The Cranky Inn Owner and Other Hotel Tales

I'm reading a batch of mysteries that have a hotel, motel and inn theme.

Room with a Clue by Kate Kingsbury

This is a part of her Pennyfoot Hotel series. The characters are good, but the mysteries are a bit tame. I'm hoping this series, set in 1908, gets better as the stories go on. Very light.

Murder on a Mystery Tour by Marian Babson

Take a bunch of classic mystery enthusiasts from America, take them to the English countryside - have them at a secluded hotel with some eccentric authors, a storm and some murder. What more could you ask for? She does a nice homage to the classic authors and their wacky fans. A nice bit fun.

Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth by Tamar Myers

Magdalena Yoder, is the not so cheerful owner and manager of a Mennonite Inn in Hernia, Pennsylvania. She will not hesitate to offer her guests the full "authentic experience" package - the one that requires them to clean up their own room and wash their own dishes! She inherited the house from her parents and is making the best of it - even if her sister is just plan wild - (divorced a gentile) and in spite of the fights with her Amish cousins who help out on the farm. But she has a great sense of humor and loves to read. And when she gets guests who insist on getting themselves killed, well - someone has to take charge. The first book was a stitch and I am looking forward to more. Lots of fun.

Hemlock Falls Mystery series

Claudia Bishop has a fun series with the Hemlock Falls mysteries. She has two sisters Meg and Sarah"Quill" Quilliam running an inn in New York state. Meg is the chef and older sister Quill is the manager. They are transplants from New York City and are not considered "locals" by the fellow townsfolk. Their relationship with the town (Quill's boyfriend is the sheriff) and with co-workers and guests seem to dominate the books. The mysteries are solved by both sisters with Quill doing most of the leg work.

The books are fun - character packed, they move fast and the mysteries are not sticky sweet cozies. (Some gruesome deaths in the second book!) I am hoping that they are a little less character packed as the series moves along, because you really need the character list at the beginning of the books to keep everyone straight.

I read the first two in the series A Taste for Murder and A Dash of Death. Both were good reads and I am looking forward to the characters' growth in the series.

Cactus Flower

Alice Duncan's Cactus Flower is a great example of a "fish out of water" western. Eulalie Gibb has come from the big city stages to this small western town to try and make a home for her and her sister. She already has a job at the Opera House as a singer - and only a singer. But her costumes are enough to set the gentlemen of the town on fire. Nick Taggart has a run in with her, and decides she's too prickly and a bit mean. But he finds himself helping her out anyway. She finds the blacksmith a bit of giant but thinks he might make a good bodyguard. She learns to like the dust ridden town and he learns that toughness can hide a lot. But what is she and her sister running from anyway?

Give it a try. Duncan writes great characters with great humor. A fun read.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (with Stephen L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver) is a book about family: her family, the farming and agricultural family, and the family of men. (And it is written with her family - her daughter provides the recipes and nutrition segments, her husband, the food industry issues.) Can one family of four sustain themselves on locally grown food for a year? That is the question that Kingsolver and her family attempt to solve. It helps that they live on a farm in southwest Virginia, but they "survive" by growing and raising their own food, going to local farmer's markets and seeing where items are grown in their local stores. Her segment on turkey reproduction is very funny and scary. Funny - from her descriptions - scary, when you realize that certain breeds no longer reproduce naturally at all - it is bred out of the birds.


Do they make - sure. Is it easy? Not so much, but the tone in which Kingsolver writes just guides you through the seasons. She does not have the stridency of a convert, for she writes about their dilemmas and "must have" items (coffee for the adults, mac and cheese for the kids and their friends) with candidness. But she gives the reader hope that the food environment is changing-back to food grown in healthy ways for both the farmer and pickers and the eaters. And she provides resources and recipes to help the average folk contribute along their path. As someone who grew up with a large vegetable garden and canning, I really liked how she handled the whole topic of raising your own food. I was very impressed by her writing - I think I need to try one of her other writings. A great thoughtful read.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a book authored by Barbara Ehrenreich. Ehrenreich when railing against polices in the current presidential administration, tells her editor that some one should do a book on the jobs of working class people. He tells her she should write it. And thus began the idea for the book. She puts her regular life on hold and takes various jobs to see if she can live the American Dream for a month on those wages. To vary the experiment she goes to different states - Florida, Maine and Minnesota. She uses her maiden name and does not list that she has a degree on her job application. She has other limitations and personal restrictions, but ends up with these jobs: waitress, an nursing home aide, a cleaning lady, and a retail worker in a Walmart.

Within this book, she points out some interesting things about this working world - the rise of testing - both drug and psychological in the hiring process. How workers are so busy with the struggle of living that they really don't have time or money for anything else. And that most are unaware of the rights they have as workers. She writes of her co-workers with compassion, and a bit of guilt, for she realizes that if it were not for her college education, as a middle aged woman this would probably be her working world.

The hardest part of this book is realizing that for most of us - we are only a few paychecks away from living this kind of daily struggle. Very thought provoking, and makes one appreciate what one has, and it will make you leave a bigger tip at the next restaurant you go to. You may not appreciate her politics, but you will realize that for some, the American dream is far off. A very good book.

All the President's Men - with Friends Like These...

I have been a bit busy lately and have fallen behind in my posting, but not in my reading. And I had to read this title for a current events genre study. Yeah, it is not a "current event" but the ramifications of this political era still resonate throughout our political life.

All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward could be called one of the first political "instant" books. These books are written during or right after a political event. They started the in-depth investigation into the break-ins at the Watergate building, and proceed to bring the rest of the media and in some circles, the country, with them. It really is a great study of investigative journalism that still has meaning today. The question, for me is - would they have been able to publish this information in the Washington Post today? Would they have been forced to put this in a blog? What would be different if they had today's technology? Half the book is devoted to finding out who are the players and how they are connected - would this have been faster or not? Consider the current administrations' block on information flow - how hard would it be now?

As they take you through the story, one of the most interesting things to me is the loss of political innocence. The people who finally cooperate with Bernstein and Woodward - really love their country and the presidential office and they can not believe the lies and liars that are surrounding Nixon. You can tell these people got involved in public service because they believed that they were helping their country. And that they were let down, and in some cases, betrayed by a paranoid president.

Whether you are a Nixon fan or not, (some of us did not have well formed political views at that time, and wished all those talking men behind the curtained tables would stop blocking our summer television programs!), this is a great study of how power corrupts and how the American public gained their cynicism for their political leaders. It is greatly detailed book - I admit I needed a timeline cheat sheet to keep everything straight - but it reads like a thriller as the authors try to uncover the truth. A great read.