Intimate Audrey

 

This was a beautiful, touching tribute to a wonderful woman. 

Audrey barely survived WWII. She'd been living in the UK when war was declared and her mother sent her to the Netherlands, thinking she would be safer there. Unfortunately the Netherlands were occupied and many people died. Audrey was almost one of them. When the war was over and Audrey returned to England to resume ballet lessons, her instructor told her that she wouldn't be able to be a professional dancer due to her malnutrition. Audrey then turned to acting and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Audrey's father left when she was six and she didn't see him for decades. Her mother was a hard woman and as a result Audrey was insecure and had abandonment issues. She desperately wanted to find love and get married and have babies. She married fellow actor Mel Ferrer and had Sean after suffering several miscarriages. She and Mel drifted apart and divorced and she married Andrea Dotti and had a second son, Luca. Andrea cheated on her endlessly, and their marriage also broke up. She spent the last years of her life with a partner named Robert Wolders. By all accounts, they were deeply in love but never married. 

Audrey left the public eye to focus on raising her boys. She became an ambassador for UNICEF, traveling all over the world to raise awareness to children dying from starvation. Sadly, Audrey was diagnosed with cancer and died a few months later in her beloved home in Switzerland. She was only 63. 

The legacy she left is a powerful one and won't soon be forgotten. She brought a light into this world, a light of love and compassion, of helping others and expecting nothing in return. We are both better off for having known her and worse for her having left us so early. 

Elizabeth II; Lady Clementine; Where the Crawdads Sing

 

First up, an interesting biography of the last Queen Elizabeth II. I thought Hardman did a nice job of hitting the high (and low) points in her very long life and reign, and while most of it was already known to me, he had some interesting revelations about Prince Harry and his marriage. 

Elizabeth took the throne at the young age of 25 when her father, King George VI, died from complications from cancer. King George was never meant to be king, and Elizabeth was never meant to be queen. King Edward VIII, George's older brother, abdicated his throne to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson. George (or Bertie, as he was known) wept when he heard he would have to take the throne he never wanted, but he did an amazing job holding the country together during WWII. 

Elizabeth was brought up to "get on with it", as it were, and she did, for over 70 years, becoming Britain's longest reigning monarch. 

I am currently reading a giant brick of a biography on Winston Churchill, so this was a nice companion piece, as it were. 

Winston Churchill married Clementine (pronounced "Clem-in-teen" in England, not "Clem-in-tine" like we do in the U.S.), a really smart move on his part. Clementine was instrumental in his career, giving him sound advice, taking care of him, ensuring that he remained safe when he wanted to do dangerous things. They went through the Great War together, through Winston's fall from grace to his triumphant return to public life and resident of 10 Downing Street as the Prime Minister. I'm not sure how much of Benedict's book is fiction (I guess I'll find out if I ever finish the bio of her husband) but it sounds like Clementine did a lot to improve conditions in war torn London during WWII. It was an inspiring tale of the woman behind the powerful man. 

I put off reading "Where the Crawdads Sing" for a few years now, because 9 times out of 10 when a book is that popular, I've been disappointed by the hype and it doesn't live up to it. 

This book was the exception. To everyone over the last few years who recommended it and I dismissed it with a bit of a sneer (I admit it, I was being a book snob), I deeply apologize. It was everything promised and then some. 

Kaya is just six years old when her mom leaves their rundown shack in the marshes of North Carolina and doesn't look back. Her older siblings scatter, fleeing from their abusive and alcoholic father, including her brother Jody, who was the next closest to her in age. Kaya quickly has to become the woman of the house, learning how to cook and clean and buy groceries in town from the money Pa leaves her. 

There is a brief interlude of hope where Pa takes her out fishing on his boat and into town for lunch one day, but that hope is dashed when Pa returns to drinking and finally abandons Kaya for good, just like everyone else has. 

Kaya has to learn to fend for herself in the swamplands, digging up oysters and mussels and selling smoked fish to Jumpin', a kind Black man who runs a small shop and sells gas. Jumpin' and his wife, Mabel, realize Kaya is on her own and do what they can to help her out with donations from their church of clothes and supplies. Kaya attends school for exactly one day, then leaves, determined never to go back after being subjected to the ridicule of the other children, who call her "Marsh Girl". She becomes something of an urban legend, half-human half-wolf, the missing link, a feral, dangerous child. When in reality she was just a very lonely, sad little girl trying to survive. Her loneliness oozed through every heartbreaking word. 

One of Jody's friends, Tate, tentatively befriends her, careful not to scare her away, by leaving her offerings of feathers and other things he finds in the marsh. Kaya reciprocates and eventually feels comfortable enough to talk to Tate. He teaches her to read and promises her he'll come back when he leaves for college. 

He doesn't, though, and once again Kaya is burned by another human and vows not to let anyone get that close to her again. 

I don't want to say too much more and give anything else away for the five or six people on the planet who haven't read it yet, but suffice it to say it was incredible and made me laugh and cry, sometimes at once. So moving and so powerful. What a story. 

You With the Sad Eyes

 

This one was sad 😢I really feel for her. Her life has been rough. 

I loved "Married with Children", I used to watch it with my Dad when I was a kid. I thought Kelly (Christina's character) was so pretty. It's heartbreaking to hear how she thought she was overweight and "plain". She's anything but plain! My goodness. 

Christina grew up in Laurel Canyon with her mom. Her dad left when she was a baby but they ended up having a good relationship before he passed away. Her mom had abusive boyfriends, she was abused, she had abusive boyfriends, the whole nine yards. 

She had a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer, and then the MS diagnosis came. It sounds like she really struggles with it and is in constant pain. 

It never fails to amaze me what human beings are capable of withstanding. You think we'd break, but the human spirit and will to live is strong in so many. Of course some folks do break, and that's tragic. It was a tough one to read but I couldn't put it down. 

Black Dahlia

 

A friend at work asked me about my favorite true crime stories and I mentioned the Black Dahlia. Elizabeth Short's unsolved 1947 murder is one of my OG true crime interests. Manson, Dahlia, Lindbergh, and Lizzie Borden. Those are the four that I read everything I can get my hands on. 

