Non-Fiction: “The Lost Continent” by Bill Bryson

It’s important, first up, to state the subtitle (which didn’t fit in the title line above): Travels in Small-Town America. This was the last book I brought with me on vacation, and the book I snuck in under the wire to be completed in March. And not only is this the best March I’ve ever had with regards to number of books read in a single month, but March 2011 is the best month on record. Ever. So congratulations, March 2011, with your total of seven titles: you are awesome.

Anyway. Why I brought this book with me on vacation: my plan for vacation was to fly out to California, drive up to San Francisco*, stay with a friend for a couple of days, and then drive back to the airport I flew into over the course of four days by taking the Pacific Coast Highway, and spending the nights in cute towns in part to find out if I wanted to relocate to one of those towns someday. I stopped in Monterey (not really the nicest place to visit, interestingly enough), Morro Bay/San Luis Obispo (very pretty), the afore-mentioned Santa Barbara, and holy crap, Newport Beach. Oh, Newport Beach. I have not seen such a pretty town in my life. It’s just too bad that the day I flew out, a chunk of the Pacific Coast Highway fell into the ocean outside of Carmel, forcing me to skip the entire Big Sur part of the PCH.

Uh, right. The book. I brought it because I’ve heard Bill Bryson is funny (he is), and also, because I adore road trips. I totally plan on returning to California someday to pick up some of the pieces I missed, but also, one of my bucket list trips is to start the PCH at the border between Washington and Canada and drive it to Mexico. And I want to do the same thing with US Route 1: that one goes between Fort Kent, Maine, and Key West.

It took me half the book to figure out that it was written in 1988, so some of the references are a bit dated. But Bryson, who had relocated to Britain upon graduating college, returns to his hometown of Des Moines following his father’s death. And he decides to return to some of the places his father would take the family on vacation growing up, and what was supposed to be a mini trip turns into an epic that lasts more than a month and covers 38 of the lower 48 states.

He starts out in the Midwest and moves south to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and then heads north through the Carolinas. He travels like me: in a zig-zag fashion across states, going back and forth, only staying one night and then moving on. What Bryson really enjoyed doing was going to these small towns to partake in whatever local claim to fame the town lays claim to.

One of my favorite things about the book was that he’s been to some of the same places I’ve been. Some, quite recently. Remember that asterisk up there, about driving to San Francisco?:

My plan was to drive up through the hidden heart of California, through the fertile San Joaquin Valley. Nobody ever goes there. There is a simple reason for this, as I was to discover. It is really boring. [252]

It’s actually not that boring. Of course, I was gawking like an idiot at the farmland and the rain and the oil pumps, and there wasn’t really any traffic to speak of, and I had the best CDs ever and it was a little rainy but I was flying at 80 miles, and it wasn’t the entire Interstate 5, and okay, yeah, maybe it was a little boring, but not as bad as how Bryson tells it.

He also visited Colonial Williamsburg. Now, I have gone on many vacations with my family, and like the Brysons, the Pattersons are also a frugal clan. So when we went to Colonial Williamsburg the first time, we experienced what Bryson went through:

I had lived in America long enough to know that if the only way into Williamsburg was to buy a ticket there would be an enormous sign on the wall saying, YOU MUST HAVE A TICKET. DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT TRYING TO GET IN WITHOUT ONE. But there wasn’t any such sign. I went outside, back out into the bright sunshine, and watched where the shuttle buses were going. They went down the driveway, joined a highway and disappeared around a bend. I crossed the highway, dodging the traffic, and followed a path through some woods. In a few seconds I was in the village. It was as simple as that. I didn’t have to pay a penny. Nearby the shuttle buses were unloading ticketholders. They had had a ride of roughly 200 yards and were about to discover that what their tickets entitled them to do was join long, ill-humored lines of other ticketholders standing outside each restored historic building, sweating in silence and shuffling forward at a rate of one step every three minutes. I don’t think I had ever seen quite so many people failing to enjoy themselves. [109]

Now, what happened to the Patterson family that did not happen to Bill, here, is that when we went, my sister and I were, what, 12 and 8 respectively? I think? Well, we were young. And young kids passing those lines of people waiting to get into those restored historic buildings but not allowed into those buildings because they don’t have a ticket? That’s heartbreaking. And we whined like crazy. Mom was then forced to buy us each quills and other completely useless trinkets to shut us up. (Mom also had to promise Dad that yes, we would be going to Busch Gardens and he could ride the Loch Ness Monster as many times as he wanted.)

