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

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneger

Summary and Review:

Okay here, in a nutshell is the plot of Her Fearful Symmetry: A woman dies, leaving her inexplicably large estate, including a large furnished apartment in London, to her twin nieces. The only catch: the girls must live in the apartment for a year before inheriting it, and their mother, who is the dead aunt's long-estranged twin sister, and their father are not allowed to step foot in the place. Oh, and the dead aunt has also become a ghost who is trapped in her former residence and is becoming increasingly obnoxious. And her creepy cemetery-obsessed younger lover is going to stalk the girls when they show up and then seduce one of them, either because he has some pedophilic tendencies (there are constant references to the 21-year-old twins looking like they are 12 or 16) or because the niece looks just like her dead aunt, his former lover with whom he is still obsessed.

(Having read this book and The Time Traveler's Wife, I think that Audrey Niffenegger may have a thing for old men romancing younger women (Henry and Claire, Robert and Valentina, and Julia and Martin. Which is creepy. And no, I don't feel like I'm giving away any plot spoilers because, come on, it was SO obvious what was going to happen.)

Okay, now for my thoughts on Her Fearful Symmetry (I think you can tell where this is going, can't you?). No, it really wasn't that bad. Well, okay the plot actually was that bad. But Audrey Niffenegger writes well. Has it ever happened to you that you're reading, just cruising along, lost in the plot, when suddenly you come to a clunky, poorly-written phrase or a tired cliche, and the narrative just comes to a halt, like you've hit a huge pothole while driving along on the freeway? That never happens in this book. Audrey Niffenegger is a great writer; the writing itself is enjoyable to read. I also enjoyed the little tidbits about the "residents" of Highgate Cemetery. However, the plot is kind of a mess.

It started out promisingly. The mysterious feud between the aunt and the twins' mother, the prospect of the girls alone in London, and in a haunted apartment next to a graveyard, no less, obviously lent a lot of suspense and anticipation. However, it the intensity never really picked up. There was never a moment when I felt concerned about the fate of the characters. I mean, I knew that bad stuff was about to happen, but...I just didn't really care all that much.

It's hard to overly sympathize with characters that seem to have absolutely no point in life--the twins were obnoxious. They didn't have jobs, didn't have any real interests or connections...I don't know. I think that if I were Elspeth watching these two girls loll around my apartment watching reruns on TV without any occupation or purpose would have really gotten on my nerves.

Furthermore, I wasn't sure who the protagonist was supposed to be. Was I supposed to be rooting for Julia, the 6-minute-older, pushy, bossy, manipulative twin? Or were my loyalties supposed to be with Valentina, the meek, shy, sickly sister. Valentina supposedly had talent, interests, and a way of attracting people to her (although how she managed to do that was never fully explained) but she let herself be dragged around by Julia until she just kind of exploded in fury. She went from "I'd like to order my own sandwich, thank you very much" to "death is better than living with you" in like three pages. Why didn't she ever speak up for herself before? If the girls knew each other so well, how is it likely that in 21 years Julia never clued in on the way Valentina was feeling. And let's just talk about the name Valentina for a minute. It was so incompatible with the rest of the book, I felt. Every time I read it I was like, "Valentina? Really? You name one twin Julia and the other one gets Valentina?" Looking back, I wonder if it was actually more appropriate, in a symbolic way, than I originally thought. I would be surprised if it weren't an homage to Valentine from Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. The name seemed to fit a character who very much acted the gothic/romantic heroine, pushed and pulled about and helpless in the face of tragedy. Except that she wasn't really helpless. She could have just told Julia to back off and everything would have been fine.

And the book never really explained why the girls were this way. They were so bizarre--dressing the same, never leaving the house without the other, finishing each other's sentences, even sleeping in the same bed and spooning all night long (there were some way creepy undertones), and the only explanation the book seemed to give for this behavior was that they were twins. This idea was reinforced by the fact that their mother and aunt had apparently behaved similarly at one time. I'm sorry, but I've known a lot of twins, and none of them have ever acted like this. There was some weird and unhealthy stuff going on, and sharing the same womb for nine months was not enough to explain it. In fact I kept waiting for a reason, something a la "House of Usher" preferably, but it never happened.

The same with the reason for Edie and Elspeth's estrangement. After a few pages, I kind of forgot/didn't care about the reason they separated, which greatly contributed to the lack of suspense in the book, and when the reason was finally revealed it was just...unbelievable. And I mean unbelievable not in an "Oh my gosh I can't believe that happened!" sense, but in a "yeah right, there is no way that would have happened" sense.

Finally, I just thought that the ending was really unsatisfying. I think Audrey Niffenegger was going for some kind of poetic justice, but it didn't feel right. Furthermore, it felt like the plot dragged for about 80% of the book and then all of a sudden was on fast-forward for the last 10 pages.

