All of the following books are available through the Sarasota County library system.

FICTION – Picks and Pans

Lost Horizon by James Hilton

Somehow I never got around to reading this book before, although I've seen the black and white film version; which doesn't quite do the book justice.

James Hilton's tale of a secluded utopia, locked deep in the trackless mountains of Tibet, is deservedly a classic.  The 1920s prose may take some getting used to, but it aptly sets the stage for the story of "Glory" Conway, the pride of his public school generation.  Conway lost both his youth and his idealism during the Great War, and this hard won wisdom has left him adrift in a world where the Great Depression and nationalist revolutions have turned the world upside down.  A capable and decisive man, he is often forced to take charge of tricky situations when his own inclination is for solitude and the solace of study.

Kidnapped and taken to Shangri-La, the hidden Valley of the Blue Moon, Conway discovers that a select group of studious monastics are working to preserve the cultural and philosophical treasures of the world against the coming night of barbarism and horror.  Conway himself has been hand-picked as the successor to the incredibly aged monk who planned and built the secret city.

Reading the book was a bit like traveling back in time -- a refreshing change from today's world of ceaseless action.  Dwelling, even for a brief time, with Conway and the monks in Shangri-La, I experienced the sense of timeless peace that is the hallmark of the secluded sanctuary.

This story, though dated in style and purpose is still gripping. Hihly recommended.

Invasive Procedures by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston

In the afterword to this collaborative effort, Orson Scott Card almost gushes in his unbridled admiration for his co-author, ending with a mock plea that Johnston wait five years before he outsells Card's books.  I'm here to say that I don't think Card has much to fear.

The story idea for this novel may originally have been Card's, and I have no reason to doubt his repeated insistence that the book was a "true collaboration" -- though there's a definite whiff of "I think the lady [or gentleman, in this case] doth protest too much" -- but the writing is nowhere near the quality of even Card's worst effort.

The book would make a good beach read -- fast-paced, undemanding, and very predictable.  The characters are more caricatures than real people, and the plot seems culled from any number of C grade efforts from the SciFi channel.

A brilliant but crazed scientist has discovered how to tinker with the body's genetic blueprint (now that's a new and startling idea -- NOT).  He forms a sort of New Age religious cult, with himself (brace yourself for a shock, here) as the Prophet.  He's gathered a fanatical group of die-hard followers with superhuman powers around him, and although he and his devotees have done some good in the world by healing some folks with incurable genetic illnesses, his nefarious plan is to alter the human genome permanently.  I told you the plot was derivative, didn't I?

Add to this standard mix the usual beautiful and brainy lady in distress, her small son, and a stalwart and good-looking male research scientist, stir well, and voila!  You have your all too standard medical thriller.

Preston and Child did it better in Mount Dragon, while Dean Koontz created more believable and sympathetic characters in several of his similarly themed books.  Card's name on the title, prominently blazoned above his that of his collaborator, drew me to check the book out of my local library; but I'm glad I didn't waste my hard-earned cash on this one.

Worth reading if you have an afternoon to kill, but not worth buying.

Hit and Run by Lawrence Block

I have always enjoyed Lawrence Block's "hit man" series -- the stories of a down-to-earth killer who is an avid stamp collector.  Keller seems to be a pretty nice guy, considering he kills people for a living; and there's a refreshing absence of high tech toys and James Bond-like adventures in the books.  As Keller himself puts it, the people he kills usually know why they've been targeted -- they're not innocent lambs being herded to the slaughterhouse.

In a sense, it's this very lack of high strung dramatics that makes the Keller books such a refreshing read.  So it was with some surprise that I realized this latest book was a sharp departure from the norm. 

Keller agrees to take on one last job before he permanently retires from the field.  Of course, it's one job too many -- as he discovers he's been set up to take the fall for a very public political assassination.  Stranded in Iowa, Keller finds himself cut off from his closest associate with every law enforcement agency in the country after him.  And that's not the worst of his troubles -- the men who arranged the assassination are also on his trail, hoping to shut his mouth and quench his curiosity permanently.

As always, it's Block's masterly limning of his characters that makes reading his books a pleasure.  Keller is no superhuman MacGyver, using bubble gum and a sock to wriggle out of impossible situations.  Au contraire. . .it's Keller's very human reactions to the tight spots he finds himself in that connects him to the reader.  His dogged determination to survive, and to figure out how he can recreate a new life from the ashes of his old one is captivating. 

A most enjoyable read.  Highly recommended.

Fidelity by Thomas Perry

Emily Kramer is a woman who's lived much of her adult life with her eyes shut.  She has long suspected that her husband, Phil, has been involved with other women during their marriage, and since the death of their only child she has more or less drifted along in her comfortable suburban niche.  She's been vaguely unhappy, but unwilling to confront either her husband or her own suspicions.

All that changes when Phil Kramer is found shot to death on a quiet residential street.  Emily discovers that her husband's detective agency, which she'd thought to be a thriving business, was on the edge of bankruptcy; and that her husband seems to have systematically looted their joint savings and checking accounts.  Not only is she suddenly widowed, but the solid foundations of her life have turned to quicksand.

Driven by an overwhelming need to discover who her husband really was, Emily sets to work to unearth his many secrets.  It's not only lack of money that hampers her efforts, but her late husband's own secretive nature.  And then she discovers that she herself is being stalked -- probably by the man who murdered her husband.

What had Phil discovered that resulted in his death?  Emily struggles with her growing fear that her husband may not only have betrayed their marriage vows, but everything she thought he stood for. 

This book is a fast-paced tale of intrigue and discovery -- and Perry does his usual craftsman-like job of making his characters real individuals.  I found the story less satisfying than his Jane Whitehead series, and the characters less detailed, and thus, less believable, than the ones he peoples Whitehead's world with -- but it is still a very worthwhile read, and better than most thriller fiction out there.  Recommended.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

A colleague recommended this book to me, and I'm very grateful to her for the suggestion.  I don't normally read 'mainstream' novels, but this book, the fictional reminiscences of a former circus vet, was a real delight. 

Gruen displays a rare skill in creating a slew of interesting and individual characters, and a deft ability to combine description with action.  She's told a fascinating story and has recreated the world of the Depression era big top with its variety of sights, smells, and sounds so vividly that I could almost swear I was surrounded by the aroma of roasting peanuts and burnt sugar.

The versimilitude of her story sings throughout every line, and no wonder, since she seems to be that rarity among popular authors -- one who takes the time to do her own homework.  Her intensive researches into the very different world of the traveling circus adds layers of interest and intrigue to what might, in less gifted hands, have been an ordinary, even sordid, romance.

As it was, I literally could not put the book down -- I had to know what happened to Rosie, and Kinko the clown, and little Queenie.   And as an added bonus to those of us who are now in the "caretaker" generation, caring for aging parents, the narrator intersperses his recollections with accounts of his struggles to deal with his aging faculties and life in a nursing home (politically correctly termed an 'assisted living facility').

Highly recommended to all who love a good yarn, interesting characters, and a peek into a world long gone by.

The Killing Circle by Andrew Pyper

Let me be frank.  I love fiction of almost all kinds, but what really hooks me into any book is its characters.  Without well-drawn, richly layered characters, I find it very difficult to connect with any story, be it never so well-plotted.  I am an avid mystery reader, and I love the thrill of trying to keep up with the intricacies of an unfolding plot.  But I found it very hard to keep my attention focused on this book.  There was simply nothing in any of the characters I could grab hold of – they seemed more like hollow shells than real people I cared about.  That may be why the murder mystery itself failed to engage me.  

The first part of Andrew Pyper’s latest murder mystery The Killing Circle, races right along.  Literary critic Patrick Rush has always dreamt of writing a novel, of being a published author instead of the one who reports on other people’s work.  Rush has been waiting all his life for that magical first line, “the way in” to the book he feels it is his destiny to write.  He’s worked his way up in the world of journalism, from writing freelance articles for little read periodicals to a regular position as a columnist at a national newspaper. 

But all is not well in Patrick Rush’s world.  After a brief period of married happiness and new fatherhood, Patrick’s wife dies and leaves him to cope with the myriad issues of single parenting; and he sees his job at the newspaper shrinking from literary critic to entertainment reporter to TV show reviewer.  Since Rush despises television and popular culture in general, this is anything but his ideal job.  He still dreams of opening the New York Times Review of Books to see a review of his yet unborn novel.

Rush joins a neighborhood literary circle – a small group of would be writers who meet weekly under the auspices of an older, published literary name, to listen to each others’ works in progress and engage, not in criticism, but in conversation with each other.

The literary circle has more than its share of odd, and even frightening characters.  There’s the hulking, almost silent giant, who work is painfully banal and whose very presence is menacing.  There’s the subway train driver who is too shy to make eye contact, but dreams of making the people he glimpses on train platforms live as individuals through his words.  Add in the rich divorcee for whom the literary circle is another attempt at self-improvement, and the overweight, blubber-lipped twenty-something geek, who likes to write because it allows him to become different people, and the elusive, wraith-like Angela, whose very appearance eludes description. 

As the circle begins to operate, Patrick discovers that not only has he still not found his magical “way in” to his dreamed of novel, but his writing talent pales in comparison to Angela’s.  Not only that, but people in his neighborhood start turning up dead; and folks in his literature circle begin to report strange stalking incidents.  Rush believes his own home may be a target of the stalker.

