Teaser Tuesday -Spencer Quinn's Thereby Hangs a Tail & Dog On It

This nose belongs to Chet, the canine half of the Little Detective Agency in Spencer Quinn's Chet and Bernie mysteries. As Chet describes it "We run a detective agency, me and Bernie, called the Little Detective Agency on account of Little being Bernie's last name. My name's Chet, pure and simple. Headquarters is our house on Mesquite Road, a nice place with a big tree out front, perfect for napping under, and the whole canyon easily accessible out back, if it just happens someone left the gate open. And then, up in the canyon--well, say no more."

Chet is the delightful narrator for these two mysteries. We don't learn much about him except that he has mis-matched ears, is a self-described "one hundred pounder" and chief worrier about the detective agency bringing in enough income to keep up child support for Charlie, Bernie's son and Chet's best buddy,--and repair money for the aging Porshe and dog food. Chet loves riding shot-gun when they're out on a case and welcomes the occasional perk of taste testing a new line of dog treats or sharing a donut with the local police. Chet manages to be pretty much on the case, ready to leap and take a bite out of a perp's leg if necessary. But Chet also is the first to admit that he has occasional lapses in judgment. It only takes Bernie's warning "Che-et!" to get him back on task!




I just love Chet--and so does everyone else who reads these two books. So much that I couldn't limit to just two sentences for this week's Teaser Tuesday. Instead, here's some Chet lines that made me just laugh out loud:


Adelina (potential client)looking him over when they first met: " 'He looks big. I don't recognize the breed. And what's the story with his ears?' My ears again? How rude."

Lt. Stine gives him a treat: "I took the cruller back to my seat and had some quiet time".

When he and Princess (a kidnapped show dog)were on the lam: ". . .felt a pain in my head, a kind of heavy throbbing pain. It made me want to puke, so I did."

His dislike of horses: "Totally unreliable, always twitching for no reason, but humans don't seem to get that, go on and on about how beautiful they are until I just want to trot over to one of those weird legs, the real skinny part, and give it the tiniest. . .but I would never do that, at least not again, after what happened that time at the ranch."

On self restraint during an investigation: "Something about Bernie--or any human--on hand and knees always got me going so I had to wait outside with Colonel Bob."

Teaser Tuesday is described by its host, Miz B over at Should Be Reading ,as a "weekly bookish meme" open to any reader who wants to play along. If, like me, you're always curious about what people are reading or on the lookout for the next great read, then this may by your meme. To play, just click on Miz B's link above for the simple rules.

(Image credit: Chet's Nose- Philip and Karen Smith/Getty Images)

Teaser Tuesday - The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon

(Spoiler alert! You may not want to read anything other than the book quotes for The Scottish Prisoner if you are still reading the first three books in Diana Gabaldon's wildly popular Outlander series: Outlander , Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager.)

It is 1760. At Helwater in England's Lake District, James Fraser, a paroled Jacobite prisoner of war, spends his days in relative peace working with horses on the Dunsany estate. He is content to be able to be close to a small son that he can not acknowledge and grieve for his wife from whom he was separated just before the battle of Culloden. Then the Irishman Tom Quinn comes to Helwater and tries to involve him in a scheme to resurrect the lost Jacobite Cause.

Meanwhile in London, Lord John Grey is enlisted by his brother Hal, Earl of Pardloe, to recover a corrupt army officer from Ireland and bring him back for court martial in London. The only problem is that the documents detailing this crime are written in "Erse", the language of the Scottish Highlanders. The one person who can help them is the Scottish prisoner, James Fraser. Will he do it in light of the complicated relationship (prisoner-jailer-friend) Fraser has with Lord John Grey?

Teaser Tuesday is described by its host, Miz B over at Should Be Reading ,as a "weekly bookish meme" open to any reader who wants to play along. If, like me, you're always curious about what people are reading or on the lookout for the next great read, then this may by your meme. To play, just click on Miz B's link above for the simple rules.


" He is still at Helwater, is he not? Will you go and ask him about Siverly?" Hal said mildly.
"No."
"No?"
"I would not piss on him was he burning in the flames of hell," Grey said politely.
One of Hal's brows flicked upward. . . "Just so," he said dryly. "The question, though, is whether Fraser might be inclined to perform a similar service for you."
"Only if he thought I might drown, " Grey said. p 22

Book description: This book is one of several off shoot stories that Gabaldon writes to expand the characters and plots of the seven books in the Outlander series. She calls it a Lord John Grey novel because it is set in the time when there was the most interaction between Lord John and Fraser. We also get more of stories of other characters, such as Fraser's young son William, who will be in all the upcoming novels. Fans of Gabaldon love all her characters and enjoy reading about them, in addition to the Jamie and Claire love story around which all the novels are written. In addition, these novels between the main Outlander books, give fans a "fix" while waiting for the next one (3-4 years) to come out!

