A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

Published in 2009, A Reliable Wife was a recent  book sale find, a new author to me, fiction and the  story line was appealing.   It is a paperback, 261 npages to the novel, an interview with the author and a reading guide for group questions which I wish I had read as I went through this book.  I actually skimmed fast over parts because the story was not appealing to me.  The writing is good for this first novel, but the tale seemed to drag on longer than needed. 

 Apparently he was inspired to create this novel  back in 1973 after his first reading of "Wisconsin Death Trip" by Michael Lesy which Goolrick describes as brilliant, "a collage of words and photographs paint a haunting cinematic portrayal of a small town in Wisconsin at the diseased end of the 19th century."   So that became the setting for this novel, northern Wisconsin in the dreary winter1907.  The author has several phrases that are repeated at times through the book, one that is prominent and which concludes the story is " Such things happen."  

Page 1

The writing is good, sometimes poetic although as I stated above the story is dragged along and sometimes it seemed the author just wanted to prolong what would happen and could not find another way to build suspense other than unnecessary detail.  Perhaps because it is now the dead of a long cold winter here in Southeastern MN, across the Mississippi from WI I was tired enough of snow and cold temps and that might have contributed to my skimming parts of this book.  We learn about Ralph Truitt, 54 years old, the first and main character, a wealthy tycoon who has inherited vast business empires, a widower, perhaps respected but not liked by the locals.

Pg 4, " Nothing says hell has to be fire, thought Ralph Truitt standing in his sober clothes on the platform of the train station in the frozen middle of frozen nowhere.  Hell could be like this."

Pg 8, "You can live with hopelessness for only so long before you are in fact hopeless."  So he places an ad in a Chicago paper to advertise for a "relievable wife."  The novel opens as he awaits the arrival of the woman at the train station, the train is running late. Pg. 11, "In his pocket was the letter and in the letter was a picture of a plain woman whom he did not know, ordered like a pair of boots from Chicago, .."  

Chapter 2 brings the 2nd primary character, Catherine Land.  It was interesting that she was traveling attired in finery, but removes all the nice clothing as she nears the destination  and tosses it out the train window.  She will arrive wearing a very plain homespun material dress and bringing with her similar shabby attire.  Page 5, "It was the middle that gave her pause.  This for all its forward momentum was the middle. The beginnings were sweet, the endings usually bitter, but the middles were only the tightrope you walked between the ono and the other.  No more than that."  She is 34 and was successful in responding to Truitt's ad.  Pg 21, "It was Ralph Truitt's .terse announcement, containing the promise of a beginning, not splendid perhaps, but new, that she had finally answered. 'I am a simple honest woman"  we will learn thru the novel this is not so.  And it was immediately questionable when she disposed of her traveling finery and went wearing shabby clothing to meet this man.  

The tale continues, briefly they meet at the train station and she admits the phot she had sent him was of her cousin, not of herself. 

They are traveling to his home by carriage in the bad weather and there is an accident, Ralph is injured but she takes over the reins and they arrive at the mansion(?) where Mr. and Mrs. Larsen, Truitt's reliable overseer and housekeeper, hired help take over.  Ralph has to be cared for over some period of time and Catherine helps Mrs. Larsen because we learn she wants to become his wife and inherit his property and wealth when he dies.  Catherine has a blue vial of poison hidden in her suitcase but does not use it.  Mrs. Larsen is immediately suspicious of Catherine but after she  nurses  Truitt along becomes more accepting.  Finally he regains health and they are married.  She learns that his wife and daughter both died tragically and he was mean to his son, She learns the home where they have been staying is not the magnificent structure he'd built for his former wife, but moved out when she died, retreating to this smaller place.  He willingly buys her with anything she asks  Catherine still has not used the poison and Truitt tells her he wants to send her to St. Louis to retrieve his long errant estranged son, Andy.   He wants to bring him back to WI  to inherit the property and wealth. 

