Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
The one-time punk rocker, tattooed, cigarette smoking, gay Sister Holiday, doesn’t fit the mold when it comes to Catholic nuns. In Margot Douaihy debut novel, Scorched Grace, she’s a member of the Sisters of Sublime Blood order, which runs the Saint Sebastian School where she’s the music teacher. The convent adjoins the school.
When not one, but two fires and two deaths occur at the school, Sister Holiday initiates her own investigation convinced authorities aren’t moving fast enough to find the culprit – and avoid potential further harm to her school and church community.
Set in New Orleans, the storylines moves between Holiday’s past and what at first appears as her new-found faith. In fact, one of the strengths of Douaihy’s writing lies in slowly revealing the nun’s deepening convictions, in spite of her rebellious personality and the obstacles she encounters in her attempts to solve the crimes.
The list of suspects is credible, even as evidence points to Sister Holiday herself. The investigating police officers are convinced of her guilt. While the fire investigator, Magnolia Riveaux, is less ready to pin the blame on Holiday.
Descriptions of the Big Easy, the humidity and other characters are vivid. Sister Holiday is tenacious and the authorities consider her a pest. Her relationship with the other nuns (there aren’t many) are a way the author deftly merges the past and present. Sister Holiday is, indeed, the sum of her history: colorful tats and all.
Based on the subtitle, Sister Holiday isn’t being cloistered anytime soon.
Scorched Grace: A Sister Holiday Mystery
Three-and-a-half bookmarks
Gillian Flynn Books, 2023
307 pages
Personal connections through friendship, love and virtual worlds are examined in Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
Sadie Green and Sam Masur meet as 11- and 12-year-olds, respectively, for a short time. The confluence of their lives doesn’t fully occur until a decade later in Cambridge where both are in college; her at MIT, him at Harvard.
The novel spans more than 30 years as Sadie, Sam, Marx (Sam’s roommate and eventual business manager) and others design and develop popular, lucrative video games. They’re the wunderkinds of computer-generated universes.
The games are essential elements of the novel, particularly how their creators conceive the ideas, develop the technology and ultimately promote them. However, it’s the bonds among the characters that have the greatest impact. Each is intelligent, flawed and loveable; each makes significant contributions to the games, although there is often tension as to who merits the attention for their success.
It should come as no surprise this is also a story about love and loss. Sam loves Sadie but is unable to articulate his feelings. Yet, they are close. Marx is like a brother to Sam and initially Sadie is suspicious of him. The evolution of these relationships is what drives the narrative.
The title reflects the endless loop of many video games while also referencing a soliloquy from Macbeth on the inevitability of death:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time” (Act V, scene 5)
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Four Bookmarks
Alfred A. Knopf, 2022
401 pages, includes notes and acknowledgements
Bodie Kane, a successful podcaster living in Los Angeles, returns to her alma mater, a private boarding school in New Hampshire, to teach a podcasting and a film class. The trek down memory lane reveals several unresolved issues; including questioning her role in what she now suspects is the wrongful conviction of the school’s athletic trainer for the murder of her high school roommate.
In I Have Some Questions For You, Rebecca Makkai has crafted an engaging narrative by combining elements of a murder mystery with the transience of memory.
When two of her students choose the murder as their podcast topic, Bodie is both intrigued and uncomfortable, although the former soon overrides the latter. Bodie is forced to examine her own past at the school.
As narrator, Bodie occasionally addresses questions to an unknown reader. The identity is eventually revealed, but the inquiries help guide her as she learns more about the night of the murder, initially viewed as suicide. She considers the school’s eagerness to settle the matter and the possible culpability of numerous students and faculty.
Makkai’s characters are intelligent and credible thanks to an array of foibles. Bodie is separated from her husband with whom she’s maintained a friendly relationship. When he’s called out on social media as sexual predator, Bodie unwittingly comes to his defense, which leads to a new set of problems. All of this comes down to power and privilege, themes further raised as the students’ podcast assumes a life of its own.
I Have Some Questions For You
Four Bookmarks
Viking, 2023
438 pages
At slightly more than 500 pages, A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George is heavy reading, but only in terms of physical weight. Rather, this lengthy mystery is engaging with plenty of possible suspects and motives – perhaps too many.
Set primarily in Guernsey in the English Channel, China River is convinced by her ne’er-do-well half-brother, Cherokee, to join him on a trip to England (from Southern California) to deliver architectural drawings to wealthy landowner Guy Brouard. Soon after their arrival, Brouard is murdered and China is arrested.
