Novels No. 55 (LL373)

Sarah Crouch. Middletide. USA: Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, 2024.

Our protagonist Elijah Leith once aspired to be a writer, leaving home for big city life and education; his career goal crushed his promise to meet his teenage love Nakita in precisely four years. It's actually fifteen years and one critically trashed book (he titled it Middletide) later, that he returns to Point Orchards; he wants only to sequester himself as a failure. Page after page is devoted to Elijah's solitary renovation of the dilapidated family cabin, cultivating a garden, and loving his natural environment. Riveting, it's not. Details of building a woodpile or coaxing eggs from his chickens or clearing a trail to the secret lake where he used to meet Nakita—are way TMI for establishing what a sincere, boring person he is. Although he thinks of Nakita constantly, with guilt, but also hope, it's another few years before he meets her—by accident. Lack of spirit or action in this regard has the guy looking like a total loser.

The story unfolds in time segments before, during, and after Elijah settles in. But not in chronological order! At times he works for his father's old friend Chitto as a garage mechanic. Nakita is still mourning the sudden loss of her husband Kailen on the Squalomah Rez, not ready to resume a relationship. In the present day (1994) local Sheriff Godbout is dealing with the apparent suicide of the town's Dr. Erin Landry. Found hanging at the secret lake few people know about, her motivation seemed to be grief over her little daughter killed in a car crash. But! Godbout receives a copy of Elijah's novel anonymously, and its plot mirrors exactly what happened to Erin. Finally, mystery! Rejected by Nakita, Elijah had been dating Erin.

Messing with the sequence of events was irritating, while also my disbelief suffered from discrepancies such as an ensuite master bedroom in a humble cabin. Or the prosecution lawyer at Elijah's trial getting away with lecturing witnesses. Is the "lake" salt water? Aren't trout freshwater fish? The dizzy chronology makes this book a challenge.

Bits

▪ He should have at least spent some time figuring out what to say to her. What if she was still furious that he had left? (65)

▪ "You're not the eighteen-year-old kid that broke my daughter's heart anymore, are you?" (68)

▪ "Look at that, blood and all, just like in the book." (85)

▪ He was making enough money to afford groceries, but homesteading was in his blood now, an addiction just like writing. (89)

▪ His novel would be a love letter to this land he had reclaimed, the land of his youth, the land of his redemption. (133)

▪ She had as many land mines as he did. More. They both had far too much baggage. (156)

▪ "I hate that woman, and you knew that. What's wrong with you?!" (201)

▪ At the very bottom of the pile was the photograph he was looking for, and he held it up to the light, his heart thudding wildly in his chest. (228)

▪ It never dulled, her rage at his effortless way of walking through the world like nothing bad ever happened to him. (231)

Robinne Lee. The Idea of You. USA: St. Martin's Press, 2017.

It was on my reading list: mature woman falls for rock star in boy band—what's not to be interested in? Book and film generated a lot of hype that sucked me in, because it seems to lack any element of mystery or crime. So there's thirty-nine-year-old Solène Marchand taking her twelve-year-old daughter Isabelle and friends to a rock concert by British band August Moon. Reluctantly, after her ex-husband defaulted at the last minute. The girls, and thousands like them, enjoy screaming their hearts out to Solène's tolerant amusement. Upon meeting the five band members, Isabelle's huge crush on their leader Hayes Campbell is clear but he subtly hits on Solène. Intrigued, she responds to his follow-up and then it's assignations with him in various cities during the band's long tour. Solène is close to her daughter but must keep the relationship secret to avoid hurting her.

Hayes is very likeable as well as magnetically attractive. In fact, the relationship has solid promise despite the constant distracting hordes of fans and media attention. Hayes has trouble understanding Solène's wish to keep it all private. Uh-oh, I'm skipping ... skipping ... skipping pages. Basically it's a lot of soft porn and that's not what I'm here for. Isabelle indeed learns of her mother's not-so-covert-anymore affair; coupled with her dad's plan to re-marry, the girl is devastated. I'll say no more, but the age-gap message is well-handled in how it affects everyone involved. It's Solène's story—Solène, juggling her professional career as art curator—and she shares every emotional detail. Will we always be hung up by older women with younger men whereas the reverse for men has long been accepted with scarcely a wink-wink?

