The Widow by John Grisham

  I do not know the last time I read a John Grisham novel/mystery but see no others posted to this blog.  I know I've read them though, likely long before I started this.  And I do not know why I have waited so long to read a Grisham book.   This one caught my eye on Amazon, maybe the title. Once I stated reading it was one I really hated to put down, but since I read  in the evenings I couldn't stay up all night to read more.  No doubt I will get another Grisham novel very soon.  The Widow is 404 pages, published in 2025.

This one is about a small town lawyer, Simon Latch who is struggling, going through a divorce, barely keeping things going  in his solitary law office. He has one employee, long time legal assistant/secretary, Tillie. Then an elderly widow  walks in, Eleanor Barnett, who has had a will prepared by another local lawyer.    When Simon reviews it he knows the other lawyer. became greedy and has over done his control of assets.  Eleanor is an 85 year old  widow with no children, two stepsons with whom she has no contact, no family, no one close enough to be her executor., 

Pg 40, Chapter 7 begins,   "Eleanor refused to meet again at Starbucks, said she felt too old there, as if at the age og eighty-five, there was a place where she might feel young.  Simon didn't argue and suggested they meet in his office at 6:00PM....."

Simon takes an interest in her and begins to establish a reluctant friendship, taking her to lunch and paying the bill each time,. She is supposedly wealthy but sometimes he wonders.  Ultimately he has prepared a new ill for her.  And then one day, Eleanor is in an automobile accident, her fault, driving another widow friend  home after the  ladies gather for a card game; she had over indulged in alcohol.  While she is in the hospital,

  Simon has her sign a healthcare power of attorney and finds himself in charge of that.  She is recovering in the hospital but gets pneumonia and things go downhill from there.  At 84 she does not recover and dies.  Simon asks for cremation and things proceed.  Then things begin to twist.  Her story of wealth may have been a story, he cannot  confirm assets.  His divorce is going along and he misses his children.  

Then the bottom falls out of everything when he is accused and arrested of poisoning Eleanor while she was in the hospital. One of the stepsons shows up and hires an attorney.  His secretary ends up in an affair with that stepson.   He is convicted by the  jury despite proof and despite the efforts of his excellent defense attorney.

  Simon Latch is innocent, but what can he do.  Ultimately he pursues and begins his own investigation using a hacker and finally resolves this crime.  He is innocent but the ones I suspected while reading along were not the culprits, neither the secretary nor the stepson who appeared and claimed to have contact with Eleanor.  The crime is a real twister as Simon resolves to prove his innocence.  This is a 5 ***** read.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

 This highly acclaimed novel, published in 2014,  was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. It took 10 years for the author to finalize this work.   I had not read it until it was selected by Word on Fire Book Club. So I purchased it and read along  in September through early November, all 530 pages.  I admit to having difficulty continuing at times.  The writing is truly beautiful in descriptive but I was having trouble switching back and forth and around the characters who ultimately are woven together for an ending.  Had it not been a selection of WOF I likely still would not have read it.  I have read other works by this Author in the past and do not recall what I thought of those.  

The primary setting is before during and after WWII in Europe and France.  There are a couple main characters -- Marie, a blind girl living in Paris with her father who is a master maker of locks and employed sat  the Louvre. and Werner an orphan living in Germany.   

I still hesitate to give this novel 4 **** but given the acclaim I am doing so.  I suppose reflecting back it was a good choice for me to read because I'd not have chosen on my own despite my interest in WWII and history.

Below is the front flap which better gives the overview.  

Front flap 

Here is the introduction to the book from Cybthia Adkins, Word on Fire who co facilitated this with her husband Dr. Michael Adkins.  

Cynthia Adkins Intro  Con't below

 Cythia Adkins

Killing the Witches by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

 I have read nearly all the O'Reilly/Dugard Killing series of books.  This one I had not so had to order a copy to complete my collection of this series.  I started reading it October 31 and did not finish until November 23 although if I had time I would have read thru all 280 pages in a few days.  Published in 2023 this covers the horrors of the Salem, Massachusetts witch trials in 1692-93. 

