The Last Bookaneer

I tried once again to read Matthew Pearl (see previous blog on The Technologists), especially since this was such a great title.  Set in 1890's London, bookaneers track down as-yet-unpublished manuscripts and sell them to the highest bidder. However, increasingly  restrictive copyright laws may be bringing this somewhat shady profession to an end. The infamous Pen Davenport, accompanied by reluctant assistant Fergins, sets out for one final heist, sailing off to Samoa where Robert Louis Stevenson is reportedly working on his final book. I love the premise but just felt bogged down in the writing with no characters that really grabbed my interest. Abort.

House of the Rising Sun

This is the 4th in James Lee Burke's Holland family series that feature Hackberry Holland. We meet up with Hack when he has been desperately trying to find his estranged son, Ishmael, in the middle of the Mexican Revolution in 1916. He has done things he would rather not think about and is now lost in the desert, bootless, weaponless, and on the run using a horse stolen from Pancho Villa's army, when he stumbles upon a bordello with a hearse sitting out front. He is captured by the Mexican soldiers who have taken the house and killed several of Ishmael's cavalry company of black soldiers.  Hack escapes and blows up the weapons that were hidden in the hearse after rescuing a gold-embellished onyx goblet, rumored to be the Grail. The madame, Beatrice DeMolay, has a profound impact on him and will enter the picture again as the story goes on.  He does not find Ishmael, but keeps searching and writing him letters.
Two years later, in 1918, we join Ishmael at the Battle of the Marne and get vivid descriptions of the insanity that is war. He is grievously wounded and sent back to the U.S. In the meantime, we get some background on Hack's meeting of Ishmael's mother, Ruby Dansen, their separation and Hack's thwarted attempts to reconcile with her and reunite the family. His efforts fail largely as the result of his on-again, off-again wife's (Maggie Bassett) destruction of vital communications between Ruby and Hack. Ruby and Ishmael are left thinking that Hack promised to come get them and then never showed.  Ishmael thinks his father, "Big Bud," abandoned them.
Beatrice, Ruby and Maggie will wind in and out of Hack's life as he tries to find his way forward to seeing his son again. Another major player in this drama is the Austrian arms dealer, Arnold Beckman. Both the hearse full of destroyed weapons and the cup were Beckman's, and he is determined to get it back at any cost. Beckman aligns himself with Maggie and kidnaps Ishmael from a military hospital to hold hostage in order to get the Grail back. Beckman is the embodiment of amoral evil, but Hack also has a demonic destructive force inside him that either drives him to drink self-destructively or lay waste to those he believes do wrong.
Although, the ending is satisfying, the level of darkness in the book was often times nearly overwhelming, leaving me wondering if any good could come out of the guilt and self-loathing that Hack evidences. Burke is of course an outstanding writer--his prose is second to none. But this is not an upper of a read, even at the very end. 

Sweet Tea Revenge

Not hard to guess from the title that this is from Laura Childs' "Tea Shop Mystery" series (#14 to be precise). These are engaging reads for several reasons: they are well written with interesting characters; I love the setting descriptions of Charleston, SC; plots and story trajectory are somewhat predictable but nevertheless sufficiently challenging; they are full of luscious descriptions of teas and food; the recipes for the teas and food follow the text plus a lot of other interesting tea resources.
Delaine Dish, owner of the Cotton Duck boutique and friend of Theo"s, is finally getting married--to a very wealthy man-- and Theodosia is to be the maid of honor. But then the groom turns up dead and Delaine pleads with Theo to find out who killed her future husband.  It could be the long-estranged step-son who has suddenly re-insinuated himself into his step-father's life and law practice, or perhaps the vicious ex-girlfriend, or maybe even Dougan's law partner. In her inimitable fashion, Theo manages to investigate all the leads, help the police, and still keep the Indigo tea shop perking along with help from baker extraordinaire, Haley and tea-master, Drayton.

Fire Touched

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is reading the "Mercy Thompson" series from Patricia Briggs, and this is the 9th and most recent (2016) installment. I have blogged about the previous eight if you want to know who characters are.
The Columbia Basin pack is called out to help when a monstrous troll begins taking apart one of the bridges across the Columbia River near the Tri-Cities and smashing up cars and their passengers. Newest pack member, Joel, a fiery Tibicena, joins the werewolves in finally containing the monster. This seems certain to be a challenge from the exiled Fae, and Mercy brazenly responds , making the pack a highly visible--and vulnerable-- target. This focuses  previous mutterings of dissatisfaction within the pack against Mercy and brings Adam's leadership into question. When Zee and Tad mysteriously reappear a day later after several weeks' unexplained absence, with an apparently young boy in tow, the tension really ramps up, for the boy, Aiden, who has been kept as a prisoner/ playmate in a fae nether world for decades, has come to the pack seeking sanctuary from the Grey Lords of the Fae. As always, there is non-stop action, cohesive and well-developed characters, and a well-thought-out alternative world presented here. There is also a bit of humor in a pissing match between the juvenile appearing asylum seeker and Adam's daughter, Jesse.

