Murder on the Yellow Brick Road (Toby Peters, 2) Stuart Kaminski. Open Road Integrated Media (ISBN: 9781453238271), 2011 (first published in 1977).
Summary: When a Munchkin is murdered on the “Wizard” set, Peters is hired to find the killer and protect Judy Garland.
I never particularly liked the Munchkins in Wizard of Oz. and this story did nothing to endear them to me. Toby Peters, known for his discretion on a previous case involving Errol Flynn, gets the call to come to The Wizard of Oz set at MGM. Lying on the Yellow Brick Road is one very dead Munchkin, found by Judy Garland, working on another film. Shortly before being found, someone overheard him in a heated argument with another Munchkin. So Toby’s police detective brother arrests him. But when Toby interviews him, he decides they arrested the wrong man
That becomes clearer when someone shoots at him. And because Garland is at risk, the studio adds protecting her to his assignment. Good thing, too. He discovers someone had tried to poison her. As he investigates, suspects keep dying. And there are more attempts on his life, his old Buick taking the brunt of it. His brother suspects him of at least one of the murders. But then, Toby and Phil have always been at odds.
But there are compensations. He gets to visit the Hearst estate to interview Clark Gable, who had information relevant to the case. He even runs into Raymond Chandler, hanging out in a hotel lobby “picking up characters and dialogue.” Chandler offers to tag along to see a real private detective in action. And Toby falls in love with Garland’s assistant, a dark-haired beauty.
This was my first Toby Peters book. Compared to Kaminsky’s Porfiry Rostnikov and Abe Lieberman, Peters seems more of the caricature of a private investigator, a bit unsavory and hard-bitten, trying to survive. I may try a few more to see if he develops as a character. The celebrity tie-ins, a feature of this series, I gather, add an element of fun. However, the meeting with Chandler felt forced to me. But Kaminsky offers enough plot twists as well as (to me) a surprise at the end.
Night of the Fireflies, Muriel Elmer. Independently published (ISBN: 9798196399244) 2026.
Summary: A memoir of growing up as a Missionary Kid with her widowed mother in Zimbabwe, both painful and formative.
I grew up hearing stories like these from missionaries who visited our church. And there was a period of time during and after college when I read a number of missionary biographies. But I never read an account of a “missionary kid.” From the few MKs I met, their story was usually less glorious than the ones I read. And it has been too long since I’ve read any such accounts. That is, until Muriel Elmer’s memoir of growing up as a child of missionaries in Africa came along.
Trained in nursing, she has directed relief efforts for children, taught nursing, and educational studies. I interviewed her several years on a book she co-authored, titled The Learning Cycle. So it was a pleasure to hear from her again, and even more to read this account of her early life. She recounts her childhood at a mission station in Msengedzi in the Zambezi Valley of present-day Zimbabwe up through when she enrolled in nursing studies at Wheaton College, spanning a period from 1942 to 1958.
Rudy and Mary Danielson heard a call from God to go to Africa and departed for there in 1942, along with their toddler, Muriel. Working with another couple, Orv and Helen Dunkeld, who would play an important role in Muriel’s life, they established the mission station. But Rudy died just a year later, in November of 1943. Muriel recounts their trip back to the States in 1944, on a blacked out ship during the war, evading enemy submarines. When the war ended, Mary and Muriel returned.
The years after their return were magical, though challenging. The Dunkeld’s boys were co-adventurers with her. She describes encounters with baboons, the rains, and a unique experience one night of fireflies invading their hut. But the magic years did not last as her mother made the decision to send her to boarding school. In addition to a cruel housemother came the cost of fitting in, the beginnings of struggles with self-doubt and shame her mother never quite grasped.
Eventually, she moved to another school and stayed in a home with the Dunkeld family and several others. This was a healing contrast to her earlier boarding school experiences. But her experiences and that of living in three different cultures left her wondering who she was. The latter part of the memoir traces her growing understanding of God’s working in her life amid a troubled childhood. She writes:
“And so, as I think about the circle of my life, it is like a set of pearls on a string. Each pearl represents yet another strange place where a gracious God has designed new experiences, each adding to my perspective and my character in the service of others. Those cross-cultural relational skills so unconsciously bred into me as a child became my gifts to build his Kingdom.”
