458. Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman (E. W. Hornung)

The clothes haven't changed in over 100 years ....

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
Contains: The Ides of March/ A Costume Piece/ Gentlemen and Players/ Le Premier Pas/ Wilful Murder/ Nine Points of the Law/ The Return Match/ The Gift of the Emperor

In these stories, Raffles, the public-school gentleman, mixes his aptitude for cricket with his passion for crime. Here we see Raffles stealing from the nouveau riche and outwitting the law, thieving diamonds and bowling like a demon, all with the help of his accomplice and ex-fag Bunny.

My rating: 5 stars

457. The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
The narrative, related in succession by Walter Hartright and other characters in the story, starts with his midnight encounter on a lonely road with a mysterious and agitated woman dressed entirely in white, whom he helps to escape from pursuers.

My rating: 4 stars

456. The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)

Not a great movie

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
Countess Olenska, separated from her European husband, returns to old New York society. She bears with her an independence and an awareness of life which stirs the educated sensitivity of Newland Archer, engaged to be married to May Welland.

My rating: 3 stars

My review: It may have won the Pulitzer Prize but it (perhaps intentionally on Wharton's part) lacks the emotion which makes The House of Mirth one of my favorite books.

455. Three Men on the Bummel (Jerome K. Jerome)

The Black Forest in Germany

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
This is the sequel to "Three Men in a Boat" in which George, Harris and the narrator escape suburbia once again and take to the Black Forest.

My rating: 4 stars

Publication information:

• 1900
• J. W. Arrowsmith, London
  

454. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J. K. Rowling)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
J K Rowling's sequel to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone carries on where the original left off. Harry is returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after the summer holidays and, right from the start, things are not straightforward. Unable to board the Hogwarts express, Harry and his friends break all the rules and make their way to the school in a magical flying car. From this point on, incredible events happen to Harry and his friends--Harry hears evil voices and someone, or something is attacking the pupils. Can Harry get to the bottom of the mystery before it's too late?

My rating: 5 stars

453. The Earl of Her Dreams (Anne Mallory)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
Following an accident that killed her father and scarred her arm, Kate Simmons disguises herself as a boy in order to escape from her scheming brother. She chooses a coaching inn on the road to London to hide and emotionally recover. Unfortunately, the inn soon fills, and Kate finds herself saddled with a rakish roommate full of secrets.

My rating: 2 stars

452. Crooked House (Agatha Christie)

Cover of first edition

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
The Leonides were one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That was until the head of the household, Aristide, was murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man's young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiance of the late millionare's granddaughter ....

My rating: 4 stars

Publication information:

• 1949
• Collins Crime Club
• London
  
• Orange/red cloth with black lettering
  
• Dust wrapper priced at 8/6

451. Summer Lightning (P. G. Wodehouse)

Cover of first edition

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
Clarence, 9th Earl of Emsworth, is preoccupied with his prize-winning pig, the Empress of Blandings, and the upcoming agricultural show, while the news that his brother, Galahad Threepwood, is writing his memoirs, has many ageing aristocrats worried.

My rating: 5 stars

Publication information:

• 1929
• Herbert Jenkins, London
• Orange cloth & black lettering & designs
  
• Copyright page states "First printing 1929.."
• Dust wrapper priced at 7/6
• Fish Preferred -- US title
• 1929
• Doubleday Doran, NY
  

450. The Perfect Waltz (Anne Gracie)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
Society rogue Sebastian Reyne's search for a practical wife comes to a crashing halt when he dances with the effervescent Hope Merridew -- and is seduced into a delicious intrigue of sensuality and desire.

My rating: 2 stars

449. No Man's Mistress (Mary Balogh)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
When Lord Ferdinand Dudley visits the small village of Trellick to examine Pinewood Manor, a small estate he won in a card game, he is surprised to find that the property hasn't been neglected or abandoned. Viola Thornhill, the "country lass" whom Ferdinand had met during the town's May Day celebration, has settled in Pinewood, and she has no intention of surrendering her home to a gambling London dandy. Viola insists that the late Earl of Bamber left her the estate, and she determines to stay put until Ferdinand produces a copy of the earl's will that proves her wrong. Meanwhile, Viola tries everything possible to make Ferdinand's first country experience unbearable including setting the villagers upon him with complaints and having a cockerel wake him before sunrise. Ferdinand takes everything in stride, however, and he slowly begins to realize that he doesn't want Viola to leave; he's falling in love with her. Viola harbors feelings for Ferdinand as well, but her checkered past keeps her from entertaining hopes of a future with him. Although Ferdinand and Viola seem like mere stereotypes at first, it becomes clear midway through that Ferdinand is not the rake he appears to be and that Viola is no innocent country lass.

My rating: 5 stars

448. Confessor (Daniel Silva)

The Sistine Chapel

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
"If you think Italians have a long memory, you should spend some time in the Middle East. We're the ones who invented the vendetta, not the Sicilians." So maintains Gabriel Allon, art restorer and Mossad hit man, star of Silva's second thriller series (The Mark of the Assassin, etc.). Gabriel is once again reluctantly dragged from his day job (he's working on a Bellini in Venice) by Israeli spymaster Ari Shamron, who heads a team of sleeper Mossad agents scattered all over the world. This time, it's a revenge mission: one of Shamron's agents (an academic working on an expos‚ about the Vatican's collaboration with the Nazis) has been assassinated. The gunman was working for a secret Vatican society known as Crux Vera. Composed of Roman Curia members and shady rich thugs, this shadow group intends to kill the latest pope to keep him from exposing the Vatican's secret archives. In order to find the gunman (known as "the Leopard," a reclusive European of independent means who hires out his deadly skills to the highest bidder), Gabriel must take up his slain colleague's research, something the Italian and German governments assuredly do not want him to do. Gabriel is hounded all across Europe as he tries to find out the truth about the Nazi collaborators, save the pope and get the Leopard.

