Beyond That, The Sea

When you read the cover blurb for Laura Spence-Ash's debut novel Beyond That, The Sea (#1,167) you may be forgiven for thinking "Oh, no!  Not another WWII novel!".  But if you decide to skip it, you'll be missing one of the best books I've read in a long time.  

World War II is the catalyst for this book.  Eleven-year-old Beatrix Thompson is sent from London by her parents to live overseas with an American family for the duration of the war.  How that decision changes the lives of each one of characters of the Thompson family and the Gregorys with their two boys outside Boston is charted in the emotional landscape of this novel.  Everyone's point of view is explored, and although the war is the triggering factor, it's the internal events that are key here.  How Bea is changed by, and changes her environments beyond the war is the crux.

I had just one small nit to pick here.  I grew up in the Boston area, and when Bea and Mrs. Gregory go to Boston to buy Bea a party dress, the book says they go to Downtown Crossing.  Probably Ms. Spence-Ash is too young to know that that term wasn't used until about thirty or forty years later than the period in the book.  Yes, Jordan Marsh had wonderful blueberry muffins, but my mother and I preferred the chicken pot pies at Filene's elegant dining room across the street!  Long's jeweler on Summer Street brings back many memories of picking out an opal ring for my sixteenth birthday, a gold bangle for my high school graduation and my own engagement and wedding rings.  Those were the days...

It's a terrific book.  I don't understand why it hasn't been given more press: there is enough here to keep book clubs occupied for several meetings!  Settle in for a soul-satisfying read with Beyond That, The Sea.  Highly recommended.

Witch King

Everybody seems to have been waiting for Martha Wells' newest novel, the fantasy Witch King (#1,166).  It is definitely worth the wait!  While for me, Murderbot will always be my favorite Wells character, Kai-Enna, Fourth Prince of the underearth, comes pretty close.

Kai is a demon awakened in a watery tomb by a lesser Expositor wishing to steal his powers.  Needless to say, it does not go well for the sorcerer.  The question is, how did Kai wind up there in the first place? And who put him there?  The rest of the novel follows Kai's pursuit of the truth and his search for his companions across two timelines.  

It's a nail-biting adventure story set in the varying well drawn kingdoms of a world conquered by the Hierarchs, a hitherto unknown people with seemingly omnipotent powers.  Kai finds himself caught up in a nascent rebellion against his own instincts.  The Past is prelude to the Future.

We have not seen the last of Kai and his interspecies cohort as they, like the crew of the starship Enterprise, set out to find new worlds and adventures.  Looking forward to reading about them!

Killers of a Certain Age

A quartet of older women are sent on a lavish, all-expenses-paid cruise to celebrate their retirement.  What could go wrong?  The women are professional assassins and they accidentally stumble onto a plot to eliminate them, along with all the other passengers on board.  Sounds like an intriguing premise for a book, doesn't it?

I wasn't even halfway through Deanna Raeburn's Killers of a Certain Age (#1,165) when it became due at the library.  I have to admit I wasn't even tempted to hang on to it to finish it.  I found it surprisingly crude.  I've read other books based on this same trope, and they have all handled it so much better, why bother to continue to waste my time on it?  Did not finish.  Do not regret it.

Rogue Justice

What if an ex-pat with a grudge against the US Justice system decided to plant the seeds for a massive cyberattack that no one will see coming?  That's the premise of Stacy Abrams latest thriller Rogue Justice (#1,164).  Avery Keene is back, Supreme Court Justice Wynn's law clerk who uncovered an unholy mess by following the breadcrumbs the Justice left her before succumbing to a medically induced coma.  Her life has been occupied with that political fallout when she is approached at a conference by the law clerk of an Idaho judge.  He is convinced the judge has been manipulated into committing suicide by person or persons unknown after making a controversial decision.  He thrusts his proof into Avery's hands and flees.  Moments later, he is dead and Avery is reluctantly drawn into an investigation again.  At least this time she has the backing of friends and an FBI agent in her corner.  Buckle up.  It's a wild ride.

So much of the action in this novel is driven by the events in While Justice Sleeps, you are much better off reading these two books in order, preferably one right after the other to keep things straight in your mind.  If you want a book that will keep you up at night, Rogue Justice should do the trick.  There's lots to digest in these nightmare scenarios.  Good thing Avery has an eidetic memory!  Recommended.

