Mybookdiscoveries

Review of Lowcountry Summer by Dorothea Benton Frank

2011-02-22T19:17:00.000-06:00

The South Carolina Lowcountry is one of my favorite places. Dorothea Benton Frank, although now a resident of New York, was born and raised on Sullivan's Island in the Lowcountry and her book drips with the charm, hospitality, humor and gentility that is so characteristic of that part of the country. "Lowcountry Summer" is 10th in a series of novels set in coastal South Carolina.

Caroline Wimbley Levine returned to the Tall Pines Plantation on the Edisto River after a divorce about 10 years before. When her alcoholic ex-sister-in-law checks in to rehab in California Caroline is thrown into the role of quasi-mother figure to her brother's four problematic daughters. She intervenes to straighten out everything from their vulgar language and poor diets to working on the girls' self-esteem and their attitude toward their father's fiance. Tragedy and mishaps strike, but somehow the family bonds and individual sense of responsibility for each member of the family are heightened through it all. Caroline finds love in the end as well.

There are many vivid, beautiful descriptions of the land, the traditions and the people of this land. At the same time, each person is presented as a complex, multi-dimensional individual. By the end of the book it is easy to feel both frustration and empathy for many of them. I felt that I had come to know this family as friends I plan to visit time and again.

Liz Nichols

Freedom, a Novel by Jonathan Franzen

2011-01-06T15:50:00.000-06:00

Eight or nine years after Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" he is back with a new blockbuster, "Freedom."
Freedom is the story of the Berglund family of St. Paul and Hibbing, MN. About half the book is written as a therapy exercise, a third-person autobiography of the life of Patty Berglund, a 45 year old housewife who is forced to go back to the workplace when she is thrown out of the house for cheating with her husband's best friend, a semi-successful rock star named Richard Katz from New Jersey.

Patty, her husband, Walter, and Katz met as University of Minnesota students in the late 70s or early 80s. Patty was a women's basketball star. Walter was an environmentalist and engineer, and Richard was the budding musician. Walter and Richard were room mates. Richard encouraged the relationship between Patty and Walter, but secretly Patty always was more attracted to Richard even though she recognized Walter would be the more stable provider. She seems to spend a lifetime being depressed about her marriage, her secret feelings for Richard, and the lives of her children, Jessica and Joey.

Eventually the family moves from St. Paul so that Walter can work as the executive director of an environmental non-profit called the Cerulian Mountain Trust, an organization dedicated to saving habitat for a particular breed of warbler. The Trust is really a front for a conservative coalition of coal mining and defense contractor interests who want to garner support for their anti-environmental activities by appearing to be the good guys. Walter and his assistant, Lelithia, meanwhile, are using the Trust as a way of pushing their own pet project for zero population growth.

Every character in the book is described, psycho-analyzed, actions discussed in tremendous detail, and motivations analyzed until the reader feels there is absolutely nothing else to know about each character. At times that detail gets quite tedious. However, every detail of action and every set of motivations is so consistent to the family background and personality of each character that it feels very much like the reader has stepped into the middle of these lives and is living them along with the characters. They all seem so real, and it is so easy to identify either personally with one or more of the characters, or it is easy to feel as if you know someone just like them. The reader watches helplessly as the family falls apart. One wishes that we could give a good shake to each one of them to prevent a lot of the pain and turmoil that happens; but we are in fact helpless to prevent what happens because we are only voyeurs on the outside looking in on their lives.

I'm glad that in the end we have quite a bit of closure as various characters come to their senses and learn to forgive and stop hurting each other. There is redemption in the end-- and that could have been the name of the book almost as reasonably as "Freedom." Another name that could have been used is "Mistakes were made," the title that Patty uses for her autobiography.

The word "Freedom" does, however, describe a continuing theme. Each character has free will to determine what they will do and how they will act in given situations. The people around them always let the other members of the family make their own mistakes and triumph with their own successes, even when they disapprove or even shun a loved one for following free will. There are many other thematic ties to the concept of freedom in the book, even though it seems at times that everyone is predestined to particular roles and to react in particular ways because of their family history, socio-economic class, and genetic make-up. Because the concept of freedom is explored throughout the book it really is the most appropriate title for the book.

The book is dense and long. It will not be everyone's cup of tea. It is one of the more thought-provoking and complex books that I have read in the past couple years, and for that my brain appreciates the exercise.

Liz Nichols

The Rebellion of Jane Clarke by Sally Gunning

2010-12-09T20:13:00.000-06:00

Gunning gained her fame with her first novels, "Bound" and "The Widow's War." "The Rebellion of Jane Clarke" is taken from a small historical fact about a woman who witnessed the killing of five colonists in Boston in March 1770 that helped to spark the War of Independence. Jane Clarke is the fictional character that embodies the true life witness.

