A MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT by David Baldacci

 Finished Mo 11/4/24

This was a trad paperback that Janny loaned me. It's typical Baldacci. I loved it while I was reading it, but it's just a compelling storyline. 

This is part of his 'Atlee Pine' series. She is an MMA fighter, weight lifter, and an FBI agent; part of BAU- 'The Behavioral Analysis Unit'. 

Set in Andersonville, Georgia at the infamous Confederate Civil War prison. 

Two Storylines:

1) Atlee was a twin and when they were six years old, Mercy (her twin) was kidnapped and Atlee was physically attacked. In this novel she is trying to locate her sister because she might still be alive and she also wants to find her mother. This storyline is not resolved. 

2) A serial killer is operating in the area. People are murdered (a man and a woman) and dressed in wedding clothes. This storyline is resolved. The killer was a woman who was friends with her parents. 

US AGAINST YOU by Fredrik Backman

 Finished Tu 10/29/24

This is a trad paperback that Janny loaned to me. It's by the same  Swedish author who wrote 'A MAN CALLED OVE'.

This is about an ice hockey rivalry between two teams, The Bears and The Bulls. Each team is represented by the towns of Beartown and Hed. 

A rape pits the towns against each other.

A star player is gay and this pits the towns against each other. 

Many characters and a wise & pithy observation is on almost every single page.

I want more by Backman. 'A MAN CALLED OVE' was his first book and he has many more. 

Link to an excellent review at 'Medium'.

https://zachary-houle.medium.com/a-review-of-fredrik-backmans-us-against-you-4d61efe0204c

'US AGAINST YOU' is part of a trilogy. The first is 'BEARSTOWN' and the final book (can be read as a stand-alone) is 'THE WINNERS'.

GONE TO SOLDIERS by Marge Piercy

 This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I had never read. However, it is probably one of the best historical novels that I've ever seen. It really made you feel that you were experiencing what it was like during WWII. 

It was a little confusing because it involves many characters over many years, but well worth the effort. 

From 'Kate Vane' blog:

"Gone to Soldiers presents a much more nuanced view. It follows a number of loosely linked characters from the start of the war. Their stories take in a range of locations, nationalities and situations, although American, female and Jewish characters all feature prominently. The action spans four continents and takes in battles, intelligence, resistance, factory work and the concentration camps.

What Piercy does so brilliantly is tell an epic story, covering the big political and moral issues, while giving you vivid, believable characters, and making them each the centre of their own narrative. There is heroism and brutality but there are also stories of love and ambition, of small acts of nobility and selfishness, of the ways which people find to survive. Some of the characters experience unspeakable horror, others bleakness and deprivation. For some, especially women, the war brings opportunities.

Piercy highlights the moral ambiguities of the conflict. The reluctance of western countries to welcome refugees is highlighted. Many on the Allied side believe leftists and Jews are more of a threat than Fascists – leading the US to initially side with the Vichy government rather than anti-colonial and resistance fighters. Women form an essential part of the wartime workforce but are still regarded as inferior by many, their status provisional.

At the start of the book many just don’t believe that war and barbarity could happen in their enlightened world. Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the story of Jacqueline, a French-Jewish teenager. Her narrative begins with an endearing mix of cleverness and naivety. She is dismissive of her father’s Zionism, seeing herself as internationalist, secular, trying out lofty opinions and philosophical ideas. Even after the Nazi invasion, she initially feels that life has changed little, that people’s fears have been exaggerated. Of course, her innocence is short-lived.

This book is totally immersive in the way that only long novels can be (in the acknowledgements Piercy says it would have been even longer, but she couldn’t get the funding for a research trip to the Soviet Union). It forces you to consider what you could endure, if you had to, whether you would be brave or look the other way (of course none of us thinks we would be a collaborator or a profiteer). It makes you wonder if we, like Jacqueline, think this couldn’t happen to us, even as many of the events in the book resonate today."

From 'Kepler's Staff Review':

"There is no better novel about World War II than Gone to Soldiers. Marge Piercy’s painstakingly researched story follows the lives of ten deliciously complex characters through the war and its aftermath. There’s Daniel, the drifter who finds his calling in decoding Japanese naval messages; Bernice, who blossoms from a stay-at-home daughter into a proud, self-confident WASP; Jacqueline, the French teenager who becomes one of the leaders of the Jewish underground; and Naomi, her sister, who must adapt to a new life living in safety with cousins in Detroit, while her family faces the Nazis in France. These and the stories of the other six characters make World War II vivid and personal for any reader, regardless of age." 

