James, by Percival Everett.

 

            Percival Everett is a distinguished Black professor of English and a prize-winning novelist:  he is also a Pulitzer finalist, and eminently qualified to write a ‘What If’ story about the fates of two of American literature’s most beloved characters, Huckleberry Finn and the slave Jim, Mark Twain’s timeless, runaway heroes, and the various good, bad, strong and weak people they meet in their attempts to reach a place of safety.

            Jim finds out that his owner Ms Watson is planning to sell him down South;  that would be perfectly fine – if he were by himself, but he has a wife and little daughter that he loves above all else:  he can’t leave them – he won’t leave them:  without them he is nothing.  He will run and hide for a time until they stop searching for him, then he will return and take his family with him to safety.  Wherever safety may be.  Jim has heard that going North (he is in Missouri) is the best destination – if he remains uncaught:  if they find him he will either be beaten to death, or lynched.  Or tracked down by dogs who will not wag their tails when they see him.  But Jim knows a safe place, a little island in the nearby Mississippi river where he can hide out for a while; he can swim there and plan his next move.

            All well and good.  But someone else knows about the island, too – Jim is joined whether he likes it or not, by young Huckleberry Finn, who has staged his own death so that he doesn’t have to live any more with his Pappy ‘who shore does hate him!’ – Huck reckons it’s better to live in hiding with all the risks it involves than to be beaten bloody every night.  And that’s very true, except that Jim has a terrible sinking feeling when he hears that, for he knows that white folks will add two and two, and decide that runaway Jim has probably killed young Huck Finn:  how will he ever get back to his family with an extra imaginary crime hanging over him?

            Jim and Huck’s adventures in their attempts to avoid discovery are terrible, suspenseful and simultaneously uproariously funny:  the characters they meet travelling on the mighty Mississip are fitting heirs to Mark Twain’s genius for characterisation, and a tribute to Mr Everett’s formidable power as a writer – and a terrible indictment against the enslavement of one people by another.  Even though the story ends with the start of the American Civil War, the hatred hasn’t gone away.  SIX STARS.   

 

 

 

Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stephenson.

           

       
     Classic murder mysteries follow strict rules:  a set number of people are gathered (or thrown) together at a place that is difficult to escape from;  one by one, they are picked off in various clever ways, thus building suspense and horror in the reader;  the denouement always, always reveals a murderer that no-one would ever suspect, and the remainder of the novel deals with the satisfying punishment and demise of the guilty party.  The great Agatha Christie was, as we all know, the unparalleled mistress of the genre and her shoes will never be filled;  however, there have been plenty less famous – and less talented upstarts ready to try their luck, with varying success.

            Australian writer Benjamin Stephenson does the opposite:  he has written an enormously entertaining 21^st century parody of that disparate group of people with grudges and grievances, in this case narrated by Ernie, disgraced within his family because he testified against his brother Michael at Michael’s murder trial – families stick together no matter what, and the Cunningham family has had more of its share of trouble with the law than it could possibly need or want.  He is the pariah in the family group organised to welcome Michael home after his mysteriously reduced prison sentence.  Everyone has gathered at a luxury ski lodge in the Snowy mountains, and Michael’s ex-wife Lucy is there hoping for a reconciliation;  unfortunately, Ernie’s ex (whom he still loves) shows up as Michael’s new lovebird and, true to form, the weather turns nasty:  what was meant to be a skiing weekend with lots of hot toddies and flash food is transformed into a violent storm that traps everyone, starting with a complete stranger killed in a most ancient and unusual way.  Victim One!

            The body count rises as the weather worsens;  Michael dies the same dreadful death as Victim One and when Ernie (he is the narrator, after all!) eventually gathers everyone together in the ski lodge library – a classic setting for so many Big Reveals – I feel I can say with confidence that no reader had guessed WhoDunnit, and  What Happened Next, because I certainly didn’t and I’m really good at that.

            Benjamin Stephenson has followed all the rules, in fact he has helpfully provided a copy of them at the beginning of the book – and he has given readers a laugh-out-loud, enormously entertaining variation of the genre with characters so good that I wish I could meet them in future works by him – but he’s killed them all off!  FIVE STARS.

                 

 

 

 

 

Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera.

 

     

       Lucy Chase is sent an airline ticket by her Grandmother to return to Plumpton, Texas, for Gran’s 80^th birthday celebrations and, though she loves her Grandmother more than anybody, she really doesn’t want to return to a place where she may have murdered Savannah, her very best friend five years before, and where she had to leave because the lack of evidence to convict her did not lessen the gossip and speculation.

            A new life in Los Angeles has earned only temporary respite, for a new Podcast series ‘Listen for the Lie’ has started, and one of the cold cases it wishes to explore is Lucy’s very own and, despite her continued rebuffs of Podcaster Ben Owens, he has generated so much advance publicity raking over all the old coals that she loses her job – and her boyfriend, whose loss isn’t so bad, except that she will have to find another place to live and another job.  So!  Might as well bite the bullet and go back to help Gran celebrate.

