Tag: Fiction

So Long September

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What an absolutely bonkers month. September was…How to describe September? The family had a reunion of sorts. The island suffered its fifth shock of the season with a quadruple murder. Running was another head-scratcher as I officially resumed physically therapy for my twisted hips. But. But, But! I was able to log over 30 miles. Nowhere near the 70+ I wanted, but it’s something. At least I haven’t stopped entirely. And the reading? Here are the books:

Fiction:

  • Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (AB/print)
  • The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman
  • Burton And Speke by William Harrison (fictionalized history/historical fiction…whatever)
  • My Dream of You by Naola O’Faolain (AB/print)

Nonfiction:

  • O Jerusalem! by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre – Confessional: didn’t quite get all the way through this)
  • Everybody was so Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy, a Lost Generation Love Story by Amanda Vaill
  • Living Well is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins

Series continuations:

  • Passions Spin the Plot by Vardis Fisher
  • Henry James: the Treacherous Years (1895 – 1901) by Leon Edel

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • Boat Runner by Devin Murphy (fiction!)

Burton and Speke

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Harrison, William. Burton and Speke. New York: St. Martin’s, 1982.

Reason read: September is National Curiosity Month. What better way to satisfy curiosity than to go exploring the source of the Nile?

Richard Francis Burton was a legendary adventurer who also had a reputation for being a great lover. John Hanning Speke also had a reputation for being an adventurer and a lover, albeit of a different kind. When they first met, Speke needed Burton in order to get to Africa. Luckily, Burton was already going that way. Burton’s mission in Somaliland was in four parts:

  1. Discourage slavery
  2. Establish a camp for later use
  3. Search for gold
  4. “Examine” the women to study their sexual practices

As with any expedition into the unknown, Burton and Speke encounter many trials and tribulations. More often than not, their equipment and supplies were either being broken or getting lost. Crews and guides were constantly deserting them. It didn’t help that Burton and Speke couldn’t be more different from one another when it came down to leading the expeditions. Burton prided himself on his intellect, especially when it came to native languages across the regions. (He would go on to translate Arabian Nights and  The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana.) He had an understanding of the necessity of breaking down language barriers. Instead of brains, Speke valued his brawn, his hunting capabilities and his sheer physical strength. While Burton sought the company of many different beautiful women, Speke wouldn’t turn away a pretty boy. Their differences soon drove them apart and made them fierce rivals. In the end, it was Speke who discovered the source of the Nile but because he lacked the scientific evidence to explain how this came to be he was ridiculed and almost discredited. Richard Burton became faithful to one woman and became an anthropologist.

As an aside, I liked manservant End of Time’s name. That’s it – End of Time.
A cringe worthy moment – when the beetle crawled deep inside Speke’s ear and he went mad trying to dig it out with a knife.

Quote I liked, “Aloofness was a bore – especially when practiced amidst life’s frailties” (p 133).

Author fact: Harrison has written a bunch of other works, but this is the only one I am reading.

Book trivia: Confessional: I thought this was a nonfiction before I received the book.
It’s actually a historical novel.

Nancy said: Burton and Speke tries to solve an age-old debate of who found the source of the Nile.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Explorers” (p 85). Pretty straightforward.

My Dream of You

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O’Faolain, Nuala. My Dream of You. Read by Dearbhla Molloy. Hampton, NH: BBC Audiobooks America, 2002.

Reason read: September is supposedly the best month to visit Ireland.

Irish born Kathleen De Burca has arrived at a crossroads in her life. Nearing fifty she loses her best friend and coworker to a heart attack. As a travel writer, Kathleen has lived in London for nearly thirty years and has never married or had children. Jimmy was the closest person she could call family. But, when she is presented with the lifetime achievement award she was supposed to share with her best friend she realizes there is more to life than travel miles and exotic venues. Why not go home to Ireland? Why not research a century old crime that has long fascinated her?
So begins Kathleen’s story. Her past is as complicated as her future is a blank slate. Giving up everything, she lays herself bare to the tragedies of the past; remembrances of long ago transgressions; all the cringe-worthy scars of yesterday. But, as she says on page 408, “Tragedies end.” And so they do. Kathleen learns to pick up the pieces and face the black slate of tomorrow with a different kind of courage than it took in order to come home.
As an aside, I felt the ending gave O’Faolain room for a sequel. Just saying.

