Mystery

Sometimes I like to read a mystery series. It spares me wondering what to read next; just get the next book. A year or so ago, I read all the Miss Marple books, in the order in which they were published. Now I'm doing the same with the Inspector Lynley books, by Elizabeth George. I'm on the second book, Payment in Blood.

In a mystery novel, they have to introduce a lot of characters early on, so that you have a good line-up of suspects. My trouble is, I'm bad with names. So, as I read, I often confuse one character with another. Now is this the victim's brother-in-law or the detective's ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend? So today during lunch I went back to the beginning and paged through (on my Kindle) writing down each character's name, key facts, their age if mentioned, and their relationship to other characters. I didn't quite get them all, but I've got a start, and when I'm done then I can quickly check who's who as each character shows up with their alibi or lack thereof.