An Ice Cold Grave

by Charlaine Harris,

This is the first in a new series by the author of the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries.  In this series Harper Connolly, a victim of a lighten strike, has the ability to sense the dead and the cause of their death.  She is summoned to Doraville, N.C. by a reluctant but desparate Sherrif.  Six young boys have gone missing.  The previous Sherrif seemed to think the boys had run away but boys keep disappearing.

Harper is given tips on a few places near where the young people were seen prior to their deaths, including where vehiles have been found.  They eventually go to a barn on an abandoned property and she senses not six but eight bodies.  The authorities are stunned by the news and the accuracy of her work.

Harper is devastated by the number of deaths and the amount of pain the boys suffered prior to their deaths.  She wants to get paid and get out of town.  However, she is attacked outside her motel by an unknown assailant and ends up in the hospital.  When she is released from hospital she is asked to stay in town for the memorial service for the boys and agrees to do it. 

She wants to leave town but then goes to another location where animal deaths were sensed but now she senses a human body and discovers a den with a victim, still alive, who is chained up and a local boy, who was accused of the animal murders, has committed suicide.  His father is arrested but Harper thinks he must have had an accomplice to help him overpower the boys.  The police agree that there probably was another criminal involved.  Harper's hunch is right and the other man captures her and tries to kill her.

This was an okay mystery, it wasn't terribly engaging and the story of the pedophilia bothered me, it seems to be a very frequent story in books and tv crime shows these days.  I am not sure that I would bother reading any others in this series, there wasn't really anything unique or appealing.

I am Half-Sick of Shadows

by Alan Bradley,

This is a book in the mystery series about the precocious little British girl Flavia de Luce.  This is the fourth book that I have read in the series, and will probably be the last.  The books still seem to be receiving acclaim but I get more disappointed with each one I read.

I found the first one fun and interesting, both the character of the little girl and the setting were interesting and novel.  The second was okay, and the third was, in my opinion even weaker.  I picked up the fourth one because I wanted a Christmas story read but again I was disappointed. 

Not much happens in the story - the murder doesn't occur until past the halfway point of the story.  I was ready to say.... kill somebody already! so the story gets some action and intrigue.  The mean sisters and the disinterested father who is drowning his fear about losing his home in his passion for stamps, are running thin as storylines.  The story just happened to take place at Christmas but could have taken place anytime.  I was hoping for more of a Christmas theme, poisoning with some sort of Christmas product, or something like that... but none of it happened.

I think i will try Dicken's Christmas Carol next, I am sure it will be more engaging.

Wings of Fire

by Charles Todd

I'm on a Charles Todd reading marathon...

This is the second book by a mother/son duo about the British Inspector Ian Rutledge. I have now read the first four books in the series.  The first one that I read, a number of years ago,was the fourth book in the series, Watchers of Time..  I really enjoyed that one.  I was intrigued by the writing and the ghost of a dead soildier who haunts the main character constantly.

I read the third book in the series, Search the Dark, last week.  I found it a real chore to read.... it just didn't grab me.

It was with some trepidation that I started to read this book, the second one in the series, after my reaction to the third one.  However, my interest and delight in this series was renewed.  I found this book fascinating and hard to put down.

A criminal, being likened to Jack the Ripper, is terrorizing London.  Rutledge's boss wants to get rid of him so that he(the boss) can track down the serial murderer and get the credit for solving the crime.  Rutledge is sent off to Cornwall to investigate what have been described as a dual suicide and an accidental death.  A family member is convinced that something is suspicious with these deaths.

No one seems to think that there is anything suspicious about the deaths, no one in the village seems to know anything and no one seems to want to talk if they do.  The local police want Rutledge to find nothing is wrong and leave quickly.  However, Rutledge finds that there have been several deaths, disappearances and apparent suicides in the family.  He feels compelled to get to the truth about them before he can make a decision about the recent deaths. 

Rutledge is surprised to learn that one of the two suicide victims is a famous poet, a writer of powerful poems including many about the war.  He is very familiar with some of the poet's work and is surprised that the poet is a women given the power and subject nature of her poems.

After speaking to many family members and neighbours, and reading the poems, Rutledge becomes convinced that there is a serial murderer in or after the family, but all he has is hunches, no proof, no evidence from witnesses.  All the people of the village are angry at the history he is digging up including the woman who originally requested that Scotland Yard come and investigate.  It is following his intuition and by ferreting out little clues in the poems and little tidbits from witnesses that he is able to identify the murderer.    I found this cerebral/deductive case very engaging right to the end.

The Confession

by Charles Todd

After 419 I had to read something I knew I would enjoy so I have returned to one of my favourite mystery authors.

This is another of the stories about Inpsector Rutledge, an Inspector with Scotland Yard who is suffering post traumatic stress as a result of his experiences in WWI.

Rutledge is approached by a young man who is dying.  The man claims that he murdered another man in 1915 and he wants to confess before he dies.  Rutledge doesn't arrest the man but goes to the village the man is from to see what he can find out.  He is given a very hostile reception by all the townspeople.  What are they hiding. 

A few days later the young man is found dead in the river, he had been shot in the back of the head.  Rutledge finds out that the young man is not who he claimed to be, he is another person from the same village.

As Rutledge tries to figure out why the young man would lie about his identify and confess to a murder, when there is no evidence that the person named has been murdered, he learns about a mother who has disappeared years before, without a trace, leaving her son and two young people she had taken into her care, all alone.   The family home has been abandoned.

Rutledge than learns that the parents of the young man the women "adopted" were violently murdered and the young boy was also attacked at the time but survived.  Rutledge learns that the imposter was writing novels about the town which could upset people in the town and two of the people he would like to interview in regards to the supposed murder (including the alleged victim) are reported as deserters by the military.  Many of the young men seem to have affection for the young women who was "adopted".  Could jealousy have driven one of the young men to murder?

Rutledge has to place a false story, about the death of one of the key characters, to get to information that leads him closer ot the truth.  It is only because of thorough police work investigating the murders of the young boys famuly that Rutledge is able to figure out the truth.  The murderer is a person he would never have suspected, nor any of the villagers.  It turns out a young man, who thinks he is the son/heir of the first murdered man (the "young boy's" father) has been exacting revenge for his perceived ill fortune slowly and methodically.

As always, these books are filled with interesting characters, and many twists and turns.  However, there were so many young men of a similar age involved in this that I had trouble keeping them all straight. The authors (a mother and son duo writing under the pend name) do a great job of depicting England after WWI.  Interestingly, Hamish, the ghost of a dead soldier who haunts Rutledge, doesn't have too much to say in this story.

419

by Will Ferguson

This book won the Giller Prize this year.  My question is WHY?

I found this book ridiculous and had to force myself to finish it.  The end of the book is even ridiculous and totally unbelievable. It's like the author thought, how many ugly, stupid  things can I put in one book and get away with it.

The story starts with the suicide of a retired man in Calgary. He has fallen for a Nigerian scam and mortgaged his house and savings.  He has taken out an insurance policy just prior to his death but the insurance company refuses to pay because of the suspicion of suicide.  The police look at his email messages and confirm that the man has been taken, and was being threatened by the Nigerian crooks.

The man's son takes revenge by joining a group of people who track and torment these 419ers.  The daughter goes to Nigeria to confront the con artist.

Meanwhile there are side stories:
- about an Independent 419 operator who is forced to become part of a syndicate and turn over most of the money he makes to them;
- about Nigeria being exploited and polluted by foreign oil companies, and
- a young villager who first gets a job working with the oil companies and who later works with thugs to steel the oil.  He also gets involved with a crook who is taking a tanker of stolen oil to sell it for a profit.  They encounter a young pregnant girl along the road and the young man decides to try to help and protect her.   His mother won't let him stay with her in their family village so she sends him to see a cousin in Lagos for assistance... with disasterous results.

The Canadian woman is able to track down her father's con man and get some money out of him.  However, the young villager ends up getting murdered because he isn't successful in killing her.  She gets out of Nigeria, more through dumb luck then intelligence but is harrassed in Canada, her mother doesn't want any of the money she recovers so she sends it to the pregnant women who was brefriended for the care of her child....  She knows the identity of her con man but hasn't turned him into the authorities... why not???  The good guys are killed, the bad guys don't receive justice.... The whole thing is preposterous!!!

I have seen positive reviews of this book.... I don't understand its appeal.

The Magic of Saida

by M.G. Vassanji

I have heard many positive things about this author but not read any books of us until this one.  I can certainly appreciate the acclaim he has received.

This is an incredible, heartbreaking book.  It is a wonderful story, about a man who has lived a "successful" but not necessarily happy life.  He is an African-Indian, whose father deserted him and his mother.  He doesn't feel entirely African and even less Indian. His mother sends him away to live with his Indian relatives.
He feels abandoned, he doesn't know where he really belongs.

He has a young female friend as a child, and later goes back to his home village. They have a brief affair and he leaves to pursue his life as a Doctor.  Political events inspire him and the girl he has wandered into a relationship/engagement with, to move to Canada.   They have a long, loveless marriage, and become successful.  Eventually they separate. 

One day one of the man's adopted "family" come to visit and tell him that his female friend had come looking for him while he was in training to be a doctor. No one had told him of her visit.

