Category: Fiction

Trainspotting

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Welsh, Irwin. Trainspotting. W.W. Norton & company, 1993.

Reason read: in the month of May there is a festival in Scotland called the Beltane Festival.

Gritty yet moving. Violent yet tender. Lonely yet loud. Animally human. How can anyone fully explain the phenomenon that is Trainspotting? Once you get the hang of the narrative the characters come alive. All their faults laid bare. They are disgusting and darling all at the same time. Hideous and hilarious. The black humor and absurd situations had me giggling and then glancing around to see if anyone was offended.
In the absence of a plot this is the story of addictions told from the point of view of addicts and the people who circle their periphery. To describe the kind of desperation addiction can create – when trying to find a viable vein, one character resorts to injecting their privates. Revenge is brutal. Sex is raw and callous. No one is really all that likeable until you find yourself thinking of them long after you close the book. A certain kind of magnetism…like a train wreck.

Lines I liked, “Any port in the storm, and its raging in here behind my face” (p 17) and “I wish I hadn’t waited to long to become a human being” (p 262).

Music! So much good music!: George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord,” Dire Straits’ “the Sultans of Swing,” “Billy Don’t Be a Hero,” “Save the Last Dance For Me,” “Rollin’ Down the River,” “The Wanderer,” “Jolene,” Rod Stewart, Rupert Holmes’s “Escape (the Pina Colada Song,” T’Pau “Chin In your Hand,” The Pogues, Claire Grogan’s “Don’t Talk to Me About Love,” Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control,” Lou Reed’s “Heroin,” Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away,” Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me?” Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” The Smiths’s “There is a Light That Never Goes Out,” Kylie Minogue, The Velvet Underground, Nico, the Clash, Status Quo, John Cale, David Bowie’s “The Golden Years,” Elvis, Wolfe Tones’ “Banna Strand,” the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues,” Elvis Costello, Simple Minds, James Connolly’s “Boys if the Old Brigade,” “A Scottish Soldier,” Wet, Wet, Wet, “Auld Lang Syne,” Peter Gabriel, Proclaimers’ “Sunshine on a Leash,” U2, Iggy Pop, Frank Zappa, Moon Unit Zappa, “Danny Boy,” “Roses in Picardy,” and a bunch of Neil Diamond’s sings: “Song Sung Blue,” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” “Love on the Rocks,” “Sweet Caroline,” and “Beautiful Noise.”

Pitted

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Cleary, E, M. Pitted. EverWhen Stories, 2026.

Reason: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review program I get to read interesting stories. This is one of them.

Mothers have complicated relationships with their daughters. At thirteen, Alice does not understand her mother at all. Left to take care of her younger brother and run the household, Alice resents her mother’s long hours as a surgeon at the hospital. She quietly keeps track of all the times her mother has offended her and looks for ways to even the score. One day she seizes her chance and defiantly eats a peach pit. Everything changes.
Thus begins E.M. Cleary’s short story, Pitted. It is a mere twenty-four pages long but packed with themes of trust and love. Every relationship needs a hero and Alice finds hers in the unlikeliest of places.
You can find more short stories at E.M. Cleary’s website.

Natalie connection: I am reminded of Natalie’s song “Tell Yourself” a song about a young thirteen year old girl struggling to come in her own. It’s a tough age to be.

Under the Beetle’s Cellar

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Walker, Mary Willis. Under the Beetle’s Cellar. Crimeline, 1996.

Reason read: Walk was born in the month of May. Read in her honor.

Eleven small children, specifically the first born in each of their families, have been taken hostage by a cult leader convinced the end of the world is coming soon. Samuel Mordecai had buried the children and their school bus driver in a bus in the ground forty five days earlier in an effort to “purify” them. When we join the story the end of the world is in five mere days and FBI negotiators are no closer to a viable rescue. They do not even know where the children are being held. As a last ditch effort, is up to reporter Molly Cates to get inside Mordecai’s head and convince him to release the children. She has interviewed him before. Molly starts with Mordecai’s adoptive grandmother to get a sense of how the woman raised this fanatic cult leader. When Molly learns Mordecai was abandoned at the edge of a high school she sees an opportunity to get further inside his head by finding his birth mother. It is a gamble, but it just might work, but can she do it in time?
Small irritation. Molly meets with a Dr. Asquith who starts off with an accent (ah = I, mah = my) but he loses that accent within one paragraph and pronounces I and my without inflection.
My other small irritation is the use of brand names like Coors, Snackwells, and McDonald’s. If a business were to become obsolete, the story would not hold up and would appear dated. Does everyone know the Snackwell brand?

