Category Archives: beach reads

Monica’s Sister, by Earl Emerson *****

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monicassisterAh, it’s good to be reading a Thomas Black story again. Black is back with his lovely wife, Kathy, a good-hearted woman who makes some interesting friends. One of them is Angela Bassman, a woman who shows up all the time like a bad penny, making ridiculous charges against anyone and everyone, and bragging about having so many friends in high places, having done such fantastic things, that one is left rolling one’s eyes. And so when Thomas hears Angela’s voice approaching his office, he does what any thinking human being would do: he leaps into the closet and shuts the door. Anything to avoid that woman!

The wheels of the story start moving, and things get more complicated. Angela, whose famous sister is the actress, Monica Pennington, hires Black to help her with what is supposed to be a simple task, but isn’t. He would like to back out, but he smells a rat. Despite the crazy nature of Angela’s claims, she is obviously being followed by someone. Strange things happen, and too many coincidences occur. Whether Angela is crazy or whether she isn’t, his detective’s intuition starts to quiver, and he becomes more entangled in her affairs than he had anticipated, especially when she falls to her death, and he sees it happen. Later, Pennington hires Black to find out why Angela killed herself. Because of course, that’s what happened…isn’t it?

Emerson, a Shamus winning author who sets his stories here in the misty Pacific Northwest, usually right here in Seattle, is one fine writer. Hundreds of interesting, free galleys come my way in a given year, but I wanted to read his story badly enough to put it on my wish list, and luckily, my spouse snapped it up and gave it to me for Mother’s Day. What a fantastic gift!

The overall tenor of the story begins as gut-bustingly funny, and then gradually darkens and becomes more suspenseful. By the story’s end, I was literally (yes, I do mean literally) sitting on the edge of my seat, putting off the family members that wanted my attention with a robotic “…just a sec. Just a sec. Yeah I know. Give me just a minute.”

Emerson also uses the occasion to talk a little bit about bipolar disorder, and the ways it can turn a person’s life upside down, but he does it in a way that prevents the book’s pace from hitching. It’s masterfully done!

If you like strong detective fiction, or fiction set in the Pacific Northwest, or both, you just can’t do any better than this book. Seriously recommended for just about everyone.

Among the Ten Thousand Things, by Julia Pierpont *****

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amongthetenthousandJack is an artist living in New York City. Sometimes he sleeps in the apartment where he lives with his family. Sometimes he sleeps in his studio, when his work is really going strong. Just as sometimes he sleeps with his wife, whereas sometimes, he sleeps with whoever. This story is about the fallout that occurs when one of the random women he has taken up with, then discarded comes back with a vengeance, and though she intends to punish Jack through his wife, instead she ends up punishing him and his wife through their children, who are the unhappy recipients of the series of randy e-mails the woman he’s just jettisoned prints up and delivers to his building. My god, my god. And before I go farther, let me say thank you to Net Galley and Random House for allowing me a sneak peek. This book will be published next month.

Jack and his latest-fling have been prolific writers, it seems. It takes a large, somewhat weighty box to hold all the hideous missives that have passed between the two of them. And though it’s a rotten thing he’s done to his wife Deb, it slips out early on that she has married him only after dating him while he was married to someone else. Hey, what goes around, comes around.

Unfortunately, Jack is sufficiently garrulous enough with his recent conquest that he shares his children’s names with her, and when eleven year old Kay accepts the box to take upstairs, she is thinking that it is nearly her birthday, and perhaps what is inside is a gift that she can’t wait two weeks to know about. And then one of the papers on top of the pile has her name on it. It isn’t underlined, nor in bold or colored ink, but one’s name tends to jump out at one. And so the steamy sex talk she is way too young to see in any context whatsoever is accompanied by the sentence, “I know about Kay.”

It’s almost enough to permanently traumatize a kid. Well, maybe we can forget that “almost”.

