Bruno's Cookbook: Recipes and Traditions from a French Country Kitchen

Bruno, Chief of Police

Bruno's Cookbook: Recipes and Traditions from a French Country Kitchen

Martin Walker, Julia Watson

Recipes used by a fictional small town cop with a penchant for gourmet culinary pursuits. Many of the ingredients are either hard to find outside large cities or too expensive for the average budget. This is French Cuisine at its finest. Most don't have a wild boar or a basset to help find truffles or have a taste for paté de foie gras. I'd never thought of cooking with duck fat--$32 for 11 oz. on Amazon--nor am I ever likely to try. It is interesting to see how the other half eats mind you. These are Jones with whom I have no desire to emulate.

Restaurants with delusions of grandeur tend to use French equivalents to describe their dishes. For example Coulis rather than fruit sauce. Crème Glacée for ice cream. Pomme de Terre Frit for French Fries.

I'm not likely to ever use any of these recipes but the descriptions and chatter are interesting.

r

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Ghost Towns of Ontario Volume 2

Ghost Towns of Ontario Volume 2

Ron Brown

I'm reading the 1989 edition. This outing uses the same publisher as Volume 1 but it's a vast improvement. First of all the cover photo is identified. But more importantly there is a vast improvement in the quality of photo reproduction throughout the book.

The towns described reflect an entrepreneur's exploitation of a natural resource leading to an influx of population which decamps when the resource runs out and the industry folds.

For example much of the storied Algonquin has been logged as many as 5 times and logging still goes on. Pine trees planted in straight rows reflect reforestation lacking in much of Northern Ontario where trees are left in a 200 ft band along highways for appearance sake.

Ghost towns are testimony to human greed. Lakes and rivers were fished to the point that the fish were unable to reproduce; forests were clear-cut with no thought to second growth, mines were run with the objective of maximizing ore production and profits, not sustainable employment. When the resource ran out the owners left with their ill-gotten wealth.

The Sleeping Giant must be viewed from 35 mile's distance in Thunderbay. If you spend the night on the peninsula stay considerable distance from the diesel generator. Silver Islet is a 20 mile drive from the park entrance. I've looked across the lake at the islet. If you think the hardships faced by the silver miners exaggerated consider that the day in June I hiked with a group to the top of the giant's head it snowed.

The picture caption on p. 83 lists Ophir as North-East of the Sault. The map on p. 33 plainly shows it South-East. A modern day map shows it due East.

The road to Cobalt as with the road to Durango, CO is the million dollar highway in this case due to the silver in the tailings used to build it. In all more than 460 million ounces of silver were pulled out of mines in the hills surrounding the area or as the author puts it $5 worth for every person in Canada at one point.

Parks Ontario offers historical brochures showing beautiful sketches of heritage buildings that once graced its parks. Often the sad truth is that the MNR has razed and burned those buildings. This wanton destruction of Ontario Heritage is a frequent wail in documenting former Ghost Towns.

The book makes rather depressing reading.

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The Shooting at Chateau Rock

Bruno, Chief of Police #13

The Shooting at Chateau Rock

Martin Walker

Bruno is still busy in his kitchen and enjoying others' culinary efforts and in this outing, #13, coaching tennis.

A wealthy old man dies under suspicious circumstances but it's hard to determine cause of death when the body has been cremated and the ashes scattered. So Bruno is looking for possible motivating factors for murder rather than heart attack.

Yes, these are murder mysteries but Bruno's social life occupies the greater part of the story. Given his taste in wines and gourmet foods it would seem he has an excellent salary.

When international intrigue get involved justice gets short shrift to political expediency. This begins to sound more like a Le Carré spy thriller.

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Brothers Three

Brothers Three

C.W. James

Three orphaned brothers struggle to protect what is theirs, their ranch, against the elements and those who would wrest it from them.

Allen is the eldest and at 17 their leader in the absence of their Uncle and legal guardian whom the lure of gold has off who knows where.

Paul is the quiet cerebral reader.

Chet is the athletic impulsive younger brother.

The text needs a good editor.

This may be an Western Action Adventure Novel but the trio are either accident prone or lurch from disaster to disaster. This is a young adult novel at best with a rather simplistic plot. It ends with a shoot-out that leaves a great deal unfinished. Will there be a sequel?

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Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain

Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain

Andrew McCarthy

In the first place Andrew is divorced from Sam's Mother.

This is a picaresque novel in which nineteen-year-old Sam joins his middle-aged (58) father on Andrew's Second Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage in Northern Spain. The memoir is told from Andrew's point of view. Hearing about it from Sam would be revealing. In part Andrew hopes to establish an adult relationship with his child on this walk.

The Bruce Trail has end to enders as does the Appalachian Trail and now the Trans Canada Trail and Pacific Ridge Trail. Chaucer's Pilgrims in Canterbury Tales go from pub to pub about 6 miles apart. The hikers on the afore-mentioned trails go backpacking in more primitive conditions. The Camino is a religious pilgrimage in part supported by monasteries and churches along the way. Since the trail has some forty daily sections and sufficient pilgrims an entire industry has developed in supplying their needs and wants. Memorabilia being only a part of the business. Rather than stay in the dormitories provided Andrew stays at commercial inns. What kind of marks he leaves behind as he rests his elevated dogs against the walls....

Sam's is obviously not a religious pilgrimage. His language is X-Rated. The pair compare Andrew's druggy past and Sam's present encounters. Sam smokes. Modern day urban teens lack the kind of chores their country cousins had to get out of bed early to perform. Rather than lay abed until 10 AM it would make sense to me to get up early and walk in the cool of the day and take a siesta during the heat of the day as the locals do. Mad dogs and Englishmen stay out in the noon day sun. When I travelled by RV I often left before dawn to beat the heat, city traffic, and winds that often developed later in the day. Early to bed and early to rise. Bad habits are hard to break.

As the pair wind down their travels they meet more and more fellow pilgrims including one who taxis from rest stop to rest stop. Bikers seem to think the pathway is theirs and fail to ride nearby roads. Sam blunders into those roadways plugged into music and oblivious to danger.

The final days are marked by day hikers and tourists. Overworked attendants churlish and rude. The final arrival is anti-climatic most of the rites of passage no longer possible due to overuse. Attendance at the Cathedral is overbooked.

Sam is a bit of a klutz whose school experience was marked by learning difficulties. He is late to bed and slow to rise and has a nicotine habit. As much as I'd have liked to have heard about the pilgrimage from Sam's perspective his authoring them seems unlikely.

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Home to Big Stone Gap

Big Stone Gap #4

Home to Big Stone Gap

Adriana Trigiani

I bought the first book in this series probably after reading a review in the Saturday Star back in 2000 when it came out in mass market paperback. I was taken by the author's unique turn of phrase and read book 2 when it too arrived a year later and bought book 3 in 2002 but didn't read it until this year. I'd had a surfeit of the author's machinations.

It wasn't until ten years later that I discovered Romances about the same time I discovered e-books. And it wasn't until just now that I discovered this author is a major contributor to the genre having written series totalling over 30 books.

In audiobook format these books are an excellent cure for insomnia.

As the title suggests Ava and Jack have returned home to the Blue Ridge after witnessing their 18-yr-old daughter's marriage in Italy. Ava in particular is struck by the silence that ensues from being an empty nester. Her daughter had occupied a great deal of space in her life that is now void even though the worry continues.

Were these women in Trinity, NFLD the dunking chair for gossiping wives would have been in full use. We get recipes including ingredients and method for several repasts somewhat lost on the audiobook. We get a Christmas Reunion that includes her paramour and the story slowly grinds to a close. Ava runs a pharmacy.

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The Body in the Castle Well

Bruno, Chief of Police #12

The Body in the Castle Well

Martin Walker

Bruno's personalized approach to policing still holds here but he doesn't seem to be able to prevent his clients from killing one another. In this case a visiting doctoral student in French Art is the victim found in the well. While he sifts through the suspects Bruno continues to go for rides on Hector accompanied by his Basset Balzac and indulge in epicurean delights. Not sure I'm interested in trying Pate de Foie Gras and truffles nor do I favour caviar and given the price just as well. Cooking with duck fat?

The author has done a great deal of research. The political machinations of Vichy France, of which this region was a part, get quite an airing. And since the victim was researching art history we learn that the Nazis were not the first regime to engage in art thievery. Seems Napoleon was an art collector as well and he didn't buy it. It's one thing that old masters employed their students in finishing the mundane backgrounds of their famous works but there's an entire industry in art forgery. Authenticating the provenience of a work of art calls for experts in the field.

The victim here comes from money.

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The Overlook

Harry Bosch #13

The Overlook

Michael Connelly

When a nuclear medicine specialist is found murdered, execution style Harry is called in to investigate but it quickly becomes an ABC affair when cesium is found missing. Not one of his better cases.Titled after the lookout where the body is found.