He decides to return to Africa to fulfill his promise of coming back to her.

While he is in Africa he meets several people who befriend him and who try to help him find the woman.
He eventually finds out that the woman had a child, his child, and that her husband took the child from her and divorced her.  His quest almost drives him to madness and almost costs him his life.

The book also includes a story line about two brothers, both poets, the first brother is wants to overthrow the german occupiers, the second brother is a nazi sympathizer and ends up taking his brothers poems and claiming them as his own.  He gets great fame for the poems and ends up betraying his brother to the Nazis.

The story is fascinating. You can feel the atmosphere of Africa.Informaiton is revealed in tiny bits as the story is told.  The pathos and poignancy of the lives of the characters are written with insight and affection. I loved this book!

The YIps

by Nicola Barker

Yips - nervousness or tension that causes an athlete to fail to perform effectively, especially in missing short putts in golf.  The Free Dictionary

This book was a Man Booker listed item this year.   I read it because of some reviews talked about how clever/quirky it was.

It is a long book, over 500 pages.  I generally avoid books that long, I find them hard to read.  I found it very labourious to read the first 300 pages, because I so disliked the main character, but after that I got hooked on the antics of the kooky cast of characters.  The writer has a fabulous way of expressing things.

The book is about a washed up golf pro who is totally self-centred, rude to all those who care about him and help him, and totally oblivious of the needs of others.  He cannot show any concern or sympathy for anyone.
In the story we meet his long-suffering agent, whom he fires; several of his "hanger-ons".  We also meet a young woman who works in a bar at a hotel and her workmate who has survived cancer 7 or more tiimes.  We also meet the workmates wife, a minister who is going through a crisis of life/faith.  The most tragic characters are a family that Ransom has devastated but to whom he feels no sorrow or responsibility -- he injured an old woman in a car accident and now she is demented and drives her daughter and son crazy.  The daughter is a talented tatoo artist who is agrophobic.  A muslim sex therapist and his burka wearing wife contribute to the humour and craziness of the plot.

Ransom's agent is giving birth to her third child, father unknown, she has complications in her delivery.  While it appears her devotion to him is more than to his talent, he shows no interest in her condition, just in getting publicity.

All the characters interact with each other in different ways, most of them are suffering from angst or anger, and things get weirder as the story goes on....  They seem to be sad about how their lives have turned out or lives not lived, one of the women, a Minister, is relieved when she finds out her husband has had an affair because he is no longer a saint.

It was a frustrating book, because of the egotisim of the main character, ridiculously funny at at times; the lives of most of the characters don't seem to change for the better, but the jerk main character "gets the girl".  However, it was certainly entertaining by the end.

The Orchard

by Theresa Weir

This book is a memoir, written by a an author who seems to have had quite good success as a romance writer.

I picked the book up because I thought it was a book I heard reviewed on CBC, but it was The Orchardist, that I had heard about.

This book tells the story of the author's very tragic life.  Her mother and father divorced when she was young and her mother went through numerous boyfriends after that.  She didn't really want the two children she had and eventually tries to send her daughter to a girl's home, from which she runs away.  The author then lives in a drug house for a while and is abused by men she meets.  She finally goes to stay with an uncle who went to prison for abetting a murderer.  He is running a greasy spoon restaurant.  She works for him for room and board and sleeps on a mattress in the back room.

One day a young local farmer comes in.  He is handsome and she stops to talk with him.  Her uncle tells her to stay away from as his family is cursed... lots of deaths in the family.  She and the young man start going on picnics and walks in the woods and discover a mutual love of drawing.  The farmer asks her to marry him and she doesn't hesitate to say yes.  They get married and move into a small house on the farm property.  His parents don't like her and she finds her husband isn't as attentive nor affectionate as he was before they got married.  He is out late at night and when he comes home he isn't hungry.  She is shocked and hurt when she finds out that he goes to eat supper with his parents.  She fills her lonlieness by trying to write fiction.  She eventually finds a publisher for her book and develops a successful career as a writer.

Her husband is trying to breed a new type of apple.  The farm specializes in apples including making cider.  The family uses a lot of chemical sprays on the trees.  Sadly the man's trees when they finally bear fruit are infested with worms and he destroys all he trees.  The couple eventually have two children and have a "normal" life compared to the family lives they were raised in.

Then her husband's father dies of cancer, and a few years later her husband is diagnosed with cancer and he dies too.  The mother-in-law accuses him of getting cancer so he doesn't have to run the farm.When her husband dies the woman immediately gathers up her children and goes far away from the farm.
Fortunately she has money from her success as an author to make the move.  If it wasn't a true story it would be hard to believe that the relationships would be so weird as they are in this book.

Istanbul Passage

by Joseph Kanon

World War II is coming to an end and the main character, Leon Bauer, does some undercover work for the American embassy.  On one mission he is trying to get a Romanian into Turkey and pass him on to the Americans.  On the first evening the weather is bad so the boat cannot make the journey to the rendevous.  On the second night the boat arrives and as Leon is trying to get his man shots ring out.  Leon has never fired a gun before but he shoots in the direction of the shots and hears a person drop to the ground.

He takes the Romanian to a holding place, and is told by a friend who has been assisting him, that the man they have "rescued" is a war criminal who has killed thousands of Jews.

Leon's wife was involved in activities to rescue Jews from Europe and get them to Israel.  On one mission a boat is sunk and many people die.  She has a nervous breakdown and is now in a care facility.  Leon loves her deeply and visits her often to tell her about what he has been doing.

Leon finds out that the man he shot was in fact the American Embassy contact who recruited him for the mission.  He is puzzled as to why his contact would be wanting to kill their "cargo" but he continues to hide and support the "cargo", despite things he is hearing about him.

Leon keeps trying to get the cargo sent on but the death of a second embassy staff person complicates things and the planned plane for the cargo is cancelled.

I couldn't figure out why Leon didn't just turn the cargo over to the Americans.  He thinks he is free of any involvement but then the fisherman who brought the Romanian to Turkey in his boat comes to the embassy and asks for his full payment and identifies Leon as a contact.  Leon has been asked to try to help find out who killed the Embassy employee (the man he killed).

Leon keeps trying to keep his involvement in the murder/espionage  quiet but he soon finds out that others know what he has done.  He doesn't know who he can trust. He wants to get out of the "espionage" business... but they keep his crime hanging over his head.

I really enjoyed this book, the plot kept building in suspense.  I couldn't understand why Leon kept being so committed to the Romanian, but later it turns out that he thinks he could use him as a bargaining chip to gain his own freedom.  The ending is unexpected. 

The Shape of Water

by Andrea Camilleri

This is the first book in a mystery series involving the Sicilian Inspector Montalbano.  I decided to read it after the series was recommended in the book I read recently about Sicily.

In this book, an important political figure is found dead, on the edge of a "lover's lane".  It appears that he has had a heart attack, but the Inspector wonders why a man, who generally was very discrete, would turn up in a place like that, and he is convinced there is more to it when the man's wife points out that is underwear was on backwards.  She tells the Inspector Water doesn't have an shape.... it takes the shape you give it".


The series does a great job of portraying the atmosphere in Sicily, the distrust of police, the corruption, etc.  The Inspector tries to be an honest man, when most around him seem corrupt.  Even when the corrupt are murdered he tries to solve the case.  However, he is willing to manipulate things or destroy evidence to help the underdog and the wrongfully accused.

I certainly enjoyed the story, the flavour of Sicily and the plot twist.  I will certainly read other books in the series in the future.

The Beautiful Mystery

by Louise Penny

This is the latest book by Penny.  In this book Chief Inspector Gamache and his protege Jean-Guy Beavoir are sent to investigate a murder in a monastery located in a remote wilderness location.  One of the monks has been murdered, the prior (leader of the choir).  The monastery is renowned for its Gregorian Chants, it gained worldwide fame when it released a CD of its chants.

Gamache and his assistant find it difficult to get any information out of the monks who for the most part operate under a vow of silence.  However, it soon becomes obvious that there is a split in the monastery between the Prior, who wants to release another CD and take the monks on tour, and the Abbott who is strenuously against it.

While Gamache and Beauvoir are investigating the head of the Surete, Gamache's boss, who hates Gamache, shows up.  They cannot figure out why he is there, but he takes the opportunity to test Jean-Guy's loyatly to and respect for Gamache.

The mystery story is well told, the issues of faith and loyalty, explored through the monks and the police officers added an additional level of complexity to the story. 

I think this is my favourite of all the books I have read by this author.

Seeking Sicily

by John Keahey

This is the second introduction to Sicily that I read to while on our trip to Italy/Sicily.  This was by far the better book.  The author describes the country of Sicily as he has discovered it during several visits to the country, interacting with the locals and through research about the country.

He does a great job of describing the complicated history of the country, describing the spirit of the people and giving an affectionate description of some of the towns and cities and local customs.  He also talks about some of Sicily's most famous writers and other artists.

He includes some folklore, anecdotes and recipes.  It was an interesting and engaging introduction to the country.

Narcoplis

by Jeet Thayil

This is another book in the Man Booker Longlist.  It takes place in Bombay and is the story of several people whose lives intersect because of their addictions to cocaine and later heroine.

