Books Completed Since August 1

 Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne from a story by J.K. Rowling
One must approach this book with two things in mind: it's only from a story by J.K. Rowling and it's the script of a play, not a novel. It is the latter that hurts this book the most, because, since we cannot see the the emotions that the actors are imparting to these characters and their lines, we really miss a lot of what drives them (Ron, in particular, comes off as a bit of a nitwit). Rowling's sharply pointed narrative is missed as well as some of her wordplay. Plus what drove Albus to feel the way he does doesn't seem to be well explained—one day he's on the train, there are a few pages of bridging dialog, and then full-blown teenage angst and resentment emerges from what seems to be left field. Maybe it's more acted out on the stage.

I did ultimately enjoy the story: Albus' friendship with Scorpius Malfoy and their partnership with Delphini Diggory, Harry's still-lingering ghosts after the death of Cedric Diggory, the exploration of "roads not taken" via alternate timelines, and further takes on the character of Severus Snape. And, yeah, I cried at the end, so the story accomplishes what it set out to do.

 Time Unincorporated: The Doctor Who Fanzine Archives/Volume 3: Writings on the New Series, from Mad Norwegian Press
The title, the editors explain, is a bit of misnomer. Fewer Doctor Who fanzines exist today—not because the series is less popular, but because the internet has pretty much replaced fanzines. At least  half of the essays are original to the volume.

While this volume has the usual variety of excellent, or at least interesting, essays that Mad Norwegian is known for, I was a little less absorbed by this volume because it was about a recent and known quantity, the new series, and there's been so much written about it that it's almost overkill. Still, notable essays stand out: one that illustrates that the final episode of the old series, the television movie, and "Rose" show an almost seamless progression, so that the old series and the new are not as far apart as thought; a piece about the Christmas specials; a funny and mad "dialog" about illegally downloading episodes; an essay about the morality of the Doctor; a humorous tale of "Barrowmania," essays on both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures...did I say "less absorbed"? Oh, heck, I guess there's never too many Doctor Who essays!

Carry on, Mad Norwegian!

Incidentally, on the spine of my copy it says "Writings on the Classic Series." Ooops.

 The Elements, Theodore Gray
I've wanted this book ever since I laid eyes upon it, and when I saw the paperback at $10 I bought it so quickly you couldn't see my credit card move. It's the very definition of a coffee table book, oversize, thick paper, color printing, with two pages each (some more popular elements have four pages) on each element, with photographs of items that contain that element (atomic weights, structure, electron paths, spectrum prints, and other more complicated chemical facts are included as well). In the later pages, with the more theoretical elements, each page holds multiple elements and explains where the name of that element comes from. You might wonder what real knowledge a person might gain from this glorified picture book—and you might be correct, but it's great just for its gorgeousness. The illustrations included nuggets and crystals, old specimen bottles with solutions inside them, metallic bars and parts, it's just great to look at.

Unfortunately the author is also insane; he thinks icky CFLs with their glare bright light and headache-inducing tendencies are better than incandescent bulbs. Forgive him, God, he knows not what he says.

 The Lost Art of Dress, Linda Przybyszewski
Considering that my favorite mode of dress in winter is a sweatshirt and sweatpants and that I don't even wear a dress to work, one might think this book would be the last thing I would buy, but I was fascinated by the topic.

Home Economics came of age just before World War I, after years of restrictive fashion for women was giving way to clothing that helped her move naturally and participate in sports. It was a little-respected science at the time, but its proponents did not let it stop them. When Great War-era women asked for advice on fashion, domestic science produced the Dress Doctors: women who looked at the whole picture of a woman's build, mathematical ratios, color coordination, and fabric types and made recommendations so accurate that at one time American women were considered the best-dressed women in the world. The Dress Doctors followed one from childhood to girlhood to womanhood, recommending the ideal of proportion of eight "heads," and within that framework produced options every woman could use. These ideas were spread not only in domestic science courses in school, but by the 4H and settlement houses, and during the lean years of the Depression and the rationed years of World War II, the Dress Doctors came up with economical alternatives.

The author's narrative was so lively and the subject so interesting that I didn't even mind that it was about hated sewing. By the time they got to the baggy, childish dresses of the 1960s, I was in complete agreement and wish we'd learned about this in school in the 1970s, especially the budgeting concepts that young women learned alongside cooking and sewing lessons! Sewing fans, women's studies majors, history buffs, and someone just interested in a neat story will all enjoy this one.

 City of Darkness and Light, Rhys Bowen
Molly Murphy Sullivan is delighted by her sturdy baby boy Liam, but worried about her police captain husband Daniel: he's working later nights on something dangerous to do with the Society of the Black Hand. All her fears come true when someone tosses a bomb through the window of Daniel and Molly's little house in Greenwich Village, killing Annie, the little Irish girl that Molly rescued from an abusive situation, who dies protecting baby Liam. Daniel wants Molly and Liam out of the city and fears she will be traced even to his mother's home in Westchester, but a solution has presented itself: she will go stay with her two wealthy friends Sid and Gus, who are studying art in Paris. But when Molly gets to Paris, Sid and Gus have vanished from the pension where they were staying, and when Molly tries to find them, she finds instead the body of a famous American artist.

Turn-of-the-century Paris—which turns out to be as much of a character as the people Molly interacts with—is vividly portrayed in Molly's search for her friends...and for a murderer; she immediately finds herself rubbing shoulders with famous artists (what Quantum Leap always referred to as "a kiss with history"), including Mary Cassatt, as well as getting herself involved in the mystery of the deceased artist, whom she finds out was not universally beloved. The mystery moves at a good clip, with a slowly-building suspense that does not let up once she finds out the fate of her friends, plus a few hair-raising escapes for good measure. (You may wonder how Molly investigates a murder since she has a baby with her, but in the fortuitous Murphy world she finds a pleasant young woman, daughter of the local baker, who is happy to take over care of Liam while Molly goes sleuthing, and the situation even makes sense.) A great entry in Bowen's Molly Murphy series, and at least we don't have to endure Daniel telling her to stay out of his cases!

 The Hired Girl, Laura Amy Schlitz
Fourteen-year-old Joan Scraggs lives the life of a drudge on her father's farm cleaning up after her dad and four brothers, all of whom seem to hate her. She longs for education and to become a teacher, but her father seems set to work her to death the way he did her mother. She might even settle for some love. The last straw comes when her father burns her only three "friends," her beloved books. Finding out from a newspaper that she can get paid work in the city for the same labor she performs for free daily on the farm, Joan runs away to the city of Baltimore using money her mother hid in her doll and is rescued by Solomon Rosenbach, a young Jewish man. She tells his family her name is Janet Lovelace and that she is an eighteen-year-old looking for a job. The family hires her and so begins "Janet's" real education—in city life, in the life of a faith different from her own, in believing in herself.

I really enjoyed this book, which Schlitz based on the diary of her grandmother. Janet/Joan is a real teenager; her moods go up and down depending on what is going on in her life, but despite her almost animalistic upbringing—you will tear up when Joan finally confronts her father and finds out why he acts the way he does—she is good at heart and makes a difference to the people in the Rosenbach household. Her crush on Solomon's handsome brother goes on a bit long, but is typical of a girl her age, and there are some funny, and not-so-funny, hijinks in the process. I really appreciated that although Janet/Joan was a devout Catholic that she did not allow the prejudices of certain church members to change her opinions of the Rosenbach family, really loved her relationship with Mimi Rosenbach, and was glad that she came to love Malka, the elderly housekeeper who initially bedevils her.

In addition, Joan's description of her housework duties, both on the farm and in the city, will make your doubly glad you don't live in 1911!

 Art in the Blood, Bonnie MacBird
I was really looking forward to this book after hearing MacBird read excerpts from it at 221B Con [a Sherlock Holmes convention]. Now that I've read it, I can say I enjoyed it, but not as much as I thought I would, especially after I found out the custom illustrations we had seen at the convention were not in the hardback or the paperback, only in the special edition. (You can see them online here, but it's just not the same.)

Dr. John Watson finds his friend Sherlock Holmes in deep depression after unsuccessfully trying to capture Jack the Ripper; surprisingly the great detective is aroused from ennui by an encoded letter from a Frenchwoman who says her son has been kidnapped. Upon arriving in Paris, an interview elicits that the woman is a dancer at a French club and her son is the illegitimate son of a British lord. Before you can says "blue carbuncle," Holmes and Watson are attacked by thugs at the club, make the acquaintance of the great French detective Jean Vidocq, and discover that the disappearance of a Greek antiquity—just coincidentally something the elder Holmes brother Mycroft is invoved with—may turn out to be related to the boy's father.