The events are so horrible that any sensible reader would turn away rather than face what comes next, but Pierpont has a fresh, immediate writing style that pulls one in, almost to the extent that we care about those kids as if they were our own. We keep reading because we have to know what happens to them.

Several times I grew angry enough with Jack that I found myself senselessly typing angry retorts into my kindle comments. Nobody sees that stuff but me, but typing seemed better than waking my spouse to inveigh against this self-absorbed asshole, this swine who has the nerve at first to blame Kay for reading mail not meant for her eyes. Oh please!

And when Deb equivocates, I want to smack her, too. Sure, I know I said that what goes around comes around, but once you have children, the whole equation is altered, and you have to act immediately on their behalf. She feels a little sorry for Jack at first, at the alienation his children display toward him, and I just want to shake her. Don’t feel bad for him, the pig! Feel bad for your kids! Hello?

The kids are really what the book is all about, what makes it worth reading. They aren’t little big-eyed Holly Hobbie dolls, but both innocent and insolent, naughty and adorable, disturbed, devastated, and resilient as well. They flounder; they struggle. And when the story ends, the spell isn’t really broken until one accepts that they are fictional, because believe me, the whole thing feels so very real.

Pierpont is a damn good writer. She will be a force to be reckoned with in the literary world, a writer to watch. I can’t wait to read whatever is next!
As for you, you should get this novel when it comes out July 7. Maybe you should even reserve yourself a copy. What a fascinating book, by a strong new author.

The Missing and the Dead, by Jack Lynch *****

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themissingandthedeadJerry Lind is missing, which is especially strange, given that he knows he is about to inherit a small fortune. It seems unlikely that he would take off for a long time without letting someone know about it. He ought to be back by now. Moreover, the next people in line to inherit his share are also wondering if he is okay. Not that they hope he isn’t. Of course not! And at this point I have to break my narrative to let you know that I was fortunate enough to get this DRC free, courtesy of Net Galley and Brash Books. It was previously published in the 1980’s and is just now being released digitally.

Back to Jerry. No, never mind, forget him for a minute. Let’s talk about our assassin.

Our assassin is not getting any younger, and his wife is exhausted from all the moves. Every time he carries out a contract, they have to either abandon their stuff or get a truck, and over years and years of professional killing, it wears a woman down. She wants a garden. From now on, he needs to either make do with the significant amount he’s squirreled away from his successful if messy business, or he’s going to have to goddamn hide the bodies.

It’s the least he can do for her.

Peter Bragg is our man. Jerry’s sister hires him to go to Barracks Cove, where Jerry was supposed to be running a professional errand, and see if he can’t track him down. And Bragg goes in prepared. If you are sick of reading wussy narratives that give flimsy reasons for the intrepid sleuth not to carry a gun and make sure he has bullets, this is your guy, and this is your story. Has he ever fired that thing? Oh yes. But not just for practice…in the line of duty? Again, oh hell yes.

And it’s a good thing, as it turns out.

By the time the thing is over, a great deal of action has taken place, and though I am a six-to-eight book-at-a-time reader, the urgent, taut narrative (reminiscent somewhat of the Richard Stark detective novels from about the same period) grabbed me by the front of my shirt and held me there until the last page was turned.

It was nominated for an Edgar, and the clever juggling of setting and character development, along with a plot line that is unbelievably lean and compelling, will probably leave you wondering, as it did me, why he was denied and just who exactly did get it.

The consolation? If you have a kindle, you can read this book right now. Change the window on your screen and order it up. You’ll have an excellent weekend…if you can wait that long!

A Grown-up Kind of Pretty: A Novel, by Joshilyn Jackson ****

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agrownupkindofprettyMosey Slocumb’s mother, Liza, has had a stroke. It’s a good thing both of them live with Big. Big is the name given Ginny, mother of Liza, grandmother of Mosey. The ladies in the family tend to give birth early and unexpectedly; both Ginny and Liza had babies at fifteen. In the inner city, this happens so often that most folks don’t care, but in their tiny southern town, the judgments fall hard and fast. They are not welcome in the homes of their other relatives, nor even at church. They are “the ones who had been put out like bad cats. Outside, all Liza and I could hope for was the dark, ass end of Jesus,” according to Ginny.

