Murder Most Present

I've gone all genre again. Every now and then I catch a "bug" and start immersing myself in one genre or another. I spent a month in mid-20th Century apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic sci-fi, once (Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, that sort of thing). I've been mildly convinced we're all doomed ever since then - especially since I kept reading about things that didn't exist at the time, but do now. I mean, come on, people, the TV that takes up an entire wall and the device that sends an endless stream of entertainment directly to your ears where both Bad Things. They stopped us from thinking for ourselves so that an entire war could go unnoticed, so long as it didn't interrupt the TV broadcast...

Anyway, I've suddenly come down with a case of Murder Mysteries. I can't seem get enough of them. I'm reading a collection of short stories from the Strand and the first Temperance Brennan novel by Reichs, listening to an audio book of a Hamish Macbeth novel and watching episodes of Inspector Rex... Plus, there's the usual Sunday night viewing of Bones and Castle. I've even been tempted to watch Stockinger on SBS 2, but my family are barely tolerating one Austrian crime show.

I want SBS to pick up Balko, but that's largely because I *ahem* appreciate Bruno Eyron. I know the show's been cancelled for years but SBS is pretty good at repeating episodes from decades ago. That's why you can always count on the Moser episodes of Inspector Rex to come back pretty much every year. Of course, those were the good episodes, so it's perfectly okay. I just can't bring myself to follow Rex to Italy.

Anyway, I blame the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary for this current state of affairs. If I didn't want that dictionary so badly, I wouldn't have been suckered into joining the Folio Society. If I hadn't joined the Folio Society to get cheap dictionaries, I wouldn't have had to spend a fortune I books I was only mildly interested in - including Crime Stories from the Strand.

It's not the first time I've read Crime. I had a Sherlocke Holmes phase ages ago, I've read a few Christies and I used to listen to dramatisations of various crime novels all the time when the tape deck in my car still worked. But, for some reason, it's gripped me now in a way it hasn't done so before.

I wonder how long it will last...