Friday, February 29, 2008

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

This turned out to be the perfect cure to Leif Enger's underwhelming second book. I read Case Histories a couple of years ago after Stephen King wrote in Entertainment Weekly that he felt it was the best book he had read that year. I enjoyed it immensely. The author, Kate Atkinson grabs you from the first and never lets go. It's the same with One Good Turn.

On the crowded streets of Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival, an unexpected and seemingly undeserved incident of road rage starts a string of incidents. Even though the coincidences range all over the place, the author never loses her way. Interesting characters, many that we come to care about, include two were in Case Histories. Jackson Brodie is back and has accompanied actress Julia Land, who he met in the earlier book, to the festival where she is performing in a dismal play he ended up funding.

Another bit of fun comes from identifying the popular allusions although I must confess I don't get them all. Doesn't matter. This is great storytelling.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

So Brave, Young and Handsome

Like me, many readers fell in love with Enger’s stunning first novel Peace Like a River when it came out in 2001 and will be anxious to read his new novel So Brave, Young and Handsome. Right from the beginning, however, I was disappointed. The set-up is a writer in 1915 Minnesota, who can’t produce a follow-up to his bestselling first novel. This took me out of the story wondering how much of what he was writing was personal.

Monte Becket can write a 1,000 words before breakfast but he can’t form them in to anything anyone wants to read. Then he meets a mysterious older man, who catches Monte’s imagination and eventually leads him on a journey of redemption that will take him far from his family and the life he has know. This is a cowboy story about the last days of that world.

Enger is a mesmerizing storyteller. He loves language and uses it beautifully. The concise, unique and beautifully descriptive sentences are there once again. The chapters this time are very short and reminiscent of Saturday matinee Westerns with their cliff hangers luring the reader forward, but I never felt emotionally involved with any of the characters. I had to force myself to keep going although eventually Enger's storytelling skills kept me reading to the end.

Other early reviews (a starred review in Kirkus apparently) seem entranced by this new title, but I was not.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

The Drowning Tree (2004)


I discovered Carol Goodman a number of years back when I read The Seduction of Water (2003) and The Lake of Dead Languages (2002). All Ms. Goodman's books are what I would call Romantic Gothic Mysteries with similar motifs and designs. She sets her stories in the Hudson River Valley in small college towns. Past college friendships, youthful indiscretions, secret histories and suggestions of ghosts combine to cause suspense and a sense of dread. Imagine the artwork of J.W. Waterhouse.

Juno Mackay didn't manage to graduate from Penrose College. She ended up marrying Neil and having a baby instead. Bea is now 15 and Neil, once a talented artist, was committeed to the local asylum thirteen years earlier for attempting to kill his family. Juno supports herself by restoring stained glass. Her best friend Christine seems to have found some interesting information about a famous stained glass window at the college that Juno has been asked to restore. Asking the wrong questions sets a whole interconnected set of reactions in motion.

Luckily Carol Goodman has two newer titles for me! The Ghost Orchid (2007) and The Sonnet Lover (2007). The poems in the second title are written by her husband, Lee Slonimsky.

Foul Deeds

My friend Ginny in Nova Scotia was GROSTing (Get Rid of Something Today) the other day and sent me a package containing Foul Deeds by Canadian author Linda Moore. This GROST was perfect because a) the book is a mystery and b) the mystery takes place during a production of Hamlet. Since the author is "primarily a stage director", she is able to paint an accurate picture of community theatre as well as share some insight into the play itself.

Ginny found the fact that the author lives in Halifax and sets the story there fascinating as well.

The book is published by Vagrant Press and it looks like it isn't available in the U.S. It isn't a great mystery but the author did a creditable job of storytelling.

Subterfuge, liars, hidden pasts and politics seek to keep Daniel from finding out how his father Peter King really died and it wasn't a natural death. Rosalind working for cranky private investigator McBride, keeps uncovering facts that don't match and parallels with a community theatre production of Hamlet.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Another Thing to Fall

I've been reading reviews of Laura Lippman's books since her first title Baltimore Blues (1997) but never one of the books themselves. Another Thing to Fall is number 15 in the mostly Tess Monaghan series and will be available next month. You can check out the individual titles at the author's official website. Her 2007 release What the Dead Know is the first of her books to make the New York Times bestseller list.

In Another Thing to Fall, Hollywood heads to the east coast to film a pilot for what could turn out to be a lucrative long term series for the city of Baltimore. Although Mann of Steel stars an almost has-been hero, it also has a hot young starlet who is getting lots of attention, but problems on the set could sink the project. Everyone seems to have something to hide. When Tess wanders onto a set disrupting shooting, she ends up being hired to keep an eye on Selene Waites, the Britney-like actress.

Just to make things more interesting, Ms. Lippman is married to David Simon, who is Executive Producer of the HBO series The Wire, which was filmed in Baltimore.