Death In A Strange Country by Donna Leon

 

Death In A Strange Country

by 

Donna Leon

Donna Leon is an author that writes mystery novels that are set in Venice.  She has a series that revolve around a police commissioner named Guido Brunetti.  This is the second book she wrote and she wrote it in the mid 1990s.  Each one of her books addresses not only the story line of the mystery but incorporates a social issue.  In this novel a young American soldier who is a health official at an American military base in Italy is murdered in Venice.  A week later his girlfriend, who is a doctor at the base, is murdered.  And soon a mafia connected businessman is robbed.  Surrounding these crimes and the investigation of them a ring of illegal toxic waste dumping emerges.  The illegal dumping of toxic waste is an international problem.  Most of the articles I found online were written eight or ten years ago but AI chimes in that it is still happening and it is happening here in the United States too. So I don't think it is an issue that has been resolved completely although we are not hearing a lot about it recently.   More information can be found HERE,  HERE and HERE.   This book is an interesting read as are all Donna Leon's novels.  They also are books that bring world wide problems to the surface.  Please click on the author's name and book title above and follow the links in the text for more information.  The video that follows also has more information.  

Beyond The Crushing Waves by Lilly Mirren

 

Beyond the Crushing Waves 

by

Lilly Mirren

We are all very aware of the orphan trains that carried children out of then crowded eastern United States cities to the western farms from about 1854 to 1929.  But a less known practice was Great Britian transporting orphans and poor children to their colonies as late at the 1950s.  Lilly Mirren taps into this historical practice in her novel Beyond The Crushing Waves and tells the fiction story of three children who navigate the move from London to Australia.  The book held my interest and peaked my curiosity to find out more.  Although Mary, Lottie and Harry lives turn out well,  not all the children who were sent to colonies had such a happy ending to their lives.  There are a couple of organizations advocating for the victims of this practice.  The International Association of Former Child Migrants and Their Families and The Family Restoration Fund both work with the people who went through this relocation process.  I enjoyed this novel very much and found it to be a fast read.  I highly recommend it.  Please click on the links in the text and on the book title and author's name above to follow the links to learn more.  And enjoy the video that follows.  

 

A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

 

A Dance With Dragons

by 

George R. R. Martin

The last book that George R R Martin has completed in his Song Of Ice and Fire series is A Dance With Dragons.  This book was over eleven hundred pages long and I had to renew it, although I only kept it seven days past the renewal date before I completed it.  This is the first of the books that I noticed was much different than the television series.  In the other four books there were lots of similarities and the differences were in the details.  But in this novel the story line is not the same as the Game of Thrones television series.  It is obvious the television writers veered off in order to complete their programming,  The book continues to have much more detail and be more tastefully handled than the television series.  It does still have its fair share of sex and violence.  It pulls back into the story some of the characters that were left out of the fourth novel while still continuing the threads of the main characters. Cersei has her famous walk of shame in this novel and Arya is learning her art in the house of many faces. Two of the areas that are much different are the sections about the House of Greyjoy and the story line about Stannis.  Also Sansa's story is handled much differently.  As good as the television series was,  the books outshine them by far. I have my fingers crossed that George R R Martin will be able to finish writing his series.   Please click on the links at the book title and author's name above and enjoy the video that follows.