HALF OF PARADISE by James Lee Burke

Finished Tu 10/29/19

This is one of Burke's 'stand alone' novels and is not tied to one of his series. I received this from Amazon on Fr 9/13/19.

I'm surprised he called this book 'Half Of Paradise' since it really should be 'A THIRD OF PARADISE' because it deals with three principal characters.

1) Avery Broussard- He is from a family that used to own a big cotton farm, but now it's only fifty or so acres. Avery works on the oil rigs off the Louisiana/ Texas coasts. He comes back to help his father work the farm. His father dies and he gets involved with smuggling booze. He gets caught while trying to load booze on a boat. The DEA is waiting. When he gets out, he reacquaints with his teenage girlfriend, Suzanne. They have a tender love affair until Avery gets a DUI while on parole and ends up to finish his sentence. Suzanne's last name is ' Robicheaux'.

2) J. P. Winfield- He is a musician that finds a promoter and ends up a fairly popular country-western singer. He gets hooked on drugs and becomes an alcoholic. He gets a backup singer, April, pregnant and marries her. He continues to visit prostitutes, drink heavily, and ends up dying of a heart attack. His promoter books him on a tour to promote a segregationist politicians. 


3) Toussaint Boudreaux- He is a black longshoreman that is trying to make his way as a professional fighter. During a fight he breaks his had and can no longer do his day job or fight. He ends up driving a truck and is set up. They send him out with a load of stolen furs. They want the police to be tied up with his arrest while they can get through with the more expensive stolen items. He ends up in one of the large prison work farms (Angola) and is shot to death while trying to escape.


From the book's page at Amazon:

"Toussaint Boudreaux, a black docker in New Orleans, puts up with his co-workers' racism because he has to, and moonlights as a prize-fighter in the hope of a better life-but the only break he gets lands him in penal servitude. J.P. Winfield, a hick with a gift for twelve-string guitar, finds his break into show-biz leads to the flipside of the American dream. Avery Broussard, descendant of an aristocratic French family, runs whiskey when what remains of his land is repossessed...

The interlocking stories of these three men are an elegy to the realities of life in 1950s Louisiana, their destinies fixed by the circumstances of their birth and time. Yet each carries the hope of redemption..."

I thought the book was very well written and although the story skips between the three  men it's easy to follow and very interesting and compelling.

It's very grim and none of the men end up in a happy place. Two die tragically and one returns to prison.

CAMINO ISLAND by John Grisham

Finished Sa 10/26/19

This is a 2017 hardback that Janny loaned to me.

The novel is set on Santa Rosa Island which is about fifty miles east of Pensacola, Florida.

My personal takeaway from the book is the 'split' in the fiction genre:
1) LITERARY FICTION
2) POPULAR FICTION

Popular fiction writers try for more critical acclaim, and literary fiction authors yearn for more popularity. Obviously, it doesn't have to be one or the other, but writers should strive to be both. John D. McDonald and James Lee Burke are authors that are both celebrated by critics and are very popular to the general public.

The novel begins with a gang of five men who steal the early and original manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald from the secured rare books department at Princeton University. During the highly professional heist, one of the robbers leaves a drop of blood and this leads to the arrest of two of the gang.

The works were insured for twenty five million dollars and the insurance company believes that a rare books seller, Bruce Cable, has possession of the manuscripts. He owns a well known bookstore at Santa Rosa, FL.

An agent of the insurance company contacts Mercer Mann who is a struggling writer who had a successful first novel, but is now teaching and trying to grind out a follow-up. The company will pay off her student loan debt if she will infiltrate Cable's store and see if he really has the manuscripts. Mercer lived for many years with her grandmother, Tessa, on the island.

It's a great story about the book selling business, the black market for stolen manuscripts, and how writers are in social situations and how they create their books.

In the end, Bruce Cable is able to get the books out of the store and smuggles them to Paris where he arranges an exchange with the insurance company for millions of dollars. He eludes the trap that state and federal authorities had planned based on Mercer's investigation.

