I didn’t expect to like Swedish police detective, Kurt Wallender, but Kathy liked him and she doesn’t like bleak mysteries either, so I read Henning Mankell’s One Step Behind
This matters because there are many too many groups in the world, maybe especially in Minnesota or in my lifetime, and many too few people who know how to lead. All of a sudden, I have not one, but two examples of very good and very different group leaders in Kurt Wallender and, an old favorite hero whose latest mystery I just finished, Jack Reacher.
Reacher, in Lee Child’s Bad Luck and Trouble
Fig. #16. Looks like a peer group (of lobster buoys?) preparing a next move.
Kurt Wallander leads his police squad to a successful conclusion in a case that offers no obvious clues, had a hard-to-figure-out motivation, and gets him in hot water with his department leader, regional and national authorities, and members of the public. This is a meshed group of people who bring different experiences and qualities under Wallender’s direction to the solving of their shared cases.
Fig. #17. A meshed group of rocks makes a strong wall.
Who knew that group anything might be interesting? Maybe these should be case studies for a management wannabe.
) which is good because Roseledge Books only has a picture-less guide to Maine places where birds might be. But that wasn’t what I meant either.
, the latest John March paperback mystery. I like John March. I like his decisions, dialogue, NYC detail, and I like author Spiegelman’s continuing background of family, finance, friendships, maybe especially finance. Since Paul Erdman died, I’ve had no one so able to teach me about finance through fiction, and learning about money is part of knowing how the world works — my most major reading goal.
, though I have liked them until now. And Millie and Kathy both thought Tony Hillerman’s 
, his latest paperback with Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, was a little less. So were the last two Stephanie Plum “numbers” by Janet Evanovich. I thought each needed one more escapade, and it’s time to settle the Joe/Ranger issue. Do authors get bored with their characters after a while? I think I remember John Sanford saying he did. Do readers? I do.
. St. Martin’s Press, 2006
in Tenants Harbor.
. NY: Pocket Star Books, 2007
is the only must purchase for Roseledge Books. It REALLY covers the North Atlantic and has a nugget in the Notes which ties it to Tenants Harbor because TH is on Penobscot Bay. I’m not going to say more than that about that. Yes, it has Notes, which makes sense when a PhD in Archaeology decides to write a novel. I love this book for it’s balance of documentation and speculation.