“He wondered now how many people there were […] living their back-up plan; who were office drones or office cleaners, teachers, plumbers, shop assistants, IT mavens, priests and accountants only because rock and roll, football, movies and authordom hadn’t panned out. And decided that the answer was everyone. Everyone wanted a life less ordinary. And only a tiny minority ever got it, and even they probably didn’t appreciate it much.”
— Slow Horses (Mick Herron)
“Pike was good at waiting, which was why he excelled in the Marines and other things. He could wait for days without moving and without being bored because he did not believe in time. Time was what filled your moments, so if your moments were empty, time had no meaning. Emptiness did not flow or pass; it simply was. Letting himself be empty was like
putting himself in neutral: Pike was.”
— The Last Detective (Robert Crais)
LibraryThing is a social cataloging web application for storing and sharing book catalogs and various types of book metadata. It is used by authors, individuals, libraries, and publishers. It went live on August 29, 2005 and has 2,600,000 users and over 155 million books catalogued. (Wikipedia)
I started using LibraryThing in September of 2005 and currently have 896 books in the database: 596 fiction, 236 non-fiction… by 336 authors. Some of my favorites:
John Sandford (43)
Michael Connelly (33)
Lawrence Block (31)
Sue Grafton (23)
Elmore Leonard (23)
John D. Macdonald (22)
Robert B. Parker (22)
Ross Thomas (21)
Bill Granger (15)
John Grisham (15)
William Gibson (14)
Carl Hiaasen (13)
Neal Stephenson (13)
Robert K. Tanenbaum (12)
James S. A. Corey (11)
Gregory Mcdonald (11)
Robert Parker (11)
James Patterson (11)
Nelson DeMille (10)
I continue to fine-tune my tags. Still the best snap-shot of my interests.
PS: Amazon says I’ve purchased more than 700 books starting in 1998.
The classified ad below ran in the Daily Dunklin Democrat in 1960. This would be like Mayberry or Petticoat Junction having a detective agency. Kennett would have had a population of about 10,000 and everybody knew everybody’s business. Sure would love to go back in time and meet what had to be the town’s only private dick.
Two Kennett pals have come up with a little more information. The “Detective Agency” was a guy named Dick Graeges. According to long-time Dunklin County Sheriff, Raymond Scott, Graeges was a criminal and con man responsible for a bomb that blew up the sheriff’s car outside the county jail. Sheriff Scott tells the story in this 1989 interview on the local access channel in Kennett. (runs about 12 minutes)
I recall my father telling me a couple of guys were killed while in Sheriff Scott’s custody. The following is from a Facebook book post by Frank Stoner:
“Many of you have heard me mention the connection between Buford (Pusser) and Dunklin County Missouri Sheriff Raymond Scott. Sheriff Scott was the one who notified Buford of the large illegal liquor shipments coming out of Pemiscot County Missouri. He was also the one Buford traveled to see and ask his advice on how to protect himself after the August 12th ambush. Sheriff Scott was the target of several assassination attempts himself. Including a gunfight in the sheriff’s office in the Dunklin County jail and a bomb blowing up his car outside of the jail. Both of which he mentions in this interview. (Part 1 of 2)
“Card dick” was my phones best guess at “cart deck.”