Becky's Books –

Fascinating history of the way in which Middle Eastern learning and scholarship survived the fall of Rome and developed on its own path even as Europe was experiencing what is often called the Dark Ages,” a time when the lights of learning almost went out .

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The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found: A History of Seven Cities
by Violet Moller
2019 / 336 pages
read by Susan Duerden – 8h 46m
rating / 9 – Middle East history: 500-1200 AD
*******

Following a Preface in which Moller outlines the personal background for her book and reveals the main thrust of the narrative, the scene is set for a tour of cities and how the writings of Eucild, Ptolemy and Galen were transmitted through the cities from Alexandria to Bagdad to Cordoba and Toledo. or Salerno to Venice and up into Frankish Europe.

Moller writes very nicely and illuminates the dry history with tidbits about the medical, mathematical and scientific knowledge as well as the translators who were indispensable. And the book seems to be just the right length – there’s an incredible amount of information.

I knew some math history from this era , but how the ideas got around in time and space, from Alexandria to Tours and Bagdad to Ephesus is a wonder. I’ll be reading this again.

I read Matteson’s Eden’s Outcasts several years ago (2007?) and greatly appreciated it. I think I may have read it twice, once for myself and once for a group. Then the 19th Century Lit group decided to read Little Woman by Alcott and Matteson had just released the annotated version. Oh my heart.

*******
The Annotated Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott
(annotated by John Matteson
1868 / 736 pages (Kindle)
* 11/2018 – Matteson version
rating – 10 / classic US children’s tale and wonderful annotations
*******

*Note: The first part – Book 1 – is read by Anna Koval – 8h 49m – but that’s only about 1/2 the story. She was good and I wish she’d done the whole book.
*******

The group discussion never did come ooff but I read the novel anyway – slowly, enjoying most of its but finding other parts kind of draggy.

The novel is as it always was, but the addition of Matteson’s annotations is a delight informing readers of all manner of things from the colors corresponding to characters to the nature of bonbons. I was surprised to find there were episodes I’d forgotten. There are also many photos and graphics dealing with some background in Alcott’s life and later film stills.

The footnotes are wonderfully well done, but that’s the point of the book! They are identified by number within the text which is linked and brings up a box for that one note. Then they are listed at the end of each chapter and this is where the links go so you can read them all in chapter order.

The extra-narrative material in the Introduction, Biographical Note, and Chronology etc. are fascinating, dealing with Alcott’s life, the times, and other relevant material – it’s taken from Eden’s Outcasts I believe.

This book is about entrepreneurs and how wonderful the world would be if we would all just realize we live in abundance, not scarcity, and that we have enormous opportunity for creativity in the urgent problems of our times. The word “entrepreneur” is used very loosely here, and deliberately so, because it’s a huge buzz word today for thinking big in developing and promoting ideas, getting rich, selling rockets or other techie products (or books) to realize your dream.

The dictionary goes virtually no further in defining “entrepreneur” than to say something about finance and business and I’ve always thought of an entrepreneur as someone who gets loans or takes financial risks for his business, his little enterprise(s). So, when the word is strewn about from the Introduction through the Table of Contents and the Forward before we get to the narrative it’s a clue. Imo, “Moonshots” is a book about business and motivation written for salesmen looking for something extraordinarily great to promote. I think Jain is selling enthusiasm for the future. He’s definitely a motivational writer/speaker in addition to being an entrepreneur himself.

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Moonshots: Creating a World of Abundance
by Naveen Jain
2018 / 292 pages
read by Scott R. Pollak
rating: 3.5 / business and money
*******

Anyway, Moonshots is a motivational pitch for thinking big. It’s in the “Business & Money/Business Culture/ Motivation & Self-Improvement” category at Amazon and “Business/Leadership” at Audible. I’d say the category is right on.

Jain could have used the word “evangelists” or “promoters” or “sales crew” but they don’t have the same cachet these days, at least now with the purveyors of ideas rather than products anyway. Jain wants to attract business dreamers to his book – not necessarily Christians – lol. (Although the wanna-be pastors of mega-churches might get quite a lot out of it. )

There are some a few interesting ideas in the book, Helium 3 fusion in Chapter 9 is one, but the subject is treated only to a bare gloss and way beyond the scope of the general reader. I’m not sure how this section is meaningful except to show some actual science in a business, motivational and self-improvement book .