(Photo credit: Ashness Farm, English Lake District, http://outlandishobservations.blogspot.com )

Teaser Tuesday - Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

On July 16-17, 1942 over 13,000--including 4,000 children--Parisian Jews were arrested by the French police in what became known as the Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup (code name Operation Spring Breeze). Entire families were dragged from their homes over the two days and held in the Velodrome d'Hiver, an indoor cycling arena, without water, food, sanitation, or medical attention. This German Gestapo plan to reduce, or rather exterminate,the Jewish population in occupied France was ruthlessly carried out by policemen and civil servants of the French Vichy government. Parents were forcibly separated from their children and shipped by cattle rail cars to Auschwitz for extermination. Followed by the children. Only about 900 Jews survived the roundup to tell the horrendous stories of the French government, police and ordinary citizens' turning their collective backs on fellow French citizens.

For this week's Tuesday Teaser I've chosen the riveting Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay which, she says, is her tribute to the children of the Vel' d'Hiv'. This was a hard book to read, but I won't forget it--nor should anyone else who reads it.

Teaser Tuesday is described by its host, Miz B over at Should Be Reading ,as a "weekly bookish meme" open to any reader who wants to play along. If, like me, you're always curious about what people are reading or on the lookout for the next great read, then this may by your meme. To play, just click on Miz B's link above for the simple rules.




Sarah's Key
by Tatiana de Rosnay

" She woke at night, trembling, thinking of him in the cupboard. She took out the key and stared at it with pain and horror. p. 70

Book description from cover: Paris, July 1942-Sarah, a ten year old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they went door to door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard--their secret hiding place--and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.

Sixty Years Later-Sarah's story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup. In her research, Julia stumbles on a trail of secrets that link her and her husband's family to Sarah. These secrets change Julia's life dramatically and give her the courage to make some hard life-changing decisions.

I'm always glad when a well-loved book is adapted to film. That's the case with Sarah's Key. Here's the official film trailer and is scheduled for summer 2011 release:



In 1995 French President Jacques Chirac made a public apology to French Jews for the complicit role of the French policemen, civil servants and citizens in the roundup: "These black hours will stain our history forever and are an injury to our past and our traditions. . .France committed that day the irreparable. Breaking its word, it delivered those it protected to their executioners."

Teaser Tuesday - On Hitler's Mountain by Irmgard A. Hunt

Figuring out what will interest blog readers is always a tossup. I'm constantly surprised at the topics that get a lot of hits on Summit Musings. A good example of this puzzle is a post that I wrote about visiting Hitler's infamous mountain retreat, the Eagle's Nest, high in the Austrian Alps and about an hour's drive from Salzburg, Austria. At least one reader clicks on this post almost every day. That's why I was so interested in reading Irmgard A. Hunt's On Hitler's Mountain, her memoir of growing up in the Berchtesgaden valley in a village at the base of Hitler's mountaintop retreat.

Teaser Tuesday is described by its host, Miz B over at Should Be Reading ,as a "weekly bookish meme" open to any reader who wants to play along. If, like me, you're always curious about what people are reading or on the lookout for the next great read, then this may by your meme. To play, just click on Miz B's link above for the simple rules.



On Hitler's Mountain, Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood
by Irmgard A. Hunt

" Hitler had chosen Obersalzberg, a hamlet above Berchtesgaden, as his home and headquarters. . . The mountain loomed large over every aspect of my childhood in this highly visible and public place, in the shadow of the Eagle's Nest and near the lair of men whom the world would come to view as monsters." p. 2

Book description: Hunt's memoir provides a vivid, yet homely, account of what it was like to be a child in a Nazi Germany and a daily witness to the historic events that took place on Hitler's mountain. As she went about her childhood activities, she saw the mysterious black cars carrying Nazi and other world leaders to meetings with Hitler on the mountain. She was subjected to the Nazi propaganda and National Socialist teachings at home and in school. Her father was drafted and killed fighting for Hitler early in the war, leaving her mother, sister and herself to struggle on alone. Only her grandfather had the courage to speak out against the Nazis. In May 1945, 11 year old Irmgard saw American soldiers, Easy Company, occupy Hitler's retreat and help bring the war to an end. This is an important memoir for its honest look at what happens when a country loses its way and becomes pawns of evil, amoral leaders. It is the rememberings such as this that will save us from repeating this evil in the future.
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Here's excerpts from the "Easy Company Takes Hitler's Eagle's Nest" post that describes my 2008 visit to Hitler's mountain:

September 17--by now I'm at exactly the mid-point of a two week tour of Europe. On this day our tour group travelled from "base camp" in Innsbruck, Austria to Salzburg for a tour of Mozart's home city, spending the majority of our time in the Getreidegasse, or Old Town, where Mozart lived and worked. We were also in Sound of Music country, seeing the church where Maria and Captain von Trapp were married and the estate where Maria cared for his many children and later helped the family escape the Nazis. We even saw the hill where Julie Andrews was filmed singing "The hills are alive. . ." This hill was on the southeast route out of Salzburg which we took for our afternoon destination--Hitler's Eagle's Nest.

