An interesting day today. I went to the doctor this morning and the doc said I do indeed have a hernia. 🤯 So now to decide whether to just cope with it or have an operation. Jo and I talked about it and I'm going to at least have a consult with the surgeon. I also asked about the new Shingles vaccine. I used to get Shingles as a kid, it wasn't actually diagnosed until I joined the military and one of the military docs said that's what it was. My doc said he'd send a scrip to the local pharmacist for a shot. As I said, an interesting morning.
While I was out, I dropped into my local used book store and left some books and picked up a few more. The other day I also took the puppies for a drive around the local Little Free Libraries and dropped off a few and picked up a few more books. And Jo ordered a new author for me and it arrived the other day. I'll provide the synopses of the newest arrivals. I finished an Inspector Maigret this morning so I'll also provide my review and the synopsis of the next Maigret I'm starting, the last one of April. That will be a fair few books so I'll not continue with my look at Women authors I'm enjoying, until my next post.
Just Finished
"Maigret's War Of Nerves by Georges Simenon was published in the original French in 1931. My English edition was published 1989. According to Fantastic Fiction, it was one of 11 he had published in that year.
The story starts off with a bang. Maigret, along with a prison warden and a magistrate, are party to a prison escape. Joseph Heurtin is to be executed for the murder of two women. Maigret, even though his investigation was crucial to having Heurtin convicted, now believes he is innocent. He has a note passed to Heurtin (with agreement from the Justice Dept) telling him how to escape on a certain night. Maigret hopes that if he succeeds, Heurtin will lead him to the real killer, a plan that if it fails could result in Maigret's forced retirement.
The plan isn't totally successful. Heurtin manages to evade Maigret's investigators. Maigret stews, avoids the Magistrate, who is fuming. Maigret seeks clues to discover the real killer, while his team and the complete police force search for Heurtin.
The story is an interesting concept. I think it breaks down somewhat as we get to the end. Maigret has his suspect as the story progresses but the ultimate resolution all seems to come about in the back ground, not totally satisfying. But ultimately, it's still entertaining. Maigret is a unique character and this particular story revolves mainly around him, with lesser roles played by his excellent officers; Janvier, Lucas, Dufour. The books are usually short enough and quick enough to grab your attention and hold it until the end. I do recommend trying Simenon very much. (4 stars)"
Currently Reading
"There was an
exaggerated humility about her. Her cowed eyes, her way of gliding
noiselessly about without bumping into things, of quivering nervously at
the slightest word, were the very image of a scullery maid accustomed
to hardship. And yet he sensed, beneath that image, glints of pride held
firmly in check. She was anemic. Her flat chest was not formed to
rouse desire. Nevertheless, she was strangely appealing, perhaps because
she seemed troubled, despondent, sickly.
In the windswept
seaside town of Concarneau, a local wine merchant is shot. In fact,
someone is out to kill all the influential men and the entire town is
soon sent into a state of panic. For Maigret, the answers lie with the
pale, downtrodden waitress Emma, and a strange yellow dog lurking in the
shadows..."
(Ed Note. My April Focus author has been Simenon. The Yellow Dog will be my 5th and last of his books. In May I'll focus on John D. MacDonald, author of the Travis McGee series.)
New Books
"Ellen Henshaw finds herself left in the care of father Billy,a talented pianist who has hit the bottle and is reduced to accompanying silent films in flea pit cinemas.When he dies she discovers that her body is her musical instrument and she sets about a way to teach men how to create the harmonies of love."
"Larry Virgil skipped
out on his latest court date after he was arrested for hijacking an
eighteen-wheeler full of premium bourbon. Fortunately for bounty hunter
Stephanie Plum, Larry is just stupid enough to attempt almost the exact
same crime again. Only this time he flees the scene, leaving
behind a freezer truck loaded with Bogart ice cream and a dead
body--frozen solid and covered in chocolate and chopped pecans.
