Confessions by Catherine Airey

This is a complicated novel that shifts between the past and present, between narrators, and also between truths--there are a lot of secrets herein. It opens opens in New York on 9/11. Sixteen-year-old Cora, who is playing truant, watches the news from her apartment, and knows that her father is dead. Michael was an accountant who worked on the 104th floor of the North Tower. Cora’s mother Máire died seven years earlier, so she is now an orphan. From here, the story cuts back to 1974, to rural Ireland, and a narrative told by Cora’s aunt Róisín. We see Cora’s parents, Máire (Róisín’s sister) and Michael (who lives next door) growing up in Burtonport, Donegal. Máire travels to the USA to study at NYU. She is a born artist, but troubled, and people prey on her. Michael joins her, trying to help. The second half of the novel stitches to and fro across the decades, ending in 2023. Passages are narrated by Róisín, Michael, and Cora’s daughter Lyca, who uncovers half a century’s worth of family stories and secrets, and must decide what to do with them. They shape shift in all sorts of ways besides who is narrating and this complex task is handled well--the story comes out surprisingly seamless despite a myriad of ways the story is told. The secrets Lyca uncovers are borne by the women of the family, and involve addiction, adoption, rape, mental illness, gay rights, abortion rights and intergenerational trauma: it takes on big subjects and as debut novels go, this one is impressive.

Restaurante Alameda, Hondarribia, Spain

This was a fancy restaurant in a bustling seaside town in Northern Spain, the most atmosperically fancy place we ate on this trip. There were gorgeous sculptures made from large pieces of wood that towered over table in the dining room, while we ate outside on the reiver's side. The food was all from the region, and it was seasonal. We started off with Fois gras truffles and several fish dishes, and finished with some fruit forward desserts. The one pictured here, a green apple and green pea sorbet, was unusual, refreshing and unexpectedly delicious. The food here was notable for unexpected pops, and I would highly recommend this as a destination.

Turning to Birds by Lili Taylor

I am not big on celebrity writing as a rule, but I enjoyed this, partly because I think all things bird have a way with me, and partly because it contains a nice collection of observations and wisdom that it behooves us all to pay attention to. She starts off by making the point that as an actor of several decades length she knows how to look and how to listen. She’s been trained to use these skills to give outstanding, grounded performances that move her audience. Here she writes about how she’s applied these and other actorly skills to learning to know the birds around her, whether she’s on the job in New Mexico, a newbie at a large birding festival, or simply walking in her neighborhood in Brooklyn. But that’s not all. Like any good essayist, Taylor effortlessly connects the personal to the universal, in this case going from bird observation to major conservation issues. Birds are both the feature and the bug in this case--they are worthy in and of themselves, and they are also a barometer of what is happening in the world around us. This is well worth your time to both read and think about. The author has also used her notoriety for good--to promote increased awareness of the changing environment and how that is affecting birds--and since we share the same environments, ourselves.

Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

The most shocking thing about this movie is that it has been 8 years since a Kung Fu Panda has come out--it is both hard to believe it has been that long and equally challenging to think that it still has a sustained audience. This is a solid but unremarkable follow up, not sustaining the magic of the first one, but it is certainly recognizable and uses many of the tropes that worked in the past along with heavy hitting actores coming back to voice the characters even after such a long delay. Here is the basic set up. It is sometime after the defeat of General Kai, where Po – now well established as the Dragon Warrior – become a local celebrity. He even helps his fathers – adopted goose dad Mr. Ping and biological panda dad Li – open a new restaurant in the Valley of Peace. But Po’s master Shifu chimes in with some ancient history--he claims that Po’s time as the Dragon Warrior is coming to an end and he must choose a successor, as he is to advance to the highest stage in all of kung fu: Spiritual Leader. Po, enjoying his status and fearing change, is reluctant to name a new Dragon Warrior and equally hesitant about taking on the new role. This leades to some mistakes being made, another epic battle between good and evil, and a possible new team member to boot. This is deversionary at best--not sorry to have wathced--it is leaving Netflix soon after all--but not exactly recommending it. I will say I so like this series better than the How To Train Your Dragon franchise, so there is that.

Soldiers and Kings by Jason de Leon

If you don't know this book, you really should. For one thing, it won the National Book Award in the category on Non-Fiction. The real overriding and compelling reason is that it tells the story on what is happening in Mexico and Central America in a way that is important to hear, to listen to, and to understand. Now that the United States is establishing concentration camps within our borders, and allowing heavily armed men who wear balaclavas and no identification to pull people off the streets without showing paperwork or case and shoving them into unmarked vehicles, we are now the bad guys. We need to really get our collective minds wrapped around that. This book is an incredible feat of anthropology and human connection. In it, De León chronicles the near-decade he spent getting to know a group of Honduran human smugglers, those hired by migrants to help them cross the border (not to be confused with human traffickers, who take people against their will). Unlike with most books about the migrant crisis, which of course focus on the migrants, De León’s generous, tender focus on the smugglers he befriended shows us a side of the equation rarely considered and often dismissed. These people are not (all) rich, cruel crime lords. They are often fleeing situations just as impossible and dangerous as the people who hire them, and they too have dreams and families and desperate hope. I cannot even fathom the dangers the author faced and the emotional toll this work took on him, as many of the people he came to know well were killed over the course of his field work. This is gritty and important.

Stoney Creek Inn, Pasadena, Maryland

My SIL and BIL have a place just a couple blocks from here--the restaurant sits at the mouth of Stoney Creek, which is a brackish water creek that eventually joins the Chesapeake Bay, and truely, there is no reason to go furhter to eat. They are known for their crab and oysters, which thrive in brackish water and might well come from right outside the restaurant, but their fish and shrimp dishes are excellent. My personal favorites are the shrimp po-boy, which is serves on a perfect roll, and go well with a side salad and fries. My other choice would be the shrimp salad, which is served atop fresh greens that are flavorful and the choices of dressings is above average. The cherry on top is that the prices are reasonable, it is a favorite spot for locals, and the service is quick and friendly. Added bonus is that they have an extensive dessert menu.

Careless People by Sarah Wynne-Williams

I read a review for this memoir of a New Zealander's time at Facebook that characterized it as darkly funny and genuinely shocking to be a fairly good one sentence summation. It comes long after the revelations of Frances Haugen, and I have read it in the wake of the 2.0 version of the Revenge Presidency, and still it unsettles me to to the point that I am not sure where we are heading and what the end of the road holds. This is an insider account of Facebook, which she says was run by status-hungry and self-absorbed leaders, who chafed at the burdens of responsibility and became ever feckless as Facebook became a vector for disinformation campaigns and cozied up to authoritarian regimes. Including the one that was seeking re-election in the United States at the time--all of which has come to fruition in an astoundingly inhumane, areligious, and profit driven manner. The bottom line, the summation of all that is wrong with the tech bros was a conversation that she had with Zuckerberg about the United States president that he most admires is Andrew Jackson. Jackson is more nuanced as a person than is oft remembered, but the bottom line is that he is responsible for the Trail of Tears. Unforgivable imposition of human suffering and Zuckerberg admires him, despite that or because of it, it matters not in the end. We are all screwed.

My Oxford Year (2025)

This movie is based on a YA novel of the same title--I say this because it will appropriately set your expectations. The YA that I read at least has a bit of romance and some amount of sadness bordering on tragic at times. They are decidedly not straight ahead romances, and this certainly fits that bill. Anna De La Vega is a woman who has mapped out a very successful life for herself where she is financially successful, and to date, she has followed through on that plan. She graduated from college and has a job at Goldman-Sachs, which she has deferred for a yearin order to follow a dream. She is going to spend a year studying literature in Oxford before the more serious and fiction-less part of her life begins. She has a checklist of things to do while she is there, and as soon as she has hauled her bags up to her room, she starts out crossing things off. In the chipped she chooses for the British classic fish and chips she meets Jamie Davenport, who she doesn't think much of other than that he quoted a line from the book she is reading. She does him a bad turn there, only to discover that he is her tutor and she is going to have to work with him. Luckily he is passionate about the same Victorian literature that she loves, and they fall into a bit of a love affair as well--apparently the restrictions on dating your teacher are laxer there, at least in this version of Oxford. I'll end by saying the scenes of England in general and Oxford in particular are very alluring, and this is a good poster movie for encouraging someone to study abroad--look at it all! Overall I enjoyed it, despite some very well worn tropes contained within.

