Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

I believe this is a debut nobel by Robin Sloane. Definitely an entertaining and provocative read once you get into it, all tied up with a bow at the end. Book lovers will enjoy it; geeks will enjoy it; mystery lovers will enjoy it. In fact, this is my mystery book group's read for this month. This takes place largely in the Bay Area and for a while in New York City. It is early days of the Great Recession and Clay Jannon has just lost his job as a web designer and marketer for New Bagel. He finally takes a night shift job at the eponymous bookstore, which not only looks very odd in it's layout, but also has some pretty weird customers, most of whom appear to belong to an exclusive book club that allows them to borrow the enormous books in the back of the store that are shelved several stories high. Clay is under strict orders from Mr. Penumbra to NOT read those books, but to keep a detailed log of who comes in to borrow them. 

When one of Clay's friends stops by, he grabs a book and opens it and the mystery begins to deepen, for the tomes are clearly in some kind of code that looks like strings of numbers or letters--page after page. When a cute "Googler" walks into the store one night, Clay is attracted and they eventually become a couple. Kat is passionate about concepts like immortality and singularity and the role of technology in creating our future. I don't want to reveal any of the secrets that Clay uncovers with the help of his friends, but there will be a collaboration with Google and thousands of hackers and a trip to New York City. 

Library Journal concludes their review by opining, "Though the depiction of Google as a utopian meritocracy seems rather farcical, Sloan has created an arch tale knitting the analog past with the digital future that is compelling and readable." Likewise, Booklist's favorable reaction is that "Sloan has crafted a delightful modern-day fantasy adventure, replacing warriors, wizards, and rogues with a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a Googler, and a book clerk. Even nongeeks will appreciate the technological wizardry used by Clay and his sidekicks as they jet from San Francisco to New York in an attempt to unlock the secret message encrypted in a mysterious pattern of codes." Kirkus starts and end on a high note. "All the best secrets are hidden in plain sight. The trick is to notice the secret in front of you. Sloan’s debut novel takes the reader on a dazzling and flat-out fun adventure, winding through the interstices between the literary and the digital realms...From the shadows of Penumbra’s bookshelves to the brightly lit constellation of cyberspace to the depths of a subterranean library, Sloan deftly wields the magicks (definitely with a “k”) of the electronic and the literary in this intricate mystery"

I am including Publishers Weekly review in its entirety as it's fun to read. "For those who fear that the Internet/e-readers/whatever-form-of-technological-upheaval-is-coming has killed or will kill paper and ink, Sloan's debut novel will come as good news. A denizen of the tech world and self-described "media inventor" (formerly he was part of the media partnerships team at Twitter), Sloan envisions a San Francisco where piracy and paper are equally useful, and massive data-visualization-processing abilities coexist with so-called "old knowledge." Really old: as in one of the first typefaces, as in alchemy and the search for immortality. Google has replaced the Medici family as the major patron of art and knowledge, and Clay Jannon, downsized graphic designer and once-and-future nerd now working the night shift for bookstore owner Mr. Penumbra, finds that mysteries and codes are everywhere, not just in the fantasy books and games he loved as a kid. With help from his friends, Clay learns the bookstore's idiosyncrasies, earns his employer's trust, and uses media new, old, and old-old to crack a variety of codes. Like all questing heroes, Clay takes on more than he bargained for and learns more than he expected, not least about himself. His story is an old-fashioned tale likably reconceived for the digital age, with the happy message that ingenuity and friendship translate across centuries and data platforms."

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."

Eight Perfect Murders

This book by Peter Swanson is my mystery book group's choice for July. I finished it in one day. I read some reviews that found it lagged toward the end or that the ending was predictable, but I have to say, that was not my experience. I had no idea who the murderer was. The premise is that widower Malcolm Kershaw is co-owner of the Old Devils bookstore in Boston. Years ago, when he was just an employee, he posted an article on the store's blog called "Eight Perfect Murders" which described those mysteries in which "the murderer comes closest to realizing that platonic ideal of a perfect murder." They were Agatha Christie's A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin's Death Trap, A. A. Milne's Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox's Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity, John D. Macdonald's The Drowner, and Donna Tartt's A Secret History. Years later, Malcom is contacted by FBI agent Gwen Mulvey who feels someone is imitating--at least in spirit--the murders in this list of books, and she is hoping Malcolm can shed light on who it might be. Both Gwen and Mal have secrets from each other and neither entirely trusts the other initially. Malcolm reveals one of his secrets to the reader fairly early on, and it quickly becomes clear that, not only is the killer using his list, but the victims are connected to Malcolm as well and Mal needs to find out who it is before anyone else dies and before his remaining secrets are revealed. 

