New Arabian Nights Book

I've never read mystery short stories before, so this was an interesting view into a genre I don't read a lot, though I have a lot of respect for the meticulous plotting. I do love Lippman's use of Baltimore, and this was the PERFECT book for sitting in the jury duty waiting room today, but there's still something about her style that I don't quite love.

And now I shall put my finger on it: her characters all seem to speak to me in the voices of the women at my gym. They are the voices of Roland Park and Guilford housewives, with a little extra time and money. These women seem perfectly nice, but they speak loudly to each other on the elliptical machines about private schools and four star dinners. They follow their own training circuits in the warmup room, one doing lunges, another performing some strange maneuver involving a large rubber ball, all the while discussing their upcoming vacations in the Bahamas and Florida and Ocean City. They make me feel like an outsider, but I don't have any desire to be part of their world. It's a different Baltimore than the one I know. Lippman clearly loves the city too, but we love different aspects. So I'll read one of her books every once in a while, but I don't think I'm ever going to love her.