One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This book is a great example of magical realism. Magical realism according to Matthew Strecher is "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something to strange to believe."*  This is a very odd book and to be honest, not in a good way.  It opens with Jose Arcadio Buendia marrying his cousin Ursula. The families had a habit of intermarrying and they begged the couple not to marry but they did anyway.  Ursula refused to have sex with Jose Arcadia Buendia and wore a chastity belt.  Word got around that she was still a virgin and that he was impotent.  Ursula told him to ignore the rumors, but one night after his prize-winning cock beat Prudencio Aguilar's cock, Prudencio made the comment that maybe Jose's cock could please Ursula. Jose challenged him and went and got his spear and sent it flying into his throat and killed him.  Then he was haunted everywhere by his ghost.

To avoid his ghost Jose Arcadio Buendia and a group of people set out to find a new place to live. For a little over two years, they searched for the sea but didn't find it.  They settled on some land next to a small river and a swamp and he called it Mocando.  Everyone got the same amount of land for a plot.  And no one died.  When the gypsies would visit one of them, Melquiades would sell him things like a telescope or an alchemy set that he would lose himself in and avoid his family.  By now he had two sons, Jose Arcadio who was huge and would run off with the gypsies, but not before siring a son, Arcadio with the card reader Pilar Ternera and Aureliano who had the sight and also sired a son off of Pilar called Aureliano Jose.  He also had a daughter named Amaranta who had a bizarre love life.

Aureliano started off making silver objects especially these silver fishes.  He married Remedios Moscote, a child, who died while pregnant with twins.  Aureliano would become a Colonel in the rebel army in the first Columbian civil war in 1860 which technically lasted two years, but he continued to fight.  He would also fight up and down the coast of Central America and Cuba.  In 1885 the fighting would begin again until he forced them to a peaceful resolution that was fair for the people.  He fathered seventeen sons named Aureliano by seventeen women during this time, mostly women whose faces he never saw in the night.  They would all die before reaching the age of thirty-five.  He escaped many attempts on his life and even a firing squad.

Rebecca would arrive from nowhere a young woman who was a relative of Ursula and Jose Arcadia Buendia.  When Ursula has a pianola brought to the house by an Italian Pietro Crespi who is a music teacher both Rebecca and Amaranta fall in love with him.  Rebecca takes to eating earth and paint chips she is so obsessed with her love of him.  She devises a way of sending and receiving letters from him and Ursula finds out.  She and Jose decide that Rebecca can marry him, but then Remedios dies and the wedding is postponed due to the mourning period.  Amaranta vows to prevent the two from marrying.  and one thing and then another happens and it begins to look as though they will never marry as the years pass. Then Jose Arcadia returns from traveling the world and Rebecca is quite taken with him and they run off and get married.  Now Amaranta has the chance to marry Pietro Crespi but she chooses not to. She also has the opportunity to marry a Colonel Gerineldo Marquez but she chooses not to marry him either.

During this time period, Melquiades the gypsy who had disappeared and was believed dead appears in the town and moves in with Jose and Ursula. For a while, he and Jose work on projects together but then Meliquides goes downhill and spends all his time in his room or in Aurlilano's silversmith room muttering to himself or writing stuff down on paper. The only one who pays any attention to him is Aureliano Jose who no one in the house seems to notice and grows up to be a harsh, unfeeling man.

The next generation consisting of the children of Jose Arcadio (whose mother is Pilar) is Remedios the Beauty who is dimwitted, and twins Aureliano Segundo who acts more like a wild Jose Arcadio, and Jose Arcadio Segundo who acts more like a solitary Aureliano with magical abilities. Ursula believes the twins changed places as kids and never changed back. The same can be said of future generations, which is what I think is the point Garcia is trying to make.  That we can't escape the fate of the history of our family history.  This was a very dense book to read. I really plodded my way through it.  The leaps of fancy you have to make with magical realism are hard to swallow but I managed to go along with it pretty okay.  I did get sick of each generation being the same as the one before, though I know that was something he was doing with a purpose.  I will say this, I never once got anyone confused with anyone else, which takes some talent to pull off considering how many people are named the same thing, but people in my book club did not have my luck with this and often did get confused.  The book has long flowing descriptive sentences that almost never end making this a difficult read.  It's just too much. I give this book a three out of five stars.

*Matthew C. Strecher, Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki, Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume 25, Number 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 263-298, at 267.

Quotes

As soon as they took the body out, Rebecca closed the doors of her house an buried herself alive, covered with a thick crust of disdain that no earthly temptation was ever able to break.

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude p 137)

The best friend a person has is one who has just died.

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude p 169)

At first curiosity increased the clientele on the forbidden street and there was even word of respectable ladies who disguised themselves as workers in order to observe the novelty of the phonograph from first hand, but from so much and such close observation they soon reached the conclusion that it was not an enchanted mill as everyone had thought and as matrons has said, but a mechanical trick that could not be compared with something so moving, so human and so full of everyday truth as a band of musicians.

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude p 225-6)

Tell him that a person doesn’t di when he should but when he can.

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude p 243)

Poverty was the servitude of love.

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude p 339)

The world must be all fucked up when men travel first class and literature goes as freight.

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude p 400)

That they forget everything he had taught them about the world and the human heart, that they shit on Horace, and that wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was ephemeral truth in the end.

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude p 401-2)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Solitude-Harper-Perennial-Classics/dp/0060883286/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540988969&sr=1-3&keywords=one+hundred+years+of+solitude&dpID=618npmqoOsL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

Moore writes funny and offbeat novels that tackle a subject and skewer it.  This time its vampires.  Jody is a twenty-six-year-old redhead who works in insurance and is walking to the bus stop late one night when she is turned into a vampire and left under a garbage dumpster with her hand sticking out.  When she awakens at night, her hand is badly burnt, but beginning to heal, and she has $100,000 taped to her chest.  She can see auras around people. Most people have a red aura around them, but those dying have a black one.

She takes the bus back to the apartment she shares with a jerk Kirk who's a low-level trader in a firm in the financial district of San Francisco.  Kirk, being less than sensitive doesn't ask about her hand or wonder if she's hurt but how it affects him. Now that's she's back he doesn't want to deal with her because he has to get up early in the morning for work.  Jody picks up a planter and throws it at his head knocking him out then begins to feed on him, but just a little bit.  After a short while, the holes in his neck disappear.  She packs a bag of her stuff and leaves to check into a motel.  She does realize though that she'll need a human companion to handle the daylight hours stuff.  So she goes in search of one.

