by Joanne Fluke,
Kensington Books, 2010
This book is a Christmas anthology, and also includes the stories The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies by Laura Levine, and Gingerbread Cookies and Gunshots by Leslie Meier.
Story one: I was somewhat disappointed that this was not a full-length Fluke novel as the murder had to unfold and resolve so quickly. In this story, Ernie Kusak is the neighbour who gets on everyone's nerves with his loud music and noxious Christmas lights during the holiday season. It's not much of a surprise that he turns up dead near a platter of Hannah's gingerbread cookies. But who killed the multi-million dollar lottery winner? - His ex-wife, Lorna? Another neighbour who'd had run-ins with Ernie? And does the framed lottery ticket in Ernie's bathroom have any link to the crime? I enjoyed the story, but the wrap-up happened too quickly for my liking.
Story two: When Jaine Austen visits her parents at Tampa Vistas for the holidays, she's in for more of the usual: her parents' bickering, showing her off to the neighbours, and overindulging her cat. What she doesn't expect is the death of resident eligible bachelor, retired plastic surgeon, Dr. Preston McCay. Who done it? - One of the several ladies he's strung along? His much younger fiancee? The community handyman? Doc Wilkins? All of them have a reason, and it's up to Jaine to sort out the suspects. I enjoyed this story enough to put Levine's Jaine debut on my reading list, though I did find the addressing of the reader throughout somewhat distracting.
Story three: Lucy Stone is many things - wife, mother, grandmother, and part-time reporter. When local boy Nemo Anderson disappears, it hits Lucy and the community hard. Lucy had met the boy and his mother, Ocean, and knows something of the unconventional life they must lead with Ocean's partner, Rick. As the police conduct their own investigation, Lucy conducts a search for answers, praying all the while for the boy's safe return. Was there really a large black woman in a puffy burgundy coat, who drove Nemo away in a white SUV, or were the lad's mother and guardian in some way responsible for his vanishing? This was my favourite story in the anthology. Not only did Meier include recipes (as did Fluke), but the plot unfolded at an appropriate pace and came to a satisfying conclusion.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
In the Company of Others: a Father Tim Novel
by Jan Karon,
Viking, 2010
I enjoyed Karon's Mitford series very much, as well as her first Father Tim novel; alas one doesn't always get equal excellence. While the story and substory are both solid plot lines, this reader experienced some confusion in keeping track of minor characters. This was not helped by the interspersing of current-day plot with journal entries from the past, nor by the fact that Father Tim 1 was published three years ago, and I've read a lot of other books in between.
Readers will enjoy the Irish setting of this novel, as well as the Irish characters. Father Tim and Cynthia have finally made the trip to Sligo and look forward to various jaunts around the Irish countryside. A mishap waylays their plans and they must stay closer to the B & B. This is a boon to the inn's owners, who are going through a variety of struggles and could use the pastoral support. This also gives Tim and his wife the chance to read through an old journal, which chronicles the story of Dr. Fintan and wife, Catherine, who settled in the area in the late 1700s and experienced their own struggles. Both stories wrap up satisfactorily at the end of the book, with Tim and Cynthia promising to return. Perhaps number 3 in the trilogy will be set in Ireland as well. This reader would like that. But she'd also like the author to produce it a little more quickly in order to maintain a better sense of who's who.
Viking, 2010
I enjoyed Karon's Mitford series very much, as well as her first Father Tim novel; alas one doesn't always get equal excellence. While the story and substory are both solid plot lines, this reader experienced some confusion in keeping track of minor characters. This was not helped by the interspersing of current-day plot with journal entries from the past, nor by the fact that Father Tim 1 was published three years ago, and I've read a lot of other books in between.
