The Last Ember by Daniel Levin

Summary and Review

Jonathan Marcus is a young, high powered attorney from New York. His background in classics--he was once a fellow at the prestigious American Academy in Rome, gives him the perfect background for legal work dealing in ancient artifacts of dubious ownership. One afternoon, he is handed a memo telling him to board a plane for Italy. In Rome, he finds himself trying to defend a mysterious client's ownership of two ancient pieces of Roman marble. The seemingly innocuous court case brings him face-to-face with an old girlfriend and together they are thrown into a deadly race to recover an ancient artifact from the last temple in Jerusalem.

The Last Ember has a clear political agenda. It is clearly anti-Palestinian and pro-Israel, and was written to counter alleged historical revisionism occurring in the Holy Land. I have no problem with Levin writing from this viewpoint, but I think the reader should be informed of it upfront. Daniel Levin's website, www.daniellevin.com, is straightforward and makes his views clear.

I picked this book up from the Readers' Choice table in my local library. The storyline as summarized on the back of the novel sounded intriguing enough, and I thought it would be a nice break from some of the hefty non-fiction histories that I've been reading lately. I have to say that I was really disappointed.

As I said, the idea for the book is interesting, but I can't even give Daniel Levin credit for that. Have you read The Da Vinci Code or watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or National Treasure? If so, all you need to do is throw in some Nazis (oh wait, Indiana Jones already took care of that), a mysterious, conspiratorial group of wealthy religious fanatics (check, The Da Vinci Code), a family legend passed down through generations (check, National Treasure), a race against the bad guys through the underground of Rome (The Da Vinci Code again), the Knights Templar (check, Indiana Jones, National Treasure, and The Da Vinci Code) and an ancient artifact, sought after for its power but lost to history as a mere legend (again, check, check, check).

No joke, the plot for this book was lifted straight from these previous storylines. The characters were rote: the noble, indefatigable policeman, a la Brown's Bezu Fache, the sexy, smart and uptight Sophie Neveu/Abigail Chase/Elsa Schneider female sidekick character, and the hero, in this case modeled after the author himself, a former-American-Academy-scholar-turned-international-lawyer, all brawn and brains.

There was even a scene in which the hero is trying to save his colleague, who is dangling over a precipice, from certain death. Marcus yells to his friend to give him his other hand, but the colleague, who is clutching a priceless historical find in that hand, refuses to let go, and so slips from Marcus' grasp, falling into the abyss below (p. 270). I could almost hear Harrison Ford saying, "Elsa, give me your other hand, honey. I can't hold you!" and Alison Doody's reply, "It'll be ours, Indy! Yours and mine!" just before her glove slips off and she falls screaming into the crevice.

Seriously.

But you know what? I could have dealt with all of that. After all, that's how much of literature happens, building and borrowing from previous works. I could even have looked past the utter cheese in the book, such as the description of Jonathan Marcus' and Emili Travia's first sexual encounter, when the description of Marcus removing Travia's clothing is likened to an archeologist "uncovering archaeological strata that required great study and attention" (p. 333). Ugh. That is just. so. bad.

But anyway, I could have gotten past all of that if it hadn't been for the unbelievably poor characterizations. For the most part, the characters were extremely one-dimensional--all good, all heroic, or all bad. And the ones who weren't--well it was hardly a surprise. As paradoxical as it sounds, even the duplicitous characters are irritatingly one-dimensional.

Most irritating was the way that Levin wrote the character of Emili Travia, the sexy and supposedly smart former colleague-cum-lover of Jonathan Marcus. Supposedly, Emili is so brilliant that she has a post as a preservationist with the UN--deputy director of the International Centre for Conservation in Rome. She's received prestigious awards and can even, upon entering a dark, partially ruined chamber, instantly ascertain that the stone came from quarries in Jerusalem rather than Rome (p. 350). Yet she doesn't know the origins of the name "Maccabee," has never heard of the Hanukkah story (pp. 174-175), and when faced with a fresco depicting the life of Joseph of Egypt, she is at a complete loss to identify it:

"These frescoes," Jonathan said. He trained his beam on a series of ancient paintings that lined one of the corridors. "They look recently excavated." In the first painting, the pigment had faded, but the figures were quite clear: a young man, in a neck chain hitched to other prisoners, pulled heavy stones.

"I don't recognize the myth," Emili said. "Sisyphys pushing a boulder?"

"No," Jonathan said. "Look at the next painting." The same young prisoner, Jonathan noticed, the chain still around his neck, but he was now standing before a king, who listened raptly. The prisoner was pointing above his head, where two rows of cows stood side by side among starts in a night sky.

"In this last frame, a slave has been brought from prison before a king," Emili said. "It looks like an Egyptian pharaoh."

"Yes," Jonathan said, "and he's interpreting the pharaoh's dream, pointing to skinny cows and fat cows."

"What Roman myth is it, then?" Emili said. (p. 215)

Are you KIDDING me? "What Roman myth is it, then?" And just in case you still think that this world-renown archeologist should be excused for her ignorance, perhaps on the basis of a secular upbringing, 50 pages earlier Emili quoted the Abrahamic covenant, citing Sunday school as her reference (p. 173). She must have been a very selective listener, both in Sunday school and in graduate school.

Oh, and she knows Latin well enough to read Ovid's erotic poetry (p. 39), but throughout the book, Marcus is constantly having to translate other Latin passages for her, such as "Phere Nike Umbilicus Orbis Terrarum" (p. 184), which I could pretty much get the gist of with just a couple years of high school French.

To me, this is all evidence of two things: lazy, sloppy writing, first of all; and second, it indicates that the author has a very low estimation of his readers' intelligence. Clearly Levin, a Harvard Law graduate and former visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome, is not unintelligent. Therefore, I have to conclude that he thinks his readers are.

I know that a lot of the things I mentioned seem petty. And to be honest, there are a number of books that I enjoy which suffer from some of the same problems that I've mentioned above. However, in the case of The Last Ember, I didn't see anything to redeem these failings and make it worth my time as a reader.

★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (2/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: Yes; nothing that you won't see in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, however.

Sex: There are a couple of sexual encounters referenced, but they are not descriptive and overall the sexual content is extremely mild.

Language: The F-word is used once. Otherwise the book is fairly clean.

Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire

Summary and Review:

Gregory Maguire is well known for re-imagining the lives of famous storybook characters--the ugly stepsister from Cinderella and the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz are his two most famous takes. In Mirror Mirror, Maguire reworks the story of Snow White. In Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (inspiration for the Broadway musical that we all know and love), focus is clearly on the traditional antagonists of the original stories. In Mirror Mirror, Maguire's focus seems to be split. Bianca de Nevada, the beautiful child with snow white skin (which is more often compared to that of a corpse in Maguire's version), certainly is less interesting than the wicked Lucrezia Borgia, the historical inspiration for Maguire's evil stepmother, but much of the third-person narration comes through her point of view. Although the storyline is easily recognized as having the same origins as Disney's version, Maguire's take on Snow White is much darker, grittier, and seemingly grounded in history, via the infamous Borgia family of Renaissance Italy.

