Posted March 18, 2016
Elizabeth Enright: Gone-Away Lake
Portia (11) and Foster (6) are spending the summer holidays with their cousin Julian again, but this year
is different. Julian and his family have moved, and as he and Portia explore the woods near his new
home, they discover a large swamp and a number of fancy “summer homes” on its edge – old,
abandoned, and mostly fallen into disrepair. When they discover that someone still lives at Gone-Away
Lake, it’s the start of a summer full of secrets and adventures.
To my mind, Gone-Away Lake is a true children’s classic, one that’s aged well. I loved this book (and its
sequel, Return to Gone-Away) when I was in grade school, and it was just as enjoyable when I reread it
a few weeks ago. I love Julian’s and Portia’s enthusiasms and interests, and Pindar and Min’s warmth
and storytelling abilities. And who doesn’t dream of discovering long-lost treasures? Overall, it’s a lovely
story full of the joys of summers gone by, and I would recommend it as a beautiful way to spend a few
escapist hours being a kid again
Posted March 11, 2016
Steve Thayer: Silent snow
It’s a stormy winter night in Minnesota, and Rick Beanblossom’s infant son has vanished into the thick of
it. Baby Dylan has been kidnapped, and every aspect of his kidnapping is an echo of an earlier crime: the
kidnapping of the Lindberg baby. Rick calls on all his sources and his allies as a reporter to find his son,
but it seems that to do so, he will also have to solve some of the mysteries surrounding that first
kidnapping.
Thayer’s writing style is intriguing – there are moments of poetry in the short and occasionally
telegraphic sentences that push the reader onward. Some of his images are eerily vivid, and certain
descriptions are used repeatedly to great effect. Even more gripping than Thayer’s style is his plotting –
the events come thick and fast, and they are breathtaking, almost epic. My only quibble was that some
of the flashback to the events surrounding the earlier crime seemed to drag a bit. Well, that, and Thayer
has a penchant for including somewhat twisted sex scenes (only one in this book, though) in his work, so
be warned. But this is well worth the reading, and in my case, the re-reading, several years down the
line – I happily traded a few hours for the opportunity to hop aboard this thrill ride again.
Posted March 4, 2016
Camilla Lackbird: The gallows bird
A small Swedish town is about to host a reality TV show. The locals are not necessarily appreciative,
especially the police force, who will have to deal with the resultant public drunkenness and disorderly
conduct. When one of the contestants is murdered, public pressure nudges Detective Patrick Hedstrom
and his colleagues to focus all their efforts there, all but forgetting about an apparent drunk-driving
fatality with just a few anomalies...
This is the first mystery I've read by Lackberg, and it was quite impressive. She juggles multiple
characters, managing to make most of them quite real and nuanced, and brings several storylines into
play, each at the appropriate moment. Although I had my suspicions about a few characters and
motivations, the ending was still surprising. Definitely recommended; in fact, I've already requested the
first in this series.
Posted February 26, 2016
Val McDermid: A place of execution
A young teen vanishes from her isolated village. A detective inspector determines he will not give up
until she is found safe or her abductor/murderer is brought to justice. But Inspector George Bennet is an
outsider in Scardale, and Scardale is insular in the extreme. With or without Scardale’s help, Bennet
pursues a killer to the furthest extent of the law, but Truth turns out to be both an elusive and ugly
character in this human drama.
Wow. Can I just say – wow. I read this more or less in a sitting, and it was more than worth it. The first
part of the book is the manuscript of a (fictitious) true-crime book about Alison Carter’s murder in 1963,
and it provides suspense and plot twists in spades. McDermid excels again in creating both believable
characters and a high-tension story. Then the manuscript ends (on a very satisfactory note, I might add),
and we’re brought to present day. Thing is, there are too many pages for this to be the end of the story
– and it most definitely is not. Val McDermid has written a number of excellent books; A place of
execution easily fits into that company.
Posted February 11, 2016
Louise Penny: The Beautiful Mystery
Nobody from the outside has ever entered the wilderness monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.
Their solitude is held against all comers, even against the many devotees of the heavenly Gregorian
chant they released on a single recording a few years ago. But now Inspector Gamache and his trusted
lieutenant, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, are coming, and they will be allowed in, the door unlocked by murder.
