Sunday Salon - Comfort Reads

I had a lousy afternoon yesterday. I was fortunate that I was in our development, but my battery died in my truck yesterday. In hot climates, such as Arizona and Florida, there's no warning. You get in your car one day, and it's just dead. I walked all the groceries home, then called AAA. An hour and a half later, the AAA Battery Truck arrived. The young man changed my battery, but because there's an alarm system on the car, we still couldn't start the car, and the alarm continued to go off. LOUDLY! There's a whole long story, but eventually Jim got the alarm shut off, thanks to a close friend in Michigan who owns a garage, and I could bring my car home. For a while, though, it looked like I'd have to call AAA on Monday, and have them tow the truck, and have the dealer disconnect the alarm. Not my idea of how to spend a Monday morning.

Which leads me to the question, what do you use as comfort reads? What do you turn to when you've had a draining day, and need something to help you escape? I'm finishing up Steve F. Havill's forthcoming book, The Fourth Time Is Murder, and it was perfect for today. It's a Posadas County Mystery, set in the New Mexico border county. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman is featured in this complex police procedural that involves a couple cases at the same time, with an interesting group of characters. It's a perfect comfort read, a book that takes me into another place.

Dennis Lehane's mystery series featuring Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, private investigators in Dorchester, Massachusetts, worked well for comfort. I know that sounds odd, but the second book, Darkness, Take My Hand was so complicated that I forgot I was sitting in a hospital waiting room while I read it.













And, I recently mentioned Lee Harris' mysteries, beginning with The Good Friday Murder. The series features Christine Bennett, a nun who left the convent, and, while building a life for herself, ends up investigating a cold case, in order to help someone.

My comfort reads are interesting mysteries with well-rounded characters, whether they're amateur detectives, private detectives, or police. I choose to be dropped into a complex crime novel, and I'm happy to spend two or three hours watching someone unravel a mystery.

What do you turn to when you need a comfort read?