The Helium Murder by Camille Minichino

After reading her debut novel, The Hydrogen Murder, I predicted that Dr. Camille Minichino would hone her craft and her follow-up would be an improvement. I was right. The Helium Murder, second in the series, is a fun read and a great story.

Minichino’s sleuth, Dr. Gloria Lamerino is enjoying her retirement in Revere, a northern suburb of Boston, after thirty years of teaching physics in California. She’s also enjoying the attentions of homicide detective Matt Gennaro, whom she helps by being a scientific consultant on cases. When a congresswoman is killed in a hit-and-run accident, Gloria’s assistance is required since the victim carried an important vote in the House of Representatives that affected the future of the helium, industry and the preservation of the nation’s quickly-depleting helium reserves. Gloria finds herself between a greedy businessman, a jilted fiancé and a bitter brother. With all that going on, she must deal with the ghost of her long-deceased overbearing mother and the thirty-year old mystery surrounding her own fiancé’s death.

There is no shortage of colorful characters in Lamerino’s Revere, Massachusetts. Minichino has a great knack for creating people that you think you know or wish you knew. Her bff Rose is constantly concerned about Gloria’s perpetual unmarried status and the teacher whom she helps with special interest projects for his class, keeps asking her for a date. All are very endearing to the reader.

Minichino’s writing style is refreshing and peppered with quips, snarky comments and enough literature and pop culture references that the mystery sometimes takes a back seat to the humor.

There are also occasions when Minichino sounds a bit like an encyclopedia when citing facts about the elements at the center of the mystery. But it is difficult to educate a reader on unexciting subjects without a data dump.

The Helium Murder is a great second outing for Dr. Gloria Lamerino. Fortunately, there are plenty of elements in the Periodic Table for fun like this.

Reclamation by Sarah Zettel

One of the first things I noticed about Sarah Zettel’s debut novel Reclamation was how it was written: exciting action, great science fiction, outstanding prose. The next thing I noticed was her inspiration from Frank Herbert, whom she emulated by writing a few lines of lore from her universe at the beginning of each chapter. But with all this going for her, why did I not know what was happening throughout most of the book? I kept thinking that Reclamation was the follow-up to a previous novel. It felt as if I was missing a significant portion of the backstory.

Zettel created a wonderful universe with many amazing beings and worlds but without introductions, explanations or definitions of its plethora of aspects, the reader must piece together the plot alone and is not always successful.

The second half is a more enjoyable read but mainly because by that time, the chain of events makes a little more sense.

Zettel leaves gaps which confuse the plot lines even more. For example: Why was Kiv and some of his offspring killed? Who were the two Vitae with the children? Who are the Aunorante Sangh? For this last question, many of the characters accused each other of being a part of this group but their identity was never disclosed.

I did find the characters in her story to be fascinating. Eric Born, the main character, is a power-gifted human with telekinesis. Although the story alludes to other such beings, very few actually appear in the story. One other is a woman named Arlas, who is among the lowest class of humans, the Notouch. Together they wage a resistance war against the Vitae, who have proclaimed themselves masters of the Quarter Galaxy.

Reclamation moves a long at a great clip and there is no shortage of action and adventure. Perhaps a second read of the novel is warranted since I know who the characters are now, especially since there are so many, the plot takes a back seat to them.

The Search for Justina - National Archives

After our visit to the National Archives last week, Mom and I felt empowered enough to search a branch of our family tree about which we know so little. My great-grandmother Justina Keil was one of many Germans who lived in Russia before immigrating to the United States.

My great-grandparents George Frederick and Justina (Keil) Dick

When Catherine the Great (a German princess) rose to power, she encouraged Germans to settle in Russia. The Germans did by setting up townships and schools that were more advanced than what the Russians had at that time.

After her death, the political environment deteriorated for the Germans so they began to move westward to the United States in search of a better life, i.e. an unoppressed one. Nearly all of my ancestors were among those Germans that settled in Russia before immigrating here.


My great-grandmother Justina came to the U.S. when she was a mere whisp of a girl of sixteen. She traveled with her brother Conrad, his wife Sophie and their infant son Phillip. When they left, Justina's mother told her that she was dead to her.


They never saw her again.


Now the question is: When and where did they arrive? I went to the National Archives to find the answers. The entrance for researchers is on Pennsylvania Avenue across the street from the U.S. Navy Memorial. If you want to see the Declaration of Independance, the Bill of Rights, etc. you enter through the south entrance on Independence Avenue. I was issued a temporary badge signifying that I was ther doing research.


The amount of information stored here is overwhelming. I started with the documents of immigrants arriving at the port of New York from the records of the U.S. Customs Service, 1820-1897. There is a CD-Rom of Russians to America from 1850-1896. There are also several volumes of a printed series: Migration from the Russian Empire: Lists of Passengers Arriving at the Port of New York.


Justina apparently did not come to America via New York.


