Quote of the Day (Harley Jane Kozak, on an American Adrift in London’s October Fog)

“The October day was murky with fog. And cold. I was wearing Robbie’s red rain slicker, but it wasn’t enough. How’d I get roped into doing this favor-turned-into-an-enigma-wrapped-in-a–Twilight Zone episode? Robbie had a lifetime of practice getting me to do stuff he didn’t like doing—pet immigration in this case—but I’d had the same lifetime of practice saying no. Yet here I was, and minus the pet in question. How had it happened? What had happened? And why? And where was my damned brother? Seriously, what was I supposed to do? Call 911? Was the number even 911 in England? And then what? I wasn’t one to chalk things up to supernatural forces, but it was a stretch to assume a criminal act. What self-respecting thief would want a plump, elderly cat? And why leave in her place this wheezing dog, straining at his makeshift leash, pulling me through London?”—American actress-turned-crime fiction writer Harley Jane Kozak, “The Walk-In,” in The Best American Mystery Stories 2019, edited by Jonathan Lethem (2019)

Quote of the Day (Harley Jane Kozak, Imagining a Reality Show Star’s Nightmare Hair Job)

“There are worse fates than a fluorescent orange head. Wars and natural disasters and world hunger. This is what I told myself, looking in the mirror at the damp strands. 

“ ‘Change it,’ Jen said. 

‘I can't,’ Gloria said. ‘Her hair barely survived the stripping process. Anything I do now, she goes to brush it, she'll destroy it.’

‘My God, she looks like she's on break from clown college.’”—American mystery novelist (and former TV and film actress) Harley Jane Kozak, Dead Ex (2007)

This post is for a friend of mine (AND HE KNOWS WHO HE IS!!!) who is quite an admirer of Ms. Kozak—certainly of her film appearances, in the likes of Parenthood and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, anyway. But I suspect that he’d be pleasantly surprised at her additional talent for breezy mysteries, in the form of detective Wollie Shelley, like this particular title.