For years now – maybe 15, maybe more – I have entered a phase – my Christmas Pon Farr – wherein I can only read mysteries about the holidays. I am not sure why, but something snaps in my brain, and I simply can’t finish whatever I am currently reading, and have to put my focus on mysteries.
So for 2013, I took last year’s list by Otto Penzler of The Ten Best Christmas Mystery Novels of All Time – of which I managed to find and read just 3 in 2012 – and checked the Cincinnati Public Library catalog – they had all 7!!!
Therefore, I ordered them to be sent to my Walnut Hills library – and they all came in at once. Plus, at Joseph-Beth the other day, I found a Penzler-edited volume called The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries – all short stories – and dived into it yesterday.
Yesterday, with a storm dumping ice and snow (5 inches) outside, I dug into to the stories. And now it’s too late for all those other books on my table… the Pon Farr is on. Aaaaaaahhhhh!