Saturday, August 19, 2006

Branching Out

Most crime novelists are anything but one-dimensional beings. So it’s not uncommon to see their writing popping up elsewhere than in the pages of novels. Today’s New York Times, for instance, carries an Op-Ed column by John Burdett (Bangkok Tattoo) in which he recounts the recent arrest of an American school teacher in Bangkok, Thailand, who has confessed to the long-unsolved murder of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey. Why, Burdett wants to know, does it seem that Western drifters come to Thailand after they kill or rape somebody in their own country?

Meanwhile, Louis Bayard (The Pale Blue Eye) contributes a funny piece to Salon, penned from the viewpoint of George W. Bush, as the vacation-record-holding prez tries to explain to his wife what he liked about the existentialist novel The Stranger, by “Albert Ca-Moose-and-Squirrel,” a book he supposedly read while visiting his Crawford estate-cum-ranch this summer. “And maybe next time, Mrs. First Lady of Smartsville, you’ll believe me when I say I think I’ll read me a good book tonight,” Bush concludes.

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