Will o'the Glen on Books

A strong first novel is always an interesting reading experience, and   The God of Endings , by first-time novelist Jacqueline Holland, left me thinking for a good long while after I turned the last page. I thought about the scope of the story I had just read, about all that it had encompassed and the unique take on blood-drinking immortal beings that the author had devised; I also thought about what I felt was missing from the book as it is, places where I was left craving a bit more background, more detail. (Not that that’s a bad thing – a sense of completeness and finality when you finish a good book can be a good thing, but so can a sense of mystery or longing. The little  frisson  of excitement that traces up your spine when you finish a book that leaves you wanting more is a tantalizing sensation.) It has in common with many novels of the genre a protagonist who is introduced into the eternal life unwillingly and who is forced to navigate their way through this strange new world

Churchill & Son , by journalist and author Josh Ireland explores a little-examined aspect of the life of Winston Churchill: his relationship with his only son, Randolph. I am not widely read on the subject of Winston Churchill but I have always admired him, mostly for the job he did leading the British Empire in their lonely stand against Nazi Germany in the dark early days of the Second World War. Books such as Candice Millard’s excellent  Hero of the Empire ;  Destination: Casablanca , by Meredith Hindley ;  and  Eight Days at Yalta , by Diana Preston  have shaped what I know of Winston Churchill, and aside from  The Splendid and the Vile , by Erik Larson , which deals closely with the entire Churchill clan during World War II, in the books that I have read about the elder Churchill I have seen relatively sparing mention of his son, Randolph. Churchill & Son  was therefore, revelatory in many ways. I had seen glimpses of Randolph Churchill’s character in other books where he

I have been a fan of Timothy Hallinan’s Junior Bender mysteries from the beginning, starting the ride with #1 in the series, Crashed . The sharp wit, crackling dialog, and quirky cast of unique characters drew me in from the first page of that first book, and I have eagerly awaited each new installment since. When the eighth Junior Bender’s novel hit my doorstep I dropped the book I was currently reading like a hot rock and dove back into Timothy Hallinan’s L.A.—and was hit with a couple of surprises right off the bat. Without throwing spoilers into the mix, or at least not too much, after the end of Nighttown I expected that the next Junior Bender adventure would involve L.A.’s favorite burglar-cum-P.I.-to-the-underworld in the task of wresting his girlfriend Ronnie’s son from his New Jersey-mobster father. To my surprise (#1)—followed by the realization that Timothy Hallinan certainly knows his characters and the direction that their stories are going to take them better than I do—i

Given that   The Murder of Marion Miley   is about the murder of a talented and in her time, well-known, American amateur golfer, I debated whether to place this review in my golf-related blog, Will o'the Glen on Golf, or my book-review blog, Will o'the Glen on Books. Solomon-like, I decided to have it both ways and post it in both. *************************************** Though this book reads like fiction, Marion Miley was a real person, and the broader outline of events described in the book actually happened: 27-year-old Marion and her mother, Elsie, were shot and killed during a late-night break-in and robbery at the Lexington, Kentucky, country club where they shared an upstairs apartment. Marion’s father, Fred Miley, formerly employed at the Lexington Country Club, was still married to her mother, but had taken a job at another golf club, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and lived apart from his wife and daughter. Marion was a well known amateur golfer who competed against, and ofte

Under the Wave at Waimea  was my first Paul Theroux book. I have heard of him over the years, and I may even have seen the movie that was made from his book Mosquito Coast , but had never read any of his work before picking up this book—and honestly, I may think twice about picking up another. A quick synopsis: We meet protagonist Joe Sharkey as a 62-year-old former pro-surfing star, living the good life on Oahu’s North Shore: surfing, drinking, getting high, getting laid, etc. One rainy night, driving home after three beers and a little weed, he hits a homeless drunk who staggers into the road in front of his car. He lies about the circumstances to the police, gets off with no punishment—and then his life starts to spiral out of control. Whether due to karma, bad vibes—what have you—things just start to go wrong, culminating in an incident at Waimea in which Joe experiences a long hold-down after wiping out, and nearly drowns. At this point, the book started to lose me, because it was

Before reading Hitler’s Last Hostages I was vaguely aware of Adolf Hitler’s background as a failed artist, and I had heard of the Führermuseum project. I had also read the excellent book, The Monuments Men , by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter, and I was expecting something that expanded upon the information contained in that book. What I found was very much more than that. The book opens by looking into the discovery of the hoard of looted/stolen artwork that was in the possession of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of a notorious Nazi art “dealer”—though Gurlitt senior was in fact just a licensed looter, given carte blanche  by the Third Reich to acquire works of art by coercion, for pennies on the dollar, or by outright theft.  The narrative then shifts to Adolf Hitler’s early life and background in art, other German artists that were active before, during, and after the First World War, and the effects of that war on the world of the arts, and the artists who worked within it—in great,