The Literate Kitty

In the mood for a smart detective yarn that requires neither an epic binge session nor an immense cast of characters of which to keep track? BritBox’s The Tower [I watched via Amazon, which counts the streamer among their slate of add-on subscription options] makes for a fine choice. _______________ When a pair of detectives from the Met’s Special Investigations Division—DS Sarah Collins and her partner, DC Steve Bradshaw—are called to take charge at the scene of a tragic accident, they know it means one thing: a police officer was involved in the incident.   Only after they’ve arrived on the scene do they fully comprehend the nature of the tragedy, which has left two crumpled bodies—that of middle-aged beat cop, PC Hadley Matthews, and a teenage girl, Farrah Mehenni—lying facedown, in spreading pools of their own blood, at the base of a multi-story building. Meanwhile, a rookie cop, PC Lizzie Adama, is still on the roof, in shock, holding the hand of a scared five-year-old boy.

Everyone—and I mean, everyone —has secrets. [Yes, plural . I’d be willing to wager Mother Theresa had more than one thing she desperately wanted to keep on the downlow, and she was Mother-Frickin’-Theresa.] Those hidden things may or may not seem like big deals to you or me—were we somehow to find ourselves privy to them—but that’s never really the point, is it? The secrets we choose to keep always have some meaning, for us … and presumably, good reason for our going to the trouble of making sure they remain for-our-eyes-only. In Stay Close —Harlan Coben’s latest suspense-novel-to-Netflix-miniseries—there are plenty of secrets lying around… just waiting to be uncovered. Dug up. Exposed to the bright light of day. (And, basically, primed and ready to turn a whole lot of people’s lives into a right mucky mess.) _______________ Looking at it from the outside, chances are good you’d think that Megan Pierce is living a pretty sweet life. She has three healthy, well-adjusted kids (ra

I'm a fan of protein bars. You can grab one, throw it in the microwave for a few seconds (or not), and wolf it down—keeping your blood sugar up and the hangries at bay—in a couple minutes, flat. Short stories, to me, are the protein bars of the reading world. When life is too crazypants to devote (or even have ) the time and concentration a novel requires, a collection of such is nice to have on hand; select a quickie, dive into it on your lunch hour, Uber ride, or when you crawl into bed but aren’t quiiiite sleepy enough to turn your brain off, and voila, you've entertained your brain.  No, a short story isn’t my favorite thing to read… but sometimes, it's a good option. (And, in some cases--think Stephen King, or Edgar Allen Poe--it  can even be a brilliant art form, letting an amazing tale unfold in an almost-unbelievably short space.) So, when I saw that Norwegian mystery/thriller writer Jo Nesbø had a new book of shorts out—around the busy holiday season, no les