The Roanoke Girls, by Amy Engel*****

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Happy release day! I read and reviewed this title back in December and called it “…smoking hot, a barn burner of a book.” Today it’s for sale. You won’t find anything like it out there.

seattlebookmama's avatarSeattle Book Mama

theroanokegirlsAmy Engel makes her debut as a writer of adult fiction with this title, having begun her career writing fiction for young adults. The Roanoke Girls is smoking hot, a barn burner of a book, diving into some of society’s deepest taboos and yanking them from the shadows into the bright rays of Kansas sunshine, where the story is set, for us to have a look at them. It’s not available to the public until March 7, 2017, and frankly I don’t know how you are going to wait that long. I received a DRC for this title from Net Galley and Crown Publishing for the purpose of a review.

Lane grows up in New York City, raised by a mother that shows no sign of warmth or affection, a woman that seems to either cry or sleepwalk through most hours of most days. When she hangs herself, Lane bitterly…

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The Devil’s Country, by Harry Hunsicker****

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thedevilscountryHarry Hunsicker is the former executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America as well as a successful author. Reading this suspenseful and at times almost surreal tale makes it easy to understand why so many people want to read his work. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Thanks go to Net Galley and to Thomas and Mercer for the DRC, which I received in exchange for this honest review. This book will be available to the public April 11, 2017.

Arlo Baines, a former Texas Ranger, is on the road when it all unfolds; he’s stopped at the tiny town of Piedra Springs, traveling from one place to another by Greyhound Bus, and he doesn’t intend to stay. He finds a place to get some food, sticks his nose in a copy of Gibbon, and tries to ignore everyone around him. Friendly conversation? Thank you, but no.

Unfortunately for him, there’s a woman with kids, and she’s in big trouble. Clad in an outfit that screams sister-wife, she is terrified, tells him she is pursued, and next thing he knows, she is dead. What happened to the children? Before he knows it, Baines is hip deep in the smoldering drama of the Sky of Zion, a cult that has deep tentacles into the local business and law enforcement establishments.

The narrative shifts smoothly back and forth between the past and the present, and Baines’s motivation is revealed. He is on the move because his wife and child were murdered by corrupt cops, who he then had killed. One particularly chilling scene, the one in which Baines is told to leave town, gives me shivers. In general, however, I find that the scenes taking place in the present are more gripping and resonant than those in the past.

Interesting side characters are Boone, a retired professor with a crease on his head and flip-flops that are falling apart; the local sheriff, Quang Marsh; journalist Hannah Byrnes; and the bad guys in Tom Mix-style hats, with the crease down the front. Setting is also strong here, and I can almost taste the dust in my mouth as Baines pursues his quest in this little town with quiet determination. Every time I make a prediction, something else—and something better—happens instead. In places, it’s laugh-out-loud funny!

Readers that love a good thriller and whose world view leans toward the left will find this a deeply satisfying read. Hunsicker kicks stereotypes to the curb and delivers a story unlike anyone else’s. I would love to see this become a series.

Unpunished, by Lisa Black**

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unpunishedThis novel is the second in the Gardiner and Renner series. I was invited to read and review it by Kensington Press and Net Galley. I appreciate the invitation and have enjoyed other titles published by this house; unfortunately, this particular book didn’t work for me. It is now available for purchase.

The premise is that a man has been found hanging at the office of the Cleveland Herald. Forensic investigator Maggie Gardiner is called to the scene. Ultimately, she will pair once again with Jack Renner, a vigilante killer that uses his homicide cop skills to enforce his own code.

This aspect of the story is not without appeal. As traditional relationships between the public and law enforcement become more fraught with injustice, it’s hard to relate to a traditional cop, though for the sake of a good yarn, I can pretend. While it is unthinkable, in real life, for anyone to make their own private hit list according to who’s good and who’s not—in the mind of the list maker—it does make for good fiction.

That’s about all the good I found here, though. Stereotypes, women referred to as “girls”, at-risk urban youth all lumped into the category of “gangbangers” and made disposable; these things all set my teeth on edge. There’s some over-long dialogue that is flat, and there’s more information about the production of newspapers than I ever needed to know.

The place I reacted the most strongly was at the beginning, where we get detailed information about neck ligatures that tell whether a body on a rope committed suicide or was strangled and left there to swing. For some readers, I think this will be fascinating. But for those that have been close to someone that died by his or her own hand, particularly in this manner, let this review serve as a neon trigger warning. There’s no scooting past it to get to the story; the forensic aspect plays heavily here.

