Payment Deferred - C.S. Forester

I felt it was time for a good, old-fashioned crime novel. 

Mr. Marble is having money troubles. His wife, Annie, doesn't seem to be able to control her spending, but Marble himself doesn't necessarily deny himself at times either. When an unknown nephew shows up on his doorstep, Marble sees an opportunity. Should he ask for a loan? The young man seems to have a bit of money, but he also seems to be catching on that his uncle is acting a bit strange. A shared drink later, and the nephew is dead, his money now in Marble's pocket.

What follows is the psychological deterioration of Marble. He can't seem to stop staring at the place where the body lay, but it also doesn't stop him from spending the money either. His strange behavior continues to escalate until the end of the book.

I found this to be an interesting book. You're just waiting for someone to notice something and find him out. You're getting paranoid with him, and it's quite a ride. I felt bad for the rest of his family. I won't say why, but I really did. The final sentence of the book made me smile because it just struck me funny. It wasn't too long, and I really enjoyed it. Good Book!

I Escaped from Auschwitz - Rudolph Vrba

This book is about one of two men who escaped from Auschwitz and tried to warn Hungary about what was about to happen to them. In 1944, Rudolph made his way from the concentration camp to Slovakia with Alfred Wetzler. At first, they spent hours convincing people they were telling the truth. Then politics delayed the information from reaching the place it needed to go to fully prevent Hungarian Jews from being transported.

The book is very thorough. Vrba went through a great deal to survive, and even after he got away, he didn't give up. He nearly died a few times, and you get the sense that he was just meant to actually make it out of there. So many of the others, including friends and family, didn't make it. Vrba has to focus on survival, because that's all he can do.

I found a couple of things really disappointing, but it had nothing to do with the writing. As I was reading through the book, some footnotes would update the reader on what happened to certain people. I was incredibly disappointed to learn about the number of Nazi SS men who basically got a light sentence or never had to pay for their crimes. How can there be a statute of limitations of cruelty of that scale? The other thing that bothered me was the fate of the report. It took so long for it to get into the right hands. I know Vrba and Wetzler were frustrated as well, and you can't blame them. People died, and they didn't necessarily have to.

A few side notes about the book itself. Pictures of the report are in the book, but I wasn't able to read them because the print was too small. If you read the entire book, you'll get a bit of repetition. The escape and report is explained in detail in the main text, and then in the appendixes, it's also summarized as well. I think it's the reprint of an article that appeared somewhere, but it is the same information.

This is the story of a brave man, and one of four who escaped around the same time and tried to tell the world about the horror of Auschwitz. In some ways, it's understandable that the people they came across couldn't believe such cruelty was possible, but we know now it was not only true, it was worse than we could ever imagine. I highly recommend this book if you want an inside view of a survivor story. I believe it's worth reading. Good Book!

The Keys of the Kingdom - A. J. Cronin

I put this on my watch list because it was someone's favorite book. I've read quite a few memoirs now, so unfortunately, I can't remember who exactly it was. When it went on sale, I snatched it up.

Francis isn't the usual Catholic priest. His childhood isn't happy, and he doesn't conform to training the way the other men do. This makes him stand out in a good way to one man in particular, who sends him to China. Through years of hard work and following his own conscious, Francis makes a life for himself that he should be proud of.

This book wasn't something I should have enjoyed. I can't really put my finger on why I did enjoy it. There was a lot of sorrow in Francis's life, and he was misunderstood by his superiors. His thoughts on God, while controversial for his faith, were inspiring to others and, frankly, to me at times. I normally don't enjoy a book with this much sorrow, but I came away from it with a strange sense of peace. Great writing and a truly lovable character. I gladly give this a Good Book! review.

The Note Through the Wire - Doug Gold

I was given the paperback of this book and finally got around to reading it. It interested me as a true story written by the son-in-law of the people involved, so I thought there would be a lot of first-hand knowledge.

Josefine does what she can for the partisans in Slovenia during WWII. When her brother is captured, she does what she can to try and figure out what happened to him. It leads her to a local prisoner of war camp, where she briefly meets Bruce. A lot of time passes before they meet up again.

