Library Notes
October 22, 2004
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
Recently it was necessary to go for my semi-annual teeth cleaning. I was all scheduled and ready to go take care of that little chore. Time was that I dreaded that cleaning from one time to the next. My teeth, my gums, my toes, everything would be so sore after one of those sessions. My teeth were so sensitive, that scrapping just about took the top of my head off. I would put off the cleaning until it took even longer and more scrapping to get the job done. Took me a while to really realize that and make myself go in.
Then, then, my dentist retired, over my strong objections. He would not listen to me say that he couldn’t do that. I had been using him for years and years. Just about the time I get these doctors good and broken in, they just sell their practice to someone else and depart for parts unknown. I can see from the looks in all those eyes out there, you are about to say that I probably ran them off! Now that is not very nice, as my Cheyenne would say.
Whatever the reason for my dentist running off, he went. He claimed that his hands weren’t strong enough any more to do the work. So, what if he was about 75 years old, that was no excuse to run off and leave me high and dry and dentist-less.
The guy he sold his practice to, I went to one time, and that fixed that.
So, I decided to try a lady dentist in Greenville, whose father I know. A friend had been taking her daughter to her, and recommended her highly.
It turned out that the lady does the children and other dentists associated with her do the adults. I thought I would give it a try, since my doctor had deserted me.
That first visit went very well and I liked the friendliness and concern of all there. The girl that cleaned my teeth did not take the top of my head off and my gums were not sore, even the next day. Hot Dog!
That time I did have to have some "fill-in" around a tooth that my partial plates rest on. The lady dentist, the one I had originally wanted to see, did the filling and she was so gentle, I couldn’t believe it. No problem.
For the current visit, I was informed that I had a couple of cavities and the filling around that same tooth had again come out.
The lady was so busy that day that she could not work me in. So, I had to schedule an appointment for the following Monday, my infamous day off.
Needles, people, needles in the gum, that’s what that meant. For that adventure, you shall have to wait breathlessly for next week. As usual, they do not want me to write the entire paper this week. Stay tuned for the "Adventure of the Needles: next week, same time, same place.
So, as we wait for the dreaded needles for a whole week, let’s get our mind off the necessary torture and dive into a book, shall we? And, by the way, when is YOUR next dental appointment? Aha! Caught you, didn’t I? Thought I wouldn’t mention it, but now you go check your calendar. I would not want to have all the fun myself.
"Blind Alley", written by your own Iris Johansen, and I quote here "Iris Johansen returns with a psychological thriller so terrifying, so relentlessly paced, it won’t leave you time to catch your breath before the next shock comes." Well-l-l-l, let’s just see:
"Eve Duncan’s job is to put a face on the faceless victims of violent crimes. Her work not only comforts their survivors – but helps catch their killers. But there is another, more personal reason that Eve Duncan is driven to do the kind of work she does – a dark nightmare from a past she can never bury. And as she works on the skull of a newly discovered victim, that past is about to return all over again.
The victim is a woman found murdered, her face erased beyond recognition. But whoever killed her wasn’t just trying to hide her identify. The plan was far more horrifying. For as the face forms under Eve’s skilled hands, she is about to get the shock of her life. The victim is someone she knows all too well, Someone who isn’t dead.
Yet.
Instantly Eve’s peaceful life is shattered. The sanctuary of the lakeside cottage she shares with Atlanta detective Joe Quinn and their adopted daughter Jane has been invaded by a killer who’s sent the grimmest of threats: the face of his next victim. To stop him, Eve must put her own life in the balance and question everything and everyone she trusts. Not even Quinn can go where Eve must go this time.
As the trail of faceless bodies leads to a chilling revelation, Eve and Joe find themselves trying to catch a master murderer whose grisly work is a testament to a mind warped by perversion and revenge. Now they must pit their skills against his in a showdown where the stakes are life itself – and where the unbearable cost of failure will make Eve’s own murder seem like a mercy killing…."
Okay, now you can breath!!