dmv.community is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A small regional Mastodon instance for those in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas. Local news, commentary, and conversation.

Server stats:

166
active users

Mom has been bored with her reading choices lately, so I've been looking for new things she might like. Mysteries make you want to turn to the next page by their nature, so I chose THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2018 because the guest editor is Louise Penny, who writes a series of low-key mysteries set in Quebec. Surely Penny will select similarly cosy mysteries, I thought.

Anyway, the second story in this book is about a street drug that's mixed with powdered dinosaur bone that makes you think you're a dinosaur when you snort it. ("Y is for Yangchuan Lizard", by Andrew Bourelle). I wonder what Mom will make of that one? (1/2)

Andrew Kuchling

Highlights:

* Michael Bracken's "Smoked" is a slice-of-life story about a reformed biker who now runs a barbecue joint, until the past catches up with him.

* Lee Child's "Too Much Time" is a Jack Reacher short story; I can see why this series is so popular.

* "Waiting on Joe", by Scott Loring Sanders, is a tight rural noir story of infidelity and murder.

* "PX Christmas", by Martin Limón, is set on a US Army base in Korea in the 1970s. Two MPs are looking for black-market resellers and end up pulled into an organized-crime drama.

* David H. Hendrickson's "Death in the Serengeti" features a park ranger who's unable to stop some poachers from killing animals, but who can make them pay a very high price for it.

I also learned that I don't like Joyce Carol Oates's work, or at least her story "Phantomwise 1972" that's included here.

(2/2)