I would like to read almost all of the classic novels that are mentioned in the book. I located a copy of 'BLOOD MERIDIAN' by Cormac McCarthy in my collection and might try to wade through it. However, it's part of a three novel compilation by McCarthy and I'd have to get it from the library and put it on the phone. Far to heavy to lug around.  Mercer Mann mentions that she tried to read the book, but was turned off by the violence.

The novel's page at wikipedia:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_Island

THE KINSHIP OF SECRETS by Eugenia Kim

Finished Tu 10/22/19- October, 2019 selection for the Contemporary Book Club

Notes from a YouTube interview with Eugenia Kim:

Based on Kim's real sister. To this day she doesn't know that she was adopted. She has dementia.

"Blackest Day of My Life". Really didn't eat on the plane to US.
Real grandmother lost all of her toenails to frostbite. She brought rice to her daughter in Japanese prison. Included a bible verse in the food.

Real sister came over when Kim was five and sister was eleven. Later they lived together in college and still never talked about it.

2005 went to Korea to research her book and sister went as translator. The trip was very distressing because she remembered that for two years when she came to America she dreamed about going back to Korea. She had a full happy live in Korea- Very close to family.

Didn't go back until early twenties, but she married a man that had business interests in Korea and they would go back each year.

She's available to book clubs via Skype. She brings Korean dumplings if it's in the area. Lives in Tacoma Park, MD.


Calvin separated for nine years during WWII. He was studying theology in US.
Wife in jail for three months because the Japanese thought that she must be a spy since husband in US.

because he was working for the army he was able to get a travel visa after the war. Wanted to bring his wife because of this separation.

Inja has the emotional support in Korea.
Wife is collecting book of American colloquialisms.

Secrets kept not out of malice, but for protection.

Do you protect the person that it had been kept for so long? That can damage as well.

Thought the would be in US a year or two, but it was fifteen years.

Inja misses her uncle greatly.

Book teaches about the Korean war. Korean war isn't that widely told and the veterans are dying.

"Always trauma when you leave a country (as in immigration)- Loss is always part of the picture".

Took her seven years to write this book- 15 years for the first book, CALLIGRAPHER'S DAUGHTER. She was a graphic designer and a 'complicated' son. Only able to write a couple of hours a day.

**********
Can't leave the adopted child because that would be a signal that they wouldn't return.

'Darkest Day' when she was separated from her uncle. The US family she only knew by photos and packages.

Cook and Yun left behind because they thought they would only be gone a week.

*****Eugenia Kim is also a designer of women's accessories, bags, and hats.

DEAD FOLKS BLUES by Steven Womack

Finished We 10/16/19

One of my ancient paperbacks and according to the flyleaf  I first finished the book on Fr 8/2/96, 'on weeks suspension'.....Ah, those were the days!

Introducing the character of Harry James Denton. He lives in Nashville, TN and is an ex-newspaperman. He was fired when he wrote a story about city corruption and it was published.

He's struggling for work and lives in a rented room in a house owned by an old nearly deaf woman on 'the wrong side of town'. He has to mow the lawn for part of his rent. He rents a very small room as his office space.

His first client, Rachel, is an old girlfriend. She knew him when they went to college and he knew her future husband, Conrad Fletcher. This man went on to become a very wealthy surgeon, but much despised in the medical community.

Lonnie is a friend of Harry's who repossesses vehicles and he also likes to blow things up. He knows a lot about computers and searching The Net.

Walter is also a friend of Harry's. They play intense games of racket ball. Harry sprains his ankle during one of their games.

Bubba is a 300 pound convenience store owner, ex-preacher and bookie. Conrad is a compulsive gambler and owes Bubba about a hundred grand.

Mr. Kennedy is a mountain of muscle, ex-athlete and Bubba's protection

SYNOPSIS:

Rachel and Walter are lovers. They kill Conrad for the insurance money.
Harry was at the hospital at the time of the murder. He went into a hospital room just after a nurse had left. This nurse was Rachel in disguise and she was too far away for Harry to really see her. As Harry leaned over the body of Conrad, he was hit on the head and knocked out by Walter. 

