Fiction, Reviews

‘The Sea-Gull Cry,’ by Robert Nathan

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He topped a bare rise, and saw, for a moment, the Pamet valley spread out before him like a bowl of darkness cold with mist, with the few twinkling lights of Truro scattered among the hills. Look, he thought, how each house has its own bit of light, and how the night flows around them and between them.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t read a Robert Nathan book for a while, so I went to Amazon and picked out The Sea-Gull Cry, a 1942 novel. It’s a peaceful story about the war, full of longing, resonance, and the shadow of tragedy.

Louisa, a 19-year-old girl, and her little brother Jeri, are Polish refugees. Somehow they made it to America and set out wandering in the Cape Cod area. They’ve taken up residence in the cabin of a beached scow belonging to the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Baghot. They subsist by fishing and scavenging. What they’ll do when winter comes they are not sure.

Richard Smith is college professor in a nearby town. He’s in his 40s, lonely and directionless. So he decides to buy a sailboat and spend his summer sailing to New England. Unfortunately, he isn’t a very good sailor, and he quickly wrecks himself, not far from Louisa and Jeri. Mr. Baghot helps him repair his boat, and he grows friendly with the brother and sister. He is drawn to Louisa, but assumes such interest from his side would be unwelcome. Meanwhile, Jeri has a secret plan for the future that’s both noble and potentially disastrous.

As is the case with most of Robert Nathan’s novels, the story of The Sea-Gull Cry does not deliver the kind of epic climax one might expect. The satisfactions here are gentler – kind hearts, awakening love, and some of Nathan’s most exquisite poetic prose. Also an echo of tragedy and heroism in unexpected places. There is no magic in this book, except for the magic of love.

The Sea-Gull Cry is a beautiful book. I enjoyed it greatly. The age difference between Smith and Louisa is probably more of an issue today than it was at the time – especially, as Louisa herself mentions, since there were a lot of women back then for whom there would be no husbands at all.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Rags to Riches,’ by Greg Holman

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A few years back, a friend of mine asked whether anybody knew of any novels about businessmen. I mentioned John D. MacDonald’s Contrary Pleasure, but couldn’t think of any others. Australian businessman Greg Holman has taken on the challenge of writing a series of business thrillers, and Rags to Riches is the first one.

The hero is Billy Houston, who spent his youth in southern California. He, like his buddies, was fairly shiftless until the night they were all in an auto accident, and one of them got killed. Filled with guilt and survivor’s remorse, Billy made up his mind to do something with his life. He went to work for an accounting firm, and married the boss’s daughter. Then he came up with a new, streamlined franchising model, which his boss/father-in-law rejected. So Billy quit and went into business for himself (his wife leaving him), and built a business he was able to sell off for millions.

That success sets him on a course of repeated new projects, sometimes successful, sometimes disastrous. Fortunes won and lost. Along the way he makes enemies, and those enemies collude to ruin him.

Rags to Riches was a different kind of thriller, and I was more interested than I might have expected, had I realized exactly what kind of book I was buying. The writing style is vivid, the characters are good, and the suspense runs high.

What I didn’t like so much was that the book opened with a scene foreshadowing a judicial proceeding which – apparently – will not actually be depicted until later on in this four-book series. I found the opening, in fact, pretty difficult to understand, and it took me a while to get my geographical and chronological bearings.

For all that, Rags to Riches is a highly readable book that kept my interest. I don’t know if I’ll read the next installment, though. Billy was an interesting and original character, but I found him awfully materialistic and not too relatable – which should be no surprise, considering my own low level of business skills.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Tipping Floor,’ by Colin Conway

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Colin Conway’s 509 series of novels, about police work in the Spokane, Washington area, is a consistently interesting and satisfying shelf of books with a revolving cast of characters. The Tipping Floor stars city detectives Quinn Delaney and Marcy Burkett, coordinating with sheriff’s detective Heather Newberry.

A group of elementary school students are touring the city’s Waste to Energy Processing Facility, when they notice a human leg dropping from the jaws of an excavating machine over the “tipping floor” where trash is separated for recycling or incineration. Work stops abruptly, and procedures and schedules get tangled as the whole waste management operation gets shut down so that firefighters can search through a mountain of rotting waste for the rest of the body.

The victim is soon identified as a woman who has been missing for a week, last seen jogging. The husband is the natural suspect, but not only does he have a good alibi, he seems genuinely distressed for her sake. As the search for body parts goes on, the investigators try to piece together the world of a woman who seems to have been unusually secretive.

As always in Conway’s books, the detectives and their routine are described in detail. A lot of the story is viewed through the eyes of Heather Newberry, who is a lesbian. About all I can say about that is that she had less of a chip on her shoulder than one might expect.

The Tipping Floor was not my favorite 509 book, but it was well written and rewarding.

Fiction, Reading, Reviews

Saga reading report: ‘The Saga of Thord Menace’ and ‘The Saga of Ref the Sly’

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The Saga of Thord Menace

As usual at Viking events, I whiled away my quiet minutes this weekend by reading sagas from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders.

I read two. The first one, The Saga of Thord Menace, was of particular interest to me because it impinged (or intruded) on the family history of Erling Skjalgsson, the hero of my Viking novels.

You may recall “The Tale of Klypp the Hersir,” which I translated and posted a while back. That tale (from the Flatey Book saga collection) states that Klypp, just after avenging his wife’s honor on King Sigurd Sleva (translated as “Sigurd the Snake” here, though I’ve also seen it translated “Sleeve” and “Slobberer”), was slain by Ogmund Kaaresson, Erling’s grandfather and his own kinsman. But this saga identifies the killer as one Hroald Ogmundarsson, who would be, I assume, Ogmund Kaaresson’s son. However, I wouldn’t put much trust in this version – it’s a late saga, and not especially realistic.

The Thord of this saga is supposed to be a brother of Klypp’s, who went along with him to kill King Sigurd, and escaped with his other brothers. They flee to Iceland, where Thord ends up clashing with a man named Skeggi of Midfjord (a historical figure), who is said to have stolen the famous sword Skofnung from the grave of the Danish hero Hrolf Kraki. (The legend of Skofnung said that it must draw blood each time it was unsheathed). Most of the rest of the saga involves each one of the two men trying, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to kill the other. However, Thord has adopted Skeggi’s son Eid as his foster-son, and Eid manages, time and again, to make peace between them.

A crudely amusing element in Thord the Menace’s Saga is the miserly old farmer Thorhall, who claims to be a friend to Thord, but always runs from a fight. For this he is repeatedly scolded by his young wife Olof. After Thorhall’s death, Thord marries Olof. I think this plot thread is intended by the saga writer as comic relief.

The Saga of Ref the Sly

The Saga of Ref the Sly (the name “Ref” actually means fox) follows a familiar fairy tale plot pattern – young Ref is a lazy lout, loafing around the home-fire while all the other boys and men are out working and fighting and competing in sports. Everybody laughs at him, and there are rumors that he’s effeminate (the translator actually uses the word “gay,” which I judge pretty anachronistic). However, when his father is dead and an aggressive neighbor starts pasturing his sheep on their family’s land – also killing their shepherd – Ref suddenly proves himself a formidable man. He kills the bad neighbor efficiently with a spear he made himself, and flees with his family to Greenland. Ref never returns to Iceland, but settles in Norway and Denmark respectively, dogged all the time by the kinsmen of the man he killed. He is skillful and inventive artisan and builder, often using inventions of his own to save his family’s lives (this saga is a little like the old “A Team” TV show in that way). In the end, he dies peacefully, on a pilgrimage to Rome.

One of Ref’s great enemies, we are told, is a member of King Harald Sigurdsson Hardrada’s bodyguard. King Harald (with the wisdom and foresight kings generally exhibit in sagas) grants the man permission to go on his vengeful journey, but warns him that he won’t succeed. I was amused by a description of a board game sent as a gift to King Harald from Greenland – it’s a set of gaming pieces, “both for the old game with one king and the new with two.” That would be a reference the old Viking game of hneftafl, and the “new” game of chess.

There’s also an intriguing moment when Ref’s uncle Gest calls on “The One Who Made the Sun,” an attempt to portray an old heathen as one who looked forward to the True Faith.