Gunning has a true heroine in Clarke, a woman from a small village on Cape Cod from a family that sympathized with the crown. Jane and her brother both moved to Boston to gain their own independence from a rather judgmental and tyrannical father. Jane moved into the home of an aunt who appeared to have leanings toward the Sons of Liberty-- or does she? Jane has to put up with the surreptitious comings and goings of two household employees of her aunt and feels she needs to protect her aunt from the increasingly hostile environment in Boston.

When Jane meets Henry Knox, a bookseller who leans toward the Sons of Liberty cause, it introduces some conflict into her future. Should she accept Henry's proposal of marriage? Should she try to win back Phinnie Paine, her one-time suitor? Should she embrace her independence as a single woman for the rest of her life. If she decides not to marry, how will she make a living?

As it happens, I also started the docdrama series "John Adams" just as I finished this book. John Adams starts where this book ends, with the March 1770 shootings and the trial in which John Adams wins a pyrrhic victory in defending Captain Preston of the British guard.

This is a memorable fictional telling of an important period of American history as seen through the eyes of a woman.

I loved this book and look forward to many more from Sally Gunning.

Liz Nichols

Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife

2010-10-18T16:53:00.000-05:00

Sittenfeld's novel, "American Wife" is the quasi-biographical tale of a recent First Lady, Laura Bush. The character, Alice Blackwell, has a number of things in common with Mrs. Bush: she worked as a school librarian before she was married, she had a similar upbringing, she is generally considered more liberal in her leanings than her husband and probably also more intelligent. As for the dramatic details-- the accident that Alice causes as a teen that leads to the death of a friend, the break-up of her friendship with her hometown friend Dena, the abortion that Alice has, and details about her marriage to Charlie Blackwell-- it is hard for me to say which of those mirror Mrs. Bush's experiences as I have not read a Bush biography. Sittenfeld does list a number of biographies on Laura Bush and works by and about Hillory Clinton as inspiration for her novel.

While I dutifully kept reading the book and enjoyed parts of it, I often found it hard to get inside Alice Blackwell's head, and especially hard to find much sympathy for Charlie Blackwell, the spoiled son of a Wisconson meat packing tycoon, baseball team owner, governor and Republican president. I just don't get what she saw in Charlie and why she stayed with him all those years when he was a liability to her and to his family and an alcoholic. I kept reading to find out and really never did figure it out.

I'm glad I read this novel-- but I still don't know why.

Liz Nichols

Captivity by Deborah Noyes: A review

2010-09-26T12:17:00.000-05:00

It took me awhile to appreciate Noyes' "Captivity," a fictional account of a real mid-19th century family of spiritualists who lived in Rochester, NY. The Fox sisters actually did learn how to "rap" up the spirits for seances in the second half of the 19th century. Maggie Fox and her sisters traveled around the country giving demonstrations and seances, and she did exchange letters with explorer, Elisha Kent Kane of Philadelphia. I have rarely thought about spiritualism and have never considered reading about the history of this phenomenon/form of 19th century entertainment.

The chapters alternate between a fictionalized account of how the Fox sisters and their mother claim to hear noises and receive messages from the dead, and the story of Clara Gill and her father, transplants from London to the wilds of Rochester, NY in the 1840s and 1850s. Gill is a fictional character, and it is her moving story of love denied leading to an isolated spinsterhood that is the more compelling story. It is also the more redemptive story. While Maggie is at the end able to help her friend, Clara, to free herself from the ghosts of her past, Maggie is trapped by her ghosts and eventually drinks herself to death.

The central theme of the book comes in a chapter where Pratt, Clara's chaperone is talking with Will, the animal keeper who has fallen for Clara. Will says to Pratt: "...Above and beyond what an unjust world will impose, every person's a slave to choce. We make them, and they make or unmake us in turn." Essentially, the book is an exploration of the choices the main characters make throughout their lives and the impact that those choices have on the themselves and the people around them.

It took awhile for me to care about these characters-- particularly Maggie Fox and her intended, Elisha Kane, but in the end, I found this a fairly deep exploration of the main theme of the choices that make or break each of the characters and their circle of family and friends.

Liz Nichols

Cook the Books by Jessica Conant-Park and Susan Conant

2010-08-09T14:26:00.000-05:00

The mother-daughter team of Conant-Park and Conant have an imaginative series going with the "Gourmet Girl Mystery" series set in Boston. "Cook the Books" is the 5th in the series featuring not so aspiring social worker, Chloe Carter.

Carter is a somewhat typical 20-something. She has over-spent her credit limit doting on her best friend's baby. She hasn't really found her calling in life, but thinks she should at least give a try to finish a master's in social work (or at least that is what will qualify her to get access to a trust fund from a dead relative). She prides herself on being independent, and it is that stubborn independence that makes her stay in Boston when her boyfriend accepts a job as a personal cook in Hawaii and invites her to come along. She is so hurt that he made this plan without her participation she cuts him off totally, and makes herself miserable in the process.

