TITLES C - D

Captain Barney
Jan Westcott
Drama
Fiction
Rating 2
Crown Publishers
1951



This book starts off at a breathless pace with Captain Benjamin Barney of the Continental Navy, breaking out of prison in England in August 1780. He bumps into the beautiful young widow (and Colonial sympathizer) Douglass Harris as he is fleeing to Europe with the English law hard on his heels. This seems to be a strange example for books of this type, the sentences are all short and clipped, the descriptions spare or non-existent, so the story seems to be racing along headlong like a fast-paced espionage thriller, rather than a quaintly romantic sea-faring adventure. There’s also more hanky-panky than you would expect from this time period, both the historical one and also the publishing one. Next we meet Joshua Harris, the American tycoon brother of Douglass’ dead husband. He offers to put her up, since his brother’s death left her penniless. He also offers Captain Barney command of the Pomona, an armed ship that is escorting merchantmen through the British blockades. The three of them head back to the Colonies, just barely surviving a fierce storm at sea, as well as an attack by a faster and more powerful British corvette. Because the Continental Congress hasn’t approved a larger Navy, Capt. Barney finds no ships available to fight in the war or use to capture prizes. As luck would have it, a British frigate, the Triton, runs aground nearby and Barney commandeers a ship to attack it. After a brutal fight, the British surrender, although the Captain refuses to give Barney his sword and throws it overboard instead. Later, he and Douglass have a falling out over the British ship’s doctor, who volunteers to treat Joshua, who had been wounded in the battle. We also meet a pretty young French waif named Lucie, who Barney hires as companion to Douglass, and who has a “tendre” for Joshua. Because she feels that Barney has been abusive to her English friends, Douglass decides out of spite to try sneaking the Triton’s code books away from him, but she is caught in the act. After five years of war, no one has any patience with this sort of petty misdeeds, and her brother-in-law responds by banishing her to Stasia in the West Indies, along with Lucie, who is aghast at the prospect of leaving Joshua. Meanwhile, Barney takes the former British warship out privateering and is highly successful. When he takes one of his prizes to Stasia for auction, he runs across Douglass there and instead of avoiding each other, they have a tryst instead. After that, he sets off privateering and leaves her safely in his villa with a few trusted servants. Although Barney has told the Dutch Governor of Stasia that the island’s fortifications are inadequate, de Graaf is still astonished when they are attacked by British warships and forced to surrender. Loose bands of American and non-British sailors hide out in the hills, including Joshua and Lucie, awaiting developments. Barney finds out about it when he captures a British ship and sinks another, then slips in with the rest of the British fleet at harbor. He goes back to Stasia to rescue the stragglers in the woods, leaving Joshua behind to send information about troop movements. This works better than expected, and they sink or capture bunches of merchant or war ships. Finally the British fleet leaves Stasia (for the Battle of the Chesapeake) allowing the Allies to re-take the island from under the nose of the British Governor without firing a shot. All this time, although Douglass had been pining for Barney to return, he feels her allegiance has returned to her own countrymen, so he tries to forget about her. But when he heads north to fight the British at the Chesapeake, he overtakes a ship that she happens to be on, and he decides to take her back with him. They have one more sea battle before (presumably) he delivers the despatches to Washington and the British are defeated at Chesapeake, but the important thing is that the lovers are reconciled at long last. This was one of the strangest books I’ve ever read – it seemed like it was written by a team of different people, then patched together by foreigners working in a basement. It’s flying under the colors of a Colonial-era naval adventure, a la Horatio Hornblower, but there’s way too much sex for that. The relationship part of the story is badly written, making it seem awkward and incomprehensible. The battle scenes are no better, some omitted entirely, others truncated and the rest told in such a strained and jerky style that you get no sense of what’s happening. The breathless pacing and clipped sentences continue throughout the book, giving it a panicky tenseness entirely at odds with this type of story, especially since the chapters are long and always seem to start and stop in the wrong places. The biggest problem is the characters, even if they seem likable or well fleshed-out, their behaviors make no sense, and the dialogue is completely unrealistic. Very strange and disappointing, for a book you expect to be formulaic, this was totally out of left field.


The Case of the Drowning Duck
Erle Stanley Gardner
Crime Drama
Fiction
Rating 2
William Morrow & Company
1949



John Witherspoon doesn’t want his daughter Lois to marry Marvin Adams, whose father was executed years before, for a murder he may not have committed. He asks Perry Mason to look into the old case to find out one way or another if the father was guilty. While this is going on, two other murders are committed, implicating Mr. Witherspoon as the murderer. There follows a tangle of legal mumbo-jumbo and nonsense, and one of the victims turns out to be the perpetrator of the old case, as well as the second murder, and then commits suicide, making it look like murder. Unusually sloppy and muddled for a Perry Mason book.


The Case of the Lucky Legs
Erle Stanley Gardner
Crime Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
William Morrow
1934



This is another in a series of crime stories by this author, featuring Perry Mason as a crusading defense attorney who protects the innocent and wrongly accused in the courtroom, while also finding the real criminals through his own sleuthing abilities. In this tale, attorney Perry Mason is retained by a wealthy businessman to help a young lady who was swindled by a shady promoter in a fake modeling scam. Her boyfriend also shows up and threatens the promoter, who subsequently turns up dead. The story lurches incoherently from one dizzying crisis to the next, drowning in legal mumbo-jumbo and cryptic conversations. Of course it turns out to be the wealthy businessman who murdered the promoter, although this was a hard story to care about.

Cat in a Crimson Haze
Carole Nelson Douglas
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Forge / Tom Doherty Associates
1995



This is the fourth in a series of mysteries by this author, featuring feline sleuth Midnight Louie and his companion, petite Temple Barr, a publicist in Las Vegas. This book starts out really slowly, with dense pages of exposition to wade through, basically a recap of what happened in the previous book. (“Cat on a Blue Monday”) Doing this well is a talent this author has yet to master. We learn that ex-priest Matt Devine originally came to Las Vegas to locate his abusive step-father, and in fact, hires P.I. Eightball O’Rourke from previous books. The P.I. finds him, but before Matt can do anything about it, the man turns up dead, basically falling through the ceiling of a casino in front of Temple. She recalls a previous stiff falling through a ceiling in a different casino, and that murder coincided with the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend, the magician Max Kinsella. (Lt. Molina from previous books is still looking for him.) When Temple falls down the stairs in the same casino as the dead step-father, it becomes obvious that the Crystal Phoenix is being deliberately sabotaged. Meanwhile, Matt is trying to uncover the truth about child abuse charges against Father Hernandez (previous book) and discovers an unlikely ally in his spiritual adviser from seminary, Frank Bucek, now with the FBI. Bucek also takes an interest in the continuing “accidents” plaguing the Crystal Phoenix, and in fact he and Lt. Molina lean on Temple to withdraw one of her skits from an upcoming media variety show – thinking her satire is getting too close to the truth and worried targets are striking back through the casino. Temple is also doing P.R. work for Three O’Clock Louie’s, a new venture by the Glory Hole Gang, an elderly band of former desperadoes who hijacked a shipment of gold coins, but then lost them in the desert, hiding out in Glory Hole until the statute of limitations expired and they returned to Las Vegas, poorer but wiser. Later, one of them discovered a hidden stash of the coins at the Crystal Palace and they each got a little nest egg out of it. In a funny turn of events, Midnight Louie finds out that the beat-up old mascot of Three O’Clock Louie’s is his real father, at the same time Matt’s kitten Caviar learns that Midnight Louie is her real father. It’s played for laughs in a cute sort of sub-plot. On the night of the big variety show, the Crystal Phoenix is crammed with dignitaries enjoying the show, and bulging with security, all expecting the worst. What actually happens takes everyone by surprise – a gigantic robbery of the casino next door instead. It appears the accidents at the Crystal Phoenix were part of a smoke-screen to draw attention away from the real target. In fact, the crooks used an old blue-print of the casino to locate a convenient tunnel leading from the Crystal Phoenix to the Goliath, and figured they could get away scot-free. Luckily, Louie tipped off the location of the tunnel and the crooks were caught red-handed. Because this series is like a franchise, each book seems to ask more questions than it answers, so it leaves you with a sense of being unresolved and incomplete. Temple and Matt continue to explore the possibility of a relationship in a way that is sweetly tentative. But the story is seriously bogged down with so much excess baggage about religious intolerance, dysfunctional families and toxic relationships, that it makes the plot seem like an afterthought. The book ends abruptly with the mysterious Max turning up on Temple’s doorstep out of the blue, but the whole series is not interesting enough to care to pursue it. Fairly well-written, but often with a kind of herky-jerky feel, as it moves awkwardly from one chapter to another. It has a somewhat lighter tone than previous books, which is all to the good in a book that basically features a talking cat. But at 400 pages, it is too over-stuffed with characters, over-blown with ponderous verbiage, and overwhelmed with loose ends whose only purpose is to provide fodder for future books. What could have been a charming story, with rigorous editing, instead becomes a bloated and numbing exercise in self-indulgence.


