Blog Archives - MADDERLY REVIEW

The Rule of Law: A Dismas Hardy Novel by John Lescroart

1/31/2019

Genre: Legal Thriller

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John Lescroart’s characters have varied jobs in the legal field, and through the years each of the main ones have been protagonists in his legal series. Dismas Hardy, my personal favorite, is front and center in The Rule of Law: A Dismas Hardy Novel.

Hardy's secretary, Phyllis, begins acting strangely, and he becomes concerned when she seems to disappear. Through the series Phyllis has been one of the most reliable characters, so the reader knows that something must be amiss. When Dismas finds out that her brother, a man who served twenty-five years in prison for armed robbery and attempted murder, has recently been released, his anxiety levels up a few notches.

Phyllis returns to work reluctant to explain her absences and is suddenly arrested as an accessory in the murder of a man who had been smuggling women into the country from Mexico and El Salvador. Dismas is sure Phyllis is innocent, but as he looks into her recent activities he realizes he might have a difficult time proving it.

As in most of Lescroart’s novels, San Francisco politics plays a large part, and some cold cases shed light on problems in the D.A.’s Office. San Francisco is a character unto herself as we get a glimpse into the restaurants, clubs and streets of this amazing city.

This seems to be the season that authors are highlighting the immigration issues, and Lescroart is no exception, but this one didn’t capture me as completely as others I have read. I loved revisiting the characters, and there were many exciting moments to keep me turning pages, but I wasn’t as invested in the outcome as completely as I have been in others I have read. I do recommend the book though, particularly if you are a fan of his previous works.

- Beverly

Publisher - Atria Books
Date of Publication - January 22, 2019

Thru My Looking Glass

1/25/2019

“Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

There is no manual that helps us to raise children, and I find that those without children seem sure that they have all of the answers. They don’t, because there are no answers. Arthur and I flew by the seat of our pants, and sometimes we felt like we were on a course to crash and burn. The basic things that guided us through the tough road of parenthood though, was complete love and respect for these two people who depended on us.

We were far from perfect, but I believe we were good parents. Despite a few little hiccups (Michael’s goal was to drive his father just a little insane, and Beth went through a period when she had a sketchy relationship with the truth) our kids made parenting easy. Our happiest moments always did, and always will, center around them.

My greatest fears and practically every grey hair on my head center around them, however, and that caused me to be an overprotective parent. This was my greatest parenting weakness, and it helps me understand what is motivating the helicopter parents of today. I know where you are coming from, but I believe the hovering causes more harm than good.

My two were lucky, because Arthur and I did a good job balancing each other in that area. I grew up with a father whose worrying was evident and stifled me in many ways. I never rode a bike, sat on a sled or drove a car until I was married. I was never allowed to go exploring past my neighbor’s house, and when I started dating I wasn’t allowed out in inclement weather. Arthur, on the other hand, took buses and hikes to “fishing holes” when he was eight. He learned to navigate himself at an early age, and that served him well.

Life was different when our kids were growing up (the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh in South Florida acted as a wake up call for many) and eight year olds didn’t generally ride buses alone, but Arthur helped me see that bicycles weren’t weapons and some freedom was important to a child’s well-being. The one thing we did agree on completely was that we were determined not to challenge their educators unless we felt Mike and Beth were unable to stand up for themselves. It wasn’t easy, but it was the right thing to do.

Mike, a Psychologist, and my nephew Jonathan, a former Dean of Student Affairs, tell me stories that are impossible to comprehend, about parents who challenge college professors over the grades their sons/daughters received. Parents, if your children can’t figure out how to stand up for themselves by the time they are in college (and grad school) then you really dropped the ball during their formative years. As a high school teacher, I was much more likely to change a grade for a student who presented a succinct case explaining their reasoning then for a pushy parent who thought his/her child deserved special treatment.

Rather than trying to solve all of your children’s problems, supply them with the tools to solve their own. Show them by example how calm and rational behavior will get them much farther than rude and disrespectful behavior. My debate team quickly learned the benefit of organized thoughts and a calm presentation. Those are the things you must teach to build character in your sons and daughters. Don’t make life too easy for them, because there will come a day when you won’t be there to pick up the pieces, and no book will be able to teach them what a loving parent can in those early years.

Speaking of books, I enjoyed one from one of my favorite authors this week. The Girl in the Glass Box: A Jack Swyteck Novel by James Grippando will be published in a few weeks, and it was definitely a worthwhile read. It had a timely theme and tightly written story that will have you thinking long after the last page is turned.

As always, a complete review of this book follows my blog.

