The Reefs of Space

By Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson

Book One of The Starchild Trilogy
Thirteen billion people and a world on the brink of collapse. Desperate for a solution, a super computer was created and put in charge of controlling humankind's worse impulses. Called The Plan of Man, people are indoctrinated to follow the absolute authority of The Plan unquestioningly.
Humankind has expanded out into the solar system and has discovered a remarkable and strange thing, a mighty reef, out beyond the last planets of the solar system. The Reef was built by fusorians, minute things who convert the loose hydrogen of the universe into reefs full of life, strange plants and amazing and even dangerous animals. The Reefs are vast and inhabitable by humans, with plenty of room for everyone. But The Plan is against the idea of people living there. The Plan claims humans cannot handle freedom and for their own good must remain under control of The Plan.
Steve Ryeland is a scientist who is ordered to create a jetless drive. For it has come to The Plan's attention some of the creatures of the Reef move effortlessly and quickly through space in a way that does not require propulsion. The Plan wants this jetless drive and it wants to use it to conquer the Reef and bring the escaped humans who live there back under The Plan's control.
But Steve has some problems. His memory is impaired. He has been declared an enemy of The Plan and is forced to wear an explosive collar around his neck that can be detonated at any time if his superiors decide it is necessary. Steve's memory loss is related to a man who escaped to the Reef and to the jetless creatures that dwell there. This is why The Plan sees him as a "Risk" and had the collar placed around his neck. Steve knows more than he is saying but he can't say what that more is because he simply doesn't remember. Somewhere in his brain is the answer to the jetless drive, the whereabouts of the escapee and the key to getting the horrible explosive collar off his neck.

This was an OK story. Written back in the 1950s and 60s, it has a super computer that communicates by way of teletype and paper tape. So that was a bit jarring and kind of ruined the story for me.
But putting that aside, the most interesting thing about the story is the Reef and its creatures. But most of the story takes place on Earth and not enough on the Reef.
Part of the story takes place at the Body Farm, a prison for people deemed too dangerous or useless to remain in society. The inmates dwell in peace and not much is expected of them beyond staying fit and healthy and not causing the guards any problems. Their ultimate destiny is to prove spare parts for citizens in need: arms, legs, lungs, hearts, even nerves and spinal columns.
At first Steve is amazed by the food they are served. Steaks and rich mashed potatoes and gravy, plenty of cream and butter, the sort of food consumed by the privileged and not by the average man. He finally figures out that the food is chock full of tranquilizers to keep the "cattle" calm and placid. Steve is supposed to be this brilliant scientist, the only one capable of figuring out the jetless drive and yet he fails to immediately realize that the placid inmates of the Body Farm are all drugged to the gills and that the drugs are in the delicious food they are gobbling.
So, like I said, it was an OK story. Kind of disappointing and not very perceptive and very much a product of its time.

The Sky Is Yours

By Chandler Klang Smith

It's a city under siege, mostly deserted by those who used to live there. City services are failing or gone. But still there are those who refuse to leave and who continue to fight against the forces trying to destroy everything.
Three young people come together to change the fate of the city, completely unknowing of their destiny. Swan, a baroness, trained by her ambitious mother to be the perfect daughter and perfect wife to some rich young man. But Swan has a secret and it may bring about her early death. Duncan, the spoiled wastrel indulged by his mother and a disappointment to his father, and the sole heir to a fabulous fortune and Swan's intended. Abby, a foundling raised by a crazy woman in a garbage dump. She is the key to the salvation of the city although no one knows this, not even Abby.
The three young people come together for Duncan's and Swan's wedding. Duncan, who has never actually met his bride, brings little orphan Abby to his wedding. He and Abby met when he crashed his flying machine on her garbage island. Abby saved him and bandaged his wounds and promptly fell headlong in love with the first man she had ever seen.
Swan does not handle having her fiancé's girl friend at their wedding too well, but since the contracts are all signed and under her mother's control, she goes ahead with it. But home invaders break into the mansion and Duncan's parents and Swan's mother are killed and the three young adults escape the chaos and come together briefly but end up going their separate ways. Lost in a dying city, completely unprepared to stand on their own two feet, and with anger and resentment and misunderstandings poisoning their relationships, they will be forced to face their individual destinies and truths.

This was an OK read. The premise, of a city under siege by two dragons, was kind of stupid. Oddly, the city stands alone against this assault, with no help from a national government or from any allies at all. Also oddly, the wealthy choose to stay there even though there is no logical reason for them to do so.
Really, this book doesn't make a lot of sense. The only really sympathetic character ends up dead. It's a strange story and it just didn't appeal to me very much, I think mainly for two reasons. First, it was supposed to be funny. But it mostly wasn't. Unless you find the grotesque and disgusting funny, which I don't. Second, the main characters are just not appealing people, except for one. And she comes off as dumb as dirt. I didn't like them and so I didn't care what happened to them.

Bring on the Empty Horses

By David Niven

Niven looks back on his Hollywood days, focusing mainly on the actors and others in the movie business rather than on himself. He details his friendships with famous actors like Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable.
He talks about the writers, the bigwigs, the women. He exposes their affairs, their excesses, their addictions, their disappointments, their unhappy relationships and the efforts to hide it all from the judgmental press of that time.
It's a look back at time when movies were just starting to become a huge international business and the beautiful faces were capturing the audience imagination. It's an enjoyable excursion into a land and people most of us can only dream about.

Personal Effects

By Marissa Piesman

Thirty-something NYC lawyer Nina Fischman is lonely. She choose the professional life, and even though she has been involved with several men, none of the relationships stood the test of time. Now she second guesses herself, comparing herself to her sister, married to a successful man and with young children. Frankly, Nina is disappointed with herself.
Recently, her best friend Susan has moved back to NYC. In the past Susan has been a bit of a gadabout, unsettled in her life, both working and personal. Susan too, is questioning her past choices and has returned to New York because she has decided she wants to be a married woman. To help her find the right man, Susan has placed personal ads in various New York publications and has been on a few dates with men who responded to the ads. But one of those men turns out to be a dangerous person and Susan ends up strangled and dead.
Nina, as Susan's closest confidant, works with the police to figure out who the killer is. Unfortunately, Susan didn't reveal a lot of detail about the men in her life. All Nina knows is that Susan said he was good-looking, physically fit, had good hair, liked hiking and wore contacts. Susan never told anyone the man's name.
So, together with police detective James Williams, Nina will place personal ads similar to those that Susan had placed, hoping to attract the killer. Which means that Nina will find herself going out on dates with several strangers, hoping and dreading that one of them may be a murderer.

This was an interesting if unlikely story. I really can't see the police ever agreeing to such a lamebrained scheme. Or that the killer wouldn't moderate his behavior, at least for quite a while, rather than continuing on as if nothing terrible had happened.
But despite the weak plot, I did enjoy the story. It was fun following Nina on her dating adventures with the various suspects.

Check out the review by Publishers Weekly

On a side note, this is what the characters in the book have to say about donald trump:

Well, I don't understand why the public is so fascinated by him. To me he is just another boring, narcissistic businessman. There's nothing cool about him.

