Bucket List

 So much sadness this week. This month. This year. Trying to be upbeat but it’s not easy. On the first day of spring, last Saturday, another good friend died. Not Covid this time but equally surprising and devastating. So fast. Lightening.

Is it too soon to start a Bucket List? Never. Because go*dam*#it, you never, never, never know. Carpe Diem.

So. Here goes. I’d love to see Florence and Tuscany. I’d also love to spend a month with my family in the south of France. There are a lot of places I would love to go as well, but these are at the top. (New Zealand and Nova Scotia come to mind. Maybe somewhere in the Hawaiian Islands?)

Christmas in Kiawah.

See whales in person.

Finish my third book of the Jonathan series.

Read more books.

Spend time with friends.

Family, Family, Family

That’s it. A short list. Maybe I’ll add more later. But this will do.

Cheers.

THE RUIN & TWO MORE MYSTERIES- MARCH 2021 BOOK SELECTIONS

 I’ve been in murder-mystery-reading-mode for the last several months. Perhaps it’s because this genre takes me completely out of the present moment. I’ve started and stopped two other novels (kind of unusual for me, but I simply got bored). I’ve decided to go with my preferences since I choose not to write bad or lukewarm reviews. What’s the point? Authors have a hard enough time being writers; they don’t need my critique if they can’t respond. I’ll leave that to others.

The first two novels are by old favorites, Anthony Horowitz and Louise Penny. The third is by a newly discovered author, Dervla McTiernan.

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz is the second in a relatively new series. The characters are an irascible, unlikeable, disgraced, former Scotland Yard detective with genius-level skills and a version of Horowitz himself as his somewhat bumbling sidekick. The Horowitz character has been reluctantly enlisted as the detective’s biographer. Good fun.

The Rule against Murder is Louise Penny at her best. Poetic, elegant and insightful, the novel is more than just a murder mystery. The famous detective Armand Gamache is on his yearly holiday with his wife when murder intrudes. A deeply dysfunctional family is holding a family reunion that is anything but. Brilliant character studies highlight and illuminate the human condition. Recommend.

It’s always exciting to find a new author I have yet to read. Dervla McTiernan is a wonderful addition for me to the mystery-crime-detective novel genre. Reminiscent of Tana French but unique in her own right, she proves there is definitely something about Irish writers. The Ruin deftly follows several characters as they intersect and interact over the course of twenty years. The detective, Cormac Reilly, first seen as a young, green officer, encounters a heartbreaking case of neglect, abuse and death involving two children. Twenty years later, he finds himself in the middle of an investigation involving those same, now grown children, and an old friend. Twisty, surprising and satisfying. More Cormac Reilly to come! Highly Recommend.