Where Have I Been?

It's hard to believe it has been so long since my last post. The longer I waited the harder it was to do it but here I am.

Yesterday I played duplicate bridge for the first time and, once I was over my initial nervousness, really enjoyed it. I had some good cards and played some hands well and as always messed up some. The things I messed up where bridge things nothing to do with duplicate. I liked comparing what we did with what the other group did. I came in next to the bottom but I learned a lot. I need to ask how my partner had more points than I did because I don't understand the scoring.

Today hasn't been as much fun as yesterday since I've spent most of the day in the car going back and forth to and from the swimming pool. Sang in the choir for a funeral which was nice; big family, big crowd. Bridge, Kelsey, Elyse and I had lunch but even that wasn't easy. I dropped them off so they could order while I made a trip to the pool with the boys but they didn't try to get served because there was a sign that said no unattended children. They waited for me to get back and we just went somewhere else. Wonder if they would have been served if they had explained that I was returning but I guess I'll never know the answer.

I just finished listening to the Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton and really enjoyed it; however, I'm not sure I would have liked it as much if I had been the reader. There was a lot of repetition about the locks and safes. I'm reading Gallows Bird by Camille Lackberg which is also very good. I still don't know where the title came from or what it means.

Time out to pick up the boys at swimming. Arrrgh. Got half way there and they had another ride. Okay. Back home for the rest of the day because it's too hot to go anywhere. I'm ready for rain or some cooling down. This is crazy!

Must be time to read my book.

This and That

Goodness it's been almost a month since I've been here. I don't know what I've been doing but I sure have been busy doing something. I had my first Kings Daughter's Circle meeting and that took some getting ready for. For once everything was put away and the house was neat and clean. I bet my lost library book is somewhere in that "put away" place where it may never turn up again.

I'm getting ready for my trip to Santa Fe for Left Coast Crime which is just a week away. The best part will be sunshine every day; I can hardly wait. For early March it hasn't been so bad that I can't get out in the yard to clean up the flower beds but I miss the sun on gloomy days like today. Every day I have a tour: Taos, Bandolier Monument, Literary Walking tour and Chimayo wine tasting and lunch. There are some panels I want to see also but I don't know if any will fit in with my tours. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends again whom I haven't seen since my last con in October.

Then there's daylight savings time which is another story entirely. It seems too early in the month to be changing. It just started being light in the morning and now it's dark again.

Noteworthy this month was the World War I reenactment that Ty and I went to last Sunday. There were tents set up and a trench. One of the soldiers explained about the equipment that each soldier had. The gas masks didn't look very efficient but I guess they were better than nothing, maybe. The battle was especially fun with smoke from the guns and gas. The museum was surprisingly well done and very interesting.

Laura and the girls are going to Disney World this week so I won't have any driving duties except for whatever I do with Ty. I know I'm driving the carpool to school tomorrow and Ty to Best Buy Tuesday (after Mah Jong) but that's it so far. There's still kitty sitting duties but that just takes an hour or so each day. Maybe I'll take some time out for shopping.

Book news later, I have to go read The Leopard by Jo Nesbo. It's too big to carry around with me so I have to read it here. Better get busy. No editing done today

Blood From Stone by Frances Fyfield

I always forget how well Frances Fyfield writes the psychological thriller, my label for the book, until I read her next one and I'm surprised all over again. Nothing is ever as it appears and every outing is just as fresh and frightening as the one before.

In this book, Marianne Shearer, a successful but disliked defense lawyer, dresses up in a kaleidoscopic silk skirt and throws herself out of a sixth-floor hotel window. So the question becomes not who but why. Marianne leaves a wealth of clues but they are well hidden and spread among several people.

The characters have so much depth that you appreciate even the ones you don't care for like the Lover and Thomas. I found the last person she defended, Rick Boyd, so scary that I was hesitant to pick up the book because I was afraid to find out who he was going to torture or kill, only to find he wasn't the worse person involved. Hen(rietta), her parents, and Peter were at the other end of spectrum: ordinary but strong.

It's just a good read with strong characters and a lot of tension. I gave it a 4.5 out of 5.

Bits and Bobs and A Small Death in the Great Glen

It's been so long since I last wrote that I hardly know where to start.  Guess writing about a book I just read is as good a place as any.

I finished A Small Death in the Great Glen, a first novel by A D Scott, set in the Scottish Highlands. For starters the name of the editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper is McAllister which was my grandmother's maiden name. I belong to the McAllister clan which is huge here in the US. That caught my attention right away. The characters and the setting  are very well done. The book is set in the 1950s, so there's not all the modern methods solving crime. It takes more leg work and digging into files. The plot involves a couple of "accidental" deaths and finally a strangling. The local cop is a bully who hates anyone who is a foreigner which leaves the detecting to the newspaper staff.  The ending is a little weak but for a first effort not bad. I really liked it.

Next up is the mess in my house which seems to be getting worse instead of better. So far the painter has done the Great Room, the kitchen and dining area as well as two closets and the halls. He has the stairwell and the pantry left to do this week. I'm not sure if he'll be back after he recovers from an operation or next week to do the bedrooms and the family room. I suppose I should ask him when he returns tomorrow. If he is coming next week, I'll have to quickly decide on some colors for the bedrooms because I want some variety in those room; however, I like my off-white which, I think, has a green tinge that we just used. Not sure anyone would agree with me on the green.

Most of the mess comes from the books that I pulled from the bookcases that I'm trying to organize into two groups of read and unread (these are just the shelves in one room). It takes a long time to dust, check and sort. Then there are the pictures to be rehung and everything to be washed before it's replaced. Darn, I can spend a lot of time doing this.

Can't let it interfere with my reading, working out, and social life so it may be slow going, and to add to those difficulties it's springlike and I want to be outside cleaning up the flower bed and yard. It may be going to rain tonight but at this point, it is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the snow is melting, and it's warm enough not to need a jacket. Wow! How long can it last?

I got my granddaughter an upgrade on her phone yesterday and now she can't do her email and I have no internet. Guess we're headed back to the A T & T store to get them fixed. It was my upgrade that we used so the guy probably garbled something. Irritating to say the least!

Mutterings about Powerful Books and Endings

When I finished the eleventh adventure of Faraday and Winter, Borrowed Light, by Graham Hurley, I was so distraught that I had to call a friend who had just read the book. It helped calm me down to talk to her (thank you Bobbie) because she felt the same way I did and it was fun to share the book and our feelings. This series and these characters are faves for  both of us.

I would never give away an ending of a book, I hope, so I'll just say that I hadn't seen it coming. I thought the author played fair with me and I wasn't upset with him but the book was so powerful and I was so in tune with these characters that I could not accept the ending. In fact, at that point there was no way I could start to read another book because all I could do was moan and say omg, omg.

Having this experience made me think about authors who have made such an impact on me and so far I've only come up with two others in the past several years. One of those was J K Rowling and one was Louise Penny. I felt the same way when I finished The Brutal Telling as I did with Borrowed Light, and I sobbed my way through Bury Your Dead. I have never for a moment believed that Dumbledore is really dead. I have no answer why these authors impacted me so much except they are powerful writers and their characters are real people to me. If I were the only one who felt this way, I'd feel that I was a little weird writing that but fortunately I"m not the only one.

Needless to say I needed a comfort read after the Hurley discussion and so I chose the latest Ian Rutledge adventure, A Lonely Death, by Charles Todd. I thought this was one of the best in the series and it was a wonderful antidote for my sadness with the Hurley. I wonder if authors like to be considered comfort reads? Next thought to ponder.

Death on the Marais

Death on the Marais by Adrian Magson, 2010, Allison & Busby, 382 pp

"She was going to die. She could feel it, her life ebbing away as surely as fine sand through fingers." This is the beginning of the first book in a new series written by Adrian Magson. 

As part of a 1963 nationwide initiative, Inspector Lucas Rocco finds himself working in the usually quiet village of Poissons-Les-Marais, Picardie, France under his former army CO now Commissaire Francois Massin. Marais means marshland which can be as dangerous as a murderer, a security force, and a local who deals with left over World War II bombs and grenades.


Lucas, an outspoken cop noted for his single-mindedness and tenacity in solving crimes, is aided by Claude Lamotte, the local cop, who knows the people and his way around the area.  

On his first day in the village, Lucas finds a dead woman in a wet Gestapo uniform lying in a British military cemetery. When the as yet unidentified woman is removed from the police mortuary by war hero and industrialist Philippe Berbier, the drowned woman is identified as his daughter. The crimes are set in the present but revert back to a resistance cell and a member of the SOE in W W II. 


