A Hearth in Candlewood (Candlewood Trilogy #1)

A Hearth in Candlewood by Delia Parr


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This delightful book is reminiscent of the Miss Read series and the Mitford books. It is a simple inspiring tale of Widow Emma who runs a Victorian boarding house in the canal town of Candlewood. The story is set in the 1840's and has an interesting collection of visitors and permanent residents who people Emma's life. There is Emma's mother-in-law, who has been with Emma for thirty years, 2 16 year old girls who help about the house, a retired minister and the elderly Aunt Frances. As Emma struggles to make Candlewood a ministry to provide a caring place for guests, she also struggles to bring her own actions in accord with the God she loves.

Some may call this book or the Mitford and Miss Read books to sweet or unearthly, but they detail the daily lives of people who struggle to do the right thing and to hold themselves accountable to God. The struggle Emma has to guard her heart and to treat all the people she encounters with God's love inspires me to do the same. I can't help think how different this book is to the recommendations of modern thinking. We are encouraged to "look out for number one." "if you don't like it, lump it" or "that's just the way I am, baby." It is refreshing to read about people who struggle to do God's will in everything.

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Abigail's Story: A Novel (Women of the Bible)

Abigail's Story: A Novel by Ann Burton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ann Burton has taken the few sentences about Abigail in the Bible and turned it into an inspiring story that might have been. We aren't given a lot of details in the Bible, but what facts there are have been skillfully woven into a story which depicts the lives of the people of the era in a way we can all identify.

Abigail is an only daughter who has to offer herself in marriage to an odious and greedy man in order to pay off her wastrel brother's debts to keep him and her elderly parents from being sold off into slavery. She is send off to the hill country the day after her marriage to manage the wild herdsmen in preparation for the annual accounting. When she arrives she finds an almost unlivable cottage with virtually no roof and starving herdsmen whose lives have been made miserable by her greedy husband. As she comes to know these people, her heart goes out to them and she travels back to her husband to obtain food to keep them from starving. At the same time, she meets and befriends the outlaw shepherd, David, who is to become King of Israel.

What I liked most was the way Biblical events came alive in this story. The author doesn't pretend that this is what happened, but it could have happened.

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A Case of Nosy Neighbors: A Morning Shade Mystery

A Case of Nosy Neighbors: A Morning Shade Mystery by Lori Copeland


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a delightful read. Stella, the 87 year old heroine, is as unconventional as she can be, but her claim to fame is solving mysteries. She and the local sheriff have to find the peeping toms that are threatening the citizens of Morning Shade. No one can find a trace of the scoundrels and the only description is that they are incredibly ugly.

Stella's daughter suffers a mishap which leaves her with a broken ankle and while she is on the table, the doctor also operates on her wrist badly crippled from carpal tunnel syndrome. Since she is home bound, Stella has to drive herself and companions to their community service jobs and manages to do it in such a way that they spend the whole time in fervent prayer.

Add to that the problems of Stella's unwise granddaughter who seems on the verge of another unfortunate romance with the local kennel owner and you have more than enough laughs and tears to take you away from your everyday concerns. The book is easy to read and very entertaining.

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Dreaming of the Bones (Kincaid/James #5)

Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the first of this series that I have read and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I thought the characters well developed and the plot complex, but easy to follow. I also liked the setting and the way the plot moved between the past and present.

The only thing that is a problem is the relationship between Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. As colleagues, their relationship would have presented a problem and also the way they operated on vacation and in another jurisdiction. However, this is fiction and it doesn't really matter.

Duncan Kincaid has been called by his ex-wife to help with the suspicious death of the poet she was researching. It was declared a suicide, but Vic is not convinced. Kincaid looks into it for her and agrees it is suspicious, but it is not his jurisdiction and he has done all he can by presenting it to the Chief Investigator who has declined to pursue it further on such unsubstantial evidence. Further events convince Kincaid that there probably was foul play and he takes a vacation to pursue it.

Untangling the motives and relationships among the victim's friends and colleagues is a complex process and the more Duncan and Gemma learn, the less clear it becomes. I think the ending is very good and is well integrated into the story. In other words, it is not just pasted on the end as too many mysteries are now. All of the actions of the characters proceed logically from the murder and are well explained. I'll be reading more of her work.

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David_Copperfield

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I am re-reading this as part of my refresher course in Dickens. This has always been on of my favorites, but this time I am paying especial attention to Dickens use of language to create a mood or define a character.

I thoroughly enjoyed this once again. Each time I read it, I catch more things that I missed. There are so many characters in this book that are so clear and well drawn, that it hardly seems possible they really didn't exist. Mr. Micawber is one of my favorites as well as Betsy Trotwood and the world would be a bit better if there were more Agnes' in it.

On the negative side, we have a cast of characters we love to hate beginning and ending with Uriah Heep. He is so despicable that we wonder that he ever fools anyone, but he does. His name is like an adjective for me, describing my feelings about people I have met. One need only compare the person to Heep and any person who has read this book will know exactly what the villein's personality is like.

