The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny ***

The Madness of Crowds is Louise Penny’s Covid-19 novel (#17 in the Inspector Gamache series). Starting with the people allowed to die from Covid-19 in nursing homes, the novel explores justifications for torture and murder from science to euthanasia to self-defense. Warning: some of the torture scenes are vivid. This is not what I was looking for.

There is a murder in Three Pines that Chief Inspector Gamache, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Isabelle Lacoste solve. The antecedents include the murder of a Down Syndrome child, a couple of suicides, the murder of child soldiers, death by neglect of Covid-19 victims, and torture of human scientific subjects. This is a story with a high body count.

Fans of Louise Penny will be happy to know that everyone in Three Pines survived the Covid-19 pandemic and make appearances in this book.

If you are tired of forensic scientists solving crimes in ever more technical ways, this novel is perfect. There is very little evidence. The lack of evidence is replaced by extensive philosophical discussions about human nature and motivations for murder. My one complaint is that these discussions ping-pong between the handful of suspects so often that by the end, I didn’t care who the murderer was. I’d have been happy if an explosion had done away with them all -- not one of them was worthy of redemption.

I enjoyed the early Gamache novels, but I do not recommend this one.

Great quotes:

Great sentences leading to wisdom: “‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I was wrong.’ ‘I don’t know.’” As he listed them, Chief Inspector Gamache raised a finger, until his palm was open. “‘I need help.’”

100^th monkey: “No, nothing special at all about her,” said Gilbert. “Interesting, isn’t it? Why it should suddenly take off like that? What difference that one monkey, the hundredth, made. What’s even more interesting is that they then discovered monkeys on other islands doing the same thing. None of them had washed their sweet potatoes before, but now they all were.”

Detective process: “I can’t see how it can relate to the murder of Deborah Schneider on New Year’s Eve,” said the coroner, pulling her coat off the back of the chair. “Neither can I,” admitted Gamache. “We’re just assembling the pieces. Most are not helpful.”

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The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb *****

The Violin Conspiracy (debut novel) by Brendan Slocumb is the story of Ray McMillian, an underprivileged violin genius: how he inherits a Stradivarius violin, gets accepted to the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and has his violin stolen. Ray’s story is an emotional roller coaster making this a book that you can’t put down. Highly recommended.

In addition to rags-to-riches and the violin heist, the author (a violinist himself) displays the joy of playing and performing classical music. Ray practices for hours to learn each piece in his muscle memory and then infuses his performance with the emotions and imagery he feels.

The final theme is racism. Ray is black and faces racism at every turn. People don’t believe he can play classical music. Cops arrest him believing he has stolen the violin.

The author has a message, but it doesn’t get in the way of a thrilling story.

“Musicians of color, however, are severely underrepresented in the classical music world—and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to write this book. Look up the statistics: 1.8 percent of musicians performing in classical symphonies are Black; 12 percent are people of color. But for me, day to day, performance by performance, it wasn’t about being a statistic: it was about trying to live my life and play the music that I loved, and often being stymied for reasons that seem, even now, incomprehensible.”

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The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich is MINNEAPOLIS from November 2019 to October 2020. Covid-19. George Floyd. Tookie works in Birchbark Books which specializes in Native American books and is haunted. Birchbark Books is on W. 21^st St. in Minneapolis and is owned by the author. Historical fiction that explores ritual and tradition from Native American practices to police brutality. A wild ride.

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The Child Buyer by John Hersey *****

SPOILERS. In The Child Buyer by John Hersey (Hiroshima, A Bell for Adano), Wissey Jones wanted to buy Barry Rudd (a maladjusted genius). Jones planned to brainwash Barry until he was a blank brain (no memories, feeling, or senses) and train that brain to solve difficult problems (IQ over 1,000). I read this when it was first published (1960s) and I still remember the final question - after everyone has agreed for Barry to be sold.

Is Barry so brilliant that he can resist the brainwashing (something that was much on my teenage mind)? When asked if he would resist, Barry answers, “Oh, no. Once I go, I’ll go the whole way. It would be wonderful, but of course, this is impossible [to experience the] process twice, one co-operatively, once fighting it.” This was the ultimate question for me, whether to fight society or join it. Like Barry Rudd, I joined.

A classic from 1960. Surprisingly timely.

The novel is presented in the form of hearing transcripts.” In the process, the author satirizes politicians and school administrators, while supporting unions, teachers, sex education, and diversity. This is a book in support of children and against privilege.

Teaching

A state senator asks, “Do you mean to suggest, miss, that a teacher ought to be supplied, gratis, with all the amenities—hot soup, medical insurance, fringe benefits of all kinds?” He continues, “Do you mean to suggest that teaching is not a service career, a calling – I mean, that people go into teaching for the material ends in life?”

Immorality

President of the PTA, President of the Republican Women’s Club, President of… says, “…the delinquency problem…I think it must’ve been our young men going overseas, the last couple of wars, mixing with foreign riff-raff, geisha girls, existentialists. Our Customs people ought to charge a duty on immorality. It’s all imported. You know that.”

Mass Education

We’ve got standards. [Barry Rudd] missed out on his fundamentals… He’s got to learn to catch a ball. Be a boy… That boy is one-sided… There are other things in life besides biological research… The boy has to learn to be a citizen and conform.”

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The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford ****

The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford is an excellent companion to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The book is a Charles Dickens biography with an emphasis on A Christmas Carol as a turning point in Dickens’ writing career. With this little book, Charles Dickens got into the business of publishing displaced the Christmas goose with the Christmas turkey. He also helped redeem Christmas itself, which was still suffering from when Cromwell and the Puritans discouraged it as pagan.

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The Silent Corner by Dean Koontz *****

The Silent Corner by Dean Koontz is the first Jane Hawk novel (out of 5). I’d call it an SF thriller. Jane Hawk goes up against a group of evil billionaires wielding nanotechnology to control people. Some of their victims work in their brothels, others are security guards, and others are considered a threat to society and induced to commit suicide. With 167 short, short chapters, the book moves quickly with few surprises. Escape reading at its best.

When the bad guy goes down (no surprise), Jane Hawk observes: “But what might have looked like courage proved to be a deficit of common sense and an excess of self-importance, too strong a faith in his genius and superiority—not courage at all, but the rash actions of an ordinary narcissist incapable of imagining that he might fail.” This goes along with the author’s idea that “Evil is unimaginative and last.”

There is no ambiguity in this book. The good guys are very good, and the bad guys are evil.

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Chasing Me to My Grave by Winfred Rembert *****

Chasing Me to My Grave by Winfred Rembert won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2022. It is an “as told to” autobiography of growing up in Jim Crow Georgia. The author saw and experienced the horrors of prejudice, discrimination, and white supremacy. “The great evil of American slavery [was] the insidious construct of white supremacy.” After being beaten, lynched, and jailed, he found success as an artist documenting the events of his youth. His autobiography recounts his unlikely story. “They probably get behind my back and say, ‘Ah, shit. That ain’t never happened.’” A document of the man and an era that isn’t over yet.

Three autobiographies of prejudice and abuse show the horror of organized hatred and the possibility for an individual to overcome it.

Holocaust in Germany: Nightby by Elie Wiesel

Apartheid in South Africa: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

White Supremacy in the United States: ChasingMe to My Grave by Winfred Rembert

All three books tell the story of unimaginable abuse from the perspective of someone who has survived. This distance and the knowledge that the author survived allows the reader to learn the history without experiencing the trauma. Hopefully, these books serve as inoculations-mild experiences that prevent more serious repetitions of the disease.

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Little Women by Louisa May Alcott *****

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott recounts the story of the four March sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy -16, 15, 13, 12). The main character is Jo. This is a book of 19^th-century gender stereotypes. Jo frequently says things like, “I don’t mean to plague you, and will bear it like a man.” Jo is strong, willful, independent, and a reader. I imagine that many young girls identified with Jo.

Despite, Jo’s resistance, the book is traditional and supportive of 19^th-century values. All the girls sew, cook, clean, and play music. Jo lives in a gendered ocean and cannot see the water even as she asserts her independence. A delightful book of an idyllic time that might never have existed. A fun read in a Norman Rockwell way.

This book was an instant success. Louise May Alcott was a 19^th-century J.K. Rowling. The author was one of the richest women in America. “The diaries of late-nineteenth-century young women are riddled with references to it. Girls and young women, including students at Vassar, started Alcott or Little Women clubs and took on the identities of the March sisters.” This is like people today adopting membership in the houses of Hogwarts.

