Book of the Month: September

My best book for the month of September is Saving Meghan. This medical thriller was so captivating that it kept me up all night until I finished reading it.  Meghan Gerard has an undiagnosed illness and her mother loves, really loves, taking her to doctors and screaming at them if they don't order tests or additional physician consultations. Meghan's father Carl thinks his wife is nuts. His wife's mother had munchausen's and he thinks she has it too.  So does White Hospital where Meghan is a frequent patient. When the hospital tries to do an intervention, the story intensifies.

Saving Meghan

Daniel Palmer has written another amazing medical mystery with Saving Meghan. With this novel he examines the illness called munchausen's by proxy.

The Gerard family is falling apart due to daughter Meghan's undiagnosed illness and her mother Becky's constant demand for her to see new doctors and have more tests. Husband Carl doesn't seem to believe that his daughter is really sick.  Meghan, a former high school athlete, is now homebound with nausea, cramping, fevers, fatigue and dizziness. However, every medical test keeps coming back normal until the family meets Dr. Zach Fisher who thinks she has a mitochondrial disease. She begins treatment but White Hospital is considering an intervention. They think Becky is intentionally making Meghan sick.

This novel was one heck of a page turner! I had to stay up until 2 am to finish it this morning. The plot moved very quickly and each chapter ended with a bang so I had to continue reading. I was familiar with Munchausen's so I knew what to expect from the mother's character. However, the daughter's character surprised me. By age 15 she had already learned what made her mother happy so Meghan was somewhat complicit in acting out her illness. I had no idea that was normal in these situations.

The plot had incredible twists and plenty of suspense but the final resolution of the story caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting it and I don't think it fit the story well. Still, it was a fun read and I am looking forward to Palmer's next novel. 

A Far Horizon

This is the second book in the Broken Kingdom Series about the English Civil War of the 1640s where Charles 1 is on the throne with his Catholic wife Henrietta. A Far Horizon primarily is about three women trying to survive on their own during the war.  Caroline Pendleton leaves her home for London after her husband is killed in battle. Lucy Hay is a widow who takes care of the two youngest royal children while their mother is in exile in France. Queen Henrietta is always on the run from her husband's enemies.

The book had a slow start. I had a difficult time getting interested in it as I couldn't find a storyline. The characters were reacting to news about the war and that's about it. Most of the historical characters bored me and there were many of them to keep track of. However, at the midpoint the story picked up. This is where the author used created characters to enhance her story. These characters were appealing and they carried the book.

I can't figure out why Vantrease wrote this kind of book. It's drastically different from her historical mysteries which I think were fantastic. I hope she returns to writing the mysteries because that is where she shines.

The Concubine's Tattoo

The Concubine's Tattoo is the fourth Sano Ichiro mystery by Laura Joh Rowland. It takes place in Tokyo in 1690 under the reign of Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.

In this installment of the series Sano gets married to the feisty Reiko who wants to  help him with his criminal investigations. Before the wedding celebrations can begin, the body of the shogun's favorite concubine, Harume, is found dead. The shogun decides that he needs Sano to begin investigating this death ASAP. The honeymoon is abruptly cancelled as Sano and his assistant Hirata begin their work to determine how the concubine died.

I was surprised at the amount of sex in this book. Prior books in the series did not have any sex.  This one had explicit descriptions of sexual encounters, including kinky sex and gay sex. Every character was described having sex. Even the concubine's tattoo is in a sensitive area. You don't expect that in historical fiction.

Aside from that, the author presented a colorful picture of life in the women's quarters at Edo Castle. It was noisy, vengeful, had rich appointments and extravagant kimonos but the women were kept behind screens so that they would not be seen by men. My impression was that they were prisoners. I don't know if that is what the author intended but wealth never makes up for freedom.

Sano wanted a compliant wife but Reiko was raised to be independent and refused to sleep with him until he relented in making her a work partner. I didn't see this as plausible. It just wasn't Sano's character to be anything but a traditional samurai. In prior books he never had thoughts about treating women differently than society dictated. It didn't fit his character to suddenly jump into being a women's rights samurai.