Readers will enjoy the Irish setting of this novel, as well as the Irish characters. Father Tim and Cynthia have finally made the trip to Sligo and look forward to various jaunts around the Irish countryside. A mishap waylays their plans and they must stay closer to the B & B. This is a boon to the inn's owners, who are going through a variety of struggles and could use the pastoral support. This also gives Tim and his wife the chance to read through an old journal, which chronicles the story of Dr. Fintan and wife, Catherine, who settled in the area in the late 1700s and experienced their own struggles. Both stories wrap up satisfactorily at the end of the book, with Tim and Cynthia promising to return. Perhaps number 3 in the trilogy will be set in Ireland as well. This reader would like that. But she'd also like the author to produce it a little more quickly in order to maintain a better sense of who's who.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
High on Arrival
by Mackenzie Phillips with Hilary Liftin,
Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2009
Sex, drugs, rock 'n roll. There you have them - the key elements of your standard celebrity bio. And Mackenzie Phillips - best known for playing Julie on the sitcom, One Day at a Time - writes about enjoying a plethora of all three, but especially the drugs. Daughter of John Phillips, most notably of the Mamas and the Papas, it was almost inevitable that Mackenzie herself would succumb to the snare.
It's been said - and rightly so, I think - that every girl seeks her daddy's love and approval. But John Phillips was a self-centred man - a man bent on pursuing hedonism to the utmost, as Mackenzie well describes. While she yearned for a close relationship with him, what she often experienced was abandonment. Deeply into the drug subculture, Phillips used narcotics and women freely and without care, and allowed his children to live as they pleased, without any boundaries or rules. When he invited Mackenzie, age 10, to learn how to roll joints for him and his friends, she was a willing participant. Maybe by being useful, she would get more attention. Maybe by emulating him, she would enter more fully into his world. It wasn't long before she was using drugs herself. It wasn't long before her life would enter a downward spiral that would take years to exit.
After reading about many of Mackenzie's escapades, I laughed out loud at her description of herself as "a good girl" (p. 78). It's amazing how we can deceive ourselves, and evident how desperately Mackenzie wanted to be accepted. What's more amazing is that even after years of self-abuse (including drugs and presumably unprotected sex with multiple partners), incest and rape, Mackenzie is still alive to tell the story.
It's a story she writes in order to set out the truth so that she herself might become "real and whole." It's a fascinating, ugly story, full of insanity, bad choices, hopelessness and despair, interspersed with periods of sobriety and well-being. It's a cautionary tale for those who might think the drug life is linked to freedom and fun when it is anything but.
Mackenzie's book sparked a lot of controversy when it first appeared. People don't like to talk about incest. Family members and friends didn't want to believe that Papa John could be quite that depraved. But I believe Mackenzie is right when she says that under the influence of drugs a person will do anything. And so perhaps the best service the book provides others is to encourage discussion of this taboo topic. As the author says:
Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2009
Sex, drugs, rock 'n roll. There you have them - the key elements of your standard celebrity bio. And Mackenzie Phillips - best known for playing Julie on the sitcom, One Day at a Time - writes about enjoying a plethora of all three, but especially the drugs. Daughter of John Phillips, most notably of the Mamas and the Papas, it was almost inevitable that Mackenzie herself would succumb to the snare.
It's been said - and rightly so, I think - that every girl seeks her daddy's love and approval. But John Phillips was a self-centred man - a man bent on pursuing hedonism to the utmost, as Mackenzie well describes. While she yearned for a close relationship with him, what she often experienced was abandonment. Deeply into the drug subculture, Phillips used narcotics and women freely and without care, and allowed his children to live as they pleased, without any boundaries or rules. When he invited Mackenzie, age 10, to learn how to roll joints for him and his friends, she was a willing participant. Maybe by being useful, she would get more attention. Maybe by emulating him, she would enter more fully into his world. It wasn't long before she was using drugs herself. It wasn't long before her life would enter a downward spiral that would take years to exit.
After reading about many of Mackenzie's escapades, I laughed out loud at her description of herself as "a good girl" (p. 78). It's amazing how we can deceive ourselves, and evident how desperately Mackenzie wanted to be accepted. What's more amazing is that even after years of self-abuse (including drugs and presumably unprotected sex with multiple partners), incest and rape, Mackenzie is still alive to tell the story.
It's a story she writes in order to set out the truth so that she herself might become "real and whole." It's a fascinating, ugly story, full of insanity, bad choices, hopelessness and despair, interspersed with periods of sobriety and well-being. It's a cautionary tale for those who might think the drug life is linked to freedom and fun when it is anything but.
