Review: Half-Broke Horses

Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher/Format: Scribner (2009),first edition, hardcover, 275 pagesCharacters: Lily Casey Smith, Big Jim Smith, Rosemary, Little Jim
Subject: growing up on a ranch in SW US
Setting: Arizona, Texas, Chicago
Genre: Fictional memoir
Source: Public library

The jacket cover says this is "Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults."  That was all it took to grab me.  Jeanette Walls had a very colorful grandmother. She tells her grandma's story using the format of a memoir  in grandma's voice, but admits that she has written it as fiction.  The enchanting tale of Lily Casey Smith is entirely believable whether it is fictionalized or not.  Walls obviously draws on actual interaction with her grandmother, and incorporates family anecdotes to embellish the story.  It is oral history at its best.

Lily Casey was an independent, intelligent, and tradition defying woman.  Raised on a ranch during the depression, she was a child of poverty, desperation, violent weather, famine, and limited opportunities.  By the age of six, she was helping her father break wild horses, and learning that the only real obstacles to her future were ones she allowed to go unchallenged.  When she was fifteen, she left home, riding her horse by herself over 500 miles of wilderness and desert to take a teaching position in a small village (she herself hadn't even formally graduated from the 8th grade.)  Later, she learned to fly a plane, she went off to live in the big city (Chicago) to make her fortune, but gave up that dream because she missed the West and returned to continue a series of teaching positions in various small towns.  Eventually she completed college and got her teacher certification, but was never happy in 'big city' schools with all their bureacracy.

With her husband, "Big Jim" Smith, she helped manage a huge (160,000 acre) spread owned by an overseas corporation.  She taught her two children and their numerous farmhands how to herd, brand, and slaughter cows, how to geld stallions, how to make do with whatever was available, and how to mend fences.  Drawing on her memories of drought when she was a child, and learning from the example of the great Hoover dam which she had visited, she was able to convince her husband they needed to build a series of earthen dams throughout their ranch to guard against dry times.

Walls takes the story through her mother's early marriage to Rex Walls, and leaves us with a picture of an incredible woman - a true 'pistol packing mamma', a school marm extraordinaire, and a grandma every little girl would definitely enjoy.This was the pick of our book club this month, and a great one it was.

I listened to parts of it in audio--read by the author.  It was the only negative part of my experience.  Jeanette Walls' voice just didn't sit well with me, and her diction is not crisp enough to carry the story through.  It would have been better done by a professional reader.

Memoir #5: The Things They Carried

Author:  Tim O'Brien
Publisher/Format: Mariner Books (2009), Paperback, 256 pages
Subject: memories from the Vietnam War
Genre: short stories/memoir
Source: My own shelves
Challenge: Read from my shelves; War Through the Generations

What a way to honor our Veterans today!   This is a book I read for the Vietnam Reading Challenge sponsored by War Through the Generations.  The author, Tim O'Brien, is featured over there this week as he compares the Vietnam War to today's conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  His thoughts are a good addition to what is featured here.

It seems strange to read a book written about death, mire, dismemberment, fear, and squalor and then call it beautiful.  But it is just that.  O'Brien is truly one of today's most gifted writers, giving us the ugliness of war in beautiful eloquent prose.  As he tells the stories of "A" company and his fellow soldiers humping their way through the killing fields of Vietnam, slogging through marshes, creeping blindly through jungles at night, and hiding in pits, we see them as individuals, we feel their fear, their bravado, their anguish and their emotions.  We also see the author's torment as he tries to tell the stories.  Does he give us bare truth?  What is truth?  Should he embellish?  He says:

The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque.  But in truth, war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can't help but gape at the awful majesty of combat....It's not pretty exactly, it's astonishing. It fills the eye.  It commands you.  You hate it, yes, but your eyes do not.  Like a killer forest fire, like cancer under a microscope, any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference--a powerful implacable beauty--and a true war story will tell the truth about this, though the truth is ugly. (pg. 77).

 Each story is a stand-alone, but together they form an aggregate of emotions that help us feel.  We may never have had to endure what they did, but we at least know what they felt as they went through the experience, because the very first story lets us understand that among the things they carried, the heaviest were the fear, the hope, the love, the nostalgia, the loneliness that each young man took with him as he went to war.

If you never read another book about war......any war.....you should read this one.  It is jaw-dropping in its beauty, and that is what is so special: that a subject so ugly can be described in such splendor.

Review: Rules of Deception

Author: Christopher Reich
Format: Hardback, 356 pages
Characters: Dr. Jonathan Ransome, Emma his wife, and a small nation of others
Subject: Espionage, deception, terrorism
Setting: Switzerland
Series: Jonathan Ransome
Genre: Thriller
Source: Public Library

There are lots of adjectives for this one!  Thrilling, stunning, astounding, heart-pounding, and just plain great.

Jonathan Ransome, a surgeon working for Doctors without Borders is skiing in the Alps with his wife Emma, when she is killed in a horrible accident.  He then discovers she is not who she appeared to be, and as he tries to discover who she really was and what she was doing with her life, he is pulled into an elaborate web of deception, espionage, murder, double agents, and finds himself in mortal danger.

There were almost too many plot twists for my brain to handle. There was also some techno-speak which the author handled very deftly.  I had to pay attention, but I was able to understand what was happening and why. My husband loves these kinds of stories and was driving me crazy to finish it so he could read it.

I actually read this one because I have an ARC of the next one RULES OF BETRAYAL sitting here in the TBR pile.  When I read the blurbs, it seemed like I really needed to read this one first.  All I can say is that it is a true page turner, I was hooked from the first 3 pages, and although at times my brain was spinning from all the twists and turn, and although very few people in this one turned out to be who the reader thought he/she was, it was a very satisfying read that definitely will delight those who love the thriller, spy novel genre.

I'll try to get to the sequel by the end of the month while this one is still fresh in my brain.

Review: Red Hook Road

Author: Ayelet Waldman
Format: Hardcover 352 pgs
Characters: Two families: The Copakens and the Tetherlys
Subject: socio-economic class structure; dealing with grief
Setting: small town coastal Maine
Genre: fiction
Source: ARC from the publisher Doubleday Books
Challenge: ARCs completed

I live in a small town in coastal Maine so I had high expectations of this book and its setting. On the whole, it did not disappoint. Ayelet Waldman has done her homework and presents us with a deeper than surface glimpse into the relationships, economic reality and culture of such a life.

The story begins rather slowly.  In fact, the only part of the story I found tedious was the beginning.  Essentially it boils down to a wedding - the bridal party stays behind to have pictures taken.  The wedding guests go off to the Grange Hall for the reception.  But the bride and groom never get to the reception because the limo is involved in a fatal accident. This isn't a spoiler - it's the beginning of the story.

The story isn't about the bride and groom at all, but rather the story of their families and how this wedding, this romance, and these deaths impact the families--both inside each family, and towards the other family.  It is a story of relationships and people. In addition to the native vs. "from away" conflict, there are religious issues (the bride's family is Jewish), there are issues of aging (the bride's grandfather- a world class violinist - is now suffering from Parkinson's), there is marital discord - the bride's parents have drifted apart due to the mother's overbearing need to control everyone and everything and the father's lack of backbone and refusal to stand up to her.

There are issues of class- the groom's mother cleans house for the bride's family, but doesn't feel the bride's family is deserving of being seen as 'from here' since they live in New York.  There are grieving siblings who are left to fend for themselves emotionally, and who are struggling to find their own lives while trying to live up to their brother's and sister's dreams.

The best part of the story surrounds the relationship that develops between Samantha (the flower girl) , a nine year old Cambodian orphan who was adopted by the groom's aunt, and Mr. Kimmelbrod, the grandfather, who discovers Samantha's incredible musical talent and takes her under his wing to mentor and encourage her.

Over four summers, we watch as a marriage falls apart, a romance blooms, a musical career blossoms, and the mothers-in-law come to a grudging respect for each others' differences.  The ending was almost a made-in-hollywood scene designed to tie up the loose ends and make it come out 'happily ever after.'  It could have been more realistic, leaving the characters with some room to grow instead of just being able to walk away from problems.  Still in all, it was a great read, and a well done look at generational, class, and religious differences that can fester in a small town atmosphere.

My thanks to Doubleday for making the review copy available.

Review: The Help

Author: Kathleen Stockett
Format: audio 18 hr, 464 pages equivalent
Characters: "Skeeter" Phelan, Minnie, Aibileen, Hilly Holbrook
Subject: racial discrimination, social mores, civil rights movement
Setting: Jackson Mississippi
Genre: fiction
Source: public library audio download
Challenge: Support your public library; Audio books

A good book can be defined as one that is easy to read with a great ending.  A great book is one that is so engrossing, with characters so real that the reader is left with an empty feeling when the book ends.  I just didn't want it to be over. I want more.  I want these people to tell me what happens next.

Often I run like crazy in the opposite direction when I see a book getting rave reviews from everybody.  I put off reading this one, in spite of everyone telling me I HAD TO READ this. This time, everybody was right. I have now joined the ranks of all those who are convinced this is one of the best books written in the past year. 

Set in the Mississippi of the mid 1960's as the civil rights movement was happening, the book tells the story of black women who served as "the help" in white households in Jackson MS.  A recent college graduate, white girl Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan wants to be a journalist, but the only job she can find is writing the housekeeping advice column in the local paper.  Raised in a household with "help", she has no idea how to answer the questions, and turns to one of her friend's maids, Aibileen, to get the answers.  In the meantime, she serves as the newsletter editor for the local Junior League, where her membership brings her into contact with the prevalent and open racial and class prejudice of the era.

Her relationship with Aibileen, coupled with her rising frustration with the stereotyped role her parents and friends expect of her, leads her to seek an outlet in writing.  She is encouraged by a New York editor, who suggests that she write stories of the maids and their families and submit it as a book. In a world where black women working in white houses are forced to use separate bathrooms (many of them outside), where they are taught from early girlhood to never question or talk back to whites, where they never sit with whites, keep their dishes separately, work long hours at less than minimum wage with no Social Security or other benefits, and count them selves lucky to get a $10 bonus or hand-me-down dress at Christmas, and where a white woman's word against them (whether true or not) can land them in jail, getting these maids to share their stories with her is the hardest part of Skeeter's endeavor.

The story is told by Aibileen, by her friend Minnie, and by Skeeter.  Each has her own secrets, her own hopes, her own fears.  They all live and work in the same circle of people, and know many of each other's secrets.  Skeeter must deal with an "on again, off again" relationship with the State Senator's son, a mother who is very ill but very intent on her daughter's following all the prescribed social norms, a best friend who turns out to be a truly bigoted tyrant, and a deadline for her book that looks to be impossible.

Aibileen must encourage all the other maids, keep her own secrets and several from other maids, and still meet with Skeeter to help her record and capture the stories.  Minnie, the third point of view, is a wonderfully vibrant character with a true 'smart-ass' sense of humor, a tendency to mouth off and get herself fired, and, who, for most of the book, works for a white woman Celia who is despised as "poh white trash" by all the other Junior Leaguers.  Minnie is torn between staying out of Celia's business and mentoring her in proper white woman behavior.  The relationship that develops between these two is so well-written that you find yourself rooting for both of them.

The tension builds as Skeeter writes the stories, changing the names and the town, and assures them that it will be published anonymously, while the maids worry what will happen if their white families ever realize who they really are, and what is being said about them publicly.

The book is incredibly well written, and the audio reading is rich with dialect and accents.  It has truly believable characters, a range of issues related to the overall racial and class dynamic, and a plot that builds one step at a time holding the reader's attention from the beginning.  It flows so well that it is impossible to put it down.  One of my few five star reads this year.

Mini Review: Kitchen

Author: Banana Yoshimoto

Format: 160 pages, paperback
Characters:Mikage, Yuichi, Eriko
Subject: grief, mourning, healing
Setting: Tokyo Japan

Genre: fiction-novella
Source: Alibris used books



This is an exquisite little book written in prose that is elegant and eloquent. In the first novella, Kitchen,  Mikage, a young girl living in Tokyo, is suddenly orphaned when her grandmother dies. She is living alone, mourning, emotionally lost, when she is invited to stay with a school mate Yuichi and his transgendered mother/father(?) Eriko in their larger, more modern apartment.  There, the availability of a modern (for Japanese households) kitchen gives her a way to work out her grief and solidify her yearnings to make food and its preparation a life's work. While there, her relationship with them speaks of losing, dying, recovering, and living again. When Eriko dies, she is cast again into mourning, and must climb back out, while helping Yuichi with his emotions.

The second short story Moonlight Shadow tells another story of love lost and is equalling touching.

This book had been sitting on my shelf for over a year. I had started it last fall while we were 'on the road' since it's so small and packs easily, but unintentionally left it in Virginia at a friend's house. She mailed it back last week, and I was so thrilled to be able to finish it. It is sparse, short, and beautiful. Well worth finding.

Challenge: Reading from My Shelves

Review: A Fatal Grace

Author: Louise Penny
Format: audio -8 discs (10 hrs), 368 pages equivalent
Characters: Armand Gamache, Jean Guy Beauvoir
Subject: murder in a small town
Setting: Three Pines, outside Montreal
Series: The Three Pines Mysteries
Genre: mystery, detectives
Source: public library audio book



Once again, Louise Penny takes us to that idyllic village in the Pines outside Montreal, where we all want to go on our vacation to experience the beauty, the quiet, the inhabitants whom we are beginning to regard now as friends.  In this 2nd of the Three Pines Mystery series, we even begin to like that eccentric old lady Ruth, the poet, the head of the volunteer fire department.

Inspector Gamache and his team must find out who killed a woman who was electrocuted on a frozen pond while watching the town's annual Boxing Day curling match.

The fact that absolutely no one in the town liked the victim, or even seemed to know much about her, makes the job even harder.  Penny is beginning to hit her stride in this one, as she offers us several different possibilities for the perpetrator, introduces some new characters, and expands on the character of Armand Gamache that we met in her first book "Still Life."

When we finally figure it out (or did we?) there's still several chapters left, and we find perhaps we didn't get it right after all.

I listened to this in audio and it's such a treat to hear the bi-lingual give and take, the elegance of the Quebecois as they go about day to day life.  To read (or listen) to these books is to fall in love with characters, a town, a region. I can't wait to read more.


Challenge: Supoort Your Local Library, Audio books, Thrillers Suspence and Mystery

Review: China Lake

Author: Meg Gardiner

Format: 12 discs , 416 pgs equivalent
Characters: Evan, Brian, Luke & Tabitha Delaney,
Subject: Cults, Naval Aviation, crime
Setting: China Lake Air Station California
Series: Evan Delaney mysteries
Genre: mystery- amateur sleuth, thriller
Source: Overdrive audio download from public library

A new protagonist for me.  Evan Delaney, attorney turned writer, has been given temporary custody of her nephew Luke.  Luke's father (Evan's brother) is a Naval Aviator who is deployed to keep the world safe for democracy.  His mother abandoned him because she could not abide the 'Navy way' of life.  Mom subsequently joins a cult, which cult subsequently tries to kidnap Luke.

Evan and her paraplegic boyfriend Jessie- another attorney become caught up in a series of rather 'suspend your belief' adventures as they try to return Luke to his father, now back from sea and stationed at China Lake Naval Base in the desert of California.

The book becomes a combination of good cop/bad cop, Rapture meets Hollywood, biological warfare meets Top Gun.  I enjoyed the story but found Evan's character really stretched my ability to believe any of this could really have gone down the way it is portrayed.





Challenge: Audio Books, Thrillers & Suspense, Support Your Local Library

Mini-Review: The Black Echo

By now most of the literate western world is aware of Michael Connelly's Harry (Heronimous) Bosch-- a rugged individualist with great detective instincts.  I finally got around to reading him last fall when I got an ARC of The Brass Verdict and decided I wanted to go back to the beginning of this fascinating character.  Black Echo is the first of what is now up to fifteen adventures.

With still vivid memories of his days serving in Vietnam, Bosch is called to investigate the murder of someone who served with him. In a plot with many twists, and indelible characters who keep us guessing as to who is on which side of good or bad, Connelly presents us with a protagonist who shows humanity along with ingenuity. Paired with a female FBI agent, Bosch is soon on the trail of bank robbers who seem to be tied to his homicide victim. There are Internal Affairs investigators, pompous Police Captains, and officious FBI operatives, but somehow Connelly avoids stereotyping. Definitely recommended.



Challenges: , Audio Books, Thrillers Suspense, Support Your Local Library

Review: The Postmistress

Author: Sarah Blake

Format: paperback galley, 322 pages
Characters: Iris James, Harry Vale, Emma Fitch, William Fitch, Frankie Bard
Setting: Franklin Mass, London 1941
Genre: literary fiction
Source: LibraryThing Early Review program

Set on both sides of the Atlantic during the early months of WWII, this is a compelling novel that pulls us right into the lives of Iris James-the Postmaster at Franklin Mass on Cape Cod; Emma Fitch-new bride of the town's doctor; Harry Vale-a WWI vet who is convinced that the Germans will land a Uboat on Cape Cod; and of Frankie Bard, the radio reporter working in London with Edward R. Murrow during the Blitz

Miss James is determined to maintain order and discipline in her life. The mail will be stamped and delivered on time without pause.  Harry Vale wants her to lower the Post Office's flag pole by several feet, claiming it serves as a beacon to Germans off-shore.  Iris balks at that suggestion, but agrees to petition the postal department for permission.

Emma, still recovering from a feeling of being abandoned by parents who have died, clings to her husband trying to establish an identity in this small town. After listening to Frankie Bard's emotional broadcasts about the hardships being endured by the British during the bombing of London, and after other events I'll leave to the readers (I DON'T DO SPOILERS), Dr. Fitch leaves behind his practice, his town, and his bride to go to London to help the many victims of the bombings.  He writes to Emma every night, and she mails him a letter every day. He promises he will return after six months.  When his letters suddenly stop, Emma becomes more detached, and Iris, as she watches her continue to mail her daily letter, becomes more concerned.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Frankie meets Dr Fitch in an air raid shelter one evening, and emerges to find her apartment destroyed and her roomate (who had been covering the Jewish story) dead. She convinces Murrow to let her go behind the war lines into Germany to find out what is really going on with the Jews.  She goes through France and Germany, gathering stories but not sure how (or whether) she will be able to tell them.

It is difficult to write about this story without spoiling the ending.  It's not necessarily a mystery, but this is a nuanced, evolving study of the impact of trauma, callousness, abandonment, death, and cruelty on the human beings who must live through war, and whose ability to survive, whose very humanity is constantly tested.  Frankie's stories of horror and personal suffering are particularly poignant and her mental anguish as she struggles to find a frame in which to report them, and deal with her meeting with Dr. Fitch,  are a cogent and mesmerizing thread pulling us along to an inevitable and powerful ending.

I encourage the reader NOT to read the cover blurb.  The 'hint' there about what is going to happen is overplayed, and comes so late in the story, that it is better left behind.  The forceful march to the inescapable ending, and Blake's exquisite character development and prose make this a compelling page-turner. It is a five star read, and the reader needs no road map to enjoy the journey.

many many thanks to LT Early Review program for making this copy available.

Review: True Blue

Author: David Baldacci
Narrator: Ron McClartey
Format:  12 discs (hrs) - equivalent 372 pgs
Characters: Mase Perry, Beth Perry, Roy Kingman
Subject: murder, national security,
Setting: Washington DC
Genre: Thriller, suspense
Source: Hachette Audio contest prize

This is a scary book.  The plot is scary, the characters scare the living blankety blank out of me, and the premise is nightmarish because it is so real.

It has a well developed, tightly written plot with many twists, surprises, and heart-stopping developments. Within the first 5 minutes of this audio, we have a US attorney murdered and his body stuffed in a dumpster by ??? --- are they good guys or bad guys??? This question will drop to the bottom of the dumpster with the body and only reappear much later in the book.  In the meantime we have a female prisoner being molested by a guard and threatened by other inmates while she's trying to hold on for 3 more days until her release.  And we have a high powered, big money corporate attorney discovering the body of a colleague in his office refrigerator when he goes for cream for his morning coffee.  So much for trying to come in early to get work done!

It has characters whose actions sometimes require us to suspend belief, (what would you do if you were facing a gang of hoodlums with automatic weapons??---I won't spoil it, but I'm not sure my choice would have been the one written). Our heroine is constatly ignoring common sense, speeding off on her Dukati, and getting into all kinds of trouble, but like WonderWoman, she manages to extricate herself---all without a gun, and often without the help of her sister the Police Chief or her buddy the lawyer !!

The good guys are almost stereotypical--the blond female Washington DC police chief Beth Perry; her sister Mason (Mase)--a cop wrongly accused of dealing drugs who has recently been released from prison and is trying to clear her name and get her badge and gun back; Ron Kingman, a college basketball star turned corporate attorney who befriends a homeless Vietnam vet by giving him shoes, twinkies, and keeping tabs to be sure he's ok.  Cap'n (the homeless vet) is one of the most fun characters in the book.  He provides a few sad but comic moments in a very intense book.

The bad guys are numerous and often masquerade as good guys.  The good guys aren't above a little law breaking if it serves their purpose.  In fact, one of the scariest aspects of this book is that it's hard to tell who's who----good guy? bad guy?

The story is almost a political commentary on the state of US national security today and the scariest premise of all is that this kind of activity is going on in the name of national security, and none of us will ever know, or could do a thing about it if we did know.

As an audio, it is well served by Ron McClartey's crime reporter voice.  I just wish that Hachette would not have included all the sound effects that seem to be de rigeur in today's MTV world.  I listen to audio books because I find it difficult due to physical limitations to hold books for long periods of time, and my eyes are getting 'old' and tired.  So I want to listen to the book.  I don't want a stage production.  My mind still works and I want to be able to IMAGINE the bullets zinging, the motorcycles zooming, the cars crashing.  And  Please............the "dum dah, dum dah, dum dah" music used to fade into and out of scenes reminds me of JAWS.  I almost expected a shark to pop up.  It will be bad enough when they make this a movie (and you know they will!) and we have to see all this.  Until then, I'd rather paint my own mental pictures thank you.





Challenge: Books Won, AudioBooks, Thrillers and Suspense

Many thanks to Hachette for making these available for blog contests.

Review: The Book of William

Author: Paul Collins

Format: hardback, 247 pgs
Subject: Shakespeare's First Folio
Setting: England, New York, Washington DC, Tokyo
Genre: non-fiction
Source: Bloomsbury Publishing, review copy

Paul Collins writes an entertaining and enlightening tale of the First Folio of William Shakespeare. I am by no means a Shakespeare scholar, although like most educated Americans, I've been exposed to his works both in high school and in college. So I was unsure whether this would really interest me or not.  I am however interested in books, and how they are printed, published and distributed.

The story of how his works were published, and the tortuous journeys of these volumes is fascinating and presented with a clear and somewhat humorous narration.  Collins follows the folios throughout the world, tracking ownership, explaining the differences in different editions, and painting word pictures of these archival masterpieces, including the gravy stains and tea cup circles left on the (now) precious pages. I was especially interested in two aspects, the collection at the Folger Library in Washington DC, and the collection owned by the Japanese and held at the Meisei University in Tokyo.

I did my library science graduate work at Catholic University in Washington DC, growing up in that area, and living there for over 20 years of my adult life.  Shamefully, I must admit that I have never been to the Folger, and felt the loss as I read Collins' descriptions of the physical plant, and the incredible holdings.  The Folger is at the top of my list for places to go the next time I visit the area!

We lived in Japan for almost 5 years, although before the Meisei's massive collection of Shakesperiana was begun.  I found the descriptions of the area quite true, and also was intrigued by his descriptions of Japanese theatre and how Shakespeare has been adapted to it over the past hundred plus years.  I am familiar with kabuki, and with the marvelous Japanese puppet shows: Bunraku.  He explains:

Along with such alien notions as soliloquies, the poetry, the English system of meter and accent, didn't make much sense in Japanese. ...Japanese words are consonant-vowel, and because of the confoundment of R and L, Hamlet became Hamuretto, and Shakespeare himself turned into Sheikusupia.

Puppets provided an excellent solution to the problem.

Collins' love of early printing, and the Folios in particular, is evident throughout the book.  It is well researched, and provides additional resources at the end. I just wish he'd presented a bit more framing up front so I could have figured out earlier what he was attempting to tell us.  It took me almost 100 slowly dragging pages before the light went on and then the story snowballed. For book lovers and students of Shakespeare this volume will provide hours of enjoyment.

Challenge: ARC


My thanks to Bloombury Publishers for the review copy.

Review: A Share in Death

Author: Deborah Crombie
Narrator: Michael Deehey
Format: audio- 6 discs, +/- 7 hrs
Characters: Duncan Kincaid, Gemma James
Subject: murder mystery
Setting: Yorkshire England early 2000's
Series: Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James #1
Genre: police procedural
Source: public library

Here's a great way to ring out the old year, and look forward to the new.  This is the first book in a series.  I'm going to want to read every one of them.  A great british police procedural.  In this first episode we meet Duncan Kincaid, of New Scotland yard, recently promoted to Superintendent detective. Kincaid is vacationing in Yorkshire when he becomes embroiled in a series of murders and attempted murders.  Crombie gives us many suspects, good motivation, a well developed plot, a great sense of place, and doesn't give us enough to solve the mystery until quite near the end.

We also meet, very slightly, Gemma James, Kincaid's detective sergeant who is still back in London holding down the fort while Kincaid tries to avoid the wrath of the local police force who resent NSY's nosing in.

It's a great beginning story, and promises lots more.  I've read another so I know they get even better.  I can't wait to have another helping.

Too bad I couldn't wait until January 1 to count them in 2010 challenges, but there'll be plenty more where these came from.





Challenges: Audio books, Thrillers, Typically British, Support your Library

2010 Challenges - ARC Catch UP

A RC Catch up..........

Well................we all have a stack of ARCs waiting to be read, and several websites are featuring all kinds of challenges with rules to say how to count them.

I'm just challenging myself to catch up on the list below and then STAY CAUGHT UP --that is, no ARC will sit unread for longer than 6 weeks.  At the end of 2010, there will be no more than 10 ARCs or Early Review copies left.

Let's do some definitions:

ARCs are books received from authors or publishers given with the expectation of a published review.
"Catching up" is defined as reading, reviewing and posting the review of the book.

Books won in contests sponsored by bloggers are not considered ARCs unless the rules of the contest specify that a review is expected.

Here's the list of what is sitting on my shelf right now

1. Night Gardener by George Pelecanos
2. Book of William by Paul Collins
3. My Name is Will by Jess Winfield
4. Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf
5. Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage that redrew the Map of the New World by Douglas Hunter
6. Boy who harnessed the wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba
7. Artist in Treason: The extraordinary life of General James Wilkinson by Andro Linklater
8. Mercury in Retrograde by Paula Froelich
9. Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser
10. Maze Runner by James Dashner
11. Lovely Bones by Alice sebold
12. When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the present by Gail Collins
13. Who Turned out the Lights: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis by Scott Bittle
14. Broken Road to disaster recovery by Keifer Bonvillain
15. Triangle of Deception by Haggai Carmon
16. Moonlight in Odessa by Janet S. Charles
17. Bible Salesman by Clyde Edgerton
18. Exit Music by Ian Rankin

I hope to really get these caught up this year. I'm going to read the new ones as soon as I get them, so the behind list doesn't grow any longer. I am promising myself to be a bit more selective about what books I take on for reviews, and to stop accepting ARCs if I get behind.  It's not fair to authors who want a review to give me a book if I can't get a timely review out there. 

Review: Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin

Title: Tooth and Nail
Author:  Ian Rankin
Format: audio: 8 discs (9 + hrs)
Characters: John Rebus
Setting: London
Series: Inspector Rebus
Genre: mystery - police procedural
Publication: 2001, Recorded books
Source: public library

I have another Rankin Exit Music to read as an ARC, and since that is supposed to be the last (#16) in the series, I decided I wanted to read at least one of the earlier ones (this is #3) before reading the last.

Inspector Rebus is a dour Scots detective summoned to London to assist the local police in solving a series of nasty murders by a perpetrator dubbed 'the wolfman' because of the bite marks found on the stomachs of each of the victims.  Not readily accepted (or easily understood) by several of the London team, Rebus has a tendency to stalk out on his own.

We have the divorced wife, the rebellious teenage daughter, a rather straight-laced (as far as Rebus is concerned) London detective, a delightfully rambunctious judge, and a shabby love interest, for backup characters.  A well written plot give us hints of the killer's motivation and identify, but not enough to spoil the story. A good solid police procedural.

I'm looking forward to reading more of these in this series.

Review: In the bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Rev Clare Fergusson, retired Army helo pilot, sports car driver, and admitted tomboy, has only been assigned to her upstate New York parish for a week when she discovers an abandoned newborn on the church steps.  The baby has a note pinned to it asking that he be given to a couple from the church for adoption.

Russ Van Alstyne, former MP, has been Chief of Police of the small force in his hometown  since he retired from the Army 8 years ago.  He does not like the couple designated to be the adoptive parents.

When the priest and the policeman meet up, we don't see sparks fly, but the embers have been lit.  Together, they go about trying to find the parents of the baby.  The mother turns up murdered, and the plot thickens.  The Chief wants to pin it on the obnoxious attorneys named in the note, but Clare wants to see the good in everyone and refuses to believe they could have murdered a young woman just to get a baby.  She keeps galloping off on her own; he keeps having to dig her out (sometimes literally) of the messes she gets into.

This is an extremely well plotted book.  We don't really get a hint of the true murderer until close to the end.  There is action adventure (perhaps a bit too much description), the barest hint of promised romance, and characters who ring true.

When I finished reading it, I went directly to the library catalog to discover happily that there are several more in this series.  I can't wait.

edited to add a title to the post duh!!!

Review: Charms for the Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons

Boy oh Boy have I been missing out.  I had never read Kaye Gibbons until this week. One of our library patrons thrust this at me and suggested (rather strongly) that I MUST read this.

The New York Times Book Review quoted on the back cover says "Haunting and Beautiful....an evocative and gracious novel."

It is truly stunning.  Gibbons gives us the story of three generations of women living together in semi-rural North Carolina.  The time line goes from just before the Great Depression until the middle of WWII.  There are three women: Charlie Kate - the grandmother and 'healing woman'; Sophia -her stubborn daughter who reluctantly assists her mother, and Margaret, the shy, book-loving granddaughter who adores Charlie Kate and tries to learn as much as she can from her.  Each brings a unique persona to the whole.  Their lives are intertwined, but each very different.  The respect and love they have for each other sometimes erupts into 'differences,' but together they are able to muddle through abandonment by husbands, malpractice on the part of doctors, storms, ignorance, and the war.

Margaret could so easily have been scarred by all of the tragedies she witnesses both in her grandmother's patients,and in the romantic relationships of her grandparents and parents.  Instead, she emerges unscarred and ready to carry on the legacy of this unusual, loving family.

I'm certainly going to check out Kaye Gibbons' other books.  This was such an extraordinary read.  If her others are half as well written as this, with characters that have even half the charm, they will still be well worth reading.

Wednesday Earplugs- the Weekly audios

What a week! The Thankfully reading weekend induced me to put in a lot of time on print books, but the baking allowed for time with audios.

Several of this past weeks audios have already been reviewed (click on links to see reviews):

Roux Morgue - a so so mystery about cooking school, and who knows what.
Toast - a terrific memoir of  a boy's hunger, and memorably awful food- narrated by the author Nigel Slater.
Malice Prepense - an installment of the Barbara Holloway series....wonderful wonderful.

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Tonite I finished


No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

An extraordinary work --giving a very detailed and intimate portrait of an extraordinary relationship. Set almost exclusively during the years in the White House, Goodwin gives us great insight into this very dynamic couple and their relationships - with each other, and with others.
And....as an audio, it's top-drawer.  Ed Herrman is an outstanding narrator, and Goodwin hersekf giving us an introspective intro and pleasant wrap-up. Well worth your time.

I've got a batch stacked up to listen to, but I also have some print ones waiting too.

Stay tuned....

