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I loved Josh Bazell's first book, Beat the Reaper. It was original and funny. It had footnotes. Footnotes!
Unfortunately, in Wild Thing, the epilogue, footnotes, and appendix are far more interesting than the story, which continues the adventures of...moreI loved Josh Bazell's first book, Beat the Reaper. It was original and funny. It had footnotes. Footnotes!
Unfortunately, in Wild Thing, the epilogue, footnotes, and appendix are far more interesting than the story, which continues the adventures of Beat the Reaper's Pietro Brnwa/Peter Brown/Lionel Azimuth, a mafia hitman/doctor/bodyguard.
Some kind of man-eating monster may be haunting a fresh water lake in the Minnesota wilderness. Azimuth is hired to protect a paleontologist who suspects the creature is a dinosaur. There was the potential for primo goofiness, but the writing was awkwardly coarse, and I really disliked Violet Hurst, the paleontologist and Azimuth's love interest. And who were all those superfluous people in the monster safari party and why should I care?
What did I like? Bazell has a wicked sense of humor and it still shone through, mostly in the aforementioned footnotes. The appendix gave the background for many of the side issues Bazell brought up in his story. Sarah Palin appears as a bizarre character in the story, and the appendix says she may be nuts but not quite in the way depicted in the fictional portion of the book. (I found that highly entertaining.) The epilogue should have been the story -- but then the book would have been four pages long. But they would have been four really good pages.(less)
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" Robin wrote: "What is a MBTB star?"
Sorry. I also post these reviews on the website for Murder by the Book (Portland, Oregon), and sometimes I forget t...moreRobin wrote: "What is a MBTB star?"
Sorry. I also post these reviews on the website for Murder by the Book (Portland, Oregon), and sometimes I forget to delete comments specific to the bookstore's blog. Each year we choose the best mystery paperbacks of the year. I chose "Beat the Reaper" the year it came out. It had me laughing out loud.(less)"
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The Mirage
by
Matt Ruff (Goodreads Author)
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The story begins a few years after the World Trade Center's twin towers fell, destroyed by airplanes flown by terrorists. The Homeland Security Department has been created, and our hero, Mustafa al Baghdadi, works for it, along with his friends and c...moreThe story begins a few years after the World Trade Center's twin towers fell, destroyed by airplanes flown by terrorists. The Homeland Security Department has been created, and our hero, Mustafa al Baghdadi, works for it, along with his friends and colleagues, Amal and Samir. Mustafa's wife, Fadwa, died in the chaos of that day, November 9, 2001.
11/9. Not 9/11. Why? Because the twin towers were in Baghdad, not New York City. The UAS -- United Arab States -- were attacked, not the USA, which doesn't exist. North America, where the United States of America should be, is a jumble of independent countries, including the country of Texas. Everywhere in North America are Christian fundamentalist and crusader groups and political parties. It was one of those groups that propelled the planes into the towers in Baghdad.
Although there are occasional comic references to things like Six Flags Hanging Garden Water Park and Green Desert instead of the singing group Green Day, Matt Ruff doesn't cross the line into parody or slapstick. He wants to show that what we consider to be all-American references are now UAS references. What was once USA is now UAS. That's not to say that the switch is complete. The UAS is almost all Muslim, but Christianity is tolerated, Middle Eastern Christians being subjected to the same suspicion that Muslims receive in the USA today.
The UAS also still has Saddam Hussein, a gun-toting, high-level gangster. It also still has Osama bin Laden, the fanatical right-wing head of al Qaeda. In the name of protecting national interests, the UAS is no better at resisting the temptation to torture its suspects than the USA is. Familiar names dot Ruff's landscape: Uday and Qusay, Nouri al Maliki, Muqtada al Sadr, David Koresh, Timothy McVeigh, Tariq Aziz, and a rumpled Donald Rumsfeld, whose final scene seems pathetically appropriate. Other real people are referred to obliquely: the Quail Hunter and the man from Crawford, Texas, for instance.
So what is really different?
Mustafa, Samir and Amal take their jobs seriously. They try to play within the rules, which is more than can be said of the corrupt Baghdad police, but they eventually find that the rules are changing. Captured terrorist artifacts indicate a bizarre scenario: The twin towers that were destroyed were in New York City and the terrorists were Arabs. Mustafa and others are occasionally dizzy, accompanied by a sense that something is wrong. The trio first accidentally and then purposely dig to find out who or what is behind the hidden world.
