LAST GREAT READS FOR JUNE, 2017
The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas Young Adults
So. Here she is,
minus the white boyfriend, naturally.
Everyone ignores her, until she sees her childhood friend, Khalil,
seventeen now and wearing some VERY expensive gear. Diamond studs in the ears, too. Starr’s happiness at seeing him after several
months is spoiled by worrying where he got the money for these things. It’s a well-known fact that his mother is a
crackhead and his grandmother with whom he lives has cancer and has been sacked
from her job – at a hospital! – because she is too ill to work. There can be only one answer: Khalil is selling drugs for King, Kenya’s
father. But when fronted about it Khalil
tells Starr to butt out – he OK! The
situation is not improved when the party turns into the exact reason why her
family would never knowingly allow her to go there: shots are fired and everyone hits the floor –
it’s time to go!
Khalil offers Starr a ride home,
which is great; she might even get in
the door without anyone knowing where she went!
Instead, the worst happens, and her life is changed forever.
A white police officer stops them as they drive through
one of the worst parts of the Hood;
Khalil supposedly has a broken tail-light. Starr is terrified. She remembers the instructions her Daddy has
given them all: show your hands at all
times; don’t make any sudden moves; be polite – directions that Khalil should
know but is not following. Ordered out
of the car, he attempts to lean back in to ask Starr if she is OK – and is shot
to death by Officer 115.
That number will be engraved on Starr’s consciousness for
a lifetime. This is the second time she
has lost a loving childhood friend to murder;
her friend Natasha was killed in a drive-by shooting when they were
10. Now Khalil has met the same
fate. Black Jesus, where are You?
This wonderful book should be read by ALL adults, not
only the young. This is Angie Thomas’s
first novel, a fact I find hard to believe, for it is written with a maturity
and assurance that more experienced writers can only dream of. She explores through Starr’s narration of
events the endless connotations of a single cowardly act and the repercussions
that ripple outwards from the decisions, right or wrong, that people make to
stand against abuse, racism and tyranny of every stripe.
The novel’s title is taken from a Tupac Shakur Album that
Khalil loved: T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. The Hate U Give Little Infants F---s
Everybody. And that’s the truth. This book is totally badass, cool and dope. SIX STARS!!!
The
Thirst, by Jo Nesbo
Harry Hole suffers from all the fictional detective’s
usual demons: alcoholism, nightmares,
ghosts of murder victims from previous cases who visit to torment him – but he
is currently ‘dry’ and a loving husband to Rakel and thrilled that his stepson
Oleg is a student at Police College where Harry now lectures. Life is as good as it is going to get. Until two grisly murders take place within
days, shattering the calm, not just of Harry’s world, but of the entire city of
Oslo, for both women had met their assailant through the Tinder website, and
both women had been drained of blood through terrible wounds to their throats –
caused by a set of iron teeth. And there
are no clues.
Police Chief Mikael Bellman wants this monster caught as
quickly as possible; he has political
ambitions and a speedy resolution will cement his reputation as a fearless and effective
future Minister of Justice, not to mention silencing the yammer of the tabloid
press: yes, even though Bellman hates
Harry Hole, Hole and his rat trap memory and vastly analytical mind is the best
man for the job – but has to be blackmailed to do it. Harry doesn’t want to be plunged into the
maelstrom again, but when his family is threatened he has no choice.
Back in the saddle once more: back to sleepless nights for everyone,
consultations with behavioural psychologists and various other experts and all
that is initially learned is that the killer is a ‘Vampirist’, a murderer who
loves drinking blood. And the Vampirist
keeps on killing. Oslo is in an uproar
and Harry’s life plunges further into chaos when his beloved Rakel is struck
down by a mystery illness which puts her into a coma.
Jo Nesbo drags the reader kicking and screaming through
every blood-drenched chapter; he is
merciless in his portrayal of human depravity and because he is such an
excellent writer we are must tolerate all the gory details, BUT! To dilute all the violence, there is a fine
vein of comedy introduced whenever Mr Nesbo judges that the reader needs some
light relief. And about time, too, I
say! My nerves were in shreds. I have to say that I never guessed the identity
of the killer, for Mr Nesbo is adept in casting Red Herrings throughout his
plot; I headed off entirely in the wrong
direction – as I was meant to do.
Sadly, the only criticism I have is quite a big one: when the killer is finally revealed he is (naturally)
the last person anyone (except Harry Hole) would suspect – BUT! (Yet another one) – said killer takes Harry
hostage, forcing him on a long car trip across the city, all the while
revealing his reasons for his
almost-perfect crime rampage with such hysterical glee that I expected him at
any moment to start twirling his moustaches or, when justice finally triumphed, shout ‘curses, foiled again!’
Still, Harry survives – just – to battle his own demons
and everyone else’s in the next book, for this particular episode is not
over: not every villain has been
caught. I just hope that the plotting
will be more plausible and less farcical next time. FOUR STARS
Blood
on Snow, by Jo Nesbo
Olav
Johansen is dyslexic. He has had trouble
reading all his life, but it hasn’t stopped him trying. His memory for what he so painstakingly
absorbs is razor-sharp, as he reveals in his first-person narrative – except
that he is self-deprecating whenever he shares with the reader a little morsel
of his vast knowledge on myriad subjects – ‘but what do I know?’ He is also a romantic, and inclined to donate
money anonymously to down-and-outers; he
falls in love with fallen women – and he is also a hit man, a ‘fixer’ for one
of Oslo’s bigtime gangsters.
He sees nothing incongruous in his coldblooded
dispatching of whoever his boss tells him to remove, and the soft side of his
nature which exhorts him to care for the exploited prostitutes his boss
employs, particularly Maria, a deaf-mute with a limp: he still can’t understand why Maria works as
a prostitute, until he finds out that she is paying off her junkie boyfriend’s
drug debt.
Olav’s
life is fairly predictable, and he doesn’t expect it to change in any dramatic
way – until his boss tells him that his next ‘assignment’ is to remove the
boss’s faithless wife. Olav feels a
sense of awful forboding with regard to this new task, especially when he
stakes out the rich apartment in which Mrs Boss spends her ineffectual days and
learns that she has a young man who visits her every day at the same time to
beat and rape her. True to form, Olav’s
warped sense of chivalry rears its mutant head and he decides to rescue Mrs
Boss – and ‘fix’ her tormentor.
And
that is just the start of Olav’s life-threatening problems. Life goes pear-shaped and remains so, despite
his best attempts to resolve his situation so that he may be the White Knight
for Mrs Boss. Maria has been entirely
forgotten and while many people will die because of his actions, he will learn yet again that the people he
most trusts are capable of the worst betrayal.
Once again, Jo Nesbo has
created an anti-hero that every reader backs to the hilt. As always Mr Nesbo makes each sentence do the
work of ten, giving this story a huge impact in relation to its size, and the
bloody imagery of the title is never more appropriate than in the final
pages. FIVE
STARS
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