I owe, I owe, its off to work I go...

This past weekend I lazed. Actually, that isn't exactly accurate. It suggests that I actively and aggressively engaged in lazing. More to the point I practiced the fine art of being lazy. In the oppressive heat of western Kentucky I laid low. I enjoyed the rigors of horizontal meditation while being bathed in near continuous air conditioning. We all know it is not the heat, it is the humanity.

In between near exhaustive bouts of napping I managed to consume some comfort-pulp-fiction. Now I do understand that there is a new title by William Gibson, Spook Country that is being met with rave reviews. (Why am I not surprised that Frank Paynter knows about the MacGuffin.) But that is not the sort of fiction that floats my boat when I am engaged in the fine art of loafing. Give me Robert B. Parker. Oh yeah.

Reading Parker is like watching television without the commercials and not having to learn how to use the remote.

You have to admit that that is the very depth of decadence. So I reread Cold Service just because I started it while killing time at our local Books-A-Million - one of the few decent places to get a real cup of coffee in this two-bit town. A swing through the new library landed me two more new titles that I hadn't seen - mostly 'cause I don't get out much. Hundred-Dollar Baby has Spenser back in the humanitarian saddle dealing with 'good-girl-gone-bad' April Kyle as she whines and deigns through the high and low life of Boston's upscale back alleys.

Those occupied most of Saturday and Sunday. Then the real work of Labor day began on Monday. A Jesse Stone tale called High Profile. No details to follow 'cause you will just have to read it for yourself. I will say that Parker has done an interesting thing by intertwining some of his more memorable characters into each other's lives.

Love's labors, not lost.