Tag Archives: fiction

The Hunter, by Tana French*****

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In 2020, Tana French gave us The Searcher, the first in the Cal Hooper detective series. By that time I was already an established fan, but I loved that book particularly well, for reasons I’ll revisit in a moment. Now we have the second in the series, The Hunter, and if anything can reduce this crusty old English teacher to a blushing fan girl, this is it. Two books in, this is already on my short list of favorite series. My thanks go to NetGalley and the Penguin Group for the review copy. This book will be available to the public Tuesday, March 5, 2024.

The series debut introduced the characters, with the protagonist being a retired Chicago cop that found this tiny Irish village on vacation and, needing a new home far from his ex-wife, yet affordable, discovered a bargain fixer of a home and decided to stay. The story’s main problem revolved around a nearly feral tween that kept popping up at Cal’s place. The scrappy little stinker that was relieving Cal of food, occasionally, and doing other unsettling things turned out to be a girl; her name is Teresa, but she’s known as Trey. Her family was in dire straights following the departure of Trey’s father; her brother had left, intending to return, but never had. The mystery was where Trey’s brother had gone, what had become of him, and why. In the interim, she became greatly attached to Cal, who enjoyed her company and taught her some woodworking skills, but also kept a careful distance, lest rumors start and grow.

Now Trey is a bit older, and she is more civilized. She is close to both Cal and Lena, the local woman that Cal has been seeing. But as life settles into a civilized hum, one that would be comfortable had climate change not created a drought that has local farmers at the near end of their wits and their bank accounts, the unexpected happens once again: Johnny Reddy, Trey’s no-account father, has returned. Cal is prepared to step back, if need be, in case Trey wishes to bond with her actual dad rather than himself. Meanwhile, Johnny vows to visit Cal with some local moonshine, and “make a night of it.”

“Trey says nothing. If he does that, she’ll get Cal’s rifle and blow his fucking foot off, and see can he make his way down the mountain to Cal’s after that.”

Johnny never succeeds in bonding with Cal, who doesn’t like the look of him. “Johnny gives him the urge to pat him down and ask him where he’s headed. There are guys like that, who flunk the sniff test just going to the store; it’s a good cop’s job to work out whether they’re actually doing something hinky, or whether it’s just that they will be sooner or later, probably sooner.”

The village is a tiny one, and outsiders are few. Everyone in the vicinity knows that Johnny’s back; everyone wonders what he’s up to. They haven’t long to wait; he’s brought a man with him, one whose family once lived here, or so he says; and the man is interested in seeing if there’s gold on some of the local properties. “He has a rich man’s smile, easy and understated, the smile of a man who isn’t required to put in effort.”  Now the question is whether this “plastic Paddy” is a shyster trying to rip off the locals, or if he is someone that Johnny is seeking to fleece. Meanwhile, Trey has a different agenda, a private one.

The thing that makes this story so much better than your standard mystery is the characterization. If you are in search of a thriller that is all page-turning action, this isn’t your book. However, if you love a layered story with complex, convincing characters, this is for you. I said in my previous review of the first in the series that Trey is what makes an otherwise solid story a golden one, and that’s even truer here. One could even argue that it’s really her series, with Cal existing as scaffolding. Time will tell.

In particular, though, anyone that works with, or has worked with at risk youth cannot, must not miss this story. French has taken hold of my heartstrings hard, and I don’t want her to let go. Highly recommended.

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice, by Elle Cosimano*****

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“I’m telling you, Finlay, this book is good. This whole SERIES is good. The plots may be a little far-fetched, but these characters are so real! It’s like they just jump off the page!“

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice is the fourth in the raucously entertaining series by Elle Cosimano. My thanks go to the Minotaur and St. Martin’s Press Influencer Program and NetGalley for the review copy. It will be available to the public Tuesday, March 5, 2024.

