Better Off Dead

Write what you know is an exhortation (attributed to Mark Twain) to all who put pen to paper––or voice to Siri. There is some debate about what this really means, but I take it at face value. One of my favorite sub-genres, if there is such a word, is writers writing about writers and, even better, mystery authors writing about people in their own line of work. They give a little insight into the process of creating memorable characters and their dastardly deeds.

In Stop Press, by Michael Innes, written in 1939, Timothy Eliot is an undergraduate at Oxford with an uneasy mind as the end of the year approaches, and he comes to Professor Gerald Winter for some help. Timmy feels that his father, Richard Eliot, is headed for the loony bin.

Mr. Richard Eliot is a well-known writer of 30-odd books revolving around the exploits of a character known as "the Spider." The Spider began his adventures as a master crook but, over the years, morphed into a dashing detective. The Spider belongs to that class of sleuths who are of ample means, debonair personality and a bit smarter than the police. Recently, however, because of some unusual occurrences in the region of Rust Hall, the Eliot family manor, Mr. Eliot has been wondering if the Spider has come alive.

To be specific there was a burglary that resembled one the Spider had thought of––but that plot was only imagined by Mr. Eliot; never published. Other events occur in the same vein, increasing Mr. Eliot's anxiety. As Timmy would have it, "it was as if the inanimate seeming husk of his father’s books had trembled and cracked, and from the chrysalis there had struggled a living thing."

Coming up at Rust Hall is the annual celebration that the publisher puts on for the Spider's birthday. This year is to be a special occasion, because the Spider has turned 21. Many people are descending on the manor, including other writers, translators, an actor who reprises the role of the Spider on the screen, and many others. Timmy is convinced there will be trouble over the weekend and asks his tutor, Mr. Winter, to come along as well.

Timmy has an older sister, Belinda, who works at nearby Rust Manor with her friend, Patricia Appleby, who is also invited for the weekend. Throughout the course of the first evening, Patricia picks up on some vibes, as several Spider-like rather cruel jokes are played on the guests––and she fears worse is to come. She sends out an SOS to her brother, John Appleby, a chief inspector at Scotland Yard, to come as soon as he can.

Appleby arrives in a dramatic fashion, after all of the lights of the manor were suddenly extinguished as if by magic, and the party was smothered by a frightening darkness. Appleby fixes the lighting problem with the aid of a flashlight and fuse because after all, electrical problems were quite common in old houses in those pre-World War II years. He joins the house party, because he is intrigued by the puzzle. Somehow, someone is privy to the inner thoughts and plots of an author who guarded his secrets carefully, and who furthermore claims that the prankster  has becomes more menacing, as he is now also having thoughts involving the Spider that never entered Mr. Eliot's mind.

John Innes Mackintosh Stewart was born in Scotland, educated at Oxford––like his protagonist––and taught English at many universities. He was a great scholar, and his erudition comes across in his writing. He is the only author I read regularly who uses words I have to look up every few pages. A few of my favorites from this volume were congeries, meaning collections or aggregations; and gnomic, meaning mysterious and often incomprehensible, yet seemingly wise. Nothing to do with eels or gnomes. Innes is such a wordsmith that some sentences are crafted to have a fuller meaning after the words sink in and settle for a bit. Speed-reading will not do for this author.

The peek behind the curtain in this novel is when a character in Stop Press elucidates what makes mysteries successful. For example: "everything is subject to the rules, which the reader knows. There is generally a puzzle that the reader can solve by means of the rules and that implies that in the little universe of the book the reader is the master.  The books cater for the need of security. Real life is horribly insecure because God is capable of keeping a vital rule or two up his sleeve and giving us unpleasant surprises as a result. The author Mr. Eliot, the author isn't allowed to do that. When we figure out the puzzles we get a pleasant sense of intellectual superiority. Knowing the rules we can control them if we want to." Dare we presume that this is how Innes feels as well?

Robert Barnard, a prolific author all of whose works I hope to read eventually, takes several different pokes at the profession of writing. In Death of a Mystery Writer, he targets the aptly-named Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs, a rotund best-selling mystery novelist who is despised by all who know him, because he is an overbearing bully. His books are quite enjoyable, even though readers never feel they can admit their admiration of the author in public. When the author is murdered, there are almost too many suspects. The plot is further enlivened by a missing-manuscript mystery.

