Books in July
The month began busily and ends busily too - Happy Lughnasadh!
Curator Hayley Burke is excited by the prospect of staging an exhibition of Lady Georgiana Fowling’s first editions in a posh hall in Bath, although the task is a daunting one. She manages to recruit Oona Atherton, an exhibition manager with whom she had previously worked; Oona is a harridan of a boss, but she is very good at what she does and she gets things done, and Hayley is comforted by the knowledge that she herself will not be subject to Oona’s orders. There is little time to waste, but when Oona turns up dead, having been shoved down a staircase, Hayley must first find another manager and then, hopefully, find the murderer, before another killing takes place…. This is the second of a projected series, and as with the first book, the setting is a good part of the pleasure of reading. Ms. Wingate’s characters are entertaining, the details of planning a full-scale exhibition are fascinating to read about, and the mystery and its solution are fairly laid out for the reader to pursue. I’m having a bit of a “cozy” moment these days, finding these types of mysteries almost the only thing I want to read, and this one fit the bill nicely. One need not have read the first book to enjoy this one, as there’s enough back story given here to clue the reader in. Recommended.
“An Atlas of Extinct Countries” is a light-hearted look at various nations that existed at one time but do not exist now. The book is divided into several sections, including “Chancers and Crackpots,” “Mistakes and Micronations,” “Lies and Lost Kingdoms,” and “Puppets and Political Footballs,” along with appendices on flags and national anthems, and a surprisingly deep and well-researched bibliography. Nations that are covered include very long-lived entities like The Golden Kingdom of Silla, which thrived in what is now Korea between 57 BCE and 935 CE; short-lived but memorable places such as the Kingdom of Sarawak (1841-1946, now part of Malaysia); and utterly ridiculous places such as the Ottawa Civic Hospital Maternity Ward, which on 19 January 1943 was declared a “country” so that Princess Juliana of the Netherlands could give birth without her daughter losing her royal status. Along the way, we’re treated to the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, which outwitted China between 1851 and 1864, the Republic of Texas (1836-1846), which failed essentially because nobody wanted a country called Texas, and the Great Republic of Rough and Ready, a mining town in California that disliked mining taxes that the state brought in and so declared itself a sovereign nation on April 7, 1850, only to be reabsorbed into California some 2 months later, on July 4, 1850. There are, however, some serious nations described, such as the German Democratic Republic (1949 - 1990, when the Wall fell) and Yugoslavia, which was a separate country a couple of times but never resembled a real country except under Tito. This is a fun book to read, although I suspect it’s better in small chunks (each country is described in only a few pages, along with a hand-drawn map for each) than a book to read all in one go, as I did. Good light entertainment.
Klom is a big, slow, big-hearted man whose work as a ship-wrecker is dirty, dangerous and very poorly paid. In spite of that, Klom is a happy man, no more so than when he discovers a long-neglected lifepod in a decommissioned ship; he inadvertently activates it and discovers a new creature, sort of dog-like, that he promptly adopts and names Tugger. But Tugger is far more than a pet, and there are forces in the universe that would do anything to use it for their own purposes, and before he knows it Klom is on a mission throughout the known worlds, if he can stay ahead of the law…. This is a lovely novella, full of inventive worlds-building work that reminded me, obliquely, of Bester’s “The Stars My Destination” - not because Klom is a vicious man-thing who learns through space and time to become human, but because he is an innocent, almost an idiot savant, who learns and grows on a journey across worlds. In the fast pace required of a novella that has a lot to say in a short span of pages, Mr. Di Filippo doesn’t have time to explain all the super-sf-y high tech, but for one thing the reader doesn’t need it and for another, thank goodness the tech talk is kept to a minimum! It’s the relationships that Klom forms, most importantly with Tugger but also with the various beings that come into his orbit and become his friends and helpers, that are the stand-out to me. That said, I’d love for the author to explore his very expansive universe in future works, especially with Klom and his companions as our guide; recommended!
