Nevermore: Bring Me Back, Restless Wave, Salt Lane, Dear Mrs. Bird, Us Against You

 Reported by Jeanne

Bring Me Back, a thriller by B. A. Paris, started off the Nevermore discussion this week. A dozen years have passed since Finn’s girlfriend Layla vanished at a rest stop and he was accused of her murder.  He was cleared and now he’s found happiness from an unlikely source:  Layla’s sister, Ellen. Not long after they become engaged, a mutual friend claims to have seen Layla, alive and well.  Items that had meaning to Layla begin to appear, and Finn has to wonder if Layla is still alive—or is someone playing a dangerous game?  Our reader was not happy with the resolution and wasn’t sure that she liked the characters.  

John McCain’s new book, The Restless Wave, was the next title discussed.  Our reviewer was quite impressed with it, saying that McCain expresses himself very well.  She felt the book and the man were both very inspirational. (Note:  this meeting was held before Senator McCain passed away.)

Salt Lane by William Shaw intrigued one of this week’s Nevermore attendees in part because of the strong setting:  the Kent coastline.  It’s quite a change for DS Alexandra Cupidi, who was transferred from the London Metropolitan police force to the sometimes stark countryside. While her teenage daughter Zoe finds solace in birdwatching, Alex is soon embroiled in a series of mysteries, starting with the discovery of a woman’s body in a drainage ditch.  Our reader enjoyed the book, and recommended it as a good, well-written mystery, with a strong sense of place.  

Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce introduces us to Emmeline Lake, a bright and eager young woman anxious to do her part in the war effort.  In London, 1940, that ends up being a volunteer telephone operator for the Auxiliary Fire Services.  She longs to be a war correspondent and jumps at the opportunity to take a position at a newspaper.  To her great disappointment, she is assigned the task of being a typist for the paper’s advice columnist, the renowned Mrs. Bird.  Mrs. Bird has very strict standards, which includes tossing any letters that contain Unpleasantness—i.e., real problems, such as not wanting to have children evacuated or confessions of infidelity.  Emmy secretly begins to respond to those letters, trying to give advice and comfort. If you’re looking for a light, entertaining book, consider this debut novel.

Finally, a reviewer reported disappointment with Fredrik Backman’s Us Against You. This is the second book set in Beartown, an isolated Swedish village whose pride and joy is its hockey team.   An incident involving one of the junior players leaves the team’s continued existence in doubt, even as the rival team from Hed—made up of former Beartown players—readies for what might be the last game.  Us Against You picks up where the previous book, Beartown, left off, but can be read as a standalone because Backman supplies enough information for new readers. However, our reader said she found it to be repetitious and she wasn’t engaged by the characters.  She also noted she doesn’t particularly like hockey.

The Breakdown by B.A. Paris

Reviewed by Jeanne

It’s the clichéd dark and stormy night when Cass decides to take the shortcut home, even though her husband, Matthew, had warned against it.  It’s a desolate stretch of road, heavily wooded, and a terrible place to have your car stop, but it is a much quicker way.  Part of the way down the road, Cass is startled to see a car pulled off to the side.  A woman sits inside. Cass hesitates, unsure if the woman is in trouble or just waiting for someone.  The woman gives no sign—doesn’t flash her lights, blow the horn, do anything to indicate distress—so Cass drives home.

The next day she learns the woman was murdered there.

And Cass knew her.

B.A. Paris won rave reviews for her debut novel, Behind Closed Doors, and she’ll pick up even more fans with this taunt, suspenseful novel.  Cass is a character almost anyone could relate to: she’s just returned to teaching after her marriage, having spent years caring for her mother who suffered from early onset dementia. She feels terribly guilty that she didn’t go check on the woman and is frightened that a murder took place so close to where she and Matthew live. Even worse, she seems to be having some memory loss.  She’s terrified that she might end up like her mother, but she can’t share that concern with Matthew.  They met and married after her mother died, and she’s never told him the details of her mother’s illness.

The characters are all well developed and the tension steadily increases as the pages turn.  The ending is both shocking and satisfying.

I confess I did not make it all the way through Behind Closed Doors.  I took an intense dislike to one of the characters early on and after four chapters decided I did not want to spend any more time with that personality.  However, I read the ending (don’t judge!) and liked it well enough that I decided to try her second book.  I’m glad I did.

