Diane Bostick 

dianebostick@comcast.net

Author: Alice LaPlante. 

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press 2011. 

If you are a regular reader of Book Remarks you probably have noticed that you often don’t know what the book I am reviewing is about until close to the end of the column. I tend to chat a bit about various other things first. In this case I will tell you right up front this book is told through the eyes of Dr. Jennifer White, an orthopedic surgeon, who, at the age of 64, has dementia, the intermediate stage of Alzheimer’s disease. Her best friend has been found dead with four of her fingers removed, it would appear, surgically. It would seem obvious that the police consider her, as we often hear the term, “a person of interest.”

To me the mystery detailed in this book was fairly well done. The big question to me was, if she did indeed do it, why, and to a lesser degree, how? But the overwhelming reason I found the book fascinating is that my mother died at the age of 74 of Alzheimer’s. This book is written through the eyes of the patient. And that was something I found deeply personal and interesting.

Our family had no idea there was anything going on in my mother’s mind until one day, while we were on vacation diving in the Florida Keys, she asked me how much instant coffee she should use in making my father a cup of coffee. An innocent enough question, unless you knew that she had probably made him a cup of instant coffee several times a day ever since it had come on the market. A giant question mark loomed in my mind and I asked my father if he had noticed anything different about her lately. He said he had noticed, upon reflection, that she had become more forgetful.

At that time, she was the window designer for a women’s dress shop in Ft. Myers, so we asked them if they had noticed any changes in her and indeed, they had, but had not mentioned it out of kindness since she had worked there for twenty years. We immediately made an appointment with a neurologist where she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. (There is no firm diagnosis of the disease without an autopsy. However, the signs of the disease are usually fairly definitive. I had not heard of the disease before then and, in fact, I believe the public in general was just becoming aware of Alzheimer’s at the same time as our family, in 1977.)

From that day until the day she died, we saw the person we had known leave us, bit by bit, until there was nothing left but her familiar, beloved face and body. She went from a person whom I had never seen cry to someone who cried often, someone gentle and kind to someone who would hit others. She had always taken great pride in her dress, hair and makeup but lost interest in her appearance, even to the point of not caring whether her false teeth were in her mouth. Eventually, she no longer recognized her family. (The first time I visited her in the nursing home and she didn’t know me was a heart breaking day, as you can imagine.) She even forgot how to talk. The last words she remembered how to say though were a testament of the person she had been before her illness. Those few words, said to anyone who stopped to give her even a moment of time were, “I love you.”

If this total change in the woman we knew and loved frustrated and baffled all of us, can you imagine how it must have felt to be her? We never told her she had dementia because we didn’t think there was any point since she would forget a minute later. We took care of her at home until it was unsafe for us to do so. The chances of her getting lost if she were more than ten feet from the house, the chances of her doing harm to herself from taking the wrong medicine or burning the house down from leaving a pot on the stove became too great. In all that time I had a sense of her bewilderment and fear. Her whole world was upside down. It seemed as though she must have felt like Alice in Wonderland. I often asked myself how she must feel and by reading Turn of Mind I was given a pretty clear idea of what might have been going through her head.

If you have had a chance to interact with a friend or family member with dementia you will find answers to many unasked questions. At least, I know I did. Yes, the mystery adds to the interest of the book, but the true interest, to me at least, was seeing this dreadful, soul robbing disease through the eyes of the person living with a version of Hell each and every day until, at last, I imagine, it all becomes just a blur.

Diane Bostick has lived on Marco Island since 1987. She was the Founder and President of Ft. Myers chapter of the Association of Children with Learning Disabilities, President of Jr. Welfare League, Ft. Myers Chapter, and served on the board of Art League of Marco Island. She is an avid reader, fly fisherwoman, tennis player and crafter. 

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Rooney Mara is mesmerizing as Lisbeth Salander, the tiny birdlike product of the Digital Age. She’s tattooed, pierced in all the wrong places, fierce, anti-social, abused, and sheathed in black leather and even wearing “Oliver Twist” gloves with the fingers cut out. Lisbeth is a genius computer hack. She joins forces with Mikael Blomqvist (ably played by Daniel Craig) a journalist who is on the wrong end of a very expensive libel suit. Ms. Mara’s performance is truly remarkable.

The film is shot in cold, desolate Sweden where snow is punctuated from time-to-time by rain or sleet. Much of the action takes place on an isolated private island owned by the very wealthy and very despicable Vanger clan, who range from corporate parasites to exiles to outright criminals and Nazis. The one possibly upright family member is old Henrik Vanger (portrayed by the inimitable Christopher Plummer) who hires Blomqvist to look into an apparent crime committed decades ago. In the course of pursuing leads Blomqvist is introduced to Salander, and the two work together to solve the puzzle. The issue is the mysterious disappearance and presumed murder of Henrik’s niece, Harriet. In order to find the answer Blomqvist must interact, as best he can, with the very nasty Vangers, most of whom do not even talk to one another.

From scene to scene Salander, abetted by Blomqvist and an aging detective, flits across the screen – often on a high speed motorcycle – and skillfully hacks into computers to arrange the puzzle pieces. In the course of all this her past as an abused young girl slowly develops, and explains her behavior.

The soundtrack, while not disconcerting, enhances the gloom and punctuates the excitement. The photography is superb as it captures the overriding gloom of the island and Sweden in winter. For the queasy, be aware that the film is violent and has a full range of explicit sexual content. It’s not to titillate, but rather to illustrate the gruesome nature of the segment of society and the plain rotten core of the Vangers.

Director David Fincher ably transitions from the early disgrace of Blomqvist to the search for the truth and to the brutal aftermath. Ultimately the film belongs to Ms. Mara in a startling and compelling portrayal of the troubled and vengeful Lisbeth Salander. It’s a portrait that lingers long after the credits disappear.

We Bought A ZOO

“We Bought a Zoo” is the ultimate feel good movie. It’s based on a true story that actually took place in Devon, England. Cameron Crowe, noted for directing “Jerry Maguire”, “Almost Famous”, and several other hit movies, decided to try his hand at family entertainment.

Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon in a much different role than usual for him) is desolate after his wife’s death. He has two kids; a precocious young daughter and a surly teenage son. Adrift, Mee looks to change the direction of his life, and winds up buying a dilapidated house close to Los Angeles, with (Surprise!) a dilapidated zoo. The wee daughter is entranced; the son is estranged. Aided and abetted by a zoo staff that wants to save the zoo, Benjamin strives to restore it. He, of course (this is Hollywood after all) meets and surmounts all hurdles, including a real financial pickle. Even his dubious accountant brother is ultimately won over.

The interaction between Damon, Scarlett Johansson (as a good looking zoo keeper), Patrick Fugit as a worker with a real monkey on his back, a mostly drunk enclosure expert (Angus MacFayden) and very friendly animals, including a grizzly bear that escapes briefly, is fine. Nothing gets very exciting or is terribly suspenseful. Young son Dylan (Colin Ford) is enchanted by a young zoo apprentice (Elle Fanning) who works diligently to get Dylan out of his funk. Daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) is a cute little scene stealer, and John Michael Higgins is mildly threatening as a government inspector who may – or may not – close down the zoo.

The film’s main crisis revolves around son Dylan who spends his time drawing violent scenes and blaming his father for mom’s death and the aftermath. Dylan does not like leaving urban Los Angeles for the woodsy life and adorable animals. Dylan’s struggles with adolescence and his mom’s death represent the most serious underpinnings of the movie. For those who care, in real life Benjamin’s wife died after they bought the zoo, not before. The zoo is in England.

The musical score has snippets of Randy Newman, Neil Young and Tom Petty, and enlivens the script. Crowe directs with a light touch, apparently geared for a young audience. There are some amusing scenes and Matt Damon is captivating as usual.

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Diane Bostick 

dianebostick@comcast.net

Author: Janet Evanovich. 

Publisher: Bantam Books 2011.

If you haven’t read a Janet Evanovich book you have missed a reading experience like no other. However, I must warn you, don’t even pick up the book if you aren’t prepared for some funky, quirky humor. If you are at the library you will find them in the mystery section, but I wouldn’t exactly call them mysteries. The author started out writing One for the Money and is now up to Explosive Eighteen with a book for each number in between. Her heroine, if you want to call her that, is Stephanie Plum. She works for her cousin Vinnie’s bail bonding company as a bounty hunter. But she is like no bounty hunter you have ever heard of before. Wikipedia describes her as a “spunky combination of Nancy Drew and Dirty Harry.” But I think they should have added, “on a bad day.”

To start with, most of the people she is looking for are at least partly nuts and she is both naïve and inept, so the combination makes for some interesting and humorous reading. And that is before you add in Lula, an African-American, size 16 body stuffed into size 10 spandex, ex-hooker, always hungry, always looking for sex, flashily dressed, but eager cohort in bounty hunting. Their problems are compounded by the fact that Stephanie seldom keeps her gun loaded, if she brings it at all, forgets to charge her stun gun, often runs out of pepper spray and uses hair spray in its place. USA Today likens them to the Lucy and Ethel of bounty hunting. But thankfully, for both their sakes, Stephanie’s two boyfriends, Ranger, an extremely viral Cuban with his own security company and Morelli, a cop, are nearby to rescue her…time and time again.

Thrown into the mix, just to make things more interesting, as if that were needed, is Grandma Mazur. She has lived with Stephanie’s parents ever since Grandpa Mazur “took the big escalator to the heavenly food court in the sky.” Grandma is well into old age and still has high hopes and “the hots” for most any man who comes along and is not afraid to comment on their anatomical bright spots. Her favorite pastime is attending funerals, even for those she has never even met, as it gives her a chance to dress up, socialize and eat good food. In the movie made from Evanovich’s first book, One for the Money, which is to be released soon, Hollywood has Debbie Reynolds portraying Grandma Mazur but personally, I think the part should have gone to Betty White, hands down.

In Explosive Eighteen Stephanie is once again trying to round up several characters who have skipped bond and need to be brought in for “rescheduling of their court date.” Her office is currently a converted motor coach since the old office was burned down by a fire “of suspicious nature.” She has her choice of who to look for first. The worse the crime the more money she gets for retrieving them. She and Lula decide to pass on a domestic violence case and two armed robberies and try to find the person charged with credit card fraud by the name of Lahonka Goudge. The name alone tells you this is not going to be an easy catch. One of their other choices is Joyce Barnhardt, who was picked up for shoplifting a diamond necklace and who just happens to be an acquaintance of Stephanie’s. Joyce was the cause of her divorce when Joyce was discovered in a most compromising position with Stephanie’s ex-husband.

To further confuse the situation, Stephanie is being hunted by various thugs, some of whom are pretending to be F.B.I. agents, because they believe she has a photograph that they want badly. This photo was somehow slipped into her backpack while she was on a plane returning from Hawaii. Another character chasing after her for the same purpose, is “Raz”, who has no qualms about causing her severe bodily harm in his quest for this photograph. She has no idea why they want the picture and, in fact, threw it away when she found it in her luggage, not knowing how it got there.

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Author: Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. 2011.

While reading this book I was entranced and when I finished, all I could say was, “Wow.” Back in the ‘50s when I was taking American History in Fort Myers High School, it was all I could do to stay awake. For one thing, there was no air-conditioning then and the class was right after I had eaten lunch. But to make things much worse I had the kind of teacher who felt she had covered all her bases if she had us learn the historical place, event or person’s name and the date associated with it. No effort was made to make history come to life. No stories were told, no costumes worn, nobody came into class who was witness to any event to add a personal touch; it was kind of the equivalent of “name, rank and serial number.” I was told that Abraham Lincoln was our 16th president, tall, ugly, wore a stove pipe hat, was born in a log cabin in Kentucky, gave the Gettysburg address (which we had to memorize), freed the slaves and was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in the Ford Theater. And that was it! And that was probably quite a bit more than we learned about most other people or events in American history. There was little to peak our interest in learning more. And I am afraid she was pretty standard in her approach to teaching history, as are many of today’s teachers. Any American History teacher today who does not make Bill O’Reilly’s book on Lincoln required reading ought to be sent packing! Both my husband and I agree we were amazed at all that we learned in this fascinating, engrossing book. For example, did you know that Lincoln was killed a mere five days after the end of the Civil War?

Killing Lincoln begins in the very last few days of the Civil War in the spring of 1865 with Ulysses S. Grant and his Union army in hot pursuit of the men in gray lead by Robert E. Lee. The soldiers of the Confederacy had been fighting for state’s rights and slavery for four long years and, though, literally starving and shoeless, were still convinced by their leader that they could win the war and most were willing to fight until death. The description of these last days of the war is gripping and leaves you feeling the agony of the soldiers in the trenches, on horseback and in positions of leadership on both sides of the conflict.

When President Lincoln got word of the signing of the agreement to end the war he was quick to try to convince those around him that vengeance was not to be attempted but instead great effort should be taken to allow the country to heal and become one. This vision was not popular with many in the north and combined with the hatred felt towards him by those in the south he was considered to be one of the most despised men in America. He was warned repeatedly by those around him that his life was very much in danger and he, himself, felt the chances of an attempted assassination were very real. Despite that he continued to openly appear in public. At that time anyone wishing to speak to the president was allowed to approach him at any time to plead his case and, in fact, they were often found asleep on the floor of the White House itself awaiting a chance to speak to Mr. Lincoln.

Those who warned him of the imminent danger to his life were very correct in their assumptions and John Wilkes Booth was one of those wishing to not only kill the president, but to gain fame in the act. Initially the plan was to kidnap him, but that gave way to a plan to assassinate him and several others involved in the government, including Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. The story of how Booth planned President Lincoln’s killing and the other attempted murders with the aid of his cohorts, how it was brought to fruition and the pursuit of these villains is a tale that is hard to put down. For years I have been of the belief that Dr. Mudd, who was held as a prisoner in Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, was an innocent man who only set the broken leg of a man off the street. It seems that he knew who he was treating and what he had done and did not turn him in, so, although he did not actually participate in the killing, he certainly aided and abetted the man who did.

Some reviewers have said that O’Reilly was a little loose in his facts. Some of the examples given seemed unimportant to me and I am not sophisticated enough historically, to know how significant others might be. However, I do know that this book brought history to life for me in a way that no other book has done. And the graphic, heartrending description of Lincoln’s dying had me practically in tears. This book is as good as any thriller you could possibly read and I highly recommend it to you.

Diane Bostick has lived on Marco Island since 1987. She was the Founder and President of Ft. Myers chapter of the Association of Children with Learning Disabilities, President of Jr. Welfare League, Ft. Myers Chapter, and served on the board of Art League of Marco Island. She is an avid reader, fly fisherwoman, tennis player and crafter.

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The latest movie version of “Sherlock Holmes” (“A Game of Shadows”) is decidedly not the Holmes we know and love from the much beloved A. Conan Doyle stories, or even the old Basil Rathbone films. The new Holmes is a macho gunslinger and hand-to-hand fighter. He’s just not very smart. His favorite violin has gone missing. So, too, is his finely tuned mind. He’s now more of a comic book version complete with massive explosions.

This time around, against a largely sepia background, Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and sidekick Dr. Watson (Jude Law) more closely resemble Batman and Robin as they Pow! Zap! Zing! various bad guys. The great mystery of the movie is how so much action can, at the same time, be so boring. It’s also long, running more than two hours. As Holmes, Downey is more silly than cerebral. Watson is also a man of action rather than the calming doctor.

Director Guy Ritchie and the writers have stitched together a crazy-quilt of tidbits from several of Doyle’s stories, including a fairly brief appearance by Rachel McAdams as the luscious Mlle. Adler. She disappears early and is replaced by Noomi Rapace as a sort of sexy gypsy. Holmes and Watson track their way through various majestic European settings – from London to Switzerland – finally reaching the climax at the famous falls where Holmes and the evil Dr. Moriarty (Jared Harris) where the two had their notable set-to in the Conan Doyle version. When Holmes vanished in his “last” encounter, the British readers were irate, and Doyle had to revive his famous hero.

One of the finer touches in the film is including Holmes’ older, wiser, larger brother, Mycroft. He normally spends his time at the Diogenes Club in London, where he thinks great thoughts, and is available to Holmes whenever Sherlock is stuck on solving a particularly difficult problem. Stephen Fry is wonderfully cast as Mycroft, and adds a bit of sophistication and humor. Moriarty is also well played by Jared Harris. It’s too bad he doesn’t engage in a better exchange of wits other than a last minute chess match.

A good deal of the photography of Europe is beautiful. The remainder of the movie is not.

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Author: Andrea Levy 

Publisher: Picador (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 2010. Available in Hard cover, soft cover, audio and Kindle. 

I know that some of you would rather be shot in the foot than read anything considered a “Historical Novel.” (Yes, I know, some of you think I should say ‘an’ rather than ‘a’ before the word historical. I took the time to look it up and both are correct depending on where you live, but the ‘a’ seems to be preferred in America today.) Now to get back to the subject at hand. “Historical Novel” brings on an image of dry and boring. I can assure you that The Long Song is neither of these. The author, Andrea Levy, was born in England of Jamaican parents. Since this novel is about both England and Jamaica she should have at least a chance of knowing what she is talking about. On the assumed basis that she also knows how to write, the chances are better than even that this might turn out to be a pretty good book. Since she won the Whitbread Book of the Year award and the Orange Prize for Fiction for her book, Small Island, I think we can safely place some faith in this assumption. She has once again done a stellar job of winning us over with a beautifully written story that brings history to life.

