The Cat Who Wasn't There

The second book that I completed on the trip was The Cat Who Wasn't There by Lilian Jackson Braun. I was due for a straight who-dunnit mystery and I also needed to read a shorter novel after just completing the lengthy The Seventh Scroll. This book is the 15th in the "Cat Who..." series and although I haven't read all of them up to this point I would guess I have completed about 10-11 of them. I confess to not having read them in order, something I normally never do, but that is due to the nature of how I acquire them. You see I received several as gifts, years ago and I knew my mother had read them and liked them so I gave them a try. Since then I occasionally pick one up at a used book store but by no means own all of them nor read them in the correct order. That really doesn't matter though as each is a stand alone story and the parts of the bigger story arc that stretch across books are slow moving and easily picked up by the context of each book.

I do enjoy these novels...the more of them I read the more I enjoy them. They are safe mysteries, meaning I know what I'm getting each time I read one. I envy the main character's position in life: wealthy due to unexpected inheritance, yet living somewhat frugally in a small town filled with quirky characters. He writes a column in the local newspaper on topics he thinks are interesting. Really, it's a stress free life...or should be. The problem is, just like other who- dunnit protagonists, there are a lot of murders that seem to take place in his small town, and with the assistance of his two siamese cats, he usually gets into the middle of it.

This particular entry in the series is among the favorites of the fans. It's easy to see why. Quill (Jim Quilleran, the protagonist), agrees to travel to Scotland with several of the townspeople and see the sites. This gets him out of the normal town routines and gives readers a change of scenery. The actual murder and subsequent mystery and the solving thereof takes many twists and turns as we travel with Quill to Scotland and back home again. His girlfriend is being stalked by an unknown person(s) and Quill himself is being stalked by an old flame intent upon marriage. Could she have her eye on that vast fortune of his? The town's character and it's quirky residents are on full display. All in all a witty story well told. I will keep on reading these books at a rate of 1-2 per year because its always nice to come home to a friendly place.

The trip still wasn't over yet though so one more book to tell you about on the next blog.

The Seventh Scroll

We made it back from our Spring Break trip. It was a lot of driving and we did have to delay a day to dodge a blizzard but all in all it was a good time. And since there are now 4 drivers in our family, I got quite a bit of time to read :)

All told I read about 1200 pages during the 6 days. The first book actually took most of the time due to its length. The Seventh Scroll, by Wilbur Smith is the follow-up to River God and as you may recall from my January blog entry, River God was one of the best historical novels I had read in a long time. The Seventh Scroll was meant to be read after River God but it is not exactly a sequel. It actually takes place in the present day with a couple of archeologist types who are out to discover the hidden tombs that were depicted in the first book. What an intriguing concept! What we got to live through before is now seen through the eyes of history, including all the distortions of history that are bound to happen. Afterall, what we assume to be true through archeological research isn't necessarily the way it really happened.

The author does another intriguing thing in this book. He inserts himself into his own fiction, having a main character refer to Wilbur Smith as having authored the fictional River God from information uncovered in the first 6 scrolls found in the tomb. Of course it is the 7th scroll that the characters are after in this second book. This leads to some funny moments as the two main protagonists argue about just how accurate Wilbur Smith was in the first book; one of them goes so far as to dismiss Mr Smith as a hack writer who changes the historical record in order to include more sex and violence. It's a twisted loop whereby an author actually negatively critques his own work...I guess you have to be pretty secure in your own writing career to do that. Regardless, it works wonderfully here.

The book itself was only slightly less enjoyable than the first. When you get right down to it, this is a pretty straight forward adventure/treasure hunting story along the likes of "Romancing the Stone". But Wilbur Smith is an outstanding writer who has a knack for making you read just a little more and then still more despite any deadlines you may have to deal with. You know the two main characters will hook up by the end but its not predictable how that happens. The dangerous scenes in the book are really dangerous and the suspense is spot on. As for historical accuracy...everything sure seemed to be accurate based on my limited knowledge of ancient Egypt and my trip to that country a few years ago. I hadn't planned on reading this series this year but now I am already looking forward to the third book, Warlock, where we get to return to the ancient times and see what happens next!

However, that would have to wait as I had other books with me on the trip. More about that in the next post.

More Twisted

I've broken one of my own rules today. Normally I read a short story after every full length book I read. Followers of this blog may remember that I used to never really like short stories. They always seemed...well... short. I like to get into my reading and not have it end 5-10 minutes after the story starts. But since I hadn't read too much short fiction I decided I wasn't being fair so I set up the 'one short story for every regular book' rule. And it's worked. I now have a deep appreciation for a well-tuned short story. I sometimes wonder if I should do the same thing for poetry because I really don't care for that either.

So what happened for me to break my own rule you ask? Well, next week is Spring Break week around here and so my family and I will be embarking on a rather long road trip to the NW where my son plans to visit potential college campuses. (If anybody has opinions, feel free to share them with me). Consequently, I didn't want to begin another book just a couple of days before the trip commences. And since I had only two short stories left in the More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II by Jeffrey Deaver I decided to wrap up that volume. So there you have it, a one time only stretching of the rules.

The last two stories in the collection were good ones. "Ninety-eight Point Six" was a more typical twisted story. I knew right from the beginning who the twist would revolve around (the one that seemed the most innocent). However, the how of it was a nice surprise. The final entry in the collection, "A Nice Place to Visit" was a bit of a departure from the other stories. It was much darker and more brutal than the other stories. Perhaps that is why this was selected for the final piece of the book. The twists kept coming in this one, almost too many because it became a bit difficult to follow. I did enjoy it though and was very happy with the conclusion.

So overall the second half of the book really saved this collection. At this point I would definitely read more of Mr Deaver's short stories. I'm not so sure about his longer works with his signature character Lincoln Rhymes. It's not because I don't think I would enjoy them but rather because I already have a lot of authors in the thriller genre with on-going series...I can't keep up as it is. But who knows? I've been known to impulse buy occasionally. Just yesterday, in fact, I was at the library to return my audio book and I purchased two more Louis L'Amour books from the library's fund-raising store. Can't ever have too many of those. The price was right but that means two more books on my to-be-read list. I am "down" to only 305 books now that I own but haven't read. Sigh...

I'm not yet sure which collection of short stories I will pick up next. I have a classic Stephen King that I'm considering or I may choose a collection of Aboriginal legends and myths that I picked up in Australia years ago. Also there is a similar collection of Native American legends I could choose...or...well, we'll see. And of course I get to pick what to take with me on the trip that starts Friday. The only one I know for sure will be Wilbur Smith's The Seventh Scroll, a sequel to River God that I raved about at the beginning of the year. Picking them out is half the fun!

See you when I return from the trip and start blogging about all I've read.