Mother Land

 Rachel Meyer thought she had enough to cope with - a new husband, a move from New York City to Mumbai, a new language and not having a job of her own after years of working.  That was until the doorbell rang one evening, and there was her mother-in-law, Swati, standing on the doorstep with a suitcase almost as large as she is.  Mother Land (#921) by Leah Franqui explores the cultural clash between these two very different women (Or are they really so different?) in a novel that is, in turn, maddening, biting, funny and poignant.

Rachel is beginning to sense that Dhruv is not the man she married in New York.  Happy with his work, he expects her to accept things here in Mumbai without question.  That is the way things are done.  If his mother chooses to move in with them, so be it.  It's Rachel's job to get on with things as Swati takes over the household.

Swati, on the other hand, has done the unthinkable; she has left her husband behind in Kolkata, and she has no intention of returning to the marital home.  She's not sure what she does want, but living with her son will give her time to figure things out or not.

When Dhruv's company assigns him to a project in Kolkata, Rachel and Swati are thrown together on their own while Dhruv tries to fix the shocking and shameful situation between his parents.  The outcome is not what anyone expected...

I loved Leah Franqui's first novel, America for Beginners (See my post of  8/28/2018.)  It's the difference in cultures seen from the opposite side; an Indian woman sees the America beloved by her only son for herself.  I enjoyed this book equally.  Franqui makes Mumbai come alive in Mother Land.  You can hear the noise, feel the heat and the constant press of the crowds.  But mostly, it's a book about relationships.  Things aren't really so different no matter where you come from. Highly recommended.

The City of Brass

 I could hardly put down S.A. Chakraborty's The City of Brass (#920) once I started reading it.  The first book in her Daevan fantasy trilogy, it whisks the reader off across burning sands and magical kingdoms like the flying carpet in the Arabian Nights stories.  

Nahri is just a young healer and con woman barely eking out a living in the slums of Cairo while Napoleon's soldiers roam the streets.  Targeting wealthy marks is her main strategy, but it's not enough, so she's turned to performing zars to cast out demons.  When she accidentally summons a djinni in a ceremony, everything she believes in is turned on its head while she struggles to survive the army of ghouls now pursuing her.  They're just stories - the djinns and the ghouls and demons - so how can this be happening to her?  The djinni reluctantly comes to Nahri's aid, but they must escape Cairo, and so the adventure begins...

Enchantments, princes, and concealed identities all play a role as Nahri must walk a fine line in Daeva, The City of Brass.  Nothing is as it seems and danger is a constant companion.

The characters are well-developed and the action is non-stop as personal and political complications unfold.  The exotic locales and creatures are enthralling.  If you are looking for an escape from your humdrum existence, try The City of Brass.  I cannot wait to get started on volume two, The Kingdom of Copper!

Muzzled

 I couldn't believe my luck when my library notified me that both of my favorite dog mystery series' latest books were waiting to be picked up!  I've already blogged about Spencer Quinn's Of Mutts and Men.  This time I'm writing about David Rosenfelt's Andy Carpenter series' Muzzled (#919).

Andy Carpenter doesn't need to work as a lawyer; he's wealthy enough to spend his days however he chooses.  But when Beth Morris calls to ask for his help with a stray dog she's trying to reunite with its owner, he's intrigued.   Lucy's owner has called Beth and arranged to come and pick her up.  The only problem is that Lucy's owner was killed quite spectacularly in a boat explosion, along with two colleagues.  To Andy's mind, the fact that Alex Vogel would be concerned enough about Lucy's welfare to come out of hiding and fetch her says a lot about his character.  When they meet at Andy's Tara Foundation where Lucy is being held, Alex asks Andy to represent him.  He claims he's innocent of the murder of his friends.  Andy agrees to get him through his arraignment, but no way will Andy take on Alex's case.  He has too much not to do on his calendar!

You know it's not going to end there, and of course it doesn't.  Why was Alex targeted in the first place?  Does it have anything to do with his work at a pharmacy start up, or was he dating the wrong person?  Andy and his team will pull at all the threads they can find to get at the answers.  I have to say, I did not see the end of this one coming!

Andy's snarky humor never fails to amuse while leading the reader artfully astray.  One of my all-time favorite series!

