Murder, She Wrote

Due to a conflation of circumstances, I have been exposed to an unusually high number of whodunnits in the past 24 hours. Generally speaking, I like mysteries, but I am feeling a little blood-spattered right now.

Part of that exposure has come from a book of Dorothy Sayers's short stories, which I got in Oxford and started reading this morning. She is, as always, a witty writer, but I thought that they would all be Whimsey tales, and instead have turned out to be a collection of generic mysteries with different protagonists--entertaining, but not as much fun without Lord Peter or Bunter.

Further, I went to see "State of Play" with James at the theater---excuse me, cinema--last night. This was an american film, a thriller about reporters from a Washington newspaper uncovering a heinous corporate scandal involving shady politicians, military contracts, and dead bodies. It was good; every time you thought that you could see how high up the corruption went, it turned out you were wrong. It also struck me, from my limited experience of working at the Spec, as being an accurate portrayal of newsroom culture, both the the old-fashioned, male-dominated world of contacts, old-boys' networks, and stripes earned staking out offices and visiting morgues and the new world of the blogsphere and the overnight sensation. (And it reminded me why I don't want to work in either.)

My final brush with crime this weekend was in the form of some episodes of the TV show Castle, which I have been watching at James' house this afternoon. I had been wanting to see the show since it premiered this spring because it is the new vehicle for Nathan Fillion (a.k.a. Capt. Malcolm Reynolds), a man of parts.... Suffice it to say that the show would not work half as well as it does if it had used an actor without his charisma. It is about a partnership of sorts that forms between a homicide detective (female), who enlists the assistance of a famous crime novel writer to help he solve her cases. It's pretty fantastic, but fun to watch. I have to say, though, that by the end of the afternoon, I had seen enough bodies for the time being.

Also, although it may seem that I have been holed up reading about an watching crime scenes this weekend, I have also intermittently been out touring London. This morning I wandered through Covent Garden, across the Thames on the waterloo bridge, and along the South Bank under the London Eye. I forebore from going up in the Eye, however, or from buying the discounted Eye and Madame Toussaud's. That seems like it would be more horrifying than a pack of murder mysteries.