MacBird's prose flows easily enough, not in direct imitation of Conan Doyle, but usually suggestive enough for the story to sound authentic. The story is certainly more action-packed than most Holmes mysteries (although Holmes is perfect able to comport himself physically), famous names are dropped periodically (look, there's Toulouse Latrec!), and there are little inconsistencies that quirk at TruFen (for instance, Mary Morstan has a sick mother in this outing, but canon has established her as an orphan). Vidocq is based on a true person, a French criminal-turned-detective, but his character in this book is just flat annoying. (Holmes is partially based on Vidocq, which makes him an inside joke.) I would recommend the book, but a Holmes purist may not see beyond these flaws.

 Dawn of the Belle Epoque, Mary McAuliffe
After reading both City of Darkness and Light and Art in the Blood, both which have significant settings in Paris and "kisses with history" with artists and other 19th/early 20th century celebrities, I naturally gravitated to this one next.

Dawn is a bit like an impressionist painting, with a chronological story opening at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in a Paris still smarting from the loss, and progressing year by year, following the artists, the authors, the musicians, the political repercussions, the styles, and the culture that would all mark this period of history. The painters and sculptors, including the usually overlooked talent Berthe Morisot and the later-famous Mary Cassatt, supply the lions' share of the narrative, as the new painting style, "impressionism" (once an insult) is criticized and then finally accepted and admired, and writers like Dumas the Younger, Zola, and Hugo leave their marks on French literary society.

McAuliffe skips from subject to subject, sometimes with awkward segues, which may annoy some readers, but don't think of this as a straight history: view it as a scrapbook of the era one has unearthed from the depths of an antique shop, to page through to see the brilliant flares of character in bright cutouts pasted on each page: Sarah Bernhardt and Cesar Ritz, Victor Hugo and Georges Clemenceau, Ravel and Debussy, Gauguin and Manet, Cezanne and Monet, the art studios in Montmartre, Gustave Eiffel following his engineering career little knowing he will one day build a Parisian icon, the American expatriot Whistler, the cruel bigotry of the Dreyfus affair and the saga of Emile Zola, the reign of fashion designer Charles Worth (whose gowns were de rigueur for wealthy Victorian ladies),  the rebirth of the narrow medieval streets of Paris into wide boulevards, absinthe, squalid truths, bare garrets, and splendid beauties—just a few of the names and situations that inhabit this book. I found it captivating and can't wait until the sequel is released in paperback.

 Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee
The shock waves went deep on this one. To Kill a Mockingbird is such an iconic novel, and Atticus Finch such the ideal of the honest lawyer, defending his client against impossible odds, and the unique, loving father, that when it was revealed in the pages of this novel that, horror of horrors, Atticus Finch was a racist, it overwhelmed almost everything else about the book. None of it should have surprised anyone: Atticus was a product of his time. He defended Tom Robinson not from some ideal about race equality, but because he knew Tom was innocent, and to him convicting an innocent man, whether Negro or white, was anathema to him, a blot upon the legal system he so respected. (And still Atticus is fighting in his own way in his own era; he invites the Ku Klux Klan speaker to the courthouse so that the man reveals his own prejudices while still feeling he was allowed free speech, without totally agreeing with him.)

The real problem with this book is its sheer pedestrian narrative. Scout's voice in To Kill a Mockingbird is so fresh, so vivid, so unique, and tells such a compelling story that the third-person narration of Go Set a Watchman is flat and sometimes flatfooted in comparison. The older Jean Louise and her dull fiancee aren't a patch on Scout, Jem, and Dill, and the swift dismissal of Jem's future is all the more uncomfortable having read Mockingbird first. Had Watchman actually been published first, I doubt if many people would have waited impatiently to read Harper Lee's second novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Uncle Jack, who's such a pleasant figure in Mockingbird, becomes a pompous windbag who speaks in quotations and aphorisms and babbles about the classics to make his point, and poor Atticus just sits around and suffers with arthritis when he's not quietly opposing the NAACP. (Plus there's a few inconsistencies: here Francis is Aunt Alexandra's grandson, not her son; Jean Louise's fiance was apparently a close friend of theirs from childhood, although he doesn't appear in Mockingbird at all.) There are still some affecting situations, especially when Jean Louise goes back to visit Calpurnia and finds things have changed in their relationship, and we get to see some of Scout's hijinks as she grew from small girl to adolescent, but most of this book is merely a jog-trot through familiar territory without any of the pleasures. A library read if there ever was one.

 Dead Presidents, Brady Carlson
Carlson fell in love with presidential stories as a schoolboy, but it was only after he visited Abraham Lincoln's grave in Springfield, Illinois, that he became fascinated with the afterlives of the presidents, whether it be their graves (Lincoln, for instance, is encased in concrete to keep people from stealing his body after several attempts were made to do just that), their tributes (museums, city names, school names, state names, the Interstate highway system), or the odd or even gruesome events (think poor James Garfield, killed by doctors sticking dirty fingers in his bullet wound) surrounding their deaths. In this book Carlson travels from Mount Vernon to Monticello, New York to California, and even out to the Kansas prairies to discover that sometimes the death story is just as compelling as the life story (certainly William Henry Harrison is known more for his one-month presidency and death from pneumonia more than for his prowess as a general.).

Rather than their being arranged chronologically, Carlson groups his presidents by categories—George Washington and Abraham Lincoln soloing, naturally—presidents with gruesome deaths, controversial presidents, forgotten presidents (think Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce, whose names usually turn up only in trivia contests), presidents with libraries or monuments, obscure presidential tributes, etc. To some the narrative might appear a bit scattershot, but I appreciated the author ditching the usual chronological order as in informational booklets about the presidents to give us a unique comparative story instead, and I enjoyed it very much.

 Black Dove, White Raven, Elizabeth Wein
Americans Rhoda and Delia met during the Great War and immediately became soulmates. Both marry: Rhoda an Italian and Delia an Ethiopian, and both have children, a girl and a boy, respectively. Together they performed airplane acrobatics as Black Dove (Delia) and White Raven (Rhoda) and raised their children alone—until the day Delia died from a bird strike. But she and Rhoda had a dream: to go live in Ethiopia, where Delia and her son Teo would live a life without the segregation rampant in the United States in the 1920s; Rhoda was still determined to make that dream come true, and eventually it did. But the little family of three—Rhoda, daughter Emilia, and Teo—are about to lose their happy life when the Italians advance on Ethiopia.

Taking place mainly in the 1930s, and told alternately by Em, Teo, and through their fictional Black Dove/White Raven stories in which the fears emerging in their lives take fictional form, this appealing adventure story follows Em and Teo from their earliest memories to the "now" of the threat of Italian invasion, where Rhoda fights for their home and Teo learns a horrifying secret about his father that affects his future. Both children learn to fly from Rhoda, but while Teo is a natural pilot, Em struggles with each flight, until a crisis forces her to face her fears.

Wein paints a lovely portrait of pre-invasion Ethiopia, where modern medicine and respect for native culture co-exist, and of the bond shared by Delia and Rhoda that lasts beyond death and the friendship of Emilia and Teo. Rhoda's unconventional Quaker family is also a compelling factor in the opening chapters of the book. The landscapes are lovingly drawn and, as always in a Wein novel, the magic and majesty of flying has a prominent role. While the situation may not be quite as compelling as Code Name Verity, the characters and setting are unforgettable.

 Pony Girl, Janet Randall
This is a children's book from the early 1960s that I picked out a freebie bin somewhere having never heard of the book or the author, who apparently wrote other books with horses in them. Peggy Warmack and her little brother Jimmy, along with their father "Slim" Warmack, a rodeo star just getting over a serious injury, live on a small ranch in Nevada. Their dad arrives home one day, having unsuccessfully tried going on the rodeo circuit once more, without his rodeo horse and with a shocking surprise, a blowsy bright woman named Maida that he introduces to the kids as their new stepmother. But further shocks are in store: Slim is giving up the rodeo business and he and Maida have bought a pony ride concession in California.

The family makes the move to California with Peg and Jimmy still resentful of Maida, and arrive in California to find the former owner of their new house left it a trashy mess and left the ponies for the pony ride starving. But as they all pitch in to care for the ponies and get the concession on its feet, the kids find out Maida is more an ally than an enemy. Now if only they could make some money and get on their feet, and also find out who is trying to put the carnival their concession is attached to out of business.

In a gentler, yet tougher, way than would be used today, the author addresses things like getting used to a stepparent, animal cruelty, facing death, prejudice toward people living different lifestyles (Peg makes a friend in school who is forbidden to associate with her because she is "one of those carnival people"), and other childhood problems. The story is relatively free of gender stereotypes: although Maida and Peg clean and cook, they also run the pony concession and take care of the animals, and no one suggests Peg shouldn't ride and go out exploring just like the boy she befriends. There's a pony named Golliwog in the story that might give some people pause, but the name is not used to further a racial stereotype, and I was impressed that there was a Native American character who neither talked "ugh you see 'um" stereotypical "Indian language" nor had some mystic Native American "woo-woo" factor associated with him. A child today could still read this and not have any problems.

