The Loving Husband

This novel by Christobel Kent definitely had me going, trying to figure out who was to be trusted and who not; I was totally surprised by the final reveal of major characters' motives. Before Fran met Nathan Hall, she was attracted to flashy men who were mostly trouble, while also being a lot of fun; she has recently broken up with club owner, Nick, for reasons we don't learn about until nearly the end of the book. Weeks later, at a dinner party given by her best friend Jo, she meets Nathan and he charms Fran so completely that she takes him home for the night and within 3 months they are married and she is pregnant with their first child. Friend Jo is horrified that Fran has decided to marry, leave her job as a magazine writer, and become a stay at home mom. Nathan is ostensibly in the building trade and is constantly gone to conferences, leaving Fran alone at home with a young child and very bored. Invited to a party at a posh club sponsored by her former employer, she has a fling, but then feels so guilty, she readily agrees to move back to Nathan's old stomping grounds, the English fens, when he suggests it would be a better place to raise children. 

A second child, this time a son, is born but their relationship has become emotionally controlling and cold on Nathan's part. He still doesn't want her to work or have a car and he even manages to accidentally spill something on her computer so she no longer has access to the internet. She awakens one night when he returns from the pub and is surprised when he initiates sex with her. Some time later, she is again awakened--this time by her infant son--and discovers her husband is not in bed. She looks everywhere in the house and then outside, where she discovers him stabbed to death in a drainage ditch.  The misogynistic policemen assume Fran has killed her husband and treat her claims of seeing a man watching the house with scepticism. There are so many red herrings in this book, you could make a meal of them. As the investigation progresses, Fran learns that Nathan was not who she thought he was. Fran is hiding secrets of her own and is not telling the police some key information, which makes them suspect her even more. Fran is fearful that the killer could come back, and, indeed, chocolates and flowers appear at her door. Still the police refuse to take her concerns seriously. 

I like this excerpt from Kirkus' review: "The mystery is a slow-burn but is startlingly effective at this pace. The gradual unfolding of truth allows Kent to also explore Fran’s stages of grief, her perspective of a world turned completely upside down, first by murder, then by the faintly sinister investigators, and then by the power of the secrets in Nathan’s life and in her own. Fran seems utterly, heartbreakingly alone in her loss and in her world, but she maintains a driving sense of self that becomes stronger in the face of adversity. The novel’s other great strength is its raw, wild setting. The rough blankness of the landscape serves to emphasize the characters’ struggles; this is no bucolic vision but a stark, depressing look at an insular rural area." I agree with their assessment that this is "a truly chilling, absorbing read."

The Fifth Element

Another Scandi noir --seems I've been on a roll with these lately. Unfamiliar with author Jorgen Brekke, but it got a good review from Kirkus, so I thought I would give it a try. Maybe I am just getting mentally slow, but I found this book hard to follow. Normally, shifts in time and place don't bother me, but this one felt very disjointed.  This is the 3rd installment in his Detective Inspector Odd Singsaker series. Set in and around Trondheim (northern Norway), the book is divided into 4 parts, each focusing on a different character and each named  for one of the Aristotelian elements—phlegm, black bile, blood, and yellow bile. The fifth element refers to all the things in the spaces between the facts of an investigation that connects events, people, motivations, etc. 

In this book, Odd and his wife, Felicia, have had an argument and she has taken off to Oslo for some time to think about their relationship. She sent Odd a message that she was on her way home, but she never arrived. Another relationship has gone way off the rails; this one involves another runaway wife, with small child, and a police officer husband. He is planning to find his wife, kidnap his daughter, and disappear. We don't find out why until the end. There's a storyline about a couple of college students who steal some coke from a dealer and are now being hunted by a fairly ruthless enforcer. The stories are told in parallel  until they collide with explosive results. It's not clear really if the good guys win this time and the ending leaves the reader expecting future contact between at least two of the main characters. 

Publishers Weekly calls the book "stellar," while Booklist says it's "gripping." They go on to note, "The plot's leapfrogging flashbacks are challenging to follow, but Felicia's fight for survival, the suspense building to the final catastrophe, and the starkly rendered Scandinavian atmosphere offer strong appeal for Nordic-crime fans."  Kirkus concludes: "The intricately linked plotlines will appeal to puzzle fans. But it’s Brekke’s prodigious powers of invention, his ability to keep coming up with unforgettable characters and indelible episodes, that lift this above his own earlier work and most of the heavy Nordic competition."

Runelight

This is the sequel to Joanne Harris' first fantasy book with a teen protagonist, Runemarks.  I liked the first one so much that I bought a used copy of this one. It helps tremendously to have read the first book before reading this one, but Harris does offer some catch up notes in her Forward, where she says, "there are just a few things you should be aware of before you begin...We're in a place called Inland, a part of one of the Nine Worlds existing in the branches of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. The Worlds have ended several times...The forces of Order and Chaos keep these Worlds in precarious balance...Gods and demons...exist here in bewildering numbers..." It's been 500 years since the Worlds ended in Ragnarok. In Runemarks, we meet Maddy, a 14-year old misfit from the village of Malbry. Turns out, she is actually the daughter of Thor. When Maddy is sent to the Underworlds on a mission for Odin, events are set in motion that cause The World to end again. The surviving gods "are obliged to take on the Aspect of the nearest appropriate living host--in this case, two humans, a goblin and a pot-bellied pig." It's 3 years later that we take up the story in this book. 

Turns out Maddy has a twin sister who was raised under the Order in the city of World's End. Neither of them know that the other one exists, and, at the beginning of the book, Maggie does not know that she is Thor's daughter and Odin's granddaughter or that she is born with god/demon blood and therefore some potent untapped powers. But the Whisperer has found her and, in the body of Maddy's old enemy Adam Scattergood (who has renamed himself Adam Goodwin), the Whisperer seeks to turn Maddy into its agent to destroy the other gods, rebuild and become the sole inhabitant of Asgard. The Seer has predicted another battle that will end Worlds and rebuild Asgard, but a lot of key pieces need to fall into place and almost none of them do. It's a big book and a sprawling story. If you love legends and fantasy, this will engage you. Fantasy Book Review says that this is a somewhat lighter tale with more character development than its predecessor.

Knock Knock

I have never read anything by this author, Anders Roslund, but will definitely seek out the previous novels he has written or co-authored (with either Börge Helström, died 2017; or Stefan Thunberg). This is the 4th in the Ewert Grens & Piet Hoffman series, but you can certainly jump right in without reading previous installments and still get a rich view of characters and their relationships. Also published under the title Three Days.

Publishers Weekly did such a good job of providing a succinct plot summary, that I am including it here verbatim. "In Roslund's heart-pounding fourth Grens and Hoffman novel (after 2019's Three Hours with the late Börge Hellström), a break-in at the Stockholm apartment where every member of the Lilaj family, except five-year-old Zana, was killed 17 years earlier prompts Det. Supt. Ewert Grens to reexamine the case. Grens discovers that Zana's witness protection file has disappeared from a secure police archive just as several criminals are murdered in the same manner as her family. Meanwhile, Piet Hoffman is contacted anonymously by a person who knows all about Hoffman's time infiltrating Stockholm's criminal underworld for the police. If Hoffman doesn't start a gang war and thereby kick start demand for this new player in the weapons smuggling business, he and his family will be killed. Grens and Hoffman combine forces, as Grens senses they're working two ends of the same problem. While the peril that Hoffman faces is palpable, Grens's impending retirement and loss of purpose presents its own existential threat. This terrific mash-up of police procedural and crime thriller has strongly imagined characters, explosive action, and a twisty plot with an unexpected conclusion. It's a must for Scandinavian noir fans."

Kirkus offers a positive review, as does The New York Journal of Books. Both reviews agree that readers are unlikely to guess the final outcome. 

More Books I Didn't Finish

Although they came with positive reviews, I could not persist after giving them each about 100 pages.

The Slaugherman's Daughter by Yaniv Iczkovits: Publishers Weekly says, "In Israeli philosopher and novelist Iczkovits’s delightfully expansive tale (after Adam and Sophie), a Jewish woman goes to great lengths to help her older sister in 1894 Russia. Mende and her children have been abandoned by her husband, Zvi-Meir, in the town of Motal. Mende’s younger sister, Fanny, also a wife and mother, travels to Minsk, where Zvi-Meir has gone, to convince him to sign a writ of divorce so Mende can move on with her life. Fanny’s traveling companion is taciturn boatman Zizek Breshov....Ever entertaining, Iczkovits’s lively, transportive picaresque takes readers on a memorable ride." Kirkus concludes, "Iczkovits is a superb talent, and this novel is a resounding success. As witty as it is wise, Iczkovits’ novel is a profoundly moving caper through the Russian empire." The New York Times suggests, "If the Coen brothers ever ventured beyond the United States for their films, they would find ample material in this novel, which offers a familiar mix of dark humor and casual brutality — and an ultimately hopeful search for small comforts and a modicum of justice in an absurd and immoral world."

 Missionaries by Phil Klay: Klay won the National Book Award for his previous book Redeployment. NPR offers this summary, "...Missionaries represents a major stylistic shift from Redeployment, in that it is, quite explicitly, a novel of ideas. Through fiction, Klay sets out to introduce readers to the system of counterterrorist warfare the United States military has developed and exported worldwide, from Colombia, where much of the novel takes place, to the Middle East and beyond. Missionaries is a portrait of a gigantic, porous, mutable, and seemingly mission-less war — and, as such, is gigantic and mutable itself, though Klay never loses sight of his goal. As a result, the novel's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: It tries to be as all-encompassing as its subject." In a lengthy review, the New York Times says, "a novel notable for its empathy and its curiosity (in the shape of voracious research), and for its cleareyed observation of war in the 21st century: this globalized war, carried out all over the world by migrant warriors. They can be interventionists or mercenaries, they can be idealists or cynics, but they fight, administer or narrate these wars with little command over one crucial fact: Violence poisons everything."

The Historians

Set during WWII in Sweden, this thriller by Cecilia Ekbäck will keep you riveted and probably shift your perceptions of Scandinavia (especially Sweden) forever. I love learning history through novels; for example, I had no idea that the 3 kings of the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) met during WWI to declare their unified neutrality. In 1922, Sweden set up the State Institute for Racial Biology to study the Swedish population from a racial perspective. Forced sterilization took place between 1934 - 2013, largely affecting those with mental or physical disabilities. "The objective was racial hygiene, economic savings, public health and control of of those deemed antisocial." (Author's note) "In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Norwegian authorities suppressed the Sami culture, dismissing it as backward. " (Author's note). Their lands were confiscated. In Sweden, "Sami were deemed racially 'less' than the rest of the population and not capable of managing their own destiny." (Author's note) They were not allowed to be educated in regular Swedish schools. 

In this book the author explores what might have happened had these policies been carried further,  mimicking what happened in Germany. A group of 5 history students at the university in Uppsala--4 Scandinavians and 1 Finn--are the best of friends until they begin working on a project, instigated by one of their professors. All avowed atheists, the group is asked to research what it would take to create a religion or a cause that they would all believe in. Ultimately they end up based it on some aspects of Norse mythology. But as they progress, they do begin to believe that Scandinavians are superior and show their condescension toward their Finnish friend, Matti. This dynamic breaks the group and they go their separate ways, except for Britta who stays on to work on her doctorate. When Britta is brutally tortured and murdered, her best friend Laura Dahlgren, tries to reunite the former members of their clique to help her solve the murder. What they uncover will shatter their faith in each other and the government and threaten their very lives. Parallel story lines dealing with the suspicious suicide of an archivist in the foreign ministry and the ongoing disappearances of Sami individuals in the vicinity of a crucial iron mine converge nicely to create a comprehensive conclusion--although I might have wished for a bit more vengeful justice.

Publishers Weekly offers a highly favorable review as does the Washington Post, which, although offering mild admonishment for speculative divergence from the actual history, concludes "its construction and dramatic denouncement are quite satisfying..." And Booklist also favorably says, "Ekbäck's suspenseful prose will give fans of spy thrillers and Nordic noir a tale to sink their teeth into."

Earthly Remains

Starting with Death at La Fenice in 1992, Donna Leon has written 30 books in the Commissario Guido Brunetti series. This is about #26 in the series, by my reckoning, and the 4th one I have read. Like two earlier books (Death in a Strange Country and Venetian Reckoning/ aka Death and Judgement) this one deals with corporate greed and corruption and, also like other books, the cost of those practices on humans and the environment. This book starts out rather slowly. Guido has reached the end of his rope with the mental gymnastics he has to endure to stay in his job after he fakes a heart attack to protect one of his fellow officers from attacking a man brought in for questioning. The fake goes too far and he is carted off to the hospital in an ambulance where the doctor concludes that his heart is fine but his blood pressure is dangerously high and recommends he take a 2-week break from work. Well-connected wife Paola suggests he stay in the currently vacant villa belonging to her aunt's on the nearby island of Sant' Erasmo. The caretaker, Davide Casati, turns out to be a former friend and rowing partner of Guido's father, and Guido takes the opportunity to reconnect with the pleasures of rowing in the laguna around the islands. Davide also introduces Guido to his carefully hidden hives of bees and expresses his concern about the unexplained deaths in several of the hives. He seems to feel responsible not only for the dying bees but also for the cancer death of his wife a few years ago. Shortly before Davide is found drowned on one of the islands after a storm, he had asked Guido, “Do you think some of the things we do can never be forgiven?” Guido makes it his mission to find out if Davide really killed himself as it appears. He tracks down two of Davide's former co-workers and learns of a chemical explosion which killed or maimed several workers at the place where they used to work, explaining the dramatic scars Guido has seen on Davide's back. It turns out that the company was illegally dumping toxic chemicals into the laguna and so Davide carried the guilt all these years for his role in that activity. Kirkus concludes, "Perhaps the most minimal of all Leon’s mysteries, with no suspects to speak of and few details of the Commissario’s domestic life or his eternal professional tussles at the Questura." On the other hand, the New York Times asserts, "When she’s writing about her beloved Venice, Donna Leon can do no wrong. ... her new mystery featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, is one of her best. It’s also one of her saddest, dealing as it does with the seemingly unstoppable polluting of the great lagoon."

Beating About the Bush

I am a long-time fan of M.C. Beaton's "Hamish MacBeth" series, and I always look for these as audiobooks when we travel by car. But I have never been particularly fond of her "Agatha Raisin" series nor was I enthralled with the Acorn TV series based on these books. This is the 30th book in the series and, although I still don't like Agatha, maybe you're not supposed to, and you have to admire her for never taking guff from anyone. Besides, she lives in the Cotswolds, one of my favorite parts of the world.  Agatha's detective agency is hired by a battery manufacturing company, ostensibly to find out who started a fire in their research department. What starts out as an industrial espionage investigation quickly reveals that something very fishy is going on at the client's business. When the elderly receptionist, Mrs. Dinwiddy, dies and a pet donkey gets blamed for the death, Agatha is sure it was really murder staged to look like an accident. Teaming up with a former colleague from London who is still in the PR business, they create a campaign to save the donkey as a means to keep the case open. As Agatha's team figures out the shady backgrounds of several company employees, it's starting to look like her client is involved in the drug trade, and Agatha's curiosity could just get her killed.  

Kirkus concludes their review by saying, "As usual, Beaton conceals any number of surprises behind her trademark wry humor." And Publishers Weekly offers, "The obnoxious, rude, and outspoken Agatha may not appeal to every reader, but cozy fans with a taste for the silly and the offbeat will be gratified. This long-running series shows no sign of losing steam."

Ice Cold Heart

P. J. Tracy was the pseudonym of the award-winning mother-daughter writing duo P. J. and Traci Lambrecht; P. J. died in 2016 and Traci has continued writing their "Monkeewrench" series, of which this is the 10th installment. The recent hiatus in homicides caused by an abnormally cold January in Minneapolis comes to a horrifying end when detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are called to the scene of a brutal staged murder. The victim is a married woman, Kelly, but was found in the apartment of her best friend and all the clues suggest she was secretly exploring some extramarital and apparently dangerous sexual liaisons. When the trail of clues leads them to a 2nd murder, this one stages to look like an accident, and then to a murder that occurred several years ago in California with all the same earmarks, they decide to enlist the help of Monkeewrench. This is a group of digital security experts, one of whom is Grace MacBride, Leo's wife. Monkeewrench helps uncover connections to a rising art star whose art mimics--or does it inspire--the ugly murders.

It's not necessary to have read previous books in the series to enjoy this one, although series fans will no doubt have a lot more info about characters' back stories. In this book, Monkeewrench team member Roadrunner gets involved with one of the potential victims and more is learned about his background.  Publishers Weekly praises "This smooth mix of police procedural and techno thriller [that] offers likable characters and a complex, well-crafted plot."

The Crossing Places

My book group recently read The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths and I was curious to read one of her series books.  This is the first in the "Ruth Galloway" series and I liked it a lot. Ruth Galloway is an unassuming, somewhat overweight professor at a local university. She specializes in forensic archaeology, the study of old bones. When a child's skeleton is discovered on the salt marsh flats near an ancient henge site that she had helped excavate, she is called in to consult by DCI Harry Nelson. Originally skeptical, Nelson is subsequently impressed with the methodical and thorough approach Ruth brings to her work (and secretly wishes his own forensic teams were as careful), as well as with her straightforward style of communication. She tells him it is a very old skeleton (Iron Age), an exciting find for her, but learns, in turn, that it's a disappointment for Nelson, who had hoped it would be the skeleton of a little girl who was abducted 10 years ago. He has never given up on the case of missing Lucy Downey, although she is presumed dead, and he wants to bring closure to her parents. When a second young girl goes missing, Ruth gets more and more involved in trying to help solve the abductions and, apparently, she is getting a little too close because very serious threats to her safety begin to accumulate. Although not entirely unpredictable, there are enough red herrings to keep you guessing before the culprit is revealed. Wonderful evocation of place and well developed and interesting characters make this a series I would gladly pursue. 

Kirkus concludes that, "the first-rate characters and chilling story are entrancing from start to finish." LIkewise, Library Journal notes, "Both Nelson and Galloway are captivating characters, and Griffiths's story is strong, well plotted, and suspenseful, leaving the reader eager for more adventures on the windswept Norfolk coast."

1776

This popular history entry by award-winning author David McCullough was an informative and easy 300 page read if you don't get bogged down in the 70+ pages of notes, sources and bibliographies. An impressive piece of research, compiled from museum archives that included letters, diaries, newspapers and lots of other primary and secondary sources that recounts "... the tumultuous military campaigns of a year that saw the fortunes of George Washington’s fledgling Continental Army—and with it those of the new American republic—rise and fall: from a brilliant and unexpected success at the siege of Boston through failure and defeat in the fighting around New York and New Jersey to redemption in the freezing streets of Trenton" (HistoryNet). I came away from reading this not only better informed about the particulars of the war for independence, but frankly astounded that we ever succeeded against the British, given our very limited resources. Washington was clearly the man for the time, although McCullough does not gloss over the doubts that arose among his subordinates due to his (in)decisions that resulted in disastrous losses.  What was noteworthy was Washington's willingness to learn from others and from his mistakes. McCullough also gives credit and voice to others who helped lead or just survive the battles, drawing especially from accounts by Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, their British counterparts as well as volunteer soldiers.

The Guardian's review notes that it was more a matter of the British losing the war than the Americans winning it. Although the New York Times chides that McCullough is least effective at conveying the sense of combat which lies at the heart of most stories about wars, the book "is nonetheless a stirring and timely work..." Kirkus notes that McCullough's focus on the common and the not-so-common man rather than on larger determining systems "may not have much explanatory power but almost always yields better-written books." They conclude that the book is a "sterling account" of "the second most costly war in American history..."

I agree with HistoryNet's note that the book would have been significantly enhanced by the inclusion of more and better maps. Even though it is probably not a book I would have picked up on my own (it was this month's book club choice) it was well worth reading!