For fans of Lisa Black’s other novels, of which there are several, this will likely be a welcome read. And perhaps I am a wee bit harsh simply because I have read so much strong fiction lately; every reviewer is susceptible to the urge to compare work. What else is on the table that I could be reading? How good is it? And right now, the answer is that the table is groaning under the weight of excellent literature, and those with limited time and resources can likely find a better book than this one.

Not this book; not this time.

Himself, by Jess Kidd*****

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himselfbyjesskiddAh, feck me blind now, Jess Kidd’s written herself a novel, and it’s good enough for any ten others. It comes out March 14, 2017, and although I read it free via Net Galley and Atria, there’s surely a chance I will buy one or more copies to give to those I love anyway. You should, too. It’s too clever to miss, and if you don’t mind a bit of irreverence, if you have a heart at all for Ireland and for ordinary working folk just trying to get along as best they’re able, this book is your book. Sly as hell and fall-down-laughing funny, it will put a spring in your step for a goodly while thereafter. That it will!

Mahony has come to the tiny Irish town of Mulderrig, looking to find out what happened to his mammy, who left him orphaned when he was small. The townsfolk aren’t happy to see anyone related to Orla Sweeney, but Mahony is undeniable in his charm, with:

“A face that women can love on sight and men will smile upon. Mahony has the right tone in his voice and the right words to go with it. Mahony has a hand that people want to shake and a back they want to pat.”

But beneath the charm, the voice, and the handsome face, “He’s a Dublin orphan, which means that he could survive on an iceberg in just his socks.”

You see, like Orla before him, Mahony sees the dead, and they’re thick as flies here. They’re sitting on the rafters knitting; they’re smoking a pipe in the roll-top bath; they’re sitting on the cistern, just watching. Because “The dead are drawn to those with shattered hearts.”

But his mother isn’t among them; how can that be so?

As we follow Mahony on his quest, we get to know a number of the townspeople. Shauna runs the only decent boarding house in town, and since Mahony is staying there, we get to know her and her father, Desmond. We get to know Mrs. Cauley, the wealthy senior citizen that keeps the town afloat, ancient, wheelchair bound, and surrounded in her quarters by a “literary labyrinth” that’s positively magical. In her, Mahony finds an unexpected confederate. Though elderly enough to be fragile, when the chips are down Mrs. Cauley is at the ready, declaring that “I’m Miss Marple, with balls.”

We also get to know one of my favorite characters, Bridget Doosey, as well as the “crocodilian” parish priest, Father Quinn.

The lyricism of the text is owed to no small skill on the part of the author, partly with the use of figurative language—and here I tell my readers that are teachers, you’ll find no better passages for teaching the effective use of repetition anywhere, but select carefully, because the text is very spicy—but a certain amount of it is due to the intangible talent that some of us have, and that some of us don’t. I note that every chapter is ended brilliantly and the next also begun as much so.
I could reach into my notes all day long and find more passages that are lyrical, moving, or funny enough to make you wish you’d been to the bathroom first. But in the end I’d be doing you a disservice, because what you really need is the book itself. With a little planning, you can have a copy in your hands before St. Patrick’s Day. And you should do so.

Chaos, by Patricia Cornwell*****

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chaos Patricia Cornwell has a publisher that doesn’t love bloggers, but her books kick ass. For this reason, this white-knuckle thriller was one of perhaps half a dozen books on my Christmas wish list for 2016. So here, in this spot where I traditionally thank the publisher and the site that facilitates them, I will instead thank Benjamin, his lovely wife Amie, and their baby boy. Between them, they gave me three delicious books, but this is the one I had to flip open as soon as the Christmas celebration was over; excuse me everyone, but I am off to bed with my box of Christmas candy and Patricia Cornwell. I am just now getting to the review, since DRCs get first priority, but I gobbled this book up before the New Year holiday.

Authors like Cornwell that write strong, long running thriller series have their work cut out for them. Whereas a debut novel and perhaps a few that follow can run along traditional lines, being trapped in a dark building with a killer on the premises somewhere; stuffed into the trunk of a vehicle (or the back seat with a gag and blindfold); held at gun point; family members kidnapped; it cannot go on forever. Eventually even the most faithful of readers is unwilling to buy into it anymore. Oh come on. No you didn’t.

The best of these writers—here I am thinking of Cornwell along with Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, James Lee Burke, GM Ford, and I know you are thinking of several more as you read this review—find a way to make the series deeper and richer through character development. There’s more inner narrative perhaps, and the tension is more of the psychological variety than constant action. And at this point in a series, the reader that really does want nonstop action will howl and toss down their book, but many others, myself among them, find myself more bonded to the character. And so it is with Kay Scarpetta, one of my favorite long running series protagonists.

