The Magicienne Was Right, and Treats Abound

So I stop by Metropolis Books yesterday, and the vintage travel stuff is not in yet. However, the window display is the current volumes of Femme Fatales Women Write Pulp--reprints of old pulps that had been written by women, I believe most of these had been made into movies back in the day. I picked up *In A Lonely Place.*

Now me, I have a soft spot in my heart for hard boiled detective fiction, suspiciously close to the same place the squeals come from when I spot the Thanksgiving issue of Martha Stewart's magazine. I don't want to think too hard about that.... Anyways--I had just finished one of Max Allan Collins' contributions to the Hard Case Crime series (I think that is what it is called) and had enjoyed it hugely. So this comes up in what follows.

So the nice lady who owns the place and I get chatting pleasantly, the way one does when one has learned how to socialize effectively in public. Now by this time she knows a little bit about what my tastes are, and because she pays attention, she points me to a Hard Case written by her friend, Christa Faust. It was possibly not what I would have picked up on my own, but I like and respect Metropolis Books Lady, so I try it out, even getting a signed copy.

Well! I trot down the street to, yes, the Nickel Diner, whereupon I start reading and nearly falling off my stool with glee. The kind people at the Nickel kept filling my coffee cup and feeding me and seemed to be completely comfortable with my being flamboyantly literate in public. Faust's *Money Shot* was boiled quite very hard. No, it wasn't what I would have picked up on my own. I am glad I did. I had the book read cover to cover before I made it home that night.

So this is the thing--the Magicienne was right--it takes a person to tell you what you don't know and might want to know. Commerce and capitalism work very well like this--when we are good to eachother and help eachother. Nice manners in public help too.

Walking around chatting with people. It will change the world. Looking at stuff is good too of course.