The investigation and resolution of the murder was outstanding. There were plenty of suspects and red herrings. However, as I write this review I cannot escape my overall impression that I just read a romance novel, not a historical fiction story.  It's romance in feudal Japan. When I bought this book I expected to read the 20+ novels in this series.  Now I am not so sure. I like history, not romance.

Pandemic

Pandemic is Robin Cook's 36th medical mystery novel. The plot was inspired by a 2012 article in Science magazine concerning bacterial immunity. In his Preface the author stated that the article also introduced the world to a biologically active chimeric molecule called CRISPR/CAS9.  This molecule can be custom-tailored to alter genes in plants and animals.  With CRISPR/CAS9, any gene whose sequence is known can be replaced, removed, turned on and turned off and this can be done by anyone, even a high schooler in his garage. You don't need to be a molecular biologist to know how to do this. Therein lies one of the dangers. Another danger is that this technology is unregulated.

The story opens with a woman suddenly dying on a New York subway. Medical Examiner Jack Stapleton performs her autopsy and is astonished to find that she had a recent heart transplant but was not on any immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection of the heart. Her DNA also matched the DNA of the transplanted heart which would be impossible unless it came from a twin. A lung virus is the expected cause of death and the woman's short period of illness is reminiscent of the 1918 flu epidemic.

With troubles at home that he wants to avoid, Stapleton throws himself into this case. He tries to identify the woman by visiting a  tattoo parlor to determine the origin of her unusual tattoo of a puzzle piece with the name Helen on it. He locates the hospital that performed her transplant and is led to a Chinese billionaire who owns a hospital and research facility that uses CRISPR/CAS9. Then, a second woman ends up in his morgue with a puzzle piece tattoo with the name Carol in the middle.

I loved this book. It was fast paced and the search to identify the cause of death was interesting. When the plot came to what the Chinese billionaire was doing with his transplant business, I was astonished that anyone would even think about doing what he was doing. I won't be a spoiler here but it was shocking.

The relationship between the two main characters, Jack Stapleton and his wife Laurie Montgomery, was quite different from prior novels. Laurie is now Jack's boss. She has no problem yelling at him. He cannot handle it though. Jack is usually the dominant person in this relationship and this mixup feels awkward. To make things worse, they have a new child who was just diagnosed as being autistic. I am not sure where these two characters go from here. Is this 11th book featuring them the last one?

4 out of 5 stars.

Mistress of the Throne

Mistress of the Throne is a novel in the Mughal Intrigues series by Ruchir Gupta.  It was published in 2014.  The author has written several books on anesthesiology as that is his day job but I have not seen any other books in this series being published by him yet.  The main character is Jahanara, daughter of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Jahan, who is appointed as Empress of India after her mother dies.

In the opening pages Jahanara's family unit is held together by her mother. When her mother dies in childbirth, the sibling rivalry among her brothers becomes extreme.  Dara, the oldest son and heir to the throne is a liberal who accepts all religions in India. Another brother, Aurangazeb, is a strict Muslim who believes that it is Allah's will to destroy Hindu and Christian buildings. While her father remarried, he appointed the 17 year old Jaharana as Empress of India instead of his new wife, giving her broad political power. While Jahanara used her political powers to rule the country, her primary objective was to keep her brothers from fighting each other.

The setting descriptions were delicious, from the elaborate meals and the clothing to the palace decor. The building of the Taj Mahal was a prominent secondary plot.

The plight of women in Mughal India was a major theme. Female children of the emporer were not allowed to marry. If a woman was chosen to marry an emporer or an empire's son and he rejected her, she had to spend the rest of her life with the concubines, unloved. Descriptions of life in the zenana where all of the women in the palace lived abounded throughout the book. They played alot of games with each other as they tried to get power in the kingdom.

I loved this book and wish there was a sequel. I rate it 5 out of 5 stars!

