The Big One

By Harrison Arnston

Ted Kowalczyk gets a cryptic note from an old friend. Included with the note is a scientific report. Ted, an ex-FBI agent who now works as an insurance investigator, reads the report and its shocking conclusion predicting a huge earthquake soon to hit Los Angeles. So he calls up his old friend at work only to be informed that the friend, Tommy Wilson, has been killed in a car crash three days previously. Ted is upset and puzzled and he decides investigate Tommy's death.
Ted takes the report  to an expert, who confirms that the two dead scientists developed a way to accurately predict earthquakes.
As Ted delves deeper, it become clear that the federal government is behind both scientists' deaths. The government is taking the position that the Los Angeles will be impossible to evacuate and so they are just leaving it to its doom. The only steps being taken are the removal of critical government suppliers and troops. These evacuations are being passed off as a routine emergency preparedness drills.
The federal government also has a secret plan to bury small nuclear bombs along a fault zone in the hopes of releasing the geological stresses and prevent the huge earthquake. This plan could work, but it could also precipitate the major earthquake or set off smaller quakes. What will happen is not known.
But the all the secrets will soon be out. Not only is Ted hot on the trail, but an LA newspaper is also on the verge of discovering the truth. Pretty soon government officials will be in the hot seat, trying to explain why they decided not to at least attempt to evacuate the LA area.

This was a pretty good story. I didn't really buy into the idea that the United States government would be so indifferent to fate of millions of its citizens, though. The excuse is that the logistics would be a nightmare and that forewarning the public would cause panic that would lead to riots and the breakdown of law and order. But other than that, I liked it.

Atlantis Gate

By Greg Donegan

This is the fourth book in a five book series. Ex-Green Beret Eric Dane has dream about the 1960s, featuring the poet Robert Frost and President Kennedy. The dream ends with Washington DC destroyed in nuclear war.
Meanwhile, flash back to Leonidas the Spartan battling the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 BC. Leonidas confronts an other-worldly creature and visits an oracle who sends him off with her daughter to act as an advisor while Xerxes is trying to cross the Hellespont. Xerxes also has a questionable woman advisor who has given him a modern day map of the prospective battleground, a tremendous advantage in a time when maps were very inaccurate. Leonidas' advisor is working to protect the world from the Shadow, a malign force that wants to steal all Earth's resources and leave it barren and forsaken. Xerxes' advisor is working for the Shadow, but only because she was forced to do so.
Back in present day times, events transpire that reveal the Shadow is making its big move and Eric Dane may be one of the few people who can get in its way.

This book has a lot of boring details about technical stuff and history and it really delves into that battle of Thermopylae pretty deeply, much more than I wanted to know. So I found myself skipping a lot of it because I just didn't care. It's an interesting premise and some of it was quite intriguing but too much was a lot of technical or scientific info and ancient history. I won't say it was a bad book, just not my cup of tea, so to speak. I also won't say that reading the previous three books might have helped because if book one had the same kind of detailed descriptions, I would have never continued on to book two.

Sticks and Scones

By Diane Mott Davidson

Goldy is a caterer and she has landed a three part job with the man who owns Hyde Castle. This fellow, who inherited the castle, wants all three meals to feature Elizabethan-era types of food. The castle was brought over from England and reassembled in Colorado. The owner, Eliot Hyde, has been renovating the castle with a view to converting it to a conference center. The three catered events are designed to highlight the castle and its amenities, so it is very important that all goes smoothly.
But a few hours before the first event, Goldy wakes up to a suspicious noise. Just as she is going to get out of bed to investigate, the front window of her house is shot out. The police are called and an investigation begins.
Goldy's husband, who is a cop, is out of town. He returns the next day and joins Goldy at the castle chapel just in time to get shot by an unknown assailant minutes after Goldy finds the body of a young man in the creek near the chapel. Tom, the husband, is helicoptered to the hospital with a serious but not fatal wound. Eliot lets Goldy, Tom and Goldy's son move into the castle until their window can be fixed. Goldy finds that she left her disk with her recipes at the house and goes back, alone, to retrieve them, where she is, not surprisingly, bonked on the head by a thief stealing their computers.
Tom is investigating a the theft of a valuable shipment of stamps in which the delivery driver was murdered. The young man whose body was in the creek was part of that robbery. Since Tom in incapacitated, Goldy sort of takes over the investigation which seems to be linked not only to the castle and its chapel, but also to Goldy's ex-husband, recently released from prison and now hooked up with a woman who was dating one of the men involved in the stamp robbery.

This was an okay read. It seemed very contrived to me. Too many people tied to too many other people in such a small location. And that whole secret love child part of the plot was just silly and unbelievable.
For another review see: http://www.bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Review.ASP?bookid=886.

Deep South

By Nevada Barr

Leaving Colorado, Anna Pigeon has taken a position as the new district ranger on the Natchez Trace national park. She has two male rangers under her supervision one of which apparently resents his new boss. Not much time goes by before Anna discovers, with the help of her dog, the body of a teen girl. The girl, Danni, had a lot of baggage. An aspiring beauty queen, Danni's mom had insured her face for $40,000. Danni's brother is violent and angry, her mother is disturbed, her father indifferent, her boyfriend is upset, any one of them may have had reason to kill Danni. Or maybe she just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As Annie discovers one dark night when she too is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This was an OK story. At one point, a prankster puts a six foot alligator under Anna's car and it attacks her dog and cripples it. I guessed then that eventually Anna would end up having the crap beat out of her. And so it was. It made me think of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, who managed to solve crimes without getting themselves almost killed in the process.
One thing, though, was the information about the Natchez Trace, about which I knew nothing. So that part was interesting. Actually, this was a pretty good read, if not quite my cup of tea.

For another review, see: http://dancingbadger.com/deepsouth.html.

Trespasses

By Caroline Bridgwood

Set in the 1930s and 40s, this is the story of a British family, the Winstanleys.
Kitty Conway goes to live with the Winstanleys after her father dies, leaving her an orphan. Nim Winstanley was her mother's brother. He is the lord of Russington Hall and he has fascistic leanings, applauding what Hitler has done for Germany and claiming that Britain could learn a lot from him. Beattie is his wife and together they have several rambunctious children. The oldest is Irving and there are also Jack, for whom Kitty has a crush; Lexi, the blonde beauty; Frannie, who tries hard and is the same age as Kitty, and a couple younger ones. These kids are kind of wild and the girls are kept at home and educated by a governess who doesn't take her job very seriously. Kitty does her best to fit in and they are pretty nice to her, with some exceptions. But Kitty never does quite fit in, always a bit of the outsider, but not in a particularly painful way.
Everyone grows up and beautiful Lexi is engaged to marry a very wealthy young man. Shortly before the wedding is to take place, a young German man from her past appears and she runs off with him to Germany. When war starts, she is stuck there, with her two little children.
Frannie takes up with a Jewish man who is a communist. She follows him to Paris but he runs afoul of the Germans and is killed. She is also arrested and Kitty comes to France to try to help her. Jack is also in France, trying to make money on the black market. Kitty becomes part of Jack's black market activities. She also goes to Germany in an attempt to locate Frannie. She doesn't find Frannie, but she does find Jack after he is arrested for his black marketeering.
The war does finally end and the bedraggled remains of the Winstanleys come back home to Russington Hall, quite a bit changed by the events of the war, including Kitty, who, while not a Winstanley, still is pleased to be a part of their family.