So I didn't read the entire bulk of it. I read enough. It is entertaining.

Bits

▪ And while three years of accidental celibacy had been oftentimes miserable, I was not going to jump into bed with a rock star half my age because he'd winked at me at an after-party. I was not going to be a cliché. (14)

▪ Was this how he did it? The seducing? Subtle, effective, complete. (34)

▪ "It means that unless you want to be on all the blogs tomorrow, you should probably leave before me." (35)

▪ He was a vision: smooth, creamy skin; broad shoulders; taut abs; sculpted arms. Flawless. So this was what twenty looked like. (42)

▪ It became apparent that this, whatever it was we were doing, would never truly be just the two of us. So long as he was in August Moon, Hayes was someone I would share with the world. (83)

▪ He reached for my hand then, stilling me, his eyes intense. "This thing ... us ... It's more than I expected." (131)

▪ "You still haven't told her? Solène, what are you waiting for?" (201)

▪ I had managed to tune it all out while composing work emails from my spot in the corner. It had come to be my ritual: attempting to run a business from backstage. (333)

Novels No. 54 (LL372)

 

Mick Herron. Dolphin Junction. USA: Soho Crime, 2021.

Some of us just can't get enough Herron of the Slough House novels. This collection of short stories (published between 2006 and 2019) highlights his mastery of language, style, and environmental setting. His stories or plots are fuelled by the dry humour we love; his characters naturally slide in and out of all manner of suspicious circumstances. All but one story were new to me; "The Last Dead Letter" has also been published in Standing By the Wall—and for the novice or uninitiated reader, that is a story best read late in the day, so to speak. Otherwise, find out what a Flusfelder Isotron is.

If you're already addicted to the Slow Horses team* you may be aware of Herron's previous Oxford series. A few of these stories will reacquaint you with Zoë Boehm and her cynical private eye world. Crooks masquerade as innocents; spies might be lurking. Rather than try to describe any of the offerings, a few quotes may serve as teasers.

* The Brits have made them even more accessible in a sleeper-hit series, streaming on AppleTV. Many superlative actors, but two words suffice: Gary Oldman! Four seasons and counting.

Here and There

▪ The information superhighway—wasn't that what people were saying? Joe had no complaints about the new technology, but was well aware of his own place in it: by the side of the road, his thumb in the air. (6)

▪ "That woman could talk for England. They should record her phone calls for training purposes."(35)

▪ Nigel Reeve-Holkham had stared at him as if he'd sprung a leak. (70)

▪ "It's the kind of thing old people do." (155)

▪ "Not to mention she seriously messed me about, wiped my computer. I like things ordered, Joe." (165)

▪ ... the weather had turned overnight, and in place of yesterday's big blues and deep greens was a series of overlapping greys with a chilly edge. (175)

▪ You read about this sort of thing; about inbred hooligans who lived miles from anywhere because they hated people; hated them so much they'd sooner chop them into pieces and scatter them for the birds than offer them the use of their telephones ... (190-1)

▪ If politics was the art of banging your head against a wall, in Berlin it had found its apotheosis. (238)

Entrepreneurship

He had a genius for knowing what the Great American Public wanted, an ethical blind spot regarding the means of acquiring the patents thereto, and a talent for packaging it in such a way that it seemed the fruit of his own labours. On a small enough scale, this is termed theft. When done on an industrial level it is business, and accorded the respect it deserves. (146)

Scarlett Thomas. The Sleepwalkers. USA: Simon & Schuster, 2024.

Evelyn writes a rambling letter to husband Richard that seems to drive the main narrative; they are on a Greek island, honeymooning at the small Villa Rosa hotel. The couple continue the tiresome bickering typical of their long-term relationship. In effect, her letter is a goodbye to him, merely hinting at the reason for her decision. Playwright Evelyn sees the whole Greek experience as negative, especially the sad hotel and creepy little moments unnoticed by others. Hotel owner Isabella is clearly insolent toward Evelyn but warmly charming to Richard. Why was this place so highly recommended by guests before them? What are the mysterious bundles of paper that Isabella collects? A recurring story among locals is about two previous guests, a couple who drowned off the beach during a storm.

