I'm back!!!  ("Helen, wherever she's been, she's with us again and I suppose this means more space taken away from the sports page to have to read about books--and don't start in on me again about doing some reading vs. watching my favorite 11 sports. Why can't she ever write about Nascar or bear baiting--I'll bet she's one of those tree huggers and is a charter member of Save the Whales--ok let's see what she has to say about Fiction-- and while you're up, pour me a cuppa.")

Visiting my good friend, Beve Jones, in Illinois, it was such fun to laugh with her, discover a delightful, excellent, and people-friendly dining spot called "The Depot"--cause that's what it's built inside and the trains go by 12 feet from your outside walls!--that makes great appetizers and either a rich chocolate cake to die for or THEIR OWN cheesecake to ransom your first-born for!  I took a trip outside "The Depot" one night, almost literally on the engines and freight cars rumbling slowly by, that reminded me of my many childhood trips back and forth between my hometown of Chicago and Topeka, Ks. on the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe where my grandfather was Chief Signal Engineer and I learned one lesson early--the Santa FE is NEVER late! 

The battle (as in the restaurant business) hardened chef of "The Depot" is due to try out for a TV cooking show, this Fall, and I'm convinced he'll do well--and I know Beve would agree from her crab cakes--and it's tough sticking your neck out to be judged and critiqued so I know he'll win if he follows Marie Antoinette's comment about the masses in France--"Let them eat cake!"--HIS! 

Beve wouldn't come with me close to the tracks to watch the trains going through, but she certainly didn't mind going bravely into gift shops and museums specialty shops and the movies!  Illinois is a lovely, green, "settled" look and their small communities have been there for years and people are very "open" and, of course, the great charm, for me, was re-connecting with a friend whom you've known for years--and she still welcomes you and loves you and makes your visit delightful!

Okay, Patti, time to talk about books--and we have some good ones in time for "beach reading" or just sit-down-in-the-shade-with-a-lemonade-and-a-book reading. Tami Hoag seems to always--ALWAYS--write bestsellers and this one I'll read as it deals with the criminal justice system and terror so, "Guilty as Sin" should be winner. So many  abductions--I'm speaking  of  young children here--have been reported in the news lately and the crime of the abduction of 8 year-old Josh Kirkwood obviously sent the town of Deer Lake, Mn., into panic--then, he was recovered and all should have been well, right? Wrong. 

The boy has not said one word since his return and refuses to name his abductor. Ellen North, attorney, has left Minneapolis behind and the tough cases she handled and hopes for a quieter life and discovers she gets assigned the Kirkwood case and to make several mountains out of molehills, a true-crime writer, Jay Brooks, is given full access to the case by Ellen's boss. Mr. Butler seems to be almost mysterious/sinister in himself and THEN, her former boyfriend turns out to be the champion for the defense.  NEvertheless, it is a comfort to know that her prime suspect is in jail and can't do anymore harm--and then a second child is kidnapped. A contest of wits, of concealed passions--all of this leads to the "good read" that Hoag has built a rep on. Come on in and take it home.

Now, Jude Deveraux's new one, "Temptation", really is a hoot! It's a story of misguided, misunderstood, mangled  emotions and , hopefully, all comes out well, in the end  for Temperance O'Neil, a women's rights activist in the early 1900's,and  her undercover "assignment" on a remote island off of Scotland's coast.  She's on the coast as an agreement that, in the terms of her new stepfather, in order to return to New York and her social work, she must go to work as a housekeeper for his nephew, James, and find him a wife.  If she succeeds in this, she may go back to New York--but not until. 

Now, James, the nephew, is nobody's idea of a gentleman--"he's a strapping, rough-mannered, giant interested only in farming and sheep and horses and chickens.  He doesn't want a wife and he's so rude and brusque that he's never kept a housekeeper for over 24 hours."  Of course, they fall in love, she's furious when he says "You win, I'll marry you" and SHE lets him know the agreement that sent him there which REALLY enrages him--anyway, the story goes on and is fun and, even though predictable, Deveraux's easy way of telling a story and the believability of the human predicaments carry it off. Fun stuff!  Come and see if you don't agree.

