Tag: book lust i

Black Mountain

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Stout, Rex. Black Mountain. Bantam, 1983.

Reason read: I am still sloggin through Rex Stout’s canon of Nero Wolfe mysteries.

In the Rex Stout series, Nero Wolfe is known for being a recluse. He does not like leaving his brownstone apartment for anyone or anything. In Black Mountain Wolfe not only leaves his residence and his beloved New York City, Nero leaves country. There are a whole bunch of firsts in this book. Nero at the morgue. Nero on a train. Nero on a boat. Nero making dinner. Nero hiking in the dark through a “jungle of rock” in Montenegro, as Archie called it. Hiking so long and so far that Nero’s feet bleed. Nero taking care of Archie. Nero taking on a case where he is his own client. I should back up a little.
Marko Vakcic, a reoccurring character in the Nero Wolfe series is found murdered. This is a personal blow to Wolfe as he and Marko were childhood friends in Montenegro. His death brings back a memory of climbing Black Mountain, a peak he first summited when he was nine years old. Of course, Nero and Archie must travel back to the Balkans to find Vakcic’s killer and bring them to justice. Along the way readers learn more about Nero’s past and political views.

Line to make me laugh, “the day that Wolfe would like to climb steps to look at children will be the day I would like to climb Mount Everest” (p 119).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the never ending chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 289).

Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight

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Fuller, Alexandria. Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight: an African Childhood. Random House, 2001.

Reason read: Recognizing Levy Mwanawasa Day.

There is no question that Alexandria Fuller led a particularly unique childhood growing up on a farm in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in the 1970s. How many can say their mother habitually slung an Uzi over her shoulder whenever trouble arose? Even Alexandria was photographed with an Uzi in her hands like it was a bouquet of flowers. Fuller and her family seemingly moved with ease through the violence of war, hatred, and death whether it be blowing the head off a venomous snake or fighting off squatters on their land during the Rhodesian Bush War (more of the tamer encounters for the Fullers). They stayed not because they enjoyed the turmoil. It was just what they were accustomed to as a matter of survival because they loved the land. What is so striking about Fuller’s memoir is how candid she is about life in Africa and her family’s daily existence in survival mode. She does not sugarcoat her mother’s alcoholism and subsequent decline into mental illness after losing three children. She does not make light of the droughts and extreme poverty they caused. By the end of the of the Rhodesian Bush War in 1980 the Fuller family moved to Malawi and Zambia. From here Alexandria’s memoir accelerates. She and her older sister, Vanessa, grow up, marry and have kids. Life goes on.

Favorite line, “The world looks better when your belly is full, brighter and more hopeful” (p 184).

Author fact: Fuller is my age.

Book trivia: There are a smattering of black and white photographs of Fuller and her family in Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and a film of the same name was released in 2024.

Personal connection: when Alexandria mentioned the Cat Stevens song “Morning Has Broken” I was immediately transported to my childhood. My piano teacher loved that song and would play it often.

Setlist: “Flower of Scotland,” “Ole, I am a Bandit,” Beatles’ “Yesterday,” “Ipi Tombi,” Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Chopin, Roger Whittaker’s “I’m Gonna Leave Ole London Town,” “Morning Has Broken,” “D’ya Think I’m Sexy?” Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” “Hallelujah,” “Jingle Bells,” Bizet, Puccini, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff.

BookLust Twist: First, from Book Lust in the chapter called “Dreaming of Africa” (p 76). Then, twice in Book Lust To Go in the chapters “Africa: the Greenest Continent” (p 7) and “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 268).

Small World

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Lodge, David. Small World. Warner Books, 1984.

Reason read: September is traditionally back to school month and since Small World is about academia, why not?

Meet the academics in Small World: Persse McGarrigle is seen as the epic hero. At a typical conference full of pompous blowhards in Rummidge, he has fallen in love with a fellow conference attendee, the mysterious Angelica Pabst. He chases her all literally over the world to the point where it becomes farcical. Professor Morris Zapp is always appalled that he isn’t presenting his paper to a larger audience. He thought for sure the title of lecture, “Textuality as Striptease” would surely bring listeners into the room. [As an aside, the entire book is continuously dominated by various sexual situations.] Then there is the mystery of Joy Simpson. Her old lover thinks she is dead yet she is alive and well somewhere on the planet. Dempsey talks to a computer as if it is his therapist and becomes obsessed with her replies (readers should keep in mind this is the early 1980s and predates Siri or Alexa). I could go on, but I’ll leave the rest of the characters for you to discover.
Critics have called Small World “delightful” but I wouldn’t go that far. Even though this is supposed to be a satire about academia I was annoyed by the characters. The more verbose and didactic the dialogue, the more I tuned out. I will say my favorite scene was when Persse travels to Tokyo and learns of karaoke. Even though he is hellbent to find the woman of his dreams he manages to find time for a little fun. I won’t say whether Persse ever got his girl. It’s more about the journey than reaching the destination! Do not fret, the ending is satisfying!

Line I liked, “Professor B agreed that a law of academic life was that it was impossible to be excessive in flattery of one’s peers” (p 173). So true!

Author fact: David Lodge was an honorary professor of Modern English Literature at the University of Birmingham and it shows.

Book trivia: the title of the book, Small World, surfaces when Persse tells Akira it is a small world on page 335.

Music: Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Lay Lady Lay,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bee Gees, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson,” Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and “Hard Days Night,” and Diana Ross’s “Baby Love.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Academia: The Joke” (p 3).

Berlin Game

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Deighton, Len. Berlin Game. Pushkin Publications, 2023.

Reason read: The National Security Act of 1947 was signed in July, but most of the provisions went into effect on September 18th.

Len Deighton’s Berlin Game is the first book in the Game, Set, Match trilogy which is part of two other trilogies, Hook, Line, Sinker and Faith, Hope, Charity. In Berlin Game, Bernard Sampson is a married father who works for the secret intelligence service in London, the M16. His wife also serves as an agent, but she outranks Bernard which does not seem to bother him.
Bernard has had a desk job for years, but when Brahms Four, a British agent behind the Iron Curtain (obviously, Berlin Game takes place back with there was an East and West Germany) asks to be rescued by Bernard he cannot say no. Brahms saved his life twenty years earlier and now Bernard must return the favor. What follows is a new game of cat and mouse where everyone could be a traitor, including his own wife. Deighton lines up the suspects, each one more likelier than the last. It’s a fast moving drama, perfect for the big screen.

Confessional: I thought the ending was a little too predictable.

Author fact: Len Deighton was born on February 18th, 1929. He died earlier this year.

Book trivia: Berlin Game is the first book in the Game Set Match trilogy.
Audio book trivia: Berlin Game was read by James Lailey. Confessional: I thought his accents were terrible. I couldn’t tell if a character was German or Russian. I switched to the book format after a while.

Music: Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden,” Haydn’s Seventy-Seven C Major, and “the Trout.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust twice. First, in the chapter called “Cold War Spy Fiction” (p 61) and again in the chapter called, get ready, “Spies and Spymasters: the Really Real Unreal World of Intelligence” (p 223).

Member of the Wedding

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McCullers, Carson. Member of the Wedding. Library of America, 2001.

Reason read: September is Southern Gospel Month, or at least I read that somewhere. McCullers is the epitome of southern fiction.

Frankie Jasmine Addams wants people to stop calling her Frankie as if her rough and tomboy nature can be erased overnight by the new name, F. Jasmine Addams. Some would call her cheeky or obstinate in her behavior, but at times she is downright wild and violent. She should be just a twelve years old girl, dreaming of a bigger, more exciting life outside her small town. Instead, Frankie is a knife throwing, pistol toting confused preteen; impressionable and immature. Convinced Frankie is going to live with an older brother after his wedding, she repeatedly tells her father, cousin, and live-in housekeeper she is going to leave them. As the wedding date moves closer the tension builds with anticipation. Because Frankie is without any real parental supervision it seems highly possible she will make good on her threat to run away. Her widower father barely registers a parental word. Her cousin is only six and the housekeeper has her own grief to manage.

Bernice’s prayer sent shivers down my spine, “No stiff corpses hanging from the Europe trees and no Jews murdered anywhere” (p 546). Amen to that.

Favorite quote, “She planned it so that people could instantly change back and forth from boys to girls, whichever way they felt like and wanted” (p 547).

Author fact: In many of Carson’s photographs she is smoking. Despite dying at the young age of fifty in Nyack, New York, lung cancer was not the cause. She suffered from alcoholism, breast cancer, and other ailments.
Personal connect: I lived in New Jersey for a bunch of years. Every time I traveled North I went through the town of Nyack.

Book trivia: Member of the Wedding was made into a movie in 1952.

BookLust Twist: from two different books. First, in Book Lust in the chapter called “Girls Growing Up” (p 101) and again in Southern Fiction” (p 222). Pearl thought it best to also include it in More Book Lust in the chapter called “You Can’t Judge a Book By Its Cover” (p 237). Indeed! My copy has a photograph of Carson McCullers, looking all of twelve years old, smoking a cigarette.

Triple Jeopardy

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Stout, Rex. Triple Jeopardy. Viking Press, 1952.

Reason read: I am still working my way through Rex Stout’s entire Nero Wolfe canon.

Home to Roost – Mrs. Benjamin Rackell and her husband come to Nero to find out who killed their nephew. The young man died of cyanide poisoning in the middle of a dinner with five other people. Was it a communist conspiracy? Was he a plant working for the FBI? Stout tries to confuse the matter by introducing a few shady characters. Immediately, readers are supposed to suspect Fifi Goshen. She goads Nero by disturbing his orchids and pouring her cocktail into his beer. Is she trying to cause a commotion to distract everyone from the truth? And speaking of drinks, Archie has moved away from tall glasses of milk and now prefers cool coke and limes.

Cop-Killer – Two Illegal aliens working in a barbershop come to Nero Wolfe for amnesty. They are wanted for murder but cannot claim their innocence because they are too afraid of being deported back to Russia. The cop investigating the murder visited the barbershop to hunt down a lead on a hit-and-run that happened the day before. Carl and Tina Vardas fled thinking their illegal status had been discovered. Their flight makes them look guilty, but as Archie surmises, “to qualify as a hit-and-run driver you must meet certain specifications, and one of them is knowing how to dive a car” (Triple Jeopardy p 94). Dear Archie, I would beg to differ. I would argue that you are more likely to hit someone while driving a car if you have no idea what you are doing. It is during this case that Nero Wolfe leaves his brownstone to get a haircut. Shocking!

Squirt and the Monkey – Harry Koven, a comic book writer, accuses someone on his staff of stealing his gun. To reveal the culprit, Koven enlists the help of Archie. Instead of learning the identity of the thief, Archie is framed for murder, thanks to a rare tropical monkey named Rookaloo. As an aside, this case introduced me to the Sullivan Act of 1911.

True to form, Archie is always flirting with the ladies. I still think it is cute the way Wolfe cares for Goodwin’s appetite.

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

Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina

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Graves, Robert. Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina. Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, Inc. 1935.

Reason read: to finish the series started with I, Claudius.

Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus has come a long way from the weak and stuttering fool in I, Claudius. After the murder of his cousin, Caligula, Claudius is now the new emperor at fifty years old. He still is a cripple, but has gained a wisdom from carefully watching those who went before him. He creates safeguards against perceived assassination attempts. He refrains from doing anything that would make the ghosts of his family disapprove. Despite all this, and if you know the story, you know what happens to dear Claudius in the end.
Even though Claudius is deeply in love with his seventeen year old wife Messalina, she does not factor much in the beginning of the story. The life of Harold Agrippa is more fully examined than Messalina’s. Towards the middle of the tale, Messalina reveals a devious side. She encourages Claudius to have an open marriage, as long as the other women do not outrank her. Messalina begins to emerge as a strong power player in Claudius’s life, politically and emotionally. Towards the end of the tale the moral of the story is love weaves a tangled web.

Quote I loved, “I detest forensic oratory” (p 123).

Author fact: I already told you about the connection to Natalie Merchant. Graves also wrote Goodbye to All That which I have already read. Claudius the God marks the end of my time with Mr. Graves.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Classical World” (p 60).

Lightning Song

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Nordan, Lewis. Lightning Song. Algonquin Books, 1997.

Reason read: Nordan’s birth month is in August.

The crackling electricity of doing something sneaky can be thrilling to a boy coming of age. Lightning Song begins with twelve year old Leroy Dearman, lost in complete innocence while furtively studying naked woman in the pages of a glossy Playboy magazine. Nordan must have tapped into his own boyhood innocence, because he describes Leroy’s naive thoughts perfectly as he stares at the smiling women.
Leroy is a sheltered boy, growing up on an llama farm in rural Mississippi with his parents and two younger sisters. He confronts adult things: naked women, his mother’s coy and giddy behavior around his uncle, and the creepy death of his grandfather in the attic. Lightning Song only becomes more bizarre as you read on: to name a few: the New Couple’s oddity, Leroy’s mother’s obsession with a kidnapped prime minister, Leroy’s sister and her ferocious courage (confessional: my favorite act of bravery was when she was not afraid to take her father’s withered hand).
The lightning is another character in Lightning Song. It creates tension and an air of danger. It is witness to illicit behaviors and illuminates dark secrets.

Favorite line, “He longed to be his father’s son” (p 122).

Author fact: as there is a whole chapter for Lewis Nordan in Book Lust, I am reading a few. Eight to be exact. I have finished three so far.

Book trivia: this could have been a movie.

Music: Elvis Presley, “Dixie,” “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” and “Are You From Dixie?”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “Lewis Nordan: Too Good To Miss” (p 172).

Copenhagen

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Frayn, Michael. Copenhagen. Anchor Books, 2000.

Reason read: July is the birth month of the atomic bomb.

Michael Frayn took real historical events and wrote a play about what he thinks happened next. It is true Danish physicist Niels Bohr really did take a walk with his German counterpart, Werner Heisenberg, but no one knows what was really discussed away from spying microphones. In Copenhagen Frayn imagines the private conversation between Bohr and Heisenberg, now spirits of the past; their words heating up to an argument. As scientists and physicists once working together on atomic physics and quantum theory, they both have competitive spirits and neither likes to be wrong. Complicating their relationship is the fact Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, are Danes under German occupation. Heisenberg is, of course, German. Frayn imagines Heisenberg struggling to make small talk with Bohr, a once trusted friend and mentor, but every time he opens his mouth it is to blunder around some insensitive topic. As former partners prior to 1941, the exchange is awkward. They want to stick to paradox and contradiction; the foundations of science through an objective universe; classical mechanics and the particle theory, but they cannot. Along for the garden stroll is Bohr’s wife, Margrethe. She offers a different perspective on Bohr and Heisenberg’s relationship, one that is grounded in human nature rather than scientific discovery.

Author fact: Frayn is a prolific writer of plays and novels, in additional to being a documentary filmmaker and a translator of Chekhov.

Music: Beethoven in G Major, and Bach.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Bomb Makers” (p 42).

I, Claudius

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Graves, Robert. I, Claudius. Random House, 1961.

Reason read: July is the month of the restoration of democracy in Greece.

Tiberus Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus paints himself to be a pitiful creature: deaf yet affectionate, stuttering and stammering, sickly with nervous tics and a queasy digestion; always shaking with weakness. Claudius plays the fool. And yet, this sad creature from a royal family becomes the Emperor of Rome by 41 A.D.. I Claudius is Claudius’s effort to set the record straight about his murdered father by embarking on a biography which turns autobiographical. Claudius has much to tell. Throughout his life he manages to escape murderous plots from all sides of his family, including his nephew, Caligula (need I say more?). You cannot help but root for poor (brilliant) Claudius
As an aside, if you think the story of Claudius is a steady stream of eye gouging, knife stabbing, and limb breaking, you would not be wrong. The list of methods of violence is long. But don’t forget, the gentle art of poison was a very fashionable method for murder as well, especially with women.

