2011.11.28 Meeting Notes

Hi all,
Great meeting last week. We had a new member join, so welcome Nick. It was great to see new blood, I mean to meet a new mystery fan. Since it's taken me so long to write our summary, I will get down to important business first.
We will be meeting next Monday, Dec. 12th for the holiday party - woohoo. Remember - it's at Kim's house, NOT THE LIBRARY. That doesn't give everyone very long to read the December book, Mystery by Jonathan Kellerman. We had a good number of copies to hand out at the meeting, and I know Jeff has returned his already. So please, if you didn't get one, check the library - they should have one or two available. You've got a week from today to read. I am listening, but it seems like it would be a fast read.
Also, in January we are reading Laura Lippman's I'd Know You Anywhere. Since we won't be at the library for the holiday party, I won't be able to pass out January books. They had quite a few copies when we met last week, so I handed out what we had early. If you took one, please return it when you are finished and let me or the group know. We'll have 6 weeks to read that one, so hopefully we'll be able to coordinate.
Ok, that's all of the business I have. Now to the wonderfully prolific James Patterson. It was very interesting to hear everyone's opinion of the book. Given Patterson's wide audience, I think I expected higher scores from our group. I think the average rating was between 4 & 6 out of 10, with a lot of 5s. I think I'm starting to get a grasp of our Crime & Beyond scoring system. We seem to be "mildly entertained" when we score between 4-5 and "entertained" when we score between 5-6. 7 and up is very entertaining and 3 and under very disappointing.
I also think it's pretty safe to assume that when we score low, most of us didn't care much about the characters. Don't Blink seemed to be written much like a screenplay, but none of the characters seemed particularly described in depth. Most of us didn't care for any of the women, other than maybe the blind niece. We found the idea of strapping the bomb on her to be a little over the top, too. A lot of the men were bad guys and one of the only good ones, the FBI guy, got himself killed. See below on how changing his phone call would have made all the difference.
Although the book was pretty action packed, none of us are running out to get the latest James Patterson and (insert any other author's name here) book. The fact that he outliines the books and lets someone else write them didn't win any awards from our club members. We're waiting for the day when the name James Patterson is written so big on the book cover that we can't even tell what the book title is.
I will conclude with my mention of my personal hatred for books that contain characters who make phone calls and say "meet me in an hour and I'll tell you something really important" and then get killed before that meeting. Heck, if I ever have anything incriminating or important to report, I plan on telling as many people as I can, right over the phone. It may save my life. As a matter of fact, I think that's one of the main lessons we learned from this book:
Never phone someone and plan a future meeting in order to impart important or incriminating information - DO IT OVER THE PHONE - it may just save your life.
I think it's also important to note that if bad guys are chasing you, do NOT run to your family or friends. You just put them in danger, and who wants to get their favorite niece fitted with a bomb, right?
See you all next Monday at Kim's. If you RSVP'd that you could make it and that has changed, please email me. I have the following 14 people on the yes list:
KerryJeffJanineRajStaceyDaveKryssRoxaneLorainneKimJenniferJoséJaniceChris
Happy Holidays,Kerry