Although The Mirage progresses from a spy thriller to an increasingly out-of-kilter storyline, it's never frivolous. Ruff manages to hold a serious tone throughout. His final chapter provides a moral to his fable: Be careful what you wish for.
This is a solid, thoughtful, well-researched novel by someone whose head must visibly crackle and sparkle with all of his creative thoughts(less)
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This book won a lot of accolades and the Anthony Award for Best First Novel. It wasn't until three-fourths of the way through the book, however, that I was sold on it.
Travel journalist Lily Moore is called back from Spain to New York to identify her ...moreThis book won a lot of accolades and the Anthony Award for Best First Novel. It wasn't until three-fourths of the way through the book, however, that I was sold on it.
Travel journalist Lily Moore is called back from Spain to New York to identify her sister's body, found drowned in the bathtub of her apartment. It's more than upsetting when Lily finds that the body is of a stranger, a woman who had been pretending to be Claudia, her sister, for the last few months, including running up credit card bills in her name. Who is the woman and where is Claudia? Answering these two questions defines the rest of the book.
There are many other characters, some of them more unsavory than others, from Claudia and Lily's lives whom we meet as Lily searches for clues. My favorite is Jesse, Lily's gay photographer friend. He is sympathetic, has a moving family history, provides the right amount of support for Lily, and carries a gun but speaks softly. Lily's ex-boyfriend, a wealthy businessman, is plain creepy. Claudia's ex-boyfriend, another wealthy entrepreneur, is a little less creepy, but he's right up there.
The reason I had trouble getting into the book is that Lily is a hard person to like, and not because she had run far away and left her sister to her addictions (heroin, methadone, whatever). There was something so passive-aggressive about Lily and her relationships with people, including the aforementioned creepy boyfriend. Undoubtedly, there is something broken about Lily, too. Later a potential new boyfriend for Lily enters the picture, and I wanted to say, "Why? What do you see in her?"
Well, for starters, she apparently resembles Ava Gardner, the 1940s-50s screen godDESS. (I could hear the lush music from the "Laura"-type movies of that era playing in the background while I read this book.) And Claudia was no slouch either. Maybe that's enough to explain the romantic mayhem that follows both of them.
What the last fourth of the book provided was a sterling drawing together of all the pieces. Lily sloughs off her torpor/simmering rage/misdirected sentiments and gets down to it.
I felt that this book was written for a younger generation's sensibilities. There's a dark, sophisticated, vaguely louche quality to the characters, good and bad. The book begins from a point of view that I couldn't relate to immediately. There's an underlying set of unarticulated ground rules, a copy of which I didn't get in the mail. Why would I be more likely to apprehend Elmore Leonard's "Raylan" country than Davidson's New York? I think it's a question of human motivations. One set I get, the other I have to work at.
I rarely read the previews for the author's next book invariably stuck at the end of paperbacks, but I wanted to know if Lily's character would be carried forward. Indeed, the next book finds Lily and Jesse in South America. Now that concept makes me want to read it. Lily (and author Hilary Davidson) IS a travel writer. I miss Lyn Hamilton's travel mysteries, and while Davidson's writing is certainly darker, I welcome the opportunity to become an armchair traveler again.(less)
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I loved this book! P. G. Sturges has created an original character. He also sports an original style, with an intoxicating mixture of gladness, badness and sadness. Bonus: The chapters have titles! This is the follow-up to The Shortcut Man. I'm sorry...moreI loved this book! P. G. Sturges has created an original character. He also sports an original style, with an intoxicating mixture of gladness, badness and sadness. Bonus: The chapters have titles! This is the follow-up to The Shortcut Man. I'm sorry to say that I have not (yet) read it, but Tribulations stands alone quite well.
Dick Henry is a fix-it man in L.A. for people with problems, and we're not talking a leaky sink or an overgrown hedge. He gets his clients to their desired ends, not all of which are legitimate, by bypassing normal methods and channels, thus creating a shortcut. That's all right, Dick Henry is not quite legitimate, nor is the odd bunch of people who helps him. Among his colorful associates, I'm most fond of the world's stinkiest man. I will say no more. You will enjoy meeting him and finding out how he fits into Dick's world.
