ST> Not much in this echo recently! What is everyone reading? I'm
ST> reading King's "Desperation". A real page-turner. I just finished
ST> Valerie Wolzien's "Elected to Death", I love her Susan Henshaw
ST> mysteries. Our store has 3 authors coming in for signings in
ST> November; Jeff Abbott, Nancy Atherton, and David J. Walker. CAN'T
ST> WAIT!
I'm reading Jonathan Gash's The California Game after finishing Rex
Stout's Fer de Lance. Fer de Lance is notable mostly for being the
source of the quote, "Go to Hell, I'm reading."  Archie says it when
he's really p.o'ed at Wolfe at one point.
Other than that Wolfe drinks an amazing amount of beer, despite
prohibition and the only legal beer available being near beer.  At one
point he sends Fritz to buy all the brands of near beer available so he
can try them out and find one that's passable enough for him to give up
the inconvenient bootleg stuff. He does. He also talks about cutting
down to 5 quarts a day, yet he never seems to have to get up to pee.
Not that anyone ever has to pee in a classic mystery, but, honestly!
According to my lists, Fer de Lance was the first Nero Wolfe story.  It
surely was not the best, but passable.  Took about twice as long to read
as most books of that length, no real suspense or interesting twists,
and the ending was a bit unsatisfying. Your mileage may vary.
... I'm a material girl. Wanna see my fabric collection?
 * Q-Blue 1.0 *    Helen Fleischer is helen@mbbs.com in Fairland, MD
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