An Implacable Woman by K.T. Findlay
(K.T. Findlay – An
Implacable Woman)
It’s
amazing how quickly we get used to things these days. A new app comes
out for our phones and within an incredibly short time we either
discard it or start treating it like part of the landscape. In fact
the smart phone itself is now so ubiquitous, it’s hard to believe
that it’s been around for just a decade and a half.
Much
to the amusement of my friends, I’m always a little cautious about
whacking a new app onto my phone. I tend do my research, checking out
the history of the company selling it, and noting what history of my
own it plans on keeping. This provokes wry smiles and not a few jokes
at my expense, but I’ve always found mobile phone apps to be a bit
like eating delicious food in a dodgy restaurant. You never know
which bit of deliciousness is going to end up biting you back!
I
am however, completely in favour of the GPS range of apps,
specifically Google maps and Apple maps. Well, at least now that
Apple maps doesn’t bite you anymore... See what I mean? Do we even
remember now how bad Apple Maps was when it first came out? We’ll
come back to this in a bit.
My
enthusiasm comes from a 2005 visit to Dallas Texas, before the smart
phone exploded onto the scene. It was my first visit to the US where
I was going to have to drive myself. The conference was being held in
Plano, north of Dallas, and I’d been told that there weren’t a
whole lot of cabs up there, so I was ordered to get myself a car. No
problem I thought. I like driving. This is going to be fun!
The
first shock was having to take a twenty minute bus ride to the car
hire place and finding myself still on the airport. The second was
being handed a single sheet of Letter sized paper. That was my map.
All of it. And Dallas Fort Worth is seventy miles across…
My
company was too cheap to hire me a GPS, I couldn’t afford one
myself, and there were no other maps for sale in the centre, so that
one sheet of paper would have to do. Fortunately the hotel was on
Preston Road, one of the major thoroughfares. All I had to do was
stay on the freeway until the signs said exit for Preston and then
head north.
My
plan was scuppered as soon as I tried to leave the airport. I didn’t
even make it to the freeway before I got lost, driving around the
airport perimeter roads until I found a gas station. They kindly sold
me a proper book of maps, of the kind a sane hire car company would
have provided in the first place, and pointed me back in the general
direction of the freeway where I reverted to my original plan, having
confirmed its worth with my new maps.
The
problem was that I had absolutely no appreciation at that point of
just how vast Dallas Fort Worth really was, and here I was hammering
down the freeway at eleven at night, in heavy rain, sitting on the
wrong side of the car, driving on the wrong side of the road, in a
country with different road rules, and not having slept for a day and
a half. So after a while, a long while, and having driven what seemed
to be a very long way, I began to think I must have missed the exit.
But you can’t stop on a freeway, and you sure shouldn’t be
reading a map and driving, so eventually, very reluctantly, I got off
the freeway to check where I was.
I
was still miles before my planned exit, and with no idea whatsoever
as how to get back onto the freeway. Still, if I headed east through
the never ending maze of streets I should hit Preston, and
eventually, eventually, I did.
Job
done.
Happy
days.
Just
a cruise now, and I’d soon be tucked up in a nice comfy bed.
Hah!
Wrong on both counts.
I
stopped to check my position.
Oh
good… My hotel isn’t on the map. At all. Both my one sheet and my
book of maps stop south of the hotel…
Terrific…
Once more into the breech dear friends…
I
did eventually get there, having covered the twenty six mile distance
in about two hours.
After
that experience, the arrival of Google Maps on a mobile phone was
about as welcome to me as the plumber who comes to unblock your
toilet. The initial incarnation of Apple Maps on the other hand, was
as welcome as the guest who blocked it in the first place.
When a man hits his wife, then it’s his turn to die
Furious that the courts and police can’t prevent respected surgeon John Kirby from beating his wife, Sally Mellors steps in to save her. Permanently…
But Grace Kirby isn’t the only one who needs saving and Sally quickly discovers she’s taken on a much bigger job than she’d thought.
With her unique ability to blend justice with fun, Sally sets joyfully about the business of removing the monsters from women’s lives, but is she in danger of becoming a monster herself?
As her friends in the police get ever closer, Sally has some serious questions of her own to answer.
Additional Maps of where An Implacable Woman is set-https://ktfindlay.com/an-implacable-woman-maps/
Webpage : www.ktfindlay.com
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Twitter : https://twitter.com/ktfindlay
