Post-Holiday Post

As noted a few weeks ago, as a Christmas gift to myself, I hired a professional organizer to help me get rid of the overflow of stuff around the house. (here) So while most people have been dashing about malls and department stores in a shopping frenzy, I have been busy getting rid of things. 

Lori the Organizer and I have had four sessions of two hours each. That's about all I can deal with at one time. We have attacked the clothes closet, the pantry/laundry space, and the kitchen cabinets and drawers. Yesterday, we dealt with what the dust bunnies had been guarding under the bed, and we sorted through a few shelves of notebooks, gift bags, tissue paper, and canvas tote bags. 

Whew. In all, she has carried away two bins of clothes and shoes, five large tote bags of kitchen and pantry stuff, and yesterday, two bags of linens and the other miscellaneous items that had been hiding behind closed doors.

Add to that a trash bag or two and the house does seem to be a bit lighter. 

I decided early on into the process that I wasn't going to worry about sorting out books. They are not clutter. Well, most of them anyway. My one rule - made after I tearfully waved goodbye to a jean jacket from the '80s - was that if it made me cry to get rid of an item then that item stayed! 

I have also spent many hours on my own sorting, organizing, and tossing art and craft supplies. That in itself was a gargantuan task, but I do believe for the moment that area of my life is tidy.

I tell you all this because with the holidays and the clearing out project, I haven't had much time to read - or honestly to even think about reading - except at bedtime.

I did keep warm and cozy under the covers with Alexander McCall Smith's latest No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mystery The House of Unexpected Sisters. In this adventure, Mma Ramostwe has an unsettling family mystery of her own to solve so she turns over the case of a woman who was allegedly fired from her job for an unjust reason to her agency partner Grace Makutsi. After many cups of tea and a slice or two of Mma Potokwani's delicious fruit cake, both mysteries are solved and all ends well.

Just last night I finished A Fool and His Monet by Sandra Orchard. Serena Jones is an FBI agent with the Art Crime Team. She joined the investigative agency in hopes of one day solving the murder of her grandfather by an art thief during a robbery. The action in the first of this promising series takes place in St. Louis. There are a few stereotypical characters - Serena's mother reminds her often how she would love to have grandchildren; her goofy Aunt Martha loves a good mystery and somehow entangles herself in this one; and, of course, there are two handsome men who could possibly provide romance. But, that said, I enjoyed the puzzle and quite liked Serena.

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On a sad note, a favorite author and fellow Louisvillian Sue Grafton died over the holidays. I have read and enjoyed all of her Kinsey Millhone books up through V is for Vendetta. I once lived near Santa Barbara - her fictional Santa Teresa - and it was fun to read about and recognize those familiar coastal locales in her books. Her last mystery, published in August 2017, was Y is for Yesterday so I do have a few 'letters' left to read. 

As her family said after her death, for them, and many of Ms. Grafton's fans, the alphabet now ends in Y.

I snapped this (somewhat fuzzy) photo of Sue Grafton

in November 2013 at the Kentucky Book Fair.

Precious Ramatswe vs. Isabel Dalhousie

I am always happy to discover a new tale in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. There is something about the way he tells the stories of Precious Ramatswe and Grace Makutsi that comforts me, calms my breathing, and lowers my blood pressure. 

The latest, The Handsome Man's De Luxe Cafe, is no exception. All sorts of exciting things happen - well, exciting for Botswana where the action takes place. Mma Makutsi opens the restaurant of the book's title - along with keeping her desk at the agency - and learns that being The Big Boss is not all that it is cracked up to be. Mma Ramatswe hires another detective - certainly low man on the totem pole - who helps her investigate the case of the Woman Who Can't Remember Her Name.

As always, many cups of bush tea and fat slices of cake are consumed, the little white van plays a starring role, Mma Makutsi's shoes once again talk to her and warn her about certain employees hired for her new venture, and the sights and sounds of Botswana fill one's senses. 

Always, and in all ways, a delight.

I wish I could say the same for Mr. McCall Smith's mystery series set in Edinburgh, a wonderful city full of history and tantalizing streets, and home to the Sunday Philosophy Club (which never meets). The detective here is of the amateur kind - Isabel Dalhousie. She is a character I would so like to like - but I just don't. I find her to be bossy and nosy and although she thinks she means well, she says and does the most hurtful things. 

Isabel is a woman in her forties, is comfortably well-off financially, and lives alone in her large family home that is taken care of by housekeeper Grace, who is not shy about stating her opinion on most everything. 

Isabel is the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics and spends part of her days reading submissions to the journal for publication. The rest of her time is spent having lofty thoughts on moral duty and analyzing everyday philosophical dilemmas. 

There isn't much mystery here. In the first book, Isabel sees a young man fall to his death from 'the gods', the upper balconies, in the theater. Was it an accident, a suicide, or a murder? When this one is solved, practically on the final page, Isabel's reaction to the outcome seemed rather suspect. 

In the second book, Isabel meets a man who has had a heart transplant and he keeps having fearful visions of a man's face. This gives Isabel plenty of chances to jump to conclusions which, for as much as she Analyzes Everything, seems out of character. 

Twice before, I have attempted to read the first book in this series and now, basking in the glow of The Handsome Man's De Luxe Cafe, thought I would give Isabel another try. I made it through books one and two - The Sunday Philosophy Club and Friends, Lovers, Chocolate. 

Alas, my interest in Isabel has more than waned; it has ended.

I blame part of my sticking with Isabel and her prying ways on being stuck in my house by the ten inches of snow and bitter cold that we are experiencing. I downloaded the books from the library onto my Kindle. So easy. But, I am afraid I will have to leave Edinburgh and Isabel Dalhousie and patiently wait for the further adventures of Precious Ramatswe in  Botswana.