Bookselling, Uncategorized

Action report, Viking Fest MN, weekend 1

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I have successfully survived the first weekend of the second annual Viking Fest Minnesota, in Farmington. I drove down and back each day, and am happy to report that I managed to accomplish that without killing my car off, this time around. There is extensive construction being done on Highway I-35, so the drive required a higher than usual level of situational awareness. Yet I passed the test.

Last year’s first weekend was unusually hot for October at this latitude, and it was the same this year. I sat under my sun shade/awning, which was occasionally in a position to shield me. I drank a lot of water and wore my broad-brimmed hat. Saturday was better business than Sunday.

If you were there last year, you may recall that I was located on the outside of the Historical Reenactors’ section, on the west side (I think it’s west) near the section’s entrance. This year I’m on the south side.

I will not share photos of that outside part of the festival, where I was located, which is generally (not always) Viking-themed Renaissance Faire stuff. Crytals and face painting, etc. But I’ve got a few shots of the serious reenactor area. Here’s a couple combat photos:

And here’s a guy whose tent was near mine (but on the Authentic side of the rope), who is carving out the bow of what will be a 27-foot Viking boat. The strakes will fit into the niches, which is how it’s done.

There’s one more weekend to come. It’s worth the visit.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Notice of Default,’ by Christ Lengquist

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A real estate detective is an original twist on the genre. And Chris Lengquist’s Notice of Default isn’t at all a bad story, though it’s not a novel but a novella.

Cal Brink is a former private eye who has turned to the quieter world of real estate sales in Olathe, Kansas. Unfortunately, there’s a recession on and business has been quiet.

He gets a phone call from a woman who refuses to identify herself. She just tells him there’s a real estate mystery to be found at a certain address. When he goes there, he finds the body of a woman stabbed to death.

After dealing with the police, Cal tells his wife about the case, and finds that she has some very good suggestions, based on her extensive community knowledge.

Notice of Default is not a thriller at all. It’s just an interesting little mystery yarn featuring well-realized characters. I quite enjoyed it, and wished it were longer.

Recommended.

Bookselling, Uncategorized

Viking Fest Minnesota 2026

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The above photo is almost exactly one year old. It features me, flogging my books at Viking Fest Minnesota in Farmington, Minnesota.

The festival goes on again this year, both this weekend and next. I plan, God willing, to be there for those days — God granting that I do not suffer car trouble as I did in 2025.

For more information, check out their web page here:

Fiction, Reviews

‘Paper Tigers,’ by Lou Aguilar

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“To understand that, you’d have to be one of us. Every day, we’re told how wonderful we are by wannabees and never-weres clinging to our ladder of success. But in our gut, we know that there but for the grace of God – if we believed in God – go we. The more insecure we get, the more virtue signaling we do.”

It’s always a pleasure to read a story that turns out to be conservative. Not that I was surprised by that discovery, as author Lou Aguilar is a well-known conservative journalist. Paper Tigers is a fun book, though I’m not sure it’s entirely successful as a story.

Nick Jarrett is a studly young aspiring newspaperman from Wyoming – a conservative and a Christian. Somehow (and this is the first great improbability in this book), he has snagged an entry-level job at no less a paper than the Washington Post. (This is at the beginning of Pres. Trump’s first term. That’s not stated specifically, but the clues are obvious.) The first day in the mail room, he meets the other newbies, one of whom is Laura London, a surpassingly beautiful young woman with whom he immediately strikes romantic sparks. Unfortunately, Laura is not only a committed liberal, but already in a relationship.

But Nick is blessed with a quantity of self-confidence most of us can only dream of. He manages, not only to make time with Laura, but to ferret out more than one big Washington story. Before the book is over, he’ll be faced with a choice between losing Laura or breaking the story of a major (and shameful) political scandal.

Paper Tigers was fun to read, and the writing was pretty good. I just had trouble with what I saw as a lot of wishful thinking. Conservative guy comes to Washington, like Mr. Smith but more cynical, manages to romance the beautiful girl and successfully score off the liberals, foiling their devious plans. I wish the world were like that.

On the other hand, I have no idea what it’s like to have great confidence, or to understand how to attract women. Maybe the story is more plausible than I think.

Cautions for adult situations (Nick may be a Christian, but he doesn’t hesitate to have sex before marriage). I don’t recall much offensive language.

