The Galactic Gourmet

By James White

Gurronsevas is renowned throughout the galactic Federation for his skills as a chef. He has amassed great wealth and success and fame. But now he is desiring a new challenge and the giant hospital, Sector General, is in his sights. Because, according to the reports, although the food served at the huge hospital is nutritious, it is famously bland and unenticing. So, with the right connections, Gurronsevas is now in charge of the Sector General kitchens.
But working in a hospital is not the same as working in a hotel. Gurronsevas has a lot to learn and he makes some serious mistakes. One mistake so serious, he is fired and ordered to immediately leave the hospital on the next available transport. However, chief shrink Major O'Mara believes Gurronsevas could be a real asset to the hospital and he arranges for the chef to accompany the hospital ambulance ship, the Rhabwar, on a mission to rescue the few remaining sentient inhabitants of a blighted planet, Wemar.
The Wemar have pollutated their planet almost unto death. In consequence, their population has been decimated, along with the planet's vegetation and animals. The Rhabwar lands next to a small Wemar community, offering help to the struggling locals. But the natives are not very welcoming and regard the strangers with suspicion.
The Wemar have long believed that meat is necessary  to health and fertility of adult Wemar. So able-bodied adults set out on hunts, looking for what little wildlife is left to harvest. Young Wemar and elderly Wemar subsist on a bland vegetable stew, leaving what little the meat the hunters bring home to the healthy adults. So the crew of the ambulance ship has to try to change the Wemars' misconception that adult Wemar need to have meat in their diet. Luckily, they have Gurronsevas, the most talented and most skilled chef in the galaxy, to help them in this effort.

This was an OK read. I really enjoyed the first part of the story as Gurronsevas brings his culinary talents to benefit the staff and patients of Sector General. But when the story changes location to the planet of Wemar, it wasn't nearly as interesting. I also found the idea that the Wemar are more ignorant about their local sources of food than some alien off-worlder silly.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

By Hank Green

Going home late one night, April May finds a large robot on a street in New York City. She thinks it is a new art installation, and, seeking internet fame, she calls a friend, Andy, who comes down and videos April and her discovery, which she names Carl.
It soon is clear that April's Carl is not unique. Carls have appeared on the streets of many of the major cities of the world. But since April was the first to document the phenomenon, she becomes the de facto expert.
Soon April and Andy are making the media rounds and have hired an agent and April is writing a book about the Carls. The money and fame accelerate and April finds herself addicted to the attention, even to the point of dumping her best friend and lover, Maya. The media frenzy grows and grows when scientists declare the Carls to be extraterrestrial in origin. With the media attention, April becomes a target of hate groups who accuse her of being an E.T. or a traitor to the human race. She has to take the hate and threats seriously when someone takes a shot at her through her apartment window.

This was an OK read. It seemed to me that the Carl plot becomes secondary to the internet fame plot. The author, Hank Green, is quite active online and very familiar, I suppose, with the benefits and liabilities of internet fame. So much of the novel is concerned with this subject, which to me, being an older person, is not so engrossing. Very little actual action occurs in the story until nearly the end as April deals with the consequences of attracting the notice of the whack jobs and haters that infest online communities.

Review by the New York Times.

There's a Word for That

By Sloane Tanen

Janine Kessler started out life as the daughter of a successful Hollywood producer. In her teens, she became a sitcom star, much to the disappointment of her father, her mother Pamela and her younger sister Amanda.
Marty Kessler knew from experience that Hollywood fame ruined people and he didn't want his daughter exposed to stardom. Pamela preferred her prettier, younger daughter and expected Janine's fame for Amanda, as did Amanda.
But the sitcom ended after a few seasons and Pamela, who suffered from depression, killed herself, leaving her two teen daughters struggling to understand. Janine ended up in treatment and vanished from the spotlight.
Now in her forties and living on the income from reruns of the her old sitcom and on her rich daddy's generosity, Janine has just drifted through life. She shuns her former fame and lives a secluded life in New York City.
But her father, Marty, is in trouble again, for the umpteenth time. He has long struggled with alcoholism and drug abuse and he is, once again, in rehab. Janine travels to Los Angeles to be with him. While there she reconnects with her sister Amanda and her two teen daughters, both of whom have dreams of fame and fortune, very much against Amanda's wishes.
While in rehab, Marty runs into his first wife, Bunny. Bunny, a superstar children's author (think J.K. Rowling) is also at the rehab to deal with her alcoholism. Attendant on Bunny is her son Henry, who has a strained relationship with his mother. Marty rediscovers exactly why he fell for Bunny as a young man and they make plans to travel together, which is an unpleasant surprise for everyone involved, especially for Marty's live-in girlfriend, Gail, who is more attached to Marty's bank account than she is to Marty.

