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Mystery Monday Review – The Case of the Negligent Nymph

Monday, July 10th, 2023

The Case of the Negligent Nymph by Erle Stanley Gardner

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

 

This 1959 mystery starts with the usual working girl – pretty, naturally; full of moxie, certainly – needing super-lawyer Perry Mason when she finds herself in a jam. Perry is in a canoe scoping out a millionaire’s island on behalf of a client in a real estate case. The naked nymph, pursued by a savage dobie, swims up to the canoe so Perry saves her and takes her to her own battered yacht.

The next day Perry finds out that the game and canny beauty he rescued is wanted by the cops on suspicion of stealing $50K worth of gems from the millionaire’s island mansion. She is apprehended and bound over for trial for grand theft. In an exciting courtroom scene, Perry fires off legal fireworks during a cross-examination and gets her bail whittled down to a manageable $2,500.

Things start looking up for the accused, but, self-reliant to a fault, she makes errors in judgment, the worst of which are not following Perry’s legal advice and then lying to him. Perry ends up defending her on the inevitable murder charge.

He finds his back up against the proverbial wall yet again since he faces as many legal woes as his client does if he doesn’t find out the truth. Perry kicks himself for letting impulse rule him and helping the fibbing brat in the first place, but he defends her with all he’s got. Perry acknowledges his own fallibility and is thus compassionate about the short-comings of others.

Usual. Of course. Inevitable. Why return again and again to the Perry Mason stories that invariably feature damsels in distress, the powerful exploiting the vulnerable, and the cunning and resourceful hero who combines wise tactics and swift action to exonerate the innocent? Because these irresistible elements, the essentials of heroic myth and folktales, possess magical appeal to our sense of fairness and courage that is hard-wired in us because we are human beings wired with the same nature.

Sure, everybody wants an honest, loyal and efficient lawyer that will fight when the going gets rough. But even more, everybody wants a supporter, an advocate who knows their weaknesses and understands messed-up choices but pleads their case eloquently and shrewdly anyway.

 

 

 

Non-Fiction Review – I’m Just a Person

Friday, July 7th, 2023

 

I’m Just a Person by Tig Notaro

Review by Melissa B. (dragoneyes)


I honestly didn’t know who Tig Notaro was, yet, somehow, everywhere I looked, this book kept popping up. I finally decided to see what it was about. The synopsis showed a person who went through a horrific period and used comedy to help get them through it. As I was going through a string of bad luck, I decided that this might be just what I needed.

The book starts out with giving us a glimpse into Tig’s childhood. Raised by a mother who loved to party and a stepfather with a military background that was strict, Tig recalled the joys of childhood. I loved that she could call out her parents issues but still show their love for her and have that same love for them. Then the book goes from school to her setting out on her own. She finds a job in the music industry that pays little but one that she really enjoys. Later on, she finds herself up on stage as a comedian and it is all up hill until it isn’t.

In a span of months, Tig’s life starts to fall apart. First she get pneumonia then from there she gets C-diff. With that sickness, she loses an extreme amount of weight and almost doesn’t make it. Once she is out of the hospital, she is still very sick and in pain when she finds out her mother is dying. Reeling from the loss of her mom, she then goes through a break-up with her girlfriend and soon after is diagnosed with breast cancer. She goes through a period of feeling sorry for herself (who wouldn’t??).

Then decides that if she is going to die, she is going to do what she loves and get up on stage to laugh and make others laugh. She goes to her next comedy set and starts of with, “Hello. How are you? I have cancer.” That is the moment she becomes a star.

From there she talks about healing, not only physically but mentally. She goes on to talk about relationships and how they are so important, even more so now. It was a soul crushing journey but so uplifting in the end. Felt very grateful that she shared her story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thriller Review – A Flicker in the Dark

Thursday, July 6th, 2023

 

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

Review by Pat D. (pat0814)

Chloe Davis, a psychologist, is the daughter of a serial killer, a man who killed six teen-aged girls and kept a piece of their jewelry as a memento before being apprehended and convicted. Chloe at 12 was the person who found, recognized and turned the information into the police. As the 20-year anniversary of his conviction approaches, two more teenage girls go missing.

Chloe is now engaged to Daniel Briggs, a man who seems to good to be true. Her brother, Cooper, expresses his reservations about Daniel to her as the reports of the current missing girls emerge. There are many rabbit holes to enter as the mystery of the disappearances continues – lots of surprising twists and turns.

 

 

Mystery Monday Review – Brewing Up a Storm

Monday, July 3rd, 2023

Brewing Up a Storm by Emma Lathen

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

 

This 1996 mystery is the second to the last of 23 novels starring Wall Street banker John Putnam Thatcher. In a tribute to common sense, the amateur sleuth thinks through the facts to identify who murdered an activist. Readers who enjoy clues presented in the classic “fair play” whodunnit will like this one.

After her divorce and with nothing to do, empty nester Madelaine Underwood founded NOBBY, No Beer Buying Youngsters. Its mission is to combat alcohol use by teenagers. It’s campaigning against Quax, a nonalcoholic beer sold on the Coke and Pepsi shelves. NOBBY claims drinking Quax will lead kids to drinking Kix, the real beer made by the same brewer.

Mrs. Underwood is a narcissist who feels entitled to center stage and has never worked in the ranks of an organization in her life. Messes she creates are for the little people to clean up. Lathen spends about a third of the book leading up to the crime, which may put out mystery fans like me who prefer the corpus delicti in chapter one. But I found the context entertaining and instructive. For instance, Lathen is plausible contrasting the true believers who volunteer in the advocacy group and the clear-eyed professionals that make it run smoothly.

Lathen was the pen name of a female writing team of an attorney and an economist. She had a bead on how people think and act, not just titans of Wall Street but also middle managers, technocrats, clerical staff and volunteers in grassroots organizations who are sincerely concerned about things like gateway beverages affecting themselves or their kids. The overall tone is taken from her series hero banker sleuth John Putnam Thatcher – that is, curious, discerning, bemused, and tolerant.

Written in the late 1990s, are these books dated? Sure, she knew the business world of her era and with three recessions since the early 2000s our landscape now is very different. But we can still enjoy the white-collar detective Thatcher and Lathen’s insights into organizational behavior, managerial style, and the psychology of anxiety, ambition, and conceit. Intelligent, literate, fun, highly recommended.

 

 

 

 

Literary Fiction Review – A Fine Balance

Saturday, July 1st, 2023

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Review by Pat D. (pat0814)

Do not miss reading this book.  I was completely immersed in the plot and characters of this book from the beginning.  I rarely think that a book merits a five-star rating, but this is a true treasure.  I learned a lot about India and its politics as an adjunct to the lives of the characters.  There was no sermonizing, moralizing or self-pity; however, our limited understanding of the conditions under which they lived made their actions and reactions very real.  I found the writing to be tight and exactly right for the tone of the book – no spare sentiments that weren’t necessary to achieve the required insights.  The ending is superlative – it is the way the book had to end in order to complete our knowledge of the lives that were lived.  The utter despair is beyond comprehension for those of us who live with a sense of security.  It will be difficult to find a worthy successor now that I have finished this remarkable book.

5 Stars

 

 

Fantasy Friday Review – The Windsingers

Friday, June 30th, 2023

The Windsingers by Megan Lindholm

Review by Cyndi J. (cyndij)

 

This is Megan Lindholm’s (aka Robin Hobb) second novel in the “Ki and Vandien Quartet”. The first in the series is Harpy’s Flight. You can read my review of that here. I’ve also seen this listed as the Windsingers series. You don’t need to have read the first one to catch the plot, although Ki’s motivation depends on something that happened in the first book. However, Lindholm provides enough backstory to tell the reader what happened.

As we begin, Ki and Vandien’s relationship seems to have skipped ahead since we left them in the last book.  Ki comes into an unfamiliar town with her horses and wagon and no money.  She’s looking for Vandien at their pre-arranged meeting place and finds him in an inn that is better suited for one of the other species on this world, but they’re fine with that. Vandien tells Ki about a deal he’s just made: There’s a seaside town where every year, at the lowest of low tides,  they contract with a teamster to search for and then haul out a treasure from a sunken Windsinger tower. The benefits are legendary, but there’s a catch – one of the Windsingers is going to be there, whipping up the weather against the teamster.  What Vandien doesn’t tell her is that he’s also been promised something very personal.

Ki listens to this with incredulity. How could he promise her team of horses without even asking her? This job has been around for years, it’s almost a joke amongst the teamsters because a) there probably isn’t any treasure and b) there’s no payment if you don’t succeed. All you get is food and lodging for your effort. How can Vandien never have heard of this? But he’s determined to go, she’s determined not to, and so they split up again. Ki says she’s off to get a real job and if she gets some cash, she might go there. But now Vandien has to find some kind of team, which is the funniest part of this book.

What neither of them realize is that they are being manipulated by the same evil wizard for his own ends.  Ki is tricked into assisting the wizard, and stubborn Vandien needs to find a way to the treasure.  What the treasure is, and who gets it in the end, Is surprising.

I liked seeing more of the various species in Lindholm’s world. You wonder where they all came from, and how they interact with each other. There’s a lot more magic being used this time around.  I didn’t care much for Ki’s story apart from Vandien, the quest was okay, but the Windsinger’s habitat was too surreal for my taste. I did like that Ki has to think more about what Vandien wants. I liked the characters in the town, but the wizard and the Windsingers not so much.

It’s a better novel than the first, and is also a complete story in itself so you’re not left with a cliffhanger.  But like the first, it is unsurprisingly no longer in print.

 

 

 

 

Literary Fiction Review – Shuggie Bain

Wednesday, June 28th, 2023

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Review by Pat D. (pat0814)

 

Shuggie Bain is abandoned at an early age by his father physically and his mother emotionally.  His father leaves the family due to his wife’s alcoholism, and Shuggie is mostly forgotten during his mother’s frequent alcoholic hazes.  He has an older half brother and half sister, who are a temporary constant until they, too, cannot bear their mother’s lack of interest in their well being and leave Shuggie alone with his mother.  The novel is set in Scotland in a community of abject poverty where miners’ families live after the mine has closed.  There is a pervasive desperation among those who remain, and alcohol is a constant companion, as is physical violence.

Shuggie fails to fit into the rough-and-tumble group of children.  He is visibly effeminate, and an easy target for the bullies at school and in the neighborhood.  A glimpse into Shuggie’s life is heartbreaking.

5 stars