'B' is for Burglar
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　by Sue Grafton

　私の読書時間は年間でばらつきがあり，大体９月から１２月ぐらいまでは読む時間が取れますが，２月から４月はほとんど時間がとれないのが実情です。（その代わり入試問題を解いています！？）
　そんなわけで，今年も数ヶ月冬眠に入ります。Sue Graftonは２冊めですが，最後の１０ページぐらいまで，展開が読めず，一体この物語はどこへ行くんだろう，っといった感じ。
　本屋の立ち読みで翻訳された作品の解説を読んでいたら，どうも７作目ぐらいは好きになれなかった，などという方もおり，とくに主人公に関係者が気軽にいろいろなことを打ち明けてくれるのが不思議なようでした。
　たしかに会話だけで物語が進行して行くようで，ちょっと都合がいいかな？…などと。。。

basket case

"Yeah, right. Jesus, that was terrible. I mean, her and me were never close, but my uncle really got messed up over that. He's a fuckin' basket case. Oh. Sorry 'bout that," he said sheepishly. "He's like vegged out or something, staying with this other aunt of mine.

baset caseいろいろな意味があるようです。米俗語で「(戦争などで)手足を全部失った人《◆戦場で重傷兵をかごに入れて運んだことから》→(身体的)不能者, (精神的に)無力な人；(興奮などで一時的に)正常な判断のできない人；ちゃんと機能しないもの；財政的苦境にある国[会社]」（ジーニアス大英和）
veg outも俗語で「(酒や麻薬で)体が衰弱して」という意味だそうですから，basket caseは「老いぼれ」ということでしょうか。
この英語は，教養のない人を表しているようで，多少文法があやしい…

secretary

She unlocked her front door and moved into the living room, crossing to the secretary.

secretaryは「秘書」から派生したのでしょうか，「ライティング=ビューロー《引き出しつきの机；上部にある棚のふたを手前に倒してその上で書き物をする》(secretaire).

on a dare

"Well, she sure had the right idea. I wouldn't have come out of my room on a dare! But why would she do that? I don't understand."

dareの名詞は珍しいですが，a dareで「挑戦, あえてすること, 挑戦にこたえた行為」ということだそうで，「確かに彼女にはちゃんとした考えがあったわ。自分の部屋から出てくる勇気なんかなかったわ。でも，なんで彼女があんなことを？わからないわ」

corpulent and benign

The curtain was released and the door opened a crack. The man appeared to be in his seventies, corpulent and benign.
「小太りしていて，ひとがよさそうな」　２つの単語で成句を形成していると思いましたが，単なる形容詞の羅列でした。
corpulentは私には珍しい気がしました。

A florid man, heavy without being corpulent, sat in　front of the fire with a newspaper. (Blood Shot)
「太ってはおらず頑健な，血色の良い男が新聞を手に暖炉の前に座った。」

Henry Fielding

His eyebrows shot up. "This guy lives in town here? He's a whiz! He drives me up the wall with these things. Look at this one. Eighteenth-Century English Novelists and he includes all their books and their characters and everything. I had to go read Henry Fielding and Laurence Steme and people I never even heard about just to get through the thing.

Fielding【名】フィールディング《Henry 〜 1707-54；英国の小説家･劇作家；英国における小説の創始者の一人；The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling 《トム=ジョーンズ》(1749)》

Laurence Steme　

Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.
- Laurence Steme

（考えが全面的に変化することほど完璧に面白いことはない）

不思議なことにLaurence Stemeを検索しても２７件しかヒットせず，そのうち，「Laurence Steme」に言及しているとおぼしきページは２ページのみ。しかし，上の引用は格言集から。とっても有名だけれど，Web上には載っていないということでしょうか。
ちなみに英和辞典ではダメです。

vivisectionist

Two patches of mild pink appeared on her cheeks and she licked her lips, staring at me fixedly. I wondered if she'd sold the cat to a vivisectionist.

「生体解剖者」！？

どうも，私は生まれて初めて出会った単語のようです。なんで，こんな単語を使えるんでしょう！？

a mynah bird

I paused at a stand and picked up a newspaper. There was a coffee shop open and I bought scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and juice, taking my time about breakfast while I read a human-interest story about a man who'd left all his money to a mynah bird.

「マイナ」

Crazy Eights

Peer over a windowsill and chances are you're going to watch the villains play Crazy Eights. I've never seen anyone dismember the body or divvy up the bank heist. I decided to stay in my car and wait.

There is a huge number of variations of this game, and many alternative names. It is sometimes called Crates, Switch, Swedish Rummy, Last One or Rockaway. In Germany it is Mau-Mau; in Switzerland it is Tschausepp; in the Netherlands it is Pesten. Some British players call it Black Jack, which is unfortunate as it can lead to confusion with the well-known American banking card game Blackjack.

Basic Game

The basic game of Crazy Eights uses a standard 52 card pack, or two such packs shuffled together if there are a lot of players. The dealer deals (singly) five cards to each player (seven each if there are only two players). The undealt stock is placed face down on the table, and the top card of the stock is turned face up and placed beside the stock to start the discard pile.

Starting with the player to dealer's left, and continuing clockwise, each player in turn must either play a legal card face up on top of the discard pile, or draw a card from the undealt stock. The following plays are legal:

1. if the top card of the discard pile is not an eight, you may play any card which matches the rank or suit of the previous card (for example if the top card was the king of hearts you could play any king or any heart);
2. an eight may be played on any card, and the player of the eight must nominate a suit, which must be played next;
3. if an eight is on top of the pile, you may play any card of the suit nominated by the person who played the eight.

The first player who gets rid of all their cards wins, and the other players score penalty points according to the cards they have left in their hands - 50 for an eight, 10 for a picture, and spot cards at face value (one point for an ace, two for a two and so on).

bimbo

No response. Maybe what I said had no more reality for her than this bimbo with the birthday cake.

1やつ(fellow)；((米))ばか者.2(頭のよくない)セクシーな美女, グラマーな女《◆しばしば要職にある男と不倫関係を持つというイメージがある》.だそうですが，文脈から離れたために意味不明です。

But it's not an act. He genuinely doesn't have a handle　on the problem. She takes a deep breath. "That bimbo was hanging around you all night, coming on to you, and you didn't get rid of her-you encouraged her!"

これは日本語で大ヒット「話を聞かない男，地図の読めない女」からの一節。この本ではbimboが好きなようで４回も登場しています。
こちらはやさしい英語で，文脈がなくとも理解できます。ここでは，「グラマーな女」ですね。

clairvoyance

Marty had had hours to set it up and I could visualize the scenario as though I had powers of clairvoyance.

「千里眼」

Some went even further, claiming powers of clairvoyance, as if they'd known all along at Miss Channing was destined to be the prime mover in what Professor Peyton would later call with typical hyperbole
こちらは原題はCHATHAM SCHOOL AFFAIR，邦題は「緋色の記憶」。私は見ていませんが，現在（２００３年２月）翻案されたドラマが放映されているはず。

私の読書歴ではこの２例だけのようです。

（２００３年２月６日）