You know how we all have our little "what did I do?" incidents on the highway? For instance, I was driving quietly - well, at least in the correct lane and under 73 mph on KS Ave. and minding my own business - when this car went around me and the lady driving honked and yelled a word that rhymes with "witch"! I mean to tell you! If she'd been an old bridge partner, I'd have guessed that at some point I'd trumped her ace - and at that point, I'd have trumped her whole car, but since she didn't look familiar I shrugged and drove on.

Okay, so, live and let live, right? Ha! Again, I say "ha!' I was, recently, driving down East 10 highway on my way, I would guess, to Chico's and I noticed that bumper sticker on the car ahead of me that said, "Honk if you love Jesus!" - and the exclamation mark was even on it - so I did. Honk, that is - and even smiled at her. She gave me the well-known "sign of the finger" and shook her fist at me in her rear-view mirror.

Ah, if only I'd been driving the car with the license plate "And 2 u 2" I'd have pulled ahead of her so she could read it! But I wasn't, so I did the next best thing - I told Jesus about her the following Sunday - there, that took care of her!

I'm telling you, there are those darned "What did I do?" moments not only on the highway but at the movies - the sound is up too loud and I have sensitive hearing! Now, if I were the queen---which leads me into my first book for this Fiction column, "The Red Queen", by Philippa Gregory (I am getting aw-ful-ly good at leading into a title, if I do say so myself!) and the red queen in this story is a very determined mother "who sets her heart on putting her son on the throne of England regardless of the cost to herself, to England and even to the boy."

The copy I am reviewing from is in Large Type, so if this is not your cup of tea, this format may not be of interest to you, howsomever I have been told by readers-of-many-years that the large print books are their favorites and not because of their eyesight. Sometimes the larger print seems to make the reading go more quickly, so don't dismiss it out of hand.

It opens - brutally - on the personal, first-person voice of a woman, in obvious emotional torment and fear, and her thoughts as she is pushed towards the scaffold where she will be burned to death:

"They turn me, roughly, and tie my hands around the stake at my back - I could almost think that time itself has frozen and the angels are coming down for me - stranger things have happened. Did not the angels come for me when I was herding sheep? Did they not call me by name? Did I not lead an army to the relief of Orleans? Did I not crown the Dauphin of France and drive out the English? Just me? A girl from Domremy, advised by angels?"

The fire is lit, the flames catch the hem of her dress, the crowd jeers, cheers, cries, screams around her and her last thoughts are - "Dear God, save me, Your daughter, Dear God, put down your hand for me, save me - " and young Lady Margaret tips off her prayer stool and lands on her bedroom floor with a thud and an annoyed female companion saying "Lady Margaret, go to bed. It is long past your bedtime and Our Lady does not value the prayers of disobedient girls." But - but - for a brief, shining moment, Margaret knew that she had been there at the burning at the stake of Joan of France, the Maid of Orleans "and I understood what a girl could do, what a woman could be, then they drag me back to earth and scold me as if I were an ordinary girl and spoil everything."

I was fascinated by these opening sentences and so took the liberty of taking up space to quote them. This little 10 year old is going to be one tough cookie - or its equivalent in the years in the 1400's, I can already tell, can't you? For one thing, she is married, widowed, and a mother at 14 - and the image of the throne of England is always there waiting for her son, who has other ideas, and lies in wait.

I've heard of and seen Gregory's books for a long time now but never read any - I think I may start - and this book is going to be a swashbuckling tale with intrigue, her learning that the line she descends from is not going to be put on the throne and she learns this from a "gray, weary looking husband, but then, he is old - he is 35 years old, after all." Come and check this one out - you'll thank me!

Onward and upward! Anyone who's progressed past a very basic reading level has encountered or been required to read something of William Faulkner's superb tales - now there was a wordsmith! So, this book, "Kings of the Earth", by Jon Clinch, earned a comparison to a strong literary thread of Faulkner and although I have never read or heard of Mr. Clinch, till now, I am prepared to take it seriously - and I don't mean a backhanded swipe by the word, "seriously", as I'm sure this novel can stand on its own merits.

Rave reviews aside, this is a powerful story of the age-old themes of life, death, and family in a rural setting, and "the edge of civilization is closer than we think" and it is on a primitive farm on land in upstate New York, "where the three Proctor brothers live in a kind of crumbling state - they linger like creatures from an older, wilder, and far less forgiving world - until one of them dies in his sleep and the other two are suspected of his murder." And right there you have the makings of a horror story in any century with the components of hatred, faith, suspicion, fear and blood lines - and we meet Vernon, Audie, and Creed. Also Del, the state trooper, who tries to understand them and still carry out justice, Preston Hatch, the neighbor who's always tried to protect them, and the only sister, Donna, "who managed to cut herself loose from the family but is drawn back."

