WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? Siracusa by Delia Ephron. Two troubled couples take a Sicilian vacation together. Taylor is a beautiful but tightly wound working mom, married to restaurateur Finn. Lizzie is a journalist, married to Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Michael. Lizzie is annoyed that Taylor and Finn brought their 10-year-old daughter along, and confused by Michael's attention to the girl. Does this mean Michael regrets he and Lizzie never had children?

Each chapter is narrated by a different member of the quartet. Delia successfully established separate voices for each of them. So far (about a third of the way through), I like Lizzie best -- not that any of them is especially likeable. There's a tingly sense of dread enveloping this trip. I don't know what's going to happen to these four, but I'm here for it.

2. What did you recently finish reading? If Death Ever Slept by Rex Stout. Do you know anyone who lives with their extended family? I don't either. It's probably just as well, because according to mysteries and melodramas, big multi-generational households are just a hotbed of crime.

 

Let's take the Otis Jarrell penthouse as an example. Mr. Jarrell is a millionaire businessman (back when a million dollars meant something) who shares his home with his wife, his wife's brother, his adult daughter and son and daughter-in-law, his personal assistant and his stenographer. First Jarrell is disturbed when it seems one of them is engaging in industrial espionage and costing him money. Then people in their circle start getting dead. There are many suspects, all with shifting allegiances. It's all too complicated for me!

But not for Nero Wolfe (and Archie Goodwin). A fun and worthy entry to the series.

 

3. What will you read next? Don't know.