The Beggar King - Oliver Potzsch

    2010 (German); 2013 (English); 458 pages.  Translator: Lee Chadeayne.  New Author? : No.  Book 3 (out of 7) in the “Hangman’s Daughter” series.  Genres : Murder-Mystery; Historical Fiction; Thriller, German Literature.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    Jakob Kuisl, Schongau's resident hangman, has suddenly departed the city.  He didn’t even ask the city council for permission, which is normally required.  But he had a good reason.

 

    His sister and brother-in-law live in Regensburg, a few days travel away.  Kuisl has just received a note from the brother-in-law, informing him that Kuisl’s sister is deathly ill and asking for his professional services.  Those "services" in this case mean his medicinal herbs and potions.  Hangmen are just as adept at saving lives as terminating them.

 

    Kuisl is praying he won’t be too late to help.  But either way, his task should be finished within a day or two, and he can return home to Schongau before anyone misses him.  That assumes there are no complicating factors in Regensburg.

 

    Hmm.  I smell a plotline coming on.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Beggar King is the third book in Oliver Potzsch’s fantastic Hangman’s Daughter series.  The tale is set in a new city—except for the Prologue and Epilogue, the story takes place predominantly in Regensburg—which has its own hangman.  It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Kuisl becomes the prime suspect in a murder case there, meaning that the Regensburg hangman will be tasked with “extracting a confession” from a fellow executioner.  Ouch.

 

    There are three main protagonists: Jakob, the accused Schongau hangman; Magdalena, the titular "Hangman’s Daughter"; and Simon, the son of Schongau’s town doctor.  The two young’uns have feelings for each other, but any relationship between them is doomed.  The family of a Hangman are all considered unclean—in addition to executions, they have to pick up all the city’s trash, garbage, human feces, and animal offal every night and dispose of it accordingly.  Also, Magdalena is a headstrong sort of woman—she gets that from her father.  And 17^th-century Europe has no tolerance for feminists.  

 

    Once again, the Historical Fiction aspect of the story is Germany shines.  Germany in the 1600s is a hotbed of violent discontent.  The Catholic Church wars against heretics; local powermongers strive for dominance; Ottoman Turks are massed on the borders of Europe; and the deadly Plague ravages nobles and commoners alike, with no one able to discern its cause or cure.

 

    The mystery aspect is equally awesome.  Kuisl’s dilemma quickly becomes more complex.  If he didn’t commit the murders, who did?  Why are prostitutes disappearing (as if anyone cares), who are the secretive “Freemen”, and why is the book titled “The Beggar King”.  Inquiring minds want to know.

 

       Everything builds to a complex, exciting, and action-packed ending.  Riddles are figured out, strangers are unmasked, and murders are solved.  The Epilogue is also excellent.  A couple of secondary plotlines are resolved, and our three heroes return home to Schongau only to find the Plague decimating the town’s inhabitants.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 6,030 ratings and 2,473 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02*/5, based on 15,825 ratings and 1,018 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Dear citizens of Regensburg, step up and taste my newest miracle cure!  This theriaca is brewed from dried snake meat and a secret mixture of exquisite herbs I myself gathered in cemeteries by the light of the full moon.  It works wonders for cases of infertility, toothache, and stomach pain.  On my honor, I swear it will give sight to the lame and make the blind walk again.”  (pg. 63)

 

    “So this is the devil of Regensburg?” she said.  “If you ask me, he looks more like an abused circus bear who’s had his claws ripped out.  How tall are you anyway, eh?  Six feet?” she asked in a snide tone and laughed.  “Be careful you don’t bash your forehead when you enter my modest home.  By the looks of you, a whore’s fart would blow you over right now.”  (pg. 240)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Beggar King presently sells for $6.49 at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series cost anywhere from $5.49 to $6.99.  Oliver Potzsch has another seven or so e-books in English; they generally cost anywhere from $5.99 to $12.99, including a newly-released one titled The Gravedigger’s Almanac, which is priced at $10.99.

 

“Holy Saint Nepomuk, patron protector from the flood, be with us.”  (pg. 2)

    There’s a dark tone to The Beggar King, therefore a moderate amount of cussing feels appropriate in it.  I noted 15 instances in the first 10%.

 

    It’s hard to find anything to quibble about in the book.  One of the main characters is a Venetian ambassador, so some of his comments are given in his native Italian.  I enjoyed that, but I love learning snippets of languages I’ve never studied.