On the romance front, Barnard sent his protagonist, Perry Trethowan, to Norway in The Cherry Blossom Corpse, where he accompanies his sister to a Romantic Novelists convention. Trethowan expected chilly weather, fanciful authors and flowery language. He never expected that beneath the facade of these writers, mostly ladies, there would be such malice; back-biting and bitter rivalry lead to the murder of one of the group.

A Hovering of Vultures is the sad tale of the death of a pair of literary writers whose tomes were so dreary that the shocking details of their last moments gave them more acclaim than their lives' work. Barnard's Charlie Peace tackled this case. Read all about it here.

Another novelist who seems to think fictional writers are better off dead is G. M. Malliet. In her Death of a Cozy Writer, there is an Agatha Christie-like gathering during which a wealthy, successful cozy mystery writer––who is also the pits as a human being––meets his fate while a storm blankets the house with snow. Cornish detective Detective Chief Inspector St. Just and his partner, Detective Sergeant Fear, search for Colonel Mustard and the candlestick. Humor and plot twists keep the book alive.

In Death and the Lit Chick, Malliet lampoons mystery writers again, with the sharpest point needling the wildly successful young author of the chick lit mystery. Along with Kimberlee Kalder, there is a group of writers at a Scottish castle where St. Just happens to be staying. The rivals for the bestseller rankings are damsel-in-distress novels (that are fading in popularity with the reading public), spy thrillers (as dated as the Berlin Wall), dark-and-edgy novels (with no edge), and a weird detective story set in prehistoric times. The castle is surrounded by the traditional moat, the drawbridge is up, the lights go out during a storm and, you guessed it, a certain mystery author turns up dead, presenting St. Just with a murder to solve.

I am intrigued by the turnabout where writers of the past are being brought to fictional life, putting on gumshoes and donning deerstalker hats. Several late authors are solving mysteries in their own series. Dorothy Parker is known for being part of New York's famous Algonquin Round Table of the 1920s, a regular gathering of authors, critics and others in the book trade whose barbed witticisms led to their other nickname, the "Vicious Circle." In the first of his mysteries featuring Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table group, author J. J. Murphy turns Dorothy into a Nosey Parker when she discovers a body under the round table who is dead as a doornail, not dead drunk. I might give this series a try.

There are several other real-life authors who have turned into fictional sleuths. Nicola Upson has resurrected Josephine Tey and put her to work. Gyles Brandreth has revitalized Oscar Wilde's wit and personality and recreated him as a sleuth with great success. And, finally, Jane Austen has crawled out of her grave again to put clues together and solve crimes in Stephanie Barron’s series.

All of these stories, in their way, let us know a bit about what authors think of their craft. For some reason, I seem to find books with the authors as victims a bit more enlightening. They give me an appreciation of what an author has to deal with when it comes to the public, publishers and publicity, and the problem of protagonists they are tired of but who are still their bread and butter. They all face the changing times and mores as we do and must make interesting stories out of them.

No Expiration Date

I found a gray hair. On our dog. My husband's birthday is coming up. I dragged out my mom's old iron skillet and was in the middle of making corn bread when I realized my baking powder had expired. It seems as if old age is closing in from all directions. Even my books yell "Old!" Take a look at my recent reading and you'll see characters who aren't spring chickens. Or the books themselves are middle-aged, or set in the distant past. Of course, there's no expiration date on excellence when it comes to the written word.

Becky Masterman: Rage Against the Dying (2013). There's Clarice Starling and now there's retired FBI Special Agent Brigid Quinn. Brigid is married to an ex-priest and settled in Tucson, Arizona, when she learns that the Route 66 killer, involved in the disappearance of her protégé, has been captured. But maybe not. The beginning, in which a predator sizes up his prey, nearly creeped me out but I'm glad I persevered. Brigid, at age 59, kicks ass better than she cooks dinner.

Peter Steiner: The Terrorist (2010). Retired CIA Middle East expert Louis Morgon, who's living in France and dealing with cancer, is coerced by the imprisonment of a young friend into rejoining his old employer's war on terror. This is unusually character-driven espionage and also a beautifully written novel about relationships and mortality. The next book in the series, The Resistance, is reviewed by Sister Mary Murderous here.

Paul McEuen: Spiral (2011). Scientific thriller fans, make a note. Cornell physicist McEuen wrote what he knows in an exciting and thought-provoking doomsday thriller. His debut combines nanotechnology, biological engineering and Japanese WWII history. I hated to see Nobel Prize winner and Cornell Professor Emeritus Liam Connor leap off an Ithaca bridge to his death, but I enjoyed the investigators: Connor's physics department colleague Jake Sterling, his granddaughter Maggie and her nine-year-old son Dylan.

Michael Gilbert: Fear to Tread (1953). Gilbert wrote one intelligent mystery after another for decades. His best-known Inspector Hazelrigg book is probably Smallbone Deceased, but this is another good one. Wilfred Wetherall is a boys' school headmaster in post-WWII London. He carries on in good British fashion by resolutely tackling every problem, including a ring of vicious black marketeers. It's a very satisfying read.

John Mortimer: Forever Rumpole: The Best of the Rumpole Stories (2011). Let's raise a glass of Pommeroy's best plonk to the memory of Mortimer, who died in 2009, and his Old Bailey hack, Horace Rumpole. The 14 stories in this collection aren't new, but there's a new introduction by Anna Mallalieu––who knew Mortimer personally and professionally when he was Queen's Counsel––and a new piece of an unfinished novel, "Rumpole and the Brave New World." Reading Rumpole is one of the best ways to counter feeling old. Whether he's defending a member of the criminous Timson family, talking with colleagues in chambers or parrying the commands of his wife Hilda ("She Who Must Be Obeyed"), Rumpole is ageless in his optimism and enthusiasm for a good battle.

David Lawrence: The Dead Sit Round in a Ring (2004). Compelling blackest noir written under a pseudonym by acclaimed English poet David Harsent. Three elderly siblings, who must have formed a suicide pact, and an unidentified man are found dead in a London apartment. As if Det. Sgt. Stella Mooney doesn't have enough of a headache with her private life, there's this complex crime. This is the debut of a gritty English police procedural series featuring a tough and attractive female cop.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors (1947). Over-the-top frolicking from Innes. Sir John Appleby, retired from New Scotland Yard, investigates the bizarre fireplace death of Sir Oliver Dromio, who followed family tradition by burning to a crisp. Appleby and Inspector Hyland do a full night's work, combing through the many suspects' motives. Bodies litter the landscape before it's over and the case draws to a close in this eleventh of 35 Appleby books. Very entertaining.

Laura Joh Rowland: Red Chrysanthemum (2006). A blood-soaked chrysanthemum is the only clue samurai investigator Sano Ichirō has to clear his wife Reiko of suspicion in the murder of Lord Mori. This is Rowland's eleventh book set in feudal Japan. It's wonderfully atmospheric and features her usual graceful writing and deft characterization.

Rupert Holmes: Where the Truth Lies (2003). Do you remember when Dean Martin teamed up with Jerry Lewis? If so you'll particularly enjoy this book, set in the 1970s and featuring journalist K. O'Connor, who has been asked to write about a duo obviously modeled on Martin and Lewis. Floating in their background is a murder. Holmes is a multiple award winner (Emmy, Tony, Edgar) and the snappy dialogue, show business setting and entertaining characters made it a finalist for the Nero Award.

Alana White: The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (2012). The title sounds like a Perry Mason case, but it's historical fiction set in 1480 Italy. Real-life Florentine lawyer Guid'Antonio Vespucci and his nephew Amerigo (who later explored and donated his name to the New World) have barely returned from a diplomatic mission in France before they're embroiled in Florentine politics and investigations of a kidnapping and a painted Virgin Mary that seems to be weeping. White's knowledge and wit, and the presence of the Vespuccis, Boticelli, da Vinci, the Medici family and other Renaissance figures, make this book a fun Italian trip.

Neither Unbearably Nor Astonishingly Dull

This young man is obviously not riveted.

H. R. F. Keating died last year, but he left us with Inspector Ganesh Ghote of Bombay, India, and some wonderful books of crime-fiction criticism, including my last night's read, The Bedside Companion to Crime. While critic Julian Symons slights the "humdrums," Keating celebrates the "delightfully dull." They are comforting books because they're smoothly written, and you know they will end with justice done. Now, you may be thinking that the rest of my post is about good cozies or traditional mysteries. Nah. Recently, I've been reading too many books of twists and turns to be straightforward like that. Below is a variety of books, none of which is unbearably or astonishingly dull.

