FICTION: The 13th Juror - John Lescroart - Island Books/Dell - 1995

We are plunged into this legal thriller by sharing an afternoon with a young married woman and mother of a small boy. She is highly agitated about preparing her husband's dinner to his liking. Her detailed planning, to exactly coincide with his arrival, with everything absolutely perfect,starts to verge on hysteria. We realize she is a battered wife.

Set in San Francisco, we are introduced to Dismas Hardy, a former prosecutor, now beginning on the other side. He has been asked to help represent Jennifer, at the behest of veteran criminal attorney David Freeman.

Jennifer is accused of killing not only her husband and her son. She loudly proclaims her innocence. Freeman will handle her defense and Hardy will handle the penalty phase of this capital murder case with special circumstances. This is not an easy case because Jennifer is very uncooperative and unpleasant. In addition, it has always been felt in the law enforcement community that her first husband did not die accidentally. She will not allow a defense of Battered Women's Syndrome. During the course of this case, his body is exhumed and his death is considered suspicious. The District Attorney has included this possible crime to the list of charges. Through some fancy legal footwork, that aspect of her trial is declared a mistrial.

It's Hardy's job to find evidence that will support her 'not guilty' plea. She refuses to plea bargain, which would spare her life.

Hardy embarks on some very slim leads, most proving false. He becomes obsessed with saving Jennifer's life. While Freeman scores some points with the jury and the judge, he ultimately fails and Jennifer gets a death sentence.

Now it is entirely up to Hardy to prevent Jennifer's execution. He thinks Jennifer's second husband, a doctor, might have uncovered a health care scam, he follows that thread at great length, only to be stopped by what seems to be a coverup by the police. Lead after lead dries up. The dedicated attorney never gives up, even when he has the flu. Hardy's wife, Frannie, is a little concerned about her husband's persistence and asks to meet Jennifer in prison. Hardy reluctantly agrees. The women form a bond and Frannie is convinced that while Jennifer might be able to kill her husband, she could never kill her little boy.

The lawyers aren't so sure, but they are there to defend her. Hardy has trouble throughout, with the credo of a defense attorney: everyone is entitled to a defense. This conundrum is not resolved at the book's conclusion.

The 13th Juror has a compelling plot with a great surprise ending. It flows really well and the characters are very human. I enjoyed it.

HISTORICAL FICTION: THE STREET PHILOSOPHER - Matthew Plampin/Harper Collins (London) - 2009

This thoroughly engrossing historical novel ultimately turned out to disappoint.

THE STREET PHILOSOPHER begins at the dawn of the Crimean War with the arrival of illustrator Robert Styles, dispatched from London's Courier publication. He is to round out a press trio comprised of the veteran correspondent, Richard Cracknell and his associate, Thomas Kitson. Kitson is new to the post of war correspondent, having previously handled art criticism in London. He was selected for his descriptive style. He had great admiration for his senior's aggressive style in obtaining information. The Irishman Cracknell was a colorful character rotund, fond of drink, women and good at obtaining information at the camp and on the battlefield.

Styles arrived at the preparing battlefield on a steamer, along with Mrs. Madeleine Boyce, the wife of Lt. Commander Boyce. It was obvious that Styles was quite taken with the beautiful young Madeleine. It was also obvious that Cracknell had taken an immediate dislike of Styles, wondering why his publication had picked this rather delicate artist to help cover the war. We soon learn that Cracknell is having a passionate affair with Mrs. Boyce. While Kitson was busy describing the gory details of the war and Styles depicted the gruesome scenes, Cracknell brazenly wrote pieces meant to discredit the pompous, egotistical and incompetent officers and demeaning the dreamy Styles. As Cracknell's pieces became more and more controversial, the Courier sold more copies. He was becoming a celebrity. The muck raking Cracknell was particularly anxious to discredit Boyce and Capt. Wray, both proving to be scoundrels. It was most helpful that Cracknell was bedding Mrs. Boyce. Not only did she detest her husband for his abuse, but was willing to share any information she could with her lover. She'd only stayed in the Crimea because she was desperately in love with Cracknell and he fed that romance for his own purposes.

