Tonight at the tournament I started reading the above book. It is surprisingly good. It is a joint effort by husband and wife mystery writers Jonathan and Faye Kellerman. You may know him from his very popular Alex Delaware series of mysteries. You may also know her from her also very popular Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus mystery series.
In this book they each wrote a novella. In the first one, that I am reading, a CA state representative who is an open lesbian fighting to pass a stem cell bill in Congress is murdered in her office. In this novella, Peter Decker makes a cameo. Overall I am really enjoying this story.
In the second novella, a rock legend who battled drugs and alcohol comes out a retirement to play a charity benefit concert and is found dead after the concert. Alex Delaware plays a large role in the case.
As I said, I was not too sure about this book, but was willing to give it a try because I really like both authors and their established characters. While the use of Peter Decker in the first novella seems a little forced, the story itself is really entertaining, and the stem cell politics as envisioned in the book is interesting to compare to the political minefield stem-cells were in Missouri in the recent election.
In other news, the tournament went well. It is always interesting going to this particular tournament. It is the only one we go to the entire year that is held at a St. Louis City School. It is held at one of the magnet schools in the City that promotes International Studies. It is a beautiful building, but just different from what you see in the county, especially as far west as our school is. I live in what would be considered Midtown nowadays. I am about as far east (towards the city) as the kids would ever consider going (and I am still 8 or 9 miles from the actual city limits. What I find interesting is how the kids react when they realise the area is not a ghetto and the school looks like theirs (just a little older). These sheltered county kids really have no idea what the City looks like. They just envision the inner city they see in movies. It is why it is so important that the 3 city schools who compete in our debate leagues are so crucial.
