Tag: pennsylvania

Killer Smile

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Scottoline, Lisa. Killer Smile. Read by Kate Burton. Harper Collins, 2004.

Reason read: I forgot to finish the series started in December of last year in honor of Pennsylvania becoming a state. Somehow I let this one fall off the list.

Mary DiNunzio works for Benny Rosato’s law firm as an associate. Mary’s latest pro bono case is on behalf of the estate of an Italian-American interned in Montana during World War I. Amadeo Brandolini committed suicide during his internment and the family wants to sue the government for reparations. DiNunzio’s mission is to sort out the legalities of Brandolini’s estate, but ends up righting a long-forgotten carriage of misjustice. What starts as a simple estate case turns complicated when people start dying; people who had dared to talk to Miss DiNunzio.
For comic relief, DiNunzio’s boss keeps sending Mary on dates with impossible men. I appreciated how Scottoline wove this side story into the bigger plot.

As an aside, Mary DiNunzio sometimes annoyed me. Lawyers are supposed to be somewhat smart. I found it irksome that Mary did not know where to find Montana on a map, she did not know what an engineer does for a living, could not identify a marlin, and she had no idea what quantum physics was. I’ll forgive her for not knowing the difference between a bow and stern of a boat. but am I making an assumption that lawyers are supposed to be savvy and book smart?
Prophetic vision: in my copy of Killer Smile there are a series of book club questions. One of them is “Do you feel safe in your country?” Killer Smile was written in 2004. Let’s ask that same question twenty one years later.

Author fact: Did I already mention that Scottoline was a trial lawyer? I am pretty sure that I did. She graduated from law school in 1981. The other fact is that Scottoline is really funny in her interviews.
Narrator fact: Kate Burton is really good!

Book trivia: Scottoline was encouraged to bring the story of Italian-Americans interned in Montana after learning the history of her grandparents’ experiences. She even shares photographs of their alien registration cards. Scottoline wanted to bring that lesser known history to light.
Killer Smile is Scottoline’s eleventh book.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest: Pennsylvania” (p 25). Pearl mentioned this was one of her favorites.

Everywhere That Mary Went

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Scottoline, Lisa. Everywhere That Mary Went. Narrated by Teri Schnaubelt. HarperAudio, 2016.

Reason read: Pennsylvania became a state in the month of December. Everywhere That Mary Went takes place in Philadelphia.

Mary DiNunzio has a problem. She is pretty sure she is being stalked by a stranger. Weird hang ups on her office and home phones, strange notes left at her desk, and a mysterious black car constantly following her all contribute to her growing sense of paranoia. As if these troubling events are not enough, Mary will not report them for fear of tarnishing her chances for a promotion at her law office. She’s up for partner. Meanwhile, she is still grieving the loss of her husband less than a year ago and she has hardly anyone to confide in. Her twin sister joined a convent, her personal assistant has troubles of his own (it is the 1990s and AIDS is running rampant) and her best friend disapproves of Mary’s new boyfriend, a fellow lawyer at the same firm. Mary’s life is a mess. When violence escalates Mary is forced to take action. Her life may very well be on the line.

Author fact: Scottoline used her experiences as a lawyer to start the Rosato & Associates series.

Book trivia: Everywhere That Mary Went is the first book in the Rosato & Associates series. I am reading two others, Mistaken Identity and Killer Smile. A fourth book, Final Appeal, is a stand-alone mystery.

Playlist: “HM Pinafore”, Prince, Madonna, and George Michael’s “Father Figure.”

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

Bluest Blood

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Roberts, Gillian. The Bluest Blood. Ballantine Books, 1998.

Reason read: to finish the series started in July. Yes, I definitely took some time off from reading the series.

