Wimmera Regional Library Corporation

March 2008 Book Reviews

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Darkness falls

Darkness falls | Red seas under red skies
Manhunt | Himalaya
March Quick Flick's - list of weekly additions to the collection

Featured Book

Kyle Mills / Darkness falls

Thriller author Kyle Mills returns to his series hero, former FBI agent Mark Beamon in his most provocative and riveting thriller yet. Erin Neal has been living a secluded life in the Arizona desert since the death of his girlfriend, turning his back on his lucrative career as one of the world's foremost experts in analysing and preventing oil field disasters.

Beamon is sent to contact Neal and get him to investigate a problem with a number of Saudi oil wells that have stopped producing, infected with an oil-eating bacteria. As far as Neal is concerned, however, he has left that world behind - it is not his problem. Homeland Security, however, sees things differently. Neal quickly finds himself stuck in the Saudi desert studying a new bacteria with a voracious appetite for oil and an uncanny ability to destroy drilling equipment. Worst of all is its ability to spread.

As the threat escalates, Neal realises that there's something eerily familiar about this bacteria, and that it couldn't possibly have evolved on its own. It becomes clear that there is careful planning behind the infections and that at least 30 percent of the world's oil is at risk and more if an airborne strain of the bacteria is developed. Finding the terrorists and stopping them becomes a national priority as oil prices start to climb, and the world faces a future without oil.

Mills's meticulous research provides a fast paced and intriguing look at the world's reliance on oil, and what would happen if there was a disaster.

Scott Lynch / Red seas under red skies (Book 2 of the Gentleman Bastard Sequence)

In this sequel to Lynch's first book "The Lies of Locke Lamora", thief and con-man extraordinaire, Locke Lamora, and the ever lethal Jean Tanner have fled their home city and the wreckage of their lives. But they can't run forever and when they stop they decide to head for the richest, and most difficult, target on the horizon. The city state of Tal Verarr - and the Sinspire.

The Sinspire is the ultimate gambling house, a thief-proof casino where the penalty for cheating is death. It's the sort of challenge Locke simply can't resist - but Locke's perfect crime is going to have to wait.

Someone else in Tal Verarr wants the Gentleman Bastards' expertise and is quite prepared to kill them to get it. Before long, Locke and Jean find themselves engaged in piracy, swindling their way across the sea as they had previously done on land. Fine work for thieves who don't know one end of a galley from another.

Lynch's tale is set on a distant planet, at a time roughly equivalent to our pirate age, and in it he has woven an engrossing and exciting tale of the high seas with elements of cunning, trust, betrayal, and friendship tested to breaking point. Plots and sub-plots abound, and Lynch has introduced another collection of intriguing supporting characters. An entertaining novel, not just for fans of fantasy fiction.

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Christian Jacq / Manhunt (Volume 1 of The Vengeance of the Gods)

Egypt, 528 BC. Kel, a young scribe recently hired by the prestigious guild of interpreters, thinks his future is secure, with the possibility one day of even becoming a Royal scribe. But following a banquet to which he was surprised to be invited, he arrives late at work one day to find the entire staff murdered, and the archive of scrolls and documents destroyed. He flees in panic, taking with him the mysterious coded papyrus that the senior scribe has just assigned to him after his colleagues had failing in deciphering it, and thus he becomes the prime suspect.

Egypt is at a turning point in her history. The throne has been usurped by Pharaoh Ahmose, an idle drunkard interested only in forging an alliance with Greece, and blind to the disturbing shadow of the Persians taking shape on the country's borders. The court is riven by intrigues and betrayals, with Ahmose fearing that there are those who are just waiting to take his place.

Hunted by the authorities, Kel enrols the help of his friend Bebon and the beautiful Nitis, priestess of the goddess Neith, as they try to ascertain who is plotting against him, and why? It appears that Kel has been made the scapegoat for the murders, and those investigating are all to ready to accept this.

The book disappointedly ends abruptly, with the story of Kel and his friends to be continued in the next volume.

