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"You look as if you have seen a murder, Mrs Hyde. Do sit down. I was talking to the missus about motives. That's what all detectives tell you - look for a motive. once there is a motive, things fall into place. And here, in this instance, we have one, even if...even if."
It Takes A Murder by Anu Kumar
It Takes a Murder is set in Brooks Town, a hill-station where people know all about each other. Even about those who would rather remain anonymous. The narrator, Charlotte Hyde, speaks about events which take place 25 years after 1984, where a Prime Minister is gunned down by her own guards. Charlotte has her own secrets and haunted by it.
When Gautam Dogra is found murdered, the police dismiss it as a simple case. Slowly, it unfolds that Dogra was responsible for the way the narrator's life shaped up and her estrangement with her daughter, Maddy.
It is not a love story but has a strong undercurrent of love although we do not know who loves/loved Charlotte and vice versa. The narration goes in a languid pace. The sleepy town comes alive by the writing. It is lyrical at times with the prose almost poetic. The world described here is common place yet it seems so different. A classic tale of love, loss and fury told in a very evocative way.
“You should have told me you were with child.”
He tugged her thick, honey blond braid until she looked at him again. “I could have gotten leave sooner, maybe even more than once.”
Do you do other things while you read? Watch TV? Cook? Brush your teeth? Knit?
I do lot of other things while I read.
a) I watch TV/listen to music.
b) I grade papers.
c) I cook.
d) I clean.
e) I talk on the phone.
She looked at her father's wet face, skin hanging from his jawbones. He had stopped crying, he was still, but he did not bother to wipe his cheeks.
Title: Displaced Persons
Author: Ghita Schwarz
ISBN: 978-0061881909
Publisher: William Morrow/2010
Pages: 340
Displaced Person is about survivors from the holocaust. It is all about overcoming sorrow with endurance and perseverance, and finally rebirth. Pavel, Fela, and Chaim Polish Jews, survivors and ending up in refugee camps and now known as displaced persons. Three people from three different social structures yet united by a common factor, that is surviving the concentration camps. They have nothing but their ingenuity. They escape to US but the past does not go away. They have new families yet the underlying tragedy does not leave them.
Dead Water by Ann Cleeves
Jimmy Perez stopped for breath and looked out to sea. A still, calm day, the light filtered through high cloud so that the water was shiny grey, like metal. On the horizon a bank of fog. In the deep pockets of the long oilskin coat that had once belonged to his grandfather were pebbles the size of eggs. They were round and smooth, and so heavy that he could feel the weight of them pulling on his shoulders. He'd collected the rocks from the beach at Ravenwick, selecting them carefully: only the roundest, the ones that were white as bone. In the distance, a little way out from the shore, there was a stack of rock shaped like a rough cross, tilted on its side. The calm water hardly broke around it.
MY REVIEW:
A journalist Jerry Markham's body is found in a boat by the marina. As Inspector Jimmy Perez is mourning the loss of his fiancee, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is brought in to investigate the murder.
Markham had been a Shetlander and he had left the place long time ago, leaving behind a scandal which involved young Evie Watt. She is now engaged to a seaman, John Henderson, who is much older than her.
The Procurator Fiscal Rhona Laing who found the body somehow seems to be involved. Jimmy Perez is unable to keep away from the investigations. He goes to Sullom Voe, where Markham was last seen before he was killed.
The murky secrets come out in the open after another murder occurs. Somehow the conflict seems to be between those who wish to save the island and those who wish to open new industries. There are several undercurrents in the story line which keeps the reader totally involved.
Dead Water is fifth in the Jimmy Perez series but stands alone. The characters are well etched out and the suspense of the killer is wholly maintained till the end. It comes as a surprise to us. Cleeve's language flows very well. Her descriptions of the landscape is lyrical.
Days before the July Fourth holiday and the dedication of One World Trade Center at Ground Zero, an incident aboard a commercial jet flying over the Atlantic Ocean reminds everyone that vigilance is not a task to be taken lightly. But for iconoclastic NYPD detective Jeremy Fisk, it may also be a signal that there is much more to this case than the easy answer of this being just the work of another lone terrorist.
NYPD Detective Jeremy Fisk—introduced in Law & Order creator Dick Wolf’s New York Timesbestselling debut The Intercept—must stop an assassin in the pay of a shadowy cartel in The Execution, a tense thriller that superbly blends suspense, politics, intrigue and high-flying action in the tradition of Vince Flynn, David Baldacci, and Robert Crais.
Scent of Butterflies by Dora Levy Mossanen
Gifted with a brilliant mind that has made a deep impression on the elders of his Palestinian village, Ahmed Hamid is nevertheless tormented by his inability to save his friends and family. Living under occupation, the inhabitants of the village harbour a constant fear of losing their homes, jobs, belongings – and each other. 