My rating: 4 stars

447. Animal Farm (George Orwell)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm.

My rating: 5 stars

446. Slightly Shady (Amanda Quick)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
There's something Slightly Shady about Lavinia Lake. First of all, no decent woman would go into trade, even when an unscrupulous employer leaves her stranded abroad with her young niece. But the capable Lavinia has landed on her feet, peddling dubious reproductions of ancient artifacts in Rome to earn passage home. When a madman ransacks her shop, accusing her of aiding and abetting a murderous gang of thieves, Lavinia and her niece Emeline return to London, where Lavinia once more takes lemons and makes lemonade, becoming a private investigator. In the course of her first discreet inquiry for a wealthy aristocrat with secrets to hide, Lavinia runs into her madman once more, standing over the recently deceased body of a blackmailer. Not exactly your usual beginning for a relationship, but Mr. Tobias March is hardly an ordinary man. In fact, he's quite extraordinary, Lavinia very reluctantly admits to herself. When threats to Lavinia's safety force her into an unlikely partnership with the mysterious Mr. March, the fur -- and a petticoat or two -- flies. A heady combination of passion and the shared thrill of the hunt for a depraved murderer may lead Lavinia and Tobias to form a partnership of a more permanent kind.

My rating: 3 stars

445. Some Enchanted Evening (Christina Dodd)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
When her life is threatened, Princess Clarice flees from her native country to Scotland, where she quietly sells beauty products to local women. Robert MacKenzie invites Clarice to stay at MacKenzie Manor, though he expresses disbelief that she is truly a princess. Robert, an embittered former military man, finds love and passion with the beautiful Clarice as the two embark on a bittersweet romance.

My rating: 4 stars

444. Duchess in Love (Eloisa James)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
Cam Serrard, the duke of Girton, leapt out of a window and ran off to Greece immediately after being forced into wedding 11-year-old Gina. Instead of resenting him, however, Gina spends the next 12 years sending him friendly letters. When Cam finally returns to England to grant Gina an annulment so she can marry a marquess who loves her, the warm easiness between the childhood friends doesn't surprise them, but the flare of desire does. Before long, Gina starts to wonder if being the wife of a nude-sculpting, frequently absent and socially careless duke might not be such a bad future.

My rating: 4 stars

443. In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)

Read the book that is the impetus of the movie

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
"Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans -- in fact, few Kansans -- had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there." If all Truman Capote did was invent a new genre -- journalism written with the language and structure of literature -- this "nonfiction novel" about the brutal slaying of the Clutter family by two would-be robbers would be remembered as a trail-blazing experiment that has influenced countless writers. But Capote achieved more than that. He wrote a true masterpiece of creative nonfiction. The images of this tale continue to resonate in our minds: 16-year-old Nancy Clutter teaching a friend how to bake a cherry pie, Dick Hickock's black '49 Chevrolet sedan, Perry Smith's Gibson guitar and his dreams of gold in a tropical paradise -- the blood on the walls and the final "thud-snap" of the rope-broken necks.

My rating: 4 stars

My review: Chilling but beautifully written. Why 4 stars and not 5? Because it frightened me so much that I wasn't able to get a good night's sleep for a week.

442. Elephants Can Remember (Agatha Christie)

Cover of first edition

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
Did General Ravenscroft kill Lady Ravenscroft or was she the one holding the gun? Many years later their daughter would like to know, so her godmother, Ariadne Oliver, asks Hercule Poirot to investigate. Working in tandem, Mrs. Oliver and Poirot identify and interview an ever-increasing list of witnesses (the elephants of the title). Poirot painstakingly reconstructs long-vanished relationships, and his deductions eventually lead him to one final witness.

My rating: 4 stars

Publication information:

• 1972
• Collins Crime Club in London
  
• Orange/red cloth with gilt lettering
  
• Dust wrapper priced at £1.60

441. A Lady of His Own (Stephanie Laurens)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
The seven members of the Bastion Club have served loyally in the perilous service of the Crown. Now they've banded together to support one another through their most dangerous mission of all: getting married. When Charles St. Austell returns home to claim his title as earl, and to settle quickly on a suitable wife as well, he discovers that experience has made him impatient of the young ladies who vie for his attention — with the exception of Lady Penelope Selborne. Years ago, Charles and Penelope's youthful ardor was consummated in an unforgettable afternoon. Charles is still haunted by their interlude, but Penny refuses to have anything more to do with him. If controlling her heart was difficult before, resisting a stronger, battle-hardened Charles is well nigh impossible, yet Penelope has vowed she won't make the same mistake twice, nor will she marry without love. But when a traitorous intrigue draws them together, then ultimately threatens them both — will Penny discover she has a true protector in Charles, her first and only love, who now vows to make her his own?

My rating: 2 stars