WITHOUT RESERVATIONS- The Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach

 Finished Fr 5/27/22

This appears to be one of the books that I got when I was a member of Quality Paperbacks many years ago. There is no indication when I got it or if I even read the book.

The book is a combination of 'memoir' and 'travel'.

An affluent, single mother of two adult sons decides that it's her turn to visit some of the places that she had always dreamed of seeing. She has taken a sabbatical from the Baltimore Sun where she worked as a Pulitzer prize winning reporter and columnist.  

The book is divided into sections: Paris, London, Oxford, Italy.

The book is a relaxing read and very engaging yet not in the least groundbreaking.

A positive review on Goodreads:

"Go on a trip through Europe without leaving your home with famed journalist Steinbach in this wonderful travel memoir. Steinbach does a fabulous job of not only setting the visual scenes of each locale, but also adding her own personal sensibility to each page. She did all of the traveling she talks about in this book all on her own so the stories are, in addition to being about European ways and customs, about the life of the single wanderer. Since this book is more about the author and less about the details of the cities she visits, it’s not for someone looking for in-depth information on Europe. Others wanting a general view of experiences waiting for them abroad will be pleased, though."

A more negative review at GoodReads:

I think I'm too cynical for books like this. I think I like the idea of them more than I like the reality. The basic premise - middle-aged divorced mother of two suffering from empty-nest-syndrome drops out of her life to travel around Europe alone and 'find herself' - is so overdone, so clichéd, that I almost found myself rolling my eyes on every page.

I found it an enjoyable enough read, don't get me wrong - it's always entertaining to see familiar places through others' eyes, and Steinbach is a lively, engaging writer - but I didn't find it inspiring or motivating, powerful or insightful. Taking six months' out to visit three countries, stay in fine hotels and eat out in restaurants and cafes for every meal is, to me at least, hardly bold or daring, hardly a radical change of life. It's basically the extended holiday we'd all love to take."

DELIVER US FROM EVIL by David Baldacci

Finished Tu 5/24/22

I bought this at the library book sale on Sa 1/11/20. This is probably the last one the library had before the pandemic.

Essentially it's the story of two intelligence agencies that are going after the same 'evil dude'. Evan Waller is a Canadian businessman who is actually Fedir Kuchin, a serial murderer from the Ukraine. 

 Reggie Campion who works for a secret vigilante group that were going after surviving Nazi war criminals, but since most of them have died so they have expanded the scope and now go after any political mass murderers. 

Shaw is an agent working for the US and runs across this other outfit when they are both trying to take out 'Waller/Kuchin' who is vacationing in the Provence region of France. 

Campion and Shaw become lovers but at the end of the novel Shaw breaks it off because he feels that any woman who falls for him is doomed. 

From Goodreads:

"Evan Waller is a monster. He has built a fortune from his willingness to buy and sell anything… and anyone. In search of new opportunities, Waller has just begun a new business venture: one that could lead to millions of deaths all over the globe.

On Waller’s trail is Shaw, the mysterious operative from The Whole Truth, who must prevent Waller from closing his latest deal. Shaw’s one chance to bring him down will come in the most unlikely of places: a serene, bucolic village in Provence.

But Waller’s depravity and ruthlessness go deeper than Shaw knows. And now, there is someone else pursuing Waller in Provence—Reggie Campion, an agent for a secret vigilante group headquartered in a musty old English estate—and she has an agenda of her own.

Hunting the same man, unaware of each other’s mission, Shaw and Reggie will be caught in a deadly duel of nerve and wits. Hitchcockian in its intimate buildup of suspense, and filled with the kind of breathtaking plot turns and remarkable characters that are David Baldacci’s hallmark, Deliver Us from Evil is the most gripping thriller of the year." 

David Baldacci is more of a storyteller but not a writer. I would like more character development and a higher quality of writing. 

The evil dude was part of 'Holodomor'.

Holodomor was "Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor famine was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.

ZULU by Caryl Ferey

 Finished Tu 5/17/22

This is a new trade paperback that I got on Amazon after seeing the film. The movie stars Orlando Bloom and Forest Whitaker and is set in Capetown, South Africa. The idea that a pharmaceutical company would collude with a militant group to develop a drug that was specifically designed to kill blacks. 

Two white women are found horribly beaten and murdered. During the course of the investigation the detectives learn of this drug to undermine the black population of the country. 

I really enjoyed the look into a society that is run to promote apartheid which means 'apart' and 'separate development'. It's the American 'Jim Crow' on steroids. 

From Publishers Weekly.com:

"Readers should be prepared for graphic scenes of shocking violence in Férey's hard-hitting procedural, which won France's Grand Prix for Best Crime Novel. Ali Neuman, the chief of the Cape Town police crime unit, investigates the murder of 18-year-old Nicole Wiese, found one morning in the South African city's botanical gardens with her skull crushed in. Since the victim's father was a member of the Springboks rugby team that won the world championship in 1995, the case attracts heavy press coverage. The trail leads Neuman to an extraordinarily brutal narcotics gang with links to a former apartheid official. The good guys don't walk away from their encounters with the bad guys unscathed. This is a welcome addition to the growing ranks of crime books set in South Africa—powerful and unflinching in its portrayal of evil both mindless and calculating." 

From Kirkus Reviews.com:

"A crime novel set in post-apartheid South Africa, and the winner of the French Grand Prix for Best Crime Novel of 2008.

As head of the Crime Unit, Ali Neuman has one of the most dangerous jobs in Cape Town. The fact that he is a black man investigating blacks, mulattos and whites doesn’t make it any easier. When a white girl from a prominent family turns up dead, Neuman and his partners, Dan Fletcher and Brian Epkeen, are thrown into the most dangerous and important case of their lives. Their investigation leads them into the dark underbelly of Cape Town’s townships—and eventually to drug dealers, gangs and powerful white men who manipulate blacks on society’s lowest rung. The closer these three policemen get to the truth, the more their lives—and the lives of the ones they love—are in danger. As the bodies pile up, the novel masterfully depicts the abject poverty of Cape Town’s slums and the desperation of the townships’ residents, most of whom turn to drugs, gang activity, prostitution or some combination of the three. The novel, brutally honest, at times violent and grotesque, is both a scathing commentary on South African current affairs and a powerful tribute to those who put their lives on the line to make things right.

A horrifying, eye-opening thriller."

I enjoyed the book and I would read more by this author. I would really like to find a non-fiction book about how apartheid ruled the land. 

ZERO DAY by David Baldacci

 Finished We 5/11/22

When Janny returned the books that I had loaned to her this novel was in the bag. I don't think I bought it because there wasn't an entry on the flyleaf.

John Puller, ace investigator for the US Army's Criminal Investigation division is sent to very rural Drake, West Virginia to investigate the brutal murder of a family. This is the heart of 'coal country' and deep into the investigation there seems to be ties to international terrorism.

In the area is located a concrete dome structure that was abandoned by the federal government during the sixties. The facility was used to process nuclear materials to make weapons. 

A dirty federal agent and the local coal kingpin jury rigged an atomic bomb and had it blown up, the entire east coast of the United States would become a dead zone. 

Puller partners with a local sheriff, Samantha Cole and she is killed when Puller blows up the concrete dome to mess up the timer on the nuclear bomb.

Puller's father is a retired US general and is suffering from dementia. Puller's brother is in federal prison for treason. Nothing in this novel concerns the 'how and why' of the brother's imprisonment. His story must be covered in another work by Baldacci.

David Baldacci is a master storyteller but he's not a great writer. Always compelling yet the characters seem more like cutouts than authentic personalities. 

From Kirkus:

"In his 22nd, Baldacci (The Sixth Man, 2011, etc.) introduces a soldier/sleuth who fights like Rambo and thinks like Holmes.

Mountain-sized and über-brainy, John Puller is about as unconquerable as mere mortals get to be. An ex-warrior—Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else his country’s enemies happened to be entrenched—he’s served with unvarying distinction. As a consequence, the fruit salad (Army slang for medals) he pins to his dress uniform tells a glory story already the stuff of legend. These days, however, Warrant Officer Puller fights a somewhat different kind of war—quieter perhaps, but only marginally less dangerous. Employed by the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigations Division, he battles military crime, and he is—it’s universally acknowledged—terrific at it. Still, his latest assignment has him scratching his head a bit. In tiny Drake, W.Va., a colonel, his wife and two teenage kids have been murdered, and Puller’s been ordered to find out the why and catch the who. A pitiless, carefully staged bloodbath, it’s the kind of headline-grabber that ordinarily would have had teams of special agents pell-melling into Drake, yet here’s Puller flying solo, offered not much more in terms of guidance than, “play nice with the locals.” On the upside, one of the locals turns out to be a smart, remarkably attractive police sergeant named Samantha Cole. Born and Bred in Drake, she’s in a position to provide needed insights into her town’s power structure and usual suspects list. Four dead bodies on Puller’s arrival, a total that almost at once zooms to seven with no real reason to suppose it’s reached its limit. What’s going on in this small, coal belt community to suddenly transform it into a charnel-house? Another poser for Puller: how to keep from personally adding to the count?

Relentlessly formulaic, but Puller is a strong enough protagonist to keep the pages turning."

American Boy by Larry Watson

Finished Su 5/8/22

This was a hardback that I bought on Amazon. I watched the movie 'TOMATO RED' and I wanted another book by Daniel Woodrell but they were all too expensive. I noticed that many recommended Larry Watson's books so I gave it a shot.

Set in the Fall of 1962 in Willow Falls, Minnesota.   

A 1960 Valiant is featured. The same car that I had as a senior at Wheeling High School. I did a little research on the car and it evolved into kind of a muscle car but I will never forget that ugly design. 

The novel highlights class differences in small town America.

Matthew, a high school boy is friends with Dr. Dunbar's family. The doctor's son is his best friend and when Louisa Lindahl is taken into their household everything changes. The woman was shot by her boyfriend and the doctor has taken pity on her. Actually, she is determined to get the doctor to leave his wife and family and be with her. And, Matthew has taken a shine to her.

The crisis comes when doctor Dunbar and his son turn against Matthew and side with the woman.

Matthew gives her money to leave the town and threatens to reveal her plan to break up the Dunbar's.

From GoodReads:

"We were exposed to these phenomena in order that we might learn something, but of course the lessons we learn are not always those we are taught . . .

So begins Matthew Garth’s story of the fall of 1962, when the shooting of a young woman on Thanksgiving Day sets off a chain of unsettling events in Willow Falls, Minnesota. Matthew first sees Louisa Lindahl in Dr. Dunbar’s home office, and at the time her bullet wound makes nearly as strong an impression as her unclothed body. Fueled over the following weeks by his feverish longing for this mysterious woman—as well as by a deep desire for the comfort and affluence that appears to surround the Dunbars—Matthew finds himself drawn into a series of confrontations he never expected, the results of which will change his life irrevocably and give lie to his version of the American dream.

Immersive, heartbreaking, and richly evocative of time and place, this long-awaited new novel marks the return of a great American storyteller." 

I felt the book was a little less than compelling but an interesting concept nonetheless. I would read more by Larry Watson.  

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY by Karleen Koen

Refinished Th 5/5/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first finished at the club: Good Friday (Off) Fr 4/14/94.

A couple of comments from GoodReads.com:

"One of the most beloved historical fiction novels of all time!

As opulent and passionate as the 18th century it celebrates, Through A Glass Darkly sparkles with all of the extravagance and scandal of a grand and glorious era.

Barbara Alderly has loved her husband, the wealthy, charming Earl of Devane, Roger Montgeoffry, since childhood.

Set against a French court awash in intrigue, treachery and debauchery, Barbara must learn to navigate the dark currents of deception, scandal and betrayal.

Peopled by a cast of unforgettable characters, here is the story of a great family ruled by a dowager of extraordinary power; a young woman coming of age, seeking love in the midst of a storm; her mother, the cruel and self-centered Diana; and of a man haunted by a secret that could turn all of their dreams to ashes...

Like no other historical fiction novel, Through a Glass Darkly is infused with intrigue, sweetened by romance and awash in the black ink of betrayal."

"Have you ever come across one of those books in which the main protagonist starts out being beautiful, brave, intelligent...in short, all that is admirable in a person...and then, about 50 pages in, said protagonist becomes the brattiest, whiniest, dumbest little kid you've had the misfortune of coming across in the last 20 books you've read? This is what happened to me with this book. I read a summary of the work somewhere and thought that it aspired to be much more than a trashy historical romance. I WAS WRONG. When Barbara threw a bizarro tantrum and developed an eating disorder because they wouldn't let her marry the object of her childish crush, I wanted to throw the book at the wall. And then stomp on it a few times once it hit the floor. Instead I continued to read, hoping that the ending would redeem the rest."

"...It was such a relaxing way to spend a day at the beach, doubly so because all the rest of the time I was there I was having to work in my second language, which I wasn't nearly so strong in. So, I reread it and it was a very different experience this time. It's still a really fun and well-written novel, but I remember having a very different reaction to the heroine when I was younger than I did this time around. Interesting how you change with age. And I'd forgotten how compelling the grandmother was."

This book to me was kind of a 'guilty pleasure'. I wonder how Barbara made out on her grandmother's plantation in Virginia.