May's Reading and Books

    Hi everyone. Today I'm sharing my monthly book post for those of you who enjoy reading about books. There's mostly history and mystery this time. (I never realized those 2 words rhymed either-grin.)  It was a very good month of reading overall, although I must say the highlight for me was  discovering the Sue Grafton alphabet mysteries you'll see listed below. Why did I wait so long to read these?

    After visiting Fort Sumter in Charleston (South Carolina) last month,  I was excited to find a book about the fort and how it became the place where  the  US Civil War began.  My first book last month was this history by Erik Larson. (Well I actually started it in late April, but didn't finish it until May.) I like how this author writes about events and people. He gets to the historical story but makes you feel like you were right there in the events.  This book, though not his shortest, was quite an interesting read.

   The Demon of Unrest is about the build up and start to the American Civil War. Other than a bit of a wrap up, it doesn't go much past April 1861 when Fort Sumter was fired upon and the war actually began.  (Which for those of you unfamiliar with the American War Between the States, it went from 1861-1865.) In the mid-1800's slavery and states rights were a huge issue in the United States. Here's a brief recap. Southern states still had slaves, and having slaves was a valuable financial asset for those wealthy enough to afford them. The Northern States (in general) wanted slavery abolished. When Abraham Lincoln won the presidency in 1860, many southern states felt they would be better off outside of the Union. For one thing, they could keep slavery which they believed Lincoln wanted to abolish (he didn't at first, but he did abolish it later on), and for another, they felt it was their right to chose whether they could remain in the country or not.

   One thing I never thought of and found interesting was that even after the election and when many states succeeding from the Union, there was a lot of communication going back and forth. In some ways, it was as if the southern states were still part of the Union. There were  many people wanting a war, and  many other people that were hoping that the north and south could work out their issues and reunite. Between December of 1860 and April 12, 1861 (the day the shots were fired on Fort Sumter), there was a lot happening, things you don't learn about in high school history. (Just as an aside, when I was in high school we had to pick units to study about American history, and I chose the American Civil War. I was the only girl in the class, did better than all of the boys, and I guess that's where my interest in this time period started.)

   After reading this book I decided this time period sounds as politically charged as it is now in the US only for different reasons.  If this book was fiction, it would have been interesting, but knowing this is what happened makes this story even better than a fictional tale. I'm not usually a military or political reader, but Larson makes this history read like a novel with short sections and so much actual action. He also throws in some not so political parts too, more about how people lived and viewed the war. Plus Larson develops the main characters (many of them people you've probably never heard of unless you are a Civil War expert or geek) so you definitely get to know them. I like how he took me right into the time and place.  

    I will add that this book seemed to take forever to read, not because of the story, which at many points I couldn't put it down. It was because I could never tell where I actually was in the book. According to my Kindle, the story ended at 55% complete, and the rest of the book was index and sources. I'm not sure my Kindle had the % correct because when I later looked at a paperback version of this book, about half of the book was NOT resources and references. That percentage was throwing me off. Whenever I looked at the percentage completed, it didn't seem to go up very much even if I read 100 pages. 

  Other than that "problem", this was a very good story. I enjoyed it, and I learned a lot too. 

   

   For my first listen in May I went back to Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler mystery series. This book,  The Benefit of Hindsight, is book #10 out of the 11 books I can get here in the US. I do believe there is a 12th book, but it's not available from what I  discovered searching online. I've been stretching these titles out while waiting for the new book to come out, but now that a new book doesn't seem imminent, I am ready to finish up this series.

    Simon is back to work full time after he lost an arm in a horrific beating (part of the last couple of books in this series). This time the case starts off  when a couple who are well off and have been broken into. Many of their treasures have been stolen. Although it seems unusual for Simon and his department to get involved with such a case, things quickly move on to another break-in is in progress. This time the wife is murdered, and the man is severely injured. 

    Besides these theft events, Simon is having some terrible panic attacks. He is also being questioned at work about some of his judgments. It's tough since his boss is now part of is bigger family. Once again Hill included Simon's sister Cat and her story as a doctor. This time Cat is working with a woman who has had a new baby but seems almost uncaring. She is convinced there is something wrong with the baby, and when she and her husband disappear, the police get involved. And then there is Simon's and Cat's father and Cat's kids, especially her oldest son. 

