No Weirdos Here

My book of choice will always be something in the vein of mystery/suspense/thriller/horror. If you see me with a romance, it's because I was tempted with something cool to review it. If you see me with a SF/fantasy book, my dad was in town and told me I should read it. If you see me with a western, please take my pulse or look for visual signs of life; they probably aren't there and someone can have my mystery/suspense/thriller/horror collection.
And I know that as a librarian, I should be well-read and I like to think that I am. I just choose to read more in the above mentioned categories. I have a Spider Robinson book on my shelf at home. I think I also have an old Janet Evanovich Harlequin there too. (Her Stephanie Plum books are my guilty pleasure and you will assuredly see something or other here at one point in time.)

My choice for today is from NOWHERE TO HIDE by Joan Hall Hovey.

"The closet was at the top of the stairs at the end of the hall."

What do you think? Hook, line or stinker?

Now, I will have to tell you that I buy a lot of books and typically I read them and then donate them to my library if we don't have them (and usually we don't because I buy a lot of books based on that criteria...). Normally, this book would have been donated to the library and I could have chalked it up as an OK read. Until I read these two sentences:

When Ellen tried to warn her about the dangers of the big city, she would laugh and say, "You know, Ellen, you can get mugged in your own home town too. Don't think I haven't met my share of weirdos in good old Evansdale."

Of course, the irony being that the main town in the book is the same I grew up in and now work in (although in a different state). Am I offended? Of course not! It's fiction and I've met my share of weirdos too, although I'm sure none of them were from Evansdale. Additionally, one of the main characters in the book is a Sergeant Shannon, which was the name of my namesake (an actual Sergeant Shannon), my name is Shannon and my significant other is a sergeant for a local police department. Therefore, the book remains on my shelf. Alanis Morrissette, watch out!