The story of 2 sisters, Anne and Claire,  who were very close growing up in NYC. When Anne, the older sister, marries a controlling, abusive man she separates herself from Claire and her mother. When Claire steps in to try and protect Anne as she is being  attacked by her husband, she ends up in prison for 2 years.  Anne turns against her sister and sides with her husband who takes her and the children to his native Denmark as a further way of isolating and controlling them.  Now almost 20 years later, the 2 sisters have not spoken. Anne’s 20 year-old daughter turns up at Claire’s door in NYC and more family secrets slowly are revealed.

On Monday, Google, Inc., announced that it was purchasing Frommer travelguides for $25 million from its publisher John Wiley & Sons.  In 2011, Google acquired Zagat Survey.  These reviews will be combined with the Zagat brand.  These acquisitions seemed to indicate that Google is moving away from its originally avowed aim of pointing people to invormation on the Web to creating content.

Google has not decided whether it will continue to publish Frommer in print or migrate the guidebooks entirely to an online resource.

I just finished reading Daniel Silva’s latest “The Fallen Angel,” which has been on the NYT’s Best Seller List for the last three weeks.  I have not read any of Silva’s previous novels in this series, but according to the book jacket, this seemed like the type of spy/mystery story I like.

Th main character Gabriel Allon is an Israeli spy as well as being a noted art restorer.  Great combination.  He was hired by the secretary to the Pope to restore one of Caravaggio’s greatest masterpieces, which resides in the Vatican museum.  It seems that Allon and the Pope have a previous history, which is alluded to as the novel progresses.

I was definitely intrigued, but as I read further into the story every turn of the plot seemed just too contrived.  None of the “good guys” is really ever in real danger; every deadly situation turns out just fine.

I did finish “Fallen Angel” because the last section takes place in Jerusalem, with some very interesting, factual information about the major historical religious sites there.

Perhaps, I should have read an earlier book in this series. Maybe I will, but maybe I’ll just wait for the next Donna Leon or Elizabeth George.  Commissaro Guido Brunetti and Thomas Linley are much more fun to read about.

I was straightening the large print section and it appears that we don’t have as many new books as we used to. I am curious: am I mistaken or are we not ordering as many new titles as when the collection was in front of the desk? Can we tell if the circs are down over last year?