Hello Darling, Are You Working?

By Rupert Everett

Rhys Waveral has had some success in his life. He had a role on a TV show that earned him a lot of money. After the show ended, Rhys moved to Paris, France to a room in a nice hotel. He lives a life of leisure, drinking too much, taking too many drugs, staying up too late, and pretty much just wasting his life. But then the money is gone, lost in an economic downturn. Rhys now owes the hotel a lot of money and he needs work as fast as he can get it. So when he is offered a lot of money to spend a few days with a middle-aged woman at a party in Morocco, he has his misgivings but accepts. After all, he is no stranger to hustling, having spent his teen years as a prostitute in London.
His parents are concerned as is his fragile wife and they follow him to Morocco. Their intention is to intervene but they all get caught up in the debauchery as Rhys becomes more and more disenchanted with the way his life has been going. Those who should be there to help are drowning in the drugs, booze and promiscuity that Rhys longs to escape. And escape he does, flying away on a plane to his final destination.

Rhys is not a happy person. He is just drifting through life, with no particular goals except easing his pain with liquor and drugs. The loss of his money forces him to confront himself and his lifestyle and he really doesn't like what he sees but fears he cannot change. He is not a pleasant character nor are any of the people in the story, they are all selfish, shallow and stupid. This book is supposed to be amusing, but I was not amused. And the ending is not happy. It is entertaining in its way, like watching a freak show, if you like that sort of thing.
For another review, see https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/rupert-everett/hello-darling-are-you-working/.

The Love Knot

By Rebecca Brandewyne

Orphaned as a little girl, Verity Collier has been working as a teacher at the orphanage where she was raised. But she hates it. The pay is poor, the accommodations uncomfortable, the food meager. So she accepts a governess position in the wilds of Cornwall, far from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Stopping at an inn for supper, she falls into conversation with a mysterious stranger whose face is hidden in shadow. Then, riding in her new employer's coach on the way to his manor, she robbed by a highway man who is very similar to the man at the inn. The robber tries to steal her locket left to her by her mother, and she refuses to give it up. He then slices a lock of her hair and takes that instead and she continues her journey to her new job as governess to Lord Ransleigh's two young children.
Ransleigh's kids recently lost their mother. She fell to her death from a cliff at the nearby sea shore and somehow the two kids were involved.
When Verity arrives, Ransleigh is absent, away on business. The staff is welcoming and her new home is everything her previous place wasn't. Plus the kids seem really sweet, if a rather subdued. But all is not perfect. Verity is hearing a strange and threatening voice, warning her that her life is in danger. And there is talk of French spies in the area. And Ransleigh resembles the highwayman who stole a lock of her hair. And the servants are whispering that Ransleigh actually threw his wife off the cliff, that her death was not an accident. Yes, there are a lot of secrets and strange occurrences at the manor house.

This was an okay story. Verity and Ransleigh, of course, fall in love and he, of course, is the highwayman and the dead wife, of course, got what she deserved. And Verity, of course, saves the day and they all live happily ever after. Nothing new here, just your typical Gothic romance story. A fairly good story, but nothing special or particularly memorable.

For another review see http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/love-knot-1.

The Green Trap

By Ben Bova

Paul Cochrane is not at a good place in his life. He used to live in Massachusetts but moved to Arizona recemtly after his wife died in an automobile accident. But the change of scenery didn't really help that much. He does his job (he's a professor of astronomy) but other than that, he is just drifting.
Then his brother, who is a microbiologist in California, calls up and insists Paul come out there for a visit. The brother has something momentous to share with Paul but he won't tell him exactly what it is. So Paul flies out to California but arrives just in time to find out his brother has been murdered.
The brother has developed a process to extract hydrogen cheaply from water, a discovery that will revolutionize the energy industry. Needless to say, everyone wants to get their hands on his research. Some because they want to shut down big oil, some because they want to protect big oil and all because they want to make the big, big money.
Paul returns to Arizona and there he is visited by two people, both of whom want his brother's research and they are certain Paul has it or can get it. One of the people is soon dead and the other is a sexy and seductive woman who will do whatever it takes to get what she wants, which is money. She has a buyer for the research who will pay her $10,000,00 for it. She soon has Paul wrapped around her finger and convinced that she loves him.
Things go from bad to worse as various factions try to force Paul into giving up his brother's data. Paul finds himself threatened, beaten, terrorized and deceived. His world spirals out of control and he is driven to desperate measures, measures that gain him a brief triumph but ultimate defeat.

I hated this book. The characters, especially the woman, are not appealing. And the ending was just vile. A hateful and mean-spirited book, it has given me such a distaste for the author that I will never read any of his works again.

For another review see http://www.meridiansshadow.com/2011/08/review-the-green-trap-by-ben-bova/.

The Children of Anthi

By Jay D. Blakeney

Blaise Omari (BLZ-80-4163) is a member of the crew of the scoutship Forerunner. Omari is not his real name and he realizes he is facing imminent arrest by the authorities. So he hijacks the scoutship and takes it into the Uncharted Zone where it cannot be tracked.
The ship crash lands on the planet Ruantl and all aboard die except Blaise and fellow crew Saunders, a woman.
Blaise and Saunders are soon captives of a rough group of natives, the Bhan'jen. This group of Bhan'jen are controlled by Picyt, a Tlar. Tlar look very different from the Bhan'jen. Tlar are tall and attractive, Bhar'jen are smaller and hideous. Picyt is a kind of high priest and servant of Anthi, a sort of deity who turns out to be just a very powerful computer. Picyt is currently in a power struggle with the ruler of Ruantl, Hihuan. Picty sees in the arrival of Saunders and Blaise two technically proficient workers who can help the Tlar with their failing machinery.
Blaise is soon kidnapped by Hihuan's people and shot and dumped in the desert to die. Ruantl is a very hostile place, arid and subject to extreme storms and bathed in X-rays from its black sun. The locals all wear heavy cloaks and masks to protect themselves. Blaise has no chance to survive such conditions plus having been shot in the leg. Fortunately he is rescued by a tribe of Bhan and they return him to Picyt.
Blaise is pretty much done for when Picyt offers him a chance to survive. Asan, an ancient Tlar and the first ruler of Ruantl, sleeps in a high tech coffin. Picyt needs to raise Asan but to do so he needs a volunteer to provide the catalyst, infusing their vitality into the sleeper. Picty promises Blaise that Blaise will have a strong new body but what he really expects is that Blaise will die. However, Blaise survives the transfer and defeats the personality of Asan and takes control of Asan's body.
Hihuan is aware of what Picty has done. He sends his warriors to fight Picty's and Blaise and Saunders are caught in the middle. Blaise doesn't support Picty and he certainly doesn't support Hihuan who had him shot and dumped in the desert. Stranded on a poison planet, with no hope of rescue, caught in a terrible power struggle between three factions, Blaise and Saunders have to make the best of their bad situation. All Blaise wants is to survive. All Saunders wants is Blaise's head on a silver platter.

