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After the Crash by Michel Bussi

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Published 2012

Characters
Lylie Vitral, the Miracle Baby who survived a plane crash in 1980
Mark Vitral, her older brother who does not believe she is really his sister
Mathilde de Carville, the matron of a wealthy family whose grand daughter was also on the plane
Malvina de Carville, the older sister of the baby killed in the crash
Credule Grand Duc, a detective hired by Mathilde to find out the truth about the crash.

This is a remarkable story about the aftermath of a plane crash which occurred just before Christmas, 1980. Everyone on board was killed when the plane travelling from Istanbul to Paris crashed into Mont Terri, except for one baby girl. Miraculously, this baby was thrown far enough away from the crash to avoid the fire but was near enough to be warmed by it until rescuers reached the crash site. However, there were two baby girls on that flight, born within two days of each other. Since both sets of parents were dead no one knew for sure whose child she was. The two families involved, one extremely wealthy and the other of modest means, both claimed that the grandchild was theirs. A judge made the final decision, giving the child, Lylie, to the Vitral family based on the clothes she was wearing and the absence of a gold bracelet which should’ve been on the wrist of the wealthy family’s granddaughter. When we arrive on the scene Lylie has just turned eighteen and has come into a sizable amount of money put aside in a bank account by Mathilde de Carville, just in case the judge had been wrong and the girl really was her grand daughter. Mathilde had also hired a detective, Credule Grand Duc, who has been investigating the case for eighteen years, following every lead, looking into every possible clue to prove once and for all whose child Lylie really is. But he has not been able to discover the truth until the night before Lylie’s eighteenth birthday. He calls Mathilde to tell her he has found the answer but needs a couple of days to make sure, and then disappears. He has given Lylie a notebook with all of the information he has dug up through the years, and after reading it herself she gives the notebook to her brother, Marc to read. Then she too disappears. Marc is worried about Lylie and in trying to track her down goes first to Credule’s house and then to the de Carville’s mansion, reading the detective’s notebook while riding the train to his destinations. Malvina, who is now almost certifiably crazy, keeps a Mauzer in her purse and isn’t afraid to use it, tries to get the notebook from Marc, pretending to aid him in his quest to find Lylie. Marc is afraid that his sister is about to do something drastic, even commit suicide. He feels he is racing against time, reading the notebook for any clues it can give, travelling across France to find her.
A very intriguing book, After the Crash keeps the pieces of the puzzle quietly snapping into place with each chapter. I won’t spoil the ending!

After Byron, by Norman Beim

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Pubished 2015

So we’ll go no more aroving
So late into the night,
Thought the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears it sheath,
And the soul outwears the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Lord Byron

This poem is at the beginning of the book which introduces us to the bosom friend of Lord Byron’s after his death. The story is told with excerpts from diaries, letters and private journals. It begins with a young barrister, Gerald Marston, who has taken a temporary job as a private detective to spy on Lord Ingersoll, a poet and contemporary of the Byron’s and the Shelley’s, who seems to be surrounded on all sides by suspicious deaths. Most recently that of his wife who was drowned after falling overboard during the night from their yacht. The weather had been rainy and somewhat windy, but not enough to cause real danger. But the inquest ruled the death was accidental. Ingersoll’s mother died by falling down the stairs at her home, breaking her neck and causing a fatal heart attack. Ingersoll, though not at home at the time, found his mother at the foot of the stairs. At the top of the stairs the carpet had been worn or possibly cut, causing her to catch her heel and tumble down. Ingersoll inherited a large sum upon her death. Most uncomfortable for Marston however, is the fact that the private detective just recently engaged in the same position which he now holds, has turned up dead as well, either from an accidental drowning or something more deliberate. Marston is spying on Ingersoll in Genoa, where Ingersoll’s illegitimate daughter, Diane Shelton, and her mother reside. Diane is to be taken by her father back to England and introduced to society so that she can find a husband with rank and title. To complicate matters more, George Marston falls head over heels in love with Diane which is rather difficult since he is spying on her father. No one knows if Ingersoll will be arrested when he returns to England due to the controversy surrounding him, yet he is willing to risk it for the sake of his daughter’s future.
This story is a bit complicated but is well told. At first it seems a sure thing that Lord Ingersoll is a very nasty piece of work, and Mr. Marston is doomed to lose his love if not his life. But as the narration proceeds many points of view come to light, not all of which are detrimental to the main character. This is a short book, just over 200 pages and is well worth the read, especially if you are a fan of Byron’s or Shelley’s.