Now Chloe desperately needs a part time job, and she responds to an ad to assist a cook book editor with the editing of a new cook book. The son of a famous chef is supposed to be working on the book and is making a mess of it. Chloe saves him organizationally and in terms of the recipes he is planning for the book. She proposes that they meet up with a friend of her former boyfriend, Digger, a chef who is about to open a new high profile restaurant in Boston. The night before the arranged meeting Digger is killed in a fire that sweeps through his apartment. Chloe has to discover who killed Digger and why while she juggles her work schedule, her school and clinical internship schedule, and resolving her feelings for the former boyfriend, Josh, who has returned to Boston for the opening of Digger's new restaurant.

The authors manage to keep the reader's interest throughout the book. Both authors are social workers, and Conant-Park is married to a Boston chef, so they write about things they know. They are able to legitimately endow their character with the kinds of skills and perception that make for good storytelling and great powers of observation for solving crimes.

I'm surprised I've missed the earlier books in this series and will make up for that by reading some of the previous books in the series.

Conant also has a well know series of mysteries for dog lovers, and I am familiar with some of the books in that series.

Liz Nichols

Murder at Longbourn by Tracy Kiely

2010-07-06T15:05:00.000-05:00

Tracy Kiely's "Murder at Longbourn" is an excellent first mystery novel. It will be of particulary interest to the cozy-lovers among the mystery reading set.

The sleuth is newspaper reporter (fact-checker, actually) Elizabeth Parker, who goes to Cape Cod to assist her Aunt Winnie at the aunt's B and B for a mystery dinner. Things heat up quickly when a guest is shot and it becomes apparent that the mystery play is being used as a cover for murder. Parker pits herself against a police detective who seems bent on fitting the evidence to point toward Aunt Winnie as the prime suspect.

While Kiely presents a fairly conventional cozy, she never lets it get too predictable nor the characters too stereotypical. For these reasons, I found it hard to put the book down once I started it and I polished it off in a couple of holiday weekend sittings.

I look forward to more Elizabeth Parker mysteries, with or without the B and B setting.

Liz Nichols

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

2010-06-21T22:28:00.000-05:00

The world of Henry VIII comes alive through "Wolf Hall." British author, Hilary Mantel seems to invade the mind of King Henry's Secretary and close confidant, Thomas Cromwell, to enlighten readers on the Renaissance times of King Henry's court.

The book follows the life of Cromwell from his teenage years when he fled his home in Putney to avoid further abuse from his father, Walter Cromwell, a blacksmith, to near the end of his life following the execution of Thomas More. In between Cromwell held a number of posts as a soldier of fortune in France and Italy, a woolen merchant in Amsterdam, the advisor of Cardinal Wolsey, and then the go-to advisor to King Henry. He was an educated, accomplished and astute man who managed to keep his head while everyone else seemed to be losing theirs. While history shows Cromwell to be quite a ruthless inquisitor, as was his mentor, Cardinal Wolsey, it is easy to sympathize with him and to see him as simply a man of his time and circumstances.

The format of this extremely thick book is often hard to read because it covers so much of the stream of consciousness thought process of the great Cromwell with smatterings of dialogue to break the lengthy internal monologues. Still, once I got the flow of it I found it an extremely interesting, enlightening and unique novel. The author must have one foot in this period of British history to have pulled off a work that gets so deeply into the psyche of important figures and events from the 1500's.

I do wonder about the title. It comes from the estate of the Seymour family, who reached ascendancy after the events of this book. It would have been better called Austin Friars, the long-time home and work place of Cromwell. I guess "Wolf Hall" is a sexier, more dangerous-sounding name that befits the events of King Henry's break from the Church in Rome and his stormy marriage to Anne Boleyn.

I highly recommend this book to any lover of Tudor history or British historical fiction.

Bryant & May on the Loose by Christopher Fowler

2010-06-04T16:20:00.000-05:00

This is my first "Peculiar Crimes Unit" mystery. Fowler has four in this series so far and is working on another one. "Bryant & May on the Loose" finds the two modern-day Holmes and Watson clones casting about to restart their disbanded police department special unit which has fallen to the budget ax. The old partners are not doing well in retirement and when May is called out to the scene of a beheadded body in the Kings Cross district, he jumps at the chance to bring back his old unit.

As someone who has not read one of Fowler's May and Bryant series before I did get a bit confused about some of the characters and police protocol, but I found myself absorbed in the details of London ancient lore, the history of different districts and buildings and the like.

I will definitely pick up the next in this series and go back to see what I missed with the first few books in this series.

Fans of British police procedurals and those who enjoyed the antics of Sherlock Holmes and his associates will get a kick out of this mystery. Same is true for those who enjoy reading about London, its history and lore.

Liz Nichols

Heat Wave by Richard Castle

2010-05-26T09:52:00.000-05:00

Since "Castle" is one of my favorite shows on TV I was pleased to see the book we've been hearing about on the show all year, "Heat Wave." Boy, was I disappointed.

Even when I don't like a book I can usually persevere through the first few chapters. Not this time. I could only get a few pages in before I put it down.

