Jackson Coppley's Blog, page 8

Desperation in Death

Desperation in Death is my first J.D. Robb book. Admittedly, I’m a latecomer to this series. Nora Roberts writes the series under the pseudonym J.D. Robb and has been doing so since 1995. Desperation in Death is the 55th book in the series (there are 57 to date).

The series all take place in the near future. The first book takes place in 2058. Twenty-eight years after the first book came out, the calendar has moved only up to 2061 in Desperation. At this rate, time is catching up to J.D. Robb.

However, it’s not clear why the book needs to take place in the future. The police work described could be current. Perhaps the above stated ‘future catching up’ to Robb is at play.

Now, about the story itself, Chapter 1 provides the readers all they need to know. They are eye-witnesses to the crime, a horrific breeding at ‘The Academy’ for girls aimed at selling them as sex slaves and servants. Most of the remaining chapters leave this reader wanting the police to catch up. The detectives find a clue. Duh, yeah. We know that. Glad you found it.

The lead detective on the case is Eve Dallas, seemingly the star in each of the 57 books. She has a backstory which is hinted at. Perhaps it is laid out if I read the previous 54 books, something I will not do.

I was leaning towards rating the book three stars out of five, but the ending chapters raised it to four. Robb’s orchestration of a police raid in several locations with a cast of characters redeems the book. That part is an excellent piece of work.

The writing itself is what one would expect from an experienced best-selling author, but I quibbled about the lack of dialog tags. It was often confusing who was speaking. Also, drinking coffee is over the top in the story. The word ‘coffee’ appears 94 times.

So, approach this book as OK if you find it on a library shelf and looking for something to read.

The Diamond Eye

One might consider a story about a Russian sniper becoming best friends with Eleanor Roosevelt and touring the country a wild fable, but what I just wrote is true. In The Diamond Eye, Kate Quinn does an excellent job of taking facts and coating with fiction to create a thriller.

Quinn took the memoirs of sniper Mila Pavlichenko and gave Mila a voice to narrate The Diamond Eye. Mila tells us what she was thinking, which is mostly Quinn’s imagination, but the facts remain intact. Mila was a sniper in the Red Army, volunteering when Germany invaded the USSR at the start of World War II. They credited her with 309 kills. She had a young son she left with grandparents when she went to war. The loves of her life can only be speculative, but Quinn makes them powerful.

The first part of the book takes us into battle against the Germans and Iris, through the author, makes it real. Each chapter starts with a quotation from the ‘Official Memoir,’ followed by Iris telling us what really happened.

The second part of the book takes place in America. The Japanese attack the United States at Pearl Harbor and Russia then has a new ally against the Nazis, but America’s attention is to the Pacific. Russia wants America to open another front against the Germans and send a good will group to America to help their case. Mila is part of the group. However, there is an assassin, only named ‘the marksman’ by Quinn, who is plotting to kill Franklin Roosevelt and place the blame on Mila.

The book is long at over 450 pages and Quinn gives Mila plenty of space to tell the reader her thoughts, all well written, but lengthens the pace as a thriller. Then again, the book is ‘War Fiction,’ and not a thriller, per se. But there are plenty of fast-paced parts, especially toward the end, to make it just that, a thriller.

I recommend it.

Sparring Partners

Sparring Partners is a collection of three novellas with the common thread of lawyers and prisons one would expect from John Grisham.

The first story is about a man who ditched his dying wife, daughters, and a failing law practice, vanishing with money of unknown origin. No one is looking for him, but he wants to return to town and reconnect with his daughters. He’s a scoundrel, but Patterson permits you to like him.

The second story is about the last hours of a man who has lived on death row for fifteen years. It is a serious but touching story. His is a story about how reading can lift a man out of an eight-by-ten cell in solitary confinement. He’s had few visitors over the years, but his last one is a woman benefactor who's made a difference.

The third and longest story has the title of the collection, Sparring Partners, which refers to two brothers, partners in the firm their dad founded, and who hate each other. Mother, father, brothers make a dysfunctional family with a capital D. Dad’s in jail for causing the death of Mom but may be pardoned soon. The brothers don’t want that to happen. Patterson paints characters whom no reader will like but will get a laugh out of their plotting.

If you want to read harmless skullduggery that will make you grin with a story in the middle over which to shed a tear, I recommend Sparring Partners.

The Elephant Whisperer

Lawrence Anthony has a job he loves, and few others would. He’s responsible for a sprawling game preserve in South Africa. The Elephant Whisperer is his journal of experiences focusing on, as the title implies, his experience with a herd of elephants. That’s where the story begins. The herd, led by a stubborn matriarch, is so destructive, the current owner is at his wit’s end. He begs Anthony to take them. It’s either that, or they will be destroyed. He takes them.

Thus begins a tale of gigantic land animals wanting no part of playing along with people. They are restricted from wandering off the preserve by high electric fences. Think Jurassic Park with such fences keeping dinosaurs captive and having the same failure in doing so. But rather than eating people, elephants charge and stomp them. Anthony continues to remind the reader that elephants fear no other animal because of their sheer size.

Anthony has the patience of Job and works with the elephants over time, not to control them, which he could never do, but to live with them in relative peace. I say ‘relative’ since such animals can create havoc by just dropping by the house for a visit. Something that happens on more than one occasion.

The reader may wonder as they start the book how the story of Anthony and the elephants can sustain itself. That reader will soon find that there are more stories to be told about life in the bush of South Africa. One is of the neighbors, the Zulu tribal people who own land adjourning the preserve. Anthony reports in one chapter how he defended accusations against him in front of a tribal council. And, of course, there are stories of encountering other animals, including poisonous snakes one might find in their bedroom.

The Elephant Whisperer is a fine real-life story that will give the reader an expanded understanding of nature’s largest land animals and their environment.

https://amzn.to/3Bao0ZF

Marcia's Dead

Marcia’s Dead has all the ingredients of a classic murder mystery, expertly written. We start with a questionable death, add a disjointed family of characters, and stir with motives and opportunities.

The point of view is usually Ted, whose wife left him for Oscar, but married Oscar’s father instead. That is enough to mix generations, making Ted’s daughter Holly half-sister to someone her late mother’s age. Don’t worry. Laidlaw introduces each of her interesting suspects over time and you will get it all sorted out. The relationships, that is. The murderer, that is another thing for the reader to solve.

I’m peeved by murder mysteries that withhold vital clues until the end. Laidlaw does not commit that sin. Everything you need to know is shown.

As you follow Ted through this maze, Laidlaw vividly describes New Zealand, where the story takes place. The descriptions and action flow continuously and you will be surprised to near the end. It is just that compelling a read.

So, if you want a cosey murder to curl up with, I recommend Marcia’s Dead.

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Lost in Time

In Lost in Time, Riddle takes us on a twisting roller coaster of time travel. Like a detective story, the book begins with a murder and a wrongly accused suspect. In the near future, they do not send murderers and other bad guys to a prison island as they did in the past. They send them back in time, and we mean way back in time, to the time dinosaurs ruled the earth.

The first chapters of the book alternate between our wrongly accused hero in prehistoric times and the daughter’s attempts to bring her father back to the world today. Then, the daughter must time travel, although unwillingly, to the near past. This is when the book becomes a mind twister. We have an endless loop repeating itself in time. No reader can see what’s coming.

Lost in Time provides a target for those with such a bent to shoot holes in Riddle’s logic, and there are many opportunities to do so. My advice: Sit back, buckle up, and enjoy the ride.

American Dirt

When I first approached American Dirt, I assumed it was a story I’ve read and viewed in movies, one of the brutal hardships of those who escape Central America and Mexico and head to el norte. It is that, but it takes time to build into that tale.

Lydia and her son Luca are the only survivors of a horrific event during the opening pages and a drug lord is looking for them. But there is a backstory here the author expertly builds. Lydia runs a bookstore. She loves books and so does one of her favorite customers. However, there is a connection to that favorite customer that puts her husband in jeopardy. The author lays the links piece by piece, building the suspense. The story arc builds a steep incline.

Then Lydia runs for her life and takes little Luca with her. She must escape to el norte, the United States. That is when the novel turns to the story I had been expecting, the miserable travel north. Along the way, there is a mix of kindness and cruelty. Townships that encourage migrants to sleep in their park, churches that offer free meals, but also kidnappers and robbers.

The first third of the book builds intrigue, but the story arc flattens for most of the rest of the book, its only failing. The writing is great, if not sometimes lengthy. Sometimes a feeling takes two pages to describe, but they are fine pages.

The world of the Mexicans, the migrants from Central America, their language and their travails seem so authentic, I thought the author had to be Mexican. She is not. Jeanine Cummins is a New York based author but, as her endnotes depict, one who did much research. There is no question she is a gifted writer.

Recommended.

Four Seasons in Rome

You have seen my blog review of Cloud Cuckoo Land by the very talented Anthony Doerr. His previous masterpiece was All the Light We Cannot See, the first novel of his I read. So, when I noticed Doerr’s memoir Four Seasons in Rome, I had to read it. Afterall, it’s about Rome and writing, both I know something about.

Doerr received a dream job as an artist in residence at the American Academy in Rome, where he was housed and fed and allowed free rein to do as he liked. However, the dream job can be a nightmare when you have newborn twin boys and a wife. Doerr spends much of his memoir describing the sleepless pain of parenthood traveling to a faraway land with diaper-wearing tots in tow.

However, the many sections that tour Rome are delightful to someone who has some familiarity with the eternal city. Seeing it through his eyes was delightful. His struggle with the language elicits empathy, but my Ellen is proficient in Italian and that makes it an uncommon experience.

For the writer, Doerr’s sharing of his process would have interest. If for no other reason, to see how much Doerr spends getting it to his satisfaction. Six drafts of a short story?

I recommend Four Seasons in Rome for anyone who writes or who loves Rome.

Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest names winners

I was honored to be a judge for Beach Holidays

‘Beach Holidays’ anthology to be published in late 2022

August 17, 2022

Cat & Mouse Press of Lewes has announced the winners of the 2022 Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest.

A panel of six judges made the selections, which will be published in an anthology titled “Beach Holidays,” to be available by year’s end. Browseabout Books of Rehoboth Beach is the contest sponsor and will award $500 for first place, $250 for second place, and $100 for third place. Each judge also selected a story for special recognition.

The winning stories and their authors are:

Top Stories, first place, “Death by Chocolate,” Renée Rockland, Rehoboth Beach; second place, “Labor (Day) of Love,” Katherine Melvin, Montgomery Village, Md.; and third place, “Sorry, Not Sorry, Wrong Number,” Robin Hill-Page Glanden, Newark.

Judges’ Awards went to “An Almost Perfect Day in April,” Jean Youkers, Hockessin; “Blue House,” Justin Stoeckel, Seaford; “Every Holiday,” Lonn Braender, Washington Crossing, Pa.; “Homebase,” Anna Beck, Lewes; “Take a Chance on Me,” Madison Hallman, Bethany Beach; and “Taking the Plunge,” Renée Rockland, Rehoboth Beach.

Other stories selected for the collection are “Big Wind and Big Water,” Tony Houck, Harrisonburg, Va.; “DALD Day,” David Strauss, Bel Air, Md.; “Dear Alice,” June Flavin, Wilmington; “Ethereal,” Steve Saulsbury, Centreville, Md.; “Fall Ball,” Doretta Warnock, Frankford; “Fourth of July Fundango,” Doug Harrell, Wilmington; “Home for the Hallow Days,” Terri Clifton, Milford; “It Was a Good Day to Fly a Kite,” Michael Morley, Grove City, Pa.; “Mummers in the Time of Y2K,” Nina Phillips, Wilmington; “Power of Three,” Mary Ann Hillier, Raleigh, N.C.; “Summer Valentine's Day,” David Cooper, East Petersburg, Pa.; “The Bench,” Krystina Schuler, Middletown; “The Best Worst Holiday Ever,” Jeanie Blair, Newark; “The Cottage on Washington St.,” Denise Stout, Bel Air; “The Eternal Ocean,” Eric Compton, Bethany Beach; “The Hannukah Bush of Rehoboth,” Mady Segal, College Park, Md.; “The Legend of the Waxing Moon,” Linda Chambers, Baltimore; and “Tidings Of Comfort and…Lizards?!,” Susan Walsh, Clearwater, Fla.

The annual Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest invites writers to submit stories of 500-3,500 words that feature Rehoboth Beach and fit that year’s theme. The theme for 2022 was Beach Holidays. Judges for the 2022 contest were Jackson Coppley, Lois Hoffman, Dennis Lawson, Mary Pauer, Dylan Roche and Candace Vessella.

Cat & Mouse Press was established to produce books and other materials that are fun, entertaining, and of particular interest to residents of and visitors to the Delmarva region. The company publishes a free weekly newspaper for writers, Writing is a Shore Thing, at writingisashorething.com. For more information, go to browseaboutbooks.com and catandmousepress.com or its Facebook page.

Denouement

Denouement

the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved

Writers know denouement. Now from the Thomas Edison Film Festival 41st Annual Tour, I present this:

For full screen, go to:

https://youtu.be/9Ellx4o3OKA