This book is copyright 1991. So even back then New Yorkers were seeing through trump.

The Mammy

By Brendan O'Carroll

Agnes Browne is a street vendor, recently widowed, with seven kids. Her dead husband was no prize and his absence makes life both harder and easier for Agnes. Harder because of less money coming in and easier because he was abusive.
They married young when Agnes became pregnant. Neither of them had much in the way of education. The husband worked as a laborer. If it weren't for charity and the church, life would be nearly impossible for such a large, young family. The oldest child is 14 and the youngest 3.
Now that her husband is out of the picture, Agnes is determined her children don't end up as ignorant and unskilled as she and the husband were. She is especially determined that the oldest child continue his education and learn a trade. But the boy is equally determined to quit school and get a job to help out his mother.
Somehow, they all work together and create a happy and loving home, just getting by, but sometimes just getting by is good enough.

Agnes Browne's situation is difficult, but this is not a sad story. This is a rollicking and happy look at an Irish family loving each other and working together to help each other. And getting into scrapes and dealing with sorrows and setbacks and discovering new possibilities and new hopes.

Check out the review from Publishers Weekly

Conjugal Rites

By Paul Magrs

Trouble is once again afoot in the seaside resort town where Brenda and Effie live. Lately townsfolk are glued to a late night radio broadcast, The Night Owls, hosted by their old enemy from the first book in the Brenda and Effie series, Never the Bride, Mr. Danby. The radio program encourages locals to call in and spill the goods on their fellow citizens.  Mr. Danby and his radio show seem to have a hypnotic effect on his listeners, as they stay up all night listening to their neighbors bad mouth each other. When Brenda tunes in to see what is what, she is upset to discover one of the targets of the malicious radio gossip is Brenda herself.
But that is not the only rotten thing in town. Brenda's long lost and not missed ex is in town and he has only one thing on his mind: wooing and marrying Brenda, whether she is willing or not.
This adventure will take Brenda and Effie to hell and back and will change everything in both their lives.

This was a fairly good story. The story, for the most part, shifts from Brenda to Effie, as Brenda disappears from quite a large part of the story. Effie's and Brenda's young man friend Robert steps in as Effie's sidekick and he and Effie work together to bring Brenda back. But Brenda being lacking from much of the story spoiled it for me, as I find her story more interesting than that of the other characters.

Night Shift

By Charlaine Harris

Book 3 of the Midnight, Texas series.

Here, once again, are the characters from the first two books: Fiji, Bobo, Manfred, Chuy, Joe, the Rev, Olivia, Lemuel, Mr. Snuggly and others.
A new disaster has struck the tiny town of Midnight. Lonely people are coming to the crossroads in the heart of Midnight and killing themselves. After three people have done this, the locals realize that something is seriously wrong.
The key to the mystery is in the old books that Lemuel is trying to get translated. It gradually becomes clear that a demon was interred under the crossroads hundred of years ago and that the spell that bound it there is starting to wear off. It has been calling the vulnerable to itself and gaining power from their deaths.
The Midnighters must act before it can rise and seize Fiji, the witch, and create a demonic kingdom on Earth.

This was a fairly good read. To me, the best thing about it was getting to know more about the odd inhabitants of Midnight. I hope this is not the last book in the series, as I would like to read more about that strange crew.

The Mating Game

By June Johns

Zoos are one of the places of last resort for the world's endangered animals. So breeding these animals to propagate the species is very much a part of many zoos today.
But breeding the different species is no easy task. So many animals, especially the most endangered, have a very specific set of requirements for successfully bearing and raising their young.
From monkeys and apes, to rhinos and hippos, bears, penguins, reptiles, snakes and even more, June Johns takes a look at the reproductive lives of the animals found in one particular zoo in England.
So, apparently, the love lives of animals of all sorts are fraught with danger and murder. Moms killing their babies, dads killing their offspring, the grown offspring killing their parents...who knew raising babies in a zoo setting was so brutal and bloody?
This book was written in the 1960s. Hopefully zoos have grown more learned in their dealings with their resident animals and are able to provide safer, more nurturing habitats for all the animals under their care.

This was an interesting read. It is not a book meant to amuse the reader, it is very factual in its descriptions but I found it quite engrossing.

Day Shift

By Charlaine Harris

Book Two in the Midnight, Texas series.

Manfred the psychic is settling into his new home, getting to know the different folks who make up the core of Midnight, Texas.
He travels out of town to see a wealthy client, Rachel Goldthorpe. In a strange coincidence he sees fellow Midnighter, Olivia, dining with a couple at the same hotel where he is staying. The people Olivia is with turn up dead in an apparent murder/suicide. As an acquaintance of Olivia's, Manfred is questioned by the police as to his connection to her and to the two dead people.
Then, during his consultation with Rachel, she suddenly dies. She was an older woman and had recently been very ill. But still it seems a bit suspicious. Manfred comes under suspicion because he is being accused of stealing Rachel's jewels, which her son claims she must have been carrying in her purse at the time of her death, since he can't find them anywhere in her house.
It looks even worse for Manfred when it turns out that Rachel's cause of death was an overdose of her own medication, placed in her personal bottle of drinking water that she had with her during her meeting with Manfred. Never mind that Manfred never had access to her medications and likely didn't even know what medications she was taking. It is all just too fishy for the police and he ends up being suspect number one.

This was an OK read. Take away the fantasy elements, though, and it is just another mystery novel. The story does have a subplot about weretigers (like werewolves but with tigers) that comes together at the end with the murder mystery, but in a rather contrived way.

Review by Publishers Weekly.

Kill the Dead

By Tanith Lee

When Parl Dro was a young teen boy, a girl he liked was killed and her ghost began haunting him. It drew strength from Parl Dro and tried to tempt him into joining it in death. This was the beginning of Parl Dro's start as an exorcist, one who puts the dead to permanent rest,
Parl Dro is not alone in this tale. He is joined by a talented musician who plays an extraordinary instrument. Myal Lemyal has not had a prosperous or happy life. As he explains to Parl Dro, he wants to write an epic song and thus make his fortune. He wants to base the song on Parl Dro's battle with the ghost town of Ghyste Mortua, a battle that rumor has it is Parl Dro's ultimate destination.
A third "person" will accompany the two men on their trip to Ghyste Mortua: the ghost of Ciddey Soban. Ciddey may be dead, but her need for revenge against Parl Dro burns. Parl Dro came to Ciddey's house and against her wishes laid to rest the ghost of her dead sister, a ghost that Ciddey had purposely freed from the grave. Upon discovering what Parl Dro had done, Ciddey promptly killed herself, crazed with grief upon losing her sister for the second time. Her ghost has attached itself to Myal Lemyal and is following him and Parl Dro on their fateful journey to face the killer ghosts of Ghyste Mortua.

This was not an interesting story. It was boring. Although I did find the twist at the end to be unexpected and surprising. It kind of redeemed the rest of the story.

