The Patient (2022) by Tim Sullivan

 The Patient is the third book in Tim Sullivan's DS Cross series, and it's the one in which Sullivan seems to really hit his stride as regards Cross and his relationship to the other recurring series characters. This is a series best read in publication order, and by the time readers begin The Patient they are fully acquainted with where Cross falls along the spectrum and how his autism affects his perception of the world around him. This allows Sullivan to spend more time exploring Cross's relationship with co-workers, friends, and family more deeply than he has done in previous Cross novels. That he does all of this while presenting an intriguing, complicated mystery to be solved is the icing on the cake. 

When Cross notices a woman sitting in Police Reception over a number of days, his curiosity is aroused enough for him to hear her out even when others in the Bristol police department have come to see the woman as just a nuisance who will never take no for an answer. The woman insists that her daughter was murdered; the police insist that she either committed suicide or died of an accidental overdose. 

Cross initially agrees with the other cops, but three things nag at him so much that he begins to wonder whether or not the woman might just be correct about her daughter's death:

• The young woman died without making any arrangements for the care of her toddler daughter who was alone in the next room.
• She died from an overdose of medical morphine (which is extremely unlikely for an addict to get hold of), not the kind of heroin found on the streets.
• Lab tests confirm that she had been drug-free for at least eighteen months prior to her death.

Cross, against the wishes of his boss and the detective who had earlier closed the case, decides to open a new investigation of his own - and begins his methodical investigation of Flick's death from square one. What follows is a first-rate, blow-by-blow police procedural during which Cross and his team eliminate one suspect after another until the murderer is finally identified.

What makes The Patient special, however, is watching Cross become the caretaker of his father, the man who had devoted so much of his own life to helping Cross make his way in a world that seems so strange and off-putting to him. For perhaps the first time in his life, Cross needs the help of others if he is to cope with all of his responsibilities, and he begins to learn the meaning of friendship and what it is like to have an actual friend or two in his life. 

The Patient is the book in which DS Cross develops into a fully-rounded character, one who has to cope with the problems of an aging father at the same time his job demands are as great as they have ever been. Much is revealed about the detective's childhood and how his mother's disappearance when he was five years old has impacted him to the present day. Sullivan manages to keep The Patient from being an overly melancholy book by developing the relationships between Cross and the two female cops who support his work. Ottey and Mackenzie, by now see Cross as much more than the best detective in the Bristol Police Department. They have come to respect him more than ever, yes, but they like him for who he is. Ottey, especially, has become Cross's mentor, someone he can look to for social tips and tricks that will allow him to function better in the world outside his office. 

The DS Cross series has become a favorite of mine now, and I'm thankful that there are already five other Cross books to be enjoyed - I hope that they keep coming for a long time.

Road Trip 2026 - Part 2 (Albuquerque Breaking Bad Locations)

 I've been trying to make sense of all the photos I took on our recent road trip, and thought it would be a good time to share a few more from the first few days of the trip.

We spent a couple of days looking around Albuquerque, and managed to get off on a bit of a tangent while there. I don't know how many of you are fans of the Breaking Bad or the Better Call Saul series from a few years ago, but be warned that these pictures will only be meaningful if you are the kind of fanatic about them that my grandson and I are. Both series were filmed in Albuquerque for the most part, and these are some of the key homes and businesses used prominently over the years:

This place is even smaller on the inside than it looks from the outside. It played a prominent role in one season in particular, and it is still a working diner today. We had lunch there one day and sat at the same table used by the key actors in the series. The food, and the service, were surprisingly top quality, and the little hot dog diner was packed during the lunch hour while doing a solid business from its takeaway window.

The view of this huge car wash from this side of the building is pretty much exactly as I remember it from the early seasons of Breaking Bad. It's the business through which Walter laundered his drug trafficking profits early on. The interior of the building has been substantially changed, but it was a really smart move on the new owners (a carwash chain) part to put the big letters back on top of the building where they belong. That probably brings in more than a few extra car washes a week...they got me to pony up for one, but I desperately needed it anyway. 

Twisters is a chicken chain in Albuquerque influenced by a Mexican food style of preparing its various offerings. In the Breaking Bad series, the name of the restaurant was changed to Los Pollos Hermanos - the business front of a notorious drug cartel leader. We had an early dinner here when we arrived in Albuquerque, and I have to admit that the food was kind of weird to my taste buds. But we had to try it. 

There were no noticeable changes on the inside of the restaurant, so the television series name of the chicken place is still displayed on the restaurant walls. 

No one is allowed to actually eat at "Walter's" table, but it is OK to take photos at the table with the guy. We couldn't resist, of course, and we took a quick shot of my grandson "sitting" with Walter. 

This motel was often used in the series because it was "shady" enough looking to accommodate all kinds of illegal activity. It's for sale right now, and appears to be largely abandoned. We were warned not to go here too late in the day as the real hotel is in exactly the kind of area that the television series portrays it to be. (We had no problems while pausing to take this picture.)

These are homes scattered around Albuquerque that were used as the residences of several of the main characters in Breaking Bad:

Mike's House

Walter's House

Hank's House

Jesse's House

For the most part, these homes are all in quiet neighborhoods inhabited by folks who are quite used to the idea that lots of people enjoy visiting these homes. The one exception is the "Walter house" in which one of the episodes portrays Walter throwing a pizza on his garage roof in a fit of rage. Idiot fans, over the years, threw so many pizzas on top of the garage that the owners had to build the fence you see in the picture to keep them from getting so close. The home is now for sale again and no one is currently living in it. Neighbors in all four locations are quite welcoming and seem to enjoy the attention that the television series brings...not sure if that helps home resale values or hurts them, honestly.

