I am a little behind on my bestseller reading.  There are a few items on the NYT bestseller list that I am looking forward to.  The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd is an historical fiction about a woman who grew up to become a prominent abolitionist, but who was given the gift of a slave girl for her 11th birthday.  Nancy Horan has written another book about a famous couple.  She had previously given us Loving Frank about the architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  This year, she has published Under the Wide and Starry Sky about Robert Louis Stevenson's troubled marriage.  Stephen King has a new release for all of us who were terrified by The Shining.  Doctor Sleep is his newest book which continues the life of Dan the boy with powers in The Shining as a grown up.
For those of you who like British mysteries, Alan Bradley has a new book in the Flavia DeLuce series The Dead in their Vaulted Arches.  After all, who would not like a detective who is a 12 year old prodigy with an interest in poison?
If it keeps snowing, I will keep reading!

Back in the USSR.....
Watching the Sochi Olympics made me reach for one of my favorite authors.  Martin Cruz Smith published a new thriller in the Arkady Renko series.  Tatiana is his latest addition to this series featuring detective Arkady Renko.  We met Arkady in 2007 in Smith's first novel in the series Gorky Park.  Renko is a police detective in Moscow.  He has survived bullets, corruption, the evolution into the new Russia and the remnants of the Great Patriotic War. If we were to make a movie, we would need to revive Humphrey Bogart to play Arkady. Only he could match cynicism with a moral compass like Rick in Casablanca.  In Tatiana, Renko is suspicious about the supposed suicide of an  investigative reporter and the assassination of a Russian crime lord.  His investigations take him to Kaliningrad on the Baltic Coast where he encounters organized crime, a murderous butcher, a secret code, children searching for amber on the coast and a government cover-up of epic proportions. Smith captures contemporary geopolitics with a thriller that will have you guessing.

International Detectives

The detective story is an American invention pioneered by Edgar Allen Poe in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Poe's Auguste Dupin was the first detective in popular literature.  He was followed in short order by our cousins across the pond with Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.  The United States has enough regional differences to warrant local detective series and we have everything from Dana Stabenow's mysteries set in Alaska to Tony Hillerman's Navaho Nation novels.  But the world is a global community and other authors in other countries have been developing the  detective novel set in their local community.  Beside the entertainment value, many of these novels offer the reader insight into the political social and cultural features of other countries.


Oh, those Scandinavians...


I do not know if it is the cold, the rain or the limited daylight that makes Scandinavian authors create detectives who are dark, flawed and in some cases anti-heroes. If you ever find a copy of Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow (1994)  on a used book rack, buy it. Smilla is half Danish and half native Greenlander.  She is a scientist whose knowledge of ice and snow and determination lead her to crime and betrayal above the Arctic Circle.  Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole battles his own demons as well as crime.  Henning Mankell brought us Kurt Wallander.  Karin Fossum's has Inspector Sejer.  Which of us will ever forget Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?


And of course, the Germans...
Not to be outdone, German author Nele Neuhaus's Snow White Must Die  recently won rave reviews in Europe and in the US.


Not really Israeli, but close enough...
American author Daniel Silva created the character of Gabriel Allon, an art-restorer and assassin for the Israeli government.  The Allon series brings you through museums, and galleries through Europe.  When he is not restoring works of art, Allon is exacting revenge on terrorists.


Straddling two worlds...
Istanbul has been described as the literal  and metaphorical bridge between east and west, Christian and Islam, tradition and technology.  Barbara Nadel has crafted a series of books with Inspector Ikmen who like his country straddles two worlds.  Nadel's descriptions of Istanbul will appeal to anyone who has traveled in that part off the world.