The Poisoner's Ring

The Poisoner's Ring (#1,163) is a follow-up to Kelley Armstrong's A Rip Through Time, which I will now have to go back and read.  It's a time travel novel set in Edinburgh in 1869.  In this case Mallory Mitchell is a Canadian homicide detective who in the original book finds herself suddenly in the body of a nineteen-year-old maid in an undertaker's household.  

This time, her employer, Dr. Duncan Gray, has had a couple of suspicious cases come through his funeral parlor which the police surgeon uses as his morgue, victims of apparent poisoning.  Are the wives responsible for getting rid of their husbands?  At first it appears so, but when Dr. Gray's brother-in-law Lord Leslie becomes the latest victim, and his sister Lady Annis is accused of poisoning him, things are too close to home to warrant a casual investigation.

This book doesn't take itself too seriously, and that's the delightful part of it.  Mallory Mitchell struggles with adapting to Victorian manners and mores (not to mention the constricting clothes!).  Because Dr. Gray and his sister Isla have accepted Mallory's story, they make use of the knowledge Mallory is able to contribute to the investigations that Duncan Gray can't help but conduct.

Did I mention that it's a really good mystery on top of all this?  It keeps you guessing until the end. Recommended.

Breaking Creed

I came across Breaking Creed (#1,162) by Alex Cava on a clever library display celebrating the "Dog Days of Summer".  I had read a couple of entries in this thriller series about a Marine vet with PTSD who finds a new calling in training service dogs of all types - search and rescue, cadaver, sniffer dogs - and using them himself when tapped by various agencies along with his informal FBI profiler partner Maggie O'Dell, but had missed this particular book.

Ryder Creed is on a fairly routine assignment at the Atlanta airport with Grace, his favorite dog, searching for signs of a drug cartel's shipment rumored to be passing through Hartsfield when Grace alerts on a teenaged girl, not a piece of luggage.  The girl begs Ryder to help her.  On impulse, he smuggles her out of the airport, thus painting a target on his own back.  The cartel wants its property back, and they will stop at nothing to reclaim it.

Meanwhile, FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell is called in by her boss to look into a body floating in the Potomac River.  A tattoo on the badly decomposed body leads her to suspect a drug connection.  Although her boss denies the possibility, a high-ranking Senator is in his office when Maggie goes to make her report.  Soon she finds herself crossing paths with Ryder Creed...again.

It's a twisted tale of money, greed, and power.  If deadly creepy-crawly creatures are the stuff of your nightmares, this is probably not a book you want to be reading at bedtime.  But if you are the type of person who needs to find out what happens next, even if it means staying up all night, Breaking Creed will do the trick!  This is a great series.

The Diamond Eye

How appropriate to read about a real-life Ukranian heroine in Kate Quinn's latest historical novel, The Diamond Eye (#1,161) while Putin's assault on Ukraine is covered every day in our local news!  Lyudmila Pavlichenko rushed to enlist the day the war with Nazi Germany began.  A library researcher working on her doctoral dissertation is not exactly who most people would picture becoming a feared and prolific sniper, but she did indeed, earning the title Lady Death.  Ms. Quinn has used the bare bones of Mila Pavlichenko's life to weave a fascinating narrative of war on the Russian front in desperate circumstances.  Mila's good will trip to the US with other wounded student/soldiers was one of Stalin's efforts to change Roosevelt's mind about sending American troops to aid their allies in Eastern Europe.  Her resulting friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt lasted the rest of their lives.

Ms. Quinn has cleverly interwoven the story of another sharpshooter into the story, someone who originally has a very different target in mind to provide some tension to Mila's American visit.  Unlike most of the characters in this gripping novel, this sniper is fictional.  Even the men Mila was romantically involved with during her life are based, as much as possible, on the known facts.  Married at fifteen, she was left with a son, a compelling reason to defend her homeland.  In The Diamond Eye, Mila encounters her husband again in the Red Army, but she also meets the man she considered her second husband for the rest of her life after a whirlwind romance.  And then, there is her sniper partner.  Closer than close, they must live and breathe in unison to survive their sniper assignments.  He will eventually become her third husband here.  Ms. Quinn's Notes help to separate the fact from the fiction about them all.

If you find Lyudmila Pavlichenko as fascinating as I did, Kate Quinn has provided links to books, videos, and photos of the real-life woman who inspired this novel and who charmed the people she met on her good will tours abroad.  To think such courage existed within our own lifetimes is humbling.  Add The Diamond Eye to your "Must Read" List.