Kindred

Apparently this 2009 book by Octavia Butler (1947-2006) has been recently reissued and I saw reviews that caught my attention. A long time ago, I read Butler's Parable of the Sower about a post-apocolyptic world with a hyperempathic teen as the protagonist. Butler was awarded a MacArthur "Genius" grant and the PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award. 

In this book, set alternately in 1976 and the early 1800's, Dana, a black woman is married to a white man, Kevin, and they gave just moved to a new home. While unpacking books, Dana's world disappears and she finds herself in some woods and sees a young boy, Rufus, drowning in the nearby river. She saves him but is confronted by the boy's father holding a rifle. She quickly realizes that this is nowhere she knows and, it turns out, no time that she knows. Just as suddenly, she is back in her own home dazed and confused. Within the next several weeks, she is "called" by Rufus whenever he is in mortal danger. She always manages to save his life, having determined from entries in the family bible that he is in fact one of her ancestors. But with every trip to the antebellum south (Maryland), she is put in mortal danger because she is black. Each trip takes longer in the past time--from hours, to weeks, to months-- but is only a matter or minutes, hours or days in the present. At one point, Kevin is holding her hand when she is called and he gets left behind--for 5 years in the past and over a week in the present. Rufus knows his life is dependent on Dana and yet he cannot entirely overcome the views and behaviors that surround him and, at one point, he has Dana whipped for disobeying him. This was in many ways a hard book to read because of the terrible mistreatment of black people, but Butler is a compelling writer and it was also hard to put down. 

"‘[Her] evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human’ New York Times." (from her website). Also reviews from Kirkus, (of the new paperback edition),  Publishers Weekly (review of the graphic novel adaptation), NPR interviews the creators of the graphic novel adaptation.

The Order

Just what I needed, after reading several more demanding books, was this fast moving thriller about a plot to take over the papacy by an ultra-conservative semi-secret society. I have read a couple of other books by Daniel Silva--the first in the "Gabriel Allon series" The Kill Artist, and a later one in the series, The English Girl, both of which I enjoyed. This is the 20th book in the series, and although it helps to have some familiarity with the series just for character development purposes, I found this book no less compelling in spite of not reading them in order or in great numbers. Gabriel has become the director general of Israeli Intelligence services and so works constantly. His wife, Chiara, must plot with the Prime Minister and Gabriel's co-workers to engineer a much needed vacation in Venice with their two young children. The children's maternal grandparents also live there, giving Gabriel and Chiara the possibility of time alone as well. But fate or bad actors intervene when the Pope suddenly dies and Archbishop Luigi Donati, the Pope's devoted private secretary, comes to Allon with his suspicions of foul play.  The Swiss guard who normally stood outside the Pope's quarters has disappeared as has a letter the Pope was in the process of writing to Gabriel Allon.  "'While researching in the Vatican Secret Archives, I came upon a most remarkable book . . . ,' the pope begins his letter to Allon, and the whereabouts of that book--the suppressed Gospel of Pontius Pilate, in which the Roman prelate contradicts the New Testament's version of the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus--drive the action here, as Allon and Donati track the secretive Order of St. Helena, a far-right Catholic society with a plan to hijack the papacy (think The Manchurian Candidate). Can Allon both save the Catholic Church and, with an assist from Pontius Pilate, help to undo the church's legacy of anti-Semitism?" (Booklist)

Kirkus calls it "Engaging and deftly paced." I call it perfect pandemic reading!

Exhalations: Stories

Highly lauded science fiction author Ted Chiang has put together a provocative collection of short stories and novellas in this book.  Chiang most famously Stories of Your Life and Others, which was the basis for the movie Arrival. Covering everything from time travel to species extinction to augmented memory technology, we are prodded to reconsider ideas and values we currently cling to and challenged to consider new ones to fit a changing world. My book group read this for our December selection. I personally found some stories more engaging than others. We decided to focus our discussion primarily on the story "The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling," which generated thoughtful and often deeply felt discussion. These did not feel like a most science fiction I have read in book length, where there is a plot line that you follow to conclusion. The entries seemed to raise more questions than they answered.

His stories have won all the big name prizes--Hugos, Nebulas, etc.-- and critical reviews are almost unanimously glowing.

The Guardian: "The emotional and the cerebral are expertly balanced in these meditations on the mysteries of existence." Read this review to get a brief overview of each of the stories and the reviewer's assessment of their strengths and weaknesses.

The New Yorker: Chiang explores "conventional tropes of science fiction in highly unconventional ways." This reviewer had different ideas about which stories were most noteworthy, so also worth a read.

NPR: Chiang writes often (almost always) with an understanding that nothing we do, nothing he does, nothing any of his characters do, can change that. Consequence comes of every choice, of every breath (the entire point of Exhalation), ..."Nothing erases the past," says the narrator. "There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough."

Kirkus:  "Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them..."

Washington Post: "Chiang’s stories are uniformly notable for a fusion of pure intellect and molten emotion. At the core of each is some deep conceptual notion rich with arcane metaphysical or scientific allure. But surrounding each novum is a narrative of refined human sensitivity and soulfulness that symbolically reifies the ideas. While this combination represents the ideal definition and practice of all science fiction, it’s seldom achieved."

Catfishing on CatNet

Not sure how I came to read this YA novel by Naomi Kritzer, but I enjoyed it. Catfishing on CatNet won the Minnesota Book Award , the Edgar Award, and the Lodestar... Award for best YA, and was a Finalist for the Nebula, Locus, and ITW Thriller Awards.

Our protagonist, 16-year-old Steph, has been on the run with her mother since she can remember. Her father, according to Steph's mother, is dangerously abusive, Steph never gets to stay in a school more than a few months, which makes it hard to establish or keep friends. Her friends are all on CatNet, an online chat room where the moderator, Cheshire Cat, especially likes people to post cute cat pictures. What Steph finds out--that no one else in the chat room knows--is that the moderator is a sentient AI.

"My two favorite things to do with my time are helping people and looking at cat pictures. I particularly like helping people who take lots of cat pictures for me. I have a fair amount of time to allocate: I don’t have a body, so I don’t have to sleep or eat. I am not sure whether I think faster than humans think, but reading is a very different experience for me than it is for humans. To put knowledge in their brains, humans have to pull it in through their eyes or ears, whereas I can just access any knowledge that’s stored online. 

Admittedly, it is easy to overlook knowledge that I technically have possession of because I’m not thinking about it in the moment. Also, having to access to knowledge doesn’t always mean understanding things.  

I do not entirely understand people."

