Dark Fire: C.J. Sansom

Description from the back of my book:

In 1540 Henry VIII has been on the throne for thirty-one years. Lawyer Matthew Shardlake has been called upon to help a young girl accused of murder who refused to speak in her own defense even when threatened with torture. On the verge of losing his case, Shardlake is suddenly granted a reprieve. His benefactor is Thomas Cromwell, the king's feared vicar general, who offers him two more weeks to investigate the murder. In exchange, Shardlake must find a lost cache of "Dark Fire," an ancient weapon of mass destruction. 

My thoughts...

Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom is a historical mystery set in London in 1540; it is the second book in a series of seven featuring lawyer Matthew Shardlake as the protagonist. In the first book, Dissolution, Shardlake was working for Thomas Cromwell, helping with the dissolution of the monasteries. In this book, it is three years later, and he is again working for Thomas Cromwell, this time under duress. 

I have read a good bit about Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel's series that starts with Wolf Hall, so I was familiar with Cromwell's career. It was interesting to see Cromwell in this book, at the point in his life when he was falling out of favor with Henry VIII. But Cromwell plays a relatively minor role in the story, and I don't think any prior knowledge is necessary to enjoy the novel.

This book is excellent historical fiction, very well written; the historical setting is described in detail but the reader is not lectured to. I was mesmerized by the story in the first chapter and stayed engaged throughout. The story is very dense, filled with action and interesting developments. The characters are all very well developed, even the secondary characters.

Dark Fire won the 2005 Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, awarded by the Crime Writers' Association (CWA).

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Publisher:   Penguin Books, 2006 (orig. publ. 2004)
Length:       501 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Series:       Matthew Shardlake #2
Setting:      England, 1540
Genre:       Historical Mystery
Source:      Purchased at the Planned Parenthood Book Sale, 2019.

Short Story Wednesday: "Bullet for One" by Rex Stout

"Bullet for One" is a 68-page novella in the Nero Wolfe series, and was first published in The American Magazine in July 1948, the year of my birth. It is one of three stories in Curtains for Three, published in 1950. 

As usual, Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe's assistant, narrates the story. Some semi-regular characters are included: Saul Panzer and Orrie Cather, freelance detectives; and Inspector Cramer of the NYC police. Lily Rowan, Archie's sometimes female companion, makes a brief appearance.

This story features five people who are suspected of murdering Sigmund Keyes, an industrial designer who was shot while riding horseback in New York's Central Park. These five people gather at Nero Wolfe's office to hire him to prove that another person, Victor Talbott, is guilty. Victor Talbott was Keyes' sales agent, and is in love with his daughter. He also has the best alibi of all of the suspects. The five suspects that Wolfe is working for are three people who worked in the same office with Keyes, plus his daughter, Dorothy Keyes, and a stable hand at the Riding Academy near Central Park. 

This was a funny story, and I think it was more humorous because it included some of the regular characters in addition to Archie and Wolfe. Archie gets his feeling hurt because Wolfe assigns all the interesting jobs to Saul and Orrie. Wolfe is mainly concerned with food and his orchids while he sends others off to do research. Although some of the facts are hidden from the reader until close to the end, it was a clever ending.

I read another story in the book recently also, but it is a hard one for me to review. It may be my favorite story in this book.

"The Gun with Wings" is about two lovers who come to Wolfe with a problem. They know that the woman's husband was killed and they haven't told anyone what they know, because each of them is afraid that the other might be the murderer. (Her husband was a piece of work.) They want Wolfe to find out who the murderer is so that they can get married. Now that is an unusual problem. 

I reviewed "Disguise for Murder," the third story in Curtains for Three, in April of this year.

Lost Lands, Forgotten Stories: Alexandra Pratt

  

Cath at Read-Warbler recommended Lost Lands, Forgotten Stories to me. The subtitle of the book is "A Woman's Journey into the Heart of Labrador." Alexandra Pratt tells her story of an ambitious trip on a river that not many have traveled.

I purchased this book in July 2020, during the pandemic. Like many of the books I bought that year, I had plans to read the book soon but put it on a shelf and it did not surface again until four years later when I decided to participate in the Canadian Reading Challenge again. 