These folks could use a big antidote to boredom. Perhaps Andrew Gross's shocking EYES WIDE OPEN.

Michael Gruber: Valley of Bones (2005). The dapper Afro-Cuban Miami detective Iago Paz first appears in Gruber's fun debut, Tropic of Night. Now he's back on a case of defenestration (is that a stupendous word or what?). A loathsome Sudanese hoodlum goes out a hotel window (yep, that's what defenestration is), and inside the room is a praying Emmylou Dideroff, a member of the Society of Nursing Sisters of the Blood of Christ. Paz bundles her off to write what might be a long and heroic confession. Then he and psychologist Lorna Wise investigate Emmylou's colorful past and the crime. Happily, they also find time to trade quips and canoodle. Very entertaining.

Michael Innes: A Private View (1952, APA One Man Show). In this playful and witty book, a dead young painter's masterpiece is stolen from under the nose of Sir John Appleby, assistant commissioner of New Scotland Yard. The reader revisits the Duke of Horton's mansion, scene of Hamlet, Revenge!, and watches Sir John and his underling, Inspector Cadover, investigate. This lively story should be of particular interest to readers who enjoy art mysteries.

Fitting twin cities: the Perthshire, England village of Dull and the town of Boring in Oregon, USA

Jon Fasman: The Unpossessed City (2008). Fasman likes to jam-pack his books with detailed information and story lines. He did this in his debut thriller, The Geographer's Library, about a New England cub reporter who, when assigned to write the obituary of an academic, opens a Pandora's box of international intrigue instead. Now, Fasman sends Jim Vilatzer, a Washington, D. C. loser, to Russia, where his interviews about life in the gulags attract the attention of the authorities and the CIA. Who isn't interested in modern Russia?

Minette Walters: The Shape of Snakes (2001). Annie Butts suffers from Tourette's syndrome and at the hands of the cruel kids in her working-class London neighborhood. She dies in the street in what is ruled an accident. Twenty years later, her determined former neighbor, Mrs. Ranelagh, is back to finish her investigation into Annie's death. Man, what a read! Walters can give Ruth Rendell's darkest books a run for their money.

Peter Dickinson: The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest (1968, APA Skin Deep). The always-original Dickinson's debut features a New Guinea tribe called the Ku that has moved to London at the end of WWII. When an elderly chief is murdered, Supt. Pibble investigates. Humorous, interesting psychology and anthropology, and unique characters.

Reginald Hill: The Woodcutter (2011). Betrayal and revenge in a complex story about an English woodcutter's son, Sir Wilfred Hadda. Hill's last book is a twisted fairytale and a gorgeous stand-alone of psychological suspense. You'll savor each of the 500 pages.

Sally Spencer: Echoes of the Dead (2011). The self-confessed murderer of young Lilly Dawson is dying. He now confesses that his confession was a lie. DCI Monika Paniatowski must clear up a 22-year-old case from her beloved mentor Charlie Woodend, now retired.

Ross Macdonald: The Ivory Grin (1952). Private eye Lew Archer in a nicely convoluted plot about a corrupt California town. You've gotta read some classic American hardboiled crime fiction this summer: Ross Macdonald, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and James M. Cain.

Eliot Pattison: The Lord of Death (2009). A subtle and complicated thriller featuring an exiled investigator from Beijing, Shan Tao Yun. Shan is now in Tibet, where he runs into several deaths that arouse his curiosity.

Marcia Clark: Guilt by Association (2011). Yes, this is the O. J. Simpson prosecutor. Trust me, she does a far better job as a writer than she did in that trial. Her female prosecutor, Rachel Knight, is gutsy and smart, and this debut about a rape case is wonderful.

Michael Gilbert: The Black Seraphim (1984). A harried young barrister vacations in Melchester, the cathedral town of Gilbert's first book, Close Quarters. He doesn't have an easy time of it, due to his relationship with his beloved and the murderous antagonisms among the clergy. You can count on Gilbert for an intelligent English mystery. Gilbert was a lawyer, and many of his books feature lawyers. Does that sound dull? Not when a client is found dead in a deed box, as in Smallbone Deceased. A nice bit of trivia about Gilbert is that he once had Raymond Chandler as a client.

Tom Wolfe: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970). Okay, not mysteries in the traditional sense, but if you haven't yet read these books, it's my duty to mention them. Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters on the road, and Leonard Bernstein and his friends raise funds for the Black Panthers. Perfect for a trip back to the 1960s via reading in the hammock.