The Sweet Life In Paris by David Lebovitz

I am glad that I read this memoir after a recent trip to France that included a several day stop in Paris. I am not a big fan of big cities, and in France my absolute favorite thing to do is to drive around and visit small medieval villages that have great restaurants and enjoy the food and culture. That said, I loved Paris on this recent trip and could finally see why others feel that way. This is a memoir that is already somewhat dated by an author who writes excellent cookbooks (I highly recommend them if you are seeking to cook French food--he was a pastry chef at Chez Panisse for a decade, so his desserts are top notch but his savory food is good too--there are quite a few embedded here that you could try out, but while Dorie Greenspan is my go to American writing about French food, if you want to widen your net, this is a good place to go--or if you are going old school, Julia Child is another option). He moves to Paris, and while he hasn't quite settled there, he doesn't want to go back to San Francisco. Even though he loves and misses Mexican food and BBQ, the tug of Paris has its grip on him. This is a book about his everyday life there, and I really loved were all the anecdotes about daily life in Paris–complete with all its complications, contradictions, and even annoyances. One reviewer complained that the book is not really about a sweet life at all; Lebovitz makes living in Paris look like hard work--which I suspect it is both foreign and difficult but clearly when all is said and done, worth it.

El Doncel, Sigüenza, Spain

We drove back to Madrid the long way, skirting the Pyrenees (beautiful) and stopped at El Doncel in Sigüenza for lunch. It is a peaceful town and the lunch was spectacular. We had the short form tasting menu, and no breakfast (which I recommend for this style of dining!!). The restaurant was lovely from a physical plant stand point, and the wait staff was especially attentive in an unannoying manner.

This is an inland location, and as such the menu was more of a balance between food from the land and the sea. I did not care for the cod, which was served in a sauce made from the balance bladder from the fish, and it was too strongly flavored for me, and it stuck to my tongue for just a bit too long. Otherwise this was another spectacular meal, and paired with some Spanish wine it was impressive, especially when you consider how underpopulate the town was. We arrived a bit early so got a chance to spend some time outside prior to the restaurant opened up, and the towns people we encountered were quite helpful and friendly.

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is a long time coming, this book--it has been over a decade since the last book, and this is a book about dreams not turning out as planned. The interconnected stories of three Nigerian women, Chiamaka, Zikora and Omelogor , who are leaving their youth behind and for various reasons are reflecting on how their lives have not turned out the way they thought they would with respect to men, marriage, and motherhood, and while that is true, it is not the disaster that their families and their culture would assess that to be. Then there is Kadiatou, Chimaka's Guinian housekeeper, who shares their disappointments but is more harmed by them and more vulnerable socio-economically. This part of the story is a bit harder to fit into the puzzle but is based on Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged rape of a Guinean hotel worker in 2011. In the aftermath, Kadiatou only panics all the more at the newfound vulnerability in her manager’s eyes, faced with news of the assault, and the resultant dissection of her life in the press. There is no glamourization of America here--far from it--and the real issues that immigrant women of color face is lyrically if not optimistically portrayed.

Our Little Secret (2025)

This is a solid if unexceptional romantic comedy that does exactly what it is supposed to, and it does it pretty well. It is set in the holiday season and it is family friendly, so it could be something to watch with the relatives if your family traditions veer away from sports and into movie viewing. Here's how it goes. Avery, a successful business consultant with her own firm who is meetiAs luck would have it, Avery and Logan, who had been best friends since they were kids before dating throughout their teens and twenties, and people thinking they had what it takes to go the long haul. That came to a screaching halt ten years earlier, the same year Avery’s mother passed away, because Avery was choosing grad school far away over making her relationship with Logan, and they haven't had contact since, even though their family's live near each other. Now, these two have to get through a four-day holiday weekend with Cam and Cassie’s ultra-snooty parents, Erica and Leonard. The result is a perfectly executed marriage-remarriage style screwball comedy, with new relationship twists and decidedly wacky situations thrown at Avery and Logan every ten minutes. It all turns out more or less the way you might hope it would, with some added whip cream and cherry on top along the way.

