Book Review- Bruno, Chief of Police-Martin walker

I am a fan of police procedurals set in Europe. I love Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks series, Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus, and Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano series. All with the main protagonist being somewhat ornery, and the narrative dotted with references to music, culture, and with local cuisines and wines. I was well caught up with the other three series and none of the others that I’s investigated appealed to me. Then a review of Mr. Walker’s latest book caught my interest. As is usual with my previous readings, I started in chronological order starting with the first book in the series.

The book started in the customary way, introducing the characters and setting the scene. I suspect that the other books will slowly build the cultural background information that is so central to the story telling. But it still felt slow in building and it did not seem promising initially.

One thing that I enjoyed was the relaxed atmosphere that the author was able to convey, afterall he set the story in a sleepy town in Dordogne and the ethos and the rhythm of the culture carries through beautifully in his narrative. Another good sign is that the author is not afraid of setting foot into the present, in this case, the issue of racial hatred present in Europe regarding the interaction between the Muslim immigrants and the French natives. The interaction is somewhat cursory but central to the story.

As I settled into the story however, I slowly got into the rhythm of the tale and started to put myself into the culture as being described. In addition, the characters in town are all also growing with the slowly evolving story. Eventually I settled into the pace and I was fully sold on the series as an addition to my regular rotation of mystery books.

Book Review-Einstein's Dream by Alan Lightman

This is a fine little book; a famous little book; and a clever little book.

I came upon this book late, even though I had heard of the book before, but I didn’t pay enough heed to the hype to start reading earlier.

This book is a neat exercise in thought experimentation by a physicist. He is having a little fun as well as showing off his physics chops.

Even though I knew what Lightman is trying to do, I was surprised slightly when he jumped straight into the tales of relativity. The stories were, at first, seemingly unrelated to one another, it isn’t until a little further up the road that the theme of the stories established themselves. Thus begins a short but charming ride through the theory of relativity as illustrated through vignettes starring the citizenry of the good people of Bern. The story moves along with dates serving as names of the chapters and Lightman weaving the sequence of tales as he uses the stories to explain the physics.

The book is structured so that there is no structure. It is reminiscent of Italo Calvino’s books. The stories come at you in short quick bursts with seemingly no connection between them, but in the end there is an overriding theme to it all.

The beauty of the book is that you can enjoy the gentle tales and be charmed by the oddities built within the stories or you can add another dimension to the tales by actually understanding the specifics of the theory of relativity and drawing the parallels between the stories and the relativity. I had an inkling about the physics, having been exposed to it during my undergrad days but I am obviously not an expert in the dark arts of theoretical physics, yet I thoroughly enjoyed the book beyond just the charming stories.