The Killing Circle has all the ingredients of a terrific murder mystery – even if many of these have already been used by other authors in other books.  And Pyper is a skilled writer.  But I felt oddly distant from all the characters peopling this book.  Even Rush, the bereaved single father, who ends up both unemployed and later on a famous published author, seems oddly unrealized.  For a single parent, Patrick Rush seems strangely unconcerned with both the daily nuts and bolts of fatherhood, and the normal concerns of any unemployed person with a mortgage to meet, grocery bills to pay, and childcare to arrange.  Even his major moment of moral turpitude is strangely devoid of any real emotional turmoil.  Considering he’s the novel’s protagonist, Patrick Rush seemed strangely removed from everything going on his life.  Repeated questioning of his own sanity and observations don’t add the needed depth to this oddly incomplete character.  Even an unreliable narrator should be interesting enough, real enough to keep the reader’s interest, but Patrick Rush seems more like a roughly drawn sketch than a fully realized human being.  And the rest of the novel’s cast is equally obscure, when they’re not simple caricatures.  There simply was no character in this novel whose fate I cared about.

So there you have it.  This book has all the ingredients for a great thriller, but even the clever plot could not compensate for its one and two dimensional characters.  The book reads much more like a screenplay than a fully fleshed out novel.  I was not at all surprised to read that The Killing Circle has already been optioned for a feature film.  It will probably make a better movie than it did a novel.

Final Theory by Mark Alpert

Final Theory’s dust jacket includes a gushing review by thriller writer Douglas Preston, who not only exclaims that the book is "a stupendous read!" but rather cattily suggests that "If I were Michael Crichton, I'd be packing my bags and heading for a quiet retirement in Tahiti."

Don't buy your ticket yet, Mr. Crichton.  Your position as contemporary literature's premier writer of science-based thrillers is still secure.

Not that Alpert's book is bad -- quite the contrary.  It is a fast-paced thriller with an excellent mix of science, technology, and interesting characters.  But it is also predictable, almost to a fault; and hews closely to the typical formula of such books.  

The big, bad U.S. government, controlled by a group of maverick conservatives (including a thinly disguised Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld), wants to get its hands on a vital scientific secret -- in this case, Einstein's mythical unified field theory -- the theory that not only explains literally every particle in the universe, but is potentially able to unleash unbelievable and devastating power.  Well, by gosh, by golly, who wouldn't want to get their hands on such a formula?  As it turns out, not all that many folks -- though one would expect a landscape simply teeming with agents of foreign powers and representatives of terrorist groups.  Nope.  It seems that there is only one other shadowy figure determined to acquire this potentially unlimited power.  The evil-doers that thriller readers have come to expect are conspicuously absent in this book.  While that may make Final Theory a refreshing change of pace for some readers, I found the absence of these other players oddly unrealistic.  

Another jarring touch, which is never fully explained, is the reason for all this interest in a theory that Einstein searched for over fifty years ago.  Why the sudden, frantic interest in unearthing his theory now?   Even at the denouement, when all is revealed, and the master puppeteer emerges from the shadows, too much is left unexplained.  One madman's jealous rage seems too thin an answer to adequately cover the questions that remain.

Add in one brutal Russian ex-secret service agent, who leaves a trail of some dozen or more corpses in his wake, a corrupt FBI agent, a beautiful black string theorist, and two, count 'em, two children in jeopardy; sprinkle with a generous helping of scientific exposition, stir well, and voila!  You now have your standard thriller.

Final Theory is better written than many thrillers, admittedly, but is still too shallow and predictable for Michael Crichton to experience any serious qualms about his throne.

A fast-paced summer read, but not anywhere as earth-shaking as the subject matter seems to demand.

Resolution by Robert B. Parker

I haven't always enjoyed Parker's forays into the Wild, Wild West -- but I loved Resolution.  Here his trademark terse dialogue fits right in with the novel's setting, and the characters we met in earlier books are becoming more fully fleshed out.  There's the inimitable, almost super-human Virgil Coles, the sure-shot gunman who struggles with both his need to be more than a hired killer and his love for the wayward Allie; and Everett Hitch, Coles' best friend, West Point trained experienced Indian fighter. 

The parallels between all Parker's characters are obvious -- but when he's at his best, as he is in this book, the differences between them are fascinating to this fan of his work.  Coles is a combination of Hawk and Spenser, but with Hitch as the narrative voice, there's much less of the usual replay of character traits Spenser fans are all too familiar with.  Similarly, with Allie off stage in this novel, there's much more scope for both action and character development -- and though a quick-witted fan can see echoes of Spenser's own group of dependable bandits in Cato Tillson and Frank Rose, they are still drawn individually enough to be engaging.

For those die-hard Parker fans who've been disappointed in his last few Spenser books, give Resolution a shot.  I just can't help it -- I'm addicted to Parker, and it's nice now to have a choice of how to get my regular fix.

Highly recommended.

Easy Prey by John Sandford

This is the eleventh Prey book featuring Lucas Davenport, a detective in Minnesota, who loves women, games, and winning at all costs. In this book a beautiful but brainless model is found dead at a ritzy party, and the list of suspects seems endless. Then the bodies start piling up, and Davenport has to figure out whether he has more than one killer operating on his turf.

All the Prey novels are somewhat formulaic, but this one displays greater depth than most. Davenport is still footloose and unattached in this book, though he's inching closer to the idea of settling down. The usual cast of supporting characters is on display, but in this book they have a more distinctive voice than in the later Prey novels.

The mystery is intriguing, the action fast-paced, and the characters distinctive enough to add needed human interest to the mix. This book can be read as a stand-alone, and should serve as a good introduction to the series. Highly recommended.

Rabid: A Novel by T K Kenyon

My respect for the Iowa Writer's Workshop has decreased considerably since I read on the author's blurb that they awarded Ms. Kenyon an MFA. This is a badly written book full of unlikely characters, and over-stuffed with some of the most awkward figures of speech I have ever encountered -- in forty years of reading.

Even the most villainous of characters or the noblest of heroes must seem in some way to be human -- and all humanity is lacking in the portrayal of Ms. Kenyon's characters. None of the characters seemed to be capable of rational introspection, coherent thought, or reasonable action.

This was an utterly pretentious, poorly written work that would have benefited enormously from stringent editing and a competent writing teacher. Instead, the book reads like it was written by a hyperactive crystal meth addict.  Don't waste your time with this one.

Callous by T K Kenyon

Just to be fair, I gave Ms. Kenyon's second book a try. I thought to myself, no one with a Master's from the Iowa Writer's Workshop can write this badly, twice. Well, I was wrong. This book was even worse than her first opus, RABID. Ridiculously stereotyped and inhuman characters, a grotesquely tangled plot, and what seems to be a complete lack of knowledge about basic police and judicial procedures made this work an even worse book than her first. I read aloud some passages of this book and Ms. Kenyon's previous work to my students. One of them said, after looking at the author's glowingly self-congratulatory page at the end of Callous, "Well, the lady may be a brilliant scientist, but she should stay away from trying to write fiction." I couldn't agree more. Save your money and your time. Read a different book.

Blood Under the Bridge by Bruce Zimmerman

A member of my on-line book club recommended this series, and now I have another favorite author to add to my list. This is the first book in Bruce Zimmerman's series about Quinn Parker, who is, in his own words, a "former three-piece-suiter" who came into a bit of money and took early retirement. Now he works as a phobia counselor, and in between stints of helping people confront and conquer their deepest fears, he lends a helping hand to friends in trouble. In this book, Parker finds a former lover and good friend dead in horrific circumstances, and has to convince the police that he didn't kill her. There's much more to the story, of course, but half the joy of the book is in watching Parker puzzle out the various clues.

If this all sounds a bit like the late John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee, you're right. But Parker is more down-to-earth than McGee, less bloodthirsty, perhaps, and certainly less hedonistic. Parker seems more like the in-shape guy who works in the next cubicle, who likes a ball game or three, goes out drinking with his buddies, and just happens to get drawn into some difficult situations when he tries to help out a friend.

That's what makes him so darned likable. Quinn Parker is no superhero -- no iron man with thews of steel. When Parker is beaten up, he stays down, and it actually takes him the normal number of days to recover. His friends are no world-beaters either -- just ordinary, pleasant people with lives as regular as lives get in the San Francisco Bay area. People I wish I knew and could hang out with.

And Zimmerman is a master wordsmith. There are no awkward metaphors, no ridiculously strained figures of speech. His prose flows as naturally as his dialogue -- and every character speaks with her or his own voice. His plots are engaging, but without the end-of-the-world scenarios that so many authors feel it necessary to include in their books these days. Mind you, Zimmerman's plots are not in any way "cozy mysteries" involving pots of tea, and cats, and a body or two in the library. There's a realistic amount of blood and death in these books, but Zimmerman avoids both the excesses of true noir and the banality of most domestic mysteries.

Best of all, for me as a female reader, is that not every woman in these books is a drop-dead gorgeous, sensuous beauty. The women are just as real as the men -- and in today's crime fiction, that's a great compliment.

There's sex and violence in these books, but neither are very graphic -- Zimmerman doesn't dwell with gruesome relish on every drop of blood and every fleshy move. In this, the resemblance to the McGee series is quite noticeable, in that acknowledgment is given to the fact that we're all adults here, and adults engage in physical relationships, but as adults, we don't need to dwell on every pornographic detail.

And I guess that's what I like so much about these books -- they're adult books in that the author assumes that his readers are mature enough to fill in some of the blanks for themselves. Very highly recommended.