I was not very familiar with this historical trauma and learned a lot from this book. The hysteria that ruled and the executions carried out are a black mark of our history and show that the Puritans were not always kind people.  The novel  goes beyond that through the Constitutional Convention of the US and includes a section on the Exorcism of the demonic based on a 1949 true happening to a young boy and even  covers the making of the popular horror film, the Exorcist.  It covers a great deal of the tensions amongst the founding fathers which is not usually revealed in history books.  The conclusion and Author's note is caution about  demonic that still exists.  I truly believe there is demonic evil around.  The recent Charlie Kirk assassination's is an example.  The author expounds about the current cancel culture and the trans activists and how that hysteria has demonic undertones. 

 An excellent read,  5 *****.

Cover flap

Killing the Witches back cover

 

Pages 220 221  today's demonic?

Before Women Had Wings by Connie May Fowler

Published in 1996 and made into a movie in 1997, I had this copy on my shelf to read for awhile.  I finally opened it in September.  What a wonderful story, to me it has some of the same feelings as Where the Crawdads Sing though the stories are not alike.  268 pages. 

 This review excerpt is from Goodreads online:        "My name is Avocet Abigail Jackson. But because Mama couldn't find anyone who thought Avocet was a fine name for a child, she called me Bird. Which is okay by me. She named both her children after birds, her logic being that if we were named for something with wings then maybe we'd be able to fly above the shit in our lives. ". ..  So says Bird Jackson, the mesmerizing narrator of Connie May Fowler's vivid and brilliantly written, Before Women Had Wings   Starstruck by a dime-store picture of Jesus, Bird fancies herself "His girlfriend" and embarks upon a spiritual quest for salvation, even as the chaos of her home life plunges her into a stony silence. In stark and honest language, she tells the tragic life of her father, a sweet-talking wanna-be country music star, tracks her older sister's perilous journey into womanhood, and witnesses her mother make a courageous and ultimately devastating decision.   Yet most profound is Bird's own story--her struggle to sift through the ashes of her parents' lives, her meeting with Miss Zora, a healer whose prayers over the bones of winged creatures are meant to guide their souls to heaven, and her will to make sense of a world where fear is more plentiful than hope, retribution more valued than love. . . .

 

Page 1  The story begins

Pgs 28-29  Catholic   Baptist

There is a lot of good writing and almost lyrical descriptions of emotions, forgiveness, grief.  On pages 28-32 Bird relates how her sister Phoebe becomes Catholic just like Mama and Bird so wants to do the same.  But Mama insists no she must be Baptist like her non church going Baptist declared father .Bird is not happy about this.  

On to Page 77 where Bird is somewhat dealing with the grief over her father's death though she is almost in denial.  "Daddy's death didn't seem final to me."    

Pages 76-77  Grief from death denia;

 I noted her impression of forgiveness as the "mystery of love" pages 103-105  Bird hears  her Mama talking with Mr. Ippolito and decides that "just maybe forgiveness exists not to excuse the sinner but to heal those who suffered. "    

Here are pages 103  and 105 which I cannot align side by side

Their lives unfurl and Bird has found respite and rescue with Miss Nora.  Bird has been beaten often by Mama who is clearly out of control.  Finally Miss Nora comes to tend Birds strap marks and then meets up with Mama.  Pg 255. Birds emotions--

Pages 254-255

Mama gives in and agrees to let Miss Nora take Bird away with her while Mama heals and gets rehab. Though Bird wants to stay to help Mama realizes she must face and conquer this alone. Page 261  "when you can't imagine the future and the past is too powerful..."

Pages 260-261 Future, past

This is a wonderful book to read though it can  bring tears.  I give it 5 *****  I just  found in researching more about this book that a movie was made and I will try to get it on Amazon or Netflix.  Now that I've reviewed the book it would be interesting to watch the movie.  

 

Killing the Mob by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

This was a book sale find in 2024 but sat on my shelf along with my collection of the other O'Reilly Killing books until September 2025 when I  needed something to read.  273 pages through the postscripts.  I read through this in 8 days, my evening entertainment.  Just like all the other Killing series books, it is excellent.  Well researched, well written, informative and fascinating.   

Perhaps because I grew up in a small town in southwestern PA with definite mob connections, mob families, sometimes called "Little Chicago."  The mob families I knew about were nice people to us, the streets of the town were safe to walk at all hours.  They delivered boxes of groceries to doorsteps of people who were needy, anonymously.  They heavily financed and rebuilt an exquisite  the Italian Catholic church in the town, still a beauty today.  There was a rumor that at one time the priest of the  church hid a mobster whom the feds were looking for.  Most of us had no fear of them whatsoever.  I suppose they were criminals but whatever crimes they were involved in did not seem to bother the town.  

