What Are You Reading the Week of 23 March 2013?

James Thorne Smith, Jr. (27 March 1892 – 21 June 1934) was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction under the byline Thorne Smith. He is best known today for the two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, much drinking and supernatural transformations. With racy illustrations, these sold millions of copies in the 1930s and were equally popular in paperbacks of the 1950s.

Smith drank as steadily as his characters; his appearance in James Thurber's The Years with Ross involves an unexplained week-long disappearance.

Smith was born in Annapolis, Maryland, the son of a Navy commodore, and attended Dartmouth College. Following hungry years in Greenwich Village, working part-time as an advertising agent, Smith achieved meteoric success with the publication of Topper in 1926. He was an early resident of Free Acres, a social experimental community developed by Bolton Hall according to the economic principles of Henry George, in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. He died of a heart attack in 1934 while vacationing in Florida with his wife and two young daughters.

Smith's major works:

Biltmore Oswald: The Diary of a Hapless Recruit (1918). A series of comic stories written for the Naval Reservist journal The Broadside while Smith was in the Navy.
Out O' Luck: Biltmore Oswald Very Much at Sea (1919).

Haunts and Bypaths (1919). A book of poetry.

Topper (1926). This and its 1932 sequel, Topper Takes a Trip (set in the French Riviera), were probably Smith's most famous works, about a respectable banker called Cosmo Topper, married to a depressingly staid wife Mary, and his misadventures with a couple of ghosts, Marion and George Kerby, who introduce him to other ghosts. He is romantically attracted to Marion, who at one point tries to kill him so that they can always be together. Unusually for such a book, Mary is treated sympathetically—she does not like what she has become and tries to change. It was made into a film, Topper, for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Hal Roach in 1937 starring Roland Young and Billie Burke; the cast included Cary Grant as George Kerby and Constance Bennett as Marion Kerby. Two filmed sequels followed: Topper Takes a Trip in 1939 and Topper Returns in 1941—this last film was not based on a book. Young reprised the role in the 1945 NBC radio summer replacement series, The Adventures Of Topper. The books were adapted into an American television series beginning in 1953, with Leo G. Carroll as Cosmo Topper, and Robert Sterling and Anne Jeffreys as the ghosts. Seventy-eight episodes were made: the pilot episode and a few of the early episodes were written by Stephen Sondheim.

Dream's End (1927). A serious novel that was not a success.

The Stray Lamb (1929). Mild-mannered investment banker, cuckold, and dipsomaniac T. Lawrence Lamb gains perspective on the human condition during a series of mysterious transformations into various animal forms. Lamb, his daughter Hebe, her boyfriend Melville Long, and Hebe's friend Sandra Rush (a twentyish lingerie model who becomes Lamb's love interest) pursue many adventures, most of which fall well outside the perimeter of law and order. Lamb has, like many Thorne Smith heroes, a shrewish (and in this case adulterous) wife who at one point tries to murder him (at the time he is a goldfish). As in many Thorne Smith novels, a courtroom scene involving the protagonists and an exasperated judge provides a climax to the characteristically tipsy action.

Did She Fall? (1930). A mystery novel admired by Dashiell Hammett.

The Night Life of the Gods (1931). Quirky inventor Hunter Hawk strikes gold when he invents a device that will enable him to turn living matter into stone and to reverse the process at will. After a chaotic field test he meets stunning 900-year-old Megaera who teaches him to turn stone into flesh. The two and a bunch of friends set their sights on New York City to bring the Roman gods of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to life. Among other incidents, Mercury shows himself to be an expert pickpocket, while Neptune causes chaos in the fish market.

Turnabout (1931). Thorne Smith pits two thoroughly modern married people in a classic battle of the sexes. After listening to the nearly endless bickering and childish jealousy of a young man and wife (Tim and Sally Willows), an ancient Egyptian idol decides to play a trick on the two by causing them to switch bodies. Like Thorne Smith, Tim works in an advertising agency, and several scenes are set there, drawing on the author's experience. After the wife forcefully impregnates her husband, things take a decided turn for the worse as they separately try to deal with the object of the former wife's affections—a deplorably predictable square-jawed philanderer by the name of Carl Bently. The scene in which Tim, trapped in his wife's body, exacts an icy revenge on the unfortunate interloper is one of the unforgettable moments of Thorne Smith's peculiar humor. Both a film (1940) and a short lived 1979 television sitcom starring Sharon Gless and John Schuck (canceled after six episodes) were based on Turnabout. So was the last broadcast episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, "Turnabout Intruder."

