The Understudy / David Nicholls

I must say I really have enjoyed reading David Nicholls, first with One Day, then A Question of Attraction, and now finishing up with The Understudy. They're all light reading-- no Tolstoy or Joyce here-- but if you're looking for a laugh and an entertaining diversion, you won't be disappointed.

In this novel he follows the life of actor Stephen C. McQueen (no, not that Steve McQueen), the understudy to movie heartthrob Josh Harper, who is doing a turn in a one-man play on Shaftesbury Avenue in London's West End. Stephen is literally waiting in the wings for his big break, weary of reprising the role of Sammy the Singing Squirrel to make ends meet, but the leading man is never ill, so Stephen never gets his chance to take center stage. His life off-stage is what really is the main interest here, and when it begins to intersect with his stage life things start to get interesting. Stephen makes a Faustian bargain with Josh Harper, which involves his American wife (whom Stephen fancies), having his chance to headline the show, and keeping secrets about Josh Harper's many romances.

Nicholls's characters are well-drawn and true-to-life, they're witty and interesting. The only place I think he stumbled was with the character of 7-year-old Sophie, Stephen's daughter, who spoke and acted like a sophisticated 16-year-old. Nevertheless, this is a funny and well-plotted novel. Another enjoyable read by Mr. Nicholls.

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Here we are / Graham Swift

This short novel offers a nostalgic look at England in the 1940s and 1950s. Evie, having just lost her husband after a long marriage, looks back at the fateful summer when they met up at the pleasure palace at the end of the Brighton pier. Evie was meant to marry someone else, Ronnie Doane, aka “The Great Pablo,” a magician whose talents really pull in the crowds in the days before television kept people in their front rooms (and to whom she serves as the feather-plumed magician’s assistant). The novel tells of Ronnie’s back story as a London child war evacuee, whose second family in Oxford is so nurturing and loving that he is conflicted about going back to his real home when the war is over. But Evie marries Jack instead and is ghosted (quite literally) by Ronnie even in her final years of life. A wonderful story about people and relationships.

Addie Pray / Joe David Brown (more recently published as Paper Moon ) Click here to check for availability at AFPLS This 1971 novel was the inspiration for the Peter Bogdanovich movie Paper Moon . Eleven-year-old Addie and her maybe-father “Long Boy” Moses Pray crisscross the Deep South “ramifying” (scamming) people during the Great Depression. Addie’s street smarts and perceived girlish innocence, along with Long Boy’s cleverness and shrewd business acumen build their operation until they are dealing in millions. The movie remained pretty true to the first half of the book (though it moved the location from Alabama to Kansas), but the adventures continue far beyond where the movie left off. The decades haven’t dimmed the magic of this rollicking adventure, either in the film or the book. ©Ken Vesey, 17 June 2010

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie / Alan Bradley

Pippi Longstocking meets Miss Marple in the character of precocious 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, the youngest of three daughters in a once well-to-do family in early 1950s rural England. This first mystery in an intended series finds Flavia beating the local police inspector at his own game in solving the mystery surrounding the murder of an old school mate of her father's in their back garden (in the cucumber patch no less). Clues include a bird indigenous to Norway, a rare stamp, and a bit of flaky pie crust. This nostalgic and innocent whodunnit will have you at the edge of your seat by its suspenseful climax. I can see BBC/PBS picking up on the popularity of this charming mystery. The second in the series has already been published and the third is soon to follow. And by the way, here's a great library quote from Flavia on page 50: "... it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No

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