I won’t read any more books by him under any of his pseudonyms. I think I’ve found a new author, read a book, think “That was terrible,” then I find it’s just him writing under yet another name. GRR!
I enjoyed the short story I read so I took a chance with a used copy… but I don’t think he will stay on my reading list.
“That does fun”? That’s what I get for posting on night shift.
More non-fiction reading: Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home by Gil Reavill. Reavill is a true-crime writer who decided he should go one step further and learn about what happens to a crime scene once the law is done with it. Therefore, he meets the owners of Aftermath Inc., the heavy-hitters in the field of “bioremediation” - providing cleaning services to bio-contaminated sites; usually death scenes, but not always.
Reavill jumps in with both Tyvek-clad feet, joining the technicians on several jobs - including a three-week decomp and a shotgun suicide. Taking as his mantra a line from the Roman poet Terence-- “Nothing human is foreign to me.”, he fights not only nausea and revulsion, but the temptation to dehumanize the situation. Instead, Reavill finds himself drawn to the signs of the life the person led beforehand. Reavill does detour a bit at times, discussing his personal encounters with accidental and violent death, as well as focusing in on the bloody history of Chicago (Aftermath Inc. is headquartered in a suburb of the city), including the slaughterhouses, H.H. Holmes and the Mob. The book is a mix of the factual situations and personal reflection, much like Mary Roach’s Stiff, tho with considerably less humor.
Recommended to fans of CSI and Hoarders who want to see the real-life repercussions of the storylines from the shows. Suggested fiction followup: The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston.
That sounds both interesting and horrifying. My BIL had a friend who killed himself by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun, and a bunch of his friends decided they would help out his parents by going and cleaning up the scene. He’s still traumatized by what they did. I’m kind of traumatized by proxy!
To Marry An English Lord: Tales of Wealth and Marriage, Sex and Snobbery by Gail Maccoll and Carol McD. Wallace. A wonderful background look at the transatlantic goings on between rich Americans and titled Englishmen in the late eighteen hundreds and the early part of last century. Sort of a background primer to Downton Abbey.
Sex and Snobbery… I think I NEED to add this to my to-read list!
I finished Scarlet Plume by Frederick Manfred. It was really good, but some of the sex was a bit over the top for me. Cucumber of love? Really? I’m over halfway through All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy somebody and should hopefully finish soon. I plan to start some scary stuff next, for Halloween. My reading has slowed down considerably over the past few weeks. I’ve been concentrating more only own writing.
October’s thread.
The founders of Aftermath Inc. - Chris Wilson & Tim Reifstek - got started in much the same way, volunteering to help clean up after a shotgun suicide. They didn’t know the family, which may have made things easier for them personally. Once they realized they could do that kind of job, and that it was desperately needed; they decided to go into business for themselves. There are gruesome moments, and heartbreaking ones, as Reavill goes into the background behind some of the cases (a murder-suicide where a son kills his family, then himself), but I found it worthwhile reading.
There’s been a movie on that topic, too: Sunshine Cleaning - Wikipedia