 My Year With Eleanor, Noelle Hancock
I'm an Eleanor Roosevelt fan, and was intrigued by the theme of this book. Hancock, just laid off from her six-figure job with a gossip website, fearful of her increasingly intimate relationship with her boyfriend not to mention many other things, still sparring with a father who wants her to be a lawyer, and with her 30th birthday on the horizon, takes to heart a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: "Do one thing every day that scares you." Having saved money, she decides to embark on a one-year project of doing something that frightens her every day. Along the way, she hopes to give up sleeping pills and give more consideration to her future with boyfriend Matt.

While this book does have its compelling parts—afraid of death (one of my own fears), Noelle volunteers at a funeral parlor; she volunteers working with cancer patients; and she climbs Mount Kilimanjaro—I had a lot of problems with her other "fear" choices. So many of her fears were that far out (skydiving, performing kareoke, flying in a fighter jet, performing standup comedy, being in a shark cage) that I thought it was kind of dumb. She's so very insecure that she can't figure out what to do with the incredibly patient and loving Matt. When she hasn't time to do something frightening during the day, she runs naked down the main hallway of her boyfriend's apartment house at night to fulfill her promise. At least she's grateful for him, as well as for her three crazy friends who go with her skydiving and being dunked in the shark tank (I can't believe the shark tank people let her go down there without more instruction on how to use her scuba gear!), because most people would have lost patience with her a long time ago. Her therapist seems to be God to her.

The last third of the book is the most palatable. She seems to have matured and does indeed work out a lot of her fears working at the mortuary and climbing Kilimanjaro. Otherwise she strikes me as a ditz who lucked out on a 6-figure salary early in her life and then had to figure out what to do with the rest of it.

(BTW, does Hancock really think women pee out of their vaginas? Yeah, this is mentioned on page 260.)

 Shakespeare's Pub, Pete Brown
At Christmas we still see them: the images of happy travelers on English stagecoaches, schoolboys and rosy-cheeked chubby businessmen heading home for the holidays. The stagecoach era was very short, and almost all of the "coaching inns" associated with it are gone, except for this one: the George Inn in Southwark, reduced in size substantially from what it was during its prime and rebuilt twice in the 1600s, but still surviving. Chaucer's fictional pilgrims probably stopped here, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was nearby and he probably drank there, and Charles Dickens was a customer (one of the licensees used to insist The George is where Mr. Pickwick met Sam Weller, even though the book calls the rendezvous The White Hart).

With an amusing, breezy narration, Brown tells the history of The George, from 1475 to the present, and in the process chronicling the history of the Southwark area of London, especially during The George's heyday as a coaching inn. You'll meet the watermen of the Thames, the pollution, the tawdry recreations of earlier days (bearbaiting, cockfights, gin houses, and of course the ever-popular brothels), the recollections of later licensees, and the efforts to save the Inn from the curse of urban renewal. While the connection to Shakespeare is rather tenuous, a Dickens fan will enjoy dipping in here as well, especially if their interest is Pickwickian.

The only problem I had with this book were the large number of references to modern British pop stars I didn't know. The history bits are quite enjoyable.

 Murder at Marble House, Alyssa Maxwell
The second of the Emma Cross "Gilded Newport" mysteries opens where the first left off, with Emma having discovered that the "reporter" who helped her in the previous book is really Derrick Andrews, scion of a wealthy Providence, RI, family. Emma has no time for his romantic overtures although she is drawn to him, and is just recovering from their encounter when her Aunt Alva calls her and demands she visit. Emma, a "poor relation" of the Vanderbilts, arrives at Marble House to find her aunt wants her to help talk her cousin Consuelo into an arranged marriage. Later in the day there will be a get-together where a "mystic" will tell fortunes and Aunt Alva wants Consuelo sparkling for the event. But that never happens because the fortune teller is found murdered out in the gazebo. Now not only does Emma feel obliged to help Consuelo, but she also wants to free the young maid accused of the crime.

I will admit I found this a page-turner as Emma encounters each new suspect. However, my criticism of this series stands: the vocabulary often throws you out of the story very quickly. Really, would a woman in 1895 talk about another woman as being "victimized"? Other things have a "boy's own adventure" aroma about them, like Emma dressing as a man to investigate a situation and being thrown into some danger; as much as she espouses being independent, a man has to rescue her from the situation. She also seems to travel around Newport very freely in an era where women were carefully chaperoned, and frankly I don't see Consuelo Vanderbilt doing what she ended up doing.

Still, I enjoy the Newport setting, and Emma's determination to make something of herself in the newspaper field appeals to me. This one also does a real hatchet job on Alva Vanderbilt, who basically shopped her daughter out to the British peerage so she could brag she had a "real duchess" in the family and who had a strong will and temper (Maxwell makes Alva sound meaner than a wolverine). I'd love it if Maxwell would keep up with the vocabulary of the time, but here I am on the second book, so I suppose I'm managing still.

 Carry On, Rainbow Rowell
In Fangirl, Rowell introduced us to Simon Snow, the hero of a series of eight books, and fanfiction fodder for Fangirl's protagonist Cath and her sister Wren. Elements of the Snow "universe" were excerpted in the book as Cath's stories. Rowell got so intrigued by the fanfic characters that she created that she decided to write a real Simon Snow novel.

Like Harry Potter, Simon goes to a magical school called Watford, has had a bad home life (he lives in an orphanage), has a close friend in Penelope (the Hermione of the piece), a girlfriend in Agatha, and an antagonist in his roommate Basilton "Baz" Pitch, whom he's discovered is a vampire. Spells are cast with Magic Words, the head of the school, the Mage, is Simon's protector, and Simon even has a vicious enemy, the Insidious Humdrum. Unlike Harry Potter, Simon spends a lot of time feeling sorry for himself, and his roommate is not only a vampire, he's gay, and in love with Simon. The latter was a great deal of the focus of Cath's fanfiction, but frankly, in the book all the moping of Baz over Simon and Simon over Baz gets old pretty fast. In fact, Baz is a lot more interesting character than Simon, and so is Penelope, for that matter, since Simon's always whinging about one thing or the other. What carried the story for me was the fascination of the Magic Words (you could use a cliche, or a song lyric, if only the emotion behind it was strong) and the conundrum of the Humdrum [wordplay intended] looking exactly like Simon as an eleven-year-old boy.

I probably should have waited for the paperback, but it wasn't half bad, either.

 The Perfect Horse, Elizabeth Letts
Following Letts' absorbing story of the jumping horse Snowman in The Eighty-Dollar Champion, she hits the bullseye again with this suspenseful story of the rescue of the priceless Lipizzaner horses of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. As a child I'd seen Walt Disney's Miracle of the White Stallions and thought I knew most of the story, but of course it was even more complicated than that. Not only were the Lipizzaners in Vienna endangered, but so were the breeding mares and foals that lived in the Piber Valley, and also champion Arabian horses in Poland. All of these horses were brought together by Gustav Rau, a horse fancier and Nazi officer who was collecting these animals for the Reich, in order to breed the perfect horse for war: powerful, tireless, and eating minimal food. He was fascinated by the Lipizzaners and planned to change their beautiful lines for something more suitable for working.

Letts brings together all the players in the story: Alois Podhajsky, the director of the Spanish Riding School; Gustav Rau; Stanislaw Pohoski, the director of the Arabian stud farm in Poland; Rudolf Lessing, the veterinarian for the Arabians; Hank Reed, the American cavalry officer who is the last of a dying breed; plus Tom Stewart, Ferdinand Sperl, and the others that took part in the amazing rescue, including a cameo from General George Patton, to tell the story of totalitarian obsession, love of horses, dangerous missions, delicate negotiations, war-scarred villages, exploding bombs, avaricious Soviets, determined Americans, and the beautiful animals they are trying to save. A great war story, but even better if you're a lover of horses or, still, like me, a fan of Miracle of the White Stallions from way back in 1963.

 A Front Page Affair, Radha Vatsal
Capability Weeks, better known as "Kitty," has had an eclectic, around-the-world education, but having a job is a new experience for her. In 1915, she is hired to be the assistant to Miss Busby, the Ladies' Page editor at the New York Sentinel. Kitty gets her first big assignment when she attends the garden party of the wealthy Elizabeth Basshor in place of her under-the-weather boss. She's in the midst of gathering color for her article when she notes an older man and his much younger wife (once a showgirl); later, after a fireworks display, the older man is found shot dead in the stable. Kitty desperately wants to follow up on this real case, but it's not something a young woman does in 1915. Can she juggle an investigation, her social job, and even a rival—and figure out why the FBI is trailing her father?

