Saints for All Occasions (#672) by J. Courtney Sullivan is one of the best novels I've read in a long time. This story of a pair of Irish sisters who emigrate to Boston in the 1950s reminded me at the outset of one of my other favorite authors, Colm Toibin, but Ms. Sullivan puts her own uniquely American stamp on this tale.
Nora and Theresa Flynn come to America following Nora's fiancé. When the book opens, she is the matriarch of a family of four. She calls her younger sister, now living in a cloistered Abbey in Vermont, to inform her of a death in the family. With Theresa's decision to come to Boston to attend the funeral the unraveling of family secrets begins. Moving between past and present, each character's back story is revealed in this absorbing narrative.
It is so easy to relate to how complicated things become in any family, given circumstances that are hardly uncommon. What makes this book so special is that Ms. Sullivan got the details exactly right, from Brigham's Ice Cream to The Home for Little Wanderers to Cardinal Cushing's weekly radio rosary. When Theresa's life in the cloister is described, I felt I knew this place, I had seen these things myself. When I read Ms. Sullivan's Acknowledgements, I found I was right. But even if you didn't grow up in New England, you'll recognize the family dynamics and alternately find yourself rooting for first one, then another member of the Flynn and Rafferty tribes.
I can only hope that the rest of my summer is filled with such quality reading!
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Monday, June 26, 2017
Stalking the Angel
I only discovered author Robert Crais a few years ago, and I'm still catching up on some of his oeuvre, which is why my husband gave me a copy of an older Elvis Cole/Joe Pike mystery, Stalking the Angel (#671), originally published in 1989. I had to look up the publication date when Elvis gets ready to go clubbing for a case he's working on, and thinks in his outfit he might be mistaken for Donald Trump! Yes, that was a while back and a few of the other details in the book make you realize just how much everyday life in America has changed since then. Pay phones! In the rest room!!! One thing that hasn't changed, though, is the quality of the narrative.
A rare and culturally significant antique Japanese manuscript has been stolen from a wealthy investment broker's home safe while on loan from an influential Japanese financial partner. The police aren't acting fast enough to suit Bradley Warren, so his attorney persuades him to hire Elvis Cole to locate and return the book as swiftly as possible. It's loathe at first sight, but Elvis could use the work. When the trail leads him to yakuza hangouts, a particularly nasty murder and threats to Bradley's wife and teen aged daughter, Elvis figures he's on the right track. Things take a very dark turn when Mimi is kidnapped and Elvis vows to return her to her family at all costs.
Just when you think you know who did it, the kaleidoscope turns and changes the whole picture.. Crais keeps you guessing up to the end. Joe Pike doesn't play as big a role here as he does in later books in this series, so it's interesting to see how the characters have evolved. I'm glad Elvis Cole never stops being a wiseacre! A great mystery series.
A rare and culturally significant antique Japanese manuscript has been stolen from a wealthy investment broker's home safe while on loan from an influential Japanese financial partner. The police aren't acting fast enough to suit Bradley Warren, so his attorney persuades him to hire Elvis Cole to locate and return the book as swiftly as possible. It's loathe at first sight, but Elvis could use the work. When the trail leads him to yakuza hangouts, a particularly nasty murder and threats to Bradley's wife and teen aged daughter, Elvis figures he's on the right track. Things take a very dark turn when Mimi is kidnapped and Elvis vows to return her to her family at all costs.
Just when you think you know who did it, the kaleidoscope turns and changes the whole picture.. Crais keeps you guessing up to the end. Joe Pike doesn't play as big a role here as he does in later books in this series, so it's interesting to see how the characters have evolved. I'm glad Elvis Cole never stops being a wiseacre! A great mystery series.
Monday, June 19, 2017
The Ripper's Shadow - A Victorian Mystery
I've enjoyed Laura Joh Rowland's Sano Ichiro novels set in samurai-era Japan very much, so I decided to give The Ripper's Shadow (#670) a try. Sarah Bain has inherited a photography studio from her father, but it's difficult to make ends meet. When one of her subjects suggests that Sarah take some "boudoir" photos of her and split the profits, Sarah goes along with her idea.
The problem is that when prostitutes' bodies show up in Whitechapel, brutally murdered and mutilated, Sarah recognizes them as the models for her "boudoir" photographs. She can't go to the police because what she has done could land her in jail. How can she keep herself and the other women in her photographs safe, and out of the shadow of the Ripper?
Although this is a very dark novel, Ms. Rowland manages to keep the reader guessing in this well known cold case. Where a less skilled author might wind up the book with a suspect identified, she just ramps up the tension and postulates an even more shocking revelation. I wasn't sure Sarah Bain and her small circle of unlikely associates were going to make it out of this one alive, so I had to keep reading to find out.
