You know things are really bad when a good mystery just won't do it anymore. You know, to take your mind off the drudgery, cruelty, mean-spiritedness of what passes for news and politics.
I love a good mystery. Michael Connelly, Elizabeth George, Nevada Barr, Sue Grafton, Donald Harstad, Val McDermid. Tough, smart, and often witty protagonists making the world safe, if sometimes a bit sadder.
I just finished a really good one, Earthquake Weather, by Terrill Lee Lankford, a hard-boiled Hollywood mystery with more than a taste of Raymond Chandler.
But murder most foul just wasn't, well, foul enough to drown out the bleak white noise of everyday life. I need a stronger hit these days. Like apocalyptic weather, reptilian aliens, ghosts, ghouls, things that not only go bump but also crash in the night. Anything strong enough to make me glad to be in this dimension--er, world.
More on this theory anon . . .
2 comments:
to sort of bridge the gap, may I recommend Robert Wilson's Bruce Medway mysteries? The first was, I believe, "Instruments of Darkness" or perhaps "The Big Killing." They're set in West Africa, where the political situation is, if anything, worse than here. And they are utterly masterful, very funny, very grim, very literate noir. - Clea
Karen,
Terrill Lankford here. Glad you liked the book. Sorry it couldn't make you completely forget the real world, but nowadays I think that hard drugs would be required to achieve that.
TL
P.S. How'd you like THE NARROWS? Did you see BLUE NEON NIGHT? Hope you got a copy when you picked up TN.
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