On our way north out of Albuquerque, headed toward Los Alamos, we found this beautiful spot on the little highway that passes through the heart of an Indian Reservation. 

Next time out, I'll share some photos from Los Alamos and comment on our experience in that unusual city.

Reviews: "King of Ashes," "Every Man a Hero," and "How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder"

 These are three more books that I've been unable to remark on before now - ensuring that my fading memory of them makes it a bit unfair for me to try to do any kind of longish, detailed review of them. Now I'm hoping that these short-form reviews will be enough to give everyone a decent feel for the books.

I'm a big fan of S.A. Cosby's work, but because I thought Cosby's novel just previous to King of Ashes was his weakest effort to date, I was a little concerned that I would be disappointed by this one. Turns out that I shouldn't have worried; this is a good book. It's the story of three adult siblings who have led very different lives up to the date that their father is in a near-fatal auto accident. Now, the eldest returns to their Virginia hometown to help pick up the pieces of a family-run crematorium business that is about to go under because of the bad lifestyle choices made by another of the siblings. What better way to dispose of murder victims than controlling a crematorium? At least that's what one local gang decides, and stopping them is going to be tough. This is quite a crime thriller that the less squeamish readers out there will have some fun with. But be warned, it's very violent (as are most of Cosby's novels).

This 2019 memoir was co-written when Ray Lambert was 98 years old, but it is one of the better firsthand accounts of D-Day that I've come across. Lambert and his brother both were medics on D-Day and both were severely wounded during the fighting. That each of them survived the slaughter of that awful battle is somewhat of a miracle in itself. Lambert tells his personal story from the perspective of a medic as he experienced the fighting in North Africa, Sicily, and France. Mr. Lambert was well decorated the courage he displayed on D-Day, but he reminds the reader that everyone who hit the beaches that day was as much a hero as he was. I recommend this one for history buffs. 

Once upon a time, in Wyoming, there were twelve and thirteen-year-old East Indian sisters who decided that their Uncle Vinny deserved to die. (Because of his regular sexual abuse of the girls, many would probably agree with them.) So they start slipping antifreeze into his drinks over a series of weeks, hoping that will do the trick. How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is very dark comedy with a twist at the end, and it left me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I appreciate the cleverness of the plot and how it uses magazine quiz interludes like the one entitled "Do You Have What It Takes to Kill?" in order to lighten the mood. On the other hand, the novel struck me as trying too hard to be clever at times, and the whole thing seemed to go on longer than the plot demanded it should. This is definitely, however, one coming-of-age story that fans of the genre will want to consider, especially as it explores the meaning of sisterhood and and the lengths almost anyone might go to in order to protect a loved one from the hands of a sexual predator.

This pretty much catches me up on past due reviews. I hope to spend a little more time reviewing Tim Sullivan's The Patient and Sonny Battar's The Daughters of Rosebud, one of my favorite reads of the year, soon.

Road Trip 2026 - Part I

 My grandson and I just completed a road trip of just over two weeks that completely took me out of my reading rhythm - and I'm still struggling to get back into it. I did fall asleep while reading in bed each night, though, and managed to finish one 345-page book while on the road. But things are still so frantic at home, what with dealing with lawyers and tax people concerning the estate problem we are trying to solve, that I just haven't been able to settle back into my old reading patterns even now.  

Despite that, I wouldn't trade those two weeks for anything, so here's just a little taste of the experiences we had while driving over 3700 miles inside the boundaries of nine different states:

This is the "famous" Cadillac Ranch just outside of Amarillo, Texas. As you can see from the photo, the cars have been spray-  painted now by so many people that they are barely recognizable as Cadillacs. The paint is so thick that big sections succumb to gravity every so often and harden on the ground where some enterprising locals scavenge the hardened paint in order to turn it into "jewelry" to be sold to tourist types like us. We did pass on that opportunity despite the rather surprising appeal to the eye of the jewelry tidbits.

We did a good bit of driving on the historical Route 66 that, in theory, still goes from Chicago to Los Angeles. I say "in theory" because much/most of the old route has been covered over by an interstate highway now. But in Adrian, Texas, we did spot this sign across the street from a large gift shop. It marks the official halfway point of the long drive and must have been quite a milestone for travelers to reach in the pre-interstate highway day.

The old gas station/gift shop at the midway point

There's an old "ghost town" called Puerto de Luna near Santa Rosa, New Mexico, that we drove about 20 miles out of our way to take a look at. The funny thing was that we could see it from the road long before we could find a way to reach the surviving buildings. We had no GPS at that point and couldn't find anyone to give us specific directions, but we eventually managed to get a few pictures. It was all kind of sad, really.

 Remains of the 1907 courthouse

Sideview

Main Entrance to old courthouse

Remains of the old county jailhouse

Another view of the old jail

The sad result of the damage done by vandals in recent years

We did end up having a nice chat with the Native American postman who services the tiny community nearest these old buildings who gave us a 30-minute oral history of the area and his tribe. It was quite interesting, and he seemed very proud of his tribal history. He was a nice man, ad we won't soon forget his generosity.