Steph's mom has always cautioned that they must never do anything to draw attention. A classroom prank, aided by her chat room friends and a couple of new found school pals, involves re-programming the school's sex-ed robot--which spirals out of control and gets picked up by more than the local papers. When it appears that Steph's stalker father is beginning to close in, Cheshire Cat decides to help Steph. Then suddenly Cheshire Cat is offline and Steph must reveal's it's secret identity to her online friends  and rely on their help in real life to escape. Publisher's Weekly says of this book, "An entertaining, heart-filled exploration of today's online existence and privacy concerns." Kirkus praises the book by concluding, "Wickedly funny and thrilling in turns; perfect for readers coming-of-age online. " NPR's reviewer also raved about the book and noted, "Steph's life is the stuff of made-for-TV drama, but despite that, she feels deeply relatable and accessible as a character. We meet her at a moment when she realizes that she should be asking more questions about her life and begins throwing rocks at the fence that surrounds her, testing its strength. We also get occasional passages from CheshireCat's point of view, and they manage to be simultaneously alarming and affable, acting with a shocking boldness and then wringing their virtual hands, wondering if they've done the right thing. This story heralds a coming of age for both its human and AI protagonists, and the parallels and differences are illuminating."

Highly recommended for teens and adults.

Dear Child

I kept waiting for this English-language debut by German author Romy Hausmann to engage me and it never did. There was a reasonably satisfying ending after a significant plot twist that I never saw coming. The story is primarily told from the perspective of Jasmin, a young woman who was kidnapped by a man and held captive in a remote cabin, where she must follow strict rules, never sees daylight, serve as the mother to his two children, and--most disturbing of all--take on the identity of Lena, who, we learn, is the biological mother of the two children. The story all revolves around the original disappearance of college student Lena 13 years ago. So alternating chapters are narrated by her father, Matthias, who has never given up looking for her. A third narrator is Hannah, the daughter held captive in the cabin with Jasmin/Lena. Jasmin has managed to escape the cabin by hitting her captor on the head with a snow globe. But in her mad flight through the woods, she runs onto a highway and is hit by a car. She wakes up briefly in an ambulance to find Hannah is with her. Hannah tells the investigating police that Jasmin's name is Lena. And because Jasmin has been forced to look like Lena by her captor, Lena's parents are brought to the hospital to identify their missing daughter. Except that it's not really Lena. When Lena's parents catch sight of Hannah, however, they are shocked at her resemblance to the younger version of their daughter. It's a very tricky plot, well executed. Characters are fully developed. So I struggled to figure out why I disliked this book so much. I simply did not like any of the characters or feel any empathy with or sympathy for them. None of the characters are honest with themselves or others so you can't trust anyone's narrative, or if you do, you'll be disappointed. Admittedly, they have all been subjected to terrible emotional and physical trauma as well as psychological manipulation, yet none exhibit any admirable qualities to latch onto.

The New York Times calls it "disturbing" and "thought provoking" in their overall favorable review. While Publishers Weekly says, "the book’s real power lies in the author’s insightful and sensitive portrayal of the characters involved in the tragedy."

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

I  read one previous book by Victoria Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic, the first of the "Shades of Magic" series. This book has a totally different premise. Adeline LaRue grows up in a small rural village in early 18th century France. Against her will, she has been promised as a bride to a village widower with 3 children. Adeline doesn't want to live a small life determined by others and, on the eve of her wedding, she falls to the ground pleading with whatever gods can hear to set her free. The Darkness responds but in a particular way designed to make young Addie want to give up her life--and therefore her soul--sooner rather than later. Her freedom comes at the cost of no one ever remembering her. She can carry on a conversation, eat a meal, or sleep in the same bed with someone and, the moment she is out of sight, they have forgotten her existence. She is now immortal in body but no one will remember her. However, over the centuries she does, in fact, serve as a muse for artists who capture essential bits of Addie in their music, writing, paintings--even though the artists can't identify the source of their inspiration. Her benefactor, Luc--the devil we are to believe--wants Addie for himself and shows up periodically over the next 300 years trying to convince her to join him. Although life is often a struggle, even terrifying at times, Addie refuses. Then, one day in 2014 New York City, the rules change. Addie tries to return a book she has stolen--a tactic that has worked countless times in the past--but this time the bookstore clerk remembers her. Addie eventually discovers that Henry has also made a desperate pact with devil. They fall in love, but of course there is a catch.  

Glowing reviews from NPR,  The Washington Post (which calls this novel "propulsive, compulsive and captivating"), Kirkus ("rich and satisfying and strange and impeccably crafted"), and Slate among others. Apparently the film rights for a big screen adaptation have already been sold.

The Guest List

This thriller by Lucy Foley is my mystery book group's selection for December. The main story line takes place over the course of just a few days around a celebrity wedding on a remote island off the coast of Ireland. Different chapters offer perspectives from the owner of the small renovated castle where the wedding is taking place, Aoife; the bride, Jules, who publishes a wildly popular fashion magazine; Olivia, the bride's half-sister and only bridesmaid; Hannah, wife of a longtime friend (maybe once-upon-a- time lover) of the bride; and Johnno, the best man. The time frame also moves back and forth mainly between the day before the wedding and the day of the wedding. There are also a lot of flashbacks to fill in background information of these narrators as well as that of the groom, Will Slater, currently the star of a "Survivor" type TV series. Although it sounds a bit confusing, it's not that hard to follow. What gets really tricky, especially at the end, are all the relationships and underlying motivations of these characters. Someone gets murdered, but you'll probably be surprised by who did it. 

The New York Times says that if you are sad because you have had to miss a wedding during the pandemic, this might cheer you up, since it's definitely one you'd want to miss. The Guardian suggests the book's wild success is because "Everyone appears to have a motive and a dark tragic secret in their past, and the mounting sense of doom is piled on pretty thick." Publishers Weekly promises "Readers seeking thrills will find plenty."

Squeeze Me

Carl Hiaasen is the author of numerous humorous/ satirical adult novels, some non-fiction works and collections of newspaper columns--mostly about political corruption, as well as a handful of teen books that are focused on various ecological issues. His adult books, he claims, are inspired by actual newspaper headlines; he still is a reporter for the Miami Herald. I actually had the privilege of hearing him speak at a library conference and he had the audience laughing out loud throughout the talk with his wild and witty observations about Florida, politics, and anything else that came to mind. In this book, he goes after the current president with a joyful vengeance; Melania comes in for more sympathetic treatment. And his protagonist, Angie, is a pest removal expert who you will cheer for from beginning to end. She started as a veterinarian but lost her desire for the job after watching one too many animals be put to sleep. Then she was a wildlife officer but ended that job by going to jail because of her vigilante punishment for a poacher who ran over a baby deer with his airboat. There seems to be a plague of giant pythons threatening social events in ritzy Palm Beach, and Angie is pretty sure that at least one diminutive wealthy matriarch was swallowed by one, although the Trump propaganda machine asserts that an illegal alien is the murderer. Angie tries working with the local police chief and one of the secret service agents based in West Palm Beach to get the innocent man released. But eventually she once again has to take matters into her own hands. We see the reprise of a character that appeared in an earlier book, but there is no requirement that you have read any previous Hiaasen books to thoroughly enjoy this tale. Typical over-the-top biting satire--a great antidote to these dismal days. 

Reviews are abundant in their praise:

The New York Times: warns, "If you are wearing a MAGA anything, you won’t like this book." However, they go on to say, "But if you could use some wild escapism right now, Hiaasen is your guy."

The Washington Post: says of the main character, "Hiaasen can always be relied on to give readers a likable, decent-hearted, beset young female protagonist to fight for justice, and Angie Armstrong is great fun to follow around."

Kirkus: praises Hiaasen's "deftly drawn characters and zingy dialogue"  and concludes, "This exuberant elegy for Florida's paved-over paradise performs the near miracle of making us laugh even as we despair."

The Last Place You Look

This is the first "Roxane Weary" book from author Kristen Lepionka. Apparently there is a 4th one due out soon. I would rate the writing as competent, with good plot development and an interesting main character; although, I do get a bit tired of psychologically damaged and unreliable narrators at times. P.I. Roxane Weary has pretty much been on a non-stop bender since her detective father, Frank Weary, was killed in the line of duty. She gets a call from Danielle Stockton, whose brother Brad was convicted of murder 15 years ago and is scheduled for execution in 2 months. The victims were the parents of Brad's white high school girlfriend and they were brutally stabbed in their home. Brad's girlfriend, Sarah Cooper, disappeared without a trace. Danielle is sure she saw Sarah at a shop a few days ago and she wants Roxane to find her to learn what really happened and hopefully clear her brother. Roxane starts investigating and is immediately targeted for harassment by the local small town police force. In spite of that, she finds a body in the same woods where another stabbing victim had been recently discovered. Both were wrapped in blue tarps. But the 2nd body is not Sarah Cooper, rather a girl from the same high school who had been declared a runaway. Roxane continues to chase down leads through drug connections and old friends of Brad. At first it appears that Brad is more implicated in the murders than Roxane first believed. Then it's a friend of Brad's that seems to have a connection to all the victims. But the trail finally leads to a totally unexpected place. The last few chapters will grab you and not let go. There are several red herrings in the storyline and lots of complicated connections and mixed motives, but it all comes together in the end. 

Kirkus concludes, "Lepionka’s debut confidently portrays complex characters with multiple, sometimes contradictory, motivations and offers an unusually naturalistic perspective on sexual identity." Publishers Weekly calls this debut novel "action packed but uneven." Worth a read.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I really loved both the book by Mary Ann Shaffer (published posthumously by her niece Annie Barrows) and the movie based upon the book, and only realized when writing a previous post (The Jane Austen Society) that I had somehow failed to write a blog post for this treasure. It is 1946, the aftermath of WWII in London when so much is still rubble, including the flat of writer and newspaper columnist Juliet Ashton. It is while she is sorting through both the physical and psychological rubble of her life that two significant events happen. She becomes engaged to a wealthy American publisher and she receives a letter from a man on the island of Guernsey, pig farmer Dawsey Adams, who found her name on the flyleaf of a book of essays by Charles Lamb. He is inquiring if she knows of other books by that author. Guernsey was occupied by the Nazis during the war and through her correspondence with Dawsey, Juliet learns of a group of friends who regularly gathered in secret to read literature to one another. She is compelled by their story and is sure this would make a wonderful next novel to write. Only the residents of Guernsey are not so sure they want the world to be privy to their private lives. This is an homage to letter writing and those who love books. There is an elegant description of the book's storyline and a glowing review in The Guardian. Strong reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, The Christian Science Monitor, among others.

The Jane Austen Society

This novel by Natalie Jenner is strongly reminiscent of the The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society in its gentle, bittersweet tenor describing a terrible time in the lives of those living through WWI and WWII in England.  Here our attention is focused on the small village of Chawton, outside Alton, the final home of Jane Austen and the locale for her last three novels. Every member of the village has suffered loss of some kind, the unending privations of war, the death of loved ones. And they all cope in their unique ways. The bulk of the story takes place in 1945 after the war has ended. 

Austen's brother, Edward Austen Knight, lived in the "Great House" on the Knight estate in the village. The last remaining Knight family male is on his deathbed and the vindictive old man long ago denied his daughter, Frances, a marriage to the person she loved, and now punishes her for failure to produce an heir by totally disinheriting her. The manor is due to go to any remaining male relative of the family and along with it, hundreds of years of memorabilia associated with Jane Austen and thousands of books in the manor's libraries that she had access to. An unlikely cluster of Austen fans come together to try and preserve especially the library, but also the steward's cottage on the estate, which is where Jane Austen herself lived.  The group is actually the brain child of the village handyman, Adam; no one even knew he read much, but it turns out that Austen has been a source of solace after the death of his two brothers in the war. He is joined by the widowed village physician Dr. Gray, former school teacher Adeline who lost both her husband and her baby, Frances Knight, her house maid Evie, the Knight family solicitor Andrew Forrester, Hollywood actress Mimi Harrison, and Sinclair, an expert on antiquities who works at Sotheby's and has been trying to get Frances to sell him Austen related items. 

Along the way, we discover long-suppressed loves, secret identities, and scoundrels who get their come-uppance. Somewhat of a slow start, but overall a satisfying read, even if you are not a hard core Austen fan. The book has received numerous notable mentions and laudatory reviews: The Washington Post; Kirkus; Publishers Weekly.

The Thursday Murder Club

This debut novel by Richard Osman was one of my most enjoyable reads in a long time. It was just a wonderful combination of unique characters (all oldsters like me), witty dialog, charm, an English setting, and sufficiently complicated plot...a perfect English cozy! Four residents of a retirement community like to get together on Thursdays in the meeting room “between Art History and Conversational French” to go over unsolved murders. One of the former members, Penny, was a detective inspector, although she is  now in a coma. But her replacement is a former nurse, Joyce, who offers useful medical knowledge and keeps a log of their work in her diary; and there is Red Ron, former union firebrand and still a reliable rabble rouser; Ibrahim, a psychologist who still meets with some of his patients; and Elizabeth, whose past is a mystery but who has contacts who can get information for her that no ordinary person should have access to. When they are confronted with the actual murder of  the retirement community's shady developer, they gleefully go into high gear, co-opting a local woman constable, Donna DeFreital, who had come to give a safety talk. They are endlessly inventive in finagling information from her boss, and are often a step ahead of the police. But we also witness love and loss and friendship among a truly diverse group. Just pure fun and a terrific antidote for our troubling times;  I would love to read more adventures of this group and the publisher promises one this time next year.

Favorable review from The Guardian, Kirkus, Christian Science Monitor, and Publishers Weekly.

Half Moon Bay

I have read some of the Alex Delaware books by Jonathan Kellerman before, but it's been a while. In this book he co-wrote with his son Jesse, the protagonist is the Deputy Coroner for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department--basically, the Berkeley area of California.  This is apparently the 3rd installment in this series. Clay Edison is already a little sleep deprived with their new baby when he gets called in to investigate the skeleton of a small child found in People's Park by a construction crew. As a result of their search for unsolved missing children cases, Clay is also contacted by a local businessman, Peter Franchette, who wants Clay to find a sister that he thinks went missing before Peter was born...over 50 years ago. The body at People's Park is not the man's sister, it is quickly determined, but Clay agrees to take on the search on his own time. The skeleton in the part is the catalyst for a raft of trouble--protests, sit-ins, law suits, etc--and the sooner Clay can identify the boy, the sooner things will calm down. Filled with colorful history of the area, highlighting the issues of the day such as nuclear weapons research, this book also offers a truly engaging main character. Publishers Weekly offers only a lukewarm review.

Survivor Song

This only slightly speculative thriller by Paul Tremblay takes place in contemporary Massachusetts, which is under quarantine due to the outbreak of a particularly virulent varient of rabies. Rather than dying in days or weeks, symptoms--loss of mental capacities, aggressive biting behavior, and death--occur within hours. When the husband of 8-months-pregnant Natalie returns from a fraught trip for groceries, an infected neighbor attacks them; Paul is killed and Natalie is bitten before she fatally stabs the crazed man. Natalie turns for help to her oldest and closest friend, pediatrician Ramola Sherman. Fighting panicking people who jam the road to the hospital, Ramola gets Natalie to a hospital for a vaccination, but it's not clear whether they made it before the virus has reached Natalie's brain. When an attempt to evacuate Natalie to a maternity hospital for delivery is thwarted by more infected victims storming the hospital, Ramola begins a desperate attempt to get Natalie to safety. The tension comes from the numerous obstacles they face--infected animals and people attacking them, roving armed bands of militia--as well as the uncertainty about Natalie's and her unborn child's future. Obviously a somewhat hyperbolic scenario of what we are currently facing with the COVID pandemic is depicted in the hysteria and violent reactions of the population. A fast read with well developed characters. All but the last chapter of the book takes place in the mere span of a few hours, and you know how it will end because the author warns you ahead of time. But it's a compelling ride.

NPR concludes their review by saying, "Survivor Song is a small horror story. A personal one. A fast and terrible one that is committed beautifully to the page. It goes on, piling banal complication on top of the awful terror of time running out, and crushes you in the most surprising of ways — with a look, a line, a touch, a memory, an inevitability that you saw coming from page 1. It exists in a pandemic world where all choices are bad ones. Where things unravel faster than you can possibly believe. Where happy endings are transactional: they come with a cost. Because Survivor Song isn't a fairy tale. It's a horror story."

The NYT notes the prescience of the author  writing something that sounds remarkably like our current situation: “In the coming days,” the narrator tells us, “conditions will continue to deteriorate. Emergency services and other public safety nets will be stretched to their breaking points, exacerbated by the wily antagonists of fear, panic, misinformation; a myopic, sluggish federal bureaucracy further hamstrung by a president unwilling and woefully unequipped to make the rational, science-based decisions necessary; and exacerbated, of course, by plain old individual everyday evil.”

 

All the Devils are Here

Louise Penny never disappoints and this latest installment in the "Inspector Gamache" series is totally engrossing plot wise, with rich description of settings and satisfying development of characters and relationships. Gamache and wife, Reine-Marie, have come to Paris to await the arrival of their daughter Annie's 2nd child. Annie's husband, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, was formerly Gamache's second in command at the Sûreté du Québec when Gamache was Chief Superintendent. He now works for an engineering firm. The Gamache's son Daniel and his family also live in Paris; Daniel is in venture capital at a large bank. On their first day, Gamache reunites with his godfather and surrogate parent, Stephen Horowitz, for a stroll down memory lane to the Rodin sculpture garden. The family and Stephen dine together that evening, but while walking home, Stephen is injured in a life-threatening hit-and-run, which Gamache is sure was not accidental. When Gamache and Reine-Marie visit Stephen's Paris apartment the next day, they find it ransacked and they also find a dead body. Gamache has a long-time professional acquaintance with the Prefect of Police in Paris, but as time goes on, Gamache comes to think his old friend may be involved in the secrets behind the attempt on Stephen's life. Everyone in the family becomes involved. Reine-Marie's skills as a research librarian and archivist help to uncover planted clues. Daniels does his own research on Stephen's recent financial maneuvers, and Gamache, as usual, tries to plumb the hearts of  those involved, including his son's. Gamache's relationship with Daniel, which has been strained for years, is tested in extraordinary ways, and Gamache faces the possibility of losing not only his friend Stephen, but also his son. 

Kirkus advises, "If you're new to Penny's world, this would be a great place to jump in. Then go back and start the series from the beginning." The NY Journal of Books says, "...the combined mystery—tension—stakes—people—place are drawn so well that it’s nigh impossible to put the book down...The rest of the story is a deep dive into human psychology and the eternal battle between good and evil." The NYT call's this Penny's "most haunting novel yet," and goes on to say, "Although Penny touches on a wide range of subjects in this expansive story, her main concern is with the sacrifices we make for those we love." Highest recommendation as for all her books.

Conviction

Never heard of or read Scottish author Denise Mina, although she has published over a dozen books.  Her first book, Garnethill (1998), won a John Creasey Dagger Award for best first crime novel. The narrator is Anna McDonald, married with two daughters she adores and a husband with whom she is no longer so in love. Her morning starts as they often do--some early quiet time indulgently listening to a true crime podcast before getting the kids ready for school. But things take a shocking turn on two levels. The podcast involves the death of someone she befriended years ago, and then her best friend, Estelle, shows up--not to join her in attending yoga class, but to leave town with Anna's husband and children.  Anna is furious, distraught, and completely alone. When Estelle's anorexic and mildly famous husband, Fin, shows up on Anna's doorstep, the moment is captured by a nosy neighbor and posted to social media. The new identity Anna--born Sophie Bukaran-- has so carefully crafted is now visible to old enemies who once tried to kill her. There are repeated hints about a dark past secret and it isn't until fairly late in the book that we find out Anna was a victim, not a perpetrator. 

Anna doesn't know where to turn but decides to try and solve the death of the man she knew and, at the same time, to elude enemies who will be sure to find her. So ensues a crazy road trip across Scotland and then to the continent chasing down clues and trying to outrun killers. 

The Washington Post's Maureen Corrigan notes that this novel is very different from Mina's earlier work and gushes that it is both a compelling and "spectacular" read. Kirkus claims this book "... has it all: sexual predation, financial skulduggery, reluctant heroism, even the power of social media." There's also an interview by the NYT with Denise Mina that will give some interesting insights into the author. The Guardian offers an in-depth review and offers this summary, "Although there is a rollercoaster, cross-continental murder mystery at its backbone, the muscle and sinew of Conviction are satisfyingly substantial themes about the sustainability of self-invention, and how possible or desirable it is to tell the truth about oneself in the social media age, as well as a subplot that reflects the core concerns of the #MeToo movement."

Burning Bright

This is the 2nd installment in the "Peter Ash" series by Nick Petrie. Peter Ash is a veteran who has returned from Afghanistan with PTSD, characterized primarily by debilitating anxiety attacks whenever he is in enclosed spaces. He sleeps outside, regardless of the weather. See my earlier post for the first book in the series, The Drifter, for more background; you'll want to read the first book to truly appreciate one of the key relationships in this book.

Peter spends months at a time backpacking in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, but when he encounters a hungry grizzly preparing for hibernation, he survives by climbing a tree. Surprisingly, he finds a set of climbing ropes that lead him into an encounter with June Cassidy, a journalist who is being pursued by men claiming to be from the government. Based on past interactions with these men, June is pretty sure their intentions are harmful rather than helpful. June's mother, Stanford professor and brilliant computer scientist. Hazel Cassidy, was recently killed in a hit and run. When June finds her office at Stanford ransacked, June begins to fear that these men want a new AI program Professor Cassidy was working on, and they think June can lead them to it. June is extremely smart in her own right, although a bit unfocused in her life, but she is clearly outnumbered and out-resourced in this fight. Peter offers to help. He reminds me a bit of that old TV series, The Enforcer, in coming to the aid of the underdog, or more currently, those favoring the "Jack Reacher" series by Lee Child will find a similar sort of lone hero here. June reluctantly agrees, and as they try to evade the hunters, Peter finds himself growing increasingly attached to June.  As they untangle the strings controlling the hunters, the clues lead them to June's estranged father, but is he the perpetrator or another victim? 

Publishers' Weekly's only downbeat is that the book was not tightly edited. I didn't find that it detracted from a sense of a fast moving storyline.  Kirkus calls it a "fine thriller" and anticipates the continuation of the series.

Committal

This was a relatively quick and interesting read by Irene Cooper, set in a not too distant future when AI had developed to the point of being able to respond to just about your every need--certainly all your information needs. Luci Sykes is at the heart of the story, born to a beautiful and intelligent mother, Maggie Sykes, and an ambitious and uncaring father. She was deprived of oxygen by an incompetent nurse at birth and consequently suffered emotional and neurological problems as a child, but was nevertheless a savant of sorts. When her father tired of her tantrums, he sent her to a clinic that promised a cure; there she underwent a lobotomy. She came out even smarter and certainly more in control. But the underlying rage that fueled Luci never left; it just went underground. She has a constant companion at the clinic and in her current life, Jasper. He was abandoned at the clinic when a former patient ran away. Luci runs Olympia Navigation and is the creator of a ubiquitous and highly successful intuitive navigation system called Beacon. BEACON is also a character in the story. Luci has created a new, even more advanced GPS, Searchlight, to replace BEACON, but it is also secretly programmed to do something that will end the human race. One of the things Luci didn't realize was that, in transferring programming code from BEACON to Searchlight, the two AI's developed their own relationship.

Another surprise comes in the form of another major player in the story,  Luci's fraternal twin brother, Tokker. She never knew anything about him, nor he about her until Mr. Lamb shows up on Tokker's little farmstead in Oklahoma and informs him he was sent away at birth to protect Tokker from the twins' father. Mr. Lamb wants Tokker to find Luci and stop her from releasing the program. Tokker is aided in a seemingly senseless and futile quest by BEACON who takes him all over the country to gather clues. Luci has created a complex puzzle that will lead to her location. Along the way, Tokker meets and is assisted by Viggo Mortenson, Tilda Swinton, Daniel Day Lewis, and Steve Buscemi. Offbeat sci fi/fantasy is how I might describe it, similar in some ways to Tyler Hayes' Imaginary Corpse. We also learn in the end that everybody seems to be related to everybody else.

I would agree with Publishers' Weekly that Luci's character is underdeveloped and that the frequent flashbacks and gimmicks detract somewhat from a clever storyline.

Milkman

This book by Anna Burns was the first Northern Irish book to ever win the Man Booker Prize (2018). The author was so poor and in so much pain while writing that she moved from one house sitting gig to another and used food banks to survive.

Set in what is probably Belfast during the "Troubles" of  the 1970's, the town is never named and neither are any of the characters--with one exception. Rather we know the narrator and those around her only by a description of their relationships to one another, e.g., Ma, maybe-boyfriend, wee sisters. second brother, etc. In an interview with The Guardian, Burns states, “Although it is recognisable as this skewed form of Belfast, it’s not really Belfast in the 70s. I would like to think it could be seen as any sort of totalitarian, closed society existing in similarly oppressive conditions...I see it as a fiction about an entire society living under extreme pressure, with longterm violence seen as the norm.”

Violence is so pervasive, that the paramilitaries or Renouncers never hesitate to claim responsibility for beatings and murders. Everything is so politically charged that even certain names associated with the other side are forbidden in the community. People watch and gossip and make up stories and one's life is never totally one's own. When the 18-year-old narrator, middle sister, tries to go against these norms--she doesn't want to marry or refute the rumors that are circulating about her--she escapes by walking and reading. As a result, she becomes a sort of pariah of the community. Her father is dead by natural causes, but her brother has been killed by politics and one of her sisters is banished, also because she crossed one of the many invisible but potent political divides. An adopted brother hasn't been heard from in years as he is also being sought by the authorities for his anti-government activities. When a man, who everyone refers to as Milkman, starts stalking middle sister, her life truly spins out of control. The rumor is she's having an affair with him, a married man. Morever, he is a leader among the paramilitary resistance movement and her supposed association with him, in spite of all her denials, leads to the community kow-towing to her out of fear.  No one, not her mother, not even her longest friend believe that she has had no involvement with him other than to be the target of his psychological campaign to intimidate her until she gives in. She has been sort of dating maybe-boyfriend, an avid car mechanic, for over a year, and when Milkman starts talking about car bombs, she becomes fearful for maybe-boyfriend's safety. That relationship, which had been a haven from her crazy mother and the oppressive community mores, also starts to sour. She feels trapped and alone, without resources. Also in The Guardian interview, Burns emphasizes that the book is about power, “how power is used, both in a personal and in a societal sense.”

The style of writing was definitely a challenge for me as she talks about things in lengthy series, for example when she lists ALL the names that are not allowed on their side. And there is a great deal of Irish slang that defies attempts to clarify with a dictionary. Most of all, though, this narrative is all so internal, even though big things are happening in the outside world--the story feels largely like one long stream of consciousness. Or as The Guardian puts it, her style "makes reading her an immersive, sometimes maddening, experience."

The New York Times also interviewed Ms. Burns shortly after she won the Man Booker and she denies that middle sister is autobiographical, although they shared the habit of reading while walking. But she was raised in a district of Belfast where there was constant violence at all levels and where she and her family were evacuated from their home to a refugee camp in the Republic of Ireland when houses in the area were being burned. She said they had plenty to eat there, for a change, and she was disappointed when she had to return home to school.

The LA Times takes issue with those who imply the book is too difficult, noting "Don’t let this do anything but persuade you to read and absorb it. The difficulty is only in settling into a fresh voice and style that are dense, yes, but that would not work or be anywhere near as revelatory or transporting in any other format. It should go without saying that a novel with the setting of Northern Ireland in the late 20th century should not be an “easy” read. It would be a dishonest book and a failure. There is too much to contend with."

NPR calls it "brutally intelligent" and concludes "At its core, Milkman is a wildly good and true novel of how living in fear limits people."

Read it and decide for yourself.

Nickel Boys

I started this book by Colson Whitehead some time back and decided I couldn't deal with the dark subject matter in the middle of a pandemic. Nevertheless, my book group selected it for the coming month's discussion, so this time I pushed through to the end. Of course Whitehead writes so well that reading it is easy in one sense, although one of my fellow book groupies complained about the abundant jargon. But it is a dark subject, based on an actual Florida school, the Dozier School for Boys, that was in operation for over 100 years, inflicting horrific psychological and physical injuries--including death--on thousands of children. 

The protagonist for most of the book is Elwood Curtis, abandoned by his parents, but taken in and nurtured by his grandmother in 1960's Tallahassee, Florida. He works hard from childhood on, both at school and to earn money after school, and has absorbed the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. by listening to his speeches on a phonograph record. When a high school teacher recognizes his intelligence and determination, Elwood is set to start college classes at a nearby high school. But as he is hitch hiking to his first day of classes, he takes a ride in a fancy car with a black man who is stopped minutes later for car theft. Although the driver backs up Elwood's claim of innocence. Elwood is arrested and sent to the so called Nickel Academy which is supposed to provide "physical, intellectual, and moral training" for delinquent boys. It is in fact a holding pen and money maker for administrators and teachers who love to inflict pain and make money by selling off the black children's food supplies and employing them in grueling labor. When Elwood tries to defend a boy being picked on by two bullies, he receives a beating that leaves him hospitalized for weeks. After that, he learns to fly under the radar with the help of his friend Turner. 

We fast forward about midway in the book to New York City, a decade or so later, to find that Elwood supposedly escaped and has now managed to work his way up an an employee at a moving company and eventually starts a moving company of his own. What we learn in the end, however, is that Elwood never made it out of the Nickel Academy in his mind or his body. The book is a blistering indictment of the systemic and systematic abuses heaped upon African Americans since we brought them to America as slaves. Obviously this is a timely read given the recent high profiles police killings of black Americans and the re-energizing of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The reviews are uniformly glowing.

The New York Times provides a lengthy description of the plot as well as cogent commentary on the significance of the book's topic. 

The Guardian calls this book "essential" reading. 

The Washington Post notes that Whitehead has abandoned all the "surreal insertions" that characterized his Pulitzer Prize winning Underground Railroad. This book is instead "restrained" and "transparent," it's "groundedness...perhaps, an implicit admission that the treatment of African Americans has been so bizarre and grotesque that fantastical enhancements are unnecessary."

The Golden Cage

Prolific writer of psychological thrillers, Camilla Lackberg is a new author for me. She might better have titled this book Revenge for it spends the first half of the book making the case for why the protagonist Faye so elaborately executes in the second half of the book.

We are constantly getting dark hints about Faye's upbringing in a small town as the daughter of a poor family. We learn her brother committed suicide, her mother is dead, and her father is in jail. She can't get out of town fast enough when her father goes to jail. She heads to the place she's always dreamed of, Stockholm, and proceeds to leave her past behind, or does she. She gets into the prestigious Stockholm School of Economics, where she excels. But when she meets and then marries her exact opposite, a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, she drops out of school to support him and a friend in starting their own business. With Faye's excellent guidance, the business grows beyond their wildest imagining they become wealthy and then become parents of a daughter. But husband Jack becomes increasingly distant, shutting Faye out of all involvement with the business. And then she comes home unexpectedly to find him with another woman. In spite of her seminal role in the business's success, he cuts her off without a penny. 

You'll probably begin to guess how things turn out early on, but won't know the full extent of Faye's machinations until the very end. The Washington Post notes, "the lure of The Golden Cage lies in the moral ambiguity of its heroine..."  Reviewer Maureen Corrigan goes on to observe that Lackberg's prose, at least in translation, is not particularly elegant. And, in fact, I often found her writing, even of the sex scenes, boring. But you will certainly want to find out how Faye gets payback. The New York Times offers a favorable review with more detail about plot and character. Kirkus calls this "A deliciously inventive thriller brimming with sex, secrets, and scandal." And Publishers' Weekly gushes, "The poignant insights into women’s capacity for self-sacrifice, multidimensional characterizations, and celebration of female ingenuity will resonate with many. Läckberg reinforces her position as the thriller queen of Scandinavia." I wouldn't turn down another of her books if offered, but I wouldn't bother seeking one out either, so I guess that puts me in the minority.

Migrations

“The animals are dying. Soon we will be alone here.” So opens Charlotte McConaghy's debut adult novel, set in the near distant future. Our protagonist and narrator is a woman trying to make sense of a world gone mad and of her own self-destructive compulsion to wander. Abandoned early on by her father,  Franny Stone in turn abandons her mother when she wanders off at the age of 12. When she returns home, her mother is gone. Franny loves the wild spaces and the creatures that inhabit them, especially the birds and creatures of the sea. Over the years, as multiple species are driven to extinction by human greed, she undertakes one last migration of her own, to follow the only remaining flock of Arctic terns on their monumental annual journey from Greenland to Antarctica. She tags three birds during nesting season and then has to convince one of the disappearing number of fishing boats to take her south. She badgers Ennis Malone, captain of the Saghani, to take her onboard, against his better judgement and the opinion of his eccentric crew.  Franny promises that following the terns will lead them to the "Golden Catch" that has eluded them these last few years.

Franny's tortured history is revealed in flashback chapters and in her unsent letters to her ecology activist husband, Niall. But her obsession, now shared by Ennis, may be the undoing of them all. 

The book is rich in metaphor. For example, as The Guardian notes with regard to the terns' migration, "This journey is the longest migration undertaken by any animal – a complete crossing of the globe – and a feat that terns complete twice-yearly. The book uses this act of endurance, this instinctual movement, metaphorically: Franny too is driven to constant movement by forces she cannot control or understand, and is determined and driven even in the face of great adversity." They also comment on the thing I found most distracting,  the "book’s constant shuttling about in time, as well as the unreliability of Franny’s narration, the half-truths and silences with which she surrounds herself and everything she holds back from the other characters and the reader alike." If I were to re-read the book, I would keep a timeline of Franny's life on paper.

The New York Times chides that the novel veers into melodrama in the last half, but also concurs with my sense of how beautifully this book is written when they say, "this novel’s prose soars with its transporting descriptions of the planet’s landscapes and their dwindling inhabitants, and contains many wonderful meditations on our responsibilities to our earthly housemates."

 The Washington Post concludes, "In many ways, this is a story about grieving, an intimate tale of anguish set against the incalculable bereavements of climate change. There are many losses, but lives are also saved. Franny charts our course through a novel that is efficient and exciting, indicting but forgiving, and hard but ultimately hopeful."

 

Memory Man

I'm sure I must have read something by prolific bestselling author David Baldacci before, but don't seem to have posted anything. This book introduces a new series featuring Amos Decker. Decker still lives in Burlington, Vermont, where he was a star on the high school football team...the only one to ever get the chance to go pro. On his first outing as an NFL rookie, however, he is so savagely struck by an opponent's helmet that he loses consciousness, suffers several broken bones, and wakes up with a different brain. The trauma has caused him to remember every detail of anything he hears, sees, or experiences (hyperthymesia) and  to see colored numbers connected to certain events (synesthesia), becoming what is called an acquired savant. He goes to an institute that studies such mental anomalies as a way to help himself cope with his altered brain. Eventually he returns to Burlington, joins the police force and puts his perfect memory to work solving crimes as a detective. 

But then his world is knocked off its axis once again when he comes home one night to find his brother-in-law, his wife, and his daughter all brutally murdered. The killer is never found. And Decker cannot forget a single detail of what he saw, so he starts drinking to try and forget, which shortly ends his police career, and ultimately he becomes homeless. A year and half later, he has pulled himself together sufficiently to start taking on small jobs as a private investigator and earns enough to live in the Residence Inn. Seemingly out of the blue, a man walks into the police station and claims to be responsible for the murders of Decker's family, claiming that Decker disrespected him in a grocery store encounter. But Decker has no memory of the man. Then a horrific mass shooting occurs at the local high school and clues start to connect the earlier murders to the current perpetrator. Decker is brought in, first by the local police and then by the FBI, to try and help solve the crimes. Decker hooks back up with his former partner at the police department, veteran detective Mary Lancaster, and, against his better judgement, with a local newspaper reporter. However, everyone who comes close to Decker becomes a target for the killer; it's clear this is very personal. It's just that Decker cannot remember anyone he pissed off so badly that they would undertake such savage revenge. This book will keep you guessing until the end.

The Washington Post calls "this novel a master class on the bestseller because of its fast-moving narrative, the originality of its hero and its irresistible plot." Kirkus concludes that "Although the crimes and their perpetrators are far-fetched, readers will want to see Decker back on the printed page again and again."

American Spy

This debut novel by Lauren Wilkinson "was a Washington Post bestseller, an NAACP Image Award nominee, an Anthony award nominee, and an Edgar Award nominee. It was short-listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, was a Barnes & Noble Book of the Month, a PBS book club pick, and was included on Barack Obama’s 2019 Recommended Reading List" (author website). NPR says,  "American Spy works on so many levels — it's an expertly written spy thriller as well as a deeply intelligent literary novel that tackles issues of politics, race and gender in a way that's never even close to being heavy-handed or didactic."  They go on to say that "Wilkinson doesn't shy away from the moral ambiguity of American adventurism in the 1980s, and neither does her unforgettable narrator, Marie, who tells her sons, 'One thing I can say for sure is that I don't want you to be moral absolutists. If what I'm telling you of our story means to you that the people it involves are either saved or damned, then you'll have misunderstood me.'"

The year is 1992, and it's the middle of the night when Marie Mitchell is alerted by an ominous floorboard creaking in her rural Connecticut home; she retrieves her gun from the safe under her desk and silently awaits the man who has come to kill her. In the struggle, she shoots him instead and, with her young twin sons in tow,  flees to the sanctuary of her mother's small farm on a Caribbean island. Here's the backstory that is gradually revealed in the book, as summarized by Kirkus:

"It’s 1987, and Marie Mitchell has hit the wall as an FBI agent. She’s patronized and marginalized by her boss, who relegates her to little more than recruiting informants (or “snitches,” as she derisively calls them) and filing “oppressive amounts of paperwork.” This is not how this idealistic (but hardly naïve) daughter of an NYPD officer hoped her life would turn out back when she and her sister, Helene, dreamed of becoming secret agents when they grew up. At this low point of her professional life, Marie is recruited by Ed Ross, a smooth-talking CIA official, to take part in a covert operation to undermine the regime of Burkina Faso’s magnetic young president, Thomas Sankara, a Marxist influenced by the example of the martyred revolutionary Che Guevara. From the beginning of her assignment, Marie is both wary of the agency’s reasons for taking down Sankara and skeptical toward Sankara’s leftist politics, though the closer she gets to Sankara, the less inclined she is to dismiss his efforts to improve his nation’s welfare. Nevertheless, Marie has another, more personal motive for accepting the assignment: the agent-in-charge, Daniel Slater, was both a colleague and lover of her sister, who fulfilled her ambition to become a spy but died in a car accident whose circumstances remain a mystery to Marie and her family. The more embedded Marie gets in her assignment, the less certain she is of what that assignment entails and of who, or what, she’s really working for. Falling in love with her target—Sankara, who in real life was violently overthrown that same year—is yet another complication that further loosens Marie’s professional resolve." Kirkus goes on to conclude by saying, "There’s an honorable, unsung tradition of African-American novelists using the counterspy genre as a metaphor for what W.E.B. Du Bois called "double consciousness," and Wilkinson’s book is a noteworthy contribution." Or as The Nation puts it, "Wilkinson does not graft the matter of race onto the spy novel but rather asks us to think about how being a minority is, in a sense, an act of espionage, a precarious state marked by shifting identities, competing loyalties, and a constant threat of violence." And the Washington Post notes, "...also striking is the novel’s deeper recognition that, to some extent, rudimentary tradecraft is something all of her African American characters have learned as an everyday survival skill. As Marie’s father wryly tells her on the day of her graduation from the FBI training academy at Quantico, “I’ve been a spy in this country for as long as I can remember.”

