GOODBYE, MICKEY MOUSE by Len Deighton

 Finished We 12/21/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I had apparently not read. The flyleaf says that I bought it for 25 cents at the library on Sa 1/28/95.

I really enjoyed this novel and it concerns a group of American fighter pilots stationed in England a few months before the Normandy Invasion. These guys were charged with protecting the bomber groups that were flying missions to Germany. 

This is not the kind of book that I would normally read, but I really loved this one! The battle sequences 'in the air' were especially compelling and the 'war/love' stories were very believable. 

Michael Morse had a nickname of 'Mickey Mouse'. 

Vera- one of the English women who is married to an English officer stationed in Burma. She just wants to have a good time with the Americans and doesn't want to get a divorce. When he comes back, she tells hubby that she's having an affair with Vince. But, actually she's having sex with 'Mickey Mouse/ Morse'.

Victoria is a young English girl who falls in love with Jamie Farebrother. His father is a general who gave Jamie up in the divorce from his mother. Jamie is killed. and Victoria with 'Mickey Mouse/ Morse'. 

From the book's page at Amazon:

"In Goodbye Mickey Mouse Len Deighton has written his best novel yet: a brilliant, multi-dimensional picture of what it is to be at war… and what it was to be in love in the England of 1944.

Goodbye Mickey Mouse is Deighton’s fourteenth novel and a vivid evocation of wartime England, the story of a group of American fighter pilots flying escort missions over Germany in the winter of 1943-4.

At the centre of the novel are two young men: the deeply reserved Captain Jamie Farebrother, estranged son of a deskbound colonel, and the cocky Lieutenant Mickey Morse, well on his way to becoming America’s Number One Flying Ace. Alike only in their courage, they forge a bond of friendship in battle with far-reaching consequences for themselves, and for the future of those they love."

CASS TIMBERLAND by Sinclair Lewis

 Finished We 12/14/22

This was one of my ancient paperbacks that I had apparently never read.

Basically, it is the story of an older man falling in love with a much younger woman. The book was published in 1945 and I suppose this premise was pretty shocking, but today it isn't such a big deal. 

Cass Timberlane is a young judge at 41 years old and the love of his live, Ginny is about a decade younger. But, Lewis also focuses on the attitudes and points of view of the people in the town of Grand Republic, Minnesota. Some of his characterizations are absolutely hilarious. 

From a review at Kirkus:

"It is a story of marriage, the focus on Judge Timberlane and the lovely, somewhat unstable young wife, Jinny, who alternately stimulated his passion, his worship, his jealousy. But it is too the story of a community, of various types of people, patterns of marriage -- a story of an average mid-western small city today."

From Wikipedia:

"Judge Cass Timberlane is a middle-aged, incorruptible, highly respected man who enjoys good books and playing the flute. He falls for Ginny, a much younger girl from the lower class in his small Minnesota town. At first, the marriage is happy, but Ginny becomes bored with the small town and with the judge's friends. She leaves him for an affair with a lawyer, Timberlane's boyhood friend. Eventually, disillusioned with her lover, Ginny returns to her husband and becomes his loyal wife. The novel is Lewis's examination of marriage, love, romance, heartache and trust."

I enjoyed the novel a lot more than I thought that I would. Cass's affection for Ginny was hard to believe, but Lewis's observations of the people in the town were insightful and humorous. 

This was one of the last books that Sinclair Lewis wrote.   

GRAY MATTERS by William Hjortsberg

Finished Mo 12/5/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I bought at The Book House on Sa 3/24/01 and I finished it on Mo 3/26/01.

A note on the flyleaf says that the author of this novel also wrote the film 'ANGEL HEART' with Micky Rourke and Robert DeNiro. I wonder how I found this out since I don't even know if I had my first computer in 2001.

The novel takes place a few hundred years in the future and it had been decided that humans must pay more attention to their spiritual advancement and human bodies had become superfluous. Brains are kept alive without bodies. The 'brain/minds' were kept active with dreams and fantasy.

3 BODY TYPES:

1) Tropiques- People from the tropics? Black, Brown

2) Nords- Aryan people. Blue eyes, blonde hair

3) Amphibios- Humans evolved from dolphins

There is a rebellion in the brain storage units. The 'brains' against the robots that provide maintenance for the facility. 

3 CHARACTERS:

1) Skeets- he was only a 12 year old boy, but he is the oldest 'brain'.

2) Vera- An Hungarian film star

3) Obu Itubi- He's the rebel that broke free of the robots  

From the book's page at GoodReads:

WWIII has devastated most of the world, but life is still good for the lucky & rich few hundred who had their brains preserved in an automated conservatory. Altho they have no bodies to move around with, they're free to mentally visit any of the other residents, & engage in all the emotional, intellectual & pseudo-sexual congress that they desire.

This is the story of a projection of life in the 25th century. People have been reduced to Cerebromorphs--disembodied brains stored in tanks in huge Depositories & wired up to computers, memory files & mammoth study programmes. In the tanks they're supposed to pass thru various levels of understanding before they are liberated, implanted in hatchery-nurtured perfect bodies & sent back into a pastoral paradise flourishing outside. The novel follows a small group of these brains: that of a 12-year-old boy killed in an air crash; an ex-movie queen, fastidious, rich & lethal; a former Nigerian sculptor & the last of the great humanists."

MR. MURDER by Dean Koontz

 Finished Fr 12/2/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I bought at the library sidewalk sale on Sa 6/14/14 and I finished it Mo 6/30/14. That was the day that I bought a laptop from BLH.

MR. MURDER is typical Dean Koontz. It takes off like a rocket and never lets up. Not much character development, but the action never wanes. 

A writer is living in Mission Viejo, California with his wife and two daughters. Out of nowhere, he begins to notice a sense of dread and he doesn't know what's causing these feelings. 

At the same time, a hired killer has finished a job in Kansas City, Kansas and this man feels a strong pull that's pushes him toward the west coast.

The killer is convinced that the writer is really him. He must get back to California to 'save' his 'real' family. 

The killer is a 'killing machine' that has been genetically engineered to be the 'perfect' murderer. 

And the book leads to a showdown with the Martin Stillwater's family and 'the deluded' killer.

From a description of the novel at Goodreads:

"Martin Stillwater has a vivid imagination. It charms his loving wife, delights his two little daughters, and gives him all the inspiration he needs to write his highly successful mystery novels. But maybe Martin's imagination is a bit too vivid...

One rainy afternoon, a terrifying incident makes him question his grip on reality. A stranger breaks into his house, accusing Martin of stealing his wife, his children - and his life. Claiming to be the real Martin Stillwater, the intruder threatens to take what is rightfully his. The police think he's a figment of Martin's imagination. But Martin and his family have no choice but to believe the stranger's threat. And run for their lives.

But wherever they go - wherever they hide - he finds them..."

BREATHING THE SAME AIR- A Memoir of my Time with XTC during the making of The Big Express by Andrew M. Stafford

 Finished Mo 11/21/22

This is an eBook that I borrowed on Kindle. I've been enjoying all of the records by XTC. I used to like this band but now I love them. They should have been as big as THE SMITHS. 

From the book's page at Amazon:

" In the spring of 1984, I was nineteen and had just been diagnosed with a lifelong illness. I wasn’t in a good place. Then something came along, which temporarily kicked the disease into touch. XTC were recording their seventh studio album not far from me. I decided to be brave and drive to where they were recording what would be The Big Express to see if I could say hello to my musical heroes. At best, I expected to take up no more than ten minutes of XTC’s time and come away with their autographs. But what I ended up with was more than I could ever have hoped for. Breathing the Same Air is an account of the two months I spent with Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory at Crescent Studios in Bath."

It was a short book and it's really just a recreation of a fan's chance to have complete access to the band of his dreams. 

The making of the record 'THE BIG EXPRESS' 

He meets Bob Dylan in a joke shop

On one release of the song 'Respectable Street' the band is singing 'abortion' and not 'absorption'.

The accent of people from 'West Country' is different from the rest of the country. This is where the hayseeds live.

WASHINGTON DC by Gore Vidal

 This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first read and finished on Mo 4/24/95 and I skimmed to the end of the novel. 

This time I finished the book on We 11/9/2

The book covered some of the more turbulent eras in American history- 'The New Deal' & 'McCarthyism'. The reason that I didn't really love the book was the historical aspects were downplayed and the characters in the novel were given center stage. I would have liked to have more of the real history more prominently blended into the story.

Fun Fact: The Republicans tried to impeach FDR because they blamed him for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I don't know if this is true. 

And very little of the actual events of  McCarthy's reign in congress is in the novel. 

I would read more books by Gore Vidal but I would vote for more history and less soap opera. 

 From the book's page at Amazon:

"Washington, D.C., is the final installment in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire,his acclaimed six-volume series of historical novels about the American past. It offers an illuminating portrait of our republic from the time of the New Deal to the McCar-thy era.

Widely regarded as Vidal's ultimate comment on how the American political system degrades those who participate in it, Washington, D.C. is a stunning tale of corruption and diseased ambitions. It traces the fortunes of James Burden Day, a powerful conservative senator who is eyeing the presidency; Clay Overbury, a pragmatic young congressional aide with political aspirations of his own; and Blaise Sanford, a ruthless newspaper tycoon who understands the importance of money and image in modern politics. With characteristic wit and insight, Vidal chronicles life in the nation's capital at a time when these men and others transformed America into "possibly the last empire on earth."

"Washington, D.C. may well be the finest of contemporary novels about the capital," said The New Yorker, and the Times Literary Supplement deemed it "a prodigiously skilled and clever performance."

A link to an excellent overview of the book at the New York Times archives:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/vidal-washington.html

THE TESTAMENTS by Margaret Atwood

 Finished Th 11/3/22- 'THE TESTAMENTS'

I got this as an eBook from the library because I loved 'THE HANDMAID'S TALE' (the book and the series). 

A link to the book's review at The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/10/the-testaments-by-margaret-atwood-review

The book won The GoodRead's Choice for 2019

From the book's page at Wikipedia:

"The novel alternates among the perspectives of three women, presented as portions of a manuscript written by one (the Ardua Hall Holograph) and testimonies by the other two.

