2013.01.28 Meeting Notes

Before I forget, Jeff noticed that our May meeting date falls on a holiday. Instead of meeting on the fourth Monday, May 27, we will meet on the third Monday, May 20th. Hopefully everyone can make that happen.
The Jack Reacher movie picks are on our wiki sight, so go see them at: Jack Reacher movie. If you’re a new member you can check out our wiki sight. Jeff posts all of the books we’ve read, my meeting notes (so you can study for the Christmas Quiz), photos from events, and even recipes for goodies.
Below are the next 5 months of dates, leaders, snack bringers, and books. This will provide info for those who might have forgotten, as well as give our new members the book list:
Feb 25: The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva (Gabriel Allon #10)	
Sharon	
Nick
March 25: The Leopard by Jo Nesbo (Harry Hole #8)	
Janice	
Judy
April 22: The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly (Mickey Haller #4)	
Sharon	
Lorraine
May 20 (third Mon): Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais (Elvis Cole #12)	
Dave	
Dave
June 24: Kill Switch by Neal Baer & Jonathan Greene	
Kerry	
Amy
Also, I am always compiling author and/or book ideas for the next half’s votes. You can send me ideas via email at any time. It helps if you put the words “crime & beyond” and “book idea” or “author idea” in the subject. That way when I, I mean if I, lose the email, I can search my Yahoo folders for it. We will most likely choose books at the May meeting, but will allow for emailed votes if you can’t make it. If you keep my old lists, you can always suggest a book that didn’t get voted in from a previous time. Sometimes the books are good, but get outvoted by others on the list for that half when the competition is fierce.
Ok, now that that’s out of the way, on to the meeting summary. We had a record number of attendees at the January meeting. 17 mystery fans showed up to discuss the book, and eat Kim’s slutty brownies. Thanks for the awesome snack Kim, and a welcome to the people who attended for their first time. We hope to see you back each month.
Jose chose to lead January’s meeting since we were there to discuss Stay Close by Harlan Coben. Jose is a big Harlan fan, and although we’ve read the author in the past and gotten some author info from the people who have led, there were a few new items for me and I found that very interesting. Don’t ask me to point out what those items were, because I can’t remember. But I do recall that they were fascinating.
Jose zealously led us in an around the room rating of the book. I don’t think this has happened before, so it was very interesting to see, and worth noting in this follow-up. It appeared that many people thought that their rating of the book (on a scale of 1-10) was much lower than it actually was. However, Jose was kind enough to point out their actual score for them. Many times it appeared that he simply needed to round up, and occasionally add a point or two to make it correct. Whatever his algorithm, we all appreciated his ability to uncover our true rating, and we left the meeting with an overwhelming feeling of happiness at having read such a good book. Many of us surprisingly pleased to realize just how much we had enjoyed it. Thanks Jose.
It won’t surprise you to know, given my above tale, that the scores were excellent for this book. Our high was a 9 and our low a 6 (although I think that was Jeff and he really meant a 9, you know how sometimes a 6 and a 9 look alike and you’re not sure which end is up). Never fear Jeff, we’ve got you covered.
I think many people share my sentiment that I’d rather read Harlan Coben’s worst book than some authors’ best. We discussed the identity of the killer. Some people guessed, and knew the bartender was killing the guys on Mardi Gras, and some were surprised. Some loved Ken & Barbie and some hated them. It’s funny that we had differing opinions on a lot of the elements of the book, but similar ratings (notwithstanding Jose’s bell curve). We obviously all found things we liked or the scores wouldn’t have been so high.
I don’t think we were Daisy’d, which is always a plus. The slap vote seemed to be weighted toward the suburban husband. You’ll notice that I’m not using names, but descriptions. That’s because I’ve forgotten the names of the characters already. Oh wait, Lorraine was the killer, I just remembered that – go figure, my bad.
In general, that should be a clue to you that the quiz question for this book probably won’t be related to someone’s name, unless it’s Lorraine of course. (We’ll see who actually reads my emails now won’t we?) I only come up with questions that I remember myself, I don’t research them. So if I don’t remember, I don’t expect you to. There’s no telling, though, why something sticks in my memory, so it’s not a completely fair process, but it’s my process.
The book had all the Coben elements; suburbia, surprises and twists, a little bit of torture (for Judy), and a lot of things from the past getting resurfaced. Overall it was a fun read and offered us a lot to discuss.
Next month I won’t be able to attend. You will be discussing The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva. Sharon will lead and do the follow-up report, and Nick will bring snacks.
Kerry