Tag Archives: beach reads

She Regrets Nothing, by Andrea Dunlop****

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“Love,” she thought, “is for the rich and foolish.”

SheregretsLaila is just twenty-three when her mother dies, and she is astonished when her cousins appear at the funeral. Cousins? What cousins? In fact, they are from her father’s side of the family, long estranged—and they are very wealthy. Cousin Liberty wants to make amends, and nobody has to tell Laila twice. She ditches her home in Michigan, leaves her spouse, a dull dentist who’s blindsided by her sudden departure, and heads for New York City, to live in the style to which she would like to become accustomed.

Lucky me, I read this darkly funny story free courtesy of Atria Books and Net Galley. It was released Tuesday, so you can get a copy of your own now.

As Laila arrives in New York, the reader cannot help but worry for her. She’s never been to New York before, and she has very little money. She’s brought a few pieces of her mother’s jewelry, the only things of any value her mom had owned, but she doesn’t want to sell them. As she meets her newly found kinfolk and settles into a guest bedroom, it’s instinctual to wish we could grab her by the wrist and yank her back out of there. Careful Sweetie, you’re playing with fire. They’re being nice to you now because you’re new. When the novelty wears off, they’ll spit you back out again. New Yorkers are tough, and nobody uses people and discards them as quickly as the very rich—right?

There are at least a dozen places where I make predictions that prove incorrect. For example, given Laila’s trump card that makes her a possible heir, I find myself waiting for the DNA test that will prove she actually isn’t related to them at all…but that doesn’t happen. I can tell things won’t work out the way she anticipates because the author drops so much wry foreshadowing. But what she does with it at the end is both completely consistent with the protagonist as we know her, and a complete surprise as well.

Part of the joy this novel sparks is its understated quality. Some writers will drop something amusing into the storyline, but then they have to go back to it, explain it, make sure the reader got it and at that point it’s cold and lifeless. None of that for Dunlop. Stay on your toes; if you’re paying attention you’ll get it, but if you are distracted, oh well. Think of it like trying to catch a cab right after the theater lets out; watch out or you’ll be left behind.

I confess that I have read neither of the novels to which this one is compared in the promotional blurb, but to me, the humor is similar in some ways to that in The Nanny Diaries.

If you need a giggle—and frankly who doesn’t—you should order this snappy, cleverly turned novel. It’s a fast read and it made me laugh out loud.

I Found You, by Lisa Jewell****

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ifoundyouAlice has found a good looking man on the beach, and she’s brought him home. See what I’ve found! With just this much information, I am immediately engaged, wanting to have a conversation with this woman about risks, about dangers. For heaven’s sake, what about your kids? Friends, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Lisa Jewell’s hot new novel goes on sale April 25, 2017. I read mine free and early, thanks to Net Galley and Atria Books in exchange for an honest review.

The level of suspense is heightened by shifting points of view. We have the man himself, who has amnesia and doesn’t know his name. Alice has her children name him, and they decide to call him Frank. Her teenage daughter Jasmine rolls her eyes, and I want to grab Alice and say, “Oh no you didn’t!” But since I can’t do that, I read on instead.

Frank has nightmares and we are privy to them, as well as the fragments of memory that come home to him in shards and fragments, bit by bit.

We also have two other, separate story lines. One is that of Lily Monrose, whose husband Carl has vanished. She is just twenty-one years old and came with him to UK from Kiev. He showered her with affection and gifts, found them a home, set up housekeeping, and one day, he failed to return from work. What the heck?

And then we have a vacationing family with a narrative set in the past, featuring teenage siblings Kirsty and Gray, who fall into bad company one summer.

Naturally we wonder from the get-go how these disparate elements will come together at the end of the book. Is Frank really Carl? Is Carl really Gray? Is Frank…well, you see what I mean.