Musing Mondays asks you to muse about something related to reading/books each week…
The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It's a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.
We celebrated our Republic Day in school today.
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| Student Anchors |
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| Flag Hoisting |
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| Students watching the cultural programme |
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| Teachers doing the same |
The rocks glow red above the sea, embers of the day’s heat below our balcony at the Hotel Marie.
Title: Where's My Son?
Author: John C. Dalglish
ASIN:B007AU8UV4
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 526 KB
Print Length: 156 pages
Michael Barton's son goes missing from home and his wife is still sleeping unaware of the deed. He calls the police. Detective Jason Strong tries his best to find the infant and there is no trace. A few years later, tragedy strikes the Bartons again and Michael promises that he will find his son, no matter what.
The kidnappers have plotted and his son is "adopted" by a family who had lost their new born. They are not aware that the paper work is all forged. They love the boy and they also have a natural born son. Both the boys are very close.
In the second half, Michael goes on a rampage to find the boy and Jason has to stop him. It becomes dark and bleak. It was very tight, fast paced and has suspense. Michael's anger is justifiable but the book was too short to show the build up of his rage and anger. I couldn't put down the novella but I did not like the way Michael's character turned up. I didn't like the way he turns to be a murderer so easily. I also found it unbelievable that he is able to trace the kidnappers so easily where the police had failed.
“Carter, you’re freaking me out. Don’t tell me you love me. That’s just weird. Why were you at my house last night?” Something was very wrong here. She was looking at me like I was the one acting crazy.
“Justine, what are you talking about? Of course I know you, of course I love you. We live together.” I picked up her hand to give it a reassuring squeeze but before I could she jerked it away.
~~Page 12, Baby, It's Cold Outside by Genevieve Jourdin
Justine has an accident and she forgets two previous years of her life. Carter is frantic as she does not remember living with him. She knows him though. His sister is her best friend. At that time she did not even like him. She is older to him and that seems to bother her.
Carter does not know what to do. They were going to be engaged and she does not remember a thing! Slowly with his patience and love, she start remembering the past. It is narrative from the male point of view. Some might find the couple cute but it did nothing for me. And I found it quite mundane too, at some places. It is one time read and one can safely forget it after reading. I downloaded it for free. I am not going to buy anything by this author.
I am trying to keep a record of the poetry books I have read since 2007. I have read lot more than what I have listed here but did not keep a record, either by listing or reviewing. Now I deeply regret that. I read a lot of poems, not necessarily poetry books. I am doing this for myself.
To be read in 2014
1) Lost Alphabet by Lisa Olstein
2) Robert Lowell: Selected Poems
3) At the Threshold of Alchemy by John Amen
4) Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man by Harry E. Gilleland, Jr.
5) An Introduction to Haiku by Harold Henderson
6) Clamor by Elyse Fenton
7) Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay
8) The Essential Keats: Selected by Philip Levine
9) Damnatio Memoriae by Michael Meyerhofer
10) Hurrah's Nest by Arisa White
11) The Virgin Journals by Travis Laurence Naught
12) Why Photographers Commit Suicide by Mary McCray
13) Our Held Animal Breath by Kathryn Kirkpatrick
14) Controlled Hallucinations by John Sibley Williams
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2013
She placed a finger in the space between her nostrils and pulled her nose upward. When she saw the slight hint of a smile flash across Precious’ face, she knew it was over. She rolled her eyes back into their sockets until only the whites were visible, pursed her lips, and began making slurping noises like a pig at the trough.
“Hee, hee, hee, hee.... You’re silly.”
“And you’re precious. C’mere.”
~~~The Doctor's Secret Bride by Anna E. Ross
Dr. Erik LaCrosse needs a nanny for his daughter, Precious. When Michelle Carter arrives at his doorstep for the job, he has misgivings about her. She is too young and beautiful to be a nanny. But Michelle Carter has other ideas. She wins over his daughter in no time.
Erik is attracted towards Michelle and soon they marry each other secretly. Erik's first wife had died in an accident and Michelle seems to hold a key to that. When Erik learns of her secret, he cannot bear to be with her. Michelle leaves him easily enough as no one is aware of their secret wedding.
Michelle might be homeless and penniless but she devotes all her free time to be with underprivileged children. She and her brother turned out good despite having an abusive father. She lost her job and he stole all her money too. Her father is the cause of all her troubles.
I found Erik arrogant and self-centred. I finished the novel because of Michelle. She is strong, good and knows how to help others. I think she ought to have made Erik grovel at her feet. She gave in too easily!!
Rosemead Manor, Gloucestershire, England
