None of this generation will do as they're told

The year is 1831 and the country of Australia is slowly coming into its own after having served as the transportation destination for those in England and Ireland who have ended up on the wrong side of the law.  This is the setting for Under Capricorn, a 2-part series first broadcast in 1983. 

The governor of New South Wales is anxious to welcome his cousin, the young Charles Adare, who arrives eager to quickly make his fortune.  Charles is willing to entertain any idea that might help him to achieve his goal.  He meets wealthy landowner Samson Flusky, who offers him a business proposal.  Flusky already owns a great deal of land -- so much so that the authorities don't want him to purchase more.  They want everyone to have a fair chance to become landowners, since the earlier practice of land grants has ended.  Flusky asks Adare to purchase land for him so that it appears Adare will be the owner.  Of course, Adare will be compensated for his part in the scheme. 

One evening, Flusky invites Charles and many of the leaders of local society to his house for a dinner party.  Once they arrive, it soon becomes apparent that only the men have accepted the invitation -- none of their wives wanted to attend.  The reason is soon revealed:  Flusky's wife, Hattie, is an out of control alcoholic.  She's beautiful but unbalanced, and during the dinner, she makes a disheveled appearance before the horrified guests.  She sits next to the kindly Charles, and it soon emerges that they are from the same town in Ireland, and that she was a good friend of one of his sisters.  Hattie, or "Lady Harriet" as her husband insists she be called, was the daughter of an earl who ran away with Flusky, the groom.  When he was transported for the murder of her brother, she followed him to Australia.  Now she spends her days in a drunken haze.  She's aided in her addiction by the scheming maid Milly, who supplies her mistress with alcohol and gives her "doses" of her "medicine."

Charles eventually grows so close to the Fluskys that he moves in with them.  He begins to spend more time with Harriet, and determines to help her break her addiction to alcohol.  He insists that she take over the running of her own household.  When Milly balks at having some of her power taken away, she is dismissed.  Hattie regains her beauty and self-control, and rejoins society.  Unfortunately, Flusky has begun to suspect that there is something other than friendship going on between his wife and young Charles.

An aboriginal man living near Flusky's house reports that he's discovered gold at a remote riverside.  Charles becomes obsessed with the idea of a huge gold find, and asks Flusky to advance him the money to go prospecting, with the promise to give Flusky a cut of the proceeds.  Hattie is adamantly opposed to the idea, believing the aboriginal man to be untrustworthy.  She believes Charles will die in the desert. Flusky, seeing an opportunity to break up his wife's relationship, agrees to finance the venture. Before Charles leaves, he meets a young girl at a dance and flirts with her.

Part two begins 5 months after Charles has left on his gold finding expedition.  There has been no word from him since he left, and Hattie has become convinced that he's dead.  She has fallen back into alcoholism, so when the scheming Milly writes a letter asking to come back to her job, Flusky re-hires her.  Another servant, Winter, was given a letter from Charles before he left, and he passes this along to Harriet.  In the letter, he asks her to look after Susan, the girl from the dance.  Seeing a way to have some connection with Charles, Harriet goes to town and finds Sue at her father's barbershop.  Sue agrees to come back to Hattie's house for a visit.  Milly doesn't want any meddling in her scheme to destroy Hattie so that she, Milly, can marry Flusky herself.  Sue, however, isn't one to overlook injustice or do as she's told.  She and Milly clash, but she has an improving influence on Hattie, who once again starts to take an interest in the outside world.

They eventually find out that Flusky has received a letter saying Charles is alive, and making his way back.  Sue and Hattie are both angry at others for keeping secrets from them.  When Charles returns, the secrets that everyone has been keeping are brought out into the open.  It turns out that both Hattie and Flusky have believed things about each other that weren't true.  Neither was able to confront the other, and this lack of openness nearly destroyed them.

Like Downton Abbey, a scheming servant is actually running the show, using her own motives to justify destructive behavior -- all the while claiming to be a "good Christian woman."  It was enjoyable to see the interactions between the newly transported, who mostly worked as servants, and those who had been there a while and had been able to build up respectable lives.  One odd thing was that when scenes of bustling town life were shown, there were always a few aboriginal people leaning against a post or sitting on the steps.  No one paid any attention to them, but their inactivity was in stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of everyone else around them.

Disclaimer:  I received a copy of Under Capricorn from Acorn Media in exchange for this review.

Final Verdict for Under Capricorn:  Four Gherkins, for being a revealing look at a star-crossed relationship in the early days of the outback

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Wisdom from another age

People today who need to figure out the best way to remove a stain from a carpet or cure a case of hiccups need only consult the many oracles of the Internet to find a variety of solutions.  Well-born ladies of an earlier age lacked such an advanced resource, but they did have access to the wisdom passed down through Household Books. These books were carefully gathered collections of the best remedies, recipes, advice and suggestions that 18th century society ladies shared with one another.  The beautiful and fascinating new book M'Lady's Book of Household Secrets: Recipes, Remedies and Essential Etiquette compiles some of these collections of historical wisdom into one volume.

The information contained in this book comes from two books kept by real aristocratic ladies:  Lady Talbot of Lacock Abbey and Lady Louisa Conolly of Castletown House. There is also a section describing the duties that servants were expected to carry out in the stately Weddington Castle (as well as useful guidelines as to suitable ages for each position).  Author Sarah Macpherson also includes some beautiful color illustrations of plants and handwritten notes that were included in the original documents.

The book is divided into chapters covering Herbal Remedies (and their preparations), Household Maintenance, M'Lady's Garden, Servants, and Food and Cookery.   The Herbal Remedies section contaisns recipes and instructions for relieving a variety of ailments such as dropsy, insomnia and depression.  There are also remedies for more delicate problems, such as overcoming shyness or "removing inhibitions."  Many of the ingredients for the potions would be easily found in the garden (although they might require labor-intensive chopping, infusing and straining before they were ready to be used), but I do wonder how people without a Boots (or Walgreens for us in the US) on every corner obtained such exotic-sounding ingredients as myrrh, avocado oil and ambergris.

Many of the suggestions would be useful today, but there are some chores that have thankfully been lost to the passage of time -- such as the instruction on how to clean armour, including helpful hints on how to remove stubborn swords from their sheaths. 

I've never had much luck as a gardener, but perhaps I've discovered a clue as to why that is.  The section on M'Lady's Garden includes the following warning on planting herbs:  "Do not use the left hand, or the devil's work will ensue, for herbs have mystical properties."  So that's the problem!  This section also includes very prettily drawn layouts for herb gardens, including a suggestion of all the herbs that the well-stocked kitchen would have needed.  There is also a section describing what herbs and vegetables should be planted together, both to improve flavors of each and to discourage pests.

Many of the recipes in the food section sound delicious and I might give the Pea Soup and the Herb Omelette a try.  The Stewed Carp, with its somewhat alarming ingredient of gently simmered "blood of carp" might best be left to the dusty cookbooks of history, though!

The book is lavishly illustrated throughout with beautiful black and white drawings, in addition to the colorful plates in the middle of the book.  I really enjoyed this peek into the daily domestic lives of 18th century ladies.  Much of the advice in the book would still be useful today, I'm sure, if anyone wanted to invest the time into gathering and creating the preparations!

Disclaimer:  I received a copy of M'Lady's Book of Household Secrets from Independent Publisher's Group in exchange for this review

Final Verdict for M'Lady's Book of Household Secrets:  Five Gherkins, for being a beautiful and practical little guide packed with useful advice for household management

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A view from downstairs

Those of us who love British costume dramas always imagine ourselves in the gorgeous stately homes, chatting with Dukes and Countesses, dressed in the height of fashion and dripping with jewels.  Shows such as Downton Abbey are so popular because while they show plenty of that sort of thing, we also get a glimpse behind the scenes to see all the effort it takes to keep such a huge place running so smoothly.  The new book Diamonds at Dinner is a memoir by 98 year old Hilda Newman, who actually worked in a stately home between the wars as a lady's maid.

The first half of the book discusses Hilda's early life in the town of Stamford, which she describes as being "slap bang in the middle of England."  Her father was actually fighting in World War I when she was born in 1916, but he returned home from the war without any physical disabilities.  Unfortunately, he returned home to a country that had been changed forever.  Unemployment was rampant, and he was no longer able to work in engineering field for which he had been trained.  He set up a shoe cleaning and repair shop at home, and even worked at a nearby hotel shining shoes when necessary.  It's really fascinating to read Hilda's descriptions of her life in a working class family in the 1920s and 1930s.  She vividly describes what life was like before houses had electricity, indoor plumbing and refrigeration.  Her parents are "respectable poor" -- hardworking people who wouldn't dream of ever straying outside the carefully defined rules that society set out for them. 

This is in contrast to the aristocratic family she would eventually work for.  The Earl and Countess of Coventry lived in the stately Croome Court.  When Hilda got her job at the house in 1925, she was working for the 10th Earl.  His family had a colorful past, especially in the 19th century.   There were scandalous elopements, illegitimate children, bankruptcies, gambling debts, and "airing of the family's dirty laundry" in public newspapers.  Hilda contrasts this shocking and immoral behavior of people deemed "her betters" with the difficult but admirable lives of her parents.

Children left school at age 14, and Hilda was apprenticed to a dressmaker.  She had just finished her apprenticeship and was ready to start work, when her employer died.  There were no jobs in the tailoring field available, so she took what job she could get, in the hotel laundry.  This job quickly lost its charm, so she was excited when a co-worker told her about an opening for a lady's maid.  Hilda applied, was accepted, and then had to convince her father to allow her to take the job.  When she arrived at Croome Court, a day's journey by train from her little village, Hilda quickly felt out of her depth.  Not only had she never seen such a large house before, but the inner hierarchies of staff and the endless corridors quickly had her regretting her decision to leave home.

Her duties are described to her on the first day: she is to look after "milady's" clothes, lay them out for her each day, brush her hair for an hour and a half each day, keep her jewelry cleaned and safe, and whatever other whims took her fancy.  Hilda was also quickly to learn that there was a strict social hierarchy "below stairs" that mirrored that of society in general. It was interesting that Hilda, the housekeeper, governess and butler were "head servants" and therefore superior to the rest of the staff.  While she would have liked to make friends with some of the lower staff members, it just wasn't permitted.  This strict division created even more difficulties when she and the chauffeur, Ronald, began "courting."

Hilda only worked as a lady's maid for 5 years, when the outbreak of World War II forever changed the old social hierarchies.  Both Hilda and the Countess enlisted in the Auxiliary Territorial Services, the women's branch of service.  The Countess had fully expected that Hilda would be her "batsman" and continue serving her, even though there was a war on.  The War Department had other ideas, however . . .

I greatly enjoyed reading about the colorful and exciting life that Hilda had.  She really draws the reader into her world.  It's so enlightening to read about life in Britain between the wars, and get a first-hand glimpse of bygone traditions, such as life in service.  Hilda really contrasts the hard, but happier life of her early days with the more permissive times of today, when people lack a sense of place and community.  I'm thrilled that I got to spend some time in her world!  Fans of Downton Abbey will notice lots of little touches that appear in the show (ironing newspapers, for instance).

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Diamonds at Dinner from Independent Publishers Group in exchange for this review

Final Verdict for Diamonds at Dinner:   Four Gherkins, for being a captivating look at life in a bygone era

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Don't sit under this apple tree -- or do anything else there, either!

I'm always interested to read books set in London, and Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty sounded intriguing.  The story begins with Yvonne Carmichael and her unnamed lover on trial for some offense which sounds pretty serious.  The opening scene takes place when Yvonne is on the stand being questioned and realizes that the court case is taking a turn for the worse.

 

The story then moves back so that we learn more about Yvonne.  She is in her early 50s and one of the most respected genetic scientists in the world.  She is in demand as a speaker and consultant and enjoys her status.  Her husband, Guy, is also an academic, but they are more acquaintances than husband and wife.  They have no real romantic relationship any more, but this doesn't really seem to bother either of them.  Their two children are grown and out of the house, although son Adam struggles with mental illness and isn't often in contact with his parents.

 

Everything is going alone fine until one day Yvonne begins an affair with an unnamed man.  He initiates contact with her when she is making a presentation in front of a government committee.  His air of mystery, combined with his seemingly powerful job, leads Yvonne to behave in ways that she would never have imagined.  He remains enigmatic, giving her a secret phone, meeting her for public trysts and generally controlling the relationship, all while giving away little about himself.  Yvonne, who up until this point in her life has been the dutiful wife, mother and academic, is suddenly captivated by this secret affair.

 

One evening, after a public rendezvous with her lover, Yvonne is attacked by a colleague after a party.  She's completely traumatized, but she can't go to the police or report the incident to anyone for fear that her secret affair will be exposed.  Luckily, she does have her powerful and mysterious lover that she can turn to for help and advice . . .