At the end of the previous book, Javi, Finn’s nanny Vero’s boyfriend, was abducted by mobsters that wanted to collect a gambling debt incurred by Vero. In this one, the two women plan to travel to Atlantic City to rescue him, with the cover story of needing time to unwind. However, things snowball, and before you know it, almost all the people they hold dear—and a few people that they don’t—are headed there, too. What follows is a riotous adventure with a lot of moving pieces. I love it.

More than any other, this installment has been controversial among reviewers. In the series debut, Finlay is an innocent, entirely law abiding single mother strapped with bills, work, and child care issues. She’s in the midst of a contentious divorce and her soon-to-be ex is an attorney, which makes Finlay’s efforts an uphill battle. She’s easy to relate to, and when, through no fault of her own, she finds herself with a corpse in her car, it seems entirely believable.

With the second and third books in the series, Finn, accompanied by the more street smart Vero, find themselves in deeper trouble. Just as they mop up one mess, another arises, until there’s a sort of house-that-Jack-built tower of problems that see both women in increasingly tenuous circumstances. They break the law once as a life or death matter, but then cannot safely come clean, so they do their best to put it behind them, but someone or something comes along to threaten the modest safety and security they’ve begun to enjoy. Bodies and crimes pile up, and now, with the fourth installment, the author can’t reasonably convince the reader that whatever happens next is purely an oopsie. Instead, she has to draw on other possibilities. Personally, I like it.

Finn and Vero are chasing down the underworld figures that they believe have abducted Javi, and there’s considerable risk involved. A couple of times I literally draw in my breath at the risks they take. Add to this the need to fabricate excuses to tell the myriad members of the retinue that have descended on Atlantic City with them, and it’s an ambitious undertaking.

In this circumstance, I no longer require realism. The whole thing takes on the flavor of a comic caper, what with the clown car full of women, including Finn’s mother; Finn’s ex-husband, who is in charge of the children; and various others (I am being deliberately vague here) that descend on them once they arrive. To put it another way, if Stephanie Plum and John Dortmunder—or if you prefer, Bernie Rhodenbarr—had a baby, she might be Finlay Donovan.  

If you need a good laugh, this book is for you; however, with this series, you really should begin with the first in the series, Finlay Donovan is Killing It. With just four in the series (and the audio is outstanding, too,) this will be a quick and hilarious adventure. What are you waiting for? Jump on in.

Starter Villain, by John Scalzi****

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I’m not going to write a full review for this one; my spouse got it for me for Christmas, so I don’t owe anyone anything. I will tell you, though, that it’s just what I needed, funny, warm, and of course, not even close to realistic. After all, it’s fantasy. The level of unreality is well crafted and consistent within the narrative, and it’s hugely inventive. This is my first John Scalzi novel, and I will read him again in a heartbeat.

After Annie, by Anna Quindlen*****

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After Annie tells the story of a family that is changed by the sudden death of the mother, a woman still in her thirties. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public Tuesday, February 27, 2024.

I’ve read a number of books by this author, and I have come to notice a pattern. I read the synopsis, like the sentence I used to begin this review. I see what it’s about and shrug. Doesn’t sound like it would be all that special, but hey, it’s Quindlen, and I have liked her work before, so let’s give it a shot. After all, in past novels, the topics also didn’t seem engaging at the outset. One novel is about a family being forced to relocate due to eminent domain; another has to do with parking spaces in New York City. There’s a memoir about grandparenting, and another about—I kid you not—her dog. Nothing here seems all that appealing.

Yet in some ways, it is the very ordinariness of her subjects that draws us in. So many of us have had to move when we didn’t want to, and so we fought it; or we became so angry with a neighbor’s thoughtlessness that we fantasized about terrible revenge; or we dealt with a death that came out of the blue, striking down someone that was perfectly healthy, or that seemed to be. If we haven’t done any of these things, chances are excellent that someone else we care about has. By tapping into every day experiences and crises of various sizes, Quindlen finds commonalities.

But perhaps the most important feature of her books, particularly her novels, is the way that she crafts characters that are so visceral we would know them if we saw them on the street. Young Ali, the daughter who’s just beginning middle school, yet suddenly finds herself burdened by all of the things her mother did for the family, from child care to meals to housework, is so real to me that I nearly climb inside of her skin, and when Annie’s best buddy tries to tell Bill, Annie’s husband, Ali’s dad, that this isn’t okay and he blows her off, I want to cry out. We can see that he’s behaving selfishly, whether he knows it or not, because he is so poleaxed with grief. It’s hard to prepare a meal when you can’t stop crying. Hell, Bill can hardly go into the kitchen, because that’s where she died.

Grief was like spring, maybe. You thought you were getting out from under it, and then it came roaring back. And getting out from under it felt like forgetting, and forgetting felt like treason.

I began reading this story because I like the author, but it also serves as a grief book. I found this out when my sister died about halfway through. Unlike Annie, my sister was not in the prime of her life, nor was her death unexpected. She’d been horribly ill and in great pain for years on end. Her death was a relief, ending her pain, and ending the anguish of others that had been constantly seeing her that way, helpless to improve her life in any way. So I am not poleaxed like poor Bill. She didn’t leave behind a houseful of small children and a middle schooler trying to pick up all of the pieces. She didn’t have a six year old who would explain to everyone that his mommy wouldn’t be dead anymore once she came home from the hospital. But what I am saying is that I find this book more soothing than I would have guessed. If you or someone near to you is dealing with loss, After Annie may help you too.

Highly recommended.

Sharks In the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn*****

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A story like this one only comes along once in a rare while, luminous, intimate, and deeply affecting. My great thanks go to NetGalley and also Farrar, Strauss and Giroux for the review copy. This book is available to the public, and you should get it and read it.

Initially I was drawn to this book for several fairly superficial reasons. The cover is certainly arresting; the title is perplexing. But the biggest draw for me was that it was set in Hawaii, and all of the characters are native Hawaiians. In my corner of the world, the Pacific Northwest, there are a lot of Pacific Islanders. Why anyone would leave such an idyllic climate for the dark, soggy winters we see here used to be a mystery to me, but ultimately, people follow the jobs, and so many Seattle residents come from there.

As a history teacher, I’ve always felt that my students deserve to be included in the curriculum, and so in addition to teaching about Caucasians during whatever time period we’re examining, I work in African-Americans, Latinx, Native peoples, and a variety of Asian ethnicities, but time and again I hit a wall when I tried to find something for my Islander students. And when I’ve taught literature, it’s been the same struggle. Islander kids get shut out every time.  And so now I am retired, and here’s my appeal to other educators out there. Put this book in your classroom.

For the rest of you: apologies. Let’s get on with it.

As we open, the setting is Hawaii in 1995, and the protagonists are two parents and three children, all members of the Flores family. They’re on vacation when seven year old Noa falls into the ocean where sharks are circulating. But instead of devouring the boy, one of the sharks delivers him back to his family, carrying him gently in its jaws, “Like you were made of glass, like you were its child.” The first chapter is told in the second person, with Malia, the mother, recalling the event, speaking to Noa. She tells him, “The gods were hungry for change, and you were that change.” It’s obviously a miracle, and others see it happen also. Their lives will never be the same.

As the story continues, we hear from all of the family members. At first, Noa appears to be gifted with a magical healing ability, but he is still a child, and the demands on him are grueling, exhausting. But this is not the only change his magical abilities produce. Noa is the youngest child in the family, but now the siblings’ hierarchy is completely flipped, and the resentment felt by his brother and sister is dreadful. At one point Kaui, who is academically talented, fumes that she is “just his shadow, shaped like a sister.”  And his brother Dean, who is an athlete, explains:

You’re out at breakfast without him, eating cereal and joking with Mom and Dad, Kaui coming in, and you get them all laughing and smiling, just because of you. But then Noa shows up right, and suddenly it’s all questions about what’s happening with his day and did he sleep okay and here’s some thoughts about which extracurricular program he should enroll in…Hard not for get angry at that. I felt it like a fist flexing inside my own chest.

