Good Reads & Views

Last to Leave by Clare Curzon
FIC Curzon, Clare

When fire destroys poet Carlton Dellar’s home on the night of his eightieth birthday, it exposes the tangled relationships of his acrimonious family, and a body in the cellar. His young niece is missing, his nephew was assaulted as he fled the fire, and their mother is desperate. Superintendent Mike Yeadings of the Thames Valley CID in England isn’t officially on the case, but since the subordinate he’s stuck with is causing as much trouble as the suspects, he has little choice but to get involved. An intelligent, suspenseful police procedural.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
YA PBK Cormier, Robert

When freshman Jerry Renault chooses not to participate in his high school’s annual chocolate sale, he has to deal with the reactions of the school’s administration and its secret society, the Vigils. He doesn’t realize that his simple, individual decision could have repercussions throughout the school, but it sets off a no holds barred power struggle that eventually puts Jerry himself in danger.

Saving Erasmus: A Novel by Steven Cleaver
FIC Cleaver, Steven

Saint Benedict, Saint Hildegard, Saint Francis of Assisi, and Saint Patrick…meet Harpo Marx, Curly, Lucy, Lou Costello, Mae West, and…um…John Wayne. Freshly graduated seminarian Andrew Benoit forgoes a prestigious assignment to St. Expuery’s and instead heads to the small in-the-middle-of-nowhere town, Erasmus. Just outside of town he is visited by the Angel of Death, who is climbing out of a washing machine at a laundromat. Death informs Andrew that he is the prophet who can save the inhabitants of Erasmus, which is scheduled to be destroyed at the end of the week. Andrew then encounters the wrath of Mrs. Primrose Davenport, who both owns and runs the town. In addition to the mystics (who have taken the names of comedians, almost), he meets a Knight Templar and many peculiar townspeople. Will Fate, or Faith, prevail? 

Times Eye, A Time Odyssey: 1 by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
FIC Clarke, Arthur C.

Related to Clarke’s earlier Space Odyssey series, this is the first of two novels about an catastrophe in which the earth is diced and put back together with segments of terrain from different time eras millions of years apart. 

 The Master Quilter by Jennifer Chiaverini
FIC Chiaverini, Jennifer

The stories of the Elm Creek Quilters continues in this sixth volume of the series, which begins with The Quilter’s Apprentice. As the women join together to create a quilt to celebrate Sylvia’s wedding, they also support one another in their lives’ struggles. Highly recommended for readers of Earlene Fowler’s mystery series. (A nonfiction book of quilts, Elm Creek Quilts, (746.46 CHI) accompanies Chiaverini’s fiction series.)

The Fires: Two Novellas by Alan Cheuse
FIC Cheuse, Alan

The title novella, The Fires, follows Gina as she travels from the United States to rural Uzbekistan to retrieve the body of her husband, recently killed in a car crash. His last wish was to be cremated, which is taboo in this Muslim country and culture, so an inexperienced U.S. Embassy official helps find Hindus to perform the ceremony. In The Exorcism, the second tale, the daughter of the main character has set fire to a baby grand piano and attempted suicide by fire, thereby getting her expelled from an exclusive New England college. This happens following the death and cremation of her mother, a famous jazz pianist, and one of several of her father’s wives. Both stories juggle multiple perspectives while dealing with memories, deep feelings, love, and forgiveness, and have an understated quality of dark humor. Alan Cheuse is well-known as the book reviewer for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
FIC Cather, Willa

In one of her greatest novels, the first to receive widespread recognition as a masterpiece, Cather focused on Alexandra Bergson, a strong and determined woman who insisted that the family stay on their homestead on the Nebraska prairies during the early, difficult years and buy additional land despite her father’s death and her two brother’s insistence that they give up and go back east. There were some extremely prosperous years for wheat farmers prior to the drought and dust bowl conditions of the 1930s. Cather (1873-1947) herself was born in Virginia and moved with her family in 1884 to Red Cloud, Nebraska, and many of her novels, such as My Antonia (1918) were based on her childhood memories of Nebraska. 

Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri
FIC Camilleri, Andrea

This is the fourth in a series of murder mysteries based in Sicily featuring detective Salvo Montalbano, who has to deal with corrupt and incompetent superiors while trying to determine who actually killed a young woman whose naked body he had discovered.  Suspects include her husband, an antiques dealer, one of her friends, and a concert violinist, but his superiors try to pin the case on a mentally disabled man. Montalbano finally figures it out while listening to an impromptu performance from a nearby apartment. Others in the series include the eighth, The Patience of the Spider (2007) and the ninth, Paper Moon (2008). 

Big Boned: A Heather Wells Mystery by Meg Cabot
FIC Cabot, Meg

Cabot's third crime story featuring Heather Wells, teen pop sensation turned 20-something college student, who also appeared in her first two books Size 12 is not fat and Size 14 is not fat either. Heather is paying her tuition by working at the college's Fischer Hall, a residence hall nicknamed Death Dorm after several recent murders. She's also secretly dating Tad, her remedial math professor while pining for her neighbor and true love, Cooper, a PI who's not happy about Tad but has difficulty expressing his feelings. When Fisher Hall's interim director, Dr. Owen Veatch, is murdered, Sebastian Blumenthal, a Graduate Student Collective protest leader, becomes the prime suspect. A tip that Blumenthal is innocent leads Heather into some tight spots. 

Dead Connection by Alafair Burke
FIC Burke, Alafair

In a departure from her Samantha Kincaid series, Burke introduces Detective Ellie Hatcher. There might be a serial killer targeting women from an internet dating service, and the young detective has been asked to assist on the homicide case because of her own background -- her father was a policeman in Wichita, Kansas after the College Hill Strangler. Includes a very brief cameo from Dave Robicheaux.