Lydia, a divorced judge, is imprisoned with other women in a stadium during the establishment of Gilead. After enduring weeks of squalid conditions and solitary confinement, she and a small group of other women are handpicked by Commander Judd and Vidala, a pre-existing supporter of Gilead, to become Aunts—an elite group of women tasked with creating and overseeing the laws and uniforms governing Gilead's women. The Aunts use Ardua Hall as their headquarters and enjoy certain privileges that include reading "forbidden" texts, such as Cardinal John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua. In secret, Aunt Lydia despises Gilead and becomes a mole supplying critical information to the Mayday resistance organization.

Fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, a girl named Agnes Jemima is growing up in Boston as the adopted daughter of Commander Kyle and his wife Tabitha. Agnes has a loving relationship with Tabitha, who later dies of ill health. Agnes and her classmates Becka and Shunammite attend an elite preparatory school for the daughters of Commanders, where they are taught to run a household, but not to become literate. Once widowed, Commander Kyle marries Paula, the widow of a deceased Commander, who despises Agnes. Desiring a child for herself, she acquires a Handmaid, who successfully conceives but later dies giving birth to a son. Agnes is arranged to be married to Commander Judd, now a high-ranking official in charge of the Eyes and surveilling the population of Gilead.

Learning that she is the daughter of a Handmaid, Agnes manages to escape her arranged marriage by becoming a Supplicant, a prospective Aunt. In that pursuit she joins Becka, whose father—Doctor Grove, a prominent dentist—has been sexually abusing her and his other underage female patients for years. Later, Agnes is anonymously provided with files highlighting the corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of Gilead, specifically evidence of adultery between Commander Kyle and Paula and their plots to murder their respective spouses since divorce is prohibited. She also learns that she is the half-sister of "Baby Nicole", a girl who was smuggled out of Gilead to Canada by her Handmaid mother when she was young (and whose return the government of Gilead has been demanding).

Meanwhile, a girl named Daisy—several years younger than Agnes—grows up in Toronto's Queen Street West with her adoptive parents, Neil and Melanie. The couple owns a second-hand clothes shop serving as a front for Mayday to smuggle women out of Gilead. On her 16th birthday, Daisy's adoptive parents are murdered by undercover Gilead operatives. Daisy is spirited into hiding by several Mayday operatives, who reveal that Daisy is actually Nicole. The Mayday operatives enlist her in a mission to infiltrate Gilead to obtain valuable intelligence from their mysterious mole. Nicole poses as a street urchin named Jade to be recruited by the Pearl Girls (Gilead missionaries who lure foreign women to Gilead with the promise of a better life), who take her up and bring her into Gilead.

The disguised Nicole is placed under the care of Agnes and Becka, who are now respectively named Aunts Victoria and Immortelle. Aunt Lydia confirms that "Jade" is Nicole through a tattoo and discloses her true identity and parentage to Agnes and Becka. Revealing herself as Mayday's mole, Aunt Lydia enlists the three young women to smuggle incriminating information about Gilead's elite into Canada. Nicole is tasked with carrying the files inside a microdot on her cruciform tattoo. Agnes and Nicole are to enter Canada disguised as Pearl Girls, with Nicole impersonating Becka. The real Becka, disguised as Jade, is to remain at the Hall and provide a diversion once Nicole is found missing. Forced to hasten their plans when Commander Judd learns about Nicole's presence and intends to marry her, Agnes and Nicole set out early, where they hospitalise Aunt Vidala in the process. They travel by bus and on foot, then by boat along the Penobscot River. This boat takes them to a larger vessel which brings them into Canadian waters. Agnes and Nicole manage to reach Campobello Island by an inflatable and are picked up by a Mayday team. Meanwhile, Aunt Lydia, to buy Agnes and Nicole some more time and to secure her own position at Ardua Hall, tells Aunt Elizabeth that Aunt Vidala accused her of attacking her, expecting Elizabeth to kill Vidala.

Using the information inside Nicole's microdot, the Canadian media leaks scandalous information about Gilead's elite, which leads to a purge that in turn causes a military coup, bringing about the collapse of Gilead and the subsequent restoration of the United States. Agnes and Nicole are reunited with their mother. Becka dies while hiding in a cistern to perpetuate the ruse that "Jade" had run off with a plumber. Lydia, the author of the Ardua Hall Holograph, closes her story by describing her plan to commit suicide with a morphine overdose before she can be questioned and executed.

The novel concludes with a metafictional epilogue, described as a partial transcript at the Thirteenth Symposium on Gileadean Studies in 2197, presented by Professor James Darcy Pieixoto. He talks about the challenges in verifying the authenticity of the Ardua Hall Holograph and the two witness transcripts by Agnes and Nicole. He also speculates that Agnes and Nicole's Handmaid mother could be Offred of the previous book, though he himself admits to not being sure. He concludes by mentioning the statue that was made commemorating Becka for her actions, its dedication having been attended by Agnes and Nicole, their husbands and children, their mother and their respective fathers."

10,000 SAINTS by Eleanor Henderson

 Finished We 10/27/22

I bought this book from Amazon because I saw the movie that was released in 2015 with Ethan Hawke, Emily Mortimer, and Emile Hirsch.  

An excellent coverage of the 'Straight Edge' movement of the late 80's. 

This was taken from the film's page at Wikipedia:

"Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini became interested in adapting the novel after Berman read it. She remarked, "I read the book and I loved how human the characters were and how flawed, yet well-meaning, they were, which I think is a very truthful thing about most people. I loved that era in New York. I thought it was such an exciting time for me, so there was a personal connection. It was this time when New York was really scruffy and dangerous, and there was crime, violence, crack, and AIDS – a lot of very horrible things, but also excitement and creative opportunity. You could be an artist and live in Manhattan in a squat and pay no rent. It seems inconceivable right now."[9] In addition, Berman also was interested in the parenting aspect of the story, adding, "One of the things in the book that’s so interesting – and I had friends like this – are people who were raised by parents who were hippies and didn’t give them a lot of rules and boundaries. The question is, how do you rebel against the people who invented rebellion? Because youth is about rebelling. I think there’s an element of that in straight edge, which became very popular around that time with young people who were rebelling against what they thought was screwing up their parents. There was something seductive and rebellious about being sober and not being promiscuous ."

Hailee Steinfeld was announced to be in talks for the role of Eliza in October 2013, and was cast in December of that year. Asa Butterfield and Ethan Hawke were cast earlier before Steinfeld. Emile Hirsch, Julianne Nicholson, Emily Mortimer and Nadia Alexander were cast in early 2014. Avan Jogia was cast as Teddy in early February 2014. Filming started in New York City on January 27, 2014 and ended on March 3, 2014."

Link to the review in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/25/ten-thousand-saints-henderson-review

I loved the book and would most definitely read more by Eleanor Henderson.

JULIAN by Gore Vidal

 Finished Mo 10/17/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I had never read. It was really a treat to 'discover' this lovely novel.  A light approach and an interesting format.

Julian is the Roman emperor who tried to restore Hellenism to the empire. The emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion. 

Julian does not refer to the followers of Jesus as 'Christians'. He calls them 'Galileans' because Jesus was from Galilee. 

The Council of Nicea was in 325 and this meeting established the overall thrust of Christianity. What books would be included in the bible and they tried to settle the controversy of 'the three headed god'. If god was 'the one and only god', where does Jesus fit the equation? 

Most of the historical novel is 'first person' in Julian's voice. Frequently, the narration is broken up by two commentators, Libanius & Priscus, two friends of Julian's. 

All of Gore Vidal's historical novels are chock full of interesting details; Julian declared a tax exemption for families with more than thirteen children. He did this because some Romans believed that the Gauls would 'replace' the indigenous population.   

Here's the book's page at Wikipedia: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(novel)

EVERYONE DIES by Michael McGarrity

 Finished Tu 10/4/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first read and finished on Mo 2/2/09 and I had bought the book at the January Book Sale on Sa 1/10/09. "Great read and I'll check out more by this author".

A competent police procedural that is set in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The author was a former deputy sheriff of Santa Fe county, New Mexico. 

The central character is Kevin Kerney and this book is a part of a series.

A prominent attorney is gunned down and then more people connected to Kerney are being killed. My only gripe with the book is that it seemed that the body count was too high. 

Kerney's wife is eight months pregnant and she is also a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Military Police. 

Part of a review of the book at Publishers Weekly:

" A vicious killer slashes his way into the midst of this family crisis, beginning by shooting a Santa Fe lawyer, and in quick succession murdering Kerney's beloved horse, a forensic psychologist and a probation officer. It doesn't take long for Kerney to realize that his entire family has been targeted, especially after the killer begins leaving messages that say, "Everyone Dies." Area law enforcement personnel rally around the chief and begin a massive investigation. The large and varied supporting cast is sometimes difficult to keep straight, but McGarrity's fondness for his characters is evident, as is his love for the harsh but beautiful mountain and desert landscape they inhabit. Readers familiar with the series will be happy to settle back with the chief, his complicated family and the men and women of the department for another enjoyable installment."

It's a great 'airport read' and I'd definitely read more by this author.

THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood

 Finished Fr 9/30/22

This is an eBook that I got from the library and read on Kindle. I had watched the first disc of the series and liked it so much that I wanted to read the book. I also learned that Atwood wrote a sequel to the book called 'THE TESTAMENTS'. The library has this novel and I'll read it soon.

The novel spells out in graphic detail the horror of political religious extremism.  

The world has experienced a near zero birth rate and all fertile women are forced into the service of having children. Rich couples employ a 'handmaiden' to birth children and then raise them as their own.

Most of the novel is seen through the character of 'Offred'. She is a handmaiden 'Of Fred', her 'lord and master'. However, she has a relationship with the man and this is forbidden. 

Review from THE GUARDIAN: 

"This year sees the 25th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Atwood's dystopian classic, and to honour the occasion, the book has been reissued by Vintage. The Handmaid's Tale tells the story of Offred – not her real name, but the patronymic she has been given by the new regime in an oppressive parallel America of the future – and her role as a Handmaid. The Handmaids are forced to provide children by proxy for infertile women of a higher social status, the wives of Commanders. They undergo regular medical tests, and in many ways become invisible, the sum total of their biological parts.

