Murderland by Caroline Fraser

 

This intensely researched book has a theory: the time in the 1970's-1980's that saw many serial killers in the Northwest states was a direct result of the smelting and release of toxins into the environment, specifically lead and arsenic.  Fraser follows the rise of the mineral extraction business from its beginning and how the industry was first centered in Pennsylvania but later moved to the Northwest, specifically the area around Tacoma, Washington.

She then gives examples of various serial killers who grew up in the area such as Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway and others.  Much of the book follows Ted Bundy from his birth to his execution in Florida years later and details the various crimes he committed in states such as Washington, Idaho, Colorado and Florida.  She also talks in detail about other killers such as Israel Keyes, Dennis Rader, Richard Ramirez and George Russell on Mercer Island.  

Fraser presents research showing the correlation between lead exposure and violence, presenting the lead levels released in various years.  She also shows a decrease in these types of crime as the smelting industry was finally brought into compliance with EPA levels that were steadily lowered.  

Carolina Fraser is an American author whose prior work, Prairie Fires, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.  This book was selected a New York Post Notable Book, Edgar Award finalist for true crime and a best book by various publications.  I was impressed by the research and the way she used the lead exposure to track alongside the stories of these violent men.  I'm not sure that I'm convinced that this was the sole reason for this spate of occurrences.  Why only these men when the exposure was felt by thousands of people?  I'm also leery of those men who didn't live there for their entire childhood such as Keyes and Rader but who grew up in various states as their families moved from location to location.  Also, there are serial killers in other locations during this time period such as the Son of Sam and they continue to the present such as the Long Island Killer.  Still, this is a work that merits reading and serious consideration.  I'm glad to have discovered Fraser and intend to read the rest of her work  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers, specifically science and true crime readers.  

Special Topics In Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

 

Blue van Meer has had an unusual upbringing.  Her mother died in an auto accident when Blue was five.  She grew up moving from town to town as her father took visiting professorships in various colleges and universities.  He made sure that Blue didn't lack for an education and indeed, she is far advanced from her peers although he has done most of her education himself.  As she nears her senior year, he promises Blue a year in one town so that she could more easily apply for her own university experience.  

They settle in a small Southern town and Blue is enrolled at St. Galloway, an exclusive school.  She is used to being the new girl and not having friends but for some reason the drama teacher, Hannah Schneider, takes Blue under her wing and invites her to her Sunday salon where the school's most popular students came.  Jade is the queen bee with Leulah her beautiful second.  Charles is the school's most desired boy and Mr. Everything, good in every sport and class president and prom king.  Nigel is slight but highly intelligent.  Milton is Blue's first real crush, a boy who seems older and a bit dangerous.

With her new friends, Blue becomes a more typical teenager.  They go to bars with fake ids, drink until they are drunk (a new experience for Blue) and the other girls pick up men for a night of fun.  The Sunday lunches are full of exciting topics and hints of mystery, most of which is supplied by the back story of Hannah, whom the students adore but want to know everything about.  When things turn dark, Blue realizes that once again she is on her own and must solve the mystery that she never knew influenced her entire life.

I adore Marisha Pessl.  She is an American author who grew up in Ashville, North Carolina, which is very similar to the setting of this novel.  She was twenty-eight when she wrote this novel so she was close enough in age to the characters to remember how high school attendees were.  Blue is the narrator of the novel and her intelligence yet naiveté is dominant.  The writing is very erudite yet the reader seldom feels lost.  The mystery bursts onto the scene late in the book with only the slightest hints that it is coming and the solution is one I never saw coming.  I can only hope Pessl has another novel in the works and highly recommend this one for literary fiction readers.   

The Turn Of The Key by Ruth Ware

 

Rowan Caine is dissatisfied with her life.  Working as an assistant in a childcare facility in London, she doesn't have a boyfriend, her roommate is going traveling for a year without her, and she doesn't have realistic hopes of advancement at her job.  So when she sees the ad looking for a nanny with a fantastic salary, she answers right away.

Her resume gets her an interview and soon Rowan is off to Heatherbrae House, in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands.  There she meets Sandra Ellencourt, an architect.  She and her husband Bill have four children, all girls.  They range in age from fourteen to a toddler.  The Ellencourts have designed their house to be an advertisement for their business.  It is full of modern age technology, with cameras in every room and automatic locks and heating and a program that oversees everything called Happy.  

Rowan is offered the job even though Sandra tells her that four nannies have left suddenly in the recent past and that she and Brian are leaving on a work conference the next week.  The oldest daughter is at boarding school and Rowan feels that she can handle an eight, six and eighteen-month old on her own.  But the girls don't warm to her except for the baby.  The two girls at home run off with their parents' permission on long explorations of the outdoors.  That upsets Rowan as there are ponds and dangers in the woods and even a poison garden, one of the few in existence and protected by the government.  

The strangeness continues inside.  Keys go missing, then reappear.  She thinks she hears someone outside her windows and she knows she hears a creak, creak, creak at night overhead as if someone were walking in an attic, an attic she is told doesn't exist.  There is a woman who comes in to cook and clean who doesn't like Rowan on sight and a caretaker who is also young and who Rowan flirts with but doesn't trust. 

The book is written as a series of letters, mostly from Rowan to a solicitor general.  A child has died under her watch and she is arrested for murder.  What really happened and what was the secret that Rowan herself was keeping?