Janine, Marty, Bunny and Henry are the main characters in the story, with the largest part concerned with Janine. In the beginning, it centers on the Kesslers and then abruptly switches to Bunny, without a clue as to how she connects to the Kesslers. We don't find out she is Marty's ex until quite late in the story when she and Marty bump into each other at rehab. I enjoyed that.
It's a pretty good story, although the ending is a bit cliché and deus ex machina. It wasn't all that amusing and certainly not hilarious as described in three of the blurbs on the back cover. Take the blurbs with a grain of salt.

Review by Publishers Weekly.

They Rang Up the Police

By Joanna Cannan

A British Detective story, first published in 1939 and recently republished in 2017. The detective is Guy Northeast, Detective Inspector of the CID. He is in a bit of a disgrace with his bosses, due to having bungled a previous investigation. He feels he has been sidelined to this missing persons investigation as a punishment. If he doesn't want to end up permanently sidelined, he dare not bungle this investigation.
A well-to-do, middle-aged spinster has suddenly vanished during the night. Her bed has been slept in and her suitcase and some clothing are missing. Has she finally grown tired of the single life and run off with a man? Coincidentally, a local married man with whom she had a connection has gone missing the same night. Did they run off together? Or is something more sinister going on? Her family (two spinster sisters and their elderly mother) are sure Delia would never just run off like that. Or if she did, surely she would telephone or leave a message?
But in a family where everyone calls each other "darling," it's pretty clear to the detective that there is something rotten in the heart of Marley Grange. And it turns out that Delia didn't run very far when her body is discovered hidden in the manure pile.

For an old book written 80 years ago, this was quite an enjoyable read and holds up very well. At one point the detective, Guy Northeast, remarks that, "It's the little things that matter when investigating a murder." Even truer today when DNA plays such a key role in most serious investigations. At the end of the story, he sits alone and meditates on the killer, thinking, "And it's true that it is worse to spoil a person's life than to kill someone, and it's true that freedom is a splendid thing."
It is said that the second (and only other book to feature Guy Northeast) is even better that this one. It's Death at the Dog and I am looking forward to reading it.

Gitchie Girl Uncovered

By Phil Hamman and Sandy Hamman

In November of 1973, a group of five teens jumped into a van and headed off to Gitchie Manitou State Park located in northwest Iowa. It's a popular location for hiking and camping. 
The kids consisted of four boys and one girl. The van belonged to Stewart Baade (18). His younger brother, Dana (14) accompanied his brother along with Mike Hadrath (15) and Roger Essem (17). The lone girl, Sandra Cheskey, was the youngest, only thirteen. The kids were at the park to enjoy a campfire and to smoke some weed.
But they were not alone. They were being observed by three men, all brothers, who had been in the park to do some poaching. The brothers, Allen, James and David, thought the group consisted of three boys and two girls, mistaking young Dana for a girl because of his long hair. They decided to attack the kids and take the girls and the weed. But for some reason, they shot and killed Roger and shot Stewart. Sandra was taken away by Allen and the other two men, David and James, stayed behind and killed the remaining two boys, Mike and Dana. Sandra was raped by James but was taken to Sioux Falls and released by Allen.
Sandra's testimony is the reason why the three brothers were captured, convicted and remain in prison in the Iowa State Pen to this day.
This is the story of the investigation into the murders of the four boys, Stewart, Dana, Mike and Roger, and the kidnapping and rape of the young girl, Sandra.

This was a very interesting story. I have been to Gitchie Manitou but I didn't know the park was the scene of a mass murder. I just happened upon this book at the library. I was afraid it would be a little boring but it is not. It is well written and quite griping.

Kindred

By Octavia E. Butler

A graphic novel adaptation by Damian Duffy and  John Jennings

A young black woman finds herself magically transported back in time to the days of southern plantations and slavery, summoned to save the young life of her distant ancestor.
Dana and her husband had just moved into a new place when she felt dizzy and abruptly found herself on a riverbank, arriving just in time to rescue a little boy who was drowning. The boy was Rufus, the son of the man who owned the plantation and Dana's great-something grandfather. As Rufus told her later, as he was drowning he had a vision of Dana and somehow called her to him and to his time, 1810.
Time and again Rufus would call Dana back to the past and she was forced to experience the terrible reality of being a black person in the time of slavery, even to the point of enduring a whipping and being forced to work in the fields. And even though she tries her best to educate Rufus, his white privilege and selfishness prevents him from taking it to heart and he, when he is grown, he forces himself on the woman who would become Dana's great-something grandmother. But once the child of that rape is born, Dana's ancestor, Dana is at last free to end Rufus' domination over her life and return to the future where she belongs.

What the author wants to do here is look at the life and hardships of a slave from the view point of a modern educated woman and she uses the gimmick of time travel to achieve that end.
This is a depressing story and brings home the terrible tragedy of slavery in all of its cruelty, selfishness and ignorance. It's a disturbing read and lays bare one of the ugly truths of America's past.

The Swords of Lankhmar

By Fritz Leiber

Rat insurrection! The rats of Lankhmar are plotting to take over the world, starting with Lankhmar. Their first step, destroy Lankhmar's alliances by scuttling their grain shipments to their allies. This is where Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser come in.
The two adventurers are hired by the overlord of Lankhmar to ensure the latest shipments make it to their destinations. No one is quite sure what has been causing the previous shipments to be lost at sea.
On board the ship is the chief Lankhmarian grain merchant's daughter, Hisvet, and her twelve trained white rats. The rats wear clothes, use weapons and perform on command.
Just as with the previous shipment, the grain convoy is attacked. But the attackers turn out to be hundreds of rats, launched from the enemy ship, and intent on gnawing holes in the hull of the grain ship causing it to founder. But the attack is thwarted by the fortunate arrival of a two headed dragon with a huge appetite for rats.
With the grain successfully delivered, the two heroes split up, with Fafhrd staying at their destination and the Gray Mouser heading back to Lankhmar. But when he gets back, he finds that Hisvet and her father have been badmouthing him to the overlord. It has become quite clear to the Gray Mouser that Hisvet and her father are behind the grain shipment sabotage, for reasons not yet clear to him. Seeking help, he visits his patron wizard who gives him a magic potion.
This potion, when consumed, shrinks the Gray Mouser down to rat size and he sneaks into the city of rats that exists under Lankhmar. There he stumbles upon the vicious rat plot to enslave humankind and make themselves rulers of the world.

Next to the short story, Lean Times in Lankhmar, this is my favorite Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story, only this is a full length novel. Like most of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, it is a combination of action, adventure, magic, drunkenness and the strangeness typical of Nehwon.

True Detectives

By William Parkhurst

A look at the working lives of several New York area private detectives.
Vincent Parco helps a man find out if his wife is cheating on him with his business partner.
Joe Howard, president of Carney Detective Agency, which he named after his uncle, helps a small museum discover who among the staff has been stealing items from the museum.
Peter Castillo, bounty hunter, has the unenviable job of tracking a bail skip wanted for rape.
And finally, there is Barry Silver, who is helping a young man find his biological mother.

This was a pretty interesting book, written back in the 1980s but a bit dated because of that.

An interesting side note, one of the detectives in the book, Vincent Parco, was recently convicted (June 2019) of try to blackmail a witness in a child sex abuse case.

Review by Kirkus Reviews.

Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser : The Cloud of Hate and Other Stories

By Fritz Leiber and Denny O'Neil

A comic book collection of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. Some of the stories are adaptations of ones written by Fritz Leiber. Other stories were new additions written by Denny O'Neil.
No. 1 is an adaptation of the story, The Price of Pain Ease where the two adventurers get involved with a man who wants to kill death.
No. 2 is an adaptation of Theives' House where Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser get tangled up with a jeweled skull.
No. 3 is a new story, Betrayal, and finds Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser off to rescue a princess in distress who, it turns out, doesn't want to be rescued.
No. 4 has two stories. One is based on Leiber's story, The Cloud of Hate. The other, The Prophecy, is by Denny O'Neil and is the story of young Fafhrd before he joined up with the Gray Mouser.
No. 5 also has two stores: an adaptation of The Sunken Land where Fafhrd falls in with doomed treasure hunters and a story by O'Neil, The Mouse Alone, which is a story of the Gray Mouser when he was just a young Mouse.

It was interesting to see the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in full color. But I really prefer the original stories more than these adapted ones and the new ones by O'Neil. Partially because I have always had a sort of mind's eye image of Lankhmar and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser which was much grungier than in these drawings. One thing I truly disliked was how every woman is drawn nearly nude. That is just plain stupid and disgusting.

Swords in the Mist

By Fritz Leiber

Another collection of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories.
The Cloud of Hate — Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are broke and hanging out in an alley on a night when an evil mist calls forth the hate in men's hearts. They are minding their own business when they are attacked by some thugs who were goaded by the evil fog.
Lean Times in Lankhmar — Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser go their separate ways. Fafhrd becomes an devotee of Issek of the Jug, a very minor god in Lankhmar. And the Gray Mouser goes to work for a gangster who specializes in shaking down temples and churches.
Their Mistress, the Sea — Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser leave Lankhmar after the Issek debacle and voyage off to new adventures. Just over 3 pages long, it's not really a story, it mainly serves to link the next story to the previous story.
When the Sea-King's Away — Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are lured into the depths of the sea by a magical tunnel that leads to the home of the absent sea king and to the sea king's women and treasure.
The Wrong Branch — Another story that serves to link the previous story to the next story. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser have a streak of bad luck they blame on the sea king's curse.
Adept's Gambit  — A complete change of scenery finds Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser no longer on Nehwon but on Earth at about 300 to 200 BC in the region of Tyre. A strange curse has been placed on Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. When they try to get intimate with a woman, the woman turns into an animal. So the two set out on a quest to understand why this is happening and to get the curse lifted.

This collection has one of my favorite Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, Lean Times in Lankhmar. But the last story in the collection is one of my least favorite, it doesn't make much sense and I really don't care for the change of location from Nehwon to Earth.

Swords Against Death

By Fritz Leiber

Another collection of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, published about 1970.

The Circle Curse (1970) introduces the reader to the two wizards that would intersect with the two heroes in later stories, Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes. This story is a set up to the rest of the stories.

The Jewels in the Forest (1939) Rumors of an unbreachable treasure house send the two adventurers off to challenge the legend only to discover the treasure is guarded by the house itself.

Thieves' House (1943) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are hired by the Thieves' Guild to steal the jeweled skull of a long dead thief.

The Bleak Shore (1940) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are put under a spell that sends them on a journey to meet their promised doom.

The Howling Tower (1941) What is the source of mysterious howling? A tale of justice long delayed.

The Sunken Land (1942) Fafhrd finds a ring in the belly of a fish and he ends up on a voyage to a land of myth, held captive by a gang of his fellow countrymen on the search for long lost treasure.

The Seven Black Priests (1953) Once again the two are on the hunt for treasure. Their target this time, a fabulous diamond guarded by seven fanatical priests willing to die protecting it.

Claws From the Night (1951) Someone is using trained birds to steal jewels from the wealthy women of Lankhmar. Fafhrd has a plan to use his own trained eagle to attack the bird thieves and get their booty for himself. But it turns out to be much more complicated than he and the Gray Mouser supposed.

The Price of Pain-Ease (1970) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser steal a small house and end up in a battle against Death itself.

Bazaar of the Bizarre (1963) The two wizards send the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd to take down a new merchant in Lankhmar who is up to no good. But the Gray Mouser becomes ensnared in the merchant's enchantments and needs rescuing.

A good collection of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser adventures in Nehwon which ties together the older tales with the story of the two men's first loves.

Swords and Deviltry

By Fritz Leiber

Once upon a time there was an author, Fritz Leiber. He and a friend created two characters, as a kind of counter to the Conan and Tarzar characters that were popular at the time (1930s & 40s). Fafhrd, a tall barbarian swordsman and the Gray Mouser, a smaller man, also adept with a sword and with a little knowledge of magic, a couple of "heroes" out for a bit of adventure and good times.
Leiber eventually tells the backstory of how the two came to be partners in the Swords and Deviltry short story, Ill Met in Lankhmar. The other stories in the book detail the two rogues lives as young men before they came to know each other. In The Snow Women, we learn how Fafhrd barely escaped with his life, fleeing from his vengeful and controlling mother. And in The Unholy Grail, how Mouse (as he was called then) was almost tortured to death at the hands of a vicious nobleman, escaping only with the help of the man's downtrodden daughter.
The two wizards, Ningauble of the Seven Eyes and Sheelba of the Eyeless Face,  that Fafhrd and Gray Mouser later become involved with do not make an appearance in these three stories.

It's a nice introduction to the two characters and to the city of Lankhmar. I read the book back in the 1970s when it first came out and the description of the Gray Mouser's lair stuck with me all these many years. I didn't remember its ultimate fate, but I did remember the description of luxury piled on luxury, silks and velvets, cushions and furs everywhere, hiding rat holes and roaches.

Mad Girls in Love

By Michael Lee West

Bitsy is a newlywed with a baby when she figures out that her spouse is cheating on her. They get into an argument and he tries to drown her in the kitchen sink but she saves herself by smashing him in the face with a package of frozen meat. Frightened by the possible consequences (her spouse belongs to a wealthy and powerful family), she leaves him unconscious on the floor and grabs her baby and his car and flees town.
She soon ditches his car and buys a used one. But unknown to her, she has a stowaway. The seller's ward has hidden in the back of the used car and is demanding that Bitsy take her to find her mom (who is probably dead) and threatens to turn Bitsy in if she refuses. Bitsy's in-laws have splashed the story all over the media and so she gives into the brat's blackmail. They end up in a resort town where Bitsy gets a job at a restaurant. But it all comes to pieces when she runs afoul of a coworker's jealous girlfriend. Bitsy decides to leave town, but during the panic of leaving, she drives off with her baby on the roof of the car and is, fortunately for the baby, is quickly stopped by the police. She goes to prison and her spouse is awarded sole custody of baby Jennifer.

And so begins one of the most boring stories of a boring family of boring women and their boring, disfunctional lives, that is supposed to be funny, engaging and witty but is mostly just boring.
The abusive spouse never gets exposed for nearly killing Bitsy, the foul in-laws are never forced to give Bitsy back her child, the child is spoiled rotten and turns into a repulsive bitch.
By the end of the story, I was sick of the whole lot of them. What a bunch of gutless wonders. And I was totally tired of Dorothy's stupid, deluded letters to the various First Ladies of the time.
Also the book is way too long, 528 pages in the hardcover edition. It just goes on and on and on. Ugh!

Review by Publishers Weekly.

Neverness

By David Zindell

A science fiction story about a dysfunctional family and the search for immortality.

Mallory Ringess is a young graduate from space pilot school and he is full of pride and ambition. He has declared he will solve one of the great mysteries of space, one that many other pilots have died trying to solve, the Solid State Entity.
The Solid State Entity is a sentient nebula and every pilot who has penetrated its borders has never come back out again. So for Mallory to chose exploring the Solid State Entity was the height of foolishness.
The Timekeeper, ruler of the pilots, gave Mallory a book of poetry and told him to memorize the poems. Because, according to the Timekeeper, the Solid State Entity appreciated poetry. How the Timekeeper would know that, he didn't explain. It worked, too, and Mallory became the first pilot to enter the nebula and return. And he returned with a message from the nebula that the secret to immortality is written in the ancient DNA of mankind.
Back home, Mallory again states a rash quest. He will infiltrate the tribes of primitive humans and obtain their ancient DNA. At first the Timekeeper refuses to allow the expedition but suddenly changes his mind, with certain conditions.
Namely, that Mallory will not lead the expedition. Instead the leader would be Leopold Soli. And included in the expedition would be Mallory's mother, his aunt Justine (Soli's estranged wife), Katharine (Soli and Justine's adult daughter and Mallory's secret girl friend) and Mallory's best friend, Bardo. But Mallory and Soli really, really disliked each other.
Things don't go well. Katharine gets accused by the primitives of witchcraft and is murdered. A fight breaks out and Mallory receives a fatal wound. The remaining members of the expedition barely manage to escape.
Mallory's mother takes his body to a water-world who denizens have the skill to rebuild dead people, including damaged brains. They resurrect Mallory but they add enhancements (the godseed) to his brain that will give him abilities beyond normal people.
Mallory returns home only to find out that the DNA of the primitive people wasn't any more ancient than anyone's. He also realizes that someone has hired an assassin to kill Soli. In the midst of trying to stop the assassination, Mallory himself is accused of being the killer. The Timekeeper throws him into a dungeon without a trial and he languishes there for weeks. Bardo, his friend, engineers a jail break and he and Mallory and many other pilots flee the Timekeeper and head into space. But the Timekeeper is not willing to let them escape and sends pilots after them, resulting in a war between the two factions.

This was a long book, 458 pages. And it was pretty boring, for the most part. I skipped a lot of the philosophical and mathematical stuff. I also found the part where Mallory and company live with the primitives to be not to my taste. I just wasn't interested in the lives of the cavemen.

Review by Kirkus Reviews.

The Perfect Host : Volume V

By Theodore Sturgeon

A collection of stories, mostly science fiction, some fantasy and one cowboy story.

• Quietly A girl is raised by her anarchist father and abandoned by him when she turns 18.
• The Music Lunatic in a hospital eats a nurse.
• Unite and Conquer Scientist fakes an alien invasion to unite mankind.
• The Love of Heaven An evolved human race wants to return to the home world but discover they are poison to all life on Earth.
• Till Death Do Us Join A man who thinks he has an evil twin comes up with a plan to kill the twin.
• The Perfect Host  A string of mysterious deaths are caused by a "thing" that attaches itself to people it finds interesting and sympathetic. 
• The Martian and the Moron An empty-headed girl makes contact with Mars. Humorous story.
• Die, Maestro, Die!  Band announcer is deadly jealous of the band leader.
• The Dark Goddess  Woman wants her brother's common-law wife to make the marriage legal. Story has a good, brief description of life in the 1920s.
• Scars Cowboy rescues a woman.
• Messenger A rich inventor is planning to give all his wealth away. But his daughter's fiance tries to kill the rich man before he can do that.
• Minority Report A spaceship goes on on a mission and never returns. So another ship goes after it to figure out what happened.
• Prodigy After multiple wars and pollution, humans have developed many mutations. In order to stop these mutations from being passed on, children are put to death if they don't fit the standard norm.
• Farewell to Eden Two people escape Earth for a new world but it doesn't end well.
• One Foot and the Grave A man and a woman both have one of their feet change into a hoof. They are told it was caused by magic emanating from an ancient being chained in the nearby hills.
• What Dead Men Tell A guy stumbles upon a secret society of immortals and has to pass a deadly test to become one of them.
• The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast Story of an invasive species, only this species is an extraterrestrial. Humorous story.

This is a pretty good collection of stories. The author is very fond of the twist ending. For example, in Scars, the main character claims to be a gentleman because he rescued a woman and declined to take advantage of her, even though she indicated she was interested. [Spoiler]Turns out he is impotent.

Walkabout Woman

By Michaela Roessner

Raba is a young Australian aboriginal girl who has just turned old enough to attend the white man's missionary school. But Raba is not the typical little girl, she has a special connection to the land. She is going to be the link for the people to return to Dreamtime. Dreamtime is the story of the creation of life and its meaning and of mankind's place in the world, past and present and future. (Dreamtime is the white man's term for it.)
Anyway, Raba's path is not straightforward. First, there is interference by a well-meaning missionary teacher. Then when Raba is a teen, her chosen lover is being controlled by his malignant father, who wants to keep his son for his own purposes. Tragedy then sends Raba into a mental hospital for many months. After recovery, Raba goes off to college and into the teaching profession where she runs afoul of a student who is determined to use Raba's mystical abilities for her own ends.

The first part of the story was really good and very engrossing. But the last part, where Raba is a college professor just wasn't anywhere near as interesting and Raba comes off as weak and ineffective, in my opinion.

Review from Black Gate.

Guard of Honor

By James Gould Cozzens

This book is the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 1949.

Set in a military base in Florida, 1943, this is the story of three days in the life of that base.
General Beal, base commander, is flying into the base when his plane is involved in a near miss with another plane. After the two planes land, one of the men that was riding in the plane with Beal punches the pilot of the other pilot, sending him to the hospital with a broken nose. The other pilot was a young black man, Lt. Willis, and a group of black officers takes umbrage at his treatment. So when the black officers are not allowed the use regular officer club, they become even more upset and a confrontation at the officer club occurs.
Meanwhile, the local newspaper is sniffing around and it soon becomes apparent that someone has been leaking information to the news that should not be in the public eye. Plus, a big celebration is being planned for General Beal's birthday and two generals from higher up the chain of command are flying into the base for the occasion and for other reasons, some relating to the incidents with Lt. Willis and the black officers. All this adds up to a lot of people stressing about a lot of different things, with lots of meetings and lots of memos. But in the end, it all pales in the face of a genuine tragedy.

What a pain in the neck this book was to read. I started reading it last year (2018) and I just now finished it in June 2019. The main problem was the huge number of characters to keep track of, their military ranks, their jobs & their personal stories. It was just too much to keep track of.
Also, the plot just wasn't that engaging.

Review from Kirkus Reviews. This review is from 1948.

The Divide

By Nicholas Evans

Ben decided his wife, Sarah, was frigid. So when he met beautiful, young Eve, he was ready. Ready for a new love, a new life and a new family. Never mind that his request for a divorce tore his family apart. Never mind that his wife loved him very much. Never mind that it especially threw his daughter, Abbie, into a tailspin that took her down a dark path that ended in her death on a remote mountain in Montana.
It all started at the dude ranch, The Divide. Ben and Sarah and their two kids Josh and Abbie had been vacationing there for years. They loved it. But that is where Ben first saw Eve. He was smitten. He couldn't stop thinking about her. He even visited her at her home in Santa Fe. When she said she wouldn't date a married man, Ben took it as encouragement to end his marriage.
Sarah was devastated. Perhaps her obvious distress affected her teenage daughter too. Anyway, Abbie was very angry at her father and seemed to channel that rage into environmental activism. She was at a protest where the protesters were teargassed when she was rescued by another activist, Rolf. He tended her wounds and bathed her eyes and he seemed so caring and committed to the cause of environmental activism. Abbie was completely won over and became his lover and co-conspirator. They set fires and spray painted slogans and Rolf led her deeper and deeper down the path to destruction.  Then they accidentally killed a young man when they tried to set fire to his father's house and he caught them. In the confrontation and struggle, the man was killed. Abbie and Rolf went into hiding and Abbie cut off almost all communication with her family, per Rolf's instructions.
And then her body was found, frozen in ice on that remote mountainside by two back country skiers.

