It's an odd thing to realize that the author whose work you enjoy the most writes in a genre that you almost never read. I'm not a historical fiction It's an odd thing to realize that the author whose work you enjoy the most writes in a genre that you almost never read. I'm not a historical fiction buff, nor am I particularly drawn to stories about World War II. Nonetheless, all three of Kate Quinn's recent books: The Alice Network (technically a WWI spy thriller), The Huntress, and The Rose Code have captivated me entirely. I adore Quinn's writing; it's vivid, flows incredibly smoothly, draws you into each scene and character. Speaking of characters, she does this wonderful thing with them where they're actually broadly drawn rather than excessively nuanced, and somehow that works wonderfully for me as a reader. It's a bit like the difference between modern films and ones from the Golden Age of cinema – it's not that one's better than the other (and arguably, modern films probably are better overall), but that sometimes its so purely enjoyable to see those big, clearly defined characters on the screen or page for a time. I've noticed that with all three of the books I've read by Kate Quinn that they start fast, have what feel like extended middles with lots of narrative development but not especially fast pacing, and then bring you into these fabulous roller coaster rides in the last act. That sometimes means you worry during the middle of the book that it might not all come to some big, boisterous ending, but in the books of hers I've read, the endings have always been worth the wait. I won't gush further because, well, I'm still not sure why I like these books so much given my normal genres are fantasy, mystery, and the occasional venture into an Ian McEwan book, but I come away from every Kate Quinn novel wishing she also wrote fantasy, or mystery, or, hell, wrote some Ian McEwan books too. If you've never read anything by Kate Quinn, I recommend starting with The Alice Network. I think I've bought that book for more people than any other I can remember, which is surely a good sign....more
The Racketeer by John Grisham is a compulsively readable crime novel in which an incarcerated lawyer earns his freedom and his revenge through a serieThe Racketeer by John Grisham is a compulsively readable crime novel in which an incarcerated lawyer earns his freedom and his revenge through a series of twisty manipulations of both criminals and the FBI. It's a fast, breezy read, and while not my usual genre, I tore through it in two days.
Grisham's noted for his legal thrillers, of which there have been several film adaptations. I read The Client ages ago (and saw the excellent film of the same name with Susan Sarandon) and enjoyed it. However a couple of years ago I read one of Grisham's more recent efforts, The Whistler, and found it abysmal. Oddly, everything that didn't work about The Whistler, worked incredibly well with The Racketeer.
The prose is, without doubt, the most direct and straightforward in any novel I've ever read – bordering on mechanical. And yet, it works. As sparse prose is meant to do, the writing disappears and you find yourself simply following the story without much awareness of the text itself. When I read The Whistler years ago, the prose felt clumsy and distracting. I find this often true when I attempt one of James Patterson's recent novels: it's not just simply, it's bland and dull. But Grisham's writing in The Racketeer was so easy to engage with that even bleary-eyed at night I could get back into the story effortlessly.
There are plenty of plot twists in The Racketeer, and while none of these are on the mind-blowing level of so many thrillers these days, nonetheless they made sense in the story and reminded you that Malcolm Bannister, the falsely-convicted lawyer who narrates the story, has a plan that you'll only understand as it unfolds, so just go along for the ride.
Not everyone will enjoy The Racketeer. It's a bit morally ambiguous at times, and while the narrator largely tries to present himself as justified and even a bit noble, there are several points in the story where his virtues are in doubt. If you're looking for the hero lawyer out to right the world's wrongs, this might not be the book for you. Fortunately, Malcolm Bannister's also not a sociopath disguised as an "anti-hero"; he's a guy who's been screwed over by the FBI and various corrupt officials who's out to get one over on them, and watching him do so is more than entertaining enough to keep turning the page.
After reading this book, I'm not sure where I land on John Grisham. I found this book so much better than the Whistler it was as if they'd been written by two different authors. I guess now I'll be on the hunt to find another of his top novels, because I enjoyed The Racketeer and any book that can keep me up late turning the page is worth searching for....more
I've become a bit of a fan of modern audio drama lately, and this one featured some excellent actors, so I had high hopes. Alas, while it's a well-perI've become a bit of a fan of modern audio drama lately, and this one featured some excellent actors, so I had high hopes. Alas, while it's a well-performed rendition of Jekyll and Hyde, it never quite went beyond the basic material.
The oddest thing about the story for me was that, while ostensibly a female-centric version of Jekyll and Hyde (with Henrietta Jekyll and Eleanor Hyde in a modern London setting where, apparently, nobody's ever heard of the original Robert Louis Stevenson book), the main character in the story is a man who happens to be friends with Henrietta. It struck me as an odd choice, because it provides no particular insight into what such a transformation would mean to a woman rather than a man. Of course, there's no requirement for such a story to have any feminist themes or perspectives, but you do sort of wonder what the point of the gender swap was supposed to be – and it's hard to explore it through the eyes of the audiobook's aging male protagonist. Maybe I just missed something that other listeners would detect more clearly.
My real problem was that almost everything in the story is reported after the fact. Events take place, but you're almost never there when they do; you're getting them second-hand. This is especially noticeable when the entire denouement amounts to the main character reading two letters from those actually involved in the events.
It's not all bad, and I wouldn't dissuade anyone from listening to the audiobook. I'm just not sure it brings anything new and interesting to the classic tale of Jekyll and Hyde....more
This is an Audible audio drama written by Marty Ross whose version of Treasure Island I listened to recently and enjoyed as well for its ability to blThis is an Audible audio drama written by Marty Ross whose version of Treasure Island I listened to recently and enjoyed as well for its ability to blend both classic adventure and contemporary sensibilities. The same is true for The Darkwater Bride, a ghostly suspense thriller set in late Victorian London that begins with the usual tropes of that literary realm but presses forward in its own direction and with its own set of values that, I think, will resonate well with modern listeners.
Let's get the basics out of the way: the story is interesting, with an assortment of plot twists and excellent performances by everyone involved. All of that is fairly standard at this point; writers have learned how to tell Victorian adventure and ghost stories with efficiency and drawing from the usual tropes and cast of characters.
What sets The Darkwater Bride apart for me is its . . . well, I'm unqualified to designate it a "feminist take" on a Victorian ghost story, but certainly the story very intentionally steers its characters away from their typical portrayal. The usual way to do this is to simply give female characters traditionally male gender roles: make the woman the detective, make her a cane-fighting, wise-cracking bad-ass. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but what's considerably harder – and what Ross does with this story – is to simultaneously maintain the usual gender roles ("young lady caught up in the death of her father", "honourable young cop who wants to protect the young lady", and, of course, the mandatory assortment of bankers, prostitutes, and dock workers) while showing us a different take on those characters, and allow each of them to have agency in the story.
I tend to sound like a bit of an idiot when I start treading on an avenue of scholarship for which I've no expertise whatsoever, so I won't venture into the feminist (or otherwise) interpretations and representations imbued in the story. Instead I'll just say that it's always nice when a writer takes you on a different journey – especially inside a well-worn sub-genre like Victorian thriller – than the versions you've read or heard dozens of times before.
I didn't love everything about The Darkwater Bride, but then, I don't think I was meant to. Sometimes an original take on a story is uncomfortable by necessity, and it's a testament to the quality of the work that this audio drama by Marty Ross balances both classic and contemporary sensibilities so well....more
The problem with great mystery series – you know, the ones everybody cites when the subject of writers whose depth and skill elevates the books beyondThe problem with great mystery series – you know, the ones everybody cites when the subject of writers whose depth and skill elevates the books beyond simple commercial crime fiction – is that when you come to the first book with expectations that are too high. That was the case for me with Ian Rankin's Knots and Crosses.
It's a good first book, but that word, "first", carries with it a number of consequences that you don't consider when you know its the beginning of an incredibly successful and beloved series. D.I. Rebus isn't all that well defined here, for example. He's a collection of attributes that come up moment to moment as if the author were rolling dice. When it comes up with a 2, you get the hard-nosed determined cop. Roll a 3 and you have the hard-drinking, divorced, screwed-up-his-life middle-aged man. A six? Well now, that gets you the traumatized former SAS trainee who can't remember key details of his life. None of these sides to Rebus are bad, it's only that they feel as if they come up largely at random.
This sense of discontinuity can actually be enjoyable at times. In fact, it tends to lend a bit of a literary air to the story since those books pride themselves on the messiness of human beings. And Rebus certainly is messy. But that sense of realism falls apart when you sometimes wonder just how bad he is at his job. It's a bit like watching one of those movie cops who "breaks all the rules" only Rebus never seems to accomplish anything. When the plot needs the case to move ahead, someone else generally brings the clue or it just kind of falls into everyone's lap.
There are moments when the book seems to abandon the police procedural genre altogether, such as when Rebus goes under hypnosis to relive the trauma that's taken away some of his key memories. I actually loved those moments. Ian Rankin does a fantastic job of exposing wounds, of complicating characters' lives, of bringing us those messy and very real moments in relationships, such as Rebus's first sexual encounter with the love interest in the novel (I'm not saying her name just to avoid spoiling anything, but she's an excellent character and not just "the love interest").