Offred remembers her life before the inception of Gilead, when she had a husband, a daughter and a life. She had been a witness to the dissolution of the old America into the totalitarian theocracy that it now is, and she tries to reconcile the warning signs with reality: "We lived in the gaps between the stories."

Offred's tender remembrances of times past provide relief from the brutality of her new life, in which her body has become a cause of discomfort for her. Her former life is presented through glimpses of her university friends, her husband, her freedom. They are shadowy memories made all the more indistinct by Atwood's lyrical prose, in which facts appear to merge into one another, and history appears immaterial; Offred is kept alive by her inner life, and reality and history become a kind of symbiotic mirage.

Fiercely political and bleak, yet witty and wise, the novel won the inaugural Arthur C Clarke award in 1987, but Atwood has always maintained that the novel is not classifiable science fiction. Nothing practised in the Republic of Gilead is genuinely futuristic. She is right, and this novel seems ever more vital in the present day, where women in many parts of the world live similar lives, dictated by biological determinism and misogyny."

FALSE MEMORY by Dean Koontz

 Finished Su 9/25/22

This is a paperback that Janny loaned to me. I loved the book.

An evil psychiatrist uses hypnosis to have his patients do his bidding. 

*** From the novel's page at 'bookbrowse.com'- 

"A tale of madness, suspense, love, and terror from a startling and true-life psychological condition so close to home it will stun even his most seasoned readers: autophobia--fear of oneself.

Just when you thought he couldn't top himself, Dean Koontz has done it again with a novel that will chill you to the bone and demonstrate why he has earned the distinction "America's most popular suspense novelist" (Rolling Stone). A Dean Koontz novel is not just an unforgettable read--it is a life-changing experience. As anyone who has ever read one of his novels knows, he creates atmospheric settings, believable characters, and all-too-plausible situations through which he explores the terror that we all suspect lurks just out of sight in our ordinary lives. In this unforgettable novel he weaves a tale of madness, suspense, love, and terror from a startling and true-life psychological condition so close to home it will stun even his most seasoned readers: autophobia--fear of oneself.

Martie Rhodes is a young wife, a successful video game designer, and a compassionate woman who takes her agoraphobic friend, Susan, to therapy sessions. Susan is so afraid of leaving her apartment that even these trips to the doctor's office become ordeals for both women--but with each trip a deeper emotional bond forms between them.

Then one morning Martie experiences a sudden and inexplicable fear of her own, a fleeting but disquieting terror of...her own shadow. The episode is over so quickly it leaves her shaken but amused. The amusement is short-lived. For as she is about to check her makeup, she realizes that she is terrified to look in the mirror and confront the reflection of her own face.

As the episodes of this traumatic condition-- autophobia--build, the lives of Martie and her husband, Dustin, change drastically. Desperate to discover the reasons for his wife's sudden and seemingly inevitable descent into mental chaos, Dusty takes Martie to the renowned therapist who has been treating Susan, and tries to reconstruct/he events of recent months in a frantic search for clues. As he comes closer to the shocking truth, Dusty finds himself afflicted with a condition even more bizarre and fearsome than Martie's.

No fan of Dean Koontz or of classic psychological suspense will want to miss this extraordinary novel of the human mind's capacity to torment-- and destroy--itself. In False Memory, Dean Koontz has created a novel that will stay in your memory long after the final page is turned-- a story not only of gripping fear but also of the power of love and friendship. Once more Koontz reveals why he has, as People put it, the "power to scare the daylights out of us."

THE CITY by Dean Koontz

Finished Tu 9/13/22 

This is an eBook that I borrowed from the library. Janny loaned me his novel 'FALSE MEMORY' and when reading about Koontz I noticed this book and decided to read it first.

A young black boy in a major American city is assisted by a 'spirit/angel' to deal with the turbulent late sixties. 

More like a fable or a fantasy. Nothing really supernatural or horrific. 

Features an unbelievable, tender relationship between a mother and her son.  

Swing music of the 1940's is featured. Mom is a big band singer and the boy is an excellent 'piano man'.

Counterculture characters are portrayed as evil.

One of the major characters is a Japanese man who was imprisoned at Manzanar Relocation Cam during WWII. 

A YouTube review of the book by Koontz reveals that he had an unsettling home life when he was young.

From the Book Summary at bookbrowse.com:

"The city changed my life and showed me that the world is deeply mysterious. I need to tell you about her and some terrible things and wonderful things and amazing things that happened... and how I am still haunted by them. Including one night when I died and woke and lived again.

Here is the riveting, soul-stirring story of Jonah Kirk, son of an exceptional singer, grandson of a formidable "piano man," a musical prodigy beginning to explore his own gifts when he crosses a group of extremely dangerous people, with shattering consequences. Set in a more innocent time not so long ago, The City encompasses a lifetime but unfolds over three extraordinary, heart-racing years of tribulation and triumph, in which Jonah first grasps the electrifying power of music and art, of enduring friendship, of everyday heroes.

The unforgettable saga of a young man coming of age within a remarkable family, and a shimmering portrait of the world that shaped him, The City is a novel that speaks to everyone, a dazzling realization of the evergreen dreams we all share. Brilliantly illumined by magic dark and light, it's a place where enchantment and malice entwine, courage and honor are found in the most unexpected quarters, and the way forward lies buried deep inside the heart."

Fun Fact: Koontz has sold almost 500 million books (more than Stephen King and James Patterson) yet James Patterson is the most highly paid writer in the world. 

THE COFFEE TRADER by David Liss

Finished Sa 9/9/22

This is one of my trade paperbacks that I got from Amazon on Mo 6/19/06 and never read the novel.

The novel is set in Amsterdam, 1659

From the book's page at Wikipedia:

"The Coffee Trader is a historical novel by David Liss, set in 17th-century Amsterdam. The story revolves around the activities of commodity trader Miguel Lienzo, who is a Jewish refugee from the Portuguese Inquisition. Recovering from near financial ruin, he embarks on a coffee trading scheme with a Dutch woman, kept secret because it is forbidden by his community council. Miguel navigates the social structures of the Amsterdam business world, the politics of the council, and the plots of competitors bringing this new import to Europe." 

"The novel shows considerable attention to historical detail. In the "historical note" appended to the novel, the author notes that many modern business methods, especially those having to do with the stock market, came into being in 17th-century Holland.   New York Times reviewer Thomas Mallon writes that the Amsterdam of the novel is "a kind of information age, where wealth follows from what one knows or can trick others into believing." Historian Adam Sutcliffe also sees the seeds of modernity in the novel's portrayal of Amsterdam "as a crucible of modernity is based above all in the easy contact between Jews and non-Jews," but finds that Liss goes too far in this portrayal, saying that "there appears to be almost no cultural distance between... an intensely Calvinist [Dutch] society... [and] the Sephardim... steeped in their very different Iberian sensibility."  Sutcliffe concludes, "The commercial, cultural, and political modernity of this Amsterdam milieu underpins the familiar fascination of The Coffee Trader. The less recognizably modern aspects of Sephardic life are marginal to Liss's narrative, but they Liss has said that the novel was originally focused on the chocolate trade, but he switched the focal commodity because "coffee was a better fit" and that ""coffee and business go so naturally together."  In an interview, Liss was asked whether Miguel was based on a particular historical figure; her replied that Miguel "is entirely made up based on the sort of character I wanted to see in that situation."

It's a dizzying and complicated plot, but very compelling. 

I think I have read another novel by David Liss and I would read anything he wrote. 

GENTKILL by Paul Lindsay

This is another of my ancient trade paperbacks that I first finished on Sa 1/3/98 (the note on the flyleaf says that I saw 'ARMISTAD' on that day) and I re-read it again and finished on We 5/11/16.

Refinished Fr 9/2/22

From the back cover of the novel:

"Mike Devlin is back, and the FBI's toughest, most smart-ass, and most severely reprimanded special agent has two horrifying cases to break: A methodical and Innovative extortionist is demanding five milllion dollars to stop detonating high-tech bombs in hospitals, and a sadistic serial killer is assassinating the FBI's finest throughout Detroit. How these cases interconnect and what Mike Devlin overcomes to solve them is the harrowing, page-turning story of GENTKILL.

From the book's page at Amazon:

"Former FBI agent Lindsay (Witness to the Truth) has a vision of his protagonists?in this case the agents of the Detroit office?that makes them a blend of hard-bitten professionals and fraternity cutups. It may be authentic, but it gives his thriller an odd tone, as if neither the thrills nor the bitter, prankish humor are to be taken quite seriously. Agent Mike Devlin, his hero, is always balking at unfair authority. Here, he's out to do two things: first, collar two criminals?a serial killer who specializes in knocking off agents and an extortionist who is planting bombs at a medical center; second, nail his pompous, sleazy boss. The plotting, though swift, is a little too elaborate, with the two story lines never quite meshing as the author seems to intend. But there are plenty of thrills along the way, and a dizzy ransom denouement that is certainly a first in fiction. The book is basically the fictional equivalent of a tough Bruce Willis movie, with the pleasures and limitations of such an approach."

The novel is an easy read and very compelling, yet I found the ending to be a little confusing. 

The author spent many years as an FBI agent    

A SHORT DANCE IN THE SUN by George Benet

 This is one of my ancient trade paperbacks that I first finished Mo 12/19/94,

Refinished Su 8/28/22 and I listened to an archived interview with George Benet from the late 1980's on Fresh Air. 

It's the story of two brothers. One is an alcoholic dock worker in San Francisco and the other is a union boss in the Bay Area. The alcoholic brother has a shot at redemption with an ex-prostitute, but the relationship is doomed. 

"It is a world of broken-down docks, old-time bars, and a doomed love affair between an alcoholic longshoreman and a self-destructive woman comes to an end. 

From the book's page at Amazon:

"In a narrative that is, at its best, compellingly realistic, Benet ( A Place in Colusa , etc.) traces the lives of two very different brothers. An official in the San Francisco longshoremen's union, Monte takes nothing too seriously except the advancement of his career. He is posited as a foil to the deeply sensitive Joe, who is tormented by memories of the wife and daughter who left him years before. Benet's writing is as stark and engrossing as a noir film in his descriptions of Joe's work as a longshoreman, with its camaraderie and hard physical labor, debilitating alcoholic binges and experiences in a detoxification hospital. In the treatment center, Joe meets and eventually falls in love with Sandy, another patient, and together they build a stable life. Their "dance in the sun" is tragically truncated by a series of unexpected events. And it is here that the novel is weakest. The denouement is abrupt and implausible, leading to an unsatisfying ending for an otherwise vigorous novel."

Unfortunately, the author didn't write too much more and this was his best. The subject of Labor and Unions are not very popular in America and almost everything from the workers' fight for Labor during the 1930's is largely forgotten.  

NIGHTMARE ALLEY by William Lindsay Gresham

 Finished Fr 8/26/22

I saw this movie a few weeks ago and later found out that this is the second film made from this novel. The first was made soon after the book was released in the late 1940's. Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett star in the new film.

From the New York Review of Books:

"Nightmare Alley begins with an extraordinary description of a carnival-show geek—alcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowd’s gleeful disgust and derision—going about his work at a county fair. Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. There’s no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him.

And since Stan is clever and ambitious and not without a useful streak of ruthlessness, soon enough he’s going places. Onstage he plays the mentalist with a cute assistant (before long his harried wife), then he graduates to full-blown spiritualist, catering to the needs of the rich and gullible in their well-upholstered homes. It looks like the world is Stan’s for the taking. At least for now."

An excellent review from 'Mythopoeic Society' website:

"Reissued last year with an introduction by Gresham scholar Nick Tosches was Nightmare Alley, the book that made William Lindsay Gresham famous (and $60,000), and which was adapted quickly for the big screen. This noirish crime tale from 1946 does have an indirect bearing on Inklings studies.

Joy Davidman Gresham, who was later married to C.S. Lewis, was first married to and had two children with William Lindsay Gresham. They both had eclectic political and religious interests, and were later Christian converts because of C.S. Lewis’s writings. William Lindsay did not remain a Christian and appeared never to have conquered his demons, the seeds having fallen on barren rock, as it were. Inklings scholars will easily see how Nightmare Alley relates not just to Joy Davidman (to whom it is dedicated) and to C.S. Lewis, but it also resembles somewhat the dark supernatural thrillers of Charles Williams. It should be remembered that Gresham wrote an introduction to The Greater Trumps. Nightmare Alley differs markedly in style from the works of the Inklings, which generally lack sex and petty criminals. It is more of a crime novel than the supernatural thrillers of Charles Williams, but though it follows a different course, it is generally of the same milieu.

The novel uses the cards of Tarot as chapter titles providing both symbolism and metaphor. The story centers on the carnival with also its advertisements of encounters with the supernatural. [Gresham is not the only novelist to turn to the Tarot for inspiration. Another notable example, Italo Calvino’s The Castle of Crossed Destinies (1973), constructs a narrative entirely out of Tarot cards. —Editor.]

Nightmare Alley tells the story of Stan Carlson, a carnival hustler who later becomes a religious charlatan. It is a bleak picture that Gresham paints of a man seeking escape from the strange world of sideshows and geeks. The novel was collected by The Library of America as one of the most notable crime novels of the 1930s and 1940s, but it is not so hard bitten as many others of its like. Sometimes sympathetic Stan has religious yearnings and caters to others with the same yearnings, even if he does so disingenuously, looking only for enough money to get away from the whole mess.

As Tosche notes: “As piercing as the psychological probings of Nightmare Alley are, eerily the tarot alone is bestowed at times with a hint of ominous gravity and credence amid all the other spiritualist cons of the novel that are to Gresham and his characters nothing more that suckers’ rackets.” Nightmare Alley gives one a sense of what the Greshams were trying to leave behind. Here is the claustrophobic world of society’s disconnects and strays. Creatures still human but some so geekish, so odd, that people would pay money just to see them. They may also see parts of themselves in them.

William Lindsay Gresham “was” Stan, whose despair is tempered by a dream of paradise — something which he had in common with the Inklings. In his story one finds also a desire for life to have meaning, for there to be something to strive for. Gresham writes of Stan: “Ever since he was a kid Stan had had the dream. He was running down a dark alley, the buildings vacant and menacing on either side. Far down at the end of it a light burned, but there was something behind him, close behind him, getting closer until he woke up trembling and never reached the light.” Down there at the other end of the dark tunnel of life there was also possibly light, as the Inklings believed. There, one could hope for a happy ending or salvation. But only Joy Davidman Gresham was able to escape, crossing the Atlantic with their children. William Lindsay Gresham was left behind. It is beside the point of this review to consider why she left, but Gresham was an alcoholic, insolvent, a womanizer, and sometimes violent. Surely, these would have been reasons enough.

She may also have found more fresh air in epic fantasies rather than the strange world of the carnival. William Lindsay Gresham wrote other works about the “carny” life, and even one about Houdini, not being able to escape himself. He committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills in September, 1962. Like Charles Williams, William Lindsay Gresham never lost his interest in the supernatural, and he never found the light at the end of the tunnel. But Nightmare Alley succeeds as a great study of the individual trying to cope with a difficult and bizarre world. The book may be a bit risqué for young Inklings readers; it contains expletives and adult themes. It has, in fact, been banned for such reasons in the past. The Inklings in their heroic fiction tends to focus more on clean-cut folks with worthier aspirations. This book is more an exploration of the desperate places of the soul — but not without its merits for all that, or perhaps even because of that."

I learned that Janny owns a copy of 'SHADOWLAND', the movie that deals with the relationship between C.S. Lewis and Gresham's wife, Joy Davidman and I'm going to ask to borrow it the next time I see the Brandenburgs. Anthony Hopkins played C.S. Lewis and Debra Winger played Davidman. 

 

UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN: A Story of Violent Faith

 Finished Su 8/21/22 and this is one of my new hardbacks that I received from Amazon on Mo 8/15/22.

This might be one of the best of  the entire 'True Crime' genre. The premise is that the author is writing about a murder that happened just south of Salt Lake City. A woman and her toddler were not only brutally murdered, but they were almost decapitated. Police were stumped because this was not the kind of crime that occurred in Utah until someone said that it might have something to do with 'multiple marriages'. Then, the author (Jon Krakaurer) delves into the history of the Latter Day Saints and how the theory of multiple marriages evolved. 

I loved the book and although I could have borrowed this from the library, I'm glad that I now own a copy.

From the book's page on Amazon:

"Jon Krakauer?s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this?divinely inspired? crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion,savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America?s fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five ?plural wives,? several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.

Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism?s violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior."

Mormon view of Blacks; "...beasts of the field, which were the most intelligent of all animals that were created, for they did walk upright as a man doeth and had the power of speech".

"One mighty and strong"- This phrase refers to Mormon men who experience 'revelations' from god. Men in the Mormon faith (never the women) are encouraged to 'listen' to what god is 'telling' them.

Fun Fact: Utah is the 'fraud capital of the world'. Saints are invited to invest in dubious schemes by other Saints. "People need to realize that god is not a good investment adviser."

Utah has the highest birth rate in the US.  

JACK & JILL by James Patterson

Finished We 8/17/22

This is a paperback novel that Janny lent to me when they were over to 'repair' the hose spigot.

Usually I wouldn't read a Patterson novel, but this was an early Alex Cross and I loved that series.

'Jack and Jill' are killers who are preying on V.I.P.'s in the Washington DC area. Soon authorities realize that these names are used by the secret service to refer to the president of the US. Is he the next target.

In the end, it's revealed that the perps were the husband and wife that headed a national security agency.

It's a great 'comfort read'.  

From the book's page at GoodReads:

"In the middle of the night, a controversial U.S. Senator is found murdered in bed in his Georgetown pied-a-terre. The police turn up only one clue: a mysterious rhyme signed 'Jack and Jill' promising that this is just the beginning. The two are out to get the rich and famous. They will stop at nothing until their fiendish plan is carried out.

Meanwhile, Washington, D. C., homicide detective Alex Cross is called to a murder scene only blocks from his house. Far from the corridors of power where he spends his days. The victim: a beautiful little girl, savagely beaten--and deposited in front of the elementary school Cross's son, Damon, attends.

Could there be a connection between the murders? As Cross tries to put the pieces together, the killer - or killers - strike again. And again. No one in Washington is safe - not children, not politicians, not even the President of the United States. Only Cross has the skills and the courage to crack the case, but will he discover the truth in time?

A relentless roller coaster of heart-pounding suspense and jolting plot twists, 'Jack and Jill' proves that no one can write a more compelling thriller than James Patterson--the master of the nonstop nightmare."  

SAMARITAN by Richard Price

 Refinished We 8/10/22

This is one of my old hardbacks that I bought at a 'Sun City Book Sale' on Th 11/28/22 and finished Xmas Eve 2006, Sa 12/24/06 before I saw 'BLOOD DIAMOND' at Parkway Point.

From the book's page at GoodReads:

"Ray Mitchell, a former TV writer who has left Hollywood under a cloud, returns to urban Dempsy, New Jersey, hoping to make a difference in the lives of his struggling neighbors. Instead, his very public and emotionally suspect generosity gets him beaten nearly to death. Ray refuses to name his assailant, which makes him intensely interesting to Detective Nerese Ammons, a friend from childhood, who now sets out to unlock the secret of his reticence. Set against the intensely realized backdrop of urban America, the cat and mouse game that unfolds is both morally complex and utterly gripping."

The story is set in a housing project in NYC.

Ray Mitchell teaches children in a low income area. He grew up in the neighborhood and seems to feel guilty that he 'made it out'. 

Mitchell is attacked in his apartment and almost killed. A black female detective (who also grew up in the area) takes the case because she appreciates his input to the community. 

He became involved with a black woman whose husband was in jail. When he is released everyone thinks that this ex-con was the perp, but it's his teenage son who bashed the teacher on the head.  

The kid commits the assault because he couldn't accept the fact that Ray was going to breakup with his mother. Ray was the first male that had ever paid serious attention to him in his whole life. 

The book was well written and covered an interesting subject. I'd read more by this author in a second. 

ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell (Eric Blair)

 Finished We 8/3/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks and there is no note on the flyleaf when I read it.

I watched a movie called 'MR. JONES' and it dealt with the Holodomor. The film was 'bookended' by the writing of this novel. 

THE REBELLION

THE PRINCIPLES OF ANIMALISM

"Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad"

"I Will Work Harder"

'Beasts of England'- The animals patriotic anthem 

***Mr. Jones***Napoleon***Snowball

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others"

"If you have your lower animals to contend with, we have our lower classes"

What's to say? An obvious classic novel

The link to the book's page on Wikipedia:

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

ANY PLACE I HANG MY HAT by Susan Isaacs

 Finished Mo 7/25/22

This is one of my new books that I ordered on Amazon because I loved 'LILY WHITE' by Isaacs. I received the novel on Sa 7/16/22.

Amy Lincoln is a successful young woman who has never been able to accept the fact that her mother abandoned her when she was only ten months old. Her maternal grandmother raised her and her father was in and out of prison. 

She finally confronts the woman and the big 'reveal' is that mom had never been worth the effort. She meets the woman and realizes that mom actually was a shallow and selfish person, so she ended the relationship. 

Susan Isaacs is a great writer and her books are funny, witty, and insightful. 

From the book's page at GoodReads:

"Amy was barely born with a spoon in her mouth let alone a silver one. Her mother abandoned her before her first birthday and her father, a small-time crook, was in jail more time than he was out. Raised by her flaky and slightly felonious grandmother, Amy worked hard and managed to get scholarships to boarding school, then Harvard, then the Columbia School of Journalism. But now -- a few years into her stint as a reporter for a prestigious magazine -- she doesn't know who she is or how to connect with the world. Seeking answers, she sets out to find the mother she never knew...and maybe a place to belong."

From Publisher's Weekly:

"Publisher's Weekly

A political reporter in her late 20s goes in search of the mother who abandoned her when she was a baby in this jaunty if rather jerky 10th novel by Isaacs (Long Time No See; Red, White, and Blue; etc.). Amy Lincoln was brought up in the projects by her Grandma Lil, a leg waxer and devoted Falcon Crest viewer; her amiable father, Chicky, spent most of Amy's childhood in prison on a series of minor theft raps. A boarding school scholarship rescues Amy from lower-class oblivion; she goes on to Harvard and Columbia, then lands a job at In Depth, a highbrow weekly. Upbeat and self-deprecating, Amy spends little time bemoaning her past, but an encounter with college student Freddy Carrasco, who claims he's the illegitimate son of a Democratic presidential candidate, gets Amy wondering where her own mother might be. While advising Freddy how to approach his father, she uses her reporting skills to track down her elusive mother. The political subplot is anticlimactic Amy doesn't even get a scoop and Amy's eventual reunion with her mother, revealed to be a chilly suburban housewife, is credibly if rather disappointingly subdued. The parade of lavishly and loopishly described secondary characters and gossipy New York scene-setting give the novel its zing; Amy's rocky relationship with her documentary filmmaker boyfriend provides a jolt of romantic excitement and a happy ending. Agent, Owen Laster. (Oct. 5) Forecast: This might not do as well as Isaacs's last novel, Long Time No See, which reintroduced popular Isaacs protagonist Judith Singer, but a major marketing campaign including heavy promotion in the New York area and a seven-city author tour should help it hit some bestseller lists. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information."

KINDRED by Octavia E. Butler

Refinished Th 7/22/22

This was one of my ancient paperback books and according to the flyleaf I 'began & finished on Sa 12/19/93.

A young California woman from 1976 (the book was published in 1979) is 'magically' (the mechanics of the 'time travel' is never explained) transported back to Maryland of the early eighteen hundreds. The young woman is black and her husband is white.

The novel highlights the psychological differences of existing in a society without slavery and one that does. I think this would be an excellent book to recommend to high school age students. I really liked the book.

From the novel's page at Wikipedia:

"Kindred is a novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler that incorporates time travel and is modeled on slave narratives. First published in 1979, it is still widely popular. It has been frequently chosen as a text for community-wide reading programs and book organizations, as well as being a common choice for high school and college courses.

The book is the first-person account of a young African-American woman writer, Dana, who finds herself being shunted in time between her Los Angeles, California home in 1976 and a pre-Civil War Maryland plantation. There she meets her ancestors: a proud black freewoman and a white planter who has forced her into slavery and concubinage. As Dana's stays in the past become longer, the young woman becomes intimately entangled with the plantation community. She makes hard choices to survive slavery and to ensure her return to her own time.

Kindred explores the dynamics and dilemmas of antebellum slavery from the sensibility of a late 20th-century black woman, who is aware of its legacy in contemporary American society. Through the two interracial couples who form the emotional core of the story, the novel also explores the intersection of power, gender, and race issues, and speculates on the prospects of future egalitarianism.

While most of Butler's work is classified as science fiction, Kindred is considered to cross genre boundaries. It has been classified also as literature or African-American literature. Butler has categorized the work as "a kind of grim fantasy."

The link to 'KINDRED' on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindred_(novel)

 

NELSON ALGREN: A Life on the Wild Side by Bettina Drew

 Refinished Sa 7/16/22

This is one of my old trade paperbacks that I bought at The Old Book Barn on Sa 6/1/96 and according to the note on the flyleaf that I finished on Sa 8/3/96 "in 2 days".

Best known for his 1949 novel, 'THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM'. I ordered this book from Amazon and I remember seeing the movie (Frank Sinatra, Arnold Stang), but I don't think I've read the novel.

Also, famous for his sexual affair with Simone de Beauvoir (THE SECOND SEX). They were friends and lovers for decades, yet Jean-Paul Sartre was the true love of her life.

Born in Detroit, but spent most of his life in Chicago.

He attended the University of Illinois at Champaign, Il. during the roaring twenties. I found it odd that all he wished for during his 'riding the rails' phase during the 20's was not to get 'conned' by all the shady characters that he was hanging around with. 

Algren is known as an author of the 30's and 40's who couldn't adjust to the changing times. When he went to Vietnam during the sixties to cover the war he got involved with smuggling items from the PX. He failed at this and was beaten up by other thieves. 

Nelson Algren (3/28/1909- 5/9/1981)

A THIN DARK LINE by Tami Hoag

 Finished We 7/6/22

This is a relatively new paperback that I bought at the library book sale on Sa 1/11/20. I recently read another novel by Hoag and I am going to loan both books to Janny. She and Joe are supposed to drop by tomorrow with some home-grown zucchini.  

Tami Hoag is more of a storyteller than a writer, but she presents a beguiling tale. My only fault is that it might come across as a little too romantic, but I think that's what she's going for. 

Set in Set in Bayou Breaux, Louisiana which would be just east of Lafayette, LA.

From GoodReads:

"A suspected murderer is free on a technicality, and the cop accused of planting evidence against him is ordered off the case. But Detective Nick Fourcade refuses to walk away. He’s stepped over the line before. This case threatens to push him over the edge.

He’s not the only one. Deputy Annie Broussard found the woman’s mutilated body. She still hears the phantom echoes of dying screams. She wants justice. But pursuing the investigation will mean forming an alliance with a man she doesn’t trust and making enemies of the men she works with. It will mean being drawn into the confidence of a killer. For Annie Broussard, finding justice will mean risking everything—including her life.

The search for the truth has begun—one that will lead down a twisted trail through the steamy bayous of Louisiana, and deep into the darkest reaches of the human heart."

"A Real estate agent is found dead and mutilated in one of her vacant listings. There are several other deaths peppered throughout southern Louisiana that have had the same MO. The authorities are stumped until Nick Fourcade a detective finds evidence pointing toward a man who knew the victims, however, the incriminating evidence is thrown out on a technicality. The local public becomes enraged and father of the latest victim try's to shoot the suspect, on the courthouse steps, upon his release.

Annie Broussard is the deputy who found the body and is doing her own investigation into who is committing these gruesome murders. Late one evening while she is off duty, Annie comes across intoxicated Nick Fourcade while he is beating said suspect. She must for his own good arrest him before he beats the suspect to death. This makes her very unpopular with the locals and she is completely shunned by her fellow officers. This in turn makes her even more determined than ever."

VALIS by Philip K. Dick

 Refinished Sa 6/25/22

This is part of one of my trade paperbacks that contains all of 'The Valis Trilogy'; VALIS, THE DIVINE INVASION, THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER.

Over the decades I've read this several times and always find something new.

Beth- wife

Christopher- son  "Pink Light"

Sign of the Fish could signify The Double Helix

Kevin's dead cat- Why did god allow this to happen?

Gloria- addict; suicide

Sherri- cancer; sadomasochistic tendencies

'Valis' the movie; MOTHER GOOSE (Rock Band- Eric & Linda Lampton)

Ferris Freemont (Richard Nixon)

***From a reader at Goodreads:

"A question we had to learn to deal with during the dope decade was, How do you break the news to someone that his brains are fried?” So says the first-person narrator in VALIS, Philip K. Dick’s autobiographical novel of spiritual odyssey, a novel where the narrator begins by laying out the major issues he must deal with as he attempts to gain a measure of sanity along with a sense of purpose and the meaning of life: drugs, a desire to help others, the pull of insanity, suicide and death, time and place (Northern California in the 60s), split-identity (the narrator alternately identifies and disidentifies with one Horselover Fat), God and occlusion (he receives otherworldly messages via a beam of pink light prompting him to explore ancient Gnosticism) – all in all a 60s California-style version of the novels of Hermann Hesse, novels like Siddhartha, Damion and Steppenwolf. What a wild ride. For example, here is a list of what I see as the top ten conundrums we are asked to ponder:

One - Theophany

The narrator explains how a theophany is self-disclosure by the divine, in other words, a theophany isn’t something we do; rather, a theophany is something the divine – the God or gods, the higher powers – does to us. The intense pink beam of light experienced by the narrator’s persona Horselover Fat was just such a theophany. But, then, the question invariably arises: how are we to know if we received a true theophany or are suffering from an illusion?

