The Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

 

This novel imagines solutions for the climate change that the author believes will stop life on Earth if not reversed.  It does so through two main characters.  Frank is a doctor working in India when an inversion creates a heat emergency that kills thousands; he survives but isn't sure why he does when so many around him do not.  Mary Murphy is the head of the Ministry For The Future, headquartered in Switzerland and charged with getting all the countries of Earth to work together to solve the climate crisis.

Over the years, these two characters intersect periodically.  Various methods of changing things are suggested; economic, individual saving, carbon credits and others.  These methods are enacted in the novel and over decades, we start to see first a standstill of the disaster then a reversal of the crisis.  These are sweeping changes; moving humans out of huge areas of land to let it go back to a native state and encouraging animals to breed, a worldwide currency based on carbon credits, massive governmental oversight of every aspect of life.  While the solutions suggested are far-ranging and hopeful in their effect, it is up to the reader to decide if they are realistic.

This is my first read of this author.  I found this novel to be somewhat of a slog with lots of preachy suggestions that I found unrealistic.  For one example, there is lightly thrown out that perhaps we need to have an optimum number of humans with the suggested range being two to four billion.  Since the world's population is currently almost eight billion, one is left to wonder who would be in charge of deciding which half of the population should be erased.  This book is recommended for readers of environmental science fiction.

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

 

Like many young women, Anna needs to have work to support herself.  Since she hasn't found a permanent career, she signs up with a temporary agency that specializes in supplying help to the villains that oppose superheroes and finds herself a low-level hench.  Even villains need help answering the phone, setting schedules, typing up notes, etc.  But her life changes the day her assignment is to accompany her employer, standing beside him as he gave a press conference so that there would be women in the crowd.

The biggest superhero in the world, Supercollider, breaks into the conference.  In his attempt to get to the villain, he creates havoc in the audience.  Anna is badly hurt but fares better than those who are killed by the falling debris.  After she gets out of the hospital and is recuperating, she gets laid off to add insult to injury.

While laid up, Anna starts to create a spreadsheet to stave off her boredom and pain.  She calculates the cost in both monetary terms and human pain and suffering that the antics of superheroes causes.  She is not surprised to find out that there is a cost but shocked at the enormity of it.  Soon she is obsessed with her project, researching all the heroes and the costs their antics cause.  

The biggest villain, Leviathan, hears about Anna's work and brings her on staff.  Now she has an entire division to help her with research and to devise ways to bring daily irritation to the heroes along with a plan to bring about their downfall by exposing the pain they bring along with their help.  She even finds herself becoming attached to Leviathan who is the scariest individual living.  When he is captured, Anna is in charge of rescuing him.  Can she do it and emerge unscathed?

This is a totally original, delightful read.  Anna is typical of young workers starting out and trying to find a way to make an impact.  Her skills and insight lead to her being able to break out of the ranks and rise to prominence in her organization.  It also probes the meaning of friendship.  Anna loses some friends along the way who can't handle what she does for a living.  She also makes new friends, one that she knows are willing to do anything to help her achieve her goals.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.

House Of The Rising Sun by James Lee Burke

 

When we first meet Texas Ranger Hackberry Holland, he is in Mexico searching for his son, Ishmael.  Ishmael and his mother have lived a hard life, as a misunderstanding between Holland and Ishmael's mother, Ruby Dansen, left Ruby to raise their son on her own which wasn't easy in the years before World War I.  Holland was married to Maggie Bassett, a former madam and consort of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Holland wasn't sure how he ended up married to her and had been trying to find his way out but Maggie wasn't having it.  She did everything she could to break up his relationship with Ruby and she won that battle.

While Holland doesn't find Ishmael on his trip to Mexico he does find something else.  In a cantina out in the desert, he encounters a madam called Beatrice DeMolay.  She tells him that along with the massacred soldiers he has found, there are guns stored waiting on an Austrian gun dealer.  Holland searches the guns and finds what appears to be a religious icon.  He takes that with him, blows up the guns to keep them out of enemy hands and heads back to Texas.

That trip sets in motion the events of Holland's life in the years ahead.  Maggie leaves and Hackberry is alone on his ranch.  He continues to try to find Ruby and Ishmael but the trail is cold.  When Ishmael goes to fight in World War I, he comes home wounded.  In the meantime, the arms dealer whose icon Hackberry took all those years ago has never forgotten it.  He still wants it back and finds a way to take control of Ishmael from the hospital he is sent to for his wounds.  Hackberry knows it will take every ounce of strength and cunning he possesses to get Ishmael back.  Can he do it?

This is the fourth novel in the Hackberry Holland series.  I like the Dave Robicheaux series better but this novel was intriguing and the action carried the reader along.  Hackberry never managed to see himself as others did; he only saw his faults while others saw all his virtues.  He is totally loyal to those he considers family and friends and while he is violent it is usually hard to avoid.  This book is recommended for readers of thrillers.

A Litter Of Bones by J D Kirk

 

The biggest case of DCI Jack Logan's career was his capture of serial killer "Mister Whisper" ten years ago.  Mister  Whisper targeted small boys and when he was captured, he confessed to the murder of three boys.  Logan was able to get him to confess where the bodies of two of them were hidden and return the bodies to their families but before he could get the information on the last boy, Mister Whisper was involved in an accident that left him in a mental hospital, uncommunicative.  Logan believes the man is faking his mental state and visits him periodically to try to get the location of the last boy's remains.

But now, another boy has been taken.  It's a hundred miles north of Glasgow where the earlier murders occurred but the case is so similar that Logan is sent north to head up the investigation.  Is this a copycat?  An admirer of Mister Whisper?  As the investigation turns up more and more similarities, rumors start to circulate that perhaps the man captured ten years ago wasn't the real Mister Whisper and that Logan may have gotten the wrong man.  Can he find the lost boy and find the killer before time runs out?

This is my first book by author J D Kirk but it won't be my last.  Logan is haunted by the past investigation and determined to do right by this new victim and those from the past.  His interaction with the new team is instructive as he picks out those detectives who show signs of promise and mentors them.  The writing has times of humor, reminiscent of other Scottish crime writers like Stuart MacBride.  This book is recommended for mystery readers and especially fans of police procedurals and Scottish noir.

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

 

Two men from two very different worlds, pitted against each other in a race against time.  The Saracen is a radicalized Muslim.  His father was beheaded for daring to speak out against the government.  His son vows to take down that government and believes the best way to do so is to cripple the United States which supports his government overseas.  His plan is to become a doctor and then to manipulate the smallpox gene so that it can be introduced into the population with a one hundred percent fatality rate.

Fighting against him is the best man the CIA ever had in the field.  He has retired while still a young man but is brought back in to fight and defeat the man who has hatched this plan.  His name does not matter as he changes identities as often and easily as other men change their shirts.  He goes undercover to Turkey where a call between the Saracen and a woman has been intercepted to locate and stop him.  His cover is as an FBI agent who has come to investigate the death of a young tech billionaire.  While solving that case, he discovers that Saracen has moved further ahead with his plan than anyone had suspected.  Can he uncover the plot and find Saracen in time to avoid the thousands or millions of deaths his plot can kill?

Terry Hayes is a screenwriter and his work on framing stories in a taut visual manner pays off in this thriller.  Told from the alternating views of the Saracen and the man sent to thwart his plan, the reader is fascinated with the life stories and maneuvers of each man.  All the characters are finely drawn, even those in lesser supporting roles.  The action is suspenseful and perhaps timely in this time of pandemic.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.

We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker

 

In a small California town, a tragedy has long consequences.  A young boy, Vincent King, has a car accident and a local girl, Sissy Radley, is killed.  He gets a harsh judge who sentences him to ten years in prison and when a prisoner picks a fight with him, Vincent's sentence gets extended to 30 years due to the other man's death after the fight.  Now it's time for Vincent to come home.

There are many in the town who remember the accident as if it were yesterday.  The chief of police, Chief Walker, was Vincent's best friend and has never forgiven himself for testifying against him at the trial.  Star Radley was Sissy's sister.  Her life after Sissy's death was a spiral downward.  Now she has two children she can't take care of, Duchess and Robin.  Star moves from man to man, often abusive men.  She drinks and drugs and often there isn't enough food for the children.  Duchess who is thirteen, tries to take up the slack and give Robin a happy childhood.  She does the best she can but after all is only thirteen and can only do so much.  

When Vincent comes home, new events are put in play.  The children end up living with their grandfather who slowly works his way into their hearts and is a stable influence.  Walker tries his best to help Vincent integrate back into society but it's a hard road and Vincent doesn't seem that interested.  Soon he is once again suspected of a crime and now Walker must put aside his own feelings and investigate to get to the truth. 

This book has gotten a lot of positive press.  It is an Amazon Best Book of March 2021 and a number one Indie Pick.  The characters are finely drawn and the book explores the themes of family and what that means, of friends and loyalty and keeping promises even when they are hard.  The locale is California and Montana but the novel has a Southern feel to me.  This book is recommended for readers of crime novels with a literary overlay.  

I listened to this novel.  The narrator, George Newbern, does an admirable job.  He has a mellow voice that tells the story as if he were telling it on a front porch at dusk, rocking in a porch swing.  I would definitely listen to another of his performances.

Wolf To The Slaughter by Ruth Rendell

 

Two events occur in a small English town that seem to be related.  A bloody room has been reported by the owner; the man he rented it to nowhere to be found.  At the same time an heiress, the sister of an up and coming artist, has disappeared.  Has a murder occurred?  The woman seems to have tons of men in her life and it's not outside the realm of possibility that she has taken up with a bad one.  

Chief Inspector Wexford, Inspector Burden and Constable Drayton look into the disappearance.  There seems to be mystery surrounding a lighter which may or may not be connected to the case.  Drayton finds himself drawn to a witness and is soon dating her under the radar as he knows it is not allowable.  Her testimony if ever required could be brought into question if their relationship becomes known.  Wexford and Burden are more focused on the missing woman.  Her brother doesn't seem to be able to account for her whereabouts and isn't even sure if he should be worried.  But that room and all the blood...

This is an early Rendell novel, the third in the Wexford series.  He is still fairly undefined in this book although easily the dominant character in the police station.  Burden is judgmental as always but his skills complement those of Wexford.  Drayton is just starting out and has a plan to become like Wexford who he admires and wants to follow.  The mystery twists and turns and has an interesting ending.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

The Breaks by Richard Price

 

Peter Heller is at loose ends.  He just graduated college, a great Ivy League university.  But he didn't get into the law school of his dreams and he doesn't want to go to the university that did accept him.  He thought he was geared for success but now he's moved back home with his father and stepmother.  He gets a series of dead-end jobs such as selling various items over the phone, soul deadening jobs.  Peter doesn't know what he wants in life now.  Should he become a standup comedian?  Go for a second-rate law degree?  

At loose ends, he drifts back to his college town where he still knows a number of the faculty.  One of his favorite professors is now head of the English department and he hires Peter to teach a freshman composition class.  Peter likes it at first but grows to dislike it.  He meets Kim, a secretary at the university and starts a relationship with her but worries that she is still in love with her ex-husband, another English professor.  Can Peter find a way forward?

Richard Price is acknowledged as one of the greats in American literature; his forte writing about city life, especially the law enforcement and criminal worlds.  This book, however, has a collection of unlikeable personalities and unfortunately, Peter is among them.  He seems to have no idea what to do with his life and his whining about it isn't pleasant to read.  The book is well written and Price definitely has the measure of someone at loose ends.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction that want to read one of Price's lesser known works.

The Last Detective by Robert Crais

 

It should never have happened.  Elvis Cole's girlfriend, Lucy Chenier, has gone out of town and left her son, Ben, with Elvis overnight.  The two have a great time.  But when Ben goes outside to play with a game, Elvis cannot find him when he goes out after talking with Lucy on the phone.  He searches everywhere but soon has to come to the decision that Ben has been taken by someone.

Elvis's theory is proven when Lucy gets a call from the kidnappers.  Her ex-husband blames her for leaving Ben with Elvis and as a wealthy man, brings in his own team of security to try to negotiate with the kidnappers.  Cole also has a team.  He has Joe Pike, the best friend and most tenacious detective he has ever met.  The kidnapper's throw in a curve, implying that the kidnapping is in retaliation for an event that happened in Cole's military past but he feels that it isn't the real reason as the details of that operation are top secret.  He and Pike work with the LAPD detective assigned to the case, Carol Starkey, to find Ben and return him.  Can they find him in time?

This is the ninth book of eighteen in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series.  Cole and Pike live by a code and while that makes them stand out from others, it is the only way they can honorably lives their lives.  Their military and police skills allow them to see things hidden to others and the twists that occur as the book progresses will shock the reader.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.

The Last Hotel by Emily St John Mandel

 

This novel opens in the lobby of the Hotel Caiette, a luxury hotel.  It is on an island in Vancouver, accessible only by boat.  The hotel is owned by Jonathan Alkaitis who is extremely wealthy from his work as an investment manager.  Jonathan is expected to arrive that night.  Vincent is a woman in her twenties, adrift in life and working as a bartender in the hotel.  Her half-brother, Paul, is also working there but as a handyman.  There is also a shipping magnate, Leon, sitting in the lobby when a horrible message is discovered written on the glass windows.

Over the next several years, we follow these characters in their lives.  Viincent leaves the island when Jonathan does and becomes his mistress.  She is whisked from a mundane existence to one of in the land of the wealthy.  Jonathan is not only managing an investment firm but is also involved in a Ponzi scheme where he is steadily stealing the money of his investors, Leon being one of them.  One woman sees through the scheme and pursues Jonathan for years until she is able to bring him and his scheme down.  

This work is reminiscent of Emily St. John Mandel's earlier works.  It has a dreamlike feel as the characters all seem adrift in various ways.  Paul and Vincent are drifting through life, going and doing what circumstance puts in front of them.  Jonathan is living on borrowed time as he knows that eventually his scheme will be discovered.  The characters attempt to make lasting connections but those also seem unreal, transparent and temporary.  As the book ends, the various players find resolutions in their lives although mostly not as they had envisioned them.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

The Ten Thousand Doors Of January

 

We meet January Scaller when she is seven.  January is named after the god Janus, with two faces that forever looked ahead and back.  He is the symbol for duality, for seeing possibilities and facing past mistakes.  January is the child of Julian, a black explorer and Adelaide, a strong white woman.  She has never met her mother and doesn't even know her name.  She sees her father infrequently.  He travels the world seeking out lost antiquities and precious items for her guardian, Cornelius Locke.  Locke is a wealthy man of impecable background who is the president of an antiquities preservation society.  He employs Julian and watches over January while Julian travels.

January survives by being a good girl.  She travels with Locke and is treated with respect as his ward, not how she would be treated on her own as a mixed race child with no money.  She is quiet and studious but that changes when at age seven she discovers a door.  It is out in a field all by itself and as she got close, she started to feel the pull of the unexplained, the feeling that what lay beyond would answer all her questions.  But as she starts to go through, Mr. Locke calls her and she pulls back.  The next day the door is gone, only a pile of rubble in a field. 

That day stays with January however and the way the door made her feel.  When she is seventeen, she finds a quaint book hidden and seemingly meant for her.  It is a story of her background and of doors and the magic that can lay beyond them.  January is determined to set out to find more doors and to find her father who has disappeared on one of his journeys.  Perhaps she can find her own story and clues about the mother of whom she knows nothing.

January does find doors and as she does, she comes to realize that her life has been shuttered and only bits of her history have been revealed.  Mr. Locke is less the kindly guardian who has raised her and more an exploiter of both her family and the antiquities that propel his purpose.  January comes to realize that the doors she finds all over the world may eventually give her the answers to her background and give her the family she has wanted all her life.  

This is a debut novel which was highly anticipated as Alix Harrow had already made a name for herself as a short story author.  It is a coming of age story that hints at the mystery and wonder that the world can provide.  January is an entrancing personality and the reader cannot help but cheer her on.  This book is recommended to readers of young adult and fantasy literature.  

