The disgraced, humiliated M-15 spies in London’s Slough House are as disgruntled as ever. Yet, each has aspirations of returning to action – if only given a chance.
In Dead Lions, Mick Herron adds two new characters to Slough House, the rundown offices far from M-15’s sleek command center, while continuing to reveal more about those introduced in Slow Horses. This time the chance for redemption comes in the form of a one-time, low-level Cold War spy found dead of a heart attack.
Jackson Lamb, the slovenly, sharp-tongued superior of Slough House, suspects the death wasn’t accidental and begins an off-the-record investigation. He’s still supposed to report to M-15 headquarters, but resolutely follows his own rules.
Perhaps the most ardent in his determination to redeem himself is River Cartwright. He goes undercover in an English village after convincing Lamb to include him in the investigation.
Meanwhile, River’s colleagues Min Guy and Louisa Guy are approached by Spider Webb. He’s an M-15 underling with ambitions of making a name for himself by recruiting a Russian businessman to spy for the agency. Also off the record, Webb wants the pair to “babysit” the Russian before making his pitch.
Herron combines humor with intrigue. Like River, Min and Louisa believe these opportunities mean it won’t be long before they’re back in the agency’s good graces. Lamb’s motivation is driven by a need to understand why something occurred, especially if there’s a possibility of a national threat. Otherwise, he’s satisfied with things just as they are at Slough House.
Dead Lions
Four Bookmarks
Soho Press, 2013
347 pages
Throughout its 384 pages, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer has crafted an ode to the wonder of nature, all that it has to teach us and what is lost through neglect/apathy. If only, we were good students.
Kimmerer is a member of the Potawatomi Nation and an environmental biology professor. This combination lends itself to her role as an intermediary between the past lessons of First Nations people and current attitudes toward the world around us.
The author’s message is delivered in an engaging, almost conversational, manner as she shares personal experience, ancestral legends and perspectives from conservationists, family members and others.
In her preface, Kimmerer writes of the beauty of sweetgrass, which is often braided to honor the earth. In place of the physical grass, she “offers in its place, a braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world.” Like a tangible braid, it’s “woven from three strands: Indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and the story of an Anishinabekwe scientist trying to bring them together in service to what matters most.”
For me, this was a slow read, but not because it slogged along. Rather, it seemed important to savor and consider the points made.
Braiding Sweetgrass
Four Bookmarks
Milkweed, 2013
384 pages, plus notes, sources and acknowledgements
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
It’s not an official title for Eliza Reid, but being identified as “the first lady of Iceland” is appropriate. In Secrets of the Sprakkar, Reid writes of the small Nordic island country’s exceptional women and efforts toward a gender-equal world.
Sprakkar is Icelandic for “extraordinary women.” Reid, a Canadian immigrant, recounts how she came to her role as the wife of Iceland’s president. Quite simply, the couple fell in love. They met while studying at Oxford and she returned with him to his homeland where they married.
Iceland is internationally recognized as a leader in closing the gender equality gap. Reid draws on women’s past and present accomplishments. She also interviews the women, including politicians, journalists, entrepreneurs and athletes, among numerous others, who’ve struggled to make significant progress possible.
Besides her role as first lady, Reid is also the co-founder of the Iceland Writers Retreat, an annual event with its beginnings in 2003. She’s the mother of five with a background in journalism. Her subject matter is important enhanced by a conversational writing style.
In the process of learning about the perspectives and experiences of different women, Reid deftly describes the beauty of her adopted country’s varied landscapes, its open-minded people and the many humanitarian policies all of which contribute to increasing awareness of women’s importance in society. Equality is not simply given lip service here; it’s become a way of life. The battle isn’t over, but there’s been enough progress for the rest of the world to take note.
Secrets of the Sprakkar
Four Bookmarks
Sourcebooks, 2022
277 pages, includes acknowledgements, appendices, endnotes and index
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
The Blue Page Special 