The town does not only judge sins that have taken place; it also anticipates sin. Mosey is fifteen now. She can feel the eyes of her classmates, her teachers, and even Big and Liza keep her under close scrutiny. Although she is a virgin, she has taken to using home pregnancy tests…just in case.

All of this changes with the discovery of the silver box buried beneath the willow tree.

All that Ginny, Liza, and Mosey have, really, is each other, and when their family is threatened, all of them–even poor, damaged Liza–come out swinging.

This is a fun book once the early part is past, or at least that was my take on it. Jackson is a courageous writer, but some may find her style too abrasive to enjoy. She takes conventional religion apart, no doubt about it, and whereas I was fine with this, those that enjoy a family-like church relationship may easily be offended. So then, this is for the more leftward-leaning among us, yes?

Yes but no. There were several passages at the start of the book that also sounded a lot like life-begins-at-conception, and abortion-is-murder. It wasn’t said, but it was implied strongly enough to raise my hackles. Had I not already really enjoyed this writer’s later work (Between, Georgia), I think I might have slammed the book shut and tossed it onto the yard sale pile.

Even the most brilliant author must make sure that when she takes a stand, or two, or three, she has an audience left after those she has offended fall by the wayside.

That much said, I really enjoyed this story once I was past the initial rough patch. An engaging story, mostly, about three generations of women who stand by one another through whatever comes.

Yesterday Is Dead, by Jack Lynch ****

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yesterdayisdeadPeter Bragg is a San Francisco private eye. He is originally from Seattle, but he left all that behind: the rain, the grey skies, the depression…and Lorna, his ex-wife. Now a case brings him back. He isn’t eager to make the trip, but an old friend is in a spot and needs his help. And for the reader, it is a trip indeed, since the story is set in the 1980’s, when it was originally published. This established mystery series is now available digitally, and I was lucky enough to jump on Net Galley’s offer to read it free. My thanks go to them, and to Brash Books, for the DRC. What a fun romp!

These are modern times alrighty. There’s a new Interstate connection to Bellingham; a guy can hop on the I-5 and be there in two hours. Neat!

Those that have been to Seattle lately understand how wry this is, since a person can sit that long in gridlock just trying to get to the outermost suburbs now, at least during rush hour.

In addition to a trip back in time, Lynch serves up all sorts of twists and turns that keep the plot moving nicely, but also keep the game fair for the reader.

When all was said and done, I found myself wishing I could read the whole series. Recommended to anyone that enjoys good detective fiction. You can get it for yourself May 5, 2015. And you should!

The Expats, by Chris Pavone *****

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theexpatsChris Pavone spins one fine espionage thriller. I was introduced to his work when I read a galley of The Accident, the white-knuckle suspense story that follows this one. I was sufficiently impressed that I checked to see what else he had written. This first effort, which I borrowed from the Seattle Public Library, earned him the Edgar Award and a number of other kudos also. It’s a real page-turner.

Katherine is a mother of two young boys, and although her husband doesn’t know it, she works for the CIA; she has told him she is a government employee, and that she sits around all day writing position papers. She never inquires too closely into the life he led before he met her because she is afraid of the quid pro quo that must surely follow such questioning. The consequence is that she has been married for years to a man she doesn’t really know all that well. But he and the boys are really all she has; she has no other family to speak of.

She’s sitting on a mountain of unspoken experience. She has killed more people than she cares to remember. The reader is fed tiny shards of her memories in gradually increasing tidbits, and it is very effective in building toward the conclusion.