I think Sarah Bain and company could form a nucleus for an interesting Victorian London series of mysteries. I hope Ms. Rowland has plans for her future.
The problem is that when prostitutes' bodies show up in Whitechapel, brutally murdered and mutilated, Sarah recognizes them as the models for her "boudoir" photographs. She can't go to the police because what she has done could land her in jail. How can she keep herself and the other women in her photographs safe, and out of the shadow of the Ripper?
Although this is a very dark novel, Ms. Rowland manages to keep the reader guessing in this well known cold case. Where a less skilled author might wind up the book with a suspect identified, she just ramps up the tension and postulates an even more shocking revelation. I wasn't sure Sarah Bain and her small circle of unlikely associates were going to make it out of this one alive, so I had to keep reading to find out.
I think Sarah Bain and company could form a nucleus for an interesting Victorian London series of mysteries. I hope Ms. Rowland has plans for her future.
China Rich Girlfriend
Kevin Kwan continues the behind-the-scenes story of ultra-rich Asians in Chine Rich Girlfriend (#669) that he began in Crazy Rich Asians. Rachel Chu and Nick Young, those star-crossed lovers, are back with many of their friends, enemies and confidantes, and of course, their feuding families! If you enjoyed his feast of food and fashionistas the first time around, Kwan doesn't disappoint here.
There's even more romance and scandals ahead with old enemies and new friends when Rachel and Nick head off to China in search of Rachel's birth father. When his identity is revealed, he's even richer than imaginable. But not everyone is happy when their true relationship becomes public knowledge...
It's so much fun to live in a world where Paris couturiers will shut their ateliers for your sole shopping pleasure, flitting from place to place is all done via luxurious private jets, and no one eats in a public restaurant that doesn't maintain private dining rooms for high-end clientele!
Since this is the middle book in this trilogy, a word of advice; don't try to read China Rich Girlfriend without reading Crazy Rich Asians first. You'll be lost in the tangle of relationships established in the first novel, and you won't appreciate some of the delicious twists and turns served up in this volume. Can't wait to get my hands on the third book!
There's even more romance and scandals ahead with old enemies and new friends when Rachel and Nick head off to China in search of Rachel's birth father. When his identity is revealed, he's even richer than imaginable. But not everyone is happy when their true relationship becomes public knowledge...
It's so much fun to live in a world where Paris couturiers will shut their ateliers for your sole shopping pleasure, flitting from place to place is all done via luxurious private jets, and no one eats in a public restaurant that doesn't maintain private dining rooms for high-end clientele!
Since this is the middle book in this trilogy, a word of advice; don't try to read China Rich Girlfriend without reading Crazy Rich Asians first. You'll be lost in the tangle of relationships established in the first novel, and you won't appreciate some of the delicious twists and turns served up in this volume. Can't wait to get my hands on the third book!
Monday, June 12, 2017
Song of the Lion
Anne Hillerman is a worthy successor to her father's legacy of writing intriguing Navajo-based mysteries. Tony Hillerman first introduced us to Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito, all members of the Navajo Police whose beat includes the vast Navajo Nation in the Four Corners area of the Southwest. Anne Hillerman continues that tradition with her latest mystery, Song of the Lion (#658).
Bernadette Manuelito, now married to Jim Chee, is attending a big basketball game at the Shiprock High School. It's the alums who won a State Championship years ago versus the high school varsity squad, and a very big deal for local fans, who are legion. During the game, a car bomb goes off in the parking lot, killing an unidentified man. When the owner of the car is identified as Aza Palmer, a big-shot Phoenix lawyer, and also one of the alums playing in the big game, the search for a motive begins. In the meantime, Aza Palmer is due to mediate a conference in Tuba City debating the merits of, and a plan of action for a highly controversial resort project proposed to be built on Indian lands in the Grand Canyon. The stakes are enormous. Could that be why he is being targeted?
Bernadette's case dovetails with her husband's when Jim Chee is assigned to bodyguard duty for Palmer until the conference is over, but her digging has turned up a possible connection for Lieutenant Leaphorn to a long-ago cold case. The threads are woven skillfully in this one as we learn more about the main characters and their world. Recommended.
Bernadette Manuelito, now married to Jim Chee, is attending a big basketball game at the Shiprock High School. It's the alums who won a State Championship years ago versus the high school varsity squad, and a very big deal for local fans, who are legion. During the game, a car bomb goes off in the parking lot, killing an unidentified man. When the owner of the car is identified as Aza Palmer, a big-shot Phoenix lawyer, and also one of the alums playing in the big game, the search for a motive begins. In the meantime, Aza Palmer is due to mediate a conference in Tuba City debating the merits of, and a plan of action for a highly controversial resort project proposed to be built on Indian lands in the Grand Canyon. The stakes are enormous. Could that be why he is being targeted?