The list of Claudius is impressive. You have Claudius the Proud, the Fair, the Tree trunk, Claudius Nero (the Strong), Claudius Drusus…there is even a Claudius Audiena set a hundred generations into the future when Graves was writing for a 1934 audience.

Line I laughed out loud at, “As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned” (p 249).

Author fact: I first encountered Robert Graves through the genius of Natalie Merchant. She put a Graves poem to music.

Music: The Three Griefs of Lord Augustus.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Classical World” (p 60).

Godforsaken Sea

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Lundy, Derek. Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World’s Most Dangerous Waters. Algonquin Books, 2000.

Reason read: June is the perfect month for an ocean voyage.

I would call the Vendee Globe sailing’s answer to the Barkley Marathons. The rules of the 27,000 mile race make the endeavor one of the most challenging competitions in the world. Sailors must sail solo without a crew. Once underway sailors cannot receive help from anyone on shore, either. They can moor their boat for a stop to make repairs, but they themselves cannot step foot beyond the high tide mark. At the time of publication the minimum funding needed to enter and prepare for the Vendee Globe was four million pounds. Only the truly dedicated (or insane) attempt the Vendee Globe.
Lundy, an avid sailor himself, chronicles the trials and tribulations of the sixteen sailors attempting the 1996-1997 Vendee Globe. He focuses most of the adventure on the extreme weather conditions around the most difficult leg of the race, the Southern Ocean. Only six of the sixteen vessels to enter the race will finish. As a result of the outcome of the 1996-1997 Vendee Globe race officials created new rules, making boats safer for future competitions.
I appreciated the anatomy of a ocean vessel I have never been aboard. Even more than that, I thrilled to learn the Beauford Wind Scale: the assigned number to the force of the wind and corresponding wind speed in knots, miles per hour, meters per second and kilometers per hour; the World Meteorological Organization categories (calm to hurricane); and what the water looks like from the land (mirror to air filled with foam and the sea completely white with driving spray. You know that the weather is terrible when you cannot tell the sea from the sky from the clouds.
Confessional: I have always been a dreamer about the idea of reincarnation. To think that a fellow sailor came back as an albatross to keep Chaband company was pure magic.

In the very beginning of Godforsaken Sea Lundy describes the capsizing of the boats of Dinelli, Bullimore, and Dubois. Cruelly, he leaves you hanging as to their fates.

Quote to quote, “It is interesting to contemplate what combination of compulsion and desires drives these sailors to the Southern Ocean” (p 177).

Confessional: I have a friend who is not necessarily all that good with boats. He definitely will not be reading Godforsaken Sea anytime soon. Most definitely not.

Other harrowing stories about trying to sail around Cape Horn:

  • The Bounty Mutiny (Bligh)
  • Two Years Before the Mast (Dana)
  • My Old Man and the Sea (Hays)

Author fact: Lundy was trained to be a lawyer but decided to do something different.

Book trivia: there are no photographs in Godforsaken Sea.

I didn’t think it would be possible for Godforsaken Sea to mention music, but I was wrong: the Who and the Platters.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Adventure By the Book: Nonfiction” (p 9).

Prisoner’s Base

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Stout, Rex. Prisoner’s Base. Bantam Books, 1952.

Reason read: to continue the series started in honor of Stout’s birth month (December).

Prisoner’s Base begins in the month of June…on the exact date I started reading.

A woman invites herself to stay at Nero Wolfe’s townhouse. It is all very mysterious as the woman is well familiar with the layout of the place and its inhabitants, yet she does not seem to care that Wolfe is not fond of women. Nevertheless, she offers to pay $50 a night. Archie, unbeknownst to his employer, takes the woman in. Thus begins Prisoner’s Base and the story of Priscilla Eads. Wolfe callously turns Ms. Eads away deciding not to take a case she doesn’t have. Needed a place to stay is not a mystery or a crime. Hours after her dismissal Ms. E is found murdered. Anger on Archie’s part and guilt on Wolfe’s prompts Wolfe to solve her murder…for Archie’s sake. It turns out to be a complicated case. Ms. Eads had a target on her back. As the primary heir to a towel company, she stood to inherit 90% if she lived to see her thirtieth birthday. She was murdered a week shy. Any number of people stood to gain something by her demise. Was it her ex-husband who claimed he had a right to 50% of her inheritance? Was it the other company shareholders who would gain her shares if she died?