But it’s true – if any of you ever want to go to Colonial Williamsburg, you can get practically the same amount of information for free as you can for paying what is most likely now a $40 admission fee. So remember, kids — always check for a way to sneak into things.

As you travel this great country of ours, there are certain truths we always encounter. First and foremost, nothing — nothing — is free. (Colonial Williamsburg, I’m sure, has since instilled at the very least, a parking fee.) Secondly, if you go to any science museum, public park, or aquarium — grr, the aquarium; curse you, Monterey Bay Aquarium — there will be kids running around everywhere, tripping you, cutting you off in pedestrian traffic so they can get a good view of that really large whale, and, worst of all, blocking your “arty” “photography” shots.

But, thirdly, there will also be old people.

The old people were noisy and excited, like schoolchildren, and pushed in front of me at the ticket booth, little realizing that I wouldn’t hesitate to give an old person a shove, especially a Baptist. Why is it, I wondered, that old people are always so self-centered and excitable? But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead. [75]

I ran into this a couple of times on the 101 in Central California: old-timey movie theaters.

Downtown movie houses are pretty much a thing of the past in America, alas, alas. [79]

The one in Salinas is closed, which made me sad. It gave me the thought that that could be something I’d want to do — y’know, when I get that bajillion dollars I keep talking about — buy an old-timey movie theater, renovate it, and tap into the nostalgia factor and get it to be popular. But the one in San Luis Obispo was still working, which made me happy. But it was showing Battle for L.A., which promptly made me sad again.

Another item that hit particularly close to home for me was this piece about the highways running through Boston:

Boston’s freeway system was insane. It was clearly designed by a person who had spent his childhood crashing toy trains. Every few hundred yards I would find my lane vanishing beneath me and other lanes merging with it from the right or left, or sometimes both. This wasn’t a road system, it was mobile hysteria. Everybody looked worried. I had never seen people working so hard to keep from crashing into each other. And this was a Saturday — God knows what it must be like on a weekday. [154]

Bill Bryson, I see your “what must it be like on a weekday” and raise you “driving through Boston during a blizzard while still hungover after your New Year’s party.”

Remember when I said that this book was written back in 1988? Well, doesn’t this seem eerie?:

I spent the night in Dearborn [MI] for two reasons. First, it would mean not having to spend the night in Detroit, the city with the highest murder rate in the country. In 1987, there were 635 homicides in Detroit, a rate of 58.2 per 100,000 people or eight times the national average. Just among children, there were 365 shootings in which both the victim and gunman were under sixteen (of whom 40 died). We are talking about a tough city — and yet it is still a rich one. What it will become like as the American car industry collapses in upon itself doesn’t bear thinking about. People will have to start carrying bazookas for protection. [180]

Before I leave you with my final thought, here are Bryson’s rules for eating on the road:

1. Never eat in a restaurant that displays photographs of the food it serves. (But if you do, never believe the photograph.)
2. Never eat in a restaurant attached to a bowling alley.
3. Never eat in a restaurant with flocked wallpaper.
4. Never eat in a restaurant where you can hear what they are saying in the kitchen.
5. Never eat in a restaurant that has live entertainers with any of the following words in their titles: Hank, Rhythm, Swinger, Trio, Combo, Hawaiian, Polka.
6. Never eat in a restaurant that has bloodstains on the walls.

Finally, here’s how Bryson describes Wyoming:

Wyoming is the most fiercely Western of all the Western states. It’s still a land of cowboys and horses and wide open spaces, a place where a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do… [272-273]

And when I read that, my head went to this, from the masterpiece Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog:

And that’s how we got a Bonus!Nathan Fillion.

Grade for The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America: 4 stars

Fiction: “Cause of Death” by Patricia Cornwell

Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why? Oh, right: I’m a fucking masochist.

So because I have some weird, genetic disposition that requires me to read Patricia Cornwell whenever I fly on a plane, I brought the next book in the series with me to California. And it is worse than From Potter’s Field.

