Inspector Hobbes and the Common People - Wilkie Martin

    2021; 470 pages.  Book 5 (out of 5) in the “Unhuman” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Dark Humor; Humorous British Detective Cozy Mystery Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Woohoo!  Andy Caplet is going on an overseas trip with his unhuman friend, Inspector Hobbes!  And since it involves some top-secret skullduggery, the government is picking up the tab!  Andy’s wife Daphne gets to go along too!

 

    Actually, Hobbes was mostly interested in getting Daphne to make the trip, since he wanted to make use of her archaeological talents.  Andy just sort of wrangled them into including him as well.

 

    Both Daphne and Andy had to sign NDAs, which means “Non-Disclosure Agreements”.  That means they can’t tell you any details about this sensitive operation.  So let’s just say the destination is somewhere in the Himalayan mountains area.

 

    And there may or may not be some big, white-furred bipedal creatures involved.

 

What’s To Like...

    There are at least five different storylines interwoven in Inspector Hobbes and the Common People, namely:

a.) What exactly is the secret mission in the Himalayas;

b.) Will Andy get fired from his reporter’s job after the newspaper comes under new management;

c.) Will a Land Development company turn the local countryside into a huge urban neighborhood?

d.) Who shot a little boy while he was trampolining?

e.) Will Hobbes catch the runaway rhea?

 

    Like all the books in this series, the tale is told from the First-Person POV (Andy’s), and is written in English, not American.  So in addition to weird spellings (such as sceptical, kerbside, and faeces), and odd vocabulary (such as faffed, gormless, plus the three words in the next section), you’ll encounter strange new phrases such as Eton Mess, Lancashire Hotpat, and gaffer tape.  I always love this!

 

    It’s probably best to view this book as a 5-story anthology.  The “secret mission” tale comes first, and is entirely set apart from the other four plotlines.  Those narratives are interspersed throughout the rest of the book.  The staggered scene shifts means  there aren’t any slow spots.

 

    The ending is multi-faceted, which is not surprising, given the anthological structure of the storyline.  It’s not particularly tense or twisty, but it does tie up all but one of the five plotlines.  Goodness prevails, and all’s well that ends well.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Sconner (n.) : a person who is tiresome, objectionable. and irritating. (Scottish)

Others: Parlous (adj.), Grottiest (adj.; British).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 1,510 ratings and 100 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.36*/5, based on 944 ratings and 63 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I believe you have something of mine.”

    “Yes,” I said.  “We have your rhea.”

    Mr. Catt grinned.  “You always have my ear if you need to talk.”

    “You’d better come in,” I said.  “The rhea is at the back.”

    “The rhea should always be at the back,” said Mr. Catt, and tittered.

    Mr. Catt entered the kitchen and beamed.  “Mr. Hobbes, you really have caught Dai the rhea!  I hope you’ll be better soon.”  (pg. 300)

 

    “Don’t ask for credit unless you want a punch in the gob.”

    Amazingly fast for such a bulky man, he seized me by the seat of my trousers and the scruff of the neck.

    “Don’t trouble yourself,” I said, hoping to avoid pain.  “I can throw myself out.”

    He must have been in one of his better moods, because he snorted with laughter and put me down.  “Go on then,” he said.  “But don’t be too rough on yourself.”

    I took myself by the collar, lugged myself through the pub and dived out onto the pavement, much to the astonishment of a passing cat.  (pg. 388)

 

Kindle Details…

    Inspector Hobbes and the Common People sells for $3.99 at Amazon right now.  The other e-books in the series go for either $1.99, (Book 1), or $3.99. (Books 2 thru 4).

 

“We can’t have monstrous birds disembowelling the public—it wouldn’t look good in the tourist brochures.”  (pg. 179)

    There’s very little profanity in Inspector Hobbes and the Common People.  I noted only three instances in the first 25% of the e-book, all of which were mild and eschatological in nature.  Later on, a scatological term shows up.  I don’t recall any “adult situations” cropping up.

 

    Your enjoyment of this book will depend mostly on how much you like short story anthologies.  Frankly, the “secret mission” tale has zero impact upon the rest of the book.  The other four storylines have only marginal impact on each other, which means you’ll be searching in vain for an overarching plot thread.

 

    There’s also an abundance of references to events in the earlier four books of the series.  I read them in order, but frankly no longer remember any of their details, other than the two protagonists.

 

    Still, Wilkie Martin did a nice job of quilting five storylines into a cohesive unit, and sprinkling an abundance of wit, humor, and groanworthy puns into an engaging narrative.  Sadly, Inspector Hobbes and the Common People was published in 2021, and no volumes have been added to the series since then.  I fear we’ve seen the last of Hobbes and Andy.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  Years ago, on one of my business trips to England, I was treated to a dish called “mushy peas”, which are briefly mentioned here.  If you ever find yourself in a restaurant in the UK and they offer this as a side dish, by all mean, give it a taste!

The Catiline Conspiracy - John Maddox Roberts

   1991; 204 pages.  Book 2 (out of 13) in the “SPQR” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Historical Fiction; Intrigue; Roman History; Suspense.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Rome, 63 BCE.

 

    Somebody has stashed a bunch of swords and shields in the Temple of Saturn.  Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger (let’s just call him “Decius” from now on) wants to know who.

 

    Well, Decius has every right to ask; he’s a quaestor in charge of keeping tabs on the inventory of offerings at the temple.  Granted, his main purpose is to deter people from walking away with those offerings, and weapons are rarely if ever given as donations.  But hey, a job’s a job.

 

    It’s funny though, those swords and shields are not of the highest quality.  Why would someone think Saturn would be grateful for used weapons?  And maybe whoever they belonged to just wants to temporarily hide them, not to donate them to Saturn.

 

    Someone who might want to overthrow the current government in Rome.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Catiline Conspiracy is the fifth book I’ve read in John Maddox Roberts’ “SPQR” series.  The 13 books present the crime-solving adventures of Decius chronologically, but I don’t think it’s necessary to read them in order.

 

    If you like reading deeply researched Historical Fiction, you’re going to love The Catiline Conspiracy.  John Maddox Roberts paints a vivid picture of life in Rome at the height of the Republic, showing the daily life of both the upper-class Patricians and the common people.  There's also plenty of Suspense and Intrigue in the storyline, if those genres float your boat.

 

    I liked the way the issue of slavery is dealt with.  Despite a quaestor being a low-level public official, Decius owns several slaves, all of whom are content with their position in life.  The famed Spartacus Slave Revolt had occurred just a few years before (71 BCE), which perhaps impacted how the Roman citizens now treated their servants.  I also appreciated the mention of Hannibal and enjoyed learning about the out-in-the-sticks rival empire called Parthia.

 

    Early on, Decius's neighborhood is jolted by a sudden spate of killings, and he is appointed to figure out who did what.  His sleuthing method reminded me of Peter Falk’s Columbo character—attend get-togethers where ambitious powermongers are gathered, and ask nonthreatening but insightful questions.  Hey, it worked for Columbo, and it works here.

 

    The ending is logical, albeit not particularly exciting.  The commoners that were swept up in the conspiracy fare poorly, but the powers manipulating them seemed to all get away.  Perhaps that was the message John Maddox Roberts wanted to leave us with.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Myrmidons (n.) : followers or supporters of a powerful person.

Others: Rapine (n.); Sacerdotal (adj.), Extramural (adj.); Lustrations (n.), Sophistry (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 275 ratings and 41 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.91/5 based on 1,703 ratings and 102 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    I saw a man walking toward me through the rejoicing throng.  He wore a purple-striped senator’s tunic and his feet were bare.  I groaned.  A Senator’s tunic coupled with bare feet meant one thing: Marcus Porcius Cato, the most formidably boring man in Roman politics.  He attributed all the ills of the day to our failure to live as simply as had our ancestors.  He regarded himself as the exemplar and embodiment of antique virtue.  The early Romans had not worn shoes, so he didn’t either.  (pg. 8)

 

    “He wants a return to the evil days, when Romans killed Romans in the very streets of Rome?  I always knew he was pernicious, now I know that he is mad.”  He looked at me with a frosty smile.  “This has been most sagacious, Decius.  I know of no other man whose mind works like yours, sifting evidence and placing seemingly disparate facts together to construct a—how shall I put it?—a model of how things might have happened.  You should have been a philosopher.”  (pg. 157)

 

“Asklepiodes, you must let me kill you.”  (pg. 150)

    The Catiline Conspiracy was a slog for me, mostly because I was expecting it to be a Historical Mystery where I could tag along with Decius and try to solve the murders before he did.  That was a mistake on my part; there is very little Mystery-Investigating here.