 

Of Mutts and Men

 The PI team Chet and Bernie are back in Spencer Quinn's latest mystery Of Mutts and Men (#918).  After a casual meeting at a client's house party, Bernie is invited to consult with Wendell Nero, a hydrologist.  When Chet and Bernie show up at the site of his latest project to meet with him, Wendell has been murdered.  What could he have found in this remote canyon that would have caused his death?  Although the police dismiss it as simple robbery-gone-wrong, whatever the real reason is, it puts Chet and Bernie right in the crosshairs of whoever is behind the killing as they continue to investigate.

Chet the Jet is dognapped, and Bernie is caught up in pursuing leads that Wendell's project might have to do with the aquifer which supplies The Valley, long one of his concerns.  Add in a sexy lawyer from a high-powered firm, a family vineyard and an Ivy League college Endowment Fund and you have the makings of a gripping mystery.  Oh, and former girlfriend Susie is back!

Love this series!  But my husband did have a question after reading Of Mutts and Men; since Chet seems to go missing thanks to the bad guys in each book, why on earth doesn't Bernie just have Chet microchipped?  To which I replied, "But where would be the fun in that?"

The Fever Tree

 Since our trip to South Africa was cancelled this spring due to COVID19, I decided to visit it via The Fever Tree (#917), a historical fiction novel set there by Jennifer McVeigh.  I had rather mixed feelings about this book.  The descriptions of South Africa and the life there in the late nineteenth century, especially on the veldt for Boer farming families and the utter greed and lawlessness by the English in the diamond mining center of Kimberley were fascinating and just what I had hoped to find.  The principal characters - not so much.

The plot revolves around Frances Irvine, a gently-brought up young English woman of marriageable age who learns after her wealthy father dies that he has lost his fortune in stock speculation (Shades of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now!).  Unfortunately, he made no provision for Frances.  Her choice is to become an unpaid nursemaid/drudge for her aunt's growing family in Manchester, or marry Edwin Matthews, a doctor making his way in South Africa.  Although she has never liked Edwin, she opts to marry him.  On the voyage out from London, she falls hard for William Westbrook, a charming first class passenger.  Should she cast in her lot with William, or remain true to Edwin, who has financed her passage out to South Africa?  You'll have to read it to find out, but I found Frances to be incredibly stupid.  Maybe it was her naivete, or her inflated sense of self-worth, but I wondered how either man could tolerate her.  Suffice it to say that it takes almost the entire novel before she finally snaps out of it after nearly succumbing to the smallpox Edwin Matthews claimed was ravaging Kimberley. 

This book came out several years ago, but I was still shocked by the Oxford-educated author's use of a number of derogatory terms for the indigenous population.  My, how times have changed!  She does add in her notes at the end that her idea for the novel came from research she was doing which revealed the deliberate suppression of any information pertaining to the outbreak of smallpox in Kimberley by Cecil Rhodes (Yes, that Cecil Rhodes of the scholarship!) lest the diamond mining industry collapse, taking British wealth with it.  If you're wearing a diamond engagement ring, you know how that enterprise turned out!

This Tender Land

I really hated to come to the end of William Kent Krueger's This Tender Land (#916), I was so caught up in the perils and adventures of a group of four orphans escaping their pursuers in a canoe in the upper Midwest.  It's a worthy companion to his extraordinary novel Ordinary Grace (See my post of 11/3/2016) which I discovered with one of my book clubs.

Odie O'Banion and his brother Albert find themselves the only white boys at the Lincoln School in Minnesota after the death of their father.  An Indian training school, misery is a way of life under the harsh governance of the Brickmans in the midst of the Great Depression in 1932.  Odie seems to be a special target for Mrs. Brickman's wrath, so when a devastating storm lays waste to the area, Odie and Albert escape in a canoe along with six year old Emmy and their mute friend Mose.  The authorities are after them, accusing the three boys of kidnapping Emmy, a capital offense.  With no one to rely on but themselves, the quartet must make their way to St. Louis, where there is a promise of a home with the O'Banion's aunt Julia.

The interior journeys of this unlikely set of travelers are as compelling as the physical dangers they face.  Along the way they encounter an assortment of characters both good and evil, all with a lesson in survival of the body and heart to teach them.  It's a rich, unforgettable read along the lines of Huckleberry Finn.  It's bound to stay with the reader long after the covers of the book are shut.  Don't miss it.