I liked both the characters and the setting in this book and I   look forward to solving more crimes with Lucas and Claude, and finding out more about their previous lives. The plot has enough twists and red herrings to satisfy.

Wintry Mix

Who wants to hear wintry mix for the next three days? Not I for sure. The kids got out of school at 2 today because of freezing rain with snow to follow as well as high winds and plummeting temperatures. Wishing I could be somewhere warm but settling for staying inside where I'm dry and warm. I can hibernate with my cat and my books and we'll both be happy.

Finished R N Morris's "A Razor Wrapped in Silk" which was interesting but a lot of philosophical discussion. The third book in the series set in St Petersburg, 1870, finds Porfiry Petrovich and Verginsky with two very different crimes  to solve, one is the murder of a society beauty and the other is the disappearance of a child factory worker. On the brink of revolution, there are many factions at work here with some of them doing everything they can to slow down the investigation.  I'm wondering what will happen to these two fine, honest magistrates when the revolution comes.

From Hot to Cold in One Short Trip

I wasn't ready to leave the wonderfully warm and beautifully blue southern Caribbean but I didn't have a choice; however, it isn't as cold this week as it was while I was gone. I was lucky that I missed the worst weather we have had this winter. Yay! I must admit, reluctantly, that it's good to be home again.

The trip started on a negative note at OHare when my suitcase was overweight and I had to remove a few pounds. Fortunately, it was easy since I had four books in the outside compartments and I could move them to my carry on bag. It still left me with 51.5 lbs but that was okay with American Airlines but it meant I wasn't going to be doing much shopping. Strangely enough it was still overweight on the return trip but they let me have 52.5 lbs so I didn't have to remove anything. I bought a hand scale but it broke before I weighed the suitcase.

It was hot and humid in San Juan after a heavy rain but we were there for sunshine so it was perfect. We walked around Old Town for a while and then sat outside the hotel restaurant with a Margarita and enjoyed the warmth. All we had time to do in San Juan was take a trolley ride around the city but I was able to see the forts even if I couldn't go inside. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't wander around inside them. We went to the cruise ship so early (11:30 a.m.) that we were lucky to find time for the trolley ride.

The ship, Celebrity Millenium, was nice but not as nice as last year's Equinox. The room was good size and the balcony was lovely. I spent a lot of time sitting out there reading during the day and late at night. I just hated being inside when I didn't have to. Much of our time seem to revolve around dining and I sure did my share. The meals were good: lots of seafood. I went to some talks on the islands and their history and some scrap book classes. The scrap booking was fun but who knows if I'll follow through and add pictures to what I started.

We went to Tortola, St Martins, St Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, Aruba and Curacao. My favorite tours were the butterfly farm and the natural rock bridge in Aruba and the Hato Caves in Curacao (discovered it was pronounced Curacel, how embarrassing). All of the islands were beautiful so I enjoyed them all, some more than others.

I read Sophie Hannah's The Dead Lie Down, the one I liked best in the series; Grave Goods by Ariana Franklin; Saturday's Child by Ray Banks and The First Wave by James Benn (either could have been the B book for Kerrie's Alphabet Meme but the internet was too slow to do a review), Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter; and I started Laura Hildenbrand's Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival. They were all good but I liked the last two the best.

And that is end of the saga of a wonderful trip filled with enough good memories to sustain me until spring. The days are getting longer so it won't be long until------it's SPRING!!!

I'm Off to Warmer Weather

Finally I begin my journey to leave the cold and snow behind. Begin being the key word since I still have to spend the night in a Chicago airport hotel before I fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico tomorrow. After sightseeing in P R and spending the night there, Friday a.m. I board the Celebrity Millenium for 11 days of cruising the Southern Caribbean.

I love being waited on and pampered while I'm on board but I also like the opportunity to go ashore each day to visit another island. I'm a grand tourist because there's very little I'm not interested in seeing. And if I'm not, I always have the proverbial book in hand.

Usually when I travel I have to do all of the work myself, constantly checking that I'm in the right place doing what I'm supposed to be doing but not this trip. This is a Bank trip and yeah there are a lot of other people going but once we arrive we'll all be on our own to do what ever we want.

