I'm reading Cover Her Face, P. D. James' first Adam Dalgliesh book. I've read several of her books but not this one.

Carolyn, I have that book, if you want a discussion!

Kathy....I think I will skip reading that book. Doesn't sound worth all those pages and time.

Thanks for your input !

I have read Cover Her Face several times. I love PD James' Adam Dalgliesh books and re-read them all periodically. I'll be interested to hear what you think of the book, Carolyn. PS--The TV version with Roy Marsden was excellent, I thought, but not the recent version with some other actor.

I hadn't thought about a discussion. I was surprised by who dunnit.

Next up is The Lost Gallows by John Dickson Carr, one of his locked room mysteries except this one seems to be a car driven by a very dead man with his throat cut. I like some of his books but not all. My favorite was Fire, Burn.

On the who dunnit theme, I have just watched an adaptation of Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans? produced in three episodes on ITV. While the scenery and settings of imposing country houses were very pretty I was at a total loss over the who-why-what.

Despite having good hearing I found much of the quick-fire script quite muffled. Who was the thug in the bowler hat? What connection did the growing list of dead bodies have to the plot? Why are so many 'clues' shown in the form of close-ups of letters etc that are impossible to read on the screen?

DH slept through most of it but reckoned the various highly polished 'classic-cars' were the best part of the show.

Perhaps if Annpan or others have read the book they will get more out of it!

I took a break from Fairy Tale, the Stephen King doorstop (515 pages), and read Triple Cross by James Patterson. I've read several of his Alex Cross stories and like them a lot. Picked the SK back up yesterday afternoon and decided I really don't care about the story, so returned it to the library. Now I'm reading Suspect, a new novel by Scott Turow.

Donna

Vee, I did see that new version of Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and didn't think much of it. There is an older version--from 1980--that is much better, if you can access it. In the US, it's on BritBox, a subscription channel but it's free on YouTube.

Vee, I have read the book but not seen the latest version. I did see the earlier ones but the one from about 2011 was awful! A rewritten mess IMHO.

There is too much tinkering done to the original plots.

My favourite AC book is The Hollow which was quite well done as a Poirot TV episode.

My only gripe is that the actress character wears a veiled hat while sitting in her garden.

The veil could be set on fire with her long cigarette holder. This doesn't happen but I still cringe when I watch that scene!

Yoyobon - Back to the topic of Fresh Water for Flowers - I have to admit that none of the other readers whose recommendations I read even mentioned the bed-hopping that bothered me. Perhaps I've made too much of it. You may wish to give it a try, like read 30 pages or so and see if it keeps your interest. I do that with a lot of books.

Ann, I checked out the 1980 adaptation of 'Why Didn't They Ask Evans' but could only come up with a clip . . .Joan Hickson (imo the best Miss Marple) here playing a dotty middle aged female smoking with a very long cigarette holder, but luckily no veil!

Kathy_t, if it's any consolation, I wouldn't read that book based on your comments. I don't care for that kind of thing either.

Now reading The London Seance Society .

That sounds like a fun one, Yoyobon. I'll be interested to hear about it.

Kathy......well just four chapters into it and we have to deal with the fact that the main character is a lesbian.

No thank you........and.....it goes back to the library !

I'm going to try The Maid by Nita Prose.

Just finished An Ocean Apart by Robin Pilcher son of Rosamunde Pilcher. Quite similar to his mother's work. Story set in Scotland among owners of a whisky distillery. Hero, a latter day superman goes to the US and stays on Long Island. Hearts meet across the board-room table etc.

OK read but too much detail could have been penciled out. No need for long descriptions of eg a secretary/doorman/ Scottish gardener who never appears again. Nor do we want complicated directions for driving through NY City. It feels as though Pilcher was studying a road-map while writing.

I am attempting to read The Keeper of Lost Screts by Sally Page. I’m not far into it but it’s not really holding my attention. I think I will give it another chapter before deciding whether to read on or dnf

Just finished The Port of London Murders by Josephine Bell, another British Crime Classic and better than some of them. Between the Wars, heroin imported in fancy lingerie via ships docking on the Thames.