Amanda Pepper is back! This time she is on the case for a different kind of mystery. Pitted against the Moral Ecologists, a group hellbent on censorship, Amanda must stop them from ruining her ability to teach English. The plot thickens early on when Reverend Harvey Spiers, leader of the Moral Ecologists, shows up at a fundraiser hosted by Edward and Theodora Roederer. The Roederers are wealthy staunch supporters of free speech and annually give a ton of money to the community, including Amanda’s prep school. First red flag? Spier’s son and Roederer’s son are close friends. Second? Jake and Griffin are in Amanda’s class. Both are angsty teens with family issues that go beyond morality and wealth. Of course, the protesting gets out of hand and someone winds up dead. But it wouldn’t be an Amanda Pepper mystery if Amanda didn’t find herself in a wee bit of danger herself.
The ongoing joke is that Amanda does not know Mackenzie’s full name so whenever she goes to introduce him to someone new she stumbles. Why she can’t call him “C.K.” is beyond me.
As an aside, the details are a little dated. This was written in an age when photoshopping the Mona Lisa with a scowl was good fun. Technology has come a long way since the days of putting grins on dogs.

Line I liked, “Sometimes a speaker needs a soliloquy” (p 74).

Playlist: the Three Tenors

Author fact: Gillian Roberts, also known as Judith Greber, wrote a bunch of Amanda Pepper books, but this is my last one for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Sasha and Amanda’s mom are repeat characters.

Nancy said: Pearl mentions Bluest Blood first when naming good Amanda Pepper mysteries.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: the Literary Midwest (Pennsylvania)” (p 31).

A Good Doctor’s Son

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Schwartz, Steven. A Good Doctor’s Son. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1998.

First and foremost, I could not put this down. I came to care about David Nachman. Even worse, I really worried about him. I think I read this book in one week’s time. Told from the retrospective first person, David Nachman, at nine years old in 1960s Pennsylvania, wanted to become a doctor like his father. Stoic and gentle, Dr Nachman did not discriminate patient care at a time when crosses were burning on some front lawns and the whites were moving out to the suburbs. You get the point – he was a good doctor and a good man. David wanted to be just like him. However life had other plans for young David by the time he reached his teens. Desperate to fit in, David joined a group of fellow teenagers for nights of gambling and crude sex jokes. Inwardly shy, it really wasn’t his thing but he wanted to belong somewhere so he played along. One terrible mistake changed his course of history forever. At a time full of protest and war, David has his own inner conflict to contend with. Now in his forties, David recounts his coming of age years in a slow and careful cadence. While his remembrances are gentle, it is impossible to ignore the growing undercurrent of guilt.

Line that lingered, “Either way…we wouldn’t talk about what was right in front of us” (p 13). How many families live like that, ignoring what is blatantly obvious and impossible to ignore?

Reason read: Pennsylvania became a state on December 12th, 1787.

Author fact: Schwartz wrote another book called Therapy but sadly it isn’t on my list. Another sad fact, another reviewer reviewed Schwartz (said he was an ass) in addition to giving his/her opinion of the book. It’s always cool when author AND book are great, but that doesn’t always happen.

Book trivia: Is this a movie? Because this should be a movie. I don’t know who would play David, but I see Richard Dreyfus as dad.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: the Literary Midwest: Pennsylvania” (p 140).

Appointment in Samarra

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appointment in samarraO’Hara John. Appointment in Samarra. New York: Vintage, 2003.

In honor of Pennsylvania becoming a state in the month of December Appointment in Samarra was my first novel pick. I was excited to see the introduction was written by John Updike. He is another author I have enjoyed over the years. Set in the 1930’s with a keen eye on society, O’Hara tells the story of Caroline & Julian English and their how their elite status is washed away with alcohol and attitude. In an instance the English couple go from being the toast of the town to the talk of trash.

“I love you more than a tongue can tell” (p 63).
“…their position in Gibbsville was just that certain and insecure…” (p 83).
“…she was too conscious of looking like the wrath of God to enjoy any of it” (p 121).
“The worst of that drive was that the sun glare on the snow made you smile before you were ready” (p 200).

As an aside: I don’t remember where I was when I learned that the Lenape Indians believed the turtle was the center of the universe. To this day, it remains the only thing I know about this particular tribe. It was interesting to see O’Hara mention the tribe in his historical ancestry of the English family.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Pennsylvania)” (p 30).