I'm going to stop here for part one of my trip recap. If you would like to see an enlargement of any of the pictures, just click on them and they will expand.

More to come in a day or two.

Three Short Reviews - Three Very Different Books

 I have to keep telling myself that I was only on the road for a little over two weeks because it feels like I've been out of touch a whole lot longer than that. And now I have accumulated nine un-reviewed books to catch up on - and I know that's never going to happen. I'm not even sure that would be fair to the books in question because, honestly, some of them are already starting to get a little bit hazy in my mind.

So I'll try a different approach:

I first read this classic when I was in my early teens, and I remembered it as a great adventure story. As it turns out, Around the World in Eighty Days is that and more. On the surface, it's the story of a wealthy Londoner who bets his fortune that he can circumnavigate the globe in just 80 days. He has done the calculations and he is convinced that it's doable. The problem is that there's little room for error, and he's not taken into account a bumbling London detective who is determined to arrest him for a theft our hero is not guilty of. This one is great fun; Vernes even manages to throw in a budding romance that takes a nice turn. This is a very accessible classic that I highly recommend.

Alexandra Oliva's The Radiant Dark is a first-contact novel, but it focuses as much on family dynamics as it does on the alien race fast approaching Earth. It's March of 1980 when a strange flickering in the night sky turns out to be a signal from a planet eleven light-years away. No one knows if they are friendly are not, but over the coming decades messages are exchanged with them as the two civilizations gradually learn to communicate with each other. It all evolves very slowly because of the immense distance between the two planets, but in the meantime people on Earth are forced to reassess their place in the universe. All of this is seen through the eyes of the Girard family and how it impacts the lives of each family member. The Radiant Dark is not the science fiction novel I expected it would be, but if you want a nice blend of scifi and family saga, you will really like this one.

I've read mostly short stories, as opposed to novels, from George Saunders so I don't have much to compare Vigil to. That said, this is one very strange little novel. Jill Blaine, who died in the 1970s, has been a spirit guide of sorts for the last several decades. Her current assignment is to help K.J. Boone, an 87-year-old man, through his deathbed experience. Boone, however, is not at all what Jill is used to; he's a ruthless businessman who feels no remorse at all about how he exploited the planet for his own purposes - and he's not having any of it. Things get complicated when other dead souls show up at Boone's home just to taunt and badger him during his final hours. I have to say that, even as much as I enjoy George Saunders short stories, Vigil just did not work for me at all. Frankly, I was just thankful that it is as short a book as it is. It won't scare me away from the short stories, but I can't recommend this one.

I'll stop with these three for now, hoping that I've given at least enough of a taste of each of them that you'll know whether they are for you or not. I'll get to the others soon, including the one I finished just this morning, The Daughters of Rosebud by Sonny Buttar (I absolutely loved this one.)

Two for One: Crows (1985) by Charles Dickinson and Mad Mabel (2026) by Sally Hepworth

 Since I'm about to leave on a two-week wander, with my grandson, around the mid-and-northwest states for a couple of weeks, it's getting to be a now-or-never situation for some of the book reviews that I've fallen behind on in recent weeks. I'm now seven books behind, and I hope to catch up a bit by doing some combination reviews like this one: 

Charles Dickinson's novels have always reminded me of those of another favorite writer of mine Anne Tyler. Their characters are usually numerous and so quirky that they turn out to be as much, or more, fun as the plots of the stories themselves. Crows is no exception.

The main character in Crows is a marginally successful local sportswriter who burns out at the ripe old age of twenty-seven. Perhaps the sheer boredom of Robert Cigar's life explains why he becomes obsessed with the sudden disappearance of his former biology professor, and friend, in a bizarre boating accident on a local lake. To everyone's surprise, including his own, Robert manages to move into his friend's family home and begins to spend most of his time searching the depths of Oblong Lake for the man's body. Over the ensuing months, while the search goes on and on, Robert becomes more and more a real part of the Ladysmith family - even though he is always just on the verge of being kicked out of the house by the missing professor's wife Ethel. 

I've now read Crows twice (some 34 years apart), and both times I began the novel thinking that I was about to read a mystery. And I was wrong both times. Crows is really a novel about grieving and the kind of distorted memories and impressions that can result in the unjustified idealization of those suddenly taken from us. Even though Robert, the main character, is twenty-seven years old, for him this is a coming-of-age novel in which he finally grows up enough to see his own parents through the eyes of a young adult. He even learns to see himself for what he himself really is, and he learns to live with that.

Charles Dickinson is a really good storyteller who hides a lot wisdom amidst the comings and goings of his unusual characters. His books are fun to read, but by the end of them it becomes obvious that producing just another "fun read" is not what Charles Dickinson is all about. I recommend this one.

Sally Hepworth's Mad Mabel tells a much more complicated story than it appears to tackle at first glance, so if you decide to read this one (and I hope you do), pay attention from the very first page. It's peppered with all the clues you need to figure things out well before the end of the novel - and it's fun to see your hunches be confirmed when you're all done.

"Mad" Mabel is one Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, and 81-year-old woman who has lived quietly on the same Melbourne street for several decades. She's purposely never been easy to get along with, a trait she exploits to keep any of the neighbors from prying into her past. That works well for Mabel until an elderly neighbor is found dead under somewhat suspicious circumstances, and someone discovers that Elsie is actually Mabel Waller, who at just fifteen years old became the youngest person in Australian history to be convicted of murder. 

