Tag: series

Cold Case

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Barnes, Linda. Cold Case. Delacorte Press, 1997.

Reason read: Cold Case takes place in Boston. Massachusetts is beautiful this time of year. Read in honor of the leaves turning.

Carlotta Carlyle is a private detective and part time cab driver. A case comes to her that is as confusing as an overgrown corn maze. Thea Janis disappeared twenty-four years ago when she was only fifteen years old. After much digging Carlotta discovered Thea was a precocious and promiscuous teenager who published a book of poetry to wild success when she was fourteen. In the span of two weeks of working on the case, Carlotta uncovers a tangle of family secrets. Thea’s name was actually Dorothy Cameron, a gardener from the Cameron family employee also went missing at the same time as Thea, Thea’s sister is a schizophrenic, Thea’s brother is a politician running for office while his marriage falls apart, and more than one murder has taken place.
Maybe this is a premise I have seen too many times, but the wealth of the Cameron family bored me. Rich woman with an icy demeanor and impeccably dress code has a stranglehold on her adult son, who does nothing but disappoint her. Her beloved daughter went missing twenty-four years ago and has been presumed dead ever since a serial killer confessed to her murder. Her second daughter is in a mental facility battling with schizophrenia. What secrets are hidden beneath the cover of wealth?
On top of all this is a subplot involving Carlotta’s little sister and the mafia. Because Cold Case is the seventh Carlotta Carlyle mystery but my first, maybe I’ve missed some key details outlined in an earlier mystery.

As an aside, throughout the entire book I found myself asking does Carlotta ever drive a cab in Cold Case? Answer is yes, but not for hire.
As another aside, Liberty Café was a real place. Too bad it closed. I’m sure fans of Linda Barnes and Carlotta Carlyle would continue to see it out.
Third aside, and I would need an expert to weigh in on this but, when you open a casket after twenty four years, would the smell of death still be so strong that you would need a rag soaked in turpentine to mask the stench? Just curious.

Quotes to quote: there were a few really thought-provoking lines I would love to share, but due to the copyright language, I cannot. Too bad because they were really good.

Author fact: Linda Barnes, not to be confused with the character on Criminal Minds, has written other mysteries series.

Book trivia: as I mentioned before, Cold Case is actually the seventh book in the series. I am reading seven, eight, and nine for the Challenge.

Playlist: “Aint No More Cane on the Brazos”, Beatles, Blind Blake, Black Velvet Band, Chris Smither’s “Up on the Lowdown”, “Hard Times Blues”, Mississippi John hurt, Mozart, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Rory Block’s “Terraplane Blues”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117). Also from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Boston: Beans, Bird, and the Red Sox” (p 40).

Lonesome Dove

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McMurtry, Larry. Lonesome Dove. Pocket Books, 1985.

Reason read: to continue the series started in June in honor of McMurtry’s birth month.

This time, it is all about the characters in Lonesome Dove. Romantic entanglings and broken hearts. Unlike Dead Man’s Walk and Comanche Moon, the action moves at a gentler pace from Texas to Montana. Noticeably, there is less violence in Lonesome Dove (the town and the book) from the very beginning. McMurtry brings his characters alive whether they are important to the story or not. People like Dillard Brawley, Lonesome Dove’s barber, is missing a leg due to a centipede bite. Hopping around on one leg while he cuts hair doesn’t bother him one bit. True, he is a minor character but he is developed as if he will be impactful throughout the entire story (which he isn’t, but do not forget about him.)
Back to the people who are important. Call and Gus are now retired from being captains with the Texas Rangers. Bored without wives, children, or families of any kind, they take a journey to the unknown land of Wyoming to start a cattle ranch. Gone are the violent Indian scalpings that were so prevalent in The Long Walk and Comanche Moon. The buffalo herds have all but vanished. Revenge is doled out on a much smaller scale. The first real violence comes when an former prostitute named Lorena is kidnapped by Blue Duck (remember him?). Lorena is sold to the Kiowas who rape and torture her repeatedly. Rest assured, this is nothing compared to the violence in the previous novels.
For fans of Clare, she is back! Her life has changed quite a bit since she ran the general store in Austin, but rest assured, she is still as feisty. She still remains one of my favorite characters.

As an aside, I will not lie. It was tough to lose some characters. Hangings are within the letter of the law.