 This should have been a clue to me that something was not right, why would she agree so willingly if she had intended to kill Truitt by poison and inherit it herself.  But she goes to St. Louis where the private detectives  whom Truit has hired, identify the son now known as Tony Moretti, a piano player in a saloon as the estranged son.  They arrange a meeting where Tony denies any such relationship and avows that his parents are  from  and in Philadelphia, that he knows neither Truitt nor WI.

Catherine spends what seems as unreasonable long time in St Louis and corresponds with Truitt and finally says she thinks she can convince this Tony if she meets with him on her own, without the detectives along or observing.  This might have been another clue, but I was not following the reader questions and was becoming bored with the details of her activities in St Louise, reading at the library, etc.  Her meeting with /Tony alone reveals that she has known him before, and they begin or rather resume a torrid affair.  It is all familiar and her clothing is in his apartment.  She remains in St. Louis for some time cavorting and conspiring with Tony.  She searches again for her long lost sister, Alice but finally finds her in a beyond desolate circumstance.  Page 179, "Her sister couldn't be saved.  And she knew she couldn't kill Ralph Truitt." 

Catherine determines to dump Tony, return to Truitt and his wealth.  However Tony threatens l her and  vows to tell Truitt himself.  The plot has thickened and this has gone on for seems like forever, a great part of the novel. During this time apparently Truitt subsidized her willingly, which seems questionable now looking back. Pg. 180, "Not one word, Catherine.  You haven't earned the right to beg.  There's no freedom for you.  No place to go.  You ruin everything you touch."   She returns to Truitt and resumes her life with him with details of how she tried  but Tony could not be persuaded.  They move into the grand house, the palace and she is lavished with all things she wants and begins to restore the gardens. Truitt becomes mysteriously ill.  Mrs Larsen is still on duty watching. Catherine is. slowly poisoning him but eventually decides she cannot continue.  Page 224, "I can't do it to you.  you're all I've known.  All I will ever know and I can't do it.  I love  you so much it makes me ashamed when you look at me to have you see me.  But, there, take my hand.  It stops now."  .But Truitt says he wanted to die.  And then she promises that she will bring Tony, aka Andy aka Antonio home to him.  She telegrams Antonio to come at once.  Antonio does return but with continuing evil intentions.  Catherine is restoring Truitt to health and has discarded the poison.  Antonio is squandering money on women, drink, horses, etc.  Catherine is pregnant. 

Back Cover

Antonio attacks Catherine in the conservatory but she fights back and stabs him with her scissors. Truitt  arrives and beats him, defending Catherine, .then follows him out into the snow.  Antonio goes onto the frozen pond,  the ice breaks and he drowns.  Now Truitt is inconsolable..  At some point after burying Antonio Catherine tells Ralph she is pregnant.  He had admitted to knowing about her and her previous relationship with Antonio.  But as the ending,  page  261, " "Well then.  You'd better come in the house.  She took one last look at the garden.  The air had turned suddenly cold an evening cod, without threat.  It was almost dark.  Things wait, she thought.  Not everything dies.  Living takes time.  And she walked toward the golden house and took his outstretched hand in her own..   Such things happen."   

I give this book 3 1/2 ***; perhaps if I'd followed along to the reader's guide discussion
questions I might have been more interested.  But I felt it dragged along and yet I did appreciate some of the writing.    

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Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade

 This was a book sale find that sat on my to read shelf for some time.  Finally started it in December and finished in January, first  published in 2015 and this paperback edition in 2016; 221 pages including the Afterword and Acknowledgements Sections and pages of source notes follow.  Well written and might not have been a subject of initial interest to me, about the early days of US Navy and Marines as they established their significance thru this seldom mentioned war.  But I am more informed having read it and appreciate the research. I am a history buff but it has been ages since I read anything about this era and in particular the military issues of those days back to 1801 when the US was a fledgling nation. Reading this once again validated a view I've long had that knowledge of history gives a great perspective.  Many issues from then remain relevant today. 

The book opens July 1785 when the Barbary pirates attack and take prisoner the captain and sailors of the US Dauphin off the coast of Portugal.  America was at peace, or so it thought. 