Happy reading,

- Beverly

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The Girl in the Glass Box: A Jack Swyteck Novel by James Grippando

1/24/2019

Genre: Legal Thriller

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James Grippando’s books are always relevant, and The Girl in the Glass Box: A Jack Swyteck Novel is certainly no exception. Grippando tackles the problems surrounding the illegal immigrant population, and he does an excellent job making his readers see the dilemma facing this community.

Julia Rodriguez fled from the violence of El Salvador with her teenage daughter, Beatriz. She escaped from an abusive husband as well as violent gangs and tried to make a life for herself in Miami. When Julia’s boss in her new hometown makes sexual advances, she turns him down immediately. Not used to being rejected, he seeks revenge by tipping immigration about her illegal status. She is arrested and waiting for deportation. Beatriz escaped capture and is living with Julia’s sister who is here legally. Enter Jack Swyteck, who agrees to represent Julia as a favor to his beloved grandmother.

One of the things that I love about Grippando’s books is his detailed description of Miami, a place I know so well. He mentions restaurants that I am familiar with and streets that I have driven down many times.

His characters are well defined too and add a depth to his stories. Jack's Abuela (Spanish grandmother on his mother’s side) is an interesting character who is present throughout the series. Since Jack’s mother died when he was very young, she plays an important role in his life. His good friend Theo is a strong sidekick with an interesting backstory that has the reader rooting for him. Of course we met Jack's wife Andie quite a few books back when she became his girlfriend. Watching their relationship grow has added dimension to the Swyteck series.

If I have any complaint about this book, it would be the ending. I tend to like things wrapped up in a tidy package, and Grippando disappointed me with this one. I can get past that though and hope that the next book finishes the job.

It is not necessary to read the previous books in the series to appreciate this one, but if you haven’t read them yet, there is no time like the present.

- Beverly

Publisher - HarperCollins Publishers
Date of Publication - February 5, 2019

Thru My Looking Glass

1/18/2019

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
—-Martin Luther King, Jr.

I often watch silly sitcoms when I am in the mood to escape from reality, but lately these comedies add a dose of reality to their offerings. This week’s episode of "Blackish" took me back to an incident that happened when I was four. I overheard adults speaking derogatorily about a man’s color, and couldn’t understand what they meant. Was one color better than the other? I thought about the dresses in my closet. The black one with the pink flowers was my favorite. Was my mother going to make me wear the white one? They were both pretty dresses. How can color change value.

Many years have passed, and I have, unfortunately, been witness to countless incidences of prejudice against people of color. I am still that four year old girl though, asking how color can change value. Where did that idea ever originate?

Rogers and Hammerstein gave us their beliefs in a song from South Pacific:

“ You've got to be taught
To hate and fear, you've got to be taught from year to year
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught
To be afraid of people
Whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught.”

When did this lesson begin to formulate? Where, when and why did people begin to see color as a determination of value? Is it something as basic as the fear of something different or something as complicated as finding one’s own self-worth climbing on the shoulders of another?

We learn these lessons in so many ways through the years. The “good guys” wear the white hat while the “bad guys” don black. The color “nude” is the color of the Caucasian’s skin, and bandaids are the nude color found in crayon boxes. The black cat is the one we fear, and the white dove represents love. Imagine being a child of color and being surrounded by all of these symbols.

This week "Blackish" showed us that bias doesn’t limit itself to crossing races. Unfortunately, the home of African-Americans can be as uncomfortable as the streets, with lighter skinned people feeling just a little loftier than darker skinned people in the same household or neighborhoods. There is even a term for it in the Urban Dictionary. Colorism is the discrimination of African-Americans by skin tone in their own community.

It is not only the Caucasian who carries these prejudices. Teaching in an inner city school gave me a front row seat to the prejudices that are prevalent in many different cultures. I have spent a lifetime trying to understand why some people can only accept mirror images of themselves as being equal or “good.” Different religions, races or sexual preference is seen as a threat, and somehow we need to stop that rhetoric.

If I understood the relation of color to value than some of this might make sense to me...but I don’t. If I knew how, I would devote the rest of my years to changing the subconscious messages that invade our minds from the earliest of years...but I don’t.
All I can do is hope that someday soon we will all judge and be judged by the content of our character.

I really enjoyed the book that I read/reviewed this week. Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl is a terrific book for anyone who loves to cook, learn about food or simply loves to eat.

As always, a complete review of this book follows my blog.

Happy reading,

- Beverly

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Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl

1/17/2019

Genre: Memoir/Food & Wine

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I have been a fan of Gourmet Magazine for many years, and Ruth Reichl’s name has been a familiar one for many years. In her book, Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir, Reichl did a masterful job showing us how an eight year old little girl grew up to change the world of food.

Ruth read her first Gourmet while on a business trip with her dad when she was eight. She was hooked, but a great deal happened in her life between then and when she was offered the position as Editor in Chief of the very magazine that changed her life.

