CLYDE WISHAM
Another good book in the Maisie Dobbs series.
In this one, Maisie has put her old team together and reestablished herself as a PI in London. One of her former colleagues, Francesca Thomas, hires Maisie to investigate the death of a Belgian refugee who came to Britain as a teenager during World War I. As Maisie investigates, she finds that more Belgian's who settled in England at that time are being murdered. She appears to be on the trail of a serial killer. She knows that Francesca is involved in intelligence work and begins to suspect that she hasn't been given the full story. Complications and danger issue.
Additionally, the start of WW2 gives Maisie more personal complications and problems involving her staff, family, and friends. She has a lot of balls to juggle.
Good, solid story in the series. The narration by Orlagh Cassidy is quite good.
4+ stars.
This story is set in 1938 when the Nazis were ascendant in Germany. Maisie Dobbs has returned to England after working for a while as a nurse in civil war-torn Spain. Before she can really reestablish her life in London, British Secret Service ask her to travel to Munich on a special assignment. She somewhat reluctantly accepts the assignment. She is to pose as the daughter of Leon Donat a British citizen imprisoned by the Germans in Dachau prison near Munich. The British government has negotiated his release, but the Nazis will only release him to a family member. She also agrees to try to find the daughter of a wealthy British-Canadian businessman. The daughter has gone missing in Munich and Maisie is to persuade her to return home if possible.
The mission appears straightforward but proves to be anything but. The Secret Service and Nazi SS have agendas and there are mercantile interests at work. As if that weren't enough, German underground activists and an American agent get into the mix and the daughter is up to something. Nazi Germany is not a safe or good place to be. Maisie has a dangerous road to walk.
Pretty good story. Orlagh Cassidy's narration is well done. Solid four stars.
In the eleventh Maisie Dobbs story, Maisie is on the way home to England when she decides to stop for a while in Gibraltar. This is a damaged Maisie, not the indomitable force we became used to in previous books. In the four years since she left England, she has taken some serious blows and still isn't ready to face home and family again. She wants to pause and rest.
Of course that isn't in the cards. Almost immediately after arriving, Maisie literally stumbles over the body of a freshly murdered man. The local police soon rule that the man, a local photographer, was killed by an unknown vagrant intent on robbery and that the matter is closed. Maisie isn't satisfied and starts looking into the murder on her own.
Things escalate. It is 1937 and the Spanish Civil War is in full swing right next door. The death of the photographer seems somehow related. Maisie soon finds herself in a tangled web involving espionage, arms smugglers, lies, and secrets. The British secret service also takes an interest in her activities.
Maisie must move with care, but perhaps a case and a cause is what Maisie needs to put her life back together.
Aside: This is the lowest rated book in the series here on GoodReads. It seems that some of the fans of the series had trouble dealing with the changes Maisie had been through in her years away. Hence a lot of one and two star ratings. IMHO, those readers are dead wrong. This is actually one of the stronger books in the series.
4.5 stars rounded up.
I am quite enjoying the Penric and Desdemona series.
At the begining of this volume, one of Penric's fellow sorcerers was found murdered. Penric joins forces with Shaman Inglis and Locator Oswyl to hunt down her murderer. It won't be easy.
A good story well told – as I have come to expect from Bujold.
With Ship of Destiny, Frank Chadwick brings us another very good military science fiction adventure.This story picks up shortly after the events of [b:Chain of Command 34466767 Chain of Command Frank Chadwick https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492481749l/34466767.SY75.jpg 55586870]. Sam Bitka has been promoted and given command of the “USS Cam Ranh Bay”, an armed transport. While on a routine mission to transport some scientists and diplomats to another star system, a mysterious alien probe unlike any vessel known to the six races of the “Cottohazz” appears and reprograms their FTL drive. It sends them off into the unknown. When they finally get to the programmed destination, they meet new races including the enigmatic, deadly, and immortal Guardians. Things soon go horribly wrong and they find themselves in a fight for their lives. Sam will need all his skills as a combat tactician, a leader, and a negotiator to navigate his way back home. It becomes a truly ‘Homeric' journey of adventure and danger. (Can't say much more without giving things away.)Good book with an intriguing plot and well-drawn characters. Solid four stars.
