Author: Russell Banks

It took me awhile to get into this story but by about half-way through I couldn’t wait to find out what happened.

The narrator of the novel is a late-middle-aged woman who is recounting her life. As a young woman she was on the FBI’s most wanted list because of her anti-government protests and actions. She flees to Africa and ends up in Liberia where she takes a position working with chimpanzees. She marries a mid-level bureaucrat and they have three sons. Life is never easy due to government corruption and various factions trying to overthrow the current leader. Life gets more and more violent until she flees the country and makes her way back to America.

Just a few days after I finished the book there was a democratic election in Liberia, the first in almost 70 years. The results have yet to be announced.

Goodreads Rating  * * *

Author: Donna Leon

This author has a number of books based on the character Commissario Guido Brunetti; I just read that this is #21 in the series. The books are set in Venice and except for that fact I probably wouldn’t read them. It’s fun when I come across a scene set somewhere that Pat and I visited when we were there.

This is an easy read, and you don’t really need to have read any of the others in the series to know what is going on. I’ve read a couple but they weren’t in any particular order.

Goodreads Rating  * * * *

Author: Lisa Jackson

Can you tell I spend a lot of my Texada time reading?

I had coffee with a friend quite a few months ago and, as I was leaving, she asked if I wanted to read this book. I took it but never got around to reading it until I was clearing books and added it to my virtual book shelf.

There are apparently several novels by this author that involve the detective combination of Rick Bentz and Reuben Montoya. I hadn’t read any of them but it didn’t matter as this book was good as a “stand alone”. When nuns are being brutally murdered stories of wrong-doings within the convent cannot be kept secret. With each murder (both within the convent and among the general public) the race to find the killer becomes more intense.

By the end of the book there are still some loose ends, but I expect they will be picked up again in another novel.

Goodreads Rating  * * * *

Author: Shauna Singh Baldwin

Although this is a novel, it is inspired by the life of Noor Khan, a woman of Indian descent who worked undercover against the Occupation when the Nazi’s took over France. The story bounces between chapters when Noor is in prison after being detained as a spy, and chapters that tell us about the work she is doing in France. Woven into these chapters is the story of her childhood and the many restrictions placed upon her by her family’s strict religious views.

I liked the book more than I expected. I read another book by this author (in fact I think I read it twice) but I have no memory of what it was about and whether or not I enjoyed it, but this was a good one.

Goodreads Rating  * * * *