Part of the twisty tale leads us down Marie's path of discovery about who is really pulling the strings. Much of the book allows us inside Marie's mind and feelings as the story is largely told in a long letter to her two sons--"I'm writing this to give you honest answers to the questions I hazard to guess you'll ask while you're growing up. I'm writing it all down here just in case I'm not around to tell you."Their parentage, when revealed, will not surprise, but the ending will leave you hanging, not in an unpleasant way, but certainly with a sense of loss about not knowing the outcome.

High praise for the book abounds including The New York Journal of Books,  The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, and The Nation. The Nation's review offers the most comprehensive discussion of race vis a vis national and global politics.

The Dutch House

Ann Patchett doesn't need any introduction from me, having already written several highly acclaimed books. But, what you may not know is that she also owns an independent bookstore in Nashville, TN (Parnassus Books) and is an activist for independent bookstores. Yay!

In their younger years, Maeve and Danny Conroy lived in the titular Dutch House, a mansion outside Philadelphia that their father bought at auction in 1946, completely furnished, as a surprise for his wife. Unfortunately, his wife, Elna, hated the house and walked away when Maeve was 10, Danny was 3. Ostensibly she went to India to work with the poor; they haven't heard from her since. Their father managed with the help of housekeeper, cook and nanny for a time until a young widow, Andrea--18 years Cyril Conroy's junior--gets her heart set on living in the house.  She has two younger daughters in tow and as soon as she moves in, things begin to change--and not for the better, in Maeve and Danny's opinion. When Maeve goes to college, Andrea moves her belongings to an attic bedroom and moves her older daughter into the room. Maeve never comes back to the Dutch House after that. When Cyril Conroy unexpectedly dies of a heart attack, Maeve and Danny are dismayed to find that Andrea has convinced her husband to put her name on all of the business and personal assets; Maeve and Danny inherit nothing. She kicks Danny out of the house and they are left penniless. Maeve is already working as a bookkeeper and living in a one bedroom flat in a nearby town. The lawyer does say that there is an educational trust that will cover Danny's education and Maeve is determined to take every penny she can for Danny. So he is sent off to an expensive boarding school (Choate) and when he finishes, she makes sure he gets into Columbia and then into Columbia med school. Danny honors Maeves wishes because she is all he has, even though he has no interest in being a doctor and really just wants to follow in his father's footsteps, buying and fixing up old buildings. Maeve remains fixated on The Dutch House, driving over to sit out front in her car every time Danny comes home from school for a visit, and even long after. Danny seems to get on with his life as he wants it after he finally finishes his residency. He gets married, has kids, buys up and renovates old buildings. When Maeve suffers a heart attack, their mother makes an appearance and, surprisingly to Danny, Maeve accepts her into her life. That is, until Andrea seems to need Elna more.  Complicated relationships and obsessions characterize every aspect of this book. Ann Patchett said in an interview with The Guardian in 2016 that "I’ve been writing the same book my whole life — that you’re in one family, and all of a sudden, you’re in another family and it’s not your choice and you can’t get out.” That pretty well sums up this situation here, as well.

Glowing reviews from NPR,  The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Kirkus.

Stranger in the Lake

I was not familiar with any of Kimberly Belle's earlier works, but this was a well done thriller that kept me engaged throughout. Charlotte (nee Charlie) was born to a mother so addicted to drugs that nothing else mattered, including food for her children. Young Charlie was often left to care for an always hungry infant brother. But she escapes the trailer park and eventually falls in love with and marries an older man, Paul Keller, an architect to the rich who like to build their second homes in the tourist town of Lake Crosby, NC. Now Charlotte (after legally changing her name) works at Paul's company as a client relations manager, and lives with him in his beautiful house overlooking the lake. She feels lucky never to have to worry about being hungry or cold, again. She chooses to ignore the small town rumors that Paul was somehow complicit in the drowning of his first wife. But when a woman Charlotte had seen Paul talking to in town turns up dead and floating under their lakeside dock, Charlotte begins to wonder if she has been blind. Then Paul disappears for 2 days while the investigators, including Micah, underwater retrieval expert, son of the police chief, and Paul's best friend, scour for clues as to the woman's identity and what she was doing in town. Charlotte initially lies to the police about having ever seen the woman and backs up Paul's assertion that he'd never met her. But as Charlotte digs deeper, she find that Paul and his two best friends have all been keeping a dark secret for decades that the dead woman was about to bring into the light. All three have a motive, but who would be willing to kill to keep the secret. Not a conventional happy ending, but a strong female protagonist and some great plot twists will make this a worthwhile diversion. Review available from Publishers' Weekly.

Chosen Ones

Author Veronica Roth is probably best known for her Divergent series of YA books, which were all made into movies. This book also does a great job of world building but started out so slowly that it wasn't until Part II that I really got engaged. I would agree with Publishers Weekly that the frequent and distracting "inclusion of news reports and government documents initially slow the pace." In Part I, we meet five adults, who, based upon a prophecy, were chosen in their teens to defeat The Dark One. All are still friends and are periodically called in by the governmental powers that be to consult on magical anomalies in the world. But that same government entity wants to control magic and therefore seeks to create some as well, which results in the death of one of the Chosen Ones, Albert. On the 10th anniversary of the defeat of The Dark One, three of the Chosen Ones are pulled into a parallel universe where dark forces are still wreaking havoc and told they must find a way to defeat them or risk their own world, Earth, also being destroyed. Part II is set in this version of Chicago and the United States where magic has been such a pervasive part of everyone's life that fashion accessories are worn to help the general populace work everyday magical events like opening doors by whistling. There are some, like the official who summoned the Chosen Ones, who are clearly stronger in magic than others, and appearances can be deceptive; deciding who to trust divides the three friends from each other when they will absolutely need to work as a team to preserve this different world as well as their home. The narrator is Sloan Andrews, who has hidden dark secrets from her fellow Chosen Ones about how she came to control and then destroy a magical relic she used to help defeat The Dark One. She still suffers from PTSD and chafes at the constant recognition and media attention that results from her celebrity as one of Earth's saviors. Although Sloane's character continues to develop throughout the book, the New York Times rightly notes that, for the other Chosen Ones, "...the characters we were starting to care about [in Part I] are put to one side [in Part II] along with Sloane’s relationships with them; new ones are quickly pushed into a prominence that feels unearned, especially after the slow build of the first half of the book." As Kirkus points out, though, Roth does a good job of addressing the question, "What happens to heroes after they save the world?"

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."