The scene opens with Kay Scarpetta housesitting for one of her deputy chiefs on New Year’s Eve. She receives a phone call about a dead person found at an old Navy Yard. But then the cops call later in the morning, and it’s the first time someone from the police called her, meaning the killer called her first or whatever. Turns out the dead guy is a reporter she knew and was friendly with (of course he was!), and he died while scuba diving.

It was on page 7 when I made my first dogear:

I hid a key only [her niece, Lucy] could find, then loaded medical bag and dive equipment into the trunk of my black Mercedes. [7]

DIVE EQUIPMENT?! Okay, FIRST OF ALL: who the fuck brings scuba equipment to a housesitting gig on NEW YEAR’S EVE in VIRGINIA. I might understand it if it was in the Bahamas or St. Thomas or somewhere, but VIRGINIA?! And SECOND OF ALL, since WHEN does Kay scuba-dive?! This is the seventh freaking book in the series, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard about her being able to scuba-dive. And though it doesn’t say so anywhere, I’m sure she does it perfectly.

She’s still such a snob. And lords it over everyone. For instance, she’s a superior cook:

I surveyed the kitchen, which was pitiful compared to the one I had at home. I did not seem to have forgotten anything yesterday when I had driven down to Virginia Beach to shop, although I would have to do without garlic press, pasta maker, food processor and microwave oven. I was seriously beginning to wonder if [Deputy Chief] Mant ever ate in or even stayed here. At least I had thought to bring my own cutlery and cookware, and as long as I had good knives and pots there wasn’t much I couldn’t manage. [4]

Oh, come on, Kay — we both know you’ve never used a microwave in your life.

I pulled [Lucy] over to the stove and lifted the lid from the pot. A delicious steam rose and I felt happy.

“I can’t believe you,” I said. “God bless you.”

“When you weren’t back by four I figured I’d better make the sauce or we weren’t going to be eating lasagne tonight.”

“It might need a little more red wine. And maybe more basil and a pinch of salt.” [53]

YOUR NIECE MADE LASAGNE SAUCE FOR YOU. BE NICE, KAY, JUST SAY ‘THANK YOU.’

And of course, God forbid she be an expert about just cooking.

“Do you always see indications in drownings?” he reasonably asked. “I thought drownings were notoriously difficult, explaining why expert witnesses from South Florida are often flown in to help with such cases.”

“I began my career in South Florida and am considered an expert witness in drownings,” I sharply said. [105]

But I can’t believe she didn’t take a moment to show her superiority in this tiny moment:

“Well, irregardless of what you call it, his orientation might somehow be important.” [39]

IRREGARDLESS is NOT A WORD. WHY DID YOU NOT SAY ANYTHING? In the middle of an autopsy, even? If I were you, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, as you insist on introducing yourself every damn time, I would have swung that Stryker Saw backwards towards his head yelling “IRREGARDLESS IS NOT A WORD YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.”

It’s a pet peeve, okay?

In addition to being annoyingly superior and kind of bitchy, Kay also has a bit of an Annie Oakley-type fetish, in that she must be able to do anything better than a man:

My legs trembled as I climbed, for I was not as strong as Jerod and Ki Soo, who moved in all their [scuba] gear as if it weighed the same as skin. But I got out of my BC and tank myself and did not ask for help. [26]

And, of course, there’s her All About Me Syndrome:

“Good God. All this happened because of my car. In a sense, because of me.” [207]

So, what happens in the book? Does it matter? Oh fine. The dead reporter turns out to have gotten himself involved with this crazy whack-a-doo religious cult called the New Zionists, who have ties to Moammar Qaddafi and Libya, who want plutonium to build an atom bomb.

Three things:
1. If this stupid book causes me to get searched by the FBI for mentioning Libya in the same breath as plutonium, I will send a nasty letter to Patricia Cornwell. I may want higher blog traffic, but that is for TOTALLY the wrong reason.

2. How does a book written in 1996 have a reference to something that’s almost going on today, but not quite? I mean, come on, how weird is that?

