The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter

 

Reviewed by Kristin

Charlotte and Samantha Quinn are teenage sisters whose happy though eccentric family has been ripped apart. First, a Molotov cocktail burned down their house; a week later, their brilliant mother Gamma was senselessly murdered as her assailants searched for Rusty, their defense attorney father, in an attempt to void a debt the family never expected to be repaid. The girls flee, literally running for their lives. Sam stumbles, urging Charlie to run.

Twenty-eight years later, Charlie has become a lawyer like her father, working in the small north Georgia town where her family is still looked at a bit askance since everyone knows a criminal Rusty has defended at some point or another. Charlie is still running, keeping secrets deeply buried from that long-ago night. One morning, while trying to ease herself out of an awkward situation, Charlie finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time as a crime at the middle school tears the community apart.

Karin Slaughter writes strong characters, moving from 1989 back to the present as we get to know Charlie, Sam, Rusty, Gamma, and other integral people tied up this story. Most of the characters are beautifully imperfect with both good aspects and bad revealed as the plot progresses. The people all feel so real, even as the suspense builds in a series of events. This one kept me on the edge of my seat. A few graphic descriptions of the crimes also made me uncomfortable, but by that point I was already invested in the characters and I had to know what happened, even if I had to skim over some blood spatters and gore. (I’m being gentle here, so if blood and guts bother you, just skip this one and ask your local librarian to recommend a less gritty author.)

Slaughter writes stories threaded with a strong sense of justice, even though not all the villains receive every bit of punishment that they perhaps deserve. Sometimes her characters seem to just sigh and say “enough is enough,” and mend relationships in order to move on with their lives for the sake of their own sanity. In the end, does the bad guy (a totally gender neutral term used here, for the sake of not giving away the whodunit) get what’s coming to them? Do they receive the punishment fitting for their crimes? Crime is never as simple as one might think; too many motives and actions and consequences are all knotted up together creating a big messy problem which the criminal justice system tries to untangle for the sake of what is true and what is deserved by all parties.

In the end, Charlie must come to peace with the traumas she has faced, the secrets she has kept since she was thirteen, and the friends and family who care about her most.

Pride, Prejudice, and Peril by Katie Oliver

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Jane Austen fan Phaedra Brighton took the adage “Find what you love and then make a living with it” to heart and became an English professor so she could spend her time teaching her idol’s books to college students.  She even dresses the part, wearing period costumes so that her students can get an idea of what life was really like. She’s either a dedicated teacher or an eccentric who uses gimmicks to hold her students’ attention, depending on whom you ask.  At the moment she has her plate rather full, what with new professor Mark Selden to show around (an Oxford Shakespearean scholar, who gives every indication of being privileged and entitled) and serving as consultant on a new reality TV show, “Who Wants to Marry Mr. Darcy?” It’s basically “The Bachelor” in period costume with a Hollywood hunk as Mr. Darcy.  The show is being filmed at the stately home of Phaedra’s newly married friend Charlene Lucas, which is a story in itself. Until the last few months, the house belonged to the Fortune family, but with the death of Mr. Fortune, the house and all his worldly wealth went to a nephew—specifically, Charlene’s husband—and Mrs. Fortune and her four daughters found themselves out in the cold.  Well, living in a guest cottage, but to them that’s pretty much the same thing.

(If some of this is beginning to sound suspiciously like plot aspects borrowed from a Jane Austen novel, you’re not wrong.)

Ahem.  Not long after Jane—er, Phaedra—arrives, so does Bill Collier, Charlene’s husband, CEO of Longbourn Pharmaceutical, and heir to the Fortune fortune. He is not a nice man.  He berates his wife, makes a huge scene, and tosses out accusations.

At least then he has the good manners to get himself killed.

With her friend Charlene as chief suspect, Jane—I mean, Phaedra—sets out to prove her friend’s innocence, save the English Department, and deal with that infuriating Mark Selden, despite some prejudice against him.

With a cover model who bears more than a passing resemblance to Kiera Knightly, I found this homage to Austen to be a lot of fun. It could be read simply for the cozy mystery, but the real delight for me was recognizing characters’ names and winks at the books.  For example, William Collier makes a good stand-in for Mr. Collins, the clergyman who marries Charlotte Lucas; to sweeten the pot, references are made to Collier’s past as a shady evangelist. References such as these abound, and more than once I was mentally kicking myself for not picking up on one sooner. 

As for the rest of it, the plot is solid enough. There’s a cat, Wickham, who is handsome but not rather aloof and standoffish.  (I did not care for the catty comment that felines are not lovable but given that Wickham does play an important role, I shall be magnanimous and try to overlook it.) I loved the literary references, from sly references from characters to quotations from Shakespeare.

I’ll certainly be on the lookout for the next in the series, A Murderous Persuasion.

Dancing Naked in the Mind Field by Kary Mullis

 Note: We do not have a Nevermore report for today, so instead we have a review from a former employee.  Nancy's reviews were legendary. This one is from 2010; and yes-- we do still have the book.