Cat on a Blue Monday
Carole Nelson Douglas
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Tor / Tom Doherty Associates
1994



This is another in a series of mysteries by this author, featuring Midnight Louie, a black tomcat with a nose for news. He has “adopted” petite Temple Barr, a lively P.R. agent in Las Vegas. In the previous book, Temple was roughed up by some thugs, so now she has been taking self-defense lessons from her good-looking neighbor, Matt Devine. Meanwhile, Matt has been called by a nun from his old neighborhood, to look into threats that the nuns have been receiving. At the same time, people at the Cat Fanciers Convention have also been getting threatened, and when Louie gets wind of it, he sets off to investigate. When one of the show cats is shaved before its judging, and one of the convent cats is brutally attacked, everyone springs into action. Then an elderly “cat lady” who lives by the convent turns up dead, and possibly not by accident. This brings Police Detective Molina back into Temple’s life (from previous books) and in the course of the investigation, both ladies are surprised (and Temple unpleasantly so!) to find out that Matt is a former priest. It also comes to light that the victim had a falling-out with Father Hernandez (who also has a drinking problem) and was threatening to change her will and leave all of her money to her cats instead of the church. It then comes as a surprise – and suspicious to boot – when the will is found to leave the entire estate to the church, with absolutely no provisions for the victim’s beloved cats. When the cat show closes without further incident, Temple finds herself adopting Caviar, a tiny black female kitten, who was otherwise doomed to return to the pound, where her days would be numbered. Lt. Molina also turns up information on disappearing magician Max Kinsella (Temple’s old boyfriend from previous books) that links him to the I.R.A. Meanwhile, Matt finally discovers the cause of Father Hernandez’s drinking – he’s been getting anonymous letters accusing him of child abuse, and he knows the church hierarchy will not back him up, so he feels persecuted and powerless, even though he insists he’s innocent. Then Louie happens upon Caviar unexpectedly, and they develop an uneasy truce. After some initial spitting, Louie is non-plussed when he realizes she is his daughter, but he doesn’t divulge that information to her. Meanwhile, in cleaning out the cat lady’s house, Temple finds an old will that leaves all of her money to her niece, who tells Temple a story of living with her aunt, long ago when she had a child out of wedlock which she gave up for adoption. Then Temple and Louie decide separately to investigate the cat lady’s house, and they find themselves chloroformed by a masked lunatic – fortunately here Temple’s self-defense training pays off and she subdues her attacker and rescues Louie before his plan to burn the house down can get very far. It turns out the niece’s illegitimate son grew up and joined the parish, and offered free legal help to the church and clergy – but it was all part of his scheme to bilk the old woman’s estate and exact his revenge on his birth mother. Naturally, he forged that bogus will that left no money for the cats or the niece, plus it only provided a tiny fraction of her money to the church, and he was going to embezzle the rest. In the end, Temple gives Caviar to Matt, and their relationship begins to get a little more serious. This book is a little less hard-bitten and arch compared to the first one, but it’s a far cry from the whimsical caper you would expect from a book with a “talking” crime-solving cat. The writing is often dense and uninviting, and sometimes the dialogue is awkward and the motivation implausible. It tries hard to be entertaining, but it’s forced, and in the end, unsatisfying.


Catnap
Carole Nelson Douglas
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Tor / Tom Doherty Associates
1992



This is the first in a series of books featuring Midnight Louie, a large black tomcat living in Las Vegas. Louie has alternating chapters in the book where we can read his version of events. He is ostensibly the “house cat” at a ritzy hotel, but he wanders from place to place along the Strip. While in the convention center at night, he discovers a dead body among the vast and cluttered paraphernalia of the booksellers convention. In the morning, he leads petite Temple Barr, the center’s P.R. person, to the body – who turns out to be the much-loathed Chester Royal of Pennyroyal Press. While the Police investigate the crime amidst the 24,000-plus at the convention, Temple focuses on damage control while doing a little sleuthing on her own. She is more or less “adopted” by Louie when he realizes how much she needs his help. Another P.R. problem at the convention is the apparent “cat-napping” of Baker & Taylor, two famous Scottish Folds who are the mascots for Baker & Taylor Publishers. When Temple receive a crude ransom demand for the cats’ return, she decides to hire a Private Investigator for this, in order to keep the situation quiet. She gives the ransom money to Mr. O’Rourke, with the intention that he will trail the person who picks up the money and find the cats. But Midnight Louie has already discovered that the cats are locked up at the pound, and the clock is ticking for them. He comes up with a plan to get himself locked up, so that when Temple shows up to rescue him, she can rescue Baker & Taylor also. Unfortunately, the plan backfires when the owner of a local bookstore comes in and adopts Baker & Taylor, but Louie is still stuck there. Then Temple gets a note that the cats would be returned at a certain place and time, but when she goes there, she is instead attacked and barely escapes with her life. Meanwhile, Louie manages to spring himself from the pound, and tries to communicate with Temple what he knows about he murder. In the end, it turns out to be Owen Tharp, one of the victim’s authors – but it comes out that he was killed not because of any publishing matters, but a personal one. Before Chester Royal became a publisher, he was a doctor who lost his license when a patient died due to a botched abortion. That was Owen Tharp’s mother, and he followed Chester Royal for 40 years until he decided to exact his revenge. Interestingly, another of Chester’s authors, Mavis Davis, turned out the be Owen’s sister (she was too young to know anything about her mother’s death and was placed in foster care) and she agreed to help pretend to kidnap the famous cats as a diversion. (The bookstore owner returned the cats to the publishing company.) Although it was compared to “The Cat Who ...” mystery series, this story is a lot more hard-bitten and arch than I expected. The dialogue is disjointed and confusing, and all of the characters are unlikable, non-descript or both. Although the story is interesting, it has nothing engaging about it and certainly wouldn’t make me want to read any more of the books in this series.



The Cat Who Blew The Whistle
Lilian Jackson Braun
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Jove Books / G.P. Putnam’s Sons
1995



This is another in a vast series of books featuring eccentric millionaire Jim Qwilleran and his Siamese cats in Moose County, Maine. All of the books are chatty and interesting, with long-winded descriptive passages where the plot (such as it might be) takes a decided backseat to the atmosphere. Self-made man Floyd Trevalyan from nearby Sawdust City restores a historic steam locomotive for tourist excursions – then suddenly disappears when his credit union is raided and all the funds are missing. What happens next is typically meandering, obfuscated and confused – Floyd’s son, construction partner (and the dog!) are murdered, Floyd’s father-in-law (the former engineer of the old locomotive) takes one last joyride and dies in the train wreck, then they find Floyd’s body in the concrete footing of the new house Qwill’s lady friend was having built. Whew! It turns out Floyd’s secretary and bookkeeper (really a man dressed as a woman) was behind the embezzling and murders. Well-written in a lively engaging style, overloaded with details, background and miscellaneous characters. Only a mystery in the barest description of the term, still all of these books are fun and enjoyable.


The Cat Who Knew A Cardinal
Lilian Jackson Braun
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Berkley Publishing
1991


This is another in a series of these books by this author. Wealthy Jim Qwilleran lives in Moose County, Maine, with his Siamese cats, and writes a column for the local newspaper to be accommodating. His renovated barn in an apple orchard is a locally famous landmark. The local theater club had their closing night party there, and the unpopular director turned up dead after everyone had left. Next, the young man who did the barn renovations also turned up dead. As is usual in this series, it is long on atmosphere, conversation and personalities, with a lively but rambling style full of sub-plots and irrelevancies. It turns out that a shifty horse breeder in neighboring Lockmaster killed the director over an inheritance scheme gone bad. Interesting and entertaining as always, with a lot of comfy charm.


The Cat Who Played Brahms
Lilian Jackson Braun
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Jove Books / The Berkley Publishing Group
1987

This book is early in “The Cat Who” series, when Jim Qwilleran was still working as a journalist for The Daily Fluxion in the downstate region. But he decides to spend the summer at a cabin in the woods of tiny Mooseville, at the invitation of his eccentric “Aunt” Francesca Klingenschoen, so he can write a novel and get away from the aggravations fo the city. He packs up his Siamese cats, Koko and YumYum, and drives to Mooseville. These books are long on atmosphere and short on action, so you get to the middle of the book before anything happens. Although to be fair, Qwill’s reporter sense tells him that all is not what it seems in scenic Mooseville. For one thing, small objects have disappeared from the cabin, such as pens, lipsticks and watches. Many of the locals behave suspiciously, and all of them clam up when a non-resident appears. On a fishing trip at the lake, Qwill spots what appears to be a body, which everyone else dismisses as an old car tire. Then Koko dislodges a cassette from behind the moose head over the mantel, which Qwill finds has music, as well as a recorded message of a cryptic sort that seems to be about some shady business dealings. But what piques his interest is that he recognizes the voice on the tape, from his ill-fated fishing trip in the fog, when he heard sounds of a struggle and a shot, before seeing the alleged body / car tire in the lake. He makes it a sort of mission to speak to people around town, trying to find someone who matches that voice, without success. Then he meets Buck Dunfield, a retired Police Chief from downstate, and he suggests the two of them team up to do a little sleuthing and see what they can uncover. But suddenly, Buck turns up dead, and where normally the plot would thicken, in these books, it just gets more confusing. Apparently the Police don’t treat these “incidents” too seriously, fearing it will hurt tourism. Nick, the local mechanic, also tips Qwill off to two other well-known rackets: Illegal shipwreck scavenging and a phony ferry service that pretends to help escaped convicts get to Canada, but instead, takes their money, kills them and dumps the bodies in the lake. Just when you think this is going to turn into a full-fledged mystery about who’s behind the ferry murder racket, suddenly Aunt Fanny falls down the stairs in her mansion and dies, leaving Qwill her entire and very sizable estate, and instead, Qwill and his erstwhile lady friend, Rosemary, who’s visiting from down below, find themselves in an irrelevant and nostalgic interlude, going all through Aunt Fanny’s old papers and belongings, looking for the will, which whey find. Next, Qwill discovers that YumYum has been hiding all the missing small objects under the couch, including something that belongs to Hanstable, a local turkey farmer, and when Qwill returns it to him, he recognizes the voice from the tape. Hanstable realizes that Qwill knows too much and attacks him, but fortunately, Aunt Fanny’s ubiquitous handyman Tom came along and saved the day. (This was part of a separate and nebulous sub-plot involving liquor being smuggled into the prison inside of turkey shipments.) Meanwhile, in a supposed mystery, where you would expect the sudden death of a spry and healthy woman to be considered suspicious at least, especially falling down stairs and especially involving a large fortune that many people had their hopes on, and very coincidentally when Qwill is staying at her cabin, is apparently just a tragic accident. But when Qwill comes back from the Police Station, he finds the body of Aunt Fanny’s handyman Tom on his property, along with a recorded message from him admitting that he pushed her down the stairs at the urging of Hanstable, who thought Tom would be rewarded handsomely in her will. The book ends with Qwill wondering if he should stay in Pickax with Fanny’s inheritance (required by the will for five years) or give it all up and go back to his newspaper job. All of these books are charming and familiar, though none the worse for that, with characters who are genuine and likable, even the bad ones. Well-written and entertaining throughout, although coming in on the light-weight side for your average hard-core mystery fan.


The Cat Who Said Cheese
Lilian Jackson Braun
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 4
G.P. Putnam & Sons
1996



In Moose County, Maine, where Jim Qwilleran lives with his two Siameses (Koko and YumYum) the town decides to throw a Great Food Explo to attract visitors. Unfortunately, during the festivities, a bomb explodes, killing a hotel maid. Jim and the cats do a little sleuthing, and find an old Navy fellow trying to silence his ex-wife, who had come into town incognito – the bomb was meant for her instead. The books in this series are always well-written and interesting, with a lively, informal style.


The Cat Who Wasn’t There
Lilian Jackson Braun
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 4
Jove Books / G.P. Putnam’s Sons
1992


This is another in a vast series of these books by this author. Jim Qwilleran is a retired journalist who inherits a fortune and settles in Moose County, Maine, with his Siamese cats, Koko and YumYum. In this story, young and energetic Irma Hasselrich organizes a tour of Scotland with 16 neighbors, including Qwill, his lady friend Polly Duncan and others. And old flame of Qwill’s, Dr. Melinda Goodwinter, also comes along, and her obvious designs on Qwill make things a little uncomfortable. Halfway through the two-week tour, Irma is found dead, and expensive jewelry is stolen from Grace Utley and her sister – plus the mysterious Scottish bus driver disappears. Some people on the tour go home (including Dr. Goodwinter along with the body) and others continue on their own. Qwill and Polly come home and notice a mysterious stranger seems to be following Polly around. He also turns up at the estate sale that Melinda Goodwinter has to sell off the belongings of her father, the late Dr. Halifax Goodwinter. People notice that Melinda’s behavior seems to be erratic, and Qwill especially finds her annoying and puzzling. There follows a small spate of petty burglaries in the nearby area, including one at Qwill’s apple barn. At first, he believes nothing was stolen but his cassette recorder and his audio tapes from the Scotland trip, but soon he realizes that YumYum is missing. Qwill and Nick Bamba (his secretary’s husband and a corrections officer) hurry over to the bad section of town and corner the mysterious stranger red-handed with Qwill’s recorder and also YumYum. It’s at this point that Qwill realizes the stranger is actually the late Dr. Goodwinter’s no-good son Emory, who was supposedly killed in a car accident years ago. After Melinda Goodwinter kills herself, Qwill figures out that she and her brother had been working together on a number of schemes to get at Qwill’s fortune – holding YumYum for ransom was just one of them. It comes to him all at once that Melinda gave Polly poisoned pills to clear her out of the way and leave the field clear for herself, only it was Irma who inadvertently took the pills, so Melinda killed Irma by mistake. All of these books are lively and entertaining, and written in a casual and engaging style. This one had a much more cohesive and involving plot than they usually do, but it still had plenty of anecdotes, atmosphere and eccentric characters.


The Cat Who Went Into The Closet
Lilian Jackson Braun
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
1993


Wealthy Jim Qwilleran and his Siamese cats, Koko and YumYum, move into the old Gage mansion in Moose County, Maine. Not long after, the last of the Gages, Euphonia, dies at her Florida retirement community. No one finds that too suspicious until a local potato farmer also turns up dead. Qwill enlists the aid of a neighbor at the retirement complex to dig up clues, and he soon has a strong case against the managers, who milk the retirees and them bump them off. The potato farmer turned out to be involved in some sort of blackmail sub-plot concerning Euphonia’s illegitimate daughter – this part is a little confusing. Cozy and entertaining as always, more conversational than mysterious.


Ceremony
Robert B. Parker
Crime drama
Fiction
Rating 4
Bantam Doubleday Dell
1982

Disturbed teenager April Kyle is a patient of psychiatrist Susan Silverman. When April disappears, Susan asks her boyfriend, Boston Private Investigator Spenser, to find her. Spenser and Hawk check out the red-light district in Boston and shake down some of the local talent, but can’t find her. It turns out she has been spirited away to Providence because she is part of a much larger situation. Important people in the Department of Education target disturbed youngsters from the school system, and steer them into their web of child pornography, prostitution and drugs. Spenser and Hawk spring April from this mess and bring down the people involved. The gangster in this is Tony Marcus, and also includes Susan and Lt. Marvin Quirk. Well-written in a punchy, conversational style, with a lot of hard-boiled repartee, as well as friendly banter. April also turns up later in “Taming A Sea-Horse.”


The Chicken Doesn’t Skate
Gordon Korman
Humor
Fiction
Rating 4
Scholastic Press
1996


This is a whimsical young adult tale set at a middle school in Minnesota. It is told journal-style, with entries from the captain of the hockey team, teachers and students in the Science class. One student’s project for the Science Fair is to raise a chicken from an egg and then serve the chicken as a meal, thus demonstrating the complete food cycle. Unfortunately, everyone in the class becomes attached to the chicken, and in fact, it becomes a good luck charm for the hockey team, who coincidentally win whenever the chicken is in the arena. Light-hearted but intelligently written, this story is entertaining and engaging throughout, with plenty of laughs.


The Choking Doberman (And other “New” Urban Legends)
Jan Harold Brunvand
Reference
Non-Fiction
Rating 3
W.W. Norton & Company
1984


The author is a professor of Folklore Studies at the University of Utah. Here he describes and debunks scores of rumors, hoaxes, scams and tall tales, and also examines their beginnings in ancient folklore and legends. All these stories share similar elements, for example, they are generally attributed to a friend of a friend (or FOAF, as folklorists call them) or vaguely recalled newspaper or TV reports. They also usually involve ordinary people in familiar circumstances, with just enough plausibility to seem genuine. Included are tales of youngsters being kidnaped for prostitution rings, fatalities from the candy Pop Rocks, snatched pets served as food, elephants sitting on cars, foreign objects in fast food or frozen food, plus a vast array of husbands, wives, girlfriends and consumers exacting their sweet and perfect revenge on the people who have wronged them. Although he points out that the media are usually scrupulous about verifying anything before they present it as true, the good professor provides numerous examples of stories that were circulated and identified specifically as legends, hearsay or completely untrue – that still were repeated as factual (“I saw it in the news”) in spite of the disclaimers. He also devoted a chapter to the Procter & Gamble “Satanism” rumor, and describes all of the company’s efforts to eradicate it, and the fact that it’s still going strong, just goes to show how persistent and unreasonable these things can be. The book closes with “The Nude Surprise Party” which is famous for being one of everybody’s favorite Ann Landers column. Although the book is interesting, the writing style is not engaging. It tends to range between awkward, pedantic and just plain dull, and never develops the lively aspect that this type of book deserves. But it’s still very interesting and mostly entertaining throughout.


Christmas At Fontaine’s
William Kotzwinkle
Drama
Fiction
Rating 2
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
1982


Louis Fontaine is the owner of an old-fashioned department store in New York City, like Gimbel’s or Macy’s. He fancies himself a great businessman, although he staffs his store with incompetent relatives and bullies the rest into virtual non-performance. The manager of the Toy Department, Mr. Muhlstock, is an accountant at heart, and woefully out of place. Winifred Ingram is a seasonal employee demonstrating coffee makers, and they strike up a tentative friendship. The store Santa Claus is basically a bum, who lives in a Bowery flophouse that is just one step above the sidewalk. But he has a good heart and loves the opportunity to play Santa and bring joy to little children. Dann Sardos is the eccentric and imperious “artiste” who designs the Christmas display windows. But this year, his muse has deserted him, and he despairs that people will see him as a fraud and a failure. Interspersed with these stories is a bag lady named Aggie who collects garbage and carries it with her, sleeping in alleys and scrounging for food. She apparently has lucid moments when she misses her late husband and her son Tommy, but she also wonders whether she just invented them. Flitting throughout the store after hours, and a trial to Chester Locke, the perverse and ornery security guard, is a shadowy, silvery presence that seems to be nowhere and everywhere at once. This playful spirit releases little birds from their cages, and sends toys squeaking and rolling through the aisles. It leaves candy bars for people who need pick-me-ups, and re-arranges displays for comic effect. It avoids all of Locke’s attempts to capture it, sometimes in hilarious ways. Because this author also wrote “E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial,” which was made into a hugely successful and heart-warming movie blockbuster, you can’t help but think that a little holiday magic is going on, that will make everything turn out happily at the end. But it doesn’t, in fact, very far from it. Eventually, Locke apprehends the elusive one, who turns out to be nothing more than a cunning street urchin wearing a silver jogging suit. He slips away before Mr. Fontaine can rope him into his publicity campaign as the store’s “Orphan of the Year.” The entire book seems like it’s trying very hard to be jolly, if obtuse – as if something special is going on that will be revealed indue time. The short chapters are interesting, and all of the characters are depicted with warmth and empathy, even the bad ones. But it all comes to naught and crashes at the end, with nothing accomplished and nothing to be learned. The orphan and bag lady return to their miserable existence on the street, and the Santa recognizes the signs of his imminent mortality. Winifred and her new friend are much too out of sync to have any real success as a couple. The display window never does get finished, and Mr. Fontaine and Chester Locke have gained nothing as a result of this story. Depressing, misleading and without any redeeming value – the book jacket has the nerve to describe this drek as a “whimsical fable.” Incredibly compares itself to “Miracle on 34th Street,” of which this would be its polar opposite. Unsettling and disappointing in the extreme.


Christmas Belles
Susan Carroll
Romance
Fiction
Rating 3
Fawcett Crest / Ballantine Books
1992


Sir Phineas Waverly realizes that he cannot provide enough for his four daughters to marry well, so he re-enlists in the King’s service, and is unfortunately killed in battle. Captain Trent returns to Windhaven to marry the oldest daughter so the family will be provided for, as he feels responsible for them. However, Emma already is in love with the Vicar, but of course, she intends to marry Captain Trent out of a sense of duty. Her romantic sister, Chloe Anne will have none of it, and does everything she can think of to break up the match. Even Trent eventually realizes that Emma’s dependable sensibleness pales in comparison to Chloe’s passionate nature, but he sees no way to switch horses in mid-stream. It gets all the way to the marriage ceremony, and finally the Vicar finds it impossible to marry the woman he loves to another man. This is a great relief for everyone, who then pair up the right way. Well-written in an easy conversational style and very entertaining.


