Suspicion of Deceit

Suspicion of Deceit by Barbara Parker

Fiction, 1998, 417 pages

Ratings: 3.5 (Amazon 3.5)

Book Club: FL - Mystery - October, 2007

Summary:

From Library Journal: Like Parker's first two novels (Suspicion of Innocence, LJ 12/93; Suspicion of Guilt, LJ 2/1/95), this thriller thrusts Miami lawyer Gail Connor into perils from which she emerges owing mostly to luck. Gail, now engaged to Cuban exile Anthony Quintera, also a Miami lawyer, provides legal counsel for the Miami Opera. A promising young singer, Thomas Nolan, is to star in Don Giovanni, but his connections with Castro's Cuba may cause trouble for the opera should they become known. From this rather interesting beginning, the plot wanders further and further afield, until the reader yearns for the inevitable murder. Politics, nostalgia of the Miami exile community, and conflicting memories or reports of Gail's fiance and friends bulk out the story, which hovers uneasily between episodes of Gail and Tony's lovemaking and Gail's getting herself into cliched predicaments (donning a wig to stake out her suspect's movements, breaking into the home of the chief suspect). Sadly, this series demeans both women lawyers and Miami Hispanics. Buy only if you live in Florida and have a lavish book budget.

From Kirkus Reviews: Messy, overplotted third volume in Parker's Suspicion series (Suspicion of Guilt, 1995, etc.) continues the travails of Miami lawyer Gail Connor. Now on her own in a one-woman practice, Connor isn't getting many clients but is enjoying the low-key joys of taking her daughter to soccer games and doing pro bono work for the Miami Opera while spending every night in the arms of her fiance‚, Cuban-born super successful defense lawyer Anthony Quintana. At a swank Opera soiree, Connor learns that tenor Tom Nolan, who's booked to open the season, did a series of recitals two years before in Cuba. Though most of the ever-so-sleazy rich folks on the Opera's board couldn't care less about their star's employment history, the city's large population of anti-Castro Cuban refugees might well take offense. Quintana, hoping to be nothing more than Connor's escort, finds himself questioned by board members who are afraid that Quintana's brother-in-law, rabble-rousing anti-Castro radio talk-show host Octavio Reyes, might rally his listeners against them, possibly with the backing of Quintana's vehemently anti-Communist grandfather. While Quintana mutters about not being his brother-in-law's keeper, Connor discovers that her fiance‚ not only harbored Marxist sympathies 20 years previously, but accompanied some of the very same board members on an ill-fated pilgrimage to Nicaragua to help the Sandinistas, a trip resulting in the murder of Quintana's old American girlfriend by a Somozan thug. But was Quintana in any way responsible for her death? Parker plays on Connor's fears about her fiance's past while an assassin picks off members of the Opera board, all of whom have some connection to the Nicaraguan misadventure. The climax, in which Connor stalls for time by persuading the killer to play an opera recording, is too silly for words. All this, and piles of politically correct palaver about Miami's misunderstood Cuban exiles. Even Parker's fans might put this one down.

Recommendation: Although the reviews do not recommend the book, I enjoyed the story. It gives the reader a view of the Miami Cuban community beyond the radical element. I enjoyed how Parker used "different" versions of Anthony and his friends experiences in Nicaragua to move the plot along, ending with Gail's own version of the story.

I also enjoyed the part the stories from the operas "Don Giovanni" and "Aida" played in the novel.

Not a thought provoking story, but an enjoyable summer read.

Favorite Passages:

The following passage was thought provoking, especially in light of the many versions of the Nicaraguan trip......After the dress rehearsal of Don Giovanni, Gail is talking with the opera star, Thomas Nolan, asking him about his piano teacher, Miss Wells...

page 381......The makeup gave him such odd eyes, pale blue outlined in dark brown. One black eyebrow was painted higher than the other in permanent ironic jest....."All the world's a stage, Gail, and reality is what you think it is."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

He saluted with his champagne. "Whatever you want it to mean...."

Cold Fire

Cold Fire by Dean Koontz

Fiction, 1991, 421 pages

Ratings : 4.0 (Amazon 4.0)

Recommended by : Carol Conti

Summary:

From Library Journal Teacher: Jim Ironheart, aptly named, is sent by forces unknown to save chosen people in life-threatening situations. By chance, a young but jaded reporter stumbles onto his missions, and joins him to investigate who is controlling him and why. Shared nightmares begin to point to an extraterrestrial influence, and the pair are forced to confront Ironheart's forgotten past for answers. Koontz ( The Bad Place , LJ 12/89), a master at maintaining mystery and suspense, weaves themes from earlier novels into this latest thriller. Even if the ending calls to mind DuMaurier and Hitchcock, Cold Fire contains all the ingredients--likable characters, nail-biting suspense, and above all, unlimited imagination--that will please Koontz's fans.

Recommendation : Typical Koontz novel.....a unusual premise is part of the plot. An enjoyable story with characters I liked.....Jim Ironheart & Holly.

Darkfall

Darkfall by Dean Koontz

Fiction, 1987, 371 pages

Ratings : 4.0 (Amazon 4.0)

Recommended by : John Polzer

Summary :

From B&N Review: In this great suspense by Dean Koontz we follow two detectives, Jack Dawson and Rebecca Chandler, as they try to uncover the horrifying murders that are going on to the Carramazzaas. The Carramazzaas are a family of drug dealers, whose killer is supposedly rats. But how could rats get away with murder or even commit such an act of violence and not even leave a trace? Soon Jack believes that these killings could just very well be the act of voodoo. Carter Hampton, a man who practices good voodoo, helps Jack uncover their culprit, Baba Levelle. Soon those “creatures” of Baba’s are after Detective Dawson’s children, Penny and Davey. As soon as Jack finds out that Lavelle is after his kids, he tries to hide them, but that didn’t work. As they encounter these creatures we find out that they can’t touch Jack, that they’re afraid to be near him. As Jack gets help from Carver, Rebecca, Penny, and Davey decided that they might be safe if they get in a cathedral, but they were wrong. This book keeps you on your toes the whole way through. If you’re into suspense mixed with the supernatural you’ll love this read!

Once I got past skepticism about voodoo, I enjoyed the book.

Recommendation: If you enjoy Dean Koontz's style of fiction, you will enjoy this book. I liked the characters in the book.

Pardonable Lies : A Maisie Dobbs Novel

Pardonable Lies : A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear
Fiction, 2005, 340 pages

Ratings : 4.0 (Amazon 4.0)

Book Club : NY - B&N Mystery (June, 2007)

Summary :

From Publishers Weekly: Agatha-winner Winspear's engrossing third Maisie Dobbs novel maintains the high quality of its predecessors, Maisie Dobbs (2003) and Birds of a Feather (2004). In late 1930, the London "psychologist and investigator" gets involved in three cases: proving the innocence of a 13-year-old farm girl, Avril Jarvis, accused of murder; undertaking a search for Sir Cecil Lawton's only son, a pilot shot down behind enemy lines in WWI, whose body was never recovered; and looking into the circumstances of the death of her university friend Priscilla Evernden Partridge's brother in France during the war. Maisie must go back to the region where, 13 years earlier, she served as a nurse, and confront her memories of mud, blood and loss. Filled with convincing characters, this is a complex tale of healing, of truth and half-truth, of long-held secrets, some, perhaps, to be held forever. Winspear writes seamlessly, enriching the whole with vivid details of English life on a variety of social levels.

The second Maisie Dobbs novel I've read. I enjoy the character and the setting. Set in the 1930's, there aren't the forensic technologies of today, so Maisie solves the mysteries by observation and the understanding of human nature. She reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes or "Monk".

Recommendation : I enjoy this series and will probably read more of Jacqueline Winspear's novels. I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a mystery.

A Deadly Vineyard Holiday

A Deadly Vineyard Holiday by Philip R. Craig

Fiction, 1997, 225 pages

Ratings: 3.5 (Amazon 4.0)

Book Club : NY - B&N Mystery (July, 2007)

Summary:

From Booklist : President Callahan (read Clinton) and his family are vacationing on Martha's Vineyard when J. W. Jackson encounters the First Teen during a predawn excursion for bluefish. Cricket Callahan (read Chelsea) and her entourage of Secret Service agents come to spend a few days with J. W. and his wife, Zee, allowing her a normal teenager's summer, however briefly. Cricket needs protection even more than usual, forcing J. W. to thwart a plan to attack her. Jackson's relations with women--Zee, Cricket, Cricket's female Secret Service guard Karen--are warm, easygoing, and just a bit tangled by the Mars/Venus thing. Beyond the appealing characters and the Clinton parallels, the real fun here comes in meandering across the island and its culture. Craig knows the Vineyard intimately and uses that knowledge in intriguing ways. A nice addition to this series, but it could have used a better--and more Clintonesque--title.

Although the plot was rather predictable, there were no bizzare or violent twists and turns. The main characters, J. W., his wife Zee and Cricket....were all likeable, and I enjoyed the setting which was Martha's Vineyard.

Recommendation : I didn't realize it was a series, and I might pick up another book about J.W. & Zee. A good light summer read.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan : a novel" by Lisa See

Fiction, 2005, 253 pages

Ratings: 4.5 (Amazon 4.5)

Book Club: NY - B &N Women's Book Club, (Aug, 2007)

Summary:

From Publishers Weekly: Lisa See's engrossing novel set in remote 19th-century China details the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends (laotong, or "old sames") Lily and Snow Flower, their imprisonment by rigid codes of conduct for women and their betrayal by pride and love. While granting immediacy to Lily's voice, See (Flower Net) adroitly transmits historical background in graceful prose. Her in-depth research into women's ceremonies and duties in China's rural interior brings fascinating revelations about arranged marriages, women's inferior status in both their natal and married homes, and the Confucian proverbs and myriad superstitions that informed daily life. Beginning with a detailed and heartbreaking description of Lily and her sisters' foot binding ("Only through pain will you have beauty. Only through suffering will you have peace"), the story widens to a vivid portrait of family and village life. Most impressive is See's incorporation of nu shu, a secret written phonetic code among women—here between Lily and Snow Flower—that dates back 1,000 years in the southwestern Hunan province ("My writing is soaked with the tears of my heart,/ An invisible rebellion that no man can see"). This is both a suspenseful and poignant story as well as an absorbing historical chronicle.