 

    Cussing is almost non-existent —just two damns in the whole book.  There is one roll-in-the-hay, plus one “adult situation”, but neither is done lewdly.  I only spotted two typos, which is actually quite clean, since this particular version was published in 1991, and I doubt auto-correct was around back then.  One plot thread remained unresolved: a budding romantic relationship between Decius and one of the characters.  I imagine this gets further developed in the next book in the series.

 

    So learn from my misstep, and read this book for its most excellent Historical Fiction aspect.  Ignore the fact that our protagonist does almost zero sleuthing.  I suspect that John Maddox Roberts’ found his planned plotline was hampered by historical facts.  See the next section re this.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  In doing research for this review, I was astounded to find that it is based on historical fact.  Catilina really did exist, and he really did head a failed attempt to seize control of the Roman Empire in 63 BCE.  Read the Wikipedia article on this here.  Catilina’s biography really does limit what John Maddox Roberts can do with the storytelling.

Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz

    2003; 421 pages. Book 1 (out of 7) in the “Odd Thomas” series.  New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genres : Horror Fantasy; Ghosts; Suspense Thriller.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    20-year old Odd Thomas (yes, that’s his real name) can see dead people.  Sometimes they even reveal the terrible ways in which they died, and who killed them; unwilling to do so until justice is done..

 

    Odd Thomas keeps his “gift” secret from most of his fellow townspeople in Pico Mundo, California.  One of the exceptions to this is the Police Chief of Pico Mundo, Wyatt Porter, who appreciates Odd Thomas’s help in resolving these cold cases.

 

    Odd Thomas can also see strange creatures he’s dubbed “bodachs”.  Usually one or two of them show up right before someone dies violently.  Apparently, they like being spectators to the violence.

 

    But lately, the bodachs have been showing up in greater numbers in Pico Mundo.  Dozens at a time.  Hmm.

 

    That's probably not a good thing.

 

What’s To Like...

    Odd Thomas is written by in “memoir style” by the titular protagonist, apparently some years after the fact and at the urging of one of the secondary characters in the tale, Little Ozzie.  I presume we’ll find out the reasons for this in the subsequent novels in the series.  The story is set in the fictional town of Pico Mundo, located somewhere in southern California's Mojave Desert.

 

    I liked the way the story opens: an incident that introduces the reader to Odd’s talent as he helps the ghost of a little girl seeking justice.   After that, the main plotline gets rolling, with the appearance of an enigmatic character that Odd labels “Fungus Man”.   Is he alive? Dead?  Human?  Otherworldly?  Good? Demonic?  And above all, why has he come to Pico Mundo?

 

    Despite this being primarily a “Suspense Thriller” novel, Dean Koontz cleverly manages to keep the tone somewhat lighthearted.  One of Odd’s friends is the ghost of Elvis,  some of the story takes place in a chapel called the “Church of the Whispering Comet”, and, as anyone who’s ever worked in a cheap eatery (I have!) can tell you, learning to speak “diner lingo” is an art.  I also liked the author’s treatment of the “what happens if I mess with the ordained timeline” conundrum.

 

    The ending is both thrilling, and realistic.  The plans of the Evil Ones are stymied, but at a high cost.  The Epilogue will leave a lump in your throat.  The fate of one of the main characters remains unresolved, but I think this may be a teaser for the next book in the series.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Farrago (n.) : a confusing mixture.

Others: Pyx (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 10,863 ratings and x,xxx reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.99/5 based on 275,707 ratings and 8,911 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    When Chief Porter came back, he said, “Why is he vandalizing St. Bart’s?”

    “Don’t have a clue, sir.  He tried to trap me and Stormy in the church belfry—”

    “What were you doing in the belfry?”

    “Having a picnic, sir.”

    “I suppose that makes sense to you.”

    “Yes, sir.  It’s nice.  We have dinner up there a couple times a month.”

    “Son, I don’t ever want to catch you having dinner on the courthouse flagpole.”

    “Maybe just hors d’oeuvres, sir, but never dinner.”  (loc. 1955)

 

    “No gun,” I insisted.  “We’ll just cruise and see what happens.”

    “Why are you afraid of guns?”