The Christmas Wish
Debbie Raleigh
Romance
Fiction
Rating 3
Zebra Books / Kensington Publishing
2001

Lord Chance’s ne’er-do-well brother was going to use the famous Chance diamonds as collateral for a loan, but when he wen to retrieve them from the safe, they were already gone. Chance approaches Sarah Creswell, whose notorious father is known as The Devilish Dandy, and like the Pink Panther, is infamous for relieving society matrons of their jewels. He narrowly escaped capture and fled to the country, and only recently returned to London claiming to be a reformed man, and posing as Sarah’s Uncle Pierre from Paris. Sarah and Chance begin working with some of her cohorts to see if they can turn up the diamonds before the dowager Chance’s Christmas Ball, when their absence will be discovered. During their investigations of the servants, mistresses, friends or other individuals who might have been connected with the theft, they find that they are oddly attracted to each other in spite of their differences. Although Sarah thinks Chance is stuffy and insufferable, his charm is undeniable. For his part, Chance finds her refreshing and unpredictable, though maddening. He is also impressed with her good works for orphans, and taking care of her younger sisters. Sarah has to admit that given the opportunity, Chance can be unexpectedly generous and tender. Sarah begins to get discouraged when all of their efforts fail to uncover the missing diamonds, and even more alarmed when her father, disguised as Uncle Pierre, sets out on his own investigation of the case. When even that fails, Sarah begins again at the beginning. She questions Chance’s brother more closely about the events before the disappearance. It becomes obvious to her, although not to him, that the likely culprit is his friend Goldie, who had access to the diamonds in an unguarded moment. When he hotly denies that his friend would steal from him, Sarah and Chance set a trap for Goldie, and he neatly steps right into it. So the diamonds are recovered and everyone should be happy, but it is a curiously bittersweet victory all around. For one thing, Chance banishes his brother to one of their outlying estates until he learns to be more responsible. Besides that, he and Sarah realize with the case being closed, they have no more reason to see each other, and her family is too disgraced for him to see her on a purely social level. In the end, Sarah’s father reveals himself to Chance, and makes him realize that if he truly loves Sarah, he needs to have the courage to marry her in spite of everything. It has a very sweet and happy ending. In an unexpected twist, it turns out that this is the first book in a trilogy of stories about the roguish Solomon Creswell attempting to assure suitable matches for his three daughters. (Next up, daughter #2, Emma, which is a Valentine story.) This one is well-written and consistently entertaining, with likable characters and an interesting story. Although a detective story is not the backdrop of the usual Regency romance, it was nonetheless enjoyable.


Christmas Wishes
Barbara Metzger
Romance
Fiction
Rating 2
Fawcett Crest Ballantine Books, a division of Random House
1992



Poor orphan Juneclaire Beaumont has been left to be raised by her stingy and sour-faced Aunt Marta Stanton, who resents her and treats her as an unpaid servant. Juneclaire finally has enough and sets out for London on foot, and with someone she has burdened herself with, who turns out to be a Berkshire pig named Pansy. Meanwhile, Merritt Jordan, Earl of St. Cloud, is traveling to have Christmas with his family at the Priory, although he would prefer to be anywhere else, because of how they aggravate him with their demands. Even worse, he and his groom are held up along their way by two highwaymen. St. Cloud leaves his groom at a nearby inn to recover from his injuries, and he sets off again alone and without any of his valuables. He bumps into Juneclaire and Pansy along the way, and surprised to find them out in the cold and alone. He insists on bringing her to her supposed destination, so she can catch the coach to London, but they get lost and end up spending the night in a barn. In the middle of the night, coincidentally, the two thieves show up with their spoils, and St. Cloud overcomes them with Juneclaire’s help. In order to keep her reputation intact, he offers to marry her, but she leaves him unawares during the night instead of letting him feel obligated to her. She leaves Pansy with him as a birthday gift (his birthday is on Christmas) and to help cheer him up. She finds herself being so badly mistreated along her way – by rude inn keepers, haughty aristocrats and impertinent servants – that she decides to go back to her aunt’s house, and be resigned to her fate rather than taking her chances in London. St. Cloud chases after her of course, and abuses all of the scoundrels who failed to help her in her travels. Meanwhile, the family that Juneclaire was riding with had a sack of kittens they were planning to drown, so she bought them and left the family to strike off on her own, now with four starving kittens. She happened upon a shabby cottage in the woods, with a kindly old man who offers her hospitality for the night and her new kittens too. After St. Cloud fails to turn her up, he goes home to clean up, get fresh horses and arrange for Runners to try and track her down. His wild appearance at home brings out the worst in everyone, as they fight and scheme for their own advantages. In order to stave off the fiercest attacks on his bachelorhood, he admits that he’s already made an offer to someone, and is trying to locate her with every means possible. In the morning, Juneclaire leaves the rude cottage for a nearby family with a sick child who might need a governess, who turns out to be the solicitor for St. Cloud’s grandmother. He recommends Juneclaire for her companion instead, and the two immediately hit it off, plus another one of the kittens. Grandmother St. Cloud realizes at once who she is, although Juneclaire has no way of knowing who the dowager is or her grandson. So St. Cloud goes rocketing off to London while Juneclaire is keeping his grandmother company in the dower house. It doesn’t take Juneclaire long to hear the estate’s gossip from the servants, or meet St. Cloud’s miserable relatives over the hedges, and form an immediate dislike to all of them plus the absent Earl. Days later, St. Cloud returns to check into his grandmother’s mysterious new companion and he admits that he had no luck finding his missing fiancee. Grandmother delights in stringing him along in his misery until she finally spills the beans about Juneclaire. He flies after her like a man reprieved, but when she finds out he’s really the Earl, she sets him down with no fanfare. He asks her just to come to dinner at the Priory with Grandmother, where he hopes to show her how much the whole family needs her. Although St. Cloud adores her and Grandmother dotes on her (and even Pansy is happy to see her again) the other relatives see Juneclaire only as a threat and treat her as such. The only one who likes her apparently is the family ghost, black sheep Uncle George, who has been thought dead and buried 20 years ago after scandalizing the family, but is secretly padding around in the hidden passageways and filching food. When Juneclaire tries to help him, everyone assumes she’s lost her mind, and even St. Cloud begins to wonder what he ever saw in her. Next Juneclaire’s family shows up en masse to discover St. Cloud’s intentions toward her, although they never seemed to care about her before. St. Cloud tells her the whole story of Uncle George (who may be his real father) and how it would ruin them all if he actually comes back to them. In the end, Uncle George’s advisors square his accounts with the Crown (using his plunder from years of piracy) and he proposes to his first love, who had married his brother, and finally seem happy at last. Once the other mis-matched and bothersome relatives have been settled in one way or another, St. Cloud and Juneclaire are ready to enjoy their new life together, and it all ends happily enough. This is a nice enough story for Christmas, although there’s practically no Christmas in it at all. It also doesn’t have a lot of romance to speak of, and more in the beginning than later. The characters seem somewhat sketchy, even St. Cloud who should be more of a presence, although Juneclaire is finely drawn and with admirable spunk. The plot starts out promising, but derails badly along the way, and becomes way too over-plotted with the Uncle George imbroglio. It seems to be trying a little too hard not to be a standard Regency romance, with the end result that it doesn’t satisfy as a romance or as something else either. Not as pleasantly diverting or seasonally cheering as might be hopes, although well-written, it still falls short of the mark.


The Client
John Grisham
Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
Doubleday
1993

Eleven-year-old Mark Sway accidentally bumps into lawyer Jerome Clifford committing suicide. Before he dies, Jerome reveals the hiding place of Senator Boyette’s body, who was killed by one of his clients. Now Mark is being chased by the killer, the mob, the FBI, plus the Justice Department on behalf of the prosecution AND the defense. He gets roped up with a rookie lawyer named Reggie Love, who has enough of her own problems, and she tries to keep one step ahead of everybody. Well-written but formulaic, and riddled with implausible elements. Also made as a movie with Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones.


The Code of the Woosters
P.G. Wodehouse
Humor
Fiction
Rating 4
Vintage Books, a division of Random House (1975)
1938


