Wednesday, March 28, 2012

A Bitter Truth A Bess Crawford Mystery

Another book I sort enjoyed despite Bess Crawford dim wits and her propensity to be emotionally blackmailed 
Review at Amazon by Sharon Isch 
Christmas approaches and WWI battlefield nurse Bess Crawford arrives back at her London digs on leave from France only to discover a battered wife on her doorstep. She takes her in and, at the woman--Lydia's--request, accompanies her home to the dreariest corner of Sussex just as the extended family is about to gather together for a memorial event for Lydia's deceased brother-in-law.

Murder ensues. As do rumors of an illegitimate child. Then comes another death--is this one a suicide or is it also murder? Are all these things connected? And if so, how?

I think this third entry in the newest British WWI era mystery series by the American mother and son team that writes under the name of Charles Todd works a bit better than the first two because it puts Bess smack dab in the middle of the muddle from the get-go and thus her collecting of clues and conjectures requires fewer far-out coincidences and less Miss Marple-ish busybodiness to propel the plot.

I didn't love this book--I thought the "who" in the whodunit should have been a more prominent and better developed character--but I liked it, especially the scenes that involved Bess's being back in battle-torn France where her investigations were more in character and thus more believable than in the first two books of this series. And I look forward to the next one. But I remain a bigger fan of Scotland Yard Inspector Rutledge, star of the Todds' longer running series. At least so far.

I married you for happiness

I actually abandoned this book as it made me sad

Its beautifully written but its about a husband dying so I could not bear reading it :-(
Review by Susan Anderson at Amazon

The story follows Nina as she has just discovered her husband has passed away in bed. Instead of immediately calling an ambulance (or whatever you would call when you know your significant other has passed away), Nina sits by her husband and reminisces about their entire love (and not so love) story. I think part of the reason I loved this book so much is because I kept imagining myself in Nina's position. What would I do if my husband passed away and I KNEW I was spending my very last moments by his side? I imagined myself just wanting to crawl in bed and cuddle with him, despite how morbid that sounds. I imagine that our whole relationship, the good and the bad, would pass before my eyes.

No, this isn't a happy little story you're going to get totally immersed in and follow along with from beginning to end. It's more a series of statements about marriage and love. It's paragraphs that make you think, sentences that bring tears to your eyes, and emotions that you've never felt before. At least that's what it was for me.

A duty to the dead A Bess Crawford Mystery


I was sooo delighted to lay my hands on the another series by Charles Todd - also set in England and the early 1900's

The only thing about Charles Todd is that he has made his detective hero Ian Rutledge a brilliant man and Bess Crawford really not brilliant

I suppose Inspector Rutledge is a professional and Bess is a nurse so its possible that that is the reason for their difference in ability - but the difference is too stark 

Its so obvious right from the start that obviously the heir would have been put in the mental asylum becasue he was the heir and because of the "wicked stepmother"

But Bess continues idiotically to wait till the very end to accept it

She also says idiotic things like"Its too horrible to believe" -

Get a brain Bess !!

Despite this I enjoyed the book for its setting and the story

Review by LM Young at Amazon 
Bess Crawford, daughter of a British Army officer and a nurse serving aboard the hospital ship Britannic, is invalided home after the ship is torpedoed and her arm is broken. This gives her the chance to fulfill a soldier's dying wish; Arthur Graham's cryptic deathbed message is to be delivered directly--no letters will do--to his brother Jonathan: "Tell Jonathan I lied. I did it for Mother's sake. But it has to be set right." Bess' letter to the family results in an invitation to the Graham home, but to her surprise, there is no reaction when she delivers the message. Jonathan and Mrs. Graham even question if Arthur was in pain or drugged when he said it. But the longer Bess remains in the Graham home, the more questions begin to arise: what did the message mean and why was it so important to Arthur but not to his family? How did Arthur's oldest brother Peregrine become confined to an insane asylum when he was only fourteen? And when Bess is called on to nurse Peregrine through a bout of pneumonia, why isn't he the dimwitted man he has been described to be?

