My July 2 book culture column for the San Francisco Chronicle:
I have a dear friend who for years was a big-deal corporate lawyer in a big-deal New York firm. She worked insane hours and sacrificed a great deal on the road to making partner. But she had a secret guilty pleasure: Great piles of mysteries, the trashier the better, covered every flat surface in her apartment. It was in these satisfying pages that she found relaxation. Throw in a pint of Haagen-Dazs and life was sweet.