I think it’s probably a good book but I’m just not at all the right reader.

I’ve been following this series for a couple years and with this book am all caught up.  It’s right down my alley being legal mystery an historical fiction.  They’re quite interesting –

 As usual, the structure has a frame story which includes Liam Tagert and Catherine Lockhart and their progress on. a case which goes back decades sometimes – this time to the era of Nazi Germany again – about half of Balson’s books deal with this.

*******
The Girl From Berlin
by Robert Bolson – 2018 / 379 pages
read by Fred Berman – 13h 23m
rating: A- / legal crime- historical
#4 in the Liam Taggert series
*******

Liam and Catherine get a phone call from an old friend who thinks maybe they can help his aunt who lives in Italy. It seems someone is evicting her from her farm where she has lived almost all her life.

They agree and when they get to meet Gabriella they find she is an old woman who is scared to tears of of losing her land. She hands them a small book and tells them to read it.

About 1/3 of the book deals with Gabi’s plight in the 21st century Italian courts, while the other 2/3rds is the historical background presented Gabi’s book. It’s the tragedy of gifted Jewish musicians in Nazi Germany. It is indeed a historical novel. I suspect a good number of the names, places and events are true. And what Balson invented is wonderful.

Balson is not a terribly literary writer, but he brings a legal story to life with deeply felt emotions, twists and thriller aspects plus a great ending.

Although Balson’s series has an overarching plot in the relationship between Liam and Catherine and sometimes prior cases are referred to, they are stand-alone novels in which the individual book’s plot is far more important. They can certainly be read out of order.

Book 1  Once We Were Brothers  – 2013. –  Holocaust (A+)

Book 2 – Saving Sophie.  2015 – Middlel East  (A-)

Book 3 – Karolina’s Twins–  2016 Holocaust – (A-)

Book 4- The Trust. 2017 – Northern Ireland – (A+)

Book 5 – The Girl From Berlin  – 2018 Holocaust – (A)

Some things I Googled:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Philharmonic

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/12/reic-d18.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Furtwängler

Theresienstadt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_Ghetto

Review: https://rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com/2018/11/08/review-of-the-girl-from-berlin-by-ronald-h-balson/

I love a good true crime novel, especially tech and financial crimes but family crimes of passion will do. Just no serial killelrs please – although if the book is solidly based on the procedurals involved in solving the case I can appreciate it. Over the years I’ve gone from Ann Rule (many) to Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyou. I usually read one or more a month, but it’s not a steady diet. I enjoy historical true crime and stories from more recent headlines.

*******
The Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood and the World
by Bradley Hope and Tom Wright
2018 / 401 pages
Read by Will Colyer
Rating: 8 / true crime – finance
*******

This is the story of Low Taek Jho 
(Jho Low), the main man in the multi-billion 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal which still unfolds in the media today as Malaysia’s new leader along with officials from the US and other entities try to prosecute those involved and recoup some of Malaysia’s 4.5 billion dollars worth of losses.. (It’s mind-bendingly complicated..)   https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/kl-high-court-allows-seizure-of-158-million-from-accounts-of-jho-lows-father

And read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/malaysia-police-chief-jho-low-location-sage-return-
11562412
And there’s always the great Wiki for background:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1Malaysia_Development_Berhad_scandal

This is the story of how Jho Low, a Malaysian businessman from a wealthy family pushed himself from relative obscurity through Wharton college and the elite Harrow college in London to royal circles and then built a financial empire conning whomever crossed his path including the corrupt leader of Malaysia and his spend-happy wife, Goldman Sachs, a couple of Saudi and other princes, Paris Hilton and Leonardo Decaprio plus a host of other stars and millionaires, as well as a couple of old college buddies.

Low was involved in international banking and securities, Hollywood, the music scene, and fantastically expensive art, jewelry, yachts and homes. This is the story of how Jho Low, a Malaysian businessman from a wealthy family pushed himself from relative obscurity through Wharton college and the elite Harrow college in London to royal circles and then built a financial empire on Malaysian government funds.

