Novels No. 51 (LL369)

 

Kate Atkinson. Death at the Sign of the Rook. Bond Street Books/Doubleday Canada, 2024.

Jackson Brodie makes a rare but welcome appearance, and my, he has aged (haven't we all?). As a PI, Jackson has picked up new clients, the aging children of recently deceased Dorothy Padgett: Ian and Hazel. His job is to recover their mother's stolen painting, purportedly of Renaissance vintage, although its long-ago acquisition by their father is unclear. The culprit seems to be Dorothy's hired carer, Melanie Hope, since vanished. Before we follow Jackson's hunt, considerable time is spent with Lady Milton of the vast Burton Makepeace House/Estate where desperate enterprises by her son, including the new Rook Hall Hotel, attempt to raise enough annual funds for the U.K. taxman. Policewoman Reggie Chase was aware of Lady Milton's missing painting (a Turner!) and now its similar method to the Padgett's problem brings her into the force field of old friend Jackson. Also missing is Lady M's lovely housekeeper Sophie.

So far the pace was not exactly pointed. Pages are devoted to the existential floundering of Lady M's dysphoric neighbours—the suddenly voice-less Rev. Simon Cate, and disabled army vet Ben—not to downplay the great snark bits uttered by Lady M's sons, Piers (the heir apparent) and Cosmo (the black sheep), plus Jackson's own ripostes. There's a fiendishly clever reason for lulling us at first, because the whole bookload of offbeat characters crashes—purposely or accidentally—into the hotel for a murder mystery play (Piers works hard to attract guests). Never, ever, have you read such uproarious bedlam among the actors, detectives, and unwitting participants. Art is imitating life? Old friends Jackson and Reggie can only shake their heads over the manic eruption of shootings, adopted identities, and illusory appearance of Melanie/Sophie.

Although the chronology may be hazy initially, delicious satire reigns as Atkinson's hallmark. Her books are always worth waiting for; she doesn't disappoint here.

Bits

▪ "The painting had no provenance, as they say," Hazel said, approaching the word carefully, as if it might be dangerous in some way. (7)

▪ Yet the Brontës up the road were off the beaten track and they managed to pull in the crowds, "and they're dead, for God's sake," he said. "And look at all the spin-offs, the merchandise—Brontë biscuits, liqueurs, cakes." (31)

▪ Apparently Simon had recently held a service for people's pets that had given him a new-found popularity in his parish and beyond. (92)

▪ The maw of oblivion was where all the lost things were kept. It would be discovered at the end of time. (172)

▪ And, come to think of it—rather late in the day, perhaps—how had Nanny ended up dead? (216)

▪ She was all angles and bones with the scrag-end look of the Duchess of Windsor. (220)

Lady M

▪ Lady Milton wasn't sure which loss was the worse—the Turner or Sophie. (44)

▪ Piers always introduced her to the guests with, "May I present the Dowager Marchioness Lady Milton," and then they all expected her to behave as if she were a member of Downtown Abbey and to say pithy things. (151)

▪ Lady Milton failed to understand the modern obsession with en-suites. Nothing wrong with walking down a hallway with your sponge-bag in your hand. (219)

▪ Lady Milton was surprised to find herself feeling almost sorry for Nanny. "Yeah," Cosmo said, "I suppose she must have been human once." (219)

Jackson

▪ God Almighty, Jackson thought. Neither of them could open their mouths without a cliché falling out. (14)

▪ Jackson was surprised that more women hadn't simply killed their husbands. Maybe they had, maybe women were better at covering up murder than people knew. (66)

▪ He had climbed to the wrong side of sixty, but he wasn't over the hill yet. (67)

▪ ... his Irish mother had insisted on a wake, but as none of the mourners were themselves Irish they didn't know how to be comfortable in the presence of the open coffin in which his sister was on display, like a Disneyfied Snow White. (102)

▪ His name was writ in water. Who said that? And about whom? He had no idea, but it was as good an epitaph as any. Better than She made a good steak pie. (106)

Nathan Dylan Goodwin. The Hollywood Strangler. www.nathandylangoodwin.com, 2024.

Goodwin has been going noir-ish with his victims, so be aware: Venator No. 3 follows suit, conjuring the hidden presence of a psycho killer. LAPD detectives Marsden and Powers (I like his nod to Michael Connelly) are reviewing the cold case of the notorious Hollywood Strangler of the 1980s when they luck into an overlooked DNA sample for the killer. It's 2022 and the firm of choice for investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) is Maddy Scott-Barnhart's company, Venator, in Salt Lake City. Four highly skilled genealogists get to work on determining matches for the DNA, from submissions in an enormous database—people looking for new kin to help extend their ancestry—and tracing a minimum five generations of each match. Back then, or perhaps farther, will be a common ancestor for both the match and the killer. Tracing generations forward from that common point, "reverse genealogy," should produce potential candidates as the killer.

I make no pretense at being experienced with DNA research. But for some character reference and continuity, you might see my prior Venator reviews:

"Another Win for Goodwin!" February 2021

"Goodwin Fans Rejoice!" November 2022

Offsetting the floods of names and sources (unless you are a family historian yourself, you may feel engulfed), Goodwin deftly weaves the current lives of Maddy's diligent team into the mix. Most are exploring new personal relationships. Team member Becky is not on site, although she participates in the Strangler research; temporarily in Haiti, her undisclosed private mission worries Maddy. Becky's father had employed Michael, Maddy's long-missing husband, in business ventures that included some ties to Haiti. Maddy's reliable right hand, Kenyatta, is a Black single mom with a problem teen; Maddy's own domestic scene involves live-in care for her mom who is losing touch with reality. New member Reggie is an avid snowboarder, sharing apartment space with Hudson, the team's IT expert; Reggie urges Hudson to an online site for trans dating, so maybe he knows something we don't. Reggie also develops feelings for the Venator receptionist and general factotum, Ross—although hand-holding and lip-kiss greetings seem to be the only intimate bodily contact all these individuals have with each other. No pillow talk here!

Goodwin's attention to research detail is meticulous, medical forensics as well. Constructing fictional "trees" with appropriate sources is rather mind-boggling, never mind the headline topics he ticks via the team's private lives—homelessness, online dating, dementia, sexual abuse rings, military crimes, for a few. Yet to my mind, he over-stretches for inclusiveness, hitting multiple diverse elements of the human experience. Even with so many threads, tension is aptly built where it counts, including whether the strangler could still be alive. That is eventually determined, but I'm sorry that Goodwin—craftily but typically—leaves a few loose ends. We strongly hope a Venator No. 4 is already generating.

Pull quotes are mainly from the personal stories.

Bits

▪ "This case has been pulled up so many times in the twenty-seven years I've worked in RHD, and nobody has managed to crack it; it's the department's great white whale." (16)

▪ "To put it another way, we have about half the weight of a single grain of table salt of this guy's DNA left." (17)

▪ "Coming home?" he asked Reggie. "Or are you out with your mysterious date again, tonight?" (85)

▪ Kenyatta fought back against the emotion rising inside her. To think that her own son had behaved in such a barbaric way. (101)

▪ With little evidence to support it, Maddie was coming to terms with the fact that Michael was dead. By accepting it on those terms, she was giving herself permission to live and explore a relationship with Clayton. (127)

▪ But the stark and terrifying reality was that nowhere in Port-au-Prince was safe right now. (133)

▪ "And what will Michael have to say about that?" her mom demanded, thrusting her hands onto her hips. "Does he even know?" (154)

▪ He put on a posh British accent and added, "There will not be three of us in this marriage." (177-8)

▪ Becky shrugged. "Really, Aidan, what are our chances that the UN will actually force this guy to take a paternity test?" (194)

▪ "Anything—or anyone for that matter—still in here on Sunday will be removed by my guys and dumped outside on the sidewalk." (222)

Cross-posted on https://brendadougallmerriman.blogspot.com/

Novels No. 50 (LL368)

 

Linwood Barclay. I Will Ruin You. USA: William Morrow, 2024.

I guess I've forgiven the author for his driverless-car mayhem in Look Both Ways (LL297). At any rate, this is a superior grab from the in-house library during one of those long TPL waits. Topical as always, Barclay swiftly takes us into a serious high school bombing threat. Teacher Richard Boyle manages to keep the dynamite-laden, angry boy from entering the school, calmly talking him down while terrified teachers huddle in the distance—only to see him accidentally trip in the field and blow himself up. Instant trauma for students and staff, but immense gratitude to Richard for averting a far greater disaster. Soon back to normal? Not for Richard Boyle, whose troubles are only beginning.

The dead boy's parents plan to sue Boyle and the school for mishandling the situation: their boy Mark should still be alive, they say. Reasonable or not, they dispute Richard's account of the encounter, and no one else was close enough to overhear. Then a former student, Billy Finster, waylays Richard with blackmail demands, inventing a sexual offence during a school trip. Worried about adding extra stress on wife Bonnie—an elementary school principal—Richard doesn't tell her about the blackmail; they've been quarrelling enough lately. Little does he know that Billy needs the money to pay off some dangerous drug dealers. Well-meaning Richard is sinking his own ship uh, boat, in a series of faux pas almost comic if it weren't for the murder. Billy's wife Lucy, his dimbulb friend Stuart, the drug thugs, high school principal Trent, Bonnie's sister Marta the cop, the fired school janitor, Herb the jealous fellow teacher—all fit somewhere into the crazed puzzle.

Barclay's best touches are evident in his settings (daily hazards of a teacher's life) and spinning twists. Pure entertainment from a master.

Bits

▪ He'd become depressed, by all accounts, and had taken to writing online posts about how the world had screwed him over, how everybody was desperate for him to fail, that perverts and pedophiles were running amok, and one of these days he was going to find a way to settle some scores. (21)

▪ "You can't get every kitten out of every tree," Bonnie liked to tell me. (23)

▪ "I know you told the cops it was all my fault, you motherfucker. Don't think for a minute that I'm going to forget that." (35)

▪ "It's not right, Mr. Boyle making you read something that upsets you." (55)

▪ "Listen to me, and listen real close," I said, trying to keep my voice under control. "I have no idea what you're talking about, and whatever it is you're implying, it did not happen." (70)

▪ Had Marta been made? She should have changed into a pair of jeans. Had she sent off some kind of cop vibe? (115)

▪ Bonnie blinked, looked at me like she wasn't sure she'd heard that right. "Your boat? Our boat?" (120)

▪ Lucy wasn't sure just who these people fronted for, but it wasn't the Girl Scouts. (157-8)

▪ I said, "Fuck you. I'm not paying. Do what you've gotta do, asshole." (167)

▪ ... I knew what was going on with me, the tension I was holding in, how I was replaying in my mind what had happened in Billy Finster's garage. But Bonnie was holding back something, too. (194)

▪ "I hear the townsfolk are gathering their pitchforks and torches for a meeting with you tonight." (216)

Jaclyn Goldis. The Main Character. USA: Atria/Simon & Schuster, 2024.

Another writer writing about writers?! Ginevra Ex introduces herself as a best-selling author of crime fiction, in a baffling teaser scene. Then we launch into (onto?) the Orient Express train, a luxury holiday gift from Ginevra to Rory, who served as a model for the main character in Ginevra's upcoming novel; most recently Rory had been a rising TV news anchor. Ginevra's huge success has been predicated on using a real-life person as her inspiration, a process that involves researching everyone influential in that person's life. Rory is flabbergasted to find fellow passengers on the train are a) her best friend Caroline, b) her beloved brother Max, and c) most surprising, her ex-fiancé Nate—all of whom she'd had recent problems with. Ginevra, for whom money is no object, also gave them draft versions of her latest book in which they all appear, in fictional disguise. As they wonder at Ginevra's beneficence, and start sorting a few relationship troubles, those same books astonishingly disappear simultaneously one afternoon. Only Rory had managed to skim it entirely.

Most troubling for Rory—the narrative switches among the four—is a note for her eyes only from Ginevra. In it, she claims Caroline, who works for Max's biotech company, is embezzling. Max's company Hippoheal is close to producing a drug that will reduce or reverse the affects of Alzheimer's—a disease suffered by his and Rory's beloved papa Anselm. What secrets have been hidden from Rory? Has Ginevra included them in the book? Who stole their draft manuscripts? Why? Is someone murdered in the book? Ginevra's lawyer Gabriele is minding them on their Italian coast journey; her twin sister Orsola hovers in the wings.

In her new book, we wonder if, at last, Ginevra has inserted herself into the story. Adoption, twins, Russian Jews, corporate malfeasance, all in the mix. It's an intricate, multi-layered plot guaranteed to engage the reader from the get-go.

Bits

▪ Caro's not the most intoxicating, maybe, not a conventional star—but in her quiet, unassuming way, in her kindness, her softness, she shines like the sun, and you find yourself wanting to launch into her orbit. (12)

▪ He's the love of her life, though. Rory will take Nate back now, won't she? (15)

▪ No matter that I've become a respected biotech CEO, you are always, in some part, that little kid version of yourself. (36-7)

▪ "Crystal clear from what Ginevra showed me that Papa isn't my father, not genetically. And the woman I've always thought of as Mom was apparently never mine." (72)

▪ So I'm the villain? Then maybe Ginevra knows. Both things. Both my dirty secrets. (97)

▪ "But you're inventing things that aren't real. I don't have the books." (132)

▪ "I thought you had much more integrity than this. You really should be the one to tell Max first." (169)

▪ It's all changed. ... It's all spiraling out of control ... . (207)

▪ I need my brother—my lifeline on this strange, twisted trip. (209)

▪ "Max, wake up! You have to face it! Make things right. Enough already!" (260)

Ginevra

▪ "She's planned it all. The best of the best. She wants this to be the trip of a lifetime. The most perfect trip of all of your lives." (23)

▪ For each book, she uses a new real-life person as her main character. She then mines that main character for handsome reward, delving into the most minute corners of their past, using their genuine tics and traumas to craft an otherwise fictional tale. (25)

▪ "She's really a puppeteer, isn't she?" Nate shakes his head. (27)

▪ It was Ginevra's well-due punishment to stay and care for Orsola, provide for her. To stay and try to make it up to her. (79)

▪ Ginevra was acutely aware of the pressure, on her and on Rory, to turn out a memorable main character. Absolutely everything was pinned upon it. (81)

▪ "That's insane," Nate said. "There's no way the author is that diabolical. Rory could have died." (96)

▪ All roads lead back to fucking Ginevra Ex. Spinning out, speculating whether she knew. Whether she put it in the book—and how much. (161)

▪ "But I think I really came to the synagogue to meet you." (225)

Novels No. 49 (LL367)

 

Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Fleishman Is in Trouble. 2019. USA: Random House Trade Paperback, 2020.

Attracted by the blurbs for this author's recent Long Island Compromise, I learned that her debut novel had been a runaway hit, named as one of the best books of the year in many worthy literary reviews. Okay, why don't I read the first novel first? (Not that the second is a sequel.) Toby Fleishman is newly divorcing, and we are plunged into his aftermath world of resentment, regret, memories, job introspection, and new opportunities—the latter stunning him with sexual distraction. For the first time in his life, women are hot for him; his short height had been a lifelong curse. But wait, his about-to-be-ex Rachel went away on a yoga weekend and never returned, breaching their child custody sharing arrangement. Toby has always been the nurturing parent, even though occupied as a top hepatologist, but he's stuck for babysitters until he gets his kids Hannah and Solly into summer camp.

Toby goes overboard imagining what Rachel is doing—punishing him? abandoning all family responsibility? having a torrid secret affair with someone unknown? Had he ever wanted the elite life that Rachel wanted? Most of the myriad thoughts or fantasies in Toby's roiling mind invite humour. How worried should he be? What should he tell the kids? It's all his point of view until the truth no, her story comes forth. The entire book is a testament to human nature, to the self-centred judgments we make unconsciously, to the opinions we form from experience. Brodesser-Akner's dry wit probes all the social growing pains, all the traps we create for ourselves. Narrated by Toby's old friend Libby, the couple's relationship is laid wide open, inspecting the evolving role of each. Even existential anger has its funny side in the author's hands.

Any reader can recognize and relate to facets of this accommodating, stumbling, sometimes neurotic man, or this driven, accomplished, but embattled woman. The insight into children and friends is as compelling as the dissection of a marriage. No spoilers, but the disappearance and the ending—like the whole story—are expertly integrated. Just read it!

Toby

▪ He couldn't seem to convey to her that he was a real person, that he was not a blinking cursor awaiting her instructions, that he still existed when she wasn't in a room with him. (7)

▪ "She was just angry all the time," he told me. (37)

▪ If he was honest, he didn't even know if Rachel would date again, so disgusted was she by the confines of marriage, so ruined had she been by the compromises of another person trying to have an equal say or even just an opinion in her life. (58-9)

▪ "I'm coming out of a fifteen-year relationship with a woman who wouldn't let me pee standing up. I have some healing to do." (73)

▪ Suddenly, from the backseat: "Where's Mom?" Solly asked. It had taken four days for him to ask. (104)

▪ Yes, he was angry. Holy Jesus, he was angry. ... What was ever the merit in pretending he wasn't? What was wrong with being angry? (303)

Rachel

▪ "Toby, Toby, you are so angry. When did you get this angry?" (76)

▪ She screamed at him that he would never see the children again if he tried to leave her, and that he would be left penniless. (107)

▪ Right before you were pregnant, you were a person. The minute you became an incubator for another life, you got reduced to your parts. (314)

▪ Having a child was signing up for enduring her entire childhood all over again. (318)

▪ She always thought divorce would come from hate, but her anger was never based on hate. It was based in disappointment that someone she loved misunderstood her so deeply. (332)

▪ Her success made her poison. (337)

More

▪ He explained to Toby that presence in a yoga class, no matter your ability, was a shortcut to showing a woman how evolved you were, how you were strong, how you were not set on maintaining the patriarchy that she so loathed and feared. (69)

▪ Inside those houses weren't altruistic, good people whom fortune had smiled down on in exchange for their kind acts and good works. No, inside those columned, great-lawned homes were pirates for whom there was never enough. There was never enough money, goods, clothing, safety, security, club memberships, bottles of old wine. (105)

▪ This is what happened when an entire field of medicine was as disrespected as psychologists. They made their own rules, and one of them was that nobody was allowed to have a breakdown during August, and the other was that this was fucking Europe and they got to take a whole month off. (271)

▪ We aren't meant to understand death. Death's whole gig is not being understood. (303)

Toby the doctor

"The people who come to you—they're not here for checkups. By the time they get to you, they know something is wrong. They're sick. They're afraid. Do you know how scary it is for a body you've had your whole life to suddenly turn on you? For the system you relied on to just break down like that? Can you just close your eyes and try to think what that might feel like?" He was filled with disgust for the three of them and the way they looked bewildered. "Maybe you should all go into surgery if you hate people who are awake so much." He walked into his office and before he closed his glass door, he said, "I'm very disappointed." (87)

Colleen Hoover. Too Late. USA: Hachette Book Group, 2023.

FYI: The author first off warns that this book is unlike her previous novels. I'm not a 'follower' therefore unaware of the implication. Sloan is an impoverished university student, grateful that fellow student Asa gives her love and a place to live. She's determined to earn her degree. When social welfare cancels care for her disabled brother Stephen, Asa provides the necessary funding as well, for which she feels deeply obligated. Yet doubts have been haunting her as she realizes that Asa's money comes from a burgeoning drug trafficking business, and their house has become a routine stop for all-night parties. Feeling trapped, Sloan doesn't expect the electric connection she experiences when she meets Carter, who sits next to her in a new class. And it's mutual. But Carter is a fake student, really an undercover police agent investigating drug dealers.

Carter and his colleague Dalton work their way into Asa's trusted network. It's not long before Carter comprehends Sloan's predicament, and the fact that Asa will kill anyone coming near his woman. Totally smitten, Carter must remain in character in order to obtain the evidence that the drug squad needs. And the irony is that despite her instinctive attraction to him, Sloan believes Carter is little better than the mess she's already in. Asa's unpredictable anger keeps the tension level up even after Sloan's reluctant acceptance of his marriage proposal—to deflect any suspicions of Carter. Of the three main characters, Asa is overplayed with paranoia, rage, brutality—Sloan's not the only recipient. In spite of being arrested and criminally charged, he's still a nightmare that won't go away.

Graphically described, it's all a bit excess! While the struggles here may be worthy of a Greek tragedy, the villain's repetitious behaviour becomes almost gratuitous. As a love story, Sloan spends most of her time crying while she and Carter each blame themselves for Asa's psychotic schemes. Nevertheless, the thread of insanity has a creepy reality. An off of writer <groan>.

Sloan

▪ My parents were users and I swore that as soon as I could get away from their dangerous lifestyles, I would leave and never look back. But here I am at twenty-one years old, already living a life that is no better than the one I grew up in. (20)

▪ I cried for the fact that I'm still with him, despite the person he's become. (38)

▪ He pushes me onto the couch and as soon as he releases his grip around my throat, I drag in gasp after gasp of air, coughing and sputtering until I have enough air in my lungs to scream. (103)

▪ But it wouldn't be the first time he's concocted a ridiculously elaborate scheme. (249)

▪ Instead, the hand that's holding his gun swings around and hits me so hard, I fly back onto the bed. (253)

▪ "It's too late to kill me, Asa. You killed me a long time ago." (269)

Carter

▪ My duty is to complete the the job I'm being paid to do ... which is to bust the largest campus drug ring in collegiate history. (5)

▪ Where the hell did this girl come from? And where the hell has she been all my life? (12)

▪ "You are everything Asa doesn't deserve." And everything I want, I think. (99)

▪ "To Asa and Sloan. May love find you in every tragedy you face." (153)

▪ She doesn't even know my real name, and the more lies I tell her in moments like these, the harder it'll be for her to forgive me when she finds out the truth. (169)

▪ And as unstable as Asa is right now, the less Sloan knows, the better. (198)

Asa

▪ She'd be nothing if it weren't for me. I took her in when she had nowhere else to go. (61)

▪ I press the tip of the needle into my arm and apply a little pressure. Once it pierces my skin, I draw the process out as long as possible. (92)

▪ The thought of being able to corrupt something that sweet made me think about her more than anything else in my life. (109)

▪ "It's not your fault, Sloan. He brainwashed you." (252)

▪ I squeeze my hand around the gun. I wrap my other hand in her hair and squeeze. (267)

Novels No. 48 (LL366)

 

K.T. Nguyen. You Know What You Did. USA: Dutton Press, 2024.

Anh (Annie) has been sandwiched between her headstrong, spiteful teen daughter Tabby and care for her disturbed immigrant mother (called Mę), an obsessive hoarder. Her mother's death, instead of relief from a worrisome burden, brings Annie haunting memories and nightmares—only hinted at—of her grim impoverished life before she met and married Duncan Shaw. Although Duncan provides a very comfortable lifestyle, Annie works casually as an interior designer, ambitious to develop as an artist; the carriage house on their property, where her mother had lived, will be perfect as a studio. The thing is, with due respect to mental health professionals and their patients, Annie's crazy as a bedbug. No wonder Tabby rebels and Duncan's endless patience is getting frayed. Mine was! Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) to be specific. Earlier treatment for it, from psychiatrist Lily Patel, is no longer working and Annie refuses to see her again.

Annie seems destined to endure blow after blow. First mom, then her beloved therapy dog dies. Her biggest client, Byrdie Fenton, causes her a huge disappointment and later, shockingly, is found murdered. Annie's brain seems likely to explode or implode from stress coupled with chronic reminders of her mother's relentless emotional abuse. It's hard to maintain empathy due to her repetitive cycles of self-torment and defensive tactics that alienate people around her. Even worse, the descriptions of her paranoid delusions are sickening. Annie comes to police attention for more than one violent incident; maybe then she, and we, will understand the tricks an unhealthy mind can perform. Are bad things happening, or are they all in Annie's head?

Who knows if the story portrays some truths about a complex OCD case? There seems no resolution for this frightened, confused, mentally battered, help-resistant woman. Toxic mother-daughter relations flavour the entire story until the action suddenly flips—which you may find credible, or not. A tense read!

Annie

▪ It wasn't necessarily a head-over-heels romance, but after fifteen years of marriage there's a lot of love between them. (19)

▪ Nasty criticisms came to Mę as naturally as breathing. (25)

▪ Obeying the commands of her obsessive disorder had become more important to Mę than her own physical needs, more important than her own child. (38)

▪ ... her nightmares have grown more vivid, more violent. Every night, she awakes sick with guilt from the carnage her unconscious mind has wrought. (41)

▪ As her vision adjusts, the figure next to her begins to take shape. A white hotel bedsheet wraps around his body, but, of course, she can tell—it's him. (112)

▪ Dr. Patel's description captures the powerlessness she feels with OCD. The endless cycle of distress, doubt, and compulsion—not being able to stop yourself even when you recognize what you're doing isn't working. (185-6)

▪ She strokes the thick, sinewy muscle of his forearm, reveling in the texture of the dark, coarse hair that is so unlike her husband's. (224)

Others

▪ "You get what you deserve, Anh. You know what you did." (25)

▪ "Can you please not overreact for once!" (52)

▪ "Have you lost your mind, Annie? Our daughter did not ... your paranoia is out of control!" (90)

▪ Dr. Patel described a lesser-known type of the disorder, a form of contamination-based OCD characterized by intense disgust. The human brain, as a means of self-preservation, is hardwired to be repulsed by "disgusting" stimuli— (94)

▪ "Your mother may be gone, but the more irrationally you behave, the more I see her in you." (140)

▪ They stored food inside the oven. It was one of only a few places safe from the rats that roamed freely about the house. (157)

▪ "It seems Miss Fenton was gradually poisoned. Hence, the coroner's classification of homicide." (196)

Elly Griffiths. The Last Word. USA: Mariner Books (UK: Quercus Editions Ltd.), 2024.

Mild curiosity: compare with Taylor Adams' The Last Word? (No. 19, LL337) I'd looked on the latter very favourably, but there is no comparison other than both books are about writers. Writers—especially crime fiction writers—are clearly a hot topic for ... crime writers.

Here we are with writers dropping dead of heart attacks. Or is something more sinister afoot? Private detectives eighty-four-year-old Edwin and his partner Natalka, much younger and gorgeous, are investigating at the behest of writer Melody Chambers' daughters. Who suspect a poisoning death by her second husband Alan. It's not long before similar deaths of other writers are noted, not only by the team but by policewoman D.I. Harbinder Kaur. Edwin and Benedict—Edwin's best friend and Natalka's boyfriend—sign up to attend a writers' weekend retreat at Battle House, perhaps the common denominator among the several deceased. They are about to make new friends.

Leonard Norris and Imogen Blythe are the retreat's coaches. Although Ben the coffee shop owner is secretly an aspiring writer, it's Edwin who is comfortable, even charming, with the pretense of being a crime writer. Finding in a pond the dead body of their new friend Sue, girlfriend of heart attack victim Malcolm Collins, brings the retreat to an abrupt halt. Murder is the verdict, but so many suspects! Our team flails at interviewing them all, improvising theories (the indeterminate flailing is relieved by the characters' saucy dialogue and antics). Then Leonard inexplicably becomes another victim; Edwin may be next in line unless he can figure out what is driving the killer.

Those who enjoy witty old folks and well-defined characters and mildly mad mysteries will love this. It is not Griffiths' first novel to introduce Edwin, Natalka, and Benedict.

[Another mystery: Why does the title page say "A Ruth Galloway Mystery" when Griffiths' well-known protagonist does not appear whatsoever in these pages?]

Bits

▪ "You shouldn't take it so seriously," Benedict's mother told him when he expressed a wish to give up meat for Lent. (39)

▪ Once more, Benedict feels a stab of jealousy. It's very childish to be jealous because the teacher prefers your friend to you but there it is. (90)

▪ "This is a police investigation." She's addressing all three of them now. "I don't want amateurs involved." (130)

▪ "I can cry if you like," offers Valentyna. "I'm good at acting." (169)

▪ "I wrote about prep school," says Edwin. "Boarding school is very useful if you want instant trauma." (196)

▪ He's not sure how he feels about the effect his girlfriend has on every member of the male sex but he supposes it's useful if it stops them being murdered. (201)

▪ "That's the good thing about not having children," says Pietro. "You don't have to worry about them growing up to despise you." (247)

▪ "It's about who Melody loved the most," says Alan. "And I can't help it if that was me." (192)

Clues?

▪ "I just wanted to say," she says, "I know it's your first time here, but you need to be a bit wary of Imogen." (69)

▪ "There's not much time," says the voice. "We have to be brutal. It's the only way." (80)

▪ "Malcolm sent her some pages he'd written and she didn't even bother to answer." (107)

▪ "I thought he was a nasty character. He talked about writing cannibalism books for children." (138)

▪ "I just want to see whether he's a bit free and easy with prescriptions. Or if he offers you something dodgy." (169)

▪ "Oh my God. Did you get the messages? About being scared and there being evil in the air?" (253)

▪ "There's something we're missing. I'm sure of it. 'If only I hadn't.' Why did Imogen set that task in the first place?" (284)

Novels No. 47 (LL365)

 

Clare Pooley. How To Age Disgracefully. Toronto: Viking, 2024.

Not a scrounge, a purchase, which of course must next go into our in-house library. Someone dies, but it's not a crime novel. Osman's Thursday Murder Club will come to mind due to the elderly age factor, although here we have a squabbling gang of eccentric individuals. A seniors social club at the Mandel Community Centre is what pulls them together, and saving it from city-proposed destruction becomes a slightly unifying force of protest. Daphne is front and centre of the brand new seniors' group, opinionated warrior woman with no filters. Art is a mediocre actor with few gigs these days; his inseparable friend William is a retired photo-journalist. Anna had been a long-haul truck driver, now deftly piloting a mobility scooter. Ruby is a therapeutic-knitting champ. Menopausal Lydia is the hapless underpaid worker in charge of their entertainment.

Ah, but this is not merely a seniors' romp. The Centre hosts other worthy programs like the karate club, prenatal classes, AA meetings, and a childcare nursery. The latter greatly benefits teenage Ziggy, accidental single father of baby Kylie. A shoplifting habit, yarn bombing, illicit drug running, internet dating, and covert surveillance help explain the chaotic introductory scene, to which the reader may return from time to time. Collaboration on a gender-neutral Nativity play performed by the nursery element with seniors assisting (and a scruffy dog called Margaret Thatcher) is a highlight for persuading the city to keep the Centre. If only Daphne would stop shouting and scaring everyone—she fell naturally into a leadership role despite (or because of?) a background she keeps well hidden. No one's problem is too hopeless for her to solve.

It's hard to stop laughing at the unconventional characters and their advocacy efforts that fly haphazardly in all directions. Admire the wordsmith perfection; read, laugh, love!