Marcus and Debbie arrive, as the only other guests; he is a film producer interested in developing Isabella's version of the drowning story. No one knows the truth of what happened, but Marcus wants Richard and Evelyn to act out a potential scene: the doomed couple conversing in bed as the storm builds. They comply—half-heartedly. But Evelyn's letter relating this stops in the middle of a sentence and next comes one from Richard, addressed to her the following day. He has not seen her letter. What then follow are haphazard pieces of communication to advance our story: comments in the hotel log by children of the dead couple; part of the drowned wife's diary entry; audio from Evelyn's clandestine phone recording; an outline of Evelyn's next play; and more—some are torn or partially illegible. Isabella, positioned perhaps as a game-changer, seems little more than a cardboard figure.

Deliberately disjointed in the telling, the effect is seemingly random, confusing, about strange events and character development, with just enough thread to hang on. Who actually wrote what, or how reliable bits of it are, may reveal how the drownings really happened. This is a very, very cleverly constructed mystery, albeit disorderly. The jury's out, IMO.

Evelyn

▪ It was as if some spell had taken hold of you the very moment you saw her. Maybe it was our wedding curse. (22)

▪ I went from housekeeper with an MA in Theatre Studies and a script for a one-woman show to fringe-sensation with my own TV series to washed-up failure in a period of just over six years. (39)

▪ I've been banging on trying to get attention for ages. The door's locked. What the fuck's going on? (170)

▪ The tui somehow barks out what I feel, all my absurd confusion and muted rage—but also my joy at being released from your awful, awful family. (217)

▪ By some miracle no one noticed I still had my passport strapped to me. I'd let Richard's phone fall on the floor of the storeroom as a distraction—it must have worked. (227)

Richard

▪ You've never understood how someone could be secretive. You've always let your own insides spill out, like feathers in a pillow fight. (113)

▪ When something is as tainted and tragic as our relationship, eventually it will die. (121)

▪ Why do you always have to weigh in on everything? You can't ever shut up or not have an opinion. (125)

▪ Well are you rescued where did you go why didn't you leave a note why are you locked in? (170)

▪ Your maid was deliberately flirty, and the show portrayed her grinding down the male employer, behaving, I now realize, just as you believed Isabella was acting with me. (142)

Villa Rosa

▪ We stayed here in the worst possible circumstances, after losing our parents in the great storm last week. Isabella could not have been kinder, nor [ ... blank] (199)

▪ But late that night Richard and Evelyn began to quarrel—just a minor lovers' tiff, I thought. But Evelyn ran out into the storm, and, although I tried to stop him, Richard followed her. (211-12)

Novels No. 53 (LL371)

 MICK HERRON news flash: New Slough House novel in August 2025!

Ian Rankin. Midnight and Blue. UK: Orion Books, 2024.

Rankin's previous work, A Heart Full of Headstones (LL299 in 2022), was densely packed with criminal activity and police corruption. Rebus himself was facing trial—over the death of Edinburgh crime boss Big Ger Cafferty—so that novel whirled us through a chaotic mix of cops, crooks, and cronies that led to our hero's conviction and life sentence in prison. Hard to grasp, I know! In retirement and not in great health, Rebus is nearby when a fellow inmate is murdered—by a guard, the convicts mutter. Also interned for life is Darryl Christie who had taken over as the city's crime czar, still ruling from prison, ensuring a steady flow of drugs into the population. Christie's protection keeps Rebus from potential harm, for example from his cell neighbour Harrison, associate of Hanlon, the ultimate provider of the drugs. Yet our man can't resist poking a finger into this dangerous and complicated cluster.

DS Christine Esson, with partner Mulgrew, heads the prison death case while Malcolm Fox, Rebus' former nemesis at headquarters, horns in for any self-aggrandizing opportunity. So many suspects and so many layers, as we expect from Rankin. With the convicts ready to riot, harried prison governor Tennant, and Christie too, want Rebus to share any info he picks up and he's only too happy to oblige. His friend DI Siobhan Clarke works her own murder case that, through gangster activities, has a tenuous connection to Esson's case. Thus Rebus acquires two additional contacts for reporting his bits of news, including the despised Fox. Every new, sharply defined character stirs this boiling pot of motives and underhanded schemes. Let's hope for satisfactory results from about three different directions.

