The death of a famous actor on the set for a movie looks like an accident. The death of the continuity girl looks like suicide. But motivated by the complaints of the cunning Mr. Arbuthnot, the girl’s mother, the series hero, Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett, investigates and becomes convinced that these two deaths are in fact suspicious.

Patricia Moyes wrote 19 mysteries featuring Tibbett and his wife Emmy. Critics and readers often opine that this mystery is not her best. For instance, with the pool of suspects so small, it’s fairly easy to spot the perp.

I think, however, it has its strong points. Moyes had worked as a PA to actor/director Peter Ustinov, so she knows about the production and business of movie making. Her knowledge and experience strengthen the authenticity of the novel. The motive and the method of murder are pure golden age, so implausible and silly that I wonder if Moyes was parodying traditional whodunnits.

The characterization is quite witty. Usually Moyes uses third-person narration, but here she uses first-person. And what a narrator. A child of the land-owning class, he is priggish, smarmy, blustery, pompous, and thick-headed. The series hero is his likeable self, if a little boyish and bland. Also, his helpmeet wife appears only in cameo. The walk-on characters, such as Mrs. Arbuthnot, are hoots, like eccentrics in Henry Cecil’s novels.

From 1964, this was the #4 of 17 Tibbett novels. Readers who like late career Agatha Christie would enjoy this one.

About twenty years ago, when I was working in a public library back in Michigan, a mother and daughter came in and began looking for books to check out.  The daughter was probably in second grade, and she chose some “easy readers” that she could read herself.  But she was also gazing at some of the other, harder to read books.  Peter Pan caught her eye, and she pulled it off the shelf and took it to her mother.  Her mother’s response was, “Oh no!  You know how to read now, so you get books that you can read yourself.”  The daughter was disappointed and I was secretly horrified.

Reading aloud to your children, even after they themselves know how to read, is a wonderful way for the two of you (or three or four of you!) to bond!  Reading aloud is also a great way of introducing more difficult books to younger readers.  Unfamiliar words and situations can be explained on the spot.  And what better way to open a discussion about whatever it is that might be a factor in your child’s life?  Are they afraid of the dark?  Is it harder being a big brother or big sister than expected?  Is sibling rivalry a problem?  How about peer pressure?  Is your twelve-year-old acting more like she’s going on 25?  Believe me, every parent has been there, and one good way of keeping those important lines of communication open is by reading…aloud…together.

So, I’ve decided to recommend a few great children’s books that would be fun for the whole family to listen to.    William Durbin has written a wonderful historical novel called “Blackwater Ben.”  It’s the story of Benjamin Wade, who drops out of the 7th grade to help his father in a logging camp in Blackwater, Minnesota in the year 1898.   Ben’s father is the cook for the lumberjacks in the camp, and Ben is his kitchen assistant.  But, it doesn’t start out as exciting as Ben expected:  “Though working in the woods had been Ben’s dream, he soon discovered that cooking, dish washing, carrying water and wood, and doing laundry occupied him from before dawn until after dark.  In the slack moments, Pa had him mop the floors, fill and clean the kerosene lamps, and organize the supplies in the storeroom.  At times Ben got so tired of his chores that he almost wished he’d stayed in school.”

Ben wants to be away from his cranky father and out in the forest with the jacks, cutting down huge trees, sawing them into logs, driving the teams of horses through the snowy landscape.  But as time goes by, Ben gets new responsibilities, and even has a few adventures along the way!  When an orphan boy nicknamed Nevers shows up and is hired to help Ben and Pa in the kitchen, Ben finds that he has a companion his own age…and a rival!

We learn about life in a logging camp at the turn of the last century through Ben’s eyes:  how hard the work was, how dangerous, how the men coped with the work, the cold, and life in the forest.  Throughout the story, we also learn about Ben’s childhood before the camp and his beautiful mother, who died when he was only two and who remains a mystery to Ben, since his Pa won’t talk about her.   The author also includes a glossary in the front of the book, so the logging terms are easier to understand.  I mean, you don’t want to ask for swamp water when you really want blackjack!

I would say this would be a great story to read aloud to children 8 and up.  I thoroughly enjoyed Blackwater Ben.  Now, go find a child and read!!