Sabella or The Blood Stone

By Tanith Lee

Sabella lives alone in her dead mother's house on Novo Mars. Novo Mars bares a striking resemblance to Mars, being dry and bleak and barren and reddish in hue, but not as red as Mars.
Sabella chooses to be alone because it is safer for everyone if she does so. Sabella is a vampire of sorts. She drinks the blood of men she seduces, she is inhumanly strong and fast, she cannot bear the sunlight. But she is not undead, she does not sleep in a coffin, she has a reflection and garlic, holy water and crosses are no big deal.
Sabella was just a normal kid until the day she crawled into a cave. In the cave is where she found the blood stone that she wears constantly on a chain. When she is hungry, the stone is clear. When she has fed, it is ruby red.
She had no one to teach her how to be a vampire. She killed people at first but gradually learned how take just so much but not too much. Then she back slid and killed a young man who had a big brother. Big brother is at Sabella's door and he is big and he is strong and he is determined to find out what happened to his brother. Sabella may have finally met the only man she cannot seduce and bend to her will. And he may be her only salvation from the life of degradation she has fallen into.

This is about the third time I have read this story and it is still a gripping and thrilling read even after all this time. I first read it back when it originally came out in the 1980s. I don't consider the story to be fantasy, because Sabella's condition has a scientific explanation, not a supernatural one. I think that is one of the reasons I like the story so much, because it is logical.

This Pen for Hire

By Laura Levine

Jaine lives in Los Angeles and makes her living as a writer. She specializes in resumes and copywriting. Her latest customer, Howard, doesn't want a resume or an ad written. No, he wants a love letter, a letter persuasive enough to convince its recipient to go on a date with him.
Howard is no prize. He works in insurance and still lives with his mother. The woman he is crushing on is a beautiful aerobics instructor, Stacy. Jaine is no stranger to the LA scene and she is more than certain that Stacy is not going to date a man like poor Howard. So Jaine's letter to Stacy implies that Howard is related to Rupert Murdoch. And Howard gets his date!
But (of course there is a "but") when Howard arrives at the apartment to pick up his date, he finds Stacy dead, her head bashed in with a Thighmaster. And of course the police are sure he is the killer.
Jaine feels guilty that her letter may have gotten Howard into trouble. So she proceeds to do a little investigating on her own. She easily finds out that Stacy had several lovers, one of whom was married. Also, one of the women Stacy worked with was dumped for Stacy. And there's the woman who wanted the apartment that she was promised before Stacy stole it from her.
So there are plenty of suspects. But which one is the killer? Turns out the killer was right under Jaine's nose all along. And that Stacy was murdered for the most prosaic reason of all.

This was an OK read. Although I did guess the identity of the killer pretty quickly but not, I will admit, the reason why Stacy was killed.
The story is mildly amusing although I did find the main character's constant put downs of herself a bit tiring.

Review from Kirkus.

Midnight Crossroad

By Charlaine Harris

Welcome to Midnight, Texas. A small town with a small population of folks, all of them a tad different from most people.
New to this small community is Manfred Bernardo. Manfred is a sometime psychic. He does most of his work online or via telephone. Most of the time he just makes it up. Occasionally he actually has a true psychic flash. Occasionally.
So this hole in the road town has a resident witch, a vampire, an assassin, a were-person, an angel, an ex-white supremacist and a serial killer. Of course, Manfred doesn't find this all out right away. But he soon figures that the leading lights of Midnight are more than they appear. It all begins with the body of a young woman, a young woman who has been missing for several weeks and of whom her friends and family are willing to commit murder to track down her killer.

This was a pretty good story, a bit spoiled by the fact that I saw the TV show version first, so no surprises in the plot. The only surprise, really, is that the book characters seem quite a bit less sure of themselves and less powerful than their TV counterparts.

Review from Kirkus Reviews.

The Road to Ruin

By Donald E. Westlake

The Dortmunder gang is once again trying to pull off a successful heist, although, given their past record, it seems a vain hope.
So one of the gang members has come up with a very tempting opportunity. A very wealthy man has become a social pariah (because of his financial shenanigans that cost a lot people a lot of money) and can't find enough people to take care of him and his household.
The gang has inside information, including that the man, Monroe Hall, has a fabulous collection of very valuable cars. The plan is the gang members will get hired on as Hall's servants and, when the time is ripe, they will steal the cars.
It's a beautiful plan that can't go wrong. Except it does. Unbeknownst to the Dortmunder crew, a group of disgruntled investors and workers have a plan to grab Monroe Hall and extort all their lost monies out of him. Working at cross-purposes, the second group manages to screw everything up for everyone, including Monroe and his faithful wife, Alicia.

This was an typical & entertaining Dortmunder story. I was really hoping old John would finally come out on top, but, as per usual, John Dortmunder gets nothing for all his hard work. It was interesting seeing the gang of crooks trying to act like ordinary workings stiffs. Some of them even seemed to actually enjoy their new roles, a first step on the road to redemption? Nope.
I usually do enjoy Westlake's stories and this one was quite enjoyable too.

Review from Publishers Weekly.

Wild : From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

By Cheryl Strayed

After her mother died and her marriage ended, Cheryl Strayed knew she needed to do something. What she decided to do was hike the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Washington, alone.
Never having done an overnight hike before, Strayed was not quite prepared for the experience. First of all, her backpack was way overloaded. Second, she found out later after many, many painful miles that her boots were too small. Third, she learned that wild animals are not the biggest threat, rather it was men. Attractive and young, she fortunately only encountered one man with questionable intentions. (She got lucky in that regard.) She saw lots of wild creatures, but they were as timid of her as she was of them. (Once again, she got lucky.) Fourth, she learned that she didn't budget quite enough money for the trip. When one of her resupply drops didn't contain the cash she was expecting, she didn't have a backup plan or even a credit card.
So basically she went off half-cocked but by the end of the hike she was a lot stronger, a lot slimmer, a lot more experienced and a lot more at peace with her life.

This was a pretty good read. I liked reading about the hiking. But not so much the story of her emotional troubles. It just seemed to me that she brought a lot of that on herself.
I'm sorry her mother died so young. But the way Strayed trashed her life because of that did not sit well with me. Especially the way she sabotaged her marriage to a man she describes as loving, caring and understanding.
Just weird.

Critters : Adventures in Wildest Suburbia

By A.B.C. Whipple

From the inside flap of the book jacket: "Squirrels in the bird feeder, raccoons in the garbage, Canada geese on the lawn, rabbits in the garden, deer in the orchard—during forty years in the suburbs A.B.C. Whipple has coped with them all, even including a skunk that decided to winter in his cellar."

That makes it sound like it is going to be a really fun and amusing book, but no. It is more like a zoology text book, with the amazingly (and boringly) in depth descriptions of the habits and life cycles of these common creatures.
In the chapter about the cellar skunk, we get a lecture on "aposematic coloration", info on skunk diet, skunk mating habits & the chemical composition of skunk spray (key word: butylmercapton).
In the chapter on raccoons, we explore the origins of the washing behavior, their mating habits, their diet, a bit of their history in North America & rabies.
Similar topics are touched on in all the other chapters about all the other animals.
The author can't just tell an amusing tale. No, he has to educate the reader. Which is fine if you are in the mood to be educated. Not so much if you just want a light, amusing read.

Something Rotten

By Jasper Fforde

The fourth novel in the Thursday Next series. In this book, Thursday is now back in the real world with her toddler son, Friday. She is still part of Jurisfiction but, needing money, she goes back to work for Special Operations, a branch of law enforcement.
Thursday wants to get her eradicated husband, Landen, back. She also needs to track down Yorrick Kaine, an escapee from an unknown book. Kaine has risen to high position in the government and has even higher ambition. If Kaine succeeds, he will start a war that will bring about Armageddon.

Wikipedia has a really informative entry that does an excellent job of explaining the universe of the Thursday Next stories. It is helpful even to those who have read the first three books in the series. The novels can be a bit overwhelming there is so much to keep in mind. Thursday's Britain is not our Britain and then there is the world of books and all its characters and creatures that sneak in and out of Thursday's world.

I did enjoy this story and parts of it were quite funny. The story line seemed a bit more straight forward than some of the earlier stories. For the most part, I didn't feel as lost as I sometimes did in the other books.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

By Gabrielle Zevin

A.J. is the owner of a small bookstore. He lives in the apartment above the store.
Ever since his wife died, A.J. has been very depressed. So depressed that he occasionally gets very drunk. One evening he is passed out drunk and someone comes into the apartment and steals a very valuable, very rare first edition book of poetry.
At about the same time, a woman abandons her young child in A.J.'s bookstore. The toddler has a note from the mom explaining that she wants her little daughter to grow up in a home that values reading and books. And that she can no longer take care of the girl, whose name is Maya.
And so Maya enters in the lonely, sad middle-aged man's life. He accepts the responsibility of raising Maya and it enriches and expands his life in ways he never imagined.

I truly loved this sweet, gentle story. Although A.J. seems live under a dark cloud in the beginning, the arrival of Maya lets in fresh air and sunshine.

Book review by the Washington Post from 2014.

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America

By Bill Bryson

Bryson returns to the United States after living in the UK. Feeling a bit nostalgic, he takes off on a road trip to visit some of same places he visited with his parents as a kid and to visit places that he had always wanted to visit but never had.
Bryson is usually quite amusing and this book lives up that in being a humorous read. But he must have been in a bad mood when he wrote it because he really beats up on America, only rarely finding a good thing to say beyond praising the scenery occasionally.

I did enjoy the book, but I wish he could have been a little less snarky about his homeland.

See the New York Times book review from 1989.

Time Salvager

By Wesley Chu

James is a time salvager. His job is to travel back in time and save artifacts and technology from the brink of destruction.
Time salvagers are required to adhere to a strict set of protocols. The main one of which is to never bring a living person from the past into the future. Dire consequences if anyone does such a thing.
James lives in a time of decay and depression. His forays into the past to rescue lost tech is helping to keep mankind safe if not exactly thriving.
Time travel takes a toll on the salvagers, both physically and mentally. James is one of the most experienced and valuable salvagers but he is suffering from exhaustion. He really needs to take some time off to rest and recuperate. But on his latest foray, he is smitten by an attractive and intelligent young woman and saves her from her doom and brings her back to his timeline.
This woman is a scientist and she was supposed to die in a terrible explosion. Her knowledge could be the key to saving Earth from a deadly environmental catastrophe.
But James has broken the first rule of time travel and has put himself and the scientist in the crosshairs not only of his own employer but of that of a ruthless and cruel corporation that will stop at nothing to get to him and to her.

Kind of a boring story. James rescues the woman and hides her in a tribe of outcasts living in the ruins of Boston. And he makes many trips into the past to gather the equipment she needs to conduct her experiments to solve the environmental crisis that has enveloped the world. None of that was really very interesting.
The last part of the story features a lot of battles and strife, most of which I skipped. I am not interested in the details of battles. I find that sort of thing to be the so boring.
So even though this book is the first in a new series, I probably will not bother to read the next in the series.

Clouds of Witness

By Dorothy L. Sayers

Lord Peter Wimsey has to save his brother the Duke from the hangman. Gerald is accused of killing his sister's betrothed, Denis Cathcart. Wimsey is an amateur but gifted detective and is quite capable of unraveling the puzzle of this murder. But it would certainly be a lot easier if his brother and sister would stop lying about their actions the night of the murder.
Both Gerald and Mary were doing things they probably should not be doing. But, because of the way they were raised, they both lie to protect their loved ones. As it turns out, Mary has become disenchanted with Denis and was planning to elope with another man the night the murder occurs. When she and Gerald stumble across the dead man's body, Mary assumes her lover has killed Denis and Mary starts immediately telling lies to protect him.
As for Gerald, he was in the bed of another man's wife, which he refuses to reveal to the investigators, claiming he was merely out for a walk for several hours after midnight in the pouring rain. Of course he is disbelieved. But he refuses to tell anyone the truth to protect his wife and to protect his girl friend.
So it is up to Wimsey to discover the truth about his sister's actions and his brother's actions and to discover the truth about Cathcart and his apparent murder.

This was an OK read. I thought Mary and Gerald were both a couple of dopes who caused a lot of problems due to their constant lies, especially those of Mary.
Also, at the end of the book Wimsey gets roaring drunk, which, to me, seems totally out of character. Very disappointing behavior.

All the Light We Cannot See

By Anthony Doerr

Pulitzer Prize for fiction, 2015.

Set in France in World War II, the story centers around a young blind French girl, a young German radio engineer and a priceless diamond gem called the Sea of Flame.
The girl, Marie-Laure, is staying with her father and his brother. Her father has been entrusted with the Sea of Flame by the museum he worked for. He was given the diamond to hide it from the coming Nazi occupation. It is inside a clever tiny puzzle box shaped like a house. At one point, the father is summoned back to Paris but is arrested by the Germans and put in a work camp.
Marie-Laure and her uncle become involved in the resistance as the uncle has a radio hidden in the attic of his house and they use this radio to send vital information to the Allies. But then the uncle is arrested and locked up.
Meanwhile, in Germany, the young boy who has a genius for building and repairing radios, Werner, is an orphan living in a group home with his younger sister. The town they live in is a mining town and Werner's future seems destined to be a miner like his father, a destiny he is anxious to escape. When he is given the chance to attend a military school, he welcomes it, even though his sister is violently opposed.
Life is hard at the school, but Werner prefers it to the thought of returning back to the mines. He eventually is sent to fight in the war, as Germany begins to falter in its attempt to conquer Europe. This is how he ends up in the same town where Marie-Laure is living.
Also in this town is a German officer. He knows about the Sea of Flame and its legend. The legend is that any one who owns the diamond will lose everyone they love but will live forever. He has been tracking the diamond across France and desperate to find it because he is dying of cancer.
The tide turns against the Germans and the Allies start bombing the town where Marie-Laure is living all alone in her uncle's house. He is in prison and there is no other adult to tell her about the leaflets the Allies dropped warning the residents to flee before the bombing starts. She survives the first round of bombs but before she can escape, the German officer comes looking for the diamond, which he has traced to her father.
Marie-Laure hides in the attic where the radio is. The entrance to the attic is hidden but she knows that the German will eventually figure it out. Meanwhile, she is slowly dying from thirst. As a last gasp, she sends out a cry for help over the radio. Her message is received by Werner.
Werner and another soldier were in a cellar with their radio equipment when the bombing started. The building above them collapsed and they were trapped in the cellar. The radio was damaged, but Werner managed to get it working again in time to hear Marie-Laure's message. They also manage to finally dig their way out of the rubble and Werner sets off to help the girl whose voice he heard over the airwaves.

This was an OK read. Long, but most of the chapters are short.

Review by The Guardian.

Calypso

By David Sedaris

A collection of stories about David's life in England and at the Sea Section, his beach house in North Carolina. He lives with his partner, Hugh Hamrick, when at home in England. But when they go to the Sea Section, all the family is invited to be there too.
Sedaris comes from a large family, with four sisters and one brother. At the time of this book, his mother and a sister are both deceased. The mother died when David was in his twenties but his sister died recently, from suicide. His father is living and in his nineties.
David talks about all his family members, including Hugh's family, Hugh's mom and sister and compares them to the Sedaris family, to neither's advantage. I think he finds Hugh's family a little irritating and that they find him and his family a little wild, maybe.

After reading this book, I would think most people would be reassured that their own relatives are not as weird as they thought. The Sedaris family is weird but in a way that is familiar to anyone who has family. His sister who killed herself was mentally ill. My aunt was mentally ill. His father is a man of wealth who lives in squalor because he refuses to spend money to hire someone to help him at home. My other aunt also lived in squalor, with stuff piled everywhere. Like David's sister, we have suicide in our family too. David's mom was an alcoholic. My cousin was addicted to drugs and had to go to rehab.
Just normal, bent American families.

A review by Sarah Crown in The Guardian.

Alternate Routes

By Tim Powers

Sebastian Vickery used to be a Secret Service agent until one day when he overheard something he wasn't supposed to hear. Now he is hiding out, working for a taco truck / taxi service company in Los Angeles.
Things are weirder than normal in LA and weirdest of all on the freeways. The almost constant traffic on the freeways generates some kind of spectral energy field that the Federal government is tapping into to gather intelligence. This field enables them to communicate via radio with the dead and milk them for data and to track those still living and  connected to the deceased.
One of those deceased is Vickery's wife, who committed suicide on the freeway, using her husband's gun. Now this secret government agency, the TUA (Transportation Utility Agency) is using her to track down Vickery. They coerced the dead wife into revealing Vickery's location and the TUA sent two agents to kill him. But another TUA agent, Ingrid Castine, arrives just before the two killers to warn Vickery. She didn't get there soon enough and she and Vickery get in a shootout with the two agents. After killing one of the agents and knocking the other one out, both Vickery and Castine are fleeing for their lives.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles is on the verge of a major catastrophe due to the TUA and its demented chief, Emilio Terracotta, and their contacts with the deceased people. Terracotta has been possessed by a dangerous entity from the other side that wants to unite the two realities, with possibly apocalyptic results.

This was a fairly good read. For me, it was a little too much of an action story, which made it less appealing to me. Also, I found the tone of the novel a bit depressing, especially its depiction of the "afterlife." It isn't clear if the ghosts or "deleted persons" as the TUA refers to them, are the souls of the dead or just a bit flotsam cast off by the deceased. Their lot in death is certainly heartrendingly sad.

Review by Publishers Weekly.

The Good Daughter

By Jasmin Darznik

The story of Jasmin's Iranian grandmother and mother. Both women suffered under the unfair rule of selfish and uncaring men and a patriarchal, overly religious society.
The grandmother, Kobra, lived with her husband and his mother. The husband was a gambler and the family's fortune ebbed and flowed with his wins and losses. Kobra had three kids, two sons, one of which died as a toddler and a daughter, Lili.
Lili's father wanted his daughter to be educated so she attended school. When she was about thirteen, she attracted the unwanted attention of a man. The man proceeded to ask to marry Lili, even though she was just a kid. In Iran, a girl was considered old enough for marriage once she had her first menses. So Lili ended up married to Kazem, a grown man.
Kazem turned out to be a brute and he beat Lili. After she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Sara, Lili decided she could no longer tolerate being married to Kazem.
Unfortunately, in Iran at that time, a divorced woman was considered to be little more than a prostitute. Also, any children born to a married couple belonged to the father and not to the mother. Lili was forced to give up baby Sara.
But giving up Sara gave Lili the opportunity to leave Iran and travel to Germany to further her education. She attained a degree in midwifery. She also eventually married an European man and they moved to Iran.
Lili tried to maintain a relationship with her daughter, Sara, but Sara's father and his family poisoned her mind against her mother. Lili then gave birth to another daughter, Jasmin.
The political situation in Iran was becoming unstable. This was shortly before the time of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. Lili and her husband left Iran and moved to California. Jasmin was only about three years old at the time.
Growing up in America, Jasmin didn't know about her mother's past. She didn't know Lili had been divorced, she didn't know she had a half-sister named Sara. She accidentally came across an old photo showing her mother and Kazem on the day they were married and naturally wanted to know what the deal was. But Lili refused to talk about it, telling her it wasn't any of Jasmin's business. Lili must have had second thoughts about it and she sent her daughter ten audio tapes, describing her life in Iran and her first, failed marriage and the child she left behind.

This was an OK read. When ever I read one of these Middle Eastern memoirs, it always seems to me that the women are just as much to blame for the oppression they suffer under as the men and the laws that oppress them. The women go along with it, they accept the abuse as their lot in life and they actively fight against the changes that could make their lives better, like education, like ending female circumcision, like ending child marriage. So many prefer to stay with the old ways, the old religion.

Kirkus Reviews has a review of the book.

How to Build a Girl

By Caitlin Moran

Johanna is fourteen year old and lives in poverty in Wolverhampton in the UK. Her parents live on welfare and they have four other kids beside Johanna. Her dad drinks to excess and has pinned his hopes on a career in music, a career that is going nowhere fast.
Johanna is not happy and decides to reinvent herself. Amazingly she gets a job writing music reviews and starts calling herself Dolly Wilde and dressing all in black, with a top hat and lots of eyeliner.
Her new career throws her in with a fast group of people and, before much longer, she is drinking alcohol daily, smoking cigarettes, having sex and even using the occasional illegal drug.
She falls in love with one of the performers she is reviewing and the crush lasts two years, unrequited, because he is very busy with his career and his travels. Since she can't have him, she hooks up with one of the other reviewers at the magazine she works for and loses her virginity to him. Their affair lasts until the day she overhears one of his posh friends refer to her as his "bit of rough".
Eventually, she is successful enough to leave home and move to London and have her own apartment.

I don't really know what to make of this story. I found her behavior to be outrageous. Her parents seem not to care at all about the trouble she may be getting herself into. Booze, drugs, smoking, promiscuous sex just seem like a recipe for disaster. Somehow, though, the worst thing that happens to her is a urinary tract infection.
Beside that though, I just didn't find the story all that interesting. It was OK, I guess.

The New York Times has a review.

Princess

By Jean P. Sasson

A memoir from a member of the Saudi royal family, a minor princess who goes by the fake name of Sultana in the book to hide her identity and protect from government wrath.
Sultana was born into wealth and influence. Although she certainly enjoyed the wealth but, due to her gender, she was deprived of influence. Although she was a passionate child and was not above throwing a tantrum to get her own way, it often did not work for her any more than it worked for any women living under a repressive Muslim regime.
As she grew up, she observed many instances of the imbalance in Saudi society: women beaten and murdered, divorced on a whim, unbridled male lust preying on little children, child abuse, child marriage, men chasing after child brides and putting aside their first, second & third wives, women locked away in darkness as a kind of perverted punishment for wanting to live like modern women, women servants preyed upon by their male employeers.
Sultana sees it all and chafes against the restrictions. But when her turn comes, she willingly accepts the arranged marriage and marries a man she barely knows and proceeds to bear children to him, children she has no legal right to, according to the archaic laws of her land.
But when the husband turns away from her and wants to take second wife, she runs away with the children and millions of dollars. She forces him to sign a contract guaranteeing her rights before she is willing to come home with the children.
Needless to say, such drastic actions destroy what little harmony there existed between herself and her husband. But her marriage was pretty much dead from the moment he decided he needed a second wife. So kudos to her for getting him by the short hairs.

This was an OK read. I was hoping for a little more rebellion from Sultana, but she pretty much does what is expected of her: marries young, has kids, stays behind closed doors and really doesn't do much to fight for women's rights in Saudi Arabia. Her only real rebellion comes when she gets angry at the husband for wanting to bring a second wife into the family. Maybe that was a big step for a woman in her society.

Publishers Weekly has a review.

Heechee Rendezvous

By Frederik Pohl

Third book in the Heechee series, this one finds Broadhead in his last days and mostly referred to in the book as Robin. He is happily married to his second wife and they are tremendously wealthy. But all his wealth is not enough to stave off death, as his body is slowly breaking down, despite the many transplants he has had.
Meanwhile, the Heechee have just been told about the human adventures in space and they are alarmed. The Heechee hid themselves out of fear of a race of immaterial beings they call the Assassins. The Assassins destroy all technological societies that they find and are in the process of attempting to change the universe to suit them better than the current universe. However this will take them billions of years.
The Heechee are worried and frightened that all the human activity will attract the attention of the Assassins and bring destruction down not only on humanity but on the Heechee too. The Heechee emissary and his crew are racing to prevent this from happening. The first human-crewed ship they encounter is that of Wan and his passenger, Gelle, Robin Broadhead's first wife, whom he believes has been dead for thirty years. Instead, she was stuck in a black hole where time passed extremely slowly until she was found by Wan.
When Robin finds out this first wife is alive, he is in a pother what to do about it. He loved and missed his first wife but he also dearly loves his second wife, Essie. Meanwhile, his body is giving out on him, a fact he hides from everyone until it is too late. Which totally solves his wife dilemma.

This was an OK read. I found myself skipping much of the parts that deal with Robin and his aches and pains and his dialogues with his computer-generated companion, Albert. Albert gets to stick his two cents worth into the story with several short interruptions that too often deal with subject matter a bit too esoteric for me to enjoy:

The energy density of black-body radiation goes up as the cube of the temperature—that's the old Stefan-Bolzmann [sic] law—but the number of photons goes up linearly with the temperature, too, so effectively it's a fourth-power increase inside the kugelblitz. At one Kelvin it's 4.72 electron-volts per liter. At three million it's three million to the fourth power times that—oh, say about 382,320,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000 ev/liter.

 I mean, really. I don't need to know that or read that. But a lot of science fiction writers like to stick that kind of stuff in their stories. Just goes over my head though. I usually just skip those parts.
Also, I thought kugelblitz was a term made up by the author. Turns out it is not. A kugelblitz is a "black hole" made of light. Huh? Nevermind!

Kirkus Reviews has a review.

Witch World

By Andre Norton

The first Witch World story

Simon Tregarth is a man on the run and is facing certain death. So when a fellow offers him a one-way route to a new life, but with no return, Tregarth accepts.
The man leads him to a strange stone gateway that leads to a different world, a world, the man promises, "in which his spirit, his mind—his soul if you wish to call it that—is at home. " But the catch is, "there is no return—and only a desperate man chooses an irrevocable future."
Once through the doorway, Tregarth does find himself in a strange new world. Escaping from being hunted himself, he is catapulted into another hunt. The hunted is not Tregarth, but is a woman dressed in rags and being trailed by men on horseback.
Tregarth, who has a handgun, helps the woman escape her hunters. The woman was on a spy mission and she takes Tregarth back to her home country and introduces him to the leaders of her country, Estcarp.
The woman, who will not give her name, is a witch as are the leaders of her country. They are all women and they are all witches. They govern by consensus and by magic. They all keep their names secret, it is part of their belief that knowing someone's name gives them power over the named person.
The witches are worried. Something is rotten in the world of Estcarp and it has all started in the land of Kolder. Kolder, which has technology strange to the other lands of Witch World. Kolder, which has the ability to turn enemies into weapons to use against their homelands. Kolder, who will find in Simon Tregarth an outworlder who is able to stand against their technological "magic."

This is the first book of Norton's Witch World series. In Witch World, the women of Estcarp are the bearers of magic. To keep their magic abilities, they must remain virgins, because they believe once a woman is deflowered, she loses her powers. Their technology is mainly medieval, with strange exceptions (excluding the technology of their enemy, Kolder).

This was an OK read. The story centers around Tregarth, who was a soldier and a mercenary back home, and who continues that roll on Witch World. The story mainly follows him on his campaigns as he fights for Estcarp.
It's a fun introduction to Norton's style of storytelling and contains many of her trademark themes: ancient alien tech; mysterious ruins that reek of evil; strange, magical abilities; seemingly ordinary people who are not ordinary; creepy, dangerous, evil creatures; foggy marshes and moor; underground installations of unknown origin containing peculiar machines; and loners fighting against the status quo.

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency

By Alexander McCall Smith

The first book in the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, this one gives the backstory of Mma Ramotswe, the chain of events that led to her setting up as a detective.
After her father died, as his only child, Mma Ramotswe inherited all his assets that, once liquidated, enabled her to buy a house and small office building and a vehicle.
Naturally, the detective business didn't take off right away, but, due perhaps to the novelty of a woman detective, Mma Ramotswe did get a few good and fairly straightforward cases. She tracks down a missing husband, exposes a couple of con men twins, and helps a father discover what his teenage daughter is doing in her spare time.
Her most serious case, though, is that of a missing child. Her inquiries lead her to turn down the case as being too dangerous and sensitive to handle. But eventually she stumbles onto the solution to the mystery, with the help of her suitor and friend, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, the owner and chief mechanic of Speedy Motors garage.

I finally got around to reading the first book in this series. The first book I read was the seventh in the series. Like that book, this was an entirely enjoyable and gentle mystery story, completely absent of any murders, the only death being that of a poor fellow who got eaten by a crocodile. The story is enhanced by its exotic location, Botswana on the continent of Africa and containing part of the Kalahari Desert.