The Eagle's Nest is a cliff top fortress about 28 km outside of Salzburg near Berchtesgaden, Germany on the German-Austrian border in the Austrian Alps. We were in luck that day because there was snow falling in the mountains. The cold mist added to the eerie feeling we were all experiencing, knowing the horrible decisions of life and death that were made by the Nazi administration at this evil nest high in the Alps. When we got to the village of Oberzalberg (where Hitler lived when not at the Eagle's Nest) we transferred to special bus equipped to climb the narrow one lane road and around the hairpin curves carved in the side of the mountain. One mis-turn and we would have been tumbling down the mountain to the valley below. Such beauty. Such danger.

After a short bus ride we get off at the base of the mountain and walked through a marble lined tunnel dug 400 ft. into the mountain. From there we took the original brass elevator 400 ft. straight up into the Eagle's Nest building at the top of the mountain. Today this place is a tourist destination and restaurant. In the mid-40s Hitler used this mountain hideaway, or "Teahouse" as he called it, for entertaining foreign dignitaries and members of the Third Reich. There were photos and newsreels of Hitler and his guests looking out over the Alps from the decks, just as tourists were doing that day. (After the tour while waiting by the tunnel for our bus down the hill, we decompressed with an impromptu snowball fight in the parking lot, ganging up on Sandor, the cheeky Aussie, who enjoyed tormenting many of us.)

Hitler's Eagle's Nest was designed and built for Adolph Hitler's 50th birthday by his personal secretary and head of the Nazi Party, Martin Bormann. Incredibly, the construction was done by soldiers who signed on to work cutting a road by hand up the Alps. The work went on 24:7 through all seasons. Many men fell to their deaths in its construction. After all this effort to ingratiate, Bormann was not that successful. Hitler was afraid of heights, among other things. He chose to live in his chalet, Berghof, at a much lower elevation.

In May 1945 American troops, Easy Company--a band of brothers made up of farmers, coal miners, mountain men, sons of the south, and Harvard, Yale, and UCLA graduates--took control of the country surrounding the town of Berchtesgaden,
including houses of the Gestapo police. They also secured the Eagle's Nest in the only way possible by scaling the mountain face. Their job was to search out German generals and SS troopers who were hiding in the Alps.

Before I saw this incredible place, I wish I had known more about Easy Company and the individual soldiers who joined the Army from all walks of life, their only preparation for fighting being sports or hard scrabble work of farming or coal mining. They signed on to train for the parachute infantry for the extra $50 per month they'd earn. Along the way they learned to work as a unit to accomplish their mission and protect their brother soldiers. And to use one of their favorite expressions, "That ain't no chicken shit job."

Teaser Tuesday - Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Alice Howland is at the top of her game. At just fifty years old she is a highly respected and accomplished professor of cognitive psychology and linguistics at Harvard University. She and her husband, also a researcher at Harvard, enjoy busy professional lives and the satisfaction of watching their three grown children get established in their own careers.

And then the downward spiral begins. Alice loses her Blackberry constantly, she forgets why "Eric" is on her to do list, she becomes disoriented on a familiar run and struggles to find her way home. At first she blames over scheduling and work demands. Then fears a brain tumor or complications of menopause. In short order she is diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer's disease. Still Alice is her story about her day to day struggles to maintain a normal life and cheat this debilitating disease out of one more victim. (Image- Blue Morph's Butterfly by Fran Henig)


Teaser Tuesday is described by its host Miz B over atShould be Reading as a "weekly bookish meme" open to any reader who wants to play along. If, like me, you're always curious about what people are reading or on the lookout for the next great read, then this may be your meme. If you want to play, just click on Miz B's link above for the very simple rules.


Still Alice
by Lisa Genova

"Alice placed her fingers on the top of her sternum and rubbed the blue paste stones on the wings of her mother's art nouveau butterfly necklace. . .She liked being reminded of butterflies. She remembered being six or seven and crying over the fates of the butterflies in her yard after learning that they lived for only a few days. Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the butterflies, that just because their lives were short didn't mean they were tragic." p. 112

Book Description: Of all the books written about Alzheimer's disease, most deal with either treatment or the care giver's issues. Still Alice is different in that it is fiction and the story is told from the perspective of a person who is young enough to share what it means to be diagnosed with a disease of the elderly. We get a fascinating behind the scene look at the steps in diagnosis, the strategies one woman uses to maintain control of her normal functioning for as long as possible. We also witness what it means to gradually lose everything you value--ability to communicate, to work, make decisions for yourself, be in control.

If you are the care giver for a family member or friend who suffers from Alzheimer's, or you fear the disease for yourself, read this book. It's a fast read because you won't want to put it down once started. For sure you'll understand the disease a lot better. Here's a brief comment from the author about why she wrote a work of fiction about a very real disease: