Nice & Cozy
There is a fiction category I hadn’t heard of until recently — cozy mystery, one where the body count is low and violence minimal. I just finished The Burning Issue of the Day by T. E. Kinsey. Set in his native Bristol in England 1910, it is the fifth of twelve in the Lady Hardcastle series, told from the point of view of the plucky 30-year-old assistant. A former agent for the Crown, fortyish, whose husband was killed in the line of duty, Hardcastle is called upon occasionally to solve crimes. In this case, it’s a suffragette whose colleagues believe she has been framed for arson/murder. At first I was blown away by the prose, dialog and wit. Once I got past that, the story is pretty much the same old same old, a bit drawn out and a tad overwritten. In 20–20 hindsight, the anti-suffragists are stereotypes, so that aspect quickly became tedious. The story is grounded, nothing unlikely occurring. Even the physical skill of the five-foot tall assistant, trained in the martial arts, is feasible, as the males she tangles with are lame. For a change, the most obvious suspect is the culprit. There is a subplot involving theft of gold. I was not pleased that the author gave the credit for ascertaining its whereabouts to Lady Hardcastle. The intelligent detective sympathetic to the cause could have easily figured it out. The 297 pages read like a bit less. I found it infinitely easier than the works of Agatha Christie. 12,000+ users at Amazon have rated The Burning…, forging to a consensus of 4.6 on a scale of five. I’ll go with three. Recall that I’m not a fan of written mysteries. Published in 2019, it is still selling well at Jeff Bezos’ behemoth. Kinsey is a father of three.
Usually, I would be against any new government department, but this one is sorely needed. Headline from nypost.com: “Trump announces Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to lead new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’.” Let’s hope it will not turn out like all other DC agencies.
Quid Pro Quo, anyone? From NYP: “Harris campaign donated whopping amount to Al Sharpton’s civil rights group before sit-down.” The outrage remains selective.
Lest we forget, Mad Vlad’s folly continues. Headline from newsmax.com: “Report: Russia Suffers 1-Day Record for Casualties.” I wonder if any North Koreans were killed.
From an article by Zach Dean at outkick.com: Racecar driver “Danica Patrick worked her tail off for Donald J. Trump for free.”
Check out this election map by counties from foxnews.com:
Go figure, from FN: “Florida tourism hits record high with more than 34M visitors despite hurricanes.”
A lot less wind, colder but still gorgeous today at the Anti-Inflation Book Shop. My thanks to whoever left four books at the nook, and to the gentleman who donated two CDs and a DVD; and to The Quiet Man, who bought The Phantom of the Opera Broadway soundtrack on CD; and to Romania-born artist Andu, who purchased a piece of costume jewelry; and to the woman who took home two more cook books; and to Ira, who brought me a bottle of Poland Spring.
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