I have never seen a more poorly written book to get published. It is obvious that some non-English speaking hack was hired to ghostwrite the book from some screenwriter's outline. American idoms are absolutely killed. Sentences are awkward and without any nuance. Some phrases are laughable. At one point a bruised rib injury is called an "intercoastal" injury. What's that?

All I can say is ABC and the producers of "Castle" blew it big time. They've damaged the reputation of the show by putting out an almost illiterate piece of drivel.

Liz Nichols

Sand Sharks by Margaret Maron

2010-01-24T18:41:00.000-06:00

This is another series I have not read before, and I am very pleased to have found it. It is the Deborah Knott Mystery series by Margaret Maron, the latest of which is "Sand Sharks."

Knott is a district court judge in Colleton, North Carolina, who experiences more excitement than she bargained for when she goes to a conference for state judges in Wrightsville, NC, near Wilmington. She discovers the body of a judge colleague near the restaurant where she eats for dinner the night before the conference starts and is caught up in helping the detective assigned to the case to determine who killed the judge. Of course, there is some collateral damage and more dead bodies along the way to the truth about Judge Jeffrey's murder. Did another judge kill him off? Was it the friend of Deborah's cousin, who's son was victimized by a criminal the judge let loose? Was it someone completely unassociated with the judge or his cases?

This is a profession I know little about, so watching the politics that goes on to get judges elected and kept in office is interesting. What I liked best about the book is that all of the characters are given very human feelings and reactions. Reading the book is like taking a page out of the lives of ordinary people and weaving a tale around them. There are personalities you like and others you hate, and some that are just interesting or different. All are described, warts and all, including the main character, Judge Knott.

This was a fast read. I didn't want to put the book down and spent a large part of two days finishing it. That is one of the tests of a good book for me. If I am so involved that I can't put it down, it rates highly with me. It means that the characters speak to me, the plot is absorbing and paced right, and the transitions are skillfully written so that you want to keep going on from one chapter to the next. That is a skill that is accomplished by only the best and most experienced authors, usually, and Maron is experienced. She has about 15 books in the Knott series, 8 books in the Sigrid Harald series, and 4 other novels.

Maron grew up near Raleigh, NC, lived in Brooklyn for many years, and has returned to her native North Carolina. She has won awards for many of her mysteries. You can learn more about her at her website, www.MargaretMaron.com.

Liz Nichols
lizdnichols at gmail.com

Evil for Evil by James R. Benn

2010-01-09T12:26:00.000-06:00

Evil for Evil is a bit of a twist on the classic war novel set during World War II in Jerusalem and Northern Ireland.

Billy Boyle is a Second Lt. on Dwight D. Eisenhower's staff and followed the war across Africa and Italy with Ike. He has a distant familial relationship with Ike and calls him, affectionately, Uncle Ike. His girl friend, Diana, is about to go out on another SOE special op for Britain behind enemy lines and Billy in a fit of frustration decides to take an assignment requested by the British to solve the disappearance of 50 Browning Automatic Rifles in Northern Ireland, which the British think may be linked to German infiltration and an attempt in the making of a German effort to topple the neutrality of the Irish Republic.

This sets Boyle up for a very interesting set of conflicting relationships in Ulster, for Irish-American Catholic Boyle is expected to take orders from the British and their Northern Irish Protestant cronies against possible members of the IRA, an organization Boyle and his family support fervently and with lots of dollars at home in Boston.

The book is remarkable in how deftly Benn explains the complexities of Irish Catholic and Protestant interaction and politics and weaves it into the personalities, speech and actions of his characters. In the end it is clear that the good and reasonable on both sides cooperate in the best interests of the whole, and the extremists on both sides tend to be more alike than different. The extremists are killers with little real motive other than selfish self-interest. The only way to tell apart one their killings is by the MO.

If there had been more Boyles and more of the Protestant persuasion like DI Carrick, perhaps the bloody troubles in Northern Ireland would not have gone on for most of two centuries.

I found myself really being compelled to read on and on in this book with little desire to stop until I found out what would happen to Boyle and to the others who were looking for the guns, the German infiltrators and the extremists on both sides. I will remember Billy and look forward to following him through the rest of the war in future Benn books.

This is a cracking good war mystery with a little bit of a twist and lots of action and surprises.

Liz Nichols

The Lord of Death by Eliot Pattison

2009-12-30T13:23:00.001-06:00

Pattison is an Edgar-award winning author who created the character Shan Yao Tun, an ethnic Chinese exiled in Tibet. Shan is one of the more unusual sleuths in today's mystery genre, and I am really intrigued by him.

Shan is an undocumented worker in Tibet who could basically be imprisoned at any time. He is an expert mountaineer, who makes his living helping expeditions get to the top of Everest and the other peaks in the Tibetan Himalayas. His current focus is finding a way to get his son, Ko, released from the Chinese "yeti factory," a hospital prison where the mostly political prisoners are subjected to medical and biological experiments. Ko must be rescued before his brain or other vital organs are extracted or tested to the point of turning him into a vegetable.