 

The book is written in a really unusual format, with most of it being directed at the unknown lover.  Yvonne is narrating the book with frequent references to "you" and what "you" must have thought when such and such happened.  It was really rather annoying, but I give the author credit for trying something different!

 

I enjoyed following the story and trying to figure out what would happen next.  It takes quite a while for the events to come back around to the trial.  I was a bit annoyed that Yvonne, who was seemingly so intelligent, didn't question things a bit more.  Still, it was interesting to read about what happened in Apple Tree Yard and how it impacted several lives.

 

Final Verdict for Apple Tree Yard:  Three Gherkins, for being a shocking look at an affair gone terribly wrong

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What sort of effort would it take to dislodge a gargoyle?

Thank heavens, the good people of Midsomer are at it again -- killing each other, I mean! Even though they live in a beautiful area seemingly far from "big city" problems, there's never a shortage of recently dispatched bodies for DCI John Barnaby and DS Ben Jones to investigate.  This is certainly still the case in Midsomer Murders: Set 23.

This set includes three new mysteries which were originally broadcast in the UK in 2012-13.  All the familiar elements are there:  jealousy, greed, illicit affairs, etc. It's left to Barnaby and Jones to figure out which of the many suspects is lying and separate the multitude of motives into the one that eventually led to murder.

Dark Rider is the first story.  A headless rider on a gray horse means death for members of the

DeQuetteville family.  Family legend states that the rider is the ghost of ancestor Geoffrey DeQuetteville, and if he points at you, you don't have much time left on earth.  This understandably upsets Bentham DeQuetteville, who is woken up during a violent evening thunderstorm and decides that is the perfect time to go up on the roof to repair a flag that has come loose in the wind.  He looks over the edge, spots the horseman, and immediately falls to his death.  Unfortunately, his eccentric family provides plenty of suspects who might have wanted to frighten the old man to death.  There is also the feud the family has been having with the next door neighbors -- a feud that has extended for nearly 400 years.  When more family members meet their deaths after spotting the ghostly figure, Barnaby is faced with the task of hunting a killer that may have died centuries ago.

In Murder of Innocence, convicted killer Grady Felton returns to his hometown after being released from prison.  The people of the town haven't forgotten his crime, nor forgiven him.  He immediately becomes a target of threats and intimidation, mostly from the family of the person he was sent to prison for killing. The Denning family hasn't gotten over the death of their son Daniel, who was killed after supposedly confronting Grady about poaching on Denning land.  Grady only wants to sell his family cottage and get out of town, but no one is willing to cross the Dennings to do business with him.  Before he was released from prison, Grady Felton's "hit list" of people who were responsible for putting him in prison was discovered.  DS Ben Jones is one of the names on the list, leading Barnaby to become especially concerned when some of the people on the list die in unusual "accidents."  At the same time, Barnaby is being cajoled into getting in shape by his wife.  He has to pass a physical for the Chief Constable exam.  Jones is also going to be up for the exam, but he seems remarkably unconcerned about his fitness levels.  Must be due to the cute new female firefighter he's been seeing . . .

Not much excitement happens in the Midsomer area, so the locals are thrilled to attend the Stella Harris Film Festival in the final episode, Death and the Divas.  Stella is a local girl who starred in several 1960s horror films.  The audience watches one of her films and then Stella is introduced to the crowd.  As she approaches the microphone to speak, her comments are ignored because the crowd's attention is captured by a new arrival.  Her much more famous actress sister Diana Davenport has shown up.  Diana left the village for Hollywood nearly 40 years ago and hasn't looked back.  Barnaby is called away from the festival by the discovery of a body in a house nearby.  Eve Lomax was writing a book about the acting sisters, and it looks as if she's been bitten by a vampire -- eerily re-creating the scene from the movie just shown at the film festival.  As days pass, more people are killed in ways that seem to echo scenes from Stella's films.  Stella's career stalled just as Diana's took off, so it looks like someone is trying to get revenge for Stella.  At the same time, one of the suspects owns an organic farm and the hunky delivery man seems to be delivering more than vegetables to the lonely housewives of Midsomer County.  During the course of the investigation, we learn both that Barnaby is a fan of horror films -- while Sykes the dog decidedly is not!

The set also includes a fascinating "Behind the Scenes" feature about the making of the Death and the Divas episode.  The episode is meant as a homage to the 1960s British horror films that still have many devoted fans.  Two actors from that period, Caroline Munro and John Carson, appear in the horror films that are shown from that era.  It is also fascinating to get a look at some of the background elements of the series, including showing how fog is made!