This was an OK story. I had a hard time keeping track of who had Blaise and what they wanted from him. I also had trouble keeping track of the various factions in the story. To me, the story was rather chaotic and Blaise is pretty much just a pawn for a lot of the story, stumbling from one disaster to another. Poor Saunders is more sinned against than sinning and doesn't deserve her ultimate fate. However, I did like reading about the Bhan and the Tlar, even though they seemed a little too human.
For another review see: http://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/the-children-of-anthi-jay-d-blakeney/.

A year in Provence

By Peter Mayle

Peter Mayle worked in advertising for a long time but quit to become a full time writer. He and his wife left England and moved to Provence, France. They bought an old farm house and proceeded to renovate it. This book is a fictionalized version of their first year in Provence.
In it they cope with the locals: the hunters, the repairmen, the wine makers, the farmers, the trufflers, and, best of all, the cooks. It's an orgy of classic French cooking, fresh meats, fresh vegs, fresh fruits, fresh breads and pastries, and bottle after bottle of local wines. Not a prepackaged food within sight.
All in all, Mayle makes Provence sound like heaven on earth. Except for the fact that it is full of tourists. And sometimes the weather is a little iffy.

I liked this book. I did think it was a tad condescending in its descriptions of the local people, but clearly affectionate in tone. Makes Provence sound very appealing, indeed. Probably somewhat glosses over the real Provence, as it mentions, just briefly, traffic jams and crime. However, I can see that it was likely a tremendous boost to tourism for the area, whether it needed it or wanted it. I think Mayle still lives there, though not in the same house as when the book was written. Apparently, his privacy was ruined after the book became such a huge success and the house became a tourist attraction.

May Contain Nuts

By John O'Farrell

Alice and David, like most parents, want the best for their three kids. So their youngsters lives are filled with activities designed to give them a leg up in life. Music lessons, language lessons, dance lessons, fencing lessons and on and on. Their oldest child, Molly, will soon be done with grade school and ready to move on to middle school (or whatever the equivalent is in England). But Molly, an otherwise bright eleven-year-old, is poor at math.
Her parents have their hearts set on a select local private school. This school has a rigorous entrance exam and Molly did not get a passing score in the math section of the practice test. Despite Alice and David's efforts to tutor her, Molly is not improving and is becoming sullen, nervous and anxious from all the pressure.
Alice, who is a small, thin woman, gets an idea. What if she dresses up as a child and takes Molly's entrance exam in her place? David thinks it is a super idea and helps his wife bone up for the exam. Only one problem, though. Molly inherited her poor math ability from her mother. And now Alice is enduring the same struggle Molly was, trying to prepare for the math section of the test.
Will Alice manage to get enough math under her belt to ace the math section of the test? Will she be able to fool the test proctors  and pass herself off as her own daughter? Or will she and David come to their senses and realize the terrible example they are setting for their children, that it is OK to cheat to get what you want? One can only hope.

This was a funny and enjoyable book, often laugh-out-loud funny. At one point, Alice loses a little weight and gets her gray hair dyed and buys some cute, preteen outfits and models them for her husband who reacts thus:

"You look fantastic. Except . . ."

"Except what?"
"Except I fancy you."
"What?"
"I'm really sorry but I fancy you. And seeing as there is no way I could fancy you if you looked eleven, it simply can't be working."

The only real drawback to the story was that the latter part gets a little preachy. I did find that a little annoying as I don't much care for preaching. Or preachers.

The Goblin Emperor

By Katherine Addison

Maia is the son of the emperor. But he is the youngest son, unwanted and exiled, with three older half-brothers. He never expected he would ever become emperor and neither did anyone else. He certainly was not raised to be emperor or prepared to be emperor. But the unthinkable happened. His father and his three brothers were all killed when their airship crashed. Suddenly young Maia is now the emperor and he doesn't have a clue as to how to behave or what to do. Friendless and alone, he has to cope with his weighty responsibilities and with all the double-dealing and intrigue that goes along with the imperial court. And the fact that Maia is half goblin doesn't endear him to his nobles who are all elves. Things go from bad to worse when it is revealed that the crash that killed the imperials was caused by an explosive device. And the killer or killers are aiming to take down the new emperor too.
Maia is a sweet kid forced to deal with a strange and often hostile new environment. His lack of self-confidence and his doubt of his own abilities are further strikes against him. Surrounded by plots and hateful relatives, Maia is mostly on his own. Drowning in luxury, waited on hand and foot, servants everywhere, Maia is the loneliest guy in the world. Alone, he has to figure out how to rule, who murdered his family and why. Plus try to stay alive.

This was a good story. Maia is unspoiled and untainted by the harsh treatment he received after his mother died and he was sent into exile with a man who hated and abused him. Foundering in a demanding and often cruel new environment, Maia still manages not to lose himself or give into his baser instincts.

I really enjoyed this book, but I did find it hard to keep track of all the characters and their strange and difficult names and titles, despite the guide in the back of the book.

For another review, see: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/02/book-review-the-goblin-emperor-katherine-addison-sarah-monette.

The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains

By Neil Gaiman

The small man has some guilt he needs to deal with. His beautiful daughter disappeared and he leaped to the conclusion that she had run away. He didn't find out for a year that she was dead. He spent that year hating her. He is haunted by his failure and his misjudgment of his daughter, Flora.
Ten years have passed and now he is on a quest. He needs to find a certain cave on the Isle of Skye, a cave said to be filled with gold, there for the taking. He sets off on the journey and hires one Calum MacInnes as guide. Calum has been to the cave once.
As the journey progresses, the details of Flora's demise are gradually revealed. And the man's journey isn't just about the search for gold, it is also about the search for justice.

This isn't a long story, about 75 pages. But it is a very interesting and captivating tale. The truth is slowly revealed little by little and the tale changes from a search for gold to a search for revenge. An unforgettable folk tale.

More Than a Skeleton

By Paul L. Maier

Jesus has returned! Or has he? Is Joshua Ben Yosef really Jesus reborn or is he just a very smart con man? Joshua seems to have all the right stuff: born of a virgin who was married to Yosef, turning water into wine, healing the sick and blind, casting out demons, preaching sermons that are a new take on the gospel sermons. Charismatic, handsome, extremely intelligent, saintly, heralded by mysterious events, surely he is the Christ.
But Dr. Jonathan Weber just isn't buying it. And he digs deeper into the mystery of Joshua Ben Yosef, even at the risk of alienating his new bride, who is one of the many thousands of people who are convinced that Joshua is the real deal. But everything he discovers only reinforces Joshua's claim to be Jesus Christ incarnated.

At first I was put off by the Joshua character's aping of the acts of Christ.  Logically, why would it be necessary for Jesus to return only to repeat everything he did the first time? He already did all that. That just seemed really fake to me. Eventually, though, the story got a lot more interesting as Weber digs deep into Joshua's background. So, overall, it was a pretty good read, once I got over my annoyance with the Joshua character.

For another review see: http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/more-than-a-skeleton.