Reading "Chronicle in Stone," by Ismail Kadare

Albania has been invaded three times during the Second World War. (and several times before). First by the Italian army, when Mussolini thought we could eat Greece with one bite, we couldn't, and Greece invaded Albany . Then, Hitler sent some troops in our rescue, he wasn't merry about it, Mussolini hadn't informed him about his intentions, because deemed Greece a weak state and wanted to do to Hitler a surprise.
So now there were the German army in Albania.
The story is told by a kid point of view, living in a little city with all the houses made of stones.
There are horrors of course, but also some irony, because the kid ask himself some naive questions and work them out in the same way.

In a seamless mosaic of dreams and games, a young boy reflects on events as his hometown in Albania falls to a series of invaders. Amid floods and bombings, his own innocence and wonder are lost forever in the madness and brutality of the Second World War.

A disturbing mix of tragedy and comedy, politics and sexuality, Chronicle in Stone is a fascinating masterpiece about what it means to grow up in a turbulent world

I was on vacation last week and had lots of airplane time to read, so I pulled an old favorite, James Mitchner's The Drifters, out of the TBR pile. I was obsessed with this book as a teen and re-reading some 45 years later was interesting. Mitchner was basically trying to explain the hippie culture to the Greatest Generation. It's still a good story, but it is definitely of its time. Set in 1968 - 69 it's the story of six young people -- one draft dodger, one young black man, one Israeli soldier, one drug addict, one Boston Brahmin who had a run-in with the police, and one Norwegian fleeing the darkness of winter -- who "drift" across Europe, ostensibly trying to "find themselves" as the old saying goes, with a 60-something expat narrator who pulls the six together. The book tackles race relations, the rise of Islam, the Six Day War, drug use, and draft dodging, among a host of other issues. The book was probably seen as very accepting of the counter-culture at the time, perhaps to a shocking degree. I remember being fascinated by his descriptions of Spain, particularly the Festival of San Fermin and the running of the bulls. He is a master of exquisite description, and I thought his writing about Spain and Africa was still impressive. As he's famous for using 57 paragraphs where 6 might do, it's quite a doorstop of a book, but I'm very glad I re-read it.

I am reading some of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series after checking for the plot. Some do not appeal to me.

The TV series is being rerun and I watch that. They have tidied Barbara Havers up! I can't believe in the book character. No one in the police force would be allowed to be so scruffy, surely.

I'm reading Fire in the Thatch, another by E.C.R. Lorac and the best yet.

I really enjoyed The Maid by Nita Prose. A delightful main character and a story that grabbed me right away !

I enjoyed The Maid until the parts where Grandma gets smothered by a pillow as an act of 'kindness' and the bad guy is also smothered but it's presented as justified because he was a bad guy. When we can take another's life into our own hands, we have entered dangerous territory indeed.

Ginny, I agree.

I can't find this quote but read it somewhere

"He who would play God should have God's knowledge."

I read something similar in a P.D. James mystery but she may have been quoting rather than writing her own thoughts.

Gill Hornby's Godmersham Park was a gentle if rather sad read. The title refers to the large house inherited by Edward Austen, the brother of Jane and the story is based on a true account of the years spent there by a governess to Fanny Austen, a niece to Jane. The child had been encouraged to keep a diary. Anne Sharpe seems to have fallen on hard times causing her to take up the position in the household (little is known of her past). She did become friends with Jane and Hornby uses this information to weave a believable story around the known facts.

Ginny......yes that part bothered me at first, until I understood that it was a sacred agreement between Molly and Gran. It was ultimately an act of love....and Molly was a simple woman who believed "a promise is a promise". Period.

Most of her choices in the story simple and uncomplicated when based on her understanding of how the world works, as taught to her by Gran.

I enjoyed every part of the story.

