A History of Japan in Manga

I loved reading this graphic history of Japan.  What initially attracted me to the book is the color palette. The book has line drawings colored in a cool pink. Pink is my favorite color. The book tells the Japanese saga from its misty origins up to the present day. Epic battles, noble Samurai and duplicitous leaders are all portrayed in modern manga fashion. The stories in this book include:

• The Birth of Buddhism and the transition from hunters-gatherers to agricultural societies of ancient times;

• Savage battles between the Taira and Minamoto clans that led to the powerful warlord Minamoto no Yoritomo naming himself Japan's first Shogun;

• A decade-long struggle for domination of Japan in which thousands of Samurai fought and tragically lost their lives; known as the Onin Wars.

•  Loyal Samurai who vowed to avenge the death of their master, choosing honor over surrender and being forced to commit mass ritual suicide as a result;

•  A dramatic last stand by Samurai loyal to the Shogun who revolted against the new Meiji government and its plans to finally modernize Japan; known as the Satsuma Rebellion.

This history is told with plenty of portraits, manga stories, maps and informational sidebars that bring the entire sweep of Japanese history into life in one easy-to-read book. I have been using it along with other Japanese travel guides to prepare for my October trip. One place that I will be visiting is a samurai village. Without knowing much about the samurai, this book helped me decide to spend some time there.

4 out of 5 stars.

Shadow of Doubt

Shadow of Doubt is the 23rd Scot Harvath spy thriller from Brad Thor. In this installment of the series the reader sees how the Russian government invests in penetrating other governments in order to gain knowledge and advantage. The book was published on August 6, 2024.

The publisher's summary: 

A mysterious cargo plane, flanked by a squadron of Russia’s most lethal fighters, has just taken off from a remote airbase. Closely monitored by the United States, no one inside the Pentagon has any idea where it’s going or what it’s carrying.

A high-level Russian defector, a walking vault of secrets that could shatter the West, seeks asylum in Norway. Across the continent, in the heart of Paris, a lone French agent stumbles upon a conspiracy so explosive it could ignite a global firestorm.

As alarm bells ring in Washington, the CIA’s most lethal weapon, Scot Harvath, is forced to choose between his conscience and his country.

The story opens with the Estonian Air Defense tracking Russian military planes moving south. Latvian Air Defense confirmed the launch. The Latvians then stated that the planes entered Belarus, which the Lithuanian Air Defense confirmed. Two days later the president of Belarus made a TV statement that he had received missiles and bombs from Russian that were three times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima. After a French intelligence officer is murdered with an axe, we see Harvath being escorted off a plane in Oslo by the Norwegian Police Service. A pulsating plot then begins to unfold.

Shadow of Doubt has two plots. The second one cannot begin until the end of the first. What most readers would recognize as the premier plot concerns gaining control over Russian defector Leonid Grechko, a high ranking person in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service.  Harvath's fiancé, a Norwegian named Solvi, is in charge of transferring Grechko to the CIA. As such, Solvi plays a huge role in the story. Harvath comes up with a round about way to obtain Grechko in custody by kidnapping his girlfriend from a Russian oligarch. If Grechko can convince his girlfriend to come with him, then Harvath can gain control of Grechko. The guy was seriously in love. 

In order to obtain information about the Russian missiles in Belarus, Harvath has to get to Grechko. We don't read much about these missiles, only that Grechko has agreed to tell all if he can just see his girlfriend one more time. The secondary plot is half of the book. Here, Harvath wants to kill a man who was part of the group that killed his wife. I cannot remember any secondary plot in the series that took up this much writing. 

It is unusual for a Harvath novel to begin with a threat to the West and then not expound on it. That was disappointing to me. However, the book was still suspenseful and had a lot of gun fighting. I expected to read more about those missiles, though.

I am rating the book 4 out of 5 stars. It was riveting but there are some plot issues.

