Dirt Creek: A Novel
by Hayley Scrivenor
Dirt Creek, by Hayley Scrivenor (3/14/2022)
Dirt Creek is a crackin' whodunnit, a guaranteed page turner. Set in dry rural Australia, a small town that has superficial similarities to Jane Harper's The Dry, but this is a darker tale. A 12 year old girl has gone missing on the way home from school with her friends. How could this happen in a community where everybody knows everybody? The out of town Detective Sgt, and her colleague, who arrive to work the case have to dig down deep under the surface. It seems that nobody knows or has seen anything, but she gradually peels the layers away, and the town's secrets are gradually revealed. There are a few intriguing red herrings, including a major one that is almost a sub-plot, but the final outcomes are very satisfactory, if a bit of a shock.
A fun read, a brilliant cast of characters, with the young people, school friends of the victim, playing a big part.
True Crime Story: A Novel
by Joseph Knox
True Crime Story, by Joseph Knox (11/18/2021)
I have just finished reading True Crime Story. Gripping! It is set at Manchester University in Northern England, and starts innocuously enough with a student disappearance just before the Christmas holidays. Not necessarily a major crime, and the Police are informed, but this is not a standard police procedural, and the missing girl, Zoe Nolan, is not quite the ordinary student she seemed to be at first. She also has an identical twin, also a student at the Uni, which of course complicates things.
The book progresses by means of a series of interviews with all her friends, fellow students, family, and staff, brilliantly edited and arranged to provoke doubts, and send the reader off in all directions. Gradually all the characters reveal themselves with their own words. Who knew what, and when. Will she ever turn up?
This is one of the most original books I have read in a long time, because of the format. It is different, feels real, as if it could actually be a "True Crime Story". Can't wait to read Sirens, the author's debut novel, don't know how I missed it.
The Temple House Vanishing
by Rachel Donohue
The Temple House Vanishing (4/19/2021)
Temple House, a Catholic Boarding School for Girls; an isolated location by the sea, dangerous cliffs, lashing waves, a perfect setting for a psychological thriller, with a touch of the Gothic. What happened all those years ago, when scholarship student Louisa disappeared at the same time as art teacher Mr.Lavelle. Best friend Victoria knows but is not telling. 25 years on a journalist with a connection to Louisa wants to find out, the trail is cold, but she persists, and she succeeds.
A great story, beautiful prose, which flip-flops back and forth between the three protagonists very effectively. The tension builds slowly, as does the character development, towards an ending with a very satisfactory twist. I read this book over two days, just had to find out what happened. Recommended it highly.
Big Girl, Small Town
by Michelle Gallen
Big Girl Small Town (10/24/2020)
The Big Girl is Majella O'Neil, and the Small Town is Aghybogey, on the Irish border, where the Troubles are in the past but there is still plenty of tension. Majella lives with, and takes care of, her alcoholic mother, and she works in the town Fish and Chip Shop, the chipper. A lot of action takes place in the chipper, we learn about the town inhabitants though their transactions over the counter, who always eats what and their jokes, and who is doing what to who around town. She is good at her job, and being a clean freak, keeps the place sparkling. Her life has been defined by three tragedies: the death of her uncle in an explosion; the consequent disappearance of her adored father; finally the horrible death of her beloved grandmother, attached by thugs at home in her caravan. Majella's life is mundane, depressing, and grim. In her room she watches reruns of Dallas, her favorite show, over and over, absorbing life lessons from the lead characters. Those readers who are fastidious about language and bodily functions may cringe a bit here and there, maybe a lot. In spite of this the book is hilarious and funny, it is entertaining, original, dark. The phonetic depiction of the local dialect is dead on, though the list of Irish slang words promised in the retail edition will help with the translations.
Majella gets an unexpected life altering surprise when she inherits the family farm, left to her in Grandma's will. Now she has status, she sees a light at the end of her tunnel, she will go for it.
A Girl is A Body of Water
by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
A Girl is a Body of Water (7/21/2020)
The family dynamics laid out in this book would be a challenge to the world's wisest and most experienced Agony Aunts. Set in Uganda in the time of Idi Amin, although this book is not about him, it is a coming of age story with a difference. Kirabo, our heroine, grows up being raised by her extended family in her ancestral village. She is loved and nurtured, but is always searching for the identity of her birth mother, which proves elusive. We follow her in this quest from village to the big city, to exclusive boarding school, university and back again. The roles and relationships of all the characters here are very complicated, the culture different, sometimes it requires a deal of concentration. But it is a wonderful read, and I would recommend it particularly for young readers, precisely because of the controlling cultural differences it would reveal to them.
