The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins *****

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins is a study of gaslighting (manipulating someone to question their own reality, memory, or perceptions). Both the victims and the reader fall under the spell. Rachel is the girl on the train who observes two houses on her commute. Twenty-three Blenheim Road houses her ex-husband Tom and his new wife Anna and their daughter Evie. Before the divorce, Rachel lived in this house with Tom. The other house is fifteen Blenheim Road where Scott and his wife Megan lived before Megan disappeared. What happened to Megan?

The third man is a therapist, Kamal Abdic. Before Megan disappears, she goes to Kamal for marriage counseling and other problems. After Megan disappears, Rachel goes to him for counseling about her issues around the divorce and her brother Ben who died young in a motorcycle accident.

Rachel is an alcoholic. Much of the mystery is hidden behind her blackout drunk episode on the evening Megan disappeared. In addition to Rachel’s drinking problem and her brother’s sudden death, she also could not get pregnant.

This is a story about sex and violence. The men are sexual predators and violent, while the women are promiscuous. The characters are well written but placed in stereotypical roles.

A marvelously constructed and written story of murder and abuse.

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Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen (#1/17) *****

Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen is the first of at least 17 Molly Murphy historical cozy mysteries. What would you like to know about Molly Murphy? First, she can take care of herself. When an English landowner’s son threatened her honor, he ended up dead and Molly went on the run. Second, Molly has the luck of the Irish, so with barely enough money for the train to Belfast and a boat on to Liverpool, she ends up in New York City. When she arrives on Ellis Island, O’Malley is murdered (throat slit) and Molly and her friend Michael Larkin are the prime suspects.

Molly is undaunted as she follows clues to Hell’s Kitchen, the Bowery, and various ethnic neighborhoods. She doesn’t let the street toughs, or the powerful Tammany Hall slow her down. She escapes imprisonment at a brothel and talks her way into the household staff of her prime suspect, a powerful alderman named McCormack. While she is a suspect for two murders, she convinces NYPD Detective Sullivan to support her. Just off the boat, and only twenty-three, Molly proves herself capable of surviving in the big city.

Molly is not only fearless and lucky, but she is also well-educated. “Read Shakespeare, write Latin,” is the way she says it. She’s also proud. “My mother always used to say I had too much pride.” This made it difficult for her to find a job when only “fish gutting and prostitution,” were available. Her pride also threatened her undercover position as a parlor maid.

A delightful romp through 1900 New York City, as fearless, brazen Molly Murphy solves murders and learns about life in the big city.

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The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates *****

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates reminded me of Fredrick Douglass by David W Blight, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is set in the pre-Civil War south and concerns the lives of the enslaved people. With a mixture of history and fantasy Coates tells the story of Hiram Walker, son of Howell Walker, the plantation owner, and Rose, who was sold away when Hiram was nine.

The story unfolds in three parts: growing up on the plantation, living as a free man in Philadelphia, and returning south. A view of plantation life with reasons to leave and to stay.

Hiram Walker’s life is divided between the fact that he is enslaved and the privileges he receives because his father owns the plantation. He also has two superpowers. He can remember everything from people and stories to playing card and conversations. He also has the power of CONDUCTION (a.k.a. teleportation), though this capability is more difficult to access and control.

His circumstances give him empathy for the Tasked (the enslaved workers) and the Quality (the masters). The result is a story with both sides represented. The third class in this society is the Low whites, “a degraded and downtrodden nation enduring the boot of the Quality, solely for the right to put a boot of their own to the Tasked.” Hiram Walker had little compassion for the Low whites, but he understood the weakness of the Quality. “My father, like all the masters, built an entire apparatus to disguise this weakness, to hide how prostrate they truly were.”

Both this book and Uncle Tom’s Cabin feature the horror and brutality of breaking up families.

Both this book and The Underground Railroad use fantasy to represent the voyages of people escaping the south.

A powerful and subtle view of plantation life pre-civil war.

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Undying by Anne Boyer *****

Undying by Anne Boyer is a poetic and literary exploration of breast cancer. It explores the experience from historical and personal points of view with imagery and feelings. It is powerful and poetic. In the middle, the book turns dark when it considers doctors, treatments, and hospitals, especially in the United States. “The pharmaceutical companies lie. The doctors lie. The sick lie. The healthy lie. The researchers lie. The Internet lies.” And that’s the good news.

The author characterizes the politics of U.S. breast cancer health care with: “While [mastectomy patients] don’t get a hospital bed to recover in or rehabilitation for the cognitive damage incurred during their treatment, what they do get in the United States is federally mandated access to breast reconstruction—any type of implant they want.” The standard of care is “drive-by mastectomies.”

In the chapter titled, The Hoax, the author skewers the Internet, over-diagnosis, and frauds. All of this might be familiar to many readers, but she also attacks chemotherapy. “Maybe [future] medical historians will view chemotherapy with the same perplexed curiosity that ours do formerly common medical practices such as bloodletting—that not only did we severely poison people in attempts to make them well, but that even in those instances when chemotherapy doesn’t and won’t work and results in death, damage, and disability, there remains a popular desire for breast cancer patients to undergo it.”

“Too many women I know say they wish they had chosen, instead of treatment by drugs with mutilating and disabling effects, to die of their cancer.”

Beautifully written.

2020 Pulitzer Prize. The art and science of breast cancer. Read it!

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Some Assembly Required by Neil Shubin *****

SomeAssembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA by Neil Shubin surveys the history and current research about evolution. The science of evolution has progressed from pattern matching (these lifeforms look like their related) to DNA (these lifeforms have similar DNA). The most recent breakthroughs have been in the methods of evolution from [lots of random changes over a long time] to specific mechanisms which are described in this book. Readable and fascinating.

 The book is a collection of short biographies, each revealing another discovery in the quest to understand life on earth and how it evolved. A few of the scientists are household names like Darwin, and Watson and Crick, but most are lesser-known scientists who also made important contributions. For example, Lynn Margulis discovered that mitochondria and chloroplasts originated as free-living bacteria and algae. This is one of the mechanisms of evolution: incorporate another organism into your genome.

 One of the important lessons about evolution is that “nothing ever begins when you think it does.” Darwin suggested that evolution was not only a series of gradual changes, but major changes were “accompanied by a change of function.” For example, fish have swim bladders that take in air to moderate buoyancy. These swim bladders later became lungs. Dinosaurs had feathers and hollow bones. These later were used in flight.

 Before DNA analysis scientists knew that some capabilities evolved in parallel. For example, pterodactyls, bats, bees, and birds all independently evolved the ability for powered flight. With DNA analysis scientists can see similar multiple evolutionary pathways. Animals who previously were thought to be related by anatomical analysis have now been shown to be examples of parallel evolution.

 The revolutionary evolutionary steps are more likely combinations of organisms (horizontal genetic transfer) and repurposing of existing structures.  With the assistance of DNA analysis, most evolutionary mysteries have been explained, and the ideas of sudden changes and missing links have been abandoned.

 One interesting observation: several discoveries involving the interactions of human evolution and viruses builds on extensive research on HIV. While HIV research was motivated by the AIDS epidemic, it has delivered many benefits in other fields of research.

The latest research into the mechanisms of evolution and the scientists who discovered them.

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Close Up by Amanda Quick ****

Like the other books in this series, Close Up by Amanda Quick is set in Burning Cove on the central coast of California during the 1930s. The protagonist of this novel is Vivian Brazier, a struggling photographer. She aspires to be a fine art photographer but pays the rent with news photography—crime scenes, fires, and car accidents. This paying job leads her to help solve the mystery of the Dagger Killer, but then she becomes the target of a paid assassin.

The book includes the continuing characters and locations of Burning Cove, including, Luther Pell, owner of the Paradise night club with connections to government espionage and the mob, and Oliver Ward who owns the exclusive Burning Cove Hotel married to Irene Ward, star crime reporter at the Burning Cove Herald.

Vivian is protected from the assassin by Nick Sundridge, a person afflicted with the family curse of visions of the future. The topic of debilitating family curses is one theme of this book. The other is the evolution of art photography with realism versus impressionistic, and the tension between art nudes and pornography.