Quote I liked, “My ears sort of get empty” (p 512).

Author fact: a young Larry McMurtry reminds me of Woody Allen for some reason.

Book trivia: Lonesome Dove is McMurtry’s most famous book.

Setlist: “My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean”, “Buffalo Gal”, and “Lorena”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Western Fiction (p 240) and again in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Texas Two-Step (After a Bob Wills Song)” (p 220).

Quicksilver

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Stephenson, Neal. Quicksilver. Perennial, 2003.

Reason read: Neal Stephenson celebrates a birthday in October. Read in his honor.

The timeframe is 1660 – 1688 and Europe is transforming itself into a culture of scientific thinkers. Alchemy and imagination. Burgeoning financial complexities and modernized social developments abound. [Side note: the experiments on dogs was really hard to read. And I’m not a dog person.] Quicksilver follows real-life historical figures in real-life events. The glint in a crow’s eye. The cough of a cholera-infected child. Fine grains of dirt that cling to a man’s boots as he strides across a courtyard. The tremble of a drop of water as it rolls down a soot-covered windowpane. The hair of a rat as it scurries under a table. The details of Quicksilver are even finer than this; an overabundance of details. I hope you stub your toes on the sly humor that pops up in between the verbose narrative.
Additional facts about Quicksilver: it is exactly one third of the Baroque Cycle, Stephenson’s trilogy. Quicksilver in and of itself is in three separate parts. The second section follows the adventures of Jack Shaftoe. The third involves a slave who ties the characters of the first two sections together. As an aside, Eliza’s story had me scratching my head. I felt that Stephenson had more to say about her than he was letting on. The writing of Cryptonomicon and the reading about Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz inspired Stephenson to write Quicksilver.

Author fact: Stephenson wrote Quicksilver, all 930 plus pages of it, by longhand.

Book trivia: This might be a no-brainer for some, but read Peter Ackroyd’s London: the Biography before Quicksilver. Certain historical events and characters will come into sharper focus when you meet up with them in Quicksilver. For example, I enjoyed reading about the fictional account of the Great Fire of 1666 from Ackroyd’s storytelling perspective.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Neal Stephenson: Too Good To Miss” (p 214).

His Last Bow

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: “His Last Bow.” Doubleday & Company, 1922.

Sherlock Holmes is at it again, solving mysteries for his fellow Londoners. In the “Adventure of the Cardboard Box”, Holmes was so embarrassed to have solved it so easily that he did not want to take credit for it. As usual, Holmes has his ways of learning things about people by making them chatter. The more they talk, the more they reveal. He also can discern important facts by the tiniest of details like cigarette butts and handwriting samples.

Short stories:

  • The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge – solving the murder of a man named Garcia.
  • The Adventure of the Cardboard Box – a box sent to a spinster creates an uproar.
  • The Adventure of the Red Circle – a case of hidden identity and self defense.
  • The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans – the theft of submarine plans.
  • The Adventure of the Dying Detective – someone is trying to kill Sherlock!
  • the Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax – a woman is missing. Quote I liked from this story, “When you follow two separate chains of thought, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate to the truth” (p 950).
  • The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot
  • His Last Bow: the war service of Sherlock Holmes

Lines I liked, “Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery…” (p 901).Book trivia: I love it when Watson remembers previous cases and references them in new mysteries. He compared the Adventure of the Cardboard Box to a Study in Scarlet and the Sign of Four.

Comanche Moon

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McMurtry, Larry. Comanche Moon. Simon and Schuster Audio, 1997.

Reason read: to continue the saga of Gus and Call. confessional: the book was written after Lonesome Dove but I wanted to read the series in chronological order so that there would be no surprises (people dying, relationships initiated, that sort of thing). For example, in Dead Man’s Walk Gus was smitten with Clara, but in Comanche Moon she marries someone else.

When we join the Texas Rangers in Austin, this time they do not have a particular mission. Their main objective appears to be keeping the Comanche tribe from interrupting the travel of whites headed west across their land. They spend more time burying the dead than they do protecting them when alive. Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call are growing up and developing deeper relationships with women. Like Dead Man’s Walk, Comanche Moon is full of torture and death, but it is the characters that make it the epic tale that it is.
This might be a spoiler alert, but I found myself liking McMurtry for not having the happy endings we all think we need. Maggie and Clara find different men to love. Blue Duck exacts his revenge on his father. Good men die. Despicable men somehow thrive.