A Geek in Japan

 

I saw this travel guide at my local Barnes and Noble. Its pages appear similar to a comic book format but it is not a comic.  I figured that the page design would help me retain information easily so I bought it. It was published in 2019. The guidebook covers a wide array of topics in short articles accompanied by sidebars and numerous photographs. It provides a lively digest of the society and culture of Japan. The book was designed to appeal to the generations of westerners who grew up on pokemon, manga and video games. This audience description does not describe myself. However, I found the book to be a fantastic resource.

Spotlighting the originality and creativity of the Japanese, debunking myths about them, and answering nagging questions like why they're so fond of robots, author Hector Garcia has created the perfect book for the growing ranks of Japanophiles in this highly informative guide. It has sections on Japanese culture, history, work life, music, TV and movies. Each section has photos and sidebars and short articles on each topic.  The sidebars are what make the book look like a comic book. The humor also gives it that comic book feel.

I am preparing for a month long visit to Japan in 6 weeks and have read several guidebooks. A Geek In Japan has its place among them all. The information contained in the book rates somewhere between a comprehensive travel guide and light reading.  I am rating it 3 out of 5 stars.

Peach Tea Smash

Peach Tea Smash is another great cozy mystery from Laura Childs. It's the 28th installment of the Indigo Tea Shop Mystery Series and was published on August 6, 2024. Our heroine Theodosia Browning is catering the Mad Hatter Masquerade, a fundraiser hosted by the Friends of the Opera on the grounds of the old Pendleton Grist Mill in Charleston. During the event Harlan Sadler, husband of Cricket Sadler, the chairwoman, is killed. He’s been hit in the head with a croquet mallet, and his body hung on the chains and paddles of the grist mill. Nobody can figure out why anyone would want to kill him since Harlan was beloved by everyone. Ate first the murder seems to a result of the victim’s profession, banking, but there’s a possibility the murderer is someone in his family. Harlan's son Duke is a slum landlord and recently injured a woman in a boating accident. When one of the chief suspects is murdered both Theodora and Detective Tidwell, are clueless.  The tea shop continues to be the staging area for their sleuthing. 

One of the things I love about the Tea Shop Mystery series is that the murder always occurs in the first chapter so that the rest of the book can be about the investigation into the whodunnit.  I also love the specialty tea events that Theo holds in the Indigo Tea Shop. In this story we read about the Regency Tea, Chocolate Tea and Book Lovers Tea. When each tea party is being planned the reader learns about the decorations as well as the foods that were served. We also learn why they were chosen. Recipes are in the back of the book.

Theo's sleuthing was rather aggressive in the story. She broke into a suspect's house, accused another of possibly being a murderer during her "interview" with him and got up on a horse to stop yet another suspect from killing a fourth. When she tells Detective Tidwell about these activities, he isn't angry which is uncharacteristic of him. I liked the arguments between the two of them in earlier novels. Tidwell hasn't played much of a role in the past several books and it's time for him to return. Theo's forwardness is new and while this required a huge suspension of belief, it is good for the series. I was happy, though, that Theo's nightly jogs with her dog were not used to obtain clues. This has been overdone in the series. I applaud the author for changing up the method of obtaining clues as it keeps these stories fresh. 

So how do you make a peach tea smash? With white tea, half a peach and bourbon. 5 out of 5 stars.

A Death in Cornwall

A Death in Cornwall is the 27th installment of the Gabriel Allon spy thriller series but just the 5th to be set in Cornwall. Many years ago he spent time in the region following the murder of his first family. It was here that he met a boy named Timothy Peel. Peel, now grown, now works as a detective sergeant with the Devon and Cornwall Police Department.

The publisher's summary:

Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into London to attend a reception at the Courtauld Gallery celebrating the return of a stolen self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. But when an old friend from the Devon and Cornwall Police seeks his help with a baffling murder investigation, he finds himself pursuing a powerful and dangerous new adversary.

The victim is Charlotte Blake, a celebrated professor of art history from Oxford who spends her weekends in the same seaside village where Gabriel once lived under an assumed identity. Her murder appears to be the work of a diabolical serial killer who has been terrorizing the Cornish countryside. But there are a number of telltale inconsistencies, including a missing mobile phone. And then there is the mysterious three-letter cypher she left behind on a notepad in her study.

