Nevermore: Mahood, Speaks, Hamby, Melham, Rash, Jones, Willilams, Cooper

Reported by Garry and Laura

In the humorous non-fiction book Not Tonight Josephine: A Road Trip Through Small-Town America by George Mahood, the author and a friend come over from England, buy a 1985 Dodge minivan and proceed on a road trip across America from New York to California.  Once in California, Mahood’s friend, Mark, must return to the UK, and George manages to convince his girlfriend to fly over and meet him in Breckenridge, Colorado to accompany him on the trip back to New York.  Our reader reported that she smiled a lot while reading this light-hearted romp from coast to coast.  

Our next reader thoroughly enjoyed the book Historic Disasters of East Tennessee by Dewaine Speaks. In particular, she was riveted by the recounting of a disaster that happened in Bradley County which is known as the worst traffic accident in Tennessee history and the fifth worst in U.S. history.  One of our readers had a friend who was a proof-reader for a court recorder who recorded testimony during the lawsuits that came after the crash.   Our reader also pointed out the story of the 1904 train wreck in New Market, TN, 30 miles east of Knoxville in which 56 passengers and crew were killed, and 106 injured.  An inquiry into the disaster was inconclusive as the engineers and drivers involved died in the accident.    

Soul Full of Coal Dust:  The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice by Chris Hamby is an investigative book which delves into the ongoing battle for compensation for coal miners and their families due to the ravages of black lung disease.  Our reader’s grandfather and all her neighbors were miners, and this book brought back memories of the miners returning home pitch black from coal dust because there were no showers at the mines.  The laws that were passed in the 1960s in to protect coal miners have failed to end black lung disease or to provide for those who are ill.  This true story of how a carpenter turned lawyer and a miner took on Massey Coal makes for an eye-opening read.

Published in 1976, John Muir’s Wild America by Tom Melham is an exploration of the lasting effect of land conservation and preservation, a movement spearheaded by John Muir – a Scottish born adventurer who lived in California and who was responsible for getting Congress to declare Yosemite as one of the first National Parks in the US.   Our reader praised John Muir for being such a dogged adventurer, barely even slowing down when he contracted malaria.  Amongst his many accomplishments he started the Sierra club, climbed mountains in Yosemite, and helped establish Sequoia as a National Park. 

Something Rich and Strange by poet and novelist Ron Rash is a series of short stories, all based in the Appalachian region. The stories are scattered throughout time, some being set in the modern day, others in the past.   Our reader recommended this book due to short stories not requiring a lot of memory during these times.   

Charley Davidson is a private investigator and Grim Reaper (yes, THAT Grim Reaper) in a series of supernatural detective mysteries by Darynda Jones.  The first novel in the series is First Grave on the Right which our reader thoroughly enjoyed and recommends. The books are a silly mindless romp, according to our reader and can be summed up as "graves and sex."  They are an excellent distraction right now and don’t require a lot of attention or brain space, but are pure fun. 

The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Karen White, and Lauren Willig is a historical fiction mystery which intertwines two stories – one in 2013, and another in 1915.  Sarah Blake is an author looking for ideas for a new book when she goes against her mother's wishes and opens a trunk which belonged to her great-grandfather who died in the disaster of the RMS Lusitania.  What she discovers could change history.   Our reader liked this book, and recommended it.

Cut to the Bone by Ellison Cooper is a modern-day crime mystery thriller that revolves around a DC-based FBI agent who has a psych degree and is investigating the hijacking of a school bus of high school students.  The books has twists and turns, which makes our reader happy; she plans to go back and real all the other books by this same author.  This is the only book that our reader has encountered that has a cliffhanger ending, and it definitely has her hooked for the next!  Highly recommended if you like thrillers and procedurals.

 

            The Overstory by Richard Powers won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2019. It tells the story of nine strangers who are brought together by an unfolding natural catastrophe. The reviewer liked the book, but didn’t love it. She found it long and didn’t really begin to enjoy it until the stories began to intertwine. The book was a meditation on the fact that we don’t value the life of other living things or see what’s in front of us.

          

            Our last review is Good Dogs Don’t Make it to the South Pole by Hans Olav Thyvold, which is narrated by Tassen, a dog who can talk, but not read. After losing his master, the man’s wife begins to read to him about arctic expeditions and the dogs who serve them. The book has some light moments, but is very much a meditation on the ethics surrounding the treatment of the dogs used, and sometimes sacrificed, in the expeditions. This was a good book and comes recommended.

