Book Log 2021 #25: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman

David Small is the new rabbi for a Convervative temple in a Boston suburb, and while he's personable he doesn't quite mesh with the committee that runs the temple. The rabbi is bookish, while the committee thinks they may want someone whose more focused on fundraising and supporting the growth of their community.

This tension comes to a head when a young woman is found murdered on temple grounds, and evidence suggests that the rabbi is the killer. But it turns out the rabbi's academic nature is actually well-suited to applying logic to the evidence at hand, and working with the local (Catholic) police chief, he not only sets out to clear his name, but figure out who actually committed the murder.

You don't find mystery solving rabbis everywhere, and the shifting points of view - you get chapters focusing on the rabbi, the committee, and even the victim before her untimely demise - further sets this book apart from your standard murder mystery. But there was still something about this book where I couldn't really connect with it. I don't know if it's the prose feeling a little old-fashioned or what, but I just felt kind of meh about the whole thing.

Which is too bad, as I had a couple of external factors that wanted me to like the book (the author is also a BU alum, and the town in the series is based on Marblehead). The books in this series were also adapted into the short-lived TV show Lannigan's Rabbi if you'd rather watch than read.

 Book Log 2021 #24: The Last Trial by Scott Turow

After a long and storied career as a criminal defense attorney in Kindle County, Sandy Stern prepares to represent his final client, a longtime friend and Nobel laureate whose cancer drug gave Stern a new lease on life... before it was found to have potentially killed several patients. Working with his daughter Marta (who has already announced that she will retire and close their firm at the end of the case), Stern has to plot a defense while also battling the physical and mental infirmities that can come with advanced age.

The legal thriller part of the book is solid as usual, but it's the parts that deal with the looming end of Sandy's career that made it stand out. We don't often see aging in real(ish) time in series like this, and seeing how Sandy confronts the end of his career and looming mortality adds a dimension to the book that would otherwise be missing. Hopefully some of the other characters will get a similar valedictory novel. 

 Book Log 2021 #23: The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford

In this alternative history/fantasy novel, four strangers (a female Italian doctor, a mercenary, the exiled heir to the Byzantine throne, and a Welsh wizard) join forces to ensure that Richard of Gloucester will gain the English throne and become Richard III.  The story mixes elements from our world (the Medici family, for example) with elements of the supernatural (the Byzantine army is led by a duke who is also a vampire) to create a really engaging and entertaining story.

This isn't a book that I would normally pick up - I'm not a fantasy reader generally - but a recommendation during an episode of So Many Damn Books sold me. What interested me as much as the plot was the story of the author, whose complicated personal and professional life seemed to lead to his works falling out of print and staying out of print for years after his death. It's a story as interesting as this book, which is saying something.

 Book Log 2021 #22: Sword of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

Uhtred of Bebbanburg has regained his Northumbrian fortress, and seems set to live out his days in the land of his birth.

Fate, of course, has other plans.

Edward, son of Alfred, is on the English throne, but there are questions if he can keep his kingdom together. Mercia and Wessex seem on the verge of splitting into independent kingdoms again, and various claimants to all the thrones start to stake their claims. In order to settle the unrest, and to live up to the oath he made to Edward's heir Aethelstan, Uhtred once again rides into battle.

This was on par with the other books in the later part of the series. Although as the next to last book in the series, how likely are you to bail now?

Unrelated technical note: I like to link to author websites rather than publishers where I can, but Cornwell's website basically acknowledges that this book exists and points you to where you can buy it. The lack of detail is surprising,