H IS FOR HAWK is Helen Macdonald's book about herself and her hawk, a goshawk. This is why I wanted to read it. I didn't realize that it is also about her mourning over the death of her father and about T.H. White, writer of, among other well-known books, THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING and THE SWORD IN THE STONE. I enjoyed Macdonald's wonderful descriptions of her goshawk, Mabel, and her need for Mabel upon her father's death. But I could have done without all her critique of T.H. White's training of his own goshawk, which he described in THE GOSHAWK.

White's training of his goshawk was mostly failure. It was difficult to read Macdonald's retelling of the failures because White unknowingly tortured his goshawk. Plus, it sounded to me like he was full of psychological problems. H IS FOR HAWK devotes too much time and space to White.

I found this book depressing. At least, unlike most books about animals, Macdonald doesn't end H IS FOR HAWK with death.

Leif Enger wrote two of the best books I ever read: PEACE LIKE A RIVER and VIRGIL WANDER. So I expected that I CHEERFULLY REFUSE would be another winner. But I didn't get it.

This book confused me. It's mostly doom and gloom in the near future. But it felt like Enger was trying to make a point; I just could not tell what the point was. At the same time, though, I was enjoying the way he writes, his sly humor and his remarks that were so like those in his books I loved.

I CHEERFULLY REFUSE starts out in Minnesota and ends up in Canada by way of Lake Superior. The main character, Rainy, meets bad guys all along the way but meets good guys in Canada.

Is that a message? If so, Enger would be insulting most of his readers, and I doubt he would do that. I'm just searching for a point.

Another possible point could be his "astronauts." These were the bad guys who made life hell for everyone else because they had most of the money and, therefore, all of the power. Nowadays I hear lots of complaints about the dangerous oligarchy we live in. Could that be what this is, a complaint about oligarchy?

Whatever the point is with I CHEERFULLY REFUSE, I did enjoy Enger's sentences, i.e., I love the way he writes. He's working on another book, and I know I'll want to read it.

No surprise, ALL THE BROKEN PLACES is an outstanding novel from John Boyne. This book is another example of why he is one of my go-to authors. Plus, although this is a standalone novel, if you read Boyne's THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS, you should notice and may like meeting again some characters the two books have in common.

This is Gretel's story. She is 91 years old. She tells of her life in a luxury "flat" in 2022 London with her neighbors: Heidi across the hall and Alex and Madelyn and their little boy Henry downstairs. Every other chapter Gretel tells of her past.

She was born in Germany. Her unnamed father was an officer in the German army and was, in large part, responsible for the atrocities during the Holocoaust. Gretel and her family lived quite a nice life. But at the end of the war, when she was 12 years old, her father and brother were gone, and she and her mother escaped to France under assumed names.

Gretel spends the rest of her life feeling guilty and hiding her past.

In 2022 London, she befriends young Henry and does her best to prevent his evil father from ruining his life or even killing him. Because of Gretel's ongoing guilt, she is not afraid to do what she knows will hurt her.

I've read several of Boyne's books. All, including this one, are unputdownable.

I need to write this review well enough that it convinces you to read ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES. You really do want to. I read quite often, but I haven't read such a good book in at least a year, maybe five years.

This book has already been summarized so often, I only say that Inti (female) leads a team to reintroduce wolves into the Highlands in Scottland. Of course they deal with resistance. Eventually, it does appear that a wolf has killed two people.

Two other characters who play major roles are Inti's psychologically-troubled twin sister, Aggie, and Dunkin, the chief of police. Turns out, the book is not only about wolves. There are also mysteries about what happened to Aggie and whether Dunkin or a wolf killed a man.

Although I didn't read ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES in one sitting, as so many reviewers claim, I did have to force myself not to.

The writing style of the first 100 or so pages of WEST WITH GIRAFFES reads, I think, like a young adult novel, which I wouldn't normally care for. But I knew that this historical fiction is based on an actual story: in 1938 two giraffes really did live through a hurricane on board a ship to arrive at the coast of New York, where they were then put in crates and transported by truck all the way across the country to the San Diego Zoo. So I kept reading.

This book is a fictionalized story of their 12-day journey with their zookeeper (whose name has been changed to Riley Jones for this story) and two others who are pure fiction, the 17-year-old driver, Woody Nickel, a Dust Bowl orphan from the Texas Panhandle, and Augusta "Red," the redheaded photographer who follows the giraffes' journey. Together, including the giraffes, they deal with one adventure after another along their way. And it is these adventures that kept me reading until late at night. The book hooked me in, after all.

One problem I have with historical fiction is my need to know what is fiction and what is fact. Sometimes the authors include a note with the book to explain which parts they made up. Most often, they don't do that to my satisfaction, and that is the case with WEST WITH GIRAFFES. At least nowadays we have the Internet, so we can look it up. So far, I know that the zookeeper's name was really Charlie Smith.

A Woman of No Importance is a biography of Virginia Hall, a heroic World War II spy who, again and again, was treated as unimportant because she was just a woman. Although Sonia Purnell put together honest research for this book, the story of Hall's life is almost unbelievable. How could one person accomplish so much in such dire circumstances and keep going back for more?

At first I was put off by this book because it is another World War II story, and I'm tired of them. If you are the same, let this book be the exception. While I can't say I agree with The New York Times that "This book is as riveting as any thriller," I did find it more than interesting, and I do recommend it.

More people should know this story. That's why I am glad to read that a movie based on this book is in development.

Ireland seems to have a disproportionate share of great writers. I joke that they must have superior English and writing classes over there because several of my favorite authors are Irish. And now I just found another.

Niall Williams has written other books before, but Time of the Child, his latest, is my first. The story is about the people who live in a small town in Ireland during the 1960s. Apparently, Williams wrote an earlier book about this same town, so this is a return.

In Time of the Child, the town's doctor, a widower, lives with his oldest daughter, Ronnie. When they take in a baby that someone finds, Ronnie ends up falling in love with the child. But neither Ireland nor the Catholic Church there will allow a single mother to adopt a child. So what to do?

Normally, I dislike writing style that goes on and on about details that do not seem to push the story forward. Yet Williams does that, and I love it. And his sentences are long, too. But none of this feels unnecessary.

So you may want to read an excerpt before you buy Time of the Child. But, truly, this is a five-star read.

Most reviews will tell you that REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES is a good book. And it is. After all the hype about it, though, I was a little disappointed.

As you probably already know, a woman, Tova, who mops floors every night at an aquarium talks to the fish. And she finds that the remarkably bright octopus there reacts to her greetings. It really is quite a sweet story. But great literature it is not.

Too much irritated me, especially the parts that had to do with Cameron, the 30-year-old man who comes to town. Tova refers to him as a boy. Plus, although the book says over and over that he is remarkably smart, he sure doesn't act like it.

Again, the story is so sweet. I've read stories this sweet before. So I found every bit of it to be predictable, lots of predictable coincidences.

I recommend this book for a teenager. That's when I would have loved it.

Although THE PUSH is an excellent novel you'll want to keep reading, that will be in spite of its subject matter. It is a woman's first-person account of her marriage to her college sweetheart and their evil child. It is written as if it is an explanation she has written for her ex-husband. It is a sad book, and it may even be depressing.

This book is too much like WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN. If you haven't read that book, it, also, is about an evil child. As with that book, I found THE PUSH to be maddening and frustrating in addition to sad and depressing.

Even so, you will probably find, as I did, until you start reading another book, you won't be able to stop thinking about this one.

UNDER THE HARROW was such a disappointment!

It looks like a short book, but it is longer than it needs to be. Parts 1 and 2 are about the overwhelming grief of a woman whose sister has been murdered. Her grief seems to have taken over her senses. These two parts are full of paragraphs describing scenery. They add nothing to the story and seem to be padding to make the book longer.