The story is really dark and depressing, all of their lives revolve around getting and using the drugs, they have little if any contact with family and friends because of their addictions.   There is affection, loyalty and even love among the addicts. A couple of them do manage to break away from their addictions.  However, overall the book is just about their wallowing in their drugs.

I have to say it was difficult to finish the book, I was hoping there might be some redemption but there wasn't as far as I could see, just longing... for the old days.

Not a book I would recommend to anyone unless they want to get depressed.  I suppose it could be a cautionary tale.

One Book in the Grave

by Kate Carlisle

This is one of the books in the Bibliophile Mystery series.  The story is about a bookbinder who seems to get involved in many murders.  In this case, she is asked to repair the binding on a copy of Beauty and the Beast which she once owned.  She had given the book to a couple as a gift and the book was later stolen.  When she goes to speak to the bookseller who sold the book she comes upon his dead body.  At the crime scene there is a book binders tool and her tire has been slashed with another bookbinder tool, which has the initials of a friend of hers who died three years before.

As she and her boyfriend set off to find out why someone is trying to frame a deadman, they find the man is not dead after all but hiding for his life.

The book was okay, but I found the romantic aspects of the book and the behaviour of the main character always mooning over her handsome beau and other men distracted from the story.  The fact that there were several obsessive criminals involved in the story made it all a bit much to take.  I don't think I'll bother with any other books in this series.

The Dewey Decimal System

by Nathan Larson

As a retired Librarian I was of course intrigued by this title....  I guess I thought it would be a story about a library or librarian.  However, the library is only incidental to this very violent story.

The main character, who it appears is a victim of PTSD, doesn't know his real name or recall his past (was he given false memories and had others erased while he was in a miltary hospital?).  The character, who is being called Dewey Decimal because he is living in the New York Public Library, is living in a New York that has been devastated by terrorist attacks.  Most of the people have fled from the city and only the special/rich/useful people like him have the privilege of riding the subway.

Dewey Decimal is supported in his drug habit by the New York DA who has him carry out various illegal activities including assasinations.  His latest task is to kill a Ukranian labour organizer.  But as the story goes on Dewey starts to wonder what the real story is and who the bad guys really are.  A woman he has been asked to kill has been kind to him-- she only shot him in the knee, didn't kill hiim.

This is not a book I would normally read and I did not enjoy all the gratuitous violence.  The character, despite his propensity for violence does seem to have some sort of morals, but do we really care?  NO!

This is a book I will gladly give away, I would never read it again.

Skios

by Michael Frayn,

This book is by the author of the play Copenhagen about the physicists Neils Bohr and Heisenberg meeting in the Danish city.  This books is very different from the heady stuff of "Copenhagen".  The book is a Man Booker nominee for 2012.

It takes place on a Greek Island, Skios, where a foundation that is promoting study of European culture is having its annual conference, featuring a reknowned guest speaker, and with many rich and influential people in attendance.  The Keynote Speaker, Norman Wilfred, is not looking forward to the prospect of another speech at another conference, but things go worse than he expected.  A young con man, Oliver Fox, identifies himself as the Doctor to a young woman waiting to met Dr. Wilfred and take him to the foundation, he also inadvertently takes Wildred's luggage.

Meanwhile, Dr. Wildfred is angry that his luggage has been lost and by the time he leaves the airport the only taxi remaining takes him to the villa which was supposed to be Oliver Fox's destination -- he was supposed to rendezvous there with a recent love interest.  He gets to the Foundation and is very successful in convincing everyone that he is the brilliant Doctor.  Interestingly, one of Dr. Wilfred's school chums is at the Foundation event and is aware that Oliver Fox is a fraud, but he doesn't tell anyone.

Like scens from one of Shakespeare's comedies, except that the characters have cell phones (which often go dead) and the mode of transport is taxis, characters run around chasing each other; there is some illegal activity underway by some of the guests and just as Oliver is about to deliver a speech, pretending to be Dr. Wildred, all hell breaks loose, with many lives lost.

Oliver, it seems, is able to escape from the carnage, but two people who are entirely innocent, are arrested.  Dr. Wilfred is charged with several crimes, including inciting public disorder and being an accessory in the deaths of numerous people and Annuka Vos, Oliver's original girlfriend (one of two on the island planning to holiday with him) is charged with attempted murder, for pummeling the police for arresting Dr. Wilfred.

I don't read comedies very often but this was certainly a funny book and hard to put down.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

by Simon Mawer

This book is by the author of the Glass Room and Mendel' Dwarf.  I found both of these books incredible.
I read a review of this book recently and the reviewer was disappointed in this book, compared to the Glass Room.  I have to agree that this book wasn't as good as the Glass Room or Mendel's Dwarf in terms of the power of the story.  However, it was still a good book.

This book is the story of a British girl, who is fluent in French, who is recruited to be an agent of the Special Operations Executive, working in France, during WWII.  She is put through a variety of tests, physical and mental and receives training in escape, radio operations, weapons etc.  She travels to France and works with the French resistance carrying messages, helping to arrange delivery of goods into France.

While she is performing her duties she is also pining over two men, a new one she has met and an old flame, a physicist, that she is trying to convince to leave for England to work for the allies on the development of an atomic bomb.

She also gets involved with trying to get a fellow agent out of France.  However, she finds that she has been betrayed, by a person she thought her friend.  She has the opportunity to leave for England as there is a price on her head... but she decides to stay to continue her work.  Perhaps she was too confident in her self, to sure of herself.  As with his other books there is a dramatic, shocking ending.

It was an interesting thriller, it raised issues of loyalty, how different people cope with war/invasion, is it okay to keep your head down or even comply with the "enemy"? Some people don't think about why they are doing dangerous things, they just do them.  It makes you ask yourself how you think you would behave if in that situation.

Blessed are the Dead

by Malla Nunn

This story takes place in Apartheid South Africa.  A white detective is sent to investigate a mysterious death(murder?) of a black girl, daughter of a tribal Chief, in a rural area.  The circumstances are puzzling right from the start.  Why was the murder reported to the police in Durban, not to the local police? The call came from a white woman (judging from her voice and speech), how would a white woman be involved....

The detective takes along his assistant a Zulu.  They run into road blocks and evidence of racial conflict all along their investigation.  The local police seem disinterested if not incompetent and are glad to let the Durban police take the case. The local doctor is reluctant to do the autopsy, the girls family wants to take her body for burial, and how was the young boy from the farm where the young girl worked, the one who keeps running away from school and living in the hills, involved in the murder.

The story also describes native culture, burial ceremonies and the beliefs in spirits, black magic and superstitions.

This is another detective story where the detective is haunted by his past, including his military expereince.  Like the inspector in the Charles Todd books, this detective is haunted by a Scottish ghost, a military acquaintance.  It is also about a detective who is willing to go against instructions to get to the bottom of things.  Fortunately for him, his boss is willing to overlook his misdemeanors, as long as it does not impact badly on the boss.  The boss seems to be sympathethic to the detective and his partner.

I enjoyed this book, didn't want to put it down. The way the tension between the races was portrayed was interesting.  Also interesting was that the detective and his partner behave as expected in this world but also use the white cop/black cop roles to their advantage in dealing with people they interview.  The book was interesting  incorporating a traditional mystery format set in an unfamiliar culture.

How did the black evangelist know about the promise the detective made to his mother? Will the detective do anything to honour his promise to his mother to have a family.? I guess we'll find out in the next book.

The Unlikely Pilgrimmage of Harold Fry

by Rachel Joyce
This was such a nice refreshing book to read after the last one I started (the Jade Cat). I haven't finished the Jade Cat, it is so dark and depressing.... and hopeless).

This book is about hope, faith, forgiveness, caring and redemption.  It is the story of a man who recently retired from a sales job at a distillery.  He receives a letter from a woman he worked with at the distillery years before.  She tells him she is dying of cancer but has been thinking of him. 

He doesn't know how to respond to the letter but decides to write a short reply and sets of to the mailbox to post it.  However, when he gets to the mailbox he keeps walking, and then he gets to the next one and keeps on walking.  He gets to a service station where he tells a young girl about the letter and his sadness and she tells him that her aunt survived cancer because she (the girl) had faith that she could beat it. 

Harold decides that if he walks all the way from his home in south England to the hopsice in the North of England that he will be able to save Queenie.  He sets off, phoning his wife, to tell her his plan.  She of course thinks he is crazy but they h
tave not been getting on well for years.

As Harold walks he thinks about his life, his marriage, his relationship with Queenie, and the fact that she took the blame for something he did and lost her job as a result.  Harold's wife doesn't really like him but she is jealous of Queenie and worried that her husband will leave her for Queenie.

As Harold walks he meets many people. tells them his story and also listens to theirs.  Along the way many people are very kind and helpful but eventually he develops a crowd of groupies who disturb his peace of mind, his determination and his progress.  Evenutally they part ways but by this time he has become a media celebrity, much to his chagrin,

As Harold walks, both he and his wife review their lives and their behaviour and rediscover their love for each other.  Harold does make it to see Queenie, she has been staying alive awaiting his arrival, he is shocked at her condition and that he cannot save her despite his physical sacrifice.  However, at the end he is at peace as is she.

So many books this day are about anger and blame and the inability to forgive or accept responsibility.  This was a lovely redemptive story.