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The Closers

Harry Bosch #11

The Closers

Michael Connelly

Harry is back on the job and working on cold cases with his old partner. Examining Cold Cases often reveals shoddy police work or officers who take the easy pathway.

This outing is a police procedural that reminds me of Dragnet without the crime solved in half an hour. Virtually nothing of a personal nature enters the story.

Unlike Harry's other cases this one doesn't emphasize psychological profiling and motivation but instead concentrates on the nitty gritty of record keeping and paperwork involved in police work. The kind of paperwork that sees offenders walking free before the arresting cop has finished the paperwork involved. In particular he talks about the murderbook that records chronology and all the minutia of the investigation. In this case after 17 years the box containing the physical evidence had been accidentally or deliberately lost.

There is the innuendo that Deputy Chief Irving is somehow implicated in covering up police corruption here. The case was conducted by the book but the actual perpetrator was never identified though possibly buried in all the details.

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Habitant Poems

Habitant Poems

William Henry Drummond

Author immigrated to Montreal with his parents and 3 younger brothers at age 11 and soon after became family head when his father died. Went back to school and became a doctor serving in the Eastern Townships and Cobalt Ontario where his brothers invested in Silver.

His use of French-Canadian patois is probably not politically correct in modern parlance, even misappropriation. Helps if you know French when you read these works and as with reading Welsh's Trainspotting makes more sense if you read it aloud phonetically.

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Milk Glass Moon

Big Stone Gap #3

Milk Glass Moon

Adriana Trigiani

Book 3 of the series.

Flower child faces raising a teenage daughter.

The author's unique outlook most evident in book 1. Of her co-worker she says he has a body that makes Levis sing, pity he's gay. What she says about gossips she doesn't like is even more colourful.

The pair spend a great deal of time in earnest conversation. Seeing the gal through her first infatuation with an 18-yr-old Italian hunk at age 13 is Ava's first major trial.

Attempting to plan and run another's life for them is fraught with disappointments, but they're the ones who have to live those lives and the consequences of their decisions.

The book ends with a wedding and Ava and Jack returning to the Holler. We can only hope there's an HEA.

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The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

David Grann

If you've read the Bounty Trilogy then you have an inkling of what's in store. The difference here is the shipwreck and its aftermath which smacks of Lord of the Flies.

The Wager was a member of a squadron of British Naval Ships that put out from Portsmouth for South America, rounded the Horn, and headed North along the coast of Chile.

The author provides a great deal of commentary on the British Navy in general including the press gangs that helped man the ships and life aboard a British Man of War in particular.

The tale is told from the perspective of Byron a young Midshipman, Officer In Training, aboard the ship. The passage around the Southern Tip of South America, Tierra Del Fuego, is perilous at any time but here was made at the worst possible time of year. The voyage was made before the dangers of Vitamin C deficiency were understood and an outbreak of Scurvy occurred at the peak of the storms that beset the squadron. The most simple preventative cure was the drinking of lime juice which served to label sailors as limeys, the use of tar to prevent rot on board labelled sailors Tars.

Marooned on an island in Southern Winter the thieves and murderers who made up the crew came back to haunt those in authority. Giving a starving man 600 lashes for stealing food sounds barbaric. The fate of John Byron's dog sounds equally cruel. Can cannibalism be far behind?

When this gets to the Admiralty and a Court Martial is launched the entire lurid affair is white-washed for the sake of the Admiralty, the Navy, and political expediency.

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Like You've Nothing Left to Prove

Breakaway #2

Like You've Nothing Left to Prove

E.L. Massey

Book 2 begins as the next chapter in book 1 on Christmas Eve in Eli's childhood bedroom.

It's a sad commentary on sport that fighting is a necessary hockey skill. Youngblood's father takes him out to the barn for lessons. It's no coincidence that Marty MacSorley was part of every Gretzky trade and it wasn't for his hockey skills.

As the book progresses the pair's commitment to each other deepens with the acceptance of Alex's team. Being a famous NHL team captain complicates life for them as does Eli's health. As the book ends we are introduced to a gay draft choice who comes with a multilingual fellow player. Their story comprises book 3.

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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Blade Runner

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick

So Windows still won't save a question mark. For the record, I've not seen the movie but this is an audio version. With little background must admit I was at sea, so to speak, here.

These days robots assemble cares and as I recently read provide elder care and drive cars. This tale is about a guy assigned to hunt down humanoid robots and kill them. Aside from being dated I found it a bit too high concept to carry me along.

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The Narrows

Harry Bosch #10

The Narrows

Michael Connelly

Harry is retired, sort of. He is drawn into the case of a former colleague who dies under mysterious circumstance. The FBI, the federal bureau of intimidation does not play well with other agencies. Apparent particularly in the wake of 9/11. The arrogance of its people is off-putting. Harry is drawn back to Las Vegas for this one.

Some sleuths come back from the dead, Harry is going back on the job. There are at least 16 more volumes in the series to come.

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Pneumadectomy

After Dinner Conversation Short Story Series

Pneumadectomy: After Dinner Conversation Short Story Series

Harris Coverley

The concept that one's spiritual being or soul is held in any single part of one's body is strange to me. Just as the heart is not the centre of love the soul imbues one's entire being. We've read about artists selling their souls to the devil and psychotics lacking one or at least a conscience but surgically removing the soul as this high concept short suggests doesn't seem possible.

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Down and Dirty Birding

Down and Dirty Birding: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous, Here's All the Outrageous but True Stuff You've Ever Wanted to Know About North American Birds

Joey Slinger

Too many so-called naturalists are consumers, not preservers. The ultimate insanity is the lister or so-called twitcher who will travel 1000's of miles to clap binos on a rare bird sighting, tick it off his/her list and head home again moments later.

Loss of habitat, pollution, and global warming are all causing a drop in bird numbers. Alas lake front users would love to see fewer Canada Geese. Monarch Butterflies for example face a double threat: loss of milkweed, the plant they use for their larva due to weed control and failure to preserve the forest in Mexico where the entire population overwinters. Barn owls are in decline due to the loss of old barns, barn board decor hasn't helped. Widespread efforts to decrease insect populations have led to a decrease in songbirds. The cutting of dead trees nearly wiped out Blue Birds.

Birding 101:

Your birdguides are in a carry bag at your side, your binos are attached to a comfortable strap around your neck. If you spot a bird you keep your eyes on it, grab your binos and insert them between you and the bird, focus.

There's a reason why stars twinkle. Anything distant enough to need a scope to see it will be viewed through heat waves, if you don't believe me, ask any sniper--if you dare.

Slinger's dope on birding is spot on though his language and style are like to offend you maiden auntie.

Talk mating habits. Feeding her to encourage copulation is an age-old tradition in the avian world. Insects take it a step further the female praying mantis removes his head and then eats the rest of him right down to the pubes. Female arachnids do the same hence the black widow. The seahorse broods the family in his belly.

Pigeons produce milk (?) though fed as vomitous it doesn't sound appealing.

I've been to though not necessarily birded at 4 of Slinger's Hot Spots. Camped at Point Pelee in Season. The shuttle leaves for the Point at 4:00 AM just as it does from the Campground in Grand Canyon to meet the sunrise so birders can see who has collapsed on the beach after crossing Lake Erie at night. That other famous site gives you views of soaring birds from above.

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Inheritance

The Inheritance Cycle #4

Inheritance

Christopher Paolini

Final book in the cycle that began with Eragon. The author's name isn't Hugo or Tolstoy. A book with 839 pages is a wrist sprainer packed with too much detail. The audiobook I just accessed is 31 hours. Where is Reader's Digest Condensed Books when you need them.

A story that began with a young man discovering a dragon's egg ends a few thousand pages later with an entire clutch of dragon eggs. Thirty-one hours of listening is more than a marathon. The book ends with an interview I mainly skipped in which this is again stated the final book in the series. This is fantasy so I'll declare that Pinocchio's nose has grown at least a foot as two more volumes have been added to the stack.

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Like Real People Do

Breakaway #1

Like Real People Do

E.L. Massey

Elite athletes live life in fishbowl and young athletes have to cope with immaturity, growing bodies, developing social skills and managing finances--multi-million dollar contracts are a mixed blessing.

The players:

Eli an elite figure skater who suffered a traumatic injury that has left him with epilepsy and Hawk, a German Shepherd support dog. He's an out and proud gay.

Cody, a hockey player and best friend from early childhood the two separated by college placement and team assignment. Closet gay. Together the pair run a cooking video website.

Alex Price a teenage hockey phenom loaded with talent, high expectations, and emotional baggage. A closet gay in a world where being outed comes with negative consequences.

Cooper an elite figure skater turned hockey player has become Price's team mate and friend, married in a stable non-gay relationship.

Eli is in Houston. The story is about support networks including therapists and relationships.