Quotes I fell in love with, “I envied her both the Alzheimer’s and the caring husband until I realized that if she had the one she didn’t know she had the other” (p 410), “Happiness keeps you poised, and you do the right thing without effort, whereas you get things wrong when you’re struggling with lack of life” (p 438), and “Either take account of other people from now on, or go back to the bad old days” (p 484). On a personal note, I took a lot from Kathleen’s words. I, too, am a woman who has repeatedly shunned the thrum of humanity, preferring my own seclusions. I, too, need to embrace and take stock of others around me.

Author fact: O’Faolain also wrote a best selling memoir about her life as an Irish woman.

Book trivia: My Dream of You is O’Faolain’s first novel.

Narrator fact: Dearbhla Molloy won an Audio Award for the abridged narration of My Dream of You.

Nancy said: My Dream of You is “a good novel set in Ireland” (p 126). She also said it is a first novel she was “delighted to have read” (p 89).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust twice. First, in the chapter called “First Novels” (p 88) and again in “Irish Fiction” (p 125). Also, in Book Lust To Go in the chapter appropriately called “Ireland: Beyond Joyce, Behan, Beckett and Synge” (p 111).

Passions Spin the Plot

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Fisher, Vardis. Passions Spin the Plot. Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ldt., 1934.

Reason read: to continue the series started in August.

From the very first sentence of Passions Spin the Plot I had a certain dread about reading this. As you may recall, I got sick of how whiny Vridar was in In Tragic Life. (Although I should have known better from the title!) So, when I read the very first sentence, “Vridar felt sick and lost” (page 13) I knew I was in for more of the same. Every thing about Vridar is very dramatic. He has bouts of hot grief, he is insecure, he feels very sheltered, guilty and lonely. The one connection I felt early on with Vridar was his love for libraries. Like me, Vridar found sanctuary amidst the books.
But, anyway! About the plot: Passions Spin the Plot continue the Vridar story. At the end of In Tragic Life Vridar was about to set off to college. Passions Spin the Plot picks up with Vridar at college in Salt Lake City. He finally makes a friend who becomes a partner in crime, so to speak. Vridar demonstrates he has a lot to learn especially about fashion and women in the “real” world so this new friend tries to guide him in the ways of dating. But, all in all Vridar is an odd duck. His childhood love for Neloa continues to be obsessive and yet his high morals cause him angst when he hears she sees other men. He hates her. He loves her. He hates her. He loves her. He comes across as high and mighty, very self-righteous but he himself is not all that pure during these college days.

Favorite lines, “She was as chaste as a June morning and as unapproachable as the philosophy of Kant” (p 47) and “A lot of men wasted themselves on love” (p 154). A favorite phrase was “vomit of rage”. I think I’ll use that the next time I am mad enough to spit nails.

Author fact: Since Vardis’s passion for Neloa is the focus for this book the author fact is that Fisher married three times. His first marriage only lasted seven years.

Book trivia: Passions Spin the Plot is the second book in a four-book series.

Nancy said: nothing specific about Passions.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Idaho: and Nary a Potato To Be Seen” (p 121).

Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax

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Gilman, Dorothy. The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. New York: Fawcett Books, 1966.

Reason read: September 10th is National Grandparents Day. In an odd twist of ironies, I am connected to someone who just killed his grandparents this weekend. I am in a state of shock.

Mrs. Pollifax is a bored, retired widow looking for excitement. So, what does she do? She takes a trip to Washington D.C. and inserts herself as a spy for the CIA. It’s really quite simple. They need an unassuming, nondescript individual to pick up a package in Mexico City and Mrs. Pollifax has nothing better to do but volunteer. What starts off as an innocent vacation turns dramatic when the package isn’t there and Mrs. Pollifax goes missing. It’s a hard-to-believe tale but one thing is for sure, Mrs. Pollifax is definitely unexpected. You will fall in love with her immediately.

Author fact: Gilman died on my birthday at the age of 88 years old.