We'd love to hear your ideas about un-dull reading designed to dispel the doldrums of summer.

Attack of the TBRs

Back a few years ago, I used to worry about finding mysteries to read. I would haunt the local bookstores and library and get recommendations from the few friends who were also mystery readers. I would read every mystery I got my hands on through those methods and I'd have a small handful of TBRs (to-be-read books) at most.

Then it happened. I went online and met Georgette, the Maltese Condor, Della, Periphera and a lot of other mystery readers. Because of their stellar recommendations, my TBRs now number over 100 and are threatening to burst out of their bookcase. Sometimes I hear their authors reproaching me for leaving them on the shelf, and for my seeming to prefer new books fresh from the library or bookshop.

Some of the authors with books among the TBRs boldly accost me. Ian Rankin demands to know why I tore through each Rebus book as soon as it was published, but now, just because he's moved on to a new character in The Complaints, I'm not so eager. Fortunately for me, his Scots brogue is so strong that I don't understand a lot of what he says. I think he called me a "bampot," though.

Graham Hurley points to all the shelf real estate being taken up by the second through eleventh books in his Joe Faraday series and asks why I don't read them, considering that I have a 2012 series reading challenge going on. He's particularly peeved that I've chosen to read Josephine Tey's books for the second time for the challenge rather than his books for the first. I weakly respond that I did read the first book in his series and my husband has read all of the series, but he seems dissatisfied with my answer. "Hey pal," I want to say, "keep it up and you're getting moved to the already-read shelves."

Charles Cumming reminds me how excited I was to pick up The Trinity Six at the library's used bookstore six months ago, and how fascinated I've always been by the Cold War's Cambridge Spy Ring. It's been awhile since I've read a Cold War thriller, he points out. "And now that the remake of le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is coming out, it's the perfect time to read my book," Cumming reasons. He could be right, so I pull the book so that it stands out an inch from the others on the shelf. You know, like a little spy signal.

Andrea Camilleri seems to understand that I respond better to positive enticements than to criticism and pushiness. "Ciao, bella," he says, "there you are in your winter with your short days, and you deserve a visit to Salvo Montalbano's sunny Sicily. Ecco, you have three of his first four books right here! Put up your feet, pour a nice glass of limoncello and read."

Don Winslow appeals to nostalgia. "Hey, remember back when you found me at The Book Passage in Corte Madera? A Cool Breeze on the Underground and my other Neal Carey books, The Death and Life of Bobby Z, California Fire and Life. Those were the days, right? I know The Dawn Patrol didn't work for you, but we can get past that. You picked up Satori: A Novel Based on Trevanian's Shibumi at a book sale on a whim and it's been sitting here for the last couple of months. Give it a try; it's totally different from anything I've ever done." Maybe he's right. So I pull his book forward a little bit too.

Tana French is sulking over there on the far right of the second shelf. She knows I wasn't crazy about Faithful Place and she seems to guess that In the Woods isn't going to entice me anytime soon, no matter how many of my mystery-reading friends loved it.

Jedediah Berry is diffident, but he can't keep the injured tone out of his voice when he asks why I abandoned The Manual of Detection for something newly arrived from the library and then never picked up his book again, even though I was enjoying it. Unfortunately, I have no answer.

It's just as hard to explain to Thorne Smith why I haven't yet read Topper, even though Georgette and my husband loved it. I can't even look at Carlos Ruiz Zafón over there on the far right of the bottom shelf. The Shadow of the Wind is one of the longest tenants on my TBR shelves. How can I not have read it after years of my mystery friends telling me how great it is?

Then there are my old friends, the Michaels Gilbert and Innes. They sit there together, Gilbert's Close Quarters and The Danger Within, and Innes's Lament for a Maker and six Appleby books. The Michaels don't say much, because they know I'll get to them. After all, having read others of their books, I know I'll enjoy these books and I'm a lifelong fan of classic British crime fiction. And, of course, being British, the Michaels would never be pushy. The American in me wants to tell them that's not the way to get ahead, but I know they can't change their inbred characters. (I suppose their being dead is also a bit of an obstacle to a transformation in their personalities.)

The clamoring and censorious looks from the TBRs became so bad that I recently moved them from the living room to the next room. I can still hear them, but faintly, and they try to accost me when I go past them to the laundry room, but at least they're no longer such a constant reproach. Now I just have to do something about my history TBRs. Some of those guys have guns!

Which of my TBRs would you spring from the shelf and place next to my reading chair?

A Little Night Fright

Halloween is a night my kids look forward to all year. Dressing up in costumes. Going door-to-door, trick-or-treating with friends. Lugging home bags full of candy to be examined, traded with others and eaten until the kids are sick.

I won't be escorting my kids tonight and my husband and I aren't attending a costume party. Instead, we're having a few friends over for movies. We'll offer a choice of tried-and-true nail biters: Psycho (has anyone not heard of Janet Leigh's shower scene or how much Norman Bates loves his mother?), Carrie (Sissy Spacek shows everyone it doesn't pay to annoy her), John Carpenter's Halloween (who in the history of movies screams better than Jamie Lee Curtis?), The Shining (Jack Nicholson gets creepier and creepier as the movie progresses) and The Thing (Carpenter's 1982 movie starring Kurt Russell about a shape-shifting alien).

To accompany the movies we'll serve this hummus from Noble Pig and chips.


Pizza Hummus (Makes about 4 cups)
1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
1 teaspoon dried basil
2 to 3 cloves garlic
3 cups canned chickpeas, drained & rinsed, 1/2 cup liquid reserved
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Kosher salt

Heat the olive oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat. Add the tomato paste, oregano and basil, cooking until slightly toasted, about 2 minutes. Transfer the tomato paste mixture to a food processor. Add the garlic, chickpeas, chickpea liquid, tahini, lemon juice and salt.  Puree until smooth and creamy.

If you'd like to read while waiting for trick-or-treaters, you might try one of the books below. I've given a couple of horror and other suggestions.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez. The first sentence of this slim book tells all you need to know: "On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming in." Atmospheric and relentless. By the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Drood by Dan Simmons. People either love or hate this 800-page book of steampunk/horror/historical fiction. Too long, but I enjoyed it. A story unreliably narrated by Wilkie Collins involving Collins, Charles Dickens and a mysterious figure named Drood who materializes from the scene of a train accident.

Dracula by Bram Stoker. Hey, I'm sick of vampires too, but this is the classic gothic fantasy and you must read it. Memorable characters in a tale of ever-increasing tension set in Victorian England and the spooky wilds of Transylvania. I've read it several times and still shiver when the Transylvanian peasants cross themselves.

Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula: The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count by John H. Watson, M.D. as edited by Loren D. Estleman. This is one of those books I had to read based on the title alone but I enjoyed this pastiche. It's for Holmes fans who've read Dracula. In this book, a schooner runs aground in an English harbor. The dead captain has lashed himself to the steering wheel and his cargo is 50 boxes of earth. The only living passenger is a large black dog. Sound familiar? Somebody better alert Holmes, and luckily for London, somebody does.

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. The Peculiar Crimes Unit investigates London crimes with elements of the macabre or supernatural. This is the first book in an unusual series and it involves elderly detective John May's look back at the first case he and Arthur Bryant investigated during the London Blitz.

Savages by Don Winslow. Ben and Chon are happily supplying marijuana to their customers in Laguna Beach, California until a Mexican drug cartel decides to muscle in. Winslow is a great story teller. This book is thrilling rather than scary. It will keep you reading as you mindlessly reach for candy from the bowl for the little trick-or-treaters. (I hope you bought enough. What kind did you get?)

Appleby's Answer by Michael Innes. Priscilla Pringle is a well-known writer of clerical mysteries and, when a local rector dies mysteriously, her ears prick up and her nose begins to sniff. Her investigations are aided and abetted by the odd Captain Bulkington, who is interested in a real-life perfect murder. Soon Sir John Appleby, retired Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, gets an SOS. As usual, this book, the 27th in the John Appleby series, is a witty and literate gambol.

Make sure you put your leftover candy out of reach of your pets before you go to bed. This is a good night to keep your cats and dogs in the house where they'll be safe and where they can protect you from things that go bump in the night.

Oh, yes. You might want to sleep with a night light on, have a garlic clove on your bedside table and a heavy-duty flashlight under your pillow. You never know when some unannounced visitors will come tap-tap-tapping against your windowpane or ooze into the bedroom from under your closet door. It is Halloween after all. Sleep if you can.