As an aside, I think I would have liked to be friends with Clara. She is outspoken, straightforward and intimidating. Cool.
According to various places on the web, a Comanche moon in Texas history is a full moon in autumn. Okay.

Interesting fact: if you want to catch a horse or kill a man, wait until they are relieving themselves. Neither horse nor man can react quickly when they are taking a piss.

Book Audio trivia: Frank Muller was the narrator.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Western Fiction” (p 240).

“The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge”

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. “The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge.” Doubleday and Company, 1930.

Doyle loves words. Case in point: John Scott Eccles, the man who comes to Sherlock for help describes his experience as incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer and bizarre. All that really happened was that he spent the night at some place called Wisteria Lodge as the guest of Aloysius Garcia, but upon waking found that everyone had disappeared, including the host. As he was sharing this incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer, bizarre news with Sherlock and Watson, the inspector from Scotland Yard arrives to say Aloysius was found murdered. Through a series of tips and clues, Sherlock is led to the home of Mr. Henderson. He is actually Don Juan Murillo. How he is connected to the disappearance of Aloysius Garcia, I am not sure. Of course, there is a mysterious woman who isn’t as she seems.

Story trivia: Holmes looks back at mysteries solved in other stories.

Last Chronicle of Barset

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Trollope, Anthony. The Last Chronicle of Barset. Illustrated by G.H. Thomas. Classic Books, 2000.

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

While The Last Chronicle of Barset technically can be read as a stand-alone book, there are a few subplots left over from Small House at Allington. Lily Dale’s relationship with Johnny Eames, for one. The main thread of the story is Reverend Josiah Crawley. Did he steal a cheque for twenty pounds? Who cares? Admittedly, I found the Last Chronicle of Barchester to be a bit of a bore. I was pleased when the entire saga mercifully came to a close. The plot was too slow for me. It plods along in a slow meandering way with all of the subplots. Made worse was Trollope’s habit of repeating himself. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of gossip and scandal, romance and betrayal. I just didn’t care for many of the characters.

Author fact: The Last Chronicle of Barset was published in 1867 when Trollope was fifty-two years old.

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

Winds of War

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Wouk, Herman. Winds of War. Simon & Schuster, 1974.

Reason read: Memorial Day is in May. Read to remember those no longer with us.
Confessional: I read most of this as an ebook. I made a lot of notes and highlighted many passages, but had to return it before I could transfer the information here.

The year is 1939 and Germany busily bullies the world into a clash that would later become the infamous World War II. The advances of Hitler into Poland and eventually England, France, and the Soviet Union indicate a man hellbent on world domination; all the while citing the “Jewish problem” as his justification and motivation. Wouk will take you on a panoramic journey through the intimate details of war. You will have a front row seat in the war room; be a voyeur in the bedroom; sit elbow to elbow in the libraries of world leaders as they speak in hushed tones about counterattacks. With a book this size (Winds of War is over one thousand pages long in paperback format), I wanted to make sure I kept track of all of the different characters. I wasn’t sure who was going to be worth remembering, real or imaginary. At the center is Berlin attaché Victor Henry (“Pug”), his glamorous but bored wife, Rhoda, and their three adult children. Winds of War begins when the parents are relocated with Germany on assignment. The three children, Byron, Warren, and Madeline are scattered across the globe. Pug desperately wants to captain a battleship but being relegated to serve as Naval attaché in Berlin has afforded him the opportunity to see the war fold out firsthand. As he gains the unusual trust of President Roosevelt he travels the world, gaining insight on future enemy tactics. Indeed, many real political powerhouses make an appearance in Winds of War.
A note about Winston Churchill: It is interesting to see how time blunts the sharp edges of an unfavorable reputation.
It is also interesting to see the varying opinions about the start of the war. Byron and his girl, Natalie, didn’t take it seriously until they were strafed in Poland and Natalie began to have troubles getting her Polish uncle out of Italy. Byron’s mother only had superficial societal concerns when Pug couldn’t accompany her to the opera. I mentioned she was the epitome of the bored housewife, didn’t I? She becomes even more cliché as the story progresses.
Separating fact from fiction: Did Hitler really have a remarkable smile?

