A post office theft leading to an uglier crime, a World War II memoir-turned-fiction, and two books about the environment. Take your pick for summer reading from Minnesota authors.
“Postmarked Castle Cove”: by Judy M. Kerr (Launch Point Press, $18.95)
(Courtesy of the author)
The weight of her circumstances was a heavy burden. A list formed in her head. The recently unlocked memories, Barb’s murder, rehab, AA meetings, Meg’s cancer, returning to work, and two cases she struggled to solve. All those things wrapped around her neck like an anchor, sinking her faster than the Edmund Fitzgerald on stormy Lake Superior.” — from “Postmarked Castle Cove”
Judy Kerr (Courtesy of the author)
Life is precarious for U.S. Postal Inspector MC McCall in the third book in this series, after “Black Friday” and “Silent Service.”
In this police procedural (yes, postal inspectors are law enforcement), McCall is returning to work after being in rehab for alcoholism. She’s a little shaky, longing for vodka. But she is determined to tackle her first assignment, a robbery at a post office in fictional Castle Cove, a small community near Two Harbors. At first it seems a simple case; somebody wanted the office’s money. But why did the perp throw mail around, as though looking for something specific?
As McCall digs deeper, while also trying to mentor a talented but slightly goofy new colleague, her investigation into the post office theft leads her to a local church run by a pastor who gives her and a woman deputy sheriff the creeps. Why is this man so devoted to the younger kids? And what involvement does he have with a local deputy who insults MC at every opportunity?
Kerr does a nice job of integrating McCall’s personal life into her job, including her friendship with two women who run a coffee shop and her grief over the murder of Barb, her life partner. Most of all, she fights the battle against booze, keeping her promise to attend six AA meetings even though she doesn’t believe in the program and can’t wait to finish. What keeps her going is the spirit of Barb speaking to her in her head, always pointing her to do the right thing.
“Postmarked Castle Cove” is a shout-out to postal inspectors who rarely make news. The book won the monthly Gold Award from Literary Titan, an organization of professional editors, writers, and professors who have a passion for the written word.
“Girls in a World at War”: by Peggy Munro Scholberg & Nancy Ewing Munro (Kirk House Publishers, $19.95)
(Courtesy of Kirk House Publishers)
She had no way to face this miserable war. No way at all. She’d tried to hate the Germans, but that didn’t strengthen the starved. She’d been shocked by the wounded. She was angered by those with venereal disease. She’d found a refuge in Charles’s loving arms. Yet this was no solution. She had no answers. — from “Girls in a World at War”
Peggy Munro Scholberg (Courtesy of Kirk House Publishers)
Peggy Scholberg has given us a remarkable look at her mother’s service as a dietician in an Army hospital in northern France during World War II. Scholberg bases the book on a 67-year-old autobiographical manuscript written by her late mother, Nancy Ewing Munro, which Scholberg edited into fiction.
In the original manuscript, Scholberg’s mother wrote that her memoir was “the story of five girls seeking purpose and meaning in a world too large to grasp.”.
Nancy Munro, called Kathy in the book, came from a wealthy family and was a college-educated dietician. When a friend came home from the war in a body cast, 23-year-old Kathy joined the army in 1944. Nothing prepared her for life in an Army hospital near Reims, where she nearly died of meningitis in freezing temperatures. She prepared meal plans for ambulatory patients and special diets for the wounded. When there was food left over, it was put out under the guise of garbage for starving French civilians. And although she wasn’t a nurse, she was sometimes asked to help in emergencies, from the birth of a baby whose Polish mother abandoned her newborn to changing dressings on the stump of a soldier’s amputated arm.
Kathy’s Army life is a mix of emotions, as are the lives of the women friends with whom she shared secrets. They were too busy to worry about lipstick and had too little water to wash their hair. They lived in khaki, right down to their underwear. Kathy interacted in kitchens with German prisoners of war and learned to speak French. And she saw how men and women far from home handled sexual relations, even though some had spouses. (She learned never to be alone with paratroopers or pilots, who thought they were gods.) But there were happy times too. One of her friends was married in her uniform carrying a bouquet Kathy made for her.
Kathy served during the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive on the Western Front during the war. She helped celebrate VE Day, the end of the war in Europe, and Victory Over Japan Day. One of the funny anecdotes is about what was supposed to be a military parade celebrating victory, but the hospital staff weren’t trained to march so it became a haphazard event with people going off in different directions because they didn’t follow shouted commands.
Kathy was still in the service after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and the war was over. Everyone wanted to go home and there were orders and counter-orders about where to go. To her dismay, Kathy got orders to a different hospital in the same area. But she was exhausted and tired of the cold and she used a previous order to leave the hospital, even though she knew she was breaking rules. Nobody ever caught her. She also saw the effects of some American soldiers’ criminal behavior as Army discipline lessened. A French family with whom she became friends complained about some men stealing their possessions. Yet they also admired their American liberators.
Kathy (Nancy) came home to marry Army veteran Jack Munro, who became a professor of education. Their daughter Peggy, who lives in Apple Valley with her husband, Bill, retraced her parents’ European travels and researched World War II history to edit this involving personal view of war.
“Marketing the Wilderness: Outdoor Recreation, Indigenous Activism, and the Battle Over Public Lands”: by Joseph Whitson (University of Minnesota Press, $22.95)
With the Trump administration considering ways to privatize public land and cut funding for national parks, the question of what will happen to our beloved wilderness in all its forms is growing in importance. Whitson, a marketing strategist and founder of Indigenous Geotags, an environmental and decolonial justice-focused blog, analyzes in this book the relationship between the outdoor recreation industry, public lands in the U.S. and indigenous sovereignty and representations in recreational spaces. According to the publisher: “Complicating the narrative of outdoor recreation as a universal good, Whitson introduces the concept of ‘wildernessing’ to describe the physical, legal, and rhetorical production of pristine, empty lands that undergirds the outdoor recreation industry, a process that further disenfranchises Indigenous people from whom these lands were stolen. Through the lens of environmental justice activism, (the book) reconsiders the ethics of recreational land use, advocating for engagement with issues of cultural representation and appropriation informed by Indigenous perspectives.”
“Kindred Spirits: The Story of the Extraordinary Nature Conservation of Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir”: by Jeff Olson (Palisade Head Press, $19)
Published last year, this book is even more relevant now for students and fans of the history of the giants of the American outdoors. John Muir grew up in central Wisconsin and President Theodore Roosevelt spent several years in North Dakota in his 20s. “This is the remarkable story of the huge step forward of nature conservation during the Golden Age from 1889-1909 that established a foundation for nature and nature conservation in America,” the author writes. “It compares the two extraordinary naturalist leaders, the kindred spirits of Muir and Roosevelt with insight into their many strong similarities and strong differences in leadership style, naturalist knowledge, advocacy, education, upbringing, naturalist writing, and more.” Includes 32 literary quotations from naturalist writers and photos of national parks, forests and wildlife refuges.
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