Himalaya / Michael Palin (CD Audio Book)

In 2003 and 2004 Michael Palin spent around six months filming in the Himalaya, in preparation for a BBC TV series, which was subsequently developed into a book. This is the audio version of the book, on 10 CDs with a playing time of 11 hours and 30 minutes, and is read by the author.

Palin passed through a fascinating mix of countries including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal and covers the Khyber Pass and the Silk Road, the mighty peaks of Everest and K2 and the gorges of the Yangtze. His trip was a 3,000 miles journey that encompassed extremes of wealth and poverty, altitude and temperature. Along the way he encounters the Dalai Lama and the head-hunting tribe of the Konyak plus a range of other fascinating locals, some famous for various reasons, others just someone he has met on the street. But each person adds to the story of the culture and countries that Michael is visiting.

Palin packs in a vast range of activities, watching bull racing and polo matches, milking a yak, giving an elephant a rub-down and climbing parts of various mountains. His visit to a local Pakistani prince sees Michael being given a formal welcome with a bull drawn cart.

An entertaining mix of history and travel log, story and commentary, Michael Palin's Himalaya provides a wonderful view of one of the most spectacular areas in the world.

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March Quick Flick's

10 March 2008

  1. THE STORY OF THE TRAPP FAMILY SINGERS by MARIA AUGUSTA TRAPP. Quick flick: The story that inspired the classic musical, The Sound of Music. Baroness Trapp tells the dramatic story of the family, her own marriage to Baron Von Trapp, a widower with seven children, and the family's successful singing career both before and after they fled Austria after the Nazi invasion.
  2. REMEDY by ANNE MARSELLA. Quick flick: Meet Remedy: a petite befreckled blonde living in Paris and working at A La Mode On-Line. Here she lusts fruitlessly after photographers, knocks out articles on tankinis and racoon-fur trims, and makes spa-bookings and afternoon tea for the fashionistas, before slipping off to her belly-dancing class. Intelligent and charming, witty and warm, Remedy is the exuberant story of one girl's adventures in love, faith and hemlines.
  3. THE CHILD WHO NEVER WAS by ALLISON LANGDON. Quick flick: Not since the Lindy Chamberlain mystery has a case gripped the nation like the Tegan Lane Affair. The disappearance of baby Tegan in the days after her birth in September 1996 is mystifying. From the moment the story broke it defied belief, unkown pregnancies, affairs, secrets and lies, and a newborn that simply disappeared. And despite an intensive public inquiry, the one person who could answer the big question, her mother, simply wouldn't say.
  4. ROMA THE FIRST: a Biography of Dame Roma Mitchell by SUSAN MAGAREY. Quick flick: Mitchell was the first woman chancellor of an Australian university, the first woman in Australia to be made a Queen's Counsel and to be appointed a judge in a superior court and the first woman Governor of an Australian State. This insightful book depicts the sources of Dame Roma Mitchell's ambition and achievements.
  5. REMARKABLE AUSTRALIAN FARM MACHINES by GRAEME QUICK. Quick flick: Tells the story of the men, machines and equipment developed for Australian agriculture.
  6. SHIVER by LISA JACKSON. Quick flick: A serial killer is turning New Orleans into his personal playground. The victims are killed in pairs - no connection, no apparent motive, no real clues. It's a very sick game, and it's only just begun.
  7. ZIGZAG:The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman by NICHOLAS BOOTH. Quick flick: Eddie Chapman was a womaniser, blackmailer and safecracker. He was also a great hero - the most successful double agent of the Second World War. Chapman became the only British national ever to be awarded an Iron Cross for his work for the Reich. He was also the only German spy ever to be parachuted into Britain twice. Until now, the full story of Eddie Chapman's extraordinary exploits has never been told, thwarted by the Official Secrets Act.
  8. FIFTY IS NOT A FOUR-LETTER WORD by LINDA KELSEY. Quick flick: Life begins at fifty! Well, it certainly does for Hope, though not at all as she had planned. She reluctantly hits her half-century on New Year's Day and six months later she has lost her job, her husband and her mother. But Hope has guts -- and a sense of humour. By the time she reaches fifty-one, she has acquired a taste for designer underwear, a Labrador puppy -- and the memory of one perfect night in Paris. Who says fifty is over the hill?
  9. THE ROSE OF SEBASTOPOL by KATHARINE MCMAHON. Quick flick: In 1855 Rosa Barr, a headstrong young woman, travels to the Crimea, against the wishes of her family, determined to work as a nurse. She does not return.Three people have been intimately connected with her. One, her brother, a soldier and adventurer the second a doctor, traumatized by the war, and harbouring a secret passion, and the third, Mariella, her cousin and childhood friend, who must now uncover the truth about what has happened to the missing nurse.
  10. RIVER SECRETS by SHANNON HALE. Quick flick: War between Bayern and Tira is finally over. To cement the peace with their old sworn enemies, a group from each kingdom will cross to the other for a 'season of friendship'. At first all is well, but mysterious events in the Tiran capital arouse the suspicions and anger bubbling just beneath the surface.