I loved seeing Lucrezia Borgia as the wicked stepmother. Maguire takes a multitude of literary liberties with her character, but even without Maguire's assistance, she and her family are darkly fascinating characters. Legend (and history) describe Lucrezia as beautiful and intelligent, but also ruthless, decadent, and morally depraved. And, as suits the traditional purveyor of poisoned fruit, Lucrezia and her kin are infamous for their draughts (see also: The Count of Monte Cristo). I thought it was perfect "casting."

I also appreciated the fact that, although standing in for the part, in Maguire's version, Lucrezia wasn't actually the wicked stepmother. There are a number of stories (like The Wild Swans, Cinderella, and Snow White) which feature a wicked stepmother, a persecuted daughter, and a kind and loving father. Here's the thing: if Daddy's so great, why would he bring home a femme fatale and then sit by while his new squeeze tortures his beloved daughter's life out? In Mirror Mirror, Maguire introduces his villainess without implicating Bianca's dad. I liked that.

However, there was a lot about Mirror Mirror that I did not like.

I really didn't like Maguire's writing style in this book. At times it seemed oddly like he was writing in free verse. In other spots, I could have sworn he was writing in riddles. It got to the point where it seemed like nothing was stated directly; everything was oblique and drawn-out, and it became incredibly frustrating and tedious to read.

What was clear though, was how crude it was. There was everything from the nursemaid/cook having sex with a squid (what?!--and it was totally unnecessary and unrelated to the story, by the way), to a repeated mentions of bodily functions and even a description of Bianca's first menstrual period. Maguire succeeded in making the story earthy, gritty, and as un-Disney as possible, but it was just too much for my taste.

Also, I had a hard time relating to the characters or, really, caring what happened to them. I thought they were all very unsympathetic. With the exception of the Borgias, who were completely horrifying, the characters were extremely passive. I think Maguire tried to dredge up some sympathy for Lucrezia, but it wasn't enough to make up for the fact that she was a complete monster. Bianca was too remote and otherworldly to be interesting, and her father was neither heroic or compelling. In fact, much of the action wasn't action at all--events came about and people either gained or lost because of them through no merit or fault of their own.

And actually, one of the things that I liked about the book, which was Maguire grounding the fairy tale in history, messed up the ending (we all know a handsome prince--of sorts--wakes her up, right? So I'm not letting out any spoilers?). I can buy the fact that the kiss of a handsome prince will somehow counteract the effect of deadly poison when it's in a Disney fairy tale. But Maguire made his story too realistic. It's ludicrous to think that a kiss (especially considering the unromantic way that Borgian relationships were thrown around as bargaining tools) would be the antidote to a Borgia's poison in this case. And, as if he realized this but just didn't want to deal with it, Maguire didn't even attempt to explain how the kiss revived Bianca. Her resurrection was just an afterthought. ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (3/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: yes

Sex: Extreme. There are no graphic descriptions, but everything from rape to adultery and incest to beastiality are mentioned.

Language: Very crude in places. Use of the "s-word."

50 Years: 1960-2010

Dear Ms. Lee

Thank you for Scout, Jem, and Dill. Thank you for Atticus, Miss Maudie, Tom, Calpurnia, Boo Radley and even Miss Stephanie Crawford; for Maycomb and the image of southern ladies wilting in the heat "like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum." Thank you for teaching us about kindness, strength and understanding, the true meaning of courage, and what it really means to be "fine folk." Thank you for writing the book that millions of us around the world claim as our favorite, for uniting us and binding us together across generations and continents by our love for your little novel. Thank you for pouring all of your heart and soul into this book. It has captured ours.

Book covers, Part 2

In the spirit of the last post, here are a few other book covers that I love:

(I haven't actually read this yet, but it's near the top of my list)

and of course...

What are your favorite book covers?

Go ahead--judge this book by its cover

I'm a little late to the game on these, since they came out late last summer, but I spied this Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Wurthering Heights at the library last week, and it literally stopped me in my tracks.


How fabulous is that?

I'll admit it--I can't count myself as a fan of Wuthering Heights. I've read it twice and really, really tried. I can see Emily Bronte's genius as a writer and storyteller; but the story she had to tell... Yikes. However, I am in love with this book cover (the illustrations run onto the inside flaps of the book jacket as well), illustrated by Ruben Toledo. For me, they evoke perfectly the twisted, gothic, torrid world of Cathy and Heathcliff. Heathcliff's actually my favorite part of the illustration--he has a kind of sinister James Dean thing going on. It actually makes me want to give the book another chance. And I definitely need this on my bookshelf.

Toledo illustrated two other classic book covers for Penguin as well, Pride and Prejudice,


and the Scarlet Letter.


Toledo's take on Pride and Prejudice doesn't quite work for me. It's a little too Tim Burton for the BBC version that I have running constantly through my head, but I like the Scarlet Letter. It doesn't put me in the novel as well as Toledo's version of Wuthering Heights, but it's an interesting take on Hawthorne. I especially like the gossips. It feels like Desperate Housewives meets Puritan New England, which is kind of fun.

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte by Syrie James

Summary and review:

This "secret diary" of Charlotte Bronte follows her romance with Arthur Bell Nicholls. Nicholls was the Brontes' next door neighbor. He worked under her father as the curate of tiny Haworth village for eight years before expressing his love to Charlotte and giving her an offer of marriage. The near-decade that spanned the time between Charlotte's first meeting with Mr. Nicholls and his proposal saw Charlotte evolve from an imaginative spinster to a celebrated writer.

I thought the book started roughly. I didn't buy the idea that these characters were living in a tiny parish in Victorian England. The language seemed stilted and overly formal, yet it was peppered at times with modern-sounding phrases that were completely out-of-place in the dialog. For example, in one scene, Charlotte and Emily are angry with one another. "You cannot stay angry with me for ever," says Charlotte, to which Emily replies, "Watch me."

"Watch me?" Umm, I'm sorry, but I just don't think that Charlotte and Emily Bronte spoke like 21st Century eight-year-olds. So that bothered me. I also didn't like the fact that the "diaries" weren't written in a diary format. The style is more of a narrative than a diary. Charlotte begins the novel by addressing "Diary," but there aren't individual entries; it's as if she's recounting the entire story in two or three sittings.

I did, however, think that the story, if not riveting, was interesting. Syrie James based the plot around letters written by and about Charlotte Bronte and the other characters mentioned. Although the dialog was fabricated and much is conjecture, from what I can tell the story is relatively true to history. It was interesting to learn about the sources of inspiration for the Bronte novels. The lives of the Brontes were tragic, and while reading I realized that I knew very little about Charlotte or her sisters. I admit that formerly I had a difficult time keeping track of the three sisters and remembering which one was which. Having read this book, I feel like I know them better; I doubt I will be confusing them in the future.

