Library Limelights 149

David Lagercrantz. The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye. Toronto: Viking/Penguin/Random House, 2017.

Who is this detached, passive Lisbeth Salander? The girl who is mostly peripheral to the story and allows herself to be beaten up twice? Salander is in prison at the beginning for reasons from the last novel (The Girl in the Spider's Web) but she sets old friends Mikael Blomkvist the journalist and Holger Palmgren to find answers to her childhood. As we might expect, Blomkvist uncovers murky psychiatric dealings in the past while we are also privy to the ongoing story of now-adult twins Leo and Dan ― this novel is really their story. A secondary thread involves a female Bangladesh immigrant whom Salander vows to rescue, but only in a strangely complicated way.

Shifting the chronology back and forth works beautifully for many deft authors, but not this time. Disjointed comes to mind. Also, too much awkward exposition fails to enliven the action; many lost opportunities, it seems to me, where dialogue would have delivered engagement with the characters' feelings. Few of them elicit sympathy or a momentum of caring. Benito the bad girl is a cartoon, not a scary monster; sorry to say, her climactic scene was so silly it made me laugh. The focus has drifted away from a faded imitation of Steig Larsson's girl onto Blomkvist. I'd given Lagercrantz the benefit of the doubt last time but sadly, thumbs down. That's my take and I'm sticking to it.

One-liners:

He realized to his horror that she was trying to hack into the prison's computer system. (27)

The family had acquired a new enemy, and that enemy was her brother Khalil. (158)

Life always seemed to be happening elsewhere, a party to which he had not been invited. (224)

He stood with his guitar and felt like a beggar, a street musician who had strayed into an elegant drawing room and was hoping to be accepted. (231)

Childhood talent:

His first compositions were too pompous. He was not yet sophisticated, and he still had to discover jazz, which would make his harmonies grittier and more spiky. Above all, he had not yet learned to handle the amplified sound of insects, rustling bushes, footsteps, distant engines, voices, fans―all those things which only he could hear.However, he was happy at the grand piano that day, as happy as a boy like him could be. Despite the fact that somebody was always keeping an eye on him, he was a solitary child, and he loved only one person―his psychologist Carl Seger. (86)

Nature or nurture, or ...

Hilda observed that science always loses its way when guided by ideology or wishful thinking. There was a note of anxiety in her introductory passage, as if she was about to propose something shocking. But the article was balanced: it held that we are affected by genetics and social environment to the same degree, which was more or less what Blomkvist had expected.
One thing did surprise him, however. The environmental factors said to be most influential in shaping us were not those he had predicted. The essay suggested that mothers and fathers are often convinced they have a decisive influence over their children's development, but they "flatter themselves."
Hilda argued that our fate is more likely determined by what she called our "unique environment"―the one we do not share with anyone, not even our siblings. It is the environment we seek out and create for ourselves, for example, when we find something that delights and fascinates us and drives us in a certain direction. Rather like Blomkvist's reaction as a young boy, perhaps, when he saw the film All the President's Men and was struck by a strong urge to become a journalist. (190)

Epic fail:

" ... I called you in the middle of a crisis, when I had nothing, and what did you say then? Not one word. You let me grow up without knowing the most important thing in my life. You've robbed me ..."
He struggled for words, but found nothing which would do his feelings justice.
"I'm sorry, Daniel, I'm sorry," she stammered.
He yelled abuse at her, then hung up. He ordered some beer. A whole load of beer. He had to get his nerves under control, because already it was clear to him that he must get in touch with Leo. But how? Should he write, call? Simply show up? (213-4)

Megan Abbott. The Fever. USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2014.

Abbott is a highly regarded author who was honoured at BoucherCon, so it was my duty to try at least one book. My impression is that many of her subjects involved teenagers, not my favourite characters, so I chose this novel hoping for the best. Oops. It's 90% about high school students in a town called Dryden and their insecure predilections for gossip, rumour, and the drama of relationships and sexual exploration. Deenie, her brother Eli, and their teacher-father Tom lead us with observations of the frightening physical seizures sending their friends to hospital. The unknown menace could be viral, bacterial, or something even scarier. Enter the suspense of who's next and how to identify the problem spreading through the school.

You can understand why Abbott wins coveted mystery awards — she builds her plot ever so skillfully and gracefully, from one potential cause of the affliction to another as the kids agonize over each other and their parents work up to mob hysteria. No criticism whatsoever regarding style or development or atmospheric tension. It's just me — the endless teen texting, the photos posted to social media, the tedium of parenting history — is not of particular interest. I'm not likely to pick up another Abbott, but her psychological insights and perfect prose are totally admirable.