Lazy Bear Lane (1931). A children's book.

The Bishop's Jaegers (1932). Depressed and indifferent heir of a vast coffee import fortune, Peter Van Dyke finds his life and high society engagement turn upside down when his secretary, Josephine Duval, determines that she will rescue him from his horrible fate by ruining him morally. After an amusing scandal involving a nude Peter Van Dyke, Miss Duval and an ill starred burglar in a coat closet, he finds himself cast adrift in a fog with a motley crew that includes a Bishop Waller of the Episcopal Church and a former nude model named Aspirin Liz. The enterprising party lands unceremoniously on the shores of one of New York's sauciest nudist colonies, and thus is the liberation of the coffee importer set in motion. One of Smith's few comic novels in which no element of the supernatural is featured. Smith assumes the reader will know that "Jaegers" refers to a union suit.

Rain in the Doorway (1933). Yet another cuckold husband, Hector Owen, inadvertently becomes a partner in a big-city department store. The bulk of the action involves the highly inebriated adventures of Owen, his three partners (Mr. Horace Larkin, a man called Dinner, and Major Barney Britt-Britt), and a salesgirl from the pornographic books department, Miss Honor "Satin" Knightly. This is the most openly erotic of Smith's novels, with many direct suggestions of sexual encounters and (in the original edition) cartoons of nude young women cavorting with the protagonists, drawn by artist Herbert Roese. The Thorne Smith signature courtroom scene provides a climax, but the novel's biggest surprise isn't sprung until the final pages.

Skin and Bones (1933). A photographer's freak accident in the dark room produces a chemical concoction causing him (and his dog) to randomly switch back and forth between normal and X-ray (skeleton) versions of themselves. Predictably, much drinking and cavorting ensues, as he finds people able to see beyond his appearance and appreciate him for who he is, while inadvertently terrifying those who can not. Unusually, his wife Lorna is an attractive personality.

The Glorious Pool (1934). Perhaps the best example of Thorne Smith's acutely sharp social humor played out against a backdrop of the Volstead Act (Prohibition). Two unrepentant old reprobates are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the seduction which made the stylish old man named Rex Pebble into an adulterer and his companion, Spray Summers, into his hard boiled mistress. While their exasperating and highly alcoholic Japanese houseboy, Nokashima, plays ju jitsu with the English language, the two slip into a swimming pool whose waters have been changed into a fountain of youth. Abandoning their clothes and modesty with their advanced years, the newfound youthfulness of their bodies puts into motion an evening of hijinks that only a seasoned and well practiced old couple of sinners could manage to imagine.

The Passionate Witch (1941, published posthumously and completed by Norman H. Matson). Produced in 1942 as the movie I Married a Witch, one of the inspirations, along with Bell, Book and Candle, for the long-running TV series Bewitched. A sequel to the novel, Bats in the Belfry (1942), is entirely by Matson, though sometimes attributed to Smith.

text via Wikipedia; photo via thornesmith.net

Interesting opening post, thanks as usual for starting the thread!

The Glorious Pool sounds like it might be a partial basis for the movie, "Cocoon"

I've wondered about that, too. I liked that silly, silly book when I read it in the 1970s. I've liked all the Smith books I've read, actually. Escapist fun!

Nice, Richard!

Just finished Ordinary Thunderstorms......very good read!

Started listening to The Short Stories of Daniel Defoe....continue reading Zoli.

Due to insomnia, completed listening to The Short Stories of Daniel Defoe. Starting to listen to A Nail Through the Heart by Timothy Hallinan.

Reading Sunflower by Marilyn Sharp, an 80's era spy novel about the kidnapping of a President's daughter.

I'm reading The Black Dahlia, which is maybe (?) finally picking up for me in the last third? My running-listen is Bossypants, which is so far not as funny as I'd hoped. And for listening to at home, I've moved on to John Adams since I finished Washington: A Life a couple of days ago.

Thanks for another fascinatiing start to the week, Richard, and for filling in one more gap in my literary knowledge. I've heard of the Topper movies, of course, but never seen them, and had no idea that they were based on books. His books do sound interesting.

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I am still reading Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff, and should actually finish it up today. Speaking of filling in gaps in my knowledge, I've read nothing about Cleopatra before, and not much if anything about ancient Egypt and Rome. It's been a very fascinating, enlightening read.

I am still reading ARC Second Suns which is really good, and truly educational and inspirational - in many ways. I just found out the author, David Oliver Relin, just committed suicide on my birthday, no less, 11-15-12 ... so I don't know, it is a mix of sad and beautiful. Sounds like that whole Three Cups of Tea hoopla devestated this truly excellent writer. Just ... sad, so sad. He had such a way of living and experiencing (and giving to the reader) the places he traveled to, and the people he met.

Every spring I vow to read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd because we get tons of friendly bees in our backyard, taking the nectar from our grapefruit, orange, and Palo Verde tree flowers with them. Finally I am actually reading the book and loving it.

I didn't have much time to read this week, so I'm not very far into The Dark Valley, Piers Brendon's broad brush history of the world in the 1930s. I'm enjoying it, but I will probably need a couple of weeks to finish it.

I'm listening to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, and reading The Liar's Gospel by Naomi Alderman and Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley.

I am reading the beautiful novel The Snow Child.

Well, I've finally posted another review! Deep Tissue, a very powerful collection of stories about everyday life, reminds me a little of Tillie Olsen's subject matter but from a bitter place. Still, worth reading IMO. Review's in my thread...post #25.

Re: Thorne Smith . . . I've read Night Life of the Gods and The Stray Lamb. Both were lots of fun. I actually had a customer come into my used bookstore last month and ask if I had anything by him. I had two inexpensive paperbacks, which he bought, and one moderately pricy hardcover, which he didn't.

I'm still making my way through my Cardinal Wolsey biography, but I have fewer than 80 pages to go. I was hoping to finish it off today, but instead I am up to my elbows in soot and ash as I attempt to clean the flu over our pellet stove. A fun Saturday!

I'm amazed to learn, Jerry, that almost the entire Smith catalog is Kindleable. I figured his readers would want paperbacks at least!

I am still with Dancer by Colum McCann, a fascinating biography of Rudolf Nureyev.

Oh I remember very well the "Topper" TV show when we were kids. I used to love it. I'm reading Ford Maddox Ford's The Good Soldier and enjoying it but it is not at all the book I thought it would be.

#17> Everything in the public domain is available via some sort of digital detritus or other (can you tell I own a bookstore?). How it is available does not answer the question of how it's read, of course. More seriously, I think that many seniors are taking to kindles and their ilk due to the fact that you can enlarge the font to suit. There are some advantages to the newfangled doo dads, of course, and that's one of them.

Plus holding a Kindle is less painful than holding a book most times. I wish I'd read 11/22/63 on Kindle! *ow*

Still reading and enjoying Homer's Odyssey.

Don't laugh, or look down your noses. I just finished Cocaine zombies by Scott Lerner and found it a chilling delight. My only complaint is about the cover-art, which suggests quite incorrectly, that it's a sort of James Bond-cum-occultism piece of mind-candy. There are good ideas, lively situations, and much wit in this first novel. Now I'm returning to The Body in the butter churn by Vermont's own Elaine Magalis. The mystery is B or B+, but the picture of an eccentric older woman and an eager twelve-year old is utterly enchanting -- and accurate!

I finished the memoir How Was I Supposed to Know?. It occasionally elicits a chuckle, often empathetic distress, and always appreciation for the author's struggle to deal with adversity and for her self-insight. It was enjoyable but sometimes the pain of some of the situations despite the author's attempt to present them humorously, was difficult.
Touchstone doesn't seem to find the book.

A great introduction to James Thorne Smith, an author I was not familiar with. Thanks, richardderus.

So many great selections here - Snow Child looks particularly interesting, >14 Iudita:.