On a personal note, Vivian observes: “The big camera was the badge of the news photographer. Cops rarely questioned a freelancer who carried one.” The camera in the book was the Graflex Speed Graphic, the standard from World War I to the 1960s. This was a large camera that took sheet film. The film carrier had to be exchanged for each picture, so in addition to this bulky camera, the photographer also carried a supply of loaded film carriers (4” x 5” x 0.5” each). I can attest that the observation was true because along with a friend of mine we carried that camera into places we’d never been allowed otherwise.

A pleasant mystery of glamour and romance in the 1930s.

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GI Brides by Duncan Barrett ****

GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love by British authors Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi follows the lives of four women from meeting American soldiers during World War II through the current day. This is not a ‘they lived happily ever after’ fantasy. The four women faced challenges with husbands who changed. Upon return to America, the men turned out to be gamblers, alcoholics, and cheaters. Some families rejected the brides. Many marriages did not last. The women joined organizations of other GI brides. One had the motto: “We got through the war. We’re British, we can stand anything.”

The book includes many historical details and differences between British and American life. The major difference between American and British life was that the war was in England. The British experienced bombings and severe rationing, while the Americans observed the war from a safe distance. After the war, the American economy, which had not been bombed, recovered much more quickly than Europe.

The biggest surprise for the GI brides was the stark contrast between the Americans during the war where they were confident, important, and rich. They had money and supplies. They were able to shower the English women with luxuries, like stockings and meat. Upon returning to the U.S. they reverted to be postmen, coal miners, and unemployed. The transition was difficult for both men and women. The women, in their late teens and early twenties, had to learn to take care of and stand up for themselves and their children.

There were lots of interesting details. Women who couldn’t afford stockings, drew a line down the backs of their legs to simulate stocking seams. Enlisted women were issued “several enormous pairs of bloomers, which were unofficially known as ‘passion killers.’” Coat-hanger abortions were common. Women made wedding dresses from parachute silk “often salvaged from German pilots who had been shot down.” The brides were introduced to the American custom of baby showers. Wedding cakes in England tended to be hard fruitcakes, while the American version was soft sponge.

Health care was mixed. One mother contracted puerperal fever, child-bed fever, and her life was saved by penicillin. Another woman contracted polio.

For soldiers to get married, they needed permission from the army. If the soldiers did not want to get married, “the army hierarchy was adept at blocking women from tracking down errant fathers.”

A historical perspective of WWII England and post-war America. A tough look at the lives of GI brides.

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Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen *****

Here’s a funny story: Northanger Abbey started out as Jane Austen’s first novel, a satiric parody of gothic novels, but ended up being published posthumously and can be mistaken as a sendup of her own works. Austen opens the book warning the reader to expect something different, “No one who has ever seen Catherine Moreland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine.” Throughout the story, the author parodies the tropes of Austen’s earlier (later) novels.

The story covers familiar ground where young Catherine goes to Bath in the company of a family friend and meets by favorable and unfavorable men. The plot revolves around the financial considerations of marriage, miscommunications, and the tension between love and fortune. In the end, a good match is achieved.

The author makes fun of the standard tropes.

“There she fell miserably short of the true heroic height. At present, she did not know her own poverty, for she had no lover to portray. She had reached the age of seventeen, without having seen one amiable youth who could call forth her sensibility, without having inspired one real passion, and without having excited even any admiration but what was very moderate and very transient. This was strange indeed! But strange things may be generally accounted for if their cause be fairly searched out. There was not one lord in the neighborhood: no—not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door—not one young man whose origin was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children.”

As Catherine set off the Bath, “It is remarkable, however, that she neither insisted on Catherine’s writing by every post, nor exacted her promise of transmitting the character of every new acquaintance, nor a detail of every interesting conversation that Bath might produce.” Later a gentleman chides Catherine, “Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenor of your life in Bath without one?”

The plot pokes fun at Gothic novels when Catherine gets in trouble when visiting “Northanger Abbey! These were thrilling words and wound up Catherine’s feelings to the highest point of ecstasy.” Catherine, an avid reader of Gothic novels, imagines the father has murdered his wife, and, when that is disproved, goes searching for her to be still alive a locked away. (foreshadowing Jane Eyre?).