Thicker Than Water by Bruce Zimmerman

I just finished the first two Quinn Parker books by Bruce Zimmerman, and I loved them. They're now on my wish list to own. I had been looking for a worthy successor to my beloved Travis McGee, and I just may have found one in Zimmerman's Quinn Parker.

Quinn Parker is a more down-to-earth and believable Travis McGee, and if his adventures are a little less hair-raising than that beach and boat bum's, they are also a little more realistic. Like McGee, Quinn Parker has feelings, and is both intelligent and reflective -- but, thank goodness, without that self-conscious streak of darkness that ruins most major characters for me. There's none of this "I'm so tormented because of my dark, unspeakable past" garbage about Quinn. He's an ordinary guy with a wonderful set of friends -- who seem like very real people to me -- folks without the deliberate and so-artificial quirkiness that some other authors infuse into their supporting casts. That already puts them one up on Randy Wayne White's Doc Ford series. Parker's friends seem like people I'd like to meet, who I'd enjoy hanging out with; folks who live in the same world I do -- the world of kids, and diapers, and mortgage payments, and leaky roofs.

It certainly doesn't hurt that Zimmerman is a master wordsmith. The man can write - fluently, articulately, and easily. His words just flow -- there are no strained metaphors, no awkward figures of speech, no overuse of hackneyed cliches.

I also love that Parker does not tackle world-ending problems -- there are no bioterrorist plots with super agents battling the forces of darkness with paper clips and rubber bands. No rabbits pulled out of hats, either. When Quinn or his friends get beaten up, it actually takes them days or weeks to recover. I love that.

This book, the second in the series, involves an awesome piece of luck for Quinn's struggling friends Hank and Carol. An acquaintance has died and left a gorgeous piece of ocean-front property to them. But when Hank and Quinn fly to Jamaica to sign the legal papers, it becomes apparent that this windfall may be more of an albatross than a lucky charm. A cast of truly interesting characters adds to the intrigue.

Zimmerman's plots are not labyrinthine, and the experienced mystery reader may see the solution well before the end of the book. But as so many philosophers tell us, it's not the destination, but the journey that counts. And I find Zimmerman's books a most delightful journey indeed.

Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland

It’s hard to understand how a book about the first important mistress of the Sun King could be boring, but this book manages to be just that.  The court of Louis XIV was one of the most interesting and resplendent in history, but Gulland manages to reduce its intrigues and splendors to the banal level of a modern soap opera.  There are plenty of romantic subterfuges and amorous liaisons, but the I never felt that I was truly an observer  of this 17^th century fairy tale life.  Even the dark designs of Athenais de Montespan, thought by historians to be heavily involved in a Satanic poisoners’ cult at the court, are glossed over and reduced to the level of domestic spats. 

Gulland has all the elements of a marvelous tale at hand, including some of her own invention (a mysterious, beautiful white horse that the young Louise is strangely drawn to), and she does acknowledge the age’s deep religious faith – but her writing is jarringly dispassionate.  This is a story about human beings whose emotions ran rampantly out of control at times, but even the death bed scenes are pallid and sterile.

Considering that this novel is about a court where beauty reigned and lust was common, where glittering gowns and jewels were commonplace, where belief in a very real heaven walked hand-in-hand with literal deals with the devil, this book is just plain. . .dull.  As a historian, I have a suspicion that Ms. Gulland didn't do much more than briefly review this period -- all the wonderful details that flesh out a historical novel and make it live are sadly absent in this sketch. Don't waste your time with this one -- read Sabatini or Shellabarger or Gellis instead.

Black Widow by Randy Wayne White

I was delighted when I first discovered Randy Wayne White's series about Doc Ford -- for a while it seemed that I had found a replacement for my much loved and sadly missed Travis McGee series. White’s Doc Ford is not only a marine biologist, but a super-agent for one of the blacker divisions of the U.S. government. Ford was physically fit, intellectually astute, and seemed gifted with sensitivity and an interesting array of friends at his home base of Dinkin's Bay in southwest Florida.

But as the series progressed, I became more and more disenchanted with the books. White seemed to be taking the lazy author's way out of dealing with Ford's unattached status -- most of the women Ford was attracted to either ended up dead or involved with other men and causes. Ford's moments of introspection and soul-searching became perfunctory and formulaic. And most of his friends faded far into the background, with the exception of the ubiquitous Tomlinson. In short, Doc Ford was becoming, in my opinion, a static figure -- and a two dimensional one, at that.

So when I picked up this latest entry in the Doc Ford series at my local library, I was not expecting much more than a few hours of escapism. But I was pleasantly surprised when I got past the first few chapters. The story took off in a few unexpected directions, and soon I was hooked.

Blackmail, sexual indiscretions, a date rape drug ring, the practice of obeah, and the lost treasure of the Templar knights all come together to make a very engaging plot. Add a surprising revelation about Ford's past, and the result was a book that I was reluctant to put down. Highly recommended.

Killer Year: Stories to Die For edited by Lee Child

Now this book is definitely worth. . .well, maybe not dying for, but certainly the price of admission.  I am a long time aficionado of short crime stories, cutting my teeth on borrowed Alfred Hitchcock collections and treasuring all of John D. MacDonald's early works -- but it is rare for me to find a compilation that has more than one or maybe two memorable pieces.  This book is a find.

With an introduction by Lee Child and an afterword by Laura Lippman, the reader already knows some treats are in store between these covers.  I've rarely been so entertained by a short story collection.  From the perfect jewel of "A Perfect Gentleman" to the poignant "Crime of My Life", the book is full of exquisite little gems, and writers to keep an eye on.

Very highly recommended.

Justice Hall by Laurie R. King

Laurie King brings back Mary Russell and her famous husband, Sherlock Holmes, in this, the sixth book of the series.  Holmes is allowed a little more latitude in this book than in the pair's previous adventures, though his character is still fairly shadowy -- a not unexpected King touch.  King's awareness that she is treading on what, to most Holmes fans, is sacred ground, is evident in her determination to hew to a fine line with Holmes' participation in these books.  He has fallen in love with a much younger and very independent woman, one as bright and capable as himself.  But none of the books allow readers more than a glimpse of the pair's domestic arrangements, thus avoiding the conundrum of showing the normally aloof and always collected Holmes in the throes of passion.

King displays a deft sleight of hand with her readers from the opening chapter, with the reappearance of two previous characters, Mahmoud and Ali, the Bedouin guides who last appeared in King's O JERUSALEM. This time the shoe is on the other foot -- Russell and Holmes are needed to help Ali and Mahmoud find the missing heir to an English fortune.  Along the way the detectival duo stumble onto a dark family secret, involving both lines of legitimacy and homosexuality; are plunged into conflict with the British War Office in a case involving an execution for cowardice under fire; and have to save the long-lost heir from imminent death.

This book has a few more twists and turns than most of the Russell-Holmes series, and as a result it is a fast-paced and exciting read.  Highly recommended to fans of the series.

Touchstone by Laurie R. King

Laurie R. King is a mistress of dense characterization and mood.  Her unauthorized Holmes books can be read by even the most fanatical of Baker Street Irregulars without the usual jaw grinding that accompanies most such efforts, and her detective series about Kate Martinelli, a contemporary lesbian police officer are equally good. 

In Touchstone King has produced yet another cast of richly drawn and interesting characters, from an undercover American government agent to the scion of one of the oldest and noblest families in England.  Each character, even those who merely pop onto the page for a scene or two, is richly drawn and individualized, in ways that demonstrate King's mastery of this art.  She allows her characters to come to life on every page, without the tiresome need to tell her readers what everything she writes means. 

This gift has made Touchstone much more of a character study than a traditional mystery or suspense thriller.  If there is any criticism to be leveled at the book at all, it is perhaps that the plot seemed overwhelmed by the tangled threads of each character's life.

Fans of the film Gosford Park should enjoy this book, for although it doesn't explore the differences between upstairs and downstairs as thoroughly, it is rife with interesting personalities.

The Tower of Beowulf by Parke Godwin

In this book's afterword, Godwin himself notes the difficulties that confront a modern author trying to translate this epic poem into terms a 21st century audience can grasp. Given those limitations, Godwin, a gifted and literate writer, does a good job of making Beowulf a figure comprehensible to modern readers.

Godwin has kept the more fantastic of the saga's images while explaining them to readers who may be unfamiliar with Norse mythology. Grendel and his mother are tormented immortals, trapped in grotesque bodies, and with abominable appetites for living flesh. They yearn for beauty, love, and warmth, and are condemned to live without any of these comforts except the little they can offer each other. Grendel's attacks on Heorot are set in the context of a disputed inheritance, and his mother's grief at the loss of her only solace in the world lead to her final confrontation with Beowulf.

But Godwin does more than just reclothe the poem in the trappings of modern language. He leads the reader into the minds and hearts of the characters, from Beowulf himself, fighting always to prove himself the brave warrior his father never believed him to be; to Grendel, yearning for acceptance from both gods and men.

Not my cup of tea, I'll admit, but a good piece of writing for those who prefer fantasy to hard science fiction. Godwin is particularly skilled at making the complex motivations of his characters understandable.

