a stolen life: a memoir (2011) by jaycee dugard

What a wonderfully written memoir.  Jaycee has told her story without bitterness, which is incredible considering the physical and mental abuse she endured.  Kidnapped at 11 years of age and raped repeatedly, she recounted factually her sexual violation and her captivity in isolation. After she had two babies fathered by Philip, her captor, she began to look to him and his wife as those who cared for her and her children.  The children called him Daddy and Jaycee had to pretend to be their sister.  The girls thought that they were a family.  After eighteen years they went out in public, with Jaycee fearful of betraying Philip.  It could mean being handcuffed and kept hidden in the outbuildings.  Observant women working in security at a university contacted police when "the family"  showed up there.  Philip was ranting about his religious beliefs and behaving in a peculiar manner.  Jaycee revealed her identity to the police.  Her reunification with her mother has been a successful one.  A lawsuit against the police force for not checking adequately on Philip, who was on probation for other sex crimes, over the years has provided Jaycee and her daughters some measure of comfort.  Philip and his wife received long jail sentences. No amount of money can compensate for the despair and horror which Jaycee Dugard has lived.

Death in holy orders (2001) by P.D. James





Photo by Barnes and Noble.com

As a devoted P.D. James fan, I was disappointed in this 11th of the Adam Dagleish series.  The characters were underdeveloped and the plot limped along. Kate, Adam's sergeant, had few opportunities to play any role, while Adam, himself, was melancholy and taciturn.  It's my experience that few, if any, Anglican "priests" live the life that the novel presented. 

 

Finding Sarah : A duchess's journey to find herself (2011) Sarah Ferguson



From the airbrushed photo on the cover to the inside of this book, at best it can be described as somewhat interesting, however Sarah Ferguson seems very, very self-serving.  Always the victim, she can only learn from her mistakes (before she makes more).  She was careless with her husband and his money.  Her mother is blamed for many of her problems, as her mother left the family to live in Argentia with a new love. Granted, this was a difficult time, but Sarah had ready access to elite society through her father. Sarah was less prepared to be a princess than was Diana. Her autobiography reveals herself in only the most positive way (well, I guess we would all do that).  She continues to praise and adore her ex-husband, Andrew, and describes him as her best friend. Since they still live in the same house after 15 years of divorce, it becomes obvious to me that they should never have separated.  Then Sarah could have those designer clothes without sanction. Any maybe even attend Christmas with the Royal Family.

The woman who wasn't there: The true stopry of an incredible deception (2012) by Robin Gaby Fisher and Angelo J Guglielmo Jr.

It was a tale of loss and recovery, of courage and sorrow, of horror and inspiration. Tania Head’s astonishing account of her experience on September 11, 2001—from crawling through the carnage and chaos to escaping the seventy-eighth-floor sky lobby of the burning south tower to losing her fiancé in the collapsed north tower—transformed her into one of the great victims and heroes of that tragic day.

Tania selflessly took on the responsibility of giving a voice and a direction to the burgeoning World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, helping save the “Survivor Stairway” and leading tours at Ground Zero, including taking then-governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, and former mayor Giuliani on the inaugural tour of the WTC site. She even used her own assets to fund charitable events to help survivors heal. But there was something very wrong with Tania’s story—a terrible secret that would break the hearts and challenge the faith of all those she claimed to champion.

 
Told with the unique insider perspective and authority of Angelo J. Guglielmo, Jr., a filmmaker shooting a documentary on the efforts of the Survivors’ Network, and previously one of Tania’s closest friends, The Woman Who Wasn’t There is the story of one of the most audacious and bewildering quests for acclaim in recent memory—one that poses fascinating questions about the essence of morality and the human need for connection at any cost.   Review from Goodreads online, Sep 2012

The vault (2011) by Ruth Rendell

The impossible has happened. Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired from the crime force. He and his wife, Dora, now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and a coachhouse in Hampstead, belonging to their actress daughter, Sheila.
Wexford takes great pleasure in his books, but, for all the benefits of a more relaxed lifestyle, he misses being the hand of the law.

But a chance meeting in a London street, with someone he had known briefly as a very young police constable, changes everything. Tom Ede is now a Detective Superintendent, and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser on a mysterious murder case.
The bodies of two women and a man have been discovered in the old coal hole of an attractive house in St John's Wood. None of the corpses carry identification. But the man's jacket pockets contain a string of pearls, a diamond and a sapphire necklace as well as other jewellery valued in the region of �40,000.

To Wexford, this is definitely a case worth coming out of retirement for. He is intrigued and excited by the challenge, but unaware that this new investigative role will bring him into extreme physical danger. (Summary thanks to Goodreads online)

The search for Anne Perry: The hidden life of a bestselling crime writer (2012) by Joanne Drayton

  

In 1994, director Peter Jackson released the film Heavenly Creatures, based on a famous 1950s matricide committed in New Zealand by two teenage girls embroiled in an obsessive relationship. This film launched Jackson′s international career. It also forever changed the life of Anne Perry, an award-winning, bestselling crime writer, who at the time of the film′s release was publically outed as Juliet Hulme, one of the murderers. A new light was now cast, not only on Anne′s life, but also her novels, which feature gruesome and violent deaths, and confronting, dark issues including infanticide and incest.

   Acclaimed literary biographer, Joanne Drayton, intersperses the story of Anne′s life with an examination of her writing, drawing parallels between Anne′s own experiences and her characters and storylines. Anne′s books deal with miscarriages of justice, family secrets exposed, punishment, redemption and forgiveness, themes made all the more poignant in light of her past. Anne has sold 25 million books worldwide and published in 15 different languages, yet she will now forever be known as a murderer who became a writer of murder stories.

    Drayton was been given unparalleled access to Anne, her friends, relatives, colleagues and archives to complete the book. The result is a compelling read which provides an understanding of the girl Anne was, the adult she became, her compulsion to write and her view of the world.(Thanks to Goodreads, online)

Lone wolf (2012) by Jodi Picoult

On an icy winter night, a terrible accident forces a family divided to come together and make a fateful decision. Cara, once protected by her father, Luke, is tormented by a secret that nobody knows. Her brother, Edward, has secrets of his own. He has kept them hidden, but now they may come to light, and if they do, Cara will be devastated. Their mother, Georgie, was never able to compete with her ex-husband’s obsessions, and now, his fate hangs in the balance and in the hands of her children. With conflicting motivations and emotions, what will this family decide? And will they be able to live with that decision, after the truth has been revealed? What happens when the hope that should sustain a family is the very thing tearing it apart? (Review thanks to Goodreads, online) 

The bat (2002) by Jo Nembo

Somehow this novel did not grab me the way Nesbo's others have.  Though it is the first of his series. Harry Hole was dispatched by his police force in Norway to liaise with police in Australia because of the death of a Nowegian woman.  She appeared to be a murder victim.  Harry got close to many of the characters, with hindsight incidating that he should not have.  The characters were weakly drawn, with the exception being the red haired woman. She was the only one who seemed sincere in the macabre cast of misfits. (Review by Carol-Anne)

The imposter bride (2012) by Nancy Richler

When a young, enigmatic woman arrives in post-war Montreal, it is immediately clear that she is not who she claims to be. Her attempt to live out her life as Lily Azerov shatters as she disappears, leaving a new husband and baby daughter, and a host of unanswered questions. Who is she really and what happened to the young woman whose identity she has stolen? Why has she left and where did she go? It is left to the daughter she abandoned to find the answers to these questions as she searches for the mother she may never find or really know.

Nemesis (2009) by Jo Nesbo

Grainy closed-circuit television footage shows a man walking into an Oslo bank and putting a gun to a cashier's head. He tells the young woman to count to twenty-five. When the robber doesn't get his money in time, the cashier is executed, and two million Norwegian kroner disappear without a trace. Police Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case.

While Hole's girlfriend is away in Russia, an old flame decides to get in touch. Former girlfriend and struggling artist Anna Bethsen invites Hole to dinner, and he can't resist a visit. But the evening ends in an all too familiar way as Hole awakens with a thundering headache, a missing cell phone, and no memory of the past twelve hours. That same morning, Anna is found shot dead in her bed. Hole begins to receive threatening e-mails. Is someone trying to frame him for this unexplained death? Meanwhile, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery.



As the death toll continues to mount, Hole becomes a prime suspect in a criminal investigation led by his longtime adversary Tom Waaler and Waaler's vigilante police force. Racing from the cool, autumnal streets of Oslo to the steaming villages of Brazil, Hole is determined to absolve himself of suspicion by uncovering all the information needed to crack both cases. But the ever-threatening Waaler is not finished with his old archenemy quite yet.

Ruby and Iris (2006) by Rosie Thomas

Cairo now and Cairo during the Second World War.The present belongs to Ruby, a twenty something who has shown up on her grandmother's doorstep in Cairo.  Ruby is pierced, shabby looking, and ill-mannered.  Slowly her realtionship with her grandmother grows into love, as a new maturity developes while Iris recounts her past to Ruby. A heart warming narrative.