She describes her mother’s work of teaching and sometimes basic medical care as well as the mission community of which they were a part–both the precious friendships and the losses. During her teen years, she grew deeper in her faith, especially under the influence of the Dunkelds. She also had a growing sense that she needed to pursue nursing training. This resulted in the decision to finish her high school training at Wheaton Academy before going on to nursing training.
The narrative describes mission work embedded among people, learning from them and serving them and gaining their trust. It contrasts with accounts of Western missions as imperialist and colonial efforts. Elmer addresses this specifically in an epilogue, citing the research of Robert Woodberry showing countries with mission presence were more economically developed, had better health care, lower corruption and higher educational attainments.
Elmer writes this memoir in a way that imparts a sense of the wonder, the pain, and growing self-understanding she experienced. She writes honestly about difficulties and shortcomings. She also profiles godly women and men of great integrity, courage, and humility. And she traces the gracious workings of God in her own life from this childhood to her life today.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author for review.
One of the fun things I was able to do this past month was to review two books about people who grew up where I grew up–Phil Keaggy and John DeMain. Not only did I review Ann Patchett’s latest, Whistler but also a wonderful book by Andrew Krivak and a fun adventure for middle grade readers. Then there was a book by a man who persevered through reading the whole Encyclopedia Britannica, a book on whites who persevere in pursuing racial justice, and what constitutes a good quit! I would also highlight books by Alan Noble on living virtuously, a poetry collection by T. A. Gibson and Nadya Williams’ Christians Reading Classics. Finally, I read a book on what it was like for men like my father, part of the Greatest Generation, to return from World War II. That doesn’t exhaust the twenty books you’ll find here!
The Reviews
Oscar and the Mystery of the Glowing Orbs (The Sensate Saga), Don Everts. IVP Kids (ISBN: 9781514012185) 2026. Shortly after moving, Oscar starts seeing things and joins school journalists to solve a mystery. Review
Becoming Neighbors, Amar D. Peterman. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802884121) 2026. Seeking the local common good through shared tables, neighbor love, building together, and faithful presence. Review
New Testament Ethics, Cherryl Hunt, Nicholas J. Moore, and Timothy J. Murray, editors, foreword by Luke Timothy Johnson. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802884503) 2026. Critical and constructive essays discussing Richard B. Hays “The Moral Vision of the New Testament” thirty years later. Review
Whistler, Ann Patchett. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780063511637) 2026. When Daphne Fuller runs into the stepfather she hadn’t seen for forty years, they reconnect, understanding the bond between them. Review
Christians Reading Classics, Nadya Williams. Zondervan Academic (ISBN: 9780310171072) 2025. A reading guide to the Greek and Latin classics and why Christians should read them and how they may benefit. Review
The Black Agenda, Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, ed. Foreword by Tressie McMillan Cottom. St. Martin’s Press (ISBN: 9781250276872) 2022. Black thinkers in various fields make recommendations to combat racism and promote needed societal change. Review
Guards! Guards! (Discworld, 8), Terry Pratchett. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780063373761) 2024, first published in 1989. When a secret society summons a dragon to get rid of Ankh-Morpork’s Patrician, the Night Watch gains a new sense of purpose. Review
Oh What A Day, John B. Hatch with foreword and commentary by Phil Keaggy. Palmetto Publishing (ISBN: 9798318835919), 2026. The background, composition, recording, and impact of Phil Keaggy’s debut solo album, a milestone in Christian music. Review
Paul’s Gospel in Romans, Jarvis J. Williams. Baker Academic (ISBN: 9781540963291) 2026. Argues that Paul in Romans articulates a gospel with vertical, horizontal and cosmic dimensions. Review
The Wounded Generation, David Nasaw. Penguin Press (ISBN: 9780593298695) 2025. The experience of veterans returning from World War II, their invisible wounds and their impact, and the G.I. Bill. Review
Racial Justice for the Long Haul, Christine Jeske. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514011034) 2026. Qualitative ethnographic research analyzing why some white advocates for racial justice persevere. Review
A Wayfarer’s Poems: The Invitation, T. A. Gibson. Resource Publications (ISBN: 9798385225644) 2026. Poems celebrating wonder in creation, in one another, and in the Waymaker, inviting attention and belief. Review
The Fall and Redemption of Conscience (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Andrea Ferrari, foreword by Paul T. Nimmo. Lexham Academic (ISBN: 9781683598725) 2026. A study of conscience in relation to the Triune God as created, fallen, redeemed, and perfected. Review
Mule Boy, Andrew Krivak. Bellevue Literary Press. (ISBN: 9781954276468) 2026. New Years Day 1929 changed Ondro Prach’s life. His first day as mule boy was also the day he alone survived a mine collapse. Review
