BOOK & BLOG

October 2, 2005

Book of the Week: Killing Time by Linda Howard

Linda Howard has long been one of my favorite romantic suspense writers. Her quality level is unbelievably high for a prolific author, and her plotting far surpasses many other writers in her neck of the genre. I just finished her latest book, Killing Time, with my usual sense of pleasure.

The female protagonist in Killing Time, Nikita Stover, has a big secret, a secret Howard makes sure we’re dying to know. And in Knox Davis, small town law officer, Howard’s created a guy almost any woman would like to spend time with. He loves his work, he’s a family-oriented man, and he’s a great policeman. He’s also open minded, which is the reason Davis and Stover work so well together.

We initially meet Nikita when she tells Davis she’s an FBI agent who’s arrived to investigate a killing in his small town. We know that’s not true. We also discover someone’s trying to kill Agent Stover, and we wonder why. Nikita’s secret turns out to be a real surprise, and one worth waiting for.

This was not my favorite Linda Howard (that would be Open Season, which should be required reading for any aspiring suspense author), but anything by Linda Howard is going to be good. It’s just the degree of goodness . . .

Blog

This has been a week with little accomplished, for me. My shoulder has done a lot of healing, and the stitches came out. Now I have to get back to work, which I thought I would do this past week. Somehow, my shoulder ached and I couldn’t concentrate, though I kept up with peripheral stuff, like my website. But I need to buckle under and get some pages written. The further behind I fall, the harder it is to write. At least I’ve got the next Harper pretty much mapped out, which is a major accomplishment.

I went to see “Serenity,” the long-awaited Joss Whedon movie featuring the cast of his failed television series, Firefly. It absolutely lived up to my expectations, and how often can I say that? I’m a big Whedon fan – some of the best writing in American televison was to be found on “Buffy,” and I belong to group of diehard fans called the Buffybuds – but a full-length movie like “Serenity” was a new venture for Whedon. With a big budget and the same actors and the wonderful writing, the whole evening was a happy event. I hope some of you enjoy it as much as I did.

Though I appreciate the excellent writing Elizabeth Kostova’s bestselling The Historian, I think I’m giving up. I plowed through the first segment of the book, waiting for the pace to pick up, and then put it aside for other obligations. I picked it up yesterday, and after a hundred pages or so, found more of the same. I don’t think it’s that I mind a slow book, though maybe my attention span is not as long as it should be. I think it’s that the pace and tenor of the book is even throughout, low-level dread. After a while, that gets to be boring. Don’t take my word for it. This book sold for The Big Bucks, and I wish Kostova well. Obviously, a lot of people found more in The Historian than meets my eye.

It was less than seventy degrees here this week, once or twice, and that is the sure signal that my favorite time of year is beginning. I love Fall. I love the colors, the celebrations, the fact that school is in (!), and the feeling of optimism and pleasure as the holiday season of the year draws near. I hope you all have a lot to be thankful for, as I certainly do. Have a great week.