Two - When your theophany goes against the grain of the conventional

One of the most fascinating and hilarious parts of the novel is the narrator’s therapy session with Maurice, a Hasidic Jew. In his session, Horselover Fat contrasts the ‘true’ God, the God of the Gnostics, the God of his pink ray of light, with the ‘flawed’ God of Genesis. Maurice’s reaction to such an esoteric explanation of the universe makes for lively reading, a high point of insight into the rocky spiritual challenges faced by our narrator.

Three - When your discover others share your theophany

Turns out, there are a number of other people who have had a similar theophany from the true Gnostic God. Horselover Fat’s encounter with these men and women challenges his very idea of sanity since he observes just how far zealots will go in their zealotry.

Four – How to deal with your theophany once it starts to wear off

From the novel: “They ought to make it a binding clause that if you find God you get to keep him. For Fat, finding God (if indeed he did find God) became, ultimately, a bummer, a constantly diminishing supply of joy, sinking lower and lower like the contents of a bag of uppers.” Darn, if only God were as readily available as drugs.

Five – When you encounter the many sides of you

As Harry Haller of Hesse’s Steppenwolf experiences the many facets of his personal identity in the Magic Theater, so, in the course this novel, PKD (yes, again, a very autobiographical work) discovers the many sides of PKD. How many versions are there? Feel free to round to the nearest dozen.

Six – The concept of time

Is someone or something playing a board game with time and we humans as mere players? Can time be abolished and transcended? If so, how do we go about it?

Seven – Zebra, that is, pure living intelligence, so called by Horselover Fat

Can an out-of-cosmos intelligence contact humans? This question is related to the possibility of a true theophany.

Eight - The presence of evil in the universe

Is there an answer to Kevin’s pressing question: What about my dead cat? In other words, why do bad things happen to good cats or why is there evil in the world?

Nine – The Exegesis

An exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of scripture or a sacred text. VALIS includes many entries from PKD’s thousand page exegesis published as a separate book. The question looms: would PKD have expanded his exegesis to several more thousands of pages had he lived to age 90? My own guess is definitely ‘yes’, since once you start to unravel the mysteries of the universe according to your own schemata, three questions pop up for every answer you offer. Ah, the mysteries of the universe!

Ten – What is VALIS?

Sure, it stands for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, but where does it fit into the novel? I wouldn’t want to spoil this question by providing an answer. You will have to read it for yourself. Once again, novel reading as a wild magic carpet ride. I recommend you hop on."

STILL WATERS by Tami Hoag

Finished We 6/22/22

This was a paperback that I bought at the library book sale two years ago; Sa 1/11/20.

I just read another novel by this author and I like her stuff. Slightly too much romance, but within acceptable levels. 

Set in the fictional town of Still Creek, Minnesota.

A town father is murdered- his throat was cut, and the body was found by the editor of the town's paper.

Review from Publishers Weekly:

"After a messy and very public divorce from her magnate husband, Elizabeth Stuart is persuaded by her old college chum to move from Atlanta to Still Creek, Minn. When car trouble strikes, Elizabeth hoofs it to a construction site--and finds the developer, Jarrold Jarvis, in his car with his throat cut. Sheriff Dane Jantzen figures the deed was done by a transient: Jarrold's wallet was stolen and his glove compartment rifled. Elizabeth, who now owns the local newspaper, suspects most everyone in town: Jarvis had kept a secret list of names of people who owed him money. Dane and Elizabeth start off their eventual romance by treating each other like dirt--exchanging what passes for snappy repartee. Dane insists on escorting Elizabeth to a press conference because ``I want to know where your mouth is.'' She retorts, ``it won't be kissing your ass.'' The characters are no more agreeable than the plot is focused on finding the murderer. Perhaps that's why the effect of Hoag's ( Lucky's Lady ) story is less ``still'' than static."

Random observations at GoodReads:

"...a great romantic thriller which hits right from the first page.

We have an Amish community, a normal close knit town, 2 killers ( one so unlikely) murders (obviously) a police sheriff and a new outsider newspaper editor who slowly falls in love so we get a HEA. There are many many up and downs twists and turns which all links together to make the grand final."

"Elizabeth and her teenage son, Trace, flee Atlanta and end up in small town Still Creek. Naturally, Elizabeth is gorgeous and dislikes men. The sheriff in town, Dane, is gorgeous and dislikes women. And they end up in bed together. Naturally.

Elizabeth happens on a dead body, the first murder in this town in decades. The sheriff is surly and lusty towards her (if he grabbed her by the arm and steered her one more time....seriously) and she's determined to find the killer, despite never having done anything like that before.

Also, enter the Amish with their dislike of the "English".

I know quite a few Southern people and have never heard the word "sugar" in conversation as Elizabeth."

"They are mildly entertaining, but after about one hundred or so of the same thing- usually some detective falls in love with the female victim and now they both have to come together to fight off some serial killer before he kills again- it does get old and tired, and VERY predictable. Formulaic novels are good when you want to shut down though, I'll give them that."

THE NARROWS by Michael Connelly

 Finished Fr 6/16/22

Maddie is only six years old in this Harry Bosch novel and still living in Las Vegas with her mother. There is no indication that I had read this book, but I'm sure that I have- just not this particular edition. 

Anything by Connelly is worth a look and the early Bosch novels are the best.

The title refers to the concrete culverts used to divert storm water during rainstorms in California.

 From the book's page at GoodReads:

"FBI agent Rachel Walling finally gets the call she's dreaded for years, the one that tells her the Poet has surfaced. She has never forgotten the serial killer who wove lines of poetry in his hideous crimes--and apparently he has not forgotten her.

Former LAPD detective Harry Bosch gets a call, too--from the widow of an old friend. Her husband's death seems natural, but his ties to the hunt for the Poet make Bosch dig deep. Arriving at a derelict spot in the California desert where the feds are unearthing bodies, Bosch joins forces with Rachel. Now the two are at odds with the FBI...and squarely in the path of the Poet, who will lead them on a wicked ride out of the heat, through the narrows of evil, and into a darkness all his own..."

From the book's page at BookBrowse.com:

"FBI agent Rachel Walling finally gets the call she's dreaded for years: the one that tells her the Poet has returned. Years ago she worked on the famous case, tracking down the serial killer who wove lines of poetry into his hideous crimes. Rachel has never forgotten Robert Backus, the killer who called himself the Poet - and apparently he has not forgotten her either.

Harry Bosch gets a call, too. The former LAPD detective hears from the wife of an old friend who has recently died. The death appeared natural, but this man's ties to the hunt for the Poet make Harry dig deep - and lead him into a terrifying, bewildering situation.

So begins the most compelling, frightening, and masterful novel Michael Connelly has ever written. The Narrows places Harry Bosch in league with Rachel Walling, at odds with the FBI and squarely in the path of the most ruthless and ingenious murderer in Los Angeles's history. What follows is a taut and tantalizing mystery that has Harry Bosch racing from the hostile vistas of the Nevada desert to the glittering Las Vegas strip to the dark corners of Los Angeles.

Through it all, Bosch works at his newfound life as father to a young daughter, balancing the deepest love he has ever felt with his own sense of mission and his profound awareness of evil. This spectacularly dramatic and shocking novel will have Michael Connelly's readers desperately hungry for the next novel from "one of America's best writers"."

THE TERMINAL LIST by Jack Carr

 Finished Sa 6/11/22

The reason I read this book is that I learned that a mini-series will be dropped of this book at Amazon Prime on July 1st. Jack Carr was on J.R.E and Joe mentioned that Carr is about the only fiction author he reads. Rogan uses the audio books and Carr said that the guy that reads his books is the most popular 'reader' of audio books on the planet. Makes sense that there are awards for the charismatic person that reads the books. 'It's a novel about revenge. Someone attacks and harms the hero and he kills everyone even remotely connected to the transgression. Even you can believe the premise (seems like fantasy) then you won't be let down. 

I tried to buy some of Carr's novels at Amazon but they were all too expensive. Yesterday was the library book sale and I found one of his novels and got it for a buck. 

Lieutenant Commander James Reece learns that he did not lose his team in a firefight in Afghanistan, but he was set up by American officials high up in the Department of Defense. So he murders everyone connected to this crime. 

The reason that the authorities killed the Seals unit is that they were trying to develop a drug that would end PTSD. However, when they take the medication they acquire brain tumors. One of the reasons Reece can kill everyone in sight is that he believes that he also has a deadly brain tumor but at the end of the book he learns that the tumor is not terminal. This novel is the first in the series. 

One man is sliced in the stomach, one end of his intestines are nailed to a tree and he is forced to walk around the tree until his guts are wrapped around the tree. I can't wait to see how they handle this in the film version of the book.    

From a Simon McDonald blog:

"Navy SEAL Commander James Reece is the sole survivor of a mission gone wrong in Afghanistan. He had a bad feeling about the op from the start, and back home, his attempts to mollify his concerns and unearth the truth are stonewalled by the top brass.

Soon, during a routine CT scan, Reece learns he has a brain tumor. Alarmingly, so did other members of his team, which can’t be a coincidence. Then he discovers the bullet-riddled corpses of his pregnant wife and baby daughter at his house in Coronado, California. And Jack knows he has become unwittingly embroiled in the machinations of a secret cabal. But his enemies have made a fatal error. They’ve unleashed an apex predator; stripped a trained killer of the only things that kept him human and reigned in. And a man like that, with nothing to lose, wants only one thing: revenge.

The action comes thick and fast, and crackles with insider information, some of which has been redacted by the Department of Defense, leaving a trail of blacked-out sentences and words throughout the text, which prove more distracting than intriguing. Carr’s level of detail when it comes to weaponry and tech is almost Clancy-level, and his hero’s homicidal tunnel-vision delivers a high body count and ingenious methods of killing for readers who might think they’ve seen it all before.

“The Terminal List” is not a novel that delves into the morality of Reece’s kill spree. Revenge does not poison his soul. This is action-lit at its purest, for fans of Flynn, Hurwitz, Greaney, and Ludlum of yore: one crusading individual against an impossibly powerful adversary. It won’t turn you into a fan of the genre, but for stalwarts, there’s plenty to enjoy."

LILY WHITE by Susan Isaacs

 Refinished Tu 6/7/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first finished on Easter Sunday 4/20/03. I was off Th/Fr/Sa/Su and I mostly read in one marathon over that weekend... "Great read. I never wanted it to end".

