And now for something completely fluffy...

WOW! What a good book! I loved Martha Grimes The Old Wine Shades. I expected to read it as a fluffy mystery (which it is) but it also comments on the idea of story as important to life and about stringtheory and Shroedinger's cat. So it goes a bit beyond your average British mystery. 

Here are a few quotes about story:

"We always  dream a story" referring to the fact that our brain makes up a story for the random images are mind flings are way when asleep. As bizarre as they are they are all incorporated into a tale.

"You dream in symbols, yes, but the symbols take place in narrative form"

"Are you saying we live for stories?"

YEEES!!!!

The books prologue ends with "Man walked into a pub..." and from there Richard Jury and the reader are hooked. The story told over a series of days in a series of pubs begins a very crazy and bizarre mystery that the reader wants to solve. You are left guessing right up to the last page and at the end of the book just want to keep right on reading. I can't wait to pick up the next Martha Grimes novel. Good thing I bought a stack of them at the mega used book sale/fundraiser in my town this fall.

I am still obsessed with all things British since my trip to the UK this summer and this book didn't let me down. Filled with just enough street names and tourist locations to keep me happy I gleefully snapped up things about Fulham Road, Hatchards, Fortnum and Mason and Picadilly.
"You've got to understand with Harrod's you're there because you're there. It's a destination place, you know like Las Vegas or the La Brea Tar Pits"

Although this book was obviously not on any of my great classics lists it was well worth the tangent to read it. you have to go fluffy this time of year and I didn't have anything holiday themed to read.