 

FLEA: Acid For The Children (A Memoir)

I bought this book on Amazon on received on We 10/16/24 and I noticed that Flea's birthday is 10/16/62.

The book concerns his early years and ends before the success of the RHCP. 

From The Rolling Stone:

"Born Michael Peter Balzary, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist and spiritual adviser is the sort of rock star who begins his memoir, Acid for the Children, weeping at musical beauty in an Ethiopian church, blurting earnest declarations about his “endless search to merge with infinite spirit” and his surrendering “to the divine and cosmic rhythm,” and offering the summary observation that “bein’ famous don’t mean shit.” Call him disingenuous. Still, you’ll most probably want to hug him before you’re 10 pages in.

Flea’s got a compelling, vulnerable, self-interrogating writer’s voice; his editor on the project was David Ritz, who’s abetted some great music memoirs and biographies (see Aretha: From These Roots; Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye, etc.), generally focused on finding his subject’s beating heart. That must’ve been a breeze with Flea, whose outsize heart appears regularly here — on his sleeve and occasionally in his mouth. He waxes romantic about a beloved sweater made for him by his maternal nana (actual name: Muriel Cheesewright), digs for memories of his early years in Australia, the son of a government worker posted to the consulate in New York City in 1967. There, he comes into consciousness, as his parents split up and his mom takes up with a wild-man jazz bassist (yes, there was evidently some rub-off).

Young Flea, semi-neglected, gets his mind blown by be-bop, learns about substance abuse, and heads off wide-eyed into boho America, eventually landing on the West Coast, where he wets his bed, smokes angel dust, fails with girls, and eventually discovers the L.A. punk scene, where he cements his outcast status and finds his place in the world. After a stint with hardcore troublemakers Fear, he launches a band with high school pal/ bro-soulmate Anthony Kiedis — and that’s where the book ends."

I would read almost any rock biography and this one is well written. 

He's a soulful guy, whithout a doubt.  

COLD DAY IN HELL by Richard Hawke

 Refinished Mo 9/30/24

This was one of my hardbacks that I got on the internet and finished on Tu 1/6/09. 

The central plot is that a nationally famous talk show host is charged with two murders. When another murder happens similar to the other killings it seems to show that the real killer is still at large. He was and the true killer is the talk show host's manager. 

There's a lot of moving parts and many, many characters, but the book is well written and I liked it. 

From Google Books:

"In the stew and dazzle of New York City, savvy, irreverent Fritz Malone-who Susan Isaacs called "the perfect balance of noir P.I. and decent guy"-is embroiled in a string of grisly murders that drags him behind the lurid headlines into the tangled affairs of some the city's most beautiful people and their ugly truths. When two women linked with charismatic late-night TV personality Marshall Fox are found brutally slain in Central Park, Fox becomes the prime suspect and is charged with the murders. At the tabloid trial, one of Fox's ex-lovers, Robin Burrell, is called to testify-and is instantly thrust into the media's harsh spotlight. Shaken by a subsequent onslaught of hate mail, Robin goes to Fritz Malone for help. Malone has barely begun to investigate when Robin is found sadistically murdered in her Upper West Side brownstone, hands and feet shackled and a shard of mirror protruding from her neck. But it's another gory detail that confounds both Malone and Megan Lamb, the troubled NYPD detective officially assigned to the case. Though Fox is in custody the third victim's right hand has been placed over her heart and pinned with a four-inch nail, just as in the killings he's accused of. Is this a copycat murder, or is the wrong man on trial? Teaming up with Detective Lamb, Malone delves deeper into Fox's past, unpeeling the layers of the media darling's secret life and developing an ever-increasing list of suspects for Robin's murder. When yet another body turns up in Central Park, the message is clear: Get too close to Fox and get ready to die. And Malone is getting too close. In Cold Day in Hell, Richard Hawke has again given readers a tale about the dark side of the big city, a thriller that moves with breakneck speed toward a conclusion that is as shocking as it is unforgettable."

THE DROP by Michael Connelly

 Finished Th 9/19/24

This is a trade paperback that either Janny loaned to me or it was a Christmas present. Not sure.

The title refers to a person who commits suicide by jumping from a very high place. 'Splatter' was an even better name used by the police. 

TWO CASES:

1) The son of a city official is found dead on the sidewalk in front of the Maramount Hotel in Los Angeles. Did he jump or was he dropped? It was a suicide. His wife was leaving him and the room was where the couple spent their honeymoon. The city official wanted it to be a murder because he couldn't deal with the shame of suicide. 

2) A development in a 20 year old 'Cold Case' was found. DNA from a blood splatter connects to a single individual, however this man was only eight years old at the time of the murder. He was there, however it was his foster father that committed the murder. The boy's blood was on a belt that dad used on the boy for punishment. 

 From the book's page at Kirkus Reviews: 

"Harry Bosch, the LAPD detective who insists, “I don’t want to be famous. I just want to work cases,” gets his wish times two.

Assigned to the Open-Unsolved Squad, Bosch catches a cold case with an impossible twist. Now that the lab can analyze DNA evidence from the 1989 rape and murder of Ohio student Lily Price, it’s linked conclusively to Clayton Pell, a known predator whose long history of sex crimes has already landed him in prison. Pell would be perfect as the killer if only he hadn’t been eight when the victim was slain. Before Bosch can start looking beyond the physical evidence for an explanation, he’s pulled out of past crimes and into the present by an old enemy. City Councilman Irvin Irving, the ex–deputy chief whom Bosch played a supporting role in bouncing from the LAPD years ago, demands that Bosch take charge of the investigation into his son George’s fatal plunge from his seventh-story room at the Chateau Marmont. It looks like suicide, but the Councilman claims it’s murder, and he doesn’t want it swept under the rug, even if it takes the hated Bosch to ferret out the truth. Hamstrung between two utterly unrelated cases, Bosch tries to work them both, with predictably unhappy results: scheduling conflicts, treacherous leaks to the media, trouble with his bosses and even his old partner, Lt. Kizmin Rider. Even so, it’s not long before he’s worked out pretty convincing explanations for both crimes and can begin the slow, patient process of winding them up before a pair of nasty surprises gives both of them a bitter edge.

Not by a long shot Bosch’s finest hour, but a welcome return to form after the helter-skelter 9 Dragons (2009)." 

I would read or reread anything by Connelly and it's always a pleasure.

THE UNDERGROUND MAN by Ross Macdonald

 Finished Su 9/15/24

This is one of my ancient trade paperbacks that I first finished July, 4 1997 before 'GROSSE POINT BLANK' at the Esqire. 

A link to a deep dive into the novel:

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-underground-man-at-age-50

From Library of America:

"A hot wind awakens Lew Archer in his Los Angeles apartment on the first page of The Underground Man (1971), presaging the conflagration ninety miles to the north which will race through this often breathtaking chronicle of unrestrained weather and people: “The edges of the sky had a yellowish tinge like cheap paper darkening in the sunlight.”

Sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, the narrative spurs interest, sympathy, and a mood of growing danger.

A youngster, Ronny, joins Archer in the courtyard of his building, to help him feed the morning’s jaybirds. “The boy looked about five or six. He had dark close-cropped hair and anxious blue eyes. . . . The jays were all around him like chunks of broken sky.” The gentle, vulnerable lad was a miniature portrait of Macdonald’s own grandson Jimmie, towards whom Millar had grown protective. Into Jimmie his grandfather invested his hopes and anxieties for the human future.

Archer becomes fearful for Ronny, whose estranged parents quarrel in front of him. Lew protects the boy from the father’s raised hand. “I want to stay here,” Ronny says. “I want to stay with the man”—with Archer. But the angry father drives away with the son. “I wanted to stop him and bring the boy back,” Archer admits. “But I didn’t.”

The lingering image of the vulnerable youngster stays with Lew as he returns to his apartment; it blends with his own reflection as he gazes at himself in the mirror, “as if I could somehow read his future there. But all I could read was my own past . . . A hot wind was blowing in my face.”

Archer swiftly responds to Ronny’s mother’s plea to retrieve her son from his unstable-seeming dad, who’s driving in the direction of that growing forest fire. “The tang of fear I felt for the boy had become a nagging ache.”

Thus was launched the novel which would prove one of Macdonald’s best: a work which combined thrills and lyricism, psychology and symbolism, in ways Macdonald had been perfecting for years. As the chairman of UCLA’s meteorology department wrote Macdonald regarding Underground, “It is fascinating to see the interplay of Santa Ana [wind] and sea breeze. The growing intensity of the fire . . . tends to accelerate the sea breeze; so the fire, like your other characters, is working towards its own destruction.”

On July 2, 1970, the author told agent Dorothy Olding of his new manuscript: “For me the book has the merit of not being an imitation of the last book . . . Underground Man has more movement, and the movement is in the present, for the most part, though of course everything started long ago when everybody was younger. . . . It has, I think a strong single narrative device and is as much a suspense novel as a detective novel.”

I thought it was a compelling story, but too many characters. You almost need a spreadsheet to keep everything straight.