Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak

Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak
534 pages

"The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father's disappearance.

"At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge--for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle.

"The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?"   ---from the publisher

I'm not sure how to review this one succinctly.  Zusak's writing is beautiful and the story is interesting and original.  When he visited the area last fall he talked about this book being somewhat autobiographical.  That said, at times the writing is more lyrical than explanatory.  What do some of those sentences mean anyway?  And it dragged in parts for me.  I don't know, maybe I'm just not cut out for these 500+ page tales.  If you've read it, I welcome your thoughts!

Unnatural Habits by Kerry Greenwood

Unnatural Habits; A Phryne Fisher Mystery by Kerry Greenwood --- 288 pages

Kerry Greenwood is the author of a popular series of mystery stories set in her native Australia in ther aftermath of World War I, featuring her amateur sleuth, the Honorable Phryne (rhymes with briney) Fisher.

In this novel, the eighteenth in the series, Phryne rescues a young and impetuous woman reporter from a beating for poking her nose into places where it is not welcome. When the reporter, in hot pursuit of an expose on pregnant young women vanishing from the so-called refuge provided by a convent of nums, mysteriously drops out of sight, Phryne and her "minions" --- the various orphans she's rescued and friends in high and low places she's picked up in the course of her adventures --- go looking for her. Phryne uncovers several different crimes and scandals during her insouciant investigations, but not the whereabouts of the young reporter.

Greenwood's Phryne has been compared to Dorothy Sayers' Harriet Vane, but I would rather compare her to the shallow and silly "noble sleuth" version of Lord Peter Wismey, before he encounters Harriet and becomes a real person. Far more interesting than Phryne or her improbable adventures are the historical descriptions of postWorld War I Australia that Greenwood embeds in her stories.