What I enjoyed about the book was gaining a better understanding about the confining, difficult life Chinese women led including the painful practice of foot binding.

Favorite Passages:

pg 24: ...."how girls and women should behave."
......Whether you are rich or poor, emperor or slave, the domestic sphere is for women and the outside sphere is for men. Women should not pass beyond the inner chambers in their thoughts or in their actions. I also understand that two Confucian ideals ruled our lives. The first was the Three Obediences: "When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son." The second was the Four Virtues, which delineate women's behavior, speech, carriage and occupation: "Be chaste and yielding, calm and upright in attitude; be quiet and agreeable in words; be restrained and exquisite in movement; be perfect in handiwork and embroidery." If girls do not stray from these principles, they will grow in virtuous women.

pg 25....."foot binding"
....Mama and Aunt resumed their pre-binding activities, making more bandages. ...... Everyone was happy, singing, laughing, talking. Now I know there were many things no one said. (No one said I could die. It wasn't until I moved to my husband's home that my mother-in-law told me that one in ten girls died from footbinding, not only in our county but across the whole of China.)
........my goal was to achieve a pair of perfectly bound feet with seven distinct attributes: They should be small, narrow, straight, pointed, and arched, yet still fragrant and soft in texture. Of these requirements, length is the most important. Seven centimeters - about the length of a thumb - is ideal.....

pg. 59....."women's place"
We women are expected to love our children as soon as they leave our bodies, but who among us has not felt disappointment at the sight of a daughter or felt dark gloom that settles upon the mind even when holding a precious son, if he does nothing but cry and makes your mother-in-law look at you as though your milk were soar? We may love our daughters...but we must train them through pain. We love our sons....but we can never be part of their world.... We love our parents because they take care of us, but we are considered worthless branches on the family tree. We drain the family resources. We are raised by one family for another....

pg. 106...."women's wedding customs"
........my body and soul were weak from hunger, because a bride is not allowed to eat for the final ten days of her wedding festivities. Do we follow this custom to make us sadder at leaving our families, to make us more yielding whem we go to our husbands' homes, or to make us appear more pure to our husbands?.......Mama, like most mothers----hid a few hard-boiled eggs for me in the women's chambers, but these did little to give me strength, and my emotions weakened with each new event.

Recommendation: I enjoyed this book because I learned about China's women and their customs and how they shared their hopes, fears and emotions. What was done as "custom" with footbinding was horrible....you wonder how and why it ever began. I also like the brave, courageous women in this novel.

The White

"The White" by Deborah Larsen

Fiction, 2003, 240 pages

Book Club: NY - B&N Women's Book Club (June, '07)

Ratings : 4.0 (3.5 on Amazon)

Summary :

Booklist: Larsen takes the true story of Mary Jemison, a white woman captured by the Shawnee before the American Revolution, as the subject for her accomplished first novel. After her parents are killed, 16-year-old Mary is given to two Seneca sisters. Renamed Two-Falling-Voices, she falls into total apathy. Gradually her sisters draw her out, and a young man from the Delaware tribe takes her for his wife. At first Mary resists the idea of the marriage, but her patient husband soon wins her over. Their first child is stillborn, but their second is a healthy son, and Mary is happy until her husband dies on a trading mission. Mary is grief-stricken, but when she meets Hiokatoo, an older warrior, she once again falls in love. Throughout her life, Mary struggles with her heritage and her new life; she has several opportunities to return to white society, and takes none of them. Larsen handles Mary's complex emotions and her dueling desires with subtlety, and her elegant prose vividly brings Mary's world and thoughts to life.

Mary Jemison's story took place in the Northeast, and a monument to her spirit is in Lechworth Park in New York. She was know as the "Old White Woman of Genesse" and lived on her land in Gardeau Flat until 1831 when she moved to an Indian reservation near Buffalo where she died in 1833 at the age of 90.

As I was reading this book, I learned more about Mary, and later visited Lechworth park to she her monument and the cabin of her daughter Nancy.

What didn't you like about the book : Some of the book seem to include "text" from the book about Mary written in 1824 by James Seaver or possibly notes of his interview with Mary in 1823. When this was done it was rather disjointed and choppy.

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to others. I enjoyed reading a fictional account of a the real person, Mary Jamison.