We've already learned earlier this week what happens when you mix beer and the Australian outback, and it doesn't end well. Luckily, for Rod Sommerville, 54, of Australia, his story doesn't end in tragedy – it ends in beer.
Sommerville was bit by an eastern brown snake, one of the most highly venomous snakes in Australia – and that place is deadly! After returning home and calling for an ambulance, Sommerville calmly sat down and drank a nice, cold beer.
“I said to myself, 'if I'm going to [die], I'm going to have a beer,”' he told the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin.
Sommerville was treated with the anti-venom and all ends well. That leaves only one thing left to say: Cheers!
The problem with serial killers and psychopaths in fiction, in general, is that they are banal. If you want to be realistic, the story remains the same: we make our own monsters, and the only mystery is why every tortured child doesn’t become like their abuser. But part of the point of True Detective is that we live in circles, and live out the same stories. With serial killers, it is just more distinct: ritualized reenactment of the story at the core of their being, through their own lens, and inflicted upon others.
The Trident Deception is the debut thriller from Rick Campbell about a nuclear submarine that unknowingly receives orders to prepare for missile launch from a rouge organization (available March 11, 2014).
Bad Machinery: The Case Of The Good Boy by John Allison is the second volume in the web comic series about the middle grade sleuths of Griswald's Grammar School in Tackleford, England (available March 12, 2014).
After the pilot episode of the series set up the town and the central mystery of homecoming queen Laura Palmer’s murder, the first regular episode, “Traces to Nowhere,” begins to expand the canvas and deepen that mystery. FBI Agent Cooper, after securing a superior cup of java, questions a young man named James Hurley (played by James Marshall) about a video that shows Laura and her friend Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle) and hints at the presence of an unseen third person. Hurley admits that he shot the video, and that he was indeed having an affair with Laura, cheating with her behind the back of her batshit boyfriend Bobby Briggs, but he denies having anything to do with her death. We believe him, and so does Cooper.
It’s me again, kittens. Your friendly neighborhood Bibliotherapist, and believe me when I tell you that I know what’s ailing you. Yes, you. And you, too. Gather round, chumps and listen up.
The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie
Here’s how it commenced: One night when I was twelve, maybe thirteen, I caught the film Ten Little Indians on TV. It was the 1965 version, not the best (see 1945’s Then There were None) but compelling all the same. The set-up and execution (literally!) really grabbed me: Take ten strangers, strand them in an isolated mansion, and toss in some shadowy past sins, a slew of quirky murders, and an embedded killer, and what have you got? The beginning of a Christie reader. 
Not long after that evening, I learned that the person who’d dreamed up that dastardly little soiree was a rather renowned Englishwoman, well-born and cultured, who’d been responsible for scores of cold-blooded murders. That week I invested in my first Agatha Christie novel. It was a Dell paperback called Murder After Hours (aka The Hollow.) The cover art reminded me of the Golden Book Encyclopedia covers: a collection of seemingly random objects arranged in still-life. Here, scattered upon a window ledge, were a glowing flashlight, a crumpled note, a teacup and a revolver. Just outside the cracked windowpane, a large owl—shorthand for all things mysterious—sat on a bare black branch and stared forward menacingly. Good stuff. 
Providence Rag, the third book in the Liam Mulligan series by Bruce DeSilva, forces a journalist to dig through his town's archives in order to keep a convicted serial killer in jail (available March 11, 2014). 
Candles can be soothing, aromatic, and perfect for adding some warmth to a cold winter's night. But if you prefer a side of “creepy critter” with your candles, these might just be the ones for you. These candles will be available at 
The Black-Eyed Blonde, by Benjamin Black, brings back Raymond Chandler's famous PI Philip Marlowe as he follows a seductive, young heiress into the riskiest case of his career (available March 4, 2014).
Brooklyn Graves by Triss Stein is the second traditional mystery featuring historian Erica Donato, who'll research Tiffany glass as well as the murder of a family friend (available March 4th, 2014).
Board Stiff 
In case you missed it, last week Criminal Element took a look at this year’s Academy Awards nominees and 
City of Darkness and Light by Rhys Bowen, the thirteenth novel in the Molly Murphy historical series, follows the young mother to Paris in 1905, where she loses track of friends and stumbles onto a murder (available March 4, 2014).
