A book from one of my favorite genres “Older woman with a particular set of skills investigates murders with unlikely friends in the UK” You’d think it would be hard to find more of them but it seems like they are everywhere. The lead woman in this case is an independent woman who lives in the Thames in a very big house which she inherited from her aunt. People in town know who she is because she rides her bike around wearing a cape. She writes crossword puzzles for a job, a job she doesn’t seem to need. Her neighbor is killed, possibly murdered, and she jumps in when the police don’t seem to be. This was an enjoyable read and a satisfying mystery.

A great collection of some of Eisner’s earlier work covering, somewhat autobiographically, the life and times surrounding a tenement block in New York City as the population (and the good times) ebb and flow. There’s a lot of pathos but also a lot of extremely good storytelling and illustration. Very grim, very good.

Another book, same topic as the one I read just before it. These books can be a little samey but that is sort of what I like about them. Scalzi builds on the central conceit in a lot of interesting but ultimately different ways. Also this one takes place with Covid as having been a thing, and also billionaires are a despised class and I am here for it.

This was a quick fun read, second in the Dispatcher series by Scalzi about a guy who legally murders people in a future where 999/1000 people who are murdered wake up, alive, in their own bed seconds later. Some interesting societal ripples come from this especially where crime is concerned. This one, now that we know the central point in this fictional universe, gets to dig more into how various dispatchers may do things a little off the books and the consequences of that.