    “They go bang.”

    “And why is that a question you always avoid answering?”

    “I was probably shot to death in a past life.”

    “You don’t believe in reincarnation.”

    “I don’t believe in taxes, either, but I pay them.”  (loc. 2064)

 

Kindle Details…

    Odd Thomas currently costs $3.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series are all priced in the $5.99-$7.99,range.  Dean Koontz has oodles of other e-books for your horror-genre reading pleasure, most of which are in the $2.99-$9.99 price range.

 

“Odd, my beautiful cow exploded.”  (loc. 1459)

    The profanity in Odd Thomas is light; I counted just seven instances in the first 25% of the book, all of which were of the “milder” ilk.  There was an allusion to child molestation, though.  I didn’t spot any typos, which is a rarity for me.  Kudos to those who did the editing.

 

    My main quibble is with the storytelling.  There were way too many plot tangents which slowed everything down.  Some examples:

    We dwell much too long on Odd’s coworkers at the Pico Mundo Grille.

    Ditto for the background information about Odd’s parents.

    Ditto for a late-appearing (97% Kindle) co-conspirator.

And many more.  None of these impacted the storyline, so all created slow spots.

 

    Still, the basic concept of the storyline was innovative; the setting and world-building kept my interest, and the character development of both the good guys was superb.  Odd Thomas’s psychological make-up was particularly well done.

 

    Amazon discounts on the e-books in this series are for some reason few and far between.  But if the sequel, Forever Odd, ever shows up at a reduced price, I’ll probably grab it and give this series another try.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  For some odd reason, Amazon has removed or relocated their "Reviews" totals.  They still list the "Ratings" totals.  Hopefully, this is a temporary omission.

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.

Dead and Gone - Charlaine Harris

   2009; 261 pages.  Book 9 (out of 13) in the “Sookie Stackhouse” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Paranormal Mystery; Gothic Romance; Vampires; Werewolves.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    It was a major coming-out event.  Almost as big as when human beings found out there were lots of Vampires living in their midst.  This time both humans and vamps discovered they had Wereanimals (werewolves, werefoxes, and others) living in their neighborhoods and keeping a low profile.

 

    Reactions were mixed.  Some humans accepted their new furry neighbors without any qualms.  Others were less thrilled.  Some homo sapiens were downright hostile.

 

    So when a local werepanther was killed in a very gruesome fashion in Bon Temps, Louisiana, local resident Sookie Stackhouse wants to know if this was a hate crime.  Because she too has some paranormal genes in her that she’s been very careful to keep secret.

 

    She’s half-human and half-fairy.

 

What’s To Like...

    Dead and Gone, is the ninth book in Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series.  In the previous tome, From Dead to Worse, Sookie meets her great-grandfather Niall, a fairy from another dimension (the fae live a long time), now that relationship gets developed more fully.

 

    The storyline structure utilizes the usual formula.  Charlaine Harris opens things by getting us caught up on the status of a slew of characters via the coming-out being broadcast at Merlotte’s Bar.  After the savage murder grabs our attention, the plotline splits into several other threads.  Her boss, Sam Merlotte, has to deal with a family tragedy; Sookie’s great-grandfather is involved in fairy kingdom unrest, and several personal relationships are impacted by the wereanimals’ coming-out.

 

    That sounds like a recipe for literary confusion, but Charlaine Harris makes sure that things unfold smoothly.  The story is once again told in the first-person point-of-view, Sookie’s, which means the reader gets to hear her thoughts about things such as unintentionally killing someone, being duped into a betrothal, and how to cope with reading other peoples’ minds since she’s a telepath.  Introspection abounds.

 

    The ending is tense, exciting, and bittersweet.  Both the good guys and bad guys suffer some casualties.  Still others live to fright another day, but not all the survivors live happily ever after.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 4,882 ratings and 1,144 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02/5 based on 193,898 ratings and 4,955 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Lock the doors and don’t let anyone in.”

    “Doors are locked; no one’s knocking,” she said.

    “Don’t let me in,” I said, “unless I give you the password.”

    “Sure, Sookie,” she said, and I could tell she thought I’d gone over the edge.  “What’s the password?”

    “Fairypants,” I said, and how I came up with that I have no idea.  It simply seemed super unlikely that anyone else in the world would say it.

