BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS and where do I start? Perhaps with David Baldacci’s newest, who is a very favorite author of mine. Perhaps it’s his background of law (and I spent 20+ years in that endeavor), or perhaps it’s just that he keeps getting better and better with each of his books.
The latest is entitled THE FORGOTTEN, an interesting title and what makes it even more so is how it applies to the plot. Luckily, Baldacci’s legal training becomes quite apparent in his writings as each sentence is compact and on point. He doesn’t waste words in any paragraph and has that very unusual ability with the first sentence to pull the reader in and not let go.
The book starts with a previous protagonist from an earlier book, CWO CID Agent, John Puller, Jr., who has been summoned to the bedside of his father, General John Puller, Sr., formerly the commander of the Screaming Eagles, the 101st Division, and who is now suffering from dementia and a resident of a care facility. As the General has just received a letter from his older sister, Betsy, now a resident in Florida, the content of which has him concerned, he has sent his son to investigate. Add an interesting Lieutenant from the local police force; a try-to-be socialite; a multi-millionaire who spends an incredible amount of money weekly on the landscaping of his palatial home and has an unusual way of creating his wealth; throw in a couple of kids (undocumented); and a 1 star female General, stir rapidly and you have an unbelievable mix for a town known as Paradise in Florida.
As Baldacci has intrigued my mind one more time, so that shortly I will be starting over re-reading his books in the order of being written. And there are more than a few to peruse all on a shelf at our Library; will keep you posted.
A fun book to read is MISCHIEF BECOMES HER by Kasey Michaels, and I believe, we have several of her books available; the premise is that somehow a homicide detective becomes involved with a TV reporter, whose father has died mysteriously. Characters are well drawn and really believable, though I’m not sure of that red hair, and the plot bounces around and around, all the time holding your interest. Light reading, definitely not earth shaking, but good entertainment.
Now that certainly cannot be said about Tess Gerritsen’s book, THE BONE GARDEN. Set in Boston in the time period of 1830, the book tells of the problems facing a medical school with the unavailability of corpses for anatomical studies. And what is done to remedy this matter. A major character in the book is Oliver Wendell Holmes, the physician, and his push for cleanliness among the other doctors as well as medical students. Nothing was ever said or thought that hands that had touched a patient with a deadly fever were not to be used to examine another patient. The number of women who had given birth, or were in that process, in a hospital that died of childbed fever or puerperal fever was amazing; those that did not have the money to enter a “lying in” hospital survived as they did not become ill.
So, to provide corpses for anatomy-medical students meant that many residents (those on the shady side of employment) engaged in digging up graves for the bodies. This became known throughout Boston as “resurrectionism”, and those that practiced this often had to run for their lives if the grave was on private property.
Ms. Gerritsen’s background is medical as she is a physician as well as a writer. One gets the opinion that the background for this book is one that she was highly interested in. Many of her later books feature the TV team of Rizzoli and Isles. The information and history in the book is fascinating, and one feels better for having learned a little more.
Just a quickie: we have an unbelievable array of books for purchase at our Library, both hard cover and soft cover, of all types of fiction and even nonfiction. Come see us before you take your trip! And we welcome all you visitors to our Library; we may be small but we have a lot of good books and DVDs! Just takes a Library Card!
“When an old person dies, a Library burns down” -Karin Gillespie
