The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason *****

The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason is set during World War I. Lucius Krzelewski’s family was rich and well-connected. When the war started, he was in medical school, so he enlisted as a medical officer. Back at home, his mother was thrilled by his enlistment but felt that medical duties, out of the line of fire, would seem like cowardice. So she bought him a horse and called upon a friend in the War Ministry to cancel his commission and speed his entry into the lancers, like his father. As fate would have it, he ended up at a field hospital run by a nurse, Margarete, who was a nun and carried a rifle. Lucius was embarrassed by his family’s privilege and his shortcomings as a doctor. Margarete was his opposite. She had a modest background and was confident running the hospital. This is World War I view through the eyes of someone overflowing with humility and empathy.

Lucius was lost at the field hospital. Margarete organized the hospital (an abandoned church with a hole in the roof and a crater in the floor), operated on the wounded soldiers (mostly amputations), foraged for food when needed, and disciplined the men. For example, when they returned with desperately needed food: They brought back sheep’s cheese and hen’s eggs. Margarete interrogated them as to how they had obtained them, and when it became apparent that a lamb had been spirited away from its owner, she marched the soldiers back like guilty schoolchildren, threatening to report any man caught stealing, if she didn’t shoot him herself.

Lucius cared about the people working in the hospital and the wounded soldiers equally. He learned about their families and their hobbies. There was no emotional distance between him and the people he encountered. His downfall was Horváth, the winter soldier--a soldier with nervous shock. Rather than releasing Horváth, he kept him in the hospital to try to cure him. But nothing worked. There was no sense to the disease, he thought, no pattern in the damage to their nerves. Now he began to doubt everything. Had he even helped Horváth at all? Had the man’s recovery all been Margarete’s doing? Or did most wounds, whether of the mind or body, just heal up on their own? While Europe suffered through the war, Lucius lived with his feelings of privilege, inadequacy, and guilt.

The war changed Europe and Lucius in unexpected ways.

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Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala ****

 In Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala, Ninang April’s niece Divina de los Santos has just arrived in Shady Palms, having graduated from a top art school in the Philippines. The main character and amateur detective Lila Macapagal finds Divina’s sudden arrival suspicious. godmothers, Ninang April, Ninang Mae, and Ninang June (or the Calendar Crew, as Lila refers to them), had recently gone into business together, opening a laundromat in competition with Ultima Bolisay. Ultima is not happy about this. Others are also unhappy with the Calendar Crew for malicious gossip that led to a divorce and a business being shut down. When Divina is found murdered in the new laundromat, there is no shortage of suspects. Ninang April is attacked and left in a coma. Lila investigates the murder and the assault. As with the first three novels in this cozy mystery series, Lila finds plenty of time to bake a wide variety and large quantity of Philippine specialties.

For example: As for me, I was leaning into “spring means green” and had prepared pandan-pistachio shortbread and brownies with a pandan cheesecake swirl. I also came up with a red bean brownie recipe, which wasn’t particularly spring-like, but hey, I was in a brownie mood. And for a quick no-bake option, I developed buko pandan mochi Rice Krispie treats, which would be sure to delight our younger customers.

Pandan is a tropical plant whose fragrant leaves are commonly used as a flavoring in Southeast Asia. Often described as a grassy vanilla flavor with a hint of coconut. Buko is the flesh of an unripe (green) coconut. Mamon are individual Filipino chiffon cakes that are light and fluffy, simple yet delicious.

Ninang means godmother.

Lila’s dachshund is named Longganisa, after a Philippine sausage.

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Algorithms to Live By: by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths **

Algorithms to Live By begins with a clever premise. Here is a Self-Help book based on Computer Science. The first half of the book offers advice on: • what to do when faced with many alternatives, • how to divide your time between familiar and novel pursuits, • how to organize your stuff, and • how to organize your time. For example, if you need to deal with many documents, a stack is more efficient than sorting or filing them. However, after chapter 5 the book becomes a Computer Science history book with more math and less accessible advice. If you are not familiar with Lagrange and Laplace, you might want to stop reading at that point. An interesting addition to the Self-Help genre that unfortunately loses its way.

The authors explore the problem of what to do when faced with many alternatives. They represent this problem by considering someone with a long list of job applicants (too many to interview them all) and how they might decide that they’ve seen enough people, and it is time to hire someone. The problem is called the “secretary problem,” with the notion that the interviewer is male, and the applicants are female. The authors acknowledge this label is sexist, but with the excuse, “The first explicit mention of it by name as the “secretary problem” appears to be in a 1964 paper, and somewhere along the way the name stuck.” With the word “somewhere,” the authors continue this sexist language (“Secretary problem” is used 63 times).

Often while reading the book, I admired the brilliance of the analysis contrasted with the uselessness of the result in everyday life. Once the problem was modeled and solved, the real world was left behind and the solution, clever as it was, was not practical. As an example, after a long analysis of parking in a busy city, we have this: We asked Shoup if his research allows him to optimize his own commute, through the Los Angeles traffic to his office at UCLA. Does arguably the world’s top expert on parking have some kind of secret weapon? He does: “I ride my bike.”

Some of the classical problems discussed in the second half of the book are: the traveling salesman problem, the halting problem, the prisoner’s dilemma, packet switching, and the tragedy of the commons. Though they have little to do with computers, the book also takes time to debunk the marshmallow test and to analyze professional poker.

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CIRCE by Madeline Miller*****

 Circe by Madeline Miller is the ultimate coming-of-age story. Circe, an immortal, first steps out on her own when she defies her father Helios and god Zeus to give comfort to Prometheus. Later, she offended Zeus by transforming Scylla (of Scylla and Charybdis fame) into a six-headed monster. For these forays into independence, she was exiled, where she became the witch of Aiaia. She did not learn her lesson and continued to defy the gods. She experienced the other side of coming of age when she became mother to Telegonus (her son with Odysseus). Thus, the author explores coming of age with the intertwined stories of mother and child. Caveat: It helps to be familiar with Greek mythology, Minoans, and Homer to follow this book.

In addition to coming of age, the author explores mortality. Circe is immortal, but with her exile, she is isolated from the others. Her immortal contacts include Athena (whom Circe defies over and over), Hermes (who has brief visits to deliver messages from the gods--most of which Circe ignores), and nymphs. Circe uses her witchcraft to prevent Athena from visiting Aiaia.

Her contacts with mortals are more numerous. When the captain of a ship rapes her, transforms him and his crew into pigs and butchers them all. This becomes her way of dealing with visiting sailors. She makes an exception for Odysseus, sleeps with him, and sends him home to Ithaca, his wife Penelope, and their son Telemachus. After she is gone, she discovers she is pregnant with Telegonus. She is alone for the birth and performs her own Cesarean delivery (not called that because this is before the times of the Romans).

Her son teaches Circe about the messy details of life as a mortal. She cannot sleep with a baby in the house. Telegonus needs to be cleaned, dressed, fed, and calmed-she spends so much time walking with Telegonus to calm him, often unsuccessfully. Circe feels frustration and love. Later as part of her son’s coming of age, she releases him to visit Ithaca to see his father, Odysseus. He returns with news of his father’s death and his father’s surviving family, Penelope and Telemachus. Circe spends much of her solitary time contemplating the differences between mortality and immortality.

The first half of the book narrates Circe’s independence, offenses against her parents and the gods, and ultimately her exile to Aiaia. I felt the book came to life when Odysseus visited Circe, their courtship, and her motherhood.

Most of the characters are static (Odysseus, Helios, Zeus, Athena), but Circe’s son Telegonus, Odysseus’s wife Penelope, and her son Telemachus, all join Circe with their coming-of-age journeys making this the ultimate coming of age story. 

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Evanly Choirs by Rhys Bowen *****

Evanly Choirs by Rhys Bowen is the third in a series of 10 books about Constable Evans in the North Wales village of Llanfair. In this installment (Austin) Mostyn Phillips wants to enter the village Côr Meibion (men’s choir) in the eisteddfod (Welsh cultural festival/competition) even though they have no chance of winning. The situation changes when the famous tenor Ifor Llewellyn returns to Llanfair (his childhood home). Ifor is an arrogant bully and a womanizer, so when he is murdered, there is no shortage of suspects. As Ifor is an international star, police from Caernarfon are sent, but they would never have unraveled this mystery without the help of Evan Evans.

Most people in Llanfair are named Evans. Our constable (Evan Evans) is called Evan bach (little Evan, even though he was “a six-footer who climbed mountains and played rugby”) or Evans-the-Law. Other Evans were called Evans-the-Meat, Evans-the-Milk, and Evans-the-Post.

This book was published in 1999, but it foreshadowed Brexit (UK referendum to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016).

“We’ve only got her word that she’s going to Manchester airport, haven’t we? I don’t know what I’d say to the D.I. if she did a bunk on us. Realizing that you can cross the Channel without showing a passport has made me nervous.”

“It’s easy enough to pop across to Europe and back these days. They don’t even check your passport most of the time, do they? In fact you don’t even need a passport between here and Italy.”

Evan keeps getting into trouble with his girlfriend, teacher Bronwen Price (aka Bronwen-the-Book) when he rescues a damsel-in-distress and Bronwen misunderstands his intentions.

“I’ll lend you the fare. You can send it back to me.” “I don’t know why you’re being so nice,” she said suddenly. “It’s my job,” Evan said.

He offers to date the woman behind the bar to keep her from Lothario Ifar.

“Well, Evan Evans,” Betsy said. “Do you want to ask me out yourself or not? Are you going to take me out on Saturday night or shall I see if Mr. Llewellyn is free to drive me to Cardiff?” Evan took a deep breath. “Okay, Betsy,” he said. “We’ll go out on Saturday night.”

Bronwen admires Evan.

“He’s a police officer,” Bronwen said. “Very reliable. Never been known to take advantage of a girl yet.” She gave Evan a little sideways glance, then picked up his jacket. “Here, put your jacket on. “

But not always.

Bronwen snorted. “And what sort of husband do you think you’re going to make someday if you don’t know how to wash your own shirts?” “Isn’t that what wives are supposed to do?” Evan asked. “If that’s what you think, I can tell you’re going to have a hard time finding a wife,”

Even though the book is filled with obvious clues missed by the investigators, the twists and turns make it difficult to identify the killer.

A fun cozy mystery.

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