Dear Hildie:

 

Funny how images (and characters) endure:  Lovesey’s fat detective must be a version of Carr’s Dr. Gideon Fell, whom I always liked. But Fell is generally considered to have been physically modeled after Gilbert K. Chesterton, the creator of Father Brown (one of my favorite detectives, even if he is so smug you sometimes want to throttle him).

 

What a nasty day today-and they say there’s a storm out in the ocean. I wish it would just skip over to California and pout out all those fires for them.

 

Man from pest control says she have roof rats. The term roof rat makes it sound more technical than it is—Hell, they’re just Rattus rattus, the common rat, as opposed to R. norgevicus, the Norway rat, which I used to tend for the psychology department as a student. He’s going to climb up in the attic and deal with them there. I think it might be cheaper just to release a cat up there.  I kept wondering of any whimsical soul has a pest control service named Whittington’s—I’d definitely hire them. Especially if the owner’s first name was Dick (“Turn again, Dick Whittington, lord mayor of London.”).

 

I have one crew set to go tomorrow morning, to Crowley, if the weather permits. And two people in Plaquemines.

 

Oh, I hope you got my last letter (Aug. 17)—I stuck it through the window of the mail truck and it fell down onto the floor, but in plain sight.

 

Take care.

 

Love,