 

 Reviewed by Nancy

Are you interested in the opinions of a Nobel Prize winning chemist? In his book, Dancing Naked In The Mind Field (081 MUL Main),  Dr. Kary Mullis offers his views on extraterrestrial life, brown recluse spider bites, the use of paid expert witness in judicial proceedings, intuition, your ten thousandth day, astrology, margarine and cholesterol, LSD and other illegal drugs, and HIV and HIV drugs.

In the first chapters of his book Dr. Mullis describes the “eureka moment” when he figured out polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It was the discovery of this process that won him the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1993.

To vastly simplify this concept, PCR is a process by which a strand of DNA can be replicated many times for study.

In my first reading of Dr. Mullis' account of his discovery I confess that about the only thing I understood was the moment when the concept became clear to him and he exclaimed, "Holy shit!" After that I was lost, but it was still interesting reading (sort of).

I am happy to report that the rest of the book was not too much over my head and I really enjoyed it.

Dr.Mullis covers a lot of subjects, and I am glad of that, because this man has an interesting and enquiring mind. He says, "I knew, maybe from birth, where the circuit breakers were." Mullis developed an interest in astrology after three complete strangers guessed correctly that he is a Capricorn. Being a scientist, Dr. Mullis did the math. The probability of these correct pronouncements occurring by chance was 1 out of 1,728. Wow.

I point out the astrology thing as an example of what's going on in this book. This guy's mind is all over the place. His curiosity is not limited to his specific scientific field. He is interested in everything. Furthermore, Mullis seems to be a pretty down-to-earth individual with a great sense of humor.

What is your opinion regarding the presence of aliens on this earthly plane? Dr. Mullis relates an experience he had at his remote cabin in the woods of Mendocino County, California in 1985. It involved a glowing raccoon, and several hours of "lost time." Around midnight Dr. Mullis was on his way to the outhouse which was about fifty feet from his cabin when he saw the raccoon. It was sitting under a fir tree and it glowed. Mullis speculates that this could have been a hologram projected from who knows where. He pointed his flashlight at it, it said "Good evening, Doctor," and the next thing our good doctor knew it was the next morning and he was in a different location in the woods, walking along a dirt road headed back to his cabin.

Some time later he discovered that his daughter, Louise, had had the same experience in the same location, except that she didn't remember any glowing raccoon. Ah, maybe Dr. Mullis saw the raccoon because he experimented with LSD in the sixties before it was made illegal.

See, I told you he has an enquiring mind. Dr. Mullis has been described as one of our more controversial and flamboyant Nobel laureates. Actually, some people think he's a total kook which, I suppose, accounts for why this kook so thoroughly enjoyed his book.

Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Attorney Wallace Price is not a happy man.  He’s already had to fire one employee, a previously reliable woman who tried to give him some sob story about her unemployed husband.  Wallace has no time for drivel like that.  People are paid to work, not to have lives. Children, spouses, pets, hobbies—all things that distract them from the real purpose of life: work.  Why can people not understand that? Wallace was married once, but for some odd reason it didn’t work out.  You don’t see him crying about it, do you?

And then he’s in a church where a sign out front says “A Celebration of the Life of Wallace Price.” He finds this a little disturbing, but not as much as when he sees only five people at the service: his three law partners, his ex-wife Naomi, and a young woman he doesn’t know.  His expectations to at least hear nice things about himself is shattered when he discovers the partners are more interested in discussing a ballgame and Naomi is more concerned with the plane she has to catch—and airing old grievances against Wallace.  

That leaves the young woman. His half hope that she was a secret admirer is dashed when she tells him that she is a Reaper and that he, Wallace, is dead.  She’s come to escort him to his next destination, which as it turns out, is a bizarrely built shop pretty much in the middle of nowhere with a sign that reads

Charon’s Crossing

Tea and Treats

Inside, he finds an inappropriately cheerful young man named Hugo, a dog that can walk through walls, and an old man who clearly has no respect for the legal profession or the newly dead.  Hugo is a ferryman, one who helps the dead to pass over, to go upstairs and through a door to… something.  Somewhere.

But Wallace is not ready to go.

Klune excels at world-building.  He creates these highly imaginative worlds with rules and glorious characters we’d all love to know. Even the irascible Wallace begins to learn how to break through his self-imposed rigidity and learn to live, despite being dead.  The fun is in watching it happen.  Hugo is a wonderfully warm, generous man who works hard to try to set the world right for everyone.  Mei the Reaper is new to the job, but she also wants to make her newly deceased charges transition easily.  Nelson, Hugo’s grandfather, is also dead (as is the dog Apollo) but he’s decided to hang around to watch over his grandson for a while.  He provides delightful running commentary on all the characters, especially Wallace.

Along the way, Klune allows the reader to meditate on life, death, and love.  He keeps the mystery; there is no glorious revelation of the Afterlife, but there doesn’t need to be. All the characters know is the Earth side of the Whispering Door, not what happens when you go through.

Klune has a reputation for creating feel good books that exude love, compassion, and acceptance, and with endings that make the reader want to cheer. Under the Whispering Door is a fine addition to that tradition.

