Okay, I won't bore you with more of the wrote my pages and worked on Full English Death. Instead, I thought I'd talk about labor day and mysteries.

Labor Day first. It's an American holiday. In Europe and most of the world, they celebrate labor day on May 1. For Americans, though, that smacked of the Communist movement and so we picked a different day. Still, in the old days it was celebrated with labor union parades and speeches. Now it's "celebrated" as the official launch of the election season, but it isn't really even that any more. With modern communications and with so many campain contributions, the election season never ends--at least not for incumbents. Today's New York Times suggested that we should shift to a labor week--Americans work harder than people in any other country. I think that the Bush "recovery" has changed that--our labor force participation rate has dropped dramatically as middle-aged men have been unable to find work and dropped out of the workforce. So, happy Labor Day, folks. Unions are a pretty small part of the private sector economy now, but I have hopes that there'll be an upside to the economic destruction we've been in--a wave of entrepreneurship as guys in my age group start businesses and create. I can only hope so because pretty clearly we're having problems competing with twelve cents an hour wages in places like Viet Nam.

On to mysteries. Here's my question--why do people like mysteries? The traditional answer is that mysteries serve to rectify society--things have gone wrong and the sleuth must right them. I wonder, though, whether mystery readers are really a group of frightened individuals concerned about society's destruction. Surely there's something about vicariously savoring the perfect crime. Although the caper story represents only a small percentage of mysteries, don't so many mysteries have at least an element of the caper in them?

And what's with the popularity of historical mysteries? Being a bit of a history nut myself, this sub-genre makes a lot of sense to me. But most Americans don't think about history from one year to the next. (When Bush calls someone a 'revisionist historian,' he means that as an insult). Could it be that these books are just being read by the tiny minority of people who are simultaneously interested in history and mysteries? Or is there a fascination in seeing how problems in other worlds just might parallel those in our own?

Speaking of mysteries, I've got a new review up: NO NEST FOR THE WICKET by Donna Andrews. Very funny. I enjoyed this one a lot. I definitely prefer Andrews's Meg Langslow stories to her Turing Hopper stories. Here's my review: www.booksforabuck.com/mystery/mys_06/no_nest_wicket.html .

Related to mystery is the romantic suspense. Ten years ago, this genre was dead. Now it's the hottest thing in romance (along with vampires). Time is running out on your chance to get EYE OF THE STORM for only $1, though. It ends tomorrow. So, it's the book of the day--get it now. Tomorrow, the price becomes a still-bargain $3.99. Here's the url: www.booksforabuck.com/rompages/rom_2006/eye_storm.html . Here's the cover (cover art by Jane Graves):

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Rob