Finished: The Orphan Master's Son (Johnson) The Pulitzer Prize winning novel that gives a shocking look into the life of a boy, Jun Do, born in North Korea during the leadership of Kim Jong-il. The story is still deeply resonating in me. The writing was very good, and the book was as well. I think I'm just still reeling from wondering if this is how things really are in North Korea. The author spent time in North Korea researching for the book, so I have to think that much of it is true. The book has several eerie chapters that begin with "Citizens! Gather around...". What follows are then the daily announcements from the loud speakers that are required in every home and every work place in North Korea. The announcements are complete propaganda, telling such untruths about how glorious day to day life in Korea is, and how terrible it is everywhere else. They also spin a fanciful tale about their most famous actress, Sun-moon. Sun-moon is a beautiful actress who has been the star of all of their films, and she has been the play toy of Kim Jong-il. However, when the famous Commander Ga, a worshipped hero in the North Korean military, comes home and declares that his reward shall be marrying Sun-moon, he not only takes her from the leader, but becomes a hated rival to Kim Jong-il....only in private. In public, Kim Jong-il must, of course, sing the praises of Commander Ga, who has known no rival in strength or cunning.

The main character of the story, Jun Do, is the son of a man who runs an orphanage in North Korea. As a baby, his mother had been "taken away", where beautiful women of North Korea were often taken...to be used by someone with power. By the time he is ten, Jun Do is responsible for deciding which of the orphans he lives with gets to have the better food, the warmer bed, and the less treacherous work details each day. His own father treats him worse than he does any of the other orphans because he doesn't want to show favoritism. Jun Do does not even get to carry his father's surname, which leads to everyone believing he is an orphan himself. After the orphanage closes down, and he is uncertain what becomes of his own father, Jun Do is assigned to the team of people who sneak over to the coast of Japan in boats and kidnap people from the beaches! Jun Do has great moral struggles with this, since his own mother had been taken, but he tows the party line and does what is expected of him. He is then sent to be a tunnel rat...meaning he learns to do warfare in the complete dark in the tunnels under North Korea that run all the way to the DMZ zone. Though a war is not currently going on, it is still a stressful assignment, but his ability to fight in the dark will come back to aid him in later years. After both of these assignments, Jun Do is rewarded by going to language school, learning English, and being assigned to a fishing boat as a secret spy radio operator. He actually likes this job, as he gets to hear all kinds of broadcasts, including the broadcasts of two female American kayakers who are trying to circumnavigate the world. Occasionally he hears suspicious military talk that he reports back to his superiors. While on the boat, as a sort of rite of passage into the sailor's life, the crew holds him down and tattoos an image of Sun-moon on his chest, over his heart. All of the sailors have tattoos of their wives closest to their hearts, so since Jun Do is not married, they tattoo the famous actress over his heart. A series of events leads Jun Do to be considered a hero, and he's then taken on a mission to Texas in America! Apparently the American military has boarded a North Korean boat and stolen an implied nuclear gadget from them. Kim Jong-il sends a delegation of Jun Do, and two higher ups to meet with a senator from Texas and get back the "package". While in Texas, Jun Do experiences a bit of American life, and he also meets the very compassionate wife of the senator, and a female government official who gives Jun Do a camera that she tells him to use anytime he wants to send her any kind of private information, or if he needs some kind of help. Both of the women try to convince Jun Do to defect, but he refuses to do that, knowing that his defection would mean the death of the other two in the delegation. Of course, the delegation fails to get the Americans to give back the nuclear device, so when they arrive back in North Korea, the leader of the delegation is never seen again, and Jun Do is taken to work in the prison mines. He spends several years there, barely surviving, barely clothed, mostly malnourished, doing hard labor. One day Commander Ga comes to visit the prison mine. When he sees the tattoo of his wife on Jun Do's chest, he laughs it off on the outside, but he is seething on the inside. He takes Jun Do down into a tunnel and plans to do away with him, but Jun Do gets the better of him when he knocks out the only light! That training in the complete dark comes back to save the day, and Jun Do actually kills Commander Ga. Jun Do puts on Ga's uniform, which is much to big for him, and declares himself to be Commander Ga. The prison warden is so overwhelmed, mostly because Ga has always been torturous to him, that he lets Jun Do walk out of the prison and be driven off by Commander Ga's driver! That is the last that we see of who we have come to know, and sympathize with, as Jun Do.

In the next part of the book, Jun Do assumes the identity of Commander Ga. Of course, everyone from Sun-moon, her two children with Ga, Ga's best friend, and especially Kim Jong-il all KNOW that he is not Commander Ga, but in their way of spewing out propaganda, Kim Jong-il announces that Commander Ga has returned home from another successful mission. Commander Ga goes straight to Sun-moon's house, and sees how beautiful she is, yet how she has been mistreated by Kim Jong-il because she married Ga. As punishment, she has been given no movie rolls in years, even though it wasn't her choice to marry. She does love her children, though, a young boy and a young girl. She doesn't know what is happening at first, and thinks that the new Commander Ga is just a trick by her husband to get her to be unfaithful. However, in time, she comes to believe that Commander Ga killed the old Commander Ga, and she finds him to be a kind person who actually adores spending time with her, and cares for her and her children very deeply. When it becomes apparent that Kim Jong-il has decided that Commander Ga has almost outlived his usefulness to him, Ga and Sun-moon concoct a wild and dangerous scheme to defect to the U.S. You see, Kim Jong-il has been holding one of the American kayaking women for over a year in a bunker beneath his palace! The North Koreans killed one of the rowers, and took the other hostage when they rowed into North Korean waters. Ga (really Jun Do, remember) is able to send a picture on the secret phone to the military woman in America to show her that North Korea is holding the presumed dead American kayaker. The U.S. strikes a deal with Kim Jong-il that they will bring a plane to take the woman home, and in return, bring back the leader's nuclear package...which the U.S. has determined isn't workable in any event. Kim Jong-il treats the upcoming meeting as a gala, and plans a bigger, better Texas hoe down than the Americans planned for the North Korean delegation when they went. He even plans for famous actress, Sun-moon, to be there to sing a song for the Americans. Ga and Sun-moon, however, plan their escape. Ga again uses the secret phone to send his plan to his contact in the U.S., asking her for help. When Ga realizes that it will be imperative for him to distract Kim Jong-il and his men while getting Sun-moon and the two children safely aboard the plane, he sacrifices himself for them and doesn't board the plane himself. :-( He knows that they will be taken to and aided by the Texas senator's wife. He is still heartbroken, though, as are we, because he and Sun-moon and the children too, had all come to love and respect each other as a family. The Americans park their plane ready to take right back off. They are having none of the gala. To them, this was a trip to come and retrieve a hostage! Just when they've taken off, Kim Jong-il wonders why Sun-moon never did come out of her changing room to sing. His men look everywhere for her, and when he realizes that she escaped on the plane, Ga is taken into custody and taken to the harsh interrogation center. Not able to admit that North Korea's most famous actress defected, to save face, the concocted story that Commander Ga has fallen from grace because he has killed his wife and children and disposed of their bodies, is broadcast to the public. Even the interrogators believe this lie, and spend weeks trying to torture the truth from Ga about where the bodies are. Finally, in the end, when they have hooked him up to a machine that will send enough volts of electricity through his body to lobotomize him, Ga manages to loosen his strap and turn the dial higher, giving himself a lethal dose. So, Ga aka Jun Do aka the orphan master's son, finally finds purpose in his life by sacrificing his own for a short-lived familial love which he had never experienced in his own life. This recap, as usual, doesn't do the book justice! This was a very, very good one!

