Today's NYT: Full of People I Know

Hanna's on her way, so first thing this morning I scooped up the blue New York Times bag from my front stoop and rushed back inside before the 50 mph winds could get me. I unpacked the paper and saw that Laura Lippman's serial, "The Girl in the Green Raincoat," begins today in the Times Magazine. It's a Tess Monaghan story, and it has a kick-ass opener:

“I’m being held hostage,” Tess Monaghan whispered into her iPhone to her friend Whitney. “By a terrorist. The agenda is unclear, the demands vague, but she’s prepared to hold me here for at least 12 weeks. Twelve weeks or 18 years, depending on how you look at it.”

As always with these NYT serials, I'm torn: do I read it week by week, or save 'em up so I can gorge all at once? I'm so damn impatient. I guess I really should enjoy this one as it was intended: in lazy Sunday doses, with eggs and/or bloody maries.

But Laura's not the only Friend of Secret Dead Blog in the Paper of Record. Turn to the front section of Saturday's paper, and there's Ed "Poe Boy" Pettit, making the case for stealing Edgar Allan Poe's body (and legacy). I still think it's amazing that Ed's 15-second pitch over beers and bison burgers in Old City has turned into this multi-city lit war. I love it. If you want to see Ed do the Poe thing live, he'll be on a Bouchercon Poe panel early Friday morning. Not sure if he'll be able to sneak a pipe in, though...

Pettit photo by Jennifer Kourkounis for the New York Times.