Author Topic: Mystery Corner ~ 2 (Read 906066 times)

JoanK · « **Reply #7720 on:** October 25, 2015, 04:03:49 PM »

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Pull up a comfortable chair and join us here to talk about mysteries and their authors.
We love hearing what YOU enjoy and recommend!

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Discussion Leader: JoanK

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Wow! I'll have to try that. I see it's late in a series.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/lynda-s-robinson/

MaryPage · « **Reply #7721 on:** October 26, 2015, 06:00:19 AM »

Not better. Worse, actually. But going off at 7 this morning for a Lumbar Nerve Root Block, which we earnestly hope will do the trick and lessen or eliminate the incessant pain. Sciatica.

Thanks for asking. It has been near impossible to read and retain much these past weeks. For me, all of my long life, to have been able to read has been EVERYthing since early childhood. Not to be able to concentrate makes reading just so much nothing, and reduces living to an undesirable state of being. Different strokes, of course, for different folks. My heart breaks for the whole mass of suffering humanity struggling on this planet. Most are totally without access to the modern medical services I have at my disposal, albeit I have plenty of complaints about those, as they are, to my taste at least, slow, confusing and insufficiently focused. Sometimes I think all of the doctors have ADD. Oh well; hi ho, hi ho, it's off in Hope I go!

Steph · « **Reply #7722 on:** October 26, 2015, 08:46:46 AM »

It is 8:42 where I live and hopefully MaryPage is done with the treatment and we all hope much much better.

JoanK · « **Reply #7723 on:** October 26, 2015, 06:06:19 PM »

All our thoughts go out to you, MARYPAGE.

JoanK · « **Reply #7724 on:** October 26, 2015, 08:33:30 PM »

MaryPage: I think that qualifies for the official SeniorLearn Chicken Soup:

MaryPage · « **Reply #7725 on:** October 26, 2015, 08:42:24 PM »

Thank you, thank you. No miracle as yet. The procedure itself took almost no time at all, but the numbness they said would probably kick in for several hours did not. That was a disappointment. And while the needles during the procedure did not hurt anything like as much as I was prepared for, there was an immediate reaction in my leg and foot of spasms of pain that were akin to molten streams and metalfalls pouring down. I screamed, quite frankly. Recovery took much longer than the procedure, but we left home at seven A.M. and got back here at 9:30 A.M., so you see, it was very speedy.
They said that after the numbness (that never came) wore off, the pain would return and might even be worse. It was worse for quite a while, but seems a tad better tonight. On a scale of 1 to 10, if the pain was a 9 (I don't know about you, but I reserve the 10 for being burned at the stake or have your fingernails pulled out with pliers or having all your bones broken in torture), then it is an 8 now. Walking with my walker, that is. Sitting it is about a 4 or 5.
They say that if the steroids injected work, it will take 24 to 48 hours. So I may wake up tomorrow much better, or mebbe Wednesday morning. I have High Hopes, but my nurse daughter, Anne, says it often takes several injections. Bummer! Meanwhile, I will have to go back to Physical Therapy. I have acupuncture on my list to consider in the future.
Sorry, I did not mean to shove my story into your lives. When this phase of my life passes, I promise to post ONLY about the good mysteries I will be enjoying!

mabel1015j · « **Reply #7726 on:** October 27, 2015, 01:21:40 PM »

No apology necessary, MaryPage, we can all identify with something similar, and we want to know how you are doing. I hope you get some relief very soon.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #7727 on:** October 27, 2015, 01:26:53 PM »

ohmyMaryPage, I do so hope it works better in the next few days.. I am having finger problems, which is not fun on the computer..

mabel1015j · « **Reply #7728 on:** October 27, 2015, 03:49:50 PM »

Somewhere I saw a description of "Mr Churchill's Secretary: A Maggie Hope Mystery" by Susan MacNeal. I think it may be the first of a series. I searched my library catalogue and was able to get it from them as an ebook, thru Ovid.

I'm about a third of the way thu it and it's a good read, with a little mystery. I didn't realize that the IRA took advantage of the beginning of WWII to try to overthrow Britain's rule of Ireland. So there are potential spies and sabators of both Germany and Ireland as characters. The protagonist is a young woman whose English parents had brought her to Boston as a baby. Shortly after that the parents were killed in an automobile accident (I don't know why, but I love the word automobile, as opposed to car, so much more elegant and beautiful a word than CAR.) she was raised by an aunt who taught at Wellesley. Maggie grows up to love figures and math and is about to start graduate work at M.I.T., when her aunt tells her that her grandmother - who Maggie didn't know about - had died in London and had left Maggie her house and M had to go to London to clean it out and sell it. It was 1937.

Nobody was buying big, old Victorian houses as the war began, so M stayed for a year trying to fix it up enough to get it sold. In the end she begins taking in women boarders. As the Germans move thru Europe and Churchill becomes PM, Maggie is offered a job as a secretary in his office. She is insulted that she can't even be considered to be interviewed to be one of C's private secretaries, because only men hold that job, but she conceeds and eventually becomes C's typist.

