The Burrow

 Part Two about March Madness will be brief, because I was wrong about Yale (who advanced) and surprised by the Pac12 and I slept or read my way through most of the weekend's games once Arizona won in the morning slot.

The reading and sleeping went hand in hand because sometimes acorns fall far from their trees.  Dick Francis's British horse racing series was quick witted and quickly plotted and written in a sparing, blunt style.  His son, whose bio on the book flap says he could not deny that his family's gift of writing had been passed along to him, should have stuck with teaching A-level physics instead of continuing in his father's footsteps.

The father's books could be read as stand alone novels.  There were no characters for the son to bollix up.  But his dense paragraphs on the intricacies of the Value Added Tax, no matter how intrinsic to the plot, led to some of the most restful moments of my weekend.

I slept on the couch.  I slept on the bed.  I slept on the comfy chair in the library and the twisty-turny chair in the living room.  I plodded through the book between naps.  

It was only 260 pages.  It took me three days.  

The title is No Reserve.  You have been warned.

Karin Slaughter, on the other hand, wrote a page turner that made me glad the kiddos were on Spring Break and I didn't have to stop reading to start gardening.  After That Night follows the characters she created eleven novels ago, and they've matured nicely.  It can be read alone, or you can start at the beginning.  

Perhaps the best thing about this book was on the back cover.  James Patterson's blurb still makes me smile - Karin Slaughter has -by far- the best name of all of us mystery novelists.

I'm about to pick up Patricia Cornwell's newest Kay Scarpetta novel, Unnatural Death.  I remember not liking the last one, yet I remain hopeful.  I have Alexander McCall Smith's latest in my book bag if she disappoints.