From the book's page at GoodReads:

 "EDGAR AWARD WINNER--Best Paperback Original Mystery 1993.
When Rachel Fletcher, an old college flame, enters Harry James Denton's office needing his private detecting services, he'd rather not. But he prefers money to poverty, and agrees to find out what kind of dangerous business her husband is mixed up in. Conrad Fletcher is a rich surgeon with a lot of enemies. He also owes big money to a very big, very bad bookie. But by the time Harry catches up with Fletcher, he's gone from being in debt to being dead. The list of suspects could fill the Grand Ole Opry, and Harry's search for the killer will lead him into the partsof Nashville that no one ever sings about--unless they're singing the DEAD FOLKS' BLUES.
"A deft, atmosphere-rich novel: smart, funny, and filled with a sense of wry heartbreak. Steven Womack's Nashville stands out--it is a beautifully drawn backdrop."
James Ellroy

THE TARGET by David Baldacci

Finished Sa 10/13/19

This is a hardback that Janny loaned to me. Typical Baldacci stuff- action packed and a relentless pace, yet the characters are more 'one dimensional' and not fully developed- more caricatures rather than actual personalities.

Jessica Reel and Will Robie- two federal agents that would give James Bond, or Maxwell Smart, a run for their money.

TWO PLOTS:

1) Jessica's father is a Neo-Nazi and is in prison and dying of cancer incarcerated for life. Jessica entered witness protection after decimating her father's group. Her father lures her to the prison by telling a doctor that his last wish is to see 'his baby girl'. The group kidnaps a close friend of Will's and forces Jessica to turn herself in to the group in exchange for the release of  Julie. Julie is a teenage girl who Will had saved in a previous novel.

2) A North Korean assassin, Chung- Cha grew up in a violent North Korean prison camp. She was forced to murder her family just to live. All inmates are forced to squeal on each other and the guards show no mercy.
She is sent on a mission to kill the first lady of the president of the US and her two children.
The First Family (without the president) spends Halloween on Nantucket Island. This is where Chung-Cha and her team of killers make the assassination attempt.
Chung-Cha 'adopted' a ten year old girl from the prison camp, Min. She takes Min on the hit because she convinces her bosses that Americans are more sympathetic to a woman with a young child. 

SUBPLOT: The US had contacted a senior official in North Korea and this man was going to overthrow the government. This man is found out by the Koreans and Chung-Cha is sent to kill him, but the man commits suicide before she can do the hit. Before he dies, he asks the US to save his two children. They are in the same prison camp that Chung-Cha was from.

RESOLUTION:

In the hit at Nantucket Chung-Cha and five of her assassins have Jessica, Will, and the president's family cornered. But Chung-Cha switches sides and takes out the five assassins in less than a minute. However, an American policeman comes down into the basement and kills Chung-Cha because he didn't realize that she was actually saving the day.

Min is allowed to live in the US and she stays with Julie's foster father. And it's alluded to that Jessica and Will will play a large role in teaching Min the ways of Americans.

This is the third book in the Will Robie series.

RULES OF CIVILITY by Amor Towles

Finished Mo 10/7/19

This is a trade paperback that I ordered from Amazon after reading Amor Towles novel, 'A GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW'. That book was a selection for the Contemporary Book Club.

The title is taken from a book written by George Washington. I believe that he copied part of it, and it was called,' The Young George Washington's RULES OF CIVILITY & DECENT BEHAVIOR IN COMPANY AND CONVERSATION. There are 110 rules, and it's included in the Appendix of the book.

Katey Kontent

Evelyn Ross

Theodore (Tinker) Grey

Katey and Evelyn are roommates and they visit a small jazz club in Greenwich Village on New Year's Eve 1937. At the nightclub they meet the young, rich, and debonair gentleman, Tinker Grey.

Leaving the nightclub Tinker drives his car into a milk truck and Eve suffers terrible facial scars. Although the sexual chemistry between Katey and Tinker is strong, Tinker takes up with Eve because he feels guilty.

Eve and Tinker take off on a whirlwind romantic tour of Europe, and they are together for months.

