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

Impulse by Catherine Coulter

Another one from my to read shelf, who knows where or when I picked this one up at a sale.  Originally published in 2000 this is the  new edition  October 2001.  I think I have read other booiks by this author but do not know how long ago.  I had tried 4 other books from this shelf and could not understand why I'd bought them,  must have been one of those bag of book sales.  So those books will go to Goodwill next trip, I could not get interested in them and wasn't going to plod.  Then I picked up Impulse and a good choice.  It's not a deep complex story but it is a good story, well written, good characters, family drama, a romance and mystery of sorts culminating on a Caribbean island.  My only criticism was there's on the verge of too much of sex which is part of the romance.  I read all 419 pages in a couple evenings. 

The back cover has the gist of the tale.  I give this over 3 *** but maybe not quite 4 ****.  Still an entertaining summer read.

Between Shades of Gray and Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

 Following an online recommendation about historical fiction, I purchased  these 2 books by Ruta Septys, a new author to me.  Between Shades of Gray deals with the deportation of Lithuanians by the Russians as World War II is raging across Europe. I was unaware of this horror, the people were siezed by the Russian police and transported in cattle cars to Siberian work farms and  prison camps where most perished.  I understand this  novel is a motion picture, Ashes in the Snow.  

The author includes  acknowledgements and interesting notes.  Pg 339, "In 1940 the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Esotonia.  ....the Kremlin drafted lists of people considered anti-Soviet who would be executed, deported into slavery in Siberia.  Doctors lawyers, teachers,  military servicemen, writers, business owners, .......The first deportations took place on June 14, 1941." 

Page 1 of Between Shades of Gray

Back Cover Between
Shades if Grey

This novel is the brutal tale of one family with focus on and told by Lina, a young Lithuanian girl.  Lina is seized with her mother and younger brother, Jonas.  Their father had been previously captured although they did not know where or when.  The mother brave and determined to keep the three of them together will die in Siberia.  But she and Jonas will survive. Other characters are influential in the story too, a bald man,. Andrius, his mother, Mrs Rimas, Miss Grybas and how they form a makeshift community for each other.  Lina and Jonas survive and she returns to Lithuania in 1953.  The Epilogue has a letter by Lina.  It is estimated that Stalin killed more than 20 million people during his reign of terror. (Pg 341)  Deportations also affected Poland, Moldova, and other nations.  Still today, some deny it ever happened.  

While this was new to me,  I did not really enjoy reading these novels.  But I persisted.  The writing is clear, not flowery, rather plain.  Not the most intriguing reads for me, the plots are straightforward.  Sometimes I had to force myself to keep on reading.  But I am now content that I did.  Not sure I'd recommend these.  Yet it makes me wonder, how could this history been overlooked?  Think about the Allies linked to with Russia all fighting against Nazi Germany.  And looking the other way, if they knew about how Russia had committed atrocities.  

The author explains that she chose the title because things are not always black or white.  Sometimes the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  She explains that some survivors told of a Soviet guard who had helped them in a way that saved their life.  

The 2nd one , Salt to the Sea is another historical fiction about a tragedy worse than the Titanic that I never heard of before reading this.  It is told through several characters including Joana who was Lina's cousin and whose family escaped Lithuania to Germany, avoiding the Soviet deportations. But now the Soviets approach Germany and she flees. Florian who thought he was understudy to an artist but who was really forging copies of artwork to steal the originals has fled with a treasured piece .  Emilia is a young Polish girl whom Florian rescues from the Soviets in the forest and who turns out to be pregnant.  There is the shoemaker and a young orphan boy and an aspiring sailor, Alfred.  All characters intertwined and sailing as refugees on the Wilhelm Gusthoff in the Baltic Sea to avoid the Soviet advance into Germany.  Joanna is using her medical skills and working as a nurse and assistant to the ships' doctor.  The ship is hit by  German torpedo's.  Its sinking would be the deadliest disaster in maritime history with losses dwarfing the death tolls of the Titanic or the Lusitania.  But it was not   heard of nor publicized.  There is now an online museum of the Wilhelm Gustoff

Back Cover Salt to the Sea

The author includes interesting references and a discussion at the end of the book.  Page 404 describes how this disaster was hidden and why.:  

I knew nothing about either of these missing pieces of WWII history before reading these books.  Yet although the writing is clear and  the  information interesting, I was just not that impressed.  I don't know specifically why.  I had to force myself to read through them.  So for that reason only 3 ***

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

    I read this delightful book July 2022. recommended by SIL.  Great fiction, well written an different.  I have known people like so many of the characters.  It is 300 pages, paperback.  Set in the fictitious town of Greenstone, MN near Duluth, which is similar to many MN and Midwest small towns.  The town is slowly folding up, nothing but bad luck happens.  

Some of the reviews included as an introduction  to the novel express concisely the flavor of this book.  From the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "  You can be sure you've been expertly led into the realm of fiction where everything is possible and just because a thing is poetry as Rune tells Virgil, didn't mean it never happened to the actual world or that it couldn't happen still."   And this from Bookpage " ..a fast paced humorous and mystical novel about hope, friendship, love and the relationship between a town and its people."  