About a decade ago, Mann wrote a book called "Tinseltown" about the unsolved murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor. Mann starts out by saying that he's not trying to solve the Dahlia case, but of course he does have his favorite suspect: Marvin Margolis. Marvin was a USC medical student and a known boyfriend of Betty's (despite being married). His wife's family were butchers. As a Jewish man, Marvin faced antisemitism at USC. Most likely due to his horrifying experiences in WWII as well as the trauma of being harassed for his ethnicity, Mann theorizes that he probably had a lot of rage in general. Combined with some knowledge of anatomy (it's pretty much a given that the Dahlia's murderer knew something about dissection, given how neatly her body was sawed in half) and access to USC's medical labs, which were deserted at the time of year Betty was murdered, he makes a fairly compelling argument. 

The point of the book, however, was to rehumanize Betty. Teach us about the real life young woman behind the myth. Betty was an adventurous young woman who didn't want to stay home and follow the more conventional path of marriage and children, she wanted to see the world. She lived by her wits and made friends easily, friends who she could call on for a place to crash for a night or two, friends who could help her out with rent or food money in a pinch.

It was an interesting book, I enjoyed it. It is a shame that we'll probably never know for sure who killed this poor young woman whose life was just beginning. 

Split Image

 

Poor Tony Perkins. I don't think the man ever really knew *who* he was, he had to pretend to be someone else for so long. 

His father, actor Osgood Perkins, died when he was just a little boy and he was raised by his mother, Janet (everyone called her Jane). In her middle and later years, Jane lived with another woman, and everyone suspected they were lovers. Tony was gay and had boyfriends, like Tab Hunter, but he also dated women. According to a lot of folks the author talked to, Tony was into some wild stuff. Who really knows though? Tony also talked longingly about marriage and children, and when he married photographer Berry Berenson not long after he turned 40, his close friends were mystified. 

Tony and Berry seemed happy, though, and had two sons: Osgood and Elvis. His career never really did reach the peaks he thought he should after "Psycho". He died of AIDS related complications in 1992. Although his wife and sons did not contract the disease, Berry died in 9/11. 

Married with Children vs. the World

 

I loved "Married...with Children". I watched it when it first aired when I was a kid with my dad, who really loved it. Rewatching it as an adult I realize how much of the raunchy humor went over my 10 year old head, but I found it to still be absolutely hilarious. 

It's hard to remember a time when there were really only three major channels with some local programming. A brand new network was a big deal. Fox launched with "Married...with Children" as its flagship series. It wasn't an instant hit, but since Fox didn't have anything else going for it, they kept it on the air. Ironically, an irate woman in Michigan who protested the show and threatened to boycott the sponsors helped launch its success. People tuned it after hearing the outcry and found it funny, so they kept watching. I attended a sub-par, Christian in name only private elementary school, and one day our teacher had us write protest letters to Fox regarding "Married...with Children". She wanted us to put how disgusting and inappropriate it was and how we would boycott all the sponsors. Since I loved it (none of my other classmates were allowed to watch it, so they didn't know), I instead wrote a glowing letter telling Fox how great it was and hoped it would stay on the air forever. My teacher was not thrilled, but hey, it's still America, last time I checked. If you don't like the show, change the station. If you don't like the book, put it down and get a different one. But you can't take away other peoples' rights to watch/listen/read whatever they want. Can you tell this is a topic I'm pretty passionate about, especially with all that's going on in libraries right now? 😊

The Case of the Blonde Bonanza; The Case of the Ice Cold Hands; Bogie & Bacall

 

Okay, new Perry Masons! 

This one was fun. Perry gave Della two weeks of vacation, so she heads to her aunt's house in Bolero Beach. Mason stops by since he's "in the neighborhood" (wink, wink). Della has an intriguing mystery for him. There's a lovely young lady named Dianne who is totally pigging out at the commissary every day. Della is mystified as to why she would ruin her perfect figure. Mason is just happy to be looking at her perfect figure. 

At any rate. Della's aunt knows Dianne and invites her over for dinner. Perry and Della learn that Dianne has signed a contract to model a new type of clothing for larger women, and agreed to gain weight in order to do so. Perry asks to see the contract, takes a look, and discovers an odd clause: the man paying Dianne is entitled to half of whatever she earns *or inherits* for the next six years. Perry quickly deduces that Dianne has a rich unknown relative and Mr. Boring (the man behind the contract) knows about it and is after her inheritance. 

Boring drops Dianne like a hot potato (leaving the poor girl to take off the extra weight she gained) and Perry decides he must have found a bigger meal ticket, like blackmailing the relative directly. Turns out Dianne's father, who was in a boating accident fourteen years earlier and presumed dead, is actually very much alive and very wealthy now, living the good life in Riverside with a new wife. When Boring turns up dead in a motel room and Paul Drake's own operative puts Dianne as the last person in the room, things get hot. 

Perry is visited by a young woman named Audrey who gives him five $100 tickets from a horse race the day before and asks him to collect the winnings for her. Perry suspects a set up, but he agrees and takes Della with him for a fun day at the track. They actually stayed for two whole races! Perry goes to collect the $14,000 Audrey won the day before and is immediately accused by a man named Fremont, who claims that the tickets were bought with money embezzled from his company. Since Fremont doesn't have a leg to stand on, Perry leaves with the money and contacts his client. He learns her name is really Nancy, and her brother, Rodney, is currently cooling his heels (I love that expression) in jail, having been arrested the day before at the track for the same thing Fremont accused Mason of doing (Rodney actually is guilty though, Nancy used her own money to place her bets). Turns out Rodney's been helping himself to a little of Fremont's cash now and again, and finds himself up to his eyeballs in debt. Nancy, knowing about it, scraped up every dime she had and played a long shot at the track, hoping to win enough money to pay Fremont back and get her brother out of Dutch. 

Fremont is playing hardball, though, and wants to prosecute. Then he turns up dead in the bathroom of the hotel room Nancy rented. She keeps lying to Perry, which got him super annoyed. Of course in the end it all worked out. 

Side note: I read an interview with William Hopper (who played Drake on the original show) and he said after the show became so popular Gardner started making Drake more like how Hopper played him. I saw that in these last few books, with Drake coming into the office and saying "Hello, Beautiful" to Della, which Gardner never had him do until he did it on the show. Fun little inside tidbit. 