Bertie Wooster and his man-servant Jeeves are a beloved comic staple of English literature. In this escapade, Bertie finds himself at the estate of the grouchy Sir Watkyn Bassett, to help pal Gussie Fink-Nottle in his romance with Madeline Bassett, and also confiscate a horrid silver cow creamer much desired by his Uncle, but cheated out of by Sir Bassett. The second charge is at the behest of his nice Aunt Dahlia, who controls not his purse strings (like odious Aunt Augusta) but rather access to the meals of her exceptional Chef Anatole. When he first arrives there, he spots the creamer, but when he picks it up, he is immediately pounced upon by Sir Bassett and his boon companion, Roderick Spode, draconian leader of his own Fascist organization. They naturally assume that he’s trying to steal the creamer, but Madeline vouches for him on the spot. He is much relieved to find Gussie and Madeline reconciled, and surprised to discover her cousin Stephanie Byng affianced to his old school chum Harold Pinker, now a Curate. Because Stephanie is concerned that her uncle will not approve her match with Pinker, she blackmails Bertie, using a very compromising notebook of Gussie’s that he wants back from her, to cooperate in a hare-brained scheme of pinching the cow creamer so that Pinker can be the hero when he foils the unknown intruder’s plans. Sailing by on a separate tack, Spode informs Bertie that he is watching him closely, and if anything happens to the creamer in question, he will pulverize him. Meanwhile, Aunt Dahlia arrives with the desperate news that her goofy husband is actually considering Bassett’s offer to trade Chef Anatole for the creamer! When Gussie tries to retrieve his incriminating notebook, which he assumes is on Stephanie’s person, Madeline finds him groping her and they break up all over again. This sets Spode off in a mad huff to manhandle Gussie for trifling with her affections, since he dotes on her. Fortunately, Jeeves gives Bertie a clue from a secret valet’s club that “Eulalie” is a deep dark secret that will stop Spode in his tracks, and he uses it to good effect. Next, Bertie and Jeeves attempt to retrieve Gussie’s notebook from Stephanie’s room, but instead they get treed by her terrier. When she returns, they discover that Pinker has nicked Constable Oates’ helmet as she requested, but she will not part with the notebook until her uncle approves their marriage. Jeeves suggests instead that Bertie ask Bassett for Stephanie’s hand, which Bassett will hate, so when she instead presents Pinker, Bassett will be delighted with the alternative. Bertie is aghast at this plan, but it works like a charm. Stephanie gives up the notebook so Gussie can square it with Madeline, and Bertie prepares to leave the two happy couples safely behind. Unfortunately, Aunt Dahlia picks then to pinch the creamer herself and dump it on Bertie, while Pinker koshes Constable Oates, figuring it is Bertie playing his part in the fake hold-up. Then Gussie’s notebook ends up in Bassett’s smoking jacket, from which it must be removed before disaster strikes. Unfortunately, Bassett finds out about the notebook and the creamer at the same time, and soon the house is aroused in efforts to maul Gussie and arrest Bertie. They help Gussie escape in Bertie’s car, with Jeeves’ brilliant suggestion to take Bertie’s suitcase with him, including the creamer. Thinking their problems are behind them, they make the unpleasant discovery that Stephanie has planted Oates’ helmet in his room also. Bassett promises Bertie a stiff sentence for this prank, but Jeeves persuades Spode to take the fall for it instead. Then he gives Bertie the idea to threaten Bassett with false arrest and defamation of character before witnesses, unless Bassett agrees to bless the unions of his daughter and niece. In exchange, Bertie succumbs to Jeeves’ desire for a sea cruise, so it all ends very happily. Well-written in a lively and engaging style, brimming with wit and understated hilarity. The characters are adorable, sharply drawn and with no false touches. The story pulls you along like a playful puppy, tossing off one funny vignette after another, in a seemingly effortless way that would be impossible to imitate. You can’t top the master of this genre. Thoroughly delightful and refreshing, like a wonderful dessert.


The Contentious Countess
Irene Saunders
Romance
Fiction
Rating 2
Signet / Penguin Group
1992

The Somerfields come to London for The Little Season, with their sensible older daughter Melanie Grenville, their gadabout son Michael, and ravishing younger daughter Martha. Meanwhile, the dashing Broderick, Earl of Denby, is calling at the houses of eligible misses, mostly to get his mother off his back for still being unmarried at 30. When even that doesn’t work, he decides to go ahead and marry one of the inoffensive beauties and be done with it. So he asks Lord Somerfield for his daughter’s hand, but he inadvertently mixes up their names. Before he knows it, he finds himself married to the spirited Melanie, rather than feather-brained Martha. They set off on a wedding trip to all of the Denby estates to introduce the new mistress, and so Broderick can catch up with the accounts at each place. Being a new bride, this makes Melanie feel neglected, so they develop this somewhat tiresome pattern where she does something to deliberately provoke him (like having the servants completely tear apart his study or bedroom, ostensibly to clean it, but really just to irritate him) as a way of getting his attention, then he loses his temper and later apologizes, until the next time. Then they go back to London on business, and Melanie’s puckish brother Michael turns up, creating all sorts of mischief, like borrowing money, embarrassing her at the theater, and convincing her that Broderick was keeping a mistress on the side. In fact, he caused so much trouble that even the usually contentious Melanie was contrite, and Broderick very graciously smoothed over all of the difficulties, rather handing both of them their heads. In the end, some thugs who oppose Broderick’s work in Parliament (this is the notorious Corn Bill, which caused widespread riots throughout the country) kidnap Melanie, and only the quick work of him and an old Army pal get her out safely. They retire to the countryside, where they can start a family in peace, and everything ends happily. This was a very disappointing book, with mostly unlikable characters, and the situations were all so terribly melodramatic and discomfiting. In fact, it was almost the reverse of a typical Regency romance, where two dissimilar people meet and square off before finally falling love and getting married at the end, with the promise of living happily ever after like a fairy tale. This was more like a bad soap opera, because they got married right at the beginning, and instead had all sorts of problems, and not a bit of happily ever after. It was well-written enough for this type of book, but way too arch, unengaging and dreary, not to mention, too over-plotted. I don’t know that I would hurry out and read another story by this same author.


The Counterfeit Betrothal
April Kihlstrom
Romance
Fiction
Rating 3
NAL Penguin / Signet
1987


Gilbert Barnett despairs of his son, Jeremy, with his reputation as a wild man around London. Since his wife the Baroness died in childbirth, he feels that Jeremy has lacked the steadying influence of a feminine touch. He discusses the problem with his neighbor, Lord Delwyn, who is another widower who is being looked after by his attentive daughter Emmaline. They hit upon the idea of Jeremy and Emmaline marrying, hopefully to the advantage of all parties. The Baron presents to Jeremy this idea, compared to serious financial consequences if he refuses, which naturally makes Jeremy bitter and unreasonable. When Emmaline guesses what is really behind this sudden proposal, she offers Jeremy the opportunity to back out, and he of course is insulted that she would willingly give him up. Together, they come up with their own plan – to find each other another suitable partner, so they can break off their betrothal and announce their new engagements at the same time. To this end, they arrange for a coming-out season in London for Emmaline, under the wing of the mother of Jeremy’s best friend, Edward Hastings. Emmaline rounds up an old school friend, Rosalind Kirkwood, as a possible match for Jeremy. After that, things go from bad to worse, as Edward falls in love with Rosalind, and she with him, and even Emmaline and Jeremy realize they are in love with each other. (Although they refuse to admit that to each other.) In a surprising turn around, Emmaline’s ailing father recovers in her absence, and marries his neighbor, Mrs. Colton, whose louse of a husband died the previous year. Suddenly, both fathers appear in London, pressing their children for a wedding date. The story degenerates somewhat into a frantic and peripatetic sort of “I Love Lucy” episode, but in an amusing way – with false alarms, phony elopements, hare-brained schemes, double-crosses and more double-crosses. In the end, Jeremy is able to convince Emmaline that he really does want to marry her for her own sake, not out of coercion or spite, and everything turns out very happily. Well-written in a lively and engaging style, and entertaining of this type.


Crooked House
Agatha Christie
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Dodd, Mead
1948

Wealthy old Aristide Leonides dies suddenly at his house. His grand-daughter Sophia will not agree to marry Charles Hayward as long as suspicions remain about her relatives being guilty of the crime. Charles and his father from Scotland Yard poke around in a crowd of likely suspects. It turns out to be another young grand-daughter (a la “The Bad Seed”) Sophia’s sister, who calls attention to herself at every turn. She is also killed in a wildly improbable ending that seems to come out of nowhere.


Crowned Heads
Thomas Tryon
Drama
Fiction
Rating 1
Alfred A. Knopf
1976

A miserable, painful excuse for a book. It is trying to be a fictitious biography of four inter-related Hollywood icons. There’s Fedora (Gloria Swanson or Greta Garbo), Bobbitt (Jackie Cooper), Lorna (Jayne Mansfield) and Willie (Arthur Treacher.) The writing is dull and disorienting. Told as individual yet intertwined vignettes, each one is depressing, pathetic, gruesome or horrific. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. The opposite of a “must-read,” this is a real “putter-downer.”


Curtain Call For A Corpse
Josephine Bell
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
MacMillan
1939



A third-rate touring repertory company puts on a performance of “Twelfth Night” at the Denbury School for Young Boys, and during the performance, the company’s leading man, Robert Fenton, is killed in the wings. Dr. David Windringham and his pal from Scotland Yard, Inspector Mitchell (they obviously know each other from previous books) poke around looking for clues. Suspicion is naturally thrown on the other actors, so it becomes necessary to establish who was where during the play’s many exits and entrances. There is also an unpopular actor who everyone suspects as being the petty thief in their midst. It turns out instead to be the shady manager of the troupe, who killed Fenton to prevent him from exposing him as the thief. The manager is then killed in an escape attempt. Well-written but over-plotted, and very much over-peopled, with lots of prep school and English countryside atmosphere.


Cut ‘N’ Run
Frank Deford
Humor
Fiction
Rating 5
Ballantine Books
1972


Uproarious and outrageous tale built around pro football. Jerry Start is a young stockbroker in Baltimore obsessed with the Colts. He accidentally discovers a system for attracting clients, and he makes a fortune. He is married to Rosalie, his high school sweetheart, who is really in love with Toby Geyser, also from their high school, who is now a war hero and college football superstar. He gets assigned to the Colts as part of a bizarre clandestine CIA operation, and attempts to have an affair with Rosalie. The writing is lively, with laugh-out-loud humor. The plot twists and turns from one zany adventure to the next without let-up. (And you’ll never be able to think of Bingo Turf without laughing, even years later.) Even the ending was great. One of the funniest books I’ve ever read.


