Another excellent murder mystery in the Cork O’Connor series.

It starts when a plane Minnesota Senator, Olympia McCarthy, and her family crashes near Desolation Mountain.

Cork and his son Stephen are two of the first on the scene.

Was it downed intentionally, and if so, why?

… Could it have been the anti-assault rifle legislation the Senator was about to introduce?

What about her opposition to the proposed Manila Accord, favored by the alt-right, the rejection of which would affect the profits of arms merchants?

Or was this an action by the Lexington Brigade, a radical anti-government militia group? …

Review of “Desolation Mountain: A Novel” by William Kent Krueger

I read this book because it reminded me of that great film ➙ Enemy at the Gates.

The movie features a snipers’ duel between two of the best from the Soviet Union and Germany during the Battle of Stalingrad.

The Diamond Eye is based on the true story of a Ukrainian woman sniper in WW II.

In the fictional version, bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko evolves into a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. She becomes a propaganda tool for the Soviets who send her to Washington D.C. to try to gain support from the Americans. She is befriended by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

The plot kept me going. But, ultimately, this book was not nearly as good as Quinn’s Rose Code.

I only clicked DOWNLOAD on this book because it was set in the Kootenays of British Columbia where my family had a house for 30 years.

It’s not a strong book.

BUT the issues are relevant to the area. Should the town approve a park acknowledging the many American draft dodgers who moved there?

Should the massive Grizzly Resort go ahead, even at costs to the environment? No doubt it was based on the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort controversy, ultimately cancelled in 2020.

Constable Molly Smith is a rookie cop in the mountain town of Trafalgar somewhere near Nelson.

I like Molly. But the resolution of the murder seemed dumb to me.

The reader of the audio book, Carrinngton MacDuffie, used quite a dreadful, unrealistic Canadian accent. Mispronounced some place names. That did turn me off the book, too.

In any case, I won’t be reading any more Molly Smith books.

This 2001 Spanish book is one of the biggest selling novels of all time.

Stephen King wrote, “If you thought the true gothic novel died with the 19th century, this will change your mind. Shadow is the real deal.”

I did get through it — but overall found it too long. A great premise that — ultimately — is not a story well told.

I won’t read either of the other 2 books in the series.

The novel opens in the 1940’s with the protagonist, Daniel, a boy whose father owns a bookshop in Barcelona.

One day, his father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten books – a secret labyrinthine library that houses rare and banned books.

Daniel is drawn to one called “The Shadow of the Wind” by Julian Carax and takes it home with him.

Daniel quickly reads and falls in love with the story. He soon discovers that the book’s mysterious author, Carax, has gone missing along with every other copy of “The Shadow of the Wind” and most of his other works.

Daniel then sets out to find out what happened to the author and his books. …

Wikipedia

Excellent.

The Giver is a 1993 American young adult dystopian novel written by Lois Lowry.

… The novel follows a 12-year-old boy named Jonas. The society has taken away pain and strife by converting to “Sameness”, a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness …

The Giver won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide as of 2018.

It has been the subject of a large body of scholarly analysis with academics considering themes of memory, religion, color and eugenics within the novel.

In Australia, Canada, and the United States, it is on many middle school reading lists.

A 2012 survey based in the U.S. designated it the fourth-best children’s novel of all time.

The author had originally intended not to write more about Jonas and the baby — but finally published Son in 2012.

… it follows Claire, the birth mother of Gabriel, the baby seen in The Giver, the first book in the series. Claire is obsessed with finding her son. …

Themes in Son include those of love, obligation, sacrifice, and loss. …

For me, the sequel was good — but not great.