TITLES L - M

The Lady Who Hated Shakespeare
Susan Carroll
Romance
Fiction
Rating 3
Fawcett Crest / Ballantine Books
1992



Cordelia Renwick finds that her hopes for an exciting summer in Brighton have been ruined when her father invites Miles, a distant cousin, to stay with them, and indulge the gents’ mutual fascination for Shakespeare. Cordelia and Miles accidentally meet under odd circumstances, so that she immediately detests him and he is fascinated by her. They spend a lot of time playing tricks on each other, but everyone can see they are falling in love. (Except of course, her erstwhile boyfriend, the eminently dull Lord Walsing.) Somehow they all get roped into a local performance of “Othello,” with an unfortunate accident that nearly kills Cordelia – this forces the lovers to see their relationship in a new light. At the last minute, Delia and another young lady are nearly murdered by Lord Walsing (who of course turns out to be an imposter) but they are rescued by Miles, and everyone lives happily ever after. Well-written and lively, but a little complicated for a Regency romance.


Lady With A Black Umbrella
Mary Balogh
Romance
Fiction
Rating 3
Signet / Penguin Books
1989



Head-strong Daisy Morrison is determined that her younger sister Rose should have a season in London and find an eligible husband. So they set off together, intending to stay with relatives in town. Along the way, Daisy rescues a Viscount who has been set upon by highwaymen, beating them off with her late father’s big black umbrella. The Viscount left in a huff, embarrassed at being helped by a young lady, and was further mortified to find out that she had gone back and paid off his debts when his purse had been stolen. Meanwhile, Daisy and Rose arrived in London to find their relatives abroad, but Daisy insisted on making a go of it anyway. When the Viscount, Giles Kincade, sought her out to repay his debt to her (only the presence of his brother, the clergyman, prevented him from throttling her for her interference and obliviousness) she asked him to introduce her and her sister to a respectable family member who could sponsor them for the season in the absence of her relatives. Lord Kincade is astounded at her audacity, but his brother Arthur immediately volunteers their cousin Hetty, who would be only too happy to oblige. So they launch Rose on her season (at 25, Daisy is already a confirmed spinster) and Daisy continues to embarrass the Viscount with her antics. At one point, it becomes necessary for Daisy and Giles to pretend they are engaged, in order to protect her reputation, so that her sister’s season won’t be compromised. It also turns out the attack on the Viscount was part of a larger plan to get him out of the way, so a fortune hunter can elope with his younger sister. Daisy comes up with the idea to dangle herself in front of the fortune hunter as an even better catch – and it falls to Giles to rescue her from the unscrupulous louse. Of course, they finally realize that they are hopelessly in love after all, and their fake engagement becomes a real engagement. Rose, who never wanted an exciting life in the city with a titled man-about-town, agrees to marry dear Arthur the clergyman. Well-written and interesting throughout, and a little more racy than you expect from this genre.



Larry, The Stooge In The Middle
Morris Feinberg
Biography
Non-Fiction
Rating 4
Last Gasp of San Francisco
1984



Lively, anecdotal biography of Larry Fine from The Three Stooges, as told by his brother. A warm and loving tribute; but never maudlin look behind the scenes at a show business phenomenon. The ups and down of The Stooges’ history regarded with humor and good will, and all of the Stooge members are treated with respect. The vignettes are more sentimental than hysterical, but it’s always interesting. It’s very well-written, in a punchy, engaging style for someone who is not a writer by trade.


Latin For All Occasions
Henry Beard
Humor
Fiction
Rating 5
Random House
1990



This hilarious book takes modern phrases such as “Hot enough for you?” and “Give me a break” and translates them into Latin for you. This is so you can drop them innocently into your conversations to amaze your friends, astound your co-workers, and impress total strangers. It includes everyday Latin that can be used at work (“Darn! My beeper just went off”), at sporting events (“Here comes the Zamboni”) and my favorite, at the spa (“There is something wrong with this scale.”) The author said he wrote the book in gratitude for his Latin training when something he was about to order in an Italian restaurant reminded him of the Latin word for “eels.”


The Lawless
John Jakes
Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
Jove Publications
1978



Part 7 of The Kent Family Chronicles, which spans almost 200 years of American history. This volume concerns the brothers Gideon, Matthew and Jeremiah Kent, sons of Jephtha and Fan Kent, separated by the Civil War. Gideon assumes control of the family printing business, and his family falls apart. When his wife dies, he takes up with Julia, widow of his cousin Louis. Matthew is a painter in Europe, whose wife leaves him. Jeremiah, believed killed in the war, is a gunman using different names. He ends up dying at Gideon’s feet. Consistent with this series.


Lena
Margaret Jensen
Biography
Non-Fiction
Rating 4
Here’s Life Books
1985



This is the third book in a series of auto-biographical books by this author, with the first two about her parents. This one is about the cook-housekeeper in the college infirmary where the author worked as a nurse. Lena’s strong, towering faith and love of people radiates around her like fireworks. She sings and prays all day at work, giving advice, encouragement and being an inspiration to everyone who sees her. Her common-sense philosophy deflates the pompous, and buoys up the down-trodden. The author’s son sinks in a world of drugs and misery, but Lena never gives up on him, and eventually he returns to the family. Well-written in an easy, engaging style; humorous and sentimental without being sappy.


Lift Every Voice
Dr. Walter Turnbull
Biography
Non-Fiction
Rating 3
Hyperion
1995



The author was raised in poverty in Mississippi, but longed for a better life. His was a large close-knit family with close ties to the community and church. He developed a love of music singing in the choir. He went on to Tougaloo College and studied music there. With generous support of friends and admirers, he was able to continue his education at prestigious institutions and he became a well-respected operatic tenor. But opera is a hard field to break into (especially for minorities) so he looked for other ways to support himself. He organized a small boys choir at a church in the Bronx, which went on to become the world famous Boys Choir of Harlem. They have performed all over the world and inspired millions. This book explains all of the behind-the-scenes details of organizing and running a performing group of youngsters. It tells many stories of broken families, children at risk, and society’s failure to protect them – and how the structure of the choir helps them turn their lives around and make something of themselves. This is not a fairy tale, but a stark unflinching look at youth in peril. This should be a positive and uplifting book, but the author’s bitterness and sense of persecution wash over the story without let-up. He had to fight to get where he is, and he is still fighting. In spite of his lip-service of nurturing, respect and encouragement, he comes across as an angry, impatient and autocratic tyrant. This book was recommended highly by advice columnist Ann Landers as a testament to discipline, hard work and caring, turning troubled youths into productive members of society – but I found it disappointing in that sense. The writing is flat and reads like a textbook.



The Lion in the North
John Prebble
History
Non-Fiction
Rating 1
Martin Secker & Warburg / Penguin Books 1973
1971



This book has the distinction of being one of the most incomprehensible and unreadable books I’ve ever read. It suffers from a common malady, especially among non-fiction writers, of being too close to their subject and knowing too much about it. (The prime example of this was Barbara Tuchman’s “The Proud Tower” which hit new heights of unreadability.) This author is famous for his historical reference works, and they may all be fine and interesting books. The biggest problem with this book is its scope – it is trying to minutely describe Scottish history from pre-historic times to the present in one slim volume. As a result, it is at once too bogged down in details and too scattershot to do the job. You slog through page after page after page of meaningless drivel until your brain goes completely numb. Then, when something interesting or memorable comes along, like William Wallace or Mary Queen of Scots, it is dashed off so fleetingly that it makes no impression at all. It somehow manages to be simultaneously drowned in boring minutiae, and also completely dis-connected from any other contemporary history, so you have no idea of where or how any of this fits together. Miraculously, I understood less about Scottish history when I finished the book than before I started! The book is so stultifyingly dull and uninviting, with its dense pages cramped with text. The author has an easy familiarity with his subject, but tends to have a feverish need to hit you over the head with every fact at his disposal. Some of the passages are quite lucid and even humorous, making me think that with a narrower focus, he could write a fairly entertaining and interesting book. But that’s not this book, in spades.

Looking for Rachel Wallace
Robert B. Parker
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 4
Dell Publishing / Bantam Doubleday Dell
1980


Another in a series by this author featuring Private Investigator Spenser in Boston. He is hired by the publisher to protect Rachel Wallace on her book tour. She is a radical feminist and gay, and her books are strident and polarizing. Her newest one is about to be released, but enough is already known about it that she’s been getting death threats. In the first two days of guarding her, Spenser was nearly run off the road, harassed by picketers, and pulled his gun on a couple of pranksters who threw a pie at Rachel. She’s tough and humorless, and she and Spenser got along about as well as nitro and glycerine. But before long, she begins to appreciate his competence in protecting her. One day, she loses her temper and fires him, and shortly after that, she is kidnapped, apparently by some ultra-conservative group calling itself “Restore American Morality.” Lt. Quirk and Detective Belson (from previous books) start investigating, and Spenser does what he usually does – leaning on informers, beating up suspicious folks who won’t cooperate and generally making a big nuisance of himself. When the police don’t get any further demands, things start to look very bleak for poor Rachel, and Spenser blames himself for what happened. Little by little, things start to come together. The leader of the picketers is Lawrence English, whose wealthy family supports his Belmont Vigilance Committee – he not only arranged for the picketing of Rachel’s appearance at the library, but it was his chauffeur and a couple of thugs who tried to run them off the road also. Then it comes to light that English’s sister is a model using another name, and Spenser knows her as one of Rachel’s lovers from when he was protecting her. He believes this is enough reason to suspect that English has kidnapped her (although not enough for the police to do anything about it) so he sneaks into their house to check it out. He gets up to the attic before he is discovered, but by then he has found Rachel, which is a big relief for both of them. He has to kill English and the chauffeur to get out of the attic, and by then, even Rachel thinks this is a good thing. After that, the ending of the book is sweet and sentimental, and makes you feel good all over. The story is a little more tense than these usually are, but not unpleasantly so, and the ending really makes it all worthwhile. Well-written, entertaining and engaging throughout, with no superfluous touches or distracting elements. A very satisfying book, although Hawk doesn’t appear in it.

Lord Carew’s Bride
Mary Balogh
Romance
Fiction
Rating 3
Signet / Penguin Books
1995



Samantha Newman is staying with her cousin, the Earl of Thornhill and family, at their country estate. While out walking, she meets Hartley Wade, who she supposes is the gardener of nearby Highmoor Abbey – but who is in fact the Marquess of Carew who lives there. She finds him unassuming and non-threatening, and he is totally enchanted with her, so much so that he despairs of letting her find out his true identity in case it changes her impression of him. (The Marquess is self-conscious about a childhood accident that left him with a limp and maimed hand.) They meet several times and enjoy each other’s company, before Samantha has to return to London for the Season. After she leaves, the Marquess is so miserable that he finally follows her to London, although he usually avoids the social whirl. Next we meet Lionel, the new Earl of Rushford, whose improper behavior with Samantha in her first season created such a scandal that his family exiled him to the continent. Now that he has returned, she is horrified to discover that she is still hopelessly attracted to him, in spite of her attempts to steel herself against his charms. We also learn that it was Lionel (an older cousin of the Marquess) who was responsible for the “accident” that left him crippled, so anyone could see where this was leading. Whenever she sees Lionel, he assures her that he has changed, and he still loves her and wants to make it up to her for his previous behavior. She is convinced that he is only toying with her, although to what purpose, she has no idea. When the Marquess finally screws up his nerve and asks her to marry him, she accepts gladly, because although she feels no burning desire for him like Lionel, at least he makes her feel safe and protected. So she and the Marquess are married in town, making her the new Marchioness of Carew, and many people suppose that she married him in spite of his handicap for his title and fortune. After they’re married and still in town, Lionel manages to make the Marquess believe that his previous liaison with Samantha was more intimate than it really was, and although his friends do everything they can to make him see reason, the Marquess and Samantha have an ugly scene about it. Neither of them wants to admit that Lionel still has the power to cast a pall over their lives, and they wonder if they will ever be free of his influence. One fateful night at a ball, Lionel corners Samantha in a garden where she is waiting for her husband, but before he can take liberties with her, she kicks and slaps him so there is no mistaking her true feelings for him. The Marquess then challenges Lionel to a fight of honor, which Lionel finds hugely amusing, although unbeknownst to him, the Marquess has spent years training to fight, as a way of compensating for his infirmity. To the surprise of all, except his seconds, he beats Lionel handily, and he and Samantha are reconciled, and finally feel they are out from under Lionel’s shadow at long last. Well-written and engaging throughout, with characters who have genuineness and spunk. Nicely entertaining of this type.


Lord Dancy’s Delight
Emily Hendrickson
Romance
Fiction
Rating 3
Signet / Penguin Books
1993



Young Amelia Longworth is sent to London with her Chinese chaperon, Chen Mei, from her father’s estate in Macao where he is an important official with the East India Company. She is to stay with his sister, Lady Spencer, and have a proper coming-out. At a stop-over in Lisbon, she crashes into the dashing Geoffrey Dancy, who is returning to England to claim the Baronetcy of his late father. In a short period of time, Dancy manages to rescue Amelia three times – from a highway accident, a boating mishap and a fire. Chen Mei points out that in Chinese culture, after someone’s life is saved three times, they become the property of their rescuer. Although Amelia is too high-spirited to be anyone’s chattel, she does feel obligated to Dancy and wishes to protect him – especially after she overhears some conversations that lead her to believe that his life is in danger. Once safely settled in her aunt’s townhouse, the ladies embark on a social whirlwind, and Amelia attracts quite a lot of attention, not all of it welcome. Amelia and Chen Mei also contrive to appear at the same places as Dancy, as part of their plan to keep him from harm. In short order, she saves him from an unscrupulous fortune-hunter, a disreputable card-sharp and an unsavory looking foreigner bound on making attempts on his life. Rather than being pleased with these results, His Lordship is instead embarrassed and aggravated at having a mere slip of a girl as his ubiquitous protector. When he is finally cornered by his adversary and Amelia attempts to help him, the ogre grabs her and flees with the expectation that using her as a shield will allow him to escape. He holds her hostage for days while the authorities turn London inside-out, and Amelia’s friends and family heap scorn upon Dancy for allowing this to happen. At last she is rescued and she realizes the depth of her feelings for Dancy, but he picks this time to tell her that they should see less of each other, which he feels would make things safer for both of them. At first crushed and then seething, Amelia immediately packs up and goes to stay with other relatives in the country. Instead of feeling happy and liberated, Dancy suddenly finds his life boring and empty. That’s when he discovers that everyone has promised Amelia not to reveal her whereabouts, especially to him. In desperation, he hires a Bow Street Runner to track her down, which he does, and it all ends very happily. Entertaining throughout and well-written, although it reads more like a modern romance than a period piece, and the occasional old-fashioned dialogue that wants to lend authenticity to it, seems instead forced and heavy-handed. But it moves along briskly and never lags, and the characters are all interesting and delightful.


Losing The Edge
Barry Meisel
Sports
Non-Fiction
Rating 3
Simon & Schuster
1995



In 1994, the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1940. Sports columnist Barry Meisel describes in detail the events leading up to the victory, and the internecine warfare and management disarray that followed in its wake. Although interesting, the book is extremely dense, over-loaded with facts, details, asides and peripheral characters. It is essentially a hatchet job on winning coach Mike Keenan (who bolted to St. Louis before the champagne was flat) but it is also no love letter to General Manager Neil Smith, the Garden management or Viacom, their owners. Everyone comes under the gun in this investigation, including the players and incoming coach Colin Campbell, and is found wanting.


The Lost Generation
Robert Vaughan
Drama
Fiction
Rating 4
Bantam Doubleday Dell
1992



This is Part 3 of “The American Chronicles,” which began at the turn of the century. This story covers the period of the 20's and 30's, and follows the lives of the Canfields, writer Eric Twainbough, actress Demaris Hunter and gangster Kerry O’Braugh. Somewhat of a potboiler, but well-written in a concise and lively style. (See also Dawn of the Century and Hard Times.)


Lost in a Good Book
Jasper Fforde
Fantasy
Rating 2
Penguin Books
Hodder and Stoughton, UK
2002



This is the second in a series of books by this author and featuring literary detective Thursday Next, fresh from her adventures in “The Eyre Affair,” and still doing P.R. tours for it through the Special Operations Network, so that she has practically no time to spend with her new husband, Landen. We are introduced to Mr. Schitt-Hawse, who is the half-brother of the infamous Jack Schitt from the previous book, also of the Goliath Corporation, who is still trapped inside “The Raven.” Next is still working in Swindon at SO-27, the Literary Detectives, although after stints in the police and Crimean War (just starting peace talks after 130 years) she would like something a little more challenging. She is contacted by the mysterious lawyer Akrid Snell, who says he has been hired to defend her against unspecified charges, which she knows nothing about. Then her boss Victor Analogy sends her and her partner, Bowden Cable, to investigate reports of “Cardenio” forgeries, which are apparently the Shakespearean equivalent of the Holy Grail, which is to say, that there is no such thing, but con artists keep selling them like the Brooklyn Bridge. While they are examining a very promising copy of the missing treasure in the collection of Lord Volescamper, Next is inexplicably drawn to a passing SkyRail, so she climbs aboard. The conductor of the SkyRail is Neanderthal, and there are seven strangers aboard all named Irma Cohen. Neanderthals were re-introduced, after millions of years of being extinct, through genetic engineering, and like the re-engineered dodo birds and woolly mammoths, was a socio-scientific experiment with some unfortunate consequences, with the project ultimately becoming a cultural failure that had to be abandoned. The Neanderthal is protesting bad treatment of his species, and when Next tries to protect him from the SpecOps agents trying to shoot him, she ends up getting killed instead. Luckily at that moment, her time-traveling father (who has gone rogue from the ChronoGuard in order to correct historical errors that will affect the future) whisks her away to 1972, so that she can protect a cyclist from an accident (this has far-reaching implications in the future) and she asks her father to return her to the present 30 minutes earlier, so she will know how to properly handle the SkyRail incident without getting killed. Unaccountably, when she returns to the earlier present, the same thing doesn’t happen, and she ends up getting in a lot of trouble by trying to prevent a hijacking that didn’t occur. She and Landen go to visit her family, and find Uncle Mycroft still inventing his eccentric gadgets, although he professes to be retired., and he gives her a handy device to warn her when the ludicrously unlikely coincidences have reached a dangerous level. This comes in handy when it gives her a warning so that she and her friends can just barely escape having a car fall on them from a blimp overhead. When Mycroft and Polly disappear with the entire contents of his workshop, Schitt-Hawse realizes that he can’t use him to retrieve Jack Schitt out of “The Raven,” so he leans on Next instead. Flanker from SO-1 (the division that polices SpecOps itself) calls her in an attempt to get at her father, but she stonewalls him, and Stiggins, a Neanderthal, unexpectedly covers for her. During this period, she notices subtle changes in her environment, and later she realizes that Goliath has engineered a time shift so that her erstwhile husband Landen died in childhood, which means that in 1985, he doesn’t exist anymore. She experiments with some books to see if she can “jump” into them without Mycroft’s Prose Portal, which she will need to do in order to extricate Jack Schitt and save Landen, and while dreaming, she finds Landen (and her arch-nemesis, Acheron Hades) living in her memories. Even her father can't reverse the eradication of her husband, and when he tries, he nearly steps right into a trap by Lavoisier, his sworn enemy, whose only purpose in life is to capture the notorious (although officially non-existent) renegade. She finally meets Akrid Snell, who turns out to be a fictional lawyer from a series of crime dramas, who is defending her for changing the ending of Jane Eyre in a Jurisfiction case. She calls on Mrs. Nakajima, the Japanese tourist she bumped into inside of Jane Eyre, who helps her enter the Jurisfiction library, where they maintain control over all books ever written, or will be written, including drafts, discarded changes, unused characters and hypothetical plot lines. She meets the Cheshire Cat in the library, and finds out that she has been assigned to the spinster Miss Havisham of “Great Expectations.” When she is not in the narrative, Miss Havisham is a spunky old spitfire, who takes Next on a wild ride through several books, as well as out in the real world, where she is well-known to the police everywhere for her reckless driving. At the Jurisfiction meeting, the operatives are a diverse group of fictional characters, and they are assigned to infiltrate various books to remove interlopers, or to protect the story from damage, such as well-meaning “improvement” by single-minded zealots. (In a funny aside, she discovers that her dear departed Uncle Mycroft has insinuated himself into the works of Arthur Conan Doyle as Sherlock Holmes' brother.) She finally determines that her unborn baby must really be Landen’s, although nobody knows who he is since being eradicated, when she discovers the hunky coworker she thought she was involved with since Landen didn’t exist, was really her brother Joffy’s boyfriend instead. This makes her all the more determined to rescue Landen, so she makes a deal with Schitt-Hawse, and she is able to extricate Jack Schitt from “The Raven” all by herself. But instead of keeping their end of the bargain, the siblings and Lavoisier conspire to keep her prisoner at Goliath, and only the supernatural skills of Miss Havisham can rescue her. After that, she and Harris Tweed recover the lost “Cardenio” from Lord Volescamper, since it had been stolen from the Jurisfiction Library by a book character posing as a politician in the real world. With Landen’s help in her memory, she finally realizes that it must be Acheron Hades’ diabolical sister Aornis who is responsible for all of the eerie coincidences that have nearly killed her. Finally, Aornis manipulates enough coincidences to cause the world to end in a flood of pink goo (this was a recurring theme throughout) but makes a deal that if Next sacrifices herself instead, Aornis will spare the planet. Next is prepared to do just that, but at the last second, her father turns up to remove the incipient danger back to the primordial past, and give himself up for the greater good. This is a truly wistful moment, at least until she goes to her mother’s house with the news that her father is gone for good, and instead, finds her father there alive and well as ever, since this episode is apparently just another in a series of experiences in his timeless existence. Since Next is in danger from Aornis, in trouble with SpecOps, and on the run from Goliath, her father suggests sending her to a parallel reality (which is more like actual reality) which had Winston Churchill and bananas, and the Crimean War ended in 1854 like it should. Although she’s tempted to agree, without the Crimean War, she and Landen wouldn’t have met, and she would have no memories of him, so she declines instead. Then without telling anyone, she returns to the Jurisfiction library and enrolls in their Character Exchange Program, whereby (usually minor) characters have the opportunity for a change of scenery if they’re tired of being in the same book for all time. She changes places with a secondary character in an unpublished work in a deep sub-basement of the library, along with her dodo Pickwick (with egg) as part of her plan to have Landen’s baby in seclusion and safety, and return afterward to sort out the problems she left behind. Incredibly, this is where the book ends, which would come as an unwelcome shock to anyone looking for a resolution to any of the welter of plot lines just left dangling. As a result, this book doesn't really stand on its own, as a stand-alone story, the way some serialized collections do, as too much that happens is incomprehensible if you haven't read the previous book, and also that there is no conclusion to speak of. These books are not for every taste, and this one more disappointing than the first one, by virtue of having no ending. The writing style is punchy, but still manages to be dense and crammed with literary references, in jokes and allusions of all sorts, while all too often, the plot bogs down in pointless digressions just to make room for more of the same. Because the writing is is so full of itself with layers of meaning, after a while it becomes more tedious than entertaining. This type of high maintenance escapade would probably work better in smaller doses, but all of these books are 400+ pages of thick text which gets to be a little bit too much. The main characters are world-weary and cynical, as often happens in modern novels (Carole Nelson Douglas and M.D. Lake spring to mind) and don’t entirely engage your interest. Undeniably intelligent and impressively written, but more arch than charming, and hard to warm up to. Surprisingly, the gun left in the future in the first book still doesn’t show up in this story, which would strain the patience of the most indulgent reader.


Love and Glory
Robert B. Parker
Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
Dell / Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
In agreement with Seymour Lawrence / Delacorte Press
1983



This author is famous for his “Spenser” detective stories, but this is not one of those, although it has eerie similarities to the characters in Spenser’s world. It concerns a young man named Boone Adams, who is coming of age in the 1950's – he is very intelligent, but tends to be impatient and antagonistic. At college, he meets Jennifer Grayle and falls head over heels for her, even though she’s involved with someone else. When she breaks up with her beau, they start going out. Then he is drafted and sent to Korea during the “police action” there. While he is over there, she sends him a letter saying that she met someone else and is going to marry him. He writes her back begging her not to leave him, and he keeps writing to her trying to change her mind. Eventually his letters to her are returned unopened, so he keeps them as a kind of journal – and he writes to her every day, even though he doesn’t mail them. After he gets back to the United States, he gets invited to her wedding to John Merchant. He goes, but he gets drunk at the reception and makes a scene. From there, he begins a painful descent into an abysmal quasi-life of drunkenness, squalor, jail and homeless shelters. He hits rock bottom on California, and finally decides to start living again. He gets a job washing dishes in a greasy spoon, and finds that he can get through a day without drinking. He stops smoking, and starts to take an interest in his grooming and clothes. He joins a gym and gets in shape. (Here he meets the Hawk parallel – amateur boxer Roy Washington who becomes his friend and workout buddy.) In the back of his sub-conscious is a plan to improve himself so he becomes worthy of Jennifer, and that is what drives him to become a better person. One day he sees a picture of Jennifer and her professor husband at Harvard, and the next day, he is on his way there to enroll as a student. She is surprised to see him when they meet at a university function, but in a subdued way. He makes no bones about his intention to win her back, and although she is resistant to the idea, she finally succumbs to the inevitability of it. Well-written in an easy, conversational style, with a surprisingly happy ending that is neither sappy nor contrived. It would be impossible for this author to write a bad book. It manages to be simultaneously poignant and entertaining throughout, as well as unexpectedly sentimental and uplifting.


Lovely In Her Bones
Sharyn McCrumb
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Ballantine / Random House
1985



This author has written a series of mysteries featuring Elizabeth MacPherson as a forensic anthropologist. In this book, Elizabeth is still an undergrad, and taking herbal and folk medicine courses while she decides what to do next. Her brother Bill’s roommate, Milo, invites her to join him on an archeological dig in the Appalachian Mountains, on behalf of the local Cullowhee Indians, who need scientific documentation to get tribal recognition from the U.S. government. However, there is another faction, led by Deputy Harkness, determined to block any tribal recognition, so they can sell their land to a mining company. At the dig, Elizabeth meets Mrs. Stecoah, the tribe’s wise woman and specialist in herbs and folk remedies. The plot thickens when the leader of the expedition is murdered, using a cheap souvenir tomahawk, after spurning the romantic advances of one student, and embarrassing another publicly. The local Police come to investigate, and also remove Deputy Harkness form the case, due to a conflict of interest. Milo, as second-in-command, elects to continue with the project, although some of their research materials were impounded as evidence. But the very next day, someone else turns up dead, in fact, it’s the student who was embarrassed by the director previously. The Police call in Ron Garrett, the local FBI agent, because of the possibility that the crimes may have been committed on federal land. Later, when Milo enters the data on skull measurements into the computer, he discovers what the professor probably already found out – that the Cullowhees’ ancestors do not fit the skull measurements for Indians at all. He leaps at the conclusion that Elizabeth measured the skulls wrong, and gets into a fight with her about it. But Elizabeth instead comes to the right conclusion, which was that someone was trying to stop the project precisely because it disproved their tribal recognition claims. She realizes that the murderer has to be Mrs. Stecoah, the supposed Indian wise woman, and she goes there to help her develop a plausible defense while still protecting their tribal recognition application. Mrs. Stecoah poisons her instead, but fortunately, Milo turns up not so belatedly and rushes her to the hospital in time. It turns out that most of the Cullowhee’s already knew they were probably descendants of slaves, settlers and the odd Native here and there anyway. But since most tribes featured at least some inter-marriage along the way, they figured it wouldn’t hinder their application, and it didn’t. But they thought that having a scientific document would lend credence to their application, regardless of its findings. So the whole thing was politically motivated in the first place, and the poor student who was killed, for no other reason than pretending he knew more than he did. But these books are always lively and engaging, with colorful characters and evocative descriptions. This story highlights Elizabeth’s burgeoning interest in forensic anthropology, as well as her relationship with Milo. Well-written and entertaining throughout, and fits in well with other books in this series.


Love’s Lady Lost
Gwyneth Moore
Romance
Fiction
Rating 3
Harlequin Books
1991



The autocratic grandmother of Leopold Savage, well-known London playboy, insists that he must marry within a year, or she will grant her estates to his doltish cousin instead. Then he makes an ill-advised wager with some other young bucks at his club, which riles her up even further, so he sets off to Portsmouth to apologize. When the weather turns bad, he pulls off the road in a village to spend the night. There are no lodgings, except for the widow Primrose Hythe, with a rambling estate that she can only afford by taking in boarders. He meets her befuddled cousin Barrett Elstow, and her spirited toddler, the irrepressible Consuela, plus her black Persian cat called M’Lord. He discovers some tantalizing clues that indicate she’s hiding a deep dark secret, but he can’t imagine what. When she agrees to show him through the old ruined abbey on the property and turns her ankle in a fall, he stays on and nurses her, and also attempts to hold down the rest of the household, with predictably hilarious results. His friend Everard Paynton shows up unexpectedly, by back-tracking from when he never showed up in Portsmouth, to let him know that the family is planning a “marriage ball” for him in March, at which time he is expected to pick a suitable mate or else. Paynton misses no opportunity to flirt with the comely widow, which makes Savage unaccountably jealous. Later, he happens across a chance acquaintance named Furness, passing through from London who confides that Consuela was born out of wedlock to the disgrace of the family. But he finds out later this Furness is actually an interested party in the situation, a bounder who forced himself on the widow’s timid sister, to get even with the family for a perceived slight. He coerced the sister into marrying him for her inheritance, which has bunches of ridiculously convoluted restrictions in it, although he abandoned her before she died in childbirth. To protect Consuela from him, the story was circulated that the baby died also. Primrose and her good friend Ambrose Hythe cook up the scheme to pretend they were married in Italy and that Consuela is their daughter. Unfortunately Ambrose died before they could actually marry, so Consuela’s legitimacy could be called into question too easily. Savage is shocked at the story and indignant that there were no men to stand up to Furness and defend the family’s honor, although Primrose was more concerned about keeping Consuela away from him than protecting their reputation. Against her wishes, he brings her to his marriage ball and then leaves her to the slings and arrows of gossips and bigots. This is part of his plan to gain sympathy for her later when the truth is known. When he exposes Furness, they duel and Savage is wounded while luckily Furness is killed. Savage realizes that he must leave the country promptly and his family rallies around him in the idea of marrying Primrose quickly before he leaves and it all ends very happily. In fact, even the missing M’Lord shows up at the end and with a brood of kittens, necessitating a change of named to M’Lady instead. Well-written and entertaining throughout, although a little too melodramatic for every taste. The characters are well-defined and likable for the most part, although Consuela is too obstreperous by half. It’s a bit too over-plotted for these types of stories, but still nice enough, though there’s certainly not enough romance in it to qualify as any sort of a real romance.

MacPherson’s Lament
Sharyn McCrumb
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 4
Ballantine Books
1992


This is another in a series of books by this author, featuring forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson. These are supposedly mysteries, but only in the most marginal sense – they are mostly travelogues or histories, wonderfully unencumbered by plot, but all of them are entertaining nonetheless. In this story, Elizabeth is married to Cameron Dawson (from “Highland Laddie Gone,” my favorite of her books) and living in Scotland. Her brother Bill has just graduated law school and opened a law practice in the sleepy town of Danville, Virginia, with a fellow law student. A.P. Hill is the namesake of a famous Confederate general, except that her name is really Amy – although she does engage in historical re-enactments as a nod to the family’s Civil War connection. A.P. gets a case as a public defender that begins as a simple charge of passing bad checks, but unexpectedly turns into a murder case. They gain another client who is looking for a lawyer to be on retainer as a gift for her husband – she agrees to pay $50 per week so Bill can do the legal research on whatever little, eccentric matters her husband dreams up. (For instance, can you sue your neighbor for “kitty support” if his cat makes your cat pregnant?) Another client that Bill really doesn’t want is his mother, who needs a lawyer for a divorce. The bulk of the book is taken up with eight old women who live in a home for Confederate widows and orphans, who arrange with Bill to sell their communal house for $1.5 million to a Northerner. He is so blinded by the large commission for the sale that he doesn’t see the trap until it swallows him up. It turns out the State of Virginia has claimed the house with a Writ of Eminent Domain (conveniently missing from official records) so the ladies had no legal right to sell the house – the proceeds go into a numbered account in the Cayman Islands and the ladies disappear, leaving Bill in the middle of the State and an angry buyer, under suspicion of fraud, larceny and possible murder. This is too much for Elizabeth, who flies over from Scotland to straighten things out. Also running throughout this book is the story of some Confederate soldiers at the very tail end of the Civil War, and what happened to gold bars of the Confederacy that were being transported by wagon. That turns out to be what is behind the whole sale of the house and all, is the search for the supposed Confederate treasure (even the house buyer is digging for it) as Elizabeth learns when she finds the ladies in Georgia. Once we reach that point, the book really falls off a table, and everything gets wrapped up cursorily. Bill gets cleared, the ladies disappear for good, Amy’s client plea-bargains, the other client decides to study law on his own, and the parents are not reconciled. No one finds the alleged treasure. Well-written in a breezy, conversational style, all of these books are fun, engaging and interesting.

The Maine Mutiny
Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Signet, Division of Penguin Group
2005



This is another in a series of books based on the hit TV show “Murder, She Wrote” and featuring mystery writer and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher. In this story, the civic leaders in her home town of Cabot Cove, Maine, decide to organize a lobster festival with a variety of events to draw tourists to the downtown area. Perky Gwen Anissina is spearheading the effort with publicity and arrangements for the events, and to help her out, Jessica agrees to write a “day in the life” type article about the local lobstermen for the media. This turns out to be not as easy as it sounds, as none of the lobstermen want her on board, and in fact, are getting upset about the whole festival situation. (It seems they agreed to hold onto their catch to save for the festival so there would be plenty for the tourists, and in the meantime, the price has increased to the point where they could be losing significant money. She attends a meeting of the lobstermen’s association and sees first-hand the antagonism between the men, the leadership and Henry Pettie, the dealer who they feel is taking advantage of them for his own gain.) Linc Williams, the association president, makes Levi Carver agree to let Jessica sail with him, so they can get a good publicity story for the local gazette to be distributed at the festival. But it’s obvious that a lot of the lobstermen are still rankled by the direction things are going. She finds her day at sea interesting but exhausting, and she discovers the work required to make a living on lobsters is grueling and frustrating, as they have to throw back half of what they catch, for being non-compliant with the standards. When some of the boats cluster together to share lunch, Jessica hears even more grumbling about the association leadership and the dealer, who they don’t trust. In fact, when the day is over and they bring the catch to the dealer for payment, the price is even less than the day before, even though the supply is less, which should drive the price higher instead. The very next day, one of the disgruntled lobstermen, Ike Bower, found a hole chopped in the side of his boat, although he refused to file a complaint with the police. When Jessica arranges to meet with another man to discuss it later, instead she finds he’s been roughed up and winds up in the hospital. Next, she questions Spencer Durkee, a previous target of retribution, and he indicates that the delinquents responsible for the vandalism are related to Linc Williams, so everyone is afraid to complain and get tossed from the association, or make too much trouble about collusion between the leadership and the crooked dealer. Later, when she tries to speak to Spencer on his boat, she is knocked unconscious and the boat left drifting out at sea with no power and the dead body of Henry Pettie. It also has a hole, making it sink slowly, and Jessica manages to salvage enough to keep her and Pettie afloat (in a hopelessly unrealistic manner) until help arrives. The police arrest Spencer Durkee for the murder, but Jessica is unconvinced. It seems that someone left him a elaborate bottle of home-made blueberry wine, which he drank down on the beach while Pettie was being murdered and Spencer’s boat was being commandeered. Later, a young couple comes forward to say they saw him on the beach and removed the bottle to cover their tracks so no one would know they were there. (This had something to do with the morality clause in the Miss Lobsterfest beauty pageant the young lady was participating in.) Then Jessica finds Pettie’s earring in Levi Carver’s kitchen, so she confronts him about the murder. She finds out that Pettie’s death was an accident (he fell and hit his head while arguing with Levi about prices) but the real crime was the subsequent cover-up, as a bunch of the lobstermen banded together to protect Levi. Linc Williams called his no-account nephew and sleazy friends to dispose of the body, and they’re the ones who hauled the body to Spencer’s boat, knocked out Jessica and sank the boat with them both on it. The plan was to implicate Spencer by getting him drunk so he would have no alibi. But they broke ranks once they realized the jig was up, and each willingly ratted on the others while maintaining their own innocence. The nephew and friends got the worst of it, for attempting to kill Jessica in cold blood, although I thought a better plot device would have been for them to have sent out the rescue teams for her, after getting her out of the way at the critical moment. The Lobsterfest went off swimmingly (although without some fo the arrested lobstermen) and everything else was resolved satisfactorily for the most part, thanks to a handy epilogue. (However, for all of his machinations in the skullduggery, Linc Williams seems to have gotten off scott-free and unrepentant.) Interesting and well-written enough of this type, although parts were much too far-fetched or illogical. Not all of the characters are likable, but they are well fleshed-out. The story holds together fairly well, without a lot of extraneous plot elements or superfluous characters. A fine entry in this series and entertaining throughout.


The Man in the Brown Suit
Agatha Christie
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 4
Dodd, Mead
1924



Anne Beddingfeld has been managing the household of her anthropologist father since her mother’s death years earlier. When her father dies unexpectedly, Anne decides she wants more excitement in her life, and she moves to London. One day in the subway, a man becomes frightened and accidentally falls on the tracks, and is killed instantly. A man in a brown suit is seen running away from the scene, and drops a piece of paper, so she picks it up. Suddenly, she finds herself caught up in a whirlwind of international intrigue, diamond smuggling, murder and political skullduggery. The man in the brown suit is also implicated in the murder of a young woman who is found in the house of Sir Eustace Pedler while he is at Cannes. The victim turns out to be a famous Russian ballerina, who is actually part of an international crime ring, and has been blackmailing the head of the organization, a shadowy figure known as “The Colonel.” The paper dropped in the train station leads Anne to board the Kilmorden Castle sailing to South Africa, where political unrest is going on. On board, Anne meets the pretty and jolly Suzanne Blair and Colonel Race, who is rumored to be with the Secret Service. She also meets the foppish Sir Eustace, who is traveling with his secretary, Guy Pagett, and another shadowy figure called Harry Rayburn, who keeps out of sight and turns out the be the man in the brown suit. (It is Sir Eustace’s diary that provides those parts of the narrative that Anne can not know about first-hand.) After a mix-up of cabins, someone inadvertently throws a packet of stolen diamonds in Mrs. Blair’s window, and these were the linch-pin of this mystery. They were originally part of a heist pulled off by “The Colonel,” but spirited away by the ballerina to use for blackmail, and the crime was pinned on two English youths (one of whom was Harry Rayburn) whose lives were ruined by the scandal. Anne and Harry team up to clear his name, expose “The Colonel,” and identify the ballerina’s murderer. It turns out “The Colonel” was Sir Eustace of all people (and he killed the ballerina by himself) and Colonel Race really was with the Secret Service, and hot on Sir Eustace’s trail. Anne pretends to walk into his trap, and Sir Eustace believes he has her, Harry and the diamonds – but they turn the tables on him, and he is taken into custody. Harry’s name is cleared, and Suzanne returns home to plan a big wedding for Harry and Anne, but instead they elope and raise a family in the South African wilds. Sir Eustace escapes and goes into hiding. All the loose ends are resolved satisfactorily, and this turned out to be a rip-roaring, crackerjack mystery that was rousing and entertaining throughout.


Martinis and Mayhem
Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Penguin Books
1995



This story is taken from the “Murder, She Wrote” TV series, wherein mystery writer Jessica Fletcher turns sleuth to solve murders. While on a book promotion tour in San Francisco, she is contacted by a woman in prison who was framed for killing her husband. Jessica’s friend George Sutherland from Scotland Yard is also visiting San Francisco, and they team up to find the real killer. There are more murders and “convenient accidents;” though told in a lively style, it tends to be a bit disjointed and confusing, with way too many peripheral characters. The ending is roundabout, over-populated and extremely involved.


Member of the Wedding
Carson McCullers
Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
Houghton Mifflin
1946


This is a coming-of-age story of a gangly young girl in the south. Frankie Addams lives with her father and housekeeper, but feels alienated and out of place. When her older brother announces plans to marry someone nearby, Frankie decides to stay with them so she will finally have somewhere to fit in. The housekeeper does her best to make Frankie see reason, but things inevitably go awry. Told in an eccentric and melodramatic way in keeping with the characters, poignant but not engaging. Also made as a movie with Piper Laurie and Ethel Waters.


Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
John Gray
Self-Help
Non-Fiction
Rating 4
Harper Collins
1992


Dr. Gray had a successful practice as a counselor for people in troubled relationships. This led him to identify certain recurring themes that problem couples had. He developed a series of seminars that couples could attend, and practice the techniques he created to resolve their differences. The program has been wildly successful, and he has written several other books that focus on individual elements of his program. This book is interesting and very supportive, well-written and credible. It is sensitive and comforting, with many helpful anecdotes and practical suggestions.


Midshipman Bolitho
Alexander Kent
Historical Drama
Fiction
Rating 4
Hutchinson, UK
1975


This is the first book in this series, set in 1772 with Richard Bolitho as a 16-year-old midshipman, and setting out for Africa on the HMS Gorgon (ship of the line) under Captain Conway. Apparently their orders are to rout out pirates along the African coast, but the pirates are already two steps ahead of them, and using some captured British ships to lure Gorgon into a trap that nearly succeeds. But instead, the Captain decides on a risky plan to snatch the captured ships back from under the pirates’ noses. One of the unpopular officers chooses all the sailors he doesn’t like for this mission, Bolitho included. But the youngsters acquit themselves well, with Bolitho taking command when the officer is indisposed. The dangerous mission has an unlikely success, to the amazement of all. The officer doesn’t offer credit to anyone, but Bolitho senses that the Captain understands more than he reveals. Next, they commandeer a slave ship and pretend to chase it with the re-captured British ship, so the pirates let the slave ship into their dock, even though it’s really full of Marines and sailors instead of slaves. They have a rousing success and re-take the fort, although the head pirate escapes. But the Captain is very pleased with everyone, and that’s as far as this part of the story gets wrapped up, with its loose ends left flapping behind it. This modern reprint of the book actually includes two early stories together, with the first followed by “Midshipman Bolitho and the Avenger.” After the Gorgon returns to England for repairs, Bolitho and another Midshipman, Martin Dancer, plan to spend the Christmas holiday on leave with the Bolitho family. But they no sooner arrive, than a body washes up nearby (this is at Falmouth in Cornwall) and they get roped into a mission trying to eradicate smugglers in the area. The King’s ship that shows up for this task is the Avenger, captained in an interesting coincidence by his older brother, Hugh Bolitho. Unlike him, his brother tends to be more reckless, impetuous and self-centered. He keeps getting into scrapes of one disreputable sort or another, and slithering out of it with his charm, threats or bullets. They have a lively time against some smugglers, saving a merchant ship from being lured into a trap, although most of the smugglers snuck away through the hills. But Hugh can’t help but have a grudging respect for the quick wits and courage of his younger brother during the mission. Then Hugh comes up with a sort of hare-brained scheme to set a trap for the smugglers, and assigns Dancer to that mission. But an insider betrays them, and also prevents reinforcements from reaching them, so they lose the cargo and the Company, and Hugh’s career appears to be in tatters. Then they find out the smugglers are holding Dancer for ransom, and when they exchange him for one of the captives, he is able to identify the informant who spoiled Hugh’s caper. It turns out to be Sir Henry Vyvyan the local Magistrate, whose job it was to keep order and protect the town, which was sort of like having the fox keeping watch on the chicken coop. Of course they have no proof, and Hugh is unceremoniously summoned back to Plymouth for an investigation of his ill-fated schemes. Instead, Richard suggests they chase after Sir Henry, who is sailing to the American colonies with his booty, until things quiet down in Cornwall. They catch him on Christmas Day, and although Sir Henry is killed by cannon fire, the stolen cargo is all they need to prove his involvement with the smugglers. That’s where this part of the story ends, although it’s still a nice enough ending for all that. And the brothers seem to have developed a deeper relationship and mutual respect, more so than would have been expected at the beginning of the story. These are another two crackerjack adventures that never lag, and are lively and interesting throughout, as is the whole series. The characters are genuine and likable, which is so rare nowadays. The stories are historically interesting, colorful and exciting, while even the battle scenes manage to be realistic without being gruesome. Thoroughly enjoyable, even if you read the books out of sequence, which is a hard trick to pull off.


Miss Clare Remembers
Miss Read
Drama
Fiction
Rating 4
Academy, Chicago / Houghton Mifflin Company
1962



Here is another in a series of books by this author and featuring tales of English country life from a bygone era. At the beginning of this book, retired school teacher Dolly Clare is expecting a visit from her life-long companion, Emily Davis, and while getting ready, she reminisces. When she was born in 1888, Dolly’s parents and older sister Ada were living in genteel poverty in nearby Caxley, a bustling market town. Her father was a thatcher, a seasonal business at best, and when he was injured, things got very difficult financially. It was only the generosity and support of relatives and neighbors that pulled them through in one piece. Dolly and Ada attended the school in Caxley, a big barn of a place with 100 students of all ages and descriptions, from the well-to-do merchant children, to the farmers, shopkeepers and servants children, and some even worse off than the Clares, living in the slums by the marsh. Dolly who was quiet and shy, unlike her boisterous sister, did not meet many people, but she was very observant. One bright ray in their poor lives were visits to their paternal grandparents, close enough to walk in nice weather and full of good food, plush comforts and treats. One day when Dolly was 6, her father came home with the good news that one of the local landlords had offered him a cottage in the country at a very attractive rent, which was just as well, because it turned out their current place was among those in the way of a new railroad. So they packed up everything they owned and set off for Beech Green, a bucolic paradise compared to gritty Caxley, although not far away. One disaster of moving was losing Dolly’s beloved rag doll, Emily, but when she went to the school in Beech Green, in an interesting coincidence, she was paired with another newcomer, Emily Davis, and that took some of the sting out of the loss. They take to village life like country ducks to water, and make friends with everyone, especially all of the large and rollicking Davis family nearby. When Dolly’s brother Frank is born, both she and Emily dote on him. The big excitement in 1897 is Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, although setbacks in the Boer War and local casualties take the excitement out of it for the sensitive youngsters. When she was 14, Ada left school and was expected to work as a maid in the Manor House of Beech Green, but that was too dull for the headstrong Ada, who preferred instead a more exciting job in a shop at Caxley. Poor Frank was only 4 years old when he was struck down with bronchitis, leaving the family bereft. The new Headmaster raised hackles in the village with his modern ways, and their disgruntled parents sent Dolly and Emily to school in neighboring Fairacre instead. When the old Queen finally dies, the older people are prostrate, although the children don’t realize the significance until they’re older. Their new Headmaster is so taken with Dolly and Emily that he invites them to become Teacher’s Assistants, preparatory to studying to become teachers. Ever the headstrong Ada has a falling out with her family over an unsuitable match, who she marries anyway, perhaps just for spite. It’s only later when Ada has a son, and asks Dolly to be godmother, that they are reconciled. When Fairacre’s Infant Teacher retires, Dolly takes that job, and Emily one in another town beyond Caxley. The Manor family in Beech Green sails on the Titanic and is lost along with her, stunning the village to its roots. When the new Headmaster’s daughter suddenly dies, he drowns his sorrow in drink, which Dolly cannot understand. But when her fiancé is killed in the Great War, it is only her strength of character and sheer will-power that keep her going. She feels even worse for poor Emily, whose fiancé is injured and then runs off with his nurse, practically leaving Emily at the altar. After that, a lot of things happen at once, as even in the country, the modern post-war era is ushered in. There are buses, so families can visit or shop more easily between towns. Dolly and Emily accept the idea that they will grow into old spinster teachers together, and so they do. Dolly’s father passes away quietly, and years later, her mother also. Then there’s another war, and worse this time, with everyone in the country taking in children escaping from London air raids. There continue to be changes in government and education after the war, but in Fairacre and Beech Green, some things never seem to change. Finally Dolly’s health begins to fail (this was told in greater detail in another book) and she retires at long last. And then like a dream coming true, Emily Davis finds her life suddenly free of all family encumbrances, and with rejoicing, she moves in with Dolly, making it the happiest ending of all. Although all of these books are charmingly quaint and sweetly amusing, this one stands apart for the length and breadth, as well as detail, of its narrative, and pulling together so many elements over the years that make up the other stories in this series, such as Mrs. Pringle, Mr. Willet, Miss Read and others. They are always well-written and with genuine affection for the characters, although carefully drawn with warts and all. They are always a pleasure to read, like visiting with an old friend, and sorry to finish them. Although Dolly’s ill-fated romance seems superficially told, but that is only a small quibble in an otherwise interesting and entertaining book.


Missing Susan
Sharyn McCrumb
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Ballantine Books / Random House
1991



Forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson finds herself at loose ends when her husband leaves on a 6-week expedition, so she joins a murder mystery tour through the south of England. The tour guide, Rowan Rover, has been hired to kill one of the tourists by her uncle. The story follows the many accidents and near-misses along the tour as Susan manages to elude her destiny. More travelogue than murder mystery, even for this author, whose books are long on atmosphere and short on plot.


Missouri Homestead
T.L. Tedrow
Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
Thomas Nelson Inc.
1992

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about the experiences of her family growing up out west in the 1800's and her books were so widely read and revered that they were turned into a hit TV show in the 1970's - “Little House on the Prairie” with Michael Landon. This author has taken Laura, all grown up and married, and woven a fictionalized story around some of the actual events in her life. Before this story begins, Laura has married Almonzo Wilder, even though she never wanted to be a farmer’s wife like her mother. Things went from bad to worse for them in South Dakota, with failed crops, illness, losing farm after farm, the death of their baby son, and the fire that burned them out and left them homeless. This book begins in 1894 when Laura and Manly and daughter Rose have settled in the tiny village of Mansfield, Missouri. They sink everything they have into 4-acres of Apple Hill Farm and hope for better luck this time. Ten years later, they have a large modern farmhouse on 80 acres, and Rose is going to boarding school in New Orleans to give her a better chance in life. Always willing to speak her mind, and not the kind to back down from a fight, Laura begins writing a column for the local newspaper, The Mansfield Monitor. She discusses items of importance to her, such as women’s suffrage, illiteracy and conservation. She especially decries the neglect of good farm land and clearing trees without re-planting. This flies in the face of wealthy and powerful William Bentley, whose logging company is cutting the trees and leaving farms to erode away. Their feud splits the small town in two, since Bentley employs many of the residents, and he has many influential friends in government, and creates bad feelings on both sides. Finally, Laura’s better nature comes to the fore, and she decides to tone down the rhetoric and try to bury the hatchet for the good of the community, figuring that working together with compromises is better than fighting. But Bentley won’t let up, and in fact, is gleeful when his loggers discover blight at Apple Hill Farm, and their trees start dying. Things get ugly at the Independence Day celebrations, with Manly and Bentley getting into a fight, and Laura pushes the snooty Mrs. Bentley into the punch bowl. At last, the newspaper editor gets word from another state who suffered a similar problem, of these particular loggers deliberately poisoning trees, convincing people it’s blight, and ensuring a steady paycheck as the towns agree to have all the trees cut down to stop the spread of the supposed blight. This bombshell really takes the wind out of Bentley’s sails (he had been duped by the logging foreman like everyone else) and like Ebenezer Scrooge, has an immediate change of heart, and turns into a pillar of society overnight. The book ends happily with peace and good will for all. This book is nice enough as a clean and uplifting example of country life at the t\turn of the century. It’s a little too tense to be the charming and bucolic stroll through the meadow that it might be trying to be, and it’s much too dull to be a real adventure story. But the feud and the logging scam are too arch and sinister for this type of story, coloring everything with tension and nastiness, and completely overwhelming the nice and picaresque elements of the story, such as the children’s horse race and Manly’s love of new gadgets. But even in these nicer elements, there are mixed messages and moral ambivalence (such as the Pastor’s misbehaving scamps) that I don’t expect to find in juvenile literature. Well-written in an easy and informal style, it’s nice enough and you could read more from this series, but it fails to entirely engage you and really make you want to be a part of their lives.


Miss Seeton Rocks the Cradle
Hamilton Crane
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 2
Berkley Publishing
1992



Miss Emily Seeton is a retired art teacher who, in a series of books by this author (plus nom de plumes Heron Carvic and Hampton Charles) helps Scotland Yard Inspector Delphick solve cases by sketching cryptic pictures (apparently subconsciously) that only make sense in retrospect. In this story, the heir to the MacSporran family, the baby Marguerite is kidnaped, but left outside Miss Seeton’s door in the first chapter. Her drawing of a blackbird somehow helps the police capture the would-be kidnapers. She is then invited to the MacSporran Castle by a grateful family. She travels there with Mel Forby, a newspaper reporter from previous books, who believes she has discovered some dangerous conspiracies being hatched in the local pub. Part history book, part travelogue, and amazingly unhindered by plot – the story meanders along slowly and aimlessly chapter after chapter. Although told in a gently amusing style, it is one of the wordiest and most pointless books I’ve ever read. Eventually, Miss Seeton stumbles onto a Jacobite plot to blow up Balmoral, and another sub-plot involving a discovery of platinum in the area, and it turns out the bartender was behind it all. A strange, almost stream-of-consciousness book, and an extremely disappointing ending – it’s a wonder this series ever caught on.


Mistress Mischief
Susan Carroll
Romance
Fiction
Rating 4
Fawcett Crest / Ballantine Books
1992



The young widow Lady Raincliff is left penniless at the sudden demise of her elderly husband, and thrown out of the family home by her nasty step-son, with nothing but her companion and the clothes on her back. They settle in London selling off jewelry and clothes, hoping to win a little money at card playing, and perhaps find a gentleman to support them. Some distant relatives, fearing the dowager’s fast reputation might scandalize their daughters’ debuts, send Max Warfield out to make sure she stays respectable. Although Max has no patience for dithering females, he feels sorry for the widow, which of course infuriates her. There follows an entertaining and spirited romp involving all manner of adventures while they try not to fall in love with each other, but of course, they do. Even her companion makes a good match. Gently amusing, interesting and very satisfying.

Mistress of Myself
Mrs. Robert Henrey
Biography
Non-Fiction
Rating 2
J.M. Dent & Sons
1959



Charmless and erratic tale of a woman in middle life. The writer is French and married to an English businessman. A succession of books have been published that are biographical sketches of her life from childhood forward. She and her friends are so vain, insipid and useless, they are impossible to care about. Their vapid lives revolve around shopping, food and parties – and are so utterly pointless with no redeeming features. Anachronistic in the most irritating way, it’s enough to make a Communist out of anybody. The ending is stupefying. A waste of time.

The Moon-Spinners
Mary Stewart
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Fawcett Crest / M.S. Mill Company Inc.
1962



Young Miss Ferris, an English woman attached to the British Embassy in Greece, plans to meet her cousin Frances in Agios Georgios on Crete. But along the way, she gets waylaid by a Greek and a wounded Englishman hiding out in a shepherd’s hut in the mountains. It turns out the Greek, Lambis, was acting as tour guide to Mark Langley and his younger brother Colin, who accidentally happened upon a group of Cretans who had killed a man, and when they spotted the Englishman, they shot Mark and abducted Colin, trying to keep things quiet. Lambis found Mark later and hid him in the hut, while looking out for the Cretans coming back to finish the job. Nicola gives them her food and cleans Mark’s wounds and stays with him while Lambis goes back to the boat at night for supplies. In the morning they spot the Cretan searching for Mark, but they elude him and everyone decides it would be best for Nicola to go back to town with her cousin and keep out of danger. When she goes to Agios Georgios, she finds that it is such tiny place that nothing can happen there without everyone knowing about it and her suspicions are naturally aroused by the new hotel (actually a converted house) which is the only place a foreigner would have to go. The owner, Stratos Alexiakis, came back from London with his fortune and brought with him Tony Gamble as his right-hand man. Meanwhile, his sister Sofia helps out at the hotel to get away from her brutish husband, Josef. When cousin Frances arrives, under the pretext of her being such a nature enthusiast, the girls set off sleuthing in earnest. They poke into everything and everywhere to be found, taking pictures and insinuating themselves into peoples’ homes, businesses, boats and even windmills. It’s in Sofia’s windmill that Nicola finds evidence that she believes proves that Colin had been a captive there and was later killed. When she decides to somehow track down Mark and give him the bad news, she instead bumps into Colin disguised as a shepherd up in the hills. Apparently Sofia let him go, rather than have his blood on her hands if Josef killed him. What happens next is a great twist, although his little hard to get through. Nicola and Colin set off trying somehow to reconnect with Mark and Lambis, and stumble across a shallow grave with Mark’s body along the way. Then they notice Lambis in the distance, in conversation with the Cretan, which makes them think very terrible things, and when the two separate, they sneak after Lambis. They get the drop on him, and at gunpoint, he admits to the killing although the claims it was accidental. Here Nicola becomes hysterical and hurls invective upon him mercilessly, which is why they were not paying attention when the Cretan suddenly appeared among them. Luckily it turned out to be Mark in the Cretan’s clothes and it was in fact Sofia’s horrible husband Josef the Cretan who had been accidentally killed and Mark swapped clothes with him to try and blend in as they continued looking for Colin. At this point, Nicola goes completely to pieces, partly relieved and partly embarrassed over her feelings for Mark. It’s a sweetly touching moment in an otherwise tense story. Their plan is for Nicola to return to the hotel while the men sail to Athens to alert the authorities, but they set up a pre-arranged signal in case Nicola and her cousin feel that they need to leave in a hurry. This may turn out to be the case, when Nicola realizes that she somehow has the dead Josef’s knife in her pocket and everyone of the hotel seems to know about it. The girls sneak out of the hotel in the dead of night and tiptoe along the beach to the meeting place, but they can’t signal because the flashlight is broken. When Nicola believes she sees their dark boat slipping stealthily into the day, she swims out to it, but it turns out to be Stratos instead, who tries to harpoon her. Luckily she is rescued by Mark and crew, and they discover that Stratos was out of in the dark checking on his stash of hot jewels which were the basis for the whole shebang - a falling out among partners, leaving England, laying low here, and killing the estranged partner who showed up unexpectedly to claim his share. The authorities take care of Stratos, but Tony apparently manages to slip away with the jewels and a boat for some reason. The ending is chaotic and disjointed, and without the emotional payoff that might be expected, it’s ultimately disappointing. With a better ending (letting Tony get away was just too ridiculous) it would have been a great book, because it’s very well written throughout and is emotionally involving because you genuinely care about the characters. It’s faintly Hitchcockian, as ordinary people are thrust into terrifying situations unexpectedly and rise to the occasion. It grabs you by the lapels on the first page and puls you right along with it, headlong all the way and over some pretty bumpy terrain. The only quibble I have with the writing is that because it’s so tense and breathless, the descriptive passages can’t hold their own and get lost in the shuffle. A more romantic ending might have seemed too prosaic, but I would have liked it better.

Murder in Moscow
Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 2
Signet / Penguin Putnam (MCS Publishing)
1998



Here is another in a series of books based on the hit TV show “Murder, She Wrote” and featuring mystery writer Jessica Fletcher also operates as an amateur sleuth. In this tale, Jessica leaves the cozy confines of Cabot Cove, Maine, for Washington, D.C., where she joins a delegation of writers and publishers going to Russia on a cultural exchange visit sponsored by the Commerce Department. (In a funny aside, Jessica mentions one of her favorite new authors, Sharyn McCrumb, whose “Missing Susan” is the same sort of glorified travelogue, with explicit descriptions of all of the tourist attractions throughout.) While the delegation is being wined and dined in the Capitol and meeting the President (a big fan) Jessica is approached by a shadowy figure from the State Department who asks her to submit to a de-briefing after returning from abroad, even though these are private citizens engaged in free market business dealings. When she stumbles over his dead body in the bushes later, it seems a strange coincidence. It’s almost a relief to fly out of Washington with its political intrigue and cloak-and-dagger mentality. But it doesn’t take long once they reach Moscow for Jessica’s new Russian publisher to keel over dead at dinner, and she also just ducks a gangland-style killing on a street corner. Meanwhile a cadre of American and Russian spy sorts is trying to convince Jessica to meet with a Ms. Kozhina, a mysterious Russian woman whose name was given to Jessica by a Russian ex-patriate before she left home. Although she meets with Kozhina at the behest of her own government, things do not go as planned. She brings along Vaughn Buckley (her American publisher) and his wife for security in numbers, but she is spirited away from them and led on a merry chase of speeding cars, dark alleys, rooftops, abandoned buildings and isolated countryside, with the sound of bullets dogging their footsteps. Finally the two ladies are hustled onto a plane with the Buckley’s and tearing off to London without even their luggage. After that, the story peters out in fits and starts, and the ending totally makes no sense whatsoever. Apparently Kozhina had been working as a double-agent along, but was being recruited through Jessica by another American agency that didn’t realize it. (?!) Someone tries to kill Kozhina, but Jessica acting quickly with Scotland Yard chief George Sutherland (from previous books) foil the attempt. The wind-up, where the government officials explain everything, explains nothing and in fact makes things even more confused. Everyone goes home and one year later, Kozhina writes a book about her life as a spy and then disappears. This seems like a book written by a team of people who never spoke to each other and no one told the last group what the ending was. Not at all well-written with typos and grammar lapses that distract the narrative. The story is too ridiculous, even in the beginning, and becomes increasingly far-fetched as it goes along, until the ludicrous and incomprehensible chase out of Moscow just loses it altogether. A good ending might have saved it, but the ending was the worst and most confusing part of all. Even for a workmanlike and formulaic series of books like this, this one was really a notch or two below par. Very disappointing.


Murder in the Oval Office
Elliott Roosevelt
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
St. Martin’s Press / Avon Books
1989



The author must be some relation to Franklin Roosevelt, although you’d never know it to read the book jacket or blurbs, and this is one in a series of these mysteries featuring feisty First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as an amateur sleuth. In 1933, at a state dinner for a French diplomat, Congressman Winstead Colmer (unpopular Chairman of the Banking Sub-committee) is killed in the Oval Office. Although the room was entirely locked and bolted from the inside, none of Colmer’s fingerprints were found there, leading Police to doubt it could be suicide. Although he had many enemies, most of them would not have access to the Oval Office, although everyone agrees that the security at that time left a lot to be desired. Also, the pretty young Mrs. Colmer (much maligned by his Alabama family) refused to account for her whereabouts at the time. Then Douglas McKinney (a low-level White House staffer who may not be what he appears) begins poking around on his own and asking questions, and the next thing you know, someone clobbers him also in the Oval Office, but fortunately not fatally. Doug is of the school of thought that the father of Jane Stebbins killed Colmer, for getting his daughter pregnant, and in fact, some incriminating evidence was conveniently left in the Oval Office implicating him. Meanwhile, Mrs. Colmer bolts, which looks very suspicious, and we find her hiding out in the unlikely company of Sally Rand, famous fan dancer, of all people. Otto Peavy of Enterprise Bank in Chicago (suspected of laundering money for mobsters) had strong motives for wanting Colmer eliminated, and FDR decides to send J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI chasing after him, although he considers him a pain in the neck, mostly useless and a grand-standing publicity hound. Peavy thinks things are starting to get a little too hot, so he sends his goons out to find Mrs. Colmer, which they do, and then tip off the Police, so the focus of the investigation will shift over to her instead. The Police put her in custody for her own protection, because interested parties keep breaking in and ransacking her house, obviously looking for something. We also discover that Peavy and Colmer’s estranged brother, Lee Bob Colmer, have been meeting covertly, and suddenly Lee Bob is missing as well. When Lee Bob turns up dead in Chicago, FDR sends Hoover back out to lean on Peavy harder and get some answers this time. Finally we have that celebrated cliche of whodunits the world over – gathering everyone together into a room to unmask the culprit. It turns out to be Doug McKiney of course, who seemed to crop up everywhere in this story, and although it might have been a red herring, it certainly did seem suspicious, even to me. He and Mrs. Colmer were having an affair, so he killed her husband in the Oval Office and then bolted the door from the outside using fishing line pulled through the door jamb. He also killed the abortionist he sent her to (which she didn’t use) who was blackmailing him. All of the other shenanigans were totally unrelated to what was essentially a romantic triangle gone bad. In the epilogue, McKinney is executed and Mrs. Colmer gives up the baby and later marries one of the Secret Service agents involved in the case. The other malefactors go to prison, while the ordinary folks go back to leading their quiet lives. This book was interesting from a historical standpoint, especially as it introduced young and unimportant unknowns who later became famous, like Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower, Dean Acheson and others. It’s well-written in an informal and straightforward style, and what political or partisan axes it has to grind, it grinds them calmly and without hysteria. But it certainly doesn’t show off Eleanor Roosevelt’s sleuthing ability, since like everyone else, she only seems to be on the periphery of the story, not its protagonist. Because the book has no narrative and is told in the third person throughout, it loses a lot of its impact. The characters are nice enough, but there’s way too many of them and they’re all very sketchy, including the First Couple. It was interesting throughout, although the ending was something of a mish-mosh, but it would certainly not make you want to run out and read another one.


