Quoth the Raven

Quoth the Raven

Jame Haddam

Former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian is schedued to give a lecture at a small, private college in the Pennsylvania mountains on Hallween night.

When the school's most eminent professor disappears and the secretary is poisoned with lye in front of a cafeteria full of students and faculty Demarkian gives a lesson in applied investigative skills as Hallween revelers party and prepare the school's traditional annual bonfire.

This was quite a pleasant cozy, and I enjoyed it, though I did have a couple of problems with it.

I found the author's choice of words distracting at times. I'm not referring to the dialogue.

Another thing I found distracting was that although it was set in the 1990's, it seemed dated to the early 1960's in many respects, and many of the students seemed naive and childish, as did much of the Halloween motif. I just can't picture female college students dressed en masse as pumpkins, or male college students in Batman costumes. The repeated mention of girls sewing costumes and making paper crepe decorations was dated and a bit distracting as well.

Even with the problems I had with this book, I enjoyed it and am inclined to give the author and the series another try.

War and Peace

War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace is a stunning panorama of Russian life during the Napoleonic Wars, mostly from the perspective of the nobility or upper class.

Tolstoy's ability to pull the reader into the story is, IMO, unsurpassed. I feel as if I not only followed the fortunes of the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Bezukhovs, etc., but I feel as if I lived with them for the six weeks or so it took me to read this book. I even feel as if I were able to catch glimpses into the minds of a few of the world leaders of the time, like Napoleon and Czar Nicholas.

My only complaint is the ending; the last 40 pages or so. It felt, then, that Tolstoy was speaking in his own voice. It seemed like a piece of expository writing, as if it might have been an excerpt from an essay. Since this only pertains to the last 40 pages or so of the book, and since I was immersed in the world crafted by Tolstoy for more than 1400 pages and for over six weeks, this complaint seems petty and insignificant.

War and Peace confirmed the love for Tolstoy that I discovered when I read Anna Karenina, and has become my favorite book of all-time.