Continuing in the King and Maxwell series, the two of them have started their own detective agency, and things are going along pretty well, then BOOOOOM, shit a series of murders start happening in their home town.

Seriously, if I lived in a small town where the murder rate escalated from none in decades to over a dozen in two years, I would move over to the next town lickety-split. Or take an extended vacation in a different country, say, Mexico where the murder rate per 1000 is significantly lower.

Anyway, King and Maxwell. They have an agency of some sort, following up on various investigations. They are hired by a local lawyer to investigate a break-in at a prominent (read: f---ing rich) family's house. The break-in frames a local construction worker / handyman in such thoroughness that one assumes it has to be a frame job. During the investigation, a series of murders start in the town, with King and Maxwell drawn into the drama.

This book, unlike the last book, has all the characters introduced, including the bad guy. As such, the clues are sufficient (and really, IN ONE'S FACE) that the reader (read: me) can figure out the mystery.

I enjoyed this book, but won't be continuing reading the series. The reviews for the remaining three books in the series are bad enough that I'd rather have the two books as "enjoyed" than other few after that spoils the first two.

I suspect the story of buying this book is more entertaining than my review of the book will be, but that could be because I lived through both.

I bought this book in Sydney when Mom and I went last October. After I had my talk and my workshop at Web Directions, Mom and I spent a couple days exploring Sydney. We went many museums, with one of them having a cute shop. I picked up two children's books in the shop simply because the binding of the books were so good. This was one of them. I love the bindings of this book. It is a beautiful, well constructed, delightful-to-hold book.

So, I was standing in line for this book when a senior couple came into the museum. I had already been standing in line for what I considered a long bit, waiting for the clerk to deal with a register failure and a difficult customer. I was patient, I waited without comment. The senior couple, however, were entitled American asshats, and decided they didn't need to wait. It was THEIR RIGHT to cut in front of the 8 people in line, and USE THEIR MUSEUM COUPON to enter the museum.

So, I flicked them off.

The old asshat guy saw me, and said, "You're evil."

Seriously, you're an entitled asshole, with no consideration for the other people who are patiently standing in line, and you consider a well-deserved bird as evil? Dude, you have serious world-view problems.

I responded, "I'm happy to give you some, too." and gave him the bird again.

Yeah.

Mom was not happy with my reaction.