Again, I don't think that this was the worst book I've ever read. Far from it. Audrey Niffenegger writes well and the plot had potential. It just wasn't pulled off well, especially after the incredibly tightly-woven plot in The Time Traveler's Wife; in all it was just a bit of a letdown. ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆ (4/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: N/A, although the plot does kind of revolve around death

Sex: No explicit sex scenes, although there are numerous references to sex.

Offensive Language: Three uses of the F-word, which come of out nowhere. Much, much cleaner than The Time Traveler's Wife, thank goodness, but still more than necessary.

Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Dana M. Pike, and David Rolph Seely

To say this is comprehensive reference guide to the Old Testament is putting it mildly. This is an almost overwhelmingly comprehensive reference guide to the Old Testamant! From Adam to Malachi, the authors dissect the culture, history, laws, geography, climate, economies and religions from the world of the Old Testament.

The graphics, which include images of ancient artifacts, photos, maps, and original artwork, are beautiful. And while packed with text boxes, notes, graphics and captions, the layout of the book is easy to follow.

The book is broken down into several sections based (mostly) on chronology : Adam and Eve to Abraham, the patriarchs and matriarchs, Israel in the wilderness, Joshua, the Judges, Saul through Solomon, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the Exile, and the Jewish return. Each era is examined in light of what is known about the period from a scholarly point of view. In the section titled "The World of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs" for example, an overview of Genesis 12-50 is given and then the stories are summarized. Images of ancient artifacts from the period, maps of trade routes, photos of the region today and photos of archeological excavations and artifacts which are relevant to the Biblical text are shown. There are also text boxes which elaborate on "details" from the Biblical narrative, covering topics such as slavery, wedding customs and household gods, and give "portraits" of the people mentioned in the narrative, such as Melchizedek. Finally, there are chapters within the section that discuss important elements of the story--the Abrahamic Covenant and the Egyptians.

I was impressed with the way the authors balance academic research and LDS beliefs. The authors aren't afraid to bring up inconsistencies in the Biblical narrative or point out places where it doesn't correspond with scholarly research, and they are always careful to explain the LDS viewpoint when it differs with other beliefs about the ancient world. The authors also reference the Book of Mormon as a document with which to examine the historicity of the Old Testament. So while the book identifies parts of the Old Testament about which LDS and scholarly opinions differ, it never becomes an apologetic, and the authors are never on the defensive.

As you can probably tell from my description so far, the text is scholarly and is meant as a reference and study companion to the Old Testament. It is not as a light Sunday read. I actually think the authors could have been a little more layman-friendly; for example, while discussing the Egyptians the text reads, "During this period, Akhenaten moved his capital to Amarna and attempted to revolutionize Egypt's religion to his unique form of monotheism (more properly, henotheism)." Growing up, I had a little obsession with Egyptology, so I'm familiar with the basic history of Akhenaten; however, I'd never heard of "henotheism" before, and I'm still confused about it, even after reading its entry in Wikipedia. I understand that with a project this extensive, it's impossible to fully explain everything, but the text could definitely benefit from footnotes, a glossary, or just a simple boil-it-down-to-one-sentence explanation for some of these terms. I think the typical Deseret Book patron, who probably doesn't have PhD in theology, would appreciate it.

While we're being nit-picky, there are places where the book is repetitive. For example, the story of Esther is summarized in nearly the exact same way three times within the space of four pages.

However, despite those two teeny tiny criticisms, this book is amazing. The amount of material covered is just mind-blowing. No wonder three authors were required! I learned so much from reading this volume. There were many times as I was reading when I thought, "okay, wow! So that's why [fill in the blank with some confusing verse or obscure OT practice]!" It really makes the Old Testament accessible, because the strange things that happen in it make sense when you understand the laws and culture of the time a little bit (or a lot bit) better. And it helps when you're reading a long string of unpronounceable names to know a little bit about the people you're reading about.

I loved this book and have a renewed desire to read and study the Old Testament. I'm also looking forward to reading the authors' first guide, Jesus Christ and the World of the New Testament, which was published a few years ago. ★★★★★★★★★☆ (9/10)

Women of the Old Testament by Camille Fronk Olson

This book explores the stories of 21 women mentioned in the Old Testament. The selection is surprising. It includes Eve and the well-known wives of the patriarchs as well as relatively obscure women, such as Huldah and the Shunammite, whose stories will be unfamiliar to many.

Instead of a generic, "these women were righteous, you can be, too," approach that many such books take, this book goes into great detail about the lives of these women, pulling from historical, scriptural, and modern-day accounts to flesh out the life of each woman.