    “I got it,” Amelia said.  “Fairypants.”  (pg. 223)

 

    Dr. Ludwig takes care of the cases who can’t go to the regular human hospital because the staff would flee screaming at the sight of them or the lab wouldn’t be able to analyze their blood.  I could see Dr. Ludwig’s coarse brown hair as she walked around the bed to the door.  Dr. Ludwig had a deep voice.  I suspected she was a hobbit—not really, but she sure did look like one.  Though she wore shoes, right?  I spent some moments trying to remember if I’d ever caught a glimpse of Dr. Ludwig’s feet.  (pg. 234)

 

Kindle Details…

    Dead and Gone currently costs $6.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the e-books in the series are all in the $3.99-$9.99 price range.  Charlaine Harris has several other series for your Kindle; the prices of those books are generally in the $5.99-$14.99 range.

 

 

In a rare moment of wisdom, I listened to my own advice.  (pg. 145)

    I noted eleven instances of profanity in the first 25% of Dead and Gone, which is about average for this series.  Later on, one f-bomb crops up, plus a couple of rolls-in-the-hay.

    All that introspection mentioned earlier tends to slow down the pacing.  At one point, for example, the reader is treated to a couple of pages detailing Sookie’s thoughts while weeding the garden.

 

    For me the big issue was the investigation of first killing.  To put it tersely, there is none, even with two FBI agents arriving on the scene to help out.  Despite the killing's brutality, life continues on as usual for most of the residents of the small town of Bon Temps.  Eventually, the case gets solved, but even that is due to sudden epiphanies, not shrewd detective work.

 

    If you’re reading this series for the human (and not-so-human) interrelationships involved, you probably won’t mind the way the killings are handled.  But if you’re reading them for the paranormal crime mysteries, like I am, then you may find Dead and Gone to be quite a disappointment.

 

    Overall, this was still a worthwhile read, but it doesn’t measure up to the first couple of books in the series.  It’s almost as if the author has run out of paranormal crime concepts, but still has lots of ideas about where to take the characters’ lives.  We’ll see if things get better in the next installment, Dead in the Family.  I’m not quitting this series yet.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  One of my favorite recurring characters in this series, Bubba, makes an appearance in Dead and Gone.  It’s brief, but here’s hoping he gets to play a more important part in one of the remaining tales.

Monday the Rabbi Took Off - Harry Kemelman

   1972; 329 pages.  Book 4 (out of 12) in the “Rabbi Small Mystery” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Hebrew Culture; Crime Mystery; Jewish Literature; Amateur Sleuths.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    No matter what the job, everybody needs a break sometimes.  Even Rabbi David Small of the Barnard’s Crossing temple.

 

    He’s served as their rabbi for more than five years, despite not having a contract with them that grants him time off for a vacation, or a yearlong sabbatical leave-of-absence after six years of service.  He’s never once complained about the unpaid overtime hours expected of a rabbi.

 

    But it’s taken its toll.  Now he’s asking for three months off for an extended trip to the Jewish holy land of Israel.  His wife and young son will be accompanying him.  He’s not even asking the Bernard’s Crossing temple to subsidize him.

 

    Hmm.  I wonder if his ultimate aim is to find a new job over there.  Something that gives him time off each year, and will guarantee it in a contract.  If I were on the Barnard’s Crossing temple board, I’d start looking for a replacement to fill in for Rabbi Small while he’s gone, and to take his place if he decides not to come back.

 

What’s To Like...

    I liked the change-of-setting Harry utilizes in Monday the Rabbi Took Off; Israel is a much more interesting place to read about than Barnard’s Crossing.  The timing is important as well.  It’s 1972, just five years after the Six-Day War between Israel and most of its neighbors, and the entire Jewish nation remains in a “siege mentality” for valid reasons.

 

    The descriptions of everyday life in Israel felt very convincing without being boringly stereotypical.  There are rules governing what activities you can and cannot on the Sabbath, and most citizens obey them.  It reminded me of the “Blue Laws” we had in Pennsylvania when I was growing up there: stores, restaurants, and liquor stores were all closed on Sunday mornings, and people lined up as the hour drew close to noon.  Nobody complained about the restrictions, which is also true here in Monday the Rabbi Took Off.