I refinished it We 4/5/17 and according to the note on the flyleaf this was also the day that I bought the new PC from BLH and a new 32" monitor that I use downstairs.

The novel is about Lily White who is a Long Island criminal defense attorney. Most of the novel is about her family and her in-laws. Her parents are 'nouveau riche' and her father made his wealth from the family owned fur store. Lily had always been in love with the boy 'up the hill'. His parents were 'old money' but actually they were very poor but retained their 'class'.  Norman Torkelson is a con artist who specializes in fleecing rich lonely women and this is the criminal case that is examined during the novel. An old woman is murdered and you don't know if Norman did the murder or was it his beautiful girlfriend who was jealous of all of Norman's 'marks'. 

From the novels page at GoodReads:

"In Susan Isaac's most ambitious and dazzling novel to date, we are introduced to Lee White, a criminal defense lawyer practicing on Long Island. Into her life drifts Norman Torkelson, a career con man charged with strangling to death his latest mark. At first, as Lee explains to us, the case seems routine, the evidence overwhelming. Norman--manly, magnetic and morally reprehensible--is a man who crisscrosses America looking for patsies for his cruel marriage scam: Love 'em, liquidate their assets, leave 'em. Clearly, he murdered Bobette Frisch, the dumpy, sour 50-something bar owner who had fallen madly in love with him. But just as Lee is resigning herself to the inevitable Guilty! verdict, she begins to have doubts. What, after all, was Norman's motive? Why not do what he had done for the last 20 years: run and leave behind a broke and brokenhearted victim? Lee starts to wonder if her client is not only not guilty but also covering for the real killer and, in doing so, performing the first selfless act of his life. As the Torkelson case unfolds, a second narrator chimes in to tell us the story behind the story: the tale of Lee's life. Born Lily White, Lee is a smart, pretty and privileged child coming of age on Long Island. Her parents have little time for her or her younger sister, devoted as they are to the pursuit of shallowness. Her mother, Sylvia, who looks like Lauren Bacall's twin sister with a mild eating disorder, is busy with the exhausting work of keeping up her wardrobe. Her father, Leonard Weissberg--Weiss--and finally White, is consumed by his chi-chi Manhattan fur salon, his model-bookkeeper mistress, and his obsession with the family next door, the old-money, oh-so-social Taylors. When Lee marries Jazz Taylor, the scion of these blue-bloods, her life seems blessed. Suddenly she has her mother's approval, her father's love--and a sublime husband. No matter that she has to give up her dream job in the Manhattan DA's Office to move back to Long Island with him; that's what marriage is, a series of compromises made in the name of love. Isn't it? Lily White masterfully interweaves the depths of deception surrounding the twisted Torkelson case with the stunning betrayals that devastate Lee's own life. With the characteristic intelligence and delicious, razor-sharp wit displayed in her previous bestsellers, such as After All These Years and Compromising Positions, Susan Isaacs has crafted an extraordinary novel about social mobility -- about what is phony and what is real. Lily White is the seamlessly executed story of the crimes committed in the name of the good life and the victims of these violations: Those like Bobette, who do not survive, those whose spirits are crushed, and the few, like Lee, who fight back--and find something better".

I loved the book the third time through and I want to get more books by the author. I read her bio and she is actually a housewife who had a lawyer for a husband and she just started writing on a lark. 

Today is the library book sale (Sa 6/11/22) and I might check out the stacks for a novel by her after I buy books at the sale. 

WITHOUT RESERVATIONS- The Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach

 Finished Fr 5/27/22

This appears to be one of the books that I got when I was a member of Quality Paperbacks many years ago. There is no indication when I got it or if I even read the book.

The book is a combination of 'memoir' and 'travel'.

An affluent, single mother of two adult sons decides that it's her turn to visit some of the places that she had always dreamed of seeing. She has taken a sabbatical from the Baltimore Sun where she worked as a Pulitzer prize winning reporter and columnist.  

The book is divided into sections: Paris, London, Oxford, Italy.

The book is a relaxing read and very engaging yet not in the least groundbreaking.

A positive review on Goodreads:

"Go on a trip through Europe without leaving your home with famed journalist Steinbach in this wonderful travel memoir. Steinbach does a fabulous job of not only setting the visual scenes of each locale, but also adding her own personal sensibility to each page. She did all of the traveling she talks about in this book all on her own so the stories are, in addition to being about European ways and customs, about the life of the single wanderer. Since this book is more about the author and less about the details of the cities she visits, it’s not for someone looking for in-depth information on Europe. Others wanting a general view of experiences waiting for them abroad will be pleased, though."

A more negative review at GoodReads:

I think I'm too cynical for books like this. I think I like the idea of them more than I like the reality. The basic premise - middle-aged divorced mother of two suffering from empty-nest-syndrome drops out of her life to travel around Europe alone and 'find herself' - is so overdone, so clichéd, that I almost found myself rolling my eyes on every page.

I found it an enjoyable enough read, don't get me wrong - it's always entertaining to see familiar places through others' eyes, and Steinbach is a lively, engaging writer - but I didn't find it inspiring or motivating, powerful or insightful. Taking six months' out to visit three countries, stay in fine hotels and eat out in restaurants and cafes for every meal is, to me at least, hardly bold or daring, hardly a radical change of life. It's basically the extended holiday we'd all love to take."

DELIVER US FROM EVIL by David Baldacci

Finished Tu 5/24/22

I bought this at the library book sale on Sa 1/11/20. This is probably the last one the library had before the pandemic.

Essentially it's the story of two intelligence agencies that are going after the same 'evil dude'. Evan Waller is a Canadian businessman who is actually Fedir Kuchin, a serial murderer from the Ukraine. 

 Reggie Campion who works for a secret vigilante group that were going after surviving Nazi war criminals, but since most of them have died so they have expanded the scope and now go after any political mass murderers. 

Shaw is an agent working for the US and runs across this other outfit when they are both trying to take out 'Waller/Kuchin' who is vacationing in the Provence region of France. 

Campion and Shaw become lovers but at the end of the novel Shaw breaks it off because he feels that any woman who falls for him is doomed. 

From Goodreads:

"Evan Waller is a monster. He has built a fortune from his willingness to buy and sell anything… and anyone. In search of new opportunities, Waller has just begun a new business venture: one that could lead to millions of deaths all over the globe.

On Waller’s trail is Shaw, the mysterious operative from The Whole Truth, who must prevent Waller from closing his latest deal. Shaw’s one chance to bring him down will come in the most unlikely of places: a serene, bucolic village in Provence.

But Waller’s depravity and ruthlessness go deeper than Shaw knows. And now, there is someone else pursuing Waller in Provence—Reggie Campion, an agent for a secret vigilante group headquartered in a musty old English estate—and she has an agenda of her own.

Hunting the same man, unaware of each other’s mission, Shaw and Reggie will be caught in a deadly duel of nerve and wits. Hitchcockian in its intimate buildup of suspense, and filled with the kind of breathtaking plot turns and remarkable characters that are David Baldacci’s hallmark, Deliver Us from Evil is the most gripping thriller of the year." 

David Baldacci is more of a storyteller but not a writer. I would like more character development and a higher quality of writing. 

The evil dude was part of 'Holodomor'.

Holodomor was "Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor famine was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country.

ZULU by Caryl Ferey

 Finished Tu 5/17/22

This is a new trade paperback that I got on Amazon after seeing the film. The movie stars Orlando Bloom and Forest Whitaker and is set in Capetown, South Africa. The idea that a pharmaceutical company would collude with a militant group to develop a drug that was specifically designed to kill blacks. 

Two white women are found horribly beaten and murdered. During the course of the investigation the detectives learn of this drug to undermine the black population of the country. 

I really enjoyed the look into a society that is run to promote apartheid which means 'apart' and 'separate development'. It's the American 'Jim Crow' on steroids. 

From Publishers Weekly.com:

"Readers should be prepared for graphic scenes of shocking violence in Férey's hard-hitting procedural, which won France's Grand Prix for Best Crime Novel. Ali Neuman, the chief of the Cape Town police crime unit, investigates the murder of 18-year-old Nicole Wiese, found one morning in the South African city's botanical gardens with her skull crushed in. Since the victim's father was a member of the Springboks rugby team that won the world championship in 1995, the case attracts heavy press coverage. The trail leads Neuman to an extraordinarily brutal narcotics gang with links to a former apartheid official. The good guys don't walk away from their encounters with the bad guys unscathed. This is a welcome addition to the growing ranks of crime books set in South Africa—powerful and unflinching in its portrayal of evil both mindless and calculating." 

From Kirkus Reviews.com:

"A crime novel set in post-apartheid South Africa, and the winner of the French Grand Prix for Best Crime Novel of 2008.

As head of the Crime Unit, Ali Neuman has one of the most dangerous jobs in Cape Town. The fact that he is a black man investigating blacks, mulattos and whites doesn’t make it any easier. When a white girl from a prominent family turns up dead, Neuman and his partners, Dan Fletcher and Brian Epkeen, are thrown into the most dangerous and important case of their lives. Their investigation leads them into the dark underbelly of Cape Town’s townships—and eventually to drug dealers, gangs and powerful white men who manipulate blacks on society’s lowest rung. The closer these three policemen get to the truth, the more their lives—and the lives of the ones they love—are in danger. As the bodies pile up, the novel masterfully depicts the abject poverty of Cape Town’s slums and the desperation of the townships’ residents, most of whom turn to drugs, gang activity, prostitution or some combination of the three. The novel, brutally honest, at times violent and grotesque, is both a scathing commentary on South African current affairs and a powerful tribute to those who put their lives on the line to make things right.

A horrifying, eye-opening thriller."

I enjoyed the book and I would read more by this author. I would really like to find a non-fiction book about how apartheid ruled the land. 

ZERO DAY by David Baldacci

 Finished We 5/11/22

When Janny returned the books that I had loaned to her this novel was in the bag. I don't think I bought it because there wasn't an entry on the flyleaf.

John Puller, ace investigator for the US Army's Criminal Investigation division is sent to very rural Drake, West Virginia to investigate the brutal murder of a family. This is the heart of 'coal country' and deep into the investigation there seems to be ties to international terrorism.