It took me ages to get through this book. Not that it wasn't well written, it was, I just knew absolutely nothing about Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. I don't think I've seen a single movie either one of them has been in. So why did I check it out? you ask. Yeah, I don't know either. Curiosity, I suppose.

The first third of the book talked about Bogie, his early life and rise to stardom. He was on wife number 3 when he met the Hollywood newcomer, Betty Bacall (her real name, Hollywood changed "Betty" to "Lauren", thinking it sounded sexier. I disagree). Their attraction was immediate and he divorced his wife and married "Baby" (there was a twenty-five year age difference, so the nickname was apt). 

They weren't together very long before Bogie tragically died of cancer, but they had two children and made some movies together. Bogie died a legend, and Bacall took it upon herself to make sure that legend stayed shining. She went on to marry again and have another child, but her later years weren't very happy. She lived at the Dakota in 1980 when John Lennon was murdered out front and all she did was complain about how "inconvenient" it was for her to get to and from rehearsals. She sounded like a very unpleasant person. 

London Refrain; Underboss; Paris Encore; The Librarianist

 

I thoroughly enjoyed my long weekend, and I actually did get quite a lot accomplished, not just reading. But I did a lot of that too 😀

So the final three books of the Zion Covenant series were billed as "readers will finally know the fates of all their favorite characters". LIES. Instead of just telling us what happened to Jacob and Lori and Elisa and Murphy and everyone else, Thoene introduced a whole new cast of characters. I do not have the emotional energy to invest in yet *more* people, I'm sorry, I just don't. And they're all carbon copies of Elisa and Murphy. There's Mac, a cameraman reporter who falls for the lovely Eva, the woman Rachel gave her British passport to at the end of "Warsaw Requiem". Davey, a RAF pilot who falls for Annie, studying to be a nurse. Annie's brother, Trevor, is a sailor with the British Navy. Churchill becomes Prime Minister and England kind of enters the war, along with the French. Apparently all these folks show up in other series, which is all fine and well and good, but I must admit, the nonstop heartache in these books is really getting to me. I know it was a tragic war beyond all human comprehension, but making me care about more people who are doomed is just wrong. 

A few months ago I saw Sammy the Bull Gravano's story on a show called "Very Scary People" and I was fascinated. I'd heard of John Gotti, but not Sammy. 

Sammy was John's underboss. He killed a whole bunch of people but unlike John, he kept a low profile and tried not to be noticed. Unfortunately John was so carefree and didn't take proper measures to avoid implicating himself and Sammy ended up arrested, along with John and a couple of others from information gleaned from wiretaps. When Sammy heard John basically making him out to be the fall guy on the tapes, he turned and testified for the prosecution. At the time, Sammy was the highest ranking member of the Mob to do so. John went to jail and Sammy went into Witness Protection--for a time. He found it didn't suit him, so he left, deciding to take his chances. He's still alive, in his late 70s, and has a podcast. It was interesting and a bit chilling to hear him casually describing murder so cavalierly. 

"Paris Encore" was more of the same from "London Refrain". A quick page or two about the main characters from the first six books, then on to the new folks. 

Madame Rose and Madame Betsy, sisters from America, have been living in Paris for decades and run an orphanage they fund by taking in washing. Jerome and his sister, Maria, show up after their father goes off to join the war and the woman he left in charge of them sells their boat out from under them. Andre Chardon is hiding a Jewish scientist in his Paris home while he works on decoding the Enigma machine (which he helped build back when Jews could still work in Germany). Josie Marlow, a reporter, is trying to get Yacov Lubetkin to Jerusalem and to his grandfather with the help from an unlikely source. 

And finally, "The Librarianist" by Patrick DeWitt. DeWitt is usually pretty good with the dark humor. This one just made me sad. Maybe because it hit too close to home. 

Bob Comet is a retired librarian living in Oregon. He never knew his father and his mother died while he was relatively young, and he inherited her house and a bit of money. He met his wife, Connie, at the library, as well as his best friend, Ethan. Not long after he and Connie got married, she left him and ran off with Ethan. He never saw them again, although he did hear that Ethan died in a car accident not long after he and Connie married. Bob never remarries (or even dates again) and has no children. One day Bob is out walking and comes across a woman with a card attached to her, identifying her as living in a retirement home, so Bob returns her. He starts hanging out at the home, helping out. He eventually breaks his hip and has to sell his house and moves into the retirement home. It had its funny moments, but all in all it just gave me a too stark vision of my own future. 

Danzig Passage

 

Danzig used to be a free city-state on the shore of the Baltic that was part of Germany before WWI. We are introduced to some new characters, like Lucy Strasburg. Lucy is dreaming of marrying dashing S.S. officer Wolf now that she's pregnant with his baby, and realizes her naiveté when he laughs and tells her he already is married. He and his wife have three daughters, so he's hoping for a boy for the Reich. Lucy is determined to keep her baby. Otto is shielding the family of dissent Michael Wallich in his apartment when Wolf and Lucy pay him a surprise visit. Wolf gets Otto arrested, and Otto takes cyanide before he can be interrogated. Poor Otto. Lucy's warning saves the Wallich family, and she escapes with eldest son Peter and the baby, Willie, to Danzig. 

Meanwhile, Anna's sister Helen is arrested in Berlin, along with her husband, Pastor Karl Isben. Their children, Lori and Jamie, hide out in a church, along with two Jewish children they grew up with, Jacob and Mark. Together with a young man named Alfie, who is developmentally disabled and managed to escape from the hospital before he could be euthanatized, manage to make their way to Danzig too. But with Hitler breathing down Poland's neck, how long will Danzig be safe? 

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man; Touching from a Distance

 

I'm a big fan of Paul Newman's movies. As a person...maybe not so much. No, I'm kidding. He did a lot of good in the world through charity. He just made some bad decisions and hurt people, but at least he was honest about it, unlike some people (cough, cough, Eric Clapton, cough). 

Paul led a very interesting life. He married young and had three children with his first wife, Jackie, at least one of which was conceived after he'd begun his affair with Joanne Woodward. After Jackie and Paul divorced, he and Joanne married and had three more kids together. He acted in and directed a bunch of movies and then in his later years started racing cars and put out the Newman's Own line of food products with the profits going to his various charities. Apparently the book was culled from interviews done with Paul and people close to him while they were still alive, in the late 80s and early 90s, but then Paul pulled the plug on the whole thing. It's too bad, I would have liked to have heard his perspective on his later years. 

