Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpo st.com. – Barbara Ellis 'Midnight Flyboys: The American Bomber Crews and Allied Secret Agents Who Aided the French Resistance in World War II,' by Bruce Henderson (Gallery Books, 2025) ‘Midnight Flyboys: The American Bomber Crews and Allied Secret Agents Who Aided the French Resistance in World War II,’ by Bruce Henderson (Gallery Books, 2025) Drawing on military records, personal papers, interviews, histories and memoirs, Henderson details the creation, training and missions of the “sharecropper” crews who flew low-altitude, nighttime, unaccompanied missions in modified B-24 bombers from January through September 1944 within Nazi-occupied territory in western Europe.  These dangerous, yet critical, flights dropped some 10 million pounds of supplies and more than 500 agents or special forces, leading up to and after D-Day. Intelligence networks and resistance operations were supported by and coordinated with military forces. Henderson lends a human face to these clandestine efforts, with dozens of profiles of the pilots and crews, as well as resistance agents and leaders. — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver ‘Word by Word: The Secret Lives of Dictionaries,’ by Kory Stamper (Pantheon, 2017) Lovers of words (like me) are called philologists. But have you ever thought much about dictionaries? Stamper writes vividly about what could have been a dry subject.  Numerous citations provide illustration, such as: “Every republic runs its greatest risk not so much from discontented soldiers as from discontented multi-millionaires. … That is exactly our present position, and would be the end of the American dream. All past republics have been overthrown by rich men … .” (Nation, Nov. 8, 1900) Stamper has broadened my mind with a book full of fascinating tidbits and anecdotes, and a delightful quantity of humor. — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker ‘The Devil at His Elbow,’ by Valerie Bauerlein (Ballantine, 2024) In 2023, Alex Murdaugh was convicted of killing his wife and son as his law practice, fraudulent financial empire, and drug-addicted personal life were about to collapse. Bauerlein, a Wall Street Journal reporter, did her research, attended the trial, and wrote a page-turner of a narrative non-fiction account of the Murdaugh dynasty in South Carolina and the ultimate accountability of a psychopath. A powerful, shocking read. — 3 stars (out of 4); Jo Calhoun, Denver 'Hotel Silence,' by Audur Ava Olafsdottir, translated by Brian FitzGibbon (Grove Atlantic, 2018) ‘Hotel Silence,’ by Audur Ava Olafsdottir, translated by Brian FitzGibbon (Grove Atlantic, 2018) This novel starts as a sober, somber read but warms up and turns into medicine for the soul. Jonas Ebeneser, handyman, has no illusions. Middle-aged, divorced, invisible, he has lost what little he had. So he buys a one-way ticket to a defeated, devastated part of the globe, where he is careful to tell anyone who seeks to employ him that he won’t be around for long and is only good for small jobs. But there’s more to Jonas than he thought, and his jobs get bigger. An upbeat, beautifully told story, the novel received the Icelandic Literary Prize in 2016 and the Nordic Council Literary Award in 2018. — 3 stars (out of 4); Michelle Nelson, Littleton ‘Songs for the Broken Hearted,’ by Ayelet Tsabari (Random House, 2024) In the early years of the state of Israel, thousands of Mizrahi Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries were brought to the Holy Land with dreams of streets lined in gold and their Israeli brethren accepting them with open arms, only to be segregated into overcrowded tent city camps with few resources. One day, a young Yemeni man, Yaqub, discovers Saida singing by the river, and is captivated by her beauty and her haunting melodies. Decades later, Saida’s grieving daughter Zohara discovers a series of tapes her mother had made singing these old Yemeni songs, which reveal an astonishing secret in her parents’ long marriage. With this new knowledge, she finds a measure of compassion for their fractured mother-daughter relationship and a new subject for her postponed PhD dissertation. A rich tale told from three points of view: Zohara; her impressionable young nephew Yoni, who gets caught up in the political protests in the 1990s; and Yaqub, who never forgets his first love and the injustice she suffered as a young mother after migrating to Israel in 1950. — 3 stars (out of 4); Karen Goldie Hartman, Westminster Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox. ...read more read less