Books 10.5 through 13

10.5 King Arthur The Man and the Legend Revealed by Mike Ashley

11.  The Cabinet of the Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

12. Still Life with Crows by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

13. Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

I didn't really read King Arthur (hence the .5.) My mother-in-law offered this to me from her retirement community's library; she hadn't read it. It was a very dry historic text, starting with Roman rule. I thought it would get more interesting. It didn't. I mention it because I did spend some time on it. The author concludes two historical figures primarily contribute to the mythic Arthur. I don't even remember their names.

Onto to the Preston and Child books.

Archaeologist Nora Kelly returns in  The Cabinet of the Curiosities along with Bill Smithback. Nora first appeared in Thunderhead, which had been my favorite of the Preston and Child books. I thought the title was just a play on words, but it's a real term of art.

FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast (Relic and Reliquary) also returns to solve a series of crimes that have spanned a century. I was intrigued by glimpses into Pendergast's family.

Still Life with Crows is another gem. Here Pendergast travels to Medicine Bend, Kansas, to investigate a brutal murder in a dying town. Crows impaled on authentic 19th century Cherokee arrows surround the body. Pendergast hires a local teenager Corrie Swanson, first as a driver, later as an assistant. I really liked Corrie and was glad to hear that she returns in later novels.

Bonus for me: I figured out who the killer was. It was late in the book, but before the ending.Yay me.

Living Dead in Dallas is the second Sookie Stackhouse vampire series. I liked the True Blood  TV series with Anna Paquin as Sookie. Several tears ago, I read the first of the series Dead Until Dawn.

Living Dead in Dallas is the basis of Season Two of the series. The series elaborated on many of the subplots: Jason, Tara, Sam, Mary Ann, even Eggs had much more to do on the show than in the book.

What to read next? I still have magazines piled up. I went to two book sales recently. The most productive was at the Mark Twain Library in Redding. I picked up Living Dead in Dallas there as well as The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, Daphne by Justine Picardie, and The Nine Days Queen by Mary Luke. Sunday I picked up Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie at the Kent Library book sale. I read the book years ago, but have renewed interest after re-watching the film several times.