17 March 2008

  1. EIGHT PREPOSTEROUS PROPOSITIONS: From the Genetics of Homosexuality to the Benefits of Global Warming by ROBERT EHRLICH. Quick flick: Placebo cures, global warming, extraterrestrial life, psychokinesis - in a time when scientific claims can sound as strange as science fiction - and can have a profound effect on individual life or public policy - assessing the merits of a far-out, supposedly scientific idea can be as difficult as it is urgent.
  2. THE FORGOTTEN 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II by GREGORY A. FREEMAN. Quick flick: An astonishing, never-before-told story of the Second World War, based on newly declassified documents and exclusive interviews. In 1944 the OSS set out to recover more than 500 airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia. Classified for over half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time.
  3. LUSCIOUS BERRY DESSERTS by LORI LONGBOTHAM. Quick flick: For those who swoon when the first crop of ripe red strawberries makes their debut at the farmers' market, for those who believe raspberries should have their own special food group, for those who never met a blueberry they didn't like. This cookbook is for you. Luscious Berry Desserts is a loving tribute to the berry.
  4. CORONER'S JOURNAL: Forensics and the Art of Stalking Death by LOUIS CATALDIE. Quick flick: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a small town with big-city problems, lives up to the translation of its name: Red Stick. The author, the coroner there for ten years, has seen his fair share of the unusual and disturbing cases which range from bizarre to heartbreaking.
  5. MANHUNT by CHRISTIAN JACQ. Quick flick: Egypt, 528 BC. Kel, a young scribe recently hired by the prestigious guild of interpreters, thinks his future is secure. But following a party to which he should not have been invited, he arrives late at work one day to find his boss and his colleagues murdered. Are their deaths linked to a mysterious encrypted papyrus that the specialists were meant to decipher? Believing his life to be in danger, Kel absconds with the precious document, thus becoming prime suspect at the centre of an intrigue of State.
  6. JESUS OUT TO SEA by JAMES LEE BURKE. Quick flick: This powerful new collection of James Lee Burke's short fiction ranges across landscapes that he has made his own, from rural Louisiana and Mississippi to war-tornVietnam and a New Orleans ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
  7. L.A. OUTLAWS by T. JEFFERSON PARKER. Quick flick: Los Angeles is gripped by the exploding celebrity of Allison Murietta, real identity unknown, a modern-day Jesse James with the compulsion to steal beautiful things, the vanity to invite the media along, and the conscience to donate much of her take to charity. Nobody ever gets hurt until a job ends with ten gangsters dead and a half-million dollars worth of diamonds missing.
  8. ONE MORE TIME by DAMIEN LEITH. Quick flick: Sean is in Nepal on a trek through some of the most beautiful and dangerous country in the world. His path takes him not just to the spectacular Annapurna mountains, but deep into territory held by Maoist guerrillas determined to overthrow the Nepalese government. With each step, Sean's thoughts turn towards home and his family in Dublin, and it becomes clear that the obstacles he faces are greater than the threat of guerrillas demanding 'donations' and the occasional stubborn travelling companion.
  9. WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE: The Story of John Lerew, a Hero of Rabaul, 1942 by LEX MCAULAY. Quick flick: Tells of John Lerew, who commanded 24 Squadron RAAF at Rabaul in January 1942, and who later organised and led a successful escape of his squadron to New Guinea.
  10. 100 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR HORSE'S BEHAVIOUR by SUSAN MCBANE. Quick flick: This is an expertly-written guide to diverting and correcting a horse's behaviour.It deals with a comprehensive range of topics including: how horses relate to each other, humans and other animals how to tell what a horse is feeling and overcoming past ill-treatment and meeting a horse halfway. It features practical and accessible approach with easy-to-access information and cross-referenced advice.

