Published 2016
This is a story which takes place over several decades, starting in December, 1904. At the beginning we meet Tomas, who is on a mission to find a religious relic created by Father Ulisses in the seventeenth century. This mission masks the devastation Tomas suffered when he lost his lover and their son, as well as his father, all within one week. From that time onwards, Tomas has walked backwards wherever he goes. It is a protest against a fate so cruel that he feels his soul has perished. Finding the relic will be give him purpose, prestige as a curator at the Museum in Lisbon. It will give him a reason to live. Tomas starts out on his journey by visiting his wealthy uncle, the older brother of his father. His uncle has provided Tomas with an automobile, one of the first in the country, in which to make his journey. When Tomas realized he has to drive the contraption himself, he almost gives up the quest. But having nothing else to live for he carries on, struggling with the automobile and with the crowds who gather to see it. He encounters flat tires, fires, an ongoing search for fuel in a country not prepared for auto travel. He develops a ruse to keep the people from knowing he has an automobile. Whenever he approaches a town, he parks the vehicle outside the city, walks in and says he needs to buy moto-naptha for some horses infested with lice, the product being used mostly for that purpose. Poor Tomas suffers onward and achieves his quest, he finds the relic in a small town in the mountains of Portugal, but when his goal is almost within reach he accidentally kills a small boy with the horrid automobile and so his victory has caused him more grief than he can bear.
The next section of the book begins on the last day of December 1948, with Eusebio, a hospital pathologist in a town not far from Tomas’ church containing the relic. He is working late on his autopsy notes when his wife Maria knocks on the door of his study. Maria is very religious and she wants to explain to her husband how she has found a relationship between the writings of Agatha Christie, whom they both admire, and their Savior, Jesus of Nazareth. After his wife leaves, another knock comes on the door, this time of another Maria, who bears the body of her husband in a suitcase. As it turns out, they are the parents of the child that Tomas has accidentally killed with his uncle’s automobile. This second Maria requests that Eusebio perform an autopsy on her husband, even though she knows that he has died of grief for their only child.
In the last part of the book begins in 1981 with Peter Tovy, a Canadian politician. Peter has a happy life until his wife becomes ill and shortly thereafter dies. His son and daughter-in-law divorce and Peter becomes estranged from his family. While in the midst of his grief over his wife’s death Peter takes a trip to Oklahoma, to the zoo. But the zoo is unfortunately closed for renovation so the administrator tells him of a chimpanzee refuge not far away. Peter visits and is compelled to buy one of the mail chimps, a very laid back primate named Odo. Having made arrangements to pick up the ape in a couple of weeks Peter realizes that he will have to move from Canada and decides to go to Portugal, the country where he was born before his parents immigrated to Canada when he was two years old.
This was a very strange story, told over several decades but the author tells an intriguing story. There is much more to it than just odd behavior like walking backwards, or even buying a chimp while on vacation. There is grief throughout but also humor and imagination intertwined with simple lives in the High Mountains of Portugal
Precious and Grace, by Alexander McCall Smith
Published 2016
This book begins with Mma Ramotswe (Precious) driving her beat-up white van in to work at the Ladies Number One Detective Agency and thinking of all the categories of people in her life. First, she divides the group into those who are still present, and those who are late. Among the latter is her dear departed father, whose death she likens to the sun going out of the sky. Then she divides the group into various subgroups, family, friends and colleagues. She is fortunate to have a wonderful husband and two foster children. Then she considers enemies, which she admits she does have at least one, but with whom she would rather be friends than not. She decides she is really an enemy by association, by virtue of her colleague, Mma Makutsi (Grace), who willingly accepts the adversarial status of Violet Sephotho. All of this while driving in to work and to an appointment with a new client who has come to the Ladies Number One Detective Agency on a matter of some delicacy.
The client, Susan is a young woman who was born in Botswana but whose Canadian family moved back to North America when she was eight years old. She is trying to find the woman who was her childhood nanny when she lived in Botswana. She only has a blurry photograph taken thirty years ago, and a general idea of the neighborhood. She does not know the nanny’s name nor the address or even the name of the street of her old home, nothing besides the poor photograph. Decades have passed and many changes have come to the area but Precious and Grace do not say no to this woman, even though the odds are heavily against finding much after such a long period of time. All that Mma Ramotswe will say is that they will try. And try they do, but Mma Makutsi expresses her doubts about the motives of their new client as well as some of the women who answer their ad regarding the nanny of old.
