Best Books of 2018

Although I only read 36 books last year, more than half were truly outstanding. Also, I reread some old favorites that were just as good now as in the past.

The top three best books of 2018 were:
1. The Winner by David Baldacci
2. Sleeping with the Enemy by Evelyn Anthony
3. A Wanted Man by Lee Child

Followed by, in no particular order:
4. A Chesapeake Shores Christmas by Sherryl Woods
5. Jack and Jill by James Patterson
6. Honeymoon by James Patterson
7.A Case of Need by Michael Crichton writing as Jeffery Hudson
8. White Death by Clive Cussler & Paul Kemprecos
9. Now and Forever by Jean Joachim
10. McNally's Caper by Lawrence Sanders
11. Divided in Death by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts)
12 The Sunbird by Wilbur Smith
13. Make Me by Lee Child
14.To Have and To Kill by Mary Jane Clark
15. Avenger by Frederick Forsyth
16. Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham
17.Manhunt by Janet Evanovich
18. The Third Option by Vince Flynn
19. Endless Game by Bryan Forbes
20. Secrets in Storyville by Patricia Gligor

Books from my past that I reread with great pleasure and were even better today:
1, Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
2. Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart
3.My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart
4. Decision at Delphi by Helen MacInnes
5. The Venetian Affair by Helen MacInnes


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Best Books of 2017

• Because of illness and my laptop crashing, I am late posting the books I enjoyed the most last year. I read more Agatha Christie novels than any other author. One reason is that my Kindle crashed and I read paperbacks from our apartment library and there were actually some of her books I had never read before.
• The following books are in the order I read them, not in the order of whether I liked them best:
• 1. Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective by Agatha Christie
• 2. The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly
• 3. The Cat Who Saw Stars by Lilian Jackson Braun
• 4.The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
• 5. The Mark of the Assassin by Daniel Silva--the first of his books that I've read and loved it!
• 6. Marnie Malone by Patricia Gligor--wonderful climactic scenes
• 7. Seldom Traveled by Marilyn Meredith--entertaining, intriguing and a great climax
• 8. Reread Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
• 9. The Beach House by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge

Tributes 2017

I always end each year with a list of authors who died. In 2017 three whom I admired very much left us: Colin Dexter, Robert James Waller, Sue Grafton.

I always looked forward to Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse and have read all the books except the last one in which the character died. Somehow I keep putting it off. 

Robert James Waller, the Author of The Bridges of Madison County, also died this year. I always admire an author who can capture the attention of a huge audience with a first novel. Perhaps that's every novelist's dream.

And last, just a few days ago, Sue Grafton died. Of the three, she inspired me the most. When she published her first novel in 1982, I was writing the draft of my first novel although it was not the first one I published. Grafton published an alphabet series that sadly ends with Y. One can only wonder how she was going to end the series. But her alter ego Kinsey Millhone will hopefully live on forever for readers who love a good mystery. I have not yet read W, X and Y. At least I can look forward to reading them.

The Life Span of a Cricket

The summer of 2001 I visited my mother at her home by Lake Texoma and she suggested that I stay there and use her home as a place to come to between my travels. Little did either of us know that I would stay for nine years! I did travel but not as much as I had planned.

Sometime in September of that year we heard a cricket chirping inside the house and although we looked everywhere, including in the basement and upstairs, we could never find it. And little by little, the chirps came less frequently.

One day after we heard one sad little chirp, I said, “I wonder what the life span of a cricket is. This one seems to be hanging on quite a long time for such a small insect.”

It didn’t occur to either of us to look it up in one of Mother’s reference books. The days went by and once in a while we would hear a chirp and wonder where it was.

Gradually we began to forget the cricket and life went on for us. One afternoon I went upstairs and as I started to enter my bedroom, I heard the cricket chirp loud and clear from the ceiling. I looked up and burst out laughing.

Mother yelled from downstairs and wanted to know what was so funny.

“I found the cricket,” I said.

“Where is it?” she asked.

“It’s on the ceiling but it’s not a cricket. However it is dying.”

“So, what is it?”

“The battery in the smoke alarm.”

(Just for reference, eventually I did google crickets and the life span of an adult cricket is three months.)

The Civilization (A Short Story)

The scientists were stunned. The planet was much older than they could ever have imagined. There was much discussion on whether to release the information to the public.

“Command Center will protest vehemently,” said one.

“But we mustn’t let them interfere,” said another. “They have prevented too much from being known.”

“For the time being, until we can figure out just what this discovery means, I think we should keep this to ourselves. When we can definitely pinpoint the origin of these things and what they mean, then we owe it to the people to inform them,” said a third scientist.

The argument progressed for a while but ended with a consensus that the discovery and meaning of the strange black objects should be kept secret among themselves until they figured out what they really meant.

The archaeologist who had discovered the objects in a dig on this remote spot of the planet was called in and informed of the decision. He immediately agreed not only with the decision but also to work with the other scientists to discover just what the significance of the black things were to an ancient civilization. Carbon dating had confirmed that the objects were over 500,000 years old. No one had ever imagined that human beings had lived so long ago, if, that is, human beings had indeed created such objects. Yet, what other kind of being could have done so?

The archaeologist, Pacquer Dymshi, went to his quarters in the scientific compound and studied the pictures he had taken of the objects, which were stored in a locked, climate-controlled, subterranean room. The bigger object had a square window and strange configurations below it. The window was dark and didn’t open onto anything. That an ancient civilization could have built something so sophisticated was mind-boggling. But the carbon tests had proved conclusive—they had tested over and over again. There were lines leading from the big object to the small one and a very strange tail-like appendage hanging loose from the big one. Pacquer thought he knew what the lines and tail meant but that, too, was incomprehensible. If human beings had lived on this planet 500,000 years ago, how had they had the sophistication to develop such an idea? Surely, any human from that period of time would have been more animal than human.

The other scientists soon summoned Pacquer to the subterranean room and a more extensive examination began, under the tightest security. Their secret must not be revealed too soon. There had to be a gradual public instruction regarding the discovery, preferably from the command center chief, who could persuade the less educated populace to believe him and only him, whenever a scientific discovery clashed with their beliefs.

The scientists had to tread very carefully in order to acquire and maintain the funding that they so desperately needed from command center.

Pacquer soon discovered that his theory regarding the tail and the connecting lines was correct and this led to even more astonishment at the breadth and width of the accomplishments of a people who should have been very primitive. Soon he and the other scientists were working the configurations and to their utter amazement the window soon revealed pictures of a civilization beyond belief. In fact there seemed to be a mixture of civilizations with people and even strange looking animals of all ages and both genders dressed in strange varieties of clothing. The hardest thing, and perhaps the most important, was deciphering the language of these ancient peoples. They finally settled on words that were repeated over and over, which seemed to be the main focus of the beings in the black object.

Months went by as the deciphering continued. Pacquer and the others would sometimes leave the compound and stroll around the remote area. It was an area that had been chosen, not only because of the discovery of the black objects there, but also because it was far from the other inhabitants of the planet and command center. Pacquer looked out on the desert mountains and thought of the pictures of the people and creatures in the window of the big black object. These people appeared many times in front of a strange-looking edifice but there were other pictures where they seemed to be inside of it. Pacquer wondered how the black objects came to be buried here in such a remote spot or had the terrain been completely different back then? Could this have been one of those exotic locales that had been destroyed by natural elements such as earthquakes or of the shifting of the planet’s axis or had early man participated in his own demise and that of his surroundings?

He was soon back to work and the deciphering of the words continued. The one phrase that was used over and over seemed to Pacquer and the other scientists as the key to deciphering the language of these strange people. However, it was that often-used phrase that confounded Pacquer the most. Finally, he thought he had it figured out but it appeared meaningless to him. Why had these people and creatures insisted on such insignificant words over and over again:

“Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?”

Best Books of 2016

In going over my list of the 44 books (my goal was at least 50) that I read last year, I discovered that there were 17 that I had given A+ or A++. They were the ones that gave me the most reading pleasure—the “I can’t put it down” award:

The A++ Books:

The Cain File by Max Tomlinson. I can’t say enough about his books—he blows my mind with each book he writes.

These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer. This shows how varied my reading tastes are. No two writers could be more different than Tomlinson and Heyer.

Guilt Trip by Ben Rehder. His Texas novels reflect a murderous humor similar to that of Carl Hiaasen’s Florida novels.

The A+ Books:

Indiscretion by Polly Iyer. I met Polly in a Suspense/Thriller Promotion group and was intrigued by the description of this book.

Buried for Pleasure by Edmund Crispin

Clammed Up by Barbara Ross, a superb cozy mystery

The Shadow Priest by D.C. Alexander

The Third Knife by Pamela Boles Eglinski

Unpredictable Love by Jean Joachim, a terrific romance novel

Rock with Wings by Anne Hillerman, Tony’s daughter continues his characters in a different but brilliant direction

Too Late to Die by Bill Crider, a new-to-me author whose books I will continue reading

Powder Burn by Carl Hiaasen and Bill Montalbano. Hiaasen never disappoints

The Pearl, The Red Pony and Other Stories by John Steinbeck, I have avoided Steinbeck since my high school days due to a teacher I didn’t like but a friend gave me a book with his stories and now I’m sorry I avoided him for so long

Lethal Dispatch by Max Tomlinson

The After House by Mary Roberts Rinehart, an American mystery writer who came before Agatha Christie

The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman, although I’ve read her husband’s books, I had never read hers. Now I will.

The Vanished Man by Jeffery Deaver, I haven’t read many of his Lincoln Rhyme mysteries but look forward to reading more.

Tributes 2016

2016 was a heartbreaking year considering how many celebrities died, people who gave so much of themselves by entertaining us. But my year ending blog always deals with the authors whom I’ve read and died. And this year only two authors fit that requirement: Harper Lee and Pat Conroy.

There isn’t anything I can add to all the accolades for one of the greatest American novels, To Kill a Mockingbird. It is a classic and will endure forever. It has been a long time since I read the novel and it’s the movie I remember best. I was thrilled when Gregory Peck won the Academy Award for his performance.

I only read one novel by Pat Conroy, The Great Santini. And like Mockingbird, it’s the movie I remember more than the novel and the performance by Robert Duvall. But unlike Ms. Lee, Mr. Conroy left behind a substantial body of work.

The deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds touched me immensely. I never read Ms. Fisher’s books and I don’t know if Ms. Reynolds wrote any or not. The reason I mention them is that Debbie Reynolds, my idol when I was a teenager, was the inspiration for a character in three of my own books. In my Tiger Sister trilogy, she was the oldest of six sisters and a rambunctious mischief maker who terrorized her younger sisters. But Debbie Tiger got her come-uppance with a surprise ending in one of the stories and would never have existed in my mind or my books if Debbie Reynolds had never existed.