Resquiescat in pacem

I keep a database of books I have read - purely a practical matter, so that I know what I've read, and what I've enjoyed - and what I haven't. My latest read was Ed McBain's "Alice In Jeopardy", and as I've been reading McBain for as long as I can remember, I thought I'd check up and see how old he is - must be getting on, I thought to myself. But I just wasn't ready for the news that he had died. July apparently, and he was 78 which is a good enough age, but dead? No more 87th Precinct stories? Carella, Kling, Meyer Meyer all silenced? Somehow it just doesn't seem possible. As John O'Hara is reputed to have said on being told of the death of George Gershwin "I don't have to believe it if I don't want to".