24 March 2008

  1. Open File by Peter Corris. Quick flick: Cliff Hardy revisits an unsolved case from the 1980s. Twenty years later, can he crack the one that got away?
  2. Vital Statistics by Grobman Paul. Quick flick: Part reference work, part compulsive bathroom read, this compendium of humorous, fascinating, quirky, and insightful tidbits offers knowledge on everything from sports and fashion to literature and architecture and everything in-between.
  3. Dry Gardening Australia by Jonathan Garner. Quick flick: Drought proofing your garden simply requires improving your soil and choosing water-efficient plants that are suitable for your climate. This book will help you to reduce your water consumption and your reliance on toxic chemicals. And become a smart, water-efficient gardener.
  4. Bettongs, Potoroos And The Musky Rat-Kangaroo by John H. Seebeck. Quick flick: The rat-kangaroo was one of the first Australian marsupials to be seen alive in Europe. Collected close to the settlement at Sydney Cove, a pair of them were exhibited in London in 1789. Bettongs, Rat-kangaroos and Potoroos provides an extraordinary glimpse into the secretive lives of these unusual marsupials.
  5. The Sound Of Butterflies by RACHAEL KING. Quick flick: Amateur naturalist Thomas Edgar is offered the chance of a lifetime: to travel to the Amazon as part of a scientific exploration. Yet when he returns, the optimistic young Edwardian gentleman is gone, replaced by a weak, nearly mute shadow of the man. Unable to break through Thomas's silence, his beloved wife, Sophie, is forced to take drastic measures to discover what has happened. But as she gleans what she can from Thomas's diaries and boxes of exquisite butterflies, she learns as much about herself and their marriage as about the secrets he harbors.
  6. Saving Caravaggio by Neil Griffiths. Quick flick: Under a searing Calabrian sky, detective Daniel Wright is shown the world's most famous stolen painting - Caravaggio's Nativity. As a Caravaggio lover and expert in art recovery, he is determined to rescue it from the mafia bosses who use it as payment for Drug Deals And Assassinations.
  7. The Woman In The Fifth by Douglas Kennedy. Quick flick: Harry Ricks is a man who has lost everything. A romantic mistake at the small American college where he used to teach has cost him his job, his marriage and his relationship with his only child. And when the ensuing scandal threatens to completely destroy him, he votes with his feet and flees to Paris. He arrives in the French capital where a series of accidental encounters lands him in a grubby room in a grubby quarter, and a job as a nightwatchman for a sinister operation.
  8. The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason. Quick flick: Following an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake suddenly falls to reveal a skeleton half-buried in its sandy bed. It has clearly been there many years. There is a large hole in the skull. Yet more mysteriously, it is weighted down by a heavy radio transmitter bearing inscriptions in Russian.
  9. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies. Quick flick: In 1944, a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess in Snowdonia, a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city and in a nearby POW camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour. As their lives intersect, all three will come to question where they belong and where their loyalties lie.
  10. A Prisoner Of Birth by Jeffrey Archer. Quick flick: Danny Cartwright and Spencer Craig never should have met. One evening, Danny, an East End cockney who works as a garage mechanic, takes his fiancee up to the West End to celebrate their engagement. He crosses the path of Spencer Craig, a West End barrister posed to be the youngest Queen's Counsel of his generation. A few hours later Danny is arrested for murder and later is sentenced to twenty-two years in prison, thanks to irrefutable testimony from Spencer, the prosecution's main witness.