"At six feet tall with broad shoulders and a sturdy backbone, no one would ever accuse me of being birdlike - unless the bird in question was an ostrich. My hair is reddish-grey, and I call people "dipshit" with far more regularity than "dear."

Suddenly Mad Mabel is once again a national celebrity who can't leave her own home without being harassed by the press, the public, and one or two of her own neighbors. Now she is ready to tell her story - her way and in her own good time.

Hepworth uses two timelines for Elsie's story, alternating the present with episodes from her childhood. Mad Mabel is more a character study than it is a mystery, an exploration of how easily a person's life and future can be carelessly ruined by the adults around her - either through sheer inattentiveness or by purely evil intentions. This is a story about the difference between legal justice and real justice, a distinction that can sometimes make it almost impossible for a jury to make a decision that will satisfy anyone, much less everyone.

Mad Mabel is both funny and poignant at times, but most of all it's fun. And do watch out for my favorite character in the whole book, Persephone, a very precocious seven-year-old girl who refuses to take no for an answer when she decides that she and Elsie are going to be best friends forever. 

Out of the Rabbit Hole: Review Catch-Up Time

I slipped deep into a sorting/clean-up rabbit hole these last couple of weeks where whole days go by before I realize it. I suppose it was  all brought on by seeing what a mess my recently deceased brother-in-law left behind upon his sudden death that kicked it all off, but whatever the origin, this seems to be a goal, a feeling, that is going to go on for a lot longer than I imagined it would. 

And of course, having been an avid book collector for more than fifty years, the place to begin the overall curating process was with my bookshelves. I'm only just now poking my head out of that hole - but have now eliminated over 200 hardcover books. The end result of that hard work, and the fun part of all of this, is that I was then faced with a much needed, complete reorganization of my five bookshelves. That's finally all done, and I am now surrounded by my favorite 900 books, leaving me with one final culling of what's still stashed away in a couple of closets and in the garage; I expect that will rid me of another 50-75 books.

The next phase of the reorganization saw me tackling my CD music collection of more than 400 albums (plus a few audio books and dozens of live show recordings I made myself over the years) that was taking up way too much space. I solved that by removing all of the CDs from their original plastic cases and inserting the CDs and their artwork into individual plastic sleeves. That cut the space they were taking up by around 70% - and made them much more accessible, meaning that I'm actually able to enjoy them again. 

Phase three of the project saw me sorting through my movie collection in much the same way. I have over 500 movies, TV series, and vintage music performances from the 1950s on DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4-K discs that had become one big blur to me, so this phase of the project ended up taking longer than sorting the books and CDs. But that's all done now, and just in time for me to re-enjoy some of Dolly Parton's earliest appearances on some old Porter Wagoner shows that I have. 

Anyway, I'm all done with that now, and the challenge is not to slip back into my old habits. I want to use this stuff, make it more a part of my life again, and not just store it away for someone to have to deal with later. 

Unreviewed books are starting to stack up on me, so I plan to do some "pocket reviews" before leaving with my grandson on September 12 on a two-week road trip wandering the highways of America's mid-and-northwest. Six books are stacked up right now:

• Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne,
• Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth,
• Crows by Charles Dickinson,
• The Radiant Dark by Alexandra Oliva,
• Vigil by George Saunders, and
• King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby.

In addition, I'm well into each of these three:

Ray Lambert was a true American hero, and he has all the medals to prove it. Every Man a Hero is Mr. Lambert's 2019 memoir focusing on his experiences landing with the first wave to hit Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Lambert was 98 years old when the book was published and died in 2021 at the age of 100. The book is co-authored by Jim DeFelice, the same man who co-authored American Sniper with former U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Lambert's vivid account of what he saw and experienced on D-Day is truly unforgettable. 

Nina McConigley's How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is a cleverly written little book about two sisters who decide to take measures into their own hands after an uncle from India moves into their Wyoming home with their family. Sadly, the uncle soon proves to be a pervert with no qualms about abusing his two nieces (at least so far, no abuse details are shared with the reader, but the suggestion of what goes on behind the closed bathroom door is more than enough). I'm not sure what to think about this one yet because it reads more like a dark comedy than anything else. 

Old Age: A Beginner's Guide, by Michael Kinsley is a re-read for me but, frankly, I don't remember much about the book (maybe it's my old-age-memory that's causing that). I reviewed the book in early 2016 when Kinsley, who suffered from Parkinson's for well over two decades, was still alive. He has since passed. The book offers a series of essays on aging and dying, but somehow remains surprisingly cheerful overall. Kinsley was one of those guys I didn't often agree with, but I always admired his courage and talent. 

So that's what I've been up to lately. I hope you are all doing well and look forward to chatting with you soon.

Sherlock (2026) by Various Authors

The subtitle to Sherlock really says it all: "Ten New Stories. Ten Incredible Writers. The Game Is Afoot...Again." Add the terrific introduction by the always interesting Stephen Fry to this mix, and Sherlock turns out to be a real treat for longtime fans of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.