Mackenzie's book sparked a lot of controversy when it first appeared. People don't like to talk about incest. Family members and friends didn't want to believe that Papa John could be quite that depraved. But I believe Mackenzie is right when she says that under the influence of drugs a person will do anything. And so perhaps the best service the book provides others is to encourage discussion of this taboo topic. As the author says:
- "If nobody ever rocks the boat, if real stories of love and incest and survival are kept behind the closed doors of therapists' offices and judges' chambers, then current and future victims are destined to do what I did, to weather it alone, to blame themselves, to hide behind drugs or whatever other lies and oblivion they can find. It happens, it happened to me, and the desire to preserve my father's legacy is not reason enough for silence." (p. 188)
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Death in the Stocks
by Georgette Heyer,
Arrow Books, 2006 (copyright 1935)
I always thought of Heyer as a romance author, but when it came to my attention that she'd written some mysteries, I decided to give one a try. Death in the Stocks appears to be the first in the Inspector Hannasyde series, and what a mystery it is, though I did crack the case well before the author concluded it.
When playboy and businessman Arnold Vereker is found dead in the stocks on a village green, it's a great shock to the local bobby, who has never before had to deal such a serious crime. After going to Vereker's cottage and meeting the victim's careless half-sister, it's no doubt a relief to pass the case on to his superiors.
Enter Hannasyde, a Superitendant from New Scotland Yard. Calm, cool, and logical, nothing could have prepared him for the Vereker relations who, except for their cousin and legal representative Giles Carrington, are a bunch of eccentric, unlikable, and corrupt individuals. Uncertain and distrustful of one another, they seem to think the murder is a game and one of their own its chief participant. Indeed they make it difficult not to suspect them of either acting alone or in collusion, and for the most part, the reader could care less about what happens to any of them.
The New York Times is quoted on the book's cover, "Rarely have we seen humour and mystery so perfectly blended." I don't know about that, but at the end of the day - thanks largely to Hannasyde and Carrington - the fact is I rather enjoyed the mystery. I think I am getting into these older British whodunits, and as the contemporary authors I enjoy don't write fast enough to keep up with me, it's good to discover "new" talent.
Arrow Books, 2006 (copyright 1935)
I always thought of Heyer as a romance author, but when it came to my attention that she'd written some mysteries, I decided to give one a try. Death in the Stocks appears to be the first in the Inspector Hannasyde series, and what a mystery it is, though I did crack the case well before the author concluded it.
When playboy and businessman Arnold Vereker is found dead in the stocks on a village green, it's a great shock to the local bobby, who has never before had to deal such a serious crime. After going to Vereker's cottage and meeting the victim's careless half-sister, it's no doubt a relief to pass the case on to his superiors.
Enter Hannasyde, a Superitendant from New Scotland Yard. Calm, cool, and logical, nothing could have prepared him for the Vereker relations who, except for their cousin and legal representative Giles Carrington, are a bunch of eccentric, unlikable, and corrupt individuals. Uncertain and distrustful of one another, they seem to think the murder is a game and one of their own its chief participant. Indeed they make it difficult not to suspect them of either acting alone or in collusion, and for the most part, the reader could care less about what happens to any of them.
The New York Times is quoted on the book's cover, "Rarely have we seen humour and mystery so perfectly blended." I don't know about that, but at the end of the day - thanks largely to Hannasyde and Carrington - the fact is I rather enjoyed the mystery. I think I am getting into these older British whodunits, and as the contemporary authors I enjoy don't write fast enough to keep up with me, it's good to discover "new" talent.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Mend Mark Contest
Remember when I told you about the Mend Mark bracelet? If you've forgotten, go here. This week I'm holding an exciting contest for you to win your very own. Just leave a comment below*, and next Monday (November 1st, believe it or not), I will randomly draw one lucky winner. Keep the bracelet for yourself, give it to a friend, make it a stocking gift for your son or daughter - whatever you choose, this unique item will constantly remind the wearer of Christ's love for the world and be a conversation starter for those who need to hear of such love.What are you waiting for? - Get commenting!