Gabriel soon discovers that Professor Blake was searching for a looted Picasso worth more than a $100 million, and he takes up the chase for the painting as only he can—with six Impressionist canvases forged by his own hand and an unlikely team of operatives that includes a world-famous violinist, a beautiful master thief, and a lethal contract killer turned British spy. The result is a stylish and wildly entertaining mystery that moves at lightning speed from the cliffs of Cornwall to the enchanted island of Corsica and, finally, to a breathtaking climax on the very doorstep of 10 Downing Street.

The plot in A Death in Cornwall is a significant improvement over the 2023 installment of the series. The author, Dan Silva, has now successfully transferred Israeli spy Gabriel Allon's career to working as a full-time art restorer. As such, this plot concerns artistic provenance research (APR). One of the best in the business was Charlotte Blake who was murdered with an axe. The police believe that it was the work of a serial killer known as "the Chopper" but some of them aren't sure. As Gabriel searches for a lost painting that Blake was researching, he uses his spy craft skills to deter the international financial machinations through which the rich use shell companies to hide money. 

I love reading this series. The books are always a quick read with more than the usual twists and turns than you would find in other thrillers. The author certainly knows politics well and always gives the reader something new to think about. However, if you have never read one of these mysteries you probably do not want to start with A Death in Cornwall since it refers to past events. Many of the series characters in past novels are not involved in this novel. Allon's wife Chiara does not have much of a part in this book but that makes me happy. I never liked her character much.

A Death in Cornwall is a fantastic book. I am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.

The Wartime Book Club

I selected The Wartime Book Club for last month's Monthly Key Word Reading Challenge.  It is a historical fiction account that was inspired by true events.  You can read about those events at the end of the book where you will also find study questions and a bibliography concerning the island of Jersey where the setting of the book is located.

The publisher's summary:

The Isle of Jersey was once a warm and neighborly community, but in 1943, German soldiers patrol the cobbled streets, imposing a harsh rule. Nazis have ordered Grace La Mottée, the island's only librarian, to destroy books that threaten the new regime. Instead, she hides the stories away in secret. Along with her headstrong best friend, she wants to fight back. So she forms the Wartime Book Club: a lifeline, offering fearful islanders the joy and escapism of reading. But as the occupation drags on, the women's quiet acts of bravery become more perilous – and more important – than ever before. And when tensions turn to violence, they are forced to face the true, terrible cost of resistance.

 

I LOVED this novel!  I was unable to put it down and read it in one setting. I was hooked from the first chapter. The story was so intriguing that I was interested even though the wartime library did not appear until one third of the way into the story. The two main characters, Bea and Grace, friendship was pretty compelling and how they made decisions became a part of what happened later in the story.  These ladies were complete opposites but best friends and they were able to let each other be who they were and forgive easily any slights that they felt. In this sense, the story is about friendship and loyalty.

I don't enjoy WWII books much but this one was about those left behind from soldiers.  It did not have any military action. The story was about how a community stuck together during the occupation of their island. While there were a few who turned in their neighbors to the Nazis in order to obtain additional food, most of the residents helped each other out as much as they could. Each chapter began with the name of a banned book and why it was banned. The story shows the importance of these banned books to Jersey residents and the reader sees how Grace was able to deliver these books to residents without getting caught by the Nazi occupiers. Grace's heroism is the main theme of the plot. A secondary plot concerns her friend Bea. Bea made many mistakes and did not take care to hide what she was doing. She was impulsive and that got her into more than one fix.

Author Kate Thompson did several years of research into the Channel Islands during WWII. The details in her story are indicative of this. In addition, there are about 100 pages of history, bibliography, and study questions to ponder at the end of the story. I found these details equally as intriguing as the story. Since I love history, I appreciate all of this information.

5 out of 5 stars.

