This is not Woody Allen

Join editor Nancy Kilpatrick and authors from Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead (including me) tomorrow on the Bitten by Books online launch event from noon central on Wednesday, through to noon central on Thursday. Post your question for an author to answer, and pick up a copy of Evolve on the Amazon.com link tomorrow. RSVP before the event to get additional entries in the contest. Prizes: 1 – $30 Amazon Electronic Gift Card; 1 – $20.00 Amazon Electronic Gift Card; 1 – $15.00 Amazon Electronic Gift Card.

I finished Painted Ladies by Robert B. Parker yesterday afternoon. It’s probably not fair to call it a novel—more of a novella, based on how long it took me to read it. It was very much like any other Spenser novel, with the exception being that Hawk was away on CIA business. The most notable thing about it is that Spenser confessed to having a first name. He revealed it to another character, but not to readers.

Specters in Coal Dust starts shipping today. Can’t wait to hear what people think of this anthology.

It took me a while to figure out that the guy who kept showing up like Waldo in just about every scene of How I Met Your Mother this week was Maury Povich. I knew it was the same guy—I’m just not familiar enough with him to recognize him on sight.

I liked that they included the classic Stephen J. Cannell producer credit clip at the end of last night’s Castle. You know the one, where he’s sitting at the typewriter and rips out the sheet and tosses it into the air, where it becomes animated. The episode was pretty good, too, with the running gag of Esposito constantly getting hurt, like the character in the Brewster Rockit comic strip (a Wesley Crusher analog) who’s always getting his spleen yanked out or pulverized. The episode tackled steampunk and time travel (loved the guy who opened the door to the private club). Still, the funniest scene involved Castle getting chewed out by the cop for hitting the wrong target at the shooting range, and the second funniest was the dialog surrounding the discovery of the dead squirrel in the tree. “Aw, no, they took his clothes, too,” Castle says. And then some cop off screen goes “Awwwww” when Ryan handed the squirrel carcass to him. I spotted one continuity glitch. Ryan says “It’s exactly like the one that killed Goldstein” and Castle responds, “Yes, it does.” Guess Ryan was supposed to say “It looks exactly like…” Writer-geek moment of the show: Castle says that Alexis’s first word was denouement. “I stressed story structure from an early age,” he explains.

Funniest bit on House last night was when Chase let the new doctor go. He was all set to offer her a second chance, on House’s say-so, when she said she couldn’t date him if they were co-workers. “Sorry it didn’t work out,” Chase says, without missing a beat. “How about dinner?”

Dexter has been in some pretty sticky situations over the years, but the one he ends up in at the end of this week’s episode seems like the worst he’s ever experienced. First there was the whole Laurel and Hardy bit with him and Boyd tranquilizing each other. That could have been catastrophic if Boyd hadn’t decided to handle things on his own. Of course, once we found out later that he brings his work home with him, it explains why he wouldn’t want to get on the police radar. So then Dexter zaps him again (“The could have gone smoother,” he observes) and does what he does so well (winging it to the point of wearing Boyd’s apron with the ironic logo Natural Born Griller) though it didn’t do for him what he was hoping. But then the unthinkable happens—there’s a witness, and what a witness. Julia Stiles looking like death warmed over. What the hell does he do now? The only obvious solution is to get rid of her, but she’s the epitome of the innocent victim. Looks like he’s going to have his work cut out for him now, keeping a prisoner while juggling work and a baby, with Quinn breathing down his neck to boot. Dexter always has four crises to handle at once. By the way, does anyone think the Irish nanny is going to factor into things somehow? Maybe it’s just my mistrust of Irish guardians engendered by Sons of Anarchy.