Apologizing to Dogs

By Joe Coomer

One fateful day for the antique dealers of Worth Row of Fort Worth, Texas. Most of the dealers on this row of old houses are well past retirement age, with the exception of Nadine and Carl, who are middle-aged, and Aura and Marshall, who are in their thirties. Carl isn't an antique dealer, he is a cabinet maker. But when he moved into the old house on Worth Row, he discovered that the building was constructed of cypress. And so he slowly and carefully starting removing the cypress wood and replacing it with cheaper, thinner materials, just enough to maintain the outer walls and roof. The rest went into a sailing vessel he is building inside the house. And when it is done, he will simply remove the wall of the house and tow the vessel out and let the building collapse. But this boat is not just for Carl to sail away in, he hopes he can convince Nadine to leave her lifetime home on the Row and sail away with him.
Also on the Row is Howard, the big Indian. He deals in old tubs and other furnishings. He keeps several of the old bathtubs in the front yard. On the fateful day, he is laying in one of the tubs and talks neighbor Mose to join him in a nearby tub for a chat. Howard is old (as is Mose) and Howard is feeling the need to unburden himself of old secrets before his time comes. His old secrets will probably break Mose's heart.
Two of the family dealers on the row are unhappily married and next-door-neighbors. Mazelle and Mr. Haygood have been carrying on an affair for thirty some years, in a hidden room underneath the garden that they share in their backyards. Mrs. Haygood is aware of the affair (Mazelle's husband is not) and is just biding her time to get even with Mr. Haygood. On the day in question, a stray dog who lives under the porch of an abandoned house on the Row, starts digging a hole in the garden and uncovers the ceiling of the hidden room, much to Mazelle's husband's surprise. No wonder the fruit trees they tried to grow wouldn't thrive, he thinks to himself.
Also on the fateful day, Aura, who is a little on the fat side, gives birth to a baby she didn't know she was carrying. All this happens on the front lawn while a tornado is bearing down on her and her gathered neighbors. They all end up in the hidden room where it soon becomes apparent what has been going on all these years. And Howard and another man ride out the storm hidden under a couple of the old cast iron bath tubs.

This was quite a tale of hidden secrets. Amusing and sad and complicated and surprising, I am glad I came across this book. It is one of those stories that I will still be thinking about years later. Quite an enjoyable and entertaining and a really quirky tale.

As Francesca

By Martha Baer

Elaine Botsch is a rising young star at the New York firm where she works. And all her hard work is about to pay off as she is now in line for a serious promotion.
Elaine has a secret life, though, that no one at work knows about, not even her closest friends. In the evening, at home, she goes to an online chat room where she engages in rough, masochistic cyber sex with a person she knows only as Inez. But one night, excited and looking forward to being verbally abused by her cyber sex partner, Inez, Elaine accidentally logs on with her real name, not her chat name, Francesca. Although she quickly catches her mistake, in a few days and from a few revealing comments, it becomes clear that "Inez" knows Elaine in real life. But after making these few slips, the Inez chatter vanishes from the chat rooms. Which leads Elaine to a devastating discovery: she needs her chat room encounters with Inez, they empower her and help her perform at maximum efficiency. Without Inez, her whole world is collapsing around her.

Well, this was an odd story. A woman finds being abused empowering. Seems like it would be just opposite, I would think. But that is the wacky premise of this story and of how Elaine copes with and struggles to replace the abuse that is so vital to her well-being. Strange story. Kind of disgusting but still it was an engrossing read, even if the premise seemed a bit out there to me.

A Roil of Stars

By Don Wismer

Ryne Sangre has always thought of himself as a coward. He tried to avoid danger and conflict as much as possible. Yet somehow he ended up as a frontline fighter pilot, training in the newest, best fighter the armed forces had developed.
Ryne is a citizen of the Polar Cloud, a group of planets inhabited by humans descended from an earlier group of pioneers from Earth. Left on their own for a very long time, they created their own government apart from their earthly origins. But now the rulers of the Wholeth Empire, powerful women with amazing ESP abilities, are set on gathering their lost tribes back into the fold. But the Polar Cloud is not going down without a fight.
Meanwhile, Ryne becomes entangled with a determined young woman who talks him into taking her aboard the new fighter ship in which he has been training. Turns out she isn't just curious, she hijacks the ship with Ryne aboard and sets out on an expedition to find her parents, lost years ago in a disturbed area of space called the Roil. But when they reach the Roil, they and the fighter ship fall into the clutches of the Wholeth Empire. Now not only is Ryne responsible for the theft of one of the Polar Cloud's most secret and valuable fighter craft, he has delivered it straight into the hands of the enemy. Looks like there is no going back for the Polar Cloud's biggest coward.