We are taken through horrendous battlefield injuries, poor decision making and the spread of cholera. Kitson is increasingly alarmed about the mental state of Styles. He is totally fixated on his gory drawings and Madeleine Boyce. He tries to convince Cracknell to send the troubled young man back to England. Instead, Cracknell continues ignore him. As the British and French armies progress in the direction of Sebastopol, the ever-vigilent Cracknell looks for ways to uncover the evil deeds of Wray and Boyce. He notices that in the midst of battle, that Wray is given a note, summons Boyce and he leaves in the opposite direction of the battlefield with two soldiers in tow. Cracknell gathers Kitson and Styles and they follow him. They arrive at what is the country home of the Tsar. It seems unoccupied. They wind up in the kitchen and find they are not alone. An obvious Russian accent is heard. He is in the company of Boyce, and the two soldiers who are standing guard. Hiding, the journalistic trio listens carefully. The Russian is unlocking a cabinet and heading to the basement. He comes back with what appears to be a painting. Kitson, the former art critic recognizes the painting as Raphael's Pilate Washing His Hands,considered lost for centuries. This is a priceless treasure! Boyce kills the Russian and one of his soldiers. He keeps the other one, who is rather feeble-brained, as his personal assistant. He leaves the scene with the treasure hidden in a cart. He doesn't realize there are further witness, the most prominent of which is just aching to exact monumental revenge.

Using Madeleine and other intelligence, Cracknell knows that Boyce will need an intermediary to get the art treasure back to England. As predicted, Boyce summons rising industrialist Charles Norton to the Crimea. He knows he can turn the greedy Norton into a war profiteer for his purpose of smuggling. Norton is given lucrative contracts and tasked with carrying out the art. He readily agrees.

As the battles drag on, the three employees of the magazine follow the campaign. Styles is far gone. He has beaten off a Russian soldier by shooting him. Kitson again asks that Styles be sent home, to no avail. At this point, Cracknell exposes Boyce and Wray in print. This creates a scandal at home and with a letter to the editor anonymously written by Boyce, Cracknell is fired and Boyce is promoted. The fires of revenge are burning in Cracknell.



In a particularly difficult battle all three are cornered injured. Cracknell wanders off with his injury but Kitson and Styles are dispatched to the makeshift army hospital. Cracknell is now on a freelance campaign against his enemies. He lingers in the Crimea as the war winds down but keeps away from the battlefield. Kitson, thinking that Styles has been sent home, stays near a port city to heal his wounds. He works as a nurse there and is happy in his new role.

When Kitson gets word that Styles is still in the Crimea, he knows the erratic young illustrator is in grave danger. He is no longer afraid of killing or even dying. Kitson goes back to the field in search of Styles on the front lines. He finds him there. What he doesn't know is that Styles was in what was Cracknell's former tent and viewed and illustrated what was clearly Cracknell and Madeleine having sex. Styles died in the battle and Kitson's dislike of Cracknell turned to hatred. A soldier who hated Boyce circulated the drawings around the camp. Cracknell got wind of this and seized the illustrations. He enlisted the soldier who hated Boyce the most virulently and made sure that they got to Boyce. Boyce more than suspected the affair, but when he saw the very detailed drawings, he went into a rage and killed his wife, blaming it on a Russian intruder.

Kitson returned to England, but knowing he was a witness to Boyce's crimes, settled in Manchester. He took a job on a minor publication, he kept a low profile as a gossip columnist. Therein comes the title. This position was called Street Philosopher in that era. He prayed that he would just be left alone.

All characters came together in Manchester, including Norton. The plot thickens as Kitson falls in love with Norton's rebellious daughter. Cracknell is driven by revenge and hires thugs to kill both Wray and Boyce and to undermine the wealthy and criminal Norton.

Plampin has a fine writing style interspersing the Crimea and Manchester and brings his experience as an art and culture expert of 19th Century England. He engages the reader by making him or her weigh the motivations for truthtelling. One has to evaluate whether the better man is Cracknell for getting the back story out or Kitson in his artistic verbiage but not engaging the powers that were as Cracknell did for his own purposes.

My major criticism of the book is that Plampin didn't take a moment, prior to the story, to explain the factors leading to this war. All we really learn is that there is an alliance between England and France to fight Russia. We aren't even told who won this war. I was not happy to have to research this on my own. Here's what I was able to glean from a history professor who wishes to remain anonymous:

"The Crimean War grows out of the Great Power Game and the balance of powers established after the Napoleonic wars. Within that game, as one power 'grew', the configuration became 'unstable'--it's kind of a plate tectonics theory of what foreign affairs are about. The 'growing' power was Prussia. And others were declining--most notably Austria/Hungary. Then there was all kinds of debate over what made a country 'strong'--population? economic development? getting colonies? foreign trade? And how did you assess your power and the power of others? The site hints at some of the considerations--Russia wanted access to the Mediterranean and was viewed as a potential 'threat'. I think the whole game was dangerous, and eventually came crashing down in World War I. I don't know anything about why Britain and France decided on such a pre-emptive strike, what they hoped to gain from it, and I haven't followed the literature--I'm sure there are people making careers out of exploring the diplomacy.

"As now, diplomacy has very limited use, and distracts from real things (water, pollution, starvation) but elites go on playing these games. (And is it possible to stay out of them? That was/is the issue of 'isolationism') The Great Power Game is often called 'realism', as played by Bismarck and Kissinger and Brzezinsky. I think A.J.P. Taylor wrote the old classic book on the diplomacy up to world war I, but could be wrong on that too. I guess Plampin doesn't have diplomats as characters; maybe he thinks the game is absurd, or maybe he thinks that his audience would know what it was ostensibly about."


It could be that Plampin wanted to keep this as vague as possible so we would apply this appalling war to an overall observation of the futility of war. I think this missing information is really necessary (and I've written to the publisher to convey my message to Mr. Plampin); otherwise, this is just another compelling story which happens to be set in war and you can fill in the blanks. Plampin DOES inform via an end note that there is no such painting as Pilate Washing His Hands.

FICTION: THE MISSING PERSON/Doris Grumbach - G.P. Putnam's Sons - 1981

This is a finely crafted, raw, emotional book, chronicling the unfortunate life of a Marilyn Monroe-like character. Grumbach has a long, distinguished career in fiction and non-fiction, especially writing about gays and lesbians.

Starting in the 1930s, we become intimately involved with the details of a child and young woman (Fanny Marker) starting out in Utica, New York. Her mother is resentful of her very existence and treats her harshly. Mom has a long series of unsavory boyfriends living in their squalid apartment. Fanny retreats to the movies and fan magazines, creating an alternate universe for herself. Knowing that she is unusually beautiful, she pictures herself as a screen goddess. One day, while her mother is at work, she is savagely raped by her mother's current boyfriend. Fanny goes inside herself to her protective fantasy life. Eventually she runs away. Working in a Utica hotel, she hangs around the lobby and starts to pick up men for sex. She experiences no pleasure from the act, but it reinforces her only commody, as a beautiful sex object.

Fanny winds up in New York, finds an agent and Fanny has emerged as Franny Fuller. It doesn't take long for this newly packaged silver screen goddess to become the object of every male fantasy. Somehow, people notice that this vulnerable, beautiful creature with her dazzling smile, sexy whisper of a voice and platinum hair is a mass of contradictions. She marries a famous football player, retreats into her secret world, and becomes very clingy and needy. The young, unsophisticated jock is being eaten alive by Franny's neediness. They divorce. Franny has become a blank slate, ripe for whatever a devouring public would like her to be. She starts to disappear, running off to seedy Hollywood bars, dressed in ragged, dirty clothing, needing badly to bathe. Then she resurfaces as the screen goddess. Her emotional episodes are overtaking her. She is considered undependable and difficult in her studio commitments. But driven by her box office potential she is put up with and has achieved superstar status.

She meets Arnold Franklin, the poet and playwright in New York. The Jewish intellectual falls instantly for the goddess. He proposes and they marry. Now in a world of very educated literary heavyweights and skilled actors, she continues to question her self worth. Beauty only goes so far. She thinks she needs acting lessons, but never follows through. The couple moves to Los Angeles where Franklin is totally miserable. He can't deal with everything Hollywood and is at a loss to keep looking for Franny after each disappearance. He files for divorce.

This book is very insightful and gives us a glimpse of how 'idols' are manufactured and disgarded. We see what becomes of a silent film star who is thrown overboard because is speaking voice is too squeaky for the 'talkies.' We find out what drives a Hollywood gossip columnist who fuels the insane machine. Most of all, we learn how a fragile, tormented child is tossed into the 'star' process, gets mangled by it and her only mechanism is to smile and disappear.

This thoughtful, mature, revealing book is worth reading. I hope you can find it.

FICTION: THE MISSING PERSON/Doris Grumbach - G.P. Putnam's Sons - 1981

This is a finely crafted, raw, emotional book, chronicling the unfortunate life of a Marilyn Monroe-like character. Grumbach has a long, distinguished career in fiction and non-fiction, especially writing about gays and lesbians.