Ruth Ware is a British author who started in the young adult genre then switched to adult mysteries in 2015.  She has released ten books since then and most have been very successful.  In this one, I felt that the ending was a bit abrupt after a lot of buildup with many tension raising events.  I did like the device of the story being told through the letters which gives the author the ability to ramble on if she feels like it and unlike a conversation could have allowed.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Departures by Julian Barnes

 

This book is a mix of memoir and novel.  Julian Barnes was approaching eighty as he wrote this and endings are on his mind.  He talks about the blood cancer he has been fighting since 2020.  He talks about the death of his beloved wife.  But he also talks about a love story he played a part in, not once but twice.

In university, he played a part in bringing together Stephen and Jean, both of whom were friends of his.  He didn't have a love interest at the time and he felt a part of their love and was quite disappointed when they broke up.  Forty years later, Stephen approached him about bringing he and Jean back together and Barnes does.  The two fall back in love but alas, the ending is the same.

Julian Barnes is one of England's best authors.  He has been nominated for the Booker Prize four times and his novel, A Sense Of An Ending, won in 2011.  I've read the majority of his books and enjoyed them all.  I am sad to see him writing what he says will be his last book.  On a lighter note, I read that he married the woman he was in a relationship with in this memoir when he had reached eighty and I was pleased that he had trusted love once again.  This book is recommended for memoir and Barnes fans.  

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

 

One of the world's most famous artists, J KAT, is dying and his most famous painting, of the sea, a pier and three figures sitting at the end of the pier, is being auctioned.  What no one knows is that the winning bid comes from the artist and he reclaims the picture he painted at fifteen.  The figures at the end of the pier are his friends, his chosen family, Joar, Ali and Ted.  Before he dies, the artist finds a young girl painting on the walls of an ally and he recognizes another talent as original as his.  He makes the decision to leave her the painting.

Ted has lived with the artist for the past few years, tending him in his illness.  He finds the girl, Louisa, and gives her the painting.  She doesn't want to take it, not believing in her own art or why anyone would like it.  But this is just like the artist at her age and Ted knows the artist has made the right decision.  

In order to convince Louisa to take the painting, he pays for them both to take the train back to his hometown where he hasn't been in twenty-five years and tells her the story of the summer the painting was created and the four friends who loved each other.  

Ted's father died when he was eight and he has never recovered from that.  Ali has a con man for a father and the family has to move whenever his cons are discovered or he borrows money he can't pay back.  Joar lives with an alcoholic father who beats him and his mother mercilessly.  The artist lives in a vacuum at home, no one in his family talking or caring about anyone else.  When they find each other, they make their own family and that summer seems like it will last forever.

Fredrik Backman's novels have been huge successes and this one is no different.  He writes about the difficulty of growing up and the need of children to have love.  If they can't get it at home, they will find friends to give it to.  Although there is death in this book, it is life-affirming and the reader will be swept into the lives of these four teenagers and how they survive in a cold world, a world that has identified them as outsiders.  The love between the four is inspiring and the recognition of Louisa as the same kind of person and the way she is brought into their world is fascinating.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

 

Leo Demidov is a war hero in the Soviet Union.  After the war, he joined the security office where he tracks down traitors for the state.  He knows that the men and women he brings in face execution or a long stay in the various gulags but he is a true believer in the state and thinks he is doing good.  He is married to Raisa who is a teacher and whose entire family was killed during the war.

But all of that won't save you if you have an enemy with influence and Leo does.  His subordinate wants Leo's job and he convinces their superior to set Raisa up as a traitor just to see if Leo will be true to the state over his personal love for her.  Leo fails the test and the two of them are demoted and sent to a small village hours away.

Before Leo left the security service, one of his jobs was to convince a family that their small son had not been murdered but had been hit by a train.  When he gets to the new town, he finds out that there have been child murders there as well, and as he investigates, he realizes that the one in Moscow was the forty-fourth victim.  All the cases have been closed with the blame being put on those the state wants to get rid of, homosexuals, those with mental issues, those suspected of various crimes.  But Leo realizes that this is the work of one man.  To even investigate is to commit treason against the state as they have closed the cases, but Leo knows if he is not caught, the murderer will continue.  Can he find the killer?

This was Tom Rob Smith's debut novel and it received many awards including a Booker nomination.  The author went on to write two more novels that featured this environment.  Readers will learn how bleak the Soviet Union was after the war and how everyone lived in fear of being arrested and accused of being a traitor.  Friends were pitted against friends, family against family.  The entire organization was corrupt with those in favor being given material goods and influence while always balancing on a thin line.  The identity of the murderer is another shock in this novel.  This book is recommended not only for mystery readers but for historical and literary fiction readers as well.

Eclipse by John Banville

 After famous actor Alexander Cleave has a nervous breakdown on stage, he returns to his childhood home to recover.  His wife is not in favor of this and she believes that he is going in order to leave her and their marriage.  Besides his wife, Alexander has a grown daughter who he and his wife have had a difficult relationship with and who is currently working overseas.

He arrives to find a house deserted for years and direly in need of cleaning.  He and his wife clean what they can before she leaves to go back to their home in London.  He gets the keys from Quirk who works for the local lawyer and has been working as the caretaker of the house, not very well from what Alexander has seen.

He settles in but does not relax.  Soon he believes that he is seeing and hearing ghosts as he believed as a boy growing up there.  Quirk brings his daughter to help with cooking and cleaning but she is a typical teenager and spends her time reading trashy magazines and rolling her eyes when Alexander asks her to do something.  When his wife returns, it is to news that is a tragedy to them both and they leave again.

John Banville has written over forty books in various series.  This one is the start of what was to be a trilogy but has this novel and Shroud.  He has won the Booker Prize and been nominated several other times for it.  Banville readers will be surprised that he names the caretaker Quirk as he has a series featuring a detective named Quirke but there is no overlap between the two characters.  The book is told in first person and the reader will slowly come to understand Alexander and his life and mind through his telling of this story.  I think it is impossible for Banville to write a bad book and I really enjoyed this one which is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

A Strange And Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

 

Velasin vin Aaro grows up in Ralia where he has to hide his real self.  He has known since he was a child that he was attracted to men rather than women and that is a scandal in his country.  He deals with it by moving away from his family, as far away as he can get to a place where he can live as he needs to.  But when Velasin is called home, it is to find that his father has created an alliance with a neighboring kingdom's influential family with a marriageable daughter.  Velasin is to go there and marry the woman.  

He is willing, he guesses but that night his lover follows him to his father's house.  The two are caught having relations by the other family's envoy.  Velasin's father is furious and disowns him but the envoy says he has a solution.  Tithenai is not judgmental and the influential family also has a son that Velasin can marry.

Velasin agrees and goes the next morning to start his journey to Tithenai.  Along the way, the caravan is attacked and Velasin's best friend is injured by an arrow.  When he arrives in Tithenai, Velasin meets Caethari Aeduria who is to be his husband.  Caethari is a soldier and interested in serving his country however he can.  The marriage happens immediately and the two husbands are left to work out a relationship.

But someone isn't happy with the marriage.  Attacks continue and Caethari's father is attacked.  Velasin's horse is killed as is a groom in another incident.  Are the attacks targeting Velasin or is the Aeduria family the target?  Can the two men discover who is behind the attacks?

Foz Meadows is an Australian author who writes in the science fiction and fantasy genre and who started in the fan fiction world.  The story is about a gay relationship that starts with the participants as strangers who then start to like and finally love each other.  There is magic involved and lots of politics and individuals hiding their true motives.  Velasin's best friend is mute which also plays a part in the story.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did an excellent job.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers and those looking for stories about gay relationships.

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

 

This novella tells the story of Robert Grainger, a man who is one of those who settle the West.  He marries but there is no work where he builds their cabin so he goes every summer further out West to work as a logger.  That money will hold him, his wife and baby daughter until the next summer.

One year when he comes home, it is to find that a fire has devastated the town and its outlying forest.  He goes to his cabin to find it in ashes and no sign of his wife and daughter.  He spends weeks looking for them, traveling to different towns in the area to see if anyone knows what happened to them but has no luck discovering them.  He has a dream that his wife died by drowning but that the baby survived and when the townspeople later talk about a 'wolf-girl' he wonders if that is his child.

Over the years, as he gets older, he has to give up logging.  He works as a carter transporting goods for various people and any other jobs he can find.  His is a bleak life but he learns to make it enough for him.

Denis Johnson is an American author who also wrote poetry.  This novella describes the rough life of the settlers in the West.  It also talks about the Chinese immigrants brought to the country to build the railroads then discriminated against once that work was done, the necessity of men being able to be a jack of all trades, the rough winters and hunger that often occurred and other features of life in that era.  It was a New York Times Notable Book as well as one of NPR's Best Novels of the year.  This book is recommended for readers of literary and historical fiction.

The Dying Hours by Mark Billingham

 

After the disastrous way his last case ended, DI Tom Thorne has been removed from the Murder Squad and reassigned to a different police station and job.  He now heads up the police on the street and goes there himself most nights.  It is a demotion and he feels it deeply.  The only thing that seems to be going well is his new relationship with Helen, who is also a police officer and her young son, Alfie.

Thorne notices that there are an unusual number of suicides among the elderly in his district and the methods chosen are unnecessarily brutal.  What is causing the rise?  Thorne suspects that these are actually clever murders but his new superiors think he is just overly suspicious due to his past assignments and his desire to be back solving murders.  Then Thorne discovers a connection between the victims no one else had noticed and using his friends of many years as resources, sets out to solve the case by himself.

This is the eleventh Tom Thorne novel.  As always, once Thorne gets the bit in his teeth, there is no reining him in.  He is obsessive about the case and willing to put his friends in danger of their jobs as he uses them to find the answers he is sure are out there.  I loved the interaction between Thorne and Alfie and hope this relationship with Helen and her son continues.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Nature Of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner

 

Sophie Whalen left Ireland to come to the United States.  She expected to live with her brother but he fell in love, married and moved to Canada.  Left in New York by herself, the best Sophie could do was work in a sweatshop and live in a ratty tenement.  Was this what she came for?  Then she saw the ad.  A man in San Francisco was looking for a wife to keep his house and raise his young daughter after he found himself a widower.  Sophie answered the ad and was shocked but pleased when she was chosen.  

After a long journey, she meets Martin Hocking and they go immediately to City Hall and marry.  She is taken to a beautiful house she never thought she could live in and met Kat who is seven.  Kat has taken her mother's death hard and doesn't speak, having retreated into herself.  Sophie quickly becomes close to her as she always wanted children and it is usually only the two of them.  Martin tells her he works in insurance and has to travel most of the time.  Sophie and Kat explore San Francisco and slowly Kat starts to emerge from her shell.  

Then the doorbell rings.  Another woman is standing there and she thinks that she is Martin's wife.  What is going on?  As the two women confer and look for paperwork, they find that Martin is a serial con man who marries multiple women.  Why?  What does he hope to gain?  Martin returns just in time for the women to confront him and then the San Francisco earthquake hits.  Sophie, Kat and the other woman escape but Martin is left behind, perhaps to live, perhaps to die.

Susan Meissner is an American author who writes in the women's fiction genre.  In this novel, I learned a lot about the San Francisco earthquake I never knew and I gained new respect for the magnitude of this natural disaster.  Everyone in the novel had secrets and these are uncovered to explain everything.  Sophie is the heroine and her love for Kat is her defining characteristic.  This book is recommended for women's and historical fiction readers.  

Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors by Ann Rule

 In this anthology, Ann Rule writes about cases where friends or neighbors were the agents of violence.  The book starts with two longer novellas.  The first is about the Susan Powell case and the evil perpetrated by her husband and father-in-law.  The second is about the case of Becky Zahua whose body was found hung while she was nude days after her boyfriend's young son fell in an accident that took his life.

Other cases are shorter and include things like a young girl who disappeared while her aunt was watching her go around the house into the back yard, another teenage girl whose mother saw her wrestling with what turned out to be her killer in their yard and other cases.

Ann Rule is known as the queen of true crime.   She was a former Seattle police officer and her 35 true crime books are all still in print, although Ann died in 2015.  She rose to fame when she wrote The Stranger Beside Me about Ted Bundy.  She and Bundy worked together on a suicide prevention line.  This is the sixteenth book in her series Crime Files and is recommended for true crime readers.  

Lost Souls Meet Under A Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura

 

The rules are simple.  A person, if they can find and contact the go-between, can request to see one person who has passed.  The go-between contacts the dead person and if they agree to see the requestor, arranges a meeting place.  The dead person can only agree to see one person also.  

In this book, we see various scenarios in which this plays out.  One is a fan who asks to see her idol who passed away.  One is a grumpy man who asks to see his mother to ask her advice about the family business.  A friend asks to see her best friend.  A man asks to see his fiancée who left on what she said was a trip with a friend from her office and never returned.  He has waited seven years to find out if she is still living and just left him or if something happened and she has passed over. 

We also learn about the go-betweens.  There is always only one, and the ability to perform this is passed down through one family.  The current go-between is a teenage boy who is about to take over for his grandmother who is having heart issues.  She lets him in on the family secret and starts to train him for his lifelong role.

Mizuki Tsujimura is a Japanese author.  She specializes in the young adult genre, both fantasy and mystery.  Mystery is her favorite genre but this fantasy book was excellent.  I didn't really expect to like it but found myself fascinated at the premise of the book and how it played out in different situations.  Readers will probably find themselves thinking about whom they would ask to see in this scenario.  The entire topic is treated with sensitivity and the book is interesting.  Young adult and fantasy readers are recommended to read this book. 

Playground by Richard Powers

 

It starts with a friendship.  Rafi is a young black boy, scarred by a family tragedy and growing up in poverty.  Todd is a white rich kid with parents who ignore him.  They meet at an exclusive academy, Todd through wealth and Rafi on a scholarship Todd's father created.  The two boys find common ground in their love of games and the fact that they are the two brightest students at the academy.  Soon they are best friends and tell each other the things they shared with no one else.

Their friendship continues into college where a third person is added to their friendship.  Ina grew up in the Polynesian islands, moving from naval base to naval base with her family.  Both young men fall in love with her but she chooses Rafi.  The friendship starts to diverge.  Ina is an artist who makes huge sculptures.  Rafi falls into literature trying to figure out the truths of the world.  Todd takes another way, becoming engrossed in the rising computer industry and the birth of the Internet.  After a huge fight in their senior year, the three fall apart.

Meanwhile, Evie who is older than the three by a generation, lives for diving and exploring the sea.  She was one of the earliest people to dive as her father created one of the first underwater breathing apparatuses.  When grown, Evie marries and has children but the ocean is always her first love and fascination.  She spends most of her time away from her family on diving trips to research the ocean, leaving the family responsibilities to her husband.

Makatea is a small island in French Polynesia.  Rai, Ina and Evie all end up there.  The island had been gutted by phosphate farming years ago and is only now recovering.  Now another American organization wants to develop Makatea and create self-contained floating cities that would be launched into the ocean.   The island inhabitants will decide if this will happen.  When Rafi discovers that Todd, who is now an Internet billionaire, is behind the plan, he leads the opposition.  What will happen?

Richard Powers is an American treasure.  His interests lie in environmentalism and in technology.  He uses this novel to bring the two together and question if technology could be the mechanism that can solve some of the environmental problems the world is facing.  He has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction and been longlisted four times for the Booker Prize.  In this book, the reader learns about the wonder of the oceans and the creatures who inhabit it while also learning about the history of the small islands in Polynesia.  The main characters are both hard to warm up to although Ina is a delight as is the Queen of the island who keeps the traditional songs and stories of the island alive.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers as well as those worried about the environment and those who love the oceans. 

The Pink Hotel by Liska Jacobs

 

Kit and Keith Collins have just gotten married.  Keith has arranged a stay at a luxury resort hotel in Los Angeles, right out of downtown.  What Keith hasn't told Kit is that it's also a job interview for him.  He manages a hotel back in their small town and he wants to move up.  He'd love to work at the Pink Hotel with its ultra-rich clientele and movie stars.

Keith takes right to the wealthy life but Kit isn't sure she will ever fit in.  Keith leaves her alone for long hours while he's working as part of the interview and she is left on her own.  She is taken up by a young wealthy girl and her group, who spend their lives shopping for couture dresses and accessories and going from party to party where they drink and do drugs.  

She and Keith both also befriend Coco who has worked at the hotel for ten years and who is the manager's mistress.  Through her Kit meets the staff and the crew doing construction for more bungalows at the hotel.  She is more comfortable with this group as they all would have been friends back home.

But other things are going on.  There are fires in the California hills and as they creep closer and closer to Los Angeles, the hotel guests are confined to the premises.  Those who are evacuated and wealthy enough come to stay and soon the hotel is bursting at the seams but understaffed as some of the employees can't get there.  The parties get more frantic and Kit and Keith's new marriage is strained to the breaking point.  