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Commanding Sia

NCIS #1

Commanding Sia

Zoe Dawson

A Senator's son is killed landing on an aircraft carrier, the situation calling for a quick and discrete investigation; not easy given a small city on board. A naval investigator and a JAG Lawyer are sent to solve the mystery. Both have personal histories involving the case and with one another. The sexual tension exceeds the legal here. The two appear headed to an encounter in the sack. Why their personal involvements didn't exclude them from participation in the case is the issue I'd ask. This appears to be the first in a series devoted to romance, not law.

The suspense here is not about solving the case but how long a virile hunk can resist getting it on with his irresistible partner. One could swear these were hormonal high-schoolers. Not what I expected when I read the trailer. The one thing about investigating on an aircraft carrier at sea, the suspects have no means of escape though there are several thousand of them and they're all killers.

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Lost Light

Harry Bosch #9

Lost Light

Michael Connelly

Harry has retired, sort of. He still listens to Jazz and his dead case files haunt him, His ruminations do not make policing look particularly good.

Investigating the murder of a show runner he is on set when gun fire breaks out for real. Someone let slip that $2 million were arriving on set and the bad guys arrived to pick it up. The sad sacks re-assigned to investigate bungle the case and get involved in another robbery that takes them out of the picture permanently and the case languishes. The plot thickens when an old protege arrives to tell Harry to lay off. Someone doesn't want him nosing around and knowing Harry that isn't going to cut it.

The suspicion here is that someone high up helped themselves to dirty money and it ended up being recycled.

The plot thickens as it always does with Harry and heads roll. As usual we get a few surprises.

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The Incident: a novella

The Incident: a novella

Michael Bronte

This novella demonstrates how easily being in the wrong part of town at the wrong hour can go terribly bad. A robbery victim can find him/herself the accused since the bad guys know how to work the system better than the average law-abiding citizen. Throw in a white guy and black assailants plus a black cop and you have a potent mix. It's like having a robber sue you because your dog bit him in your home but on an entirely other level.

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The Mailman

The Mailman

Michael Bronte

Begins with a letter carrier making his rounds in what feels like a very familiar scenario with the same issues all such face. The observations are so apt I'm curious as to whether the author was so employed for a time.

Scott Campbell, "Soup", is the mailman of the title and his rounds give him loads of time for introspection. Marisa, his girlfriend of five months has needs and is not shy about making them known, one suspects she supplied the rubber. Kaz, a cop, is his best friend whom he is trying to get inspect the goings on in a run-down house on his route occupied by "Mr. Dirty".

Part two of the book switches to a young female Hispanic Detective whose fellow parishioners hint at nefarious goings on in their neighbourhood which leads her to suspect human trafficking and sex slave operations, she just needs a lead and one suspects Scott will provide it. We hear about the operation from the Russian Mafia's end of it all.

Matters heat up when Soup, Marissa and Kaz stake out the house on Newell and make violent contact. I keep forgetting that Soup is a veteran of the Sandbox and takes martial arts classes with his girlfriend.

The story ends with an HEA. The text could use some editing.

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Commodore Hornblower

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #9

Commodore Hornblower

C.S. Forester

The book begins with Sir Horatio already married to Lady Barbara and the redoubtable Mr. Brown his manservant. His infant son has two Wellesleys as Godfathers-his wife their sister. Richard Arthur Horatio.

Hornblower sets off for the Baltic as Commodore of a fleet with Bush as Captain of his flag ship. His escapades continue and include a meeting with the Tsar of Russia. Feeding him weevily ship's biscuits sounds a mite extreme. He wanted to learn about life on a British Man of War.

Since French has been the language of court in many countries it's amusing that Russia, at war with France does so using French. Hornblower is tone deaf. His job is in part tedious diplomacy which sees him sitting through a ballet while the sound of heavy artillery vibrates outside.

History records what happened when Boney's half-million man army reached Moscow only to see it burn. Starving men and horses retreated in the teeth of a Russian Winter. In Riga the battle becomes a fifth column affair when 5000 Spanish forced recruits desert and are offered transport back home. In the affair Hornblower loses a well-beloved and highly capable young captain. It is a tribute to the author's ability that we feel that loss.

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Flying Colours

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #8

Flying Colours

C.S. Forester

spoilers follow

Brave and noble it was for an Admiral 20 miles distant to order a captain to engage 4 enemy while the ship that relayed the message sits idly by and watches. The destruction of his ship and the loss of his men unconscionable to me.

So we find Hornblower in enemy prison while his men rot away uncared for and ill-fed. Well the 4 enemy ships are out of commission.

Proving the wisdom of picking the crewman with the biggest biceps for his manservant when the carriage transporting him runs off the road at night in a snow storm Brown uses his 200 lbs to lay out their captor and the trio escape in a row boat on a river. He had to or there wouldn't have been volumes 9-11.