April Fool

by William Deverell,

This is the first book I have read by this author but it won't be my last.  I don't think I have ever read a book that was a mystery and funny at the same time.

A retired lawyer, enjoying life as a hobby farmer on the coast of BC, is shocked to learn that a former client is under arrest for rape and murder.  Arthur Beauchamp still feels guilty about his last case, one of the few cases he lost, because he feels this client was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.  It doesn't look good on the surface of things for the accused as he was found, dressed in drag, trying to escape the area after the robbery and murder in the area.

While Athur is being urged to come out of retirement to fight this one last case his wife is engaged in an activist campaign against a development near their property and is camping up a tree to protest the development and destruction of the forest.

While Arthur is trying to support his wife and her cause, and defend his client who has escaped custody he must deal with the local handymen who keep borrowing/damaging his vehicles and destroying his property.  It is like something out of Ballykissangel or Green Acres.  In addition he has to deal with two young and weird young lawyers and cantakerous judges.

The story has many twists and turns and many hilarious parts, especially when Beauchamp is able to proceed with questionable questioning from a normally grumpy judge because the judge has fallen asleep and then everyone is afraid to wake him but the time has come to close the proceedings for the day.

The ending of the book is unexpected and unpredicteed but the crime does get solved, the "innocent" thief is given a handslap penatly for escaping custody and Arthur can turn his legal skill to helping his wife and her environmental cause.

A very well written and engaging story,

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

by Susanne Joinson

I picked up this book on a whim, I can't  remember if I saw it in a bookstore on an an online list.    The book takes place in two times and places, the first part of the story takes place in the 1920's or 1930's in Kashgar, a desert region in what is now China.  Three British women are travelling east with the goal of converting the infidels to Christianity.  They arrive in the Kashgar region and are met with the scene of a woman screaming and giving birth in the street.  They try to assist her.  She dies but her baby lives.  The locals believe they have murdered the woman so the three women are put under house arrest until the trial.

They take the baby with them and one of the women, Evangeline is given responsibility for the baby.  The other two women, Millicent and Eva's sister Lizzie are truly devote and committed to missionary work.  Evangeline has gone along for the adventure not for a true religious calling. She wants to write a journal of the trip and has brought along a bike which she loves to ride because riding it makes her feel like she is flying.  While the women wait for their trial they struggle to feed the baby and Millicent tries to convert people and to publish religious tracts in translation with the help of a local priest who can speak and write Arabic.  Lizzie is not as commited to converting people as Millicent.  She has an expensive camera and likes to take pictures. Millicent tries to convert a Muslim woman, the woman is later murdered by her husband. Eva is shocked to learn that Millicent and her sister are in a lesbian relationship. Millicent's treatment of Lizzie results in her death.  The political situation is getting dangerous and Eva ends up having to flee with a few belongings and the baby and undergoes a very difficult journey back to civilization with the help of some people who guide her and arrange her passage out.  She eventually gets her journal published and becomes the mistress of her publisher (having adopted the baby and renaming her).

The other story takes place in England in the present and involves a woman Frieda, who travels the developing world writing reports for a think tank and Tayeb, a man from Yemen, whom she finds sleeping in the hallway outside her door.  After she leaves him a blanket and pillow he draws some lovely pictures on her wall. Tayeb, who was a photographer and film maker in his home country had to leave his country because of some filming he did and some artistic grafitti he did on walls.  He is an illegal immigrant and is being pursued by the British police.  Frieda is wrestling with her current life, her job, her boyfriend who is a married man. She is told that she is the only relative of Irene Guy, recently deceased and that she can go through Ms. Guys belongings or the local council will dispose of her belongings.  Taleb and Frieda go to Irene's flat and discover an early Leica camera, maps books in several languages and what appears to be a diary.  Frieda can't figure out how she is related to this woman and goes in search of her mother to help get an answer.  She finds out that Irene is her Grandmother.  Her mother had told her that her grandmother was dead.

Near the end of the book Eva quotes, her adopted daughter Irene " Eva, I can never reach the places you have been to.  How am I supposed to? She said she found me suffocating".  She later says "I am sure she will travel, go to the places she talks of". Frieda's Mother complains that her mother talked about travelling but never did. Irene's house is filled with her mother's items, the camera, books diary, etc.  We never find out why she has an owl as a pet.

I found this an interesting story, the details about life in the desert were detailed and powerful, but tragic.  The story of Frieda and Tayeb was gentle and touching. His father raised birds. Taleb  tells Frieda he used to dream of flying on an ostrich (ostriches can't fly) I have to say that I was quite puzzled by the choices of the mothers in this story,. Irene Guy offers Frieda's pregnant mom a home as long as she comes without the child's father.  And Frieda's mother eventually abandons her and ends up ill and living in a commune under a vow of silence.  She tells Frieda she didn't want to be part of the cycle of single mothers with children.  However, she didn't want Frieda to call her Mother even before she left her.

As the story ends Tayeb is being smuggled into Amsterdam.  He tells Frieda he has taken the Leica camera and for her to find him and he will give it back.  The story ends with Frieda taking a sabbatical from work and boarding a train, along with the owl for a holiday at the sea.  The owl is hooting at her (as if she is its mate) and she hoots back.

This book seems to have themes of art/documentation/writing, flying (as a metaphor for freedom) and travel or the desire to get away.  Three of the women, Eva, Frieda's Mother and Frieda seem to be restless and want to get away from ordinary life.  Tayeb on the other hand longs to have a home and an stable, safe life.

The Laughter of Dead Kings

by Elizabeth Peters
This story is about Vicky Bliss, an art historian and sleuth who along with her boyfriend (who is thought to be a criminal and possibly iimplicated in the crime) are asked to solve the theft of King Tut's mummy from his tomb, before the news gets out to the public.

They are followed by various dark individuals and a woman who is a romantic interest of Vicky's boss-- is she really interested in him?  or just using him to get to them?  They end up hopping around Europe before finally making it to the scene of the crime in the company of Vicky's boss who is a bit of a dandy and who seems to have unlimted wealth and influence.  It turns out colleagial jealousy is at the heart of the crime.

The story was quite light, it moved quickly and kept you wondering who could be trusted.  It was an okay summer read.

The Headmaster's Wager

by Vincent Lam

This is the story about a Chinese Headmaster who is operating an English Language School in Vietnam prior to and during the Vietnam war.  It is not just his story, it is the story of his father, his grandfather and his son.
The Headmaster has a gambling problem and almost loses the school on several occasions.  He sends his son off to China, thinking that will save him from military service in Vietnam.  He does not know the life he is sending his son to in China which is undergoing the cultural revolution.

In the end he offers everything he has to get his son out of China, with tragic consequences. The Headmaster learns things he did not really want to know about his lover, his son, and his right-hand man.

This was a fascinating story, one of the best books I have read in a long time.  I know the story will remain with me for a long time.

The Beggar's Opera

by Peggy Blair

This book is written by a  Canadian lawyer who has experience both as a defence and prosecution attorney and with aboriginal law.

This is one of the best mysteries I have read in a long time. The story was very fast paced and had great tension because the accused has only a few days to prove he is innocent of a horrible crime when all the evidence seems to point at him. It is questionable if he will survive to a trial if he is put in a Cuban jail.






He insists that he has been framed, but he has to admit that he can't remember much about the previous night as he did his best to get drunk after his wife told him she is leaving him.  Was he that drunk?  Was he drugged?

The setting, in Cuba, with a quirky chief detective and head coroner, add to the appeal of the story. The detective thinks he is dying and is haunted by ghosts of his victims. Or, is he losing his mind as a result of his illness? The investigators have to conduct their investigations with shortages of supplies including gasoline for their vehicles.

The accused is a police officer from Ontario who is recovering from a brutal crime where his partner was killed and he was badly disfigured.  He is found to be innocent of the crime he is acused of in Cuba, but we find out he  is guilty of a serious crime. 

What impressed me the most was how successfully the author wove several stories together and then sewed up all the ends together so well. Sadly the story involved pedophilia. However, it was a book I couldn't put down.

Sail of Stone

by Ake Edwardson

This mystery, set in Sweden and partly in Scotland, has two crimes being investigated by different police officers, both of whom seem to be trying to figure out what they really want from their lives..  One crime involves the mysterious death of a Swedish man in the heaths of Scotland.  Did he really die of a heart attack while trying to track down the truth about his father's death in WW II?  Who can he believe?  Are people really telling him everything they know?

The other police officer is investigating a crime that may not be a crime.  She is trying to find out what has happened to a woman who appears to be a victim of abuse.  However, she cannot find the woman and the woman's father, her ex-husband and the man's sister are not telling the truth and she keeps getting told that there is no real evidence of a crime.

Both detectives get into very dangerous territory and neither of them is really able to solve their respective criimes.  This is quite unique, I think, in most mysteries.

This story was well written, the author provides good details about all the characters and great descriptions of the locations in Sweden and Scotland.

Solar Dance:

Genius, forgery and the crisis of truth in the modern age

by Modris Edsteins

"My great desire is to learn to make such variations, reworking, alterations of reality, that it might become, very well lies if you will - but truer than the literal truth,"  Vincent Van Gogh to his brother, 1885

This book is about the rise in popularity of Van Gogh's art.  The author describes the atmosphere in Germany and especially Berlin around the first world war and how some of the intellectuals became enamoured with Van Gogh's art and his passion. The way he describes it, these individuals and their interest in his work were the reason for Van Gogh's appeal.