As Fry points out, despite the enduring popularity of Holmes and Watson stories, the volume of Conan Doyle's Holmes output, respectable as it is, is really not overly impressive, consisting of only four novels and fifty-six short stories. What is perhaps more impressive is the sheer number of Sherlock Holmes stories written by others after Doyle's death that keep the character as alive and as fresh today as he ever was. Even Doyle's son Adrian participated in the deluge of Holmes material produced after his father's death by co-authoring a collection of Holmes short stories alongside author John Dickson Carr. And, especially now that all of the Sherlock Holmes stories have entered the public domain, new stories are likely to keep coming for a long, long time. 

And that's a good thing for those of us who can never get enough of Sherlock Holmes and John  Watson.

There are ten brand new stories in Sherlock, some more traditional than others, some set in the late nineteenth century and even one or two set in the twenty-first. The best of the stories focus first and foremost on the characters longtime Sherlock Holmes fans already know and love. Of course, as in any compilation featuring the work of ten different authors, some stories appeal to me more than others, and it's safe to assume that that will be the case for other readers who may enjoy the stories for reasons different than my own. I like character development, especially the interplay between characters I've been reading of for decades now. For other readers, the appeal may be more in the action sequences or the actual solving of the various mysteries that come Sherlock's way. We might have different favorite stories, but we will all be happy. 

My own particular favorites are: "The Glentorrance Mystery" (Abir Mukerje), "The Mystery of the Forsbrook Walkers" (Kate Mosse), and "Sherlock Holmes and the Game of Murder" (Steve Cavanagh). Over the last few years, I've become quite the fan of Sherlock Holmes stories set in the present day, so "Sherlock Holmes and the Game of Murder," in which Holmes matches wits with an AI-driven detective is the story that turned out to be the most fun for me.

If you are already a fan, you need to grab this collection and find out which story turns out to be the most fun for you. (Even the cover of Sherlock is fun. Take a look at the "Sherlock silhouettes" and you will notice that three of them are female, some have facial hair, some not, etc. Two are even wearing eyeglasses. All is not what it seems to be at first glance.)

(Review Copy of Sherlock was provided by the publisher. Sherlock is scheduled for December 1, 2026 publication.)

Lolly Willowes or, The Loving Huntsman (1926) by Sylvia Townsend Warner

A while back I mentioned here that I thought it might be fun to read a few books from 1926 in order to contrast the experience of reading books written 100 years ago to that of reading what is being published today. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner is the novel I chose to kick off this project, and that may have been a mistake because this one really didn't work for me. (Thank goodness that, at about 230 pages, it's relatively short.) But as it turns out, I'm the one on the outside looking in when it comes to the critical and public response to Lolly Willowes or, The Loving Huntsman.

Warner had an instant hit on her hands with this debut novel. The novel was praised by both the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Times itself. France's Prix Femina committee shortlisted it for its own literary prize, and it was even favorably compared by some to the work of Jane Austen. Interestingly, too, Lolly Willowes became the first Book-of-the-Month Club selection in the United States. So I'm definitely in the distinct minority when it comes to my level of appreciation for this one. 

Laura Willowes (nicknamed "Lolly" by her young niece) has always been more interested in reading and plants than she has been in eligible young bachelors. So, having already lost her mother, she was unprepared for how drastically her life would change with the death of her father. Suddenly, Lolly finds herself dependent upon her elder brother and his wife Caroline. That means leaving the family estate, moving to London, and becoming the duty-bound "Aunt Lolly" helping raise her nieces for the next twenty years.

But such a life was never going to be enough for Lolly, so bring on an eventual pact with the devil and witchcraft as she seeks to claim a life all her own, one not doled out by the men in her life. 

"Is it true that you can poke the fire with a stick of dynamite in perfect safety?...even if it isn't true of dynamite, it's true of women. But they know they are dynamite, and long for the concussion that may justify them. Some may get religion, then they're all right, I expect. But for the others, for so many, what can there be but witchcraft? That strikes them real, even if other people still find them quite safe and usual, and go on poking with them, they know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are. Even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it's there - ready!" 

 

Sylvia Townsend Warner 

Lolly Willowes is recognized as an early feminist novel and, as such, it has stayed in print for 100 years now - no small achievement. It doesn't particularly work for me, I think, because of its satirical take on the state of women in the early twentieth century. I often struggle with satire as a genre, and it's happened again with Lolly Willowes. I can't emphasize enough, however, that my reaction to the novel should discourage no one from giving it a chance. Women, in particular, may love it. 

Eifelheim (2006) by Michael Flynn

 

Michael Flynn's decision in 2006 to turn his 1986 novella, Eifelheim, into a full-fledged novel turned out to be a brilliant decision. The novel, which tells the story of a starship crash near a Black Forest village in 1348 - during the Black Death plague - was so well received that it won a nomination for the 2007 Hugo Award for best novel. The novel was fully embraced by the science fiction world, and it should have been, but what makes it truly special for me is how seamlessly Eifelheim blends first rate historical fiction with a story of grasshopper-like aliens crashing into the lives of an old world village that still very much believes in demons and evil spirits.  

The basic premise of the novel is this: in 1348, a spaceship carrying a few dozen aliens crashes into the Black Forest within walking distance of a typically isolated village of the time. It would have been terribly easy for this encounter to have gone bad for both sides except for the efforts of Father Dietrich, a kindly scholar of a priest, and the Krenken leader's willingness to listen to the counsel of one of his youngest crew members. The already isolated village becomes even more isolated than it was before the plague began to take its toll on the surrounding villages, ensuring that Father Dietrich was able to keep his visitors a secret for many months. 

