This post is designed to make Sweetpea feel better than the last few months’ book reports have. I finished a mere three books this month and ditched the aforementioned awful one. If I want to reach my goal of 50 for the year, I’ve got to pick up the pace a bit…

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl, by Fannie Flagg

From the jacket: “[Flagg’s] heroine is urban: a brainy, beautiful, and ambitious rising star of 1970s television. Dena Nordstrom, pride of the network, is a woman whose future is full of promise, her present rich with complications, and her past marked by mystery.”

Why this book? Originally, this summer I intended to partake of two challenges, the second being one focusing on Southern authors. I didn’t quite get around to it, but I did seek out Flagg to be one of my entries. And when I realized that this book included some of the characters from the much beloved Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, I immediately grabbed it off the shelf.

My take: Dena Nordstrom, known to her three living relatives as Baby Girl, is a high-powered New York newswoman heading into the prime of her career. She ought to be happy, but she’s not and you can tell that she’s got to make some changes in her life — she suffers from ulcers, dates all the wrong men, works too hard, drinks too much, and walks the broadcast journalism tightrope of investigative reporting vs. celebrity newshounding. On the other hand, she does still see which side is which and seems to make the right decisions when the big picture is at stake; you wonder, though, how long she’ll be able to maintain that balance.

Because Flagg’s books ultimately are feel-good tales of small-town Southern living, you can guess how the story ends from about a million miles away, but it’s not without its twists and turns in getting there. An enjoyable read, but not as sweet as her most recent novel. (As an aside, as I was reading the portions of the book set in New York and dealing with journalism, Good Night and Good Luck was often in my mind. I think this book would make a good pairing with the movie and might make for an interesting discussion about the role journalism ought to play in our lives.)

Pages: 467

The Man with a Load of Mischief, by Martha Grimes

From the jacket: “At the Man with a Load of Mischief, they found a dead man with his head stuck in a beer keg. At the Jack and Hammer, another body was stuck out on the beam of the pub’s sign, replacing the mechanical man who kept the time. Two pubs. Two murders. One Scotland Yard inspector called in to help. Detective Chief Inspector Richard Jury arrives in Long Piddleton and finds everyone in the postcard village looking outside of town for the killer. Except for Melrose Plant. A keen observer of human nature, he points Jury in the right direction: toward the darkest parts of his neighbors’ hearts…”

Why this book? Mum had recommended Graham as a mystery author I might enjoy at the outset of the Mystery Challenge. I remembered her name when I was at the local charity shop scouting for books before I went on a trip earlier in the summer.

My take: Although Mum had warned me that Graham could be a little hard to read (as opposed to listen to), I found the book to be charming. Set mostly in a small village in England’s timeless Midlands, the story is peopled with the quirky inhabitants that make such books the love or bane of readers. Since I fall into the former category, I was delighted by the barmaids, tea shop owners, pauper children, and land owners I discovered. It drew me in immediately and made me want to know more about DCI Jury and Melrose Plant. Did I guess who did it? Yes. Did it matter in my enjoyment of the book? Not a whit. I look forward to reading more books in this series and recommend it to anyone who loves a good mystery. (And I’d be delighted in the BBC opted to turn this into a Mystery! production. Does anyone know of any plans for that to happen? Or has it already, mayhap?)

Pages: 272

Evidence of Guilt, by Jonnie Jacobs

From the jacket: “When a local waitress and her five-year-old daughter are found killed, Wes Harding — a former classmate of [attorney Kali O’Brien’s] who had a reputation as Silver Creek’s worst troublemaker — becomes the prime suspect. Kali’s long-time legal mentor — and the town’s leading criminal attorney — asks Kali to assist him on the case. She agrees, but is stunned when Harding refuses to help in his own defense — and won’t explain why. Kali soon discovers that the murdered waitress was harboring secrets of her own — which included unexpected ties to some of Silver Creek’s most influential citizens, as well as a mysterious link to a long-ago tragedy.”

Why this book? After I gave up on the Braun book, I needed a mystery I could finish in mere days, since all the challenge books had to be finished by midnight on August 31 in order for me to qualify for the prize. Rudi and I hurried to the library on Wednesday night and I scoured the shelves for possibilities. This author had several books (in two series), so I thought I’d give her a shot. (And, yes, I checked out a second book in case this one went south quickly, too.)

My take: I liked the book from the outset. Kali has returned home from a high-powered life in San Francisco to take up as a small-town attorney in practice for herself. As such, she feels obliged to help a family friend who needs a younger lawyer to assist him in defending a young man charged with a double murder. Kali is smart and a pretty good judge of character, so it gets a little frustrating when you pick up on clues that she’s a little slow in grasping, but it wasn’t sufficient to turn me off to the book (although it did allow me to guess how much of the plot was going to unfold). It was also a bit frustrating to watch her slowly gather information through hard-file research and to constantly search for pay phones, but you forget that that was life a mere 15 years ago. (Since the book was published in 1997, I’d imagine that many people wouldn’t have found that quite so hard to fathom in those days.) I’ll definitely check out some more of Jacobs’ books.

Pages: 358

Total pages read this month: 1,097