The Library Journal concludes, "The wintry New England setting and eerily cool narration, together with trust-no-one twists and garish murders, will satisfy thriller readers..." And Publishers Weekly agrees that "Classic whodunit fans will be in heaven." Kirkus notes that "the pleasures of following, and trying to anticipate, a narrator who’s constantly second- and third-guessing himself and everyone around him are authentic and intense.....The perfect gift for well-read mystery mavens who complain that they don’t write them like they used to."

Camino Winds

I haven't read any John Grisham in quite a while, although I certainly enjoyed what I read in the past, as well as  the movie spinoffs I watched. However, I found this book somewhat disappointing. Fictitious Camino Island, just off the east coast of Florida is a literary haven, anchored by Bay Books and owner/mover/shaker Bruce Cable. Cable loves to cultivate and foster budding young authors and doesn't mind bedding the attractive female ones, given that he is in an open marriage. There is a handful of other authors, who write in various genres, that make Camino Island their home, and independently wealthy (although perhaps not legally so) Bruce frequently hosts literary dinner parties in partnership with his antiques dealing and beautiful wife, Noelle. Bruce also has several author events each week at the bookstore during the busy summer tourist season. But this season is different because an unpredictable hurricane, Leo by name, decides to hit Camino Island head on. After the storm has passed, Bruce, his bookstore employee Justin, and crime writer Bob Cobb--all of whom remained instead of leaving--find that one of their friends, lawyer turn thriller writer Nelson Kerr, is dead. The police department want to write it off as an accident but Bruce and his pals find clues that suggest otherwise. When the local and state police seem all too willing to write this off, Bruce is determined to find out if the last book Nelson was writing might lead to the killer of his friend. Kerr has exposed some heavy hitter bad guys before and this time they may have decided they would go to any lengths to prevent publication of the book. Publishers Weekly sums up the rest of the action nicely, to wit: "Believing the manuscript is fact posing as fiction, Bruce retains the services of a dodgy security firm to infiltrate nursing homes. This effort leads to more murders, a cover-up, and a massive FBI operation to bring the book’s villains to justice."

The resolution of the book seems anti-climactic although perhaps more realistic for all of that. But, to me, none of the characters were very engaging. This is a sequel to Camino Island and I might have liked some of them better if I had read that. Kirkus writes a generally favorable review, although noting that "Cable is perhaps Grisham’s least sympathetic hero; he drinks night and day, sleeps around, and has few apparent scruples. At least he’s not a lawyer. Neither is he a cop..." The New York Times notes this effort is a hybrid of Grisham's earlier and more serious legal thrillers with a sort of beach book.

Four from Lorna Barrett

I read one of the later installments in Lorna Barrett's "Booktown Mystery" series (Title Wave) and was curious to find out more of the back story. So I picked up what I could from earlier books in the series that were available online (our library has been closed for 2 months due to the pandemic shut down). They are noted here starting from the earliest publication date.

Chapter and Hearse: This is the 4th in the series, published in 2010. Tricia Miles lives in a small town that has re-invented itself as a hub of specialty bookstores. She, of course, runs the mystery bookstore. When a gas explosion at the history bookstore kills the owner and injures Angelica's (Tricia's sister) boyfriend, Bob Kelly, she can't resist doing some investigating on her own. Angelica, BTW, owns a cookbook/ food focused bookstore. You can see the relationship between the sisters develop as well as other relationships (some romantic) among acquaintances. Because Angelica is a great cook (and cookbook author), each book includes some of her recipes.

