David Lee Todd, Unknown Product Manager



	David Lee Todd, Unknown Product Manager People who love sausages and software should never watch either being made

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Saturday July 22, 2006

Still hooked on Rick Riordan's mystery novels

As I wrote back in June, I've discovered a great series of mystery novels set in Texas, in San Antonio and Austin to be exact. The hero, Tres Navarre, is the creation of Rick Riordan, a former middle-school English teacher. The series is terrific -- witty, full of literary allusions and darkly comic bits interspersed with brutal, realistic violence. Since June I've been reading the entire series, starting at the beginning with Big Red Tequila, moving on to The Widower's Two-step, and then to The Last King of Texas, which brought me back to where I started when I accidentally discovered The Devil Went Down to Austin.

I'm really enchanted by the intricate plots, but also by the way that each character is a fully-realized human being. None of the good guys are all good, and none of the bad guys are all bad. The murderers are all too human. And the plots range from corruption at the top of society to gritty conflicts at the very bottom.

As I have read through the series, it seems to me that the stories are getting darker and darker. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Fortunately for me, there are two more in the series, Southtown and Mission Road, and Riordan has promised that there will be more.

Posted by davidleetodd ( Jul 22 2006, 07:33:05 PM PDT ) Permalink