Bruce comes from New Zealand to fight but is eventually captured due to an infected arm wound. He was on the run, but the wound forces him to make a decision he isn't happy with. After being captured, he's hardly a model prisoner, and it takes quite a long time before he finds himself in a position to talk to Josefine again.

This is definitely a fictional representation of the relationship by these two. I thought the author had more interaction with the subjects of the book, but in the appendix, it sounds like Josefine and Bruce didn't like talking about their wartime experiences. After Bruce died, Josefine agreed to talk, but tragically died in a car accident a few days before she was scheduled to talk to the author. He does have information taken from the children and letters between Bruce and Josefine.

This was a good book, if you look at it as a fictionalized memoir or one of those "based on true events" stories. The writing was pretty good, and I commend the author for telling the story of these two. Even if you remove the fictionalized aspects, the story is amazing and worth telling. Good Book!

The Last Wish (The Witcher Saga #1) - Andrzej Sapkowski

Way back when, I put what I believed to be the first book in this series on my watch list, Blood of Elves. More recently, with the Netflix series out, I looked and noticed that this book was showing as book 1. I picked this up when it was on sale, not having any idea what kind of ground it was going to cover.

In this book, Geralt of Rivia is a witcher, a monster hunter who travels around earning his living by taking care of problems that plague the people. For the right price, of course. Surprisingly, he has more of a code than many people imagine, and most don't understand him. But in the end, he gets the job done.

If you've watched the first two seasons of the Netflix series, you'll recgonize all the main stories included in this book. The tales of the striga, boar-man, Renfri, Calanthe's daughter, the sylvan and the elves, and the djinn and Yennefer are covered here. With the exception of the djinn and Yen, the stories are the "side quests." On the other hand, they are somewhat different, and Ciri isn't present in the book at all.

The writing style was good, and I didn't get bored reading this, even though I already knew what was going to happen. It's not the author's fault that I already knew things, so it's a bit difficult to rank this book. I think if you start reading this knowing what you're getting into, you won't be disappointed by the repetition if you've seen the show. It's a good book, and I'd like to read more of the series. Good Book!

Surgeon at Arms - Lipmann Kessel

This is the story of a surgeon who found himself on the wrong side of the lines. After helping others escape, he himself escaped the Germans. After that, he spent time in different locations and made a few attempts to cross back to the Allied side of the lines.

I was struck by the mention of a review that said, "One is becoming as bored of these escape stories as of their tellers, beamish boys galumphing their way home through a tangle of generous peasants, Fascist spies and boastful partisans." I'm not sure why anyone would say something like that. Maybe they were forced to read it and didn't appreciate that? I'm a firm believer that every life has a story. Maybe it isn't interesting to everyone, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be told.

I enjoyed this book. It dealt with the frustration and mental strain of being cooped up and wanting to get back to your own side of the war. It doesn't glorify war, in fact, in the postscript, the author calls war beastly and praises peaceful construction. The author doesn't gloss over his weaknesses or make himself out to be a hero. As he himself said, it was just ordinary people doing extraordinary things to combat evil. Good Book!

The Last Express - Baynard Kendrick

I was interested in reading this after seeing a movie called Eyes in the Night. It's also based on the character that was the subject of this book. I really enjoyed that movie, and I wanted to see what it would be like to read one of the stories.

Duncan Maclain is a blind detective who uses a seeing eye dog and his best friend to solve mysteries. In this case, one of Duncan's friends is accused of murder, and the evidence to put away a criminal goes missing after a grenade is thrown into the backseat of a man's car.

The thing I loved the most about the movie was the dog. Of course, I was impressed with the way Duncan and his companions worked together, but watching the dog performing the work added so much. In the book, Duncan had two working dogs, Schnucke and Dreist. One did the normal seeing eye duties while the other one was more of a protective animal.

In this case, while the book was very clever and unique, it wasn't quite better than the movie. It's not the same story, but even though Eyes in the Night was made in 1942, I loved it. Special shout out to the working dog in that movie, Friday, who did some amazing things. I'm a dog person, so maybe that swayed me. The book didn't seem to rely on the dogs as much as the movie did, and I missed that. Maybe some of the other books with Maclain have more dog involvement, but this one didn't quite hit the mark for me. I may try another one in the future, because I'd like to give this character another chance.