I struggled through Parts 1 and 2 and considered many times not finishing the book.

Part 3 is a little better. At least there were fewer useless paragraphs.

UNDER THE HARROW is Flynn Berry's first book. Luckily, I know she gets better. Try one of her later books.

Most reviews of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY say that it's funny. That's why it took me so long to read it. If you, like me, think that books that are described as funny are usually silly or corny or just plain dumb, you should know that LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY is an exception.

So what made me want to read LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY if I thought it would be silly or corny or dumb? Bonnie Garmus's husband was on "Jeopardy" for a few days. Garmus is the author of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, and she has an exceptionally smart husband.

Garmus's main character, Elizabeth, is another smart person, a chemist in southern California during the 1950s and 1960s. She fought so much against the prevailing norms of that time, when women had to fight to be recognized in any field but wife and mother, she was finally fired from her job at a chemical research company.

Elizabeth then became, instead, an afternoon television star. It was supposed to be a cooking show, but she also, at the same time, taught lessons in chemistry. She fought for this, and her show became wildly popular.

A blurb on the cover of this book calls it "darkly funny." I think that's accurate. It certainly is not silly or corny or dumb.

The NEW YORK TIMES calls LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY a notable book. This is one of the few times I agree with them.

THE PRINCESS OF LAS VEGAS confirms, once again, why Chris Bohjalian is one of my go–to authors. No two books of his are alike, yet he writes consistently dramatic and suspenseful novels.

First we have the "princess," Crissy, a Las Vegas entertainer who impersonates Princess Diana. But, although she's the title character, Crissy is not the only star. There are also her sister Betsy and Betsy's daughter, Marisa (who you will love).

Although Crissy and Betsy are not twins, they look alike, and they both look just like Princess Diana. These facts are very important to this story.

Crissy has been living in Las Vegas for years; Betsy has been living where they grew up, Vermont. But when her boyfriend moves to Las Vegas for a job, Betsy and her daughter follow. This is her first mistake.

In Las Vegas Betsy meets her boyfriend's coworkers. All carry guns. And she continues to make errors in judgment. Thank goodness she has Marisa.

Marisa is a super-intelligent 13-year-old who grew up in the foster system and was adopted by Betsy only recently. Marisa's italicized thoughts precede each chapter. Before the end of the book, she will impress you.

I highly recommend THE PRINCESS OF LAS VEGAS. In spite of my best intentions, I left a lot undone so I could read it.

Most avid readers have some go-to authors, authors whose books are dependably good, books they know they can safely buy even before they read a review. Joseph Kanon is one of my go–to authors. So I bought a hardcover copy of his book SHANGHAI, knowing that I wouldn't be wasting my money.

This book begins in Germany just before World War II. But it doesn't stay there for long. Daniel, a Jewish man, and Leigh and her mother, also Jewish, bored a luxury liner headed for Shanghai, China, as do many other Jewish people lucky enough to be escaping Germany.

Of course, Daniel and Leigh form a relationship while they are on the ship. During that time, they also meet Yamada, a Japanese man who is a military policeman in the Kempeitai, the Japanese Nazis. Their stories continue after they arrive in Shanghai.

Daniel's uncle, Nathan, lives in Shanghai, and it is with Nathan that Daniel begins his new life. Nathan owns night clubs there and does business with many shady characters. This book has plenty of their violence going on, but Daniel still becomes enmeshed in the business.

Eventually, Daniel is surprised to see Leigh enter one of the clubs on the arm of Yamada. And there begins another line of this story, a complicated one. Daniel is determined to save Leigh from a life she has apparently chosen. Leigh was hard for me to understand right up to the book's ending. I never did figure her out.