Disclaimer:  I received a copy of Midsomer Murders: Set 23 from Acorn Media in exchange for this review

Final Verdict for Midsomer Murders: Set 23:  Four Gherkins, for being a welcome visit back to a beautiful county with an unusually high crime rate!

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As soon as I get it, you'll get it

Although perhaps best known as the beloved Inspector Lewis, actor Kevin Whately has also starred in other detective series.  In The Broker's Man, he plays a former cop who now works as an investigator for insurance companies.  While he's a dogged investigator determined to get to the bottom of every case, his personal life gets much less attention from him.

As the series (originally broadcast in 1997) opens, Jimmy Griffin's life seems to be unraveling before him.  He's divorced from his wife and she's none too happy about his spotty child-support payments.  Griffin's investigatory work often takes him out of the country, and his payment for various jobs can be late or disappear altogether.  The Griffin's marriage fell apart when his wife, Sally, discovered he was having an affair with Gabby, who works at the big insurance agency that hires Jimmy to investigate before they pay out on claims.  Gabby is still around, which dampens Jimmy's efforts to get back together with his wife.  Sally also got the house in the divorce, so Jimmy lives on his boat.

Three episodes make up Series 1.  Double Dutch concerns the theft of a shipping container full of DAT tapes.  The thieves make contact and offer to sell the stolen tapes back for less than the insurance company would have to pay out for the loss.  Jimmy is hired as the go-between, dropping off the money in exchange for finding out where the tapes are being kept.  When you're dealing with ruthless criminals, however, not everything goes as planned.

The second episode, Dangerous Bends, finds Jimmy embroiled in several investigations at the same time.  Is the elderly lady really being truthful when she says she fell and was injured at the shopping mall?  It would probably be easier to believe her if she could remember in which mall she suffered the injury.  Then there's the case of the fatal motorbike-car collision, where the motorbike driver ran off after the accident.  Jimmy is trying to investigate those issues when he's hired "exclusively" to look into how a chemical company accidentally introduced a dangerous chemical into a town's water supply.  Not only does the accident seem fishy, but so does the willingness of the chemical company to accept blame.  At the same time, Griffin is dismayed when his 14 year old daughter begins dating a 17 year old boy. 

In Siege, the last episode of this series, Griffin once again has to juggle multiple personal and professional responsibilities.  Jimmy is investigating a car theft ring who steals cars from people who are in danger of  having them repossessed.  If the insurance company will pay for the stolen car, the delinquent owners will get some money out of the deal and avoid having a repossession on their credit history.  Many people are taking advantage of this kind offer, so Jimmy is trying to track down the gang.  Meanwhile, he jumps at the chance to go on vacation with his ex-wife and kids and "leave the job behind" for a few days.  Naturally, the jobs keep coming to him.  He's given the task of investigating the theft of two pistols in the same area he is vacationing in.  The son of the man who reported the pistols stolen denies any theft has occurred, but he does ask for Jimmy's help in tracking down an old acquaintance.  Unfortunately, the man's motives aren't as innocent as they appear.

Jimmy is ably assisted in his work by Harriet and Vinny, who put in long hours to do the legwork on the cases.  Vinny is an ex-cop who owes Jimmy, and Harriet seems to be married to the job (although she does keep an eye open for any hunky men she might encounter in the course of a case!).

I really enjoyed the interaction between Jimmy and his assistants, although the back and forth between his wife and former mistress is a bit of a strain.  There was a second series, so I'd love to see what happens with Jimmy's tangled personal and professional life!

Disclaimer:  I received a copy of The Broker's Man: Series 1 from Acorn Media in exchange for this review.

Final Verdict for The Broker's Man: Series 1:  Three Gherkins, for being a look at the unusual work of insurance fraud investigation

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Were they truly wicked?

While reading over some "best of" lists covering 2013, I came across the book The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood.  This title was recommended by Stephen King as one of his favorite books from last year.  Good enough for me!

The book deals with issues that are timely and have been in the headlines recently:  namely, what happens to child killers once they've been released back into society?  The story concerns two women, Amber and Kirsty.  Twenty years ago, when the girls were young, they were convicted of murdering a 4 year old child.  They were sent to separate institutions, and, in time, given new identities and released.  Each woman has maintained her anonymity, even from family and friends, and they have had no contact with each other in the years following their release.

