The Omega Factor

Steve Berry's latest thriller, The Omega Factor (#1,083) is set mainly in Ghent, Belgium and the Languedoc region of France.   In it, he introduces a new character, Nick Lee, who works for the UN in matters pertaining to culture.  But as the book opens, he's in Ghent strictly on personal business: to meet up with an old friend tasked with restoring one of the panels of the legendary Ghent Altarpiece, painted by Jan Van Eyck.  Kelsey Deal has found something interesting while working on the panel and is eager to share it with Nick.  But on his way to her studio, he sees flames.  Rushing in, he sees Kelsey being attacked.  Her intruder makes off with her computer with all the notes and images from Kelsey's work before Nick can stop her, but he follows her back to - a convent!

 The gist of the story consists of a secret guarded for centuries by a mysterious religious order - The Vultures.  Just what is it that they are guarding, and why is the Vatican so interested in finding this elusive society and destroying it and the secret they guard?

While I found this book interesting after four years of theological studies, I did think it was overly long. Many pages are devoted to explaining Roman Catholic actions (or inactions) over the centuries, and in particular their quests against the Cathar religion that flourished in the Languedoc region of France.  The Albigensian Crusades were instituted by Pope Innocent III to utterly wipe out the Cathars (and in the plot line of the book, The Vultures as well).  While most of what Mr. Berry presents in his Notes at the end of the book is correct, I have to strongly disagree with what he says in regard to Joan of Arc.  She was famously turned over to the English during the Hundred Years War, prosecuted and burned at the stake.  When the political winds blew in another direction, twenty-five years later, she was exonerated by the Church which played a major role in her conviction and elevated to sainthood.  As Berry puts it "...when it became more politically expedient to worship, rather than vilify, her."  Roman Catholic doctrine maintains that worship is reserved for God alone.  Joan might be venerated, but never, ever worshipped.  Not a minor quibble, that!

I found the descriptions of the areas of Toulouse and Carcassonne fascinating, since we will be visiting the area ourselves in the spring.  Now I'll know that what I see in all the tourist boutiques is actually the Occitan Cross, not the Cathar Cross.  You learn something new every day! 

The Recovery Agent

Janet Evanovich has begun a new series with The Recovery Agent (#1,082).  Gabriela Rose is the eponymous recovery agent, ready to take on commissions to find and retrieve mostly lost or stolen works of art.  She's managed to make a good living for herself in New York City after a disastrous earlier marriage.

When her coastal Carolina hometown is destroyed in a hurricane, she is determined to raise enough money to allow her parents and neighbors to rebuild.  The key is in a treasure map hidden in the home she lost to her ex, Rafer, in the divorce.  It involves the legendary Seal of Solomon and the Lost Treasure of Lima.  It's off to the jungles of South America in pursuit...

This is a book that reads like a movie - think Romancing the Stone.  It's a thoroughly enjoyable romp with no heavy lifting involved for the reader.  It even got a few chuckles from my husband!  I can't wait for the next installment in the Gabriela Rose adventures.

One Italian Summer

Everyone else I know has been charmed by one of this summer's Best Sellers: One Italian Summer (#1,081) by Rebecca Serle.  If I had only read the final third of the book, I might have felt the same, but I had to read the beginning first.  Frankly, I was getting Norman Bates vibes from Katy's relationship with her mom, and vice versa.  So much so that I almost put the book down after about fifty pages.  I even told my husband how creepy I was finding it.

The only reason I kept reading was for the descriptions of Positano and the northern shore of Capri.  The endless steps in Positano were as I remembered them, but it wasn't my favorite place on the Amalfi coast by a long shot.  It did serve as a catalyst to get Katy's psyche going again after losing her mother to cancer by dropping her back in time to meet her mother as she spent her One Italian Summer there.

In the end, I have to say that I did not care much for the book or its rich, entitled, and ultimately shallow characters.  Luckily for Ms. Serle, most people don't seem to agree with me.