    It's interesting following these characters as their lives progress. And as always, this book was well done. This book didn't end with a definite ending, more with some teases to  move onto book 11. Of course since book 8, which was very suspenseful, these next few books have  much more tame. One more to go. You'll probably see that in my list soon.

    My next listen was this 1935 mystery from the British Library Crime Classics. Death of an Author is by E.C. R. Lorac,  the pseudonym for Edith Caroline Rivett. I wasn't familiar with this author, but I read she wrote several novels with Chief Inspector MacDonald. This book does not include MacDonald, but (from what I read) is a stand alone novel. And it's a  good one at that.

    Vivian Lestrange is a successful crime writer, but also a recluse. Most people believe that Lestrange has to be a man because a woman could not write what this author writes, especially the jail scenes. However, at a dinner at Lestrange's publisher's home, besides the publisher, the other 2 people at the table are  a woman and another one of this publisher's authors named Micheal Ash. At this dinner, the woman is introduced as Vivian Lestrange.

    The book then jumps to when Lestrange's secretary, Eleanor Clarke, reports at the police station that Lestrange and his housekeeper have gone missing. The questions are, is the author actually missing, and could Clarke (who was the woman at the dinner at the publisher's home) be the actual author?  And what about the house keeper? There are questions whether she is part of the crime and has gone missing, or did she even really exist? 

   Then a house is found burnt down and the remains of a body is there. Who is that dead man? Is it Lestrange?  As the detectives investigate, they also find that Micheal Ash had a bit of a dubious history and may even be connected to Lestrange.

    There is a lot of debate in this book about whether Clarke is actually Lestrange. Did she report Lestrange missing part of a publicity stunt? And  Micheal Ash, the man who wanted to meet Lestrange and met Eleanor Clarke at the publisher's dinner, could he have something to do with the body or with Lestrange having gone missing? What is Micheal Ash's story? Let's just say the police (Inspectors Bond and Warner of Scotland Yard) are in quite a quandary. 

    There are several possible scenarios to explain this crime.  And the evidence, although not huge, is interesting. There's a typewriter, some letters written on it but mailed in 2 different places on the same day, a car, a car accident, and even Eleanor Clarke are potential important pieces of the puzzle.

    I read online that Lorac wrote this novel to make fun of her contemporaries who thought women could not write a mystery that wasn't full of all kinds of emotions. This story is definitely not filled with soft emotions, and I think Lorac definitely made her point. This is one of those mysteries that after you read it, you can look back and see how all the clues the author left brought you to the killer. This was an enjoyable read, and the twist to end this story was definitely a good one. However, as I was listening rather than reading, I never put the clues together to figure out the ending.

   These "alphabet" books by Sue Grafton have been out since the early 1980's (this one was originally published in 1982)and have been very popular, but I have never read any of them. I figured if I was going to check them out I might as well start with the first book, A Is for Alibi.

   The book's main character, for those of you who have also never read these, is Kinsey Millhone, a private investigator in California. This time a woman shows up at her office named Nikki Fife. Nikki has spent some time in jail after not only being accused of killing her husband but also having been found guilty of the crime. Supposedly she poisoned her ex by filling one of his allergy pills with dried ground oleander. 

   Nikki still claims she is innocent, but she would like to discover who killed her husband. And later, as Kinsey discovers, the same trick of adding oleander in a pill capsule was used to kill the woman her husband was supposedly having an affair with.

    As Kinsey investigates deeper into the case, she discovers that someone is out there who wants this case to disappear. When Kinsey oversleeps, one of her contacts is murdered.  Then she discovers how the medicine in the allergy pills was switched. There's also a break-in attempt that looks like someone is trying to get some evidence. Plus the ending was quite exciting also. Even though I wasn't certain who the actual murderer was, I kind of suspected one of the two people involved.

     Compared to the Eric Larson book I started the month with, I flew through this book. It was also interesting to note how many things that were so common in the 1980's and are embedded parts of this book, are now different. These included how files had to be kept on paper and not on computers, having to use a typewriter to type of those files, having to find a pay phone instead of having a cell phone, and the cost of things, like a cheap hotel room for $25 a night. I very much enjoyed this book, and I wonder why I never picked up one of them before. I'm glad this series was so popular (I can see why) so you can still easily find copies of these books. I bet you'll be seeing more of these in the future book posts and perhaps sooner than that since there's still 24 letters to get through. 😏

   For my next listen I decided to go with this biography/history. When I was a pre-teen and young teenager one of the local TV channels in my area showed a Shirley Temple movie every Sunday afternoon at 4.  (This T channel also showed other old films earlier on Sunday afternoons, and if I was home I also enjoyed watching old Errol Flynn, Carey Grant and other 1930's and 1940's films.) I remember thinking how Shirley Temple must have had quite the exciting life being in so many films and becoming such a child superstar. I thought this book sounded interesting and might even answer some of the questions I've had for decades about this child star.

