Psychological Suspense – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.18 THE ORPHAN CHOIR by Sophie Hannah /2014/the-orphan-choir-by-sophie-hannah/ Thu, 13 Feb 2014 13:58:30 +0000 /?p=25695 Book Quote:

“It’s quarter to midnight. I’m standing in the rain outside my next-door neighbor’s house, gripping his rusted railings with cold, wet hands, staring down through them at the misshapen and perilously narrow stone steps leading to his converted basement, from which noise is blaring. It’s my least favorite song in the world: Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now.’ ”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (FEB 13, 2014)

In Sophie Hannah’s The Orphan Choir, forty-one year old Louise Beeston may be on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Her creepy next-door neighbor, Justin Clay, plays loud music late at night, usually every other weekend. Although Louise has repeatedly implored him to stop, Clay is indifferent to her pleas. (Louise’s husband, Stuart, is oblivious to the cacophony. Even if a freight train were to pass through their bedroom, Stuart would remain asleep.) Unfortunately, Louise has little hope that Clay, a pot-smoking party animal who enjoys living it up with his loud-mouthed friends, will change his ways.

Adding to her distress is Stuart’s plan to sandblast the exterior of their sooty Cambridge home. The workman her husband hired plans to cover and seal their windows, leaving them without natural light for at least three weeks. In addition, the sandblasting will kick up a great deal of dust. All this would be bearable if Louise’s only child, seven-year-old son, Joseph, were living with them. Instead, he is a junior probationer boarding at Saviour College School, an elite educational institution that trains promising youngsters to sing religious choral music. Although Louise and Stuart see their son regularly, Joseph spends most of his time away from home. Louise hates this arrangement; she misses Joseph terribly. Stuart, on the other hand, argues that their child is happy and thriving, and should remain where he is.

As Louise narrates her tale of woe, we gradually start to wonder if she is completely sane. She admits that she is sleep-deprived, irritable, and resentful. Louise and her husband quarrel frequently and she soon becomes too distraught to go to work. Moreover, she is having troubling visions: She sees and hears a choir of children similar to her son’s, except that this group includes girls. Is Louise hallucinating? Or does this “visitation” have a deeper meaning?

The Orphan Choir is relatively brief, yet extremely vivid and powerful. The author is clever but not self-consciously so, and she uses foreshadowing skillfully to hint that everything is not as it seems. Hannah’s hard-hitting dialogue, adept use of setting, and wonderful feel for language add to the novel’s potency. We sympathize with the exhausted, frustrated, and high-strung heroine, and hope that she will somehow find the peace of mind she craves. Leave it to the talented and creative Sophie Hannah to spring some big surprises at the conclusion of this engrossing and eerie psychological thriller; the riveting finale will knock your socks off.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-0from 16 readers
PUBLISHER: Picador (January 28, 2014)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Sophie Hannah
EXTRAS: Excerpt
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Bibliography:

Zailer & Waterhouse Mysteries:

Note: Sophie Hannah is also an accomplished poet, see her website for more information on her poetry books.

]]> YOU DISAPPEAR by Christian Jungersen /2014/you-disappear-by-christian-jungersen/ Tue, 04 Feb 2014 12:58:43 +0000 /?p=25307 Book Quote:

“We whoosh down between dark ­rock-­faces, through hairpin turns, down and around past dry scrub,  silver-­pale trees and back up, then over a ridge where the car nearly leaves ground and Niklas and I whoop as our entrails become weightless.

The hot Mediterranean air buffets our faces, for all four windows are open. Frederik takes a curve so fast that I grab my headrest. The sea beneath us keeps switching left and right.

Normally Frederik’s never brave behind the wheel, so I try not to be afraid. And the heat makes the rocks steeper, darker, the lemon groves prickling even more tartly in my nose, the sea shining blue like I’ve never seen it before.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (FEB 4, 2014)

In Christian Jungersen’s You Disappear, translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra, forty-two year old Mia Halling’s life will never be the same following a family vacation in Majorca. Mia notices that her husband, Frederik, who is at the wheel of their rental car, is speeding through hairpin turns like a madman. She implores him to slow down, to no avail. Although they crash, they manage to survive. What should have been a relaxing and enjoyable holiday nearly ends in tragedy.

Frederik’s behavior in Spain is just the tip of an iceberg that threatens to irrevocably damage the Hallings’ ability to communicate. It seems that Halling has a brain tumor that manifests itself in bizarre changes in his speech, actions, and emotional responses. A complete recovery is far from certain. Thus begins a lengthy ordeal that Jungersen describes in excruciating detail. Mia and Frederik live together, but they might as well be on different planets. Their son, seventeen-year-old, Niklas, is frightened and confused. In addition, when revelations emerge about Frederik’s unsavory activities while he was the headmaster of a private school in Copenhagen, it becomes horrifyingly obvious that the Hallings’ troubles have just begun.

You Disappear is far more than a conventional tale of domestic angst. Jungersen is an accomplished and daring writer who challenges us to ponder weighty topics such as free will and the mind-body connection. In addition, he poses a question that has no clear-cut answer: What does a spouse owe to a husband or wife who can no longer function normally? Mia is frustrated, angry, guilt-ridden, and lonely, knowing that the person she married is unable to provide her with the love, caring, and companionship that she desperately needs. To help her deal with her battered psyche, she joins a support group and reads extensively about brain injuries. Excerpts from her findings are inserted in key points of the book, giving us a window into her thoughts.

Jungersen creates fully developed characters, writes evocatively and perceptively about sensitive topics, and offers provocative theories about what makes each of us who we are. Mia, the narrator, reveals her most intimate and embarrassing thoughts and deeds, as well as her dreams, memories, and fantasies. She had a difficult childhood and her marriage to Frederik was imperfect, even prior to his diagnosis. Readers will empathize with this woman who is torn between her duty to her impaired husband and her desire to have a partner who understands and cares for her. This is a grim novel with little humor and few lighthearted moments. However, it is filled with enlightening information about how brain injuries affect both the victims and their loved ones. Mia describes her existence as an “endless grey corridor of disheartening days, days that look like they’ll last the rest of your life.” “You Disappear” is recommended for its poignant, compassionate, and uncompromising look at how people cope (or fail to cope) when they are in danger of losing everything that they cherish.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 28readers
PUBLISHER: Nan A. Talese (January 7, 2014)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Christian Jungersen
EXTRAS: Excerpt
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]]> APPLE TREE YARD by Louise Doughty /2014/apple-tree-yard-by-louise-doughty/ Tue, 14 Jan 2014 12:45:13 +0000 /?p=25119 Book Quote:

“I can scarcely believe we had sex in the Houses of Parliament. I can scarcely believe that we ever had sex at all. That acute feeling, the giddiness of it, as if I had plunged my face into a bouquet of lilies, their scent so blissful it would make me feel faint – that was what it was like. Was it happiness? Was that all it was? Or was it a kind of addiction, to the story, to the drama of what we were doing? If it was a film, we were the stars.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (JAN 14, 2014)

Yvonne Carmichael, 52 years old, is a respected geneticist, married for many years with two grown children. She works for an esteemed institute called The Beaufort and is also an external examiner for graduate students. Her life is rich in many ways. Thus, it comes as a surprise to her that when she is scheduled to give a report at the House of Parliaments she notices a man who is giving her a come hither look and she begins to follow him. This begins an extraordinary affair. She doesn’t even know his name or what he does, though after some time she surmises that he is a spy of some type. This first time they have sex, he leads her to the Crypt Chapel on the House of Parliaments grounds and in the rank basement they make love. Yvonne thinks “From my empirical knowledge of you I know one thing and one thing only. Sex with you is like being eaten by a wolf.”

The affair begins suddenly and is all-consuming for Yvonne. Her lover gives her a pre-pay phone with his number programmed in and she is to call him only on that. She fantasizes about him continually and her life is one long effort to be with him in every free moment.

“It is worrying me, how easy you found it to have sex with me. I could have said, how easy you found it to seduce me…but seduction suggests a process of persuasion over the passage of time. You just went right ahead and I went right along with it – there wasn’t any persuading necessary. I need you to know this was not normal for me.”

Yvonne is caught up in the high of her sexual power, her ability to court a man who desires her so fully. The mystery of the affair is also a pull for her. It is so different from her daily life. “I am fifty-two. I have status and gravitas – when I don’t have my tights around my ankles in a secluded chapel beneath the Houses of Parliament, that is.”

We learn in the prologue that there is a court case, that something is happening to the two of them that is very serious and earth-shattering. Yvonne realizes in court as the novel opens, “That is the moment when it all comes crashing down . . . We both know we are about to lose everything – our marriages are over our careers are finished, I have lost my son’s and daughter’s good regard, and more than that, our freedom is at stake. Everything we have tried to protect – it is all about to tumble.” Their affair leads them to an act that finds them in court, fighting for their freedom with every ounce of their strength.

This is a bountiful novel, filled to the brim with wonderful writing, psychological suspense, an erotically charged relationship and a harrowing courtroom battle. Told from the first person, with Yvonne as the narrator, we travel with her from her first glance at her lover to the denouement which is riveting. Louise Doughty has written a truly compelling novel, one that has me wanting to read her other works, and soon.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 7 readers
PUBLISHER: Sarah Crichton Books (January 14, 2014)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Louise Doughty
EXTRAS:
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Nonfiction:

]]> HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE by Emma Chapman /2014/how-to-be-a-good-wife-by-emma-chapman/ Fri, 10 Jan 2014 13:55:03 +0000 /?p=25027 Book Quote:

“I found the cigarette packet in my handbag this morning underneath my purse. It was disorientating, as if it wasn’t my bag after all. There were some cigarettes missing. I wonder if I smoked them. I imagine myself, standing outside the shop in the village, lighting one. It seems ridiculous. I’m vaguely alarmed that I do not know for sure. I know what Hector would say: that I have too much time on my hands, that I need to keep myself busy. That I need to take my medication. Empty nest syndrome, he tells his friends at the pub, his mother. He’s always said I have a vivid imagination. ”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (JAN 10, 2014)

Marta Bjornstad is the chillingly robotic narrator of Emma Chapman’s psychological thriller, How to Be a Good Wife, a disturbing portrait of a woman whose mind may be playing tricks on her. After twenty-five years of marriage, Marta’s existence is tightly regimented: She shops, cooks, cleans the house, does laundry, and tends to her husband, Hector’s, needs. The title is derived from a book of the same name filled with platitudes about how a perfect spouse should behave. Marta’s controlling and overbearing mother-in-law, Matilda, presented the book to her sons’ young bride as a wedding gift, expecting Marta to dutifully memorize every page. One example of the book’s contents: “Your husband belongs to the outside world. The house is your domain, and your responsibility.”

It soon becomes apparent that Marta is not well. She is hallucinating, obsessing about the past, and remembering things that may or may not have occurred. She desperately misses her son, Kylan, who is now a grown man with a job and a girlfriend. As much as Marta would like to cling to Kylan, he is making his own way in the world. Marta was just twenty-one when she married Hector, who is much older than she is, and when she looks at her wedding picture, she observes, “I look happy, but I can’t remember if I was.”

Chapman is a superb storyteller whose evocative descriptive writing and finely-tuned metaphors are powerful indicators of the heroine’s disordered psyche. For example, Marta’s “apron strings catch on the kitchen door” and she spots a smudge on a panel of glass. She rubs the stain until it disappears, since her guidebook warns her: “The smudges cling on: they do not want to be removed.” The catching of the apron strings and Marta’s obsessive attitude towards cleanliness are significant. She is fettered to a dismissive and condescending man who has little understanding of how miserable she is. She cannot cut the strings that tie her to him, and she is unable to cleanse her soul of the pollution that is poisoning her spirit.

The author leaves a great deal to our imagination about what is real and what is the product of Marta’s fantasies. However, whether or not her “delusions” have any basis in reality, it is clear that Marta is clinically depressed, if not psychotic, caught in a vise, and desperate to escape at any cost. This is a heartrending story about a wife’s need to be understood; to express herself; to be loved and cherished; to have friends; and to feel productive. Hector and Marta talk at one another, not to one another. This is a tragic portrait of a sterile, unfulfilling, and dysfunctional relationship that lacks the empathy, communication, and passion that can make a marriage vibrant and rewarding.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 83 readers
PUBLISHER: St. Martin’s Press (October 15, 2013)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Emma Chapman
EXTRAS:  Reading Guide and Excerpt
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Bibliography:

]]> MOTHER, MOTHER by Koren Zailckas /2013/mother-mother-by-koren-zailckas/ Sat, 28 Dec 2013 15:54:08 +0000 /?p=24112 Book Quote:

“Of all the crazy that had transpired the night before, Will had felt most unsafe when he saw the way his sister eyed his mother across the dining room table. How Violet-like she’d been, glowering with her hangdog neck and hooded eyes. Anyone else might have mistaken her for someone meek and self-punishing. But Will knew the truth: Violet thought she was proof of nature over nurture. She didn’t need their mom’s loving care to survive.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (DEC 28, 2013)

Koren Zailckas’ Mother, Mother is a tale of psychological horror–a savage portrayal of a narcissist, Josephine Hurst, who lies compulsively, shamelessly manipulates her family, and tries to destroy anyone who crosses her. This disturbing story is told in alternating chapters by twelve-year-old William Hurst and his sixteen-year-old sister, Violet. William is mommy’s prissy little boy whom Josephine home schools (he has been diagnosed with autism and epilepsy) and infantilizes; Will is completely dependent on his mother and will do anything to stay in her good graces. Violet, on the other hand, is a rebel. She chops off her hair, takes mind-altering substances, and refuses to be intimidated by Josephine’s sick behavior. Josephine’s husband, Douglas, is, for the most part, an ineffectual bystander who gives his wife free reign. Missing from the picture is twenty-year-old Rose, whom Josephine was grooming to be a famous actress. Rose left home abruptly and never returned.

Zailckas makes our skin crawl as she reveals how dysfunctional the Hursts really are. She etches each character with a pen dipped in acid. Instead of communicating honestly, everyone plays his or her assigned role. The children are expected to act like obedient automatons, and Douglas is little more than a shadowy presence in the household. Agents from Child Protective Services visit the Hursts after William’s hand is damaged, allegedly by a knife-wielding Violet (who denies responsibility). Tensions run even higher when Violet is sent to a locked mental ward) and starts receiving mysterious messages from Rose.

Violet is the key to unlocking the secrets that she hopes will set her free. With courage, shrewdness, and the help of good friends, Violet intends to unearth damning facts that will alter everyone’s perception of what has really been going on behind the Hursts’ closed doors. At least, Violet still has a chance to escape, since she has enough self-esteem to fight for her life. The author’s understated but vivid descriptive writing, dark humor, and biting dialogue add to the novel’s impact. Ultimately, we grieve for the offspring of selfish and mentally ill parents who are incapable of offering their sons and daughters the nurturing and affection that they so desperately need. As one of Violet’s fellow patients in the psychiatric unit states, “Having a baby doesn’t make you a mother any more than buying a piano makes you Beethoven.”

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 73 readers
PUBLISHER: Crown (September 17, 2013)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Koren Zailckas
EXTRAS: Interview with Koren Zailckas
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another bad mother:

Another Dysfunctional Family:

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Nonfiction:

]]> THE SLEEP ROOM by F. R. Tallis /2013/the-sleep-room-by-f-r-tallis/ Sun, 15 Dec 2013 20:00:12 +0000 /?p=23611 Book Quote:

“Physical pain, no matter how bad, was never the equal of mental pain.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (DEC 15, 2013)

The Sleep Room, by F. R. Tallis, is set in England in the 1950s. Dr. James Richardson is offered an opportunity to work with Hugh Maitland, a well-known scholar and “the most influential psychiatrist of his generation.” After he is hired, James travels to Wyldehope Hall, in rural Suffolk, a hospital with twenty-four beds and a narcosis room. Severely disturbed patients are given drugs to induce sleep for twenty-one hours a day. Nurses monitor the patients’ vital signs and rouse them at regular intervals for meals, bathing, and sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. James observes that the sleep room is run like a “factory production line;” the patients, who wear white gowns, resemble “compliant ghosts.”

Most of the story is narrated by Richardson, an insecure and intense young man who interacts with nurses and the occasional doctor, but spends much of his time alone or with his sleeping patients. It is unsurprising that his imagination soon starts playing tricks on him. He has upsetting dreams, hears strange noises, and notices that objects are disappearing or disturbed. Is there a supernatural explanation for these peculiar phenomena? We sympathize with the increasingly anxious Richardson as he grows ever more uncertain about the efficacy of narcosis and the wisdom of his remaining at Wyldehope. Fortunately, James finds much-needed solace in the arms of Jane Turner, a lovely nurse to whom he is deeply attracted.