Violet Carlyle and her twin brother Victor are summoned to spend the Christmas holidays with Aunt Agatha, along with various cousins. This is no hardship for the twins, as Aunt Agatha more or less raised them after the death of their mother, and they love to spend time with her. But Aunt Agatha is concerned that one of her relatives is trying to kill her to get hold of her massive fortune, and she hopes that Jack Wakefield, the son of one of her close friends and a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, can identify the culprit before he or she succeeds…. This is the first of something like 30 books in the Violet Carlyle cozy series, set in 1920s England and featuring a slew of Bright Young Things. It’s very sloppy in terms of language - among other sins, Violet and Vic call everybody “luv,” something the children of an earl would never do, and there are definite Americanisms that are completely out of place (no Brit of any class would call money “the green” but these characters do constantly). That said, the main characters are entertaining and fairly witty, the dilemmas of life are well-drawn, and I kept reading because I wanted to find out what happened next, surely the most important job a writer has! It also has the advantage of scratching my current cozy-set-in-the-1920s itch and being very inexpensive in e-book form, so I will continue with the series for now, at least; a mild recommendation.
Violet and Victor are returning home from Europe because younger sister Isolde is unexpectedly getting married; when they learn that her fiance is older than her father, fat and ugly, and quite clearly keeping company with another woman, they vow to do everything they can to derail the marriage. While on her wedding day, Isolde finally gets up the gumption to refuse to marry the man, the question is soon extremely moot as the scoundrel has been quite comprehensively murdered. But who among the already-gathered wedding guests could have done it? Chief Inspector Jack Wakefield doesn’t suspect Violet this time, but her father is certainly in the frame, unless Violet can find out differently…. This is the second in this cozy series and suffers from all the flaws of the first, plus some. Aside from using Americanisms that a British aristocrat in 1920s England simply wouldn’t use, the writing itself is just extremely sloppy. For example, a great deal is made of the fact that Violet and Victor hire a cab to reach a particular London destination because they figure a cab driver would be more likely than themselves to be able to find the place, but after speaking with various people at that destination, they blithely pile into *their own car* to head off elsewhere. And, sorry, people in the 1920s were not “journaling” - certainly they *kept journals* and *wrote* in same, but the word was a noun, NOT a verb (shouldn’t be a verb now, according to me, but it definitely wasn’t one then). And, well, the whole tone of this book just comes off as rather poorly written fan-fic; it’s not worth a minute of your time. I’m angry with myself that I bought the *third* book in the series (it was cheap on kindle); unfortunately I can’t return it for a refund because I certainly won’t read it. Don’t waste your time with this series; I’m sorry I gave it even two tries!
“Death at Sea: Montalbano’s Early Cases” is a group of eight stories featuring Camilleri’s amazing Sicilian detective, Salvo Montalbano. These include “Room Number 2,” in which arson is a crime of passion; “Double Investigation,” where it’s unclear who is the victim; “Death at Sea,” which involves just that; “The Stolen Message,” wherein a young barmaid disappears; “The Transaction,” describing how two mafiosa families do business with each other; “Standard Procedure,” which depicts corruption in high places; “The Apricot,” in which an accident isn’t as it appears; and “The Honest Thief,” which is just as the title says. Of these eight, a few are annoyingly misogynistic, although I’m used to that from this series; one, “The Transaction,” is worth the price of the whole book by itself, because it features Adelina’s initial antipathy toward Livia *and* mentions Salvo’s father (a first, as far as I recall). This book was published in translation in 2018 (the original Italian in 2014), but I was unable to find any information with respect to whether or where the stories might have originally been published; they’re mostly set in the 1980s, but I have no idea if they were written then! In any event, the volume serves both as a nice post-prandial snack for those who know the series and as a handy introduction to those who do not. Recommended!
Dr. Abby Dolan has followed her boyfriend Josh to a small California community, Patience, where he has been hired at a major facility and she finds work in the emergency room of the local, extremely well-appointed, hospital. But Josh is acting strangely now, some of Abby’s patients are exhibiting puzzling symptoms, and a few individuals seem to be experiencing psychotic rages so extreme that people are getting killed. Abby begins searching for the truth, with the help of handsome colleague Dr. Lew Alvarez, but there are many in the town who don’t want them to discover what is really going on and who are willing to do anything to prevent them from learning about it…. This is a typical medical thriller, a genre I don’t read very much but which I find can be quite perfect as a lazy summer read. The author was himself a physician and the medical aspects, particularly the type of training needed to make a good emergency room specialist, are quite interesting; the thriller aspect of the book is indeed fast-paced and cinematic. Having been published in 1996, some particular elements seem quaint (his treatment of MRI machines, for example, but then I’m reading the book 25 years later, when such machines are far more common and well-understood), and despite having lived there for almost two decades I still can’t for the life of me place a downtown high-rise in San Francisco from which one could see both Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, but these are minor quibbles. Mostly, a fairly mindless and entertaining way to spend time in the summer - on a beach, perhaps, or in a sultry backyard. Mildly recommended.