The sunny south...
Italian authors have been at the detective genre for a long time.  Andrea Camilleri 's Inspector Montalbano takes us through the intricacies of fighting crime in Sicily. New author Marco Vichi's Inspector Bordelli investigates Death in Sardinia.
But, my all-time favorite Italian detective is Commisario Guido Brunetti who investigates crime in the exotic city of Venice. Written by Donna Leon, the Brunetti series does not hesitate to cover Italy's social ills, poor economy, organized crime, environmental issues and relations with guest workers. Of course, it is easy to read books where Brunetti retreats to his loving home with his wife Paola who cooks wonderful meals and just happens to be a university professor and a descendent of Venice's aristocracy.


The Middle East...
If you can find them, pick up Zoe Ferraris's Finding Nouf and City of Veils. Her books are set in Saudi Arabia and give amazing insight into the society of Saudi's and Bedouins.


Finally, Africa...
Alexander McCall Smith has created a series of mysteries set in Botswana.  Okay, I will admit that I needed an atlas to remind me where Botswana is located.  McCall Smith's detective is a "woman of tribal proportions" Prescious Ramotse who is the proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.  Mme. Ramotse solves crimes with wisdom and insight into the human heart. After one or two of these books, you can appreciate the fragile beauty of the Okavanga Delta and you come away with admiration for the citizens of Botswana whose pride in their county and traditions is a welcome respite from much of the violence in Africa.


Translated from Afrikaaner, Deon Meier has a series of novels set in South Africa. His books are violent and graphic, but he brings us through the many levels of society and culture in South Africa.  His characters are fascinating, but flawed. Often battling alcoholism, past lives of crime and overall corruption, his various detectives will grip the reader with their intensity.


I seem to be missing works from Asia and Latin America.  If anyone has some authors to add, I would love to hear from you.

I am not supposed to like it....

I am a self-proclaimed Sherlock Holmes geek. It all started over forty years ago when Mrs. Tallman, the children's librarian in my home town of Fort Lee, NJ, presented me with the complete works of Sherlock Holmes as a reward for completing the summer reading program.  Throughout my  academic and professional career, I have read countless books in English and French.  To this day, when I want to escape into a world of logic and deduction, I pull out Arthur Conan Doyle.  True, not all Conan Doyle's writings met with literary success.  Even I struggled through Professor Challenger.  And Conan Doyle dabbled in spiritualism and believed in fairies. We all have our foibles.


If you are ever in Toronto, Canada, take some time to visit the  Arthur Conan Doyle Room at the Toronto Public Library.  It is a fitting tribute to an author who has inspired and entertained so many children and adults through the world.


It was with some trepidation that I first picked up Laurie R. King's Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series.  If Holmes should marry, what sort of woman would she be?  Laurie King proposes Mary Russell who is every bit Holmes' intellectual equal.  By the way, she is also much younger, American and Jewish.


The series works and works well.  There are currently 12 books in the series starting with The Beekeeper's Apprentice. Holmes and Russell (of course she keeps her own name and identity) thwart criminals around the world in true Holmesian fashion.


I would be remiss if I did not include the latest on-screen Sherlock.  The BBC has continued Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch.  This is arguably the best screen portrayal of Holmes. Cumberbatch's Sherlock is an ascetic, fiercely intellectual and unflappable. In addition to his intellect, he makes use of technology.  Martin Freeman's depiction of Dr. Watson is my favorite.  Watson is not a bumbling sidekick.  He is a wounded warrior with injuries and PTSD home from the wars in Afghanistan.  Watson offers the one thing Holmes cannot conceive - simple human friendship.  Holmes is larger than life and that is what we expect.  Cumberbatch brings us  a Holmes for the 21st Century who is neither campy nor kitschy.  Enjoy!

A Heavy and a Light

I have two more books for you which will require tissues.   One will have you sniffling and one will leave you sobbing at the end.


