A History of Wild Places

This is the first adult book by Shea Ernshaw, an Oregon YA author,  was a puzzler for a long time--it's almost 500 pages long--and I didn't know until near the very end if it was supposed to be about the supernatural or just humans behaving badly.  It opens as Travis Wren, a man riddled with guilt because he failed to find his younger before she committed suicide, has been asked to find a missing children's book author, Maggie St. James. She's been gone for 5 years, but Travis has a special ability to see people and events associated with objects. A silver book charm that was found near Maggie's abandoned car in northern California provides him with a trail to follow deep into the woods. When his truck gets stuck in the winter snow miles from the main road, he, too, disappears. The story then shifts to several years later and Theo and Calla are a married couple living in a run down farmhouse with Calla's younger sister, Bee, who is blind. They are part of an off-the-grid, self-sustaining community called Pastoral. The leader of the community is charismatic Levi, Bee's lover and, it turns out, the father of her as yet unborn baby. The community believes that their is a deadly disease that infects the woods that surrounds them and that, if they venture beyond the boundaries of Pastoral, they will also become infected and die. People who are caught going outside the boundaries of Pastoral are subjected to purification, being buried up to their necks, to determine if they have become infected. Bee's blindness has given her a hypersensitivity to sounds and she often attends the community's midwife at birthings because she can hear the baby's heartbeat. A baby born prematurely, who will die without medical intervention, precipitates a crisis in the community. Levi declares that one life must be sacrificed to protect the community, but the baby's father takes steps on his own to leave. Theo's job in the community is to watch the gate and make sure no one comes in and no one leaves, but he has an insatiable desire to go beyond the boundary himself. When he tells his wife that he has been going down the road beyond the gate during his night shifts, she is terrified he will die, but protects his secret. More and more secrets emerge until Calla and Theo come to realize that things in the community are not as they seem. Publishers Weekly says the plot "strains credulity, and the prose is often simplistic, but the twisty plot brims with tension." Booklist enthuses, "A richly embroidered tapestry deepens in hues as the story turns darker. Readers will sink into this one, and although they might question details of the resolution, they will be moved by the novel's power."

The Apollo Murders

Written by former Canadian astronaut and one-time commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield, this thriller is set during the Cold War space race of the 1970's between Russia and the United States. It is full of interesting technical details about planes, rockets, space capsules and manned flight operations.  It includes lots of real people, places and events and an author's note clarifies what is fiction. Hadfield also worked as CAPCOM--capsule communicator--for 25 shuttle missions and as NASA's director of operations in Russia, so he has both front line and administrative experience with the U.S. and Russian programs. It is a wide ranging story with asides about people who salvage discarded rockets in Russia to support their families, the origins of the universe, and the horror of motion sickness induced vomiting inside an enclosed space suit. The premise is that the Russians have launched a new space station with enormously enhanced spy capabilities that would impinge on the secrecy of U.S. space efforts--i.e., creates a threat to "U.S. security." The final (fictional) Apollo 18 moonshot is re-tasked to investigate and disable the station in earth orbit before cosmonauts can be sent up to retrieve pictures. The astronauts on this mission are all former military. Additionally, the final destination on the moon is altered to land near a Russian moon rover to find out why the Russians are exploring that particular spot. The real drama arises even before blast off when the mission's commander is killed in a helicopter crash that turns out to be sabotage. I literally had a hard time putting this book down at many points. I thought the ending was a little abrupt and The New Scientist said, "the story comes across as improbable but not implausible." It still made for a compelling read. Kirkus criticizes the amount of technical detail in the early chapter but concludes, "Space nerds will geek out, and everyone else eventually gets a pretty good ride." Publishers Weekly, however, feels the details are important; "His mastery of the details enables him to generate high levels of tension from just a description of a welding error, which cascades into something significant. This is an intelligent and surprising nail-biter..."

Every Dead Thing

This is the inaugural outing of Irish journalist John Connolly's "Charlie 'Bird' Parker" series of mystery/ thriller/ procedurals. The book won the LA Times "Book of the Year" (1999) and the Shamus Award for "Best First Novel" (1999) --a first for a book by a non-American author. It is long with two distinct storylines--causing Booklist to criticize it for "excess baggage." But in order to understand the rest of the series (and there are 20 books in the series), you need to know why Charlie Parker is the way he is; he is a recovering alcoholic with both a thirst for revenge--bloody if necessary--and a huge capacity for empathy. Parker is a former detective with the NYC Police Department, spending more and more of his life in a bottle, who comes home to find his wife and young daughter torturously mutiliated and very dead. The descriptions are graphic, so if grisly descriptions upset you definitely stay away from this book and this series. Two years later, he eventually sobers up and begins re-entering the stream of life as a private investigator of low-level crimes; then a former partner and NYPD asks him to help solve the case of a missing woman, which is part of a cover up for a ring of child abusers and killers. Parker never lets go of his quest for revenge even though he immerses himself in the search, and he gets aid from a strange quarter--a psychic Black woman in the swamps of Louisiana, who says the Traveling Man has come to her in her dreams and that he has already killed a young woman and left her in the swamp before killing Parker's family. Parker goes to Louisiana and hooks up with an FBI agent who is working the case. In both storylines, Parker must delve into history in order to find the perpetrators in the present, so the storylines are indeed complicated. But the characters are fascinating and Connolly kept me guessing until the very end about the identify of the killers. 

You can get more about the plot and characters from Kirkus. Publishers Weekly says Connolly's "prose rings of '40s L.A. noir, la Chandler and Hammett..." and that the "plot seldom falters and each character is memorable." I was hooked from the get-go.

The New Girl

I always enjoy Daniel Silva's "Gabriel Allon" series books. I have dipped in at the beginning of the series (e.g., The Kill Artist), and also towards the end (The Order, The English Girl).This installment was published in 2019 so there were 20 that preceded it and 3 more since; he has another coming out this summer (2022). No matter where you start, the plots are always fast-paced and compelling and the characters well developed. As with others, this one is taken from recent headlines as a 12-year old girl at an elite private Swiss school goes missing and her father turns out to be none other than the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Although the prince is a pariah in the media for the brutal murder of a journalist, and although he is a sworn enemy of Israel, Gabriel is convinced to take the case because he finds the crime so horrific and because, when push comes to shove, the Prince is a better alternative than the rest of the royal family. The Prince (KBM in this fictionalized account) eventually receives a demand to step down and remove himself from the next-in-line-to-the-throne spot or face the death of his daughter. Gabriel re-activates an American woman, Sarah Bancroft, a former CIA agent and now museum curator at MOMA, who is rumored to be KBM's private and secret art broker. Other characters from past books, along with their relationships to one another are important players here and one could justifiably feel one is missing background and context, but I didn't think it detracted significantly from the story.

Kirkus seems to think that Gabriel Allon is approaching the end of his literary usefulness as a protagonist. The New York Journal of Books proclaims it is "a decent spy story and little more...a story of international intrigue, fast cars, boats, planes, and high body counts." In contrast, Publishers Weekly concludes, "Silva delivers sharply drawn characters, a complex plot, and vivid backgrounds that add to the book’s realism, even if at times Allon’s own abilities seem too good to be true. Series fans will find plenty to like, and this is an excellent introduction for new readers." If you're seeking an escape from the woes of the world, read it and decide for yourself.

The Russian Cage

Charlaine Harris' 3rd entry in the "Gunnie Rose" series, with a 4th book slated for release this coming August (2022).  The series is set in an alternate United States that has been divided and taken over by various entities, including The Holy Russian Empire (formerly California and the west coast). Bodyguard for hire Lizbeth Rose heads out from Texoma to the HRE when she learns that  her love interest, Eli Savarov, a grigori/ wizard  has been jailed under false pretenses as part of the political struggle for power between the Emperor and his half brother. While there, she reconnects with her newly discovered half-sister, Felicia Karkarov, who is also being schooled to use her magical powers...their shared father was a very powerful wizard (now deceased--killed by Gunnie Rose!). Lizbeth also gets involved with Eli's mother and two sisters and reconnects with an ambigous acquaintaince--friend or enemy--Felix, who's ability to reanimate the dead comes in handy. Felix and Lizbeth concoct a plot to get her an audience with the Emperor so she can ask for Eli's freedom. Barring that, they have to figure out a way to break him out of an impregnable prison. Strongly recommend reading these books in order--see post for An Easy Death and A Longer Fall.

Kirkus calls it "An entertaining addition to a consistently fun series."A positive review from Publishers Weekly. The Sun Sentinel calls Harris "a first-class storyteller."

Daughter of the Moon Goddess

This debut novel by Sue Lynn Tan draws from Chinese myths of dragons, gods and immortals.  This fantasy YA book received starred reviews from Library Journal ("an exquisitely detailed fantasy") and Publishers Weekly. ("a riveting page-turner"). Kirkus call's Tan's prose "lovely and fluid, [with] lush descriptions of magic and immortal life buoying the narrative."

BookPage also gave it a starred review and provides this succinct summary: "Xingyin has never met her father, a mortal archer who saved the human world from destruction. She is also the daughter of Chang’e, the infamous moon goddess who became immortal after drinking a potion that was given to her husband in recognition of his heroic deeds. Xingyin has lived a lonely life, hidden away in her mother’s sky-bound prison. That changes when she accidentally accesses her own magical powers and is forced to flee to avoid detection by the Celestial Emperor and his court. While on the run, Xingyin is thrust into the uncomfortable role of learning companion to the Celestial Prince, the son of the very man who imprisoned her mother. As she trains and learns alongside the prince, Xingyin is torn between loyalty to her new friend and the desperate desire to free her mother from her eternal prison."  Xingyin goes from a frightened adolescent to a formidable warrior through her training with Crown Prince Liwei and then as a soldier in the Celestial army. It is an elaborate world building book with the immortals portrayed as capricious--no surprise there--and the dragons as wise and benevolent beings. There are lots of hints about where the sequel of this story will go.

One Step Too Far

This is the 3rd book I have read by Lisa Gardner and the 2nd of hers (Before She Disappeared) featuring  this protagonist, Frankie Elkin.  Frankie is a recovering alcoholic who has left behind too many people she loved and who have loved her. She takes on the hardest of missing persons cold cases, totally of her own volition and without getting paid. Frankie describes herself as an "average, middle-aged white woman, short on belongings, long on regret." She is on her way to search for a missing boy when she reads about a man who went missing 5 years ago in the wilds of Wyoming's Shosone National Forest. Nobody is particularly happy or welcoming when she shows up in town and volunteers to help the annual search party organized by the missing man's father. But one member of the group, who is an active member of an online chat room for missing persons, vouches for Frankie's bona fides and, when another member of the group goes into the DT's, Frankie is in. The search this year will focus on the one area near where the man was camped that has yet to be searched because of the difficult terrain to reach it. But things start to go wrong from the very beginning. Their food bags, hanging in the trees, are slashed and a significant portion of their supplies go missing. A member of their group is injured when he is hit in the head, ostensibly by a falling rock. The secrets from the night of the disappearance begin to emerge. It turns out that several other hikers have gone missing over the last few years in this same area. But the source of the problem comes as a total surprise, at least to me. As usual, Gardners tight plotting, rich settings and well-developed characters pulled me in and kept me reading late into the evening.

I agree with Publishers Weekly that I hope we get to see more of Frankie Elkin. Kirkus' review concludes, "Terrifying, primal, and very, very tense. Read it with your heart in your throat—but read it."

The Sentence

 I have started but never finished a book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Louise Erdrich, and I almost didn't read this one because the opening pages described such dysfunctional people and crazy situations that I just didn't want to deal with it. But I persisted and I really loved this book. Louise Erdrich actually owns an independent bookstore in Minneapolis called Birchbark Books, and this story is set largely in and around a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis in the year of George Floyd's murder and the beginning of the pandemic. Thus, it also deals with the resultant riots in Minneapolis and other cities which--once again--protested the murders of Black men by police officers. This focus, even though the protagonist and some of the other major characters are Native Americans, recognizes the common thread of nearly genocidal treatment of people of color throughout American history.  As I have said in other posts, character is important to me. I have to like somebody in the book enough to care what happens and I really liked Tookie, an Ojibwe woman imprisoned for 10 years after being set up by her "friends" to take the fall for transporting drugs across state lines--in a dead body. Tookie tells us that "the most important skill I'd gained in prison was how to read with murderous attention." When Tookie is released, a former teacher gets her a job in the bookstore and we are immersed in literature and it's healing and redemptive powers. Tookie's post-prison life is not without challenges, but she is now married to the former tribal police officer who arrested her and she has a stable loving relationship with him and a strong network of co-workers and friends. When one of the most annoying bookstore customers dies, she comes back to haunt the bookstore and Tookie in particular. We don't find out why until the very end. So, love letter to books, a life redeemed, a ghost story, a love story, an indictment of systemic racism...there's a lot packed in here. So worth the read.

Booklist calls the book "funny, evocative, painful, and redemptive." NPR includes this book in a group of recent publications  "that tries to capture a splintering America during this long pandemic moment." The Guardian provides a glowing review. The New York Times calls the book "strange, enchanting and funny." Kirkus' pithy review says the novel "reckons with ghosts—of both specific people and also the shadows resulting from America’s violent, dark habits."

Harlem Shuffle

This is the 2nd book I've read by Pulitzer Prize winner, Colson Whitehead. See my previous post for The Nickey Boys. Once again, this is the choice of my book group. Set in the late 50's and early 60's, it is a reminder of how badly we have treated Black people over the years. Whitehead's writing goes down so easy. He creates rich 3-dimensional characters. Although some reviewers have called this a "love letter" to Harlem, it wouldn't make me want to live there. Still you get an insight into the struggles, successes and failures as people go about trying to live their lives in a hostile white-dominated culture. Protagonist and narrator Ray Carney is a happily married man with one child and another on the way when the book opens in 1959. He owns a furniture store in Harlem which he managed to do with some money he found in his deceased father's old pick up truck. His father was a criminal through and through. Ray is, according the NPR review, a "half-crook you'll wholly love." The reviewer also describes Whitehead's prose as "cinematic" and I agree this would make a great movie, a la "The Usual Suspects." When the story jumps forward to 1964 and the 6 days of riots in Harlem that resulted from a police officer killing an unarmed Black man, the connection to current events is both obvious and dispiriting. How can we still be doing this? I do rely so much on finding a character I can identify or at least empathize with, and that is a bit of a challenge since I am a white female and not a Black male. I wouldn't trade places for anything as Black men in this culture have an incredibly tough road to hoe. Still, this is an easy read to fall into and I value the enriched perspective I have gained as a result. 

There are a multitude of glowing reviews that do this book more justice than I can. The Harvard Review. The Guardian calls it "delicious." The New York Times says it is "warm-hearted." A lengthy review from The Atlantic. Kirkus also loved the book.

Lucky

This novel by Marissa Stapley has gotten so much chat in the review sources that I had to read it. It left me lukewarm. The premise is this: a baby is left on the steps of a church and before a reluctant novice nun can take in the baby, a man comes along and says his wife has left the baby there in a fit of post-partum depression. Eventually we learn this is a lie. But in the meantime, we come to know Lucky, a young girl trained to be a con artist by her grifter father. Although she makes several attempts to chage the trajectory of her life into a more stable, predictable and honest path, she mostly falls back to what she's good at, which is conning people out of their money. The journey is, at times, heartbreaking and, at times, aggravating. I felt sympathy for her, especially as a child who never had a friend she could keep because her father kept them moving. But to me, she just wasn't that interesting a character. The big dilemma she faces is when she wins the lottery but can't claim the prize because she is wanted by the authorities for fraud. Who can she trust to get the money for her?

The book was Reese's Book Club pick for December (2021), describing it as "an electric story about an unconventional heroine who is on the run from her past with a winning lottery ticket that could change her future forever." Publishers Weekly calls the book a "page-turner [that] packs in more than its share of heart."