2012.10.22 Meeting Notes

Happy Halloween everyone. We had a great October meeting last Monday, including a costume contest. I was very impressed with the originality and effort that went into the costumes. First we had Amy, who came as Sookie Stackhouse working her waitress job at Merlottes Bar & Grill (but as I understand it, she was future Sookie, at 40 with 2 kids). Roxanne and Judy were decked out as witches and Sharon was a biker chick in full leathers (chaps and all). Lorraine came as Virgil Flowers, complete with badge and bag of evidence. Jeff was Professor Plum……in the library……with the wrench. All of the costumes were great, but there had to be a winner and that honor went to Jose. He came as Archie Sheridan from Night Season. He had a bloody heart carved into his chest, a gash across his throat, and one on his head. In his hand was a bottle of vicodin. But wait, there’s more. The pièce de résistance was the fact that Jose was soaking wet from the torrential rain in Portland throughout the book. Yes, he was actually soaking wet. That fact pushed it over the top and he won best costume and is now the proud owner of a crime scene scarf. Photos were taken and will be in the wiki site with this summary.

We watched a Chelsea Cain interview on the big screen, thanks to Jeff’s technology skills. Everyone got to see just how quirky she is and hear a little bit about the real Vanport flood she used as a backdrop in The Night Season. If anyone wants to be Chelsea next year for Halloween all you need is a plaid shirt and a polka dot & mismatched colored necktie, and a winter scarf.

We played serial killer bingo and Sookie, I mean Amy won. She now owns a copy of Chelsea Cain’s Latest book Kill You Twice, with a very strange dedication that mentions a hand job. Will the first person to read the book please let us know what that refers to. I think our imaginations must be worse than the real thing. We continued to play and Kim won the second prize, surprise, surprise – it was a BOOK.

We ate our way through Garlic Jims pizza and some great desserts that Lorraine made, all I can say is chocolate balls and you know they were good. Lorraine also got really creative and gave each of us a little Halloween bag full of peanut M&Ms. Each bag was decorated with an octopus (just not poisonous like in the book) and a little key to match the post office keys the murderer was passing out. Very creative Lorraine!!! Sign me up for your next craft class please.

Oh yeah, I think we also talked about a book. That’s right, Chelsea Cain’s The Night Season. We got some pretty differing opinions on this one. Really, it was all across the board with a 1.2 rating all the way to an 8. Kim mentioned that she wasn’t really a Gretchen fan, so she liked it more than the others because it didn’t really have Gretchen in it. Others, who love Gretchen, were disappointed not to have the devious deva play a large role.

We had different opinions on the murder weapon too. Some people thought the octopus was clever and some thought it was lame. It was definitely something new, that’s for sure. Most of us weren’t pleased at who the murderer was, and thought it was a bit of a letdown. The fact that the guy’s grandfather was killed years ago just didn’t seem to be a big enough deal to create a deranged serial killer. Dave thought we were Daisy’d when the old lady in the nursing home just happened to be lucid enough to tell Susan the name of the dead guy. I liked that Archie and Susan got closer (probably because Gretchen wasn’t present), but we were all sad that the young cop had to die.

As mentioned above, the Vanport flood did really happen. Chelsea talks about it a bit in her interview, and there is also a wiki site that discusses it. Both links are below:

Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WndnSGocGc

Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanport_City,_Oregon

Next month we will meet to discuss Force of Nature by CJ Box. I’ve got Dave down to lead and me to bring snacks. Dave, you thought you had snacks and are welcome to bring one, just let me know ahead of time.

See you next month,

Kerry