Musings on a Literary Journey

Listening Closely, by Arlene Romoff

2011-10-20T13:33:00.001-04:00

ListeningClosely: A Journey to Bilateral Hearing
by, ArleneRomoff
ImaginePublishing, 2011
978-1936140213
175 pages

Born withnormal hearing, Arlene Romoff began to gradually lose it throughout herteens. Over the course of the nexttwenty-five years she slowly descended into total deafness. At the time, there was no hearing aid ordevice that could help her until the technology of cochlear implants wascreated and allowed her the miracle of being able to once again hear. But ten years later, that implant failed andArlene was forced to have another procedure done with new state-of-the-arttechnology.

Forstarters, Romoff’s book Listening Closelydoes not chronicle her deafness and subsequent restored hearing in anydetail. That is covered in her earlierbook, Hear Again. ListeningClosely describes in excruciating detail the failure of her first deviceand its replacement with a newer kind of device that is surgically implanted inboth ears. I say excruciating becauseRomoff’s writing reads like a medical logbook or stereo instructions ratherthan any sort of personal journal. Herwriting is devoid of any real emotional content. It is really nothing more than one technicaljournal entry after another that I could have read about in Wikipedia just aseasily.

Romoff wantsthe reader to be impressed with what she went through, using the terms “miracle”and “breakthrough” so many times and explanation points so often that it wearsthe reader out and makes her struggle sound cliché. Frankly, there really is no story here atall. While I’m sure it was an amazingexperience for her to regain her hearing and the technological innovations havebeen amazing, Romoff simply fails to convey any of this to the reader to makethem care about her journey. There maybe in interesting story to be told, but it doesn’t exist in the form of Listening Closely.

My copy of Listening Closely was provided by thepublisher through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.

The Secret Speech, by Tom Rob Smith

2011-10-20T10:30:00.002-04:00

The Secret Speech

by, Tom Rob Smith
GrandCentral Publishing, 2009
978-0446402408
432 pages

“Standingdirectly over him Zoya raised the knife. Although she couldn’t see him, her imagination mapped the contours ofhis body. She wouldn’t stab him in thestomach: the blankets might absorb the blade. She’d plunge the blade through his neck, sinking it as far as she could,before he had a chance to overpower her. Knife outstretched, she pressed down with perfect control. Through the blade she felt his arm, his shoulder– she steered upward, making small depressions until the knife tip toucheddirectly onto his skin. In position, allshe had to do was grip the handle with both hands and push down.”

It is 1956in the Soviet Union and Stalin is dead, leaving behind a country that isfracturing. Now citizens view the policeas the criminals with tacit approval from Nikita Khrushchev’s secret speech. But not everyone is ready to followKhrushchev’s lead of adopting reforms and forgetting the past. Some want to make sure the state remainsfully in control while others still have a score to settle with the individualswho did Stalin’s bidding. Now former MGBofficer, Leo Demidov has left that life behind to form a secret branch of themilitia – the first ever homicide investigative unit in the Soviet state. While Leo feels he no longer the awful personhe once was, the two young girls he and his wife have adopted remember how Leowas a party to the murder of their parents. And they are not the only ones who haven’t forgiven what Leo Demidov didas a MGB officer. Someone from his past isprepared to use his family’s dysfunctional state against him. In a desperate personal mission, Leo willhave to face the desolate Siberian Gulags and the uprising in Hungary to notjust save his family, but rescue himself from his own past.

The Secret Speech picks up shortly afterSmith’s first book, Child 44 (4.0stars, Recommended) as Leo Demidov tries to put his past life behind him andbuild a loving family out of his shattered history. As in Child44, Smith does a commendable job portraying the bleak and often paranoidexistence of living in the 1950’s Soviet Union where the next word you saycould be the one that sends you to the Gulags. He also captures the tumultuous times in the Soviet Union followingStalin’s death where the tug-o-war between revolution and state control playedout – often with deadly consequences.

Also like Child 44, The Secret Speech takes on a somewhat plodding pace in the earlypart of the book which seems to emulate what it was like to exist in the SovietUnion. But unlike Child 44, The SecretSpeech doesn’t provide as much tension and mystery in the story. Demidov becomes more of a James Bondcharacter dodging death left and right rather than being the intellectualdetective he really is. While the actionwas a product of his circumstances and was entertaining, it seemed out ofcharacter and somewhat overdone throughout the story causing the tension and myinterest to wane at times. This is acase of less-would-have-been-more.

In spite ofthat criticism, The Secret Speech’s realstrength is not as an action thriller but as the drama of a man’s search forredemption from his past and how guilt can drive a person to do anything toprove to everyone and themselves that they can and have changed. Smith captures the emotions of a fracturedfamily with two parents who desperately want the affections of their adopteddaughters while receiving nothing but scorn in return. Ultimately there is a great deal of humanemotion and development that is what really makes the story come to life andsucceed as something other than the average historical thriller. On the strength of that, The Secret Speech is a worthy second installment to the story ofLeo Demidov and the old Soviet Union. Inspite of its shortcomings, this book is worth picking up.

The Blue Star, by Tony Earley

2011-10-09T15:42:00.003-04:00

The BlueStar
by, TonyEarley
Little,Brown & Co., 2008
978-0316199070
286 pages

Jim Glass’senior year was supposed to be simple. But his life in a small North Carolina town in 1941 has become anything butsimple. He is supposed to be with Norma,but he doesn’t love her – or right now even like her. He wants to be with Chrissie, but she isdating a guy Jim hates who has left for the Navy. On top of that, Chrissie won’t even look inhis direction. For Jim, time may beshort because the winds of war are blowing and he will need his family to guidehim through life and politics in a small town that he doesn’t understand.

“The weather matched Jim’s moodperfectly. He found it a good day tolabor under the almost public burden of a not-quite-secret unrequitedlove. His friends, both the guys on thesteps and the girls who pretended to be offended by their existence, had begunto tease him about Christine Steppe – which genuinely puzzled Jim because hehad spoken of his feelings about Chrissie to no one, and certainly not toDennis Deane, who these days, when the bus from Lynn’s Mountain pulled up infront of the school, launched into a ridiculous, mincing recitation of “Jim andChrissie sitting in a tree” that even Jim had to admit was funny.”

The Blue Star follows Jim Glass – who isintroduced in Jim the Boy (2000) –through his senior year of high school. Earley does a masterful job of immersing us in the rural American of theearly 1940’s. Images of the town andtownsfolk of Aliceville are crisp and clear, bringing to life that bygone eraof American when it was about to lose its innocence for good.

Thecharacters of The Blue Star feelauthentic and the writing really allows us to feel who they are. However, none of the characters, includingJim, ever really surprise us. They areall pretty normal people leading pretty normal lives – and maybe that is Earley’swhole point. There is a soft, simplicityto his writing style that makes the story warm and comfortable to curl up nextto the fireplace with.

The storyitself follows a classic love triangle of boy pursuing the girl across thetracks rather than the obvious choice who is hung up on him. But the relationships lack much emotionalangst beyond the three participants themselves. The rest of the town seems oblivious to what is happening, leading tolittle tension or depth to the story. The ending is also a bit trite, if not unexpected. Even so, TheBlue Star is an enjoyable, comfortable read that serves as a bit of anantidote to high stakes novels with cliff hanger endings. It is slower-paced literature that doesn’ttry to be anything more than what it is – a story of a boy falling inlove. If that is something you arelooking for, The Blue Star will serveyou quite well.

Blood Brother, by Malcolm Rose

2011-10-04T22:33:00.003-04:00

BloodBrother
by MalcolmRose
KingfisherPress, 2007
978-0753461709
160 pages

In the nearfuture city of York, 16-year-old forensic investigator Luke Harding is taskedwith investigating why the local hospital has more and more patients dying thanever before. But when Luke and hisrobotic partner MALC discover DNA evidence linking Luke’s father to the crimes,Luke must confront his family’s past while finding out who the killer is beforeanyone else dies.

BloodBrother is the sixth installment of Malcolm Rose’s Traces mystery seriesfeaturing young Luke Harding. While Ihave not read the preceding stories, I found it easy to slip into the worldthat Rose has crafted. The series is gearedfor young adults and as a result the writing is simple and straightforward. This is probably a strength becausethis allows the story to move along quickly never allowing the tension toslacken. Rose does a very good job ofmaking his primary characters interesting. There isn’t a lot of character development beyond Luke however. His trials and tribulations have depth, buthis relationships aren’t a priority. Thereal story is in the chase and it is laid out quite well.

BloodBrother is definitely ideal for young readers who want some action andtechnology in there reading. And whilethe mystery isn’t very complex, it holds together well and should give adultreaders some quick entertainment as well. An enjoyable story.

The Beginners, by Rebecca Wolff

2011-10-02T10:08:00.002-04:00

TheBeginners
by, Rebecca Wolff
RiverheadHardcover, 2011
978-1594487996
304 pages

“I was standing there in my usual spotbehind to counter at the Top Hat Café, looking down, thinking about evil,buttering toast.”

The Beginners takes us into the life offifteen-year-old Ginger Pritt and her life growing up in a too-small town. While her best friend Cherry has taken tochasing boys, Ginger feels enslaved by her own innocence until the arrival of asophisticated couple from the city who take a keen interest in her. But who are they and why are they sointerested in her while so uninterested in the rest of the town?

The Beginners is supposed to be a dark,tragic, coming-of-age story for young Ginger. And for the first twenty pages or so it offers a promising start. The trouble is that the entire story goes absolutelynowhere. Worse than being unlikable,Ginger is unknowable. She acts asnothing other than an observer to events that crawl along with no tension andno forward momentum. It is as thoughWolff decided to recreate a journal of her own adolescence – a set of thoughtsand feelings that are far more gripping to the author than to anyone else. And no matter how many flowery descriptionsof what the room looked like and how much time Wollf spent glued to her thesaurus,The Beginners is never able to get beyond reading like an encyclopedia entry. While it may be true that a novel with a narratorwho is an observer can work quite well (ie, Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby) it requires that thecharacters she is observing be interesting and there be a change in either heror the people she is observing as a result of some kind of action. None of this happens in The Beginners. In addition,Wolff’s writing isn’t so much lyrical as it is overwritten. It doesn’t just feel like trudging throughsome girl’s diary – if feels like trudging through some uninteresting girl’sdiary who writes too much.

Frankly, The Beginners was both boring andpainful to read. There was nocoming-of-age. There was nosuspense. There was not a singleinteresting character in the whole story. Somehow, Wolff even managed to make a rape feel boring. No small feat. While there may be “a million stories in thenaked city,” that doesn’t mean that they are all interesting. This is one book not to waste your time on.

I receivedmy advanced copy of The Beginnersfrom the Goodreads Early Reviewer program.

Monday Quote: Albert Einstein

2011-09-26T08:43:00.000-04:00

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

-Albert Einstein

Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane

2011-09-25T15:51:00.001-04:00

Mystic River
by, Dennis Lehane
HarperCollins Publishers, 2001
978-0061827426
416 pages

RECOMMENDED!

“It had occurred to Sean once - on a bender about ten years before with some buddies, Sean and a bloodstream full of bourbon turning philosophical - that maybe they HAD gotten in that car. All three of them. And what they now thought of as their life was just a dream state. That all three of them were, in reality, still eleven-year-old boys trapped in some cellar, imagining what they'd become if they ever escaped and grew up.”

When three young boys in 1970s Boston encounter a pair of child molesters disguised as police officers, Jimmy Marcus and Sean Devine manage to get away. Their friend Dave Boyle isn’t so lucky and endures four days that change his life. Twenty-five years later the three boys will converge once again as men. When straightened-out ex-con Jimmy’s daughter is murdered, he and his violent friends vow to take revenge. Sean is a State Police detective who must try to solve the case while keeping Jimmy from doing anything rash while Sean’s own life is in tatters. Dave’s life is adrift in spite of a wife and child. He tries to suppress is ugly urges born of his childhood ordeal. But when Dave becomes a suspect in Katie Marcus’ murder, all of their lives crash together.

Mystic River is a story of many things. It is, of course, a murder mystery, and the violent murder drives the plot forward. However, the murder is only what throws the main characters’ lives back together. The story is really about the relationships of these three men and how class and circumstance can shape a person’s destiny as much as will. The tension between Jimmy and Sean – percolating since childhood – promises to undermine the search for Katie’s killer. The story spotlights how small choices can create huge consequences that nobody recognizes until long after the choice is made. Lehane also does a masterful job of painting the social situation of working-class Boston and the mindset of people growing up and growing old there.

Lehane’s writing draws out every nuance, every last emotion of each character. There is no dead space in the story. Every word builds on the others to create an authentic world that the reader can see, feel, taste and touch. Not only does he bring his characters’ relationships to life, he also creates a fantastic story within their very real world. Lehane doesn’t once tip his hand until it is the right time to do so. Even then, there is always another layer to the story. The mystery of the murder is so visceral…so real…that it is frightening in its authentic resolution. The irony of the final chapter is writing perfection.

There is a deep literary beauty, even within the darkness of Mystic River. If there is a standard by which modern character-driven stories should be measured, this is certainly one of the pinnacle works of the genre and should be on the reading list of anyone who treasures a realistic, crime-driven story. From the beginning paragraph until the last sentence, Mystic River never waivers once as a superb story.

Golf Fitness, by Karen Palacios-Jansen

2011-09-25T14:27:00.000-04:00

Golf Fitness
by, Karen Palacios-Jansen
Taylor Trade Publishing, 2011
978-1589796119
232 pages

RECOMMENDED!

For a long time, many believed that the game of golf had nothing to do with sports and athleticism. The emergence of Tiger Woods turned that thinking upside down as he showed what a focus on proper fitness and nutrition could give him a massive advantage over the rest of the golf world. Today, all of the pros on the PGA Tour recognize this as an indisputable fact, but it is also becoming apparent that all golfers can benefit from proper physical fitness and nutrition. Golf Fitness brings all of the current knowledge and research together in one concise package that golfers of any ability can understand.

As a point of full disclosure, I took up the game of golf at the age of 5 and went on to earn a golf scholarship to college where I was the team captain for 3 years. So I know a thing or two about the game of golf. As a result, I come into any publication with a certain level of skepticism. However, Palacios-Jansen and the team at Golf Fitness Magazine have hit a preverbal hole-in-one with Golf Fitness.