This book was OK. Ryne has lots of adventures and finds out somethings about himself. He does manage to scrape through somehow and eventually is able to help his people in their stand against the enemy. But the ending just kind of peters out with a brief explanation of how the critical lost data was recovered.

Bite Me

By Christopher Moore

Third installment in the San Francisco Vampires triology, finds Jody and Tommy still trapped in their bronze coating by their treacherous young friend who goes by the name of Abby Normal. Abby and her boyfriend, Steve, are living in Jody's and Tommy's apartment and thinking all their vampire problems are over now that Jody and Tommy are encased and the old vampire who started it all has sailed away. But not so. Chet, the huge shaved cat, was turned vampire by the old vampire before he left and is now building himself a kitty vampire empire. It isn't too long before the streets of San Francisco are noticeably emptier of street people due to Chet's vampire kitty minions.
Meanwhile, Steve, who developed a cure for vampirism in the last novel, has been conducting experiments on lab rats. Shortly after creating a bunch of vampire rats, he discovers, to his dismay, the vampires' ability to change themselves to mist and it is really hard to keep a rat made of mist in your typical rat cage.
But help is on the way when a clumsy friend of Abby's accidentally gouges Jody's coating and she is able to mist her way out of confinement.
Worse things are on the horizon, however, because the old vampire's minions are in town and their goal is to kill anyone who has any knowledge of the existence of vampires, including Jody, Tommy, Steve, and Abby.

This was an Ok story. I felt poor Chet got a raw deal, it wasn't his fault he got turned into a vampire cat. The author must really hate cats, he has no sympathy for their plight in this story. The two love stories in the novel, Jody and Tommy and Steve and Abby, are also disappointing.
I think part of the problem for me was the story has too much going on, it is just chaotic. And I didn't really get the ending to the Jody part of the story; it had been quite a while since I read the second book in the series and I had forgotten the effect of vampire blood on a human. I assume it's good but it would have been nice if the author could have refreshed the reader's memory on that bit of trivia.
And finally, the main character is Abby, and I don't really like the Abby character: bratty, spoiled, vulgar children are not amusing or appealing to me.

Flour Babies

By Anne Fine

Simon is a high school student and his class has a new assignment: they are each given a five pound sack of flour that they are to take care of for 2 weeks. At the end of the two weeks, the sacks will be evaluated and weighed and graded according to their condition. The idea is to give the kids a taste of the responsibility involved in child care.
Simon's mom is a single parent ever since Simon's dad walked out on her, leaving her with the sole responsibility of raising her baby son all on her own. Simon has never come to terms with the absence of his father, but dealing with the responsibility of caring for his sack of flour has given him a glimpse of the sacrifices his mother had to make to raise him all on her own.
Most of the flour baby boys find their assignment irksome, including Simon. One of the boys kicks his flour baby into a creek, totally fed up with taking care of it. Simon takes pretty good care of his, but still it ends up dirty and leaking flour. He views his own failure with the flour baby as the clue to understanding how his father could so completely turn his back on the infant Simon and Simon's mom.

This was an OK story. Simon is hurting because of his father's absence but comes to realize that sometimes life hands people more responsibility than they can cope with. It doesn't excuse the man's absence but Simon does gain some comfort from that realization.

The Pink Hotel

By Dorothy Erskine and Patrick Dennis

The Pink Hotel, located between Palm Beach and Miami, is a resort for folks looking to get away from winter's chill. It is run by J. Arthur Wenton, an old man with social pretensions who has an eye for young, attractive men. Mary Street is his secretary and she is a sweet, young girl that Wenton just naturally despises. He does his best to make her time at work miserable, so much so that she is seriously thinking of leaving Florida and moving back home. The only thing that really stops her are her feelings for the assistant director of the hotel, Purcell. Purcell, in his thirties, has a reputation, and not a nice one. He frequently ends his evenings drunk and starts his mornings hung over. He likes Mary and wants to turn over a new leaf, if Wenton would just pay him a decent wage. But Wenton is not about to do anything that will enable Mary and Purcell to be happy together. For some reason, he feels Mary is a nobody and not good enough for Purcell. He will do his best and most devious to break them up.
Various others travel through the story, young, unhappy newlyweds; old, unhappy longly-weds, a retired doctor who performs an abortion on a pregnant maid at the hotel who had tried to do it herself and nearly bled to death; a woman getting a divorce who kills herself; a kitchen worker who is the carrier of an infectious disease, and so on.

