The Wild Trees, A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston, Random House, 320 p., Non-Fiction, $25.95

This is a story first and foremost about tree climbing. It really is not about a hidden world that is part of planet earth, as its publicity would lead one to believe. Still, it is a book worth reading for its memorable characters and several seat-gripping scenes. If you understand going in that it is more about being an adventurer and a tree climber than it is about the discoveries these adventurers and tree climbers make you will not be disappointed.

The setting, primarily in the ancient giant redwood temperate rainforests of Northern CA, and Washington State, is exotic, particularly for a life-long New Englander whose oldest trees are in the hundreds of years and whose tallest trees seldom exceed 100 feet. These New England giants are dwarfed by the tallest tree known to man. It was not mapped or measured until 2006. It stands 379.1 feet tall and has been named Hyperion.

Enter into this setting botanist Stephen Sillett, who grew up in Harrisburg, PA and became enamored of botany under the tutelage of his eccentric grandmother. His wife Marie Antoine is a child of Lake of the Woods, Ontario who loved climbing anything climbable from an early age. She and Stephen 's wedding scene high in the Redwood Canopy is one you will not forget. Michael Taylor the son of wealthy Santa Barbara, California Real Estate Investor James Searcy Taylor as a boy loved flying with his father and became enthralled by the notion of finding the largest tree in the world. In spite of their diverse backgrounds each has a passion for nature and they all share, in varying degrees, believe it or not, a fear of heights. The reader can share that paralyzing fear in the recounting of a fall by a professional climber who miraculously lives to talk about it. Finally there is the author who tags along on some of the forays as a professional climber and acts as a reporter.

Taylor takes us through the childhoods of the three main characters in the book and then relates their individual stories which explain how they became involved in finding and climbing the tallest trees on earth. Unfortunately, while their backgrounds are interesting this book does not really turn out to be about the human characters. That is a surprise to the reader largely because the author spends so much time developing them. It is about the trees; the wild, never been climbed before trees; and the background information serves only to distract the reader's attention from the main focus of the book.

Just as we are beginning to understand that the book is about the mysterious world high up in the canopy of the temperate rain forest, Taylor changes gear by taking us into an old Scotch Pine Forest in Scotland where he climbs with his family. This distraction gives us the information that Scotland's forests are endangered and explains why. Then Preston takes us into the tropical Mountain Ash Hume Forest in Australia where he climbs a 298 foot tree with Sillett. Here we learn about leeches and more about the art of climbing but nothing about the canopy life.

These journeys are interesting and certainly add to the reader's understanding of tree climbing. They do not enlighten us a bit about the temperate rain forest. Finally we get it. Despite what the dust cover publicity might lead you to believe, this story is, after all, about finding and taming the wild tree rather than reporting on the ecosystem that thrives in the canopy high in the sky. Isn't it? The author's intent is not always clear.

It has its moments. All too brief descriptions of flying buttresses hosting fern gardens and as well as more tall trees growing out of the branches of these kings of the forest world keep the nature lover thirsty for more detail. Reading about worms, salamanders and ants living at 300+ feet where ponds fed by rain and fog sustain life fires the imagination. Imagine sleeping 350 feet above the ground only to awaken to find squirrels that have never seen human beings scampering over you as if you are a new piece of furniture! Yes, the book does offer a brief glimpse into a world most of us will never visit but I for one would love a sequel with more pictures, more detail, more tales of flora and fauna and less about the intricacies of rope use. Review by Alice Hawrilenko

Virgin Lies by Roderick Anscombe, St. Martin's Press, Fiction, 294 p., $24.95

Paul Lucas is a Boston psychiatrist whose marriage to Abby, a therapist, cracked following the tragic death of their young son, but it is to her side he runs when she reports that a nine year-old girl in her care has disappeared while fetching coffee. The perpetrators are identified early on, but neither will divulge the location of the missing child. It's summer; it's hot, and the child could easily die of dehydration.

