If a subway commute can set the tone of a day, it’s going to be an atypically good Tuesday. This morning, I didn’t have to lubricate my shoulders to fit into a car, AND there were sightings galore. Standing directly in front of me were two nursing students highlighting away in textbooks whose titles escape me; to my left and right, I took in at least four examples of popular fiction, most in subway-friendly mass market paperback.

Michael Connelly’s The Concrete Blonde (Warner, 1994) captured my attention because of its title, a nod, I couldn’t help thinking, to Concrete Blonde, a favorite band of mine from Los Angeles. Not surprisingly, that’s where Connelly’s Edgar Award–winning Harry Bosch novels take place. The second in the series, Blonde homes in on a serial killer who disfigures women’s faces, not an original conceit as far as I can tell, but what do I know about mysteries?

I admit it: I’ve never read a Connelly. In fact, as I wrote in The Case of the Nonmystery Readers, I haven’t killed time with a single contemporary mystery. Not even a 20th-century old schooler like Raymond Chandler, Connelly’s hero. I’m not sure if this makes me squeamish, prudish, snobbish, or just plain poorly read. How can I be out of the biggest genre-fiction loop ever? My answer: other books (including last week’s Subway Sighting, The History of Love) just get in the way.