This story is set in Boston, and at the outset, Kay is receiving some disturbing communications on her phone. The worst thing about them is that they play without her choosing to open them, and then they vanish, so she has no proof they were ever there. It doesn’t take long for her to conclude that the hack has been effected by nemesis Carrie Grethen, ex-lover of her beloved niece Lucy, whom she raised like a daughter and loves like no one else. Grethen has become Scarpetta’s Moriarty over the last several novels in this series. And Scarpetta wonders what these have to do with the young woman murdered in the park, a woman she spoke to briefly at an art exhibit and ran into later.

One of the things I love about this series is that Cornwell is unafraid to use her vocabulary. If someone out there doesn’t have the literacy level for it, let them stretch themselves to read this, or let them go away. In this era in which some writers are dumbing down their prose to meet the marketplace of American consumers with decreasing literacy levels, it’s a joy and a pleasure to find one that does not. The prose is richer, the descriptions more resonant than if she’d done otherwise.
As the story progresses, this psychological thriller takes on the contours of a nightmare in which everyone dear to Scarpetta—husband Benton, who’s with the FBI, Lucy, and Pete Marino—are all behaving in ways that make Scarpetta wonder whether they are deceiving her. Since every one of them has done so once before, the reader doesn’t regard Kay as paranoid, but rather fears for her.
Added into the picture is Kay’s sister Dorothy, who is Lucy’s mother. Kay and Dorothy hold a great deal of antagonism for one another, and an added twist is thrown in regarding sister Dorothy provides a huge surprise.

I note that cop Pete Marino, depicted in episodes gone by as a deeply flawed and disturbed individual, has been rehabilitated. Cornwell has tidied him up and Scarpetta has mostly forgiven his misdeeds of the past.

Should you pay full freight for this title? If you are a fan of the series and enjoyed the last one or two before this one, the answer is emphatically yes. Those new to the series might want to go for an earlier entry, as the series is much more fun when read in order. As of this writing, I also note that it’s available used online for less than five bucks, plus shipping charges. For others that are unsure, do remember that to develop character, Cornwell has to include a lot of details that have to do with the protagonist’s personal life. Some mystery readers just want the corpse, the puzzle, the guns, the action, and so if that describes you, see if you can read a sample before investing.

For fans of the series and of psychological thrillers, this book is highly recommended.

Every Dead Thing, by John Connolly****

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everydeadthing“Our ancestors were not wrong in their superstitions; there is reason to fear the dark.”

This is the first entry of the Charlie Parker series, and I recently read and reviewed the newest one, so it is interesting to go back and see how the series begins. Thank you to Net Galley and Atria Books for the DRC, which I read free in exchange for an honest review.

The story commences with flashbacks to the brutal murder and mutilation of Parker’s wife and daughter. I have to confess that it went over the top for me and at times was too grim to be an enjoyable read. This newly released edition begins with introductory notes by the author in which he acknowledges that many readers also felt this way, so I know I am not alone. Everyone has a threshold. But I went into the story knowing that I want to read this series and that although it will always remain gritty and violent, it won’t always be this harsh, so I moved on, and I am glad I did.

The fact is, Connolly is an outstanding writer.

Parker is a shipwreck of a human being, a former cop with a sorrowful heart and not much to lose. He is determined to find the psychopath that killed his wife and child, and it appears that the same killer has taken a woman named Catherine. Her phone records show numerous calls, shortly before her disappearance, to the tiny southern town where she was born and raised. He grabs his wallet and heads south with two terrifyingly competent assistants, Angel and Louis, guys that are shady but loyal, and strong as hell. They are also a couple, and this adds an interesting twist, not to mention crushing a stereotype. Actually, these two characters are my favorites in this story, and I especially enjoy the scene in the auto shop.

Another wonderful feature is the swamp witch in the bayou.

Some aspects of this novel seem a bit derivative, in particular the long cast of characters with unusual names seems a lot like James Lee Burke. Ed McBain, iconic author of the 87th Precinct series, has a prominent character named Fat Ollie, a name Connolly uses for one of his characters here.

But there’s no denying the lyrical quality to the work that is entirely Connolly’s own, and as I have already seen, it just gets better from here. The plotting is complex, tight, and intense. It’s a strong debut.

Those that love good mysteries that run on the gritty side will want to read this series. You can read them out of order; I started with the fourteenth and didn’t feel there were enough missing pieces to prevent my understanding the story line. On the other hand, there’s nobody out there that can write as fast as we can read, and so why not start at the top and run all the way through the series?

This re-released edition of Every Dead Thing is for sale now.

