Back When We Were Grownups

Anne Tyler is one of those authors I've been reading for many years, though I haven't tried to read everything she writes. I picked up Back When We Were Grownups at a garage sale recently - scanned through it and got hooked on the opening lines: "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. She was fifty-three years old by then -- a grandmother. Wide and soft and dimpled, with two short wings of dry, fair hair flaring almost horizontally from a center part. Laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. A loose and colorful style of dress edging dangerously close to Bag Lady.
Give her credit: most people her age would say it was too late to make any changes. What's done is done, they would say. No use trying to alter things at this late date. It did occur to Rebecca to say that. But she didn't."
I like authors who can write an entire book about what I call "ordinary people" and make it interesting. Tyler is an expert at doing so. Her writing presents what I call "truths" about life, love, loss, happiness, purpose, strength - themes found in all our lives - which, I suppose, is what makes her books so relate-able.
Rebecca fears she has lost her own true self and goes searching for her, only to find she has been living the life she was meant to have all along. Isn't that what we all get?

Thanks to another Friend of the Library who has adopted Victoria Thompson as an author, I have been able to read all the 'Gaslight Mysteries in order, of which Murder on Bank Street is number ten.
Out of his affection for midwife, Sarah Brandt, Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy has decided to try to solve the murder of her husband, Dr. Tom Brandt even though the odds of finding witnesses and evidence after four years are slim.
Malloy has narrowed the likely suspects down to four and as he hones in on first one and then another, there are many twists and turns. Sarah does not figure as prominently in the solving of this case as she has in the previous ones - she is almost afraid to finally find out who killed her husband and why. As the list narrows to two suspects, Thompson makes you believe it is first one and then another right up to the final pages. She is quite adept at keeping the suspense and mystery going until the final shocking revelation.
If you like period pieces (New York in the 1890's) as do I, with characters you care about, I think you will like this series. Now that Dr. Tom's murder has been solved, which 'frees' Sarah, I'm looking forward to seeing how her relationship with Malloy develops.

Okay, secretly, I want to be Maisie Dobbs. I even bought a hat like the one she wears - unfortunately wearing it doesn't turn me into a thirty-something, previously poor, now rich, intelligent, adventuresome, psychologist/investigator.
Elegy For Eddie is Jacqueline Winspear's ninth in the Maisie Dobbs series set in World War I and after. It is 1933, Maisie is an established investigator when several Covent Garden costermongers hire her to look into the death of Eddie Pettit - a gentle soul with a magical gift for working with horses. It appears Eddie was killed in an accident, but the costers have their doubts.
Maisie begins her search for answers on the working-class streets of Lambeth where Eddie had lived and where she had grown up. The inquiry quickly leads her to a newspaper baron, politicians and behind-the-scenes men of power. As she uncovers lies and manipulation on a national scale, Maisie must decide whether to expose secrets of national security or see justice done for Eddie.
As the characters in any series develops, the reader comes to care about them and wonder, "what's next" in their lives. It is apparent yet another romantic attachment for Maisie is coming to an end. Is she incapable of a lasting love because of the loss of her first love in World War I? Or is it just because of her independent streak? This novel sets up the next one as England once again faces the probability of being drawn into yet another war in Europe.
I absolutely adore Jacqueline Winspear's novels. Maybe when Downton Abbey has run its delightful course on PBS, someone will produce a Maisie Dobbs series for television. I can only hope.