The thing that I love about Jewell’s work is that her dynamic characters are always women, and she develops them well. Alice isn’t always a lovable character; her impulse control and judgment are less than stellar. She tells Frank at the outset:

“I’m not the most together person in the world and it doesn’t take much to make all the wheels fall off.”

She promises her friend Derry, who has seen her through some dark times that were partly due to her own terrible instincts, that she is letting Frank stay in the mother-in-law apartment in back of her home. It has a separate entrance; she will lock the door to her home, and it will just be for one night. But then, the dog likes Frank, and so she takes down the safeguards—the locked door, the one night, the keeping him in a separate place from her family—in breathtakingly swift succession, and I am with Derry, who asks Alice to remember what happened before.

Before what? I turn the pages a little faster.

Meanwhile, the police are way too slow in trying to help Lily, who is isolated in her exurban apartment; she is frantic. Her mother wants her to stop looking for Carl and come home, and it sounds like a smart idea to me, but then I have never lived in Kiev, so who knows? The longer Carl is gone, and the more we learn about him, the more I want to take Lily to the airport. Fly away little bird, there’s nothing that is good for you here!

The hardest buy-in for me is at the beginning, because really, people don’t just get amnesia. Not from car accidents, not from shocking experiences, not from anything. It’s almost unheard of, the stuff of bad old movies. But a good author can sell anybody anything, and I want to know what happens next, so I tell myself, fine then. Amnesia it is. And the way the rest of it unfurls is fascinating. Flawed but appealing, believable characters combined with strong pacing make this addictive novel the one you want at the vacation cabin, the beach, or just for a rainy weekend curled up in your favorite chair.

Recommended to those that love good fiction.

Say Nothing, by Brad Parks***

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saynothingEvery parent with a baby or toddler has this one terrible, dark fear: that someone will take that baby.  In Say Nothing, that horrific event is doubled when Sam and Emma, twin sons of Scott and Alison, are taken and the note that sends frozen tendrils of fear up their spines instructs them not to tell anyone. No police; no one at all can know. “Say nothing.” Thanks go to Net Galley and Dutton Penguin for the DRC, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The book came out last week and is now available for purchase.

This story takes off like a rocket.  Scott Sampson is a Federal judge, and some devious criminals that know the family’s every habit snatch the children and send him a text message before either parent knows they are gone. Someone has impersonated Alison, swept by their preschool, and whisked the little ones away. How absolutely terrifying!

The purpose is soon clear: the kidnappers want to manipulate a major case on the Federal docket, assigned to Scott Sampson. Contacting police is out of the question. They’ve threatened to cut off their little fingers, one by one, and mail them to their parents.

Parks is a champ at building suspense. For me, the thrill is tarnished when I see a repetitive error—one many people won’t even notice—that has the effect of sweeping aside the curtain and showing me that the Great and Powerful Oz is just a guy in a chair. In this case, having had a judge in the family for many years and seeing the mistake in the text makes it hard to maintain the premise.  You see, when one is in court, the judge is “The Honorable” and is addressed as “your Honor”; in private life, his employees, friends and family all call him John, or Mr. W—. We used to eat out with this man frequently, and there was always a little family eye roll and slight smile when the obsequious maitre d’ at a downtown restaurant where we often ate came dashing out to the valet parking area calling, “Oh, Judge W—! Judge W—! We have your table ready now!”

In private life, if you need a title, a Supreme Court judge is called “Justice Jones”. Everyone else is called “Mr. Jones” or “Ms. Jones”.

I try to push past this obstacle but the error is made often in the dialogue, and so the memory of my relative’s patient courtesy is always lurking in the margins of my perception of the story. The upshot is that for me, it really gets in the way.

That said, I like the pacing of this story, and the solution is elegant and plausible.

Recommended to fans of the author’s Carter Ross series.

Small Admissions, by Amy Poeppel*****

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smalladmissionsI received an advance reader’s copy of this darkly amusing novel from Net Galley and Atria Books. It’s funny as hell, and even more amusing to teachers, school counselors, and others that have dealt with high maintenance parents and the aura of entitlement they carry with them. I rate this title 4.5 stars and round upward.  It comes out December 27, 2016, just in time to chase away your post-holiday depression.

I sat on this book for more than three months, which is a rare thing for me.  I kept starting it, not liking it, and deciding to set it aside and look again with fresh eyes later. Finally November came, and I realized the book was not going to change; I’d given my word to the publisher I’d review it; it was time to suck it up and get the job done. And this is a little ironic all by itself, since that’s the position in which our protagonist found herself, but more on that in a minute.

The issue with the first part of the book is that it reads like a very lengthy introduction, steeped in character introduction and overlong inner narrative. After I had read—and loved—the rest of the book, I went back and reread that 15%. Was it just me? What was wrong with it? And once I had read the book and become familiar with all of the characters, it seemed perfectly fine. In fact, it seemed a lot like the voice-over at the beginning of a movie. Then I read the author’s biography, and discovered that this novel was first written as a play.

Suddenly, it all made sense.

Our protagonist is Kate, and she’s come undone. Her French boyfriend has dumped her:

“When he’d encouraged Kate to follow her heart, he hadn’t meant she should follow it to Paris.”

Meanwhile, upon departure she’s left her position at NYU.  She was studying anthropology, and now she isn’t, and her family doesn’t know what to do about it. Enter Angela, her sister, who moves heaven and Earth in order to get Kate’s life going again; once Kate’s out of the woods, Angela can’t stop maneuvering and controlling. She’s good at being a white knight, and she can’t give it up. We have Vicki and Chloe, her friends from college, and the old boyfriend from France lurking offstage.

The fun commences when Kate gets a job in the admissions department of a small, private secondary school. She’s misrepresented her skill set to get it, but she’s determined to give it a try:

“Kate viewed Hudson Day as an unknown culture that required her exploration.”

It’s time to start interviewing and selecting students, managing interviews with demanding, sometimes aggressive parents. I’ve taught honors students in a public secondary school, and I thought my experience took fortitude; Kate’s experience was similar to my own, but on steroids.

There are hilariously dysfunctional parents, kids whose folks don’t have a clue what they can do and what they can’t, and in the midst of it all, relationships among Kate’s nearest and dearest become unstuck and reconfigured in ways that mirror those Kate works with, and even Kate herself. I can’t tell you anymore, because it would ruin it for you, but this snarky romp is not to be missed. It’s cunning, wickedly bold humor at its finest.

The Vanishing Year, by Kate Moretti****

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thevanishingyear 3.5 stars, rounded up for this one. I received my copy from Atria Books and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.  I am impressed most by the first half of the book, and particularly with regard to character, Kate Moretti is a rock star.

Our protagonist is Zoe Whitaker, and we learn that Zoe grew up as Hilary—with one “L”, and no political baggage—and then chose to adopt “Zoe”, the name on her birth certificate prior to her adoption. There’s a lot more mess here than there needs to be, the adopted-child angst, the guilt over having not given her mother Evelyn the funeral she deserved, and fear, fear, fear.

Moretti does a wonderful job of building suspense, and part of this is the vague but real tension, the constant shoulder-checking, wondering if someone has found her. It makes us wonder who, and it makes us wonder why. Bit by bit, she unspools tidbits of the past in the way you might expect someone that needs a friend and is learning to trust a new confidant might do.

Moretti’s main character is beautifully sculpted. Some novelists that withhold information to build tension hang onto so much that we don’t get to know our protagonist, but I was perched right on Zoe’s shoulder, or hanging out with her newly discarded friend Lydia, asking her why the heck Zoe is so passive. Is fear the only language Zoe knows? I felt close to Zoe, and I wanted her to tell me more.

Meanwhile, there’s the marriage. Henry Whitaker, an immensely wealthy man, sees Zoe across a crowd and homes in on her. Those familiar with the patterns common to abusive relationships know that this is a red flag; the guy whose gaze lights on a partner and from then on wants full possession of every move, every thought, and every minute. He makes a snap decision like lightning and then never lets up. And Henry has plenty of other red flags too, but he’s not a stereotypic abuser; Moretti is too cunning to permit any caricatures into her novel.

For the first half of this story, I relished the meaty ambiguity, not only in Zoe’s life but in what it represents. Yes, Henry is too possessive, too bossy, but on the other hand, this young woman that has never been known for her remarkable beauty or extraordinary talent has the Cinderella marriage without the stepsisters.

“I might be under someone’s thumb, but I have money now.”

Zoe has no living relatives to her knowledge, apart from the birth mom she hasn’t located and that may not want her when she does. She doesn’t have a degree, and is working at a florist’s shop in Manhattan when Henry finds her and whisks her away. He is devoted to her, provides her with every small thing her heart desires. She has a car and a driver, she has servants, she has clothes, jewels, and the whole nine yards. Everyone defers to her. There’s no restaurant that won’t make room for her at the front of the queue. Tickets to a sold out event? No problem.

It is easy for us to moralize from afar, we feminists with our principles, but economic want can shorten a woman’s life significantly. As this reviewer heads into retirement, I look at the lives of the women I knew when we were school girls, and no matter how clever or talented, their material well being seems tied, more than anything, to who they married and whether they remained married. Ask any woman over age 50 who’s looking for a job and watching those past-due notices land in her mailboxes, both electronic and physical, and many of those same women would be more than happy to let someone else tell them what to wear in exchange for such a well-padded safety net.

And so as Henry’s behavior escalates, I grow more entranced with the story’s Virginia Woolfish aspect, and I expect Moretti to take us up that mountain. How much is too much? At what point does one relinquish the guarantee, if there is one, of not only the basic requirements but luxuries one may quickly grow accustomed to, in exchange for breathing room, the dignity that comes with independence, self-respect, and with apologies to Woolf, possibly a room of one’s own?

But Moretti doesn’t go in that direction; at the last minute she tosses in a tremendous amount of new information that is original yet seriously far-fetched. Those that want a white-knuckle thriller with a female protagonist may be very happy here, but I was sad, left feeling as if the waiter had decided not to serve me and abandoned me after the hors d’oeuvres.

This title was released on October 4, and so if you are eager to see what all the buzz is about, get a copy, and then let me know what you think.

One way or another, Moretti will be a novelist to watch. The subtlety and nuance that escaped her as this novel progressed are still hers to be had, if she chooses to use them. I know I can’t wait to see what she publishes next.

In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox, by Carol Burnett****

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suchgoodcompany  When I saw that Burnett had published a memoir of her years as America’s favorite comedic performer on The Carol Burnett Show, which ran from 1967 through 1978, my first thought was, what, another memoir? She’s already published at least three others, one of which I have read and reviewed. But the fact is, she hadn’t used up all her juice yet. Each of her memoirs focuses on some particular aspect of her life, and so this book is new, it’s original, and it’s probably the stuff you were hoping she’d talk about in her other memoirs. Lucky me, I read it free thanks to Net Galley and Crown Archetype. It was published September 13 and I am sorry to be on the late side, but I scored my own copy just prior to publication; I had no idea it was available till Crown put a promotion up on Facebook and it showed up on my home page.  I genuinely held my breath as I logged onto Net Galley to see if I was too late, and happily, the Literature Fairy smiled on me.

As the memoir begins, I am at first a trifle disappointed, because it appears as if she is just going to list every single person that’s ever appeared on her show and gush about how nice they were.  But she’s just warming up, and it gets more interesting. She describes how she made her way into show business, and though she skims over the early years, knowing that the reader wants to get to the show, it sounds very much as if she was the overnight success that aspiring actors only dream of becoming.  She was on a show that I wasn’t around yet to watch called “The Garry Moore Show”, and she must have made not only a tremendous impression, but also a lot of friends, because she was offered her own variety show—think of it!—and then was able to bring a head writer, a choreographer, a bunch of dancers and some other people west with her from New York to Los Angeles.

This show was a fixture in my childhood and adolescence. One of Burnett’s regular satirical sketches lampooned soap operas, and it was called “As the Stomach Turns”. It was one of the few things that made my parents and me laugh out loud at the same time. My friends and I spent ridiculous, late night hours creating our own satire of a satire, which we dubbed “As the Stomach Churns”, and which featured imaginary illicit relationships among our own teachers along with the administration, janitorial staff, and especially our librarian, a book hoarder that chased away all potential clientele from her sacred gates.  So when I saw that Burnett was writing about the show, I had to see what she’d written, because she had been an intrinsic part of my own development.

All comers that want to read this should do it near an internet source if at all possible, because the comedic sketches can be viewed on television and now also on YouTube. This is fairly new: I tried to view them a couple of years ago and they weren’t there yet, so this is exciting all by itself.

And if you have never seen any of her work and wonder what I am carrying on about, check it:

 

 

and with Robin Williams:

 

The life that she led sounds like something most actors could only dream of. She got up, got her kids off to school, started work on the show mid-morning Monday-Friday, with a single run-through on Thursday followed by a live show before a studio audience Friday, and then they were done at three o’clock and she was done by the time her kids were out of school. It came down to disciplined behavior on the part of the cast and crew, and to the unusually respectful atmosphere in which the show was done. Once a guest misbehaved and when he threatened to storm off the set, she let him go and said good riddance; they did the show without him.  (She won’t give us a name, but he was short. I have been speculating ever since.)

 

She does tell the many spoofs that were done on movies of the past, and which actors called to say they just loved what the show had done with their film, and which either called up and were angry or sent indirect messages that they were not amused. And she  offers a retrospective look at the way women in show business were expected to behave back then; she was sometimes a doormat, and exultantly recounts how Edie Gourmet, on a guest visit, gave some of it back to those that bullied Carol.

 

Some of the funniest bits of writing are included, and some of the regular cast’s best onstage moments are recounted, along with those of favorite guest stars. A complete list of every show and which guests were featured is at the back of the book for those that want to look up particular entertainers, or  peruse it for fun.

 

But the bottom line is that this is pure gold for those that love Burnett and the show, and that can follow along some of the high performance points online. If you aren’t interested in her work, then the memoir won’t mean much to you.

 

Recommended to Burnett’s many fans.

 

All the Good Parts, by Loretta Nyhan*****

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allthegoodpartsThere are times when a novel is more than the sum of its parts, and this is one of those times. Loretta Nyhan combines strong character development, our changing social mores, and sassy, kick-ass word smithery and this is the result. Thank you Net Galley and you too, Lake Union Publishing, for the DRC, which I received free in exchange for this honest review. The title is available today, hot off the presses.

Leona is 39 years old, taking online classes, working part time as a home health aide, and living in her sister and brother-in-law’s basement. She is unchallenged by any real ambition until her doctor—an old school friend—tells her that if she wants to have a baby, she’d better get to it before her eggs are dead. So now Leona—‘Lee’ to her family—is ready to get preggers and pop out a child. Let’s do it!

Leona is the woman I want to grab by the elbow and drag into the kitchen so I can tell her some hard truths. Instead, her sister Carly does it for me. Everything Carly says makes complete sense. She points out to Leona that she is so passive that even the baby idea is not her own; it was her doctor’s. Leona drifts through life letting people tell her what to do, and is that any way to raise a kid?

In addition, since Leona is not dating, she needs a sperm donor. The sperm bank and intro fertilization is crazy-expensive; she really only knows four possible donors. There’s an elderly patient growing accustomed to his status as a double amputee, but although he offers, it would be so unprofessional to take him up on it! There’s an online study-buddy that she hasn’t even met in the flesh; there’s her niece’s tutor, a very bright, handsome homeless man who’s actually even more passive than Leona; and there’s Paul, the son of the patient who dislikes her and fires her.