            Except that Ben Owens has turned up in that small Texas town too, and everyone is happy to talk to him – except Lucy:  why should she help him make money out of an event of which she can remember nothing?  For Lucy was found wandering along a road, semi-conscious, concussed and covered with her friend’s blood:  despite various mysterious and damning circumstances, she can remember nothing and, despite her longing to know what really happened, the thought that she may have killed her dearest friend is too horrifying to think about.  So she won’t, so there!  It’s a shame that no-one else feels like that, though – even her parents don’t believe that she could be innocent, and her ex-husband (another big Lucy mistake) has completely different memories of Savannah’s last night of life.  What really happened when Lucy and Savannah left the wedding celebrations to which they were invited?  Lucy can’t face it.  But if she didn’t kill Savannah, who did?

            Amy Tintera has previously written for Young Adults;  this is her first adult novel, and she has given us unforgettable, cranky, smart-mouth Lucy as narrator – the first big plus.  The second is a clever plot that unfolds logically and credibly, and the third:  a cover blurb by Stephen King and Liane Moriarty!  Those two really know what’s good, and they are absolutely right:  this is a FIVE STAR read.   

 

City in Ruins, by Don Winslow.

 

       

     The great Don Winslow, crime-writer extraordinaire, has announced that the above title, the last book in his contemporary trilogy based on Homer’s epic Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid, will be his last.  In the immortal words of John Macinroe – (and millions of fans) HE CAN’T BE SERIOUS!!

            But he is, and the reading public is the poorer for it, because ‘City In Ruins’ has all the excitement, suspense and heartbreak of the preceding novels, set in Rhode Island, and involving a gang war between the Italian Mafia (Greece) and uppity Irish crims (Troy) getting too big for their boots.

            Danny Ryan (Aeneas) is the main protagonist, and he is forced to leave his dying wife behind as he flees with his loyal gang to California, intent on straightening himself out and leaving all the criminality behind for he has a baby son to look after, and nothing can be more important than that:  he wants his son to grow up to be proud of him, and to that end transforms himself into a legitimate businessman.  Now, after various Hollywood misadventures he has transformed himself into a respected Casino owner, one of the richest movers and shakers in Las Vegas.

            But Danny has never been a favourite of the Gods;  every now and then they remind him that they can change his life in an instant, especially  when he makes a rash and impulsive decision to buy an old hotel at a very strategic site – nothing wrong with that, except that the hotel in question had already been sold to someone else, who takes Danny’s absurdly huge impossible-to-refuse offer very personally:  eventually, the loser brings in a Mafia hitman so twisted that said hitman actually disgusts the others of his ilk:  Danny, in his attempts to be an honourable and legitimate businessman of whom his son can be proud, has hit a major snag:  it’s Killing and Maiming time again, and this time, his friends and loved ones are about to be sacrificed:  whether he wants to or not, he has to become a ruthless and deadly killer again to protect everyone he loves.

            No-one can ratchet up suspense more efficiently than Don Winslow as any late-night reader with a speeding heart will attest, and his contemporary retelling of the great epics of Homer and Virgil is masterly.  I still hope his announcement that this is his last novel is a whim of the Gods – and if it’s his whim, please can he be less whimsical?  SIX STARS.

 

The Unwanted Dead, by Chris Lloyd (Book One)

Paris Requiem, by Chris Lloyd (Book Two)

    
     

          I have just read these books back-to-back and, amazingly, in the right sequence:  I am very proud of myself!  And happy to report that Crime Writer Chris Lloyd has produced a new, different burnt-out Detective.  Different because the First World War was the reason for his burn-out and, instead of returning to the French city of Perpignan to manage and inherit his parents’ book shop, Eddie Giral feels more of use battling – and sometimes winning – against ordinary criminals instead of the monstrous warmongers who ordered young men to legally murder each other.

            It is June, 1940, and the German Occupation has begun. Paris, the City of Light, is swathed in smoke and ashes and the only mobile traffic belongs to the German troops;  they are also the only patrons of the many Jazz clubs of Paris, and the local criminals are rubbing grubby hands together at the thought of relieving these young boys of their francs and anything else they can get:  times are hard – we’re all in this together, mates!  And Eddie agrees – up to a point, which is tested when he is called to the main railway yard to investigate the discovery of four bodies in a wagon who have been suffocated to death by the very nerve gas that killed so many of his friends:  who would do such a thing and why, especially as it is revealed that the men were Polish refugees hoping to flee the city before the Germans marched in.  They paid someone money to help them escape, but who?  And the more Eddie digs, the more is revealed about crimes of mass murder in Poland of innocent villagers buried in mass graves.  Who is going to bring this horror to the world’s attention, hopefully bringing the USA into the World fray, not to mention rumours of Jewish persecution beginning to surface?

