The Sentence is Death (Book 2 of the Hawthorne and Horowitz Mysteries)

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by Anthony Horowitz, 2019, HarperCollins books 3.5 stars

This is the second book in the Detective Hawthorne series. The murder mystery unfolds very slowly this time. It’s about a man who is killed in his home beaten over the head and eventually stabbed by a wine bottle. The victim was a lawyer who had just completed a messy divorce case with what seemed like a settlement that satisfied both parties.

The book is fun to read, and Hawthorne is his usual unlikable self. Horowitz reluctantly accompanies him until the murder is solved. The first book was more interesting as it was the first time that the author had inserted himself into the novel. It still seems to work okay, although it’s not as clever as it was in the first book.

Glass Houses

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A Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery Book 13, by Louise Penny, 2017, Audiobook narrated by Robert Bathurst, released in 2017 Macmillan Audio 3.5 stars

This addition to Louise Penny’s Three Pines Series finds that Inspector Gamache is now Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec. He finds that they are losing the war on drugs and that crime will increase substantially unless something is done. But was does Gamache do now that he is in charge? Nothing.

This is a typical Louise Penny book, slow to start but it picks up at the end. Again, the interesting part of the story is not the actual crime, but the characters in the book who are involved.

The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg

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by Nicholas Dawidoff, 1995, 2011, Vintage Reprint Edition 1.0 stars

I really did not like this book! It was selected for our book club and the verdict was that it wasn’t written very well, but that they “all” liked the story. I took exception to that as I did not like the story so “all” was not a valid description.

Moe Berg was a fascinating individual who grew up in Newerk, New Jersey, the son of immigrant Jews. He had a remarkable ability to learn and speak multiple languages and had a prodigeous memory. He went to Princeton, played baseball there, and, after graduating, played professional baseball. He managed to combine his baseball career with graduate school at Columbia. During Word War II he worked for the OSS and investigated the German project to develop an atomic bomb.

The author of the book interviewed many individuals who had some contact with Berg during his lifetime. The problem with the book is that it is largely a collection of anecdotes about Berg, many of which were repetitive. I found myself skimming over these pages as many of them didn’t seem to add anything additional about Berg.

The last chapter in the book began to provide some insight into the reasons that Berg was the way he was. His father looked down on Berg’s accomplishements and never offered any praise or encouragement. No matter what Berg did, it wasn’t enough in the eyes of his father.

If the book had focused more on the psychological aspects of Berg’s character and had related the many anecdotes to illustrate the effects, it would have been a much more interesting book. Collecting a bunch of anecdotes about an individual without any context, doesn’t seem like a winning recipe.

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

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by Candice Millard, 2011, Vintage 4.0 stars

Candice Millard has done a very good job portraying the life and death of President James Garfield. I knew very little about Garfield and was very surprised to find out what an outstanding human being he was. He had the makings of one of our greatest presidents, but, sadly, he was shot and died shortly after his inauguration.

Garfield’s assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, had mental issues and access to a gun. As we are currently experiencing, this is a dangerous combination and it resulted in the loss of a great man.

I also learned about the dealings of Rosco Conkling, the senator from New York, who had managed to put Chester Arthur in place as Garfield’s Vice President. Arthur was basically a puppet of Conkling’s, and they were strong advocates of the spoils system which Garfield wanted to reform. Fortunately, Arthur turned out to be a much better person than was expected as he turned away from Conkling once he ascended to the presidency. The role of a kingmaker in those times seems very similar to what is happening in our politics of today.

I can’t say enough about Millard’s books as she researches them well, compiles the information, and then authors an interesting book. This one, like her other books that I have read, is well done.

A Great Reckoning

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A Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery Book 12, by Louise Penny, 2016, Audiobook narrated by Robert Bathurst, released in 2016 Macmillan Audio 3.0 stars

Gamache has come out retirement and has taken over leadership of the Sûreté academy, hoping to weed out further corruption. He makes some very questionable decisions, but he is confronted with a murder of one of the professors that he had decided to keep on rather than fire. The mystery hinges on what was going on at the academy and the involvement of three students.

The book, as other Penny books in the Three Pines series, starts slow (and continues to be slow throughout). The murder is eventually solved and there are no major twists in the plot of this one. The real enjoyment from reading her novels is to be able to follow the development and career of Gamach as well as of his friends and family.

The Nature of the Beast

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A Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery Book 11, by Louise Penny, 2015, Audiobook narrated by Robert Bathurst, released in 2015, Macmillan Audio 3.0 stars

A young boy who has a penchant for fantasy comes into the Bistro in Three Pines and announces that he has found a big gun with a horrible image on it in the woods. He tries to get retired Inspector Gamache to come with him to see it. Gamache doesn’t believe him and takes him home instead. The next day the boy is found dead in a ravine.

This book is interesting as it incorporates world events, particularly by referencing Saddam Hussein and other world arms dealers. The ending, however, is a bit of a letdown as I have found with other Louise Penny books. She usually picks up the things she didn’t resolve in subsequent books. I will plow ahead to see if that’s the case.

Note that the narrator of Penny’s previous audiobooks, Ralph Cosham, died after narrating book 10 and this is the first one narrated by Robert Bathurst. I was sorry to hear of Ralph’s death as he was, for me, the real Armand Gamache as well as the other Three Pines characters. Robert does a good job and I am sure I will get accustomed to his narration, but I still miss Ralph.

The Word is Murder (Book 1 of the Hawthorne and Horowitz Mysteries)

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(, by Anthony Horowitz, 2028, Audiobook narrated by Rory Kinnear, HarperAudio 4.0 stars

The book is an entirely innovative approach to a mystery novel. The author, Anthony Horowitz, inserts a fictional character to accompany a crime investigator solving a murder. That fictional character is himself, Anthony Horowitz, the author of the book. Horowitz pictures himself as a Watson type character to other individual’s Sherlock type skills.

The crime they investigate is the murder of a woman by strangulation, the same day she went to a funeral home to arrange her funeral. It seems an odd circumstance that less than six hours after leaving the funeral home she is strangled in her own home. Hawthorne is a former police officer who is hired as a consultant to investigate the murder.

I am currently listening to Louise Penny’s novels that center on another homicide investigator, Armand Gamashe. Gamashe is gentle, kind, and has a very open personality. Hawthorne is evertthing Gemasch is not; he is annoying, abrupt, private, and totally unlikable. It’s fun to experience these two contrasting murder investigators and see their differing approaches to solve a crime.

The characters in the book are done well and the narration is excellent. The writing is also very good. I enjoyed listening.

The plot of this book isn’t the most compelling, but it is well constructed. I didn’t figure out who was committing these murders, but, if I had been paying attention I might have solved the crime before the murderer was revealed. I am rating it a four-star book primarily because of the author’s clever insertion of himself in the novel.

The Great Alone

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by Kristin Hannah, 2018, Audiobook narrated by Julia Whelen, Macmillan Audio 3.5 stars

This is a good book that could have been better. It’s about a young girl living in a disfunctional family. The father is a Viet Nam veteral who was captured and tortured during the war.

The book describes how life is for people who migrate to Alaska, particularly how tough the winters are. The author tells how much the young girl is in love with her boyfriend, but she does it over and over. She could have toned that down a bit to make the book more enjoyable and also a bit shorter.

The descriptions of the Alaskan environment and the characters who inhabit it are well done. The story itself is interesting but made less so by Hannah’s repetitiveness..

The Long Way Home

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A Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery Book 10, by Louise Penny, 2014, Audiobook narrated by Ralph Cosham released in 2014, Macmillan Audio 3.0 stars

This book takes a step back in pace. It’s about the search for Peter Morrow who was supposed to return home after a year of separation from his wife, Clara. The search is interesting but it is a slow process to trace where Peter has traveled and to discover why he went to the various places.

The ending is again rather abrupt and not very satisfying, something I’ve found in many of Penny’s books. After listening to ten Armand Gamache books in this series the enjoyment I get from them is the journey and not the final result.

How the Light Gets In

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A Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery Book 9, by Louise Penny, 2013, Audiobook narrated by Ralph Cosham released in 2013, Macmillan Audio 3.5 stars

This book has a lot going on, particularly regarding Inspector Gamache’s relationship with the individuals who were running the Quebec security organization as well as his relationship with his former sidekick, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. As in Penny’s other books, there is one murder that Gamache is trying to solve, but that murder becomes secondary to the main plot, which is Gamache’s struggle to root out corruption in the security agency.

Unfortunately, this book left me hanging as the solution to the murder mystery was not very satisfying. In addition, the reconcilement between Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir seemed too abrupt and artificial

The book had a lot more potential than the result delivered.