The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom

I picked up this book with great anticipation looking forward to turning each page. When I started reading I was frustrated with the style the author chose. I liked his other fiction stories and was expecting to find the same style amongst the pages. When I found a totally different style and was disappointed. But I decided to keep going and this story is so worth the effort.

The story follows Dor, Victor and Sarah. Dor lived during the early Bible times during the time of the tower of Babel being built. Dor has an obsessive desire to figure out how long it takes for things to happen and invents ways to count and determine time. He winds up in a cave as Father Time where he spends eternity having to listen to people pray for more time. Victor is a wealthy man who is dying from cancer. He faces it the way he does everything else; he wants to find a way to beat death. He doesn't care what his wife thinks and is determined to find a way to live longer. Sarah is a teenager experiencing love for the first time. Her love interest doesn't seem to be as interested in her and makes her live so intolerable that she wants to end it.

Dor arrives on the scene and shows them what comes after they have left this world. He shows them that there is reason God limits our days. To make each one precious. What a wonderful lesson to learn. It is amazing how much time we can waste wishing for more time. Time is precious and we need to take advantage of what we are given.

Death of a Red Heroine by Qui Xiaolong

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this, but I did. There are a few things that seem somewhat awkward, but over all very good.

A young woman is found wrapped in plastic and discarded in a channel. It was determined that the identity of the dead woman was the National Model Worker Guan Hongying. Parts of her name means red and hero which is where the title of the book cam from. Chief Inspector Chen is assigned the case. He is the head of the special case squad, and the political implications of this murder put this case on his desk. The thinking was that because of his status in the Party he would not examine the evidence to closely or not stir up the higher ups.

Chen discovers that the lead suspect is the son of one of the High Cadre. This is definitely not going to be an easy case to prove. His future and the future of Inspector Yu are on the line in this mystery set in China during the time right after Tienanmen Square. Trying to do their jobs both men wind up stepping on toes and get assigned to different special assignments until the higher ups decide whether to go after the main suspect or not. Chen won't give up and secretly sets about to find the evidence to prove his case.

It was well written and the political aspects where interesting.