Category: book reviews

The sub-title of this non-fiction book is “An Innocent Woman and the Death Sentence that Scandalized Jazz Age Chicago.”  Unfortunately Chicago wasn’t scandalized when Sabella Nitti, and Italian immigrant, who spoke no English and showed every bit of the hard farming life she’d led was convicted of killing her husband, despite the lack of an identifiable body.  While she was described in the press as hideous and dirty, other women in Chicago – beautiful and able to hire competent defense attorneys – somehow managed to be acquitted despite obvious guilt.  This is a shocking – but not really – discussion of how gender, ethnicity, and class intersected with the American justice system. 

This doesn’t read like a textbook and was quite engrossing.  Also, two of the other women discussed in this book, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner became the primary characters in the story Broadway musical “Chicago.” 

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Lisa St. Clair is a nurse in a senior living facility where her favorite patient, Kathy Harper, has just died.  Lisa develops a friendship with Kathy’s friends, Suzanne and Carrie, that begins with their shared loss, but continues due to their commonalities; all are women of a certain age not looking for love, but trying to deal with the specific challenges they each face.  Lisa’s daughter isn’t speaking to her and in involved in a business that mom doesn’t approve of but is not only condoned, but encouraged by her dad, Lisa’s ex.  Carrie and Suzanne have different issues but the women are further drawn together trying to learn who Kathy Harper really was. 

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Things are normally pretty quiet in Lake Eden, Minnesota and Hannah keeps plenty busy running her bakery, The Cookie Jar.  But when her favorite milkman, Ron LaSalle, is murdered, AND her cookies are scattered around the body, Hannah is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.  And, as she dodges her mother’s match-making efforts, works with her cop brother-in-law to find clues, she also provides recipes for some of her favorite treats.

This is the first Hanna Swenson mystery.

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Moving back and forth in time, this author examines the relationships of Mary Todd Lincoln and several of her sisters, most especially eldest sibling, Elizabeth Todd Edwards.  Their relationships are tested by marriage, war, death, and a possible suicide attempt by Mary resulting I her son Robert’s instituting  legal proceeding to have her committed. 

Though fictional, this is a sympathetic portrayal of much-maligned Mary Lincoln, shedding light on aspects of her life that are not well known. 

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Real-life Lorena Hickock, reporter and author reflects (in this historical fiction) on her long-term relationship with First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.  An interesting, moody, emotional story of their intimate friendship, as well as some behind-the-scenes stories of other White House personalities during Franklin Roosevelt’s long Presidential tenure. 

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When gorgeous, single Blair Bainbridge moves to tiny Crozet, Virginia all the local matchmakers think he’d be perfect for Postmistress, Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen.  But he’s got violent death in his past, and suddenly violent deaths come to Crozet.  Luckily Harry’s four-legged friend, cat Mrs. Murphy, and dog Tee Tucker, come to the rescue.

A fun, easy-to-read mystery.

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Many of us have never heard of Elizabeth Van Lew, but her efforts on behalf of the Union during the Civil War were so significant that she was posthumously inducted into the military intelligence Hall of Fame.  Born in Virginia, to aristocratic slave-owners and educated in Pennsylvania, Richmond native Lizzie was appalled when Virginia seceded from the Union to join the Confederacy.  She used the idea of Christian charity to try and care for Union prisoners in notorious Libby Prison and created a network of people also dedicated to the Union cause to provide intelligence to the North, despite the danger and costs, both financially and emotionally. 

This author does a great job focusing on women throughout history, who should be better known.

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A Hudson Library Literary Guild selection.

When Daphne’s mom died, she left Daphne her most treasured possession – a 1968 high school yearbook heavily annotated throughout the years.  Daphne’s mom had not only been the year book advisor, but had also attended every class reunion.  While going through things in her tiny apartment, Daphne decided that since the yearbook didn’t “spark joy” in her, that it was time for it to go.  But after Daphne put the yearbook into the recycling bin at her apartment building a neighbor – a busybody with film-making aspirations – rescued it.  As Daphne and the neighbor argue over custody of the yearbook, its mysteries begin to unravel, even leading to some revelations in Daphne’s own family.

Light, fun, and easy to read.

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Who would have thought that simply asking the teen kids of long-time friend to call him if they needed a ride would have gotten Myron Bolitar into so much difficulty?  But when one of those kids – a teen-age girl – disappears AFTER she’d called Myron in the middle of the night for a ride, making him the last person to see her, all hell breaks loose! 

This book has it all, quirky characters, and an engrossing, suspenseful plot. 

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This author of historical fiction about little-known women has Agatha Christie, the world’s best-selling author, as her subject in this book.  Taking a real event – Agatha’s disappearance for about two weeks in 1926 without explanation – Benedict writes he own suspenseful tale about that disappearance and Christie’s life leading up to that point.  Her theory about the disappearance – that it was a ploy by Agatha to force her husband to acknowledge his infidelity before granting him a divorce – is plausible, and certainly sheds light on female roles and limitations in the early 20^th century. 

And now I want to go back and re-read all 70 (or so) of Agatha Christie’s mystery novels!!

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