Once Upon a Crime: Timeless Fairy Tales Retold by Today’s Top Writers of Mystery and Suspense edited by Ed Gorman and Martin Greenburg

This is a book of short crime stories that were based on fairy tales. Too many of the stories were a waste of time, but a few others were great -- particularly the wonderful, if grim, story of the real Cinderella, "After Happily Ever After" by Gillian Roberts. Other enjoyable and well-written ones were Ed Gorman's "Of the Fog", John Helfer's "The Better to Eat You With", and Les Roberts' "The Brave Little Costume Designer". This particular crime collection really hammered home the point that the short story might be one of the hardest genres for a writer to excel in. If you come across this one in a library, it would serve to while away an hour or two -- but I wouldn't recommend it as a permanent addition to a personal library.

Nothing to Lose by Lee Child

This is the latest of the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child.  It is a fast paced contemporary thriller, with one of the more interesting of the noir protagonists of the last decade.  Jack Reacher is a former military policeman, whose wanderings bring him into contact with people in trouble and needing the skilled help he is willing to give.  Owning little, freed from conventional human ties, Reacher is nevertheless a bright, caring, and compassionate man -- who is willing to use his remarkable skills to put right what has often gone wrong.

This latest addition to the series is a real page-turner.  Reacher is evicted for vagrancy from a tone aptly named Despair.  Angry at being given the bum's rush, Reacher decides to find out why the beaten down people of Despair are so anxious to keep strangers out of their tiny hamlet.  What he discovers involves the US Army, the current war in Iraq, and a group of born again Christians who are doing everything they can to prepare themselves for the end times they are certain are upon us.

To the casual eye Reacher might seem like a modern McGyver -- but in this book Child is careful to draw a clear line between cause and effect. Reacher's skills, both pugilistic and investigative, are clearly explained and traced back to both his childhood and his military training.  I found his actions and his motivations entirely believable.

Reacher is a substantial force for good wherever he finds himself -- and I often regret he is only fictional.

Very highly recommended.

Plague Maker by Tim Downs

Nick Polchak, Downs' brilliant "Bug Man", makes only a token appearance in this fast-paced philosophical thriller, but in exchange Downs introduces his readers to some of the most interesting and engaging characters in thriller-fiction.  Special Agent Nathan Donovan is a man whose personal tragedy has caused him to lose faith in just about everything; his ex-wife, a professor of political science, tempers her realistic view of the world with both determination and compassion; and the mysterious Mr. Li, who inserts himself into Donovan's investigation of a possible bio-terrorism incident while forcing Donovan to examine the state of his own soul.

In the hands of a less-gifted author, these characters would play out into a stereotyped plot, but Downs brings something a little bit special into play here -- his own deep Christian faith, which allows him to see even the vilest of acts through a redemptive lens.  Though I am an atheist, I found Downs' insistence that all human beings are given the chance at spiritual salvation neither preachy nor Pollyannaish.

Downs never indulges the temptation to insert an end-of-days Armageddon scenario, and those looking for signs and portents in this book will look in vain.  Rather, Downs' message seems to be that if God is indeed the power to love our enemies, it is incumbent upon us to show that love even in the most dire of circumstances.

Aside from the philosophical additions, which play out naturally as the plot unfolds, this is a darned good read all on its own -- fast-paced, interesting, and suspenseful.

Very highly recommended.

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Who hasn't heard of Tarzan of the Apes?  Ah, but who has actually read the book?  At last, as I rapidly approach the half-century mark, I can say that I have.  And let me tell you, the book is much better, and much more interesting, than any of the Tarzan films I've seen.

For one thing, reading Burroughs is like entering a time-warp. Though modern sensibilities might be offended at Burroughs' openly expressed belief that the white man was the pinnacle of human evolution, and the darker races still had a way to go on the climb upwards to civilization; his words take us back to a world where life was a clear-cut struggle between good and evil, with few shades of gray to blur the distinction between right and wrong.  Yet, oddly enough, his treatment of women is not equally stereotyped -- for although Jane is a true flower of late Victorian femininity, frail and weak, her feelings for Tarzan are not weak at all.

In fact, Jane experiences a vivid sexual awakening when she is clasped in Tarzan's muscular arms -- and Burroughs makes it quite clear just exactly what Jane is feeling when she gazes upon the half naked body of her ape-man.  From the period reading I've done, I can't help but feel that this was a revolutionary departure from the norm.  Women in those days may have aroused passionate feeling in the breasts of their men, but they didn't admit to having those feelings themselves.  Particularly not when they are "nice" women -- refined, elegant, and well-bred.

Burrough's racial attitudes are not the only dated element of his book.  His scientific theories verge on the ludicrous, to 21st century readers.  The white men who encounter Tarzan, and Tarzan himself, believe that the ape-man is just that -- a cross between a human and a gorilla, or a mutated ape.  And Tarzan's remarkable skill in teaching himself to read and write, from a few primers he found amongst his dead parents' belongings, stretches the bounds of credulity.

But to fully enjoy the book, which I did, one has to put aside the 21st century mind-set for a little while, and plunge delightedly into as exciting an adventure as Indiana Jones ever experienced.  That's the fun of romps like these -- the real world recedes for a bit, while the reader plays in the jungle.

Definitely worth reading -- if only for the fascinating glimpse into the social attitudes of the early 20th century.

The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs

This is another early 20th century classic adventure yarn, and I do mean yarn.  I would suggest putting off reading the introduction, by science fiction author Brian Aldiss, until after one has finished the book, in order to get the full flavor of Burroughs' plot. 

Reading Burroughs, once again, is like stepping into Dr. Who's Tardis  -- one is transported back in time to a world where manly men fight for the right; German followers of Kaiser Wilhelm are cowardly and dishonorable; and modern women faintly cheer their men on, appropriately and demurely, from the sidelines.  All that was to be expected -- but what was unexpected were the interestingly drawn characters of the "savage" women that a few of Burroughs' luckier adventurers encounter.  These bronzed, lithe, warrior queens are no shrinking flowers of femininity.  And though one stout-hearted explorer fights his own physical attraction to the sweet little "savage" who's attached herself to him, in the end he comes to realize that beneath the bronzed skin of his little jungle queen there beats a heart as delicate and as feminine as that of any modern, whiter woman.

It was a fun read, made even more enjoyable by reading Aldiss' forward after I had finished the book.  Aldiss is clearly a Burroughs fan, and though he dutifully points out the utter ridiculousness of Burrough's theories of evolutionary ascent, as depicted in the novel, he urges readers to set aside this outdated and invalid basic premise and to enjoy the book for what it is -- a swashbuckling adventure tale set in the mists of a lost world, where time and nature have taken a very different course from the outside world. 

The book is not as good as Tarzan of the Apes, and doesn't hold a candle to Conan Doyle's The Lost World, but it was a fun and exciting trip into an alternate reality.

The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I've long been a fan of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes canon, but I had not read any of his other works.  So it was a great pleasure to dive into this book and find, in Professor Challenger, as interesting a character as the inimitable detective.

For anyone unfortunate enough to have watched the awful travesties that the TV and movie industries have made of this terrific adventure tale, put aside the cartoon caricatures and bountifully bosomed savage jungle queens that pranced across the screen.  This book is the real thing, and far better than any film depiction.

For one thing, Conan Doyle tells the tale with a wry humor that is deliberate and charming.  He takes Victorian stereotypes and stands them on their heads.  From the the lovelorn swain whose beloved urges him to go out and do manly deeds for her, and the hidebound scientist who insists that what he's seeing must be rationally explained away, to the boisterous joy that Challenger takes in immodestly demonstrating his superiority to everyone around him; the book is a joyful romp through both Victorian London and a prehistoric jungle.

I can't wait to get my hands on the other books starring the brawny and brainy professor.

Compulsion:  An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman

I have found that Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware mysteries are like popcorn -- highly addictive, but not terribly nutritious. I have read almost every book in the ongoing saga of Dr. Delaware, a wealthy and semi-retired child psychologist, and seen, in the process, Kellerman's authorial skills grow substantially.

His earliest books are crammed with tortured literary metaphors, often jarringly inappropriate and distracting. All of his characters tended to speak with the same voice -- an irritating flaw, like the hoarse monotones of the characters in the NYPD BLUE TV series. Kellerman's characters in the Alex Delaware books all speak in short, choppy sentences, with little emotional inflection. And it has been justly noted that Kellerman seems to pay as much attention to how his characters dress as to his plots -- the over-abundance of detail weighs down many of his books.

But Compulsion was a welcome surprise. Kellerman's writing was tauter, his characters more individually drawn, and there was a welcome dearth of tortured metaphors. The plot zipped along, with fewer conspiratorial red-herrings than some of his earlier books.

I found the story so gripping that I literally finished it in one sitting, and when I put down the book, I had the internal glow of having read something worthwhile, interesting, and satisfyingly filling.

Highly recommended, particularly to Kellerman's legion of fans.

Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride

For American fans of Ed McBain's 87th precinct books, Stuart MacBride's Cold Granite will come as a welcome addition to the world of police procedurals.  Chock full of vivid descriptions of Aberdeen, Scotland, the book can transport the reader from the sunniest of climes to the constant drizzle and gloom of an Aberdonian winter. 

The author's great talent, I think, lies in the creation of atmosphere -- the hearty, well-lubricated police get-togethers at a local bar; the stench and slime of vivid crime scenes; the bleak interrogation rooms of the local police headquarters.  American that I am, I had no problem fancying myself in Scotland, after reading MacBride's lucid descriptions.

