I haven't had a reading update for awhile. I finally finished my first book of April so I'll provide my review and the synopsis of the follow-on book. I'll also provide the synopses of some new books. I got two in the mail, one ordered by me and one by Jo. I also dropped off some books at the local used book store and picked up a few. Then I'll finish off with my ongoing look at favorite women authors of mine.
Just Finished
"Rumpole and the Primrose Path is one of the latest of John Mortimer's Rumpole collection. Primrose Path is a collection of six short stories, all entertaining and enjoyable.
Primrose Path starts with Rumpole in a care home, recovering from a heart attack. A new member of his legal practice, one Luci Gribble, hired as director of marketing is trying to organize a remembrance party for Rumpole. Rumpole escapes in the middle of the night and begins an investigation on a death in the home. The results are excellent. The rest of the stories carry on from there; a case with a modern day Fagin, a case involving privacy concerns, one with a re-offending con, etc.
The familiar cast is still there and all playing their roles; Rumpole's long suffering wife, Hilda (aka She who must be Obeyed), practice head Soapy Ballard, the husband / wife team of the Erskines, Phillida now a justice, etc.
Mortimer has a knack for creating nicely flowing, entertaining short stories, interesting cases with very satisfying resolutions and fun characters. Rumpole is always entertaining; curmudgeonly but smart, able to cull information from his legal briefs to get to the grit of the case and the solution. The stories aren't deep but they are fun. I enjoyed each and every one and especially the final chapter where we see that Hilda really does love and care for her recalcitrant husband. Choked me up a bit. (4 stars)"
Currently Reading
"The sequel to House of Blues, Smith's latest novel features the return of New Orleans police detective Skip Langdon. The upcoming mayoral election pits the the usual thugs and vipers against a Errol Jacomine, a liberal-minded, civic-spirited preacher. The trouble is, in Skip's opinion, Jacomine is a psychopath and dangerous as hell."
New Books
"An activist attorney is killed in a cute little L.A. trolley called Angels Flight, far from Harry Bosch's Hollywood turf. But the case is so explosive--and the dead man's enemies inside the L.A.P.D. are so numerous--that it falls to Harry to solve it. Now the streets are super heating. Harry's year-old Vegas marriage is unraveling. And the hunt for a killer is leading Harry to another high-profile L.A. murder case, one where every cop had a motive. The question is, did any have the guts?
"In Broken Harbour,
a ghost estate outside Dublin – half-built, half-inhabited,
half-abandoned – two children and their father are dead. The mother is
on her way to intensive care. Scorcher Kennedy is given the case because
he is the Murder Squad’s star detective. At first he and his rookie
partner, Richie, think this is a simple one: Pat Spain was a casualty of
the recession, so he killed his children, tried to kill his wife Jenny,
and finished off with himself. But there are too many inexplicable
details and the evidence is pointing in two directions at once.
Scorcher’s
personal life is tugging for his attention. Seeing the case on the news
has sent his sister Dina off the rails again, and she’s resurrecting
something that Scorcher thought he had tightly under control: what
happened to their family, one summer at Broken Harbour, back when they
were children. The neat compartments of his life are breaking down, and
the sudden tangle of work and family is putting both at risk . . ."
"Each time he struck, he
took two victims. Day after day, he waited for the first body to be
discovered--a body containing all the clues the investigators needed to
find the second victim, who waited...prey to a slow but certain death.
The clock ticked--salvation was possible.
The police were never in time.
Years
have passed; but for this killer, time has stood still. As a heat wave
of epic proportions descends, the game begins again. Two girls have
disappeared...and the clock is ticking.
Rookie FBI agent Kimberly
Quincy knows the killer’s deadline can be met. But she’ll have to break
some rules to beat an exactingly vicious criminal at a game he’s had
time to perfect.
For the Killing Hour has arrived...."
"Commander Adam
Dalgliesh, P. D. James’s formidable and fascinating detective, returns
to find himself enmeshed in a terrifying story of passion and mystery --
and in love.
The Dupayne, a small private museum in London devoted to the
interwar years 1919 -- 1939, is in turmoil. As its trustees argue over
whether it should be closed, one of them is brutally and mysteriously
murdered. Yet even as Commander Dalgliesh and his team proceed with
their investigation, a second corpse is discovered. Someone in the
Dupayne is prepared to kill and kill again. Still more sinister, the
murders appear to echo the notorious crimes of the past featured in one
of the museum’s galleries: the Murder Room.