My, my, my.

This dandy little book is full of interesting philosophical questions and home truths that pop in and out of the narrative and dialogue like fireflies, blinking here and there without slowing anything down or stopping too long in any one place. And in some places, it’s drop-dead funny.  Nyhan uses deft, clever prose to move both the story and the protagonist forward, and in doing so she creates a very visceral, tangible protagonist. I don’t always like Leona, but I do always believe her.

I’ve never liked the category “chick lit”, because women read books featuring men—sometimes men only—and there’s no special category for that, so in the best world, men should want to read this book too. But in the world we have now, this will sell primarily to women. But whoever you are, you should get this book and read it. I have seldom enjoyed a DRC so much; it was my go-to book when I didn’t feel like reading another mystery or delving into George Washington’s past.  I would read something else out of duty, and then turn to this one as my reward. And I was sorry when it ended.

Recommended without reservation to anyone with a pulse.

A Long Time Dead–A Mike Hammer Casebook, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins*****

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 alongtimedead  “The evening sky was gray and growling but I had left the trenchcoat behind and my suit coat was unbuttoned. This was the kind of sketchy gin mill where I wanted easy access to the .45 under my arm. The waterfront bouquet greeted me, salt air, grease, oil, sweat and dead fish drifting like a ghost with body odor.

“If you needed to know anything about the harbor facilities stretching from the Battery to Grant’s Tomb, or wanted a line on anybody in the National Maritime Union or the Teamsters, this was your port of call. If you wanted to get laid or make somebody dead, that could be arranged, too. You know the place. They have them in London and Mexico City and Rome and Hong Kong, with smaller variations in smaller locales. But none were meaner or dirtier than the bar run by Benny Joe Grissi.”

Spillane was the prototype for noir fiction, and even though he’d been hiding in plain sight, I never read Spillane because he wrote so many books that I assumed he was cranking out something formulaic, a pot boiler special. I am delighted to find I was mistaken; this set of short stories, an atypical medium for Spillane, was provided to me free courtesy of Net Galley and Open Road Integrated Media in exchange for an honest review. I’ve had a few DRCs that didn’t measure up to my expectations lately, and this particular galley was my bright spot, the reading I considered my dessert after I had dutifully choked down the stuff I was only reading because I’d said I would.

Collins was a close friend of Spillane’s, and at the author’s request, he rounded out some rough drafts that had been left behind when Spillane died. Collins suspects that they had been left dormant because the author’s church would not have approved of the brief—and by today’s standard, very tame—sexual content included. Whatever. We can read them now, and Collins has used Spillane’s style seamlessly. Only one of these stories is more his than Spillane’s, and he tells us which one it is. He did a great job with it.

The author is legendary for the call-and-response style dialogue associated with the genre as a whole now. His use of it and other figurative language is so sweet that I found myself—a retired language arts teacher whose highlighter is the modern day equivalent of the red pen—noting passages where it’s artfully used, and sometimes I got so caught up in watching the language that I had to go back and reread a few pages, because I had lost track of the plot. But it was worth it. Here are a couple of examples:

“’Sure you aren’t seeing ghosts?’

“’Once I’ve killed this guy—really killed him—then maybe I’ll see a ghost.’”

And on the same page, more of the same; Lincoln followed by Lincoln, salesman followed by salesman. Together with the alliteration and the brisk, no nonsense yet curiously intimate prose, I found myself mesmerized. Spillane doesn’t care about preserving evidence, and he usually won’t call cops, at least not until his own business has been concluded. Given today’s social climate and mistrust of urban cops, I suspect this newly issued work by the famous writer will find a wide audience.

