News of the World, by Paulette Jiles

In today’s world, we get our “news of the world” instantly, and literally, at the touch of our fingers—on computers, iPads, iPhones, TVs, car radios, and if you still read them, newspapers.

But a century before all that sophisticated, fun and sometimes overwhelming communications technology worked its way into our modern world, citizens were hungry for news of their states and of the world.

Enter Captain Jefferson Kidd, a grizzled elderly widower who has lived through three wars and  fought in two of them. He made his living in Texas as a printer until he lost his business during the War Between the States.  In 1870, at the age of 71, the Captain finds a new way to make a living and enjoy the freedom of the road. He travels from town to town and state to state, giving live readings from newspapers to audiences who are hungry for news of the world and who are willing to pay 20 cents to have him read it to them.

He enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. Then in Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a fiesty, 9-year-old orphan girl to her family. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed her parents and sister, but spared the little girl and raised her as one of their own. She was recently rescued by the U.S. Army. Now the grizzled old man and the lost little girl both have to learn to take care of each other and find their place in the world. Joanna tries to escape every way and every chance she gets, including throwing her shoes away. But slowly they begin to form a bond during their 400-mile journey, and begin to trust each other.

Jiles is a wonderful writer, telling an imaginative story. Her descriptions make both characters and their environment alive and believable. I loved every creative twist and turn of this book and couldn’t wait to see what happened to the Captain and Johanna.

— Gail Stilwill

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard

The book group took on this 2011 book with the reluctance of several members.  It deals, after all, with that somewhat distant period of American history between the civil War and World War I and focuses on the assassination of President James Garfield, one of the string of presidents thought of today as non-entities.  As we got into the book, however, all were taken by the immediacy of the political situation and assassination and by Candice Millard’s skillful weaving together of the political intrigues before and after Garfield’s election, the insanity of the assassin Charles Guiteau, the medical treatment of the President, and Alexander Graham Bell’s frantic efforts to perfect a device to locate the bullet.

The years following the Civil War were marked by deep political divisions and rapid technological change.  On the political side, reconstruction was ended in 1877 leaving civil rights issues unresolved, as they would remain for decades longer.  It was a time of enormous industrial expansion, with railroads, electricity, telephones, elevators, photography, and many other life-altering technologies becoming commercialized.  Millard brings some of this to life in a way that made us feel at home in the 1880s.

Garfield himself comes as a surprise.  From a log cabin background in frontier Ohio, he proved an able scholar and was president of a small liberal arts college in Ohio while still in his 20s.  He served with distinction in the Civil War, securing Kentucky as a part of the Union, and becoming a Brigadier General. Meanwhile, he had been elected to the Ohio legislature and the US Congress where he served until his compromise nomination by a stalemated Republican convention in 1880.  Millard presents him as a centrist politician, committed among other things to merit-based civil service appointments that would have ended the spoils system where a newly elected administration could replace the entire federal work force from top to bottom.  Garfield’s personal integrity and respect may have offered a bridge across political divides, and might have reconciled the post-reconstruction south, African-Americans, the conservative branch of the Republican Party (the “Stalwarts”), and Garfield’s own progressive branch of the Republican Party (the “Half-Breeds,” later exemplified by Theodore Roosevelt).  We can only speculate how the destiny of the Republic was altered by his assassination and whether later controversies might have been lessened or avoided had Garfield been able to complete his presidency.

Millard also portrays very real personalities, including Garfield’s likeable family, the venal Senator Roscoe Conkling, the arrogant Doctor Bliss, the utterly crazy Charles Guiteau, and the hyperactive Alexander Bell.  There are other characters we would have liked to know better, such as Doctor Susan Edson, a woman physician who was allowed only a subordinate role in treating the wounded Garfield, and Julia Sand, whose letters gave remarkably salient political advice to Vice-President Chester Arthur as he assumed the presidency.

Millard’s excellent telling of these interrelated stories won over all the members of the book group. A remote period became very immediate. Millard gives lucid clinical descriptions of the medical treatment of the wounded president by American practitioners who still resisted antiseptic practices that had gained acceptance in Europe, and that would probably have avoided the sepsis that ultimately killed Garfield after ten agonizing weeks of highly questionable treatment.  Though we know the outcome, Millard lets us feel the suspense as flawed characters pile tragedy upon tragedy to undo an admirable hero and change American destiny.  — Bill Smith

Glass Houses, by Louise Penny

For the thirteenth time, Louise Penny has written a number-one best selling mystery novel. And once again, Superintendent Armand Gamache (now promoted to Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Quebec) plays the leading role.  But this time Penny’s plot weaves two seemingly un-related stories together into an intricate mystery full of twists and turns, juicy details and humor. It’s a great read.  And, like all Penny’s Gamache mysteries, it is beautifully written.

The book opens on a steamy July day in an uncomfortably hot Montreal courtroom. Surprisingly, Gamache is the one on the stand.  We see a whole different side of his character as we watch and listen to his testimony about drug trafficking.  We learn that he is the courageous, behind-the-scenes leader of a secret, one-man very dangerous war against drugs.  It’s a war that could cost—or save—hundreds of lives. Including Gamache’s.

The second, seemingly un-related, story begins three months later on a cold, rainy November day in Three Pines with the sudden, mysterious appearance of a masked, cloaked figure.  He stands unmoving for hours, then days, on the Village Green thorough rain and sleet, staring at someone or something in the village.

Villagers come to believe that the figure is a Cobrador, a debt collector. According to history, they act as a conscience for someone who has committed a terrible crime.Villagers are curious, but soon become wary.  Gamache suspects the creature has a “dark purpose.” But he can do nothing but watch and wait for days, as his fears continue to mount. Then the creature vanishes as quickly and quietly as it arrived.  But the villagers’ relief quickly turned to fear when a body is discovered. And another murder mystery begins.

Penny toggles between the two stories, between the courtroom in Montreal and the village of Three Pines, putting her readers inside Gamache’s head as he slowly and meticulously unravels the mysteries.  She weaves an intricate plot, taking readers scene by tantalizing scene to the truth that finally solves the mystery.

— by Gail Stilwill