Category Archives: beach reads

The Grand Tour, by Adam O’Fallon Price*****

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thegrandtourDoctors tell us that laughter improves our health. Now and then, I go in search of laughter in my favorite medium, between the covers of a good book. Thank you to Net Galley and Doubleday Publishers for this DRC. Not only is The Grand Tour achingly funny, it’s also strong fiction. It is available to the public August 9, 2016, and you ought to read it.

Our story centers around two protagonists in equal measure. Richard Lazar is an author who has written one lukewarm release after another, drunken, cynical, and utterly thoughtless of anyone other than himself. He’s lost his family and his health can’t be far behind, a “smoking Yugo of a body” constantly drenched in alcoholic beverages. Suddenly and unexpectedly, his most recent novel has become a blockbuster. A tender, idealistic young man, a fan club of one named Vance, our second protagonist, quits his job at the Pizza Boy, desperate to get away from home and spend time with the writer he idolizes. He becomes Richard’s roadie, dragging him out of one bar after another, conveying him across the western USA to speaking engagements and book-signings.

His Portland book signing takes him to a fictitious bookstore, a thinly disguised version of Powell’s City of Books, one of my favorite places. Richard manages to disgrace himself there, and it won’t be the last time he does so.

The journey through Las Vegas is the most resonant and brilliantly described I have yet seen in literature; each your heart out, Hunter Thompson.

Often literature billed as dark humor turns out to be merely dark, and I was delighted to discover otherwise here. I laughed out loud in a number of places. At the same time, the author does a tidy job of developing both main characters in much greater depth than I had anticipated. Hoping for a romp, albeit a grim one, I wound up holding my sides at the same time I absorbed a fine novel. It is excellent surprises such as this one that keep me reading galleys by new writers. This one is smart and wickedly clever. Of particular satisfaction was the denouement involving Vance’s character.

All told, it’s a savagely funny read. It comes out today, and you should get it and read it.

Wishful Seeing, by Janet Kellough****

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wishfulseeingThaddeus Lewis, the traveling preacher sleuth, is back on the road again. He’s headed to speak at a gathering of Methodist Episcopalians when he finds himself involved, once more, in a murder case. This cozy mystery is my second in an endearing series by Janet Kellough. I snapped up the DRC when I saw that Dundurn had made it available on Net Galley, so I read it free in exchange for an honest review. This title will be available to the public this Saturday, July 30.

A body has been found in Rice Lake, and there are witnesses that saw Major Howell and his wife Ellen, the woman in the blue dress, near the scene of the crime “in the right place at more or less the right time”.  In the Canada that existed back then, that was enough to put Mrs. Howell in jail; her husband would be there too, but he is nowhere to be found.

Lewis finds himself drawn toward her case. Is it because he saw bruises on her arm that suggested her spouse may have handled her ungently? Is it because she is lovely, and he wishes she were with him instead? Or is it because Lewis just can’t scratch that legal-eagle itch enough times to be rid of the urge?  Likely it’s some of each.

The main draw card here is setting. Kellough has done a good deal of research in laying out both the area around Toronto during its frontier period. The result is a historical mystery with a travelogue feel to it. Kellough takes us to a time and place nobody can visit anymore except through literature, and she does a great job of it. She includes a lot of interesting details about the history of the Canadian legal system that drew my attention, because it was very different from what those of us raised in the US have come to expect. I found this aspect of it fascinating.

I also really enjoyed the part played by the little dog, Digger. I wouldn’t care to see him start solving crimes, but I hope we see him again in a future installment.

The only weak part is—perhaps unfortunately—at the beginning. There is so much of Thaddeus’s inner narrative, so much soul searching and comparison of beliefs among the various Protestant denominations that if I had not read Kellough’s work before, I would have wondered if I had inadvertently stumbled across Christian fiction. In fact, my notes show that at one part I wondered anyway.

Yet in another way, if there has to be a slow part, let it be at the beginning. And it’s clear that Kellough is not attempting to put together a thriller that grabs the reader by the throat, but rather is treating us to a relaxing story that one may take to the hammock and flop down with.

