Monday, October 13, 2008

Reading Journal: "With No One as Witness"


When one of my best friends died, I couldn't talk to acquaintances about it. I felt as though I would somehow trivialize it by discussing it with people who hadn't known her. I knew they would express sympathy, but not really feel the anguish I was feeling.
 As Seneca said, "Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb."

Not that it's anywhere near the same, but I've also felt blocked in trying to review this book. Elizabeth George is one of my all-time favorite authors. Although she's written a couple of books that didn't live up to what I'd come to expect from her ("I, Richard" and "A Place of Hiding"), overall I love her plots and her characterizations. More than anything, the interplay between the half dozen main characters is what keeps me coming back. So when she killed one of them off, it was hard to take. I wonder at the direction the series will go now. This will have to have a major impact!


In a nutshell, the plot centered on trying to find a serial killer of young teenage boys. The first three victims had been black or mixed race, and neither the police nor the press expressed much interest until a white youth was murdered and left draped across a tomb. Amid accusations of institutional racism, the case is handed to Lynley, Havers, and Winston Nkata.
Since one of the main characters was pregnant, I felt the illustration was apropros. It was made by cutting a stencil  from a magazine photo and filling in with a dark blue soft pastel. It is so dark in the solid stick that it appears to be black. I sprayed with Fixatif so that the pastel wouldn't transfer to the opposite page when the journal is closed. The title was written with a 3.5mm calligraphy marker and a Pitt brush pen.

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