3. NOT THE LIBYANS AND PLUTONIUM MARTY GET IN THE DeLOREAN AND GO BACK IN TIME TO SAVE DOC BROWN

My final question is: why do I keep reading these damn books? Well, I guess I have to answer with another question: why did I read all those Twilight books (and still have Breaking Dawn in my to-read pile)? Partly masochism, yes, I’ll grant you that: I take innate pleasure in groaning at some of the shit Kay Scarpetta pulls. But also, a tiny bit of curiousity. And a smidgen of hope. Hope that the books will get better, the curiosity to see if they do, and the realization that they probably won’t, but at least I’ll feel better ranting about it later.

And also: I read these on planes because you aren’t allowed to throw books on planes.

Grade for Cause of Death: 1 star

Fiction: “F is for Fugitive” by Sue Grafton

This was another title I chose for my vacation. I began reading this on-board my flight from Phoenix to Ontario, and finished it this evening while waiting for a table at the Irvine Cheesecake Factory. I would have finished it quicker if there wasn’t so much driving going on.

This entry takes place two months after the conclusion of E is for Evidence. Kinsey Millhone has been staying with her landlord, Henry, on a temporary basis, as her apartment is being rebuilt after it exploded in the last entry. (Oh crap, I totally gave away the ending to that one. Er, sorry folks. BUT IT SAYS SO ON THE BACK OF THE BOOK.) Looking for some space, Kinsey accepts a case that takes her from her home in Santa Teresa, California, and puts her in the middle of Floral Beach.

She is hired by Royce Fowler, the owner of the Tides motel (or something like that). His son, Bailey Fowler, was accused of murdering his girlfriend, Jean Timberlake, seventeen years ago. He pled guilty, but then escaped from the San Luis Obispo men’s penal colony a year into his sentence. He changed his name and built a life for himself, but then got caught on a stupid thing (so stupid it’s inconsequential to the plot), and now he’s back in jail. Royce believes him to be innocent, and hires Kinsey to find the real killer.

Her investigation takes her all over the town of Floral Beach – to the principal of the high school Jean went to, Dwight Shales; to the town doctor and Jean’s employer at the time of her death, Dr. Dunne — not to mention his psycho wife, Elva. Pearl and his wife, Daisy, the owners of the town bar. And the rest of Bailey’s family: Ori, his mother that’s dying of diabetes, and his sister, Ann, who is managing the motel, taking care of Ori, as well as taking care of her father, who has less than six months to live from pancreatic cancer.

Yeah, it’s a cheery town all right.

Kinsey asks many questions, but doesn’t get much help from the townfolk. People there are perfectly happy to keep blaming Bailey for Jean’s death, especially since he pled the first time around. Not to mention that his friend, Tap, busts into the courtroom during his arraignment and busts him out of there (but not before dying).

Of course, Kinsey does find her answers. And what I like about the Kinsey Millhone mysteries is that you can read the book and think you know ‘who-dun-it,’ but it’s not until the last chapter that the final piece falls into place and the whole thing makes sense. There are other mysteries that I read where I can guess the killer before the detective; and that’s no fun.

But what was truly fun for me about this book was the fact that I picked this one out at random to take with me on vacation — I certainly didn’t mean to pick the one title that took place during towns I stayed in.

For those not in the know: Kinsey’s hometown of Santa Teresa is a thinly veiled version of Santa Barbara. In the first chapter, Kinsey explains that Floral Beach is about an hour and a half further up the coast from Santa Barbara, and from further descriptions, I’m led to believe that it’s just above San Luis Obispo.

Well, I stayed in a tiny town called Morro Bay last night, and drove through San Luis Obispo on my way south today. And let me tell you – Morro Bay’s about ten minutes away from San Luis, and all told, it was a good hour and a half before I hit Santa Barbara. I can’t think of another tiny town that Floral Beach could pass for. I mean, Morro Bay’s a tiny town, right on the water, with tons of ramshackle, seaside inns (you know the kind I mean). It was very cute, and I enjoyed my time there.

And it was tons of fun for me to drive throuh San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Lompoc. Santa Barbara because, as I said, it’s the non-fictional version of Santa Teresa (and also Sunnydale, for those keeping track – and don’t get me started on how if Torrance High School had been right on the PCH I totally would have turned off and taken pictures), but all I knew about Lompoc and San Luis Obispo prior to my trip (somewhat, not really) was that they were the homes of the California Federal Penitentiary and the Men’s Penal Colony, respectively.