Book trivia: Each installment of the The Mrs. Pollifax series takes place in a different foreign country. The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax takes place in Mexico City, Mexico and an unknown location in Albania.

Nancy said: if you are planning a trip to Albania the perfect accompaniment for the trip is The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (p 12).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the ever so simple chapter called, what else? “Albania” (p 12).

Tender is the Night

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Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Tender is the Night. Read by George Guidall. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 1996.

Reason read: F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in September…

How many people remember this from their English lit days? Tender is the Night is a study in the push-pull of relationships at their strongest and weakest. Dick Diver is a wealthy psychiatrist who falls for the mentally unstable Nicole Warren. A doctor marrying a patient begins as a dance between crazy and sane. Both are wealthy, society driven people with magnetic, charming personalities. The French Riviera serves as the backdrop and Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Murphy serve as the inspiration for the the first half of Tender is the Night. Zurich, Switzerland and Fitzgerald’s relationship with his mentally ill wife, Zelda, help finish the rest of the story. Overall, it is a tragic display of how mental illness infects like a contagion, bringing down even the most solid of minds.

Lines I liked, “He had long been outside the world of simple desires and their fulfillments, and he was inept and uncertain” (p 206) and “Well, you never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people’s lives” (p 211).

Author fact: Fitzgerald was a Princeton graduate.

Book trivia: Tender is the Night bombed commercially. Just goes to show you, you can’t judge a book by its sales. It’s now considered Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. Another piece of trivia: Tender is the Night was made into a 1962 film starring Jason Robards (who played Heidi’s grandfather in a much later movie).

Nancy said: Tender is the Night needs to be read with Everybody Was So Young by Amanda Vaill and Living well is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the previously mentioned chapter called “Companion Reads” (p 45).

Boat Runner

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Murphy, Devin. The Boat Runner. New York: Harper Perennial, 2017.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, this is the September book awarded to me.

Told from the first person perspective of fourteen year old Jacob Koopman. He lives in a Dutch town during the early stages of World War II with his artistic older brother, Edwin, light bulb manufacturer father and musician mother, Drika. His father, in an attempt to build better relations with the Germans for their Volkswagon business, sends Jacob and Edwin to an SS training camp where they learn different aspects of warfare through fun and games. It seemed innocent enough until all hell breaks loose. It starts with a forbidding crack. Suddenly their quiet town is overrun with soldiers imposing curfews and taking over Father Koopman’s factory, then Edwin goes missing and Uncle Martin starts running ammunition and supplies for the Germans. When the Allied bombs begin to fall Jacob’s life changes forever. This is a tragic story of loyalty and survival; of doing whatever it takes to take your next breath.
I thoroughly enjoyed Murphy’s style of writing. There were certain angular sentences that really stuck out to me. You couldn’t help but catch your breath on their sharp corners. I still have scars…

Word of warning: do not read this right before bed. I had vivid dreams of war and some reason World War III was being fought against Darth Vadar. I was on a small pleasure boat somewhere off the Caribbean with his son…
As an aside, this is the first fiction I have received from the Early Review program in a really long time. I’m glad that I received it even though it is a truly tragic book.

Back to School September

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September starts out with sunny skies and a promise of a return to normalcy. What is “normal” anyway? I’m hoping to run without pain (have a whopping 72 miles scheduled). I’m also hoping to get back on track with the reading:

Fiction:

  • Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald –  in honor of F Scott Fitzgerald’s birth month.

Nonfiction:

  • O Jerusalem! by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
  • Burton and Speke by William Harrison – in honor of September being Curiosity Month (and isn’t that what exploring as all about, being curious?)
  • Living Well is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins – in honor of F Scott Fitzgerald’s birth month (& the reading of Tender is the Night)
  • Everybody was So Young by Amanda Vaill – in honor of F Scott Fitzgerald’s birth month (& the reading of Tender is the Night)

Series Continuation:

  • Passion Spins the Plot by Vardis Fisher – to continue the series started in August in honor of the day Butch Cassidy robbed a bank in Idaho.

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • The Boat Runner by Devin Murphy (the first fiction I have received in a long time!)