Author fact: Walker died at 81 years old in 2023.

Book trivia: Under the Beetle’s Cellar is the second Molly Cates thriller. Once again, sigh, I am reading them out of order. Go figure.

Playlist: Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken,” “La Bamba,” Rolling Stones, “The Wheels on the Bus,” Mick Jagger, and “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”

Confessional: I dated someone in high school who loved Revelations 6:8. He could quote the passage about the pale horse, death and hell and did so all the time.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117). I have to argue is this really a mystery? We know who kidnapped the children and we know why. The only mystery is will Molly Cates get Samuel Mordecai to free the children?

River Angel

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Ansay, A. Manette. River Angel. William Morrow, 1998,

Reason read: Wisconsin became a state in the month of May.

In the fictional town of Ambient is a tight-knit community. You will get to know Shawn and his son, Gabriel. Shawn’s brother, Fred, wins the prize of caring for Gabriel after Shawn skips town, leaving the chubby ten year old behind. Gabriel’s personality is restricted to the fervor of religion and the preoccupation with food. Fred’s wife, Bethany, is less than thrilled to have another male in the house. She has enough on her hands with her husband’s father, Alfred, and own two boys, Pete and Robert John from different fathers.
Then there is Lorna Pranke, the police chief’s wife. Joe Kimmeldorf, the Mader family: Ruthie, Cherish and Gwendolyn. Father Oblerling, Mr. Shuckel, John Grosshuesch, Maya Paluski, Marty, and Anna Grey Graf and Anna’s husband Bill and daughter Milly.
Ambient is an unsightly rundown town that is unashamed to bare its dirty knickers. But at the heart of is charm is an old legend about a river angel. A boy, supposedly drowned in a river ends up in a barn, looking like a sleeping angel. Anday admits River Angel is more about the community than the legend.

Confessional: I did see a similarity between the town of Ambient and my hometown. Rich people from “away” worm their way into the community and start calling the shots with their money doing all the talking. They buy their way into changing all the rules and the way of life.

The only line I liked, “…she wore red lipstick that stuck like a miracle to the complicated shape of her mouth” (p 13).

Author fact: Ansay also wrote Vinegar Hill which is on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: I read this book way too fast because none of the characters grew on me.

Music: Stille Nacht,” “Die Kinderlein Kommen,” “Amazing Grace,” and Pink Floyd.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: the Literary Midwest (Wisconsin) (p 25).

Power Without Glory

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Hardy, Frank. Power Without Glory. Vintage Classics, 1950.

Reason read: Frank Hardy was born in March in Southern Cross, Australia. Read in his honor.

Power Without Glory is written in three parts:
Part One (1890 – 1907): The Road to Power. As John “Jack” West climbs the power ladder he learns the art of bribing the police to turn a blind eye to his illegal activities of running a gambling tote; hidden behind the front of a tea shop where no one ever bought any tea. When the shop become too hot, Jack moved his operation to a wood and coal storage yard that was surrounded by high wooden fences, barbed wire, and houses that Jack ingeniously bought for his employees. Piggy, Cauliflower Dick, One Eyed Tommy and the Ape could keep watch over the entire complex. Soon, bribery is not enough to keep Jack’s activities under wraps. He resorts to the threat of violence to keep his underlings and the authorities in line. As his “influence grows and grows it isn’t long before the idea of murder enters Jack’s mind.
Part Two (1915 – 1931): Abuse of Power. West now lives in a fancy mansion with his wife and four children. He not only controls the police but government officials as well. But it is not enough for West. He joins the Australian Imperial Forces as a soldier to gain more followers. As his power grows stronger so does his bafflement when people cannot be bought or intimidated. One such person he cannot control is his wife, much to his increasing resentment. The trouble with achieving anything is that success will have you asking what is next? Where do I go from here? When you reach the very top of success, where do you go from there?
Part Three (1935 – 1935): The Decline of Power. Everyone starts to defy John West, the once all-powerful tyrant. It begins at home with his wife and three children turning their backs on him. The betrayals are explained away as his wife betrayed him with another man and his children are willful and spoiled. As every slight grows stronger West loses his grip on power. His feared rein becomes diminished and impotent.

