I mentioned that Hurricane Isaias took out our power for a few days. Besides cutting circles for Dot Dot Dot, I spent a lot of time reading so have a few recommendations for the readers among you, as well a Netflix show to watch.
This was a five-star read for me. I've liked everything I've read by Beatriz Williams and think this is her best to date. It is the moving story of Irene Foster, aviator, who disappeared in 1937, and photographer Janey Everett who is convinced Foster is still alive and is looking for her in 1947. While the story was inspired by Amelia Earhart and her disappearance, it is not a biographical novel and the characters are fictional.
This is a debut mystery, set in Toronto, but concerned with the genocide in Bosnia in the 1990s. Detectives looking into the death of Christopher Drayton (accident, suicide, murder?) begin to suspect he is a war criminal, living under an assumed identity. Very moving, with lots of background woven in on the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.
A big wedding on an island in Ireland, with all the action taking place in about a 36 hour time period (plus flashbacks). From early on, you know someone is dead...but who and why? It's a modern take on classic Agatha Christie tales.
Once our power was back on, I had to finish a drama I'd been watching, The English Game, available on Netflix. It takes place in England in the late 1870's. "Football is in its infancy, an amateur game dominated by the upper class teams who invented its rules." But the working class has taken up the sport and put together teams of players from factories and mill towns. There is a quite a culture clash and it impacts the rules of the game. It is a great drama, with very good actors, and is about football in the same way that Chariots of Fire is about running, so you don't need to know anything about the game. (The football in question is the game Americans call soccer.) The scripts are by Julian Fellowes, who wrote the Downton Abbey series. If you like costume dramas, I think you will like this 6-episode show.
I've watched the English Games too. Great story.
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