This was a pretty good story, full of interesting characters. However, the blurbs on the cover described it as "hilarious," "outrageous," "mad," and "zany," which I didn't find it to be. In fact, parts of it are downright sad and depressing, like the woman who kills herself and the married couple who can't keep their hands off each other, or rather their fists off each other. But other than the fact it was not as funny as it was billed to be, I still enjoyed the book. And even though it was written in the 1950s, it didn't seem at all dated.

Merle's Door

By Ted Kerasote

Ted was on a rafting trip on the San Juan river with friends when a young stray dog showed up at their campsite. The dog was thin and hungry but seemed friendly and approachable. When it came time to move on, Ted and his friends decided to bring the dog with them. And so the dog, whom Ted named Merle, became a very important part of Ted's life.
Having lived wild for so long, Merle had a very stong independent streak. He wanted to be outside, a lot. But he also enjoyed the comforts of a warm bed and shelter from the cold. At first, Ted tried to convince Merle to use a very nice, insulated dog house that Ted set up for him. But Merle had a fear of confined places and refused to use the dog house. So Ted put in a dog door and life was perfect for Merle. Now he could come and go as he pleased, indulging his need to hunt and prowl and then come home to a safe, warm house when he wanted.
Ted and Merle led a very active lifestyle, hunting, skiing, mountain biking and Merle was there for most of it, even the skiing. Merle had his own version of skiing which he hugely enjoyed, sliding down hill on his tummy like an otter.
Together the two of them had an almost perfect lifestyle, especially Merle. About the only cloud in Merle's life was when Ted had to leave for one of the trips required by his job. Merle would be all sad and gloomy when he realized Ted was preparing to go, but as Ted latter discovered when he came back unexpectedly, Merle continued on with his carefree ways, making his daily rounds, greeting the local dogs and humans in the small mountain village in which he lived, acting as if he hadn't a care in the world. So much for the image of the sad dog, laying by his master's door, pining for Ted's return! That was Merle, though, loving yet independent. And his independence was supported and nurtured by Ted, who was fortunate enough to live in an area where free-roaming dogs were accepted and rural enough to be safe from most man-made dangers.

I enjoyed this loving memoir about Merle. He was a special dog, smart, independent, but also loving and loyal. It was fun reading about their good times together and brought back fond memories of good times I have spent with my dogs, both past and present. I would think most dog lovers would also enjoy this book.

Ambulance Ship

By James White

A collection of short stories about Dr. Conway's adventures aboard the new ambulance ship attached to Sector General, the mammoth space hospital. Along with Dr. Conway are the lovely Murchison, formerly a nurse but now working as a pathologist; the sensitive and delicate insectile being and empath Dr. Prilicla and Nurse Naydrad, a furry, caterpillar-like being who always says exactly what she is thinking. Their mission is to perform rescues of spaceships in distress, to get the crews of those ships to safety and give them whatever medical attention needed and then transport to Sector General.

This was a pretty good read. As always, Conway and company have to cope with unknown beasties. Sometimes it is hard for them to tell if the creatures they are trying to help are intelligent beings or just animals. And knowing the kinds of exotic beings Sector General routinely deals with, sometimes it really is hard to tell, as in one of the stories where it seems the blind crew of a distressed ship have been routinely torturing two creatures they held in captivity. But, as is often the case in the Sector General universe, first impressions are usually wrong. But what is usual is that Conway and company manage to overcome the challenges and to preserve life and help the suffering and introduce the reader to all sorts of strange and amazing aliens. The author certainly had a knack for coming up with odd and wacky beings.

Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: The Lighter Side of Life as a Mother and Daughter

By Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella

Lisa Scottoline is a successful author and, along with a few contributions from her twenty-something daughter, has put together a collection of columns or essays about their relationship, including that of Lisa's mother, Mary. The essays are often amusing, often touching, and very much reflective of the best of mother/daughter relations.
I'm not sure, but I think most of the essays first appeared in Scottoline's column for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

I enjoyed the book very much. It's nice to get a glimpse into the lives of famous people and to know they have many of the same concerns and problems we do. Plus, these essays are mostly in a lighthearted vein and are just fun and pleasant to read. It's a nice book to pick up to spend a few minutes outside yourself, visiting with a sweet and entertaining group of women. (And I love the kitties on the cover of the book.)

Crampton Hodnet

By Barbara Pym

Set in the years just before World War II, Crampton Hodnet is the story of a small group of people living in Oxford and centering mainly on two houses, that of Miss Doggett and her companion Miss Morrow, and that of Francis Cleveland, an Oxford don.
Miss Doggett welcomes a lodger into her home, an unmarried curate, Mr. Latimer, who soon begins to fancy Miss Morrow as a prospective wife. Meanwhile, in the Cleveland home, Francis has become enamored of one of his female students, while his daughter is falling for a member of the titled class, the son of Sir Lyall Beddoes, and as such a most eligible suitor for the lovely Anthea.

This was an enjoyable novel, a light and amusing look at life in a different time not that long ago. Although the story didn't turn out the way I would have liked, still it was entertaining and fun and well worth reading.

The Teahouse of the August Moon

By Vern Sneider

It's the end of World War II, and the US military is occupying the island of Okinawa, part of the Japanese empire. Most of the people of the island live in small villages and their lives have been nearly completely disrupted by the war and the subsequent occupation. For the occupying military, their job is to maintain order and get the locals back to work and self-supporting. With a view to this, the commanding officer, Colonel Purdy, has drawn up an extensive plan designed to get the villages back into production and brought up to date with modern methods. He expects his officers to follow his plan to the letter.
But Captain Fisby was not so successful at following the plan. In fact, in a moment of weakness and ignorance, he allowed two Geishas to set up shop in his area of command, Tobiki Village. And things will never be the same, as the whole village falls under the spell of these two intelligent, skillful and beautiful women. And when the Colonel finds out what has been going on, Fisby may be in the worse trouble of his career. Or maybe not...

I loved this story. For one thing, although it seems at first to treat the natives as ignorant savages, as it goes along it becomes very apparent that the writer does not think like that at all, in fact, the story has tremendous respect for the Japanese way of doing things and includes many interesting and charming details about their way of life, as the Americans are introduced more fully to Japanese culture. Spoiler here, but in the end the Japanese way not only triumphs but also sweeps the Americans along with it. It seems like a true glimpse into the can-do spirit that has made Japan one of the most successful nations there is, despite their recent troubles and economic problems. This was a funny and sweet story which I enjoyed greatly.

You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness

By Julie Klam

Although she was raised with dogs, author Julie Klam didn't rush into getting a dog of her own. In fact, at thirty, she was still single and rather lonely. Then one night she dreamed about a dog, a little Boston terrier and she decided it was an omen: she needed a Boston terrier of her own.
So, looking for her dog, she found out about Boston terrier rescue. And that is how she found Otto, the dog of her dreams and the first in a long line of Boston terriers and Boston terrier-ish dogs, as she became more involved in dog rescue. Many of the rescue dogs were untrained, unhousebroken, neurotic and destructive. Plus, she and her family lived in an apartment, which meant walking the dogs several times a day. She took on a lot of responsibility but she (and her husband and child) helped a lot of unwanted dogs, mostly Boston terriers.

This was an Okay read. Some of the things she tolerated with the rescue dogs would make me think twice -- especially the hyper dog who took a chunk out of her young daughter's arm. She got lucky it was only her arm -- it could have been the girl's face! That would have the end of it for me. The author is definitely a bit of a nut when it comes to rescue dogs.

Legacy

By Greg Bear

Traveling through space in a hollowed out asteroid on voyage lasting lifetimes, a scientist creates a tunnel, the Way, through time and space. Disgruntled with the voyage, a large group of people uses the Way to escape the asteroid to a new world, against the express wishes of the authorities.
Olmy, a soldier at somewhat loose ends is sent after the escapees. His mission is merely to observe and report back.
Time between the asteroid and the colonists is not the same, a few years have passed on the asteroid but decades have passed on the planet. So when Olmy arrives, the people have established several towns and appear to be surviving despite the challenges of coping with an alien planet. But all is not well with the colonists, factions have arisen and war is in the offing.
The planet has a strange biology, with whole continents dominated by one organism that expresses itself in a variety of different forms. The question is, are these giant creatures self-aware? And if so, what do they think to find their planet invaded by humans?