After 4 months restive repose comes a leisurely drift down the Loire to the Sea. There the trio purloin a captured English prize ship and put to sea with a dozen galley slaves as crew. As the story ends our Captain, his Lieutenant Bush and manservant Brown have an HEA.

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Ship of the Line

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #7

Ship of the Line

C.S. Forester

Takes some time to figure out who did what on shipboard and who was responsible for getting a ship ready for sea and who paid for it all. The ship and its armaments were supplied by the Navy who assigned the officer who would captain her. The Navy supplied his pay and that of his sailors, the vitualling yard their food stores, dunnage, shot and gunpowder, fresh water.

But it was the captain who was responsible for hiring the crew, preventing them from deserting, and keeping them sober when in port. As Hornblower is circling his newly assigned ship of the line, a recently captured prize ship not of English make, and assessing its handling qualities, he is faced with the issue that as a newly rated ship she came with no crew. His friend Bush from his days as Midshipman is his First Lieutenant and many of the other officers and ratings are in place having transferred from his last ship along with the marines without shore leave but a much larger ship is in need of 250 more men. Upon boarding he is presented with a group of 30 men offered the choice between hanging, transport, or goal and servitude aboard ship. The men he does have are faced with waiting for their pay. The ragged gang he just met will be clothed from ship's stores and billed upon their first pay.

As narrator of his own story Hornblower does not spare his own embarrassments admitting to being seasick on his first day in harbour aboard a flagship and thereafter his first days on shipboard on a regular basis. He is bemused to relate that his namesake, Lord Nelson was similarly discommoded, and that general knowledge demonstrating the fact that his own malady was impossible to hide.

A captain may suffer misgivings in private but must always exhibit utter confidence in public. Utterly tone deaf he was required to perform Sunday Worship followed by the reading of the 38 articles of war which list the causes for which death is the punishment.

Asked to render assistance to the Spaniards on land against the French Hornblower encounters the incompetence and unreliability he expected thanks to his incompetent Admiral.

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Awaken

Awaken
Humphrey Quinn, Rachel Humphrey-D'aigle

I can still remember at 13 wanting to outgrow the yardstick; and six
feet tall at 18 wanting to weigh more than 100 pounds. [I should weigh
under 200 today.] Thirteen-year-old fraternal twins Meghan gets her
growth spurt before her mortified shorter brother Colin. Worse being
defended against bullies by that sister.

Meghan is still waiting for other female physical  attributes but being
a creature of magic suddenly undergoes a severe pubescent fever.

No one has told the twins about their heritage of magic. They've always
been able to communicate mind to mind without speaking but twins have
always had such uncanny abilities. But as they mature these two begin to
manifest innate magic beyond their imagining.

As the book ends in defending their friend Jai they are sucked into
another world on another plane.

Fair to say the book is written for children and needs editing.


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Hornblower and His Majesty

Hornblower and His Majesty

C.S. Forester

This short story is spinoff of the Hornblower canon. Captaining the Royal Yacht may be an honour but it turns out to be a dubious honour. A thankless task but dire consequences should something go wrong. Has anyone ever heard of the name of the captain of Elizabeth's Royal Yacht Britannia? The Royal Yacht here is a vessel under sail lacking the diesel engines and navigation aids her antecedents enjoyed.

Spoilers Follow

This review threatens to be longer than the book itself. This is an amusing fragment that fails of any resolution.

If you've watched The Madness of King George then you're aware of the maladies of George III, the king who lost the colonies.

At the time medicine was crude by today's standards and mental illness not understood. George and his doctor are brought aboard the yacht to take the airs and its captain admonished to maintain quiet at all times.

When the yacht encounters dense fog a fog bell was critical quiet or no. The inept captain of the yacht's screening vessel gets separated from his charge and in the ensuing stew the yacht is beset by an American Privateer.

The king comes on deck in the middle of the havoc and cannon fire that ensues and finds it a delightful show.

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Ghost Towns of Ontario Volume 1

Ghost Towns of Ontario Volume 1

Ron Brown

Summary

A stream provides water power for a sawmill around which a town forms. The local forests are clear cut to provide fodder for the mill. The stream dries up for lack of a watershed. The town dies. Early communities depended on water transportation as early roads were virtually impassable and travel painfully slow. When new highways and later railroads by-passed towns they underwent rapid decline. The final coup de grace often was provided by flooding due to Spring runoff resulting from the lack of the moderating influence of the forests cut to feed those very mills.