Eventually the two groups began to get to know - and appreciate - each other in ways that surprised all of them.

Adding to the fun, Flynn tells his story in alternating timelines: one in which the villagers and the aliens are learning to live with each other, and a second in which a modern day couple (he is a historian, she is a physicist) try to figure out why the village of Eifelheim, despite its advantageous geographical location, is never resettled after the Black Death. What they discover has the potential to change human history.

Author Michael Flynn uses this premise to turn the novel into one of the smartest science fiction novels I've read in a while. His presentation of medieval life has a genuine feel about it, and Father Dietrich is just one of several memorable characters playing key roles in the story. But the most intriguing thing about Eifelheim is how two such devise cultures, one well beyond Einstein's level of scientific thinking, the other limited by a strict interpretation of medieval Christian theology, end up impacting each other so greatly. Flynn's main characters are sympathetic and believable, and that allows Flynn to explore questions like the conflict between faith and reason, along with the all too often unforeseen consequences of good intentions leading to devastating tragedy for all concerned. 

I came into 2026 with the intention of reading more science fiction, both the classics and the latest scifi novels, and discovering a book like Eifelheim makes me happy that I did. 

The Camp of the Saints (1973) - Jean Raspail

 

The Camp of the Saints is a French dystopian novel I probably would have never heard of if Amazon had not "accidentally" decided to quit selling it on April 17, 2026. From what I remember, audio and e-book copies of the novel continued to be sold by Amazon even after the paperback edition had been removed from the site, but the resulting backlash was immediate and loud. Within hours, the physical copy of The Camp of the Saints was available again - and it would be hard for Amazon to convince anyone that it all happened because of some kind of fluke in their system. 

So my curiosity was aroused, and I decided to get a copy to see what all the fuss was about. 

The Camp of the Saints is a book about the end of Western society as we know it when the West allows itself be overwhelmed by the influx of roughly one million impoverished migrants from India who arrive on the southern coast of France on the same morning aboard a fleet of decrepit ships. 

So is this a racist novel or is it simply a prophetic one that warned the Western world about something that was already inevitable in 1973? The answer is yes. The Camp of the Saints is eerily prophetic - and it uses racism and racist terms to make its key points. Take this passage, for instance:

"You're nothing to them, you and all you stand for. Your world doesn't mean a thing. They won't even try to understand it. They'll be tired, man. Tired and cold. And they'll build a fire with your big wooden door. And they'll crap all over your terrace, and wipe their hands on your shelves full of books. And they'll spit out your wine, and eat with their fingers from all that nice pewter handing inside on your wall. Then they'll squat on their heels and watch your easy chairs go up in smoke. And they'll use your fancy bedsheets to pretty themselves up in. All your things will lose their meaning. Your meaning, man. What's beautiful won't be, what's useful they'll laugh at, what's useless they won't even bother with. Nothing's going to be worth a thing." 

 In the end, first France and then the rest of Europe (with Switzerland being the last holdout) are quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers and the violent refusal of the migrants to be stopped, or even slowed down, by those with the responsibility for protecting the borders of their countries. If Jean Raspail had stopped there, his novel might not have received the backlash it suffered when first published in 1973. The legitimate claim that The Camp of the Saints is overtly racist comes primarily from the way that Raspail portrays the Indian migrants. He treats them as one undifferentiated mass, every one of them portrayed as filthy, disease ridden animals interested only in filling their stomachs and having sex with whomever is handy. 

The Camp of the Saints is a shocking novel, but it is not a particularly well written one. Its translated prose is difficult to read, all of its characters are pretty much despicable, and its legitimate message is smothered by Raspail's racist take on mass migration. I don't really recommend wasting too much time on this one unless your curiosity about why Amazon attempted to throttle its sale in the first place makes it worth your while to find a copy. I don't regret reading The Camp of the Saints, but I found it to be a huge disappointment.

The Body in the Bath (November 2026) - Ragnar Jónasson

 

I've read some of Ragnar Jónasson's work in the past, and was particularly taken by his Hulda series featuring a 64-year-old Icelandic female detective facing imminent forced retirement. That series is particularly well crafted in the way that it delivers an early gut punch to the reader before recounting Hulda's entire story in reverse chronological order. The first three books in the series (along with U.S. publication dates) are: The Darkness (2018), The Island (2019), and The Mist (2019). A fourth book in the series, Hulda, was published in 2024 but is not yet available in an English translation, although French language readers have recently been treated to the French edition. 

The good news for Hulda fans is that Hulda and her past play prominent roles in the third book in Jónasson's Helgi Reykdal series, the soon-to-be-published The Body in the Bath. Helgi Reykdal is the young detective for whom Hulda was pushed out of the Reykjavik police department at age sixty-four. While never having met her personally, Helgi is aware of his connection to Hulda and uses that attachment as a distraction from his own troubles with the department. Please note that despite not having read the first two books in this series, I was pleased to see how well The Body in the Bath works as a standalone crime novel. 

As the novel opens, Helgi has just recently returned to work after grieving the death of his girlfriend Anita in a car accident for a month. His superiors would have preferred that Helgi not come back so soon, but realizing how dazed and angry Helgi still is, they allow him to work some old case files at his own pace. Helgi has good reason to be angry: the driver who struck Anita is none other than his old girlfriend Bergpóra, a violent alcoholic who was often physically abusive to Helgi during the course of their relationship. Helgi is convinced that Anita's death was no accident, and he is determined to prove it.

