The Idaho Four by James Patterson and Vicky Ward

 Kaylee Goncalves.  Madison Mogen.  Xana Kernodle.  Ethan Chapin.  These four young people were students at the University of Idaho and will be linked forever by the fact that they were all murdered one night in the house they rented together.  Most people have heard about this case.  James Patterson and Vicky Ward take readers behind the scenes and into the students' lives, giving their individual stories, what they wanted to do with their lives, what others thought of them, etc.  

Bryan Kohberger.  A thirty-year old PHd student, he was never considered part of the crowd.  He had an ongoing heroin addiction and had been in rehabilitation clinics at least twice in his life.  His doctorate was going to be in crime and he came to the West from his homestate of Pennsylvania to study.  One of his inspirations was another man, an incel, who had committed a murder spree in California due to his inability to get women interested in him.  Likewise, Kohberger did not date.  He was tall and very skinny with bulging eyes and a superior manner that put off those around him.  

After multiple trips to case the house where the four victims lived, Kohberger ultimately broke into the house one night and in less than a half house, killed the four young people.  Leaving, he saw one of the other roommates and locked eyes with her but left her alive along with another girl on another floor of the house.  Although he was a student of forensic processing, he also left behind the sheath of his knife which was the main way he was caught as it provided his DNA.

Along with the victims' stories, the authors also gave insight into the lives and work of the local police who had never encountered anything like these murders and the publicity surrounding the case.  The lives of the victims' families is described and their support of law enforcement.  The book ends before the trial at which Kohberger ultimately pled guilty in order to escape the death penalty.  

James Patterson is known for his mystery writing while Vicky Ward is a journalist.  Together they have researched and done hundreds of interviews for this book.  It is an easily readable accounting of one of the most horrific crimes in recent times.  This book is recommended for true crime readers.  

The Knight And The Moth by Rachel Gillig

 

Sybil Denning is a Diviner, living in the Cathedral and predicting the future for those who came and paid.  She was found as an orphan and like the other five Diviners agreed to serve for a decade in exchange for a home.  She is known only as Six and she always wears a mask over her eyes.  Her predictions come as she is drowning in the water in the Cathedral and are sent by the ten Omens that rule the land.  

When a new king is crowned, he comes to the Cathedral to find out his future.  Benji is a young king and he comes with protection, specifically his right-hand man and best knight, Roderick.  Six finds Roderick common and crude and oh so handsome and appealing.  When the other diviners start to disappear, one by one, Six agrees to go with Benji and Roderick and his entourage to take back the Omens one by one so that the king will be the real ruler of the land.

Accompanied by her favorite gargoyle who calls everyone Benjamin, the group starts their mission.  Some Omens are easier to collect than others.  Along the way, Six is alternately repelled and attracted to Roderick and he to her.  Soon the attraction between them is undeniable.  Can they find happiness together?

Rachel Gillig is an American author who specializes in dark fantasy.  Her writing is lush and appealing and the inevitable love of the two main characters is handled well after building up suspense.  The end of the book is surprising, leaving the reader more than ready to read the next novel in the series.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.   

The Wide Net by Eudora Welty

 

These eight stories from Eudora Welty give readers a glimpse into life in the South, specifically Mississippi during the 1900's.  Welty was born in 1909 and died in 2001 at the age of 92.  Her work included short stories and novels and she won many prizes and awards, including the Pulitzer and the National Book Award for Fiction.  Her work focused on the people and life of the South, showing the faults of the region but also the love and culture found there.

My favorite story in this collection was the title story, The Wide Net.  In it, William Wallace Jamieson's wife, Hazel, is missing.  She is pregnant and demanding.  All William Wallace had done was stay out all night, drinking and carousing with his buddies.  He returns to find a note saying she can't stand this life and is off to do away with herself.  William Wallace rounds up his friends, sure that Hazel has gone to the river and drowned herself.  They borrow a wide net from a neighbor and the whole collection goes down to the Natchez Trace path and throw the net to see if they can find Hazel's body.  Although they work the entire day, encountering wildlife and other river hazards, they find nothing.  William Wallace returns home to find Hazel there all along.

Another story I liked was The Purple Hat.  In it, the man who watches over the floor of a gambling establishment tells the story of a woman, middle-aged, who comes everyday wearing an old bedraggled purple hat.  She is a ghost and he tells her stories and the deaths he has seen her endure.  All of the stories give insight into the language of the time and the attitudes of the two main races living there.  It is a peephole into a life that has disappeared except in the most rural areas and the enduring relationship such folks had with the land and the rivers that transversed it.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction, specifically short stories.  

An Inquiry Into Life And Death by Simone St. James

 

The time is shortly after World War II, and Jillian Leigh is one of the few women at Oxford.  She is determined to graduate and is not pleased when she is notified that her uncle Toby, whom she hasn't seen since she was fourteen, has died and she needs to go wrap up his estate.  Her parents are overseas and there is no one else to do it.  Toby was a ghost hunter of all things and he has died in a small coastal village.

When Jillian arrives at the house Toby rented, she discovers that he died by falling off a cliff to the beach below.  The village has a ghost named Walking John who has been there for two hundred years and Toby was in the village to find him and give him rest.  There are mysterious noises in the house, items that move around without human help.  Jillian meets some of those who live in the area and she is mistaken for a woman who lived there twenty years before.  There are rumors that Toby either jumped or was pushed off the cliff.  

That theory gains weight when Jillian meets Scotland Yard inspector Drew Merriken who tells her he is there to investigate her uncle's death.  There is an instant connection between the two and soon Jillian is head over heads in love, even though Drew lets her know from the start that his career is his priority and that he isn't going to settle down for any woman.  Jillian starts to have stranger things happen and soon it is clear that someone is trying to run her out of town.  Can she discover the truth before she is hurt or worse?

Simone St. James is a Canadian author whose background was in television.  She is known for her books that combine mystery and supernatural influences.  In this book, there are several mysteries besides that of Walking John.  Who is the woman Jillian is mistaken for?  What happened during the war that left those few who returned permanently broken?  Why did her parents and Toby fall out when she was fourteen and never patch things up?  As the reader discovers the answers to these questions, the mystery is solved.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey

 

In 1491, the village of Oakham is guided by the local priest, John Reve.  There are not many houses or people and the village is cut off by a large river now that the last bridge, the third one built, has collapsed.  Reve is awakened one morning by the news that the village's wealthiest man, Tom Newman, was seen being carried away by the river.  Despite the fact that everyone came out to search, neither Tom nor his body are discovered.  Tom owned the majority of the land and without him there, the village is in peril of being bought by a nearby group of monks who want the land for themselves.

John notifies his superior who is both above him in the church hierarchy and who has legal authorities.  The dean comes that same day much to the priest's surprise and wants Reve to name the murderer by the end of the second day.  The dean has suspects; the man whose land Tom had bought bit by bit until he owned almost all of it; a woman who is sick now perhaps as a punishment from God, and another man who was known to have disagreements with Tom.  The priest is not willing to name anyone as a murderer because he knows all the town's secrets, even those he hasn't shared with the dean.

Samantha Harvey is an English author although she spent time in Ireland and Japan growing up.  This book takes the reader back into the poverty of the Middle Ages and the superstitions that ruled every aspect of daily life.  The secrets that the village priest knows are slowly revealed and each secret turns the thoughts of what happened to Tom Newman a different way.  Who is ultimately responsible?  Is the priest responsible for the actions of his flock?  Harvey has had her novels garner much attention, with several longlisted for the major literary prizes and Orbital winning the Booker Prize in 2024.  This novel is recommended for historical and literary fiction readers.  

Theo Of Golden by Allen Levi

 

An older man moves to a small town in the South named Golden.  It is on a river which reminds Theo of his hometown long ago.  He spends his days walking around town and sitting in the square in the center of downtown.  He discovers a coffee shop he visits daily.  On its walls are scores of portraits of townspeople down by a local artist.  

Looking at the portraits, Theo finds a way to make friends.  He thinks such lovely art should belong to those portrayed.  He starts buying the pictures and making an appointment with the person illustrated in the town square near the fountain.  There he gives them the portrait and listens to their life story.  He makes a friend of each person he gifts, telling them the positive things he sees in them or hears in their story.  Soon more and more people are aware of him, including a local bookstore owner and a homeless woman who is also an artist.  

Theo doesn't talk about himself not even giving his last name.  When his story emerges, it is an amazing one and the town of Golden is thankful for the months he spent living there.

This is a debut novel that has gained readership by word of mouth.  Those who have read it want their friends to experience the loveliness and optimism this book engenders in those who read it.  Theo's life is one of kindness, doing whatever he can to bring joy to those around him.  His own story is one no one could have expected.  The author is a retired attorney who grew up in the same kind of town as Golden.  This book is recommended for readers who are interested in literary fiction that leaves the reader with happy, satisfied emotions.  

Room by Emma Donoghue

 

Ma has been in Room for seven years, taken off the street one day while walking home by Old Nick and imprisoned.  Jack has just turned five and has never known anything but Room.  Room is in a shed in Old Nick's backyard, a small room surrounded by wire mesh on all sides down into the ground and with a locked door that needs a code to enter.  Room is Jack's world.  Within it, his mother has made an entire universe for him.  The two of them play games, do art, make a snake of eggshells, watch no more than two television programs a day, read books and exercise.  At night, Ma puts Jack into Wardrobe where he stays while Old Nick comes in and bounces on the bed with Ma.  

When Ma finds out that Old Nick has lost his job, she knows that means that is a danger time for her and Jack as the house could go into foreclosure.  There is no way that Old Nick would let anyone find out about her and Jack so he would dispose of them.  Ma thinks of an audacious plan to escape and Jack is the hero of the plan.  Afterwards, she and Jack are taken to a hospital to heal and slowly enter a world that Jack could never have imagined.  

I've had this book for years but I never could bring myself to read it as I thought it would be depressing.  Instead it is life affirming.  Ma's ingenuity and ability to nurture Jack in such dire circumstances is amazing.  That a girl, taken at nineteen, could have a child by herself in imprisonment and build a life for him where he feels safe and loved is astounding.  Much of the book deals with Ma's reintroduction and Jack's introduction to the world and that is fascinating.  Emma Donoghue, an Irish writer, had a son who was five while she wrote this book and that helped her get into Jack's head.  Jack is the sole narrator of the book and we see the world through his eyes and understanding.  This book, later made into a movie, is recommended for readers of literary and women's fiction. 

Bruno, Chief Of Police by Martin Walker

 

Bruno is the Chief of Police in a small town in the South of France.  It is an undemanding job which suits Bruno fine after his time in the military and the fighting he did there.  He believes in talking through situations rather than jumping to arrests and his true joy comes in coaching the town's tennis and rugby teams, letting him know the children of the town before they grow up and cause mischief.  He also delights in cooking and wine and female companionship.

But Bruno's easy routine is about to be interrupted.  An elderly man, a North African immigrant who fought in the French Army, has been murdered, a swastika carved on his chest.  Who would have done such a thing?  Was it someone who was against the Muslim religion?  Someone against immigration?  A personal motive? With anti-immigrant feeling rising in France, the government determines this to be a highly sensitive case and sends a female inspector to work with Bruno to solve the case.  Can they do so before more murders occur?

This is the first in Martin Walker's series about Bruno, which currently sits at nineteen novels.  There is a lot of character development and background setting in this one, as Walker attempts to bring the reader into an environment they would normally not encounter.  Bruno believes in diplomacy rather than strict enforcement and looks out for the town and its inhabitants as a loving father would.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Straw Men by Michael Marshall

 

Two men walk into a fast food restaurant and start firing.  A man goes to his childhood home in Montana to bury his parents who were killed in a car crash.  While packing up the house to get it ready to sell, he finds a hidden note from his father, telling him that he and the mother are not dead.  In California, a serial killer known as The Upright Man is abducting teenage girls, then delivering purses to their parents with the girl's name embroidered on it in the hair of a former victim.

There are those who are searching for these killers.  Some from the FBI, some former CIA agents.  In California, a former policeman works the case after his own daughter is one of the victims.  As the cases evolve, they start to come together from across the country and so do those who search for The Straw Men.

Michael Marshall is a new author for me and this book was so chilling and compelling that I immediately upon completion went out and starting buying up his backlist.  Marshall writes with so much imagination yet the details of deaths are not gory as some books are.  The terror is hinted at rather than forced upon the reader.  All the separate cases satisfactorily come together in the end as do all those committed to finding and stopping the Straw Men.  This book is recommended for readers of crime fiction.  

Beautiful Children by Charles Bock

 

Charles Bock grew up in Las Vegas and he uses that city for his novel's setting.  We meet a variety of characters, each with dreams that can't be achieved due to weaknesses in the character.  Much of the plot focuses around Newell, the twelve-year old son of Lorraine and Lincoln.  Newell goes out one evening with an older friend the parents have never met and doesn't come home.  The parents don't know how to find the guy Newell was with as they only know his first name, Kenny.  

Lorraine used to be a dancer in one of Las Vegas's revues but she gave that up when she married Lincoln.  He works as an event planner in one of the big hotel/casinos.  Their marriage was already strained before Newell's disappearance and that strain stretches to the breaking point after it.  Lorraine tries a variety of things to  fill her time, ending up working for an organization that helps homeless teens.  Lincoln works more and more.

Another set of main characters are Cheri Blossom and Ponyboy.  Cheri is a stripper who came to Vegas to be an actress.  Now, she has huge implants and they even have a hollow in which candles or sparklers can be inserted.  She lets Ponyboy convince her to do things she would never consider without him.  Ponyboy cheats on her constantly, uses her for money and so he doesn't have to work and constantly comes up with schemes to make money.  He knows some things about Newell's disappearance the night of the big concert in the desert for the underground but he's not talking about that.

Throughout, the city is seen as a temptress that takes the dreams of the characters and warps them into unrecognizable shapes, always unobtainable.  The novel focuses on the plight of runaway teenagers and most big cities are full of them, the kids who were throwaways or who fell into drugs or were abused at home.  There are resources in the back of the book where these teenagers can find help.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.  

The Bridegroom by Ha Jin

 

This collection of twelve stories portray life in modern China.  I had two favorites of this anthology.  In The Bridegroom, a factory supervisor can't understand why the most handsome worker in the factory asks to marry his daughter, who although pleasant, is not attractive and whom he expected to have a hard time finding a husband for.  He learns the truth when his new son-in-law is arrested for homosexuality.  The last story in the collection is After Cowboy Chicken Came To Town.  In this story, an American chain restaurant opens a branch in China.  At first it is an amazing hit but it is a novelty and the chicken is not as good as what the street vendors serve plus it is expensive.  Soon only the young, trendy customers continue to come.  The workers there try to use the rules of Chinese society in their work but are constantly overruled by their American boss.  The workers are appalled when they discover the discrepancy between their salaries and that of the manager and are determined to take him down.  

Ha Jin is the pen name of Xuefei Jin.  He was born and raised in China, serving five years in the Red Army during the Cultural Revolution.  His book about that time, was awarded the National Book Award.  His novels and short stories portray China after the Revolution.  I was impressed with two things.  First, while I enjoyed the stories, each ended what seemed a strange ending, just abruptly ending with one sentence.  The second thing was the China he portrays, where every thought and sentence can be grounds for trouble and where everyday life is still controlled in many ways by the government and its agents.  Everyone is constantly on guard and trust few around them to know their true thoughts.  This book is recommended for multicultural and anthology readers.   

After We Were Stolen by Brooke Beyfuss

 

Avery thinks she is nineteen although she couldn't say when her birthday was.  She has never been off the compound so she knows nothing of modern culture.  She does know how to read but her father would be furious if he knew her mother had taught her.  Avery has been shunned for the past year; while everyone else stays in the compound housing, she has been relegated to a tent where she must make a fire for heat, find water for drinking and sleep on the ground.  But she comes to realize that there was a reason for this.  Her parents have picked her as one of the oldest girls to become the new babymaker for the cult as her mother is getting too old to do this.

After the first night that her father comes to her room, Avery can't believe this is to be her life.  She is sickened and frightened  The only person she trusts on the compound is her brother Cole who is the single person in the world she is closest to.  The two start to make plans to run away but that night Avery wakes to find the compound on fire.  She and Cole manage to get out although most of her sisters and brothers aren't as lucky.  They hide when the emergency units arrive and then they run away through the woods.  

The two live on the streets for a while but eventually are taken into custody and put under the care of Social Services.  When they learn that their parents on the compound might also have survived, the two are frightened as they know if that's true, their parents will be looking for them.  Can Avery and Cole learn to live in society?

This is a debut novel by the author.  She does an excellent job of portraying life inside the cult and the tremendous amount of work it would require to shelter and feed a group of people.  She also helps the reader imagine what life in a cult would be like and to have no freedom to plan your life or even your day according to your desires but rather to always have to obey a leader whose vision of life and what it means varies from that of society.  I listened to this book and the narrator did an excellent job.  There are surprises that await Avery and Cole when they are integrated back into normal society and the reader will be fascinated to learn the truth behind the lies the two have been told all their lives.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

 

This was to be Emma's first away camp and she can't wait to go to Camp Nightingale for the summer, a camp set on the family land of a wealthy benefactor.  Arriving late, there are no more spaces in the cabins with girls her own age so Emma is put in with three older teenagers.  Allison and Natalie are typical teenagers and Vivian is the camp's Queen Bee, the girl who everyone wants to know and who can make or break a girl's summer with just one word.  

Vivian decides to take Emma under her wing and Emma is delighted.  She also has her first real crush on the camp owner's gorgeous son, Theo.  Of course, he has no interest in a thirteen year old but a girl can dream.  But Emma's dreams turn to nightmares.  The other girls sneak out one night and they don't return.  After searching fruitlessly for them for several days, the camp is closed down and all the campers sent home.  The three girls are never found.

Fifteen years later, Emma is surprised to get an invitation to lunch from the camp owner.  She finds out that the woman is planning to reopen Camp Nightingale and wants Emily to come and be an art instructor for the summer.  Emma has been painting huge canvases of the trauma for years and needs to find something else to work on.  She agrees to go back to the camp for the summer.

But things start to turn out the same.  Emma is forced by lack of space to room not with the other adult instructors but with three teenagers.  Theo is back for the summer along with his younger brother with his fiancée attached.  Several of the other instructors are girls from that fateful summer.  Worst of all, Emma's new roommates go missing one night as well.  Can she find them along with the secrets Camp Nightingale is hiding?

Riley Sager is known as a thriller writer and there are often supernatural elements in his novels.  In this one, Emma's first time at camp is played off successfully with her second time.  She starts off doing well and as the days go by, the strange happenings she encounters takes her back to that summer fifteen years before that threatened to ruin her entire life.  Vivian is another strong character from that first summer even with the tragedy that entered her life.  The tension is built slowly and the resolution is satisfying.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Violeta by Isabel Allende

 

Born during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, this is the story of Violeta, the only daughter of a wealthy South American family.  It follows her life for over a century.  Although born wealthy and spoiled as the first girl in a family with five brothers, the family loses its wealth during the Depression and Violeta grows up on a rural farm in the mountains, far from the city and all its glitter.

She has several loves in her life.  She marries young but doesn't know what love is.  When she meets the love of her life, she leaves her husband and spends years with the man she loves and with whom she has two children.  Late in her life, she marries again in a marriage that brings her love and contentment.

Violeta lives through the liberation of women and she supports herself.  She and one of her brothers start a development business which draws on Violeta's architectural knowledge and provides much needed housing both for the rising professional class and for those less fortunate.  She also makes a fortune in real estate.  On a more somber note, she lives through the time of South American dictatorships and the vanishing of those who opposed the government.  Her own son is forced into exile and lives most of his adult life in Norway, far from those who would kill him for his political beliefs.

Isabel Allende was born in Peru, although she now lives in the United States.  She has had a very successful career with more than twenty novels that bring South American culture and history to the world to discover.  Violeta is a strong female character and her love of family is characteristic of the Latin culture.  There are exciting and saddening events in Violeta's life which is a full and eventful one.  This book is recommended for readers of multicultural and historical fictioin.

People Of The Book by Geraldine Brooks

 

A Jewish holy document, the Sarajevo Haggadah, is found after the Bosnia war.  It was considered a miracle as the area had undergone Serbian bombing and this document was centuries old.  It was handmade and is now in need of analysis and repair.  There weren't many people in the world qualified to work on such a precious document.

The job goes to Hanna Heath, an Australian expert.  As she begins her work, she discovers items in the binding which she removed to repair.  There is a white hair, part of an insect wing, wine stains and a salt crystal.  Hanna is excited when her old teacher comes to inspect the book as well.  She also forms an attachment to the curator of the museum where the book is held.

Using the items found in the book, Hanna is able to trace the book through the ages.  It spent time in Seville, Venice, Barcelona and Bosnia.  She follows the book on its journeys and is able to identify some of the people involved in its journeys and discover the techniques of what they did and how they preserved the treasure.  Then as she finishes her work, new controversy emerges about the book.  Who is correct about its authenticity, Hanna or the other experts?

Geraldine Brooks is an Australian author who started as a journalist and who spent time in the Middle East, Bosnia and Somalia.  Her research background is evident in this work as the Haggadah is traced through the centuries.  There is a romance and also tragedy to be found.  This work is recommended for readers of historical and literary fiction.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

 

Two men have been brutally murdered, bludgeoned and stabbed to death and the house set afire.  One is the owner of the house, Natan Ketilsson, and the other a visitor.  Three people were charged with the murder.  One was a neighbor and the other two were Ketilsson's maids.  Agnes Magusdottir was one of these women and was sentenced to death, to be beheaded.

Until the execution, which wouldn't happen for months, there was a need to house Agnes somewhere.  The home of a government official, Jon Jonsson, was chosen as the place of her imprisonment.  She was to live in the house with Jon's family, his wife and two daughters and to work as a servant until the time of her death.  

Agnes has the right to religious instruction and comfort.  She picks a young assistant reverant named Toti.  Reverant Toti is unsure if he is qualified to take on such a task but as the weeks and then months go by, Agnes shares her life with him.  Her life had been hard, growing up in poverty and abandoned by her mother when she was six.  After that, she was handed from farm to farm as a servant, never finding any caring.

She and Natan had been having an affair when he asks her to leave her most recent employment and come to his farm as the housekeeper.  When she gets to the isolated place, she learns that there is a sixteen year old woman already there and that Natan is having an affair with her as well.  He is also involved with a married woman with whom he has a child.  Agnes's place is unreliable and Natan is in constant battle with a neighbor who wants to marry the other woman.  He is the man who is involved in the murder and strikes the first blows.  

Hannah Kent is an Australian author and this is her debut novel.  Kent was an exchange student to Iceland when she was seventeen and she learned about Agnes's story then.  The reader learns about rural Icelandic life and culture as Agnes' story is slowly revealed.  Although she is a prisoner, she forms relationships with those around her.  In particular, she has ties with the young reverend and the mother on the farm by the time she is executed.  This book is recommended for historical and literary fiction readers.  

Number9Dream by David Mitchell

 

Eiji Miyake has had a difficult life.  He grew up on a small island in Japan, living with his mother and twin sister.  His father was never in the picture although he is one of the wealthiest men in Japan and does provide money to the family.  When his sister drowns while Eiji is on a school trip, his mother falls apart.  Eiji decides to go to Tokyo to try to find his father.

There Eiji works a series of dead end jobs.  He meets a variety of people, some kind, some definitely otherwise.  The man who rents him a room runs a video store and looks out for him along with his wife.  Eiji meets a young man who seems to have infinite money, who takes him out clubbing where he meets beautiful women.  He has an appointment to meet his grandfather but instead his father's wife and stepdaughter show up, full of hate.  They tell him his grandfather has died and that his father wants nothing to do with him.  Will Eijji be able to find out who he is?

David Mitchell is one of my favorite authors and this is his second novel.  Upon leaving university, Mitchell lived and worked in Japan for several years so the setting and portrayals are accurate.  Along with many of Mitchell's novels, this one was a Booker Prize nominee.  One of my favorite books is Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.  This one is not that although the motif of several different stories eventually merging into one is followed.  It is a good exploration of Mitchell's writing progress and the things that will show up in later books.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.   