A humorous romp for Jane Austen readers. Do not start her.

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The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell ****

The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell is 20/24 in the Kay Scarpetta series. Kay Scarpetta is a forensic pathologist. In this book, we have three women. Dr. Emma Shubert is a paleontologist who disappeared on a dig in Alberta Canada. Mildred Lott is the wife of billionaire Channing Lott with business interests in Alberta. He is on trial for her murder. There is no body. Peggy Stanton was found in the Boston harbor suspended by her neck with weights on her ankles. Kay believes all three are connected, but how?

This 500-page book is packed full of technical jargon. “No petechiae I can find…No irregular areas of hemorrhage to the sclera or the conjunctiva,” most of it unexplained. However, the technical stuff has little to do with solving the mystery. Some seem to be just filler: “He’ll take a look with the stereo microscope, the polarized light scope, the Raman spectrometer…same interference colors and same birefringence.”

But Peggy’s cat and Millie’s dog seem more important than all the hyper-technical forensic stuff. “The plastic ring on the floor.” I indicate what’s behind the umbrella stand. “A cat toy.” “No sign but appears there was one.”

The surprise hero of this book is Kay’s niece, Lucy Farinelli, a “rogue technical genius,” who performs hacker miracles while spouting the required technical jargon.

I hear you ask, “You sound so negative. Why?” When Kay gets close to unraveling the mystery, the killer confesses. In the end, when Kay is in serious jeopardy, she works hard to rescue herself, but just when she has her chance, deus ex machina steals her opportunity and rescues her. 

A page-turner with flaws. Terrific if you don’t think about it.

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Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young ***

Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young is a teen dystopian novel about high school girls at the Girl’s Innovations Academy where the courses are Beauty, Compliance, Social Graces, and Decorum and Modesty. The one recognizable class is Basics where math is taught once a month. “Too much thinking is bad for your looks.” Eventually the girls rebel, but the twist ending devalues their victory. Regardless, the series continues for another couple of books.

When Mena, the first-person protagonist, breaks one of the many rules, Guardian Bose redirects her. Afterward, she reflects, “He’s never spoken to me so viciously. I’m shaken by it all, but at the same time, I’m deeply ashamed. We’re not supposed to anger the men taking care of us. I never have. It was selfish of me not to listen immediately.”

When the girls fail at being redirected, they are subject to impulse control therapy, a mysterious ordeal after which their memory of it is erased. They are also given an assortment of “vitamins” every night to help them stay calm and behave.

The school teaches the girls that “shame is the best teacher,” and “beauty is [your] greatest asset.” Every minor injury is repaired with a graft to keep their skin flawless. The girls are admonished to “demonstrate your value…by showing how appealing a beautiful, obedient girl can be. Hold your tongue. Bat your eyes. Be best.”

Eventually, the girls wake up to their predicament. They see the men’s behavior as predatory. Part of this awakening is from a poem “Girls with Sharp Sticks” that opens with “Men are full of rage/ Unable to control themselves,” and closes with “And so it was for a generation/ The little girls became the predators.”

If you are a teen wishing to oppose the patriarchy, this could be your series.

For my expanded notes: https://1book42day.blogspot.com/2020/03/normal-people-by-sally-rooney.html

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Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B Ross ****

In Miss Julia book 1 of 22, Miss Julia's husband dies. Miss Julia was an obedient, sheltered, and childless wife. After 44 years of marriage, she knew nothing about family finances; she didn’t even know how to write a check. Her husband left a sizeable fortune and a child with his mistress Hazel Marie Puckett. Pastor Ledbetter wanted to assume guardianship of Julia and use her money to expand his church. Brother Vern Puckett wanted to do something similar with Hazel Marie to take control of her presumed inheritance. Apparently-weak women preyed on by paternalistic men.

Julia was a sheltered southern lady. “And, oh, I’d been proud of who I was. Julia DeWitt Springer, Wesley Lloyd Springer’s wife. Dumbest woman in town.” He kept her in the dark, gave her a small allowance, and told her what to think. “Now, after forty-four years of blissful ignorance of Wesley Lloyd’s activities, financial or otherwise, I settled down to enjoy the benefits of widowhood and a full checkbook, both of which I was mastering with hardly any problems at all.”

