I really enjoy a good detective murder mystery. When I first started reading this genre I would try early on to uncover the “doer”. I do not do that anymore. I just go with the author’s flow and let him or her tell the story as they want me to hear it. Mom used to cheat and read forty or 50 pages and then jump to the back of the book and discover the miscreant. That works for really wordy authors like Stephen King – who does not write detective murder mysteries but I like his stories also – sometimes but often one misses the word craft of the author. It is tough to start with a nugget of an idea and turn it into a novel. You will miss word gems created by the author and any new vocabulary.

Recently I rediscovered John Sandford (John Cloud) and his “prey” novels with Lucas Davenport. I have read many. They are always entertaining to me. A week or so back I thought, you know Paul, you have not read his books through from the beginning to now. He started writing in the mid 1990’s so there is a lot of ground to cover.

I started reading his stories electronically on my tablet all the way to “Night Prey”. It is out on my electronic library so I turned to the print library. It is out there too. (damn) Read faster people!

I usually read two or three things in parallel and I am now. A novel, perhaps some journalistic book and maybe something technical are on my reading list at the same time. I will be patient but not for long. It is my winter project for now. Read faster people. (Even the big print version is out.)

The audio version is available. Those are usually read too slow for me and sometimes I say to myself – did I miss something? – and I go back to re-read a few pages. And occasionally I find a word that I am unsure of its meaning even though I can discover it from the text, so, I look it up in one of my Webster’s. This by the way is the feature I like most about reading on my little tablet. I can touch the word and Merriam will awaken and tell me its definition. (sweet) Cannot do those with an audio book.

Read faster people! Although the “Family Roe” is well written and an interestingly sad story, I want to see how Lucas grows and develops. He just met the love of his life, Weather and she just saved his life. Let’s go, people.

Carpe Diem