The problems I had with Knots and Crosses were only that the actual genre aspects felt disjointed and uncommitted – as if the author wasn't quite sure he wanted to be a crime novelist. This is in many ways the inverse of the problems I have reading most big-name conventional mysteries and thrillers, which is that everything is so slick and by-the-numbers that an hour after putting the book down it'll have melted into the mass of all the dozens or hundreds of others that felt like the exact same experience.
I imagine John Rebus, often cited as one of the great detective characters of the age, long ago found his footing and enabled Rankin to combine his fascination with intriguing characters alongside those elements of police procedurals that lend steadying rails to a novel. I also suspect, had I read the book fresh in 1987 when it was first published, I'd have found it to be a mesmerizing and daring detective story that broke the mold of the time. Alas, I came to the series a little late, which filled me with too many expectations, which is quite possibly the worst way to read a book that deserves an unjaundiced eye....more
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn was my favourite novel of last year, so I've been waiting expectantly for The Huntress to arrive, and while there's noThe Alice Network by Kate Quinn was my favourite novel of last year, so I've been waiting expectantly for The Huntress to arrive, and while there's no question it's a longer book and a slower read, by the end it proved just as impressive a novel.
Quinn sets both The Alice Network and The Huntress in and around World War II, while skirting most of the terrain found in other books set in that era. The focus is less on the battles, the armies, the political figures, and more on those whose war takes place at the edges: spies, spy hunters, escaped prisoners, and above all, the repercussions to individual lives once the war is over.
The plot moves very gradually with this one, and more than once I found myself wishing it were shorter. It's not that the pace is off, but rather it's clearly moving the way Quinn wants it to, with the reader aware that a confrontation is coming, but building suspense over the long haul rather than paying anything off too early. With most novels, I probably wouldn't choose to wait that long, but in the case of the Huntress, the writing itself kept me going.
I'm not quite sure what it is I like so much about Kate Quinn's writing, other than to say it feels perfectly and thoughtfully balanced. Her prose is neither florid nor sparse, neither avoids the lingo of the era in which it sets nor hits us over the head with it. You have the clear sense of being in that place and time, yet there's never a sense of distance from the characters.
The Huntress follows three main viewpoint characters: Ian, the war-weary, almost-but-not-quite dashing journalist who has given up writing in favour of finding war criminals. Nina, the blunt, reckless, and daring Russian pilot who's quite happy to die – or murder – to ensure the eponymous Huntress from the title gets her due. Finally, there's Jordan, the all-American young woman who longs to be a photographer while still determined to do right by her family.
Into their lives – at three very different points in time – comes the Huntress, a ruthless killer who has taken someone from each of them and who could now get away with it, disappearing into the American post-war landscape into a respectable life.
I won't go into more details of the plot, but suffice it to say that the final confrontation is well worth the wait. More importantly, the relationships between the characters keeps the story moving as we come to root for them to find purpose and happiness into the uncertain world left behind by the war.
The Huntress is an expertly-told tale of the tensions between justice and revenge, between forgiving others and forgiving oneself, and most of all, of making peace with the past....more
The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a bit of a tricky book to categorize. I suppose you might call it a coming-of-age literary-but-accessible sorta-ghostThe Saturday Night Ghost Club is a bit of a tricky book to categorize. I suppose you might call it a coming-of-age literary-but-accessible sorta-ghostly somewhat-nostalgic not-quite-memoir adventure story. In some ways it reminded me of the old River Phoenix/Wil Wheaton movie Stand By Me, based on a Stephen King short story, which is maybe the best way to think about this particular book: if you loved Stand By Me, you'll probably love Craig Davidson's The Saturday Night Ghost Club.
It recounts a series of ghost stories told to the protagonist, twelve year old Jake, by his eccentric uncle Calvin. Rather than have these be campfire tales, however, Uncle C brings Jake and his newfound friends Billy and Dove to the places where the ghastly events are supposed to have unfolded. This results in some profound scares and reckonings for Jake, who looks back on these events from his current vantage point as an adult neurosurgeon.
The prose in The Saturday Night Ghost Club is outstanding. It's fluid, vivid, almost gothic in places without ever becoming ponderous. Davidson's writing reminds me a lot of Stephen King at his best. His characters are engaging, nuanced, and best of all, feel so much like people you might know that they bring you back to your own childhood.
There's an added dimension to the story as well, which is that these stories aren't just a random accumulation of Uncle Calvin's tales. There's a reason for them, and while the book would stand perfectly well on its own as a coming-of-age tale without it, making that discovery at the end of the book makes the entire journey even more satisfying.
Last word: it's also a short book, so it's worth picking up even if you're not usually comfortable reading outside of your usual genres....more
There are lots of ways to hook a reader into picking up a novel: intriguing characters, the promise of a particular genre or sub-genre, or specific deThere are lots of ways to hook a reader into picking up a novel: intriguing characters, the promise of a particular genre or sub-genre, or specific details of the plot itself. In the case of The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (the title gets an extra half death in the U.S. edition), it's the premise: imagine trying to solve an Agatha Christy-style mystery while stuck in a Groundhog Day time loop, repeating the same day over and over, only each time you're inside the body of a different person. It's a tricky structure to pull off, but Stuart Turton, in his debut novel, does so with precision and an unrelenting set of twists and turns.
This is one of those books where it's dangerous to talk in too much detail because that risks spoiling the experience of the story itself. My advice to those about to approach The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is actually quite simple: learn the names of every character as you go and make a note of each location. Treat the book a bit like a game - a kind of Groundhog Day version of Clue. Independent of the mystery itself ("who killed Evelyn Hardcastle") there are loads of puzzles along the way, and these are a lot more fun if you're not trying to remember who the characters are. Turton doesn't make it easy on you, given they all have very similar, very English names, and they seem to pretty much all be white, which gives you one less point of distinction with which to separate them. When reading a novel with lots of characters, it's not uncommon to ignore the ones who seem secondary, but in The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, almost no one is secondary. You need to keep track of all of them to get full enjoyment from the story.
Turton succeeds in making a mystery in which the central conceit of body switching is both necessary for solving it and an intriguing device for the reader to experience the story. By the time I reached the end, I was tempted to start again at the beginning just to follow the plot more closely – and it's a truly convoluted plot. Fans of cozy mysteries will probably be more skilled at deciphering the novel than I was, which reminded me that reading is itself a talent – one I need to work on myself.
Not all is satisfying in the book, however. By the end, I was impressed with the narrative feat that Turton had executed and yet found myself wondering if there was any greater purpose to it than the game itself. No great or grand thematic questions were addressed, no particular reason why it was set in the time and place it was. There's a vague attempt at the end to allude to the question of redemption and measuring a person by what they would do if they knew the clock would be reset at the end of the day. However this wasn't so much a thread through the novel as a kind of afterthought. That said, the same argument could be made against The Martian - another high concept premise that hooked me in. Maybe these books work better without being suffused with theme.
In the end, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a remarkably crafted debut novel that brings the promise of a fresh new mystery for fans of the genre to immerse themselves in. My recommendation is to keep a notepad handy for characters, times, and places, settle in for a wild ride, and don't forget your deerstalker hat: the game is afoot....more
If you thought the domestic suspense thriller featuring an alcoholic woman battling both her past and attempts to gaslight her was reaching the end ofIf you thought the domestic suspense thriller featuring an alcoholic woman battling both her past and attempts to gaslight her was reaching the end of its popularity, you'll probably want to check out The Woman In The Window by A.J. Finn because it looks like there's plenty more to come. This book in particular is expertly written and forces you to keep turning page after page.
Having read a few books in this particular sub-genre, I was pretty much ready to move on to other things, but The Woman In The Window had blurbs from both Stephen King and Gillian Flynn. As promised, the book is addictive in the extreme. Short chapters (tiny, really) kept me going long after I'd decided to go to sleep, and it's indicative of Finn's skillful writing that even when nothing overt was happening, I remained engaged throughout.
The Woman In The Window did have a couple of disappointments for me. The first being a particular device that was clearly intended to be a surprise later in the book but which felt a bit telegraphed to me. Maybe it's just that the unreliable narrator has become a familiar trope and so I was looking for the misdirection early on. The second is the ending, which worked, but somehow didn't feel particularly connected to any of the themes running through the rest of the book. However other readers might find the depths that I missed, and either way it wasn't enough to ruin the experience.
Overall The Woman In The Window delivers on all of its promises as a domestic suspense thriller, and introduces a writer who can hold her own with the best in the genre....more
It was the first page of The Alice Network that persuaded me to buy it. From that intriguing opening paragraph . . .
The first person I met in England
It was the first page of The Alice Network that persuaded me to buy it. From that intriguing opening paragraph . . .
The first person I met in England was a hallucination. I brought her with me, onboard the serene ocean liner that had carried my numb, grief-haunted self from New York to Southampton.
. . . through the elegant and seemingly effortless way in which Kate Quinn brings us into post-WWII Europe without the primping and preening that often accompanies historical novels. From there, the story of two very different women across two different time periods (1915 and 1947) takes hold, each dealing with the repercussions of their respective wars.
The Alice Network is a mixture of historical drama and spy novel, with a dash of romance thrown in (sometimes for good measure, other times I wasn't quite so sure). But at it's core it's about the friendship between women. Eve, the young WWI spy meeting Lilli, the leader of the spy network for which the book is named, and Charlie, grieving the loss of her brother after WWII and determined to find her lost cousin Rose, who, like Eve, was a resistance spy against the Germans. But it's really the slow, steady growth of the relationship between Charlie and the now much older Eve – battle-worn, alcoholic, and filled with every kind of spite imaginable – that guides the story. Chapter by chapter secrets are revealed, alternating between Eve's past and Charlie's present. It's a careful dance as the story navigates between the two timelines, but it works.
No book is perfect to every reader, and for me – someone not especially prone to historical fiction and even less so to romance – there were times where the book felt slow, becoming more a chronicle than the spy adventure I kept wanting it to become. I think part of this came from the fact that Code Name Verity, similarly a WWII tale of two women and the growing friendship between them, was one of my favourite books of the past ten years. However it's not a fair comparison, and what Kate Quinn is doing in the Alice Network is a different thing entirely.
I will confess to not being enamoured of the love story. Finn seems like a great guy, but he struck me as a too-perfect romance novel hero: big, strong, handsome, a delightful Scottish brogue without any other discernible Scottish qualities, and, of course, the required flaw-that-isn't: he has a violent streak, but one that only manifests against truly vile men who abuse young girls and marginalized peoples. To be fair, the book didn't need another troubled and nuanced character. Quinn gave us Charlie and Evelyn, and they fill the pages admirably, and nowhere in the book was Finn needed to suddenly save them. Instead his role is one of emotional support, and of giving the reader a truer sense of Charlie than she herself would reveal to us otherwise.
The end of the novel was lovely, with all the real tension coming between the characters rather than simply the events, and the denouement is filled with hope and the promise of redemption. I'm glad I got to meet the fascinating women of The Alice Network by Kate Quinn, and I think you will be, too.
P.S. Give yourself an extra bonus and read the author's notes on the historical figures behind the story. It'll make you wonder why we don't see more spy novels like this one....more
A solid suspense thriller whose twists are somewhat undercut by a lack of depth in the characters. I'm glad I read Find Her, Gardner's eighth book in A solid suspense thriller whose twists are somewhat undercut by a lack of depth in the characters. I'm glad I read Find Her, Gardner's eighth book in the D.D. Warren series first as the characters in that book were considerably more nuanced while also being more engaging.
Alone reads as modestly ahead of its time in that it has all the qualities of the more recent crop of domestic thrillers that dominate the charts. Like those, we have a story centred around a woman whose troubled past has given her strength and resiliency at the cost of any chance for real happiness. This pessimistic outlook on the world lends domestic thrillers a kind of realism, though for me they sometimes read so cynically as to become less believable than even the more heroic thrillers out there. Maybe people are just generally that depressed and self-destructive, finding agency only through hurting themselves and everyone around them. I hope not, though.
Bobby Dodge, the honourable-but-miserable police sniper is a reasonable protagonist, but I found myself wondering why he was so doggedly determined to find the worst possible approach to every problem he tries to solve. In the book, characters continuously warn him against trusting Catherine – who alternates from determined heroine to old-school femme fatale with alarming speed. The reader knows, of course, that Bobby's going to take her side anyway, which is fine. You just find yourself wishing he'd take five minutes now and then to, you know, make sure he's got proof of his own innocence or maybe carry a tape recorder once in a while for all the people who reveal their evil plans to him.
It's worth noting that my problems with the book won't necessarily reflect anyone else's reading experience. Gardner is a good writer who knows how to balance both fast-paced thrills and the necessary pauses for the characters and the reader to process what's going on. I read the book in just a few days – something I find impossible with many books that don't suit my taste.
Where to leave off? I'm glad I found Lisa Gardner's work through Find Her first, because it's given me the impetus to keep reading her books that I might not have felt with Alone. Now the only question is which of her novels should I read next?...more
I've never read any of Lisa Gardner's books before, nor could I tell you where she fits in the pantheon of thriller writers. I picked up Find Her on aI've never read any of Lisa Gardner's books before, nor could I tell you where she fits in the pantheon of thriller writers. I picked up Find Her on a whim, not even aware that it was the eighth book in the series. Fortunately, none of that mattered. From the first page I was pulled into a tale of kidnapping and revenge that compelled me to read on through its potent mix of intense characters and surprising twists. Find Her is a mystery novel filled with suspense and tension and is, in fact, what I always assumed thrillers were supposed to be.
I'm not an aficionado of the thriller genre. Despite the ever-present promises of "thrills, chills, and unforgettable shocks", most of what I've read recently falls into two camps: surprisingly literate psychological character studies that stall in the middle through constant repetition of the same internal monologues without the story actually moving forward, and seemingly fast-paced plots so devoid of genuine character, originality, or believability that I find myself completely unengaged. So I was taken aback at how Lisa Gardner's Find Her so quickly got me wrapped up in the story, each chapter delivering unexpected twists and even correctly predicting those developments the reader anticipates only to subvert them pages later. The prose is economical without feeling stilted, with just enough nuance to give key characters their own voice, and the pacing shows Gardner knows exactly how and when to let the reader breathe and when to pull you along to the next chapter.
I don't want to give the impression that every aspect of the book is perfect, only that it reads as intentional and carefully conceived and executed. While Flora is a dark and compelling heroine for the story, the ostensible series lead, D.D. Warren, felt more like a passenger following along in her wake. I honestly couldn't tell you much about the detective other than that she reminds us repeatedly that she's not happy about being on restricted duty as a result of a recent injury. I didn't mind that so much, though, and I assume other books in the series give her more depth and attention. This book was very much about a young woman who'd suffered an absolutely horrifying long-term kidnapping only to come out the other end as someone she never expected or wanted to be. Find Her is the story of how she reconciles that past without apology, which feels exactly as it should be.
Find Her comes to a satisfying conclusion as a true mystery-suspence-thriller that neither talks down to the audience nor shies away from delivering the emotional tropes of the genres. I'm looking forward to reading more of Lisa Gardner's work....more
In 1948, the first eight African-American men joined the Atlanta police force. They weren't allowed squad cars, arresting white citizens, or even settIn 1948, the first eight African-American men joined the Atlanta police force. They weren't allowed squad cars, arresting white citizens, or even setting foot inside police headquarters. This makes life particularly challenging for two recent recruits, Boggs and Smith, as they investigate the murder of a young woman killed just hours after they'd seen her fleeing a white ex-cop's car. Any attempt to investigate the murder is met with resistance from their superiors – at most they're expected to be beat cops: patrolling the very confined neighbourhoods of "Darktown" and under no circumstances are they allowed to investigate crimes. This is the Jim Crow south, after all, and while the Ku Klux Klan might no be as visible as they'd been in the past, they were still incredible influential – including among the city's white police officers.
Darktown is the most vivid and disturbing crime novel I've read this year. The characters are nuanced, imperfect, and each wrestling in their own way with a social order that makes no sense – sometimes even to those who reinforce it. The struggles faced by Boggs and Smith, along with Rake, a sympathetic (though hardly revolutionary) white cop desperate to get out from under the influence of his very corrupt partner, feel so much darker and more difficult than in a conventional detective novel. The act of investigating the murder constitutes a breach not only of police regulations but of the social order itself.
Like the Nordic Noir novels that have become so popular over the past few years, Darktown is filled with a bleakness that lends weight to the tension and suspense. There are few moments of levity in the book, and these only counterpoints to the relentless sense of injustice that permeates the novel. But for all this, Thomas Mullen's book is infused with hope – hope that a crime no one wants investigated can be solved; hope that these first few African-America police officers can survive their first year on the job; and hope that somehow, life will get better for the citizens of Darktown.
The first in a series and, if reports are accurate, an upcoming television series, Darktown is the best crime novel I've read all year....more
Dennis Lehane is one of my favourite mystery novelists. I devoured the Kenzie/Gennaro series years ago and it's hard to find fault with Lehane's writiDennis Lehane is one of my favourite mystery novelists. I devoured the Kenzie/Gennaro series years ago and it's hard to find fault with Lehane's writing which embodies the best of traditional noir with a contemporary sensibility. Since We Fell is, of course, a different sort of book – not even really in the same genre as it's very much a domestic psychological thriller in the vein of Girl On The Train, Gone Girl, and various other recent hits. So I tried to approach it on its own merits without setting expectations that it would be like Lehane's other novels.
Since We Fell reads very much as if it were two distinct books featuring the same character. The first book, encompassing roughly the first 60%, is a character study of a woman struggling to get out from under a series of difficult relationships and life events beginning with her mother who refused to let her know the identity of her father and Rachel's search to find the truth. That story in and of itself held my interest, and if the final outcome was anticlimactic in the extreme (in part for its melancholy realism), nonetheless the journey was compelling.
The second book is a sudden crime thriller/caper with all the twists and turns (and implausibility) of books like James Patterson and Maxine Paetro's "Private" (which I happened to read recently.) You've got the merciless hit men, the ingenious (though, again, incredibly implausible) long con, the outwitting of cops and racing against the clock. It's as far from that first part as if Rachel had suddenly stepped out from her apartment and onto a starship.
I don't think this would disqualify the book from being entertaining and satisfying, but in this particular case it just never felt earned. You could have put similar events halfway through Little Women and it wouldn't have felt any more surrealistic. The problem that created for me was that the suspension of disbelief was largely shattered, and I was perpetually reminded with each unlikely act on the part of the protagonist or the other characters that this was a book seeking to excite me rather than a story I was immersed in.
Ultimately, what's most odd to me about Since We Fell is that, unlike the other books I've read by Dennis Lehane, I can't quite see what the author is bringing to the genre. Usually his style, his insights (often about parts of Boston and the way people relate to each other in that setting), makes a Lehane book feel different – special. Since We Fell read to me as if it could have been written by any number of authors.
What carried the book for me was simply that Lehane's a great writer. Even when the plot felt misshapen or when I felt as if the characters were transforming into caricatures of themselves, the prose remained strong, the scenes compelling. It's a testament to Lehane's writing that, even in a book I had so many problems with, I could still keep reading, always confident that he wasn't wasting my time.
Hopefully others will have a more positive experience with the book. Certainly I think fans of domestic psychological thrillers will find plenty to enjoy. The books in that genre I've read tended to have characters that felt a bit thin, whereas Lehane brings nuance and consideration to all of his. So I came away disappointed by the book, but still in admiration of its author....more
The Collector is John Fowles first published novel (though I believe he'd been working on The Magus before writing this one) and he became something oThe Collector is John Fowles first published novel (though I believe he'd been working on The Magus before writing this one) and he became something of an overnight success upon its publication. It's not hard to see why – the writing is daring, clever, relevant to its time, and as powerfully engaging as any contemporary thriller or suspense novel. That's not to say you'll enjoy it.
The Collector is a true literary novel in the sense that it's not trying to please the reader other than in appreciation of the writing itself. In fact, even things I abhorred about the story – such as the way it seems to readily accept what feel like outdated notions of gender from the period – are difficult for to critique because even in those moments Fowles is, I think, achieving exactly what he intends. The Collector is troublesome. Uncomfortable. Sometimes its loathsome and, in the end, it even feels strangely disempowering – as if it not only doesn't deliver what the reader wants but implicitly lets the reader know those desires are outdated and perhaps even childish.
If my review causes you to think The Collector isn't worth reading then that's a fault of my review and not the novel itself. Reading The Collector was, for me, a lot like watching A Clockwork Orange: I hated that movie with a passion, while still being aware that I was better off for having seen it. Not all fiction exists to entertain us or validate our views of the world – or even replace them for better ones. Fowles' first novel is both a precursor to modern psychological suspense novels while pre-emptively rejecting their tendency towards happy or otherwise satisfying endings. The Collector succeeds as a novel precisely because of the way it subverts the very things I most want in a story....more
The Keeper of Lost Causes is the first in the Department Q series of Danish crime novels. Nordic crime has been in vogue in Europe and North America eThe Keeper of Lost Causes is the first in the Department Q series of Danish crime novels. Nordic crime has been in vogue in Europe and North America ever since The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was translated into English. There's a bleakness to this sub-genre that manages to avoid being melodramatic and – even more remarkably – somehow sustains our optimism. The writing style is spare, sometimes bordering on plain, but I never found myself irritated by it; the plot keeps moving forward and throwing up questions that you want to see answered. Even after the mystery is solved, Adler-Olsen keeps the reader guessing about the last question in the story right up to the very last page of the book (actually, up to the second-to-last line of the book).
One aspect of Keeper of Lost Causes that I found interesting is that its two main plot threads: the first about a woman held captive five years before the main thread of the novel and the second about the detective trying to find out what happened to her, operate as distinct genres in themselves. Merete Lynggaard's horrifying captivity read very much as a suspense story where the atmosphere is thick with the discomfort of never knowing what's coming next for her. The book's main throughline, however – featuring beaten-down detective Carl Mørck and his recently-hired and rather mysteriously capable assistant Assad – is very much a classic mystery novel. The reader follows along as Mørck and Assad encounter clues, interview witnesses, and work together to solve the mystery of what happened to Merete Lynggaard.
Adler-Olsen plays an interesting game with the reader when it comes to the mood of the book. His protagonist, Carl Mørck, continuously suggests a dark and depressing worldview despite his determination to find the solution. Despite this, however, there's a purposefulness that runs through the narrative and even a sense of idealism that pays off for the reader by the end.
I highly enjoyed this first book in the Department Q series – enough to commit to something I rarely do these days, which is to go out and get the sequel right away....more
Playing with Fire is a quick, entertaining read with an engaging premise and lots of tension. I think what held it back This was a 3 1/2 stars for me.
Playing with Fire is a quick, entertaining read with an engaging premise and lots of tension. I think what held it back for me was the ending. There's a bit of a twist to it (no spoilers here) for which I never really felt like I got any clues--it kind of comes out of nowhere and removes a lot of the interesting questions that launch the story in the first place without actually changing the end of the story itself. Others might react to it more positively than I did, though.
What I'm most grateful for is that Playing With Fire introduced me to Tess Gerritsen's excellent, fluid prose and fast pacing. Now to pick another one of her many books to see where that leads....more
I have a troubled relationship with historical fiction. On the one hand, I love the idea of learning about another time and place through story, but aI have a troubled relationship with historical fiction. On the one hand, I love the idea of learning about another time and place through story, but all too often the reams of historical details about trousers and curtain rods lose me within the first chapters. Not so with C.C. Humphreys' Plague--a historical adventure which always hones in on characters and their perils and lets the historical details be the means through which we see just how precarious their lives are.
The story centres around two former soldiers, both who have fallen on hard times but who have taken very different paths: Captain Coke has taken to the roads as a highwayman, and Pitman, who has become a thief-taker (a bounty hunter, in effect.) As you might predict, these different roles pit them against each other early on. But worse things stalk the streets of 17th Century London and in the midst of the eponymous Plague, Coke and Pitman are soon forced to work together to find the man responsible for a series of heinous murders.
What I loved about the book was that it lent the classical historical whodunit a twist of adventure. It almost felt as if one of my other favourite heroes, C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower, were suddenly forced to investigate a murder. The character of Sarah Chalker also receives a strong showing and she'll be a favourite for many, as will Coke's young sidekick, Dickon. Plague spins the story among all these characters and others while inviting the reader down dark alleyways of disease, failed nobility, shifting religious views, and a conspiracy both massive in its implications and yet remarkably personal in its ultimate resolution.
The moment I finished Plague I went and bought the sequel, Fire. That's something of a first for me....more
Another brilliantly inventive book by Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys follows the story of Jane Charlotte, a daring and deceptive agent of a secret society's aAnother brilliantly inventive book by Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys follows the story of Jane Charlotte, a daring and deceptive agent of a secret society's assassination group (the eponymous "Bad Monkeys" department.)
It's hard to peg the book's genre with any sense of confidence. At the outset it presents a kind of murder mystery that soon delves into psychological suspense. These give way to a sort of present-day secret society sci-fi in which it's clearly our world but forces are at work beneath the surface of our societal structures. Even that, though, is uncertain because with every chapter break Ruff reminds us that Jane Charlotte's story is full of holes. Thus it's really only in the last few pages that Ruff lets you in on the secret of what kind of book you've been reading.
If there's an aspect to Bad Monkeys that didn't resonate for me, it was simply that at times the narrative was moving too evenly. Jane's dispassionate rendition of her story sometimes keeps the highs and lows from feeling emotionally charged. However the writing is quick and clever, the plot winding without becoming muddled, and the payoff at the end leaves you asking why there aren't more books like Bad Monkeys out there....more
There's lots to like about this novelette from Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn. The main character is interestingly constructed as a fake psychic who uThere's lots to like about this novelette from Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn. The main character is interestingly constructed as a fake psychic who uses the insights she's learned about people as a former (well, mostly former) prostitute in order to intuit what her clients want to hear. The twists at the end come fast and furious and are extremely compelling as the novel goes from mystery to supernatural thriller back down to psychological suspense.
What held me back from enjoying the story was that it seemed to slide between moving too slowly and then too quickly. It takes quite a while to get going and then once we hit the ending everything gets revealed in a rush without giving us the chance to process the suspense. I would've loved to see this as a novella of about twice the length. All that said, It's still an enjoyable read from a terrific author....more
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