Julia’s antagonist was Presbyterian Pastor Larry Ledbetter who quoted Bible verses to defend his desire to assume guardianship of Julia and her fortune and excuse her dead husband’s decade-plus adulterous relation with Hazel Marie. The Pastor went so far as to hire a psychologist to declare Julia to be a nymphomaniac and incompetent.

Hazel Marie Puckett belonged to the Puckett clan, a notorious group of troublemakers. Brother Vern Puckett was a televangelist. “They beat the s**t outta me, ... And he said if I wasn’t going to be obedient…, he’d just had to keep Junior… Said I wasn’t fit to raise a child… He said he’d just keep Junior till I decided to submit to the Lord’s will.”

If you like to see nice women win, this is the book for you.

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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court ****

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain extolls the virtues of 19^th-century Connecticut over sixth-century England. First, he presents the advantages of 19^th-century technology like guns and telephones. There is no contest here. He also attempts to replace the sixth-century feudal system and church with 19-century educational and political systems. Here the results are mixed.

 Mark Twain anticipates Arthur C Clarke’s third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The Yankee uses 19^th-century technology to defeat Merlin’s sixth-century magic.

 The Yankee brought 19^th-century technology to the sixth century. This included electrical generation, steam power, railroads, bicycles, telephone, telegraph, lightning rods, revolvers, Gatling guns, explosives, printing press, and newspapers. He also introduced factories, patents, public education, and universities. He brought modern finance including decimal money and fiat money (which was more like bitcoin than dollars).

 He also wanted to replace the feudal system and the Catholic Church with a republic and elected officials.

 He particularly disliked armor. When he wore armor, he complained about the heat, lack of flexibility, weight, the impossibility of scratching your nose, lack of pockets, etc. He defeated armored knights by dodging their weapons, with electric fences, a lasso, and a gun.

 A fun mixture of politics, humor, and fantasy

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The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman *****

The Masked City by Genevieve is the second is a seven-book series about Irene, a librarian spy, and Kai, her student assistant dragon. In this book, Kai, a royal dragon representing order, is kidnapped by Lord and Lady Guantes, a fae couple representing chaos. Kai is taken to the extremely chaotic city of Venice during Carnival. Venice is so chaotic, Kai’s powerful family can’t rescue him, so that job is left to Irene. A thrilling fantasy adventure.

The Library interconnects alternate universes and the Librarians monitor and maintain balance. Irene is a lower-level Librarian who travels to alternate universes on Library missions—which have unexpected difficulties and murders.

The world of The Invisible Library has two opposing forces. The fae, forces of chaos, imagination, and fiction. The dragons, forces of order and reality. The Library attempts to balance these two forces, either of which can bring the end to civilization. Many other races are part of this universe of universes: vampires, werewolves, mutations, superheroes, and impossible devices.

The Librarians travel between alternate universes collecting and moving books to keep everything in balance. They all have the superpower of Language. They can tell things how to behave: unlock doors, tie shoelaces, animate stuffed museum specimens, with the limitation: “When I use the Language to tell something to do something which is against its nature, the universe resists.”

The forces of good are Irene, protagonist and Librarian, with the cover name of Miss Winters; Kai, assistant and a dragon, with the cover name of Mr. Strongrock; and Peregrine Vale, 15^th Earl of Leeds in an alternate universe and a renowned detective.

If you enjoy this series, you will also enjoy the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde which also features a female literary detective and time travel. Highly recommended: https://amzn.to/3mvJJT5

A fantasy of magical spells, where no one is in real jeopardy.

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The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman *****

The Invisible Library by Genevieve is a fantasy mystery about a reality with alternate universes where the Library’s purpose “is to preserve humanity from either absolute reality or absolutely unreality.” The Library interconnects all these alternates and the Librarians monitor and maintain balance. Irene is a lower-level Librarian who travels to alternate universes on Library missions—which have unexpected difficulties and murders.

The world of The Invisible Library has two opposing forces. The fae, forces of chaos, imagination, and fiction. The dragons, forces of order and reality. The Library attempts to balance these two forces, either of which can bring to end to civilization. Many other races are part of this universe of universes: vampires, werewolves, mutations, superheroes, and impossible devices.