Jojo Moyes'  Me before You (2013) is one of the most heart-wrenching books I have ever read.  Louisa Clark, an employed, working class young woman in England, accepts a six month job as a caregiver for a quadriplegic.  In a prior life, her charge Will  was at the top of his game, wealthy, handsome, successful, athletic. He had it all - promising career, gorgeous girlfriend, extreme sports and lots of friends.  He lost it all after being paralyzed in an accident.  Now, confined to a wheelchair and despondent, he plans an assisted suicide in six months. Louisa is unaware of the reason for her six month tenure when she takes the job.  We share her horror when she discovers the reasons behind her employment.  However, in the time allotted, Louisa ignores the sarcasm, depressions and acerbic wit of Will, her patient. In an attempt to dissuade him from his choice, she makes contact with other quadriplegics and tries to give Will a reason to live.  Unexpectedly, Will saves Louisa from live choices that are less than ideal.  You will laugh.  You will cry.  Alright, you will cry a lot.  Sometimes in life, love is not enough.


The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg (2013)
Whenever I want a feel-good book, I reach for Fannie Flagg.  Although I am not from the South and Southern culture is often lost on me, Fannie Flagg fills her books with such quirky and heart-warming characters, that I cannot help but smile.  Sookie is a 50-ish Alabama woman who has just survived the weddings of three daughters and is looking forward to her empty nest time if she can escape her domineering mother next door. Sookie's life is turned upside down when she receives a mysterious phone calling telling her that "you are not who you think you are."  Imagine her surprise when she discovers that she is not a card-carrying, daughter of the South and  a Southern sorority  queen, but instead she is the illegitimate daughter of a Polish Catholic woman. Sookie begins the inevitable search for her birth mother.  Her search leads her to the courageous young women who flew airplanes in the early days of the Army Air Corps and ran male-dominated business during the Second World War. You will wipe away a tear, but you will cheer for these remarkable women who gave so much for their country.

Three Famous Couples

Last year, I did a presentation to the Dillsburg Womans Club in which I described three books about three famous American couples.  For those of you who like to read in a series, here are my notes:


Loving Frank by Nancy Horan (2007)
To many of us, Frank Lloyd Wright was the seminal American architect who introduced mission style or prairie style architecture.  Wright built a number of private and public buildings through the United States.  Most of us have toured one or other of them.  In 1903, Wright built a house for a wealthy family in Chicago.  During the project, he and the wife of the homeowner  Mamah  Borthwick Cheney fell in love.  Their adulterous relationship rocked Chicago society.  This novel is a fascinating insight into their relationship and Cheney's struggles to be recognized as a scholar in her own right.  The book's dramatic ending will leave you speechless.


The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (2011)
Ernest Hemingway - either you love him or hate him.  It has been said that Hemingway had a wife for every novel. This is the story of his first wife Hadley Richardson who accompanied him during his years in Paris in the 1920's. As part of the Lost Generation, Ernest and Hadley interacted with such personalities as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein.  The Hemingway's marriage came to a tragic end, but throughout the years of alcohol abuse, womanizing, depression and illness, Hemmingway retained his affection for Hadley and she for him.


The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin (2013)
Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh were the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie of their time.  Pursued by reporters and adoring fans, the Lindbergh's lived their lives in the public spotlight.  Charles Lindbergh was the golden boy who was the first to cross the Atlantic in an airplane and who pioneered American aviation. However, their lives took a tragic turn when their baby was kidnapped and murdered. In addition, Lindbergh had a dark side.  He had fathered other children and was a Nazi sympathizer. Anne Morrow was an ambassador's daughter who was an author and pilot in her own right.  Their very public marriage was fodder for tabloids and makes for a very interesting read.

Midwife of Hope River

For those of you who like to read in historical eras, there is a fabulous first novel by Patricia Harmon, The Midwife of Hope River. Patience Murphy is a midwife in Appalachia during the Great Depression. But Patience has a past and her past threatens to catch up with her.  The author fills this very credible story with scenes from the Labor Movement in Pittsburgh as well as the courageous women who delivered babies in mountain cabins in West Virginia. Patience Murphy is an unforgettable character whose story will keep you up until you finish the book.