Guest Blogger Kim Alden Mallin, M.D.

I was disappointed to find out that G. M. Ford's latest book Nameless Night was not part of his Frank Corso series. Over the years, I have come to enjoy the rogue journalist with his strong but sometimes misguided sense of justice and his photojournalist partner, Meg Dougherty (who also happens to be bizarrely tattooed over most of her body) ... but that's another story. Read the books.

Ford has written two series.

• Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca? introduced the Leo Waterman series about a bumbling, smart-mouth, rumpled Seattle private eye described as, "...the most likable private eye to make the scene since Travis McGee." In 2000, the sixth and last book of the series, The Deader the Better was published.

• Fury, the first of the Frank Corso series, appeared in 2002. In it a respected New York Times journalist (Corso) falls from grace and is booted from The Times after a highly publicized libel case. Now a renegade outcast, he ends up in Seattle where he becomes the "Harry Bosch of the Pacific Northwest." Blown Away, the Sixth and most recent Corso novel was based on an actual 2003 unsolved case and revolves around a series of deadly bank robberies.

Nameless Night is Ford's first stand-alone novel and is a new twist on an old premise ... amnesia. Kirkus Reviews writes:

A virtual sleepwalker for seven years wakes to a murderous reality. As a ward of the state, Paul Hardy has been living with a dozen other physically or emotionally impaired adults. Paul Hardy isn't his real name ... Who he is, or was, is a mystery, largely because he's never been known to utter so much as a syllable ... Hospitalized after being hit by a car, he ends up getting ... a new face along with a new set of synapses. And now he remembers a name: Wesley Allen Howard. Is it his ...? Suddenly, ill-intentioned men arise from a variety of alphabet agencies, and if he wants to stay alive, the ex-Paul Hardy had better find out why in a hurry. Yes, it's the old amnesia gimmick, but Ford (Blown Away, 2007, etc.) is such an ingratinting storyteller that you may well find yourself beguiled.

I found it a fast-paced and interesting read, but not exactly beguiling. I hope Corso returns soon.

I did find an interesting on-line interview with G. M. Ford Here, in which he talks about fulfilling his middle-aged dream of becoming a fulltime novelist and how he "didn't even have to endure the agony of rejected manuscripts or involuntary penury to achieve that position. He sold the first book he ever wrote within a year." I hate him. I have endured the agone of at least 100 rejection letters so far. Oh well, James Lee Burke's The Lost Get Back Boogie received 111 rejection letters, and John Grisham got 28 for A Time to Kill. I'm in good company.

Standing Room Only

Last night at the Annual Meeting of our Friends there was a SRO crowd, we figure about 87, give or take. A dozen or so kids were in the audience go get extra credit from a teacher who assigned attendance in a civics class, but otherwise an interested and supportive group.

Friends' president, Diane Hight spoke glowingly of the accomplishments of our Friends group achievements and it has been a stellar year. Again and again library staff has turned to our Friends for help and support and every time the Friends exceeded expectations. This is the fifth or sixth friends group I have worked with and it is the best by far.

Good job Friends!

Amelia Earhart Here January 24th

Always the trend setter, Amelia Earhart was photographed for the Modern Mechanix, January 1936 issue standing on a motorized scooter that looks much like the electric ones we see on the streets and sidewalks today. Don't miss the Ann Birney performance at our library this Thursday, Ann will perform as Amelia Earhart. She probably won't have the scooter. Thanks to girlbike.com for the reference.

Meanwhile in Scotland ...

Stuart MacBride writes a gritty police procedural set in Aberdeen, Scotland. Tagged as "Tartan Noir" by the Rocky Mountain News, this three book series is off to a dark start. Detective Sargeant Logan MacRae has his ups and downs as he bounces between the squads of two Detective Inspectors, one a fat, candy munching brute and the other a lesbian hard-case whose hair looks a fright and who rips into everyone around her with fervor and frequency.

The stories bring to light the seamy side of Scottish culture and crime with healthy doses of sex, violence, crime, and punishment thrown in for good measure. MacBride can keep a story moving and he covers the police action with attention to detail and never turns away from the hideous and ugly.

I started at the end with Bloodshot (2007) and am proceding backwards to Dying Light (2006) and will finish where he started with Cold Granite (2005.) The earliest one was not in our collection so I have ordered the paperback edition.

MacBride has an interesting website with some photographs of Aberdeen and he runs a blog on the site. His blog reflects his tough-guy take as he struggles with Internet access and problems with his wireless access. The bit of Scottish inflection in the dialog is easy to navigate and not a problem.

There is an interview of MacBride at The Mystery Reader.

Creating possibilities ...