Madame Fourcade's Secret War by Lynn Olson

I heard about this book on the Parnassus Bookstore Friday video series, "It's New To You"--which if you haven't checked it out, you should. There is so much to know about authors and books, and this bookstore is a treasure, to be sure, and every week they highlight a handful of books, so even a voluminous reader like myself can be overwhelmed with the choices. This one highlights the work of women during WWII. The book is about one person, but there is some attention to what happened after France surrendered to Germany, in terms of having no organized resistance to begin with and how it organically grew ad what the barriers were, all of which I did not know and had not thought about. Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, married, mother of two, slender, blond and barely in her 30s. Over the course of World War II, Fourcade built a network of agents across occupied France. They collected intelligence on the movements of German U-boats, on supply shipments sailing in and out of key ports, on which of the bridges into Paris were mined. They were frequently captured by Nazis (in Fourcade’s case, twice) and, in some cases, escaped (again, Fourcade’s record: 2-0). The book does have a bit too much of "this happened and then this happened" rather than straight ahead telling the story, but it is a book that highlights a forgotten woman of history, who while spying, also had a third child in 1943, and was altogether forgotten by history--but survived to see France restored.

City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks by Tula Pink

I got this book as a present almost about the time that it came out. I looked at it and thought Wow, there are a lot of tiny pieces of fabric in each of these 100 blocks--hard pass. Fast forward to the present when I have been in a Modern Quilt Guild for 18 months, and I know more about scraps and the process of making textiles and the very commendable trend of using ALL your fabric, mix that with one of my friends who quilts is now making her second one of these (she is over 75% done with it in fact) and voila, I am thinking why haven't I made one of these. The book is essentially mostly the blocks--with pictural directions for sewing and written instructions for cutting (I am on my 4th block and I have already made a mistake in cutting, so this is not going to be a breeze), and then various designs for assembly to finish it out. You can make this with scraps and that is my intention--my sewing table, which doubles as my dining room table seating 14, is a total mess, but this is well done and I think it will be fun once I get the hang of it. I also love that something so long buried can be resurrected again.

The Deam Hotel by Laila Lalami

I really liked this. It is a combination of what the extreme of AI might be as well as pushing the limits on what is going on with ICE in the United States--that heavily armed men are covering their faces, not wearing badges and snatching people off the street without any accountability and disappearing them. The later is happening and the former is a what if scenario. Sara Hussein seems unexceptional: she’s a museum archivist, married and mother to young twins. She once had an argument with her husband Elias after he impulsively part-exchanged the family Toyota for a Volvo. Sara sees herself as a person who “couldn’t possibly be considered a member of the lawbreaking classes”, until the moment at the airport when an officer informs her that her “risk score” is too high, and sends her to Madison, a California women’s retention center. This isn’t punishment but risk management, for anybody considered likely to commit a crime. Every citizen has a risk score, extrapolated via algorithm from personal cloud data, from surveillance networks, and from the Dreamsaver – a widely used skull implant that delivers more restful sleep. The small print of Dreamsaver Inc grants the company rights to share the user’s dreams with the government. The author owes a lot to it being 2025 in America, where this all seems quite possible. The Secretary of Health and Human Services wants to eliminate vaccinations, obliterate health research, and put a tracking device on everyone, so it is just a hop, skip, and a jump to locking up people for their thoughts.

In The Shadow Of The Cypress (2024)

There has been a trend in nominees the Best Short Animated Film category for the Academy Awards that there is both less child oriented in content and they tend to run a lot longer than what Disney and Pixar produce, and this 2025 winner is an excellent example of that seeming trend. It is a vivid depiction of what PTSD is like to experience for the sufferer as well as what they are like to live with. The film begins with a Persian man, who is shown struggling with mental health issues. His daughter tries to intervene and comfort him, but without much luck. The man reflects on his past through vivid dreams and memories. His ship was damaged during the war and is in need of serious repair, adding to his stress. While he is experiencing this mental breakdown, a whale washes up on the shore near their home. They are without the resources to free the heavy marine mammal, but the daughter tries to comfort it by splashing water on it as it lays in the sun, and then spreads wet towels across its back to keep it cool. The father sees her efforts as hopeless, and offers little assistance. Later, however, he is struck with an idea – one that would sacrifice his ship but could free the whale. The film touches on many topics, including the environment, war, women's issues, and, most importantly, the dynamic between the father and daughter.