I'm not quite sure what to say about "Touching from a Distance". I'm not a *huge* Joy Division fan (although I do love "Love Will Tear Us Apart"). Written by Deborah Curtis, Ian's wife, it was super short, just barely over 100 pages. Ian and Deborah met in their teens and started dating. Right away, there were giant red flags. Ian was dictating what she could and couldn't wear, forbade her to wear makeup, cut her off from all her friends. I'm literally screaming at her to RUN! Of course she didn't, she got engaged to him. Her parents threw them a party and he got super jealous when she danced with her uncle. And then to make things worse, after they got married they were dead broke and Deborah decided she wanted a baby, so they had one.

Good grief. 

Ian was diagnosed with epilepsy and suffered seizures frequently while the doctors adjusted his medication. Apparently some of his bandmates and friends blamed the medication for his suicide, but he talked his whole life about dying before he was out of his early twenties, so it sounds like it was more than the medicine. He might have been suffering from something much worse than epilepsy. It was a sad story about two very sad people and their terrible decisions. 

Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

 

I sincerely hope I don't have to wait another 8 years before book 10. 

Spoilers ahead. Beware!

The 9th book of the Outlander series was terrific. Not nearly enough Lord John 🦊, but then she could write thousands of pages of just Lord John and I'd be okay with that (whenever I type "Lord John" on my phone, it automatically inserts the fox emoji now, because I've done it so often. David Berry is gorgeous, what can I say?). 

Brianna, Roger, Jem, and Mandy are back from 1980, fleeing Rob Cameron and his goons who were after the gold. Jamie and Claire are of course thrilled to have them back. Brianna brings books for everyone: the Merck Manual for Claire, the Lord of the Rings trilogy for Jamie, and one of Frank Randall's books for herself, about the Scottish contribution to the Revolutionary War. Jamie reads it and discovers the exact date he'll die.

Oh. That sucks.

Meanwhile, in Savannah, Lord John and his brother, Hal, are living with Hal's oldest son's Ben's widow and her son, Trevor, when William shows up with a man who claims Lord John is his natural father (he's not). There were some hysterical scenes with Lord John and baby Trevor. Good thing he's a soldier and not a nanny 😃 William is still trying to come to terms with the fact that he's Jamie Fraser's son while also trying to get to the bottom of Ben's death. He's also undeniably attracted to Ben's widow, Amaranthus. Brianna and William get to spend some quality brother/sister bonding time together when Brianna goes to Savannah to paint a portrait (Lord John and Jamie hatched the plan to get the two of them together. While their friendship still hasn't been completely mended after Lord John married and bedded Claire, I think it's on the road to recovery). We actually got a lot of William in this book, and it was nice. I like him. 

Ian finds out his first Mohawk wife, Emily, has been left a widow with three children and the oldest one might be his, so he sets out to see if she needs his help. His current wife, Rachel, their baby son, Oggy, and Ian's mother Jenny all go along for the ride (God, I love Jenny). Along the way they rescue the Quaker family that helped Jamie in book 8, the Hardmans, and when they return to Fraser's Ridge they have Mrs. Hardman and her three daughters, plus Ian's son with Emily in tow, as well as a Mohawk who has taken a shine to Jenny. I kind of really love the idea of Jenny having a Mohawk suitor. 

Brianna has another baby, a boy they name David (instead of John, like I suggested). Jamie nearly dies in a battle, on the date Frank mentioned, but Claire is able to miraculously save him. Mrs. Hardman, Silvia, marries Bobby Higgins, a widower on the Ridge who has a couple of little boys. Everyone is celebrating the wedding when a rider comes tearing up. It's William. Lord John has been kidnapped and is being held captive, and William needs Jamie's help to rescue him. 

And that's how the damn book ended and I was awake all night, scared to death for Lord John. I hope nothing bad happens to him, otherwise I'm going to light something on fire.

Man Who Ran Washington

 

James A. Baker III was, at one time, one of the most powerful men in Washington. He helped get Gerald Ford the Presidential nomination in 1976 (although Ford lost to Carter), then helped the Reagan campaign in 1980. He worked for Reagan and George H. W. Bush as Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, and White House Chief of Staff. 

Baker was born into an influential family in Houston, Texas and grew up obeying his father's every command, even after he was married with children his father still dictated what type of car he should buy. "Never get into politics" his father lectured him, and Baker obeyed until his dad died. One of Baker's best friends, George Bush, asked for his help with his Senate campaign in 1970. Baker was known in Washington as a "fixer". He knew everyone and knew how to make things happen. He considered running for President himself after Bush lost in 1992. While it was interesting and I enjoyed it, I was a little disappointed we didn't get to see more of Baker as just a husband and a father. I know he's intensely careful about his public image, it was just unfortunate that he wasn't willing to open up more and share a personal side. 

I loved this quote, and think it applies today more than ever: "We in this country have been going through a long, dark night of self-criticism. We have been telling ourselves that America has tried to run the world, that it is corrupt, that many of our institutions have failed us and need to be “dismantled” under the guise of “reform”. Confession may be good for the soul, but there comes a time when too much confession makes us weaker rather than stronger. Sure we make mistakes, but who in this world doesn’t?". 

The Cousins; In League with Sherlock Holmes; The Astonishing Life of August March; A Rose for the Crown; The Brothers York

Bet you can't guess what I spent my long weekend doing! :)

First up, Karen McManus's "The Cousins". Her books are always so much fun, with terrific twists. Even though I guessed the end to this one well in advance, it was still a good ride.

Twenty-four years earlier, the four Story siblings each got a letter from their mother, saying "You know what you did". Subsequent attempts to contact her have failed, and all four siblings insist they have no idea what they did to make their mother cut them off so completely and abruptly. Then one day each of the three grandchildren get a letter from their grandmother, inviting them to spend the summer at her exclusive resort. The cousins don't really know each other that well, but they can't pass up the opportunity to meet their grandmother and potentially find out why she cut their parents out of her life. Of course it helps that grandma is worth a ton of money and the grandkids would like their share. Once they get to the island, though, they discover that not only did their grandmother not invite them, she's really unhappy they are there and will do anything to get them to leave. 

"In League with Sherlock Holmes" wasn't what I was expecting. Most of the stories didn't feature the great detective at all, they were Sherlock adjacent, as it were (one of them was about Benedict Cumberbatch, for instance). Some were pretty funny, like the one about Irene Adler's great-great-granddaughter solving a murder on the Jersey Shore to clear her BFF's name, or the serial killer who thinks he's Sherlock. Some were just kind of blah, which is par for the course with any collection of short stories.  

"The Astonishing Life of August March" was whimsical (which isn't a word I use often enough). August was born in a theater (literally: his mother was an actress who gave birth to him in between acts of a play she was performing and left him in the laundry basket). The aged laundress, Eugenia Butler, raises him (sort of, honestly August raises himself) at the theater, where his education consists of watching great plays night after night. When the theater is torn down August is tossed to the streets to make his own way in life. It was a charming little story. 

"A Rose for the Crown" by Anne Easter Smith was wonderful, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a fictionalized account of Richard III's mistress, the mother of his acknowledged illegitimate children, Katherine and John. Nothing is known about who this woman (or women) was in real life, so Smith has license to make up her story. Kate Haute was born on a poor peasant farm, but has the beauty, grace, and charm to be noticed by a minorly important cousin, Richard Haute. Richard arranges for Kate to come and live with him and his wife and his daughter, Anne, who is Kate's age. Kate learns how to be a gentlewoman and is eventually married: first to an old merchant who leaves her a young, well off widow, then to a cousin named George Haute. Kate is very much taken with George's attractiveness, but quickly discovers he prefers men to women and their marriage becomes a disappointing sham. Kate wants to be loved and have children. She has the good fortune to meet fifteen year old Richard Plantagenet while he's out hawking one day and the two fall for each other and quickly become lovers. It was sweet and romantic and I cried at the end when Richard died. My only quibble (and it's a very small one, but still) is that she has Kate go visit Richard shortly after his wife, Queen Anne, dies, and mentions how he looks much older than his 31 years. He was 32, actually, something Smith, as a Ricardian, should have known or at least verified. 

And finally, "The Brothers York" by Thomas Penn. I was really looking forward to this one because of course anything new about Richard III is exciting. 

Unfortunately, he relied on historians who have been discredited and are considered very biased towards the Tudors, like Thomas More and Polydore Vergil. He tried to make out like the three York brothers: Edward, George, and Richard; were somehow quite unusual for how they fought with each other and tussled over everything. They were in fact very much a product of their times. He contradicted himself quite a bit once Richard became king, talking about how greedy he was and how he wanted to usurp the crown so badly he murdered his nephews, and in the next sentence how being king was such a burden it weighed him down. He called Henry Tudor's marriage to the former Princess Elizabeth "a true union" but Richard was all too glad to get rid of Queen Anne and was eager to marry Elizabeth himself (utter rot and nonsense, of course). Not to mention the little errors that grated on me a bit: called the coronation feast the "wedding" feast, etc. There are much better, fairer, books about Richard and his brothers out there. 

Royal Blood

 

This, ladies and gentleman, is the book that started it all for me in regards to King Richard III. This was the first one I read, and just finished rereading, twenty years after reading it the first time.

I love historical mysteries and unsolved true crime. As a teenager, I was fascinated by the Lizzie Borden case, the Lindbergh kidnapping, Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia, and so many others. I ripped through the true crime section at the library, reading everything I could get my hands on. Somehow I managed to stumble across this book when it was first published. I'm glad I did! Not sure how I managed it--that time period in history wasn't of interest to me yet (it would be a few more years before I would devour everything I could read about the Tudors). Fields looks at the evidence surrounding the disappearance and perhaps murder of Edward IV's young sons, Edward and Richard, who were last seen sometime in 1483 in the Tower, after their uncle Richard became King. No one knows what really happened to them, if they were murdered or spirited away. If they were murdered, who did it? Richard certainly had a motive, but if he did murder them, he made a clumsy botch of it by not displaying the bodies in order to quell potential rebellions and pretenders, something Henry VII had to deal with. Others had a much better (in my opinion) motive, like Henry Tudor himself (stay with me for a minute, I promise I'll make it as simple as I can, because it really is complicated). Richard had the children of his brother Edward and Elizabeth Woodville declared illegitimate after learning his brother was precontracted in marriage to another woman before marrying Elizabeth. He takes the throne. Now, Henry's troops defeat him at Bosworth and Henry takes the crown and marries Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward and Elizabeth. But wait! She's illegitimate. So Henry has to reverse that--but if he does, then not only is she no longer illegitimate, her brothers benefit as well. Now Edward, if alive, is truly the rightful King. If Edward is dead, then Prince Richard becomes King Richard IV. So who benefited most from the boys being dead? Richard III, who already held the crown by right after the Council declared the Princes illegitimate, or Henry VII, who had no rightful blood claim to the throne and was married to the illegitimate daughter of Edward IV? It's easy to see that Richard had no cause to kill those boys and most likely didn't. I doubt we'll ever really know what happened, but for folks looking for the facts plainly told, you can't beat this book.  

Faster; Cecily Neville

 

Okay, still trying to get used to this new Blogger format. It's a little weird. 

First up: "Faster" by Neal Bascomb. Set in the 1920s and 1930s, it covered the competitive early years of car racing. The German Mercedes dominated the field, and German race car drivers were considered the elitist of the elite. Driver Rene Dreyfus was Jewish, and therefore not welcome on most teams during the rise of the Third Reich. He partnered with an American heiress and a French car manufacturer and against all odds beat the Mercedes in a few key races. It was interesting and I learned a lot about early Grand Prix auto racing and how insanely dangerous it was. 

