The man in the brown suit, by Agatha Christie

 

Agatha Christie's fourth mystery doesn't include any of her more famous detectives. The main character, Anne, is a young woman who loves adventure and decides to solve the mystery of who killed another young woman in an unoccupied home up for rent. The clues lead her to book passage on a ship to South Africa and introduce her to a cast of characters that may or may not be involved in the crime. Stolen diamonds, refugees from justice, secret service investigators, wealthy politicians, and more are all under suspicion, and Anne proceeds to follow the trail to find the murderer and thief. Another of the characters, Colonel Race, appears in three later books by Christie, including two in which he is a close friend of Poirot's. Initially given mixed reviews, The man in the brown suit is just as compelling and page-turning as any Christie mystery. However, the prejudices of the time (1924) are reflected in the depictions of Black South Africans, which may be off-putting to readers.

Eight hundred grapes, by Laura Dave

I was disappointed in this novel by popular author Laura Dave. I had read another book by her and found it to be entertaining (The night we lost him), but this one is so problematic that I didn't enjoy it nearly as much. The main character, Georgia, runs home to her parents after seeing her fiancé, Ben, walking down the street with another woman and a child; after confronting them, she learns that the woman is a former lover and the child her fiance's. He only learned about the child several months ago, but had kept it secret from Georgia for all that time, even though they're not only set to be married in a week but also relocate to London, where Ben's ex and child live. Once at home, Georgia learns that her parents are selling their vineyard and planning to separate, as her mother has taken up with a former romantic interest from decades ago. Georgia further learns that there's a rift between her two brothers, because Finn is in love with Margaret, Bobby's wife, and the feeling is mutual. If that isn't enough drama, Georgia's parents are selling their small, family vineyard to a large corporate operation, and Georgia starts trying to sabotage the sale. My problems with this book abound. First, the writing is atrocious. Granted, I have an advance reader's edition, but that can't account for the awkward sentences and terrible plot. Second, none of Georgia's actions are believable. She runs out into the street in her wedding dress, which she is being fitted for, when she sees Ben with his ex and the child. Then, she goes home, packs a bag, and drives nine hours in her wedding dress to see her parents? If she had left right from the shop to make the drive, it would be almost believable, but she packs a bag, so she must have gone home to do it. She also goes to the headquarters of the company that's buying her parents' vineyard, interrupts a board meeting, and fights with the President over the purchase. She then files an injunction against the sale in a scene that makes it look like the process of filing an injunction involves just going to a courthouse and filling out a piece of paper (is it really that easy?) Third, characters repeatedly make comments that are unclear as to their meaning, and it's not explained. A good editor might have cleared some of this up, but this book comes across as a first draft, rather than an almost completed book. Advance reader's editions often have typos, which I can overlook, but there are so many problems with this book that the fact that it's an ARE can't account for all of them. I can't recommend this book.
 

French lessons, by Ellen Sussman

In honor of Valentine's Day, I decided to read this short novel about love in its many forms. French lessons is about three French tutors and their respective students who have signed up for private lessons in Paris. Nico spends the day tutoring Josie, a French teacher who has recently lost her married lover in a plane crash. Josie is visiting Paris alone, grieving in a way that she cannot do at home, and her encounter with Nico helps her along on the way to recovery from her paralyzing grief. Philippe is teaching beginning French to Riley who is in Paris with her two small children and husband, Victor. Vic has been distant lately, staying out late and leaving early in the morning, and Riley is feeling more and more isolated and finding no comfort in the ex-pat groups that she belongs to. She spends the day with Philippe, wandering around Paris on a tour that eventually leads to an afternoon of passion at his apartment. Finally, Jeremy passes his last day with his tutor, Chantal, fantasizing about kissing her. He's feeling some dissatisfaction with his marriage to Dana, an actress working on a film in Paris. All three of the tutors are single and looking for love, and all three of the students are experiencing some kind of crisis: grief, abandonment, or dissatisfaction. The book is framed by two short chapters that have the tutors meeting up before and after their day, and the bulk of the book is one chapter devoted to each relationship. The stories don't have pat endings, but each pair of tutor and student had learned something about themselves and what they want, and moved themselves a little bit further along to getting it.
 

The dig, by John Preston

 

I really enjoyed this novel based on the true story of the discovery of an Anglo-Saxon ship burial in Sutton Hoo, England. As war approached Europe in 1939, Basil Brown was hired by a landowner, Edith Pretty, to excavate the mounds on her property, long assumed to be ancient burial sites. He's unsuccessful with the first few mounds, but strikes it rich on the largest mound in the field, unearthing what appears to be a ship burial. The wood used to build the ship was long decomposed, but left its shape in the sand of the mound along with all of the metal rivets used to build it and the items that were buried with it. Before long, Brown is pushed aside by men from the British Museum who take over the excavation and relegate Brown to a subordinate role. This novel brings the characters to life, including Mrs. Pretty, widowed and with a small son, Robert, as well as the cast of archeologists who descend on the dig such as Stuart Piggotty, a college professor and archeologist and his wife, also an archeologist but also his former student. The book shows the excitement of such a find, which changed the historical narrative about England after the end of Roman rule. Previously thought to be an uncivilized and barbaric time, the find made clear that there was a sophisticated trade network in existence in the 6th-7th centuries. Based on the amount of gold and silver artifacts found in the burial chamber, it's likely that the ship burial was for a king, possibly King Raedwald, King of the East Angles. The 2021 Netflix film based on this book and starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan hews closely to the book with a little added drama and romance to spice it up.

The murder on the links, by Agatha Christie

 

This is Agatha Christie's third mystery and her second one featuring Hercule Poirot. Although I read a lot of Christie as a teenager, this was not one that I'd read. I really enjoyed this mystery in which Poirot is asked to go to France to consult with a man about some concerns he has regarding an old secret. Poirot takes his friend Colonel Hastings with him, but when they arrive, they find that the man has been killed that morning and his body found in a shallow grave on a golf course next to his home. I loved the writing and the twists and turns of the plot. As usual, it keeps you guessing all the way to the end when Poirot reveals the killer.

The writing of the gods: the race to decode the Rosetta stone, by Edward Dolnick

 

I really enjoyed this fascinating and well-researched history of the finding and decoding of the Rosetta stone. After several men failed to make headway, two scholars took on the project, one English and one French. Thomas Young made an initial discovery about decoding personal names, but stalled after that. Frenchman Jean-François Champolllion realized that the hieroglyphs were used to represent sounds in all or most words, not just in names that needed to be spelled out, such as foreign names liked Ptolemy. Author Edward Dolnick provides a thorough historical background to the discovery, which was made during Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Egypt in 1798. He also seems to delight in taking the reader on tangents about other languages and explorers, making this an entertaining read. Written for a lay audience, Dolnick does a good job of explaining technical issues related to the decoding of the hieroglyphs, providing excellent corollary examples of the concepts in English. There are illustrations throughout the book, including examples of hieroglyphs and black and white photographs, and there are eight pages of colored plates as well. There are lengthy notes and bibliography sections and an index. I recommend this book and look forward to reading other works by him.