To make matters even more fraught, there’s an economic downturn that makes it impossible for the parents to support the family. They begin charging people that come to be healed by Noa, and so the youngest child is not only the golden favorite because of his miraculous ability; he’s also the family breadwinner. And again: it’s an awful lot to put on the shoulders of one small child.

The dialect combines with the authorial voice to create characters that I swear I would know if I ran into them, and in many ways, they remind me of the adolescents that I taught. Because I was so unconscionably late here, I checked out the audio version at Seattle Bibliocommons, and I have never heard an audiobook I loved more. The voice actors are so convincing that I can hear them now, more than a month and several other audiobooks, after I finished it.

For me, that would be enough. Create visceral enough characters and I don’t even care much about the plot. But the plot is also gobsmackingly brilliant! I believed I could track where it was headed up until perhaps the 60% mark, and then there’s one surprise turn, and another, and another, till at the end I was simply sitting with my mouth open and my eyes on the text as the audio gave way to the afterword and credits. I had to remind myself to breathe.

This is one of those rare galleys that I could see reading again just for the love of it. This review is my 923rd for NetGalley, and I have chosen to reread fewer than 10 of them, so let that indicate the measure of esteem in which I hold this novel.

The Land of Lost Things, by John Connolly*****

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“We must be careful of our fancies and wary of our dreams, lest the worst of them should be heard or witnessed, and something should choose to act upon them.”

Are you up for a partly sweet, partly sinister bedtime story? If so, John Connolly is your man, and this is your book. My thanks go to Net Galley and Atria Books for the review copy. This book was published in September, 2023, and I am disgracefully late, but this is largely due to my realization that I could not read the second in a two book set and review it effectively without first ferreting out the first book, The Book of Lost Things. Now that I’ve read them both, I can recommend both to you unreservedly. At the same time, I will caution you that—what with the titles of this and its predecessor—this is emphatically not a children’s book! When I saw the title, I wondered if, like so many authors of late, Connolly had decided he should write a book for tiny tots. This is not that! Don’t hand this book to your child, or anyone else’s, unless they are already both old and mature enough to enjoy the works of Stephen King—or for that matter, other books by Mr. Connolly.

In the first book, a boy named David, who is mourning the death of his beloved mother and increasingly alienated from his father, stepmother, and tiny baby (half) brother, begins to notice strange things about the books in his bedroom, which came with the house. Events lead him to a place near his house, where he is sucked into an alternate world in an alternate wood, and it is there that nearly all of the narrative takes place.

Now, in this story, we have one of David’s descendants, a young mother named Ceres, whose little daughter, Phoebe, lies comatose in a hospital. Because of the place’s location, she decides to stay in a family home that is not being used currently, what with being rundown, but which is convenient to the place where Phoebe is. And yes of course, it’s that house, and those woods are still there.

Nearly twenty years separate the publication of the first book and the second, and I can see the difference immediately. Whereas The Book of Lost Things is well written and quite memorable, The Land of Lost Things is even better. The pages turn themselves, and the words pop off the pages. The fairy tales that Connolly implants into the first half of the book are cleverly altered, and I laugh out loud more than once as I read them. And then, as things darken and become tenser, the dangers more palpable, it’s hard for me to look away. I learned years ago not to read Connolly’s work too close to bedtime, and that habit stands me in good stead here.

Part of the charm inherent in everything Connolly writes is his impatience with pretentious attitudes and behaviors, and his deep respect for women. Add to this his tight, resonant dialogue and his dark, crackling wit, and the result is a large, loyal fan base, of which I am obviously one.

For those that love satire and are drawn to things that go bump in the dark, this magical book—and its predecessor—are highly recommended.

The Book of Fire, by Christy Lefteri****

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My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the invitation to read and review. I found myself drawn to this novel because it’s different from everything else I have read. I’m fairly sure that I have never read a book set entirely in Greece; then there’s the fire, and the way that the forest interacts with the rural community living in and around it; many people have relied upon it, in one way or another, to make a living.  The Book of Fire is an interesting read, and it’s available to the public now.

