Gone by Morning, by Michele Weinstat Miller.

 

   

        
68-year-old Kathleen Harris is having a morning trip on New York’s vast subway system.  Her carriage is full of happy tourists, and ordinary folk who try to ignore them – until a bomb goes off just up the line and everybody scrambles in panicked hordes to gain the safety of the street:  it transpires that the bomb in a backpack was placed in a garbage bin and has caused huge loss of life and enormous damage.  Kathleen’s aborted trip to the city results in a four-hour walk home to her suburban apartment in a building - which she owns.  For Kathleen is a retired Madam;  she has seen much more of the harsh side of life than your average sweet little old lady, having been a crack addict and serving a 5-year jail term for buying the heroin on which her husband fatally overdosed.  She lost custody of her only daughter Lauren too whilst in jail and has been estranged from her for many years, her daughter blaming her for all their misfortune.  So, despite her material security, Kathleen has lost everything she ever loved on her way to respectability.

            In her own way she has tried to make amends, secretly helping her granddaughter Emily get an influential job in the Mayor’s Office, and making available one of her apartments for her to rent.  So far, so good, until Kathleen receives a call after the bombing from one of her ‘girls’ who needs to see her urgently, something she can’t speak of on the phone – then doesn’t arrive.  Her body is found dumped days later.  Her throat has been cut.

            Ms Miller also has the reader by the throat, and doesn’t let go:  she is masterly at directing suspense in whichever way she feels inclined, and she has plenty relevant to say about the hypocrisy of people’s attitude towards sex workers, and what drives those women towards The Life – with Kathleen being a perfect example.  The plot thickens most satisfyingly, veering off in unpredictable directions, especially concerning the Bomber - and that is enjoyable;  there is nothing worse than knowing WhoDunnit before the writer reveals all.  Ms Miller’s prose can be a bit rough around the edges and she must know just about every eatery and café in New York, giving them all a plug, but she raises some very cogent arguments in favour of those who live The Life and do the dirty jobs – because they must.  FOUR STARS. 

 

 

 

 

   

 

THE BEST OF THE BEST, THE CRÈME DE LA CRÈME 

THE FIRST FOURTEEN OF THE GREATEST READS OF THE YEAR 2020, FOR ALL GREAT READERS!

1.    The Testaments, byMargaret Atwood.

2.    The Butterfly Girl, by Rene Denfeld.

3.    The Overstory, byRichard Powers.

4.    American Dirt, by JeanineCummins.

5.    Saving Missy, byBeth Morrey.

6.    The Mirror and theLight, by Hilary Mantel.

7.    Broken, by Don Winslow.

8.    The Dickens Boy, byTom Keneally.

9.    The Last Crossing,by Brian McGilloway

10.          Call Your Daughter Home, by Deb Spera

11.          The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donohue

12.          The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

13.          Like a House on Fire, by Caroline Hulse

14.          The Sound of Stars (YA), by Alechia Dow

 I thank you all for your interest throughout the year - isn't it great to have great stories at our fingertips.  In spite of Covid and its attendant worries, we are still able to enjoy the best escapism of all.  Season's greetings everyone, and let us hope that 2021 will be a vast improvement on crappy old 2020 - we all should have a refund on this year!  Lots of love to all.  

 

Call your Daughter Home, by Deb Spera.

 

 

           This is Deb Spera’s debut novel, though one would never tell from the accomplished ease with which she tells her lovely story, that of three very different women who are known to each other but live vastly different lives in Branchville, South Carolina in the 1920’s:  Anne Coles, educated, aristocratic – and rich, thanks to inherited money from her father, but in danger of losing it all because of the failure of the cotton crop, and her husband’s desperate venture into tobacco:  woman of colour Oretta Bootles, Anne’s renowned cook and lifelong nursemaid to Anne’s children.  Oretta and her beloved husband Odell had a daughter of their own who died of fever, as so many did at that time, but Oretta has the Sight, and hopes one day – knows one day that she and her darling will be reunited.  In the meantime, she battles on, holding the Cole’s lives together with her practicality and huge goodwill, for the Cole’s children have been blighted and damaged by life:  two daughters have left home, one son committed suicide, and the other two sons are in thrall to their tyrannical father.  It is not a happy home.

            Enter Gertrude Pardee, in desperate need of employment:  she has heard from her brother that there is employment with Mrs Cole, and is desperate to find a home for herself and her four daughters, for her life with Alvin,  the drunken lout her daddy married her off to has grown unimaginably worse since he lost his regular job and moved them all out to a swamp hut owned by his brutal father:  it’s up to her to support them, because Alvin won’t – particularly now, after the latest beating, because Gertrude shot him with her Mama’s gun:  he ain’t gonna beat any of them, ever again.  Gertrude is on the run and hoping that the swamp alligators will enjoy Alvin for supper so that there is no evidence of her crime.  Which doesn’t stop her conscience prodding her something fierce, especially when she attends the local church.

            And God hasn’t grown bored with these three singular women:  He still flings up barriers and issues impossible challenges in the shape of an early Depression and a terrible Diphtheria epidemic.  Loved ones will die and starvation will take up residence in Branchville, but all have their own ways of surviving, and it is inspiring to read how they do it.  Ms Spera based her wonderful characters on memories of her own family, and what a great family it was.  SIX STARS.       

  LAST GREAT READS FOR AUGUST, 2015

Starlight Peninsula, by Charlotte Grimshaw

This story is the latest in Charlotte Grimshaw’s collection of connected short stories and two novels, ‘The Night Book’ and ‘Soon’ featuring some of the same characters.  I haven’t been able to track down ‘The Night Book’ in our library system but read ‘Soon’ (see January 2013 review below) and was mightily impressed;  few other New Zealand authors can emulate her shrewd observance of the strata of Auckland society;  of those who live on the hallowed slopes of the Eastern Suburbs, and those who aspire to – and the various attempts they make to get there.

            Ms Grimshaw has  plenty of fun with New Zealand politics both national and local, and ruthlessly satirizes the back-room deals, the Old-Boy networks and the donorships, both corporate and private that keep the conservative government afloat, and for most kiwis, some of her characters in ‘Starlight Peninsula’ are easily recognisable;  the fat German internet mogul wanted for internet piracy by the United States;  the TV current affairs host, ablaze with sincerity and expensive suits;  a gaggle of cabinet ministers involved in suspicious activities, not to mention the Prime Minister, forced to state repeatedly that he knew nothing about illegal spying on said German internet pirate. 

Ms Grimshaw’s wit and talent to expose hypocrisy is as sharp as ever;  sadly, her story loses merit because her key character, Eloise Hay, is a dingbat of the first order.  Sorry, Eloise, but it’s true:  you are too unfocussed and wimpy to give credibility to the plot, so there.

Eloise is a research assistant for the aforementioned TV current affairs host.  She is also awash with grief and Chardonnay because her husband has just left her for ‘a bullshit New Age actress’.  She sits alone in the marital home on the Starlight Peninsula which will be sold from under her soon:  ex-hubby is a big-time lawyer, immensely rich thanks to his parents, Sir Jarrod and Lady Cheryl Rodd (what fun Ms Grimshaw has with names!) and they all want the property gone – along with her – so that they can make a killing.  Because that’s what they always do.

Eloise loves Starlight Peninsula.  She doesn’t want to live anywhere else, but instead of reaching for solutions she just reaches for the bottle;  even an interesting new neighbour can’t keep her away from the demon drink and her family are even less effective – which is not surprising.  Eloise’s loving sister Carina and her daughter are towers of strength, but their mother Demelza (!) is poisonous enough to have frolicked with Gorgons as a child:  she offers Eloise ‘another brandy for the road’ when her drunken daughter comes to visit.  Ee, Chuck, she’s a right one, her! (Demelza is from Manchester).

Eloise consults Klaudia, a formidably logical German Psychotherapist in an effort to sort out her troubled thoughts and realises after much analysis that ‘a layer of the world has been hidden from me’ – which causes her to delve past her broken marriage into the grief she suffered from the mysterious death of her boyfriend Arthur many years ago, a death that she has refused to acknowledge had many suspicious elements to it.  ‘He was the love of my life!’ she declares to various people, but seems to have no trouble feeling emotional attachments to those very people.  (It’s the booze talking, love.)

In her bumbling, stumbling winey way, Eloise is starting to unravel the secrets surrounding Arthur’s death:  her seemingly random, haphazard lurching from one potential guilty party to the next uncovers some surprising and shocking truths:  she attributes her acumen to ESP; the fat internet pirate calls it ‘collective consciousness’ –  call good luck whatever you like, but by the end of the novel, Eloise has ferreted out enough secrets and lies to achieve her dream:  to remain in the house on the Starlight Peninsula.  As she states to Klaudia (don’t look at your watch, Klaudia!) ‘The house is a mind.  If I lose my house I will lose my mind.’

Well done.  I applaud the fact that she grew enough cojones to blackmail the big baddies to hang on to her beloved house;  it was a mighty achievement, but please, Ms Grimshaw, could she NOT be a continuing character in your next novel?

 Ms Grimshaw’s other characterisations are, as always, beautifully and finely drawn, and her depiction of Auckland, that chaotic, teeming, vital city is as superb and truthful as ever.  Highly recommended, except for You-Know-Who.       

Soon, by Charlotte Grimshaw

Simon Lampton and his family enjoy a privileged and enviable position:  a close friendship with the current Prime Minister of New Zealand, David Hallwright, enabling them to be honoured houseguests at his palatial holiday home north of Auckland for the summer.  For Simon and Karen his wife, it is a very satisfying time;  they have reached social heights envied by their contemporaries and never dreamed of by themselves.  Simon is a wealthy and successful obstetrician and gynaecologist but came from the very lowest of backgrounds;  Karen is his trophy wife, another goal to be ticked off his list of  life aspirations, along with the respect of his medical peers, beautiful home, BMW and children – whom he loves utterly:  they are his reward, his bonus for the hard years of his childhood with an alcoholic father and the hard work of studying and establishing himself in a demanding medical field.

Life can’t get any better – can it?

Unfortunately, all that glitters is not gold:  the longer the Lamptons stay with the Hallrights, the more hidden agendas reveal themselves:  the friendship with David on which Simon prides himself – ‘I never kowtow to him;  I’m apolitical and always give him my honest opinion.  That’s why we get on so well together’ – goes through subtle changes, partly caused by David’s glamorous second wife Roza, who holds all the males of the holiday household in thrall, including Simon.  As the holiday progresses it becomes increasingly obvious that Roza doesn’t regard Simon and Karen as bosom buddies;  she tolerates them charmingly for one reason:  she wants their adopted daughter, Elke – because Roza is Elke’s natural mother:  she couldn’t look after her when she was born, but she can now and begins an insidious campaign to win over the affections of the beautiful 18 year old.

Ms Grimshaw describes this tug of love so articulately that the reader feels palpably the steely determination of one character to possess, and the heartbreak and anguish of others finally aware of what they stand to lose.  As they find themselves trapped in the cleverly-woven web of privilege and ambition, all masked by the paper-thin veneer of best-mateship, Simon and Karen have to decide which hard decisions to make, and how to keep that which they love most – as well as retaining their self-respect.

And this is not Simon’s only crisis:  a shameful memory from the past rears its ugly head, threatening not just him and his cushy life but scandalous enough to cause big problems for his ‘best friend’ the Prime Minister.  Simon Lampton’s envied existence is fast becoming intolerable.

Ms Grimshaw has given us a wonderful story, written with great pace and clarity.  Her characters are a delight, each captured with elegant and astute observation – David Hallwright bears a striking resemblance to our own Dear Leader, John Key, and his party and policies are mercilessly dissected.

In my reading experience, no author can evoke mood, atmosphere and landscape more strongly than she, and it is a pleasure to read such a fine book.  Highly recommended.

The Slaughter Man, by Tony Parsons.

Detective Constable Max Wolfe is sent to the scene of a gruesome murder in one of the most affluent gated communities in London – so exclusive there are only six houses in the enclave.  An entire family, the parents and two teenagers, have been dispatched execution-style by a cattle bolt, a weapon used to stun cattle before they are slaughtered at the freezing works:  the only other family member, a four year old boy, is missing.  As they begin their investigation, the police can only hope that he will be found in the first twenty four hours:  chances of survival traditionally fade from then on.

            Max and his superiors are reminded of another similar crime committed more than thirty years ago:  a farmer and his three sons were killed by the same means by one of the Travellers (they aren’t called Gypsies any more) – but the Traveller has done his time;  he is old and dying and his family are fiercely protective of him.  He can’t have done it – can he?

            As the investigators wade through mountains of evidence, the façade presenting the dead family as idyllically happy and functional starts to crumble:  Mum and Dad, former Olympic athletes, were having marital problems that resulted in Dad keeping an apartment solely for the use of meetings with prostitutes;  it is unclear if Mum was aware of his infidelity, or if she cared:  the question is academic, but Max still requires answers of his own and as always he’s very good at playing hunches, and turning over stones to see what’s underneath.  And as always, it is nothing good.

            Mr Parsons has once again written a very efficient thriller.  Characters from the first book return as strong as ever, and he writes with great warmth and humour of Max’s relationship with his little daughter, and the pitfalls of sole parenthood – and the great rewards.  His careful attention to detail again lifts his story above the hackneyed, and while I had to suspend disbelief when the bastardly baddies bury Max alive (in a coffin already occupied by a mouldering pile of bones and other nasty bits and pieces), his escape was still just this side of credulity.  Well, he had to get out, didn’t he?  He has to be in the next book!

            This is a bone-rattlingly good sequel to ‘The Murder Bag’.  Highly recommended.

 

             

The Murder Bag, by Tony Parsons.

This is the first thriller that Tony Parsons has written, and what a good time he has had with the genre:  all the boxes are ticked;  there are plenty of corpses;  the suspense builds with each murder;  there are heaps of suspects, and it is almost guaranteed that no-one, and I mean no-one will know whodunit until the very last pages.  What more could a dedicated thriller reader ask for?  Mr Parsons fills every requirement.

            Detective Constable Max Wolfe has just received a promotion and a pay rise, thanks to his disobedience – not because he meant to be insubordinate, but he acted spontaneously on a hunch that proved to be right, saving a lot of lives after he was ordered to cease and desist.

            Now he has been seconded to the investigation into the murder of a prosperous London banker who has been dispatched in a very novel fashion:  his throat was not merely slit, but excavated – gouged out with a weapon that was usually used by wartime commando troops.  To complicate matters further, no fingerprints or indeed any trace of the killer is found at the murder scene, and were it not for a school photo of seven teenage boys found in his office, the police would not even have a starting point.  Until Max, with the enthusiasm of the new recruit pursues the old school connection between the boys, most of whom attend their banker friend’s funeral.  Several of them have become very successful, including an aspiring politician and a prosperous lawyer;  one has become a warrior captain serving in Afghanistan – but one has committed suicide, and another is a heroin addict.

            Despite the horrible loss of one of their little band, the remaining friends are reluctant to speak of their school days with any clarity and remain committed to the same story:  they could not understand how anyone could do such a thing – the banker was a fine fellow, beloved by all – until Max uncovers evidence of cruelty and sadism, particularly towards the banker’s wife.  Things, as usual, are never what they seem and the situation only gets worse when the heroin addict is found dead, also with his throat gouged out.  As more of the original seven are picked off by the same method the remaining potential victims are eventually only too happy to unburden themselves of their dark teenage secrets, but to no avail:  they still continue to die, and the police always seem to be just a day late and a dollar short.

