Our Kind Of Cruelty by Araminta Hall

 

Mike and Verity have a perfect relationship.  Mike came from poverty and foster homes and institutions but he's an investment banker now and doing well financially.  Verity came from wealth and position with a supportive family and she now works in IT.  They are bonded in every way and they like to play a game.

They all it The Crave.  They go to a pub and Verity flirts with another man until he is interested.  Then Mike comes over and pushes him away, claiming ownership of Verity.  It is stimulating for them both and some of their best times start this way.

Mike takes a job overseas but Verity can't leave her own job.  They agree that a long distance relationship will work but as the months add it, it starts to have issues.  Both stray and when Mike returns for Christmas, it's to Verity breaking up with him.  He can't believe it; they are meant to be together.  But eventually he returns overseas to his job and tries to convince Verity from afar that he still loves her and that they should be together.

But when he finally manages to get transferred back to London, it's to a horrid surprise.  Verity is getting married to another man, a man she loves and who everyone believes is a perfect match.  Mike decides that this is another version of the Crave and he knows how to play.  What will happen?

Araminta Hall is a British author.  She worked as a magazine journalist before she started writing books and also teaches.  She writes in the thriller genre and this book is chilling.  The pace is rapid and we get to see what's it's like inside the mind of a stalker, someone so obsessed with another that they can't imagine a world where their interest is not returned.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.

The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith

 

In what may be their most challenging case, Robin and Strike are asked by a father to help him return his son from the church where he has been for four years.  The father believes that the church is a cult and that there are illegal things going on.  Their son is living at the church's farm estate where he uses his intelligence and resources to hoe gardens and clean bathrooms.  Strike and Robin do a preliminary investigation and agree to take the case against the Universal Humanitarian Church.

But the church is wily and guards against revelation of its secrets  Those few who have escaped have often found death on the outside, perhaps tied to their association.  The two investigators agree that the only effective way to handle the case is for someone to go undercover.  Robin is the one chosen and she will only have contact with Strike and the company once a week through a hidden stone with a place for a note.  She goes to a service and before she knows it, she is on the farm.

Church members are expected to revere Papa J as the leader is known and his wife, who is in charge of discipline.  The members are given little food or sleep and as the days go by, Robin finds herself falling into the mindset of those who are true members.  She starts to hear of deaths and punishments and everyone is expected to sleep with whomever asks.  Will Robin get to the church's secrets before her identity is stolen?

This is the eighth Comoran Strike novel and it is definitely one of the best.  Robin is dating a police officer and Strike always has a woman around but the two are starting to admit to themselves that their true interests are in each other.  The church's secrets are slowly revealed which builds the tension around whether Robin will be able to escape their clutches.  It is very long, over nine hundred pages, but it's hard to see what could have been left out as everything comes to a head.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

Elizabeth Zott wants to be known for one thing, her mind.  She wanted to get her doctorate in chemistry but a doctoral supervisor who stole her research and then tried to have sex with her put an end to that.  She ends up at a research facility but in the 1960's, Elizabeth is seen as lab assistant material not scientist.  That is, until Calvin Evans notices her.  Calvin is a Nobel-nominated scientist and he is entranced with a woman he can talk with who understands him.  It doesn't hurt that Elizabeth is gorgeous and soon they fall in love.

But when Calvin is killed leaving Elizabeth alone and pregnant, she is pushed out of her job.  She creates her own lab in her kitchen and her former co-workers often come by to get her assistance with their work.  But it's not enough money to support her and her daughter.  So when she is offered the chance to host a cooking show on the local PBS station, she reluctantly agrees.

Elizabeth is a hit!  She doesn't only teach women how to cook nutritious meals but she tells them daily to reach for their dreams.  To go get educated, to do what they dream of doing in life.  Where will it all end?

This is a debut novel and it took off like a rocket.  It won numerous awards and has been made into a television series.  Women love Elizabeth and her refusal not to be taken seriously and her determination to live her dreams.  Bonnie Garmus was a copywriter when she wrote this novel.  There are elements of her own life here, Elizabeth and Calvin are rowers as is Bonnie, and the amazing dog echoes her real life companion.  The book is humorous while insisting on women as individuals who should be given credit for their accomplishments.  This book is recommended for women's fiction readers.    

The Meaning Of Night by Michael Cox

 

Edward Glyver grows up with his single mother in a coastal city.  His mother is an author and spends countless hours writing.  Edward grows up as a scholar and a bibliophile, having been able to attend a good school through the help of one of his mother's friends.  When she dies, he discovers something amazing.  She was not his mother at all.  She was raising him as a favor for her best friend, a woman who was married to nobility.  But Edward has no legal proof.

He becomes friends with various men who hold parts of the puzzle and who help him.  Chief among these is his boss, who owns a legal firm and who hired Edward when he returned to England from several years abroad.  Edward also falls in love along the way and that may be his downfall.

This is the first novel in a series.  It is written in a Victorian manner and reminded me of several Charles Dickens novels.  Edward has a nemesis who haunts his life and has since boyhood.  He is also about to win the place in life that should be Edward's.  Who will be recognized as the rightful heir to estates and unimaginable wealth?  Cox is an English author and this is his debut novel.  It is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

 When Bryan Stevenson graduated law school, he knew what he wanted to do.  He wanted to help those who had been wrongly convicted and were on Death Row.  He wanted to stop the state executing those who had been minors when they were convicted.  He wanted to stop the executions of those who had been at a crime scene but had done nothing there.  He moved to one of the worst states for injustice at the time, Alabama, and opened his law firm, a nonprofit.

In this book about his law practice, he illustrates the injustices he fights by narrating the case of one of his first attempts, Walter McMillian.  Walter had been doing fairly well for himself in an area where black people were usually impoverished as he had a timber business.  But Walter had a straying eye and one of his conquests was a white woman.  This was in the 1980's and there was still a lot of prejudice around interracial relationships and lots of people had it out for Walter.  When a young white girl was killed while working in a dry cleaning store, it was a major case.  Although Walter was twenty miles away at a family fish fry with several dozen witnesses, he was arrested on the word of a white witness and a black man who wanted to get his own sentence reduced.  Walter was sent to Death Row and was there for six years.  Eventually, Stevenson managed to prove his wrongful conviction and get him released.  Walter had years left to live but sadly, as he got older, he believed he was back on Death Row and spent many days scared and lonely.

This nonfiction book has won numerous awards, as has Stevenson's law practice which continues its work to eliminate the death penalty or at least to free those wrongfully convicted.  That means not only those who didn't do the crime for which they were sentenced but those who were too young to have formed intent or those who were mentally incapable.  Stevenson even won the McArthur Fellowship which gives a cash award, $800,000 currently, to those who show creativity and talent in a field.  Readers will follow the cases he discusses with disbelief and horror and the book has the potential to change minds about the death penalty.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.  

When We Cease To Understand The World by Benjamin Labatut

 

This book looks at various scientific explorations and discovers, mostly in the fields of mathematics and physics.  Names many will have heard are discussed here such as Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger and others more obscure, Haber and Grothendieck.  Each man's work and discoveries are outlined and their lives explored.  Unfortunately, most of them led sad lives with alienated loves and often madness after a promising start to life.  

The discoveries were not all positive.  For example, the discovery of the beautiful Prussian Blue color for painters later resulted in the use of it in the cyanide that was used in Germany's death camps.  Einstein, for one, disagreed with the results of some of the scientists although they were proven correct in the end.  The math was so above the average and even expert understanding that those who made those breakthroughs had no one to discuss their knowledge with and that played some part in their eventual withdrawals and madness.  Many felt that their discoveries had left the world worse off rather than better. 

Benjamin Labatut's childhood was spent between The Netherlands and South America and he has lived in Chile since he was twelve.  This novel was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award for translated works.  He sees his work as different from others because he feels that most novels focus on character and his work focuses on ideas.  He seems attracted to thinkers in science as his following novel was about John von Neumann, another mathematical genius whose work is pivotal but is understood by few.  One thing I did not like was that in the afterword Labatut says some of what he wrote is true and some fiction but the parts that were not true were not identified.  Since I know little about the scientific fields he was discussing, that left me frustrated not knowing which parts to believe.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers, especially those interested in science and math.

The River Swimmer by Jim Harrison

 

This book has two novellas in it.  In the first, Clive is a sixty-year old man.  He had been an artist but gave it up and became an art professor and someone who served as an expert when validating authenticity of paintings. He lives in New York City far from his surviving family, his mother and a sister back on the Midwestern farm he fled as a young man.  Now his mother is aging and his sister wants a break and a vacation.  Clive agrees to come home for a month and take care of everything while his sister travels.  He rediscovers his love of painting while there as well as rekindling the attraction of his first love who lives next door.

The second novella is about the River Swimmer.  Thad was born to swim and feels most at home in the water.  He takes long journeys, swimming miles to Chicago and other locations.  He falls in with a rich girl and she takes him traveling and he swims some of the largest rivers in Europe.  But his heart lies back home and the rivers he grew up with and the water babies only he is able to see.  

Jim Harrison was the author of The Legends Of The Fall and thirty other novels.  I love his spare yet beautiful writing.  He often writes of men attempting to make human connections and find love.  He was also a lover of nature and it plays a large part in most of his work.  He also delves into family connections and what they mean to us as adults.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers. 

Joe Country by Mick Herron

 If Spook Street is where spies live, Joe Country is where they go to die. (Quote from Amazon)

Slough House and its inhabitants move on in a life that is always more of the same.  Same falling down workplace, same colleagues, same make work, same Jackson Lamb who rules over it all.  

But some things happen.  River's grandfather, the OB, has finally died after a long career as a spy and having raised River.  Lech is the newest Slow Horse and he is determined to find out what got him assigned there and who was behind it.  Catherine Standish is starting to buy booze again after years of being dry.  And River's father, the man Jackson Lamb hates above all others, is still out there.

When River sees his father at the cemetery at his grandfather's funeral, he takes off chasing him but once again his father manages to escape.  But this time the group and Lamb have an idea where he is heading.  Louisa Guy has taken on the task of finding her former lover's son who has disappeared.  River's father seems to have been hired to find him as well.  Lamb sends the Slow Horses out to find the son and capture River's father but he has hired guns with him.  Will everyone return?

This is the sixth Slough House novel in the series.  These books are an addiction.  I'm so glad I waited until there were nine of them as I've listened to them as quickly as I can, starting the next as soon as I finish the former.  I've listened to them as Gerald Doyle is the best narrator match I can imagine.  He can hit the sly notes, show the determination of the agents even when wrong and bring Jackson Lamb to life in a way that is perfectly done.  Lamb pretends not to care but his agents are his charge and no one hurts his charges.  This book is recommended for mystery and spycraft readers.  

Acts Of Desperation by Megan Nolan

 When she meets Ciaran in a bar one night, she is instantly attracted.  She soon goes out with him and starts having an affair.  Not a relationship as he seems interested one night and offputting the next.  Ciaran is a beautiful man but cold.  His relationship before her had been with a woman back in Sweden where he is from and over Christmas holidays, he suddenly returns to the former love.

She is gutted and spends her nights drinking herself into oblivion.  Then months later, she sees Ciaran again and they get back together.  She is determined to do whatever it takes to keep him this time and soon they are living together.  She spends her days thinking of what she can do next and her evenings cooking, cleaning, doing whatever he wants.

But can such a one-sided affair continue?  As the weeks go by, she starts to rebel against his continued coldness and his assumption of all power in the relationship.  Eventually, she gravitates to another man who is warm and loving and interested in her, not just what she can do for him.  

This is a debut novel for Megan Nolan who is an Irish author.  She won a Betty Trask award for this book which his given for first books written by someone under thirty.  Readers won't be able to turn away from this love affair but will be sickened by the narrator's willingness to give herself over so totally to someone who doesn't appreciate her.  Personally, I hate to think that love can be so desperate and that women can think so little of themselves.  It is, nonetheless, a book that can't be put down and Nolan will take her place among the many stellar Irish authors.  This book is recommended for literary and women's fiction readers.  

The Definitions by Matt Greene

 

A virus has decimated humanity.  It's effect is that people forget how to speak and what things are called or named or what a word means.  When affected individuals come to the Center to recuperate, most don't know their names, so they take a name from the weekly movies they view.

These people attend classes that instruct them in what they need to know.  Some excel and graduate back into the outside world.  Some never again retain the meaning of language and become lifetime inhabitants of the Center.  The Center gives them work, classes and a social structure.  Newcomers must work to be defined in one of the two main groups; those who go and those who stay.

It seems benevolent but is it?  Over time, some try to challenge the rules and the structure and then they find that they are not the free agents they had imagined themselves to be.  

Matt Greene is an English author.  His first novel, Ostrich, won a Betty Task Award, which is 10,000 pounds and given to a first novel by an author under the age of thirty-five.  In this dystopian novel, he explores the meanings of love and friendship and how individuals can be duped into giving up their freedom.  This book is recommended for readers of dystopian novels.

Jack Of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates

 

Andrew Rush is an author of mysteries.  He has been successful, his books hitting the top of the bestseller lists regularly.  His success has brought wealth and he and his wife have contributed to his community, which also makes him well thought of.

But Andrew has another side.  He writes another series under a pen name, Jack Spade.  Those mysteries are dark and gory and the villain often wins.  No one knows about these novels, not even his wife. 

When Andrew is sued for plagiarism by an elderly woman who lives in his town, his two sides start to merge.  He can't believe someone dares to accuse him and soon he finds himself breaking into her home and stealing her treasures.  Then one night she is there and Andrew becomes one of the villains he writes about.

Joyce Carol Oates has a long history as an author whose work is prolific and on the dark side.  Along with other honors, she is a National Book Award winner.  In this novel, Andrew moves from a respected, staid middle-aged man to someone who finds himself doing things he never thought he would do.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle

 

Vera is a statistics and probability professor and she believes in logic and order.  She also believes her mother will not like it when she comes out as gay and engaged to Annie and she is right about that.  Her mother tells her that it's just a phase and then leaves the restaurant in a huff.  Vera goes after her and into mass chaos.  Strange things are happening everywhere.  There are monsters and fires and her mother is killed right beside her by a car whose driver has been killed also.

That is the Low Probability Event and millions died that day all over the world, although the majority were Americans.  Vera's worldview is trashed immediately and she retreats into herself.  Four years later, she has become a recluse, only leaving her house when she must to buy supplies.  Otherwise, she spends hours staring at the ceiling and thinking about that day.

Then Special Agent Layne shows up at her door.  He tells her that he is from the agency that helps survivors and he needs her help to investigate a casino that seems to be connected somehow to the Low Probability Event.  Vera tells him no but Layne is persuasive and soon the two head off to Las Vegas.  Can they discover the cause of the LPE and make sure it never happens again?

Chuck Tingle is a pseudonym of a writer who identifies as autistic and who has a unique style of writing.  He started out writing short stories and then moved into writing novels in the fantasy/horror genre.  His characters are generally gay and his work has become steadily more popular.  In this title, strange occurrences abound but eventually all the threads are brought together and resolved.  This book is recommended for fantasy/science fiction readers.  

Anji Kills A King by Evan Leikam

 

Anji is on the run.  After her parents were killed, she ended up working in the King's palace.  When she was sent to deliver laundry to his chamber while he was sleeping, she took the opportunity and slit his throat.  Now there is a bounty on her head of a million and everyone is looking for her.

Hawk is the one who finds her.  Hawk is part of a group of King's guards, each of whom wears a mask.  Hawk takes everything from Anji and puts a spell on her so that she cannot escape.  As they make their way back to the capital where Anji will be executed, others try to take Hawk's prize but she fights off all comers.  Is there any way that Anji can escape?

This is a debut novel from Evan Leikam.  He started as a musician and while touring with his band, began writing to fill the long hours on the road.  He is also the host of the Book Reviews Kill Podcast and writes in the grimdark genre.  I enjoyed the world building in this novel and loved the concept of the guards who wore animal masks but each had a personality hidden underneath.  The action was fast and furious and the reader will pull for Anji to somehow escape her fate.  I would have liked more story on Anji herself and I felt that Hawk was more developed than Anji but overall it was a great first novel and I definitely plan on reading the next in the series when it is released.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.  

Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor

 Durton Creek, Australia is a small town where everyone knows everyone and a great place to raise children.  But small towns hide secrets.  Like the boy who realizes that he's attracted to other boys.  Like the drugs that are being dealt.  Like the reason that a dog is kept chained up at the local motel.  Like who Veronica (Ronnie's) father is.  Like the man who beats his wife and children.  Like what really happened at a party thirty years ago.  

Then a twelve-year-old girl named Esther goes missing.  She left school with Ronnie who is her best friend and Lewis who hangs out with them.  They all walk together on the path home until they come to the church where their paths diverge.  They split up.  Ronnie and Lewis make it home but Esther does not.  

An outsider is sent to help the police force.  DS Sarah Michaels has secrets of her own such as what happened in the fight with her girlfriend right before she came to town.  But she is determined to find Esther or find out what happened to her.  

When Lewis tells Ronnie that he saw Esther by Dirt Creek the day she disappeared, everything starts to emerge and the secrets start to be revealed.  As the truth emerges, the people of Durton Creek will never be the same. 

This is Hayley Scrivenor's debut novel and has garnered a lot of attention and won the Lambda Literary Award. She grew up in Australia so the geographical details are spot on.   It delves deeply into the secrets that a small town tends to develop and the way that people have friends as adults that they have had since childhood.  The secrets of children and how loyal they are to their friendships is highlighted.  It also discusses how outsiders feel in such a town.  I grew up in a small Sourthern town and my mother came from a Northern state.  We always had that feeling that we weren't quite on the inside.  I listened to this novel and the accent of the narrator added so much to the realism of the book.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Queens Of Crime by Marie Benedict

 The year is 1930 and mystery writers have come together to form a club at which they can socialize and talk about their work with others who will understand.  But there's one problem; only two women, Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, are invited to join, and Dorothy was the one who came up with the idea.  She is determined that more women authors should be in the club and hatches a plan to make it happen.

Christie and Sayers ask three more of the best British mystery writers to a meeting.  They are Baroness Emma Orczy, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh.  The women make a plan to solve a real life murder and then present the males in the mystery club with their result.  

The papers are full of the case of May Daniels.  Daniels, a nurse, had gone with a friend on a day trip to France and never returned.  She had gone into the restroom and then disappeared.  Her friend had been standing outside the room and never saw her leave and there were no other doors or windows.  How had she disappeared?  What happened to her?  Daniels's body had just been discovered in France weeks later and the case was headline news in all the papers.  It would be the perfect case to solve.

The group, called The Queens Of Crime, went to France.  They retraced May's route and solved the mystery of how she disappeared.  They came back to England where they interviewed May's family, friends and employers.  They discovered that she had a secret boyfriend who they suspected.  Can they solve the murders?

Marie Benedict is an author and lawyer.  She writes in the genre of historical fiction, focusing on various women whose story has yet to be told completely.  In this one, she covers the marriages of the five women, their secrets, and their work.  The interplay between the five women is delightful and I closed the book with a decision to go back and reread some of their work.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Death Message by Mark Billingham

 

DI Tom Thorne has been getting messages on his cell phone.  No explanation, just an image of a dead person.  Why is he getting these?  Who is sending them?  Who are the victims and why have they been chosen?

He learns that the victims are all related to one person, a man who took the rap for a murder and served his time without complaint for the gang he worked for.  Then just as he was about to get out, a horrific event in his personal life made him decide to wreck vengeance on those who he had worked for.  

That part is easy.  But why Thorne?  He learns that it is the killer is manipulated by a man that Thorne put away; the man he thought was the most evil and cunning of all those he had put away.  When Thorne's best friend is targeted, he must race the clock before his friend joins the list of the dead.

This is the seventh Tom Thorne novel.  Thorne is back on form after the death of his father which had taken him for a loop.  His relationship with a woman on the police force is going well although she is giving indications that it might be more serious than Thorne had planned on.  The manhunt for the killer is full of twists and turns although this is one of the few killers that Thorne can understand and relate to.  Yet he knows that that understanding doesn't matter; he must find him before he kills again.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Booksie's Shelves, October 18, 2025

 

Above is one of my messy bookshelves, this one in my den where I do a lot of my reading.  October is more than halfway over and I'm still getting used to calling it 2025.  This month has been a blur.  We went to visit our son and then our daughter.  There were book groups, investment group, doctors and dentists.  Like many retirees, I'm not sure how I ever found time to work.  I've got a ton of books purchased and sent lately, many of them Booker Prize nominees and the work of Best New British Authors, a list I follow every year.  I've been busy reading the Booker nominees for 2025 and I'm about half through with that.  Here's what's come through the door lately:

