Eye Spy, Mercedes LackeyIt has literally taken me years to read this book, the second of the Family Spies book, about Abidela, the second of Mags and Amily's three children. I threw it down the first time because she had a very obvious parody of a Certain Political Person in the early narrative, and I hated that Lackey wasn't more subtle about it: I would have liked to have had his identity revealed more slowly and less blatantly.
Anyway, Abi has an unusual Gift: she can sense weak spots in structures, and, because of this, she and her best friend Princess Kat were able to save people from being harmed when an unknown weak spot caused a much-used bridge to collapse. Since Abi is studying to be an Artificer (engineer), this makes her invaluable, but she needs to be instructed by Healers to get the most out of her Gift. The story follows Abi's training and then the one final mission she finds herself on before she can be called a Master Artificer, one that involves invaders from outside the kingdom of Valdemar, ones hoping to ruin that country's good name.
This was better than the parody would have led me to believe, but there's quite a lot of detail about structural engineering in the book (although it is about engineering students, after all), and the plot tends to get lost in the details. Still glad I finally read it.
Gemini, Jeffrey KlugerEveryone remembers Project Mercury: John Glenn, the race against the Russian space program, Gus Grissom almost drowning. And, of course Project Apollo took American astronauts to the moon.
But between them was Project Gemini, two-astronaut missions that served as the testing ground for the equipment that landed NASA astronauts on the moon: the backpacks for spacewalks, the testing of docking equipment in space, long-term missions, and studies on how long-term missions affected the human body. Usually the contributions of the Gemini missions have been summarized or simply highlighted, but this is Kluger's in-depth survey. You'll find out about the names behind the scenes along with the astronauts, like Gene Kranz and Christopher Kraft; why Scott Carpenter and John Glenn never flew again (Carpenter for the wrong reasons); and more dangerous events that were not made public at the time.
Easy to read, but a great narrative about this phase of the space program.
Harlem Sunset, Nekesa AfiaLouise Lloyd, who as a young girl foiled a kidnapper, and rescued other kidnapped girls like herself, returns in the sequel to Dead, Dead Girls. She's living happily with her paramour Rosa Maria Moreno, and working at the Dove, owned by Rosa Maria's brother Rafael. One night a young woman spends some time after hours drinking in the Dove with the trio, who all wake up next morning to find Nora dead. The police are quick to pin the crime on Rosa Maria. Louise is also trying to save the sanity of her suicidal sister Josie, who hasn't made peace with the death of her twin, but their father's harsh dismissal of Louise's lifestyle makes this difficult.
Helped by a reporter named Harriet Sinclair and a mysterious man named Fox Schoonmaker, Louise is determined to prove Rosa Maria innocent. But twisted forces are working behind the scenes.
I didn't recall the author's sentences being so choppy in the previous book. The narrative bothered me for this reason, and I didn't enjoy it as well as the first.
The Ex Talk, Rachel Lynn SolomonShay Goldstein has always loved her career in public radio, but a new employee at Pacific Public Radio is giving her figurative hives. Dominic Yun is a rising, ambitious journalist who wants to use public radio to bring down corrupt politicians, and Shay's boss Kent O'Grady is all for giving him his way. Shay thinks there's room for human-interest stories, the kind public radio does so well.
After Shay and Dominic have a friendly rivalry on a live talk show, Kent suggests they create and star in a relationship talk show in which they pretend they are ex-lovers who broke apart but remain friends. Eager to keep a human-interest show, Shay agrees, although feigning a relationship offends both her and Dominic. To their surprise, the show is a hit, and PPR's ratings soar. And Shay and Dominic, in trying to reconcile their fake relationship (no one knows it's fake except for them, Kent, and a few others), start to grow closer—and closer.
I love Solomon's characters and settings. Another great offering.
Driving the Green Book, Alvin HallBy now, everyone has heard of "the Green Book," thanks to a PBS documentary, a BBC radio show, and a (highly fictionalized) film, but for years, the people who knew it best were the African-American families who benefited from it. The original editor was a mail carrier who hoped to aid Black families who needed—and later wanted—to travel, for, back in the 1930s, traveling for Black families/individuals was hazardous and difficult because they were banned from hotels, restaurants, and sometimes even from whole towns. Victor Green compiled a list of boarding houses, restaurants, barber/beauty shops, and other businesses friendly to African-American travelers, who, due to bigotry, usually traveled with their own food, water, and gasoline due to a lack of these services. The last edition of the book was, sadly and incredibly, published in 1961.
Hall and his companions travel to locations listed in the Green Book, and interview people who traveled or whose relatives traveled using the book. The stories they tell are revealing, sad, and infuriating. A complicated but compelling read.
Lighthouse Families, Cheryl Shelton-Roberts & Bruce RobertsAs a kid, I loved a horse story called "Maudie Tom, Jockey," about a wild girl brought up by her lighthouse-keeper father. I became fascinated by the lives of lighthouse-keepers' families. Found this book at the Air Force Museum, a collection of stories told to the authors by children who grew up on lighthouses. These children played unsupervised on small islands, rowed boats to school, helped their fathers keep the lamp and the lighthouse working and clean, and endured inspections during which they were supposed to keep out of sight.
Modern children, especially, would be shocked at the freedom the kids had and the antics they got into. These are first-person narratives, so you get a feeling for how they talked in the past, and their feelings about growing up as "lighthouse kids."
Unnatural Ends, Christopher HuangThree adopted children of a wealthy baron return home after their father dies. Alan, Roger, and Caroline had an unconventional upbringing under a stern father, who was also their tutor, and a retiring, weak mother; their one respite: a playroom in a deserted tower where they played games of Camelot. Now, returning home, they discover their father was murdered, and has indicated in his will that only one child will inherit his estate: the one who solves his murder!
Set in the early 1920s, Huang sets up a mystery worthy of the classic era, with twists galore, and grim truths.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: In Extremis, Ken GoddardKen Goddard, according to his author profile, was a former deputy sheriff, CSI police forensic scientist, and crime lab director. And boy, does it show.
This is the first of the CSI novels not written by Max Allen Collins, involving a multi-US Customs Agent shootout at a desert drug-bust. The team has to figure out who shot who and when, and how a prominent mobster some distance away was also shot at the same time as a mule deer. It's all about the procedure in this one, with minute details about the angles of the shots, the bullets used, the sophisticated hardware used. If you want to know how the crime lab works down to the details, check this one out.
Shocking Secrets of American History, Bill CoateThis is an inexpensive little history book of "surprising and amusing tales." If you've read a lot of history, you probably know most of the trivia. Some interesting items of note: Henry Morton Stanley, who "found" David Livingstone, changed his name to cover the shocking thing he did. Alexander Hamilton never shot back.
A great bathroom or bedtime book, as the stories are told in two, or in a few cases one, pages each.