Charlotte's romance with Mr. Nicholls is unusual; it was definitely not the sweeping, passionate love affair found in Jane Eyre or Wurthering Heights. It was different from what I expect in a romance and interesting because of it.

I would have liked to know more about Charlotte's early life; actually, I would have liked to know more about the life of all three sisters, Emily in particular. Although her life seems to lack the romance which Charlotte experienced, Emily Bronte is perhaps the most fascinating of the sisters. I've read Wurthering Heights twice times, and each time I was more disturbed by it. What were the circumstances that produced a woman who, coming from the strict, sternly religious upbringing in the rigid Victorian age, could write such a sordid, passionate and disturbing story full of horror, violence, and illicit love?

I also would have liked more more description of the village and the moors. The moors played such a huge part in the Bronte novels, but I never really felt their presence in this book. Haworth as portrayed by Syrie James felt like a bland one-size-fits-all English village.

Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books, and I approached this novel hesitantly. I didn't want to read something silly or talentless that merely coasted off of the popularity of Jane Eyre (Aside: I feel that most of the modern novels based on Jane Austen and her writing fall under this description). I wasn't expecting a true biography, and I didn't get it. I thought that most if not all of the romantic scenes were silly and would have been embarrassing for Charlotte Bronte to have read. However, I did end up liking this book much more than I expected, much more than I did when I first began to read. I imagined that Charlotte Bronte lived a cloistered life akin to that of Emily Dickinson; however her experiences were much more far-reaching than I knew. I'm looking forward to reading Jane Eyre again, and I'm also planning to venture out to Charlotte Bronte's other works and will be looking up some actual biographies written about her. ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ (5/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: N/A

Sex: Very mild innuendos

Language: N/A

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

Summary and review:

The Scarborough women have been cursed for generations--at the age of 18 they become pregnant and, after giving birth (always to a baby girl), they go mad. The curse will end only when a Scarborough woman can complete three impossible tasks before the birth of her daughter. Lucy is the next Scarborough in line for the curse, but with the help of her boyfriend, her foster parents, and clues passed down to her from her mother, she is determined to successfully complete the tasks and escape the fate of the Scarborough women who have come before her. The tasks are outlined in a version of the folk song "Scarborough Fair" that Lucy's ancestors have sung for generations--make a magical shirt without needles or seams, find an acre of land between salt water and the sea strand, and plow an acre with goat's horn before sowing it with a single grain of corn.

I loved the way that Nancy Werlin used the song "Scarborough Fair." It's such a brilliant idea. The song is perfect; despite its familiarity, its beautiful tune is haunting and the meaning of the lyrics cryptic. The idea that something so common can hold so much mystery and hidden meaning is exciting. It gives a magical, mystical possibility to everyday life.

I also really liked the relationships in the book. It's so easy in young adult fiction to manufacture plot lines by giving the teen antagonist backstabbing best friends, unfaithful significant others, and unsympathetic, distant, or totalitarian parents (who are usually divorced and fighting, adding additional angst to the storyline). Not every relationship in the book was healthy--Lucy's mom, for example, was a deranged bag lady. However, Lucy had a strong support system in the form of her boyfriend, her best friend, and the Markowitzes, the foster parents who reared Lucy since birth. Anyone of these people could have easily let Lucy down, considering that she was a pregnant teenager with some pretty crazy-sounding ideas about how she ended up that way, yet they didn't. It was refreshing to see Lucy's loved ones stand by her.

I wish that the villain had been a little more menacing. The truth about the punishment he imposes on the Scarborough women is absolutely evil and creepy and horrifying, but with regards to Lucy completing the tasks, he didn't seem to pose much of an obstacle. I think Werlin definitely could have upped the tension in that respect.

Overall, I thought that this was a captivating book, especially at the beginning. The momentum died down a bit towards the book's conclusion, but I loved the premise and the characters. This is the second book I've read by Nancy Werlin, and I will definitely be adding more of hers to my library's hold list. ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: Minor

Sex: References to abortion, pregnancy, and teenage sex, and rape. Although Lucy refuses to consider abortion and mentions that she is alive only because her mother refused it, abortion is offered by several different people as a viable option to end an unwanted pregnancy. Furthermore, teenage sex is seen as something inevitable and normal. This may be offensive to some people, so please take that into consideration.

Language: Mild

Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank by Randi Hutter Epstein

Summary and review:

As the subtitle to Randi Hutter Epstein's book suggests, Get Me Out follows the science and superstition of childbirth from the earliest recorded births to the fertility industry of today. But Get Me Out does more than just deliver birth-related anecdotes; Epstein uses historical attitudes toward conception, pregnancy, and delivery to comment on contemporary society. From feminism to industrialization to urbanization, Epstein argues that the way humans view childbirth is a reflection of the morals, values, and beliefs that we espouse in general. It is a fascinating read and moves quickly, throwing out examples from various historical ages. In particular, Epstein traces the "medicalization" of childbirth. Pregnancy, which began as a spiritual journey on which a woman was accompanied by instincts and fellow women became, in the 20th Century, a medical condition that necessitated professional treatment as would a life-threatening disease.

Epstein's attitude toward non-medical births is interesting. As a medical doctor (she received her M.D. from Yale University), I expected her to be aggressively pro-hospitals, pro-obstetrics, and anti-midwives and homebirths. She is firmly against "freebirthers," women who give birth at home without any medical intervention, shunning both doctors and midwives (her tone in the "Freebirthers" chapter is actually rather sarcastic and mocking. It's clear she finds the movement not only ridiculous but irresponsible). Yet Epstein seems surprisingly open to midwives and non-hospital births. She seems to regret the loss of the sisterhood that supported a woman before, during and after labor. Many of the anecdotes Epstein includes reflect negatively on medical professionals: doctors who unfairly painted midwives as incompetent and dangerous; men who had never stepped foot into a birthing room yet published medical tracts contradicting midwives' knowledge; horrifically painful medical experiments performed on unanesthetized slave women; epidemics of puerperal fever, spread by unwashed medical equipment and doctors' hands; and DES, a synthetic estrogen prescribed for everything from morning sickness to miscarriage prevention, which had horrific consequences for the children of DES mothers, and yet was prescribed by doctors even after it was shown to cause reproductive cancers and malformations in animal trials.

Initially I was slightly turned off by Epstein's writing style. As I mentioned, she has a medical degree from Yale, but she also has a masters degree in journalism from Columbia. However, her writing in places seemed unprofessional, even flippant. For example, in the introduction Epstein writes about the superstitions regarding cauls, pieces of the anmiotic sac that sometimes stick to a baby's head. She writes of a Roman emperor whose son was born with a caul, a fortuitious sign. "As predicted," she writes, "the boy joined his father as a co-emperor by age 9, but father and son were murdered the following year. Whatever" (ix).

