The Buried Pyramid by Jane Lindskold

Captain Neville Hawthorne had served in Egypt and participated in such archaeological expeditions. One such excursion involved a long buried pyramid of the Good King, Pharoah Neferankhotep, beloved of the gods and his people. Neville accompanied the German Alphonse Liebermann into the desert following a journal entry by an explorer who stumbled over a valley in the desert that matched the description of the buried pyramid.

During their trek, they came across the Hawk Rock mentioned in the journal, but were attacked by desert tribesmen. After a forced battle among the old ruins, they frightened away the tribesmen and escaped back to the Nile. Neville tried later to search for the buried pyramid, but was once more attacked by tribesmen and severely injured, resulting in his disability retirement from the service.

In this novel, Neville Hawthorne was added to the honors list upon retirement and is now Sir Neville. He is also a moderately wealthy man, has remained interested in Egyptian affairs, and is acquainted with many of the Egyptologists in England. Sir Neville has put off trying again to discover the buried pyramid, but the death of his sister Alice reminds him not to wait too long.

Sir Neville has just about completed his preparations to leave for Egypt when he finds himself with a newly arrived niece on his hands. Genevieve Benet became an orphan with the death of her mother and father and Sir Neville is now her closest relative and guardian. Upon learning his plans, Jenny becomes determined to accompany him on the expedition.

Jenny Benet is a child of the American frontier, equally proficient with guns and knives as well as the manners of high society. She is also a trained medical assistant, spending many years studying under her father in his practice. She is quite competent at treating gunshot wounds.

In this story, Sir Neville and Jenny travel to Egypt with Steven David Holboe, a noted scholar of Egyptian matters. On the boat, they encounter another party lead by Lady Audrey Cheshire, the widow of one of Sir Neville's Egyptologist friends. Somehow, Lady Cheshire continues to cross their path throughout the journey.

From the beginning of their journey, they have been receiving encoded notes from someone calling themselves the Sphinx. The warnings are rather vague, but ominous. Later, Jenny and Steven begin to think that they are being warned about Lady Cheshire.

In Cairo, Sir Neville contacts Eddie Bryce, one of his former subordinates and a fellow veteran of the Liebermann expedition. Eddie had married Miriam, the young native who saved that expedition. Now he is a converted Muslim with the adopted name of Ibrahim Alhadj ben Josef and the father of three sons and two daughters. With his contacts in the local community, Eddie soon arranges the details of their journey.

Later, the party is attacked in their lodgings by men wearing jackal masks and carrying knives. However, Jenny shoots her assailant and the remainder flee, but not before injuring Sir Neville. Another masked man attacks Eddie near his home, but Eddie is better with a knife. Apparently the men who had attacked Sir Neville long before are aware of their identity and purpose.

When Sir Neville and his party finally reach the desert, they find much more than they expected. The legends of Neferankhotep are much truer than they thought; someone is protecting the tomb of the Good King. Moreover, their European opponents have joined forces with the native protectors. Soon they find themselves in judgment, facing the truth about themselves and their motives.

Starts as an historical adventure, searching for a pyramid in Egypt, then turns into a fantasy.

A good read, if not quite what I expected. 

Broken Prey by John Sandford

BROKEN PREY opens with pervert (and possible murderer) Charlie Pope smelling rancid and miserably scratching out an existence as a garbageman, the only job that he could get since being released on parole from St. John's Security Hospital. Every time Charlie sees a good-looking woman he is reminded of the fact that he is tethered to an electronic ankle bracelet and constantly branded in the press as a danger to the community; after over eight years of incarceration Charlie is desperate enough to fulfill his physical desires by whatever manner necessary. 

The narrative then switches to an upscale Minnesota suburb as Lucas Davenport arrives at a truly horrific murder scene in the Porsche so familiar to the legions of fans of the PREY series by John Sandford. Even to law enforcement professionals involved, the details of the gruesome crime are almost stomach turning. (In fact, it threatens to be the crime which finally causes Lucas' long time associate Sloan to totally burn out and retire from the police force.) The victim is a young woman; her body was systematically scourged, after her throat cut the body was arranged by the killer so that the display would have maximum impact. The details of the killing are not released to the press, both so as to avoid alarming the public and to aid the police in their investigation. When a second victim (a older male who was killed and displayed in the same manner ) is discovered several miles away three weeks later, it is clear that there is not only a serial killer but a true sociopath at large in southern Minnesota. 

All the evidence that Lucas and his team assemble points to Charlie Pope, who has cut off his ankle bracelet and disappeared. And yet confusion and doubt linger. The crimes have been so meticulously plotted and carefully executed that Lucas wonders whether Charlie, a man of limited intellgence and supposedly subject to emotional impulse, could really have committed such acts on his own or is simply being manipulated in some manner by a clever mastermind. (Perhaps Charlie has somehow remained in contact with the "Gods Down The Hall", the three most dangerous prisoners at St. John's; they are all kept in solitary confinement due to the extreme danger which they pose to anyone with whom they come into contact). 

