Sunday Morning Musings

Good early evening. Yeah, I know, it's rather late to be using the same heading, but it's kind of tradition now. Don't you think?

The reason for my tardiness is that we left town, following our son and his high school jazz band, choir, etc., up to Reno, Nevada for the 2010 Reno Jazz Festival. I had never been there before, so it sounded like a good idea. Thankfully, the big storm had come and gone the week before so we were able to see some really pretty snow-covered mountains, all without the use of snow chains!

Everyone did a great job and sounded fantastic. I'm not a gambler, so my thing was seeing the kids perform, enjoying the local fare and sampling the bar service. The other thing I was able to do was finish reading Patricia Cornwell's "The Scarpetta Factor".

I liked the novel, but I thought it was a bit long. It took us a long time before we got to anything of interest. I must say that I love the series and will pretty much guarantee that I'll read anything from Ms. Cornwell as long as it is Dr. Kay Scarpetta. I have read each of the Scarpetta books and am heavily invested in the characters. In this novel we ultimately are reintroduced to an old villain. As good as that particular villain was in the past, I was disappointed that this time around he was essentially just a cameo character.

For those who have read this series, Ms. Cornwell had an opportunity, I thought, to shake things up a bit by having Dr. Scarpetta's niece travel down a bad road. I also would have loved to see a resolution between Scarpetta's husband, Benton and their long-time friend, Pete Marino. Pete did a terrible thing several novels back and, though Scarpetta seems to have come to peace with it, Benton hasn't.

I think if one is a fan of this series, I would tell them to keep reading. We're all family now. If one has never read a novel in this series, I would advise them to run to the first in the series, "Postmortem". It is one of the best you'll ever read. The series is a good one. Sometimes Ms. Cornwell hits a home run with her novels and sometimes, like with "The Scarpetta Factor", she hits a solid double in the gap.

Well, I've dusted off another of the short stories that I have sitting in the vault. I'm kidding with that vault business. I have a few things laying around finished or unfinished. I haven't been writing a lot lately, simply focusing my time for publicity for "Dance on Fire". It has felt good to get the creative juices flowing again. Hopefully in the next few days I will be seeing the work to it's completion. It has elements of the ghostly, but it is not another ghost story. I don't want anyone to think that vampires and ghosts is all I can do.

Anyway, Fire Enthusiasts, I've got to go. It's rather late.

We'll talk soon...