As an aside, this is the second book I have read in the month of April about a young man hearing the call to fight fascism in Spain. Ben Worth’s demise is no different than that of the young men in Journey to the Frontier.

Lines I liked, “tonight’s interview revived his faith in the power of the bribe” (p 67), “Power of the kind that John West was amassing – power for its take and domination over other people for the sake of domination, presupposes the ability to take reprisals” (p 117), “The more blood and hair that flew the better he enjoyed himself” (p 125).

Author fact: Frank Hardy is a sort of wonder child. He left school when he was thirteen and twenty-seven when he began a writing career.

Book trivia: Power Without Glory was originally a self-published work.

Music mentioned, “Here the Conquering Hero Comes,” “The Rose of No Man’s Land,” “Tipperary,” Beethoven, Dvorak, Fritz Kreisler, Chopin, “The Wearing of the Green,” “Liebesleid,” “O Promise Me,” and “The Internationale.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz – Fiction” (p 29). Confessional: I originally crossed this off my list because it is out of print and I was having a really hard time finding it. Yay for interlibrary loan!

Birds Without Wings

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De Bernieres, Louis. Birds Without Wings. Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

Reason read: In Turkey there is a day in April called Children’s Day.

De Bernieres introduces a mystery within the very first few pages of Birds Without Wings. You do not know what Ibrahim did to the beautiful Philothei. You do not know what the narrator did to his son Karatavuk except to say he/she lives in shame. Throughout Birds Without Wings the reader is introduced to a myriad of characters. The Dog – a mysterious stranger whose smile gives nightmares to children and adults alike. Mustafa Kernal – the teenager in Military Training School. Karatavuk, Mehmetak, Polyxeni, Ayse, Stamos, Snowbringer, Leech Gatherer, Tamara, Broken-Nosed, Rustern Bey, Charitos, Yusufthe Tall, among others. At the center is Philothei, betrothed since childhood to Ibrahim. Ever since childhood she has been beautiful beyond measure.
This is a story of human nature in the midst of prejudice and hate, war and relationships. Told from the perspective of a myriad of characters, Birds Without Wings is tragic and heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.
De Bernieres knows human relationships, especially marriage. I had to laugh at this situation: when a wife is unhappy with her husband he might get a little too much pepper in his food. After doing a bad thing the husband thinks I am going to get too much pepper in my food again tonight. But a husband a;ways has more power. He can put aside his wife and get a new one if he thinks she has been adulterous.
As an aside, I wish I had paid attention to all the bird references from the beginning of Birds Without Wings. There were so many! Sparrows, seagulls, ducks, doves, goldfinches, pigeons, partridges, nightingales, robins, owls, blackbirds, songbirds – they all soar (or cannot) and sing and escape cages. Of course, the ultimate little bird is the lovely Philothei who states plainly, “I have found that perfection is not enough” (p 463).

Author fact: Louis De Bernieres also wrote Corelli’s Mandolin but I am not reading it for the Challenge. Birds Without Wings is my only De Bernieres book.

Quotes to quote, “There comes a point in life where each of us who survives to feel like a ghost that has forgotten to die at the right time…” (p 3). What about this quote, “Nowadays no one would say, “I think we’ll remove all these people from their homes and send them to another country” (p 487)?!

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Digging Up the Past Through Fiction” (p 79) and again in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Turkish Delights” (p 238) which always makes me think of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

Can you Forgive Her?

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Trollope, Anthony. Can You Forgive Her? Oxford University Press, 1900.

Reason read: Trollope’s birth month. Read in his honor.

Can You Forgive Her? is the first instalment in the Palliser or Parliamentary series and follows three parallel stories about dating and marriage. All the single women in Can You Forgive Her? are in relationships with men of varying repute. This was an era when virtual strangers could tell a person who to marry or how to live one’s life. Antiquated norms made for a humorous read.
And speaking of humor, I was surprised to find there was a little humor sprinkled throughout Can You Forgive Her? Take, for example, the description of the green room being an abomination and ugly with deformed furniture. I could picture the space and found it worth a chuckle. Or, how about this insult? “…false tongued little parasite that she was” (p 413). Beyond humor, even more surprising was the element of violence and danger when George Vavasor is caught in a robbery.
All in all, I found Alice Vavasor to be an annoying character. She was torn between marrying two different fellows and her reasoning for how she treated each of them was irksome. I don’t think I would have made it through all three volumes of Can You Forgive Her? without the occasional narration of Sage Tyrtle from Quirky Nomad. The expressive way she reads is very funny. Too bad she doesn’t read the whole thing!
As an aside, I found the fox hunt scene particularly disturbing.

