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The language of family
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson WE NEVER ASKED FOR WINGS. By Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Read by Emma Bering and Robbie Daymond. Random House Audio. 11 ½ hours; 10 CDs. $40. Also available in print from Ballantine Books. Letty Espinoza had a lot more advantages than many children of Mexican immigrants. She had two supportive, loving parents.…
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Faster, higher, freer
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson CIRCLING THE SUN. By Paula McLain. Read by Katharine McEwan. Random House Audio. 12 ½ hours; nine CDs. $46. Also available in print from Ballantine Books. As she did so ably in The Paris Wife, the story of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Paula McLain once again tackles in fiction a…
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Behind the lines
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson MADELEINE’S WAR. By Peter Watson. Nan A. Talese Doubleday. 366 pages. $26.95. World War II is grinding toward an end in Europe, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less dangerous to be a spy in occupied France. If anything, the Nazis, knowing an Allied invasion is imminent, have grown more…
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A delicious tale
Crime fiction, the lovely French countryside, a sense of history AND lavish meals – there’s a lot to like in the Bruno books, and Bob Moyer relishes the opportunity to review another book in the series. THE CHILDREN RETURN. By Martin Walker. Knopf. 320 pages. $24.95 ‘To Protect and To Serve.” Police forces around the…
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Extraordinary courage
Paul O’Connor has been reading and thinking about spies this summer, and he’s developed high standards. Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor AVENUE OF SPIES: A TRUE STORY OF TERROR, ESPIONAGE, AND ONE AMERICAN FAMILY’S HEROIC RESISTANCE IN NAZI-OCCUPIED PARIS. By Alex Kershaw. Random House Audio. Read by Mark Deakins. Seven hours. $35. Also available in…
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X is for ….
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson X. By Sue Grafton. Read by Judy Kaye. Random House Audio. 11 CDS, 13 ½ hours. $45. Also available in print from Putnam. So much for speculation about what Sue Grafton would make “X” stand for in her long-running series of alphabet-named detective stories, dating back to A Is for…
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Mystery and history
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson TAIL GATE. By Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown. Bantam. 307 pages. $26. Mystery fans probably already know whether they like Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy series. The books, set in a small town on the edge of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and close to the university town of…
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A spy tale, stranger than fiction
Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor THE BILLION DOLLAR SPY: A TRUE STORY OF COLD WAR ESPIONAGE AND BETRAYAL. By David E. Hoffman. Penguin Random House Audio. Read by Dan Woren. 11 hours and 54 minutes. $20. Also in hardcover from Doubleday. 262 pages. $28.95 Adolf Tolkachev despised his government, and for 35 years the American…
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Look around you
Paul O’Connor’s summer reading is not for the faint of heart. Here he moves from military history and politics to drug cartels. Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor ZERO, ZERO, ZERO. By Roberto Saviano; Translated by Virginia Jewiss. Penguin Audio. Read by Paul Michael. 16 hours, $45. Also available in hardcover from Penguin Press. 416 pages.…
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Afloat with love and literature
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE LITTLE PARIS BOOK SHOP. By Nina George. Read by Steve West and Emma Bering, with Cassandra Campbell. Random House Audio. 11 hours; 9 CDs. $46. Also available in print from Crown. Monsieur Perdu runs a floating bookshop, on a barge moored in the Seine in Paris. But he’s more…