Crap, I need a picture of a kitten

It's all very well to say yay, I'm done talking drugs for a while, but it's STILL NABLOPOMO people, and I sat down and all of a sudden I've got nothing. 

Book stuff: The book I mentioned in this post that I was trying to remember the title of in this post was The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams. I'll just go ahead and confess that, after determining that I had not recorded it on Goodreads (by scrolling through most of my one thousand three hundred and sixty 'read' books) I pored aimlessly over the list of 'Mystery' titles in the Ottawa Public Library's database until I found it. One might wonder why I can't apply this type of dogged perseverance to, say, attaining gainful employment or organizing my basement storage space, and one would not be alone, but one might end up with nothing but a vague sense of dissatisfaction and a yen for chocolate, so I don't recommend it. 

Anyway, the author did have a second book out. However,  I had just determined that, other than a sense that I had liked the book, I couldn't actually remember anything about it except that the protagonist was female, Asian and an alcoholic, which had cost her her job as a..... police detective? (nope, FBI profiler). Also, that the story took place somewhere hot.... Hawaii, maybe? (nope. Atlanta). So I thought maybe I should see if the first book stood up to a second reading.

It did. The experience didn't settle my worries about my memory at all, since I remembered much of the story once I started reading but the final twist still came as a huge surprise. But the book was solid and I didn't even skim it, just dug right in for the second pass. There's violence, but it's not gratuitous or exploitative - the description is mournful rather than titillating (ha, titillating). The writing is insightful and the main characters are likable, although some of the peripheral characters could be a bit more fleshed out. The main character is Asian but her adoptive family is Caucasian and extremely stereotypical 'Southern', and her adopted brother is African American; the family stuff is both humorous, infuriating and believable, and I look forward to it being further explored in later books. 

I only managed to note two quotes before I got lazy:


-“I’d been a licensed Bail Recovery Agent since leaving the Bureau. It bought the groceries while I built my private investigating business, and it still supplemented my income nicely. My shrink, Dr. Shetty, says it’s a power thing, that I have a brutal case of penis envy. What can I say? I like strapping on a big Glock now and then.”

-“Sometimes you only get one chance at something. Sometimes that’s a good thing too. When that door slams shut on the thing you couldn’t live without, what happens next is when the real education begins. You have to figure out how to make some peace with it all, how to have an interior life you can live with."

This is the type of mystery that keeps me reading mysteries. 

So, uh... Tuesdays on the Margins? Who's.... with me?...... 


Comments

Wrath Of Mom said…
I just tried to put a reserve on this book w/ my library, only to discover the computer system is down. WHAT THE -- ?? But I'll do that tomorrow because I love a good mystery.
StephLove said…
Have I already mentioned how I got a big box of mysteries I read as a teen from my mom and re-reading them is like reading them for the first time. Everything is a surprise. This is a benefit, I suppose of imperfect memory. There's probably a life lesson there but I was up too late watching election results and am too sleepy to formulate it.
If I can remember the name of this book, I'll put it on my list.
ERINJK said…
I'm glad your done Taking the drugs...I'd be worried if you were "Talking" to them ;) hehehe
collette said…
love the second quote. words to live by.
clara said…
Tuesday on the margins works for me. See, it's on the margins of Monday so it works! Maybe next week I'll do it too. If I remember.

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