Liska Jacobs is an American author whose work often focuses on modern women and the conflicts they face in their daily lives.  Keith comes across as a taker and a man who believes he can make all the decisions in their marriage.  Kit is vulnerable, taken out of her comfortable environment and exposed to things she has never experienced.  Readers will want to continue reading to see how things all work out.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did an excellent job.  This book is recommended for both literary fiction and women's fiction readers.   

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

 Marcellus is a Pacific octopus.  After a run-in with a wolf eel, he was captured and brought to the aquarium, where he has lived out his life in an exhibit.  Marcellus, who is quite smart, feels imprisoned and at night, gets out of his cage and visits the other parts of the aquarium and the other inhabitants, some of whom he eats, whoops!

Tova is the night cleaner.  She took the job after her husband passed away and she is meticulous in cleaning.  She lost her only son when he was eighteen in a boating accident.  She is the only one who knows Marcellus' secrets and they have become friendly.  

Cameron is a thirty year old who has drifted through life.  His mother was an addict and when he was little, took him to his aunt's house for a visit and never came back for him.  He never knew who his father was.  He is quite brilliant but has drifted from job to job.  When his best friends are prospective parents, he knows he needs to grow up.  He finds a clue that he thinks will lead him to his father and picks up stakes and moves sixteen hours north to the little town where the aquarium is.  The only job he can get is also cleaner at the aquarium, filling in for Tova after she falls.  The two become friends as Tova can't resist coming to the place even while on sick leave.  Marcellus knows a secret about them but can he find a way to let them know as well?

Shelby Van Pelt is an American author who was raised in the Pacific Northwest where the book is set.  This is her debut novel and it has gained a lot of praise and interest.  I was lucky enough to hear her speak at a book signing and the amount of research she did for this book was intensive and exhaustive.  Readers will also learn interesting facts about these amazing creatures.  There are plot twists, some of which are telegraphed too obviously but overall, the writing is breezy and this book is delightful, while emphasizing the need for having someone to love in our lives.  This book is recommended for women fiction readers.  

Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner

 

The time is the 1950's, the place London.  Bloomsbury Book Shop has been in existence for one hundred years but it is on the cusp of failure these days.  It is a male-ruled domain and the men mostly stock male authors and topics and men like to read about.  There is Lord Baskin whose family owns the shop and who drops by frequently.  Herbert Dutton runs things day to day and has come up with a list of fifty-one rules that govern the shop and its employees.  Alec McDonough is a young man who is head of fiction, while Master Mariner Simon Scott rules the second floor which is history.  He interprets history as maps and books about wars and battles.  The third floor is rare books and the domain of Frank Allen who is also the man who travels to estate sales and is often away from the store.  The basement is science and its head is Ashwin Ramaswamy, a recent immigrant from India.

There are three women who are expected to be subservient.  Vivian is the assistant in fiction and hopes to be an author herself.  Grace is Mr. Dutton's secretary and she handles much of the bookstore's paperwork.  Evie is the newest member of staff, a recent Cambridge graduate who takes a job cataloging the rare books after she misses out on a job at the university.  

When Mr. Dutton has to go out on sick leave for a month, things change.  Alec becomes the acting head and soon realizes he isn't that interested in business.  Vivian has tons of ideas for fiction and starts stocking female writers and having literary luncheons which are a huge success and introduces the women to famous women authors such as Daphne du Maurier and rich influential women such as Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair the widow of George Orwell, Peggy Guggenheim and Mimi Harrison, an actress.  The women dare to dream of a bookstore that is there for everyone and that encourages and supports women authors.

But when Mr. Dutton comes back, he expects everything to return to the old way.  Disgruntled, the women employees dream of buying out Lord Baskin's shares and owning the bookstore.  But how?  Evie has part of the answer.  She took her job hoping to find a rare book that she knows Frank bought at an estate sale and that has been lost in history but now there is interest in finding it.  Can she find it before someone else?

I loved this book and didn't expect to.  It was interesting to see how a bookstore works but even more interesting to see the women develop and bloom in their various strengths.  Their support of each other and their entry into a world of women that do the same is fascinating.  There are romances but the main theme is female empowerment.  This book is recommended for women's and literary fiction readers.  

Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky

 In this second book of the series Shadows Of The Apt, there is lots of action.  The Wasps of the Empire Of Black And Gold have decided to attack the various cities of the Lowlands.  Two separate armies are formed and each picks a separate city to attack.  One city belongs to the Ants, the other to the Beetles.  Their defense strategies vary but conform to their species characteristics.  The Ants form a single-minded organized battle in which they share a mind that has everyone in constant communication while the Beetles rely more on technology and various inventions to defend themselves against the Wasps.

Another focus of the book is the treatment of those with mixed parentage.  Tynesia is Mantis on her father's side while Beetle on her mother's.  She becomes closer to her father who she discovered in the first novel and takes steps to pledge herself to the Mantis world.  Totho and Salma attempt to spy on the Wasps and both are taken captive.  Totho who has had trouble fitting in at the Beetle world, agrees to stay with the Wasps and invent weapons for them if Salma is released.  Salma, who is a dragonfly prince, organizes a roughshod group of resistance fighters, determined to harry the Wasps and find a way to get Totho back.

This is a very complex series with multiple characters and action taking place in various locations.  I can see that in the future once I finish all ten novels in the series, I may start it again just to be sure I follow all the myriad threads and characters.  The series is unique in that each character's personality and motives, their backgrounds are spelled out and Tchaikovsky manages this balancing act with acumen and strength.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.  

Wizard And Glass by Stephen King

 

In this fourth volume of the Dark Tower series, Roland, Jake, Eddie and Susannah have escaped the deadly living train.  Now they wander through a version of Kansas and will have to face this land's version of the Wizard to continue.

Along the way, Roland tells his friends the story of his youth.  When he was only fourteen, he and his two friends, Alain and Cuthbert, were sent to a small town in the outer region.  Their alleged purpose was to count various items for the ruler but in reality they are there as scouts against the man who wants to bring down the government.  While there, Roland falls in love with Susan Delgado, his first love and his deepest one.  But the small town is about to erupt and there are gunslingers coming for Roland and his friends.  

This fourth volume is definitely my favorite so far.  We get Roland's backstory, the story of his first love which shaped him and his first battle and kills.  Even as a young man, he is the leader of his friends, the one who sees the most clearly and who has the ability to make strategic plans.  There are several villains, including the head of those opposed to Roland, Alain and Cuthbert, and a witch who holds a magic crystal ball that allows her to see what is happening anywhere.  This book is recommended for fantasy and horror readers.  

The Outcast by Sadie Jones

 

Lewis has a happy childhood in a small town a little outside London.  In his earliest years, his father is still away, fighting in World War II and it's just Lewis and his unconventional, loving mother.  When his father returns, he believes that Lewis is spoiled and indulged and their relationship is strained.  Lewis and his mother go on a picnic near the river near their house when Lewis is ten but only Lewis returns.  His mother has gotten caught up on refuse in the river and drowns.

Lewis retreats into himself; his loss so great that he cannot verbalize it.  His father thinks he needs to snap out of things and gets him no help.  Within a year, the father remarries a young woman who has no idea how to be a mother figure.  Lewis becomes more remote, pulling away from his family and friends who being children have no idea how to help him either.  

The Carmichael family lives nearby and Mr. Carmichael is Lewis' father's boss.  There are two daughters.  Tasmin is the older daughter, the town beauty who lives for admiration.  Kit is the younger sister and is drawn to Lewis who is always kind to her.  The Carmichael family hides a secret; Dicky Carmichael is an abusive husband and father.  

The book begins when Lewis is returning to the town at nineteen, having spent the last two years in prison.  He began drinking in his teen years and when the pressure got too great, he acted out in a way that led to charges against him.  Now he is back and is hoping to make amends but his father's opinion of him and that of the town has been set in concrete.  Dicky Carmichael in particular despises Lewis and is quick to tell him and everyone else.  But both the Carmichael daughters are attracted to Lewis and can't leave him alone.  Tension builds but what will be the resolution?

Sadie Jones is an English author and this was her debut novel.  It is hard to believe that as I was stunned by this novel.  It demonstrates how children need love and attention and how easily they can fall off the path when those things are not in their lives.  The reader is drawn to Lewis and develops hope for him, only to see him crushed over and over, yet there is some hope at the end.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson

 

Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir arrives at work in Reykjavik to discover that her supervisor is pushing her into early retirement so he can transfer in a younger man.  She is not ready to retire but is given no choice.  He gives her one week to try to solve one last case but his decision is final.

Hulda picks the case of a Russian immigrant who was found dead on the coast.  Her death was quickly ruled a suicide but after reading the file, Hulda sees that the investigation was shoddy and quick and believes it could have been a homicide instead.  After investigating further, she discovers that another Russian woman had disappeared as well and she was the friend of the other one.  Can Hulda solve the case and more importantly, can she face retirement?

Ragnar Jonasson is an Icelandic author who writes crime novels.  This is the first in his Hulda Hermannsdottir series.  Along with solving the crime, he talks with feeling about how it feels to age and realize that your time on Earth is getting shorter.  Hulda definitely doesn't want to retire but starts to see that it will give her more time to pursue her outside interests and even maybe find romance.  The mystery is satisfactory and Hulda is a tenacious character who readers will enjoy getting to know.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The White Crow by Michael Robotham

 

Philomena McCarthy is a part of the Metropolitan Police and has a new marriage with Henry, a city firefighter.  Being a policewoman is not something Philomena had ever thought she would be.  Her father is head of an organized crime group and the McCarthy Brothers are known widely as criminals.   But she was estranged from her family when she took the job and only recently has become reconciled to them.

On patrol one night, she finds a young girl, dressed in pajamas, on the street in the middle of the night.  The girl tells Philomena that she can't wake up her mother and sure enough, when Philomena checks, her mother is dead, tied to a kitchen chair and battered.  Her father, manager of a high end jewelry store, has been taken to the store by the gang that broke into their house and forced to open the safe there.

Philomena would do anything to be on the task force solving the crime, but a higher up supervisor is determined that he can use this crime to bring down her father's organization.  Philomena is scrutinized and suspended because of her family ties.  But she can't stop investigating the crime.  Can she solve it?

Michael Robotham is an Australian author.  He works mainly in the thriller/detective genre although he was also a ghostwriter for a while on famous people's autobiographies.  I've been a fan for years and this one didn't disappoint.  I loved Philomena's character and especially her husband Henry.  Her father is what he is, a man who has done terrible things but who always and forever puts family first.  There are lots of twists and turns in this novel and it is the second Philomena novel, the first being before she is married.  I immediately started that one when I realized I had missed it.  This series is a big hit for me and I can only hope that Robotham will give readers another chance to follow Philomena in her career.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.   

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

 

One weekend a woman comes to a convent in the rural Australia outback.  She is middle-aged and her marriage is dissolving.  A wildlife conservationist, her despair includes the hopelessness of a world with climate change.  She comes to the convent for a place to contemplate her life, to be alone with herself for a weekend to see what the rest of her life will be like.  She doesn't really believe in God and it's strange to be around women whose main focus in life is serving him.