    Even though I learned some things about Shirley Temple, I was  surprised that this book was really more about how Shirley Temple left her mark on 1930's America. This book was an interesting story and actually was even better than a biography of Temple would might likely have been. 

    I like how the author alternated historical topics with how Shirley Temple's life and movie roles related to those topics. These topics included African American performers, unemployment, movie companies, child consumerism, the life of a child superstar along with many others. I learned how Shirley Temple toys practically saved the toy industry and how there were a lot of contests for Shirley Temple look a likes.  I learned about movie companies (many that are still with us), and who went to see films in the Great Depression. I also learned about issues Shirley Temple and her family had to deal with like worries of her being kidnapped and how people felt they had a right to mob the family if they were out someplace.  Plus there were many other topics too.

    This book was an interesting and enjoyable look at Shirley Temple and even more so at Hollywood in the 1930's. I didn't realize that although the child star made hundreds of thousands of dollars during her active career (mostly in the 1930's), when she reached adulthood she only up getting only $44,000 of it due to her parents spending the rest of it, not always related to her. The ending of this book mentions how Temple's star faded quickly as she grew up, and how she went on to marry and get involved in politics. And, according to this book, she never blamed her parents for spending all her earnings either.

   After my Sue Grafton mystery, I went on to read this short fiction book that's been in my pile for too long. The Summer Book by Finnish writer Tove Jansson was first published in 1972 and is set on an island in the Finnish archipelago. You might recognize the name Tove Jansson as she is the creator of the Moomins.

   A family is spending the summer in their cottage on an island. The mother of the family has recently passed, and the father is just a passing figure in this book. The 2 main characters are the grandmother and 6 year old Sophia. Even though I never spent a summer on an island with my grandmother, I did spend a lot of time with her, and this book made me think of her. My grandmother wasn't exactly like the character in this novel, but one thing I loved was how this book brought me back to some of my own childhood moments.

   Each chapter in this book is another adventure on the island. Jansson is a wonderful writer. She captures Sophia and what is like to be a  child perfectly.  I also enjoyed the way  this story  describes  the island and what days on it were like. Besides being a writer, Jansson was also an artist, as were her parents. There are many creative moments in this novel like after a postcard arrives from Venice. Sophia and her grandmother create the Doge'sPalace  out of bark and paint. 

   All of these chapter stories are very clever too. For example, there is one about the big storm, and one about the house that gets built next door.   There is a storm and the family gets stranded on another island, spending the night in a dilapidated shack. I really felt like I was in this one room shack with the wind and rain whipping against it, making the loose boards clack, and how the father tried to make a bed out of an old net that crumbled in his hands.  From my second example,  the new house owners really don't want to be social.  In fact, they put up No Trespassing signs. That means Grandmother and Sophia have to trespass, right? And when they do, guess who shows up?

   This book wraps up with the coming of autumn and the family leaving the island. This enjoyable little book  took only a few hours to read, and those hours were a wonderful escape to a northern island. It also makes me want to go visit an island in the Gulf of Finland too. 

    

   OK, I was still on a Civil War kick, even after reading the  Eric Larson book I wrote about earlier in this post.   Last month I read Lincoln's Lady Spymaster (by Gerri Willis). That book was about a woman, Elizabeth Van Lew,  in Richmond, Virginia who was a big-time Union spy. This spy book also had me thinking about some other women who were connected to the war. While looking for something along that line, I found this used, out of print book reasonably priced online about Mary Todd Lincoln and also Varina Howell Davis, who were (for the only time in American history to date) both first ladies at the same time. Mary Todd Lincoln was (as you might already know) married to President Abraham Lincoln, and Varina Howell Davis was the wife of the Confederate States president Jefferson Davis.