This was an OK, if a very long story. Olmy falls in with a group of researchers trying to understand the ecology of the planet. They, in turn, become involved in the conflict between the political factions. And one of the factions has done something very stupid that may make life on the planet impossible for humankind.

Clutch of Constables

By Ngaio Marsh

Book number 25 in the Roderick Alleyn series, this one stars Mrs. Alleyn, who has just finished an art show featuring her work and, on impulse, takes a several day river cruise. But what starts out as an innocent cruise turns deadly when one of the passengers is killed and tossed in the river.

This was an OK story. It switches between the cruise, Mrs. Alleyn's letters to her policeman husband and her husband's after-the-fact lecture to his fellow police. That was one of the things I didn't care for in the story, where Alleyn reveals important details of the case to his fellow cops but the reader is only told it is an important detail, but not what the actual detail is. Of course, the author doesn't want to give away too much too soon, but I found it kind of annoying.

Fortress on the Sun

By Paul Cook

Ra is a factory that sits close to the Sun, designed to harvest metals from the Sun's plasma. It is protected by powerful shields. It is also an escape-proof prison for the over 100 men and women incarcerated within. Before being sent to Ra, their memories were wiped clean, some back to their early twenties, some back to early childhood. All of the prisoners with some adult memory also have technical training and skills and they are in charge of overseeing the rest of the prisoners and of the running of the prison, because Ra has no guards, no supervisors, no one except prisoners. They are on their own.
Ian Hutchings, a brilliant scientist who has been sentenced to Ra for the death of billions, something he doesn't remember, has sort of taken the leadership position in the prison. He is eaten up with guilt over the deaths he is accused of causing, so much so that he wears self-imposed shackles on his wrists and ankles as a reminder and a punishment.
But overseeing so many people, many of whom have the mental processes of little children, is a terrible burden. A burden that only becomes worse when a strange, new illness starts to affect the prisoners. And the powers-that-be are ignoring Hutchings' pleas for aid, declaring that it is just a plot to escape from Ra. So Hutchings and the few other "adult" prisoners will have to cope with this dire emergency completely on their own.

This was a really interesting story. The prisoners have to cope with their memory gaps and with the childish members of the population. And when the disease strikes and no help is forthcoming from the authorities, it is the prisoners who have to come up with a cure on their own. And in the process discover the truth about what is really happening at Ra.
But I did think the ending was weak. I can't go into detail without revealing important information about the story, but it did sort of seem as if the author got tired of the story and decided to wrap it up very quickly. But other than what I felt was an unlikely ending, I did enjoy this story a lot. It was interesting and engaging and I liked the mystery behind the prisoners' incarceration.

The Princes of the Golden Cage

By Nathalie Mallet

When a guy has hundreds of wives and concubines, he is bound to have a lot of sons. And when the guy is the ruler of a wealthy kingdom which does not have the tradition of the first born son being the next to rule but instead whichever son the guy deems fittest...well, a real mess can be created as sons vie for the throne. So in order to avoid said mess, the guy locked all his sons older than ten in a prison. Sure, it's a fancy prison, with all the choice viands a prince could wish for, and luxurious clothes and furnishings, servants to tend to all one's needs, and even a harem of lovely young women to satisfy the princes' urges. But it is still a prison. And there they will remain until Daddy makes his choice...
Of course, in a situation like that, you have to have some rules, otherwise it would just be open season on princes. So the princes can't just slaughter each other, willy-nilly. No, there has to be a just cause, usually an insult or a slight of some kind, really only an excuse to fight. And the fights are strictly regulated, with rules of behavior and combat. All in all, the Golden Cage is not a happy place in which to live.
So Prince Amir, a bookish lad, tries to keep his head down and avoid contact with his hundreds of brothers as much as possible. Which has been working pretty well for Amir until one of the brothers is killed in mysterious circumstances. Rumor circulates through the Cage that Amir, standoffish and bookish as he is and thus suspect, is a powerful sorcerer and that he killed his brother through magical means. Of course, Amir knows this is nonsense, especially since he doesn't even believe in magic. Then two more brothers die in the same mysterious manner. And Amir will have to leave his apartment in order to figure out who is behind the magical murders of his brothers and to clear his own name. And hopefully not die trying.

This was a pretty good story, with palace intrigues, secret passages, evil spirits, duels and masquerades. It is also the first book in the Prince Amir Mystery Series. Overall, I liked the book, although there were parts I thought rather weak, like all these hidden passages that go throughout the Cage. The building was specifically built to be a prison for the princes, why add hidden passages? Also, I thought the ending was rather cruel and that all those deaths were too much. Especially that of one of the characters that Prince Amir was just starting to get to know and respect. I was sorry to see him killed off.
But, despite these quibbles, I did enjoy the book. It was exciting and interesting, with lots of intriguing mysteries.

Curse of the Spellmans

By Lisa Lutz

Izzy Spellman is the middle child. She has an older brother who is "perfect": smart, educated, successful, polite, tidy, and good-looking. She has a younger sister who is just turning sixteen and is ripe for trouble. Izzy herself had a troubled adolescence but now she is a grown woman, grown, but not a grown-up. For years she has worked in her parents' private investigation firm but Izzy has often tried to disentangle herself from her parents' lives, so far unsuccessfully.
Growing up with investigators for parents kind of created a climate of distrust and suspicion. Her parents were notorious for spying on their children, which is one of the reasons that Izzy wants some space. But her parents' bad habits have certainly rubbed off on Izzy and she uses the same tactics her parents used on her on her own relationships. The result is that she runs through boyfriends pretty fast.
When an attractive fellow named John Brown moves in next door, he and Izzy start dating. But Izzy can't get over her suspicious ways and soon starts to snoop. John is not the sort of man who will tolerate having his privacy invaded and the relationship is quickly over. But Izzy is convinced that John Brown is not his real name and that he is up to no good and proceeds to make him the target of a surreptitious investigation, an investigation that lands her in jail for breaking and entering.

Not your typical mystery story, as there is no dead body and no real crimes committed. Izzy plunges headlong into her investigation of the suspect neighbor with the occasional help and hindrance of her little sister. Other mysteries in Izzy's life require some looking into also: Why is Dad going to the gym and dieting? Why is Mom leaving the house in the wee small hours and vandalizing a motor bike? Why is Brother at home, drunk, not working and where has his wife gone? Why has her loner sister apparently gained friends and even, possibly, a boyfriend? Lots going on in the family and no one is talking. It is up to Izzy (or so she thinks) to figure it all out.
Little sister is not as bratty in this book as she was in the first, which was a relief. She was so bratty in the first book that I didn't like her at all. Also, Izzy's parents seem less intrusive than they did in the first book, which made them more likable too. I enjoyed this book a lot more than I did the first in the series as the characters are less extreme and more human than before. All in all, even with Izzy's obsessive behavior, I liked this story a lot.

Still River

By Hal Clement

A mixed group of young scientists consisting of one human woman and four nonhumans are sent to the planet Enigma for what is, in effect, their final exam for what we would call their doctorates. The planet is called Enigma because it is very small, too small to retain its atmosphere, but it does. The young scientists must determine why Enigma has an atmosphere.
From the get-go there are problems. While Enigma has an atmosphere, since it is small, it hasn't much gravity. But it does have wind, as Joe, the first scientist off the ship, discovers when he is quickly blown away. Fortunately, he was unharmed as was the next person to run afoul of Enigma's treacherous environment, Carol, who was briefly buried in a sand pit. What the scientists didn't know was that the numerous sand pits on the surface of Enigma were bottomless, with sand blown by the gale force surface winds and into an extensive network of caves and tunnels.
Joe has designed a group of levitating robots meant to track Enigma's wind patterns. But one of the robots ends up down in the cave system and Molly (the only human), trying to reclaim the robot, falls way down into the cave system too. She latches on to the robot because its power supply can also power her space suit. She can't stop the robot from travelling with the cave winds because her fingers are too big to reach inside the control panel. (Joe, who built the robots, is a tiny creature compared to Molly.) So she has no choice but to go where the robot takes her and hope that her teammates are able to effect a rescue. So everyone puts their planned research aside in order to figure out how to find Molly in the extensive labyrinth of caves with which the planet is riddled.