The Fall of Lisa Bellow, by Susan Perabo****

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thefalloflisabellowI was fortunate enough to score a DRC of this suspenseful novel from Simon and Schuster and Net Galley. It’s a book that defies the usual genre niches, and for this and many other reasons I enjoyed it immensely. It will be available to the public March 14, 2017.

The premise is that Meredith Oliver, a middle school student, is present when the local deli is robbed. She and her frenemy, Lisa Bellow, are ordered to get down on the floor. When it’s all over, Lisa has been kidnapped, but Meredith is still there, traumatized but otherwise unharmed.

There are two key components that make this story a strong one. The first is characterization. Both Meredith and her mother, Claire, are so carefully rendered that by the end of the book I felt as if I could predict what either of them would say in any given situation. The second is plot, and here Perabo’s expertise in her field—she is a professor of English as well as a novelist—shines through. She gives us just enough information to keep us taut and engaged, skillfully meting out a taste here, an additional nugget there, while leaving us with some of our original questions and posing new ones.

You see, Meredith is here, but she isn’t; at least not all of the time. She suffers from survivor’s remorse, to be certain, but a completely second life, one in which she and Lisa are together, is woven into the narrative, and it leaves us wondering whether Lisa’s abduction has perhaps been arranged by Claire or even by Meredith, or horror of horrors, the two of them as confederates.

Another compelling aspect of this novel is the family. Prior to the accident, Meredith and Claire constitute half of a cozy middle class family. Both parents are dentists, her father the kind of upbeat but slightly clueless guy that operates in the day-to-day, gliding happily along life’s surface. He’s not a deep thinker. Meredith’s older brother Evan, who she adores, is an athlete with a future, a baseball player being courted by any number of colleges, until the accident occurs in which one eye is lost. The doctor that attends him tells the family bluntly, “Imagine stepping on an ice cream cone.”

As Meredith winks in and out of the world around her, the family also is strained almost to the breaking point.

Meredith’s voice is so richly crafted that it will take the reader back to middle school. The wrenching emotions, the jockeying for social position, the depth of devotion and the dark, searing hate are so powerful that as I look back on my years as an eighth grade teacher, I am amazed that any of my students was able to learn anything. The social subtext is impossible to ignore, and it sends little flags out constantly in small ways; shifted body language, the choice as to whether to speak to someone in the halls, choosing who to befriend not only based on the friend’s qualities but on what it will mean about one’s other school relationships—all these things constitute a full time job. Meredith loves algebra, and I thank the author for crushing the stereotype that says girls don’t do that. Yet the rest of Meredith’s classes tend to pass in a fog that is dominated by the social interaction that’s anticipated both in the next class and in the hallway during passing time. The locker room is a nightmare waiting to happen, a Lord of the Flies with meaningful glances and flipped hair taking the place of spears and fire.

I won’t give away the end of this story because it would completely ruin it for you, but at the same time, I found myself both relieved and oddly let down by the denouement.

Recommended to those that love strong fiction.

Everything Belongs to Us, by Yoojin Grace Wuertz****

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everythingbelongstousI was invited to read this novel by Random House and Net Galley, and although I read multiple books at a time, this was the one I saved for bedtime, after the lights were out, the hound snoring at the foot of the bed, and everyone else was asleep. This is prime reading time, and this was the story I wanted to follow uninterrupted. You can get a copy for yourself this Tuesday, February 28, 2017.

This story is set in 1978 in Seoul, South Korea, and features the political demonstrations by workers and students against the notoriously repressive Park regime. The main characters are all involved briefly with these protests, either as participants or as witnesses. While the setting is handled competently, the success of this novel is owed to character, character, and character.

We are introduced to three young adults. First is Jisun, a bright young daughter of a ruling scion. Jisun harbors tremendous anger toward her father, and as the story unspools, we find out why, little by little. One hint I’ll offer that doesn’t spoil the ending is that it isn’t about rape or sexual abuse of any kind, and I was glad not to see this overused device employed here. Everything in this story is fresh and original.

Our story comes to us from multiple viewpoints. My favorite character by far is Namin, a striving member of the working class battling to rise through hard work and intellectual talent. An unlikely but wholly believable friendship develops between Jisun, who is trying to grasp what ordinary people experience day to day, and Namin. Namin’s parents labor nearly every waking hour running a food truck, and her sister works in an auto plant so that Namin can attend the university. The choices that are made in order to fuel Namin’s success, and by extension that of her family, are hard ones, and this is just one aspect of the book that would make for excellent discussion in a literature class or book club.

The third main character is Sunam, a young man from a middle class family who finds himself in a love triangle with these two young women. At one point I feared the book would turn melodramatic, but in the author’s capable hands it is deftly maneuvered and is made believable. In fact, while I didn’t always like these characters, by the halfway point I absolutely believed all three of them.