Her spouse Dexter, meanwhile, springs the surprise on her one evening: his work requires him to move from Washington D.C. to the tiny European secret-banking center Luxembourg. He works in I.T. in the banking industry as a security consultant, preventing hackers from thieving the bank’s massive resources. That’s what he tells her, anyway.

Relieved in a way, Katherine quits her job. The CIA doesn’t lift her cover, but they let her go little by little. Now she can finally focus on her sons, on her home, on her marriage…and so she sets up housekeeping in Luxembourg, enrolls the boys in school, enrolls herself in cooking classes during the day…and is bored out of her mind.

It was easy to buy the scenario as Pavone presents it, because it all figures. Who would join the CIA but a real adrenaline junkie? And what woman that has stalked other people, killed people, dodged those that stalked her or that sought retribution…what woman in such circumstances would not be bored out of her mind by cooking classes and shopping for area rugs and shower caddies?

It isn’t made easier by the fact that Dexter is always at work; that’s what he says, anyway. He is at work, on the road, in a meeting all the goddamn time. He spends an awful lot of time with Bill, another American expatriate, whose wife Julia seems a little too friendly to be true.

So is she merely acting like a CIA employee, governed by auto-suspicion? Or are these people setting off her spook-dar for a more substantial reason? And just what the hell is really up with Dexter? You would think the guy could show up for Thanksgiving dinner, for heaven’s sake!

If you have never read anything by Pavone, read this book first, and if you like it as much as I did, get The Accident second. Each is a stand-alone novel; they aren’t a series or sequential. But the second book is just a tiny bit better than this one, and I found myself slightly let down by an ending that seemed slightly too tidy. And in truth, I don’t think I’d have felt that way if I hadn’t already read something of his that is even better. In other words, judged against other thrillers written by other writers, this one is a sure-fire five star novel. Judged against Pavone’s subsequent work, the score shrinks a tiny bit.

The best part of all may have been the afterword. I always wondered about the research that went into writing spy thrillers. How the hell does anyone find out anything about the CIA, unless they are employed there and sworn not to tell? And Pavone tells us how he did it: he made it up. And that’s why it’s called fiction.

Guaranteed to absorb your attention for a long weekend and make all your own troubles look small.

The Devil Wears Prada, by Lauren Weisberger ****

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thedevilwearsThe Devil Wears Prada is a fun, light read. By now many readers will have either seen or heard of the movie, and I had too. I tend to create mental pictures of fictional characters, sometimes using actors, and other times inserting the faces of people I have known in real life. In this case, I could not imagine anyone other than Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, the boss from hell.

Andrea Sachs has finished college and yearns to write for a big-name magazine, preferably The New Yorker. She stumbles across the opportunity to break into the publishing world as Priestly’s assistant at Runway, a fashion magazine. This is a job with a high rate of turnover, and one can see why from the moment the position commences. There is no such thing as off-the-clock time. Sachs is on call 24-7, often for such trifling things as a gift for Priestly’s snarky twin daughters, or the ubiquitous dry cleaning. If it rains, Sachs is blamed. If a flight is late, Priestly wonders why Sachs couldn’t anticipate this problem and deal with it. Sachs is constantly demeaned and belittled, and she puts up with it because of the immense amount of power Priestly represents in her chosen field.

Sachs watches her relationships flounder as she is constantly required to break personal engagements in order to leap whenever her phone buzzes. She keeps at it knowing that at the end of a year with Priestly, her career in print journalism will either be made or broken by her boss.

The book spins an over-the-top villain at the perfect place in time. The book was published in 2007, and this was a time when the First World had just begun to realize the downside that is inherent in the brave new world of satellite-based communications. People that used to enjoy going on vacation and walking away from their telephone now take it with them, and this is often either a plainly stated part of their job, or a better-safe-than-sorry aspect of damage control. I didn’t have to do this during my twenty years as a public school teacher; so far, teachers really can carve out a part of their time away from the classroom purely for personal privacy and enjoyment. However, my husband is in the tech field, and though work didn’t phone him while he was away, he constantly checked into his work e-mail via laptop computer, insisting that it was better to know if a crisis was unfolding so he could be prepared to meet it upon his return rather than being blindsided and unprepared.

