Armadillo by William Boyd

I'm a huge fan of Boyd's work but this one took a little getting into. The main character is a London insurance adjuster who seems to need a slightly warped moral code to do his job but is ultimately a decent person. I found him hard to sympathize with at first but he did grow on me. He is surrounded by a supporting cast of wonderful characters. The novel looks at a very venal and corrupt business system, almost like a new class in England, people who are protected from ever getting caught or losing. The reader is carried along, as confused as the insurance adjuster, until the end when it is all wrapped up. Ultimately, well worth reading.

Kepler by John Banville

When I think about the great scientific minds of the distant past, I always imagine them constantly occupied with their lofty pursuits and all their needs somehow provided. Banville puts the reader right inside Kepler's mind which is so often caught up in the petty details of life, his unhappy marriage, deaths of his children, the constant search for a patron and money. But then occasionally you get a glimpse of his genius which leads him to look again at what was known about geometry and astronomy at the time. His Kepler sees the physical world and the people around him as alien and usually hostile. When he stops to take a look around, he is always an observer, never a participant. He lacks the most basic social skills. Yet there are those who see his genius and give him the time to do his work. Banville is an amazing writer and gives a good sense of life at the turn of the 17th century.

The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor

After reading Bleeding Heart Square, I dove into this book with great anticipation. I was not disappointed. The novel begins with a series of deaths in Cambridge and London in 1786. Struggling London bookseller, John Holdsworth, accepts a commission to find the true cause of student Frank Oldershaw's madness, presumably caused by seeing a ghost. He is thrown into a small community of secrets, power struggles, and tangled relationships. Taylor does an excellent job of creating an historical time and place. His characters struggle with both ghosts who appear to be apparitions of the recently deceased and ghosts who live in the minds of those consumed by guilt and regret. The ultimate resolution is very satisfying. My only criticism was finding myself confused in the opening pages by deaths of two ladies at Jerusalem college. I had to go back and reread it a couple of times.