The book is divided into sections. The first chapters help you evaluate what your swing problems are and what weaknesses may be causing them. It then moves into different types of exercises that can correct the weaknesses and help to provide the functional strength and flexibility to swing the club properly. In addition, there are several workout programs from top professionals, nutritional guidelines and steps to help improve your mental outlook on the golf course as well.

Golf Fitness represents a consolidated approach to improving your golf game, not though gimmicks, but with professionally tested methods based on current scientific research and field tested on the biggest golf tournaments in the world. My only regret about Golf Fitness is that it didn’t exist 25 years ago when it could have helped me most. Even so, it has the information to help all golfers improve their game no matter their age or ability. A must have for any golf enthusiast.

My advance copy of Golf Fitness was provided by the LibraryThing Early Reviewer Program.

The Passage, by Justin Cronin

2011-09-23T16:32:00.000-04:00

The Passage

by, Justin Cronin
Ballantine Books (2010)
978-0345504968
766 pages

RECOMMENDED!

When the US Army finds a terrible secret buried in jungles of South America, they decide that it could be the perfect weapon against their enemies. But when the weapon turns out to be uncontrollable and is unleashed on the entire world, all but a few survivors become targets for an army of undead led by the results of scientific experimentation – the Twelve. Only a maverick FBI agent and a six-year old orphan may have the answer to what has lain siege to the world…if they can survive long enough to find the answers.

“In her mind's eye she saw it, saw it all at last: the rolling armies and the flames of battle; the graves and pits and dying cries of a hundred million souls; the spreading darkness, like a black wing stretching over the earth; the last, bitter hours of cruelty and sorrow, and the terrible, final flights; death's great dominion over all, and, at the last, empty cities, becalmed by the silence of a hundred years. Already these things were coming to pass.”

Given the plenitude of vampire books these days, I have to say I was pretty hesitant to pick up The Passage at first. I had been the victim of the hype machine before (The Historian, 2.0 stars) and I wasn’t in a big hurry to get bogged down in another 800+ page snooze-fest again. Fortunately, Justin Cronin came to the rescue with a unique spin on the apocalyptic tale.

Cronin ventures headlong into an end of the world scenario when the government unknowing unleashes an undead army on America. But rather than turn The Passage into a war-of-the-worlds epic, Cronin focuses on the few humans to escape the carnage, sprinkling news of what was happening in the rest of the country in small secondhand doses. While so many vampire novels are all about the vampires, The Passage is all about the humans. Cronin doesn’t overwhelm the story with a massive cast. He populates the story with just the right number of engaging characters that are neither cliché nor boring. None of the characters get a glossing over. Each one jumps off the page and feels real and alive…even as they face death.

The writing itself is superb. The plot is both expansive and intimately human. It is a really refreshing take on the vampire mythology in a modern context. With the exception of a bit of a lull in the middle part of the book, the story moved along well and kept the pages turning one after the other. Every time it seemed I knew how things were going to go, the landscape changed and I was even more engaged in the story. It was “unputdownable” for the last two hundred pages. Finally, the ending left me yearning for more – which is a good thing considering this is the first volume of an anticipated trilogy. I have to say that I completely enjoyed this book and can’t wait for the next installment to come out. Highly recommended!

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Anatomy of a Disappearance, by Hisham Matar

2011-09-23T15:52:00.000-04:00

Anatomy of a Disappearance

by, Hisham Matar
Random House, 2011
978-0385340441
256 pages

When a young arab boy, Nuri, loses his mother to illness, he and his dissident father must emotionally support each other in their apartment in Cairo. However, bikini-clad Mona arrives in their lives, and Nuri must watch as his advances go unnoticed and she falls in love with his father. But when Nuri’s father disappears under mysterious circumstances, Nuri must come to grips with his relationships with his father and Mona while trying to find his own place in the world.

Hisham Matar does a good job of painting the world of Nuri el-Alfi, an adolescent Arab boy living in Cairo whose mother has died and father is an exiled confidant of a murdered King. Matar frames the circumstances of Nuri’s existence and lends emotional depth to him and his longings. Matar’s writing is very readable, in fact quite comfortable. Unfortunately, the story languishes after the initial setup. Anatomy of a Disappearance could have turned into either a thriller or a coming-of-age story, but it doesn’t do either one. Matar stops short of allowing the reader to really understand Nuri and he doesn’t provide depth to any of the other characters. Nuri is an observer who isn’t very observant surrounded by people who don’t say much of anything. So many questions are left unanswered that they story loses any emotional weight.

While Nuri says that he misses his father and wishes he would come back, he really doesn’t do anything to try and uncover any truths. The few nuggets of information Nuri does find out just fall in his lap. While Matar’s writing is lyrical and his scenes are beautifully constructed, by the time we reach the ending, the most important plot question remains untouched and the story concludes with a "twist" that really doesn't have much punch for either Nuri or the reader. Anatomy of a Disappearance begins as a promising seed, but Matar fails to harvest a ripe story leaving the reader to watch it wither on the vine neglected.

The Ranger, by Ace Atkins

2011-09-23T15:06:00.001-04:00

The Ranger

by, Ace Atkins
Putnam, 2011
978-0399157486
352 pages

When Army Ranger Quinn Colson journeys home to the small town of Jericho, Mississippi for the funeral of his uncle, the sheriff, he finds far more questions than answers waiting. His uncle’s death is listed as a suicide, but some think it is murder. Corruption has seized the town as the greed of commercial development has allowed drug runners and swindlers to take over. Quinn becomes embroiled in a conflict to save his uncle’s property and finds out he can trust almost nobody. It is time for the Ranger to take a stand.

The proof copy of The Ranger makes it clear that this is the beginning of a series built around the character of Quinn Colson. Atkins does a nice job of creating an environment and populating it with interesting characters. He paints a stark portrait of rural Mississippi that feels authentic. Atkins also creates some very engaging characters, but he seems so focused on Quinn that the other characters get left underdeveloped. The storytelling moves along at a good, clean pace, never slowing the story. However, the dialog seems to lurch along at times in an attempt to give it an ‘authentic voice.’ But these are small criticisms.

The herculean problem with The Ranger lies with its main character. Quinn Colson is set up as the tough as nails solder with a heart of gold. Right from the start he goes out of his way to help a lost, broke, pregnant woman on the side of the road as reinforcement to this image. However, he contradicts himself throughout the rest of the story. There is little attempt to explain why Quinn would do the things that he does. Quinn motivation for undertaking his unorthodox mission only makes sense as the retelling of every spaghetti western told since the days of black and white television - he is the good guy and he is fighting the bad guys. That’s enough, right?

Quinn refuses an offer to buy his uncle’s land because it has been in his family’s name for generations, even though he has no intention of moving back to the town and he doesn’t seem to like anyone in his family. His friends, family and even perfect strangers are never once in any kind of jeopardy until Quinn makes a point to put them there. Why? Because we can’t have a hero if there isn’t any conflict…even if he is the one creating it. But it gets worse. One moment Quinn is deep in thought about how as a platoon sergeant he had to show restraint and be a father figure to his men. To be a professional. The next moment he is gleefully wounding the bad guys with a compound bow. Yes, I said wounding! Yes, I said gleefully! I have family members who are both Army Rangers and law enforcement and I can tell you that is not something they are trained to do…or would ever do. And they certainly wouldn’t do it like this:

“Two Cracking shots. A man yelled.

Quinn smiled. Boom was having a time, having found the right spot for the deer rifle, loaded, balanced and sighted right down the path…

Quinn took a breath and steadied himself, letting the string go and zipping an arrow right into Gowrie’s shoulder blade, knocking him forward and then backwards to his knees, the AK chattering away up into the laced branches overhead.

Quinn smiled again and reached for another arrow.”

As if to emphasize the point, few moments later we get Quinn shooting a man in the groin. This might be the way somebody might dream of taking revenge on someone and attempting to scare them off, but it isn’t the way a trained solder operates, much less a veteran Army Ranger. Atkins also manages to paint everyone in law enforcement as inept or corrupt. We even get the quintessential Tombstone-esc scene with the big showdown in the middle of town where real law enforcement has run for cover and only Quinn and his buddies can come and save the day. The whole story becomes cliché and simply topples like a house of cards, complete with an unsatisfying ending.

The Ranger is built off of the grand storytelling history of the lone good guy vs. the corrupt town full of bad guys. It is a template that has provided many great stories. While the writing itself is good, the hero and his motivation are so unbelievable that the story simply falls apart.

The Strip, by J.J. Salem

2011-09-23T14:14:00.000-04:00

The Strip
by, J.J. Salem
St. Martin's Griffin, 2011
978-0312374181
304 pages

Sin City has always had its own rules and morality. So when three wealthy, highly successful women find that the answer to their unfulfilling marriages is to engage the services of a sophisticated male prostitute, there is nothing shocking about it. But when he ends up murdered, the question becomes who did it and who might be next.

The Strip centers on the lives of Kristen (a best-selling author), Billie (Vegas’ quintessential song-and-dance maven) and Jennifer (the marriage counselor) along with their hired hunk Cam Lawford. All four of these characters are compelling and create quite a dynamic between them. Even though Cam is far too perfect to be real, he serves his function in the story in a James Bond manner. However, the rest of the characters are so cliché they could be made of cardboard. Kristen and Billie’s husbands are so simplistically evil as to be caricatures of villains – very nearly comic rather than threatening. Only Jennifer’s transgressions against her misunderstood husband come across as authentic and understandable.

The most troublesome part of The Strip is the plot. It spits and sputters along without ever building towards a conclusion. The murder is foretold in the first chapter along with introducing an interesting detective who is then completely forgotten for the rest of the book. Conflicts are stilted and only seem to fill the gaps between flamboyant sex scenes where Cam always says and does the right thing and never steps over any lines. Finally, the conclusion is haphazard. With so little tension built throughout the story, there is nothing to be released at the end. While The Strip may serve as a fantasy session for women who want to imagine being swept up by that perfect guy (even if you have to pay for it) there is very little story to engage the reader.

The Strip was provided by St. Martin’s Press through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

Dominance, by Will Lavender

2011-09-23T11:10:00.000-04:00

Dominance
by, Will Lavender
Simon & Schuster, 2011
978-1451617290
368 pages

Fifteen years ago, convicted murderer Richard Aldiss is inexplicably allowed to teach a class at Jasper College via video feed. The class – Unraveling a Literary Mystery – provides Aldiss the opportunity to engage his students in the search for the real identity of Paul Fallows, a reclusive author of two published novels – The Coil and The Golden Silence. In order to unlock the key though, Fallows scholars much play The Procedure, a game where everyone slips into the characters of the stories, but you never know when it might begin. Student Alex Shipley not only unearths the true identity of Fallows, but exonerated Aldiss in the process. Fifteen years later, alums of the class are being murdered and surrounded by Fallows novels. The police think Shipley can help them catch the killer, but can she figure it out before more of her former classmates are killed?

While the premise of Dominance is interesting, even early in the story the sheer weight of contrived circumstances necessary for the story to happen really fails the believability test. In trying to weave a tale of literary clues and real crime together, Lavender has built a cardboard façade with nothing standing behind it. The characters act more like props than people, taking actions with no motivation or even common sense behind them. Even more egregious, the primary supposition that literary scholars would participate in such a fraternity style game in the name of learning some hidden scholarly secret flies in the face of the real academic world. There simply is no reason why anyone would do the things that these people do. After that, everything else seems cartoonish and the characters just go through the motions. As a result, there is no tension to what is supposed to be a tension filled murder mystery.

In addition, the primary character of Alex Shipley is so annoying and unlikeable that I spent the second half of the book hoping that she would be the next victim and we could just move on. Finally, in an attempt to hit the reader with the big “gotcha” at the end, the actual killer is completely contrived and the entire story ends with a lot of head scratching and a big snore.

While Lavender’s writing is quite good, in Dominance he severely overreaches on the plot and fails to build a convincing story. If you are looking for a good murder mystery, you need to look elsewhere.

The early review copy of Dominance was provided by the publisher through the Goodreads Giveaway program.

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Monday Quote: Oliver Wendell Holmes

2011-08-22T09:23:00.000-04:00

"You know well enough what I mean by youth and age;--something in the soul, which has no more to do with the color of the hair than the vein of gold in a rock has to do with the grass a thousand feet above it." ~ The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Wednesday Word: amaranthine

2011-08-10T07:35:00.000-04:00

amaranthine

1. Unfading; everlasting.

2. Of or like the amaranth flower.

3. Of purplish-red color.

Origin:

Amaranthine is a form of the Greek amarantos, "everlasting," ascribed to an imaginary flower that never fades.

Source: courtesy of dictionary.com

Final Approach, by Rachel Brady

2011-07-09T16:54:00.000-04:00

Final Approach

by, Rachel Brady
Poison Pen Press, 2009
978-1615950140
250 pages

RECOMMENDED!

When Emily Locke is called by Richard Cole, the detective turned PI who investigated the death of her husband and daughter four years earlier, she is in no hurry to help him. When she finds out she gets to fly to Houston and engage in her passion for sky-diving while helping to check a lead in a child abduction case, Emily decides that this is a good excuse for a vacation. What Emily quickly discovers is that the lead is very real , but she is unsure of who she can actually trust. The stakes increase as Emily finds out that along with a missing child there is also the possibility of learning the truth about her own family’s tragic end. But the search for the truth could cost her life…and potentially even more.

Rachel Brady’s debut mystery novel Final Approach brings us into the life of chemist Emily Locke, who is unwittingly dropped into the pursuit of a baby abduction ring that might have ties to her past. Written from the first-person perspective of Emily, the story delves into the world of skydiving where we learn all about “boogies” and “cutaway chutes.” Fortunately, it isn’t just a skydiving education that Final Approach provides. It is also a very well written mystery. Brady provides Emily an authentic voice that is both human and endearing. Emily doesn’t have all of the answers – in fact she doesn’t even know a lot of the questions – but she learns and makes mistakes in a way that readers can relate to. She is no superhero, but that doesn’t prevent her from making a heroic stand. Brady does a fantastic job introducing the other characters and keeping the reader guessing as to whether they are someone Emily can confide in or someone she needs to run away from.

