Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 57

Dark and drizzly

81. Certain Dark Things – Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Vampires in a slightly futurized version of Mexico City! I really like this author. I’ve only read two of her books, but she’s absolutely great. The first book of hers I read had very little fantasy element to it but this one is vampire noir and that’s quite a change. However, she builds her world basically seamlessly. I was never taken out of the narrative by exposition or any other aspect of world building and I’ve never even been to Mexico City (just border towns for me thus far). That’s quite a feat when you’re writing about yet another selection of different kinds of vampires, but Moreno-Garcia’s vampires are actually interesting- even to me, who has been reading vampire stories for a very, very long time now.

Some are really classy noir ladies with their ability to push those who care for them away and enlist the help of puppy dog-style humans, like Atl; some sound like someone I used to know who is particularly fond of being sleazy and ravenous for getting what they want, like Nick, whose mouth is also full of really nasty bacteria; and then there’s the super old dude one that lives in a house in the Roma and seems like he looks like Diego Rivera but maybe shorter, Bernardino. Of course, none of these vampires are even supposed to be in Mexico City and there are human perspectives on the various conflicts and details of the rules for vampires as well. And still it doesn’t get boring or wander around in human moral issues or crying or ever get confusing despite how many characters are involved. There’s an underlying drumbeat to the entire story.

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Finny would serve as Ozma’s Renfield if they were vampires; but Ozma would make a good noir lady regardless.

 

Under pressure

98. The Keeper of Lost Causes – Jussi Adler-Olsen

Some people’s careers do not go easily. You can have all the skills in the world and not suck at speaking to people and it can still go badly or be vastly more unimpressive than you intended. Or…you can get shoved in a basement (or working in a basement ends up ruining your career, there’s also that) like Carl Morck. We’re promoting you! To the basement in a new, made up department to get us more money by pretending to give it to you! Department Q for you instead of light duty. Here’s some old, possibly unsolvable cases and a dude you don’t know because your officer friends are either dead now or disabled and you lived – and we don’t particularly like you, even if you’re a good detective.

Ironically, for this sort of story and mysteries from this area of the world in general (Department Q is in Denmark), The Keeper of Lost Causes is quite funny at times. The secondary and tertiary characters are great and Carl is…Carl. His assistant Assad is awesome, and has a background to hopefully be much elaborated on in the other books because he has some skills that seem like the kind that get you demoted to the basement or forced to leave your home country for being too good at certain kinds of things.

The central mystery of The Keeper of Lost Causes involves a kidnapping, some serious pressure, and an absolutely terrifying abscess situation in the usual bleak vein I expect from Scandinavian and Nordic mystery series, so that’s all there too. The gloom is just not all encompassing, which was an unexpected surprise. It can’t rain all the time.

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Salem knows quite a bit about having a haunted past, being easily startled, and being unexpectedly funny. He’s never going in a basement though.

“I instinctively have to get away from you. Bye.”

67. Walk of the Spirits & 68. Shadow Mirror – Richie Tankersley Cusick

Apparently these are the last two novels Richie Tankersley Cusick has published via a major publisher according to at least a few of sources. It was clear to me at the end of Shadow Mirror that might not have been intended to be the case. The thing is, she writes about the ghostly encounters of teens in a small Louisiana town with authorita. And that makes sense, she was born in New Orleans, the only place I’ve been where the signs about apartment vacancies mention whether or not the place is haunted publicly. It’s a Spirit Walk kind of state. And Cusick makes a clear differentiation between the southernness of Florida (where main character Miranda is from) and the southernness of bayou-adjacent Louisiana where both books are set, which makes more sense than anyone who would like to lump all the southern states together would understand, including the person I currently know who seems to think no areas of Florida have grass or snakes. They seemed so delusionally sure of what they were saying.

Anyway, Miranda and her mother move to the tiny town of St. Yvette after a hurricane takes their Florida home away. Miranda’s mom is from St. Yvette but she doesn’t like to talk about it because her father, Jonas Hayes, is the town crackpot. So she kept him from knowing his granddaughter – and she tries to keep Miranda from meeting him by having the both of them live above the garage at Hayes House, where her grandfather lives with the massively popular Aunt Teeta.

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Pammy was also massively popular, but not for her cooking and welcoming personality like Aunt Teeta.

