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.