Brady doesn’t spend very much time painting picturesque scenes. Final Approach is very much a character and plot driven chase. At 250 pages, the story moves quickly and leads into a succession of twists and turns that work so well. Brady keeps you hanging on for the ride right up to the last page. A very satisfying story from a promising, gifted writer. I can’t wait to read her next story. Mystery fans should check this one out.

The Reversal, by Michael Connelly

2011-06-03T00:02:00.000-04:00

The Reversal

by, Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Co., 2010
978-0316069489
389 pages

RECOMMENDED!

What could possibly cause lifelong defense attorney Mickey Haller to jump the isle and become a special prosecutor on a 24-year-old case? It would take nothing short of the impending release of a child murderer, Jason Jessup. With the DA’s office in shame and the public believing that DNA evidence has exonerated an innocent man, Haller makes it clear that he will do it – but only do it on his terms. Those terms include him ignoring the posturing of the political-minded district attorney as well as enlisting the only two people he can trust – his half-brother LAPD Detective Harry Bosch and Mickey’s ex-wife, Assistant District Attorney Maggie McPherson. But the road won’t be easy. Between a crafty defendant, a slick, media savvy defense attorney, a no-nonsense judge and a star witness who can’t be found, Haller’s team is going to have to pull off a miracle to keep a man who they are sure will kill again from gaining his freedom.

This is Michael Connelly’s fourth installment with Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer, The Brass Verdict, Nine Dragons) and 16^th featuring Harry Bosch. Even though I had not read any of Michael Connelly’s previous novels, I was immediately sucked right into the story. Connelly hits on just enough of each character’s history to keep the reader informed, but he never slows the story down. The characters truly come alive as this unlikely team tries to piece together a 24-year-old mystery and Connelly’s skillful scene setting and characterization makes for an entertaining ride. He is even able to make the stodgy innards of an arraignment courtroom interesting:

“Presiding over this anthill was Judge Malcolm Firestone, who sat with his head down and his sharp shoulders jutting up and closer to his ears with each passing year. His black robe gave them the appearance of folded wings and the overall image was one of Firestone as a vulture waiting impatiently to dine on the bloody detritus of the justice system.”

Connelly brings equal precision to the police procedures taking place under the watchful eye of Harry Bosch. Tensions flare between the half-brothers as Bosch’s pursuit of Jessup’s new life becomes personal and threatens to upset Haller’s chances of a conviction while Bosch suspects that the DA’s office is only interested in heading off a multi-million dollar civil suite at the expense of justice. I was rewarded throughout the book with subtle changes of direction rather than complete reversals, right up to the unexpected conclusion. And while the story is an exhilarating journey, it is never outlandish or contrived. Sometimes the biggest surprises were when the expected switch didn’t happen. It is a lesson to aspiring crime writers everywhere. But the biggest reward was the characters that were brought to life so skillfully that the story had the feel of something lifted right out of today’s headlines.

There is no doubt after reading The Reversal that Michael is a master storyteller and a premier crime fiction writer at the top of his game. It has motivated me to go back and read all of his earlier works to see just how much I have been missing. I highly recommend this book to all crime and legal aficionados. One of the best I have read in a long time.

Death at La Fenice, by Donna Leon

2011-05-14T20:26:00.000-04:00

Death at La Fenice

by, Donna Leon
HarperCollins, 1992
978-0060740689
270 pages

“Beautiful and serene Venice is a city almost devoid of crime. But that is little comfort to Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor whose intermission refreshment comes one night with a little something extra in it-cyanide. For Guido Brunetti, vice-commissario of police and detective genius, finding a suspect isn't a problem; narrowing the large and unconventional group of enemies down to one is. As the suave and pithy Brunetti pieces together clues, a shocking picture of depravity and revenge emerges, leaving him torn between what is and what should be right — and questioning what the law can do, and what needs to be done.”

Donna Leon’s detective series featuring Guido Brunetti now spans twenty volumes with a devoted readership and millions in print. Written in 1992, Death at La Fenice is the first in the series, taking place in the showpiece city of Venice, Italy. When a famous conductor dies in the middle of a performance, Brunetti is called in to investigate the murder. Under pressure to solve the very high-profile crime, Brunetti quickly discovers that Maestro Helmut is surrounded by potential suspects with both opportunity and motive to do him in. Helmut also has a secret past from his time in Nazi Germany – and some people haven’t forgotten.

In spite of being written almost twenty years ago, Death at La Fenice does not feel dated. Leon’s is able to set the mood of every scene, evoking powerful images while her characters fill the pages with crisp dialog. While not in any way flashy, Guido Brunetti serves as a convincing hero. The story flows well but there were times when it did become a bit sluggish. Death at La Fenice is a mystery –an intellectual pursuit – devoid of perilous action or imminent danger, much in the vein of Agatha Christie. Even so, the pacing became a bit too plodding. Leon may not employ the amount of action or sex commonly seen in current detective novel, but perhaps that is her whole point. There is a subtlety to Brunetti that is the antithesis of the gritty, flawed detectives of so many other mainsteam detective series. Brunetti represents a strength of character that I did find both fascinating and compelling. Most importantly, I never reached the point of being bored, right up to the unexpected ending.

Death at La Fenice does have me ordering the next book in the series to see where Guido Brunetti takes us next. That is the mark of a compelling series – one book propels you into the next. A worthy read for detective fans.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

2011-04-24T21:13:00.000-04:00

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by, Stieg Larsson

Knopf Doubleday, 2008

978-0307272119

426 pages

RECOMMENDED!

Financial writer and publisher Mikael Blomkvist has seen better days. His reputation is in tatters and he is headed to jail. All Mikael wants to do is disappear for a while. But when the aging industrialist Henrik Vanger wants to hire Mikael to research a crime from a half century before, he dangles the one incentive that Mikael can’t say no too – redemption. To further complicate matters, his eccentric new partner Lisbeth Salander may or may not be on his side. Mikael soon finds out that the price of redemption might be more than he is willing to pay, and could even cost him his life.

This opening salvo in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy – translated from the original Swedish – draws the reader in from the very beginning. Larsson does what every good thriller writer must by creating a scenario that is both fantastic and believable at the same time. But he goes beyond most writers by bringing to life intricately detailed characters without ever allowing the story to bog down in minutia. This is a rare ability immerses the reader into this world to the point where it becomes its own reality. There are many subplots throughout the story, and yet Larsson never strays even once from his primary goal – to tell a great story. In fact, the crescendo of the story came with more than 100 pages to go…or so I thought. Little did I know there was so much more to tell and I was riveted all the way until the end. The action is never cliché and there are enough twists to keep you ferociously reading without it ever becoming unbelievable. Larsson walks that tightrope as well as any action writer can and produces a wonderful story.

This is without a doubt one of the best books I've read in quite a while. I am very much looking forward to reading the next installment. No matter what your favorite genre might be, I highly recommend picking this book up.

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Zero Day, by Mark Russinovich

2011-04-23T20:47:00.000-04:00

Zero Day
by, Mark Russinovich
St. Martin’s Press, 2011

978-0312612467

320 pages

“An insidious cyber-terrorist attack threatens to destroy the Western World in this debut by a leading expert on cybersecurity

Over the Atlantic, an airliner’s controls suddenly stop reacting. In Japan, an oil tanker runs aground when its navigational system fails. And in the Midwest, a nuclear power plant nearly becomes the next Chernobyl.

At first, these computer failures seem unrelated. But Jeff Aiken, a former government analyst who saw the mistakes made before 9/11, fears that there may be a more serious attack coming. And he soon realizes that there isn’t much time if he hopes to stop an international disaster.”

Drawing on a distinguished career in the computer world that included being one of the top dogs at Microsoft, Mark Russinovich has turned his experience with cybersecurity into a save-the-world thriller. The novel’s premise of terrorists using computers and the Internet to stage the next great offensive against the western world is both plausible and frightening. And while Russinovich has a more thorough grasp of the methods by which such an attack is possible, he fails to deliver a convincing story. The first two-thirds of the book reads more like a technical position paper rather than a thriller. Russinovich spends virtually all of his time engaged in dialog between geeks discussing about how all these bad things can actually happen. After a hundred pages of it, I just stopped paying attention to all of the minutia. It reads like the kinds of conversations I’m sure the computer geeks sit around and have every day after work. Russinovich even provides us conversations in “geekeese” to try and decipher.

“JA33: Thr ws 1 gy tlling anthr abt sllng packgs and triggrs. Gttng good $ fr t.
D007: Any nme we knw?
JA33: Superphreak. He’s hndlng t rtkits, slick bstrd.
D007: Gv me t site. I’ll put smn on it fulltm.”

I’m not sure what is more frightening – that people actually communicate like this or that Russinovich felt readers needed to be subjected to it. And when the action final began so very late in the novel, he used every over-the-top thriller cliché without any sense of realism or even common sense. I couldn’t help but laugh at how silly it all became. Even the supposed “twist” at the end fell flat. By then, I just couldn’t have cared less.

Ultimately, Zero Day takes a very real and very frightening modern day threat and turns it into something as boring as reading stereo instructions. The geeks might run the world and the Internet might be the death of us all, but after reading Zero Day, it appears nobody will give a damn when the end comes.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Then Came the Evening, by Brian Hart

2011-04-23T19:04:00.000-04:00

Then Came the Evening

by, Brian Hart

Bloomsbury USA, 2009
978-1608190140
272 pages

Bandy Dorner was a hard drinking, hard fighting man when he went to prison for murdering a police officer. Eighteen years later, he is a broken man with deteriorating health. Now as he is about to be released, he finds out he has a teenage son, Tracy, who wants to discover who his father is. Tracy’s mother Iona has never been there for her son, but when Tracy is severely injured, Bandy and Iona find themselves returning to the small rural Idaho town where it all began and ended so badly only to discover that the place they once knew was as changed as they were.

Then Came the Evening is a tragic character sketch of a dysfunctional family that can’t set the past aside to embrace the second chances they have been given. Brian Hart tells the story with a gritty, edgy voice which lends credibility to the harsh Idaho backcountry where clashes between new and old are frequent and sometimes violent. Much of the story revolves around Bandy and his fitful attempts to restart life as a free man when he can’t remember what life outside of prison is.

Not everything in Then Came the Evening works well. At times the dialog is stilted. Some of the descriptions become ponderous as Hart veers off course attempting to highlight a point. However, he writes with a certain patience that is refreshing. Rather than beat you over the head with turmoil, he allows the strain of their tragic lives to boil up slowly. As a character-driven novel, it took some time for the characters to actually come alive, but I found that the story really hit its stride in the second half of the book. In the end I found it to be a quite enjoyable book and a worthy read from a first-time author who should be watched for in the future.

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri

2011-04-22T16:08:00.000-04:00

Unaccustomed Earth

by, Jhumpa Lahiri

Vintage Contemporaries, 2009

978-0307278258

333 pages

“In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories–a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate–we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.”

Frankly, I have a love/hate relationship with Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories – Unaccustomed Earth. On the one hand, her lyrical writing style and subtle characterizations are absorbing. She brings to life the Indian-American immigrant lifestyle of New England as few other authors can. She leads us into a culture that is difficult for outsiders to understand. However, the stories themselves really fail to capture interest. They read more like the diary entries rather than a coherent, fully formed collection of stories. While I enjoyed certain stories, others left me with nothing. Taken as a whole, the book really didn’t deliver a conclusive journey in the vein of more powerful short story collections such as Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout (5-stars) and The Boat, by Nam Lee (4-stars). While the writing itself is well executed, it really didn’t take me anywhere.

If you are interested in Indian immigrant culture and enjoy subtle character-based reads, this may very well provide you what you are looking for. But if you are looking for powerful storytelling or a story that takes you someplace, you need to look elsewhere.

A Thousand Bones, by P.J. Parrish

2011-04-22T15:50:00.000-04:00

A Thousand Bones

by, P.J. Parrish

Pocket, 2007
978-1416525875

470 pages

RECOMMENDED!

“A woman cop.

A haunting memory....

The only female detective in the Miami PD's Homicide division, Joe Frye has memories that haunt her, and a past that not even her lover, detective Louis Kincaid, truly knows. It began when Joe was an ambitious rookie cop in a small Michigan town called Echo Bay....

The bones found in the woods were the first clue in a string of unimaginably brutal murders of young women. Plunged into a heated investigation -- and caught between the dictates of a reluctant local sheriff and the state police -- Joe soon uncovers the chilling truth: In the dead of winter in the Michigan woods, she must face down a predator who has chosen her as a worthy opponent -- or become his next victim.”

The sister team of Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols (who write under the pen name of P.J. Parrish) bring us the eighth installment of their bestselling Louis Kincaid detective series. However, unlike the previous installments, this one focuses on the past life of his lover and fellow Miami Homicide detective Joe Frye. The haunting memories of an investigation in a small northern Michigan town as a rookie cop. The memories of an investigation that changed her forever.

A Thousand Bones begins with an investigation into a few scattered bones in the woods of a peaceful community and spirals into a series of brutal murders and the pursuit of a chilling serial killer. The tension is built seamlessly and each of the characters is crafted with an authentic, individual voice. The character of Joe Frye is alive on the page and I felt like I actually knew her as a person in the end, not just as a character that lived through a horrific investigation.

One of the best parts of A Thousand Bones is that the action is subtle. It refrains from overt, over-the-top explosiveness, instead using a genuine level of realism often reserved for true-crime stories. This reliance on the reader to fill in some of the blanks themselves is lacking in much current fiction, but takes this work to a much higher level. It works so well that I had no problem being absorbed into the story from start to finish.

Even though A Thousand Bones is the eighth book in the series, it makes a great stand-alone work and a wonderful way to be introduced to what P.J. Parrish detective novels have to offer. I highly recommend this book.

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Dead or Alive, by Tom Clancy

2011-04-22T15:17:00.000-04:00

Dead or Alive
by, Tom Clancy
Penguin Group (USA), 2010

978-0399157233

950 pages

RECOMMENDED!

“For years, Jack Ryan, Jr. and his colleagues at the Campus have waged an unofficial and highly effective campaign against the terrorists who threaten western civilization. The most dangerous of these is the Emir. This sadistic killer has masterminded the most vicious attacks on the west and has eluded capture by the world’s law enforcement agencies. Now the Campus is on his trail. Joined by their latest recruits, John Clark and Ding Chavez, Jack Ryan, Jr. and his cousins, Dominick and Brian Caruso, are determined to catch the Emir and they will bring him in . . . dead or alive.”