He does a great job of describing the artistic experimentation and ennui in intellectuals and artists at the time.  He then goes on to describe a professional dancer who becomes an art dealer and who is later accused of selling fraudulent Van Gogh art.  The man is put on trial and convicted but he keeps insisting that the art is legitimate

The story of the rise in interest in Van Gogh's art, the artistic liberalism and the disagreements between art experts were very interesting,.  However, I had expected the author to expand the story beyond Van Gogh to the topic of celebrity in modern times.  He didn't really do this, even though it is implied in the title and the book flyleaf.  Only in the last chapter did he make any reference to other people and circumstances.  I found this very disappointing.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

This book is about a young woman in Afghanistan whose education is halted and whose family is threatened by the incursion of the Taliban.  Initially the girl's life is disrupted as girls are no longer allowed to go to school.  Then her older brother leaves for Pakistan to avoid being forced to join the Taliban and her father and mother leave for northern Afghanistan to avoid prosecution by the Taliban as her father was a government official prior to his retiremnt.
The young girl is left in Kabul with a young brother and several sisters.  She worries about how they will survive and support themselves and comes up with the idea of sewing clothes and selling them to local stores.   She doesn' know anything about sewing but her oldest sister, who is married but lives in Kabul, teaches her and her sisters how to sew and bead items.

The girl produces some dresses and then, escorted by her young brother, goes to seek orders from a local tailor.  She succeeds and is so successful she ends up recruiting other women to help sew the dresses.  This provides her family and also other women with money to survive.  She later becomes involved with NGO's mentoring other women,

The book was written almost like a novel, with dialogue, etc.   It is interesting to read about how creative people can be in very difficult circumstances.  It is sad that after decades there is still no stability in Afghanistan.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

by Deborah Moggach

I picked up a copy of this book because a movie version has just come out.  The book is the story of several British seniors who find it hard to survive financially in Britain and who are enticed by promotional material about a senior's hotel in India.

The characters include a woman who doesn't trust coloured people, a couple who have done a lot of world travel, the skirt-chasing father of one of the partners in the project who has been kicked out of many senior's residences in England, a woman whose son is on the run from the law and a retired BBC producer.

The book is quite funny in places and also bittersweet.  The hotel and the medical staff aren't quite as promised in the promotional material.  The "Doctor" is actually a specialist in veneral diseases and the nurse (wife of the hotel owner is actually a foot care technician).   The country seems to have a powerful impact on all the people. As the story progesses many of the characters, including family members and the owner of the hotel, start to evaluate their life decisions and make changes or think about making changes.

I enjoyed the book.  It was poignant and funny.

We saw the movie yesterday, it stars Judy Dench and Maggie Smith.  The movie is quite different from the book however it also was very enjoyable.

Villa Triste

by Lucretia Grindle
This is a mystery story set  in Florence, the setting for the story shifts between WWII and the present. 

Two aged partisans are murdered and both have salt in their mouths.  As the police officer investigating the crimes tries to solve the murders he is drawn back into activities in WWII and the lives of the two men and a women whose diary is in the safe of one of the murdered men.

The police officer becomes obsessed with learning more about the life of the women who wrote the diary and he is being shadowed by an American woman who is trying to find out the true identity of her Italian grandfather.  In the end it turns out that her genealogy is intertwined with the lives of the people the police officer is tracking.

The story is well told and provides good historical details.  The obession of the police officer and the American, in the present, add to the intrigue in the story. It was a book that I didn't want to put down, you wanted to know what would happen next, or what new detail would be uncovered.  The ending was a bit of a surprise but the story neatly tied things together.

I would certainly recommend this book as an engaging read.

The Midwife of Venice

by Roberta Rich

This is the story of a young Jewish midwife who risks prosecution or worse trouble for the Jewish Ghetto in Venice by agreeing to help with a difficult birth of a Christian woman.  The woman agrees to do so, despite the warnings of her Rabbi, because the man offers to pay her enough money to free her husband.

Her husband is in Malta and will not be released by the Knights until a large ransom is paid for him.

The book alternates between the lives of the young woman and her husband who is ekking out an existence trying to survive until his ransom is paid or he can escape.

The young midwife uses birthing spoons (forceps) to deliver the baby and both the baby and mother survive.  However, the midwife loses or misplaces her birthing tool and fears that the tools will be used to get her imprisoned or worse.  However, she later finds that the brother-in-law of the woman who gave birth wants to hold the spoons for ransom to get the money the midwife made from the delivery -- he wants to settle gambling debts.  Things get worse when the baby's parents leave the child and the uncles of the child plot to kill him so that they can inherit the estate.  The young midwife saves the baby's life but kills one of the uncles to do so.  She is on the run and doesn't know where to turn, she goes to see her estranged sister who offers her shelter, but this results in the sister being murdered by the other brother.

When the midwife tries to return the baby to his home she learns that his parents have died of the plague.
What is she to do with the child, she heads off with him for Malta to rescue her husband.  While enroute to find her husband she meets a woman who is so appreciative of her contraceptive assistance that she offers to help her find a job in Constantinople.  With her skill at midwifery and the silk worms her husband have, and the baby they have decided to raise as their own, it would seem that a good future would lie ahead for them.

The book was an interesting read, it kept you engaged in what would happen.  I have to say that it seemed strange to me that a mother who worried about her newborn son  would abandon him so soon after his birth, but perhaps that would be customary with the artistocrats fo the time.  And, as it was historical fiction I think there could have been a bit more descripiton of life and the settings of the story.

The House of Silk

by Anthony Horowitz

For the first time in its125 year history the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate has authorized a new Sherlock Holmes novel.  This is the book, published in 2011.  It claims to be written by Dr. Watson who had left instructions that the book should not be published until 100 years after his death because of the nature of the story contained within.

The book starts off with Sherlock Holmes being engaged by a young man who claims he is being threatened by a thug he had involvement with while in America.  Sherlock engages the services of the Baker Street Irregulars, young orphans living off London streets, to keep an eye on the thug.  The young boy who is set to watch the hotel where the man is staying is found murdered, after being viciously tortured.  Holmes feels terrible that his actions have resulted in the boy's death.  He learns that the boy was staying at an orphanage for a time but ran away from it.  He contacts the boy's sister but she is uncooperative.  Holmes' brother Mycroft who has influence and connections in government warns him to drop the case as he risks angering very powerful, dangerous people but of course Holmes does not listen.

As they are pursuing the boy's killer Holmes is tricked into visiting an opium den where he is drugged and then setup for the murder of the boy's sister.  He is put on trial and it appears that he will be convicted.  Watson tries to help him escape from prision but Holmes manages to get out on his own to avoid being murdered in prison. 

They learn that the organization/source they are seeking is something called the House of Silk, eventually they make their way back to the boys school where they learn that wealthy influential people are pedofiles preying on the boys at the school including the young man who originally contacted Holmes.  The man's wife is actually the twin of a criminal he played a part in bringing to justice in America.  She was the person who killed the man that was intimidating her husband because he was going to tell her husband the truth about her.  She had already killed her mother-in-law and was in the process of poisoning her sister-in-law and ultimately would have killed her husband.

I have not read any original Sherlock Holmes books, but I think the book certainly honoured the spirit of the Sherlock Holmes stories and did a great job of portraying life in Victorian England and the life of the poor and orphans in London.  It was an interesting read and kept my attention all the way through.

Never Sleep With A Suspect on Gabriola Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan and George Szanto

This is the first book in the series about the Islands Investigations International (III) detective agency.  It is about two acquaintances, one American one Canadian who decide get hired to investigate a murder on Gabriola Island.  The groundskeeper is found dead on the lawn of a Gallery on the island and the two, a woman who does fraud investigations for an insurance company and her gay friend, a former investigative reporter who is still grieving from the recent death of his partner, seek to clear the Gallery of involvement with the murder. 

They do a very prelimnary investigation and supply a report to the Gallery owner. They do not solve the crime.
The gay man is being tormented by an unknown assailant, the person phone's in the night and just breathes into the phone or the answering machine, the man's tires are slashed and then he receives a death threat.  He is very frightened.  Then the two are asked by some other art dealers to try to find out how this gallery manages to find so many good art pieces "in the style of...."

As they investigate they bumble along and get themselves into very serious trouble and are almost killed.
They find out that there is more to the gallery (forgeries) and more to the greenhouse at the gallery (opium) than it first appears.  They also figure out who murdered the groundskeeper and why and who was threatening the gay partner of the team.

I read the second book in the series previously.  I enjoyed it, but  think I liked this one better.

A Duty to the Dead

by Charles Todd

This is the first book in the new series by Charles Todd about Bess Crawford, a young nurse during the first world war.  In this book Bess is asked by a dying soldier to deliver a message, in person, to his brother.  It is a strange message about the young man having lied and about having his brother set things right.

Bess is recovering from injuries she sustained when the medical ship she was on was sunk.  She goes to visit the man's family and is surprised that the family doesn't seem interested in acting on the message.  She nurses a man who is suffering from shell shock and who later kills himself, or is he murdered.  She is shocked to find out that one of the brothers in the family is in an asylum as a result of a brutal murder he committed.  When he too is brought to her for nursing care, when he has pneumonia and the asylum can't cope with nursing him, she starts to suspect that things may not be as she has been informed.

