-=> Quoting HELEN FLEISCHER to Debbie Shanker <=-
Hello Helen,
 HF> forensic science on TLC that even had a forensic entymologist. Nothing
 HF> like establishing the time of death by the size and type of maggots,
 HF> eh?  Not that I see that very often in mysteries. Wonder why? ;)
The latest book by Minette Walters 'The Dark Room' uses this technique to pin
down the date, if not the time, of a homicide. The book is quite good, she
specializes in kind of pschological twists and plots. My emotions and 
eelings
about the main character flipped over and over. The ending was a bit too
abrupt after all the feints and bluffs in the rest of the plot, but a good
satisfying read.
 DS>  I just finished Julie Smith's New Orleans Mourning. Her Skip
I like Smith's other series that is set in San Francisco better, but have
enjoyed all the Skip Langdon series as well.
I just finished Laurence Shames first mystery, or at least I think it is his
first one. He worte or co-authored books before this one, but I don't think
they were mysteries. Anyway it is call 'Florida Straight' and is a great 
ook.
Lots of good characters, and local color of Key West and NY. Not much 
iolence
in his books, lots of good dialog and plotting.
Next in my pile is the latest Charles Paris book by Simon Brett. It is called
'Sicken and so Die'. I seem to have missed the previous one in this series,
'A Reconstructed Corpes', and will have to haunt the library and bookstores 
o
find it. This is another of my favorite series with lots of subtle humor and
great plots. I rarely can figure out the killer before the ending, but after
Charles unmasks him/her all the little clues that I missed suddenly jump out.
I finished 'Sicken ...' and was a little unsatisfied with it. Charles seemed
to spend too much time and effort in self pity in this one, kind of turned me
off. The mystery part of the plot was OK, but not as original as most in this
series.
Currently I'm reading 'The Music of What Happens' by John Straley. I read his
first one, 'The Woman WHo MArried a Bear' a couple of years ago, after 
assing
on it several times as the title put me off. That was a mistake as the title
refers to an indian or inuit legend and is not a literal act. If you haven't
read Straley yet you should give him a try. Again good characters and subtle
plots that unfold ever so slowly. If you read and like Tony Hillerman, you
will almost certainly like Straley. Hillerman gets a lot more caught up in 
he
Navaho culture and mysticism, and Straley shows us life on the edge of 
nother
frontier - in Alaska.  A lot of similarities in how the two authors 
ntertwine
the natural world, the spirit world, and human frailties.
Nothing else jumps out in my mind that I've read lately, but I've added your
recommendations to my BOLO list as well.
BTW, has Belle Bijou been posting on here lately? I've been absent for a
couple of months, due to a lot of backlogged work, and then a delightful hard
drive crash that left me limping along with minimal installs of the programs
that I need for work jammed on a tiny 20mb HD with a few bad sectors. (How's
that for a run-on sentence?) I'm still waiting to hear from Maxtor re: what
they will do about my crashed 1.2gb drive, unfortunately there were some
directories on the drive that I hadn't backed up in a long time and that data
is gone forever. I'm starting to look at the various options of tape and
removable HDs as a better way of backing up than 100+ diskettes.
Bob 8-{)
  ...Blessed are the pessimists, for they shall make backups.
--- Blue Wave/Max v2.20
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