I suspect most of our readers will enjoy Paper Tigers. Some probably more than I did, and I had quite a good time.

Religion

‘More enthusiasm!’

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When Elisha became sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash the king of Israel came down to him and wept over him and said, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and arrows.” So he took a bow and arrows. Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” And he put his hand on it, then Elisha laid his hands on the king’s hands. He said, “Open the window toward the east,” and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot!” And he shot. And he said, “The LORD’S arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Aram; for you will defeat the Arameans at Aphek until you have destroyed them.” Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground,” and he struck it three times and stopped. So the man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck Aram until you would have destroyed it. But now you shall strike Aram only three times.” (2 Kings 13:14-19)

Tonight’s topic: Underachieving kings with whom I identify.

The Old Testament passage above tells a story that’s always troubled me. I’m not saying I disapprove of Elisha. It just makes me feel awkward. Here we’ve got King Joash of Israel, a monarch who gets a mixed grade from the biblical writers. We’re told that he wasn’t as bad as a lot of other Israelite kings, but wasn’t as zealous as God would like.

Anyway, Joash hears that the prophet Elisha is dying, so he goes to visit him. (The phrase, “the chariots of Israel and its horsemen” is a metaphor – it means that Elisha’s influence was worth battalions to the national defense – as indeed it was.) Elisha gives him an assignment, which turns out to be a test. First he tells him to shoot an arrow out the window. Then he tells him to strike the ground with his arrows. Joash throws three arrows down – and quits.

This does not please Elisha – or, apparently, God either. Elisha tells Joash that he’d have the same number of victories as the arrows he struck on the ground. If he’d been more enthusiastic, he could have changed history. (“Now he tells me,” the king said, I suppose.)

That’s what bothers me. All my life I’ve felt that I’ve done the best I knew how, but it wasn’t considered good enough. Even if I did what I was told, I didn’t do it with enough enthusiasm. So I failed the test.

Same thing with King Saul in 1 Samuel 15. Saul has been commanded by the prophet Samuel to utterly wipe out the Amalekites – destroying even their livestock and property. Saul, in the flush of victory, takes some booty (and the king as a prisoner). Because of that, Samuel tells him God has rejected him as king. Saul grabs Samuel and tears his robe. Samuel tells Saul that God is going to tear his kingdom away from him in the same manner.

Seems pretty harsh, doesn’t it?

But I think my reflexive reaction misses the point. I don’t think God judged Joash or Saul simply on those single failures. I think the failures were symptomatic – they were being judged on their whole lives, and the dramatic scenes were just the moments when matters came to a head.

As Jordan Peterson (or Gregg Horowitz, anyway) says, “The way you do anything is the way you’ll do everything.”

Fiction, Reviews

‘Romeo’s World,’ by James Scott Bell

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First of all, I would like to note (with considerable pride) that there are a few review blurbs printed at the beginning of James Scott Bell’s Romeo’s World, the latest in his long-running Mike Romeo mystery series. And the very first one they use is one of mine, from this very blog, where I say that Mike Romeo is who I want to be when I get younger. This is most gratifying.

Oh, the book? You want to hear about the book too? Fine. Have it your way.

This time out, Mike is down at the beach with his new wife, Sophie, when they see a small plane crash into the ocean a little distance from shore. Mike sets out swimming and just manages to pull a young woman out of the wreckage before the plane sinks. He manages to get her to shore, and she’s in hysterics. She doesn’t want to be seen, she says. He and Sophie get her up to their house, and call a doctor for her. After the woman is cleared for health, she asks Mike to drive her to a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley, then gets out and walks away.

Shortly after that, Mike is informed that the woman is dead, that she committed suicide. This makes him mad. The man who died in the plane crash was a successful real estate developer, an older man to whom she had been engaged to be married. Mike starts poking into his business, and finds plenty of secrets to be suspicious about. It goes on from there.

Mike Romeo is always fun – he’s a literate cage fighter, a seeker of beauty and virtue as well as justice. His employer and mentor, wheelchair-bound lawyer Ira Rosen, is especially fun to spend time with. I have to report that I saw the big plot twist coming, but still I fully enjoyed Romeo’s World and devoured it quickly.

Recommended, of course.