Daphne

▪ She Googled "hook-up," which, it transpired, was all about sex. Daphne hadn't had sex for over fifteen years, and wasn't sure it all still worked. (41)

▪ She was going to have to attend this ghastly council meeting. No one was closing down the Senior Citizens' Social Club on her watch. (63)

▪ She appeared to have jumped out of the frying pan of sexism and into the fire of ageism. The final frontier of isms. (65)

▪ "So you two are my best friends?" said Daphne. William and Art started laughing. What looked like genuine belly laughs. (114)

▪ "STOP RIGHT THERE, EDWARD FUCKING SCISSOR-HANDS!" came a shout. Daphne. Obviously. (199)

▪ "Well, luckily I've never aimed for nice," said Daphne. "That sort of wishy-washy adjective is much more your bag." (230)

Others

▪ "Part of the ceiling came down, and someone died." (36)

▪ "Or if you wanted to go farther afield, which might be good for you, the universities all have arrangements for single parents." (57)

▪ "She hated me for seducing her perfect only child, and never forgave him for marrying someone brown from Bangladesh, rather than a blonde from the local pony club." (79)

▪ "Lydia," he said, as he turned away from her and made his way up the stairs. "You're drunk, hormonal, and delusional. Hopefully by the morning you'll have pulled yourself together." (77)

▪ "Just doing my bit," said Anna, peeling off her leather jacket to reveal an AC/DC T-shirt. "Luckily, this ain't my first rodeo." Lydia had no idea what she meant by that. (103)

▪ And if he ever did have sex in the future, he was wearing a full-body condom. He'd make sure none of those suckers ever got loose again. (125)

▪ "And due to decades of Tory government austerity and the inadequacy of Universal Credit, Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem to visit the food bank." (148-9)

OOPS >>> Daniel Cole. The Hangman. USA: HarperCollins, 2018.

Still scrounging fillers from here and there. Oh dear. Looks like I arrived in the middle of something—much reference to the previous novel featuring the same cop and the serial killer she caught, a man whose bizarre murder method is being copy-catted. DCI Emily Baxter is the brusque, impatient Brit policewoman who thought she was finished with it all, but agents Curtis (FBI) and Rouse (CIA) want her assessment of a similarly outlandish murder in New York. References to colleagues and former activities quickly became interruptive or incomprehensible, so it was either abandon the book or look up the author. The latter, of course.

And that, indeed, revealed that what I'd latched onto was the second book in a trilogy, the first being called Rag Doll. There's just too much prior context clearly invested in The Hangman, so for once I'm calling it quits. The synopsis of Rag Doll looks as gruesome as this one seems to be; not going there, thanks.

A.J. Finn. End of Story. Ebook download from TPL. USA: William Morrow, 2024.

A quirk of fate landed me with both the e-book and the paper copy at the same time. I switched from former to latter part way, thanks to the unreliable antics of my tablet. Quotes with an E page number indicate from the ebook.

Sebastian Trapp is the eminently successful author of mystery novels featuring gentleman sleuth Simon St. John. Having enjoyed a mutually spirited correspondence with Nicky Hunter—a literary critic of crime fiction— Sebastian invites her to "write his story." He seems to intend a type of memory book for family posterity—the man is slowly dying of renal failure. Nicky arrives at his overwhelming San Francisco mansion almost speechless with hero worship. Given the man's ability to mask personal feelings, she's not sure if he will talk about the mystery surrounding him for twenty years—the mystery of his young son Cole and first wife Hope utterly vanishing at the same time but from different places. Public speculation has attributed every imaginable scenario, including that Sebastian murdered and disposed of them.

Second wife Diana is hospitable and sensible, calmly coping with Sebastian's theatrical outbursts; is the man bipolar? Nicky meets affable nephew Freddy, his hovering mom Simone, and new friend Jonathan. Daughter Maddy, feeling useless, unworthy of her father, resents Nicky getting his attention. All contribute stories to Nicky; her preliminary work pleases Sebastian. Unknown to anyone, Nicky had been a school-assigned childhood penpal with Cole; his fate in particular has her detective instincts quivering. After ever-so-carefully building the setting, the author brings Cole into the picture as a virtual presence—the child who was unmercifully bullied—and events turn deadly. Be aware that in the end, suspending your disbelief could be problematic even if you think you scrupulously collected clues along the way. Finn generates disturbing twists or more mysteries on almost every page; nothing is linear.

One accustoms oneself to the often choppy narrative; these characters are on edge, facing the imminent loss of the capricious giant in their lives. A breathless chase through Chinatown is but one memorable episode. Crafty story-telling, to maximum effect. Surprisingly (isn't it always?): an "off of" writer.

Bits

▪ "And thanks, but tomorrow I'm scheduled to be overweight and out of shape all day, so I must decline." (E98)

▪ She's a stout woman, on the downward slope of her sixties, wearing a ruby red top, billowy yellow slacks, green sandals. She looks, Nicky thinks, like a traffic light. (E113)

▪ Who could possibly know about Magdala? (125)

▪ She hasn't told Cole about Nicky, has she? The girl their father is ... well, using, isn't he? Manipulating? To shape his legacy or something? (165)

▪ Floating in the water is a woman, facedown, hair sprayed about her head, her back and arms bare. (224)

▪ "You're—ever since you got here for this pointless, moronic memory book, everything's gone wrong. Everything's wrong, Nicky!" (249)

▪ "They even asked if he reminded me of anybody! Meaning Cole. As if I wouldn't recognize my own nephew." (262)

Sebastian

▪ Just sitting before her, he seemed to radiate energy, like a dying star. (E37)

▪ "Life is hard. After all, it kills you." (E75)

▪ He's speaking in his whitewater voice, that full-boil roar that rushes around corners and bursts through walls. (E127)

▪ Maybe this is all a game for him. (167)

▪ "Stay as long as you like," he calls. "Die here." (172)

▪ "Do you know why people don't like you, son? Because you're weak." (185)

▪ And in the center of the room, Sebastian is a popped bottle of champagne, fizzing and sparkling and overflowing. (201-2)

▪ "Neither one of us really wanted lives beyond those we had already led. We were each other's afterlives." (266)

▪ "I expected a son who—not deserved, but validated my survival, and would himself survive. And live. As I had not." (308)

Invitation

Your published work is searching and humane—rare qualities in a critic. You know Simon well, and of course I am a part of him just as he is a part of me. In you, Miss Hunter, I see the audience for the final story I will ever tell. I see someone who can tell it in kind to anybody who cares to know.

I'll be dead in three months. Come tell my story. (23)

Novels No. 46 (LL364)

 

Shari Lapena. Not A Happy Family. Doubleday Canada, 2021.