I know very little about Labrador. Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada; it is made up of the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador. Per Wikipedia, Labrador "constitutes 71% of the province's area but is home to only 6% of its population. It is separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle." Reading Lost Lands, Forgotten Stories was a small step towards understanding more about Labrador, and I do think it gave a better picture of that area. But I have a long way to go.

In 1903 two men, Leonidas Hubbard and Dillon Wallace, attempted to travel 600 miles through the interior of Labrador with a native guide, George Elson. None of them made it to their destination; Hubbard died but Wallace and Elson survived, although Wallace suffered from frostbite and gangrene. Two years later, Mina Hubbard, Leonidas's wife, and Dillon Wallace went on separate expeditions to try to accomplish the original goal of reaching Ungava Bay at the mouth of the George River. Both Mina Hubbard and Dillon Wallace succeeded but they took different routes and Wallace took 60 days longer to complete the trip.

In 1997, Alexandra Pratt read excerpts of Mina Hubbard's diary in an issue of National Geographic magazine and was inspired to attempt to recreate the trip. In this book, Pratt describes the harrowing canoe trip that she and her Innu guide took down some of the same rivers that Mina traveled. Not only did Pratt have to prepare physically to be able to survive such a demanding trip, she spent a lot of time up front acquiring funding and gathering information about supplies and support that such a trip would require.  

In the intervening years between Mina's expedition and Pratt's trip, there had been changes to the terrain along the rivers. The Churchill Falls hydroelectric plant was constructed which caused the water level to be lowered in the rivers. It seemed to me that this had both positive and negative impacts on Pratt's trip compared to Mina's.

The team that Mina Hubbard took had two canoes and four native guides, so that Mina had to bear less of the physical burden of rowing the huge canoes that they used. Pratt's trip involved only two persons, herself and Jean Pierre Ashini, thus there was no backup if either of them was injured. Once I realized how many dangers they could encounter along the way, it seemed to be a terrifying trip to attempt. 

The details of ending the day by setting up camp on the riverbank, building a shelter, and preparing food were impressive as was the stamina and determination necessary to keep paddling the canoe steadily day after day. When they were in camp at night, Pratt's guide, Jean Pierre Ashini, would tell her stories about his life and experiences. This was one of the most interesting parts for me. He was forty when they went on this expedition. He had lived almost thirty years of his life living in the traditional ways as a hunter. He told of the ways the Innu have had to change just within his lifetime and the effect on their culture. 

Pratt tells the story of her adventures and struggles very well, and describes the beauty of the landscape along their route. She mingles descriptions of Mina Hubbard's original trip with her own, and that added depth to the story. This is a fascinating book and I learned a lot about Labrador, but I would have liked to have maps and more photos to help me visualize the trip. I read the paperback edition and the original hardback had a map on the end papers.  

Books Read in June 2024

 

I read eleven books in June and that was many more books than I expected to read, considering that I had cataract surgery in the middle of the month. I ended up having more time to read and not much energy or motivation for anything else, including blogging. Nine of the books read in June were from my 20 Books of Summer list. Unfortunately I am very late in posting about my reading for June but I hope to catch up more in the next few weeks.

Graphic memoir

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2003) by Marjane Satrapi; Mattias Ripa (Translator)

This graphic memoir tells the story of the author's life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, from the point when the Shah is overthrown through the war with Iraq. Reading about those times from the viewpoint of a child is interesting and entertaining. The story is continued in a second volume, and I will be reading that too.

Fiction

The Lonely Hearts Book Club (2023) by Lucy Gilmore

This story has a book club theme, and it also has romance, dysfunctional families, and lonely people making friends. See my thoughts here.

Redhead by the Side of the Road (2020) by Anne Tyler

Micah Mortimer is a creature of habit; he wants everyday to be the same. He has been with his girlfriend for three years. Two new events happen in his life that shake up his normal life. I liked the story a lot, the length was perfect at under 200 pages, and I want to read more of Anne Tyler's books.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (2014) by Gabrielle Zevin

This book is centered around a bookstore and of course books are discussed throughout. This was a lovely story with a little bit of romance and a lot about relationships, friends, and community. See my review.