This is a pleasant enough cozy mystery with, to my surprise, a plot element that came directly from a nonfiction book about the first World War that I read a couple of years ago. Despite her practical demeanor and intelligence, Kitty is initially a bit careless at her first job, and it is interesting to follow her growth as her investigation proceeds. Vatsal also vividly illustrates the strikes against women working in journalism in Kitty's day: they were considered not intelligent enough to remember anything but feminine facts (clothing details and society gossip) and not strong enough to compete against men in what was then a strenuous profession. Several red herrings throw us off the trail, and a friend turns into an enemy and back into a friend again.

This is Vatsal's first novel, an excellent debut, and a pretty good portrait of American society in the years before our involvement in World War I.

Books Completed Since July 1

 Space Helmet for a Cow, Paul Kirkley
I think this one is strictly for Doctor Who fans, but what a fan book: a wonderful, amusing hodgepodge of behind-the-scenes events and facts from each era of the classic series, starting from its inception in the mind of Sydney Newman, back when the leads included Lola, Cliff, and Biddie, and its development under Verity Lambert. It's a heady mix of changes in stories, conflicting personalities, props, music, script malfunctions, strange casting, special effects on a budget, all costumes great and small, Venusian akido, teeth and hair, Billyisms, and Colin Baker's coat. Yeah, if you cleaned up a lot of the Kirkley bosh, you'd have a shorter book, but it's done in such fun that you can almost ignore it. Lots of behind-the-scenes bits about the main actors involved as well, including one jaw-dropper about Patrick Troughton.

Yeah, I enjoyed it to bits—and there's a sequel coming out soon!

 The Counterfeit Heiress, Tasha Alexander
Lady Emily and her husband Colin Hargreaves are attending a costume ball at the home of the Duchess of Devonshire, along with her dear friends Cecile and Jeremy, when first Emily is puzzled when a strange man comes up to her and asks her a question, only to receive a rude response when she answers him. She is even more perplexed when she accompanies Cecile to greet her old friend Estella Lamar (who is wearing a similar costume to Emily's), a world traveller, and Cecile accuses the woman of being an imposter. The woman flees and is soon found dead. Emily and Colin grow more bewildered when they find Estella supports several homes with full servants, but has never lived in any of them. Where is real Estella? Is she still travelling? Or are the photographs of her traveling just as fake as her impostor?

Inserted in chapters between the story of Emily and Colin's investigation is the story of Estella, a shy child whose happiest moments were spent telling stories to her dolls, who survives a strange incident after her parents die and she is left an enormous fortune. It persuades her to make travel plans...but why?

This is a rather creepy entry in the Lady Emily mystery series, especially in the Estella chapters, but it is also very atmospheric, especially the sequences which take place in Paris. Alexander has based the story loosely on a historical person who was recently featured in a biography, and makes good use of her base character with touches of Charles Dickens.

 Lusitania, Greg King and Penny Wilson
This was the second of two books that came out in 2015 about the Lusitania tragedy, the other being Erik Larson's Dead Wake. While Larson turned his story into a cat-and-mouse suspense tail with alternating chapters aboard the U-20 and the British liner, King and Wilson concentrate almost solely on the travellers and crew of the Lusitania, from pre-boarding to their eventual fates. The book is full of marvelous details about the decor of the ship, her meals and amusements, the clothing and the affairs and the mores of her passengers (mostly the first-class occupants), and the issues of the day, and then the harrowing experiences of those who survived, whether thrown from the ship or in a lifeboat, floating among dead bodies and watching shipmates drown.

The prose is vivid enough, but one wishes there were more pictures in a better format than murky black and white on rough paper.

 From Little Houses to Little Women, Nancy McCabe
McCabe was a voracious reader from when she was a child, raised in a narrow, restrictive religious home, the appealing lives of book heroines an open door to her imagination. She "gave up childish things" for a while, then was drawn back to her childhood heroines. The book chronicles both her examination of her love of the books and a trip she took with her 9-year-old daughter Sophie to see the real-life sites she had read about as a child: the different homes of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Mankato of the Maud Hart Lovelace "Betsy-Tacy" books, the Prince Edward Island location of the Anne books, and, briefly, Concord and Little Women, a trip that mirrored one taken when she was about Sophie's age with her dying aunt.

The discussion of the books and the chronicle of the trip are both pretty cool. I had never heard of the "Jennifer" books she talked about, and I was rather indignant that some of the highly-touted "Little House" historical sites take so much material from the television series rather than out of Wilder's autobiographical novels. Her narrative about how goody-goody Mary Ingalls seemed to be was right on target. She and Sophie have a comfortable mother-daughter relationship that is warm and mirrors the relationships in her favorite books while remaining unsentimentally modern.

On the other hand, I wonder why all these reviews of children's literature involve the narrator working out childhood traumas. It's very sad.

 Sup With the Devil, Barbara Hamilton
In what I believe is the third and final Abigail Adams mystery, Abigail travels to Harvard College at the bequest of her nephew Horace, who tells her a troubling story about an errand to provide an Arabic translation for a mysterious "Mrs. Lake" and being drugged for his pains. Abigail can't make sense of it, but does make the acquaintance of some of Horace's classmates, including the gentlemanly Ryland, the bullying Pugh, a "praying Indian" named Weyountah, and cheerful Virginian George Fairfield, who is accompanied by his slave. It is while Abigail is still in Cambridge that the latter is murdered, and his slave Diomede is accused of the crime. The others band together to clear Diomede of the charge—else he will be returned to Virginia and burned alive. And what did it have to do with Horace's mysterious journey?

As in the other two books, Abigail still seems to have too much freedom for a eighteenth century housewife who has a ton of chores; she seems to be able to routinely be able to step away from home overnight and leave things to her servants and in-laws. Otherwise this is a perplexing mystery that mixes the real-life political issues of pre-revolutionary Boston (they spend most of the book waiting to see if the King will close the port after the events of the tea party) in with a mystery involving alchemy texts and college students. The vocabulary thankfully doesn't slip to reveal modernisms, as happens in so many period pieces, and the atmosphere is correct for the time. The disappearance of one of the children is also terrifyingly well done.

 Radio Girls, Sarah-Jane Stratford
Maisie Musgrave was raised chiefly in Canada by an American mother who barely wanted to admit she had a daughter, and a grandmother who hated the fact she had an out-of-wedlock granddaughter. Now back in the land of her father's birth, a down-on-her-luck Maisie is thrilled to find a position as an assistant typist to the secretary of the director general of the BBC. She's not prepared for the pace, nor the piqued attentions of Hilda Matheson, a rara avis at the BBC, a woman executive, in charge of BBC radio's "Talks" department. Under Hilda, the Talks—on subjects from gardening to books to politics—have become very popular, annoying her conservative superiors, and as Maisie gains confidence under Hilda's tutelage, she begins to blossom. But soon she discovers there's something sinister going on behind the scenes...

I really enjoyed this look at the BBC's early days and at the career of real-life Hilda Matheson, who had several challenges in life, not just in business as a female executive, but as a lesbian in a bigoted society. Maisie is our "eye" into the clashes between the imperious and prudish director general John Reith versus the ambitious and creative Matheson; in addition there is a creepy subplot involving those who wish to use the BBC for their own purposes. (The parallel with current politics is not lost on the perceptive.) Yes, the subplot seems a bit "boys' own adventure" at times, but the personalities surrounding it are appealing and you wish to follow them all to the inevitable end.

 Speaking American, Richard W. Bailey
While most of the linguistics books that I have trace the development and appearance of words and idioms in the English language, this one follows the historical developments that contributed to the evolution of the American language from its English vocabulary, starting with the influence of Native American words on the earliest settlers (who resisted using the Native words and at first chose to give English words to them instead). Native American vocabulary additions are also examined in the chapter taking place in Boston, followed by African-American contributions, German additions (again resisted by "pure" English speakers), French borrowings, and then vocabulary from the Yiddish speakers in New York, Chicagoans, and Angelinos.

It's a bit of a dry book, but a different look at how the language formed that does not concentrate on vocabulary. Sadly, the author died before its publication.

 The Death of Lucy Kyte, Nicola Upson
This is an atmospheric and often creepy entry in Upson's mysteries featuring mystery writer Josephine Tey (real name Elizabeth Mackintosh). As the story begins, Tey finds out she has inherited a cottage from her godmother, a stage actress who was also her mother's childhood friend, and is surprised that the woman even remembered her. The cottage is in bad repair, and a room in it gives Josephine the shivers, but she still plans to fix it up as a country retreat, even as she finds out the cottage is embedded in village lore as connected to a murder in a nearby barn. Soon she's wondering if her godmother's death was due solely to old age and discovering sordid details that were covered up by a well-meaning friend of the woman. And who's the Lucy Kyte mentioned in her godmother's will? No one in the village seems to know who that is.

