A Christmas Legacy

 A Christmas Legacy (#1,106) is Anne Perry's 2021 novella in this series.  Here, Gracie, the Pitt's former maid, now married to a police inspector herself has a visitor just before Christmas.  It's Millie, a young maid employed in a household where something is very wrong.  She can't tell Gracie exactly what the problem is, but she trusts Gracie to find a solution.

Gracie misses the days when she used to assist Lady Pitt in solving cases with her husband Thomas, now head of Special Branch.  She can take Millie's place for a short time to see if she can figure out what is going on.  What she discovers is that an old woman is being kept in squalid conditions.  How she takes action to right this cruelty is at the heart of this story.

Anne Perry's Christmas tales always have a strong moral message.  It's comforting to read something these days in a season of giving that emphasizes that doing the right thing is the best thing in the end.  I love reading these books, and I'm so glad I now have another under the tree waiting for me.

It helps to have read Anne Perry's Thomas and Charlotte Pitt Victorian mysteries, but it's not necessary.  These timeless stories stand on their own very well.

Two Nights In Lisbon

The more I think about Chris Pavone's thriller Two Nights In Lisbon (#1,105), the less I like it.  I did enjoy his fleeting descriptions of Lisbon, a city I would return to at the drop of a hat, but that wasn't enough to justify the characters or the premise of this twisted tale.

It involves the kidnapping of an American businessman.  His older wife wakes to find John Wright missing.  She doesn't hesitate to report his disappearance to the Portuguese police.  Since he's only been gone a matter of hours, they are in no rush to send out search parties.  Frustrated, she tries the American Embassy with similar results.  When the ransom call comes, she has only forty-eight hours to raise three million euros in cash.  Where can she, of all people, find that kind of cash?

Lies, deceit, and manipulation are the root of this story.  The more I read, the less I liked any of the characters.  The introspective passages of the former Laura Turner drag on and on at the expense of the book's pacing.  The John Grisham cover blurb was wrong: I could put this book down, and wished I had done so sooner.  I would not recommend this book.

By The Book

Jasmine Guillory riffs off Beauty and the Beast in her Meant To Be novel By The Book (#1,104).  Just settle in and enjoy a tale "as old as time".  Oh, and be sure to have plenty of snacks on hand; you'll need them!

Isabelle has been in love with books her whole life.  She's been lucky enough to get a job in publishing, but after several years of going nowhere, she's re-thinking her career choice.  When she and her friend Priya are sent to a convention in California, Izzy overhears her boss talking about one of their difficult authors.  Before she can think about it, Izzy steps in and pitches a personal visit to Beau Towers who lives in nearby Santa Barbara.  To her surprise, Marta gives Izzy an opportunity to try to pry a manuscript out of Beau.

Given his bad-boy celebrity status, Izzy is surprised to find herself living in Beau's Santa Barbara mansion, (complete with a bathtub she loves so much she talks to it!) giving him daily pep talks to motivate him.  And did I mention an amazing snack cabinet stocked by his assistant with everything you could possibly imagine and more?  (Hence the snack alert to begin this review.)

The books, the baking, the beach!  Who could ask for anything more?  I loved Izzy and Beau and their love story.  Can't wait to read another book in this series!  I will really miss that snack cabinet, though...

The Cartographers

I thoroughly enjoyed Peng Shepherd's novel The Cartographers (#1,103).  Apparently, I am the only one in my book club who did.  Most of them didn't even bother to finish the book, which I found surprising.  I think someone may have whispered "science fiction" in their ears, and that was enough to put them off what I found to be a highly imaginative work.  I wish I had had a map like Nell's!

Nell has always wanted to be a cartographer; her whole life has revolved around maps.  Her parents were both highly esteemed in their field.  Yet Nell's father drove her out of the New York Public Library's Map Division, and single-handedly trashed her professional career.  And what was the cause of this break-up?  A seemingly innocuous gas station map of New York State.  

