No Really, I'll Read Something Else Someday

It's just that my mother has sent me the collected works of Kathy Reichs, so I'm having a gluttonous attack of read-rage and working my way headlong through them. Reichs was just on NPR last week, and it's wonderful to be able to follow up an interview like that by reading her work from one end to the other. I may take a brief vacation or two, because maggotty bodies and knife marks and disembowelments could get a bit glum after a while. But they really are very good.

I also, on the recommendation of a friend, read Jeffrey Deaver's The Twelfth Card. It wasn't bad. I have to say the fake-out (we solved the mystery--oh, wait, no we didn't) loses some of its edge when you know there are still 150 pages left of the book--the author is sort of forced to tip his hand a little. But the characters were interesting, the story moved quickly (despite its length), and it was a fun read. The only thing that's missing, for me, is the eager desire to read more. I finished the Deaver book feeling satisfied, but I greatly prefer the rare "instant convert" sensation--the feeling that a book was so good I'd like to read every word the author's ever put on paper. That's the greedy addiction that keeps me reading--I'm always looking for that high.