Kanon's SHANGHAI is a good book, but I wouldn't say it is one of his best. The storyline isn't as suspenseful or thrilling as his other books. But SHANGHAI still has lots of great dialog, which no one writes like Kanon.

I've read two other novels by Tim Johnston and liked them both, but this one, DISTANT SONS, is his best. It kept me up reading long past my bedtime, and when I sat down to eat, this book came with me. There's a lot going on here, the best kind of mystery, with more than one mystery.

The main character in DISTANT SONS is 26-year-old Sean Courtland, who was the teenage son in Johnston's book DESCENT. He is now a wandering carpenter and has found work where he stopped accidentally. Courtland has contracted for a job in the home of Marion Devereaux, long suspected by some of murdering three boys 40-some years ago. Devereux also has an uncle, now gone, no one knows where.

Another mystery comes with Dan Young, a 29-year-old man who Courtland meets and who ends up working on Devereaux's job with him. Young is from Minnesota and has no vehicle or phone.

As a result of Courtland's experience with his sister in DESCENT, he now sometimes defends women who are victims of men. This is how he meets Denise Givins, a waitress. He gets in a fight with a man who is hassling Givens. And that man doesn't go away; more trouble awaits.

Johnston is not only a great storyteller; he's also a wonderful writer. He's so good you'll even want to read his descriptive paragraphs, the parts you might skip in another book. For example, Johnston doesn't just say, "It was a nice day." He describes the day, simply but beautifully.

This book is a keeper. Loan it but don't give it away.

ALL THE SINNERS BLEED did not meet my expectations. They were too high. That's because of all the awards S. A. Cosby won for this book. I suspect that ALL THE SINNERS BLEED won awards on the basis of its subject matter rather than its ability to grab readers and suck them in (which is what I think is required of an award-winning book).

You will read that this book is about a sheriff who solves a string of murders. And that's true. But the fact that the sheriff is black, the children murdered are black, and the murderer is--well, that would be a spoiler--is also what ALL THE SINNERS BLEED is about.

This book bored me. Therefore, it took me more than a week to finish reading.

When I read historical fiction, I always wonder what is truth and what is fiction. But Marie Benedict doesn't make this clear in her Notes or Acknowledgment at the end of THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE. So this is all I know: Agatha Christie really did disappear for a few days and then suddenly show up with no explanation, she really did surf, and she did not really write the "manuscript" alluded to throughout this book.


In the chapters that make up half the book are the supposed manuscript that Christie left for her philandering husband. The main emphasis is on the duty Christie felt she owed her husband. Remember, this book takes place during the 1920s, when many felt that the proper role of wives was to subjugate themselves to their husbands. These descriptions got old and tiresome.

Until nearly the end, every other chapter is Christie's manuscript. Probably that is fiction. The other chapters take place during the disappearance and the hunt for her. This is when we hear about the husband's woes, and this too, I presume, is fiction. But Benedict says she did so much research for this book, some of this must be nonfiction.

My favorite parts of THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE are the last chapters, which are not her manuscript but just Christie speaking in first person. In the end, this book is both imaginative, after all, and enjoyable.

I've lived in the midwest and west and have always leaned conservative. But after reading THE CADAVER KING AND THE COUNTRY DENTIST, I know I'd be a liberal if I lived in Mississippi. What an eye-opening book this is!

The "cadaver king" is Dr. Stephen Hayne, and the "country dentist" is Dr. Michael West. The two of them acted as expert witnesses in the majority of Mississippi's death investigation court cases for nearly 20 years. Hayne performed an impossible number of autopsies and then claimed to see whatever prosecutors suspected. West gave unscientific bite-mark testimony to suit prosecutors' suspicions and also pretended to be an expert in a variety of other unscientific areas. And Mississippi courts accepted it all for many years and sent many, many people to prison as a result.

