Post 3217 - Tuesday

Hi.

Sorry I didn't write last night. I had been up until midnight Sunday watching season two of "Daredevil". Loved it, but I didn't love having to get up at 5:30 Monday morning and heading off to work earlier than usual, because I had to drop off my car at the shop. They fixed what I asked them to, but they also uncovered $2000 in other work that should be done in the soon future. Sigh, and double sigh.

Anyway, I got home last night, and I was still tired from having been up late the night before, and from the news about my car. By 7:20, I had to lie down "for a minute". I ended up being down for the entire evening. No blog post.

This evening, when I got home, I checked my mail and much to my delight, some back issues of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, as well as issues of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, arrived. Special deal from the publisher. I think I have another set of these back issues waiting for me at the post office. I will find out after work. Among the treasures is the September 2011 issue of AHMM. It contains a Jas. R. Petrin story featuring Skig Skorzeny, the Halifax-based loan shark with a heart of gold that Petrin has been writing about for 10 years now. The Skorzeny stories so far are my favourites ones by Petrin. Halifax is as much a character in these stories as Skig is.

I recently read a story by Petrin called "The KA", which is about a middle-aged couple who bickers all the time who ends up with a corpse in the backseat of their falling-apart car. The body is in a burlap sack, which is great, because they are highjacked by a guy with a gun who's looking for the guy in the sack, thinking him to be still alive. It's pretty funny, actually, if you have a certain sense of humor about the absurd. At one point, the couple decides to ditch the corpse, which really pisses of the man with the gun. He insists they get the bag and its contents back in the car, because he hates littering! A gunman with an environmental streak. Probably a first.

In the last couple of days I read yet another story by Petrin called "The Potentate", featuring an old man named Cab Sogurdsson (I will have to check the spelling because I don't have the issue in front of me.) He's a guy who's a large pain in the arse for everyone around him. He's always making reports to the police about dead people being on his property. The cops come over, and discover nothing. Then, he discovers another dead body, and the hilarity ensues.

I don't know if the characters from "The KA" or "The Potentate" recur in other stories, or not. I hope they do.

I will keep reading the Petrin stories I have. When I am done, I will schedule an interview with the man and see what makes him tick. I look forward to sharing that interview with you guys here on the blog.

I think I will turn in. Been a long day.

See you tomorrow, my pretties.

Bevboy