In "The Lord of Death" Shan solves several puzzles of how to get the monks in a threatened monastery over the mountains and into Nepal or India safely. He must enlist the help of an American climbing leader, some of his Tibetan climbing team members, and even some Chinese officials Shan helps tit-for-tat in order to get the life-saving rescue done for his son.

Along the way Shan also solves the mysteries of who killed a Chinese Party Communist Party official, an American climber, and a Nepalese climber.

Pattison has an excellent grasp on Buddhist traditions, Chinese philosophy and how these can be woven into a very fresh and interesting plot for a mystery. The reader is carried in to the story and gets involved with characters who live in a very different world, think differently, and have very different experiences, and yet one ends up thinking about many of the people in this book like friends, enemies and acquaintances in one's own life. That is quite an achievement to make such a different world come alive for those of us with a western perspective.

I am looking forward to reading more of the Shan mystery series.

Liz Nichols

A Separate Country by Robert Hicks

2009-12-22T00:01:00.000-06:00

It has taken me much longer than usual to read "A Separate Country" than the typical 424 page novel. It is tough to wade through 19th century journal writing, and that is what makes up the majority of this book. At times I found it dull, and at times things picked up considerably and got quite absorbing. I especially liked the sections narrated by Eli Griffin, the grifter who befriended the Hood family right at the end of their lives and tried to wind up the loose ends.

Most of the book is made up of fictional journals and memoirs of CSA General John Bell Hood and his wife, Anna Marie Hennen Hood, who were, of course, real historical figures. The story is set in New Orleans after the Civic War, where several former Confederate generals settled. Hood and his wife had 11 children in a space of about 12 years, and family life plays a big part in Anna Marie's journals, understandably. Hood tries and fails at business, and in the end reaches a point of salvation for his sins on the battlefield by nursing black New Orleaneans during the yellow fever epidemic of the late 1870s, an epidemic that also took Hood's life, and that of his wife and his oldest and youngest daughters.

The book is a reminder that New Orleans has always been a hotbed of grifters and corrupt government and politics. It was an especially dangerous place to live because of the people and the pestilence during the Reconstruction period. Hick's book is a graphic reminder of both the seamy and the somewhat more noble side of the great Creole city of the South.

Even though I found it slow-going, I did enjoy the book for the most part. I found some of the characters a little one-dimensional, but even these characters come up with a surprise or two. I want to go back to Hick's first novel, the highly acclaimed "The Widow of the South."

Liz Nichols

Chambers of Death by Priscilla Royal

2009-12-03T10:32:00.000-06:00

In college at Lawrence University I had a medieval history professor, Dr. Cheney, who we always said had one foot in the middle ages at all times. He lived and breathed it. We could picture how people felt, what they did and how they talked by his descriptions. I topped of my medieval experiences at Lawrence by taking a seminar class in medieval literature, which I also enjoyed very much.

When I get an opportunity to read history, or history in the form of an historical novel, set in the middle ages, I usually read it. Priscilla Royal's "Chambers of Death" is no exception.

Royal studied medieval literature at San Francisco State University and continues to live in Northern California. She has five other novels set in that period, specifically the end of the thirteenth century. The Afterword in the book hints that she will be tackling the considerably more troubled 14th century next with her cast of characters from the Tyndal Priory. The 13th century was comparatively enlightened compared to the century after with its frequent Black Death scourges, harsh politics and mini-ice age.

"Chambers of Death" is set on a road trip away from the Priory. Prioress Eleanor, a high born woman who preferred to run her own domain from inside a convent, has gone to settle some disputes about the priory's far flung lands and has with her a young novice and a monk who is normally involved in the work of the infirmary in the Priory, Brother Thomas. The young girl, Mariota, takes deathly ill in a storm and the group stop to tend their sick companion at the manor that is stewarded by a gentleman named Master Stevyn. We meet his strange family at the door of the manor, and not everyone is very welcoming.

The groom is murdered shortly after the arrival and in the course of the book others die. Several members of the staff and family have either motive, means or opportunity, but Eleanor and Thomas are hard pressed to find anyone with all three at the time of each of the murders. I must say Royal had me fooled until shortly before the chapter where the murderer is revealed. The sheriff, Sir Reimund, never has a clue and is inclined to accuse and hang the first convenient low-born member of the household.

There is much to like about this book. It is very well researched. We have accurate descriptions of manor life in the thirteenth century. We get inside the minds of people of different stations. We find out what people thought about affairs and the inequality of treatment between husbands and wifes caught cheating. We find out about the rules of illegitimacy and what being born out of wedlock meant for the future of that child. We get inside the minds of not only the main characters, but also many of the people from the manor. The descriptions and the characterizations make this book so much more interesting than a mystery that is mainly plot and action. In fact, this book evolves rather slowly, but the complexity of it and the large cast of characters demands a little attention to detail.