Lucas's specialty is interviewing subjects and determining whether they're telling the truth. In fact the author, a physician, once worked at Bridgewater State Hospital and now teaches interviewing techniques at Harvard. The police are suspicious of Lucas, having suspected him of murder the previous year, but they nonetheless seek his expertise as they desperately try to find this child. Abby is obsessed with finding her, and a side of her personality heretofore not visible emerges, and the transformation is both astonishing and somewhat repellent to Paul. Abby, however, is persuasive, and Paul, a healer, is shown another path to a positive resolution. Here we have a man whose business is lies, and who like T. Jefferson Parker's character in The Fallen, does not truly know his own wife. This is a story of moral relativism, and it is well done, but it's hard to cheer when the good guys go bad no matter the reason, unless, of course, you're the mother of a child in danger. At what point in life do the rules no longer apply?

This book is sophisticated, compelling, riveting, authentic, thought-provoking, and absorbing. The characters are flesh and blood, and the questions posed deserve careful thought.
Dr. Anscombe lives in Gloucester.

Shooting Star by Cynthia Riggs, Thomas Dunne Books, Cozy Mystery, 258 p., $$23.95

Oh happy day, it's time for another visit to West Tisbury and the indomitable Victoria Trumbull, a ninety-two year old poet, newspaper columnist, expert on local flaura and fauna, and police deputy. This time out, Victoria has written a play, an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but the characters seem to be dropping dead in order of their appearances, but the play must go on, and unfortunately it does. Victoria's carefully written adaptation turns farcical with the recruiting of anybody to read the lines to packed audiences at the local playhouse.

Of course there are suspects galore including a spurned admirer, ex-husbands, the boyfriend of an ex-wife, and others. Additionally, a young boy is missing, and it's believed he may have witnessed the first murder.

A new book in this series is an occasion for me, a treat to be savored and enjoyed. Victoria Trumbull is no ordinary granny handing out cookies and lemonade. Oh, she does some of that, too, but it's secondary to being self-reliant, determined, kind, and clever. I love her, and I hope to be like her. This series is an absolute must for cozy readers.

Withering Heights by Dorothy Cannell, St. Martin's Minotaur, Cozy Mystery, 248 pp., $22.95

While this is the tenth book in the Ellie Haskell series, feel free to jump right in here. Never having read this series before, I enjoyed this frothy romp tremendously, and I plan to read all the rest when I can. If you love a cozy English mystery, this is for you, particularly if you're a fan of Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity series.

Ellie Haskell is an interior designer; her husband is a well known chef and cookbook author. They have three young children and a housekeeper like no other. The magnificent Mrs. Malloy is a sixty-something lady, clad in taffeta and spike heels who wears her hair in two colors. She is resourceful, manipulative, and delightful.

Several things are happening at once. Mrs. Malloy is disturbed by the dire revelations of one Madam La Grange, a psychic, who predicts that an old girlfriend of Ellie's husband is about to appear, and that an old lady will die from falling in front of a bus. As Mrs. Malloy struggles with these predictions, a young girl appears at the Haskell home, having run away from her father and stepmother who have recently won such a large lottery prize that they've bought themselves a castle, or something large with turrets in any case. Ellie and Ben decide to drive the child to Yorkshire which, coincidentally, is where Mrs. Malloy's sister, from whom she's been estranged for forty years lives, so of course Mrs. Malloy is heading to Yorkshire as well. There is murder, and all kinds of odd behavior, and Ellie and Mrs. Malloy save the day. Cannell is witty and funny, and this whimsical story is well written and cuts above the norm. You'll love it.

The Unquiet: A Thriller by John Connolly, Atria, Thriller, 418 pp., $25.95

This series features Charlie Parker, a PI living in Maine, a former New York cop whose wife and child were brutally murdered. Charlie relocated to the woods of Maine, married again, and had another daughter, but the spectres of his deceased family continue to visit Charlie, a fact which has caused his marital separation.

Connolly's Parker series is characterized by hideous violence as Parker fights the supernatural battle between good and evil using guns and other weapons of destruction. There is less of that here, but the subject of pedophilia provides more than enough revulsion.
A hit man appears in Maine. His daughter disappeared while he was in prison, and he believes the answers to his questions about his daughter's apparent murder lie with the daughter of her former psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Clay, who subsequently disappeared himself. The hit man stalks Clay's daughter until she is fearful enough to hire Parker to protect her. Parker enlists the help of some dependable local thugs as well as Angel and Louis, two endearing killers from New York.

Parker tracks the hit man while also trying to learn about the ring of local sexual predators who operate in the area.

You can't put down a book in this series once you've begun it. This series is violent beyond words, but moral in most ways, and a reminder that the veil between here and the unknown is terribly thin.

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