Book Clubbed: Published in 2014, this is the 8th in the series. Angelica is the newly elected President of the town's Chamber of Commerce, which is currently doing business on the 2nd floor of Angelica's bookstore--just until they find a new permanent home. Betsy Dittmeyer, the cranky CofC receptionist is killed when a toppled bookcase lands on her. Of course, the big question is, was it an accident? It turns out that Betsy had some secrets worth murdering for. Tricia, whose penchant for discovering dead bodies has resulted in her being labeled the town's "jinx," also learns some disturbing secrets about her own family. Her ex-husband has shown up in town and is competing with the chief of police for Tricia's affections.

A Just Clause: This is book #11, published in 2017, just after Title Wave. Two characters from that previous novel take on shape and character here. Tricia and Angelica's father, John, shows up in Stoneham, without their mother! When a local woman is murdered, he becomes the prime suspect due to an earlier romantic entanglement. Tricia, who has always adored her father, learns of his rather unsavory past as a con man who has actually served time in jail. An author she met on the book cruise, Steven Richardson, also comes to Tricia's bookstore for a book signing and evidences romantic interest in Tricia. The dead woman was found clutching a signed copy of Richardson's newest book--just a coincidence? Glowing review from Publishers Weekly.

Poisoned Pages: Number 12 (published in 2018) opens at a house-warming party in Tricia's newly refurbished apartment on the two floors above her bookstore. She has also learned enough about cooking from sister Angelica to do the food preparation. Which seems to have terrible consequences when one of her guests dies from an apparent allergic reaction to the hors d'oeuvres.  This time around, Tricia must find the killer in order to clear her own name. Review from Publishers Weekly.

This is not the best cozy series in the world, but it is entertaining light reading, which is often what I am in the mood for during these days of distancing, anxiety, and uncertainty.

The Whispered Word

This is the 2nd installment in Ellery Adams' "Secret, Book and Scone Society" series and it was as fun as the first one, The Secret, Book and Scone Society. I have also posted about a couple of her "Book Retreat Mysteries" (Murder in the Mystery Suite and Murder in the Secret Garden). Of course one of the main reasons I love these books is that protagonist Nora Pennington, who owns the Miracle Books store in her small town of Miracle Springs, believes that books can heal--that is, she practices bibliotherapy. And since this was a passion of mine while I was working, I'm all in.
In this installment, the mysterious young woman found sleeping in Nora's bookstore--sporting a hospital ID band, clothes that clearly don't fit, and various bruises--gets taken on as a project by the Secret, Book and Scone Society's members, eventually going to work in the bakery and sharing Nora's little house. When a bookstore customer is found dead, there is a question about whether or not it was suicide, and as the friends begin to investigate, they find ties between the mysterious young bookstore refugee, who calls herself Abilene, and the victim. What or who is Abilene hiding from? Is she a murderer or the next potential victim of the killer. All turns out well, of course, as it should in any cozy mystery series. Enjoyable light read.

Title Wave

A recent installment (2016) of the "Booktown Mystery" series by Lorna Barrett, (who also writes at L.L. Bartlett  and Lorraine Bartlett), this book breaks with earlier titles, presumably, because it is set entirely on a cruise ship instead of in the small New Hampshire town of Stoneham. Protagonist Tricia Miles owns a mystery bookstore in the town, Haven't Got a Clue, and owns a cat named Miss Marple. I think I would rather have read one of the earlier books set in the village. She accurately depicts what it's like to go on a large cruise ship, in the this case the Celtic Lady. Her sister, Angelica owns a cookbook shop and is also an author. Angelica is also currently the president of the town's Chamber of Commerce and has been key in organizing a group from Stoneham to join the ship's Authors' Tour. Authors from several genres will give talks as will editors and publishers during the cruise from New York City to Bermuda and back. It's winter in New Hampshire and this is the first time the sisters have taken a vacation together, and the first time either of them has taken time off in several years. But instead of being relaxing, Tricia discovers the body of thriller author E.M. Barstow, a woman so unpleasant that nobody is really sorry she's gone. Although Tricia finds her hanging in her shower, several aspects of the situation make it clear, at least to amateur sleuth Tricia, that this was murder, not a suicide--although the cruise line's security person is bound and determined to keep anyone from thinking there's a murderer on board. What is enjoyable is that the two main female characters are both middle aged, and have been through rough periods as siblings, as daughters, as grown women. They are both successful business women, so good role models. I might check out some of her earlier books, but I wasn't overly impressed with her writing style--she used the word "grating" to describe the victim's speaking style a few too many times.
Review from Publishers Weekly.

