City of Shadows

I picked up this book by Ariana Franklin, because I had been so taken with her medieval mysteries (see Mistress of the Art of Death and The Serpent's Tale) and was surprised to find this set in 1920's and early 30's Berlin. The "White Russians" have fled the Bolshevik revolution, the Communists and the National Socialists are in a no-holds-barred fight for the hearts and minds of the German populace that is being slammed by exponential inflation as the Weimar Republic staggers to its knees, and Jews are--as always--being blamed for everything. The criminals and thugs are prospering either through illegal activity or through gang violence, and yet people still long to believe in fairy tales, like the one about one of the Romanov children having escaped the slaughter of the czar's family. So when Esther Solomonova's boss, "Prince Nick," a corrupt nightclub owner, decides to rescue a woman from an asylum and pass her off as Anastasia, Esther is roped into the helping the young woman. Her objections to the fraud become secondary, however, when people around the fake czarina begin to die. Once again, we see how fear and complacency allow evil to blossom as Germany heads for the horrors of WWII and the purge of anyone non-Aryan, and non-conforming. Still, in spite of the grim historic situation, there is a bit of romance and a fairy tale ending to this one, so dive in and enjoy Franklin's rich attention to historic detail and character development. You'll need to suspend your disbelief a bit, but then we all do that every day, don't we?

Death of a Kingfisher

One of the more recent installments in the Hamish Macbeth series from M.C. Beaton (2012 publication) finds Hamish still up to his usual tricks of solving the crimes while trying to stay under the radar--his goal being to avoid promotion, which might result in having to leave his cozy little town of Lochdubh. The murders seem to be a bit more bizarre (an elevator chair shot through the ceiling of an old hunting lodge) and grisly (someone's head cut off with a chain saw) than usual, but there are the more typical dirty tricks by Hamish's nemesis Blair, like hiding key pieces of evidence, and all the colorful characters we have come to know like the Currie sisters, Elspeth, and Angus Macdonald. The trouble seems to start when the town of Braikie hires an ambitious tourist director to promote a scenic plot of land called Buchan's Wood, which she promptly renames "Fairy Glen", and the tourists begin to flood in. But somebody apparently doesn't like this turn of events and hangs the iconic kingfisher bird whose image had adorned the promotional brochure, and then sabotages a bridge in the glen, causing several tourists to be injured. Hamish is torn between his attraction to the attractive tourist director, Mary, and his suspicion that she might be involved. And then there are the two strange grandchildren of the first murder victim, Charles and Olivia Palfour, who admit they wanted the old woman dead, but don't seem to have had the skills to pull off the murder. I think these books are better listened to than read because the usual reader, Graeme Malcolm, does a wonderful job with the pronunciation of local names and dialect, conveying the flavor of the place with even greater flair. These really are the perfect audiobooks for a car trip--entertaining but not so engrossing that you can't pay attention to where you're going--and we have listened to a lot of them over the years (e.g. Death of a Maid).

Wasp Factory

This first novel by Ian Banks got so many rave reviews that I put myself on the wait list at the library to get it, instead of just putting it on a list of books I would read later. BUT after 60+ pages, I am not going to finish it, even though it has been touted as "one of the top 100 novels of the century" by The Independent (result of a British poll) and "Brilliant...irresistible...compelling" by the New York Times. It is clear early on that this is a first person narrative by a pretty disturbed person and once he/she described using a home-made flame thrower to set a bunch of wild rabbits on fire, I was pretty much done. Although my curiosity was piqued about why someone turned out this way, it just wasn't worth it to me to spend the time in this twisted world. I also don't like to read/watch things like "Dexter" which is hugely popular, or "The Wire" but that's just me. The world is full of misery. Guess I have enough demons of my own that I don't need to seek out and become acquainted with anyone else's. Mr. Banks has written numerous other books, about half in the science fiction genre, perhaps they are not all so macabre. Moreover, I am a subscriber to  Nancy Pearl's "Rule of 50" which frees me of having to finish books I don't like after 50 pages (minus one page for each year my age exceeds 50). Too many books, too little time.

Shadow of Night

This sequel to A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness was equally compelling if somewhat slower moving at times. Again, I could hardly bear to put the book down at night and was constantly trying to steal a few minutes whenever I could to read a few pages while waiting for appointments or in between tasks at home. This richness of detail obviously delights this history professor author and she describes the food, the clothing, the architecture, the bad dental hygiene and more of 16th century Europe so vividly that you can almost imagine yourself there. Diana has timewalked herself and Matthew back to 1590's England in search of the elusive manuscript, Ashmole 782, that they think might hold the secrets of the origins of current day creatures--vampires, witches, and daemons. They are also hoping to find witches who can school Diana in her newly unbound powers which contemporary witches seem to find threatening; Diana soon finds out why. She is one of a very rare breed of "weavers," witches who can create spells by weaving them from the threads of the world, not just being limited to following the spells already created. For centuries weavers have been revered, but also feared, and were eventually hounded nearly out of existence. Her father was one. In this book, both Diana and Matthew have the opportunity to reunite with their now dead fathers. Danger comes not just other creatures but from treacherous friends, relatives and political powers as Diana tries to shift from being a historian to being a participant in history. I can hardly wait for the 3rd installment in this trilogy.

A Discovery of Witches

I have my friend Betsy Friedman to thank for beating me about the head -- uh I mean persuading me to read this book. It's the first book I've read in a long time where I had to force myself to put it down at night and turn out the lights to go to sleep. Rich, interesting settings and characters, including a house that communicates its wishes with groans and slamming doors, hides secrets until they need to be revealed, and spontaneously adds rooms when it's expecting guests. Obviously it is about witches, but also about vampires and daemons and how they have and have not gotten along--for centuries.  Author Deborah Harkness is a history professor at USC and has created two characters also steeped in history. The main witch character, Diana Bishop, is a historian of science, specifically interested in those who pursued alchemy. She has fought her witchy heritage all her life, believing both that it played a significant role in the brutal murder of her parents when she was aged seven, and that she needed to prove to herself that she could achieve academic credibility without using magic. And she largely succeeded at not using magic, until one day she calls up an old alchemical manuscript  from the stacks in Oxford's Bodleian Library and unwittingly unleashes pent-up floods of political maneuvering among the three groups of non-human creatures. An unlikely protector appears in the form of Matthew Clairmont--physician, professor, and ancient vampire, who has lived hundreds of years of history.  Their relationship may be the catalyst for an all-out creature war, or even an evolutionary tipping point. It becomes apparent to one and all that history and magical forces have been leading to this union for a very long time and yet there are those who will stop at nothing to make sure they do not survive together. I can hardly wait to read the sequel, Shadow of Night.