Hunger Games

I finally got around to reading the much-hyped 1st installment of Suzanne Collins' trilogy about a dystopian future where children are sacrificed in televised games of survival for the entertainment of the refined citizens of the capital city--oh and to serve as a reminder to the Districts never ever to rebel again. I've been reading about this for years in the YA chats and you can't avoid hearing about the new movie based on this book, but I just hadn't put it at the top of the list until my pal Dale Pehrsson sent the book along to me. It was actually an enjoyable break from the string of depressing (human trafficking, bullying) and just ho-hum YA books I have been reviewing of late. The characters are compelling, the plot moves along at a good pace and it seems altogether too possible. I see the movie has already been released to DVD so will move it up the list in my Netflix queue. I will definitely read the sequels--once I work my way through a big stack of review books and books my friends have loaned me. I thought I would be plowing through books at a much faster pace in retirement, but have been too busy with outdoor activities. Maybe when winter comes.

Anyway, for those of you who have not read or heard about this, Katniss is 16 when the story opens and has been  supporting her mom and younger sister with the results of her illegal hunting since her dad died when she was eleven. In the twelve districts which now represent the former United States. people are pretty uniformly poor--certainly in Katniss' home of District 12 which supplies coal to the capital city. Katniss' father taught her to use a bow and arrow and this skill will help her survive the Hunger Games, a nationally televised competition to the death. Each district must send one girl and one boy to the competition each year as a "tribute" to pay for an earlier failed rebellion. Katniss volunteers to take her sister Prim's place when Prim's name is drawn in the lottery. She is joined by Peeta, the baker's son, to whom she owes her survival right after her father died. And yet she does not know whether to trust him--after all, only one of them will come out of this alive--and she certainly is taken aback when he claims in the televised interviews with the game contestants that he has loved her since he was 5 years old. This is right up there with the best of YA fantasy.

The Lock Artist

Yet another book I have my friend Anne Zald to thank for; this book by Steve Hamilton that won an Edgar Award has a most unusual protagonist.  Early on, we are tantalized by William Michael Smith's mysterious and traumatizing past that has left him speechless. By the age of 18, he has not spoken a word in 10 years, ever since....well, you'll have to read it to find out. His parents are dead.   Perpetually the outcast and victim of bullies at school, Mike's being raised by a hapless but well-meaning uncle who runs a small-time liquor store near Detroit. By chance he discovers he has a unique affinity for opening things, like locks without keys, padlocks without combinations, and--with a little training from a master "boxman" --even safes; it is, by Mike's own account, an "unforgivable talent." This makes him a hot commodity with the worst kind of people and so it's no surprise that Michael is writing this "memoir" from jail in an attempt to find his "voice." However, all is not grim. Michael is also a gifted artist which brings him together initially with the love of his life, Amelia. With her help, Michael confronts his past, and--you end up hoping--will eventually walk away from all the darkness.

River of Darkness

I have been remiss in posting my own reading, partly because I have been busy writing reviews for Children's Literature Database and partly because...well....I'm retired and just being lazy. Anyway, heard about this book on Powell's "Daily Dose" and got it from the local library (good for me!) and then tore through it in just about 3 sessions, staying up late into the wee hours to finish. Rennie Airth has apparently written a couple of other mysteries before embarking on this trilogy with the main character being an English WWI veteran, John Madden. In this first of the series, Madden has returned from the war haunted by nightmares and generally experiencing what we now call post-traumatic stress but which was then known as shell shock. He lost his wife and baby to influenza before the war and then saw hundreds of soldiers brutally mown down in the trenches of France. He has given up his dream of farming and returned to being a policeman, actually a detective at Scotland Yard, working for a former colleague, Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair. Madden gets called to a brutal multiple murder in a manor house located in a quiet village of Surrey. It turns out that most of the victims were bayonetted, while the wife had her throat cut. Sinclair and Madden pursue their intuitions that this is not a case of robbery gone wrong, but the work of an organized single individual,  probably a former soldier. They must push against politics at Scotland Yard, a cover up by the military, as well as the unknown motivation of the killer. The character of Madden takes on real form and complexity in this first installment and I am looking forward to reading the next two books to see what he gets up to. Other characters, including Madden's new love interest, Dr. Helen Blackwell, are also well-developed and intriguing in their own right. Dana Stabenow, also a wonderful author, has a nice overview of all 3 books in the trilogy here.