Not unlike a vampire series which shall not be named (not the ridiculous Derek the vampire one), Miranda finds an immediate friend group at school by being awkward and silent. Granted, she’s silent because she’s dealing with losing everything she ever had due to a hurricane, but, still. And this friend group is very eclectic and its cobbled-together nature is explained with familial ties. There’s Ashley, the bubbliest of cheerleaders, Parker – her sullenly willful boyfriend who is on the football team and rich, Roo – Ashley’s super-goth sister by marriage, Gage – the one with the dimples who lived next door to Roo and Ashley starting in childhood and who Roo is clearly in love with despite all her disaffected bullshit, and Etienne – who sounds exactly like every Cajun I’ve ever run into and is Gage’s cousin and who is much beloved of Miranda’s Aunt Teeta and grandfather.

One class history project brings them all together and they end up in a beautifully described dilapidated Union soldier cemetery and they meet Miranda’s grandfather being all crackpot-style and then he collapses and only gets to say like a couple sentences to Miranda before he dies. Sheesh.

And then there’s the ghosts. And Etienne showing up at all the right times when Miranda is ready to complain about seeing said ghosts and having a new important thing in her life that’s scary after losing all the other things and pushing him away, but wanting him to stay.

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Pammy and Thaddeus’ dramatic recreation of Etienne sneaking into Miranda’s bedroom once she and her mother move into the larger Hayes House.

Somehow, the eclectic band of misfit friends who are all cute and constantly give each other hormonally-based shit manage to be interested – except Parker, who has an even bigger secret than his parents being rich and neglectful – in helping Miranda solve ghost problems, which happens to be what drove her grandfather to look like a crackpot. And they still manage to turn the history project in on time! With students who give a shit about their grades like Ashley and Gage involved, though, that was a given. Someone actually has to do the project while Miranda’s passed out, Etienne’s working offsite, Roo’s smoking, and Parker’s becoming a teen alcoholic. For the most part, the personalities of the teens are very realistic. Miranda’s a bit of a cipher and she does that Cusick thing where she runs from getting useful information a lot, but main characters are never perfect and she of course inexplicably attracts the attention of both Gage and Etienne. To be fair, attracting two southern dudes at the same time (while running from information) is also kind of a Cusick thing, I read Blood Roots.

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Pammy was perfect, but, she was a guinea pig, so…a very high bar had already been met.

In book two, the last book thus far of the Spirit Walk series, the cracks in those friendships widen – and it’s all Miranda’s fault with all her fainting and ghost shenanigans, now at a giant plantation. One thing I will mention about this series, it throws in tidbits of southern history in a not beating you over the head with self-righteousness way to remind you it was bad. Everyone is aware it was bad and that “bad” isn’t really a big enough word to cover it. There is a level of living with the history of a place and remembering that more than one culture was there, but also there’s the architecture appreciation because now the ghosts are giving Miranda shit through mirrors at the plantation Belle Chandelle. And they are super sad. And they are pre-Civil War ghosts. Who come with smells at the plantation currently being turned into a bed and breakfast. The whole place, regardless of whether or not that is in quite poor taste.

And Etienne is even more preternaturally aware of when Miranda needs him to sneak in to her room and comfort her about ghosts.

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Thaddeus was just like Etienne, apparently surveilling the house while also working like ten outside jobs. Thaddeus didn’t have to do quite as much work to watch out for Pammy.

Anyway, those friendships. Ashley might stop dating Parker, even though this doesn’t entirely go anywhere, it does make them upset and distracted. Roo is still trying to act like she cares more about making pithy innuendos than she does being with Gage, because Gage and Miranda clearly have some level of attraction to each other. Gage does research and is clearly cute, but, Miranda has Etienne after her too, and he’s kissed her and won’t quite holding onto her just a little too tightly when she’s upset or trying not to be embarrassed. And somehow, her sieve of a personality reminds Etienne’s mom of herself, so she gets invited to dinner at their house in the bayou.

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I don’t know, maybe they like each other. Maybe. A little bit.

One swamp tour later, they know each other even better than all those secret meetings and shared glances – and then it’s gone because Gage shows up and interrupts dinner and he and Etienne get all angry at each other because they both care about Miranda. Miranda once again gets awkward and then relies on everyone else to save her after she tries to fix the ghost things by herself. She’s not exactly a slayer, we’ll just say that. And she doesn’t seem to know that Etienne is way more interesting than Gage even if he has been previously popular with the ladies…ladies we never hear about because the outside characters who are mentioned are either ghosts or impeding on Ashley and Parker’s relationship.

However, in the end, they can all stay friends for now as long as they have to save Miranda and feelings that were hurt can stay hurt and no one will ever find out how it shakes out because that’s the last book. They were all probably going to break up and be pulled inexplicably back together as a friend group over some ghost friends who didn’t get to go to cotillion or something in the next one.