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Eye contact by Cammie McGovern

Oh how I loved this book

I read it in one big gulp

Cammie McGovern is just amazing - I read several of her articles on autism parenting

I started with one called "Accepting Ethan"


Here is Suzanne Amara's review from Amazon
"
This review is from: Eye Contact (Hardcover)
I found the portrayals of children with autism, PDD, Aspergers (although it's not named as such here), ODD and so on to be dead on in this novel---they were shown in a very realistic way, not as savants or fascinating puzzles or any of the ways they are often shown in books and the media. It was so nice to be able to read a book and see kids like the ones I know so well, in my family and at their school!


The plot, however, was a lot weaker. I think it would have been better had a lot less elements found their way into it! The side stories about Keven and Suzette just were a little much to take in, and there were even more minor plot events than those thrown in---side romances, family tensions from the past and so on. The central story of a girl's murder would have been enough to keep this compelling. There were more fake endings than a bad TV mystery---you could also tell it wasn't over after a while because there was so much more book to read! Also, the woods where the murder took place had an amazing amount of action on the day of the murder---they sound more like a busy street than a wooded area.


These are all fairly minor quibbles, however. I read the book eagerly through to the end, and would recommend it to both those with an interest in autism and those who like to read a puzzling mystery.
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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The Red Door Inspector Ian Rutledge


Another Story I enjoyed immensely
One interesting Iam discovering is how thw author Charles Todd - uses the voice of Hamish (the soldier that the Ispector had to kill in the great war )as the voice of his subconscious


Our subconscious instincts are faster than the conscious thoughts and so Hamish is able to warn the Inspector about dangers before they happen
The Amazon Review complain that this story is overflowing with too many plots but I did not experience it in this way
I simply loved it
Review By Caroline Lim at Amazon
"A man suffering what seems to be a nervous breakdown resulting in his paralysis, disappears from the medical facility he was in. Apparently he managed to dress himself and walk out of the place without anyone noticing. Inspector Rutledge, still fighting his own demons from the war, is called in to investigate. After interviewing the family members, he gets the sense that they are keeping something from him, but every avenue he goes down seems to be a dead end. Walking along a bridge, deep in thought, he is accosted by a youth who attempts to rob him at knife point.
As oddly as he disappeared, the man reappears at the institution from which he walked away a week ago. But is everything as they seem? In the meantime, there seems to be someone on a robbing spree on the very bridge that Inspector Rutledge was on, and this time, a victim, a Member of Parliament was stabbed to death.
As if that wasn't enough for Inspector Rutledge to deal with, a woman is found bludgeoned to death behind her front door. Who could have wanted to kill a woman, who, by all accounts, had no enemies and was much liked in her village? Was there a relationship between her and the family of the man who had disappeared?
Before long, pieces of the puzzle start to fit, and certain secrets that were being kept start to emerge. But who would do anything to keep these secrets buried?
A wonderful page turner and keeps the mystery all the way to the end."

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Sense & Sensibility

Thoroughly enjoying this book

I think this is Jane Austen's funniest book - her descriptions are so tongue in cheek- - Northanger Abbey is her other book that I found to be this witty

To me it seemed as though since the characters are not as extreme as they were in "Pride & Prejudice"

I think therefore that its a harder story to tell

Mrs Dashwood  is not as foolish as Mrs Bennett
Marianne is not as silly as Lydia
and
Willoughby is not as villianous as Wickham

I was constantly reminded of Pride and Prejudice

It starts with a similar them of a dull relative inheriting the home of the ladies and in one way or another turning them out of their home

