New books and old TV.

Here we are, in the New Year. Well nothing feels different to me, nothing *is* different! Even the TV is reruns! I have never seen such a load of old socks scheduled for a Saturday night since my teenage years in the UK, when the most exciting thing on was Seaside Special with Little and Large! So I read a book. It was by an author who is new to me, Kathy Reichs. I have to say that I really enjoyed the book. She is a very intelligent author, she creates wonderful imagery with her well constructed sentences. I would love to be able to write as well as she does. The books are about a forensic anthropologist who divides her time between Charlotte in South Carolina, and Montreal in Quebec. This was the second in her series of books, Death du Jour. Very good. If you like Particia Cornwell you will love Kathy Reichs. Infact if you haven't finished reading the PC series, you shouldn't read KR, because you will not want to go back to PC afterwards. Her main character, Temperance Brennan, makes Kay Scarpetta look like a self indulgent spoiled princess!

I really enjoyed the Scarpetta books, up until Point of Origin. I think that was the book when I started to think 'oh for god's sake'. The stories were getting more ridiculous, and the criminals were getting really silly. Mind you I have read them all, I am waiting for Trace to become available at the library as I will no longer spend the money on the books, but I will still read it. K hasn't read a PC book since Black Notice. I get the feeling that PC wants to kill off KS in the same way that Agatha Christie wanted to kill off Poirot. I also get the impression that PC wants the Scarpetta character to go off in a different direction, but that the publishers won't let her. But I do hate the way that PC has stereotyped her characters to the point of stupidity. In the last book, Blow Fly, she had Lucy the lesbian lusting after every single woman she clapped eyes on! It was crazy, and PC should know better. Mind you that book was totally ridiculous, to bring back a character that was killed off for the good of the world in an earlier book, for no apparent reason, was absolutely the most ridiculous thing ever, and to think that her readers would believe that Pete was able to keep a secret from Kay for 6 years was even more ludicrous! I also got the feeling that the book either hadn't been written by PC, or that she had written it as part of the Judy Hammer series, and then had to change it into a Scarpetta book because her publisher told her to. The style was so very different from her former Scarpetta books. I have heard that PC is now so full of her own self importance that she might not even care what her readers think. That would be a great tragedy. An author should never assume that her readers are less intelligent than s/he is. It is a great insult. PC has been making that mistake for a few books now, getting more and more obvious since PoO. Of course all this is just my opinion, and if you have read PC and like her stuff, and disagree with what I have to say, then I would love to hear from you! No one will write to me, I realise that.

But go out and get a Kathy Reichs, read it with a good cup of tea and a big bag of chips, and you will have a great evening! Better than watching reruns of Sue Thomas FBEye.