In his Preface Utley writes Unlike the High Noon in which Gary Cooper is the lone hero, the Lincoln County High Noon boasts not a single hero. Readers who must have a sympathetic character to identify with may put this book down now. But I, who usually do put down a book when I don’t…
Read more Readers who must have a sympathetic character to identify with may put this book down now.
London bookseller turned Lancashire farmer Giles Hoggett takes advantage of a rainy day to turn his back on his wife Katherine’s honey-do list and walk across his fields to check on a fishing cottage sitting on the River Lune. To his surprise he finds a number of unlikely items missing, such as his old raincoat,…
Writer Richard Grant moves back to Tucson with his wife Mariah and their four-year-old daughter Isobel. Finding it much changed he embarks on a journey to explore the entire state of Arizona, its history, and its peoples. The main issue Arizona faces is the same one faced by the state and the whole Southwest, specifically…
Read more One can only hope that the land will always have the last word.
Eighty-seven year old Florrie Butterfield loses her leg below the knee and perforce moves from her beloved cottage in the Malvern Hills into Babbington Hall, a country estate turned adult residence. It is a more benign change than it might have been. She is in assisted living, this means therefore, that Florrie is allowed to…
Read more In her youth, support had meant family money or a good brassiere.
Until that day, Grant had never killed anyone. Mickey Spillane says the first line sells the rest of the book. Finder hit it out of the park with that one. Grant Anderson, né Philip Brightman, has been on the run from the FBI and the CIA but mostly from his in-laws for five years. The…
Garvey calls this book “slightly obsessive” and no question he is the nerdiest of Strunk and White nerds. Lots of lovely little tidbits here, including the fact that White earned a D in English in his second semester at Cornell (I imagine in the same way Einstein failed high school math, they were both probably…
Full disclosure: I distrust most novels that feature real world famous people. The writers are too often excessively deferential toward their main character, resulting in more of a hagiography than a novel about a real live human being, warts and all. But I’m happy to report that this is not that book. It’s 1928 and…
A wholly original plot involving a US president who really should break his habit of doodling, a low level government employee who sees something she shouldn’t, an intelligence director who has way too much power and way too many yes men and women working for him, a good cop even if she is only a year…
Read more DeMarco’s job is taking out the ex-Speaker’s dirty laundry
It’s China in the 1800s. Little Flower is a farmer’s daughter whose father has just died who is sold by her mother as a slave to serve Linjing, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy family. Little Flower and Linjing are not destined to be friends. Little Flower is a genius at embroidery and much praised…
A story that reminds me of any book about cops written by Joseph Wambaugh, only true and set in the present day. Eric Tansey was in the military until he met The One, who told him she couldn’t marry a Green Beret, so he quit and followed her home. Every time she appears in this…