Fathers edited by Andre Gerard

 In this anthology about how children perceive their fathers, Andre Gerard has collected wonderful pieces by known authors and poets about their fathers.  Some idolized their father; some despised him.  But each entry is heartfelt and gives us an insight not only into fatherhood but into what shaped various authors in their childhoods.

The authors and poets comprise a wide array of talent.  Some include James Baldwin, Margaret Atwood, Dylan Thomas, Angela Carter, Annie Dillard, E. E. Cummings, Winston Churchill, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath , Doris Lessing, Philip Roth and Alice Munro as well as other well known literary figures.  Each has a story to tell and no one is unaffected by the first and most influential male figure in our lives.  

Born and raised in British Columbia, Andre Gerard is a twin which affected his upbringing and his relationship with his own father.  He planned this anthology when his own children became teenagers and he wondered about how his fathering would affect them.  He also has concerns for those children who grow up without a father.  Who takes that place?  What is the effect if no one does?  Readers will enjoy the essays and poetry while pondering the place of fathers in our lives.  This book is recommended for readers of nonfiction.

Unforgivable by Natalie Barelli

 

Laura has finally found a perfect life.  She is using her education and degree in art to manage an art galley and has a new show starting soon that will be the cap on her career.  She is living with Jack, her fiancee and they will be getting married as soon as his divorce from Bronwyn comes through.  Then there's Charlotte or Charlie as she likes to be called.  Charlie is six and Laura loves her unreservedly.  Charlie had a rough patch after Bronwyn left the family and moved to Italy with her new man but Laura was there for her and the two have developed a stable, loving relationship.

Then suddenly, everything falls apart.  Laura forgets to lock the galley when Charlie's school calls with an emergency and a valuable art piece is stolen.  Bronwyn is coming home, ostensibly to sign the divorce papers finally, but she expects to stay with Laura and Jack which is an awkward position at best.  Bronwyn disapproves of everything about Laura and Charlie and does her best to upend that relationship and maybe the one between Jack and Laura.  Then there is Sunshine.  She approaches Laura about a job and is pushy enough that she ends up with it after the galley owner decides she is the one, forcing Laura to hire her over better qualified applicants.  Is she after Jack?  Or maybe Laura's job?

Natalie Barelli is an Australian author who is known for her psychological thrillers.  She has written nine and this one is a hit.  I listened to it and the narrator did an excellent job.  The book is written from Lauran's point of view so the reader is able to follow her thinking as her life starts to fall apart and as she negotiates increasingly difficult relationships with Sunshine, Jack and mostly Bronwyn.  There are plenty of twists and turns and the reader is tempted to find a backbone for Laura and insert it as she seems to let everyone push her around.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.   

From The Dead by Mark Billingham

 

When Tom Thorne hears that Alan and Donna Langford's daughter has gone missing, he remembers the family well as they came to his attention first as a case.  Alan Langford was burned alive in his car a decade ago and Thorne worked on the case.  Donna was arrested and charged with paying a hit man to kill Alan, who was the head of the local gangster group.  She has been in prison since but has just been released on parole.

Donna hires a woman who is starting a career as a private investigator.  That woman, Anna Carpenter, comes to the police when she realizes she is in over her head.  The police learn that Donna has been getting pictures of Alan somewhere on a beach enjoying his life.  Apparently, the man killed in his car wasn't Alan.  Unfortunately for Thorne, his superiors ask him to let Anna shadow him as he works the case.  As more bodies pile up and Thorne starts to like Anna, he feels that it's a very bad situation as anyone associated with the case could be in line for more violence.  Can he solve the case again without anyone else being hurt?

This is the ninth Tom Thorne detective novel.  In this one, Thorne and his girlfriend who is also in the police, are having issues after a life loss.  The feel is that they may soon be breaking up as they drift further and further apart.  Thorne's darker, vindictive side is also on display in this novel, more than some of the previous ones.  When he is engaged, he is bullet-focused on catching the criminal he has in his sights, no matter what it takes.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.