Nevertheless, by the time all the groundwork has been laid, it is a hard book to put down.

So this is your beach read. Take it to the shore, to the mountains, to the river, or even your own back yard, but don’t cheat yourself by passing it by. You can have it this weekend, and those that enjoy both historical fiction and mystery wrapped up at once are in for a treat.

Salvation Lake, by G.M. Ford*****

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salvationlakeFord is the rightful heir to the late great Donald Westlake, a writer of monstrously amusing mysteries full of quirky sidekicks and kick-ass, zesty dialogue. There’s nobody like him in Seattle or anywhere else. I gobbled up the DRC when it became available via Net Galley and publishers Thomas and Mercer,  so I read this free in exchange for an honest review. But I’ll tell you a secret: if I’d had to, I’d have paid for this one had it been necessary. And so should you. It’s for sale today, and you can get it digitally at a bargain rate.

But back to our story.  We open at a bar called the Eastlake Zoo. The band of misfits to which detective Leo Waterman is tied through bonds of family history and quixotic affection are rocking the house in “well-lubricated amiability”. In fact, there’s a story being told right as we begin, and if it doesn’t hook you, check your pulse, because you’re probably dead. Here:

“Red Lopez was a spitter. When Red told a story, it was best to get yourself alee of

something waterproof, lest you end up looking like you’d been run through the

Elephant Car Wash.

‘So we was comin’ down Yesler,’ Red gushed. “Me and George and Ralphie.’

Everyone had found cover, except the guy they called Frenchie, who was so tanked

he  probably  thought it was raining inside the Eastlake Zoo…”

 

Right?

As it happens, Waterman, who’s inherited his old man’s ill-gotten wealth, has been lying low and enjoying the good life, but now his late father’s hideously distinctive overcoat has been found on a corpse, and  Timothy Eagen of the Seattle Police Department want to talk to Leo. Now.  There’s bad blood between them:

“…he hated my big ass the way Ahab hated that whale…Eagen was a skinny little turd with a salt-and-pepper comb-over pasted across his pate like a sleeping hamster.”

Since SPD has been under the eye of the Feds lately, Eagen can’t give full rein to his attack-Chihuahua impulses. SPD needs to provide “the kind [of law enforcement] that doesn’t look like Ferguson, Missouri or Staten Island, New York.” So Waterman doesn’t get shaken down or tossed into a cell, but his curiosity is piqued, and since he has no paying job and time on his hands, he finds himself checking into a few things. One thing leads to another.

What relationship does the victim, known as the Preacher, have to Mount Zion Industries, whose pamphlet is found among his effects? Before we know it, Leo is off and running, checking out Salvation Lake, located at the end of Redemption Road. Events tumble one upon the next, and I found that instead of reading in my bed that evening, as is my usual bedtime custom, I was reading on it, bolt upright and clicking the kindle to go a little faster please.

Waterman may have come into money midway through life, but his perspective is a working class perspective. His take on the city’s thousands of homeless denizens and the relationship that cops have to those in need strike a sure clear note that must surely resonate with anyone that’s been paying any attention at all.

Meanwhile, Salvation Lake is written with warp speed pacing, sharp insight, authority, and the kind of wit that can only come from a writer that has tremendous heart.

Don’t miss it. Get it now.

The Hatching, by Ezekiel Boone****

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thehatching I was never afraid of spiders until I read this book. Thanks to Boone’s monstrous, boisterous, hair-raising new novel, I now eye the ceiling for wolf spiders that hunt at night just before I fall asleep…and I usually find one. I received this DRC in advance thanks to Net Galley and Atria Books, in exchange for this honest review. This book goes up for sale July 5, 2016 and frankly, I don’t know how you’re going to wait that long!

Right at the start, something has gone very wrong.  In Peru, a shadow falls upon a group of helpless tourists and devours them with breathtaking speed. Soon thereafter, China tells the world that it has inadvertently nuked one of its own villages. Just an accident; terribly sorry. Please don’t push that button, because we aren’t gunning for you, oh mighty imperialist powers.

