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This morning, walking Trooper out in the pasture at our usual early-hour of 8:05 a.m., I heard a strange sound. Sort of a clicking sound as though something were being ratcheted or turned. I walked on a little further and heard the same sound and then I figured it out.

First, let me tell you that my ears are still plugged after taking an airline flight that, unfortunately, I took with a "post-nasal drip" (which the doctor said was more like a river!) and some Afrin and red syrupy liquid ----anyway, I was coughing a lot and my ears became very plugged up and are STILL! 5 days later I sound, to myself, as though I'm buried in a rain barrel---most annoying but not fatal.

So, about this sound I heard; I finally came to the conclusion that I could hear my right knee replacement device. Seriously! My external sound is affected, with the closed ears, so, for whatever reason, an "interior" sense of hearing was possible. Hey!! Don't argue with ME about it ! I'm only telling you what I distinctly heard and YOU weren't there. My knee is fine, thank you for asking, and I will almost miss the adventure of being able to "hear" it when my ears return to normal.

This is the fiction column and we'll start it out with the popular author, Iris Johansen, and her new work, "Fatal Tide". This story contains Dolphins, murder, a past to be left behind, and a question of whom to trust, all led to a conclusion by Melis Nemid. She's a marine researcher "and Melis knows all too well the dangers that can lurk under even the calmest surfaces but not even she can guess how deep the darkness runs."

A man who claims to also be, like Melis, an oceanographer offers his help and sympathy to help with the problems, and the dolphins, but she is not sure what it is he REALLY is after or how trustworthy he is. For all Johansen's fans, this one will be a good read. Come and check it out!

I think I have found my "birthday book" to give myself (although, actually, my birthday was three weeks back, one can always celebrate is my motto!) and it's by Reginald Hill, "Death's Jest Book". This makes the 20th novel Hill has written, starring both Det. Supt. Andy Dalziel and his favorite patrolman, Peter Pascoe, with various and sundry other police personnel thrown in.

The stories are humorous, the characters funny, darkly dangerous, and, above all, believable and the plot of murder and cover-up is deftly handled with typical police ingenuity and British humor.

Pascoe is of the literate, "new" police school with a degree of polish and sophistication, but the same cannot be said of his superior, Dalziel. No, indeed. And the Supt. can go from Santa Claus mode to Genghis Khan in a hurry i.e. Pascoe and his fellow officer, Bowler, are trying to tell Dalziel why they suspect Charley Penn of being in the frame of a murder:

"because he hates Jeanie Rye and me.  Charley Penn hates every bugger," said Dalziel, "What makes you two so special?" "Because we were both involved in the death of his best friend, Dick Dee, and that we covered it up and that you all went along with it because it meant you could tell the media you'd got the bastard" said Bowler, in a rapid rush of words.

"Dalziel was right out of Santa Claus mode---"You reckon that's what Charley thinks? He's not said it to me, but you'll know all that, seeing as he's not walking 'round with his head shoved up his behind!"

Earthy humor combined with street scenes, criminals, poetry, and hard-boiled detectives all add up to a great story---all 550 pages of it!

Mike Lupica is a well-known sports columnist and has found time to write 14 books! He is a regular on ESPN's "The Sports Reporters" and his new novel is, according to someone, "the funniest, smartest , most surprising novel yet", so let's look at "Red Zone". Jack Molloy, affectionately known as "Jammer", has a half interest in the team he inherited from his father, the New York Hawks, and , somehow and surprisingly, through twisting and scheming managed to get them into competing for a Super Bowl title.

He is now taking a vacation abroad, letting "the home team" take care of details for him, when he gets the phone call from his siblings, "the devil twins", that THEY have sold their half to Big Dick Miles and ask him why he doesn't do the same.

Mollloy refuses to do it, so the twins have another offer from Miles to wit: Miles will buy HALF of Jack's half , that way Molloy can still have a say-so in the team's running. Okay? Okay! "It doesn't take a month for Dick Miles to make George Steinbrenner look like Little Mary Sunshine" and Molloy takes a jet home, just in time to announce that he's back and will subdue this crazy new owner.

Except there are lots of roadblocks along the way, time is running short, and Molloy is not finding a plan to force Miles to give "his" team back to him. If you look for good sports stories or just good stories, this book is for you.

Richard Yancey, "A Burning in Homeland", is "sorta"a strange one, but one, I think, will reward you for reading it with a new outlook on human nature, humor, and a refreshing look at "life in the South".

One of the principal "voices" in the story belongs to 7 year old "Shiny" Parker, another one to Halley Martin, and the last to Mavis Howell.

On the eve of Halley Martin's coming home from prison, the church parsonage burns, the minister and his wife, Mavis, and their young daughter, Sharon-Rose are homeless with the minister in the hospital as a burn victim and Shiny's mother, dad, and brother take them in.

One big question remains in this tiny Southern town, if Halley was still in prison when the house burned, then exactly who set the fire and why? The term "Southern Gothic" usually refers to a story that has mysterious elements in it that defy logic, the dark side of the characters are not widely known or shown until later on, and there are secrets. We got it here, folks. Come on in and check it out.

For all of us who like Western lore and good stories here's "Wild Horse River", Wayne Overholser, and there's trouble in the high country and it's the same story---greed and murder to take over land and other people.

In San Marcos County, the river is the dividing line with ranchers on one side and the people who live on Banjo Mesa on the other side. The election of Jim Bruce as sheriff of the county was interpreted, and rightly so, as an act of defiance, by small ranchers and the "ordinary people" of Banjo Mesa as a vote against Holt Klein, owner of the K Cross Ranch.

Then, the owner of Gray's Crossing is murdered and Klein insists the evidence points to people in Blue Mesa but the new sheriff is unconvinced that it is a fact. A "rattlin' good yarn" by a master storyteller who has won the well-known (in Western writing circles) Spur Award, a master at portraying the different lifestyles of the many people who came West.

Soon, it will be Daylight Saving Time and warmer weather, longer, and dark won't fall until 9:00 p.m. and I will get out all my shorts and cotton tops. I can hardly wait 'cause I love warm and hot weather.

So, come in and get a book and sit out on your patio before dinner, and read and have a couple of crackers and cheese, invite a friend over for an old-fashioned hamburger and potato salad and see ya next column. Be aware of who YOU are and what YOU like and don't like since there will never be another you. Bye!