Starting in the 1930s, we become intimately involved with the details of a child and young woman (Fanny Marker) starting out in Utica, New York. Her mother is resentful of her very existence and treats her harshly. Mom has a long series of unsavory boyfriends living in their squalid apartment. Fanny retreats to the movies and fan magazines, creating an alternate universe for herself. Knowing that she is unusually beautiful, she pictures herself as a screen goddess. One day, while her mother is at work, she is savagely raped by her mother's current boyfriend. Fanny goes inside herself to her protective fantasy life. Eventually she runs away. Working in a Utica hotel, she hangs around the lobby and starts to pick up men for sex. She experiences no pleasure from the act, but it reinforces her only commody, as a beautiful sex object.

Fanny winds up in New York, finds an agent and Fanny has emerged as Franny Fuller. It doesn't take long for this newly packaged silver screen goddess to become the object of every male fantasy. Somehow, people notice that this vulnerable, beautiful creature with her dazzling smile, sexy whisper of a voice and platinum hair is a mass of contradictions. She marries a famous football player, retreats into her secret world, and becomes very clingy and needy. The young, unsophisticated jock is being eaten alive by Franny's neediness. They divorce. Franny has become a blank slate, ripe for whatever a devouring public would like her to be. She starts to disappear, running off to seedy Hollywood bars, dressed in ragged, dirty clothing, needing badly to bathe. Then she resurfaces as the screen goddess. Her emotional episodes are overtaking her. She is considered undependable and difficult in her studio commitments. But driven by her box office potential she is put up with and has achieved superstar status.

She meets Arnold Franklin, the poet and playwright in New York. The Jewish intellectual falls instantly for the goddess. He proposes and they marry. Now in a world of very educated literary heavyweights and skilled actors, she continues to question her self worth. Beauty only goes so far. She thinks she needs acting lessons, but never follows through. The couple moves to Los Angeles where Franklin is totally miserable. He can't deal with everything Hollywood and is at a loss to keep looking for Franny after each disappearance. He files for divorce.

This book is very insightful and gives us a glimpse of how 'idols' are manufactured and disgarded. We see what becomes of a silent film star who is thrown overboard because is speaking voice is too squeaky for the 'talkies.' We find out what drives a Hollywood gossip columnist who fuels the insane machine. Most of all, we learn how a fragile, tormented child is tossed into the 'star' process, gets mangled by it and her only mechanism is to smile and disappear.

This thoughtful, mature, revealing book is worth reading. I hope you can find it.

FICTION: INTO TEMPTATION -Penny Vincenzi/Overlook - 2002

If you're looking for a huge book with a complex list of characters and enjoy family sagas, Into Temptation is the book for you. You should know that this book is the third of a trilogy, though. Vincenzi certainly does fill in the blanks of what's come before and the reader can be assured that this is a stand-alone work.

Despite its American Characters intermingled with the British ones, Into Temptation is essentially British. I must say that Vincenzi hasn't managed to make her American characters sound American.

Rather than try to explain the rather complicated Lytton family situation, I will say that it involves a family that's in a long tradition of a private publishing house in London and New York. The matriarch, Celia Lytton, is a woman hellbent on upholding the tradition of the business and has been actively involved in every aspect of it for generations. This book covers a turning point, as younger members of the publishing empire emerge and changes are envisioned and are successful. The author covers about a decade of the intricacies of family interaction, the changes in the publishing business and the forces working for and against the publishing house. Secrets are kept and then revealed, deception, lust and romance permeate. This ending volume of the Lytton family saga is set in London, Manhattan and the Hamptons from the mid-fifties through the early sixties.



I don't think it would interest men much. This is really on the level of soap opera. I woman sitting with a glass of wine, a shawl and a roaring fireplace would probably enjoy this book. With its almost 700 pages, one can lose oneself easily. I particularly liked the author's quick takes, leaving the reader anxious for the characters, poised on the brink of something interesting or shocking, to reappear in the next cycle.

Without being a spoiler, I totally disagreed with the ending. It was a letdown to what we would imagine to be proper. Also, unlike life, all stories resolved themselves at the same time. It was efficient, but unsatisfying. I am not sorry I read this book. It gave me a long spell of escapism from my own life, and I would imagine most of our lives, unless we were part of a British publishing dynasty.