Strong Poison

 

By Dorothy L. Sayers

Mystery writer Harriet Vane is on trial for murdering her ex-lover with arsenic, a poison she just happens to have been doing research about for a book she is working on. So she is quite knowledgeable about how to poison a person with arsenic. 

Lord Peter Wimsey, famous amateur detective, has been attending her trial and has fallen love with Harriet and has decided she must become his wife. When the jury cannot reach a decision, the trial is postponed until after the Christmas season, to resume in January. Which gives Wimsey time to do his own investigation into the murder with the goal of finding the real killer and freeing the woman he loves from prison. 

The victim was one Philip Boyes, who like Harriet was a writer, though not as successful as she was. Of course, his last movements were closely examined by the police investigators, with special attention paid to last things he ate and drank. His last meal was with a relative of his, Norman Urquhart. All the food and drink consumed at the meal were also consumed by other people, none of whom suffered any ill effects. However, Philip had stopped by Harriet's place to have a talk and had while there he consumed a cup of coffee. Thus the police concluded he must have been poisoned by Harriet. Now Wimsey has taken it upon himself to prove the police have arrested the wrong person.

This was an OK read. I thought it was kind of odd that Wimsey fell so hard for someone he had never actually met, beyond observing her in the courtroom. It just seemed so out of character for him, judging from what I know of him from previous books. Another problem I had was I already knew that people can build up resistance to arsenic by ingesting small amounts of it over a period of time. So it was pretty clear how the killer managed it. 

Another thing is that we really don't get to know Harriet very well or come to an understanding about what Wimsey finds so irresistible about her. It was certainly an abrupt introduction to an important new person in Wimsey's life. 

Best Friends Forever

 

By Jennifer Weiner

Young Addie Downs is lonely. She doesn't know how to make friends. She's kind of an outsider at school. Then a new family moves in across the street and that's how she meets the girl who will become her one and only and her best friend: Valerie Adler. Valerie is tall and thin and her mother doesn't pay much attention to her only child. 

Things are good until high school. Because Addie is overweight and Valerie has changed from being a gawky kid to graceful, attractive young woman. She becomes a cheerleader and forms new friendships and starts going to parties and school events. While Addie is still just an outsider and is becoming lonely again. Then Valerie is sexually assaulted by the star football player and she asks Addie not to tell anyone. But Addie doesn't listen and tells her parents. Which causes a big upset which is made even worse when Valerie denies it ever happened. 

Addie and Valerie go their separate ways. Valerie moves away but Addie stayed home and inherited her parents' house when they died. Addie gets her weight under control and even has a lover but when the high school reunion comes around, she doesn't attend. Too many bad memories and virtually no good memories of her time in high school. What she doesn't know is that Valerie did attend the reunion and she took revenge on the football player who had raped her back then. She left him naked and bleeding in the venue parking lot after she hit him with her car. Now she is at Addie's front door, begging her for help out of the fix she has gotten herself in.

This was an OK read. Addie is remarkably passive, annoyingly so. She lets people abuse her and take advantage and she never fights back. She lets Valerie back into her life and goes along with her whacky plan, which includes robbing a bank and running off together. I really didn't care much for either character.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Cotillion

 

By Georgette Heyer

Kitty always fancied her guardian's nephew, Jack Westruther. Handsome, athletic, charming, Jack was the epitome of a young girl's idea of a hero in the early 1800s.

Her guardian came up with the stupid idea of forcing one of his nephews into marrying Kitty by promising to leave his fortune to her. But if none of them came forward, she would be left penniless and his money would be left to some charity. Truth be told, he favored Jack as much as Kitty did but declared he wanted to treat all his nephews fairly. 

He has several nephews, including Jack, of course. But only three others could be possible suitors to Kitty other than Jack. There is Hugh, who is a member of the clergy. And Freddy, who is the only nephew who doesn't need their uncle's money as he has plenty of his own. There is Lord Dolpinton, a peer of a large Irish estate, which sounds pretty nice. But Dolphinton is mentally challenged and his estate is heavily encumbered with debt. All four have been invited to their uncle's estate to make their offers for Kitty. But the favorite of both Kitty and her guardian, Jack, refuses to show up, not liking to have his hand forced.

Of course Kitty and the old man are disappointed by Jack's failure to show. But Hugh, Dolphinton and Freddie all make their appearance. However Freddie did not know about the stipulations involving the old man's will and did not arrive intending to ask Kitty to marry him. As for Hugh and Dolphinton, Kitty has no romantic feelings for either man. Despite his lack of attendance, her heart is set on Jack. So she hatches a plot to get Jack's attention. If Jack will not come to Kitty, then Kitty will go to Jack. And she finagles Freddy into fake proposing and then getting her guardian to allow her to go to London with Freddy to be introduced to her "fiancé's" family. 

Kitty gets to go to London with Freddy. Which means pretty new clothes, stylish new hairdo, parties and fun and getting to know and form new friends. Some of these friends are not really the kind of people a young society maiden should be going around with. There's the beautiful Olivia, whose mother is willing to sell her daughter's maidenhood to the highest bidder. And there's Hannah, a plain speaking, working class woman who needs Kitty's help to free Dolphinton from the cruel clutches of his greedy, manipulative mother who has her sights set on acquiring Kitty as wife for her dim son. Kitty suddenly has a lot going on in her life after years spent on her guardian's quiet, rural estate. But the one thing missing is Jack who is keeping his distance, once again because he doesn't like having his hand forced and has easily seen through Kitty and Freddy's fake engagement. 

I guess the thing I liked best about this story is Freddy, who turns out to be a real gentleman with a kind and loving heart. He is always there to help Kitty whenever she needs him and doesn't try to squash her kind impulses and scold her for the mistakes she makes. Kitty wasn't all the that interesting to me and Jack barely makes an appearance in the story. I didn't really care about the Olivia story although I found the Dolphinton and Hannah story rather charming. 

It's an interesting story but I have never found it as entertaining as many of Heyer's other novels.

Here is a review by Alexa Adams on Austenprose.

Monk's Hood

 

By Ellis Peters

Back in the 1100s in Britain, sometimes people would retire to a monastery, giving their property to the church in exchange for food, clothing, housing and care for the rest of their lives. The Benedictine abbey in Shrewsbury has acquired such a resident in the person of Gervase Bonel and his wife, Richildis and two of their servants, Aelfric and Aldith. Gervase was a wealthy man and had agreed to give his estate to the abbey. Richildis has a teenage son from an earlier marriage, Edwin Gurney. She had married Gervase upon the promise that her son would inherit his estate. But after the marriage, Edwin and Gervase did not get along and in anger, Gervase disinherited Edwin. So there's two people who might want to see Gervase dead. Turns out, though, that there are more than those two who had a reason to be angry at Gervase. So it is not so surprising when Gervase ends up dying from poison placed in a dish of fowl meant just for him. 

Enter Cadfael, resident monk amateur detective of the abbey. Because it was one of his medicinal concoctions that was used to murder Gervase. So naturally he has a strong interest in tracking down the killer. Plus Richildis is an old sweetheart of Brother Cadfael's back before he was a monk, thus making him a suspect, although an unlikely one, given Cadfael and Richildis are in their sixties. And haven't seen each other for more than forty years. 

This was a pretty good mystery story. No politics or warring factions involved, which was nice. I figured out who the killer probably was and who the red herrings all were pretty quickly. Cadfael takes the law into his own hands in dealing with the killer, which I felt was not justified. That was disappointing.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Listening Woman

 

By Tony Hillerman

This was the third Joe Leaphorn  novel, published in about1970.

An old unsolved bank robbery by a militant First Nations group is somehow connected to the deaths of two innocent people: an old man dying of what is probably cancer and young teen girl, neither of whom has any apparent connection to either dissidents or bank robbers. But Navajo policeman Joe Leaphorn's investigation of the two murders at a lonely Navajo hogan leads him to thinking that somehow that old bank robbery is connected to these two people. 

But the murders are not the only crime in Leaphorn's sights. There's the man who tried to run Leaphorn over during a traffic stop. And there's kidnapping of a group of boy scouts who were on a campout. Not to mention that old bank robbery and the disappearance of a helicopter at about the same time. 

An enjoyable mystery despite the  beating that Leaphorn once again takes in his efforts to solve the various crimes. I hope in the later novels the author lets up on abusing Leaphorn and has him solve a crime without being shot, drowned, smothered, burned, falling off a cliff, poisoned, drugged or bitten by animals. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

No-No Boy

 

By John Okada

Ichiro was just a kid when he and his family were confined in one of the relocation centers for the Japanese in America during World War II. When he turned eighteen, he was told to enlist in the military. He refused and as a result he spent several years in prison.

Released at twenty-five and back home, Ichiro is finding it very difficult to reintegrate into society. The fact that he refused to serve in the military is an albatross around his neck. Those Japanese men who had served looked down on those who refused, the No-No Boys. But his mother is very proud that her son did not fight in a war against the homeland. Those who did are traitors, she believes. Ichiro soon finds out that his mother and some other Japanese families in the area believe that Japan actually won the war and that those saying otherwise are merely spouting Western propaganda. Ichiro also discovers that his father knows the truth and deals with the strain it has put on the marriage by staying drunk all the time. 

Ichiro wants to find a job but when possible employers find out he was in prison for refusing to fight for America, they won't give him work. Ichiro encounters an old friend from school, Kenji. Kenji fought in the war and lost his leg in it. But Kenji doesn't judge Ichiro for being a no-no boy. He gives him his friendship and accepts him without judgment. Kenji's friendship and Kenji's health struggle helps Ichiro put his own problems in perspective. 

This was quite an interesting story, about the effects of the war and of the relocation on the Japanese population of America. It's not a subject that I have ever paid much attention too, beyond acknowledging that it was unjust and cruel and stupid. 

Dance Hall of the Dead

 

By Tony Hillerman

A young Zuñi boy, Ernesto, is missing and his last known location drenched in blood. His best friend, a Navajo boy, George, has also gone missing, the morning after Ernesto disappeared. 

Normally, the Zuñi police would handle the investigation. But because George is not a Zuñi, Joe Leaphorn, a Navajo policeman, is called in, tasked with one thing: find George Bowlegs.

So Joe starts nosing around, following George's trail which leads him to Zuñi Village where Ernesto disappeared. And to George's home, where Joe finds the boy's father who is too drunk to be of any help. But he finds George's younger brother who is able to enlighten Joe about what George was up to in the days leading up to Ernesto's disappearance. Ernesto is soon found in a shallow grave and now young George is a suspect in his friend's death. Joe continues tracing George's movements and his contacts which included a hippy encampment and also an archaeological dig site. 

The hippies saw George the morning after Ernesto was killed and indicate that George had set out on horseback on a journey but they didn't know where. And Joe's questions at the dig site revealed that the two boys were frequent visitors there until the leader of the dig ran them off, claiming they were contaminating the dig site. 

But none of this leads Joe to a killer or a reason why a young boy was so brutally murdered. There is more to the story and an important part of it may be George's fascination with the Zuñi religion. Joe had seen a man dressed as a Zuñi kachina lurking around and the younger brother had indicated that George had also claimed to have seen and been frightened by a man dressed as a kachina. 

Did Ernesto die because he broke some rule about the Zuñi religion? Was that kachina-disguised person hunting down George for the same reason? Or did the two boys somehow cross the drug smugglers associated with the hippie camp? It soon becomes clear to Joe that someone is hunting young George and if Joe doesn't find the boy first, George will meet his death.

This was a very readable and engrossing story even though the murderer was pretty clear long before the end of the story. And the ending brings up the problem I had with the book: I hated the ending. To go all the way through a story to have it end the way it did was very disappointing. 

A Darker Domain

 

By Val McDermid

A rich man's daughter and her baby son are kidnapped and held for ransom. Contact is made with the kidnappers and an exchange arranged. But it all goes wrong and the daughter is killed and the kidnappers vanish with the baby and are never heard from again.

Twenty years later, and a woman has come to the police for help finding her father who vanished at about the same time as the rich man's kidnapped grandson. The woman is desperate to find her father because her son is dying of cancer and needs a transplant and her father could be the donor, if he can be found.

All her life, she thought her father, Mick, was a miner who left his family behind and moved away to a nearby town, sending back money occasionally. But as the police investigate his disappearance, they discover he never moved to that town and the money was being sent by someone else who felt sorry for her mother.

Meanwhile, the rich man still longs to find his lost grandson and bring him home. . A reporter has stumbled across a compelling new piece of evidence concerning the kidnappers. She brings this evidence to the rich man and he brings it to the police and now the search is on once again to find the lost baby who is a baby no longer and is now a young man. If he is even still alive!

