The Second Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders (1977) – BR00288 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪
Plot or Premise
Victor Maitland is an artist of great passion and terrible interpersonal skills. When he shows up dead, knifed in the back in a low-rent painting studio, there are lots of possible suspects. Everyone hated his guts, as they say.
What I Liked
The original case had gone nowhere, looked like a faked robbery, but with no leads. Maitland’s uncle had some juice and put pressure on Thorsen to solve it, which pulled Delaney back in from retirement. Delaney starts working with Abner Boone and they make great partners and mentor/mentee with no BS, just hard talk.
I enjoyed the investigation into all the different possible suspects. And even into Maitland. Despite being a first-class jerk, Delaney admires his artwork. For the suspects, we meet his wife in denial, his art manager in greed, the art manager’s lawyer in possible cahoots, the son in anger, a model in ignorance, a model in luxury and notoriety, and his extended family in seclusion in the boonies.
It’s a great case to see all the moving pieces going nowhere fast, until you start to see some movement with some of the culprits. Fantastic procedural, particularly for the early times.
And I did not see the ending coming. Delaney has the nickname Iron B*lls for a reason.
What I Didn’t Like
There are a bit too many red herrings with so many suspects, most of which go nowhere useful, and there’s extra romance layered on for the home life of Delaney and Boone.
The Bottom Line
Even jerks deserve a homicide investigation
2026: G is for goals
It seems almost ironic to have a post about goals…after all, all 26 of these posts are about goals. Taking stock of where I am, looking at where I want to go and how to get there.
So what would a separate post about goals cover that the other 25 won’t?
Well, the fact that I’m blogging 26 times to start the year for one.
I was inspired by a book about journaling, as I said earlier, and so I created a list of 26 items to blog about in January. I’ve covered A-F already, will do H-Z after this. For today, it is about how I’m doing on managing my goals.
I took a break before Christmas after writing twice about my writing goals and trying to apply the PACE methodology (primary, alternate, contingency, emergency) to setting priorities. It doesn’t quite fit, but I think I found a way to structure it. I’ll try to do the same for a few others, and when I’m done Z, I’ll do some sort of wrap-up and prioritization exercise.
Over the course of the year, though, I’m going to look at some other “insights” aka popular books about goals. Mel Robbins is huge in the popular press these days, and while I fear it’ll turn out to be the motivational equivalent of the decluttering fad about whether something gave you joy, I want to read what she has to say.
I also need to check in on my 60×60 list and see how I’m doing, which will likely kick off in February.
In the meantime, I have a new little tool. They sell these little whiteboards that look a bit like keyboards (about the same length and width) with a surface to write on and wipe off. It is designed to sit on your desk in between your keyboard and your monitor and give you a place to take notes, set a to do list, etc. I love it. Andrea and Jacob got me one for Christmas and I liked it so much, I ordered a second one to sit on my work desk, too. It’s perfect for my short-term to do list as I rarely like digital apps for managing smaller bits.
Stay tuned!