This set of 48 lectures is a good overview of and introduction to the Geological sciences. It was mostly a review for me, but I did learn some new things – especially some details related to plate tectonics and atmosphere dynamics.
There are a few minor errors, slips of the tongue mostly, and some of the lectures should be updated, but overall a good course well presented. Professor Wysession's enthusiasm for the subjects is infectious.
Excellent war history – as I have come to expect from Hornfischer.
This volume covers the final year of the war against Japan – concentrating on the battles in the Marianas and Okinawa, on navel action, and on the air war.
The Marianas campaign was especially interesting to me as I had only previously known about it in outline. That brutal fighting of that campaign, especially the events on Saipan, shook American leadership and convinced them that Japan was truly in the grip of a death cult. That was a major factor in the decision to pursue a relentless fire-bombing air war against the Japanese homeland and eventually use the atom bomb.
This book provides lots of details and insight about many subjects – the original frogmen (predecessors of Navy Seals), the planning, the incredible logistics effort, the brutal land combat, the impact of the kamikaze attacks, and much much more. I found the discussions of the differences in leadership styles to be quite interesting, especially the differences between admirals Spruance and Halsey. (Hornfischer favors the former, as do I.)
A lot of the details about Paul Tibbets and the 509th Composite Group, which delivered the atomic bomb attacks, were new to me. I hadn't realized the amount of effort, training, and planning involved.
Good book, recommended if you are interested in WW2 military history.
A former criminal now working on the right side of the law runs into an old nemesis. He is still an asshole, and he is doing wrong.
What's a girl to do? Well if things are happening in LA, she finds an actor and gives him a script.
Good crime short story. Rusch certainly knows how to tell a tale.
(Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in 2014. Now available as an ebook in the normal places.)
This is an odd book, hard to characterize. I think my brother, Walter, puts it well. “It's like The Man from Earth, meets Forrest Gump.” I suppose “supernatural thriller” is as good a description as any. The story seemed to drag a bit at points, as the main character kept meeting and aiding 'not yet' famous people throughout his long life. But it kept me engaged, and those chance meetings turned out to be important toward the end of the book. The one conceit of this story is that religions are mostly based on falsehoods – but, that there is a supernatural kernel of truth.
The cover text is a pretty good introduction. Read that first before deciding if you want to read it.
The audio version is a nicely done multi-cast presentation.
Solid four stars.
Good book. But, I didn't enjoy it as much as the first Quillifer book. I think that is because of the rather odd (to me anyway) way it was written. The whole story is told by Quillifer to another person who was also a participant in the action. (I wonder if there is a name for this technique? Sort of a curious mixture of first person melding into second person.)
The basic story, however, is quite good. 3.5 stars rounded up.
Frank Chadwick is best known as a game designer. However, lately he has taken to writing SF&F books, and I am very happy he has done so.CoC is his third book in the universe he started with [b:How Dark the World Becomes 15803177 How Dark the World Becomes Frank Chadwick https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1345678721l/15803177.SY75.jpg 21526591] (excellent!), but this one doesn't involve his hero/antihero Sasha Naradnyo. (You don't need to have read Sasha Naradnyo books first.) Lieutenant Sam Bitka, a Naval Reserve officer, is the main protagonist here. At the start of the book all Sam wants to do is complete his service and return to civilian life. Anyway his chances of advancement in the Navy as a reserve officer aren't bright. But a secretive Varoki cabal have different ideas and have put humans and at least one Varoki nation on a collision course. Bitka and his crew will be tested – very hard – before his tour of duty ends.This story is really good military SF with consistent science and realistic characters. And we get space battle, lots of it and described very well. The crew interactions, however, are the strong point of the story with well drawn characters doing their best (and worst) under very trying conditions. Combine that with lots of action at breakneck speed and you have a real page turner.The historical note at the end in which Chadwick explains the inspiration for the book is also quite interesting.Good book. 4+ stars. Frank Chadwick is now on my short auto-buy list.