In the present day, Amber works in management at an amusement park in the seaside town of Whitmouth.  She feels dowdy and unglamorous, but does have the consolation of living with the hunky Vic, who also works at the park.  Kirsty is married with two children and works as a journalist.  She travels around the country, following breaking news stories.  The worlds of the two women are about to collide when the bodies of murdered young women begin appearing in Whitmouth, and eventually even inside the park where Amber works.  Kirsty is sent to cover the story, and inevitably the two women reconnect.  Neither woman especially wants to re-establish contact, but Amber is an important witness Kirsty would like to interview and once they see each other, there is an immediate recognition. 

The chapters alternate between the events taking place in the present, and those that led up to the arrest and conviction of the two little girls.  As children, the lives of Bel and Jade (as they were known then) couldn't have been more different.  Jade came from a poor, neglectful family on a housing estate while Bel had a more privileged upbringing -- at least materially.  Bel's mother had re-married and had another child, and while Bel lives in an upperclass area, she is neglected by her parents and overlooked in favor of her mother's child with the new husband.  On the day of the crime, Bel and Jade meet for the first time in a candy store.

At the same time, a disturbed loner develops a fixation on one of Amber's co-workers that shifts itself to Amber when he believes Amber is the reason the woman will no longer speak to him.  He observes the meetings between Amber and Kirsty, and, wanting to get revenge, begins following the women.

The book addresses a lot of important social issues, such as the varying quality of rehabilitation programs and the issue of trying children in adult court.  The mob violence and hysterical atmosphere that surround criminal cases these days are also held up for examination.  The book certainly was a page turner, both as I waited to see if the women's true identities would be exposed, and to find out what really happened when the child was killed all those years ago.
Final Verdict for The Wicked Girls:    Four Gherkins, for being a thought-provoking novel about some important social issues

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Virtue is not always an easy thing

A story set in Victorian England has all the elements to draw me in:  elaborate clothing, strict rules of behavior, upper-class people who think they are above the law, and lower-class people who silently observe and keep society running.  Anne Perry, whose William Monk and Thomas Pitt characters form the basis of many of her novels, has a new mystery set in the same time period titled A Christmas Hope.  Although none of her more familiar characters makes an appearance here, the main character, Claudine Burroughs, volunteers her time at the clinic for fallen women that Hester Monk founded.

The story begins with Claudine and her somewhat overbearing husband Wallace attending a winter party at the home of one of their society acquaintances.  During the party, Claudine steps outside for some fresh air and makes the acquaintance of Dai Tregarron.  Tregarron is notorious both for his poetry and his drunkenness, but his thoughtful conversation intrigues Claudine.  Not long after, a young prostitute is found grievously injured outside the house, and some of the young men present claim to have seen Tregarron strike the woman.  She is taken to a hospital, but in the confusion, Tregarron disappears.

Not long afterwards, the woman dies, and Tregarron shows up at Claudine's house, asking for her help in proving his innocence.  Claudine doesn't know where to turn to accomplish this, but luckily she is able to call on the assistance of one Squeaky Robinson.  Squeaky has a less-than-squeaky-clean past, and so is a good person to enlist for questioning people from the lower echelons of society.  He works with Claudine at the clinic and they have established a grudging respect for each other. 

Claudine has, in common with Hester Monk, a strong sense of what's right and will do whatever is necessary in order to see that justice is served.  This streak of stubbornness and independence puts her at odds with her husband Wallace, who wishes his wife would be a bit more compliant and conventional.  Even though he blusters and forbids Claudine to get involved, when she disobeys him, there are no consequences.  They live separate and at times opposing lives and so Claudine must find her sense of worth and happiness in her work at the clinic (and solving mysteries!).

I wish the Monks had made an appearance in this book, but it was not to be.  I found Claudine to be an admirable and strong woman, but I found Wallace's blustering and attempts to control his wife somewhat puzzling.  He presumably had the power to exert more control over her if he chose to do so, but instead, he seemed to just shout and turn red a lot.  Still, all ends up being put right at the end, and Claudine continues her work at the clinic no matter what Wallace has to say about it!  Overall, fans of Anne Perry will enjoy this Victorian-era novel where the women have to do all the work to keep society on the straight and narrow.

