Hooray for long holiday weekends!!

The Fourth of July weekend gave me three days off and besides cleaning, I read a lot.
I finished "Fixer Upper" by Mary Kay Andrews. I wasn't sure that I like the heroine, Dempsey, at first. She seemed awfully stupid but once she got to Guthrie, Georgia and the old house that had been in her father's family, a new Dempsey seemed to appear. Of course, the townspeople were kind, decent people and that helped. It is not the quick fix that her father had convinced her it would be. It also has a tenant - a crabby old lady who's not about to move out, and her dog. But there's a great contractor and a cute lawyer to help her in her times of trial. Dempsey worked for a Washington lobbyist who's being investigated, along with a corrupt senator. These stellar males want to put all the blame on young Dempsey's head. It's just not right.
As long as I was on a roll, I read "A Little Learning" by Jane Tesh. Of course, part way through it I realized that I had read the first one some time ago and then missed the second book - ah well. Madeline Maclin is trying to find enough work in the little town of Celosia, North Carolina to keep her private invetigator office open. She's looking into the death of an unpopular teacher at the elementary school and trying to help a man solve a riddle left him by his uncle which will bring him lots of money if he can solve it within a week's time. All this is second to trying to make sure her new husband and best friend keeps on the straight and narrow - like keeping a job and not doing faux seances. Now I can try to read the second book!
Just finished a very odd book - or maybe it's the main character who's odd. "The Chalk Circle Man" by Fred Vargas - a female Fred!Commissaire Adamsberg is an odd duck. He seems to think differently from other people. He is new to Paris and is very disturbed by the blue chalk circles that some man is leaving around various items around Paris. He's quite sure that something evil is about to happen. Unfortunately, he doesn't have long to wait. A body is found in a circle one night. Before, Adamsberg can solve the case there will be two more bodies. He thinks about his "petite cherie" who leaves him frequently and then for good. A oceanographer who follows people around the city and records their actions in a notebook. She also has a very firm opinion about the week being divided into sections and that there is a rhythm to these sections. It's all quite complicated. She has a building with three apartments. She lives in one and a timid old lady lives in one - another oddball who keeps answering personal ads. Then there is the blind man she discovers at lunch one day and rents the bottom apartment to. Adamsberg's main detective, Danglard is a tall, awkward man who has two sets of twins at home plus the child his wife had with her lover and dumped on him. He's very intellegent and starts to drink white wine sometimes quite early in the day. I'm not sure if I like this one. I'll read another to find out.