Answers to Go with Susan Smith
Q. I lost my Medicaid card. Can you help me find a telephone number for United Healthcare Texas Star Plus Medicaid?
A. You can request a new card by calling 1-844-445-4913 Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Their webpage includes a link to a doctor search database and types of coverage offered. I verified that it does serve Hays County residents.
Source: https://www.uhccommunityplan.com/tx/medicaid/star_plus.html.
Q . I just finished “Kingdom of the Blind.” Is this Louise Penny’s last novel in the Inspector Gamache series?
A. In searching for the answer, I pulled up a Louise Penny interview by Jocelyn McClurg in an online edition of USA Today, dated Dec. 6, 2018.
McClurg asks: “Some readers seem to be coming away with the impression from the ending of ‘Kingdom of the Blind’ that this may be the final Gamache book. Tell us, are there going to be more?”
Here is Louise Penny’s answer: “There are, absolutely! I don’t write short stories, I don’t write a second series. Because I love it! I don’t have any desire to kill off Gamache or stop writing them.”
On her website, Penny writes about the theme of the Gamache books: “They're inspired by two lines from a poem by W.H. Auden, in his elegy to Melville – 'Goodness existed, that was the new knowledge/his terror had to blow itself quite out to let him see it.’
“My books are about terror. That brooding terror curled deep down inside us. But more than that, more than murder, more than all the rancid emotions and actions, my books are about goodness. And kindness. About choices. About friendship and belonging. And love. Enduring love.
“If you take only one thing away from any of my books I'd like it to be this: Goodness exists.”
If you’re tempted to read Penny’s mysteries, the first in the series is “Still Life.”
All four of the major journals that review books for American public libraries strongly recommended the first volume in this fourteen-book series.
My personal favorite Inspector Gamache book, “The Beautiful Mystery,” is set in a remote northern Quebec monastery.
If like the person who asked this question, you have read all the Inspector Gamache books, you might like to try these authors: P.D. James, Elizabeth George, Ruth Rendell and Peter Robinson.
Our librarians and staff enjoy suggesting authors. Take a look at our “Staff Picks” book display. See the suggestions in our online catalog by clicking on “Related and Similar Titles.” Ask our reference librarians to get an extensive list of similar authors by searching our Novelist Plus database service to help us find your next great read.