The Gospel of Being Human, Marty Solomon with Reed Dent. NavPress (ISBN: 9781641589482) 2026. A reframing of the gospel beginning with the good news of our humanity and an invitation to curiosity and wonder. Review
Becoming God’s Family, Carmen Joy Imes, IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514010327) 2025. A biblical theology of the church for the disillusioned, addressing faults and casting vision for its importance. Review
The Know-It-All, A. J. Jacobs. Simon & Schuster (ISBN: 9780743250627) 2005. A memoir of reading the 32 volume 2002 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover. Review
Working with My Heroes, John Demain and Greg Hettmansberger. University of Wisconsin Press (ISBN: 9780299352202) 2026. A memoir by Madison Symphony Orchestra’s director, tracing his mentors from Youngstown to the greats of American music. Review
The Good Quit, Jeffrey A. Lockwood. University of Wyoming Press. (ISBN: 9781646428069) 2026. A philosophical inquiry into the what, when, why, and how of quitting including the different kinds of quits. Review
To Live Well, Alan Noble, foreword by Justin Whitmel Early. InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514002247) 2026. Explores the classic and Christian virtues and how we may cultivate habits of the heart to flourish in a chaotic world. Review
Best Book of the Month
I chose Andrea Ferrari’s The Fall and Redemption of Conscience because it does something inherent in good theology. It reminds us of truth our generation may have forgotten. I wrote, “I thought this treatment moved us from conscience as an aspect of self-consciousness to recognizing the wonder of conscience as God’s gift, enabling our covenantal relationship of trust and faithfulness. All the more is this so as one weighs the contrast of the fallen and renewed conscience, especially the shift from darkened understanding to increasing clarity of perception, and from hiding from to openness to God. And then there is the hope of the perfected conscience! This is a rich study that recovers the doctrine of conscience as a glorious gift of the Triune God.”
Quote of the Month
How does one describe a passage of music in words? In Oh What a Day, John B. Hatch does this for each track of Christian musician Phil Keaggy’s debut solo album. As one example, consider this description of the beginning of the opening track of that album:
“The timbre of acoustic guitars creates an intimate feel, while the regally marching low notes and briskly dancing high notes evoke majesty and celebration together, foreshadowing the sublime yet accessible music to follow. What a perfect introduction for a song (and album) about God who graciously ‘gives life to all mankind.’ “
What I’m Reading
The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie is like a short story collection of Hercule Poirot stories, connected by his detective equivalent of the labors of Hercules. Great fun.Nolan is a biography of Nolan Ryan, the Hall of Fame pitcher, describing how his life reflects his upbringing in a small Texas town. Just starting The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew B. Crawford. Loved his Shop Class as Soulcraft. So, I hope this matches or exceeds that. How to Be a Christian Influencer looks at what it means to use social media well as a Christian, something I’ve striven to do on all my Bob on Books platforms. Finally, Communio Theology looks at the theological movement within Catholicism born of the collaboration of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, and Joseph Ratzinger. An eclectic list for sure!
The Month in Reviews is my monthly review summary going back to 2014!It’s a great way to browse what I’ve reviewed. The search box on this blog also works well if you are looking for a review of a particular book. So, thanks for stopping byand feel free to share this with others!
To Live Well, Alan Noble, foreword by Justin Whitmel Early. InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514002247) 2026.
Summary: Explores the classic and Christian virtues and how we may cultivate habits of the heart to flourish in a chaotic world.
We live in a chaotic world that sends us contradictory messages about the “good life.” Thus, we often feel ourselves pulled in different directions, never sure of what is good or right. Alan Noble proposes in this book that “[v]irtues are cultivated habits that align us with who God created us to be.” Virtues don’t save us. Rather, the Holy Spirit enables those in Christ to live virtuously, honoring God as He intended. In this book, Noble considers the four classic virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and the three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love. He devotes a chapter to cultivating each of these “habits of the heart.”
Choosing Decisively. Prudence, as W. Jay Wood defines it is “the act of thinking truthfully about the best means to appropriate ends.” However, this does not mean there is One Right Choice. Rather we weigh tradeoffs, count costs, listen to wise counsel and then decide and rest in it.
Acting Justly. Noble explores what Christ, not the world, call us to and our right obligations. Practically, we seek to give others their due with generosity, as it is within our power while trusting Christ to make all things new.