I'm meeting my roommate, my cousin Judy who is flying from Florida, at the hotel in San Juan where we have time to check out the Old Town. I've heard the "not to miss" food item in San Juan is black bean soup in Old Town so we'll check it out. We travel well together because we pretty much like to do the same things. I have my travel Mah Jongg set so we can play a few games in our spare time. We have three players and maybe we can pick up another along the way.

I'm reading The Dead Lie Down by Sophie Hannah, the third in the series. There are some weird people in these books but I guess I should expect that since they are billed as psychological thrillers. The protagonists have so much baggage that they drive me bonkers but the author keeps me guessing about where the plot is going so maybe that's why I keep reading them.Since I'm only half way through the book, it's traveling with me.

Time to go.

A Lily of the Field-Letter A-Review

       Today I finished A Lily of the Field, the 7th book in the Inspector Troy of Scotland Yard series but the fourth in chronological order. This is primarily the story of Meret Voytek, a cello prodigy and Auschwitz survivor; Viktor Rosen, a Jewish concert pianist and Meret's cello teacher; and Karel Szabo, a Hungarian physicist, who works on the Manhattan Project, building the atom bomb at Los Alamos. The story moves from Vienna and Auschwitz to New Mexico and post-war London.

For me, this was his best book since Black Out, the first Inspector Troy I read. The book moved at a quick pace from 1934 into 1948 delving into people's lives, politics and the arts. When Andre Skolnik is shot in the back in a London tube station, Inspector Troy becomes involved and all of the characters come together as he solves the case. 

I particularly like reading about life during WWII and the years after the war and I thought Lawton brought a fresh look to these times. The descriptions of the scarcity of commodities and how the Londoners were reacting to conditions in post-war London were particularly interesting to me. Everything was still rationed but the black market was thriving and the restaurants bustling for people who could afford them. I enjoyed comparing the differences between police work in the 21st century with how Troy dealt with solving crime and working with his narcs, with MI5 and with dead bodies. Lawton gave a good look at life during these years.

Resolutions and Books

Already one of my New Year's resolutions is proving a problem because somehow I have managed to hurt my foot so that I can't walk without great pain unless I am barefoot. Makes it rather hard to walk on the treadmill or to go work out. I'm hoping if I baby it, it will be recovered by next week when I leave for my cruise. I have tours set up for every island we go to so I'll have to do a lot of walking.

Decided I needed to upgrade my Kindle, mine is the original one, but it seems everyone else decided to buy one also so I couldn't get one delivered until almost a week into the cruise. Forget that idea. Since it's so old, I have to worry that the battery might die and I'll only have the few paperback books that I'm taking along for backup. I don't worry about power outages or plane crashes, I worry about running out of books to read. That's a major crisis!

The book I finished yesterday was Peepshow by Leigh Redhead, a little racier than my normal fare but interesting. I learned more about the sex trade than I ever imagined I could know or want to know. "Simone Kirsch always wanted to join the police force. She's smart, fit and wants to do good. But she has a problem. She has worked as a stripper for the last three years and the service won't let her in." After passing an investigator course in Melbourne, Australia, she has to solve a murder to save her friend who has been kidnapped. Somehow Redhead made the clubs and the people involved look less tawdry and depressing than most authors do so the book was rather upbeat. I liked it but may not read another in the series.

New Year

I just read my first two comments on a post and that was fun too. This is a positive experience so far. Yesterday I got my little weather station going and my next project is to stream Netflix through my Wii and watch the movies on TV without getting the DVDs but I think I'll save this project until I return from my cruise.

In 2011 besides participating in several reading challenges, I have promised myself that I will exercise more and lose some of these dreaded pounds I have gradually added over the last few years. My weight has gone beyond the ridiculous so it's reckoning time. It's here in writing so I can remind myself every day. Sunday can be my report day. Last week I walked on the treadmill three days and exercised at Curves one. My eating yesterday was better than it was the rest of the week.

I had to stop reading The Saints of New York, R J Ellory, to start a BR by Linwood Barclay, Bad Guys, which is moving quickly. I did not like Bad Move, the first book in the Zack Walker series, very much because he was so silly but this one is funny and interesting. I hope to get back to the Ellory in a few days. It started out slowly but had picked up and was moving along by the 25th chapter.

Cheers