Okay, so I started my usual "reading portions of the story" - Yeah, well, that idea came to a halt within 2 minutes. The story is told from everybody's words and recollections in the recorded words and recollections - some no more than 1 or 2 sentences, then someone else would take over for maybe 6 or 7 sentences, then another character would be telling their thoughts and feelings. No, dear readers, it doesn't interfere with your reading of it, although it takes a little getting used to, but it's hard on the reviewer! I should back-track a little and say that some of the pages have quick a bit of writing on them, and in them are feelings of guilt, joy, Audie's simple pleasure in working with pieces of wood, the putting of horsehair in their mother's cigarette in place of the tobacco so she's be cured of Cancer, the old, rusty tractor they used to get around places 'cause they'd never be able to afford a car (and didn't want one) and I can tell you you'll go from one voice to the other quickly and every voice is unique to that character and believable and this book is a page-turner. Yes, it is like Faulkner and you will get hooked on it after 4 or 5 pages.

I tend to be suspicious of any story that would have the names "Jitty" and "Tinkie" in it - to say nothing of the fact that the former name is a resident ghost and the other name belongs to a best friend of P. I. Sarah Booth Delaney (and the ghost is in Sarah's ancestral home!)

Be that as it shouldn't be, it is the new story by Carolyn Haines titled, "Bone Appetit" (don't you just love cutesy titles?) which has Sarah being a P. I., dreams of being an actress, "not to mention her quest to find the right man." Okay - fine. Anyway, her dear friend, Tinkie, urges Sarah to come to a spa and cooking school and while the pampering and great food go a long way "toward making her feel like her old self (Sarah, that is)".

It's the women at the spa who are competing to be the next spokesperson with the spa's parent company whom she find delightful - particularly the backbiting. Until the top contender is found poisoned and the no. 1 suspect hires Sarah to clear her name. Still with me? As an aside to the person who, upon reading this, says - "yes but where is this going and why would I care?" a one-word explanation. This is the latest in Ms. Haines' Southern cozy mysteries and I can assure you either you like this genre or you don't - but for those who can take 'em or not - hold on for the next book and for those of you who genuinely like this type of story, run don't walk into the library and check it out. Oh, and one more thing - she has a dog she loves - Sweetie Pie. Okay.

My last book is going to be one of those action, shooting, bombing, war books by the famous-for-em authors, W.E.B. Griffin "The Vigilantes" and fasten your seat belts! This is a "police chronicle" set in Philadelphia and it concerns murders "but no one seems to mind much, because the victims are street thugs and lowlifes" and most of "people like us" feel that way, right?

However, Homicide Sgt. Matt Payne keeps kicking over rocks, asking questions and comes to the conclusion "he starts seeing signs that these guys are maybe getting whacked by professionals not only from out of state but maybe from even out of the country." What starts happening next is unexpected - there are copycats and Vigilante groups start taking credit for the kills.

When the Police Dept. tries to stop these groups, guess who protests? (No, not the victims' families!) The ones who object to the clean-up are the "decent' people in town who like what the groups are doing. So the mayor, alarmed, forms a Task Force led by Payne, and things get really boiling when a group called Crimes Against Humanity post a "hit list", all over the city, targeting those who need to be eliminated - and the Mayor and business and civic leaders are on the posted list of those who need to be killed. So much for the City of Brotherly Love slogan.

This story, obviously, is about violence and men and women who put their lives on the line for people who may need it (but don't expect a "Gee, thanks a lot!" from them, in gratitude). Matt Payne is an honest cop trying to find the bad guys and end this "Murder the bad guys for money" racket and a lot of pros and cons are spoken by the characters in the story. This is, probably, essentially a man's book but Griffin is a good storyteller and it's worth your time to come in and look it over.

Okay, it's that time again when I depart, after a few words of wisdom, to wit: just because someone's turn light is on doesn't mean they remember it is, water your trees by a slow tickle of water from the hose about 2 to 3 hours once every 2 weeks, make sure your animals have fresh water daily, go see the movie, "The Return of Nanny McPhee", and be glad the kids are back in school - and hope some school genius figures out a way to lift this nation from 13 in the world, in our kids knowledge, to at least 5th! Do they really need all that Summer vacation time? Can't we get rid of poor teachers? Take care and come use your library, Poppets! Bye!