In the mood for a nice little mystery this morning? If you don’t have time for The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, check out Sandra G. Boodman‘s nice little tale in ‘smorning’s Washington Post. Something is wrong with Adam Hammerman’s memory:
One morning as Adam prepared to take a shower, he screamed after seeing himself in the mirror: He said he did not remember getting a haircut the previous day. He called his mother from school to ask what time she was picking him up, then called again five minutes later to ask the same thing…
It’s a very nice piece. Boodman manages to sneak in the science you need to understand Adam’s condition without interrupting the story line. Of course, unlike the girl with the dragon tattoo, Adam is real.
That means that the ending is…well, I don’t want to spoil it.
This is the latest in a series of Boodman mysteries. If you like this one, do not follow the link at the bottom of the story to find more. It’s a link to the health page, where you can see only a couple of them, if you try hard enough. The series, however, is here. (Memo to IT: fix the link.)
And if you’re in the mood for the master, at whose feet Boodman surely must have studied, check out this collection of stories from The New Yorker by Berton Roueche, who, if he didn’t invent the form, certainly perfected it.
– Paul Raeburn
Leave a Reply