Fast forward a few years and the narrator has returned to the convent, now a full time resident.  She doesn't know that her beliefs have changed but she values the quiet and the slowness of the life there.  But in a place where little occurs, any visitor looms large.  The first is very unwelcome.  An infestation of mice comes to plague the sisters.  Not a few but a tidal wave of mice who eat everything, get in shoes and beds and soil everything they touch.  Then the bones of a former Sister arrive and are kept in the parlour until the convent can get local permission to bury her on the site.  She had gone missing and was presumed murdered.  Instead, she had left and emigrated to the United States.  Accompanying the body is a Sister who the narrator had attended school with.  The woman had been the butt of everyone's jokes and bullying and the narrator still feels guilty that she didn't help her.  

Charlotte Wood is an Australian novelist and this novel is probably her most successful.  It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024 and also got awards from such publications as the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.  While reading, one contemplates these lives of service and what one is doing oneself to help others.  In a time when organized religion is losing membership, it also emphasizes that there are many ways to be of service in this world.  It also explores the value of examining one's past life and finding ways to atone for times of hurting others.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

The Other Side Of Silence by Bill Pronzini

 

Rick Fallon is taking his two week vacation in the desert.  Every so often he just has to get away from everything and listen to the silence.  After camping for a few days, he comes upon a deserted car along a road.  He uses his binoculars and sees a woman lying near some rocks.  When he gets to her, she is almost dead from sun exposure and dehydration.  Fallon rescues her and when she is recovered hears her story.

Carol Dunbar is desperate.  Four months ago her ex-husband had kidnapped their eight year old son and disappeared with him.  Carol has tried everything to find them and now her money is gone.  The last detective she hired was able to track them to Las Vegas but when Carol got close, all she found was a man hired by her ex to beat her up and tell her to forget her search.  

Fall works security and was an MP in the military.  He understands the pain of losing a child as his own son was killed in an accident.  He decides to use the rest of his vacation to help Carol find her son and retrieve him.  Was it a good decision?

Bill Pronzini writes in the mystery genre, typically stories of hard men facing harder choices.  Fallon is an interesting character and I'd love to see a whole series focusing on him.  The mystery has lots of twists and turns and ends in a way that is unexpected.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.   

The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen

 

Maggie Bird is a former spy as strange as that may seem.  She left the Agency almost two decades ago after her marriage collapsed.  For years she roamed the world, wondering where she might find a new life.  When she heard from other Agency friends about the small Maine town where they had all decided to retire, she visited and then bought an old farm.  Now she raises chickens and fills her days with farm tasks.  Her social life is her neighbor and his granddaughter and her friends from Agency days, Declan, Ben and married couple Ingrid and Lloyd.

All that changes when an Agency employee shows up at Maggie's farm asking her help to find another employee, Diana. Maggie hasn't seen Diana since that failed mission and has no information or interest in finding her.  The next day the woman's body is left in Maggie's driveway, bringing the interest of Jo Thibodeau, the local police chief.  When Maggie realizes that the last mission is now back in play and that everyone involved is in danger, she calls on her friends to help her find whoever is gunning for her.

Tess Gerritson is a mystery writer best known for her Rizzoli and Isles series.  This is the first entry in a new series and will receive a wide readership as younger readers will be drawn by the action and plots while older readers will resonate with the theme of older, wiser protagonists.  Maggie has been a lone wolf for many years but seems to be ready to perhaps find something more than friendship.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Women And Other Animals by Bonnie Jo Campbell

 

In this anthology of sixteen stories, Bonnie Jo Campbell explores the lives of those in poverty.  Some work jobs that grind them down or put them in danger, others do anything they can, including injuring themselves, to save what they have.  My favorite story was probably The Smallest Man In The World.  A circus has come through town and those who work there have come to a bar afterwards to drink.  Already there is a beautiful woman, a woman who realizes that her beauty is just a twist of fate and that in many ways she is another freak of nature just as the smallest man is.  

Bonnie Jo Campbell is an American author.  This was her debut work of short stories and my favorite from this collection won the AWP prize.  I always think of her as a Southern author as she writes about people close to the land and farming but she isn't.  Another theme she uses quite a bit are rivers and how they impact the lives of people who live along them.  She was a Guggenheim Fellow and her ability to get into the lives of those who are often ignored by society and the media is her true talent.  This book is recommended for anthology readers.  

Question 7 by Richard Flanagan

 

Richard Flanagan is one of my favorite authors and this latest novel is one I'll think about for a long time.  It is a mix of memoir, biography, historical novel and philosophy.  He covers topics such as the development of the atomic bomb and the men who conceived it, an affair between H.G. Wells and Rebecca West, Japanese labor camps during World War II and whitewater rafting.  

Flanagan's father was a laborer in a Japanese labor camp at the end of World War II, skeletal and sure he wouldn't survive another winter.  He was saved when Japan surrendered after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Flanagan ponders the ethics of the decision to drop the bomb and the fact that he would not exist were it not for those events.

I found the biography of H.G. Wells fascinating as I had not known he was such a ladies' man.  I knew of the affair with Rebecca West but didn't realize it was just one of many.  The ability of Wells to write about topics and inventions that were foretelling but later came to fruition is the reason so many science fiction and fantasy writers revere him.  One of my reading goals is to read West's masterpiece, Black Lamb and Gray Falcon.  

Finally, I read Flanagan's wonderful Death Of A River Guide but I hadn't realized that it was grounded in his own life.  He had a job as a whitewater rafting guide and on one trip his craft flipped and he was trapped in a small air bubble, his legs trapped in rocks for over an hour.  He discusses this event in great detail, telling of the man who saved his life at great cost but whom he lost touch with later.  