Disclaimer:  I received a review copy of A Christmas Hope from NetGalley

Final Verdict for A Christmas Hope: Three Gherkins, for being a welcome look at the activities of an unconventional Victorian woman

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Do your part for a happier life

Books about happiness and how to achieve it seem to be all the rage lately.  I was interested to read The Happiest Life to see if I could gain any insights that would help me lead a happier life.  The author of the book, Hugh Hewitt, is a nationally syndicated radio host, and in the book he discusses the many famous people he's interviewed over the years.  He gives some insight into what makes for a good interview, even if he and the interviewee don't always see eye to eye.

He lists both seven gifts and seven givers who can impact the lives of those they interact with.  The seven gifts are encouragement, energy, enthusiasm, empathy, good humor, graciousness and gratitude.  Each gift is explained in its own chapter with plenty of examples that Hewitt has witnessed in his own life.  The seven givers are the spouse, the parent, family members, friends, the coworker, teachers and the church.

I wish this book could have been more focused on the message, instead of using every opportunity to bash those with differing political or ideological viewpoints from the author.  There are many snide comments and belittling asides about those he perceives as not having he same viewpoint he does.  There's also so much name-dropping and thanking of those who have helped the author along the way that the book becomes very tedious in places.  I think if you can look at his seven gifts, and realize that they can be "given" freely and without much effort to friends and strangers alike, you don't really need to wade through the self-congratulation that makes up the bulk of the book.

Disclaimer:  I received a copy of The Happiest Life from the BookSneeze program in exchange for this review

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Perfect is in the eye of the beholder

Last year the book The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry gained a lot of attention for author Rachel Joyce, so I was happy to see that she has a new novel, Perfect, out.  This is a story of the friendship between two boys and how one incident can change lives forever.

The book jumps back and forth between 1972 and today, although it's not apparent at first that the time is shifting.  That is in line with the rest of the book, which concerns time and how it impacts our lives.  In 1972, two boys, James and Byron, go to private school and live fairly privileged lives in England.  James, who seems to Byron to be much smarter and more confident than he is, mentions that 2 seconds are going to be added to the calendar in order to align leap year with the Earth's rotation (or something like that).  For some reason, this announcement preys on Bryon's mind and makes him worried that something terrible is going to happen.  You can't just play with time like that, can you?  He begins obsessing over when these seconds will be added, and what effect it will have on his life.  Byron and his younger sister Lucy live with their parents in a large house in the countryside, although is father is away working throughout the week. Byron's beautiful but highly strung mother Diana is driving the children to school one day in a thick fog when she decides to take a short cut through the (horrors!) housing estate for the "lower classes" on the outskirts of town.  While she's attempting to negotiate through the fog, Bryon sees his watch stop, then re-start.  Obviously, he's just witnessed the addition of the two seconds.  He thrusts his watch in front of his mother's face to show her, and she slams on the brakes.  When she starts the car again, Bryon sees a bicycle on the ground, and a little girl lying motionless next to it.  His mother continues on as if nothing has happened, but Byron knows she's hit the little girl.

Being a worrier (as we've seen), he immediately tells his friend James what's happened.  This starts the boys on Operation Perfect -- their investigation of the "crime" and attempts to get Byron's mother to take responsibility for what happened to avoid further trouble.  They make observations, take notes, and come up with a plan to solve the problem. 

Diana, for her part, is totally dominated by her older husband.  He is very suspicious and calls every day, interrogating her on where she's been and what she's doing.  She is obsessed with keeping schedules and making sure everything is kept to her husband's exacting standards.  It's a full-time job and one that never seems to make anyone happy.  When Byron tells her about the little girl, she refuses to believe it until she spies a small fleck of red on the hubcap of the car, and decides it must have come from the girl's bicycle.  She takes Bryon along as she goes to the housing estate in search of the little girl's parents.

Unfortunately, from there I had a sinking feeling.  The "lower class" mother, getting an eyeful of the expensively dressed Diana pulling up in a Jaguar, sees her opportunity when Diana comes to ask about the little girl and any possible injuries.  Soon Beverley (the scheming mother) is visiting Byron's house every day, and items start mysteriously disappearing.  While at first Diana seems happy to have a friend, things only get worse from there.  Just how far will Beverley go to exploit Diana's guilty conscience and fear of exposure?