Intro

 Pg 2., "Mercilessly, the pirates stripped O'Brien and his men of shoes, hats and handkerchiefs, leaving them unprotected from the burning sun during the  12 day voyage back to the North African coast.  On arrival in Algiers, the American captives were paraded through the streets as spectators jeered."  It is almost frightening to consider some of  these, such as the peril the Muslim renegades placed upon the world and its endurance today.  Pages 9-17 include the conversations, meetings, and correspondence between two old friends,  Thomas Jefferson who is serving as American minister to France and goes to London in March 1786 to meet with John Adams,  America's minister to Britain.  

Pg. 16 " He told Adams that justice, honor and the respect of Europe for the United States would be served by establishing a fleet in constant cruise in Barbary waters, policing and confronting ships  of the outlaw states as necessary...."   "Adams disagreed.  He believed that war against the Islamic  nations would be costly and possibly unwinnable......We out not to fight them at all unless We determine to fight them forever."  Prophetic.  

Pg 23, "The dismantling of the navy had suited President Washington perfectly.  Over and over again he said he favored a policy of strict neutrality in international affairs, a position he made explicit in his Neutrality Proclamation of 1795.  ...Washington wished to fight no more wars.  He desired neither a standing army nor a navy."  

The pirates would continue to plague American ships, take captives and their treacherous rulers beys, etc would demand ever escalating prices for the captives.  

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Finally America under the presidency of Jefferson realizes it cannot continue to  pay and rely on the graces of the Islamic nations.  Communication is exceedingly slow across the oceans.  Pg 151 "More than four months passed before anyone in Washington knew anything about the fate of the USS Philadelphia.  Since the previous autumn of 1803, mail had accumulated in Malta, letters home from sailors, dispatches from Preble and consular correspondence remained unsent.  Only when Commander Preble stumbled upon a cache of mail in the charge of a former consul to the bashaw who spoke no English did four great stacks of long delayed correspondence begin their transatlantic journey in early February.   That meant President Jefferson learned of the grounding of the USS Philadelphia -- but not of its sacrificial fire --  on March 19, 1804.  It also meant that for the third winter in a row, despite Preble's good efforts, only ill tidings reached Washington from the Barbary Coast."  

Pgs 202-3 .     Describe Adams and Jefferson's "passing within hours of each other on the 50th birthday of the country to whose service the had dedicated their lives..."  "When it unfolded the Barbary War was no more than a ripple in the much larger waters of world politics.  ....Today the war's military legacy cannot be ignored.  It saw the emergence of the US Navy as a force to be reckoned with in foreign wars.  It saw the first fight in which US Navy gunfire worked in concert with United States land forces.  So great was the significance for the Marines that their hym refers "to the shores of Tripoli"....Most important here in the twenty first century the broader story--the great confrontation between the United Stats and militant Islamic states--has a new significance."    

A good solid 4 **** rating for this work.

Without Fail by Lee Child

This is the sixth book in the Reacher series, published in 2002 but one I just read.  In the 549 pages of this paperback, Reacher has been contacted by a female Secret Service Agent to find holes in her system and fast because a covert group has the vice president in their sights for assassination.  

On page 1 it begins, " They found out about him in July and stayed angry all through August.  They tried to kill him in September.  It was way too soon.  They weren't ready.  The attempt was a failure.  It could have been a disaster, but it was actually a miracle.  Because nobody noticed.   They used their usual method to get past security and set up a hundred feet from where he was speaking.  They used a silencer and missed him by an inch.  The bullet must have passed right over his head.  Maybe even through his hair because he immediately raised his hand and patted it back into place as if a gust of wind had disturbed it.  They saw it over and over again, afterward, on television.  He raised his hand and patter his hair.  He did nothing else.  He just kept on with his speech, unaware because by definition a silenced bullet is too fast to see and too quiet to hear.  So it missed him and flew on. "   

Pages 388-389 describes how Reacher solves, thinks using minutiae.  

