Dying in the Wool

This is the first of a cozy mystery series by Frances Brody (pseudonym for Frances McNeil), set in post WWI England, and featuring protagonist Kate Shackleton. Kate received news that her husband was missing in action and has never been able to accept that he is truly gone. Like other women widowed by the war, she keeps searching, and has informally helped several women locate missing family members. When an acquaintance of Kate's from her VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) days writes and offers to pay Kate for her skills, Kate hesitates. It's one thing to help someone find a missing lover, brother, husband as an act of kindness, but quite another to consider taking money, which would make her more of a professional. Her father is a police inspector and so Kate's inquisitiveness and persistence have been encouraged. When he finds out that Kate might take a paying job with a very short deadline, he suggests she partner up with a former policeman who was never politically savvy enough to get very far--enter Jim Sykes. Jim can go where Kate often cannot and pretend to be people who Kate could not, so they make a good pair. Kate is an independent young woman, who continues to live in the house she shared with her Army surgeon husband, Gerald Shackleton. She drives a motor car--a Jowett --and decides her new partner needs to learn to drive as well.

Kate's first professional client, Tabitha Braithwaite, wants Kate to find her father who disappeared 2 years ago, and do it before Tabitha gets married in just 5 weeks. Tabitha's mother--and pretty much everyone else--think that millionaire textile mogul Joshua Braithwaite is dead.  When he was found battered and bruised in a stream a few days before disappearing, he was charged with attempted suicide--supposedly as a result of recently losing his son at the Somme--and incarcerated in a mental hospital. He escaped from there and was never seen again. But everyone Kate questions about the disappearance is holding back important information. Nevertheless, Kate uncovers enough clues to begin suspecting that he may have run away and started a new life. The mill is still being profitably run by Braithwaite's family--his wife and daughter and a cousin. Two murders at the mill, staged to look like accidents, suggest the possibility of foul play in Braithwaite's disappearance. And Kate may be next on the list of loose threads to tie up.

If you are a fan of the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear, you will like this protagonist and this series. Kirkus says of this initial outing that it "introduces a refreshingly complex heroine and adds a fine feeling for the postwar period." Publishers Weekly is a bit more measured in their review.

Certain Dark Things

In this 2nd stand-alone novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, near-future Mexico, like much of the rest of the world, is plagued by various tribes of vampires. Mexico City is the exception, where vampires are forbidden and cops ruthlessly seek them out for destruction. Atl, a member of an ancient Aztec- affiliated species of vampires, has nevertheless come to Mexico City for help. Atl is being pursued by the scion of a competing band of ruthless vampires who have already wiped out the rest of her family and intend the same for her. Atl lucks out, unwittingly, when she meets 17-year-old Domingo, a trash picker who lives on the streets or in the underground tunnels of the city, but can sell enough of what he finds to the recyclers to keep himself fed. He is a voracious reader of vampire stories in comic books and is totally smitten with Atl when they first meet and offers to help in any way he can, including--of course--as an occasional food source. Atl has come to Mexico City to get in touch with very old friends of her mother's who, using their networks of document forgers and human traffickers, may be able to help her get out of the country and stay alive. But her pursuers are leaving a trail of bodies across the city and drawing unwanted attention from the police, including a detective, Ana Aguirre, who has killed her fair share of vampires while working for a regional police department  outside the city. When Ana's suspicions are aroused that the deaths are vampire related, she gets no support from her misogynistic colleagues and reluctantly turns to a gang of drug dealers for help in locating the vampires.

Atl is an anti-heroine of the first order; you will come to root for her as she transitions from spoiled daughter of a wealthy family to grieving solo fugitive. She is conflicted between a tough and uncaring posture that is heredity and habit, and an inability to follow through on her overwhelming hunger in relationship with naive Domingo.

Although I gave up on another of Moreno-Garcia's books, Gods of Jade and Shadow, I really enjoyed this book. There is rich description of Mexico, some mythology, a little Aztec history, fully developed characters, and a post-text glossary of vampire species you never knew existed. Lots of rave reviews about this book including NPR, who calls it a "compelling new take on vampires;" Publishers Weekly; and The New York Journal of Books which concludes its review with this high praise:

"Filled with powerful themes of trust, corruption, vengeance, and bloodlust, this novel is by turns sensual and grim, introspective and disturbing, suspenseful and moving, and all told in the sleek and lyrical prose for which Moreno-Garcia is deservedly acclaimed. In short, Certain Dark Things is arguably the vampire novel for the 21st century."

The Herd

I was unfamiliar with author Andrea Bartz, for whom this novel is her second outing. The Washington Post reviewer, esteemed Maureen Corrigan, considers it to be the ideal "airplane novel"--if people were still taking airplanes anywhere these days. Corrigan goes on to summarize the plot: "An insular group of well-groomed women becomes drawn into investigating the murder of one of their own, all the while keeping scandalous personal secrets tightly sealed behind their persimmon pink-stained lips." The story gradually unfolds in alternating chapters told by two adoptive sisters; the older (adopted) sister is Hana, a woman of color who is now a successful public relations entrepreneur, and younger sister Katie, a journalist and wannabe book writer. Hana, Mikki, and Eleanorall went to Harvard together and have remained close friends. Katie also became friends with Eleanor and Mikki when Hana jaunted off to Los Angeles right after college. Mikki is a graphic designer and struggling artist. Eleanor first started an ethical line of cosmetics called Gleam and then created the HERD, a membership only club and co-working space for women entrepreneurs. It has become so wildly popular that there is a waiting list to get in, even with the $300 per month membership fee. With success, however, often comes resentment and Eleanor's ventures have generated their own groups of haters, one of which calls itself the Antiherd. A telling aside about the name of the venture is offered by one character who muses, "A herd’s primary purpose is to keep the highest percentage of its members alive. Evolution doesn’t care about the individual, about survival of the least-fit. We team up for the most selfish reason possible: self-preservation." When Eleanor goes missing on the eve of a big announcement about the HERD, everyone is in a panic, and Hana and Katie each set off independently to find out what happened to Eleanor.

The book felt slow to start and I was about half-way through before I really felt compelled to find out whodunnit. The dark secrets of Eleanor, Mikki, Hana, and Katie are hinted at so frequently and with such a heavy hand, that I figuratively had to roll my eyes many times. I would agree with Corrigan that it feels like the characters do not get fully developed and we really only find out what motivates them toward the very end of the book....slow, slow, slow, rush, rush, rush.  However, to be fair, I never saw the resolution coming and once we find out what lies beneath the shiny surfaces of these women, it seems all too plausible. I do think there is a lot of potential meat for discussion here in terms of how women are minimized and perjoratively interpreted in our culture, especially when it comes to business. Additionally, the contrast between who people really are and how they present themselves in social media is dealt with both head on and sideways--which could certainly generate good book group discussion.

Kirkus calls this a "soapy and fun woman-centric thriller."Publishers Weekly lauds it as "a smart, twisty thriller..." The Los Angeles Times says, "A pulpy satire of millennial corporate feminism and a parodic homage to the Wing..."  I had never heard of The Wing and if you read this piece in The New York Times Magazine, it will indeed sound very similar to the setting for this book.

Camino Winds

I haven't read any John Grisham in quite a while, although I certainly enjoyed what I read in the past, as well as  the movie spinoffs I watched. However, I found this book somewhat disappointing. Fictitious Camino Island, just off the east coast of Florida is a literary haven, anchored by Bay Books and owner/mover/shaker Bruce Cable. Cable loves to cultivate and foster budding young authors and doesn't mind bedding the attractive female ones, given that he is in an open marriage. There is a handful of other authors, who write in various genres, that make Camino Island their home, and independently wealthy (although perhaps not legally so) Bruce frequently hosts literary dinner parties in partnership with his antiques dealing and beautiful wife, Noelle. Bruce also has several author events each week at the bookstore during the busy summer tourist season. But this season is different because an unpredictable hurricane, Leo by name, decides to hit Camino Island head on. After the storm has passed, Bruce, his bookstore employee Justin, and crime writer Bob Cobb--all of whom remained instead of leaving--find that one of their friends, lawyer turn thriller writer Nelson Kerr, is dead. The police department want to write it off as an accident but Bruce and his pals find clues that suggest otherwise. When the local and state police seem all too willing to write this off, Bruce is determined to find out if the last book Nelson was writing might lead to the killer of his friend. Kerr has exposed some heavy hitter bad guys before and this time they may have decided they would go to any lengths to prevent publication of the book. Publishers Weekly sums up the rest of the action nicely, to wit: "Believing the manuscript is fact posing as fiction, Bruce retains the services of a dodgy security firm to infiltrate nursing homes. This effort leads to more murders, a cover-up, and a massive FBI operation to bring the book’s villains to justice."

The resolution of the book seems anti-climactic although perhaps more realistic for all of that. But, to me, none of the characters were very engaging. This is a sequel to Camino Island and I might have liked some of them better if I had read that. Kirkus writes a generally favorable review, although noting that "Cable is perhaps Grisham’s least sympathetic hero; he drinks night and day, sleeps around, and has few apparent scruples. At least he’s not a lawyer. Neither is he a cop..." The New York Times notes this effort is a hybrid of Grisham's earlier and more serious legal thrillers with a sort of beach book.

The Red Lotus

I was unfamiliar with author Chris Bohjalian, although he has apparently been a prolific author with several best sellers to his credit and is also a well-regarded playwright. This is the 2nd germs vs. humans book I have read since our current pandemic began (see also The End of October).

Wars leave behind so many casualties. In Vietnam, our deluge of agent orange not only killed people and plants but left a legacy of birth defects and...rats that are highly resistant to the things that normally kill them. Alexis, an ER doctor, and Austin, a development officer at the same hospital, have come to Vietnam for a bicycle tour. It is intended both as a vacation for them--now dating for 6 months--and an opportunity for Austin to pay homage at the place where his uncle died and his father was wounded during the war. He goes off on a solo ride to that end, leaving Alexis to go with the bike tour. But Austin does not come back that night and his body is not found until the next day, apparently the victim of a hit and run. Alexis finds several anomalies in the coroner's report and the circumstances of Austin's death. But all her efforts to figure out where Austin was in the intervening hours turn up only a couple of high energy gel packs, ostensibly dropped on the road he took. When the local FBI representative gets involved, Alexis learns that Austin's story about his uncle and father are not true and she begins to wonder what else he might have been lying about.

She continues to investigate after returning home to New York City and even hires a private investigator to help her. What they uncover is a deadly plan to sell mutated plague pathogens to the highest bidder.  Fast paced with good character and setting development. Recommended.

Positive reviews from The Washington Post, The New York Times, Kirkus, and Publishers' Weekly.

The Drifter

This mystery by Nick Petrie is one I have read before but apparently failed to post; however, it is July's selection for my mystery book group, so I reread it. This is the debut (published in 2016) of his series featuring Afghanistan veteran, Peter Ash--a man who can no longer stand to be indoors without suffering full-blown anxiety attacks. It was nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Hammett Awards. Set in Milwaukee (Petrie's own city of residence), Ash has come to help the widow of one of his sargeants, Jimmy Johnson, who apparently killed himself. Of course Ash feels guilty that he never visited his former friend and fellow soldier after they came home. He is doing some repairs on the run-down house where Dinah and her two young sons live. His first task is to somehow get a vicious dog out from under the nearly collapsed front porch. In the process, he discovers a suitcase with $400K and 4 blocks of C-4 explosive. Dinah denies all knowledge and furthermore wants nothing to do with the money, even though her house is nearing foreclosure. She introduces Peter to a gangster type, Lewis, who went to school with both Jimmy and Dinah and still carries a torch for Dinah. He also denies knowing anything about the money. But now Peter is determined to find out what Jimmy was doing with the money and the explosives. In alternating chapters, we follow a man in a "black canvas chore coat" as he systematically gathers the materials for a massive fertilizer bomb. Some good guys turn out to be bad guys and some bad guys turn out to be not so bad after all. The storyline and characters illustrate all too well the poor treatment many veterans have had at home. The plotting and pace are solid as are the characters--an engaging read.

  Publishers Weekly offers up a positive review as does Kirkus.

Out of Darkness, Shining Light

This historical novel by Petina Gappah purports to tell the story of the return of Dr. David Livingstone's body to England after he died in central Africa--a journey of 1,500 miles that took almost a year. It is told from the perspective of Livingstone's expedition cook, Halima, and Jacob Wainwright, a secretary who joined the expedition shortly before Livingstone died. Halima was bought out of servitude by Livingstone to be a "travel wife" to one of Livingstone's main expedition organizers, an abusive man named Amoda. She is outspoken at times and has even run away from the expedition following an argument with one of the other "travel wives." Halima is critical of a man who could basically abandon his family to search for the source of a river (the Nile), but she pragmatically notes, “People can do good and still be bad, and do bad and still be good.” Livingstone has promised to buy her a house of her own when they return to Zanzibar so she may live as a free woman. In spite of his death, Livingstone's son honors his father's commitment to Halima. The other narrator, Jacob Wainwright, was rescued from slavers as a child and taken to an English school in India run by a missionary named Nassick; the graduates of that school are often referred to as Nassickers. Jacob is very pious, in fact self-righteous and full of himself. Yet he has also incorporated some degree of self-loathing as a result of his colonial education. Jacob has taken it upon himself to organize and preserve Livingstone's papers and has aspirations of returning to England with Livingstone's body, becoming ordained as a missionary, and returning to convert Africans to Christianity. He will be disappointed in these aspirations.
In the review from The Guardian, they claim that these various narratives serve to demythologize a man "who was often petty and occasionally venal; who blundered through the continent propelled by a conviction of the superiority of his own ideas; who considered it impossible to overstate slavery’s evils yet relied heavily on the assistance of slave traders; and who wasn’t above 'having a man beaten if that is what has to be done.'”I would agree with their reviewer that, at times, the book stuttered because it "felt loaded too heavily with information at the expense of plot." And, I might add, too many unpronounceable names. Might be better to consume as an audio-book, although it would still be a challenge to keep track of all the characters and places--which, by the way, were not reflected to any significant degree on the enclosed map! The review from The New York Times is lukewarm; whereas, Kirkus gushes, "a rich, vivid, and addictive book filled with memorably drawn characters. This is a humane, riveting, epic novel that spotlights marginalized historical voices."
Guess you'll have to decide for yourself.