Review: The Mystery of Mrs. Christie

The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Much better than Her Hidden Genius, which I shelved as unfinished. The chapters alternate between the years of the Christie's marriage and the days that Agatha is missing. In actuality, the two main characters could have had any names, since the Christie name did not enhance nor detract from the story of a woman's conforming to her image of the perfect wife only to have her husband grow bored and ask for a divorce. At first, she is devastated at this turn of events and attempts to keep her marriage and family intact. When it becomes evident that she cannot win, she manages to end the marriage on her terms and not as the discarded older, frumpier woman subject to pity and loss of esteem. Clever planning on her part--worthy of an Agatha plot.

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Review: The Origins of Things

The Origins of Things by Jack Meinhardt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Was North always on the top of maps? Why are there 360 degrees in a circle or 60 minutes in an hour? How was pi originally calculated and how? When were pills developed and why were they coated in gold or silver? Just a few of the questions answered in this small, interesting book. Longitude? Latitude? Is that why Columbus went the wrong way to reach China--hmmmm--maybe!

We think the Greeks and Romans gave us all the answers--uh, nope--those Mesopotamians and Babylonians were no smucks, either!! Fun book filled with interesting facts such as the one about the competition that led an early ruler to ban exports of papyrus, resulting in the use of parchment for writings. How about interest charged for loans and universal clean slate rules to get the economy balance restored? Hammurabi's code had four of those debt forgiving rules. Games? Dice has been around a long time--chess is comparatively a modern game. Oh, could go on forever--but read it for yourself.

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All The Usual Motives

Murder at Home by Faith Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

All The Usual Motives

Flo Jenkins, a seventy something widow,living alone,is found sitting in her overheated parlor,with the lights and telly on. A bit unusual,this early on a cold wintry morning. A bit more unusual is the sharp bladed letter opener jutting out from her chest!
Hilary Greene and her team, including the soon to be married and soon to transfer,Janine; the ever lazy,gruff and negative,Frank; and a new Constable, transferred in from London ,after decking his last DS, Keith catch the case. Every clue and every suspect leads to a dead end, frustrating them all.
Only Frank seems to have no outside stresses. Hilary has started a relationship with Regis but isn't sure she wants one.In addition, her boss Danvers is making it hard to ignore his interest in her. Keith has the very natural stress of trying to figure out his place on the team in this rural backwater . And poor Janine has pre wedding jitters and a stalker who is sending her letters and vandalizing her car.

In other words, here is another complexing mystery being investigated by a group of very savvy and very human cops!

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Review: The Great Bardo Ride

The Great Bardo Ride by Lise St Amant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A forty something oncologist's wife has died of cancer. Filled with grief and frustration at being unable to save her, he finds himself drinking too much and unable to function in his job. In this vulnerable state he learns from his father-in-law that his wife, Eva had borne a child before they met and gave it up for adoption. Now, he is given a letter written by Eva to her son and is asked to deliver it to the boy on her behalf. Having struggled throughout their marriage to have children he is further torn apart by this seemingly unreasonable request and by the unforgiveable keeping of this secret for years.

Still, something propels him to drive in a blizzard to the small Maine tourist village where the boy lives. He arrives through some miracle being as drunk as he becomes during the drive and is given a room in the local hotel--the home of the boy, David. His interaction with the family who owns the hotel, the secrets each of the members hold, the relationships they have with each other all lead to healing and a new path in his life.

Two things loom above the developing connections he makes with each of them and with himself--a seagull that seems very interested and a ferris wheel and its seemingly magical hold it has on anyone who rides it. The Ferris wheel is the Great Bardot--complete with a huge billboard boasting a painting of the voluptuous Brigitte but lacking the final T.

I shall never spend time on the beach at Ocean Park nor look at the wheel in Old Orchard Beach the same way again. But I will think about the book often.

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A Mixtape Has All the Feels!

The Mixtape by Brittainy C. Cherry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A heartbroken man, A down on her luck single mother, and an irrepressible 5 year old with an adorable lisp...what's not to love? This is a story about family formed by blood and formed by choice. Filled with ups and downs, good days and bad and imperfect as well as completely perfect. Be ready to laugh, but keep a tissue handy!

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Review: An Irish Country Cottage: An Irish Country Novel

An Irish Country Cottage: An Irish Country Novel by Patrick Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Life continues in Ballybucklebo with the accidental loss of Donal Donnelly and family's cottage to fire. Though the Green and Orange Troubles are beginning to rise once more and Ulster is seeing Catholic-Prod turmoil increasing, the folks here are, as always, united neighbors and friends who come to the family's aid in many ways. Jack Mills, a Protestant and Helen Hewitt, a Catholic are getting engaged. Jack is Dr Barry Laverty's best friend and Helen is a medical student almost finished her training. While both sets of parents had been accepting of the relationship, lately Helen's father especially has been quite vocal with his disapproval of the match.

Dr Emer is beginning to become more self-confident though she is wondering if medicine is her calling, since, in her opinion, she didn't make the right call in two cases early enough. Her handling of Donal's wee daughter, Tori, who appears to think herself a bad little girl since she was playing near the stove where the fire began before her bed-time. Tori is having nightmares and, though the cottage is coming along and will soon be habitable, she cries whenever Julie and Donal try to show her the new place.

Barry and Sue Laverty, in the meanwhile, are having problems conceiving. This brings in the strand dealing with woman's reproduction, the use of contraception in Ireland,and the development of the pill. The tests and findings and treatment of infertility is a major theme in the book.

All in all, as the time moves into the 1960's the town and its people and the doctors who live among them and serve them, so too the reader goes with them Delighted as always to be a visitor to an Irish Country town.

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