Los Angeles-based location scout Kate Sharp is sent to England to find her boss Kevin Dunn, who went missing while trying to secure rights to film a new movie based on Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” in various village halls and country houses. She enlists the help of Alex, a local scouting consultant, and together they soon discover Kevin’s missing vehicle, and then his corpse surfaces. Certain that his death was anything but an accident, Kate and Alex both help and hinder the local authorities as they try to solve the case - before another corpse appears…. This is the first in the “Death on Location” series of (so far) seven books featuring Kate and Alex, and set mostly in rural England. As a cozy, it’s light and entertaining; I found the secondary romance story a bit annoying, but not terribly so. Ms. Rosett has a knack for creating believable characters and relationships, and she’s clearly done her research into Jane Austen and her times, which I appreciated. I’m not in any huge hurry with these books, but I will read more in the series; mildly recommended.
No need to describe this one! Like millions of others, I bought and read each book in the series as it came out (fwiw, I was in my late 30s when this first book was published; as I write this I’m 62, to give you an idea of how long ago this phenomenon began), but I’ve never read the entire series back-to-back, an omission that I intend to fix now. We are introduced to the major characters and to Hogwart’s in this first novel, and there’s plenty of adventure to carry through the book, many incidents of which I had completely forgotten. Of course I’ve also seen the movies, and I find that is impacting my mental picture of the characters, but since those casting choices were by and large very good, I’m not finding it a problem thus far. And on to The Chamber of Secrets next!
Re-read - fun!
Re-read. I’m making it official (in my mind, at least): the Dementors are the scariest creatures ever to be conjured by a human being!
Re-read. Much more emotional than the earlier books, and things are getting serious!
As I write, I'm about 2/3 into HP and the Order of the Phoenix; getting to some hard slogging here! But still great summer reads, I'm finding!
Curator Hayley Burke is excited by the prospect of staging an exhibition of Lady Georgiana Fowling’s first editions in a posh hall in Bath, although the task is a daunting one. She manages to recruit Oona Atherton, an exhibition manager with whom she had previously worked; Oona is a harridan of a boss, but she is very good at what she does and she gets things done, and Hayley is comforted by the knowledge that she herself will not be subject to Oona’s orders. There is little time to waste, but when Oona turns up dead, having been shoved down a staircase, Hayley must first find another manager and then, hopefully, find the murderer, before another killing takes place…. This is the second of a projected series, and as with the first book, the setting is a good part of the pleasure of reading. Ms. Wingate’s characters are entertaining, the details of planning a full-scale exhibition are fascinating to read about, and the mystery and its solution are fairly laid out for the reader to pursue. I’m having a bit of a “cozy” moment these days, finding these types of mysteries almost the only thing I want to read, and this one fit the bill nicely. One need not have read the first book to enjoy this one, as there’s enough back story given here to clue the reader in. Recommended.
“An Atlas of Extinct Countries” is a light-hearted look at various nations that existed at one time but do not exist now. The book is divided into several sections, including “Chancers and Crackpots,” “Mistakes and Micronations,” “Lies and Lost Kingdoms,” and “Puppets and Political Footballs,” along with appendices on flags and national anthems, and a surprisingly deep and well-researched bibliography. Nations that are covered include very long-lived entities like The Golden Kingdom of Silla, which thrived in what is now Korea between 57 BCE and 935 CE; short-lived but memorable places such as the Kingdom of Sarawak (1841-1946, now part of Malaysia); and utterly ridiculous places such as the Ottawa Civic Hospital Maternity Ward, which on 19 January 1943 was declared a “country” so that Princess Juliana of the Netherlands could give birth without her daughter losing her royal status. Along the way, we’re treated to the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, which outwitted China between 1851 and 1864, the Republic of Texas (1836-1846), which failed essentially because nobody wanted a country called Texas, and the Great Republic of Rough and Ready, a mining town in California that disliked mining taxes that the state brought in and so declared itself a sovereign nation on April 7, 1850, only to be reabsorbed into California some 2 months later, on July 4, 1850. There are, however, some serious nations described, such as the German Democratic Republic (1949 - 1990, when the Wall fell) and Yugoslavia, which was a separate country a couple of times but never resembled a real country except under Tito. This is a fun book to read, although I suspect it’s better in small chunks (each country is described in only a few pages, along with a hand-drawn map for each) than a book to read all in one go, as I did. Good light entertainment.
