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Carto’s Recent Posts
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- Twisted — An Arizona garden in California
- The Thinker Waits
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- Transformation — Land’s End turns chilly
- Peek — Halloween in Palo Alto
- Stanford at Night
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- Waiting — Horses Crossing
Carto’s Most Viewed Posts
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- China Girl on an Italian Motorcycle
- Donna Tartt -- The Goldfinch Unchained
- Bojagi: Art by the Women of Korea
- Zero To Hero — Donna Tartt spins a murder tale in Vermont
- Stephen Foster: Darkies, People and Great Music
- Toni Morrison— Home, A Memorial to Civil Rights and The Korean War
- Celebrating Gabriel García Márquez And Ice
- The Strain—Vampires Dine On New York City's Finest
- Havana Noir, Cuban Detective Fiction
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Posts Organized by Category
Category Archives: Mystery
Peek — Halloween in Palo Alto
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 iPhone, iphoneography, Wordpress
4 Comments
Zero To Hero — Donna Tartt spins a murder tale in Vermont
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 A. E. Housman, American Literature, Bennington College, Donna Tartt, Hampden College, postaweek, The Secret History, Vermont
2 Comments
The Robber Bride: Woman against Women
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
Posted in Crime novel, Fiction, Mystery
Tagged Margaret Atwood, postaweek2011, Salman Rushdie, Toronto
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DeLillo: The White Noise of Civilization
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
Posted in Fiction, Mystery
Tagged American Literature, postaweek2011, Review, Toxic Spill
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Noir Buenos Aires, A Homophobic Taxi Driver
“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
Introducing Sicily and Inspector Montalvano
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
Murder Most Grim on the English Moors
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
Bumbling Detective saves Czarist Russia
A bizarre suicide in a public square teeming with Muscovites enjoying a sunny springtime day is the opening scene in this quirky Russian detective story The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin; the date is the 13 of May 1876. A … Continue reading
Rough Guide to Bangkok Underworld
A Nail Through the Heart is a crime thriller set in the exotic underworld of the government authorized entertainment zones in Bangkok Thailand. In these zones explicit sex shows are legal as is the sale of all types pornographic materials. … Continue reading
Bricklayer Mets Out Justice
In the opening chapter of the crime-terror novel Bricklayer, Steve Vail, a former FBI agent turned brick mason, is making a routine transaction at his branch bank. Suddenly, two armed men enter the bank intent on robbery. But the robbery … Continue reading
