Category Archives: Mystery

Peek — Halloween in Palo Alto

Posted on November 2, 2017 by

Take a peek at this figure hiding behind a traffic cone. What’s going on? It’s all a part of Halloween in Palo Alto — four blocks were closed to traffic and most of the home owners prepared special effects (one … Continue reading →

Posted in Mystery, Photography, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Zero To Hero — Donna Tartt spins a murder tale in Vermont

Posted on January 3, 2014 by

Murdered—Bunny is dead. He’s lying there at the foot of Mt. Cataract buried by a fateful April snow: “He’d been dead for ten days before they found him, you know. It was one of the biggest manhunts in Vermont history— … Continue reading →

Posted in Crime novel, Fiction, Mystery, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Robber Bride: Woman against Women

Posted on October 25, 2011 by

It is October 23, 1990 and the setting is an avant-garde restaurant in Toronto. A tall well-dressed woman walks into the Toxique at lunchtime. Her name is Zenia. She is tall, well-formed and about 50 years old, but she looks … Continue reading →

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DeLillo: The White Noise of Civilization

Posted on September 28, 2011 by

It’s September and the year is 1984. Students are moving into college dorms. They bring with them their entertainment: stereo sets, radios, personal computers, cartons of phonograph records and cassettes. Today, of course, there would be no phonographs or cassette … Continue reading →

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Noir Buenos Aires, A Homophobic Taxi Driver

Posted on June 3, 2011 by

“A shoemaker!” thinks Mareco. The thought is more that the homophobe can stand, “A shoemaker!” Mareco’s life is a disaster; he can’t sleep at night so he drives a cooperativa (taxi) until dawn—not the safest job for an inept and … Continue reading →

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Introducing Sicily and Inspector Montalvano

Posted on May 24, 2011 by

What is the shape of water? Surely, it is whatever shape you give it—and so the police inspector describes the evidence in this deceptive murder mystery set in modern Sicily. A wealthy and influential engineer is discovered dead in his … Continue reading →

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Murder Most Grim on the English Moors

Posted on May 17, 2011 by

The sky is grey, oppressive and it is threatening rain, unusual for this part of California. This is perfect weather and atmosphere for writing about a British murder mystery set in the Northern England countryside. I can visualize the fog … Continue reading →

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