Although it’s been decades, I can nearly swear that the Carol Burnett show did some spoofs of this type of narrative during the 1970s, when I was just a kid. If one uses too much of the repetition it becomes ridiculous, and of course Burnett and her colleagues could spot fodder for satire a mile away. But although I kept my antennae up, I never found a weak place in the text that took the lyrical repetition to the point of silliness. It’s carefully meted out so that it reels the reader in rather than appearing ridiculous and distracting. And if you look at my last sentence, I can promise you the alliteration there was unintentional. Good writing stays with us, as any teacher will tell you; this is one reason we have students read something before they write. And thus it is that a tiny nugget of Spillane’s technique has made its way into my review.

Most people don’t want to analyze detective stories; they just want to read them. If so, then you should be good to go here. I was additionally pleased by the lack of racial and ethnic slurs which some writers of the genre would include in the name of authenticity. Likewise, the gorgeous receptionist is actually Spillane’s partner in both senses of the word, and she listens to what people reveal when they believe no one important is listening.

This is the very best of the noir genre. If you enjoy great detective fiction and can stand some graphic violence, this book is for you.

Pancakes in Paris, by Craig Carlson****

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pancakesinparisThe American dream has become harder for ordinary people to attain, but Carlson is living proof that it can happen; yet some of us may need to go somewhere else to find it. In his upbeat, congenial memoir, “the pancake guy” chronicles his journey, from the kid of a wretchedly dysfunctional home—and I don’t use the term lightly—to the owner of Breakfast in America, his own restaurant franchise in France. This title was a bright spot in my reading lineup last month, and it can be a bright spot in yours too. Thank you to Sourcebooks and Net Galley for the DRC, which I received free in exchange for an honest review.

Is this a thing that any kid in America could have done? Not so much. Carlson has a rare blend of  intelligence, organization, and social skills; above and beyond all else, he possesses unstoppable determination, clear focus, and a work ethic that never flags for one tiny minute until he discovers he is close to working himself to death. Those lacking talent and determination may never reach the end of the rainbow as this author has done; that much is clear. But oh, what fun to share the ride with him!

Given his family’s expectations for him, or lack thereof, it’s amazing he finished high school, and his acquisition of a college education is more remarkable still. But it is his junior year at a state college in Connecticut that plants the seed that will sprout and grow into a way of life; he is invited to spend his school year in Paris. Once he’s there, the tumblers click, and he knows that he has found his people.

As Carlson’s story unspools, he debunks stereotypes believed by many Americans, and a few of them are ones I believed too until I read this memoir. Carlson delivers setting in a way much more immediate than any number of Google searches can provide, but it’s his insights regarding French culture, law, and society that make his memoir so captivating. The prose is lean and occasionally hilarious. He plucks choice, juicy vignettes from his journey all along the way, and this makes us feel as if we are riding quietly on his shoulder taking it all in as he goes.

If you’ve never been to France and don’t intend to, you can still enjoy this book. If you don’t like pancakes or any aspect of the traditional American breakfast, it doesn’t matter. Carlson is enormously entertaining, and so his story stands on its own merits. I am furthermore delighted to see that the only recipe that is inserted into his narrative is actually a joke. A small collection of actual recipes is inserted at the end, and although I never, ever, ever do this, I intend to try one of them out tonight! But even if you skip the recipe section entirely, you should read this memoir. It’s too much fun to miss. The best news of all is that it’s available for purchase right now.

Get it, and read it!

Two Miles of Darkness, by Earl Emerson****

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twomilesofdarkness Fans of Emerson’s Thomas Black mysteries will be as pleased as I was to see this, the 14th in the series. Black took a very long nap and seemed to have all but disappeared for awhile, but then he was back with Monica’s Sister, followed by this title. There was no DRC for this one, so I picked it up free using my Amazon Prime digital credits. It was a good way to spend them. The book was released in 2015, so of course you can get it also.

We start out with one of my three most tired devices for a mystery novelist: Black and his sidekick, Snake are hogtied in the trunk of a car. I rolled my eyes in the way that made my second grade teacher caution me might make them stick that way forever—an outstanding science lesson that remained with me long after the legitimate curriculum had drifted away—but because I like this series so much, I kept reading anyway. And it was worth it.