And MacBride has limned some memorable characters, as well.  From the pushy but likable crime reporter to the beautifully icy pathologist, MacBride's characters seem fully real. In fact, his protagonist, detective Logan MacRae, is almost the weakest character in the book -- not because of MacBride's descriptive talents, but simply because MacRae breaks the mold of the usual detective protagonist.  He's not always in control, not brooding nor bitter, and it takes him quite a while to figure out what's going on beneath the surface of a number of similar crimes.

That said, I found this book a bit heavy-going.  I finished it quickly, but often had to force myself to pay attention to every page.  That is my own personal weakness, though, not the author's.  I am just not a big fan of police procedurals in general, though this one was a well-written debut.

Another fan called this a "Tartan noir" but I must respectfully disagree.  Though the weather throughout the book is bleak, the characters are not.  MacBride sprinkles a generous dose of humanity into every character; even the villains are sympathetically painted.

Dying Light by Stuart MacBride

This is the second in the series about Scottish Detective Sergeant Logan MacRae, and though I struggled a bit with the first book, I sailed through this one with no problems at all.

Logan MacRae is a genuinely good, law-abiding cop who at times feels overwhelmed by his job -- as do so many of us out in the real world.  He's not tortured in the way American writers portray their "noir" detectives, but simply a man struggling to get done all he feels he should.  He screws up plenty, and has the grace to feel guilty when he does.  A trait, I might add, that's sorely missing in the characters of many American fictional detectives.  They agonize over the state of the world, but MacRae, though deploring the ills human beings inflict on each other, grapples more with the things he can fix -- his relationships with his girlfriend, his bosses, and his friends. 

It is MacBride's ability to portray his antagonists as human that I most enjoy about this series. MacBride shows a spark of humanity in even the most unregenerate of his villains -- which is a refreshing change of pace from most thrillers.  And MacBride also shines in drawing his fairly large cast of characters as real individuals, with both distinctive character quirks and that all important glimmer of goodness.  Too many authors allow their secondary characters to stay as cardboard cutouts -- stock caricatures from Hollywood Central, as it were.  ("Wanted:  one nasty-tempered, roaring boss-type".)  MacBride deftly avoids this pitfall.

I enjoyed this book a great deal -- so much so that I'm now on the prowl for the third book in the series.

Highly recommended.

Nightshade:  A China Bayles mystery by Susan Wittig Albert

I "discovered" Susan Wittig Albert when perusing the shelves at my main library branch. The woman is nothing if not prolific!  Under her own name she writes the China Bayles mystery series, about an attorney who drops out of the corporate rat race to open an herb shop in a small Texas town, where her legal training soon makes her a reluctant detective.  Albert also authors a series of “cozy” English mysteries set in the early 20^th century, with Beatrix Potter (yes, the lady who created Peter Rabbit) as one of the central characters.  And in collaboration with her husband, Albert writes Victorian English mysteries under the nom de plume Robin Paige.

I'll admit that I couldn't get through the Victorian mystery -- I felt it was poorly written and researched.  The characters displayed far too many 21^st century character traits for verisimilitude.  And although I’m a big fan of the real Beatrix Potter stories, I soon found that these mysteries starring the naturalist author were too cloyingly sweet.  I had to dig hard at the books to find even a hint of real conflict.  And I felt myself going into sugar shock, so that even the touch of the mystical couldn’t revive my interest.

After trying Albert’s other two series, I approached her China Bayles’ mysteries with some slight trepidation.  I will never be a huge fan of the China Bayles' herbal mysteries, but there was just enough of a spark in China and her relationship with her significant other, Mike McQuaid, to hold my interest.  I was able to read the books sequentially this spring, so I kept my reader’s eye open for character growth as the series progressed.  The plots were not particularly engaging, and all too often the characters seemed overly saccharine and one-dimensional -- and they rarely just "said" something, but were instead constantly "chortling" or "giggling "or "laughing" -- I've never met such determinedly cheerful folks in my life. But I liked the herbal lore and the recipes, and frankly, sometimes there was just not that much else new around to read.

So it was with some reservation that I picked up Nightshade, still on the "New Books" shelf of my library. I was shocked -- I really liked this book, much more than any of the other works in the series. Being of an analytical turn of mind, I've given some thought about what made this book so different from the others in the series.

The answer is fairly simple -- it is written in a very different style from all the others. Albert herself notes this in her forward -- mentioning that parts of this book are written from McQuaid's point of view, rather than solely from China's perspective. I felt this added depth and interest to the story.

And there's no denying that this narrative device greatly improved Albert's writing. There's a good deal less simpering in this book than in her previous works -- perhaps because she concentrates less on China's satellites (Ruby, "Smart Cookie" Chief of Police Sheila Dawson, etc.) and more on plot and China's conflicted feelings about her late father and her half-brother. For most of this book Albert's writing is tauter, focused more on showing rather than simply telling, and thus far more engaging to the avid mystery fan.

Albert's skill in drafting interesting and truly individual characters seems to be growing. She does suffer a dreadful relapse in the last chapter, when the mystery is solved and China is once again surrounded by her sycophants, but up till then I found the book eminently readable and even enjoyable.

Like all the China Bayles books, this is not one I want to own, but it served to while away a few summer hours.

Stranger in Paradise by Robert B. Parker

I was thrilled when I found this book on the “New Books” shelf of my branch library.  I couldn’t wait to get home and dive into the latest adventure of Jesse Stone, alcoholic chief of police in the ill-named Paradise, Massachusetts.  But to my dismay, the book was awful.  I’m a proud long-time fan of Parker’s, and I’m used to his recycling his Spenser series’ plots in his newer Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone books.  Since he always adds a slightly new perspective when he does this, it’s never bothered me.  I truly love his exploration of Spenser’s feminine alter ego, Sunny, for the female perspective on what is traditionally a masculine job.  (Unlike Kinsey Milhone, in Sue Grafton’s great alphabet series, Sunny is unabashedly feminine – concerned about her hair, her make-up, and even her shoes!)  But in Stranger in Paradise, for the first time, Parker’s work seems tired and out-of-touch.  

Parker recycled the plot device of an earlier Spenser series work (Early Autumn) in one of his Sunny Randall thrillers (Melancholy Baby) – a badly parented adolescent who needs both rescuing and nurturing.  In both of those books the device worked well.  He trots out that device for a third time in this Jesse Stone novel, and third time is definitely not the charm in this attempt.  The book’s characters, even the well-established ones like Jesse, and Jennifer (his somewhat ex-wife) and Molly Crane (great cop, great mother, devoted wife and Stone’s right-hand woman), seem cursorily presented, and the engaging and thoughtful dialogue that usually is characteristic of Parker’s work is totally absent.  No one who’s gotten to know and love Parker’s characters as I have can be less than shocked at what he has two of them do in this book – with little explanation and little follow-up.   I’m extrapolating here, but long-time fans of Parker’s know that his own marriage hit a rocky patch a while back, and I can’t but suspect that he’s excusing his own behavior here through the action of one of his characters.  But it just doesn’t work, most especially since that action (adultery) is so out of character for that particular literary creation. 

All in all, this book was an enormous disappointment.

First the Dead by Tim Downs

A wonderful book, especially for fans of Gus Grissom’s character in the original CSI.  Downs, characterized as a Christian author, writes a straight-forward and exciting forensic thriller.   Forensic entomologist Nick Polchak is a driven, emotionally distant intellectual, who wears coke bottom bottle glasses and likes to work 20 hours a day.   His encyclopedic knowledge of the insect world is balanced by his seeming immunity to the softer side of life, and his near inability to connect emotionally to others.  In this, the third book of “the Bug Man” series, Nick stands in as foster father to a boy orphaned by Hurricane Katrina, and in the process gives readers a first-hand view of the first devastating days after that catastrophic storm.  Most interesting to me was the author’s afterward, in which he notes that his characters fall victim to the same out-of-control rumors that spread throughout the entire country in those first hectic days after the storm made landfall.  In this author’s note, though, Downs sets the record straight about the actual number of deaths in the Superdome, and corrects the record about the NOPD officers who did not report for duty in the aftermath of Katrina (15% as opposed to the rumors of 50%). 

A terrific read – and it wasn’t until I finished the book that I figured out why the book jacket included the descriptor “Christian” – there is a refreshing absence of the more common four letter profanities in the dialogue.  This did not detract from the book’s verisimilitude one bit – each character still spoke in a distinctive “voice” and each was clearly and individually drawn.  Highly recommended.

Vanishing Act and My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

I recently discovered the joys of Jodi Picoult’s books from a couple of students of mine, who generously shared what they were currently reading.  While some of her plots lack originality (the plot of Vanishing Act mixes elements of the Face on the Milk Carton books with Iris Johansen’s search-and-rescue heroine), her lyrical prose and exploration of the meaning of love was sheer joy to read.  Though sadness strikes her characters, her belief in the ultimate goodness of people was delightfully refreshing.  Don’t read these for the plots, but for the layered beauty of her writing.

Bone Valley by Claire Matturo

I just couldn’t resist this book – the latest in a mystery series set in SARASOTA!  Aside from the joy of recognizing some Sarasota neighborhoods (Southgate) and landmarks (Brant’s used bookstore), I was drawn to the book because of its dedication to the Peace River (the 8^th most endangered river in America, according to the author) and the people and organizations in Manatee, Sarasota, and Charlotte counties working to stop the expansion of phosphate mining in Florida.  Like a good Dick Francis novel, I learned a good deal about the by-products of phosphate mining and a few how-tos about saving injured animals (though I honestly learned more about saving orphaned birds from Major Sylvia Gillotte, whose tireless nurturing saved a purple martin chick last spring).  However, the book tries way too hard to be funny, often at inappropriate times in the plot.  And while many of the characters are delightfully quirky, the heroine just tries too hard to be constantly clever, which ultimately detracts from the book.   The author just can’t seem to decide what the focus of the book should be – the quirkiness of her characters, the serious issues of over-development and pollution, or the whodunnit factor itself.  Too many subplots that go nowhere, and too many characters whose quirks are simply scattered broadside without any real development left me wishing the author had done a bit more pruning and brought a clearer focus to the novel.

