The Black Tower by Louis Bayard

The story of the lost king of France, Louis- Charles, who was supposedly executed after his mother, Marie Antoinette. Vidocq, an ex-convict who has transformed himself into a detective ( the world's first?) sets out to find the real Charles, aided by Hector Charpentier, son of the medical doctor who attended the prisoner Louis- Charles, and who may well have spirited him out of the Black Tower, where he was imprisoned.  A literary historical fiction thriller, well-written, and not at all predictable.  So many mysteries have only one trail, but this one has many interesting twists and turns, and also paints a vivid picture of life during the Restoration, the period following Napoleon's death.

Tea Time For The Traditionally Built, by Alexander McCall Smith

It's hard to believe this is the 11th No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency book!  And no less charming than the first one-

I've also been following the series on HBO Canada.

 This time, Precious reluctantly loses  her beloved little white van, Grace Makutsi has a rival for her fiance's affection in Violet, a former classmate at the Secretarial School, Fanwell, one of JLB Maketoni's apprentices, becomes more familiar to us, and Precious and Grace solve the mystery of why the soccer team is always losing!

At the end, Precious is determined to find her little white van and get it going again, so we'll look for #12!

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

Vassanji says it best in his Introduction to this novel, the first in the Deptford Trilogy:

"On a winter's day in Deptford, a village of 500 in Southern Ontario, Percy Boyd Staunton, a boy of about 11, throws a barrage of snowballs out of spite at his friend and rival Dunstan Ramsay, who is on his way home for dinner following an afternoon of sledding.  The last snowball contains hidden in it a stone.  Dunstan ducks the ball and it hits the young bride Mrs. Dempster, out on a walk with her husband, the Baptist minister.  The pregnant Mrs Dempster gives birth prematurely; the baby, Paul, barely survives; and the woman becomes "simple"  Dunstan Ramsay is wracked with guilt.

"The throw of a stone, literally and metaphorically, sets the novel in motion; a trilogy is born....It determines the life trajectories os two of the Deptford boys, Dunstan Ramsay and Paul Dempster, and it will return to demand a reckoning from the third, the privileged "Boy" Staunton"

Mrs. Dempster becomes a saint to Dunstan: he believes she raised his brother from the dead, he sees her face before him when he is injured in the war, and she saves the tramp in the pit from a life of crime.  She is only ten years older, and Dunstan ends up caring for her for the rest of his life.  Throughout his life - Dunstan writes this as a memoir to his headmaster at UCC- Dunstan meets many interesting characters: Blazon, the priest, Leisl, who is a form of the devil, Leola, Boy's first wife, Diana, the nurse who saves his life in England, but the two other boys, Boy and Paul, and Mrs. Dempster are the unifying characters.

I've been intending to read this trilogy, and after dipping unsuccessfully into about four different books, I settled on this one and became immersed in it immediately. Once more, it is well-written, beautifully crafted, the characters are interesting and varied, there are humorous parts, like the welcome-home parade in Deptford, and the opening of the novel is oustanding.

Now, I move along to the second in the trilogy!

OLIVE KITTERIDGE by Elizabeth Strout

Winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for Literature, this is a novel in 13 stories.  The central character, who appears in all of the stories in various ways, is Olive herself, larger than life, matter-of-fact, striding through each and every story, a former Grade Seven Math teacher, she knows most everyone in the town of Crosby, Maine, and we get to know some of them,too.  It's like walking through a town, wondering what goes on behind closed doors, but here you get to enter these various lives.  It's a story of ordinary people living extraordinary circumstances: alcoholism, death, drugs, loss, betrayal, told with such a wide range of emotion and excellence.  You don't forget Olive easily, and you see yourself in her,too.

Wikipedia has extensive articles on Olive, and I saved a Globe and Mail Interview.  Check Oprah and Book Browse.

I'll recommend this for next year's reading list for Book Club.

THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE by Alan Bradley

Eleven-year old Flavia de Luce is an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, living in a decaying family mansion with her father, her two sisters, Feelie and Daphne, the gardener, Dogger, and Mrs. Mullet, their cook. A series of events : a dead bird on the doorstep with a postage stamp pinned to its beak, a mysterious visitor who is found dead in the garden,to name just two, keep Flavia busy as she tries to clear her father's name of murder.  This was a very quick read, and fun to read - lots of capital letters and dialogue to keep the eye moving along the page.  Apparently there will be more adventures for Flavia: she's a little like Nancy Drew!

I bought this at BMV, around the corner from Karen's apartment.I believe Bradley is Canadian, although this is set inEngland.

COVENTRY by Helen Humphreys

Harriet Marsh is a fire-watcher, standing on the roof of Coventry Cathedral on November 14, 1940. Twenty-two years earlier, she had said farewell to Owen, her husband of two days, who left to fight in WWI and was killed.  This book- only 175 pages long - tells the story of the bombing blitz that hit Coventry that night and nearly destroyed the whole city. Along with Harriet on that roof is a young fire-watcher named Jeremy, who lives with his mother, Maeve, a painter, and the book tells the story of how these three people endured that night, and how their lives were intertwined by love, loss and remembrance.

The book is beautifully written, and every sentence has meaning.  At one point, Harriet is taking refuge in a field ,is reminded of a Russian story in which a horse suddenly appears, when she sees a donkey before her: "The good thing about books is that they remain themselves. What happens in their pages stays there. Harriet does not like the idea of the story bleeding through into real life. She trusts a story and doesn't trust real life.  But what makes her trust a story is the knowledge that it will stay where it is. that she can visit it but that there is no chance it will visit her."

La's Orchestra Saves The World - Alexander McCall Smith

I picked this up at the library and read the whole thing in a matter of hours. The story is set in WWII England, where La, a young widow, moves to Suffolk to start her life again, and with the help of an airman from a base nearby, starts a little orchestra.  She also meets a Pole who moves in and out of her life for many years.  The novel is about the healing power of music, the strength of people in times of war, the warmth and character of people who live in small communities.

I don't know how McCall Smith manages to turn out so many short novels, but they're all so charmingly written, but are completely natural.  There's no artifice about them, but they're beautifully crafted to reach the reader.

I'd ike to read them all!