THE CADAVER KING AND THE COUNTRY DENTIST concentrates on two of those cases in particular, both affected by Hayne's and West's testimony. In each case, a three-year-old girl was raped and murdered in Mississippi. Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks were accused of the crimes. They were innocent, but, in large part on the basis of Hayne's and West's testimony, they were convicted and spent many years in jail, Brewer on death row.

So much research went into this very interesting book. I highly recommend it.

THE THIRD WIFE is the best kind of mystery; it involves three mysteries: who is writing horrible letters to Maya, did Maya kill herself or was her death an accident, and who is the woman who seems to be stalking Adrian?

Maya is Adrian's third wife. The book begins with her death when she is hit by a bus (which would be an odd choice for suicide, in my opinion).

Before Maya, though, Adrian had two children with his first wife and three more with his second. They have all been getting along and getting together for holidays and vacations. They still do after Maya becomes the third wife. They all appear to love her. Then Maya begins receiving horrible letters with details that only someone from the family could know. Did this lead to her death?

Then a woman pretends to want Maya's cat after she has died. For a while she keeps reappearing and seems to be a stalker. But she suddenly stops. Adrian searches for her, hoping to get answers.

Lisa Jewell wrote THE THIRD WIFE a decade ago. I was lucky to have found it. You'll enjoy this one as much as you do her later books.

THE HUNTER is Tana French's continuation of THE SEARCHER and its story of Cal, an American retired detective who has moved to a small town in Ireland; Trey, a teenaged girl in that town who is still set on righting the wrong that was the subject of THE SEARCHER; and the rest of Cal's neighbors, most of whom made me wonder at the end of the last book why he did not just leave and still make me wonder if he will. He should.

I've read all of French's books, and they normally rate five stars. But I don't rate THE HUNTER that way for two reasons: first, unlike most of French's books, this one has a slow beginning. Second, THE HUNTER assumes you have already read THE SEARCHER and remember all the particulars of the murder in that book. I did read it but did not remember everything. This was troublesome.

But (and this is a big but) French's writing, especially her dialogue, is as first rate as ever right from the start. You'll never want to give up on this book.

So you'll read about Cal and Trey and their neighbors again, including Lena, Cal's love interest who shares his concern for Trey, and Mart, the neighbor from hell, in my opinion, who pretends to be neighborly.

But there's not much action until another murder occurs almost halfway through the book. Anyone in the town could have done it, even someone from outside the town; the victim, Rushborough, was a despicable man.

Another man the town would like to get rid of is Johnny, Trey's father, who has come back after a 4-year absence, a man who loves no one but himself. He and Rushborpugh had come up with a scheme to sell these people on the idea that there was gold on their land. They were almost successful.

All in all, this town does not seem like a good place to live. I don't understand why Cal doesn't just get out of there. It's a beautiful piece of Ireland but full of trouble. If French continues this series, I think she's going to have to deal with that.

A STOLEN SEASON is my first book by Steve Hamilton. Although it comes in the middle of his Alex McKnight series, it is also my first book in the series. So I can say this for Hamilton upfront: it takes skill to write a book in a series as if it is a standalone. That's how it was for me, no confusion.

But I wasn't entirely happy with A STOLEN SEASON. First, the two main crimes in this novel seem like too much of a coincidence to each other. Even though I decided to just go with this storyline, I still had some problems with it.

Sometimes the story drags. I found myself skipping through some paragraphs, as a result, especially when he describes McKnight unloading boxes of guns.

More than anything, though, McKnight is a terribly frustrating main character. Over and over, he butts in, insists on taking things into his own hands when he should be leaving it to the police. I think Hamilton means for the reader to sympathize with McKnight, and I mostly did. But because he is always looking for trouble, I just wanted to clobber him sometimes. If I were one of his three friends, especially Vinnie, I would steer clear of him.

If you enjoy reading about Michigan, that's a good reason to try a Steve Hamilton book. I liked that about A STOLEN SEASON, although I wish Hamilton concentrated more on the Lower Peninsula, which I am more familiar with.