Cherokee reaches out to China’s friend, Deborah St. James and her husband, Simon, to help exonerate his sister. This is only the beginning of a long list of characters, some interesting, some entertaining and many extraneous. Consequently, attentive reading is necessary or it’s easy to lose track of who’s who.
Brouard’s back story is a major element of the mystery: he and his sister were sent from France as children at the onset of World War II. Their bond is scrutinized far more than River and Cherokee’s. However, it is only one of several relationships examined.
In spite of the numerous players, including Brouard’s son, his ex-wife, his past lovers, the local police, the cook, the groundskeeper, a teenage boy and his abusive older brother, among many more, the author deftly illustrates why each might be guilty. As the novel progresses, her portrait of Brouard changes shape as more about him is revealed.
Learning the motive is less interesting than discovering the murderer.
A Place of Hiding
Four Bookmarks
Bantam Books, 2003
514 pages
Crying in H Mart is Michelle Zauner’s beautifully-written tribute to her mother. The memoir recounts a relationship fraught with cultural and generational differences, but is also filled with love and kindness.
As the daughter of a South Korean woman and Caucasian father, Zauner’s looks often confused people. She was caught between two worlds with her mother only able to help her navigate one. Consequently, Zauner found ways to rebel against her over-protective mother. After graduating from high school in Eugene, Oregon, she moved to Pennsylvania to attend college and stayed after graduating.
The narrative blends the past with the present as Zauner struggles to make a living as a musician in Philadelphia, while working as a waitress to make ends meet. It’s during this time she learns her mother is battling cancer. She puts her life on hold and returns home to help.
The happy memories outweigh the negative ones; as Zauner grows older she understands her mother’s actions were demonstrations of love. And, she recognizes that they have more in common than she’d been willing to admit.
Food is a major source of unity, particularly the Korean dishes her mother (and the relatives in Seoul) prepares. The author’s efforts to learn the recipes, which aren’t written down, are a way for her to reciprocate her mother’s affections.
Rich with humor and tear-inducing accounts, Zauner has crafted an endearing love letter to her late mother. She’s also established herself as a singer and guitarist with the pop band Japanese Breakfast.
Crying in H Mart
Four Bookmarks
Alfred A. Knopf, 2022
239 pages
A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny’s 18th novel in the Inspector Gamache mystery series, is perhaps the most discomfiting. It’s due, in part, to the convergence of the past with the present: old demons and new ones creating new threats. With Gamache even more unwavering to protect his loved ones.
Years ago, when Gamache first took Jean-Guy Beauvoir, now his second-in-command, under his wing, their investigation led them to two young children. Their mother had been murdered. It evolved that the children had been sexually trafficked. Now adults, the two reappear in the inspectors’ lives. Gamache has always been supportive of the young woman and Beauvoir of her brother.
Penny alternates the time frames which provides not only the back story, but allows the reader to question each inspector’s assessment of the traumatized children/adults.
Meanwhile, a letter written more than a hundred years ago is discovered describing a secret room in the attic of the Three Pines Bookstore. Inside is a large, contemporary reproduction of an old painting. As Gamache, his investigators and the townspeople work to unravel hidden meanings in the artwork, another monster from the past emerges. This one determined to kill Gamache and those he holds dear.
In her usual style, Penny injects elements of humor while further fleshing out the regular characters comprising Three Pines and Gamache’s investigative team. The hunt to decipher the painting’s significance, the disconcerting presence of the now-grown troubled children and several recent murders make for a compelling, albeit occasionally disturbing, read.
A World of Curiosities
Four Bookmarks
Minotaur Books, 2022
390 pages, including acknowledgments
As told through the eyes of Woodrow “Woody” Wilson Nickel, West With Giraffes is Lynda Rutledge’s fictionalized account of the 12-day road trip from New York City to the San Diego Zoo on the Lee Highway in 1938.
Looking back from his vantage point of living more than a century, Woody is suddenly compelled to share his experience as a 17-year-old helping transport the giraffes cross country. He’s enthralled with the long-necked beasts at first sight. They’re something neither he, nor many others, have seen before.
When he learns the giraffes, whom he names Girl and Boy, are en route to California, the Oklahoma-born and raised Woody is determined to make the trek with them. Initially, he’s turned away by Riley Jones (affectionately referred to as Old Man) in charge of getting the giraffes to the zoo in a custom-made truck. Old Man eventually agrees to temporarily hire Woody, but only for a short distance. Augusta, aka Red, who aspires to be a Life magazine photographer, is the other major character.
Rutledge has crafted an exciting adventure rich with descriptions of the country’s people and landscapes. The former represent the best and worst; the latter reflect abundance and scarcity.
