The Ice Beneath Her

This is the first solo outing of Swedish author Camilla Grebe. Grebe has previously collaborated with her sister, Åsa Träff, on the crime series featuring psychologist Siri Bergman.
The book opens with the grisly murder of a young woman found in the house of the wealthy CEO of a popular clothing store chain, Jesper Orre. We hear the story from three perspectives, much of it in flashbacks. I am going to offer the plot summation from Publishers' Weekly since they do it more justice than I could. "Peter Lindgren, the detective investigating the crime, is afraid of commitment and still hasn't accepted the teenage son he never wanted; shop assistant Emma Bohman, whose now-missing wealthy lover appears to be the prime suspect in the murder, dwells on her painful dysfunctional childhood; and profiler Hanne Lagerlind-Schön, who's trapped in a suffocating marriage, faces early-onset Alzheimer's while helping the police with the case. The present-day crime resembles a 10-year-old cold case during which Peter and Hanne shared a short, tragic relationship. In alternating chapters, the three central figures regret what could have been, grieve for what's been lost, and lament what seemingly can never be..." One might begin to suspect what is really going on about halfway through, but would be unlikely to untangle the whole knot until the very end. The frequent use of flashbacks dropped into contemporary narrative is sometimes a little confusing, but not enough to lose you entirely. It's a very tricky plot and you would probably have to read it twice to truly understand at least a couple of the characters...I won't say why. If you like Scandinavian noir, this will certainly fill the bill. In fact, Kirkus claims, "A tour de force that lifts its author to the front rank among the increasingly crowded field of Nordic noir."

Paradox

Prolific author Catherine Coulter has written over 80 novels ( a complete list here), from historical romances to contemporary FBI thrillers. This book is the 23rd in the FBI series. Married FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich are awakened by a monitor failure alarm and find a man in their 5-year-old son's room. They effectively thwart the kidnap attempt but fail to catch the would-be kidnapper. Two days later, the police chief of tiny Willicott, MD, Ty Christie, is standing on her deck overlooking the foggy lake when she sees a man in a rowboat strike the other passenger of the boat in the head and dump the body overboard. The killer disappears into the fog, but when the body is recovered, it turns out to be a federal prosecutor. The FBI, specifically Special Agents Sherlock and Savich, are quickly on the case and discover another FBI agent tied up and left for dead in an old derelict house on the lake shore. Forensic evidence strongly suggests the perpetrators of the two crimes are the same person, Victor Nesser, recently escaped from a mental institution. The woman dumped from the rowboat was the prosecutor who got Nesser put in the mental hospital, which saved his life as he was on trial for murder. Apparently he wasn't grateful. Meanwhile, Chief Christie is dealing with the fact that the initial search for a body in the lake has turned up dozens of skeletons, and the only conclusion is that a serial killer has been operating in the area and using the lake for a dumping ground.  Well plotted with decent characterization and setting. No doubt much of the character development for Sherlock and Savich has occurred in preceding installments of this series.  Here's a brief review from Publishers Weekly.

Indian Killer

I also read this book by Sherman Alexie because he was recently a speaker on the "Author, Author!" series from the public library. A mystery of sorts, this is a bit of a departure from his typical work. Native American John Smith was taken from his mother at birth and given to a well-to-do Caucasian couple on Mercer Island, Washington. He never knew where he came from, what tribe his mother or father had been. Who knows if that is the factor that tipped him into schizophrenia. His adoptive parents doted on him, sought to expose him to Native American culture in many forms--books, movies, pow-wows, museums, time with a Native American Jesuit priest. But John never connected to his parents or his culture, except he was convinced he wanted to work the "high iron" as had the Mohawks who built skyscrapers in Manhattan.  At some point, John simply steps over the edge, metaphorically, when he starts killing people he believes have wronged Indians, and eventually he steps over the edge, literally, and plunges to his death. Other well-developed characters populate this book as well: a young university student and activist who takes on the professor of a Native American literature class, a local PI who is an Indian wannabee, and a bigoted radio show host who stirs up hate crimes in response to John's killings. I'm not sure what the message was here. Should Native American children never be adopted outside their tribe or by anyone of another ethnicity? Unlike  some of his other writing, and unlike his talks in person, in this book there is no humor (biting or otherwise) to relieve the understandable bitterness about the Native American genocide.

We have Always Lived in the Castle

Some time back, some person put arsenic in the sugar bowl at dinner and now the whole family is dead except for Uncle Julian, an invalid, who eats very little sugar; Constance, who eats no sugar; and Mary Katherine (aka Merricat), who was sent to her room without supper for misbehaving that fateful night. Constance was the one who was tried for the multiple murders, but she was not convicted. Now the three of them continue to live in the family home, shut away from the resentful and mean-spirited villagers except for Merricat's twice weekly trip to the grocery store. The other wealthy families--for they had money and live in a mansion--occasionally come to call, but otherwise, they are totally isolated. When Cousin Charles shows up, the balance--such as it is--is upset and things begin to go quickly awry. A fire is started by someone in the house, then the fire department puts it out. But the villagers take the opportunity to rampage through the house breaking everything they find. Uncle Julian dies of a heart attack in the melee. Only Constance and Merricat are left. What are they to do?  One of the survivors is the poisoner, but the two nevertheless vow to go on. A totally strange book by Shirley Jackson, who also wrote The Haunting of Hill House. Apparently this has also been performed on stage.

Crazy Enough

We went to see a Pink Martini concert here in Bend recently. There has been such a glut of tell-all memoirs about people's miserable lives in the last few years and I really have no interest in reading them; I am generally not a consumer of celebrity gossip and not interested in their private lives.  But when this woman, Storm Large, had the temerity to step into the giant shoes of China Forbes as the lead vocalist for Pink Martini and, according to bandleader Thomas Loudermilk, save their bacon by learning 10 songs in 5 languages in 6 days, AND to do a one-woman show about her life and then write a bookabout herself that won an Oregon book award, well.... I admit my curiosity was piqued. BTW, she was amazing and I was totally won over with her renditions of Pink Martini's songs and totally entertained with her sassy banter and torchy presentations of their Latin numbers.
But maybe you don't want to read this book. Sometimes you just want to maintain the illusion, and after reading this book, that just is not possible. While you have to admire the tenacity and guts and talent that it took to overcome the incredibly destructive -- both active and passive--parents she had, one sort of wishes one didn't know how she almost destroyed herself in the process. I am not sure I can ever hear her sing again without being reminded of all the pain behind it, although she absolutely soars above that when she sings. She has in every way lived up to her name, larger than life, leaving detritus in her stormy wake. She doesn't think well of us in the audience generally, and you can't really blame her, given the experiences she has had, but it does change things. That sharp edge to her banter just takes on a different significance. But do go see her sing. She is magnificent!

Love Walked In

At first you'll think that love walked into Cornelia's life and coffee shop in the form of a Cary Grant look-alike. She really wanted to be in love with Martin Grace because there were so many things to love about him. But the real fall comes when Cornelia meets Martin's estranged daughter, Clare. I'd be surprised if you don't fall in love with Cornelia as I did, and for the same reasons she fell in love with Clare -- because she's thoughtful, emotionally courageous, ultimately stays true to herself, and is willing to risk it all for what she wants. The characters are occasionally quirky, very well drawn, enormously endearing. We are reminded that, whether in families, friendships, or love affairs, there is no happiness without some cost, but it's usually worth it. Set predominantly in Philadephia, punctuated by delightful dialog and frequent classic film references, this first novel from Maria de los Santos is a most satisfying read.