paramedic the moment I first saw him. He didn’t seem to be grieving his wife all that much, but I just wrote it off to iffy acting. Should’ve trusted my gut. The teen-aged arms dealer was a piece of work. Lisabeth Salander meets scary Katy Perry, in Abby’s words.
No Leon this week, and intimations of a new (female) boss next week. Maybe this is the shakeup they’ve been prepping us for?