The Billion Dollar Spy

Former Pulitzer Prize winner, David E. Hoffman, here undertakes to reveal the challenges and inner workings of the CIA in the Russian theatre during the Cold War. One of the their major successes, after numerous failed attempts to recruit and run spies, was Adolf Tolkachev, a Russian engineer, who, over more than a decade, brought out thousands of pages of research and development work being done by the Russians, saving the U. S. literally billions of dollars. Knowing from the outset that Tolkachev was eventually betrayed by a disgruntled CIA trainee does nothing to diminish the suspense of this historical narrative based on de-classified CIA materials. We are offered insights not only into the mind of Tolkachev, but also of several key players in Moscow station (CIA facilities housed in the U.S. Embassy) and in Washington, DC. The CIA operatives' worst enemy was ostensibly the ever-vigilant KGB, but sometimes was their own leadership. Fascinating reading for those interested in this era. Even though I missed the meeting because I was in Maine, I read this because it was the most recent selection of my other book group.There is a lengthy and favorable review of this book in the NYTimes.

Tea Shop Mysteries

When I am in the mood for light reading, I often look for another book in Laura Child's Tea Shop Mysteries, which are set in Charleston, SC. Not only do I enjoy the mysteries themselves, but I love the descriptions of the architecture in Charleston, the atmospheric descriptions of the South, the characters, the elaborate descriptions of teas, and the recipes that are included at the end. For my recent trip to Maine, I downloaded Devonshire Scream and Shades of Earl Grey.
In Devonshire Scream (17th in the series, which includes, of course, a recipe for Devonshire cream), a trunk show of high-end estate jewelry is brutally interrupted when a large truck smashes through the front of the store, Heart's Desire, and several masked individuals jump out and smash the glass cases, taking everything in sight. In the process, the niece of the store owner is impaled by a piece of glass and dies. Theodosia agrees to help shop owner and good friend Brooke Crockett find the people who destroyed her business and killed her niece. The FBI is brought in because the thieves are suspected of several  robberies in other states, and Detective Tidwell is on the case locally. But Theodosia has resources none of them have with her inquisitive mind, deep knowledge of Charleston and its people, and her intrepid tea master and fellow sleuth, Drayton. Theodosia's plan to lay a trap at the upcoming Heritage Society event, which will feature a real Faberge egg, almost backfires when tea shop chef Haley is kidnapped, but all comes right in the end.

Theodosia's adopted rescue dog is named Earl Grey, and he is her companion and running partner. Theo and Earl Grey jog around Charleston at night, where she is sure to find possible suspects for the crimes in which she becomes embroiled. This time around, in the 3rd installment of the Tea Shop Mysteries, Shades of Earl Grey, what initially appears to be an accidental death of the groom at an engagement party for Theo's friend Delaine's niece, quickly becomes something more sinister--at least in Theodosia's mind--when the pricey family heirloom engagement ring goes missing. Then a sapphire necklace is stolen from the Heritage Society and Theodosia is hot on the trail of the thief/ murderer.

The Technologists

Fourth historical novel by Matthew Pearl  (all his previous books have been NYT bestsellers) is set in 1868 Boston, the year that the first group of students will graduate from fledgling institute that will become MIT. Many people want to see MIT fail, not least of all the students and faculty of Harvard who view them as upstart imposters, and the trade unionists who fear that the science and technology studied there will cost workers their jobs. Marcus Mansfield, a poor working class student admitted on scholarship, two of his fellow classmates from significantly wealthier family backgrounds, and the sole woman student--who must be educated separate from the men--Ellen Swallow (an actual historic personage), team up when a series of mysterious catastrophes beset Boston shipping and commerce, and appear to be the work of those who will misuse science to their own evil ends. Working in secret, against the specific resolution of the MIT faculty, but with the secret encouragement of MIT's president, it is a race against time before the next disaster strikes. Several reviews from the major library media are here, an old interview with him from The Guardian is here, and a review from the NY Sunday Times is here (not very favorable).

