Inside Job by Connie Willis

A few years back, I read everything I could get my hands on by Connie Willis. Willis is a master of speculative fiction but I've noticed a tendency to have difficulty with a full sized novel. It's like she can't quite get the pacing down.

I have often theorized that most authors are really only comfortable with certain sized stories. Some novelists have a hard time with the short story and some authors brilliant with the short story really suck at writing novels. Willis is one of those whose talents lie in the indeterminate length of novella. Give her a hundred pages and she'll produce an excellent little story.

Inside Job is a novella about a two professional skeptics who encounter a charlatan channeler who channels the spirit of H.L. Mencken. Mencken is almost the founding father of all skeptics and also incidentally died in 1956. This felt like an excuse for Willis to research and write about an interesting historical character yet it was a fun story with a pretty cute twist at the end. It's a fast read and good one.