Wouk certainly loved his women characters. As an aside, have you ever noticed that a woman’s breasts can be described with abandon (dressed or undressed), but barely (pun intended) anyone writes about the size of a man’s privates? Wouk is no different in the way he romanticizes the female body. Here are the breasts of Wouk: creamy breasts, pretty bosom, ample bosom,

Quotes to quote, “So they stood together, watching the Luftwaffe start its effort to bomb London to its knees. It was the seventh of September” (p 422).

Author fact: Wouk won a Pulitzer for The Caine Mutiny.

Book trivia: Winds of War has been made into a mini series starring Ali MacGraw and Robert Mitchum. Of course I haven’t seen it. Confessional: I confuse Ali MacGraw with Ali Sheedy.

Playlist: “The Star Spangled Banner”, Chopin, “Star Dust”, Liszt, “Deutschland Uber Alles”, “Three O’clock in the Morning”, “Horst Wessel Lied”, “Bell Bottom Trousers”, “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”, “Auld Lang Syne”, “This Can’t Be Love”, Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, “There Will Always Be an England”, and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Winds of War good fiction.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Fiction” (p 252).

Small House at Allington

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Trollope, Anthony. Small House at Allington. Illustrated by John Everett Millais. Robert Hays, LTD Rosebury House, Breams Buildings, E.C.4. 1925.

Reason read: Trollope’s birthday is in April. Read in his honor.

Here is an ah-ha moment for you: you cannot have a small house without the presence of a big house. Here is another: croquet is best played by the light of the moon.
Trollope is a bit like my mother when she hasn’t talked to another living soul in over three months. Her main story takes forever to tell because she is sidetracked with subplots and tangled details. She goes down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, all the while getting more bogged down by superfluous minute he-said, she-said that have nothing to do with the point of the story. Trollope’s side stories in Small House at Allington have nothing to do with the main plot and are mostly ignored by reviewers. Some would argue Trollope is masterfully setting up his next series by introducing minor characters like Plantagenet Palliser and Lady Glenora (Duke and Duchess of Omnium) as they will be focal to the Palliser Series. But I digress.
The basic plot of Small House at Allington is one of relationships and a society full of gossips. Lillian (Lily) and Isabella (Bell) Dale are sisters with different successes in romance. Bell marries the local doctor while Lily falls for Adolphus Crosbie. Crosbie only cares about social status and when a more prosperous match comes along he leaves Lily. Enter Johnny Eames, the childhood friend with a secret crush on Lily. His outrage over Lily’s abandonment prompts him to violently attack Crosbie when their paths cross. Despite this show of valiant devotion, Lily proclaims her everlasting love for Crosbie and cannot be swayed.

Here is a master description of someone’s face: “…face was destroyed by a mean mouth with thin lips” (p 4). Can’t you just see it?

Author fact: many people believe Trollope modeled Johnny Eames after himself.

Book trivia: Small House at Allington was originally published as a serial from September 1962 to April 1864.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barsetshire and Beyond” (p 20).

Long Finish

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Dibdin, Michael. A Long Finish. Pantheon Books, 1998.

Reason read: Dibdin was born in March. Read in his honor.

Do you like wine or truffles? This is a murder mystery centered around both delicacies in Alba, a small hill town in northern Italy. Aurelio Zen has been sent from the big city of Rome to aid in an unusual case. Instead of finding the real killer, he is to clear the name of a winemaker accused of (and jailed for) killing his father. Only when Zen gets to Alba, the murder case of Also Vincenzo is “solved” without his contribution or nosey interference. Strange. When the authorities try to rush him out of town he grows even more suspicious and decides to stick around. The town intrigues him and he is no hurry to leave. It becomes even more mysterious when subsequently two more people die. One by suicide and one by accident…or so it seems.
The more I read about Zen the more I remembered his character from Cosi Fan Tutti. He is still a very complicated man. He is prone to sleepwalking to the point of serious injury. When he starts receiving strange calls he doesn’t know about phone devices that can disguise voices. As a police officer, this detail surprised me. He has the ability to become unglued at a moment’s notice. An act or truth, I could not tell. He might have fathered a child out of wedlock. He doesn’t always have the best intentions but other times he will surprise you.

