In the Belly of the Bloodhound: Being an Account of a Particularly Peculiar Adventure in the Life of Jacky Faber
Jacky escapes from the Battle of Trafalgar, and as she is wanted by the British, she heads back to Boston to hide in the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls until things cool down. She finds that her friend Amy does not hate her, that Jaimy still loves her and all seems to settle down until the girls are taken on a school excursion to an island, but end up being kidnapped to be sold as slaves to African sheiks. I would say I learned less about history from this one, but it was a great psychological book on how this diverse group of girls that are used to having servants come together under Jacky's leadership to survive the voyage in the slave ship Bloodhound. They learn to work together and come up with some ingenious ways to keep their minds busy, spirits up, make their life on the ship tolerable, and even hatch escape plans. Many of them are made to reflect on what they think of slavery and the role of women in the early 19th century society. As Jacky thinks to herself at the end - those girls will go home much changed.
Four down, eight to go.
These books keep me awake on the road and though the number of bodies at the end is horrendous, I still enjoy them. This time, Will Robie's and Jessica Reel's boss Blueman goes missing while on vacation in Colorado, so they go to investigate and find gun toting Coloradans with numerous cult like groups hiding away in the desolate plains of eastern Colorado.
As usual, we have an interesting cast of characters - Sheriff Malloy, who has come out from New York to be near her sister Holly who has fallen in with the wrong crowd. Then there is deputy Bender, who's mother Clare used to go out with Blueman and now runs a legal medical marijuana business. His sister Patty is one of the gun toting ones. Then there are the various cults - the skinheads, run by a guy named Dolf, another group run by King, and some other group that we don't really see. We also have a rich guy Lambert, who has catered to the rich survivalists and built luxury doomsday apartments in a decommissioned missile silo. Robie and Reel come into this chaotic world and try to make sense of it, getting almost killed at least a dozen times, but leaving a lot of dead bodies in their wake. They also seemed to have a thing going between the at the end of the last book, but that seems to have fallen apart. They do seem made for each other.
I don't think I have ever just bought a book for political reasons, but when I heard John Oliver advertise this, I just had to go and order it. Of course it was sold out, so it took a while to get it. Cute and funny, VP Mike Pence's bunny falls in love with another male bunny and goes hopping off together with him. Wonderful. There is even a Wikipedia article out there explaining that this is a parody of a book written by Pence's daughter and wife - A Day in the Life of the Vice President.
Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber
I can't get enough of those books so wonderfully read by Katherine Kellgren. I just don't have time to describe them all.
From Amazon: "After leaving the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston—under dire circumstances, of course—Jacky Faber boards a whaling ship bound for London, where she hopes to find her beloved Jaimy. But things don’t go as planned, and soon Jacky is off on a wild misadventure at sea."
Jacky is again her spunky self and ends up running a ship or two - and gets promoted to lieutenant (pronounced "leftenant" in the book). I liked that she got back to London and reconnected with some of her old mates from the streets and puts her gains to good use by setting up an orphanage. I think that I learned more about the actual running of a ship from this one - especially how they were used in war, how they had do prepare the canons. We've all seen pictures or movies of smoking canons on ships, but it is a lot of hard coordinated work, and then the possibility of major destruction and sinking of another ship - or your own. At the end of the book Jacky ends up in the Battle of Trafalgar, a real naval battle between the British and a combination of French and Spanish on October 21, 1805. And though this young girl is courageous and strong and talented, all the destruction does affect her, and she does have nightmares throughout these books.
There are certain series of books I never tire of or feel I need a rest from a character or story line. Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache mysteries in supposedly peaceful Three Pines is one of those that grabs my interest, but at the same time I just love hanging out with all the townsfolk and Gamache's team - well there is one I highly dislike, but I can put up with him.
We have another murder. For a quiet town, there sure are a lot of murders. This body lands on the floor of the beloved bistro owner, Olivier. We have a new couple that has moved into the cursed house on the hill with mother-in-law. We get a bit of a side story about them and the wife getting horses up there. We find that the murdered man was living in a cottage behind the cursed house deep in the woods. Turns out he was East European (I no longer have the book, so can't easily check back on the exact country) and that community is questioned. Olivier's past is covered. I always wondered how he could afford to offer such amazing food in a small town. Then there are all these clues around the name Charlotte. One leads Gamache to go visit a first nations village in Western Canada and follow the work of an artist that was influenced by the native art. And of course there is Ruth, the crude poet and her duck, Clara and Peter, as Peter starts envying the success of his wife - I liked how that one turned out.
I agree with other comments on Amazon about this book, that it is darker than the others, but at the same time there is still a lot of kindness behind it. I keep running into that word - kindness. Something we need much more of in these times.
Some Stories,
I like Tom Hanks and was delighted to find that he was reading his own book in the audio version. I took me a while, but I started realizing there was an old typewriter in many of the stories so I was assuming Hanks has a thing for old typewriters and then I looked at the title of the book - Uncommon Type - and said "Oh" to myself. I no longer have the book, so guessing at some of the typewriter mentions.
Three Exhausting Weeks - we get introduced to some characters that appear in a couple other stories. Two good friends since high school try dating each other. Not sure where the typewriter came in, maybe as this was sorta being typed up by the narrator.
Christmas Eve 1953 - touching story of a man coming home to his family for Christmas eve and getting an annual phone call from a war buddy.
A Junket in the City of Light - A young actor has a hectic press tour as he plays the love interest of a famous star. He'd get a typed (crazy) itinerary every day.
Our Town Today with Hank Fiset - An Elephant in the Pressroom - The elephant in the room is a huge bolted typewriter used by a classical reporter that even lifted up, so he could continue editing on the desk underneath.
Welcome to Mars - this was a disfunctional father - son story, where the son agrees to go surfing with his dad for his 19th birthday, but it all goes wrong.
A Month on Greene Street - a single woman and her kids move to Greene Street. She is weary of the single male neighbor, who makes his own telescopes and show the neighborhood kids wonders in the sky. He also has things like old typewriters in his garage.
Alan Bean Plus Four - our original cast from the first story figure out a way to orbit the moon - each has his specialty.
Our Town Today with Hank Fiset - At Loose in the Big Apple
Who's Who?
A Special Weekend
These Are the Meditations of My Heart - this was the one story that was completely focused on an old typewriter. A woman buys an old typewriter for $5 but it needs some repair and finds a repair shop that really understands the beauty of manual typewriters, so that she can eventually start writing her "meditations of her heart."
Our Town Today with Hank Fiset - Back From Back in Time
The Past Is Important to Us
Go See Costas - an immigrant story where a Bulgarian gets a job on a ship to cross to America and how he starts making his way. In this story the wife of one of the people that helps our our immigrant is learning to type from a record, so that sound in the background adds an interesting texture to the story.
Our Town Today with Hank Fiset - Your Evangelista Esperanza - a woman sits in a cafe of today with a small portable manual typewriter and types things up for people when they want something that is one of a kind.
Steve Wong is Perfect - we return to the characters from the first story. The narrator, Anna, M-Dash and Steve Wong, who turns out to be a great bowler. I think the only typewriter appears when the narrator helps him find his special bowling ball behind an old typewriter in a closet.
Stay With Us - this is written like a movie script with fade ins and outs. FXR is a rich guy who wants to buy up and develop some forsaken part of the country. He is charmed by the old couple running the Olympia motel that asks us to "Stay with us." I think the only typing in this story is the clicking of the assistant's phone as she texts.