Hank & Chloe

By Jo-Ann Mapson

Life had never been easy for Chloe Morgan. Raised in foster homes and subjected to abuse, her background included rape and an abortion. But she didn't let the tough times defeat her, helped through it all by her love of horses.
Chloe has a deep understanding of horses and the main focus of her life is working with horses. When she was younger, she feel deeply in love with a fellow horse trainer but he was a lot older than her and an alcoholic. They had many years together but he couldn't control his drinking and it eventually killed him. Chloe was devastated by his death and since then has avoided serious entanglements with men.
The story opens with Chloe attending a horse who having a hard time giving birth. Chloe's shirt gets dirty and she borrows a shirt from a man she has just met. Hank is a college professor and long time bachelor. But he is attracted to Chloe and manages to talk her into a first date.
Chloe's house gets raided by the police looking for drugs and Chloe is arrested. Hank comes to her rescue, bailing her out, getting her to the hospital to have her injuries attended to, taking her into his home, and finding a lawyer to fight the charges. Their relationship deepens but then differences in their backgrounds drive a wedge between them.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Chloe is stubborn and has a lot of "baggage" and Hank gets jealous and acts like a jerk. They are not the most likable of characters but they are very human and their story is wonderful.
For another review see: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jo-ann-mapson/hank-chloe/.

Hotel Pastis

By Peter Mayle

Simon Shaw has a pretty good life. A busy advertising executive, he has a nice home, fancy cars, a manservant and plenty of money in the bank. What he doesn't have is happiness. His marriage has just ended and he is frankly bored with his job. He needs a change of scenery. So he goes to France, driving his Porche to Provence. But he has an accident in his car and it gets a little damage, requiring repairs. The local mechanic says it may be several days before the needed parts arrive. Which is OK, because Simon has just met an attractive woman whose car is also being repaired and it isn't long before they get together.
The woman, Nicole, eventually talks Simon into investing in a local building project and turning it into a hotel. Simon, who enjoyed his time in Provence and, especially, his time with Nicole, agrees and retires from the ad agency and spends lots of money fixing up the building to be a hotel. His manservant, Ernest, is a natural born hotel manager and takes over much of the work of the daily running of a hotel.
So the hotel opens and is a huge success, with some minor complications, including payoffs to the local mobster and the accidental kidnapping of a rich man's college-age son by a group of bike-riding bank robbers.

This was an enjoyable read. The author makes the area sound like heaven on Earth,  which I doubt that it is. I'm sure it has its charms but it must have it faults too, like anywhere. The story is light and no one gets hurt and all turns out well in the end for everyone, even the disenchanted Simon.
For another review, see:  http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20106712,00.html.

The Strange Bedfellows of Montague Ames

By Norton Parker

Montague Ames has only been married for a year, yet his wife Sheila is planning on leaving him. She is disappointed in him, he seems to have lost his passion, energy and enthusiasm.
Monty is struggling at work too. He is often lost in a daydream and at other times, briefly, he is filled with energy and ideas, but it quickly passes. After a strange outburst at work, his boss sends him home. He's not fired, but now his job is in jeopardy along with his marriage.
Looking for help, Monty falls into the clutches of a Freudian psychiatrist, Dr. Smythe. After just one session with the doctor, Monty has a personality crisis and he "births" his superego and his id. Now instead of one Monty, there are three, much to the joy of Dr. Smythe, who sees it as a great opportunity for study and experimentation. Smythe, it transpires, cares little about Monty's mental health and more about research, even to the detriment of Monty's well-being.
So now there are three versions of Montague Ames. His superego, who goes by the name of Walter, is smart, talented, dynamic and charming. Sheila, not knowing who Walter really is, falls hard for him, much to Monty's chagrin. And there is Ollie, Monty's id, a rough, brutish fellow who has a taste for raw meat and a certain animal attraction.
Walter, the superego, takes the world by storm, charms Monty's boss, Sheila, and everyone he meets, including the president of the United States. Thanks to him, the whole gang, including Smythe, end up living on an estate where the id, Ollie, plays havoc with neighbor's tame herd of deer. Walter and Ollie are also wooing Sheila as Monty sinks deeper into booze and depression and Dr. Smythe merely stands and observes, more interested in the research than in helping Monty. Monty hatches a scheme to save his wife and himself from his alter-egos, only to be threatened with confinement to a mental hospital. After all, who would really believe that Walter and Ollie are Monty's alter-egos made flesh?

This is a silly story and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's an old book, copyright 1953, but it is a fun look back at a time when smoking was not vilified and, apparently, everyone was a raging alcoholic. Kind of like the TV show Mad Men, these folks constantly have a smoke in one hand and a drink in the other.
This story is a madcap romp, goofy and funny, and a great escape from these modern times.

Pagan Babies

By Elmore Leonard

Father Terry was a Catholic missionary in a village in Rwanda during the genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus, two tribes in conflict. Holding mass one Sunday, Hutu killers entered the church and slaughtered the Tutsi congregation in front of Father Terry and he was helpless to stop it.
Some years pass and Terry receives word that his mother has died. His mother was the reason Terry became a priest, it was her dream, not his. So he returns to the States.
Once there it soon transpires that Terry has a lot of old baggage he needs to deal with including a felony charge connected to smuggling and old friend who wants his $30,000 dollars back that Terry apparently absconded with when he went (fled) to Africa. A new added complication is Debby, an ex-con who has a serious grudge against her con-artist ex-boyfriend, who conned her out of $67,000. Debby and Terry join forces, Terry to raise money for his mission in Africa and Debby to get back her money from her ex.

I pretty much enjoyed this book. It is an interesting combination of grim reality and goofiness. The Rwanda part is horrifying and terrible and the interactions of the characters in the US are pretty goofy. Terry is a complex guy who is having a struggle trying to understand where his loyalties lie, with his own self-interest, with the people he left behind in Africa or with his family and friends, old and new, back home in Michigan. It remains unclear which way Terry will go and what his true intentions are, even to himself, until the very end of the story.
For another review, see: http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/17/reviews/000917.17desilvt.html.

Dolly Is Dead

By J. S. Borthwick

Dolly Beaugard was known for her good works. She volunteered and gave generously to local institutions. So when she turned up dead, it just seemed to be a tragic boating accident. But upon closer investigation, it was discovered Dolly's boat had been tampered with.  Her death was no accident, it was murder.
Born into a wealthy family, Dolly had no need to work for a living. Rather plain and stolid, Dolly never married and lived at home with her mother and various other members of her family, including two sisters and  her mother's brother, a retired professor. Dolly also had a brother but he didn't live at the house, he lived nearby with his wife and his son.
A few days  before Dolly's body washed up onshore, two local men were also found dead on the same shore, also apparently victims of a boating accident. But like Dolly, their deaths were not accidental. Small time crooks, the two men had nothing in common with Dolly. Yet they died within days of each other, in similar manner. Was there a connection? Or was it just a coincidence?

This story did not appeal to me. Mysteries are not a genre that I particularly like but I can enjoy one if it has a good story.  I didn't care for any of the characters in the story, villains, victims, family and the amateur investigators who are the main sleuths. I found it all rather dull, sorry to say. I stuck with it because I was curious to see what motive the killer had for murdering Dolly, who, during the course of the story, seems to have no enemies. Turns out it was a very weak motive and quite unbelievable. That was disappointing.
For another review, see https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/js-borthwick/dolly-is-dead/

Bride of the Fat White Vampire

By Andrew Fox

The second book in the saga of Jules Duchon, obese New Orleans vampire. In the last book, Jules changed into a pack of white rats, unable to deal any longer with the vampire life after the murder of his vampire girl friend. This book starts with Jules' dear transsexual vampire friend Doodlebug looking for the ratified Jules, needing his help in dealing with a situation. The vampires of the High Krewe are demanding Jules' help in solving attacks on the younger vampires of their colony. They figure he has the low life connections to discover the person or persons targeting the young vampires. Jules, after being rousted from his ratty  hideaway, only agrees to help to save Doodlebug, not caring for the snotty, hoity-toity vampires of the High Krewe.
Doodlebug has esoteric vampire knowledge, gained from his studies with the vampires of Tibet, knowledge that may enable to resurrect Jules' dead lover, Maureen. But their first attempt at resurrection is a terrible failure, with Maureen only half there, screaming in pain. But Jules is determined not to give up because undead life without Maureen is not worth living.
Meanwhile, Jules, in company with an enemy from the previous story, are trying to discover who is attacking the young High Krewe vampires and who murdered two black preachers. Jules will have to consort with goth vampire wannabes, Baptist preachers, High Krewe's nasty youngsters, and various members of the community who are in conflict over a proposed new superstore (think Walmart). All while having to deal with the failure of his vampire powers due to problems with his re-incorporation, which wasn't quite complete.

Jules seems a lot smarter in this story than he was in the first. This story has a few lighter moments, but overall it is more serious than the first story.  However, it is also less chaotic than the first story and the plot is more straight forward, it seemed to me. So it was easier to follow the action but I did want it to be funnier than it was. Still I did enjoy the story even if it wasn't quite as amusing as the first book.
For another review see https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/andrew-fox/bride-of-the-fat-white-vampire/

The Zookeeper's Wife

By Diane Ackerman

The true story of Jan and Antonina Zabinski's role in saving the lives of many Jews and others targeted by the Nazis during the German occupation of Poland.
Before Germany invaded Poland, Jan and Antonina ran the Warsaw Zoo. They made many improvements to the zoo, including building structures for the animals that were more like their natural habitats than just a plain cage. Jan was the official director of the zoo, but Antonina, who had an instinctive understanding of animals, helped in the nurture and care of the animals too.
But when the Germans moved on Poland, the zoo suffered greatly. It was bombed because it was located near strategic targets. Many of the animals were killed during the bombing. Others, such as the bears and big cats, were shot because of fears they would escape. Many were carted off the Germany where it was believed they would be safer. Of course, they weren't as Germany was heavily bombed during the war.
Left with no animals for the zoo, Jan turned it into a pig farm and later it was used to breed fur animals to supply the German military with warm coats.
But that is not all for which it was used. The Zabinskis used their home and several of the remaining structures at the zoo as hiding places for Jews and others fleeing the Nazis. Jan and Antonina gave them food, clothes, refuge and false ID papers to help them travel on to safety. Altogether, they helped to save the lives of many people who would have ended up in the Nazi extermination camps.

This was a pretty good read. It really puts the reader right into the suffering and terror of that time and place.  Books like this are vital to remind us just how vile human beings can be to one another and to never forget that terrible things that have been done in the name of ridiculous ideologies.

For a better review, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091301895.html

The Templar Legacy

By Steve Berry

Who were the Templars? The Templars were an order of military monks whose original mission was to protect pilgrims visiting the Holy Land in the time of the Crusades. However, they ultimately failed in this mission when the Arabs gained control of the Middle East. Before that, the Templars amassed a lot of wealth and property. After the failure of their mission in the Middle East, they retreated back to Europe where they continued to grow in wealth and property. Perhaps they became too ambitious. For whatever reason, Philip IV, king of France, turned against the Knights Templar and, with the cooperation of the Pope, many of  the Templars were seized, tortured and burned alive. Their properties and assets were divided and distributed in various ways and their order disbanded. (For more about the Templars, see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14493a.htm ). Berry postulates a theory based on legend that the Templars hid much of their liquid wealth, including secrets about the Roman Catholic Church that would utterly discredit the Church.
So...Cotton Malone, an American living in Denmark, has retired as an agent of the US Justice Department and is running a bookstore. He sees his former boss and witnesses her purse being stolen. Malone gives chase only to have the thief jump to his death off a tower: "[the thief] made the sign of the cross and, with Stephanie's bag in hand, pivoted out over the railing, screamed one word--'beauseant'--then slashed the knife across his throat as his body plunged to the street." And thus are Malone and Stephanie first introduced to the Knights Templar.
The Templars are on the hunt for their lost treasure and for their "Great Devise" which is the ancient chronicle of their order, lost to them when the order was disbanded by the Pope back in the early 1300s. Stephanie's deceased ex-husband was a scholar and researcher of the Templars and in her handbag was a journal that belonged to her husband, which is why they tried to steal it from her. This event and subsequent events set Malone and Stephanie on the trail of the lost treasure and into direct conflict with an extremist element of the Knights Templar who will do anything to regain the lost power and influence of their order.

This was an OK, if a rather long read. I did learn quite a bit about the Templars which made reading it worthwhile. I guess my main problem with this story and the previous one is that I am not a fan of this genre of literature. I don't generally read thrillers or conspiracy type stories. Perhaps those who are a fan of this genre would enjoy more than I did.

The Romanov Prophecy

By Steve Berry

Set in the time after the fall of the Soviet Union, this story imagines a Russia that is disappointed with democracy, fearful of a return to communism and so has decided to resurrect the aristocracy. The search is on for the man who will be the new tsar of Russia. This person will have to fit several qualifications, the chief of which is that he is the most direct descendant of the last tsar, Nicholas II, who was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Which might be a bit of a challenge, since Nicholas' whole family was executed at the same time he was. Or were they? There have always been rumors and questions as to whether they all died that day. When the bodies were exhumed in the 1990s, two were missing, which is the basis of this story by Berry, who assumes Nicholas' son and a daughter escaped the firing squad and survived.
A faction of several powerful leaders has come up with a Romanov cousin who they have put forth as the rightful claimant to the tsar's throne. These leaders, representing various factions such as the military, the bureaucracy, the Russian mob, think to control the government of the new tsar by putting their puppet ruler on the throne. The idea that there may be a direct descendant of Nicholas upsets them greatly and they will do anything to put their man on the throne.
Atlanta lawyer Miles Lord's firm has been hired to do the required background check on the power faction's candidate. Miles has had a life long interest in Russia and speaks and reads the language and, during his research in Russian archives, finds some papers that seem to indicate that some of Nicholas' children survived. Displeased with his discovery, his employers turn against him and attempt to eliminate this threat to their candidate by killing Lord. They fail and Lord sets off on the trail of the Romanov heir with the help of a beautiful circus acrobat and a secret Russian society dedicated to protecting the Romanovs.

This was an OK story. How an American would be able to figure out what has eluded the Russians for decades was a bit improbable as was the ultimate destination of the hunt for the heir. Also, how long it took a supposedly smart guy like Lord to understand who was betraying his movements to his enemies was kind of improbable too. Anyway, it made for an OK read if only for the story of the last tsar and his family and what was done to them. That part was pretty interesting even if the rest was just ordinary.