The list of names was helpful, a list of the non-English words would be even more helpful. Mostly the context made meaning obvious, but not always. My only criticism would be that it dragged a little toward the end, but there was so much detail to get through, it would have been difficult to shorten without missing something important.
Travelers: A Novel
by Helon Habila
Travelers (5/20/2019)
All over the world there are displaced people on the move. This is the story of a group from Africa trying to find a place for themselves in Europe. The main protagonist already has a place. He is privileged, an educated Nigerian in Germany with his American wife, who herself is there on an Art Fellowship. In one of the six separate, but related, stories that comprise this book, he loses the bag containing his passport and papers, and thus begins a nightmare experience. He gets a taste of what it is like for those refugees and asylum seekers who travelled to Europe on dangerous and flimsy boats, seeing family members drown, losing everything. This for me was the most telling of the six stories, though they were all harrowing, though very human. The prose is formal and correct, and although the desperation and horrors were explained in detail, I found there was a strange lack of any deep emotion. Maybe the people had been through too much, been too traumatized to feel, and this was deliberate.
D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II
by Sarah Rose
D-Day Girls, by Sarah Rose (3/19/2019)
No matter how much reading you have done over the years on WW2, there is always something new turning up. D-Day Girls is an account of three women active in the French resistance; their recruitment and training, their experiences ranging from romantic to brutal, and the recognition, or lack of, their immeasurable contribution to eventual victory. It is non-fiction but reads like a novel, not always a plus, because in the area of the participants' feelings and emotions, there is a lot that has to be attributed to the author's imagination. The prose style tilted from edgy into snark a few times. That said, it was meticulously researched, and the historical facts in this book cannot be questioned. It is a page turner, I would recommend it to all students of those war years. You will read it in just a few sessions, and end up in awe of these three women.
At the Wolf's Table
by Rosella Postorino
At The Wolf's Table, Rosella Postorino (10/16/2018)
A World War Two novel, 1943 , a small town in Eastern Germany, home to Hitler's hideaway in the forest. The SS conscripts ten local woman to act as his food tasters, and this is their story, necessarily a rather grim story. We only get to know one of them, Rosa, who has come from Berlin to live with her parents-in-law, her husband presumed lost on the Eastern front. She is troubled, stressed of course, guilty because of decisions she chose to make, or did she actually have a choice? We are not sure. Her relationships with the other nine women are touched on only briefly, but we do get an idea of who they were, they all dealt with the possibility of being poisoned in their own way. The narrative hopscotches a bit, but the story is compelling, the reader wants to know what happens to Rosa. We do find out, but the ending was a bit of a fizzle.
Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History
by Keith O'Brien
Fly Girls (6/6/2018)
Amelia Earhart is a household name, but there were others from the same time period, other women pilots just as deserving of lasting fame as she was. Fly Girls is the story of five of these women. It was the twenties and thirties, the beginning of the aviation industry in America, and it was a male world. Air Races were central, but female pilots were not welcome, they had to fight for acceptance, even for a place in the game. Fight they did, and this is a cracking read of just how they prevailed. They had the skills, they had the guts, and all they wanted was a chance to prove it. Many times the results were tragic, it was dangerous for all pilots, crashes were frequent and often fatal. I would hope young people of both sexes will read this book, it is an eye-opener and an inspiration.
It reminded me a little of Boys in the Boat, in that the author managed to create suspense, even though the race results are a matter of record.
A Place for Us
by Fatima Farheen Mirza
A Place for Us (3/18/2018)
This is a tale of an immigrant family, Muslim parents and US born children; their challenges, difficulties, disappointments and successes. It is not really a story about Islam, more about family dynamics, and with few minor changes it could apply to any religion. Well written and moving, beautifully drawn characters, but the narrative is fragmented and the reader had to stay nimble to keep up, worth it though. A very sad story, with just a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, hope for reconciliation. A realization too late that when a parent goes too far to enforce their will on a troubled child, in this case the son, the estrangement may be so deep that making up will be slow, hard, and tenuous.
The Milk Lady of Bangalore: An Unexpected Adventure
by Shoba Narayan
The Milk Lady of Bangalore (12/5/2017)
If you are looking for an informal tutorial on the Hindu religion, in particular the significance of the cow in every day life, this is for you. Written by an ex-pat returning to India with her family after 20 successful years in the west, it is endearing, and very funny in a dry way. It revolves around her relationship with the local milk lady, and how she deals with the frustrations and contrasts of modern India. We don't really learn how the milk lady feels, just how she lives and reacts to her new friend. A great read for young readers, it will give them a look at another culture in a gentle but genuine way.