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams

I had two recommendations to read this book, one from Ann Patchett on her weekly videos from her bookstore, Parnassus Books, and the other was from a woman who I have shared reading loves with for 30 years, and so the double whammy rose this to the top of my books to read, that and the fact that I could not renew it--possibly stemming from one of the other of my two sources. It is set in rural Ireland at the time that a town is getting electricity. It is being added to the grid, and while there are a lot of things about that to be excited about, not everyone agrees that it is a good thing. They do have a point, those nay sayers. There are things that will change forever and there will not be an option to change that. The process of progress is the subtext here, what is lost and what is gained, and the inevitability of it, but the concomitant sadness about what changes and goes away. I did not love this book the way that my friend and Ann Patchett did, but it made me think a lot, and that, after all, is part of why I read, and in thinking I realized that it is a different sort of book, one that I do not seek out so much as be thankful that I read it.

The Little Sparrow Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

Sometimes I am good when it comes to picking out books and sometimes I am just plain lucky, and in this case it is the later rather than the former. I have been using a web site with murder mysteries pictured that are published each month in order to keep abreast of authors that I read routinely, but also to read authors that I do not know or have not read, but who have published more than one one book. The sad truth is that while I am getting older, so are the authors that I have been reading, along with my spouse, for the entirety of our relationship, and so I need to find new things to read. I really like the website, because it turns out I really need the pictures as well as the title to pay attention--I am constantly discovering that I am very visual and without it I have trouble paying attention, and it seems to be worse not better as I get older. So I am grateful it exists and that I found it, but the downside is that there is no information about the books beyond author, title and the cover--with a reference to the detective and which number in the series this is. So the good news is that I really liked this, and it is one of a series of books by the same author. He is long gone now, having published his first murder mystery in 1921, and this one is from the early 1950's. He was the first to write in this genre in Japan, and he has over 70 published novels, only 6 of them translated into English. The complexity of the mystery as well as the characters is right up my alley and I will read the rest of them, but I am most grateful to have discovered this author, and to know a little bit more about writing from Japan.

Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown

I have a myriad of lists that I work off of for "What To Read Next" and one of my resources is Reese Witherspoon's book club. The selections often have a slightly lighter tone and are almost all well written. Most importantly, I like them and often would not have found my way to the book another way. Not every book is a home run for me, and this one was a miss. It is well written, suspenseful, and I read tons of murder mysteries so the fact that a couple of people die is not a turn off for me, but it put me on edge in a way that I don't enjoy--I struggled to pick it up, and while it had a lot of good literary qualities, I was relieved when it was over. The story follows Maya, a Princeton alum returning to campus for her 10-year reunion and her younger sister Naomi’s graduation. But what should be a joyous weekend quickly turns tragic when Naomi is found dead. The police rule it an accident, but Maya suspects foul play. As she digs deeper into her sister’s final months, Maya uncovers a tangled web of lies stretching back to her own time at Princeton. The supper clubs and secret societies at Princeton play a role (I recently read Leigh Bardugo's book that featured the Yale equivalent and neither Ivy comes off well fictionally speaking) as does the influence that money has on what happens on campus. I would heartily recommend this if a suspenseful book is your jam, that you like it when the tension rises and the complicated relationships that can happen when you keep your college friends well into adulthood. The mystery part of it is less spectacularly done, but not too bad either.

The Many Coats Of Rachel Clark

I had the pleasure of taking a two days class with the quilter and garment maker Rachel Clark. I cannot emphasize enough how magical it is to listen to her talk about her creative process, the making of her coats and the origin story that they each have. Some of them stem from an idea that she wants to convey of celbrate, like her watermelon coat or her Obama coat. Some of them are the celebration of a fabric, like her Japanese fabric coat or her rickrack and polka dot coats. She brought a couple dozen of her coats with her so that we could examine them in class, be inspired by them, and when we got to the design process, we could see examples of directions we could go with the coat. The absolute best part, is just to watch her work. She sorted fabric for several people in the early design process, and then as people made some progress, she highlighted several directions they could go so that the class could benefit from those who were further along. I loved listening to her, and I would take another class with her in a heartbeat if it were offered nearby and I could swing it. She is someone who is fun to be with in person, but I watched a lecture she gave at QuiltCon, and she translates well to the recorded world as well. She is a treasure.