This was an OK mystery story. It was pretty clear that the vanished miner and the kidnapping, which both happened at about the same time and in about the same area, were most likely connected. One thing I found hard to understand was the miner's wife just accepting that he had moved to a nearby town without ever following up on that and seeing for herself that he had left her and his family behind. Supposedly she was ashamed because he a "scab" or, as he is called in the story, a "blackleg" or, if I am understanding it correctly, a "strikebreaker." I must admit that the book made so little impression on me, that when I sat down to write this, I couldn't even remember what it was about until I looked at the description on the back cover. I didn't dislike it, I also didn't love it, it was an OK read.

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.

Ghost Month

By Ed Lin

Jing-nan and Julia first met in grade school and fell in love and planned out their lives together. They would go to college in the USA and then get married and raise their children and live lives of success and prosperity. At least that was the plan. 

But Jing-nan's father died unexpectedly and a large family debt was passed on to Jing-nan requiring him to return home to Taiwan and run his family's food stand in the night market in Taipei. 

Jing-nan was ashamed of his failure to graduate college and having take over the food shop. So he broke off contact with Julia. Last he heard, she had dropped out of college and had also returned to Taipei. Then he found out Julia had been working in a betel nut shop where the shop girls dressed provocatively to lure in their mostly male customers. And that she had been murdered, shot dead. He is stricken with grief and can't help but wonder how such a lovely, smart girl had ended up like that. 

He begins a sort of half-hearted investigation that reveals the local gangs might have been involved. Gangs are rampant there (apparently) and somehow Julia came to grief because of her knowledge of their activities. Jing-nan is on the right track, as he is beaten up and threatened by local gangsters. But the threats don't stop him and his questions don't only lead to Julia's killers but to understanding his own feelings and failings too.

This was an interesting and sad story. The loss of a bright young woman like Julia was just so tragic. As was Jing-nan's acceptance of the burden of his family's debt, forced into spending his life paying it off. But the best thing about the story was looking at a culture that shares much with ours but is also quite different, with a very long and complicated history. I liked reading about Jing-nan, his friends and coworkers and I enjoyed the story very much. 

Kirkus has a review of the novel here: Kirkus Reviews. 

Murder Must Adverise

 

By Dorothy L. Sayers

Something is fishy at the advertising firm of Pym's. A man has died at the office and it isn't clear that it was an accident. So the boss brings in Lord Peter Wimsey to work undercover as a copywriter.  As an employee of the advertising agency, it will be the first time Lord Peter has ever held a real job and earned a working man's paycheck, an experience that touches him in unexpected ways.

Doesn't take long for Lord Peter to figure out that Mr. Pym, the owner of the agency, was correct in his feeling that things are not right. Getting to know the his various coworkers and seeing their struggle of making ends meet puts Lord Peter deep into a lifestyle opposite to his own of wealth and privilege. And it is that scramble for money that has lead someone at the agency down a very sad and dangerous road.

This is one of my favorite Sayers stories, mainly for the way Lord Peter makes himself adapts to working at the advertising agency. He becomes so involved with his copywriting that walking away from it when the case is solved became a bit difficult for him. I enjoyed the look behind the scenes at the agency and I imagine the thinking that goes into their ad campaigns isn't all that different than advertising thought today, ninety years later.

Bless Your Heart, Tramp and Other Southern Endearments

 

By Celia Rivenbark

A collection of Rivenbark's humor columns from the from about the 1990s. Mainly centered on how Southerners live and talk. It has three sections, At Home; The South; And Everywhere Else. 

A new Barbie movie came out this summer 2023 and this collection has her essay about Barbie turning forty in 1999. Here is a short selection from that column:

'And at forty, why couldn't Mattel make Barbie suddenly start shrieking phrases in public place like "WHERE'S MY PURSE?" only to find it on her lap. Right alongside her ta-ta's.

To her credit, Barbie has been one heck of a role model for womankind. She's been a doctor, skydiver, race car driver, mother of triplets, professional lambada dancer, Twirling Ballerina, everything but a double-naught spy.

The problem is she's done it all with what the experts have deduced through mathematical calculations would be a physique measuring six feet tall and weighing 110 pounds. Y'all put your hands together and show some love for Bulimic Barbie.

Of course she's just a doll and such measurements are part of the fantasy. Remember, with dolls, all things are possible. Including having triplets with Ken.'

Which is a pretty good sample of the author's brand of humor. Pretty funny most of the time and at worst, mildly amusing. 

Texts From Jane Eyre

 

By Mallory Ortberg

What if characters from stories and mythology could text? Author Mallory Ortberg imagines what characters from literary works such as King Lear, Oliver Twist, Daisy Miller, and even more modern works like Sweet Valley High and Atlas Shrugged would text about. 

Here is a sample of the sort texts you will find in the book, this one featuring Jane Eyre (J) and Edward Rochester (E).

E: So you're really not coming then

J: I'm really not

E: I would be an amazing husband you know that?

J: I know

E: I taught you Hindi and everything That's basically the same as getting engaged for missionaries

J: And I really appreciate that It will be terribly useful in my career as an English governess

E: See? That There. that is exactly the kind of tone I mean One round of cholera in the tropics would sear that sarcasm right out of you

J: guess I really missed out

E: Guess so

 

This was an okay read. But it would have been a lot more enjoyable if I knew more about the characters and the literary works. It's been decades since I was in school and I don't remember much about most of those stories and plays, etc. And a lot of them I have never read, such as Les Misérables, The Sun Also Rises, Great Expectations, and Atlas Shrugged, to name just a few. And those I have read, like King Lear or Moby-Dick, were so long ago, I have mostly forgotten all but the very basic facts about them. I was the wrong audience for this book. 

The Blessing Way

 

By Tony Hillerman

The first novel in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee detective series, published in 1970. 

A young Navajo man, Luis Horseman, has wounded a man in a knife fight and has fled to the wilderness, fearing he has killed the man. 

Navajo policeman Joe Leaphorn is out looking for the fugitive, checking with the Horseman's friends and family to see if any of them have been in contact with him, pointing out it would be better for Horseman to turn himself in. And that Horseman's victim is in the hospital and expected to make a full recovery.  

But soon Horseman is found dead and an autopsy reveals that he was smothered to dead with sand. Leaphorn is concerned that his inquiries may have inadvertently lead to Horseman's death.

Talk has been going around in the Navajo community that a witch has been plaguing some of the locals. A college professor, Bergen McKee, has been conducting research into Navajo witchcraft beliefs and he decides to head into the back country to look into this talk of a witch. Together with a colleague, the two men set up camp in the same area where Horseman had been hiding out. 