            Mr Parson has constructed a very busy, convoluted plot;  there are a lot of subsidiary characters and subplots that require the reader’s concentration, but the pace rattles along at a very satisfying speed, as do the pages.  In fact, this is a page-turner so good that Detective Constable Max Wolfe (who manages to get himself suspended twice for not following orders) should not be confined to one book only:  I hope this will be the start of a series.   

GREAT READS FOR JUNE, 2015

The Whites, by Richard Price, writing as Harry Brandt.

It is my misfortune that I have not read any of Richard Price’s previous novels.  After reading ‘The Whites’ I now want to devour all earlier work, regardless of whether he uses a pseudonym or not!  According to the cover notes, ‘The Whites’ is his first thriller – well, I certainly hope it won’t be his last:  Mr Price is a master of suspense and knows better than most writers of the genre exactly how to keep the reader turning the pages at a furious rate.  His characters are larger than life but live and breathe as we do, trying to make the most of their existence on this earth for themselves and their loved ones – which is the sole aim of Billy Graves.

            Billy Graves is an NYPD detective permanently working on the night shift, not by choice but as punishment for a long ago mistake he made, aiming to shoot a criminal but bringing down a 10 year-old boy as well.  His atonement will last for the rest of his life but he is supported by his wife Carmen, a registered nurse, his family and a group of staunch friends, ex-cops who are now all retired but have one thing in common:  they call themselves the Wild Geese, and are completely loyal to each other.  Their aim is to eventually bring to justice criminals who quite literally have gotten away with murder, and every member of the Wild Geese has a ‘pet’ crim, one that they wish the most painful death imaginable on.  These monsters are known as ‘the Whites’. 

            Billy’s own particular monster is Curtis Taft, killer of his ex-girlfriend, her 14 year-old niece and her 4 year old daughter, afterwards going home to sleep with his new girlfriend.  Billy wants him dead, but not before he suffers first.

            The other WGs feel exactly the same way but are seemingly astonished when the Whites, one by one, start to die or disappear presumed dead, and it is Billy’s job as the only unretired member of the band to investigate the homicides.  What he discovers fills him with dread, but worse things are to follow:  someone is stalking his family.

            His son comes home from school having been patted on the back by a stranger who left a red handprint on his jacket – red paint, but looking like the real thing;  Billy’s father, an ex-policeman in the early stages of dementia is collected from home and  taken to his old beat miles away, causing the family terrible consternation until he is found;  and a bag of red-stained children’s clothing is thrown on Billy’s lawn – paint again, but the inference is clear.

            Suspense mounts with every page, despite the reader being informed in the first few chapters of the stalker’s identity for Mr Price (Brandt?) has created a character with which the reader has a real love/hate relationship.  He is a master observer of the myriad faults of human nature, and just how far a man can go to protect those dear to him before he finds it impossible to live with himself.  This is a great story from a very fine writer.  Highly recommended.

The Dog Who Saved Me, by Susan Wilson.

Susan Wilson’s ‘One Good Dog’ was the first of her books that I lucked onto in our library;  how fortunate was I to discover her, for to any  animal-lover she is the author of choice.  So far in my experience, no-one is better than she at writing of the great bond between man and dog;  the power of such a friendship to redeem a damaged human – and the terrible cruelty that man can inflict on a creature who is prepared to trust him completely.

Cooper Harrison is just such a damaged human.  He was formerly a member of Boston’s K-9 unit, happy in his work, his marriage, and with Argos, his beloved Alsatian partner:  what a team they were!  Until Argos is killed in action and Cooper is badly wounded, and try as he might, he can’t manage his life after such a tragedy.  His wounds are severe but are nothing compared to the grief he feels at the loss of his devoted canine friend.  Gradually his formerly ordered life starts to unravel:  his marriage fails;  he resigns from the force, and if it weren’t for an offer of a job as Animal Control Officer from the Chief of Police of his former home town, Harmony Farms, his future would be unthinkable.

As it is, Cooper knows he must ‘man up’;  ‘get over it’(!) and ‘stop feeling sorry for himself’, but Harmony Farms is not the place where he wants to rehabilitate himself, for he left a father who was the town drunk, and an older brother, a vicious bully who decided that selling drugs would be his occupation of choice – until he was caught and got a twelve-year sentence for drug-trafficking.  He will have finished his sentence soon.  They are the last people that Cooper wants to make contact with;  that was why he left Harmony Farms the day after he graduated high school;  to get away from his pathetically dysfunctional home life and turn himself into the opposite of what his father and brother were.  He intends to avoid them as much as he can – if possible.

And he does, for the most part.  And he is surprised to find that the work of being a glorified dog-catcher is not as onerous as he first thought.  In his wrangling of and search for missing pets he reacquaints himself with good people from his youth, people who don’t regard him as a laughing-stock because of his family.  Even though he swears he won’t do the job for more than a year, he finds a certain satisfaction in caring for animals and rehoming strays during the day – but the nights are hard to bear:  that is when the nightmares take over.  Since he lost Argos, dreamless sleep has become a rarity, and continues as he hears reports of a skinny yellow dog, a stray that favours its hind leg but is still agile enough to raid trash cans and slink around chicken coops.  Yep, all part of the day’s work:  Cooper will trap the dog, find out who owns it (or not) and proceed to the next case.  In a perfect world – for what he discovers when the dog is eventually found is a case of such blatant cruelty that his old policing instincts come to the fore.  Whoever did this must be found and punished.  If the same terrible abuse were done to a human being the guilty one would be imprisoned for years:  it should not be any different for a helpless animal.

Once again, Susan Wilson tugs at the heart-strings, but she is such a quality writer that the reader feels privileged to enter Cooper’s story, harrowing as it is.  All her characters are true-blue, even Cooper’s sorry father and brother, the lesson being that not everyone is beyond redemption, as long as the will to change is still alive.  Highly recommended.

The Good Luck of Right Now, by Matthew Quick

Bartholomew Neil has lived with his staunchly Catholic mother in the same house in Philadelphia for all of his thirty-eight years.  He never knew his father, believing his mum when she said that his father was slain by the Ku Klux Klan when Bartholomew was a baby, ‘because the KKK hates Catholics as well as Negroes and Jews’.  Fair enough;  his mum is all he needs in his life;  she is his guardian, his friend, and his haven from the cruelty and bullying he experienced all through school because of his size and inability to express himself.  Though lonely for the feminine companionship that ‘normal’ men seem to come by so easily, Bartholomew is reasonably content with his life – indeed he expects nothing will ever change:  escorting his mum to mass;  the frequent visits of one of the parish priests, Father MacNamee, to their home for meals and religious advice;  his daily visits to the local library, there to pretend to read the newspapers so that he can admire a shy volunteer librarian - until his mother dies of brain cancer.

            Bartholomew is completely unmanned, and more shocks are in store: found in his mother’s underwear drawer while he is packing up her clothes is a letter – well, a ‘Free Tibet’ circular really, from Richard Gere.  RICHARD GERE, THE MOVIE STAR!  Why was Mum corresponding with Richard Gere in the last stages of her life?  What can this mean?  Could there be … A Cosmic Connection?  (Bartholomew is a great believer in the Jungian theory of Synchronicity).  To add to his grief and confusion, his trusted mentor Father MacNamee suddenly and publicly unfrocks himself in front of a gaping congregation – then moves in with Bartholomew, complete with a vast supply of whisky.

            The only way that Bartholomew can cope with all these massive changes is to write to Richard Gere, believing that letters to someone his mother  admired will help him make sense of his awkward, ignorant life:  ‘People often find it hard to converse with me, which is why I don’t talk much to strangers and prefer writing letters in which there is room to record everything, unlike real life conversations where you have to fight and fight to fit in your words, and almost always lose.’

            Matthew Quick leads the willing reader beautifully through Bartholomew’s subsequent adventures, recounted in meticulous detail by Bartholomew to Dear Mr Richard Gere as he meets various grief counsellors, tries to keep Father Bartholomew away from the bottle, (for the good ex-priest seems determined to drink himself to death), meets a foul-mouthed movie usher at grief counselling who is mourning the death of his cat – but turns out to be the brother of his heart’s delight, the shy volunteer librarian – and he finally, FINALLY  gets to meet her, to have an actual conversation with her! 

            Bartholomew’s heart is full, and so is the reader’s as Mr Quick takes all his misfit characters on an unexpected trip to Canada, where much will be revealed, including the identity of Bartholomew’s long-lost father;  where he will gain comfort in his sorrow from new friends and new unlikely situations;  and an entirely new feeling of strength as he discovers how dependable he really is.

            Mr Quick’s story has it all:  laugh-out-loud humour;  enormous empathy for people (and there are so many) who can’t conform to what we consider normal behaviour;  brilliantly observed characters imbued with a zest for life that permeates every page, and that rare thing:  the talent to make the reader wish the story would not end.  Highly recommended.

               

            

MORE GREAT READS FOR MAY, 2014

Night Film, by Marisha Pessl

The remarks sheet on this library book had only one comment from a previous reader:  ‘weird’. 

And it is, in that the plot generates terrific momentum for a good two thirds of the story, then winds down to a conclusion that is hardly satisfying – at least for me.  The author’s intentions are clear (maybe!):  she has created her story as metaphor for the works of her shadowy and reclusive protagonist Stanislas Cordova, world famous film director, auteur and recluse, unseen since a 1977 Rolling Stone interview.  He specialises in the suspense and horror genre, maintaining that everyone should ‘travel to the edge of the end, for mortal fear is as crucial a thing to our lives as love.  It cuts to the core of our being and shows us what we are.  Will you step back and cover your eyes?  Or will you have the strength to walk to the precipice and look out?’

Needless to say, Mr Cordova has a cult following, strengthened by his secrecy and the fact that all his films are made on a huge Gothic estate he owns in upstate New York – he is the perfect subject for famed investigative reporter Scott McGrath to delve into after McGrath receives a mysterious phone call telling him that ‘Cordova does bad things to children’.  Unfortunately, his curiosity earns him a career-destroying lawsuit, the breakup of his marriage and a wish never to hear the director’s name again – until he reads of the death of Ashley Cordova, the director’s 24 year old daughter, a possible suicide.

Call him fatally curious after all the wrath Cordova has already visited upon him, but Ashley’s death excites Scott’s interest again in a way that nothing has since his disgrace:  he HAS to establish to his own satisfaction that her fall down a lift shaft in an abandoned building was an accident, suicide – or murder.

As his investigation progresses (aided by her ex boyfriend and a hat-check girl, one of the last people to see her alive) dark magic starts to surface:  it appears that Ashley has been marked by the devil and her death was owed to the Evil One for services rendered to her father.  Ms Pessl by this time has the reader by the throat – she can generate suspense and a lowering dread with the best of them, and as an added fillip the reproduction of notes and photographs from Scott’s comprehensive files bring the reader deep into the story.  As a literary device this is quite a novelty.  I have never been more intrigued by a plot after seeing various photos of Ashley and reading newspaper reports (mock-ups of the New York Times and TIME Magazine, no less!) of her prodigious musical gifts and the Police Report on her death:  it gives a great verisimilitude to the plot – until Scott’s investigations lead him into a maze of false starts, dead ends and trails that bring him inexorably back to the beginning.  He is a hamster on a wheel.

And so is the reader, snagged in an insoluble mystery of the fictional film director’s own making.  Each discovered revelation obscures something else, right up to the final page – where all should be explained, but isn’t.

We are forced to draw our own conclusions, as in a classic Cordova film.  The previous reader thought that Ms Pessl’s book was ‘weird’, and I can understand why:  I’ve never read anything like this before either, but I salute the writer’s many attempts to flummox and trick us, at the same  time wondering if it was really necessary – her overuse of italics, too, nearly drove me mad!

Neverthless, her powerful imagery and her creation of a protagonist in Stanislas Cordova who dominates in spite of his absence, every page of this book, must be commended.  But how many readers will last the distance?  I am sure Ms Pessl enjoyed writing this book.  I wish I could say I enjoyed reading it. 

Heartland, by Jenny Pattrick

Donny Mac is on his way home to Manawa, a tiny village at the foot of Mt. Ruapehu on the central plateau of the North Island of New Zealand.  He has just served a six-month sentence for grievous bodily harm, charges brought by the overprotective mother of an old ‘schoolmate’, someone who has taunted and bullied him since he was a child – but Donny Mac doesn’t care now:  he has completed an anger management course;  still has his job as a shelf-packer at Manawa’s New World supermarket;  a little home his late grandfather left him and a place in the local rugby team, possible future winners of the regional championship.  His life is on an even keel again and he is happy – childishly so, for Donny Mac is regarded as slow;  ‘ a few sandwiches short of a picnic’ and ‘not the sharpest knife in the drawer’, but he dearly loves Manawa and everyone in it  - except for all the townies, who turn up during the ski season on Ruapehu, having bought up all the old mill houses for use as their holiday accommodation.  No local likes the townies who disrupt their quiet way of life with speeding SUV’s and raucous parties, but they accept them as a necessary evil, for Manawa is dying.  The timber mills are closed, there are no jobs and all the young folk have left to look for work in the big cities, as has happened in countless other once-thriving communities.  At least the townies spend money when they come to ski on Ruapehu, enabling the village to stutter along for another year.

Yes, Donny Mac can’t wait to get home – until he finds that his house has been appropriated in his absence by Nightshade, the local slut, drunk most of the time, and hugely pregnant – ‘ and the baby’s yours, you ##@$!!’  Which in all fairness, is drawing a very long bow:  given her non-existent reputation, the hapless baby could belong to any one of the local youths, but after being rejected by them all, she has settled on poor slow Donny Mac as a last desperate resort.  She has been abandoned by everyone.  He is her only chance of support.

And support her he does, much against the wishes and counselling of his true friends, people who love him and worry about him and wish that his life could be better, and that is the crux of this charming story:  the fellowship of a tight-knit community;  their heartfelt affection for each other regardless of blood-ties, and their wildly desperate solutions to frightening problems.

Jenny Pattrick is a firm favourite with New Zealand readers.  Her ‘Denniston Rose’ trilogy is fast becoming a classic of popular fiction, similarly the beautiful ‘Landings’ and while there are a couple of her titles that I thought weren’t up to her very high standard she has hit her mark once again with ‘Heartland’.  It is a heartwarmer of a tale in the very best sense of the word, and the only complaint I can make is that I finished it too quickly – I didn’t want to leave Donny Mac, Vera, Bull and the Misses Macaneny, finely drawn characters that will stay with the reader long after the story is finished.  Highly recommended.                

GREAT READS FOR MARCH, 2014

Bad Monkey, by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen has been called the funniest crime novelist in print by many reviewers, with complete justification:  he has a long list of novels to his name, all best-sellers, and all set in Florida, his home state.  He has a fan base of millions, not only because he produces with each new story a fast-paced, hilarious plot with great characters, but he also has an important ecological and environmental message to deliver:  he is a major voice protesting against the overdevelopment of Florida’s beautiful wild places;  the despoliation of the environment by big corporations and the destruction of rare animals thanks to loss of habitat.  He is a champion of creatures great and small and the places they call home, and what better way to skewer corporate greed than with a pen.

The bad monkey of the title resides with Neville, an elderly fisherman in the Bahamas who has just been deprived of his idyllic beachside home and land by an unscrupulous Miami fraudster who has faked his own death by having an arm surgically removed (!), then bribing a fishing mate on a cruiser to have it fished up by an unsuspecting tourist.   After his ‘death’ is declared an accident, he will be free to develop Neville’s home as a luxury timeshare resort where he and his pudgy wife will live a life of sinful pleasure on their ill-gotten gains – they think.

Neville, however, is not without initiative.  He consults the local voodoo woman, a disreputable old hag who demands his body and the use of as payment for the powerful spell she will cast to rid him of the fraudster – a bridge too far for Neville:  he has his standards!   Even copious quantities of alcohol would not be able to disguise his revulsion – instead, as a second option he reluctantly hands over his monkey, much to that bad-tempered creature’s dismay, then waits for the fraudster to meet a horrible fate.

It doesn’t happen.

Enter Andrew Yancy, disgraced former Monroe County detective demoted (by his boss for an act of public violence against his girlfriend’s husband)  to restaurant inspector, a job guaranteed to put anyone off their grub.  He is deeply unhappy but the only thing that sustains him is that something smells fishy (sorry, couldn’t resist) about the lone arm dragged from the deep, and the chain of murders (including an attempt on him) that follows:  he sees a way back to his boss’s good graces and his return to detective status if he can follow up and make sense of the clues that reveal themselves.

Oh, it’s all happening in ‘Bad Monkey’, with the monkey playing an important part in the downfall of the baddies, and an eventual satisfactory ending for the goodies, but the overarching message is clear:  don’t foul your own nest!  Which is what is happening with distressing frequency everywhere.  Bless Mr Hiassen for highlighting this in every book that he writes.  Highly recommended.

The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd.

On her eleventh birthday in 1805, Sarah Grimke is given a ten year old slave, Hettie ‘Handful’ to be her waiting maid.  Sarah is the daughter of wealthy Charlston plantation owner and judge John Grimke and his imperious wife Mary;  it is high time she left the nursery and had her own proper room (fortunately vacated by one of  her older brothers, sent off to college to be a lawyer) and Hettie has been taken away from her mother Charlotte the enslaved family seamstress to learn the duties of looking after a young lady.

Unfortunately, Handful lives up to her name – she is disobedient and sassy, earning without effort cruel punishment for her misdeeds.  She pines for her mother, and instead of sleeping on the floor outside her young mistress’s room – in case she be summoned during the night – she constantly sneaks back to the slave quarters to be with the only person she loves in the cruel world they are forced to inhabit.

For her part, Sarah is appalled to be given another human being as a gift and tries to free Handful, much to the outrage of her family:  her carefully crafted document of manumission is ripped apart and flung into her room and intensive instruction in the duties and future expectations of young ladies is commenced.  In its own way South Carolina aristocracy has imprisoned Sarah as much as the slaves that are vital to its way of life;  the role of the Southern gentlewoman was that of wife, mother and housekeeper:  she owned nothing, was not allowed to vote and her opinions were not sought on any subject by the patriarchal society in which she existed.  And it didn’t do to rattle the cage!

Regardless, Sarah still champs at the bit, especially as she has a lively intellect and is clever enough to know that her plain looks will not easily snare her the husband her family wishes for her:  indeed, her younger sister Angelina has much better success in that area and would be married ten times over were it not for her regrettable and forceful opinions on emancipation.

  Sarah’s only means of escape is to journey north to New Jersey as companion and general dogsbody to her ailing father, who as a last resort has been prescribed bracing doses of Northern sea air;  she is astounded to experience the North’s differing political viewpoints, and when her father dies having received no benefit from the climate Sarah decides to stay in the North, eventually making a life for herself with the Quakers, who are devout and staunch believers in the emancipation of slaves – but not of women.

Angelina eventually joins Sarah, and her fiery eloquence, combined with Sarah’s irrefutable logic gains them fame – and notoriety – among the first abolitionists to tour the Northern States lecturing on the evils of slavery, until their message comes unhappily close to calling for the emancipation of women as well as slaves.  Their male counterparts are not happy!

And neither is Handful:  with the departure of Sarah her protector, Handful’s life has become almost unendurable;  she is terribly crippled as a punishment for attending a Black African church, despite having permission to do so but far from breaking her spirit and being the good nigger that her owners expect, she becomes more determined than ever to make her escape, or die trying.

Ms Kidd writes with great power of the iniquity of slavery and she has based her novel on the true life story of the Grimke sisters, early and fearless champions of emancipation for all.  She has researched assiduously the Southern way of life and its ingrained and casual cruelty to the human beings who kept it wealthy before the Civil War, and she illustrates beautifully the courage born of desperation needed to take the first steps in defence of the enslaved.  Above all, this is a novel about sisters, the love they have for each other, black or white, and the wings they have to invent for themselves so that their spirits may fly.  Highly recommended. 

       

 

Great Reads for March 2011

by Julia Kuttner

The Passage, by Justin Cronin

Now:  Your first requisite for reading this book is strong wrists – it’s a doorstopper.  Your second is a complete suspension of ‘yeah, right!’ comments as I recount my heavily-abridged version of the plot, for this is a novel on the grand scale as well as huge physical size;  it’s a tale of a scientific experiment gone dreadfully, fatally wrong, conducted by the U.S. Army in a remote location in the mountains of Colorado, the scientific objective being to create a race of ‘Super Soldiers’, impervious to heat, cold, disease and virtually indestructible, thereby conquering America’s terrorist enemies in Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent.  There would be no more wounded and dying to be returned home  ‘eating up the defense budget in the veterans’ hospitals’;  in short, it would be the answer to the Pentagon’s prayers – all that had to be done was to inject a new-found virus into chosen candidates, and after a short period of illness, a new, invincible warrior would be born. 