Graveyard Fields by Steven Tingle

 

 We are delighted to welcome back Kevin Tipple to the BPL Bookblog!  Kevin is an award-winning blogger and author.  Check out Kevin's Corner for reviews, news, and other items of interest!

 

 

Reviewed by Kevin Tipple

 

Sometimes a line in a story or book resonates deep inside the reader. This one did.

 

“’Davis, I’ll tell you something. They ain’t nothin’ worse than missing a woman.’” (Page 146)

Former Charleston Police Officer Davis Reed is missing a woman and much of his life due to pills, alcohol, anger and anxiety issues. He has fled home for a change of scenery and an attempt to focus himself. For the next six months, he is living in a cabin in Cruso, North Carolina, with the intention of writing a book. The book is to be on the true story of the B-25 plane crash at nearby Cold Mountain. There were no survivors in the crash just after WWII. The fact that he has no experience writing, beyond police reports and whatever he did for his private detective gigs, does not deter him from the book writing plan.

The ongoing and routine day and night drinking as he makes various beers in the basement and his significant pill addiction deter the wring process. As does his bad leg and the pain in it and general goofing off. Davis Reed is not a writer. He is drifting through the days haunted by his past and one fateful night when his world changed.

He is also somebody who cannot stop obsessing when he sees something odd. Finding a ring full of keys is the trigger for an all new and escalating obsession. Finding the keys where he did was odd enough. What keeps happening with the keys is even odder. Those keys are the first in a long line of dominoes that eventually lead to a violent confrontation in the mountains of western North Carolina.

A highly atmospheric and massively complicated read, Graveyard Fields by Steven Tingle unfolds at a steady and escalating pace. Filled with occasional wisecrack, more references to the heavy metal music of the eighties than you can shake a stick at, and a cast of eccentric characters, the book is a complicated and fun mystery read. It is also one of those novels where characters are cussing constantly and that will annoy some readers. So too will be all the constant discussion and thoughts regarding home brewing of beer. Neither was an issue for this reader.

 

My reading copy came from the Lakewood Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.

 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2021

Nevermore: Potter of Bones, Deathwatch Beetle, Parable of the Sower, All Boys Aren't Blue

 

Reported by Garry

 

“The Potter of Bones” by Eleanor Atwood Arnason is an award-winning short story that originally appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine in 2002. This story is part of Arnason’s Hwarhath series of tales about a planet of intelligent fur-covered beings where homosexuality is the norm for relationships and heterosexuality is only for procreation. Arnason’s stories explore the themes of art, anthropology, sociology, sexuality, and feminism by creating science fiction stories that feel like folk tales and allegories. The narrator of “The Potter of Bones” is from the planet’s present time, telling oral traditions that come down from early history. Our reader found this a beautifully written, highly entertaining short story that really captured her imagination and was a great distraction from the heavy news that surrounds us.  KN

 

The Deathwatch Beetle by Kjell Eriksson is the ninth in the Ann Lindell Mystery series. Set on the island of Gräsö, this thriller finds retired police investigator Ann Lindell becoming embroiled in the disappearance of Cecilia Karlsson, a young woman who vanished under mysterious circumstances four years previously. When Ann receives a tip that Cecilia has been seen alive, she cannot deny the pull of a mystery and decides to investigate. Our reader thought this Nordic-noir thriller was tightly written and engaging, and recommends it to readers who are fans of authors Helene Tursten, Ragnar Jonasson, and Katrine Engberg.  ML

 

The Parable of the Sower is a 1993 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Octavia Butler. This Nebula-award nominated story focuses on Lauren Olamina, a young woman who can physically feel the pain of others. Set in a climate-changed and economically segregated California in 2024, Lauren lives in the remnants of a gated community until it is destroyed by outsiders. Fleeing with two other surviving members of the community, Lauren travels north in search of safety and a paid job. As she travels, she gathers others and starts to develop her own religion which she calls Earthseed, based on the belief that “God is Change”. This prescient novel pairs well with other classics such as 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale, and is now considered a classic of science fiction. Fun fact:  Octavia Butler is so well regarded that NASA scientists informally named the 2020 landing spot of the Perseverance Rover “Octavia E. Butler Landing” to honor her legacy.  AH

 

All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto is an award-winning collection of essays by prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson. This oft-challenged book is an unflinching memoir of growing up black and gay, and covers such topics as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Our reader thoroughly loved this book and commented on the supportive family that Johnson had that many queer people do not. She also would recommend this book to anyone looking to gain more insight into growing up queer, from ages middle-school on up.  CD

 

Also mentioned:

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Geographies of Home by Loida Maritza Perez

Shadowman: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling by Ron Franscell

The Winter Hero by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

A God in Ruins by Leon Uris

French Braid by Anne Tyler

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali

Sister Stardust by Jane Green

Never Simple by Liz Scheier

Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan

Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life by Delia Ephron

Black Cloud Rising by David Wright Falade

Origin:  A Genetic History of the Americas by Jennifer Raff

The Patron Saint of Second Chances by Christine Simon

Old Land, Dark Land, Strange Land: Stories by John F. Suter

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune