{a thought for Thursday} Quality or quantity?

"I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special." - Shelby in Steel Magnolias

{wordless wednesday} Birds in a Farm Window

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Click here to purchase a print of this photograph on InkOverPaper.

{read: Danish crime thriller} The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

I am stingy with my 5-star ratings, but this one deserves it. It's the best Nordic crime thriller I've read and perhaps also the most accessible to the American audience. (OK, so I'm an ordinary reader). Carl is the head of the new Department Q in Denmark, which is assigned the job of investigating cold cases. The first of the 40 or so that they tackle is the disappearance of Marette, a politician who was assumed to have committed suicide after she disappeared from a ferry en route to Berlin five years ago. But no body was ever found, and there was no evidence that she might have been contemplating suicide. With the help of his energetic, mysterious assistant Assad, Carl reluctantly digs into the case. He's more interested in sinking into his own depressive state after a shooting at a homicide scene left one of his partners dead and another paralyzed from the neck down. Carl blames himself and just wants to sleep away the hours to retirement, but he gets drawn into the case despite himself. Assad provides some comic humor and contrast to Carl's gloomy mood and later, some unexpected investigative expertise.

If you've read the Nordic authors (Larsson, Mankel, etc.) and liked them, you'll love this. If you've been hesitant to try them, pick up this one first. You won't want to put it down.

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen (Dutton Adult, 2011)
My rating: 5 stars

{crafts} Owl Halloween Costume - Part 3

After creating the eyes, sew them on with a large needle. Following the video tutorial, sew on the beak. Then you will create the tassels for the ears using the same colors in the braided tassels hanging from the ear flaps. Here is the video tutorial:

Once you are done with the hat, we can move on to the body. I am going to use an old, long sleeved onsie. I found one that is the same color as the green in the hat. I put it on my son and marked where it will be tucked in, only on the front.

We are going to use the back flap of the onsie to create the tail. The next step will be to create the feathers. You will need dark brown fleece or felt, and tan fleece or felt. I got 1/4 yard of the dark brown and 1/8 yard of the tan. Stay tuned for the next steps!

{a thought for Thursday} Unexpected difficulties

"That was the thing about the world: it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect." - Lev Grossman, The Magician King

{wordless wednesday} Stormy Beach

{read: Swedish crime thriller} The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler

Although he (she?) is billed as the next great Swedish author, Lars Kepler (the pen name of a couple) lived up to the hype. Think Stieg Larsson minus the social commentary and history, but keep the unexpected plot turns, suspense, and believable characters, and you have Lars Kepler.

The story starts out with a gruesome massacre, and hypnotist Erik Maria Bark is called upon to hypnotize the gravely wounded son, the only witness, so that the police can try to identify and catch the killer before he find's the family's other remaining living member, the boy's sister. But what Erik finds out surprises Detective Joona Linna, who has a track record of always solving his crimes. As they begin to act upon what they learned, they discover there are unforeseen consequences of Erik's action. Ten years ago, he promised that he would never hypnotize anyone again after an incident involving one of his patients. In addition to this, he's also dealing with his own problems, including a prescription drug addiction and a marriage that's falling apart. Just like in real life, everything seems to fall apart at once for Erik.

The many layers of this complex story kept me turning the pages. Just as one plot thread seems to get resolved, another one develops and moves into the forefront. What you discover in the end isn't what you were looking for in the beginning. I'm looking forward to the next translations of Kepler's work.

The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011)
My rating: 4 stars