Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo by C. Joseph Greaves

Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo by C. Joseph Greaves – An amazing blend of the real and the imagined made Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo a fascinating book.

Moving from 1915 through 1936 the book factually and fictionally follows the lives of four real life Americans who intersected in 1935 with key roles in one of the most famous trials of the 20^th Century.

Tom is Thomas E. Dewey the earnest young lawyer from New York who almost became President of the United States in 1948.

Dewey was blessed with great drive and energy. He charged through life. With a goal of being Governor of New York he accepted an offer as a young lawyer, at considerable financial loss, to become a special prosecutor working to clean up New York. There is more than a touch of  righteousness about him.

Lucky aka Charlie Lucky is best known as American mobster, Lucky Luciano.

Luciano was the son of poor Sicilian immigrants whose father worked hard and was scrupulously law abiding. Luciano turned to crime as a young man. With childhood friends, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, he eagerly went into selling booze to thirsty New Yorkers during Prohibition.

George is George Morton Levy who was recognized as the best criminal defence lawyer on Long Island in that era.

George earned respect for his legal craft. He gained a reputation as a talented defence lawyer without compromising his integrity and without being bombastic. He won cases with intelligence. At the same time he gambled and drank and was comfortable with career criminals.

He so intrigued me that my next post is about George.

Cokey Flo Brown aka Florence Newman, Frances Martin, Mildred Nelson, Fay Marston, Gloria Moore and Florence Stern grew up in a dysfunctional family and ran away from home at 14 with a friend’s older brother. She was running a speakeasy in Cleveland at 15. She hustled her way through the Mid-West eventually drifting into prostitution.

The first half of the book sees the quartet establishing their careers and explores their personalities. Where I was unhappy in Open Season with the narrow characterization of villains Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo shows every character as a real person. All have virtues and flaws.

Greaves does well at showing America in the midst of the Roaring 20’s and the dramatic setbacks of the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

The second half of the book recounts the trial of Luciano on charges he was the overlord of an effort to monopolize the prostitution industry of New York City. His original defence, wisely never advanced to the jury, was that he was uninterested in the modest amounts to be made from $2 whores.

In the book are questions and answers of various witnesses. I hope it will not be a spoiler to say they are actual excerpts from the trial transcripts. As I was reading the book I was thinking that the testimony recounted sounded real. There is a style to how lawyers ask questions in trials that is different from fiction.

A book is a good way to explore a trial transcript and the subtlety of cross-examination. In my first 41 years as a lawyer I have yet to see a Perry Mason moment when a witness confesses on the witness stand. I have seen many witnesses destroyed by carefully conducted questioning that is neither overtly aggressive nor flamboyant.

How the prosecution was handled disturbed me as a defence lawyer. I came to admire Levy greatly.

Greaves convincingly brought to life some colourful real life characters. Cokey Flo is the most vivid perhaps because there was the least historic information about her.

While I have focused on the historical aspects of the book the imagination of Greaves drew me along so that I was up to 1:00 in the morning to finish the book.

Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo is an excellent book and deserved to be on the shortlist for the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

A book for Maxine in 2016

Another July has come and I have spent time this month thinking about what book I have read in the past year that I would recommend to Maxine if she was still with us. After looking through a year’s reading I have decided upon Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham.

I have chosen Rogue Lawyer because Sebastian Rudd is such a great character. In a departure from my usual method of recommendation for Maxine I am putting up my post about Sebastian rather than the post in which I reviewed the book.

Maxine loved many types of books. Browsing in Petrona reminded me of how many great posts she had in the blog. Among those posts is her review of Grisham’s book, The Litigators. She enjoyed the book and liked many, not all, of Grisham’s books.

I believe she would have found Sebastian as brilliant a character as I found him when I raced through the book. In particular, I think Maxine would have appreciated his passion for fighting for the individual in the courts of the United States.

I think of you often Maxine.

****

Sebastian Rudd in Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham – I am confident I have just read the next Grisham book to be made into a Hollywood feature film. Sebastian Rudd is a larger than life criminal lawyer swashbuckling his way through the criminal and occasionally civil courts of an unnamed 1,000,000 inhabitant mid-America city.

Rudd is fearless. He challenges the police, opposing counsel, witnesses, judges and clients. Anyone looking for a fight he will make it a brawl.

He despises the tactics and actions of overly aggressive and unethical district attorneys and police.

Rudd has a brutally wicked wit that he rarely restrains in and out of court.