Duma Key by Stephen King

SMA’s Intensive Reading teacher recommended this as a great beach read, and I don’t know whether to kiss her or kick her for the heads-up!  I requested this from the Sarasota County library and only had to wait a week for it – I picked it up on a Saturday afternoon (6/7/08) and read it practically straight through – finishing it around midnight that same day.  Is it a great book?  Yes.  Light summer reading?  Not by my lights!  I was especially glad I was reading it in my house, in North Port, a considerable distance away from a beach, for I kid you not, after reading ¾ of the novel I would have found myself literally backing away from the water, for fear of glimpsing those who dwell in it. 

I was an early and avid King fan, reading his earliest works as soon as they were published, and eating up his horror stories.  But I fell away from fandom when I realized how masterful King was at punching my buttons, as a mother and an animal-lover.  It was just too easy for him to weave a web of grue that left me with an awful, hollow feeling at the pit of my stomach.  It was his deft ability to make me empathize so fully with his characters that I both loved and feared about his writing, and after reading Dolores Claiborne I swore off King for quite a while.

But the temptation of a King novel set right here in Sarasota was too much for me, and I was delighted to find, as I read, that more than half the book was an exploration of the process of recovery, both physically and emotionally, from the effects of a devastating accident.  So there I was, happily ensconced in this tale of a construction tycoon who turns to painting for rehabilitative therapy, with only brief hints of the supernatural to whet the reader’s appetite.  I settled in for a long and lovely day of happy reading – thrilled to encounter bits and pieces of the Sarasota I know and love (and shop at!).

Foolish me.  I should have known that the masterful King had not only his usual ghoulish surprises up his sleeve, but a disturbing theory about the connection between unbridled artistic creativity and the opening of a spiritual door to malefic influences.  Maybe this book affected me so deeply because my daughter is an artist, and because I myself dabble in the literary arts, but whatever the reason, I finished the novel with a tension headache and that awful, hollow feeling in my stomach once more.  I actually had to read a chapter of a favorite Regency romance before I was relaxed enough to sleep.

However, King has created some memorable characters in this one, and I wouldn’t have missed meeting Wireman, Jack, or Edgar for the world.  Astute readers will note that King has nuances of John D. MacDonald and Randy Wayne White in here, as well as the not uncommon connection between art and madness, which dates back to the frenzies of the maenads when Orpheus played for them.  But as usual, in King’s adroit hands, each theme and homage seems new and fresh – and he adds his own level of meaning to everything.

A word of advice to the sensitive:  it’s a good book, maybe even a great book – but read it in a crowded setting, with all the lights on.  And make sure you finish it in daylight.

The Hard Way by Lee Child

I love Lee Child’s books.  I am an unabashed fan of his clear and entertaining prose.  And his plots and characters are terrific.  This story about the kidnapping of the wife of a leader of a group of mercenaries is tautly-written, fast-paced, and one of the few real page-turners I’ve encountered in some 40 years of reading.  I literally couldn’t put this one down.  Highly recommended.

High Profile by Robert B. Parker

At last, at last, at last!  I was #184 on the library’s request list for this best-seller, and I finally got my hands on a copy on a Monday afternoon, and read it happily straight through.  Another terrific addition to the rapidly growing Jesse Stone canon – it is SUCH a pleasure to read about clear-thinking, logical and analytical adults, who don’t spend pages whining about their lives, but accept responsibility for their flaws and then try to work on these flaws.  The plot was pretty good as well, about a controversial talk show host found murdered – but as always, it is the in-depth treatment Parker gives his well-established characters that delights the reader – it is like learning more and more about interesting friends.  Highly recommended. 

Tomb of the Golden Bird by Elizabeth Peters

The latest in Peters’ ongoing saga of the intrepid and eccentric Emerson family, this is a worthy addition to the canon.  Though no subsequent book quite reaches the delightful hilarity of Peters’ first work about Amelia Peabody Emerson, Crocodile on the Sandbank, Peters has been able to create engagingly believable characters to flesh out the continuing chronicles of these early (and fictional) Egyptologists.  A fun read.

 Hundred-Dollar Baby by Robert B. Parker

I am proud to proclaim that I have been an avid fan of Parker’s Spenser series since the first book in the series was published, long before his works routinely rocketed to the top of the NY Times Best-Seller lists.  So for me, a new Spenser book is quite literally a family reunion – a long-awaited visit with old and beloved friends and characters.  If you’ve only seen the quite awful TV series that starred the late Robert Urich, then you’ve never met the real Spenser, and I urge you to run to the nearest library to do so (check out the first book in the series, The Godwulf Manuscript, which is still a delightful read, and then read the rest of the books in order).  This book, the third to deal with Spenser’s ongoing effort to help former child hooker April Kyle, brings back not only April, but her madam mentor Patricia Utley.  This book is another example of Parker’s oft-stated maxim that “the way people experience things is not necessarily consonant with empirical fact.”  As I read the last page with its shocking ending, I found myself looking forward eagerly to the next Spenser installment.

The Only Girl in the Game by John D. MacDonald

This is one of MacDonald’s earlier works, written before his Travis McGee series took off so spectacularly.  As usual, MacDonald’s work is well-written and well-crafted with some of his trademark characters, each drawn in life-like strokes.  An enjoyable read, though this is one of his novels without the happily-ever-after ending.

 The Past Tense of Love by Elizabeth Cadell

One of Cadell’s more complex books, with a plot that could read like a French bedroom farce in the hands of a less skilled author.  An enjoyable look at an unconventional family, this is not one of Cadell’s best works, but it is still worth spending an afternoon getting to know Kerry Cromer and her more than slightly unusual family.

My Dear Aunt Flora by Elizabeth Cadell

My eldest daughter and I have been Cadell fans for many years, but we found this, her very first book, quite disappointing.  The germ of her magic formula is there, but nascent and undeveloped.  Cadell’s strengths are her warm-hearted depictions of life in England’s villages and towns in the 1950s through the 1970s – simple, character-driven plots that celebrate the joys of hearth and home.  I am glad I read this book long after I’d encountered her later, and to my mind, much better books, or else I might have left unplumbed the delights of The Toy Sword, The Fox in His Lair, and The Golden Collar. 

 Sleep No More; Dead Sleep; Blood Memory; Turning Angel; The Quiet Game; and True Evil by Greg Iles

 I just discovered this author and his string of thrillers in the fall of 2007, but I have rapidly become an addict.  Almost all his books are set in the deep South – Mississippi, in particular.  To a Yankee like myself, Iles’s genuine love for his hometown of Natchez, and his clear-eyed examination of the South’s troubled past and its efforts to move forward are enlightening. Though there are some elements of the formulaic in all the works I’ve read (each has an unbelievably gorgeous and incredibly accomplished heroine, for one), Iles is able to transcend the usual shallow approaches to plot, and create a variety of believable, flawed characters.  His plots are exciting without being ridiculously labyrinthine, and no sinister X-Files type conspiracies mar what are fairly taut and engaging story lines. 

Mortal Fear by Greg Iles

In only a decade the plot of this book has become a trifle dated, but this thriller examining the darker side of Internet hook-up sites is still a great read.  Characteristic Iles’ touches abound (the gorgeous and talented heroine, the husband who is emotionally torn between her and another), but one of the most interesting villains in fiction (aside from Hannibal Lecter) makes this another great read. 

Where is Janice Gantry? by John D. MacDonald

I’ve long been a fan of the late John D. MacDonald, a native from my own hometown of Sharon, PA, and a long-time resident here in Sarasota as well.  I love his Travis McGee series, and enjoy almost everything else he wrote (Condominium and The Executioners among others – the latter of which was made into a movie titled Cape Fear, starring Gregory Peck).  This was not one of his best, but a bad John D. MacDonald is still better than 90% of what most others write.

 The Mortician’s Daughter by Elizabeth Bloom

A great mystery set in the Boston area – well-drawn, individual characters and a fairly interesting plot.  I was so enthralled with this book that I immediately went out to get the author’s only previous work, See Isabelle Run, which, alas, was written in a totally different vein and which I found dull and disappointing.

Short Stories and Golden Apples by Marjorie K. Rawlings

I had never read Rawlings’ children’s classic The Yearling, until I had to teach it to a class of 9th graders a few years ago.  I fell in love with her descriptive prose and her clear-eyed presentation of true Florida Crackers.  The next book of hers I read, Cross Creek, has become one of my all-time favorites, and I still enjoy rereading it every year.  I also loved her collection of recipes and “cracker” lore, called Cross Creek Cooking – but don’t read that one if you’re feeling peckish!  It will definitely stimulate your appetite.  It was only natural that I should investigate both Golden Apples and a collection of her short stories (edited by Roger Tarr).  I enjoyed both books – though some of the stories were almost heart-breaking.  Though the novel was definitely colored by a dated, 1920s perspective, the main character’s love for the land and the “golden apples” or oranges it can be coaxed to produce was incredibly engaging.