When a bizarre package arrives at the laboratory of Melanie Guyer, she immediately tucks its contents into an glass tank where it can be watched in a secure environment. There. See now, that’s sensible. And yet…

Clear on the other side of the continent, the greater Los Angeles area finds itself under quarantine. With a finger to the wind, one soldier in charge of the containment eyes the razor wire and holding pens springing up and decides to make a break for it while he can. He powers the hell through the closed gate, because there’s a time to sacrifice for one’s country, but there’s also a time to save yourself first:

    He took the last few steps to the truck and had his hand on the door handle  when  he  heard the sound.  It was a sort of scraping…and he noticed there was something wrong …with the shadows. Over there, maybe twenty paces away, one of the shadows seemed to be moving a little, pulsing. He watched it, fascinated, and it wasn’t until a thread of black seemed to fall out of the shadow and unspool toward him that he broke from his reverie.

Uh oh.

However, survivalists in Desperation, California aren’t panicked; they’re gloating. All that preparation for doomsday, and now it’s here. Let’s have a party! The doors are sealed against radiation, against spiders, against whatever. The dog has even been trained to go potty on a little piece of Astroturf. They are so ready.

I wasn’t sure I liked this book at first. The moment when the first spider popped out of the first human host, I made a note in my e-reader saying this is just another version of the 1970’s movie Alien, but with spiders. Still, I continued to read.

When the president of the United States asks quite seriously whether zombies are involved, right around the halfway mark, I wanted to throw my kindle across the bedroom. If it had been a library book, I would have slammed it shut and put it in my tote bag to return first thing in the morning. But it wasn’t a library book, it was a DRC, and so I had an obligation, and I gritted my teeth (president. Zombies! My ass,) and continued reading. And I am really glad I did, friends, because it got so much better.

Let’s go back to the movie Alien. For those unacquainted with this cult classic, the story devolves around aliens that seek human hosts. The setting of Alien is a space ship, so they’re a very long way from home and help; yet they are also contained.  And as I read on, I realized that in Boone’s setting—the entire planet—there are so many more possibilities. I hit about the sixty percent mark and had to munch my way through the rest, if you’ll pardon the expression, until the very last page was done.

I found myself pondering the possibility of a sequel.

I nearly tacked on the fifth star, because this was tremendously entertaining, and Boone breaks up the horror with odd places, few and unexpected, that are laugh-out-loud funny. But then I reflected on the fact that I rated every single thing Michael Crichton ever wrote as four stars, and I see this quirky, horrifying, delicious novel as on a par with Crichton. Rather than hustle back and re-rate everything Crichton ever wrote, which would be a bit impulsive, I stuck to the four star standard.

There’s no explicit sex here, but there’s plenty of gore. Those that love good horror and science fiction should snap this book up right away. And if one is looking for a summer read to keep your nerdy teen out of trouble for a hot minute over the summer, this is a good choice for that set also.

But you’ll never see a spider web in quite the same way once you’ve read it!

Huge fun for anyone not already genuinely afraid of spiders.

 

The Girls in the Garden, by Lisa Jewell****

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thegirlsinthegardenLisa Jewell is an experienced author, but she is new to me. The Girls in the Garden, published in the UK last summer and soon to be in bookstores in the USA, is good strong fiction, and you should read it. I was fortunate and obtained an advance copy thanks to Net Galley and Atria Books for the purpose of a review. One night I stayed up late, unable to put it down until it was done.

Clare and Adele both have daughters, and both live in mixed-use residences that enclose a very large private garden. It’s been a great place to raise children for generations; in fact, some of the adults raising families here were also here as children. And there are so many children, introduced so quickly! I can usually juggle a hefty cast of characters just fine while also reading other books on the side, but in this case, the combination of all these characters and a surprising amount of culture shock—I am not as well informed with regard to British culture as I thought I was—left me staggering during the first ten percent of the book. My e-reader has notes that say, “Wait! Who?” and “Whose kid is this now?” and twice, “The fuck??” “What is a onesie, other than baby clothing?” Context wasn’t helping, so I did a web crawl. Okay, now I know. And isn’t tea usually mid-afternoon, with cookies or cake, and isn’t high tea formal and later? Do they have tea instead of lunch, instead of dinner, or are there four meals here?