The only weakness here is the way in which the protestors are depicted; they seem addled and the struggle appears to have no political platform whatsoever. Liberal Christian missionaries appear and vanish with no clear role, and although a purpose becomes apparent eventually, I felt they were more of a distraction than a worthwhile component.

The struggle against the Park government was a more worthy one than Wuertz’s narrative suggests. Had this been given firmer contours, this would be a five star read.

For those looking to broaden their literary horizons or just looking for a good story, this novel is recommended.

Hungry Heart, by Jennifer Weiner*****

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hungryheart“I wanted to write novels for the girls like me, the ones who never got to see themselves on TV or in the movies, the ones who learned to flip through the fashion spreads of Elle and Vogue because nothing in those pictures would ever fit, the ones who learned to turn away from mirrors and hurry past their reflections and unfocus their eyes when confronted with their own image. I wanted to say to those girls, I see you. You matter. I wanted to give them stories like life rafts…I wanted to tell them what I wished someone had told me…to hang on, and believe in yourself, and fight for your own happy ending.”

Many thanks go to Net Galley and Atria for the DRC, which I received a couple of months after the publication date. Having read this memoir makes me want to read more of this author’s work. It’s for sale now.

The fact that I’ve never read anything by this author makes me something of an outlier in terms of her target audience. I’m also slightly older than she is, not in need of a mentor. But none of that matters, because quality is quality, and feminist messages like this one are always good to read.
Weiner writes with an arresting combination of candor and wit, and she talks about the things we grew up being taught not to mention. Those of us that saw role models like Twiggy—a British model with a nearly anorexic appearance—and Mia Farrow, yet were ourselves unable to shake the persistent amount of what kindly adults called baby fat, never thought to argue that we were as worthwhile as these bony fashion icons. Weiner deals with the topic of body image and media head on. And while she’s there, she talks about facing down anti-Semitism in the classroom, and the dry hiss of another child on the playground suggesting that she has killed Jesus. She talks about also being the chunky, unfashionable member of her kibbutz to Israel in the unforgettable chapter titled “Fat Jennifer in the Promised Land”.

At times I confess I am annoyed by appear to be petit bourgeois concerns. You struggled to choose between Princeton and Smith? Oh you poor dear! But later when I read that she is called in to the administration’s offices and told to get her things and go because her tuition hasn’t been paid, I forgive her immediately.

Weiner takes on questions that many feminist writers pass by. I’ve never seen another writer address the fact that if a woman cannot successfully breast feed her baby or even just doesn’t want to, the child will most likely not starve. This and a host of other seldom spoken issues having to do with combining career and motherhood can help other mothers, whether working or taking time away from the workplace to raise a child, feel less isolated.

Every woman needs a funny female version of Mister Rogers to tell us that we are fine just the way we are. Every mother needs another woman that can tell her—sometimes in hilarious ways—that every rotten thing that ever happens to her child is not her fault.

Highly recommended for women seeking wisdom and snarky kick ass commentary, and to those that love them.

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life, by Yiyun Li**

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dearfriendfrommylifei  It’s an honor to be invited to review any book by Random House and Net Galley, and so when the email came, I accepted without hesitation; I thank them for thinking of me and wish I could honestly recommend this one. Others have referred to this memoir, whose title is taken from a quote by Katharine Mansfield, as “exquisite, intimate, and lyrical”, and the author has won awards for her novels. I looked carefully to see if I could locate the genius in this book, but it eluded me completely.

The intimacy of the work is surely apparent. In essence, this is a mental health memoir, and the author writes of her fight with depression, her multiple suicide attempts and hospitalizations, of the expectation of others that she should continue to live when she didn’t want to. It’s brave writing, although mental health battles are now a fairly mainstream topic, but I am unable to find anything tangible to engage my interest.

My only real pleasure is in discovering that Li is already a successful writer; had it been a debut, I would have been scared silly. After all, if I say I don’t like the book, will the writer harm herself? What if I simply dodge the whole thing and let it get lost in the shuffle; will it happen then as well? But in seeing that this is someone with an established career and a wall full of accolades, probably the displeasure of one humble blogger won’t create a great deal of trauma.

The whole thing is bleak. The writer reminds us repeatedly that her life is private, that no one has the right to know any of its details and all I can think is, so what are we doing here, exactly?

Those that have read and enjoyed Li’s novels may find more to hang their hats on than I have found. All I know is that it is painful to read, has no beginning, middle or end that I can find, and is devoid of the literary qualities that can sometimes make a sad book enjoyable. I can’t recommend it.