Natalie connection: when Lady Glencora (?) has the conversation about age and growing old I immediately thought of Natalie. According to Lady G twenty-five years of age seems ancient. On her album, Leave Your Sleep, Natalie revised a poem by Laurence Almatedema which has the line, “When I am getting old at nearly twenty-eight or nine, I’ll buy myself a little orphan girl and bring her up as mine.”

Quotes to quote, “Alice sat silent, not knowing what to say in answer to this charge brought against her, – thinking perhaps, that the questioner would allow his question to pass without an answer” (p 218). Like Alice, I have been in that situation many a time. Here’s two more quotes that I liked, “there can be no guilt in her remembrance” (p 295) and “All is right as a trivet” (p 421). Can someone please explain what that means?

Author fact: Anthony Trollope was born on April 24th, 1815.

Book trivia: Can You Forgive Her? is in the public domain so I listened to a great deal of it on LibVox. It was narrated by a variety of readers. My favorite was the woman who would sigh loudly after each chapter she finished.
For the print trivia – I was amused by the advertisements on the inside cover: Beetham’s Glycerine and Cucumber, Cadbury Cocoa, and Ward Lock and Co.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barsetshire and Beyond” (p 15).

Elegy for Easterly

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Gappah, Petina. Elegy for Easterly: Stories. Faber and Faber, 2009.

Reason read: Zimbabwe gained its independence in April.

The short stories:

  • At the Sound of the Last Post – Esther is attending the funeral of her philandering husband.
  • Elegy for Easterly – Martha Mupengo is pregnant has been moved into a house where a murder-suicide had occurred.
  • The Annex Shuffle
  • Something Nice From London – a brother who bled his family dry emotionally and financially is finally dead.
  • The Mupandawana Dancing Champion – who knew the man could dance until he died?
  • In the Heart of the Golden Triangle – what would you put up with to stay seated in the lap of luxury?
  • Our Man in Geneva Wins a Million Euros – a man, seeing the World Wide Web for the first time, gets caught up in its excesses.
  • The Maid From Lalapanzi
  • The Cracked, Pink Lips of Rosie’s Bridegroom – guests surmise when the bridegroom’s new wife will meet her demise.
  • My Cousin-Sister Rambanai – an Americanized daughter comes back to her homeland for her father’s funeral.
  • Aunt Juliana’s Indian – good help is hard to find.
  • the Negotiated Settlement – Sometimes a tragedy can alter the course of a marriage, for better or for worse.
  • Midnight at the Hotel California – I loved how the all-commodity broker described his job, “…if it can be bought, it can be sold, and if it can be sold, I am your man” (p 208). Did anyone else think of the movie Say Anything?

Quotes I loved, “I thought I loved him; but that was in another country” (p 8), “And we had no jam for our bread, no milk for our tea while Peter drank away our father’s inheritance in London” (p 75), “Fame is an elastic concept especially in a place like this, where we all know the smells of one another’s armpits” (p 91).

Music: Oliver Mtukudzi, Michael Jackson, Bhundu Boys, Alick Macheso, Andy Brown and the Storm, System Tazvida and the Chazezesa Challengers, Cephas Mashakada and Muddy Face, Boyz II Men, Hosiah Chipanga and the Broadway Sounds, Mai Charamba and the Fishers of Men, Simon “Chopper” Chimbetu and Orchestra Dendera Kings, Tongai “Dehwa” Moyo and Utakataka Express, Bob Marley, Chamunorwa Nebeta and the Glare Express, Lumumbashi Stars, “Bhutsu Mutandarikwa,” and the Eagles’s “Hotel California.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 268).

Wake Up Dead

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Smith, Roger. Wake Up Dead. Henry Holt and Company, 2010.

Reason read: Jan van Riebeck founded Cape Town on April 6th, 1652.