What exactly is a “powerful but lazy wind” (p 155)?

Author fact: Dibdin passed away in 2007.

Book trivia: Long Finish is the sixth book in the Aurelio Zen series.

Playlist: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ciao, Italia!” (p 46).

Silver Scream

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Daheim, Mary. Silver Scream: a Bed-and-Breakfast Mystery. William Morrow, 2002.

Reason read: I have no idea.

In a word, goofy. Everything about Silver Scream was goofy. The premise goes like this: the owner of a bed and breakfast needs to solve a murder on her property before the authorities blame her for the death and shut her business down. I thought that was a plausible and clever way to have a civilian try to solve a mystery. A bunch of movie are staying at Hillside Manor for a movie premier. When the producer is found dead, drowned in the kitchen sink, the race is on to solve the death. Accident? Suicide? Murder? The cleverness ends here and the story becomes just plain goofy. Judith, as the bed and breakfast owner, became completely unbelievable when she promised to have an elaborate costume for an actress repaired in one day. Then there was this goofy moment: the rookie police officer, responding to aforementioned death in Judith’s kitchen, makes bunny ears behind her superior officer’s head while investigating the scene. This is at a potential crime scene! Goofy! And another (still at the same crime scene): Judith’s husband’s ex-wife shows up. She’s not only allowed to enter the potential crime scene, but she hangs around for awhile. I could go on and on, listing all the silliness of Silver Scream. Even though I didn’t solve the mystery right away, I wasn’t sure I cared.

Here is another head-scratcher for me. In the toolshed, where mother is squirreled away like Rochester’s wife, one has to go from the bedroom and through the living room and kitchen in order to get to the bathroom (counter clockwise), when the bathroom is literally on the other side of the bedroom wall. In the main house there is a guest room but no bathroom unless the guest is allowed to go through the master bedroom in order to get to the nearest bathroom. I guess whoever designed these structures wanted the bathrooms as out of the way as possible.

As an aside, as a former housekeeper, if I found a slip of paper that appeared to be a prescription of some sort, I don’t care how illegible the handwriting was, I would never throw it in the trash. That is definitely not my call.

Quote I liked, “Who will you blame if something happens while these movie nutcases are staying at Hillside Manor?” (p 3). The word nutcase is one of my favorites.

Author fact: all of Daheim’s books have pun-typical titles.

Book trivia: It is not necessary to read the other Daheim mysteries in order to enjoy Silver Scream. Daheim will fill you in on details such as Judith worked as a librarian and bartender during the time of her first marriage and there were two other murders at Hillside Manor. Of course there were…

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living High in Cascadia” (p 154). Maybe it was just me, but I felt Silver Scream could have taken place anywhere.

Hound of the Baskervilles

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles. Doubleday & Company, 1930.

Reason read: Yup. I am still slogging through this. I feel a break coming on…

This is probably my favorite Sherlock Holmes mystery. I loved the way Doyle described the moor as having a grim charm. The thought of an escaped convict, someone dubbed the Nottinghill Murderer, living out on the fog-filled moor was eerie. Whole ponies have been swallowed up by this deadly bog and yet, supposedly, this murderer was out there with an evil creature, something with “diabolical agency” and supernatural powers. Something that looked like a dog, but twice its size with glowing eyes and a mouth teeth and flames. this is another tale of deception and greed, but with a welcomed unusual twist.

Line I liked, “To act the spy upon a friend was a hateful task” (p 718).

Author fact: I have lost track of what I have said about Sir Conan Arthur Doyle.

Book trivia: The Hound of the Baskervilles was made into a movie in 1959.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about The Hound of the Baskervilles because she only mentions The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” on page 117 (although not really because it is contained in The Complete Sherlock Holmes). I said that already. A few times.

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).

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

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Roberts, Gillian. How I Spent My Summer Vacation. Ballantine Books, 1994.

Reason read: to continue the series started in July in honor of Philadelphia’s Global Fusion Festival.