The Daughter of Time
Josephine Tey
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 4
Collier Books / MacMillan Publishing
1951


It’s impossible for this author to write a bad book, and her usual contemporary and somewhat Gothic mysteries thrill readers and critics alike. This is a complete departure, and related lovingly and with lavish attention to detail, and obviously near and dear to the writer’s heart. It all begins when Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant is laid up with a broken leg and is bored out of his wits. His well-meaning friends bring him books, which he loathes, and here the author fires off some wickedly funny comments at the expense of writers in different genres. Finally a friend suggests that he turn his mind to puzzles instead and hits on the idea of examining unsolved mysteries of the past. He goes way back in the past to Richard III who was universally reviled for the murder of his two nephews that secured his place on the throne. Grant wonders if this wasn’t a bum rap and begins to investigate, with the aid of people bringing him research materials. He finds that all the history textbooks parrot the official line, but with no independent thought or documentation. He entirely discounts Sir Thomas More’s respected volume, since the venerable More was only a toddler at the time. (And you know there’s nothing of policeman hates more than hearsay!) One of his close friends sends along an American exchange student doing research in the British Museum and with him doing the leg work, the two of them uncover so many discrepancies in the accepted story that the fastidious Grant is disgusted. They discuss other wildly inaccurate historical fables, such as the Boston Massacre, the Welsh “riot” at Tonypandy and other famous events with a legend has far out-paced the facts. When he discovers evidence that the supposedly murdered nephews were alive after Richard’s death, Grant sends the student digging even deeper into the historical record. One of the problems with an accurate history of Richard III is that following his death, the entire York and Plantagenet dynasty was supplanted by the Tudors with an automatic bias against the former. The difficulty with this book is that it pre-supposes that the reader knows much more about the English royal families than likely, and with such a wide variety of Edwards, Henrys, Georges, Elizabeths, Richards and Margarets, it quickly becomes a terrible muddle. Instead of historical chronicles, they begin to investigate records of everyday accounts, legal records of the royal court and parliamentary transcripts. They find upon the death of his brother Edward IV, Richard was made protector of England and in charge of his brother’s young sons, until old enough to be King. But it was discovered that Edward had been previously married, so his sons became illegitimate and not eligible for the throne. At a stroke, the nephews were no obstacle to Richard, and their death would be no advantage for him. In fact, they can find nothing to indicate that the whole royal family wasn’t alive and well during Richard’s 3-year reign, except for baseless rumors being spread by his enemies, who have everything to lose if he stays on the throne, and much to gain if he doesn’t.. It is a source of exasperation to Grant that Richard’s response to the plots and intrigue against him is always patient fairness and an almost hopeless generosity. They find this in stark contrast to Henry II (the first Tudor King) who systematically eliminated all of his rivals with ruthless efficiency and still looked on kindly by history for his sense of practicality. Henry even killed his partners in crime, if he worried that their knowledge could be used against him. This is how they decided that the crime of the murdered princes, which they believe happened in 1486, was finally pinned publicly on Sir James Tyrrel (with ties to both the Yorks and Lancasters) in 1502 when he was conveniently dead and could neither admit or deny the accusation. The young student is on fire with the idea of writing a book on this great discovery, and dedicating it to Inspector Grant, until the unwelcome finding that previous historians – well after the Tudor dynasty – had already written books about it, and with a notable lack of impact on the public’s misconceptions. This entirely takes the starch out of him, but Grant soon bucks him up again. It ends in a very wistful an introspective way, unlike the sense of verve and excitement that permeated the rest of the book. Of course, it is very well-written, as expected, and terribly fascinating, and even the conceit of “the book within a book” is enjoyable fun. It would be very difficult for the ending to keep up with the rest of it, but that’s a small quibble. For such an unusual offering from this writer, it’s still up to her usual standards.


Dave Barry in Cyberspace
Dave Barry
Humor
Non-Fiction
Rating 4
Fawcett Columbine / Ballantine Books
1996



Humor columnist Dave Barry has written a number of books on such topics as travel, relationships and buying a house. This is his slant on computers and the technology revolution from the early days of MS-DOS and Radio Shack computers, all the way up to Windows95 and laptops. One of the funniest sections describes his trip to ComDex, the gigantic computer hardware and software expo in Las Vegas, and its companion convention, AdultDex which is basically all computer pornography. Along the way, he tosses brickbats at Microsoft, Apple, Quicken, the hospitality industry, Quality Inns in particular, and technical support in general. Probably my favorite anecdote is about a woman whose business was receiving numerous calls from no one at the other end. It turned out that an empty oil tank in an abandoned property was programmed to call the oil company when it needed to be re-filled; however, the oil company had long since gone out of business and the phone number had been re-assigned to this other poor woman’s company. Meanwhile, here she’s still being harassed by this empty oil tank, through the marvels of modern technology, in a cautionary tale for our times. Speaking of cautionary tales, there’s a long-ish section on internet romances, which is not really funny but is so sharp, insightful and genuine that you find yourself being drawn into it like a trashy novel, even though you know that no good can come of it. Well-written and lively throughout, with sparks of hilarity where you just laugh out loud. (For instance, the Strategic Helium Reserve.) It isn’t necessary to be a geek to appreciate this book, although it’s more entertaining if you understand something about computers to start with. Very funny as well as clever, and leaves you wanting more.


Dave Barry is from Mars and Venus
Dave Barry
Humor
Non-Fiction
Rating 4
Crown Publishers
1997



This book, instead of being a satiric look at the dizzying array of self-help and relationship books, is rather a compilation of unrelated comic essays by humor columnist Dave Barry. It boasts one of the funniest introductions I have ever read in a book. The individual columns can be somewhat unpredictable, but overall, the book is very funny. Some of the most uproarious essays were about opera, bad commercials, golf, laser tag and memory loss. A very enjoyable book.


Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys
Dave Barry
Humor
Non-Fiction
Rating 4
Random House
1995



Humor columnist Dave Barry explains the differences between men (like Captain Ahab) and guys (like Captain Kangaroo.) It includes chapters on the role of guys in history, guys and violence, and a quiz to find out if you are a guy. The writing is uniformly hilarious, cerebral and engaging, and has many side-splitting anecdotes (like the people who thought they were about to be clobbered by Hurricane David, because they saw the news bulletins on an OLD videotape they were watching!) that are too funny not to be true.


Dawn of the Century
Robert Vaughan
Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
Bantam Doubleday Dell
1992



The first book in the American Chronicles series by this author (not the actor), which is one of those sprawling historical epics. This one covers the period from 1901 - 1910, although everything seems to happen in 1904 and 1907. Four college students (Bob Canfield, Terry Perkins, David Gelbman and J.P. Winthrop) graduate and go their separate ways, meeting adventure and famous figures along the way. There is also a black couple and an orphan boy escaping his past. Well-written and interesting, but no more than typical of this genre. (See also Hard Times and The Lost Generation.)


Dean & Me (A Love Story)
Jerry Lewis and James Kaplan
Biography
Rating 4
Doubleday
A division of Random House, Inc.
2005