The book opens in 1934 with t a prologue about John Dillinger and goes up through present day in New York City culminating with a reference that our President Trump needed concrete and waste management to build the Trump Towers and negotiated with the mob for these.  

The book chronicles J Edgar Hoover's obsession with organized crime families, political influences and how at times even the government dealt with the mob families.  There is no revelation about what happened to Jimmy Hoffa whose remains remain disappeared.  Of great interest is the  story of Donnie Brasco who in fact was  an undercover FBI agent, Joseph Pistone.  As Donnie Brasco he infiltrated  posing as a small time jewel thief and became a trusted part of the Bonanno crime family where he was deep undercover for 5 years beginning September 1976.  He becomes the FBI's star key witness in the prosecutions, the Mob placed a $500,000 bounty on his head.  

This is another 5 ***** read and a book I would consider re reading again.  

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Chld

 Published in 2009 the 13th of the Reacher books, but I had not read it.  To prepare for Amazon's next Reacher release I decided I had better do so. 388 pages and as always excellent.  This one begins with Reacher riding the subway in New York and reflecting on the Israeli developed list of  12 key characteristics of suicide bombers.   Except Reacher can ignore one which deals with males shaving their beards to fit in and having paler skin where the beard had shaded the face from the sun. 

 Reacher is focusing on a woman passenger. It is two in the morning, September and hotter than normal but the woman is wearing a down jacket.    She stares back at him and as he approaches and tells her he is a cop and can help her, she fidgets.  They talk briefly with Reacher asking her  to show him one of her hands,  she does and then she pulls a gun out of her bag, aims at him right at his guy, but doesn't fire, he talks calmly, thinks she is about to release the gun but instead  she aims vertically and blows her head off.  

This review from Wikip[edia                                        " ;  NYPD is eager to close the file without investigating the tragedy, but Reacher wants to know what happened that night and, more importantly, why the woman, Pentagon staffer Susan Mark, left DC and killed herself on that subway car. He is repeatedly and emphatically warned off the case, but his guilt over possibly triggering the poor woman's suicide drives him on.

With the help of NYPD detective Theresa Lee and Susan's brother, Jacob "Jake", Reacher discovers several different players who seem to be involved in whatever drove her over the edge. There is a Washington politician, John Sansom, whose name is dropped by thugs trying to scare Reacher off the case. Finally, there are unidentified federal agents on the scene to keep Reacher away from the case and make sure that any threats to national security, potentially Reacher included, are neutralized.

Reacher learns from Jacob that Susan had a son, Peter Molina, who may be missing; Peter is a star football player for USC who fell off the radar at the same time his mother killed herself. Reacher investigates Sansom, learning that the Congressman received several medals for clandestine missions in the 1980s. After a trip to meet with the Sansoms at a fundraising event in his district, Reacher identifies a tail waiting for him back in New York. Reacher is able to disable the man and take his phone, which leads Reacher to Lila Hoth and her mother Svetlana. Lila claims to be the widow of a Russian oligarch and tells Reacher that Susan was her friend and helping them investigate the circumstances around the deaths of Svetlana's husband, Grigori, and her brother during the Soviet-Afghan War. The Hoths tell Reacher that Sansom was responsible for the two deaths. Grigori Hoth was a Soviet sniper in the Afghan war. The Hoths claim that American special forces operating illegally in Afghanistan ambushed Grigori and took his sniper rifle, leaving him defenseless against the Mujahedeen fighters who tortured Grigori to death while Svetlana had to listen to his screams just outside the Soviet base.

Reacher partially believes Lila, but doubts Lila is Svetlana's daughter. Lila is lithe and stunningly gorgeous while Svetlana is plain and stocky. They do not seem to share any physical traits or mannerisms. He suspects Lila may be a journalist using Svetlana as a source for a story. While returning to the Hoths' hotel for a follow-up meeting, Reacher is abducted by the federal agents that had previously warned him off the case. He is put in a cage along with Lee and Jake for asking too many questions about the Susan Mark case. Reacher is able to attack the three agents when they take him out of the cage for interrogation and he incapacitates them. He then breaks Lee and Jake out of their cages.