Eventually of course Black stops discussing being stuck inside the trunk, and he remembers back, back, back to how all this came about. And that’s the story that is great fun and also well written.

Black grew up in the working class here in Seattle, but his father did errands and handyman work for a wealthy widow that went by the nickname Doda. Dad is long gone, but Doda is still there, and she hires Black to find Pickles, a dog she gave to Mick and Alex Kraft. The Krafts, by peculiar coincidence, had also tried to hire Black recently in order to find out who was harassing them; Mick had experienced a string of terrible luck that he believed was too sudden to be a coincidence. Black told him that sometimes bad luck really is just bad luck, but the next thing you know, they’re both dead. Police are calling it a murder and suicide; Doda just wants the dog back. She’ll pay a pretty penny if Black can find Pickles and bring him safely home.

In this matter, Black’s friend Snake, usually the irresponsible party where the two friends are involved, is the sensible one that points out the truth, a very good reason to turn the dog job down:

“You hate rich people. Think about these guys. The rest of the world works for a living, but these guys have nothing to do all day but drink Mai Tais and sit around the pool waiting for their dividend checks to arrive in the mail. It burns you up. I know it does.”

 

Snake is right. Black hates the rich, and I have a sneaking hunch that Emerson does too.  So in this tale, we have a couple of spoiled men—no longer young enough to be called brats—known as Chad and Binky. One is Doda’s son, and the other is the son’s best buddy. Their massive resources coupled with a life of leisure and surfeit of free time give them the capacity to play elaborate pranks, and both show a solipsistic disregard for the effect their games have upon the lives of others. They fit Snake’s description to a tee.

Nevertheless, Black takes the doggy job, and so we have two mysteries, the official dog-finding mystery, and the unofficial mystery Black’s conscience requires him to tackle regarding the Krafts.

One small fact-checking blooper hit my I-don’t-think-so-button, and that was the widely-believed myth that all juvenile records are sealed once the doer of the crime turns 18. In reality, after a number of years, a hefty filing fee, and a ton of complicated paperwork, the person in question can have the particulars of their crime locked away, but if it was a relatively small offense, that may make matters worse, because anyone running the background check will see that the person did something in their youth that they want concealed. Most juvenile offenders never want to see a courtroom again when they are older, and most don’t have the extra money to throw at a court procedure anyway, so the misdeed stays on the record until they grow old and die. It never vanishes from the record, as some folks, sadly some of them juveniles looking for trouble, believe. At least, that’s the truth in Washington State, and that’s where Emerson lives and where his story is set.

Now back to our story. Emerson is a champ when it comes to pacing, and he’s one of the best there is when it comes to bouncing a straight man off a colorful sidekick like Elmer “Snake” Sleazak. The story would be no fun at all without Snake, but with him, it’s immensely entertaining. The sly banter and the unexpected, off-the-chain behaviors will put a smile on your face; if you don’t find him funny, check your pulse to make sure you aren’t dead.  Add another side character, a neighbor kid named Charlie that was friends with Pickles the dog, and there’s charm all over the place. People often underestimate kids, who are often our best observers: “Charlie knew the neighborhood like a cheating husband knew every creaky stair on his front porch.”

This is a page-turner that will make your own troubles seem oh so small, and for those that find themselves with a long weekend at hand, this book will provide the excuse you may need to just chill for awhile. One way or the other, this is a well written story, deftly handle with just the right balance of mirth and suspense. My records tell me I have read over 700 mysteries since 2012, and that doesn’t even take into account most of what I read during the previous decades of adulthood, and so I am picky. I see a device that I’ve grown tired of, and a star falls of my rating. But as for you, if you lean leftward and love a good private eye story, this could well be a five star read.

Recommended to those that lean left and enjoy detective fiction and comic capers.