    17th-century medical treatments are frequently detailed in the text.  Hangmen apparently often served double-duty as healers.  I was amazed by just how advanced their medical technology was.  See the postscript below for an example.

 

    The Beggar King was a page-turner for me.  This was my fourth Oliver Potzsch novel, and none of them have disappointed me.  The rest of the books in this series are on my Kindle, plus a couple from his “post-Hangman’s Daughter” series.  I’m looking forward to them all.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing: an example of a 17^th-century surgery.  At one point, Simon very carefully inserts a needle sideways into the white of a patient’s eye, then presses the clouded lens to the bottom of the orb.  The result: a blinding cataract is successfully removed!  And it was done without any anesthetic or antibiotics.  Awesomeness!

The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag - Robert Rankin

   1998; 360 pages. Book 2 in the “Completely Barking Mad Trilogy” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Humorous Absurdism; British Humour; Weird Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Lazlo Woodbine is in a bind.  Literally.  He’s been committed to a mental institution and put in a straitjacket.  The problem is that everybody knows that “Lazlo Woodbine” is a fictional detective.  So the main aim of the nuthouse right now is to figure out who this guy pretending to be Lazlo really is.

 

    There are other issues, of course.  Lazlo claims to have a “holy guardian sprout” named Barry living inside his head.  Lazlo and Barry have lots of conversations.  One of their main topics is a quest that Lazlo is currently working on—he’s searching for an artifact called the “Voodoo Handbag”.

 

    It’s going to be a challenging quest because, according to that well-known axiom “Hugo Rune’s Law of Obviosity”, the artifact will be hidden in the least likely place you’d expect it to be.  Good luck with that, guys.

 

    But Lazlo is determined to find it, just as soon as he can get out of the straitjacket.  Because snagging that handbag is of the utmost importance.

 

    The end of the world is at stake.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag is vintage Robert Rankin fiction.  There are several storylines, some real, others illusory, and no easy way to tell which is which.  The author’s trademark literary device—recurring gags—are here again, including Fangio’s Bar, talking the toot, and of course, Barry the Sprout.  Witty dialogue and absurd antics are present in abundance.

 

    The main task for Lazlo, and for the reader, is to figure out what is going on.  This is no small feat since there are multiple dimensions and frequent time jumps to deal with.  For both the reader and the protagonist, the key is to keep applying Hugo Rune’s Law of Obviosity to whatever set of circumstances are being confronted.  

 

    There are several bad guys to deal with along the way.  One of them is a guy named Henry Doors, which is a subtle take-off of … well, I’ll let you work that one out.  I loved the explanation of Voodoo Theology given in Chapter 17, and the brief nod to the Thirteenth Floor Elevators on page 153.  Mr. Rankin has excellent musical tastes.

 

    The ending is over-the-top and tense.  It felt a bit forced, but that’s okay; Lazlo Woodbine would heartily approve of it.  The evil plans are thwarted and the world is saved, but you knew that would happen.  The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag is part 2 of Robert Rankin’s “Completely Barking Mad” trilogy, which I didn’t read in chronological order, and now wish I had.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Tosspot (n.) : a foolish or contemptible person; or a drunkard (British slang)

Others: Runcible Spoon (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 68 ratings and 12 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.79/5 based on 879 ratings and 21 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Well, chief, there are some who might suggest that you are nothing more than a paranoid schizophrenic with a multiple personality disorder and persecution complex.”

    “Outrageous!  And who might suggest such a thing?”

    “Well, there was the doctor at the mental institution you’ve just escaped from.”

    “Oh, him.”

    “Him, chief.”

    “And what about you, Barry?  Do you think I’m mad?”

    “Me, chief?  Absolutely not.  But then, what would I know?  I’m only a voice in your head.”  (pg. 156)

 

    Have you ever wondered about the kind of noise the Big Bang made?  And whether, in fact, it was the first noise?  If it was the first noise, then it was undoubtedly the biggest and the loudest, and all later noises are a terrible let down in comparison.  But was it the first noise?

    I remember being taught at school that sound cannot travel through a vacuum.  And if that’s the case, then the Big Bang couldn’t make any sound at all in the infinite vacuum of space.  Which would mean that it wasn’t really a Big Bang at all, was it?

    It was more of a Big Poof!  (pg. 229)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Mass Market Paperback edition (which is the format that I read this book in) of The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag is apparently not available at Amazon right now.  The e-book edition is priced at $6.99.  Robert Rankin offers several dozen other “weird fantasy” tales in e-book formats, most of them in the price range of $0.99-$5.99, plus one autobiography I, Robert, which costs $9.00.

