The Age of Will

Another interesting tale with Qwilleran and his two cats. In this installment, they are renting a large mansion on the main street of town. The owner of the house is retired and now living in Florida. When the owner suddenly commits suicide, Qwilleran suspects foul play.

Qwilleran is quickly becoming one of my favorite mystery novel characters. He is an older gentleman; retired journalist, with an inquisitive mind and active imagination. He is cranky in the mornings before coffee, he will often yell at his cats when they are doing something they shouldn’t, and he is not always polite. He is a very interesting character.

Reviewer: spratt

James Qwilleran stayed the compulsory five years in Pickax to complete the requirements placed on his inheritance. He is now officially a billionaire. Now it is time to decide what to do with the rest of his life. He intends to go somewhere–a quiet island with a beach or a mountain hideaway–someplace where he can have seclusion and quiet to sort out his options and make plans.

Qwill (as his friends call him) decides on a whim to spend three months in Spudsboro, a small town in the Potato Mountains. It was recommended highly by some friends who camped there recently. Finding a house to rent is always difficult with two Siamese cats as roommates. The only thing he can find is a huge house on the very top of Big Potato Mountain. It was originally built as an exclusive lodge for well-to-do tourists. More recently it was the home of the area’s most influential businessman–owner of the local newspaper. It didn’t take long for Qwill to discover the house he rented had been the scene of a ghastly murder a year earlier.

I do admire Jim Qwilleran’s ability to converse with everyone he meets. He is well practiced, of course, since he made his living for years as an investigative reporter for various newspapers. He knows just how to steer the conversation and just the right questions to ask. He makes people so comfortable that they usually tell him anything he wants to know. Of course, he has an uncanny ability to read people and know when he is being lied to. Within two days of arriving in town, he is sure that the wrong man is in prison for the murder.

The author does an amazing job of making us empathize with Qwill’s frustration with the situation he has gotten himself into. He came to the mountains for solitude and a time of reflection. He had no desire to get mixed up in the politics of the region–environmentalists vs. developers. He really had no desire to get mixed up in the mystery surrounding the murder. But…being a reporter for so many years (and truly caring about the innocent man in prison), he just could not resist finding the truth. It doesn’t take long. Qwill has learned to trust his instincts–and the instincts of his cat Koko. Together they follow the clues and confront the real murderer.

I highly recommend that you get acquainted with Jim Qwilleran through the Cat Who… mystery series. You will like him.

The first chapter of Nick Hornby’s novel, A Long Way Down introduces the 4 main characters, Martin, Maureen, Jess and JJ. Each main character tells the story in a rotating first person, and each section clearly identifies who is speaking. The story starts with Martin explaining why he is on top of a fifteen-story building, on New Years Eve,

Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block?

The pacing of the story is fast and furious. The switching between narrators leaves the reader dizzy, in a ‘Being John Malkovich’ style voyeuristic whirlwind of personalities. Martin, we learn, is a middle-aged morning television talking head, out of work, and out of marriage, because of a well-publicized affair, with an underage girl. Maureen is a conservative single mother of a special needs child, now grown. Jess, turns out to be the rebellious daughter of a well to do politician. JJ is a musician, out of work and out of luck since his band broke up, and sick of delivering pizzas.

Nick Hornby brings these desperate souls together, on a night when each has decided to end their lives. The characters are well drawn and consistent; at times each is likeable, dislikeable, frustrating and endearing. The book is well timed and well organized. We are introduced to each character in turn, and we genuinely want to know how life will turn out or end. Nick Hornby takes a depressing subject and heart breaking characters, and weaves a tale that leaves the reader satisfied and entertained.

Reviewer: linda

Adventure books, I keep reminding myself, were written in the mid-1970s for men, just as James Bond movies were made for men. And the women in them are, well, less than the men. If you can make it past this issue, the book is a fun, quick read.

Dirk Pitt goes to look at a ship stuck in an Iceberg, and has at least 3 attempts at his life because of something he has learned, but he doesn’t know exactly what. As with Sahara, which was recently made into a movie, the actions sequences are improbable, but fun. An enjoyable read, if you ignore the women!

Reviewer: spratt

‘Life Happens!!’ We’ve all seen the bumper stickers. Some use different words, but the meaning is the same. It’s the cynic’s answer to ‘Why?’ It’s also the optimist’s answer to the same question. I like to finish the statement this way: ‘Life Happens!! Get over it!!!’

‘Why…is this happening to me?’ It is one of the age old questions. Many authors have offered their version of the answers. Viewpoints are varied, of course. We blame others, we blame God, and sometimes we even blame ourselves. One thing is for sure. There are no easy answers.

How many books have been written in which an author tries to answer the ‘Why?’ questions?

‘The Scent of Water’ by Linda Nichols is still another. It starts off with a very sad scenario. I don’t like sad books, so I almost didn’t continue reading. I’m glad I did. Not just because of the happy ending, but because the author deals with the ‘Why?’ questions better than anyone I have ever read.

We meet a married couple who have been separated for 5 years–Sam and Annie Truelove. Sam is a gifted surgeon. He repairs heart damage and heart birth defects on children and tiny babies. His one mistake resulted in a child having brain damage and being in a coma for 5 years. He was preparing for the operation when he received word his own young daughter had just drowned in a creek. He could not longer help his daughter, he said; but he could heal this girl with the damaged heart. But he didn’t heal her. Neither could he repair the damage that had been done to his marriage by not going immediately to his wife’s side.

If you have unanswered ‘Why?’ questions in your life, I highly recommend reading ‘The Scent of Water’ by Linda Nichols. Even if you think you have all of the answers already, you might just enjoy the read!!! It is fast-paced, well written, and insightful.

Murder at Five Finger Light is a Jessie Arnold mystery. Jessie joins a group of friends on a very small and remote island in the middle of Frederick Sound to help restore the Five Finger Light House. The island is very small, about 3 acres and very isolated. Things get serious when a man is found dead on the south side of the island.

Alex wasn’t able to join the restoration party because of work with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and concerns about drug smuggling across the border. But when Jessie doesn’t call and Alex can’t get contact anyone on the island, he knows something is wrong.

Sue Henry’s novel is full of wonderful scenery and the plot is solid and keeps moving. An entertaining book, especially if you are looking for something a little different.

Reviewer: linda

While this is not the most well-written book I have read, it is thought provoking. Aimed generally at eating disorders that cause women to starve themselves (anorexia or bingeing and purging) it has some applicability to anyone with an eating disorder. The book concentrates mostly on the media and the “body myth” from there, i.e., all women should look like teenager boys but with big boobs.

The author lets us understand some of the processes of therapy without the therapist. There are exercises intended to help us, as adults, to evaluate what we were told as children about weight and body image. There are also exercises to help remember how we felt when told those things. The insights just from reading the exercises were interesting; doing them would likely result in real revelations.

Here’s a quote that I saved:

“The next time you feel a food binge or a shopping frenzy coming on, stop and ask: What am I really hungry for? I may be harder to answer than you imagine, but that answer is what will truly satisfy your appetite for living.”

All in all, an interesting book.

Reviewer: linda

This is a book which discusses acceptance of one’s weight and appearance. The author is funny and her discussion of Duke’s weight loss center is wonderful.

When your weight is getting you down and you feel like you are ready for radical change, read this book. If you still feel that way after reading it, maybe you are ready for radical change. As for me, FAT GIRLS UNITE!

Reviewer: littlemissthing

Add one part Kolchak: The Nightstalker, a touch of Columbo, and heavy helping of wizards, elves, dragons, and all sorts of fantasy creatures. Blend quickly while tongue is planted firmly in cheek. There you have the entire Garrett P.I. series from fantasy writer Glen Cook. Petty Pewter Gods is the 8th book in the series. While it definitely helps to have read the first seven before jumping into this simultaneously zany and action filled installment, Cook does a great job providing just enough back-story to explain the sometimes (O.K. quite often) strained relationships between our hero and his so-called allies.

In this installment, Garrett finds himself in the employment of the gods themselves, who seem to be having a problem holding on to their followers. And when the number of followers falls below a certain level, the gods are threatened with eviction! This one starts out with all the fun and mayhem of the other books, but unfortunately doesn’t quite live up to the others in the series. The problem is that in this installment I think the story got too big for Cook, and it appeared destine for multiple volumes. Instead, the author chooses to try and wrap everything up in the last fifteen or so pages, with our hero making a lucky guess and having all you-know-what break loose. While the ensuing chaos is a fun read, don’t think to hard about it afterwards, because then you will realize just how contrived it was.

If this was done by most other authors, the story would have fallen flat and turned me off from the rest of the books. But Cook has a way of letting you feel like you are in on some big, cosmic joke. Never taking his protagonist or storyline too seriously, the end result is a fun ride through the magical city of TunFaire. The end result is a lighthearted action-fantasy-adventure that fans of the series will enjoy. If you have never read any of the Garrett P.I. books, don’t start with this one, however. Fans of Cook’s Black Company series may be surprised by the high humor and just outright silliness that appears in this book, and in the entire series.

This book has been out of print for a while, but is still available at used bookstore vendors and in many libraries. While not the best in the series, its definitely worth reading if you are familiar with the books.

Reviewer: linda

It’s not really a year of passionate reading, but it is a wandering, meandering discussion of books and life and so forth. I loved reading it and I got lots of books from it.

And here are the quotes that pulled me in:

“Explaining the moment of connection between a reader and a book to someone who’s never experienced it is like trying to describe sex to a virgin. . . .. For me, the feeling comes in a rush: I’m reading along and suddenly a word or phrase or scene enlarges before my eyes and soon everything around me is just so much fuzzy background. . . . The book–this beautiful creature in my hands!–is everything I’ve ever wanted, as unexpected and inevitable as love.”

Here’s a quote about stopping a book partially completed, that I love:

“Allowing yourself to stop reading a book–at page 25, 50, or even, less frequently, a few chapters from the end–is a rite of passage in a reader’s life, the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: today I am an adult. I can make my own decisions.”

A fun, quick read for the book lover only!