Reader’s Diary

Daniel Robb

Daniel Robb’s roots are in a once-prosperous Cape Cod family.  He still lives there, in Woods Hole, but is a writer and carpenter of modest means. The only tangible remainder of the past still in family hands is a 68-year-old 15.5 foot Herreshoff sloop.   The restoration of that boat is the subject of “Sloop”. It’s a good “project book” full of local characters and interesting digressions.   Robb is a practical craftsman, not a perfectionist, and while there is an undercurrent of ill ease about the way the rich have come to dominate his home town the book is not overly sentimental.

Will Adams

This is an unusually good thriller about the hunt for Alexander the Great’s tomb.   Despite its virtues, which include characters the reader actually cares about, the pace is too fast, too much like an action movie.   Adams should slow down and recap once in a while.

Julian Stockwin

Following the heartbreaking end to “The Admiral’s Daughter“, Stockwin’s up-from-the-ranks hero Thomas Kydd is severely depressed.  A scandal has ended his navel career.  We know that the hero of a series won’t be killed, but here Stockwin heaps so much trouble on Kydd’s shoulders that it seems death might be preferable.

Anyone looking for a lot of action might be disappointed in this volume in the series, but I enjoyed it a lot.  It bears Stockwin’s hallmark: consistent quality.  I just wish he’d write faster.

Larry Bond

The only trouble with Larry Bond’s books is that there aren’t enough of them.  In this classic techno-thriller (a much debased genre since the end of the Cold War) the hero of “Dangerous Ground” returns, serving on a U.S. submarine that collides with a Russian sub and playing a role in the subsequent rescue effort.  “Cold Choices” is a solid, plausible underwater adventure with interesting characters and plenty of action.

Charles McCain

This is a good naval adventure set in the German navy during World War II.  The action ranges from the Graf Spee to the U Boat war in the North Atlantic. I enjoyed it, but at the risk of sounding politically correct, have qualms about a novel that seems to want to find a positive element in the Nazi war machine.  That said, McCain’s portrayal of the German home front and the effects of Allied bombing on the civilian population is interesting and thought-provoking.

Sarah Thornton

This is about the world of modern art, with a chapter on an auction, an art school, and so on.  It seems that in this world, “art” is something people do.  They may make it, collect it, sell it, or write about it.  It doesn’t seem, though, that this sort of art is about anything.  As portrayed here, the art world is about fashion, not craft or meaning: more Barnum than Bernini.