And when I ran across spaghetti and peas for tea at 5 PM, again I wrote, “THE FUCK?”  Who eats peas in their spaghetti?

If a reader has to be confused, it’s better to have it be at the beginning and then catch up, than at the end, where one may walk away feeling stung and bewildered. Although I never did fully feel I had placed all of the characters, by the twenty percent mark I had a good feel for the primary ones and most of the others, and that was enough to make this an enjoyable read once I was oriented.

The story builds up to, and then centers around a party at the end of which adolescent Grace is found bloody and half-dressed, lying in the bushes. What has been done to her, and who has done it?

Ordinarily I would consider this a spoiler, but it’s provided on the book’s blurb and jacket, so readers are told right away this is our central problem. But there are layers that delve deeper, and these are what make this such an interesting read.

When is a parent over-protective, and when are they not careful enough? What makes someone a good parent? How much do we hold tight to keep our children safe, and when is it right to let things go; not only to trust our kids, but also to trust the world with our children?

There are no easy answers, but I found myself making small clucking noises when one parent or another makes what appears to me to be an error in judgment. Likely you’ll do the same, though perhaps not in the same places. The ambiguity makes it delicious.

The narrative point of view shifts from that of Pip, who is twelve, to that of Adele, one of the mothers. This is effective. Pip writes letters to her father, and they assume a portion of her narrative, adding a first person perspective, and at first I thought this device was too cutesy, but I changed my mind by the halfway point. It adds something that would be hard to inject as effectively any other way.

As to what has happened to Grace, there are so many possible villains, so many motivations and opportunities, but when the solution is finally reached, I feel as though the author has played us fairly. Sometimes a mystery writer will reach clear into left field for a solution. Perhaps they may discover a secret twin during the last ten percent of the story, or perhaps the villain is someone everyone had believed long dead. And that doesn’t happen here.

Ultimately I don’t think the story is really about Grace. The story is about trust within adult relationships. Misplaced trust can be dangerous; too much suspicion is toxic. And so the dance women do—and perhaps everyone does—is in trying to find the balance. It isn’t easy, especially when we are young parents, still learning the ropes ourselves.

Despite the tumble of characters at the beginning that I suspect will challenge many readers as it did me, I recommend that you read this book. It offers us something I haven’t seen anywhere lately.

The Girls in the Garden becomes available to readers in the USA Tuesday June 7, 2016.

The Last One, by Alexandra Oliva****

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thelastoneThose that occasionally hole up on their days off and binge on reality TV shows will love this book; those that don’t will love it too.  This reviewer has never watched a single episode of “Survivor” or any other reality-survival show, and yet once I began reading this novel, it elbowed aside all the other books I was reading till I was done. Thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the DRC, which I received in exchange for this honest review.

In an interesting twist, readers are told up front that part way through this competition, most of the other contestants, along with the cameraman, producer, and a number of other support staff that would ordinarily be in charge of extricating her or announcing her victory, will die. Our protagonist, whom the show’s producers call “Zoo” because she has a job involving animals in real life, won’t know that the show is over, because the people in charge of telling her will be gone.  And so the suspenseful aspect of this story for readers is at what point does the competition actually end, and once we are sure it’s over, when will Zoo figure it out? What will she find when she finally makes it home, assuming she does?

 

The production team tries to get everyone out, but they’re on Solo Challenges and widespread. There were contingency emergency plans in place, but not for this. It’s a spiral like that child’s toy; a pen on paper, guided by plastic. A pattern, then something slips and—madness. Incompetency and panic collide. Good intentions give way to self-preservation.

 

Oliva is a champ when it comes to examining media and its effect on the thinking of ordinary people living in the real world, and in this case, even in a virtual one. And as the competition begins, we see how real people are being warped and cast as characters for a viewing audience; a sympathetic  contestant’s ungentle words during a stressful moment are edited out; an introverted, serious individual is billed as arrogant, and so his small acts of kindness will be cut from the final film.