The Long Song is autobiographically told by an old woman with the encouragement of her son. This storyteller is “a woman possessed of a forthright tongue and little ink.” She is writing to tell us of her life as a slave on the island of Jamaica. It begins on the very first day of her life when she is born in the middle of a field while her mother is cutting sugar cane. Her mother, Kitty, is so intent on her work she does not even notice that she has given birth until she hears the wail of the newborn child. Kitty stops her work only long enough to wrap the child in a scarf from her head and strap her on her back before going back to her chore.

Well, actually that is not how it happened at all but it seemed like a good way to start telling her story and in fact she has various versions of July’s birth, all with a great amount of drama involved. One had a tiger sniffing at the newborn child, another a wind so fierce as to require Kitty to grab her by the leg before she was blown away. Fortunately, at her son’s insistence, the decision is made to write the true story of the birth which is actually equally harrowing, involving a long eight hour delivery in a dirt floored hut interrupted by the overseer, the father of the child, telling her to stop making so much noise as it is disturbing the enjoyment of his breakfast.

As a young child, July, walking along with her slave mother, is spotted by the mistress of the sugar cane plantation who decides she wants her for a house maid. Of course, no attention is made to her mother’s objection to this loss of her child and July is immediately taken from her. What follows is the story of what becomes of July, or Marguerite, as her mistress prefers to call her. Much of it is told in the voice of the Negro slave which adds to the experience and makes it come to life. The use of that voice gives one a truer taste of what is going on in the hearts and minds of the slaves and their vision of their lives.

You will soon find yourself immersed in these very lives and your heart will bleed for the inhumanity of their treatment, considered normal by their owners, in the nearly 300 years of slavery in Jamaica. There is, of course, humor, love, hate, rebellion, punishment, subterfuge, payback, reward, happiness and sadness, all the things that make any good book a pleasure to read. It is all there. But, please be sure to focus, not only on the enthralling story, but the poetic language with which it is told. Andréa Levy has a way of weaving words so that you can see the whole picture in your mind and enjoy every word as she has written it. This is no slapdash, get it on the paper style of writing, but one that shows great care has been taken to see that each word poetically relates to the totality of the phrase. One cannot help but appreciate the literary palette used to paint the whole panoramic picture in those perfectly selected words.

Diane Bostick has lived on Marco Island since 1987. She was the Founder and President of Ft. Myers chapter of the Association of Children with Learning Disabilities, President of Jr. Welfare League, Ft. Myers Chapter, and served on the board of Art League of Marco Island. She is an avid reader, fly fisherwoman, tennis player and crafter. 

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“Hugo” is a charming mixture of the real Georges Melies, a French film pioneer, and Hugo Cabret, a 12 year old boy who lives in the Gare Montparnesse in Paris, and is a combination orphan, station clock minder, and part-time petty thief. The film is based on Brian Selznick’s 526 page book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

In 3-D, the colorful and beautifully conceived and acted movie intertwines the stories of Hugo’s search for family after his beloved father’s sudden death in a fire; and the search of Georges Melies for his past life.

Hugo lived with his father in the train station where they tended the huge number of station clocks while working on the restoration of a small automaton (robot) that is designed to write messages. After his father’s death, Hugo took over the clocks and dodged his alcoholic uncle and the station inspector, whose main occupation appeared to be cleansing the station of orphans.

Georges, a dour old grandfather, runs a small booth at the station. He was a successful magician who turned to film-making in the 1890’s, and continued into the 1920’s. In the movie only one of Georges’ numerous films (“A Trip to the Moon”) has been found intact, and the quest for other of his pioneer films is pursued by a professor. “A Trip to the Moon” may be seen on You Tube.

Hugo is intent on completing the restoration of the automaton and deciphering the meaning of a cryptic drawing, retrieving a stolen notebook and finding a mysterious key. Isabelle, Georges’ granddaughter, provides answers to part of the puzzle.

The scenes of Paris, digitized and drawn imaginatively, are dazzling. The station scenes are intriguing, and the 3-D enhances the action of an otherwise casual film. What really creates the enchantment is a brilliant cast: Ben Kingsley is an impeccable Georges; young Asa Butterfield is a blue-eyed charmer as Hugo; Chloe Moretz plays Isabelle beautifully; and Sacha

Baron Cohen is a terrific surprise as the station inspector.

Film history is at the core of the movie, and it is enhanced by clips of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, masters of movie comedy. Hugo reprises the famous Harold Lloyd clock scene when he escapes the fevered pursuit of the station inspector and his vigilant Doberman.

Although the movie starts as a children’s story it morphs into much more as Georges and Hugo search for their past and present.

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Author: John Grisham
Publisher: Doubleday 2011.

When we think of John Grisham, our minds go automatically to courtroom drama. However, this man is no one note wonder. Although the majority of his twenty-five books have indeed been about lawyers, law firms and the courtroom, he has also branched off into other subject matter, though not with as much success. I, personally, think that his very first book, A Time to Kill, is his finest by far. It was written in a fine literary style. Since then, although I have enjoyed almost all of his books, I think he has tended to pander more to the literary taste of the general public and with the thought in mind of how the book would sell. I feel that you could read A Time to Kill twenty years from now and feel that you were reading a finely honed story with thought having been given to the morals of the issues of the time period it addresses. I encourage you to read it and enjoy it for its beautifully written and emotionally told tale. This is less the case in the books written since then, although they are fine books in and of themselves. He has also written a book about Christmas, two about football, a book of short stories, one about his childhood and a non-fiction, The Innocent Man. Ten of his books have been made into feature films.