I finished The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and it was sheer escapism. I love Arthurian legend, but I'm not quite the purist that I think some die-hards are. And, even though Bradley paid more dues to legend than to history, I thoroughly enjoyed her different feminist take. The various theological debates that went on regarding the old and new religions among Arthur's courtiers were, I thought, just right to move the story along rather than becoming too pedantic. And, thankfully, the women characters did not turn into caricatures.

So, I am still in that mode of myth-history-legend and have picked up At the Palaces of Knossos by Nikos Kazantzakis. It's a slim enough book that I might finish it this weekend. We'll see.

Quickly got lost in Obituary Writer.

First of all, thanks Richard. As a teacher, I really appreciate your commitment to educating the rest of us on something new each week.

I've just started & Sons: A Novel by David Gilbert, my ER book from the February batch. So far, it is shaping up as one of the best books I've read this year.

Touchstone

How Was I Supposed to Know?

Robert

A good reading week. Finished and loved The Chaperone and was also completely charmed by this year's Newbery Award winner The One and Only Ivan. Now on to something non-fiction-y.

I'm now finishing up Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, which I left half-unread when my reading mojo was lost. Happuily, the mojo is back for now, and I'm really appreciating the excellent, rich writing. I can see why this book won the Whitbread prize.

ETA: I've now finished Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and I am now starting The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. I'm only a few pages into the introduction, but the author has already made some important points.

Thanks Robert for the Touchstone. I found the book when I added it to my library but then it wasn't coming up in the thread.

It took me a long time to finish A Wrinkle in TIme by Madeleine L'Engle, because I was reading it evenings with my boyfriend, who (shocker!) had never read it. Finally, I got impatient, and finished it all last night. It was really fun to go back and read a book from my childhood that it turns out I hardly remembered at all.

Going to read A Kiss Before You Go today. Heard author on NPR and had to get the book.

Reading Gail Carriger's Timeless for some Steampunk fun. And listening to Fat Chance; Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Foods, Obesity, and Disease to give me some daily inspiration to help me shed those last 20 pounds.

(Edited to fix touchstones)

Okay, the Atwood April thread is up and running. This is a wide-open Group Read. Read whichever Atwood you would like and as many as your little heart desires. So far I have 2 on the agenda. Here's the link:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/151831

Be there or be square!

I finished Legend by Marie Lu last night, and I really enjoyed it. I figured it'd be just another copy of The Hunger Games type thing, but it really, really wasn't and I was very pleasantly surprised. I also very much liked the class/gender themes in the book. Looking forward to reading the sequel.

Well, I finished The Heat of the Day this morning. It surprised me by being more compelling that I had looked for it to be. I am going to read Among the Mad next. Best of reading to you all.

Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric

Current read: The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric

Well, seems I missed an entire week of books! Drove up to Big Sur for a couple of days, and where I stayed did not have any internet (or even cellphone service)! Talk about withdrawal! Then I was up in Berkeley for a couple more days, staying with family, and the one connected computer was constantly being used by someone or the other, so again no chance to hang around online. I'll have to go back and read last week's thread to find out what happened while I was away.

Listened to a number of books while on my road trip (two Heyers and a Nora Roberts ~ light fare so I didn't have to pay a lot of attention and could concentrate on driving as necessary). I also finished The Curse of Chalion by Bujold on Kindle, which was (as others have said) wonderful! Now I'm reading What Darkness Brings by C.S. Harris, the latest St. Cyr mystery and will probably start a Jack Reacher audiobook, unless I go with O, Pioneers, which I've been wanting to read for a long time.

Just read the beautiful and poignant A Kiss Before You Go.

Well, it took a whole month, but I finally finished the excellent Naked to Mine Enemies: the Life of Cardinal Wolsey by Charles W. Ferguson. You can read my thoughts on my 50-Book Challenge thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/148694.

I didn't bother posting a review on the book's work page, though, because I didn't have anything new to add to a couple of good reviews already there.

This is a fine biography, dense and long, but well written and very interesting.

Tonight I read the first few pages of Katherine Dunn's Geek Love.