18 Seconds by George D. Shuman

I believe this is the author’s first work, and it is a terrific thriller.  I can’t wait to read more of his work.  The title refers to the last 18 seconds of a dying person’s life, which a blind medium sometimes is able to “see” and interpret.  This would be a great beach book.

The Codex by Douglas Preston

This is NOT a rip-off of the DaVinci code, thank goodness!  This taut thriller is reminiscent of some of Michael Crichton’s work, and has definite echoes of Thunderhead, Preston’s great collaborative work with writing partner Lincoln Child.  A missing Mayan manuscript, adventures in the rain forest, and even some sibling rivalry liven up the plot, along with one of the nastiest villains to stalk through the pages of literature – so nasty he’s almost a caricature.  Another great beach book.

Blasphemy by Douglas Preston

Preston’s long-time collaborator, Lincoln Child, wrote on the back jacket of this book:  “With Blasphemy, Douglas Preston has finally gone too far.  One way or another, I’m afraid he may burn for this book.”  Child may have written the comment tongue-in-cheek, but I suspect that many devout Christians, Muslims, and Jews would seriously agree with the sentiment.  I loved the book, but as an atheist, I didn’t find the central idea of the novel at all offensive.  For those looking for a novel filled with interesting and well-drawn characters, as well as a fascinating central conundrum, read on.  Preston’s talent as a novelist comes through even in his stereotyped characters.  An immorally greedy Washington lobbyist, a sleazy televangelist, a fundamentalist preacher who sees signs and portents everywhere – even these caricatures are softened by Preston’s infusion of understandable emotional turmoil and very human motives into their characters.   A great read, and a well-written presentation of the basic conflict between science and “revealed” religion.

 Almost Adam by Petru Popescu

A very interesting book, based on the premise that a pristine Pleiocene ecosystem still exists, unchanged, near the Great Rift Valley in Africa, and that in this ecosystem two groups of hominids (our racial ancestors) still exist.  A modern scientist stumbles across these early hominids, and in the interests of his own survival, tries to adapt to their ways.

 The Sea King’s Daughter by Barbara Michaels

Another great romantic thriller by the queen of the genre.  Whether she writes as Barbara Michaels or Elizabeth Peters, Barbara Mertz’s extensive background in archaeology and history add the most interesting details to her thrillers.  Good, taut writing, plus interesting characters make her books as addictive as potato chips, but delightfully non-fattening!

 Irreconcilable Differences edited by Lia Matera

A delightful collection of mystery stories about the not-so-happy-ever-after endings of true love gone awry.  A great weekend read.

NON-FICTION:  THE WORLD, PAST and PRESENT

Spook:  Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

I loved this book!  This was my first exposure to Mary Roach's crackling wit and acerbic humor, but it will not be my last.

Roach, who has had articles published in magazines ranging in diversity from Vogue to Discover, has taken on the question of whether there is life after death with a scholar's passion for details and support.  Her book is a wide-ranging examination of both past experiments in the field of parapsychology and current attempts to figure out if near death experiences could be anything but neurological phenomena.  A self-confessed skeptic, her investigations were as wide-ranging as her impressive intellect.

Yet for all her skepticism and insistence on replicable proofs, she confesses to some moments of doubt.  For example, when psychic Allison DuBois (whose life is the basis for the NBC hit series MEDIUM) suddenly comes out with a statement purporting to be from the author's "discarnate" mother, a statement that is both specific and relatively abstruse, Roach admits to experiencing a "dazzle moment" of utter belief. 

Her knack for poking fun at sacred cows, as well as her scalpel-like ability to cut away the bloated rhetoric of both researchers and true believers, makes this investigative journey eminently readable.  Add to that Roach's ability to poke wry fun at her own predilections and you have a book that is a delightful literary adventure.

Very highly recommended. 

Monique and the Mango Rains:  Two Years with a Midwife in Mali by Kris Holloway

Kris Holloway went to Mali as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1989. Like many volunteers, she met her future husband while working in a small village in Mali, West Africa. But she made another personal connection during her two years in Mali, one that seems to have shaped much of Kris' current life back in the States. She met Monique Dembele, a midwife in Nampossela, the small village that became a second home to Kris and her fiance John Bidwell.

Holloway begins her story with some sobering statistics. Mali, now a fledgling democracy, is one of the poorest nations in the world. The maternal death rate in Mali is one of the ten highest in the world. 96% of Mali's women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation, referred to in the book as excision. Fewer than 6% of Malian women use modern birth control methods.

But these grim numbers do not in any way dominate the story of Holloway's growing friendship with Monique. This is less the tale of a foreigner gingerly navigating the shoals of a foreign culture than it is the story of two women who formed an immediate and lifelong bond -- women who came from opposite ends of the world but who seem, in the words of Monique herself, to have come from the same father and the same mother.

Holloway's prose brings Monique Dembele vividly to life, from her "chestnut" skin to her colorful pagnes, the vivid native cloth that Malian women wear as skirts; from the intelligence and dignity ever present in her eyes to her love of gaudy baubles. Though death, particularly the death of young children, is an ever present part of this midwife's story, the simple joys of community life form a vivid counterpoint to what, in other hands, might have been a grim recital of the perils of life in Africa.

Holloway includes a list of recommended further reading, and a website for readers to make donations to the gynecological founded in Monique's honor -- www.moniquemangorains.com.

This is a warm and loving tribute to a remarkable woman and the friendship that flourished across continents. Highly recommended.

The Martian Child by David Gerrold

An interesting peek into David Gerrold's heart and mind, this is the true story of his first year with his adopted son.  Gerrold, a single father (and the talented writer who wrote Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles" original episode, as well as the War with the Chtorr series) and a gay man, had little difficulty with the legal barriers of our national adoption system.  He seemed to have sailed through those with only the usual bureaucratic hassles.  So this book is in no way a "how-to" guide for prospective adoptive parents.

It is instead an intense examination of Gerrold's struggles to determine just what kind of a father he wants to be.  Written in Gerrold's trademark conversational style, the book is much more of an examination of Gerrold himself than it is of the daily strains of living with the demands of a special needs child.

And that may be my only real criticism of the work.  While it was fascinating to peer into the mind of one of my favorite authors, at the end of the day I found the book strangely lacking in the very real clashes that take place between any child and its parents.  I'm not an adoptive parent, but I am a single mom, and there were many times I found myself teetering on the edge of abusive behavior.  And even when I overcame my early conditioning and learned to be the loving and supportive mother my kids deserved, the constant second-guessing I engage in about how much to say to my children and when to say it can be exhausting.  Gerrold's account is strangely lacking in this area.

Oh, there are a few internal struggles, where he seems to half-heartedly confront the desire to chuck the adoption and go back to childless freedom -- but the issue is never really at stake.  And for me, that gives the entire story a pretty bloodless feeling.   My children, though not adopted, were all desperately wanted -- but I could write a tome the size of WAR AND PEACE about my struggles to appropriately parent each of them, and their struggles to live with me.  At the end of the day, Gerrold's account, though interesting, just seems too facile.

To give the man credit, there are circumstances that might play into the seeming ease of his transition to full-time parenting that I lacked.  For one thing, Gerrold was older than I when he first entered fatherhood -- and he was a very successful author and teacher.   His financial circumstances were certainly far removed from mine when I found myself a single mother -- and from long acquaintance with the truly economically disadvantaged, I can tell you that lack of money makes a real difference in a parent's peace of mind.  Gerrold had also soaked up every piece of information he could on being a dad -- and though I had read a myriad of parenting guides in my time, when I was struggling with my children's issues there wasn't a lot of literature out there on their particular needs.  Gerrold also had a strong local support system -- a close-knit and loving family and good friends who backed his decision to become a parent one hundred percent.  My own family fairly defines the word dysfunctional, and my children and I had to become our own support system -- which became all too much like the worm Oubourous, devouring its own tail.

Still and all, when I closed the covers of this book, I felt that there was something missing in Gerrold's account.  I had just read his LEAPING TO THE STARS, and found more seriously engaging introspection in the characters in his science fiction series of a family struggling to overcome its past than in his real life account of parenting his son.  I just don't buy that parenting any child, much less a special needs one, is that easy.  Gerrold, by his own account, seemed to have few internal doubts about his parenting skills, and to make almost no mistakes in dealing with his troubled boy.   Oddly enough, I found that breeziness off-putting.  Life is just not that simple, is it?   I found much more internal self-examination when I went back and reread Gerrold's WAR WITH THE CHTORR books.  It seems to me that those books, and his painstaking investigation of what it means to really be part of a family in the JUMPING OFF THE PLANET series, offers a more realistic glimpse of the real Gerrold than the too facile practically perfect dad presented in THE MARTIAN CHILD.  It may be just me, struggling single mother of three, desperately struggling to keep my family afloat financially and emotionally, but my own story of being a parent would be a good deal grittier than Gerrold's account.

Worth reading -- with a grain of salt.

Who Killed My Daughter? by Lois Duncan

It is terrifying what grief and suffering can do to people.

This is the true story of the talented writer Lois Duncan, best known for her many best-selling young adult thrillers. The woman is a prolific and gifted poet and author, and has been financially successful in a cut-throat business. She is warm, gracious, friendly, and a real class act. But when one of her children was murdered, Lois became a devout believer in communication with the "other world". Her book is the rather incoherent tale of her contacts with various spiritualists and mediums whom she believes gave her the vital clues necessary to solve her daughter's murder. The "clues" these mediums gave Ms. Duncan are so vague as to mean practically anything -- and even a cursory reading of the book shows the reader that it was really Lois' own determined investigation of her daughter's rather problematic life and risky choices that ended up pointing to the reasons her daughter was targeted for death.