See? I took that to prove I was there.

You don’t want to know how geeky I was when I drove past Ventura while “We Used to Be Friends” played on the CD I was listening to. (SUPER geeky.)

Grade for F is for Fugitive: 3 stars

Fiction: “Hot Money” by Dick Francis

Hot Money has always been one of my favorite titles from Dick Francis’s library. I was about twenty pages in when I boarded my flight out to Phoenix, and I finished it ten minutes after boarding my flight to Ontario. And that’s with taking a couple of naps in-between.

This novel’s plot involves the Pembroke family. The patriarch, Malcolm Pembroke, has been married five times and practically each marraige resulted in children. The narrator is Malcolm’s middle son, Ian, the only son of Wife #2, Joyce. Ian and Malcolm have not spoken for three years at the book’s opening, due to a large argument around Wife #5, Moira. Ian did not like Moira and thought she was marrying Malcolm only for his money. Malcolm was blind with love (and, possibly, the prospect of a wife thirty years younger than himself), and didn’t want to hear his son’s opinion, so he slapped him upside the head and refused to acknowledge his existence.

Out of the blue one day, Malcolm calls Ian and asks to meet him at the Newcastle yearling sales. (This book’s relationship to the racing world is that Ian is an amateur jockey.) On a whim, Malcolm buys the most expensive yearling on sale, right out from under the noses of, like, five other high bidders. Oh, I should probably mention that Malcolm is a gold arbitrageur: he buys and sells gold so cannily he is worth close to hundreds of millions of dollars.

So why did Malcolm call Ian? Well, Moira’s been murdered, and while Malcolm (and Ian) have alibis, now Malcolm is experiencing attacks on his own life. Including almost being run down after leaving Newcastle with Ian.

Over the course of the novel, Malcolm and Ian work together to repair the rift between them, and as they search for the murderer amongst their family, they come to know each other better.

Grade for Hot Money: 3.5 stars

Fiction: “Conspiracy in Death” by J.D. Robb

Conspiracy in Death picks up slightly after the end of Holiday in Death. Lt. Eve Dallas is called to the scene of a homicide: a harmless homeless man has been murdered by having his heart removed. As in, he was anesthetized and then his heart was surgically removed. As Eve digs deeper into the case (and another couple of like homicides begin to stack up), she finds ties to medical centers and important doctors across the globe.

Throwing another wrinkle into her case is an altercation between herself and a subordinate from another precinct, Officer Ellen Bowers. Bowers remembers Eve from their days at the police academy (and unfortunately, it’s nothing like the Steve Guttenberg movies), and her memory is horrible. She assumes (wrongly) that Eve ascended up the ladder so quickly due to putting out and sexing up, which is so far from the truth it’s almost laughable. But Bowers is quick to file complaints (especially when Eve insults her admittedly awful crime scene perservation), so Eve gets dragged into an I.A. investigation.

When Officer Bowers ends up dead, Eve’s superiors have no choice but to suspend her. And this is the meat of the novel. Eve has spent her entire life working towards being a cop, and that’s how she primarily identifies herself. The suspension, however temporary and/or unfounded, almost destroys her. Her husband, Roarke, supports her through the ordeal, both emotionally and professionally. Once Eve snaps out of it, she uses his illegal computers to solve the case and feed information to her friends who have taken it over.

As the series continues, I’m struck and impressed by the relationships that Eve has developed. In the first book, she met Roarke and had a friend named Mavis. Now, her circle has grown to include a psychiatrist for a friend; Peabody, her aide; Mavis’s long-time boyfriend, Leonardo; Roarke’s butler, Summerset (although she hates him just to be spiteful, sometimes); and Nadine Furst, a reporter. Where the first couple of books in the series were all about the violence and the procedure and the hard-boiled cop detective (which is, again, why I picked this up as opposed to anything else on my shelves: keep the violence coming!), J.D. Robb has truly given Eve a world of people to interact with, and it makes her characterization and her interactions that much richer.

For instance, even while in the midst of a murder investigation and a suspension, Eve and Roarke are still able to function as a married couple:

“Man, I would self-terminate before I lived in a place like this. I bet all their furniture matches, and they’ve got cute little cows or something sitting around the kitchen.”

“Kittens. Fifty says it’s kittens.”

“Bet. Cows are sillier. It’s going to be cows.”  […]

[Eve] glanced over, lifted a brow as Roarke strolled in carrying a tray loaded with cups, plates. Coffee and cookies, she mused, then struggled with a scowl as she noticed the cream pitcher in the shape of a cheerful white kitten.

The man never lost a damn bet. [276, 282]

And here’s something that I truly identified with, and let me explain how. I’ve described myself in my “real job” as being low-level management for a local-yet-internationally-known retailer. Well, this past week, my major responsibility has been to complete the year-end appraisals for my directly-reporting employees — all eighteen of them. And while I love my company and the people I work with, there are some issues that occur every day that makes me want to pull my hair out.

Like, for instance: we’re still running Office 2000. REALLY? ARE YOU SERIOUS? WE’RE A BILLION-DOLLAR COMPANY (oh crap, that narrows the field of possible employers down to, like, three) AND WE CAN’T EVEN UPGRADE TO OFFICE 2003? REALLY. YOU’RE KILLING ME, YOU GUYS.

So imagine my frustration when, in the middle of a very involved year-end, we have a power surge. And then it takes twenty minutes for the computer to a) turn back on and b) be fast enough for me to work at it comfortably.

Hence, this passage seemed like it was written just for me:

“When you’re done with this, I want you to go find a hammer.”

Peabody had taken out her memo book, nearly plugged in the order, when she stopped, frowned at Eve. “Sir? A hammer?”

“That’s right. A really big, heavy hammer. Then you take it into my office and beat that fucking useless excuse for a data spitter on my desk to dust.”

“Ah. […] As an alternative to that action, Lieutenant, I could call maintenance.”

“Fine, you do that, and you tell them that at the very first opportunity, I’m coming down there and killing all of them. Mass murder. And after they’re all dead, I’m going to kick the bodies around, dance on top of them, and sing a happy song. No jury will convict me.” [30]

I already have a spork in a glass case on my desk, for use in case of emergency. I don’t think my bosses want me to carry around a sledgehammer, too. And this is why, when I win the lottery, after paying off my debts, the debts of my parents, buying a house, and maybe investing some for travel or something, I’m donating a large portion to both the University of Southern Maine and my employer. The money for USM will be wrapped up so tightly in codicils that they can ONLY spend the money on books for the library, because I’ll be damned if I can find a single book in that monstrosity that was published after 1984. And the money for my employer will be to UPGRADE THE SYSTEMS.

Grade for Conspiracy in Death: 2.5 stars

Fiction: “Heat Wave” by “Richard Castle”

After the interminable chore that was finishing Devil’s Bride, I was looking for something violent. The more blood and guts, the better. So I ended up going to Border’s with the roommate, but couldn’t find anything to satisfy my needs. Mainly because I would have had to include vampires and werewolves in the “disgustingly violent” category, according to the selection at Border’s, and I wasn’t in the mood for supernaturally violent. No, I wanted a mystery that involved serial killing, or psychological torture, or …

Y’know? Reading that bit back to myself just now, if I were a medical professional, I’d be worried for my mental health.

But I’m not. So.

Anyway, long story short (TOO LATE), I couldn’t find anything violent and gross enough to make me happy (I did, however, pick up a copy of True Grit, which I will read at some point, because I did enjoy that movie during my Oscar!Watch project). So I came home and found Heat Wave lying on my floor, and I shrugged to myself and said, “Well, that’ll probably work. Although it’s probably more funny than violent.”

For those not in the know, Nikki Heat is written by “Richard Castle.” Why the quotes? Because “Richard Castle” isn’t a real person — he’s the main character on the eponymous ABC dramedy, Castle, played by the always delicious and hysterical Nathan Fillion. The premise in the pilot is that Castle killed off his beloved character Derrick Storm because he was bored with writing him. At the book’s publishing party, his agent and publishers are pushing him for a new novel. Problem is, he’s got writer’s block. And then he gets a call that Det. Beckett from the NYPD is asking him for help on a case — a murderer has staged his victim to look like one of the murders from one of Castle’s novels. He assists her in solving the case, and along the way, finds inspiration in her for a new character, for she is one bad-ass mother — shut yo’ mouth! He uses his pull with the mayor’s office to be allowed to go on ‘ride-alongs’ with Beckett so he can write his novel, to Beckett’s eternal frustration.

