Happy Holidays to all. Between delivering a car to Florida in the company of Frank Sinatra and the Ancient Mariner, cold showers in Naples, Christmas shopping for Mina, learning to fake Strawberry Fields and some clarinet carol duets on the keyboard, as well as just rambling around the neighborhood looking at naked trees, I’ve not had much time for posting to 177 ... and, to be honest, I’m not losing any sleep over it. Cheers.

Lost,yes ... but not on an island in the south Pacific with polar bears and hobbits ... but in Millers Kill ... the Adirondacks ... upstate New York ... with Reverend Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ Van Alstyne from In the Bleak Midwinter, A Fountain Filled With Blood, and Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming . This is what happens when Michelle Blake takes time off from her mystery writing and the latest Stephen Booth book is still not published in the States. Not that I don’t have enough other reading material on hand after stumbling across a cache of seven more Brother Cadfael books in my favorite bookstore where a Sister Fidelma book was also brought to my attention. Then, from the library, there is Chaucer and the House of Fame by Philippa Morgan and, finally, to provide the necessary Episcopal, or in this case Anglican, balance, Evil Angels Among Them by Kate Charles.