   This book is a biography that compares and contrasts the lives of these 2 women. It's fairly in-depth, but since it's a reasonable 267 pages (up to where the index begins), parts of this book are more of an overview. For example, both women's childhoods are only briefly discussed. I didn't miss any of the details though  because I wasn't exactly looking for an in-depth view of their lives. A good biography is one that reads as a good story.  And this one is a good story.

   These 2 women didn't know each other or even meet, but they must have known of the other. They were both intelligent and (especially Varina) politically conscience. I think  Mary Todd Lincoln was just naive about life in Washington, and instead of moving into the White House during a calm period in history when she could learn the ropes, she moved in when a war exploded. That was a  lot of stress and strain, especially since one of her sons died during that time (her second son to die) and there were a lot of threats on her husband's life. As you probably know, he ended up being assassinated.  What she thought she should do (having been a southern bell in her youth) was really scrutinized by the press, and then by everyone who read those newspaper stories. She was also prone to migraines and emotional outbursts which didn't make a very good perception to people who didn't know her very well.   

   Varina was a little more realistic and less emotionally reactive about many events, including succession. However, she seemed to have an independent streak  and in some ways was a more modern minded woman than Mary Todd Lincoln.  The Davis's seemed to be well off, at least before the war.  During the war for people in the south it was tough. Even  the Davis' had to deal with food shortages. And being the first lady, much was expected from Varina.  Later in the war things must have been really hard to deal with since their new country was failing because everything was being pumped into their military. 

   I especially liked the post-war chapters because this is the part that I hadn't really heard anything about. Mary Todd Lincoln's bad relationship with the press continued, and she had huge money problems. Then, when she lost her third son, she started having a very hard time coping. The Davis' life was very transient after the war and after being released as prisoners. They spent some time in Canada, England and France, plus they moved around in the US also.  After Jefferson Davis died, Varina moved to New York and took up a career in journalism. She spent the rest of her life in that city where one of her daughters also lived.

  This book also mentioned many things that the Eric Larson book did. However, with the focus more on these 2 women than on just the looming war (as was the topic of the Larson book) and then the war, I felt  the repeated bits just made this story more complete and really showed me the world these women were a part of.  I enjoyed the biography, and I'm glad I now have a different perspective of this period in US history. 

  I enjoyed A is for Alibi so much that after I finished reading it, I went online looking for other used copies of these Kinsey Millhone alphabet mysteries.   You know how some series you just connect with? Well I felt that way about book A. I don't just want to borrow these books (at this point) because I can see me not only reading them all but also rereading them in the future. Too bad the Kindle versions are still pricey. However, I lucked out and found a set (A-E) of brand new looking paperbacks for under $14 that included the shipping cost and that meant I could get 5 books for just a tad bit more than the price of 1 Kindle book. Once these paperbacks arrived and I finished reading Crowns of Thorns and Glory, the next book on my reading list was B is for Burglar, originally published in 1985.

   This time a woman comes in to Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone's office and wants Kinsey to find her sister. There is a legal document that needs to be signed by this missing woman, and the sister (Beverly Danzinger) cannot track her down. The  missing sister, Elaine Bolt ,is a rich widow, and she owns one condo in the California town where Kinsey's office is and another one Boca Raton, Florida. Elaine was last seen getting into a cab while she was supposedly on her way to Florida. However, no one in Florida has seen her, and her condo is  being sublet (which she is not supposed to do, and Elaine seems to be a woman who wouldn't break the condo association rules) to a woman called Pat Usher.  Pat claims to have received a post card from Elaine, but no one else has heard from her, which sounds a bit sketchy in itself.

   Then there is a house fire where a woman dies, and there are a lot of unpaid bills that Elaine Bolt has supposedly rung up. Plus there's a missing cat,  Elaine's unclaimed luggage, and some other clues that has Kinsey confused. Looking back now that I have finished the story, Grafton laid out some very good clues and tips, but she also lays out the trail so cleverly that I couldn't see how it all came together.  At least until the ending.

   I need a little break from Kinsey Millhone  after this book, but I'll definitely be back soon with book C (especially now that I have  my own copy👍 ). 

   

    And that's the books I finished in May.  I also started listening to another book in May,  but since it's 30 hours long, I'm not done with it yet. I won't include that one until next month. 

   If you're a reader, I hope June is great book month for you!

   And just an fyi, I’m seated for a jury for tomorrow (Thursday) and also Friday. Since I'll be gone all day and probably tired from so much sitting,   I won’t be posting again until this weekend.