What happened, and why am I in this dumpster?

As a thread title on one of my favorite message boards devoted to books proclaims, "Christopher Moore is a genius." I reached back into the archives for Bloodsucking Fiends, and I confess that I concur with the assessment.

Jodi has a problem - she's woken up in a dumpster with a burned hand and slowly discovers that she's newly nocturnal with a bloodlust problem. She's a vampire, and while it's done wonders for her hair she's finding normal business hours to be rather inconvenient to her undead life. Enter C. Thomas Flood, a fresh-off-the-turnip-truck arrival in San Francisco, hoping to be a writer but spending his time night-managing/bowling with frozen turkeys at a local grocery store. Jodi spies the perfect new boyfriend (she's a serial monogamist) in Tommy, and Tommy sees, well, an attractive woman giving him the time of day for the first time ever. A perfect match? Mostly, but there's that small matter of Jodi's creator to deal with....

Moore's comic stylings are absolutely note-perfect - he's the absolute master of the unexpected bon mot and witty suckerpunch. I can't get enough of the way he sets up a joke so perfectly and then delivers it just exactly the right way to catch you slightly off-guard. He does nicely with his inversion of the usual formulae - the typical tough guys and giggly girls give way to slacker beta males and gals more than capable of fighting the forces of darkness (if not runs in their pantyhose). Even the bit characters get their moment in the sun - Tommy's five Chinese roommates all hoping to marry him to get their green cards pop up in typically endearing fashion.

I'll definitely be picking up the sequel (You Suck) and will continue to delve into his substantial backlist.

Unknown in Kansas

On the strength of the Edgar Award nomination, I grabbed Nancy Pickard's latest, the standalone title The Virgin of Small Plains. I read one of her Jenny Cain novels many years ago (the Bionic Mom is a fan), but hadn't turned back to her since.

It's 2004 in the tiny town of Small Plains, Kansas, and things have changed since the night in 1987 that the body of a young Jane Doe is found in the middle of a snowstorm. Never identified, her grave has become a pilgrimage site as believers come in the hopes of experiencing a miracle. Abby Reynolds, only 16 when the body was found, feels that now is the time to give the Virgin back her name and find out once and for all what happened that night. After all, she's emotionally invested - her high school sweetheart, Mitch Newquist, suddenly and mysteriously left town the day after the body was found, with no explanation or contact since. Turning to her longtime friend and current sheriff Rex Shellenberger, Abby blows open the mystery like a Kansas twister.

Pickard's trying something new here, and I think it works - there's a strong Jodi Picoult vibe running throughout, particularly in how the characters are drawn and the significance of their relationships. She also makes excellent use of her native Kansas for her setting - the mercurial moods of Central Plains weather take on a life of their own in her description. My only nitpick is the somewhat obvious mid-twist (the twist before the final one) that sets up the third act - while I give Pickard points for using different clues to cue a common plot point, it was still a bit too easy to guess. Overall, a strong showing - I'd love to see another standalone from her.

Required Reading

Miss Literacy may love to read, but she also has a soft spot for the dismal science of economics - far from being financial reports and interest rates, the field provides a really fascinating lens through which to view human behavior. Unfortunately, few people seems to share Miss Literacy's view, as so many of our current political debates appear to be predicated on a complete lack of understanding of basic economic principles.

It seems to me that the level of discourse on significant issues would be vastly improved if everyone were required to read Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich are Rich, the Poor are Poor, and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car. Awesomely noir/comic-book cover styling aside, Harford's insights are a great explanation of how so many of our great political challenges (the environment, illegal immigration, health care, etc.) have their roots in a market failure. Not only that, he also explains with devastating clarity just how ass-backwards some of the proposed solutions are when considered from the perspective of an economist.

Harford's mostly coalescing many of the major theories in economics here, but his writing style does a much better job of presenting the theories to a general audience than the vast majority of economic writing. The little glimmers of British humor sprinkled throughout the text are delightfully endearing, and his frequent use of clarifying examples turns Nobel-winning academic research into a relatable and engaging story.

But perhaps best of all, I know have the perfect book to recommend to anyone interested in viable political problem-solving. Now, to get all of those politicians to read it.....

Followed by a black dog

The British use the term "black dog" to mean a sense of pervasive melancholy that follows you everywhere, and Stephen Booth picks it up as the title of his debut novel set in the Peak District of Northern England.

To newly-arrived officer Diane Fry, Detective Constable Ben Cooper seems to have it all - when they set out on initial interviews in the case of a missing teenage girl named Laura Vernon, everyone seems to know Cooper's name and speak of his father with reverence. Needless to say it needles Fry, an aggressive up-and-comer eager to use her new appointment as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. However, Cooper's life (like Fry's) is far more than meets the eye - both are trying to escape a past that just can't quite let them go.

As they throw themselves into the Vernon case, the duo find that all of their suspects are something more than they originally appear as well. The dogwalker that found Laura's shoe is oddly cryptic in his interviews and seems to know just how to push the police officers' buttons, but what about Laura's family? Her mother vacillates between heartbroken and coldly unemotional, while her father insists the gardener did it and her brother returns from university seemly for the sole purpose of exposing the family's secrets. As the clues and red herrings pile up, Cooper and Fry clash over their different styles and their mutual need to keep their own secrets....

This one was a recommendation from the Bionic Mom, and I can see why she liked it - Booth does a great job of setting the scene of desolate-yet-beautiful moors and small, insular British farming towns. There's something about an English setting that lends such a different feeling to the same plot set in America. Unfortunately, so many of the plot and character elements feel just as derivative as the setting is distinctive.

I have to confess that the "tortured hero/heroine" shtick is so unbelievably tired to me - honestly, if your only experience with law enforcement is reading mysteries you'd think that losing a beloved family member to crime or being the victim of a violent attack yourself is as obligatory to the job as passing the physical exam. I realize that authors feel the need to give their officer heroes a reason for being in their line of work, but I'd be just as happy with the "I just want to help people" rationale - at least that's somewhat more likely be representative of reality.

Overall, average but nothing special. The Bionic Mom promises that his most recent book is his best - look for that in the near future.