I'm re-reading another very old favorite, The Golden Unicorn by Phyllis A. Whitney. I read all her books as a teen and 20-something, and so far I'd still consider this one solid. I remember some of it, but as many years have passed, the end will be a surprise, LOL.

Yoyobon, a promise should not be kept, even if made, if it's something very wrong. I wish I had added in my comment the fact that, at least in the US, no one needs to die in pain or in a hospital if they don't want to be there, like the Grandma in the book. There is home hospice care, a wonderful option and paid for by Medicare. Here's an example from my own life.

Recently, a friend was dying of lung cancer. She wanted to die at home so the family got home hospice care, covered by Medicare. A registered nurse came every day to check on her condition. My friend was given ample pain medication so she was in no pain. I sat by her for hours. While I was sitting with her--she was sound asleep--and holding her hand, the nurse came, saw signs of restlessness, and called the doctor to increase the pain meds, which was done immediately. My friend did not suffer and died several days later. At home, surrounded by family and friends.

GInny, it is definitely a very personal decision and one that the person who is suffering should be allowed to make. I make no judgements.

Kathy,

Thanks for your review of Fresh Water for Flowers. About 5 weeks ago, I got it from the library. It had been on my "For Later" list for months on the recommendation of someone elsewhere (not here in RP). After reading the first couple of chapters, it didn't grab me. It languished unread--thinking I would get back to it--until I read your post about it above. Back to the library it went. I consider your message a public service. Thank you!

I've just finished Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson. Rip-roaring London between the Wars and very good as she always is.

I'm reading The Impossible Impostor , another in the Veronica Speedwell series.

I'm reading The Winners by Fredrik Backman. It's the story of the hockey rivalry between two small towns, but it's a very intricate look at the personal lives and deepest feelings of the principal characters. The style is unusual - he goes back and forth between characters as things happen to them or around them. Currently a ferocious storm is raging through the area. At the beginning I thought I wouldn't get into it and was thinking about returning it, but now I'm glad I stuck with it. It's a huge book, though - well over 1,000 pages on my iPad.

We are flying to England for a cruise next Tuesday night, so at least I will have something to read!

Donna

Donna, enjoy the cruise. Is it around the British Isles or further afield?

A friend is 'cruising' (on a converted trawler) at the end of this month starting in Oban and heading to all points West, even hoping to get out as far as the very remote St Kilda, if the weather is kind to them. As you know the seas can get very rough on the North Atlantic!

Thank you, Vee! We are cruising out of Southampton to France, Spain and Italy. We cruised out of Southampton to Scandinavia in 2019 and spent a day and a half in London at the end, but this time we're just going from Heathrow to the port and back again at the end.

Donna

Sounds glorious! Hope we'll get a full trip report when you return. Bon voyage!

Just about to send back to the library, almost unread, A Shadow Above by Joe Shute a 'dissertation' about ravens. Rather over-written, too many changes of tense and it just went on . . . and . . . on. It didn't hold my attention but probably would be fine if you are a bird-lover.

I just finished a truly gripping book that I couldn't put down. Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder. It's about homeless people in Boston and some of the amazing people who work with them, especially Dr Jim O'Connell, headed for a brilliant career in medical research but who was asked to give a year of service to this cause and ended up spending his life doing it. It also portrays some of the people who also do this work, Barbara McInnis, one of the nurses who started the project of giving health care to the truly down-and-out, and also puts faces and stories on those same down-and-out. She started Dr Jim off by making him wash the feet of the homeless in their clinic for a month. Ring any bells?

I know a book about the homeless, most addicts and mentally ill, is probably last on anybody's reading list but this is really brilliant., I promise. I had to wait months to get a library copy and there are 65 copies in my regional consortium--all of them out right now. You might want to give it a try. It's both uplifting and tragic but totally engrossing.

Ginny, that sounds much more uplifting than my normal reading. I just finished The Lost English Girl by Julia Kelly that is about a little girl sent for safety from the bombing in England during WWII. It is a good story.