But here’s the rub:  the men initially chosen as guinea-pigs for the experiment were all convicts on Death Row, criminals of the worst kind.  When injected with the serum they were turned into killing machines, entirely devoid  of morals, compassion and conscience – and highly infectious.  The major part of the plot deals with their escape, the destruction they wreak on the world, and What Happens Next, for naturally there are some doughty survivors left to battle these thousands of dreadful beings.  Mr. Cronin is a superb story-teller;  his masterly plotting and wonderful imagery create suspense of the most heart-stopping kind;   at no time does the story sag or lose impetus -  no mean feat when you consider the size of this book (760 pages).  I read that ‘The Passage’ is the first book of a trilogy:  well, my heart and my wrists quail at the thought of the sheer physical weight of words in the next two volumes, but I can honestly say that I can’t wait to continue this epic adventure,  at the very least  to find out WHAT HAPPENS, but also to know how Mr. Cronin’s characters eventually vanquish the mutants – or will they?  There’s only one way to find out:  keep reading.   Book #2 is called ‘The Twelve’.  *****

A tiny bit Marvellous, by Dawn French

There is no end to Ms. French’s myriad talents – quite apart from her superb comic skills as an actress she has now proven that she is also a writer of insight and wit, capturing effortlessly in her amber the 21^st century family:  Mum Maureen Battle (Mo), capable and efficient, on-to-it child psychologist – except when it comes to her own children, about whom she clearly hasn’t a clue:  Dad or ‘Husband’ as Mo invariably refers to him, hovering lovingly in the background, keeping the wheels turning in ever so subtle ways in his efforts to provide a loving and stable environment for his family.  He has a job, ‘doing something with computers’, but everyone seems to be vague as to its specifics:   Dora, about to turn 18 and full of teenage angst and self-loathing, is fretting about the humiliation of being dumped by her small but perfectly-formed boyfriend, being a virgin, being less than interested in a future career, and being FAT!  Last but not least, Peter:  call him Oscar please, as he is such a disciple of Mr. Wilde that he is sure he is his reincarnation.  Peter is also tall, cherubic, flamboyant, academically brilliant  and gay as a hat – and proud of it  - no gender angst for Mr. Peter;  in fact the only thing he agonises over is having to live in Pangbourne, the most deeply unfashionable place on earth.

  The novel is written in diary form, with each member of the family contributing their own thoughts and opinions (and some of them are hair-raising) about each other, and while some of the humour is laugh-out-loud funny (as we would expect from Ms. French) there is also very shrewd and poignant observation of this flawed, Ipod, Iphone, Ipad, I want family – the problems they face are all too familiar to anyone who reads this charming, wise little story;  the dangers parents  wish to protect  their children from are still the same, but stranger-danger has become Internet- danger in the 21^st century,  and not always preventable.  Fortunately,  Dad/Husband/Den – that loving, unsung problem- solver extraordinaire – well, he only gets one chapter to narrate, but he saves the day, his family and his marriage:    what a Star!  Oh, and I nearly forgot (for shame!) to mention Nanna Pam, Mo’s loving mum, dispenser of sound common sense and wise council, and baker of everyone’s favourite cakes – and the yummy recipes are all at the back of the book.  Magic. ****

The Wake of Forgiveness, by Bruce Machart

 This novel is not for the faint-hearted.  It’s themes are as unforgiving and brutal as the Texas landscape in which the story is set – but WHAT a story:  starting in 1895 with the death in childbirth of the beloved wife of Vaclav Sala, a Czech immigrant cotton farmer.  The baby, the fourth son for the couple, survives but Vaclav is completely unmanned and embittered by his loss.  His heart turns to stone and he regards his sons, particularly the youngest as intolerable reminders of what he once had.  He becomes famous in the district for treating his horses better than his sons – in fact, he races his horses and makes his sons pull the plough in front of him, no better than human livestock, with all four reaching adulthood with permanently deformed necks.  His  sons hate Vaclav (not that he cares) but they are staunch in their love and support of each other – until their father accepts a wager from a very rich Spaniard newly arrived in the district:  a horse race between Vaclav’s best mount, ridden by 15 year-old Karel, the youngest, despised cause of his wife’s death, and the Spaniard’s beautiful thoroughbred, ridden by his spirited youngest daughter.  The prize if Karel wins:  600 acres of land.   If he loses, the three eldest brothers must wed the Spaniard’s daughters.  The brothers are ecstatic!  It’s a win-win situation for them – escape from their tyrannical father, and legal union to three comely girls:   what could be better – provided Karel will only lose.   And Karel finds that he doesn’t want to, indeed can’t, because Vaclav threatens him with a terrible punishment if  he dares to throw the race;  he is  caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, and Mr. Machart doesn’t spare us as he draws us inexorably onwards to the terrible conclusion of the wager and the end of the brothers’ loving alliance against their terrible parent.

Mr. Machart is a superlative writer;  his characters and plotting are Shakespearian in breadth and he conveys effortlessly beautiful and haunting imagery of landscape and the primeval ties to it.  He shows us with infinite grace that the ancient bonds of fraternal loyalty, shattered by hatred and betrayal, are still capable of being reforged by passing time and the healing balm of forgiveness.   This is a very fine debut novel.  *****