Asta in the Wings, by Jan Elizabeth Watson

One of the better portrayals of children I've read in awhile. Asta and Orion and "isolates" discovered living with their mother in Maine. Their mother is clearly unstable, but not necessarily a Bad Mother, just not 100% capable of properly caring for her children. What happens when the family is split into three parts is fascinating.

Book of the Dead, by Patricia Cornwell (on CD)

Oh, dear, Scarpetta makes me SOOOO angry. I didn't like this one at all; the mystery wasn't bad though not very well organized, but the interpersonal shit just about made me vomit. How can such an amazing beautiful woman (inside and out, to hear the characters tell it) be such a moron and attract so much negativity...and be so idiotic. No.More. I said that before about this series, skipped a few books, and picked this up hoping for improvement.

The Game of Thirty, by William Kotzwinkle

A hard-boiled PI takes on a murder case the police haven't been able to resolve for the victim's daughter. Her dad was killed, and then eviscerated, in his living room. He was a dealer in ancient artifacts, as is his daughter, and was involved in some shady trades one of which involves child prostitution. However, the main story was a little too obvious to me. Still, very interesting. The game of thirty interests me. And the ending was rather fairy-tale happy, in a good way.

The Dollmaker's Daughters, by Abigail Padgett

A deceptively slim series mystery starring Bo Bradley. Bo works for the state child protective services and so is called when a teenage girl enters a sort-of fugue state at a Goth club near Bo's house. Even though Bo is encouraged, strongly, to drop the case once the girl is placed back with her foster parents, she contiues to investigate, finding holes in her supervisor's story and befriending the teenager. Eventually she finds the girl's biological family which only serves to bring about more tragedy before Bo stops the perpetrator for good.

Quite an interesting woman is Bo, but she'd be hell to work with.

The Lives They Left Behind : Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny

If that photo is haunting enough...

About ten years ago Willard State Hospital in New York state was officially closed after operating for over 100 years as a mental institution. This book chronicles the lives of some of the patients there, as pieced together from the suitcases they brought with them. Apparently, after their arrival the patients never had access to their belongings again; the bags were stored in an attic in one of the buildings and essentially forgotten.

What is discovered about ten of the individuals whose suitcases were found is that none of them was particularly 'crazy' in the modern sense. The amazing thing is that with few exceptions everyone who came to Willard stayed until they died decades later. So, one woman was placed in care in her 30s because her neighbors thought she was odd stayed until she died...in her 90s! For all of the problems surrounding today's mental health care, keeping someone in a sanatorium for 50 years because they were depressed after the death of a family member is not one of them.

This is a sad book, about sad people whose lives were taken away from them. It's an indictment of the medical field as a whole, and also of our culture. It was (is?) quite easy for society to believe that women and minorities who speak up about their mistreatment or who don't 'fit in' generally must be crazy (or criminal). While some great changes have come about in the past few decades, the closure of Willard State Hospital only happened in 1995. That's not that long ago, really.