Captain Abel Jones, the main character of this novel, is appointed (much to his surprise) by General McClellan to solve the mystery of Fowler's murder. It doesn't take long for Jones to discover that Fowler's death was no random military casualty. He was murdered elsewhere and the body dumped where it was found.

Jones, a rigidly patriotic, religious, and somewhat self-righteous character, begins to uncover the facts, layer by layer. Each layer moves the guilt another step higher in political and social circles, and soon Jones is treading on dangerous ground indeed.

By the description above, this could be an ordinary mystery. But at the same time that he is giving us a captivating mystery, Parry provides a vivid and convincing portrait of Washington and Philadelphia of the Civil War era. The book includes an afterword by the author, discussing his research and the few minor cases in which his story deviates from strict historical accuracy. He also recommends several references for those who are interested in more background material.

The book succeeds on every level. Jones and his supporting cast are well-drawn characters with whom the reader is happy to spend time. The history is enriching, and the mystery itself is solidly crafted. Everybody should like this one.

The first 25% of the book is wonderful. No one I know has described with such painful accuracy the feelings of rejection and inadequacy that a MAN feels when a romantic affair breaks up. There seem to be thousands of such books for women, but maybe men are too macho to publicly admit that it hurts.

The book is very well written, and it held my interest throughout. Partly that was because Rob's main interest in life (besides sulking about his unfulfilled life) is rock 'n roll music, which has always been one of my main interests as well. The characters are believable and well drawn, even if none of them are entirely pleasant.

But after describing the breakups of his previous relationships, Rob (the narrator and main character) begins to degenerate into an embittered, whining, older version of Holden Caulfield - which in my opinion is a stinging criticism. He's rude, selfish, and inconsiderate, and blames his miserable conduct on how badly his love affairs have turned out. I don't want to give everything away, but I think that at the end Rob is one of the most undeservedly lucky guys I've ever read about.

I expect men will like the book better than women will, but I could be wrong. And in fact, women will probably learn more from it than men will. I certainly found it worth my time, despite my annoyance at the self-indulgent main character, and it's an easy read.

Note: I haven't seen the movie which was based on this book, so my comments above are based entirely on the book itself.

The mystery in this book is the murder of a thoroughly despicable and not-very-competent local doctor, who has made himself wealthy by blackmailing everyone he can find to blackmail. The original assumption is that the doctor was poisoned with mushrooms, but as always in murder mysteries, there's more to the story than meets the first glance.

This is not a deep and complex mystery, but it isn't built on thin air, either. Brightwell's real accomplishment is in the very well drawn characterizations of the inspector, the servants (there are four including Mrs. Jeffries), and the suspects. The reader will quickly feel a fond affection for all of those people, and will enjoy following their thoughts and activities as the mystery is unraveled.

I usually find mystery novels as insubstantial as this one to be frustrating and feel that they're not worth my time. But I find the prospect of spending an afternoon with Mrs. Jeffries to be irresistible, and I plan to read every book in the series (according to the list at the front of my paperback copy, there are at least thirteen of them).

Enjoy!

Julian Kestrel, an English "dandy" (and apparently in those days the word was not a disparagement), is traveling on the continent, and decides to try his hand at solving the murder. He is apparently experienced at such things, having been the hero of three (?) previous books by Ms. Ross, which I haven't read. So he travels to Italy, along with his somewhat curmudgeonly friend Dr. MacGregor, inveigles his way into the inner circle of the widow, and begins to detect.

Ross does a fine job of portraying the post-Napoleonic period in northern Italy, as its political intrigues run rampant even while the rich and famous are enjoying their operas, their villas, and other perquisites of their status. The murder plot is one of the most complex I have ever encountered in a mystery (and I have read hundreds of them). In fact, once the murder is solved and all the "good guys" rescued from danger, it still requires another 40 pages to explain all the events in the story. Those last 40 pages strike me as very slightly clumsy, as Julian goes from person to person, interviewing them all until every t has been crossed and every i dotted. Perhaps Ross didn't realize until she got to that point in the story, that there were dozens of loose ends to be tied up.

But the writing is excellent, the characters well drawn, and the motivations plausible. And again, the portrayal of the Italian society in that time period is particularly vivid and enjoyable. I second the grief of the previous reviewer who expressed disappointment upon learning of the death of the author, who apparently died while still in her early 40's. This book definitely made me want to go back and read the other Julian Kestrel novels, and I'm sorry that there won't be any more of them.

The continuous thread running through the book is the construction of a cathedral in Kingsbridge, England. But Follett just uses that story as sort of a "home base" for a vivid portrayal of 12th century England. That period was one of the bloodiest in the history of England, as King Stephen tried to hold on to power against constantly shifting alliances of opponents. The main characters get caught up in the conflicts, if only peripherally, and usually unwillingly.

The book ends with the famous conflict between Henry, Stephen's successor, and Archbishop Thomas Becket. But that is a comparatively short part of the book, and seems almost an afterthought.

The book is long (some 980 pages in paperback), with a large cast of characters. I was struck, however, by how few of the characters were truly admirable according to 21st-century morality. I suppose many readers found Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge, to be an admirable character. But I regarded him as often self-righteously dictatorial. The only character that could be admired without reservation was Tom Builder, the original master builder and designer of the cathedral. But he dies midway through the book.

There is one primary villain, William of Hamleigh, who is as vicious as any character I have encountered in a novel. But I was startled at how freely almost everyone in that place and time was willing to kill, steal, lie, and betray in order to achieve selfish or political ends. Most of these people quite seriously believed in religion and the damnation of sinners, but they also believed that all their sins could be forgiven if they could find a priest who was lenient or corrupt enough to grant them absolution. Responsibility to one's own conscience didn't seem to be a factor at all.

But perhaps I dwell too long on that one aspect of the book. The fact is that Follett does a brilliant job of portraying the culture, the architecture and technology, and the politics of 12th-century England. We learn about the lives of rural peasants and city-dwellers, the clergy and the nobility. We learn what they ate, where they lived, what they wore, and how they fought. And it's all fascinating. This one should be on your reading list.

Thumbnail plot sketch: A child is kidnapped. The child was the result of a week-long tryst years before, and the two parents have since both risen to prominence, but in very different ways. The mother (with whom the child lives) is a prominent and ambitious Tory politician. The father is the editor of a scandal sheet. The mother wants nothing to do with the father, and his paternity has never been publicly acknowledged.

When the child is kidnapped, the kidnapper insists that the father acknowledge the child or else the child will be murdered. The father is entirely willing to agree to the demand, but the mother is not - and believes that in fact the father himself is behind the kidnapping.

To relate much more of the plot would be to spoil it for the reader. But Lynley and Havers eventually get involved in the case, and there is the usual wonderful writing, complex plot, and rich characterizations that we always get in Elizabeth George's books.

I actually think this book is slightly weaker than some of George's other work, because to me the fundamental premises don't ring true. The mother's reasons for not wanting the father to acknowledge his paternity are unconvincing (to me, anyway), and the ultimate explanation for the crime has an implausible motive. Furthermore, as a frequent reader of crime novels I get very tired of the constant portrayal of all conservative politicians as hypocritical scoundrels. Some real life conservative politicians may well BE hypocritical scoundrels. But it has gotten to the point where you know immediately upon being introduced to the character, that (s)he will turn out to be a contemptible example of humanity.

That sounds like an awful lot of complaints for a five-star book, but George is just too talented, her writing too beautiful and too intelligent, to rate this anything but five stars. And please make sure you read it all the way to the end. If you can get through the last two paragraphs without tears, then you are heartless.

But now he has no choice. His old best friend Sam, the teammate who caught Tony's pass in the end zone in the final ten seconds of the biggest game of their high school careers, has been charged with murder. So Tony returns to his old home town to defend his friend.

Inevitably, Tony is forced to confront the prejudices and nightmares he thought he had escaped decades ago. His dead girlfriend's parents are still there, and still convinced of his guilt. Sam's wife Sue is another issue. She was Sam's girlfriend back in high school, but she and Tony slept together one night toward the very end of their senior year, and Sam has always been suspicious of the relationship between Tony and his wife.

By setting up the plot framework as he did, Patterson gave himself the opportunity for a richly textured exploration of some of humanity's most powerful emotions: love, jealousy, loyalty, and guilt. And he delivers the goods. The mystery element in this novel - although superb - is almost lost in the wonderfully evocative description of Tony Lord's struggle with his memories, loyalties, and relationships.

I have never read a Richard North Patterson novel before. But this work is so outstanding that he has immediately jumped to the top rank of my favorite mystery writers - a group that includes Elizabeth George, P D James, and Dennis Lehane.

This one is absolutely terrific.

