Joining Kat and friends on Unraveled Wednesday.

Knitting.

Not yet. I have not knit a stitch in two weeks.

Reading.

I finished Just Mercy — what a good book! Brian Stevenson is an excellent storyteller. 5★

Next was Christine Falls by Benjamin Black, which turned out to be author John Banville’s pseudonym when he writes a mystery. Banville is a literary writer, and this mystery novel is several hundred per cent more literary than the typical mystery/suspense novel. It took me by surprise, not being quite what I expected. Call me shallow, but I prefer my escapist reading to be more formulaic and less literary. YMMV. 3★ (my rating), 4.5★ (as literature)

Oddly enough, the next book I picked up, Borderlands by Brian McGilloway, which, like Christine Falls, was also set in Ireland. If Christine Falls was full of lush description and inner dialogues, Borderlands was straight to the point with no hidden agendas — much more my style. But I cannot recommend it. I had trouble keeping the characters straight — and I had no recognition of the the bad guy at the end. Where did he come from? I thought, and even though I flipped through the first third of the book I never did figure out who he was. 2★

Next on my pile of library books was Thief River Falls* by Brian Freeman, a Minnesota mystery author. I have thoroughly enjoyed his Jonathan Strider series so I was looking forward to this one. The best laid hopes expectations, however… This was a stand-alone book and was wholly implausible. A female author, originally from the titular town in northwest Minnesota, discovers a child in her yard. Said child has no recollection of how he got there, where he came from, or even his name. The sheriff’s deputies are after him, apparently at the behest of the local district attorney, a sworn enemy of the protagonist. The ending did not explain the rest of the book’s mystery to me. 2★

* The book was all the more disappointing because I had to pursue it through a series of computer glitches. I first requested it at least six months ago, maybe longer, and although the online catalog has shown it to be available for months, and although I requested my librarian twice to get it for me, it wasn’t until the second time that the book actually arrived at my library. No one’s fault, I think; just a glitch in the system.