The main thing I liked about this story is the interactions between the members of the team. All of the are different species and of an assortment of body types consisting of a human, a small humanoid, a centipede-like being, and two spherical beings, one small and one large. Despite their differences and occasional misunderstandings and a few disasters, they manage to come together to save Molly and Carol and even figure out the riddle of Enigma.
The traverse through the cave system of Enigma was less interesting. The book has a lot of physics and chemistry and I think someone who understood that stuff better than I do would get a lot more from the story than I did. At times it seemed like the story would never reach its conclusion, as Molly and Carol wandered endlessly through the dark, monotonous caves. Also, for a bunch of people in line for advanced degrees, they sure made a lot of stupid mistakes! But, overall, I think I liked the story pretty well, Enigma is a strange and interesting place and I liked the characters.

The Infernals

By John Connolly

The second book in a series of which the first book, The Gates, has the main character coming up against the demons of hell. The demons came through the gates between the two realms and young Samuel Johnson was instrumental in sending them back to hell and sealing the gates.
Samuel Johnson's main adversary from the first story was a demon called Mrs. Abernathy. Since Samuel's triumph, Mrs. Abernathy has been in disgrace for its failure. So when it sees a brief opening in the gates, it reaches out to snatch Samuel to hell intending to deliver him to the Lord of hell and thus get back in favor with the head demon. But during the process not only does Mrs. Abernathy snatch Samuel (and his dog), it gets a police car (with cops inside), an ice cream van and its attendant, and a van full of dwarfs.
So Samuel and various others find themselves wandering through the strange, frightening and depressing realms of hell without a clue as to how to get themselves back to the land of the living. But then Samuel meets some old friends from the previous novel and together they and the cops and the ice cream guy and the dwarfs will stand against all the dire forces of hell and especially Samuel's old enemy, Mrs. Abernathy.

This was an okay story. It was in the adult section of our library but it is really meant for older children or possibly young adults. It was often funny but clearly geared for a younger reader, with footnotes on how to annoy your parents and explaining things that an older reader doesn't need explained, like what a chancellor is or what truculent means.
There isn't a lot of meat to the story. The humans mainly just wander around experiencing the nastiness of hell. The most interesting part of the story was the power play by the demons who are moving to take over Mrs. Abernathy's position and gain favor with the ruler of hell.
So I did enjoy the humor but found the plot a little light but I think older kids, 12 to 15, would enjoy it.

Grey Mask

By Patricia Wentworth

Charles never knew why his fiancee dumped him just a few days before their wedding. In anger, he left home for several years. When he finally returned, he was surprised to discover that she was unmarried and barely getting by as a sales clerk in a hat shop. He had always thought she jilted him for another man.
Meanwhile, society is buzzing over the recent death of wealthy Edward Standing, swept overboard at sea and presumed drowned. He left no will and his only child, beautiful, young Margot has no papers to prove she is his child or that her parents were ever married. And if she can't produce her parents' marriage certificate, her cousin Egbert gets everything.
Charles, who is currently staying at a hotel, pays an unannounced visit to his house, a house that is supposed to be empty, with only his caretaker in residence. Charles, arriving at the house, finds the garden gate and the back door both unlocked. Thinking to surprise a burgler, he creeps in and finds no burgler but a criminal gang, led my an anonymous man in a grey mask, in the midst of a plot. They are plotting to get rid of some girl before she can produce "the certificate." (Charles later realizes that they were talking about Margot Standing.) He decides he will go get the police when his ex-fiancee joins the gang. When he realizes she is involved, he changes his mind about informing the police. Charles and his ex will end up trying to protect Margot from those out to get rid of her, with the help of Miss Silver, a private investigator.

This is the first story in the Miss Silver series. It was written in the late 1920s. Miss Silver is an older British woman, similar to Agatha Christie's Miss Marple but Miss Silver is a professional investigator who works discretely to bring miscreants to justice with the minimum of scandal.
I liked this book a lot. The plot is interesting, the characters are pleasant and familiar, and it has secrets aplenty waiting to be revealed, with a couple of romances for another element of interest. And despite it having been written more than eighty years ago, it holds up really well. It was a good, and at times, even humorous story.