But Ms. Duncan falls into the common trap of believing that if only she repeats something often enough, and emphatically enough, her audience will take it as an established fact, as she desperately needs these mediums' "communications" with her dead daughter to be. She admits in the book that she was on the verge of a complete breakdown after her daughter's untimely death, and as a mother myself I can totally sympathize with her distress. What must be worse for her is that her discovery that she knew very little about her daughter's activities during that last, fateful year. So it makes sense on a human level that Lois was desperate enough to clutch onto any straw that would both assuage her guilt and allow her to convince herself that she and her daughter could reunite, if only temporarily, to find the girl's killer.

It's a sad book, but made even sadder by Ms. Duncan's complete inability to see how it was her own determination and detective skills that allowed her to put the pieces of the puzzle together, not some fragmentary phrases from the dead.

The book is well worth reading, though, just to see how even the most brilliant and talented among us can be seduced by despair into believing the most bizarre ideas.

Amish Roots: A Treasury of History, Wisdom, and Lore by John A. Hostetler

I spied this book while browsing through the shelves of a local library. Since I not only teach U.S. history but also live in Sarasota, which has a large Amish/Mennonite population, I thought the book was worth a look.

It is a really delightful compendium of lore, pictures (bible plates and samplers, as well as a few paintings by members of the Amish community), letters and journal entries spanning the War of 1812 through 1986. While this book is NOT a linear history of the Amish in America, it is even more valuable than that, because it is a view of Amish life, beliefs, and customs in their own words.

After reading through the book (and renewing it two times from the library) I decided I had to acquire it for my own classroom -- and I'm awaiting its delivery any day now.

For those interested in this unique group of Americans, I highly recommend this work. Clearly laid out and easy to follow, it would also make a great book for short read-alouds to social studies classes from middle school to college level.

Banana:  The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World  by Dan Koeppel

I don’t usually like bananas, but after reading Koeppel’s lyrical description of what one writer called “an elongated yellow fruit” I had to rush right out to Publix and buy a bunch.  Then I ate them, one by one, as I devoured the rest of this fascinating little book.  I learned that bananas “are the world’s largest fruit crop, and the fourth-largest product grown overall, after wheat, rice, and corn” (xiii).  But more than that, I learned how the most popular banana in the world, the one I sat slowly savoring, the Cavendish, is in real danger of extinction; partly because most cultivated bananas are genetic clones of one another.   I learned that bananas, not rice, are the food staple that keeps a large part of the world alive, and that frantic efforts have been underway for a while to breed a hardier and still appetizing banana – one that is resistant to a rapidly spreading and devastating blight.   Koeppel’s clear prose lays out the story of the banana, from its possible spread from Asia to Africa, to the rewriting of the geopolitical map of Latin America by United States’ fruit conglomerates.   This well-written work should be a welcome companion to other books on vital world food resources, such as Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  Highly recommended.

America’s Founding Food  by Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald

An interesting and well-written look at the cuisine of New England, from the early 1600s up to the early 1900s.  Did you know that lobsters, mussels, and clams, all now very expensive luxury foods, were so abundant for the early settlers of Plymouth that they were considered “trash food”?  These and other informative tidbits of information are followed by a number of recipes – an ideal book for the culinary historian who looks for accuracy in the kitchen!

A Revolution in Eating:  How the quest for food shaped America by James E. McWilliams

One of the most difficult adaptations the American settlers made was that of changing their eating habits.  Used to mutton, beef, few if any vegetables, and the occasional salted or fresh fish, the early settlers of New England almost died of starvation in a land teeming with game, fish, and edible plants.  Town bred, some of them did not even know how to bait a hook to catch their dinner.  We all know the story of Squanto and the his generous sharing of the life-giving qualities of corn to the early settlers.  What Mr. McWilliams adds is that the Puritans’ complete conviction that they were God’s annointed made them more than leery of incorporating anything “savage” into their lives – and that included some of the food they reluctantly ate to keep alive during those first thorny years.  The quick importation of black slaves from West Africa also greatly influenced the new American cuisine, and very quickly the foodstuffs of the Americas became the linchpin of the slave trade.  Dried cod from New England fed the slaves in the Caribbean, whose back-breaking labor produced sugar cane and its by-product of molasses, which was then shipped back to New England and made into rum for domestic use and international trade, and then rum was shipped in New England “bottoms” to West Africa, where it quickly became the most desirable item for African chiefs who traded war captives to the whites in exchange for this liquid gold.  Aside from this nefarious chapter in American and world history, McWilliams traces the influence of many early immigrant groups to American food culture.  A fascinating, clearly written, and riveting book.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

It is but a short step from reading about what America ate to being interested in what it drank, and Tom Standage’s book clearly lays out how six beverages in particular have greatly shaped world history.  Beer, wine, hard spirits (whiskey, brandy, and rum, in particular), tea, coffee, and believe it or not, cola, are the six drinks that Standage claim were some of the pivots upon which history was shaped.  A great book, well-written and absolutely fascinating!  I had already read a great book on the influence of rum on world and American history, and some terrific books on the introduction of coffee to Europe and how coffee-houses replaced taverns and changed the intellectual path of the world, but this short book (273 pages) lays everything out in one clear and concise pattern.  Highly recommended.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

After reading about the history of food and drink it seemed only natural to delve into the current state of America’s food chain.  Michael Pollan’s book does just that, by looking at how changes in the USDA during the Nixon administration altered the state of farming in this country so drastically that now almost 80% of what we eat is, in some form or other, corn.  I approached this book gingerly, expecting it to be a yuppy paean to the joys of organic food.  To my surprise, though Pollan himself is an open devotee of places like the Whole Foods market chain, he has drawn some provocative conclusions about the state of organic produce and farms in this country.  To begin with, he won me over by admitting that for America’s working poor and lower middle-class (and that is definitely me, according to current U.S. standards), buying organic is neither feasible nor affordable.  Buying factory eggs at $.89 a dozen is much more affordable when you have a family to feed, than buying “certified organic eggs” sold under the label of Judy’s Family Farm at Whole Foods markets, for $3.59 a dozen.  But what really drew me into this book was his determination to follow the food chain to its very beginnings – the farms, hatcheries, CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations), slaughterhouses, and processing plants both in the “factory” model and in the now 12 billion dollar a year organic food industry.  Pollan’s observations and conclusions, as well as the hard science he presents to the layman are startling.  This book is the more rational (and better written) equivalent of Upton Sinclair’s turn-of-the-last-century’s The Jungle – which exposed the gross evils of the early meat-packing industry and helped result in the creation of the FDA. 

For anyone concerned about the safety of America’s food supply, and our ability to be truly independent from foreign oil, this book is a must read.  If I could wangle it, I’d make this book and Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat required reading for all my students. 

Mayflower:  A Story of Courage by Nathaniel Philbrick

A terrific book, written as entertainingly as a great novel, presenting both sides of the story of the Pilgrims’settlement of New England.  This book strips away many of the fairy-tale veils that have for too long shrouded the truth about those first English settlements.  Both the Indians and the English are fairly painted, warts and all, and thus a fully rounded, very human, and more interesting story emerges.

They Went Whistling by Barbara Holland

This delightful, witty, and often acerbic look at some of the many women rebels, renegades, and warriors of history had me chortling out loud.  Holland’s opinionated prose is part of the delight of reading her works –- as one reviewer of another of her works put it, “she is not always accurate, but she is always witty”.  Though I have been reading about women’s role in history for a number of years, (and my youngest daughter minored in Women’s Studies), I encountered a number of brilliant, intrepid, and downright audacious ladies in this book whom I had never heard of before.  The book has spurred my interest to the extent that I want to read more about these fascinating women.

A Feast of Words by Anna Shapiro

“Literature is nourishment.  It is brain food, food for character, mood-altering.  It feeds the starved soul as well as the merely bored one” writes Anna Shapiro in the beginning of this terrific look at “how food is used to tell stories.”  Shapiro’s deft and sometimes lyrical words provide the perfect accompaniment to this collection of recipes inspired by fiction.  As she herself notes, “this is a book to read as well as cook from”, and I enjoyed her comments (at times acerbically witty) on the literary works she examines as much as the recipes she presents.  This is a wonderfully enjoyable book that appeals to both my culinary curiosity and my love of literature.

Charlemagne’s Tablecloth:  A Piquant History of Feasting by Nichola Fletcher

This book, written by a food writer and accomplished chef/caterer, was a diverting look at some of the most notable (and elaborate) feasts in history.  Anyone who has succumbed to the shameful pleasures of watching “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?” or reading about the extravagant parties thrown by Hollywood celebrities will enjoy this account of some of the most grotesque excesses of conspicuous consumption.  From Persian feasts spread on real gold carpets to Edward VII’s coronation banquet (which had to be postponed due to the monarch’s severe attack of appendicitis, leaving tons of luxury foods with no one to eat them), the average person will be left gasping at both the inventiveness and the  “spare no expense” over the top display of the spectacular and the bizarre of these truly Lucullan celebrations.  Here is part of the grocery list for the great feast given in September 1465 to celebrate the elevation of George Neville to the Archbishopric of York:

Oxen, one hundred and foure

Wild Bull, six

Muttons, one thousand

Veales, three hundred and four