She starts to try to find out what really happened many years ago and to clear the name of the oldest brother.
She does indeed solve the crime but the result is that three of the four brothers are dead by the end of the book.  I think I enjoyed this book better than the second one in the series, which I read first, a few months ago.

Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium

by Jonathan Harris

This is a book which  covers the history of Constantinople, primarily in the period 1200 to 1453 when the Ottoman's defeated the Byzantine's.

The book suggests that the city may have existed as early as 500 BCE.  However, its dominant position seems to have started in 300 AD when Constantine chose it as the site for the head of his Roman Empire.  The city had a long and glorious history.  It had great wealth, strong defences, lots of Christian relics and the strong belief that the Emperor was a chosen representative of God and that the Virgin Mary protected the city.

The city withstood many sieges partly because of its strong wall fortifications, the strong currents in the oceans and the underground cisterns.  While the city withstood invaders rulers were not so lucky, many were overthrown during the centuries, some by people who were able to get through the gates by bribing guards.  I was amazed to learn that they had hospitals which offered services for the poor and other assitance for homeless or people suffering after periods of drought or who were escaping batttles.  Apparently they had set prices for fish in the nmarket and government controlled prices for liquour in taverns and regulated sizes for the glasses used to serve alcohol.

The city is reported to have been spectacularly beautiful until in the 1200's when one emperor was being overthrown and battles that ensued damaged many buildings and set fire to others.  Foreigners living in the city, e.g. Venetians, raided a lot of the relics and beautiful art objects and these were later transferred to many European locations, especially Venice.   The author suggests that if one would like to know what Constantinople would have looked like in the Byzantine period, to look at the architecture of Venice.  The city never seemed to recover from this destruction until the Ottomans took over.

The book ends with the conquest of the city by the Ottomans.

I found the book interesting but a bit hard to read, the author seemed to jump around between different time periods so it was hard to follow at times.

Where the Serpent Lives

by Ruth Padel

This is a very powerful book about a woman who is wallowing in an unhappy marriage.  Her husband, a music promoter, claims her loves her, but keeps having affairs.  The story also includes the woman whose father studies snakes in India and how he abused her psychologically as a child.  The woman's best friend is married to a man who is also working in India studying snakes, this man thinks he loves the main character and often has fantasies about her.  The scientists are in awe of the power and beauty of the snakes, they are frustrated about the lack of government action against poachersm, corruption and the destruction of forests in india all of which are threatening the animal populations in the country. 

The woman's friend thinks that it would do the woman good to take a holiday to India to get away from her husband and "find herself".  She almost has sex with the scientist who has the crush on her but the report of the attempted suicide by her son saves her from making that mistake.

The book ends with the woman's husband being killed in a car crash, her finding a police detective to love, her friend who thought he loved her realizes he really does love his wife and the woman is reconciled with her father.... so most people live happily....  this doesn't seem to happen much in books today.

The story was interesting but it included many graphic scenes of the brutality humans inflict (poaching) on animals and the brutality in the animal kingdom, those were hard to take.  But it also portrays the great devotion animials have to their offspring and the lengths they will go to defend them.. It seemed that the animals were much more caring and concerned for their offsping and families than humans are.

Is the snake imagery supposed to make us think of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve discovering sin and evil?

A Spoonful of Poison

by M.C. Beaton

I have never read any books by this author about her private detective Agatha Raisin, I wasn't sure what to expect.  The main character is a successful business person who after a couple different careers decides to settle down in rural England to start a detective agency.  She builds a successful company but is not entirely happy as she is feeling her age (jealous of the youth of her young protege) and looking for a many to love, possibly getting distracted from her work in her search for a good man.

In this story she is asked to help promote a church fundraiser that will be taking place in a nearby town.  She has been asked to help because of her prior PR experience.  She succeeds in getting a celebrity singer to appear and good media attention and it looks like the event will be a success until two people die, one of them jumping off the room of the church..... did someone drug the jam samples in the jam contest with LSD?  And who stole the money the church raised? and who murdered the accountant?

Agatha is particulary suspicious of the Vicar's young vivacious wife but her friends and colleagues keep telling her she is being unfair.  She develops an interest in a man from the village where the fair took place only to find out he is a cad.    She outs him in the media and then fears he may come after her.
It turns out her suspicions of the vixen were justified.  Agatha is quite self-centred but she is also very generous, she has bought an apartment for her young protege to help her get established.

It was an entertaining read but I am not sure I will be interested in reading any others in the series.

Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Arms and Aid

by Samantha Nutt, MD.

This is a very thought provoking books about world conflict, aid, the roles of government agencies and NGOs and why some current practices are not achieving positive outcomes.

The author has worked in a variety of world conflict zones and has witnessed horrible tragedies and abuses.
She is really speaking from experience.  The stories she relates about her experiences are hair raising and the arguments she puts forward about reducing military expenditures in favour of aid and support of community resources in the field are well thought out.  Her suggestions that more money needs to be directed directly to community groups rather than large multinational organizations make sense.

She is a strong proponent of the value of education for women, and I agree with her..

Quotes:
"Nadya.... after everything you hve been through has any of this helped you:?"....  When, leaning forward from her mat, she placed her finger in the sand and gently wrote her name...When she was finished she turned to me and said, "Now that I know how to write my own name, I'm going to learn how to write my son's name".

"Aid is wasted without improvements to women's education.  Even the most effective  humanitariam interventions are stymied by high rates of female illiteracy.in such countries as Afghanistan and Somalia, where girls' education is often seen as antithetical to religious and social norms.  Under such conditions the value of educating girls is recognized the moment her mother is able to read and write...the cycle of violence and despair that plagues beleaguered nations will not end so long as women remain marginalized by illiteracy and are catastrophically poor."

Thirty-Three Teeth

a Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery, by Colin Cotterill

This is the second book in this series.  I enjoyed the first one very much with its quirky Septegenarian Loatian Coroner, who would rather be retired, but there is no retirement in communist Laos.

This story was not as good, it involved spirits of the dead in puppets (Dr. Siri has ghosts who speak to him -- that I can take), shamans, and a crazy man who thinks he is a "were-tiger".  I found this one a little bit too far-fetched.  I guess it is good to include these kinds of things if they are part of the culture in Laos.

The author paints a colourful picture of daily life in Loas. The Doctor still has his devoted staff and friends and his complaints about bureaucrats. But it just wasn't as engaging as the first book.  I doubt I will read any more in the series.

The Borrower

by Rebecca Makkai

A disgruntled children's Librarian runs away with one of her library patrons who is running away from home.  As a retired Librarian I found this book hilarious, the author certainly knew how to describe libraries, overprotective parents and precocious children.  She has created an interesting, funny and bittersweet story. 

The runaway boy is from a fundamentalist Christian family who are sending him to a special religious group because they fear he has gay tendancies; the Librarian's father, who assists her on her escape, may or may not be part of a Russian mafia in America, the Librarian is struggling in her relationships with two men in her life and then, who is it that is following them?  Should them make a break for Canada?

The book, while it trys to be light and funny, does touch on some important issues, freedom to read, homophobia, what is one's true family history and do we really want to know the truth? will the situation be even worse for the boy when he returns home?  The Librarian figures out a devious plan for continuing his exposure to literature to broaden ones mind.  Will this help him be strong and be able to think for himself and cope with his family situation?

I really enjoyed the book and all the antics and crazy characters.  The one thing I found disappointing was that the Librarian ends up in another, perhaps even worse, dead-end library job.  I would have thought that she should have learned something about pursuing self-fulfillment from her adventures with the boy.

The Sheen on the Silk

by Anne Perry

Arriving in Constantinople in 1273, Anna Zarides vows to prove the innocence of her twin brother, Justinian, who has been exiled to the desert for conspiring to kill a nobleman. Disguising herself as a eunuch named Anastasius, and offering services as a Doctor, Anna moves freely about in society.

The story takes place at the time that the Roman Catholic Church is trying to force the Orthodox Church in Turkey to join the RC's as one church, under threat of another crusade if they don't comply.

The book describes the intrigues within the church, numerous popes, Venetian and Roman officials who are sent to Istanbul to try to convice the Emperor or guage the level of opposition to the Catholic Church.  While the story had several story lines and numerous characters (perhaps too many characters), it was a fascinating story.  Most of the characters are very self-centered and willing to do whatever they have to to get what they want, including murder.   One character murders a man she loves for a crime against the church that his family committed 100 years previously.  The main character Anna, is one of the only people who seems willing to treat everyone with respect, even if it hinders her goal of freeing her brother and even threatens her life.

The author does a wonderful job of portraying the life and scenery in the various cities, Istanbul, Venic, and Sicily.  Interestingly, two characters, one from Rome and one from Venice, seem to be sympathetic to the Turks and their faith and culture.

There is irony in the story in that, while the Turks want to preseve their independence and seem to do this in this book the threat of Islamic invasion is mentioned and eventually they will be invaded and subjugated once again.

