The Nature of Things

Almost True Confessions: Closet Sleuth Spills All by Jane O'Connor My rating: 3 of 5 stars This bit of marshmallow fluff masquerading as a book would be just the ticket if one were spending a lazy day at the beach. While I wasn't at the beach, I did find it a pleasant diversion for a couple of days, and quite a departure from my usual reading material. Our "heroine" is Miranda Bookman, freelance copy editor for various New York publishing houses. She's freelance because she got fired from Simon and Schuster for an egregious mistake. One which was allegedly actually committed by an underling but she took the fall for it. The first thing you need to know about Miranda is that no one calls her that. She's "Rannie." Several of the women characters have cutesy nicknames. That's one thing they have in common. Another is that all the good gals are tiny - 5'2" or shorter and size 0 to 4. Anything larger is considered fat, the one mortal sin for...

My rating: 1 of 5 stars When I read recently that there was a mystery series featuring a copy editor as the sleuth, I was intrigued. Having been married to a copy editor for many years with a chance to observe his powers of deduction up close and personal, it occurred to me that a word sleuth might make a very good detective. So, of course I had to read it, and since I am an obsessive kind of reader who likes to read series books in order, I started with the first one, Dangerous Admissions. While the concept seemed a good one, the execution was amateurish and, frankly, had little to recommend it. I struggled through it to the bitter end, but only because I like to finish what I start. The protagonist is a divorced single mother living in New York. She was formerly employed by one of the big publishing houses, until she made an egregious mistake on the reissuing of a Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock . She failed to notice that the "l" was left out of "clock...