It has been seven long years since Tom Clancy's last Jack Ryan techno-thriller, The Teeth of the Tiger. Much speculation has surrounded the long writing layoff of one of the bestselling authors of all time. No matter the reason, 2010 has seen the return of Jack Ryan and Co in Dead or Alive. Picking up where Tiger left off, Dead or Alive is quintessential Tom Clancy with highly developed, relatable characters and a complex, multi-layered plot that doesn't tip its hand until the very end. One of the biggest complaints many readers have with Clancy novels is the technical nature of much of his writing. However, the layoff must have given him time to refine his technique, because Dead or Alive contains very little of the notorious Clancy "techno-drag." The book moves along at a brisk pace and kept me engaged from start to finish. Tom Clancy shows that he has lost none of his storytelling chops with Dead or Alive, which brought back reading memories of his classic Jack Ryan novels The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games. This is one of Clancy’s best stories and was well worth the wait. I encourage you to pick up.

Dead or Alive also represents the very first book purchase for my new Nook that I received for Christmas. I will have a review of this device in a future blog post, but suffice it to say that it is fantastic!

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The Confirmation, by Ralph Reed

2011-04-22T09:30:00.000-04:00

The Confirmation

by, Ralph Reed

Fidelis Publishing, 2010

978-1433669248

432 pages

“The newly elected U.S. president Bob Long is weighing reports of nuclear weapons in Iran when he learns Justice Peter Corbin Franklin, 86-year-old liberal conscience of the Supreme Court, has suffered a massive stroke. With pressing same-sex marriage and abortion laws as well as a huge antitrust case on the court's docket, the door is open for Long to appoint a conservative replacement, repaying the twenty-one million evangelicals who voted for him.

But it won't be that easy. Long suffers a series of political missteps while his court nominee, Marco Diaz, endures vicious character accusations in the media for his religious beliefs and rumors of a tragic past.”

The Confirmation is a political thriller with simply no thrills. Contrived dialog, ravenous clichés and a plot bordering (or not) on ridiculous creates a tiring narrative. Most of Reed’s time seemed to be spent on setting scenes instead of moving the story. He spent copious amounts of the book identifying every article of clothing of every single character...in excruciating detail. The plot itself requires everyone to be so ignorant of everything going on around them as to be farcical. The result...The Confirmation fails to entertain and is at times simply painful to read. If you have an interest in political intrigue, there are literally hundreds of better written books for you to choose from including The Whole Truth, by David Baldacci (4 stars, Recommended). Short of that, you might be better served turning on C-SPAN.

I received this book as part of the LibraryThing early reviewer program.

Deliver Us From Evil, by David Baldacci

2010-10-26T13:34:00.000-04:00

Deliver Us From Evil
David Baldacci
Grand Central Publishing, 2010

9780446564083

416 pages

“Why do you need that?”
“Because I want to make sure I stop the pain before I kill you, of course.”
Abdul-Majeed tensed and began to chant under his breath.
“So your god is great, Abdul-Majeed?” said Waller, translating the words. “We will see how great he is to you.”

The mysterious super-operative known as Shaw is back to face an even more deadly foe in Deliver Us From Evil. Fresh off of Baldacci’s The Whole Truth (4.0 stars, Recommended) he finds himself tasked with bringing in monstrous Evan Waller, a businessman who’s dealing in sexual slavery and nuclear material has him in the crosshairs of Shaw’s organization. But there is far more to Evan Waller than Shaw knows. Shaw also doesn’t realize that he is not the only one targeting Waller and not everyone has the same agenda that he does. They all come together in the quiet French town of Provence, as everything quickly falls apart.

As always, Baldacci sets his scenes beautifully and provides his trademark sharp dialog. The action is intense at times, but the story lacks the punch of a great thriller relying on dramatic scenes instead of building the tension continuously. There is a feel of inevitability to the first half of the book, with a culmination that is quite predictable. The second half of the book is disjointed and at times feels likes some of the story that should have been there had been cut out of the book. And while the characters are interesting, they often feel too one-dimensional and I didn’t really feel any emotional tie to them.

The ending had some interesting twists, but it really didn’t engage me in the way The Whole Truth did. The characters seemed more clichéd on the second trip around and I’m not nearly as courteous about what happens to them next as I feel I should. That said, the book is very readable and I never felt bored. It’s a good story, but not a great one. I’m hoping for much better from Baldacci with this series the next time.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Monday Quote: Ruth

2010-10-25T07:02:00.000-04:00

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up."

-Babe Ruth

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The Whisperers, by John Connolly

2010-10-19T20:23:00.000-04:00

The Whisperers
John Connolly
Atria, 2010
9781439165195
416 pages

RECOMMENDED!

“‘Oh, little one,’ he whispered, as he gently stroked her cheek, the first time he had touched her in fifteen years. ‘What have they done to you? What have they done to us all?’ ”

The border region between Maine and Canada becomes a dark and dangerous place in John Connolly’s latest thriller featuring private detective Charlie Parker – The Whisperers. But there seems to be more at work among the cool forests than just treacherous former solders as voices of a paranormal nature are said to be directing things. While this adds additional tension to the story, The Whisperers is first and foremost a detective novel. Charlie Parker has become a well-worn detective by the time of this ninth installment in the series. Even so, the book reads well as a stand-alone work, with only minor references to the previous stories. Connolly never lets the tension slack from the first paragraph to the last sentence. His writing wastes no momentum with clean imagery and engaging characters throughout. The entire story feels very realistic as the allegiances of the characters are never completely clear, leading to one dramatic scene after another as the story builds to its startling climax.

Some readers of detective novels might balk at the idea of the paranormal in the story. However, Connolly does a wonderful job of ensuring reasonable doubt from beginning to end. The characters are the drivers of the action and there is plenty of it. The dialogue is crisp and authentic and many of the characters are as genuinely interesting as the protagonist – at least until they meet an untimely end. There is no letup in the story and I cruised though it from start to finish. In the end, I wanted even more. I finished the book and began looking to find copies of the first eight books in the series –a fitting compliment for any work.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke

2010-07-22T11:25:00.000-04:00

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England
Brock Clarke
Algonquin, 2007
978-1565125513
320 pages

Every so often, a book grabs your attention with the opening sentence and holds you all the way to the last period. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of those books. Brock Clarke’s attempt at a quirky, humorous series of misfortunes simply fails to achieve the most important goal of any story – making the reader care about the story.

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England is the rambling diatribe of a hapless – in fact, clueless – self described ‘everyman’ who can’t help being railroaded for crimes he didn’t commit. Clarke foreshadows almost everything that is going to happen to Sam Pulsifer within the first 30 pages, so there is no mystery or tension to propel the reader along. There is an inevitability to everything that happens to Sam and he has no interest in even participating in his own life, blind to what is going on around him only because he has his hand over his own eyes. The entire plot is such a quagmire it prevents the story from being anything other than a bore. In addition to the entire story being uninteresting, the prose is grating. Told from Sam’s perspective, it is an annoying internal dialog where he consistently demonstrates that he is incapable of completing a full sentence without wandering off to some other topic. After about two chapters of this I was not only frustrated with reading it, I didn’t care about what happened to any of the characters, especially Sam. Listening to him tell his story I quickly understood why he didn’t have any friends and nobody wanted to talk to him about anything. Even Sam is uninterested in himself, which leaves anyone reading his story wondering why we should be interested in him either.

I’m not sure if Clarke was attempting to paint a picture of what it is like inside the mind of a hopeless victim of life. But whether it was or not, the story really missed the mark and only succeeded in making me wish I had purchased something else to read.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith

2010-07-19T19:30:00.000-04:00

Child 44
Tom Rob Smith
Hatchet, 2008
978-0446402385
439 pages

RECOMMENDED!

“There is no crime.”

The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin is a paradise. To contradict that is to risk immediate death. The only fear the average citizen has is a healthy fear of the state. To that end, citizens will turn in their neighbor rather than risk being linked to them. To witness a crime is to possibly be imprisoned for being a part of it. This is the world of state security investigator Leo Demidov. A hero of the Soviet Union, Leo knows better than anyone what will cost you your freedom and even your life. Yet it is into the face of that very system Leo goes in pursuit of something unknown in the USSR…a serial killer.

There are plenty of serial killer novels on the shelves these days, but Tom Rob Smith manages to bring a new twist on the genre in Child 44. By dropping this killer into the 1950's Soviet Union of Stalin, Smith creates an environment where the investigation of a murderer is even more dangerous for the investigator than it is for the murderer. Smith does a wonderful job of painting the world of fear that existed in and around Moscow in that era - where simply saying the wrong word to the wrong person can mean death. Smith does an outstanding job portraying the Soviet state as it existed when Stalin ruled with an iron fist. The novel does drag a bit through the opening chapters losing momentum to some unimportant scene setting. However, the payoff is well worth the time. The story really takes off and culminates with a well done conclusion. Smith’s writing is very readable and his characters are both unique and complex. Tom Rob Smith is a worthy addition to the list of great story tellers. I recommend Child 44 for anyone with interest in crime thrillers set within an authentic historic period.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The Archimedes Codex, by Reviel Netz & William Noel

2010-07-19T17:35:00.000-04:00

The Archimedes Codex
Reviel Netz, William Noel
Da Capo Press, 2009
978-0306817373
336 pages

In 1998 a battered manuscript was won at auction for two million dollars by an anonymous buyer. It was a palimpsest – a book that was made from the pages stripped from earlier works where the earlier words were scrapped off and a new text was written over it. This was common practice in medieval times when paper was a valuable commodity. The book that was purchased was a simple thirteenth-century payer book. However, that is not what made the book valuable. The real value was the faint impressions of the much older tenth-century writing buried underneath it. It was the earliest writing of perhaps the greatest mathematicians in history – Archimedes.

Co-written by Reviel Netz – a Professor of Classics at Stanford University, and William Noel – the Curator of Manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum, The Archimedes Codex chronicles the ongoing, decade-long project to discover just how deep the knowledge of Archimedes went. Archimedes was an ancient mathematician born nearly 300 years before the birth of Christ who made discoveries about the nature of mathematics that are only now being fully understood – 2,000 years after Archimedes first wrote them down.

The magic of the Archimedes Codex is that there is no other copy of these specific writings in existence. In fact, even now after ten years of investigation of the text, including the use of brand new technologies never before used for such purposes, they are still discovering more about the extent of Archimedes’ genius.

The writing in The Archimedes Codex itself is nothing spectacular, but it is good enough to get the points across. They do a good job of explaining the importance of the mathematical principles in a way that most people can at least appreciate, even if almost nobody can completely understand it. Even so, there are times when it becomes a really dry read, even for me – and I’m an accountant! What is far more interesting is the preservation and recovery process of the book itself. The simple fact that the book survived this long is amazing. The book is literally falling apart and all of the scientists involved are taking monumental steps to do as little damage to it as they can. The lengths that they have gone to in order to extract the impressions of words buried in the paper are fascinating. Already, they have discovered that Archimedes knew even more about modern mathematical principles then was originally believed.

The book itself is not a great piece of writing, but the subject is fascinating to learn about. In addition, this should be a cautionary tale of why books should never, ever be destroyed and why preserving ancient manuscripts by digitizing them doesn’t necessarily preserve everything we might someday learn from the book itself. For that reason alone, this is a good book for book lovers and collectors to experience. It made for interesting reading on a truly unique piece of history.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The City & The City, by China Mieville

2010-07-19T17:22:00.000-04:00

The City & The City

China Mieville
Del Rey, 2009
978-0345497512
312 pages

RECOMMENDED!

I don’t dare describe the storyline in The City & The City beyond the publisher’s synopsis because I risk ruining the striking world that Mieville creates. Trust me, the less you know about the book going in, the more powerful the experience of reading it will be.

Most times when someone tries to blend two distinct genres – in this case science fiction and hard-boiled crime – it doesn’t work. It this case, it works so well that the science fiction steals the show by fading into the background. Let me explain. Mieville’s writing initially struck me as broken, unclear and difficult. There was little flow to it and I had to reread sections while I tried to get the gist of what was going on. However, what I found as I continued on was that this style had real purpose. The whole point was that Inspector Borlu inhabits a broken, unclear and difficult place filled with impossible rules that are often broken but impossible to enforce. Mieville is able to shape his writing to where it actually becomes part of the location. As the story progresses, the writing actually adapts to follow the changing environment of Inspector Borlu, and Mieville did it so deftly that I didn’t consciously realize it had happened until I was nearly finished with the book. But while the immense scene-building was challenging my perceptions, the story itself moved smoothly along as a hard-boiled detective novel. I particularly appreciated how Mieville managed to dangle what seemed like a somewhat obvious plot carrot in front of the reader only to convincingly pull it away. I mentally applauded that twist with the wish that other writers would do the same more often.

My only trivial gripe with the book was I felt that some of the characters were a bit underdone. While the story is told from Inspector Borlu’s first-person perspective, I thought that there was room to flesh out those around him a bit more. However, the real stars of the book were the cities themselves. Mieville’s imaginative eye for detail is rivaled by very few. He creates a unique environment that is a blurred reflection of the world we ourselves exist in – a dark, brooding tale of deception and gritty human commentary. The City & The City is not straight-line storytelling – and that is exactly what makes it so good. If you have a little patience early on, you will be rewarded with a truly unique story told by a master of the art of scene-building.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The Boat, by Nam Le

2010-07-18T18:59:00.000-04:00

The Boat
Nam Le
Knopf, 2008
978-0307268082
288 pages

RECOMMENDED!