Murder Well-Done
Claudia Bishop
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Berkley Publishing
1996



This author has written a series of mysteries set in the tiny village of Hemlock Falls in upstate New York. The Inn at Hemlock Falls is run by sisters Meg and Sarah Quilliam, plus John Raintree. The Inn is famous for Meg’s cuisine (each book sports a recipe and has a food-related title) and the sisters also do some amateur sleuthing. Just before Christmas, ex-Senator Alphonse Santini is having his wedding at the Inn. This brings all sorts of crowds, media and chaos to the area. When local news anchor Nora Cahill is killed (conveniently on traffic video-taping equipment) Sarah is arrested for the crime. While she is in jail, someone kills the sheriff and puts the body in her cell, in an attempt to frame her. Fortunately, that doesn’t work and Sarah starts poking around for the real killer. Next murdered is the ex-Senator himself, and then everyone realizes it must be his future father-in-law, Vittorio McIntosh, who was being blackmailed (by all three victims?!) over his mob connections. This book, and perhaps the whole series, is hopelessly over-populated with the most irritating, uninteresting and obnoxious characters that are impossible to care about. It is so over-stuffed with pointless activity that it is exhausting to read. The dialogue is arch and obtuse. Much too strident to be the quaintly eccentric mystery it thinks it is.


Murder With Mirrors
Agatha Christie
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
Pocket Books / Simon & Schuster (Dodd, Mead)
1952


Amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple goes for a visit to Stony Gates, a country club-like facility for emotionally disturbed youngsters, at the request of a friend who is concerned about the goings-on there. Mrs. Serrocold funds the facility, along with her third husband, who is a zealot for causes like this. When her step-son is killed on a visit, suspicion is immediately thrown on the unbalanced young men at Stony Gates. The house is full of relatives upon relatives, all with some motive or other; there are sub-plots and red herrings galore, including a rumor that someone has been trying to poison Mrs. Serrocold. It turns out of course the no-good Mr. Serrocold killed him and two others (with the help of his illegitimate son, posing as a Stony Gates inmate) to cover up financial hanky-panky in the foundation that supported the facility.


Music in the Hills
D.E. Stevenson
Drama
Rating 4
ACE Books / Div. Charter Communications Inc.
Grosset & Dunlap / In agreement with Holt, Rinehart and Winston
1950



The story is set in the hills of the southern border of Scotland at Mureth Farm, which has been home to Jock Johnstone and his family for generations. His wife, Mamie, meets the new shepherd, Daniel Reid, who it turns out is the son of one of their former farmhands, returned to his homeland after years of traveling abroad. This is the second book in a trilogy, so anyone who read “Vittoria Cottage” would already know Mamie’s sisters Harriet, Caroline and Jean. When Caroline’s odious husband dies, she remarries Robert Shepperton, who was ostensibly Harriet’s beau, causing Harriet to flee to America and pursue her acting career. Caroline’s son James comes back to Scotland after years of adventure abroad, and stays with the Johnstones to learn farming techniques, although he admits to Mamie that farming would never appeal to his dream girl, Rhoda, an artist he met in London who rebuffed his advances. James meets Daniel Reid, and they get along famously, as well as many other tenants of the farm, who remember him from when his family would visit when he was a little boy. (Sensitive readers might want to avoid the rabbit hunting episode.) He also meets Lady Steele, the matriarch of the area's ancestral family (they still maintain the ancient tower that was once a fortress used in border disputes between England and Scotland) and her pretty niece, Holly Douglas. Later, he meets the autocratic Sir Anthony Steele and finds him insufferable, although he is charmed by their young daughter Eleanor, who he feels is being stifled by their insularity. The Johnstones had taken in Lizzie Smith and her two children Duggie and Greta who were relocated to the country during the London blitz, and Lizzie stayed on as cook, although Mamie finds Lizzie humorless and superstitious, and the children aloof and wary, even years later. Mamie makes Greta a Topsy doll in the hopes of getting to know her better. Meanwhile, James gets off on the wrong foot with Mr. McKenzie at Boscath Farm, whose lackadaisical approach to farming makes even the mild-mannered Jock see red. Just when James is feeling that he’ll never be able to stand on his own two feet at farming, his Uncle Jock surprises him by offering the position of managing Boscath, after giving McKenzie the heave-ho, so he can learn all he needs to while still being close enough for help if necessary. James is amazed and jumps at it gratefully, but that isn’t all. Jock says that they want to leave Mureth to him as their heir, and ask if he would also assume the Johnstone name, for tradition’s sake, which he quickly agrees to, although his head is spinning at this sudden change in his fortunes. Next up is the Mureth barn dance, to which James asks Mamie to invite Holly Douglas and Eleanor Steele, although her parents refuse to let Eleanor attend. Everyone else has a fine time, including some townspeople that had been invited for James’ sake, so he could meet more people than just the local farming families. Now that James’ future is assured, he intends to propose to Holly, but finds that he can’t stop thinking of Rhoda instead. Later, Daniel Reid is surprised to stumble across Eleanor in the woods, where she had gotten lost trying to walk to the party at night, after sneaking out of her house. When James finds out, he realizes that she’s terribly infatuated with him, and knows that he and Daniel had better sneak her back without anyone finding out, or the whole community will be in a stink about it. Daniel agrees to run her back home on his motor-bike, so she can let herself back inside without arousing comment. But James prevails upon Mamie to speak to Lady Steele about sending Eleanor to school, rather than keeping her home with a governess, and Mamie does her best, in spite of Lady Steele’s icy reception of this idea. Then James and Daniel go looking to retrieve some lost sheep who had wandered through a gap in a stone wall, but they run afoul of Mr. Heddle, the business tycoon who bought the neighboring property, who rightfully assumes that they’re stealing his sheep instead. James does his best to defuse the antagonism, but both sides feel aggrieved, so all of James’ logic and reasonableness is wasted on them. After the incident with Mr. Heddle, Jock admits that he has his doubts about Daniel Reid, and he sets James to draining a meadow to keep him busy, while giving the men less time to be together. There is a colorful sideline about the entire farming community hiring a bus for an excursion to view the King and Queen pass by in the Royal Train, although the real show is put on by the locals, exhibiting all of their ordinary foibles. One night James and Daniel go after sheep stealers in earnest, and James is astounded to uncover Daniel in cahoots with the scoundrels. Actually, it turns out to be Daniel’s ne’er-do-well brother Jed, who escapes, but it has the benefit of making Jock realize that he had been blaming Daniel for things he had seen Jed doing instead. Then James is invited to a party at the new neighbors, and figures he should go to make amends for the lost sheep incident, but he and the other country folk find the Heddles and their fancy London friends to be strange and unappealing company. In speaking with Holly later, he finds that she had a wonderful time at the party, and he can’t help but wonder if she would be right for him as a farmer’s wife, which makes him feel guilty about stringing her along. Then he and Jock go to Edinburgh, to see the lawyer about changing his will. Meanwhile, Mamie had written a letter to the object of James’ affection, the London artist Rhoda Ware, as part of her attempts to keep James from being involved with Holly Douglas (who she considers unsuitable) and when the young lady unexpectedly shows up at Mureth, she invites her to stay with them, rather than be an object of curiosity in town. News of the stranger spreads like wildfire, and sets the community on its ear, wondering about her, especially as Rhoda wanders about sketching the landscape and town. On Sunday, the ladies go together to church, where Rhoda is properly introduced to the neighbors. She also meets Holly Douglas, who makes such a show of her involvement with James that it scares Rhoda into leaving Mureth before James returns, in case his feelings for her have changed since they parted. Mamie persuades her to stay a bit longer and finish her painting that she had started, and while she is doing that, the men return unexpectedly, and James happens upon Rhoda in veritable paroxysms of joy. Actually, the book ends as he espies her in a meadow, and we are left to imagine their transports of ecstasy at being reunited. This is a lovely and charming book, full of genuine and likable characters, and told with warmth and humor. It’s delightful company and comfortable as an old easy chair, with its gentle depictions of country life and simple pleasures. This story has the advantage of standing on its own, regardless of not reading the other two books in the trilogy, which can be a difficult trick to pull off. Not technically a romance, it is nonetheless interesting and engaging, and not a bit melodramatic or overly sentimental. Somehow, this author always manages to strike just the right emotional note, and all of her books are enjoyable and satisfying. In modern cynical times, this is truly a lost art, so discovering one of these hidden treasures is a real treat.


Mutual Consent
Gayle Buck
Romance
Rating 3
Penguin Books
1991



Barbara Cribbage marries Marcus, Earl of Chatworth, because her father holds his gambling debts and he wants to be accepted in society. Babs and Marcus agree to have a “marriage of convenience,” and scheme to get out from under her father’s control once and for all. Their relationship has its ups and downs, but of course they fall in love. Unstartling but pleasant enough and typical of this genre.