The local Navajos hold a meet to do an Enemy Way ceremony to stop the witch, a sort of magic spell that will kill the witch within a year. Leaphorn, now investigating Horseman's death, attends the meet as part of his investigation. At one point, he realizes that he has seen the man the witnesses describe as the witch. The witch is a Navajo, but he is a stranger to the area.

McKee, who was interviewing locals about witchcraft, returns to the camp to find a note from his colleague. But the note is signed John, whereas his friend's name is Jeremy. McKee starts to feel uneasy and wakes up in the night feeling something is wrong. He sees a man lurking outside and McKee slips away unseen by the man.  Heading back to the camp in the morning when the coast seems clear, McKee finds that his truck has been sabotaged. Hiking out, he comes across a young woman who is headed towards the danger zone and McKee is fearful for her safety. As he tries to lead her out of the area, they are confronted by the witch-man and he takes them captive.

Joe Leaphorn had a lead that he thinks will take him straight to the Navajo witch who Leaphorn is certain killed Horseman. He doesn't know about Jeremy or that McKee and the woman are in mortal danger. He also has not figured out the why of all of it. But he will. 

I enjoyed this story quite a lot. It was very exciting. I have read other Joe Leaphorn stories, but not this one. It was a bit confusing that Leaphorn was not the main character of the story, McKee was as all the action centered on McKee. McKee gets hunted, injured, captured, escapes, saves the woman and confronts the killer. Leaphorn's roll is mostly just that of investigator. But it was still a good story even if Leaphorn is secondary in the story to McKee.

Wikipedia has an article about The Blessing Way with a good summary of the story.

The Dispossessed

 

By Ursula K. Le Guin

Anarres is the moon to the world of Urras. It is being colonized by rebels from Urras even though it is an awful place whose only recommendations are a breathable atmosphere and some ores that are valuable to the people of Urras. Other than the trade in ores, Urras pretty much leaves the rebels on Anarres alone.

The government of Urras varies, with the usual capitalistic style to dictatorships to communist. Anarres, however, was founded by the devotees of the philosophy of Odo, who taught a kind of decentralized communism. (I can't explain what it is supposed to be, I pretty much skipped those parts of the story.) So life on Anarres is hard because of its harsh environment while life on Urras could be bountiful but the wealth is hogged by the upper classes, so the lower classes are suffering. 

Shevek, a brilliant physicist, grows up on Anarres and lives his life according to what is expected of a citizen of Anarres. But Anarres is succumbing to bureaucracy and Shevek's work is being stifled by his envious superiors. So he travels to Urras which turns out to be a mistake. Because the rulers recognize the value of Shevek's work and they want to use it to make themselves all powerful. When Shevek realizes what they are after, he flees to the Terran embassy, asking them for help returning to Anarres. 

This book was so boring. Apparently it won loads of prizes, but I found it dull. Too much of it is concerned with contrasting forms of government or lack thereof. Not much really happens for most of it except for Anarres' non-government getting in the way of Shevek's ambition. The only real action occurs on Urras when Shevek escapes from his captors to find his way back to Anarres. Halfway through, I seriously was considering just giving up. I was only able to finish by skipping the boring stuff. 

Wikipedia has an article about the book.

The Reluctant Widow

 

By Georgette Heyer

A Regency Mystery

Wellborn Elinor Rochdale had her life turned upside down when her father lost his fortune through gambling and then killed himself. Left on her own, she works as a governess in order to survive. Starting a new job, she has been instructed that a carriage will be waiting for her at the inn in the village of Billingshurst. So when she alights from the London stage and a man from a coach asks her if she is the young lady who has come from London in answer to the advertisement, she assumes he is there for her and she gladly climbs into the very nice coach. But she has climbed into the wrong coach and the people at the destination wanted someone for a very different position than governess to small children. What they wanted was a wife.

Naturally, Elinor's first impulse is to request to be taken back to the village. But then the man who is the proposed groom meets with a fatal injury and is expected to die within a few hours. And Elinor allows herself to be persuaded into an impromptu marriage and is now a widow and the sole owner of everything her dead husband possessed, including a run-down mansion.

It doesn't take long for Elinor to realize that something odd is going on with the house as she surprises a strange man who walks in as if he owns the place. And there is the intruder who shoots and wounds a guest of Elinor's when the guest surprises him in the night. Plus it all might be connected to the war between Britain and France. 

 

I first read this book decades ago. And I have read it several times over in the years since. I always liked the book and I enjoy rereading it every time. This story is kind of between a Georgette Heyer romance and a Georgette Heyer mystery. It's not really a murder mystery because the only one who dies is the groom and his death is not a mystery. But the mystery is what the groom was up to before he died and if he was a traitor. 

The romance story is not romantic. It's really a very minor subplot, with the mystery being the main plot. There is virtually no love-making beyond the hero binding a bandage around Elinor's head when she get bashed by an unknown person. But I have never minded that the romance is mostly missing. It really is a fun and light read, despite the gloomy mansion, the midnight intruders and people getting shot and bashed in the head.

Here is a review by Jane Greensmith on Austenprose.

Dare To Be Great, Ms. Caucus

 

By G. B. Trudeau

A Doonesbury collection featuring cartoons from the 1970s.

A nice collection, with lots of politics. Many of the cartoons concern runaway housewife Joanie's struggle to get into law school. 

I was an adult back then but I don't recall most of the political stuff the cartoons are lampooning which made them not that funny for me. Might be more amusing for someone who is more familiar with the subject matter. 

Here is the Joanie Caucus cartoon from the back cover of the book.

Don't Ever Change, Boopsie

 

By G. B. Trudeau

Selected cartoons from "The President Is a Lot Smarter Than You Think".

Early Doonesbury cartoons from the late 1960s and early 1970s, there abouts. A nice collection, mostly enjoyable to read, though it was probably more funny at the time. Still I did like reading it. 

Here are two early Zonker cartoons starting with when he was first introduced.

Retief and the Rascals

 

By Keith Laumer

Welcome to planet Bloor. Where everyone is on the take and no one does an honest day's work and every fellow is out to cut the other fellow's throat. How is a self-respecting Terran diplomat supposed to cope and bring enlightenment and succor to the distressed natives? 

Maybe Magnan, accomplished, senior diplomat, is able to handle the shifting and unstable alliances that is normal everyday life on Bloor. But for Retief, his assistant, hands off isn't his style. He wades in, both fists flying, and restores order, brief though it may be, as chaos quickly resumes as soon as his back is turned. 