 

“Everything that can happen will happen, and everything that can’t happen will happen too, if you’re prepared to wait.”  (pg. 297)

    The cussing in The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag is sparse; I counted only eight instances in the first 25% of the book.  Later on, there are a couple references to “adult situations”, plus one to a part of a donkey’s anatomy.  But overall, this is a pretty clean story.  I didn’t notice any typos, which is a rare and noteworthy feat.

 

    The story is told from both the first-person POV (our protagonist’s), and the third-person POV (the main bad guy’s), but if anything, that helped clarify whose plot thread was being addressed.  Each chapter starts off with a poem and a quote, which were cute and witty, but generally without relevance.

 

 

    My main quibble (is that an oxymoron?) is that, at times the absurdism fogs up the storyline.  Yes, Robert Rankin is a top-tier author in Absurdist Literature, and the Law of Obviosity predicts a plethora of unforeseeable plot tangents will arise.  But at times, both Lazlo and I yearned for just a bit more clarity.

 

    Still, and as always, I enjoyed The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag.  When the overarching plotline emerged in the second half of the book, it imparted a welcome sense of direction to the tale.

 

    7½ Stars.  One last thing.  The would-be evil world leader that emerges is eerily similar to several power-obsessed politicians making headlines nowadays.  Did Robert Rankin have the gift of prophecy when he wrote The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag?  Maybe Barry the Guardian Sprout resides in the author's head!

Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids - Howard of Warwick

   2015; 306 pages.  Book 5 (out of 35) in the “Chronicles of Brother Hermitage” series.  Full Title: “Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids: We’re Going on a Murder”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Cozy Mystery; Humorous Historical Fiction; British Humor; Druids.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

   Oh what a joy!  Brother Hermitage, the weaver Wat,  and the other weaver Cwen are going on a trip!  To the exotic land of Wales!  At the request of King William, no less.  At least that’s what William’s second-in-command, Le Pedvin, says.

 

    King William isn’t funding the trip, but that shouldn’t be a problem.  Hospitality is always extended to traveling monks like Brother Hermitage.  Religion has its perks.

 

    Alas, they have been given a formidable task—to locate one of William’s agents.  He was last heard from somewhere in Wales, but who knows where he is now.  And since the Welsh hate the Normans as much as the Saxons do, the agent could be either dead or alive by now.

 

    Royal agents come and go, and in truth William and Le Pedvin probably don’t care whether the missing one is a corpse or not.  But in the last message received from him, the agent said he’d discovered a huge stash of gold nearby.

 

    And that gold means William is very anxious to locate and speak to the agent face-to-face.

 

What’s To Like...

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids is the fifth book in Howard of Warwick’s “Chronicles of Brother Hermitage” series. It’s also the fifth book I’ve read in this series, albeit not in chronological order.

 

    The tale is told from three points of view.  The main one recounts Hermitage, Cwen, and Wat’s misadventures, dealing for the most part with how their entourage swells, despite their best efforts.  The second plot thread is set in a Welsh village, where druidic visions and prophecy are rife,  The third plotline involves the local noble in that village’s area, Lord Bermo, who's become quite interested in what's going on in his territory.  The reader can of course count on all three threads eventually coming together.

 

    Any story that has druids in it will resonate with me; druidism is my choice whenever circumstances require me to list my religious preference.  Here, their “magick” powers are at some times impressive, and other times mundane, which works surprisingly well.

 

     The reader joins Hermitage as he journeys westward from London to the Welsh border.  Along the way we stop in places like Staines, Silchester, and Wanborough, and in each case pick up unwanted followers.  At one point, we even learn the art of “straggling”, which was a blast.

 

     The ending is good, being mostly “cozy-ish” and logical, and with a couple ofout-of-the-blue plot twists, which neither Hermitage or I saw coming.  Everything works out well for all concerned, which frankly was not an easy task.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 726 ratings and 81 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.30/5 based on 282 ratings and 20 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “And who might you be?”

    “More,” said More.

    “And who might you be, my pretty fellow?”

    Clearly mad.

    “That’s me name.”  More sounded very proud of this.

    “Well, well, master That.  I can see you are of our number.”