*Canadian and U.S. eligibility only. Sorry, I'm unable to manage international postage at this time.This contest is running concurrently at http://www.notesfrominnisfree.blogspot.com/ and since I only have one bracelet to part with, the names from both places will be entered into the one draw. One entry only per blog :)
*Canadian and U.S. eligibility only. Sorry, I'm unable to manage international postage at this time.This contest is running concurrently at http://www.notesfrominnisfree.blogspot.com/ and since I only have one bracelet to part with, the names from both places will be entered into the one draw. One entry only per blog :)
Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon: A Guide to the Best Time to Do This, Buy That and Go There
by Mark Di Vincenzo,
Harper, 2009
Written by a veteran reporter, this is Di Vincenzo's first full-length book.Want to know the best time to write poetry? The best month to climb Mount Kilimanjaro? The best time of day to take melatonin? It's all here, along with much more. Each topic is covered in short order, with some points having the added value of additional tips, strange but true, or the this-just-in type facts you'd expect from a seasoned journalist.
Since the book is only 168 pages long and couldn't possibly cover everything a body might ask, Di Vincenzo has left himself ample opportunity to delve into the subject further with additional volumes or revised, updated revisions.
A great idea, and includes a list of useful sources at the back of the book. You'll refer to this one again and again.
Harper, 2009
Written by a veteran reporter, this is Di Vincenzo's first full-length book.Want to know the best time to write poetry? The best month to climb Mount Kilimanjaro? The best time of day to take melatonin? It's all here, along with much more. Each topic is covered in short order, with some points having the added value of additional tips, strange but true, or the this-just-in type facts you'd expect from a seasoned journalist.
Since the book is only 168 pages long and couldn't possibly cover everything a body might ask, Di Vincenzo has left himself ample opportunity to delve into the subject further with additional volumes or revised, updated revisions.
A great idea, and includes a list of useful sources at the back of the book. You'll refer to this one again and again.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Kingdom Works: True Stories About God and His People in Inner City America
by Bart Campolo,
Servant Publications, 2001
Bart Campolo is the president of Mission Year, a U.S.-based Christian service program that recruits people to serve in outreach teams that live and work in inner-city neighbourhoods. Though this book was written several years ago, the proof of the program's success is that it continues to attract recruits who choose to sacrifice comfort in order to dwell and perform community service in inner-cities across America. While the program originally sought the participation of young adults 18-29, it has expanded to include those over this age, as well as married couples.
In thirty relatively short chapters (the book is under 150 pages), Campolo shares stories from the trenches. Though there is hopelessness, danger, and struggle in inner-city living and outreach, there is also hope and freedom in Christ, and the reader catches glimpses of God's love at work here as His kingdom expands bit by bit. We see followers of Jesus who live in groups of five or six building relationships with their neighbours, sharing Christ's love for them in real and practical ways, and learning how to live together in authentic community. The stories are exciting and inspiring - sometimes saddening and maddening - and invite involvement whether it be through going, giving, or praying.
I would love to see Campolo write a new book with the stories that have taken place in the years since this was published.
For more on Mission Year, please visit the website.
Servant Publications, 2001
Bart Campolo is the president of Mission Year, a U.S.-based Christian service program that recruits people to serve in outreach teams that live and work in inner-city neighbourhoods. Though this book was written several years ago, the proof of the program's success is that it continues to attract recruits who choose to sacrifice comfort in order to dwell and perform community service in inner-cities across America. While the program originally sought the participation of young adults 18-29, it has expanded to include those over this age, as well as married couples.
In thirty relatively short chapters (the book is under 150 pages), Campolo shares stories from the trenches. Though there is hopelessness, danger, and struggle in inner-city living and outreach, there is also hope and freedom in Christ, and the reader catches glimpses of God's love at work here as His kingdom expands bit by bit. We see followers of Jesus who live in groups of five or six building relationships with their neighbours, sharing Christ's love for them in real and practical ways, and learning how to live together in authentic community. The stories are exciting and inspiring - sometimes saddening and maddening - and invite involvement whether it be through going, giving, or praying.
I would love to see Campolo write a new book with the stories that have taken place in the years since this was published.
For more on Mission Year, please visit the website.
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