The monk who directed the choir in the chant recording is dead, and his dying words and the scrap of
paper he holds provide no clue to who could have done this – or do they?
This was an amazing book. The description of the music makes me long for the recording to exist in my
world, and I cared about who had committed the murder, and about the future of the monastery. The
description of Jean-Guy’s turmoil as the investigation progressed was brilliantly evocative – so much so
that I had to put the book away entirely for a while; it was too real for me to tolerate. In the end, I gave
myself permission to skip a few pages here and there so I could finish the book at all, and it was well
worth it. Highly recommended, but very intense, so be warned.
Posted February 4, 2016
Charlene Harris: Day Shift
Midnight, Texas, is little more than a collection of houses and random businesses in the backwoods of
the state. Manfred Bernardo hasn’t lived there long, but he already knows there’s a lot of strangeness
for such a tiny village. He may be the most normal of the residents, and he’s a genuine psychic. It’s in
the course of his business as a psychic that he sets up personal readings at a high-end hotel in Dallas,
where he sees Olivia, a fellow Midnighter. The couple that Manfred sees having dinner with Olivia is
killed in an apparent murder-suicide, and that’s bad enough – notoriety, even by association, is bad for a
psychic’s business. But then Manfred’s client dies in the middle of a séance to contact the ghost of her
husband, and her son accuses Manfred of having stolen her jewelry. It’s bringing too much attention to
Midnight at a time when the residents can least afford it, and they all need to step in to sort out the
mess.
I quite enjoy Midnight and its cast of paranormal and otherwise secret-heavy characters; I met them in
the first book of the trilogy, called Midnight Crossroad. Day Shift is the second of the series. It’s an
excellent successor, focusing more on different characters than the first, revealing their history. The
author also introduces a link between this series and her very popular Sookie Stackhouse series, so now
I’m curious to see if that would explain more about why Barry is so afraid of Texas. Day Shift also leaves
a few questions unanswered (both about significant characters and about the essential nature of
Midnight), and I get the feeling that Charlene Harris is setting things up for the grand finale in the third
book in the trilogy. I’m looking forward to it.
Posted January 28, 2016
Mercedes Lackey: The fairy godmother
I'm partial to fairy tale retellings, and Mercedes Lackey's series, The Five Hundred Kingdoms, is all about
the fairy tales; about kingdoms where Tradition is an active magical force that pushes people into
following fairy tale archetypes when their situations indicate it. Elena is one such person - she would be
a perfect Cinderella, except that the only available prince is just half her age. Since there’s no prince, she
is doomed to life as the pre-ball Cinderella until she is rescued by the fairy godmother of the kingdom.
Elena becomes a fairy godmother herself, discovering how Tradition can bless or doom a person, and
how a fairy godmother can use and subvert it to save an individual or a kingdom.
Lackey's basic idea is quite intriguing, and she makes good use of various tales to support her main
story. She does her own subverting of fairy tales to come up with an ending for Elena that is happy
without being, well, Traditional. It was enjoyable, and I expect I'll be reading others in the series.
Posted January 19, 2016
Jane K Cleland: Antiques to die for
It’s been a rough couple of years, but Josie Prescott is finally feeling settled: in her new home, in her
new business, and in her new friendships and relationships. But a sudden death that turns out to be
murder destroys that feeling and brings back unpleasant memories of previous run-ins with murder and
with the police. Josie is in the middle of the whole mess, like it or not, as she tries to help out the
victim’s younger sister by locating a valuable antique, and as she follows clues of her own.
I enjoyed Antiques to die for as a nice cozy mystery; the setting is interesting, with just enough
information about antiques to add flavor without degenerating into a lecture. There are a number of
intriguing characters, and I thought the depiction of the grieving younger sister was well-done. I found
Josie’s insecurities and issues about talking to the police to be somewhat annoying, although possibly
realistic; ditto her solo sleuthing. Her repeated mental references to what her parents, particularly her
father, had told her at various times made me think that Josie might benefit from some therapy to learn
to think for herself more. That said, I still enjoyed the story once it picked up a bit, and I’d be interested
in knowing how Josie changes and how her relationship plays out in the future.
Posted January 7, 2016
Marie Kondo: The life-changing magic of tidying up.
