The library mystery

I do a lot of my library borrowing based on book reviews and recommendations for books and movies from friends. Since my days haunting the Reston branch of the Fairfax County Library system, my habit is to read a review, reach for the laptop and put whatever it is on hold. This obviates the need for checking that I have a fistful of little scribbled-on scraps of paper when I go to the actual facility.

I place holds even if a library near me has the material on its shelves. Because—see above about scraps of paper. Plus, I reckon it keeps library people in employment.

Anyhow, often by the time a book or movie is ready for pickup, I’ve forgotten all about it. Especially if it’s a new material and I’m number 245 in the queue for the 43 copies (as I was for The Grand Budapest Hotel). So it’s a little like opening a Christmas gift when you’ve passed around a wish list. You’re not entirely surprised, but you’re still glad to see it.

However, a few weeks ago I was completely nonplussed to go to the reserve shelves at the Cupertino Library and find...this:

Because it’s a historical novel, set in the 12^th Century, during the war between the Empress Matilda/Maude and King Stephen in England.

The thing is, I have no earthly notion why I put it on reserve. If I’d passed it in a bookstore I’d never have picked it up, much less bought it. I don’t read novels except for detective fiction; I don’t even read any of the latter except for police procedurals. I did, in fact, read the series of mysteries about Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters, which are set in that period. But that was in the last century and I’ve moved on from then.

Also, I don’t know the authors, and I can’t imagine what possessed me to go after it. Someone must have recommended it to me, but who? And why did I think I wanted to read it? Was it the protagonist being a 12-year-old redheaded archer? Was it because it was billed somewhere as a mystery (even though everything was predictable)? I just do not know.

As it happens, it was an okay read—I mean, it was interesting and all, until we got to the last act. Then the plot was resolved in a completely manipulative and inorganic way so quickly that I thought maybe they’d lost the lease on their writing space and had to get the hell out before the bailiffs showed up.

So that’s my novel for the year out of the way. Normal service has resumed, as I’m starting Peter Longerich’s biography of Heinrich Himmler. I don’t have to worry about any plot twists here because this stuff is way weirder than any novelist can cook up.