Nevermore: B.A. Paris, Lisabeth Salander, Graveyard Book, Never Let Me Go, Astrophysics, and October Sky

Reported by Jeanne

B.A. Paris’ debut novel Behind Closed Doors was recommended again by a Nevermore member.  The story revolves around a husband and wife who seem to have the perfect marriage, but astute readers will see dark undercurrents early on in the book.  Our reader said she had to take a sneak peek at the ending but still enjoyed the book.

Many of those in Nevermore have been fans of Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander books, so there was great interest the new books in the series written by David Lagercrantz.  The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye was praised by our reader for catching the essence of the original characters.  However, the plot was deemed a bit thin and more than a bit implausible. 

The Newbery Award-winning The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is keeping another reader entertained.  The story revolves around Bod, an orphan boy who is being raised by the inhabitants of a graveyard after the murder of his parents.  She said it was the perfect book for this time of year, and she was enjoying the relationship between Bod and the various spirits.

Our next reader was impressed with Never Let Me Go  by Kazuo Ishiguro but said that it was a difficult book to talk about without revealing spoilers.  She did say that it was set in the 1990s but sort of an alternate time. The story takes place in Hailsham, which is an English boarding school for special students, and follows three students in particular as they grow up and learn their purpose in life. She picked up the book because she wanted to read something by the winner of the  2017 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Astrophysics for People  in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson might as well have been titled “Brain Surgery for People in a Hurry,” according to our reader.  He felt the title indicated the book could be read and understood quickly while there is a lot of information packed inside 224 pages.  That’s not to say that the book isn’t good, just that it takes a while to absorb it all.  

Finally, one member praised October Sky by Homer Hickam, which was first published under the title Rocket Boys.   The details Hickam’s youth in Coalwood, WV, a mining town in the Appalachian Mountains.  Homer was in high school when the Russians launched Sputnik, and that event captured the young man’s imagination.  He and some classmates set out to build their own rockets for the state science fair in hopes of earning a way out of a fading coal town.  Our reader found it to be a wonderful book and is looking forward to seeing the movie—which she had actually seen some years ago and hadn’t liked, but after reading the book she’s now anxious to see it again.

Nevermore: Midnight Sun, Behind Closed Doors, The Smear, Mortuary Technician, Brothers of the Sea, Eaters of the Dead

Reported by Jeanne 

Nevermore started the week with a review of Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbo, an award-winning Norwegian author best known for his Harry Hole mystery series.  This standalone novel features Jon, a hitman who is fleeing a vindictive employer known as the Fisherman. He finds a sanctuary of sorts in a small village where he also finds himself becoming emotionally attached to a widow and her son.  But Jon—known to the villagers as Ulf—knows that it’s just a matter of time before someone will come looking for him. Our reviewer enjoyed it, and gave it four out of five stars.  He especially praised Nesbo for his ability to create complex characters.

Behind Closed Doors, a debut novel by B.A. Paris, also won praise from its reader.  Grace and Jack appear to the be the perfect couple, but appearances are deceiving in this domestic thriller.  Our reader said it featured a psychopath with amazing nasal abilities—this person could smell fear—and that it’s a good page-turner.

The Smear by Sharyl Attkisson takes a behind the scenes look at how political campaigns, spin doctors, and special interest groups all try to shape the news to influence the public, especially voters.  Our reviewer said that while it was not fast reading, it was interesting.

More engaging was the next nonfiction selection, Down Among the Dead Men:  A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician by Michelle Williams. While the book could be a bit graphic at times, it’s a fascinating look at what goes on behind the scenes at a hospital mortuary.  Learning the causes of death, dealing with funeral homes, and some of the more unusual –um—clients make for engrossing reading.  Our reviewer did say that since the author was English a number of British expressions appear in the book but that didn’t detract from her enjoyment.

The 1966 novel Brothers of the Sea by D.R. Sherman is set in Seychelles when a boy and his father struggle to survive. Fifteen year old Paul is saved by a dolphin and the two form a deep friendship. The reader said this was a great book, and it was one of the saddest stories he’d ever read.

Finally, Michael Crichton’s early novel The Eaters of the Dead made quite an impression on one member.  Based on the writings of an Arab traveler around 921 A.D. and drawing from Beowulf, the story revolves around a band of Vikings who have to fight a mysterious monster. Our reader was most taken with the descriptions of Viking life and found the book to be “fascinating.”