Book of the Month: July

Recently I found out about the publication of a new China Bayles mystery novel. I immediately obtained a copy. In this installment of the series, the author has focused on the coffee bean because it helps with memory and the title is about not forgetting. I loved reading the little known facts about coffee and caffeine such as the fragrance of coffee comes from over 800 aromas. The darker the roast of the bean, the easier it is to detect them by scent. The story was engaging and I enjoy the light reading experience that the author gives the reader. I read alot of books on serious topics so when I see a new novel by a favorite cozy author, I know to savor the experience. Forget Me Never did not disappoint.

China Bayles is a former attorney who runs an herb and catering business. Her best friend Ruby is a clairvoyant but also her business partner. Ruby's psychic abilities are showcased in this story. This novel had more twists than we usually see from Albert, most likely because China had three murders to solve. It was a fun and relaxing read!

Five of my favorite authors will be publishing new novels next month. I am excited for my August reads.

Book cover of the Month: July

Forget Me Never by Susan Wittig Albert is my best book cover for this month. It has one of my favorite color combinations, blue and yellow. In this 29th installment of the China Bayles series, the author has focused on the coffee bean because it helps with memory and the title is about not forgetting. In 2019 the author started self-publishing under her own imprint, Persevero Press. She subcontracts out the cover art design and I have been unable to determine who the designer is. 

An attractive book cover determines whether your book sells. The average consumer spends just eight seconds looking at the front cover and no more than fifteen seconds looking at the back. The average national buyer takes even less time than that to make a decision about the number of copies he or she will buy. Good covers don’t guarantee big sales, but bad covers can kill projects. I am always immediately attracted to any book cover with bright covers. Since I love this author I was going to buy the book regardless of the cover. If I was not familiar with her, I would have picked up the book at my local bookseller and taken a closer look at it.

Seven Up

I selected this book for the Clock Reading Challenge. The Challenge Rules require a number from 1 through 12 in the title. The book is 7th out of 31 in the author's Stephanie Plum series. It was published in 2002. 

The publisher's summary:

Semiretired mob guy Eddie DeCooch is caught trafficking contraband cigarettes through Trenton, New Jersey. When DeCooch fails to show for a court appearance, bond enforcement agent Stephanie Plum is assigned the task of finding him and dragging his decrepit ass back to jail. Not such an easy job, it turns out, since DeCooch has learned a lot of tricks over the years and isn't afraid to use his gun. He's already shot Loretta Ricci, an innocent old lady, and left her for worm food in his shed. He wouldn't mind shooting Stephanie next.

Likeable losers (and Steph's former high school classmates) Walter "MoonMan" Dunphy and Dougie "The Dealer" Kruper have inadvertently become involved with DeCooch. They've gotten sucked into an operation that is much more than simple cigarette smuggling and holds risks far greater than anyone could have imagined.

When Dougie disappears, Steph goes into search mode. When Mooner disappears, she calls in the heavy artillery and asks master bounty hunter Ranger for help. Ranger's price for the job? One night with Stephanie, dusk to dawn. Not information she wants to share with her sometime live-in roommate, vice cop Joe Morelli,

A typical dilemma in the world of Plum.

And on the homefront, Stephanie's "perfect" sister, Valerie, has decided to move back to Trenton, bringing her two kids from hell with her. Grandma Mazur is asking questions about being a lesbian, and Bob, the bulimic dog, is eating everything in sight--including the furniture.

What struck me the most about the book was all of the slang terms that the author used that I have not heard since the 1960s. The author uses "rat fink" and "fatso" in several places. I remember saying to friends mockingly "you're a dirty rat fink." It was a phrase used by comedians of the 1960s and kids were frequently saying this on the playground. The author, Janet Evanovich, must be the same age as I am. People from other eras would not know these words.  The plot itself was light on action but heavy on the comedy. I found it difficult to maintain interest in the story because there were so many funny statements. The resolution of the mystery of the death of Loretta Ricci and the disappearance of DeCooch took a long time to solve. Our protagonist Stephanie Plum spent more time saying her zingers than doing her job.