The comedy duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis at its height was about the biggest thing going at the time, and their wide-ranging success included hit movies, radio programs, night club appearances, early television spots and stage shows. Like a lot of iconic entities, its beginning was inauspicious and might never have happened. This book starts at the breakup of the team in 1956, as part of their plan to go out on top, since they were having problems behind the scenes. They would go on to successful solo carers, but their success as a team would never be over-shadowed or forgotten. It all began in 1945, when a 19-year-old Jerry Lewis and his agent Sonny King bump into 28-year-old crooner Dean Martin and his agent Lou Perry on the sidewalks of New York City. At the time, Lewis was doing a vaudeville act known as pantomimicry (or dumb act) where he would dress up funny and lip sync along to popular records to great comic effect. His parents had a vaudeville act, so he got an early start along that road, and learned a lot in resorts and small-town theaters. Meanwhile, Dino Crochetti was leaving behind the mills and hard knocks of Ohio, changing his name to Dean Martin, and using his good looks and great voice as a way out. He was barely supporting himself by singing in clubs and on radio, and often traveling the same vaudeville circuit as Lewis, who admits to being fascinatied by Martin, for being almost impossibly handsome and charismatic. At one point in 1945, they happened to be both playing at the Havana-Madrid night club, and at the very last show, which was sparsely attended in the middle of the night, Lewis broke into the middle of Martin’s performance with some corny schtick, that was as unexpected as it was refreshing. Martin took it in stride and even played along, while the small audience ate it up, so they continued doing it, and even getting more outrageous in subsequent shows. Even back then, when it was all for fun and unplanned, a reviewer for Billboard named Bill Smith wrote, “Martin and Lewis do an after-piece that has all the makings of a sock act. (This was high praise at the time.) Then in July 1946, Lewis was booked into the 500 Club at Atlantic City, and when the singer on the bill got sick, he recommended Dean Martin to fill in, an
idea which was accepted by the club owner only on the condition that they also did “funny stuff” besides their regular individual acts. So they worked up something on the fly, and with a lot of ad libbing, put on a two-hour show that brought the house down. It was a lucky thing that for a singer, Martin had great comic instincts. In fact, no less an authority than George Burns said, “He’s the greatest straight man I’ve ever seen,” and he knew a thing or two about being a straight man himself. The 500 Club booked them for the entire summer, with crowds lining up for every show, and by the time they got back to New York, they were already famous in show business circles. (It turns out that the legal name of the team is Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, which according to Dean, is in alphabetical order by first name.) They were booked into all of the big clubs in town, even the Copacabana (where their success at the expense of head-liner Vivian Blaine caused her to quit the show) making a lot of money and greeted with enthusiasm by all the entertainment bigwigs at the time. Lewis claims that their popularity was due to the fact that they had genuine affection for each other, unlike other comedy teams that worked well together, but didn’t like each other. It wasn’t long before Hollywood came calling, and by August 1948, they were in Los Angeles and rubbing shoulders with movie stars. They were a big hit at Slapsy Maxie’s, with the toast of Hollywood in attendance, and were courted by all of the studios. They finally signed with Hal Wallis and Paramount, who planned to slip them into a Marie Wilson movie called “My Friend Irma,” as the boyfriends of the female stars. Although Martin’s screen test went perfectly, the screen test for Lewis’ character was irredeemable, and everyone wondered if this was going to be the end of the team. But Wallis was persuaded to re-write the story with Lewis as Martin’s goofy sidekick instead, and as they say, the rest is history. Meanwhile, the star-struck duo found themselves hobnobbing with the rich and famous, while they were also becoming rich and famous, a big change from just a year ago, when they could barely afford a flea-bag hotel in New York. They were also linked romantically to June Allyson and Gloria de Haven, in spite of the fact that all four of them were already married with families of their own. Because they were all at least somewhat famous at the time, it turned into a media circus, and caused problems with even the most understanding spouses. At the time they were playing the Copacabana, Frank Sinatra was already about the biggest star in the world, and they were both in awe of him, so when he stepped onto the Copa stage during their show to say some nice things about them, they were totally bowled over. Martin and Sinatra, of course, went on to form the Rat Pack of lore and legend, but Lewis and Sinatra continued to have a very close relationship in spite of everything. It’s common knowledge that Sinatra was criticized for his ties to organized crime, but Lewis maintains that at that time, almost all nightclubs were in the control of the mob, so it was almost impossible for entertainers to avoid consorting with mobsters. He follows this up with a few anecdotes about the Martin & Lewis experience with mobsters, which were mostly harmless except for a few tense moments. It didn’t take long for fame and fortune to take their toll on the Martin’s marriage, and in spite of four children, Dean and Betty were divorced , and he turned around and married Jeannie, who would suit him better. As part of explaining why comedy works better when the partners are happy, Lewis describes a series of practical jokes they had played on each other over the years. There follows a hodgepodge of unrelated anecdotes about stage shows in major theaters, and featuring show biz legends, such as Jackie Gleason, Toots Shor, Milton Berle, as well as the requisite organized crime figures, and a trip back to Steubenville for Dean Martin Day. Although in the beginning, they were glad to have Paramount use their winning formula to make successful movies, after five or six films, even the most successful formula can feel like a trap, and Lewis blames Hal Wallis for not letting the team try anything different and perhaps be even more successful. Because he felt that he was getting more attention as the comic, and Martin was being taken for granted (Martin himself claimed that when he sang in the movies, everyone went to get popcorn) Lewis paid a songwriting team out of his own pocket to write a hit song for Martin, and “That’s Amore” really put him on the map as a serious singer. Martin was also known for his prowess at golf, and Lewis for his lavish gifts, and we’re treated to numerous examples of both. In 1953, they played at the Palladium in London, and although the shows seemed successful, the reviews were unkind, and ended up turning into an international brouhaha that was blown all out of proportion. After 7 years as a team, even the normally placid Martin was starting to chafe under the monotony, and their relationship was showing the strains of the partners growing apart, although the studio made sure that the media coverage was nothing but positive, to protect the cash cow for everyone’s interests. Lewis bemoans the fact that Martin stood him up for two shows that he had made personal commitments for, so anyone could see the relationship was going south. The tension on the set of their last movie, Pardners, was so bad that Lewis was hospitalized for heart problems. When it became apparent that the act couldn’t be saved, it took teams of lawyers to unravel all of the contracts from movies, television, radio and theaters so they could go their separate ways, culminating in 20 shows at the Copa in New York, where sold-out crowds hoped against hope that the team would continue. At the time, the prevailing wisdom was that Lewis would be successful in different aspects of film-making, but that Martin’s career would suffer without a partner. But instead, Martin developed the “lovable lush” character that was his trademark for the rest of his career, had a hit TV series and specials, and became a surprisingly versatile serious actor as well. Frank Sinatra formed a drinking, gambling and carousing club called the Rat Pack (as a tribute to Humphrey Bogart, who had started his own Rat Pack years earlier) and Martin was a big part of their success as well . Meanwhile, Lewis was being squeezed by changing tastes in entertainment, as family pictures lost ground to more adult fare. During a television appearance, he fell in a dance number and was badly injured, ushering in years of addiction to pain pills, and made his life so miserable that even his marriage failed. He somehow managed to orchestrate the MDA Telethons every year, and in 1976, Frank Sinatra appeared as a performer, and brought Martin along with him, and stunned viewers saw Martin and Lewis reunited on stage, together again for the first time in 20 years. After that, they continued speaking, but not working together, and Lewis was able to console Martin when his beloved son Dino was killed in a plane crash. It was in 1989 when Martin was appearing at Bally’s in Las Vegas, that Lewis delivered a huge cake in the middle of his show for his 72nd birthday, and uttered the immortal words, “Why we broke up, I’ll never know.” The book ends when Martin dies, without a lot of maudlin melodrama and hand-wringing about it, in fact, Lewis conjures up some vignettes from their earliest days togther that make it go out on a high note. I found this book really interesting and entertaining throughout, and well-written in a lively and engaging style. Because of some of the revelations it contains, it’s no wonder that it couldn’t be written until a number of the participants were dead, notably Dean Martin. Of course, this might not be the most objective or accurate history of the team, told by only one partner and years after the fact, but it’s told well enough that it should be true, even if it’s not. It may well be revisionist history, sifted through a filter of mellow aging, success and hindsight, but I still prefer that to a bitter and vitriolic hatchet job dashed off in the heat of spiteful acrimony. Lewis has a genuine reverence for Martin as a person and as a performer, and at the end, you can’t help but have it too, which is the best result this book could hope for. Wonderfully funny, sentimental, interesting and deeply personal in all the best ways.


Death in the Clouds
Agatha Christie
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Dodd, Mead
1935


Hercule Poirot is on a routine flight across the English Channel with 10 other passengers, one of whom is killed during the trip. The murderer used snake venom with a blow pipe, and the passengers possessed many suggestive items such as flutes, tubes and other devices that seemed very suspicious in retrospect. Told in a lively style, but one that never seems to resolve any loose ends, and with an over-abundance of red herrings. In the end, it turns out to be a handsome young man who was helping Poirot with his investigation.


The Death of Outrage
William J. Bennett
Philosophy
Non-Fiction
Rating 3
The Free Press
1998



The author is the former Drug Czar under President George H. Bush and Secretary of Education for President Reagan. Lately he fancies himself a philosopher, and puts out books about morality and integrity. (I.e., “The Book of Virtues.”) This book, which has a wonderful title, is not a vast and sweeping documentation of the sad decline of society in general, but instead focuses on a small and tawdry episode in President Clinton’s administration. The President may or may not have had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a White House intern, and in attempting to cover up something (or nothing) he may or may not have committed perjury, and may or may not have conspired to obstruct the Special Prosecutor’s investigation of the allegations. But the facts speak for themselves: the President’s approval rating has never been higher, and the economy is booming. The author is angry not so much at the President, for being such a jerk and a weasel (this, after all, was well-known before he was ever elected) as he is at the public for their almost total lack of righteous indignation. He sees himself as the leader of a great crusade, but no one is following him, and he attributes this to the American public’s lack of character, and it infuriates him. This book is nothing but a hatchet-job – albeit a thoughtful, intelligent, well-researched and well-documented one – that lashes out at an immensely popular President, whose enemies cannot seem to ruin, with all of the logic and facts they throw at him. His comparison between this scandal and Watergate in 1973 is compelling, eerie and thought-provoking. But I believe that the book is based on a faulty premise – that this situation is the worst disaster ever to befall the presidency in American history – and all of his sharp rhetoric and unassailable logic can’t make it true. Well-written in a simple and straightforward manner, but ultimately a polemic that is wasted on too small and insignificant a target.


Decision at the Chesapeake
Harold A. Larrabee
History
Non-Fiction
Rating 3
Clarkson N. Potter
1964



On September 5, 1781, British and French ships engaged in a battle that turned the tide of the American Revolution. This dull and scholarly book attempts to explain every aspect of this pivotal battle, including biographical data on all of the participants. Although the battle had historic consequences, the book sinks of its own weight. There is much interesting anecdotal information, but there is just much too much of everything. (Except maps.)


Deep Six
Clive Cussler
Espionage
Fiction
Rating 5
Pocket Books / Simon & Schuster
1984


The story begins in 1966 with a young woman impersonating Estelle Wallace, whose passport she found on a bus. She hatches a plan to walk off with $150,000 in bundled currency (replacing it with bundles of plain paper) from the bank where she works. She then hops a freighter to New Zealand with a plan to hide out in luxury. Unfortunately, the ship was infiltrated by Korean special agents who killed her and the crew. Jumping ahead to 1989, there has been a spill of a deadly poison that is killing everything near it in the Bay of Alaska. The government calls in Dirk Pitt (he’s the protagonist of several books by this author) to locate the source. He finds a grounded transport ship that had been mostly covered by volcanic ash and lava by Augustine volcano, with rotted cylinders of poison in the hold. Meanwhile, on the Presidential yacht along the Potomac in a dense fog, unknown assailants spirit off the President, Vice President, the Speaker of the House and Minority Leader. When the Director of Secret Service is mysteriously killed, the job falls to Oscar Lucas, who had been in charge of Presidential security. Secretary of State Oates becomes the acting President, and this ad hoc team decides to use decoys of the missing men, in order to give themselves some breathing room before having to make any announcements. Then we find out that an elderly Korean woman who inherited a shipping company is working in league with top Russian officials and scientists who plan to brainwash the kidnaped Americans. Her husband and sons were killed when their ships were sunk outside of Japan by Allied forces – so she and her grandson, Lee Tong, hated the Americans since then. But even at this stage of the book, both sides in this scheme are planning to double-cross each other. Meanwhile, Dirk Pitt meets Sal Casio, a private investigator who was the father of the ill-fated woman posing as Estelle Wallace from the beginning of the book. He found out that the money she stole turned up in dribs and drabs over the years in overseas banks. He and Dirk start checking into these two old Liberty ships, the San Marino and the Pilot Town, which both seem to have mysterious pasts. Later, they find out these ships and the Belle Chasse are all the same ship, and part of some giant unknown scam. The FBI finally figures out how the kidnapings were accomplished, because the assailants used fog machines, then switched boats – they send Dirk to find the real boat, which was sunk in the Potomac, and they find numerous bodies of the crew and others, but not the kidnaped leaders. Then the KGB agent following the Russian doctor brainwashing the politicians unilaterally decides to escape with the Americans and turn them over to the KGB. He gets out with the congressmen, but not the other two, and the KGB airlifts them to a Soviet cruise ship in the Caribbean, where Dirk’s girlfriend is on a working holiday, and she spots them and tries to get a message to Dirk. Meanwhile, the Koreans blow up his car, trying to kill him, so he sends Sal Casio to ransack their offices. Just as the press is starting to get suspicious of the imposters, suddenly the President returns – but his staff can tell he’s not himself. The Russians pay the Koreans in gold bars for brainwashing the President, but later they torpedo the ship and retrieve the bullion. Dirk sneaks aboard the cruise ship and rescues Loren before the Russians arrange a convenient “accident,” and he also springs the congressmen, but the Koreans blow up that ship and leave Dirk for dead. (He’s not.) Because the President has declared martial law and is doing lots of strange things, the FBI calls in its own team to try and “unplug” him from the Russians. The Koreans still have the VP, and they also kidnaped Loren from the cruise ship explosion. One of the congressmen died in the disaster, but the other one returns to Washington with an agenda to remove the President and take his place. It turns out he made a deal with the Koreans, so they agree to bump off the VP so Moran has a clear field. They plan to take the laboratory barge with Loren and the VP, and sink it in the Gulf of Mexico. But Dirk is one step ahead of them, realizing the laboratory must be on a barge, and he and the FBI are already looking for it. But when they find it, the Koreans shoot down his helicopter and kill the FBI agents and Navy SEALS trying to board it. In an unexpected and delightfully picaresque turn of events, Dirk commandeers an old paddle-wheel steamboat and a regiment of Civil War re-enactors to attack the barge, counting on the element of surprise. This works better than anyone expects, and the re-enactors board the barge and overwhelm the Koreans with only a few injuries. Dirk shoots Lee Tong just before he kills Loren and the VP, and then leaves him for dead – only he’s not and he manages to blow up the barge before he dies, and Dirk just barely gets out with his life and the others. The VP returns to Washington just as Moran is taking the Oath of Office, which neatly spikes his guns. Dirk and Sal Casio infiltrate Mme. Bougainville’s penthouse, seeking their revenge on her, but there’s life in the old bat yet, and she kills Sal Casio before Dirk throws her 100 floors down the elevator shaft. This is one of the most rip-roaring crackerjack adventure yarns I’ve ever read, and it never lets up. It grabs you by the lapels on the first page and drags you around head-long for 400 pages without a break. Well-written and incredibly so, because everything seems so real and immediate, without a lot of long and boring descriptive passages. There is enough plot in this book for 3 stories, and although some of it is far-fetched, it is uniformly entertaining. Some of the characters are one-dimensional, but most of them are like real people that you care about. For the most part, the good guys survive and the bad guys don’t, unlike many “modern” stories. A real page-turner and crying out to be made into a movie.