Using the step-son of Prime Minister Najib to gain entry, Jho schemed with or conned whomever crossed his path including the corrupt Prime Minister of Malaysia and his spend-happy wife, Goldman Sachs, a couple of Saudi and other princes, Paris Hilton and Leonard Decaprio plus a host of other stars and millionaires as well as old a couple of old buddies. Low was involved in international banking and securities, Hollywood, the music scene, and fantastically expensive art, jewelry, yachts and homes.

Then his tangled web and the powers that be caught up to his shenanigans, but they didn’t catch him. He remains at large, probably somewhere in China.

According to Amazon, Bill Gates apparently found Low’s story “thrilling” and although I wasn’t quite so impressed for the first third, the narrative steadily builds to a “thriller” type ending. The book only hints at sex, but high-dollar partying is featured where necessary. In that way it’s kind of like “The Wof of Wall Street,” the movie Low helped finance. (I’ve neither read the book nor seen the movie.)

As I read I got a bit bored and/or confused sometimes because there are so many names and financial dealings. But on finishing I was so glad I’d read it. The publishing date was September 2018 and much has transpired since then. Googling various names to see how the case has progressed has been fascinating.

In the news: https://pagesix.com/2019/07/15/wolf-of-wall-street-producer-returning-14m-over-malaysian-money-scandal/

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/malaysia-police-chief-jho-low-location-sage-return-11562412

The is the last of a 4-book series I just started with #3 but that was gory but riveting This one though was gorier but engrossing enough for me to finish. I’m glad there’s not anthers one.

Here’s the publisher blurb:

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Paradise Valley
by C.J. Box
2019/ 350 pages
read by Christina Delaine – 10h 6m
rating: B+ / crime thriller
(A Highway Quartet Novel #4)
*******

She almost caught him once. Now, he’s back.

For three years, Investigator Cassie Dewell has been on a hunt for a serial killer known as the Lizard King whose hunting grounds are the highways and truck stops where runaways and prostitutes are most likely to vanish. Cassie almost caught him…once. 

Working for the Bakken County, North Dakota sheriff’s department, Cassie has set what she believes is the perfect trap and she has lured him and his truck to a depot. But the plan goes horribly wrong, and the blame falls on Cassie. Disgraced, she loses her job and investigation into her role is put into motion.

At the same time, Kyle Westergaard, a troubled kid whom Cassie has taken under her wing, has disappeared after telling people that he’s going off on a long-planned adventure. Kyle’s grandmother begs Cassie to find him and, with nothing else to do, Cassie agrees—all the while hunting the truck driver. 

Now Cassie is a lone wolf. And in the same way that two streams converge into a river, Kyle’s disappearance may have a more sinister meaning than anyone realizes. With no allies, no support, and only her own wits to rely on, Cassie must take down a killer who is as ruthless as he is cunning. But can she do it alone, without losing her own humanity or her own life?

***
I think that’s about as much violence as I I can take. I’m going for something cozy next time.

I was tempted by this book back in 2017 after reading James’ Booker Prize winner A Brief History of Seven Killings but I procrastinated until I finally nominated it for a Booker Group read. Here I am.

This is a long and intense book so I took frequent breaks as I listened and read. The subject matter is quite grim. There is more violence than in Blood Meridian but not nearly as much history or good writing. Nonetheless it’s brilliant in its own way – if you can skim some of the brutality.

*******
The Book of Night Women
by Marlon James
2009 / 444 pages
read by Robin Miles – 15h 45m
rating: 9 / historical fiction
(read and listened)
*******

Jamaica, in 1800-1801 was a sugar-cane colony belonging to England. African slaves were introduced during Spanish rule and a few had escaped bondage during the transition to create their own separate and independent society – the Maroons.

This book opens in 1800 with a green-eyed girl, named Lilith by her owner, killing another slave and being transferred to another plantation. Someone else was killed as punishment for Lilith’s crime.

The story moves from there to the relationships between the slave women, one old European woman. and a few European men as well as other matters of the plantations. The main slave woman other than Lilith is Homer who hails from Africa, is older and quite a leader.

Lilith is quite independent minded and never knew her mother or father although it becomes apparent that her mother died and her father is a white overseer of some sort on the plantation. She becomes Homer’s “daughter” in many ways but also struggles against her.

Naturally some complications arise in terms of “race” or ethnicity and so on with Blacks, Creoles, Mulattos, and Whites tangling and loving and murdering. The main theme is revenge I suppose. And what happens to morality when people are damaged beyond recognition – maybe beyond redemption.

It’s a good book but not for the faint of heart. I would have put it right down had it been by an author less skilled with language ( Jamaican patois and some British) and the nuances of all sorts of relationships between field and house slaves, male and female slaves plus owners and overseers and disciplinarians and British wives and mulatto lovers and the whole gamut. There are old resentments and new jealousies plus changing alliances and various enemies thrown together with love and babies and killing and some religious practices from the original continents.

The book probably needs two readings at least but I’m afraid there’s just too much very graphic violence of all kinds, sexuaall and war-type and accidental as well as one-on-one vengeance, for me to do it.

Reading The Fifth Risk a second time it felt more like the series of Vanity Fair articles it stemmed from than an organized book of its own. It was good though, and it piqued my interest about other cabinet members and their departments.

The Best People has the most of the answer to those queries. Alexander Nazaryan, a regular contributor to Newsweek, shows the reader what happened in the other departments from the time when Trump’s “beachhead” group landed in the departments and who their secretaries were, to when that first “best” leader fell from grace. Most of the original cabinet secretaries and their departments are covered to some degree, but not all.

*******
The Best People: Trump’s Cabinet and the Siege on Washington
by Alexander Nazaryan
2019 / 305 pages
read by Robert Faaas – 9h 15m
rating: 9.5
******* 

This group of “best people” seems to have one similarity – they’re supporters of the Trump agenda – with one first goal; they are to get rid of anything from the Obama era. Also, for the most part, they are rich by inheritance with upscale education and some political experience.

Naroyan writes well and he’s seriously opposed to Trump but not blindly. This is a very good look inside the lives of the Cabinet members and their respective departments.

Michael Lewis wrote a fine book with The Fifth Risk but it was basically 3 related essays focusing on only three departments and tied up with a Prologue. The Best People develops the same general idea with more departments.

If you’re interested in reading about the current administration’s journey this is a good one to add to your collection.

I’ve read Mitzner’s legal thrillers before and very much enjoyed them so I pretty much snapped this up.

Will Matthews seems to be less than the up-and-coming young financial broker he dreamed of until one day he meets Sam Abbadon, the man who will make his dream career come true. The next day he meets the woman, Gwen Lipton, who seems to be the one to light up his life. Gwen is a financial lawyer and has just been given the case which will make her name.

*******
A Matter of Will
by Adam Mitzner
2019 / 304 pages
read by Will Damron 8h 18m
rating: A+ / legal crime
*********

Primarily we follow the lives of Will and Gwen as they deal with Sam and Eve, Will’s girlfriend, and get caught up in their disturbingly different world. The book starts out suspenseful with a big hint of dangerous and Mitzner skillfully builds that into a real page-turning oil-burner.

Before you know it, Will is involved in million dollar deals for Sam and very nice bonuses at his brokerage. So Sam and the brokerage both have hooks in him. Then Will witnesses first-hand a criminal act of the most violent kind.

Meanwhile, Gwen is getting deeper into a case she’s been fortuitously assigned which involves the murder of the wife of a famous movie star. The star was arrested but Gwen believes and is given assurance that he is innocent.

As I said, the tension starts out on low, but steadily ramps up to high in a plot which becomes nicely twisted. The characters are relatively believable although nothing special there. It’s a fun book.

I read this back in October (my review on this site), but the All-Nonfiction Group chose it for this month. I’ve been rereading it as I truly appreciated the book the first time. Michael Lewis has a way of explaining very complex matters in a very comprehensible way. The Usual government is notoriously complex.

*******
The Fifth Risk
by  Michael Lewis
2018/ 221 pages
read by Victor Bevine
rating:   8 / current events 
*******

My first review is pretty comprehensive so if you’re interested in the brief story of how Trump is mangling the US government go there. The book is basically a look at how the Departments of Energy, Agriculture and Commerce went through their own “transition” periods and have changed for the worse (if you support their viable existence at all).

The Fifth Risk describes the incalculable risk that actual “project management” will be incompetent. Trump has installed Department heads who are, as is Trump, not terribly concerned about effective departments because they don’t like the departments.