Who doesn't like--and avidly read--James Patterson (even  WITH his co-authors) and for his many fans, there's a new one--"The Quickie"--which, while being self-explanatory and to the point, doesn't quite describe the story so neatly.  There's assumptions, challenges, lying, covering up, false hopes, broken promises, and, generally speaking, a Grade A mess!  There are police partners, marriage partners, outside-the-pale partners and, always, the need to cover up and keep lying for police officer and "quickie " partner, Lauren Stillwell.

See, there's her husband, Paul, whom she thought was having an affair of his own with a gorgeous young woman she saw meeting him, her lover-for-one-evening, Scott, whom Paul confronted, Lauren's police partner, Mike, who discovered she was lying about her phone calls to Scott and was pressuring her to confess them to him so he could protect her--well, the web becomes increasingly tangled and the bottom line is--as is so true in a majority of our assumptions about human behavior and motives--false assumptions--not true what Lauren assumes and believes--nowhere to go and no one to trust. 

Scott's body is discovered in a park, Lauren goes along with the theory that two gang bosses shot Scott and a raid is called by her boss, Mike shoots the "bad guy" and is decorated for it, the IAB investigates--and what I give Patterson and his co-author Michael Ledwidge full marks for is the easy and roll-on way they make all the details of the lying, the confused thinking, the results all fall neatly into place--smoothly, believably, and talk about page turners, I read 20 pages so fast I set a record!  One last word about assumptions--himself says "Be careful about assumptions--that's how lawsuits are filed!" Read this book and become a believer about the damage that assumptions can wreak. Tell me what you think, after you read it. 

Okay, gentlemen, this one's for you, especially if you like action/adventure tales. W.E.B. Griffin's  " The Double Agents; A Men at War Novel" concerns the Office of Strategic Services and our protagonist, Dick Canidy, plus all of his colleagues, who has been asked to undertake a vital mission, during World War Two.  To wit (I love using that phrase!), convincing Hitler and his allies that the upcoming invasion will take place anyplace other than the beach of Normandy in France, any beach in France.

Well, "WIld Bill Donovan" has some interesting ways to do just that but everyone realizes that they will have to depend on fellow spies--many of whom deal with "both sides" for the money--"so the deceptions require layer upon layer of intrigue".  Picture yourself carefully building a house of cards, and it's taken great effort and patience and time to set it up, but it SEEMS as though it's going to be a success--then, someone opens a door and the draft comes in! Foiled again!  Well, what the OSS team has as their drafty door is a body is found floating off the coast of Spain  All the requisite elements for good adventure/fiction are here--double crosses, poison, "setting up" poor blokes who don't even know what they've volunteered for, working in fear and, sometimes, ignorance, and men who do what they have to do--including taking lives--but pray before doing it.  I enjoyed the parts I read and feel you will, too--see you at the check-out desk. 

Water your lawn a little bit more, indulge in a Root Beer float (a BIG one!), MAKE SURE YOUR PETS HAVE SHADE OUTSIDE AND PLENTY OF WATER AVAILABLE, wear a cool, rakish Summer straw hat out in the sun, take everyone to Braum's for ice cream--your treat!--and, during this time of reduced cool breezes and falling appetite, eat whatever you order or take the leftovers home 'cause this country wastes more food than any other nation and it's not right. I'll see you again, in this column, in August when there's even MORE  heat but as I used to tell my riders when they complained about either heat or cold--"Twice is mentioning that fact in conversation, the third time is complaining and ladies don't complain--particularly when there's nothing anyone can do!" They got so they'd count the number of times they were "mentioning" the uncomfortable weather--out loud so I'd know they were CERTAINLY not complaining--just "mentioning".  To this day, they remember the lesson and dislike constant complaining by anyone. TAke care--bye!