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Trace Elements A Comissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon

by joycesmysteryandfictionbookreviewsJanuary 21, 2020

Where I live, the weather is currently cold and the days are short.  When Trace Elements takes place during  a summer in Venice, it is as hot as hot can be.  Clothes are sticking, meals need to be light and our detective, Guido Brunetti is mystified by the tourists who want to be in Venice at this miserable time.  I could feel the heat and the need to drink mineral water.  All of this is to say that Ms. Leon is a master at creating her scenes and characters.  When Brunetti was eating his cheese and salad,   I salivated.  When I followed this essentially good man throughout the story, I wanted to know him and his colleagues as real people.  When Brunetti was with his wife, Paola, I wanted a marriage like theirs.  All of this adds verisimilitude to a novel that, in parts, is deeply tragic.

Tue story begins when Brunetti and a female colleague go to visit Benedetta, a women in hospice care, who is dying a miserable death from cancer.  Readers will feel great sympathy for this character’s suffering.  Before she dies, Benedetta presents Brunetti and Claudia Griffoni with something to investigate.  They learn that Benedetta’s daughters are about to become orphans as Benedetta’s husband recently died in a crash.  Was his death an accident? If it was murder how, if at all, does it relate to his job?

In Trace Elements (an apt title), the crime as it relates to Venice feels all too plausible.  Ms. Leon has done her research and written a believable and sad tale of human corruption and its consequences.  Wrong actions happen but the reasons for them differ.

This title is the latest entry in Donna Leon’s long running series about Guido Brunetti.  It is a most excellent novel and I recommend it highly.

Are you ready to be on “This Side of Murder?”

by joycesmysteryandfictionbookreviewsAugust 9, 2017

MY EARLIER REVIEW

Anna Lee Huber’s novel, is an historical mystery that is reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel. A group of characters is stranded on an island, (think “And Then There Were None”), as the action unfolds. Widow Verity attends an engagement party weekend, while trying to find out whether her husband, Sidney, was a traitor during WWI. Not the most believable plot but Verity is a plucky character and one that I rooted for.  Book provided by NetGalley in return for an honest review.  Thanks NetGalley!

A Novel of World War II

by Madeline Martin

Pub Date 06 Apr 2021

As soon as I saw the title of this book, I wanted to read it. The magic word, of course, was bookshop. I also found the cover to be very appealing. So, I initially judged this one by its cover. That said, I wasn’t’ disappointed.

This novel’s protagonist, Grace, is a young woman who recently lost her mother. Along with her best friend, Viv, she moves to London to stay with a family friend. The two arrive only to have war declared not long after. Viv enters one of the women’s units while Grace remains with her mother’s friend. She takes a position in a bookshop and the shop is also a character in the book.

This story points out the importance of literature. In a lovely scene, Grace goes underground during a bombing raid where she begins reading Middlemarch to those who are stuck in the shelter over night. Those stuck there look forward to additional chapters when the next call to go underground comes.

Grace organized the bookshop and develops a relationship with its curmudgeonly owner. She studies way to make the shop successful and, for example, advertises buying books to read while unable to sleep in one’s beds due to the bombings.

The author does a good job of portraying wartime Britain. There are losses of people, property, usual foods, a way of life. There are also the joys of friendship, love, books and connection.

There are so many WWII set novels being written now. My theory is that, awful as the war was, it is more reassuring to look back at that time than our current one. For all of the suffering, the reader knows that eventually Britain will declare victory.

I think that this title is worth reading. Let me know what you think!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

Baby Young, Gifted, and Black

With a Mirror!

by Jamia Wilson

This is a book that will teach the littlest listeners and lookers that they can aspire to do anything and everything. A child can grow up to “spread joy like Stevie Wonder” or to “reach for the stars” like Mae Jemison and so much more. A number of highly accomplished Blacks from many fields are here in this title including the Obamas, the Williams sisters and others. The illustrations are bright, colorful and represent their subjects well.

I recommend this title for all kids. It is a book that shows how full of amazing achievements people are.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

I have reviewed this title. My review can be found in my archive.

Many thanks to the publisher for the opportunity to be part of the blog tour for this wonderful title. Below is an excerpt from the novel and some biographical information about the author.

Happy reading!

THE NARROWBOAT SUMMER

By Anne Youngson

Chapter 1: The Number One

ON THE TOWPATH OF a canal in a town not far from London, not far from the coast, is moored a narrowboat painted dark blue with the name Number One picked out in red lettering on the prow. It is tethered tightly to the bank with ropes made wet by the rain and slimy with age, wrapped around pegs bent out of shape by the misaimed blows of a lump hammer. It is still in the water. At either end the doors are fast shut and the windows along the side are latched. On the roof is a skylight, cantilevered up to let the fresh air into the cabin below. Puddles of water on the deck and roof show that it has been raining, but at this moment it is not.

There are two people on the towpath, walking toward each other. One is a tall, relatively plump woman: that is to say, around half the number of women in her age group—she has gone some distance past fifty—would be slimmer and shorter than she is, but she is not so tall or so plump as to be remarkable. In one hand she has an orange carrier bag and on her feet a pair of bright silver running shoes; these might not be out of place on a towpath but are out of place with her black wool skirt and tailored blouse. Her hair is wrapped up in a largely colorless scarf, apparently once purple.

The woman approaching her is shorter and more slender. She is carrying an umbrella in a color often called fuchsia, though fuchsias come in a range of colors. She is holding it at her side—not needing its protection at the moment—but open, as if anxious about the time it would take to bring it into use if she should suddenly need it. Her hair is carefully styled and her clothes might have been carefully chosen to be unremarkable. If so, the choice was successful.

As they approach the moored boat, the sun inserts a finger of light between the clouds and it is all at once a lovely day, at that moment, on that towpath. At almost the same instant, when the two women are close enough to each other for a nod and a smile of greeting, if either or both of them thought that was appropriate—they are complete strangers, so it seems unlikely—at that precise moment, the narrowboat begins to howl. It howls as if it were a mezzo-soprano in mid-aria spotting her husband committing adultery in the stalls while being impaled from behind by a careless spear carrier. Both women stop walking.

* * *

EVE’S HANDS WERE FULL OF the debris of a career of more than thirty years. She kicked aside the Strategic Five Year Plan, folded and wedging the door open, to let it shut behind her. What she was carrying now were items so small and insignificant she had overlooked them when she had made a pile of things definitively hers: the books, pen set, files of personal information that could not be claimed as property of the Rambusch Corporation. These had been placed into a cardboard box supplied by the management. The packing had been not so much overseen as attended by Clive, a representative (ironically, because neither word could accurately be applied to him) of the Human Resources department. He stood beside her, rumbling idly like a vacuum cleaner (which he closely resembled) switched on and ready to suck if anything misplaced came within reach of his hose. That had been the day before, the penultimate day. Now, on the last day, she stood in the corridor holding things so odd and familiar they had been invisible. The plastic frog stuck to the side of her computer monitor; the postcard of a building in New York pinned to the cork board; a calendar from an overseas charity with six more pictures of starving children still to come; a mug with a picture of a hedgehog on top of a scrubbing brush and a brown deposit welded to the bottom; a letter opener with what looked like teeth marks in its bamboo handle; a purple scarf that had been tied to the handle of a filing cabinet for so long it had faded along its exposed length and only revealed its original, shocking depth of color on the inside of the knot; a photograph of a team-building exercise, the participants all in hard yellow hats standing under a cliff holding up ropes in triumph, though whether after or in anticipation of an ascent or descent she could not remember. She nearly dropped this in the bin, already full of discarded good-luck cards, but closer scrutiny revealed that no one in the picture was recognizable as an individual—though she could pick herself out as the only woman in the group—so she used it as a tray on which to pile the rest of the rubbish.

The door shut with a hiss from its automatic closure system. The nameplate—Eve Warburton: Planning—swung toward her, stopping inches from her nose. Had she had a hand free, she might have defaced it in some way, but in the circumstances she just leaned forward and gave it a kiss.

“Goodbye, Eve Warburton, Planning,” she whispered. “Nice to have known you.”

First the scarf then the frog then the letter opener fell from her stack on the way to the lift. She recovered them all and stopped in the lobby to ask the receptionist for a carrier bag. The receptionist went to look in a cubicle in the wall behind her desk. Eve put her pile down on the counter and watched the oil circulating in the installation designed to impress the visitor with the technical brilliance of the Rambusch Corporation’s engineering and manufacturing capability, its mastery of pumps, pistons and valves. Her eye caught the plastic sign on it which read:

Constructed from Production Parts

Eve took up the letter opener and levered this off. One final souvenir. She pushed it down the front of her skirt.

The girl returned with a disposable carrier bag from the local sandwich outlet.

“It’s all I can find.”

“It will do,” said Eve. It was hard to stop the pilfered notice sliding out as she loaded a carrier bag with small, odd-shaped items, until the receptionist, interpreting her clumsiness as evidence of emotional turmoil, did the job for her.

“I’m, you know, sorry you’re leaving,” she said.

“It was time to move on.”

“I thought of you, having to work with all those men on the top floor. I mean, no one to have a gossip with and that.”

“They didn’t have much of a feminine side, by and large,” said Eve.

“Oh, I know!” The receptionist came out from behind her barrier with the filled bag. Eve was afraid she might be about to offer a hug, in compensation for Eve’s fall from the masculine heights of the fourth floor to mere womanhood.

“Luckily for me, I’m on the masculine side of the feminine spectrum,” she said.

She turned left out of the building, toward where her car would normally be parked—indeed, where it was parked—but even as her hand reached into her pocket for the keys, she remembered it was no longer hers. Company property. She could call a taxi or catch a bus or walk. She had no intention of going back inside the building for the rest of her life, and this ruled out a taxi because the number of the local firm was in her surrendered company mobile. It was raining, but she did not want to hesitate in full view of the receptionist, so she began to walk. It was a long way, in kitten heels, from the Rambusch premises to the edge of the industrial estate. It was a fairly hefty hike up a hill to the first bus stop on the main road. The notice filched from the lobby display impeded her stride, so she took it out and thought about lobbing it over a hedge but on second thought put it in the carrier bag. The rain falling on her head slid in large drops down her perfectly conditioned hair into the top of her blouse, into her ears and her mouth. She took out the faded scarf and tied it over her head. She felt like a bag lady; she rather hoped she looked like a bag lady. It could be a new career.

When she reached the first bus stop she leaned against it, resting her feet until a bus arrived and she bought a ticket into town. Once there, she went into a bookshop and found an Ordnance Survey map of the area showing all the paths and alleyways so that she could plot a route back to her flat on foot, avoiding the main roads she normally drove down. She went next door to a shoe shop and bought a pair of running shoes. These were handed over in a brilliantly orange and substantial carrier bag, big enough to take all her belongings from the office, the kitten heels and the notice. From the map, she found that the quickest way home was to start down the towpath. Just as the rain was stopping, she set off.

Walking toward her was a woman her own age. Between them was a dark-blue narrowboat, apparently deserted. The name painted in red lettering on the prow was Number One.

* * *

ON THE WALK TO THE hairdresser it began to rain, which was something Sally had not foreseen. Raindrops, she reflected, were falling on her head, although the song was entirely inappropriate in her current circumstances.

“My word,” said the hairdresser as Sally dripped on the mat. “You didn’t come prepared.”

Sally had known Lynne for over twenty years. Twenty years of a relationship conducted in reflection, meeting each other’s eyes in the mirror. They had talked about everything in that time. They had exchanged information about children, holidays, kitchen appliances and plumbers. They had shared opinions about soap operas, brands of ice cream, chewing gum and British Summer Time. They had discussed renewable energy, interest rates, the Middle East and mobile phones. It was always a shock to her to stand up—after she had been shown a glimpse of the back of her head and had the cut hair brushed from her shoulders, the nylon coverall whisked away—to find that she was taller than Lynne. How could someone who had filled the mirror so emphatically for half an hour or more be so dumpy an individual in the real world? She only came to this part of the town to visit the Kut Above, and had never seen Lynne in the street. She sometimes wondered if she would recognize her if she came across her queuing for a prescription in Boots. And yet, she thought of Lynne as her friend, and had done so ever since the day she had said she would rather be called Sally than Mrs. Allsop, and Lynne had agreed.

Sally had something to say on this visit; with Lynne’s face in the mirror to frame the story, she could say it and, in saying it, fix it.

Lynne combed Sally’s wet hair, persuading it into a smooth and elegant shape unlike its usual wispy incoherence.

“Just tidied up a bit?” she said, as she always did.

“I wondered about highlights,” said Sally. “Not today, of course. Next time, maybe.”

Lynne said it would be a fiddly process. “And I’m not sure what color you’d use. Your hair’s so fair, and so fine, it would be hard to find a color that was a strong enough contrast, without going completely over the top.”

“Pink,” said Sally. “Or turquoise.”

“Of course, but you wouldn’t want that. We could get away with a nutty brown, if you’re set on the idea.”

“But I do want pink or turquoise, I haven’t made up my mind which.”

“Well,” said Lynne. “What’s brought this on?”

“New beginning,” said Sally. “Fresh start. My new career as a single person.” The scissors and comb became quite still. Lynne was staring at her in the mirror. “I told my husband last night that our marriage is over. There is no reason why anything, from this moment forward, should be as it has been up to now.”

“I’m so sorry,” whispered Lynne. “Do you want to talk about it, or is it too painful?”

“I’m not at all sorry and I don’t mind talking about it, but it’s the future I’m more excited about.”

“It must be difficult after twenty-five years? I mean, you didn’t seem unhappy. Maybe I’ve had it wrong all this time, but I really thought the two of you were close. Did he…? I mean, you know … After all, men—”

“Duncan is entirely blameless,” said Sally.

Lynne remained still; almost rigid.

“But you must have, well, emotional issues?”

“The only emotion I feel is relief,” Sally said. “And that isn’t an issue.”

“But why?” said Lynne. “There must be a reason?”

“I was bored.”

Lynne’s face, as she brought the scissors and comb back into play with something close to aggression, was becoming quite red, and it was possible she looked cross though Sally had no way of knowing what she looked like when cross, because they had always tended to agree with each other. Sally saw that Lynne, far from admiring her resilience and self-determination, wanted her to be in need of sympathy—as a victim or as the guilty party racked with guilt. She had not foreseen this, and she considered the narrative Lynne was hearing. She was leaving her husband; she had not been abused; she had not been rejected; she did not feel guilty. Yes.

“You obviously don’t approve,” she said.

Lynne clamped her lips together and kept her eyes on Sally’s head, cutting Sally’s hair as if there was a looming deadline after which it would set solid.

“No, I don’t, but of course I don’t know anything about it. I just know that being married isn’t easy and it’s up to us all to work at it and not just throw up our hands and walk away as if it never mattered in the first place.”

“On the other hand,” said Sally, “it’s sometimes harder to endure the everyday than it is to cope with a big trauma.”

“If you say so.”

“I think I’ll have my gap year now,” said Sally. “Twelve months of doing something I wouldn’t normally and probably won’t ever do again.”

“Like what?”

“I haven’t decided. I expect something will turn up.”

It was still raining when she left the Kut Above. She stepped into a corner shop and bought a folding umbrella in a shade of pink she thought might be an exact match for the highlights she was imagining. She would be going somewhere else to have them done. After all, was it not important to change every aspect of her routines? How else would she be able to identify those hooks and burrs and combinations that held her, like the flag on a flagpole, free to flap about but not free to drift or soar.

The umbrella was less easy to manipulate than the label had promised it would be, but it kept the rain off her hair, which had the bounce and body only Lynne had ever been able to give it. The rain stopped as she crossed the canal bridge and, on an impulse, she took the steps down to the towpath. It was possible to walk most of the way home by this route, but she rarely did. It was muddy; there were no shops; the people who lived in the boats moored alongside had more than the average householder in the way of untrustworthy dogs, dubious houseplants, bare feet and rusty bicycles. It being an unusual route for her was one good reason to set off down it today. Another was that it was longer. It would delay her return to the house. She had told him she was going because she wanted peace; she wanted silence and the chance to think. But the silence consequent on announcing that decision was surprisingly hard to bear. And she could not decide where, exactly, she wanted to go.

