Nevermore: Zero Fail, Lamplighters, Curlew's Cry, Caravan

 

Reported by Garry

 

We started off this week with the unflinching history of the Secret Service. Zero Fail is the New York Times best-selling expose by Carol Leonnig that documents the rise and fall of the Secret Service, from its inception during the Civil War to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the nation’s Capitol. Hubris, ego, and machismo, as well as administrative negligence were the main failing points that our reader identified as the Achilles heel of the Service. Fascinating and frustrating in equal measures, our reader said that this look at the agency tasked with protecting the members of the highest offices in the nation (and who do so sometimes by sheer dumb luck) is an excellent read and recommends it to anyone wanting a look “behind the curtain” of how our government works.

 

 

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex is a novel inspired by the true-life disappearance of three lighthouse keepers in the Outer Hebrides in 1900. Re-imagined and set in Cornwall in 1972, the keepers have disappeared from a lighthouse locked from the inside. A table was set for a meal (for two, despite there being three keepers) that was never eaten, all the clocks stopped at 8:45 PM, and the keepers’ log stated that a storm had been raging, even though the weather was clear. Twenty years on, an author visits with the wives of the vanished to try to solve the mystery, exposing and untangling many lies and truths. Our reader found this book to be really interesting and highly recommends it to anyone who likes a mystery along with their historical fiction.

 

Published in 1955, The Curlew’s Cry by Mildred Walker spans three decades in the life of Pamela Lacey and her ranch on the prairies of Montana. Third generation rancher Pamela is a self-sufficient, headstrong woman who has her sights set on a horizon beyond the ranch. Marrying a rich Easterner, she quickly finds out that marriage is not what she hoped it would be. Returning to her home, Pamela takes over her father’s ranch (uncommon in the early part of the last century) and sets about living life on her own terms. Our reader found this to be a fascinating look at life on the prairies during the tumultuous times between 1905 and 1941. This first-person viewpoint provides not only a feminist look at social structures of the time, but a beautifully written examination of the harsh living conditions on the prairies. Our reader really loved this book and states that the true beauty of the book is the descriptions of the land and people of Montana.

 

Caravan by Dorothy Gilman takes us to the Sahara Desert in 1914. Caressa is a beautiful young British woman widowed before the age of 20 with the murder of her anthropologist husband. Taken as a slave by Tuareg tribesmen, she must use her wiles and survival instincts, as well as skills she gained growing up in a travelling carnival, to make her way back to Cairo and then home. Our reader says that this 1995 novel is definitely      worth reading, and that it may well be better than Gilman’s popular Mrs. Pollifax series.

 

Also mentioned:

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders

Thereby Hangs a Tail by Spencer Quinn

The Baker’s Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Forgotten Pioneer by Harry Golden

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley

Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford

Wildland by Rebecca Hodge

56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard

Three Words for Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

The Reckoning: Our Nation’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal by Mary L. Trump

Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy by Anne Sebba

Nevermore: Tursten, Secret Service, Appalachian Women, Turton, Bardugo, Jones

Reported by Kristin

Nevermore revisited a humorous little book which made the rounds last year, An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten. Translated from Swedish, this small book of stories revolves around Maud, an 88-year-old who plans to keep her inherited rent-free apartment for as long as humanly possible. Morals be damned, Maud knows what she wants and will do whatever she needs to make that happen. Our current reader called this a must-read, and noted that she loves this woman because she knows how to solve problems.

Another reader highly recommended The Secret Service: The Field, The Dungeon, and The Escape by Albert Deane Richardson. This account is not about the current day Secret Service, but written by a New York journalist who covered events before and during the Civil War in Mississippi. Our book club member noted that the language used was slightly different than we usually hear today, but that it was really good and easy to read.

Returning to the present, another reader picked up Voices Worth the Listening: Three Women of Appalachia by Thomas G. Burton. This powerful slim volume recounts the stories of three women from different backgrounds, although with common threads. Two were white women and the other was black, and our reader was able to empathize with their stories of family, drugs, education, and poverty set against the backdrop of the Appalachians. The depth of the struggles and the enduring hopes make these voices well worth the listening.

The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton has been making the rounds of Nevermore. This week, our reader only commented that it was hard to get started and that the story kicked in after about fifty pages. (Read past bookblog posts for more!)

Another thumbs down was given for Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. While this thriller received some rave reviews online, the murder and mayhem set at Yale University just didn’t feel realistic to our reader, and she moved on to another.

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones was also declared unrealistic, but hilariously funny and well worth reading. Charley Davidson is a private investigator with some pretty unusual abilities, such as being able to see dead people, and help them with their unfinished business so that they can move along to the afterworld. The paranormal aspects of the story are handled in a very humorous manner, and our reader called this first in a series of thirteen a very fun book.

Another reader agreed that Darynda Jones was rather funny, and noted that she was reading A Bad Day for Sunshine, the first in a new series featuring New Mexico sheriff Sunshine Vicram. Returning to her hometown of Del Sol after more than a decade away, Sunshine finds all sorts of challenges such as feuding neighbors, kidnapped teenagers, and hot men. While our book club member did not find it to be quality literature, it was light reading, which is sometimes needed in these trying times.

Nevermore: The Big Finish, Defying Hitler, Secret Service, and Delia Owens

Reported by Kristin

Nevermore began with a humorous debut book, The Big Finish by Brooke Fossey. (Previously reviewed by Laura here.) Duffy Sinclair and Carl Upton are roommates, but they are not rowdy college freshmen, they are senior citizens in an assisted living facility. When a young woman crawls in their window one night and announces that Carl is her grandpa, the octogenarian men do their best to keep her a secret, and not get kicked out of their comfortable living situation. Their escapades are funny, endearing, and make for an excellent novel.

Our next reader found Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner to be an insightful memoir of the author’s eyewitness account of German power changes from 1907-1933. Written in 1939 and published more than sixty years later, this history details how the rise of the Nazi party was gradual as they took power a little at a time. Our reader appreciated that the author’s son chose to publish his father’s writing in 2000, and she found it well worth reading.

Another book of historic writing came to the virtual table with The Secret Service: The Field, The Dungeon, and The Escape by Albert D. Richardson. This memoir was written in 1865 by a journalist who examined the crumbling infrastructure of the South in the years leading up to and during the Civil War. Our reader was intrigued by the extensive vocabulary used by the author and highly recommends this volume for anyone who fancies themselves an amateur historian.

Before she wrote her debut novel Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens and her then-husband Mark Owens wrote memoirs of their time studying African wildlife. Cry of the Kalahari has been passed around between several Nevermore members, enchanting readers with the beautiful descriptions of the animals and the landscape. Although the Owens family was subsisting on very few resources, they were able to observe brown hyenas and other wildlife in such remote areas that the animals had not yet learned to be afraid of humans. Our current reader was impressed by the authors’ sensitivity to the animals and charmed by the photography.

Another reader was working through another Owens book, Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-Three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People. Set in Zambia, the zoologists lived and worked in the Luangwa Valley, studying the devastation faced by the elephant population as poachers decimated their numbers. Our reader particularly noted that when the elder male elephants were killed, much of the herd’s collective survival knowledge was lost.