Rudd is as far from the grey clad lawyers occupying the towers of corporate law in Manhattan as possible in America.

He is the second American fictional lawyer to function from a rolling office. Where Michael Connelly’s lawyer, Mickey Haller, practises criminal law in Los Angeles from the back seat of a Lincoln it is a custom equipped van for Rudd. While Haller chose mobility Rudd was forced out of his office by a firebomb.

Rudd has a compelling driver in Partner, a physically imposing black man who, after being successfully defended by Rudd, has taken on the challenge of protecting and assisting the hyper-aggressive defence counsel.

Rudd has a monastic home life in a high rise tower. It is harder for a disgruntled _______ (pick any of the above he has confronted) to attack him in such a residence.

To while away the sleepless hours he regularly endures Rudd has a full size pool table occupying his den / living room and plays games against himself.

While he has little time in his hectic life for the ladies he is the father of a 7 year old boy, Sketcher, who is surprisingly normal despite his father’s chaotic life and his mother’s tumultuous lesbian relationship.

Rudd is really the type of daring courtroom lawyer all litigators wish we could be if we did not care about consequences. He is dancing on the edge every day.

And, by the way, he is a part owner of an upcoming professional cage fighter looking to reach the upper echelons of mixed martial arts. Rudd wears a brilliant yellow jacket and cap as one of the fighter’s handlers.

What leading male actor in Hollywood would not leap at the opportunity to play Rudd in the movies? Grisham thinks Rogue Lawyer and Rudd would be better suited to being a T.V. series. It has been a decade since one of his books has become a movie. Grisham, in a CBS interview, provided encouraging news that he hopes Rudd will return in future books as he has lots of adventures to tell readers.

My next post will actually discuss the type of cases undertaken by Rudd.

Rating the Shortlist for the 2016 Arthur Ellis Best Crime Fiction Novel

In recent weeks I have read the five books on the shortlist for the 2016 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Canadian Crime Novel. The winner was Open Season by Peter Kirby. This post has my ranking of the shortlist.

Coming in 5^th was The Night Bell by Inger Ash Wolfe (pseudonym for Michael Redhill) while Hungry Ghosts by Peggy Blair was 4^th.

While I love Hazel Micallef as a character I have not enjoyed the last two books in the series as much as the first two books.  The Night Bell saw Hazel return to the character she was in the opening books.

I found several similarities between Hungry Ghosts and The Night Bell.

Each dealt with a contemporary social issue. In The Night Bell it was the abuse of children in institutional care decades ago. In Hungry Ghosts it was the murder of indigenous women and prostitutes.

Both books looked decades back into the youth of a lead character. In The Night Bell it was Hazel as a teenager in a middle class family residing in a small town in Ontario. In Hungry Ghosts it was Ottawa police officer, Charlie Pike, going back in his mind to his teenage years when he was a runaway from an Indian Residential School living on the streets of Winnipeg and surviving on what he could steal by break-and-enters.

There were three story lines involved in each of the plots. I found they came together more successfully in Hungry Ghosts.

Normally I am not fond of the paranormal in crime fiction but I found the ghosts haunting Inspector Ramirez in Hungry Ghosts intriguing especially their efforts to communicate without words.

The Storm Murders by John Farrow was 3^rd best. It does not involve great social issues but is a sophisticated police procedural.

What put The Storm Murders ahead of The Night Bell and Hungry Ghosts was a wickedly clever and ingeniously simple method of murder. As I rarely can work out how fictional murders are committed before the sleuths I may be giving too much credit to Farrow. Yet I could not figure how there were no footprints in the fresh snow outside a murder scene but the investigating police officers cannot find the killer during a search of every room in the house and are killed before backup police can arrive.

It was also interesting for the retired Inspector Emile Cinq-Mars to involve his wife, Sandra, in the investigation.

There were two issues that kept the book from being ranked higher. There was a connection between murder victims in Quebec and New Orleans that should have been identified by the police far sooner in the book. As well, the Hollywood style conclusion was not credible and clashed with the skilled police work in the rest of the book.

Second best was A Killing in Zion by Andrew Hunt which involved murder in Salt Lake City during the Great Depression.

It ranked ahead of the earlier three books because it involved a unique assignment, a difficult task when you have read a lot of crime fiction, for a police officer. Early in the book Detective Lieutenant Art Oveson is appointed head of the newly established Anti-Polygamy Squad.

Oveson is tasked with prosecuting the fundamentalist Mormon men who have disregarded edicts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to abandon polygamy. They are carrying on with plural marriages being officially married to only one woman and “sealed” to many more.