    “Eh?”  It took a lot to confuse More, mainly because he spent most of his time confusing other people. (loc. 2692)

 

    The figure was more like a hermit than most hermits Hermitage had ever seen.  He had been tempted to the isolated life himself, and even directed to it on one or two occasions.  The problem had always been that the hermits he met seemed to have no gainful employment outside of starving and begging.  They never considered great arguments.  They never studied illuminating texts.  They just sat in caves and thought.  (loc. 3924)

 

Kindle Details…

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids currently sells for $3.99 at Amazon.  The other books in the series range in price from $0.99 to $4.99, with the more recent the book, the more it costs.

 

“What’s the point of having the upper hand,” Cwen argued, “if you can’t drop it on people?”  (loc. 2598)

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids is a cozy mystery, and therefore is almost profanity-free.  I spotted just four instances in the entire book, all of them referencing the Underworld.  I don’t recall any blood, gore, or adult situations.

 

    The bigger issue was the editing.  Typos abound, most of them of the punctuation ilk.  Missing commas in the dialogue were the most numerous; I counted 22 of them.  Missing quotation marks also showed up several times, along with a few commonplace typos such as solider/soldier.

 

    But I’ve come to accept those slip-ups in this series, because along with them comes a fascinating historical fiction mystery set in the 11^th-century Britain.  To boot, the text is loaded with wit and satire, which keeps my interest just fine.

 

    For me, Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids was a splendid and satisfying read.  It is fast-paced and has a nice “Medieval" feel to it.  I’m tempted to make my next Brother Hermitage read one of the more recent ones to see if the editing improves as the series progresses.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  Our heroes have a brief sojourn in Staines, which brought back poignant memories for me because I've sojourned there as well.  It makes me wonder if Brother Hermitage will at some time journey to nearby Chertsey, where I have also enjoyed the hospitality of friends.

Deadeye Dick - Kurt Vonnegut

   1982; 270 pages.  New Author? : No.   Genres : Humorous American Fiction; Satire; Character Study.  Overall Rating: 6*/10.

 

    Allow me to introduce you to Rudy Waltz.  He's 50 years old, and was born in 1932.  He’ll be your narrator in this book.

 

    He’s a pharmacist by trade, as was his father, Otto.  Otto was also an aspiring painter, although that career never got far.  Perhaps it was because people knew Otto’s favorite artist was Adolph Hitler.

 

    Rudy is presently living in Haiti, where he owns a hotel.  That’s because the town that Rudy grew up in, Midland City, Ohio, has been completely eradicated by a neutron bomb.  It was probably accidental, but who knows for sure.

 

    The main thing you should know about Rudy is his nickname: “Deadeye Dick”.  It’s an appropriate moniker since, as everybody in Midland City was once aware of, Rudy is a two-time killer.  Shot them with a rifle, no less.

 

What’s To Like...

    At its heart, Deadeye Dick is a satiric character study of our narrator as he strives to move beyond a very unfortunate event in his youth.  That may sound like a recipe for a boring book, but not when the author is Kurt Vonnegut, who manages to infuse humor, pathos, and irony into the tale.  

 

    Despite the book being more than 40 years old, a number of timely themes are subtly addressed, including gun control, nuclear power dangers, sexual orientation, authoritarian governments, and modern art.

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV (Rudy’s), and for the most part takes place in the aforementioned  fictional small midwestern town of Midland City, Ohio.  Rudy’s family relationships with his core family—father, mother, and brother—are one of the major themes of the book.

 

    I liked the way Kurt Vonnegut develops Rudy’s life.  His dream is to become a successful playwright, despite his dad insisting he carve out a career in pharmaceuticals.  Rudy even eventually manages to get one of his plays to open one night on Broadway, and the obvious literary thread here would be for him achieve his dream in the theatrical arts.  Alas, Vonnegut deems otherwise.

 

    The ending is unforeseen and interesting, but it doesn’t really “complete” any part of Rudy’s life.  It screams for a sequel, but ANAICT none of Kurt Vonnegut’s four novels written after this fulfill that role.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 1,346 ratings and 149 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.84/5 based on 31,267 ratings and 1,440 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Busby (n.) : a tall fur hat, often adorned with a bag-like ornament.  (Google it.)

 

Excerpts...

    To the-as-yet unborn, to all innocent wisps of undifferentiated nothingness: Watch out for life.

