'Inherit the Dead'

One positive thing about being sick is that I have to slow down.

No matter that I feel guilty about taking naps, when I should be doing laundry, or cooking dinner, or going to work.  I have to slow down.

So...it means I have to read.  Which is another positive thing about being sick.  I don't watch television during the day (unless I find a 'Doctor Who' marathon on BBC America), so it is within the cocoon of blessed quiet that I lose myself within the pages of a book.  But if my husband is at home, that means a constant diet of 'reality' shows about alligator hunters, the search for aliens, or gold miners.  Then I run to the bath tub, shut the door, and read read read.

This Sunday, while I lay on the couch, I was so absorbed in a new book that televised football didn't even phase me.  That book is 'Inherit the Dead'.

Twenty famous writers have contributed to this intriguing mystery, and although I thought that each chapter would be so different in style, I soon forgot it and enjoyed the seamless storytelling.  

Perry Christo is a private eye who was once an NYPD homicide cop; he lost his badge and his marriage in a notorious corruption scandal. Wealthy Upper East Side matron, Julia Drusilla, hires him to find her daughter, Angelina, who is about to become a wealthy heiress. But as Perry digs deeper, his finds that there's more to the story than he's been told. 'Angel's' father, her best friend, and her boyfriend each have their own agendas, and they are willing to lie, no matter what. 

I can see why each contributor is a master of their craft: the solid descriptions without the overblown use of adjectives; the intensity; the twists-and-turns.  But most of all, it made me follow the case, right alongside Perry Christo.  This is noir at it's best.

It's my idea of a great Sunday, sick or not.

And to be able to ignore football?  Double bonus.




'Inherit the Dead', the brainchild of mystery authors Linda Fairstein and Jonathan Santlofer, is published by Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster, and is available at independent bookstores and your local library. Part of the royalties from sales will be donated to Safe Horizon, a resource for victims of abuse and crime, their families, and their communities.