Alcoholic – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.23 OFF COURSE by Michelle Huneven /2014/off-course-by-michelle-huneven/ Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:05:30 +0000 /?p=26225 Book Quote:

“Morning brought still more reminders of why she’d hated the cabin: a panging headache, a weird gluey lethargy, small wheeling prisms in her vision. Her mother had attributed these symptoms to Cress’s attitude, admittedly rotten. But Sylvia Hartley was off by a letter, as Cress had discovered camping in the Tetons and skiing in Utah. Anywhere above 6,000 feet, she was a poor adapter.“

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn  (APR 21, 2014)

Cressida Hartley is suffering from a serious case of ennui. At 28, she is stagnating in ABD status, trying to finish her dissertation in economics, wholly disliking her field of expertise. It’s the eighties, and Reaganomics doesn’t suit her. But she found a way to integrate her affinity with art with her thesis–she’s writing about the value of art in the marketplace. So she moves to her parents vacation A-frame in the Sierras, intending to wrap herself in the mountain air, solitude, and writing.

Soon enough, Cress seeks out disruptions and distractions, and becomes absorbed in the community. I was installed in the story quickly, as I noted that her quirky supporting cast of characters were humanized and sympathetic rather than straw caricatures. Her parents are demanding and difficult. They are building a new cabin and come down periodically, often on the verge of suing the contractor, Ricky Garsh. Cress’s father is peevish and parsimonious to the point of churlish, even to his own children. Cress’s sister, Sharon, now living in London, goes through the primal birth therapy, so popular during this era. This alerts the reader that the sisters had some significant issues. Cress is largely unaware of her deep-seated problems, and acts out by entwining in a difficult relationship. Twice. And with much older men.

“She wasn’t making specific plans, but that hairline crack, she knew, could widen instantly to accommodate her, and day by day, its thin blackness grew less frightening, more logical and familiar, as if she could now walk right up, touch it with her fingertips, and, with a quick last smile over her shoulder at the fading world, slip right in.”

This is not a prosaic domestic drama, not with Huneven at the helm. As in all her novels, she is plugged into collective concerns such as alcohol abuse and complex, obsessive relationships. And always, nature. The landscape, wildlife, and climate buttress the story and provide ample adventure and scenic beauty, as well as some brassy comedy.

This is Huneven’s most fully realized novel, with a stable focus and a memorable denouement. I’m still inhabiting Cress’s life, long after the past page.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-5-0 from 3 readers
PUBLISHER: Sarah Crichton Books (April 1, 2014)
REVIEWER: Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Michelle Huneven
EXTRAS:
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> THE ACCIDENT by Linwood Barclay /2011/the-accident-by-linwood-barclay/ Sat, 15 Oct 2011 12:59:13 +0000 /?p=21670 Book Quote:

“If I’d known this was our last morning, I’d have rolled over in bed and held her. But of course, if it had been possible to know something like that — if I could have somehow seen into the future — I wouldn’t have let go. And then things would have been different.”

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale  (OCT 15, 2011)

The Accident, the latest thriller from Linwood Barclay, is an exciting, quick and enjoyable read. The book is told primarily in the first person of Glen Garber, the owner of Garber Contracting, a small home construction company struggling in the current economy in Milford, Connecticut. Glen cannot believe or accept it when the police tell him his wife Sheila caused the death of herself and others while she was parked drunk the wrong way on an off ramp. Although everyone tells him he must accept his wife had a drinking problem, he just refuses to believe she did or would have driven while drunk. Things get only worse, when the other people killed in the accident file suit against him for failure to identify and act on his wife’s drinking problem that led to the accident.

Glen’s life gets even worse when a report on an electrical problem that led to a fire damaging one of the homes he was building indicates that the fire was traced to faulty cheap electrical components. He immediately blames the electrician he uses on the job. However, he begins to doubt that assessment was correct when his most trusted employee and second in command Doug Pinder becomes implicated when similar parts are found in his truck.

As the accusations against Glen’s wife grow, Glen’s 8 year-old daughter Kelly is chastised by the students in her school and no one wants to be her friend. When she has an opportunity to have a sleepover with her only friend, while playing a game, she overhears a strange telephone conversation that her friend’s mother is having while Kelly is hiding in the mother’s closet. The mother finds Kelly in the closet and tells her not to say anything to anyone about what she may have heard. Kelly gets so upset that she calls her father to come pick her up immediately. While Glen is on his way, the friend’s mother leaves the house apparently to meet with someone she was talking to on the phone. That night she is found dead in what at first appears to be an accident but the reader knows that some other person was involved in her death. Later, the friend’s father presses Kelly for information on the phone call which only makes Glen angry and leads to a fight.

