Rutabaga

I am at the beginning of Chapter 3 and am definitely very intrigued. R

So Trip's school newspaper column is entitled "Growing Pains." What a coincidence! I don't have a picture to offer for Tanner's dad, Justin. Pick your favorite from ESPN or wherever. Maybe Chris Berman. Honestly, the marriage to Tanner's step-mom doesn't amount to much if Justin is gone all the time and all this bad stuff goes on without his knowledge, Both Justin and Tanner need to bail out. R

Just finished "Surfeit of Suspects" by George Bellairs, a late entry in the Inspector Littlejohn series. This one was published in 1964, decades after the first one, but it maintained a very similar feel to the earlier stories. A short commentary at the beginning expresses the belief that the tastes of the reading public had likely moved on from the style and settings of Bellairs's work by the time this story was published, but I for one am grateful that he didn't try to ginger up his novels with elements to make them more "modern." This story was well done and full of twists and turns as the "onion of truth" was peeled. (Hey, Cole, I can make up expressions like that too.) I just wish the LA Public Library had more Bellairs books in the digital library. Now I'm back to the Ellery Queen tale, "The Dutch Shoe Mystery," while awaiting the Ngaio Marsh book-that-must-not-be-named. R

We sorry.

Ready for Thanksgiving. R

OK, it will just be our little secret. R

Should I add that the opening event in that story is the discovery of a dead body encased in a sealed-up bale of clipped wool from a sheep farm in New Zealand? R

Just finished "Colour Scheme" by Ngaio Marsh, another Roderick Alleyn tale. Honestly, this one kind of fell flat. It seemed to take forever to get started, and when it finally did, it kind of limped to a conclusion. A reader would not miss anything significant in passing this one by. I still need to reconnect with the next book in the series, "Died in the Wool," which I got about halfway through when the library loan ended. The above book, "Colour Scheme," is ahead of "Died in the Wool" in the series, but I went ahead and checked out "Died in the Wool" when it became available. Now I am waiting for it to come back off of "hold" again so I can finish it. I still have an Ellery Queen and an Inspector Littlejohn story in progress. R

I kinda liked this picture also: R

The current story, “Green” (number 9), has one of my all-time favorite pictures to go with it. R

This Pick from the Past is here: https://awesomedude.com/mark_peters/the-boy-on-the-corner/the-boy-on-the-corner.htm. I could not find an earlier thread for this story. I do remember reading it before. My big complaint is that it ended too soon! R

Isn’t that plausible for seventh grade? R

Possible James Lowery.

What if Jason and James find each other? R

We were talking about the fertile (or febrile) brain of Cole . . . R