August Awakenings

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What can I tell you about August? I still have moments of wanting to hurl myself off a cliff. But, but. But! The good news is, by default, that recklessness has made me shed my fear of flying, ants, and flying ants. I went zip lining in Alaska and found myself the first to volunteer; literally throwing myself off every platform.
I was forced to dedicate more time to the run while I punished myself with late-read books from July. As a result of all that, August’s mileage was decent considering 10 days were spent traveling (25 – the most since April) while the reading list was a little lackluster:

Fiction:

  • Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (AB left over from July)
  • In Tragic Life by Vardis Fisher – such a sad book!

Nonfiction:

  • Hawthorne: a Life by Brenda Wineapple (left over from July)
  • Miami by Joan Didion

Series Continuations:

  • The Eagle Has Flown by Jack Higgins
  • Henry James: the Middle Years by Leon Edel (left over from JUNE)

Early Review:

  • Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea J. Ritchie

For Fun:

  • Pharos Gate by Nick Bantock – I know, I know. I shouldn’t be reading anything for fun while I had so many July books still on my plate. This took me all over an hour to read and besides, Bantock is one of my favorites. How could I not?

In Tragic Life

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Fisher, Vardis. In Tragic Life. Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1932.

Reason read: Originally, I chose it for July for when Idaho became a state. However, the book took so long in getting to me that I decided to still read it even though July is long gone. I found a new reason to read In Tragic Life: Butch Cassidy robbed an Idaho bank in August 1896. In Tragic Life starts roughly around that same time.

Vridar Hunter is a young boy growing up in rural Idaho. Wait, isn’t all of Idaho untamed wilderness? Just kidding. Anyway, In Tragic Life details young Vridar’s coming of age into his teenage years. Poverty, education, family & schoolboy crushes are the focus at this time. Confessional: I thought Vridar was a little whiny in the beginning. He was constantly in terror or frightened over something. He was afraid of nearly everything – the dark, his father’s hands, nature, night, himself. Vridar had paralyzing fear, blinding fear and was haunted or desperately afraid. All the time. But, in reality that fear was founded. The “tragic” in In Tragic Life is truly justified. If Vridar wasn’t watching animals die in horrific ways he was being verbally abused by his family. If that wasn’t enough, when he finally went to school he was bullied on a consistent and continual basis. He never has any close friends. His only companions seem to be his brother and the kids he beat up previously. Parts of In Tragic Life were very painful to read, especially the cruelty, particularly towards animals.

Author fact: Fisher was born, raised and died in Idaho.

Book trivia: In Tragic Life is the first in the tetralogy.

Nancy said: I shudder if this is true, but Pearl called In Tragic Life “sprawling autobiographical” (p 122).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Idaho: and Nary a Potato to be Seen” (p 121).

Eagle Has Flown

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Higgins, Jack. The Eagle Has Flown. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1991.

Reason read: Jack Higgins was born in July. This finishes the series started in honor of his birth month.

At the end of The Eagle Has Landed a German plot to kidnap Prime Minister Winston Churchill had failed horribly and a massacre ensued. Left in suspense, readers didn’t know if antagonists Liam Devlin and Kurt Steiner survived. Now, in the much-anticipated sequel we learn Steiner did survive. He is being held prisoner in the Tower of London. And who better to rescue Steiner than Liam Devlin who also survived the botched kidnapping? Yes, he survived. Of course he did, he’s the center character. Devlin is the bad guy we all love to hate: poet, daredevil, ruggedly handsome gunslinger, a scholar and, as a member of the IRA, a man who stands by his convictions. He claims to be neutral but wants a united Ireland; he couldn’t care a lick about Nazi Germany but will chose the side with the biggest payout. General Walter Schellenberg is sent to recruit Devlin to the task, but standing in his way is Brigadier Dougal Munro of British Intelligence. He has a few tricks up his sleeve as well and what ensues is a fast paced chase across Europe. True to form, behind every Higgins plot there is an astonishingly resourceful and brilliant woman. This time there are a few. True to Higgins form, expect a twist at the end.

As an aside, I see my reading friend has taken to writing in books again. Shame on you, W.P.!

Author fact: in the blog before I mentioned Higgins wrote this book and Eye of the Needle. This time the author fact is simple. At the time of the publication of The Eagle Has Flown Higgins was living in the Channel Islands off the coast of California. Not be confused with the ones in the English Channel.