What is a mild mannered prep school teacher doing in seedy Atlantic City trying to solve a mystery? In a nutshell, photographer and fun girl, Sasha, is trouble and in trouble. Even though she is one of Amanda’s best friends, on her own she is a handful. Twice divorced, 6′ tall with wild raven-dark hair and bad choices in men. What could possibly go wrong? Add Atlantic City, gambling, crazy people, and a dead body to the mix and you have a whole new Amanda Pepper mystery. Sasha convinces Amanda to take a vacation with her to Atlantic City while she is on a photography assignment. Once there somehow she and Amanda are tangled up in the death of a well-liked financier who finds money for the elderly and underserved. Tangled because Jesse Reese was found in Sasha’s and there is a witness who saw the two of them together entering the room…
The breadcrumbs of clues: Frankie gave Sasha the upgraded hotel room, hoping for a date. Does he have something to do with it? Homeless lady babbles about losing her fortune. Who is she and why does she latch on to Amanda? In truth, I wanted Jesse to have faked his own death. That would have been a fun twist.
While Amanda is trying to clear Sasha of homicide charges, she is also trying to detangle her relationship with her cop. Mackenzie follows Amanda in hopes of talking about their relationship. She spends more time playing detective than figuring out where her heart is hiding.

Confessional: I spend a long weekend at Atlantic City not that long ago. the boardwalk of old is barely recognizable. The wicker furniture on wheels used to ferry tourists from place to place has long been replaced by extra long and extra speedy golf carts.

Lines I liked, “I tried to become Sasha, to add four inches to my height and geometric increments to my self-confidence” (p 27), “Cats are pragmatists, not romantics” (p 92),

Author fact: Gillian Roberts real name is Judith Greber.

Book trivia: How I Spent Last Summer is a very quick read and can be read independent of other Amanda Pepper mysteries.

Playlist: Harry Belafonte, “Sunrise, Sunset”, and Cher.

Nancy said: Pearl said it was always a pleasure to read the Amanda Pepper series.

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

Farewell Symphony

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White, Edmund. The Farewell Symphony. Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Reason read: I started White’s trilogy in June to celebrate pride month. Farewell Symphony is the last of the three.

We continue the autobiography of an unknown protagonist (okay, okay! It’s White). By now he is a full fledged adult and it is the early 1960s. Whereas the other books in the trilogy spanned a short period of time, Farewell Symphony is much longer and covers nearly thirty years, ending in the early 1990s. By the end of The Farewell Symphony Mr. Nameless has outlived most of his friends. AIDS has infiltrated his love life. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let us start at the beginning. Brice, a former lover, died six months before the story opens. From there, the author experiences a string of sexual encounters barely qualifying as relationships: the heartbreak over Sean, a man who was unobtainable. Lou and Kevin. Fox. I could go on. For the most part, Farewell Symphony seems to be a running commentary on sex within the homosexual community. The nameless protagonist prowls for hookups, threesomes, and orgies all fueled by an insatiable desperation to not go lonely. When he isn’t trying to get laid, he desires to be published. The most poignant and sorrowful portion of The Farewell Symphony is the bitter end. True to the title of the book, the symphony of gay men die off, one by one, leaving one voice to take a final bow.

I’ve having a mental block. I cannot think of the word when several coincidences occur at the same time. I just finished reading Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and White’s character is also reading the epic story.

A weird moment of deja vu: I came across a passage in The Farewell Symphony where a character defends sex with children. I feel like that exact same passage was either earlier in the book or in a previous volume of the trilogy.

Quotes worth quoting, “I’ve never liked to feel things in the appropriate way at the right moment” (p 3), “I invited him home and found him to be complicated in ways that bored me” (p 23),

Author fact: at the time of publication, White was a professor at Princeton University.

Book trivia: some reviews of The Farewell Symphony called it trashy.

Setlist: George Thill’s “O Soave Fanciulla” from La Boheme, Sgt. Pepper, Haydn #45, Billie Holiday, Helen Morgan, “Chopsticks”, Verdi, Wagner, Aretha Franklin, Gerard Souzay-Dupare, “Why Did You Leave Me?”, “Strangers in the Night”, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Paolo Conte, Bartok, “the Magic Flute”, Frank Sinatra, “I’ll Be Seeing You in Apple Blossom Time”, Phoebe Snow, Diana Ross, Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler, Puccini, Schubert’s “Erlkonig”, “Up on the Roof” by the Nylons, and Helen Morgan.

Nancy said: Pearl said nothing specific about The Farewell Symphony.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Gay and Lesbian Fiction: Out of the Closet” (p 93).