Before she took that position, she spent years as a restaurant critic, coloring her writing with a touch of her Berkeley hippie past. She had become a bit disenchanted with the stodginess of Gourmet and felt the magazine was not keeping up with the times.

When she was offered the top position at Gourmet, her first inclination was to turn it down. She felt as though they would hold her back in their desire to maintain the status quo. They convinced her that they wanted to modernize the magazine, and so began her reign as queen of all that is delicious.

This is a comfortably written book that introduces us to great chefs, great writers, and great food. I loved reading about her life before and her tenure at the magazine that helped me through many a cooking crisis. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves to cook, read about chefs or simply loves to eat.

- Beverly

Publisher - Random House
Date of Publication - April 2, 2019

Thru My Looking Glass

1/11/2019

“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that
The other party is unfit to rule—-and both commonly succeed, and are right.”
—-H.L. Mencken

It doesn’t matter which side of the political fence a person may stand upon, we all tend to look for the person who we believe validates what we believed in the first place. I listen to my democratic friends question how intelligent people believe some of the things that FOX news is saying. How can they believe, they wonder, that the border is teeming with rapists and murderers? Don’t they see that it is all fake news delivered by a news network that is trying to run the White House?

No, what they see and hear are people telling them that their own beliefs have merit.
Not too long ago my republican friends asked how Obama supporters believed the garbage that the liberal newscasters were spewing. Didn’t they see, they queried, the damage that Obama was doing to our country? While the liberal broadcasters were validating everything that liberal voters believed was fact, conservatives believed that our country was one breath away from a total disaster under an administration that bordered on socialistic.

Most people make up their minds on issues before they cast their vote in November, and they spend the next four years trying to prove they were right. Unfortunately, in doing so the people whose candidate lost the election begin to forget what is actually at stake. They become so intent on proving they were right, that they stop working for the good of their country and instead fight tooth and nail to prove their beliefs were the only correct beliefs. Equally unfortunate is the hubris that takes over many election winners and their supporters. They start to believe that they were elected not to represent us, but to take care of us. Their agenda becomes the only agenda and compromise becomes a detriment to their success.

Arthur gets annoyed at me when I remind him that we followed Obama with the same blinders that many people follow Trump. When the former president did something we didn’t agree with (and he often did) we convinced ourselves that it was a small price to pay for all the good he was doing. Isn’t that exactly what Trump supporters are doing now? They might not like the wall, but they spent a lot of years waiting for that tax cut. He is loading the court system with conservative judges, so they can simply overlook a few “inconsistencies” in his dealings with Russia.

If we all take step a back and realize that we have a great deal more in common than we believe, maybe we can start to work through our differences and change our country. You see, politicians really care about one thing over all...being elected/re-elected in the next election. They will follow any agenda if they believe their supporters will back them. That gives us, the every-day citizen, more power than we ever imagined. If we are frustrated with the way things are going, then we must get together, compromise and form an agenda that satisfies us all. As soon as we present that agenda, and convince the powers that be of our commitment to that agenda, we can sit back and watch our elected officials begin to vote in favor of their constituents’ desires. If we work as a team we are all much more likely to win.

I read/reviewed The Perfect Alibi: A Novel by Phillip Margolin this week. This March title is Margolin at his best and definitely deserves to be on your “books I must read” list. It is a timely legal thriller that will keep you guessing until the end.

As always a complete review of this book follows my blog.

Happy reading,

- Beverly

Click on the book cover to order the title mentioned in today's blog

The Perfect Alibi: A Novel by Phillip Margolin

1/10/2019

Genre: Legal Thriller

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The intensity in Phillip Margolin’s novels can keep a reader breathless for hours on end. His ability to paint a picture so vividly with words is a talent that has served him well since his first novel, Heartstone, written in 1978. Forty-one years and Twenty-three books later, The Perfect Alibi will be published in March, proving that Margolin has not lost his touch.

The the case of a young woman accusing a college athlete of rape is a common theme and Margolin takes it up several notches. There is a DNA match that should clarify everything, but in Margolin’s world it only leads to more questions.

Protagonist Robin Lockwood, a prominent young lawyer, watches as Blaine Hastings is found guilty of the rape of Randi Stark and agrees to represent Randi in a civil suit against her rapist. At the same time she is defending another client on a murder charge that should be self defense. Then there is the case of another attorney who needs Robin’s help with a vengeful prosecutor who is accusing him of killing his partner and best friend.

Nothing is ever as it seems in a Margolin novel, and this is one of his best. The action never slows down, and every page brings a new revelation. His characters are well fleshed out and the descriptions of the surroundings and the court scenes make the story come alive. I was sad to turn the last page and anxiously await his next novel.