I turned to Ancestry.com which offers their services for free within the National Archives and Records Administration building. There I found her on the 1920 Census in Washita County, Oklahoma. I was surprised to find the year of her immigration to be 1889. We thought it was 1891.




Maybe she told the family it was '91 to knock a couple of years off of her age? The librarian in the Geneaology section of the Archives asked if she would have done that. I wouldn't know because she died exactly 26 years before to the day I was born, but looking at the women in my family, it is NOT a stretch of the imagination, by any means.


I spent 5 hours searching records and came up with nothing, so I will have to refocus my efforts and look elsewhere. Maybe at the Archives, maybe some place entirely different.



But I will find her.

Disney's A Christmas Carol Train

Disney is promoting its latest 3D animated film, A Christmas Carol to be released November 6, by a train criss-crossing the country. The train has exhibits from the making of the movie and some items from Charles Dickens himself. This weekend it stopped at Baltimore's B&O Museum near downtown.







Christmas carolers kept us in the Christmas mood. It was warm for a fall day in Baltimore but Disney supplied us with fake snow.

The first car of the exhibit had some of the costumes the actors wore for filming. There were also personal items from Charles Dickens.

Examples of his writing.

A portrait of Charles Dickens.

This car showed images from the film used in the making of "A Christmas Carol".

These were models used for the buildings in the film. Here Big Ben is under construction.

A horse-drawn hearse.

Fred's house.

Scrooge's office.

The contraption that Jim Carrey wore during filming. The cameras on his face and the spots helped the animators generate the computer images of Scrooge.

All actors wore special tights with reference spots for filming

The last car had a fireplace.

Frazier samples Scrooge's meal.

By Permission of Heaven: the True Story of the Great Fire of London by Adrian Tinniswood

Like all novels that tell stories of significant events in history, Adrian Tinniswood’s recount of the fire that devastated London in 1666 is extensively researched and well-told.

He also gives an interesting account of Charles II who had recently been returned to the thrown after the monarchy had been restored. We are treated to a side of the King known as the ‘Merry Monarch’ that is usually not seen. Charles, according to Tinniswood, showed political shrewdness and level-headedness that helped keep the nation together during such a devastating calamity.

The book begins with the tensions that summer which were running high between England and the Dutch. So much so that the Londoners blamed the conflagration on Dutch terrorists. It was well-known that the fire started in the ovens of a Dutch baker on Pudding Street. But in this post-Elizabethan era, anti-Catholic sentiment ran just as high if not higher than British-Dutch relations.

Restoration England had been relatively quiet since the civil war and the death of Oliver Cromwell and nobody wanted to think about those times. But no one wanted the Catholics to regain the throne either.

Into this volatile mix a fire, the likes of which has never been seen before or since, reduces a large area of the capitol city to ashes. By all accurate accounts, it was an accident. Not the precursor to a Dutch invasion. Not an act of war. Not the Papists trying to return the country and the crown to Catholicism. However, an unfortunate and perhaps misguided man admitted to setting the fire and was subsequently hanged. Despite his confession, many Londoners realized that it was a tragic mishap.

However, after the fire, Tinniswood’s novel drags. Unlike the Erik Larsen’s Isaac’s Storm about the 1900 Galveston hurricane or David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood where the aftermath involved massive cleanup efforts and dealing with a profound sense of loss, Tinniswood ventured into the realm of bureaucracy that governed during the rebuilding of London, decisions about who should be architects and who was going to pay for all of this. If it were an accident, the tenants owed the landlords and were responsible for rebuilding. But since a man was convicted and executed for starting the fire, it was an act of war and the burden of rebuilding fell to the landlords. Such events although important don’t make for thrilling reading.

Still for anyone interested in London or Restoration England this is a must-read. Tinniswood’s research brings details of mid-seventeenth century British culture to life through vivid descriptions that almost make the reader smell smoke.

Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout

The soft cover of the edition I read proudly states “Named One of the Century’s 100 Favorite Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association”. Not shabby at all. I found it to be a fun read but I could not see what set it above any of the hundreds of other mysteries I’ve read from the twentieth century. In fact, I found it rather formulaic: set in an opulent nineteen-thirties community (like Agatha Christie), a sleuth that is confident to the point of arrogance (like Nelson DeMille) and a tough-talking detective that’s attractive to the ladies (like [insert any author’s name here]). There were also the selfish rich SOB and the ubiquitous femme fatale.

But as I mentioned earlier, ‘Caesar’ was enjoyable to read. The witty banter between Wolfe’s sidekick Archie Goodwin and the self-professed man-eater Lily Rowan was the hight point of the writing although hard to follow. Why did she keep telling him to kiss her in the second line of every conversation? I didn’t get it.

Rex Stout was a prolific writer and I’m certain that of his numerous works there are other mysteries more worthy of this honor than ‘Caesar’.

New York Renaissance Faire

After missing last year, I got to visit the New York Renaissance Faire and listen to the awesome Crimson Pirates!