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A Lady of Good Family is a magical novel about the power of place and how one American woman of the gilded age, Beatrix Farrand, devoted her life to gardens that can inspire, restore and renew. A wealthy and privileged woman, niece of Edith Wharton and connected to some of the most powerful people in 19th and early 2oth century America, Beatrix turned her back on convention and other people's expectations of what and how ladies should live, to became our first female professional landscape designer. But what did she give up in the process? Mackin's novel is playful and romantic, full of insights about human relationships and the importance of creation. It's a fun read, and a thoughtful one.

This newest novel from Jeanne Mackin is a breathtaking look at art and politics in the years leading up to World War II. Based on the life of the beautiful Lee Miller, the model turned photographer, it follows the friendship between Lee and Nora, a childhood friend who meets up with her again in the dizzying Paris of the 30's and 40's. Lee lived bravely, even recklessly, matching the wild surrealists in their search for art and pleasure and eventually making the leap from mistress and model to artist in her own right. Lee Miller photographed battles and, at the closing of the war, the liberation of the concentration camps. The novel is beautifully written, carefully researched, a can't-put-it-down-read.

While thousands of members of our military are currently suffering from undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, no serious work of fiction has yet dealt with the consequences of this severe problem. This is the subject Stephen Poleskie’s latest novel, “Sconto Walaa.” A National Guard corporal named Sconto Walaa, recently returned from deployment in the Middle East and suffering from undiagnosed PTSD, has decided to murder Walter Whitman, a used car dealer, and former NFL player, who he suspects raped his wife thirteen years ago, and who may be the father of his daughter. A homeless man was arrested for the rape back then, but was murdered in jail before his trail could be completed. The key evidence was a pair of red, white, and blue Nike sneakers the man was found wearing, but also the same shoes worn by Whitman, and Mrs.Walaa’s boyfriend back then, John Wojyhovich, who had disappeared at the time, but has since returned to town as a Catholic priest. Walaa tortures Whitman, using techniques he learned while serving as a translator at a “black hole” prison site. Unable to extract a confession from the former Wilbender College football hero, Walaa kills him. An overly zealous detective team from the State Police, thinking they have found the murder, based on mistaken clues and some cobbled together evidence arrest Walaa’s wife, who has been having an affair with the returned Father John. Walaa, who suspects his wife’s infidelity, has also discovered that his daughter may have been raped by the used car dealer when she reveals that she had gone up to his apartment after school on several occasions. In a drunken rage, screaming that she is a whore just like her mother, who is sitting in jail waiting for him to bail her out, Walaa rapes his daughter. At the same time a Hollywood film company is in town making an action movie called, “Battle of the Bridges,” They plan to blow up the abandoned Wilbender Bridge, an old iron girder bridge that looks like a WW II era span in Germany. Walaa’s National Guard unit is standing in for both the US and German armies in the movie. Corporal Walaa, as company clerk, is responsible for seeing that all persons are off the bridge before it is blown up. The final chapter has Walaa sitting on the bridge in a plywood mock German tank, pondering the mess he has made of his life. Should he go to the police and confess to the murder, freeing his wife, who will then be able to go off with her lover, Father John? Should he wait until just before the bridge is blown and jump into the water and swim away, hopefully to start a new life somewhere else, or should he just sit where he is and go up with the bridge, ending it all? “Sconto Walaa” is a probing analysis of both the bizarre and the banal choices facing our returning war heroes today. Poleskie is a skillful writer, with a careful understanding of his characters, and a brilliant sense of the language, making this book, despite the depressing subject matter, a very enjoyable Read. I do not hesitate to recommend it highly.

This is a reissue, in trade paperback, of a book originally published in 2004. Upon rereading the book I see that my original opinion has not changed, in fact I enjoyed the book even more the second time around when, knowing the plot, I could concentrate on the author's rich prose style. The new format makes the book even easier to read, and the new cover design is more appealing than the previous one. The publisher is still Penguin but the book is now out under the Obsidian imprint. The New York Review of Books calls it: "A historically accurate and entertaining mystery series." The two other volumes will be reissued in the coming months. A new sleuth has arrived on the scene, the author Louisa May Alcott. Ms. Alcott was known to have written a few thrillers herself when not writing things like "Little Women." Anna Maclean has gone back and recreated this aspect of Louisa's life with amazing fidelity; however Ms. Alcott does not just write mysteries, but also solves them. Written with the precision and skill of her historical novels, Jean Mackin creates a minor masterpiece in her debut as Anna Maclean, mystery writer. The plot winds itself in and around pre-Civil War Boston with the beauty and complexity of a Medieval tapestry. The story is entangled with numerous characters functioning on many levels, often seeming to contradict themselves, leading us down many blind alleys. I must admit I could not put this book down. Just when I thought I had figured out who the guilty party was I discovered some new reason why they did not do it. The ending is quite a surprise. If you are looking for an entertaining historical mystery, and value good writing, I give this book my highest recommendation.