Shadow Singer

By Marcia J. Bennett

Book 2 of the Ni-Lach
Poco and Dhalvad have a secret that they must keep hidden in order to survive. Poco is a half-blood Ni-lach and Dhalvad is a full-blood Ni-lach. Hated and feared by the humans who have settled on their world, the Ni-lach have been driven into exile by the relentless persecution of humans. Besides being Ni-lach, both Poco and Dhalvad know the location of buried Ni-lach treasure, treasure that greedy people would love to get their hands on. What those greedy ones don't know is that Dhalvad also has the healing touch, with the ability to mend wounds, knit broken bones and cure sickness which makes him more valuable than any treasure.
Finding themselves hunted by ruthless thieves, Poco and Dhalvad flee into the wilderness, trying to track down the location of the Ni-lach people who have gone into hiding. They are accompanied by two companions, Poco's friend Ssaal-Ir, an imposing and dangerous catman, and Dhalvad's childhood friend, a small, furry, intelligent being, Gi-arobi. Together they will stand against hostile humans, angry bands of cat people, and the dangerous predators of a largely unsettled world.

This book was the second in  the Ni-lach series, the first of which is Where the Ni-Lach. I did not read the first book in the series, but this one stands alone quite well. It probably would have been helpful to know the back story but not necessary, as the author does a good job at filling in the gaps without having to go into a lot of detail.
Basically a science fiction fantasy, the book has the some pretty standard elements: special people with special powers struggling against the establishment, exotic alien allies, setting out on a quest to find themselves and a place in their world, battling hostile elements and facing down vicious predators. It's all there, including a little romance. And yet somehow I found it a bit boring. Maybe it was just a little too predictable. It's an okay story but I am not interested enough in it to continue on with the series.

Backwater

By Joan Bauer

Ivy Breedlove's family history goes back generations. And in those generations have been many, many lawyers. It's a family tradition that Breedloves grow up to be lawyers. But Ivy doesn't want to be a lawyer, much to her father's consternation. She wants to be an historian. And she also wants to write a Breedlove family history.
Ivy's father continues to push his daughter into a career in the law, despite her resistance. He can be stern and unyielding, just like his father was with him. But there used to be another side to her father and there is one Breedlove who may be able to shed some light the matter and that is her father's sister, the reclusive Josephine.
Josphine lives in a cabin on a mountain in the Adirondacks. No road goes to her cabin, the only way to get there is to hike. Josephine hasn't been seen by anyone in the Breedlove family for many years. But Ivy is determined to discover Josephine's story and, with her father's okay, she hires a mountain guide to lead her into the back country and to her aunt's door. The trip, in late December, is cold and dangerous but the guide knows what she is doing and delivers Ivy safely to her aunt's door. What remains to be seen is whether or not her aunt will welcome an emissary from the Breedloves or will send Ivy packing back down the mountain.

This was an a fairly enjoyable read, although intended for a younger audience than myself. I found the family interactions rather simplistic and, predictably, the teenage Ivy gets every body straightened out, in the process learning a few life lessons herself. Still, it was a pretty good story, the best part being the beginning where Ivy is coping with her various family members. The part where she is up at the cabin with her aunt was less interesting and, I felt, more contrived. Teen or preteen girls would probably enjoy this story quite a lot.

The Past Is Another Country

By Lois Battle

Megan Hanlon is the daughter of a Australian woman and an American soldier. Her parents met when he was in Australia in the 1940s. Theirs was a turbulent marriage and he seemed unable to settle down and support his wife and children. So Megan was sent to live with her aunt and uncle in Australia. Megan's mom was Irish Catholic and so Megan attended a Catholic girls' school.  She was a bit of a rebel, which didn't sit well with some of the nuns.
Her parents divorced and her mother remarried and Megan went back to the USA to live with her mother. Her father made sporadic appearances in their lives but more often than not he was nowhere to be found. Nonetheless, she loved him even as she hated the way he treated her and her brother and mother.
Fast forward about thirty years and Megan is now a movie director. She has come back to Australia for a film festival featuring a film she directed. She has also been nominated for an Academy Award for a documentary she made about runaway teens living on the streets in New York City. It's an important time in her life, a point at which she can achieve her dreams or crash and burn. But going back home to Australia causes a lot of buried issues to be dredged up and dealt with if she is to have some peace and understanding of herself, of her relationships with her ex-husband and an ex-lover and, of course, with her mother and absent father.

Pretty typical entry in the chick-lit genre, featuring three women in their early middle age,  coming to grips with their lives. Megan, the movie director, dealing with her unhappy childhood; Greta, the wife of a successful surgeon, having to face the truth about her marriage, and Joan, a nun, falling in love with a man for the first time in her life. Hearts are broken, relationships are ended, realities are faced and all three make hard choices. But even though typical in its subject matter, it is an engrossing and absorbing story, all the characters quite sympathetic despite their flaws and mistakes and well worth reading. I enjoyed it a lot.

Guess Whose Hair I'm Wearing

By Hildegarde Dolson

A collection of humorous short stories about the author's life in New York City, for the most part.

Most of these stories date from the 1950s and the book was published in the early 1960s, some fifty years ago. Some of the stories are quite amusing and enjoyable and some I just didn't get the joke. That's my fault, not the author's. But the ones that I did understand were pretty funny and I'm glad I finally got around to reading this book, which I have had for ten years or more. In fact, after finishing it, I decided to see if I could find another collection of her short stories, I Shook the Family Tree,  which is about her childhood and her early years in NYC in the 1930s.
Dolson was born in 1908 and always knew she wanted to be a writer.  She decided early on that she never wanted to get married or raise a family, preferring to concentrate on her career. One of her short stories in this collection is, "Why I'd Make an Awful Wife." Her view of herself was as a spinster but she later married a fellow writer when she was in her 50s. She had a very successful writing career, writing short stories and books of nonficition, fiction and mysteries. Many of her stories were published in The New Yorker magazine.

Heaven's Reach

By David Brin

The third novel of the second Uplift trilogy in which the Streaker leaves Jijo and attempts to outrun the Jophur in order to reach the Retired Races and turn their information over to what they hope will be an impartial party. This information is why the Jophur and other races have been trying so hard to capture the Streaker. They think it will reveal hard truths about the universe and its ultimate fate.
But when the Streaker arrives at a star around which is a settlement of the Retired Races, it is to only find calamity. The Retired Races are up in arms, battling against each other and their entire gigantic settlement is breaking apart and falling into the star. Some factions of the Retired want the vital data on board the Streaker but others want the Streaker to continue on. Those ones give Streaker a just enough help to enable them to stay one step ahead of the Jophur vessel.
The Jophur are having problems too. Their vessel has been attacked and invaded by the Zang, a hydrogen life form. What their agenda is is not known. Encountering two human prisoners of the Jophur, the Zang envelope the two and make them part of their community, with a peaceful exchange of ideas.
Meanwhile, something is seriously wrong with the universe, as transfer points become unreliable and dysfunctional. Apparently the disaster is upon them all and chaos is descending.  Who will survive?

This was an OK read. I was sorry to see the story leave the interesting peoples of Jijo. I would have liked to read more about them. But this story is set in space, as the Streaker tries to stay out of the clutches of the Jophur and the universe has its own ideas. It was an interesting story, though, despite the change of locale.

Infinity's Shore

By David Brin

The second book of the second Uplift Trilogy.

