A Drop of Corruption

It's always wonderful when a book you loved has a sequel that lives up to the original!  That's the case with Robert Jackson Bennett's A Drop of Corruption (#1,325) in his follow up to The Tainted Cup.  I think at its heart it's an intricate mystery wrapped in a science fiction/fantasy cover.  Mr. Bennett's world-building is amazing, but it's really his unique characters who really pull the reader into the action.

In this book, Iudex Investigator Dinios Kol is assigned to the case of an Imperial Treasury Agent's disappearance in Yarrow, a land outside the Empire's sole control, yet vital to imperial functioning. Working with an Apoth warden assigned permanently to the territory, layer after layer of mystery is unpeeled.  The nearer they approach, the more monstrous the consequences appear for themselves, for Yarrow and for the Empire itself.

I really hated to come to the end of both of these books, I was so wrapped up in the stories.  My consolation is that I know that there will be at least one more book in this series (if not more!).  I can't wait to find out what happens next!

Mark Twain

I was so excited to learn that I had won a prepublication copy of Ron Chernow's new biography Mark Twain (#1,324) from Penguin House.  It was every bit as interesting as I hoped it would be.  Samuel Langhorn Clemens was no saint - there is plenty of cringe-worthy material here - but Mr. Chernow makes him so relatable it's hard to put this book down.  I think the reason it took me so long to read this biography is that it's massive.  The paperback copy I received weighs in at just under three pounds, thus it's not the greatest travel companion.  I also think as I get older, it just takes me longer to read the text!

My fascination with Mark Twain really got a boost last September when I had the good fortune to visit the Mark Twain home and museum in Hartford, Connecticut.  The guide who took us through the house was both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the author and brought the rooms alive with anecdotes about what happed there with friends and family.  So, when I was reading about that time in the life of Mark Twain it was easy to picture him there.  It's also the period of his life that the general public tends to associate with him - the man in the white suit with a perpetual cigar clamped in his jaws and always some witticism to pass along to an adoring public.

His literary output was massive, and his unique literary style won him a world-wide audience.  His books were so popular that he was in demand as a speaker on the lecture circuit.  Fans mobbed and adored him everywhere, but so did his writing contemporaries.

But as Mr. Chernow shows in his biography, there is more, so much more to learn about him, much of it dark.  Though he adored his wife Livy, and doted on his children when they were young, once his three surviving daughters became teenagers, he virtually ignored them.  In his own eyes, Twain was a financial genius, but the facts prove otherwise. He was capable of nursing implacable grudges against those whom he perceived had wronged or cheated him in business or personal matters.  He was ahead of his time in racial equality (despite the "N" word controversy which still bars his Huckleberry Finn from many public-school libraries) and his work to discourage antisemitism yet scandalized his wife by his views on God and religion.  After Livy's death, there was his peculiar obsession with young girls between ten and sixteen years old which the public at the time thought was sweet but would be viewed differently today through a modern lens.

In other words, Samuel L. Clemens was human.  From his humble beginnings in Hannibal, Missouri through an adventurous life with many changes in careers to his pioneering and distinctive literary voice, it's all here.  Thank you, Mr. Chernow for introducing us to a unique American character.

The Answer Is No

In this Fredrik Backman novella, The Answer Is No (#1,323) Lucas is living his perfect life.  He lives alone, works remotely, has his meals delivered and avoids contact with others if at all possible.  He can play his video games and watch TV on his schedule.  All is well until the day a frying pan appears on the grounds outside his apartment building...

Lucas' contacts with his neighbors increase as the board stubbornly tries to figure out who put it there.  It's so easy to see how Lucas gets sucked into the drama as things go from bad to worse outside.  It's all quite, quite amusing.  Poor Lucas.  But lucky us!

The Reunion Dinner (Busybodies Collection #2)

The Reunion Dinner (#1,322) by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a novella from her Busybodies Collection, but she manages to pack in a boatload of family dynamics in a fraught holiday family dinner.  I'll bet you won't see the end coming before the final page!

Josephine has finally triumphed!  For the first time, she is hosting the family New Year's Celebration dinner, and she's going to show her older brother how things should be done!  She's cooked for days, and the relatives are all bringing their specialties to share.  The only thing that's missing is her son.  He's late, but he's promised a surprise when he arrives.  It's more like a shock to a number of the guests when he shows up with a gorgeous, toxic girlfriend.  What's a mere murder on top of that?  No one will ever forget Josephine's New Year's Eve dinner...

A Villa in Sicily: Olive Oil and Murder

I was in the mood for something light, and I found just the book with Fiona Grace's A Villa In Sicily: Olive Oil and Murder (#1,321), the first in her new Cats and Dogs Cozy Mystery series.  It helped that the opening chapters were set in Boston where I happened to be visiting!

Audrey Smart is a young, single veterinarian working in an upscale animal practice in Boston's Back Bay.  She's sick of playing second fiddle to the male members of the practice, and explaining to her patient's "parents" that she is a real doctor.  She doesn't have much of a social life, so when her high school crush contacts her about meeting up at their class reunion, Audrey hopes things are beginning to look up.  They don't.  When the rent on her tiny broom closet apartment doubles overnight, what is to stop her from buying a gorgeous-looking villa in Sicily for $1?  She's got nothing to lose by entering the bidding lottery.  Audrey is shocked when her bid is accepted immediately because they need her as a vet in the small village where her chosen property is located.

When she arrives in the remote mountain village of Mussomeli, nothing is as she imagined - it's way, way worse, especially when her neighbor across the way with a fabulous renovation underway accuses her of murder.  Can Audrey solve her way out of this one?  (Yes, she can!  Because there are at least 5 more books in this fun series.)  Find out how she does it.

The Dressmakers of London

Of the many aspects of living in WWII era Britain. one topic rarely covered is that of clothing.  Julia Kelly has tackled this fascinating subject in The Dressmakers of London (#1,320).

Isabelle and Sylvia Shelton are estranged sisters who have one thing in common: each owns a half share of their late mother's modestly successful London dressmaking business.  Sylvia, the beauty of the family, lost touch when she married "up" to a wealthy Harley Street physician.  She has learned to fit in with a sophisticated crowd, always impeccably turned out.  With her husband now serving in Royal Navy she realizes just how far they have grown apart.  Isabelle, on the other hand, has a flair for design and the sewing and tailoring skills to go with it.  Her dream is to take over her mother's business so she can make her sketches a reality.  Both sisters are shocked that their mother has left the business to both of them.

With the war heating up, Isabelle is called up to serve before she can buy out Sylvia.  Somehow, the sisters must work out a way to keep Mrs. Shelton's Dresses open until the end of the war.  Coupons for clothes, rationing of materials and government design requirements make a difficult job even harder.  I was certainly rooting for both of them by the end of the book!

Such a simple thing - the clothes on your back - can make such a difference in your physical and mental wellbeing.  Yet such an important point is seldom discussed with any seriousness outside academic texts.  Here it is handled beautifully, and I found the author's comments at the end of the book interesting in how her research for this novel affected her own thoughts about her wardrobe.  I can't wait to track down and read some of Ms. Kelly's other novels.