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

 

Jane Steele grew up on a large country estate, told by her mother that one day it would all be hers.  But something is wrong with that scenario.  Jane and her mother lived in the carriage house while her aunt and cousin lived in the mansion and it was clear her aunt intensely disliked both her mother and Jane.  Her cousin was her only playmate and he delighted in mean tricks and terrorizing her.  When her mother died and her cousin died in suspicious circumstances, Jane was packed off to a boarding school.

But the school was even worse.  Run by a sadistic tyrant, Jane and her schoolmates lived in constant fear.  When the man is killed, Jane and a friend find a way to run off to London.  There they found a way to survive, her friend singing and Jane writing broadsheets about executions.  But death followed them there as well.  After the friends were separated, Jane needed to leave London.  Looking at the want ads, she finds that the man now living in the estate on which she grew up was advertising for a governess.  She applies and is hired.

The master of the estate is a former military man who served in India.  His butler and servants were all Indian as was her new charge.  The girl was delightful and adored by everyone on the estate and Jane also quickly fell in love with her.  She is finally happy but trouble is brewing.  Can Jane finally find a place where she fits in?  Will her past rise up and ruin this situation as well?

Lyndsay Faye has rewritten the Jane Eyre story in an endearing manner.  Mystery surrounds Jane and whatever she tries, murder always seems to follow her.  The romance between Jane and the estate owner is inevitable and engaging.  The mystery of the estate is satisfactorily revealed and the reader is left feeling justified.  This book is recommended for mystery as well as literary fiction readers.

Little Bones by N V Peacock

 

First her name was Leigh-Ann.  She lived with her parents and had an idyllic childhood.  Then she was called Little Bones when her father was arrested and convicted of being Mr. Bones, a prolific serial killer.  He killed little boys and used their painted bones to make colorful sculptures, using Leigh-Ann to make the rides he offered seem safe.  After his conviction, her mother couldn't live with the infamy and killed herself so Leigh-Ann grew up in foster homes, always watched with suspicion and the first to be accused whenever anything went wrong.

But those days are behind her.  As soon as she legally could, she changed her name to Cherry.  For ten years, she has worked at a butcher's shop, her co-workers her friends.  She has a long term boyfriend and the love of her life, her son Robin.  All in all, it's a safe, predictable life and it's heaven on Earth to her.

But things are about to change.  A young boy has gone missing.  Worse, a college student with journalistic hopes has decided to create a podcast and his first case is that of Mr. Bones.  He has somehow tracked Cherry down and has outed her on his podcast, giving her new name and her place of work.  How can this be?  No one knows about Cherry's past.  She never even told Leo, her boyfriend.  How can she tell him now after all this time?

When Robin goes missing while at the fair with Cherry, everything stops.  She can't live without her son and the first boy never returned home.  The police assure her that they are doing everything possible but Cherry is determined to pull strings they don't have access to.  She reaches out to anyone she thinks can help, psychics, relatives of other missing boys and even her imprisoned father whom she hasn't seen in over a decade.  Can she find Robin before he suffers the fate of her father's victims?

I listened to this novel.  The main narrator, Stephanie Racine, uses her voice to portray the desperation and heartbreak Cherry goes through.  The novel is set in England and her accent transports the reader to that locale.  There is a secondary narrator who narrates various chapters on the podcast, a male voice that portrays the juvenile yearnings of the podcaster.

N V Peacock has written a chilling tale of the past finding the secrets about ourselves we hope to hide forever.  Cherry has built a new life from an unimaginable past but it can be torn away by anyone determined enough to research her path after the trial.  She also covers the popular world of criminal podcasts and the harm that those who cover crimes without investigative knowledge and a police background can do.  That's a topic I've thought about quite a bit as the criminal podcast world exploded.  Some are very well researched and provide answers that the police don't have the resources to find but some are just riding on the popular bandwagon and probably do as much harm as good.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.

Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda

 

The world has forgotten about Visitation Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn.  It's a neighborhood of blue collar workers, of immigrants and those who aren't about to make a mark.  Now a tragedy has happened.  One warm summer night two teenage girls, Val and June, take a blowup raft out on the water but only Val returns.  She doesn't remember anything about that night so June's disappearance isn't solved.

But there are others in the neighborhood.  Fadi runs a grocery and has hope for the neighborhood.  He prints a local newspaper and has high hopes for the cruise ship rumored to be coming bringing tourists to his market.  Cree is about to start community college, getting things together after the horrific murder of his father that tore his family apart.  Jonathan was Val and June's music teacher but he spends his nights getting drunk and picking up anyone who will sleep with him.  Ren paints the walls with his graffati and seems bent on protecting Cree.  As these characters interact slowly the mystery starts to be penetrated and perhaps the mystery of June's disappearance will be solved.

Ivy Pochoda has created a slice of life portrait that brings this isolated neighborhood to life.  The characters are recognizable types, their motivations vague as they try to figure out life.  Life has not been kind to the inhabitants of Red Hook but in various ways they strive towards a more successful life.  This book is recommended to readers of literary fiction with a twist of mystery.

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha

 

This timely novel concerns the lives of two families in Los Angeles and how their lives intersect.  The Matthews family is an African-American family.  Shawn and his sister came to live with his aunt and his cousin Ray when their parents were unavailable.  Shawn grew up considering Ray his brother.  Now Ray is coming out of prison after a long stretch and Shawn is hoping to help him navigate the transition he made himself after some prison time.  Their lives were changed forever when Shawn's sister was killed in an incident in a convenience store.

The Park family have Korean heritage.  Grace is the daughter who still lives at home and who is a pharmacist at the family store.  She has a sister who lives in the heart of Los Angeles and is estranged from the family, especially their mother.  When Grace leaves the store one night with her mother and the mother is gunned down in front of Grace, everything changes.

It is touch and go whether her mother will make it but she survives.  As she is recuperating in the hospital, the family secret comes out.  Grace's mother was the woman who shot Shawn's sister all those years ago.  The incident rocked Los Angeles especially when the mother received a minimal punishment.  She changed her name and the family moved and she has hidden in plain sight all these years.  Now her secret is out and suspicion falls on Shawn's family.  Did one of them take revenge after all these years for the earlier shooting?  

Cha has written a tense novel about how events can both separate and intersect those who would normally never come in contact.  The desire for revenge is understandable yet the act would be as wrong as the one that set this crime in motion decades before.  How each family reacted to the earlier tragedy and this new one is discussed and the question of when forgiveness is appropriate is explored.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

The City We Became by N.K. Jeminsin

 When Matt gets off the subway in Manhattan, he realizes he doesn't exactly know where he is or worse, who he is.  He's a graduate student, newly arrived in the city but he is dizzy and something seems to be happening.  New York residents step up to help him and he finds himself in a Checker cab heading to his new apartment.  He doesn't know much but he's sure he shouldn't be seeing a huge monster on the Long Island Expressway with waving white tentacles.  Somehow he knows how to fight it off but what next?

What's next is more than anyone could expect.  It turns out that cities are alive and something is trying to kill New York.  Furthermore, Matt has somehow been chosen as the avatar for Manhattan.  There are other avatars, one for each borough.  There's a community organizer, an art galley owner, another poor graduate student who is also an immigrant and a young girl whose father is a policeman.  Somehow they must unite and fight off the threat to the city.  Can they band together in time to save the city?

This is the first book in N.K. Jemisin's newest trilogy.  It is a madcap adventure which emphasizes the need for all races and ages to come together to create a world in which everyone's talents and skills are valued.  Some may find the analogies a bit heavyhanded but the point is well taken in today's world; without each other we are doomed.  This book is recommended for readers of science fiction.

Booksie's Shelves, February 9, 2021

 

February in 2021.  Things are looking up a bit as DH and I are getting our second covid virus shots this Friday.  Football is done for the year and college basketball is revving up for March Madness.  In our area of North Carolina, the days are cold and dreary but we haven't gotten snow yet this year and probably won't this winter.  It's been fourteen months since I've seen my son and grandchildren but hopefully we will get to see them soon after the second shot has time to kick in.  I read fourteen books in January and four so far in February.  Most of what has come in have been ebooks and audibles but here's what's come through the door:

1. Do Not Say We Have Nothing, Madeleine Thien, literary fiction, purchased
2. The Brass Queen, Elizabeth Chatsworth, historical fiction, sent by publisher
3. Astrid Sees All, Natalie Standiford, literary fiction, sent by publisher
4. The Sound Of Wings, Suzanne Simonetti, literary fiction, sent by publisher
5. First Love, Gwendoline Riley, literary fiction, purchased
6. The Lowering Days, Gregory Brown, literary fiction, won in contest
7. The Perfect 10, Eric O'Keefe, mystery, sent by publisher

Here's the e-books I've bought recently:

1. From The Shadows, Angel Haze, fantasy
2. Collecting The Dead, Spenser Kope
3. The Scholar, Dervla McTiernan, mystery
4. Deacon King Kong, James McBride, literary fiction
5. Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead, Olga Tokarczuk
6. Agency, William Gibson, science fiction
7. Lies We Tell Ourselves, Steena Holmes, mystery
8. Restriction, CM Raymond, fantasy
9. The Invention Of Nature, Andrea Wulf, nonfiction
10. The Labyrinth Of The Spirits, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, literary fiction
11. Ritual, Mo Hayder, thriller
12. Infinite Home, Kathleen Alcott, literary fiction
13. Face Of Our Father, G. Egore Pitrir, thriller
14. Pale Highway, Nicholas Conley, fantasy
15. The Song Of The Sirin, Nickolas Kotar, fantasy
16. Shadows Of Ivory, T.L. Greylock, fantasy
17. Foundling Wizard, James Eggebean, fantasy
18. Dead God's Due, Matthew Gilbert, fantasy
19. Immortals, Joshua Smith, fantasy
20. Darkblade Avenger, Andy Peloquin, fantasy
21. Shields In Shadow, Andy Peloquin, fantasy
22. Children Of The Dead City, Noor Al-Shanti, fantasy
23. Mary Toft, Dexter Palmer, literary fiction
24. Black Bird, Greg Eslen, mystery
25. The Edinburgh Seer, Alisha Klapheke
26. The Cactus League, Emily Nemans, literary fiction
27. West With Giraffes, Lynda Rutledge, literary fiction
28. The Shadow Box, Luanne Rice, mystery
29. The Long Way Home, Louise Penny, mystery
30. On Beauty, Zadie Smith, literary fiction
31. The Boy Who Lit Up The Sky, J. Naomi Ay, fantasy
32. The Mountains Sing, Nguyen Phan Que, literary fiction
33. Perfect Remains, Helen Fields, mystery
34. Lady In The Lake, Laura Lippman, mystery
35. The Traitor Beau Cormorant, Seth Dickinson, fantasy
36. I'll Take Care Of You, Caitlin Rother, true crime
37. Someone Else's Daughter, Linsey Lanier, mystery
38. Bunny, Mona Awad, literary fiction
39. False Value, Ben Aaronovitch, fantasy
40. Infinite, Brian Freeman, mystery
41. The Third Rainbow Girl, Emma Eisenbery, true crime
42. The Bone Ships, RJ Baker, historical fiction
43. Hi Five, Joe Ide, mystery
44. Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James, literary fiction

Happy Reading!

The Northern Reach by W.S. Winslow

 

Wellbridge, Maine, is not what most mean when they think of a coastal town.  This is no hot in the sun, fun-filled, commercial strip where fun and romance is uppermost.  This is a small fishing village in a cold climate, a hardscrabble environment where livings must be clawed from the sea or those few tourists that end up here for a vacation.

As in most small places, there are several families that have been there forever and who will probably only disappear when their families die out, not because they moved elsewhere in search of a better life.  There are the Baines, a fishing family whose future dies with a ship wreck that drowns most of the men in the family.  The Moodys are considered white trash and are hard drinking poor people who aren't about to be told what to do by anything.  The Edgecombs are farming folk although the land isn't exactly thriving.

Over the decades, these families intermarry, fight and join.  They know each others' secrets going back for years and have ancient grudges.  Occasionally one of the young people marry someone from somewhere else and bring in new blood but these newcomers are rarely welcomed.  Their lot is to be at best tolerated as they are considered to be ignorant of the things that are needed to survive in this place.  There are shipwrecks, illnesses, even a murder or two.  

W.S. Winslow is a native Maine resident herself so she knows what she is writing about.  This is her debut novel and the structure makes this novel interesting.  It ties together the stories from the different families into a tapestry of survival in a bleak environment, of people doing whatever it takes to get by.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers. 

Queen Of America by Luis Alberto Urrea

 

Teresita Urrea moves to the United States with her father, Tomas Urrea as a teenager after the Mexican government declares them persona non grata.  Terestia is considered a saint by the native population after the sixteen year old recovers from a coma and states that she saw the Virgin Mary and could now cure people.  People came from near and far to be cured and the government soon considered her influence to be one that could forment revolution.

Tomas was the wealthiest landowner in the Sonora province but readily gave it up to travel with his daughter who was in danger of being imprisoned if they stayed in Mexico.  They moved around to several places while finding a home.  They started in Tucson, then moved to El Paso and finally ended up in Clifton, Arizona.  Wherever they went, people flocked to see Teresita and she was a celebrity.

As she grew older, she fell in love but with tragic results.   Her marriage lasted but a day when it became apparent that her husband was a violent man with mental issues.  Since her father had never wanted her to marry, Terisita felt she had failed him and moved to California under the protection of a business consortium that wanted to market her powers.  Lonely, she sent for a childhood friend, John Order and later married him.  They had two daughters and lived in California, New York and finally back to their roots in Clinton. 

This book is a historical fiction but based on a real person.  Terestia Urrea, the Saint of Cabora, lived from 1873-1906 and was the author's aunt.  He spent many years learning about her life and then wrote a two book history, this being the second recounting her time in the United States.  The first novel was The Hummingbird's Daughter which recounted Teresita's early years in Mexico.  The fact of the author's connection and his meticulous research makes this a powerful work.  This book is recommended for historical fiction readers as well as readers of diverse cultures.

The Profiler by Pat Brown

 

When Pat Brown, a housewife and mother, was in her forties two things occurred that would change her life.  She and her husband rented a room to a new tenent.  Shortly after he moved in a woman was brutally murdered a short distance from their house on a path that the man was known to walk on almost daily.  Suspicious, Brown searched his room and found evidence that she thought pointed directly at him as the perpetrator; muddy and wet clothes thrown away although they seemed new, a letter opener filed down to serve as a knife and pornographic magazines.  She bundled up the items and took them to the police where she laid out her suspicions and the strange way he talked and acted.  Much to her disbelief, the police pretty much ignored her and the evidence she brought them and the case remained unsolved.

Brown was determined to find out more about killers and crime detection.  She was too old to start a police career and she couldn't find any schools that specialized in the subjects she wanted to study.  So she became a self-taught forensic investigator or profiler.  Far from mimicking  the practices of the legendary FBI unit that men like John Douglas set up to profile criminals, especially serial offenders, she used a different method and often disagreed vocally with the FBI and its conclusions.

This explanation of how Pat Brown began her career starts out this book.  The rest of the book is composed of various cases she profiled.  There were cases such a woman killed and found in the parking lot of a club, a young girl who disappeared during a sleepover with a neighbor and was found murdered and several suicides.  Interestingly, she reports that her work is made up of more suicide cases than murders as it is a verdict that families have a hard time accepting.  

While interesting, the book may leave readers with questions.  While Brown lays out the facts of the cases and gives her solutions and how she arrived at them, there is little to no evidence that her work is taken seriously and led to prosecutions.  She often is working with little evidence and no police cooperation and she puts the fact of prosecutions down to politics and shortsightedness.  Her work would seem more authoritative if her conclusions led to more prosecutions.  Her explanation of her methods and how she reached her answers is intriguing and will give the reader much to consider.  This book is recommended for readers of true crime.