The lives of the other women boarders are described, one seems a little shady. Some other characters are talked about in shadow, I don't know who they are going to turn out to be.

So far an interesting premise.

Jean

JoanK · « **Reply #7729 on:** October 27, 2015, 04:48:11 PM »

MaryPage: we all have our fingers and toes crossed for you.

Jean: I've read the Mary Hope series and enjoyed it, especially since I was a woman mathematician about a decade later, so I really identify with her.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/susan-elia-macneal/

I see there is a new one coming out this month "Mrs. Roosevelt's confidante." I may have to break my book-buying ban.

JoanK · « **Reply #7730 on:** October 27, 2015, 05:19:33 PM »

After checking Seniorlearn, I went into my mail and found a message from Amazon that "Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante" had been delivered to my kindle. I must have pre-ordered it and forgotten. What a coincidence!

mabel1015j · « **Reply #7731 on:** October 28, 2015, 12:40:22 AM »

I probably saw that mentioned on Amazon and checked my library.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #7732 on:** October 28, 2015, 09:00:17 AM »

Aha, an author who makes me interested.. Will look up what is available from her.

JoanK · « **Reply #7733 on:** October 28, 2015, 03:30:59 PM »

STEPH: some of her books are better than others.

JoanK · « **Reply #7734 on:** October 28, 2015, 07:01:57 PM »

Funny I'm reading a fiction mystery about Winston Churchill. We're just finishing reading "Dead Wake" about the sinking of the Lusitania. It proved to contain a real life mystery about Winston Churchill: did he or his subordinates deliberate let the Lusitania be put in danger to get the US to join WWI? (he was Secretary of the Navy at the time. His code breakers knew where the sub and the Lusitania were, had several means at their disposal to protect or warn her, and did nothing).

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!

Steph · « **Reply #7735 on:** October 29, 2015, 08:43:32 AM »

yes, The Imitation Game, that I watched on net flix indicated that they felt warning the boats all the time endangered the code breakers and so made a hard decision..
I ordered three books by the author and am looking forward to them.
Now if time would just slow down a bit.
I am so excited that J.K. Rowling wrote a Harry Play.. in London next summer, the plotting begins on how to get tickets and get there.

MaryPage · « **Reply #7736 on:** October 29, 2015, 11:09:06 AM »

Yes, they, the code breakers, had a ghastly dilemma concerning what they were able to discover by breaking those codes and what their superiors felt it safe for the war effort AS A WHOLE PICTURE to divulge. The situation room planners and plotters felt the KNOWING what the enemy was doing was going to win us the war, ultimately, and it was of paramount importance that the Germans not learn the codes were broken. The information was too useful, and was used in every way possible short of giving up the game. Lives were saved where possible, but many sacrifices had to be made. War is horrible, but I honestly doubt we could have won without such as Alan Turing in that so super secret location that nothing could be divulged for FIFTY YEARS!

JoanK · « **Reply #7737 on:** October 29, 2015, 04:59:44 PM »

The Lusitania episode involved a similar group of code breakers 30 years earlier in WWI, but the issues were the same.

That group has not become as well known as the WWII group, but should be. There were some interesting characters then, too. They would make a fascinating movie.

Steph · « **Reply #7738 on:** October 30, 2015, 10:36:41 AM »

code breakers in the spy business are busy to this day. I had a cousin who worked as a code breaker back in the Korean disaster.

MaryPage · « **Reply #7739 on:** October 31, 2015, 07:33:44 AM »

I know about code breakers, but not so much as a sliver about breaking codes. Bob was deputy director of the NSA. Have you ever visited their Cryptologic Museum? They even have an Enigma Machine captured from the Germans. And just heaps of stuff that goes on and on forever. Creepy and fascinating. Open to the public here in Maryland at Fort Meade.

Steph · « **Reply #7740 on:** October 31, 2015, 08:57:35 AM »

I have heard of the museum, but never seen it.. On my list of someday events since I love that area.

FlaJean · « **Reply #7741 on:** October 31, 2015, 12:13:18 PM »

MaryPage, the Cypher Machine is now (probably temporary loan) at the Mariners Museum in Newport News, VA. I saw it in their section on World War II. They have a notice that the "German Navy Four-Rotor (M-4) "Enigma" Cypher Machine with Spare Rotors, circa 1942 Courtesy of the National Security Agency." I'm originally from the Tidewater area and visited the museum this past May. Wonderful exhibits.

JoanK · « **Reply #7742 on:** October 31, 2015, 03:42:57 PM »

That's fascinating! I wonder what all those keys did?

MaryPage: I wish I had known about that when I lived in the area. I would have loved to see it.