31 March 2008

  1. Wings On My Sleeve by Eric Brown. Quick flick: Eric Brown was on a University of Edinburgh exchange course in Germany in 1939, and the first he knew of the war was when the Gestapo came to arrest him. They released him, not realizing he was a pilot in the RAF volunteer reserve: and the rest is history. Eric Brown joined the Fleet Air Arm and went on to be the greatest test pilot in history, flying more different aircraft types than anyone else.
  2. Friends And Lovers by Maureen Martella. Quick flick: Is there such a thing as just good friends? When a long-distance phone call summons private investigator Annie McHugh's lover and business partner, Gerry, across the Atlantic, Annie's left in charge. She's been looking forward to being in the hot-seat for so long, but it seems as if someone doesn't want her to succeed. And what's more, the infuriating but intriguing Sizemore has been brought in to help her investigate a dodgy insurance claim.
  3. The Lost Diary Of Don Juan by Douglas Abrams. Quick flick: An editor receives a manuscript purporting to be the lost diary of history's greatest lover, Don Juan. An orphan left on the steps of a covent, Don Juan grew up within the church but his ambitions towards the priesthood fell to the wayside when he was seduced by a young nun. Evicted from the convent, he was taken under the wing of the libertine Don Pedro, the Marquis of Mota, who coached him in skills both courtly and amorous and then employed him as a spy at court.
  4. The Mesmerist by Barbara Ewing. Quick flick: Unable to find stage work, actresses Cordelia Preston and Rillie Spoons need to find a way of making a living. Cordelia remembers the skills of her aunt and sets out to be a phreno-mesmerist, advising couples on their compatibility and enlightening women on The Gentle Intricacies of the Wedding Night'. Cordelia finds that she does indeed possess the gift for mesmerism, and as her popularity grows, she and Rillie are finally living their dream. But events from Cordelia's past return to haunt her, and the women become embroiled in a scandal that threatens to ruin not only them but those they love.
  5. The Pool Of Unease by Catherine Sampson. Quick flick: Robin Ballantyne is investigating the murder of a British man in Beijing. His headless body was found in woods by an icy, fetid lake. Is his death linked to a recent series of brutal attacks on women? In a city thick with paranoia and corruption, Robin struggles to separate rumour from reality.
  6. Eternal by Craig Russell. Quick flick: Two high profile victims - a former Left-wing radical turned environmental campaigner and a geneticist researching the possibility of inherited memory - are found murdered within 24 hours of each other. Both men have been scalped. Forensic tests reveal that single red hairs left at each scene belong to neither victim, but were cut from the same head - twenty years earlier.
  7. Gone Baby Gone by Dennis Lehane. Quick flick: The tough neighborhood of Dorchester is no place for the innocent or the weak. Now, one of its youngest is missing. Private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro don't want the case. But after pleas from the child's aunt, they open an investigation that will ultimately risk everything--their relationship, their sanity, and even their lives, to find a little girl-lost.
  8. The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham. Quick flick: Alisha Barba's dreams of being a detective were shattered when a murder suspect broke her back across a brick wall. Now on her feet again, with her police career in limbo, she receives a message from an old school friend, Cate Beaumont, who is eight months pregnant and in trouble. On the night they arrange to meet, Cate is mown down by a car that kills her husband instantly. As paramedics fight to save her life they discover there is no baby. Her pregnancy is an elaborate lie, a cruel deception. Why?
  9. Death Message by Mark Billingham. Quick flick: The first message sent to Tom Thorne's mobile phone was just a picture - the blurred image of a man's face, but Thorne had seen enough dead bodies in his time to know that the man was no longer alive. But who was he? Who sent the photograph? And why? While the technical experts attempt to trace the sender, Thorne searches the daily police bulletins for a reported death that matches the photograph. Then another picture arrives.
  10. White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America by Don Jordan. Quick flick: White Cargo is the forgotten story of the thousands of Britons who lived and died in bondage in Britain's American colonies.In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than 300,000 white people were shipped to America as slaves. Urchins were swept up from London's streets to labour in the tobacco fields, where life expectancy was no more than two years. Brothels were raided to provide breeders for Virginia. White Cargo brings the brutal, uncomfortable story to the surface.

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