Clytemnestra

Costanza Casati has chosen a much-reviled character from Greek mythology to base her debut novel on: Clytemnestra (#1,204).  Here she has retold this story of wrongs and revenge with a sympathetic eye in a compelling narrative.  

Raised in Sparta, Clytemnestra eventually becomes the wife of Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War.  His brother Menelaus is married to her sister, Helen.  But in order to sail off to Troy, Agamemnon sacrifices his oldest daughter Iphigenia to raise a favorable wind.  Clytemnestra is devastated, and vows to rule Mycenae in his absence.  It gives her plenty of time to plot her revenge.

Her story isn't pretty, but is typical of the way women were disregarded in the ancient world.  You'll recognize the names of most of the players in this book, but Ms. Casati helps to straighten out the often tangled relationships.

It's a big book, but I wanted to find out what would happen next, and how Clytemnestra would react.  It's reawakened my interest in Greek mythology.  I can't wait to read The Iliad.

The Secret Book of Flora Lea

I read Patti Callahan Henry's novel The Secret Book of Flora Lea (#1,203) because she will be a guest author at our upcoming BookMania!.  If it hadn't been for that, I never would have bothered to finish it.  

The premise is that a young woman working at a rare book shop in London in 1960 receives a first edition  children's book from America with its accompanying original illustrations.  The whole package is expected to fetch a pretty price for the shop's owners.  Hazel Linden is convinced that the book's title, Whisperwood and the River of Stars means that her six-year old sister, lost many years ago during WWII  when they were evacuated to a village on the banks of the Thames, is still alive.  Whisperwood was their own private world, not to be shared with anyone.  So how could the author have stumbled upon this title.  Could it be Flora Lea?  Hazel is so determined to find out the truth that she steals the book.

Personally, I found Hazel to be an incredibly selfish and self-centered character.  She has blinders on when it comes to Flora Lea.  Her loss is Hazel's fault alone, therefore, only she can make it right.  Blah, blah, blah.  Not a fan of Ms. Callahan's work, but plenty of others seem to like it.  Every book has its reader, after all.

Mrs. Plansky's Revenge

It's an all-too-familiar story: elderly person is scammed by fraudsters claiming to be a grandchild in trouble.  "Please send money now!"  

In Spencer Quinn's new novel, Mrs. Plansky's Revenge, (#1,202) Mrs. Plansky is a wealthy Florida widow.  After her husband's death, she relocated to a smaller, comfortable condo and is slowly picking up the threads of her life.  Her adult children regard her as an endless piggybank for their latest "business" ventures.  Since they're her kids, she always obliges.  So when she receives a late night call purporting to be from her grandson Will, she hands over her bank information along with her password to send him the modest sum he has requested.  But of course, it's not Will.  The next morning, Mrs. Plansky gets calls from her local banker and her long-time financial advisor.  All of her funds are gone.  The FBI arrives on site, only to advise her to give up hope of ever recovering any of her money.  Most people would cave at this point, but not Mrs. Plansky!  She sets out to track down the perpetrators where they live and get back what belongs to her. 

Simultaneously, Quinn tells the story of the two teens in Romania caught up in something much bigger than themselves and where lives are at stake.  When their paths cross Mrs. Plansky's, the game is on!

A highly entertaining story that has you rooting for characters on both sides of the equation.  If only the real-life outcomes for actual victims of these crimes turned out so well...

Must admit, though, that I did not like the cover of the large print edition I read.  The illustration of Mrs. Plansky makes her look way too bland for the tough cookie she is!  Also, you would have no idea that she ventured off to Europe on her own from the ultra generic buildings in the background.  Just saying I think the book deserved a better cover!

Arsenic and Adobo

Darn, I was looking foward to reading Arsenic and Adobo (#1,201) by Mia P. Manansala.  It was supposed to be a new culinary cozy mystery series.  I didn't need the lecture on political correctness.  I gave up after a few pages in.  Consider me "triggered".

A Rip Through Time

I first read Kelley Armstrong's time travel Victorian mystery The Poisoner's Ring.  I liked it so much that I hunted down the first book in this series, A Rip Through Time (#1,200).  And yes, the Rip in the title is a nod to Jack the Ripper.  

Mallory Atkinson is in Edinburgh to spend time with her beloved grandmother as she lies dying.  But since there is nothing Mallory can actually do, she tries to run off some of her stress by jogging at night.  It is her misfortune that her training as a police detective in Vancouver leads her down an alleyway following sounds of an attack.  What she sees is a young blonde woman being strangled just before she is attacked herself.  She falls into that other woman's body.  Mallory wakes in an upper-middle class Victorian household where she is employed as the maid Catriona, whom she last saw in the alley.

How she got there, and how she can return to her own time are not the only problems Mallory faces in this new environment.  It's all very entertaining, with a twisty mystery added in, to boot. Recommended.