Seriously? She has Ivy-league degrees in medicine and journalism, but that sentence sounds like it was written by an eighth-grade girl. Through text messaging. A few other instances like this in the beginning of the book made me wary, as if Epstein were trying too hard to sound cool, or to make a boring subject (how could childbirth and pregnancy be boring to a postpartum woman?) sound cool. Fortunately, things improved. I actually ended up liking Epstein's writing style. It felt like I was listening to an interesting lecture given by a well-spoken professor.

Other interesting stories in the book included the Chamberlens, male "midwives" who invented a type of obstetric forceps, "Twilight Sleep," a cocktail of narcotics given to women to make them forget the pain of childbirth (it was becoming increasingly popular in the early 20th century, but fell out of favor after its champion died during childbirth after having taken the drug), the use of X-Rays during pregnancy and the possible dangers of ultrasounds, and the ins and outs of the sperm bank industry.

Again, I thought this book was fascinating. The way Epstein presents the history makes it relevant to more than just women with children. Anyone interested in sociology or medical history will enjoy Get Me Out. ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (8/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: Little, but the descriptions of surgeries may be disturbing to some people.

Sex: Nothing too racy, but it is kind of the crux of the book. There is also mention of pornography as used in the sperm banks.

Language: Mild

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Summary and review:

Wintergirls begins as Lia learns that Cassie, her former-best friend, is dead. Cassie died alone in a cheap motel room during a cold New Hampshire winter's night, after having left 33 messages on Lia's phone. Lia refused to pick up the phone when Cassie called; Lia also encouraged Cassie's bulimia by making a pact with Cassie to be "skinniest" when the girls were in eighth grade. And now Lia is haunted by Cassie's ghost.

Wintergirls seems like an attempt at poetic prose--different sizes of fonts, repetition, crossed-out phrases, even pages left entirely blank. I sometimes found the style irritating and distracting, but at other times I felt that it captured the confusion, compulsion, and disjointedness Lia suffered because of her disease. One of the most commonly used stylistic devices was crossed-out text, but I'm not actually sure what that meant. Sometimes it seemed like the struckthrough phrases were Lia's attempt at sarcasm, other times they seemed like the conscious censoring of her thoughts to conform with what she feels is acceptable to others, and then there were times when it seemed like the very opposite, as if Lia were rebelling against what she was supposed to feel in order to express her version of reality.

Lia, I would imagine, was a difficult character to write. Typically in order to receive positive reviews, a book needs a sympathetic main character. Lia...isn't really. It is extremely frustrating to watch Lia do things that are so destructive and appear so irrational, especially when she seems to know better at times. Unfortunately, that's the nature of the beast. Anorexia (officially, "Anorexia Nervosa") is, from what I understand, a compulsive disorder, meaning that those who suffer from it are driven to act in a way that is irrational and destructive. Like Lia, those who suffer from anorexia may know that they harming themselves but their disease leads them to continue on the same course regardless.

I don't feel that I gained any insights to the causes of anorexia--rich, upper-middle class white girls with difficult family lives who feel pressured by their parents and want control over their lives. Not much new there. There were places in which Lia's way of thinking was eye opening, however. The way that food conjured up opposing feelings of desire and disgust and the ever-receding target weight were interesting. I was actually worried at times that it was too explicit; some of Lia's methods for hiding her weight loss and disguising her refusal to eat seemed a bit too educational.

I was really conflicted by this book. While the topic is obviously important, I don't know enough about the disease to say whether or not Wintergirls really captured the essence of anorexia. It was definitely not pleasant to read; if terrifying and disturbing were what Anderson was going for, than it was spot on. ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: The description of Cassie's death are disturbing, and Lia is a cutter as well as suffering from anorexia.

Sex: N/A

Language: Not extreme, but the F-word is used (just once, I believe) and other curse words are scattered throughout.

The Killer's Cousin by Nancy Werlin

Summary and review:

David Bernard Yaffe is embarking on a second attempt at finishing his senior year. His first senior year was stalled when he was accused of killing his girlfriend, Emily. Although he has recently been acquitted, the memory of Emily's death and the sensationalism of the trial are too fresh in the minds of David's Baltimore community, so he moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to live with his uncle's family and finish school. Cambridge, however, is not free from complications. David's Uncle Vic and Vic's wife Julia aren't speaking to each other; there is something seriously wrong with Lily, their 11-year-old daughter, who resents David's intrusion into her life and embarks on a campaign to drive him out; On top of it all, David is staying in the attic apartment which, until four years previously, was occupied by Kathy, Vic and Julia's eldest daughter. Kathy is dead, but she still haunts the Shaughnessy family.

David is the book's narrator; the story follows him as he tries to manage the guilt he feels over his role in Emily's death, but, as the book's title seems to imply and as David's prologue states, the story is about Lily. Lily is haunted by her sister's death, and deals with her emotions by attempting to manipulate and control those around her. David's arrival throws her world into disarray, but it may also give her the chance to finally come to grips with what happened that day.

I was surprised by how creeped out I was at times while reading The Killer's Cousin. It's a thoughtful, well-written book that explores grief, forgiveness, family, and guilt, but it's also extremely suspenseful, and exhibits characteristics of thrillers and supernatural-type books. Lily in particular is creepy. If I were David, knowing that Lily was lurking around my apartment would be much more disturbing than anything else that could be hanging around.

I felt that the big mystery which was revealed towards the conclusion of the book was kind of obvious, however, I don't really have a problem with that. In many ways, anticipating the horror David would feel upon discovering the truth actually increased the suspense I felt while reading.

Although The Killer's Cousin deals with some extremely weighty topics and is a very sad book overall, it ends on a hopeful, redemptive note. The ending was satisfying, giving the characters a fresh start, and left me feeling positive. ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7/10)

Content:

Blood and Gore: No graphic descriptions are given, but the book explores the deaths of two young women.

Sex: Again, no descriptions are given, but sex is mentioned multiple times in relation to several characters.

Language: The language is mild throughout the entire book, and then all of a sudden the F-word, used in a sexual context, is thrown in.

All Other Nights by Dara Horn

Summary and review:

Jacob Rappaport is the son of a wealthy Jewish merchant in New York. In 1861, at the age of 19, he joins the Union army in order to escape the marriage his parents have planned for him--to the mentally disabled daughter of his father's colleague. He quickly settles into life as a soldier, pleased with his anonymity; however, one night he is called into the tent of a visiting general. Expecting a promotion, Jacob is puzzled when the general begins quizzing him on his background. Soon Jacob finds himself on an undercover mission. A Confederate spy in New Orleans is planning to assassinate President Lincoln, and Jacob's mission is to poison the man before he can harm the Union leader. The mission will be carried out on Passover, and the target is Jacob's own uncle. And the army has other plans for their Jewish secret service agent. Upon his return to Washington, Jacob is given another assignment. The daughter of Phillip Levy, one of Jacob's father's associates, is a suspected Confederate spy. The object of Jacob's mission is to marry the girl.

I was so incredibly disappointed with this book. So disappointed. I was thrilled when I first read the synopsis on the book jacket. Jewish espionage during the Civil War? How did I not know about this before? The premise had so much potential. But the book really did not go anywhere. First of all, there was so much needless repetition, of both small details and larger thematic elements. And these repetitions are not subtle, they are often word for word--twice we read about Jacob "mourning" the disappearance of an attractive girl's body part after she had covered up some skin that was provocatively visible, and "errant curls" must have escaped from their owners' carelessly coiffed hair at least a half-dozen times. And there were so many unlikely coincidences that occurred. Jacob meeting Abigail, who looked just like Jeannie and was in love with a soldier who looked just like Jacob, for example. And don't you think someone would have flagged Jacob's name after his first attempt at espionage in the South? It was just too improbable. I didn't buy it and it bothered me to read it.

I was also irritated by the constant corny sexual innuendos. This book always seemed like it was on the verge of becoming a corset buster. While it never crossed that line, there were so many cheesy lines that I actually found myself groaning out loud a few times. I'm sorry, but getting turned on over someone threading a needle? That's just a little too much imagination, in my opinion.

Probably the most disappointing aspect of this book, however, was Jacob. I can't think of the last time I read a book with such a weak, sapless main character. Other than running away to join the Union army, Jacob did not once act of his own volition. Every step he took was forced upon him by another person. And even signing up for the army was something Jacob did only as a last resort, after he was forced into it by the prospect of an arranged marriage. Jacob is constantly having misgivings about what he is doing, but he does it anyway, every single time. Pretty major spoiler coming up right here, but if Jacob was so in love with Jeannie, why didn't he do anything about it? Why did it take two years and the combined efforts of his father and hers to get him finally track him down? I honestly just wanted to shake him, "wake up man and do something!" To be fair, I think that what the author was going for was a discussion on choosing between competing impulses: love and honor, self and society, justice and emotion. However, the debate never fully played out, because the only choice Jacob consciously made was to not act. The rest of the time he was just swept along in the machinations of characters who actually had backbone.

At the conclusion of the novel, Dara Horn includes a fairly lengthy author's note, in which she discusses her motivation for writing All Other Nights as well as the historical sources for her novel's characters and plots. The information contained here is really interesting--she lists off a number of Civil War spies and also gives some background on Judah P. Benjamin, a major player in both Horn's novel and in the actual Civil War. Reading this, I came to a realization about the plot of All Other Nights, which at first seemed like nothing more than a messy, soupy mix of random detail and far-fetched characterization: there are simply too many incredible stories to tell. The historical details Dara Horn mentions in her author's note are fascinating, even though they're only the barest outlines of the stories. In trying to pull them all together, the spy who could dislocate her jaw at will, the slave in General Longstreet's camp who relayed messages through laundry, and the riding crop used to transport messages, Dara Horn tries to do too much. It feels like she was so enamored by the many stories she came across in her research, that she forced them into the novel, and they therefore sit awkwardly with the reader. With this reader, at least. ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (3/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: although little of the action takes place on the battle field, it is a Civil War book and so, as is to be expected, you'll read about quite a few amputations, bloody head wounds, and so forth.

Sex: More cheesy than explicit, however the reader is still privy to way too many of Jacob's fantasies, in my opinion.

Language: "Minor" curse words and blasphemy.

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

Summary and review:

Midwives is told from the perspective of Connie Danforth, a thirty-year-old woman. When Connie was fourteen, her mother, Sybil Danforth, was a midwife in rural Vermont. That March, Sybil was called to assist at the bedside of a laboring woman. During the labor, it appeared that the mother had died of a stroke and so, in order to save the baby, Sybil performed an emergency c-section on the woman with a kitchen knife. Sybil saved the infant, but the next day faced questioning from state police and was later arrested in the death of the mother. The book follows the Danforth family through the summer and into the fall of Sybil's trial.

My husband saw me reading this book and said, "Huh. Midwives. Sounds boring," and I have to say, this is not a book that your average male is going to feel comfortable reading. There is far too much talk of female anatomy for that. I am actually rather surprised that the author is a man. Maybe that's sexist of me but, it really is a compliment. I thought the predominately female characters were very believable, and I'd imagine it could be difficult for a man to write like that. And anyway, as the novel makes clear, the birthing room has historically been the woman's domain.

My reaction toward this book was kind of unusual. While I found myself being more and more drawn in to the life of Sybil Danforth and the outcome of the trial--I even had to stop a couple of times to remind myself that it was fiction--there were places when I was kind of bored. I had a hard time with the courtroom scenes in particular. Not to sound too cliche, but the posturing of the attorneys really irritated me, and all stereotypes about lawyers aside, I don't think Bohjalian meant for it to be that way. I really can't figure out how the book managed to be both compelling and tedious at the same time. There were a couple of spots during the courtroom chapters where I was tempted to skim ahead to read the verdict, much like I would have done if reading about an actual trial in a newspaper. I am glad I didn't; the end (like seriously, the very end) of the book was so, so good. I actually gasped when I read the last page, and it's been replaying in my head over and over again ever since.

I do have to take issue with the people who keep comparing this book to To Kill a Mockingbird. (Interestingly enough, on his website, Chris Bohjalian lists Atticus Finch as his favorite fictional hero). Okay, Midwives does feature a courtroom drama, and the narrator is a young girl (I'm going to sound prudish here but whatever, she was WAY too mature for my taste. Or not mature, depending on how you classify premarital sex, underage drinking, and drug abuse), but that does not make it To Kill a Mockingbird. This book is good, but not that good.

One thing that I really liked about the novel was that I finished reading and still didn't know know how the author, Chris Bohjalian, felt about the home births vs. hospital births (in this interview, Bohjalian says that although his daughter was born in a hospital, he and his wife would not hesitate to have a child at home). I had a baby less than a year ago, so I've heard a lot from both sides about the debate, and one thing that is not lacking in the argument is fiery opinions from both sides. Before I began to read, I expected to encounter a lot of propaganda from one side or the other, but fortunately the book was free of that. ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: Two words: emergency cesarean. There is some major home birth carnage going on here. Those of you with weak stomachs might want to steer clear of some of this.

Sex: besides the obvious (if there weren't any, Sybil Danforth would have been out of a job), there is some teenage experimentation and various parts of the female anatomy are discussed, but there isn't anything gratuitous.