Here's Sturges introducing his Shortcut Man:
The thing was thing: Kiyoko [estranged girlfriend] believed all human suffering sprang from the denial of death. That denial took the form of greed, anger, and foolishness. And I agreed. Hell, I couldn't agree more. But before everybody wised up there'd be problems here and there. That's my line. My name's Dick Henry. They call me the Shortcut Man.
All is not raucous and irreverent humor, however. There are poignant moments as well, and they mostly have to do with Dick's children and an old girlfriend, perhaps the one true love of his life.
The majority of the story is concerned with the problems of Judge Harry Glidden and his TV star wife, Ellen. They are in a financial pickle and their solutions involve, willingly or un-, Dick Henry. They were the highest of the high and now they are on the verge of becoming the lowest of the low. Once catered to and fawned over, soon Harry and Ellen will be lucky to own a hotplate. Their plans to remedy their situation are incredibly stupid and hilarious. Let's just say that Mensa won't be knocking down their door.
One more funny tidbit from the book. At one point, Dick must pretend to be a gas repairman, and he uses the name "Dave." His cohort forgets and calls him "Dick," so he is henceforth forced to use the name "Dick-Dave."
So some of the book is first-person Dick Henry narrative and some of it is third-person, the latter mostly used to follow the increasingly unsteady footsteps of Ellen Glidden. Sturges writes well from both viewpoints.
Here's one last bit to give you a taste of what's in store:
Kiyoko [although my two quoted passages star Kiyoko, she really isn't in the book] was on my mind. My on-and-off girlfriend, Kiyoko was a Buddhist who hadn't yet come to appreciate my line of work. Last night, to the accompaniment of Japanese imprecations, she'd thrown me out of her house. It didn't help that I'd laughed at her insults. I couldn't help it. I understood only a few words of Japanese. Forku, steaku, porku, elephanto. Americanized additions to the language. Not the words she had chosen from the other side of the kitchen island. So I laughed, hoping to bluff my way through; a sitcom, a new take on the Odd Couple.
You. Must. Read. This.(less)
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
After receiving a Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago, Mertz raised a family instead of taking off for archaeological digs. The character of Amelia Peabody grew out of Mertz's love of Egypt. She began to live vicariously through Amelia, who was a 32-year-old woman in 1884 in Crocodile on the Sandbank. Amelia traveled to Egypt, fell in love with and married Radcliffe Emerson, an archaeologist. The characters age throughout the series. Amelia and Emerson, as she refers to him, raise their son, Ramses, who grows up, marries an Egyptian woman, Nefret, and has a child of his own. Ramses has his own adventures and intrigues in World War I. Eventually the series wends its way to the early 1920s. The Peabody-Emerson family lives a rich fictional life, and their trials and triumphs have won countless accolades and awards for their creator.
Despite having read and enjoyed several of the episodes, I had never read the first book. It was time to remedy that.
Obviously, there were some things that were not a surprise to me. This is the book in which Amelia and Emerson meet, and knowing that they wind up married didn't disturb my enjoyment of the will-they-or-won't-they subplot. It was fun to see Peters give them their cat-and-mouse relationship without resorting to cute and trite descriptions and dialogue.
And speaking of vicarious … it was tremendous fun to visit an Egypt in which there were still hidden treasures to be discovered and the legendary Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo to stay in, to float down the Nile, and to see Cairo's pyramids surrounded by desert sands, not suburban housing.
Here is the story in a nutshell. Amelia inherits money. In 1884 England, she makes a decision to indulge her desire to travel and her love of Egyptology, which is more than just the current fad to her. On her trip of discovery, she rescues Evelyn, a destitute and disgraced English gentlewoman, who becomes her friend and travel companion. The two women meet the brothers Emerson who are involved in a dig to uncover an ancient, royal tomb. And away they go, replete with mummies who walk at midnight, curses, cobras, chaste romance, and nefarious villains.
Become beguiled by this charming story. Share it with everyone, because it is multi-generationally friendly. It is the ultimate escape.