Jo sold her hair for $25 long before Delia sold hers for $20 in O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi.

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Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia ****

When Louise Lloyd was 16, she was kidnapped. Unfortunately, the police cared little about what happened to young women in Harlem in 1916. Fortunately for Louise and the other imprisoned girls, Louise fought back. “She lifts the pen and buries its razor-sharp tip into his shoulder. She grabs the gun from his holster and aims it at him, then unties the other girls, the idea of freedom giving them the strength they need to get out.”

In Dead DeadGirls by Nekesa Afia, Louise is 26 and once again the reluctant Hero of Harlem. Little has changed and when a serial killer targets girls in Harlem, Louise is drafted to stop him. After several plot twists, she gets her man. A surprisingly upbeat story considering prohibition and the racism of the period.

Louise had a mean right hook and was not afraid to use it. When she attacked a cop who is abusing a showgirl, Detective Theodore Gilbert drafted her into the investigation of the serial killer. There were places she could go where he could not. He gave her the rules: “The first? Always trust your gut. The second? Assume nothing. The third? Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three is a pattern.”

In addition to racism, the book also explores the homophobia of the period.

Louise fought back against her situation. “She was so tired of him thinking he knew better than her because he had been gifted with a penis. … because he was white.” She never gave up.

“[AUTHOR’S] HISTORICAL NOTE While it is true that the 1920s were an era of social change in the Western world, with the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments [prohibition and women’s suffrage] to the Constitution of the United States of America, that change was for white women. The New Negro Movement was started in direct opposition to these inequalities, as a refusal to submit to laws outlined in the Jim Crow era, laws that were active until 1965.”

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Other Minds: The Octopus, … by Peter Godfrey-Smith ***

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and theDeep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith opens with the tantalizing “[Octopuses] are an independent experiment in the evolution of large brains and complex behavior. … This is probably the closest we will ever come to meeting an intelligent alien.” If you are interested in the evolution of intelligence and consciousness, this book is for you. Be warned that the reading is slow and often challenging.

Brains and nerves, in their most primitive forms, have two functions. One is signaling like “one if by land, two if by sea” in the Paul Revere example. The second is coordinating like the coxswain keeping time for the crew of a rowing team. These functions are fundamentally different and both necessary. Signaling connects the organism to the outside world. Coordinating is an internal function.

How did death at old age evolve? Imagine a lethal mutation that only acts after fertility stops. Evolution would not select against this mutation. As such mutations build up, death after fertility becomes more common. This would be even quicker if the mutation was beneficial during fertility. This explains why people die in old age.

Octopuses die after a single fertility cycle. Their life is risky. They have no natural defenses. They put everything into a single fertility cycle since it makes no sense to save something for an unlikely second cycle.

This book has a lot of careful logic in response to subtle questions about evolution.

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Billy Summers by Stephen King *****

Billy Summers by Stephen King belongs to the “jinxed one last job” genre. Billy Summers is a hired killer. After this final job with a big payoff, he intends to retire. As might be expected, nothing goes as planned. Billy Summers pretends to be a writer as a cover for this final job. He writes a memoir of his time in Iraq and considers whether he is a good person. The story includes a gang rape, presented as the horrific act that it is. Stephen King is an extraordinary writer, and this is an excellent book.

Much of the book deals with Billy Summers’ introspection on his life, his choices, and the path that led to his role as an assassin. He assumes several identities. Billy Summers was a sniper in Fallujah and is a hired killer in the present. David Lockridge is the writer and good neighbor incidentally waiting for Billy Summers’ target to arrive. Dalton Smith is the safe identity for him to use in retirement. Billy Summers projects a dim-witted persona, while the other two are closer to his actual intelligence.

He has a complex code of ethics that makes it difficult to decide on a path following his last job. As a hired killer, he only accepts assignments that target bad people. He strongly wanted to think of himself as a good person. This drove him to rescue and avenge the woman who was gang raped. His thoughts about her experience present a strong condemnation of the men who attacked her.

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The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman *****

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman is a rom-com. Nina Hills works in a bookshop and prefers reading to people. The meet-cute is at a trivia contest and he is the captain of the opposing team. She knows everything except sports; he just knows sports. The complications include the bookstore going out of business and the death of her father who she’s never met. As one of her newfound siblings puts it, “I’m your brother. Archie Reynolds. Our father slept with your mother when my mother was pregnant with me.”