While it has been many years since I read one of Evanovich's books, I don't remember them being funny. Reviews that I have read of her works all state that she writes funny cozy mysteries. Perhaps this is why I stopped reading her series. I am rating the. book 3 stars out of 5.

Can't Wait Wednesday #32

Agony in Amethyst is the 5th installment of the Harriet Gordon cozy mystery series. The series takes place in Singapore during the 1920s. It will be published later this year in October. When the 4th installment came out last year the author announced that it would be the last novel in the series. I love this series so I am thrilled that there is another book to read.

Per the publisher, our protagonist Harriet Gordon faces uncertainty in her budding relationship with Robert Curran, who has just returned from months in Kuala Lumpur. Curran's expected promotion turns sour when the position is given to an old adversary from his Scotland Yard days. The arrival of the Colonial foreign secretary, Sir Henry Cunningham, revives memories of one of Curran's unresolved cases. The death of a schoolgirl at a lavish ball, hosted by the Governor in honour of the visitor, brings Curran into direct conflict with his new superior officer. When he confides his suspicions to Harriet, she inadvertently betrays his trust, threatening his already shaky career.

October seems so far away! I cannot wait to get hands hands on this book.

Knee High by the Fourth of July

This book is my selection for the Calendar of Crime Reading Challenge. I needed a book about 4th of July and was lucky to find this one. The book is the third in a series of holiday themed stories. It was published in 2007. 

The publisher's summary:

What's so wrong with admiring from a distance? Mira's quirky puppy love for Chief Wenonga, a well-muscled fiberglass statue in her Minnesota small town, might be a safer love pursuit than online dating. But when the 23-foot Chief goes missing from his cement base, Mira's not the only citizen to be crushed. The town of Battle Lake is celebrating their statue's 25th anniversary and no amount of blue, sugar-soaked popcorn balls at Wenonga Days can uplift their gloomy mood. 

But when Mira runs into a dead body, the town has more pressing issues. Mira's second biggest crush, organic gardening god and dead ringer for Brad Pitt-Johnny Leeson-has disappeared. Her luck with men is running out, and a killer might be moving in. With something of her own to hide, Mira hopes she can avoid the police long enough to track down the object of her mega-crush-but is Mira trailing a statue-thief, a kidnapper, or a murderer?

 

This was an OK novel. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. It's more of a three stars out of five book. The main character Mira is funny and super smart. However, I didn't think her desire to participate in online dating was a good decision. It can be dangerous. Yes, I am placing my values on a character. While the online dating provided a few suspects to the murder, it didn't connect with me as well as if all of the suspects were from Battle Lake.

I am pretty picky about the cozy mysteries that I read. I only read a few cozy authors consistently and, perhaps, author Lourey is just one of them that I don't want to continue reading. I hate to bash a book when the genre, or rather sub-genre, is not my cup of tea. 

As I stated above, this book is part of a series. The characters are the same throughout the series so we can expect to read more about Mira's exploits. If you enjoyed this book, please let me know your thoughts.

Apologies for the formatting. I couldn't fix it without tearing my hair out.

Songs For the Broken Hearted

 

I was lucky to receive an advanced review copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. It will be published on September 10, 2024. The story is about a young Yemeni Israeli woman who learns of her mother’s secret romance through lost family stories. It is the author's debut novel. 

The publisher's summary:

1950. Thousands of Yemeni Jews have immigrated to the newly founded Israel in search of a better life. In an overcrowded immigrant camp in Rosh Ha’ayin, Yaqub, a shy young man, happens upon Saida, a beautiful girl singing by the river. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, they fall in love. But they weren’t supposed to; Saida is married and has a child, and a married woman has no place befriending another man.

1995. Thirty-something Zohara, Saida’s daughter, has been living in New York City—a city that feels much less complicated than Israel, where she grew up wishing that her skin was lighter, that her illiterate mother’s Yemeni music was quieter, and that the father who always favored her was alive. She hasn’t looked back since leaving home, rarely in touch with her mother or sister, Lizzie, and missing out on her nephew Yoni’s childhood. But when Lizzie calls to tell her their mother has died, she gets on a plane to Israel with no return ticket.

