Yes and No

The Year of Yes, by Maria Dahvana Headley. I enjoyed this book very much. I'm even more impressed with the author's writing ability after she revealed where she attended school; I was expecting something much worse, a la no punctuation or verbs, but she was able to construct full and complete, grammatically-correct sentences. The book never really got mushy, but it was a very personal story and might offer interesting insight, or might just be a good story with personable characters. Definitely another positive experience among the nonfiction shelves. The Crossword Murder, by Nero Blanc. I saw this series, which has quite a few books in it, and thought they looked like fun. Unfortunately, it follows the same pattern as so many other mysteries that have put me off mysteries: a poor writer with an interesting idea, combined with esoteric knowledge and an ignorance of how real people talk and act. The murder victim had some character traits that made me glad I don't have to listen to him for the rest of the book, but the other characters aren't much better. There are crossword puzzles scattered throughout the book that are supposed to help you figure out who the killer is, but they aren't very well-written puzzles. Somebody must like these books, since the author has written so many, but that somebody isn't me.