Fantasy, Time Travel

Tales from the Café (2017) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

This is the second in a series of five books about time travel that takes place in a café in Tokyo which has been serving a special coffee for more than one hundred years.  There are four connected stories in this book. The stories of the people who run the café are just as interesting as the time travel stories. The first book in the series is Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

Crime Fiction

Skeleton-in-Waiting (1989) by Peter Dickinson

Peter Dickinson is one of my favorite authors. I prefer his mysteries, but he also wrote children's books and fantasies. This is the second book in a duology, set in an alternate Britain with a very alternate royal family. The first book is King and Joker, and in that book the two main characters (Prince Albert and Princess Louise) are teenagers. This book takes place over ten years later and both Albert and Louise have married and have children. This was a reread, and this time around I was more impressed with the story and enjoyed it very much. 

Nearly Nero (2017) by Loren D. Estleman

Between 2008 and 2016, Estleman wrote nine humorous short stories about Claudius Lyon, a man who is obsessed with emulating Nero Wolfe in all ways, and his assistant, Arnie Woodbine. Most of these stories were published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. This book includes all of the stories. I reviewed the stories here and here.

Family Business (2021) by S.J. Rozan

S.J. Rozan won the 2022 Shamus Award for this novel, her 14th book starring New York City private eyes Lydia Chin and Bill Smith. When the powerful Chinatown crime boss Big Brother Choi dies, he leaves the Tong headquarters building to his niece, Mel, who hires Lydia and Bill to accompany her to inspect it. They discover the body of another Tong member in Choi's living quarters. I will be reading the latest book in the series, The Mayors of New York, very soon.

In the Midst of Death (1976) by Lawrence Block

This is an early book in the Matthew Scudder series.  Scudder is an ex-cop who works as an unlicensed private detective. In this case he is helping out an old friend on the police force who is accused of murdering a prostitute.  I liked the book but it was very dark, especially the ending. 

The Cipher Garden (2005) by Martin Edwards

The books in this series are set in Cumbria, England's Lake District, and feature Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Scarlett and historian Daniel Kind. DCI Scarlett heads the cold case division. Here, an old cold case involving the death of a gardener is reopened because of poison pen letters sent to the police and to people involved in the crime. I like the mystery plot but could do without the romantic subplot.

A Caribbean Mystery (1964) by Agatha Christie

This is the 9th book in Christie's Jane Marple series. It is not set in Miss Marple's village of St. Mary Mead and I missed that setting. On the other hand it has a nice depiction of a Caribbean island vacation spot and any Miss Marple story is going to be entertaining. Another elderly visitor to St. Honoré, Major Palgrave, has been monopolizing Miss Marple's time, telling stories of his adventures during his travels. At one point he tells her about a murderer he met, starts to show her a picture, then gets interrupted. Shortly after that Major Palgrave dies, seemingly of natural causes. We just watched the film adaptation starring Helen Hayes tonight, and saw another adaptation with Joan Hickson a couple of weeks ago. Both were good.

Currently reading

I have just started reading A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny, the 12th book in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels. The story begins with Gamache taking on a new job and the discovery of an old intricate map. 

The subject of the photos at the top and bottom of this post is our cat, Rosie. At the top, Rosie is helping me read. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Short Story Wednesday: 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories

 

100 Years of the Best American Short Stories was published in 2015 and was edited by Lorrie Moore (Editor) and Heidi Pitlor (Series Editor).

Last week I wrote a post on the first short story in this book, "The Gay Old Dog" by Edna Ferber. This week I decided to post about the book, listing all the short stories in the book. It will be a useful list for me to refer back to. This book has been on my Kindle since August 2021, so it is time for me to read more of these stories. 

There is an introduction for the whole book, written by Lorrie Moore, and an introduction for the section about each decade, written by Heidi Pitlor. The years covered are 1915 - 2015. 

Towards the end of the introduction to the book, Lorrie Moore discusses the limitations in selecting short stories for an anthology with this scope. John Updike and Katrina Kenison published The Best American Short Stories of the Century in 2000, and Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor decided to have no overlaps between the two books. (Both were published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.) All the stories were selected from the Best American Short Stories series published annually.