Young Jane Young
by Gabrielle Zevin
Young Jane Young, Gabrielle Zevin (7/10/2017)
Washington DC, a Congressman, an Intern, a blog that refuses to die, and comes back to haunt. The story is largely moved along by dialogue, sometimes funny and witty, sometimes bratty, sometimes warm and human, but ultimately for me, rather irritating. People just don't talk to each other in short, snappy sentences, not all the time. The final section was gimmicky, and this book did not do it for me.
The Tea Planter's Wife
by Dinah Jefferies
The Tea Planter's Wife (7/18/2016)
The Tea Planter's Wife is above all a romance, backed up by dark deeds, misunderstandings, mystery, more misunderstandings, deceit, more misunderstandings, heartache and betrayal, shameful secrets, more misunderstandings. All this in an exotic setting, a tea plantation in Ceylon during colonial days. The culture of those days is totally captured, the novel is atmospheric, you can feel the heat and tension. In spite of all this I was not drawn in, found many of the characters one dimensional. I wanted to reach into the pages and give our noble heroine, Gwen, a good shake. A happy conclusion of course, in the end all is revealed, resolved and forgiven. If you enjoy a tumultuous love story with a myriad of twists and turns, villains real and imagined, this is a book for you.
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper
by Phaedra Patrick
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper (3/29/2016)
This book is a romantic mystery, not of course a criminal mystery, but it definitely deserves the description "cozy". Our protagonist, Arthur, is a widower, his long term conventional, comfortable, and loving marriage to Miriam having ended with her death a year ago. He finally decides it is time to go through her belongings. He finds something that makes no sense to him, a piece of jewelry, a charm bracelet, it is valuable and he has never seen it before. He embarks on a quest to discover its origin and meaning, and he finds out that, before she met him, Miriam had a life beyond his imagination. At first shocked, he quickly comes to terms with what this means. This is the story of his journey of discovery, and also how it changes him, and his relationships to his friends and family. He starts to live again with renewed energy and appreciation of all that life has to offer.
The prose is straight forward, and the characters are well drawn. It is a sweet and gentle story, with a few tart touches here and there to cut what could become sentimentality. A relaxing read about a man we come to care about, and we love that everyone has a happy ending.
Circling the Sun: A Novel
by Paula McLain
Circling the Sun, by Paula McLain (5/19/2015)
This book will be read by two different groups of people, those who have never heard of Beryl Markham, or who know very little, and those who have read all her books, plus all the biographies that cover her life in total detail. For this latter group the book is redundant. I should disclose that I went to Kenya in 1947 as a very small child, with my family. Lived there until 1964, so I absorbed many of the myths, truths, and legends surrounding this woman first hand. I even saw her in person, from a distance, while attending meets at Nairobi racecourse during the fifties, when she was back to training racehorses in later life. The author captures the feel of Kenya and evokes a sense of place, and she is kind to Beryl. It would actually be impossible to exaggerate any aspect of her life; she was one of a kind, infamous rather than famous, a freeloader and a free spirit, a woman who completely ignored all the conventions to get where she wanted to go. Her life makes for a cracking good story, I think readers in the first group, new to Beryl, will love it. The author lets us know of her major achievement - the trans Atlantic flight - in a novel way, through the prologue and epilogue, and ends the book with Beryl's awakening to the excitement of flying in those early days. There are some research lapses. There is alarming switch of tribes from Kipsigi to Kikuyu early on; and we read of Beryl's pony drinking its fill from Lake Elmentaita, which is a soda lake, highly alkaline, and unpotable to mammals; also, Yorkshire pudding with lamb, never! But this is fiction, so license is allowed. Enjoyl
Lusitania: Triumph, Tragedy, and the End of the Edwardian Age
by Greg King, Penny Wilson
Lusitania (1/3/2015)
We all know about the Lusitania, at least we thought we knew. Exactly what you know probably depends on how old you are and where you were educated. This book fills in all the gaps, it is packed with historical facts, but is very readable, not dense like so many textbooks. Full of human interest, and very even handed, all sides of the story are told. Who knew that the crew of the U boat kept a pair of dachshunds on board, and that they slept with the men snuggled in their hammocks? Aw. Who was to blame for the sinking and loss of life? Who was at fault? Nearly everybody involved, in some way. All the questions are fully explored, investigated and turned inside out, but are still not answered to this day. A must for WWII history buffs, and recommended for young readers. They all know the story of the Titanic, but that pales beside the story of the Lusitania. Here they get the realities of war, intrigue, deceit, the awful loss of innocent lives.