Early settlers had a beat back the wilderness mentality that persists to this day but the wilderness no longer exists. The likes of Doug Ford would see the demand for housing justifying the destruction of farmland and greenspace to promote urban sprawl but who will feed that population and will those subdivisions be livable without the breathing space of remaining trees.

One of the frustrations of this and other volumes Brown has published is the terrible reproduction of the many images that lace the books.

Grist mills went under when a Wheat Blossom Midge outbreak had farmers switch to dairy production. Dairy herds lead to cheese production.

The Temperance Movement may have been the making of the Mafia in North America but it put many the hotel out of business and made continuing to hire a local constabulary unnecessary. Selling booze may have been illegal but producing it was not.

By their nature ghost towns document exercises in futility. When Mills lost their reason to operate and business moved to more advantageous locations once flourishing villages were left to rack and ruin. Little or nothing has been done to preserve settler heritage unless cottagers moved in to appropriate former structures. Weeds and farmer's fields replace former building lots and streets become rutted tracks. Lilacs, apple trees, and Forsythia typically mark former homesteads.

I've camped on the cold hard granite of the Canadian Shield. Settlers who were lured to Northern Ontario by the offer of free land found thin marshy, rocky soil that grew little including a new crop of trees after the initial tree cover was clear cut in part due to a short growing season.

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Hornblower and the Atropos

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #5

Hornblower and the Atropos

C.S. Forester

Hornblower is a rather unfortunate name connoting a braggart. Named for Horatio Nelson whose death is honoured in this outing a name the owner is not particularly pleased to bear and have a son so named by his adoring wife while he's at sea.

Proving that who you know is more important than what you know his friend, a retiring admiral uses his prerogative to appoint Hornblower a captain jumping the queue.

An officer of the line has little time for personal life and whatever the man's feelings about married life the potency of his seed and the timing of his brief visits home lead to a growing family presented by his adoring wife.

Granted that it's war that sees the navy employed and sees men die the "butcher's bill" seems taken for granted.

Pride, flattery, and politics hinder the success of Hornblower's endeavours and ultimately cause the loss of his ship. The near sinking of the barge carrying Nelson's remains whether or not historical is a rather light touch.

As others have noted sending a ship of the line on a salvage operation, even if it involves a significant fortune is a bit of a comedown. Doing it under the noses of the Turks just another challenge.

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Hornblower and the Hotspur

Hornblower Saga: Chronological Order #3

Hornblower and the Hotspur

C.S. Forester

Hornblower has married Maria, his former landlady's daughter. She may be smitten but he feels railroaded and since he's off to war he has two nights to consummate the marriage. In any case she's unlikely to see much of him.

In book one a friend dies fighting a duel on his behalf. Since a Midshipman even as young as 12 is a ship's officer commissions were bought so his father paid for it. This is book 3 of an 11-book series.

Napoleon declaring war on Great Britain saved Naval Officers from shore-bound half-pay or worse and sent Hornblower to sea on a small ship. Not all sailors are born with sea legs and this one became seasick in harbour on his first trip to a boat. As captain seasickness is an ignominious condition he'd rather hide though the pail outside his cabin reveals an unspoken acknowledgement of his condition.

Wise is the officer who defers to the superior knowledge of his older more experienced officers and seamen. A captain must appear to know what he is doing even when he doesn't know what he's doing.

The author uses the argot of the age of sail to full effect indicating no small knowledge of the language of sailing. There's an entire encyclopedic list of words describing every part of a sail for example including the fact that a sheet is a rope or line that controls the sail, not the sail itself, a halyard raises and lowers it. Somewhere this writer has a copy of the Annapolis textbook on seamanship.

The book begins and ends in Portsmouth where his wife has borne him a son and saddled him with the moniker, Horatio.

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The Hollow Boys

Fantasy by Douglas Smith. At 500 pages not a book I'll be reading overnight. All too often books this long are padded with long descriptive passages and meandering side plots.

So much fantasy writing is derivative of JRR Tolkien it is a breath of fresh air to encounter something entirely original. This author joins the ranks of fellow Canadian Guy Gavriel Kay and Neil Gaiman.

A name like Douglas Smith offered a few star athletes and at least two Canadian authors.

Interesting to encounter a book set in Toronto though not called that by name and settings like Lakeshore Psychiatric which is indeed closed. Since I studied abnormal Psych I understand agoraphobia and how debilitating it can be.