This was a very enjoying read, having been to Turkey I could "see" some of the locations she mentioned in the book.  Now I want to do a bit more research about the history of Istanbul and Turkey.  Constanine brought Christianity to  Constantinople (Istanbul), but how/when did the orthodox faith spilt from the Roman rite? When did Islam take over in Turkey?

Fleet Street Murders

by Charles Finch
This is the third book in the series involving amateur detective Charles Lenox.  In this book Charles is busy because he is planning his wedding to Lady Jane, he is running for Parliament and his best friend's wife has just had a miscarriage. 

Two reporters have been murdered and Lenox is urged to help investigate by his protege who is convinced that one of the men arrested is innocent.  But Charles needs to be in north England campaigning in a by-election.  He tries his hardest but is defeated by a local somewhat unscrupulous businessman.

He returns to London where one of the men arrested has been murdered as has the Chief Detective.
Lenox leaves no stone unturned and finds a few clues that might implicate a wealthy man whom  Charles dislikes and is suspicious of. The plot thickens when it appears that man has left the country. 

Lenox figures things out once again in time to nab the culprit.  But while he is working on these crimes a friend in north England determines that the election voting was fraudulent and Lenox becomes an M.P. like his brother.

This book, like the others in the series is a quick, light read, but entertaining.  It leaves you guessing til the end. 

The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins

My niece, a PhD candidate in English Lit praised this book, she said it was one of her favouite books of all time, so I thought I would give it a try.

The book was written in 1848 and is considered the first mystery fiction book.  It was an amazing read.  It is incredible how close it was in story and characters to mysteries being written today.  It had the usual police detective who is sure of himself and who sees things others don't see. It also had a cast of unusual and in some cases hilarious characters, a butler who is devoted to his mistress, her daughter and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (it is his bible for understanding life and directing his actions), a religious fanantic, a servant who kills herself when her love for a gentleman is unrequited, mysterious Indians, a damsel and two romantic interests.

The story is centred around the theft of a huge diamond the Moonstone.  A Brit had stolen the diamond from a shrine when serving in India.  When he dies he bequeaths the diamond to a niece.  The stone has been kept in a bank for safekeeping but it is delivered to the niece on her birthday only to be stolen on the night of her birthday party.  Police are called but the young lady refuses to coooperate with the police so she becomes a suspect in the disapperance of the gem.  She rejects both her suitors for different reasons.

The mystery is solved in the end with the help of an unusual country doctor and the police detective who initially was unsuccessful in solving the crime.

The book was very entertaining and  did an excellent job of presenting the passions and foibles of humans.  It is amazing how little people have changed in 160 years...

The Impossible Dead

by Ian Rankin,

I thought I had read some other books by Rankin, in his Inspector Rebus series but I can't see any notes in my book diary so perhaps I haven't.  This is his second book including Inspector Malcolm Fox.

Inspector Fox is part of a police internal affairs team in Scotland.  They have been sent to investigate some police in a town outside Glasgow to find out if three officers there have been protecting one of the officers from complaints of abusing his position, securing sexual favours in return for not charging people.  No surprise, Fox and his colleagues do not receive a warm welcome.  As part of their investigation Fox interviews the uncle of Paul Carter, the police officer who has been charged with the offences.  His uncle, a retired police officer, was the one who reported on his nephew.

Fox likes the uncle who is now running a security firm.  The uncle is murdered and then his nephew is also killed.  Although it is not his responsibility Fox starts investigating to find out why the uncle would have been murdered.  At first the nephew is suspected.  Fox thinks he was innocent.   Despite warnings from his superiors and other police officials and government officials including a cabinet minister Fox keeps trying to figure out why the uncle was investigating the death/murder of a separation activist in the 1980's.  He ends up solving the crimes almost losing his own life but digs up a number of skeleton in police officer closets as a result.

It was an interesting story, kept you guessing.  I think that in reality a person like this would be reprimanded quite quickly and probably lose his job.  He really overstepped his authority in a number of ways, kept information from his bosses, interfered in areas where he had no authority, etc.

I think I will pick up a book in the Inspector Rebus series sometime.

The Winter Palace

by Eva Stachniak
This book is the story of a young woman who's father takes her family from Poland to Russia.  He is a book binder and restores some books for the Empress Elizabeth.  When her father dies the girl is brought to the palace because the Empress had agreed to look after her for her father.  At first she is given a job as a seamstress, she hates the job and is no good at it.  Then she is selected to read to the young Prince Peter whom the unmarried, childless Elizabeth, has selected as her heir.

The young girl, Varvara, soon becomes a "spy" for the Empress and also for the Chancellor, they want her to eavesdrop on people and tell them what she sees and hears especially from and about the Princess Catherine who has come to Russia as a potential mate for Peter.  I can't remember why but she seems to outlive her usefulness, or perhaps disappoints the Queen/Chancellor, and they marry her to a young army officer.  At first she is not happy with her fate however she comes to love her husband and adores the daughter they have.

A few years later she is brought back to the palace and is working as a spy for the Empress, the Chancellor and is also now a spy/confidante for Catherine.  The Empress is very moody and demanding. Peter has a mistress by this time and is ignoring possibly even plotting to get rid of Catherine.  Catherine has two children, by lovers, the Empress immediately takes the children away from her and raises them.  The second child dies in infancy.  When the Empress dies times are tense and both parties are plotting for control, Catherine seizes control while her husband is off in the country with his mistress.  Varvara plays go between for Catherine and her lovers, and also a British official and also helps arrange liaisons between Catherine and her lovers.  She tries to aid Catherine when she is ill or distressed.  Varvara also plays a key role for Catherine by going to the country palace and scooping away Catherine's son and bringing him to her in St. Petersburg.  She thinks her place is secure in the palace but is shocked to learn that Catherine is questioning her daughter about her activities.  She is shocked to find that despite everything she has done for Catherine, Catherine does not trust her.    She leaves the palace in a fury.

Catherine suggest that she and her daughter take a trip around Europe and that when they return the daughter will be made a maid of the court.  They do take the trip but Varvara buys land in Poland during their journey and decides she will not return to Russia.

I enjoyed the book, I think the main character had an unrealistic impression of her own importance, but I suppose that was the point of the story.  The Empress was portrayed as a very cruel and vindictive person and the author certainly portrayed the game playing and rumour mongering well.  Iit gave you a sense of what life was like in the royalty of Russia at the time and made me curious to know more about Catherine, I hope to read a bio about her soon.

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

by Tarquin Hall
This is the second book in the series about Vish Puri, head of Delhi's Most Private Investigators.  The books remind me of the No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency in that they involve a P.I. who uses a folksy approach to solving crimes.  However, while the main character in the No. 1 Series solves non-violent crimes, Puri's crimes do involve murders.

In this book a man, who goal is to show the fraud behind religious cults/leaders, is killed by a vicious spirit while participating in a Laughter Therapy session in a park.   The event is captured on a cell phone and it does indeed appear to have been a supernatural event.  Puri agrees to try to help the police, unofficially, and sets off to investigate the event and also the leader of an ahsram.  At the same time that Puri is conducting his investigation his wife and mother have their own crime to solve.  They are investigating a "Kitty Party", where a robbery occurred.  They don't staff to delegate to spy on others but they use their female network and track suspects themselves and eventually both Puri and his lady family members uncover the truth.

As it turns out the man had faked his own murder as part of a plan to discredit a Swami.  However, the man ends up being murdered by someone who wants to steal his secrets for a levitating device and the Swami, while his is shown to be a criminal, is able to escape.

The books in this series give a sense of life in India for the poor and the changes that are occurring with the growth of the midddle class.  The books include humour through the eccentric main character, his relationship with his wife and family, and his employees and the incompetent officials and other people they encounter.  An entertaining read if a bit stereotypical.

Solar

By Ian McEwan

This is the second book I have read by this author.  The first book, Saturday, was highly acclaimed but I found I that I did not find it all that interesting and I could not relate to the  main character at all.

In this book, Solar, the main character is totally despicable.  He is a physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize early in his career and seems to be trying to live off that fame for the rest of his life.  He has married five tiimes, having numerous affairs during his marriages and he continues to be unfaithful to his latest two love interests, one (who is the mother of his child-- who he did not want her to have) and another woman in the U.S.

At the beginning of the story he is incensed when he finds out that his fifth wife is having an affair.  It is okay for him to have affairs but not for her... He is then shocked to find that she is also having an affair with one of his employees.   He discovers the man at his home, wearing his housecoat.  They have an argument and the young man trips on a rug and hits his head on the table and dies.  The physicist, Beard,
instead of reporting the accident, frames his wife's other lover (who has hurt her and threatened the other lover).  The lover is sent to jail for the murder.

Beard is a slob, and totally self-obsessed.  At one point in the story he is media fodder when he makes some comments that appear to be dismissive of women in science and then he seems to put his foot even more in his mouth as he tries to defend himself and then the media finds out about all his marriages and his affairs.  But soon another story takes over the news and his "sins" are forgotten.

When he finds out that his current lover is having an affair with another man he is again incensed.  She knows that he plays around and seems to be okay with that.