"Chambers of Death" is a good choice of a mystery read for those who enjoy historical and medieval mysteries. Fans of Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas will not be disappointed.

Liz Nichols

P.S.: For those who have wondered about my son and his retinal surgery, it went well. He has to wait a week or so before much activity until a gas bubble inserted in the eye disappears. At that point the eyesight should have returned to around 20/30 and we can get his glasses adjusted.

The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst

2009-11-21T14:14:00.000-06:00

Furst is master of the historical spy novel. This one is set in pre-war Warsaw where Jean-Francois Mercier de Boutillon is an attache with the French Embassy and a secret spy master.

The operations that Mercier is asked to carry out are all in an effort by the anti-Petain forces in the French miliary to prove that the Germans plan to move against France by bringing tanks across Belgium. He watches tank war games in the woods of southern Germany, enlists a German resistance member to get documents that end up supporting the German command's intentions, and helps an old-guard Russian spy couple to defect. In the mean time, he finds his true love, Anna, an attorney in Warsaw.

The story may be fiction, but the history is accurate. It is frustrating to see how the French high command was coopted by those who did not want to believe what they could see with their own eyes, or secretly wanted an alliance with Hitler against Russia. France let the events that led to World War II unfold with little resistance until it was too late.

Furst is an outstanding espionage writer, and I look forward to both his future work and to picking up some of his previous works.

Liz Nichols

Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich

2009-11-13T09:09:00.000-06:00

"Plum Spooky" is Plum good!

This Stephanie Plum rendition also brings a little change of pace because most of it takes place in a new location, the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey, and we get to meet a whole new eccentric cast of characters. We're also reintroduced to the hunky Diesel, an international bounty hunter who passes through Trenton once in awhile. It adds a little interest to see Stephanie Plum paired with someone other than Ranger or Morelli-- and to have it be more of a sibling relationship (not that Diesel doesn't try for more.)

Basically, Stephanie is on the trail of a mad kid scientist, Martin Munch, and runs in to the guy Munch is working for, Wulf Grimwoire, a very scary man who also happens to be Diesel's cousin. Diesel is after Wulf, who is wanted for a string of murders among other international terror charges. Wulf's main interest in Stephanie is that Munch takes a liking to her and wants her to be his sex slave. Every change Stephanie gets she uses her famous kick routine in the unmentionables.

For once Stephanie's car is not torched by bad guys. It would have been torched by a fire farting hermit who lives in the Barrens, but Stephanie's new jeep had already been trashed by a family of raccoons when she ran out of gas in the piney woods of the Barrens. She's also looking after a monkey for an acquaintance, and runs into a whole bevy of monkeys on an animal preserve in the Barrens. See what I told you? Lots of new and different zany characters and action.

Anyway, like most of Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels, this is entertaining and totally effortless reading that will make you laugh out loud at regular intervals.

An idea-- Stephanie Plum and her pals would make such great characters in a film series. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has approached the author with an offer. I suppose the filming budget would be pretty big given the number of vehicles and buildings that explode or get torched in every episode...

Liz Nichols

Dead Man's Puzzle by Parnell Hall

2009-11-08T14:38:00.000-06:00

This is the first time I've run in to Hall's Puzzle Lady Mystery series. I have mixed feelings about it.

This is one mystery where it was not that easy to decipher the killer half way through the book, and I appreciate the complexity of the process that went in to constructing the book. I don't happen to be a puzzle addict, so I did not take the time to try to solve the puzzles myself. If I had the book would have taken me a lot longer. I'm also not that familiar with Soduku, which I realize is very popular right now. Soduku lovers will love this book.

What bothered me was the disjointedness of the dialogue. The sleuth, Cora Felton, a puzzle creator who can't solve her own puzzles to save her life, has a thought process that is akin to someone who is ADHD or possibly bipolar, and that makes her dialogue and her thoughts difficult to follow. It all hangs together in the end, but it is easy to get tangled up in the process. The short, choppy dialogue makes the book at the same time a fast read, and a confusing one.

The other thing that bothered me about the book is the book's design. I usually don't complain about this. I appreciate the work that publishers do to create the finished product. This time, the changes in typeface between headings, pagination and the body of the page make the work hard to read and detract from it to some extent. Perhaps this contributes to the sense of disjointedness in the work.

I can't say that I got involved with the main character the way I do with my favorite mystery writers, and so I will probably not go out of my way to read another or to go back in the series to read some of the earlier books in the series.

However, the subject and the writing style will appeal to many readers. I can understand why Parnell Hall has a following.

Liz Nichols

Cat Playing Cupid by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

2009-11-07T14:27:00.000-06:00

I am really not a fan of books with talking animals. I just have a lot of trouble with anthropomorthizing animals-- and that is the whole premise of Murphy's Joe Grey Mystery Series.

Joe Grey is a "speaking cat" who lives with several other like-gifted cats in the small town of Molena Point in coastal northern California. Only a few people in this community know about this cat family's rare gift, and they are dedicated to keep the cats' secret.