Even with occasional lapses in her previous narratives (like the incestuous relationship in the second book that is treated as if it were an ordinary thing), Upson does her usual terrific job of capturing the pacing and language of a 1930s thriller/mystery, and this one includes a supernatural element as well. The cottage's history has something to do with the famous "Red Barn murder," a 19th century event that actually happened in the town of Polstead, which is the setting of this book, and Upson well mixes her fictional elements with the known elements of Maria Marten's murder. Plus Josephine's continuing romance doesn't feel tacked on in this outing, but an integral part of the story. I hung on this one tensely until the final page. A real winner if you like old-fashioned murder mysteries.

 Queen of Hearts, Rhys Bowen
Georgiana Rannoch, 35th in line for the English throne and perpetually underfunded, travels in a new direction in this newest entry in the "Royal Spyness" series. Her flamboyant actress mother, who was the late Duke of Rannoch's second wife, brings Georgie and her hopelessly gauche maid Queenie along with her aboard ship as she heads for Reno, Nevada, to get a divorce from her present husband to marry Max, her handsome German industrialist lover. Aboard ship, Georgie befriends an odd assortment of passengers, including a bombastic American film director (sort of a combination Goldwyn and Hearst) and his actress lover, and a princess carrying a priceless ruby. Aboard ship, the ruby is stolen, and Georgie thinks she sees someone fall overboard, but no passenger is missing.

This is just the start of Georgie's adventures, which continue through a short stop in Reno and end in California, where the director wants to put her mother into a movie and where they stay at his castle estate (think Hearst Castle). Coincidentally, Georgie's beau, the impoverished but dashing Darcy O'Mara, is aboard ship (and later following Georgie) in search of a jewel thief.

A fun romp for Georgie fans, as these books are always a bit romantic and tongue in cheek. Georgie does some real sleuthing, and her mother is quite audacious and funny. Bowen skewers classic Hollywood types and the mystery is pretty good, although if you pay attention, a clue to an identity is offered early on.

Books Completed Since June 1

 Written in Stone, Christopher Stevens
English words have been traced back to early Indo-European tongues, but Stevens claims an even earlier pedigree: that some of our most basic words go back to the Stone Age utterances of our prehistoric ancestors. Stevens follows each individual word, basic vocabulary having to do with everyday life, from basic breathing to speaking to existence, words for birth and death, food and drink, light and dark, yes and no, growth and harvesting, and the more modern words that grew out of those simple roots.

Linguistics fans will enjoy; I certainly did.

 Murder in the Afternoon, Frances Brody
In this third in the Kate Shackleton mystery series, the novel opens with two children taking food to their father, a stoneworker at a quarry. But their errand turns into horror when they discover their father dead and the sundial he was working on ruined. However, when they go to get help and return with an adult, there is no sign of the murder—in fact no sign of their father at all. Their mother travels to the home of Kate Shackleton, asking her to find him, and reveals an incredible secret: she's Kate's sister. At first Kate takes on the case as an obligation, but then she becomes involved with her niece and the mystery itself.

These are great period pieces (post World War I), with Kate still suffering repercussions of losing her husband in combat and still hoping he may be found alive in some hospital. The additional baggage of the mystery involving her biological family is also telling in Kate's investigation as she discovers a little more of "who she is." Brody does a fine job preserving the customs, language, and atmosphere of the times without resorting to the casual prejudices of the era. The mystery is also reasonably complicated.

 Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leewenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing, Laura J. Snyder
This is an intriguing, if a bit tiring, book about artist Vermeer, scientist van Leewenhoek, and how they both used glass lenses to achieve breakthroughs in their chosen fields, van Leewenhoek to, of course, discover the "little animals" living in drops of water (bacteria) using the new microscopes, and Vermeer's use of the camera obscura and other pinhole techniques to emphasize depth of field in his paintings and develop new techniques of portraying perspectives. It's also a portrait of Dutch society in the 1600s: their science, exploration, finance, etc.

The detail may fascinate or bore you (I leaned toward the former, but even for me the prose was occasionally dense). My main problem, if any, was Snyder's continued assertion that, even though there was no record of it, Vermeer and van Leewenhoek just had to know each other: they lived in the same area, shared some neighbors and relatives, etc. A few times to make this assertion was okay, but it kept popping up interminably.

Best for those who are interested in the history of painting and/or scientific exploration, or perhaps Dutch history.

 Treasure of the Golden Cheetah, Suzanne Arruda
Jade del Cameron reluctantly joins a safari to Mount Kilimanjaro in the company of her friendly enemy Harry Hascombe, who's escorting a movie crew to the area. The flamboyant director is shooting a film about King Solomon's mines, and some of his crew still think there's treasure to be found. Harry has asked Jade to act as escort for the actresses of the company, and she gets an unwanted education in envy, cattiness, and rivalry from both the female and male members of the cast and crew. It also looks as if someone wants to sabotage the production. But from the beginning, even Jade's ward Jelani and her pet cheetah Biscuit know there's something going on, and they stow away with the party. And sure enough, death is in the offing.

The Jade del Cameron books always mix mystery, period charm, and travelogue, and this one is no exception. There's a nice sense of tension through the entire plot, red herrings, and of course the intrepid Jade herself. Her fiance Sam is becoming less of a cardboard character as well, although he is often ineffective. If you like period mysteries set in exotic places, these are worth your investigation.

 Cranston Revisited, Sandra M. Moyer and Thomas A. Worthington
A second vintage visit to my home town via old photographs and the folks at Arcadia Publishing and "Images of America." Long ago the places I remember full of shopping centers and favorite stores were farmlands dotted with cows and produce (at one time Rhode Island was a dairy capital!), there was a coal mine at the back end of what's now Garden City shopping center, and clothing mills dotted what wasn't pastures. Lots of pictures of the Sprague Mansion and even the trotting park that became the state fairgrounds and finally the housing plat where my playmates and my Mom's best friend lived. A must for any Cranstonian who loves history.

 Walk the Lines: The London Underground Overground, Mark Mason
What's one of the most memorable things about the city of London? Its transport system, about which many things have been written. But what's above those underground lines?

That's what Mark Mason sets out to discover as he walks each of the London Underground lines...overhead, from the shortest to the longest, outbound and back again, some done in the warmth and others done in the cold. One turns into a pub crawl. One is done with a friend. And along the way Mason notes historical markers, changing architecture, famous personages, and more quips than you can shake a stick at. He even explains the difference between "the tube" and "the underground," and indeed there is a difference.

I think by the end I was a bit tired of his whimsy, but take it slowly and you'll discover some inside history.

 Death of a Dog Whisperer, Laurien Berenson
Melanie Travis' peppery Aunt Peg, the one who dragged Melanie into the competitive dog ring by gifting her with the standard poodle Faith, has a new protege: Nick Walden, a young man who's called a "dog whisperer," who is having tremendous success with behavior training of both dogs and their owners. Even a wary Melanie, having heard too many gimmicks in her years in the dog ring and who knows Aunt Peg met Nick through her ex-husband Bob, who has led both of them astray before, likes the affable Nick. So why was he murdered?

I twigged on the solution to this one a little before the reveal, but it didn't keep me from enjoying the reappearance of semi-regulars like Terry and Crawford, or Bob being a big part of the plot, and even the fact that Melanie's mysterious previous neighbor figures into the plot. It's a shame something happened to Nick because he was actually a nice guy, as opposed to some of the murder victims previous in this series. And Melanie doesn't do anything goofy at the end of the story to precipitate the climax. The only problem was the nearly book-long difficulty between Sam and Melanie, but Sam's been such a perfect boyfriend/husband for so long it's actually a relief to know those two argue once in a while.

As always, I enjoy this series, despite any flaws in the individual books.

 Once Upon a Flock, Lauren Scheuer
Adorable little book about a couple and their child who raise a trio of chickens and learn that these supposedly "stupid" birds have personality and charm of their own. The flock is guarded by a cute little terrier, and Scheuer's adorable little drawings of chickens, dogs, and kids, plus photographs of the real thing, pepper the text. Animal lovers will...well, love!

 Heirs of the Body, Carola Dunn
This very latest of the Daisy Dalrymple-Fletcher novels has Daisy assisting with a mystery involving her own family. When Daisy's brother, who was to inherit the family estate, died in the Great War, and Daisy, being female, could not inherit, her cousin Edgar and his wife were the legal inheritors of the estate. Now, since Edgar and his spouse have no children, a legal heir must be found for when Lord Dalrymple passes on. Advertising produces several heirs, and Edgar asks Daisy to help him investigate the claims. As in all families, some of the claimants are nice, and some are not, and since this is a murder mystery cozy, of course one of them turns up dead.