    I have caught life.  I have come down with life.  I was a wisp of undifferentiated nothingness, and then a little peephole opened quite suddenly.  Light and sound poured in.  Voices began to describe me and my surroundings.  Nothing they said could be appealed.  They said I was a boy named Rudolph Waltz, and that was that.  (pg. 1, and opening paragraph)

 

    Father made a ritual of lighting a cigar, and then he shook out the match and dropped it in what was left of the Linzer torte, and then he said again, “Be a pharmacist!  Go with the grain of your heritage!  There is no artistic talent in this family, nor will there ever be!  You can imagine how much it hurts me to say so.  We are business people, and that’s all we can ever hope to be.”

    “Felix is gifted,” I said.

    “And so is every circus freak,” said Father.  (pg. 131)

 

I was the great marksman, anyway.  If I aimed at nothing, then nothing is what I would hit.  (pg. 69)

    The cussing in Deadeye Dick is sparse.  I noted just 8 instances over the first third of the book, one of which was a racial epithet.  There is a bit of drug usage later on, mostly ingestion of uppers.

 

    There were a couple of typos, the most glaring of which was a character’s last name, Morrisey, being misspelled later on: Morissey.  Methinks the publisher is to blame.

 

    Several weird literary devices are used throughout the book, including a whole bunch of recipes, and a couple of passages written as playlet script excerpts.  I wasn't impressed.

 

    The biggest issue is the storyline. Simply put: there wasn’t any.  Rudy tells us about his life, but it never becomes n overarching tale.  He ends up living in Haiti, but nothing special happens there.  Midland, Ohio is annihilated by a neutron bomb, but we never find out who did it, or why.

 

    Fortunately, Vonnegut’s writing skills are sufficient to elevate Deadeye Dick from a boring novel to a passable one, but not a stellar one.  It kept me interested, but only because I was sure that sooner or later a plotline would emerge.  It never did.

 

    6 Stars.  One last thing.  One of the frequently seen internet memes apparently got its start here.  Namely:

“To be is to do.” (Socrates)

“To do is to be.” (Jean-Paul Sartre)

“Do be do be do.” (Frank Sinatra)

    I never knew its source before.

Confederates in the Attic - Tony Horwitz

   1998; 390 pages.  Full Title: Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War.  New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genres : Travelogue; U.S. History; Civil War; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    I’ve always enjoyed studying history.  History classes were my favorites in Junior High and High School, and helped prop up my GPA in college.  The best parts of History studies were the sections about wars.  All sorts of wars, including the American Civil War.

 

    I grew up in Pennsylvania, and the Gettysburg battlefield was about about an hour from our house.  One time I got a chance to walk through the national park there.  I stood behind the cannons of the Union defenses, mentally relived the bloody fighting on Little Round Top, and sensed the desperation that the Confederate soldiers felt as they were cut down during Pickett’s Charge.  I was an avid Civil War enthusiast.

 

    So was Tony Horwitz.  He spent the better part of three summers visiting all sorts of Civil War sites, then wrote a book about his experiences: Confederates in the Attic.  Compared to him, I was a Farb.

 

    I was a what??  Hey, be cool now.  Don’t have a Wargasm.

 

What’s To Like...

    There are fifteen chapters in Confederates in the Attic.  Tony Horwitz’s travels and conversations are presented in chronological order, and for the most part take place in the South, since that’s where almost all of the fighting was done.  My favorite chapters, and yours may vary, were:

    05. Dying for Dixie  (Kentucky)

    06. A Farb of the Heart  (Virginia)

    10. The Civil Wargasm  (Virginia and beyond)

    11. Gone With the Window  (Georgia)

    14. I Had a Dream  (Alabama)

 

    I liked the “balance” in the author’s telling of his interactions with folks in the Deep South.  Tony Horwits is a Yankee (he was born in Washington D.C.), and most of the locals he meets and interviews are staunch Dixie diehards.  Their outlooks on their present situation range from “can’t we all just get along?” to “the war ain’t over yet.”  The “truth” about the Andersonville prison seemed to be an especially contentious issue. 

 

    The author also gets introduced to, and quickly enlists in “Reenactment” squads, which I found fascinating.  I assumed participants in Reenactments were just wannabee actors playing their roles; it turns out that the “Hardliners” in that group go to great lengths to fully experience the miserable life of soldiers in the Civil War.

 

    I loved the attention Tony Horwitz gives to the “myth versus reality” aspect of Civil War history. An example of this is given in the first excerpt below.  There are dozens more.  The Battle of Shiloh seems to have been particularly fictionalized, and the “Minie Ball Pregnancy”, which I was taught as being factual, is apparently pure hokum.

 

    Confederates in the Attic is a trivia lover’s delight.  You’ll learn the etymology of the word “deadline”, and how The Citadel college got its name.  I was surprised to learn that one of my favorite writers, Ambrose Bierce, fought in the Battle of Shiloh, and that you can visit the grave of Stonewall Jackson’s arm.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 2,043 ratings and 597 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.10/5 based on 25,050 ratings and 2,165 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Sybaritic (adj.) : fond of sensuous luxury or pleasure.

Others: Coffle (n.); Guidon (n.) .

 

Excerpts...

    Fort Sumter wasn’t yet finished when the Confederate commander in Charleston, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, received orders to “proceed to reduce it.”  Beauregard carried out this dietlike instruction at dawn on April 12, 1861, when the rebels unleashed an artillery barrage from batteries ringing the harbor.

    The Union garrison inside Sumter fired back until the fort’s wood barracks caught fire, forcing the men to surrender.  Incredibly, the only fatality during the thirty-four-hour artillery duel was a Confederate horse.  But when Beauregard permitted his foes to fire a 100-gun salute before lowering the Stars and Stripes, one of the shots misfired and killed two Northern soldiers—the first of 620,000 men who would die in the struggle that followed.  (pg. 46)

 

    The next morning, I toured what little there was to see of Elba, a town of 4,000 perched beside the Pea River.  I asked a Chamber of Commerce official if Elba had any historic sites I might visit.  “There’s that bug statue over in Enterprise,” she said, handing me a pamphlet about the neighboring town.  In a bizarre act of homage, Enterprise had erected a monument to the crablike pest that ravaged Alabama cotton fields seventy years ago.  “In profound appreciation of the boll weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity,” the inscription read.  The weevil had forced cotton farmers to diversify, and Enterprise was now a leading peanut-growing center.  (pg. 344)

 

I was midway to Gettysburg with a live chicken slung over one shoulder when I realized my Civil War odyssey had come to an end.  (pg. 379)

    There’s only a small amount of profanity in Confederates in the Attic, 10 instances in the first 20% of the book.  Almost all of the cussing is in direct quotes of the folks that Tony Horwitz is interviewing.  Three of those first ten cusswords were f-bombs and one was a racial epithet.

 

    I only notice one typo in the whole book: hanger/hangar.  Kudos to the beta-readers and editors.

 

    The worst thing I can say about Confederates in the Attic is that after a while, the rationalizations used by diehard Dixie devotees to justify their antipathy for all damn-Yankees get repetitive and tedious.  That’s not Tony Horwitz’s fault; indeed, he mentions this a couple of times in the book.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  In addition to “farb” and “wargasm”, the other new bit of slang I encountered was “knob knowledge”.  Tony Horwitz cites it as a collegiate term used at The Citadel, but we had this at Penn State when I was there.  Pass your knob knowledge test and you can toss your beanie away!

Brothers Keepers - Donald Westlake

   1975; 257 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Hard-boiled Crime; New York City Fiction; Urban Life.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    The Order of St. Crispin is certainly not the biggest group of monks within the Roman Catholic Church.  Indeed, at their monastery in New York City, there are only sixteen of the brethren.

 

    But they have found peace there.  Their abbey sits on a large plot of land, with high, windowless walls that make its monks forget that they live on busy Park Avenue.  It’s an island of calm in a sea of urban hustle-and-bustle.

 

    Technically they don’t own the site, but they’ve been paying a nominal annual rent for nigh unto two centuries.  It’s quite the pittance for some very valuable property, but everyone is happy about the arrangement.  Until now.

 

    Someone wants to buy the old monastery and the land it’s on, tear it down, and build stores in its place.  Holy Smokes!  Surely there’s a lease, and surely it specifies some sort of protection the Order has against this!  Let’s check it to make sure.

 

    Erm, yeah.  The only copy of the lease the monastery has seems to have disappeared.

 

What’s To Like...

    Brothers Keepers is told from the first-person POV of one of the monks at the abbey, Brother Benedict.  He’s actually the one who first uncovers the takeover plot, since one of his duties is to leave the monastery every Sunday, go to the local newsstand, and purchase the Sunday New York Times edition.

 

   The main storyline is of course figuring out how to save the monastery’s present location, but other plot threads crop up as well.  Finding the missing lease is critical, and if that can’t be done, then let’s see if we can find a copy of it.  The owner of the property certainly has one. 

 

    But there is an equally intriguing personal side thread.  Brother Benedict is asked to accompany the head abbot, Brother Oliver, when they go to discuss things with various worldly people who can influence the decision whether to raze the monastery or not.  This leads to Brother Benedict “Traveling” (the word is always capitalized in the story) by himself.  He’s exposed to “the Ways of the Flesh”, something he gave up years ago when he entered the brotherhood.  This leads to an additional plotline: will Brother Benedict recant his vows and leave the monastery?

 

    I liked the way Donald Westlake portrays life in a monastery in the modern world.  We get convincing glimpses into the lives and history of all sixteen monks, plus one very bedraggled priest who stops by once a week to take confession from each monk. 

    I also enjoyed going back in time—Brothers Keepers was written fifty years ago—to a very different world.  One with typewriters, smoking in public places, Ford Pintos, telephone operators, and a Sunday New York Times issue that will only cost you 60 cents.

 

    The ending resolves the main storyline and all of the secondary ones, although the door is left open as to whether Brother Benedict spends the rest of his life in a monastery.  But since Donald Westrlake passed away in 2008, I suspect this will remain a one-and-done novel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 340 ratings and 35 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.81/5 based on 723 ratings and 89 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    The Solinex Building was one rectangle repeated seven million times.  In glass, in chrome, and in what might have been but probably was not stone.  It was set back from the public sidewalk, leaving space for a fountain with a statue in it.  The statue was an abstract, but seemed to represent a one-winged airplane with measles which had just missed its landing on an aircraft carrier and was diving nose-first into the ocean.  At least that’s the way it looked to me.

    Apparently it looked otherwise to Brother Oliver.  “Lot’s wife,” he commented as we went by.  (loc. 966)

 

    “You’ve discussed this with Father Banzolini?

    “Only certain aspects of it,” I said.  “In confession.”

    “Oh.”

    “Father Banzolini thinks I’m temporarily insane.”

    Brother Oliver gave me a look of utter astonishment.  “He what?”

    “Well, he didn’t phrase it that way,” I said.  “He just said I wasn’t responsible for my actions at the moment.”

    Brother Oliver shook his head.  “I’m not entirely convinced a Freudian priest is a viable hybrid.”  (loc. 2104)

 

Kindle Details…

    Brothers Keepers presently sells for $7.99 at Amazon.  There are a couple dozen Donald Westlake novels available in e-book format, a majority of which fall in the $7.99-$9.99 price range.  Alternatively, you can wait and hope for them to be discounted, which happens on occasion.

 

“What a lot of Buildings there are,” I said.  And yet they want more.” (. . .) “It’s an edifice complex,” Brother Oliver explained.  (loc. 958)

    There’s very little profanity in the first half of Brothers Keepers, when Brother Benedict spends most of his time in the abbey.  Later on, when he’s immersed in worldliness, and has resumed using his birth name, the rate of cussing picks up.  Still, I only counted 33 instances in the whole story.  Plus one adult situation.

 

    The bigger issue was the ending.  I envisaged three or four possible ways to resolve the set of plotlines, and very much looked forward to seeing which path was used.  Instead, Donald Westlake comes up with a different one, which normally is a plus.  But here it’s unexciting, felt rushed, and disappointing.  At least to me.

 

    Still, the story kept me interested up until the end, with plenty of subtle wit and keen insight into living in the heart of New York City in a spiritual retreat.  But if you've never read anything by Donald Westlake, just don’t make this your introduction to his work.  Instead, choose one of the books in his “Dortmunder” series.  Every one of those is good.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  I was pleasantly surprised by nod to one of the most cutting-edge comedy acts tin television history: The Smothers Brothers Show.  It was one of my favorite TV shows at that time, and that still holds true.

Edgedancer - Brandon Sanderson

   2014; 268 pages.  Full Title: “Edgedancer: From the Stormlight Archive”.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Action-Adventure, Epic Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Meet Lift.  A child of the streets, and just ten years old.  Although that’s a bit misleading, since she’s claimed to be that age for three years in a row now.

 

    She survives on the streets by the use of her wits, plus a couple of handy talents she’s somehow picked up along the way.  Her traveling companion, Wyndle, is also a creature (a “spren”, actually) with some unusual abilities.

 

    Lift and Wyndle prefer to avoid attention.  As long as they can find a bit of food to eat and a place to sleep at night, they’re content.  When they can’t find those things, Lift uses one of her talents to find food and shelter.  For instance, she’s an excellent pickpocket and cat burglar.

 

    As is true with any street urchin, most people go out of their way to pretend not to notice her and Wyndle.  With one exception.  Lift calls him the Man in Black.  He’s been trailing them for quite some time now.  Doggedly.  Like a bloodhound on a scent.

 

    What could he possibly want?

 

What’s To Like...

    Edgedancer is set in Brandon Sanderson’s “Stormlight” fantasy world, but it is not technically part of it.  Instead, it's apparently a plot thread tangent featuring a minor character from Book 2, Words of Radiance.  The book opens with a 57-page-long Prologue (22% Kindle), and reportedly is a retelling of a portion of Book 2.  I’ve only read the first book, The Way of Kings, so it was all new to me.

 

    Both the Prologue and the main story follow the adventures of Lift and Wyndle.  The storyline is YA-oriented, which means I'm not the target audience.  Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Brandon Sanderson’s storytelling.  The thrills-&-spills were nail-biting, and the banter between our two protagonists was witty throughout.

 

    The character-building is equally superb.  One expects the protagonists to be well developed, and indeed they are.  But the secondary characters, such as “the Stump”, the old philosopher, and “Darkness” (the Man in Black) are deeply detailed as well.

 

    There is also a coming-of-age aspect to the story.  Lift may have some fabulous talents, but she’s not a master of any of them, and almost certainly has other yet-to-be-discovered ones.  And she finds herself facing a bunch of formidable challenges, ranging from actions that will determine who rules, to caring about the poor and homeless.

 

    I liked the way the magic system worked.  Lift has been endowed with some powerful spellcasting (she labels them “Awesomeness”), but they have limitations and are not foolproof.  For instance, Awesomeness gets used up rapidly and is only replenished by eating lots of food.

 

Kindle Details…

    Edgedancer sells for $5.99 right now at Amazon.  The five full-length (and I do mean “full-length”) e-books in the series will cost you anywhere from $11.99 to $20.99 apiece.  This may sound pricey until you look at the page-count of each volume.  Brandon Sanderson has lots of other series and standalones for your reading pleasure, generally in the $8.99-$12.99 price range, many of which also have hefty page-counts.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 18,637 ratings and 782 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.14*/5, based on 153,409 ratings and 11,131 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “He told me tonight was a good night for sneaking.  I owed it to him.  Besides, I wanted to be here in case he got into trouble.  I might need to help.”

    “Why bother?”

    Why indeed?  “Someone has to care,” she said, starting down the hallway.  “Too few people care these days.

    “You say this while coming in to rob people.”

    “Sure.  I ain’t gonna hurt them.”

    “You have an odd sense of morality, mistress.”

    “Don’t be stupid,” she said.  “Every sense of morality is odd.”  (loc. 296)

 

    “What body part do you feel that you are most like?” he asked.  “Are you the hand, always busy doing work?  Are you the mind, giving direction?  Do you feel that you are more of a . . . leg, perhaps?  Bearing up everyone else, and rarely noticed?”

    (. . .) 

    Lift eyed him.  Great.  Angry twig running an orphanage; weird old man outside it.  She dusted off her hands.  “If I’m anything, I’m a nose.  ‘Cuz I’m filled with all kinds of weird crud, and you never know what’s gonna fall out.”  (loc. 1175)

 

 “Guard, do something!  There’s a dirty refugee in my grain!”  (loc. 888)

    I didn’t note any profanity in Edgedancer.  When the situation call for it, Brandon Sanderson uses the euphemisms.  “Starving” and “storming” replace f-bombs, and if you want to invoke a deity, you say “by Yaszir himself”.  I really like this way of handling fantasy world cussing.  There also were no “adult situations” that I recall. 

 

      Several reviewers felt the ending was rushed and incomplete.  They have a point, but I think such a finale is inherent when you’re penning a tangential storyline.  Edgedancer chronicles a phase of Lift’s life, but is not indispensable to the overarching storyline in the Stormlight series.

 

    Edgedancer is both a standalone book and set in what is one of Brandon Sanderson’s most popular series.  Although it’s technically true that, thanks to the Prologue, you don’t have to read the whole series first, I didn’t, and this is one of the few cases where I wish I had.

 

    Still, an author with the writing skills of Brandon Sanderson can make this work, and yey again, I found his storyline completely mesmerizing.  Despite me not being in the target audience, the book held my attention from start to finish.  Now I just have to get motivated to read Book 2 of the series.  It is a mere 1,328 pages long.

 

    9 Stars.  Speaking of lengthiness, can you think of any other book that’s 268 pages long and described as a “novella”?  I can’t.  But each of the five books in this series is about 1,300 pages long, so I guess in this case that label is applicable here.