Frank Tallis is a talented writer — his Max Liebermann series of historical mysteries is outstanding — who foreshadows the spine-chilling events to come by creating a creepy and sinister mood and setting his novel in a remote and forbidding locale. Tallis, an experienced clinical psychologist and an expert in the history of his field, educates us about bizarre and frightening treatments that were once routinely administered by respected medical practitioners. The conclusion is sure to generate controversy. Some will pronounce it clever; others (myself included) may find it gimmicky and contrived. Nevertheless, The Sleep Room is a compelling exploration of the nature of reality, the fragility of the human mind, and the arrogance of power-hungry physicians who cruelly exploit the men and women in their care.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-0from 7 readers
PUBLISHER: Pegasus (October 1, 2013)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Frank Tallis
EXTRAS: Writing The Sleep Room
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

The Liebermann Papers:

Writing as F. R. Tallis

Nonfiction:

]]> HELL AND GONE by Duane Swierczynski /2011/hell-and-gone-by-duane-swierczynski/ Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:14:09 +0000 /?p=21892 Book Quote:

“There was no such thing as an escape-proof prison, because to sustain life inside the prison you need support from the outside.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage  (OCT 31, 2011)

Hell and Gone, another nail-biting read from author Duane Swierczynski is the second volume in the Charlie Hardie Trilogy. In part one, Fun and Games middle-aged Charlie Hardie leads a driftless life as a house-sitter moving continually from gig to gig. Hardie hails from Philadelphia but left his wife and child after a shootout he blames on himself, and which caused the death of his long-time friend. Hardie reasons that his family is safer without him and never recovering from the guilt and depression of a case that went horribly wrong, Hardie finds it easier to take on the low-level stress of house-sitting gig. In Fun and Games, Hardie arrives in L.A. to housesit the remote Hollywood Hills home of an affluent composer. The house is supposed to be empty, but as it turns out troubled Hollywood starlet Lane Madden has taken refuge inside the home and claims that Hollywood star whackers want her dead. Hardie, while skeptical at first, discovers the hard way that Lane is telling the truth.

Part 2—Hell and Gone picks up where Fun and Games left off. Hardie, once more, has pissed off the wrong people. After being drugged and offered the choice of being recruited as a member of “The Accident People,” Hardie, who naturally has refused to be part of the team, is sent for permanent incarceration in the secret underground facility known as Site 7734. Hardie, however, isn’t a prisoner. Supposedly he’s the new warden, and he answers to the nebulous Prisonmaster:

“You call it in, the Prisonmaster has it sent down. He also controls the environmentals—-heat, cooling, water temperature. Without a warden, the Prisonmaster’s been just sending down the bare minimums, enough to keep the facility running. Even environmental requests were ignored.”

“So you want me to talk to this Prisonmaster guy and ask him to turn up the heat?”?

“If you would,” Yankee said with a smile that was meant to be charming but came off as slightly overeager, bordering on homicidal. “And there’s also the food situation.”

At Site 7734, paranoia reigns, and for this reader the hierarchal benefits of being the warden or one of the psychotic guards differs only slightly from being one of the prisoners. While the prisoners are “crammed into poorly lit rusty cages,” everyone lives nervously in poor living conditions. Both sets of people are given the same bland diet; both sets of people are essentially prisoners. The big difference is who gets to wield the batons.

By creating Site 7734, Swierczynski involves the reader in his psychological experiment. We are along for the ride as Hardie, much the worse for wear, tries to figure out and then game the system. Should he accept the role of warden and try to bring some sanity to the horrendously inhuman system? Can he relieve the suffering of a handful of anonymous prisoners who are subjected to brutal dehumanizing treatment on a daily basis? Hardie never was much of a team player:

“Hardie was a born loner. Not only did he not play well with others, he couldn’t fucking stand others.”

Site 7734 is rigged with various “death mechanisms” so that the successful escape of one resident will result in the deaths of those who remain behind. In an incarcerated-lord-of-the-flies scenario, Hardie tries to figure out just what is going on in this hellish dungeon, and the reader also tries to solve the puzzle as jail breaks, underhand deals, back-stabbing and betrayals guarantee that the day-to-day life in Site 7734 will be as evil, disruptive and as paranoid as possible.

While Fun and Games was non-stop action, a roller-coaster ride of explosions, chases and high-tech weaponry, Hell and Gone offers psychological suspense. My first reaction to the book was a shade of disappointment at the novel’s complete change of pace, but after mulling it over and as the story develops, I have nothing but respect for Swierczynski. He brings the action and motion of Fun and Games to a screeching halt and then digs in for long-term head games in Hell and Gone. Then there’s the issue of believability. Given the recent headlines,  secret Hollywood Star Whackers, in Fun and Games Swierczynski stretches the possibilities only marginally. But in Hell and Gone, “The Accident People” are clearly much more powerful than previously imagined, and while the power-brokers of Fun and Games could, theoretically be publicity agents and studio heads on a bloody, maniacal power trip, in this sequel, it’s clear that those who pull the strings can even fuck with the FBI. While Fun and Games Swierczynski offers an action thriller, in Hell and Gone, Swierczynski stretches genre seamlessly and cleverly so by the end of the novel, elements of science fiction appear.

The Third and final novel: Point and Shoot is scheduled for publication in 2012. It’s almost cruel to make us wait….

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 3 readers
PUBLISHER: Mulholland Books; Original edition (October 31, 2011)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Official blog for Duane Swierczynski
EXTRAS: Mulholland books page on Hell and Gone
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Charlie Hardie trilogy:

]]> THE NIGHT STRANGERS by Chris Bohjalian /2011/the-night-strangers-by-chris-bohjalian/ Sat, 08 Oct 2011 13:39:18 +0000 /?p=21444 Book Quote:

“My mother used to talk about passages and, once in a while, about ordeals. We all have them; we are all shaped by them. She thought the key was to find the healing in the hurt.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (OCT 8, 2011)

In Chris Bohjalian’s The Night Strangers, Chip Linton is a forty-year-old commercial airline pilot who is traumatized when, through no fault of his own, one of his regional planes goes down in Lake Champlain. In the aftermath of the accident, Chip, Emily, and their ten-year-old twin daughters, Hallie and Garnet, move from Pennsylvania to an isolated three-story Victorian near Bethel, New Hampshire, in the scenic White Mountains. Emily resumes her career as a lawyer, the kids enroll in the local school, and Chip becomes a do-it-yourselfer, replacing wallpaper, painting, and doing carpentry around the rickety old house.

Unfortunately, Chip is an emotional wreck who sees a psychiatrist to treat his depression, guilt, and anxiety. He has upsetting flashbacks and vivid nightmares and knows that his career in aviation is most likely over. Although Chip adores Emily and his daughters, they are not enough for him. He cannot help but mourn the loss of his livelihood.

The Lintons soon have concrete reasons to regret their move to Northern New England. There is something creepy going on in this town. The place is filled with greenhouses. Various herbalists and botanists grow exotic plants, talk like aging hippies, and constantly bring over homemade food that they foist on the Linton family. In addition, it is possible that the Linton house, which was once the scene of an untimely and unnatural death, may be haunted. If Chip was teetering on the brink of madness before he moved to New Hampshire, living here may very well push him over the edge. The Night Strangers is a tale of psychological horror in which Chip and Emily gradually suspect that when they relocated, they may have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Chip starts having visions and hearing voices; his family is also under threat from others who are up to no good. How will the Lintons cope with the various forces threatening to tear them apart?

Chris Bohjalian has always been an outstanding descriptive writer who uses setting brilliantly. He has a gift for creating sympathetic characters with whom the reader can readily identify. This time, alas, he may have bitten off more than he can chew. Chris’s mental deterioration alone would have been a strong enough centerpiece to this book. Even adding a haunted house into the mix might work. However, Bohjalian overreaches when he veers too far into Stephen King and Ira Levin territory. He concocts an outlandish (yet oddly predictable) plot that throws the book seriously out of balance. What should have been a compelling narrative about the demons that inhabit our minds becomes, quite literally, a story about evil incarnate. Still, Bohjalian creates readable dialogue, brings Chip, Emily, and their girls to life, and engages our interest in the fate of his protagonists. In spite of ourselves, we hold our breaths, wondering whether this horribly tormented husband, wife, and two children will ever reacquire the peace of mind that they once took for granted.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-0from 252 readers
PUBLISHER: Crown (October 4, 2011)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Chris Bohjalian
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Bibliography:

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]]> CALLING MR. KING by Ronald De Feo /2011/calling-mr-king-by-ronald-de-feo/ Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:06:22 +0000 /?p=20615 Book Quote:

“Odd thoughts were entering my head again. And like before I had no idea where they were coming from. Odd, crazy thoughts: another job just about done, after running stupidly about for weeks, all the tracking, waiting, time spent and wasted, and what do you get but another dead body, then on to the next hit, another city, another bastard to track, another doomed man, to be taken out by me or someone else, it really made no difference, dead is dead. The same story, the same routine. You pull the trigger, the man falls. But what if you didn’t pull the trigger? That would be different. That might even be exciting. That would change everything.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  SEP 1, 2011)

Calling Mr. King by Ronald De Feo is an exhilarating read. It is poignant, funny, serious and sad. It grabs the reader from the beginning and we go on a short but rich journey with Mr. King, a hit-man, an employee of The Firm, as he transforms himself from a killer to a would-be intellectual and lover of art and architecture.

Mr. King is one of The Firm’s best marksmen and, as the novel opens, he is in Paris to do a hit. Something about the job starts getting to him and he postpones his hit repeatedly. He puts off an easy mark day after day. When he finally does his hit, it is with a bit of trepidation, anger and regret, wishing that he had something better to do.

This “something better” begins to take shape in his life as an appreciation for art, especially the Georgian architecture of his adopted city, London. He gets excited, going from bookstore to bookstore and collecting books on architecture and works of art by John Constable, the artist. His employer, however, is not happy with him. They are upset about the amount of time it took for him to do his job in Paris and they decide to send him to New York on a vacation. Mr. King feels he is long due for a vacation so this is not the worst thing in the world for him.

In New York, he devours the bookstores and museums, daily increasing his knowledge and excitement about art and architecture, expanding his interests and horizons in this area. He becomes interested in Regency style and art nouveau. He goes to see the Constable show at the Frick Museum after a clerk at Rizzoli’s bookstore recommends this to him. He also becomes interested in John Turner and artists who paint the English countryside.

He was known as Peter Chilton in London and he uses this alias to its full advantage in New York, acting like a rich and well-appointed Englishman. It is hard to tell where Mr. King ends and Mr. Chilton begins. He dreams of living in a Georgian home of his own some day. He takes on an English accent and his identity becomes obscured. He is now Peter Chilton, the art aficionado on vacation from his manor in England. He decides to dress the part and purchases a $215 shirt. This is his entry into the world of fashion as well as art. The shirt represents the possibility of something more, of his presenting himself as the real Peter Chilton, a man to whom fashion is paramount.

One day while resting in his New York hotel, the phone rings and it’s a call for Mr. King. This is the code name for The Firm calling him when they want a hit to be done. He is quite put out about being disturbed on his vacation but he leaves the hotel to return the call from a pay phone which is The Firm’s way of doing things. He is going to have to do a hit in New York. He is sick of The Firm. He finds his bosses stupid, “onions,” not up to his caliber. He does his hit within four hours in the hope that he’ll be able to rest and continue his vacation. However, he is transferred to Barcelona.

Once in Barcelona, Mr. King becomes so immersed in the architecture of Gaudi and the city’s art nouveau décor that he is overwhelmed. He knows that he has an important hit to do but by this time his bag of books is much, much heavier than his clothing and accoutrements. He is a man possessed by learning and potential.

We learn a bit about his early life. His father was a rage-ridden gun-crazy man, teaching Mr. King how to shoot animals – not how to play games or sports. His mother paid more attention to cleaning the house and taking care of her flowers than she did to Mr. King. When Mr. King left his home in a small suburb of New York when he was about twenty, it was in a traumatic way, and he was never to return except for his father’s funeral.

Mr. King often wonders what his life would have been like had he been exposed to things besides guns and hunting. He is excellent at what he does but could he have been something else, something of the mind? The reader wonders this along with him because he is caught up in a life he can never leave alive. A life with The Firm is a life forever with The Firm. No matter how much art and architecture he sees or yearns for it can never be enough. And when will his time run out?

Mr. King goes through existential angst with nods to Camus and Sartre as he feels like a stranger and has an overwhelming sense of nausea about his identity and his place in the world. He is alone and a loner, someone who has never thought of himself as one with the world. Since childhood, he’s been an outcast and finally, through his intellectual endeavors he is finding himself. The irony of this is that the closer he comes to finding himself, the further he travels from his required path.

This is a first novel by Mr. De Feo and it is an excellent piece of writing, one that had me devouring this book quickly. Mr. King made me laugh and feel deeply saddened. I was with him on every step of his journey and loved every minute of it. I hope that Mr. De Feo continues with his writing as he has quite an understanding of human nature.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 17 readers
PUBLISHER: Other Press (August 30, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Ronald De Feo
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More hit men:

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]]> THE GLASS DEMON by Helen Grant /2011/the-glass-demon-by-helen-grant/ Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:53:57 +0000 /?p=19537 Book Quote:

“I didn’t believe in demons; I ranked them with ghosts and vampires and werewolves, as products of a fevered imagination, or phenomena with a perfectly rational explanation. I did not realize yet, that summer when I was seventeen and my sister Polly was still alive, when the sun was shining and even the wind was warm and my whole body was restless, that there are worse things than being stuck in a small town for a year.  There are demons, and they are more terrible than we can imagine.”

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett  (AUG 27, 2011)

The narrator’s father, Dr. Oliver Fox, a professor seeking fame and fortune, provides the catalyst for the eerie and violent events of Linden’s second (after The Vanishing of Katharina Linden) novel, a finely crafted literary tale of psychological terror.

But it’s the narrator herself, his 17-year-old daughter Lin, who finds herself at the center of it all, trying to control events that threaten to tear her family apart, events that are far beyond her understanding, much less her ability to manipulate. Indeed, her attempts to take matters into her own impatient hands make things worse.

From the first page, we know people will die, including Lin’s sister Polly.

“If anyone were to ask me, ‘What is the root of all evil?’ I would say not ‘Money,’ but ‘Food.’ It was food – specifically the lack of it – that killed my sister, or at least assisted at the death. And the old man that day in the orchard in Niederburgheim was the only person I have ever seen who died of eating an apple.”

Grant opens the novel with the Fox family – Oliver, his wife Tuesday, Lin, Polly and baby brother Reuben – nearly at the end of their road trip from their home in England to a small rural town in Germany.

A local historian has invited Oliver to come and research the famous, exquisite Allerheiligen stained glass, medieval masterpieces which have been lost to the world for more than 200 years and may well have been destroyed. They are also, legend has it, haunted, by the demon Bonchariant.

Lost, they pull to the side of the road to ask directions, but the man who appears to be sleeping in an apple orchard is actually dead (probably having fallen off his ladder), an apple with one bite taken beside him, the ground oddly littered with glass sparkling in the sunlight.

Oliver, unwilling to get involved, drives on, leaving the body for someone else to discover. Eventually they find the crumbling castle they have rented so Oliver can conduct his research from a suitably atmospheric base. These priceless windows will make Oliver’s reputation if he can only find them, but to begin with he is unable even to find the local man who invited him to come.

Eventually he tracks down the man’s address but Herr Heinrich Mahlberg no longer lives there. He has recently died, having suffered an accident in his bath. The other locals are not nearly as welcoming as Herr Mahlberg promised to be. One local historian offers to share his notes – handwritten in German – but assures Oliver he is wasting his time as the windows were destroyed by the French in the 19th century, the letter describing the destruction itself destroyed in the last war’s bombings.

Meanwhile Lin (who speaks fluent German) has started school and been thrown together with the boy next door – or, in this case, the boy on an uninviting farm the other side of the spooky woods. Michel drives her to school each morning, his crush painfully obvious, and unrequited.

Threats against the family mount as their isolation increases. Inexplicable events – all involving broken bits of glass – begin to loom larger as the family feels itself hounded by superstition or, as Lin begins to think, by the Bonchariant demon who inhabits the famous glass.

Mostly unable to speak the language and shunned by the locals, the atmosphere thickens around the isolated Fox family, while Lin finds herself becoming more deeply swept up in the ancient myths surrounding the glass.

Grant uses a winning combination of psychological tension and local folkloric atmosphere to advance her tale, building suspense and dread as she goes, much as she did in her first novel.

There is one problem however, which may not bother the YA audience the story is at least partly aimed at. Lin is a sulky teenager and for me at least, this grows tiresome. She’s always complaining about mess and other peoples’ self-centeredness but never lifts a finger to help with all the chores that don’t get done, or get left to her anorexic sister, Polly.

However, Grant delivers a smashing conclusion and by the end of the book most readers will have forgiven Lin her teen brattiness.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 4 readers
PUBLISHER: Bantam; Original edition (June 14, 2011)
REVIEWER: Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Helen Grant
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

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