Tommy is a nineteen-year-old guy just in from Indiana who wants to be a writer who, from the tip of the Emperor, the local bum who helps the city with his two dogs Bummer and Lazarus, takes the job as night manager of Marina Safeway. This job involves ordering and unloading stock.  He works with the Animals: Simon McQueen who sees himself as a cowboy; Jeff Murray a has-been high school basketball star; Clint, a myopic born-again Christian; Drew, the pot supplier; Troy Lee, Kung Fu fighter; Gustavo, a large family man; Barry, a scuba diver; and Lash, who is studying business at San Francisco State.  The guys like to turkey bowl with dish detergent bottles as pins.  Tommy proves himself to be quite impressive in the sport and fits in very well with the gang.

One night Jody is walking in their parking lot and Simon goes outside and makes a pest of himself hitting on her. Tommy goes out and sends Simon back inside and apologizes to her for his behavior.  The two connect and she asks him to meet her the next night a half hour after sunset at Enrico's restaurant.  At dinner she asks him to get an apartment with her, seeing as neither have one at the moment.  It doesn't mean they have to have a sexual relationship or anything--at least not right off.  She gives him money to look for an apartment and to get her car out of police impound where it was towed for illegal parking.

He can't get her car out, but he finds the perfect loft with no windows in the bedroom or bathroom that has a large number of bookshelves for all of his books.  He immediately takes it and shows it to her that night and they have sex and she bites him during sex a little bit which both enjoy.  Then she tells him that she is a vampire and he seems to accept in stride but is determined to find out all about her powers since the man who turned her didn't tell her anything except to call her later and tell her that she isn't immortal and can be killed.  He experiments with that by drowning her in the bathtub filled with ice and she survives that fine.  But most of his vampire experiments are a failure and just drive her crazy as they are from works of fiction.

The ancient vampire that made her is stalking her and killing people and leaving them near where she is staying. He left one at the motel she stayed at. He left one in front of the loft, but she grabbed it and put it in a deep freezer Tommy had delivered until they could figure out what to do with him.  He had killed another man, a bum before he turned her.  They have broken necks and are drained dry.  He is toying with her to see how long she can last before she screws up and has to be killed along with her "pet", Tommy.

Two detectives Rivera and Cavuto are on the case of who killed these people and drained the bodies.  They are also investigating the redheaded ninja who beat up to a pulp three men at a laundromat.  Cavuto is a tough, cigar smoking third generation gay cop who believes the rules don't apply while Riveria is a thoughtful, calmer cop who seems more open to believing the impossible might be at play here.

This is a book that pokes fun at the vampire myth in a merry way.  This book was written in 1995 at the time of AIDS so there are people in it with the disease. It was also written just when California passed the law making it illegal to smoke indoors so there's some commentary about that too. Will Jody ever kill someone? Can Jody and Tommy make their relationship work? There is a cashier at work who is interested in him and she is human and gets what its like to be human and do human things.  At the same time, Jody is thinking the same thing about the ancient vampire.  He gets her like no one else does and he has the answers she seeks.  Jody is a character that can fly off the handle at a moment's notice and she takes the dominant role in the relationship.  Poor Tommy seems to do whatever she says.  But Tommy does have a backbone and he will use it, it will just be poor timing on his part when he does.  This book is not as good as some of the other Christopher Moore books I've read such as Lamb, Noir, and The Stupidest Angel, but its still a Moore book and that means something.  It's a book that will tickle your funny bone a great deal.  I give it four out of five stars. 
Quotes

His writer’s mind kicked in and he thought, This woman could break my heart. I could crash and burn on this woman. I could lose this woman, drink heavily, write profound poems, and die in the gutter of tuberculosis over this woman.

-Christopher Moore (Bloodsucking Fiends p 49)

That’s not the point, Tommy. I might be immortal, but I’ve lost a big part of my life. Like French fries. I miss eating French fries. I’m Irish, you know. Ever since the Great Potato Famine my people get nervous if they don’t eat French fries every few days. Did you think about that?

-Christopher Moore (Bloodsucking Fiends p 148)

“So we’re fucked.” “It’s too early for us to be fucked. I’d say we’ve been taken to dinner and slipped the tongue on the good-night kiss.”

-Christopher Moore (Bloodsucking Fiends p 150)

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Bloodsucking-Fiends-Story-Christopher-Moore-ebook/dp/B00309CNIA?crid=2KJH9HLRCWD7&keywords=bloodsucking+fiends&qid=1540815420&sprefix=bloodsu%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1&ref=sr_1_1


     

Road Rage by Joe Hill (Writer), Stephen King (Writer), Richard Matheson (Writer), Chris Ryall (Adapter), Nelson Daniel (Art), Rafa Garres (Art), and Robbie Robbins (Letterer)

Stephen King has great memories of reading the short story "Duel" by Richard Matheson for the first time in 1971 and both Joe Hill, his son, and he has fond memories of watching the Stephen Speilberg movie made of Duel in the same year that they watched together on videodisk in 1978. So when the time came for an anthology of work by authors saluting Matheson, both of them signed up to write a story together. This comic contains their story "Throttle" and Matheson's story "Duel".

In "Throttle" a bike gang a friend of one of them, Roy has just taken them for $60,000 to build a meth lab that he says blew up, but his buddy who set this up and belongs to the bike gang, Race, doesn't buy this. Only when he goes to question Roy and his girlfriend with some of the guys, she begins shooting and one of the guys takes a machete and goes to town and now Roy and his girlfriend are both dead and Race has an idea that the money may be at his sister's house and wants to go there to look for it, but his dad Vince and half of the gang is against it while the other half is for going to the sister's house.  As they head out down the road after stopping at a roadside diner to discuss their plans and eat, they head out on the road. It soon becomes apparent though that the truck behind them is gunning for them. But why? And will any of them survive?

In "Duel" Mann is heading across the United States towards San Fransico through mountainous regions. He's a salesman thinking of the appointments he has and the hoped-for contacts that will likely lead to disappointment.  Then this old, belching truck comes up from behind him and passes him.  He doesn't want to be breathing noxious fumes for miles and the only way to not be stuck breathing in the fumes he has to either slow down or to pass him. He doesn't want to be late for his appointment so he passes the truck. Then the truck passes him again.  When he tries to pass the truck again the truck moves across the highway blocking him. Then after a while, the truck gives him the go-ahead signal and it turns out that there is a truck coming in the other lane that he narrowly avoids hitting.  He does manage to pass the truck and stay ahead of it for a while then he stops at a diner and hopes to lose the truck there, but he had no luck as the truck is waiting for him.