I’ll only add to it by saying that Trump seems to be incompetently getting what he and his appointees want done. They’re turning the federal government from what they see as a swamp of massive departments with expensive and debilitating regulations to massive departments whose regulations are ignored, unenforced, or changed on whim and expediency. Trump’s group doesn’t even give them personnel.

This is the second in the Perveen Mistry series by Sujata Massey. The first was The Widows of Malabar Hill which I enjoyed so much and it felt like it was a good start for a series. Unfortunately, The Satapur Moonstone is just okay.

*******
The Satapur Moonstone
by Sujata Massey
2019 / 361 pages
read by Sneha Mathan 12h 1m
rating: C / historical fiction – legal
*******

I’m not sure why I didn’t care for it. The plot was really standard for Agatha Christie lovers, which I was many years ago. The characters are well enough developed, but not really interesting. The setting, historical and cultural, were the best things and they were rather standard. The writing was satisfactory but again, nothing special. Sorry.

This is the first of what is known as The Quincunx Cycle – 5 books by the Canadian author, Andres Alexis . I read The Hidden Keys a couple months ago and was delighted with it. But then I discovered that was the 4th book (3rd published) in the group so I backtracked for number one. (This is NOT a series – the books are not related by characters or plot. They seem to be only very loosely connected by theme but even that is vague. The connections are supposed to come in Book 3, Th Ring, which will be published some time in 2020.

*******
Pasoral
by Andre Alexis
2014 / 164 pages
read by André Alexis
rating – 9 / “religious” fiction
*******

Father Christopher Pennant, a young priest, has been newly assigned to a small parish in the rural southern Ontario town of Barrow. The town is small and gossipy but the residents take a liking to the thoughtful and non-judgmental Father Pennant.

The narrative changes thread and we meet Elizabeth Denny who Is engaged to Robbie Meyers, but Robbie is apparently having an affair with, and ini love Jane Richardson, a young woman discontented with life in Barrow and she is really playing with Robbie.

The first person Pennant meets is his household helper Louder Williams who has a strange life playing a cello and being a lowly almost free laborer.

The important themes are running through the narrative include faith. love, nature, identity and death. It’s a short but powerful book and it’s beautifully written.

There’s something about this book which reminds me of Alice Munro – maybe it’s because both artists (and that’s what they are) seem to have been inspired by the natural setting.

The book is said to be based on Beethoven’s Sixth (Pastoral) Symphony although I don’t know enough to say.

*******
A Death in Live Oak
by James Grippando
2018 / 375 pagees
read by Jonathan Davis – 12h 6m
rating: A+ / legal – courtroom drama
(Jack Swyteck series # __)
*******

I read one book by Grippando a long time ago and really enjoyed it but I never got back for a second helping. Alas – it’s been too long now because I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed it.

On the downside, it does get gritty and it’s long. Bu there’s far more to the upside than the down.

The plot concerns an up-and-coming young, man, the president of a fraternity at the University of Florida. But Matt Townsend, age 21, finds himself framed for the lynching (yes) death of the black president of another fraternity at the University of Florida. The evidence against Matt is strong, but there is more than one suspect including friends of Matt and outsiders. Jack Swytech is left to sort it all out and make his points in the courtroom while his wife ends up working a related case for the FBI.

The tension is very well done and it builds nicely with threaded plot lines to the point that the cliff-hanger chapter endings aren’t really necessary but they don’t get in the way.

The whole story line gets quite complex so I won’t go into details because there would likely be spoilers, but I will say that there is plenty of both courtroom drama plus a few rather gritty thriller scenes here, along with some history thrown in to bring things together.

I look forward to another in the Swytech series but it may be awhile – they’re intense and complex – and long.

Recommended by a friend in a reading group I’d also read The Ruin, McTiiernan’s first novel and the first in the series, a few years ago and quite enjoyed it. This seemed like a little change of pace.

Emma finds a seriously mangled woman dead in the road outside Darcy Therapeutics near the Galway University campus. The woman was apparently the victim of a hit-and-run. Emma calls her boyfriend, DS Cormac Reilly. On later examination the ID of Carline Darcy is found on the woman, but no other identifying features, including her face.

******
The Scholar
by Dervla Mctiernan
2019/331 pages
read by Aoife5 McMahon – 10h 19m
rating: A++ / procedural
*******

Carline is heir apparent to the immense Darcy family fortune, but she’s at home, safe and sound, when Reilly comes to call and says she’s been home all evening. Her death is quite a shock to her especially as her grandfather has a been called.