KonMari is a Japanese method of tidying up that the creator, Marie Kondo, says will revolutionize your
life. The basic idea is that you do one marathon cleaning of a single category of your stuff at a time,
discarding everything that does not spark joy within you. The remaining items can then be organized
back into the space you have. Work through the five categories she lists, and your home (and your life)
will be tidy, full only of objects that you love and will care for.
The KonMari method sounds crazy, and goes against every bit of advice given by other home-cleaning
gurus, who say that marathon cleaning just burns you out. But Kondo's method, while rigorous, does
seem to work - Kondo has a lengthy waiting list for her services, and an equally-lengthy list of clients
who maintain their tidiness six months or a year after applying the KonMari method to their homes.
Kondo’s prose is quiet and low-key, but has some interesting insights into the character that created the
method. Now, I am not the world's tidiest person, and I'm always looking for something to help me
organize. I have not yet done a wholesale tidying of... well... anything in my home. However, reading The
life-changing magic of tidying up did help me seriously prune back a few collections of things I was no
longer using, and no longer really cared about, and I have applied some of her methods of folding to
better organize my clothing. Even if you're not prepared to apply such drastic measures, there are still
some valuable take-away lessons that may benefit both your home and your peace of mind.
Posted December 31, 2015
E. Lockhart: We were Liars
In the summer they were eight, the four of them coalesced into The Liars: Cadence, Mirren, Gat, and
Johnny. They spent summers on the family’s island with Grandfather and their mothers, the three
Sinclair sisters. Something happened the summer they were fifteen, something that put Cady in the
hospital and gave her recurring migraines, and now she’s eighteen and she doesn’t remember what
happened, and everything on the island has changed – not for the better.
We were liars grabbed my attention from the beginning: Cady has a unique voice, and she shows us
both the façade of a privileged life and the cracks that run underneath it. I read this in a sitting, hooked
by the possibly-doomed romance and then needing to discover the same thing that Cady did – what
happened in Year 15? I was almost late for work as a result, not just because I couldn’t stop reading, but
because the ending stunned me. We were liars has its flaws – it gets really dark in places, for one – and
it appears to be polarizing in a love-it-or-hate-it way, but the characters and storyline stayed with me
well after I closed the book. You should at least give it a try.
Paula Hawkins: The Girl on the Train
Rachel finds that the train ride is more to her liking when she looks into the yards and houses that back
onto the train tracks, and when she drinks. She is particularly drawn to one house, not just because she
has had many glimpses of the couple who lives there, but because she used to live on that road, in a
very similar house. When she discovers that Megan, the woman she has been watching, has
disappeared, Rachel feels she has to help find her, in any way she can. This brings her back into her old
neighborhood and into the orbit of Anna, her ex-husband’s new wife.
The story is told from the perspectives of Rachel, Megan, and Anna. At first, their narratives seem to
mostly fit together, but as details emerge and each woman tells her story, you begin to wonder if
anyone is telling the complete truth… or if anyone is even in possession of the truth. And with the
circumstances around Megan’s disappearance revealing themselves to be increasingly darker, the
danger and the tension rises. The girl on the train is a taut, high-stakes psychological thriller, and it’s
easy to see why it held a place on the bestseller lists for so long. This one is a must-read.
Posted December 15, 2015
Sophie Hannah: Kind of Cruel
Since the death of her best friend, Amber Hewerdine has suffered from insomnia, and she is getting
desperate – desperate enough to try hypnotherapy. Under hypnosis, she says the words “Kind. Cruel.
Kind of Cruel.” She doesn’t know what they mean, doesn’t know where they come from, but they will
shortly bring her to the attention of the police. These five words are the only open lead in a baffling
murder case, and Amber’s use of them brings her under suspicion. While Amber tries desperately to find
out where she’d seen or heard the words, the police investigation takes its own twists and turns that
sometimes parallel, sometimes contradict Amber’s findings.
If you like complicated, Kind of Cruel may well be for you. There are several threads to follow – the open
murder case, the strange disappearance of family a few years prior, the death of Amber’s friend – and
several perspectives, as we follow Amber, a number of the individual investigators, and a first-person
narrative that weaves through much of the book. I had previously read two other books by Sophie
Hannah (Lasting Damage and A room swept white) which were intriguingly plotted, but now that I’ve
read Kind of Cruel, I can’t believe I missed the interaction and character development of the
investigative team. At the time, I must have skimmed that a bit, wanting to get back to the mystery, but
this one has persuaded me that I missed some good stuff there, and I have embarked on reading the
series from the beginning. Well-plotted, twisty, and full of interesting characters, Kind of Cruel shows
Sophie Hannah at the peak of her game.
Posted December 10, 2015
Lucinda Holdforth: Why Manners Matter: a case for civilized behavior in a barbarous world
Manners are supposed to be outdated, a stuffy relic of a repressed and oppressive history. Lucinda
Holdforth, an Australian speechwriter argues that, in fact, manners are necessary in today’s world. Far
from being a rigid list of which fork to use when and how to address an earl’s younger unmarried sister,
manners enable us to live with other humans in a peaceable and enjoyable way. Manners, she says, give
us dignity, improve communication, unlock our humanity, and make life beautiful.
Holdforth writes well and persuasively about the usefulness and need for manners. (Full disclosure – I
already believe this, so I may have been easily persuaded.) She knows her way around a sentence and an
argument, and she has some interesting insights into how manners, morals, and law interact. I
particularly liked her proposed 8-point template for modern manners:
1. Keep to the left (or right, depending on jurisdiction).
2. Keep your word, especially about time.
3. Wait your turn.
4. Look after the weak.
5. Obey the laws and regulations, unless you are mounting a campaign of civil disobedience.
6. Watch what you are doing; multi-tasking is the enemy of manners.
7. Show appreciation for the kind gestures of others.
8. Most of the time, shut up.
Why manners matter is certainly worth looking into, whether or not you believe the main premise. You
may be pleasantly surprised.
Posted November 30, 2015
John Verdon: Let the Devil Sleep
Dave Guerney is trying to recover from being shot, and he is failing. He's in pain, depressed, hostile, and
over-reacting. An old acquaintance asks him to act as a consultant for her daughter Kim, who is doing a
story on "the Orphans of Murder" --life for the family of murder victims. Dave reluctantly agrees to a
single day's consulting for Kim, which leads to another and another as he gets entangled in both Kim's
project and the situation with Kim's former boyfriend/current stalker. The more he looks at the case, the
more he believes the official story is wrong, and the more certain he is that someone wants to be very
sure that the official story is never questioned... no matter who else dies, especially Dave.
Verdon is in great form in Let the Devil Sleep. Dave is thoroughly believable as an ex-cop trying to find
out who can be trusted, and if he can trust himself, and the final confrontation has an explosive ending.
My only quibble is that I came to the same conclusion Dave came to, but a good hundred pages before
he or anyone else did. I'll grant you that I read a lot of mysteries, but I would have thought that if you
were to reject the possibility that victim selection was random (or based on a single factor), you
wouldn't then just go around saying "coincidence" a lot. (Not exactly the case here, but I don't want to
give anything away.) Still, Let the devil sleep gets a strong recommendation from me.
Posted November 24, 2015
Vanetta Chapman: Murder tightly knit
An Amish man lies dead on the Pumpkinvine Trail, a cell phone beside him, a crossbow arrow through
his heart. The last call made on the incongruous cell phone is to the Cat’s Meow, the knitting shop at the
Middlebury Amish Artisan Village, and this draws in Amber Bowman, the Village’s manager. It doesn’t
take long until Hannah, who is a friend of Mary (manager at the Cat’s Meow) and manages the coffee
shop in the village, is also involved in trying to make sense of the strange happenings in the Artisan
village and in the Amish and English community.
Murder tightly knit is a nice little cozy mystery, with some suspense and a little shot of adrenaline
thrown in for good measure. It’s also Christian fiction. This usually gives me pause, since I’m a touch
oversensitive to preachiness (writing fiction for the primary reason of sending a message is almost
always a Bad Idea. A worthwhile message can’t redeem tortured writing, and it will be tortured if your
message gets more care and consideration than the story that’s supposed to convey it.), but I was
pleasantly surprised. Faith is a significant part of the story, but it’s low-key and rises naturally from the
ebb and flow of the plot. I thought also that the Amish as a people and a faith were treated respectfully
and (as far as I could tell) accurately. On the whole, a well-written mystery, with the side bonus of
having a knitting connection.*
*For those of you keeping track, yes, I am seeking out books with knitting tie-ins – no pun intended.