When I watched the movie Maximum Overdrive which was based on the Stephen King short story "Trucks". It had a lot of trucks in it that were running by themselves.  Evil trucks. One, in particular, was a truck with a purple cab with a clown on the front that looked particularly menacing. Twice now while I've been driving I've gotten in front of two trucks that were purple and been totally freaked out because of that movie.  Killer trucks like in these two stories can be scary things. Matheson really hit on something with his short story "Duel" all those years ago that still resonates today.  Both of these stories are really good.  You really don't know if these people in the story will survive their encounters with the trucks. I like how in King and Hill's story there's a twist at the end.  I give this book four out of five stars.

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Road-Rage-Stephen-King-ebook/dp/B0097EROYU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540565309&sr=8-1&keywords=road+rage+comic

Die Like An Eagle by Donna Andrews

Meg Langslow Waterson and her husband Michael have entered their kids Josh and Jaime into a coach pitch baseball league called Summerball.  Michael is a coach along with a father named Chuck, who doesn't seem to know what he's doing.  Others with more experience were blackballed because they are a woman like Chuck's wife or because of their past run-ins with Biff Brown who is running the league this year.  The league is run this year by Biff Brown whom the parents set up Summerball to avoid dealing with him under Little League which he ran.  Biff would make up local rules at the drop of a hat.  He also berated the two teams he coached.  But he had loyal parents that believed in him just as he had parents that were too scared to cross him, but silently hated what he was doing.

On top of that his construction company was in charge of the upkeep of the ballfield which was a disaster. It also only had one porta potty which was nasty.  When Meg found out about this she became determined to give it to someone else like the Shiffley's Construction Company to take it over and fix it and give them flush toilets. Also, Biff has a contract with the city of Caerphilly to fix up the town square by Memorial Day but he has yet to start. Meg has made numerous calls to his office but he won't take her call or call her back.  When she finally meets him at the ballfield he weasels out of talking to her about it and skedaddles.

Biff had invited a big wig from Summerball, Mr. Witherington to throw out the first pitch.  Meg and the mayor, her boss, see this as an opportunity to oust Biff from running the league if they can show Mr. Witherington that he is unfit.  On Opening Day Meg goes to force the porta potty door open for one of the kids and discovers a body that looks like Biff but turns out to be his half-brother Shep who was supposed to be the umpire of the game.  He had been shot sometime last night and shoved inside the porta potty.

Chief Burke believes that it's possible that the killer mistook Shep for Biff as the two look very similar to each other especially in the dark.  Shep didn't have many enemies, but Biff had a long list of them including the parents of the baseball league and his customers of a construction company who are suing him and a vengeful soon-to-be ex-wife.  Though Shep did have an insurance policy that was made out to his brother, his ex-wife didn't know that.  His brother likely did and Biff was broke and needed money.

Andrews has written another great mystery where you're back and forth on who could possibly have done it until she unties the plot at the end with the distinction of a magician going "Abracadabra".  The character of Shep's ex-wife Callie is so hilarious with her red hair that is not a shade in nature, piled high on top of her head, wearing the highest heels, and wearing the oddest clothing that doesn't necessarily cover all of her body, such as the bra she wore as a top.  And she was never sober.  I really liked this book and I give it four out of five stars.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Die-Like-Eagle-Langslow-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B01AGFYUBI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540383526&sr=8-1&keywords=die+like+an+eagle

Hold Back the Dark by Kay Hooper

This is a Bishop/Special Crimes Unit novel.  Some being has summoned several psychics, two from the Unit but the rest just untrained citizens, to Prosperity, North Carolina for a fight to balance out the scales of negative and positive energy and dissipate the energy that has escaped into the town and close the portal it has escaped from.  Included among this group are: FBI agent Hollis who is a medium, an energy manipulator, sees auras, heals herself and others, and is an empath; FBI agent DeMarco who is a telepath with a double psychic shield that he can extend and protect someone else with; FBI agent Galen who was not summoned but felt that he needed to be there who can be very difficult to kill; Olivia who suffers from headaches and is telekinetic; Logan who is a powerful medium; Reno who is a clairvoyant and seer and she can bring someone into her visions if they touch her while she is having one; Dalton is a powerful telepath who has no shields to protect himself from the outside world and therefore hears everything people think and spends his time being angry which gives any empath around him a headache; Victoria can put people to sleep, but Hollis believes that she has a latent ability that should show itself soon; and Sully who is an empath who can even feel what animals feel and suffers headaches and blackouts.

In Prosperity a man walked down to the basement with the laundry and shot himself in the head with a rifle leaving behind a suicide note that said: "Just me not them". While he was doing that a woman was busy killing and chopping up her husband and three children eating the fingers of one her children then crawling up in a ball and going into a sleep that she can't be awakened from.  This is a quiet town where nothing really happens and the Sheriff doesn't know what to make of it. His Chief Deputy, though, does as she is a clairvoyant who knows Bishop and tells him she knows who to call.

Hollis and DeMarco arrive with Galen coming separately doing a ride around the town getting the lay of the land.  The first thing they notice is a pressure bearing down on them trying to get in. Hollis can also feel the tension and anger of the town.  People are suffering from headaches from the pressure on their minds.  Another two murders happen and then Hollis senses that there is someone who is struggling to not give in to the voices in their head to kill someone but she isn't sure who it is or if they will succeed. Later one of the Sheriff's deputies arrives frantically because he almost killed his wife. Victoria puts him to sleep and they lock him up for his safety.

The group decides to go out and search for the portal out in the valley where the murders happened but get distracted by others who are close to killing.  Hollis feels that this evil is something familiar.  Also, all of their other cases in this area of the southeast can all be linked back to this spot.  The idea of this book is a good one and the beginning and middle of it are great. But the ending is a bit of a fizzle and a letdown.  It's like she got tired of writing and decided to just quickly end it and stop.  I really liked the new characters though and I think this book was really a way to introduce them to the series.  This book is still well written and while the ending is questionable is stellar before that so I still give it three and a half out of five stars.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Hold-Back-Bishop-Special-Crimes-ebook/dp/B073TJ7PQY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540209140&sr=1-1&keywords=hold+back+the+dark+kay+hooper 

Spider-Man: Blue by Jeph Loeb (Storyteller), Time Sale (Storyteller), Richard Starkings (Lettering), Comicraft's Wes Abbott (Lettering) and Steve Buccellato (Colorist)

A future Peter Parker is talking into a recorder and remembering the events that led up to Valentine's Day that he had with Gwen Stacy back when he was in college and had just met both her and Mary Jane Watson and his world changed.  While fighting the Green Goblin an explosion causes Norman Osbourne to forget that he is the Green Goblin and that Peter Parker is Spider-Man so Spider-Man burns his costume and rescues him from the burning building to deliver him to the waiting fire department hoping he did the right thing in saving his life.

Peter goes to the Daily Bugle with pictures declaring that the Green Goblin is dead.  Now J. Johah Jameson wants pictures of Norman Osbourne for the paper so Peter goes to the hospital and soon becomes friends with his son Harry which is where he meets Gwen Stacy.  When classes start up Peter has a lab with Gwen and Flash who is determined to keep Peter down, while Gwen tries to flirt with him and makes a study date with him and the gang that he winds up bringing Mary Jane to, whom he has just met, and then leaves with her on his new motorcycle.

Meanwhile, the Rhino has escaped custody and Peter will need help from Dr. Connors, aka the Lizzard to figure out how to get past his tough hide.  Unfortunately, the materials that Dr. Connor must work with to help defeat the Rhino cause him to become the Lizzard just when his family is coming up from Florida for a visit so Spidey must try to turn the Lizzard back into Dr. Connor.  But these aren't the only creatures Spider-Man will face nor is this all a coincidence.

Gwen and Mary Jane spend time going after Peter full force and for once Peter has the trouble of too many women.  But the girl he seems to really want to be with is Gwen Stacy, however, Mary Jane does seem to be a very pretty distraction.  This comic is called Blue for a reason. Some of the pages are colored in Blue and his memories of this Valentine's Day make him blue.  This is an excellent comic in tone and content and characters.  Loeb and Sales are excellent writers and are known for writing the Batman comic The Long Halloween, Batman Hush comic (Loeb alone), the Daredevil Yellow comic, the Hulk Gray Comic, and the Captain America White comic.  Loeb also wrote the movie Teen Wolf, the TV show The Ultimate Spiderman, Smallville, Heroes, and Gotham. He also executive produced such TV shows as Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Spider-Man, Legion, Cloak and Dager, and The Gifted.  The smart-ass humor is there but so is the dark emotionality of someone who misses a girl he loves, perhaps his first love.  This is a must-read for all Spider-Man fans and I strongly recommend it for those who just love comics. I give it five out of five stars.   

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Blue-Jeph-Loeb/dp/0785134468/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1539952608&sr=8-2&keywords=spider-man+blue&dpID=41QqFpt-TZL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny

It all begins with a nine-year-old boy, Laurent Lepage, who was prone to making up wild stories, entering the bistro of Three Pines and announcing that he had found a large gun--bigger than anything you could imagine--that had a monster on it.  He wanted former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache to come and look at it.  Instead, he takes him home to his parents.  Not long after that the boy is dead in a bicycle accident that Gamache figures out is murder because of how the body is situated and because the stick that the boy's father gave him as a birthday present that he is never without was not found at the scene, meaning that it was left where his body was killed.

A search is conducted in the woods where the boy played to find the stick, but instead of finding the stick a false opening is found to a cavern that Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir enter to find the boy's stick on the floor but also what appears to be a missile launcher of some sort hanging from the ceiling with a seven-headed monster being ridden by a wild woman etched on the side.

Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste is brought in and she calls a General from the military and shows him pictures hoping he can help her with this problem but he has no one who can help with this missile that is analog, meaning it has no electrical components. It doesn't even need a battery to charge it.  Beauvoir contacts a retired physics professor who worked on trajectory systems. Professor Rosenblatt who confirms what the gun actually is and who made it.

Dr. Gerald Bull in the eighties began building the Babylon Project, a missile launcher that could launch any missile including a nuclear one from anywhere without a power source.  He was planning on selling it to Saddam Hussein but was assassinated supposedly by Mossad in Brussels in 1990 in order to keep him from finishing the project. But there were rumors that he had completed it and the plans were out there somewhere.  On the side of the gun are the words in Hebrew "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept".  The woman on the gun is supposed to be the Whore of Babylon bringing about the Apocolypse.  This gun would be able to wipe out an entire city, or a spy satellite, so in a way this was true.

Two CSIS intelligence agents show up and Lacoste believes that the General must have sent them.  They know way more than they're telling about the gun and what their agenda is, though part of that seems to be to get ahold of the plans of the gun and the firing pin that is also missing.  They appear to be two bumbling file clerks who have never done field work, but appearance can be deceiving.

The other storyline going on in this book the local theater group led by Antoinette Lemaitre and her partner Brian Fitzpatrick. The play is called She Sat Down and Wept and it's a comedy that they soon find out is written by John Flemming, Canada's most famous serial killer. Gamache, in particular, wants to shut down the play because the public trial wasn't the only trial held for him. In Canada, they can hold a trial within a trial for acts to brutal for the public to hear and require one person to be present to hear the trial to represent all of Canada and Gamache was chosen as that person. He heard some truly horrible things at that trial.

Gamache also sees a connection between Fleming and the gun based on the title of the play. But everyone tells him he is crazy.  Then Antoinette is found murdered in her home that has been searched through. What were they looking for and is the same person who killed Laurent the same person who killed Antoinette?  I couldn't flip through the pages fast enough in this book that really held me in its grip.  It was a truly fascinating read made even more so when you realize there really was a Dr. Gerald Bull and a Project Babylon.  This novel won the 2016 Lefty Award for Best World Mystery and was a finalist for the Agatha and Anthony Awards.  I give this book a solid five out of five stars. You won't regret reading this book.

More Information about Dr. Gerald Bull and Project Babylon: https://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/other/supergun.htm

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Beast-Chief-Inspector-Gamache-ebook/dp/B00SSBZ51M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539779237&sr=8-1&keywords=the+nature+of+the+beast+by+louise+penny

Haunted Theaters of the Carolinas by Cherallyn Lambeth

This interesting book explores ghostly phenomena in theaters across North and South Carolina. The Paul  Green Theater Center for Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has had its share of ghostly activities and apparitions.  Some say that it is haunted by Confederate soldiers but there is no proof to back this up. However, many claims to have seen a fuzzy green light in the shape of a man located stage left portion of the auditorium.  While the author who has worked in that theater has never seen this apparition she has gotten photos of a light anomaly where the theater ghost is said to appear.  Also, when she was working on a play where she was carrying a prop wine bottle she felt and heard someone blow across the top of the wine bottle.  Once during a rehearsal for Crimes of the Heart, something from the House came whizzing by her and landed on the stage with a loud crack that everyone heard. They went looking for the object but never found it.  There leaves little doubt that this theater is haunted by some sort of ghost.

The Dana Auditorium at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina is said to be haunted by the soldiers from the Battle of Guilford Court House in 1781 and those of the military hospital during the Revolutionary War it was built over.  The main ghost that appears is that of a soldier they have come to call "Lucas".  He is mischievous but harmless and messes with the locks a lot, especially the one to the choir room.  One night a security officer found that he could not close a door because it felt as though someone was pulling it from the other side but there was no one there.  One Public Safety Officer locked up and turned off the lights to the Moon room. When he did his rounds and returned later the lights were back on but the door was still locked.  There are also tales of a piano being played with no one there to play it.  But Lucas isn't the only ghost. Other soldiers are said to have been seen as well.  There's also the ghost of a little dark haired girl who is a malevolent ghost that has appeared to people playing music and at a seance held.  One night two guards were alone in the auditorium when a chandelier began to swing wildly then dropped and shattered on the ground.  Its thought that maybe the little girl was responsible.  I'd say this place makes me believe in ghosts.

The Manor Theater (Regal Manor Twin) in Charlotte, North Carolina is a theater that has always been a movie theater that now runs mainly independent and foreign films.  A medium told them they had two ghosts in each auditorium--one negative and one positive.   People are scared to look into the projection booth for what they might see there. Supposedly someone hung themselves there. Also, sweeping can be heard right outside the projection booth and the cabinet door won't stay shut.  But that's not the only ghost. Another psychic told them a Rose was haunting the ladies powder room.  Cold spots can be felt there and one night an employee heard a woman scream from there and when she ran up and entered the room there was no one there.  One night when the manager heard her employee scream she raced up the stairs and felt a cold presence pass her by. When she got into the room the woman told her that something had hit the wall hard and left. The only way out was down the stairs past the manager.  Other employees have reported hearing whispering coming from the room at night and enter only to find no one there. In 1947 one of the theater's managers committed suicide at home. However, his ghost has been seen dressed for work in his dinner jacket. Employees have reported seeing a white-haired man in the theater whom when they ask if they can help him he vanishes. He also is said to be the one responsible for the sweeping outside the projection booth.  One of the projectionists said that he heard sweeping one night and stepped out to check and felt a bump on his foot as though something had hit it. Then he heard the sweeping continue down the hall.  The Manor is a great place to check out a great movie or a few ghosts if you are in the mood.

Powell Theater/Chester Little Theater in Chester, South Carolina is said to be haunted by many things including the old gallows dated back to the 1780s, the city morgue next door, the funeral home next door, the supposed murder of a woman in the alley in the 1970s, and the supposed rape and murder of an African-American in the "blacks-only" balcony during the 1950s. But more likely is that it is haunted by the ghost of Daniel Bell from the 1930s who died in a gas explosion saving the lives of three women.  Unexplained footsteps and voices have been heard by people who have been completely alone.  The sound of a projector with film slapping can be heard even though the theater hasn't been a movie house in many years and there is no projector there at all. Electronic voice phenomenon, which is when disembodied voices or sounds are captured on recording devices but not heard while recording.  One such example is when the theater technician who uses headsets stopped the rehearsal because she could hear a baby crying through her headset.  One night while the cast was doing The Man of La Mancha they placed a cassette tape inside a player and played "The Death Song" from the play.  They left the recorder there overnight and returned the following day to find that when they played the tape back "The Death Song" was playing backward while the other songs were playing regularly.  Also reported are odd lights appearing on stage with no apparent source for them.  A man has also been seen in the balcony as well as a woman in a long black dress leading up to the balcony.  There's no telling what you might hear at this well-haunted theater in Chester.

This book is filled with many ghostly stories that are fascinating to read about.  Also included are tales from Waterside Theater's The Lost Colony Outdoor Drama, McGinnis Theater/Messick Theater Arts Center in Greenville, North Carolina, Thalian Hall in Wilmington, ImaginOn: The Joe and Joan Martin Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, The Carolina Theater in Hickory, North Carolina, Longstreet Theater in Columbia, South Carolina, and the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, South Carolina.  My only complaint is that there are so few stories from South Carolina.  Most of the book is made up of tales from North Carolina. The author is from there and she has worked in a few of these theaters so she is familiar with them most of all so I suppose that is why the disparity.  But it hardly seems fair to call it a book of the Carolinas when South Carolina is barely covered.  Otherwise, this is a delightfully creepy book that while it won't keep you up at night it will give you some ideas of places to visit to see some ghosts in action.  I give this book three out of five stars.   

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Theaters-Carolinas-Cheralyn-Lambeth/dp/0764333275/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539607378&sr=8-1&keywords=haunted+theaters+of+the+carolinas    

The New 52! Wonder Woman Vol 5: Flesh by Brian Azzarello (Writer), Cliff Chiang (Artist), Goran Sudzuka (Artist), Aco (Artist), Jose Marzan Jr. (Inker), Matthew Wilson (Colorist), Jared K. Fletcher (Letterer)

Previously, Zola named her son Zeke and Apollo sent the Moon goddess down to kill him, but Wonder Woman rebuffs her. Lennox and Hera take Zeke and go away to a safe house. The Firstborn makes a deal with Poseidon and Hades to leave their kingdoms alone.  Then he and Cassandra go after Lennox to kill Zeke. Orion shows up to help fight, but things aren't going well for them so Zola hops on Orion's ride and has them all join her so they can escape to Orion's planet. Lennox, however, stays behind to close the gate.  Lennox gets killed and Cassandra gets damaged badly and the Firstborn gets captured and Apollo takes him to Olympus.  War was killed by Wonder Woman who is now holding that title. 

Apollo has no intention of killing the Firstborn. He wants to break him and bring him to heal and have him bow to him.  Wonder Woman gets Zola an apartment and then suddenly the traitor Hermes appears to take her to Olympus since she is War now.  Wonder Woman asks that Hera is restored to her power, but Apollo says no. He tells her that a war is coming and that she will be needed but she tells him to fight it on his own.  Hermes asks for forgiveness as he was just protecting the child and he spends his time shadowing them.