Soon Zohara finds herself on an unexpected path that leads to shocking truths about her family—including dangers that lurk for impressionable young men and secrets that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, her heritage, and her own future.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed the story. It is heavy on culture but light on action. Knowing nothing about the Yemeni culture, I  found it impossible to pick up on the cues the author gave. There were many, many of these cultural cues for characters who were American, Israeli and Yemeni. I could not keep them straight. I must wonder, though, if the translation is the reason I was unable to become interested in the story. 

The characters, too, had difficulty communicating with each other. Everyone seemed to be estranged from each other. They were a dull lot. There was a lot of information on Yemeni songs and poetry which I normally would enjoy but for some reason, bored me. I cannot quite finger the exact reason for my disconnect with the book, but suffice to say that because I received it from Net Galley, I read the entire book. It is my practice to stop reading a novel if I cannot become interested by page fifty. I have done my duty.

1 out of 5 stars.

Forget Me Never

Forget Me Never was just published last month on June 4, 2024. It is the newest installment of Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles Mysteries and is the 28th installment of the series. As expected, it is a fun and relaxing read. 

The publisher's summary:

Olivia Andrews is locally famous for her blog and podcast, “Forget Me Not: A Crime Victim’s Storyboard,” which is dedicated to telling the stories of victims of crime. Now, she has a stunning story to tell about a decades-old murder mystery involving a prominent citizen of Pecan Springs—someone who isn’t the man everybody thinks he is. But she is killed by a hit-and-run driver while she’s out jogging early one morning. Was it an accident—or something else? Her sister wants to know.

And Olivia’s friend China Bayles also wants to know, urgently. Who is the prominent citizen Olivia was about to expose? How did he manage to get away with murder twenty years ago? Did he kill Olivia to keep her from revealing his secret? What is local lawyer Charlie Lipman trying to hide? And when there’s another murder . . . well, it has to be a part of the same story, doesn’t it? And so does the scrapbook a cousin has compiled to honor the memory of one of the victims and make sure she won’t be forgotten. It might hold the answer—except that the one person whose face China wants to see has been scissored out of every photo.

What I love about this series is that once you start reading you don't notice how far into the story you have read until about halfway through it. The first person narrative as well as China's personality keep you reading without even noticing the time.  This series always focuses on an herb with chapter intros giving a factoid about that particular herb.  In this novel, the author has focuses on the coffee bean because it helps with memory and the title is about not forgetting.  I loved reading the little known facts about coffee and caffeine such as the fragrance of coffee comes from over 800 aromas.  The darker the roast of the bean, the easier it is to detect them by scent. Rosemary is another memory enhancing herb that was featured.

The setting is a small town in Texas called Pecan Springs. China's narrative comes from her Texan heritage with plenty of southern colloquialisms.  The characters all reflect this heritage but each are unique.  China is a former attorney who runs an herb and catering business. Her best friend Ruby is a clairvoyant but also her business partner.  Ruby's psychic abilities are showcased in the story. The author mentioned that former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling lived nearby in the River Oaks community before he went to prison and that Senator Ted Cruz also lived there. I found it amusing and liked that she made them a part of the setting.

A new character, Olivia Andrews, is detailed from what people have said about her after her demise.  She was killed early on from a hit and run "accident."  Olivia is an interesting character.  She is a former journalist who had been writing a true crime blog and podcast. The crimes that she featured on her blog were taken from obscurity but she brought them back to life with her unique way of thinking. Secondary characters such as China's husband and the friendly local police chief were not involved in the investigation and were barely mentioned in the book. Police Chief Sheila Dawson's contribution to the story dealt only with how she was handling being a new mother.  Sheila's new life as a mother is the only character growth in the book but we only read these great stories from Susan Wittig Albert for her ability to write a fun mystery.  This one had more twists than we usually see from Albert, most likely because China had three murders to solve.

Forget Me Never is a fun and fast read. Cozy fans will want to read it. 5 out of 5 stars.