 This is my first John Sandford, but i will be looking out for more.

A rocketing roller-coaster of a ride, likeable characters (well, mostly) and I didn't work out who-dunnit.

Bachelor Brothers Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book by Bill Richardson

A pair of endearingly eccentric bachelors--in their fifties, and fraternal twins--own and operate a bed & breakfast establishment where people like them, the "gentle and bookish and ever so slightly confused," can feel at home.

Hector and Virgil think of their B&B as a refuge, a retreat, a haven, where folks may bring their own books or peruse the brothers' own substantial library.


 I loved this gentle read.
Hector and Virgil wanted to create a place where people who are oppressed by the notion that there are too many books and too little time to read them might carve out a retreat;where gentle souls who carry the burden of knowing that the world is too much with them can set aside a week or ten days to whittle down their list of 'books to which I must one day get around'"-As a lover of books, this idea sounds like the perfect escapism.

Friday by Robert A Heinlein

Friday is a courier who is expected to deliver sensitive information across turbulent national lines frequently in battle zones or at least in politically unstable situations. She works for "Kettle Belly" Baldwin, who is a familiar character (the charismatic commanding officer or professor or other elder wise man who shows up time and again in Heinlein's works.) Baldwin advises Friday to eventually migrate off-Earth and acts as a mentor for the insecure young woman. 

Her adventures getting through her last mission for Baldwin and her subsequent adventures culminating in migration are well-written and exciting. Sometimes the novel meanders but it gets on course. The end, though a bit rushed, I think and containing a major flaw (don't want to give it away, but her mistake comes on the heels of her work as a brilliant savant, so you'd think she'd...but ...no, I won't tell you but you'll see it, I'm sure, as you finish the book.) 

Aside from the gratuituous but non-graphic sex and a lot of sniggering lesbian scenes which are more male fantasy than a true attempt at creating a bisexual character, this book has plenty of action and a lot of good elements.


A good adventure story.

Sounding by Hank Searls

SOUNDING takes us into the extraordinary mind and emotions of the magnificent sperm whale, an aging bull roaming the waters of the Atlantic. Troubled and separated from his herd, the whale wants to fulfill his one obsessive desire -- to communicate with the human race and learn why they can be both vicious hunters and frolicking playmates.

Far away, on a doomed Russian nuclear submarine, Lieutenant Peter Rostov, the sonar officer and a classical musician, is spending what he's sure are his last days listening to the beautiful "sounding" of the whale.

This book is extremely insightful and touching. The whale is recalling his life and the lives of other whales through mental pictures and sounds. He thinks about his kind and their experiences with whalers, other species like dolphin, sharks, etc. and deals with how terribly dangerous humans can be. In a cool twist we also get the thoughts of a soldier on a Russian sub that is trapped.

This book is amazing. 

The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman

The quiet, ordered world of a yeshiva in the California hills is shattered when a woman is brutally raped as she returns from the mikvah, the bathhouse where women perform their cleansing ritual. Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD has never heard anything like it. And although most of the community refuses to talk to him, Rina Lazarus, the only witness, does, steering him through the maze of confusing religious laws that thwart his investigation at every turn. As the trail grows cold, Decker's only getting closer to Rina and not to the rapist--or is he? Maybe Rina wa the intended victim all along. And the rapist may not stop with rape the next time... 


Good mystery, the big surprise twist at the end wasn't much of a surprise. 

My Fathers' Daughter by Hannah Pool

Hannah Pool, a journalist for a British newspaper, was born in a small Eritrean town called Keren in 1974. Placed in an orphanage in Asmara, Eritrea's capital, shortly after her birth she grew up believing her mother had died in childbirth with her father dying shortly afterwards. When she was roughly six months old, malnourished and suffering from chicken pox, she was adopted by David Pool, a British academic, and his American wife, Marya. At the time, David was teaching at the University of Khartoum and Marya was doing voluntary work with some nuns.

Marya died when Hannah was four and briefly went to stay with some friends in Norway before moving back to England with her dad. By the time she was twenty, David was lecturing at Manchester University, with Eritrean politics among his areas of expertise. When Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, the guerrilla fighters he'd got to know in the 1970s had become government ministers. David was among the people invited over for the celebrations and, on impulse, went looking for the orphanage in Asmara. Not only was it still standing, it was still being run by the same nun - Sister Gabriela - who'd arranged Hannah's adoption.

Several months after David's return home came the bombshell : a priest David had spoken to at the orphanage wrote a letter with the news that not only was Hannah's biological father still alive, she also had at least one older brother. "My Fathers' Daughter" tells the story of Hannah's trip back to Eritrea to meet her 'natural' family for the first time.