Cassandra goes in search of her brother Milan who has the sight and can find the Firstborn and Zeke. He is not willing to help though as he hates his sister.  Strife is not happy about War being murdered by Wonder Woman and she wants revenge. So she goes to visit and brings gifts. To Hera, she brings her cloak and to baby Zeke, she gives a blanket that blocks his presence from the eyes of the gods.  To Wonder Woman a hideous war helmet.  Then when they realize that Milan is gone and they need to save him they leave Zola with Strife who hints to her that she is a burden to them and should leave so Zola does.

Zola, of course, runs into lots of trouble while out on her own and Wonder Woman and Orion have trouble trying to get to Milan.  Apollo is torturing the Firstborn but he will not yield and the Oracles predict a war between the two of them with one of them dying.   This was a great comic that held many surprises.  Wonder Woman may not want to wear the mantle of War but she may not have a choice. I give this book four out of five stars.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Vol-Flesh-New-ebook/dp/B00MV1O0O8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1539346584&sr=8-4&keywords=the+new+52+wonder+woman    

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

This haunting novel is told through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old African-American child, Jojo and his mother Leonie.  Jojo is a lot like his grandfather, Pop, who has basically raised him with his grandmother, Mam, who has been sick for a while now with cancer and is dying.  Pop tells him the story in bits and pieces without the ending of his incarceration at the infamous Parchman Farm prison where prisoners work the land mercilessly and are whipped for any small infraction.  Where there are prisoners who are set up as watchmen to overlook their work and make sure they don't try to escape and prisoners who train the hounds in case someone does try to escape they can be tracked down.  While there he meets a thirteen-year-old kid named Ritchie who is too young to be able to handle the place and he tries his best to help him survive it.

Jojo, himself is just trying to survive a life where his mother pops in and out of it at random intervals, is sometimes out of it when she is there, and is sometimes violent with him, and his father, Michael, a white man, is in jail.  He has taken to calling his mother Leonie because she has stopped being a mother to him. Jojo takes care of and protects his little sister Kayla who is a toddler and who adores him.

Leonie is addicted to drugs and to Michael.  Her children come in a distant third.  She calls Kayla Michaela.  Mam preferred Kayla and started calling her that and it stuck and Leonie wasn't around so Kayla answers to that.  When she is high she can see the disapproving ghost of her dead brother Given who was murdered when he was in high school by a rich white boy.  Mystical abilities and the ability to use herbs run in the family, but Leonie has forgotten more than she remembers of what her mother taught her about the herbs.  Her mother had the ability to see what was going on with a person and sometimes see what would happen in the near future.

Michael is getting out of jail and Leonie wants their children to be there when he does so they go on the two-day pilgrimage to get there along with her friend from work Misty whose man is still in Parchman.  They stop and stay the night at Michael's lawyer's house where they drop off some drugs they picked up along the way at a nasty woman's house for money.  After they had left the woman's house, Kayla throws up in the car and they can't get her to hold anything down.  Jojo is worried to death and Leonie is a bit worried herself, but eventually hears the siren call of the drugs and gets talked into leaving her kids even though Kayla now has a fever.  She did make a questionable tea of blackberry vines and leaves from the side of the road because she remembered that one of them could be used to help settle the stomach for adults and if you use a little bit for kids and gave it to Kayla.  Jojo, however, not trusting it, made Kayla throw it up.

This book shows a family that has strange abilities beyond this world, but also one that is African American and what they go through in the Mississippi Delta over the years and how things really haven't changed much, especially for a young black man struggling with his place in this world.  It is also a book about death and dying as there are some dead people in this book and Mam is on her deathbed and heading toward the next world.  This book is filled with strong characters including Jojo who is as strong and unyielding as the trees that grow in the forest in his backyard. He can take anything that Leonie or Michael dish at him so long as they leave Kayla alone.  He gets his backbone and protectiveness from Pop.  Leonie is as weak as Jojo is strong.  She is also very selfish and thinks of her own needs and desires first. Mam tells JoJo that that was just how she was made.  Leonie takes nothing from her mother except her mystical gift.  This is a powerful book that really packs a punch, not the gut, but to the soul.  It will get under your skin and effect you in mysterious ways that will stay with you long after you finish it.  I give this book five out of five stars.   

Quotes

This is the kind of world, Mama told me when I got my first period when I was twelve, that makes fools of the living and saints of them once they dead. And devils them throughout.

-Jesmyn Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing p 105)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sing-Unburied-Novel-Jesmyn-Ward/dp/1501126075?crid=3MVVJH6TG9MO6&keywords=sing+unburied+sing&qid=1539170247&sprefix=sing+ub%2Caps%2C239&sr=8-1&ref=sr_1_1

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

This book is different than Penny's other books in that there is no murder to be solved. Instead, they are looking for Peter Morrow, Clara's husband who has failed to show up at the agreed upon year date of their separation. Clara became very upset with Peter when his jealousy of her art career taking off started to destroy their marriage, so she told him to go away for a year and have no contact with each other and come back on that exact date and see where they were.  Only Peter didn't show up and now weeks have passed and he still hasn't shown, so Clara has gone to Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide of the Surete in Quebec.

Gamache retired to the town of Three Pines for a reason. He was sick of death and chasing down murderers. And when Clara comes to him he is nervous about helping her but she is his friend and he will help her because of this.  He calls in Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir to help.  The thing he has to agree to is that Clara will be in charge of the investigation, which he willingly concedes either out of the need to make her feel comfortable or the need to make himself feel comfortable.  Or both.

Peter, it turns out went to Paris to stay with a Downs Syndrome colony for a while, then headed to Florence, then Venice, then oddly enough Dumphries, Scotland. It turns out that while he was in Scotland he visited a place called The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, which is a private park open only one day a year where art meshes with nature in a scientific and mathematical way and where rabbits appear in a circle and then turn to stone then disappear.  They find this out because Peter left five paintings with his sister's kid. These paintings are unlike anything he has done before. They are truly awful but they are full of emotion which his other paintings lacked.

Peter then went to Toronto and visited his old art school and then he went to Quebec City and withdrew some money and disappeared.  That was four months ago.  So, Clara and Myrna, the bookstore owner and former psychologist, go to the art school and meet with the professor Peter did, Professor Massey a sweet man who told them about what Peter and he talked about including Professor Norman, a talented painter, who Massey had convinced the school to hire and who had then started to espouse crazy talk about a tenth muse and become quite angry with the students if they disagreed with him on this topic.  He also created the Salon des Refuses where those whose creations did not make the art show were displayed as the failures they were for all to see.  That was really the last straw and he was fired.

As Gamache looks at Peter's painting he recognizes a place in one of the paintings as being the St. Lawrence River and there's an artist colony up in that area at Baie-Saint-Paul which would likely be where Peter would have gone.  When they get there the owner of a gallery Marcel Chartrand offers them a place to stay when all the area B and Bs and hotels have been booked up and offers to help with their investigation as he met with Peter when he was there.  But Gamache and Beauvoir are suspicious of him and think he is holding out on them.

What was Peter doing there and where did he go from there?  Is he alive?  Peter's paintings provide a signpost to where he has been but there are only five of them.  Clara is desperate to find Peter but unsure of what her feelings are toward him. She needs to see how he's changed before she can make a decision on how she feels toward him.  There are plenty of shady characters in this book and odd places where Peter went to paint.  I'll be honest. I've never liked Peter as a character.  He has always treated Clara poorly and he's a bit of a stiff.  So a book devoted to him is not my cup of tea.  This book is different than Penny's usual fare in that there's no dead body and murder to solve, just a missing person to find. It should be a nice change of pace and feel refreshing, but maybe because it's Peter they're looking for it's not.  The book is plodding and devoid of suspense, but still beautifully written.  So I give it three out of five stars.

Link to info about the Garden of Cosmic Speculation: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/garden-of-cosmic-speculation and pictures https://www.google.com/search?q=garden+of+cosmic+speculation&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfupu8w_TdAhUHuVMKHTj3BcoQsAR6BAgCEAE&biw=1600&bih=709

Quotes
 “When life gives you lemons…” he said. “It gave you lemons. Thankfully, it gave me Scotch.”

-Louise Penny (The Long Way Home p 19)

It looked grotesque, gut then great food so often did. Never mind what the chefs tell you, she thought, as she took a bite. All the best comfort food looked like someone had dropped the plate.

-Louise Penny (The Long Way Home p 121)

“Any real act of creation is first an act of destruction. Picasso said it, and it’s true. We don’t build on the old, we tear it down. And start fresh.”

-Louise Penny (The Long Way Home p 153)

“How odd,” said Clara. Beauvoir didn’t know why she was surprised. Most artists he’d met shot way past odd. Odd for them was conservative. Clara, with her wild food-infested hair and Warrior Uteruses, was one of the more sane artists. Peter Morrow, with his button-down shirts and calm personality, was almost certainly the craziest of them all.

-Louise Penny (The Long Way Home p 211)     

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Long-Way-Home-Inspector-Gamache-ebook/dp/B00HY09X5W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539010221&sr=8-1&keywords=the+long+way+home+louise+penny

    

Wolverine Vol. 2: Killable by Paul Cornell (Writer), Mirco Pierfederici (Penciler), Alan Davis (Penciler), Karl Kesel (Inker), Mark Farmer (Inker), Andres Mossa (Colorist), Matt Hollingsworth (Colorist), Lee Loughridge (Colorist), VC's Cory Petit (Letterer)

Previously in Wolverine: Hunting Ground, Wolverine comes across a man who is using an alien weapon to kill people with. He steps in and takes the brunt of the weapon's abuse to try to save the people. The man does not kill his son Alex and by the time the police arrive, Wolverine is forced to kill the man in order to stop him.  Alex picks up the weapon and goes on a killing spree himself. Wolverine won't let the cops kill him because he can smell illness on the boy. When he catches up with Alex he has a conversation with the hive-minded virus, virus-like entity from the Microverse that desires to infect the entire human race.  It sends Alex over the edge, but Wolverine saves him, however, the weapon ends up in someone else's hand and the killing continues.  Eventually, Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on a helicarrier will be infected and in saving them Wolverine will lose his healing ability because of the virus.

Fury and Hank are both working on a cure for Wolverine using the remains of the virus found on the helicarrier, but for now, Wolverine is facing his own mortality in ways he hadn't imagined from simply shaving to crossing the street and almost getting hit by a cab.  Of course, all of his enemies are now gunning for him.  People are getting infected worldwide and those who can manufacture diseases as a mutant ability are being killed off.

There is one left: Host and the Black Panther has taken her into Wakanda.  The question is has Black Panther been infected by the virus? Wolverine goes in to try to provoke the normally calm man into a fight and see if he rises to anger.  When Wolverine is the one to get angry and T-Challa realizes what Wolverine is up to they join the gang which includes Storm, Dr. Victoria Frankenstein, and Nick Fury in order to free Host from an infected Wacanda and brings her with them to use her to combat the virus.

While they've been busy in Wakanda, Mystique has broken into the mansion to steal Wolverine's ancient sword and leaves behind coordinates to where he needs to go to retrieve it.   He heads out, but not alone as Kitty Pryde sneaks along with him.  They are attacked along the way and when they get there it's a busy mall and Sabertooth with his thirteen ninja version of the Hand are there to meet them.

This comic shows Wolverine's vulnerability and how he deals with it.  He's on a razor's edge and ready to snap at any moment.  The gang must also put their trust in Host and hope she can kill the virus.  Also included are letters to Paul Cornell the writer from fans, some good ones, and some bad ones but all interesting.  This was a fascinating book and I give it four out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wolverine-2013-2014-Vol-2-Killable-ebook/dp/B00PSN2LZG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538741508&sr=8-1&keywords=wolverine+killable

Not a Girl Detective by Susan Kandel

Cece Caruso writes books about mystery writers for a living. Her last book was about Earl Stanley Gardner who wrote the Perry Mason books.  Now she is tackling the Nancy Drew books and the people behind the Carolyn Keene name who wrote them.  There is a Nancy Drew convention being held in Palm Springs which is close to her home in L.A. and they have asked her to speak there.

Cece meets Edgar Edwards when she delivers a Nancy Drew book to him as a favor for her bookseller
 friends. He lets her into his morbid home and shows her his pristine collection of first edition blue Nancy Drews. Later they would change things in those early books when they were reprinted.  Russell Tandy did the artist pictures for the covers from the first one until 1949 when he left.  But Edward has something of a surprise in store for Cece. Grace Horton was the model for the books and there was not much to find about her in her research. However, Edward has a picture of her naked done by Tandy.

When he finds out she is going to Palm Springs for the conference he offers her his key to his house there for her to stay there.  Cece decides to make it a girlfriend's weekend and invites her two best friends, Lael, a pastry chef with four kids and a roving eye, and Bridget, a fashion shop owner involved with her employee Andrew.  Cece herself who is involved with a cop named Gambino who in the last book told her he loved her but she doesn't believe him because she has been hurt before.

When she gets to the conference the coordinator and head of the Chums, the Nancy Drew fan club that is holding the conference, Clarissa, informs her that she is being bumped to a later time due to the fact that Edgar Edwards is presenting something to the group.  Clarissa's daughter Nancy shows up unwillingly. Earlier in the week, Clarissa had had Cece look for her daughter and Cece had searched her car for some clue as to where she was and she had found a slide picture of the Tandy Grace Horton naked picture in her car.

The day of the talks, Clarissa informs her that Edgar isn't giving his talk and she is to go on in his stead.  Later that day she noticed that Jake, Edgar's lover and roommate and someone else, probably Edgar had been staying in the master bedroom.  After enjoying some time in the pool, Cece goes around to the side of the house and discovers Edgar's dead body shot in the head with a .22.  The police realize that the women are not serious suspects.  But Jake certainly is.

When Cece is out walking she runs into Andrew who waylays her and tells her that Jake is an old friend of his and that he didn't do it and that he needs her help to clear his name.  She goes with Andrew to his house where Jake is hiding and they talk and she agrees to investigate on her own and try to find out who really did it.

There are plenty of suspects such as Mitchell Honey who lives and works for Edwards. Was he jealous of Jake and Edward or did he not want Edward's estate going to Jake?  Then there's Clarissa who it turns out that Grace Horton was her mother. She likely would not have wanted that painting to have gotten out.  Nancy might have killed him to protect her mother.  Then there's the art dealer Asher Farrell who might have wanted the painting for himself which is now missing.

This book is a quirky mystery novel.  Cece wears vintage clothing that she buys at garage sales, Goodwill, and boutiques.  She is very good at researching and digging for the truth.  She's also pretty good at getting herself in sticky situations with the bad guy or gal which causes Gambino to tell her he doesn't want to have to rescue her so stay out of trouble, which she doesn't.  I really like the character of Cece. She is a strong woman who knows her own mind and has a unique way of figuring things out.  Lael and Bridget are also interesting characters. Lael is all earthy and hippyish while Bridget is all queenish and is tough as nails.  Both help out Cece in any way they can. This was a great book and I give it four out of five stars.         

Quotes

Nancy [Drew] was everything I wasn’t. Brave. Forthright. Not Italian. Best of all, she didn’t have a mother. Her life was a Freudian fantasy come true.  Just a girl, her father, and a housekeeper.

-Susan Kandel (Not a Girl Detective p 28)

If you have to lie, lie to people who are rushing. They will not pursue it.  They may not even be listening to you.

-Susan Kandel (Not a Girl Detective p 131)

It was hard to imagine that two thousand years ago, Palm Springs’s first residents, the ancestors of today’s Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians, had enjoyed a rich ceremonial life in the absence of thirty-four places to purchase a smoothie.

-Susan Kandel (Not a Girl Detective p 241)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Detective-CeCe-Caruso-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B001RS8KUQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538580157&sr=8-1&keywords=not+a+girl+detective

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

When we left off in the last book, Chief Superintendent Francoeur had managed to turn Jean-Guy Beauvoir against Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete and gotten him back on prescription drugs.  Jean-Guy is filled with hatred for Gamache for leaving him behind in the factory raid and for other things that Francoeur has created out of thin air.  Gamache has been investigating not only who released the attack on the factory recording but also what Francoeur is really up to and who he works for.  They got the Pierre Arnott who was the Chief Superintendent at the time and tried to blow up the dam at the factory that Gamache stopped.  But that was just the tip of the iceberg.  Gamache is working with Superintendent Therese Brunel and her surgeon husband, Jerome, who is an amateur hacker to dig into the Surete files to find what is being hidden.

Meanwhile, Myrna Landers of Three Pines asks Gamache to look into the disappearance of a friend of hers who was supposed to come down to visit but never showed.  Constance Pineault had come down before and made friends within the village, especially the irascible Ruth Zardo the poet who always has a drink in her hand and a barb on her tongue.  It turns out that Constance was really Constance Ouellet one of the famous quints born back in 1934 to a farmer and his wife who feared to never have children.  Constance was the last of them.  And when Gamache goes to check on her at her house he finds that she has been murdered. Who would murder a woman who had no friends and no real family left?  A woman who kept to herself and valued her privacy?  Was it because of her being a quint or was there another reason? Are all the quints really dead or was one of them murdered?

Detective Inspector Isabelle Lacoste cannot believe that Gamache is letting the homicide department be overridden by people who mock him almost to his face and who don't do their jobs while he seems to not be doing anything about it.  Jean-Guy is being sent on one raid after another pushing his nerves to the limit to try to send him over the edge while they are giving him various new drugs to take along with the Percocet.  No one knows how much longer he will last.  Gamache and his group must now go into their planned hiding in order to continue their work.  Gamache will bring someone from the past that no one is sure whether or not they can trust them but they have no choice at this time because they need them.

This one is a real nail-biter. Will they all make it out alive?  Can the town of Three Pines be protected as they seek to protect Gamache and his gang?  Can Jean-Guy be saved or is he lost forever down a rabbit hole of drugs fueled by hate and anger?  What is Francoeur really up to and who is his mysterious backer?  Louise Penny finally delivers on something that has been building for many books now and boy does she.  The mystery, while a bit incidental is still quite interesting in its story of a life of quints and how things went wrong. This book won the 2014 Left Coast Crime Calamari Award and was a finalist for the Agatha, Golden Dagger, Edgar, and Macavity Awards.  Penny really knocks it out of the ballpark with this one not just with the mystery but with the emotional depth of the book.  This book is a must read.  I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

“I think you might try leading your life as though it’s just you. If he comes back and you know your life will be better with him, then great. But you’ll also know you’re enough on your own.”  Clara smiled. “That’s what Myrna said too. You’re very alike, you too.”  “I’m often mistaken for a large black woman,” [Armand] Gamache agreed. “I’m told it’s my best feature.” “I never am. It’s my one great failing,” said Clara.

-Louise Penny (How the Light Gets In p 104)

Fear created its own reality.

-Louise Penny (How the Light Gets In p 113)

“Coach?” asked Gamache, walking beside her. “It’s French for asshole. Coach.”

-Louise Penny (How the Light Gets In p 134-5)

But there wasn’t just kindness there. Armand Gamache had the personality of a sniper. He watched, and waited, and took careful aim.  He almost never shot, metaphorically or literally, but when he did, he almost never missed.

-Louise Penny (How the Light Gets In p 207)

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/How-Light-Gets-Inspector-Gamache-ebook/dp/B00AQUTNIE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538399911&sr=8-1&keywords=how+the+light+gets+in