The Librarians travel between alternate universes collecting and moving books to keep everything in balance. They all have the superpower of Language. They can tell things how to behave: unlock doors, tie shoelaces, animate stuffed museum specimens, with the limitation: “When I use the Language to tell something to do something which is against its nature, the universe resists.”

The forces of good are Irene, protagonist and Librarian, with the cover name of Miss Winters; Kai, assistant and dragon, with the cover name of Mr. Strongrock; Peregrine Vale, 15^th Earl of Leeds in the alternate universe and renown detective; and Inspector Singh, law enforcement.

The opposition includes Alberich, fallen Librarian; Bradamant, nasty Librarian, with the cover of cat burglar Belphegor; Lord Silver, fae, The Liechtenstein ambassador; and Lord Wyndham, dead vampire.

If you enjoy this series, you will also enjoy the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde which also features a female literary detective and time travel. Highly recommended: https://amzn.to/3mvJJT5

If this were a movie, it would be an action-comedy.

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Tightrope by Amanda Quick ****

Tightrope by Amanda Quick is another mystery set in Burning Cove (#3/4) prior to WWII with some familiar supporting characters. Amalie Vaughn is a circus trapeze artist, flyer, who is stalked by a couple of serial killers who like to see flyers fall to their death. When Marcus Harding forced her to the top trapeze platform to have her fall to her death, she outwits him, and he dies instead. After this, she moves to Burning Cove and opens the Hidden Beach Inn where she becomes involved with Luther Pell’s (from the previous books) friend Matthias Jones. Together they work to recover an encryption engine (based on the German Enigma).

 As with the previous books in this series, the romance between Amalie Vaughn and Matthias Jones is heavily featured along with the chapter-long sex scene.

 A subplot is starting up the business at Hidden Beach Inn. Business issues include cash flow and publicity. When Amalie can’t get people to book rooms because of the bad publicity from guests that seem to die with some regularity, she found a way to turn her bad reputation into a positive cash flow and eventually rescued the business.

 The history of espionage between the two World Wars and the Enigma machines is well researched. If you’re interested in that history, try the non-fiction book The Women who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone. (https://1book42day.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-woman-who-smashed-codes-by-jason.html)

 A fast-moving mystery with spies and serial killers. More romance than mayhem.

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The Other Lady Vanishes by Amanda Quick ****

The OtherLady Vanishes by Amanda Quick is #2/4 in the Burning Cove series. Adelaide Blake is an heiress who has been committed to an insane asylum by Conrad Massey who intended to steal her fortune. Once incarcerated, Dr. Harold Ormsby and Dr. Ethan Gill use her as experimental Patient B to do research on a new drug (imagine LSD). She escapes and assumes a new identity (Adelaide Brockton) in Burning Cove, a fancy resort on the California coast in the late 1930s. Along with the attractive Jake Truett, she solves several murders while avoiding getting murdered herself. A mystery with women in most of the roles.

The secondary characters from the first novel reprise their roles and the protagonist makes a cameo appearance. You can read these two books in any order. Like the first book Hollywood and espionage are featured, along with synthetic drugs.

Vera Westlake is a rising Hollywood star who is inexplicably dating Dr. Calvin Paxton who sells a diet tonic. Madam Zolanda is an old friend of Vera who has not been able to break into movies but is doing well as Psychic to the Stars and part-time blackmailer. Her assistance is Thelma Leggett. Raina Kirk is a recently arrived private detective with a shadowy past. Since Raina and Adelaide are both recent arrivals to Burning Cove with hidden pasts, they become good friends. Florence Darley runs the Refresh Tearoom in Burning Cove where Adelaide took a job while in hiding. She is a waitress and formulator of specialty tea and tisane mixtures.

 Like the first book, this one also includes an entire sex chapter.

 If you like women as heroes and villains with a few supporting men for entertainment and comic relief, this is the mystery for you.