Paris by the Book

You might recognize Liam Callanan's name as the author of The Cloud Atlas; I neither read it nor saw the movie. But I was intrigued by the premise of this book. A sometimes happy family in Milwaukee consists of: Robert, a father who writes mostly children's stories, so isn't wildly successful and doesn't make much money; Leah, a mother who gave up dreams of being a film maker to become a speech writer for the president of a university in order to have a consistent income; and two teenage daughters Daphne and Ellie. One day Robert goes out for an early morning run and never returns. He has occasionally disappeared before to do his "write-aways" but has always left a note. So it is days before the police will take the disappearance seriously. They believe the absence of clues means he is probably dead. The rest of the family don't believe that. But at some point Leah finds a cryptic slip of paper in Robert's granola jar that turns out to be an airline reservation for 4 flights to Paris, the place he always promised Leah they would go. So Leah and the girls go, hoping Robert is waiting there for them. And then they stay. Ellie's godmother and Leah's friend, Eleanor, finds a partial manuscript of Robert's which she sends to them, describing a family that goes to Paris, buys a run down bookstore, and stays--only the mother disappears. Daphne and Ellie are convinced this is a clue and begin the search for the bookstore he described and for their father. They find one that fits the bill, and as luck would have it, the weary proprietor is happy to hire them to run it and rent them the apartment upstairs. So begins the tale of those left behind and how they cope. For most of the book, nobody knows if Robert is alive. Two classic children's stories, the Madeline series and The Red Baloon, frame the story.
Publishers Weekly calls it "sublime" and say, "Callanan has crafted a beautifully-drawn portrait of a woman interrupted set among the exquisite magic of Paris, where life frequently imitates art and the ghosts of the past linger just out of sight." Kirkus writes a more measured review.

Save Me from Dangerous Men

I really liked the protagonist of this book by S.A. Lelchuk. Nikki Griffin loves books and owns a used book store in Oakland. She lets her competent manager, Jess, run it most of the time, however, because she is also passionate about saving women who are being abused by men. She doesn't just try to help the women stand up for themselves, she makes it her personal mission to teach these men what is feels like to be hurt and helpless so they won't do it again. She takes on what appears to be a regular PI job following an employee of a high tech company that makes baby monitors. The company CEO is afraid the employee is selling company secrets. Well, sort of. Nikki gets suspicious of the job when she sees her target, Karen, being followed and confronted by some threatening men. It turns out to be anything but an ordinary job when Karen is murdered right before she was going to meet Nikki and reveal all she knew about what the company is actually doing. Now it's Nikki who is in the cross-hairs. In the meantime, she has met a nice guy, Ethan, and she would really like to have a normal relationship, but an attempted mugging while they are on a date reveals Nikki's darker side and he's not sure he wants any part of her. We gradually learn about Nikki's traumatic history that drove her to become the avenger that she is. I would totally read any sequel to this debut novel. Several reviewers have likened Nikki to a cross between Jack Reacher and Lisbeth Salander. If you like and recognize those protagonists, you will certainly root for Nikki. There is a comprehensive summary of the plot in The Washington Post. Kirkus offers a positive review as does Publishers Weekly as does USA Today.