I'm a few chapters into Kindred by Octavia Butler. I'm enjoying it, but I've heard people gush about it like it's the best thing she ever wrote... which confuses me, because so far it seems rather simple compared to Wild Seed and some of her other novels. Perhaps I'll be surprised.

Had barely started River of Smoke when my sister lent me The Day She Cradled Me.
It is a novel based on the life of Minnie Dean, the only woman in New Zealand history to be hanged. She was a "baby farmer", but accused of infanticide, as, if by some unfortunate chance the babies died, she would often hide their bodies in a hat box while travelling to and from the families on the train. My sister assures me it is compelling reading, and there are others on the waiting list so starting that instead.

I can't think of much reason you'd want to, but I've posted my brief, unflattering assessment of The Case of the Gilded Fly for your perusal. It's in my thread...post #59.

Far better to spend some time reading a review of a book I *liked* and gave four stars to: Yokohama Yankee: My Family's Five Generations as Outsiders in Japan in post #272.

Way back when I read Topper and Night Life of the Gods. The stories were so light the books almost floated out of my hands. Fun.

Old Goriot was good and Dickensian - except, having learned that Dickens was influenced by Balzac, I now know that Dickens is Balzac-ian.

Now I'm enjoying Benediction by Kent Haruf, along with the series mystery Seduction in Death.

>41 rocketjk: Geek Love---still sends a shudder down my spine after reading it a few weeks ago.

When Women Were Birds. So good.

I just finished The Snow Child and I loved it. Such a simple but beautiful story. I finished it with a lump in my throat but I haven't decided if that was caused by sadness or joy. Now I am about to start Tell the Wolves I'm Home which I also have high hopes for.

#46> A mere 25 pages in, I can see what you mean, but I'm enjoying it very much. Sort of just what I needed after the very enjoyable but long and dense Cardinal Wolsey biography.

#48 I Did like both of those books. The Snow Childwas just beautiful. Hope you are enjoying Tell the Wolves I'm home

Just finished THE BODY IN THE BUTTER CHURN by Elaine Magalis. Absolutely perfect in matching means to matter. Don't be fooled by the rather lurid title. This mystery set in and around a small Vermont museum is actually a witty and loving story of the unexpected friendship between a classic twelve-year-old boy and a somewhat eccentric but gutsy sixty+ woman. Can't say enough about it!

Wow, as always, great suggestions to books I've never read (or read long ago and probably did not appreciate them like I would now).

I am almost done with Second Suns and am going to be sad to see it end. Just a wonderful book - grateful I got the opportunity to read/review it through Early Reviewers.

Thanks for the www.bookbub.com tip!

I've started reading Graveminder. I'm not yet sure where it's going, but it has my attention.

I'm about to start my last challenge book for March, A Dog About Town by J.F. Englert.

I finished and REVIEWED Ford Maddox Ford's classic and somewhat controversial novel, The Good Soldier.

Now I'm well into Marisa Silver's new novel Mary Coin. It's based on the iconic photograph "Migrant Mother."

I finished reading Second Suns late last night and loved it. Will put up my (ER) review.

Now reading The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr for a last minute collection over in our Short Story group. I picked it up at an actual bookstore, one of the only independents left in my neck o' the woods, Townhouse Cafe and Bookstore (St. Charles, IL).

So, I finished reading House Rules by Jodi Picoult yesterday - wonderful book! - and then started reading The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors, the Story of Three Sisters by Juliet Barker. My daughter, Mareena, downloaded this ebook for me in January and neither of us wondered how long the book was. I really like learning about the Brontes and Mareena found out how many pages the book has: 1184 pages! My goodness! :) I started reading this book last night and have only gotten 5% in to the book - roughly 59 pages along, right? :)

After thoroughly enjoying an early readers copy of Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys, I decided to go back and reread Olive Kitteridge. It's as good as I remembered it.

# 58 I am waiting on my pre-ordered copy of The Burgess Boys, Olive Kitteridge is well worth a re-read.

Finished and reviewed the terrific Benediction, and started Breaking Point by C. J. Box.

I suspect we'll see a lot of new faces on LT here pretty quick. Amazon just bought Goodreads.

Really?! Wow. Didn't see that one coming.

>62 jnwelch: Yep. And there's 5+ pages of commentary saying "YUCK" for the most part.

Ah greed, it's so nauseating to see it everywhere, and now on Goodreads. Many of my recent reads have revolved around the damages it does. I just finished Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (ecology and greed and so much more, a wonderful book), Deadly monopolies : the shocking corporate takeover of life itself byHarriet Washington (big Pharma and greed and the damage it does to people, the world and even itself), The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne Valente (a fairy tale about greed, bravery and the lust for power), Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland (about the mess the .01% is making of the world) and am almost finished with I, Claudius by Robert Graves about greed, lust for power and the dangers of being related to an emperor. Then I read both of Alexander Fuller's books about white Africans: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and Scribbling the Cat about the damage war does to people and their country. I'm also listening to The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan about the ecological disaster done by settlers plowing up the Great Plains trying to become wheat millionaires.
You would think that would be enough of the dregs of human desires, but I've started a month reading about religious oppression with Going clear : Scientology, Hollywood, and the prison of belief by Lawrence Wright. Evidently L. Ron Hubbard was quite a piece of work.

Amazon has an interest in Library Thing too as far as I know.

I finished and REVIEWED Marisa Silver's new book based on the photograph Migrant Mother called Mary Coin.

Now I'm reading my ER copy of Collum McCann's Transatlantic.

#59 You are in for a treat- The Burgess Boys is wonderful- enjoy!

I've just wishlisted The Burgess Boys - Olive Kitteridge was so good!

I finished Our Tragic Universe which was exceptional, and have gone on to Autumn: the City before I pick up The Orchardist. Also reading Part 2 of A Storm of Swords.

>65 brenzi: It does...40% from the ABEBooks purchase. But Goodreads was purchased outright and that is waaay different.

Thumbs-upped, thanks for the caveat about the third narrative strand.

The dinner.....koch

My latest is Plainsong by Kent Haruf.

I LOVED Plainsong! I think I'm going to reread it later this year and then read the sequel for the first time. Hope you like it hazeljune.

#69 The Dinner was my first five star read for this year. Hope you enjoy it.

>60 jnwelch: Joe, As soon as I finish Candy Mountain, I'll be starting Benediction - can't wait!

>70 hazeljune:, 71 - I may do a reread, too!

Thanks for that Goodreads/Amazon info, Richard, I hadn't heard. Media consolidations seem to be picking up again...

My current reads are The Quick Red Fox, The Big Rock Candy Mountain and the audio of The Beautiful Mystery.

Another Plainsong fan here. Just loved that book. One of the few experiences I had too with an online book club of sorts, and all the women involved loved it too.

I am halway into The Shell Collector and wow, what a wonderful collection of interesting, diverse and thought-provoking stories. Really, really enjoying it.

#69 & 72 I also enjoyed The Dinner by Koch- an interesting read.

Plainsong fans will probably want to read his Eventide and the terrific new one, Benediction, both set in Holt. Benediction gives a shout out at one point to the McPherson brothers and Victoria, and a bit of an update.

#76.. I am sooo enjoying Plainsong and I have reserved Eventide from my library. Their copy of Benediction will be available very soon (I hope). A few months ago a read and really enjoyed The Tie That Binds also by Kent Haruf.

Sara Davies Running from the Devil on Kindle. Got it for a great price, Almost finished reading it now and it was more than worth the price.

I have been in the south of New Zealand, mainly Invercargill and Winton, in 1895 as Minnie Dean, the "notorious" baby farmer is on trial for infanticide in The Day She Cradled Me by Sacha De Bazin.
Minnie Dean is found guilty and hanged (the only woman to be hanged in NZ) This novel was based on her account of her life, written in jail after she was sentenced, and the diary of the young local Presbyterian minister, so while some some is fiction, most can be considered based on fact. While she certainly broke the law with regard to illegal adoptions etc....won't say any more....
Great book!!!

I just started reading Les Miserables.

Harry (Goddard) - I accidentally found your review of my book. May I quote you on my website (almost up)? Would it bother you have I used your real name instead of Harry MacDonald. You sound like someone I should know. In the meantime, there is a second book: The Organist Wore Gloves and there's a third on the way. I hope to get better.

Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate them.