Barbara Mertz celebrated her 83rd birthday last September. Here's to many more!(less)
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After 16-year-old Rose Banks disappears one day, the children she leaves behind are shaken. Nora and Charlotte are the 11-year-olds she babysat, and eventually the emotions churned up by Rose's disappearance affect their friendship and they part ways...moreAfter 16-year-old Rose Banks disappears one day, the children she leaves behind are shaken. Nora and Charlotte are the 11-year-olds she babysat, and eventually the emotions churned up by Rose's disappearance affect their friendship and they part ways. Sixteen years later, a skeleton is recovered. Nora hears about it and returns to her small hometown, to Charlotte and her other childhood acquaintances, to determine what the discovery means to her and the others.
This is not a thriller. There are no shoot-em-ups, wild chase scenes, or crazed murderers roaming the street. There's a lot of introspection and reflection, and there are secrets. Emily Arsenault's book moves slowly as the layers of assumption and mistrust are peeled away. There is a resolution. I was afraid there might not be one, as Nora seesawed between not wanting to know what happened to Rose and needing to clear her conscience from believing that there was something she should have done to save Rose.
It was more confusing than elucidating, but Arsenault intersperses her present-time tale with a flashback of young Nora and Charlotte pouring over the Time-Life series on the supernatural. They and Rose experiment on themselves and have discussions of what the various alleged phenomena might mean. In fact, Nora is discovered to have some sort of psychic "talent," but that wasn't specifically developed, except perhaps in an oblique way. After Rose disappears, the books take on a different meaning. Charlotte plays psychic detective by using the various techniques mentioned in the books to find out what happened to her.
Maybe the girls are supposed to be comforted by thinking that if Rose is dead, she still has a "presence" somewhere or that Rose can still communicate what really happened to her. Or, worse yet, maybe there's a supernatural explanation. Rose believes in aliens, it turns out, and perhaps she has been kidnapped by one.
All in all, In Search of the Rose Notes is a thoughtful book and distinguishes itself favorably from what seems like an onslaught off recent books involving young women with suppressed or forgotten memories from their childhood.(less)
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Alice LaPlante's portrayal of a mind deteriorating from dementia sounds disturbingly accurate. I was so caught up in Dr. Jennifer White's mental time-traveling that I almost forgot there was a murder mystery involved.
Although Jennifer lives in her ow...moreAlice LaPlante's portrayal of a mind deteriorating from dementia sounds disturbingly accurate. I was so caught up in Dr. Jennifer White's mental time-traveling that I almost forgot there was a murder mystery involved.
Although Jennifer lives in her own home with a caregiver, it doesn't take a lot for her to sneak out and get into trouble. So it is possible that Jennifer could have killed her neighbor and best friend, the high-handed and moralistic Amanda. It is especially suspicious that four of Amanda's fingers were surgically removed. And Dr. Jennifer White is a surgeon.
The narrative viewpoint shifts a lot, starting with Jennifer's thoughts while sitting in a police station and on to journal entries, both by her and others. In the end it's a jumble of narratives in second person present, first person present and an intimate third person. Because of Jennifer's shifting mental time frame, we learn about her life in non-linear bits and pieces. It's never too confusing, however, as LaPlante does build to a climactic, cleansing scene.
The best part of LaPlante's writing covers the worst nightmare of someone beginning the unforgiving route of Alzheimer's. Incredibly, LaPlante is able to inform us of outsiders' reactions to Jennifer, while never leaving Jennifer's often muddled viewpoint. Before the onset of dementia, Jennifer was competent and cool, both as a surgeon and as a person. In fact, those elements still define her. Look, no tears, she often comments. As she deteriorates more rapidly, the questions become will the emotional barriers finally crack, will she have one final moment of clarity, will Amanda's murderer be discovered?(less)
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This is the final book in Del Toro and Hogan's vampire trilogy, which includes The Strain and The Fall. The Strain was one scary book! The airplane scene that begins that book made me glad I wasn't watching a movie version, because I would have been ...moreThis is the final book in Del Toro and Hogan's vampire trilogy, which includes The Strain and The Fall. The Strain was one scary book! The airplane scene that begins that book made me glad I wasn't watching a movie version, because I would have been hiding behind my bag of popcorn for at least a couple of days. The Fall, the second book, had the hardest task. The gasp of being caught off guard was gone after the first book. Naturally, there was no resolution at its end -- only sadness. I liked it for its thoughtful (yet action-packed) presentation.