The movie version of the story develops Priestly a bit more and keeps her character from being a cardboard cutout. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t do that. But then, this is not serious literature; this is a romp.

Though many modern professionals are married to their phones and other devices all the time, Weisberger has spun a tale that will make just about anyone gratefully reflect that their own job is better than that. So like horror stories, part of the joy in reading this fluffy beach read is in comparing one’s own life favorably to that of the protagonist.

If you have a generous book-buying budget and want a fun read to pack for your beach trip or an escapist weekend at home, this one is a great choice. If your budget is tighter, try your public library; that’s where I found my copy. Unless you have a schedule like Sachs’s, you likely won’t have difficulty finishing this one by its due date.

Great beach read; fluffy escapist novel.

At the Water’s Edge, by Sara Gruen *****

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bythewatersedgeBy the author of Water for Elephants comes a gripping tale of cowardice,deception, love, and heroism. My great thanks go to Net Galley and Random House for the DRC. It was a quick read and a great deal of fun.

The setting: World War II, primarily on a remote Scottish island. The story: three spoiled, wealthy, entitled brats misbehave publicly and are sent away by their chagrined parents. Since their allowance has been cut and they have to get gone anyway, they decide it might be just the thing to track down the Loch Ness Monster; not only will it be heaps of fun, but Father will be so pleased. He always wanted proof it existed! And what war? When one is wealthy enough, one cannot possibly be in danger! Just haul out the cash and start bribing others. Nothing to it, really!

Now we’re cooking. We’re on a remote Scottish island after endless seasickness aboard a ship that is constantly fired upon by u-boats. We have a crumbling castle; a Scottish warrior; a fainting damsel; a fiendish conspiracy; several working class heroes of both genders; a love story; and of course, there’s the loch! Get your gum boots ready; it’s soggy out there. Toss in a dash of magical realism, and we’re all set.

Gruen does a wonderful job developing Maddie Hyde, our protagonist, who receives more than one wake-up call whilst she is marooned on this island in the middle of a war that is now real and present. The treatment of husband Ellis and pal Hank is perfect; the writer is subtle, but not so subtle that we miss what’s happening. Angus is such a magnificent character that I found myself wondering what actor ought to play him when the movie comes out.

So I absolutely forbid you to regard this book as Water for Sea Monsters! No, no, no.

Gruen’s wonderful nugget will be released at the end of March 2015, just in time for spring break. If you’re going to be somewhere warm, it’s the perfect beach read. If you’ll be at home or in a cozy cabin watching the rain pound down, it’s the perfect curl-up-by-the-fire book.

Your reviewer isn’t usually fond of love stories, but for Sara Gruen, an exception will always be made. A must-read!

The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd *****

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themermaidchairJessie Sullivan has a twenty-year itch. She’s stifled, confined, and irritated by her husband, Hugh, a psychiatrist whose professional knowledge makes him automatically correct in any difference of opinion. When the phone call comes telling them that her mother has deliberately chopped off her own index finger, Hugh tells Jessie to go, and once gone, she finds herself unwilling to return home.

Jessie tells Hugh she has to take care of her mother, but the truth is that she has to take care of herself. And the other truth is that she has fallen madly, deeply in love with a monk who lives at the friary next door. And it’s mutual.

Beneath the surface of her romance, old family business percolates, heats, expands. And something is about to blow.

Merely telling you the outline of the plot fails to convey the magnitude of this writer’s magic. If you have read anything else by Sue Monk Kidd, you have at least an idea of what she’s capable of. A few writers are capable of speaking to the reader as if there is no other reader; the whole thing has been written for you, and you alone. It’s deep, and it’s personal.

In my retirement years I have been devouring books the way I once did bags of chips. Sometimes a few months later I look back at the list of books I have read, and have to get online and remind myself what some of them were even about.