To me Steerforth is the most interesting character in the book. One of my pet peeves is when writers, especially mystery writers, have a character turn out to be a villain in the last chapter of the book when there was no hint of it in the character's previous behavior. A clear example is the villain in Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. In Steerforth, we find hints being given all through the book as to his true character. In this, he reminds me of many politicians who fall from grace. I distinctly remember when scandals about the then Governor Bill Clinton were being reported during the election. Countless editorials put forth the notion that what he did in private had nothing to do with the way he would conduct himself as president. Four years later our government seemed to come to a screeching halt while those troubles pervaded everything he did. Just about any person who watches the news or reads a paper can give a list of politicians and businessmen who fall from grace. As we read their backgrounds, we find that the disgrace did not come out of nowhere and that there were hints all along. Dickens gives us a Steerforth who is callous, does not admit the rights of others to guide his actions. His early actions show that he lacks a conscience, and the troubled relationship with his mother shows exactly how it has been nurtured.

This is an excellent books and well deserves a reading every decade at least.

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A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight

A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight by Victoria Lincoln


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was an interesting insight on this classic unsolved mystery. The author was from Fall River and contributed some fascinating information on the character of the town and its inhabitants. She also included newly released information from the inquest and I found myself even more convinced as to the perpetrator. I was a little put off by some of the first person opinion and commentary, but it didn't detract from the book.


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Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is an audiobook which I got online from my library. What a wonderful way to read a book and get something else accomplished at the same time.

The audiobook contains twelve stories that are not as well known as The Study in Scarlet or The Hound of the Baskervilles.

I have read them all before, but find them just as fascinating as the first time I read them. Nowadays, we are used to forensics providing the clues and the evidence, but Sherlock Holmes and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, operated well before such a discipline was known.

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Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Hard Times by Charles Dickens


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have been going back and reading all the Charles Dickens' books which I have either missed, or not read recently. I don't know how I missed this one, as some consider it one of his best.

The book begins with a speech by Thomas Gradgrind about, "facts, just plain facts," to "girl #20", a pupil in his school. She is a child of traveling horse riders, who move from place to place. He is upset that she can't define the word,"horse" by only using facts. (One can just hear Jack Webb in the background as he interviews a witness.) Grandgrind believes that children, in fact, everyone should learn to deal only with facts and ignore everything else. He not only teaches this, but deals with his own wife and children the same way.

Gradgrind lives in an industrial town in the north of England named Coketown. One of the people he associates with is Mr. Josiah Bounderby, a rich industrialist who sees the employees of his mill in exactly the same way. As the books proceeds, the results of Gradgrind's philosophy become apparent. He has married his daughter to Bounderby, a rich, pompous braggart 30 years her senior without any consideration of her feelings. She agrees without protest because she has barely any feelings left after a lifetime in his household and she thinks she can be of some help to her beloved brother, Tom. The marriage is a disaster, as is Tom's life.

As with all of Dickens books, there are a number of interesting subplots which revolve around the main action and eventually take their place in the solution. Eventually, everything unravels and in the end, Gradgrind is forced to see the damage he has wrought.

Dickens is a master at creating characters who seem to leap off the pages and become real. It is one of the things that I most love about his work. To me it seems as if Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Oliver Twist, the Artful Dodger and Fagan must have existed. It is hard to believe that they are only the product of paper and ink in a master's hand. This book also creates some characters that will stay with me forever. I look forward to continuing with my project.





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Shakespeare's Landlord (Lily Bard Mystery, #1)

Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Lily Bard is trying to live quietly in Shakespeare to get over her traumatic past. Her life is limited to the people whose houses she cleans and gym where she trains in body building. Physically tiring herself is the only way she can sleep and often not then. One sleepless night, she sees someone disposing of a body which seems to come from the apartments she is also the manager of. She follows the mysterious stranger and finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation in which she seems to be a suspect.

Lily is an interesting character. Like Harper Connelley, there is a dark and tragic feeling surrounding her. Her life has not been easy and she is struggling to reconcile the unhealthy memories of the past with the present. She is a little more complex than the ordinary cozy mystery sleuth which makes these books interesting on a second level.


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Murder Past Due (Reading Group Mysteries)

Murder Past Due by Doris R. Meredith


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Dr. Megan Clark and the Murder by the Yard Reading Circle decide to do a book tour of all the old murder sites in Amarillo, TX. Her best friend, Ryan, hopes that this will keep her out of trouble. Ryan is her widowed next door neighbor and father of her childhood best friend. He comes to the meetings of the book club with her in hopes of keeping her out of trouble.

Megan is a petite young woman who has a Phd in anthropology and an interest in murder. Her training helps her to see relationships that the police often miss, but lead her into danger. While conducting this tour, Megan is approached by the grandfather of a murder victim and asks her to find out the murderer of his grandson even though it is almost assuredly a member of his own family. As Megan circles closer and closer to the murderer, Ryan becomes increasingly alarmed by her danger.

I found this to be a better than average cozy murder and the characters are quite likable. The relationship between Ryan and Megan is a stretch, but adds interest to the plot.

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An Ice Cold Grave (Harper Connelly Mystery, #3

An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the second of this series that I have read. Harper Connelly was struck by lightning when she was young and since then can find dead people and knows how they died. She is reluctantly called in by a local sheriff who has been given the money to pay Harper to find her grandson and other young boys who have gone missing. It becomes apparent that there is a serial killer in the area.

