End of the week

The golden-age mysteries -- examples would be those written by Agatha Christie and so forth -- usually started off their stories with someone despicable who is about to be murdered and deservedly so. In life, they're mean, stingy, dishonest, etc. There are many suspects because the murdered person was just so darn bad and we're actually not too sad that they're dead. We didn't really get to know them other than for the reasons several people had to kill him/her. Nearly halfway into the book I'm reading, I'm getting very involved in the story and the characters, when one person is killed. Sort of out of the blue because we were dealing with a cold case of a woman who'd died five years previously under (now) suspicious circumstances. We already had a murder to solve. Now we have another one but I didn't want this person to die because I was liking this person quite a bit; we'd spent many pages together learning about this person's life and loves and friends and family and now this person is gone and didn't deserve it. I'm quite put out about it. Bad, author, making me care about someone you were going to kill off.

My next in line to read is the latest by Peter Robinson, ALL THE COLORS OF DARKNESS. I'll talk more about it when I'm actually reading it. This, however, brings me to the topic of books I'm in anticipation of in the next month. The end of February/March is a bumper crop for authors I like or interested in learning more about. Such as:

• PROMISES IN DEATH by JD Robb
• SILENT ON THE MOOR by Deanna Raybourn
• GRAVE GOODS by Arianna Franklin
• DEXTER BY DESIGN by David Lindsay (UK)
• EXECUTION DOCK by Anne Perry
• PLAGUE OF POISON by Maureen Ash
• FIGURES IN SILK by Vanora Bennett
• THE KILLING WAY by Tony Hays
• THE UNQUIET BONES by Melvin R. Starr
• RED VELVET TURNSHOE by Cassandra Clark

Just lovely. Most, well all except for two, are historical mysteries which are my favorites.

Today's Blog/Website of the Day is The Oscar Watch found at http://oscar-watch.ew.com/. This features little daily notes about the world around the little golden guy. There is actually a countdown clock on the official website for the Academy Awards so I could tell you exactly how long until the start of the show but I won't go there. ;)

We a little bit of snow today, enough to make the streets slickery for the morning commute and probably the drive home as the sun goes down so I didn't run my errands today. I did clean out the freezer and a couple science projects in the fridge. Steve went in with his dad on a side of beef so I had to make room for what's coming. A good project that needed to be done and now it's off my list.

Tonight's tv, I'll give Dollhouse another try -- the Joss Wheden new effort. If it doesn't catch on with me this week, I think it's sayonara.

Speaking of, I'll see y'all tomorrow.

Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster