Reading Recommendations:

Pursuit of Justice

Did they fall prey to the legend's curse or just get close to someone else's discovery? To investigate the murders, the FBI calls in one of its most promising up-and-comers, Special Agent Bella Jordan. What they don't know is that one of their prime suspects is deeply connected to the past she's been running from for fourteen years.

As Bella begins to sift through evidence, another murder and threats on her own life convince her she's hunting an experienced killer, and he's not working alone. To catch the suspect before he catches her, Bella must draw on all her skill and instinct and finally gather the courage to face the memories she's tried so hard to forget.

Furthermore

From London's glittering West Side to Broadway's bright lights, from her Academy Award winning role as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love to M in the James Bond Films, Judi Dench has treated audiences to some of the greatest performances of our time. She made her professional acting debut in 1957 with England's Old Vic Theatre Company playing Ophelia in Hamlet, Katherine in Henry V (her New York debut) and then, Juliet. In 1961, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard with John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft. In 1968, she went beyond the classical stage to become a sensation as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, adding musical comedy to her repertoire. Over the years, Dench has given indelible performances in the classics as well as some of the greatest plays and musicals of the twentieth century, including Noel Coward's Hay Fever, Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, Kaufman and Feber's The Royal Family, and David Hare's Amy's View (for which she won the Tony Award). Recently, she made a triumphant return to A Midsummer Night's Dream as Titania, a role she first played in 1962, now played as a theatre-besotted Queen Elizabth I.

Her film career has been filled with piercing performances of unforgettable women, too many to list here. Read the book!

Furthermore

Sleuthing the Alamo

In Sleuthing the Alamo, historian James E. Crisp draws back the curtain on years of myth making to reveal some surprising truths about the Texas Revolution. Truths often obscured by both racism and "political correctness," as history has been hijacked by combatants in the culture war of the past two centuries.

Beginning with a very personal prologue recalling both the pride and prejudices that he encountered in the Texas of his youth, Crisp traces his path to the discovery of documents distorted, censored, and ignored documents which reveal long silenced voices from the Texas past. In each of four chapters focusing on specific documentary "finds," Crisp uncovers the clues that led to these archival discoveries. Along the way, the cast of characters expands to include: a prominent historian who tried to walk away from his first book; an unlikely teenaged "speech writer" for General Sam Houston; three eye witnesses to the death of Davy Crockett at the Alamo; a desperate inmate of Mexico City's Inquisition Prison, whose scribbled memoir of the war in Texas is now listed in the Guiness Book of World Records, and the stealthy slasher of the most famous historical painting in Texas. In his afterward, Crisp explores the evidence behind the mythic "Yellow Rose of Texas" and examines some of the powerful forces at work in silencing the very voices from the past that we most need to hear today.

Here then is an engaging first person account of historical detective work, illuminating the methods of the serious historian, and the motives of those who prefer glorious myth to unflattering truth.

See you at Rylander.

, Davy Crockett's Last Stand and Other Mysteries of the Texas Revolution, James E. Crisp is however, more than the study of the great actress's career. It is also the story of Judi Dench's life, her early life as a child in a family that was in love with the theatre; her marriage to actor Michael Williams, the joy she takes in her daughter, the actress Finty Williams and her grandson, Sammy. Filled with Dench's impish sense of humor, intelligence and photos from her personal archives, this is a book every fan of the great Judi Dench will cherish., Judi Dench as told to John Miller, a novel, DiAnn Mills