Each chapter begins with a painting of the woman by Elspeth Young, the name of the woman written in Hebrew characters, the Hebrew meaning of the name, and a list of scriptures which detail the woman's story. Olson also includes the background for each woman's story, establishing the cultural and political setting for the account. To introduce the Little Maid's story, Olson first describes the complex relations between Israel and Syria, and before detailing the story of the Widow of Zarapheth, the reader is given a summary of the political conditions during the Omride Dynasty in which the widow lived. A wealth of historical and archeological information is included for each woman. For example, in the story of Sarai and Hagar, Olson references texts written by the Hurrians, a people from Mesopotamia who were contemporaries with the patriarchs. Olson uses their surviving documents--marriage certificates, wills, and adoption agreements--to explain the events of the Genesis narration in the context of the laws and culture of the time. Other ancient texts referenced include the Code of Hammurabi, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, ancient Jewish rabbinical writings, and the Greek and Hebrew translations of the Old Testament (the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text, respectively). Illustrations, maps, graphs, time lines, pedigree charts, and modern-day photos of the locations mentioned further ground the women's stories in historical reality.

In addition to the historical side of the accounts, Olson takes pains to discuss the spiritual significance of each woman's tale. Each chapter includes commentary from latter-day apostles and prophets. Olson also explains the symbolism in each account and draws connections between our modern-day lives and the lives of these ancient women. Finally, at the end of each chapter, Olson lists several, "points to ponder," which encourage additional application of the Old Testament events to our lives.

The book also contains an extensive appendix, with an Old Testament Time Line and a complete listing of every woman mentioned in the Old Testament, including those who are not identified by name. The scripture references are listed for each woman, and, for those women whose names are given, the meanings of the names are listed. The appendix also includes an introduction to Elspeth, Ashton, and Al Young, the artists whose work appears throughout the book. For each of the paintings by Elspeth Young, the book's primary artist, the story behind the painting, the relevant scripture references, and a list of symbolic elements in the painting is given.

Finally, the book lists Olson's sources and includes both a scripture and a subject index.

In terms of improvements, I would have liked to see more sources cited in the text itself. Although I appreciated the sketches of archeological excavations, artifacts, etc. made by Ashton Young, the artist's sources for those inclusions needed to be given; were the sketches based on actual artifacts (and if so, which ones?) or, like his sister's paintings, were they simply the artist's interpretations? I was also confused at times whether the "facts" presented by Olson were accepted as such by scholars and historians at large or by only the LDS population. And although I thought many of Olson's attempts to connect Old Testament events to the reader's modern-day life, a few of these associations seemed either too sentimental or too much of a stretch, or both; I came across the phrase "one wonders," and the word "perhaps" a little too often. It seemed at times that Olson's narrative became almost an apologetic; she became so defensive when describing the women's accomplishments that at times that the very points she was trying to establish seemed dubious, a sort of, "the lady doth protest too much," type thing.

With that being said however, I loved this book. It was fascinating from both a historical and a spiritual perspective. The cultural, legal, historical, and political background given for each story shed light on the Old Testament as a whole, not just on the stories of the women listed. And it read like a novel rather than a reference text. ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7/10)

Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

*Note: spoilers follow. Not any specific details, more like "meta"-spoilers that might give away the overall attitude of the book, I guess you could say. So if you're worried about that, you might not want to continue reading. Honestly though, I wouldn't suggest reading this book, so my recommendation is to read on!

Summary and review:

Private schools are the new nannying positions in this sequel to The Nanny Diaries. Nan has returned to New York City after a ten-year hiatus, in which she and her husband, "Harvard Hottie" Ryan Hutchinson, have been globe trotting in pursuit of Ryan's career with the UN. In the meantime, Nan earned a master's degree in organizational development. Back in the city, Nan is attempting to juggle the renovation of a crumbling Harlem brownstone with starting a consulting business, while dealing with an absentee husband, run-ins with old high school "friends," and her decade-old guilt over the way she left Grayer and the Xs. Oh, and her husband wants to start a family.

Only a few days back in the city, a very drunk 16-year-old Grayer shows up on Nan's doorstep. His parents have finally split, leaving him alone with a 7-year-old brother, an incapacitated mother, and a need to know why Nan left 10 years ago. Just like that, Nan is thrown back into the bizarro world of the Xs and their Upper-East-Side insanity.

From there, the plot shatters and splits off in about a thousand different directions. There's just too much going on for any one of plot lines to be fully developed, or to arrest the reader's attention and sympathy. The plot line involving Nan's self-absorbed high school acquaintances doesn't seem to add anything to the story other than providing settings for some of the action to play out. The same is true of the story line about Nan's parents possible eviction. The home remodel story fits better, but just goes way too far, until it becomes a little bit ridiculous.