The case is fraught
with danger and complications from the outset, but for Dalgliesh the
complications are unexpectedly profound. His new relationship with Emma
Lavenham -- introduced in the last Dalgliesh novel, Death in Holy Orders
-- is at a critical stage. Now, as he moves closer and closer to a
solution to the puzzle, he finds himself driven further and further from
commitment to the woman he loves."
"It's high summer in
Acker's Gap, a small town nestled in the beautiful but poverty-stricken
West Virginia mountains—but no one's enjoying the rugged natural
landscape. Not while a killer stalks the town and its hard-luck
inhabitants. County prosecutor Bell Elkins and her closest friend,
Sheriff Nick Fogelsong, are stymied by a murderer who seems to come and
go like smoke on the mountain. At the same time, Bell must deal with the
return from prison of her sister, Shirley—who, like Bell, carries the
indelible scars of a savage past.
In the third mystery
chronicling the journey of Bell Elkins and her return to her Appalachian
hometown, we also meet Lindy Crabtree—a coal miner's daughter with dark
secrets of her own, secrets that threaten to explode into even more
violence. Acker's Gap is a place of loveliness and brutality, of
isolation and fierce attachments—a place where the dead rub shoulders
with the living, and demand their due."
"The Publication of each Commissario Brunetti mystery is an event anticipated by Donna Leon's many readers. In About Face, she returns with a dazzling mystery that puts Brunetti's own family at risk. Soon after meeting Franca Marinello, the wife of a wealthy Venetian businessman, Brunetti comes across her name in his investigation of a trucking company owner found murdered in his offices. Though charmed by Franca's love of Virgil and Cicero, he must now unravel her connection to the Carabinieri's prime suspect. As Brunetti delves into the murder, he comes face to face with violence and corruption as dangerous as he's ever seen."
"Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz can’t remember how he got to the hospital. He was found floating in the Thames with a gunshot wound in his leg and a picture of missing child Mickey Carlyle in his pocket. But Mickey’s killer is already in jail. Add to this the blood stained boat found near where Ruiz was pulled from the water, and the pieces just don’t add up. Now, accused of faking amnesia and under investigation, Ruiz reaches out to psychologist Joseph O’Loughlin to help him unlock his memory, clear his name, and solve this ominous puzzle. Michael Robotham is one of the finest new thriller writers working today. Marked by vivid characters and full of unexpected turns, Lost is a hair-raising journey of vengeance, grief, and redemption through the dark London underworld."
"Brighton in 1882 is the setting of this novel of crime and tangled emotions. Albert Moscrop, a visitor whose holiday is dedicated to peering through a telescope at the seaside scene, marches down Queen’s Road to the beach and draws us through a sequence of disarmingly trivial observations into a compelling drama, played in the fashionable haunts of the nineteenth-century resort: beach, piers, promenade, swimming bath, aquarium, and Devil’s Dyke.
A keen student of human nature, Moscrop concentrates his interest on one particular family of holidaymakers—the Protheros, and especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take her excessively for granted. Gradually Moscrop moves into the circle of the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder. All Brighton is horrified by the gruesome crime. The local police seek the help of Scotland Yard, which is provided in the persons of Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray. These indomitable detectives soon find themselves challenged by the strangest case of their careers, one that is as mystifying as it is macabre."
Women Authors I'm Enjoying - Charlotte Bronte
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| Charlotte Bronte |
"The Professor by Charlotte Brontë was Bronte's first book but not published until her death. I have read Jane Eyre this past year and enjoyed very much. I had an inkling about The Professor but the overall story was a nice surprise for me. I thought it was about a woman who goes to Brussels to teach and falls in love with a professor. In fact, it was probably the polar opposite.
Basically, William Crimsworth finishes school and turns down his relatives who offer him a job as a minister. He instead goes to the north and gets a job in his brother's factory as a clerk. His brother basically treats William like dirt and pays him a pittance. In the end, William goes to Brussels, receiving a recommendation of an acquaintance of his brother and obtains a job as a professor at a boy's school; teaching English. He also manages to obtain a job teaching part-time at a girl's school next door and the mistress develops a crush on him. He discovers that she is instead engaged to the master of the boy's school.
William instead finds himself falling for a young woman who teaches lace work at the girl's school and begins to take lessons with the Professor to learn English. The story develops, with Crimsworth leaving his jobs, Frances (the young woman) losing her job and a relationship developing between Frances and William. I won't elaborate any more as I don't wish to ruin the ending of the story.
All in all, I enjoyed the story and like Charlotte Bronte's writing style. I enjoyed how the story moved along and how the characters developed. The story ended very nicely, which was also a pleasant surprise. It ended up being a very satisfying and enjoyable. I will try her other stories and I think I'll have to brave Wuthering Heights, written by her sister, again as I took that in high school and never could get into it. Suffice it to say, I've been enjoying my exploration in the Classics and hope to continue to do so. (4 stars)"
"I was surprised to discover that I'd already read two of Charlotte Brontë's novels before I enjoyed this one, Shirley, her 2nd of 4 completed novels. I've enjoyed every one and Shirley was no exception. It was originally 1849. According to the synopsis on my edition, it was written after the deaths of her brother and 2 sisters and she found it difficult to finish. Her main characters, Shirley Keeldar and Caroline Helstone, displayed her feelings towards her beloved sisters.
The story is set during the early 1800s when Britain was engaged in a long lasting war with Napoleon and was also struggling with Luddite riots (fighting against modernization of factories), bad harvests and social unrest. All of these themes feature throughout this excellent book, but the main theme revolves the two excellent women leads mentioned in the previous paragraph.
It's a rich, textured story. We meet Robert Gerard Moore, an industrialist originally from Antwerp. He runs a local mill which he is trying to modernize and is struggling due to trade restrictions caused by the ongoing war. Workers are protesting his mill and he must deal with this. It's a tense, violent time as he gets rioters, threats of violence. At the same time, we meet Caroline Helstone, his cousin who loves him very much. This dynamic plays out throughout the book. Caroline lives with her uncle, Rev Matthew Helstone, a hard, cool man. Caroline's father is dead and his mother abandoned her when she was young. (She will discover more about her mother as the story progresses).
The owner of the land on which resides Moore's mill, Shirley Keeldar, arrives and brings her head strong, independent attitude to the story. We follow her growing friendship with Caroline. Shirley's London family, the Sympsons, comes to visit and we meet Moore's brother Louis, who tutors the Sympsons frail, young son. He also tutored Shirley when she was a mite younger. The main four characters remain the two women and the Moore brothers but it's a richer story than just that. There are so many excellent story lines to follow and fascinating peripheral characters.I can't do the whole story justice but suffice it to say it's a wonderful romance (s), dramatic (riots, shootings, deathly illness) and just a fascinating portrait of the times, both the people and current events and their impact. I have had difficulties getting into some of the classics I've enjoyed, the language of the time mainly, but this story grabbed me immediately and had a perfect flow to it and got better and better as I delved further into it. I'm not a 'romance' follower but I found myself cheering on both Caroline and Shirley, smacking their potential 'lovers' on the head to help them get a move on. It was a wonderful story, tragic at times but peopled with two fascinating and strong women characters. Charlotte Bronte has written some of my favorite classics, Jane Eyre and The Professor, and now this also ranks amongst my favorites. (5 stars)"
"Great story. I had great difficulty putting it down. Jane is a fantastic character; strong, intelligent, independent. I liked how she stood up to her cousin, how well she did at the boarding school she was sent to (as an outcast) and how she performed at Rochester's home when she became governess to his ward, the lovely Adelie. Even with the 'plot device' as my wife calls it, which kind of makes you go, 'yeah right', it's a fantastic story; a love story, a gothic romance at times, an adventure (Jane's life is an adventure) and just a great work of fiction. There were characters I liked very much; Mrs Fairfax (Rochester's house keeper), who treats Jane so caringly, after a life of much tribulation for Jane; St. John's sisters, Diana and Mary, both lovely, who take Jane and make her part of their family; even the headmistress of the boarding school, who loves her charges, even under the strictures of the school's Master. The scenes with Rochester's 'wife' are quite intense and even spooky. The description of the north of England, where the story takes place, is well - described. The story is excellent, the characters well-developed and I'm glad that I read it finally. I guess I'll now have to try Charlotte Bronte's sisters, Wuthering Heights again now.. :) (5 stars)" (Hmm. I seem to like using well-developed and well-described)
So there you go, one of the great classic authors in my opinion. Check them out. Enjoy the rest of your week. Stay safe. 😷
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