This compilation of Jo Walton's blog posts on re-reading books, was my breakfast reading for almost two months. Perfect for that as I could usually read a couple of posts before dashing off for the day's whatever. To me this book feels a bit like the non-fiction heart to her [b:Among Others 8706185 Among Others Jo Walton https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1317792367l/8706185.SY75.jpg 6449955].The thing that comes through most clearly is that Jo Walton loves books and she especially loves SF&F. And she re-reads. OMG does she re-read! (It helps that she is a very fast reader.) And that is what this book is all about – what it is that makes a book good enough to read again and again. That is subjective of course and probably nobody agrees with her completely. I certainly don't. (For example she really likes Zelazny but doesn't care for [b:Lord of Light 13821 Lord of Light Roger Zelazny https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1330127327l/13821.SY75.jpg 1011388], which I love and have read at least three times. Go figure.)Anyway, in general I find her posts witty and informative. When I finished, the book had lots of post-it tabs marking books/writers I intend to take a deeper look at. Also along the way I rediscovered a couple of books I had read but forgotten about.All in all a good read well worth sharing my breakfast time with. Solid four stars.
I read this long ago in my youth, but I found that I remembered very little on re-reading it.
Good story, somewhat surrealistic but with lots of action and a nice mystery to resolve.
Zelazny was a real craftsman with words. As I read this book, at times I felt like he was channeling Delany. Not surprising I suppose as they were contemporaries and must have influenced each other back in the 1960s.
A continuation of book 1 ([b:Darkness Begins 34802812 Darkness Begins (After the EMP, #1) Harley Tate https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1491352823l/34802812.SY75.jpg 56014666]) in Tate's After the EMP series with many of the same characters. Civilization continues to break down. Tracy, Madison, Walter, and their friends continue their struggle to survive. It won't be easy. Though a bit preachy at times (as stories like this tend to be) this story is fast-paced and kept me engaged. I would have made some different decisions, but whatever – the story isn't about me.One of the characters comments at one point that a total loss of the technology supporting civilization (power, transportation, communications) would result in a 90% die-off in North America. We can quibble about the numbers, but I reckon that is in the right ballpark and doubtless numbers would be similar or worse worldwide.A quick read. 3.5 stars rounded up.
I seem to be hooked on this series. Some have commented that they have trouble empathizing with Maisie Dobbs and that she is a bit of a cold fish with a need to control. I disagree. I think it is just that her feelings are closely held and also she still struggles PTSD. Also, her chosen profession, investigator and consultant (and it seems sometimes government agent), requires her to be somewhat dispassionate and objective.
In this volume, Maisie has multiple problems to solve. Some acquaintances from her own humble roots on the “far side of the water” request her to investigate the death of Eddie Pettit – a humble soul who had a way with horses. They are sure his death was no accident.
Additionally, a government agency hires her to take on a teaching position at a Cambridge college and report on possible subversive activities there. Almost immediately she finds herself caught up in a mystery surrounding a death there.
Also, some powerful men are worried about the dark clouds of Fascism and Nazism that are gathering in Europe and are taking action.
These seemingly unrelated elements intersect in surprising ways in this story.
Maisie's personal life also changes. The romance that began in the previous book blossoms in this volume. But, things will not go smoothly between her and her love because Maisie was never cut out to be a society wife. I will be interested to see how this thread works out in future volumes.
All in all, a pretty good historical mystery. Maisie has to make full use of her intellect and her intuition and she has to confront some internal demons to achieve a satisfactory outcome.
Solid four stars.
Another good historical mystery from Jacqueline Winspear. Not as entertaining as book #7 ([b:The Mapping of Love and Death 6553733 The Mapping of Love and Death (Maisie Dobbs, #7) Jacqueline Winspear https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1329659691l/6553733.SY75.jpg 6746308]) but still a fun read.3.5 stars rounded up.