Christmas Challenge: Review- Silent Nights by Anne Perry

Another Christmas book for my challenge.  This one actually consisted of two separate 'novellas' each featuring one of Perry's secondary characters from her William Monk and Charlotte Pitt series.

The first, A Christmas Beginning, features Superintendant Runcorn from Perry's William Monk series.  We see Runcorn arriving on a bleak island off the coast of Wales to spend his Christmas holiday.  There he discovers the secret love of his life whom he met working a case  in London, and further discovers a dead body in the Church yard shortly after his arrival.  In very UN-Runcorn fashion, he treads delicately with the local constable as he helps solve the murder.  There was a completely unexpected ending (in the very last sentence of the story) that really blew me away.  I enjoyed getting to know Runcorn better--I've been a fan of the Monk series for years, and feel I know him better now that this case is finished.  It will be interesting to see if Perry takes these personality developments further in future books in the Monk series.

The second story, A Christmas Grace was a real stretch.  It has Emily Radley (sister of Charlotte Pitt- another of Anne Perry's series) spending her Christmas in very rural Ireland, nursing her dying aunt from whom the entire family has been estranged for years.  I found this story awkward, with the characters very cardboard, and the plot really contrived.  I had to force myself to finish it because frankly, it just wasn't very interesting...

I like Anne Perry's works, but the Christmas stories (I've read 3 now) seem to be quickies thrown together without a lot of thought. I'll try one more next year, but after that, we'll see............

Reading Weekend wrap-up

What a great way to recover from pies, pies, pies and more pies.  The weather cooperated by giving us a horrendous Nor'easter (no snow just rain) that meant nobody wanted to go out to do anything, except stay home curled up with the cats in front of the fire.  So for the weekend, I managed to get through:

New Yorker staff writer Calvin Trillin gives us a fun little book about the eating adventures of a true gastronome, and his wife Alice who believes life should be strictly limited to three meals a day. Trillin takes us on a series of trips to France, Montreal, Omaha, Kansas City (his hometown), San francisco, Baltimore, and New Orleans among others. His attempts to experience food has him flying in tamales from New Mexico, barbeque from Kansas City, crab etouffee from New Orleans, crabs from Baltimore and other such delectables.

Reading this the day after the Thanksgiving Day feast was perfect. I could read it and not feel that I HAD to track down some of these feasts. Otherwise, I'd have been on google looking up home delivery!

For all who enjoy food, and humorous writing, this is a treat. As one of the last books in my Food category for my 2nd 999 challenge, it was really fun. Bon Appetit!

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I picked this up last year, but never got around to reading it.  Several LTers have indicated it was a good read, and I second the motion.  It is a gentle, loving, easy to read, tear-jerker.  A wonderful story to read with youngsters, and remind us all what Christmas is really about.  A great way to kick off the Christmas season on a gentle reading weekend.

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Subtitled The story of a boy's hunger, this is the story of a young boy whose mother was (to put it gently) not the greatest cook in the world. As he describes the horrors of the food she made, he manages to highlight the relationship of food to love in our lives.

While he has always been interested in food and cooking, his father did not allow him in the kitchen, so when his mother dies and father must take over the provision of meals, life becomes even more dire. After dad hires (and later marries) a cook/housekeeper, the food gets better, but life somehow does not. In fact, the family is uprooted and moved halfway across England to establish a more uppity lifestyle to please the 'new mum.'

Later when he gets old enough to get a job at a pub, and then a posh hotel, he realizes his calling in food prep. His father's death brings everything to a boil, severs the link with bridezilla, and provides Nigel with the impetus to go to cooking school and take up his true vocation.

I 'read' this one as an audio while preparing our leftover Thanksgiving meal. I loved hearing the British terms for foods --had to go look up a few--and laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes in a few places. It really brings out the role food (and in Britain the role of TOAST) plays in our lives, and how our relationships with food providers are formed so early in life. An enjoyable read--it's as much a coming of age bio as a food event-- even if you're not a foodie.

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A sweet story focusing on talking Christmas ornaments.  A bit over the top for adults, but it's designed to be read, one chapter a night, starting on Dec 1st through Christmas Eve.  I personally think there are far better Christmas tales to share with children.  I just couldn't help thinking that it would make a great 1/2 cartoon TV special for the holiday season

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I'm about 1/2 way through this delightful story of three generations of women living in rural North Carolina in the early part of the 20th century.  I'm already in love with all of them and can't wait to see the story progress.  This book was thrust (literally) into my hands by one of our library patrons, who imperiously demanded that if I hadn't read it, I must, because it was probably the most beautifully written story she'd ever read.  Well, so far, she's not too far off the mark.  I'll probably be up late tonite finishing it.  A beautiful way to finish up the weekend.

Many thanks to Jenn for starting this tradition.  Maybe we should do it again sometime.