I am Melba : a biography / Ann Blainey
Growing up in Melbourne, Nellie Mitchell dreamed of fame, but her devout father disapproved. Melba's mother was musical, and Melba was encouraged in her studies, learning the organ, piano and singing from an early age. She also performed from an early age, but only at appropriate amateur gatherings and fund raising performances.
A visit to Mackay with her father, following the death of her mother and youngest sister, introduced Nellie to Charles Armstrong, and marriage a short time later. However as a young wife and mother on the Queensland cane-fields, she longed desperately for glamour and excitement. Travelling to London and Paris, she trusted in her musical talent and hoped for a lucky break.
Within a few years, reborn as Nellie Melba, she was performing to overflowing concert halls, hobnobbing with European royalty and collaborating with some of the most renowned composers of the age. Audiences swooned over the "heavenly pleasures" of her voice, while the public showed an insatiable appetite for news of her sometimes passionate private life.
Feted and chastised by critics, pursued by the press and mobbed by fans, Dame Nellie Melba was Australia's first international superstar. Behind the scenes, she was a canny businesswoman, a practical joker and a superb self-publicist. When she died in Sydney - in somewhat mysterious circumstances - the nation's flags were flown at half-mast and tens of thousands turned out to pay tribute.
In this important biography, enhanced by new research, Ann Blainey captures the exuberance, controversy and pathos of Melba's remarkable career.
Janet Evanovich /Fearless Fourteen
Fearless Fourteen is the latest offering in Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. Plum is a bounty hunter (with more luck than talent) from Trenton, NJ. who works for her cousin Vinnie in a bond enforcement agency. She also moonlights for fellow bounty hunter Ranger, who owns a security firm.
As the story opens Plum apprehends an old high school classmate, Loretta Rizzi, for skipping her court appearance on armed robbery charges (i.e. a hold up of the local liquor store for a bottle of gin). However with no one to take care of Loretta's teenage son, Mario, Stephanie agrees to look after him briefly, just until Loretta can be re-bonded. This brief favour soon becomes much more as Loretta at first fails to get re-bonded and then goes missing. Stephanie has to call on boyfriend, cop Joe Morelli (and incidentally Loretta's cousin) to help out, especially when she needs to help Ranger with a body-guarding job.
Meanwhile, Loretta's brother Dom has just been released from prison for a bank robbery (nine million profit - never found). Now he needs to recover the money he had stashed, but his ex-partners want their shares as well, and everyone seems to think that the key to finding it is in Morelli's house.
This series can be read on their own but reading them in order, beginning with "One for the Money" will give you the most enjoyment and help introduce all the different characters. Light reading that won't take too much time but will deliver lots of laughs.
Timebomb / Gerald Seymour
Fired from a top-secret Soviet nuclear base in the chaotic last days of the communist regime, a KGB security man steals a suitcase bomb - capable of wiping out a major city - and buries it in his backyard. Sixteen years later he puts it on the market.
The Russian is prepared to sell to the highest bidder - in this case, a Mafia gangster who has no conscience for the consequences. The exchange is set to take place in a remote sector of the Polish/Belarus frontier. The chance of it being intercepted depends on the skill, and luck, of a small MI6 team, who have only the sketchiest idea of what's going on - and on the nerve of an undercover police officer who has infiltrated the criminal gang.
But can that officer be trusted to deliver? He is under the control of a hugely charismatic gang leader, isolated and in great danger. An MI6 psychologist predicts the risk of him switching allegiance mid-operation. If he does, and the bomb gets through, the damage would be incalculable. With the clock ticking down to the handover, the MI6 team must find their man and protect him from himself - at all costs.
This novel begins slowly, with a vast assortment of characters to keep straight, but don't let this put you off what is a tense and compelling look at how far some people will go to get what they want.