It’s an unreal sort of reality programming, stories retold to make them more saleable to the viewing audience. Oliva nails the way that mainstream media manipulates our thinking; it’s one reason I watch so little television, but it’s not a book that will ruin your favorite shows for you.

Those looking for an absorbing beach read or a thriller to curl up with at the family cabin could do a lot worse.  This guilty pleasure becomes available to the public July 12, 2016.

Chancers: Addiction, Prison, Recovery, Love: One Couple’s Memoir, by Susan Stellin and Graham Macindoe****

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ChancersI decided to read and review this title because I anticipated that it would be, by and large, a depiction and critique of the American prison system and Homeland Security. As it happens, that is really only a small part of this memoir, which focuses more on the couple’s relationship and the way that addiction warps and undermines trust and affection. Nevertheless, I found it really compelling, and so thank you Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the opportunity to read and review free and ahead of the public in exchange for this honest review. The memoir will be available to the public June 7, 2016.
Susan met Graham at a beach getaway where they were two of the people sharing a large house over the course of a vacation. Later, when she needed an author photo done for a book she had written, she remembered that he was a photographer that had worked for the Guardian, and she called him to see if he was interested.
That’s when everything began.
The memoir was originally going to be Susan’s alone, but eventually it occurred to her that Graham could contribute a lot in sharing his experiences with addiction and the point of view from which he saw the world when he was in that condition.
Imagine using heroin because it is easier to hide than alcoholism. From the frying pan into the fire! And hide it he did through the first stages of their relationship. He did romance like nobody’s business and she tried to remain objective, but there’s nothing all that objective about falling in love. And so although he made some highly questionable decisions, it took her awhile to find out about the heroin, which he had told her was behind him. But the heroin wasn’t behind him, and neither was the crack. And before she knows it, she is drawn partially down his rabbit hole while keeping one foot in that of mainstream journalism. It’s a strange place to be.
This reviewer has never minced words about my dislike for cops in general and the punitive, demoralizing, racist, class-based system that is the so-called American Justice System; yet Macindoe didn’t earn much sympathy from me. His narrative is in turns puling, angry with no justification, whiny and full of self pity, up until the end when he has finally shucked the monkey from his back as he reaches his golden years.
Macindoe had climbed from his early impoverished years as a child of a Scottish miner to the middle class world of photo-journalism. He was in the USA by preference and because his son from an earlier marriage was here; thus it was hard to feel the kind of solidarity with him that automatically comes to me regarding Third World citizens that are in the US as the only means by which they can feed their families. He owned a brownstone in New York City and had published photos internationally, garnering praise and a certain level of renown. And so…seriously? Heroin?
It was Stellin that kept me turning the pages. Every time she decided to step back from the relationship I wanted to yank her into the nearest lady’s room and tell her one woman to another to lose this guy entirely. Even her former husband, now in a gay relationship, advised her to “cut bait”. And every time she decided she could offer him some assistance even though they were no longer romantically involved, every time she wondered what their relationship could be like if only he were off the smack, I wanted to howl. After all, the relationship might be interesting if one of them grew a second head or a third eye in the middle of the forehead, but what were the chances?
“Chancers” turns out to be a Scottish expression, and I will leave the reader to find out what it means.
I found this story had an addictive quality of its own, a romantic drama not unlike the soap operas that were the only adult voices I heard most days when I was a stay-at-home mother in the 1980’s. Graham was full of shit, I figured, but I still had to know what happened next.
In the course of hearing Susan and Graham’s story, I did learn a number of things about Homeland Security that I had not known before. Imagine feeling nostalgic for Riker’s Island because it was so much more compassionate than the one for potential deportees!
And so I have to say this is a good read, an ideal book to take on vacation and flop on the beach with; just don’t get so absorbed that you scorch your tender skin, because it’s mighty distracting regardless of what is happening around you.
Fascinating and recommended to those that like compelling memoirs or are interested in addiction issues and the US penal system.

