John Harvey's new mystery novel FAR CRY comes out in June; it is his 100th book.…

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My husband's mother, Marjorie, would have been 76 today. I have been thinking of her all day--about what a nice person she was, how devoted she was to her husband and her children, how she fell head over heels for her grandchildren, and how, as fate would have it, their babyhood was the last blessing of her life.



This picture was taken about eleven years… Continue

Some kind soul at Houghton Mifflin sent me a copy of THE CROSSING PLACES by Elly Griffiths. This was such a compelling read that I stayed up late for three nights trying to squeeze in more chapters . . . and that's my favorite kind of book. The amateur sleuth here is English archeologist Ruth Galloway, an almost-forty, likable loner who lives in a small house on the Saltmarsh, a remote area of England where Ruth is not unlikely to find the occasional… Continue

I saw STATE OF PLAY today and thought it was a great film: a fascinating combination of ideas and a wonderful homage to the great ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN--evident in everything from Russell Crowe's 70s hairstyle to the scenes shot in a parking garage and outside the Watergate Hotel.



The film takes on the worlds of old and new journalism: Crowe… Continue

It is necessary, of course, for the Board of Health to notify people when a contagious disease has manifested itself in one's country, state or city; Swine flu has emerged with the suddenness that illness often uses to ambush the seemingly strong public immune system. People are healthy and then, in an instant, some of them are not.



So I understand… Continue