The Keeper's Son by Homer Hickman

   I have read other novels by Homer Hickman about the coalminers and rocket boys but for some reason had set this one aside on my shelf until  now.  Published un 2003, 420 pages, paperback.  It is fiction but just maybe of some historical  truth too.  I was fascinated by the subject involving the people of the Killakeet Island in the Outer  Banks and the German U boats that  were along that coast.  Maybe because of my father's flight disappearance into that deep Atlantic with his entire flight crew and plane, WWII.   This is a well told tale with great characters.  

Jack Thurlow returns in the Coast Guard to his  home roots on Killakeet Island where his father  Jack is the last in a line of lighthouse keepers.  Joh has not interest in continuing that line.  When he is a young boy he is out  in a boat with his toddler brother Jacob who is swept away and never found, not a trace.  This will haunt Josh and his father through life.  

Dosie Crossan has returned to the Killakeet home  of her family seeking to restore something of peace and determine her future.  Otto Krebs is a famous German submarine U-boat captain with another back story of heartbreak.  .  

Back Cover

This review is from Amazon.com and succinctly covers this good tale:.... " In 1941, Killakeet Island of the wind-swept Outer Banks of North Carolina is home to a tiny, peaceful population of fishermen, clam stompers, oyster rakers, and a few lonely sailors of the Coast Guard. Dominating the glorious, raw beauty of the little island is the majestic Killakeet Lighthouse, which for generations has been the responsibility of one family, the Thurlows.

However, Josh Thurlow, the Keeper's son, has forsworn his heritage to become the commander of the Maudie Jane, a small Coast Guard patrol boat operating off Killakeet. Josh is still tortured by guilt, seventeen years after losing his baby brother at sea. Then his life is complicated by the arrival of the beautiful Dosie Crossan, who has journeyed to lonely Killakeet to escape the outside world and perhaps find a purpose in life. While Josh's heart is stirred by the often-vexing Dosie, he continues his search for his brother, even after a wolfpack of German U-boats arrives to soak the island's beaches with blood and oil.

One of the U-boats is captained by Otto Krebs, a famed and ruthless undersea warrior. Krebs, a man also scarred by lost love, comes to Killakeet, however, with more than torpedoes and plans for war: He may also have the answer to the mystery that haunts Josh Thurlow.  The Keeper's Son is a rousing, romantic tale of the power of the human heart forever searching for redemption.  "

First page prologue

   There is a historical interweave about Ben Franklin, and  penance and the Founding Fathers on pages 146--155.

Page 68Josh thinks about the snapping turtles he caught from the creek as a young boy,  " they were always so angry. ..he couldn't imagine going through life always mad at everything.  Keeper Jack had explained it to him.  Anger is sometimes just another way of being afraid..."

The townspeople, the sailors whom Josh is training for war despite their and their mothers' protests, the UBoat  Captain who begins to doubt himself, the  island Preacher,  and there are so many more characters.  

This was a very good read, 5 *****.  Although it was not a fast read for me, it took concentration and was not something that I could  whiz through.  Well worth the time.  

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.