As Reacher continues his investigation, he discovers that the Hoths are not what they claimed. They are actually Al Qaeda terrorists. Svetlana was the Mujahedeen fighter who tortured Grigori Hoth. Lila is her pupil. The pair had already murdered people, including Peter. Lila sends Reacher a video of Peter's gruesome death and promises to torture him in the same way. Reacher vows to kill Lila and Svetlana.

Reacher determines that Susan was told that her son was going to be killed if Susan did not provide the Hoths with information about Sansom's activities in Afghanistan. It turns out that Sansom had a photo taken of him with Osama Bin Laden as part of the efforts of the US to help the Mujahedeen fight the Soviets. That photo could now end Sansom's career. It appears that the photo could also for some reason embarrass Al Qaeda, as the Hoths seem intent on making the photo disappear as well. Susan loaded the information on a memory card and deleted the original file from the Pentagon computers. She was on her way to NYC with the card but she was stuck in traffic and missed her midnight deadline. The uncompromising Hoths sent her a video of her son's torture. In disgust and despair, Susan threw the card and her phone out of the car window. She then decided to go to Lila's building and kill her to avenge Peter. However, Reacher stopped her before she could carry out her revenge. "

Cover flaps    

Pages 2 and 3    

The woman posing as a journalist is Lila Hoth and her mother Svetlana Hoth.  But turns out Svetlana was Red Army trained  a political commissar.  Senator John Sansom is a politician, and an ex Delta force special ops.  The women turn out to be Afghan, Mulhadeen.   

Another  5 *****. 

Caravan by Lady Eleanor Smith

Front cover    

  What a delightful treasure I found ion my bookshelf. I had     brought this book home here from PA in 2012 when we were   clearing out my Uncle Carl's home after he had passed.  Aunt   Marge had belonged to the Book of the Month Club way back   when and this was one of the books she had kept over the   years.  Well back then no one disposed of a book, they were   treasured and often reread.  So I was wanting something to   read and after trying a few from the shelf that I'd picked up at   local sales and just couldn't get into I looked farther and   wondered about some of these old ones.  This was a great   choice.  I really enjoyed the story, it is an adventure and a   romance and excellent writing, not one 4 letter word so   refreshing from today when authors seem to have a limited   vocabulary.  It was published in 1941 by Doubleday.  

 The cover flap is tattered but what a beautiful picture the front   displays portraying the heart of this tale with gypsy wagons.   The back cover is a flashback in history promoting the  purchase of war bonds.  

I know nothing about this author but the name Lady Eleanor Smith is referenced as the author of The Man In Gray as well.  There is no picture or information about the author on the inner cover flap unlike today when authors are featured.  

Over 276 pages this is a great tale about a fictional author,  James Darrell,  who is heartbroken when, Oriana,  the girl he's loved since childhood and wanted to marry sends him a letter announcing her intention to marry another man of wealth.  She admits she wants the finer things in life and  that he, a struggling author,  will never be successful enough.  James saves the life a man one evening who turns out to be a Spanish diamond merchant. Don Ignacio Fernando Maria de Zozaya who engages  him to deliver a special wedding gift to his daughter in Spain.  Just the break James needs to get away and forget his troubles.,  But there are many twists and before James can obtain further  recommendations from him Don Ignacio dies.  James remains in  Spain and gets involved with gypsies, has a terrible illness, is nursed back to life and yet tricked by Rosal who loves him enough to deceive him into marrying her, gypsy style.  The adventures continue and he continues to write after  regaining his memory slowly from his illness.  In another tragic turn Rosal is murdered saving his life.  He ultimately writes of his  Spanish travels and the book is immensely popular in England giving him fame as an author.,  By chance he encounters an old friend and then returns to England.  The twist continue and Oriana  reappears,  her husband is an invalid, dying and they resume an affair.  But she is compelled to travel to Switzerland with her dying husband and there she has a fatal accident.  James continues to write but becomes somewhat of a recluse.  Just a doggone good story.

Cover flap

I don't know if I am overly generous to rate this a 5 ***** because I was so thrilled to finally find a good solid read or if I was drawn in by the history of the times of this book.  But there it is.  Another nice feature is the table of contents, Chapters.  Something rarely used today.

Table of Contents

I am including some pages here from the novel.  A flavor of the writing.  

Prologue

Prologue Pages 2 and 3

James has always been partial to a life of fantasy and tales.  Page 24 has a line, "the jopys of liberty were like a heady wine...." 

Pages 24 and 25

Page 276  The End