Judy Laird · « **Reply #7743 on:** October 31, 2015, 04:14:58 PM »

Mary Page would love to know how you are feeling, did
the shots help. Off Monday for a cat scan on my lungs pricey
little things.

MaryPage · « **Reply #7744 on:** October 31, 2015, 05:19:30 PM »

The lumbar nerve root block cut the pain in approximately half for about 3 days, allowing me some desperately needed sleep. Now the pain is back in full swing, and I am beside myself. We'll see what is next in the protocol of remedies. Not fair! is what I keep shouting to the fates. Not that it gets me anywhere.

JoanK · « **Reply #7745 on:** October 31, 2015, 09:13:12 PM »

Not fair is right! We'll keep our thoughts with you.

Judy Laird · « **Reply #7746 on:** October 31, 2015, 11:48:44 PM »

Stiff upper lip MP maybe another shot will help.

Steph · « **Reply #7747 on:** November 01, 2015, 09:06:57 AM »

Oh MaryPage, I feel so bad for you. Constant pain changes the way you view life.. I hope they find something that will work a bit better.

JoanK · « **Reply #7748 on:** November 01, 2015, 05:41:31 PM »

As eager as I was to get "Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante", I'm having trouble getting into it. It rambles all over the place, giving snapshot scenes of all the notables of the day, irrelevant to the plot.

I got the latest Parnell Hall puzzle lady book from the library. but I hate to read a library copy - cant work the puzzles!

mabel1015j · « **Reply #7749 on:** November 01, 2015, 07:22:42 PM »

do you have a copier Joan?

In the first Mary Hope book, I found myself breezing thru some parts that were repetitive or over described - imo. I was hoping - no pun

- that she would get better as she went through the series, but maybe she's run out of story and is padding.

I'm trying to watch Neil Degrasse Tyson's Cosmos on Nat Geo, he has put in many stories of women scientists who I never heard of, but i get lost within the astrophysics. Sigh..........

Explorer: Bill Nye's Global Meltdown is coming on next at 8:00. It sounds interesting, "the global effects of climate change". I may be sorry.

Jean

Steph · « **Reply #7750 on:** November 02, 2015, 08:33:27 AM »

reading Bundle of Trouble by Diana Orgain... Hmm. I am way too old, I suspect.. I keep being horrified at the places she is taking a teeny baby, less than a month old. I remember so vividly with both of my children, the Ob and Pediatric.. both saying,, home for a month limited visiters, noone sick.. Whew.. Plus, I keep wondering what she expected a baby to be like. The mystery seems good,but a lot of..iffy stuff. I knew that PI s in California need a lot of training,,

JoanK · « **Reply #7751 on:** November 02, 2015, 03:55:20 PM »

I guess it's been too long for me. I certainly kept my babies home at first. With my daughter, neighbors came over and were cooing over her, and she got a cold at a few weeks: temp 104, very scary!

Steph · « **Reply #7752 on:** November 03, 2015, 08:25:26 AM »

I mostly liked the book and will see if she has written anything else before I make up my mind on her.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #7753 on:** November 03, 2015, 11:55:31 AM »

I'm watching Lisa Scottolini on our local (Philly) news, her new book is out Corrupted. It is a new Benny Losotto (?sp) story based on a true incident in Phila where two judges were paid by the private prison business to give kids heavy sentences, way beyond what would be typical - like prison time for fighting in the cafeteria.

I like her books so much, I must get on the library hold list.

Jean

JoanK · « **Reply #7754 on:** November 03, 2015, 03:59:47 PM »

Me too!

Steph · « **Reply #7755 on:** November 04, 2015, 08:04:26 AM »

Yes,. I like her books and she used to write a column for the local newspaper that was fun..Besides, she has several dogs and always says, that her corgi rules the roost of all of them.

JoanK · « **Reply #7756 on:** November 04, 2015, 04:52:49 PM »

Aha: a fellow corgi lover!

Steph · « **Reply #7757 on:** November 05, 2015, 08:32:13 AM »

Like all true dog people, I am convinced my corgi are the smartest best dogs in all of creation.. my daughter in law has pugs and she knows its is pugs of course,, but dog people recognize each other immediately. Probably the dog hair..

MaryPage · « **Reply #7758 on:** November 05, 2015, 09:46:24 AM »

I am a Big Time Fan of particular dogs I have owned down the ages. The latest star in my family circle is Chester, who is a rusty haired half Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and half miniature poodle. He is not considered a "mutt," as he cost my granddaughter who is owned by him THE MOON. He is a Cavapoo. Smarter'n I am, by a lot!

Am too old and infirm now to have a dog. Cannot take care of myself without help, much less a dog. But oh, that Chester!

Steph · « **Reply #7759 on:** November 06, 2015, 08:15:21 AM »

Chester is probably wonderful, but I am sorry he cost a good deal of money, since he should not have. Mixes should not be expensive.. They dont breed true, etc and therefore are not registerable.

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Author Topic: Mystery Corner ~ 2 (Read 906066 times)