Harriet Klausner's Review Archive
French King Louis XV supports Bartolomeo’s efforts to improve on the Passarola as the enlightened monarch sees great military advantage in fighting enemies on the ground from the air. Meanwhile the Acadmie des Sciences hire the siblings to measure distances to the polar circle, which they undertake. On the dangerous trek, Alex claims to have seen a great city, but no proof is offered and his older brother admits he never saw the phantom sprawl. After a return to France, Alex goes home to Brazil as the adventures are over for him, but Bartolomeo starts a new epic in India.
Based on the real account of two eighteenth century brothers, PASSAROLA RISING is a superb historical fiction novel that brings to life the first half of the eighteenth century through the passion of siblings who want to soar through the sky. The tale is told in a look back memoir like manner by Alexandre, who romanticizes and worships his creative talented and daring older brother. Readers will enjoy the adventures of two daredevils defying church, royalty, and other powers of society to live out their dream even though for one of them it turns into a relatively short fantasy.
Blue Valor Illona Haus Pocket, Feb 2006, $6.99, 367 pp. ISBN: 0743458095
Baltimore homicide detectives Kay Delaney and Danny Finnerly are partners on the job and in their personal lives even though she has commitment problems that will not allow her to move in with her lover let alone marry him. Their latest case starts off bizarrely when a human heart is left near the posh private Langley Country School. During the interviews of the staff, the two cops learn that a student Leslie Richter was murdered two months ago.
Kat has a hunch that the heart and the murdered girl are connected, which makes her wonder if they have a serial killer on their hands. A few weeks later, another young woman is raped, beaten, and left for dead near a highway; she dies in the hospital. Forensic evidence affirms that the same person killed the three coeds and when a fourth has been abducted Kay is in a race against the clock to find her before she too dies.
Fans of police procedural thrillers like those written by Kay Hooper and Leslie Glass will want to read the tense BLUE VALOR. The story line that provides the tormented internal soul of police officers especially how their struggles with a nasty case involving youngsters impact their emotions and subsequently their personal lives. Illona Haus is a talented author who provides many twists to the homicide investigation that will keep her audience wondering what will happens next. However, it is the humanizing of her heroine and her partner that makes this a very worthy read.