As the story progresses, Linwood Barclay provides the reader some insight through third person discussions between Sheila’s friends that are slowly uncovered by Glen Garber. This changing perspective works very well and of course, the key information is withheld from the reader until uncovered by Glen. Along the way, we learn about different things people will do to gain some money in difficult economic times that they probably would not otherwise do. These lead them into dealing with criminals who are not very reasonable or patient and very dangerous.

This book keeps the reader’s interest going from the beginning to the end. Barclay gives some real and false clues along the way and we trust and believe in Glen Garber as he tries to understand why and what happens to his wife. Of course, Barclay has us distrusting people along the way that may be guilty of some things but not everything. This keeps his twists mostly unexpected as he gives them to us along the way and especially at the end.

This is the first book that I have read by Linwood Barclay and I’ll be sure to read some more. He certainly kept me interested in the book from start to finish and kept me guessing to the end. His characters are believable and did not do the stupid or improbable things that often get in my way of enjoying a thriller.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 73 readers
PUBLISHER: Bantam (August 9, 2011)
REVIEWER: Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Linwood Barclay
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Zack Walker series:

Thrillers:

Nonfiction:

]]> A TRICK OF THE LIGHT by Louise Penny /2011/a-trick-of-the-light-by-louise-penny/ Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:26:54 +0000 /?p=20617 Book Quote:

“The Chief believed if you sift through evil, at the very bottom you’ll find good. He believed that evil has its limits. Beauvoir didn’t. He believed that if you sift through good, you’ll find evil. Without borders, without brakes, without limit.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  SEP 02, 2011)

Three Pines is a village near Montréal that is so small it does not appear on any map. For its size, this town has had an inordinate number of murders; solving them is the job of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté de Quebec and his team of detectives. This time, the victim is a woman, Lillian Dyson, whose art criticism years ago was so caustic that she was responsible for putting an end to budding careers. Louise Penny’s A Trick of the Light is all about artists—their insecurities, craving for recognition, pettiness, resentment, and jealousy.

Two artists, Clara Morrow and her husband, Peter, live in Three Pines, and Peter has been moderately successful. However, it is Clara who is having a private solo exhibition, a vernissage, at the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Montréal. For years she toiled in relative obscurity, receiving nothing but “silence from a baffled and even bemused art world.” Now that Clara has come into her own, Peter has mixed feelings about his wife’s long overdue fame.

This novel deals with relationships and emotions. Gamache is still barely on speaking terms with Olivier Brulé, who bears a grudge against him. Moreover, Gamache still has nightmares about a bloody raid he conducted that went terribly wrong, nearly taking his life and that of his second-in-command, Jean Guy Beauvior. Jean Guy is a wreck, who relies on pain pills to get through the day and is planning to end his miserable marriage (“all the petty sordid squabbles, the tiny slights, the scarring and scabbing”).

Louise Penny understands what makes people tick. She knows that they often show one face to their family, friends, and neighbors, while they bury their true feelings under a façade of amiability. A Trick of the Light exposes the soul-destroying anger, the disappointments, and the bitter rancor that can eat a person up from within. She specifically examines the mind-set of alcoholics, who are capable of doing extensive damage before they are ready to admit that they desperately need help.

As a murder mystery, this is a fairly routine effort. There is little suspense (the list of people who had motive, means, and opportunity to kill Lillian is not particularly large) and most readers will not be shocked when Gamache unmasks the culprit. Penny is a stand-out for other reasons: her eloquent use of language, analysis of people’s psychological foibles, and her beautiful and sometimes humorous description of life in a place so tiny that everyone is intimately acquainted with everyone else. Ruth, an old drunk who insults people with wild abandon, Olivier and his beloved partner, Gabri, and Armand’s lovely wife, Reine-Marie, are all on hand, along with an assortment of art dealers, gallery owners, associates of the homicide victim, and the detectives who are under Gamache’s command. Penny explores what makes art memorable and also what it is like to struggle creatively. This alone makes A Trick of the Light both fascinating and, at times, poetic.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-5-0from 287 readers
PUBLISHER: Minotaur Books (August 30, 2011)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Louise Penny
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Chief Inspector Gamache novels:

]]> A DEATH IN SUMMER by Benjamin Black /2011/death-in-summer-by-benjamin-black/ Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:23:36 +0000 /?p=20420 Book Quote:

“You think you’ve seen the worst of the world,” she said, “but the world and its wicked ways can always surprise you.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage  AUG 25, 2011)

Irish author John Banville continues to pick up a number of literary prizes (including the Booker Prize in 2005) for his novels, but he sidelines with the pseudonym Benjamin Black for a series of ‘50s crime novels set in Dublin. Banville aka Black has produced these crime novels steadily over the past few years: Christine Falls (2006), The Silver Swan (2007), The Lemur (2008), Elegy for April (2010), and now A Death in Summer.  The Lemur is a stand-alone mystery which shifts from New York to Dublin, but the other novels comprise the Quirke series–a series of mysteries featuring a Dublin pathologist. Banville states that reading the roman durs of Simenon inspired him to try his hand at writing crime fiction. While reading Simenon, he noted the “simple language and direct, lightweight narrative,” accompanied by existentialist thought and decided to “try it.”

In A Death in Summer, pathologist Quirke, a slipping-off-the-wagon middle-aged alcoholic with a fascination for amateur sleuthing is called to the scene of a death. The dead man is the fabulously wealthy newspaper tycoon, Richard Jewell, known to his few friends and his many enemies as Diamond Dick “a ruthless bastard, …, who would tear out your heart as quick as look at you.” Jewell is dead from a shotgun blast at close range, and someone put the gun in the victim’s hands in a poor attempt to pass the death off as a suicide. Only a rudimentary knowledge of guns is enough to know that a shotgun is not the natural or easy choice for a suicide, so Quirke who arrives on the scene soon after Inspector Hackett knows he’s looking at a murder case.

The book’s opening scene takes place at Brooklands, the palatial country estate of Dick Diamond. What should be an entrancing, delightful summer day is marred by the bloody, violent crime:

“It felt strange to Hackett to be standing here, on a fine country estate, with the birds singing all about and a slab of sunlight falling at his heels from the open doorway of Jewell’s office, and at the same time to have that old familiar smell of violent death in his nostrils. Not that he had smelled it so very often, but once caught it was never forgotten, that mingled faint stink of blood and excrement and something else, something thin and sharp and insidious, the smell of terror itself, perhaps, or of despair—or was he being fanciful? Could despair and terror really leave a trace?”

This scene, the juxtaposition of calm countryside beauty side-by-side with violent death sets the tone for the rest of the book as Quirke pokes around those connected to Jewell. These are the wealthy society elite of Dublin–an impenetrable set who holiday together, conduct business together, party together and whose lives contain many dark secrets. Quirke senses that there’s something not quite right about the family scene at Brooklands. Jewell was murdered and yet apparently no one noticed. Jewell’s servants, including the shifty yard manager Maguire, are noticeably shaken by the crime whereas Jewell’s family treats his death like some sort of minor social inconvenience. Jewell’s cool, elegant French wife, Francoise d’Aubigny, a woman Quirke met once before at a social event, was off riding one of her horses when the murder took place, and Jewell’s half-sister, Dannie is disinterestedly lounging on the sofa drinking gin and tonic when the police arrive:

“Dannie Jewell lifted her glass from the arm of the sofa and took a long drink from it, thirstily, like a child. She held the glass in both hands, and Quirke thought again of Francoise d’Aubigny standing at the window in the embassy that day, with the champagne glass, of the look she had given him, the odd desperateness of it. Who were these two women, really, he wondered, and what was going on here?”

With a man as despised as Dick Jewell, there’s no shortage of suspects. Carlton Sumner, Jewell’s crass business rival who is trying to take over Jewell’s newspaper empire declares he’s amazed that it took this long for someone to murder this much-hated man. Jewell’s wife, the French trophy wife, Francoise doesn’t seem to exactly be the grieving widow. While Inspector Hackett finds himself comparing Francoise to the cool impeccability of Ingrid Bergman, Quirke is inexorably attracted to the new widow. He’s intoxicated by her perfume and her glance. Turning a cold shoulder to his actress girlfriend, Isabel Galloway, Quirke begins peppering his thoughts with French phrases, buys French newspapers, and tries desperately to limit his alcohol consumption to just a few drinks a day.

As with any series detective novel, the private life of the protagonist (Quirke in this case) is juggled with the crime under investigation. A Death in Summer finds Quirke half-heartedly investigating while struggling with his interest in Francois. A large portion of Quirke’s private life in this novel contains Phoebe, Quirke’s daughter and her relationship with Sinclair, a pathologist who works with Quirke. For those late to the Quirke series, some mention is made to the story threads from earlier volumes in the series, but these references are woven into the plot so effectively that it’s easy to catch up with these prior relationships.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 62 readers
PUBLISHER: Henry Holt and Co. (July 5, 2011)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Benjamin Black
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

 

Also by John Banville:

 

Bibliography:

Stand-alone:

]]> A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF by Lawrence Block /2011/a-drop-of-the-hard-stuff-by-lawrence-block/ Sat, 14 May 2011 13:31:02 +0000 /?p=17911 Book Quote:

“I’ve often wondered,” Mick Ballou said, ” how it would all have gone if I’d taken a different turn.”

Book Review:

Review by Hagen Baye  (MAY 12, 2011)

A Drop of the Hard Stuff is the 17th and very likely final installment of Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series of crime fiction novels. In fact, Block had not even envisioned writing another Scudder book. He figured that as Scudder was already in his mid-sixties, semi-retired and collecting social security in All the Flowers are Dying, the immediately previous book six years ago, by now Scudder is in his 70’s and settled into a “comfortable retirement” and no longer up to the rigors of private investigating. In Hard Stuff Block finesses this by having Scudder relate events from the past. (All of the previous books, except one, followed in chronological order and if there were, for example, two years between consecutive books, Scudder was two years older in the latter book. The only exception to this was the sixth book in the series, When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, published after Eight Million Ways to Die; Ginmill is a prequel and can be said to be the savior of the Scudder series, for reasons stated in the post-script to MostlyFiction’s review of All the Flowers are Dying.)

So, A Drop of the Hard Stuff is noteworthy in part for the fortuitous fact that it may not have ever seen the light of day. But, further, one of the significant attributes of Block’s writing is the number of diverse series characters he has created over his writing career of 50-plus years. As already noted, the Scudder series, about a guilt ridden, ex-cop and eventually ex-drunk, has spanned 17 books since the first one, The Sins of the Father, in 1976. Block’s series about the affable burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr consist of ten books; the series about the spy who can not sleep who embraces screwy causes across the world, Evan Tanner, spans eight books; Block wrote four books about the pubescent private-eye in training, Chip Harrison; and four more about the brooding hitman, Keller. Hence, Block has authored some 43 books spread over five characters as different as different can be.

Without diminishing the quality of any of Block’s other series characters, Scudder is the most real of those characters and, likely for this reason, the Scudder series is the most celebrated by critics and reviewers. Each of the other characters has elements of unreality. Scudder is the most human, flesh and blood character. He is certainly flawed, besides due to his drinking. As a cop he learned and adhered to the “important precept” that if someone hands you money, put it in your pocket. He had a number of inappropriate affairs, even after he took up with his second wife Elaine. As a cop, he even falsified evidence if necessary to put a bad guy away (see A Ticket to the Boneyard). The hitman Keller has elements of unreality and is hard to relate to. The other characters have comic and cartoon-like qualities. In fact, when asked if he ever considered doing a book that included both Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr, Block said that would be impossible as “they both occupy different universes.” The same could be said about Scudder and the other series characters as well.

Scudder is existential man. When the series starts, he gives up wife, children and home, job, his possessions, strips himself down to just about nothing, other than the booze to ward off the demons confronting him, the occasional AA meeting, and the lost cause cases that come his way that pay his rent, keep him from starving and drunk —and then he rebuilds himself and his life step by step during the course of the series. Scudder truly stands out among the series characters who have populated crime fiction.

Another aspect of Scudder worthy of note is the parallels between Scudder and Block. Like Scudder, Block had a serious drinking problem that he overcame right around the time he started the Scudder series. Also, in the preface to Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, one his books for writers, Block relates how very similar to Scudder:

“In the summer of ’75 I hit the road. I gave up my New York apartment, sold or gave away most of the possessions of a lifetime, packed the remainder into the back of a diseased station wagon, and set out for Los Angeles.”

In his memoir, Step by Step, his most recently published book prior to Hard Stuff, Block relates that at the time his first marriage ended (in the mid-70’s), he would go to a nearby church for “peace and quite” and that this was the source for Scudder’s habit for visiting churches. Finally, Block assigned an age to Scudder that is similar to his own.