Her father claimed it was worthless, yet when his body is discovered at his desk in the NYPL, Nell finds that same map in her father's treasured portfolio concealed in a hidden drawer.  Nothing else was taken,  Could that "worthless" map be what the intruder was searching for?  Nell suddenly finds herself a target.  Can she solve the riddle of the puzzle before it is disappeared forever?

You have to be willing to think outside the box to enjoy this book.  If you can, you'll be rewarded.

Jane and the Year Without a Summer; Being a Jane Austen Mystery

Stephanie Barron has added another volume to her mystery series featuring Jane Austen with Jane and the Year Without a Summer (#1,102).  Things are not going well for the extended Austen family; Jane's brother Frank has been called before an Admiralty Board to account for the loss of his ship.  It could mean the end of his career.  In the meantime, another brother is facing financial ruin, taking the savings of the other Austen siblings with his own losses.

Faced with these calamities, Jane decides to treat herself and her sister Cassandra to several weeks taking the waters at Cheltenham on the profits from her latest novel.  Alas, the physician whom she consults there on the best authority does not have good news for Jane.  

She is somewhat distracted by the goings-on at the boarding house where she is staying.  Among the other guests are an overbearing clergyman and his equally insufferable sister, a disabled Naval officer, and most intriguingly, a beautiful invalid confined to a wheelchair there with her companion.  When a pug dog is poisoned at the house, it becomes clear that the real victim was intended to be one of the tenants of the boarding house.  But who, and for what reason?  Puzzling out the answer, plus an important face from Jane's past keep her from settling into despair.  It's a bittersweet ending.  I wonder if this could be the last outing for this enjoyable series?  I certainly hope not.

Kingdom of Bones

Why did I choose to bring James Rollins latest thriller Kingdom of Bones (#1,101) with me as we steamed towards the coast of Africa when the source of the suspense was an unstoppable new virus spreading inexorably through The Congo?  It did make me feel somewhat more secure that we were tested first thing each morning for Covid on board.

New zoonotic diseases crop up each day in our real world, so the subject matter of this thriller is in the best of hands with Dr. Rollins' background as a veterinarian.  Who else would know better about the potential threats?

In Kingdom of Bones, the Sigma Force is somewhat pared down, battling a billionaire developer whose aim is to corral the resources of Africa for himself, while stymieing the efforts of the Chinese to do the same.  The Sigma Force is called in when a refugee hospital manned by Doctors Without Borders is overrun by an unknown illness, affecting not just the people, but also the animals around them.  They are aided on this outing by Tucker Wayne and his canine partner Kane, whom we've met in other Rollins books.  His friend, a former army veterinarian, just happens to be doing field research nearby.  He has the expertise to help the medical team.  No one expects the mercenaries who copter in to destroy the field hospital...

At the end of his novels, Dr. Rollins always sorts out what is real and what is his own invention.  That's why I find his thrillers so compelling; they're not so far off the mark.  Good luck sleeping after reading Kingdom of Bones!

Flight of Dreams

I thought I would get a lot of reading done on the recent transatlantic cruise I took.  I was quite mistaken!  There were so many interesting talks and lectures every day, not to mention the amazing library on board my Viking ship, that I was hard pressed to carve out time to sit back and actually read.

I brought Ariel Lawhon's Flight of Dreams (#1,100) with me.  It poses one possible theory of what caused the zeppelin The Hindenburg to crash and burn on landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937 by following the lives on board of several of the actual passengers and crew.  The Stewardess, the Navigator, the Journalist, and the Cabin Boy all have their own secrets, and their own reasons for wanting to reach America.  Ms. Lawhon weaves these elements together to present plausible motivations for the cause of the fire onboard.  Not everyone makes it out alive.

We're probably all familiar with the newsreel footage of the disaster unfolding, so I was somewhat surprised to learn how many people did survive the crash.  It seems impossible from seeing it on screen.  Nevertheless, it marked the end of an era and put a stop to official Nazi flights over one of America's most important cities.