Summertime: What's in My Bag

I started reading this series many years ago. I was excited when PBS Mystery announced they were turning them into one hour mysteries. I was annoyed when the Inspector Lynley series completely messed up the books. Tommy Lynley is an elegant, titled Englishman (he's a Lord!) who has chosen to be a professional police detective specializing in homicide. His partner, Barbara Havers, is the polar opposite: dowdy, unpretty, lower class, abrasive and rude. Together, they make a fabulous team. Other characters deepen the personal story, which unwinds as the pair solve the mysteries. This is her newest book. If you are interested in the series, it starts with A Great Deliverance.

Authors On Tour Live: Elizabeth George

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz won an Alex Award for best adult book for young adults. The description in Amazon convinced me: Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman.

And since gas is so darned expensive, I'm planning some local field trips, including one to Concord. To get ready, I'm reading some books about the writers of Concord in the early 1800's. American Bloomsbury by Susan Cheever was an amazing collection of essays. I had no idea what scandalous lives Emerson, Hawthorne, etc. lived. Would you believe that Louisa May Alcott had a crush on Henry David Thoreau? That Nathaniel Hawthorne courted one Peabody girl and then suddenly married her sister? Or that Margaret Fuller, a brilliant and brainy "modern" woman, had two married men vying for her attention? (The two men were Emerson and Hawthorne!) Having read this book, I'm dipping into Hawthorne in Concord by Philip McFarland and The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall. I love a good scandal, even if it is 180 years old! After, or during all this reading, I will head down the road to Concord and visit the Emerson House, the Old Manse, and the Alcott's Orchard House. A truly geeky summer trip!