Last Train to Istanbul
by Ayse Kulin
Last Train to Istanbul (10/4/2013)
This is a cracking story. Starting out, the prose seems a little stiff, formal, the dialogue a bit stilted, but as the plot progresses you simply cease to notice. A World War Two escape novel with a twist, Selva and Rafael, a Muslim and Jew, who marry in the face of tremendous parental opposition and cultural censure, leave their native Turkey to live in Paris. As the war cranks up and Nazi policies become terrifyingly clear, escape from the city becomes the main focus of their lives. Turkey is organizing a refugee train for their citizens, but who will get to be on it? How to deal with the many obstacles and dangers? Who else will be crammed on the train? Will they even get out at all, how will they get across the many borders? The suspense gradually builds, and you get drawn in to the point where you really care about the characters, who may initially not have been very appealing. The last half of the book is definitely in the "page turner" category, couldn't put it down. A great book, and an uplifting read about a tragic time in history.
Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World
by Matthew Goodman
Eighty Days (1/24/2013)
One of my favourite genres is non-fiction about women in history who achieved great things at a time when it was difficult for them to do so. I thought this would be a grand adventure in that category. It tells the story of a two directional race, one woman going west and one going east, to beat the fictional Phileas Fogg's Eighty Day journey around the world. But there was no sense of adventure or excitement, it was simply a travelogue, and the only suspense was whether the trains and steamships would arrive and leave on time. The westward journey of Bisland was a more enjoyable read, simply because she had an open mind and travelled with a positive attitude to all the new experiences she went through. Nellie Bly was the opposite, a bit of a snark, the eventual winner - a matter of record, not giving anything away here - but she was not an empathetic person. The book was well researched, with many interesting snippets of history throughout. A mini-bio of Pulitzer was of special interest, and the book gave a good over-view of the newspaper industry at the time.
What I would have really enjoyed is more personal detail about how Nellie Bly managed with no spare clothes. I suppose she didn't think this a worthy subject for her journal.
About page 300 I stopped reading and jumped straight to the Epiloque, one of the best parts, covering the rest of the two women's lives. Although I cannot rave about the book, they were certainly two very worthy subjects.
King Peggy: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village
by Peggielene Bartels, Eleanor Herman
King Peggy (12/21/2011)
When I finished reading King Peggy, my first thought was this book would make a great Disney movie. For me it was rather a chore to finish, which is a pity because our heroine, Peggielene Bartels, is an amazing woman who took on a daunting task with determination, her story is unique and surely worthy of telling. I found the prose style problematic. Sometimes it read like a fable, sometimes like a middle school reader. Research was lacking: the author had the fishermen of Otuam pulling in an impossible mix of warm, cold, and fresh water fish from the tropical waters off Ghana; lions and rhinos are creatures of eastern, south-eastern, southern Africa, Namibia, the plains and veldts of the Great Rift Valley; Nelson Mandela is most certainly not the only African president to be jailed before taking office, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya comes to mind. Sorry to be such a curmudgeon, these details may be considered trivial, but I found them bothersome. I actually admired Peggy very much. She was too naive in the beginning, but was anxious at all times to respect her heritage while at the same time improving the lot of Otuam's residents. I'm glad she succeeded.
The Weight of a Mustard Seed: The Intimate Story of an Iraqi General and His Family During Thirty Years of Tyranny
by Wendell Steavenson
Thr Weight of a Mustard Seed by Wendell Steavenson (2/22/2009)
This is a very sad book, no happy endings here, but all Americans, and Brits, who have ever expressed an opinion about the situation in Iraq, should definitely read it. It is not a political book, no editorializing here, just a detailed history of the country through the Saddam Hussein years, with particular attention to the career and family of one man, General Kamel Sachet. It is the story of his rise in the military, his patriotism and honor, and how he increasingly turned to religion as time progressed. Saddam's brutalities are not glossed over, Gen.Sachet was appalled by them, but he had to deal with the regime in the only way he knew that would protect his family.
Wonderful descriptions - "American tanks squatted like great toads amid the wasteland trash."
My only disappointment, no pictures! Only descriptions of the photographs, in the spaces where presumably they will appear in the final edition (I read an advanced readers copy). I would have loved to see his wife in her early years, glamorous in western dress, before she chose to switch to Islamic clothing. And all the family in the very early days of Saddam Hussein, when life was good.
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