Ready Player One

If you are a fan of video games or the 80's culture in ANY form, this book will have great appeal. Written by Ernest Cline, this inaugural effort is set in a not-too-distant dystopic future, starting in the outskirts of Oklahoma City--of all places; that's where I grew up. Massive numbers of people are poor, jobless, prospect-less, and living in "stacks" which are these huge metal grid structures with every manner of RV and trailer slotted into often 20+ story high-rises. Many people escape the ugly reality by spending time in The Oasis, an elaborate online virtual world freely available to anyone with internet access. Seventeen-year old Wade Watts also attends school there, and when he is not in "school" he is playing games, hanging out in best friend Aech's chat room, or monitoring the blog of his fantasy girl, Artemis. But the creator of the Oasis has died and left his fortune to whoever can solve a series of puzzles which involve finding keys and then opening gates. Knowledge and skill are required and Wade is one among millions who intend to get to the prize first. A mega-corporation that wants to commercialize The Oasis has also hired hundreds of people to try and solve the puzzle and they have enormous advantages, both technology and money wise. Years have passed without anyone finding the first key, and then Wade does. The lengths to which the corporation will go to win include murdering the leading competitors, and as Wade (aka Parzival), Aech and Artemis learn, they may have to abandon their lone wolf approaches to survive. Read this book for my SF-Fantasy book group and thoroughly enjoyed it. The good guys (and gals) win in the end. There are more detailed plot descriptions in  reviews from the New York Times and Booklist and Powell's.

City of Thieves

This novel by David Benioff (co-creator of HBO's Game of Thrones series) commences with a conversation between author and grandfather as Benioff beseeches his grandfather for recollections of living through the Nazi siege of Leningrad. There seems to be some debate about whether his grandfather was actually there (see review from NYT). Following that prologue, however, we jump into the life of 17 year-old Lev Beniov, who is yet too young to join the army but helps man a fire brigade from the roof of his old apartment building. One night, he and his pals see a parachute coming down and when it lands in the street, they find a dead German pilot, whose corpse they promptly strip for weapons and clothes. Keep in mind that, at this point, they are lucky to get one piece of paper-filled bread or an eighth of an onion to eat on any given day. But when the cops show up, Lev nobly helps a fallen friend, a girl he secretly longs for, to escape and is caught in the process. Awaiting execution overnight, he is joined in his cell by his exact opposite. Whereas Lev is dark and slight and inexperienced with women, Kolya is a descendant of Cossacks with blonde-haired, blue-eyed good looks and charm that women of all ages find irresistible. Kolya swears he did not desert his unit but just missed his ride; nevertheless, they will both be hanged or shot. But fate intervenes and they are taken before a secret police general who wants them to find a dozen eggs for his daughter's upcoming wedding cake. If they succeed--against all odds--they get their lives back. They start by following every rumor and searching all the black market sources in the city and nearly get killed by cannibals. Eventually they go behind enemy lines into the countryside seeking chickens. What they find instead are girls held hostage for pleasuring Nazi officers and a band of partisan fighters. They are captured, but then Kolya hatches a plan to get the eggs from their captors by wagering Lev's chess playing skills against those of the 

Sturmbannführer. Benioff provides well-researched and compelling descriptions of the hardships and violence faced by the Russian common folk during the siege. An additional review from Kirkus.

One True Sentence

Not surprising, given the title, the book is about writers--famous ones for the most part--but a very fictionalized account upon which to build a mystery. The setting is 1920's Paris, when aspiring writers and artists of all sorts flooded to the post-war City of Light to live cheaply and find inspiration. Hector Lassiter, best friend of Ernest Hemmingway and writer of pulp short stories that are readily published and consumed in American magazines. Ernest is there with wife Hadley and new baby, Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, Sylvia Beach and more all play character roles as the plot evolves around a series of murders. The victims are all editors of small, struggling literary magazines of which there are several. Hector is being pursued by Molly, a young poet from Elgin, Illinoise, even though she has a boyfriend, struggling painter, Philippe. Besides, she seems a little too wholesome and innocent for Hector's tastes. Enter Brinke Devlin, a sexy black-haired beauty with a reputation for being the "professional muse" around town; Sylvia reveals to Hector that she is secretly a mystery writer who works under a man's pseudonym. Add in a 3rd English cozy writer and Gertrude decides they must undertake to find the killer or killers, since she has no faith in the police. As part of the storyline, we learn about a group of people who have embraced nothing as their icon--not dada-ists, but nada-ists, and it quickly becomes apparent that they are involved in the murders. But all is not as it seems. Although Hector and Devlin fall in lust and then love, he begins to wonder about her role; is she really helping him investigate or leading him a merry chase in the wrong direction. This is not one you will figure out ahead of time as it provides lots of twists and turns.There is a lot of explicit sex, cold December weather, and literary allusions. Good but not stellar, although they may get better as this is the first in a series of 10 books featuring Hector Lassiter, and Craig McDonnald's Head Games, was nominated for the Edgar and the Anthony awards. Kirkus review here.