It is a hopeless mess, not only because of the unstable and quarrelsome locals, but even the diplomatic party from Terra is on the take and, of course, the greedy, treacherous Groaci are present too, looking to fill their pockets with whatever they can get their tentacles on. But Retief is no dummy and he knows how to deal with what is basically the lost cause of planet Bloor.

This has to be one of the most boring Retief stories I have ever read. New characters pop in and out of the story, about a hundred characters, most of whom make brief appearances and then are gone. There are four main jokes in the story, puns based on the locals' names; the facial expressions schtick, how everyone is on the take and how everyone, Terrans, locals, Groaci, and other assorted aliens are ready to start a brawl over the most trifling occurrences. The last half of the book is centered around the on-again, off-again battles at the spaceport, which was just mind-numbingly boring. I skipped so many pages, I couldn't be bothered to care about who was fighting who.  The title character, Retief, who is usually the hero, is quite unheroic in this story and spends more time beating on people than I can recall him ever doing in any of the other Retief stories I have read. 

At one point, I began to think Laumer was in the middle of some kind of mental breakdown when he wrote this. But when I got to the end, I started to think maybe it was all quite deliberate and that he was making a rather serious point. Even so, it didn't make it worth wading through all the fights and battle scenes.

The Lavalite World

 

By Philip Jose Farmer

Book 5 of the World of Tiers series

Five people have become stranded on the topsy-turvy Lavalite world. The main feature of it is its instability, with the landscape prone to shift quite suddenly. 

Kickaha and his partner, Anana; Urthona and his hired thug Angus McKay, a man from Earth; and Red Orc are the five people stranded on this strangely active planet. Anana, Urthona and Red Orc are all Lords, seemingly immortal humans with advanced scientific knowledge and extremely inflated opinions of their own superiority. But at least Anana has climbed down of her high horse due to her loving connection with Kickaha, who is also from Earth. 

How these five ended up stranded is not detailed. But life is harsh on the Lavalite world and the locals are primitive and dangerous. All five of the main characters end up being split up and held captive by the local tribal folks. 

Urthona, who designed and populated the Lavalite world with his custom animal and plant creations and who installed the human tribes on it too, has a mobile castle there that slowly travels around the world. If any of them can get to his castle, they maybe able to find a way off the world. Anana also has a device that can open gateways to other worlds, but it is necessary to find the gateways first. Urthona and Red Orc both want the device but Anana is hanging on to it as a way to control Urthona and Red Orc. 

Kickaha got separated from the others during a sudden flood and manages to make a connection with a different tribe. Anana ends up with a different group of savages. Urthona and McKay get captured together and Red Orc gets taken by a different group, who treat him very harshly. All five of the stranded people have one goal, to escape their various captors and find the a gate off the planet, and failing that, find Urthona's moving castle. 

It would really help to have read the first four books in the series. Besides that, though, it just wasn't that interesting. We first get to read about Kickaha's time with the tribals that captured him in the most detail. Then Anana's ordeal. But Urthona's and McKay's are not gone into in much detail and Red Orc's just in passing. All we really find out about his captivity is that he was beaten and abused, even more than the other four. 

However, I just felt like a stranger at a party where I knew no one. I never really connected to any of the characters, not even to the two heroes, Kickaha and Anana. And I got bored with reading about their struggles with the tribal peoples and began skipping those parts. Ditto their struggles with the mobile terrain. In the last part of the story, Anana and Kickaha build hang gliders and hot air balloons and we are told in detail how they do so. Descriptions of that process were about as interesting as reading a math problem. 

Envious Casca

 

By Georgette Heyer

Inspector Hemmingway, Book Two

Uncle Joe has decided that the best way to celebrate Christmas is to gather a group of people to spend a few days at his brother Nathaniel's country estate. Uncle Joe is either a half-wit or a joker because the people he invites seem to be chosen to irritate his elderly brother as much as possible. 

One wonders why Nathaniel ever agreed to host this gathering as everyone seems to get on his nerves, including his nephew Stephen, who is a quarrelsome and angry young man and Nathaniel's heir presumptive. And there is Paula, Stephen's sister, who wants Nathaniel to fund a play she is frantic to star in, along with the play's author, Roydon. Roydon has been mislead by Paula into believing that Nathaniel is willing to back the play but when the old man sees it is a rather smutty and crude, he explodes in anger and refuses to have anything to do with it. Also included is Nathaniel's business partner, Edgar, who is on the outs with the old man due to some disagreement about the direction the business has been taking. About the only people there who don't upset Nathaniel are Maud, Uncle Joe's phlegmatic wife and young Matilda, who is a relative of some sort.

But Nathaniel's worries are soon over when he stabbed to death in his bedroom with all the ways into the room locked from the inside. So the police have quite a mystery on their hands, with lots of suspects and a puzzle to figure out a classic locked room mystery.

So this was quite an interesting mystery although the killer is quite apparent from time of the murder. The mystery is not so much who killed the old man but how it was done and why. Although the why becomes very clear once Nathaniel's will comes into the story. 

I have a few quibbles with the story though. First, how very unpleasant the characters are. What a bunch of mean, nasty, rude people! So hateful and unkind they are to each other. Were people really like that in 1930s Britain? Which is when the book was written but not published until the 1940s. My second quibble is the romance story, which suddenly pops up at the very end of the story virtually out of nowhere. Especially since the female has a very good understanding of what a jerk her lover is. The third quibble I won't discuss because it would be a spoiler. But I must say it seems unlikely that the killer would have knowledge of this unusual method of murder. 

Despite my quibbles, I still enjoyed the mystery a lot, mainly because I couldn't figure out how it was pulled off until the author revealed it at the end. 

Side note: I'm not sure who Casca is, but I think it is one of the people who was involved in the assassination  of Julius Caesar.

The Talisman Ring

 

By Georgette Heyer

A Regency Romance.

Ludovic is the disgraced grandson of a wealthy lord. Ludovic is on the run from law, accused of murdering a man over the loss of his family heirloom, the talisman ring. Ludovic is assumed to be on the continent, safe from the English authorities. But one night, his teenage cousin Eustacie, who is running away from a marriage arranged for her, encounters Ludovic on the road. Ludovic is involved with the local smugglers and he and Eustacie have to escape the Excisemen. In the process, Ludovic is wounded. 