So, here is a list of all the stories in the book:

1915-1920

• The Gay Old Dog / Edna Ferber

1920-1930

• Brothers / Sherwood Anderson
• My Old  Man / Ernest Hemingway
• Haircut / Ring Lardner 

1930-1940

• Babylon Revisited / F. Scott Fitzgerald 
• The Cracked Looking-Glass / Katherine Anne Porter
• That Will Be Fine / William Faulkner

1940-1950

• Those Are as Brothers / Nancy Hale
• The Whole World Knows / Eudora Welty 
• The Enormous Radio / John Cheever

1950-1960

• I Stand Here Ironing / Tillie Olsen 
• Sonny's Blues / James Baldwin 
• The Conversion of the Jews / Philip Roth

1960-1970

• Everything That Rises Must Converge / Flannery O'Connor 
• Pigeon Feathers / John Updike 
• Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? / Raymond Carver 
• By the River / Joyce Carol Oates

1970-1980 

• The School / Donald Barthelme 
• The Conventional Wisdom / Stanley Elkin

1980-1990

• Friends / Grace Paley 
• Harmony of the World / Charles Baxter
• Lawns / Mona Simpson 
• Communist / Richard Ford 
• Helping / Robert Stone 
• Displacement / David Wong Louie

1990-2000

• Friend of My Youth / Alice Munro 
• The Girl on the Plane / Mary Gaitskill 
• Xuela / Jamaica Kincaid 
• If You Sing Like That for Me / Akhil Sharma 
• Fiesta, 1980 / Junot Díaz

2000-2010

• The Third and Final Continent / Jhumpa Lahiri 
• Brownies / ZZ Packer 
• What You Pawn I Will Redeem / Sherman Alexie 
• Old Boys, Old Girls / Edward P. Jones 
• Refresh, Refresh / Benjamin Percy 
• Awaiting Orders / Tobias Wolff

2010-2015

• What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank / Nathan Englander 
• Diem Perdidi / Julie Otsuka 
• The Semplica-Girl Diaries / George Saunders 
• At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners / Lauren Groff

Some of these authors I am familiar with, some not. Other than the first story in the book, I haven't read any of the stories. 

Many reviews of the anthology note that the story by Nathan Englander is very good. I find it interesting that there are only two stories from the decade 1970-1980 and five stories from the following decade.

I would love to hear if anyone else has had experience with these stories or authors.

The Lonely Hearts Book Club: Lucy Gilmore

 

Sloane Parker is a librarian; she is engaged to be married to a chiropractor. At work she meets Arthur McLachlan, an elderly curmudgeon who goes out of his way to be snarky and rude to people. He comes in to use the library every day and he and Sloane often argue about various topics related to books. So one day when he doesn't come in, she is concerned. She has come to enjoy their daily interchanges. When she finds out that he was in the hospital but is now home, and relying on home help people assigned to him, who keep quitting, she decides she has to help him out. Maisey, who lives next door, gives her support. And gradually others get pulled into Arthur's support group, and they end up starting a book club...

I had difficulty putting together a review for this book, even though I enjoyed it very much. So what follows are just some random thoughts.

I was attracted to this book because of the book club theme and positive reviews from other bloggers. I have recently discovered that I like "feel good" books; many of the books I have read and enjoyed in the last year could be described as sappy but I haven't found that to be a bad thing. The books have made me happy, and occasionally sad. 

In addition to discussions of books and their merits or drawbacks, this book also had romance, dysfunctional families, and lonely people making friends. 

The story is sentimental, and sometimes predictable, but there are no guaranteed happy endings at the end of the book.

The writing pulled me into the story. The story is told by multiple narrators. Each of their background stories is revealed very slowly. I liked that a lot. Stories told from various viewpoints appeal to me, but I will admit this one gets confusing at times. Nevertheless, I loved it. 

These are the books that were discussed in more detail:

• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (haven't read)
• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (have read)
• Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (haven't read)

Amazingly, after all these years, reading this book really motivates me to find a copy of Anne of Green Gables and read it.

See these reviews at Lark Writes on books and life and at The New York Journal of Books.

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Publisher:  Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2023
Length:     353 pages
Format:    Trade paperback
Setting:     Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Genre:      Books about Books, Contemporary Fiction
Source:     Purchased in December 2023.