Having said this, my first 25% or so of the story finds me with buyer’s remorse (or, reader’s remorse?) The thing is sorrow, grief, and more sorrow. I begin to think maybe I’ll abandon it, because eventually one disengages when there’s no hope of any kind for a brighter outcome. But just as these thoughts begin to crystalize, there is a subtle shift, and then the whole thing becomes more toothsome.

The story is told in alternating timeframes, with the current day being told to us in the first person, while the past is told as if it is a fairytale, and so in it, our protagonist, Irini, is referred to most of the time as “the mother,” her spouse is “the husband,” and their child is “the girl.” It took me a long time to figure out the protagonist’s name, but then there is dialogue, and that helps.

Initially, the protagonist confides to us what she has done. She found the arsonist in the burnt forest; he was on the ground beneath a tree with a rope around his neck. The branch above him is broken, so it’s either a botched lynching or a botched suicide, but not entirely botched, because he’s in bad shape. She begins to try to help him, but then she remembers what he has done, and she walks away from him. When she returns the next day, full of remorse, he’s dead. And so already we have this fact thrown in there along with the man’s own crime. We don’t know whether he did this or it was done to him until nearly the end.

In time more details emerge to muddy the waters of responsibility, so then she has a hundred little ethical questions to examine, and these are joined with a powerful environmental message. Because of this, I think this novel would be terrific for book clubs, and also for the high school classroom. There’s no sex in it, and the vocabulary is accessible. And despite my early fears, the entire book is not a portrait of grief and misery.

Recommended to those that enjoy literary fiction.

The Ghost Orchid, by Jonathan Kellerman****-*****

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4.5 stars rounded upward. My thanks go to Random House Ballantine and NetGalley for the review copy. This book will be available to the public February 6, 2024.

The Ghost Orchid marks the thirty-ninth entry in the Alex Delaware series, one of the longest series in publication. It’s easy to see why it’s lasted so long. The protagonist and side characters are engaging, and the dialogue never loses its sparkle.  In this one, Alex has been recovering from a savage beating that he took at the hands of the murderer in our last mystery. Milo, his BFF, is a homicide cop who often hires him to assist the LAPD with cases where a psychologist is needed, but now Milo is so mired in guilt that he can hardly look at his friend. Finally, with a nudge from Delaware’s longtime (and slightly boring) girlfriend, Milo includes him in another case, and we find snappy dialogue that never fails to entertain.

This time it’s a double homicide in Bel Air. The man and woman are found by the pool, naked and dead. The investigation reveals that he is the son of a mega rich European shoe magnate; she is the wife of another rich man, a young, socially awkward member of the ruling elite who isn’t pleased to learn what his wife has been doing when he’s away on business. But then we learn that she was using an assumed name, and so the whole thing is even more mysterious. Who is this dead woman, and who killed her?

At the same time, Alex is engaged to interview a child in his early teens whose adoptive parents have decided to bail. They are divorcing; neither of them wants the kid.

The main storyline is a lot of fun. Everyone enjoys seeing the super-rich suffer. With wealth of this magnitude, there’s no chance any of Kellerman’s readers will identify with the male murder victim or the husband of the female victim, either. The way it’s resolved is believable, and it’s done without any of the prurient or kinky sex that Kellerman inexplicably included for a handful of books in this series a few years back. The half star is withheld from my rating because the other storyline, the one about the teenager, sort of fizzles without going anywhere, and it’s hard to see why he included it in the first place. Kellerman’s career, and this series, were originally launched around crimes where kids were involved, often as witnesses, and those initial books are fascinating. I’d love to see the author return to his roots, write some more episodes that incorporate his credentials and experience in child psychology.

You can read it as a stand alone novel if you choose, but you’ll want to read the others afterward.

Nevertheless, if you are looking for a fast, fun whodunit, this book is a hard one to beat. I highly recommend it to those that love the genre.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

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“’Do you worry about becoming a cliché? ‘

“’How do you mean?’