Public library. Small town. Mission: Create Possibilities.

Julie Hildebrand takes on the mission to create possibilities over and over. In February she is introducing a new program series at the library about journaling in creative ways. The appeal of recording one's life is broad and ranges from daily weather notations to intimate ruminations. Many people start journals but fail to keep them going, getting bored with repetition or maybe simply running out of ideas. Adding a creative dimension to journaling may be just the element to add excitement and innovation to your efforts, stay tuned for more.

Look for notices at the library and on our website about the series which begins February 11.

Score One for Nick Wright

Local photojournalist, Nick Wright has the cover shot for this week's Time Magazine. Way to go Nick! I think that's me on the left.

Favorite Kansas Book Stores

My favorite bookstore in Kansas would have to be The Raven in Lawrence. At 6 East 7th Street, it is just off Mass and around the corner from a couple of good coffee shops. As you might surmise from the name it specializes in mystery offerings but carries a small eclectic mix of other interesting books as well. The staff is mystery-knowledgeable and helpful in suggesting authors and titles. The Raven started small and has stayed small. The new Borders in Lawrence is close enough to hit with a well-aimed Starbuck's brownie but I hope customer loyalty will keep the doors open at The Raven for many years. A steady stream of mystery writers come to The Raven for book signings. I saw Sue Grafton there a few years ago as did 75 or 80 others who gathered there that night. The Raven produces a free quarterly newsletter that features a couple of tight pages of forthcoming mystery titles.

Second, I will offer Watermark Books in Wichita as wonderful local bookstore worth a visit when you are visiting Wichita. Larger than The Raven, Watermark has more inventory and is more general in its offerings. A cozy cafe is tucked into a corner of the store and has a respectable menu. The store is located at 4701 East Douglas (corner of Douglas and Oliver Streets just a few blocks off of Kellogg.) Well worth our support.

Where else in Kansas are there book shops worth visiting? I'm not asking about the Borders or Barnes & Noble but locally rooted book shops hanging on by their fingernails since Amazon and the nationals have come on the scene. Drop in a Comment if you know of a shop or two.

Guest Blogger - Kim Alden Mallin, M.D.

My vacations are usually spent on small Caribbean islands, where the diving is great but the availability of good books isn’t. So I begin hoarding books several months before a trip, usually mailing ahead a box of books to avoid weighing down my luggage with 20 pounds of books.

On a recent dive trip, I finally broke down and read the latest Michael Palmer thriller, The Fifth Vial. I have been saving it for months, keeping it in case I ran out of anything good to read. The “fifth vial" was an extra tube of blood taken with every blood draw, surreptitiously sent for tissue-typing with the results stored in a massive database and used to illegally aid in international organ trading. And it was too bad if your liver matched the CEO of some big company...tell me that won’t make you think twice about getting your blood drawn next time you go to your doctor’s office!

Although perhaps not as well known as some other physician-authors, I find Michael Palmer every bit as good as Michael Crichton, Tess Gerritsen, or Robin Cook. Robin was two years ahead of Michael at Wesleyan and they both did their medical training at Mass General. It was after reading Robin Cook’s classic thriller, Coma, that he thought, “If Robin can write a book and has the same education as I do, why can’t I write a book?”

So he sat down with his typewriter and every night wrote one page. At the end of a year, he had 365 pages and a book titled The Corey Prescription. He sent it to a friend working at a New York publishing company who promptly told Michael that his writing was terrible…but that he had a great idea for a story. And that while writing could be taught, the creative part couldn’t and he believed Michael could be taught to write.

He has since written twelve books, including several New York Times bestsellers. My favorite is Natural Causes, the story of Dr. Sarah Baldwin, a holistic healing OB/GYN who discovers that her patients are mysteriously dying from an herbal vitamin she had prescribed. At the time this book was published, I had completed most of a surgery residency and greatly identified with being female in a mostly male world, where alternative views, attitudes, and beliefs were not readily accepted. I related so strongly to his protagonist that I wrote Michael a letter (yes, on paper…this was before the internet) expressing my appreciation for his portrait of women in medicine. Amazingly, he wrote me back and we have remained in contact. He credited his sister, also a physician, with helping him make Dr. Baldwin’s experience so authentic.

Another reason I admire Michael is because of his work with the Massachusetts Medical Society Physician Health Services. He serves as an associate director of this organization, which provides assistance to physicians battling problems such as chemical dependency and alcoholism. The Fifth Vial will be out in paperback later this month and his next hardcover, The First Patient, described by Entertainment Weekly as “a terrifying vision of the Hippocratic oath gone very wrong” comes out in February 2008-just in time for my next dive trip.