His investigation into the murder of a leader of a fundamentalist sect takes Oveson into deep into the organization. Two evils of such sects, the taking of child brides and the banishment of surplus teenage boys, were as much a problem 80 years ago as they are today.

A Killing in Zion did not reach the top for me because of another Hollywood ending that was even more extreme than The Storm Murders.

First was Open Season by Peter Kirby. I agree with the panel judging the Award that Open Season was the best of the shortlist. (I choose again not to say where the books on the shortlist would have ranked overall with regard to the Canadian crime books I read in 2015.)

Detective Inspector Luc Vanier is a wonderful character. While struggling with commitment concerning his girlfriend he is a thorough, imaginative and dedicated Montreal police officer.

The investigation he conducts with Detective Sargeant Saint Jacques is meticulous as they work to resolve the kidnapping of a Guatemalan journalist whose application for refugee status in Canada has been denied before she was abducted.

I had reservations about the lack of dimension in the villains but what made Open Season the best for me is that it was the only book of the quintet that I found a page turner. I was drawn through the book faster than any other on the shortlist. I cannot clearly explain what kept the pages turning but they flowed by.

Having chosen Open Season as the best I would say that none of the shortlist this year was a great book. They were good to very good but not more.

Allegiance by Kermit Roosevelt - Disliked

Allegiance by Kermit Roosevelt - My last post started a review of Allegiance by Kermit Roosevelt. I appreciated and was challenged by the part of the book that dealt with the internment of Japanese Americans during WW II. The cover and title indicated a book about Japanese Americans and to which nation they gave their allegiance. What I struggled with in the book was the other plot line.

To discuss my concerns with the book will involve spoilers. Those readers planning to read the book should consider not go further into this post.

Early in the book Cash comes to believe there is a secret conspiracy seeking to control the U.S. Supreme Court. A fellow clerk, Gene Gressman, works to persuade him that dark forces are threatening the integrity of the court.

Cash is ineptly followed and becomes engaged in a confrontation with those tailing him..

Among the greatest difficulties for writers of crime and thriller fiction is creating credible conspiracies. Roosevelt did not succeed with the conspiracy chosen for this book

He had the elements of an interesting conspiracy but it was too far from the internment theme. The conspiracy and murder in Allegiance felt grafted onto a plot about the constitutional and personal issues of internment and detracted from the real story. The conspiracy never felt right in Allegiance.

If there been a murder at the court in Allegiance that was clearly related to the questions of internment there would have been a better book.

John Grisham is talented at bringing murders directly into the issues he is addressing in his books. In The Pelican Brief Grisham successfully tackled the same elements as Allegiance. There was murder within the Supreme Court, a conspiracy and a pending Supreme Court case. The Pelican Brief saw Tulane University law student, Darby Shaw, early in the book connecting the murders of two Supreme Court Justices with the case on environmental issues coming before the Court. Her efforts to expose the conspiracy made the book a compelling read for me.

Roosevelt’s skill is in the writing about legal issues and lawyers rather than conspiracies. He does tie together the plot lines at the end of the book in a realistic way but it was too late in the book for me. Even within the book Cash expresses confusion on how the murders are related to the Japanese cases.

Grisham’s approach immediately drew me while Roosevelt left me wondering how these two stories could be connected. The motives and killers in Allegiance are mysterious for almost all the book.

Last year The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson explored law and segregation in the American South of 1946. The civil rights movement was stirring after the war but an African American refusing to take his proper place on a bus in the Deep South can still be murdered for his impertinence. The issues of segregation are developed in relation to the murder of decorated WW II veteran, Lt. Joe Howard Wilson.

Roosevelt had two good books in Allegiance that were pushed into one book and each plot suffered. He could have had a book focused on the internment cases and another book about a conspiracy against the Court.

Overall I am glad I read Allegiance and I hope Roosevelt will write another legal mystery but without a conspiracy.

****

Roosevelt, Kermit – (2007) - In the Shadow of the Law; (2016) - Allegiance - Enjoyed

Allegiance by Kermit Roosevelt - Liked

Allegiance by Kermit Roosevelt – What a dilemma. Half of the book fascinated and intrigued me. Half of the book puzzled and frustrated me.

 

The intriguing part involved the exploration of the American Japanese internment court cases from World War II. The government, having interned 120,000 Japanese Americans (most of them American citizens) faced legal challenges to the internments during the war.