That was three seasons ago. At first, Beckett was completely against the idea — and rightfully so. But over the next season and a half, she eventually warmed up to him, and now expects him to accompany her on almost all her cases. Which he does, with much glee. He’s a regular part of her team, which includes Dets. Ryan and Esposito, who are quick-witted partners that enjoy teasing both Beckett and Castle. There’s also Lainie Parrish, the medical examiner, possibly Beckett’s only girl friend.

I imagine Nathan Fillion is exactly like his character: spastically enthusiastic about anything geeky and protective of his loved ones to a fault, with much pining about his BAMF partner. In other words, my perfect man. In different cases, Castle has a) brought an Indiana Jones hat to a case involving archaeology; b) thought that maybe Buffy killed a vampire look-alike in a cemetary, and, best of all, c) dressed up as Mal Reynolds for Halloween. Best show ever, am I right?

This is where someone pokes me and says, “Hey, Alaina, this is a book blog. Everything you’ve said up to this point is about a TV show. What gives?” What gives, my friend, is that Heat Wave is the first book by “Richard Castle,” based on Det. Kate Beckett.

And what I really enjoyed about this book is the care and detail the ABC Studios took in keeping up with the illusion that “Richard Castle” is a real writer. Unlike on a CSI novel, for instance, where it’s written by Max Allan Collins or someone else, there is no ghost-writer listed anywhere in the book. The author picture is of Nathan Fillion, posing as Castle. The dedication is the same as it was in the series: “To the extraordinary KB and all my friends at the 12th.” The acknowledgements page thanks his mother, Martha, and his daughter, Alexis. There’s even one of those author Q&A’s in the back of the book, asking Rick how he thinks Detective Beckett will react when she learns he’s written a sex scene.

[We as watchers of the TV show know how she reacts: she takes her copy and runs to the nearest restroom to find it, only to have Castle poke his head over the top of the stall and scare the bejeezus out of her.]

Okay, so, after all that blathering, you’re probably thinking to yourself: What the fuck is the book about, Alaina? Sorry, sorry; y’all know how much I love TV. (a lot.)

Nikki Heat is called to investigate what at first glance appears to be a suicide: real estate mogul Matthew Starr has fallen to his death from his sixth-story apartment. Her team, Det. Raley and Ochoa, arrive to assist, followed by medical examiner Lauren Perry, Nikki’s close friend. And then Castle — er, I’m sorry, Jameson Rook, star magazine journalist — shows up, as he’s following Det. Heat for an expose on homicide squads in New York.

Sound familiar? Well, it should — that’s the point. It plays like an episode of Castle, except in print. They go through the suspects: maybe it’s the wife? Maybe it’s the business partner? And there are a lot of different avenues, as the murder leads to an art theft, and Mr. Starr wasn’t the mogul he projected himself to be. Meanwhile, while this is going on, Heat and Rook verbally spar like their “real”-“life” counterparts, with assists from Raley and Ochoa.

(One thing I didn’t like about the book, either because it felt to easy, or out-of-character, or just plain odd, was that the team of Raley and Ochoa was shortened to “Roach” many a time. I mean, really? ‘Roach’? I don’t — that’s weird. Castle, if you were a real person writing this for realsies, I’m surprised that Ryan and Esposito didn’t give you tons of crap about that and force you to change that in the sequal.)

Now, what happens in the book that has not yet happened on-screen, is Heat and Rook actually do fall into bed. Oh, if only art would imitate life in that instance! (C’mon, Fillion, I know you like the sexual tension, but tension needs to be relieved!)

