The first Mystery Book Club meeting of 2012 is January 9^th for a discussion of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin.  Larry was an outcast in high school, one of the dorky kids who were never part of the popular crowd.  He is one happy guy when pretty Cindy agrees to go to a drive in movie with him.  It will be the last time anyone sees Cindy.  Over 20 long years go by, Larry is the town mechanic but shunned by the community.  Now another girl has gone missing.  Larry is the prime suspect and his childhood friend is the constable charged with investigating the crime.  It is time to uncover the painful secrets of the past.

The Fiction Book Club discusses Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier on January 23^rd.  This is historical fiction based on real characters.  It could just as easily have been titled remarkable women, the story is about two women and an unlikely friendship set in the early 1800’s.  The Philpot sisters moved to Lyme Regis when their brother took a wife.  He no longer had room for his 3 spinster sisters and remaining in London would be too expensive so they were banished to a smaller, cheaper town.  Elizabeth Philpot developed an interest in the fish fossils found on the beach. Mary Anning was a precocious young girl at the time, with an uncanny talent for finding fossils, She had the eye for it, could spot them in the unstable hillsides thereabouts.  They were an odd pair for a friendship to form; Elizabeth was middle class with an inquiring mind, good education, and a modest but reliable income.  Mary was from the lower class, with a father who saddled the family with ruinous debt, few prospects, and no education.  Their common interest in fossils formed a bond.  Mary Anning made amazing discovers that started discussions about extinction years before Charles Darwin. 

Febuary 6th Travel Essay Book Club, City of Falling Angels by John Berendt.

February 6^th the Travel Essay Book Club discusses City of Falling Angels by John Berendt.   Venice is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, all blowsy, shimmering color, twisting alleys, grand piazzas, and turquoise blue canal surrounded by decadently gorgeous mansions. John Berendt arrived in 1996 a short while after a conflagration with flames reaching to the heavens ruined the famed opera house, La Fenice.   Known for his dark, moody book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, he thought there might be a book in this story too.  Have you ever visited a gorgeous place and thought why not stay a while?  John acted on that impulse thus giving us a fascinating book.   It is the story of the fire, the story of some of Venice’s residents, and an intimate portrait of a truly beautiful city.  He tells how the widow and estate of Ezra Pound was probably bilked by the wife of an employee of the Guggenheim museum.   The Save Venice foundation is rife with internal strife.  A maestro of glassblowing creates wildly imaginative art commemorating the destruction of La Fenice.  We should have plenty to discuss!

Febuary 20th Non Fiction Book Club: Author Led Discussion of Massacred for Gold by Greg Noakes.

The Pacific Northwest is the site of the worst massacre of Chinese in US history. Right here in Hell’s Canyon by a bend in the Snake River up to 34 Chinese miners were murdered. Worse yet, some of the killers were mere school boys, teenagers lured toward easy money and a quick kill by a nefarious horse thieving rancher. It is best not to turn our backs on the past lest the same mistakes are perpetuated. Prejudice and hate are sorrowful emotions. Those Chinese miners could have been robbed without taking their lives, but they were hated for being different. The taking of those lives would stay with those kids forever. Might it be a good idea to reflect on the cost to our souls of racial hatred?

Massacred for Gold brings to light the contribution of Chinese workers. They were integral to the building of our railroads, working harder and for less money than US citizens. These men were willing to hang off cliffs to set dynamite charges, work every day, and endure horrid conditions. Unlike other groups of immigrants, the Chinese wanted to make enough money to help their families then return home. They missed their homeland and loved ones ferociously. Instead of being thanked for their hard work, appreciated for their sacrifices, they were hated. Racial hatred fueled an environment of despair for the Chinese. They were ridiculed, beaten, robbed without any hope of justice or protection.

Gold mining was beyond the means of the Chinese when the claims were paying but as the claims played out the Chinese came in to labor extracting the last reluctant grains of gold. The claim the massacred men had been working was thought to be one of the better claims mined by Chinese. They had been working about a year, so there was gold to be taken. The Chinese were sitting ducks for their killers. Sheer cliff walls and fast flowing water gave them nowhere to run. Hells Canyon, the Snake River, and the Imnaha River Gorge is a forbidding remote landscape. It was a lonely place to die so far from their homeland at the hand of outlaws who would never pay for their crime.

March 5th Mystery Book Club, Heresy by SJ Parris

March 5^th the Mystery Book Club discusses Heresy by S.J. Parris a story full of real characters. Giordano Bruno ran afoul of the Inquisition.  Bruno held such outlandish beliefs as the earth revolving around the sun, imagine.  Truth being stranger than fiction, he escaped Italy and after a time landied in England where he became useful to Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham.  Eventually the Inquisition will catch up with Bruno, burning him at the stake in 1600.  This heretic monk is too interesting for Parris to resist, he was perfect for crafting a mystery series. In Heresy, the first in the series, Bruno travels to Oxford in1583 to debate John Underhill while spying at the behest of Walsingham who fears Catholic plots to overthrow the queen.  Soon after Bruno arrives a grisly murder raises the stakes. The next book in the series featuring Giordano Bruno is Prophecy, it is scheduled to release in paperback on May 1^st.  The third in the series, Sacrilege, should release in hardback April 10^th.

March 19th Fiction Book Club, Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie.

March 19^th the Fiction Book Club discusses Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie. Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil for a screaming guitar.  Now Johnson is looking for redemption, he heard of a spiritual woman on the Spokane Reservation who might be able to help him. Thomas Builds The Fire delivers Johnson to the woman and inherits the guitar.  Oh baby does this guitar want to play!  Possessed of this wickedly good instrument Thomas forms a rock and blues band, Coyote Springs, and soon they are traveling to Seattle and New York.  But there is a price with guitars gifted from the devil.  Funny and poignant this is a blistering portrayal of life as a Native American.  Sherman Alexie is one of our most talented authors, the guy can write!