{"id":1027,"date":"2012-08-27T03:00:40","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T07:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2014-02-09T15:12:08","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T20:12:08","slug":"untidy-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/2012\/08\/27\/untidy-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Untidy Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Maybe Miracle<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I may be premature in announcing this to be a Monday Miracle, because it hasn’t actually arrived yet.\u00a0 However, I did get an email notification that the book has shipped.<\/p>\n

Shipped, I tell you!<\/p>\n

And you tell me, “We don’t know what you’re talking about!”<\/p>\n

Explanations are in order.<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, when I was about twelve, I discovered a series of murder mysteries written by Frances and Richard Lockridge<\/a>.\u00a0 They featured a pair of amateur detectives, Mr. and Mrs. North<\/a>.\u00a0 They featured them, in fact, in a series of 26 novels, a Broadway play, a film, and a couple of TV and radio shows.<\/p>\n

I don’t remember which book I read first.\u00a0 I do remember I got it out of my grandmother’s library one summer.\u00a0 And then another and another.<\/p>\n

They were smart books.\u00a0 Funny.\u00a0 Full of the flavor of NYC in the Forties and Fifties.\u00a0 Unusually for the time period, it was usually Mrs. North who figured out who the murderer was.<\/p>\n

Over time, I read them all.\u00a0 And I wanted to be able to re-read them all at will.\u00a0 Thus, they were high on my list at used book stores and flea markets.\u00a0 I picked them up here and there, and then, some time ago, a number of them were re-released.\u00a0 I was able to find them at regular book stores.<\/p>\n

For years now, I have had 25 of them on my shelves.\u00a0 Untidy Murder<\/em>, written in 1947, was the lone volume missing.\u00a0 Twice, I have nearly had it.\u00a0 The internet greatly facilitates the search for ancient tomes.\u00a0 When I have remembered to check, copies of it have appeared to be for sale.\u00a0 But twice, I have ordered, had the order accepted and, subsequently, gotten a “We’re sorry, we no longer have that book” email.<\/p>\n

Just two weeks ago, I decided to spend part of the $40 I did not<\/em> have to pay my doctor (thank you, President Obama) on Untidy Murder<\/em>.\u00a0 It was a splurge.\u00a0 Out-of-print and in demand books are not cheap.\u00a0 I ordered it.\u00a0 And five days later, I got the “We’re sorry” email.<\/p>\n

Undaunted and determined–it’s the last <\/em>book in a forty year search–I remembered that another copy was available, for a higher price, and I ordered it again.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I got the email that it had been shipped.<\/p>\n

Hooray!<\/p>\n

I haven’t read Untidy Murder<\/em> in a long time.\u00a0 How great to finally, finally, finally have the whole series! I’m excited.<\/p>\n

Now, it should be noted that these are not first editions or anything.\u00a0 They are simply good reading copies of “good reads.”<\/p>\n

But isn’t that what a book is for?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Maybe Miracle I may be premature in announcing this to be a Monday Miracle, because it hasn’t actually arrived yet.\u00a0 However, I did get an email notification that the book has shipped. Shipped, I tell you! And you tell me, “We don’t know what you’re talking about!” Explanations are in order. Once upon a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[39,76,176,177],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-writing","tag-monday-miracles","tag-books","tag-lockridge","tag-north"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3269,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/3269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}