The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Delightful!  One precocious eleven-year-old who has an active imagination, above average curiosity and intelligence finds a dying man and sets about solving his murder.  There are many things to enjoy in the book.

I like that the girl is interested in science, not afraid of much and spends lots of time trying to make life miserable for her sisters.  As a child I loved reading the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series and this is of the same genre in my mind. Bright young people often overlooked by adults who can find solutions to things often missed by those same adults make this a great novel for all ages. Flavia de Luce is entertaining, logical, impulsive, determined and honest.

Flavia has a great way of describing those around her. While she thinks her sister Ophelia is an excellent pianist she will never tell her any more than letting Daphne know the books she reads aloud are interesting. Affection between family members is strained at best.  Father is suffering from either extreme sorrow over the loss of Harriet, his wife and mother of Flavia, or from PTSD—possibly a combination of both. Folks in the house seem to go their own ways without paying much attention to the young girl unless she is being a pest.  She takes being a pest to new heights. In many ways this seems to be a bit of a characterization of the aristocracy as Father stays to himself in his rooms while the servants look after the children. 

Her vocabulary is something that most parents would appreciate if a child today knew even half those words.  No texting shorthand in that generation! Her descriptions of everyone from the cook to the librarian to the man servant are vibrant. I could almost smell the custard pie warming on the sill and unlike Flavia, I love custard pie.  Mrs. Mullet’s ?  Flavia brings Miss Mountjoy alive and it did not surprise me to learn that she was the town busybody who informed Dr. Kissing of all the comings and goings of Bishop’s Lacey. I was surprised to hear that Dr. Kissing was still alive.  I was more surprised that he set fire to the Ulster Avenger but is retrospect this was fitting given the way the whole story of the stamp began.

It really was not a surprise that Pemberton and Stanley were one and the same. Flavia deduced early that Twining had not committed suicide but the author did not confirm this until much later.  Once Father told his story to Flavia much began to make sense.  Once a cad and a crook, always one. I doubt anyone would feel sad to see either Boneypenny or Stanley go down. 

I also enjoyed the stamp mystery.  I used to collect stamps as a child and still love the uniqueness of the older stamps.  A little search found that these are real stamps and were the first adhesive stamps created.  The Ulster Avenger seems to be just a matter of fiction created by the author though!

The Escape by David Baldacci

Imagine you are a high level, highly skilled investigator for the US military. Your brother is also in the military, or was. He is currently serving time in Leavenworth for treason. It is a life sentence. Suddenly he escapes from this prison, something that everyone believed to be impossible.  He is on the run and you are asked to hunt him down and bring him back.  Could you? Would you?

This was the task given to John Puller. While the job went against military regulations he was asked to investigate the breakout by other departments within the US government.  Intrigue and mayhem ensue and the reader is left with a well written action packed mystery on hand.  Without giving away the story line for those who have not yet read the book, suffice it to say that in such an investigation it is best to trust no one and investigate the complete story behind everything. 

This book ties into several issues we face as a nation. With the release of classified information by Edward Snowdon and his subsequent asylum in Russia, Baldacci uses the idea that Russians may have infiltrated our own government too.  The probability he employs is believable but I hope not real.

Several clichés came to mind as I read this book. Follow the money would prove a valuable tool in solving the mystery and helping his brother set the story straight.  Keep your enemies close is another one that helps solve many things.  Blood is thicker than water also takes on new meanings as the family sets about resolving the conviction of Robert and his escape.

While this is a political action book, it is also a book about family.  Why do people behave as they do?  Is the cold, distant, military father really that detached from his sons? Can the brothers help one another without destroying all they have worked to achieve in life and their career? Can John learn to trust a woman after believing his mother abandoned him?

All these questions and more are dealt with in the book.  Well worth the read if you enjoy a fast paced, political thriller!

Deep Dark Down by Hector Tobar

 

Mining has always seemed a dangerous job. I grew up in West Virginia where coal is king.  While I did not have family members in the mines I did know people who worked there or had family members who did. A high school classmate lost her father in a mining accident and as recently as the last five years I know of someone who died in a mining accident in West Virginia. This book fascinated me, partly because of the mining connection and partly because I cannot imagine working underground let alone being stuck there for 69 days.

The 33 Chilean miners are like so many who work the mines. They are men, and now women, who go into the mines because of the money. It is dangerous but the pay is better than so many other jobs. It typically comes with health care and even pensions.  These men were individualists, company men, dedicated men, and men who really didn’t care about much.  Reading their stories was like getting to know them and their families.  

At first I could not understand why there were so many with wives and mistresses. Then we find out that Chile only recently (at the time of the accident) permitted divorce. Since many were also Catholic I wondered how all this synced with the teachings of the church. Then I realized that the majority are like many others and not terribly religious.  They became so when they had to rely on one another to survive. This did not surprise me as I remember the line from a WWII movie- “There are no atheists in foxholes”.

What would I do if I ever found myself in a life or death situation as this? I would hope I would be strong like they were.  Strengths and weaknesses abounded in the telling of their story. Like many people to whom a tragedy has occurred, they worried about how their families were faring. They wanted to live a better life when rescued.  Some would and others would not do as well. Posttraumatic stress touched most of them. Individuals took advantage and the media showed both the positive and the negative sides we often see here.  Since the 33 had agreed to keep quiet about the first 17 days, the press turned against them.  I remember seeing the reports about the wife and the girlfriend on the news here. That was life as they lived it but was sensationalized in the press because the fact that two women knew about each other and shared the same man was shocking to many and kept the ratings up.

Alcoholism, drug abuse, anger issues, fear, and the lack of food and potable water would be more than enough to permanently disable the strongest of humans. The fact that these men survived, returned to living above ground and seeming are going to be ok.  It took most of them more time than they expected but I gathered that each one has come to terms with the catastrophe and is surviving. Maybe that is their best testament.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

Excellent!  That is the first word I can think of to describe this book. It is excellent.  Well written, informative and deeply personal, it takes the reader on the same journey the University of Washington crew took from the first time in a boat through the rest of their lives.  Intensely personal, private and public at the same time, the reader believes they know the boys of this remarkable story.  They could have been your grandfather or other relative.  They struggled, were successful, overcame unthinkable odds and persevered.  I found myself practically on the edge of my seat as they raced, especially in the Olympics.  

While the story is primarily of Joe Rantz, it also includes the other men of the team and the coaches.  The Depression touched lives in many different ways but it touched all lives. How each of these men worked to stay in school, to pay for travel related to the competitions and to simply have food in their stomachs is amazing.  I believe the difficulties each encountered gave them the fortitude needed to win races just as it caused them to falter from time to time.

When I think of today’s youth, I know many of them live hard lives. I wonder how many could survive when told they are on their own at age ten and still go on to become an Olympic Gold Medalist?  I am sure some could because the human spirit is uniquely able to overcome great odds to survive. Others can barely get up to make it to the refrigerator. Joe and the other guys took what jobs were available, many requiring hard labor. This made each even better at the task before them. 

This book is a story of the true human and even American spirit.  Tom Brokaw’s, The Greatest Generation, is like this. I believe these nine young men are part of that Great Generation as well.  They represented the nation with honor and lived full lives contributing to society.  They were human with fears and doubts but once they became one team, they remained so. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. 

Defending Jacob by William Landay

This is one of the strangest books we have read and I mean that in a good way.  The idea of a person having to defend his own child on a murder charge is interesting enough but throw in the possibility of a murder gene and things get very interesting.  Three things hit me while reading this book.

1.        How does one ever objectively look at your own child and see them for who they are? 

2.       How can you keep major secrets from a loved one for so many years?

3.       Who was Andrew Barber?

Since I have no children of my own I must rely on other factors to help me understand this first question.  With 33 years of teaching under my belt and more than one student who served or is serving time for criminal activity, even murder, I think I have a bit of insight.  Still, I do not know that I would be more like Laurie and less like Andy in the situation.  Laurie saw behavior and ignored it. Maybe she felt guilty for not knowing what to do. Maybe she felt she really didn’t love her son as she should since he was acting out.  Andy should have recognized sings of potential trouble, if not from the family history he was hiding, then from the people he prosecuted every day.  Questions about whether or not therapy would have helped Jacob deal with anger issues go unanswered as does the question as to whether or not he was actually guilty of anything at all!

I can also understand that we do not tell our loved ones every single detail of our lives prior to meeting them but to keep something so important as a father in prison is beyond me.  Omissions like that always come out.  Was his mother deceased prior to meeting Laurie? Why did Laurie never ask about him?  I would at least want to see photos, know some medical history if I was planning a family, would talk to my mother-in-law about the type of person who provided the DNA for my pending family.  On the other hand, did Laurie have her own secrets she kept from Andy?  Did she tell him about her reactions to Jacob?  What she thought should be done with their child?

Andrew Barber-a man who buried his past so deeply inside himself that he believed his father to be dead.  He willed him out of his life and never seemed to have thought about him until his own child was brought up on murder charges.  He became exactly what his father was not-a law abiding, contributing member of society.  Or did he? His first instinct when he read about the knife was to get rid of it.  Was he protecting Jacob or himself?  He fervently defended his son to the point that I think it was more his denial that this tendency toward violence could be found in his own offspring than the belief that Jacob was innocent. Did he simply exert more self-control than his father?

Many other questions arise from this story.  Is the “murder gene” real? A quick search of the internet found that the defense has been used in criminal trials before and that many of the most heinous murders have found the perpetrators to have a similar genetic abnormality.  Did Father O’Leary act on behalf of Bloody Bill? Was Paftz really guilty or did Father O’Leary force him to write the suicide note? Did Jacob kill Ellen? 

I look forward to our discussion of this book. So many twists and turns!

The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall

Vish Puri is a delightful character.  I can definitely see this as a movie where he is a combination of Columbo and Kojak.  A bit eccentric, full of confidence and human all wrapped up into one person.  I loved the way he nicknamed each of his fellow workers. I also enjoyed that he dealt with many of the same concerns each of us does—a parent who always seems to know what is best and how to achieve that.

The book also gave me some insight into the politics of India.  Like most countries, it seems the people there are still dealing with political corruption that extends into many aspects of life.  Who you know and how many resources you have available still determines what you get out of life and out of the system.  He manages to maneuver through society walking that thin line between what is expected and what is necessary.

His tasks are two-fold.  Determine the eligibility of one child to marry another for one client and to prove that another citizen did not kill a missing servant. Puri goes about solving both these mysteries with methodical practices, a knowledge of how to work the system and determination to maintain his status as the best detective in Dehli. 

Aside from the fact that the book is easy to read, it is rich in details of a culture I know little about.  So, at the same time as I watch Puri solve the mystery of why a young man wants to marry the reportedly unlikely woman, we learn about societal pressures placed upon many young folks whose parents cling to traditional ways.  As he solves the case of the missing servant we learn about the demands of a household and the dealings between family members.  We also see that society is more than willing to label someone as guilty when the facts have yet to be proven.

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

As I looked through the book prior to beginning and wondered how a book that takes place in three distinctly different time periods could be connected.  We have read other books where time jumped from period to period but none where the characters seemed as disparate as two 1919 pilots, a modern photo journalist, a real political representative of the US and Frederick Douglas. I am pleased to say that the parts all fit together nicely. This is an immigration story. It includes immigration from Ireland to the US, from the US back to Ireland, from Lebanon to the US and other transatlantic travels by both wealthy, influential people and the poorest of the poor. In many ways, it is a global story that shows just how small the world really is.

 I had to look up the history behind the fiction of the book. Many authors seem to take great liberty with facts when writing historical fiction. McCann takes little.  He adds personality to his characters without changing much.  Alcock and Brown were the first two to fly across the Atlantic travelling from England to Ireland and ahead to America.  Frederick Douglas did travel and speak in Ireland during the 1840s. George Mitchell was the US Envoy to Ireland during the resolution of the “troubles”.

 
McCann weaves a detailed story and manages to do so in a way that keeps your attention but does not give away each story until you are caught up in its plot.  I never thought when I began the book that each section would be brought to its meaningful conclusion at the end of the book.  Somehow I imagined each story would end where the next began and the connections from one century to the next would be fleeting.  Not so with TransAtlantic!  Every character and every action has a purpose and contributes to making this a pleasurable read.

 I liked reading about early aviation.  Those were some very brave people.  I liked the details of the plane, the conditions, how they prepared for the trip, its dangers and the exhilaration they felt when things went well. Alcock and Brown were brave. Lily Duggan was brave.  She left her home to seek a better life.  That was the plight of so many Irish and still more folks today from other parts of the world. I thought the method used by McCann to show the destitute nature of the Irish poor as compared with that of a freed slave was very well done.  She made it out and her family returned. The circle of life is odd.

Throughout this is the letter given to Alcock and Brown. Such a minor thing but had such great importance by the end of the book!  Maybe I was a bit slow on the uptake but the letter did not connect the dots for me until the end of the book. When Hannah Carson comes into the story and I was able to thread all the people together, it seemed so fitting to end as it did.

The book is an easy read; well written, detailed where needed and brief where needed.  Using real people made it not only believable but added to the veracity of the story.  I am glad we chose this book.