1.  Nothing But Blue Sky, Kathleen MacMahon, literary fiction, purchased
2. The Red Winter, Cameron Sullivan, fantasy, sent by publisher
3. Christine Fall, John Banville, mystery, sent by publisher
4. Your Utopia, Bora Chung, anthology, sent by publisher
5. Midnight Timetable, Bora Chung, horror, sent by publisher
6. Cursed Bunny, Bora Chung, anthology, sent by publisher
7. The Definitions, Matt Greene, dystopian fiction, sent by publisher
8. A Little Trickerie, Rosanna Pike, literary fiction, purchased
9. Amma, Saraid de Silva, literary fiction, purchased
10. The Truants, Kate Weinberg, literary fiction, sent by publisher
11. Somewhere Else, Jenni Daiches, literary fiction, purchased
12. Becoming Strangers, Louise Dead, literary fiction, purchased
13. Rules Of The Heart, Janice Hadlow, historical fiction, sent by publisher
14. Genealogy Of A Murder, Lisa Belkin, true crime, purchased
15. The Birthday Party, Laurent Mauvignier, literary fiction, purchased
16. Still Waters, Nigel McCreary, mystery, purchased
17. The Light Of Amsterdam, David Park, literary fiction, purchased
18. Travelling In A Strange Land, David Park, literary fiction, purchased
19. School For Love, Olivia Manning, literary fiction, purchased
20. Fortunes Of War, Olivia Manning, literary fiction, purchased
21. Fool's Crow, James Welsh, literary fiction, purchased
22. On A Woman's Madness, Astrid Roemer, literary fiction, purchased
23. The Wildes, Louis Bayard, historical fiction, sent by publisher
24. Wolf Bells, Leni Zumas, literary fiction, purchased
25. A Cure For Suicide, Jesse Ball, literary fiction, purchased
26. The Maniac, Benjamin Labatut, historical fiction, purchased
27. The Maiden, Kate Foster, literary fiction, purchased
28. Dear Mrs. Bird, AJ Pearce, literary fiction, purchased
29. The Imposter, Javier Cercas, nonfiction, purchased
30. The Well, Catherine Chanter, literary fiction, purchased
31. The Years, Annie Ernaux, literary fiction, purchased
32. Don't Let Him Know, Sandip Roy, literary fiction, purchased
33. White Chrysanthemum, Mary Lynn Bracht, historical fiction, purchased
34. Akram's War, Nadim Safdar, literary fiction, purchased
35. Love, Sex & Other Foreign Policy Goals, Jesse Armstrong, literary fiction, purchased
36. In The Light Of What We Know, Zia Haider Rahman, literary fiction, purchased
37. Mornings With Rosemary, Libby Page, literary fiction, purchased
38. The Things We Thought We Knew, Mahsuda Snaith, mystery, purchased
39. The Girl In The Red Coat, Kate Hamer, thriller, purchased
40. Montpelier Parade, Karl Geary, literary fiction, purchased
41. The Witchfinder's Sister, Beth Underdown, mystery, purchased
42. Sal, Mick Kitson, literary fiction, purchased
43. Part Of The Family, Charlotte Philby, mystery, purchased
44. The Butcher's Hook, Janet Ellis, mystery, purchased
45. Weathering, Lucy Wood, literary fiction, purchased
46. Not Working, Lisa Owens, literary fiction, purchased

Here's what I'm reading at the moment:

1.  The Meaning Of Night, Michael Cox, hardback
2. In Other Worlds, Margaret Atwood, hardback
3. Five Star Billionaire, Tash Aw, hardback
4. Acts Of Desperation, Megan Nolan, Kindle
5. Lucky Day, Chuck Tingle, hardback
6. Lessons In Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus, Kindle
7. Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Kindle
8. Joe Country, Mick Herron, audible
9. Autumn, Ali Smith, audible
10. The Great Man Theory, Teddy Wayne, audible

Happy Reading!

Dimestore by Lee Smith

 

This is author Lee Smith's account of growing up in Southwest Virginia in the small town of Gundy.  It was mountain country and everyone knew everyone.  Her father owned the town's general store which everyone called the dimestore.  Her grandparents lived there also and she and her friends moved happily between each others' houses and those of relatives.  

But all is not perfect.  Like many small Southwestern Virginia towns, the economy was built around one employer and when it closed, the town started dying.  More and more people moved away and few came to settle.  The town was built on a river that periodically flooded and damaged property.  

She also talked about other parts of her life.  About her first marriage which ended in divorce and her second one.  About her son who developed mental illness and who she tragically lost young, joining that horrific mother's club, the one where one has suffered the ultimate loss, that of a beloved child.  About the writing influences she had along the way and about the wonderful city of Chapel Hill, beloved by many as a perfect college town.

I could relate to so much of this book.  I also grew up in Southwest Virginia although more in the foothills than the mountains.  My town was a small mill town, built around textiles and furniture like the other small towns around us.  It was a town where parents could drop their kids off at the pool and let them roam the small downtown without worry and I spent many days moving from pool to the Y to one of the two restaurants.  As textiles and furniture moved overseas, we also saw our little towns struggling to survive.  Finally, like Lee Smith I moved in my adult years to North Carolina where I live about an hour from Chapel Hill.  Lee Smith is an American treasure and her books help us recall the best of Southern life and culture.  This book is recommended for biography readers.  

The Scandalous Hamiltons by Bill Shaffer

 This nonfiction book tells of the rise of tabloid journalism in the Gilded Age and what a story occurred!  Robert Ray Hamilton was the descendant of Alexander Hamilton.  He met Eva Steele in a brothel and fell in love with her although he only expected it to be a dalliance.  Instead, Eva duped him into marriage by, after a trip to Europe he paid for her to take, she presented him with an infant daughter and insisted it was his.  In reality, she had bought the baby for $10 in the black market and it was the third baby she bought, the first two having died due to starvation.  Ray married her but filed for divorce when Eva was arrested for stabbing the baby's nurse.  

The tabloid newspapers couldn't get enough of the story and when it emerged that Eva had been in a common law marriage at the time she married Ray, it just fueled the fires.  Eva was sent to jail and Ray went out west to Montana where a friend was opening a hunting resort.  Unfortunately, he fell into a river while out hunting alone and died but that didn't stop Eva.  

Although she was left out of Ray's will expressly, she filed court cases for many years, alleging that the divorce was faulty, that she was entitled to a dowager's portion of the estate and many other cases.  She was even interviewed by Nellie Bly the darling of tabloid journalism.  Ray and Eva were only acquainted for four years but their story hit the headlines for many, many more.

Bill Shaffer worked in design for over thirty years when he decided to change his career.  He became interested in history and while researching the design of various buildings in New York, he became award of the Hamilton scandal and decided that the story of this couple and the rise of tabloid journalism would be his first project.  His coverage of the story is clear and exhaustive and accomplished his aim.  Readers will also learn about various other subjects occurring at the same time, such as the exploration and settlement of the West, trials, the veneration of the wealthy, etc.  I listened to this book and the narrator was excellent.  This book is recommended for those interested in history and the Gilded Age.   

Dark Crimes 2 edited by Ed Gorman

 

This is an older anthology of Noir short stories.  Readers will recognize author names such as David Morrell, Lawrence Block, John D. MacDonald, Marcia Muller, Ed Gorman, Nancy Pickard, Bill Pronzini, Brian Garfield, John Lutz, Joe Lansdale, Max Allen Collins and Loren Estleman.  These are the authors from a generation ago, authors I grew up loving and who introduced me to crime fiction.  Most are still with us although we are losing authors from this generation sometimes it seems almost daily.  

One of my favorite stories was by Wade Miller, called 'The Memorial Hour'.  In it, a psychiatrist gets a new patient.  As they work together, the doctor uncovers the fact that his patient has been stealing.  The patient brings in what he is stealing and it is bras, some from clotheslines, some from breaking into houses.  The patient gives that up but moves on to house plans and stalking the doctor's receptionist.  The patient moves on to attack the receptionist in the doctor's office only for revelations to be made.  

Ed Gorman was known for his mystery writing in the noir genre and for his anthologies.  In this book, he has collected some of the best writing from the 1970's onward.  This book is recommended for mystery readers, especially those interested in the noir and detectives of that period.