A Plus One For Murder

Laura Bradford has produced another enjoyable cozy mystery series with A Plus One For Murder (#1,080).  Emma Westlake became a travel agent just as the industry was tanking for sole proprietors like her.  She's had to take on a job as a weekly paid companion to help ends meet as she tries to decide what she's going to do with the rest of her life.  Dottie, her sharp-witted widowed client, suggests that if she can use a paid companion, there are most likely others out there who can also use Emma's services.  Thus, A Friend For Hire is born.

Who could foresee that her very first client would drop dead at the Open Mic Night he paid Emma to attend with him?  He's not a very well-liked character in town, and Emma is baffled when he gives her a file with four photos of people he claims want him dead before he goes on stage.  Apparently he was correct.  Emma would be content to leave it at that if Dottie and one of her other paying clients didn't insist on investigating themselves and dragging her into it as well.

Emma and her dog Scout are endearing characters, even if Emma does appear a bit dim at times.  There's also a bit of romance thrown in, with a promise of future adventures.  Just the ticket for a pleasant afternoon read.

The Valet's Secret

I knew when I picked up Josi S. Kilpack's novel The Valet's Secret (#1,079) at the library, that I was probably going to have issues with it.  I did.  First of all, "Proper Romance" was just above the title on the cover.  Secondly (and I haven't talked about this in a while!) I hated the cover art.  This was billed as a Regency romance.  Why are the couple on the cover wearing ugly Victorian period clothing?  To me, that's just sloppy if the cover artists don't even bother to try to get it right.

The premise here is that the heir to an earldom switches clothes with his valet in order to get the lay of the land he will be inheriting.  His horse knocks down a woman on the path, and he introduces himself as said valet.  Cue endless complications.

But here again, Kenneth Winterton, the earl presumptive, is forty-eight years old, a former Naval Officer during the Napoleonic War, and owner of his own small estate in Sussex.  Yet his uncle, the Earl who lost his son during the War, wants to treat him as a wet-behind-the-ears stripling.  According to British life expectancy tables, the average life span for a man in 1819, the year this novel is set, was forty-two.  Which means that Kenneth himself is already in his waning years.  His character never rang true for me.

As for Rebecca Parker, the lead female, her actions did not reflect her moral primness.  Throw in a grown daughter now in service at a local manse, a physically and emotionally abusive father, and a totally unacknowledged hidden talent as a silhouette artist (all work being signed by her father!) and you have the "hapless" heroine.

The couple were continually "invigorated" by their close contacts with each other, which was laughable code for feeling desire.  Couldn't have that!  Enter noble self sacrifice on both party's parts.

I found the book so annoying on so many levels I can't quite believe I actually finished it!  Maybe it is my noble ambition in life to have read it for you so that you won't have to bother.  Amen.

All The Seas Of the World

Although you can read Guy Gavriel Kay's latest novel All The Seas Of The World (#1,078) as a stand-alone book, it will be even better if you've read the two previous books in this series: Children of Earth and Sky, and A Brightness Long Ago, as a number of the characters and events in Seas are from these two books.  The point is that Mr. Kay is a wonderful storyteller to spend time with.  I always feel as though I'm reading the very best historical fiction even though the library classifies his books as both science fiction (!!!) and fantasy (which does make a kind of sense).  Here, you recognize the actual events and people involved in this fantasy world of Italian city-states, the Moorish conquest of Spain and northern Africa, and the fall of Constantinople.  That all feels so true, down to the three major religions that dominate the areas, it's hard to believe it's, as one of the blurbs puts it, "a quarter turn to fantasy".

He begins with three assassins dropped on an isolated beach, tasked with changing the balance of power in the region.  Who they are, and the consequences of their actions, intended and unforeseen, are the basis for this riveting novel.  It's a book to be savored. 

If you haven't discovered Guy Gavriel Kay yet, there's no time like the present.

The Love Hypothesis

I did enjoy this STEM romance set in the cutthroat world of biology and cancer research.  That certainly seems like an odd sentence to introduce The Love Hypothesis (#1,077) by Ali Hazelwood, doesn't it?  But I'm not the only one by a long shot, since it's been on the New York Times bestseller list for a while now.