In the area is located a concrete dome structure that was abandoned by the federal government during the sixties. The facility was used to process nuclear materials to make weapons. 

A dirty federal agent and the local coal kingpin jury rigged an atomic bomb and had it blown up, the entire east coast of the United States would become a dead zone. 

Puller partners with a local sheriff, Samantha Cole and she is killed when Puller blows up the concrete dome to mess up the timer on the nuclear bomb.

Puller's father is a retired US general and is suffering from dementia. Puller's brother is in federal prison for treason. Nothing in this novel concerns the 'how and why' of the brother's imprisonment. His story must be covered in another work by Baldacci.

David Baldacci is a master storyteller but he's not a great writer. Always compelling yet the characters seem more like cutouts than authentic personalities. 

From Kirkus:

"In his 22nd, Baldacci (The Sixth Man, 2011, etc.) introduces a soldier/sleuth who fights like Rambo and thinks like Holmes.

Mountain-sized and über-brainy, John Puller is about as unconquerable as mere mortals get to be. An ex-warrior—Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else his country’s enemies happened to be entrenched—he’s served with unvarying distinction. As a consequence, the fruit salad (Army slang for medals) he pins to his dress uniform tells a glory story already the stuff of legend. These days, however, Warrant Officer Puller fights a somewhat different kind of war—quieter perhaps, but only marginally less dangerous. Employed by the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigations Division, he battles military crime, and he is—it’s universally acknowledged—terrific at it. Still, his latest assignment has him scratching his head a bit. In tiny Drake, W.Va., a colonel, his wife and two teenage kids have been murdered, and Puller’s been ordered to find out the why and catch the who. A pitiless, carefully staged bloodbath, it’s the kind of headline-grabber that ordinarily would have had teams of special agents pell-melling into Drake, yet here’s Puller flying solo, offered not much more in terms of guidance than, “play nice with the locals.” On the upside, one of the locals turns out to be a smart, remarkably attractive police sergeant named Samantha Cole. Born and Bred in Drake, she’s in a position to provide needed insights into her town’s power structure and usual suspects list. Four dead bodies on Puller’s arrival, a total that almost at once zooms to seven with no real reason to suppose it’s reached its limit. What’s going on in this small, coal belt community to suddenly transform it into a charnel-house? Another poser for Puller: how to keep from personally adding to the count?

Relentlessly formulaic, but Puller is a strong enough protagonist to keep the pages turning."

American Boy by Larry Watson

Finished Su 5/8/22

This was a hardback that I bought on Amazon. I watched the movie 'TOMATO RED' and I wanted another book by Daniel Woodrell but they were all too expensive. I noticed that many recommended Larry Watson's books so I gave it a shot.

Set in the Fall of 1962 in Willow Falls, Minnesota.   

A 1960 Valiant is featured. The same car that I had as a senior at Wheeling High School. I did a little research on the car and it evolved into kind of a muscle car but I will never forget that ugly design. 

The novel highlights class differences in small town America.

Matthew, a high school boy is friends with Dr. Dunbar's family. The doctor's son is his best friend and when Louisa Lindahl is taken into their household everything changes. The woman was shot by her boyfriend and the doctor has taken pity on her. Actually, she is determined to get the doctor to leave his wife and family and be with her. And, Matthew has taken a shine to her.

The crisis comes when doctor Dunbar and his son turn against Matthew and side with the woman.

Matthew gives her money to leave the town and threatens to reveal her plan to break up the Dunbar's.

From GoodReads:

"We were exposed to these phenomena in order that we might learn something, but of course the lessons we learn are not always those we are taught . . .

So begins Matthew Garth’s story of the fall of 1962, when the shooting of a young woman on Thanksgiving Day sets off a chain of unsettling events in Willow Falls, Minnesota. Matthew first sees Louisa Lindahl in Dr. Dunbar’s home office, and at the time her bullet wound makes nearly as strong an impression as her unclothed body. Fueled over the following weeks by his feverish longing for this mysterious woman—as well as by a deep desire for the comfort and affluence that appears to surround the Dunbars—Matthew finds himself drawn into a series of confrontations he never expected, the results of which will change his life irrevocably and give lie to his version of the American dream.

Immersive, heartbreaking, and richly evocative of time and place, this long-awaited new novel marks the return of a great American storyteller." 

I felt the book was a little less than compelling but an interesting concept nonetheless. I would read more by Larry Watson.  

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY by Karleen Koen

Refinished Th 5/5/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first finished at the club: Good Friday (Off) Fr 4/14/94.

A couple of comments from GoodReads.com:

"One of the most beloved historical fiction novels of all time!

As opulent and passionate as the 18th century it celebrates, Through A Glass Darkly sparkles with all of the extravagance and scandal of a grand and glorious era.

Barbara Alderly has loved her husband, the wealthy, charming Earl of Devane, Roger Montgeoffry, since childhood.

Set against a French court awash in intrigue, treachery and debauchery, Barbara must learn to navigate the dark currents of deception, scandal and betrayal.

Peopled by a cast of unforgettable characters, here is the story of a great family ruled by a dowager of extraordinary power; a young woman coming of age, seeking love in the midst of a storm; her mother, the cruel and self-centered Diana; and of a man haunted by a secret that could turn all of their dreams to ashes...

Like no other historical fiction novel, Through a Glass Darkly is infused with intrigue, sweetened by romance and awash in the black ink of betrayal."

"Have you ever come across one of those books in which the main protagonist starts out being beautiful, brave, intelligent...in short, all that is admirable in a person...and then, about 50 pages in, said protagonist becomes the brattiest, whiniest, dumbest little kid you've had the misfortune of coming across in the last 20 books you've read? This is what happened to me with this book. I read a summary of the work somewhere and thought that it aspired to be much more than a trashy historical romance. I WAS WRONG. When Barbara threw a bizarro tantrum and developed an eating disorder because they wouldn't let her marry the object of her childish crush, I wanted to throw the book at the wall. And then stomp on it a few times once it hit the floor. Instead I continued to read, hoping that the ending would redeem the rest."

"...It was such a relaxing way to spend a day at the beach, doubly so because all the rest of the time I was there I was having to work in my second language, which I wasn't nearly so strong in. So, I reread it and it was a very different experience this time. It's still a really fun and well-written novel, but I remember having a very different reaction to the heroine when I was younger than I did this time around. Interesting how you change with age. And I'd forgotten how compelling the grandmother was."

This book to me was kind of a 'guilty pleasure'. I wonder how Barbara made out on her grandmother's plantation in Virginia. 

HOLD TIGHT by Harlan Coben

 Finished Fr 4/29/22

I borrowed this e-book from the library because I saw the Netflix series 'HOLD TIGHT'. Netflix set the series in Gdansk, Poland and the book was set in New Jersey. I had trouble understanding the movie but the book was also packed with too many characters and storylines. It seemed to lack focus.

It addresses the problem of parents keeping tabs on their children. Is it OK to read your children's social media accounts and follow their emails and texts? A very interesting concept but a ham-fisted presentation.

A young high school student overdoses and this event reveals a ring of drug traffickers.  

From BookBrowse.com:

"Tia and Mike Baye never imagined they'd become spying, overprotective parents. But their sixteen-year-old son Adam has been unusually distant and aloof lately, and after the recent suicide of his classmate, Spencer Hill, they can't help but worry. They install a spy program on Adam's computer and within days they are jolted by a strange message to their son from an unknown correspondent: "Just stay quiet and all safe." Meanwhile, browsing through an online memorial for her son, Betsy Hill is struck by one photo in particular - it appears to have been taken on the night of Spencer's death . . . and he wasn't alone. She thinks it's Adam Baye standing just outside the camera's range, and when Adam goes missing, it soon becomes clear that something deep and sinister has infected their community. Uncovering the secrets and lies at the heart of Spencer's death may be the only thing that can help Betsy move on - and perhaps save Adam's life."

A valid criticism of the book at Amazon:

"I am sorry for the three star rating because Coben is such a wonderful storyteller and I'm wondering if it's an inability on my part to comprehend someone who writes a story by introducing a new family or person in the first five chapters and expects me to remember what happened in chapter one and then figure out where the main plot is going. Eventually he pulls it all together and if I could have kept all the nuances straight in my mind I would have enjoyed the story more. For Coben lovers it will make no difference as I say, it could just be me."

Sometimes Harlan Coben hits the mark but this one is a miss.

THE WEIGHT OF THIS WORLD by David Joy

 Finished Sa 4/16/22

I ordered this novel from Amazon after watching 'TOMATO RED' by Daniel Woodrell. I wanted to order another book by Woodrell, but the prices were too high. I noticed that David Joy was a similar author, so I gave him a shot.

Thad and Aiden are as close as brothers. They live deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains about halfway between Ashville, North Carolina and Knoxville, Tennessee in a place called Little Canada. 

Thad is deeply traumatized after a tour of Afghanistan. Aiden has stayed in the mountains and now lives in a relationship with Thad's mother, April.

No one has steady employment and most of the people get by by making and selling meth.

A local dealer blows his head off accidently. He thought the gun was unloaded and Aiden and Thad take his stash and money. Mayhem rains down.

This was not as compelling as it could have been, but I will definitely keep this author in mind in the future.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Appalachia provides the evocative setting for this tale of a brutal world filled with violence and drugs from Edgar finalist Joy (Where All Light Tends to Go). After a tour in Afghanistan as a soldier, Thad Broom returns to North Carolina more damaged than when he left, unable to forgive or forget what he did there. With nowhere else to go, Thad settles in his dilapidated trailer down the mountain from his mother, April Trantham, who, he knows, has never loved him and is pursued by her own demons. Thad reestablishes an aimless life with his best friend, Aiden McCall, who at age 12 saw his father shoot his mother dead. The two friends suddenly have a windfall of drugs and cash after witnessing the accidental death of their drug dealer. But neither Todd nor Aiden is capable of climbing out of his self-imposed rural prison. Lyrical prose, realistic dialogue, and a story that illuminates the humanity of each character make this a standout."

An interesting review of the book: 

https://carolesrandomlife.com/2021/08/09/review-the-weight-of-this-world/