Tag: series

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).

Phineas Finn

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Trollope, Anthony. Phineas Finn: The Irish Member. Gebbe and Company, 1901.

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

I feel like Phineas Finn (all three volumes) covers all the same themes as Can you Forgive Her? The male characters are vying for seats in parliament, the women are looking for financially stable men, and everyone is breaking someone else’s heart, sometimes intentionally. Every story has a hapless, heavy in debt, political wannabe who is unlucky with the women. Enter Irishman Phineas Finn. As a lawyer from Ireland he has political ambitions to be in Parliament. Lady Laura Standish, the object of Phineas Finn’s initial affections marries someone else for the convenience of wealth. Luckily, they remain friends and Laura turns out to be one of Phineas’ biggest champions. Ever the naive romantic, Phineas then turns to Violet Effingham who was supposed to be promised to Laura’s brother. Of course there needs to be a duel over Violet. It solves nothing. In the end Phineas does not win the heart of Laura or Violet. Who he turns to next is amusing and oddly beautiful.
The question remains: what is Trollope’s fascination with scheming women? Why are the female characters always bailing the men out of debt? Lady Laura marries Robert Kennedy so that Laura’s brother’s debts can be paid off.
Other similarities: weird names (Mr. Shortribs?), Trollope steps out from the narrative curtain to voice regrets in the novel, and there is even an accident during a hunt that is very similar to the accident in Can You Forgive Her?

Favorite lines, “There was to be an early dinner out in tents at five, and after dinner men and women were to walk about, or dance or make love, or hay, as suited them” (p 152). Oh those crazy Victorians! Here is another, “I think you will acknowledge that if there be a difference of opinion between you and me as to any question of social intercourse, it will be better that you should consent to adopt my opinion” (p 307).

Author fact: Trollope was just as involved in voter reform as his characters in Phineas Finn.

Book trivia: Phineas Finn contains photogravures/illustrations by C.R. Grant, Victor Perard, Hy. Leonard, and R.B. Morrison.

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

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).

Have His Carcase

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Sayers, Dorothy. Have His Carcase. Harper & Brothers, 1932.

Reason read: a murder takes place on a beach. July is beach season. Confessional: I did not read this on a beach, but I should have!

Harriet Vane, a twenty-eight year old writer of detective fiction, stumbles across the prone body of a man lying awkwardly across some rocks on a deserted beach. Upon closer inspection she discovers the young man’s throat has been cut and, with the tide coming in, his body will be soon swept out to sea. Harriet’s first order of business is to photograph the dead man. She writes detective stories, after all. She thinks she knows what to do at a crime scene. Next she faces the challenge of trying to find someone to sound the alarm about the murder; someone who will believe her and jump into action before the tide comes up and drags the man out to sea. The ridiculousness of Harriet not being able to find a single person to help her set the tone for me. So begins the adventure of Have His Carcase.
Harriet is supposed to be on vacation after being acquitted for the murder of her boyfriend. After acquiring a fair amount of wealth she decided to go on a walking tour of the southwest coast of England and plan her next mystery plot. Lord Peter Wimsey, Harriet’s friend and not-so-secret admirer arrives to help her solve the mystery at hand. He steals the story for me.

As an aside, this is the perfect case for that crime show called “Accident, Suicide, or Murder.” Did Paul Alexis kill himself or was he murdered? The coroner’s jury all voted for suicide.

Most irritating detail – Inspector Umpelty didn’t know the difference between written Chinese and Russian.

Confession: I had to look up the word carcase and figure out what a trunk call was. Also, this was the first I heard of a locked-room mystery.

Best line, “I am a mannequin by profession” (p 295). Excuse me?

Author fact: Dorothy Sayers’s full name is Dorothy Leigh Sayers Flemming. I think that is a beautifully full name.

Book trivia: Each chapter is evidence which begins on June 18th.

