Dear Great Book Guru, Rain, rain go away… I am so upset - a huge favorite of mine, Hunt and Hughes - was rained out at the latest Sunset Serenade. I need a good book to read this week as I hope for sunny days ahead! Sunset Serenade Despite the Rain Fan................................................... Dear Sunset Serenade Despite the Rain Fan, I just read a debut mystery BLUNT INSTRUMENT by a favorite novelist of mine, Amy Bloom. Dee Chandler is a former English professor who has lost her teaching position because of “anger management” issues but has found a new profession: private investigator! Her qualifications are rather limited – basically, obsessive viewing of the TV series LAW AND ORDER. When she gets a call to investigate the murder of Oliver Bullfinch, a widely disliked English professor at a posh New England college, she quickly accepts and a madcap series of misadventures begins. We meet a wide array of exquisitely drawn characters, all of whom have ample reason to want Bullfinch dead. From the murder weapon – a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne - to a score of plagiarized dissertations - the world of academia is seen through a comedic, albeit violent lens. When the murderer is finally revealed, the reader realizes this has been both an exciting literary mystery and an amusing spoof on college politics. Recommended!

Dear Great Book Guru, I just had the most wonderful weekend - It started with Happy Birthday USA at the Children’s Library; then we celebrated the Fourth on the Sea Cliff Village Green with a historical playlet, music, and the reading of the Declaration of Independence by angry villagers; and finally on Sunday a magnificent Patriotic Bike Parade. A truly amazing three days! While waiting for the parade to begin, someone mentioned a favorite novel that was made up entirely of letters. Are you familiar with it? ....................................... Dear Fan of the Fourth, It seems everyone I meet is discussing THE CORRESPONDENT by Virginia Evans! The novel is made up totally of letters – almost all written by Sybil Van Antwerp, a seventy-year-old brilliant lawyer who clerked for a famous judge. Every morning throughout her life she has been writing to a myriad of people - her brother Felix, her daughter Fiona, her best friend Rosalie, neighbors, school administrators, literary luminaries Joan Didion and Larry McMurty, film producer George Lucas, and many more. As we read these letters and the occasional response, we learn much about her life, filled with regrets and accomplishments. When she herself receives a letter from someone she has wronged, our view of Sybil takes a dramatic turn. Will she be able to undo the past, will she find forgiveness, or is redemption impossible? A fascinating look into the life and mind of an extraordinary character - recommended!