BOOK REVIEW- SIDNEY SHELDON- BLOODLINE

The back cover of this novel by Sidney Sheldon is intriguing, this is how it goes:

“The daughter of a rich and powerful father, Elizabeth Roffe is a young, beautiful(as usual)- and sole heir to a billion dollar fortune.

Then tragedy strikes. Her father is killed in a freak accident and Elizabeth much (this was meant to be must, there has been a publishing error by Harper Collins, the publisher) take command of his mighty global empire, the pharmaceutical company Roffe and Sons. It makes Elizabeth Roffe the richest girl in the world. But someone, somewhere is determined that she must die.

From the backstreets of Istanbul to the upmarket offices of New York, Bloodline is a hypnotic tale of love and ambition, danger, intrigue and death.”

The book to me at least was slightly below the expectations I held from Sidney Sheldon. A crude story line sophisticated by the additions of manifold characters and unnecessary information.

Well, the story is about five members who are in the Board Of Directors for Roffe and Sons Pharmacy; all of them have a reason to have a desperate urgency of cash. They can all get cash on liquidating their stocks. That can’t happen because Roffe and Sons is private, therefore, all the five members somehow need to eliminate the head i.e. Mr. Roffe and Elizabeth so that they can have another head who will allow Roffe an Sons to go public. Thereby, able to liquidate their stocks and acquire the money they need.

So it was obvious to me that it was one of the Board of Directors is the one who is trying to kill Elizabeth and had killed Samuel Roffe. Out of the blue a mythical of sorts detective enters the story and has the plot, surprise-surprise. The climax is mediocre and descriptions of personal moments were less than enticing. The book is average but intriguing and uncomment able until you finish reading it.

THE HOUSE FOR GHOSTS, BY THE GHOSTS

For 38 years Sarah Winchester went to sleep with the sound of hammering around her. No lullaby could have soothed her more as a widow from the loss of her husband and grieving for the death of her son. She was on an extraordinary life objective.

When her husband died she inherited about $20 million and also a daily income of $1000, from William’s holding in the Winchester Repeating Arms Co.

Many people were killed from the rifles manufactured from the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. and a considerable fortune to Winchester cam from the sales of these guns. The souls of the victims- there were thousands of them- told Mrs. Winchester that they had destroyed the life of her husband and son as revenge. If Mrs. Winchester were not to abide to their commands she would always incur the same wrath.

Sarah Winchester was never reported to be an eccentric in her life. What she did was perhaps was anyway too expensive for any eccentric to imagine! I mean, they could have, after all then why the hell are they called eccentrics then.

The medium that warned her of her life demanded that she buy a house and keep building it to expand it until the end of her life. On doing so, she would not be troubled by the spirits.

The house that Mrs. Winchester was constructing was to be specially designed for the spirits. She brought an eight-room farmhouse at Santa Clara Valley in California. There until 1922, the year she died, work continued day and night as the hammer banged planks and nails. After each days work Mrs. Winchester would retire to her séance room, where she would get instructions by the medium for the next requirements in the house and if any changes be made from the earlier planned architecture by the spirits. In the morning Mrs. Winchester would relay the same to the Chief Carpenter.

The myriad features in the architecture of the house serve dual purposes.

For example there are doors that open into thin air.

One reveals a closet no more than an inch deep. What seems to be the door of the closet leads to a 30-room suite. One set of stairs leads to another set, which then leads back to the same story.

Another stairway has 44 steps and turns 7 corners- but rises a mere nine feet. Stairs leading to the ceiling one of the bizarre features introduced (as shown in picture).

To spare the spirits embarrassment, as they are not reflective, the house has only two mirrors. The lighting of the house is spectacular as they are placed such that humans do not cast any shadow as the spirits don’t cast them either.

38 years of incessant labor acknowledged a house spread over 6 acres that contains 160 rooms. Originally, there were 750 rooms but they were torn apart and replaced as the spirits changed their plans. The Winchester remains one of the most phenomenal houses wrought by history due to its structural complexity. It contains six kitchens, 40 bedrooms, 467 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, 40 stairways, 52 skylights, six safes and a shower.
The entire house cost Mrs. Winchester close to $5.5 million of what she called her blood money to lift a curse- and a provided a feast for lovers of the bizarre and the extravagant.

KING OF MISERS

Daniel Dancer is the world’s most miserly man as per records. In fact he has attained post-humus fame for his legendary miserliness. His entire life was devoted for miserly pursuits. He has been tagged as the King of Misers as his exploits would put any miser to a blue shame.

Dancer was the son of a miser and the grandson of another. On their death he inherited a tract of land in northern London, which provided him with a considerable annual income. He took meals just once in a day, which also, was just a meager scrap of meat and a single cold dumpling.

Once he found a dead sheep on a field, despite the repelling odor from the decomposing body, Dancer took it home to lock it up in his trunk.

Lady Tempest was a kindly lady; she sent him a gift of a trout cooked in claret. The weather was cold and the trout arrived frozen, to save requirements for heating it, Dancer sat over the fish until it was thawed enough to be eaten.

Dancer’s lifestyle was sleeping in a sack, his clothes consisted largely of rags and bundle of straws. On one of his rare visits to London, he was mistook for a beggar and tossed a halfpenny. Dancer pocketed it, “Every little helps,” he commented.

However he did have a guilty extravagance, once a year he brought a second hand shirt, which he would then wear until it perished to pieces.

His brotherly ‘love’ was another quality in him. In 1766, his sister, who worked as a housekeeper fell ill. He refused to call a doctor, “Why should I waste my money in wickedly endeavoring to counteract the will of Providence? If the old girl’s time is come…she may as well die now as at any future period.”

Lady Tempest, to whom she intended to leave her forune, looked after Miss Dancer. However, when Miss Dancer died, it was learnt she had not prescribed a Will. Dancer acquired two-thirds of the estimate by claiming 30 years back rent for her accommodation and food.

Dancer delighted in hiding his money, he hid it under piles of farmyard manure. In fact he barricaded himself in his house, fearing from robbers.

Finally, Dancer died in 1794. The kindly Lady Tempest inherited his estate. Unfortunately, as she nursed Dancer on his deathbed, she took ill as well. Within four months she too was dead.