Physically, Rebus may have slowed down a bit, but Rankin hasn't! Connections, kinships, and alliances need careful unravelling by the most diligent investigators. Brimming with cagey criminal moves and prison lore and dubious police extracurriculars, Midnight and Blue is simply today's best in the genre.

Bits

▪ "Bastard stitched me up," he snarled, eyes glowing, teeth showing. Spittle flew from his mouth, flecks of it hitting Rebus's face. (18)

▪ Again Siobhan Clarke sighed. "Oh Jesus, John, what if you're caught?" (24)

▪ "I'll do what I can. No promises. But you'll owe me, and you know what I want." (25)

▪ "It's just," Esson went on, "the days she's on duty seem to match yours, even the same double shifts." (52)

▪ Wasn't it more fun a decade or two back, when a few rules could be bent or broken? Rebus and his contemporaries hadn't had to worry about internet warriors, the brandishing of mobile phone cameras or being "cancelled". (94)

▪ "Does your wife know about Young Fresh East Coast? Should we maybe go chat with her?" (98)

▪ "The internet has normalised stuff that would have been off limits two generations back. Girls like Jasmine are bombarded with it." (126)

▪ "Malcolm seems a good guy, no bullshit about him." (157)

▪ "Say you'd become a prison officer rather than a cop ‒ how well would you have coped, day in, day out?" (242)

▪ "Fiscal's office will be shitting brimstone when I tell them. You've compromised this inquiry, DI Fox." (226)

Paul Murray. The Bee Sting. New York: Picador, 2023.

Irish school girls again! Honestly, the TPL gods send my choices randomly. Cass, daughter of Imelda and Dickie Barnes, and her BFF Elaine, daughter of Big Mike and Joan Comerford, bond over all the silliness teenagers get up to. But maybe Cass's future is not as rosy as Elaine's; her dream of their attending university together is looking shaky. Economic recession is hitting hard on Dickie's car sales company. One after another we see deep into the effect on the family, on their relationships with friends and neighbours, and how social morals govern a small town. From teen angst to a mother's traumatic loss to a father's inarticulate rage, this gifted author inhabits the skin of each character so that we are living with them: joking, arguing, condescending, suffering, grieving, yearning, experimenting. Love the way Imelda's thoughts are unpunctuated, so true to her nature. At close to 650 pages, where is Bee Sting going with this? Isn't there supposed to be a crime here somewhere?

Ah. Foreplay. At the heart is the marriage of Imelda, from the rough, often violent Caffrey family, and Dickie, of the once-well-respected Barnes family. With financial ruin looming, the couple hurl daily blame at each other for the slightest upsets, half trusting that his wealthy father Maurice will rescue them from public shame. Both are haunted by the ghost of Dickie's brother Frank; Dickie further so, by the Dublin life he gave up. There's no lack of mysteries along the way as two generations wrestle with "finding" themselves, choosing their path from shrinking options, trying to avoid deception, bearing responsibility when things go awry. Yet what deviltry seems to trick them just beyond their grasp? When tragedy strikes, does madness follow?

Paul Murray brings a universal reality to his people; their impulses and experiences ring familiar, reflecting today's widespread anxieties. Enthralling ‒ would be the right word for this superlative work.

Dickie

▪ When people asked Dickie, aged seven, what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would invariably answer, A priest. (361)

▪ I mean, what if you don't want to spend the rest of your life in your home town selling cars? (396)

▪ It's not enough to build it, Dickie. You need to be ready to protect it. Survival is a zero-sum game. (404)

▪ He beat her brothers half to death growing up. He killed her cat, Dickie! (423)

▪ Do you think you're in any fit state to make this kind of a decision? Willie said. Can't you see how insane this is? (430)

Imelda

▪ Dickie made a fortune and Imelda spent two ‒ that was what people said. (42)

▪ Frank beguiled Daddy Just as Imelda beguiled Maurice Both knowing it bound the two of them together too But that was good (214)

▪ And she thought she would burn up into cinders for love of him (259)

▪ So you're just going to accept it she says Accept that he's fired you Your own father (300)

▪ Big Mike All this time Who would ever have guessed she thinks Who would ever (323)

Cass

▪ At the teacher's desk, Miss Grehan regarded her merrily. Such a wonderful poem, Cass, she said. Well done. (36)

▪ They have arrived at a point, he and his daughter, where she can only be happy in his company if she feels like she has bested him. (351)

▪ Is she still waiting for you to make a move? Is she punishing you for not making one? Has she lost interest? (531)

PJ

▪ My dad says your dad's garage is in trouble, Nev says, without looking away from the screen. He says it's going into liquidation. (95)

▪ Cass always tells him they won't get divorced because Mam thinks it's a sin. (99)

▪ Granddad would know how to fix things. Why doesn't Dad just ask him? (99)

Revelation

This must be what it feels like to be dying, he thinks; the world remains around you, like a lover who does not want to hurt you by leaving, but in spirit it's already gone, taking with it the meaning of everything you shared. In truth it is already transforming into a future you will never be a part of; and you realize only then that it has been transforming all of this time, throughout your whole life, and you with it; and that, in fact, is life, though you never knew, and now it is over. (477)

Novels No. 52 (LL370)

 

Sally Hepworth. Darling Girls. USA: St. Martin's Press, 2024.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia were orphaned or abandoned at a young age, arriving at separate times for foster care at the big old farmhouse called Wild Meadows. The owner, Miss Fairchild, counted on the stipend to keep her from poverty. Jessica, the first, was lovingly coddled and encouraged to call Miss Fairchild "Mummy." When Norah arrived Miss F did a complete about-face; the children, later including Alicia, were treated as slave labour—cleaning and re-cleaning the entire house each day, fed mean scraps of food, and sharing one small bedroom. Always tired, hungry, and totally threatened by their fiercely punishing custodian, starting school became somewhat of a blessing despite the 45-minute walk back and forth, but the endless cleaning and chores simply shifted to later hours. No wonder the three girls proactively bonded as sisters. On a rare visit from a social worker, they were forced to appear as Miss F's "darling girls"—fear of disbelief stopped any ideas of complaining. Then the babies began arriving into their miserable lives.

We meet them as adults in their thirties; the police have summoned them for interviews because, as Wild Meadows was being torn down by a new owner, human remains were found buried under the house. The author finely draws the three different personalities: Jessica, successful, well-paid interior designer; Norah, the volatile gig worker; Alicia, the empathetic social worker. With all their individual attitudes and neuroses: Jessica, anxious addict with panic attacks; Norah, anger management and a history of assaults; Alicia, caretaker denying her own needs and wants.

As the story unfolds between past abuse and present coping methods, assisting the police investigation means revisiting their old antagonist. Interjected at times are the psychiatric sessions of an unknown woman, making us guess where she belongs. Neatly structured with well-delivered insight, Darling Girls is engaging with unexpected turns.

Jessica

▪ Miss Fairchild was the centre of her life, her everything. And if she kept it this way, she'd be rewarded with love, which was all Jessica wanted. (40)

▪ Jessica loved talking about the fact that Alicia was bisexual. She found it exciting. (110)

▪ Thankfully, Jessica had ways of dealing with shame. She tipped two of them out of a bottle and into her hand, and then, after a moment's consideration, she tipped out another two. (202-3)

▪ A few times, Norah caught Jessica staring as Miss Fairchild played with Amy. The look on Jessica's face worried her. There was something possessive about it. (213)

▪ "And even if they do believe us, what then? We'll have to leave Wild Meadows. We could end up anywhere. What are the chances that they'll let us stay together?" (240)

Norah

▪ Just don't go to the cops, okay. I have a community corrections order. It's like a suspended sentence. (50)

▪ If there was one thing Norah had learned from growing up in foster care ... it was how to take care of things. Her methods were a little unorthodox, perhaps, but they had to be. (51)

▪ Miss Fairchild shoved Norah into the pitch darkness, latching the door closed behind her. (141)

▪ This wasn't a transaction. This was blackmail. (152)