So she took the long way back, along the towpath, walking slowly and, because she no longer needed it, swinging the pink umbrella by its strap. Walking toward her was a woman her own age. Between them was a dark-blue narrowboat, apparently deserted. The name painted in red lettering on the prow was Number One.

EXCERPTED FROM THE NARROWBOAT SUMMER. COPYRIGHT © 2021 BY ANNE YOUNGSON. EXCERPTED BY PERMISSION OF FLATIRON BOOKS, A DIVISION OF MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS. NO PART OF THIS EXCERPT MAY BE REPRODUCED OR REPRINTED WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER.

Anne Youngson worked for many years in senior management in the car industry before embarking on a creative career as a writer. She has supported many charities in governance roles, including Chair of the Writers in Prison Network, which provided residencies in prisons for writers. She lives in Oxfordshire and is married with two children and three grandchildren to date. Meet Me at the Museum, her debut, was short-listed for the Costa First Novel Award and has been published around the world.

International Edition

by Samuel L. Bray and Drew N. Keane (editors)

Pub Date 02 Mar 2021   

The Book of Common Prayer is one of the most well-known resources for Anglicans and Episcopalians around the world. The title is a gently updated and revised edition that is more reflective of our current times. Those who regularly refer to this book and those who want to become acquainted with it will find much to admire here.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

by Susie Hodge

Pub Date 16 Mar 2021

What a lovely title for armchair travelers who enjoy art. In this book, visit London with Whistler; Suffolk with Constable; St Ives with Barbara Hepworth; Guernica with Picasso; Giverny with Monet; Brussels with Magritte,; Florence with Michelangelo, Oslo with Munch; Polynesia with Gauguin; New York with Basquiat and more.

This title begins with an informative introduction on artists, the places that had meaning to them and the ways in which those places were interpreted in their art. Following this the sketches begin. Each is accompanied by an illustration; this is not a reproduction of the artist’s work but rather a rendition of the place by the book’s author. Each essay gives information about both the place over time and the artist. Readers may then well be inspired to look up the specific art works mentioned.

This is not a scholarly tome but a pleasant diversion. It offers a chance to contemplate places and art from one’s home and to enjoy spending time with artists both already loved and those new to the reader.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

The Hotel That Set Women Free

by Paulina Bren

There was a time when young women moving to New York City spent their first weeks (or longer) at the Barbizon Hotel. The guests were both famous and not. All were looking for a place that a female could safely and uncontroversially stay. Everyone from Grace Kelly to Sylvia Plath spent time there, beginning after WWI. The building is still there but, of course, is no longer the same.

It was a place of rules. For example, no men were allowed upstairs. But, even so, it offered a welcome sense of freedom to its residents.

Those who are interested in the social history, the roles of women and the city of New York will find that this title is interesting and informative. It is also somewhat nostalgic and, for that reason, may give readers a pleasant escape.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

Artists in Residence

Seventeen Artists and Their Living Spaces, from Giverny to Casa Azul

by Melissa Wyse, Illustrated by Kate Lewis

Who are they? Where did they live? Artists in Residence

by joycesmysteryandfictionbookreviewsJanuary 8, 2021

MY EARLIER REVIEW

Seventeen Artists and Their Living Spaces, from Giverny to Casa Azul

by Melissa Wyse, Illustrated by Kate Lewis

Artists in Residence is the result of the serendipitous meetings between author Melissa Wyse and artist Kate Lewis. Readers learn about how their paths crossed in the book’s introduction.

Together the two put together this title with MW writing beautifully insightful essays about the artists and Kate painting scenes reminiscent of their homes. Included are artists whom I knew well including Georgia O’Keeffe, Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant, Claude Monet, Frida Kahlo & Diego River, Lee Krasner & Jackson Pollock and others with whom I am newly acquainted as, for example, .Hassan Jajjaj, Clementine Hunter, Donald Judd. (I have not listed all seventeen here). There is an alchemy between text and visual that works.

This collaboration will be welcomed by art lovers and armchair travelers alike. I know that I enjoyed my time in these homes and with these insights.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.