A Doubters Almanac, by Ethan Canin

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Published 2016

My take on this book is that it’s a good read but is sometimes difficult to pick up on a daily basis, because the hero, or really two heroes, although highly intelligent, keep doing really stupid stuff that the average person would have better sense than to do, but clearly we are not dealing with average people here. In a big way this is a father and son story, the father, Milo Andret, we find out soon enough, is a mathematical genius. He is able to understand complex mathematical concepts as a teenager and breezes through mathematics at college. He then spends a few years working at a service station but in his late twenties ends up interviewing at Berkeley for a position in the mathematics department with his mentor, Dr. Hans Borland, who believes him to be an exceptional young man, capable of solving math problems that only a handful of people on the planet can even begin to understand. This proves to be true, but there is another side to Milo, a much darker side. He does end up at Berkeley and while there he meets the love of his life, Cle (Cleopatra) Wells, but although she admires Andret, their relationship is difficult partly because of her parallel attachment to Earl Biettermann, another math student who is not gifted the way Milo is. Cle and Earl are into a very open lifestyle with plenty of drugs, booze and loose morals for everyone. Milo is drawn into this world but essentially remains a loner.
Part One of the story is told by Milo’s son, Hans, which he admits to at the beginning of Part Two. We are enlightened to the fact that Hans has been the narrator of his father’s story up to this point, based on what Milo has told him in his later years. Now changing to first person, Hans begins weaving his own and his sister’s story along with that of his mother, not the Cle that Milo fell in love with at Berkeley, but a secretary at the math department, Helena, who seems like a good, decent person, a far cry from Cle, whose beauty and sophistication put her in a realm outside Milo’s reach. During the first part of the novel we see Milo attempt to solve the Malosz problem and during this time he achieves remarkable things, landing at Princeton in a prestigious chair, all the while drinking heavily and carrying on affairs with two of his colleague’s wives. He is at the pinnacle of his career when he is caught in bed with another professor’s wife and things quickly go from bad to worse. In the second half of the book Milo has lost almost everything, taking a college professorship at a small college having married Helena and now raising their two children. Berkeley, Princeton and international fame seem a distant memory.
Although I can’t pretend to know if the math problems and scenarios are accurate I am assuming that someone with more knowledge of these issues would find them so, and interesting as well. The human story of how this man, Milo Andret, copes with his genius seems enlightening to me. And from what I know of the mathematically gifted, the plot does not seem far fetched but sheds light on the seemingly bizarre behavior of the characters. While the term Asperger’s is not used in the book since it was not recognized until later, the main character could be classified as close to the spectrum. If you’ve read The Rosie Project you may recognize this type, although A Doubter’s Almanac is considerably more complex reading.
I kept hoping throughout the book that Milo would see the light, give up the drinking and start work again in earnest. In the end the book is a bit depressing. However, it’s a good read and worth the effort, well written and engaging. The many stops along the way tell a story of a family struggling through addiction and adversity.

The Golden House, by Salmon Rushdie

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Published 2017
“On the day of the new president’s inauguration, when we worried that he might be murdered as he walked hand in hand with his exceptional wife among the cheering crwods, and when so many of us were close to economic ruin in the aftermath of the bursting of the mortgage bubble, and when Isis was still an Egyptian mother-goddess, an uncrowned seventy-something king from a faraway country arrived in New York City with his three motherless sons to take possession of the palace of his exile, behaving as if nothing was wrong with the country or the world or his own story.”
So begins Salmon Rushdie’s latest novel, and it continues in like manner throughout the book, weaving the story of Nero Golden and his three sons, Petya, Apu, and D (for Dionysus) who have left their home in India for a mansion in New York City, with current events including a change in administration at the end of the above mentioned president’s two terms. Our narrator, Rene’, lives with his academic, left-leaning parents in Greenwich Village and becomes friendly, and in some cases, intimate with the Goldens while he pursues a career in documentary film making. Much of what we see is framed by the author in screen shots he hopes to create at some point later on. Of course the names are all fictitious but it takes several chapters to understand why they have changed them and left or fled their home country. Shady doesn’t seem to be quite the right word for Nero Golden, yet he is very human in his love for his sons.
This book is a good read. Salmon Rushdie as usual, is ‘out there’ with his comments on current events and telling it as he sees it.