Run, Don’t Walk: The Curious and Chaotic Life of a Physical Therapist Inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center, by Adele Levine*****

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RundontwalkI loved this memoir. I read it in 2014 through the Goodreads First Reads program when I first began writing reviews, a few months before I began my blog. This is a memoir intended for general audiences, disarmingly funny and engaging. I recommend it to everyone.
I’ve been through physical therapy for things like whiplash from car accidents–yes, some folks really do get whiplash–but nothing like the scale experienced by the veterans and soldiers that Levine treats. And so the first sign of expertise is in the title, where she wisely excluded any reference to amputations.
Ask yourself: is there a tasteful way to laugh about amputations and amputees, as well as the people who work with and visit them?

Amazingly, there is. She’s found it.

And at first I could not accept that this was Levine’s first book, because the amount of synthesis and development of characters is not in any way rookie writing, and I don’t care how brilliant the writer might be. The blurb says “experienced writer”. Everything clicked into place when I noted that she had been writing a weekly humor column for a local news source.

I didn’t set out to learn anything here–it’s not as if I am considering becoming a PT. And as stated, this should not be viewed as a niche book just for medical folk or military types, but for the general book-loving public. It would even make a good beach read.

But I learned some things, nevertheless. I didn’t know that anyone who loses both legs ever has a shot at walking on two prostheses, for example; and indeed, some don’t, but the possibility is strong. I didn’t know some prostheses have computers. And I groaned at the obstacles put in place by the fishbowl environment where she worked: deliberately limited computer access so that anyone, celebrities, congressional staff, or John Q. Public, will see the therapists ONLY working with patients, and then therapists have to stay after work in order to enter notes about progress registered, because people who come to see the circus don’t want to see more than two people using a computer at a time. The banning of coffee for the same reason; nobody wants to see your cup! And I loved reading about the guerilla response to said ban.

Levine uses either real people with changed names, or patients and colleagues that are an amalgamation of more than one person. Characters Cosmo and Major Dumont were favorites of mine. And I loved the Jim-quote and how it is used at a party full of insufferable assholes that think that they are really something because they went to Walter Reed and WATCHED the patients and therapists for awhile. The punch line is awesome, and I won’t ruin it by telling it here.
And I really loved the Miracle reference.

I was on my third day with this book when someone in my family died. It was a total fluke, someone younger than me whose time should not have been up yet, and it hit all of us in the solar plexus. The writer’s chapter on the bone marrow transplant proved really cathartic. It wasn’t written for that purpose; I just had the right book at the right time, and so I sat with the book in my hand and cried awhile. Thanks; I needed that.

Sometimes I recommend getting a book free or cheap, but this one is worth the jacket price. Funny, absorbing, and informative.

The Violets of March, by Sarah Jio

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thevioletsofmarchThe Violets of March is a crossover title, part cozy mystery, and partly—maybe mostly—romance.  I purchased it for myself years ago, back when I was teaching, not advance-reading, and buying all my own reading material. It’s not a bad book, but given that I had paid full jacket price for the trade paperback version after reading some rave reviews, I felt let down. It’s a pleasant read, but it didn’t live up to its hype.

Nevertheless, once I had it in my collection, I was glad of it, because at the time, the other books I was reading were the sort that grab the reader by the hair and won’t let go till they’re done. I needed a calmer, more sedately paced novel to read at bedtime, and this was it. It held my attention, but it didn’t keep me awake when it was time to turn out the light.

Our protagonist is Emily Wilson, whose life, up till now, has been lovely. She is a successful author and married to a gorgeous man; what more can she want from life? But then one day he announces he is leaving her for someone else. Boom. Gone. She retreats to the home of her beloved aunt on Bainbridge Island, which is off the coast of Washington State, to lick her wounds. While there she finds herself ferreting out mysteries buried long ago. The plot becomes a story inside a story, and three different narratives are counter posed, two from the past, one from the present.

At the same time, Emily commences dating again. Here I am comfortable, because this isn’t erotica, it is an old fashioned love story, with the protagonist trying to choose between two men, one an old flame from high school, the other a local man she hasn’t known before.

The character development is not what I might hope for, but then this is a debut novel. It’s shallow, but it’s also soothing. It held my attention until I got a little bit sleepy, and then it didn’t anymore, which was exactly what I needed.