Pages 388-389

This is another 5 *****

The Enemy by Lee Child

 

Read between October and November,  could not wait to finish it, but things kept interfering.. First published in hardback in 2004, I read the paperback, 464 pages.  A very outstanding Jack Reacher novel, maybe one of the best, difficult to tell because I like them all.  I thought a lot of late friend Nevin who introduced me to this series  with  Running Blind in 2018.  It was the first one I read and also is published  as The Visitor.  But The Enemy has extensive narrative and descriptions about the Army, political in fighting between divisions particularly Armored and Infantry, much description about Army protocols and traditions.  It begins as Reacher in on duty in his new post at Ft. Bird, North Carolina where he was suddenly, reassigned from Panama to his  surprise.  At the same time several other similar ranking MP's are simultaneously reassigned. and his  commanding officer, Colonel Leon  Garber, ,as well.  A reduction in the military force that will of course affect the Army sets the political infighting ablaze.  As it begins Reacher is called about a dead two star  General Kramer  found dead in a motel   It will turn out Reacher is being set up, but by who and why.  The replacement commander is a longtime bureaucrat and Joe warns Jack about him.  A striving young lieutenant Summer is assigned to work with him and becomes his right hand helper and cohort.  

Page 3,  " The army is a big institution, a little bigger than Detroit, a little smaller than Dallas and just as unsentimental as either place.  Current active strength is 930,000 men and women and they are as representative of the general American population as you can get."  . 

Back Cover  The Enemy

Reacher is contacted by his brother Joe and learns their mother, a widow, who lives in Paris is dying so they make plans to visit.  She does die in this novel and they learn something about her past and activity in WWII in the resistance as a very young girl that they never knew.  It is another interesting tale within a tale, woven  into the main story with expertise by the author..  Page 97,  conversation between their mother the the Reacher brothers,  "Won't you miss us , Mom?"  "Wrong question, she said, I'll be dead.  I won't be missing anything.  It's you that will be missing me.  Like I miss your father.  Like I miss him.  Like I miss my father and mother and grandparents.  It is a part of life, missing the dead."   

Maybe because of where I am in my personal grieving of the passing of Jerry last year but the writing in this novel struck me with the philosophy about  accepting death.  It is something we do as survivors.  Page 363, " Life was unfolding the same way it always had for everyone.  Sooner or later you ended up an orphan.  There was no escaping it.  It had happened that way for a thousand generations.  No point in getting all upset about it."  

Pages 311- 315 about future wars/conflicts and theory, history.  "You know who has done the most for the country?  Who?  Not Armored,  Not the infantry..  The theater is all about the Army Corps of Engineers.  Sherman tanks way back weighed 38 tons and were 9 feet wide.  Now we're all the way down to the MIAI Abrams, which weighs 70 tons and is 11 feet wide.  Every step of the way for 40 years the Corps of Engineers has had work to do.  They've widened roads, hundreds of miles of them, all over ?West Germany.  They've strengthened bridges.  Hell they've built roads and bridges.  Dozens of them.  You want a stream of 70 ton tanks rolling east to battle, you better make damn sure the roads and bridges can take it." 

It takes Reacher going AWOL with Summers, defying orders, forging travel voucher to fly to Germany and back and to CA and back to solve the  crime of who plotted and who killed the General, his wife, his lovers...There is a strange twist with the sexual relationships as  Reacher learns the General was gay.  They must find proof and solve the mystery to clear themselves.  Reacher ends up being demoted from Major to Captain at his own choice, when investigated by JAG over all another surprise for me at the ending of the novel.  This is easily a 5*****.

Back cover

    

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Paradise Valley by C J Box

 

I read this in July 2021, when I was introduced to this author at a book sale.  Paradise Valley was published July 2017 and introduces another character to the author's repertoire, Investigator Cassie Dewell formerly with the  Bakken County, North Dakota sheriff's department.   Cassie has been pursuing a serial killer known as the Lizard King who kills along highways and truck stops where runaways are most likely to vanish.  But for years all has been quiet and then a new murder.  Cassie loses her job but will not give up looking for the Lizard King.  She has befriended a troubled youth, Kyle Westergaard, who disappears.  His grandmother begs Cassie to find him and being now unemployed Cassie agrees to search for Kyle.  She is alone and in pursuit. 

