The Tainted Cup

I do love a good murder mystery!  Robert Jackson Bennett's The Tainted Cup (#1,225) is one of the best I've come across in a long, long time.  Many whodunit fans will miss this one entirely because it is labeled science fiction.  Set in an empire beset by leviathans attacking from beyond its heavily fortified sea walls, it is also plagued with a series of unnatural deaths.  An official Investigator, Ana, and her recently appointed apprentice Assistant Investigator, Din, are assigned to look into the matters.  Are the deaths merely unfortunate contagions, or is there a pattern and motive behind these disparate events?

Din is the eyes for Ana, who belongs to a race so sensitive to outside stimuli she must work through a proxy.  He still doesn't know the full range of his abilities, but Ana has chosen him based on what she suspects about him.  Together, they make a formidable team - like Sherlock and Watson.  When they draw close to the truth of the matter during an impending breach of the sea walls by the second rampaging titan in a matter of days, someone is planning to take advantage of the chaos to rid themselves of these impediments.

The world Bennett has built is fascinating with its dangerous landscapes, magical plants controlled by the bureaucracy, and of course, the hierarchy that controls, and is controlled by the empire and the wealthiest power players.  I really hated to see this book come to an end, I enjoyed it so much.  I am very glad to see that there will be a second book in this series to be released next February.  I can't wait!

Lies And Weddings

I just finished Kevin Kwan's latest dishy novel Lies And Weddings (#1,224).  Who doesn't love reading about over-the-top society weddings being ruined by an inconvenient volcanic eruption? And it just keeps getting better from there!

The main characters in this romp are the Earl of Greshambury and his family along with their neighbors, the Tongs.  Despite the lavish spending by the Countess Arabella (a former Hong Kong super model) Francis, the Earl, has never had the courage to tell her economize as their fortune slowly disappears over the decades.  When push comes to shove, the solution to their financial woes is obvious: their two lovely daughters and the hunky son Rufus, Viscount St. Ives, must all marry money.  Piles and piles of money. 

 You know that's never going to work out.  Rufus has been in love with the girl next door for years.  Eden Tong doesn't believe anything will come of it due to his social position, even though she returns his regard.  Besides, both she and her father have busy medical practices to keep them occupied when not being summoned up to the Manor to treat the Greshams.

The plot skips merrily around the watering holes of the rich and famous as scheming mothers jockey for the most eligible catches on any continent...  Will love win in the end?  Oh, I think it's got a pretty good chance with Kevin Kwan pulling the strings. (And writing those delicious catty little footnotes!)

Do, by all means, add Lies And Weddings to your summer reading book bag!

The Berry Pickers

The Berry Pickers (#1,223) by Amanda Peters has justly received favorable buzz.  The pleasure in reading this novel is not the suspense - we know from the beginning that the two Points of View will converge, like a well-written Regency romance.  It's how the writer gets us there that matters.

Back in the 60's, a four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl named Ruthie goes missing from the berry fields in Maine which her migrant worker family and friends are harvesting.  Meanwhile, Norma is having bad dreams in her middle-class Maine home.  Her mother smothers her with attention, but Norma remembers smells and flashes of another mother.  Although she speaks to a family friend about her dreams, nothing comes of it. The journey on both sides to fill in the missing gaps in their emotional lives plays out, bittersweet.

Well worth the time.

Becoming Madam Secretary

I heard about Becoming Madam Secretary (#1,222) at one of my book clubs.  It's Stephanie Dray's fictionalized biographical novel about Frances Perkins.  She became the Secretary of Labor and first female Cabinet Secretary in the Administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  If you've ever earned or received a Social Security benefit, you have Miss Perkins to thank for it.  For someone who so broadly affected everyday Americans' lives, it is astonishing how few people have ever heard of her, or realize her significance.

Ms. Dray has done an admirable job of fixing that knowledge gap.  She makes Frances Perkins' life relatable and compelling.  She certainly did not have an easy life, but she was driven by her conviction to do the "right thing" and make people's lives better.  She was fortunate to have met up with the powerful movers and shakers of her era to make her forward progress possible.  It's quite a story.  Highly recommended.

Just one minor quibble: Frances Perkins was known for wearing the then-fashionable tricorn hats.  In fact, Ms. Dray even states in her prelude "...in a fur-trimmed coat and my trademark tricorn hat".  So why, in both the standard and large-print editions of Becoming Madam Secretary does the cover art show her in generic round-brimmed hat?  Oh, well.  At least her story's out there now.

Red Side Story

Red Side Story (#1,221) is the sequel to Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey, but you can read this novel all by itself without having too much difficulty figuring out what happened in the first book.  Chromatacia is a land where your fate is determined by which color spectrum of light you can see, and how strongly you perceive that color.  The higher your sensitivity to it, the higher you are socially.

Eddie Russet is a strong Red, but he and his companion Jane Brunswick, a Green, are accused of murdering a Yellow while on an expedition for the Collective.  If they are found guilty (which they most certainly will be), it's off to the Green Room with them, where they will be executed by soporific exposure to Green.

Not only are Eddie and Jane not guilty, but their venture beyond the Outer Boundaries of East Carmine have raised many questions for the pair.  Things they've been told all their lives just don't seem to be adding up...  And just who is running the show?

Wildly imaginative, this book is provocative in its rendering of the social order (which is a literal thing in the book!)  It will make you think as you laugh at the improbableness of so many of the situations here.  Great fodder for a book club!

The Atlas Maneuver

Steve Berry's latest Cotton Malone thriller, The Atlas Maneuver (#1,220) is set in the mysterious financial world of bitcoin.  What would happen to monetary systems across the planet if one person decided to take total control?

As laid out in this novel, it's frighteningly plausible.  Things have worth if people believe they have worth is the lesson behind this book.  And it's surprising how ordinary a monstrous person can seem if they have proper distance between them and the strings they are pulling.  If you are a fan of bitcoin, or most decidedly not, you'll enjoy this caper.

West With Giraffes

There's a kernel of truth in the plot of West With Giraffes (#1,219) by Lynda Rutledge.  A pair of giraffes being shipped to the fledgling San Diego Zoo barely survive the Hurricane of 1938 on board their ship.  Once they arrive in New York City, there remains the problem of how to transport them across the country to the Zoo.  It's never been done before, but their journey keeps America captivated as war breaks out in Europe.

That part of the book is all true, but the characters and events that accompany Boy and Girl on their cross-country journey are fictitious.  Woody Nickel is a refugee from the Dustbowl disaster when he washes up in New York City.  He's never seen such a place, or such creatures as the giraffes.  He barely survived the storm himself and has no idea what to do with himself, but he wants to stay with those giraffes.  How he manages to make himself part of the crew moving them with one mishap after another makes for an engaging tale, and all seems to be going well for him until the Zoo man and the female reporter following them find themselves in Texas where Woody comes from.  Told from Woody's old age, the mysteries are gradually revealed. It seems he has a past, after all...