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I don’t know, maybe these two crazy pigs who never betrayed each other are still watching over each other as ghosts, waiting for more series books their sweet little antics can be applied to.

 

Yes, there really can be only one.

3. Sabbath – Nick Mamatas

Like a knockoff Highlander, Hexen Sabbath has a cool name and a lady helping him through the modern world in addition to some knowledge drop from an angel into his 11th century head. What he does not have is an original plot to hang out in. The seven deadly sins are brought up frequently enough, Supernatural did them in with one episode, they were more dingy in the 1990s, and I did not find Sabbath had enough charisma or punch with his “I don’t die today because it’s not the right day, but maybe I do” thing.

I also had high hopes for the art gallery owner, but was disappointed that the show she’s trying to push was just a bullshit show even she knows is bullshit. Blank canvases? But you have her identifying 11th century crosses seconds earlier. Why doesn’t she have a show she really believes in? Wouldn’t that maybe make her more of a person who would be helpful and a solid lady character? Instead, there’s a drop-in angel who then peaces out and the gallery owner’s sometime hook up who at least knows some theology, but is also pretty one note…not unlike the choices for the sins, even if one is an obvious and disturbing political allegory for someone I’d like to stop reading about (not the author’s fault, just, it’s so now and so UGH).

The best parts really were the fight scenes. They were nicely choreographed and at least gave me something I’m not used to reading for a while and don’t have to take as fun on faith. If I can’t have a heroine who is both a forensic scientist and expert in metallurgy (or someone similarly informed), then I’ll take clangy and snazzy fight scenes.

I wanted this to be much more fun than it was. Carrying around a bag of heads should be more fun.

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When Thorfinnur gets up from his nap, he’ll be ready to take on the other six deadly sins, forge some swords, and experience the quickening.

This ain’t no Candlemas.

1. Spell Bound – Kelley Armstrong

The series is almost over, so it’s time for the character cameo rodeo. And making Savannah, the young witch, the main character again sort of takes the edge off the stakes of the supposed build up to the grand finale. When the world you’ve created has a shitload of characters, many with very similar traits of running at trouble after finding it, it can be just a little fillery. I have seen some reviews that pegged this entry in the Otherworld series as YA, which I think is an apt comparison. Savannah’s wanted to be the poster child of the Supernatural Liberation Movement, she wants Adam to see her as more of a potential love interest than just a whiny kid and his best friend, she lost her powers and needs to get them back, she’s being chased by a witch hunter – all of these are normal YA/coming of age sorts of topics. So it was a little weird to have this as the penultimate entry. Oh well.

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As ladypigs, Peregrine and Ozma know some penultimate book of the series level-intrigue and you can see it on their sweet little faces.

 

“This is what we fought all night to get back to?”

72. Swan Song – Robert McCammon

The electric blue in this one is strong. As are the rocky keloid facial coverings. Swan Song is vast in scope and yet, works very well. A surface-level reading might say, hey, The Stand goes nuclear, but that’s very surface (Plus I haven’t read The Stand, although I have most certainly seen the TV movie a number of times. Geraldo the guinea pig is still stuck in that medical facility. Someone go get him. Gary Sinise did not take responsibility for him like a jerk, even though he’s a hero character. What the hell?), and the goals are similar but they are the product of the same kinds of overarching fears that North Korea’s random nuclear tests bring. What happens when the U.S. gets nuked? Apparently the answer is electric blue magic from a girl named after The Warriors’ second war chief. Not really. Well, kind of. Sort of really. It has all the grimy, gnarly McCammon reality that one expects, and even though Boy’s Life might be his best, I liked reading this one better.

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There is a font called Electric Pickle. It was therefore my Pickles’ destiny to grace a review of Swan Song, the one with the most electric blue.

Mater Suspiriorum

64. Heartsick – Chelsea Cain

It’s the talking to a serial killer who is in prison to stop a new serial killer trope, with the usual genders reversed, and more zazz. Instead of the detective or vulnerable FBI trainee having to establish a new relationship with the serial killer, they already know each other…from the inside out, as Ms. Gretchen the killer held Det. Archie Sheridan for ten days and tortured him into the broken man we follow for many parts of the story.

The other main character is Susan, an also somewhat broken newspaper reporter who is following Archie to get the scoop and is more connected to the story of the new serial killer to track down than she realizes. Ah, thriller novels, sometimes it’s like everyone lives within a three block radius of each other.

Sometimes it’s nice to get a thriller with virtually no virtue signaling and this one is also quite gruesome at times. It’s definitely an interesting start to this six book series that’s supposedly focused on Archie and Gretchen when you consider that Gretchen is more of a haunting presence pervading the whole story with her pageant queen sadist essence than a participant.

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Danger Crumples didn’t have to visit Merricat in prison to learn her secrets, but she was only available to play mind games with him for a very limited time.

“It must have been something you said…”

74. If I Die Tonight – Alison Gaylin

An 80s punk has been’s Jaguar ends up in a hit and run crash, a very small police department tries to solve it, the town wants to blame that one weird sensitive kid, and how that one weird sensitive kid’s parent reacts to how little she knows her son the weird sensitive kid are all major components in this story of small town bullshit and its insidious effects on people. Gaylin might not have thought, “I’m writing about small town bullshit,” but there’s so much of it in here that it overtakes anything else.

My favorite character, Pearl the police officer who resents that she is willing to hook up with someone who wears Axe body spray and doesn’t like the super cocky officer who lives with his parents and acts like high school still matters (not the same person who wears Axe, that one’s an EMT), is the person most capable of cutting through said small town bullshit so I was glad to have her in-head perspective.

There was also a major undercurrent of the thing that can turn everywhere into that expression of small town (or here I should say village, really) bullshit that used to lead to pitchforks and torches…social media. Now instead of the pitchforks and the torches, there are comments. And comments that get deleted. And comments that get screenshotted. And these comments do more psychological damage than the Lottery (you know the one) or being chased out with those pitchforks and torches ever could. At least those throwing the stones and carrying the traditional implements to burn “the monster’s” house down on a hunch and a whim had to actually be present and visible.

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Ozymandias did not read the comments. He also didn’t expect me to quote Cutting Crew when not also quoting Kyle Kinane’s cemetery joke.

“I do cater to unusual affairs.”

24. Relics – Tim Lebbon

A perfect couple – one American criminology student and an English male human named Vince who is very affectionate. In London. Tragically torn apart by the black market trade in artifacts. It’s an age old story. Not really. Trying to find a missing person and ending up in a completely bizarre version of the world you thought you knew and realizing they weren’t who you thought they were is actually an age old story, but this version of it was quite fun and clicked along at a fast pace.

Relics is like what would happen if China Mieville’s bizarro-London was trimmed down and forced to make sense all the time. Lebbon does a great job of including different elements of the supernatural and not overdoing it so he can show you he’s heard of some more types of creatures. The only area where it’s heavy on the random creature information is well contained within a collection and a later a “nice” dinner, so it’s much easier to process.

This is the start of a series and I very much hope that Lebbon doesn’t go kitchen sink in the other books. I mean, it’s not like the scope isn’t widened at the end, but, I hope not to the point of “I did research on mythological creatures and I want you to know it” madness that happens with some authors.

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Mortemer did a lot of research on mythological creatures, but he never bragged about it.

 

Haunting research

63. The Grip of It – Jac Jemc

If I’ve learned anything from all the haunted house books I’ve read and all the haunted house shows I’ve watched is that if a really cool house is cheap – something is desperately wrong with it. New, old, it doesn’t matter what decade you’re buying it in either, it’s probably haunted. By something. Perhaps the ghosts of architects past, perhaps the ground is sour and there’s no specific ghost, perhaps somebody’s really favoritist mother- who knows?

In this story there are no clear explanations. There are hidden rooms, weird stains, drawings that show up on the wall, an encroaching forest, a creepy neighbor who lives with cats and an ammonia smell that was palpable through the pages, some creepy kids in a tree, burgeoning medical problems, algae, a cave scene that I thought was actually going to go somewhere but didn’t… It was interesting but I’m about as clear on how I feel about it as the book was clear about exactly what was happening and there’s an extent to which I wanted more.

I mean, they looked at newspaper on fiche (insane, it should have been microfilm, looking at newspaper on fiche is a nightmare if you don’t have an exact date for what you’re looking for and sometimes even if you do – librarian tip) and they still didn’t have a specific and clear explanation. Well, dude was a beginning fiche user.

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Ozma hides her head at the thought of looking for newspaper articles on fiche. The endless grocery cart motions to get through the pages, never knowing which side of the fiche goes down and then having to pull out the tray to flip it like every time you need a new one, getting to the end of the row and forgetting which direction you’re actually supposed to push and then pull to get to the beginning of the next row, your eyes going bleary from trying to catch the one detail you need to confirm the article … I mean, it’s okay if it’s the index to the paper, but not the actual newspaper. That’s just brutal. Brutal.