Eustacie takes Ludovic to an inn that Ludovic has a good relationship with, since the innkeeper is part of the smuggling ring. The innkeeper treats Ludovic's wound and hides him from the Excisemen who show up at the inn looking for the fugitive.

Staying at the inn is Sarah Thane. Sarah quickly steps in to help Eustacie and Ludovic. Soon after Ludovic is treated and hidden, the man Eustacie was supposed to marry, Sir Tristam, shows up at the inn looking for her. He is surprised when she informs him she ran away because she didn't want to marry him. He reassures her that he has no interest in forcing her into a marriage she doesn't want. Sir Tristam also discovers that his disgraced relative Ludovic is at the inn, wounded and has been spending his time smuggling. 

Ever since the murder, Ludovic, who knows he is innocent, has thought that Tristam was the murderer and that Tristam has the talisman ring because he is a collector of rare and valuable items like the talisman ring. But Tristam thinks that Ludovic is guilty and is surprised to find that he doesn't have the ring at all. It dawns upon them that the true killer is their relative, Basil, who also lives in the area and who also loves to collect valuable and rare items. All they have to do to prove it is find the talisman ring in Basil's possession. 

But to do so means keeping Ludovic hidden while he heals from his wound, not only from the authorities but also from Basil. It also means gaining access to Basil's home and searching for a hidden panel that Ludovic remembers seeing in Basil's house when Ludovic was a youngster. But he can't recall exactly in which room the panel is to be found. Which isn't too helpful of him.

I have read this novel several times over the years and I enjoy it every time. It's fun and exciting and romantic and a bit silly and doesn't make a lot of sense. But it's still engaging and entertaining and it is what I call a keeper, a book I enjoyed reading so much that I know I will enjoy reading it again and again. 

Here is a review by Dear Author.

Even Revolutionaries Like Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

By G.B. Trudeau

According to the blurb on the cover, these cartoons are taken from Still a Few Bugs in the System. The copyright is from 1970, 1971 and 1972.

The book opens with the footballer, BD, getting a new roommate, namely Mike Doonesbury. From there it portrays the college lives of Mike, BD and Mark Slackmeyer, who is a militant student activist. 

Here are the three of them together:

And here is Mark on his way to cause trouble on a campus:

Hard to believe that it has been over fifty years since these cartoons came out. Trudueau and I are both old now and those days are gone for good. But at least I can look back at that time through cartoon books like this. And younger people can laugh at our old timey antics. 

In Five Years

 

By Rebecca Serle

Dannie and David have been together for several years. Dannie is a lawyer and David is a banker and the two of them have been focusing on their careers and not on their relationship. David has asked Dannie to marry him, but so far she has not said yes. But she finally agrees to getting married but no date for the wedding gets agreed to. 

Dannie has a very realistic dream shortly after getting engaged where she finds herself in having a passionate sexual relationship with a handsome stranger. This man stirs her in ways she has never felt with David. She shakes off the feelings it created in her as just a dream, though.

That is until five years later when Dannie meets her best friend Bella's new lover, Greg, who she recognizes as the man from her dream. Dannie truly cares for Bella and also Greg seems very sincere in his attachment to Bella, so that dream must have been a lie, not a premonition.

Things become more complicated when Bella is diagnosed with a serious illness. Dannie just can't shake that dream about Greg five years ago before she ever met him. The dream haunts her and has prevented her from following through on her promise to wed David. But seeing Greg and Bella together pushes Dannie into hurriedly arranging her and David's wedding, as if that will cure the doubts that have troubled her for the past five years, doubts she buries and refuses to face about her love for the faithful, kind and understanding David. 

This was an OK read. I did find it a bit dull towards the middle. And the character of the best friend, Bella, was little more than a device for the main character, Dannie, to react to. And poor David, all we ever hear about him is what a great guy he is and how well Dannie and he get along. Never really any good reason why Dannie is dragging her feet other than maybe she doesn't find him exciting. Well, I didn't find Dannie or her story exciting.

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly. 

Fool Me Once

 

By Catherine Bybee

Lori is a lawyer who works with a company called Alliance. Alliance specializes in bringing together people who are looking for a temporary marriage with people who are willing to agree to being married for a few years in return for being well-paid. For example, Paul Wentworth. He was running for governor in California but as a single man, he wasn't polling well. Thanks to Alliance, who found Shannon Redding, a respectable woman willing to be his wife for a few years in exchange for a nice house and several million dollars in her bank account, Paul won the election to become governor.

Anyway, that how it usually worked. But Shannon fell in love with Paul and wanted to be his forever wife. Paul was not interested and they were divorced, as originally planned. Shannon never got over him.

It also didn't work out that way for Trina and Fedor Petrov. Fedor killed himself before the arranged marriage was scheduled to end and Trina inherited from his mother what should have been his fortune of over $300,000,000. And Fedor's father, a nasty piece of work, is not happy about being cut out of his ex-wife's fortune and is not above extortion, intimidation, and brutality to get his hands on the money. 

And there is Avery, whose divorce ended exactly as planned, with both parties happy. Until the paparazzi snapped a photo of her celebrating her divorce at party featuring a male stripper. 

Avery is pretty unfazed by the publicity, though. Still Lori includes Avery along with Trina and Shannon as Alliance's guests on a cruise to Europe, hoping it helps the three women adjust to their new circumstances better. 

All the women seem to be having a good time on the cruise and even Lori makes a bit of a love connection with an attractive man, Reed, who appears to be just as attracted to her as she is to him. What she doesn't know is that Reed has deliberately targeted Lori and is being paid to discover everything he can about her. What wasn't in his job description was falling hard for the woman he is being paid to get close to.

This was a pretty good story. The best part was the cruise. But the three women are soon back on solid ground and Lori runs afoul of Trina's ex-father-in-law, Ruslan. Angry at losing his chance at his ex-wife's fortune, he makes violent threats at Lori. And the tone of the whole story just got a bit too grim, kind of took the fun away from it. The first part of the story was much more fun and enjoyable than the other part, where Ruslan is threatening to kill Lori in his attempts to get access to his ex-daughter-in-law, Trina. 

This is the first book in Bybee's First Wives series.

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.

The Way Home

 

By George Pelecanos

Teenager Christopher Flynn told himself he didn't care. About his parents, about his schooling, about his future. When his reckless behavior resulted in people being injured, Chris was sent to a juvenile facility. Being locked up hardened Chris but it also made him realize that he never wanted to be in that situation again.