This is an entertaining mystery in which we see more of Daisy's family—I simply love cousin Edgar, who cares more for his butterfly collection than his title (but who can get serious when he needs to)—including her sister and her snobbish mother. Once again Alec Fletcher's superiors are appalled that Daisy is involved in another murder, and there is fun with a village fete, where Belinda (Daisy's stepdaughter) and Derek (Daisy's nephew) prove they are both "bricks" in the best British slang tradition.

 Martha's Vineyard: Isle of Dreams, Susan Branch
When we left our heroine at the end of The Fairy Tale Girl, she was on an airplane fleeing the end of a broken relationship, back to somewhere she had loved, Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. She intends only to stay a few months to soothe her broken heart, and then she sees—and impulsively buys—Holly Oak Cottage, a tiny home in need of love. And gradually Susan falls even more in love with the Vineyard, and her home, and a new pair of cats...and with enough encouragement, submits her unique combination of watercolors, quotations, and recipes to a publisher for what will be the first of several beautiful cookbooks.

If I was enchanted with FTG, I absolutely adored this one, since I grew up in New England and the whole milieu of seasons, seashore, books, and artwork was very close to my soul, and the combination of watercolor art, quotations, vintage photographs, postcards, and Susan's handwritten text was like a warm, loving blanket of New England happiness. Even when snakes intrude into the Garden of Eden (yes, Cliff, her ex, showed up again, like a bad penny), it's a happy ride as you rejoice with her remodeling of Holly Oak, nature walks, and the whole heady book-publishing experience.

Of course, if you aren't a Branch fan, your mileage may vary. But anyone into home, domesticity, nature, and happiness of self will probably love this book.

 Melody Ellison: Never Stop Singing, Denise Lewis Patrick
The second book in the Melody Ellison series does not disappoint. In this outing, Melody has been able to "see in" her first new year, that of 1964. When the pastor of her church challenges his congregation to "make a difference," Melody and her cousin and her friends get together to rehabilitate a derelict playground and make it a good park for the neighborhood. It's a lot of work for the children, and they are almost stymied in their goals, but with the help from public opinion and some of the adults in their lives, they continue and persevere.

Once again, a great read. The book does not shy away from prejudices faced by the Ellisons, their families, and their neighbors, but they always hold up their heads and overcome hard times. Melody's brother Dwayne faces rocky times on his way up in Motown, and her sister Yvonne fights for civil rights in Mississippi, where the times are particularly dangerous for people of color. The family is a haven of love and support for all of them. Even when a final obstacle comes in their path, they keep faith and overcome it.

Melody Ellison and her family and friends are inspiration for us all.

 The Mysterious World of Sherlock Holmes, Bruce Wexler
This is a neat coffee table book that labels itself "the official book of the Sherlock Holmes Museum." It is like many of the other Sherlock Holmes summaries in that it talks about Conan Doyle and the origins of the stories, but also discusses police work at the time of the canon, women in the story, traveling in Victorian times, and the era's "forensics." Final chapters talk about Holmes and the media (Jeremy Brett was the newest Holmes when this was written), and there are oodles of photos from the Sherlock Holmes Museum and vintage Holmes illustrations, the latter which are the big draw in this book.

 Elise The Actress, Norma Jean Lutz
This is another "Sisters in Time," vaguely Christian-themed book like the "Dear America" series. Elise Brannon is growing up during the Civil War, with a best friend whose mother is struggling after her husband's death at Bull Run and her brother joining the Union army. Since she loves to act, she and her friends put together a show to earn money for a local hospital and entertain the wounded soldiers, and they all hope for a successful end to the war. But then Elise alienates her friend Verly by befriending a man whose son fought for the Confederacy.

This is a much better girl-in-the-Civil-War book than When This Cruel War Is Over, although the Brannons don't experience as much hardship as in that book, as it represents a more typical Union family. Elise is a likeable girl, and the Christian theme is very general, of forgiveness and generosity rather than evangelizing. This book also tries to show that both Union and Confederate sides suffered during the war and that labeling someone because of something a family member did is unfair.

The biggest thing I want to know about this book is why in the dickens is the family's "Irish maid and nurse" Berdeen speaking in a Scottish accent? Why is she calling Elise a "lassie" when a real Irish person would be calling her a "colleen"?

Books Completed Since May 1

 The Easter Book, Francis X. Weiser

  How to Choose and Use Fonts & Typefaces, edited by Tony Seddon
This is a nice, simple book about the history of typefaces, the vocabulary associated with them (including the difference between a font and a typeface; they are not interchangeable), and which is appropriate to use in what situation. Liberally illustrated with examples and color photographs. I'm a font fanatic and really enjoyed this.

 Harvest of Time, Alastair Reynolds
This is a super Third-Doctor-and-Jo adventure that features the Master and a very creepy alien race called the Sild. Once confined in a spaceship that is theoretically escape-proof, the Sild have used the Praxilons, another race led by their indomitable Red Queen, to free themselves. Then they make landfall on Earth and violently and pitilessly take over the body of a lighthouse keeper. That is only the first step in their takeover of Earth.

In the meantime, strange things are going on at an oil-drilling platform, and the Doctor, Yates, and Jo are sent to investigate, but now the rig's director, Edwina McCrimmon, says there's nothing wrong. But something is wrong: one of the men visiting an employee injured on the rig is a dead ringer for the Master, who at present is locked up in an impenetrable prison surrounded by water. And more mysteriously still, everyone at UNIT is starting to forget who the Master is. They have to write themselves notes and leave his photograph all over the installation to recall him at all. Even the Doctor is starting to forget him.

What a cracking great story! With the classic cliffhangers of the classic series mixed with modern imagery and ideas from the new series, this is a fast-moving thriller with appearances by all your favorites. The aliens are truly ruthless; this is certainly not a children's story by any means and in this resembles the present series rather than the classic series in which the Third Doctor appeared. The situation with the Master was also a more complicated situation than was ever postulated on the classic series. I found it a good mixture of old and new, and it was so happy to see all the familiar UNIT "family" again.

 MASH FAQ, Dale Sherman
I really enjoyed this summary of M*A*S*H in all its incarnations, from the original book and the two "official" sequels written by Richard Hooker (and the additional sequels written by William Butterworth) to the final television sequels (AfterMASH and Trapper John, MD, plus the unseen W.A.L.T.E.R.). As with any good story, author Sherman starts at the beginning, with a short, concise history of the Korean War, which only lasted a quarter of M*A*S*H's eleven year run. In turn, the movie and the subsequent television series are also examined.

Some things that I really enjoyed: the summary of the later novels, as I pretty much bowed out after M*A*S*H Goes to Maine; the differences between the book and the movie (and the difference between Robert Altman's script and Ring Lardner's); movies and two television series associated with the film, including one with Humphrey Bogart; a list of recurring characters from the television series (like Spearchucker and Ginger Bayliss) who disappeared; and a discussion about fans' favorite periods of the show (the Blake years vs. the Potter years, or Burns vs. Winchester, etc.)—even a "featurette" chapter about the movies shown in the mess tent.

As a big fan of M*A*S*H, from Blake/Trapper/Burns to Potter/Hunnicutt/Winchester, I found this a great book filled with 4077th trivia of all kinds. Glad I spotted it!

 Murder on Murray Hill, Victoria Thompson
Frank Malloy hopes his compatriots on the police force won't discover he's come into a great deal of money as he takes on a new case: a man with a missing daughter who did not come home the previous night. He's discovered the plain young woman was responding to a lonely hearts ad in one of the New York newspapers. However, his hopes are dashed when the truth about the money is exposed and Frank is kicked off the force. However, he still feels a responsibility to find Grace Thompson, as does his fiance, midwife Sarah Brandt. As further clues appear, they become very uneasy about Grace. Can Frank and Sarah still help with the case without the police putting them under arrest?

Thompson's Victorian "gaslight" mysteries always involve murder, and death in this "cozy" series is not always pretty. But the situation in which this plot develops into is a deeply disturbing story which may bother sensitive people (suffice it to say that the man who put in the lonely hearts ad is not a nice person) and the details are not pretty. If you have read the other books but are easily disturbed, you may want to skip this one. Frank and Sarah's relationship does proceed a little more in discussing making a life together, but it's the crime and its solution that takes center stage here. I did enjoy the story and the unique resolution, but some of the chapters were difficult to get through.

 The Yankee Road, James D. McNiven
James McNiven wanted to write a Road Book, like his heroes Kerouac and Least Heat-Moon before him. And boy, did he write one—the first of a projected three, a thick tome about a fascinating westward movement.