This is the sixth of the 24 Wall Street mysteries starring amateur sleuth John Putnam Thatcher. An investment banker at the Sloan Guarantee Trust, he finds himself embroiled in shenanigans in high finance and murder.

The plot involves an early trading treaty between the US and USSR, set in 1967. On the basis of the treaty that sent surplus US grain to the inefficient USSR, an elaborate theft cheats the Sloan bank out of nearly a million dollars. Lathen takes Thatcher through a typical series of absurd situations. The Cuban Navy buzzes ships in New York harbor. Ukrainian nationalists protest. The Leningrad Symphony practices in the CCNY basketball arena. A stage-Russian impresario imports a troupe of Russian otters that eat only smelt marinated in vodka. After a Russian trade delegation tours a US potato chip factory, where they are served various dishes involving chips, one member concludes nobody could defect after having potato chip soup.

Emma Lathen was the pen-name of Mary Jane Latsis, an economist, and Martha Henissart, an economic analyst. They bring much knowledge of business transactions and office life to their novels, which give them authenticity. The theme of “Money makes the world go ‘round” is very strong. They also have a keen sense of the absurd. Thatcher is a committed capitalist although he knows that human fallibility is real enough that lying, cheating, and stealing must be constantly guarded against. Latsis and Henissart, probably both Republicans, were conservative enough not to kid themselves about the ability of Wall Street to “self-regulate.”

I have a confession to make:  I don’t think I ever read a book by Judy Blume when I was an adolescent.  I am an anomaly in my generation, a generation that learned some of the facts of life by reading Judy Blume growing up.  Yet somehow I missed out.  So when I saw In the Unlikely Event advertised on a “must reads for the summer” list online, I was more attracted by the cover image than who the author was.

Although the story revolves around many characters, the main character is a teenager named Miri Ammerman and starts in 1951.  Technically the story starts (very briefly) and ends in 1987 but majority of the book takes place in 1951 and 1952.  Miri lives in Elizabeth, NJ in a two family house with her mother, Rusty, upstairs and her beloved Uncle Henry and grandmother, Irene, living downstairs.  Miri lives a relatively normal life.  She baby-sits, has two best friends, and knows that she is loved by her family.  The only abnormality in her life is that she doesn’t know who her father is since her mother was never married and she refuses to talk about how Miri came to be.  Miri only knows bits and pieces of her origin based on overheard conversations over the years.  Yet this mystery isn’t what unravels Miri’s life.  Miri’s life changes forever after a series of plane crashes over the course of 58 days happen in Elizabeth.

Blume tells this story by separating each chapter across several different characters.  Chapter 1 alone starts describing the experiences of ten different characters across eight separations (I’d say point of view, but I associate that with first person narration rather than third person, and this story is told in the third person).  Having to keep all of these characters straight can be a challenge, sometimes I felt like I needed a cheat-sheet to reference.  Some of the characters have their stories told throughout the book like Miri and others close to her, and some characters only appear once or twice.  But Blume masterfully weaves together each of the characters’ stories and shows how their lives manage to overlap in some way due to these plane crashes.  I found this book difficult to put down, and read it over the course of about 24 hours, even though it is nearly 400 pages long.  In part, I think I also read the book quickly so I wouldn’t forget which character was which from chapter to chapter.

Although Miri and the other characters are fictional, the three commercial plane crashes in Elizabeth, NJ in the early 1950s really happened.  I live in New Jersey and grew up less than an hour from Elizabeth, yet I had never heard about these events.  Granted, these were before my time, but I would have thought that I would have at least heard of something as tragic as three commercial passenger planes crashing in a town not far from where I live.  In an odd turn of events, I was going to take this book on vacation with me earlier this summer, but decided against it due to the cover and title (I figured it wasn’t the best thing to bring on a plane).  I started reading it when I came home, and the first plane that crashed was coming from Buffalo to Newark, the same trip I had just taken to get home from my trip (technically the flight in the book had two stops between Buffalo and Newark, but still, it was weird to read that and really made me glad I didn’t bring it on my trip).

I’m not sure how to classify the genre of this book.  Do the 1950s count as historical fiction or is that too contemporary (stories set in WWII are classified as historical fiction and this book takes place only a few years after WWII)?  I guess I could best classify this as a coming of age or self-discovery story since Miri and many of the other characters, including the adult characters, experience something so big that the paths their lives were on ended up getting altered forever.

Maigret goes after the culprit, but he must examine deeper human truths along the way, as part psychologist and part anthropologist. He contrasts his own culture (French, urban, Catholic) with that of the Protestant bourgeoisie in a small Dutch town. He realizes the behavior of the characters is profoundly influenced by a strict and austere environment against which some – like Conrad and Beetje – must rebel. Plus, he must contend with an unspoken attitude that doubts the social utility of denouncing and punishing the guilty if the guilty one belongs to the upper classes. Such a bad example for the lower classes, after all. As for comic relief, Maigret, the bull in the china shop, must deal with the delicate sensibilities of the Dutch police and Professor Duclos, who wants Maigret to do as the Dutch do when in Holland.

Fans count this one, the eighth Maigret novel, as one of the better early novels, written in the Depression era. Simenon’s powers lie in his economical style, his simple vocabulary, his way of setting scenes to evoke atmosphere, his probing of the psychology of his characters, and his awareness of and icy compassion for fallibility.

Have you ever had this experience?  Someone tells you about a book or a movie, and they praise it so highly, and tell you it’s the best thing they’ve ever seen or read…that they inspire you to read or watch it too…. and it turns out to be a huge disappointment?   And it’s not so much that it’s a bad movie or book…it’s just that the person built up your expectations to such an incredible height that a letdown was probably inevitable.

I’m always mindful of this whenever I recommend books to people.  I try not to make the book sound like the best thing ever written.  I try to point out what I enjoyed about the book, and what I didn’t enjoy (if anything) and why I would encourage someone to read it.  I don’t want to build up anyone’s expectations too high.

I’m relaying all this to you because I loved the book I’m recommending this week so much, I feel as though I should have a disclaimer!  I’m afraid I’m going to rave, and gush over this author’s abilities and end up disappointing some readers who may not agree with me.  But I can’t help it.  This novel is amazing.

The title is “Peace Like a River,” and the author’s name is Leif Enger.  It’s his first novel and an absolute gem.  Enger writes beautifully…his prose is clear, understated, flowing.  His characters are fully developed and endearing.

“Peace Like a River” takes place in Minnesota in the early 1960’s.  The narrator is Reuben Land, an 11-year-old boy with severe asthma.  Rube lives with his father, Jeremiah, a deeply spiritual man who truly seems to communicate with God; his older brother Davy, 16 and ready to be a man on his own, and his younger sister Swede, a budding writer at 9 years of age, who has a fondness for epic poems about the romantic Old West, and has read every Zane Grey novel in existence.

Mr. Land is the school custodian, and he has a run-in with two of the local “bad boys.”  He feels the incident has been settled, but it escalates.  The boys snatch Swede and then return her a few hours later, scared but unharmed.  Davy isn’t content to leave justice in God’s hands, and when the two boys follow his lure and break into the Land’s home late one night, baseball bats in hand, Davy is ready.  He guns down both boys and turns himself in to the sheriff.

On the morning of his sentencing, Davy breaks out of jail and disappears, a fugitive on the run.  And when Rube’s father inherits a motor home shortly after, it seems as though the family is being urged to try and find Davy.  And so begins their journey: all three of them eager to find Davy, but no one really talking about what they will do if and when they do find him.  Rube, Swede and their father, Jeremiah, are all counting on a miracle, for miracles are something they are familiar with:  As Rube says:

“Let me say something about that word: Miracle.  For too long it’s been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal.  Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week–a miracle, people say…I’m sorry, but nope.  Such things are worth our notice every day of the week, but to call them miracles evaporates the strength of the word.  Real miracles bother people…They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in.  Lazarus obeying orders and climbing up out of the grave–now there’s a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time.  My sister, Swede, said something that rang in me like a bell:  No miracle happens without a witness.  The fact is, the miracles that sometimes flowed from my father’s fingertips had few witnesses but me. Is there a single person on whom I can press belief?  No sir.  All I can do is say, Here’s how it went.  Here’s what I saw.  Make of it what you will.”      Reuben Land bears witness for us all in Leif Enger’s beautiful novel, Peace like a river.