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Quiet Life in the Country completed

I don't normally subscribe to the idea that there is a Chick Lit genre, but maybe this book fits.  Or maybe it fits with the I LOVE ALL THINGS BRITISH group.  I found its humor and characters forced.

Spoilers coming:  Emily and Armstrong figure out that the murderer is the Senden family, specifically Mrs. Senden. A few things.  #1  Mrs. Senden is supposed to have strangled Pickering, put him on a hand cart, rolled him out into the country, and then used a block-and-tackle to hoist him up so that it looks like he hung himself.  She later kills a trumpeter by smacking him over the head with his trumpet case.  Quite a hit. Maybe feminism gone mad . . . #2  Mrs. Senden, unlike Lady Hardcastle, isn't a real (i.e., born, lady). So that the author makes her the murderer smells to me a bit like class prejudice.  Those crass newcomers aren't really upper crust and -- by the way -- they commit murder also. #3 Armstrong (Flo) saves Lady Hardcastle with some sort of karate kick that causes the bullet to his Lady H in the stomach, not heart of head. Really?  In 1910? And Lady Hardcastle doesn't get an infection and does survive the wound to the gut . . . highly unlikely.  When she emerges from her coma, she immediately asks for a cup of tea.

Just seemed forced to me.  What-ho!

Today:  Dentist, whitening at Anne's dentist and my own appointment
Golf at Interbay
NBA playoffs, Spurs (Kawai Leonard) vs. Rockets (James Hardin)
Letter to Parks dept. regarding homeless at new park proposed for 14th NW

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