Book trivia: Eagle Has Flown is short and fast paced. One could read in a weekend.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter “World War II Fiction” (p 253).

Possession

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Byatt, A.S. Possession: a romance. New York: Random house, 1990.

Reason read: Byatt was born in August.

Possession is nothing short of amazing. Byatt invites you down so many different rabbit holes it is impossible to predict where you will end up. Young
academic Roland Mitchell has an obsession with long-dead poet Randolph Henry Ash. He’s in competition with several other scholars researching Ash, all equally as obsessed. They all feel they “possess” the man. When you first meet Roland you cannot help but think of him as a spineless wimp; a bland soul without backbone. From the beginning, you are told he is an unwilling participant in his relationship with girlfriend, Val, by his reluctance to rock the boat with her. The real problem lies in the probability he doesn’t even want the boat at all. All he cares about is researching the life and times of Randolph Ash. This timid nature poses a real problem when he stumbles upon a new fact about Ash, something never reported before. So begins the mystery. Byatt takes us from Roland’s world to Randall’s world. Via letters, journals and poetry a secret is exposed. With the help of another young academic, Roland’s opposite in every way, Roland discovers the truth about his beloved Randall Ash. His own true self is revealed as well.

As an aside, I love concentric circles. I just finished a book about Virginia Woolf and she makes a mention here in Possession. Also, I just finished seeing Natalie Merchant in concert. Christina Rossetti pops up in Natalie’s music and Byatt’s Possession.

Quotations to quote: “The basement was full of the sharp warmth of frying onions which meant she was cooking something complicated” (p 19), “…It did not have for him the magnetic feel of the two letters that were folded into his pocket, but it represented the tease of curiosity” (p 49), and one more, “They sit at table and exchange metaphysical theories and I sit there like a shape-shifting witch, swelling with rage and shrinking with shame, and they see nothing (p 396).

Author fact: at the time of publication Byatt had written five fictions and several nonfictions.

Book trivia: the cover to Possession is a painting of Sir Edward Burne-Jones called “The Beguiling of Merlin.” I have to admit, Merlin is a little freaky looking.

Nancy said: Pearl said Possession is probably Byatt’s best known work but not her favorite.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “All in the Family: Writer Dynasties” (p 6).

Stranger in a Strange Land

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Heinlein, Robert. Stranger in a Strange Land. Read by Christopher Hurt. Blackstone Audio, Inc., 1996.
Heinlein, Robert. Stranger in a Strange Land. New York: Ace Books, 2003.

Reason read: July is Heinlein’s birth month. Read and listened to in his honor.

Stranger in a Strange Land is everything you would expect from a 1960s cult classic written six years before the infamous Summer of Love. Originally published in 1961 Stranger’s main character, Valentine Michael Smith, is a far out dude; literally, as he is a man raised by the inhabitants of the planet Mars. His gifts of telekinesis, telepathy, and “grokking” make him a mystic, a guru, and finally a cult leader (once humans dismiss the notion of killing him for being a freak). Being born on Mars, like any good self-respecting alien, he has issues with language barriers and differing cultures once arriving on Earth. His first conflict is not understanding a money-grubbing reporter out to sell his story. His second is not comprehending the female species…two problems that exist for some humans in this day and age. The third and most confusing barrier is understanding his own sexuality. Let me back up. When “Mike Smith” was under the threat of media exploitation, Nurse Jill and a colleague “kidnapped” him to keep him safe. Smith ended up at the home of doctor/lawyer/writer Jubal Harshaw who lives a very Charlie’s Angels kind of existence with three bubbly, beautiful secretaries (one blonde, one brunette and one..you guessed it, redhead).  It is here, at Jubal’s estate in the Poconos mountains that Smith learns about women (after he tries to kiss Jubal and is immediately rebuffed).
A word of warning to those agnostic, atheist or otherwise unmoved by religion. After chapter part three Heinlein gets heavy with the Bible, church, the idea of sin and so forth. It’s a crucial part to the story as Mike starts his own church, becoming that cult leader I spoke of earlier.