Finished: The Gustav Sonata (Tremain) A very compelling story about two five year old boys who meet in Switzerland when the world is on the brink of World War II, Gustav, a little boy born and raised in the small town of Matzlingen, Switzerland, and Anton, a Jewish boy who has moved with his parents from Bern to Matzlingen. Gustav and Anton develop an unbreakable bond, despite the fact that Gustav's cold, unloving mother, Emilie, blames her husband Erich's compassion for the Jews on his fall from grace and eventual death. Erich is an assistant police chief in Matzlingen when he first marries Emilie. He is faced with the impossible task of either breaking the law or breaking his own moral code when the police in Switzerland are ordered by law to no longer accept Jewish refugees escaping over the border from Austria. When Erich falsifies several immigration forms by predating them before the law is ordained, he is betrayed by someone close to him in the department, losing his position and his status in the small community. When he's forced to leave the comfortable apartment they had and move Emilie to a near desolate apartment, she can't handle his fall from grace and goes home to her mother. She had already become distant from Erich when he caused her to miscarry their baby boy, to be named Gustav, when he accidentally caused her to fall at five and a half months pregnant. She eventually forgave him and came to understand that he was an honorable man because he was trying to do the right thing by falsifying the forms. Emelie returns to Erich and becomes pregnant with her second baby, who will also be a boy, and be named Gustav. Emelie can't really ever bond with Gustav, though, even though Erich does. She always looks past Gustav wondering if she would have loved her first baby more. Poor Gustav! All he ever wants is to please his mother, or Mutti, as he calls her. He does everything he can to earn her love and nurturing, but he never succeeds. Tragically, when Gustav is just an infant, Erich dies of a sudden heart attack. :-( This throws Emelie and Gustav into more dire circumstances as she works to make ends meet for them. Gustav's finds a happiness in life when he meets Anton in kindergarten. Anton, new to the area, spends the entire first day crying and the teacher assigns him to the compassionate Gustav to buddy with. Gustav befriends Anton and even gets him to laugh. They become fast friends, though Anton is far more self-centered than Gustav. Anton is a piano prodigy with great talent, who blossoms over the years. By the time the boys are 10, Anton's parents are encouraging his career and have entered him in a piano contest. Anton is brilliant and makes it all the way to the finals with four others. Once there, though, he suffers terrible stage-fright and can't play on the big stage for the crowd, which he must do for the finals of the competition. He gets through his piece, but it is sub par. He is humiliated when he comes in fifth out of five. Only Gustav can talk him out of his disappointment. Gustav is invited to travel to Davos with Anton and his parents for a two week vacation. While there, the boys explore an old abandoned sanatorium that had been used for people suffering from tuberculosis. They make up their own make believe world of doctors and patients and one day share an innocent kiss. Too young to really understand it they continue on with their friendship. Gustav, though, seems to know that he loves Anton as more than a friend. They continue throughout the years to be the best of friends and to be there for each other. Anton, realizing he'll never be able to perform as a concert pianist due to his stage fright, instead becomes a music teacher at the very same school that he and Gustav attended as children. He is good looking and charming and dates various women, but never gets serious about any of them, insisting that music is his only love. Gustav, after the death of his mother, goes to culinary school and opens a small hotel in Matzlingen. He takes great pride in overseeing every detail of his cozy hotel and catering to the patrons. One day Anton comes to Gustav greatly agitated. A former student of his has gone on to win some major piano competition and is being touted as someone who will go on to be asked to play at all kinds of venues and become a concert pianist! The student even credits his teacher, Anton Zwiebel, with teaching him everything he knows. Rather than be happy for his former student, though, Anton is again thrown into despair...whining about how that could and should have been HIM if only he had been able to conquer his stage fright. Throwing his feelings to the wind, he plays a piece at his students' end of year concert with such passion and abandon, that a record producer in the audience hears him and wants him to move to Geneva to record all of Beethoven's symphonies on records to be sold to the public! A perfect solution! Anton can show off his talent and become famous without having to perform on a stage. Anton tells Gustav he can't wait to get out of their small town and make it big. Gustav is heartbroken, having obviously let Anton become his life, even though he has never acted on his feelings of love. Anton, always thinking about himself, moves to Geneva to follow his dreams. He pretty much dismisses the feelings of both Gustav and his own parents, who have always bent over backwards to support him. Meanwhile, Gustav throws himself into work at the hotel. He meets an interesting old Englishman one night who teaches him to play Gin Rummy and encourages him to find out what happened to his father, a story that Gustav has never explored. He was always told by his mother that his father had been a hero, but has never known how his father died. Gustav seeks out the wife of the old police chief who was his father's superior at the police station. The police chief is long dead, but the wife, Lottie, remembers Gustav's father very well...she had been his lover! When Emilie had left Erich and gone home for that bit of time, Erich and Lottie had begun a steamy affair. Erich had fallen in love with Lottie unlike he ever had with Emelie. Gustav was actually pleased to hear this news...to hear that his father actually had someone in his life that loved him and wasn't cold and unfeeling like his mother always was to him. Lottie tells Gustav about how his father falsified the forms to help so many Jewish people escape from Austria and Gustav is so touched by his father's actions. When she explains about Erich losing his job when he was found out, Gustav wants to know who told on his father? Lottie hems and haws and Gustav lets the subject drop. The most important thing that Lottie tells Gustav is that his mother had lost her first baby, a boy who would have been named Gustav, and was never the same after that. This actually gives Gustav comfort, as he realizes why his mother could never fully give her love to him and was instead, so cold all his life. Gustav and Lottie become good friends and spend alot of time together. Eventually on her death bed, Lottie tells Gustav that it was her own  husband who turned Erich in when the officials threatened to arrest HIM for the illegal actions. With Erich's signature clearly on all the forms, the police chief really had no choice but to admit it was his assistant police chief who has falsified the forms. Anton is not heard from until his father falls ill and dies. He comes back to town and tells Gustav that his records haven't sold as well as they should and that the man who lured Anton to Geneva has become his lover as well as his boss. Gustav is stunned. He thought that Anton loved the women he was always with. He's mostly sad for Anton, as Anton is extremely unhappy and unfulfilled and on the brink of a breakdown. Eventually, when Anton and Gustav are nearing 60, Anton's mother, Adriana, begs Gustav to go with her to help Anton. Anton has had a breakdown and been taken to a mental hospital. He wants only to talk to Gustav. When Gustav gets there, Anton begs him to take him back to the sanatorium in Davos. Gustav tries to explain that the sanatorium was never real...and Anton finally gets through to him and makes him understand that he wants Gustav to take him back to that time when they were innocent and kissed. He wants to start his life from there and take it where it should have naturally gone...to be in a relationship with Gustav. Gustav sells his hotel and he, Anton and Anton's mother move to a cabin in  Davos with some land and a garden and live there happily. Soon, Anton is playing the piano again and it's an original piece. His mother asks him what it is and he says it's something he composed when he realized that his life had gone the wrong way and he needed to get it on the right path. He called it Gustav's Sonata. So, that's the book in a nutshell, but of course written in beautiful prose that truly tugged at the heart. I really felt for Gustav throughout the story....this little boy who tried so hard to gain his mother's love. The rest of the characters were actually pretty selfish. This, however, was a story of love and music and memories, and finally, two people realizing in the end that they could find happiness with each other. A really good book!

Finished: The Last Mile (Baldacci) The second book in the Amos Decker series, and another pretty good page-turner. In the first book about Amos Decker, Memory Man, we found out that Decker was an ex cop whose family had been brutally murdered. There were times when he himself was the suspect, but with the help of his perfect memory, and new friends, reporter Alex Jamison and FBI agent, Ross Bogart, Decker uncovered the true killer. Decker is a unique person, as he has suffered from both synesthesia (seeing numbers, etc. in colors) and hyperthymesia (he remembers every detail of every thing that he ever sees) ever since being hit with an extremely hard tackle in his one and only professional football game years ago. In the second book, Decker has accepted a job with Ross Bogart's new FBI special task force working on cold cases. Alex Jamison, the feisty female reporter has also been asked to join the task force. The case that captures Decker's attention is that of Melvin Mars, a man who has been on death row in Texas for killing his parents for the past twenty years. It is the day of Melvin's execution when, at the last minute, another death row inmate in another prison confesses to the crime! Melvin is pardoned and released, but until the authorities are convinced that the other inmate is telling the truth, he risks a chance of going back to prison. So, Melvin ends up working closely with Decker and company to figure out why the other inmate confessed, and eventually that he's not telling the truth. Once they figure that out, then Melvin is truly in danger of going back to prison, so a race ensues to find out why the other inmate lied and WHY there is someone out there who wants Melvin out of prison so badly. A story with lots of twists and turns is uncovered, including Melvin's father not really being dead after all (but his mother still is), and his father not even really being his father, but a hit man. At the time of their deaths, his mother and father had escaped some bad people and laid low. However, when Melvin was graduating from college as a star running back slated to go in the first five picks of the draft, then ESPN had done a story about him, and his parents' faces had been shown on television. The story goes so far as to be about Melvin's father and some of his close friends being responsible for a couple of bombings of black churches in the 1960's resulting in several deaths, including children. Melvin's father had been a racist, but after the bombings, had fallen in love with a beautiful black woman, Melvin's mother. He had stolen the evidence that the other friends had arrogantly kept of the bombings and kept it in a safety deposit box. All these years later, Melvin's faux father comes forward to Decker when he realizes that the bad guys will now come after Melvin, thinking he might know where the evidence is. He's still a nasty piece of work, but he does end up giving his life for Decker and Melvin in the end...as well as killing the old friends of his, one now a powerful congressman, and one a billionaire business man, responsible for all the trouble to begin with. In the process of the story, Decker and Melvin, two people with practically no one close to them in their lives, become friends! I hope that Melvin shows up in the next Amos Decker book. :-)

Finished: Sugar Street (Mahfouz) The final book in The Cairo Trilogy about the family of Egyptian patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. When the book starts, it's been five years since the happenings in the second book. Time has taken a toll on both al-Sayyid Ahmad, his wife, Amina, and their children, Yasin, Kamal, Khadija and Aisha. Amina and al-Sayyid are both aging, and al-Sayyid's heart is getting weaker and weaker. He still sees his same group of old friends, but when together, they lament how some of their friends have died...some being confined to their beds for months before doing so. The larger than life al-Sayyid does not want this fate for himself. However, he does end up confined to bed, the last of his friends to survive. Towards the end of the book, as the fingers of WWII reach into Egypt, he dies after surviving a frantic air raid. His heartbroken children and wife are with him as he dies and cannot believe the strong, vibrant, albeit severe, husband and father they knew is gone. Sadly, youngest daughter, Aisha's two young sons and husband did succumb to the typhoid fever they contracted at the end of the second book, and she has lived despondently back in her parents' home with her beautiful, teenage daughter, Na'ima since the tragedy, a haggard version of the beauty she used to be.  Yasin, the oldest son, is still married to Zanuba and they have children Ridwan and Karima. As the years pass in this book, Ridwan gets his law degree and goes to work in a rather influential position in the government. Ridwan realizes that he is gay as a teenager and has a relationship with an older man, never explicitly detailed, but certainly implied. His cousins, Abd al-Muni'm and Ahmad, the sons of Khadija, are about his same age, and are as different from him as they are from each other. Abd al-Muni'm also gets his law degree and is devoutly religious and Ahmad is not a believer, but becomes a Socialist. The three cousins spend many hours debating the different politics of the day, though I must admit that my brain just can't wrap around all the Egyptian politics, kings, and different groups that want to show dissent. Abd al-Muni'm marries his cousin, Na'ima at a very young age, mostly to reconcile his carnal desires with his faith. Tragically, Na'ima dies in childbirth with their first child. Her death, of course, throws Aisha into an even bigger emotional turmoil. A few years later, Abd al-Muni'm remarries...this time to his cousin Karima, Ridwan's sister! Ahmad marries as well, an independent woman who works at the socialist magazine he writes for. Neither marriage is happy for very long as both sons are arrested during the trying times in Egypt for protesting against their government, just both in different ways. Khadija, al-Sayyid's oldest daughter, still rules the roost over her husband and two boys....until, as mentioned, the boys grow older and start developing their very own paths, neither of which represent the old ways that Khadija grew up with. She's despondent when her boys are sent to await a trial which they all feel will never come. Kamal, the youngest son of al-Sayyid and Amina, did follow his philosophical path and become a very respected teacher. He still struggles with questions of faith and morality and mostly whether or not he should surrender his freedom and shackle himself to a wife and children for the rest of his life....or continue his lonely existence, all the while being able to think all he wants, write all he wants and debate all he wants. He still spends far too much time in his own head. He does end up getting one chance at love when he's 36  years old, but talks himself out of it and remains the bachelor that he is. At the end of the book, Amina, their mother, finally passes away. Kamal, Khadija, Aisha, and Yasin, her stepson, are all bereaved and don't know how life or the house on Palace Walk will ever be the same. A pretty good book, but again, it delved far too deep into the politics of the time for me. I might try and read about those times to understand them better at some point, but for now, I would say what I got from the book was more about the personal relationships of the various family members with each other and their loved ones.

Finished: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson) A much shorter book than I thought it would be! All I really knew about the story was what I've occasionally seen on television, and then the plot line of the stage show, which included a love interest I believe. Anyway, there was no woman in this story! There was just Dr. Jekyll, who apparently battled with his two different selves all his life. His true personality was good and carefree and mirthful. However, he felt like he should hide that personality and be reserved, holding his head up high and severe as his "station" would have him do. So, as he grew older, he wrestled more and more with the demons of men having two personalities within themselves. He wondered if he could create a chemical solution that would take one of the personalities out...and he finally did. Sadly, the person who prevailed was the evil side of him, who became known as Edward Hyde. Edward Hyde had no conscience and partook of very seedy behavior, catering to Jekyll's darker side which wanted to explore the base pleasures of life. When Hyde actually took an even crueler form by injuring a child, and then beating an innocent man to death, Jekyll decided to give up taking his solution. It was too late, however. Now, Jekyll was becoming Hyde without even taking the potion! It was becoming harder and harder for him to go back to being the kind Jekyll. Finally, with no other option, Jekyll kills himself while he's Hyde. All of this comes to light through letters written to Jekyll's lawyer and good friend, Mr. Utterson. He tells the tale, including his own interactions with both Jekyll and Hyde, and then also the information he finally gets from Jekyll himself in the form of a letter. Interesting book, kept my attention, but not my favorite by far.

Finished: End of Watch (King) The final book in the trilogy that began with Mr. Mercedes, the eerie book that began with psychopath Brady Hartsfield purposely running a stolen Mercedes into an early morning, financially desperate crowd standing in line for a job fair. Mr. Mercedes introduced us to retired cop Bill Hodges, who along with his quirky sidekicks, Holly and Jerome, figured out who Brady was, and then managed to stop him before he blew up a concert hall full of preteens gathered to see a popular boy band in concert...included in the crowd, Jerome's young sister, Barbara. Though they stopped him, they unfortunately didn't kill him...but left him so brain damaged that he's been in a semi-comatose state for the past six years in a brain institute. In the second book, Finders Keepers, Brady is not the focus of the story, but is living the life of a virtual vegetable in the institute while Hodges, Holly and Jerome cement their bond and investigative skills helping out the family of one of the job fair victims. By the time we get to End of Watch, Jerome is off building houses in Arizona with Habitat for Humanity and Hodges and Holly have opened their own detective agency, aptly called Finders Keepers! Bill has also just found out he's got very advanced pancreatic cancer, and his bad health is definitely showing. Holly is distraught, as Bill and Jerome are her only true friends in life. As for Brady, his brain has actually been in tact for a long, long time. He's just been hiding it so he won't be prosecuted for the job fair murders. Hodges has visited him several times over the years and let him know that he KNOWS Brady is really in there and faking it. Then, things get a little whacky...Brady begins to be able to move things in his room through telekinesis. We meet Dr. Babineau, Brady's unethical doctor who has been injecting Brady with an illegal drug for years, in hopes of reversing his brain damage and bringing him back. Whether because of the drug or because of Brady's stubborn will, he has come back and with these powers of telekinesis and more! When a janitor brings an old hand held Gameboy type game called Zappit into his room one day, Brady sees the janitor go into a trance watching the screen. Somehow Brady is able to put himself into the janitor's body while he's in the trance! When he finds out he's able to do this, he quickly begins using both the janitor and the doctor as bodies for his dangerous plan. Every time he goes into their bodies, he eats away a little bit more of their own memories, etc. So, Brady's big plan is to buy all the now discontinued Zappits left at their company, reprogram them, and get them sent out to teenagers. He wants to cause a suicide epidemic by using the Zappit game to get into the teenager's heads and convince them they're worthless and that they should end their lives! His plan is made all the more evil by the fact that all the teenagers who are getting the devices are the kids who were at the boy band concert six years before...those kids who he was kept from killing then! He almost succeeds when he gets inside Barbara's head as she watches her game. She convinces herself she wants to kill herself with Brady's voice guiding her. She steps in front of a huge truck, but is saved at the last minute by a boy she was talking to on the corner! The Zappit is smashed, and Barbara suffers only a broken leg. She immediately contacts Hodges and Holly and they are quickly on the case! As crazy as it seems, they figure out that somehow Brady is putting himself in other people's bodies and doing diabolical things!! Jerome comes home from Arizona to see his sister, and then to help Bill and Holly once again get the better of Brady! Brady is now fully ensconced in Dr. Babineau's body, even having killed Babineau's wife. As Dr. Babineau, Brady goes into his own room and kills off his own body so no one will suspect him. However, Hodges and company DO figure it out! With Bill nearly passing out from pain, he and Brady have one final confrontation, with Holly and Jerome also jumping in to help save the day! Brady is finally killed as Dr. Babineau and is gone forever. ( I think he's gone forever...since this was the last of the trilogy. I suppose he could have "jumped" into someone else at the last minute, but he didn't have a Zappit in his hands to do so when he died.) Anyway, eight months later, Holly and Jerome meet at Bill's grave. He has, in fact, succumbed to his pancreatic cancer. Thus ends the Bill Hodges (and hopefully the Brady Hartsfield) story! It's not my favorite of the Stephen King books, and my least favorite of this trilogy, because of the far out suspension of belief we are supposed to have that Brady can go into other people's bodies. I guess that's typical King though? And, still...it was a page-turner. :-)