My Anecdotal Life
Carl Reiner
Biography
Non-Fiction
Rating 3
St. Martin’s Press
2003



The author is a comedy writer who worked on early TV programs such as “Your Show of Shows” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” His other credits include “The 2000 Year Old Man” with Mel Brooks. He went on to produce and direct other shows, as well as movies like “The Jerk” and “Oh God!” He later became famous as the father of Rob Reiner, a well-known actor and director in his own right, as well as being married to Penny Marshall, herself a well-known actress and director. Previously he had written two semi-autobiographical novels, “Enter Laughing” and “Continue Laughing,” so this book, rather than being technically a memoir, is more a series of anecdotes or favorite stories from his past. He started in the Catskills, doing skits and musical revues with other hopefuls, and in fact, met his wife Estelle there. After the war, he was hired for the road company of a Broadway musical, and was widely praised. It’s at this point that Rob is born, in a trunk as it were, as his parents travel around with the show, and finishing up in San Francisco. We also hear the behind-the-scenes story of the 2000 year old man from its impromptu beginnings in the writers room at “Your Show of Shows.” Although the author is known for his humor, many of the stories are suffused with an almost typically Jewish sense of melancholy, where you don’t so much laugh at them, as appreciate them intellectually. He tells three tales about inadvertently insulting people – one older man with a stroke, a pretty young girl with polio, and a young ad executive with a horrible birthmark. The last one turned out to be an accidental ink stain instead, but after his first two gaffes, he wasn’t about to say anything with the third one. An interesting anecdote about “Enter Laughing” also includes the famous writer, Herman Wouk. His stories about being on “This Is Your Life,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and the Hall of Fame Award from his high school were funny, but with that same wistful quality that permeates the rest of the book. We also hear about his play “Something Different,” which has the usual tribulations common to all plays, and runs three months on Broadway. He has kind words but dreadful stories about two of his movies, “The Comic” and “Where’s Poppa?” which were critical successes but financial failures. He also tells a nice story about his immigrant watchmaker father, a well-known tinkerer with several patents to his name, and who invented a simple pendulum clock that could run decades on the same home-made battery. There are other somewhat amusing tales about his one excursion with the Gourmet Eating Club, a dinner party with the famous French director Jean Renoir, and taking a pratfall when hosting a banquet that required emergency surgery with an 8-inch scar. There’s another story about a cookie recipe, which should have been funny, but instead falls flat in more ways than one. The book closes with a moving tribute to his older brother Charlie, and coincidentally, President Clinton, and stops right there. I found this a really disappointing book, which although interesting and well-written, is uniformly unfunny. I would expect the anecdotes of a famous comedy writer to be funny, but these are most definitely not. They range from the wincingly embarrassing to the desperately tragic, with nothing really funny anywhere. Apparently he’s lived a full life, traveled the world and hobnobbed with the rich and famous, but as he describes it, as if through a glass darkly, it all seems very sad and unfulfilling. For all of the show-biz types that he can tell stories about, from the very early days right up tho the present, I would expect this to be a much more entertaining book.


My Friends From Cairnton
Jane Duncan
Drama
Fiction
Rating 2
St. Martin’s Press
1964



This is one in a series of “My Friends” books from this author. The covers give the impression that they are jolly, happy-go-lucky tales of English country life – something like a grown-up version of the “Miss Read” stories. Not this one, however, which is strange, dreary and depressing. It involves Janet Sandison and Twice Alexander (everyone thinks of them as husband and wife, even though they are not married) working for an English agricultural company in the islands. Before the book starts, Twice (his name is Alexander Alexander, which is why they call him “Twice”) has a heart attack and spends a year as a semi-invalid. This puts a tremendous strain on their relationship, and makes Janet especially introspective, remembering her childhood in Scotland, and the people she knew then, and still knows now. But instead of being happy and idyllic, her childhood seems sad and pathetic, and gives the impression that her life has lurched from one crisis or disaster to the next – right up to Twice’s heart attack. Not interesting dramatically, and too arch to be funny, it walks a wobbly line between boredom and disgust. The characters are inarticulate (and yet verbose!) and so uninteresting, and even the descriptive passages lack interest. Reminiscent in all the worst ways of “Mistress of Myself,” another over-blown exercise in navel-gazing. Written in a plodding, unimaginative style that steadfastly refuses to engage your feelings or curiosity. Very disappointing.


My Friends George and Tom
Jane Duncan
Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
St. Martin’s Press
1976



This is another in a series of semi-autobiographical novels by this author, featuring Janet Sandison and her family in Achcraggan in the northern wilds of Scotland above Inverness. When she had married Alexander Alexander (everyone called him “Twice”) they had moved to St. Jago in the West Indies for his health. But after 20+ years abroad, she finds herself a young widow and returning to her roots. The ancestral home, Reachfar, has passed out of their family, so she moves into a nearby cottage with her Uncle George and childhood friend Tom. She uses her publisher’s advance to modernize the cottage and make it more comfortable for the three of them. When her younger brother Jock and his wife Shona visit with their rambunctious children (see “My Friends, the Hungry Generation”) they realize the youngest has Down Syndrome. After they go back home, Janet is called into London by Mr. Arden of the publishing company for the release of her first novel in a blaze of publicity. She detests all of the attention and quickly scuttles back home, only to find that she has turned into not only a curiosity by the neighbors, but something of a local celebrity, called on for such events as opening the church’s jumble sale and bazaar. She also receives many well-wishing telegrams from all over the world, including her friends Sashie de Marnay and Sir Ian Dulac from St. Jago. Sir Ian’s plantation had been absorbed by a large corporation, and although very wealthy, he finds himself at loose ends and unwanted, and when Janet invites him to visit, he jumps at it like a drowning man on a life preserver, hanging around and shooting the breeze with George and Tom. Meanwhile, the pediatrician tells Shona what everybody else already knows about Sandy-Tom, the baby, and she goes completely to pieces. Then Janet’s second novel is as successful as her first, and she decides that it might be easier to write in a larger place that was more accommodating to their needs. She buys an old barn nearby (from Andrew Boyd, an Achcraggan ne’er-do-well who made good in the city, and who has been quietly buying up abandoned local properties to be restored for the general improvement of the village) and has it renovated to suit them. One unfortunate result of her recent fame is the fear that her evil step-mother will re-surface (whose name is a byword in the area) and it comes as almost a relief when they hear that she has died. Next, Jock is felled with some sort of cattle pox, and spends six weeks in the hospital, while the older children stay at the cottage. In an interesting development, Jock’s illness seems to prod Shona back to reality, and by the time he’s released, she’s practically her old self again, which is a great weight off of everyone. During this period, visitors to the cottage include Miss Arden, her publisher’s sister (who seems to cozy up to Sir Ian), Monica Daviot and Andrew Boyd (her scheming to entrap Andrew brings out unexpected jealousy in Janet), and the extravagantly wonderful Sashie de Marnay. After all this excitement, it seems that things will never get back to normal, but then people do leave (and Andrew tells Monica to go peddle her papers) and things start settling down. After all the recent hubbub, it’s almost an anti-climax when the contractors finally finish work on the barn in April and they move in. This leaves the cottage available for Jock’s family and school chums to stay over the Easter holiday. When Tom is laid up with bursitis, calling for enforced rest, Janet quickly re-hires the contractors to excavate a garden, mostly to keep Tom’s spirits up and give him something to be interested in. Janet goes to London again for another book publishing, and makes a side trip to Birmingham to visit Andrew Boyd’s country home. Later, Sashie points out the obvious – that Andrew is gay and his aide-de-camp David is really his partner, and this makes Janet feel even more protective of him. Andrew also finds the perfect house for Sashie nearby, whenever he’s in the area. Other visitors include Mark Alexander, Twice’s son from his first marriage, and the ubiquitous Monica Daviot, now with her hooks in Edward, Sir Ian’s hare-brained son. This author is famous for killing off characters, so in a book about George and Tom, it’s no big surprise that Tom doesn’t make it all the way to the end. When the time comes to tell the engravers what to put on the stone, this is the first that George tells everyone that Tom was actually his half-brother of his father’s(Jock and Janet’s grandfather) fling with a local lass. George’s mother did right by the young Tom, taking him in when his own mother died, and trusting the secret only to George. So the book ends in a bittersweet way, although it doesn’t seem terribly sad. I usually find these books arch, superficial and tiresome, but this one was surprisingly gentle, engaging and almost endearing in its careful depictions of country life. It showed the author in a much more mellow light than ever before, or would have believed possible, and the resulting book is full of charming stories and winsome anecdotes that are one pleasure after another. A pleasant surprise and welcome as a breath of spring.


My Friends, The Hungry Generation
Jane Duncan
Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
St. Martin’s Press / MacMillan & Company
1968



Another in a series of stories by this author, featuring Janet & Twice Alexander, who have re-located from Scotland to the islands. (In “My Friends From Cairnton,” we discover that they are living together as husband and wife although they were not married.) Starting in 1956, an earthquake has shaken the island and killed a neighboring couple, the Macleans. Although Twice’s heart condition prevents traveling, Janet returns to Scotland with the new orphan, Roddy Maclean, and visits with her family. When her sister-in-law, Shona, goes into the hospital to have a baby, Janet is left at home to watch the other children – 3 boisterous youngsters that Janet finds a handful and then some. She discovers they have taken her and their father’s childhood at Reachfar, the old family estate, and turned it into a kind of mythical fantasy peopled with wonderful and magical characters. So when confronted with one of these supposed ethereal beings in the actual flesh, the children feel threatened and become distant and almost hostile. But Janet wins them over by telling them stories that support their fantasies, like fairy tales that happened long ago and far away, and most importantly, to different magical people and not the regular ordinary people who are here now. Meanwhile, the worldly Roddy falls for Shona’s sensible sister Sheila, but her family regards him as a sort of alien curiosity, because to their provincial tastes, he seems impossibly grandiose, impetuous and radical. Just before Janet has to return to St. Jago, the children have a ceremony accepting her into their mythical kingdom, and it all ends very happily. This book is better than the previous one, but still the characters are uniformly unlikable (especially the narrator) melodramatic and self-absorbed. It’s well-written in an engaging and informal style, and makes you feel as if you really know these people, although they’re still impossible to care about. The immediacy of the writing, which steeps you in the environment in a seemingly effortless way, makes you wish this author would write a book about more appealing characters for a change.


The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Agatha Christie
Mystery
Fiction
Rating 3
John Lane Company
1921

Philanthropist Mrs. Inglethorpe is murdered at her estate, but fortunately, Hercule Poirot is visiting as a guest. Suspicion immediately falls on her husband, who nobody likes, and is considered a fortune-hunter by all. Scotland Yard investigates everyone staying at the estate, plus the neighbors. The story rambles along in a disjointed, incoherent way, until Hercule Poirot proves that it was her husband after all. This was the first case of Hercule Poirot, but not what I would consider to be Agatha Christie’s best.


The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Charles Dickens
Drama
Fiction
Rating 3
Penguin English Library (1974)
1870



This book is based on a serialized novel, unfinished due to the author’s death. It appears that young Edwin Drood is killed by his uncle, John Jasper. However, the body is never recovered, and there are many tantalizing loose ends in this half-story. Much of the book is devoted to explanation of the author’s notes, including correspondence that touches on this work, and a whole body of controversy has sprung up around what may have happened in the unwritten remainder. The writing is typical for Dickens, although a little more obtuse and unwieldy perhaps. Includes one hilarious sequence with Billickin, the landlady.