After doing his time, Chris went to work for his dad as a carpet installer. One of the boys from the facility Ben, who had been in his unit, came to work for his dad too, upon Chris's urging. 

One day Chris and Ben are installing carpet in a vacant house when they discover a bag full of cash hidden underneath a floor. Now Chris wants nothing to do with the money but Ben, who comes from poverty, thinks Chris is nuts to leave $50,000 behind. Eventually Ben promises to leave the money be.

Unfortunately, that money belongs to two thugs who come to the house looking for it and find it gone. Neither Ben or Chris took it, but Ben told a friend, Lawrence, about the money. Lawrence was part of their group in the facility and a friend of both Chris and Ben, but especially Ben. The thugs track Ben down and torture him, trying to make him tell who has the money. Ben knows Lawrence took it, but refuses to tell the them who then kill him. 

When Chris finds out about Ben's death, he immediately knows it is because of the money. He contacts Lawrence and together they come up with a plan to deal with Ben's killers.

This was a pretty good read, once the story moved away from the time in the facility. That part didn't interest me. But once Chris gets back into society and tries to live a decent life, it got a lot more interesting.  

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

The Summer Tree

 

By Guy Gavriel Kay

Book One of the Fionavar Tapestry

When a famous speaker invites five college students to travel to another world with him, they eagerly agree to come along. Of course, it turns out the man, Loren, wasn't quite honest with them. He wants these five people to help him steer his land through the difficult times that are arising.

An ancient enemy, who was imprisoned, has managed to break free of his bonds. Rakoth Maugrim's only desire seems to be to destroy everything. He was defeated in the past and locked away in a prison under a mountain. But now that Rakoth is loose, he is once more starting to wage war against the people of Fionavar. 

But five young people of Earth are now on Fionavar and they will stand along side the beleaguered folks of Fionavar, helping in ways they never imagined and finding love and worth in the battle against the Unraveller.

This was an OK read, if overly detailed and way too long. I'm not a person who cares about mythology and I think a lot of this story is taken from Norse and Celtic mythology. I generally try to avoid stories based on mythology, of any kind. For someone who enjoys it, this is probably an interesting story. I was not the right audience for it and I was glad when I finally finished it. One thing I really didn't like was there are too many characters to keep track of, over 150 characters. Just too many gods and beings and objects to remember and I finally had to make a list in order to keep track of them all. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

The Shanghai Moon

 

By S. J. Rozan

Shortly before the start of World War II, Rosalie Gilder and her younger brother Paul have left Europe and have fled to Shanghai, China, which was one of the few countries in the world that was willing to accept Jewish refugees. While on board the ship to China, Rosalie met a Chinese man, Chen Kai-rong. They struck up a friendship and a few years after arriving in China, she and Chen were married. To commemorate their union, they had a brooch made that combined a jade disk from the Chen family and diamonds from the Gilder family which came to be called the Shanghai Moon.

The Chens and the Gilders all suffered during the war and during the unsettled times after the Communist takeover of China. Rosalie died in China but her brother Paul eventually moved to the United States, as did Rosalie and Kai-rong's son, Chen Lao-li. During the years of turmoil, the brooch disappeared and rumors of its beauty and value have grown over the passing decades.

Lydia Chin is a private detective who lives in the New York City area. A friend, Joel Pilarsky, asks her to help a woman from Germany locate the relatives of the Gilder family, all of whom, except for Rosalie and Paul, died by the hands of the Nazis. A box of jewels was recently discovered in Shanghai, valued at several thousand dollars that belonged to Rosalie and Paul Gilder, and the woman, Alice Fairchild, wants to reunite these jewels with Gilder relatives. The box of jewels does not contain the Shanghai Moon which has been missing since Rosalie died in China. The newly found box of jewels were stolen by a Chinese official who is believed to had come to New York City to sell them. However, Lydia has barely begun her investigation when Joel is murdered. And it seems to be for more than just the Gilder jewelry, as rumors of the Shanghai Moon are once again popping up. Lydia decides to continue her investigation despite being fired by Alice Fairchild. Lydia has become intrigued by the Shanghai Moon and she is also set on finding the person who murdered her friend.

This was an OK read, although a bit slow. Much of it centers around the Gilders and the Chens in China in the 1940s. Some of the story is presented in the form of Rosalie's letters. Peoples letters in stories is one the things I most dislike reading. I just find them tedious. 

The Lydia Chin detective series is a new one to me but is rather extensive. This book would probably be more interesting to those who are familiar with the series.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Doctor In the House

 

By Richard Gordon

Richard Gordon started his professional life as a medical doctor but became famous for his humorous stories about life as a doctor. Doctor In the House  was his first semi-autobiographical novel but he went on to write several more books about his life as a doctor. His doctor series went on to inspire film and TV versions.

In this first book, the author is telling the amusing story of his experiences in medical school in London, England. It is set in the years between the two wars. 

The system used in England at the time is different from that used in the  United States today. Gordon basically went from high school directly to medical school, if I am understanding his story correctly. He has a lot of fun pointing out the doctors, nurses, patients, his own and fellow students failings and foibles. 

It was an interesting read, although I was a bit lost at times understanding what he was talking out. The period he was writing about is nearly one hundred years ago and in a medical and educational system foreign to my experience. It wasn't as amusing as I was expecting it to be, though. At times, his judgments of his fellow humans were unnecessarily harsh, in my opinion. 

The Taking

 

By Dean Koontz

Climate change on a grand scale! Huge water spouts pumping water out of the oceans and sending back down over all the lands of the world in the form of torrential rains. But this is only the beginning of everything being turned upside down. It's a tale of a massive scale of death and destruction, but told from the prospective of a small resort town in America. 

The first intimation of the changes to come, beside a strangely scented, glowing downpour, was when Molly saw a pack of coyotes taking shelter under the overhang of her house. She looked out at them and sensed they meant her no harm and so she stepped out to stand among them. They simply ran off into the woods. Her spouse, Neil, woke up after having a terrible nightmare, unusual for him. He wasn't one to give in to irrationality. Together, Molly and Neil turned on the TV to discover the experiences they were having were occurring everywhere and that communications were becoming iffy. A feeling of doom and menace permeated the atmosphere and stories of monsters and murder began to filter through the static that was destroying the airwaves. 

Neil felt that their home was not a safe place for them to stay. So they packed up their car and headed into the nearest town, the small resort town of Black Lake. First they stopped at the home of their friend, Harry, which turned out not to be a good idea when they discovered Harry had killed himself and his reanimated corpse came after them. 

After fleeing from zombie Harry, they continued on to Black Lake but things were just as crazy there. The locals are in various stages of succumbing to whatever doom has fallen upon the world and the only allies Molly and Neil are able to find are the neighborhood dogs who have organized themselves into a troop to protect the local kids. Molly and Neil try to talk the adults into making a stand against the unknown menace but soon realize they are on their own. That's when they set off into town with the dogs to located and secure any children in the town. Doing so, they face the otherworldly horrors who will use all their tricks and attacks to thwart them in their quest, including sending Molly's criminally insane father to attack her.  

This was an OK read. Molly and Neil try to fight the horrors but mostly fail, barely escaping in time. The local people, except a very few, quickly fall under the malign influence and Molly and Neil are left alone to stand against the attackers. The ending was kind of lame, the attack just stops and the menace goes away, leaving everything in shambles and with a few people left alive to pick up the pieces. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw

 

By Patrick F. McManus

A short story collection, the title comes from one of his most famous stories of himself as a child, probably mostly not true, but very funny nonetheless. 

McManus's best stories are based (loosely, I am guessing) on his childhood. This collection also features stories based on his adult life as a writer and outdoorsman and they are amusing, to be sure, but not as outrageous and silly as stories he tells about his boyhood days of camping and fishing and having grand adventures. 

I enjoyed the stories but this collection is short on the kid-life stories which are the ones I enjoy the most of his stories.

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.

Housekeeping

 

By Marilynne Robinson

The scene: a small rural railroad town. A terrible train crash occurs near the town that kills several people, including the spouse of Sylvia, leaving her to raise her three daughters alone. One daughter, Helen, leaves town and has two daughters of her own, Ruth and Lucille. She returns to her home town and to her mother, Sylvia, after her husband abandons her. Leaving the girls with her mother, she kills herself. 

Sylvia is an old lady and not the most affectionate of grandmothers. She drops dead and her dead husband's two elderly sisters move into the grandmother's house to take care of Ruth and Lucille. But they are spinsters and not used to children and so they send for Sylvia's nearest daughter, Sylvie. 

Sylvie is a vagrant. She never settles for long in one place and her preferred mode of transportation is to simply hop on a freight train. She's a bum, in other words. Probably not the best person to be in charge of two young children. Once she moves back into her childhood home, she sort of takes care of the two girls. But meals are irregular and the kids are pretty much in charge of themselves. It's obvious that Sylvie is disconnected from reality in a way that is a danger to the children. Ruth accepts this strange neglectful parenting but Lucille, who has her feet more firmly planted on the ground than her older sister, wants out. She eventually moves in with one of her teachers, leaving Ruth to the erratic attentions of their Aunt Sylvie. Over time Sylvie draws Ruth into her vagrant lifestyle and they leave town together to avoid Ruth being taken away for her own good. 

I didn't like this book. My sympathies were totally with Lucille and I found Sylvie creepy and selfish. The same with Helen who kills herself rather than try to raise her two daughters on her own. About the only thing I will remember about this book was how much I didn't like it. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Never Eat Your Heart Out

 

By Judith Moore

Moore reminisces about her childhood and adulthood and her marriage and about food. The first two thirds of the book were very interesting but after her marriage ends, the rest of it was pretty boring.  

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly. 

Beautiful People

 

By Wendy Holden

Belle Murphy is only 25, blonde, wealthy and beautiful. But it's been a year since she had a hit movie, and Hollywood considers her a has-been. As does her current lover, Christian, your typical Hollywood hunk. But since he doesn't really love Belle, or anyone other than himself, it isn't a struggle for him to walk away and find some other woman to help him on his way to becoming a star.

Belle has fallen so low, given her wild ways and drunken displays, that in order to rehabilitate her image, she has adopted an orphan baby from Africa and has moved to England to star in a Shakespeare play, a role she got mainly for her star power and her willingness to perform nude. She meets an aspiring actor who quickly latches on to her, Niall. Niall is all about the classics and about the working class struggle and yet he finds himself quite enamored of Belle and her wild ways. 

Which is bad news for his girl friend, fellow actor Darcy Prince. Darcy has been with Niall for quite some time and both have been failing to achieve the success they both desire. But Darcy has suddenly been offered a starring role in a new science fiction epic and is off first to Hollywood and then to Italy to prepare for the role, with all that entails: dieting, exercising, publicity shoots, product endorsements and the usual folderol. While in Hollywood, she notices Christian and instantly falls for him. And he knows she has landed a big role and he is not adverse to wooing someone who is set to become the next big thing. Then he also gets a part in the new epic and will be in Italy with his his new girlfriend, Darcy. 

Things become even more complicated when Belle also lands a co-starring role in the movie and she too is going to be in Italy. Indeed, she and Darcy are staying at the same villa. Although neither of them know that they are both involved with Christian who "reconnected" with Belle on the set while he was wearing an alien costume that disguised his face. 

And then there is Emma. Who ends tangled up in this drama simply because she is a nanny and is taking care of Belle's adopted orphan. Emma is probably the only regular person in the bunch, the only one who is just doing her job and who actually loves doing her job, taking care of children.

This was a fun and fast read and I liked it a lot. It's pretty silly and but it is fun and lively and I was well pleased with it. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Bookends

 

By Jane Green

Friends from college and ten years later, still friends. Except for one: lovely Portia who turned out to be lovelier on the outside than on the inside. After graduation, the gang lost contact with Portia. The other members of the gang are still very close and see each other virtually every day. Catherine and Si are single. Si is still looking for Mr. Right but Catherine pretty much gave up after a sad affair with a married man. Josh got married to newcomer Lucy and his wife is the now the fourth and much loved member of the gang. Portia is just an afterthought. Until a friend of Si's mention her. Turns out Portia is doing very well for herself and is the power behind a popular TV show. Which the three original gang members, thinking back on it, now realize is based on them! Which then leads them to considering getting back in touch with Portia. Meanwhile Catherine and Lucy have decided to open a bookstore together, with Catherine doing the bookselling and Lucy doing the snacks and beverages. And this is about when Portia comes back into their lives and brings up old feelings and old questions and new drama when it appears she is up to her old tricks.

This was an interesting story, although the Portia drama doesn't amount to much. Almost everyone gets their happy ending, even the villain, Portia. Except for poor Si, who gets diagnosed with a serious illness. The revelation of his illness to Josh and Lucy is the final chapter of the book so maybe the author felt she needed the added drama. I think the story would have been fine without that part though. 

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.