Olive Smith is a PHD candidate, doing pancreatic cancer research at Stanford, but it's time for the next step; she has to find a lab to carry out her experiments to prove her hypothesis, and it won't be available at Stanford.  Plus, she has to convince her best friend in the world that it's fine with Olive if she dates Jeremy, whom Olive has dated only a couple of times.  What's the best way to handle this?  Fake date someone else!  So of course she (totally by accident!) stages a dramatic kissing of the unapproachable genius professor in the department, Adam Carlsen.  Anh sees them, but is she convinced?  Not so much.  More drastic measures will need to be taken, and therein lies the tale.

It was witty, funny, and actually, a little pathetic the lengths Olive was willing to go to.  But things have a way of working out (it is a romance, after all!).  Overall, I did enjoy it, but I could have done without the pages and pages of graphic sex.  Some romance readers live for those "steamy" pages, but I'm more of the "To Catch A Thief" school that believes such matters are better left to the imagination.  (It worked for Grace Kelly and Cary Grant, after all!).

Disappearance of a Scribe

Disappearance of a Scribe (#1,076) is Dana Stabenow's second book in her series set in the Alexandria of Caesar and Cleopatra, and just as well constructed a mystery.  (See my post of 2/11/2019.)  Tetisheri, Cleopatra's childhood friend, is still reluctant to assume the role of the Queen's Eye, her covert spy.

Tetisheri is called upon to investigate the death of a corpse pulled from the waters off Alexandria.  But this particular corpse's feet are encased in concrete.  The chief of police tells Tetisheri that this is the second such body they have found.  Who are they, and why was this method used, since concrete is a precious building material?

In the hive of building activity reconstructing Alexandria from its recent civil war, someone thinks Tetisheri is coming too close to the truth.  Can she find out who is behind the deaths before someone fits her with her own concrete sandals?

The characters are so interesting in this series.  There's Tetisheri herself, and her merchant Uncle Neb.  His household is growing by leaps and bounds as Tetisheri keeps adding strays she comes across in pursuit of her investigation - in this case, a former female cab driver, and a gang of street orphans.  There's also the real character of Vitruvius, a Roman engineer, currently studying in Alexandria.  His area of expertise?  Concrete.  And there's still that tantalizing bit of romance with the mysterious Apollodorus.  Sheri still hasn't figured out exactly what he does for the Queen...

I look forward to more cases in this excellent historical mystery series. 

River of the Gods; Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile

Candice Millard has done it again in her latest non-fiction bestseller River of the Gods; Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile (#1,075).  She has turned what, for most Americans, would be a ho-hum topic into riveting account of strong personalities, jealousies, dangers and elusive fame.  And it all happened in the not-too-distant past of the nineteenth century.

Ms. Millard has focused on three principal characters here: Sir Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke and Sidi Mubarak Bombay.  They could not be more different even though they traveled together on the same expeditions.  Burton was already famous, or infamous, if you prefer, due to his successfully joining the pilgrimage to Mecca posing as an Arab Muslim.  The quest to find the source of the White Nile appealed to him since explorers had sought it unsuccessfully for centuries.  John Hanning Speke, on the other hand, came from a pampered British background, and yearned to make his mark on the world.  In his own mind, he was the leader of every successful action or discovery, despite being in a subordinate position.  Sidi Mubarak Bombay was the formerly enslaved African who had returned to his own continent and was skilled at negotiating porters, animals, chiefs and potentates (including those of his own expedition!) to achieve the desired goals.  He was considered a gem by both Burton and Speke.

Frankly, after reading this account, it's a miracle any of them survived the rigors of raids, lost and stolen supplies, wounds, illnesses and injuries endured in the field.  Even more astonishing is the fact that they did it without benefit of modern medicine!  What really destroyed them was the infighting between Burton and Speke, each of whom had their own cadre of backers in Britain.

The question comes down to who would you choose to travel with?  I think the clear choice would be Sidi Mubarak Bombay.  Ironically, he goes on to play a key role in Stanley's meeting with Dr. Livingston in Africa.  Ironic because the book I read on David Livingston recently does not even mention him by name.  Why would it, since discovery in the Victorian world was limited to Europeans only?  Ah, the world of personalities and politics...