The squatter races of Jijo face more danger as a huge Jophur vessel arrives, searching for the dophin-piloted, Earthling space ship, Streaker. The Jophur entomb the Rothen ship and start interrogating the locals as to the location of the Streaker. The traeki, Asx, is captured by the Jophur and converted to one of them with the application of a master ring and is now known as Ewasx. Ewasx  maintains control over the traeki rings that composed Asx through applications of pain and uses Asx's knowledge of the locals to benefit the Jophur.
Meanwhile the Streaker is still hiding on the ocean floor, trying to remove the heavy crust that enveloped their ship as it passed through the Jijo sun's field. This crust makes the ship too heavy and the crew is trying everything they can think of to remove it.
The group of four youngsters who went forth in a wooden sub to study the ocean floor are rescued by the crew of the Streaker but are held captive, since the Streaker folks don't want the locals to know they are on Jijo.
Meanwhile, back on land, Jijo society is in meltdown and under assault by the Jophur who think they can wring the location the of the Streaker out of the locals. But the fact is that the locals don't know anything about the Streaker. The Jophur think they are being deceptive and punish them by destroying some of their towns, In particular, they go after the g'Kek, who the Jophur obliterated from the known universe and who the Jophur hate even more than they hate Earthlings.
Despite their lack of sophisticated technology, the locals are not going down without a fight and they make some surprising inroads against the Jophur. Meanwhile, on the Streaker, they realize if they don't get off Jijo, then everything the Jijoans have built will be ruined by the Jophur and those who come after them.

This was a pretty good story, lots of stuff going on, lots of action and heroics as the most of the locals band together to stand against the Jophur.  Also interesting was the crew of the Streaker's disbelief that the various races on Jijo could have developed such a peaceful and productive society. Gradually they come to understand how things are and how their presence on Jijo in endangering it all. Sometimes it was hard to keep all the characters straight, with all the story lines to keep in mind, but fortunately the book includes a cast of characters.

The Face in the Abyss

By A. Merritt

Graydon and his companions are in South America looking for Inca treasure when they encounter a beautiful girl, Suarra. They have trespassed into the lands of the Yu-Atlanchi, a secret people who desire to remain secret. Graydon and his companions end up in a cavern where they must face Nimir, the Lord of Evil. Nimir was captured a long time ago in a huge golden face and he offers the men everything they ever wanted. Graydon is tempted but manages to resist with the help of the Snake Mother, a demigod that Suarra serves. The other men fall for Nimir's lies and he consumes them.
Graydon is lead out of Yu-Atlanchi but he can't forget Suarra. So he heads back and encounters a group of Yu-Atlanchi rebels. He is taken in by them and, through them, arranges to meet with Suarra. He becomes involved with the rebels' cause, and, as it appears that Nimir is trying to become human again, he joins with Suarra, the Snake Mother, and the rebels to fight against the corrupt Yu-Atlanchians who are allied with Nimir because Nimir doesn't just want to rule Yu-Atlanchi, he wants to rule the whole world.

I didn't really like this story. It just didn't appeal to me. I started reading it and then I left it for several months before going back and finishing it. It is very descriptive and I find descriptive passages boring. I need to be told every little detail of a scene.  I also didn't care for the Snake Mother, a creature half woman, half snake. An unsympathetic heroine, to say the least.

An Irish Country Doctor

By Patrick Taylor

Barry Laverty is fresh out of medical school and on his way to take up a position in a Irish town with an established doctor, Fingal O'Reilly. Ballybucklebo is a small rural town and Dr. O'Reilly is the only local doctor and it may be the perfect place for young Dr. Laverty to figure out if he wants to go into general practice or specialize.
Barry's first introduction to Fingal is when Fingal is tossing a patient out the door and into the bushes. Fingal is a big imposing man and apparently a little short tempered. Barry isn't quite sure he really wants to share an office with this man.
But he decides to give it  a few days and before he knows it, he is involved in the trials and joys of the small community, including getting to know a smart, local woman. As he copes with the demands of his new job and of learning to perform to O'Reilly's expectations and getting to know the locals, he begins to really appreciate Ballybucklebo, O'Reilly and all the interesting characters and patients.

This was an OK story. I have to admit that I stopped reading it for several months as I didn't really find it that interesting or engaging. The story ends with a big party, which was one of the best parts of the book. But, towards the end, O'Reilly and Laverty use information about a patient to blackmail another patient. According to the author, the ends justify the means, but to me it was a shocking and disturbing display of a lack of medical ethics.

Heads You Lose

By Lisa Lutz and David Hayward

This is a book with a little bit of a different premise. We, the readers, are to be let in on the writing process of a mystery story. Novelist Lutz and poet Hayward, who used to be together, are going to share the writing of the book jointly, each submitting alternating chapters with critical notes by the other contributor.
So the story starts out with the two main characters, Lacey and Paul, brother and sister small-time pot growers in a small California town, discovering a headless body of a man on their property.
Not wanting the police poking around because of the pot-growing, they wrap the body in a tarp and haul it out to the countryside. Problem solved. But then the body returns. And Lacey, upon a closer examination, thinks it is the body of her ex-boyfriend, shady meth dealer Hart. Now she decides she wants the police involved, so she and her brother clear all the marijuana plants out of their basement and into a willing friend's place. And then Lacey calls the police.

The book teems with loads of suspicious characters and shady operators. The two authors argue back and forth about each other's choices in their chapters and leave each other snarky notes and footnotes. They variously try to sabotage each others choices by amending and overwriting and just plain killing off the characters they don't care for. At one point Hayward introduces a stripper girl friend for Paul and Lisa then portrays the stripper as a clueless fool at which point Hayward reveals she is actually a secret intellectual. Hayward also introduces a hippy-type fellow named Terry who Lisa kills off later on. Hayward then brings out a cousin of Terry's who looks and sounds just like Terry, named Harry, and Lisa then kills the Terry clone off in short order.
The suspects multiply as do the bodies, but the ending ties it all together for the most part, so neatly that I think the two authors had it planned out beforehand and all that nonsense and arguing about where the story was going was fake.

I did like the ending of the story but I can't help but feel that all the rivalry between the two authors was just a load of hooey -- a gimmick to help sell the book. But even though it felt like I was being conned, I still enjoyed the story a lot.

The Rosie Project

By Graeme Simsion

Don Tillman has decided it is time he was married. In his late thirties and a college professor, Don has never been on a second date or even on many first dates. Don has standards and few women ever manage to measure up. So he comes up with the Wife Project, a questionnaire designed to weed out the unsuitable candidates. Now all he needs is some lonely women who would be willing to fill out the questionnaire. Then he meets Rosie.
Rosie seems to possess every attribute that Don does not want in a wife. She smokes. She drinks alcohol. She is always late. She doesn't eat meat. She doesn't exercise regularly. She seems disorganized. She's a barmaid. But she is also smart, interesting, vibrant and attractive. And she wants Don's help. She wants to find her biological father, and Don, a geneticist, can give her that help.
Soon the Wife Project takes a backseat to the Father Project as Dan and Rosie work together to trace her biological father, gathering DNA samples from a large group of unknowing men that Rosie's dead mother may have slept with. Dan's orderly life gets turned upside down and, at the same time, becomes much more interesting and entertaining. Rosie adds so much to his life that was missing and he didn't even know was missing. But, he tells himself, she is so not right for him! Isn't she?