The Lost Art of Gratitude, by Alexander McCall Smith

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Published 2009
What a sweet little story this is. It begins with Isabel Dalhousie lying in bed considering things because she is a light sleeper. As her mind progresses through the disjointed thoughts of all those who awaken in the wee hours of the morning, she reaches some astonishing truths about the human condition before falling back to sleep at last. The next morning she hears her two-year-old, Charlie, in the next room. While dressing Charlie she begins to plan her day, a Friday, one of her favorites so that she, her son and his father, Jamie, can have lunch together in town, town being Edinburgh. While at lunch Isabel is delighted to hear Charlie speak his first word, which is ‘olive’. But no sooner does Charlie begin to speak than an acquaintance of hers appears in the café. Isabel invites Minty Auchterlonie and her toddler son Roderick to sit with them even though she has doubts about Minty. While the lunch seems to have been entirely by chance, it turns out that Minty has designs of her own. She invites Charlie to Roderick’s birthday party coming up in a few days, and then while at the party she enlists Isabel’s help in dealing with a former lover, Roderick’s father, but not Minty’s husband, whom she says is blackmailing her. The man apparently wants custody of or at least visiting rights for his son. Isabel, always trying to be helpful, commits to doing what she can. Meanwhile Isabel has to defend herself against her nemesis, the previous editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, the position she now holds. Professor Dove has accused Isabel of plagiarism, which threatens her reputation and her employment. So Isabel has her hands full, with Charlie and Jamie, Professor Dove, her niece, Cat, and Minty Auchterlonie’s affairs. There’s also the regular visitor to the garden, Brother Fox, whom Isabel has been feeding roasted chicken, much to the dismay of all those who regard Brother Fox and his kin as varmints.
Alexander McCall Smith tells his tales deftly. There is a quietness to it all and I particularly like Isabel’s rambling into wordplay, which happens throughout the book, not just in the wee sleepless hours of the morning. This is the first book I’ve read in the Isabel Dalhousie series, but I certainly will add it to my list of good reads.

Vicious Circle, by C. J. Box

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Published 2017
Joe Picket is in a small aircraft looking for a presumably lost hunter as part of his job as Game Warden in Wyoming. What Joe fears is that Dave Farkus, the hunter in question, is running for his life in the woods that he knows so well. Farkus had left Joe a message regarding a man whom Joe had put behind bars, but who has come back to Saddlestring in the last few days. Farkus sees Dallas Cates with two other men and a woman in a bar he frequents. Dave has been trying to hook up with the bartender, Wanda, for years now, but to no avail. Joe knows that Farkus isn’t lost; he knows the woods too well. But his camping buddy reported him missing when he arrives at camp, a cold beer still in the arm rest, and Dave’s gun left behind, like he left in a hurry. What happens next lets Joe know that he, his family and friends are all in danger now that Cates is back in town.
Joe can’t blame the man for wanting to get revenge. It was all because of Joe that Dallas lost his career as a rodeo star, ending up in prison. But Dallas also blames Joe for the death of his father, his brother, and for sending his mother to the pen as a quadriplegic. Joe feels somewhat guilty about all of that. It was self-defense, but nevertheless, he can see the man’s point of view. When Joe’s daughters are threatened he knows he will do whatever it takes to save his family from Cates’ revenge.
Meanwhile, Joe is looking for a well-organized ring of poachers. For months now he’s gotten reports of animals killed out of season and without permits but so far he hasn’t caught up with them. By the time he reaches the site all that is left is tire tracks and kill guts.
This book was a quick read because I kept wondering what would happen next. Lots of action in this tale of the wild, wild west. This is the first of CJ Box’s novels that I’ve read, but will definitely read more.