Flap of Book

 Cassie doesn't have an over fondness for attorneys,  pages 217-218,  "...most attorneys were under the general impression that they were the smartest people in the room and therefore they were always in control of it.  They liked processes to be complicated and stacked in their favor and they didn't enjoy uncertainty or chaos.  Nothing made a prosecutor or defense attorney more uncomfortable than the unknown."  

The writing is good, clear and clean.  The plot was intriguing and kept my interest, there were 340 pages in this hardback edition.  This is an author I will read more of at times.  I give this book 4 ****

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The Fallen by David Baldacci

I read this back in July but as with other books have not been posting lately.  However time to get these books moved along to local sale, so here goes.  Anothe winner from Baldacci.  This one is in the Memory Man series which I have not read in order but no matter.  Published 2018, 417 pages. 

Amos Decker is Baldacci's fictional  character, FBI agent with extra ordinary memory due to a football injury.  This occurs in a rust belt small western PA fictitious town, but one that is typical of the rust belt of the area.  From Book Good reads:    ."Amos Decker and his journalist friend Alex Jamison are visiting the home of Alex's sister in Barronville, a small town in western Pennsylvania that has been hit hard economically. When Decker is out on the rear deck of the house talking with Alex's niece, a precocious eight-year-old, he notices flickering lights and then a spark of flame in the window of the house across the way. When he goes to investigate he finds two dead bodies inside and it's not clear how either man died. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. There's something going on in Barronville that might be the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the country.     Faced with a stonewalling local police force, and roadblocks put up by unseen forces, Decker and Jamison must pull out all the stops to solve the case. And even Decker's infallible memory may not be enough to save them. "

Besides being an excellent thriller/mystery/ read there is a great amount of description of the nationwide drug/opiod crisis.  One example,  page 268-269..."Right, back in the 80's we had the crack crisis.  The government's position was just say no and if you didn't you went to prison.  Sop we locked u[p million, mostly men from inner cities.  Then came the 90's and Big Pharma decided that Americans weren't taking enough painkillers.  They sort of made paid the fifth vital sign.  Spent billions on ads, payoffs to the doctors, used legist looking organizations and think tanks to make it all seem aboveboard.  No possibility of addiction, no long term negatives was the mantra everyone was spouting.  Turns out all of that was based on faulty research or no research at all.  It's ironic but a l;ot of opioids were initially given out to combat lower back pain.     What's ironic.. Because opioid's actually are pretty ineffectual with chronic lower back pain........"  

5 stars no doubt*****

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Back flap cover

            

Her Mother's Hope by Francine Rivers

Francine Rivers is a very decent intriguing, Christian author.  Her books are usually sagas and I always enjoy them.  This one published in 2010 caught my attention at the local book sale, I had not read it and it did not disappoint me. There are 496 pages which includes the author's notes at the back explaining how she came to write this book.

  It occurs between  early 1900's and 1950's and is about the relationships between mothers and daughter and how intentions are not always perceived as they are meant.  I really related to this book.  It begins with Marta Schneider a young Swiss immigrant who dreams of owning her own boarding house until marriage and motherhood change  her plans.  She vows to raise strong children but her very tough love at times is misunderstood by Hildemara Rose her oldest daughter.  The family  moves east to Northern California so that also resonated with me being very familiar with the places after spending  over 40 years of my life there.  .

I was amazed to read the  author's notes, narrative of several pages at the end of the book describing how she decided to write this saga, which is the first of a two book series. I will have to get the second  book, Her Daughter's Dream.  Below is the first and last of these pages.

I passed this book along to a friend so best to get this post up although perhaps incomplete.  I could relate to the difficulty between mother and daughter somewhat reflecting on my own relationship with my Mom.  Different scenario, but similar theme.  Recommend this fully,  4 stars.****