                                                                                                                                                                       Another Richard III book, this one about his mother, Cecily Neville, the Duchess of York (I'm also reading a book about his father, Richard, Duke of York, so the two intertwined quite a lot. At least until he died). Cecily and Richard were married when they were children, so it took a long time before they were living together as husband and wife and having kids, but once they started they didn't stop. Cecily had at least 12 children that we know about. Six died in infancy, making the future King Richard III the baby of the family when his little sister died. Not much is known for sure about Cecily Neville, even important women in Medieval England didn't get much documentation. Hers had to have been a sorrowful life at times, though, losing her husband and second son, Edmund, fighting the Lancasters. Even when her eldest son, Edward, was King, he was married to a woman she didn't like. Her son George so envied his older brother he tried to depose him and take the crown himself. And then there was poor Richard. Cecily lived for about a decade after Richard was murdered at Bosworth. In her will, she left a prayer book that most likely belonged to her youngest son to Henry Tudor's mother (and her cousin) Margaret Beaufort. I had a good laugh at that. The irony! John Ashdown-Hill also mentioned that the bones that are generally believed to be those of the Princes in the Tower most likely aren't: since finding Richard's bones, we know he had a full set of normal adult teeth. The bones that are often touted as his nephews' show a genetic dental deformity that for many years scholars thought they had inherited from Cecily Neville's line. But Richard didn't have it, so it makes the idea that those bones belonged to his nephews that much less likely. Interesting, as all Ashdown-Hill's books are. 

Forest City Killer; Sitcommentary

This true crime piqued my interest when I read the summary, so I checked it out. It was good, I liked her writing style. Even though it was a subject I knew absolutely nothing about (cold case murders in Canada), it held my interest. In the 1960s and 70s, young women were found raped and murdered. To complicate matters, a few younger boys were also found in similar situations, all close to the small town of London, Ontario. Some experts insist there were two killers at work, others believe it was only one. The author, Vanessa Brown, is hoping advances in DNA technology might lead to a solution to these terrible crimes and finally bring some sense of closure to the grieving families. 

Robinson's book about sitcoms that changed America was a quick, funnish (sometimes) read. After all, his point is that sitcoms brought about social change by making us laugh at all our faults and shortcomings as a society. For the most part, he was pretty nonpolitical, but when he was it made sense in the context of the subject he was discussing, so it didn't bother me. What kind of did bother me was how he left some pretty major (I think, anyway) sitcoms out of the discussion. If you want to talk about groundbreaking, what about "Married with Children"? "The Simpsons"? I know you have to pick and choose, but some of his choices left me wondering why that show rated the cut and others didn't.

The Five; Cari Mora

I enjoyed Hallie Rubenhold's "The Five". Rather than recount the murders of Jack the Ripper, which have been done a million times, she sought to breathe life into the five women he is accused of murdering and dispel the myth that they were "just prostitutes". Only two of them were actually on record as sex workers, the other three were unfortunate women who lost everything due to circumstances and alcoholism. Three of them were married at one point, three of them had children. They were daughters, sisters, mothers, wives, and friends who had the misfortune of being attacked by Jack the Ripper. It was very interesting and of course very heartbreaking.

I was so disappointed by "Cari Mora" by Thomas Harris. I mentally prepared myself for it not to be as good as his Hannibal Lecter books, but wow, this was just awful. The font was huge, I thought I had accidentally gotten a large print, but no, that was just how it was and it was short, so the characters were very thin and the whole story wasn't very fleshed out. Basically a group of shady characters are working at the former home of mobster Pablo Escobar, trying to open a safe that contains millions. Another group of shady characters is trying to beat them to it, and a lovely woman named Cari Mora is caught in the middle of it all, just trying to escape with her life. It had the makings of a great story, but it just didn't pan out.

The Case of the Long Legged Models; The Case of the Footloose Doll; The Word is Murder; The Case of the Waylaid Wolf; The Case of the Empty Tin; The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito

Perry is visited by a poised young woman named Stephanie Falkner. Her father was murdered some time before, leaving her 40% of a modest casino in Las Vegas. She's being pressured to sell her interest to a man named George Casselman. Perry gets a call from a client of his, Homer Garvin, Sr., who asks him to do whatever he can to help Stephanie out. Apparently his son, Homer Garvin Jr., had been dating Miss Falkner, and Sr. thought she was going to be his daughter in law someday, and bought 15% of the stake in the casino to give to her as a wedding gift. Together, he and Stephanie have over 50%. Unfortunately, Jr. has just married a showgirl he barley knows. When Casselman is found murdered, there are too many clues, too many suspects, and too many guns: Garvin Sr. bought three identical guns, gave one to Jr., and kept two for himself. *One* of those guns is the murder weapon, but is it Jr.'s, or the did Mason switch guns right under Tragg's nose?
It never ceases to amaze me in these books how many times people make appointments to see people in the middle of the night. Casselman had like, four, appointments between eleven and midnight. He was literally shuffling people out the back door while inviting others in the front. It gave Perry plenty of red herrings to work with!

Mildred Crest has had a terrible day. She gets a phone call at work from her fiance: not only is he calling off their engagement, he's about to be pinched for embezzlement and is fleeing town. Mildred is horrified and embarrassed. Her boss sends her home for the day, since she's clearly not feeling well, and Mildred impetuously decides to leave town. She cleans out her savings account, hops in her car, and starts driving. She doesn't have a destination in mind, she just needs to get out of Oceanside and clear her head. At a gas station, a young woman who introduces herself as Fern Driscoll asks if Mildred will give her a ride. Mildred tells her she doesn't know where she's going, and Fern says that suits her fine. Mildred lets her in the car, and as they drive Fern tells her a little of her story: she's from the Midwest, she's in a terrible bind, and she wants to kill herself. She taunts Mildred to drive the car off the steep cliff of the hill they're climbing. Mildred is nonplussed when Fern grabs the wheel and deliberately crashes the car. Mildred manages to escape, but Fern is crushed to death instantly. Mildred makes a bold decision: she'll take the dead woman's identity and start over. She switches purses and accidentally lights the car on fire, then hightails it out of there.
Mildred makes it to L.A., where she starts work as a secretary under the name Fern Driscoll in the same building where Mason has his office. The papers report Mildred Crest died in a car accident, and also that she was two months' pregnant. Mildred is tracked down by a would be blackmailer who has discovered she's not Fern, and she consults with Mason. When the blackmailer is stabbed with an ice pick and dies, Mildred is not only on the hook for his murder but for stealing Fern's identity. The "Long Legged Models" was about the musical guns, this one was about the musical ice picks. There were six instead of three, which made it really fun trying to keep track of which ice pick was the real murder weapon!

I took a break from Mason to read Anthony Horowitz's newest, "The Word is Murder". He wrote himself into the story, which is usually a bad idea (Stephen King, I'm looking at you) but it worked quite well in this case, he carried it off brilliantly. Diana Cowper visits a funeral parlor to make arrangements for her own funeral. Just in time, too, she's murdered that evening. Former Detective Hawthorne approaches Horowitz with a deal for him: Horowitz can join him on his quest to catch the killer and then write a book about it, and they can split the profits. Horowitz is hesitant at first, but something about the case appeals to him, so he agrees. It turns out Diana accidentally killed a little boy almost ten years earlier while driving without her glasses. She crippled his twin brother, and got off with a slap on the wrist from the judge. Her son is a famous actor, living out in Hollywood, and when he comes home for his mother's funeral, he is murdered that afternoon. There were plenty of red herrings all over the place: just when I thought I had it figured out, I was proved wrong. Which was great! I enjoyed it a lot.

Back to Mason. Arlene Ferris is working late one night, and when she goes to leave her car won't start. Luckily, the dashing playboy son of the owner, Loring Lamont, happens by and offers her a ride home. Arlene accepts. After she's in the car, he remembers he promised to take some important papers out to someone at his father's country place and promises Arlene it won't take long, and he'll take her out to dinner afterwards to make up for it. Arlene reluctantly agrees. They get to the country place and no one's there, so Lamont makes a few phone calls and gets angry when he finds out the man's been delayed and his father expects him to wait for him. Arlene is agreeable, though, and they make dinner, turn on some music, have some drinks. Then Lamont gets down to what he really wants. Arlene is offended and runs out of the house in a desperate attempt to protect her virtue. Lamont chases after her in his car and gets out to follow her on foot. Arlene manages to backtrack and jumps in his car (silly boy left the keys in it) and takes off. She parks in front of his apartment building in front of a fire hydrant, hoping he gets towed, and takes a cab home. She calls her good friend, Madge (who, incidentally, got Arlene the job at Lamont's business simply by making a phone call, which tells you something about Madge's connection to the Lamonts) to tell her what happened. Madge is properly sympathetic. Arlene goes to visit Mason the next day to tell him what happened and figure out if there's anything they can do about Lamont. She knows she's not the only girl he's tried this on, and she wants to stop him. Well, someone stopped Lamont for good the night before: he was found murdered, with the knife still in his back.
There were some great scenes in this one with Mason and Arlene's friend Madge. It was interesting to see him flirting with someone besides Della.

This is the exact copy I own of the "Case of the Empty Tin" and the "Case of the Drowsy Mosquito". I absolutely love how cheesy and silly the cover is, so I had to include it.
I read the "Empty Tin" first (it's from 1941, "Mosquito" is 1943. Why "Mosquito" is first I don't know. I hate when publishers do that. Almost all of my Mason's are like that, since most of the ones I own are 2 in 1s). Housewife and mother extraordinaire Florence Gentrie spies an empty tin on her shelf of preserves in the cellar that she knows darn well wasn't there before. Why would anyone put an empty tin on a shelf, all sealed up? She tosses it in the scrap bin, but her sister in law, spinster Rebecca, thinks it's quite a mystery and makes a big deal out of puzzling it out. Florence doesn't have time for such nonsense: she has a big house to run, a servant to look after, three children, and a husband, not to mention a boarder and a pesky sister in law. That night, the household is woken up by a gunshot. Someone was shot at the house next door, but the tenant and his housekeeper have both disappeared. Coincidentally, one of Mason's clients lives on the second floor of the house, the shooting happened in the downstairs apartment. His client is a recluse who is in hiding and doesn't want publicity, so he begs Mason to solve the crime and keep him out of it. Mason starts investigating and he too is puzzled by the empty tin, especially when they find the lid has what appears to be a secret code etched into it. Fun! There's a great scene where Mason poses as Tragg's brother up in San Francisco.

And finally, "The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito". Salty Bowers comes to Mason for his friend, Banning Clarke. He and Banning were prospectors together, and Banning got rich and used his money to buy a big mansion by the ocean and got married. It nearly killed him, according to Salty. Banning was meant for the outdoor life, and living indoors has weakened his heart. He has a nurse on premises as well as a housekeeper. Mason and Della go with Salty to pay a visit to Banning and find him camping out in a cactus garden away from the main house. It was Salty's idea, to restore Banning to health, and it seems to be working. Since his wife died almost two years earlier, Banning has been eager to return to the desert with Salty and continue their prospecting. Banning's household is an odd one. His former mother in law and brother in law live in the main house. When his wife died, she left everything to them, including the stock in his mining company Banning put in her name. So now he shares the company with them. The live in housekeeper, her husband and daughter all live there, as well as his nurse. Banning wants Mason to represent the housekeeper's husband in a fraud suit brought on by his former brother in law. The brother in law, Jim, claims the old prospector salted a mine to get him to buy it and it's worthless. The whole cast of colorful characters appeals to Mason, and he agrees.
Jim and his mother are poisoned that night, seemingly by arsenic, but thanks to the fact that the nurse, Velma, was on hand they pull through. Mason and Della come to take care of some business, and they are poisoned! Luckily, they pull through as well (seriously, why try to kill a bunch of people with arsenic when there's a nurse in the house?). Unfortunately, Banning Clarke isn't as lucky. Even though he's dying from arsenic poisoning, someone shoots him. Overkill, as they say. It actually reminded me a bit of Kurt Cobain's demise. Drugs or guns, people. You don't need both.
At any rate, there were no courtroom scenes in this one ("The Empty Tin" didn't have any, either) but it was still fun. Mason proposes to Della in the end, but she turns him down, knowing full well he doesn't want a wife and to settle down, but his brush with death made him think he did.
This book makes me want to go camping, which is something I never thought I'd say :)

All the Ever Afters; Alice; Accidental Brothers; Play of Death; Robin

There are, as we know, two sides to every story. We all know about poor Cinderella and her wicked stepmother and ugly stepsisters, but her stepmother, Agnes, is here to tell her side of the story. Agnes had to leave home as a young girl to go work as a laundress in the manor house after her mother dies. She was clever and pretty, and managed to finagle a better position for herself at a nearby abbey. There she meets and falls in love with a messenger boy named Fernan, and becomes pregnant. Forced to care for her, Fernan takes her to a nearby village and rents her a room in an alehouse, and even though they don't marry they live together as man and wife. She has three daughters and learns to brew ale, and takes over the alehouse when the woman who owns it dies. It's a hard life, but Agnes is content with her lot. Then Fernan dies of the pox, the same pox that scars who middle daughter, Matilda, and kills her youngest, Catherine. The alehouse reverts back to the abbey and Agnes is forced to return to the manor house to be nursemaid to the new baby, Ella. Parted from her daughters, Agnes does the best she can to be a good nurse and later, stepmother, to the strange little girl. It was charming and well written.