As an aside, one of my favorite moments was when Archie mentioned having apple pie with cheese. One of my favorite things in life is a slice of warm apple pie with a thick slab of cheddar cheese laid purposely on top.

As an aside, Rex Stout is proof that not every character needs to have a full name and backstory (Shreve!), especially if the reader is to never encounter that character again.

Author fact: Rex Stout’s working title for Prisoner’s Base was Dark-Base.

Music (in introduction): “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis.

Book trivia: Introduction to Prisoner’s Base was written by William L. DeAndrea.

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

Can You Forgive Her? Vol 2

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Trollope, Anthony. Can You Forgive Her? BiblioBazaar, 2008.

Reason read: to continue the series started in honor of Anthony Trollope’s birth month in April.

When we rejoin Alice Vavasor she is still annoyingly waffling between two men, committing to neither. One is her cousin George Vavasor, who seems to only want Alice’s hand in marriage to gain access to her money (which she gives him freely, by the way). But, George wants more. His grandfather is not dying fast enough and needing money for his seat in Parliament grows more and more desperate. When the old man finally dies, George is driven to violence and breaks his sister’s arm.
The other suitor is Mr. John Grey who seems to be if not without fault, has very little.
I was disappointed to find volume two did not move any of the relationships any closer to resolution. Alice was still oscillating between George Vavasor and John Grey to the point where to two men came to blows over the woman.
Lest us not forget Mrs. Greenow. In volume two of Can You Forgive Her? this fickle lady was still refusing Mr. Cheesacre. But, the most beautiful relationship was between Mr. Palliser and his wife. Palliser sacrificed his political career to save his marriage.

Trollope continues to amuse me with his odd character names like Mr. Scuby (pronounced Scrubby) and Cheesacre (pronounce cheese-acre).

Favorite slight: a pettifogging rascal.
Favorite quotes, “The cicatrice began to make itself very visible in his face, and the debonaire manner was fast vanishing” (p 271).

Author fact: Anthony Trollope died on December 2nd, 1882.

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

Naked and the Dead

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Mailer, Norman. Naked and the Dead. Signet Book, 1948.

Reason read: Germany surrendered on May 8th 1945. Read in honor of that historic day.

Meet General Cumming, arrogant and blundering. Gallagher is only twenty years old with a pregnant wife back home. Look out for Sergeant Croft because he is mean. Red grew up in a mining town. The idea that any man, from any walk of life, can experience the horror of war as equals.
Norman Mailer takes you inside the mind of a solider. The long nights in a foxhole keeping watch and the raging thoughts that go through a soldier’s head: paranoid about the enemy’s location, wondering about his girl back home. The twisted sense of right and wrong: a soldier can be devastated after the torture and killing of an insect, but feel nothing for doing the same to his Japanese enemy. Writing letters back home: being diplomatic about what a soldier could or could not say. Even though they were not sure what they were fighting for, a soldier could not admit that to his family. By stepping back in time before each character became a soldier was a way for Mailer to humanize his characters even further. Some escaped fatherhood by enlisting. Others needed to prove their toughness for fear of seeming too sensitive and weak as little boys.
Mailer’s attention to detail brings his reader right into the jungle fighting. The way water seeps into greased “waterproof” shoes. The way a forty pound pack gets heavier with the weight of water. What they carried and how they carried it. Obviously, Mailer speaks with experience. Heartbreakingly so.

Quotes to quote, “Dalleson was no problem; he even had potentialities for being a good man” (p 65), “In the war you keep on moving” (p 202).

Music: “Pennies From Heaven,” Tchaikovsky, “Show Me the Way to Go Home,” “I Love a Parade, the Beat of a Drum,” “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal,” “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and “Roll Me Over.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Fiction” (p 252). Also, from More Book Lust in the chapter called “You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” (p 237).

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?