McNiven's road trip takes us along US20, from the beginning of the route and the beginning of the race known as "Yankees," those tough New Englanders who settled the stony soil of the upper northeast of the United States. (The name supposedly came from the Dutch, who jibingly called the English "John Cheeses.") As he traces the route of the highway—in this volume covering the route through the Pennsylvania border of Lake Erie—he also touches on the history along the way that was influenced by the Yankee way of life, whether it was religion (the first communes and model communities, the "Great Awakening," plus movements in Syracuse and Utica), education (the Chautauqua movement and the birth of the American public school), or "good old Yankee ingenuity" in its myriad forms: the first textile mills (Pawtucket and Lowell), interchangeable parts (Springfield), and the first computer revolution (Route 128, the "technology highway"), not to mention time study (Watertown, MA, and Frederick Taylor) vs. individuality (Henry Thoreau at Walden Pond). It's 360 pages, plus another 120 pages of very readable footnotes with additional info) full of history goodness.

The big question is: when's the rest coming out?

 Ghost Hero, S.J. Rozan
This appears to be the last in Rozan's series of Lydia Chin and Bill Smith detective stories that began with China Trade, introducing us to Lydia, a Chinese-American private investigator and her partner Bill, and alternated through a series of books where Chin and Smith appeared as leads. In this final (?) installment, Lydia's new client is asking her to look into supposedly new paintings rumored to exist from a famous Chinese painter and social agitator, Chau Chun, nicknamed "Ghost Hero Chau," who has been dead for some years. When Lydia tells Bill about the case, and her reasons for feeling something is awry, Bill takes her to meet Jack Lee, another "ABC" (American Born Chinese) private detective, who has also been asked to look into the mysterious new Ghost Hero paintings. Lydia, Bill and Jack pool their resources, resulting in an absorbing "caper" in which Smith poses as Russian Mafia wanting to possess the paintings (if they exist) and Chin and Lee team up, to Mrs. Chin's great delight, since she's afraid Lydia is in love with Bill.

I never much got into the Bill Smith books, but I loved Lydia Chin's world and am sad to see it disappear, especially the reactions from her traditional mother who wishes her daughter would settle down, marry, and have babies with someone else of Chinese descent. Jack, Lydia, and Bill together make a madcap team, and along the way we learn about traditional Chinese painting and the breakout artists of Chinese descent abandoning the traditional ways. The sequences with Bill pretending to be a Russian collector interested in rare Chinese art was worth the price of the book. I guessed one little secret a few chapters before the end, but no matter: being with Ms. Chin and Mr. Smith was the best part of the deal.

 The Catholic Catalogue, Melissa Musick and Anna Keating
This is an essential and useful book for any Catholic family who wishes to know more about the Catholic faith (no, we don't worship saints; we venerate them—they provide intercession for us with God) and form traditions around the events of the church calendar to make the faith more meaningful. The book opens with explanations of the symbols and practices of Catholicism (novenas, scapulas, holy water, etc.) and a calendar of the church year follows, with saints' days and the Seasons of Advent, Lent, etc. The concluding chapters are about the seasons of a Catholic person's life, from childhood through the final days of your life.

The book is written in a nice, easy to read style with the occasional tongue in cheek remark (for instance, the first section is entitled "Smells and Bells") that still remains properly reverential. There are some simple ideas for family celebrations, appropriate hymns and prayers for each occasion, and even a few recipes. This is a nice book for a young Catholic couple just starting a family and wanting to establish traditions, or even an old Catholic looking for new insights on his faith.

 Sweet Home Alaska, Carole Estby Dagg
I absolutely, positively adore this book.

It's the story of the Johnson family who are not-quite-but-close-to starving on their home farm in the fourth year of the Great Depression. They are living hand-to-mouth on the vegetables they can grow and the meager income from Mother's piano lessons, but those have now dried up in their poverty-stricken farming community. Luckily oldest daughter Terpsichore (Mrs. Johnson is named "Clio," and all the girls are named after the Muses) is an inventive cook, a perfect whiz with making creative dishes, especially from pumpkin.  The family makes the difficult decision to homestead in Alaska with a group of other farm families, with Mrs. Johnson giving them eighteen months to "prove up." Terpsichore rises to the challenge, taking all the hardships, including life in a tent and itchy mosquitoes, on the chin, helping the community to form a lending library with her new friends Gloria and Mendel. To do something that will keep her mother from voting to leave Alaska, Terpsichore takes a cue from one of her favorite books, trying to raise a milk-fed pumpkin just like Almanzo Wilder in Farmer Boy to win a prize at the autumn fair.

Based on a true story of farmers who were sent to homestead in Palmer, Alaska, during the 1930s, this is a delight to read, often funny, sometimes sad, and you will be rooting for Terpsichore and her plan to make her mother like Alaska.

 Sherlock: The Facts and Fiction Behind the World's Most Famous Detective, Martin Fido
This is a nice beginner book overview of Holmes and Watson with color illustrations, opening with a bio of Holmes (and of Watson, of course); then a bio of Conan Doyle, a summary of each of the short story collections and novels, a chapter about detectives and criminals in the Victorian era followed by a history of detective fiction and a history of Holmes in other than his Canon. There are some photographs I haven't seen in other compilations about the Great Detective, but if you have one of those recent color compilations, this one may be redundant. (This is a British book, so you may enjoy the different POV.)

Books Completed Since April 1

 Closer to the Heart, Mercedes Lackey
This is the second book in Lackey's "Herald Spy" series, featuring Mags, the Chosen mine-slave now grown up and on the eve of his marriage to Amily, once the crippled daughter of the King's Own Herald and now King's Own herself. Mags continues to develop his spy network in this book and assist the street kids who help him in his intelligence surveillance.

Several interesting new characters are introduced in this story, including Lady Dia's husband Lord Jorthun and what sounds like an autistic craftsman, Tuck, who can make marvelous tools and inventions. Thankfully, the Romeo-and-Juliet plot from the preceding book is almost forgotten, but the story moves slowly in the middle as Lackey illustrates the setup of the spy network. However, a new danger is introduced almost immediately: Valdemaran weapons are being used to help overthrow a king in the neighboring country of Menmillith, which is determined to fight back, even if it means war.

So the threat builds and a lead is then followed—but the actual "villain" of the piece is identified very late in the story, there's another interminable Kirball game, Mags is kidnapped yet again (not to mention Amily), and it's as if Lackey realized she was coming to the end of an established page count and suddenly wraps it up in the last twenty pages with a speech! At least Mags and Amily do get married, because after the mess they certainly deserve some happiness. To sum up: it's rather uneven, but it does progress the storyline. And a thread right at the beginning was never wrapped up, so I'm wondering if it's going to show up in a future book. Same time next year, I expect...

 Poems and Sketches of E.B. White, E.B. White
Having lulled myself with Charlotte's Web and two volumes of meticulous and lovely essays followed by a surfeit of letters, what do I come upon but this book, which has not only the very beautiful—I love White's poetry; he favors sonnets, but uses all forms—but the very strange, like one piece called "The Door," and the inevitable essay about strange servants in which James Thurber also indulged, even a piece about pigeons addressed to what White considers a very unobservant essayist in another magazine.

I particularly love the poems written to his wife Katharine Angell, especially this one called "Wedding Day in the Rockies":

"The charm of riding eastward through Wyoming
Is not so much the grandeur and the view
As that it is an exercise in homing
And that my fellow passenger is you.
In fourteen years of this our strange excursion
The scenic points of love have not grown stale
For that my mind in yours has found diversion
And in your heart my heart could never fail.

It's fourteen years today since we began it—
This sonnet crowds a year in every line—
Love were an idle drudge if time outran it
And time were stopped indeed were you not mine.
The rails go on together toward the sky
Even (the saying goes) as you and I."

Isn't that lovely? There's another great one called "Winter Trees," too, that isn't love poetry but which is just as beautiful. Read this if just for the poetry.

  The Grapes of Math, Alex Bellos
I confess I didn't enjoy this one as much as Bellos' predecessor, I'm Looking at Euclid. Most of the mathematics made sense, and I enjoyed learning about how certain numbers are more "right" than others and the Benford progression, the stories behind trigonometry and calculus, and tau as a more compelling number than pi.

On the other hand, imaginary numbers just completely lost me (I couldn't figure out what they were good for) and the cell "Game of Life" had me completely baffled until he finally revealed that it could help predicting growth of cities and traffic flow (and the pattern made by the cells was pretty cool). And the fractals were kinda neat. I just guess I am not made for higher math. :-)

 Journey to Munich, Jacqueline Winspear
Maisie Dobbs, now widowed and fresh from a year helping the victims of the Spanish Civil War, is back in England, living with her friends the Partridges but knowing she will need to be taking some direction in her life now that she has returned. One day she is waylaid by her old compatriot from the secret service, Robert McFarlane. He has a mission he wishes her to take: play the part of an imprisoned Englishman's daughter so her father (who is of some use to the government) can be freed in her custody. With misgivings Maisie takes the role.

