Steve Smith is recently out of prison. He’s sworn he’s not going back to his old life, not going back to prison again. He has an adult son he’s never met. And Steve has memories of the book he found on a bus that led to a favorite teacher disappearing when he was 14. We follow Steve through transcripts of recorded notes he left on his phone. Because in trying to find out what happened to Miss Iles (or “missiles” per the transcription software) Steve falls down the vast Twyford Code conspiracy rabbit hole. Was Twyford just a children’s author? Or a spy who hid messages to other WWII spies in her books? Maybe she was a double agent? Did she help the Nazis steal Britain’s gold reserves? Or did she save the gold via bluffs and double bluffs? Her code (does it even exist?) leads to the stolen (or possibly saved) gold. Or to a supervirus and it’s vaccine. Or aliens. Or it’s the biggest internet conspiracy hoax ever. Who knows what? Who’s lying about what they know? And what did happen to Miss Iles in 1983?

Second book in the Shady Hollow Mysteries. Imagine animal characters like those of The Wind in the Willows in a cozy mystery series. Reporter Vera Vixen is on the case when the rabbits dig up a skeleton along with a dead apple tree. To her skunk of a boss old bones equals old news. Her beau, constable Orville Bruin, orders her off of the investigation. A slinky new mink in town seems to have Orville’s attention while the gossip columnist vents her professional jealousy.

People traveled in the 12th-15t centuries. Merchants sought new markets, diplomats finagled treaties, and anyone who could get the necessary funding and permissions took religious pilgrimages. Bale explores the most common holy and trade routes based on what the travelers wrote in journals and guidebooks. It is very interesting, but too limited. Bale points out several times that Christians (Roman and Eastern/Greek), Muslims, and Jewish pilgrims visited many of the same places in Constantinople and Jerusalem. We only have the Christian, and almost exclusively Western European Christian, stories. One small chapter near the end follows Asian travelers’ adventures in the west. Ma Huan (Chinese Muslim), Het’um (Armenian Christian), and Rabban Bar Sauma (Christian Mongol) don’t represent the majority of nonEuropeans. A broader range of viewpoints and less personal commentary from the author would improve the book.

Very interesting was reading about space since I watched the Apollo movie so I will be reading a lot of books about it this summer

If I could read this over again for a first time I would. Riveting and keeps you sucked in the whole time. Absolutely love this authors writing. I will be looking for more from her.

Absolutely devoured this read. Made driving to the grocery store so much easier! Definitely will recommend this listen to a fellow book nerd

If I could read this over again for a first time I would. Riveting and keeps you sucked in the whole time. Absolutely love this authors writing. I will be looking for more from her.

I love reading classics from my childhood!

Suspenseful, but at times, hard to stay engaged in.

Love the book great storyline