As an aside, Jubal’s sarcasm and wit sort of reminded me of Francis Underwood in House of Cards. It didn’t help that Christopher Hurt reads with a slight southern accent.

Quote I liked (From Valentine Michael Smith), “I want to spit back at the camel and ask him what he’s so sour about” (p 383).

Author fact: Heinlein was a military man with the U.S. Navy.

Book trivia: Stranger in a Strange Land won Heinlein his second Hugo Award and is considered by most to be his “masterpiece.” Another piece of book trivia: Three years after Heinlein’s death his wife worked to get Stranger republished in its original, uncut version.

Nancy said: Heinlein is best known for Stranger in a Strange Land according to Pearl. She called it a “cult classic” (p 108).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Robert Heinlein: Too Good To Miss” (p 108).

Pharos Gate

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Bantock, Nick. The Pharos Gate: Griffin & Sabine’s Lost Correspondence. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2016.

Reason read: because Nick Bantock is one of my favorites.

I can’t remember what I said in my Griffin & Sabine review way back when except to say I know I mentioned my ongoing love affair with this series. How could I not? It’s evocative of a very sensual time in my life. I was introduced to Griffin and Sabine by a passionate summer romance. This man made mixed tapes, baked cinnamon scones, read Shakespeare and even wrote poetry, one word at a time, on rose petals. He took me shelling, canoeing and on searches for sunsets. He made my friends want to puke from jealousy. We read to each other as Griffin and Sabine. But, I digress..

Griffin and Sabine. I sigh to hear their names. Their backstory is such: Griffin is an artist in damp and dreary London. One day he receives an unusual postcard from a woman claiming to have the ability to see his art as he is creating it…except Sabine is somewhere in the South Pacific. Trying to make sense of her unusual voyeurism into his creativity before it is fully formed forces Griffin to continue a correspondence with her. Soon they fall in love without ever meeting. [Been there.] Subsequent volumes have Griffin and Sabine trying to cross the enormous divide to see each other face to face, but like any decent romance, their efforts are thwarted at every turn. In Pharos Gate the star-crossed couple discover a safe place to meet: at Pharos Gate in Alexandria. With the help of a friend Griffin sets off across the globe to reach his love. And reach her, he does. But! I haven’t really ruined it for you. Supposedly this is the final book in the series and yet Bantock leaves his audience hanging once again…Yes, they meet but then what? We don’t know. I adore it.

Eagle Has Landed

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Higgins, Jack. The Eagle Has Landed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975.

Reason read: Higgins was born in the month of July.

The entire premise of The Eagle Has Landed is based on the fact that a small group of German paratroopers had safely arrived in England and were about to do the unthinkable, they were about to kidnap Winston Churchill. If Mussolini can be rescued from an enemy hotel then surely Churchill could be taken while on a discreet “vacation.”
There is so much to like about The Eagle Has Landed (code for Liam Devlin’s safe drop into enemy territory). There is also so much that could potentially go wrong with Higgins’s technique. First, the frame narrative is the author, Jack Higgins himself, researching a botched attempt to kidnap the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill during the final moments of World War II. Giving away the plot in the very beginning of a novel is a risky move. where is the suspense? Why read on knowing the Germans failed? Second, the majority of the story is told from the point of view of the antagonists. Why be on their side?
Why care about the enemy? Because Liam Devlin is an irresistible bad guy. You want him to succeed and you don’t know why. He’s a charming cad; the kind of guy everyone loves to hate. That’s why. You keep reading because Higgins has spun the plot. Yes, you may know the Germans failed to kidnap Churchill but…did Devlin survive?

The one line that caught my eye and mind: “Words become meaningless, the mind cuts itself off from reality for a little while, a necessary breathing space until one is ready to cope” (p 18).

Author fact: Higgins also wrote The Eagle Has Flown, also on my list. His (supposedly) most famous book, Eye of the Needle, is not on my list.

Book trivia: The Eagle Has Landed is based on true events. According to Higgins, “at least” fifty percent is fiction but the reader must decide for herself how much of the rest is a “matter of speculation.”

Nancy said: Nancy called the stories of Jack Higgins “some of the best World War II thrillers” (p 253). I would definitely agree.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Fiction” (p 253).