▪ She'd had to use every means at her disposal to keep herself safe, to have some agency in her life. It just so happened that "every means at her disposal" meant sex and violence. (291)

Alicia

▪ Unlike most parents, Grammy had no interest in forcing Alicia to eat vegetables or heed strict bedtimes, and if Alicia didn't feel like going to school Grammy urged her to take the day off and come along to mah-jongg instead. (78)

▪ "Alicia has an avoidant attachment style," Jessica said. "She pushes people away before they get too close." (110)

▪ There was something about Meera's voice—calm, clear, and intelligent—that soothed Alicia. (194)

▪ Alicia felt weirdly emotional. "He's a good kid. And it got me thinking ... Hypothetically speaking, if I wanted to foster him ... could I?" (195)

▪ All she knew was protecting Amy had become their life's mission. They might not be able to save themselves, but by God, they were going to save her. (230-1)

Fiona McPhillips. When We Were Silent. USA: Flatiron Books, 2024.

Youngsters being abused again ~ how did I get into this rut? Highfield, an elite school in Dublin, silently ignores abuse by athletic coaches. The victims are powerless against superiors who can make or break their sports achievements as well as their academic grades. Lou Manson is one girl who tried to expose and halt the damage, to herself, to her friends. Unsuccessfully. Victims learn how easily their credibility can be dismissed, how their words and actions can be twisted against them. Lou's friend Tina did not survive the shame.

Many years later—a respected literature professor—Lou is asked to testify for Josh, a young man in the prestigious Highfield swimming club, who is suing the school for the same reason. His lawyer, Ronan, is the brother of Shauna who was the object of Lou's desire in her school days. Shauna was an Olympic-calibre swimmer with coach McQueen. Lou lost touch with her and is married to Alex, with a teenage daughter, Katie. Now Katie asks to join the same swimming club, to Lou's horror.

Lou is reluctant to testify (which would reinforce that the abuse has been systemic); she's hiding a secret, one that would wreck her life if made public. Shauna will also testify; as the only one who knows the secret, will she betray Lou? Lou's original crusade was against McQueen. No one believed her. Now, coach Corrigan is the target—is her motive for helping Josh truth or revenge? Will anyone believe the truth, second time around? Highfield will go to any extremes to protect its privileged reputation, and so the trial is set. Lou's needy mother Rose, Joe the journalism student, Kenny O'Kane the local gangster, a dead coach, a missing photograph, and an ominous anonymous threat—it's an intricate tangle that McPhillips expertly, smoothly, draws us into.

Resonating with the Me Too movement, When We Were Silent is a vivid, powerful story. The characters are unforgettable in the masterful telling of struggle against corrupt forces.

Before

▪ "He put her in a position where she had no choice. He had the power to take away the one thing that meant everything to her." (69)

▪ "Joe, it's still happening. If he's trying it on with me already, there must be others." (69)

▪ Mam always has an eye and a hand out for a bargain, even when she's pouring the savings down her throat. (70)

▪ "She was pregnant. That's why she killed herself." (98)

▪ "You don't get it, do you?" she says. "Mr. McQueen is a hands-on sort of person. He tries to make everyone feel special. That's what makes him such a great coach." (99)

▪ "I've heard quite enough, Louise. Now, I don't know what your game is, but I will not have you making such vile accusations against a member of staff." (110)

Now

▪ I'm scared Katie will bear the brunt of my mistakes, that she'll be an easy target for bullies. (17)

▪ "The plan is to make sure Corrigan never coaches again and to get a generous settlement for Josh." (18)

▪ I think of the photo, the one we hoped would lift the veil of secrecy that shrouded Highfield. But that was lost along with everything else that night. (19)

▪ If you don't count the insomnia, the night terrors, the unbearable weight of sadness, you could almost say I made it. But I never escaped Highfield. (127)

▪ That I've been called a liar, a fantasist, a frigid cunt, that my sexuality, my failed marriage, even my daughter, have been fair game. (143)

▪ Ronan's warned me to expect the worst, that Highfield's defense team will tell the press anything they think might smear our story. That theirs is a media campaign as much as a legal one. (150)

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)