Does this mean that Scudder is Block’s alter ego? As fascinating a concept as that can be, one should be cautioned from reaching such conclusion on such sketchy evidence. It is entirely possible that these particular parallels were simply the source of inspiration for certain aspects of the Scudder character and that Block’s imagination took off from there. Also, keep in mind that Block authored over 100 books—there’s the 43 books devoted to his five series characters, then about 40 free standing novels (19 acknowledged in the “Also by Lawrence Block” page of Hard Stuff, and over 20 more early novels that Block wrote under assumed names (such as Jill Emerson and Sheldon Lord) that Block is only now bringing to light), and then there are four books for writers, seven collections of short stories and so on—the point being that to be as prolific (indeed, as prodigious) as Block, one must possess a uniquely fertile imagination. Thus, to reach the conclusion that the Scudder character is Block’s alter ego may be going too far. It really remains the task of Block’s biographer or literary scholars to do the extensive investigation to determine what inspired Block and the connection between Block’s life and that of this particular character of his.

As stated earlier, A Drop of the Hard Stuff takes place 6 years subsequent to the events of All the Flowers are Dying. Scudder is now in his seventies and the book opens with his having a late night session with his best friend Mick Ballou, who is also a septuagenarian. (“[T]wo old men up past our bedtimes, talking and drinking water.”) They get to talking about how differently people in similar circumstances turn out. Mick points out, as a suitable example, how he was a career criminal, while one of his brothers is a priest and another a legitimate businessman. Scudder then launches into a story about a boyhood acquaintance, Jack Ellery. After Scudder moved out of the Bronx neighborhood where they grew up, he lost touch with Ellery and the next time he sees him is some years later, when Scudder was still a cop. Ellery is in a police lineup. He had turned into a small time hood.

Scudder relates after that time,  the next time he sees Ellery is at an AA meeting some years later, after Scudder had left the force, and during his first year of sobriety, which would be just after the events of Eight Million Ways to Die, at the end of which Scudder himself finally stopped drinking “after too many blackouts and too many hangovers, after a couple of trips to detox and at least one seizure,” and before those of Out on the Cutting Edge, when he first befriends Mick Ballou.

Whereas they did not speak at the time of the lineup encounter, Scudder and Ellery do get reacquainted this latter time. Ellery admits to his life of crime and that he had done time. While in jail he realized that each time he committed crime he was high. He managed to stay sober in jail, wanted to remain so, but was unable to do so upon release. Then a most unlikely fellow (“a gay guy,…this wispy little queen, this guy I have less in common with than a … Martian”) agreed to be his sponsor. Greg Stillman was a real so called “Step Nazi” who had Ellery work his way systematically and rigorously through Alcoholic Anonymous’s 12 steps. Stillman gave Ellery the push he needed to get on the straight and narrow and it worked, as by the time Scudder met up with him again, Ellery was in his second year of sobriety.

At the time Scudder and Ellery reconnect, Ellery was working on Step 9, when a recovering alcoholic makes amends to those he/she had harmed. However, in the course of Ellery’s doing so, someone kills him, by shooting him first in the forehead, then in the mouth.

Stillman blames himself, fearing that he pushed Ellery so hard that he made amends to someone so annoyed with Ellery that he killed him. Stillman is also conflicted: Should he reveal to the police the names of the five persons Ellery set out to make amends to? Would this subvert Ellery’s intention to make up to these persons and instead cause them grief again? The sponsor feared that given these fellows unsavory pasts, the cops would presume them to be suspects and ride them hard.

Instead, Stillman utilizes Scudder’s services, aware that Scudder does “favors” for people who return the favor by paying him money. So, he gives Scudder $1,000 to investigate the five on Ellery’s Step 9 list and to report to the police any who appear responsible for Ellery’s death.

Scudder visits them all, except the one with the perfect alibi: he’s sitting in some jail. As it turns out, the others do not appear to be suspects at all. The array of reactions among the four is fascinating:

“[O]ne guy [whom Ellery burglarized and ruined financially] punched him out and wound up hugging him and weeping in his arms, and another guy [whom Ellery beat up during the course of a holdup] told him to take his amends and shove them (where the sun don’t shine). And one said beating me on a coke deal was doing me a favor, and the other said everybody [screwed] my wife.”

Scudder clears them all. But the killer remains at large and Scudder couldn’t stop there. Who wants to keep Ellery quiet? Scudder learns that he had a partner who initiated the events that led to Ellery’s participating in a murder during a burglary, which Ellery revealed to Stillman as part of Step 4. Could it be this partner, to whom Ellery had no amends to make, who killed Ellery to shut him up in case he revealed this partner’s identity while making amends to someone for the murder?

Next, one of the four to whom Ellery made amends is killed while being mugged and Stillman himself is found hung, the apparent victim of suicide. While there is no reason for the police to doubt that the murder was anything but a murder during the course of the mugging and the suicide was anything but that, Scudder was troubled by the coincidence. He realizes that the mugged fellow had been trying to reach him by phone, but he had a common name and Scudder did not realize it was this particular person who called. Also, Stillman failed to leave a note, which was unusual.

Then, Scudder himself is a target, as the killer is certainly aware that Scudder is on his trail. The killer attacks a particular weakness of Scudder’s, alcohol—at a particularly vulnerable time for him, his first anniversary of sobriety. As clever and insidious as the killer is, and as everyone knows that Scudder will survive to reach his 70’s (he’s 45 during the events of Hard Stuff), the ending of this book will not be spoiled to learn that Scudder manages to dodge this “bullet.”

There would be the inevitable showdown between Scudder and the killer, and suffice it to say that readers will find its ultimate resolution surprising and satisfying.

As this glimpse demonstrates, Hard Stuff is vintage Scudder. It is a must read for Scudder and Block fans and for those who love crime fiction in particular and masterful writing generally. Despite being the same age as Scudder, Block has certainly not yet settled into a “comfortable retirement,” as with A Drop of the Hard Stuff he has churned out a story that is worthy of the Scudder and Block brand.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 28 readers
PUBLISHER: Mulholland Books (May 12, 2011)
REVIEWER: Hagen Baye
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Lawrence Block
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our reviews of:

Hope to Die (Matt Scudder series)
Small Town
The Burglar on the Prowl (Bernie Rhodenbarr series)
Grifter’s Game (Hard Case Crime)
All the Flowers are Dying (Matt Scudder series)
Girl with the Long Green Heart (Hard Case Crime)
Hit Parade (John Keller series)
Lucky at Cards (Hard Case Crime)
Hit and Run (John Keller series)
A Diet of Treacle (Hard Case Crime)
Killing Castro (Hard Case Crime)

Bibliography:

Hard Case Crimes reprints:

Matthew Scudder Mysteries

Keller Series:

Bernie Rhodenbarr Mysteries (reprinted 2006)

Evan Tanner Mysteries (reprinted in 2007):

Writing as Paul Kavanagh

Nonfiction:

Movies from Books:

  • Nightmare Honeymoon (based on Deadly Honeymoon)
  • Eight Million Ways to Die (1985)
  • Burglar (loosely based on The Burglar in the Closet) (1987)
  • Keller (based on Hit Man)
  • A Walk Among the Tombstones
]]> THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY by Heidi W. Durrow /2011/the-girl-who-fell-from-the-sky-by-heidi-w-durrow/ Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:19:48 +0000 /?p=16024 Book Quote:

“On that last day Mor took us up to the roof, she had calculated the difference between what we couldn’t have and her ability to watch us want. The difference between her pain and ours, she decided, measured nine stories high.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (FEB 11, 2011)

It amazes me that The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is Heidi W. Durrow’s debut novel. It is poetic, poignant, beautiful and elegiac with the panache of a seasoned writer. Once I started it, I could not stop thinking about it. It haunted my days until I finished it. Durrow has a talent that is rare and brilliant, like the northern lights.

The novel is about Rachel, the lone survivor of a fall from an apartment building. How did she fall? What made her family go off the roof-top? Told in different voices, the story unfolds slowly and the reader is let in on family destinies, secrets, shame, and the legacy of alcohol.

The story starts off in Chicago. It is told from the viewpoints of Rachel, a bi-racial girl who is in fifth grade when the story opens and is in high school at its end. There is Nella, Rachel’s mother, who is Danish, and whose surviving diary tells her story. Roger, Rachel’s father, is a black man in the military who meets Nella in Europe and who leaves Rachel with his mother after the fall. Laronne is Nella’s supervisor at work who comes across Nella’s diaries after her death. And then there is Brick, a young man of the Chicago tenements whose stolen copy of Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of North America is his most prized possession.

As this haunting novel begins, Brick, a budding ornithologist, is watching for birds to fall in the alleyway of his building. He is hoping for an egret but usually what he sees are falling trash bags and detritus from the upper floors. This time, he sees what he thinks is a huge bird falling and he runs downstairs to see what kind of bird it is.

“He was certain the silhouette of the great egret had passed his courtyard window…When he finally reached the courtyard, he saw that his bird was not a bird at all. His bird was a boy and a girl and a mother and a child. The mother, the girl, the child. They looked like they were sleeping, eyes closed, listless. The baby was still in her mother’s arms, a gray porridge pouring from the underside of her head. The girl was heaped on top of the boy’s body, a bloody helpless pillow.”

This sight becomes imprinted on Brick and effects the course of his entire life.

Rachel is the only survivor of the fall and, after her hospitalization, is sent to live with her grandmother in Portland, Oregon.   With her blue eyes and “good” hair, she becomes very much aware of race. There are the white girls and there are the black girls. She fits in nowhere though she tries to make a new self after the fall. Her mother, “Mor,” had done her best to shield Rachel and her siblings from race, to see themselves as unique beings, not as a color. This was much easier to do in Europe than in the United States. As Rachel navigates the racial terrain of her new world, she is stymied over and over by the subtleties and outright cruelties of race.

Rachel watches her grandmother drink her “contributions” and sees how the amount of her drinking increases daily. Rachel is very aware of the impact of alcohol on her family’s lives. Nella was in recovery when she died and her diary begins each day with the number of days she has been sober. Roger, Nella’s father, is an alcoholic, and it becomes clear that Rachel’s grandmother has a huge problem with her “contributions.” Though Roger does not visit Rachel once she is out of the hospital, his story is told through Brick who met him in the hospital. There, Roger shared family secrets with Brick and made him promise to one day tell these to Rachel.

The story unfolds in layers, slowly and magnificently. The reader has questions answered page by page until the story of the fall, the family secrets and history, are all given to us in haunting and precious bits. This is more than a story of a bi-racial girl and her ability to adapt to a new world and the horror of her legacy. It is a story of resiliency and hope and awareness and insight. Rachel is one of the strongest and clear characters that I have come across in literature. This is a book to be treasured and re-read. It is that good.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 228 readers
PUBLISHER: Algonquin Books; 1 edition (January 11, 2010)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Heidi W. Durrow
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another “fall off the roof” novel:

Another “mixed race” book:

Bibliography:

]]> RESCUE by Anita Shreve /2010/rescue-by-anita-shreve/ Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:58:25 +0000 /?p=13873 Book Quote:

“They had one good month followed by a bad month. Then they had three good weeks followed by a horrific week. During the bad weeks, Webster began repeating a single phrase over and over, like a tune he couldn’t get out of his head: My family needs to be rescued. It galled him that he … couldn’t suture the simple lacerations in his home life.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (NOV 30, 2010)

When Vermont native Peter Webster was twenty-one and a probationary EMT, he helped rescue a drunk driver who wrapped herself around a tree. The victim was twenty-four year old Sheila Arsenault, a woman fleeing from an abusive boyfriend in Massachusetts. Sheila and Webster pair up too quickly for either of them to take a hard look at their motives. Webster is attracted to Sheila physically and wants to help her move on with her life. Sheila is drawn to Webster because he is kind, mature, and makes her feel safe. Pete will regret his rashness in getting involved with Sheila, but he will never regret the birth of their daughter, Rowan. Circumstances change for Webster and Sheila over the years. However, Rowan will always be number one in her father’s life.

Rescue, by Anita Shreve, focuses on the ways in which parents and children deal with physical and emotional trauma. It is a poignant story about a good man who makes a mistake, but takes full responsibility for his actions. Webster is a conscientious parent and a hard-working breadwinner who accepts the fact that he must make the best of a bad situation. Some might quibble that Webster is too good to be true and that may be so. Nevertheless, he is a person we can root for wholeheartedly. The capricious Sheila, on the other hand, is a tortured soul who lacks the self-knowledge to comprehend that no one can save her from herself.

Shreve’s style is concise and straightforward, with no flashbacks, no changes in points of view, and no gimmickry. One outstanding aspect of this novel is Shreve’s vivid depiction of the heroic work of EMTs and paramedics: We are there with Will when he rushes to help the injured in a six-vehicle pileup involving a school bus; a woman in heart failure; a mother and daughter involved in a domestic dispute; and a man who is has suffered a stroke. These are dramatic and unforgettable scenes that demonstrate how people’s lives can change drastically in an instant. Shreve’s attention to the details of everyday life illuminates her characters’ hopes, fears, and disappointments. The author offers no pat answers—just the insight that, in any relationship, love is not enough. It can grow and thrive only when it is accompanied by respect, communication, and genuine concern for the loved one’s happiness and well-being.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-0from 99 readers
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown and Company (November 30, 2010)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Anita Shreve
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More reviews of Anita Shreve books:

Bibliography:

*Set in same NH Beach House

Nonfiction:

Movies from books:

]]> THE DEVIL’S STAR by Jo Nesbo /2010/the-devils-star-by-jo-nesbo/ Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:57:32 +0000 /?p=8422 Book Quote:

“Harry had felt the gnawing ache for alcohol from the moment he woke up that morning. First as an instinctive physical craving, then as a panic-stricken fear because he had put a distance between himself and his medicine by not taking is hip flask or any money with him to work. Now the ache was entering a new phase in which it was both a wholly physical pain and a feeling of blank terror that he would be torn to pieces.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (FEB 24, 2010)

In Jo Nesbø’s The Devil’s Star, Harry Hole is an alcoholic who will be lucky to reach his fortieth birthday. His job as an inspector in Oslo Police Headquarters is hanging by a thread. He would not have a position at all if his supervisor, Crime Squad Chief Inspector Bjarne Møller, did not feel sorry for him, especially since he knows what a terrific detective Harry is when he manages to stay sober. Harry’s self-loathing is deepened by regret over his crumbling relationship with his lover, Rakel. He is all too aware that he cannot offer Rakel the stability and security that she and her young son, Oleg, need and deserve.

It is summer in Oslo, and the city is in the grip of a debilitating heat wave. In addition, the police force is working with a skeleton crew since so many people are away on vacation. When a fresh homicide falls into Møller’s lap, he calls Beate Lønn, a forensics whiz and a straight arrow who practically lives in the lab and is blessed with a photographic memory. Next, he contacts Inspector Tom Waaler, a rising star who is handsome, self-confident, and respected by everyone in the department. Møller hesitates before telephoning Harry Hole, “the lone wolf…the department’s enfant terrible.”

Harry is still reeling from the death of his colleague, Ellen Gjelten. Although Ellen’s case is closed, Harry is obsessed and will not let it rest; he has some disturbing theories about what really happened to her. He spends hours pursuing leads that turn out to be dead ends. Out of frustration, he goes on a binge and Bjame covers for Harry by placing him on leave. However, Harry’s boss cannot protect him indefinitely.

Circumstances bring Waaler, Hole, and Lønn together on a strange case of a serial killer who seems to be fixated on pentagrams, “devil’s stars.” The perpetrator appears to pick his victims randomly and his motive is unclear. As the killings continue, the police remain baffled. Harry, who gradually emerges from his alcoholic haze, uses his keen insight and out-of-the box thinking to shed some light on this murky investigation. As he does so, he butts heads not only with a cold-blooded psychopath but also with a sworn enemy who has a great deal to lose if Harry succeeds in unmasking him.

Although Harry is something of a stereotype (the brilliant cop who needs a big case to give him an excuse to go on the wagon), he is likeable, honest, and compassionate. Unsurprisingly in a book that exceeds four-hundred and fifty pages, the mystery is complex, with red herrings galore, clues scattered throughout to tantalize the reader, and of course, a climactic and violent final confrontation. Although The Devil’s Star is far from realistic and breaks little new ground in a well-worn genre, it is evocative and suspenseful, with detailed and vivid descriptive writing and a fascinating look at the minutiae of forensics, interrogation, and surveillance. Nesbø’s characters are varied and intriguing, there is plenty of action to hold the reader’s interest, and the twists and turns keep us guessing, even after we think that the crime is solved. Aficionados of novels that feature a talented cop who lives on the edge, a sadistic and devilishly clever serial killer, and a plot that teases and surprises us until the truth is finally revealed, will find much to like in this multi-layered thriller.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 422 readers
PUBLISHER: Harper (March 9, 2010)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Jo Nesbo
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Stand-alone Novels:

  • Headhunters (2008)
  • The Son (May 2014)
]]>