>>We do indeed have a common data point. I loved the Nero Wolfe detective series.
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>>Did you catch any of the A&E series? You can get DVD's on Amazon.com if you missed it. Really worth watching...
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>Thanks for the tip.

I saw some of those many years ago. Timothy Hutton was excellent, and of course Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe was superb. Much better than the older series with William Conrad.

Right now I'm messing around with a mystery series by G.M. Malliet - his Max Tudor series. Tudor is an ex MI5 agent turned priest in an English village. They are simply fun. On the side, I'm working off and on through a book called The Art of Shogi by Tony Hosking. Shogi is a fascinating Japanese version of chess with some very interesting differences and which I may never be able to get my head around. What makes it really interesting is the fact that it is based on the way that early Japanese wars were fought, in that capture didn't necessarily mean death, it may only have meant that the captured warrior had to change sides. When you capture a piece in Shogi, that piece becomes yours and if you see an advantage at some point in the game, under certain conditions, you can drop it back onto the board as one of your own in a position of your own choosing. It's hard to grasp the idea that you have to play the pieces your opponent has on the board as well as the ones off the board. As I said, fascinating.