Don sounds like a person with Asperger's Syndrome, but it is never stated that he does have Asperger's. He is smart, super-organized, and socially inept. Anyway, he is an odd fellow and doesn't relate well to other people. When Don explains to Rosie that he isn't good at understanding what other people want, she replies sarcastically, "Tell me something I don't know." And Don tells her that "...the testicles of drone bees and wasp spiders explode during sex," totally missing that she was being sarcastic. Or did he? Turns out Don isn't quite the boob he sometimes pretends to be. Whether he has Asperger's or not, Don is a memorable character and I enjoyed reading about his search for a life partner and love. This was a good, fun, and entertaining story.

Covet

By Tracey Garvis Graves

Chris and Claire Canton have been going through a rough patch in their marriage. Chris lost his well-paying job and was unemployed for quite a time. He became depressed and isolated himself from his wife and two young children. Finally, it got so bad Claire insisted that he see a doctor, who put him on antidepressants. But the pills destroyed his libido, furthering the space between him and his wife. Then he landed a new job that required he spend a lot of time travelling. The end result, money coming in but intimacy going out.
Claire feels more and more lonely. Chris is gone a lot and when he is home, he is working on the computer, trying to stay on top of his increasingly demanding job. Then one day, Claire gets stopped by a policeman because her car's tail light is out. The policeman, Daniel, is very good looking and Claire notices. Then when she see him at a parade, she talks to him briefly about getting some traffic signs in her neighborhood. Over time, she sees more and more of Daniel and they become friends. Daniel is divorced and is lonely like Claire.
Although Claire makes it clear to Daniel that they will never be more than friends, their feelings for each other continue to deepen and grow. And Chris, wrapped up in his work, remains oblivious to Claire's growing estrangement.
Somebody better start paying attention to this marriage before it is too late.

This was an interesting story. Plus I learned some things about diabetes. Claire is a diabetic and reading about her coping with it was enlightening and made me realize what a hard time my uncle, who also had type one diabetes, must of had dealing with his diabetes. I remember my grandma telling me about how he had one of those insulin reactions when dining alone at a restaurant.
Anyway, I found the story engrossing and suspenseful and I had a great deal of sympathy for what they were going through. Good read.

One Summer

By Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson takes a look at the summer of 1927 and with brief and illuminating discussions of  the antecedents of the events of that summer. Charles Lindbergh, record floods in the Mississippi basin, flagpole sitting, Clara Bow, talkies, Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, Al Capone, Sacco and Vanzetti, Henry Ford, Babe Ruth  and more are all featured in this entertaining and fascinating look at what our ancestors were up to almost a ninety years ago. I am not a fan of baseball but even the stuff about Babe Ruth was pretty interesting.  Bill Bryson has a real gift for making history come alive by telling the human story not just a bunch of dry facts. He knows how to get personal with his subject matter and doesn't shy away from the unsavory aspects of the story. It was a pleasure to read this entertaining and informative book.  

Fallen Women

By Sandra Dallas

New York, 1885. Beret Osmundsen had good reason to hate her beautiful younger sister Lillie.  But when news of Lillie’s murder reached Beret she felt both grief and rage and she needed to know more about the circumstances of Lillie’s life. Last Beret knew, Lillie was living with their aunt and uncle in Denver. But now she finds out that Lillie was killed in a house of prostitution. So she travels to Denver in a quest to understand her sister and determined to bring the killer to justice.

Beret, a woman of wealth and intelligence, is not unfamiliar with the seamy side of life. She runs a halfway house for troubled and endangered women in New York City.  Though the Denver police would rather she stayed home and let them handle the investigation, Beret inserts herself into it and builds a good working relationship with the chief investigator, Mick McCauley. McCauley is not the typical flat foot, he is a man of money and influence, quite equal to the challenge of escorting a society lady through the underbelly of Denver’s tenderloin district.  Together Beret and Mick will dig through Lillie’s hidden history and discover the truth of her murder.

This was a very interesting read. The story of Beret and Lillie and Beret’s growing relationship with Mick were quite engaging. The murder mystery was interesting too, although the murderer was not much of a surprise. Altogether, I enjoyed it a lot.

Wagers of Sin

By Robert Asprin and Linda Evans

Skeeter Jackson is a young scammer with a checkered past. Living with two parents too self-involved to care for their child,  Skeeter turned to petty theft in rebellion. He then became the victim of a random time gate that landed him in the camp of Genghis Khan’s father. Skeeter had to learn to survive the harsh conditions of the Mongol steppes.  Five years with the Mongols taught Skeeter survival skills but when he was rescued and returned to his parents in modern times he still could not cope with his parents’ indifference. He ran away and eventually ended up on Shangri-La Station where he earned his living stealing from and scamming the tourists on their way to visit the past through the time gates.

Skeeter joined a group going back to Roman times. He had a plan: he would go to the Coliseum and pose as a bookie and take peoples’ bets on the outcome of contests and then go back through the time gate with his takings before the gamblers can collect on their bets.  An ill-advised scheme that backfired when one of the bettors turned out to be a ferocious gladiator who, upon discovering Skeeter’s scam, pursued him through the time gate and into Shangri-La Station, determined to get back his gold and kill Skeeter for making a fool of him.

And that’s how the story begins, with Skeeter in hot water with an enraged Roman gladiator. It adds in several other story lines, too many to mention here. Most of the related story lines are fairly interesting, but the best is the story of Skeeter. The only story line that was not as interesting was that of Margo which was quite boring and could have been left out of the novel to good effect.

This is the second book in the Time Scout series and probably would make for better reading if the reader is familiar with the first book, Time Scout, which I was not.

Wives Behaving Badly

By Elizabeth Buchan

Minty Lloyd is a homewrecker. She seduced her boss's husband, a man in his fifties, got pregnant (with twins) and got the husband to marry her. She pretty much wrecked her boss's life. (This story is told in Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman.)
Now the twins are toddlers and Minty's marriage is in trouble. The husband, Nathan, is apparently experiencing regrets at leaving a good woman to marry a blatant gold-digger. And Minty know this, although she finds it irritating, it isn't much more than that because, as she admits to herself ,  she doesn't truly love Nathan. She loved his stuff -- his car, his house, his income, his financial security.
But then Nathan suddenly dies, leaving Minty with the sole responsibility of providing for and raising two little boys all on her own. Nathan did make provision for his new wife and his two young sons, but Minty will have to go back to full time work. Plus dealing with settling his estate and coping with the expectations and demands of Nathan's two grown children from his marriage with Rose. But help comes from the last place Minty expected or wanted, Rose, the ex-wife.

This was a pretty good story. I liked that Minty admits she married Nathan for his money and not because she was head over heels in love. I also liked that she admits that her hatred of Rose makes no sense, given that Rose is the one who was sinned against and not the sinner, Minty and Nathan were the ones in the wrong. Minty still envies Rose, even after taking everything from her. She feels like second best compared to Rose and this just fuels her irrational resentment of her husband's first wife. Minty is an interesting character with lots of flaws but she is honest with herself about her failings. I enjoyed the story, it was a good read.