I thought this was pretty good although very depressing, as all child murders or serial killer books are. The discovery of the killer is a little far fetched although one part of it, the actions of a young boy, is intriguing.

Still, this is very compelling and easy to stick with. Most of the characters are fairly well drawn and distinctive and Harris has some interesting repeat characters.

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Three Bedrooms, One Corpse (Aurora Teagarden Mystery, #3

Three Bedrooms, One Corpse by Charlaine Harris


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the third book in the series and Aurora's mother would like her to consider working in her real estate office. The first house she takes someone into has a dead body of a Realtor in the master bedroom. Soon it becomes apparent that someone is killing Realtor. There is another problem too. Someone is stealing from the houses that are being shown and Aurora thinks the two things are connected.

On the personal front, Aurora has met a new man and there seems to be great chemistry between. He has been brought in by his company to straighten out the local plant, but there are rumors that he is ruthless and may have a shady past. Aurora has her hands full this time!

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A Fool and His Honey (Aurora Teagarden Mystery, #6)

A Fool and His Honey by Charlaine Harris


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the sixth in this series and Aurora gets a chance to find out what taking care of a baby was like. Martin's niece unexpectedly appears with a baby no one knows she has and before she can get settled, her husband comes and it promptly murdered and the niece disappears.

Martin and Roe are even more surprised by another young man who appears behind the couch in their front room. He is a friend of Regina's and her husband. Aurora and Martin have to take him back to Regina's home town and hope to find her and to give her back her baby.

The plot is stretched a bit, but the book is good and the pace fast. Aurora and Martin work together to care for the baby, but he is almost more than they can handle.

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The Ballad of Frankie Silver

The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Frankie Silver was a real mountain woman convicted and hanged for the murder of her teen-aged husband in 1823. The fact that she killed him and dismembered him and burned him in the fireplace makes the community rise up against the brutality and she is quickly convicted of the crime and sentenced to be the first woman to ever be hanged in the state.

As time goes on and more facts surface, the townspeople begin to conclude there was much more to the murder and sympathy develops for the quiet, docile 18 year old. Frankie's husband was a drunk who abused Frankie and possibly their baby daughter.

The plot switches between the 1823 and the local sheriff in the present. The sheriff, recovering from being shot, receives a summons to attend the execution of a man he arrested 20 years ago. He has always been fascinated with the story of Frankie Silver and the probability that she was hanged unjustly and he feels that the present murderer may be in the same situation.

There are some weaknesses in the plot, especially with a present day investigation the Sheriff's deputies try to keep from him and the present day execution, but the story is very compelling despite the problems. I enjoyed the book and will read more in this series.

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Real Murders: Aurora Teagarden Mystery, #1

Real Murders by Charlaine Harris


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I started this series with book #2, so I had to go back and catch up. I like the device of a group of people who are interested in old murders. The club Aurora belongs to studies famous murders, especially unsolved murders and discusses them, only this meeting was very different from previous ones. This night someone was murdered and arranged to mimic a famous murder and a member was the victim. As the plot progresses, two things become apparent; someone was killing members of the group and the murder had to be someone IN the group.

Aurora Teagarden is the main character and she is very appealing. The surrounding cast are not as well developed, but are interesting and become more developed as the series goes on. I liked the mix of characters and look forward to reading more of Harris' books.

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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a beautiful book. It takes place in Seattle and is the story of Japanese Americans during WWII and Chinese Americans. It explores the foreign culture and the relationships between generations. Most of all it is a touching love story. I know there are some editorial mistakes, but I don't think they detract from the book.

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A Bone to Pick

A Bone to Pick by Charlaine Harris



This is the first book in this series that I have read and I enjoyed it so much more than the one Sookie Stackhouse book I read. I guess it was the subject matter rather than the author. I'm glad I gave this one a try. Something of a cozy mystery, the characters are amusing and the heroine is delightful. Aurora has been left a house and sizable inheritance by an elderly friend who was in murder mystery group with her. The house includes a hidden skull and a mystery to solve. The book is character driven rather than plot driven, but the characters are amusing and easy to follow. I'll be reading more of these.

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My Heart May Be Broken, but My Hair Still Looks Great (Domestic Equalizers Book 2)

My Heart May Be Broken, but My Hair Still Looks Great by Dixie Cash


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the second book in the series and Debbie Sue Overstreet and her friend, Edwina, are still running their beauty shop and the detective agency "Domestic Equalizers." The agency's business is all about tracking down erring spouses and getting the goods on them, so the pair find it a challenge to try to discover why neighboring horses are going missing. A spoiled little rich girl turns into a friend and horse lover and catches the eye of the new bachelor vet, Spur Atwater, and the four of them put their heads together to get to the bottom of disappearances.

The mystery is only the top surface of this madcap adventure. There's tons of local color and Southern traditions. For Southerners who have moved away from their roots, this is a refreshing reminder of simpler times.


