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Before Paris Hilton, there was Zsa Zsa
Our roving correspondent, Paul O’Connor, whiled away some driving time by listening to a true story that could provide ample fodder for a prime-time TV soap. Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor THE HILTONS: THE TRUE STORY OF AN AMERICAN DYNASTY. By J. Randy Taraborrelli. Hachette Audio. 16 CDs. 19.5 hours. $35. Read by Robert Petkoff.…
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The pet patrol rides again
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson NINE LIVES TO DIE. By Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown. Bantam. 253 pages. $26. Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy mysteries are light and easy-going despite the inevitable presence of at least a couple of murder victims. There’s also always some danger for Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen, the human…
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Hindsight’s clear vision
Paul O’Connor once again has put his driving time to good use, this time listening to a troubling book about how the U.S. put Nazi scientists to work in this country after Hitler’s defeat. Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor OPERATION PAPER CLIP: THE SECRET INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM THAT BROUGHT NAZI SCIENTISTS TO AMERICA. By Annie Jacobsen.…
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Beware the “undid”
Victorian London, with its veneer of manners and morals and its dark realities of poverty and crime, is often depicted in fiction. In this first novel by a young English woman, the dark side of Victorian London is even darker – and more terrifying – than usual. THE QUICK. By Lauren Owen. Read by Simon…
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One island, two stories
For the first 10 years of my life, I was an Army brat. My father’s last duty station before he retired was the island of Okinawa. In the late 1950s, being the child of a U.S. Army officer on that island was like living in paradise for two years. But not so many years earlier,…
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Not your typical sailor
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson ANOTHER GREAT DAY AT SEA: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush. By Geoff Dyer. Read by Jonathan Cowley. 5 hours, 52 minutes. Also available in hardback from Pantheon. 208 pages. Geoff Dyer is an eccentric, irreverent, funny, peripatetic, brilliant, Oxford-educated British writer of fiction and nonfiction, bending the “rules”…