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Munich, by Robert Harris

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Published 2017, 303 pages

This is another historical novel by the author of Dictator (previously reviewed). It’s about two former Oxford classmates, one English, one German, who now work for their respective governments in the days before a last ditch effort to avert war, the Munich Agreement. Legat, the Englishman, works in the diplomatic corp as private secretary to Chamberlain. His former friend, Hartman, is a staff member in the German Foreign Office. Though the two young men were close during their Oxford years, they haven’t contacted each other in several years. The story gives many interesting details about Chamberlain’s efforts, and the reasoning behind them, to keep the fragile peace between Germany, England, France and Czechoslovakia. Through indirect channels both Hartman and Legat are brought together again during the meeting in Munich between Chamberlain and Hitler. Despite their countries being at the brink of war, the two realize that they have always remained friends. An interesting history of what might have been.

The Clockmaker’s Daughter, by Kate Morton

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I didn’t realize it at first, but this is a story about a house, built in the bend of the river Thames before it reaches London. But houses are nothing without the people who inhabit them. In 1861 this particular house was purchased by an artist who invites a group of friends, along with his sisters and current model, to spend a summer working there. One hundred and fifty years later Elodie, an archivist in the city, finds a satchel containing the artist’s sketch book and recognizes the house from her favorite bedtime story when she was a child. Twin gables and a distinctive weather vane, exactly like the story. Now that she knows the house is a real place she is determined to see it even if it interferes with her upcoming wedding preparations to wealthy fiancé Alastair. Elodie’s mother, a world famous musician, was killed in an automobile accident when Elodie was a child. She feels as though finding the house will be finding at least a part of her mother again.

But Elodie is not the only main character in the story. The other one is a ghost. She has inhabited the estate by the river since the summer of 1861. For many years she was alone there. Then the artist’s sister Lucy opened a school for girls which lasted several years until one of the students was drowned in a boating accident. Now the house is a museum open to the public on weekends. Sometimes the smaller buildings are inhabited by a student or researcher for several months at a time. During the war the house was rented to Elodie’s great-grandmother for a time when her home in London was bombed. The ghost has seen all of these people come and go, and a few of them have seen her, including Elodie’s uncle Tip, who was a child during the war years.

I really enjoyed this book. Part of the story takes place during the Victorian era, Dickens and the artists of the time play a part. The war years and the bombing of London have a role. Elodie, very much in the present, using her archivist training to ferret out the fairy story from her childhood, finds much more. Love stories, mysteries, a little magic, some tragedy, all are woven into this book. You’ll love it!

ps I have since read two more books by Kate Morton, The Distant Hours, and The Lake House. Both revolve around beautiful old houses and the families who live there. All of the three books are so well done and I can highly recommend them. These are not quick reads, and require an investment of time but are so well worth it. I look forward to the next volume by Kate Morton.



Varina, by Charles Frazier

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I picked up this book at the library because of how much I enjoyed Cold Mountain, also by Frazier. The title character was the wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Both books portray the end of the civil war. This story is told by an African American who visits Varina long after the war, in Saratoga Springs. He was rescued by Varina when he was a child being beaten by a shopkeeper for vagrancy. Varina took him in and kept him with her own children until her party was captured by the Yankees. They were trying to make their way to Florida and from there, on to Cuba. I found the story somewhat hard to follow since it doesn’t flow from beginning to end but goes backwards and forwards to cover most of Varina’s life, at least from her teenage years to old age. I had never even heard of her although I of course assumed that Jefferson Davis had a wife and children, since most men of his time, especially elected officials, did. She was quite remarkable in her own right, if this story is to be believed. While not written as non-fiction, it draws on facts, how much is real and how much invented we do not know from this tale alone. I was struck again, as in the prior book Cold Mountain, at the breakdown of society in the aftermath of the war, how it was impossible to tell where anyone’s loyalties lay. How desperate most people were and yet how willing to risk their own lives for a principle many still believed in. Despite the confusion of the time-line I enjoyed the book very much and look forward to the next title by this author.

The Mystery of Three Quarters, a new Hercule Poirot mystery, by Sophie Hannah

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I could not resist. Although I have not read a lot of the original Agatha Christie novels, the David Suchet ‘Poirot’ films are at the top of my list of mystery favorites. Hannah has the permission of the Christie estate to revive the character and has written others in the series as well. This story begins with four different people receiving a letter supposedly from Hercule Poirot himself, each being accused of murdering a man who everyone thought had simply drowned while taking a bath. He was elderly and frail and the inquiry returned a verdict of accidental death earlier in the year. So why would someone send these letters to the recipients, all but one of whom did not know the deceased? Poirot considers the question at a cafe where he has ordered a specialty of the house, a slice of cake with layers colored like a checkerboard. He cuts each colored layer in two and then in two again, the four quarters, representing each of the accused murderers. Are they working in pairs or are they all on their own? Is one of the squares the real murderer or are all of them innocent? In which case, why send the letters in the first place? The novel is very well done and I hope to find time to read others in the series.

The President is Missing, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

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The new book by the former President and Patterson is of course a thriller. I’m not usually a fan of this type of work, it goes too fast for my taste. I like novels that are more complex but for what it is, it was a good tale. It kept me guessing until the end. A bit far fetched, or at least I hope it is. The President has to go under cover to save the country from cyber crimes so devastating that the United States would be reduced to decades of poverty, its infrastructure destroyed, and possibly all out class warfare. He knows there is a traitor in his cabinet but he doesn’t have any idea of who it might be. The attackers are part of a jihadist group but they can’t do it alone, which means that some state government is involved. I hope that since the former President is writing about this type of scenario, steps have already been taken to prevent the disaster he describes in the book. Worth the read, you’ll be finished in no time.

Out of the Clouds, by Linda Carroll, David Rosner

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I have to admit that I love horses although I don’t ride and am not what you would consider a ‘horse person’. I think they are beautiful animals and sometimes watch westerns more for the horses than for the cowboys. This little book was so touching, about the trainer, Hirsch Jacobs, and his ability to see in many horses, and in Stymie in particular, the problems that were preventing them from being successful on the track. Jacobs, while still a young boy trained racing pigeons from his rooftop but once he was introduced to horses, he never looked back. His theory that ‘a horse wants to run’ was proven over and over again as he became one of the most successful horse trainers of the twentieth century. Until I picked up this book I had not heard of him or Stymie but to those who followed racing at the time, he was a household name. ‘Out of the Clouds’ refers to Stymie’s preferred racing method, which was to come from behind, out of the clouds of dust kicked up by the horses ahead of him. I really enjoyed this book, a heartwarming story.