From wikipedia
"Sense and Sensibility, published in 1811, is a British romance novel by Jane Austen, her first published work under the pseudonym, "A Lady." Jane Austen is considered a pioneer of the romance genre of novels, and for the realism portrayed in her novels, is one the most widely read writers in English literature. A work of romantic fiction, Sense and Sensibility is set in southwest England in 1792 through 1797,[1] and portrays the life and loves of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor andMarianne, daughters of their father Henry's second wife, Mrs. Dashwood. The sisters are starkly different from each other; Elinor is the epitome of prudence and self-control while Marianne embodies emotion and enthusiasm. Elinor, Marianne, and their younger sister, Margaret, are left in reduced circumstances when their father dies and his estate is passed onto their half-brother, John. The novel follows the young ladies to their new home, a meager cottage on a distant relative's property, where they experience love, romance and heartbreak. The philosophical resolution of the novel is ambiguous: the reader must decide whether sense and sensibility have truly merge"

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Voice of the Violin

Another new Series I discovered purely by chance
I was reading the reviews on Amazon and I discovered that Linda Oskam had already written the review I was hoping to write
From an Amazon Review by Linda Oskam

When the police car of Inspector Montalbano hits a small car parked at an apparently deserted country home, the inspector has a gut feeling that something is wrong. He finds the body of a beautiful woman, strangled in her bedroom. After a short while it turns out that the woman has numerous acquaintances in the area and that there are a fair number of suspects. The investigation is not made any easier by the fact that Montalbano's superiors are not exactly supporting him, even though his own team is squarely behind him. A combination of good policework and flashes of brilliance in the end solves the crime. In the meantime Montalbano also has to sort out the mess that he is making of his private life. And that is the nice thing about this series: it is the combination of police work and private hassles, that make Montalbano into more than your average, typical policeman-from-a-novel, but rather a real character with his good and his bad sides.

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The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge

A simply brilliant book that I intend to write a long review on with excerpts
This book is especially fascinating to me as the mother of an autistic child
He talks about the great plasticity of the brain and frequently alludes to the new adage "Neurons that fire together... wire together "
An altogether brilliant book and everyone who has puzzled about the mysterious brain must read it



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A Lonely Death by Charles Todd

This was my first Inspector Rutledge!

Ian Rutledge is called to investigate a bizarre set of murders in a village in Sussex
Three survivors of the Great War have been garroted
They are linked not just by their manner of dying but also by a soldier's tag left in their mouth
Did something happen in the war which links them together
Or is it something else even deeper into the past
I cannot give this lovely plot awash by telling you any more
But this was another great read ( or perhaps I should say Great Listen as I heard this as an audio book )



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Location:Nance Ln NW,Knoxville,United States

A Matter of Justice by Charles Todd

How much I have enjoyed discovering this new series

Inspector Ian Rutledge of the Scotland Yard is a 1st World War Survivor
He has shell shock and while today's soldiers can admit to PTSD - at that time it appears to have been a cause of great shame
He has had to execute a Scotsman called Hamish because he refused to follow orders that would take his troop to a certain Death
Hamish is an inexorable part of his subconscious now and Inspector Ian Rutledge chats and discusses his cases with him ( how fascinating this is )
This mystery starts with the Boer War and a crime is committed by Harold Quarles
The Boers attack an English train -
They leave a number of English soldiers alive
Harold Quarles discovers that his train is actually carrying a large amount of currency
His greed is aroused - he decides to steal the money
But to do so he needs to kill the rest of his fellow men .. one of whom he literally leaves to burn alive in the train ( the train has to be burned so the army will not look for the money )
Harold Quarles returns to England and is canny enough to not spend his money in a showy fashion
But his old crime has a long shadow and he is found murdered in a bizarre fashion - suspended as an angel from the ceiling
Harold Quarles in universally despised and so this is a case with multiple suspects and many twists
Truly enjoyed this story !

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Friday, March 2, 2012

Death of a Kingfisher

i eagerly await MC Beaton's books
this is a nice fast paced mystery but I wish MC beaton would spend more time with the characters of Lochduh
I never tire of reading about the tweedy Mrs Wellington and the insufferable Jessie and nessie
these characters are barely there
I missed priscilla as well


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