It’s a hairy tale of greed and scholarship, full of twists and great writing, nicely developed characters and a skillfully executed plot line.

It’s been awhile, but I used to follow various developments in the study of history – historiography, the philosophy of history and kind of gave up in the mid-1990s when it looked like the post-modernists had the upper hand and were getting into feuds and overly philosophical. It didn’t seem like it was about history anymore.

Times have changed. Holocaust denial is no longer a valid historical position (if it ever was). I was far more familiar with E.H. Carr from old college days – pre revisionism and before post-modern deconstruction got very much involved but even Carr changed a bit.

*******
In Defense of of History
by Richard J. Evans
1997 / 287 pages
read by Julian Elfer – 7h 52m
rating: 9.25 / historiography – theory
(read and listened)
*******

Evans’ book puts the post-modern wars back on the table and brings it up to date (to 1997 anyway) while standing right behind Carr, although not with complete agreement, in taking the classic approach to the study of history. The main question I suppose is “Do historians report or create history?” My personal answer is that they do both.

There’s a lot of material to organize and present but Evans knows his stuff and was very highly regarded in the field even prior to this book with specialized academic work in German 20th century history.

The book includes a background to the subject – what is he standing “in Defense of History” from? (Post-modernist attacks) Then he goes into some challenges he raises – like in Chapter 1 dealing with science in relation to evidence.

Other issues Evans confronts are historical facts – what are they, who decides based on what. The validity and verifiability of language and sources is examined along with causation. What is knowledge – what is power, what is objectivity and how far can we take that? There are all thoroughly examined, and I think with the aim of teaching some non-historians what the study of history is about. YAY!

Of course it’s possible that Evans does not know much about the ideas of post-modernism. as has been charged, but I agree with him on the reality of history because, for very simple instance, I have a recipe handed down from my grandmother written when she was newly married in 1918. If I give that paper (which can be tested for age and her handwriting analyzed against her diary pages) to my granddaughter, age 19, my granddaughter in 2019 would likely be able to make the same kind of angel food cake my grandmother did a hundred years prior. She won’t make a strawberry pie from it. No, it won’t be the same exact cate in every respect but I wonder if my mother, eating both, would be able to tell the difference. Language and science work across time.

And my bottom line thought on a lot of it is that ieas in historical revisionism come and go without permanent major upheavals, but they do leave various impressions on the traditional methods of research, writing and reading of history. These ideas are probably as necessary in the study of history as they are in other subjects of study from biology to teaching to whatever.

Of course there was much criticism of this book when it was first released in 1997, but it is still published and sells quite well.

Robert Dugoni usually writes some pretty fair crime thrillers (I’ve read two) but he occasionally takes a break from all that and pens some general fiction. This one turned up on sale at Audible a few weeks ago and I’m always on the alert for books I can just pick up between specific picks. Note: there are some specific and definite religious (Catholic/Buddhist) ideas here – none are evangelical.

Sam Hill was born with red pupils due to something called ocular albinism. Fortunately he is very bright and has wonderfully supportive parents. But that doesn’t help with serious bullying in school and later, (for the frame story) when he works as a ophthalmologist a child comes in to have her eyesight checked. She appears to have been the victim of abuse – her father’s name rings a few bells for Sam. because that boy had been the particular source of Sam’s problems.

*******
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell
by Robert Dugoni
2018/ 434 pages
read by Robert Dugoni – 11h 41m
rating – 8 /
*******

I was totally engrossed in the first 2/3rds of this book but then it got rather

There is nothing terribly literary about this book, and it’s certainly not for everyone, but it’s a nice tale, very human and heart-warming and only gets a bit sentimental or hackneyed toward the end. . Actually, it’s quite original although somewhat predictable in a few places while beyond my suspension of disbelief in others.

Sam’s parents and two close life-long friends are stellar – wonderful characters who have each others’ backs. The end gets a bit much but the acknowledgements are wonderful – tying up some thoughts.

There are some distinct themes including bullying and physical abuse which were nicely developed. Still, it’s a feel-good book and I think it was kind of what I needed right now although I could have done with a bit less religion because a steady diet of crime can get to be a bit claustrophobic.