So, here's the way it works:
I say to myself, "Self, get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight." But I'll be listening to an audio book where the characters are rowing across a lagoon in a pupparin that has beautiful hand-carved forcola, and I'm like "I have no idea what any of that is, and I can't picture what they're doing."
So then I find myself staying up half an hour past the time I wanted to be in bed, deep diving into Venetian rowing boats.
And other rowing boats.
And stand up paddle boards.
And open water swimming in rivers.
See, this is why I avoided having any kind of data plan for years.
 |
| Sbisolo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
This particular book that I'm "reading" is a Donna Leon novel, and it's still in that bit where character development is happening before the murder/crime thing kicks in - and I have to admit I'm really enjoying this bit and wishing it would continue without a murder.
The police detective (Commissario Guido Brunetti), spending two weeks on sabbatical, has convinced the caretaker of the country house where he's staying to take him on rowing trips around the lagoon as the caretaker checks on his bee hives on the lagoon's islands. There's a bit of mystery afoot as many of the hives are dying, and they shouldn't be dying off so dramatically like this. Is it varroa mites? Is it sabotage? Is is some sort of chemical pollution?
I know, because I read the blurb on the book, that there's probably going to be a murder (at least a missing person), but I'm enjoying all of the mucking about in boats and the so far non-murdery mystery involving the bees. I want it to be "Brunetti takes a break from rape, murder and corruption to solve a mystery of a different sort".
Alas, I fear a more typical Brunetti mystery is about to unfold...