The main plot lines in the story [seem] to be the Xs and Nan's position with a consultant for Jarndyce, an exclusive private school run by an absolutely toxic parental board, which puts the Xs' exploits from the first book to shame. Oh, and Nan having a baby. That's supposed to be one of the main parts of the story, but it's completely overshadowed by everything else going on. Anyway, while working for Jarndyce, Nan is put in a variety of situations that go against her beliefs, providing the perfect opportunity for Nan to stand up stick it to the scum of the East side, but instead, and here come the spoilers, she totally and completely folds in the name of remodeling her new house. The authors tried to excuse Nan's behavior by establishing that she knew the actions she was enabling were morally reprehensible. The thing is, however, that knowing right from wrong and choosing wrong anyway does not make a person any less culpable. It makes you a hypocrite and a coward.

While Nan does her best to help out the X boys, there is no "nanny-cam" moment like the one readers cheered at the conclusion of Nanny Diaries. With the exception of a short outburst to Grayer, Nan never stands up for herself or her supposedly-high morals; in fact, she is complicit in some of the worst goings-on at Jarndyce.

Equally offensive is the barrage of F-words that the reader is pelted with in this book. There are 305 pages in the copy I read, and without going back over the book in its entirety, I feel comfortable saying that the F-word is found on half of those pages, often multiple times.

All in all, I would advise most readers, even those who loved Nanny Diaries, to skip this installment in the life of Nan. ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (2/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: N/A
Sex: multiple references to adultery, an explicit "sexting" episode, use of the F-word in a sexual context, and reference to a sexual encounter à la The Graduate. Gross.
Language: abhorrent

Life of Reilly: Moving On

My dad started getting Sports Illustrated years ago (well, he got all but one issue, which my mom would intercept at the mailbox each year and dutifully deposit in the recycling bin). After reading each issue, my dad would leave the magazines in a basket in the bathroom. Once, when I was sitting on the toilet and particularly bored, I opened up an issue and thumbed through. Nothing caught my eye until I saw an article on the back page. The story was about a handicapped boy whose teammates carried him across the goal line to score the winning touchdown of a game, while the opposing team sat back and watched and cheered. I cried. From that moment on, I was hooked. Each week from then on out I looked forward to flipping to the back page and reading Reilly's column. When Reilly moved on to ESPN the Magazine, I did, too. Now, after 12 years and two magazines, "Life of Reilly" has come to an end.

Reilly wrote the following at the top of his latest column in ESPN The Magazine:

Note to readers: My math says this column puts me over one million published words. And that doesn't count books (No. 11 coming up in May), screenplays (two), sonnets, ransom notes and quilts. This is one million too many for many citizens, but the fact remains.

Ironically, this is also my last column for The Mag. I'm going to try my hand at a weekly 90-second essay on "SportsCenter" beginning this spring. I'll still write longer pieces for The Mag, write my ESPN.com column, host "Homecoming," cover golf for ESPN and ABC and anchor "SportsCenter" once in a while.

You can read the final column here and one of my favorites from the archives here.

In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

Summary and Review:

Simon Ziele was working as a detective with the New York City police force when his fiance, Hannah, was killed along with 1,000 others in the General Slocum ferry disaster on the East River. In order to escape memories of the tragedy, Ziele transfers to a sleepy one-man police department in Dobson, a city located a few miles to the north.

However, only a few months after accepting the new position, Ziele encounters one of the most brutal murders of his career. A young woman is murdered in her bedroom in an upper-class portion of the city. To complicate matters further, Ziele is immediately contacted by Alistair Sinclair, a blue blooded academic who runs a criminology research lab at Columbia University. One of his "subjects," a psychopath named Michael Fromley has disappeared. And the murder in Dobson bears an uncanny resemblance to Fromley's style.

Although doubtful of Sinclair's motives, Ziele has to trust the researcher and his staff in order to discover the connection between Fromley and the murdered girl, and stop the killer from striking again.

I picked this book up from my library's "Readers' Choice Nominees" table. I've been unimpressed with some of the other nominees, but was pleasantly surprised with this pick. I haven't read a good detective novel in a long time, and it was a fun little diversion. I thought the book's biggest weakness was establishing the setting; despite Ms. Pintoff's obvious knowledge of the culture and history of the era, for some reason I never really felt like I was in turn-of-the-[last]-century New York. There were also a few places where the first-person narration was a bit clumsy. However, the book was engaging and exciting. It kept me guessing and was fun to read. I enjoyed the historical inclusions, such as Tammany Hall corruption, the steamship disaster, "yellow" journalism, and women's rights and the emancipation movement (I did not know, for example, that it was illegal for a woman to eat in a restaurant unaccompanied by a man). I also enjoyed learning about the early use of forensics (such as fingerprinting) and psychological profiling in criminal investigations. I'm looking forward to reading more by Stefanie Pintoff. ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: graphic descriptions of murder scenes
Sex: mention of prostitution, non-explicit references to sexual violence
Offensive Language: slight, if any