I finished Homecoming by well-regarded Australian author Kate Morton. I then went to check if I had read any others of hers, and found my assessment of The Forgotten Garden (aka The House at Riverton) which concluded 'I don't think I will bother with any more'!!

It was an interesting story about a 40-ish Australian woman living in London who flies home to Sydney after her grandmother, who brought her up, had a fall. She is an investigative journalist who finds out about a tragedy in her family's past, but in doing research on the internet, finds there was a book written at the time about it, and gleans all her information from that.

Of the main characters, the grandmother was a bully who considered everything had to be done her way, the mother was a cipher for most of the book, and the journalist character was OK. The mystery was done well.

However, the author had done a lot of research, and the reader was made to pay. There was so much extraneous information, long descriptions of the birds, the trees, the weather and so on. But most annoying were the factual mistakes, many of which should have been avoided by the above-mentioned research. Since part of the book was set in the Adelaide Hills near where I live, I picked up on them, but I suppose the out-of-town reader wouldn't have noticed.

I also finished listening to the wonderful House of Niccolo books by Dorothy Dunnett.

Ginny...We have a number of rough sleepers who live in tents or cars even with small children. Affordable accommodation is scarce and with our Winter coming it will be even harder.

My D had to leave her place when it was sold after the owner died. She stayed for a while at a friend's empty house while it was being renovated. She kept fruitlessly applying for another rental and then the letting agent who had had to evict her offered her a small but suitable apartment. It was so kind, my D took it and the family improved it to her taste.

My retirement village manager told me that she is getting many desperate calls and has to tell seniors who apply that there are no vacancies and the long list is now closed.

One poor elderly woman who is a car sleeper asked if she could stay in any apartment where the usual occupant is in hospital! This is not like a hotel, we have our own furniture etc. and no one is ill at present, so that was not possible!

Annpan, over here we also have huge problems with the homeless and rough sleepers. Not so much in our smaller towns but certainly in the cities. Often these men (although sometimes women) have fallen out with family/partners, have drug/drink problems or are teenagers looking for what they believe would be a better life. Mental health problems are another huge problem made much worse after the large Victorian institutions/asylums closed often leaving the residents with little community support.

Add to this the influx of illegal refugees crossing the English Channel (roughly 100,000 in the last 4 years) all of whom have to be 'housed'.

The Govt, of whatever party in power is blamed for not supplying affordable housing but the vast majority of these people could never afford to buy or even rent a property.

It is a crazy and sad old world.

One problem with providing new housing stock is the current lack of materials and skilled workmen. If you bring tradesmen into the country from overseas, where is the necessary accommodation?

I was wryly amused at an article in the local newspaper written by a letting agent. Among his tips for getting ahead of the pack who regularly queue at rental Home Open showings, is to get to know the agents by name and press a bottle of wine or chocolates on them to help them to remember you! They won't suggest an applicant offers an increase on the advertised rent or several months in advance but this inducement happens a lot.

People are not short of money necessarily.

I recently finished Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger. This is the first of his long series of Cork O'Connor books. I had so enjoyed Krueger's standalone novel, Ordinary Grace, (and to a lesser extent, This Tender Land) that I thought I would give his mystery series a look-see. Well ... while I acknowledge Iron Lake it to be well written and cleverly plotted, I shall not be continuing with the series because the amount of violence in the book put me off. That's just not part of my pleasure-reading plan.

Kathy, I'm not a fan of violence either, but I have enjoyed the Cork O'Connor series.

I'm now reading another Dorothy B. Hughes book, Ride the Pink Horse, written in 1946 but set during the Great Depression.

Carolyn - I really DO like William Kent Krueger. Let me ask this: Are the other Cork O'Connor books as full of violence as Iron Lake? It seemed to me that an awful lot of prominent people in the small town of Aurora were killed in the first book and I wondered if the town could remain populated through the course of the series.

Kathy, Oh, yes--murder, rape, kidnapping, storms and fury, but it all comes out okay in the end. I still have two more to go to be up to date.

<Smile> -- Thanks, Carolyn.