Bernadette's case dovetails with her husband's when Jim Chee is assigned to bodyguard duty for Palmer until the conference is over, but her digging has turned up a possible connection for Lieutenant Leaphorn to a long-ago cold case. The threads are woven skillfully in this one as we learn more about the main characters and their world. Recommended.
Hillbilly Elegy
According to my dictionary, an elegy is "A mournful poem; especially a poem composed to lament one who is dead." J.D. Vance's bestselling Hillbilly Elegy - A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (#657) doesn't quite fit that definition, but the poor white, mostly rural, way of life Mr. Vance describes appears to be disappearing from the American landscape. Although Mr. Vance's roots are firmly planted there, the choices he has made to shape his own future have made him an anomaly in that culture. His story documents that it is not always feasible or easy to straddle such a wide divide.
I found the book interesting, depressing and maddening in turns. What Vance describes in his memoir I have seen for myself working in different parts of our country. Poverty, violence, unemployment, alcoholism and drug addiction all play their roles here. Even though he never actually uses the term "white privilege", it is strongly implied. I found myself asking the question: if Vance could lift himself out of a life with no prospects by his own efforts, why can't or why don't more follow his example? When did it become okay to take a job and either not show up for it, or spend the time at work hiding out in the bathroom on multiple thirty minute breaks during the day? Being fired under those circumstances seems to be just an excuse to "blame the man" for self-inflicted economic woes.
Do I feel sorry that such a way of life seems doomed? Not really. Despite Mr. Vance's defense of it, hillbilly culture didn't have much to recommend it as far as I am concerned. He does do a good job of explaining how our current political climate has emerged, however. For that reason alone, it's worth reading Hillbilly Elegy to visit an America that many of us didn't even realize existed.
I found the book interesting, depressing and maddening in turns. What Vance describes in his memoir I have seen for myself working in different parts of our country. Poverty, violence, unemployment, alcoholism and drug addiction all play their roles here. Even though he never actually uses the term "white privilege", it is strongly implied. I found myself asking the question: if Vance could lift himself out of a life with no prospects by his own efforts, why can't or why don't more follow his example? When did it become okay to take a job and either not show up for it, or spend the time at work hiding out in the bathroom on multiple thirty minute breaks during the day? Being fired under those circumstances seems to be just an excuse to "blame the man" for self-inflicted economic woes.
Do I feel sorry that such a way of life seems doomed? Not really. Despite Mr. Vance's defense of it, hillbilly culture didn't have much to recommend it as far as I am concerned. He does do a good job of explaining how our current political climate has emerged, however. For that reason alone, it's worth reading Hillbilly Elegy to visit an America that many of us didn't even realize existed.
Monday, June 5, 2017
In the Name of the Family
Sarah Dunant's latest novel In the Name of the Family (#656) is a companion book to her previous novel Blood & Beauty. It's set in the years 1502 and 1503 and chronicles the Borgias at the peak of their power followed by the swift decline of the family fortunes.
The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Rogdrigo Borgia, now Pope Alexander VI, his two illegitimate children, ruthless and ambitious Cesare, Duke Valentine, and his beloved daughter Lucrezia, now on her way to her third politically advantageous marriage in Ferrara, and finally, the envoy from the Republic of Florence, Niccolo Machiavelli. Murder and mayhem, conspiracies and corruption, ambitions and emotions all play a role here.
We're all so conditioned to think of Lucrezia in some ways as the worst of the bunch but here she's treated sympathetically, as more sinned against than sinning, and I wonder if Ms. Dunant's portrayal of her isn't more accurate. Cesare, on the other hand...
Machiavelli is the perfect foil to the Borgias; he admires their strategic thinking, but not the means by which Pope Alexander and Cesare set about making things happen. He's an observer who finds himself observed in return. It makes for a fascinating read
The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Rogdrigo Borgia, now Pope Alexander VI, his two illegitimate children, ruthless and ambitious Cesare, Duke Valentine, and his beloved daughter Lucrezia, now on her way to her third politically advantageous marriage in Ferrara, and finally, the envoy from the Republic of Florence, Niccolo Machiavelli. Murder and mayhem, conspiracies and corruption, ambitions and emotions all play a role here.
We're all so conditioned to think of Lucrezia in some ways as the worst of the bunch but here she's treated sympathetically, as more sinned against than sinning, and I wonder if Ms. Dunant's portrayal of her isn't more accurate. Cesare, on the other hand...
Machiavelli is the perfect foil to the Borgias; he admires their strategic thinking, but not the means by which Pope Alexander and Cesare set about making things happen. He's an observer who finds himself observed in return. It makes for a fascinating read
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)