Positives & Negatives
Born in Dayton in 1960, Linda Castillo has written more than 35 works of fiction, all novels save for a short story collection. At the recommendation of one of my customers, I decided to give her work a try, ever leery of my unenthusiasm for written mysteries. Among the Wicked, published in 2016, is the eighth in a series of 14 works featuring the police chief of a small Ohio town, Kate Burkholder, who left her Amish community at 18. When a 15-year-old is found frozen to death in upstate New York, she is asked, because of her background, to go under cover. Of course, I couldn’t help comparing the book to Peter Weir’s terrific Witness (1985), starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis. Among the Wicked is not nearly as good as that film, but it’s a solid story, well told. There is violence and a bit of profanity. I guessed the twist early in the narrative, but my hunch on how the protagonist would prevail was wrong. Castillo did not grow up Amish nor was she a police officer. According to her bio, she researched the community and took a couple of police training courses, so there is authenticity in the work. I was surprised at the errors the editor missed, more than usual. 3400+ users at Amazon have rated Among the Wicked, forging to a consensus of 4.6 on a scale of five. I’ll go with three. Of the scores of mysteries I’ve read, only a few transcended the genre. Don’t hate me.
There was a great post on my Facebook feed last night. It went something like this: “The only secure government document these days is the Epstein client list.” Thanks, Kerry.
You get what you vote for redux, headline from nypost.com: “Bagel loophole: Don’t get the schmear and save on NY’s crazy ‘sandwich tax’.” 8.875% sales tax for a bagel that’s sliced and schmeared.
I find this NYP headline comforting: “This Chinese-American family has lived at 37 Mott Street for 5 generations.”
Read it and weep, headline from foxnews.com: “‘Teen Takeover’ terrorizes Chicago as hundreds of teenagers destroy property, attack tourists.” I wonder if we’ll see a copycat version in NYC. Also from the Windy City: “Huge fight breaks out at White Sox game, security hardly anywhere in sight.” And from Alabama: “Jacksonville State football recruit among those killed at birthday party shooting.”
Looks like another win for armed citizens, headline from FN: “Florida woman turns tables on armed ex who showed up to apartment, kills him with one shot.” No charges filed.
From FN, good news out of Texas: “Teen dies rock climbing, two hours later he revives: ‘A literal miracle’.”
Not much action today at the floating book shop. My thanks to Boris, who donated several titles, among them Last Words by George Carlin, which Bill Brown, author of Words and Guitar: A History of Lou Reed’s Music and other fine books, bought minutes later. Thank you, sir, and also to the gentleman who purchased two DVDs in Russian; and to my old friends Bags, who visited on his bike, schmoozed for a couple of hours, and took several pictures. Why wasn’t I smiling?
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