Dirty Tricks
Michael Dibdin
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 1
Pocket Books / Simon & Schuster
1991



Told in the first person, the story begins when the narrator returns from abroad, where he has been teaching English to foreigners, and starts working for an organization that teaches “English as a second language” to immigrants. He meets the social-climbing Parsons, Dennis and Karen, both of whom drink heavily, and he discovers that it also makes Karen behave indiscreetly. They begin having an affair, which is necessarily awkward, because she refuses to meet clandestinely, so all of their furtive couplings happen when Dennis is nearby. He finds Dennis and his cronies patronizing, but he puts up with it to stay with Karen. They spend a holiday together in France, which nearly bankrupts him, due to the others’ expensive tastes in meals and shared outings. When he comes back, he finds that he’s been replaced at his job. At least this makes it possible for him to spend more time with Karen. On Dennis’ 40th birthday, the three of them take a small boat out on the river, and Dennis unexpectedly drowns. Because this story is told in flashback, we already know that the narrator fled to South America after he and Karen were accused of murdering Dennis, as part of a plan to get her husband out of the way and collect his insurance money. After the funeral, Karen will have nothing to do with him, because she is convinced that they were responsible for Dennis’s death. But he realizes that Karen is his only means of support, so he convinces her that they can have a baby and name it after Dennis as a way of keeping his memory alive. (He says this in desperation, even though he has been sterilized.) They marry quietly, figuring people would talk. Months later, when Karen announces she’s pregnant, he knows it’s not his, and discovers that Karen is involved with Clive, his previous employer. He confides in the elegant Alison Kraemer, who he hopes will be his next partner after he dumps Karen, while keeping as much of Dennis’ money as possible. When Karen finds out about his feelings for Alison, he reveals that he knows about her and Clive, and he also tells her about his vasectomy. In the morning, he discovers that she apparently fell and hit her head. When he realizes that she’s dead, he hatches a scheme to pin her death on Clive. With an unsavory cohort, they drive him to a secluded spot and leave him there with Karen’s body. It all works according to plan, and Clive is convicted of Karen’s murder. Afer the notoriety dies down, he and Alison start seeing each other quietly. Much later, the police discover irregularities in the case against Clive, so they propose to re-open the case, as long as he can’t provide an alibi for the time of her death. When he asks Alison to give him an alibi, she drops him like a hot potato. Later, he breaks into her house with the idea to trash the place out of spite, but instead runs into her paramour, and he realizes that they have been using hin as a smoke screen to cover up their affair. He also realizes that they can use his lack of alibi against him, so this is when he decides to flee the country with his ill-gotten gains. He arrives in South America with his funds intact, and prepares to live a life of luxury, even beating off an extradition order. Unfortunately, the epilogue suggests that Carlos (the unsavory cohort from Clive’s kidnaping) and everyone who knows him, were all rounded up by the secret police to be tortured or killed, so it appears in the end that he got what was coming to him. This is a horrible and depressing book, with obnoxious and disgusting characters. It reminds me of the worst aspects of “Tango” and “People Like Us,” and leaves such a bad taste when it’s finished. It’s actually well-written and the plot outline fits together cleverly, but who cares? The book review on the cover (from The New York Times, no less) gushes about it as a superb mystery thriller and comedy of manners. There is a widespread misconception that writing about the upper crust and involving them in disreputable and depraved situations is automatically entertaining (“The Bonfire of the Vanities” springs immediately to mind) but this is very far from true. This book fancies itself posh and amusing, taking a sharp and sardonic look at English society, but in fact, it has nothing to recommend it.


Dorothy and Agatha
Gaylord Larsen
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Penguin Books
1992



The author takes two actual mystery writers, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, and involves them in a real murder. There was apparently an unfortunate episode during the war where soldiers were killed and wounded after being locked out of a bunker. Now it appears that someone is killing the people who had been in the bunker. One of them is killed in Miss Sayers’ house, and she becomes a suspect, so the “Detective Club” attempts to solve the case. Not as suave and witty as it thinks it is, it is actually a slow-footed and uninteresting tale full of unappealing people.


Double Deuce
Robert B. Parker
Crime drama
Fiction
Rating 3
Berkley Books / G.P. Putnam’s Sons
1992


Here is another in a series of books by this author featuring Boston P.I. Spenser and his usual entourage. This book starts off with a bang, as a black teenager and her baby are gunned down in broad daylight by rival gang members. It happens outside of what the locals call “Double Deuce” which is a housing project for only the very poorest of the poor, since anyone who can, has already moved out. Rev. Tillis from the neighborhood asks Hwk to help out, and Hawk enlists Spenser, but the people refuse to co-operate with them. Quirk and Belson from the Boston police department give them the ballistics report on the crime, but can’t help any further. Meanwhile, Spenser’s long-time girlfriend Susan pressures him to move in with her, but with mixed results. Hawk is being trailed by the pretty Jackie, who is a TV producer doing a segment on gangs and she tags along to the projects with them. They rough up the gang there a little, but these youngsters have nothing left to lose and don’t scare easily. The gang leader, Major, is a Hawk wannabe, so they play a sort of cat-and-mouse game of escalating violence while Hawk tries to get them relocate their operations to another area. They find out the drugs the gang deals are coming from small-time hood Tony Marcus, so they lean on Tony to pull his drug activities out of there to someplace else. Spenser meets a social worker through Susan who has expertise with gangs, and she uncovers the victim’s boyfriend, who fingers the Double Deuce Gang and says Major killed his girlfriend and baby daughter and he plans to get even with them. Almost immediately, he turns up dead instead, so that didn’t work. This makes Hawk mad and he and Spenser have a showdown in a park with the gang, where he plans to kill Major for these three murders. Major shows up with Jackie as a hostage, but Hawk is too fast for them and rescues her without breaking a sweat. Major tells him that it was Tony Marcus’s bodyguard who killed all three victims, even though he is quick to point out that he could’ve done it if he wanted to. In the midst of all this, Susan finally realizes that she’s made a big mistake and asks Spenser to move out again. Once Major and his gang realize that Hawk is too tough for them, they clear out of Double Deuce, while Jackie, who also thinks he’s too tough for her, takes a powder. In the and, Hawk and Spenser arrange with Quirk and Belson to entrap Tony Marcus and the bodyguard (who still has the murder weapon on him) to take the fall for the killings. They believe they can protect Major and the other kids in case Tony Marcus tries to get even with them, but I wouldn’t put any money on that, and in fact, I did don’t care for Spenser and Hawk’s chances either. It all ends happily enough, and the book jacket makes much of the fact that we get to see the inner workings of Hawk, which would really only be scratching the surface of anyone else, so it’s scarcely revelatory. (Not like, I think it was “Pastime,” where we hear all about Spenser’s youth in the woods with his uncles and stuff.) Of course, it would do no good to damage the mystique of Hawk, which is so central to the character. This is an interesting book, as they all are, but more relationship-driven than well-plotted. In fact, what plot there is, seems like an afterthought and half-hearted at that. There’s very little action and even the climactic shootout lacks impact. It also can’t overcome the overall depressing aspect of poor kids in gangs with no future and no one cares. Even the usual by-play between Spenser and Hawk is muted and not as wickedly funny. It would be impossible for this author to write a bad book, so it’s well-written and never lags. But it would have to be considered a minor entry in this series, which boasts so many classics that it’s easy for the reader to become spoiled.


Drawn From Memory
Ernest H. Shepard
Biography
Non-Fiction
Rating 4
J.B. Lippincott
1957



The author is famous as an illustrator of children’s books, such as “Winnie the Pooh.” He wrote this innocent and charming memoir of his life at 7 years old, and illustrated it lavishly with wonderfully evocative line drawings. His stories of living in London with his parents, siblings and servants are sweet and whimsical, without any hint of the tragedies that may be in the offing. (Both his mother and brother died young.) Lively and well-written, sweet without being overly sentimental, and full of interesting and anecdotal historical references.