THE FIFTH WOMAN by Henning Mankell

I first read this 1997 novel (the sixth in Henning Mankell’s Inspector Wallander series) in 2004, and saw the television adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh last year. So the general outline was familiar; I even knew who the murderer was going to be. All the same, I read the book this time with just as much enjoyment as on the first occasion, and with even more appreciation of detail of its texture.

December 18, 2011 · Judi Clark · Comments Closed
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Sleuths Series, Sweden

THE DROP by Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch is the real deal. Michael Connelly’s THE DROP is another superb entry in this outstanding series about an L. A. cop who is cynical and battle-weary, yet still committed to doing his job.

December 17, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Award Winning Author, California, Job, Sleuths Series

THE THIRD REICH by Roberto Bolano

Bolaño cites this quotation from Goethe (also given in German) towards the end of this early but posthumously discovered novel. It is as good a key as any to what the book may be about. The protagonist, Udo Berger, a German in his mid-twenties, is literally a guest — in a hotel. He is taking a late summer vacation with his girlfriend Ingeborg in a beach hotel on the Costa Brava where he used to come with his family as a child. Together with another German couple, Hanna and Charly, they engage in the usual occupations: swimming, sunbathing, eating, drinking (a lot), and making love. But shadows hang over this idyll.

November 22, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Germany, Time Period Fiction, World Literature

THE AFFAIR by Lee Child

What’s a writer to do when his action hero ages? One option is to go back in time.

In THE AFFAIR, Lee Child flashes back to 1997, when Major Jack Reacher (his thirty-six year old protagonist and first-person narrator) was an army MP. Leon Garber, Reacher’s commanding officer, sends Jack to Carter Crossing, Mississippi, to monitor a potentially explosive situation.

October 22, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Sleuths Series, Thriller/Spy/Caper, US South

THE NIGHT STRANGERS by Chris Bohjalian

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.

October 8, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Horror, NE & New York, Psychological Suspense, Small Town, Speculative (Beyond Reality)

CAIN by Jose Saramago

Saramago’s last, indeed posthumous, book is a real treat. Brief, inventive, funny, it furthers the author’s well-known distaste for religious dogma by traversing many of the familiar stories of the Old Testament by means of a fanciful parable told from a rational point of view. Much like The Elephant’s Journey, it shows Saramago’s stylistic fingerprints in relaxed form.

October 4, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Allegory/Fable, Alternate History, Award Winning Author, Humorous, Satire, Translated, World Literature