I've accepted too many freebies and alas this is among the first by this author I've gotten around to reading. After the initial sections I'll say I'm hooked. But for whatever reason I got bogged down as the book progressed. Will comes off as self-indulgent, spoiled, and immature.

Somehow I just couldn't maintain interest in this book and put it aside only just now plowing through the remaining pages.

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Leave Myself Behind

Leave Myself Behind

Bart Yates

Noah York is an artistic 17-yr-old loner. His single-parent mother Victoria is an eccentric poet. For the record I like Noah.

Newly arrived from Chicago it seems to the East Coast his neighbour JD introduces himself and becomes part of Noah's life.

I tend to share Noah's assessment of High School. At home the Centre Consolidated School was located next door to the former County Jail, the joke was two jails on one hill.

Gay bashing figures in the story along with mental illness. Not sure I enjoyed the road these elements lead us down.

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The World and All That It Holds

The World and All That It Holds

Aleksandar Hemon, Aleksandar Mikić (Narrator)

Ten hours in Audio format. The narrator's accent difficult for my ears and words in native Serb mean nothing. Not sure why the recitation of Ferdinand's titles over and over again was necessary. His assassination the catalyst for WW#1. How long it takes for the apothecary upon whom the story is centred to make it to war I'll find out.

After a brief stint, for the reader, in war the story takes us on a whirlwind tour of the earth. The book is a mix of travels, travails, and philosophy.

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City of Bones

Harry Bosch #8

City of Bones

Michael Connelly

Harry has another love interest. You don't serve plus 25 years on the force without making enemies within it. IAD certainly but superiors more interested in political expediency than justice don't help. And officers who leak information to the press don't help either.

Matters heat up when a retired doc out for a walk with his dog has it return with a human bone leading to the discovery of the skeleton of a 12-yr.-old much abused boy buried in a shallow grave for 20 years.

The story has the usual twists and turns. It all comes to a rather violent end.

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A Short History of Indians in Canada: Stories

A Short History of Indians in Canada: Stories

Thomas King

This set of stories is told in jest with a great deal of hyperbole. It is meant to be taken with a great deal of salt. Mind you there are some underlying truths here and a great deal of animus.

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The Cash Cache Mystery

The Cash Cache Mystery: A Case Twins Adventure

Dorian Rockwood

Identical seventeen-year-old twin brothers but one's an artist and the other a boxer. Paul the boxer is a south-paw, Dan is right-handed. Paul wears glasses, Dan doesn't. The cover photo shows a hunky pair.

The dynamic between the pair is interesting. How do you insult a person who is your mirror image. Paul is two minutes older.

In the version of the book I'm reading titled is used instead of tilted. The freebie version I'm reading frequently causes Kindle to freeze. For the record a bullet would have reached the brothers before the sound of the shot.

The plot here is rather contrived. It's the dynamic between the brothers that makes the story.

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A Taste for Vengeance

Bruno, Chief of Police #11

A Taste for Vengeance

Martin Walker, Robert Ian MacKenzie (Narrator)

Gruesome murders and a female soccer star's career impacted by pregnancy.

The involvement of the IRA adds an international element to the tale. Bruno gets honours and a promotion of sorts.

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The Long Call

Two Rivers #1

The Long Call

Ann Cleeves

Early on we learn the title refers to the call of a herring gull.

Matthew Venn is the Instspector in charge it would appear. There's an outgoing DCI named Oldham, a hyperactive jock named Ross described as pumping iron, and Jen who moved to Barnstaple from the city after being victim of spousal abuse. Matthew has a husband named Jonathan who runs at a charity called the Woodyard and the deceased appears to have been one of its clients.

The challenges of dealing with people with Down Syndrome as adults with the minds of small children is highlighted. The well meaning efforts of agencies to give them a sense of independence has the side-effect of making then wander off and get lost from their care-givers.

As is too often the case little is as it seems here and when the detectives start digging the scandals run deep.

Being the first in this new series many of the characters remain under developed.

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Need

Need

Robert Thomson

Granted that the gay experience encompasses a great deal of diversity. The present collection is 25 years old but seeing the rather masculine looking profile picture of the author complete with facial hair and reading that he's a cross dresser I'm a bit surprised. I've only read a few opening pages but they're filled with a great deal of personal information. And most of it is rather crude.

The book appears to be autobiographical. At 16 his first employment is in the food industry and he is not complimentary to his clientele or particularly enamoured of his fellow workers or employers. Underpaid and overworked, demeaning and condescending customers and employers.

Both he and his partners appear to be commitment shy. And it's HIV that has turned random gay sex into Russian Roulette.

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