Music: “Blue Danube,” “God Save the King,” Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart, Lieder ohne Worter by Mendelssohn, Bach’s “Air for G Strong,” Handel’s Suit, Beethoven’s Eroica, and “Moonlight.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ms. Mystery” (p 170).

Can You Forgive Her? Vol. 3

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Trollope, Anthony. Can You Forgive Her? Volume Three. BiblioLife, 2008.

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

Mercifully, Trollope brings the relationships of Alice Vavasor, Lady Glencora Palliser, and Arabella Greenow to somewhat satisfying conclusions. To be sure, Alice waffled through the entire third volume until the very end. No surprise there. Lady Glencora’s husband, Plantagenet Palliser, showed remarkable grace concerning his wife’s indecisions. He knew she was stuck in the marriage for parliamentary duty yet made the best of it. Arabella Greenow was my favorite character throughout Can You Forgive Her? Greenow just didn’t give a damn and continued having relationships with two men. She just couldn’t chose between the two of them. Trollope used these women to poke fun at Victorian society and it worked.

Author fact: Trollope was also a civil servant.

Book trivia: Volume three of Can You Forgive Her? is the final installment.

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

Sea Glass

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Shreve, Anita. Sea Glass. Little, Brown and Company, 2002.

Reason read: June is Small Town Month and Sea Glass takes place in a small town in New Hampshire. Even though I read this years ago I am sticking to my rule: if I don’t remember the plot or major characters I have to reread it.

The backdrop to Sea Glass is 1929 New England, specifically on the coast of New Hampshire. Each chapter reveals the perspective of a different character; like a viewfinder, clicking through their lives one by one. Honora Beecher finds herself in a rundown cottage, married to a typewriter salesman she met at her teller job at a bank. Sexton provides for Honora and she loves him, despite him being a virtually stranger. Little by little, Honora’s world expands as she meets the various residents of her (fictional) seaside town. When the stock market crash of 1929 explodes, true personalities are revealed. Shreve is a magician; making readers change their minds about characters. Vivian starts off as a snob while Sexton is admirable. McDermott appears untrustworthy and untethered to life. As with all Shreve novels, the ending is not Hollywood and yet we keep coming back for more.

Characters:

  • Alan – brother of Honora; went to the McKenzie Boys School
  • Alphonse – 11 years old; one of six children; mother is a widow; works in the Ely Falls mill on the bobbins; father died when he was eight; doesn’t know how to swim; wears his sister’s sweater when it’s cold.
  • Alice Willard – mother of Honora
  • Arnaud Nadeau – father is a mule spinner; wears a sweater once belonging to his mother; millworker
  • Asa Whitlock – hotel guest and friend of Vivian
  • Arthur Willet – maybe makes his millions from a diamond mine
  • Augustin – brother of Alphonse
  • Bernice Radcliffe – sick of raisins
  • Bobby Kellogg – a friend of Vivian’s
  • Camille – sister of Alphonse
  • Cedric Nye – from Raleigh, North Carolina
  • Charles – brother of Honora; went to the McKenzie Boys School
  • Charles – from Syracusa
  • Cyril Whittemore – radio actor
  • Delaney – mill worker
  • Dickie – was engaged; moved to Indianapolis after the stock market crash; works for a shirt company; stayed with a man named Johnny Merrill
  • Dorothy Trafton – acquainted with Vivian
  • Eileen – McDermott’s sister
  • Emma – Charles’ infant daughter; died in the explosion
  • Estelle – a woman back home.
  • Evanthia Blanchette – Alphonse’s mother; works of the same floor as McDermott
  • Evelyn – Charles’ wife
  • Father Riley
  • Floyd Holmes – owns the party house
  • Franco – desk manager
  • Francois Boutet – millworker; short
  • Georgia Porter – from Washington; her father is in politics
  • Gerald – friend of Vivian’s; homosexual
  • Harold Willard – uncle of Honora; went blind in the explosion
  • Harlan Quigley – from New York
  • Harold Hurd – mill boss
  • Honora (Willard) Beecher – newly married to Sexton
  • Ima Thurston – drunk party-goer
  • Jack Hess – store owner; has a sister named Arlene
  • John Sevens – hotel guest
  • Joshua Cutts – lives at the beach all year long
  • Lester Simms – a friend of Vivian’s
  • Louis Desjardin – friend of Aphone’s brothers
  • Madame Derocher – a cook at a boarding house
  • Marguerite – Honora’s aunt; died in childbirth
  • Marie-Therese – sister of Alphonse
  • May – found a lump in her breast and had a mastectomy
  • McAllister – Penderton millworker; drunk
  • McDermott – a twenty year old mill worker who frequents prostitutes and smokes; has an ulcer; father abandoned the family when McDermott was twelve; has a sister Eileen (19); brothers are Eamon (went to Texas) and Michael; had a girlfriend named Evangeline (redheaded weaver) who got pregnant by another man; mother died of a stroke; a little deaf; first name is Quillen but everyone calls him by his last.
  • Mironson – a man from the Trade Workers Union; from New York
  • Nat & Hunt Chadbourne – brothers who invented the ball bearing and are millionaires
  • Natalie Nye – Cedric’s wife
  • O’Reilly – millworker
  • Ouellette – millworker; has eight kids
  • Paul Tsomides – millworker; brother owns a market; injured in a raid
  • Phillip – brother of Honora; went to the McKenzie Boys School
  • Ross – has bad teeth and also works at the mill; married to Rosemary;
  • Sam Coyne – always late for school
  • Sean Rasley – works in the mill as a weaver
  • Seth – Honora’s younger brother; died in the explosion
  • Sexton – newly married to Honora; typewriter salesman; Mr. Fosdick is his boss;
  • Sister Mary Patrick – non at school
  • Schwaner – mill worker
  • Sylvia – hotel guest
  • Teddy Rice – Vivian, in a fit of rage, hit him on the ankle with a tennis racket.
  • Tilly Hatch – a friend of Vivian’s
  • Verna Willet – married to Arthur; wears sapphires instead of diamonds
  • Vivian Burton – smokes; a snob from Boston; 28 years old; birthday is in September; mother left when Vivian was eight; her father and his new wife went to vacation in Italy; has a housekeeper named Mrs. Ellis;
  • William – Honora’s father; died in the explosion

Author fact: Shreve is a New England author.

Book trivia: I didn’t realize Sea Glass is the third installment in a trilogy about Fortune’s Rocks, the fictional New Hampshire town. Pilot’s Wife and Fortune’s Rocks round out the series.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Small-Town Life” (p 203).

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).

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?

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).

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)

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).

Shadow of the Hegemon

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Card, Orson Scott. The Shadow of the Hegemon. MacMillan Audio, 2006.

Reason read: to continue the series started in October in honor of Science Fiction month.

Ender Wiggin won the war against the Buggers with his elite group of child-warriors; none more brilliant than little pint-sized Bean. Only now in the 31st century, Ender’s Dragon Army is in danger as people now see these same children as weapons.
Shadow of the Hegemon is considered by some to be the fifth book in the Enderverse series. Others see it as the second book in the “Shadow” series; a parallel novel to Ender’s Game because we return to the character of Bean, Petra, and Peter Wiggin.
I enjoyed Shadow of the Hegemon the best because families of characters were more involved than in other installments of the series. I also appreciated that the ending to Shadow of the Hegemon was left open for a variety of plot twists in the next book.
As an aside, I cannot help but be reminded of “Stranger Things” when I read Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. Children are going to save the world from aliens.
As another aside, every time someone said Achilles wants to rule the world I would hear the synth-heavy Tears for Fears song of the same name from 1985.

Quote to quote, “There’s nothing like casual murder to turn onlookers into vegetables” (p 326).

Author fact: Orson Scott Card also writes plays and musical.

Audio trivia: a great cast of actors narrate The Shadow of the Hegemon: David Birney, Scott Brick, and Gabrielle de Cuir.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).