The bad guys abound in Wake Up Dead. Even people you do not expect are violent, savage people who aren’t above torture, sodomy, and other nefarious activities. But that is life in South Africa’s Cape Town. Gun runners, drug fiends, gangsters, petty thieves, prostitutes, doctors who keep amputated body parts in the freezer, and just plain greedy individuals all prowl the pages of Wake Up Dead. Disco, Afrika, Piper, the cannibal, Maggot…they all have a score to settle with someone. At the center of the story is Roxanne Palmer, a beautiful American ex-model now married to a criminal. Everyone needs something from Roxy. Money her gun-running dead husband owes Billy Afrika. Piper needs Roxy to lead him to Afrika to finish a botched murder attempted when they were children. Disco thinks Roxy will lead him to a boatload of cash so he can steal to support his out of control drug habit. Throw in a serial killer lobbing off blonde heads and you have yourself a thriller. There is so much violence in Wake Up Dead I lost track of the dead, but I enjoyed Roxy’s strength. I cheered for her redemption.

As an aside, it is interesting to read about the practice of witchcraft in three books at the same time. The Cruelest Journey and Birds Without Wings have a witch presence as well.

Line I liked the best, “Nothing like hating someone to give you a reason to go on living” (p 279).

Author fact: Roger Smith had no way of knowing MySpace was not timeless.

Book trivia: This could be a movie with all of its violence, sex, drugs, and even a little romance.

Music: Celine Dion’s “The Power of Love” and “Because You Loved Me”, Barry White, Nirvana, J Lo, Britney, Three Tenors, Ludacris, Chet Baker’s “Old Devil Moon,” “Abide with Me,” Bob Dylan’s “Death is Not the End,” Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” Courtney Love, and “Happy Birthday.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “South Africa” (p 215). Interestingly enough, Pearl said somewhere that she didn’t like violence (maybe it was in the Lee Child chapter?), but anyway, holy cow there is a LOT of violence in Wake Up Dead. Even the everyday descriptions of things are crude and rude.

Curtains for Three

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Stout, Rex. Curtains for Three. Bantam books, 1994.

Reason read: I continue to slog through the Nero Wolfe mysteries. No. Slog is not the right word. I am enjoying the series tremendously.

Curtains for Three contains three novellas first published together in 1950:

  • Gun with Wings – a famous opera singer is found dead of an apparent gunshot to the head. If he killed himself, why is his widow hiring Wolfe to solve his murder? Especially when all evidence points towards her or her lover. This one was my favorite because the clues to solving the case were right in front of my face the entire time.
  • Bullet for One – a man is murdered while riding his horse in a local New York City park. A bit of fashion solves the case.
  • Disguise for Murder – Archie and Nero feel considerably displaced when their home becomes a crime scene and their office is off limits for the duration of the investigation. Archie and Nero without their typewriters was amusing.

Author fact: to be honest, I have lost track of all the Stout facts so I am skipping this one.

Book trivia: This copy of Curtains for Three included the original cover for Gun with Wings, originally published in Decemeber 1949’s issue of The American Magazine.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226)

Arundel

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Roberts, Kenneth. Arundel. Doubleday and Company, 1933.

Reason read: Maine became a state in the month of March.

Steven Nason, a boy from Arundel, Maine, opens his story with the announcement that he wants to set the record straight. He looks back his childhood in 1759 when Steven is only twelve years old. His childhood sweetheart, Mary Mallison, has just been kidnapped and her father murdered. Steven’s father suspects it is the work of Henri Guerlac de Sabrevois, a Frenchman hiding out in Quebec. Calling upon the Abenaki nation for help, Steven and his father set out to rescue the fair maiden Mary. The mission takes years and Steven’s life takes many twists and turns as he and his companions get caught up in the American Revolution. As a historical fiction writer, Kenneth Roberts weaves in events so real they seem to jump off the page. I particularly enjoyed Steven’s loyalty to his friends and the fact that he had a pet seal named Eunice.

Maine towns: Arundel, Brunswick, Falmouth, Kittery, Portland, Wells, and York. I was wondering if Monhegan would make a mention and it does on page 68.

Line I liked, “I growled a little, as Maine folk do when not wishful of answering…” (p 378).