Richard Flanagan is an Australian author from Tasmania.  He is considered one of the best authors of our time and I read everything he writes.  This work won the Bailie Gillie Prize which is for nonfiction writing and was named a Top Ten Notable Book by the Washington Post.   I appreciated it not only for the things I discovered I hadn't known but for a more in-depth look into the life of an amazing author.  This book is recommended for nonfiction and literary fiction readers.  

The Stepson by Jane Renshaw

 

Lulu and Nick are newlyweds.  They met on a Greek island while on vacation and after a whirlwind romance married.  Lulu is a counselor while Nick is a hugely successful broker.  They live in London.  Lulu grew up in Australia while Nick grew up in the English countryside.  He has a tragedy in his background that he hates to talk about but Lulu knows until he comes to terms with it he will always be troubled.

Nick's mother died while he was a teenager after a fall down the stairs in their home.  Nick found her.  While he was still grieving, his father Duncan brought home a new wife and stepmother for Nick.  Maggie had been a troubled teen when she met Duncan in the organization he ran for teenagers who need help.  Now years later, the two meet again and fall in love.  Nick and Maggie are at odds immediately.  Nick has the ability to make Maggie look bad, that she is lying when she tells Duncan what Nick says and does when its just the two of them.  Maggie and Duncan have a baby and when Maggie sees that Nick will hurt his stepsister, she and Duncan make a decision.  One day Nick comes home to find nobody there.  Duncan, Maggie and the baby are gone and there is no trace of them in the years after.  Nick is sent to boarding school to finish growing up.

Maggie sees Nick as a strong male who is kind and loving.  But when they go to his home to visit, she gets differing opinions.  His aunt openly despises him.  His former best friend believes Nick is evil.  Who is right and what happened to his family all those years before?

Jane Renshaw is a British author who works in the suspense genre.  This novel goes back and forth in time between the present and the past around the time of Nick's family's disappearance.  At one point, he seems evil, at another he seems misunderstood and done hard by.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did an excellent job.  One of my favorite parts was the epilogue when the reader finds out what happens after the novel's climatic end.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Trespass by Rose Tremain

 

This is the story of two brother-sister relationships, set in the South of France.  The first set of siblings are French.  Aramon is the brother and Audrun the sister.  They grew up in wealth but without a mother who died while they were young.  Aramon was always the favored one.  When the father died, he inherited everything except for some woods which Audrun inherited and on which she had a small cottage built.  Audrun was abused by both her father and brother.  It left her introverted and unable to form an adult relationship while it left Aramon so wracked with guilt that he is now an alcoholic, drinking to forget the horrific things he did.

The other siblings are English.  Anthony is a very successful antique dealer in London but as the times have changed, so have tastes and his business is now failing.  He decides to go visit his sister, Veronica, who lives in France with her partner.  Veronica and Anthony have a loving relationship and after a few days, Anthony starts to think about retiring to a house near Veronica.  

The house Anthony is interested in is Aramon's, who had decided to sell his house while the market was hot.  But Anthony wants a spectacular view and Audrun's dilapidated cottage ruins it so he moves on.  But nothing else he sees appeals to him like this property.  He sets off one day to view more properties and never returns.  Has he gotten lost?  Did he go hiking and have a misadventure?  

Rose Tremain is an English author who writes both contemporary and historical fiction.  She has been nominated for both the Booker and Women's Fiction awards and won the Woman's Fiction award.  This book is particularly interesting as it delves into the relationships we have as we get older and often the strongest are with our original family.  Conversely, those relationships may also be our earliest and strongest personality shapers of abuse and rejection.  This novel is recommended for readers of literary fiction. 

Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen

 

This is a story of the relationship between the author and her mother.  It is a memoir and a biography and a history of China as the old ways crumbled and the Communists took over.  It is an expose, a love letter and an attempt by the author to make sense of her life and that of her mother.

Jen's mother was born to a wealthy family with many servants and a huge mansion.  She was raised until she was six or seven by a nanny who was the person who provided the love and comfort every child needs.  Then the woman was abruptly sent away and Jen was expected to become a dutiful Chinese daughter.  Her mother was cold to her, openly favoring her brother.  For Jen, her most often phrase was 'Bad bad girl, you don't know how to talk!'.

But Jen's mother was not willing to live the life she was expected to.  She always excelled in school and managed to get a scholarship to go to the United States to university.  She was to live with friends of her parents and her father gave her some money to go on.  That was the last money she was to see from her parents and pretty much the last time she would speak with her mother.  Her mother didn't come to the phone when Jen called home and rarely wrote.  When the Communists took over, her family lost most of their money and their property, moving from the large house they inhabited to some rooms in another house shared with other families.  Jen's mother, who had married another Chinese student in America,  rarely replied to their pleas for help and money and even when her mother broke down and wrote, she didn't change her ways.

In the meantime Gish Jen was born.  She was strong willed like her mother and soon her mother was repeating the words she had been raised on, 'Bad Bad Girl'.  But it is evident how much the author loved and respected her parents.  The telling of their last days and the little personal services that she would provide for each of them, spoiling them as best she could, were poignant.  I can only hope that my children will do the same for me when my time comes.

Gish Jen has written several novels and books that explore the Chinese culture, it's modern history and its relationship with the United States.  Her short fiction has been widely used in magazines and anthologies.  In this book, she creates a look inside Chinese families and in particular, the mother-daughter relationship.  Most of what she writes about this relationship portrays that relationship in many cultures as our parents are our world at first and the first love relationships we will have.  Along the way, we learn history, stories about Gish Jen's own life, and the questions about how we ourselves will parent.  This book is recommended for literary fiction and memoir readers.