Another thing that happens in-book but not on-screen is that more is made of the friendship between Heat and Dr. Perry:

Meeting her friend for a drink after work once a week was more than just cocktails and chill time. The two women had hit it off right away over Lauren’s first autopsy, when she started at the M.E.’s office three years ago, but their weekly after-work ritual was really fueled by their professional bond. Despite cultural differences — Lauren came out of the projects in St. Louis and Nikki grew up Manhattan middle-class — they connected on another level, as professional women navigating traditional male fields. […] She and Lauren clung to their camaraderie and the sense of safety they had created with each other, to have a time and place to share problems at work, largely political, and, yes, to decompress and let their hair down without having it be in a meat market or at a stitch and bitch. [63-64]

On the show, we know that Lainie and Beckett are friends, but we never see it. I think it would be awesome to see that every once in a while!

As I read the book, there were a couple of grammar errors and weird syntaxes that struck out, which shows that it really wasn’t written by Richard Castle — I doubt the “real” Castle would have an errant comma splice. And this was awkward to me:

“A reporter … You’re not going to do a story about my husband, are you?”

“No. Not specifically. I’m just doing background research on this squad.”

“Good. Because my husband wouldn’t like that. He thought all reporters were assholes.”

Nikki Heat said she understood completely, but she was looking at Rook when she said it. And then she continued … [7]

I strongly feel that that should have gone like this:

“Good. Because my husband wouldn’t like that. He thought all reporters were assholes.”

“I understand completely,” Nikki said, giving Rook a long-suffering, deadpan glance. She continued …“

Doesn’t that seem better? And, almost, more in-character? I don’t know … it’s the show, don’t tell, thing.

Anyway. I really liked this book, and intend to not only keep this around for others to read, but also purchase the sequel, Naked Heat, when I can get it for the same deal I got Heat Wave: at Target, in paperback, for 25% off.

Grade for Heat Wave: 3.5 stars

Fiction: “Devil’s Bride” by Stephanie Laurens

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to finish another book. And this book, of all books! What was supposed to be a quick, easy read turned into an interminable month of reading ten pages and then falling asleep. Even last night, when I had twenty pages to go before the end of the month, but no, I had to be tired.

[In all fairness to myself, I did work more than twelve hours yesterday, and on top of that, came home only to get stuck in my driveway because while Crazy Plow Guy may have plowed the school’s parking lot a gazillion times yesterday, my Plow Guy was home watching the finale of The Bachelor. I’m guessing. Because I had about four tons of slush to shovel before it froze into stalagmites and made my driveway as impassable as the Gates of Mordor. Yeah, I used Lord of the Rings within spitting distance of The Bachelor. Look at me, being all Joel McHale-ish.]

ANYWAY. The plot of this? … Do you really care? A woman named Honoria is a governess for some hoity clan in Derbyshire or whatever (I’m not looking ANYTHING up, by the way) and on the way back home, takes a shortcut through the woods, where she happens upon a murder. No, really, she sees the dude shot. As she goes to help him, this tall, dark ruffian type dude shows up on a big horse and recognizes the shot dude as his cousin, so he takes his cousin and her back to the woodcutter’s cottage, but the shot dude dies in the night. Meanwhile, heaven forbid that an unmarried lady stays in a one-room cottage with a tall, dark ruffian type dude, so Dude tells her she’ll marry him. Honoria says no, that won’t be necessary, I’m going to Africa to be a missionary or some nonsense, but he doesn’t care and …

Look, long story short (TOO LATE!), they end up getting married anyway because she not only falls in love with him, but wants to experience “the pleasure he promised” or, again, some such nonsense, the prose is all purple and flowery and shit and here’s what really bothered me (besides the rampant misogyny, when was this written? Wow, 1998? I expected an original date of, like, 1979 based on the fact that the dude wants to turn his wife into a sexual slave [but in a good way, I’m sure]): the fact that Honoria and Devil (because his real name is Sylvester, but everyone calls him Devil, and don’t get me started on his other cousins’s nicknames) agree to work towards catching the murderer of the dead cousin, but there’s like, a hundred pages in the middle where all they do is have sex. And I’m sorry, I was promised a murderer, not incredibly long and flowery love-making scenes, let’s get to the violence already!

So that’s where I’m at. The next few books I’ll read will, hopefully, be chock-full of violent goodness. Y’know, if I can get enough time to actually read again.

Grade for Devil’s Bride: Twilight Stars