 

The Lantern Men by Elly Griffiths

Once again, it is our pleasure to welcome guest reviewer Kevin Tipple the the BPL Bookblog.  For more reviews, news about books, and information for authors, check out Kevin's Corner.

 

Reviewed by Kevin Tipple

 

It is the middle of May 2018 as The Lantern Men: A Ruth Galloway Mystery by Elly Griffiths begins and a lot has changed in recent months. Kate is now nine. Dr. Ruth Galloway now teaches at Cambridge and lives with Frank. She is no longer the North Norfolk police’s resident forensic archeologist and is far from her beloved cottage on the Saltmarsh. While she will always have a connection to DCI Henry Nelson because of Kate, she is trying her best to close that door of her life and move forward with Frank and her new job duties.

 

That is until convicted murderer Ivor March offers a deal that Nelson cannot refuse. Finally convicted of two murders, Ivor Martin, remains a suspect as far as DCI Nelson is concerned for the cases of Nicole Ferris and Jenny McGuire. They are the same body type as the other victims, both lived in the Norfolk area at the time as did his confirmed victims, and both had contact with March by way of his classes as did the confirmed victims. Nelson is sure, without a shred of doubt, March did it.  He knows March did it. Proving it is the problem as there has been no sign of the bodies or any evidence in either case.

 

That is until Ivor March decides to cooperate and will do so for a price. Not only does he want a meeting with Nelson and Dr. Ruth Galloway, he will only tell them where the bodies are if she handles the dig herself. Clearly March is working an unknown agenda, but if it means promising to do the excavations will bring the deceased home to their loved ones, Dr. Galloway is willing to agree to the meeting and to supervise the recovery of the bodies.

  

She does and in addition to the bodies unearths a tangled web of lies and deceit, motives, and strange relationships going back decades. Local legends and modern-day murders make The Lantern Men: A Ruth Galloway Mystery by Elly Griffiths a compelling read.

 

Multiple storylines in addition to the one noted above are at work in this complicated read. This is a series that should be read in order and that is especially true here with numerous references to earlier events in the series, the changing nature of relationships, and the passage of time. There are frequent references to the fact that is has been 10 years since the first book, The Crossing Places, and how things have changed for Dr. Galloway, DCI Nelson, and many of the secondary characters who have overtime, had major roles in the series. The reader is left with the sense this is a turning point book where things will reset going forward in the series.

 

A complicated and engrossing book, The Lantern Men: A Ruth Galloway Mystery by Elly Griffiths is strongly recommended, as is the series.

 

 

 

The Lantern Men: A Ruth Galloway Mystery

Elly Griffiths

http://www.ellygriffiths.co.uk/

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

http://www.hmhbooks.com

2020

ISBN# 978-0-358-23704-4

Hardback (also available in paperback, audio, and e-book formats

368 Pages (includes several pages of the next book in the series)

 

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

 

 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2020    

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Reviewed by Christy

            Native Americans use every part of the elk after a kill. When four young Blackfeet men stumble on a large herd of elk on lands forbidden to them, they seize the chance to take home such bountiful game. Unfortunately, they are interrupted by the game warden and unable to complete a proper kill. This youthful indiscretion will come back to haunt them in their later years.

            On the surface, being haunted by an elk may not seem terribly scary but Stephen Graham Jones, who is Blackfeet Native American, makes it very unsettling. The story weaves between the men’s lives as they’ve gotten older and (mostly) settled down. The book opens with Lewis who is a postal worker and happily married. He begins having hallucinations of the elk he and his friends illegally killed, and he suspects she is back for revenge. He begins to not to be able to tell what’s real and what isn’t. He’s not even sure he can trust his wife. This section was the strongest part of the book for me. It’s baffling and ominous and a little gruesome. After we move on from Lewis’s point of view I had no idea where the story was going to go, which was exciting, but unfortunately the plot lost a lot of its steam. While there are still intriguing moments throughout the rest of the book, the pacing started to slow to the point that it became a struggle to read at times. However, I did enjoy Jones’ writing style. I’m not really sure how to describe it other than it felt more conversational.

            Though it’s a little uneven, I can’t say I hated this book or even disliked it. It was different from anything I’ve read previously. Lewis’s section might be worth the read alone. If you think you can handle the pacing in the second half of the book, and you’re looking for a new kind of horror, The Only Good Indians might be worth checking out.