Nam Le’s debut novel is, in fact, a collection of seven short stories beginning with what appears to be an autobiographical account followed by six fiction pieces. Le flexes his hefty writing muscles right from the start. His command of the language is poetic with every word providing power and stimulating all five senses. The versatility of his voice allows Le to alter his style with each story, providing the feel of seven unique authors rather than one author telling many stories. However, while the stories are beautiful to read, they often wander and I was left feeling like I was missing the last few pages of a couple of the stories. In several, the plot is so secondary to the imagery that it felt more like I was reading assignments from a literary writing class that had been cobbled together rather than a coherent story. In spite of this, his characters are so engaging and his visuals so powerful that I was willing to forgo storytelling for awhile just to enjoy the artfulness of Le’s words. I became very attached to each one of his characters - their dark personas and darker circumstances. If any of these stories had been novel-length, the storytelling would have become tiresome. However, the short story format allowed Le to produce artful prose without boring the reader. While I really enjoyed The Boat for providing a rare piece of writing that lives comfortably in the sparsely populated land between the nations of fiction and poetry, it left me both delighted and disappointed at the same time. I’m hoping that this is just the beginning of a long career by an obviously gifted writer. If you are looking for a polished, plot-driven thriller, The Boat is not going to be your cup of tea. But if you are interested in reading something visceral – something that will take you someplace you have never been before - you should give this book a try.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The Manual of Detection, by Jedediah Berry

2010-07-18T18:53:00.000-04:00

The Manual of Detection
Jedediah Berry
The Penguin Press, 2009
978-1594202117
278 pages

There are plenty of hardboiled detective novels on the market with more coming out every day. But with his debut novel, The Manual of Detection, Jedediah Berry charts his own course with a unique twist on the classic detective mystery. For starters, it is told from the point of view of Charles Unwin – a clerk to a famous detective – who is promoted to detective against his own wishes. While he doesn’t come right out and describe the world that Unwin exists in, it becomes apparent that this isn’t the world that we know. It is more like film noir in an alternate universe. It felt as though Mickey Spillane met the Mad Hatter in a Quentin Tarantino production. Needless to say, this isn’t your normal, everyday crime story. However, while its quirkiness will scare some readers away, I found that Berry’s writing made the journey very appealing. His language creates vivid images and his characters are well developed and easy to become attached to. It is very easy for the reader to become Charles Unwin and the story moves along at a nice, quick pace. As I said, this story is not going to appeal to everyone and I wouldn’t want to read a steady diet of these kinds of mind-bending stories, but it was fun to experience something quite unique and considering this was a debut novel, I think it is an example of an amazing writing talent. Jedediah Berry is certainly an author to keep an eye on in the future.

One final note, the hardcover book is beautiful and doesn’t have a dust cover. Instead, all of the art is printed right on the cover and looks and feels wonderful. I hope that this is something we see more of from the publishing industry in the future.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

On Writing, by Stephen King

2010-07-18T18:47:00.000-04:00

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Stephen King
Scribner, 2000
978-0684853529
288 pages

RECOMMENDED!

For decades, Stephen King has delighted reading audiences with his shocking tales, powerful prose and frighteningly realistic characters. In the late 90s, King sat down to pen a book on how he became the writers that his is, the lessons he learned and how others can become better writers. After several long years – and a near-fatal encounter with a van – King completed On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

I’m going to just come out and say it - if you are a writer, you must read this. It is both inspirational and educational. It is typical Stephen King bluntness as well and really cuts to the heart of what it takes to be a writer and why you shouldn’t fear writing what you believe in no matter what other people think about it. Successful writers are successful because they are passionate about what they write – not because they are trying to make a buck. This is not a point-by-point how-to book on writing novels. There are plenty of those out there and most of them will bore you to tears. What King offers is a look inside his writing methods and some hard-won insight into what works and what doesn’t in the publishing world. It is divided into several sections. The first gives a history of his writing career that is so funny I was laughing out loud more times than I can count. It is also includes a painful account of the drug and alcohol addiction that nearly killed him and the loving intervention of his wife, Tabitha. He then goes into the tools that a writer needs to develop to do the things that a writer needs to do. The third section is really the meat of the text and shows the methods that King uses to develop a story from idea to finished manuscript. The final section is a very personal account of the horrific accident that nearly ended his life and how the lifelong devotion of his wife Tabitha and his writing – specifically finishing this memoir – contributed to his return to life. On Writing is a much a deeply personal memoir as it is a dialog on getting the most out of your writing. It is a book that I will read again and again as inspiration for my own writing. I recommend it to everybody, but most especially to every aspiring writer. If this story doesn’t send you to your keyboard with renewed motivation, you probably want to find a new pursuit.

One final note – my copy of On Writing was an advance reader copy. Yes, it’s been hidden away for nearly ten years and this is the first time I have read it. The strange thing is that I have no memory of how I ever received the ARC in the first place. It still has a postage-paid return card with it, too. Either way, I’m not parting with it and I will be rereading it quite often I’m sure.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Shadowlight, by Lynn Viehl

2010-07-18T18:40:00.000-04:00

Shadowlight: A Novel of the Kyndred
Lynn Viehl
Penguin Group, 2009
978-0451412782
336 pages

This decade has seen the rise of the vampire novel, thanks in no small part to the colossal success of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. One of the more popular novelists in the supernatural romance/thriller genre has been Lynn Viehl. Her Darkyn series has produced several trips to the New York Times bestseller list for trade paperbacks and created a legion of fans. Viehl’s newest novel Shadowlight, begins her newest series – the Kyndred – a spin-off of her Darkyn novels.

I had some problems with Shadowlight. The story was slow to get started and lurched from one scene to the next without much continuity, making it difficult to follow who was doing what. I just couldn't find much to hold on to. After the first 100 pages, I realized that I still didn’t care very much about any of the characters. The basic premise of the story was interesting enough, but in the end, when I finished the novel I was simply unable to buy in to the story or its characters. There may be other readers who will enjoy Shadowlight, (Viehl has a lot of fans) but I just couldn't get into it that much.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Allegheny, Monongahela, by Erinn Batykefer

2010-07-18T18:33:00.000-04:00

Allegheny, Monongahela
Erinn Batykefer
Red Hen Press, 2009
978-1597091343
80 pages

RECOMMENDED!

The mark of excellent poetry is that it leads you to places you could never find on your own. Erinn Batykefer’s collection of poetry – Allegheny, Monongahela – does that and more. Far from a simple collection of poetry, Allegheny, Monongahela tells an interwoven story of growing up in Western Pennsylvania based in part on titles of the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe while relating a sometimes beautiful, sometimes violent, often depressing family history.

The pallet of language Batykefer paints with is far broader than most poets. And unlike many collections, never once throughout the interlaced poems does her voice falter. Some poems – such as Eureka Vacuum – stand alone using the simple images of childhood. In other cases, two or three poems flow together to paint an overall image of life and death. Three poems in particular speak to the loss of her grandfather, ending with the powerful Death in the Family, which sent me off to call my insurance agent and schedule a physical. The Inheritance bears witness to a fight between her mother and sister. It is done so well because rather than placing you in the room, she is able to make you experience the memory of it instead. While often dark, there are glimpses of the beauty of the region such as in Two Yellow Leaves, describing autumn along the Allegheny River. Anyone who has ever spent any time in Pittsburgh will find instant familiarity in Pittsburgh as Self-Portrait I and II. The Whiteout wraps the feelings of depression tightly within the imagery of a long Northeastern winter. I read Horizontal Horse’s or Mule’s Skull with Feather four times – and loved it more with each reading.

Poetry collections often miss the mark by surrounding several great poems with groups of mediocrity. Allegheny, Monongahela does no such thing. If you have any interest in poetry and you want a collection that reads like a novella, you need to pick up a copy. I, for one, will be reading it over and over again to inspire me to take my poetry to another level.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The Winner, by David Baldacci

2010-07-18T18:23:00.000-04:00

The Winner
David Baldacci
Grand Central Publishing, 1998
978-0446522595
528 pages

David Baldacci proved his mastery of the modern thriller with Absolute Power and Total Control. The Winner was released in 1998 and looked to continue the Baldacci brand of storytelling. Destitute waitress LuAnn Tyler lives a ramshackle existence with her newborn daughter in a poverty stricken southern town. At least that’s the case until she is approach by a man named Jackson who promises her the unthinkable – a certain win in the national lottery of $100 million dollars. Her conscience tells her to say no, but before she can, events conspire to make Jackson’s offer the only hope for LuAnn and her daughter. At the time, Jackson’s conditions are acceptable, but ten years later, LuAnn decides to defy those conditions to take back her life with the hopes that the seemingly invincible puppet-master Jackson will be none the wiser.

The Winner drags a bit early on as it tries to flesh out every thought of every character, but once the action gets going, it is intense and fun. You will root for LuAnn, but just like her, you won’t always know who is on her side. Baldacci is at his best when he is putting his characters in deadly situations where they don’t know where the trouble is coming from and they need to find that one hole to squeeze through to safety – and The Winner offers that up more than once. The story could have been a bit tighter and there were moments where the plot stretched believability to the edge. However, this is frankly when Baldacci is at his best. Baldacci’s stories are like McDonald’s Big Macs – you know they aren’t fine dining, but you love them for what they are. All in all, Baldacci provides exactly what should be expected from his novels - a thrill-ride of a story that keeps the pages turning.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The Songbird In My Heart, by Mark Steven Rhoads

2010-07-18T18:17:00.000-04:00

The Songbird In My Heart
Mark Steven Rhoads
Belle Vista Publishing, 2009
978-0615273624
208 pages

Mark Steven Rhoads begins his book with the edict:

“This book has a simple intention; to point you toward the purpose of your life, to recognize the simple magnificence that is you and to perceive life’s remarkable beauty around you.”
It is a noble purpose, indeed. While the visuals are nice, the format simply doesn’t work. The mix of clunky prose, an extravagant number of rudimentary poems and amateur photos stewed together make it nearly impossible to gain an understanding of what Mr. Rhoads was trying to accomplish. Rather than giving the reader a coherent whole, it ends up as a haphazard scattershot of ideas without any cohesion between them. It’s difficult to get any sense of an overall message, much less any tools to put to use in life.

There was beauty in the pictures and verse, but it never took me anywhere. I agree with the basic premise of finding life outside of just work (something I have tried to do in my own life) and I really wish he had driven that point home. Instead, I ended up scratching my head at the end wondering what it was that he expected me to do or not do, but I didn't get any answers. In the end, the book fails not only to deliver on its promise, but it fails to deliver much of anything. It best if you pass on this book and look elsewhere.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Island of the Lost, by Joan Druett

2010-07-18T18:07:00.000-04:00

Island of the Lost
Joan Druett
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007
978-1565124080
284 pages

Recommended!

“Hundreds of miles from civilization, two ships wreck on opposite ends of the same deserted island in this true story of human nature at its best – and its worst.
Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death.”

So begins Joan Druett’s book, Island of the Lost – Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World. It is a tale that would seem implausible, if not for the fact that it is all absolutely true. In 1864, near the end of the age of sail, two separate ships did indeed wreck along the coast of Auckland Island – a tiny sliver of land sticking out of the forbidding Southern Ocean – a place that remains uninhabited to this day. By piecing together logbooks, memoirs, newspaper accounts and Druett’s own personal trips to the desolate island, she is able to create a vivid account of two divergent stories of survival. The schooner Grafton and its crew of five wrecks at the southern end of the island. Through inspired leadership and the camaraderie of the whole crew, they are able to eke out an existence in spite of the vast hardships. At almost the same time, the Invercauld wrecks at the north end of the island. In contrast to the Grafton, most of the 19 surviving crew of the Invercauld quickly succumb to the elements, infighting and a leadership vacuum.

Druett does an excellent job of weaving the two stories together, contrasting a crew working together with a crew in shambles. Her credentials as a historian insure an exhaustive level of research, while her award-winning skills as a novelist ensure that the text is entirely readable. The story moves along nicely and never fails to give the reader a sense of just how precarious the castaways’ plight is. While the book spends perhaps a little too much time describing the multitude of ways to kill a seal and not quite enough time discussing the lives of the castaways after their ordeal, as a whole it is a wonderful effort at delivering a look into a place and time not widely understood. There is also a thorough collection of notes at the end that provide many more factual details. However, its greatest attribute is the way it shines a spotlight on a teachable moment of history – how survival is often determinant on who you are with and how well you work together. If you have any interest in sailing history or stories of survival in the remote reaches of the world, this is a great book to have.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout

2010-07-16T17:03:00.000-04:00

Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout
Random House, 2008
978-0812971835
286 pages

RECOMMENDED!

It is uncommon for exquisite writing and expert storytelling to meet in the same book. It is uncommon for a collection of short stories to read as a perfectly balanced novel. It is uncommon for a single character to be so dynamic that the observation of her mundane life would be spellbinding. It is a priceless gem that is able to do all of those things. The novel Olive Kitteridge is such a priceless gem.

Elizabeth Strout brings to life the character of Olive Kitteridge – a retired school teacher in Crosby, Maine – with thirteen interlaced short stories. Often, the stories begin from the perspective of a different character, capturing their situations while providing wide-ranging perspectives of Olive – from obsessive to caring, remorseful to funny, tyrannical to ambivalent. In many cases, Olive is only an ancillary character in the story, and yet her powerful personality burrows into everyone’s consciousness – sometimes for the better, sometimes not – but always affecting them in some way. Strout produces a tour-de-force of the waning years of a character that highlights facets of our delights, our fears, our failings. There is humanity in these stories that reaches out from the page and sparks memories from our own lives. In addition, Strout’s writing is magical. She is able to create layer upon layer of depth with her writing, bringing the people, places and events into stunning clarity while never lingering anywhere for too long – a most uncommon talent.

“But the gesture, the smooth cupping of the little girl’s head, the way Suzanne’s hand in one quick motion caressed the fine hair and thin neck, has stayed with Olive. It was like watching some woman dive from a boat and swim easily up to the dock. A reminder how some people could do things other could not.”

This one passage summarizes how I felt as I read Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout is a woman who makes writing beautiful, meaningful stories appear so effortless, while reminding readers how she is able to do things with words other could not. My only disappointment was when the book had to inevitably reach its end. I cannot overreach in calling this book a simple masterpiece. Find the time to read this book – you will be well rewarded for the effort.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Stewards of the Flame, by Sylvia Engdahl

2010-07-16T16:58:00.000-04:00

Stewards of the Flame
Sylvia Engdahl
BookSurge Publishing, 2007
978-1419675065
460 pages

Fleet Captain Jesse Saunders wakes up in a hospital without any memory of how or why he is there. So begins Sylvia Engdahl’s science fiction novel, Stewards of the Flame, centered on a small colony world where everyone is wealthy and healthy…or else. Jesse quickly learns that the medical community on this planet is the only authority, acting as both judge and jury in the lives of everyone. Crimes and illness are considered one in the same and they are very aggressively diagnosed and treated with mind-altering drugs. Even death is illegal. Bodies are kept alive in stasis forever by a society that believes the body is the essence of existence. However, not everyone agrees, and Jesse’s new friends – Peter and Carla – have dedicated themselves to creating a much different kind of life for their covert dissident group. When his new companions manage to engineer his ‘legal’ escape, Jesse is confronted with a life both frightening and intriguing – a life where the human mind’s potential is revealed and relationships he has never experienced become possible. However, the future is uncertain, as discovery of any one member of the group could mean a certain end for them all.

The book begins well, building tension and providing plenty of twist and turns as Jesse tries to understand what is going on around him and who he can trust. When he becomes free of the Meds – Jesse begins to learn about the powers of his mind and the abilities of the people he has quickly come to trust, even while he recognizes that they are keeping something from him. This is where this clipper of a story – which had been zipping right along – suddenly lost all its wind and parked in the doldrums. The nature of the story required a certain amount of setup along the way, but the dialog felt like I was reading a transcript of a graduate school parapsychology class – for 300 hundred pages! It became a long-winded, back-and-forth conversation that laid out everything you could have ever wanted to know about what the mind may or may not be capable of. If there was anything left for the reader to figure out themselves, I don’t know what it could have been. In the meantime, the plot languished. Even as the action picked up in the final scenes of the story, it still took a backseat to the ongoing moral and theoretical conversations of the characters.

However, the story is not all bad. Engdahl’s writing is simple and engaging. The characters are well developed and the romance between Jesse and Carla feels real and is quite well done. Also, the question of when medical decision-making should belong to the patient or to the state makes for an interesting and timely debate. Unfortunately, the story itself offers little tension and the ending is predictable long before the last page.

If you have a keen interest in parapsychology and medical ethics, you may find this an interesting addition to the discussion. But if you are looking for an engaging story from beginning to end, you will probably be disappointed.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Spirit Bridges, by Li Mo

2010-07-16T16:52:00.000-04:00

Spirit Bridges: A Memoir
Li Mo
Streetfeet Press, 2009
978-0615294971
257 pages

Spirit Bridges is a memoir of a girl born in Shanghai during the turmoil of the Communist Revolution in China. After the execution of Li’s father, her mother must flee with her and her two brothers, leaving Li’s older sisters behind. Li is forced to grow up while her fragmented family bounces from Hong Kong to Taipei to Madrid to New York City. Li must fight not only continuous poverty, but also various learning disabilities while being moved from one culture to another – one language to another.

Li does a good job of capturing the feeling of being dragged around the world from the eyes of a young child. It is a life filled with pain and uncertainty, with only fleeting moments of joy. Li is able to produce the hopelessness in her writing – proof that she was eventually able to overcome the challenges that made learning so difficult for her and become a talented writer. However, she paints so often with thick strokes of metaphor that it sometimes hinders the understanding of her experiences. What is more disappointing about Spirit Bridges is that we never get to see her transformation. We get the first half of a life lived struggling through poverty, cultural upheaval, violence and racial discrimination, taking us through the end of the 1970’s. What we don’t get is the climb out of the darkness that must have taken place in order for this book to ever exist. The back cover tells us that she is an “acclaimed storyteller, educator and writer,” but we never learn about those changes, her current life or how she made the transition from suffocating hardship. In fact, the story ends so abruptly with no resolution, I was left feeling that I had received only half of the book. It was as if one of the spirit bridges she speaks of had been removed and I was able to go no further with her.

For better or worse, Li has something that most writers of memoir simply don’t have – a story interesting and emotional enough to carry an entire book. I just wish I could have received the whole story within this book.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The Whole Truth, by David Baldacci

2010-07-14T21:35:00.000-04:00

The Whole Truth
David Baldacci
Grand Central Publishing, 2008
978-0446195973
406 pages

RECOMMENDED!

In the 21st century the only thing more powerful than information is disinformation. News travels so fast in the digital age that nobody has time to check the facts before it circles the globe many times and becomes ‘the truth’. It is within this dark new reality that David Baldacci crafts his thriller – The Whole Truth. Perception Management agencies no longer spin the truth – they create a completely new truth based on carefully crafted lies. Nicolas Creel is trying to send the world back into a second cold war to allow the world’s largest defense contractor to realize billions in profits. However, journalist Katie James and a man named Shaw with a unique past, stand in the way of his plans. While the rest of the world braces for the possibility of World War III, Shaw and James race to find out what the real truth is before it kills them.

“Dick, I need a war.”
“Well, as always, you’ve come to the right place, Mr. Creel.”
“It won’t be a typical conflict.”
“I never expect typical from you.”
“But you have to sell it. You have to make them believe, Dick.”
“I can make them believe anything.”

Baldacci has been the master of the modern thriller for a long time now with titles such as Absolute Power and The Camel Club series. However, with The Whole Truth, Baldacci may have raised his game to an even higher level. Baldacci’s trademark twists and turns are everywhere and very well done. The characters come alive with each page and make the sizzling action very believable and enjoyable. He is once again able to take a fantastic and frightening plot premise and make it seem entirely plausible. Not an easy task for any writer to accomplish. He also ensures that the reader is hooked for the entire ride by creating such engaging and authentic characters.

The Whole Truth is the beginning of a brand new series with these characters for Baldacci. I for one am very excited to read the next installment. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good, fast-paced modern thriller.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein

2010-07-14T15:22:00.000-04:00

The Art of Racing in the Rain
Garth Stein
Harper, 2008
321 pages
978-006153796

A first-person protagonist in a novel is nothing new. It is a widely used method of storytelling. However, Garth Stein’s protagonist in his novel The Art of Racing in the Rain is unusual. He’s unusual because he can’t talk. He’s unusual because – well – he’s a dog.

“Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature. And while I occasionally step over the line and into the world of the melodramatic, it is what I must do in order to communicate clearly and effectively….And that’s why I’m here now waiting for Denny to come home – he should be here soon – lying on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor in a puddle of my own urine.”

The Art of Racing in the Rain chronicles the life of Enzo – a dog of indeterminate lineage – and his life with his master Denny, an aspiring professional race car driver. Part companion, part guardian, part philosopher, we learn Enzo’s unique view of himself, the humans around him and expectations of his future life. We also learn of his unfailing love of racing.

As much as the story is told by Enzo, the tumultuous life of Denny is the real heart of the story. Enzo’s unique perspective allows for many interesting insights into the human condition, but it also limits the view of the lives of Denny and his family. In spite of this, Stein demonstrates his writing talent by relating much of what Enzo misses quite elegantly without it seeming contrived. His storytelling is effective and very efficient - moving things along quickly. There are a couple of occasions when Stein gets carried away and shoehorns a bit too much race car history into the story, sometimes to the point that it becomes distracting. However, this is a minor hiccup in an otherwise enjoyable story about what life from a dog’s eyes might look like. Denny’s life is so full of highs and lows that none of the reader’s emotions are left unused. There are plenty of opportunities to laugh, cry and of course growl.

My only other complaint is I wish there had been more. Normally leaving the reader wanting a little more is a good thing, but in this case I felt at times like I missed a little too much of Enzo’s life. In spite of this, I really enjoyed The Art of Racing in the Rain.

I do have one cautionary warning to parents. While this tale of a dog and his master might seem like great reading for children, Stein does not hold back with both adult language and adult situations. You might want to read it first to make sure it is something your children are mature enough to handle.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Mercury, by Ben Bova

2009-08-11T10:43:00.000-04:00

Mercury

Ben Bova
Tor Science Fiction, 2005
978-0765343147
336 pages

Ben Bova - who has been writing science fiction for more than 40 years, including books such as Moonrise and Titan – continues his Grand Tour series about the colonization of the solar system with Mercury. The story begins in the late 21st century as three characters – Astrobiologist Victor Molina, “New Morality” Bishop Elliot Danvers and Billionaire developer Saito Yamagata – come to the scorched surface of the planet closest to the sun. Each has their own myopic agenda, but they are all unaware that they have been lured there by Mance Bracknell so he can avenge the rolls that the three of them played in his destruction a decade earlier.

The story really drags early on and it is difficult to have empathy for any of the characters. They are all uniformly shallow, egotistical and appear oblivious to what any of the others are doing. The second act goes back in time to try and explain where Mance’s wrath originated and the pace of the storytelling picks up a bit, but by then there was little chance to salvage any interest in what would happen to any of the characters. In the finale, Mercury makes a clumsy attempt to make some sort of moral statement of the responsibility of big business and the evil of religious zealots in a future where seemly everyone lives as extremists, but by then the whole story seems unimportant.

Even Bova’s usually engaging science fiction imagery seems to have been sacrificed in this installment. Maybe it was a product of the barren landscape of Mercury, but there just wasn’t anything interesting or unique about the world-building which is a prerequisite of science fiction writing. This book really failed to live up to some of Bova’s other writing and it was a struggle to finish. Mercury is not one of his best works.

Until next time...

-Chad

Shattered Sword, by Johathan Parshall & Anthony Tully

2009-08-04T16:17:00.000-04:00

Shattered Sword
The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
Jonathan Parshall & Anthony Tully
Potomac Books, 2005
978-1574889239
640 pages

RECOMMENDED!

When most people hear the term ‘history book,’ they typically think of those watered-down texts we all read in high school where large swaths of time are melted down into paragraph-sized blubs to be memorized for a test and quickly forgotten. Even so, many of us – myself included – have become infatuated with history and long after leaving the public education system behind seek out books that provide a detailed look into a our past. These focused books can bring us a much greater understanding of an event and as a result, a greater understanding of present day events. But as time goes on, a consensus is usually reached by historians. Subsequent writings become nothing more than reaffirmations of earlier works. However, every so often new information is brought to light about an event that allows for a reassessment of the conventional wisdom. Shattered Sword provides just such a platform.

The Battle of Midway has been chronicled in books and films countless times in the sixty-six years since the battle between the Japanese and American navies during the Second World War. The summer of 1942 has forever been stamped as the turning point in the war in the Pacific and Parshall & Tully do nothing to discount its importance. What the do is provide accessibility to information – most notably large amounts of Japanese writings and documentation – and make them available to English readers in many cases for the very first time. One thing this book is not is revisionist history. If anything, it is a clarification of the facts of what actually happened and – more importantly – the chain of events that took place to bring about one of the most decisive battles in history. The most important result of all of the research is to throw into doubt the idea that the Japanese naval force was vastly superior to the Americans in every way and it was only due to luck and circumstance that the American navy was able to win the day. This is a view that was championed most notably by Mitsuo Fuchida – a Japanese naval officer who participated in the battle - in his book Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan. This view has been echoed throughout the years, notably in the movie Midway, not just because of Fuchida’s first-hand knowledge and a lack of substantial documentation to the contrary, but because of our American love of being a victorious underdog. But by pouring through stacks of Japanese documentation, Parshall & Tulley are able to piece together a somewhat different account demonstrating that the two navies were far more evenly matched than anyone thought going into the battle. A combination of Japan’s poor military communication, the limited training of the Japanese ship crews, the flawed construction of their ships and their low opinion of the capabilities of the American sailor contributed as much to the outcome of the battle as the tenacity, daring and exquisite training of the American navy. Ultimately, overconfidence and poor planning all but doomed the Japanese navy before the battle even began. Sun Tzu would be proud.

The book provides a thorough view from the Japanese side to compliment the detailed American accounting of books such as Miracle at Midway. Throughout the book, Parshall & Tulley provide the reader an in-depth, well researched treatise. Better yet, they write it in such a way that the reader becomes a part of the events from the very first page all the way to the conclusion, taking you from the conferences of the Japanese leadership to the bridge of Admiral Nagumo’s flagship to the view from the water as a young sailor watches his proud ship go under. The result of this is a book that balances all the facts and provides a clear accounting of everything that led up to the most important single battle of the Pacific War while simultaneously keeping the reader engaged in the drama of the events. Not only is this the best, most thorough book on the Battle of Midway, it is one of the best written and researched books on the Second World War ever produced. If you are going to write history, Parshall has provided the roadmap on how to do it right with Shattered Sword. This book sets the bar extremely high for any future works on the topic. Shattered Sword is as good as history writing gets.

Until next time...

-Chad

Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden

2009-08-02T16:56:00.000-04:00

Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden

Vintage Books, 2005
978-1400096893

512 pages

RECOMMENDED!

Set in 1930s and 40s Japan, Memoirs of a Geisha reads as a memoir of one of the great geishas of that era. In reality, it is a work of fiction - written by a man no less - that takes an in-depth look into a world that most of us have little connection to and even less understanding of. For starters, Arthur Golden is quick to point out that the western tendency to equate 'gesha' with 'prostitute' is inaccurate. In fact, a gesha is more analogis to a 'trophy wife' than a protitute. Golden's story follows the life of a fishing village orphan - Sayuri - who is sold by her father into one of the geisha houses in the Gion district of Kyoto. Nieve to the world she has been sold into, we become educated in the intrecasies of geisha life right along with her. Golden's writing is powerful. You feel the emotions that Sayuri does, the uncertaincy of what will happen next, and the joy in her victories. This ends up being one of those books that proves how amazing a book can be when it transports you so skillfully into a world that you would never be able to experience on your own. Golden's was able to research this world as nobody else has ever been able to. This book is proof that he did not waste the effort.

There are a couple of small issues with Memoirs of a Geisha. While the first half of the book provides wonderful detail and an engaging plot that won't allow you to put the book down, the second half doesn't give the reader quite enough. The climax of the story doesn't provide a grand finale as much as the story just seems to fade-to-black. That said, the book reads very well. It will immerse you into completely foriegn land, but still guide you so that you don't become lost. A unique read for certain, I think it is a story everyone should give a try.

Until next time...

-Chad

The Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin

2009-07-26T20:01:00.000-04:00

The Nine - Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
Jeffrey Toobin

Anchor Books, 2008
978-1400096794

480 pages

Jeffrey Toobin's look inside the mystical third branch of America's federal government brings with it a thought provoking discussion of just how important the confirmation of each new justice is for the country as a whole. Built off of interviews with all of the justices along with nearly 100 of their law clerks, the book brings us as close to the thinking of the often reclusive justices as is practically possible. Far from a dispassionate group of nine justices operating from facts alone, Toobin shows us how the determination of what is legal and what is not has as much or more to do with the political philosophy that currently has 5 of the 9 votes. Toobin provides us both a biography of the justices who have sat on the bench over the last 20 years as well as a detailed analysis of the decision making that went into some of the most important judgements the court has made. While there have been many instances when the justices have stood up for the rights of the people, there have also been moments when their personal politics have overridden unbiased deliberations.