Review by The Guardian.

The Well of Lost Plots

By Jasper Fforde

Thursday Next has had a rough time of it. So she has left the real world and moved into BookWorld, taking up residence in an unpublished detective novel. While there, she will be working for Jurisfiction as an agent in training under the supervision of Miss Havisham, the jilted bride from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. 
In the previous novel, Lost in a Good Book, Thursday's husband was erased from history and Thursday found she was pregnant and that she is the only one who remembers her husband. But she is starting to forget him too, due to her enemy, Acornis Hades. Acornis has the power to mess with people's memories and she has planted a mindworm in Thursday's mind that is slowly erasing her memories of her husband and trying to implant new memories of a life in which he never existed.
Thursday is planning on staying in BookWorld until after her baby is born.
BookWorld is on the cusp of introducing a new book operating system, UltraWord™, which is supposed to greatly enhance the reader's experience and streamline BookWorld operations. But Thursday gradually comes to understand that UltraWord™ is an evil plot to generate revenue to make rich people richer. Once again it is Thursday vs a heartless, greedy bunch of capitalists.

Fforde keeps making the Thursday Next universe more and more complicated. So much is mentioned in the BookWorld dimension that is becomes a tad overwhelming. Combined with a rather lackluster plot, this book really doesn't add much to the series.

Review by Publishers Weekly.

The Middle Place

By Kelly Corrigan

Kelly Corrigan tells the true story of her life and how she coped with breast cancer battle and her father's cancer battle too.
The story shifts back and forth from the story of her life before cancer and the story of her life with cancer.
She found the lump and then had to have chemo, surgery and radiation followed by five years of hormone therapy.
Fortunately, Kelly had many close friends, loving parents, and a loving husband who were all glad to chip in and help her out when she was too ill from her treatments to take care of her two small daughters, both under the age of four.
From reading her book, it seems the worse things for her were facing her father's decline and that she would have to postpone having more children for five years because of the hormone medication, which came as an unpleasant surprise. She had always planned to have at least four kids, so waiting til she was in her forties to try and get pregnant again made the likelihood of that happening much lower.

This was an OK read. I bought this book last fall and I don't remember why I thought it would be a good read. I suspect that the blurb on the front describing the book as "funny and irresistibly exuberant" had something to do with it, along with the illustration which show a little girl bouncing high into the air. I wonder if I failed to read the back of the book where it clearly says that it is about the author's battle with cancer.
I didn't find it to be funny. To me, it was more depressing than funny. So that was disappointing.

Review by Kirkus Reviews.

Stormy Weather

By Carl Hiaasen

A killer hurricane has blasted through Florida, shattering buildings and lives. But to some, the resultant chaos is merely a golden opportunity to make some money.
One of those opportunists is Max Lamb. On his honeymoon in Orlando with his wife, Bonnie, Max has grabbed his video camera and headed into the danger zone to get video of the disaster, with a view to selling the footage to the networks. Unfortunately, he runs afoul of Skink, one of Hiaasen's recurring characters. Skink is a big, scary swamp thing and he grabs Max and sticks a shock collar on his neck and hauls him out into the back country. Where he proceeds to shock Max into abject compliance.
Also looking to score are Edie Marsh and a thuggish fellow called Snapper. After their first scam fails, they hook up with distressed homeowner, Tony Torres. Tony's house is severely damaged and he wants a quick settlement from the insurance company. Since his wife is joint owner of the house and she has run off with her boyfriend, Tony can't get the insurance check without her signature. Naturally, given that she has run off, Tony is not willing to share the settlement with her. So Edie will pretend to be Mrs, Torres and, when the check arrives, they will split the funds three ways and then split. And the real Mrs. Torres gets screwed out of her fair share.
Tony was a trailer salesman. The trailers he sold were supposed to be hurricane resistant. But they weren't and people died. One of those people was the mother of a mobster from up north, Ira Jackson. He tracks down Tony and kills him. Which leaves Edie and Snapper in the lurch. When the adjuster shows up, Snapper tries to pass himself off as Torres. But the adjuster quickly figures out that they are scammers. Edie seduces him and talks him into joining the scam, once again to split the money three ways.
Meanwhile Max is still being tormented by Skink and Bonnie has come to the hurricane zone looking for him. She got on phone call from him letting her know he had been taken but that the crazy man who grabbed him is not asking for any kind of ransom. Bonnie falls in with a local man, a young drifter who is living off a large insurance settlement from when he nearly died in a commercial plane crash.
And then there is the policeman, Jim Tile, whose policewoman girlfriend gets beaten up by Snapper. Tile is friends with Skink. He enlists Skink in tracking down Snapper and things just get more and more complicated from there.

I guess this was an OK read. There are so many characters coming and going, it is a bit hard to keep track of it all. It is also supposed to be very funny but I didn't find so. According to the blurbs on the cover, it is "hysterically funny" (USA Today), has "hilarious, black humor" (Wall Street Journal), and is "howlingly funny" (Cosmopolitan). I guess those blurbers are more easily amused than I am.
Also, I have never been a big fan of the recurring character, Skink. He's creepy. I'm getting tired of him.

Review by Publishers Weekly.

The Avenhurst Inheritance

By Sylvia Thorpe

England, 1751, and eighteen-year-old Jocelyn Rivers is not his father's favorite. The favorite was the elder son but he died. And the dead son's boy is now the heir to the Avenhurst title, lands and fortune. The son's wife and children came to live at Avenhurst and Jocelyn does not get along with either the children or the widow.
So one day, the young heir gets stuck in a tree and Jocelyn is called upon to climb the tree and rescue the boy before he falls. For which stunt, Jocelyn receives no thanks, neither from the boy or from his mother. After listening to the boy's back talk and threats to "climb it if I want to," Jocelyn lays into him verbally, witnessed by the mother and servants:

'Oh, be silent, you contemptible brat!' Jocelyn said disgustedly. 'If there is one thing worse than a coward, it's a cowardly braggart."

After meeting with Celia, his secret girl friend and daughter of a wealthy neighbor, Jocelyn gets into an argument with his father. Dad informs his son that he has arranged a marriage for him to a very nice young lady. But Jocelyn is smitten with the beautiful Celia Croyde and informs Dad that he will marry her or no one. To which Dad responds:

'Do you imagine that William Croyde will permit his heiress to throw herself away on a younger son when his fortune can purchase a coronet for her in London? Or that a girl's silly lovesick fancy will be allowed to stand in the way of her attaining a great position? You must have even less wit than I gave you credit for.'

So it's not that the father objects to the match. It is that he knows the girl's father will never approve it and that he wants his lovesick son to wise up.
So in the midst of this argument, who should stick her nose in, but the Avenhurst heir's mother. She chews Jocelyn out for not rescuing her precious baby in a more gentle and understanding manner. Which naturally inflames Jocelyn's already bruised feelings even more. After she accuses him of delaying saving the boy "until it was almost too late," Jocelyn, enraged, responds:

'Would to God I had delayed even longer!...Long enough for the whelp to break his scrawny neck! I'll not be such a fool a second time, believe me!'

Things get even worse when Jocelyn next sees Celia and she tells him that she is being pressured by her father to marry an older, titled gentleman. Jocelyn points out that it is only the fact that he is not the heir that her father will not approve of their marriage. If he were the heir, he would become Viscount Avenhurst upon his father's death.
Of course, the next thing to happen is the little boy follows through on his threat to continue climbing and falls and dies. And of course it happens without any witnesses. And of course, the enraged mother accuses Jocelyn of killing the boy so that he will become the heir:

'You did this!' she cried wildly. 'You murdered my innocent child! He stood in your way and you killed him!...You were jealous of Anthony! He was the heir and you hated him for it!'

Then, when he next meets with Celia, she rejects him, believing that he did indeed commit murder:

'What right have you to reproach me? Have you forgotten what you said—that the only obstacle between us was the fact that you were not your father's heir? That you would find a way even if it meant going to the devil for counsel—?...Don't come near me....Don't touch me again.'

He returns home only to find out that his father, who had stood by his son and defended his innocence against the mother's accusations, actually believed Jocelyn had murdered his nephew to gain the inheritance:

'Do you dare expect me to show you in private the face which necessity compels me to wear before the world? To forgive what you have done, as well as seek to repair the harm and shield you from the consequences?' 

To which his son replies:

'God help me! You believe I was responsible for the boy's death. All your defense of me has been a sham.'

Not surprisingly, finding himself a scandal and a suspected murderer and rejected by the girl he loves, Jocelyn runs away.
He goes to Jamaica and enters into business with the friend of a friend. Things are looking better until he meets the lovely young daughter of a very wealthy business associate. This girl, Alathea, has been raised on a plantation far from anyone. She has lived in isolation all her life, attended only by servants, slaves and her doting father. Jocelyn is, once again, smitten.
It is not too much longer before Alathea's father summons Jocelyn to his plantation. When he gets there, Jocelyn can see that the man is at death's door. The man is worried about what will happen to Alathea after he is gone. She is his only child and he asks Jocelyn to marry her and take care of her and promise to never take her away from her home on the plantation. If he does, all the man's vast wealth and holding will be Jocelyn's.
Since Jocelyn has been lusting after the girl anyway, he agrees to the man's conditions and the two are quickly wed and the man soon passes away. But Alathea turns out to be a pig in a poke and is suffering from the same mental illness that her mother and grandmother also suffered from. She is quite insane, seeing things and hearing things that are not there and often violent. Turns out the father knew this and it is why he kept her at home and away from society. So Jocelyn feels like he was tricked into marrying the poor girl and starts spending more and more time away from her and their new baby. It doesn't end well for the young couple and their child.
Anyway, Jocelyn ends up back in England for a visit and, naturally, he is recognized. Which opens up a whole new can of worms to deal with.

This was pretty good read. Not the least bit lighthearted though. Poor Jocelyn/ Julian (he changes his name when he runs away) goes from heartbreak to heartbreak. Not really the sort of story I enjoy, a bit too depressing.
I did have a problem with the story. When Jocelyn establishes himself in Jamaica, he is aware that the laborers are slaves. It doesn't bother him. In fact, when he buys a new place, he never thinks twice about buying the slaves to do the work except to buy slaves he already knows so they will be more contented. The book does acknowledge that the plantation owners are fearful of their slaves and do worry about uprisings. And, at one point, it is speculated that the old black woman who raised Alathea and who also cared for her mother and grandmother may have been drugging the three women as revenge for her enslavement and causing their mental illness. But never is the moral issue of owning fellow human beings acknowledged or addressed. That lack bothered me, it bothered me a lot. I would have liked the main character better if he had at least once questioned the rightness of owning slaves, of buying and selling people like they were farm animals.

Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle

By Dorothy Gilman

Mrs. Pollifax and her recently acquired husband Cyrus are soon to be departing on a trip to the Orient for a vacation. Just hours before they are ready to leave for the airport, Bishop, from the CIA, shows up with a small request. Could they, while in Thailand, pick up some papers from a man and give him a payment for the information?
Naturally, this being a Mrs. Pollifax story, nothing is ever as easy as it is painted to be. When Mrs. Pollifax arrives at the rendezvous, she finds a dead man and another man lurking in the shadows. She runs to find Cyrus, followed by the man, just in time to see her unconscious husband being hustled into the back of van.
The man volunteers his vehicle to chase after the kidnappers and together they charge off after the van, soon ending up in the wilds of Thailand. As the two scramble about the countryside, they encounter jungle villagers, thugs, drug lords, revolutionaries, smugglers and a rogue CIA agent.

This was a pretty good story. Plenty of action and lots of local color.

Kaleidoscope

By Dorothy Gilman

This is the second book in the Madame Karitska series. In this book, Madame is settled into her apartment and seeing plenty of clients who wish to avail themselves of her psychic talents. A parade of troubled people come and go from her apartment, including the abused wife of a cultist, a policeman (who is a friend), a rich man with a spoiled and willful daughter, a government man investigating terrorist activities, and a murderer, just to list a few.
With the help and backing of her police friend, Madame Karitska gently nudges people onto the right path and helps bring miscreants to well-deserved justice.

This is mostly a collection of short stories tied together by means of being clients of Madame. And even though short stories are not my favorite form of reading, I still enjoyed this book a lot.

Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist

By Dorothy Gilman

Mrs. Pollifax is an older lady who got bored with being retired and applied to work as a spy for the CIA. Amazingly, the CIA decided she would be perfect as a courier and thus began her first adventure in the world of spy vs spy.

But this adventure is not a job for the CIA. Instead, she is traveling with an old contact from the CIA, Farrell, to give him the appearance of, as the title says, innocent tourist.

Farrell has been contacted by friends of a friend who died in prison in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The contact has the dead man's last manuscript and is desperate to smuggle it out to world and away from the repressive Iraqi regime. He wants Farrell to come to Jordan to get the manuscript. Farrell is supposed to show up at a certain tourist attraction and a courier named Ibrahim will hand him the manuscript. So Farrell, knowing that a man hanging around a ruined castle for hours might attract unwanted attention, has talked Mrs. Pollifax into accompanying him.

Of course, with Mrs. Pollifax involved, things are bound to be complicated. She seems to attract complications. In this case, the complications start almost immediately when, on the flight to Jordan, a wanted terrorist slips a tourist memento into Mrs. Pollifax's carry-on bag while she is in the toilet. Of course, as soon as she is out of her hotel room in Jordan, the terrorists search her room for the item. But too late, as she and Farrell have already discovered the secret concealed within it: a key and a tiny map, which they are quick to give to the police. The terrorists don't know this and they start tailing the two everywhere they go, along with agents from Iraq who have a pretty good idea what Farrell is really in Jordan to do.

Throw in some horses and camels, a sheikh, some Bedouins, a precocious child, dust storms, Arab tents and the implacable desert, and Mrs. Pollifax is off on another of her adventures.

This was an OK read. It doesn't have the excitement and flair of the first novels in the Mrs. Pollifax series. But it was OK. Too often, though, it was like reading notes of a trip to Jordan to gather background for the novel.