The Puzzling X

Let’s just jump dead on into book number 24 in Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series, X.  Yes, yes.  Let’s just jump right into it.

Here’s the deal: There are three narratives (as opposed to the term “plot”–which Grafton dislikes using) happening in Kinsey’s latest adventure.  And all three read like b-narratives provided in one fluid swoop.  And get this!  Except for the prologue, Grafton doesn’t use time jaunts this time around.  That’s right.  This one is strictly from the perspective of Kinsey.  But to be clear about my excitement, the time jaunts in the last five books didn't bother me.  Just putting that out there.

Narrative Beats

Let's talk about those narratives first...

B-Narrative 1:  A divorced woman misses the lavish lifestyle she once shared with her wealthy husband.  As the split takes its financial toll, she becomes more and more unwilling to give up the furs and jewelry.  So to speak.  Even so, the divorce came from her reactionary hands, leaving her with repercussions of financial lost.  But how else was she suppose to respond, when her husband's affair involves a friend?  More importantly, how does she plan to stay afloat?  Well, stealing a painting from her husband’s basement is one.  She just needs Kinsey’s help in locating a capable thief, fresh out of prison.  Of course, this information isn’t disclosed to a blindsided Kinsey Millhone.  And when Kinsey finds out, she's hot on this sneaky woman's ass.  Nobody plays Ms. Millhone and gets away with it!  Or will this be Kinsey's match?

B-Narrative 2:  Racing in tight trajectory; an elderly couple settles next door to Kinsey and her landlord, Henry.  While the elderly woman of the duo seems capable and bouncy, her husband comes confined to a wheelchair.  This, in turn, has his wife begging both Kinsey and Henry for small-time favors with a sympathetic lean.  One day she’s asking Henry to take her to the grocery store.  The next she’s begging Kinsey to watch her husband as she slips off to the dentist. Then one day Kinsey’s investigative antenna probes upward, when she witnesses the couple dumping their trash into the bins of their neighbors.  A paper trail of scandal ensues.  And this sweet couple is maybe not so sweet.

B-Narrative 3 (Resoundingly A):  I consider this the core story.  It seemed to hold the book together as a narrative common to a Kinsey investigation.  Why?  Because it features killers and murder, of course.  It also directly follows a stream of events that took place in the previous book, W is for Wasted.  

The IRS is on the phone–but not in pursuit of Kinsey.  Instead, they are hounding the wife of Kinsey’s former investigator trainer, Pete Wolinsky.  Reeling from the IRS's demands for documents sequestered by Pete, it's Pete’s wife, Ruthie, who seeks Kinsey for help.  Pro bono and as a family friend.  Before his death, Pete left a banker’s box to his once trainee.  Once in which Kinsey discovers a false bottom.  Inside Pete secreted a package containing a Bible, rosary, birthday card, and a family portrait.  And a deeper look unveils a list of random, coded numbers listed on a slice of paper.  Soon after Kinsey’s discovery, she finds her office completely trashed.  Somebody cold and calculating wants what she's discovered.  And now it’s up to her to find him before he finds her.

And that’s what X consist of.  And, to be just a little honest, a Kinsey book I found kind of lukewarm and weak by the end of each thread. 

The Aquarius View: The Next Always by Nora Roberts

"The historic hotel in Boonsboro has endured war and peace, the changing of hands, and even rumored hauntings. Now it's getting a major face-lift from the Montgomery brothers and their eccentric mother. As the architect in the family, Beckett's social life consists mostly of talking shop over pizza and beer. But there's another project he's got his eye on: the girl he's been waiting to kiss since he was sixteen.

After losing her husband and returning to her hometown, Clare Brewster soon settles into her life as the mother of three young sons while running the town's bookstore. Though busy and with little time for romance, Clare is drawn across the street by Beckett's transformation of the old inn, wanting to take a closer look...at both the building and the man behind it.

With the grand opening inching closer, Beckett is happy to give Clare a private tour - one room at a time, in between blueprint meetings and kindergarten pickups. It's no first date, but these stolen moments are the beginning of something that could arouse the secret yearning that resides in Clare's independent heart - and open the door to the extraordinary adventure of what comes next..."

Headache Free Zone

Let’s get a little bit into this contemporary romance touched with paranormal and predictable-cheesy-stalker-antagonist love story.

I liked The Next Always, and look forward to catching the next two acts in the trilogy with stars and hope in my eyes.  You see, neither the heroine nor hero of The Next Always aggravated me–which is always a plus for an emotionally detached Aquarius such as myself.  But let me tell you why I found myself pleased with the characters, while extending my hope for the same consistency in the next entries.  

"Manga" Flavia ~ The Girl Who Dreamed of Sailor Neptune & Alan Bradley

We got another one!  Finally, after spending the summer away from the drawing board, I picked up my pen and paper and got to work.  The idea was just sketch something out.  Sometime simple.  Something clean.  Just anything to get the drawing juices flowing.  Gathering my supplies, I decided to include some extra equipment.  That would be my camera and my lamp.  And this is where I ended up...

PENCIL & SKETCH

INK & TRACE

~1~Sailor Moon Playing Cards (Video)

Amazon Affiliate link to 2012's deck style!

2000 -2001 Sailor Moon Collectible Card Game (Video)

Oh How I LOVED His Mask

I’m not going to speak much about Japanese writer Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask.  A modest description: the fraught inner confessions of a closeted man coming up in Japan between the 20s and 50s.  But the book is also a meditative (sometimes to the point of brooding) and introspective encounter.  One you’ll have to witness for yourself–if you will.  I say that because the book seems driven more or less by plot, and it wasn't until its conclusion that I took it as less. 

So to me, Confessions of a Mask wasn't a diarist scratching pen to paper underneath a burning candle.  Though it's easy to see the book that way, as it chronicles the events of Mishima’s protagonist from childhood to adulthood.  However, a stimulating and introspective piece of fiction is what I left the book with–carried by a genuinely captivating protagonist.  So, thankfully, Mishima's lead owned a keen grasp of his surrounds and inner conflicts.  Enough to keep me engaged with his musings, and either frowning or grinning at his choices. 

Within Mishima's protagonist, the book addresses familiar social, psychological, and physical arenas visited by gay men.  And the protagonist delivers pieces of the verbose identifiable with others who've found themselves locked in his view and scenarios. 

However, an acknowledgeable distinction comes from the region, culture, and time the book takes place.  To elaborate a little, Mishima’s protagonist finds a multitude of reasons to acquaint an attractiveness for death with being gay.  Though the contemplation of death is not foreign for gay men to preoccupy themselves with; culturally speaking, many Japanese have a reverence for the subject of death (research Shinigami or Buddhism from the Edo Period forward).  This, in turn, shined a lot more brightly in Mishima's Confessions of a Mask.  Though that absolutely doesn't qualify as a detriment of any sort.  I only found it part of the flavor and uniqueness of this particular experience.  It also slipped in a sense of suspense regarding the protagonist's fate.

Wonderful book.  Easily five stars for me.  I will definitely follow up on more Mishima novels.

1997 Sailor Moon Cards by Card Zillion & Ban Dai