Right from the beginning, the book is immensely readable. It avoids descending into the gnarled forest of 'legalese' allowing anyone to follow narrative. However, it is not perfect. Toobin seems to wander from one topic to another without making any real connection. He skips around, dropping biographic information into the middle of legal debates almost haphazardly. And while the text is quite readable, the price for it seemed to be a lack of detailed analysis of some of the greatest cases seen in the last two decades and little analysis of the consequences of those cases. Finally, Toobin wears his own political beliefs on his sleeve just a little too much, painting one side just a little too dark and the other just a little too innocent for the text to be called evenhanded. That said, the book is well worth reading for those who are uninitiated to the complexities involved in the Supreme Court. The Nine will shed light on just how influential those nine individuals are to our way of life.

Until next time...

-Chad

Silent in the Grave, by Deanna Raybourn

2009-07-12T18:06:00.000-04:00

Silent in the Grave

Deanna Raybourn

MIRA books, 2007

978-778324102

509 pages

RECOMMENDED!

It's really hard to not get hooked by a novel that begins with these two sentences:

"To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor."

Wow! A really strong way to begin a story. Fortunately, the rest of the story remains just as strong. Silent in the Grave is the debut novel of Deanna Raybourn. Set in late 19th century London, it is also the first of a series that now numbers three centering on Lady Julia Grey, a lady of high status in Victorian England. Lady Julie's life changes when her husband dies, leaving here a young widow. But when someone brings to light the possibility that his death was, in fact, a murder, her life suddenly veers into the unknown. Julia must weigh her desire to simply move on with her feeling of duty to her late husband to solve the crime.

While the murder mystery makes for an enjoyable story, what really takes this novel to the next level is the writing of Deanna Raybourn. Her style paints the period beautifully, but she refrains from making the scenery the focus of the story. Instead, it provides the perfect backdrop - bringing the reader into the London that existed more than a century ago. However, Raybourn never loses sight of the plot being the driver of the story - a problem that many authors who write period pieces often get sucked into. (You can check out my review of The Historian for an example of a period story gone wrong). The mark of a great period story is that by the end of the book, your focus should be on the story and the atmosphere should be but a comfortable shawl that the story is wrapped in. Raybourn succeeds at this.

Whether you like reading about the Victorian-era, enjoy a good mystery, or a simply looking for a well written novel to read, I think you will be very satisfied with this book. I, for one, am already looking forward to reading the sequel.

Oh, one final comment. The cover artwork of the hardcover version is one of the finest I've seen in a very long time. It captures the essence of the book and looks wonderful on the shelf.

Until next time...

-Chad

Being critical

2009-07-09T10:43:00.000-04:00

As long as I am going to be 'criticizing' books, I suppose I should back up and talk about the whole concept of being a 'critic'. According to Marriam-Webster, a critic is:

-noun: a: one who expresses a reasoned opinion on any matter especially involving a judgment of its value, truth, righteousness, beauty, or technique b : one who engages often professionally in the analysis, evaluation, or appreciation of works of art or artistic performance."

Simple enough, right? Of course, nothing is ever that simple. The most important word to me in that definition is "reasoned." Anybody can criticize anything, but it isn't of any value if it doesn't provide the reader some valuable insight about the target of the criticism. My goal on this blog is to provide you - the reader - something of value when I provide a review. The 21st century that we inhabit provides us with so many different entertainment options that it is necessary to find feedback from others about what is good and what is not so good. I hardly expect everyone to agree with every rating I provide. If you do, one of us must be doing something wrong. But I hope that my reviews are able to provide you with a little help the next time you decide to spend a little bit of your hard earned money on a book. If nothing else, you can be assured that my opinion is wholly and completely my own. Nobody is paying me to do that, that is for sure.

Reviewing books also gives me a golden opportunity to have a little fun and to vent from time to time. Why is that important? Let's face it, if you have just wasted some of your time and money on something that turns out to be far less entertaining than you were led to believe it would be, you want to tell somebody about it. That may in fact be to steer other unsuspecting consumers away from something they won't like, but it mostly has to do with wanting others to share a little bit of the pain you had to endure. And don't be afraid to call me on it if you think I'm wrong. Comments about the work or my reviews are more than welcome. I've been known to change my mind about a movie or book on second look before. If you manage to make me change a rating, I will give you public praise here and I might even send you something as a reward.

That is all...

Until next time...

-Chad

The Collectors, by David Baldacci

2009-06-28T17:23:00.000-04:00

The Collectors
David Baldacci

Warner Books, 2006

978-0446531092
438 pages

Synopsis from Amazon.com

"People are dropping dead in Washington, D.C. First the Speaker of the House falls victim to a hitman in a carefully orchestrated murder in front of dozens of the city's power elite. Next, the director of the Library of Congress's Rare Books Room dies in a book vault, but no one knows how. Caleb Shaw, Camel Club member, nearly falls victim, too. Across the country, a gifted con woman assembles an A-list team to pull off one of the most audacious scams ever, against one of the most dangerous men in the world. When the worlds of Washington and the elite con collide head-on, the Camel Club finds itself teamed with a person they don't really trust but whose skill helps them unravel a secret that threatens to bring America to its knees."

This is the second installment of the Camel Club series of stories by bestselling author David Baldacci. The first - The Camel Club - was previously reviewed. This installment picks up shortly after the conclusion of the first. As with the first, this story really revolves around the core group of four characters that make up the Camel Club, and Baldacci has once again done a wonderful job of drawing the reader into the lives of idiosyncrasies of each of the characters. However, unlike the first book, I don't have a complaint about the story becoming outlandish or unbelievable. Quite the contrary, the story is very timely and a bit frightening in how easy it is for a small number of individuals with the right contacts can put a lot of people's lives in jeopardy. I think it also rings quite authentic when the driving force for it inevitably about money.

The story has a few good plot twist along the way. Of course - as a book collector - I was fascinated by the intricacies of the Rare Book Room of the Library of Congress and the detailed research of the book trade as a whole. While I would not put this book on a par with Baldacci's masterpiece, Absolute Power, I think it is an improvement upon the Camel Club storyline and continues to develop the characters in an interesting way. It is a fast-paced read with very little unnecessary fluff to slow you down. I recommend it for anyone who enjoys a good thriller and especially for anyone who has enjoyed previous books by David Baldacci.

Until next time...

-Chad

The Assassin's Song, by M.G. Vassanji

2009-06-23T10:44:00.000-04:00

The Assassin's Song
M.G. Vassanji
Alfred A. Knopf, 2007
978-1400042173
336 Pages

This is a novel I read last year and reviewed on another website, but I think it is worth posting on here as well. The Assassin’s Song tells the story of Karsan Dargawalla. Beginning with his childhood in rural India, Karsan becomes aware of his destiny to succeed his father as the spiritual leader of their community and the protector of The Shrine of the Wanderer – servicing all who come there to worship. However, Karsan begins to discover there is a much more exciting world beyond their home and – on a whim – applies and is accepted to study half a world away at Harvard University. What ensues is Karsan’s coming-of-age in a foreign land, but not without the constant tug of his family, his heritage and many tragedies trying to pull him back.

Vassanji’s writing is beautiful – almost lyrical – throughout the novel. However he relies far too much on lyrical verse early in the book and the story evolves very slowly. Near the middle of the story, as Karsan is making his decision to leave his home, the story starts to pick up the pace and becomes a very interesting tale of his coming of age, successes and some rather humorous failures. The really draws us into Karsan’s life and makes the early parts of the story worth reading through. However, just when the story gains momentum, it flounders. Karsan becomes lost, but the story seems to get lost as well, failing to provide the ready much to cling onto. The last third of the book seems to really wander. Karsan’s brother is reintroduced near the end, but nothing about him or his relationship with Karsan is developed and we are left with a lot of new questions that are never answered. In the end, Karsan seems more an uninterested observer of his life rather than a participant in it.

The Assassin’s Song had some interesting moments along the way and Vassanji’s writing is beautiful by its own right, but unless you are looking to immerse yourself in Indian culture, there won’t be much of a story to hold your interest.

Until next time...

-Chad

America, America, by Ethan Canin

2008-09-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

America, America
Ethan Canin
Random House Adult Trade Publishing Group, 2008
978-0679456803
446pp

RECOMMENDED!

For the publisher’s synopsis, click here.

This story, while beautifully written, is difficult to classify. Is it a historical fiction piece? Is it a murder mystery? A coming-of-age story? A political diatribe? A rags-to-riches yarn? Actually, a title as broad as America, America is fitting because it takes on all of these things at once. The shocking part is that it actually works. It doesn’t feel like a reach. In fact, it works quite well by employing something rarely used anymore – the art of subtlety.

The characters - beginning with the first-person protagonist, Corey Sifter - are exceptionally well done. You really do feel that you know them so well - feeling what they feel and sensing what they sense. It is a remarkable art of character development that Canin successfully uses to pull the reader in. In addition to that, he employs a master’s touch of laying out the atmosphere of Western New York - from its culture to the look of the trees and the heaviness of the air. The book is as much art as it is story. As someone who grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, I can tell you that Canin’s portrayal of that part of the country is spot on. While some reviewers had a problem with Canin jumping back and forth in time throughout the story, I think he did a great job of leading the reader through it without needing to resort to labeling each change with a date. In fact, the layered structure makes the story more powerful and interesting than if it had been laid out chronologically.

Canin also does a wonderful job weaving the fictional Senator Henry Bonwiller into the actual Presidential campaign of 1972. He was able to insert his candidate in among the real-life history without tearing it all apart – an admirable accomplishment in itself. It felt organic rather than shoehorned. Anyone interested in writing historical fiction should pay particular attention to how this story does it so well. However, nobody reading this book is going to have any trouble figuring out which side of the political aisle Ethan Canin falls on. I’m an independent thinker and I like it when writers provoke me to reassess my own beliefs, but it is certainly not lost on me that the book was released in the middle of a Presidential election season. I don’t mind authors inserting issues they find important into their fiction, but frankly, Canin gets a bit carried away and beats the reader over the head with it, especially near the end. It is the one flaw of the book that it feels like a bit of a rant and sticks out from everything else. I don’t mind the message, but a bit of a softer touch might have blended better with the rest of the story.

The political pandering of the book notwithstanding, I really don’t have anything bad to say about the story. It’s not a thriller or a murder mystery. While elements of both are in the story, they are really just another form of scenery. And while there is little real action or dramatic tension, I never felt like the story dragged. That says something for the writing, because that is no easy feat. The real story is the assent of Corey Sifter and how he grows to understand all of the people involved in his life, although sometimes painfully late. America, America does a beautiful job of showing just how the coming-of-age of a young man might look within the womb of a struggle for national power. His ultimate lesson is that he has to learn how to learn - and it is a neverending struggle. This is certainly a book worth reading, if for no other reason than to enjoy the rich characters and lush scenery. There is a lot to experience in this book – you almost need to read it more than once to take it all in. It certainly has its place on the shelves of any reader looking for an artful, character-centered book filled with beautiful prose.

I do have one complaint, however. It’s not with the story, but it is with the book itself. I don’t know when it became fashionable for publishers to make the page edges roughed up and out of line rather than smooth, but please stop it. It doesn’t make the book nicer or ‘classic.’ It just makes it really hard to turn the pages and sheds little paper flakes all over the place. If you want the book to have an expensive, classic feel, focus on the binding and using high-quality paper. Leave out the alignment gimmicks, they really don’t work. On the plus-side, the cover art chosen was fantastic.

Until next time…

Book Collecting

2008-09-10T11:56:00.000-04:00

I have a pretty extensive collection of books. I read them. I collect them. I have a book fetish...I admit it. I'm not going to change that either. The love of books and learning is something that I hope I can pass on to my sons. I collect books because they interest me and I love the look and feel of a good book. I love how they look grouped together on a shelf. There is power in a collection of books - the power of knowledge contained in them. Because I won't part with any of them, I don't worry much about their 'value' from a commercial standpoint. I suppose that will be of more interest to my children once I leave this mortal coil. Perhaps, they won't want to get rid of them either and it will become a generational affair - passing them down from parent to child.

Anyway, my question to you is do you collect books? What do you collect? How do you keep them? Are they on shelves or in boxes?

Another question is do you keep track of them? Has anyone used Librarything.com? I have a program on my computer to track books and look them up on the Internet, but I'm curious if anyone has used Librarything and what your impressions of it are?

Until next time...

The Street Lawyer, by John Grisham

2008-09-03T11:32:00.000-04:00

The Street Lawyer
John Grisham
Doubleday Publishing, 1998
978-0385490993
352 pages

RECOMMENDED!

Have you ever had déjà vu? Well I did as I read John Grisham's novel The Street Lawyer. The book was among the shelves of books that I have not yet read so I pulled it down and started reading it. The story seemed vaguely familiar, but I didn't remember any details or the ending so I figured I must have read a similar book at some point. Similar, as in exactly the same. It wasn't until I was about twenty pages from the end that I realized that I had, indeed, read the book before and now remember it all clearly. I guess the one consolation is that it is a very good book and I did enjoy reading it the second time. It is a great book - an engrossing story of a big-time lawyer who's near-death experience forces him to come to grips with his sudden choice to pursue helping people rather than the pursuit of money. This choice puts him in direct confrontation with his old firm, but even as his marriage and career crumble, his spirits are lifted. A great read that is light on legalese and heavy on the pursuit of right-and-wrong over money. Check it out if you get the chance. It's not preachy - it's just good.

So has this ever happened to you? Have you ever started reading a book unsure if you had read it before only to realize somewhere along the way that you had? How far into it where you before you realized? Did you stop reading it or did you continue and finish it? I am very curious to find out if others have had this kind of experience.

At least I know that the next book I'm reading - America, America, by Ethan Canin - I have not read before since I just purchased it and it just came out this summer.

Until next time...