Author fact: Roberts also wrote Northwest Passage which is on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: Arundel is book one of a four-part series. I am not reading any of the other books. Incidentally, my copy of Arundel boasts an extensive list of printings starting with the first publication on November 18th, 1929 all the way through September of 1956.

Music: While I didn’t expect any music in Arundel I was pleasantly proven wrong. “Viva la Canadienne,” “”Lillibullero,” “Benny Wentworth,” “Hot Stuff,” “Yankee Doodle,”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Digging Up the Past Through Fiction” (p 79). Arundel is also listed in the index of Book Lust To Go int he chapter called “The Maine Chance” (p 135).

A New Life

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Malamud, Bernard. A New Life. Farrar, Straus and Cuahy, 1961.

Reason read: Malamud passed away in the month of March. Read in his memory.

Moving from New York City to the Pacific Northwest, Seymour Levin has a cringy start to his new life. His boss invites him for dinner on his first night in town. He hasn’t even been to his new residence before Levin has hot soup dropped in his lap, is peed on by his boss’s young son, and is forced to wear his boss’s clothes while his are being cleaned by his boss’s overanxious wife. It is almost as if Pauline and Gerald are holding Levin hostage. Somehow right away you know Levin’s new life on the west coast isn’t going to be all that he dreamed it would be.
Once settle in Cascadia, Levin experiences a lot of firsts: first driver’s license; first ownership of a vehicle; first time out of a big city; first time teaching at the college level; first time confronting a student about cheating; first time confronting a peer about censorship; first time challenging a time-honored text. Throughout all these firsts, Levin is desperate for human companionship. A brush of a female breast at a party and he suddenly he is in love. The wife of his boss takes advantage of his loneliness to treat him as a confessional. Things spiral from there.
Levin’s professional immaturity causes him to get caught up in the political drama of the liberal arts degree and who will be the next head of the department.
All along you are wondering, what kind of life did Levin leave behind in New York? Strange that he didn’t research the area (or the job) before uprooting his entire life. And who is this Leo Duffy guy that everyone says they should not talk about and yet they do?

The more things change…”Also we are worried because he is a foreigner and everybody is touchy on that subject nowadays” (p 78). This was 1961. Nothing has changed.

As an aside, what does Levin mean when he said he killed his choices? Is it like when Natalie said she mercy killed her cravings?
As another aside, I love it when there is a connection between the books I am reading. In New Life there is a heated discussion about student athletes and how their studies take a back seat to sports. The students are more important as athletes than academics. In Last Amateurs by John Feinstein there is a very real commentary about the same controversy.

Quotes to quote, “He was dead set against the destruction of unlived time” (p 59), “The future as new life was no longer predictable” (p 164) and “Out of love he gave her up” (p 251).

Author fact: Malamud write two other books before A New Life.

Book trivia: A New Life has shades of autobiography as Malamud, a Jewish New Yorker, taught in Oregon. Was he trying to escape his past like Seymour Levin?

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Jewish-American Experience” (p 132). Also in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living High in Cascadia” (p 152).

Shadow Puppets

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Card, Orson Scott. Shadow Puppets. Read by David Birney and Stefan Rudnicki. Macmillan Audio, 2002.

Reason read: to finally finish the series started in October in recognition of Science Fiction month way back in October.

We pick up where we left off in Shadow of the Hegemon. Bean married Petra and they are trying to have children, ones without Bean’s mutated genes. As an aside, I found Petra’s fawning behavior a little unsettling considering how much of a badass she was in Shadow of the Hegemon. Did love make her mushy? Where was the smart warrior from before? Anyway, back to the characters. Achilles is somehow still terrorizing the universe despite losing his most of his backers. Peter Wiggin is trying to unite the planet Earth for survival. Peter’s parents insist on going with him everywhere (and are hilarious, I might add). A few other battle school grads pop up in interesting places with even more interesting roles.
The geopolitical parts of Shadow Puppets were more interesting than the didactic Mormon sections. I appreciated the return of Alai, an old battle schoolmate, despite his convoluted character. I think it is safe to say this was my least favorite of the Shadow series.

Author fact: Orson Scott Byron Walley Card studied theater.

Book trivia: Shadow Puppets is the third book in the Shadow series and the seventh book in the Enderverse series.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 214).

Murder By the Book

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Stout, Rex. Murder By the Book. Bantam Books, 1992.