The secret is threatened by the discovery of a book about speaking cats buried with a dead body in the ancestral home of the family that first brought this cat family line from Wales. The cats with their current people have to come up with a plan to get the body discovered after they have dragged away the offensive volume and without revealing the unusual talents of this family of cats. Since no one in the police department is privy to the secret about the cats it is a matter of getting the police to find the body without becoming suspicious about the cats.

The other thread is the "love" story between a feral "speaking cat," Sage, and his half-feral litter mate, Kit. Kit ultimately decides to stay with her people rather than to go back to the hard life of a wild cat. I find this relationship too filled with sentimentality and anthropomorphic for my tastes.

There are sections of the book that are exciting and attention-grabbing, in particular the chase of the suspect (there's no surprise about who that is) and the clever way the animals and their people use to get the police to find the dead body in the Pamillion ruins.

This book will appeal to mystery lovers who enjoy animal characters and can suspend disbelief a bit in terms of what the animals think, say and do.

Liz Nichols

The 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

2009-11-01T15:40:00.000-06:00

Those who read my reviews regularly know that I don't review a lot of non-fiction. That doesn't mean that I don't read a lot of non-fiction. I get so much of my non-fiction reading from the research I do for my "day job" which is content management and freelance writing. I typically read two or three reports per day, several blogs and at least one newspaper. In addition, I will listen to one or two rebroadcasts of webinars or teleconferences per day as I get other things done. So, I certainly do spend the majority of my time absorbing information. When I kick back my reading is almost always fiction...

A few times per year, however, a non-fiction book comes to my attention as a "must read. Ferriss' book,"The 4 Hour Workweek," has been on the radar for a couple of years, and I finally picked it up last week at the behest of Nathan Jurewicz, the Short Sale Kid. He is an example of a twenty-something millionaire who took Ferriss' system to heart early on and now lives the 4 Hour Workweek lifestyle.

The heart of Ferriss' advice is to outsource. In my present situation I AM an outsourcer other entrepreneurs will turn to to get their article writing and blogging done. However, my partner and I are working diligently to turn our business into a turnkey system where we form writing and web development teams under managers to take care of our client's sites. We have been focusing on people who are already online, and that is one model--- supplying the people who are already successful with a way to get the content done for sites that can be projected out to strong sales as the traffic is built organically. The other model we are working to build up right now is one that is local-- helping successful local businesses become even more successful by capturing a log of the local traffic in niche areas. So, one of the things Ferriss' book does is to confirm the model we are developing. That's somewhat comforting to have someone like Timothy Ferriss confirm the appropriateness of the model.

Another aspect of the book is helping entrepreneurs make the most of the time that is freed up. Just because someone manages to replace himself in his work does not make someone happy. It is important to have a vision of what you want to do with your time and to do something that is socially and intellectually redeeming and challenging. Ferriss travels the world having new experiences and meeting new people. He also gives back through social service and charitable giving. Both are very important to having a fulfilling life.

The 4 Hour Workweek is neither the best written nor the most original book of its kind, but it certainly has had a wide impact on entrepreneurs around the world. It is therefore required reading for anyone who is an entrepreneur or wants to become a successful entrepreneur.

Liz Nichols

The Lost Quilter by Jennifer Chiaverini

2009-10-19T15:47:00.000-05:00

This is the first Chiaverini novel I have read, and I am pleased to make the acquaintance of her Quilter's Series. She is obviously an accomplished quilter and a quilt historian in her own right, and she very effectively sews together solid tales by using bits and pieces of historical fact and quilting lore to start off her works.

In this particular book Chiaverini uses historial tidbits from the Historic Charleston Foundation and the Edisto Island Museum to create a story around a slave woman who is sold south to South Carolina after being caught as a runaway along the Underground Railway in Pennsylvania in 1859. She fashions a Birds in the Air quilt out of scraps from her owners' castoff clothes and her own rags and hides in the stitching hints as to how to find the Elm Creek Farm again the next time she runs. She leaves a son, her offspring with her master, in the care of the Elm Creek Farm owners.

Before she is able to return she is sold by her master in Virginia to his relatives on Edisto Island near Charleston, SC and eventually is allowed to marry and have a baby daughter. The Civil War stops any plans that she and her spouse, Titus Chester, can make to run north, but does not slake the desire or the secret planning that goes on to regain freedom.

The book is well researched and manages to hold interest both for the historic details and the dramatic storyline. This is an effective way to personalize and humanize the atrocities of slavery so that we never forget what happened to those who were enslaved.

Liz Nichols

Death of a Witch by M.C. Beaton

2009-10-19T15:24:00.000-05:00

British author, M.C. Beaton has spun another tale about Scottish bobby, Hamish Macbeth, and the small Highland village of Lochdubh. This tale is also appropriately read in the fall when we are thinking about the ghosts and goblins of Halloween.