-Beverly

Publisher - Minotaur Books
Date of Publication - March 5, 2019

Thru My Looking Glass

1/4/2019

“Television is chewing gum for the eyes.”
—-Frank Lloyd Wright

Here it is 10:35 on New Years Eve, and I am in my bed writing this blog. Arthur and I have been fighting some nasty little virus for the past two weeks, and the darn thing came out victorious tonight. We ended up cancelling our plans...out to dinner with sixteen people and then back to one house for a party. Instead there were grilled cheese sandwiches and a couple of the Australian drama/comedies that we have been binge watching (more about that later).

I started feeling quite sorry for myself, and then I realized that I had very little to whine about tonight. Arthur is right here by my side, and as long as he is with me I am just fine. My two wonderful children took time from their own celebrations to text us a Happy New Year “I love you” which brought smiles to our faces and the realization of just how lucky we have been in our lives. Though the family has been feeling less than stellar over the past month, and we aren’t able to share our traditional New Years Eve with my sister Judy and Allan, we are all well enough to appreciate our lives and each other.

Trying to entertain ourselves over the past few months has been challenging. The holiday traffic in South Florida is abysmal, and we haven’t felt up to being really active, so we decided to watch some television. Unfortunately, this television season has been lackluster at best, and December is notoriously famous for reruns or Christmas specials. Luckily we came upon ACORN T.V. (thank you Amazon Prime) and have been having the best time watching shows filmed in England, Australia and New Zealand.

It all started with "Doc Martin". Arthur was hooked after the first episode, and admittedly it took me a while to get there, but there is something about that little English town that kept drawing me back. Doc Martin is a socially inept surgeon in London who develops a phobia against blood. He moves to a town he spent time in as a child and becomes their one general Practitioner in town. His inability to display much emotion makes his fitting-in difficult, and it took a season or two for me to warm up to him, but the scenery is amazing and the townspeople interesting. The show has been majorly successful around the world, and we are anxiously awaiting season 9.

After blazing through "Doc Martin" we found a series done in New Zealand called "800 Words". I quickly became addicted. George, a newspaper columnist and recent widower in Sidney Australia, moves his two teenage children to the small seaside town of Weld, New Zealand. Watching them adjust to a totally different environment, following the lives of the quirky townspeople and getting lost in the amazing scenery made me go into withdrawal when we finished our marathon of watching.

Now ACORN has taken us to Africa. "Wild at Heart" follows a family from Bristol, England to South Africa, where veterinarian Danny goes into partnership with Anders Du Plessis, an ornery older Afrikaner, and they turn Du Plessis’ land into a thriving game reserve. We are on season two now, and while the characters are not quite as captivating as in the other two shows, the animal scenes are simply amazing.

So while we have been sort of house bound these last few weeks, we have seen the world through the magic of television. I have never loved television as much as books, but this has been a fun way to see how other cultures live. I was one of those very weird people who never got into Downton Abby, but I think I just might give that another try, too.

Well, enough about television, this week I read/reviewed a well written thriller by Paul Batista. The Warriors is the kind of book that takes the reader deep into uncomfortable places that are exciting to watch from afar. I appreciated the strong female characters in this book that is sure to be a winner.

As always a complete review of this book follows my blog.

Happy reading,

- Beverly

Click on the book cover to order the title mentioned in today's blog

The Warriors by Paul Batista

1/3/2019

Genre: Legal Thriller

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It is rare to find an author who successfully presents a strong female protagonist, but Paul Batista really surprised me with two very strong leading ladies in this complex courtroom drama, The Warriors. Not only does he introduce us to this dynamic duo, he shows their strength unapologetically and without “girly” things to soften them for the reader.

Senator Angelina Baldesteri is a former First Lady who lived through the assassination of her extremely popular husband. The senator has plans to run for the presidency but there are those who do not want to see that happen. She suddenly finds herself accused of money laundering, perjury, bribery, and obstruction of justice and realizes that she needs a strong attorney to protect her reputation while proving her innocence.

Defense attorney Raquel Rematti (the first time Batista introduced this character was in his novel, The Borzoi Killings) is a personality to be reckoned with, and she agrees to represent the senator. The problem is, they are both strong willed, pig headed and want to be in charge. Raquel quickly realizes that she doesn’t know the whole truth, and there is more to Angelina’s story than meets the eye.

Throw in murder and mayhem, drug lords and a Mexican cartel, and you have Batista at his best. Bringing out the positive and negative strengths in these two characters showcases the talent of an author who draws on his own experience in the courtroom to bring us a novel that is difficult to put down until the last page.

- Beverly

Publisher - Oceanview Publishing
Date of Publication - December 18, 2018