Alternating with the 1972 events are chapters about "Jim."  He lives in a van and has obsessive compulsive disorder.  He has to complete numerous rituals every day to ensure that "nothing bad happens."  He tells of being a resident in a mental institution for most of his life, until it was closed and the residents were parceled out to relatives or (as in Jim's case) pretty much left to fend for themselves.  He has a job at a restaurant, but because of numerous shock treatments he endured, he is not able to speak very clearly, so he avoids most personal contact.  It takes a while to figure out that Jim's story is happening in modern times, and not at the same time as the 1972 events.

Toward the end of the book there is a "twist" which I'm sure is meant to catch the reader off-guard, but I didn't find it as unsettling as perhaps I was meant to.  The explanation of how things came to be as they are now in the modern sections of the book seemed a bit rushed and unclear.  Still, it was interesting to sit back and wait for events to unfold.

Disclaimer:  I received an Advanced Reader's Edition of Perfect from the Random House

Final Verdict for Perfect: Three Gherkins, for being an engrossing, if ultimately disappointing look at the unraveling of a family

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Secret Rooms Winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway to win a copy of the book The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey.  Random.org choose the winner:

who was tatertot374 (beth)!

Thanks again to everyone who entered, and to The Penguin Group for providing the prize!

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You're the least worst candidate I can find

I've long been a fan of the DCI Banks novels by Peter Robinson, so I was happy to see that they had been dramatized.  Of course, how you imagine things in your mind is never how they turn out in the film or TV versions of the works, but it was still interesting to see the characters of Alan Banks and Annie Cabbot brought to life.  In the first episode of the series, Aftermath, we see not only DCI Banks at his crime-solving best, but we also see when he meets Annie for the first time.

The program starts with a shocking crime and only gets worse from there.  A woman hears a crash and a scream from the house across the street.  She calls the police, and soon a car with a male and a female officer pulls up to investigate.  The police officers get no response from their knocking, but thanks to the British convention of having a mail slot in the door, they are able to look inside the house and see a bloodied woman on the floor.  After breaking down the door, they call an ambulance and then start looking for the perpetrator.  Down in the basement, they encounter another locked door, and upon breaking it down, discover something they were in no way prepared for:  the dead body of a young woman tied to a table, and the covered bodies of several  more women.  While staring at this horrific scene, a man suddenly emerges with a machete and proceeds to slash the male officer.  Girl power is luckily on offer, though, as the female officer is able to subdue the man and attempt to tend to her colleague.

That is the set-up for DCI Banks to enter the scene.  He's been investigating the disappearances of 5 young women in the area, and it looks as though he's found out what happened to them.  Or some of them at least, as there are only 4 bodies in the basement.  Banks has been tormented by images of the missing young women every time he looks out the window to his back garden.  The woman who was found injured is Lucy Payne and her husband, Marcus, is presumed to be the killer.  Both Lucy and her husband are currently in the hospital being treated for various injuries, so Banks is unable to question them at the moment.  In fact, Marcus Payne is in a coma as a result of severe head injuries he received while being subdued.  The extent of his injuries prompt a doctor to demand that the officer responsible for this presumed abuse of power be charged with assault. 

Enter DS Annie Cabbot.  She is with the police internal investigation unit and is given the job of trying to find out what exactly happened to Marcus Payne that resulted in such severe injuries.  She seems determined to do whatever it takes to get a result (based on what her superior officers tell her) so that she can be promoted.  Her investigations overlap with Banks' attempts to find the remaining missing girl, so they are drawn together.  Banks soon begins to suspect that Marcus Payne must have had an accomplice in his abduction and murder scheme, so his investigation begins to turn in a new direction.

I really enjoyed seeing the characters of Banks and Annie brought to life, even if Annie was a bit more glamorous than I had imagined.  Her choice of working clothes was also a bit unexpected.  After all, if you are a policewoman, everyone knows the surest way to gain respect and get promoted is to wear tight and/or see-through blouses.  In most police dramas, the female officers seem to do all they can to be accepted and taken seriously by their male colleagues.  It was very strange to see Annie flouting that in favor of playing up her attractiveness.  Oh well, more than one way to skin a cat, I suppose!

This was the first program in the 12 that have been filmed so far, so I hope I can see more of them.  Banks and Annie's relationship will surely have its ups and downs, and I will be interested to see if any of her superiors ever give her any wardrobe advice . . .

Final Verdict for DCI Banks: Aftermath:  Four Gherkins, for being a fast-paced drama with lots of twists and turns

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