The Introverted Detective

 I had a fabulous time reading four books. Let me tell you all about them. On this week's TBR we have With A Mind To Kill , Role of Honor , Only To Sleep , and The Rising Sea . All of which come from a series of books. I'll get into what series in my four sections of reviews. Let's dive in.  I read four books in a week. Upon finishing them, I can recommend all of them. Below I'll outline exactly why I loved the book and who would most love it. Let's get to the reviews.  With A Mind To Kill by Anthony Horowitz The premise of this book requires you to have some knowledge of previous books (Ian Fleming books), but he does explain in the first two page what you need to know. It is set two weeks after Scaramanga was killed in Jamaica. Before the events of Scaramanga in Jamaica, James Bond had attempted to kill M because KGB brainwashed him while he wandered with Amnesia. This plot sends Bond back to the people who brainwashed him in order to get more information (after h...

I did men writing women. It is only fair I do women writing men. Strap in and let's go.  Courtesy of Pinterest Men have been written wrong, too. Today we explore that and hear what the men think about some women writing male characters. Not much else to say here, so we're jumping right in.  Physical Attributes Height has its' drawbacks. Do we put that in our writing? Sometimes not. Maybe we don't think about it. If someone is 6'5" they don't fit in beds. They might hit their head off low ceilings or be uncomfortable in tiny cars. You can fix this by having them hit their head on a low ceiling in a cave or complain about being in a tiny car. Maybe they have a custom bed or they hate the bed in the tavern or hotel. Be realistic with tall people in general. Apparently, it is common to have tall men in books, but not address the awkwardness of leaning down to hug short people or hit their heads on doorframes. Be aware of your character's height and you'...

 Just for fun (I don't actually believe it'll happen) I'm devoting a post to what could theoretically happen if the zombie apocalypse hit right here, right now. We'll assume the zombies have the same ability as the humans here. Buckle up and prepare your shelters! Courtesy of Pinterest - from the movie Shaun of the Dead First, what we assume to be true must be established. We're not at World War Z or old movie zombie speeds. Let's assume and establish the zombies in my scenario can move at the speed of a real human - not at supernatural speed or unearthly slow. Second, let's assume people behave like they do today. We don't idealize the nature of humans here. We know people can and will shove others down to live. It depends on who we are talking about. As a coworker pointed out, any emergency or crisis can cause similar results to the zombie apocalypse, minus a few zombie hordes here and there.  Where you live The overall picture of city life vs country ...

Internet safety is never a bad thing to write about. So here I am, giving you all a refresher course on today's internet safety. Let class begin.  Courtesy of katiecouric.com Nowadays you have to consider scammers, what is safe to post on social media, and how to identify fakes. Along with the basics of not blasting our contact information publicly and not posting personal information like bank accounts, we have to worry about AI too. It's a bit different than when you first learned it. Scammers get more clever and AI doesn't help.  I'm putting it in three categories for easy navigation. The first is scammers, the second is social media, and the last one is what you need to know about AI. The bell just rang. Let's start class.  Scammers Let's talk about psychological warfare. You need to know what they will try to do. Random phone calls asking for little things can lead to big things. The more they know about you, the worse it is. Don't engage. The more casu...

 Creative introverts or people with unique perspectives might all have a shared experience of being invisible in plain sight or not being taken seriously. At my old church invisibility was a reality every youth group meeting and I felt it didn't matter whether I was present or not. I'm not alone in this. I can even point to a movie reference - Alan from the Barbie movie. Let's talk about this.  Courtesy of Vulture.com It's happened to me before. I'm trying to tell a story. I'm coming to my point. I had a point. Someone interrupted and now the subject has flown off the table and into the trash can. Were they even listening? Maybe one person was. I'll now seek the lone listener out and talk to them alone. In fact, one on one is better than a group conversation because there is less chance of interruption. The person who interrupted? They won't hear my voice. The person who listens will hear my voice far more than the person who didn't let me finish. Th...

I played the newest Nancy Drew game! Today I review it for you, without spoilers.  Courtesy of progameguides.com Overall, it was much better than the last game they put out. It was beautiful, well thought out, had optional mini games, had the choice of classic and modern movement, and was a puzzle game (not just a living novel). Because I played this in almost one go, I suggest you pace yourself. Hubby and I fried our brains puzzle-wise. We stopped at the near end game and finished it later because we'd played it all day. Take your time. The puzzles are not as easy when you fry yourself, or easy at all. We cheated through some of it. I intend to play it slowly on my own to test whether the puzzles themselves or I was the problem in some cases. It is a lot of puzzles and talking to suspects. Don't forget to call people in this game.  I loved all the call-backs to the old games. They have pictures from old games in the cafe. They talk about her old cases. They even include puzzl...