The Twyford Code

Hallett, Janice. The Twyford Code. New York: Atria 2023. Print.

First Sentences:

Dear Professor Mansfield,

I am investigating a mysterious case and suspect you may be able to help. Let me explain.

An iPhone 4 is among a number of items belonging to a recently reported missing person. It is not associated with any phone carrier and at first appeared to be blank, with no call records, music, emails, texts, or photographs. Upon closer examination it was found to contain a series of deleted audio files: voice recordings in various encrypted formats, with dates that span eleven weeks in 2019. We recovered these files and deciphered them.

Description:

Ever had a fabulous meal at an exclusive restaurant, where the food was so delicious that for the next few days all other food seemed blah and uninviting? All you can think about is the layers of flavors in that restaurant meal, the carefully-orchestrated delivery of each course, and the overall atmosphere that subtly reinforced the pleasure of the dining experience.

For me, reading Janice Hallett's The Twyford Code, was such an memorable meal, one that spoiled me into dissatisfaction with all other books I tried to read over the next week. None of these books offered the complexity of characters, the hidden flavors of plot and exposition, and the aromatic pull that The Twyford Code had offered and still lingered in my mind. They probably were worthwhile books, but in comparison they just fell short. Fast food, not fine dining. Unsatisfying.

I'm not going to give you much about this book; you'll have to experience it yourself. Like trying to describe a mouth-watering dinner. People will just need to taste it for themselves.

But a brief description is necessary. The book focuses one man's search for a children's book written by Edith Twyford that might contain a secret code in its text. His search is documented solely through transcripts created from restored audio files found on an otherwise blank phone.

 

The creator of these audio files turns out to be Stephen Smith, a small-time gangster, newly out of prison after serving an 11-year sentence. Smith's recordings (shown in transcripts only) reveal that besides looking for the Twyford book, Smith is also trying to discover what happened to his teacher who first hinted there might be a code before mysteriously disappearing while leading a school field trip. He hopes the book and/or teacher will help him decipher any code and maybe lead him to a rumored treasure. 

 

His short, confusing transcripts document his searches, and also reveal tidbits about his early family life and criminal activities. Smith recorded his conversations with various people who might know something about Twyford, or narrated memos in secret to preserve his research. These text files are enticing, tangled, revealing, incomplete, and sometimes undecipherable.  But information is sketchy, contradictory, and seemingly dangerous as they evolve to include spies, stolen British gold, and betrayals.

There's truth in everything here, even if some bits are not strictly to the letter. But what's important now is all made up, constructed to hide secrets, and reveal them only to the person they're meant for.  

A great meal ends with the perfect dessert, and author Hallett saves the best for last. The final chapters are the finest I have ever read.

I admit it's a confusing narrative format, making readers try to decipher the brief transcripts that jump between Smith's current search, his boyhood recollections, his family life, and early criminal episodes. Keeping people straight about who is talking in the recorded transcripts can require going back to familiarize yourself with who is actually talking. 

 

But readers will discover the effort to piece together information and characters mentioned in the transcripts is definitely worth their efforts. And when you reach the final page, all you will want to do is begin the entire novel again to now recognize the subtle clues and twists inserted throughout.

It gets my highest recommendation for all lovers of a great mystery and amateur code-breakers. It's a meal you won't soon forget, trust me.

Some things, when you finally hear them confirmed, it's like a veil drops away from a statue. The size and shape are familiar, they've always been there, it's just the detail in the caving is obscured. All that stands before you is evidence of what you knew all along.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Brown, Dan. The DaVinci Code.   

Probably by now everyone has read or at least heard of this book describing the convoluted trail and clues involved in code-breaking. Still, it's a great read full of excitement, intrigue, intelligent people, and puzzles.

 

Special Post - Two Eternal Life books

North, Claire. The First 15 Lives of Harry August. New York: Knopf 2021. Print.

First Sentences:

The second cataclysm began in my eleventh life, in 1996. I was dying my usual death, slipping away in a warm morphine haze, when she interrupted my like an ice cube down my spine. She was seven. I was seventy-eight.

_______________

Barry, Max. The 22 Murders of Madison May. New York: Putnam 2021. Print.

First Sentences:

She pulled to the curb and peered through her car window at the house she had to sell.The mailbox was lying across the lawn in pieces, as if someone had taken a baseball bat to it....The house was a dump. The mailbox had been one of the best things about it. 

Descriptions:

These two books of realistic Science Fiction/Fantasy, are dizzingly challenging due to their similar, unusual premise: "What if you could live forever, but there were certain catches?" To be sure, these turn out to be awkward catches, both mental and physical, that might hinder what could be anticipated by many people to be a dream existence.

In Claire North's The First 15 Lives of Harry August, the protagonist, Harry August, can live a normal life of being born, going to school, suffering illnesses, experiencing adulthood, and even dying of natural or unnatural causes. The catch? After dying, he is immediately reborn to the exact same life as he just lived: on the same exact date, under the same circumstances, to the same parents in the same location. He then has to live the same life (which he can modify by making different decisions), through old age or die earlier by other means.

Then he will start his life all over again...and again... and again.

The double catch for August is that he retains every memory from all his previous lives, all intelligence, skills, and knowledge. Football score memories and carefully-placed horse-racing bets help finance his lives. 

He has to knowingly live each life through toddlerhood, elementary schooling, and the other dubious events of childhood over and over. But by age six, he usually understands his fate and attempts to re-shape his newest life, pursuing different professions and education, obtaining different friends, and making better -- or at least different -- choices.

Unfortunately, he also has come to realize there are several other people like him with this "gift." These people use their unique lives to try to create a better world ... or to rule it. As August comes in contact with these people, for better or worse, his many lives take on challenging, often life-threatening directions. 

It's a fascinating concept: eternal life with catches and evil attached. But author North weaves a believable, fantastic, unpredictable tale of addressing the question of what to do if you knew you would continually be reborn and face the same people, events, and environment over and over. 

On the other hand, one of my favorite authors, Max Barry (Machine Man) has created a similarly-theme novel of extendable life in his The 22 Murders of Madison May. In the opening scene, a real estate agent named Madison May is murdered by a potential buyer of a run-down house she is trying to sell. A reporter, Felicity Staple, covering the crime, is accidently pulled by an unfamiliar person into a parallel world that seemingly mirrors the same environment as she currently lives in...but is slightly altered. For example, while she remains the same person, her apartment is now redecorated and occupied by a different male (boyfriend? husband?. Of course, she has to react to this new situation and adapt to this almost familiar world and its people.

 

Then she discovers another murder of a woman named Madison May. Felicity now understands that not only can she can jump into parallel worlds, but in each one there are seemingly random killings of women of a certain name occur. She resolves to find and then pursue the murderer to whichever world he jumps to and hopefully stop his killings.

But she must jump to another world at exactly the right time. If she misses the small timeframe to move to another world, Felicity risks being trapped forever in a life different from her original one. 

 

Confused yet? Wouldn't blame you if you were. But my descriptions do neither book real justice. Your immersion into the actual writing, characters, and plot of these books will reward you with a unique experience, guaranteed. You can't go wrong with either if you want challenging concepts, unusual situations, and unpredictable action.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Berry, Max. Machine Man.   

An engineer in the near future has his leg crushed in an industrial accident, so  designs a prosthetic leg for himself that is far superior to his original one of flesh. Of course, he soon decides to destroy and replace his other "inefficient" leg (as well as eventually other body parts) to gradually build himself into a superior man/machine. But what are the consequences for himself and his world?  (previously reviewed here)

And Again

Chiarella, Jessica. And Again. New York: Touchstone. 2016. Print

First Sentences:

Maybe it's like being born. I don't know. It's impossible to compare it to something I cannot remember. When I finally come back to myself, it takes me a moment to realize I haven't died.


Description:

 

Four adults, Hannah, David, Connie, and Linda, are given a chance of living illness-free lives in Jessica Chiarella's debut novel, And Again. Through an experimental medical DNA procedure, each of these people has been transplanted into genetic duplicates of their original bodies, bodies which now are without the deadly diseases, paralysis, or tumors found in their previous bodies. All their memories have been preserved into these new clones, allowing these first human guinea pigs to resume their previous lives in unblemished, healthy bodies. 

 

If they can.

I would be either cured, or I'd be dead. Both options were preferable to remaining as I was.

In the first weeks and months following the procedure, each finds his or her new substitute body perfect, youthful, and marvelously alive ...but with several unexpected quirks. Because their bodies have lost some muscle memory, Hannah the artist, no longer can paint. Linda, who spent the last eight years in a hospital completely paralyzed and isolated following an automobile accident, now must re-join her husband and children who are definitely uncomfortable being around her. David, the politician, still has his same unsavory interpersonal habits, while Connie, the actress, stricken with AIDS scarring and looming death, now tries to recapture her Hollywood charisma.

It's been my experience that life has a way of ripping the rug out from under you just as you're finding your footing.

The four meet weekly with a therapist as part of the transplant program to discuss what they feel, how they are adapting to their new bodies, and what challenges they are facing. Together and separately, the patient address unexpected situations, thoughts, and emotions which might scuttle this experiential program and threaten potential funding needed to expand its availability to the general population.

 

And besides experiencing the world through new eyes and substitute bodies, their relationships with each of the test group and their old friends also changes, grows, lingers, and is seemingly forever modified for better or worse.

It's a challenging concept, one that subtly asks readers how they might deal with receiving a new, perfect, younger version of themselves. Given a second chance, what would you do? How would you change? Whom would your continue to be close to and whom might you move away from? 

 

This new world and body, they find, are not all good nor all bad. Faced with difficult choices throughout the book, these characters whom readers grow so close to, struggle and move onward in their new lives. Maybe not as we readers might have done, but the test group's choices and decisions seem genuine and all too human. A great, interesting read from a new author I plan to read more from.

And I wonder if someone can be homesick for herself, for the person she was just months ago.   

Happy reading.



Fred

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Watson, S.J. Before I Go to Sleep.   

A woman awakens one morning with no memory of who she is, who the man is in bed next to her, nor any details of her life over the part 30 years. She finds she can remember things which occur throughout the day, but then those memories are erased each night. As the days pass, she begins to suspect people around her are not who they say they are and might be taking advantage of her.  (previously reviewed here)

 

Sometimes I Lie

Feeney, Alice. Sometimes I Lie. New York: Flatiron 2018. Print

First Sentences:

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:

1. I am in a coma.
2. My husband doesn't love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.

Description

Here is a complicated story told by a woman just waking from a coma. She can hear everything within earshot in her hospital room, but remembers nothing of how she arrived in this condition other than a vague recollection of being in a car accident. Her other memories are clear right up to that incident. Oh, and she is completely paralyzed, so cannot speak, move, or respond to anyone who comes near her.

Alice Feeny's Sometimes I Lie is a ripping good set-up with a wonderfully untrustworthy narrator (note the book's title) who is trying to unravel a very twisty plot. Her husband, Paul, and sister, Claire, spend time in her hospital room. Although Amber is completely unresponsive, the visitors are all kind, talking to her without expecting a response. Yet somehow, as Amber listens to their words, she realizes each is part of the puzzle she is struggling to remember surrounding her accident. 

My husband and my sister sit on either side of the bed -- my broken body forms the border between them. The stretch-out time the three of us endure is coated in the silence of unspoken words. I can feel walls of them, each letter, each syllable piling up on top of one another to form an unstable house of unanswered questions. Lies form the mortar, holding the walls together.

The narrative switches frequently from Amber's musings about her current situation, to her earlier memories of her husband, to quotations from a diary kept years ago. Each chapter reveals new information about Amber and her former life, as well as about the people around her, but only grudgingly provides any solid clues as to what exactly happened, who is responsible, and what her future holds. And believe me, there are some completely unexpected turns of events that will change your entire perspective on everything about these people and their world.

I won't reveal any more of the novel, but suffice to say that if, by this time, you are intrigued, I urge you to follow your curiosity and settle into a comfy chair to read this delicious story. Absolutely absorbing, challenging, and unpredictable on so many levels. Very highly recommended.

I think about time a lot since I lost it. The hours here stick together and it's hard to pull them apart. People talk about time passing but here, in this room, time doesn't pass at all. It crawls and lingers and smears the walls of your mind with muck-stained memories, so you can't see what's in front of behind you. It eats away at those who get washed up on its shores and I need to swim away now, I need to catch up with myself downstream.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Bauby, Jean Dominique. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life and Death.   

True memoir by the author who was completely paralyzed by a stroke and experienced the locked-in lifestyle where his brain and senses are completely intact, but he can only move one eyelid. Through a special Yes/No code for each letter of the alphabet, Bauby painstakingly dictates this beautifully-written memoir. Unforgettable.

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

Sullivan, Matthew. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. New York: Schribner 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

Lydia heard the distant flap of paper wings as the first book fell from its shelf.

She glanced up from the register, head tilted, and imagined that a sparrow had flown through an open window again and was circling the store's airy upper floors, trying to find its way out. A few second later another book fell. This time it thudded more than flapped, and she was sure it wasn't a bird. 

 

Description:

Maybe the initial set-up for Matthew Sullivan's Midnight at The Bright Ideas Bookstore
is a little familiar. Lydia Smith, a young, shy woman, works in a bookstore where she encounters eccentric regulars and embraces a quiet life of books.

She loved roaming the stacks when it was early and empty like this, feeling the quiet hopeful promise of all those waiting books. 

But her sedate life changes in the opening pages when, during a gathering at her place of employment, The Bright Ideas Bookstore. One of the lonely, solitary "BookFrog" regulars, Joey, kills himself on an upper level of the store. He has left a note bequeathing Lydia a box of oddities, including some ragged books, curiously defaced on random pages. Could it be some kind of message?

OK, maybe you now think it's just a murder mystery. But it soon becomes a lot more layered. As Lydia and her friend Raj (and the police) explore Joey's suicide and those mysterious books, Lydia begins to reflect on her early childhood and remembers a shocking event she had once witnessed. Somehow, she grows to feel that event might relate to Joey's death. 

Her digging also leads her back into a reluctant contact her long-estranged father, once a fellow book-lover himself who became a prison guard to support Lydia and his family.

You leave yourself open to answers, he'd always taught her. You keep turning pages, you finish chapters, you find the next book. You seek and you seek and you seek, and no matter how tough things become, you never settle.

There's a lot of plot, personalities, and histories in Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, plenty to keep you turning pages wondering what direction Lydia's search will lead and who will become involved. And, of course, there is the background setting of a bookstore and its customers to keep readers like me happy.

It's a great mystery told by a skilled author, Matthew Sullivan. I loved its premise and ongoing unpredictability of people and events. Highly recommended for lovers of books, mysteries, and characterizations.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Dunning, John. Booked to Die.   

Cliff Janeway, former Denver detective who is beginning a new career as a rare book dealer, is reluctantly pulled into the death of one of his book scouts. Highly recommended for its high quality writing, plot, characters, and fascinating descriptions about the world of rare books (previously reviewed here)

Endless Night

 Christie, Agatha. Endless Night. New York: Dodd, Mead. 1967 Print

First Sentences:

In my end is my beginning ... That's a quotation I've often heard people say. It sounds all right -- but what does it really mean?

 

Description:

Sometimes you just need a good suspense novel to satifsy your reading itch. Not bloody, overly graphic, or even terrifying. Just a plot and characters that strike your curiosity so much that you have to keep reading, sometimes peeking out between your fingers which are hiding your eyes. You don't want to know what is going to happen but you cannot stop reading. Delicious!

Enter Agatha Christie's Endless Night. This is a simple story of a man, wandering between jobs and relationships, looking rather vaguely for the perfect woman, a beautiful home, and wealth to fall intoUp in his lap.

I could feel all the feeling surging up in me. I wanted a wonderful woman and a wonderful house like nobody else's house, and I wanted my wonderful house to be full of wonderful things -- things that belonged to me. Everything would belong to me.

Incredibly, that all his dreams actually happen, almost without him even realizing it. He meets and falls in love with a woman who turns out to be ultra-wealthy and in love with him as well. They set out to buy the perfect lot of hillside land and build their dream house, well, almost a castle.

Their plan is despite warnings from locals and a specific gypsy woman that the land is cursed. Years ago the owner had chased gypsies from squatting on his land and received a dreadful curse aimed at anyone trying to settle there. You as a reader cannot wait for something eerie to happen to this nice couple and then see how they escape or succumb to it.

What a mysterious thing sleep is. You go to bed worrying about gipsies and secret enemies and detectives planted in your house and the possibilities of kidnapping and a hundred other things, and sleep whisks you away from it all. You travel very far and you don't know where you've been, but when you wake up, it's to a totally new world. No worries, no apprehensions.

But being an Agatha Christie novel, this curse and its results are just the surface. The novel's ending reveals twist upon twist on the plot and characters as they struggle to confront the curse and live their love-filled lives. The conclusion was completely unexpected by me and maybe will be for you as well. 

Wonderful tenseness and anticipation to this seemingly quiet plot and couple awaits readers on every page. Impossible to put down to the very last page, my favorite kind of story. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca.   

A young bride it taken to live with her husband in his sprawling mansion, Manderly. Unfortunately, it is not those supportive environment for her, from house to housekeeper to the looming memory of her husband's first wife. Suspense at its best.

The Scapegoat

Du Maurier, Daphne. The Scapegoat. New York: Doubleday. 1956. Print

First Sentences:

I left the car by the side of the cathedral, and then walked down the steps to the Place des Jacobins. 

It was still raining hard. It had not once let up since Tours, and all I had seen of the countryside I loved was the gleaming surface of the Route Nationale, rhythmically cut by the monotonous swing of the windscreen wiper.

Description:

Sometimes just the premise of a book is enough to hook you into at least picking it up to read. Examples? A man inadvertantly left all by himself on Mars (The Martian). A trip down the Nile River from origin to mouth in a kayak (Kayak Down the Nile). Creating a sport fishing spot in the desert (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen). The auction of the furnishings from a luxury apartment in Paris that has not been opened in seventy years (A Paris Apartment). And, of course, the history of the library card catalog system - be still my heart - (The Card Catalog). In the hands of a talented author, you have a compelling read.

It is on such an interesting premise and masterful writing that I stongly recommend Daphne du Maurier's The Scapegoat. 

Here is the set-up. A Englishman, John, desperately depressed as his vacation in Europe ends and knowing he must return to his dull teaching position, happens one night to meet another man, Jean, the wealthy Comte de Gue. They are strangers to each other, but soon realize they are not ordinary strangers. The men immediately see that they could be exact twins.

I realized, with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were know to me too well. I was looking at myself.

Over drinks and later in Jean's hotel room, they talk about their lives before John passes out. And when he awakens the next morning, he is alone in the room with only Jean's suitcase, clothes, and possessions. Jean is gone along with John's clothes. The hotel staff immediately mistake John for the other man and when Jean's family car arrives to take "Jean" home, John decides to play along and see what living like the wealthy Jean would be like ... and whether he can pass as another person with a stranger’s family and friends.

What an opening premise! From then on, every page is a nail-biter as to whether this counterfeit Comte de Gue will be unmasked. Each sentence “Jean”/John utters, each person he pretends to know, each family business transaction he oversees puts him in peril of discovery along with the unimaginable consequences. 

And where is the real Comte, John continues to wonder? What will happen when he shows up in his own home?

There it is. A deliciously devious plot with danger and cleverness on every page, masterfully related by the skilled storyteller, Daphne DuMaurier. How can you possibly resist? Well, don't resist. You won't be sorry.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

DuMaurier, Daphne. Rebecca  

Classic Gothic fiction story of a newlywed couple who returns to the husband's home to live, only to be constantly reminded of his beloved first wife, Rebecca, whose spirit permeates the estate.

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Highsmith, Patricia. The Talented Mr. Ripley. New York: Norton. 1955. Print.

First Sentences:

Tom glanced behind him and saw the man coming out of the Green Cage, heading his way.

Tom walked faster. There was no doubt the man was after him. 

Description:

It's marvelous to curl up with a great book like The Talented Mr. Ripley by Daphne du Maurier. Even though it was written in 1955, almost 65 years ago, it is timeless and still grips readers on every page. Of course, it has everything: great plot, unpredictable characters, lovely settings, and wonderful writing. Who could ask for more? Even if one is familiar with the story or has seen the movie, Highsmith's inimitable writing adds so much pleasure to the experience that the book should not be missed for any lovers of mystery, plot twists, and cunning characters.

Tom Ripley, a shady character living by his wits and a few minor schemes, spends time looking over his shoulder for the police to finally catch up with him, dodging in and out of bars, wistfully dreaming of the better, much more opulent life he feels he deserves.

Then along comes Herbert Greenleaf, a wealthy industrialist, who approaches Tom with a plan. Greenleaf will finance a trip to Italy for Tom for him to convince Greenleaf's son, Dickie, to quit his lollygagging life in a small beach town and return home to work in Greenleaf's business. Tom readily accepts the job, although he barely knows Dickie (but doesn't share that info with Greenleaf), and off he goes, sailing first class with expense money in his pocket.

After meeting Dickie and his friend Marge, he is able to ingratiate himself into Dickie's life of wealthy leisure using Greenleaf's money. Definitely this is what Tom has dreamed about and thus easily gets used to his new world. For his part, Dickie has no intention of ever leaving Italy, much less working for his father. Tom realizes that his new lifestyle will soon end when father Greenleaf gives up on Tom ever convincing Dickie to return, and decides to cut off Tom's expense account.

Unless ...

A scheme develops in Tom's mind to keep him in wealth, in Italy (or wherever he wants to go), and in a new life. All could come about ... if only Dickie weren't around.

That's the start of this thrilling plot involving Tom in a crime or two, constant waging of wits with police, and easing into a completely new lifestyle. In the hands of Highsmith, each page is full of clever thinking, snappy dialogue, narrow escapes, and spontaneous actions to preserve the world Tom now inhabits.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It grabs you immediately and doesn't let go until the very last page, with plot swerves that keep readers on their toes to try to follow, much less predict Tom's mind and dirty deeds. It is a great, great read that will turn you on to the world of Highsmith and Ripley, a deliciously thrilling combination.

The very chanciness of trying for all of Dickie's money, the peril of it, was irresistible to him....Risks were what made the whole thing fun.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

du Maurier, Daphne. The Scapegoat

Two unrelated strangers have a chance encounter and realize they could be twins. After a night of drinking, one man wakes in his room to find all his clothes missing, replaced with the other man's possessions. No one to believe his story that he is not the other man. He then is brought to his doppelganger's family estate and gradually, grudgingly, assumes the other man's identity.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

Harrow, Alix E. The Ten Thousand Doors of January. New York: Redhook 2019. Print

First Sentences:

When I was seven, I found a door.

I should capitalize that word, so you understand I'm not talking about your garden- or common-variety door that leads reliably to a white-tiled kitchen or a bedroom closet.


Description:

I'm not much of a fantasy book reader unless it happens to be about a hobbit or boy with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. However, I found myself totally engrossed with Alix E. Harrow's The Ten Thousand Doors of January with its journeys into parallel worlds through randomly-placed doorways scattered over the Earth.

January Scaller is a seven-year-old girl living in 1901 as the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke. January's father works for Locke, travelling extensively around the world to purchase (or steal) exotic treasures for his employer's pleasure. One day January stumbles on an abandoned door in the scrubby landscape of a deserted Kansas farm. Just an ordinary door, she discovers as she walks through it ... that is until afterward when she sits down to write a story about the door in her diary.

"Once there was a brave and temeraryous (sp?) girl who found a Door. It was a magic Door that's why it has a capital D. She opened the Door."

As these words hit the paper, suddenly January smells a salty fragrance of the ocean that draws her back to the door. This time when she steps through it, she finds herself on a bluff overlooking a world of a vast ocean and exotic smells. 

After stepping back into her own world, of course no one believes her tale. But the next day she finds that the door is gone, burned away to ashes. Later, January finds an ancient book called The Ten Thousand Doors tucked away in a box sent from her world-traveling father. In it, she reads a story describing other doors and the worlds behind them. It is a beautifully written, albeit sad, love story telling of a chance encounter between a boy and girl from different worlds who, after separation, spend their lives independently searching for another door that will lead them to the other person's world. 

When her father disappears, it is up to January to puzzle out the truth behind the book, to pick up the lovers' search for hidden doors, and to understand what role, if any, she plays in the story.

Maybe this plot line sounds too corny, too romantic, or simply too fantastical to bother with. But believe me, as a man with little time for such tales, The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a page-turner that simply swallows you up into new worlds of stubbornly strong characters and a secret society with an agenda of their own.

I became deeply involved with this book and characters. Writing, plot, character, and setting - my four criteria for great books - were all delivered in to the highest degree of skill. Naturally, it gets my highest recommendation. 

There are ten thousand stories about ten thousand Doors, and we know them as well as we know our names. They lead to Faerie, to Valhalla, Atlantis and Lemuria, Heaven and Hell, to all the directions a compass could never take you, to elsewhere. A dividing point between here and there, us and them, mundane and magical.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Lewis, C. S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.   

Four children find, in the back of an old wardrobe, a doorway that leads to the secret world of Narnia where they have heroic adventures galore and even rise to become royalty.

The Silent Patient

Michaelides, Alex. The Silent Patient. New York: Celadon 2019. Print

First Sentences:

Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. 

Description:

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Alicia Berenson, the famous painter, has shot killed her photographer husband, Gabriel. She is found standing in the room with his dead body when the police arrive. Only her fingerprints on the rifle left beside his body, And she is covered in his blood as well as her own.