“’Another death-obsessed Iranian man?’”

My thanks go to Doubleday and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review this singular debut novel. This book is for sale now.

Our protagonist is Cyrus, an Iranian immigrant who comes to live in the U.S. as an infant. He is raised by his father, Ali; his mother’s plane was shot down shortly after Cyrus was born, an accident on the part of the U.S. military. His father dies suddenly while he is away at college, leaving him rootless. He spends a lot of time anguishing over death, wondering what is worth dying for. He doesn’t want to waste his “one good death.” Later, he points out that “If I died trying to kill a genocidal dictator tomorrow, the news wouldn’t say a leftist American made a measured and principled sacrifice for the good of his species. The news would say an Iranian terrorist attempted a state assassination. “

And you know that he’s right.

The thing that attracted me to this story is its difference from everything else that I have read. Persians almost never show up in American novels, and when they do, the Persian is the other, the bad or weird person, pretty much like the quote above suggests. So I was all in.

However, I have to say that the amount of angsty inner dialogue makes this a slooow read in places. There is also dialogue between Cyrus and friends, but most of it basically the same thing with a different format. I was primed for humor, since that’s how the book is being promoted, but didn’t find much of it.

The story wakes up a bit when Cyrus leaves Indiana for New York, but the writing remains inconsistent, and the transitions are sometimes a bit ragged.

The revelation about his mother, which occurs toward the end of the story, is startling, and I didn’t see it coming, but it also presents a credibility issue; I won’t go into details here, because it would be a spoiler. Still, apart from this one reservation, the ending is nicely rendered.

Akbar is an interesting writer, and I look forward to seeing what he writes next.

The Women, by Kristin Hannah****

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Kristin Hannah can draw character like nobody else. Her latest novel, The Women, tells the story of Frances “Frankie” McGrath, a young woman from an upper middle class family that follows her brother to Vietnam, serving as an army nurse. Frankie is a character that will stay with me long after I read dozens of other novels, and this experience is made even more memorable by the talented Julia Whelan, the voice actor that narrates the audio version. My thanks go to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the review copies. It will be available to the public February 6, 2024.

Frankie is twenty years old when we meet her, and her family is throwing a party for her big brother and best friend, Finley, who is leaving to serve in the U.S. Navy. Kennedy is in the White House, and most Americans still bear an implicit trust in their government. But Frankie is worried about Fin, and doesn’t like that he is about to put himself in harm’s way. He reassures her, “It isn’t dangerous, Frankie. Trust me. I’m a Naval Academy graduate, an officer with a cushy assignment on a ship. I’ll be back in no time. You’ll hardly have time to miss me.”

Frankie completes her nurse’s training, then signs on to join her brother, but before she is even packed, the telegram arrives. Finley is dead; killed in action.

The plot itself is unremarkable. Yes, war is hell; yes, friends die. And yes, a married man that sees an attractive, vulnerable American woman in a place where they are scarce, will lie like a rug in order to get close to her. But in Hannah’s hands, every joy and every sorrow are real and visceral, because we believe.

Frankie serves as a combat nurse at the front, and works in every possible hard situation. Sometimes the lights go out during surgery because a bomb has fallen; at one point her sleeping quarters is bombed and has to be rebuilt. She works for days on end without sleep when it’s necessary. And the trauma follows her home.

My only quibble with this otherwise outstanding story is the emphasis Hannah places on the abuse of returning troops by the public. She brings in the old saw about them being spat upon and called baby killers, even though an easy search confirms what I remember: this is mostly myth. Just as women weren’t really burning bras, most troops were not greeted with abuse. It’s true that the wildly patriotic parades that greeted the troops that returned from World War Two are not there for these men and women, but then, the Korean War vets didn’t see them, either. Historical fiction should honor history, not rewrite it.

With this caveat, I recommend this book to you. Do read it; it’s a damn fine novel. But do so critically, because you can’t always believe everything you read.