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I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg ****

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg is a story of two real estate agents in 2008. Margaret Anne Fortenberry was Miss Alabama, but now her goal is to commit suicide without inconveniencing anybody. Her friend Brenda Peoples wants to be the first black woman mayor of Birmingham Alabama. In a story where the good are exceptionally good and the bad are very few, virtue is rewarded, and evil is punished. Maggie, one of the good, is constantly thwarted and forced to delay her carefully planned departure.

The 2008 narrative is interspersed with historical flashbacks to the 18^th century development of Birmingham Alabama, once second to Pittsburgh in steel production, also to the post-World War II era, and Civil Rights. From an historical point-of-view the book praises the 1950s and regrets the bad reputation Birmingham received during Civil Rights. Written in 2010, you can see the nostalgia that might have led to the MAGA slogan.

 A happy story of memorable characters and intricate plots.

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The Girl Who Knew Too Much by Amanda Quick *****

The Girl Who Knew Too Much by Amanda Quick is set in the 1930s but has nothing to do with the economic difficulties of the period. Anna Harris is a secretary to Helen Spencer, a “bold, adventurous, and daring” woman, who is murdered on page 1. Being a generous boss, Helen leaves Anna with a fancy wardrobe, a sporty Packard coupe, a shoebox of money, a mysterious, but valuable notebook, and a gun. In her dying moment, Helen wrote a message to Anna using her own blood: RUN. Anna does what any sensible woman would do. She changed her name (Irene Glasson) and moved to Hollywood. Thus, begins a thriller of Hollywood, espionage, and murders (too many to count).

The story intertwines two stories: one of espionage and the other of Hollywood. The espionage story involves the notebook Anna acquires in the first chapter. The up-and-coming actor Nick Tremayne stars in the Hollywood plot. It seems that women who get in the way of Nick’s career seem to mysteriously drown. One in a bathtub, another in a pool, a third in the ocean. Irene, who has reinvented herself as a scandal sheet reporter, takes it as a personal challenge to break open this story. She is assisted by a retired magician Oliver Ward) who owns an exclusive resort (reminded me of Santa Barbara).

A fast-paced story with a strong female lead.

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The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg ****

Charminghistorical novel about the WASPs who ferried aircraft during World War II and were then forgotten for thirty years. Two timelines: Mrs. Earle Poole, Jr., known to her friends as Sookie, from Alabama, following the marriages of her three daughters, 2004. Fritzi Willinka Jurdabralinski, from Pulaski Wisconsin, during World War II. Sookie’s mother Lenore Simmons Krackenberry is a dominating Southern matriarch, straight out of Gone with the Wind. Fritzi is the eldest of four sisters, who find their wings when all the boys go off to war. A heart-warming, empowering story of how white women roles change from 1940 to 2010.

 The story takes off when Sookie discovers that she was adopted. Her real birth certificate reveals her to be nine months older and Fritzi is her mother. “Earle, do you know what that means? Oh, my God. I’m sixty years old! Oh, my God—I’m older than you are!” “I’ve been a card-carrying member of the Daughters of the Confederacy since I was sixteen, and I’m not even a Southerner. I’m a Yankee.” Throughout the book, Sookie struggles with nature versus nurture. All her life she felt trapped by her genetics and the expectations of her mother. Part of the story is her journey to discover who she is and break free of her upbringing.

In contrast, the four Jurdabralinski sisters are not trapped by expectations. First, when the men in the family leave, they take over the family business Wink’s Phillip 66 filling station. They run the station 24/7 doing everything from cleaning windows and pumping gas to changing tires and services engines. They are audacious and wildly successful. During the war, they all fly aircraft in the WASPs. Here again, they do a great job and have a good time doing it. However, it is still the 1940s and women have a long way to go. The women faced prejudice as WASP pilots from training through when they were disbanded and unceremoniously kicked out without credit or benefits. They also faced harassment, rape, and murder.

The book presents an idyllic view of life in Alabama and Wisconsin, idealizing the white Southern lifestyle and history, and small-town Wisconsin. Interestingly, for a book set in Alabama from1940 to 2010, there are no Blacks, and a single Mexican (domestic), Conchita. The book is a heart-warming story that rings a bit off in contemporary America.

A positive story of white women’s progress over seventy years, skipping over the intervening years.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.