Beard takes some of the ideas from his dead employee and develops them into processes for using solar energy to create energy on earth.  He is on the verge of a major demonstration of the processes.  However as the book ends his lies and deceits are all coming tumbling down on him, his skin cancer has returned, he is in terrible shape healthwise, he is being sued for stealing his employees ideas and passing them of as his own, which means that all his funders will back out leaving him with millions in debt; he finds out someone has smashed all the solar array panels (likely the ex-con lover because he refused to give the man a job at his project) and his two girlfiriends and his 3 year old daughter are coming towards him in a restaurant.  He will not be able to ignore or blunder his way through all these difficulties this time!

I found the main character totally disgusting and of course wonder how he was able to be so appealing to so many women?  It was an okay story but a bit wordy.  I skipped through the last 70 pages just to get to the end.  I'm glad that the book ends with him having to face the consequences of his bad behaviour throughout his life.

The September Society

by Charles Finch

This is the second book in this mystery series about an affluent English man in the late 1800's who is an amateur sleuth.  In this story a friend asks him to investigate the disappearance of her son.  Charles Lenox finds some strange clues in the boy's room at Oxford, a business card with the words "The September Society" written on it, a dead cat with a letter opener in it and a piece of paper with some strange code on it, some dirty boots, a line of tobacco on the floor.  Charles does some preliminary investigating then returns to London.  He receives a telegram saying that the boy's body has been found.  He feels guilty that he did not stay in Oxford, he feels he might have prevented the death if he had.

As the investigation progresses Lenox finds that the September Society is a group founded of Officers who served in India, at a particular time, a very small club indeed.  He later finds out that the boy's father, who died under mysterious circumstances while in India, was an officer in India at the same time as the members of this society.   What is the connection?  Things get really serious and  worrisome when Lenox's next door neighbour receives a threat for him to back off the case.

Lenox decides to try to hide while a meeting of the society is underway and eventually the truth comes out the boy is not really dead, nor is his father (who has been hiding for years as the member of the Society thought they had killed him because he knew and did not support their illegal activities).
The book ends with the crime solved, one friend of the boy has died, and Lenox has finally gathered the nerve to ask the love of his life, his neighbour, to marry him.

This book was a light read but was as entertaining as the first book in the series, great depiction of Victorian England.

The Submission

by Amy Waldman
This is one of the most thought provoking books I have read in quite a while.  I don't think I have ever read a book with some many unappealing characters.  The story is about a jury that is tasked with choosing a memorial for the site of the September 11th attack in New York.  One of the jurors, an independently wealthy woman who lost her husband on Sept. 11th, is the representative for the families of the victims.  How she can represent this group, when she is so out of touch with the life of regular Americans is questionable.  She is arguing vigourously for a garden design while many of the other jurors seem to favour a  large monolith.  She succeeds in convincing the jury to go for the garden design.  They then discover that the architect is a Muslim.   The jury thinks this might be controversial and decides to hold off announcing the results but a member of the admin. team leaks the news to a sleazy journalist who publishes the news and the reaction is swift and angry.

The book then discusses the lives of the woman juror, a man who's fire fighter brother was killed when the buildings collapsed and he is now trying to please his parents/replace his brother by being an advocate against the design, the architect, and a young illegal alien from Bangladesh whose husband was also killed in the attack

The anger leads to demonstrations, head scarves being pulled from the head's of young muslim women, the female juror feels threatened in her home and the architect has to move out of his home because he fears being attacked.

There are other characters in the book and it seems that all of them, while they seem to be seeking the right thing to do and justice are actually behaving more out of self-interest than honour and honesty.  The architect, who has never followed his faith fasts at Ramadan and grows a beard.  And, he is reluctant to explain his design or and refuses to respond when people ask him if the garden represents Islamic paradise.  This exacerbates the situation.  It does appear that his design idea might have come from a garden of a Mongol ruler that he saw being rebuilt in Kabul.  The head of the jury asks him to withdraw his design and he refuses, but after public outcry and the murder of the young Bangladesh woman he does that and leaves the U.S. to pursue his career worldwide.  Why does he refuse to defend his design or explain its source?  On the one hand he is correct in arguing that as an American citizen, born and raised, he is American and his design should not be questioned because he is a Muslim.  But, if he had been more forthcoming all the anger and turmoil likely could have been avoided.  The woman juror wants to meet with him, to get to understand his design, but it seems that she wants him to apologize for the Muslims who killed her husband and he won't do this, why should he?  He wasn't responsible for the act.

I think the only person who was truly honest and innocent in the book was the young woman from Bangladesh.  She is in the U.S. illegally which of course is a crime but she does try to do the right thing, trying to stand up to a wife beater, speaking out at the public hearing when she runs the risk of being deported.  She ends up being killed (before they are able to deport her and her son).  Her son is sent to live with family in Bangladesh.

At the end of the book the time is 20 years later and we are told that Muslims are now an accepted part of American life and culture.  A new design competition was held and the site is a field of flags.... and the widow juror regrets this choice.  The architect has become world renowned.  He did end up building his garden for a rich Arab.  When the widow juror finds that the garden has been built and that words of the Quaran are written on the walls (the original design would have had the names of the World Trade Centre victims), she is outraged and seems to take this as confirmation that is design was an Islamic garden and thus would have been an affront to the U.S.  She has learned nothing in twenty years!  She prided herself on being rational and trying to consider the needs of others but she is still irrational and racist.  It seems to me that she was disappointed in her marriage and how her needs were discounted by her husband and this anger spills out as a reaction to the design by the Muslim architect.

This was an upsetting but interesting book.

Before the Poison

by Peter Robinson

Robinson is famous for his mysteries featuring Inspector Banks.  This book is a departure from the Banks series.  It is the story of a composer who writes scores for movies who has bought a house in England.  He was born in England and his family moved to the US when he was a child.  He has decided to move back to England after his wife died of cancer.

He hadn't seen the house he bought, before he purchased it, and is surprised at how large it is.  He is also surprised to learn that there was a murder in the house.  The wife of a previous owner, a Doctor, was hung for having murdered her husband in the house in the 1950's.  The man is intrigued by this partly because he now owns the house and because the prison she was hung in was next door to the school he attended as a boy.

He becomes intrigued by the story and wonders if she was really a murderer.  Is he seeing her ghost in the house?  He finds out that the woman served as a nurse during the war.  He then sets out to find out as much as he can about her, talking to locals who knew her and her family, meeting her former lover (in Paris)and another young man who knew her (in South Africa).  He eventually finds out what happened to her son who was orphaned after the death of his father and hanging of his mother.  He is able to provide answers to the woman's Granddaughter who shows up at the house one day and she assists him in digging out more information.

It is when he locates the second young man that he learns that the woman's husband was going to be involved with experiments with chemical weapons.  After her experience in the war where she saw the effect of chemical experiments, would this drive her to murder her husband.  As the book ends we find another reason why the composer was so intrigued with exploring whether the woman did kill her husband, he gave his wife morphine to put her out of her pain.

I have enjoyed Robinson's Banks novels but I think this was much better than all his Banks books.

The Virgin Cure

by Ami McKay

This is a story set in the late 1870's in New York.  It is the story of a young girl named Moth who is sold by her mother to be a lady's maid for a rich woman.  Moth's father is the person who gave her her name, he abandons her mother and her and they are struggling in poverty.  The woman wants the young girl to show her affection but beats her all the time. She cuts the girl's hair off.  Finally she girl can't take anymore and she runs away.   Moth returns to her mother's place to find that her mother is not longer there.  Moth later hears news that her mother's body has been found in the river.  She was badly beaten.

Despite her poverty, Moth always dreams that she will some day be independently wealthy and live in a grand home.

Moth survives by begging and stealing until she meets a young girl who invites her to come with her to be trained to be a prostitute.  The girl agrees and is accepted by a Madam who starts to train her on how to behave and dress, provides her with a wardrobe and room and board.  This particular Madam is catering to high class clients and takes her time in getting the girls ready to meet her clients.  The first meetings involve going to a local "freak show theatre".  Two of the girls sneak away from one of their dates and one of the girls is attacked and gang raped and likely will get syphyllis because one of her attackers was diseased.  The book gets its name from the belief that men had that they could be cured of venereal diseases if they had sex with a virgin.

The young girl is terrified about becoming a prostitute but doesn't think she has much choice.  Her "coming out" is delayed when the owner of the freak show asks her boss if he can have her services to sell  postcards as souvenirs of the show.  She is dressed in a dress with pockets sewn on it where she can hold the cards she has for sale.

A female doctor works for the Madam to help look after the health of the girls.  She tries to convince Moth that she can get her away from this life.  Moth resists because she cannot see that she has any options.

One day, the husband of the woman who had beat her comes to the show.  He is smitten with her and asks her Madam if he can take her out.  The Madam agrees.  She gets a higher price from men for offering them a virgin.  Moth has a date with him and then he comes to have sex with her.  He is very brutal with her.  When he is done she  pretends to read his palm and tells him their is ill will in his house and that he is in danger... getting back at his wife... He is furious at what she says.After this Moth runs to the Doctor and asks for her help and the doctor takes her in.  Moth then goes to the owner of the freak show to ask him if she can be one of his performers and he hires her.  She is able to make enough money so that eventually she is able to have a place of her own and takes up her mother's trade of telling fortunes for rich women.

This was a very interesting book.  The author gave you a real sense of how hard life could be for the poor at that time, and the options for young girls.  It was nice to have a book that had a happy ending for a change.