They’re for a different book-reviewing venture I’m involved in, but there’s no reason why you can’t hear
about them as well..
Posted November 14, 2015
Robert Galbraith: Career of Evil
I’d hope that most people don’t know of anyone who would send them a woman’s severed leg.
Unfortunately, Cormoran Strike can think of four different men who could be responsible for having
done exactly that, and the fact someone has in fact done so and that the package was addressed to his
secretary Robin and not him makes it even more imperative that someone figures this one out quickly.
Unfortunately, the police are concentrating on the one man Cormoran thinks is the least likely suspect,
so he and Robin are forced to investigate before things turn very bad indeed.
Career of evil is the third Cormoran Strike novel, and it is just as amazing as the other two, if not more
so. (I know, I didn’t review the Silkworm, which is the next in the series. I’m not going to try, as it’s
difficult to describe, but it was very good.) Not only is the plot suspenseful and well-paced, and the
characters vivid, but there’s a lot we learn about both Cormoran and Robin, both about their respective
pasts and about some of what drives them and holds them back today. Their relationship is intriguing
and hard to characterize; Galbraith is a master of understatement and inference when it comes to
showing us just exactly what is going on. A brilliant book – I look forward to seeing what comes next.
Posted November 4, 2015
Liza Marklund: Vanished
A young woman is on the run in Stockholm after a brutal double murder. She contacts journalist Annika
Bengtzon with her story, and Annika sends her to a woman named Rebecka. Rebecka has also recently
contacted the journalist, and she runs a foundation that helps threatened people disappear. Annika
follows up on both these stories, and what she discovers is far removed from the story each woman first
told her; the facts point in a different and deadly direction.
Vanished was a good story, albeit bleak, and I have to say that the resolution of the primary plot thread
(woman on the run) was thoroughly unexpected and beautifully set up. However, I thought the
resolution of Annika's personal problems was too easy, and unless Marklund was setting her up for
more difficulty in the next book instead of giving her a karmic reward, it wasn't at all satisfactory. I don't
regret reading this book, but I don't think I'll be seeking out another Marklund when there are so many
other authors out there that are more to my taste.
Posted October 28, 2015
Jonathan Kellerman: The murderer’s daughter
Dr. Grace Blades has a reputation for being the therapist who can treat the untreatable, the haunted,
the deeply damaged. She’s unconventional and dedicated, and she has her own private ways of dealing
with the scars of a difficult past. When her newest patient turns out to have a connection to her escapist
life, it shakes her up a bit. When a further connection to her past comes to light, Grace is suddenly
fighting, first for her way of life, and then for her survival.
I’ve always enjoyed Jonathan Kellerman’s psychological thrillers. This one has a glancing connection to
his Alex Delaware series (which I thoroughly enjoy, by the way, and also recommend) but The
murderer’s daughter stands on its own. Grace is an intriguing, complex character, and the story of her
current dilemma is intercut with the long road it took to get her to where she is. As always, Kellerman
knows how to capture and hold my attention, and get my heart racing. Highly recommended.
Posted October 21, 2015
Sue Grafton: X
Helping a colleague’s widow find some papers for the IRS; tracing a son given up for adoption years ago;
dealing with the slightly needy new neighbors – this is Kinsey Milhone’s life, both as a private
investigator and as a private citizen. None of it seems like the stuff of high drama, but Kinsey is about to
face the fact that very few things and very few people are what they seem.
Sue Grafton returns to her alphabet series with entry number twenty-four, and it’s amazing. She juggles
three different investigations for Kinsey, giving each the attention it deserves when the time is right. The
characters are brilliant, and Kinsey is an unabashed original. As an interesting side note: when the series
began, it was set in present-day, but the interior timeline of the books doesn’t match with Grafton’s
one-book-every-two-years writing schedule. Now, in 2015, Grafton has only brought her sleuth as far as
1989. I thought A is for Alibi (published in 1982) was very good to begin with, and Grafton somehow
manages to write a better, more nuanced and polished book with each new letter.