Reason read: to continue the series started a year ago.

It is not often that Inspector Cramer needs help from Nero Wolfe, but that is exactly what happens in Murder By the Book on the very first page. Cramer is horribly stuck on a case that has gone cold as ice. Leonard Dykes, a clerk for a law firm, has drowned in the East River. It seemed to be a suicide until Joan Wellerman was killed in a hit and run accident. These two people have a connection so was it suicide and an accident or murder for both? Adding to the body count is Rachel Abrams, a stenographer thrown from her office window. She also has the same connection. Author Baird Archer seems to be in the middle of the mess as it is his unpublished manuscript which ties all three deaths together. It appears that anyone who reads it winds up dead.
Navigating the twists and turns of the case is, as always, wise-talking Archie Goodwin. He gets a chance to flirt with multiple ladies in this adventure.
This was the first Nero Wolfe mystery that I was able to listen to as an audio book. It was fun, but I think I’ll stick to print.

As an aside, my birthday is one of a few pivotal dates in the story.

Confessional: I am getting pretty sick of Stout telling his readers that Wolfe never leaves his house on business. I have not been keeping track, but the last book had Wolfe gone for months.

Author fact: I am losing track of what I have said about Mr. Stout. Did I mention he was the sixth of nine children?

Book trivia: Murder By the Book is the nineteenth book in the Nero Wolfe series.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the never-ending chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Devils in the Sugar Shop

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Schaffert, Timothy. Devils in the Sugar Shop. Unbridled Books, 2006.

Reason read: Nebraska becomes a state in the month of March.

Devils in the Sugar Shop takes place in the Old Market district of Omaha, Nebraska, back in a time when smokers were cordoned off in dark lounges with thread-bare carpets and worn exhausted furniture. The “sugar shop” is an adult sex toy shop. Deedee Millwood is it’s top seller and has won a trip to the Bahamas. Reminds me of my aunt, only she sold cars for Toyota and was sent to Mexico several times.
All of the characters are interconnected in various ways. There isn’t much a plot in Devils in the Sugar Shop. With the advent of Valentine’s Day approaching everyone ‘s sense of priority is out of whack. Not much happens in Devils in the Sugar Shop except a lot of gossip and party planning. Everyone is screwing someone else. Deedee is nearly forty and divorced. Her best friend is Ashley Allyson. Deedee and her husband, Zeke, are taking art classes to improve their divorce (how progressive of them). Zeke is messing around with Vivian, also a friend of Ashley Allyson. Ashley’s husband, Troy, works for Mrs. Bloom at the Omaha Street, an alternate news weekly, as an editor and writer. Viviane Daily, an artist of sorts, enjoys day drinking and is receiving obscene pictures from an unknown stalker. Mrs. Bloom is also in the aforementioned art class. Mrs. Bloom used to be a birthday clown, a reverend, an art therapist at a prison, and an organizer of poetry slams for cancer patients. Ashley’s son Leo is gay. Tucker is tallish dwarf and an artist from Mississippi. Peach and Plum are twenty-something year old twins who own a bookstore. Plum is married to Mickey.
Once you get all the characters straight, Devils in the Sugar Shop is a sexy romp set in Omaha, Nebraska (of all places).

Does anyone else find it ironic that Ashley’s first novel was published with a font created by a children’s book author? Keep in mind Ashley writes erotica.

Author fact: while Shaffert wrote a bunch of other books, I am only reading Devils in the Sugar Shop for the Challenge. As an aside, Timothy Schaffert knows his shoe brands.

Book trivia: the cover of Devils in the Sugar Shop is based on a design for a Polish release of an 1968 Italian film. Cool.

Music mentioned: Garth Brooks, Vivaldi’s “Spring,” Jean Stafford, Josephine Baker, Concrete Blonde, Diana Ross, Roy Eldreidge’s “If I Had You,” Red Hot Chili Peppers, Orenda Fink, “King of the Road,” REO Speedwagon, Air Supply, Billie Holiday’s “Everything Happens to Me,” “I Must Have That Man,” and “I Don’t Want to Cry,” Bloodcow, Rufus Wainwright, Elton John, Cher, Mary J. Blige, Chet Baker, Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” “Heart of Glass,” and Tina Turner.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Nebraska: the Big Empty” (p 148).