Books 11 & 12

Since we spent three class weeks on The Grapes of Wrath, I managed to squeeze in two novels recently - Linda Fairstein's Entombed and Barbara Parker's Suspicion of Rage. Both of these books come from two of my favorite series and neither disappointed this time out. The Fairstein novel, the seventh in the Alex Cooper series, was full of interesting trivia about Edgar Allan Poe and made me want to visit the Botanical Gardens and Hall of Fame in The Bronx. Suspicion of Rage is the eighth book in the Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana series and this one is set in Anthony's native Cuba. Parker's dialogue within relationships is very real, whether it's a conversation between husband/wife, father/son or step-siblings, and I learned quite a bit about Cuba, a country I know very little about. Coincidentally, I was trying to finish this book Wednesday night just before the "90 Miles Away" Cuba episode of The West Wing came on. Personally, I thought the book was more interesting than this week's episode. (Trying to depict Kate Harper as some kind of Sydney Bristow was lame.)

Now this weekend I have to read In Cold Blood for the third time (I haven't read it since 1992), plus a copy of Michele Martinez's Most Wanted is waiting for me at the library.