Lloyd McNeil's Last Ride by Will Leitch

 Lloyd McNeil is a policeman in Atlanta and has been for years.  He's not sure he was ever all that interested but he does like helping people.  He mainly became a policeman because his father was the ultimate policeman, a captain who kept the crime rate down and everything just so.  As his son, there weren't other options given to Lloyd but he was never the kind of hardnosed cop his father was.

Now Lloyd is getting close to retirement and he's looking forward to spending more time with his son, Bishop, who has just become a teenager.  His marriage didn't work out but since Bishop came from that union, he regards it as a success and is friends with his ex-wife and her husband.  Everything is looking pretty good until he goes to a doctor with recurrent headaches.

Brain tumor.  Cancerous and extremely fast-growing.  Terminal.  Lloyd can't die yet; he doesn't have enough money saved for Bishop and his education.  But there's a loophole.  If Lloyd dies while on service his son will inherit enough money to take care of him through college.  But Lloyd never comes close to death as he rides his beat.  Maybe he can change that......

Will Leitch is an American author who also lives in Georgia like Lloyd.  His writing is light and humorous even when on such a serious topic as illness and death.  The reader will like Lloyd and sympathize with his dilemma.  Maybe Lloyd can find a way to balance everything in life before he leaves it.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

No Friend To This House by Natalie Haynes

 

This is a retelling of the Jason and The Argonauts myth.  Jason volunteers for the task of hunting down and bringing home the golden fleece of which stories are told.  He is chosen as the leader of the Argonauts and after several harrowing adventures and the help of various gods and goddesses, he arrives at the kingdom of the king who owned the fleece.  This king's youngest daughter was Medea and she had magical powers.  In order to win the fleece, Jason was set various tasks by the king which he accomplished with the help of Medea.  When he got the fleece and was about to set sail for home, he took Medea with him in order to save her from the wrath of her father for helping Jason.

Medea and Jason marry on the journey but Medea soon comes to see Jason in his truth, not his legends.  He is actually a coward, quick to beg for help and take credit for achievements.  They arrive home and start a family but Medea is never accepted as she is a stranger and rumors swirl around her.  Finally, Jason decides to take another wife and put aside Medea and her children.  Medea is determined to get revenge for this.

Natalie Haynes is an English author whose work focuses on retelling the classic myths.  She has garnered great acclaim by doing so plus several awards such as being nominated for the Women's Prize In Literature.  In this work, it was interesting to see how Medea's view of Jason changed from seeing him as a beautiful man who was brave and strong to a coward and liar who only looked out for himself.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

If I Run by Terri Blackstock

 

When Casey Cox finds the body of her friend, Brent, she knows two things.  He's been killed because he was helping her and the police will try to hang the murder on her.  A corrupt core of police worried about Casey because she has spent years looking for the truth about her father's death, the former police chief.  The law said suicide but she knows he would never do that.  Regardless, Casey has one option, to head out of town until she can find the truth.

Dylan Roberts came back from his military service with PTSD.  The police won't consider him for hire so he is a private investigator.  Brent's family is convinced Casey was the murderer and hires him to find her.  Dylan jumps at the chance for work but as he works to find Casey he starts to wonder if she has things right instead of everyone else.  Can he find her?

Terri Blackstock is an American author who writes suspense novels in the Christian genre.  This book is the first of a trilogy as Casey tries to stay undiscovered and finally find the truth about her father's death.  The action is fast and the maneuvers Casey uses on the run are interesting to read about.  This book is recommended for both Christian and mystery readers.   

How To Be Both by Ali Smith

 

This is a stunning novel, full of surprises.  It starts with the structure.  The book contains two books.  One book starts with the story of a Renaissance artist, the other starts with the story of a teenage girl named George whose mother had died a few months earlier.  Which one comes first is entirely a matter of chance; the novel was sent to press with half the books starting with the artist painting and the other with George's story.  

What ties them together is the exploration of the mural at Ferrara, Italy.  The mural is the year in pictures.  The artist had done three months, March, April and May.  The other unexpected thing tying the two parts together is the duality experienced within the books.  One might be male or female, dying or alive, mothers may be here or gone.  Is what we see reality or just another joke of the universe?

Ali Smith is a Scottish author who delights in playing with structure and form.  I've been avidly reading her since her novel Hotel World which was released in 2001.  It was a Booker nominee as is this novel.  She has been awarded the CBE, Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire for her contributions to literature.  This is a novel that I'll read again as it is obvious that there are many layers and connections to be made and one reading is not enough to appreciate the depth of the novel in its two stories.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

 

Olivia Dumont has carved out a successful career as a ghostwriter, staying in the shadows as she helps celebrities share their life stories.  That suits Olivia just fine.  Not only is she good at the work but her childhood left her leery of publicity.  She grew up in a family notorious for what happened one night.  While her father's parents had been out of town, the children went to the local fair.  But somehow, the oldest brother and the sister had gone home for some reason and were found there, gruesomely murdered.  Olivia's father had found the bodies of his siblings and everyone in town thought he had committed the murders.  But he had an alibi and was never arrested and the case went cold.