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

This is a fictionalized version of the story of Doctor Zhivago and the CIA's use of it--funnily enough, there is a non-fiction book about part of this story, The CIA Book Club that you can follow up with if you want the more factual version. This is two stories, one from the Russian side and one from the American side, and they are woven together. At the height of the cold war, the CIA ran an initiative known as “cultural diplomacy”. Following the premise that “great art comes from true freedom”, the agency seized on painting, music and literature as effective tools for promoting the western world’s values, and funded abstract expressionism exhibitions and jazz tours. But when it came to the country that produced Tolstoy, Pushkin and Gogol – a nation that, might value literature like the Americans value freedom (or at least we used to) – the focus was always going to be on the written word. And her subject, the part the CIA played in bringing Boris Pasternak’s masterpiece Doctor Zhivago to worldwide recognition, was the jewel in cultural diplomacy’s crown. In 1955 rumours began to circulate that Pasternak, hitherto known largely as a poet, having survived a heart attack and Stalin’s purges, was ailing and politically compromised but had nonetheless managed to finish his magnum opus. The sweeping, complex historical epic – and simple love story – that is Doctor Zhivago had been a decade in the writing under the most adverse circumstances imaginable: the imprisonment of Pasternak’s lover, Olga Vsevolodovna Ivinskaya; the death in the gulag of his friend and fellow writer Osip Mandelstam and the suicides of two others in his circle, Paolo Iashvili and Marina Tsvetaeva; constant surveillance and his own ill health. Because of its subversive emphasis on the individual and its critical stance on the October Revolution, no publishing house in the Eastern bloc would touch it. It was smuggled out by an Italian publishing house and this is the story of what happened to get it back into Russia. It is a well told story, and one that lays out why women who were of great use during the war and then discarded in the peace might have been tempted with becoming double agents for oh so many reasons.

Bacira, Madrid, Spain

This was absolutely the best deal of the trip, and an excellent meal. The tasting menu was an excellent deal and the wine pairing was even bettr--well chosen wines, generous portions, and all from Spain. I would highly recommend you add this to your Madrid itinerary. It is a Bib Gourmand restaurant, which is often our favorite type of restaurant, and here is from the Michelin website: A perfect example of friendship, hard work and, above all, an unconditional love for cooking. Here, the three owner-chefs at the helm, Carlos Langreo, Vicente de la Red and Gabriel Zapata, each specialise in a different type of cuisine (traditional Mediterranean, Japanese and Nikkei) but who are receptive to new trends and an inclination towards fusion cooking. The atmosphere here is both welcoming and informal with a vintage decor that includes slender wrought-iron columns. There are two tasting menus and we went for the long one--perhaps erroneaous as we could barely move afterwards, but overall a spectacular meal.

The Intuitionists by Colin Whitehead

There are a few living authors who are still writing whose work is so compelling that I seek out their new work, and in this case, am working on the books they wrote before I fell hard for them as a reader. The first book I read was Sag Harbor, and while it didn't knock my socks off as a work of fiction per se, it was so unusual in terms of the setting and subject, an entry into a world that is likely well known to African Americans but was completely unknown to me. So when I saw this on a "Staff Picks" table at my local library, I picked it up, and I would encourage you to do so as well. This book, his first, is set in a steampunky alternate mid-20th century, where elevators are the most important public conveyances in the world, and the people who inspect them basically run the city. There are two types of elevator inspectors: the first is the Empiricists (i.e. the traditionalists), who use close physical examinations to make their inspections, measuring and checking and confirming with evidence. The second type of inspectors are the Intuitionists, who inspect elevators (lifts) not by measuring anything, but by riding the elevators and feeling, sensing, knowing, what is happening to the machine in the parts they cannot see--there is some allegorical magic to be had here, as well as some manipulation for political gain. The protagonist of the novel is Lila Mae Watson, the first black woman to be employed by the city as an elevator (lift) inspector. She is also an intuitionist. As a “representative” of three different types of progressivism within the city, she is constantly being watched. To be an intuitionist is to be in the minority, to be black and an intuitionist is to be in a tiny minority, but to be black, female and an intuitionist makes her a truly unique individual. The corrupt, conservative, boss of the inspectorate want to make an example of her failing, and likewise their rival factions are keen for her to succeed.