There’s tension as Woody worries Old Man will make good on his word to find another driver and whether or not the animals can survive the journey. Old Man gives directions, Woody drives the truck, which is (somewhat) surreptitiously followed by Red, across country, and all want to leave something behind.
West With Giraffes
Four-and-a-half Bookmarks
Lake Union Publishing, 2021
316 pages, includes epilogue, author’s note, historical notes and acknowledgements
This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund must be read with a receptive mind – and open heart. It’s subtitled My Journey as an Abortion Doctor.
Wicklund candidly recounts her life as a single mother who embarks on a quest to become a medical doctor specializing in women’s reproductive health. This includes, but isn’t limited to, abortions.
As she establishes her career she reassures patients, and readers, about what’s involved in the process while stressing the fact that the decision is solely the woman’s. Myths are dispelled by detailing the procedure. Efforts are made through counseling patients to establish that this is the situation. Wicklund’s sensitivity to her patients is evident throughout the narrative.
Despite being the target of daily threats by anti-abortionists and the loss of time with her family, Wicklund is committed to providing a service in a caring, professional manner. She’s aware the decision to have an abortion is not easily, casually or haphazardly made. This is highlighted through the stories shared about many of the women (in some cases girls) Wicklund has supported through the years.
Although Wicklund shared the writing with Alan Kesselheim, it is clearly her story and voice that permeates the book. Frustration with government regulations, close-minded people, intimidation, the back-alley abortions that do put women’s lives (and reproductive health) in danger and numerous other obstacles drive Wicklund to help those in need.
Wicklund makes a strong case that the choice to abort is a discussion that should involve only a woman and her physician.
This Common Secret
Almost Four Bookmarks
Public Affairs, 2007
268 pages, includes Epilogue, Afterword, Acknowledgements and Appendix
In Stolen Ann-Helene Laestadius’ coming of age novel, Elsa is nine-years old when she witnesses the murder of her reindeer, part of the family’s herd. Threatened by the killer, Elsa remains silent, despite others’ suspicions regarding his identify.
It’s only one incident endured by the Sami in this far northern region of Sweden. Despite entreaties to authorities, nothing is done to quell tensions endured by the indigenous people whose livelihoods depend on the reindeers.
Ten years later, little has improved for Elsa’s family and the Sami community. Reindeer, which have cultural significance, are still tortured and slaughtered. When Elsa takes it upon herself to speak out, she and others are terrorized. Despite being haunted by her childhood memory and the overhanging threat, Elsa is a strong, intelligent woman with dreams of one day overseeing her own herd. This, however, is yet another battle in her male dominated world.
Disregard by the authorities, xenophobia, personal demons, Sami culture and familial relationships are all addressed. Laestadius is Sami and provides a unique perspective to all the above. She deftly describes the frigid, beautiful landscape as well as the joys and traumas shared by the Sami villagers. The disregard by non-Sami supported by an apathetic police force is heart breaking.
It’s not just the animals that are lost when they’re killed. In Elsa’s case she was also robbed of her childhood. For other characters, beyond what the herds mean as their occupations, their hopes and mental health are also at stake.
Stolen
Four bookmarks
Scribner, 2021
384 pages
In Sara Blaedel’s The Midnight Witness, set in Copenhagen, the strangled body of a young woman is found in a park. Before long, a journalist investigating drug trafficking is discovered dead in a hotel alley. Questions soon arise: Could these cases be related but how?
Detective Louise Rick is initially assigned to the young woman’s case; later, she’s transferred to the second murder.
Blaedel’s writing is engaging thanks to well-crafted characters. Louise is smart and despite her expertise she’s often diminished because she’s a woman; nonetheless, she has worked her way through the ranks to become a detective. Her best friend Camilla Lind, a journalist investigating the same murders, is set on establishing a connection.
The author provides enough detail about the women’s lives without it overshadowing the who-dun-its. Both are single, although Louise is in a long-term relationship with a man who’s been offered a job in Scotland wanting her to join him. She’s confronted with the personal vs professional battle many women face. Camilla is earnest in her journalistic role, but also is often not taken seriously due to her gender. She’s motivated to prove otherwise.
As they pursue the cases in their respective roles their bond is strained. The tension between the two is palpable. Even as Louise becomes increasingly frustrated with her friend’s involvement she can’t help being concerned for Camilla’s safety.
A third murder victim not only amps up the police efforts, but also raises suspicions about possible leaks among everyone involved in the investigation.
The Midnight Witness
Almost four bookmarks
Grand Central Publishing, 2018
284 pages
The Blue Page Special 