 

Caswell Harrison, known to the Philadelphia elite as Cash, has just finished law school after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Failing his physical after being drafted leaves him unsettled and anxious to find a way to contribute to the war effort.

 

Offered a clerkship at the United States Supreme Court by Justice Hugo Black he is persuaded to take up the position of clerk as a means of serving his country. Among the major issues coming before the Court are the Japanese cases.

 

Roosevelt brings alive the great Supreme Court Justices of that era such as Black, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson and William Douglas.

 

Cash observes them as judges and in their personal lives, how they react to pending cases and what sways them in reaching decisions.

 

Black loves playing tennis and has a full size tennis court in his backyard.

 

Cash’s year at the Court passes swiftly and he unexpectedly learns how the clerks sometimes influence decisions.

 

Later in the book he joins the Department of Justice and is tasked with supporting the internment by defending the actions of the Government. A further round of Japanese cases are reaching the Supreme Court.

 

Great questions are addressed in the book. What should happen to constitutional rights during war time? If rights are not upheld in time of crisis what are the consequences for the Rule of Law? These questions continue to be weighed by the Court today as the United States proceeds through its second decade of the war against terrorism.

 

An interned Japanese American Harry Nakamura discusses constitutional rights with Cash:

 

“The idea of these rights makes life perhaps more difficult,” Harry says softly. “To tell us we are enemies and lock us up, that we can understand. To tell us we are still Americans, to arrest us for refusing the draft, to make our children salute the flag and pledge allegiance to their jailers – it is perhaps this that people cannot bear. Renouncing citizenship could seem a relief.”

 

As Cash works upon the cases as a lawyer for the Department of Justice he must weigh his personal beliefs against the positions of the Department. What are his personal and professional responsibilities if there is conflict?

 

As the cases are argued at the Supreme Court late in World War II the nation wonders if the Justices will rule against FDR’s decision to approve the internment. Have the Justices become more independent after a decade of acquiescence to the President’s decisions and policies?

 

There was drama enough for me in the facts of the internment, the rights of a nation’s citizens during war, the stories of the interned Japanese and a young lawyer’s efforts to balance duty and conscience.

 

Roosevelt, an American constitutional law professor, brilliantly shows how constitutional law is often dramatic with powerful personal stories.

 

As the Western World of 2016 assesses the dangers of a violent minority within a minority Roosevelt’s book explores what happens when fear dominates the decisions of a nation.

 

In my next post I will discuss my struggles with the other plot line.

 

Allegiance is the first book I have read from the three books on the shortlist for the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

****

Roosevelt, Kermit – (2007) - In the Shadow of the Law; Hardcover

2016 Winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction - Pleasantville

Yesterday the University of Alabama and the American Bar Association Journal announced that Pleasantville by Attica Locke was the winner of the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

I am currently reading my way through this year’s shortlist for the Prize. I have just finished Allegiance by Kermit Roosevelt. I am currently reading Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo by C. Joseph Greaves. I will then read Pleasantville.

I wish I could read more and faster so that I could complete the shortlists I have chosen to read in recent years before the Awards were announced.

I had decided to read Pleasantville last of the short listed books as I had received recommendations it was an outstanding book.

As I have done in recent years I will be writing reviews of each of the books on the shortlist and then providing my opinion on which was the best book.

In the past two years I have agreed with the choice of the judging panel. In 2014 the winner was Sycamore Row by John Grisham and in 2015 it was The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson.

The readers of the ABA Journal have a say in the selection process. For 2016 had their votes decided the Award there would have been a different winner.

The ABA Journal said its voting readers were divided as follows:

        1.) 24.01% for Pleasantville;

        2.) 31.6% for Tom & Lucky and George & Cokey Flo;
        and,
        3.) 44.39% for Allegiance.

In its press release the University of Alabama Law School provided information on Ms. Locke:

Attica Locke’s first novel, “Black Water Rising,” was nominated for a 2010 Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was short-listed for the Orange Prize in the United Kingdom (now the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction). Her second book, “The Cutting Season,” published by Dennis Lehane Books, is a national bestseller and is a winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. A graduate of Northwestern University, Locke was a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmakers Lab. She’s written scripts for Paramount, Warner Bros, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Jerry Bruckheimer Films and HBO and is a writer and producer of the Fox drama “Empire.” A native of Houston, Attica lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

The Award will be presented on September 22 at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. during National Book Festival.

Congratulations to Attica.