Suffering Steadfastly. Fortitude and courage has to do with how we face suffering. The truth few will tell us is that life involves a lot of suffering. Christ helps us meet suffering with fortitude through his own example and through the knowledge of the greater good that comes to those who endure suffering. Fortitude also involves magnanimity, to act courageously with the talents God gives us.
Living Moderately. We live in an economy of excess, urging us to consume all we can. Temperance is about ordering our desires to reflect God’s will, enjoying the good in moderation and refraining from the harmful that reflects disordered desire. It means choosing not to do all we can in order to say “yes” to God.
Believing Soundly. Faith is not the lack of doubts and questions. Rather, it is to continue to hang onto the trust that God is good enough to save us in Christ and to keep obeying amid our questions. Also faith honestly takes our bitterness and anger with God to God, an act of trusting. That is, beyond the circumstances that elicit our anger we choose to hang onto the belief in God’s goodness.
Hoping Resolutely. We face challenges, even of an existential order, for which we despair of human solutions. We risk succumbing to acedia, a kind of sadness, of sloth that relinquishes hope that under God, our lives matter. But to hope resolutely is to believe in the God who is able to intervene, and who will one day, even if not in every circumstance now, make all things right.
Loving Rightly. Finally, Noble considers all the broken images of love and what it is to love rightly as those loved extravagantly by a gracious God. Love proclaims, “It is good that you exist; how wonderful you are!” Then it is desiring the good for the other as it has been revealed in Christ’s person.
In concluding, Noble reminds us of the importance of community in cultivating virtue. He also reminds us that the reality is we will have failures but that this is the endeavor of a lifetime. Pursuing virtue is not a technique but our ongoing reliance upon grace to choose the good.
Alan Noble has do something far more profound than write a how-to book for the good life. He has reminded us of the language used through the ages for habits of being that produce goodness under grace. My brief summaries hardly do justice to the depths Noble explores with each virtue. This is a book to read and re-read. It speaks from a place of wholeness into our chaotic, disjointed lives. It is a signal to us that another life is possible.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Build a personal library. Unless you are at the stage of deaccumulating, I would urge you to consider this. Many homes have a bookshelf or two. I’m suggesting a real library. It could be a designated room or distributed through your living spaces, as it is in our home.
This doesn’t mean keeping every book you read. Rather, think of those books each member of your household treasures. Our household has theology and history, literature and science, cookbooks and art books. One room has Ohioana and Youngstown books. When our son was living with us, the library included his books, including stories we treasured reading aloud together.
As a child, my parents books helped feed my love of reading–everything from fiction to encyclopedias. Often guests in our home would take a book to read before bed. Sometimes those books would go with them! Hospitality is not just about feeding the body, but also feeding the soul.
Books are a kind of memory palace. They remind us of where we were in life when we first read them. Some, such as favorite stories and poetry and books of devotion are friends we revisit.
I also ponder the pulping of books and the decline of reading and worse dystopian nightmares. I hope we may, in our lives and beyond, preserve what is best of what people have thought and written. So, my advice to those starting out in life: build a personal library. It will be a friend for life.
Five Articles Worth Reading
One of the reviewers I consistently read is Jennifer Szalai, with the New York Times. This week she reviews classics translator Emily Wilson’s new essay collection, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea in a review titled “For Emily Wilson, Translating the Ancients Requires a Dash of Cardi B.” That tells you something right there!
My newsfeed has been full of tributes to Dolly Parton, who passed this week. I thought “The Most Beautiful Woman” captured the many facets of Parton’s life and her cultural impact.
Those who devote themselves to the study of literature learn to engage in close reading. In “In Praise of Unclose Reading” Stephen Akey agues that there are also joys and a place for what he terms “unclose reading.”
It was many years ago, while working on a study of the theology of work that I came across josef Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture. I felt like Pieper wrote from another time or a different place, speaking into the dysfunctions of our culture. I was reminded of this by Griffin Gooch who makes the case for “Why You Should Read Josef Pieper.”
Finally, with students, teachers, and professors returning to the classroom, JSTOR ran another of its article compilations on “Back to School.” It includes articles on everything from primary sources to the mainstreaming of homeschooling, on libraries and reading lists and so much more!
Quote of the Week
Poet and essayist Rita Dove was born August 27, 1952. She offers this insight into the generous life that I really like:
“If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.”