Yet there are others that strike a chord so deep and true that years, decades may go by and I’ll still remember them almost as if I had just read them. And this is one of those; I know it already. I actually stopped breathing a few times, I was so struck by her prose.

It’s possible that this may appeal most to middle aged women and those who are older, since that is the gender and stage of life of the protagonist. Yet in some ways such labeling is unfair, because women often read and are spellbound by novels whose chief protagonist is male, so it seems as if the reverse should be true sometimes. All I know for sure is that it really worked for me.

My copy came from the local library, but if I had paid full jacket price for this little treasure, it would have been worth every penny.

Collected Stories by Frank O’Connor *****

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collectedstoriesWhat an unpretentious little book, and who would have dreamed it would be so full of first-rate short stories? Mr. O’Connor wrote from the 1930’s to the 1960’s, and may be one of the finest writers Ireland has produced, which is saying a great deal. Thank you and thank you again to Open Road Media and Net Galley for the ARC. It’s been a real joy to read!

O’Connor’s early life was marked by alcoholism and domestic violence, and he tosses these into the stewpot of his stories that is so congenial, so resonant, that we little know the pain he went through before he wrote them. The quality of the writing is consistent throughout, which is even more remarkable given its length, which clocks in at over 700 pages! At times poignant and wrenching, and at other times witty and a little naughty, though never breaching the bounds of good taste, Mr. O’Connor delivers.

His protagonists are ordinary people, all of them in Ireland. They live in small villages for the most part; some are wives and mothers, some are brave young lads; there are noble priests and those who are not as noble, but all of them are believable and create an instant bond with the reader. His overarching theme is to remind us, in his folksy, understated way, that all of us are human. He lets us know that whether we believe in God or whether we don’t, for the moment we are all each other has.

O’Connor lived through revolutionary times, and was no stranger to the Irish struggle, which is near and dear to my own heart. His famous opening story, Guest of the Nation, focuses on a card game that takes place between Republican soldiers and their prisoners. Its blend of the ordinary with the wrenching emotion that ran high at such a time makes it immortal. The soldiers’ ambivalence and humanity lends it much of its authenticity.

One of my own favorite quotes appears early in the collection in a story titled “The Luceys”, in which Charlie visits his uncle, a priest. Charlie thinks his uncle is eccentric and cannot fathom how the man thinks:

“One conversation in particular haunted him for years as showing the dangerous state of lunacy to which a man could be reduced by reading old books.”

May we all suffer similarly!

I loved the references he made to “a gang of women” outside of Mrs. Roche’s house in “The Drunkard”. I also laughed at his reference to “…the mood of disillusionment that follows Christmas”. And in “Darcy in the Land of Youth”, I liked how Mick traveled to work in England and “He found the English very queer as they were supposed to be, people with a great welcome for themselves and very little for anyone else.” Here I would hasten to add that I am descended of both Irish and English, though I tend to lay claim more to the former than the latter; Mr. O’Connor’s gift is in wryly touching upon the cultural nuances that sometimes lead to misunderstandings, and others to genuine disagreement, culture or no.

I could continue quoting marvelous passages, but I think it is better for you to ferret out some of your own, and let’s face it, if I haven’t sold you on this book right now, I never will.

Except for this one last bit, which is really a commentary on all strong short story collections: this time of year, many of us will have guests in our homes. If yours is a family that reads, you may choose to set something out in your guest room, and short stories are especially lovely for them to have, because whereas one may not finish a great thick book during a visit over the holidays, one can pick up a short story at bedtime and finish that story before turning out the light.

And the glorious thing is, guests don’t expect a book that is left for their perusal to be brand new; they can enjoy a well-thumbed book without worrying if they inadvertently crease a corner. Right now, you have the chance to get the book for yourself, finish it, and then leave it for company.

That’s a good thing to do, because in the end, all we have really is one another.