The Camel Club, by David Baldacci

2008-08-27T12:15:00.000-04:00

The Camel Club
David Baldacci
Grand Central Publishing, 2005
978-0446577380
448 pgs

Synopsis from the publisher:

It exists at the fringes of Washington, D.C., has no power, and consists solely of four eccentric and downtrodden members whom society has forgotten. Their simple goal is to find the "truth" behind their country's actions. One man leads this aging, ragtag crew. He has no known past and has taken the name "Oliver Stone." Day and night, Stone and his friends study wild conspiracy theories, current events, and the machinations of government, hoping to discover some truth that will hold America's leaders accountable to its citizens. Yet never in Stone's wildest nightmares could he imagine the conspiracy the Camel Club is about to uncover... After witnessing a shocking murder, the Club is slammed headfirst into a plot that threatens the very security of the nation, full of stunning twists, high-stakes intrigue, and global gamesmanship rocketing to the Oval Office and beyond. Soon the Club must join forces with veteran Secret Service agent Alex Ford, who becomes an unwilling participant in one of the most chilling spectacles to ever take place on American soil. It's an event that may well be the catalyst for the long-threatened Armageddon between two different worlds, and all that stands in the way of this apocalypse are five unexpected heroes.

I am a big fan of thrillers and I have been hooked on David Baldacci’s writing ever since I first picked up Absolute Power. In his novel The Camel Club, Baldacci introduces a host of interesting characters from various walks of life who come together in a powerful investigative group. Baldacci did a great job of bringing the characters to life, especially Secret Service agent Alex Ford and conspiracy hunter “Oliver Stone.” The pacing was perfect through the first half of the book and I was truly engaged in the story. Unfortunately, it was at that point that the story snowballed out of control. Global political thrillers will often times take you right to the edge of believability, forcing you to consider that, yes, this really could happen under just the right circumstances. Baldacci, however, took about two steps over that line and I just couldn’t follow him in. Without spoiling the ending, the plot becomes unbelievable Baldacci really doesn’t provide enough to support what happens leaving the reader to buy-in on their own, which is a gamble that didn’t pay off. The story becomes comic-bookish in the end and looses the tension that built up well early in the book.

This book is the beginning of a series by Baldacci with these characters. Given that I really loved the characters, I am hoping that subsequent books have a more believable storyline for them to romp around in.

Until next time…

At His Command, by Brenda Coulter

2008-08-08T11:11:00.000-04:00

At His Command

Brenda Coulter

Steeple Hill Publishing, 2008
978-0373874965

228 pages

RECOMMENDED!

I must admit that I had some concern before reading this book. First of all, I don’t read very many romance novels, so I don’t know the genre very well. Second, Brenda Coulter was nice enough to send me a pre-release copy of the book and I would feel bad if it wasn’t very good and I had to say so. My opinion is my own and on my blog I’m going to say what I believe…period. Those of you who have been here for a while know that. But I shouldn’t have been concerned about either of these things. Brenda took care of that by penning an excellent book. What I should have been concerned with was sleep…since I didn’t start reading the book until 7 o’clock at night and couldn’t put the darn thing down! Inspirational romance is difficult to pull off without sounding contrived or sappy. Brenda Coulter avoids that problem by simply writing a great story. She weaves the points of view of the two main characters seamlessly and runs the reader through the full gambit of emotions from start to finish. The characters are vibrant and real; the plot is smooth and the finish is strong. You find yourself trying to offer the characters on the page advise – (“Come on, Jake! Don’t you see how she feels about you?) If you are not inspired to live life a little more brightly after reading this book, than you really are not trying. I can honestly say that this book far surpassed my expectations. As I said, I couldn’t put it down. If you have ever considered reading an inspirational romance novel – or even if you haven’t – go get yourself a copy of this one. You will get a great book to read and you will be helping to support a fellow blogger as well. In fact, pick up two copies…you wouldn’t want one to be lonely on the shelf, right? Now if you will excuse me, I need to get some sleep.

Until next time...

Bleachers, John Grisham

2008-07-23T14:08:00.000-04:00

Bleachers

John Grisham

Doubleday, 2003
978-0385511612
163 pages

There is no doubt that Bleachers is not your typical John Grisham book. There is no legal intrigue. There are no courtroom heroics. Nobody is murdered. However, there is a good story here. At 163 pages, this book is closer to a novella than to a novel in length. I read the entire story in one day (I know, pretty lame) and it was a fun read. The story revolves around the return of football star Neely Crenshaw to his home town because of the impending death of his football coach Eddie Rake. Coach Rake made himself a town legend, but a controversial legend to be sure. Players from generations of teams migrate back to the field they played on – each for their own reason - to tell stories of their time in the program, both good and bad. Some see Rake as a hero while others can’t shake the man’s obvious flaws. But the real story is Neely trying to come to grips with his relationship with Rake – whether to hate him or respect him and the ‘incident’ kept a secret for 15 years – and the town’s reverence for both Rake and Neely over a ‘silly game.’ The book shines a light on the way sports can become far more than just sport and how people come to grips with their past when they are forced to come back to it. I think Grisham was wise to have written the story as such a short piece. It would have dragged if he attempted to turn it into a 350-page novel. But as it stands, it is a quick, fun read and I really enjoyed characters and the story.

Until next time...

Dark Summit, by Nick Heil

2008-07-16T12:11:00.000-04:00

Dark Summit
Nick Heil
Holt, 2008
978-0805083101
272 pages

RECOMMENED!

Every year mountaineers from around the world are drawn to the base of Everest - whose peak reaches 29,035 feet into the sky - to attempt to reach the summit. Many have died climbing Everest, but perhaps no single death had created more controversy than the death of British climber David Sharp during the 2006 climbing season. In all, the 2006 season resulted in 11 deaths – the second deadliest season on record. In Dark Summit, author Nick Heil creates a detailed account of the events of 2006 that took place on the north side of Everest, including David Sharp’s death, the miraculous rescue of Lincoln Hall and the ethical questions being raised as more and more people with less and less experience attempt to climb the highest peak on earth. Nick Heil is an experienced climber, but he was not on Everest in 2006. Rather than handicapping him as an outsider, it actually enhances his credibility because, unlike Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air, Nick doesn’t have any loyalties to the people involved nor is he trying to paint himself as a hero. Instead, the book creates a comprehensive review detailing exactly what happened on the mountain and allows the reader to make their own decisions about what to think about the industry that has formed on the side of Everest. Aside from being well researched, it is also a very compelling read, told with a story telling knack that any reader should appreciate. I highly recommend the book for anyone who has ever wondered what goes on at the top of the world.

Until next time...

Always By My Side, by Jim Nantz

2008-07-09T16:02:00.000-04:00

Always by my Side

Jim Nantz with Eli Spielman
Gotham, 2008
978-1592403615
273 pages

If you are not a sports fan, the name Jim Nantz probably won’t mean much to you. If, however, you have been watching sports at all during the last twenty years, you have almost certainly heard him. Jim Nantz has been the voice of The Masters, the NCAA Final Four, NFL Football and the Superbowl during his long tenure at CBS Sports. In Always by my Side, Jim has compiled stories spanning his entire sports broadcasting career, from his youth when he would call games in his home until 2007 which saw him do what no sports broadcaster had ever done – call the Superbowl, the Final Four and The Masters in the same year. Throughout all of the stories, he ties everything back to his relationship with his father, the example and advise his father gave him and the unfortunate downward journey his father has taken as he has been consumed by Alzheimer's disease.

The stories include a staggering number of famous sports luminaries including Dick Enberg, Curt Gowdy, Jim McKay, Chris Schenkel, Pat Summerall, Jack Whitaker, and his friendships with people such as former president George H. W. Bush, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Mike Krzyzewski, John Wooden, and many others.

The book paints a picture of a man who has worked really hard and had a lot of great breaks to become one of the most well known and respected sports announcers in the world. Jim spends a great deal of time tying together the relationships between all of these people and his relationship with his father. I would have preferred it if the stories had gone much deeper. In many cases the stories are barely touched upon and leave a lot of questions. Also, the chronology of the story really jumps around. At times it is difficult to figure out where he is going or what period of time he is talking about. The narration jumps back and forth between events in different decades without any really compelling reason to do it. The book has the feel of being patched together out of a pile of disjointed stories through the miracle of cut-and-paste word processing.

In spite of this, it is still a quick and compelling read. For sports fans, it is a look inside what goes on behind the microphone at the biggest sporting events. For everyone else, it is a lament by a devoted son to a wonderful father that is both heartwarming and painful. There are plenty of things to nitpick about the writing, but it is still well worth the time to read.

Until next time…

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova

2008-07-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

The Historian

Elizabeth Kostova
Little, Brown & Co., 2005
978-0316011778
642 pages

The action in The Historian revolves around a father and daughter who are both historians. The prose jumps back and forth between the daughter’s perspective and the letters that her father wrote. What begins as research into the real history of Vlad the Impaler, also known to the world as Dracula, becomes a life and death struggle to find a lost colleague and while protecting themselves from the evil forces that quietly haunt them. Soon they discover that the historical figure of Dracula is very much alive (or undead if you will) and coming after anyone who dares to look into his legend.

At one level, the writing is very good. It is a slow, prolonged buildup of tension that leaves the reader wondering when it will all explode. In the mean time, the author does an excellent job of explaining the fact and fiction of Vlad’s life and death and the times he lived in. She also paints with beautiful detail the Eastern European world, especially the political situation as it existed during the Cold War.

So now you are asking “if it did all these wonderful things, what is your problem?” One small criticism of mine is that the characters are very obvious. The good guys are very good and the bad guys are obviously bad, and the reader knows which is which from the first scene. That’s not the big problem, however. Put simply, if you are going to build tension in such a long, drown out manner, there had better be a payoff at the end. This is where the tension that the author spent so long bringing to a peak falls flat on its face. The climactic scene literally takes up only a few paragraphs and ends with nothing more than a gunshot. I read the remaining pages frantically expecting that there was another twist to come. Unfortunately, there wasn't. Even worse, the characters afterward shrug the whole thing off as no big deal. The remaining pages don’t even reference the conflict at all and really just goes through the lives of the other characters.

It has been a very long time since I have actually finished a book and been angry, but The Historian had me stomping around the house at midnight. Why? Because this story held so much promise, such a buildup, that to have it fizzle so abruptly at the end made me feel like it was all some kind of cruel joke. I could have almost forgiven it if the book had been bad from start to finish.

In the end, I actually waited a full week after finishing the novel just to give myself some time to reflect on my feelings about the story and not review it purely on emotion. But as you can tell from what you have just read, my thoughts haven’t changed much. If you are a history buff, you might find this book interesting because it does weave a great deal of historical information - including debunking a lot of myths - into a protracted story with a great deal of interesting imagery. However, the ending left such a bad taste in my mouth. It felt like an unfortunate waste of what could have been a classic.

Until next time...

Lone Survivor, by Marcus Luttrell

2008-06-26T12:01:00.000-04:00

Lone Survivor
The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10
Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson
Little, Brown & Co., 2007
978-0316067591
391 pages

Lone Survivor chronicles the final mission of Navy Seal Team 10 in Afghanistan, their attempted rescue and how Marcus Luttrell manages to navigate the complex political and cultural world that exists in the mountainous regions of Eastern Afghanistan just to survive. Marcus describes his journey to becoming a Seal - the elite of Naval Special Forces - that began in childhood and what he did to ensure that he would make it through the Seal selection process known as BUDs. The gritty, unpolished narrative would seem like poor writing in most books, but in the context of this real life story, it makes the account all the more real, pulling you into the world that these young men exist in - a reality that is both honorable and tragic, inspiring and horrifying. No matter what your feelings about the conflicts that we are currently involved in might be, this is a must-read account of what modern small-unit warfare is really like in the 21st century. The book is neither preachy nor romantic. It's simply a rock-solid account of a tragic battle in an equally tragic war. Thank you to Marcus for honoring himself and his team with this startling story.

Until next time...

The Partner, by John Grisham

2008-06-08T18:05:00.000-04:00

The Partner
John Grisham

Doubleday, 1997
978-0385472951
368 pages

I must make an admission...I have been a big fan of John Grisham for a long time. I know that this book was written over a decade ago. I'm still playing catchup with my reading. I have four entire shelves of books to be read and I keep adding to the stack faster than I can read them. Such is the burden of a lover of books. Anyway, as with most of John Grisham's other books, this one revolves around a lawyer and the wranglings of the legal system. I have read all of his novels prior to this one (the others are in the "to be read" column). At 366 pages, it is a pretty quick read. As with all of my reviews of fiction, I won't ruin the ending. The story is of a former lawyer - Patrick Lanigan - turned thief...a thief to the tune of $90 million. Stolen from his law firm after faking his own death. the story picks up from the time he is apprehended, 4 years after he fled, first by those who want the money back and then by the FBI. The story twists around through a web of agendas including his reasons for leaving his wife and child. It is a page-turner that keeps a rapid pace with a great deal of action, especially early on. However, compared with the rest of Grisham's legal thrillers, this one is somewhat weak in two areas. The story is pretty far fetched. A great deal of bungling by an awful lot of people is required for this story to work. In addition, it is pretty predictable, especially from the mid-point of the book forward.

While I would not go so far as to say that the book was a disappointment, it was not one of Grisham's better efforts. In spite of it's problems, though, it is still a good story. If you can pick up a copy at the library or the discount rack, it will give you some good entertainment.

Until next time...

Running with the Buffaloes, by Chris Lear

2008-05-21T17:20:00.000-04:00

Running with the Buffaloes

Chris Lear
The Lyons Press, 2003
978-1585748044
288 pages

This book chronicles a season with the University of Colorado Men's Cross Country team and their pursuit of the NCAA National Championship. While the events of this book are now nearly ten years ago, the story is still very compelling. Author Chris Lear spent the entire season with the team, including coach Mark Wetmore and All-American Adam Goucher. It is a fascinating read that delves into the personal dynamics of a team made up of individual performances and how the team comes together during the worst kind of adversity during their season. One of the truly enlightening things from a runner's perspective is just how close to the physical edge runners at this level live and train - constantly walking a tightrope between doing everything they can to reach their maximum potential without incurring a season-ending injury. The frustration of poor runs and the exuberance of breakthrough performances exist in the same race. It is a seldom-seen look inside a very tight knit group that doesn't let outsiders in. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in competitive running or sports in general.

Read up and enjoy...

Later...