Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday.

Knitting.

I continue to avoid the Big Red Blob, distracting myself with blue hats. Left to right, we have hat 1, done and blocked; hat 2, languishing in a Eucalan bath; and hat 3, OTN. These are all knit from Cascade Heritage sock yarn, which has generous yardage. These three hats will use up the .7 yard I have from the skein.

Reading.

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Stalker by Lars Kepler; #5 in the Joona Linna series. I did not enjoy this book as much as the previous ones. Mainly this was because the major character was in some of the previous books, and I never liked him. He was a squishy character; neither clearly a Good Guy or a Bad Guy. Joona Linna was only a dysfunctional minor character and who was weird after living in hiding for an unexplained period of time. I have requested the sixth book from the library; if that one fails to please me, I will give up on the rest of the series. 2.5✭

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Spider Lake by Jeff Nania. I read the first book in this series, Figure Eight, back in July, but I apparently did not blog about it. When I discovered that that first book was a mystery set in northern Wisconsin, I had to read it. I was not disappointed: it was rather good. But this second book, which I had been looking forward to, was a real disappointment. It dragged and dragged with very little happening. 1✭

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A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. This was for my book club. I have read a number of books set in WWII in the past year or so — this one, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Alice Network, The Huntress, The Rose Code. This one is a true story, about a twenty-something American woman who worked for the British as a spy in Vichy, France. Specifically, her job was to recruit, train, and organize spy rings (circuits) to sabotage the Germans, and she was amazingly effective. As a competent woman in an all-male world, she had a hard time getting respect even though she was spectacularly effective at her job. Her circuits even helped D Day be as successful as it was. 5✭

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Later by Stephen King. I have read nearly every book that King has written; this one did not measure up. The problem was that it needed to be longer; most of King’s books are at least 300-400 pages; this one is only 248. King’s way of building suspense takes more than 248 pages. This read almost like a Cliff Notes. 2.5✭

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The Turnout by Megan Abbott. Not exactly what I expected from a ballet book. Two sisters take over running their mother’s ballet studio when both parents are killed in a car accident when the sisters are teenagers. The older sister marries the star male dancer (before the book begins) and all three continue to live in the girls’ parents home. Dara is the conscientious older, married sister, Marie is the younger, super sensitive one, Charlie, Dara’s husband, takes care of the business end of the studio. He can no longer dance due to the many injuries suffered dancing when younger. Then a pipe bursts, flooding one of the studios; the contractor they hire turns out to be far more that what they expected. Interesting characters, suspense builds, things from the past slowly reveal themselves to the reader. 3✭

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Listening.

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The Rose Code by Kate Quinn. I finished this one last week. As much as I was enjoying it, the ending seemed to me to be rushed; the author had to tie up all the plot lines and match up the couples for a happy ending. But overall I can recommend this book. 4✭

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Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson. This one is about a woman artist, who with her husband, moves to a new town in Massachusetts… and discover that their next door neighbor is a serial killer. I am midway through, and have decided that my life would not be richer from listening to it. OK for pure escapism, which is fine with me; I am not reading for credit. 3✭

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Watching.

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I finally finished watching Rake. It was a bit sad to be done with it; it was a well-done series. But Cleaver Greene, the main character, was so self-destructive that sometimes it was hard to watch. 4✭

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We finished the X Files late last week. The last episode was kind of an anticlimax, given that the plot lines had been wrapped up in the previous episode.

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Next up for us is Downton Abbey. I have seen all of it twice, but Smokey has only seen parts. It will be fun to watch again. (The red circle in the photo is highlighting a plastic water bottle inadvertently left on the mantelpiece.)

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Bosch on Amazon Prime. I think I started watching the first episode and forgot about it, but now I am back. Seven seasons! This will be a good show to knit to, plus I may have a slight crush on the star.