In his latest novel, “Vigilia’s Tempest,” author Stephen Poleskie confronts history as it has been written by posing the question: What if Charles Lindbergh had a secret copilot with him to keep him from falling asleep on his famous flight from New York to Paris, and what if the man who flew with him was still alive? If he could be found, what would he tell us? And why has he kept hidden all these years? Poleskie, an aviator himself, constructs this complicated and perplexing story with a virtuoso display of practical expertise, compassion, and poetic vibrancy. When John Vigilia, a well-known American stunt pilot, and university professor, lands at an abandoned air base in Canada to avoid a thunderstorm he meets a strange old man named Caliban who tells him the story of his twin brother, Ariel, who as a young boy flew with Charles Lindbergh as his secret copilot on his famous solo trans-Atlantic flight. The copilot was supposedly picked up in Nova Scotia and dropped off on a beach in Ireland, while Lindberg went on to Paris, and to fame, alone. Seeking a diversion after his wife’s sudden death, John Vigilia travels to Europe to explore the truth behind the Lindbergh story he had heard. Unexpectedly, John finds himself in the middle of a decades-old international intrigue. Has John discovered the conspiracy of the century, or is it just the old man’s hoax? And why is John Vigilia now being followed everywhere, and has had an attempt made on his life? One might be tempted to call “Vigilia’s Tempest” a “literary thriller.” Poleskie takes Vigilia through a series of adventures in Ireland, Rome, Como, and Munich, before finally allowing him to catch up with the alleged copilot, Ariel Angelucci, in Locarno, Switzerland. Ariel reveals that he was indeed in the airplane with Lindbergh when he flew across the Atlantic. Not sure if he believes Ariel’s story, Vigilia takes the man up for a flight in a biplane to see if he really knows how to fly. The old man wants to do some “stunts,” but has a heart attack at the top of a loop, jamming the controls and causing John to crash. John Vigilia wakes up confined in a private clinic on an island in the Lago Maggiore. He is told that, despite what he believes, there was no one in the airplane with him when he crashed. When his injuries heal, but he is not released, John realizes that he is being held prisoner at the clinic because of what he now knows. Does Vigilia ever get off the island? I am not going to spoil it by telling you. Suffice it to say that he has a few more adventures, and even a love affair, yet to go before the end of the book. The conclusion is both tragic and uplifting, as are all Poleskie’s endings, confirming the author’s strong sense of the continuity of life. Poleskie, who writes with a rich and full vocabulary, in the manner of such European authors as Bruno Schulz and Witold Gombrowicz, and with the dark praise of obscurity and failure found in Fernando Pessoa, also manages a tip of the hat to William Shakespeare. “Vigilia’s Tempest” is filled with numerous storms, an island, and character names and chapter quotes from Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” At 500 pages this is the longest of Poleskie’s novels to date, but the plot’s many characters and interesting twists will keep the reader engrossed until the very end, and then even wanting more. I give this novel my highest recommendation.

ACORN'S CARD is a novella and two accompanying short stories. In the title novella an AWOL soldier returns to the downstairs after thirty-three years of hiding in his mother’s attic to find the old woman dead. But what should he do with her body? He can’t just call an undertaker; he is supposed to have died years ago. And how will he provide for himself, as his mother has left little money in the house? By chance a pre-approved credit card application arrives in the mail. John Acorn fills it out and a card is issued to him. Now he can buy whatever he wants, with no thought of how he will pay when the statement comes. He decides to buy a used hearse and drive his mother to the cemetery and bury her. But first John will take his mother on a ride, during which he finds the world considerably changed from what he remembered it to be. Meanwhile, the hearse has a plan of its own. You will be surprised by the ending of this strange and throbbing story. In the first of the short stories an immigrant plumber bribes a policeman into not giving him a traffic ticket with a loaf of bread; while in the other a plastic garbage bag flies around the sky looking for a new beginning. Poleskie’s plots are masterfully conceived, and totally original. He is a skillful writer with a brilliant sense of the language, at times probing, yet glorious and magical, much in the manner of Bruno Schulz. If you prefer your reading a bit out of the ordinary, and still understand what a metaphor is, Acorn’s Card is an excellent choice. I do not hesitate to give it my highest recommendation.