In this latest, The Litigators, his writing style is a bit different from those he has written in the past. In the first few pages we watch as David Zinc, a lawyer with a huge law firm, goes off the deep end one morning as he heads to his office to put in another 80 hour work week. He never makes it there. Instead he goes on a bender and ends up at a local bar where he spends the day looking into the bottoms of many bottles of beer trying to put it all behind him. Needless to say, his wife and co-workers at his firm spend the day trying to find him. With varying degrees of relief they find out that he is all right but determined never to return to his former place of employment. Just up the street from the bar that has been his home for the day is the “boutique” law firm of Finley and Figg, made up of two inept ambulance chasing lawyers. He stumbles upon them in his state of high inebriation just as they are out on the street trying to round up new clients from those involved in a large automobile accident that has occurred right in front of their office. Too drunk to know any better he joins the foray, chasing off other ambulance chasing lawyers with the same goal in mind.

The next day when he sobers up he realizes that he has most certainly burned all his bridges behind him and decides that the only thing for him to do is to offer himself to the firm of Finley and Figg as their newest employee.The firm will now consist of exactly five warm bodies, if you include the receptionist and the dog. Up until now the firm has primarily worked at representing those who have been hustled after being in an accident or want a quick, cheap divorce. Oscar Finley spends most of his time locked in his office trying to ignore the world and Wally Figg runs around frantically leaving cards and brochures all over town in the most unlikely places looking for new business. One day he stumbles upon the idea of joining a class action suit against a large pharmaceutical firm for a supposedly faulty medication that he has been told causes more harm than good to those taking it. Since their firm has practically no money and the pharmaceutical company has millions to spend in their defense you can readily imagine there will be some large obstacles to overcome.

When you factor in the fact that Wally is an alcoholic and none of the three has ever spent time in a courtroom of any size you can quickly see the handwriting on the wall. However, reading that handwriting is entertaining, and all is not lost because there are other cases along the way with a greater chance of success, that of the child who has severe damage from lead poisoning caused by a toy made in China or the illegal immigrants who are being made to work almost without pay. And, of course, as you might guess, David Zinc comes reluctantly, and much to his amazement, as Superman to the rescue.

Diane Bostick has lived on Marco Island since 1987. She was the Founder and President of Ft. Myers chapter of the Association of Children with Learning Disabilities, President of Jr. Welfare League, Ft. Myers Chapter, and served on the board of Art League of Marco Island. She is an avid reader, fly fisherwoman, tennis player and crafter.

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At the very beginning of this engrossing film, “The Descendants” Matt King (George Clooney) cautions us that Hawaii is not the total paradise we mainliners think it is. Matt is neither poor nor deprived. On the contrary, he is a hugely successful real estate lawyer, a descendant of generations of haoles (whites) and native Hawaiians, a member of an exclusive beach club and very well-off certainly by Hawaiian standards. Matt, however, is personally “thrifty”…he drives a small Honda; he lives in a modest home and he dresses in Aloha shirts and casual slacks. We learn immediately that Matt’s wife is in a coma, the result of a boating accident. Most of the film pivots on that point.

Matt is a family man, but he’s detached. He even describes himself as a “back-up parent”. His youngest daughter, Scottie (Amara Miller) is a mixed-up 10 year old. His older daughter, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) is a 17 year old, into booze and drugs and angry with her mother beyond “normal” teen hostility. Alex has been shuffled off to a very expensive private school. As a result of the accident, Matt’s thrust into something completely foreign. He has to cope with his wife’s condition and learn how to be a parent. When he learns that his wife’s coma is irreversible, he finds out that he has been a cuckold, and that his wife has been conducting an affair with a very ambitious real estate agent.

While in the middle of a personal family tragedy, Matt must also deal with his responsibility as trustee for a magnificent, unspoiled property on the Island of Kauai. The property is eagerly sought by developers who want to build the usual golf course, hotel, condos and the works. Most of Matt’s many cousins, scattered among the islands, want to cash in on the huge profits from the sale. Not only that, the property appears to be subject to the ancient legal Rule Against Perpetuities (the bane of every law student’s existence) and the property may have to be divested or otherwise dealt with in two years.

At an almost leisurely pace this superb film deals with a main plot and subplots, and with tragedy interspersed with moments of brilliant comedy (Matt running like a mad stork down a road), without getting maudlin or over-the-top. Clooney is magnificent as the indecisive, sometimes bumbling Matt who makes mistakes along the way, while learning to cope with a family tragedy while balancing his decision about what to do with the trust property. He conveys bewilderment, anger, determination and resolve with keen underplaying. He’s nothing short of brilliant.

Every performance in this film is outstanding – from the two daughters who must cope with the loss of a mother and dealing with an often hapless father, to a Robert Forster as a perpetually angry father-in-law, to Beau Bridges in a cameo as one of Matt’s myriad cousins. Shailene Woodley is superb as Alex who emerges as a tough, tender teen who becomes Matt’s support. The unhurried direction of Alexander Payne avoids both the pitfalls of over-sentimentality and farce.

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A Jesse Stone Novel 

Author: Michael Brandman 

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2011. 

What do V.C. Andrew and Robert B. Parker have in common? The obvious answer is that both are well loved authors who have written for years and still have new books being published as recently as this year. The less obvious answer is that both are dead!

V.C Andrews died in 1986 with over 24 million books in print in many languages and has had over 29 books written by others, but published in her name, since her death.

Another author suffering somewhat the same fate is Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond books and the children’s book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Fleming passed away in 1964 after writing 12 novels. His hero, James Bond, is still appearing in books, though not specifically under Fleming’s name. Since his death several well known authors have taken up their pens to write about the famous spy 007, with much less acclaim.

Yet another who passed away in 2010 is Dick Francis, who shortly before his death was joined by his son in coauthoring three books. Since his passing his son, Felix has written Gamble under his name alone. If you have been a fan of his father you will see he does not miss a beat. You will swear you are reading a Dick Francis book.

Robert B. Parker was by far the most prodigious writer of them all. When he died at the age of 77 in 2010 he was sitting at his desk writing yet another of his crime novels. During his lifetime he had published 39 of his Spenser novels, nine books with Jessie Stone as the protagonist, six with Sunny Randall as the leading character and thirteen others, including several westerns. Six Kill was his last completed novel and has been published since his death. That is a grand total of 68 novels. If that doesn’t define “prodigious” I don’t know what would. He was particularly known for the conversational style of his characters. Parker did not have a wordy bone in his body. Where someone else might have used ten words to make a sentence Parker managed to get the message over with three or four. I can imagine that a ten word sentence would have been construed by him as “running off at the mouth.” Where other authors are heralded for their vivid descriptions Parker managed to get the exact same imagery by writing succinctly. He left it up to the reader to fill in the blanks with their imagination, which millions of readers seemed to relish doing.

Parker’s latest book, Killing the Blues, was written by his long term collaborator Michael Brandman, who co-wrote and produced the TV movies that featured Tom Selleck as the tortured alcoholic detective Jessie Stone. His attempt to have his characters speak in the manner that Parker would have somehow doesn’t quite ring true. It is more like reading the story as it was shown in one of his movies, but that doesn’t mean it is not fun to read. It is just not quite Parker.

In Killing the Blues summer is coming to the town of Paradise and with it has come a wave of car thefts, all of them Hondas, which leads Police Chief Jesse Stone to the conclusion that there might be a chop shop at work, possibly headed by organized crime. It is his job to stop it before it ruins “the season!” The Board of Selectmen has given him firm directions to do the job he was hired for and to do it quickly.

If that were not enough to keep him busy he learns that a victim of his dark past, Rollo Nurse, has been released from prison with revenge on his mind, all aimed at Stone. He is determined to make Jesse pay for the damage that was done to him when he was “over zealous” in his capture of Nurse while under the influence of alcohol. Nurse is not above a little practice on others, both animal and human, while setting up his plan to kill Stone.

There is a little casual romance to soften the story and yet another side story when Jesse is confronted with a young lady who has been tortured by high school bullies but whose plight has been ignored by school authorities.

I would not say it is exactly Robert Parker speaking from the grave but it is a book worth a couple of hours of your time when you are looking for something to read that is entertaining. I will be looking forward to Brandman’s next attempt to bring Jesse Stone to life in the manner of Robert Parker.

Brandman has been hired by the estate to write other Stone books while another crime novelist, Ace Atkins, will be writing books involving the Spenser character. His first book will come out in 2012. It seems to me that he has an even harder pair of shoes to fill. The Spenser books are even more precise in their manner of speaking than the Stone books, which was a large part of what made them so addictive. I wish him lots of luck. I loved the Spenser series and I would certainly enjoy reading them long after the man who originally brought them to life has gone on to crime writer’s heaven.

Diane Bostick has lived on Marco Island since 1987. She was the Founder and President of Ft. Myers chapter of the Association of Children with Learning Disabilities, President of Jr. Welfare League, Ft. Myers Chapter, and served on the board of Art League of Marco Island. She is an avid reader, fly fisherwoman, tennis player and crafter. 

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From the opening bars of music this film is stamped “Director Clint Eastwood”. Mr. Eastwood serves us an inner look at the man who elevated the F.B.I. from a second-rate, narrowly limited police department to an all powerful force in the federal government. Interestingly, the movie is not about the intricacies of the F.B.I. It’s all about the psychological make up of the man who was obsessive, secretive, ambitious, single minded, sexually ambiguous, and amoral enough to lie and indulge in political blackmailing.

Leonardo Di Caprio is J. Edgar Hoover from a 19 year old clerk at the F.B.I., where he is known as “Johnny” to one of the most powerful figures in Washington, D.C. – a man powerful enough and devious enough to take on a series of Presidents of the United States and retain his prestige and power. In the one scene of Hoover taking on the powerful establishment, he confronts Robert Kennedy about President Kennedy’s alleged dalliances. According to the film Hoover kept incriminating or prurient tapes of other public officials, and apparently enjoyed secretly listening to them.

In constantly jumping from one time period to another Eastwood painstakingly paints a portrait of a man who is chained to his mother (Judi Dench) and obsessed with what he views as a threat to America’s very existence. A bomb set by an anarchist at the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in 1919 shocks Hoover, and motivates him to organize and modernize the Bureau to meet his expectation of a law enforcement arm that will protect America. In the film’s beginning the voiceover is that of the aged Hoover, and turns to a view of the stooped, balding, pasty, pudgy Hoover of his last years. The movie’s vehicle is Hoover dictating his memoirs to a series of young F.B.I. agents, and the scenes constantly shift between the present and the past as Hoover describes his role in the life of the agency.

DiCaprio admirably gets into the psychological interior of Hoover as he progresses from a deep hatred of anarchists to revulsion of a perceived Communist threat to bring down the United States to an all-out assault on the gangsters of the 1920’s and ‘30’s to utter contempt for Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement. As Hoover progresses from a very young department deputy to Bureau Director in the course of his almost 50 year career he builds his own reputation in lockstep with his building of the Bureau. Eastwood is careful to note the good efforts (fingerprinting as a “science”, comprehensive filing systems) as well as the bad (an obsessive dress-code, illegal wire tapping and disregard for civil rights and ignoring the existence of the mafia).

As a young agent Hoover has a brief attempt at a binding relationship with a woman – Helen Gandy (admirably played by Naomi Watts). She rejects him as a suitor, but becomes his devoted lifelong secretary, serving him until the very end.

Hoover becomes infatuated with young Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, who played twins in “The Social Network). Hoover is taken by Tolson’s good looks, suave manner and taste in clothing. Tolson becomes the focal point of Hoover’s puzzling sexual ambiguity, although Eastwood carefully avoids any direct assertions. Soon enough Hoover and Tolson become inseparable, lunching every day at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, and going to the horse races together where Hoover, oddly enough (!) never loses money. The closeness develops into a relationship, but never explicitly romantic in the movie.

Hoover’s mother and Tolson are the only two people who get anywhere close to the inner Hoover. Helen Gandy is the loyal servant who knows him, but is carefully kept at arm’s length. Several reviewers have characterized the film as the humanization of Hoover. That’s up to the viewer to judge. It does well in showing as much of his inner character as possible. In a climactic scene Tolson, laid low by a stroke, delivers a scathing denouement, pointing out how Hoover altered history by lying about his claimed involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping case, and numerous mobster arrests to construct a myth about Hoover the Hero. The movie depicts Hoover as devious about his own role as to apparently believe his tales of personal heroism.

Eastwood directed the film in his usual low-key way. He develops scenes patiently and uses lighting and music to bring out every scene. The make-up of each cast member is impeccable, and the portrayals are outstanding.

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David Frankel, who directed the hit “The Devil Wears Prada”, tries again with “The Big Year”, loosely based on a non-fiction book. By intertwining the lives and problems of three “birders” the plot uses the otherwise benign hobby of bird-watching to explore, superficially, their human problems. Champion Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) holds the one year world record for most birds seen. He’s pursued in another one year competition by Stu Preissler (Steve Martin) and Brad Harris (Jack Black).

Bostick, a successful home builder with a gorgeous wife (Rosamund Pike) is obsessed with winning – the Great American pastime. He’s conceited, vain, pompous and out to repeat his championship at any cost – particularly his marriage. Stu is a tycoon on the edge of a much wanted retirement. His adoring wife supports his bird-watching fixation, but he is constantly pursued by two of his underlings to keep attending meetings to expand his empire. Brad is a flop. He’s 36 and divorced, and lives with his parents (Dianne Wiest and Brian Dennehy). Brad desperately wants to succeed at something, and a new bird watching record might just be it. Unfortunately, Brad’s father just doesn’t get bird-watching, and winds up with a heart attack.

The mad race, on foot by helicopter, rental car(s) and bicycle sometimes in drenching rain or bitter cold, goes through beautiful pastoral scenes and elegant plumages. Many of them are digitally created but who can tell?

Will Bostick let his obsession ruin his marriage (or is it going nowhere anyhow)? Will Stu be able to relax, enjoy his new grandchild and escape the ulcer kingdom of big business? Will Brad rebuild his Life With Father, particularly after Papa has a heart attack? Who will win the contest? Will there be a new world’s record? Winning pays nothing except prestige and the cover of Birding Magazine.

The scenery is spectacular. Fine shots are interspersed with the scenes “back home” where the family tensions simply won’t disappear. Too bad the script is so subdued that the comic talents of the three protagonists are a bit wasted. Steve Martin is one of the true comic geniuses of our time (as well as being an art connoisseur and superb banjo picker), but has no outstanding moments. There’s fun in watching the antics of myriad watchers racing to catch a teeny glimpse of a teeny bird. It’s all low-key amusement, with a few moments of tension. Is it worth seeing? Yes, if you are in the mood to relax and not be bothered by a complex plot, interminable car chases or deeply symbolic stuff.

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Author: Julia Glass. 

Publisher: Pantheon 2010. Available in paperback by Anchor Books. 

I think of myself as a reader of mysteries more than any other type of book. When I go to the library that is the section I gravitate to first. (I have yet to figure out yet why what I would call a “mystery” is sometimes to be found in the “Mystery” section and sometimes in the “Fiction” section. Who decides which it is?) However, since beginning these reviews I have read a good bit of fiction in trying to review books for everyone’s taste.

And, in retrospect, I find that not a single one of my favorite books of the past has been a mystery. My bookshelf of favorites consists of, among others, Stegner’s Angle of Repose, Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, Walker’s Color Purple and Irving’s World According to Garp. So I guess I have a broader spectrum of literary genre than I thought I had.

I found my latest fictional book, The Widower’s Tale, a delight to read. Before writing a review I often go online to read reviews written by others to help me organize my thoughts. Most all reviews gave this book four out of five stars. There were a few who disliked it because they thought it had political and social agendas, but what book of any interest doesn’t? Think of Les Miserables, Oliver Twist, Gone With the Wind and very currently, The Help. Each of these has strong political or social messages, but what wonderful stories they are. In order for a book to have well rounded characters the author must give them opinions on what is happening around them and for the story to seem real we must be able to see what events are shaping their lives. I am not implying in any way that this author’s work is of the caliber of those I just mentioned, however, having a message does not take away from its being a good story and she does a fine job with it.

This book has several main characters to keep track of, each with his own story, but all connected in some way. Percy Darling, a 71 year old retired librarian from Harvard, lives in a historical home on the outskirts of Boston. Thirty years ago he was widowed and left with two young girls to raise. His daughter, Clover, who has abandoned her husband and children, has renovated Percy’s old barn where she has established a pre-school. One of the teachers in the school is Ira, a homosexual man who has resisted marrying his lawyer partner, despite loving him deeply. We also get to know Celestine, a man who is in this country illegally. He was brought to America as a young boy to be educated by a wealthy archeologist his father had worked for in Guatemala. He has become an excellent gardener but he is always fearful of being sent home. And last, but not least, is Robert, Percy’s grandson, a pre-med student, who has become involved, somewhat accidentally and rather half heartedly, in ecoterrorism. So you see there is plenty of room here for political and social opinions to be expressed by word and deed by the various characters. However, I found each of these viewpoints shown in ways that were a logical part of the storyline.

Throughout the story we hear of Percy’s life with his wife, his sense of great loss without her and her death’s effect on his young family. Much to his surprise he has now become romantically involved with a woman, Sarah, who is not only much younger than himself, but also has a young son. Their relationship is rudely interrupted and disrupted when she discovers that she has breast cancer and pushes Percy away in a strongly felt sense of independence. She is being treated by his other daughter, Trudy, an excellent oncologist specializing in women’s cancers. Clover, Percy’s daughter is attempting to get her two children back. Robert, Ira and Celestine become acquainted when, together, they build a wonderful tree house for the children in the pre-school.

You can easily see how their lives become intertwined, each involved in some way with the others’ lives. There is enough suspense, romance, gentle intrigue and plain good story to please my reader’s soul.

Ms. Glass also has written other books, one of which, Three Junes, won the 2002 National Book Award. I will be looking for that at my local library or book store soon.

Diane Bostick has lived on Marco Island since 1987. She was the Founder and President of Ft. Myers chapter of the Association of Children with Learning Disabilities, President of Jr. Welfare League, Ft. Myers Chapter, and served on the board of Art League of Marco Island. She is an avid reader, fly fisherwoman, tennis player and crafter. 

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If you are not already cynical about the state of politics you may be after watching “The Ides of March”. This film is not about ideology; it keeps its focus on the human beings who tangle themselves in the political process. The story could easily focus on a Republican primary campaign by changing just a very few words in the script. The vital part is the human interchange. There’s virtually no end of double-cross, who leaked what, and the results of crass ambition.

George Clooney, who also wrote part of the script and directed the film, plays Mike Morris, popular (Democratic, but that does not matter) governor of Pennsylvania, who is locked in a tight primary fight with Senator Pullman a less colorful figure, mostly seen in debate scenes. Although the movie is supposedly focused on the primary battle, it is really an exploration of the ethics and emotions of the assorted campaign workers – plus a couple of reporters – who wage the backstage war. At stake in the plot is the Ohio primary vote that will probably decide who will be the party’s nominee. There’s a key bloc of votes up for grabs, under the control of an Ohio pol who wants to be the next Secretary of State.

There are a slew of superb performances: Ryan Gosling who plays Stephen Meyers, a young tactician on the election staff; Philip Seymour Hoffman as the campaign director; Paul Giamatti as Tom Duffy, Hoffman’s c o u n t e r p a r t in the Pullman camp; and newcomer Evan Rachel Wood as Molly Stearns, a young intern who becomes sexually entangled with Stephen.

Throughout the film, issues of loyalty and honor rise above the rest of the plot – thus the title reference to Mr. Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. Beautifully directed by Mr. Clooney, the film is shot primarily in semi-darkness that adds to the nature of the story. Interspersed with some understated scenes with focus on the suave Governor Morris are some high octane confrontations between Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Gosling. Throw in a twist of an aging Marisa Tomei as reporter Ida Horowicz and Max Minghella as a young campaign assistant yearning to get Stephen’s job, and the result is a clever probe into the psyches of those who get caught up in the political web.

Do not expect guns, gore or glory. This is a fairly complicated plot that is well handled all the way around without offering modern Hollywood’s high intensity action scenes.

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Author: Nina Revoyr. 

Publisher: Akashic Books. Available in hardcover and paperback 2011. 

Why we select the books we read is somewhat of a mystery. Sometimes we read something because it is on the best seller list or a friend has said, “You just have to read this.” Often it is a new book just published by an author we have come to love over the years. We would hope it is frequently because you read a review such as this that led you to feel the need to read the book being reviewed. Occasionally we are just caught up by the look of the cover, which somehow has caught our eye and every once in awhile it is just serendipity that that particular cover called to us and we find we are reading a book that will live with us for a long, long time. Such is the case for me with Wingshooters. The front flap of the book compares it to To Kill a Mockingbird, A River Runs Through It and Snow Falling on Cedars. People who write the flaps for books are prone to a bit, or even a whole lot, of puffery. In this case there is no false puffery. Its comparisons are true. It is a touching book to read and one that will leave you with much to think about. If you happen to read it for a book club I guarantee you will have much to discuss.

Set in the early nineteen seventies in the small, all white, town of Deerhorn, Wisconsin we get our first inkling of what the story will be about when we learn that Michelle LeBeau (Mikey), a girl with an American father and Japanese mother has been left in the care of her grandparents. Her mother left when she could not fit into the community and her father soon fled to go after her leaving Mikey with the unfulfilled promise to return soon. The town is not thrilled to have a young girl “of color” thrust into their midst. She is not just ignored, but blatantly rejected and even bullied by her school mates. Her grandfather, however, quickly falls totally in love with her and takes her under his wing, taking her everywhere he goes and even teaching her how to fight back when bullied. That fact, along with her intense love for her dog, is what makes her able to cope with life without her parents, especially her father whom she yearns for. The only reason members of Deerhorn are willing to accept her at all is that her grandfather is a leader in the community, not in the political sense, but instead as one who is looked up to and depended upon when problems need solving. His friends, a closely knit group, including the sheriff, gather at his home often to ask his advice and almost daily have lunch together to discuss the day’s happening.

The town is soon completely in an uproar when a young, professional black couple moves into town. He has been hired as a substitute for a teacher on maternity leave, and she is the new nurse at the local clinic. Other than Mikey, this is the town’s first time to have someone among them totally different from themselves. They are not accepting, in any way, of having one of “them” living in their town, teaching their children and touching them at the clinic. Plans are soon under way to get rid of them. Things go from bad to worse when the black teacher reports one of the students as being physically abused by his parents when he notices both new and old scars on the child’s back. The parents deny any wrong doing and are believed because the father is a very close friend of Mikey’s grandfather and the sheriff. Mikey, however, also saw the scars on the little boy’s back so is torn between what she hears and what she knows is the truth. Taken along with the fact that she has been treated nothing but kindly by both the teacher and the nurse leaves her feeling lost and bewildered.

J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, was recently quoted as saying, “It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.” This quote will ring true when you read what transpires as friends have to take sides as the town is torn apart by truths, untruths and bigotry.

Diane Bostick has lived on Marco Island since 1987. She was the Founder and President of Ft. Myers chapter of the Association of Children with Learning Disabilities, President of Jr. Welfare League, Ft. Myers Chapter, and served on the board of Art League of Marco Island. She is an avid reader, fly fisherwoman, tennis player and crafter. 

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