Booked to Die

Booked to Die is the first in the Cliff Janeway series by John Dunning. I don't have much reading time lately and prefer to listen. It makes the time pass by easier when I'm doing what little housework that I don't manage to avoid.

What I went through to be able to listen.... I couldn't find a copy on CD. I was resourceful, though; I downloaded a copy from NetLibrary. That was easy enough, except that NetLibrary only works with Windows. I have an old Toshiba laptop that has caused me nothing but grief. I would have sold it years ago but it does such bizarre things that I consider it unsellable. I'm to the point where as long as I can use it to print a few pictures and listen to a book, I'm fine.

Long story short, I was happily moving along through the recording, at the eight-hour mark, when I moved the laptop and suddenly was met by a screen too dark to do anything. I used my wonderfully reliable Mac to check out the Toshiba help files ... and a short time later I'm armed with a couple of screwdrivers, practically beating up the thing. [literally. really.]

Cliff Janeway is a former police detective turned book dealer. Dunning himself is a full-time writer and book dealer, having owned the Old Algonquin Bookstore in Denver for ten years. Booked to Die won the Nero Wolfe award.

Dunning's biography is as interesting as his writing. Check it out here. Like me, Dunning has an affection for old typewriters:

"This may explain my affection for typewriters," he says. "Unlike a computer, a great old manual typewriter is an honest machine. You do your work, it does its work. There's no sneaky nonsense, no hidden screens that pop up and won't go away, and at no time in my 35 years as a writer have I ever 'lost' anything because I hit a certain key, failed to hold my mouth right, or sneezed at the wrong moment."

Luddites unite! (says the gadget girl)