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Heidi

Heidi by Johanna Spyri


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I read this to audition the next book for my granddaughter's homeschool. This is not the translation I read, but it is just as delightful as it was so many years ago. Five year old Heidi has been brought up the mountain by her aunt to be cared for by her curmudgeon grandfather. He sees his duty and takes the child in. She is so delightful, and so appreciative of her splendid new Alpine home that he comes to love her, as do the rest of the people in her new world. She goes to the Alpine pastures with Peter the goatherd and visits his blind grandmother. All is idyllic when Dete comes back for Heidi and takes her to Hamburg to live with a wealthy gentleman to be a companion for his invalid daughter. Clara is delighted with Heidi and all her madcap adventures, but Heidi is so homesick, she becomes physically ill. She is returned to the Alps and the story comes to a very satisfying conclusion.

Today this unsophisticated story with all it's emphasis on morality and duty seems old fashioned, but I realized how much has been left out of modern day's children who get their role models on TV from characters like the Simpsons. Children need this kind of simple devotion to God, duty and the benefits of leading a faithful and good life. Sure there are people like the Simpsons, but why hold them up as an example? There is so much to be learned by these old tales of virtue rewarded and happy endings.

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Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates

Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I read this to audition a book for my grandson's homeschool literature lesson. As I child, I loved this book, although I probably got lost in the chapters where boys from the town skate to Haarlem and go to the museums and churches. I found this to be a plus for homeschool lessons since I was able to find many of these places and works of art on the internet which I can also use for lessons.

Hans and his sister, Gretel, are very poor. Their father, a sluice gate tender, was injured on the job and has been witless ever since. At times he is very cruel, although they recognize that he does not know what he is doing. Hans and Gretel lead lives filled with work and their only pleasure is skating on the frozen canal in their makeshift skates Hans has made out of wood. When news of a prize of silver skates is to be awarded in a race, they are sorry that they would never be able to win in their old skates.

Their poverty is made all the more difficult because there is a lot of money hidden some place in or around the house, but the location is locked in the addled brain of their father. He did something with the money just before he went out to work on the night he was injured. Hans and Gretel are forced to do whatever work they can find to help support them.

One of the things that makes the book interesting is the social commentary in the book. Several of the boys and girls in town are mentioned and much is made of either their character flaws or virtues. While simplistic on the surface, the characterization is good. One if the wealthy girls in town stands out because she recognizes her good fortune and arranges for both Hans and his sister to have metal skates.

When the book gets to the final race, it is almost an afterthought. The true natures of many of the characters have been displayed and the story ends in a satisfactory manner.

I did not realize the Mary Mapes Dodge went on the be the editor of the famous "St. Nicholas Magazine" which featured stories by classical children's author such as Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris, Rudyard Kipling and many others. We just happened to have Henry Steele Commanger's anthology of the magazine and I found it to be a great complement to the lessons on this book.

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The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I re-read this old classic for "The Big Read" and enjoyed it. Our class discussions were good, but I don't think this book rises to the level of "literature" as some people thought. While it is a classic, and it was especially interesting to see how mystery and crime writing has changed. I didn't feel like I was changed or understood more about the human condition by reading it.

Essentially, it is the story of a private detective who is hired by a woman to find someone for her who is threatening her. As the book progresses, it becomes apparent that she is on the trail of the Maltese falcon and is competing with several other people. Hammett creates some unforgettable characters and clever and interesting twists and turns of the plot. I also enjoyed the discussion about how the genre has changed and also how women were treated in this early PI literature.

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Don't Make Me Choose Between You and My Shoes

Don't Make Me Choose Between You and My Shoes by Dixie Cash


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the second book by this author that I have read. Debbie Sue and Edwina from a tiny Texas town have been invited to New York to a detectives conference. They are detectives who operate a beauty parlor along with their detective agency. This is a cozy Southern mystery and has lots of local color. There is romance, hi-jinks and some pretty good reasoning all wrapped up in one lighthearted mystery.

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Since You're Leaving Anyway, Take Out the Trash

Since You're Leaving Anyway, Take Out the Trash by Dixie Cash


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was the first book by this author I have listened to. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love the Deep South novels because they remind me of Mississippi, so I am more attuned to the characters than the plot, but this one was pretty good. Usually books in which you know the perp early on aren't very good, but this one was entertaining. The two detectives from a small town in Texas also are beauticians. They get involved in tracking down the murderer because Debbie Sue is up to her eyebrows in debt and is in danger of losing the beauty shop. This is definitely a cozy type mystery and is more about crazy situations and cross purposes.

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The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was excellent. The complicated relationship between the characters was rich and well articulated. I liked this especially because it gave me some insight into the complicated thinking of the Taliban and the people who are effected by them. Apart from that, the book was an excellent thriller.

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Aunt Dimity Mystery, #1

Aunt Dimity's Death by Nancy Atherton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When Lori Shepherd receives word that she has received an inheritance from Aunt Dimity, she is shocked. Aunt Dimity was a fictitious character her mother told stories about to entertain Lori when she was young...at least that is what she thought.

With the help of her lawyer and his interesting assistant, Lori follows the trail of the real Aunt Dimity by following the letter of her own dead mother. Nothing is simple in this unique plot, but it is all entertaining. I liked this character very much and will be reading more.

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Hard Truth (Anna Pigeon Mysteries, #13

Hard Truth by Nevada Barr


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is much darker than the earlier books. I think it is because it deals with a psychopathic killer of children and the oppression of women and children in the fundamentalist break-away sect of the Mormon church similar to the enclave of Warren Jeffs. In both cases, the helpless are being oppressed and the reader is helpless.