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

This very meaty and somewhat grim crime mystery is the first novel from Matthew Sullivan; his previous work focused on award-winning short stories. He has also worked at the famous Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, and a differently named Denver bookstore, Bright Ideas, is the central setting of this story. Our protagonist, Lydia Smith, is in her late 20's and loves working at Bright Ideas, and is a friend to all the "Book Frogs"--as the staff call them--lonely souls who while away their days in the various sections of the bookstore or the cafe. When Lydia is closing up one night, she finds one of the younger Book Frogs, Joey, hanging from a rafter. Days later, Joey's landlady tracks her down and gives Lydia the message that Joey has left everything he owns, mostly a box of books, to Lydia. When Lydia examines the strange collection of titles, she discover that tiny holes have been cut in some of the pages. Intent on determining why Joey killed himself, Lydia sets out to decipher the clues Joey has left in the books. As Lydia begins to uncover the sad story of Joey's life in foster care and then in prison, we are also gradually introduced to Lydia's past and the terrible secret that keeps her in semi-hiding. While at a sleep-over, Lydia, who hid under the sink, aurally witnessed the murder of her best friend's family by "The Hammerman," murders that remain unsolved. The event changed the trajectory of her life as her father moved them to an isolated cabin in the mountains and basically abandoned Lydia to her night terrors while he took the only job he could find, working as a prison guard. This is a really twisty plot and the solution to both mysteries--murders and suicide--bring Lydia full circle to her childhood and her long-estranged father. The only aspect of the story that was totally unbelievable was how Joey managed to leave the messages in his mutilated books. But get past that, and you will be engrossed in this chilling tale. Decent review from Kirkus, and a short review from Publishers Weekly.

The Bookshop on the Corner

This is a cozy mystery by Jenny Colgan (originally published in Britain under the title The Little Shop of Happy-Ever-After) set in Birmingham and the Highlands of Scotland. Anyone who has ever mourned the digitization of libraries to the exclusion of books will identify with Nina Redmond, librarian and literary matchmaker extraordinaire, who has recently had to re-apply for her job at the Birmingham public library--and failed. But she has taken a stash of the books that were destined for the recylcing and, when added to all those she has accumulated at her flat, feels she could start her own mobile library. Responding to an advertisement in the paper, she makes the long trek to the Highlands of Scotland to check out a big (really big) van for sale. Although the crotchety owner won't sell it to her, the friends she makes at the local pub (where she recommends books for them to read) decide to buy it from the recalcitrant owner and sell it to Nina. They also help her get it fixed up and running and she makes the enormous leap of faith to leave home and friends and everything she has known until now to move to Scotland. Former landlord/ flat-mate/ best friend, Surinder, takes a leave of absence to join Nina for a few weeks to help her get settled. Nina quickly realizes she loves the wide open spaces and the wonderful people (most of them) and cannot imagine moving back to the crowds and crime of Birmingham.

Nina has never been particularly good at matchmaking for herself and engages in yet another dead-end attachment, this time with a refugee train engineer, who leaves books and poems for her at the railroad crossing near her village. Eventually she learns he already has a son and long-time girlfriend back home, so Nina subsequenly--and predictably-- gets involved with her rude landlord. This is the least interesting part of the book, but Nina's explorations of Scotland, her growing involvement with her tiny village community, and her finding her own life and ways to express it are really enjoyable.

Cracked Spine

This Scottish Bookshop Mystery (hopefully the first in a series) by Paige Shelton was just a delightful read if you like cozies. Not that Edinburgh really qualifies as the small town that is usually the setting for such mysteries, but the sense of community and knowing everyone else's business is here is good measure. Budget cuts have unexpectedly ended Delaney Nichols' job as an archivist at a museum in Wichita, Kansas, when she sees an ad for "a keenly intelligent investigator to assist us in our search for things thought lost" at a rare book and manuscript shop in Scotland. After an hour-long conversation with the owner, Edwin, MacAlister, who is impressed with her experience working in preservation of historical objects, she is offered the job and never looks back.
The shop, known as The Cracked Spine, is in the heart of old Edinburgh and Delaney is delighted to find "Delaney's: The World's Smallest Pub" just a few doors away. She is taken under the wing of a friendly cab driver and his wife who just happen to have a small cottage to rent. Delaney's fellow employees at the shop are 19-year old Hamlet, a college student who also acts in local theatre, and Rosie, an older woman who is constantly accompanied by her small dog, Hector. Before Delaney even has time to figure out what her job will be, the situation is shattered by the murder of Edwin's sister, Jenny, who was also holding a valuable Shakespeare folio for him. Delaney is not content to stand by while the police solve the mystery, and her inquisitiveness might just get her killed....well of course it doesn't. There is also a love interest in the owner of the aforementioned pub, Tom, who has dreamy blue eyes and looks great in a kilt.
You don't get a hint of what's happening until the very end and it was an act of will to put the book down at night. Her use of some Scottish brogue in the language of her characters is entertaining, and her love of Edinburgh and the Scottish people shine through. For those of you who share that fondness, you will find this a wonderful diversion. Shelton has written quite a few books and other series. I really hope she continues this one. Apparently, there is an element of the supernatural in her "Farmers' Market" and "Country Cooking School" series, and there is lots of room for ghosts in Scotland!

The Little Paris Bookshop

This novel by Nina George (who has written dozens of books and stories, but only this one has been translated from German by Simon Pare) is a luscious little cruise through the Rhone River valley of France aboard a book barge called the Literary Apothecary. It even comes with a swell map opposite the title page, something for which I am always grateful. There are delicious descriptions of food, countryside, people, cats, and feelings. Jean Perdu considers himself a literary therapist and prescribes books to help people sort out their emotions, and he is remarkably astute in figuring out just what people are feeling and needing at a given point in their lives. Except for himself, of course. For the last 20 years he has lived a frozen statue of a man, even since the love of his life, Manon, left him. He knew she was married to a farmer in the south of France, but was happy to have her in his life for the few weeks a year she spent in Paris. He never read the letter she left him, until a new tenant, Catherine, moved into his building and needed a table; he was happy to be rid of it, having rid himself of almost everything else in his life. But in the drawer of this table, he had stuffed the letter. And now he learns that Manon left him in order to go home and die from a cancer she had not disclosed to him. She asks him to come and see her before she dies. Of course it is 20 years too late for that.
Still, Jean, must seek forgiveness and so he unties the barge and heads south. He's not alone. There are the two resident cats, and at the last minute, his neighbor, the reclusive author, Max Jordan, jumps aboard, losing most of his belongings to the river in the process. It is a journey of discovery in many ways. Jean finally begins to deal with his grief and to realize how he has cut himself off from life. He starts paying attention again to the smells, tastes, sights, and sensations of life. When he reaches the town where Manon lived, he finds her husband has remarried, has a daughter, runs a vineyard and makes a wine named Manon. Jean still isn't ready so he leaves the barge in the hands of other fellow travelers, and drives even further south to put himself back together. Eventually he comes to allow Catherine in as a new love in his life, goes to visit Manon's grave--where she is clearly NOT there in any way, shape or form--and connects, not only with Manon's family, but reconnects with his own parents as well. Pleasant read. Good reviews available from Kirkus, the NYT Sunday Book Review, the Toronto Star, The Guardian, etc. It spent 13 weeks on the NPR bestseller list for hardcover fiction and was also on the NYT Bestseller list.

Killer Librarian

OK... how could I possibly resist a book with this title. Mary Logue, writing as Mary Lou Kirwin, author of both fiction and non-fiction works, has started a new series featuring Minnesota librarian, Karen Nash. Karen is all packed and ready to go on her dream trip of a lifetime--a trip to London with her long-time boyfriend Dave, a plumber. When Dave calls just hours before they are to leave for the airport and tells her they are through, does this intrepid woman have a meltdown? No, she books a ticket for herself and goes anyway. On the plane she discovers that Dave is also still making the trip, but with a much younger and very slender blonde. Since Karen fortuitously gets bumped to first class, they never see her on the plane, but she follows them once they all arrive in London.
On her first night, her B & B owner, Caldwell, takes her to the local Indian restaurant for a curry and follows that up with a visit to his favorite pub. Becoming a bit tipsy due to the rather strong British brew that Caldwell and his friends keep putting in front of her, she confides in the man standing next to her at the bar about the wretched way Dave has treated her and her fantasies of killing him.
Next morning, Karen discovers one of the B & B's elderly guests dead in a sitting room chair. She's not so sure it was just an accidental heart attack and everyone, including Caldwell, the dead man's younger wife, and the dotty sisters who come every year for the Chelsea flower show are suspects in Karen's mind.
Meanwhile, Karen is loving London, but also hearing that the confidante of her drunken ramblings may have connections to the criminal elements, and she is alarmed when she sees him talking to Dave's new girlfriend outside the National Gallery. What has she set in motion? This is an engaging character, a fond portrait of London, and an entertaining cosy for book lovers. I will definitely keep my eye out for the next book, Death Overdue.