            Paris Requiem starts a few months later;  the great city is full of thin grey ghosts, for rationing and coupons have started and no-one is getting enough to eat – except the German Occupiers.  Needless to say, they don’t have to queue for hours for a piece of bacon rind or a baguette, nor do they have to eke out for days whatever they were lucky enough to purchase.  Eddie is particularly irked by the delicious food left lying in his presence by his current nemesis, Major Hochstetter of the Abwehr, German Intelligence.  Major Hochstetter is particularly intrigued – as is Eddie – by the fact that a murder victim found in a closed nightclub was serving a two-year jail sentence:  Eddie remembers the case well, for he put him there!  Now he has to investigate his particularly grisly end.

            As a writer, Chris Lloyd is a bit rough around the edges;  he uses contemporary expressions which are out of keeping with the time, but he has created a very fine hero in Eddie, one who is weighed down by all the sorrow of what might have been, the estrangement from his family, the terrible randomness of one’s fate, but still he battles on with a suicidal fearlessness to right wrongs as he sees them, Hochstetter be damned!  FIVE STARS.  

 

Fox Creek, by William Kent Krueger.

 

            Yet again, I have driven myself mad by starting at the latest book in a series, instead of at the beginning – I have to say that I didn’t realise that I had picked up the newest book in the Cork O’Connor series, BUT!

            I am so glad I did.  William Kent Krueger has signposted clearly and concisely for new readers major events that have gone before in his series, and he is such a fine writer that ‘Fox Creek’ reads almost like a stand-alone novel, but for his obvious affection for his characters – and what characters they are:  in the main First Nations people who live in various small reservations or towns in Minnesota, a State that borders Canada and in this story, the scene of the disappearance of a successful First Nations lawyer, and the pursuit of his frantic and worried wife by unknown mercenaries.  They have already approached Cork O’Connor for information as to her whereabouts, for Cork now operates as a Private Detective – when he’s not flipping burgers. 

            And he’s astute and experienced enough as an investigator to know that nothing about these men is likely to benefit the woman if they find her, and when he discovers that she has visited ancient tribal Healer Henry Meloux for information and guidance and that Rainy, his own precious Healer wife is ‘assisting with enquiries’, he knows that this will be a life and death pursuit,  for the mercenaries have a brilliant tracker guiding them, a man almost as clever as Henry himself.  Can Cork track down these mystery pursuers and find his loved ones before innocent blood is spilled in Minnesota’s pristine forests, or will the mercenaries find and eliminate them first:  for Cork it hardly bears thinking about, and the reader is right with him, every hard step of the way – and just as horrified and repulsed when the mercenaries’ real reason for the pursuit is revealed.

            William Kent Krueger is a masterly writer:  a master of suspense, and a master wordsmith for the still-pristine environment of North America – and its underdogs, those who are still ready to lay down their lives for the Land.  SIX STARS

           

 

             

 

All the Words We Know, by Bruce Nash.

           

  
          Rose has dementia.  She is in her eighties and lives in a Rest Home – sorry, Aged Care Facility and spends her days on her walker, patrolling the corridors of the building checking on the other occupants.  And the staff, particularly the Angry Nurse (so named, when Rose can remember, because she seems to have a very short fuse where other staff members are concerned) and the Care Manager, who seems in Rose’s more lucid moments, anything but.  In fact he seems to spend a lot of time in his office talking ‘finance’ with Rose’s son, who seems to be ‘Resetting’ and ‘Retrenching’ Rose’s Rest Home affairs, for he has her Power of Eternal, though she confesses to her wheelchair-bound friend in the room next door that she has no idea what he does with it.

            And speaking of her friend, why is she sprawled on her back in the carpark, two floors down?  How could she have gotten out of her chair, let alone onto the windowsill, then launched herself into space?  And by the looks on the faces of the gathering crowd below, they are all wondering the same thing:  Did she fall, or was she pushed?  Which is exactly what Rose is asking herself whenever that phrase enters her mind only to depart just as quickly, especially as she ends up being shifted from her lovely room with a view of the garden (so many memories, if only she can keep hold of them!) to her friend’s room with nothing to look at but the carpark.

            Things have to change, thinks Rose, before the thought skitters away, but she has to enlist help from others whose memories are more reliable, like the Nice Trans Boy Who Mops the Floors, and the other resident Who Doesn’t Live Here, before she becomes the next victim.  (That’ll teach her to say ‘Im not afraid of you!’ to the Angry Nurse, for Rose is afraid, very afraid).

            And when Rose is not frightened, she reflects on her son and daughter, dutifully visiting day after day with her granddaughters who have the fastest cell-phone thumbs in the universe;  what good children they are to care about an old lame-brain like her, and how she wished she’d been a better mum when it counted, instead of the selfish cow that she actually was.

            Life is full of regrets, but Paul Nash has given us a gem of a character with which to explore them and the wrong end of life – and she cheats shamelessly at Scrabble:  Zbtosmty.  That is really a word - Rose will swear to it!  FIVE STARS.