There is a new character introduced that I would love to see again. Heath is an embittered woman who has become a paraplegic due to a climbing accident. She is a very resentful woman who comes to an area of the park designed for handicapped campers with her psychologist aunt. As the story progresses, she gets caught up in the lives of the children and she ends up being very involved in the whole cast. I would love to see her appear in some of the newer books...that is, if she hasn't already. I haven't finished the series, and I can hope that she is brought back.

The language is pretty rough as is the Christian bashing. Barr herself seems to be very conflicted about this issue and has a supercilious attitude to Christians that is more intolerant than the people she is confining to the lower end of the IQ range. It would behoove her to look at the huge number of intelligent and respected human beings past and present who are deeply committed Christians.

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The Polar Express

The Polar Express by Chris VanAllsburg

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful book for both children and adults. It's all about a cynical little boy who is not sure he believes in Santa or Christmas. He takes a ride on the Polar Express, meets two special friends and gets a special gift from Santa.


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High_Country

High Country by Nevada Barr


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This mystery takes place in Yosemite National Park. Anna has been sent to work undercover to discover what has happened to 4 young people who have disappeared and are presumed dead. She gets a job as a waitress in the historic Ahwahnee Hotel where she meets with many rich and colorful people. While the park search and rescue unit has been searching for the young people, Anna is looking for a common link between the deaths.

When she begins to figure out what has happened, she goes to the parks chief ranger, who has his own problems and does not give her any support. Investigating on her own, she finds herself alone at night in the freezing cold, being tracked by some very unpleasant people who want something she has. The problem is that Anna doesn't know what it is.

This mystery isn't Nevada Barr's best. I found it hard to get interested in most of the characters. The relationship between Anna and the park superintendent is probably the weakest and is never really developed. The climax of the book does not provide the solution of the mystery which is left to a shaky addendum which, while drawing the book to a conclusion, doesn't really satisfy.

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Flashback

Flashback by Nevada Barr


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Anna Pigeon has been sent to Ft. Jefferson to temporarily replace the supervisory ranger on remote Garden Key in Dry Tortugas National Park. She is also running from a proposal of marriage from the Sheriff/Minister back on in Mississippi and this will give her some badly needed breathing space. The fort is a bleak and lonely post about 70 miles from Key West. The group of islands are just barely above sea level and are almost deserted. There is, however, Ft. Jefferson, a Civil War fort which houses the National Park operations.

To help her pass the time, her sister has sent her some letters from their Great Great Aunt who was living at the fort when it was a military outpost during the Civil War. Her aunt was living there with her difficult husband who was the Commandant of the fort during the time the Civil War prisoners were occupying it. The arrival of Dr. Mudd and Samuel Arnold, convicted of acting in the plot to assassinate President Lincoln, sets in motion the turmoil to which the letters relate.

The book switches between the past and present which is a new device for Nevada Barr. Each chapter seems to end on a cliff hanger, so you are always being tempted to read much longer than you should just to get back to the opposite century. All in all, this was very good. The mystery was tight and also gave much information on an area of the country most people don't even know exists.

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A Vengeful Longing

A Vengeful Longing by R.N. Morris


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the second book I have read by this author and I had the same mixed feelings about the books. They mystery is great and the Magistrate Porfiry Petrovich is wonderful. He is something of a Colombo character and I really like him. The problem with the books is not really the fault of the author. It is the naming system the Russians use. Each character is called by about three different names and it is very confusing. This is especially so when you are using an audiobook, which I was. With a book, you can go back a chapter and see who the character is, but it is impossible with an audiobook. I found my self going back over parts trying to relate the action with the correct character.

That being said, I truly enjoyed the mystery and the personalities of the main characters. I also enjoyed the glimpse into Russian history and the Russian nature. I certainly will read more by the author, but I will allow extra time to go back and sort out the characters. Since I am always doing something else while I am listening, this is not really an inconvenience since I can just listen to the chapter again until I get them straight in my head.

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Helen Hath No Fury

Helen Hath No Fury by Gillian Roberts


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was the second book from this author that I have read, and I really enjoyed it. I find Amanda Pepper a believable protagonist and most of the people in the book are not two dimensional. A woman is murdered in Amanda's book group and it turns out that the group didn't know her at all. The hurt and confusion comes when they find out that she has taken her own life and none of them saw it coming. As a group, they begin to dissect what they know of Helen and try to find out how they, her friends, could have known so little of what was going on in her life to bring her to such an action.

I found the scenario to be totally realistic. The day before Helen's suicide, she had been adamant that the character in the book they were reading was weak and a coward for committing suicide. How could they then comprehend that she was to commit suicide the next day? How could they, as friends, not see through her actions and help her? It is the most natural thing in the world for them to try to learn more about her life and how they misjudged her. I am liking this series more and more.


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Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1)

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I picked this book because it could be downloaded from my library and it seemed like it had potential. I should have known after the first chapter it wasn't going to work for me. Sookie is a contradictory protagonist and there is a lot of the book that just doesn't make sense. I'm not crazy about vampires, except for the original Dracula, so I should have known better. The book needed a lot more editing and some attention needed to be paid to setting the stage for behaviors of some of the characters, especially Sam. The characters were all two dimensional and didn't ring true. I won't be reading any more.

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44 Scotland Street

44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have read this book before but enjoyed again the rich characters in it. Each of the people exists in a rooming house passing each other in the hall and yet not really knowing about each other's lives. My favorite character is the little boy prodigy, Bertie, or at least his mother thinks so. He is 5 and playing the saxophone and learning to read and speak Italian. His overly involved mother has painted his bedroom pink so he will not be bound by the cultural stereotypes and would rather see him play with dolls instead of the trains he so loves. There is something wonderfully satisfying about the way this thread plays out.

Then there is the main character, Pat, who is taking her second gap year and finds herself in a flat with the narcissistic Bruce whom I wanted to strangle on most every page. She gets a job at an art gallery working for the dilettante, Matthew, who has never had to make a living, which is a good thing, since he has failed at everything he ever did. His father seems to think nothing of bailing him out and letting him start over. The main action centers around a painting in the gallery which they think may be by Samuel Peploe, but that part of the plot is just a device to hang all these wonderful character sketches on.

As with all of Alexander McCall Smith's books, there is more about how the characters think and feel than a plot. This is a gentle philosophical and thoroughly entertaining book and I will read anything he has written. I am so in love with his characters. I think he has a lot in common with Charles Dickens and will be surprised if some of his characters begin to have a life of their own outside of his books.

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Death of a Travelling Man

Death of a Travelling Man by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Poor Hamish. An unsavory pair of "travelers" park their caravan in the village and proceed to wreck havoc. They are considering themselves gypsies and are hiding behind the laws meant to protect a way of life for a group of people whose heritage is to travel. That is not what these two are though. They are "hippies" of the worst sort and the life of the village is turned on its heels when they show up. They get the villagers on their side in the beginning, but soon things start to sour and inevitably there comes a body. Hamish is on the spot, but struggles, not only with Supt. Blair, but also with he obsessive compulsive PC who cleans everything that either moves or doesn't move. Hamish, regretfully, allowed himself to take credit for solving the last murder and thus was promoted landing him with an assistant who is threatening to drive him insane. In the end, Hamish manages to solve the murder and change his living arrangements suitably but not without some really rough patches.

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Adam and Evil: An Amanda Pepper Mystery

Adam and Evil: An Amanda Pepper Mystery by Gillian Roberts


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amanda Pepper is a teacher we can all admire and relate to. She is devoted to her students and when she feels that one of the boys in her class, Adam, is dangerously close to a mental breakdown, she calls in his parents. They do not want to admit that Adam could have a problem and end up getting Amanda in all sorts of trouble with her boot-licking principal. When someone is murdered in the State Library, Adam is the prime suspect. He is on the run and getting less and less in touch with reality. Amanda tries to convince someone that the boy is not only innocent, but in real trouble, but things only become worse.

I really liked this book and the protagonist. I thought she behaved in a logical manner and solved the crime in a way that a real "amateur detective" would. The police don't know the boy and the people who should know him best are too busy with their own selves to look at what is going on with their son. I'll be reading more of this series

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Miss Julia's School of Beauty

Miss Julia's School of Beauty by Ann B. Ross


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
These Miss Julia books are, I guess, pure fluff, but they are delightful. I can just see prim and proper Miss Julia whose life has been turned upside down when it appears that the wedding at a Heavenly Chapel turns out to possibly have been officiated at by a Minister who wasn't ordained and thus the ceremony amounted to nothing. Is she married or not...oh, the agony. Miss Julia has always tried to do the right thing. Shed doesn't go in for the free wheeling sexual revolution, but finds herself on the wrong side of propriety. The funny situations she gets into by trying to keep the mystery from being known and explaining her new husband's absence are so entertaining. Her well meaning friends end up making the whole mess worse and on top of that, she finds herself helping with a beauty pageant when she never went in for that sort of thing and has a thought or two about the clothing or lack of it that the contestants are to wear. This is Miss Julia at her best and is thoroughly entertaining.

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Crossed Bones

Crossed Bones by Carolyn Haines


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was very good! The characters are very compelling and even the murder victim seems alive through the eyes of the people around him. Sarah Booth Delaney is a plucky heroine with a true Mississippi flavor. The culture of the South comes through with all the positives and negatives I associate with the Mississippi culture. The addition of Jitty, a clothes horse ghost, gives some real sparkle to the action. Jitty moves the plot along in critical situations and is a real plus to Sarah Booth, even though she doesn't always feel that way.

Why does the widow of black Ivory Keys hire Sarah Booth Delaney to exonerate the white blues suspect and find the real murderer? It would appear that the white Southern detective would be the last person she would get to help her and the accused, the last person she would want to help. But, Ivory Keys' murder wasn't a superficial black/white issue.

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Death of a Hussy

Death of a Hussy by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Margaret Baird is another of M.C. Beaton's deliciously evil murder victims. She is obnoxious to everyone and almost insures that she will be murdered. She has the usual poor relation ward whom she browbeats in the most obnoxiously patronizing way. Eventually the poor relation tries to break loose with mixed results. Add in a group of ex-lovers who have been invited by Margaret as prospective husbands and you have a perfect mystery for Hamish Macbeth to wade around in.

An unusual additions is that a different Detective Inspector is in charge of the case and Hamish has mixed feelings about him. He seems to be an improvement, but is he? This is a nice quick read and is very satisfying.

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Death of a Dentist

Death of a Dentist by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In this Hamish Macbeth mystery, he winds up with several mysteries on his hand all seemingly interconnected, but how? A thoroughly unpleasant dentist is murdered, but no one who hated him seems to have been near the place. This book has a particularly quirk bunch of characters.

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Bones To Pick

Bones To Pick by Carolyn Haines


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my first by this author, and I really enjoyed it. It's hard to separate my feelings for the Mississippi of my childhood pleasures from the actual book, so my rating may be a combination of nostalgia as well as the quality of the book. I did enjoy the use of the spectral. Jitty as a companion of the main character. I thought it was well done...not too ghostly and all knowing, but enough to add spice to the mystery. I'll be reading more of this author.

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Death of a Macho Man

Death of a Macho Man by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I've been listening to this series on audiobooks I downloaded from the St. John's Library and have enjoyed them thoroughly. The reader's accent adds to the scenes created by the author and it saves me trying to figure out how some of the Scottish names are pronounced. It also gives me a better picture of Hamish Macbeth. While I have enjoyed the BBC version of the stories, their Hamish is a far cry from the descriptions in the books.

Macho Man is on par with the rest of M. C. Beaton's book. The characters are well drawn even if their personalities are often extreme. The situation is again misjudged by the incredibly dump Inspector Blair and Hamish, with his deep sense of right and wrong has to solve the mystery and yet not risk being promoted away from his beloved Lockdubh.

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Biggie and the Devil Diet

Biggie and the Devil Diet: A Mystery by Nancy Bell


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I haven't read any of Nancy Bell's books in years and yesterday I longed to hear a little Southern talk. I am downloading audiobooks from the St. John's Co., FL library and get to hear the story with the accented voice of the reader. Certain books are especially good this way and while this book is a lightweight, I love it because the down home dialect reminds me of many summer vacations in Mississippi.

Biggie is the grandmother of J. R., who came to live with her when he was small and has grown up in the series. In this book he is 13. Biggie has a lot of soul searching when she find that there is a ranch outside town for overweight girls and she recognizes the name of the owner. She tells J. R. some old secrets and embroils them in cauldron of emotion which surrounds the camp.

The book is a little slow at first, unless you just plain enjoy a bit of slice of life, deep South style, you may wonder why it was called a mystery. I was too busy enjoying to wonder, but it may bother some. The preliminary actually does set up the mystery, so it isn't wasted. All in all, a pretty good read.

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Death of an Outsider

Death of an Outsider by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In this early Hamish Macbeth book, he ha been sent to the unpleasant village of Cnothan to take over from their Police Constable. An obnoxious Englishman goes around the village wreaking havoc with his acerbic tongue. He is a champion "know-it-all" and causes strife wherever he goes. Inevitably, there is a murder, disguised in a seemingly clever way. Of course, Inspector Blair is involved and he makes Hamish stay on the outside as he rushes to his conclusions.

You have to wonder if the main plot element could ever happen. You bet I will be thinking about it next time I go to a fancy restaurant! This is a pleasant mystery with the usual cast of quirky characters. The ending is a little bit of a stretch, but good, tying up all of the loose ends.

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Death of an Addict

Death of an Addict by M.C. Beaton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In this book, Hamish Macbeth wanders far afield of the original death of a reformed drug addict. The problem is that Hamish doesn't feel the boy killed himself. With his Highland sensitivity and almost second sight, Hamish feels like there is more to this and it adds up to murder. Solving the case leads him into the arms (sort of) of a beautiful police inspector and on a trip to Amsterdam. The plot twists and turns and even involves a Loch Ness type monster, drug smuggling, and even undercover work. While these plot elements find Hamish outside his normal location, the romantic threads while convoluted are all to predictable.

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Death of a Cad (Hamish Macbeth, #2

Death of a Cad by M.C. Beaton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't like this book as much as the rest of the series. When the cad, Peter Bartlett is murdered, there are plenty of suspects. Just about everyone had a reason to kill this obnoxious man, but that is the least of Hamish' problems. His lady-love, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, is announcing her engagement to a London playwright and Hamish knows he is not right for her. He knows she is the only woman for him, and she would love to take hold of him and shine him up like a copper penny with more than a pinch of ambition thrown in, but Hamish loves his village life and knows he can't change, not even for Priscilla.

His superintendent always sees him as an inept lazy town constable but Hamish knows the town and is a keen observer of people. It doesn't take him long to size up the people at the Hall and come to some conclusions.

All of these mysteries take place in the Scottich Highlands and are light and charming. Hamish is a wonderful character and the tension between him and the lovely PriscilIa always provide some interesting developments.


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The Sacrifice

The Sacrifice by William X. Kienzle


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This Father Koestler mystery has all the elements found in most of Kienzle's books...murder, the Catholic Church, Detroit and a Catholic aspect to the crime. Father Koestler is aging just as the author has, but the topics are as current as ever. This one involves a married Anglican priest who wants to become a Roman Catholic priest. Twenty years ago, this might have been facetious, but the Episcopal/Anglican church has so lost her bearings that many of the faithful are looking for a spiritual home that still has the form of the Episcopal church but without the wild and radical changes in the new "anything goes" Episcopal Church.

But, of course, there is a problem with the Roman Catholic church. An Anglican who wants to remain true to the tenets of the church as laid out in the "Thirty-nine Articles" almost has to look elsewhere and that would obviously be the Roman church, but there are very strong feelings about this. Obviously, the church can't expect the candidate to abandon his family, but the church is desperate for priests. If the authorities of the Roman Catholic church are ambivalent, many of the parishioners are not and that is the plot of this book.

There is a time bomb in the Sanctuary of the church set to explode just as the ordination should have started, but the procession is late and only one person is at the altar. The obvious intended victim is the Anglican convert, but there are other possibilities to be considered. The tale weaves round and round until we seem to have 3 different crimes with possibly more than one perpetrator. The books gets somewhat convoluted before it winds on to the conclusion, but is very interesting and satisfying.

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Friends Lovers Chocolate

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am always amazed at the interesting questions Alexander McCall Smith brings to his novels. Again, the mystery is not the most important thing about the book. In this one, the strange feelings of a man who has received a donor heart are the mystery. Is there something as a cell memory which is giving him visions he can only suspect are from the donor's life? Isabelle decides to tackle the question and we follow her thorough many false starts and red herrings.

As with the others, the lives of her niece and her former boyfriend Jamie are a core part of the book. Isabelle's feelings for Jamie are very complicated and it is interesting to contemplate how the author is going to resolve them. How much interference in others lives is permissible?

As much as I like these books, I find that I can only read a few at a time. There is so much to absorb and so many ethical questions to contemplate, that I have to grow into them. For people who like action and crime scenes, this series will be way too slow and the questions too cerebral, but I find them fascinating.

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The Sunday Philosophy Club

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As with most of Alexander McCall Smiths books, the plot is only half the story. This series is about Isabelle Dalhousie, an educated middle aged woman living in Edinburgh, Scotland. She reviews magazine articles for a Philosophy of Ethics journal and is a member of the Sunday Philosophy club if and when it meets. We not only get a picture of her comfortable life, but a treatise on the ethical dilemmas of everyday life.

I found the ethical delemmas to be extremely interesting. When I was in college, our Methods of Education teacher took a class to Northern Virginia to visit some of the classes we would be doing our practice teaching in. In the course of the trip all of the students of one particular "Philosoply of Education" class (with a very poor teacher) said that the class was about the most useless class we had ever taken. Our "Methods" teacher told us that this was the most important class we could take. It was the basis on which we would make all of our decisions about the way we taught. He then proceeded to teach all we should have learned in the class we were enrolled in.

I felt like this book was just like that trip. One of the problem of today is that too many people have no philosophy of life. We may say we value our friends, but choose to watch television instead of being with them. We say we value our children, but we are spending less than 2 hours of conversation a week with them...you could go on forever. Many of the things we say we value are in direct conflict with other things we value.

Isabelle's ruminations about what we own the people whose lives cross ours really made me stop and think. She is the last person a man saw when he fell from a balcony at the Opera house. She is haunted by the gaze and wants to find out why he either jumped, fell or was pushed from the balcony. Her applied ethics makes her question what her role in his death should be. That is just one dilemma in the book. I found myself constantly being challenged by her ethics "in fear and trembling."

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The Prince and the Pauper

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is one of my favorite books of Mark Twain. Tom Canty is a poor boy in the London slums. His birth only brings more poverty to his already dirt poor family. Edward VI is the long awaited heir to the English throne. They are born on the same day and look so alike they can't believe it. They exchange clothes and Edward VI ends up being thrown out of the palace by guards who think he is the poor boy he looks to be. Both boys have difficulty fitting into the other's lives.

Tom comes to like the life at the palace, but misses his freedom and his mother and sisters. Edward leads a hard life on the road and would have died without the help of a minor nobleman named Miles. The bulk of the books is the mad life of the poor boy during which Edward VI learns how many of his subjects live. He resolves to change things if he can get back to the palace and be restored to his rightful place.

The book is full of Twain's wit and biting social commentary. His way with words in outstanding and the Middle English dialect is only distracting at first.

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The Turning Angel

Turning Angel by Greg Iles


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I read this book on CD on my trip from Virginia to Florida. It kept my interest, but I am increasingly distressed over the portrayal of supposedly intelligent, successful men who are pillars of the community falling hopelessly in love with high school girls who are beautiful, intelligent, amoral and so sexually sophisticated that they make hookers look like librarians. Real people just don't act this way unless they are deeply flawed and that is usually apparent by their lifestyle.

In reality, this is child abuse and honorable men don't engage in it. If, in truth, there is the rare man who has all his marbles and falls in love with a teenager, his love will keep him from taking advantage of her, and will allow her to grow up. There is just the hint of this in the character of Penn Cage, but it is far too subtle. Equally, high school girls who have experienced all that the girls in this book have are not generally the kind of girls that make for long-term relationships. This seems more like a male fantasy.

With that said, the book is still interesting and as a flight of fancy, it will keep the reader guessing how the book can possibly end with anything that makes sense.

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