Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge

12Jan. Kindle.

The center book of the Eliot trilogy and my favorite. Typically the middle book of a trilogy is like the development section of a piece of music - an awful lot happening, but no real conclusion. This one is so much the strongest of the three that I have wondered if it was actually the first one written - the wiki says no. There were eight years between The Bird in the Tree, 1940, and Pilgrim's Inn, 1948, and yet another five before The Heart of the Family in 1953.

Warning Signs by CJ Lyons

10Jan. Kindle.

I have figured it out. Reading these books is like watching ER or Hill Street Blues: ensemble cast and high drama. The central character this time is the fourth year med student, Amanda, who, among other problems, is the baby child and only daughter of a very Southern family in South Carolina (?) who can't understand why she would go away to Pittsburg to study medicine. They persist in thinking it is just a phase she is going through and that eventually she will come to her senses and return home to be a proper Southern Belle and the light of the Junior League. A priceless bit is the call she receives from one of her brothers trying to bring her to her senses as she is sitting in her demolished car after surviving a murder attempt.

I was hoping that the obnoxious resident would turn out to be the murderer and that they could get rid of him. No such luck. Hope that isn't too much of a spoiler.

The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge

8Jan. Kindle.

Usually I reread this more often. It is a very, very nice book without being cloying. Yes, I was thinking of the Jan Karon book that we will be discussing at book club this month. Maybe cloying is a bit strong - but not much. I suppose that a weakness in Goudge is the idealization of children. Even the brats are rather idealized. Still, I can't help liking the people and the descriptions of the setting make me want to go there, although I am not fond of damp climates at all.

Rest You Merry by Charlotte MacLeod

6Jan. Kindle.

It has been years since I read this, what a blast. My sister has rediscovered MacLeod and told me that this one reminded her of me in the initial events. It seems that Dr. Peter Shandy's college has a tradition of elaborate Christmas decoration in the faculty residential loop. Shandy has resisted all pressure to participate for eighteen years, but finally decides to avenge himself for all the annoyance. He arranges to have his house decorated with the gaudiest and most annoying display imaginable - including loud music - locks the program in --- and leaves town. Sort of the inverse of the first year we lived in this house. We had been away for Thanksgiving and returned home to find our street ablaze with light and sound - except for one dark space.

And so it goes. When Shandy's cruise ship develops engine trouble and puts in to port for repairs, he returns home to the monstrosity he created - and finds the body of the chief annoyer in his living room. The parodies of academia are priceless.

Unnatural Causes by P. D. James

5Jan. Kindle.

A colony of writers in a remote corner of England - an obvious setting for a murder. One of the writers, who actually remains rather aloof from the others, is Adam Dalgliesh's Aunt Jane, which puts Dalgliesh on the scene. In fact, Dalgliesh himself is a writer and has published a couple of volumes of poetry. Aunt Jane writes scholarly works on birds and birding. The mystery writer is the one who ends up dead.

This is an extremely convoluted plot, even for James. In essence it is a "country house" murder - limited pool of suspects with interrelated motives. And, classically, the least likely character (setting aside Aunt Jane) turns out to be the murderer. Of course, the murder of a mystery writer gives James the opportunity to insert all sorts of jabs at mystery writers as a group - good fun.

The Third Hill North of Town by Noah Bly

3Jan. Kindle.

Didn't like it. Pointless. Plotless.

Have to hand it to the author - he has a degree of arrogance that is truly monumental. First he compares this piece of idiocy to Huckleberry Finn - the only similarity that I noticed was that there were two boys, one white and one black. Then, not content with that bit of hubris, he announces that it is similar in its fundamental nature to Cervantes' Don Quixote. Well, one of the central characters is crazy ---

Through a endless sequence of improbabilities, leaving a trail of death and mayhem behind them - quite inadvertantly, of course - with flashbacks to the crazy lady's childhood, she and the two boys travel to the site of her childhood home - and the scene of the trauma which, improbably, she had blocked for forty years. No surprises; it was all completely telegraphed by the flashbacks.

No surprises at the ending that is. All the other deaths and general distruction seemed completely unnecessary and pointless.

White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

1Jan. Kindle.

After my comment that Dragonflight stood up well in the reread, I hate to report that this one didn't. Of course, being on antibiotics and feeling generally rotten may have had something to do with my attitude. My general feeling is that it was too long and too diffuse. There were several plot lines that could have been central, and somehow none of them were. It just seemed to ramble on. Another problem may be that it seemed to me to require the background provided in the Harper Hall books which overlap this trilogy. A host of characters appear which are developed in the Harper Hall series without any introduction to speak of. Curiously, the Harper Hall books do not seem to be available for kindle - and they are not where they should be on my shelves, either.

I do like the way she changed the central characters in each. Still, while Jaxom is an appealing character, he doesn't stand up well to Lessa in the first book or F'nor in the second.