For almost a week I have been sequestered with COVID. During the first three days (Days 0, 1, and 2 in sequester jargon), my eyeballs ached so badly that I could not read. On the fourth day, which is Day 3 on the COVID-recovery calendar, my symptoms changed and migrated from my head and throat to my chest, and I was able to read large print crime novels. Having nothing else to do, I read four books in three days. Three were recent works of authors I’ve been reading for decades. All three of these established writers used up their best storylines years ago, but they all still know how to write. Their latest books provided me with what I was looking for in my somewhat foggy condition: decent prose and familiarity.
Four novels in three days, however, led to a case of crime fiction overload. I’d breezed through them in a short timespan, but was left with the sense that they hadn’t offered anything different from a dozen other books I’d read in the past six months. I decided to put crime fiction aside for a while and read either literary fiction or nonfiction. I have trouble understanding complicated literary fiction even when I am not sick, so I was leaning toward the latter, at least nonfiction that wouldn’t ask me to think too much. A qualifier that I not think much eliminates philosophy and left me with either current events or popular science. I settled on Frank Bruni’s The Age of Grievance, a book I’d started earlier in the summer, but had put aside for a reason I cannot remember.
Of the four crime novels I read, one was by an author who was new to me. Of the four, I liked it the least. I keep trying new authors in hopes of finding someone unique, non-gimmicky, and good. I don’t expect to relive the excitement of the first time I stumbled across an early Spenser* novel, but I do occasionally find authors who make me want to run out and find what else they’ve written. And while I never expect it, I do on a rare occasion, maybe once every ten years, come across someone who clearly elevates the genre. Tony Hillerman, Michael Connelly, and James Lee Burke fall into that category. The shelves of my public library’s New Book section now carries more readable crime fiction than it ever has, but it gets harder and harder to find something exceptional. Still, it is fun to keep trying.
As far as my bout with COVID, I must be getting better. A few days ago I thought I wouldn’t produce a blog at all. This morning I felt well enough to write, and this is the result. The prose feels a little clunky, but clunkiness captures the way I feel right now. I have no interest in writing about my emergence from COVID hell, so the only topic left to write about is the books I’ve been reading.
* Spenser is the protagonist, not the author. Robert B. Parker was the author. Now that I think about it, most contemporary crime series are referred to by the main character, not the author. Reacher novels, Bosch novels, Spenser novels.
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