Bless the Bride

I haven't been able to read all the Molly Murphy mysteries authored by Rhys Bowen, but I've read most of them. On the last trip to Half-Price Books, I lucked upon the tenth in the series Bless the Bride. The book opens with Molly staying at the home of her future mother-in-law in peaceful Westchester County so she can help sew her wedding trousseau. Molly misses the fast pace of her life in New York City as well as her lively friends. She is tired of Mrs. Sullivan's remarks about the well-bred young women her son Daniel could have married and being relegated to sewing undergarments because her stitching is not fine enough to work on the wedding dress.
When she receives a letter from her friends asking her to come back to the city for a party they have planned for her, she jumps at the excuse telling Mrs. Sullivan that she will return in two or three days. Her friends have further news for her when she arrives - a mysterious Chinese man has left a message with them for her asking her to meet with his boss regarding a private detection case.  Molly is intrigued, but she has promised her fiance, Police Captain Daniel Sullivan, she will give up her life as a private detective once they are married.
But wait, they aren't married yet and what could one more commission hurt, especially if Daniel doesn't find out about it? So Molly sets out to find a young Chinese girl who disappeared after having been bought and smuggled in to become the bride of a powerful Chinatown business man.
 I really enjoy this series of a head strong Irish immigrant making her own way in 1900's New York. I look forward to seeing how things will change now that she and Daniel are married. Will she really give up her detection work? (Don't you love the cover picture of the wedding dress?)
(Rhys Bowen has a new 'Royal Spyness' series set in 1930's England for which I'll be on the lookout.)

The title of Alan Bradley's fourth Flavia de Luce book comes from Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott'. At the end of Part II:
"But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
"I am half sick of shadows," said

The Lady of Shalott."

The Santa hat on the skeleton on the cover is the clue that this book is set in December. Flavia has decided to once and for all discover if what her elder sisters have been telling her about the myth of 'Father Christmas' is true or not. Flavia still believes in Santa Claus - still wants to believe - so she has decided to capture him when he comes down the chimney and prove to her sisters that he is real. In order to trap him, Flavia has mixed a quantity of birdlime glue in her laboratory which she plans to spread around the chimneys on Christmas Eve.
In the meantime, her father has leased out Buckshaw, the family manor, to a 1950's film director. The entire crew and actors arrive just before the holiday to begin shooting the movie. When the local Rector persuades the stars to put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet to help raise money for a new church roof, Flavia's father agrees to let them use Buckshaw. Most of the townspeople turn out for the evening and are then trapped there by a raging snowstorm. They awake the next morning to find that the lead actress has been strangled. Flavia finds the body and clues missed by Inspector Hewitt.
These books are such a delight. With each one we learn more about the eccentric characters. I can't wait to find out what Flavia's sister, Feely (Ophelia) meant when in answer to Flavia's question, "Why do you hate me?", she replied, "I don't hate you. I wish I did. It would be so much easier." I think that was a clue to something upcoming.

I liked Robert Hicks' book The Widow of the South so much that I wanted to read his next novel, A Separate Country. This is how goodreads describes the novel: Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, A Separate Country is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army--and one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated. Starting fresh after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 children with her, including three sets of twins. But fate had other plans. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had one last foe to battle: Yellow Fever. A Separate Country is the heartrending story of a decent and good man who struggled with his inability to admit his failures-and the story of those who taught him to love, and to be loved, and transformed him.
Personally, I did not like this book as much as Hicks' first one. It was more of a slog to get through. I'm not sure I ever subscribed to the theory of General Hood's transformation even though I liked the book from a historical fiction standpoint.