Klom is a big, slow, big-hearted man whose work as a ship-wrecker is dirty, dangerous and very poorly paid. In spite of that, Klom is a happy man, no more so than when he discovers a long-neglected lifepod in a decommissioned ship; he inadvertently activates it and discovers a new creature, sort of dog-like, that he promptly adopts and names Tugger. But Tugger is far more than a pet, and there are forces in the universe that would do anything to use it for their own purposes, and before he knows it Klom is on a mission throughout the known worlds, if he can stay ahead of the law…. This is a lovely novella, full of inventive worlds-building work that reminded me, obliquely, of Bester’s “The Stars My Destination” - not because Klom is a vicious man-thing who learns through space and time to become human, but because he is an innocent, almost an idiot savant, who learns and grows on a journey across worlds. In the fast pace required of a novella that has a lot to say in a short span of pages, Mr. Di Filippo doesn’t have time to explain all the super-sf-y high tech, but for one thing the reader doesn’t need it and for another, thank goodness the tech talk is kept to a minimum! It’s the relationships that Klom forms, most importantly with Tugger but also with the various beings that come into his orbit and become his friends and helpers, that are the stand-out to me. That said, I’d love for the author to explore his very expansive universe in future works, especially with Klom and his companions as our guide; recommended!
Violet Carlyle and her twin brother Victor are summoned to spend the Christmas holidays with Aunt Agatha, along with various cousins. This is no hardship for the twins, as Aunt Agatha more or less raised them after the death of their mother, and they love to spend time with her. But Aunt Agatha is concerned that one of her relatives is trying to kill her to get hold of her massive fortune, and she hopes that Jack Wakefield, the son of one of her close friends and a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, can identify the culprit before he or she succeeds…. This is the first of something like 30 books in the Violet Carlyle cozy series, set in 1920s England and featuring a slew of Bright Young Things. It’s very sloppy in terms of language - among other sins, Violet and Vic call everybody “luv,” something the children of an earl would never do, and there are definite Americanisms that are completely out of place (no Brit of any class would call money “the green” but these characters do constantly). That said, the main characters are entertaining and fairly witty, the dilemmas of life are well-drawn, and I kept reading because I wanted to find out what happened next, surely the most important job a writer has! It also has the advantage of scratching my current cozy-set-in-the-1920s itch and being very inexpensive in e-book form, so I will continue with the series for now, at least; a mild recommendation.
Violet and Victor are returning home from Europe because younger sister Isolde is unexpectedly getting married; when they learn that her fiance is older than her father, fat and ugly, and quite clearly keeping company with another woman, they vow to do everything they can to derail the marriage. While on her wedding day, Isolde finally gets up the gumption to refuse to marry the man, the question is soon extremely moot as the scoundrel has been quite comprehensively murdered. But who among the already-gathered wedding guests could have done it? Chief Inspector Jack Wakefield doesn’t suspect Violet this time, but her father is certainly in the frame, unless Violet can find out differently…. This is the second in this cozy series and suffers from all the flaws of the first, plus some. Aside from using Americanisms that a British aristocrat in 1920s England simply wouldn’t use, the writing itself is just extremely sloppy. For example, a great deal is made of the fact that Violet and Victor hire a cab to reach a particular London destination because they figure a cab driver would be more likely than themselves to be able to find the place, but after speaking with various people at that destination, they blithely pile into *their own car* to head off elsewhere. And, sorry, people in the 1920s were not “journaling” - certainly they *kept journals* and *wrote* in same, but the word was a noun, NOT a verb (shouldn’t be a verb now, according to me, but it definitely wasn’t one then). And, well, the whole tone of this book just comes off as rather poorly written fan-fic; it’s not worth a minute of your time. I’m angry with myself that I bought the *third* book in the series (it was cheap on kindle); unfortunately I can’t return it for a refund because I certainly won’t read it. Don’t waste your time with this series; I’m sorry I gave it even two tries!
“Death at Sea: Montalbano’s Early Cases” is a group of eight stories featuring Camilleri’s amazing Sicilian detective, Salvo Montalbano. These include “Room Number 2,” in which arson is a crime of passion; “Double Investigation,” where it’s unclear who is the victim; “Death at Sea,” which involves just that; “The Stolen Message,” wherein a young barmaid disappears; “The Transaction,” describing how two mafiosa families do business with each other; “Standard Procedure,” which depicts corruption in high places; “The Apricot,” in which an accident isn’t as it appears; and “The Honest Thief,” which is just as the title says. Of these eight, a few are annoyingly misogynistic, although I’m used to that from this series; one, “The Transaction,” is worth the price of the whole book by itself, because it features Adelina’s initial antipathy toward Livia *and* mentions Salvo’s father (a first, as far as I recall). This book was published in translation in 2018 (the original Italian in 2014), but I was unable to find any information with respect to whether or where the stories might have originally been published; they’re mostly set in the 1980s, but I have no idea if they were written then! In any event, the volume serves both as a nice post-prandial snack for those who know the series and as a handy introduction to those who do not. Recommended!
Dr. Abby Dolan has followed her boyfriend Josh to a small California community, Patience, where he has been hired at a major facility and she finds work in the emergency room of the local, extremely well-appointed, hospital. But Josh is acting strangely now, some of Abby’s patients are exhibiting puzzling symptoms, and a few individuals seem to be experiencing psychotic rages so extreme that people are getting killed. Abby begins searching for the truth, with the help of handsome colleague Dr. Lew Alvarez, but there are many in the town who don’t want them to discover what is really going on and who are willing to do anything to prevent them from learning about it…. This is a typical medical thriller, a genre I don’t read very much but which I find can be quite perfect as a lazy summer read. The author was himself a physician and the medical aspects, particularly the type of training needed to make a good emergency room specialist, are quite interesting; the thriller aspect of the book is indeed fast-paced and cinematic. Having been published in 1996, some particular elements seem quaint (his treatment of MRI machines, for example, but then I’m reading the book 25 years later, when such machines are far more common and well-understood), and despite having lived there for almost two decades I still can’t for the life of me place a downtown high-rise in San Francisco from which one could see both Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, but these are minor quibbles. Mostly, a fairly mindless and entertaining way to spend time in the summer - on a beach, perhaps, or in a sultry backyard. Mildly recommended.
Los Angeles-based location scout Kate Sharp is sent to England to find her boss Kevin Dunn, who went missing while trying to secure rights to film a new movie based on Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” in various village halls and country houses. She enlists the help of Alex, a local scouting consultant, and together they soon discover Kevin’s missing vehicle, and then his corpse surfaces. Certain that his death was anything but an accident, Kate and Alex both help and hinder the local authorities as they try to solve the case - before another corpse appears…. This is the first in the “Death on Location” series of (so far) seven books featuring Kate and Alex, and set mostly in rural England. As a cozy, it’s light and entertaining; I found the secondary romance story a bit annoying, but not terribly so. Ms. Rosett has a knack for creating believable characters and relationships, and she’s clearly done her research into Jane Austen and her times, which I appreciated. I’m not in any huge hurry with these books, but I will read more in the series; mildly recommended.
No need to describe this one! Like millions of others, I bought and read each book in the series as it came out (fwiw, I was in my late 30s when this first book was published; as I write this I’m 62, to give you an idea of how long ago this phenomenon began), but I’ve never read the entire series back-to-back, an omission that I intend to fix now. We are introduced to the major characters and to Hogwart’s in this first novel, and there’s plenty of adventure to carry through the book, many incidents of which I had completely forgotten. Of course I’ve also seen the movies, and I find that is impacting my mental picture of the characters, but since those casting choices were by and large very good, I’m not finding it a problem thus far. And on to The Chamber of Secrets next!
Re-read - fun!
Re-read. I’m making it official (in my mind, at least): the Dementors are the scariest creatures ever to be conjured by a human being!
Re-read. Much more emotional than the earlier books, and things are getting serious!
As I write, I'm about 2/3 into HP and the Order of the Phoenix; getting to some hard slogging here! But still great summer reads, I'm finding!