Page 1,  Virgil who has just been hospitalized with a 

Page 1 

concussion after an auto accident.  By page 2, we meet Marcus Jerry, who runs Greenstone Salvage and who rescued Virgil from the accident.  "Marcus is one of those weathered old reticent types whose rare comment tends to be on point.     We also learn about the neurologist who treated Virgil, "  "..a Finn named Koskinen with a broad decent face and Teddy Roosevelt moustache....He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry." 

I am not sure that I read Peace Like a River, also by this author although it sounds familiar.   He does not write many books but carefully does with excellence when he writes.   Rune, an old Kite flyer wanders into Greenstone.  he is looking for his son.  He did not know he had a son until a few weeks previous.  Yet the son, Alec has disappeared some say, although the others including his wife believe he died.  

Back cover

Abundance by Sara Jeter Naslund

Published in 2006, 537 pages in this updated version, paperback.  I have had it on my shelf for sometime and as visible on the cover found it used for only 99 cents.

 I'd read other novels by this author and enjoy historical fiction, so thought this would be a good read for me.  But my thinking did not gel with reality.    I struggled reading  through Page 254 before giving up.  I just could not get interested. The writing is good so it was not that but the long drawn out references to the  suffering about the Dauphin's lack of desire and  inability to perform.    Despite the reviews and my initial interest in reading about Marie Antoinette this wasn't for me. 

 It seems to focus on lamentations about Marie, a child of 14 sent by her mother the Empress of Austria to wed the Dauphin (next in line to become King) of France to cement the Austrian Empire with the French.   Marie does so  as an obedient daughter and immediately though relinquishing all her ties to home, she embraces France and speaks only French.  She will become queen as the Dauphin becomes King.  But the  central theme is that the Dauphin is impotent and they never become intimate, nor produce and heir. 

 Unlike King Louis XV, the grandfather of the Dauphin,  with  his mistresses, currently Madame du Barry  the Dauphin prefers to hunt.  Marie does everything she can to please him even taking up the sport of the hunt.  The King is very pleased with her.  Marie becomes close to the aunts and especially to the  Princesses.   Her mother has ears in the royal abodes through Count Mercy.

Marie seeks advice through Count Mercy excerpt 1

Count Mercy continued 

The reviews are great on this book, but it just did not capture my interest.  

Umberto Eco about home libraries

 I was clearing out files on my laptop and found this, worth posting here .   

Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books said about home libraries:

 

"It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

 

"There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion. 

 

"If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!

 

"Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity."

 

Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh

 

This was the first book I read in 2025 from January 20 through March 1.  I had heard it acclaimed by our Bishop Robert Barron as one of the greatest Catholic novels of the 20th Century.  Our priest also said he loved the book.  So when Word on Fire Book Club selected it, I  thought  I would take advantage and read along.  It is  the 75th Anniversary Edition.  A classic I have never read, or perhaps  tried and stopped.  After struggling through all 402 pages, I am mystified at its appeal.   I found it very tedious reading.  I was reading something else for pleasure  so would just read the chapters which would be up  for discussion on the site.   My opinion never changed, on  this novel. It is  one of the most tiresome things I've ever struggled to read.  That is why I have delayed posting it here, I could not stand to review it and scan it.  But here we are finally..

There were some terms I did not understand and  believe they must be the language of those times.  A few pgs 32-3 Plover's eggs, pg 53,scrofulous,pg 156 attempt to subborn me.

Briefly Captain Charles Ryder is on maneuvers in the English countryside, WWII, with his battalion Brideshead manor is taken for their lodgings and set up.  He remembers The novels spans the lives of that Flyte and Marchmain family, his friendship and concern about Sebastian, and their lives with complications, their characters, their falls from grace.  Preface, " "Its theme...the operation of the grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters, was perhaps presumptuously large but I make no apology..." 

Something that stuck with me was that the line used in this book "twitch upon the thread" is taken from Chesterton in his Father Brown stories to describe conscience.    I tried to read with understanding that the terms and writing style were before my time and the period escribed was an outgrowth of the lingering resentment of Catholics in Protestant England.  

Although there are supposed to be comical lines throughout this work, I didn't catch them.  Perhaps on Pg 198,  in conversation with Sebastian,  "It doesn't matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up."  Maybe that's amusing?

Toward the end, after Lord Marchmain has returned and is passing there is a discussion about whether to call a priest for last rites.  "  Julia said, " I wish you wouldn't start these religious arguments."   I didn't start it.   You don't convince anyone else and you don't really convince yourself.,  l only want to know what these people believe.   They say its all based on logic.    If you'd let Bridie finish, he would have made it all quite logical.       There were four of you, I said.  Cara didn't know the first thing it was about and may or may not have believed it; you knew a bit and didn't believe a word; Cordelia knew about as much and believed it madli; only poor Bridie knew and believed and I thought he made a pretty poor show when it came to explaining.   And people go round saying, "At least Catholics know what they believe.   We had a fair cross section tonight..." , 

     

I am not giving this any stars be cause it has after all endured as a classic but was not my cup of tea.