This was an OK story. It starts out as a mystery. But it is mostly about the end of the marriage of Ben and Sarah. And about Abbie's conversion from college student to eco-terrorist.
The thing is, I thought I was reading a mystery story. I kept waiting for the investigation but was wading through chapter after chapter of the family's back story. Frankly, I skipped a lot of that, thinking the investigation was sure to start soon. But it never did.
So this is not a murder mystery. It is the story of a family that went off the rails, primarily because of one selfish man, Ben. Beyond the death of his daughter, Ben never really pays much of a price either. He is pleased with his new life in Santa Fe, his new love, Eve and is a second father to her young son. He has a successful new career, his girl friend is young and beautiful and his teenage son has forgiven him and likes his new family. Meanwhile the ex-wife is still reeling from the abrupt and unexpected end of their over twenty years of marriage. She is still carrying a torch for her faithless husband. She is depressed, alone and lonely. The author finally throws her a bone and gets her a new boy friend at the very end of the story. Easy to see where his sympathies lie: with the cheating husband.

A review by Kirkus Reviews.

Goodnight Nobody

By Jennifer Weiner

Raising kids in the city can be difficult. Kate and her husband Ben were trying to do so when Kate was robbed while taking her young children out for a stroll. The thief even stole the stroller.  So that was that. Goodbye, NYC. Hello, Upchurch.
Now a suburban mom, Kate is feeling alienated from the other women of her new community. They seem so much more put together, more organized, more in control. Kate has casual acquaintances among the Upchurch moms but no real friends. So when one of the moms calls and asks Kate to stop by, it's unusual and unexpected. Even more unexpected is the woman's dead body laying on the floor with a knife in her back.
Since she is the one who found the victim, Kitty Cavanaugh, Kate feels more than a little involved. The cops seem to have given up on the investigation and so Kate dives into the perfect life of perfect mom, perfect wife, perfect hostess, perfect everything, Kitty Cavanaugh. Doesn't take her long to understand that no one in Upchurch has the perfect lives they all work so hard to present to the world.

This was an OK read. Much of the story is about Kate's relationship with her husband and an old crush from before her marriage who broke her heart. As Kate's investigation proceeds, her relationship with Ben becomes rockier and rockier and the old crush showing up doesn't make it any easier. Kate doesn't make a real decision about Ben vs the crush, Evan:

I waved, then flipped onto my back and floated in the pale green ocean water, looking up at the sky. Come home to me, said Ben. Come back to me, said Evan. I closed my eyes, listening for my answer. My hair trembled in the water. My body rose and fell. The waves rolled in and out, saying nothing at all.

The Kate and Ben story feels unfinished and the murder motive is more than a little weak and disappointing.

Review by Publishers Weekly.

The Moon-Spinners

By Mary Stewart

Nicola is on spring vacation to Crete. Arriving at her destination a day early, she decides to take a hike up into the hills. It's warm out and after awhile, she takes a break beside a mountain stream. But she is not alone, a strange man is spying upon her from the bushes. Alarmed, she tries to leave only to be set upon by the man and dragged off to a dingy shepherds hut.
Things are not as they seem, though, as soon as they enter the hut. For laying on a rough bed of hay is a young Englishman who quickly instructs the other man to release Nicola. She discovers the Englishman is suffering from a gunshot wound and the other man hid him in the hut to conceal him from the murderous locals.
The two men, Lambis & Mark were out for a harmless ocean cruise and came ashore for a break from being on the water. They were accompanied by Mark's younger brother Colin who is only thirteen. Lambis, who owns the boat, stayed at the boat to make some minor repairs and Colin and Mark went for a hike. But they unfortunately witnessed some locals get into an argument which ended up in murder. And when the locals discovered the two witnesses, they shot Mark and left him for dead and carried off young Colin.
When the two tourists didn't return to the boat, Lambis went looking for them and found Mark, still alive but not in good condition. And now Nicola has stumbled upon the two and she becomes tangled up in whatever bad business is going on in the hills of Crete.

I first read this book back in the 1960s and I found it quite exciting and the descriptions of Crete enchanting. I have since read at least three or four more times and enjoyed it very much, though not as much as the first time. And I still find the writer's descriptions of Crete captivating and enticing.  Although the Crete of the early 1960s probably bears little resemblance to the Crete of 2019. It still makes me wish to visit there even though it is likely overrun with tourists these days.
As for the mystery story, it is thrilling and enjoyable even after several re-readings and fifty years later.

Review by Dear Author.