It has become a common complaint (sometimes valid, sometimes not, in my opinion) that immigrants 100 years ago wanted to become assimilated into the American culture as quickly as possible, whereas now they demand that the existing American culture adapt to them. But if you are unhappy with Mexicans or Pakistanis on those grounds, wait till you read about the Hmong! It is really not so much that they demand that Americans adapt to them, but that they cling to their own culture with a ferocity, a stubbornness, and a relentlessness, that is hard to believe. That culture includes animal sacrifices, a highly structured clan system, complex folk tales and hierarchies of spiritual beings, early marriage, and an eye-popping birth rate.

The primary focus of the book is how that culture clash made it nearly impossible for the epileptic child to be treated effectively either from the standpoint of Western medicine or in they eyes of the Hmong family who loved her. Fadiman goes into the history of the Hmongs in Asia and how their experiences have hardened them into the people they are now. It is very easy for the American layperson to lump them together with all other Asians, but that would be a huge mistake. Even to refer to them as "Laotians" - as I did before reading this book - would be a serious dismissal of their uniqueness. The Hmong have suffered hardships almost inconceivable in the eyes of modern Americans.

The book has no happy endings, and not an awful lot in the way of lessons. Fadiman provides some suggestions for what the American doctors and social workers should have done differently. (It's noteworthy that, like most multiculturalists, she says very little about what the HMONG should have done differently - even though Western medicine is demonstrably far more effective than the Hmong procedures of animal sacrifices and religious ceremonies.) Those suggestions, at the end of the day, would not have changed the outcome - at least not in my opinion. Those suggestions might have avoided some hurt feelings, and that in turn might have given the Hmong community a greater confidence in the doctors in Merced and Fresno. In that respect, things might have been better over the long term than they are now.

But the primary lesson I came away with was that there is an almost impenetrable barrier between the two cultures, and that it certainly would have been far better if the Hmong had never been forced to come here. And underlying THAT lesson is the realization of the incredible cruelty that is visited upon otherwise peaceful people when the "Great Powers" make pawns of them in a global conflict. The only reason the Hmong are in Merced is that Southeast Asia was a battleground between the United States and the communist countries, and that each side was willing to use any means to win - even at the cost of the complete destruction of people the like Hmong.

I have no hesitation in stating that I think communism was evil, and that we were right to fight it. But did anyone ask the Hmong, and other people like them, whether THEY were willing to pay the price for the victory of democracy? And did we have the right to decide for them? This book will have you thinking about those questions and more, long after you close the last page. And you are unlikely to find easy answers.

The book is full of fascinating characters and events, most of which are given unconscionably short shrift in our educational system. Goldsmith fleshes out the stories and personalities of many people who were previously just vague images in my mind, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Henry Ward Beecher. It seems from this book that female suffrage could have occurred as much as 50 years earlier than it did, if it hadn't been for a couple of missteps on the part of the supporters of suffrage. For one thing, there was a bitter division among the suffragettes about whether the female right to vote should be part of the movement for enfranchising the recently freed slaves. Sadly, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, despite her many wonderful and even heroic contributions to the movement, comes across as an out-and-out racist on this issue, and probably damaged the very cause to which she devoted her life. Secondly, some of the foremost spokespeople for female suffrage got caught up in unrelated, controversial issues, and even in personal sexual scandals.

If you have an interest in American history, you may very well have the same reaction I did while reading this book. Almost every other page, I found myself exclaiming, "Hey, I didn't know that! How come that's not in any of the history books?"

The only reason I gave this book four stars instead of five is that I think the organization and focus could be a little better. The book isn't organized strictly chronologically, and it jumps from one character to another without apparent reason.

But there's just too much really good stuff here to give anything less than four stars, and I have no quarrel with those who have given it five. You won't often pick up a book written for a general audience and learn so many interesting facts that you probably didn't know.

But the author doesn't over-romanticize the story by inventing a too-good-to-be-true character who is single-mindedly ambitious. Francie has the same concerns as any young girl in the poor section of Brooklyn would have had during those years. She is no more honest, no more selfless, no more generally virtuous, than any other girl. That typical-ness, I believe, is the key to the book's popularity.

The book has been more popular with women than men, I believe, because the book evokes powerful memories of what a girl's childhood is like. And the female readers whom I have talked to all say, "Yes. That's just what it was like." And it's probably not a bad idea for men - especially men with daughters - to have that vicarious experience by reading the book, either.

Heartwarming, genuine, and well worth your time.

The Seventh is perfectly proportioned, with a fiery but not out-of-control tempo in the finale. There are so many recordings of the Seventh that no one of them can be claimed as definitvely the best, but this can certainly stand up there with any other recording I have ever heard, and it's better than most.

The Third Symphony here is of the Szell-Toscanini mold, but certainly with much better sound than either of those two conductors had. You have to decide which way you like it better: aggressive and exciting like this, or majestic and powerful like Furtwangler, Bohm, or Klemperer. If you like the aggressive and exciting side of the music, this recording is as good as you're going to hear.

To me the Fifth was the real revelation on this recording. No one, not even Kleiber (whom I proclaimed the best ever in a previous review) has done the first three movements with a more perfect blend of excitement, beauty, and perfectly judged tempos. It is simply thrilling. In the last movement, however, I felt Solti slightly backed off on some of the most triumphant notes and chords, playing them sort of semi-sforzando and thereby weakening the effect. I kept saying under my breath, "Go for it, man, go for it!!" But my criticism here is only to say that Solti missed the chance to make a great and brilliant recording instead of a merely excellent one.

The sound is from the early 60's or even earlier, but you would never know that without reading the label. It is full and sweet, and a joy to listen to.

A wonderful bargain - get it!

When they arrive at the mansion, they find the area populated by the usual "cast of strange characters" that comes along with most whodunits: people with various reasons for hostility toward each other - or, more importantly, hostility toward the recently deceased great uncle. It soon becomes clear that there was something not quite convincing about the official explanation of the great uncle's death (surprise, surprise) and Lily and Robert begin to investigate.

So, the plot outline is standard stuff for mysteries of this kind. Therefore the quality of the book depends on the characterizations, the atmosphere, and the plausibility of the plot. I'm happy to report that Churchill handles all three of those things wonderfully. Lily is the no-nonsense, responsible member of the pair of sleuths, and Robert is the carefree, slightly irresponsible, fun-loving one (and he's delightful). The atmosphere of the depression is vivid and rings true, but on the other hand it doesn't weigh the book down with gloom. The plot is completely believable, and I wasn't able to guess the guilty party until almost at the very end. (Not that I tried very hard; I read these books for the atmosphere and the satisfaction of a conclusive ending, rather than as a puzzle to be figured out before the end of the book.)

At any rate, if you're a fan of the cozy Agatha Christie type of mystery, then this should be on your list. This is the first Jill Churchill book I have read, and I look forward to the others.

But these performances, having all the power and excitement of the later Chicago Symphony recordings, also have warmth, love, and sweetness. Ashkenazy too was at his peak in these recordings. His later cycle, in Cleveland, lacks the bite and depth of involvement that you can find here.

If you want a capsule summary of the performance philosophy of these performances, it is easy to describe: they are unapologetically romantic. In my opinion, the Third and Fourth concertos are particularly fine. Both Ashkenazy and Solti find exactly the right combination of power and beauty in both works, and the quality of the performances is further emphasized by the gorgeous sound.

And speaking of sound, those who believe that a recording has to be DDD in order to have state-of-the-art sound need to listen to these recordings. The subsequent digital recordings of these works that I have heard are all comparatively cold and clinical.

I consider it unfortunate that in the last 25 years music has been more of an intellectual or historical exercise than an emotional experience or an appreciation of beauty. But back in the 70s when this was recorded, Solti and Ashkenazy had not been infected by those negative trends.

Looking at the individual concertos, I have a slight preference for Richter's recording of the First and the Serkin/Bernstein recording of the "Emperor" (Fifth). But if you want a complete set of outstanding performances of all five Beethoven concertos, I don't think there is another set that comes close to these.

The story is set in Boston, and tells of a missing four-year-old girl who is abducted from an unlocked apartment while her irresponsible mother is hanging out at a bar with a friend. Two detectives are hired by the child's aunt and uncle, and the detectives then work along with the police to find the child and apprehend the kidnappers.

Everything about this book is superb. First, there is the scintillating quality of the writing. Just when I thought all the good metaphors and similes had already been taken, Lehane describes something as "smooth as the edge of a nickel", or describes a state trooper giving a presentation in the following words:

"...those hands were the only softness in him. The rest of him was constructed of shale, his slim frame so hard and stripped of body fat that if he fell from the podium I was sure he'd break apart in chips."

Lehane has a razor-sharp eye for detail and he often translates his vision into dazzling English.

Secondly, the plot is tightly woven and completely convincing. There are no clumsily invented characters who are present only to make an otherwise-illogical event seem plausible.

Thirdly, the final resolution of the case is powerfully thought-provoking. No thoughtful person can read through this novel and come away with any certainty about who was right and who was wrong in this story. You'll be thinking of the issues raised in this book long after you have closed the last page.

In short, this one is terrific! If you actually LIKE hard-boiled detective novels, as I usually don't, you'll be enthralled.