In other words, my expectations were high.
The Night Eternal starts with a world off kilter and without hope. It has been two years since "The Master" and his vampire army took over the world. The skies are unrelentingly dark except for a few minutes every day. Our main characters are CDC epidemiologist Ephraim Goodweather, ratcatcher Vasiliy Fet, CDC doctor Nora Martinez, gangbanger Gus, Eph's ex-wife and current vampire Kelly, Eph's son Zack, and one-of-a-kind vampire Mr. Quinlan. Yes, one of the vampires is a hero. (We hope.)
Had everything been compressed into one book, this portion would not have taken that long. We wouldn't have had to immerse ourselves in the dread, despair, darkness, and damnation that makes up 99.99 percent of the book. I was ready for the book to end way before it actually did. No offense to the writing skills of Del Toro and Hogan. In fact, it is because of the skill of the authors in finding new ways to terrorize their heroes that I couldn't wait to get to the end. (Put them out of their collective misery!)
Enough with the fighting and whooshing of silver swords. Enough with the "book-hurling vampires." Really. Enough with the book-hurling vampires. Enough with Loved Ones and Dear Ones. Enough with machine gun ack-acking. And especially with the what-ev-er with Gus' madre.
So there were rough spots. (According to me.)
In fact I really liked this series (and loved The Strain), despite the schizo writing (gangbanger street talk followed by highfalutin religious philosophy). I take that back. I enjoyed the schizo writing, actually. After all, there are two authors, and it was a tale that drew from both the modern world and ages long since gone.
I'm not sure everything in the final scenes was necessary. I found Eph a little repetitive in the end, but he was a flawed hero in the best tradition. Fet proved to be my own Odyssean hero: going from ratcatcher to demolition specialist in order to make his way home. Mr. Quinlan was a great addition to the team because his background and nature were unknown.
Once having started the journey with The Strain, it was impossible not to want to read The Night Eternal.(less)
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(Part way through this review, I decided that you would learn a major plot device if you read this. If you want to be totally surprised by this unusual book, read the book first. And don't read the description on the back either.)
This unusual book be...more(Part way through this review, I decided that you would learn a major plot device if you read this. If you want to be totally surprised by this unusual book, read the book first. And don't read the description on the back either.)
This unusual book begins with the narrator obliquely letting us know that something has happened, and it has to do with Jean and Jean's friends. The prologue ends with, "And here in Kotemee, all anyone can say now is, 'Thank God I was never a good friend of Jean Vale Horemarsh.'" Then the story backtracks to what began it all: Jean's mother's painful, lingering death.
The book's ironic and subdued tone reminds me so much of the television shows "Desperate Housewives," "Pushing Daisies," "Six Feet Under" and "Twin Peaks." Like them, Practical Jean is an odd dramedy, a term that some media wit coined to indicate both comedic and dramatic aspects. (As Jean might say, "Isn't that a sweet phrase?") There's a wink to the audience that includes them in the joke. Irony leaks through every crack in this book.
Back to Jean's mother's death. Jean and her mother had a difficult relationship, but it was up to Jean to take care of her mother during her last few months of life. Afterwards, Jean knew that she didn't want anyone she loved to die the way her mother did: unhappy, in pain, old, disabled, with regrets. So she sets out to find out what would make her best girlfriends happy. She would do whatever it took to make them happy. Then she would kill them.
Jean is insane but her motivation has a certain logic. Wouldn't you want someone you loved to be happy? Trevor Cole smartly inserts flashbacks to Jean's childhood and teenage years. They provide a pathos that contrasts with and will carry the reader through the bizarre plans Jean makes.
Drama, comedy, pathos, told with an ironic voice. If the book isn't speaking to you within the first 20 pages, give up because it only gets weirder.
Here are a few quotes to help you decide whether you want to read this book:
On finding Jean's inspiration: "…[A] pre-idea, a vague and smoky intuition, was beginning to form in Jean's mind, gather and condensing into something potentially powerful, potentially great, like a mob massing before a riot."
On her husband Milt: "In both hands she took the heavy cheeks of his face, felt the smooth, shaved skin against her palms, and steered his head toward her the way she might move a roast of beef, looking for the best place to carve."
At a town gathering: "…[T]he two women were forced to wade through children like Mennonites through fields of flax."(less)
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