Olivia got out of town as soon as she could and never went back.  But her career takes a dive when she gets into a public denunciation of another writer and ends up in court, losing the case and having to pay the man half a million dollars.  Those who had been clamoring to work with her now shunned her.  Along with lawyer's fees, she is about to go bankrupt and lose her house when her agent calls with an offer.

Her father who grew up to become a successful author is ready to write his autobiography and talk about the murders.  He will only work with Olivia and she doesn't want to do it.  But the prospect of her financial rule makes her say yes.  She arrives to find her father suffering from Lewy's Body dementia.  He insists he wants to talk about the murder but has trouble maintaining focus and remains mysterious as he was when Olivia was growing up  She realizes that to find the truth she will have to investigate the murders herself, but can she find the truth?

Julie Clark is an American author who burst upon the writing scene with her first book, The Last Flight which was a major success.  Her ability to draw the reader in and consistently surprise them is evident in this thriller as well.  I guessed at several solutions to the old murders but each was revealed to be wrong as I continued to read and more and more of the story was revealed.  Readers will also learn about the Lewy Dementia disease as they read.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Magician by Colm Toibin

 

This is Colm Toibin's novelization of the life of Thomas Mann, one of Germany's foremost authors.  He came from a conservative family and his older brother, Heinrich, was the favorite.  Heinrich decided to become an author and the family supported him in this but they had decided that Thomas should be in business and found him a job as a clerk.  He hated this as he knew he wanted to write and while visiting Heinrich, wrote his first successful novel, A Death In Venice.  He never went back to an office to work again.

He met and married the daughter of a wealthy and influential Jewish family.  The couple had six children but his wife understood that Thomas had homosexual desires and would always have crushes on beautiful young men.  She was able to handle this and the couple had a long and successful marriage.

Mann grew up as Hitler was becoming more influential in Germany.  Many authors and artists came out against him early and Mann was encouraged to lead his support to this battle.  But he believed early that Hitler would be ousted by the desires of the German people who would see through him, then later he believed that the military would end Hitler's influence.  It wasn't until he began to see actions against those he loved and admired that he took the dictator seriously.

With the help of those high in the United States government and publishing circles, Mann was able to come to the United States where he took a position at Princeton.  By then, he had written Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain and was considered one of the most influential Germans.  He was able to get all his children and most of his family out of Germany although his wife's relatives lost everything and the Mann's family home was destroyed.  Mann and his family would never again live in Germany as Mann believed the German people were complicit in the Nazi regime.

Colm Toibin is a successful Irish writer.  In addition to this novelization of Thomas Mann's life, he also wrote The Master about Henry James.  His novels have been nominated numerous times for the Booker and he has also been a regular on the Dublin Literary Award lists.  Like Mann, Toibin now lives in the United States where he writes and teaches at Columbia.  Readers will feel the slow influence of the Nazis rising and how it eventually affected all German families and then the entire world.  They will also be inside the life of a famous author with all the outside pulls on his attention from those who want his influence.  I was once again inspired to finally read The Magic Mountain and hopefully will do so this year.  This book is recommended for historical and literary fiction readers.  

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

 

Six astronauts are on one of the last space station missions, circling the Earth and studying it.  There are women and men and they come from Italy, America, Japan, Russia and Britain.  The reader rides with them for sixteen sunrises and sunsets as they circle the Earth.  A huge typhoon is occurring on the surface and as they make their revolutions, they can track its progress.

The reader sees the routine of their daily life on board.  They exercise, eat prepackaged food, perform maintenance tasks, sleep.  They form friendships with those aboard and worry about those they have left behind.  They are in awe as they watch the beauty of the universe and view another mission that is traveling further than they are.  They long for home and the end of their mission while also not wanting it to be over.

This novel was the 2024 Booker winner.  I've been on a Samantha Harvey reading journey lately and she is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors.  Her forte is description, taking the reader immediately into the locations she writes about and this novel is no different.  One can imagine the wonder and the fear of being an astronaut and worry about the future of the planet as they do.  She wrote this novel during the Covid shutdown while she was confined to her home as the astronauts are confined to their ship.  This novel is recommended for literary fiction readeres.  

Coyote Hills by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman

 

Clay Edison has left the coroner's office after years of working there.  As his last years had been full of investigations into suspicious deaths, he decides to become a full time private investigator.  A friend of his, Regina Klein, calls him and suggests a case for him with overtones that his expertise could unravel.  

Adam Valois was the son of a wealthy Hollywood Hills couple, their only child.  He was found drowned and the death was ruled an accident but the parents are sure there is more to it than that.  His girlfriend is also sure that something bad happened to Adam.  Clay reads the coroner's report and finds Adam had drugs in his system and a head injury.  Is that enough to change accident to murder?  

Clay agrees to look into the case and talks with former friends in the coroner's office, police who are less than thrilled that he is questioning the cause of death and Adam's friends.  He and Gina start to be more suspicious and when they discover another death that has all the same markings, it starts to look like there is definitely something wrong.  Can they solve the murder?

I've been reading the Clay Edison series since the start.  The father and son duo writing the series, Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman, seem to work together seamlessly and I love the character of Clay.  He is never quick to agree things are not what they seem and he requires real proof before taking on a case.  I think he will be even more interesting as a private investigator than as an employee in the coroner's office.  This is the sixth novel in the series and I can't wait for the seventh.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.