But she is completely silent during her arrest, trial, conviction, sentencing, and then during the six years of her commitment to a psychiatric ward. Why doesn't she talk, plead her case, or at least tell everyone what went on? It will be up to Theo Farber, a forensic psychotherapist, to try to convince her to speak and reveal the events surrounding this murder.

Thus begins Alex Michaelides' intriguing new mystery, The Silent Patient. The criminal psychiatrist Farber has been intrigued by the Berenson's case since it first appeared in the newspapers. He applies for a position at The Grove psychiatric unit where Alicia is being held in hopes of having her assigned as his patient.

But his efforts to win her trust, to get her to even acknowledge his presence or change her deadpan expression, prove both fruitless and controversial for other staff members. Can Faber get some results before the board of executives for The Grove shut down the facility as non-profitable?

This is a very quiet mystery despite the underlying violence of the opening murder. It presents the struggles that medical staff have with conflicting treatment methods, publicity, and funding. While the murder itself seems an open-and-shut case, Alicia and her motivation behind the act are complete blanks. She continues to appear unable or unwilling to make a sound either as a confession or plea for innocence.

But then Alicia's diary comes to light, and it is her writings that we, as readers, have been following in the story all along. Slowly, we begin to unravel the truth. But will Farber and the staff of The Grove be able to piece together her ramblings to understand all the events? And if so, what happens to Alicia?

And believe me, there are some unexpectedly delicious surprises in store, right up to the final pages. 

Loved the suspense, the mystery, the unreliable voices, the silent character, and especially the final solution presented by author Michaelides. A really compelling, interesting read. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Lutz, Lisa. The Passenger  

In the opening sentences, we meet Tonya who is looking down at her husband's body after he had fallen down the stairs. Pushed? Fell? It is unknown, but Tonya decides to take off, not willing to answer to the police. She travels across the country protecting this and other secrets, taking on new names, jobs, and fellow travelers right up to the unexpected revelations in the last pages. Highly recommended. (previously reviewed here)

The Bookshop of Yesterdays

Meyerson, Amy. The Bookshop of Yesterdays. New York: Park Row 2018. Print

First Sentences:

The last time I saw my uncle, he bought me a dog

A golden retriever puppy with sad eyes and a heart-shaped note. I didn't have her long enough to give her a name. One moment she was running around my living room with the promise of many adventures together and the next she was gone.

It was the same way with Uncle Billy.

Description:

What's not to like about a story about books, a bookstore, and a mystery complete with clues hidden by a dead relative leading to who knows what? In Amy Meyerson's debut novel The Bookshop of Yesterdays, she gives us lucky readers all three in a clever, mixture, full of likable characters trying to find some semblance of order to everything. Throw in some complex relationships between family members and loves and you have a page-turning read good for pleasantly whiling away several hours immersed in a story that is hard to abandon.

Miranda, a book-lover who as a child, delighted in spending time in her Uncle Billy's bookstore, Prospero Books. He used to hide scavenger-hunt clues throughout the books in the store for Miranda to follow to some exotic treasure brought back by Billy from his world travels. When Billy dies and leave Prospero Books to Miranda, she plans a short visit to Los Angeles to check in on the bookshop's current condition. Soon, despite having little knowledge of running a business, Miranda finds herself immersed in the struggle to keep the bookstore afloat, postponing again and again the return to her home in the east. This requires juggling a relationship with her boyfriend on the other coast who wonders when she will return to their life ... if ever

But she discovers Billy has left a variety of literary clues again that lead her to information regarding his mysterious life, his travels, the bookstore, and the falling-out he had years ago with his sister (Miranda's mother) that lead to them not speaking or having contact for years. There is a family mystery that can only be unraveled through solving these newly-discovered literary clues. An understanding of Shakespeare's The Tempest is a particular key for Miranda who, of course, was named after the play's principle character.

It's an interesting mystery full of quirky characters who busily pursue a variety of avenues  wherever they might lead, but also keep closely guarded their own pathways that affect Miranda's life, her family, and the bookshop itself.

If nothing else, read Bookshop of Yesterdays for its challenging literary references that lead readers on a wild chase through the world of great books and authors. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Dunning, John. Booked to Die.   

Cliff Janeway, former cop and avid collector of rare books, opens a bookstore and finds himself involved in a murder case. As he begins to understand the world of quality and uniqueness of rare books, he also is drawn into the murder of a book scout who had provided Janeway with books. Wonderful to read descriptions of rare books, their marketability, and the trials of opening a bookstore while following the investigation in the crime. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)