Courting Mr. Lincoln

Courting Mr. Lincoln is a fictionalized account of Mary Todd and Abe Lincoln's courtship and eventual marriage.  However, the story alternates between the point of view of Mary and Joshua Speed, Lincoln's best friend and roommate.  Can I presume that they were both courting Lincoln since they are both telling the story?

While Speed and Lincoln had a deep bond of friendship, there is a hint in one chapter that Speed may have wanted more from Lincoln. It was unclear whether Lincoln understood that or considered extending the relationship. He seemed to waver at the thought but my impression was that that Lincoln just had something else on his mind. He always had something else on his mind.

Mary Todd captivated Lincoln with her political intellect.  If Speed was ever really a romantic interest for Lincoln, Speed could not compete with Mary's brain. Politics is what Mary and Abe had in common and its what their relationship was based on.

I think Speed was gay.  When he eventually married, his wife did not want to have sex with him. He was OK with that arrangement. Twenty years later when Speed and Lincoln were again together, traveling to his inauguration, it was mentioned that he and his wife still had no children.

This was an enjoyable, fast read. I am curious how much of the book is fiction, especially the part about Mary's political instincts.  It would make sense that 2 people with nothing else in common would want to be together for a joint political future. I know plenty such couples today.  Politicians look for spouses like that and politically astute people are attracted to politicians.

5 out of 5 stars!

The Bookworm

The Bookworm is a fantastical thriller set in both WWII and the modern era. It provides an interesting theory on why Adolph Hitler decided not to invade England after the Blitz and instead send his army east toward Russia.

Lara Menelova Klimt "the bookworm" is a geohistorian.  She studies how geography determines a people's history, rather than its politics.  When not teaching classes at Moscow State University, Lara spends time in the Osobyi Arkhiv reviewing Nazi documents and listening to Dictaphone recordings of the dictated letters of Hitler, Himmler and others in the Third Reich.  One day after class she is approached by a stranger who hands her a shopping bag full of six Dictaphone cylinders for her to listen to and tells her that they have the testimony of one man who started the Great Patriotic War. Then the stranger abruptly leaves.

The man giving his testimony is none other than the actor Noel Coward.  In real life he worked as a British spy during WWII.  The transcripts also show a young John Kennedy coming up with an idea to trick Hitler into invading Russia instead of England. This trick, of course, protects the U. S. because if England fell then the U. S. would be next to be attacked by Hitler. The trick? Have a fortuneteller say that Hitler would be successful in invading Russia. The fortuneteller?  Nostradamus. Hitler was known to be a mystic and the idea was that if a page in a book could be created with a Nostradamus rhyme to convince Hitler of his success that he would decide not to invade England. It is a historical fact that after the Blitz Hitler did not invade England. No one knows why he decided not to invade. He made several similar decisions that his generals opposed and they resulted in his defeat.

The book goes back and forth between WWII and the current year.  There is a G20 summit in Moscow going on and a new American president who is loud mouthed and a womanizer with a wife from Slovenia is present. Lara has been snagged to be the moderator at a townhall meeting with the American president and the Russian people.  After discovering a plot that he has to drill oil in Alaska,  which will have a disastrous effect on Russia's economy, she comes up with a plan to expose it.

Kudos to the author for his creativity in devising this plot.  It may seem fantastical but it sure was entertaining.  I was totally absorbed in this book from the first page.  It has been a long time since that has happened to me and it felt sooooo good.  Adding in a Trump-like president and Nostradamus in one book was a genius idea.  I was laughing all the way through it.  As far as suspension of belief is concerned, the only thing that bothered me was having John Kennedy come up with the trick.  I don't know why he had to be in the book.  It did not seem very natural because he was in college at the time and had his girlfriend, Marlene Dietrich, with him.

The Bookworm is Mitch Silver's second book and I will have to check out his In Secret Service soon.  What I would love to see from him is another book featuring another made-up Nostradamus rhyme for another politician.  I just thought this was hilarious.