With lots of anxiety, snappy dialogue, and girl talk about sex and the lack thereof, I highly recommend this to anyone who appreciates the genre.

Nina grew up under the care of a loving Nanny. Her mother was a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who travel extensively. Her only presence was postcards. Nina read a lot and talked to herself.

“Oh.” Nina flailed around for a comment. “Cool beans.” At this, her brain threw up its metaphorical hands and curled up on its stem like a pissed-off hen. ‘I’m not playing anymore,’ it said. ‘If the mouth isn’t going to wait for my advice, I‘m done.’

Part of the fun of the book was Nina’s coping mechanism of using trivia. The book is sprinkled with random trivia.

Sex? Not much for all the talk and kissing.

In true rom-com fashion, they all live happily after.

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Deaf Child Crossing by Marlee Matlin *****

Deaf Child Crossing by Marlee Matlin: Megan is nine years old and deaf.  She has no friends until Cindy moves onto her block. They become instant BFFs. They confess secrets to each other, and Cindy learns sign language. When they go to overnight camp together their friendship is put to the test.

In this story about friendship in elementary school by Academy Award-winning actor Marlee Matlin, both Megan and Cindy learn lessons about belonging, confidence, and empathy.

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The Big Ones by Lucy Jones

I’m planning on opening my next novel with an earthquake, so I read The Big Ones by Dr. Lucy Jones. Her take on extraordinary earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis is that they change society. Though she is a scientist, she focuses on the human side of major disasters. For example, the response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was so racist that African Americans deserted the Party of Lincoln that they’d reliability supported for over 60 years.

“By 1932, many in the African American community had decided that Roosevelt … was a better bet … Roosevelt won only a third of the African American vote in 1932, but he won 70 percent in 1936. Since then, a Republican nominee has never again garnered more than 40 percent of the African American vote.”

An insightful book on the societal impact of major natural disasters.

The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 broke the hold of the Jesuits on political control of Portugal and ended the inquisition. “The king is said to have exclaimed to de Carvalho, ‘What is to be done to meet this infliction of Divine Justice?’ De Carvalho’s calm reply became legend. ‘Sire, we bury the dead and feed the living.’”

“Floods are unique among hazards in that, in coping with them, we must balance the need for containment with our other essential uses for water. Floodwater must be disposed of, but it must also be preserved for dry times (only more so in the arid West), while also retaining access to rivers for the transport of goods. (No one needs to bottle up earthquakes or magma to sell next summer.)”

“Damage to tunnels in earthquakes is extremely rare. This is true for a couple of reasons. First, the amplitude of seismic shaking underground is only half of what it is at the surface.” Also, tunnels are usually oval (a stable shape), compared to rectangular shapes for buildings.

In Italy, “the argument that formed the basis of De Bernardinis and Bertolaso’s reassurances—that small earthquakes reduce the risk of big earthquakes—is patently false. It is a bit of folk wisdom, one that I am asked about frequently, and that arises from nothing so much as wishful thinking. [emphasis added]”

An excellent blending of science and political science.

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All That She Carried by Tiya Miles *****

In All That She Carried, historian Tiya Miles tells the story of a cotton sack embroidered with this story: “My great grandmother Rose mother of Ashley gave her this sack when she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina [1853] it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her It be filled with my Love always she never saw her again Ashley is my grandmother Ruth Middleton 1921”

Because there is little in the historical record of the enslaved people, this cotton sack is important. It hangs in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), in Washington, D.C. The author tells the story behind this artifact.

This book recounts the experience of African Americans whose lives were mostly under-recorded or misunderstood.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber is a wonderful book about the history of textiles—spinning, weaving, and sewing. All That She Carried continues the history of fiber arts.

Fabric is a special category of thing to people—tender, damageable, weak at its edges, and yet life-sustaining. In these distinctive features, cloth begins to sound like this singular planet we call home. Cloth operates as a “convincing analogue for the regenerative and degenerative processes of life, and as a great connector, binding humans not only to each other but to the ancestors of their past and the progeny of their future,”

Since the historical record contains so little, the author augments the story of Rose, Ashley, and Ruth with stories of other people in similar situations whose story has survived.

In unfolding the story of these women, the brutality of life for African Americans both before and after the Civil War is presented in excruciating detail.

Over and over the authors highlights how African American are excluded and missing from the historical record. For example, plantations had stores, which were often the only place enslaved people could spend what little money they acquired. The ledger books from this store document how they spent their money (almost 2/3 on cloth, clothing, and sewing supplies) and, thus, what was important to them. How many of these books that were maintained for centuries across the South survived? Six!

“[South] Carolina “planter-politicians” presided over the most undemocratic society ever sustained in this country.”

African American economics following the Civil War. “In a context in which schoolteachers measured among the elite, domestic servants with steady employment could be counted in the Black middle class. Those with steady employment and strong moorings in organized community life enjoyed a kind of stability that contrasted greatly with the hand-to-mouth lifestyles of many unemployed and poverty-stricken Black Philadelphians.”

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The Dry by Jane Harper ****

The Dry by Jane Harper is set in Kiewarra, a rural town dying from drought, in Victoria Australia. The story begins with four teenage friends: Aaron Falk, Luke Hadler, Gretchen Schoner, and Ellie Deacon. The friendship breaks up when Ellie Deacon is found drowned and her family (father Mal Deacon and her cousin Grant Dow) blamed the Falks and drove them out of town.

Twenty years later Luke, his wife Karen, and his son Billy are found murdered. Aaron returns to help solve the mystery. The town still remembers Ellie’s death and still blames Aaron Falk. In addition to failing farms, Kiewarra has an underfunded school with a new principal, Scott Whitlam, and a pub, the Fleece run by David McMurdo. Falk assists Sergeant Raco.

An intricately plotted mystery set in small-town misery and politics.

Karen is found with a note that says, “Grant?” This connects back to a note written by Ellie which said, “Falk.” Mal Deacon and Grant Dow used Ellie’s note to pin her death on the Falks. Twenty years later Falk used Karen’s note to cast blame on Mal Deacon and Grant Dow.

All the clues point to the murderer, but it is impossible to put them together until the last clue is uncovered at the end.

This book presents the very worst of small-town life.

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The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie *****

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie opens with Mrs. Bantry’s maid Mary announcing, “Oh, ma’am, oh, ma’am, there’s a body in the library.” She awakens old Colonel Arthur Bantry. No one in the Bantry house has ever seen the dead girl dressed in a white diamanté dress. The girl turns out to be Ruby Keene, a professional dancer from the Majestic Hotel, identified by her cousin. Mrs. Bantry immediately calls Miss Marple.

Introducing Mr. Conway Jefferson. He is confined to a wheelchair following an airplane accident where he lost his wife, his son, and his daughter. He lives with his in-laws Mrs. Adelaide Jefferson and Mr. Haskell. Mrs. Jefferson has a son, Peter Carmody, from an earlier marriage. Mr. Jefferson was infatuated with Ruby Keene and intended to adopt her, thus cutting off his in-laws from their inheritances.

An Agatha Christie novel (Miss Marple #2/17) with many suspects and a surprise ending.

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On Gold Mountain by Lisa See ****

It is said, “History is written by the victors.” On Gold Mountain by Lisa See reports the history of Chinese immigration to the United States (aka Gold Mountain) from the transcontinental railroad to the post-WWII era. She builds this memoir around her great-grandfather Fong See (1857-1957) who arrived in 1871. While the author reports on Chinese Exclusion legislation and discrimination, Fong See and his family managed to thrive despite these obstacles. The result is a positive history of the family’s experience, mostly in Los Angeles.

While Fong See had four wives in the United States and China, the emphasis is on Leticie Pruett. Ticie ran away from the farm in Oregon when she was 18 and ultimately met Fong See in Sacramento. At that time, he had a business making crotchless panties for prostitutes. Together they expanded but eventually got into the antique business. They successfully combined his business skills and her understanding of the American market.

Throughout this period the U.S. society and laws were opposed to Chinese immigrants. However, the family succeeded despite these obstacles. They took advantage of loopholes. At various times exceptions were in place for family members and merchants. Fong See exploited these opportunities, legally, when possible, but through fraud when necessary.

The climate changed every decade or so. In the 1920s and 1930s when Hollywood was making films about China, they rent plots. During WWII they manufactured munitions. In the post-war boom, they designed and built furniture.

This is a success story of Chinese immigration.

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