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.

Craig & Fred

By Craig Grossi

Craig was a Marine stationed in Afghanistan. He met Fred at a remote outpost. Fred was a goofy young dog who became a vital part of their small outpost, endearing himself to all the men stationed there, except for the Afghanis, who were abusive to poor Fred.
Anyway, when it was time to leave, Craig decided to take Fred back to the USA, even though it was pretty much against regulations. With the help of his riends, his family and a group of kind-hearted shippers, Fred found a himself living in the USA, waiting with relatives until Craig finished his tour of duty and came home.
Once home, things were a bit rocky. Craig kind of drifted. He went back to school and became friends with a fellow vet, Josh, a man who lost a leg when the vehicle he was riding in was blown up by an IED (improvised explosive device). They decided to take a long camping trip together with Fred, of course. It would be a chance for Josh to test the limits of himself and his artificial limb. Craig tells the story of the camping trip interspersed with the story of his time in Afghanistan and the story of Fred, the dog.

I enjoyed this book. But I didn't read it in the order in which it was printed. When I realized how it was set up, I read the chapters dealing with his time in Afghanistan first. Then went back and read the story of the road trip and of his time back home with Fred.

Review by The Washington Post.

Natural Disaster

By Ginger Zee

Ever since she was a little kid, Ginger Zee wanted to be a meteorologist. She set her sights on the Today show.
Being smart and attractive, reaching her dream wasn't an impossible goal. But Ginger's biggest hurdle was probably herself. It wasn't her professional life that was the problem. It was her bouts of depression and her poor choice in men.
In this book, Zee tells the story of how she realized she needed help with her mental illness and how she rose through the ranks to become a meteorologist on national television.

This was a pretty good read. I only had one problem with the book. She is telling the story of when she was first on TV and told the viewers how her dog had tangled with a skunk and that no matter what she washed the dog in, it still smelled of skunk. She was totally surprised at the number of people who contacted her with sure-fire recipes for curing skunk smell. But in the story, she doesn't share the winning recipe!
So I enjoyed the book, even though I didn't know who she was, never having seen her on TV.

Ancillary Sword

By Ann Leckie

A continuation of the first novel, Ancillary Justice, this finds Breq, now with the surname Mianaai, appointed by the Lord of the Radch, Anaander Mianaai, to the position of Fleet Captain and off to guard the Athoek system from Anaander's split personality as the two sides (and possibly more) struggle for control.
This suits Breq just fine, as the sister of the person Breq loved and murdered lives in the Athoek station and Breq wants to talk to her. Also present at Athoek is the warship, Sword of Atagaris, commanded by Captain Hetnys. Unlike most of the Lord of the Radch's fleet, Sword of Atagaris is crewed by ancillaries, a humans reprogrammed to be similar to robots, which is what Breq is too.
Also on the station is a human, Dlique, raised by the Presger to serve as a translator between the Presger and humankind. The insectoid Presger are the enemy, although currently at peace due to a treaty. The war with the Presger was the beginning of the deterioration of Anaander's personality as it became clear that the Presger were an unbeatable foe.
One of Captain Hetnys' ancillaries shoots and kills Dlique, which could cause a breakdown in Radch/Presger relations. Breq and Hetnys stand in for Dlique's family and give Dlique all the funeral honors they would for any important personage, hoping to placate the Presger. Part of the funeral rites involve two weeks of mourning in which the mourners go into seclusion. A wealthy grower invites them to spend the mourning period on the grower's planet-side plantation.
While there, Breq discovers the plantation workers are virtual slaves, given starvation wages. Breq also begins to suspect that someone is selling the frozen bodies of future ancillaries to some unknown agent on the other side of the Ghost Gate. The Ghost Gate is supposed to lead to a dead system where no one lives. So who is buying these frozen bodies?

This was an OK read. Not a lot happens though. Dlique gets killed, a bomb goes off, and Breq gets in a gun battle at the end. But other than that, it is pretty tame. I would say that the book does little to further the Anaander plot line. Nor does it expand our knowledge about the implacable Presger. Nor does it say why, if the Presger are so unbeatable, they agreed to sign a treaty with the Radch.
Also, the whole using only the female gender to describe people is still quite annoying. Reading creates mind pictures but how can you picture a person if you can't tell if they are male or female?

Review by Kirkus Reviews.