1. Name of the Devil by Andrew Mayne

#2 Jessica Blackwood
listened via Audible, purchased and owned
narrated  by Jennifer O'Donnell
Unabridged audio (12:53)
2015 Bourbon Street Books
432 pgs.
Adult Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 1/2//2020
Goodreads rating:  4.18 - 2170 ratings
My rating: 4

First line/s:  " 'You know what you have to do,' said the distant voice at the other end of the phone."

My comments: First finished book of 2020!  The way that Jessica Blackwood connects the dots is sometimes quite mysterious.  I guess that just goes to prove that she's a brilliant FBI agent, on of the best the agency has.  It's like she's the center of a star with many, many branches, and she's the main connection for all of them.  This story includes Latin American cartels, the Catholic Church, backwoods West Virginian hicks, bombs and explosions, psychosomatic pathogens from weird fish, dangling from helicopters, forays into Mexico, and even eorcism.  It's all over the place!  But my favorite parts only come once in awhile, and the's Jessica's relationship withthe mysterious Damien.  uell une interesting book!  Never a dull moment, although most of it is totally un-believable.

Goodreads synopsis: In this electrifying sequel to the crowd-pleasing thriller Angel Killer, magician-turned-FBI agent Jessica Blackwood must once again draw on her past to go up against a brutal murderer desperate for revenge at any price
          After playing a pivotal role in the capture of the Warlock, a seemingly supernatural serial killer—and saving the FBI’s reputation in the process—agent Jessica Blackwood can no longer ignore the world she left behind. Formerly a prodigy in a family dynasty of illusionists, her talent and experience endow her with a unique understanding of the power and potential of deception, as well as a knack for knowing when things are not always as they appear to be.
          When a church congregation vanishes under mysterious circumstances in rural Appalachia, the bizarre trail of carnage indicates the Devil’s hand at work. But Satan can’t be the suspect, so FBI consultant Dr. Ailes and Jessica’s boss on the Warlock case, Agent Knoll, turn to the ace up their sleeve: Jessica. She’s convinced that an old cassette tape holds the key to the mystery, and unraveling the recorded events reveals a troubling act with far-reaching implications. The evil at work is human, and Jessica must follow the trail from West Virginia to Mexico, Miami, and even the hallowed halls of the Vatican.
          Can she stop a cold-blooded killer obsessed by a mortal sin—or will she become the next target in a twisted, diabolical game of hunter and prey…? 

27. The Fifth Gospel - Ian Caldwell

It looks like The Rule of Four may be some sort of prequel, but I'm not sure...
listened to on Audible
2015
431 pgs.- I'm guessing I read over 200 of them, because I listened for over 7 hours
Adult mystery
Abandoned 5/15/16
Goodreads rating  3.69
My rating:  2/I tried....
Setting: Vatican City, Rome, Italy

First line/s:  "My son is too young to understand forgiveness."

My comments:   I truly enjoy forays into the history of biblical times - but this was so rooted in the Catholic church, the differences between orthodox Greek and Roman Catholic, and believing in the bible, that the plodding manner in which this book moved was just too slow for me to read all the way through. I did read over half the book, but I couldn't get enamored with any of the characters enough to find out more about the history OR who the murderer was.  So I made the decision to go on to one of the thousands of other books waiting for me to read (the same thing happened to me in Rule of Four, I should have paid attention to that, but am forever optimistic....)

Goodreads synopsis:  A lost gospel, a relic, and a dying pope's final wish send two brothers - both Vatican priests - on a quest to untangle Christianity's biggest mystery (the shroud of Turan)

MOVIE - Ida

PG-13 (1:20 - though it seemed longer)

Limited release 5/2/2014

Viewed Sunday, 6/15/2014 in Harrisburg at the Midtown Theater

RT Critic:  93 Audience:  79

Cag:  2/It was okay

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

Music Box Films

in Polish, with English subtitles

My comments:  The story was a good one, but could have been told in about 45 minutes. It was depressing.  And dark...literally.  Black & white and dark.  And although it ended exactly as I knew it would, it really pissed me off...probably because of my own personal religious bent, especially about the Catholic church.  However, the thing that bothered me most were the long silences.  L...o....n....g silences.  Way too long......

RT Summary:  From acclaimed director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) comes IDA, a moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, discovers a dark family secret dating from the terrible years of the Nazi occupation. 18-year old Anna (stunning newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska), a sheltered orphan raised in a convent, is preparing to become a nun when the Mother Superior insists she first visit her sole living relative. Naïve, innocent Anna soon finds herself in the presence of her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a worldly and cynical Communist Party insider, who shocks her with the declaration that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism. In this beautifully directed film, Pawlikowski returns to his native Poland for the first time in his career to confront some of the more contentious issues in the history of his birthplace. Powerfully written and eloquently shot, IDA is a masterly evocation of a time, a dilemma, and a defining historical moment; IDA is also personal, intimate, and human. The weight of history is everywhere, but the scale falls within the scope of a young woman learning about the secrets of her own past. This intersection of the personal with momentous historic events makes for what is surely one of the most powerful and affecting films of the year.

MOVIE - Philomena

PG-13 (1:34)

Limited release 11/22/2013

Viewed 12/10/2013 at El Con with Sheila (Happy Birthday, Laura!)

RT Critic:  92  Audience:  91

Cag: 4.5 Liked it a whole lot 

Directed by Stephen Frears

The Weinstein Company

Steve Coogan (who also wrote and produced), Judi Dench

My comments:   (Spoilers abound, including a bit of ranting.....)  This was a wonderful movie.  Acting - yup, wonderful.  Story - bittersweet, with a little more bitter than sweet.  Leftover emotions - adding fuel to the fire to my deep dislike of the Catholic church. This was the retelling of a true story - with actual pictures of those real people just before the credits. Imagine being a young girl....say fifteen or sixteen.  Getting pregnant after one (pretty wonderful) night with a handsome young man.  Abandoned by your family, thus having not a soul in the world but a few other young mothers in your confined, ultra-religious environment (with lots of nasty nuns and a handful of nicer ones)...and an hour a day with your child.  Add to that being ostracized, demeaned, and put into slave labor for four years. And then, when your child is three, having him adopted without a goodbye, with absolutely no information about where he went or what happened to him.  Not your choice.  You would have NEVER given him away......  

       So much spite, so much hate and un-Christian acts from the nuns at this establishment.  Burning of all the records so that mothers and children could never reunite.  Lying.  Withholding information.  It was one thing for this to happen in the early 1950's, totally another for it to happen in 2003.  Grrrr....

     Dench and Coogan were oh-so believable together.  This relationship, if anything like the real one between Lee and Sixsmith, was pretty special.

  

Rotten Tomatoes:  Based on the 2009 investigative book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, PHILOMENA focuses on the efforts of Philomena Lee (Dench), mother to a boy conceived out of wedlock - something her Irish-Catholic community didn't have the highest opinion of - and given away for adoption in the United States. In following church doctrine, she was forced to sign a contract that wouldn't allow for any sort of inquiry into the son's whereabouts. After starting a family years later in England and, for the most part, moving on with her life, Lee meets Sixsmith (Coogan), a BBC reporter with whom she decides to discover her long-lost son.

19. The Loud Silence of Francine Green - Karen Cushman

Read by Anaka Shockley
2006
Unabridged Cd/Random House Audio
Rating: 5
for: Middle School and older

This was a totally delightful story. I listened to it, and the reader, Anaka Shockley, was just wonderful, portraying the voice of Francine beautifully. The setting is 1949 Los Angeles, California. Francine is in the eighth grade at All Saints School for Girls and loves Montgomery Clift. Her best friend, Sophie Bowman, is an unspoken questioner of all things wrong. But Francine has been taught to not question her parents or the nuns or the government. And it is the McCarthy error. Everyone is afraid of “the bomb” and “commies” and the end of the world. Sophie speaks out about free speech and asks lots of wonderful questions, but the girls are being rasied in the age where kids just don’t ask. The nuns put outspoken Sophie into the waste basket. She is taunted and bullied by Sister Basil AND the other girls in the class. Francine wants to stand up for her, but can’t seem to take herself past the upbringing that has taught her otherwise. And then when friends who have emigrated from Russia for the rights and freedoms found in the US and not in Russia are terrorized and threatened, Francine finally decides to take a stand.

What is freedom of speech? What is friendship? What is fear? This is the first time I’ve read a historical fiction about the McCarthy era. It’s magnificently done, too. Needed. How else are kids going to understand that part of America’s history?

I’m rereading Cushman’s Catherine Called Birdy and have fond, fond memories of The Ballad of Lucy Whipple. I’ve now decided that Karen Cushman is pushing her way to the top of my favorites list.

This is a book that is very, very Catholic. I understood it just from stories (horror stories....) I’ve heard from friends and family. Saints. Confession. Sin. I wonder how much my Jewish middle schoolers would understand about this aspect of the story. They’d certainly understand a lot just from the way it’s written, but there’s a lot they won’t understand, too.