The Ladies Number One Detective Agency shares a building with Mma Ramotswe’s husband’s business, the Tlokweng Speedy Motors Garage. One of his employees, Fanwell runs over a dog out on the road, and since it is only slightly hurt and not late, brings it to the garage to make sure it is alright. What is to be done with him? She and Fanwell try finding the owner but with no positive results. Precious adds this problem to her list of responsibilities. And what is to be done for poor Mr. Polopetsi, her part time employee who has gotten involved in a money making scheme which smells fishy at best.
This is the second book in the series I have read by this author and I enjoyed both of them. One thing that I especially like is the slower pace of life in these books. Time is taken to speak to neighbors and to have tea. This is a land where traditional teas, like traditionally built ladies, are held in high esteem. Tea is a good time to sit down with a friend just to chat or talk about more serious matters, such as advising against Mr. Polopetsi’s investment proposals. The ladies of the Number 1 Detective Agency, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are hard at work again with surprising ingenuity, patience, and gracefulness when dealing with all the troubles which have landed on their doorstep.
Fatal Pursuit, by Martin Walker
Published 2016
This novel takes place in St. Denis in the Dordogne in France and incorporates a wonderful rural life of friends, family and especially food. Horses and dogs, ducks, chickens and geese, especially geese, have their place as well. Bruno, chief of police is called on at the last moment to navigate for his friend, Annette in a cross-country auto race which brings visitors in the form of expensive cars and the foreigners who race them to their quiet village. Two of these foreigners are hot on the trail of an unbelievably valuable Bugatti race car which disappeared near the village during WWII. While Bruno goes about his daily routine of dealing with petty thieves, truant teenagers and exercising his horse, Hector and Bassett hound Balzac, he comes across clues to the automobile’s fate. Meanwhile a new love interest enters his life in the form of a young lady home from London to visit her parents who are feuding with their wealthy relative over property rights and whether the area will host luxury apartments or stay the rural countryside they prefer. Bruno’s old flame Isabelle returns with evidence that links the race drivers to international money laundering and terrorist support.
A fun and well written novel, with so many elements that I enjoy: gardening, cooking, farm animals, horses and dogs, and mystery as well. I plan on reading other novels in the Bruno, Chief of Police series soon.
Surrender, New York, by Caleb Carr
Published 2016
Characters:
Dr. Trajan Jones, psychological profiler
Dr. Michael Li, trace evidence expert
Clarissa Jones, Trajan’s great aunt
Marcianna, Trajan’s ‘wild African dog’, which is another name for a cheetah
Lucas, Derek and Amber, locals whose parents have left them for a better life
I’m not really sure if there’s such a place as Surrender, New York, or if there is, it is anything like the town described in this novel. There, Dr. Trajan Jones, a psychological profiler and Dr. Mike Li, a trace evidence expert, are called in to assist in what looks like a murder investigation. A ‘throwaway’ child’s body is discovered in an abandoned house, but the doctors are not convinced that it was murder. A couple of local law enforcement officers call in the doctors because they have doubts about the official cause of death too. Is it a suicide? Or is it murder. Dr. Jones and Dr. Li had illustrious careers in New York City before running afoul of some big time politicians who effectively ended their careers in forensics in the big city. They have retreated to Aunt Clarissa’s dairy farm in upstate New York and there they teach online courses in criminal profiling. They set up shop in an old war plane housed in a hangar that belonged to Trajan Jones’ grandfather. A nearby enclosure houses Dr. Jones’ rescued cheetah, Marcianna who endured torture and abuse at a now-defunct petting zoo. They keep themselves to themselves but soon become involved with a couple of live throwaway children, Lucas and Derek. When Lucas’ parents up and left he went to live with his blind older sister, Ambyr. Later on she took in his friend Derek and became the boys guardian. The doctors begin to realize that there’s something of an epidemic of throwaway children. They are left behind when their parents, many of whom become addicted to drugs after failing to find sustainable work in the area, leave for warmer climes. When the team is called in they soon realize that this is not the first death, but one in a string of deaths of these unfortunate young kids. The doctors recruit Lucas and Derek to try to find out about other abandoned kids at their school in hopes that some questions that came about as a result of their highly professional forensic skills have uncovered. Trajan and Mike come to believe that the string of deaths are suicides, that the children have been lured to New York City by someone, or a group of someones, and that only after they make the trip do they return to upstate New York and end their lives.
The tale is fairly long and complex but well worth the read. No easy solutions are found in Surrender, New York.