 

    Harry Kemelman blends a fair amount of Hebrew vocabulary into the story, and I liked that.  One is detailed below; others include kiddush, Chassidim, minyan, chaver, gefilte fish, shlemiehl, sherut, and ozzereth.  Fortunately, between the author and my Kindle Fire, almost all of these came with translations.

 

    The main storylines are Rabbi Small and his family enjoying their three-month stay in Jerusalem and the Barnard’s Crossing Temple bigwigs worrying that he won’t come back.  There is a bombing death for Rabbi Small to solve, but that doesn’t arise until more than halfway through the book, and frankly doesn’t have a large impact on the events in the story.  More on that in a bit.

 

    The ending addresses resolves all three of those plot threads, including several neat plot twists, although not a lot of excitement.  Monday the Rabbi Took Off is both a standalone tale and part of a series that I'm reading in order.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 878 ratings and 87 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.87/5 based on 1,992 ratings and 165 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Rebbitzin (n.) : the wife of a rabbi.

Others: Pillion (n.)

 

Excerpts...

    “First we ought to decide if we need a rabbi at all, then—”

    “What do you mean, do we need a rabbi at all?  How are we going to get along without a rabbi?”

    “Lots of places don’t have them,” Goodman replied.  “I mean not regularly.  They get a young punk down from the seminary every Friday evening and pay him maybe fifty or a hundred bucks and expenses.”

    “Sure, and you know what you get?  You get a young punk.”

    “Not just a young punk,” Goodman reproved, "a young rabbi punk.”  (loc. 11313)

 

    “Mahmoud is very good with automobiles, and he keeps this one tuned like a watch.  Well, maybe not like a watch, but like a good serviceable alarm clock.  It is perhaps not so quiet as the car you are used to, nor is the ride so smoothly, but it always starts, and it always goes.”

    “Yeah, well . . . It’s pretty good on gas.  I’ll say that for it.  We’ve been driving for over an hour and the needle on the tank gauge hasn’t moved.”

    Abdul chuckled.  “The gauge doesn’t work.  The needle never moves.”  (loc. 14870)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now the e-book version of Monday the Rabbi Took Off will cost you $6.99 at Amazon.  The other e-books in the series are all in the $1.99-$7.99 range.  I read this as part of a 4-book bundle containing the first four entries is the series, and which costs $17.99.

 

“I make the decisions in my house, but my wife tells me what to decide.”  (loc. 15237)

    Profanity is almost nonexistent in Monday the Rabbi Took Off, which was expected since rabbis abstain from swearing.  I noted just three cusswords in the first 50% of the book, and zero adult situations.  The editing was well done; I only spotted two typos: gravel/gavel and hamburg/hamburger.

 

    As already mentioned, the big problem is the murder-mystery plotline.  It starts incredibly late in the text and is solved with more by armchair reasoning than onsite sleuthing.

 

    So if you can read a Rabbi Small story strictly for its insight into Jewish culture—both in America and in Israel—you are in for a treat; Harry Kemelman does a fantastic job in this respect.  But if you’re expecting a fascinating cozy mystery seamlessly merged into the tale as well, as I did, Monday the Rabbi Took Off probably won't live up to your expectations.

 

    7 Stars.  One minor plot tangent in the book deals with a fertilizer being field-tested by Israeli experts.  I've worked for a company that manufactures liquid fertilizers, and remember reading about some field research being done over there.  Specifically, it involved something called “drip irrigation”, and IIRC the Israelis came up with a remarkable way to minimize the amount of water needed for this.  When your entire country’s a desert and your population is constantly increasing due to immigration, such improvements are miracles.

Project Daedalus - Thomas Hoover

   1991; 368 pages. New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genres: Technothriller; Action-Intrigue.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Sometimes money laundering can be in the best interest of both parties.

 

    For instance, if a sovereign nation, such as Russia, wants to finance a cutting-edge technological research project at a powerful private-enterprise industrial corporation in a different country, such as Japan, it’s best for all concerned that nobody else knows about it.

 

    One common method is to convert millions of dollars into something called debentures, loan certificates that are unsecured.  Pass them through a couple of rounds of unscrupulous bankers’ hands so they can’t be traced, then to the intended receiver, and make sure everybody keeps their mouths shut.

 

    Alas, things go haywire if those debentures disappear during one of those banking handoffs.  If those certificates aren’t found, and in a hurry, heads will roll.  Literally.  But where are we going to find someone with experience in prying into clandestine operations?

