The space between sisters, by Mary McNear

A friend spotted this romance novel at the library and checked it out for me since it involved both a northern lake cottage and two sisters, close but very different.  It reminded her of my family situation and I’ll let you guess which sister is the control freak and which is the free spirit!  It was a pleasant read and predictable in the happily-ever-after manner of this genre, but well-written and with some depth.  I enjoyed it a lot.  Practical and dependable Win, widowed at a very young age, has retired to the family summer home on Butternut Lake to teach at the local school and recover from the loss of her husband.  Beautiful Poppy, just about homeless, jobless, and with hardly any money to her name, shows up unexpectedly on Win’s doorstep, driven there by a random stranger she has just met and imposed upon for a ride.  There is also a recently divorced father of three children who has returned to Butternut Lake to gentrify and run the local bait shop.  But the reasons for Poppy’s inability to settle down in life are darker than just a devil-may-care personality.  She begins to come to grips with an assault as a teenager.  As expected, in the end, things work out.  The book is one of a series set on Butternut Lake and I can see packing another title for a summer vacation read.  336 pp.

Ring of Truth

Ring of Truth, by Nancy Pickard (2001) 264 pages

Last year, I practically binge-read seven Nancy Pickard books from her Jenny Cain series. Ring of Truth is the second of three books from her Marie Lightfoot series, the first I've read from this trio.

Marie is a writer of true crime books; the trial has ended for the latest murder she researched and she's just finished her book. However, she has a nagging feeling that something's not right. Marie begins to review her data, and interspersed with chapters which deal in the present, are chapters from her book, a nice book-within-a-book device, which serves to fill us in on the crime and her research about it. A minister, Bob Wing, a foe of capital punishment, had been found guilty of murdering his wife, a brutal bludgeoning that broke nearly every bone in her body. A possible accomplice, a woman friend that some people in the congregation thought he was having an affair with, had been found not guilty by the same jury. It seemed a bit ironic that the minister was now in the same death row area as Steve Orbach, a young man that the minister had been trying to help prior to his own arrest.

The very day that Marie has shipped off the book to her editor, she is visited by a Jenny, a young girl who'd found the body of the murdered woman while exploring an abandoned old house near Florida's Intracoastal Waterway with a friend. The little girls had kept souvenirs from the murder scene, and Jenny's mother wanted to get rid of the items, but couldn't find anyone in authority who would take them now that the trial was over, so Marie takes custody. Meanwhile, we learn more about the murder that Steve Orbach was convicted of; the details of his crime turn out to provide more than mere background for the minister's own plight.

Pickard develops her characters and builds her plot so very intricately, allowing me to think I'm honing in on some important details, but later I see that she was in charge all along. Oh the twists! I loved this book!

A Night in the Lonesome October

A Night in the Lonesome October, Roger Zelazny, 280 pages

Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October follows a series of literary characters and archetypes as they scramble about the London of Jack the Ripper towards a mysterious goal, as told by his dog, Snuff. Examples include: Doctor Frankenstein, druids, witches, Dracula, and Elder Gods. There is not much I can say beyond that without giving away key twists of the plot. The accompanying illustrations, by Gahan Wilson, are highly stylized and add an endearing touch to the novel.

Hamilton: The Revolution

Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, 287 pages

In this book, Hamilton creators Miranda and McCarter reflect on the years of work, inspiration, and collaboration that went into making the groundbreaking Broadway musical. While plenty of people, myself included, would use the word "genius" to describe Miranda, he refreshingly and enthusiastically sings the praises of the actors, musicians, costume designers, set designers, choreographers, and lighting designers that made the musical possible, and I positively loved learning about the care he took to work with author Ron Chernow (whose Hamilton biography inspired the hip-hop musical) to make the musical as historically accurate as possible. History nerds FTW! This was a fun book, one that I listened to most of the way through before grabbing the physical copy to see Miranda's annotated libretto (those notes don't make a lot of sense without the visual). It makes me want to both listen to the cast album on repeat and see the show again.

The Neverending Story

The Neverending Story, Michael Ende, 448 pg.

Like many people that grew up through the 80's and 90's, I have strong, positive childhood memories of seeing Jim Henson's movie adaptation of Michael Ende's The Neverending Story. I listened to Gerard Doyle's reading of this novel, and enjoyed comparing the differences between novel and movie. Doyle's work in giving unique character voices, in particular Morla the Aged One, were quite good, though the narrative portions were a bit too relaxing for extended listening if I was not up and moving about.

Gross Anatomy

Gross Anatomy: Dispatches from the Front (and Back) / Mara Altman, 312 p.

Chapters on facial hair, BO, periods, etc., that combine personal experiences, humor, and a little research.  Altman is funny, and mixes in a little bit of information among the laughs. 

The Lady in the Lake

The Lady in the Lake / Raymond Chandler, 266 p.

I began this Philip Marlowe novel with unease, having recently tried The Big Sleep and finding it hard-boiled to the point of unpalatability.  I had an entirely different reaction here: Lady is a later work, and perhaps Marlowe/Chandler had become more nuanced by the time of its writing.

Whatever the case, this tale of two missing wives and one found drowned corpse was, for me, wonderful reading and generated a great discussion at our Classics book group. Written and set in 1943, I found the war, superficially of little importance to the story, to be a crucial off-stage character.  While the novel's  wealthy socialites, brutal police and sundry low-lifes are romping in a SoCal dreamworld, people are dying daily by the thousands across the oceans.  I kept wondering about the male characters: why weren't they fighting?  were they ashamed?   Of course, I know that every male couldn't possibly have gone overseas, but the war's progress cast a sort of jaundiced glow on all the men in the story.  Terrific, edgy dialogue and gorgeous physical descriptions round out an almost perfect detective story.

The Cuckoo's Calling

The Cuckoo's Calling / Robert Galbraith, 455 p.

The first in the Cormoran Strike series by Galbraith/Rowling.  Cormoran, an Afghan war vet with a prosthetic leg and a wacky ex-girlfriend finds himself living in his own office after said girlfriend kicks him out of their home.  With the help of his new assistant, Robin, he works the case of Lula Landry, a gorgeous London fashion model who jumped (was pushed?) to her death from a balcony.  Her adopted brother John doesn't believe the suicide verdict and wants Cormoran to pry open the police's seemingly watertight suicide ruling and find her killer.

The fifth risk

The fifth risk / Michael Lewis, 221 pgs.

Nothing is more exciting to me than a new book by Michael Lewis, even one like this that makes it hard to sleep at night.  The one line description given in Novelist "What are the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works?" is pretty perfect.  The federal government is massive.  It does a ton of stuff and there aren't many who really understand it all but we have always had people who understand parts, especially the part they worked in.  These days, not so much.  First off, the Trump team didn't actually SHOW UP after the election.  When they did finally make it to some departments, they threw away the briefing books that were prepared for them and asked questions about who studied climate science.  Most department rosters are still not complete.  Despite being somewhat depressing, Lewis finishes with stories about the great work that DOES occur within the government.  He talks about the people who have willingly devoted their lives to public service and are proud of it.  I wish all the government haters out there would read this book.

Transcription

Transcription by Kate Atkinson, 343 pages

Patrick already gave an excellent description of this, Atkinson's latest, so I won't rehash what he wrote too much. I will say that with this story of spies in and after WWII, is wonderfully created, leaving readers in as much of a confusing fog as Juliet, our transcribing (and spying) protagonist is — one never knows who is on which side, and I read this suspicious of every character and his or her motivations, much like Juliet interacted with them. It's a lovely, twisty historical fiction to lose yourself in.