Tinker is not really wealthy, but he is kind of a 'kept man' by a rich, older woman who claims to be his 'godmother'.

Eve learns of Tinker's deception and splits to California to become a star. She's largely dropped from the novel at this point.

And, Tinker comes to realize the last entry in George Washington's 'Rules'.
#110- 'Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience'.

From NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW

"In Towles’s first novel, “Rules of Civility,” his clever heroine, who grew up in Brooklyn as “Katya,” restyles herself in 1930s Manhattan as the more clubbable “Katey,” aspiring to all-American inclusion. As World War II gears up, raising the economy from bust to boom, Katey’s wit and charm lift her from a secretarial pool at a law firm to a high-profile assistant’s perch at a flashy new Condé Nast magazine. One night at the novel’s outset touches off the chain reaction that will produce both Katey’s career and her husband, and define her entire adult life. She’s swept into the satin-and-cashmere embrace of the smart set — blithe young people with names like Dicky and Bitsy and Bucky and Wallace — with their Oyster Bay mansions, their Adirondack camps, their cocktails at the St. Regis and all the fog of Fishers Island."

From the review at THE GUARDIAN

"In Towles’s first novel, “Rules of Civility,” his clever heroine, who grew up in Brooklyn as “Katya,” restyles herself in 1930s Manhattan as the more clubbable “Katey,” aspiring to all-American inclusion. As World War II gears up, raising the economy from bust to boom, Katey’s wit and charm lift her from a secretarial pool at a law firm to a high-profile assistant’s perch at a flashy new Condé Nast magazine. One night at the novel’s outset touches off the chain reaction that will produce both Katey’s career and her husband, and define her entire adult life. She’s swept into the satin-and-cashmere embrace of the smart set — blithe young people with names like Dicky and Bitsy and Bucky and Wallace — with their Oyster Bay mansions, their Adirondack camps, their cocktails at the St. Regis and all the fog of Fishers Island."

I really liked the novel, although in the middle of the book I switched over to 'THE LATE SHOW' a Michael Connolly novel that I borrowed from Janny.

RULES OF CIVILITY was a very interesting book, but I think that I liked A GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW just a little more.

I think that Towles will be a writer that will be remembered if he hardly writes another thing. He's already that good. 

THE LATE SHOW by Michael Connelly

Finished Sa 10/5/19

This is a hardback that Janny loaned me.

The title refers to 'third shift' or working 11pm to 7am. This is where they place police who are 'problems'.

This book introduces a new character- Renee Ballard. At first I thought Rene was a little too 'goody-goody', but she is one of the sharpest detectives in fiction. She can really 'work a case'.

Renee is a avid surfer and grew up in Hawaii and her father died when surfing. She was on the beach and only fourteen years old. Her mother just 'shut down', and became a recluse. Rene was basically homeless until her grandmother (Tutu) from California took her to the mainline.

Renee is on the 'night shift' because a senior officer made sexual advances and she resisted. Her partner Ken Chastain witnessed the incident, but he wouldn't back her up because he was more interested in career advancement.

Two big cases that drives the book:

1) A shooting at Dancer's nightclub. Four mob members and a couple of staff are shot and killed. Rene believes that a cop was responsible. And, it turned out to be fact.

2) A transsexual is beaten nearly to death. A car salesman is responsible. He uses brass (metal) knuckles that are stamped 'Good' and 'Evil'. He lives in a house in the Hollywood Hills called 'the upside down house'. You walk in and the living areas, kitchen, living room, etc. are on the ground floor and the bedrooms are downstairs.

Renee chases down the cop lead at Dancer's. She thinks it's the senior officer who stuck her on 'the late show', but it's actually another cop. A cop who seems to be helping her.

Renee is kidnapped by Trent, the transsexual abductor, and she kills him. She beats him up with the broom stick that was in the sliding glass door. And then she stabbed in with a splintered chair leg (like using a shiv).

Renee lives on the beach and surfs after her shift. She has a loyal dog named Lola.

 From an online review:

"Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she’s been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.

But one night she catches two cases she doesn’t want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner’s wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won’t give up her job no matter what the department throws at her".