Author: Patrick Senecal

I read this book very quickly, not because it was short (300+ pages) but because I couldn’t put it down. I was quite a few pages in before I realized this is a Canadian writer and the crime is set in Quebec.

A young girl is raped and murdered and the man arrested for the crime has confessed and DNA evidence proves he was the monster. For the first few days her parents mourn her death but after the arrest her father, surgeon Dr. Hamel, goes completely off the rails. He kidnaps the killer and plans to torture him for seven days, at which time he will kill the monster and turn himself in to the police. Will the madness prevail or will the police find his hiding place in time?

Some of the descriptions of the torture are quite brutal and I was glad to be reading, for the most part, on a sunny day.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Robertson Davies

I’ve had the three books of the Cornish Trilogy set aside on my shelf for a long time and decided I should get started on the first one.

I don’t understand the popularity of the book. Three university professors are executors of the will of a fourth professor, Francis Cornish, who collected rooms full of art, sculpture and books. Alternating chapters in the book are told from the point of view of one of the executors and the student of one of the other executors. I had to keep reminding myself as I read the book that these professors were men in their forties, not the stuffy 70-year olds I was imagining.

I’m glad I read this first book – the other two of the trilogy will return to the shelf in the basement and I have no interest in reading them.

Goodreads Rating: * *

Author: Lena Manta

I don’t often read a book on my Kindle when I’m at home but none of the books on my shelf appealed to me at the time I needed a book. The list of titles I have on my Kindle is long; I generally read a Kindle book quicker than a “real” book and I’m behind on my Goodreads Challenge.

Five daughters can’t wait to leave their small village in Greece. As they leave, one after the other, their mother and grandmother are left alone. None keep in close contact after they leave but, eventually, they all return to the safety of The House by the River.

Goodreads Rating: * * *

Author: Herman Melville

Jamie (from Goodreads) captures my thoughts perfectly:

It’s just that any enjoyment or satisfaction I got out of the book was overshadowed by the tedious, largely pointless stretches of encylopedic descriptions about the whaling industry. Melville strikes me as one of those people who would corner you at a party and talk incessantly about whaling, whaling ships, whales, whale diet, whale etymology, whale zoology, whale blubber, whale delacies, whale migration, whale oil, whale biology, whale ecology, whale meat, whale skinning, and every other possible topic about whales so that you’d finally have to pretend to have to go to the bathroom just to get away from the crazy old man. Only he’d FOLLOW YOU INTO THE BATHROOM and keep talking to you about whales while peering over the side of the stall and trying to make eye contact with you the whole time.

Goodreads Rating: * (but Jamie gets ***** for that review)