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Congrats on your 1st Blue Jay win!
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Excitingish baseball news today as youngster Alek Manoah gets his first major league start with the Toronto Blue Jays today and against the Yankees. I wish him well and am watching. (
Ed Note. Since this Blog program was acting up, I can now report that Mr. Manoah won his first game in the Pros. Congrats!)
I finished one book yesterday and hope I'll finish two more before end May. I'll provide my review of the book and also the synopsis of the next book in line. I've also got a few new books in the past week so I'll provide the synopses of those as well. Then I'll continue with my ongoing look at women authors I'm enjoying.
Hailstorm hitting us right now.. Wow!
Just Finished
1.
The Crossing Places by
Elly Griffiths (Ruth Galloway #1).
"The Crossing Places is the first book in English author Elly Griffiths's Ruth Galloway series. It's one of those series I'm glad I finally discovered and tried because I will find the next books and maybe try her other series as well.
Ruth Galloway is a forensic anthropologist who teaches at the University of North Norfolk. Ruth fell in love with the starkness of the marshes when she took part in an archaeological did there ten years ago. She lives in a small isolated cottage, one of three, on the edge of the salt marsh, loving the open skies, the smell of the salt marshes. Ruth is called by DCI Harry Nelson to examine a body that has been discovered in the marshes, the body of a small child. Nelson feels it might that of Lucy Downy, who disappeared ten years ago, a cold case he still frets about. It turns out that the bones are those of an Iron Age girl. However, this interaction between Ruth and Harry will continue as another young girl disappears and they continue to work together. Harry has been receiving letters from the purported 'criminal' who may have abducted Lucy, letters that continue to goad him about his failures and which offer clues in mythology and religion to her whereabouts. As Ruth gets more involved, she also begins to attract the attentions of a mysterious person.
It's a tense, well-written story. The area is such an interesting place and not totally unfamiliar to me as my wife and I have driven through in some of our travels. Ruth is an interesting character, somewhat lacking in confidence in her physical appearance and in her personal life, but who possesses unknown inner strength and an ability to look deeper into situations to come up with answers. Harry is frustrated by the lack of progress in both cases but he has a determination to find answers. The bringing together of the two characters makes an interesting story and they also present a unique team. The supporting characters also make the story richer and tenser as well. There are no shortage of suspects and even though I had an inkling who the actual perpetrator might be, it was still a fascinating journey getting to a satisfying conclusion. There interesting tidbits also presented though the story about a potential victim that made the story even more interesting.
I enjoyed this introduction to the Ruth Galloway series. It read nicely, flowed along at an excellent pace, offered interesting historical and archeological information and made for an all-around entertaining mystery. Looking forward to trying the 2nd book, The Janus Stone (4 stars)"
Currently Reading
1.
Shadow and Claw by
Gene Wolfe (The Book of the New Sun #1 & 2). I have previously enjoyed a collection of Wolfe's short stories.
"The Book of the New Sun
is an epic set a million years in the future. Earth is transformed to a
time when present culture is no longer even a memory. This edition
contains the first two volumes of this four volume novel, The Shadow of
the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator, originally published in
1980 and 1981."
New Books
1.
The Corpse - Rat King by
Lee Battersby (Marius don Hellespont #1). This was dropped into my Little Free Library. It sounded interesting.
"Marius don Hellespont
and his apprentice, Gerd, are professional looters of battlefields. When
they stumble upon the corpse of the King of Scorby and Gerd is killed,
Marius is mistaken for the monarch by one of the dead soldiers and is
transported down to the Kingdom of the Dead.
Just like the living
citizens, the dead need a King — after all, the King is God’s
representative, and someone needs to remind God where they are.
And
so it comes to pass that Marius is banished to the surface with one
message: if he wants to recover his life he must find the dead a King.
Which he fully intends to do.
Just as soon as he stops running away."
2.
A Tap on the Window by
Linwood Barclay (2013). I've enjoyed Barclay's stories so far so was happy to see another dropped off in my Library.
"It's been two months
since private investigator Cal Weaver's teenage son, Scott, died in a
tragic drug-related accident. Ever since, he and his wife have drifted
apart, fracturing a once-normal life. Cal is mired in grief he can't
move past. And maybe that has clouded his judgment. Because he made a
grave mistake driving home on a very rainy night. A drenched young girl
tapped on his window as he sat at a stoplight and asked for a ride. And
even though he knew a forty-something man picking up a teenage
hitchhiker is a fool, he let her in the car--she was the same age as
Scott and maybe she could help him find the dealer who sold his son the
drugs that killed him. However, after a brief stop at a roadside diner,
Cal senses that something's not right with the girl or the situation.
But it's too late. He's already involved.
Soon Cal finds
himself mired in a nightmare of pain and suspicion. Something is
horribly wrong in the small town of Griffon in Upstate New York. There
are too many secrets, too many lies. And Cal decides to expose those
secrets one by one."
3.
Accusation by
Catherine Bush (2013). I had highlighted Bush in an earlier Blog
entry in my Women Author's thread. After that I ordered one of her books I'd not tried yet.
"An accusation,
regardless of truth, has its own life when let loose in the world. The
words, released, went on uncoiling themselves.
While in
Copenhagen, Sara Wheeler happens upon a touring Ethiopian circus called
Cirkus Mirak. Later, she drives its founder, Raymond Renaud, through the
night from Toronto to Montreal. Such chance beginnings lead to later
fateful encounters, as renowned novelist Catherine Bush artfully
confronts the destructive power of allegations.
With Accusation,
Bush again proves herself to be one of Canada’s finest authors as she
examines the impossibility inherent in attempting to uncover “the
truth.” After a friend of Sara’s begins a documentary about the circus,
unsettling charges begin to float to the surface — disturbing tales of
sexual and physical abuse at the hands of Raymond. Accounts and
anecdotes mount, denunciations fly, and while Sara strives to untangle
the narrative knots and determine what to believe, the idea of a
singular “truth” becomes slippery. Her present search is simultaneously
haunted by her past.
Traveling from Canada to Ethiopia and Australia, Accusation
follows a network of lives that intersect with life-altering
consequence, painfully revealing that the best of intentions can lead to
disaster."
4.
The Grand Banks Café by
Georges Simenon (Maigret #9). Also published under The Sailor's Rendezvous and Maigret Answers a Plea. I've been enjoying this series for awhile.
Sailors don't talk much
to other men, especially not to policemen. But after Captain Fallut's
body is found floating near his trawler, they all mention the Evil Eye
when they speak of the Ocean's voyage."
5.
Skull-Face by
Robert E. Howard (1929). I've read Howard's Conan books a few times and decided to try one of his other books.
"The story begins with
Steve Costigan drearily waking in Yu Shantu's Temple of Dreams, a
hashish den in the city of London, England. He has been re-occurring
dreams of something he calls "Skull Face", and is puzzled about their
meanings..."
Women Author's I'm Enjoying - C.J. Cherryh
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C.J. Cherryh
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Caroline Janice (C.J.) Cherryh is an American author of speculative fiction. She was born in St Louis in 1942. She won a number of awards for various of her works; Hugo Awards for Best Short Story and Novel, the John W Campbell Award for New Writer, etc. I had seen her books over the years and a few years back when I was doing a series of posts on various award winners, some of her books were mentioned and I ordered and read Downbelow Station. I've since purchased two more of her books. Below are the three I've had.
1.
Downbelow Station (The Company Wars #1 / 1981)
"My first comment about Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh is Wow! I've never read anything by Cherryh before. I was aware of her books when I'd rooted through the SciFi section of my book stores but I'd not tried anything. Recently, I was running through the years in my BLog and for each year listing various book award titles. Downbelow Station won the Hugo Award for best SciFi novel in 1982. So I thought I should check it out... So with that preamble...
This is such a fantastic book! I readily admit that it took me a few chapters to start understanding the various people, worlds, etc but once I got into the flow, it just got better and better.
How to summarize? Over centuries Earth began to expand into the stars to keep Earth's economy moving. They set up stations floating around various worlds and from there continued their expansion outward to the Fringes. Downbelow Station circles the planet Pell and it is sort of the hub between Earth and the stars. On the planet are the Downers, beings sort of like Ewoks or Fuzzies (from H Beam Piper's Fuzzy books). Earth men work the planet in concert with the Downers, passing supplies up to the station for the stations use and trade.
War is brewing between Earth's old fleet run by a hard leader, Mazian and the fringes, Union and Pell finds itself caught in the middle, trying to be neutral but at great risk. Throw in the Merchanters, those ships that travel between the stars and you've got an interesting mix of great characters.
Pell is run by various families with the Konstantin's one of the main ones and they also provide the major characters. This family must tred carefully and try to keep Pell safe from all. Stations all around are being destroyed and refugees flocking to Pell and overloading the station. There are plots and subplots galore. I found myself being drawn into the characters and the excellent story. It starts a bit slowly but then moves along at breakneck speed until the excellent, satisfying ending. I truly loved this story and world that CJ Cherryh created. I can't recommend the story more. (5 stars). I'm looking forward to exploring her work more now."
2.
Rider at the Gate (Finisterre #1 / 1995).
"Stranded on a fertile,
ore-rich planet, human colonists appear to be in paradise, but unseen
horrors threaten their survival. All the native animals communicate by
telepathy, projecting images which drive the humans mad. Only
Nighthorses, who can form telepathic bonds with their human riders,
stand between civilization and insanity."
3.
Visitor (Foreigner #17 / 2016).
"The seventeenth novel in Cherryh's Foreigner space opera series, a ground breaking tale of first contact and its consequences
The human and atevi inhabitants of Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, have picked up a signal from an alien kyo ship
telling them that the ship is inbound toward Alpha. Five thousand of
the inhabitants of Alpha are human refugees from the now derelict
Reunion Station. They have seen this scenario before, when a single kyo ship
swooped into the Reunion system and, without a word, melted a major
section of Reunion Station with a single pass. These refugees, who were
rescued through the combined efforts of an allied group of humans and atevi and brought to safety at Alpha, are now desperate with fear.
Bren Cameron brilliant human emissary of Tabini-aiji, the powerful atevi political
leader on the mainland below, and also the appointee of the human
president of the island nation of Mospheira is the obvious choice of
representative to be sent up to deal with both the panicked refugees and
the incoming alien ship.
As a member of the space-faring delegation who rescued the refugees, Bren has talked to kyo before
and even won their trust by saving one of their kind from a Reunioner
prison. Because of his remarkable diplomatic and linguistic abilities,
Bren managed to communicate with that grateful kyo individual on a limited basis, and he has evidence that that same kyo is on the ship heading to defenseless Alpha Station.
But no one can predict what an alien race might do, or what their motivations could be.
And Bren Cameron, the only human ever to be accepted into atevi
society, is now the one individual with a hope of successfully
interacting with the crew of the incoming ship. But Bren knows it will
take putting himself in the hands of the kyo.
Can Bren count on the gratitude of one individual alien to save his life and the lives of thousands on Alpha Station?"
The complete listing of Cherryh's works can be found at this link. Stay safe. 😷