Miscellaneous Musings
At a time when there are a record number of challenges and banning efforts against book, I am all the more impressed with the quiet work of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. During her life, this put over 330 million books into the hands of children, a great boost to reading literacy efforts. And during the time when so many are fighting about vaccines, she quietly donated $1 million of her own funds to provide seed money that led to the development of Moderna’s vaccine. If I had to choose, I want to be like Dolly.
I watched the American Masters documentary, Mary Oliver: Saved By the Beauty of the World, on Tuesday. I’ve loved her poetry and was fascinated to learn that I had lived for a time in her childhood home of Maple Heights, Ohio. I was saddened to learn of the dark history of that childhood and her instinct, from the week she spent in the woods at 17, to seek out beauty and light, which shines through in her poetry, read by luminaries like Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Colbert, and her neighbor, John Waters. If you missed it, you can still stream it from this link or on many streaming platforms.
My son sent me this reel from Facebook on how the Internet Archive scans books without destroying them by removing the bindings. I don’t approve of what AI companies are doing in buying old books to train AI, but at least they could adopt this method and then donate the books.
Next Week’s Reviews
Monday: Alan Noble, To Live Well
Tuesday: The Month in Reviews: August 2026
Wednesday: Muriel Elmer, Night of the Fireflies
Thursday: Stuart Kaminsky, Murder on the Yellow Brick Road
Friday: Elizabeth Strout, Tell Me Everything
So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for August 23-29.
Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.
The Good Quit, Jeffrey A. Lockwood. University of Wyoming Press. (ISBN: 9781646428069) 2026.
Summary: A philosophical inquiry into the what, when, why, and how of quitting including the different kinds of quits.
“I quit!” Most of us have said those words, or something like them during our lives. Sometimes that was a good decision and sometimes one we regretted. That may or may not have to do with how or why we quit. Sometimes, we quit freely, while at other times, it may have been compelled or was something we did with reluctance. Furthermore, character enters in. To quit sometimes seems a sign of weakness, especially if one quits too easily or often.
Given this, Jeffrey A. Lockwood, who quit the field of entomology to become a professor of natural sciences and humanities, take us us on philosophical and practical study of quitting. His study breaks into three parts. Firstly, he considers the various kinds of ways we stop doing something or how quitting manifests. We end relationships, undergo conversion, renounce certain habits, and make decisions around the end of our lives. We end employment out of principle, frustration, or to pursue more favorable work. From games and athletic contests to wars, we terminate our involvement, usually when the cost of continuing is greater than that of conceding defeat. Out of all this, Lockwood formulates a taxonomy of quitting.
Secondly, Lockwood discusses the when and why of quitting. He looks at how we decide to “hold ’em or fold ’em” in a number of different activities. He explores the difference between well-reasoned and impulsive endings. Lockwood also considers the matter of free will. We do not always quit by our own choice alone but because of various levels of coercion–think Tom Brady or Joe Biden. Then there are the various levels of quitting from cold turkey to cutting back. Is doing less a kind of quitting? Finally, in the last chapter of this section, Lockwood formulates a definition of quitting incorporating the factors he has discussed:
“Quitting is the task of integrating rational and emotional considerations in voluntarily terminating one’s commitment to a typically ongoing state or process of considerable meaning to the individual for a time or degree sufficient to produce a marked subjective change” (p. 157).
Thirdly, Lockwood gets into the practicalities of how we quit well. Here, Lockwood pursues the path of phronesis or common sense. We balance the virtues of courage, wisdom, justice, and moderation to quit in a manner consister with the character to which we aspire. This means we work through the why, having sound justification. We are clear about the what. And we discern when, neither too soon or late, the line between grit and quit.
I read this book mindful of my most recent “quit,” my decision to retire after working 48 years in an organization with no mandatory retirement age. I had watched others stay too long. The questions of the book were real, and although I didn’t have access to the book at the time, the process squares with my own experience. most of all, it was a decision in timing and execution consistent with the kind of person as spouse, colleague, and college minister to which I aspired.
Lockwood combines analysis and theory with storytelling and practical help. The book elaborates what the title proposes. It also helpfully delineates the tension between quit and grit and the important issues of character and not just career savvy involved. Likewise, the fact that it discusses other kinds of endings makes this a valuable guide at any age or stage of life. In many instances, quitting is the right thing to do. This book helps us discern those times and the steps to take to flourish through what may be a hard process.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.
