the river's end bookstore

Years ago a person who was thought responsible for spreading a disease was referred to as a "typhoid Mary" – a derogatory term. In 1899 there was a real "typhoid Mary." She was Mary Mallon, a recent Irish immigrant who worked as a cook for wealthy families in New York City. In 1907 it was determined that she was the source of typhoid outbreaks through her cooking in those households effected, even though she had never had the disease. This is a fast-moving story about the first person identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever, her subsequent flight and then internment. The old cliché "typhoid Mary" holds a very human story.

It's the summer of 1920 and Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard is confronted with an apparent murder or maybe it's not murder. A hit and run? A drunk lying in the road unseen by a driver? No ID on the body but the case progresses and becomes more and more complex. Two missing brothers - wealthy exporters of Madeira wine, a jilted fiancee, suspicion and circumstantial evidence are not proof of guilt, and Rutledge keeps digging for answers. This is the 15th novel for Charles Todd (a mother and son writing team) and this is a challenging case to be sure.

-  Joan

Americans living and working in Berlin in the 1920s and the 1930s were a disparate group; journalists, diplomats, intellectuals, society figures and only a few of them took Hitler seriously. In the U.S., Hitler was considered no more than a clown and Americans were slow to grasp the horror unfolding in Nazi Germany.  The evolution of a struggling democracy in the 1920s to totalitarianism dictatorship in the 1930s is told in chilling detail. Little known facts come to life in this book. We learn from the past. Don't be oblivious to world events.

No country seems to have mastered the art of the double cross in espionage quite like the British during World War II. The Double Cross System involved turning German spies into double agents and an eccentric bunch of them succeeded in tricking the Nazis into believing the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy where the actual invasion was carried out in June of 1944. The twenty spies in the Double Cross System were truly a motley crew and the story concentrates on them. How can anyone think history is dull with stories like this one?

It's the end of World War II and the Cold War is on the horizon. The setting is Istanbul, Turkey which was neutral territory during the war and is now a hotbed of spies and intrigue. Leon Bauer, an American tobacco merchant and sometime spy living in Istanbul agrees to perform one more "harmless" mission for a friend in the American consulate and things go horribly wrong. Joseph Kanon's previous spy thrillers are set in the 1945-46 era and he knows Istanbul well. A great summertime read and really good espionage!

A year's sabbatical in Paris! That's just what Eloisa James, a romance writer who's really Mary Bly, a Shakespearean professor at Fordham University did after her recovery from cancer and ready for a change. She and her husband, who's also an academic and their two young children sold their house and car and spent a year just lazying around in Paris. What an entertaining book to read what with living like Parisians, learning the language-sort of, sampling really good food and discovering why French women don't get fat! I'm going to read this one again. What fun!

Americans do seem to go through a lot of trials and tribulation with raising their young ones. The art of a baby sleeping through the night, learning to like grown-up food and behaving in public seems to have been mastered by French parents. No Tiger Mother here but a common sense book well worth reading by parents-to-be and grandparents.

As suspenseful and erotic as his first novel, A Reliable Wife, this one is set in 1945 in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley - in a small village where the inhabitants are good religious folk but whose actions are governed by the Baptist and Methodist preachers in town. Hellfire and damnation await those who sin or consort with sinners. Heading Out to Wonderful is a story of a love affair gone terribly wrong and the repercussions that are felt for years to come. I've been anticipating Robert Goolrick's second novel and I'm not disappointed. It's beautiful writing and a haunting story that stays with you.

- Joan

Queen Elizabeth has been on the throne of England for 60 years! That's a remarkable passage of time especially so, since I remember her coronation day all those many years ago. Elizabeth was a beautiful young princess and over the years we have all watched her grow old and gracefully so.  She does admit she wasn't a very good mother; her priorities were England and the Commonwealth. She takes her job very seriously. A book rich in details, personal and political. How did all those years pass so quickly? A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Have you ever felt you are the latest in a long line of mediocre cooks and the easiest thing to do in the grocery store is to head for the ultraprocessed foods? Products with too much sodium, sugar and just plain weird sounding chemical ingredients. Well, read on. This is one of the best cookbooks around. The author, a Cordon Bleu grad gathered nine volunteer women who considered themselves "not very good cooks." In a series of classes she taught them basic culinary skills and the self confidence to try  "cooking from scratch." The book is chock full of great tips and yes: recipes, too.  I was inspired to try her recipe for Artisan bread which I had never made. It worked!

You'd think there would be a big difference between an autocracy and a democracy. Probably not that much.  The authors say governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters or "backs that need scratching". The size of this hopefully small group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with and the quality of life under them be that for good or evil. This book held my attention even for bedtime reading. Our conception of politics in the U.S. or abroad may never be the same.

William E. Dodd, a college professor was appointed ambassador to  Berlin by FDR in 1933. No one else wanted the job. Hitler had just been appointed chancellor of Germany. Dodd, taking his family along would soon find out he was ill-equipped for the task. The mood in America was isolationist. Politicians seemed more interested in Germany's paying reparations from WW1  than Germany's treatment of its Jewish population. By 1938 the disillusioned Dodd returned to the U.S. Life had become untenable for him and other Americans in Berlin. Dodd's daughter, Martha didn't make it any easier as she was keeping company with all sorts of unsavory characters, including the chief of the Gestapo, a famous German flying ace and a handsome Soviet spy. A fascinating and revealing story of American politics leading up to WWII.

There must be something about the long Nordic winters that inspires authors to come up with some stupendously good crime fiction. My attention never wandered from The Snowman and I finished this 400-page book in two days. A serial killer is murdering women in Norway, always at the first snow of the year and leaving a snowman at the murder scene. Harry Hole, an Oslo police investigator who has problems of his own, is on the case. The book, like Stieg Larsson's trilogy probably isn't for the faint-hearted but this is a very talented author and I recommend it highly.

- Joan

This is the fifth book in the Annika Bengtzon series by the author who is described as the "Scandanavian queen of crime writers." In the middle of a freezing winter, a journalist is murdered in a northern Swedish town. Bengtzon, a crime reporter, traces this killing back to a deadly act of sabotage on a military base in 1969. The killer then, is back in town and a series of shocking murders follow. Present-day politicians in Sweden who were young and idealistic in the 1960s become implicated. I liked this suspenseful tale and I liked Annika, doing her best to handle a career, a straying husband and a chaotic household.

- Joan

In 1975 Antonia Fraser, the British historian and author left her husband and six children to live with Harold Pinter, the playwright who left his wife, actress Vivian Merchant. It was a real scandal, but for the two involved, it was a real love match The book is chock full of amusing anecdotes from the diary Antonia Fraser kept for the almost thirty-five years that she and Harold Pinter were together. London was a happening place back in those days. Pinter died in 2008 and his lady still misses him-hence the title Must You Go? I remember a lot of the personalities in this book. Being over sixty has its benefits!

2050 seems like a long way into the future but forty years go fast. What do we have to look forward to? Demographic trends, natural resource demand, climate change and globalization all point to the fact that eight nations of the Arctic Rim (including the northern area of the U.S.) will become increasingly prosperous (chalk that up to global warming) while countries closer to the equator will face water shortages, aging populations and crowded megacities. A scientific forecast of our future on this planet and the thought that we in the far north may see a more prosperous future make this a great read.