But then Bergpóra is found dead in her own bath tub, and Helgi is the prime, if not the only, suspect in her murder. Now he is struggling to convince his fellow cops that he is innocent - but that will not be easy.

Note - I suspect that anyone reading The Body in the Bath will want to at least take a look  at the first two books in the series: Death at the Sanatorium (2024) and The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer (2025).

Will Reading Fewer Books at a Time Mean Greater Retention?

 

My daily routine has been so different these last few weeks that I've slipped into, what is for me, an unusual reading pattern. I have been forced to squeeze in reading time wherever I can find it, and reading in short bursts has considerably lessened my retention rate. That means that reading in and out of eight or nine books at a time is out of the question right now, and I'm down to reading one physical book and one e-book instead. And surprisingly enough, I'm enjoying the change.

But still, I'm way behind on reviewing the handful of books that I've finished in the last month or so, and I'm not sure how that is ultimately going to work out. I suspect my reviews will be shorter than they've tended to be in the last year, but I want to write them anyway, even if just as an self-exercise to help me remember as much about the books as possible.

Finished but not yet reviewed are: 

• Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth,
• Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne,
• Eifelheim by Michael Flynn,
• The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail,
• Crows by Charles Dickinson, and
• The Body in the Bath by Ragnar Jónasson.

Honestly, it's going to be a push to get those all written, but my intentions are good...at least for now.

I just finished The Body in the Bath this afternoon, an ARC that will be published in November. Those of you who enjoyed Jónasson's Hulda series a while back when several of us were reading it, will want to get your hands on this one as soon as you can. The three Hulda books comprise one of my favorite crime series ever, and it was really fun to watch Hulda's successor start to nose around in what may have happened to her right before she was scheduled to resign her detective position with the Reykjavik police department. The Body in the Bath is actually the third book in Jónasson's Helgi Reykdal series - but it works well as a standalone for those of us who have not read the first two books yet.

I hadn't been to the library since June, but managed to drop by this morning to see if something would catch my eye. The Radiant Dark did just that, and that's the physical book I'll be reading for the next few days. From the book flap: "It's March 1980, and Carol Gerrard and her husband are living an ordinary life in a small town in the Adirondacks. They have just had their first child, and though Carol is struggling with the challenges of motherhood, her future seems clear. Until something extraordinary happens: an inexplicable flickering of light in the sky, which is ultimately determined to be communication from intelligent life on another planet. But these beings are eleven light-years away, and nothing is known about them other than the fact that they seem to know we exist too. And so begins a decades-long exchange of messages with this mysterious, faraway civilization." The Radiant Dark was published in April 2026 and weighs in at 412 pages. I have high hopes for it. 

The e-book I'll be concentrating on is Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. I decided to make this one my first attempt at reading something for my 1926 project. I'm still hoping to read at least three or four from 1926, but this one has gotten off to a bit of a rough start with me. The set-up is taking a long time, but I've read so many good things about it, that I'm going to read on until the plot finally arrives in the present day. It's the story of a middle-aged spinster forced to move out of the family home by her brother. And there she makes a pact with the devil and discovers that her true calling is witchcraft. I think it's an early feminist novel that uses satire to make its point.

I think this less distracting pace is just what I need right now if I'm going to be able to remember anything about my reading...now I just need to find the time to read and write a little. I hope you all are doing well out there. It's so hot and humid in Houston that we are all keeping our heads down as much as we can. Theoretically, that means more reading time. We'll have to see about that. 

I See You've Called in Dead (2025) - John Kenney

 

To say that I've been overwhelmed by life lately is a gross understatement. We are still in the early stages of dealing with the aftermath of my brother-in-law's sudden accidental death on June 23, and that is likely to remain the case for the next several months. Because we do not live particularly near any of the locations we need to meet with contractors, lawyers, insurance people, and public authorities, we have been on the road an average of twice a week for the past five weeks...something like nine trips and about 2,000 miles at this point. 

But in a case of serendipity, the right book for the moment hollered out to me a few days ago. I was looking around my library website for something to read and stumbled upon "Libby Reads Global" and the chance to read John Kinney's I See You Called in Dead immediately. No waiting list, just borrow the book and begin reading it along with thousands of others around the world at the same time. The timing was perfect.

It's the story of an obituary writer named Bud Stanley who is going through a traumatic midlife crisis at the age of 44. Bud's wife has left him for a much more interesting and successful man, and Bud is back into the modern dating scene. Let's just say that's not going particularly well for him. He bottoms out one night when he is waiting for his blind date to show up - only to learn that she brings her ex-boyfriend along with her to tell Bud that they have decided to get back together. Bud is humiliated by the experience, goes home to get drunk on his own, and ends up writing his own obituary as a joke. The problem with that little exercise is that he decides to post the obituary on his newspaper's live website. 

Of course, the paper wants to fire Bud, but they learn that it is illegal to fire a "dead person." Until they can work out that little snag in their system, Bud is suspended without pay, and is own his own. With all of that free time on his hands, Bud begins, along with a couple of friends of his, to attend the wakes and funerals of total strangers. I know...let the hilarity begin.

As the author puts it, Bud Stanley is "an obituary writer who is afraid to live." This is his chance. As Bud delves into the lives of the strangers whose funerals he attends, he learns more and more about life and what it means to be human. Along the way, the rest of us get to meet the fascinating people in Bud's inner circle: Tim, his wheelchair-bound best friend and mentor; Clara, the woman who first drew Bud into attending all those funerals; Leo, the little boy down the block who truly believes that he and Bud are best friends (and maybe they are); and Tuan, Bud's gay obituary co-writer who helps Bud adjust to life more than he knows. 

"How rude of the dead to die. How selfish. Wherever they are, no pain, in eternal darkness or wondrous afterlife. And here we are, tears streaming down our cheeks, the knotted stomach and clammy palms, a feeling akin to falling, in a dream that won't end."

Don't let this quote mislead you. True, much of I See You Called in Dead is quite poignant - but it is often laugh-out-loud funny, too. The whole package is quite inspirational, in fact, because it's a reminder of just how short life really is, and how easy it is to waste it.

I think you'll like this one a lot.

Have Courage (November 2026) - Craig Johnson

 

For me, reading a Craig Johnson novel or short story is very much akin to enjoying the kind of comfort food I grew up on as a kid. After having read Johnson for so many years, I feel completely at home in the Absaroka County world that he has created for the sheriff, and I always look forward to the next chance to visit Walt and his friends there. 

Have Courage, scheduled to be published in early November, is Johnson's latest collection of Longmire short stories. Each of the thirteen stories takes place during the Christmas season just when the sheriff's office is as short-handed as it ever will be and everyone is expecting things to have pretty much quieted down for the rest of the year. But as Walt has learned the hard way, that's not the way things work in Absaroka County, Wyoming.

The thirteen stories cover the entirety of Walt's policing career, from the early days when Walt was just a green young deputy learning the trade at the knee of Lucian Connally, to when Walt has become a fixture in the job he ultimately inherited from Lucian. Along the way, a cast of familiar deputies comes and goes - although I do think that Walt's best friend, Henry Standing Bear, is under-utilized in this collection of stories. (I am one who doesn't think that you can ever have enough Henry Standing Bear.)

The stories offer insights into Walt Longmire's character and how he got to be the man he turned out to be. They are stories of reclaimed lives, violent hostage situations, seeing the best in people during the worst day in their lives, havoc caused by the surprising results of DNA testing, dealing with a skunk that decides to crash a Christmas party, an old dog needing a new friend, and much more. And best of all, no matter how violent or sad the situation might be, it's all narrated with the same wit that Craig Johnson fans have come to expect over the years. I don't usually do "Christmas in July" stuff, but I'm grateful that that reluctance didn't keep me from reading Have Courage when I got the chance. 

This one is for the Walt Longmire fans.

What I'm Reading This Week (7/17/26)

 As far as my reading goes, this last couple of weeks has really been hit or miss for me. I've found it hard to concentrate even when I've had a little time for myself, and that's caused me to change some of my book choices as I try to find books a little less concentration-demanding. I've really only put one book aside for the long term, however, and that is the huge, in every sense of that word, James Jones novel From Here to Eternity. No matter how hard I try to get into that story, it's just not working for me at all right now. I've temporarily tabled a couple of others (The Longest Walk and the Mark Twain bio), but plan to get back to those sooner rather than later. 

On the positive side, I've made surprising progress with the controversial French novel The Camp of the Saints that I've been reading for a while now. And pretty decent progress on the book on Cajun history I've been reading, The Acadian Saga. Misleadingly, I did also finish three books in the last couple of weeks, but I was already relatively near the end of two of those (The Cyclist by Tim Sullivan, Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth, and Eifelheim by Michael Flynn).  

These are the new ones I've started in the last few days:

A lot of you probably have already read Donna Everhart's Women of a Promiscuous Nature because I remember seeing it reviewed on several blogs a few weeks ago. It's historical fiction focusing on that period in American history (well into the 1940s and 1950s, it seems) during which husbands or fathers of sexually active females could solve the "problem" by having the women institutionalized. The first couple of chapters haven't hooked me yet, but I'm still hoping this one will grab me soon.

I think this new collection of Walt Longmire short stories is scheduled to be published in early November. Have Courage is one of several Christmas story collections that Johnson has published over the years, and I've read them all, I think. There are thirteen stories in Have Courage, covering different periods in Longmire's law enforcement career from the early seventies to the present day. Each story is set either on Christmas Day or thereabouts. Walt Longmire stories are, for me, fiction's equivalent of comfort food.

Charles Dickinson has been one of my favorites since the eighties even though no one would ever describe him as anything remotely close to prolific. I first read Crows around 1992, but it was published in 1985. Honestly, I remembered very little about it when I started this re-read other than how much I enjoyed it the first time around. And now, 83 pages into it, Crows is still reading like a book I'm reading for the first time. Great characters, quirky family, good story...loving this one already.

So Old So Young follows a group of college friends for about 20 years, starting in 2007. This one got some pretty good early press when published a few weeks ago, and that's when it caught my eye. I'm hoping it's not just another one in a long line of novels that use this exact set-up, but I'm already beginning to have some doubts. The writing is good, so I'll keep going for another 50 pages or so before deciding whether or not to DNF So Old So Young. It's hard to show much patience right now, and that's probably not fair to Grant Ginder.

So that's me for the next couple of weeks. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your reading time. Make the most of it!