It took me forever to finish this biography of Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice of Greece. Not because it wasn't interesting, but because everyone has the same name, and it was really hard to keep track of all the different Victorias, Alices, and Louises. Couldn't someone name their girl Betsy or Marilyn or something? Geez. At any rate, Alice was born at Windsor, her mother Victoria was a favorite of her grandmother, Queen Victoria (see what I mean?). She met Andrew, a prince of Greece, and they married and Alice moved to Greece. She was born with hearing issues but learned to compensate for her deafness by becoming a proficient lip reader. She and Andrew were happy and she had four daughters before finally giving birth to Philip. The Greek country was in constant political turmoil, and Andrew's family was run out. The family fled, moving about Europe, staying with whichever relatives would put them up. Alice always considered Greece her home, and even though she and Andrew no longer lived together as man and wife, she returned whenever she could. She fed children during the war and nursed wounded, she even hid a Jewish family. Alice went through periods of tragic mental illness and lived in hospitals. She spent her last years in Buckingham Palace with her son and daughter in law and grandchildren, and many years after she died her final wish of being buried in Jerusalem came to pass. Fascinating life.

I read one of Nancy Segal's other books on twins, "Born Together, Reared Apart", and it was quite interesting. I don't know why twins fascinate me so much, I don't even know any twins, but I've always been curious about them, and apparently it's not uncommon. The case Segal writes about in this book is like something out of a movie or a work of fiction: two sets of identical twin boys were born in Colombia, and one boy from each set was switched. William went home to rural La Paz with Wilbur instead of going home with Jorge to Bogota. Carlos ended up with Jorge instead of going home to La Paz. Both sets grew up thinking they were fraternal, and their upbringing was very different: Jorge and Carlos had an education and got to go to college, while William and Wilbur left school at a young age to work on their family farm. A young woman who worked with Jorge went into the butcher shop where William worked and was stunned by the resemblance to her coworker. At the age of twenty-five the four men met up and the twins were reunited with their identical brothers. It's an amazing story, and it's rather scary to think of how common it is that babies go home with the wrong parents. Identical twins are sometimes discovered, but what about singles? At any rate, it was riveting.

I've really enjoyed all of Oliver Potzsch's Hangman's Daughter series. As usual, this one was well written and covered a lot of territory. Simon, Magdalena's husband, takes their oldest boy, Peter, to a town twenty miles away so he can study with his former teacher, Georg. As the grandson of the hangman, Peter isn't allowed an education in his own hometown (it takes place in 1670). When Simon gets to the town, he discovers there's just been a grisly murder: the young man who was playing Jesus in the upcoming Passion Play was crucified. Since the town's doctor recently died and they haven't found a replacement yet, they ask Simon, who is a medicus, to investigate. 

And finally, the heartbreaking story of Robin Williams, and his life cut short. Like most people, I was heartbroken when I heard about Robin's suicide in 2014. Then the news came out that he was suffering from Parkinson's, and it made more sense. Still, terribly tragic. He brought so much joy and laughter to so many people throughout his 30+ years in show business. He actually had a pretty normal upbringing: his dad was a high level executive at Ford and his mother was a socialite. He had two older half-brothers from his parents' first marriages. He attended an elite boy's school before his dad moved the family from Detroit to California when he was a teen. Robin found his calling in acting and worked the stand up circuit before finding success when he was cast as Mork in an episode of "Happy Days". That led to the spin off that he starred in with Pam Dawber, and he spent the rest of his life working in film and TV. He married (three times) and had kids (three) and made many, many friends along the way who spoke kindly of him. It was touching and made me cry.

Bloody Spur; Astrid Lindgren: the Woman Behind Pippi Longstocking

Third in the Caleb York series, the wonderful Western collaboration between the late, great Mickey Spillane and the keeper of his flame, Max Allan Collins (side note: happy 100th anniversary of Mickey Spillane's birthday the other day!). The railroad wants to build a spur of the line between Trinidad and Las Vegas (New Mexico, not Nevada) and most of the townspeople are thrilled at the idea of the railroad coming through their town, bringing new business and prosperity. Founder of the Bar-O ranch, blind George Cullen, is against the spur, since he thinks it will bring more crime and trouble and competition. His daughter, Willa, is all for it but doesn't know how to convince her father to change his mind. York is for it, but he's got more important things on his mind: a bad hombre named Preacherman is in town to compete in the poker tournament at the Victory, and York has a feeling he's been hired to kill someone. It was good and lots of fun, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I've never actually read any of Astrid Lindgren's books. My sister and I used to love watching the old Pippi Longstocking movies on TV when we were kids. I saw this new biography about Lindgren, and checked it out. It wasn't bad. It's funny to think she only wrote three Pippi Longstocking books, she wrote so many others, and yet Pippi is what she is known for. She lived a pretty unconventional life: she got pregnant at 18 by her much older, married boss and traveled to Denmark to give birth in secret, since Swedish hospitals required both parents' names on the birth certificate. She left their son, Lars, with a foster mother for a few years until she was able to go back and get him and bring him home with her. She married her next boss, who was a bit older, and had a daughter, Karin, with him. It wasn't a marriage for love but for mutual benefit: as a single mother she needed to be able to give her son a stable home, and she and her husband got along well. When he died, quite young, actually, she never considered remarrying, instead enjoying living on her own, surrounded by children and grandchildren. She passionately loved children, and had some rather radical notions about how to raise them.