 

    How about an ex-CIA agent, Michael Vance, Jr.?

 

What’s To Like...

    There are two main storylines in Project Daedalus: our protagonist, Michael Vance, tries to figure out where the debentures went; and an aerospace corporation works at developing a plane (as shown above in the book cover) that can achieve “hypersonic” speeds of Mach 25 or so.  Eventually the two plot threads converge, setting up an exciting climax.

 

    I enjoyed the various settings.  We start out in Athens, Greece, with a visit to nearby Knossos, Crete.  We also spend time in London, where the money-laundering shenanigans are taking place; and Hokkaido, Japan, where the plane testing is underway.  And let’s not neglect to mention several goosebump-raising trips into the upper atmosphere.  All these places felt “real” to me.

 

    The book was written in 1991, and I chuckled at some of the now-obsolete items.  Messaging was done by telex, and decryption efforts were done via a cutting-edge technological device (for that era): a Lotus spreadsheet program on a 486 computer.  I also liked the mention of the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and was wowed when a plane did a “Mach 3 Immelmann maneuver”.

 

    Everything builds to a sustained, nail-biting ending.  You might have the fastest plane ever, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be brought down by missile-shooting enemy fighter planes and/or the excessive-heat conditions of the atmosphere.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 159 ratings and 48 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.50*/5, based on 193 ratings and 11 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    To begin with, members of the intelligence services of major nations didn’t go around knocking each other off; that was an unwritten rule among spooks.  Very bad taste.  Maybe you tried to get somebody to talk with sodium pentathol [sic] or scopolamine, but guns were stupid and everybody knew it.  You could get killed with one of those things, for godsake.  (loc. 2148)

 

    He slipped off the shirt he’d been wearing in London, happy to be rid of it, and put on the first half of the uniform.  Not a bad fit.  The trousers also seemed tailor-made.  Then he slipped on the wool topper, completing the ensemble.

    “You would make a good officer, I think.”  Andrei Androv stood back and looked him over with a smile.  “But you have to act like one too.  Remember to be insulting.”  (loc. 6585)

 

Kindle Details…

    You can pick up Project Daedalus for free at Amazon right now.  In fact, the other eight e-books Thomas Hoover has tout here are also free.  I suspect this is a “for a limited time only” deal.

 

“If a man owes you a hundred dollars, you have power over him; if he owes you a million dollars, he has power over you.”  (loc. 4250)

    There’s a fair amount of cussing in Project Daedalus; I counted 18 instances in the first 10% of the book, including three f-bombs.  There are several rolls-in-the-hay to boot, since Vance crosses paths with an ex-lover along the way.

 

    There were also a fair number of typos, such as Vanced/Vance, wastin/wastin’, and numerous missing quotation marks.  One recurring error involved the name of the prototype aircraft, “Daedalus I”, which the conversion program often mistakenly rendered as “Daedalus /”.

 

    I’m always happy when words and phrases in foreign languages show up in the text.  Here, lots of Russian, Japanese, and Greek vocabulary was used, which I liked, but they are not languages I’m proficient in.  It would’ve been nice to have translations supplied via footnotes or a glossary.

 

    The main issue though, which several other reviewers also pointed out, was the abundance of technical jargon.  Yes, Project Daedalus is aptly marketed as a “technothriller”.  Yes, that implies there will be passages explaining technical stuff.  But here, those passages are so lengthy, and pop up so often that it slows down the pacing.  And let’s keep in mind, Mach 25 is an impossible speed for an aircraft in Earth’s atmosphere.  The technical details about it are all fictional.

 

    Despite that, I enjoyed Project Daedalus.  I skimmed through those technical speedbumps (what the heck is a “scramjet” anyway?), and refocused when the text got back to advancing the storyline.  There was lots of Action-&-Intrigue to keep me turning the pages, and I was impressed that the Japanese and Russian characters, of which there were many, were portrayed as three-dimensional human beings, not cookie-cutter stereotypes.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  If you look in the Table of Contents, you’ll find there’s an entire chapter missing – Chapter 7.  Now, I know of at least one author who does such a thing; he simply eschews Chapter 13 in any of his books.  And to be fair, I don’t think the chapter is truly missing.  It’s just a counting glitch.  Still, what are the odds of this sort of oversight?