Mystery in the Mojave
The few times I’ve been to Arizona, it was literally flying through Phoenix, or driving through the portion of it that has Route 66, and while I did think it was much more lush than I imagined (because even though I know better my imagination wants to see an Arizona that is nothing more than sand and cactus), it didn’t strike me as a place that inspired mysteries.
In fact, the few times I’ve read novels about Arizona at all, they were either about Arizona luxury real estate, with characters lounging by the pool and spraying themselves with plant misters, or they’ve involved bad grammar and cheese enchiladas.
Because who can refuse a good book about cheese enchiladas?
Tonight I learned about Nite Owl Books, which apparently features the work of Sylvia Nobel, and feature her reporter-cum-detective Kendall O’Dell, and take place in Arizona. I’m a sucker for a good mystery, and these look like an entertaining read, so I’m adding them to my future purchase list.
Mystery, Prompted, Sylvia Nobel, Wishlist | Melissa | Friday: 5 October 2007
By Junglemonkey, Friday: 5 October 2007 @ 12:42 pm
Having grown up in Arizona (specifically Tempe, near the university), the biggest mystery to me was why anyone would want to leave some other state and spend half the year there. And the places that people went were never the interesting ones. They never, for example, saw “In the Name of Jesus Good Used Tires” on Washington Street. Very few of them went to the Stockyards Restaurant, located in the middle of the stockyard (now gone). It was the Phoenix equivalent of Harris Ranch, complete with the experience of walking through a cloud of cow funk in order to get there. I myself never went, mostly because I grew up poor and it was a swanky place. Tourists also never saw the raspada stand with the old lady who scooped ice into paper cups and made snowcones in flavors like mango & milk. She had a huge parrot that spent all its time screaming “What a pretty parrot!” in Spanish.
What galled me most was the fact that I was born there and was treated like a second-class citizen by folks from Minnesota who “come here three months every year for the last 30 years, so I’m practically a native!”
Yeah. Spend all of a single July day outside at Encanto Park eating watermelon and playing on the nearly-molten metal playground toys and THEN you can make that claim.