As
fate would have it, Stephanie's mentor and occasional employer, Ranger,
needs her to go undercover at the Bogart factory to find out who's
putting their employees on ice and sabotaging the business. It's going
to be hard for Stephanie to keep her hands off all that ice cream, and
even harder for her to keep her hands off Ranger. It's also going to be
hard to explain to Trenton's hottest cop, Joe Morelli, why she is
spending late nights with Ranger, late nights with Lula and Randy
Briggs--who are naked and afraid--and late nights keeping tabs on
Grandma Mazur and her new fella. Stephanie Plum has a lot on her plate,
but for a girl who claims to have "virtually no marketable skills,"
these are the kinds of sweet assignments she does best."
"A woman's body is discovered amidst the ancient Roman ruins of Old Sarum -- the apparent victim of an accidental fall. In the Tate Gallery in London, an elderly woman keels over -- from a supposed heart attack -- while studying a painting. At Exeter Cathedral, a third woman is found dead from "natural causes." But in Martha Grimes' bestselling novels -- and in the world inhabited by Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury -- there are no natural causes.
Is there a link between these three women? Of course. And Jury is the one who sorts it out. The link is Santa Fe, New Mexico, which all three women had visited before their untimely deaths. So Jury is off to the States where, amidst the turquoise jewelry and cappuccinos, he searches for and finds an astonishing web of jealousy and murder
" Investigating a case of infidelity sounds simple—until it plunges Spenser and his beloved Susan into a politically charged murder plot that’s already left three people dead."
"An ultra-secret State Department mission sends Doc Savage from the streets of Manhattan to the Arctic Sea, where he is targeted by the Kremlin and headed for a confrontation with a vile nemesis."
"When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death.
With The Testaments, the wait is over.
Margaret
Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred
stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female
narrators from Gilead."
"The year is 1667; Sir Francis Courteney and his son Hal are on patrol in their fighting caravel off the Agulhas Cape of South Africa. They are lying in wait for one of the treasure-laden galleons of the Dutch East India Company returning from the Orient. So begins a quest for adventure and the spoils of war that sweeps them from the settlement of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa to the Great Horn of Ethiopia far to the north - at a time when international maritime law permitted acts of piracy, rape, and murder otherwise punishable by death. Wilbur Smith introduces a generation of the indomitable Courteneys and thrillingly re-creates their part in the struggle for supremacy and riches on the high seas."
"Commissario Trotti of
Italy's Polizia di Stato is called to the scene of a brutal murder.
Despite the badly disfigured face on the corpse, Trotti recognizes it as
schoolteacher Rosanna Belloni, an old friend. His superiors warn him
off the case, but Trotti is determined to hunt down the killer.
First
he must find Rosanna's missing sister, a known drug addict. But the
deeper he digs, the more questions he is forced to ask himself. Is a
recent, unexplained suicide in the River Po connected with the murder?
Where does the discovery of a car dredged up from the Delta fit in?
Faced with a seemingly unsolvable mystery, Trotti must also grapple with
obstructive colleagues and the problems arising in his private life."
"America’s worst nightmare has just become a brutal reality. The most unlikely terrorist enemy of all now holds a knife against the country’s throat. With both diplomatic and conventional military options swept from the table, the president calls upon Navy SEAL turned Secret Service agent, Scot Harvath, to disable a brilliantly orchestrated conspiracy intended to bring the United States to its knees. Teamed with beautiful Russian Intelligence agent Alexandra Ivanova and a highly trained CIA paramilitary detachment, Harvath embarks on an adrenaline-fueled search that spans the world—and leads to a final, deadly showdown on American soil, with a lethal and sinister enemy from the past."
"Inspector Archie Penrose invites Josephine Tey down to his home in Cornwall so she can recover from the traumatic events depicted in 'An Expert in Murder'. However, Josephine's hopes of rest are dashed when her arrival coincides with the funeral of a young man from the village who had drowned when his horse leapt into the nearby lake."
"Once an operative in secret Israeli-intelligence missions, Gabriel Allon is on the run from his past and has assumed a quiet life as an art restorer. He's called back into the game and teamed with an agent who poses as a French fashion model. Their target: a cunning Palestinian terrorist named Tariq who played a dark part in Gabriel's past--and who is on one last killing spree."
There you go. Some reading ideas for the next while. Now it's almost dinner. Jo has been cooking up left over pork and other things. Smells terrific.. Enjoy your weekend.
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