So, did you hear the one . . .

about the power going out for a week and then a new job right on the heels of it turning a life temporarily upside down?

During my 5+ days without power as the result of the ice storms in Oklahoma, my television viewing got reduced (literally) to a three inch screen with rabbit ears. But after a few days with no television, I have to agree with the assertion that size really doesn't matter, because three black and white inches looked really good when we were able to reconnect to the outside world.

To occupy my time, I picked up a few of the books in James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series and found them markedly different from the characters in the series. The strongest similarity is obviously the lead character, Lindsay Boxer and her obsessive, workaholic ways.

In tonight's episode of Women's Murder Club, sadly the last to be finished before the strike took its toll, Lindsay's endearing dysfunctions were in full effect. As with many of the books, the plot focuses mainly on Lindsay's search for a serial killer. In the case of the series, the killer is one who has managed to elude Lindsay and her cohorts for several years.

Named Kiss Me Not, by Claire we learned tonight, the killer is given to stylized poses and sewing the lips of his victims shut. He has now seemingly set his sights on Lindsay herself, sending the FBI a photograph of her attached to one of Cindy's articles with Lindsay's lips symbolically sewn shut. The resulting surge of concern and emotions eventually lead Lindsay to showing an FBI agent her own obsession, an attic where every flat surface is filled with photos, notes, clues and anything related to the cases.

Lindsay acknowledges that her search for this killer has cost her a marriage, a personal life and now might even cost her very life. But in a striking admission, Lindsay tells the agent its okay with her if she is destroyed, so long as she is able to return the favor with her nemesis. A quiet moment, it was brimming with everything that is wrong with Lindsay Boxer, but also everything that is right. She is too obsessive, but her job is solving the ultimate crimes, and to her mind giving anything less than everything is unthinkable. Just as killers take everything from their victims, she feels honor bound to give her all to balance the scales.

Most of the cases in the series don't match up with the horror of the crimes described in the books, which seem at times to strive to mine the depths of human depravity and disregard for life. The Kiss Me Not killer is the one who would be the most at home in the pages of a Patterson book, which is a thought easily as disturbing as it is intriguing. But as with the nature of thrillers, once you get a good grasp on the crime, you're along for the ride to find its conclusion.

And the most heinous the killer, hopefully the more satisfying the capture of him will be. To be certain, now that he has all but challenged Lindsay, there will likely be no escape for her from the orbit of the crimes, now carrying each new death as though the blood is on her own hands for not stopping him.

I think some part of Lindsay would be strangely comforted by the idea that it would be her and no one else he would come after, because if that were the case, then some part of the power would be back in her hands to stop him. But as with the books, the onus will not fall on Lindsay alone, because besides her own strength, she is able to multiply it by the considerable strength of each of her friends.

We learned also, tonight, that Claire and Jill seemed to abandon Lindsay and her search for the Kiss Me Not killer, not ready to give as much of themselves as she was to bring in the killer. But there's a new member of the club now, and Cindy is the final piece of the puzzle. It's easy to think that her introduction and involvement with the club up to this point as been setting the stage for her to play some instrumental part in the search for the Kiss Me Not killer.

During the outage, just when we had given up hoping that rescue was coming, we looked out to find some amazing guys from Texas who showed up to bring us back into the 21st century. I hope that the potential television blackout doesn't seem to last as long as our power outage did. But, here's hoping the WGA gets their fair deal and gets back to work telling great stories. And also, here's hoping that shows like Women's Murder Club survive their long lay offs and pick up with the same momentum they have left off with.