Issues with Open Season by Peter Kirby

I enjoyed Open Season by Peter Kirby, winner of the 2016 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Canadian Crime Fiction novel, as set out in my last post but I have issues with the book.

Open Season takes on a couple of challenging themes.

The primary plot involves the plight of failed refugee claimants in Canada who actually have a good claim to refugee status.

The secondary plot involves the trafficking of young women from the Ukraine to Canada and forcing them into prostitution.

There are many serious issues on each plot line.

What distressed me was the one dimensional quality of those characters who were not Montreal City Police officers or the victims.

I understand the desire to portray those involved in the kidnapping of the Guatemalan journalist, Luna, and those who trafficked Katya but they were all evil. There was no nuance to them.

What bothered me more was that members of other law enforcement agencies were also depicted as bad.

The Canadian Border Service enforcing court orders were seen as cruel.

The members of an RCMP task force into international human trafficking were uncaring and mean.

The narrow picture of the criminals and other law enforcement officials left me considering the book good but not great.

Showing the villains as humans does not diminish their wickedness. John Le Carré in his books creates villains who are real characters. Richard "Dickie" Roper in The Night Manager is a suave sophisticated arms dealer with a family who is among the most dangerous men in the world.

I regret the current tendency in crime fiction to create villains who are only wicked.

****

The other issue was the cover. It did not attract me. While covers should not matter I admit they do influence me. Having just said I found the cover unappealing I received a comment from Brandi who said the cover drew her to the book. I would be interested in comments of other readers on their reaction to the cover which is at the top of this post.

Open Season by Peter Kirby

Open Season by Peter Kirby – Detective Inspector Luc Vanier, normally quick and decisive, is tentative about buying a condo. Vanier and his girlfriend, Anjili Segal, have decided to move in together but Vanier is having trouble deciding on which condo. Each one they view is flawed. While his love of Segal is strong he is inwardly hesitant about the commitment to living together.

While Vanier and Segal are dining and discussing condos he is called to a kidnapping. A woman has been abducted outside a restaurant and the lawyer, Roger Belair, who was meeting her has been injured. 

As Vanier and Detective Sargeant Saint Jacques begin their investigation there is little information. The lawyer knows little more than her name was Sophie Luna. She is a Guatemalan journalist who has sought and been denied refugee status in Canada.

At the same time Katya Babyak is beginning a secret journey from the Ukraine to Canada. With four other young women they are being smuggled into Canada.

Vanier is puzzled by the kidnapping. Why would a woman facing deportation be kidnapped? There can be no money for ransom. She has no prominent friends or relatives in Canada.

The case becomes a high priority when Belair is murdered in the emergency area of the hospital while under police guard. Unfortunately for Belair the guard was pre-occupied with taking an hourly break and left Belair unprotected.

Katya eventually reaches Montreal where she is held captive and forced to be a prostitute.

The investigation leads them into the murky world of refugee claimants seeking to remain in Canada. Being granted refugee status in Canada has become more difficult. Once denied many claimants retreat to an underworld of the desperate seeking by any means, legal or not, to stay in Canada. If they are caught by Canadian Border Services they will be swiftly deported.

It turns out Luna has one precious commodity – documentation on a fraudulent business deal – but it is clear the information was neither on her when she was kidnapped nor is it at her apartment.

The investigation is meticulous. Leads are followed carefully. Vanier and Saint Jacques weigh all information and diligently pursue new lines of investigation.

The book is well plotted. There is neither an easy nor an impossibly difficult note to the resolution. How Vanier and Saint Jacques determine why Luna was kidnapped is as intelligent a police procedural as I have read in sometime.

The ending appeared out of character for Vanier. The lone lawman intent on personal justice is not a Canadian concept. Thankfully the body count was modest.

I had a reservation about two matters with regard to the book and will discuss them in my next post.

Open Season was the 5^th and final book I have read from the shortlist for the 2016 Arthur Ellis Award as the Best Crime Fiction novel written by a Canadian. Open Season was the winner of the Award. Next week I will personally rank the shortlist.

9th Canadian Reading Challenge Roundup (Part II)

In my last post I listed the 16 books I had read for the 9^th Canadian Book Challenge. Rather than the calendar year each year’s Challenge goes from Canada Day (July 1) to the following Canada Day. All 16 books I read this year were crime fiction.

Of the settings of the 16 books what struck me was how few were set just in Canada:

1.) Only 5 of the 16 books took place in Canada (one each in Alberta, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Yukon);

2.) There were 3 books with settings inside and outside Canada (Saskatchewan and the South Pacific, Cuba and Northern Ontario, Quebec and the United States); and,

3.) Most surprising was that 8 of the books were set outside Canada (4 in England, two in the United States, one in France and one in Croatia).