One-liners:

One afternoon two years ago, he came home and found her at the dining-room table drinking scotch from a jam jar. (10)

Some of these girls never seemed to eat, floating through the hallways like wraiths, drooping under the bleachers during gym. (31)

When you thought about your body, about how much of it you couldn't even see, it was no wonder it could all go wrong. (59)

She saw the car, the only car in the world, the streets desolate and haunted, like a town during a plague. (269)

Yet another one falls:

Deenie looked at the words, which seemed to float before her eyes.
But I'm okay, she wanted to say, to type. But she just looked at the screen instead.
That was when she heard the funny pant, someone rushing up to her, the hall echoing with new noise.
Keith Barbour was charging down the hall with another senior boy, both their necks ringed by monster headphones.
"Did you hear?" he barked, shoving Deenie in the arm. "Kim Court's getting wheeled out on a gurney."
"Kim?" Deenie asked, her phone smacking the floor. "What happened?"
"You're all going down." The other boy laughed, beats thrumming through the open mouths of his headphones. "One by one." (121)

Awakening:

"You're hiding too," a voice beside him said.
It was the French teacher, Kit, walking toward him, sliding off a tiny leather jacket, tomato red, like her Vespa.
Where did this woman come from? he wondered. And where had she been when he was single? Then he remembered he was single. (204)

Everything:

"I know what it is," Lara had said as he was halfway out the door, still buttoning his shirt with one hand, the other hand crushed over his car keys.
"What?"
"Everything happening," she said, standing in the hard light of the entryway. Saying it quietly, barely a whisper.
"It's what we put in the ground," she said. "And in the walls. The lake, the water, the things we say, the things we do. All of it, straight into their sturdy little bodies. Because even if it isn't any of these things, it could be. Because all we do from the minute they're born is put them at risk."
He felt his keys cut into his fingers.
"We put them at risk by having them," he blurted, not even knowing what he meant. Touched by her words, frightened by them. "And the hazards never stop." (252-3)

Joe Ide. IQ. USA: Hachette Group/Mulholland Books/Little, Brown, 2016.

What a refreshing change ... an entertaining take on the PI image. Young Isaiah Quintabe has a growing reputation for solving problems and finding justice for all manner of domestic and financial abuses. He is making amends for the life of crime that almost trapped him; he also needs to live up to the promise his brother Marcus saw in him. Helping others becomes a job that doesn't always pay the rent, so he can't refuse a dubious offer from erstwhile friend Dodson. These two have a shady history which is told in tandem with their mission to stop whoever is trying to kill rap star Black the Knife aka Calvin Wright. Always in the back of Isaiah's mind is finding the hit and run driver who killed Marcus.

That's the introduction to a mix of deluded music sycophants, street gangs, a lunatic hit man, a gigantic pit bull, and hilarious dialogue, held together by the earnest and steady Isaiah. It's a unique immersive experience; perhaps only Carl Hiassen comes to mind on the same wavelength of humour. Sure, the street slang and colloquialisms of black life in the extended suburbs of L.A. (Long Beach) take some mental adjustment but you can't help loving how Isaiah navigates his world. The man is innately decent and immensely appealing. The author has wrought something remarkable here; long may he write!

One-liners:

Most of his love life was curiosity sex. (9)

"God didn't give you a gift so you could be a hedge fund manager." (43)

Bobby looked like he'd opened his safe and found a head of cabbage. (175)

Tudor smiled like he'd farted in a crowded elevator. (304)

Two-liner: "It's a hustler's world, son," Dodson said, "and if you ain't doing the hustlin'? Somebody's hustlin' you." (58)

Career Day:

Dodson was sitting in a metal folding chair on the auditorium stage at Carver Middle School. He vaguely remembered being a student here, although calling him a student was a stretch. His attendance was so bad his history teacher said he should wear a visitor's badge. Homework was like a strange ritual they did in some foreign country where everybody was blond and wore wooden shoes.
Dodson was sharing the dais with a firefighter in a big canvas coat, a Filipina nurse in green scrubs, a bulky-looking woman who worked as a prison guard, and an old man in oil-stained coveralls and an STP cap who owned a wrecking yard. Above them hung a banner in blue and green tempera that said: CAREER DAY. Dodson saw Isaiah slip into the back of the auditorium and he smiled to himself. This could only mean one thing, Isaiah needed money and he needed it bad. (55)

Calvin's front yard:

Bobby had called a meeting in Cal's circular driveway. He liked to do that, talk to people in driveways, parking lots, hotel lobbies, and on his way out of restaurants. It made him seem like he only had time for a quick word or two so you better let him say his piece. Bobby liked to say if you control how long you talk you control what's talked about. And the man could talk you into the ground. The best bullshitter Hegan had ever seen and he'd seen more than a few. Like he was doing now with that IQ kid, the one that crazy fuck Cal hired to investigate the dog attack; Bobby doing his busy-man-trying-to-be-patient routine in a sea-green Armani, suede slip-ons, and no socks, talking to the kid like a prosecutor, letting him know who was in charge. (172)

Calvin's back yard:

"Look at Bobby all down on the ground. Looks like the Taliban's shooting at his ass. And speaking of Bobby, why'd you go at him so hard? You lost your temper again, didn't you?"
"I don't care about Bobby," Isaiah said. "I care about my client."
"Well, you better get out your water wings. Your client is drowning again."
Despite his earlier experience, Cal had jumped in the pool and was thrashing around, swallowing water. "Help," he gurgled. "Somebody help Calvin." He went under, one hand waving like he was hailing a cab.
Charles and Bug were behind the gas barbecue, too disgusted to laugh. "How'd that fool ever get to be a star?" Charles said.
Anthony was sitting out in the open with his back against the house. He looked like a man who'd lost his dignity and was too tired to go get it. "Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll drown," he said. (178)