In addition, it is the sort of novel one could hand to a bookworm daughter of a fairly young age, if her reading level and interest were there, without worrying about content. Likewise it could grace the shelves of a middle school or high school classroom without a concern that parents would storm the school (as once occurred when I put The Color Purple on my honors shelf).

That said, I won’t pony up full cover price for this author again. But then, I rarely do that anymore anyway.

Those seeking a light romance with some cozy historical mystery elements to read at bedtime or on the beach could do a lot worse for themselves. It’s a matter of taste and priority.

Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly***-****

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lilacgirlsLilac Girls is the story of three women during World War II. I received a DRC for this book courtesy of Net Galley and Random House Ballantine in exchange for an honest review. I rate this novel 3.5 stars.

The story centers around Caroline Ferriday, an actress and New York socialite that volunteers at the Consulate organizing clothing and other essential items for French orphans; Kasia, a Polish teenager that is active in the resistance movement; and Herta Oberheuser, a doctor given one opportunity to practice medicine under the Nazi regime…at Ravensbruck. All of these are based on people that existed, though the story is a fictionalized account.

Kelly’s debut novel is strong in historical detail and setting. Here she describes Kasia’s home town in Poland:

 

Lublin rose beyond them in the distance, like a fairy-tale city, scattered with old

red-roofed pastel buildings as if a giant had shaken them in a cup and tossed

them on the rolling hills.

 

Whether it’s at Ravensbruck, which was a Nazi concentration camp, at an orphanage in France, or in a glittering nightclub, Kelly nails setting. I would like to see her rely less on crutches such as famous people of that time period that pop into the scene—this device signals a lack of confidence to me, and Kelly can get by without these props.

I also would have liked to see less brand name identification, which looks a lot like product placement. The whole advertising jingle for a particular brand of cookies, and a particular New York department store whose name may actually have appeared some thirty or forty times hindered the novel more than it helped; Kelly will do well to leave her advertising career behind when she sits down to write fiction. But this is her first  novel, and given what I see here, I think we can expect great things from her in the future; she is just getting warmed up.

In addition to crafting resonant settings, Kelly does the world a favor in telling about the experiments done on members of the Polish resistance, known as “the rabbits” because of the way they hop around rather than walking after their legs have been experimented on surgically, often done to them in ways that further medical knowledge in no way at all. Though it is critical to remember that what Hitler and the Nazi regime did to the Jews was real—and it’s more important than ever now that most World War II veterans have died and revisionists would like to rearrange the historical record and count the camps as an exaggeration of the facts—few know of the extent to which other groups were also sent away, often to die before the end of the war. The author makes an important contribution to historical literature by doing this.

That said, I have to confess that I am a little bit disappointed because I have wanted to read more about the resistance movement itself, and when I read the teaser for this story, I thought that one character’s life within the story would center on this aspect of the war. Instead, Kasia is arrested almost immediately, and once inside the camp, her story is in many ways like other Holocaust stories.  It’s horrific, and if you have not read any other stories set during the Holocaust, then you will certainly want to read it. I have read enough Holocaust stories, and this character never stops being fictional for me.  And the same is true for Caroline, who seems shallow and superficial despite her sacrifices and tireless effort.

The character that makes me sit up and take notice is Herta. I can’t recall having read a Holocaust story in which a Nazi speaks to us in the first person, and the gutsy depiction of this opportunistic woman mesmerizes me. The offhand remarks that Herta makes to rationalize her choices as she slides down that slippery slope ethically, letting her standards be eroded in order to further her career and increase her own standard of living, are chilling and immediate. I believe in this character. Kelly is deft in the way she depicts this ambitious but morally pliable, solipsistic individual. There are a hundred chances to make her into a caricature, but Kelly’s subtle finesse steps back every time this might occur, and the result will leave you breathless with horror.

Whether to invest the full jacket price of this novel depends on how deep your pockets are and whether you have read a lot of Holocaust literature. If you haven’t, you’ll want to add this title to your collection. And come what may, Kelly will be a writer to watch in the future.