The Red Notebook

Antoine Laurain is the author of five novels which have been translated into numerous languages. This one is translated from the French by Emily Boyce and Jane Aitken.  Former financier turned bookstore owner, Laurent Letellier, finds an elegant woman's handbag lying on top of a street dumpster. Inside are lots of intriguing personal items but all identification is missing. Although the obvious path would be to simply turn it over to the police--which he does initially try to do--he undertakes to find the owner of the handbag using the bag's contents as clues. Eventually he tracks her down, Laure Valadier, only to find that she has been hospitalized in a coma for several days, having been the victim of a mugging. He pretends to be her boyfriend when questioned by the man looking after her cat, and even volunteers to feed the cat himself while Laure's friend is out of town. Thus does Laurent come to be acquainted with a woman who he has never met. He realizes, of course, that his behavior is somewhat bizarre and eventually he leaves the handbag, along with her dry cleaning that he picked up in the course of his search, and a note, but no contact information. Once home, Laure, learns what she can about her mysterious benefactor and seeks to find him, with no success. Laurent's 15-year-old daughter, Chloe, takes it upon herself to find Laure and give her the option of meeting Laurent. The pursuit of Laure feels a little bit obsessive at times, but ultimately Laurent is a good and decent man who has gone a little overboard in doing a good deed. It's a happy ending. I really liked this review from The Telegraph.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Update 1/30/2016: I re-read this book for my upcoming book group and was again just transported by the sheer tenderness of the story. This quote, something A.J. is trying to explain to Maya at the end of the book, just knocked me over. "Maya, we are what we love. We are that we love...We aren't the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on." I loved all the characters ( does that count?)--except maybe Ismay and Daniel Parish. Daniel Parish is a shitheel and Ismay goes around hurting other people because she is so unhappy.  But everyone else, I feel such an attachment to that I hated for the book to end. I wonder if there's a sequel? What surprised me on this second go around was what I had NOT remembered from my initial reading. A.J. is black and Maya is half black. In some ways this seems insignificant, but in some ways, as I re-read it, the town's behavior toward A.J. feels a bit changed by this new awareness on my part. I really must read some other books by this author.

This New York Times bestseller by Gabrielle Zevin is such a charming little novel that I would recommend it unreservedly. A.J.'s beloved wife Nicole has died in an automobile accident; he is slowly withdrawing from the world and drinking himself into a stupor at least once a week so that he can dream about her. The bookstore that he and Nic owned on Alice Island carries mostly literary fiction and caters largely to the summer crowds of tourists that come to vacation there. A.J. owns a rare collector's item--a copy of Tamerlane by Edgar Allen Poe that he found at an estate sale--which is valued at about half a million dollars. When he wakes from one of his drunken evenings, he finds the book gone. He had counted on selling the book to buy his way out if he could no longer bear to run the bookstore and now he feels trapped in this place full of painful memories. One day A.J. returns to the bookstore and discovers that someone has left a toddler in the children's section with a note asking him to care for her. Her name is Maya. Several days later, Maya's mother washes up on the shore--an apparent suicide. For some reason, although he has not the money or the temperament, A.J. cannot part with the little girl and becomes her adoptive father. Eventually A.J. remarries, to Amelia, the book rep from a small press. The chief of police, Lambiase, who met A.J. when delivering the news of Nicole's death, becomes his good friend and an avid reader. Initially Lambiase reads whatever A.J. recommends, just as a way to stay connected to A.J. and Maya, but ultimately because he comes to love reading. He even starts his own book group--Chief's Choice--which is hosted at the bookstore. A.J.'s sister-in-law, Ismay (Nicole's sister), also lives on the Island and works as an English teacher. She is married to a published author, Daniel Parish, who has been unfaithful since the day they wed. Ismay knows that Maya is Daniel's illegitimate daughter, but never told A.J. or Maya, AND Ismay is the one who stole Tamerlane. I won't say the relationships are as wonderfully rendered and rich as those in Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner--one of my all-time favorite books--but they are darn close. And this book is not all happiness and light, but it is touching and affirming and a most enjoyable read. There is a much better synopsis of the book on Zevin's own page. If you love books and reading as much as I do, you will fall for this book.