Language: Mild

The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

Summary and review:

For years, Milo Weaver was "a tourist"--a black ops agent for the CIA. His handler, the only man he trusted, was God, and, like the most fervent believer, Milo carried out orders without hesitation or question, no matter what was required. He had no name, no home, no family, and no past. Eventually, however, the life of tourism begins to take its toll. By 2001 Milo is hooked on amphetamines and weary of the endless cycle of new orders, foreign cities, and dead bodies, and he attempts suicide during a mission. The attempt fails, and immediately Milo is given another assignment, which he accepts with a weariness and resignation born of exhaustion mingled with long years of unquestioning obedience. This next mission, however, gives Milo the resolve to do what he has long been unable to do--retire. In Venice, with a near-fatal gunshot wound leaking blood from his chest, gripping the hand of a laboring pregnant woman, with the broken form of a young girl on the cobblestones beside him and the body of a former-colleague-turned-traitor a few yards away, Milo makes the decision to leave the world of tourism.

2007 finds Milo living in Brooklyn, with a name and a permanent address. He is no longer a field agent, having traded in his former life for a desk job, a wife, and a daughter. He is happy in his new life, but is brought back into the field when one of his closest friends is implicated in a plot against the United States. By accepting the new assignment, Milo descends back into the world of black-ops CIA. This time, however, Milo is a different type of tourist; no longer willing to work on blind obedience, Milo uncovers previously unseen elements of lies, manipulation and betrayal in his old cases and soon finds himself on the run.

I really enjoyed this novel. It reminded me a little bit of The Bourne Identity (the movie; I've yet to read the books)--extremely suspenseful with tons of twists. There were multiple times when I thought that Milo (and I) had figured out who the "bad guy" was, only to find out that there was someone else holding the strings. And The Tourist wasn't just some shoot-em-up James Bond-type story where the protagonist sleeps with the girl and shoots a bunch of people and asks questions later. Milo Weaver was a government-hired assassin with a conscience. It was really interesting to imagine the psychological ramifications that a "career" like this could have on a person, and I'm glad Steinhauer included passages where Milo struggled with what he left behind him in the wake of an assignment.

My biggest complaint about the book was the way Steinhauer used September 11 to bookend Milo's story. Milo's Venice assignment, the one that resulted in his retirement from Tourism, happened on September 11, 2001, and the book ended six years later on September 11, 2007. I couldn't figure out why Steinhauer decided to use this date, and it really bugged me. There were a few asides about the way the CIA changed after 9/11, and Milo complained a few times about post-9/11 airport security, but having the action take place on September 11 didn't further the plot in any way that I could see. I kind of think Steinhauer, who, as an American living in Hungary publishing novels with an American publisher, has probably enduring more than his share of post-9/11 flights, was annoyed with the airport security himself and thought it would be clever to title the Venice section "The End of Tourism."

Regardless, that's a pretty minor complaint. The book ends with a gigantic cliffhanger, so I suspect that we'll be seeing more of Milo Weaver, and I'm looking forward to it. ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: There are a lot of people getting shot, poisoned, thrown off balconies, and stabbed with HIV-infected shards of metal in this book. Be warned.

Sex: There are no sexual encounters described in this book. There are, however, two references to sexual abuse of children. While absolutely no details or descriptions are given, it is still a pretty disturbing.

Language: Bad. In addition to the usual suspects, the f-word is also used quite a few times.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Summary and review:

Okay, here's the gist of Shiver: Ordinary teenage Girl meets, is in fact saved by, "Monster." Monster is not really a monster. Changed against his will from a human being, he longs to be human again and fights against the darker urgings that come with his new form. He joins with a group of fellow monsters, cobbling together a type of family, with a wise patriarch at its head who sets rules for the group and helps new monsters cling to their humanity. Monster and Girl fall desperately in love, and Girl wishes that she could be a monster, too. When that can't/won't happen, Girl then spends the rest of the trying to seduce Monster, who resists her advances despite his own desire.

Sound familiar? I know! The bare bones of Shiver are very similar to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (yeah, like I had to give the author's name so that you'd know what I was talking about when I said Twilight). In fact, Sam, the main male character (who is a werewolf, not a vampire), even has yellow eyes. Actually, when I first read that about Sam I was like, "Crap. Stiefvater isn't going to pull a Stephenie Meyer and mention that repeatedly on every other page is she? Because seriously, I just won't be able to handle it." Fortunately however, although the yellow eyes were maybe mentioned a few more times than was strictly necessary, it never got too out of hand.

Anyway, yes, the basic plot of Shiver could be confused with Twilight, but, yellow eyes aside (okay, I guess, technically Edward's are amber. Whatever.), they are very much different books. I enjoyed reading Twilight; Stephenie Meyer is a great storyteller but let's be honest, she isn't going to be bringing home the National Book Award anytime soon. I don't necessarily think that Maggie Stiefvater is either, but her writing is, in my opinion, at least a little bit better.

The book is written with alternating points of view, switching off between Grace and Sam. I did find this distracting at times; instead of becoming lost in the story, I sometimes had to stop and remember who was narrating the chapter I was reading. However, the format made Sam a much more sympathetic character. I loved that I could see what was going on his mind, not just in Grace's. I could see why Grace fell in love with him, and I understood what was at stake because I actually knew and liked Sam. He was much more than just amber yellow eyes and the body of a young Greek god. (Okay, okay that was a low blow.) But the dual points of view didn't take away from the character development of Grace. Instead, it was made clear that she was her own person apart from Sam, and it made the longing between the two more stark by highlighting the lonely worlds in which they've grown up.

Stiefvater also put in bits of poetry, lines supposedly written by Sam, and excerpts from actual poets, particularly Maria Rilke, throughout the text. Parts of text were actually written in a kind of free verse form. Normally this would bug me, in Shiver, however, it did not. I thought Sam's poetry was sweet and romantic but not overly cheesy, and the lines from other poets were appropriate and furthered the plot rather than taking away from it.

The setting is beautiful, as well. You can feel the cold of the Minnesota winter sinking into you. It's in every way a perfect book to read while curled up on the sofa with a cup of hot cocoa. ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7/10)

Content:

Blood and Gore: There are several wolf attacks in the book and a lot of blood everywhere all the time, it seems.

Sex: There is a lot of sexual tension going on between Sam and Grace, pretty much the whole time. No graphic descriptions, but Stiefvater makes it pretty obvious from the outset that something is going to happen. And it does. Oh, but don't worry, she makes sure to tell us that they used protection. Whew.

Language: There is quite a bit of blasphemy and some "minor" curse words. No f-word.

Lamentation by Ken Scholes

Summary and Review:

Lamentation begins with a holocaust. Windwir was a city of scholar-priests built around the knowledge, amassed for millinnia, of an ancient world. On the day the book begins, it is destroyed, along with the priests of the Androfrancine order who guarded Windwir and its secrets. All that is left of the city is a pile of ash and bones, and a column of dark smoke rising into the sky, a beacon to the surrounding people telling of the horror that has occurred.

