Locked Rooms

1924. On the voyage from Bombay to San Francisco, Mary Russell begins to have a series of recurring nightmares that seem to have to do with her childhood there. Her husband, Sherlock Holmes, is alarmed by the effect these have on his normally rational, competent wife. Eighth in the series by Laurie R. King, this is a fine mystery with a fine evocation of time and place.

A Single Pebble

Tired of the same old same old? Here's a new old.
John Hersey wrote this in the 1950's, and we've got a reissue on the shelf in Colville. Not finding anything new in my standard genres, and it being a day to be lazy, I took this classic. Hersey writes sparely and with elegance about a mixing of cultures. The narrator is an American engineer coming to tame the Yangtze, doing a survey prior to building a dam. He is caught by the rhythm of life in China, as are we. The rhythm of the words, the rhythm of the songs of the lead tracker, the rhythm of the water all combine to bring the narrator, and us with him, a different view of life.

The Mistress of Spices

This first novel (4th book) by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is fun and interesting. It's about Tilo, a young woman born in another time, trained in the ancient art of spices with special powers, who happens to be immortal. She travels through time to open a shop in Oakland, Ca. (in her ancient, arthritic body) where she administers her spices to a large variety of customers, and eventually falls in love with a handsome stranger and must choose between the supernatural life of an immortal and that of a modern woman. Quite a spellbinding tale of joy and sorrow, and an extremely enjoyable, easy read of 338 pages in paperback. No barcode- must be requested from the Northport Library.