(Not her latest; grabbed as a filler) You can always count on Lapena for domestic drama. We meet, briefly, Sheila and Fred Merton in their upper class mansion in the Hudson Valley. Before you can say snob, they are dead ‒ murdered. Two days before the bodies are discovered, a glimpse of their Easter Sunday family dinner shows Fred's incredible contempt for his three visiting children. He recently sold his prosperous robotics business out from under son Dan without warning, leaving Dan unemployed and wife Lisa worried. Now, he plans to sell the mansion that they all knew daughter Catherine wanted to inherit. Nor does youngest daughter Jenny escape Fred's caustic temper; they've grown up with it, have seen him enjoy his cruelty. Sheila sits by, seemingly helpless. The killings, discovered by housekeeper Irena, bring detectives Reyes and Barr to their doors looking for alibis.

Speaking of inheritance, Fred's unliked sister Audrey joins an uncomfortable gathering of the Merton children. Audrey smugly announces that Fred changed his will to give her half of his considerable estate—a shocker to all, especially financially strapped Dan—only to learn quickly from the lawyer that Fred never executed it. Furious Audrey then stirs the pot to increase police suspicion on one of the family. Each of the three children has lied to the police; they all become suspicious of each other. Dan seems the most likely to break under the stress. Irena, who loves them from childhood, observes passively their intensifying anxieties. But Audrey's friend Ellen Cutter has another bomb to drop on the family.

An ongoing circular switch from one character to another—their fears, their lies, their suspicions—becomes repetitive rather than suspenseful. About two-thirds into the novel, the pace and anticipated twist takes effect, only to fade away in a rather bland finish. Not A Happy Family has the certain Lapena touch but IMO, not one of her better novels.

Bits

▪ Dan says Jenna is out of control, but Catherine knows better. Jenna uses her lifestyle as a means of control. (5)

▪ "Mom's harmless, I guess. Dad's an asshole." (7)

▪ Catherine seems her usual self—such a princess, always, in her pearls, her conventionally handsome husband chewing politely next to her. (22)

▪ No more family dinners. No more asking for money and being told no. No more demeaning digs from his father in front of other people. (61)

▪ Why would she try to hide that she went back over there that night? Why wouldn't she just say so? (89)

▪ "He was going to change his will," she says, her voice rising, all her plans crashing to the ground. (102)

▪ "I don't think he was an easy man to live with. He had a mean streak." (111)

▪ "He's my little brother. We have to protect him." (156)

▪ "I know it was one of you. And I know all your little secrets." (180)

▪ "Even after all the terrible things he did to me, I didn't kill him. And I would never kill my mother." (202)

▪ "They're clever, and selfish, and greedy, and they were fathered by a psychopath. I did my best, but I wouldn't put it past any of them." (210)

▪ She obviously feels she's owed much more for keeping quiet about what Fred did all those years ago. (257)

Louise Doughty. A Bird in Winter. UK: Faber & Faber Limited, 2023.

Still waiting for the books I've ordered, TPL: ya hear me? (Our in-house library is a lifesaver.)

This book goes from zero to sixty in the first few pages, an exciting pace for us the readers and someone nicknamed Bird, real name Heather. Suddenly leaving her work in a big city office tower, Heather is on the run, an eventuality she somehow always expected. What's happening is gradually revealed as she begins to feel safe from pursuit—after sleeping rough, changing disguises, planting her phone and real ID elsewhere. She is was a class of British secret service that monitors their own spy network, digging out any agents who sell confidential intel for money, often to foreign powers. Heather, who's no spring chicken, mostly keeps herself in excellent, healthy shape thanks to her former army training.

But Heather found trouble of her own making. We don't know what it was or who is seriously hunting her, because the story shifts to her background influences where we decelerate into a slower lane—her father's secret service career, her army stint, the segue into intelligence work. Heather has only one great friend, Flavia; otherwise, work occupies her insular life. For a woman so adept at her job, over two decades she mismanaged her personal finances to the point of creating embarrassing debt—making her vulnerable in a sensitive job. Not difficult to predict a big Problem when she discovers a corrupt internal network, but she's oddly apathetic about it until we reach the present day, a contrast into full speed again. More than one source threatens to eliminate her. Much is left unsaid as she struggles with an action plan, not knowing herself where the ultimate power or checkmate lies.

The action of being on the run, is so well done in vivid locations, the danger so compelling—again, contrasting with Heather's usually quiet cerebral life. Is anything resolved? It's a wild ride seeking promises of safety until it all peters out in the end. With a murder charge waiting. Disappointing, questions unanswered. And author Doughty lost me with the name Ruth!

Background

▪ And so I suppose it was always in my blood, running I mean ‒ perhaps not running itself so much as the preparedness to run ‒ the capacity to go through each day always being ready. (20)

▪ All my life, men have underestimated me because I'm small. (39)

▪ "You're no fucking officer," I said, my voice hissing and low, "you're a disgrace to your uniform." (105)

▪ The thing you don't realise about small babies is how dense they are, how hot and heavy, like a tiny nuclear device ‒ so small, and yet they could explode the world. (126)

▪ Spying on spies is hard: they know how to cover their tracks. Once they get wind of the fact that they are being investigated, you've had it. (153)

▪ My mother was a good person and her love was a good love to have, an unobtrusive love. None of us had returned it well enough. (214)

Now

▪ I'm hurtling away from my life. I've done it. I'm gone. (25)

▪ I'm longing to speak to Carmella and find out what happened after I left the meeting, but it wouldn't be safe to call her even if I had a phone. (64)

▪ Then I do a practice run, timing myself on my watch. I can get up the stairs and out of the skylight in three seconds. (66)

▪ Everyone I care for is gone. I've had to run away from all the people I work with, everything I own, and no one in the world knows where I am. (85)

▪ "What are you doing in the boss's office?" she asked, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame. (199)

▪ As long as I put enough distance between me and him, I will be able to hide. He'll never find me in this pitch-black night. (243)

▪ The fucker used me as bait ‒ but he reckoned without me going on the run. (300)

Novels No. 45 (LL363)

 

Dervla McTiernan. What Happened to Nina? USA: HarperCollins, 2023.

