Mystery

The Killing Art

TW picked up The Killing Art from the shelf while I was waiting for the librarian to retrieve our reserves. She didn’t think I’d like it, though I do not know why. It was fun. Nice to read a NYC cop, whodunit type thing about art. I don’t think we read enough books where art plays a large part.

Apparently there are a couple of other books about the lead character (who is a woman! another bonus!) and art murders/crime. I liked The Killing Art enough that I reserved the other two books for future reading.

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Prime is also not spooky!

So Poppy Z Brite doesn’t want to be called horror writer. That’s fine with me. It’s more than fine with me because I’ve liked her last two NON HORROR books better than I ever liked her horror writing.

First Liquor and then Prime, both quite enjoyable. Surprisingly enjoyable. I’m anxiously awaiting the next installment of the Rickey and G-man saga (there is going to be another, isn’t there???).

I suppose though the real test would be to hand these over to my son, the huge Poppy Z Brite – horror writer – fan. Maybe for some people “once a horror writer, always a horror writer”? I would encourage those folks to expand their horizons a bit. They will be pleasantly surprised.

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I Love Nancy Drew

When I picked up this book from the shelf, I was afraid I would be disappointed. But I wasn’t. And I knew I wasn’t going to be from the first page of the Introduction. Not only do I love Nancy Drew. I love “Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her.

I mentioned in my Books That Say Something About You post that Nancy Drew says something about me. She does. I started reading Nancy’s in the early 70’s. The books with the yellow spine and interesting covers. (I do have one old one with a paper jacket and another with a solid turquoise binding) I remember when there was some controversy over who wrote the Nancys. And I remember the move from G&D to S&S.

This little book answers all of the questions I had about Nancy Drew and Carolyn Keene, and some I never wondered about. And it did it in a way that left me satisfied and not disillusioned with either Carolyn Keene or Nancy.

If you prefer the Hardy Boys or Bobbsey Twins or Ruth Fielding or Rover Boys was, you might still want to pick up this little book because the world of children’s literature, the 50 cents books, were linked in one way or another.

Whether you loved Nancy or hated her, she still had some kind of an impact on your life – if it wasn’t for Nancy, were would children’s literature be today? Girls’ literature in particular?

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No Vindication for Me, Magic Instead

You might have noticed a new book, well two actually, appeared on my reading list and that means I’ve given up on Wollstonecroft and Vindication I just couldn’t do it. Maybe another day, another time, but right now I’m having trouble enough reading. So, I gave up. The first part of it wasn’t bad, it was just a little bit too slow for me to stay focused on.

Instead, I turned to Magic for Beginners. A book of “magical” short stories that were, indeed, about magical topics. But like a lot of short stories, I hated the endings of almost all of them. The stories were terrific and then the ending just went really WEIRD in what felt like an attempt to just finish and finish quickly. I’m ok with weirdness in a story about magic, zombies, witches, etc… but the weirdness has to make SOME sense based on what has happened in the first 10-20 pages of the story.

I loved the faery purse story. Loved the canon story. Enjoyed the catskin story. The endings worked for these. Was really enjoying the zombie/painting story when the ending poofed out on me. The stone rabbits story was really terrific but again, what was with that ending????

Now, I’ve picked up Jasper Fforde’s The Big Over Easy, which TW said was good but not up to par with the Thursday Next series, which is too bad…

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Mass Murderers & Teen Sleuths

It was a slow reading week for me but would have been slower if it hadn’t been for the car service fiasco. Work has been a little busy, moderators on vacation and such, and blogging has been even busier.

I skipped over a large stack of books that TW has already read in favor of Dearly Devoted Dexter. I was more excited about the release of the second Dexter than I was about Harry Potter and it did not let me down.

We discovered Darkly Dreaming Dexter last year, right before we headed to Miami for a cruise. It was amusing to drive down along the docks of Miami and see all of those metal storage containers that played such a large role in Darkly Dreaming.

Dexter is a bad bad guy. He’s not even really human. But he looks human and most people find him pretty charming. Women seem to fall at his feet and he’s not sure what to do about that. What he’d rather do is let his “dark passenger” take over and just KILL. But, he doesn’t…unless a really really BAD person comes along. Preferably one who is not nice to children, that’s Dexter’s preferred victim.

The Dexter books manage to be funny and gruesome at the same time, but not in the way a Christopher Moore slasher novel would be. It’s hard to explain, you just have to read it for yourself and find out.


After Dexter, I grabbed the next book from the library stack with a quickly approaching return date and that just happened to be Confessions of a Teen Sleuth. What a switch from Dexter to a grown up Nancy Drew! Ha!

I was a huge Nancy Drew fan as a kid. I’d use my allowance every weekend to buy a new Nancy Drew book and finish it within a couple of hours. Then I’d beg my mom or dad to take me to Sam Solomon’s (which was closer than the bookstore and a place my parents seem to like pretty well so it seemed like a good shot…) and get them to buy me another one – because I was bored and I neeeeeeded to read another and another and another. I didn’t read them all, I got sidetracked by adult novels or something – I’m blaming The Female Eunuch because I know I read that around the same time as I was reading the last of my Nancy Drews. Germaine Greer, DAMN YOU!

OK back to this little “parody”, it was ok. Not great. I like the gay girl version better but it had it’s amusing moments. Nancy and Frank Hardy and their love child that grew up thinking he was Ned’s child. Ha! Very amusing, indeed.

I’m about to pick up a book by another of my favorite authors but I’ll tell you about that in a couple of days…

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