The hero is called to investigate the murder of a woman considered by many to be a witch, Catronia Beldame. Beldame has been giving local men a potion that is supposed to enhance a certain part of the anatomy, but actually just creates an itchy rash. Hamish is about to investigate the potion complaints when Catronia turns up dead. Is she killed by a jealous wife, an angry client, or someone who knows something more about her past?

Vying for Hamish's attention and assisting in assessing the murder clues are Priscilla, the daughter of the local innkeeper, and Hamish's former girlfriend, Elspeth Grant, a journalist for one of the area newspapers.

It's fun as an American to read the Scottish dialect in this book and to try to beat Hamish at solving the case.

Liz Nichols

Michael Gregorio's A Visible Darkness

2009-10-09T15:27:00.006-05:00

This is one of the darkest tales I've read in a long time, probably since I read Gregorio's last mystery a year or so ago. Gregorio's protagonist, Magistrate Hanno Stiffeniis from a small city in Prussia, is ordered to investigate why Prussian women are being murdered along the Baltic coast while they are employed in mining for amber.

Gregorio weaves a psychological thriller mixed with Gothic mystery and the reader is left to decide whether the women are being killed for the amber they frequently smuggle to other communities in Prussia in 1808, or are there other reasons these women are being brutally murdered and mutilated? Are the French to blame? A mysterious Prussian doctor? A student at the Kantian school in Konigsburg? Stiffeniis has promised to solve the mystery within two weeks to be home in time to see the birth of his new child. He needs to figure out why the murder suspect knows so much about him and his family.

This book will take a strong stomach. It begins with a graphic description of a putrid cow dung problem in Stiffeniis' town, and continues with extremely graphic details in both sight and smells, about a mutilated body. The gore doesn't let up throughout the book.

Michael Gregorio, which is a pen name for a husband and wife team Michael G. Jacob and Daniela De Gregorio, are on top of the game in this taut and graphically written Gothic mystery.

Liz Nichols

Fatally Flaky by Diane Mott Davidson

2009-09-21T14:47:00.004-05:00

Whenever I see a new Diane Mott Davidson Goldy Schultz mystery I grab it, and I find it difficult to get anything else done until I've finished it! They always leave me wanting the next one right away.

This is one of those rare series where the characters are so compelling that it is as if they become part of your family. You care what happens to them and how they get out of the next mess. You watch as their kids grow up. Every nine months or year when the next installment comes out it's just like you've come for your next year's visit to a favorite cousin or best friend. When you finish, it's like wrapping up the visit until the next year.

"Fatally Flaky" does not disappoint. Goldy gets involved in catering a couple of weddings and it sets the scene for relationships that become important later in solving the mystery. The second wedding is for a ridiculously self-involved bride and her overly indulgent mother who is going out with Goldy's godfather, Jack, who recently moved to Aspen Meadows from New Jersey. Jack has his flaws, but he also has a heart of gold.

When Jack's friend, Doc Finn, is murdered it sets Jack and Goldy investigating. As usual in a Davidson novel, there are so many suspects each with a plausible motive, that it took me until shortly before Goldy breaks the case to figure it out myself.

This is classic Davidson and her fans will love this book.

Liz Nichols

City of Silver by Annamaria Alfieri

2009-09-14T16:01:00.005-05:00

This is Annamaria Alfieri's first novel. She is a student of Latin American history, and her careful research shows in every detail in this book.

The story is about the events that lead up to and include the visit of the Grand Inquisitor to the City of Potosi in Chile. Potosi is the center of the silver lode in 17th century South America and the home to both sin and corruption and some saintly good works.

The saint is represented by Mother Maria Santa Hilda, the Abbess of the powerful Convent of Santa Isabella de los Santos Milagros. One of the convent's novices is found dead and the Abbess chooses to bury her in sacred ground, even though she cannot prove right away that the girl did not commit the mortal sin of suicide. When she is taken by the Inquisition for the crime of heresy her Sister Herbalist and the Father Confessor of the convent are left to resolve the issue of what killed the girl.

There is also considerable interplay between two rival families, both of whom lost their daughters to the convent when the girls disobeyed their fathers. There is considerable social commentary about the fate of women during the 17th century in Spain and her colonies, the miserable working conditions for the conscripted Indian miners, the rivalry between Spanish and Portuguese inhabitants of Potosi, secret debasing of silver coins and the King's punishment for this crime, colorful holidays and festivals, herbal remedies and poisons known by the Incas, costumes and weapons of the day, details on the Inquisition, and many other historical and cultural details. For those who enjoy this period of history and wish to know more about Latin American history while enjoying the excitement of a mystery novel-- this is the ticket.

I will say that I was a little confused and bored at first. I persisted and after the first 10 or 15 pages I got into the time period and locale and began to let the puzzle of how the novice died carry me into the details of the book. This won't be everyone's cup of tea, or matte, but those who like historical mysteries and Latin American history will probably appreciate the painstaking detail in this book.

Good first novel.

Liz Nichols