When we meet her, Nina Fraser seems like a refreshing twenty-year-old college student, passionate about the sport of climbing and her long-term boyfriend Simon Jordan. But Simon has undergone a slow change from caring lover to possessive abuser—a change she believes is temporary, that their mutual love will resolve it. Near the end of their climbing vacation together at Stowe, Nina approaches Simon to talk out the issue; that's when her presence vanishes from the story. Her hardworking parents Leanne and Andy report her missing; detective Matthew Wright takes the case with officer Sarah Jane Reid as assistant. Simon came home early from the vacation, saying Nina broke up with him and has a new guy. Days go by, no Nina.

Simon's parents Jamie and Rory are stereotypes—the entitled wealthy—furious that Simon, their only son, looks bad in the media for leaving Nina on her own. Rory hires a "reputation management" firm to disseminate disinformation, disparaging Nina's alleged behaviour to deflect from malicious talk of his son. The voracious internet takes over, bottom feeders eager to trash anyone and everyone involved. Consequences from the fallout are destroying anguished members of both families, including Nina's younger sister Grace. A search party is mounted for the extensive vacation property—it happens to be owned by the Jordans—but aside from an erratic sniffer dog, there's no trace of Nina. Or was the dog erratic? Very well-played by author McTiernan with spontaneous defensive and offensive moves by both sets of desperate parents—parental protection in the extreme.

Who will win this ungodly battle of character assassination? And what happened to Nina? Our dependency and thriving on internet devices is all too evident, especially when they support the worst in us. Top marks to McTiernan for superb irony regarding human folly.

Nina

▪ I told myself that Simon was just going through an insecure stage, that I knew the real him and that we'd get back there again if I could just make him understand how much I loved him. (3)

▪ It's the most sickening thing in the world, losing the support of your rope. (6)

The Frasers

▪ I was certain that I would find her, if I could just get to Stowe without any interruption. (56)

▪ We were smart, capable people, and it was too much to ask that we switch off our brains and put away our abilities and do nothing while our daughter was missing. (107)

▪ Our girls were our life, but the inn was our home. Our safe place. And these bastards, these sad, bored, basement-dwelling bastards with their pathetic conspiracy theories and their desperate need for attention, they were going to destroy it all. (203-4)

▪ "She's not here. She's not in school." He sounded panicked. Terrified. (204)

▪ "I'm begging you," Lee said. "Mother to mother. I know you understand that I ... that we can't survive unless we know what happened to Nina." (238)

The Jordans

▪ "She dumped me on Friday night. I asked her if she'd been seeing someone behind my back and she didn't deny it." (26)

▪ Breaking into our home was the behavior of a crazy woman. A normal person would have asked the police to check the house, if they were that worried. (96)

▪ "She pointed her finger straight at Simon at that press conference. We can't just stand back and let her do that." (102)

▪ "If the world decides that Simon did something to Nina, you and I will be picked apart. They always blame the parents." (102)

▪ I knew my son. I knew him. He was not a murderer. (127)

▪ "What matters is that we keep muddying the waters. People are going to be talking either way." (182-3)

▪ "With both girls running away, it does call into question what's happening in the home, doesn't it? Clearly something isn't right there." (220)

▪ "Jesus, Grace. You're acting crazy. Maybe it runs in the family." (234)

Peter May. A Winter Grave. UK: riverrun/Quercus, 2023.

Little did I realize this novel was set thirty years into the future, but hey, open mind, right? Lose the distaste for dystopian settings. DI Cameron Brodie is not your eager new detective nor your jaded Glasgow cynic, but he is worn out. His boss sends him into the Highlands (in a marvellous driver-less drone-copter) to investigate the perfectly preserved body of a man discovered frozen in a chunk of ice. Identified as Charles Younger, a journalist, he exhibits numerous bruises and a broken neck, consistent with a beating or a bad fall. The mountain rescue volunteers, many of whom work at the nearby nuclear facility, had a hell of a time freeing the body. No one seems to know what the man was doing in their area. Pathologist Dr Sita Roy is on the spot, collecting DNA evidence from his fingernails. Due to constant storms, the power is often out, stopping all communications.

A twist: The lone local policeman, Robbie Sinclair, is married to Brodie's daughter Addie—a daughter who angrily cut him out of her life ten years ago. Brodie knew of them in advance; burdened with a grim medical diagnosis, he wants time for her to hear her mother's true story. But someone is stalking them; Younger's body disappears only to be replaced by another. Avalanche slide, river immersion, transportation malfunction—Brodie is tested to the limits of his flagging strength. Climate change weather is a big factor in this story, and the author provides a graphic atmosphere. Besides the crime thrills, an amazing love story lurks AND a smashing climax! (not to mention my ancestral island has a role :)

After all: there's nothing here that isn't predictable thirty years from now—flooding in coastal cities, rampant urban rats and cockroaches, crumbling infrastructure, abandoned buildings, but nevertheless the inexorable progress of technology and AI. Certainly one of prolific Peter May's best novels.

Now

▪ "Well, it [GAN] stands for generative adversarial network, in which two neural networks use AI to out-predict one another." (13)

▪ "Bring the glasses into play, and they provide an augmented reality VR screen that allows you to receive video calls, surf the internet, or interpret the world around you. Facial recognition is instant. Everything functions on voice command." (24-5)

▪ "Ironic, isn't it?" he said. "A nuclear power plant at one end of the loch, and a hydroelectric power station at the other, and all we seem to get all winter these days is power cuts." (98)

▪ "You're a material witness. And like it or not, you're going to have to take your father up the mountain to show him where you found the body." (134)

▪ A vast slab of snow beneath his feet began to slide, and he instantly lost his balance, falling backwards as a sound like the roar of a jet engine filled his ears. (162)

▪ Addie had created a life for herself. A family. He had no right to come barging in to ruin yet more lives. (181)

▪ "He's just ... well, hopelessly addicted. He's put almost everything in hock to feed his habit. Online. Always online." (255)

▪ "His piece in the paper and on the internet, Mr. Brodie, was going to blow this government clean out of the water." (281)

Before

▪ Words hurled at him in a fury, barely heard in the moment, and now lost in time. But the shrill tone of anger and accusation still lived with him in every moment of every day. (111)

▪ "Oh, my God! He's back! Oh, my God, Cammie, you've got to go." She turned to face me with real fear in her eyes. (189)

▪ What was I going to do? Turn around and drive away? Accept that life with Mel as I'd known it was over? (229)

▪ "I can't even explain it ..." Her words came staccato through her sobs. "He ... he just has this hold on me." (232)