Of course this being a Maisie Dobbs book you know it can't all be that simple. Maisie is also asked to locate Elaine Otterburn, the woman she secretly holds responsible for her husband's death—and once Elaine is located, Maisie's mission becomes doubly hard. As the Germans continue to delay the release of the imprisoned man, it becomes more and more dangerous for Maisie to keep up her cover as his daughter.

I liked this much more than the proceeding book; and enjoyed the Hitchcockian sense of suspense that follows Maisie's trail. But I like best the final pages of the book, which establishes a new direction for her. I look forward to the next one!

 Dial H for Hitchcock, Susan Kandel
This is the fifth and final (so far that I know) book in the Cece Caruso mystery series. I didn't realize this book was out for a long time after it was published and it has since sat languishing in my to-be-read pile. Cece is an author of mystery writer/filmmaker biographies who also has a taste for vintage clothing. She has an earthy daughter named Annie who has given her one grandchild, plus another from Annie's marriage to Vincent, and when we last met her in Christietown, she was planning her wedding to police officer Peter Gambino.

Except when this book begins she has walked out of her wedding, telling Gambino she isn't good enough for him, and has just come back from what should have been her honeymoon cruise. She returns home to find she has new neighbors, some type of odd people who are Hollywood types. Her troubles being when she goes to a revival showing of Hitchcock's Vertigo and after the show finds a cell phone which is not hers in her bag. In attempting to return it, she sees a woman pushed from a hiking trail by a man, who then threatens her. But, bizarrely, she discovers that she has apparently threatened this young woman.

I've read some bizarre mysteries in my time, but this one takes the cake. The previous Cece mysteries were always a little dippy, as is Cece herself, but this was just oddly off the wall, with Cece trying to figure out how she threatened someone she didn't even know. And when she goes on the run because she knows someone is trying to frame her, she just keeps getting in more and more absurd situations, and it turns out to be the dumbest thing at the end. Frankly, if this hadn't been the last book in the series, I would have quit reading here anyway.

 The Twilight Zone FAQ, Dave Thompson
First, do not buy this as a complete Twilight Zone reference book. That honor is reserved for Marc Scott Zicree's classic Twilight Zone Companion. Second, a warning: Dave Thompson hates modern television. Be prepared for many insults at reality television.

Is this book worth buying? Actually, I liked it if you don't count on it too highly for facts. I think it was badly edited on a computer and bits of text just dropped out, and of course no one proofreads books anymore. In one place the end of a sentence is clearly cut off. In another, the writer seems to be referencing something a character said, but that reference is gone. And there are facts that are wrong; in a section where Thompson is talking about UFO abductions, he mentions Betty and Barney Hills, not Hill.

On the other hand, I sort of liked the goofy way it is arranged: starting the narration with Rod Serling itself and his career in TV, then gives a season by season overview, and within that arranges the episodes under themes (World War II, cold war tensions, aliens, just desserts, etc.). He also talks about some of the noted writers who were regulars on the series (George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, even Earl Hamner). I liked the theme sections because he talks about some of the history and stories that lay behind the episodes. But many of his "discussions" of episodes themselves are just a rehash of the plot, with nothing new learned from reading the synopsis. Now I did like that he addressed the revival series in the 1980s (with classics like "Paladin of the Lost Hour") and the one season 2002 show. So there are pluses and minuses to the volume. I'd say if you are a TZ fan, buy it, but find a used copy on Amazon or Bookfinder.

 The Beginner's Photography Guide, DK Publishers
This is a nice basic photography guide, which will work best for cameras with adjustable features (aperture, shutter speed, etc) and DSLRs.

 Great War Britain: The First World War at Home, Lucinda Gosling
"The Tatler" and "The Sketch," and also "The Bystander" and "The Queen," were the "People" and "Us" of their day in Great Britain, but instead of concentrating on media celebrities, they focused on royalty and society. The wealthy read them to keep up with all the gossip in their society; the middle class to imagine themselves living that opulent and privileged lifestyle. Then Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated.

This delightful history book tells the story of "the Great War" as seen in the four greatest society magazines of that age: how even Princess Mary volunteered for nursing and society matrons raised money, eschewed frivolity, and knitted and packed parcels for "the boys over there." Women became "land girls" and worked on farms, made do with inferior foods and no meat, and eventually became conductors, munitions workers, and other positions formerly reserved for men. It was debated if racing and football should be continued in the face of horrible war losses. The fictional "Eve" in "The Tatler" and "Phrynette" in "The Sketch" commented on the war, most times humorously or facetiously, but sometimes in contemplative form as the body count increased.

Liberally strewn throughout this book are photographs of the society denizens that found their cultured world turned upside down, original art, the whimsical cartoon "Eve," and vintage advertisements urging people to stretch budgets, menus, and charity to "make do." It's a vivid portrait of a segment of British society from 1914 through 1919.

(I was amazed to find this wonderful book in a Hamilton Books catalog for $8. It's still selling for $40 on Amazon!)

 Dear America: A City Tossed and Broken--The Diary of Minnie Bonner, Judy Blundell
One moment Minnie Bonner is helping her extravagant French father and practical mother run their tavern in 1906 Philadelphia. Next thing she knows, her mother has hired her out as a maid to a stuck-up, social-climbing newly rich couple and their vacuous teen daughter because her father has lost the tavern, and all their money, gambling. Her mother promises she will work hard for the next two years and then send for Minnie, who will be moving out to San Francisco with the nouveau riche Sump [yes, Sump as in the pump] family.

Lonely, unhappy, and angry, Minnie's first morning in San Francisco is more terrifying than she can imagine: because the family has arrived just in time for the great San Francisco earthquake and fire.

When Scholastic brought the "Dear America" series back in 2013 for a few books, they decided the books also needed a mystery element, I guess since "girls like mysteries!" So instead of getting to know Minnie and her family, and get a little insight into her character, we are plunged pell-mell into Minnie being shipped off with the Sumps and then the moment she arrives the earthquake takes place, just after she finds out there is something shady about Mr. Sump. The best part about the book is Minnie's description of the earthquake, its fire aftermath, and how some of the citizens of San Francisco rally to save their neighborhood. It's well described and at times very suspenseful. The rest of the story is filled with a bunch of cliches: the two-dimensional Sumps (who live up to their name), a crooked lawyer (is there any other kind in stories like this?), and another evil character who might as well tweak his mustache and cackle like Snidely Whiplash. When another character is introduced, you know immediately he's the person Minnie will later marry. It would have been nice if we actually saw Minnie with her dad at the beginning instead of having flashbacks, and then Minnie getting used to San Francisco before the fire, but we're just popped into the plot. I suspect the author could have written that story, too, judging by the fire scenes, but she was ordered by her Scholastic editors to "cut to the chase." A pity, as this could have been a much better book.

 Treachery at Lancaster Gate, Anne Perry
Finally! A Thomas Pitt mystery that doesn't involve diplomatic misadventures.

There are two breeds of mystery series. One sets up a popular partnership and all books are kept within that story setup, ad infinitum, and the characters never grow or change. The other, as in this series, allows the characters to progress naturally in their careers and lives: employed people do well. They get promoted and sometimes in their promotion, a popular partnership is broken apart. Perry must be lauded for not allowing Pitt's career to stay static and not writing endless by-the-numbers stories where he and his partner investigates society crimes and wife Charlotte and her sister Emily help him.

On the other hand, I have found Pitt's Special Branch investigations, with their political overtones, to be increasingly tedious, so I really enjoyed this latest book, in which Pitt is called in after five police officers are injured (two die almost instantly) in a bombing that, of course, is immediately tied to anarchists. Instead, Pitt's investigation reveals that a prominent politician's son, a young man addicted to opium, may have some connection with the case, and that police corruption is an ugly possibility in spurring the crime. He is assisted in his investigation by his old partner Samuel Tellman, so we get to see both Tellman and his wife Gracie [nee Phipps and formerly the Pitts' much-loved maid) once more, as well as Emily Radley making certain inquires for Pitt at parties she attends.

Unfortunately, once again Charlotte gets short shrift and basically remains home as moral support and a sounding board for her husband. Emily's husband Jack does get some action, and Aunt Vespasia, now married to Victor Narraway (the previous head of Special Branch), appear at the end once the story comes to a head. There are so many characters in the story now that it is hard to give them all equal time. Plus her newer books still lack that special spark that made the originals so compelling. But this is the closest Perry has come to a "classic" Thomas and Charlotte book in several years, and I really enjoyed that.