The destruction of the city brings together a group of strangers: Neb, an apprentice to the Androfrancine order who witnesses the destruction of Windwir from outside the city walls and, in an instant, loses everything and everyone he has ever known. Sethbert, Overseer of the Entrolusian City States, rules the land bordering Windwir and claims responsibility for its destruction. The Lady Jin Li Tam is his beautiful and cunning consort and a longtime spy for her father in Sethbert's household. Rudolfo, Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses, seems to lead a foppish, indulgent life, but in reality is a canny military leader with the complete devotion of the men he leads. Petronus is a humble, aging fisherman whose past life weighs heavy upon him, and Vlad Li Tam, father of Lady Jin Li Tam, is a powerful ruler playing a cunning game of statescraft. His machinations into the lives and destinies of others extend deeper than anyone knows.

In the wake of Windwir's destruction, these players will contend for power in a world without the leadership once vested in the Androfrancine brethren. The followers of the light must restore order to the world and salvage the light of knowledge which was once held in Windwir.

There were a few things in the book that bothered me. For instance, one of my least favorite elements of fantasy fiction is the tendency for authors to come up with hard-to-remember and impossible-to-pronounce names for the places and people populating their fantasy worlds. Ken Scholes was no exception to the rule. The names in the first dozen pages of the book nearly convinced me to give it up and move on to something else: P'Andro Whym, Xhum Y'Zir, The Wizard King Aelys, Franci B'Yot, and, my least favorite, Glimmerglam. Why do fantasy novels always have to feature places with names like Glimmerglam? To be fair, Glimmerglam is not impossible to pronounce, but still. Blech. Scholes also had an irritating habit of capitalizing things that didn't need to be capitalized and having his characters mentioning events and people without giving any background to them whatsoever. So annoying. Also, while I was very grateful that there were no explicit descriptions of sexual encounters, some of the references to them were almost worse than hearing the real thing. In describing a couple's first night together, Scholes writes that the male character "had laid his seige, bribed her sentries, eventually, taken the city." Later, when that male character turns out to be infertile or something, Scholes writes, his "soldiers might be swordless, but they needed no marching instructions." Have you ever read anything more cringe-worthy? Oh, that's just bad.

However, I did like Lamentation, much more than I initially expected to. It kept me guessing. The layers of political intrigue were complicated and intense, difficult to follow at times, but always interesting. I enjoyed unwinding the plot and discovering more of the intrigues and manipulations along with the characters. Although most of the characters were relatively standard for a fantasy novel, the elements in the book were surprising--robots, magic, dream prophecy, science, and religion. It's fitting that the weapon which destroyed Windwir was like the 10 plagues of Egypt meet the A-bomb. I thought that the character development was good. You saw the characters learn, develop, face difficult decisions, and challenge many of their fundamental beliefs. This was the case for most of the main characters, Petronus, Rudolfo, Jin Li Tam, and Neb, in particular.

There were also a number of details in the book that were clever. I liked the characters' use of sign language and the complex codes they used in their messages. I really liked many of the secondary characters as well, such as Gregoric, Grymlis, and Oriv (you'll have to read the book to find out who they are). And I liked the way the romance stood at the conclusion of the novel. Without giving too much away, it was dissatisfying in a strangely satisfying way, and seemed true-to-life. ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

Content:

Blood and Gore: It's a war novel brought about by the destruction of an entire city, so, yeah, there's some violence. A lot of people get their throats slit, it seems, and there is also mention of a rather unsavory group of institutionalized experts of torture.

Sex: Mention of prostitution and way too many cheesy references to sexual encounters. No explicit or graphic descriptions, however.

Offensive Language: There are a few "minor" curse words, but not many. The book also uses a number of pejorative terms for women.

Sanditon by Jane Austen and "Another Lady" (Marie Dobbs)

Summary and Review:

I love Jane Austen and have read each of her novels multiple times, so you can imagine my excitement when I heard about Sanditon, Austen's last-attempted, unfinished novel, which was begun less than six months before she died. Austen only finished 11 chapters of Sanditon, which she originally titled, "The Brothers," before she passed away. She bequeathed the manuscript to her niece, and work on it has been completed by several different authors. The version I read was originally credited only to Jane Austen and "Another Lady," but subsequent editions revealed the author's name to be Marie Dobbs. The author bio on the back of the book claims that "Another Lady" is a "pseudonym for a novelist who lives in England;" however, I was unable to find any other works written by Dobbs. She is however, obviously an Austen aficionado, with a clear understanding of Austen's writing style. I believe she finished the novel beautifully.

Sanditon begins when Mr. and Mrs. Parker, a young married couple traveling home from London, overturn their coach. The Parker's are thus compelled to accept the hospitality of the Heywood family for two weeks while their coach is repaired and Mr. Parker's ankle, which was sprained in the accident, heals.

Mr. Heywood is a gentleman farmer with fourteen children. He and Mrs. Heywood live comfortably but frugally, and rarely travel outside the bounds of their parish, Willingden. Despite Mr. Parker's best efforts, they cannot be convinced to accompany the Parkers back to Sanditon, an emerging resort town in which Mr. Parker has invested, and which has become his new obsession. With her characteristic humor, Austen informs the reader that "Sanditon was a second wife and four children to [Mr. Parker], hardly less dear, and certainly more engrossing." The easygoing Heywoods, however, agree to allow their eldest daughter, Charlotte, to accompany the Parker's to Sanditon for the rest of the summer, which is where the real Austen-action begins. In Sanditon, Charlotte is introduced to the polite society of the seaside resort and, away from her family for the first time, she meets new sides to her own personality which she never before knew. Charlotte prides herself on being level-headed and and sensible; however when she is introduced to Sidney Parker, Mr. Parker's charming and good-naturedly manipulative younger brother, she meets her match. Despite her best efforts, it seems that Charlotte will find romance on her summer holiday.

The characters in Sanditon will be familiar: although the population of Sanditon is small (much to Mr. Parker's chagrin), all of our favorite Austen archetypes are on the scene. Charlotte is reminiscent of Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice. She is charming, sensible, witty, and high-principled. She is also attractive, although certainly not the most beautiful girl to grace Sanditon's social scene. Like Elizabeth, she tends to sit back and survey those around her with an amused, and at times self-satisfied, air. The hero, Sidney, reminds me of Henry Tilney from Northanger Abbey, educated, sarcastic, charming and flirtatious, albeit extremely confusing at times for the heroine. Clara Brereton seems an easy match for Jane Fairfax, the beautiful, mysterious, sometimes-foil of the heroine. And of course all of our other Austen favorites are there as well--Lord Edward is Mr. Collins meets Henry Crawford, and his sister, Miss Denham, channels Caroline Bingley. We have the kind but bumbling Mr. and Mrs. Parker, the frivolous Miss Beauforts, the hypochondriac Miss Parkers, and the haughty Lady Denham. Of course none of the characters is a carbon copy of anyone from Austen's other works. Each is delightfully unique, with his or her own quirks, yet they all fit seamlessly into the world that Austen's readers know and love. The biggest departure character-wise, in my mind, is Miss Lambe. She is a sickly heiress from the West Indies who is mulatto, to my knowledge the only character of color in any of Austen's works. Although I don't know how Austen originally intended this character to be used, the storyline created for her by Dobbs is probably my very favorite in the entire book.

