Pomatomus

In the past year I've heard and read so much about Pomatomus socks by Cookie A. I finally bit the bullet and started a pair. I'm using Knit Picks EssentialSolid in Coral and so far it's gone well. The photograph shows the first sock through the second repeat of Chart A. This pattern is not one to rush through. It's easy to think it's in your head and go forward, only to rip back because suddenly the wrong number of stitches are on the needles.

I'm also going slow because while I might have the first Pomatomus sock done in January, I don't want to start the second until February, so at least one of the pair can count towards the Limenviolet Sock Marathon which doesn't start until February 1. The pair will go towards my February pair for the Great Sock Off 2009 Marathon.

52 Books in 52 Weeks: Book 4 is Heat Lightning, by John Sandford. I'm a long-time fan of John Sandford books, reading the first one shortly after graduating from high school. I love them because John Sandford creates a wonderful hero character and the books take place in Minnesota.

Heat Lightning is the second in a spinoff series from his Prey series. While the Prey series features Lucas Davenport, the new series features Virgil Flowers. While Davenport has a cameo in this series, the main character is Virgil Flowers who is an investigator for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and works for Davenport. He is writes for outdoor/hunting magazines.

In Heat Lightning, Flowers is hunting for the killers of Vietnam veterans who leave their murdered victims at veterans' memorials with a lemon in their mouth. If you like action in a mystery, a well-developed plot and wonderful characters, you'll enjoy Heat Lightning as much as I did. If you know the Minnesota and the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in particular, you'll also enjoy this book. John Sandford obviously knows the territory of which he writes and describes it flawlessly.