Recent Reads

Whose Body?  by Dorothy L. Sayers.  This was the first of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.  The story involves a naked stranger found in a  bath tub and  a missing financier.  The financier is Jewish, and since the story was published in 1923 it can seem a bit anti-Semitic.  Not a bad mystery, but not great.  It comes off as a cross between P. G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie.

The Big Four by Agatha Christie.  I love Dame Agatha, but given the amount of books she wrote there are bound to be some stinkers.  This book features Poirot trying to track down an international syndicate of criminals.  It started life as a series of short stories and in making them into a novel things simply did not gel.  It's not her worst book (I'm looking at you, Postern of Fate), but it's pretty not good.

The Door into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein.  Heinlein's another author whose good work is so good I'll forgive the bad (well, almost--The Number of the Beast really sucks).  This is one of his better works and is basically straight science fiction.  Dude gets screwed over by his girlfriend and partner then ends up doing some time travel to set things right.  An all around enjoyable romp.

The Centurion's Wife by Janette Oke and Davis Bunn.  I got this one when it was free for Kindle.  It's set in the days around Jesus' death when Pilate's niece is fighting an arranged marriage with a centurion who is investigating the disappearance of Jesus' body.  It's a little dull and a little suspect factually.  At the time, Jesus was just one of many messiahs so I doubt there would have been this investigation over the death of just another rabble rouser.  Plus the Jesus movement was strictly a Jewish proposition at the time and it wasn't until Paul stuck his nose into the business that non-Jews were accepted without having to follow the Jewish law.  There's a lot of things about Paul I don't like (I consider myself a Christian and not a Paul-person) but he did open things up a bit and was an excellent propagandist.  Then again, not a lot of primary sources survive from the time, so none of us can have a full understanding of the period (imagine 2000 years into the future with people basing their understanding of the 20th century on the National Enquirer and Kitty Kelly books).

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson.  My aunt loaned me this since she was having a tough time getting through it which is understandable given it's 600+ page length.  It's really two stories.  The framing story is of an investigative journalist going after a businessman.  The middle is said journalist trying to solve the disappearance of a girl 30 years earlier.  To do this he enlists an anti-social girl with unusual hacking and organizing skills.  It's a bit long and is slow out of the gate, only starting to get interesting around page 100.  There's also the inexplicable fact that every woman falls into bed with the journalist (maybe not inexplicable given that Larsson was himself a journalist).  A decent thriller that is somewhat over hyped.  I might read the sequels if I stumble across them at some point in time, but I'm not compelled to search them out.

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson.  Larson is one of the few authors whose books I will buy in hardback when they are first published.  This on the strength of Isaac's Storm which is one of the best nonfiction books of all time.  Then I end up a bit disappointed in that nothing can live up to Isaac's Storm.  This is the story of the America ambassador to Berlin in the mid-1930's, a hopelessly in over his head professor.  It is also the story of his adult daughter who goes along with the family and cuts a sexual swath through Berlin, flirting with Nazi and Soviet ideology along with men.  It's an interesting snapshot of the times showing how easy it was to focus on the normal stuff going on while ignoring the gross atrocities occurring at the same time.  The main problem was that I didn't find any of the people involved to be particularly compelling.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.  We recently lost the last combat veteran of WWI, a war that seems to become more forgotten each year.  This book is horrible but real, and I would put it on the list of essential books to read about the Great War.

Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith.  Free for Kindle and recommended for me by Amazon (presumably due to my love of Wodehouse).  The author's name was buzzing on my mind so I looked him up to discover George was the famous Gilbert and Sullivan thespian, originator of the roles of the Major-General and Ko-ko (and I'll take this opportunity to plug the awesome film Topsy-Turvy about the making of The Mikado).  This is the diary of a clerk named Pooter who thinks he's better than he actually is.  He takes himself to seriously which is where the humor comes from.  All in all a good bit of fun.