I loved Sanditon. I could not have identified the spot where Austen's manuscript ended and Dobbs picked up the narrative without the "Apology from the Collaborator," which Dobbs included at the end of the book. In the apology, Dobbs humbly excuses herself, explaining that she is no Austen. However she comes much closer than I expected. I haven't read any other continuations of this novel, but I can't think they'd get much better than this. Although the plot twists at the end of the novel were a little less subtle than what one would expect from Austen, the book still sparkles with her humor, sarcasm, delightfully biting wit, and flair for the perfect romance. I think that any Austen fan would love Sanditon. ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (8/10)

Content:

Blood and Gore: N/A
Sex: N/A, although one of the female characters is abducted by a male character with dubious motives
Offensive Language: N/A

The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall

Summary and review:

Vish Puri is the force behind India's "Most Private Investigators, Ltd.," an award-winning outfit that has solved the most baffling cases, from homicides to political intrigues to matrimonial stake-outs. Vish Puri is stout, has a carefully groomed and curled mustache, and is never to be seen without one of his tweed Sandown caps (his collection is imported from Jermyn Street in Picadilly), which pair beautifully with his new, always carefully pressed, gray safari suit. He is also clever, has stellar connections, loves disguises, and never fails to solve a case by using old-fashioned detective skills, persistence, and the art of deduction. But don't compare him to Sherlock Holmes, who, in Vish's opinion, merely copied the methods first set down thousands of years ago by Vish's guru, Chanakya, the Indian philosopher who established the art of investigation.

The Case of the Missing Servant is the first installment of what is to be a detective series by Tarquin Hall, a British journalist who has spent his career in south Asia. The case involves an honest public litigator is who is accused of murdering Mary, one of his family's servants who has mysteriously disappeared from his home. As nothing, not even Mary's last name, is known about the girl, this case stretches even Vish Puri's detective skills. At the same time, he is dealing with his overprotective "Mummy," an attempt on his life, his wife's insistence that he forgo delicious but artery-clogging Punjabi food, and a matrimonial case that is not as simple as it first appears.

Vish Puri is a great main character. More than a little sure of himself, he nevertheless seems to deserve the credit he gives himself, which makes him a sympathetic character, and his ego adds spice and humor to the novel. I loved the the nicknames given to characters in the book, Chubby, Tubelight, Facecream, and Flush. Although the plot was interesting and had a number of twists and turns, the book wasn't particularly suspenseful. I never feared for Vish or any of his compatriots, and I didn't know his client, Ajay Kasliwal, well enough to be overly concerned for what happened to him.

I've never been to India and don't know much about it, but this book makes me feel as if I've experienced it in all of its incarnations--fascinating, disturbing, colorful, raw, modern and traditional. There is an extensive glossary at the back of the book which includes words in Hinid, Punjabi, Sanskrit, and Nepali. The glossary was very interesting, and the use of the non-English words and terms definitely added to the atmosphere of the book; however it was distracting at times to have to flip to the back of the book to find a word's definition. ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

Content:

Blood and Gore: There are descriptions, though not graphic, of the murder victim's body

Sex: The missing servant may have been raped, and there are several sexual innuendos throughout the book, as well as mention of adultery.

Offensive Language: There is some blasphemy and "minor" swearing in English. In addition, the Punjabi equivalent of the f-word is used and then translated in the glossary.

Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas

Summary and review:

Hennie Comfort is an eighty-six-year-old woman who has lived in Middle Swan, Colorado, a mining town situated high in the Rocky Mountains, since leaving Tennessee over 70 years ago. Hennie is, in many ways, the glue that holds the rough mining town together. Befriending everyone from the wife of the president of the mining company to the various "sorry girls" who entertain the men of Middle Swan. This story is about Hennie's friendship with Nit Spindle, a seventeen-year-old newlywed girl who has recently arrived in Middle Swan with her husband. Lonely in her new town and grieving over the loss of her baby, Nit is drawn to the sign hanging over Hennie's home, "Prayers for Sale." When she approaches Hennie to ask for a prayer, a deep friendship is born between the two women. Despite their differences in years, Nit and Hennie are drawn to each other by their love of quilting, their need for friendship, and the tragedies that they have each experienced. Throughout the book, Hennie unfolds the stories of Middle Swan to Nit, by doing so, she is able to confront the darkness of her past and embrace the future.

Sometimes I felt like I was looking at an early draft of the book. The stories that Hennie told seemed unfinished, since they were told without dialog and through the point of view of the third-person narrator. One of the themes in the book is Hennie's story-telling ability, but I never heard her voice in the stories. There were also a number of repetitions: we are reminded constantly that Hennie does not want to leave Middle Swan to live in Iowa with her daughter and that she has some unfinished business to take care of before she leaves. It is clear that Sandra Dallas knows quite a bit about both quilting and life in mining towns, but at times it seems like a little too much. There were places in the narrative that seemed to be trying to educate the reader, rather than telling a story and letting little facts about life in a mining town be gleaned along the way. For instance, on page 74, Hennie is perusing the shelves in the town's general store:

"Another shelf held the tin bins of spices and sultanas. The lettering identified them as sultanas yet, but most everybody called them raisins now, and they no longer had to be stoned."

I read these sentences and thought, "Hmm. I guess raisins used to be called sultanas. Now I know." Instead of fleshing out the atmosphere of the old store, the passage totally pulled me out of the story.

Hennie was maybe just a little bit too perfect, she didn't seem to have a single weakness. Giving Hennie a few more flaws would have made it easier to relate to her, but I didn't mind all that much. Instead, I just really wished that I were her neighbor. Although some of Hennie's stories were sad and dwelt on the darker side of human nature, this was a happy, comfortable book. It reminded me of being young and sitting in a spot of sunshine in the kitchen while watching my mom make cookies on a Saturday afternoon. This book won't change the course of literature, but it doesn't need to. ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: The book talks about awful mining accidents and mentions several other deaths, mostly from natural causes. However there are a few murders, including murders of children.

Sex: Despite the presence of the town's "sorry women," there is very little in the way of sex.

Offensive Language: blasphemy and a few "minor" curse words