THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Imagine meeting your maker and finding out it's Frito-Lay. --George Carlin

GEORGE CARLIN DIED TODAY

Wouldn't it be interesting if the only way you could die was that suddenly your head blew up? If there were no other causes of death? Everyone died the same way? Sooner or later, without warning, your head simply exploded? You know what I think? I think people would get used to it. --George Carlin

BOOK REVIEW

The best specimen of a tyrant: the ambitious Dr. Abraham Van Norstrand and the Wisconsin Insane Hospital by Thomas Doherty

In ten words or less: Rattling good tale about a greed self-aggrandizing opportunist.

Review: Dr. Abraham Van Norstrand moved west to seek his fortune. During the civil war he ran one of the army’s biggest hospitals, while making money in the lucrative whiskey trade. When he returned to Wisconsin after the war, he ran the Wisconsin Insane Hospital—and provided jobs for relatives, got profits from supplying the hospital with tainted foods from a store in which he was secretly a partner.
Much of the book is based on memoirs he wrote late in his life, and which were not particularly truthful, as the author proves.

Why bother? The author has written short stories, in addition to history, and this book has the all the intrigue of a good novel. Readers of Eric Larsen and Simon Winchester would enjoy this book.

May’s Books

Sarah Monette’s “The bone key” is a collection of short stories in the manner of the traditional English ghost story, with no gratuitous sex or violence, and the horror is implied. In fact, the author acknowledges her debt to H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James in the introduction. The ten stories all share the main character, an a shy, awkward museum archivist, Kyle Murchison Booth. It is Booth’s brushes with the undead that make for compelling, gripping, and unsettling reading.

Heth, Edward. Any number can play

Koethe, John. Falling water

Ehrenreich, Eric. Nazi ancestral proof: genealogy, racial science, and the final solution

Watson, Larry. Montana 1948

Kimmel, Haven. A girl named Zippy: growing up small in Mooreland, Indiana

Watson, Larry. Orchard

Laine, Kristen. American band: music, dreams, and coming of age in the heartland

Monette, Sarah. Bone key

George, Elizabeth. Careless in red

Dereske, Jo. Index to murder

Barnard, Robert. Last post

Bond, Stephanie. Body movers

Bond, Stephanie. Two bodies for the price of one

Wolf, Laurie Goldrich. The only bake sale cookbook you’ll ever need

Grunes, Barbara. Best bake sale ever cookbook

Fine, Doug. Farewell my Subaru: an epic adventure in local living

BOOK REVIEW

Author: Sebastian Junger

Title: A death in Belmont

In ten words or less: Boston police arrest wrong man for murder.

Review: In 1963, a murder took place just a few blocks from the quiet suburban home of Sebastian Junger's family. There was a series of savage murders in the Boston area at that time, and the killer, known as the Boston Strangler, was still at large.

The police liked Roy Smith, a black man who had moved to Boston from the south, for the rape and murder of Mrs. Goldberg, the older suburban housewife. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life on a case that consisted of circumstantial evidence.

Junger, author of 'The perfect storm,' examines the case against Smith. Albert DeSalvo, who later confessed to twelve Boston Strangler killings, had worked as a handyman at the Junger house the day Mrs. Goldberg was murdered. Was it possible DeSalvo could have done that killing also? Had Junger's mother been in danger?

Was justice done in this case? Junder presents a compelling argument that Smith was not guilty of the murder and that DeSalvo was probably not the Boston Strangler. Readers of Simon Winchester and Ann Rule will be interested in this re-telling of events.

Why bother? Junger presents a case in which the cops and legal system were all too eager to convict a black man for a murder in which they had few leads. It's not a new story, but the Junger family proximity to the scene of the crime adds a fresh twist.