These personal stats reflect an issue I raised in recent posts on the number of cross-border Canadian mysteries and the “encouragement” of publishers for authors to set their books outside Canada.

For the 8^th Canadian Book Challenge my reading had 13 of 18 books set in Canada. I am hoping this past year’s stats are an aberration.

My favourite Canadian read of the year was The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. Flavia de Luce captured me as she has enthralled legions around the world. An 11 year old girl living in rural England in the 1950’s is an unlikely sleuth but Bradley has created a wonderful character in Flavia. She is a bright engaging girl. Her love of chemistry and fascination with poisons adds to her allure. The mystery was well done and the importance of a postage stamp to the plot an unusual intrigue. I was not as excited about the next in the series, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, but it would have been very difficult to equal The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. I have the 3^rd in the series to read and will be interested to see how the series develops with Flavia.

Second was What’s Left Behind by Gail Bowen. The 16^th Joanne Kilbourn mystery sees Joanne involved in a bruising municipal referendum on development (I do not think Gail was prescient in anticipating a nation changing referendum in the United Kingdom) and the murder of a young woman farmer. While not the focus of the book I will not forget What’s Left Behind for its involvement in heritage poultry. The victim’s prized poultry were also killed. I had never heard of “Blue Andalusians, scarlet-combed Langshans, Swedish Flower , Ridley Bronze turkeys and pink-billed Aylesbury ducks” before reading the book.

Third was Another Margaret by Janice MacDonald. The concept of the book was challenging. Miranda “Randy” Craig is a Master’s student at the University of Alberta researching a reclusive Albertan author who has written a quartet of well regarded books when a new book appears decades later. The unique aspect of the book is that MacDonald created detailed plot lines for the books being researched by Randy. MacDonald actually plotted out 6 books in the writing of Another Margaret.

I admired MacDonald’s witty insights into academic life. While working on invitations to a reunion of grad students Randy remarks:

Who knew there that many English majors in the world? You’d think there would be far fewer apostrophe problems on signage.

At the other end of the spectrum I was disappointed with the books by Anthony Bidulka and Louise Penny.

I found I could not suspend disbelief with regard to Anthony’s book that had over 100 people secretly on a South Pacific island. It is a hard premise in the 21^st Century to have so many people marooned on a desert isle.

I equally struggled with Louise Penny’s premise of a giant supergun lying hidden in the woods a short distance from Three Pines. Inspector Armand Gamache is not the sleuth for a doomsday thriller.

It was a good year of Canadian reading and I have started reading for the 10^th Challenge.

9th Canadian Book Challenge Roundup (Part I)

Sharon and I spent Canada Day in Regina. I had covered the Roughriders season opener last night and we stayed over.

The drive home was almost a classic rural Saskatchewan drive. For most of the 300 km we were on cruise control sailing down a quiet highway watching the clouds moving across the vast sky while listening to 60's rock on the radio.

Then we came over a hill and there was the wreckage of a bad accident in the ditch. Several vehicles had already stopped to help and we were directed on. As we drove on to Melfort seven emergency vehicles passed us as they responded to the accident.

I am a little subdued thinking about the accident as I write this post on successfully completing the 9th Canadian Book Challenge which ran from July 1, 2015 to yesterday.

For the Challenge readers seek to read 13 books by Canadian authors.

The books I read were:

1.) No Known Grave by Maureen Jennings

2.) Plague by C.C. Humphreys

3.) Booked for Trouble by Eva Gates

4.) Another Margaret by Janice MacDonald

5.) The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

6.) The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny - Part I and Part II

7.) Tropéano’s Gun by John Brooke

8.) The Women of Skawa Island by Anthony Bidulka

9.) The Night Bell by Inger Ash Wolfe

10.) The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

11.) The Wail of the Windigo by Steve Pitt

12.) What's Left Behind by Gail Bowen

13.) The Heart of Hell by Alen Mattich

14.) Hungry Ghosts by Peggy Blair

15.) A Killing in Zion by Andrew Hunt

16.) The Storm Murders by John Farrow

For the 7th Challenge I read 18 books and for the 9th Challenge it was 19 books.

I appreciate John Mutford hosting the Challenge at his fine blog, The Book Mine Set.

In my next post I will discuss the books I read during the 9th Challenge.