hc.newton

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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Next year, when Dog Show time comes round, we would like to see a wholly new brand of showmanship introduced into the Garden… A dog should be made to work for his ribbon, each breed in his own wise. Pointers should have to point, Shepherds should be required to herd a band of sheep from the east goal to the west goal. Poodles should be required to jump through a paper hoop, not just follow Mrs. Sherman Hoyt around the ring. English bull terriers should be made to count up to ten, retrievers retrieve rubber ducks, Scotties chew up old shoes. Greyhounds should be put over the high hurdles. St. Bernards carry brandy to anyone in the audience who feels weak, preferably us. Beagles would jolly well have to bealge, or shut up. How about it, dogs—are you dogs or mice?

What’s E. B. White on Dogs About?

This is a collection of essays, articles, letters, and other brief notes written by E.B. White about dogs. In other words, it’s what the title says. Most of the entries are very short—1-2 pages, some are a paragraph long—but (especially toward the end), we get some longer letters and essays.

Most are about White’s dogs—particularly Fred, a beloved dachshund. But there are pieces about dog shows and other dogs, too.

A Few Highlights

This is going to be tough, there are just too many options. Something about Dog Shows brought out the best and/or snarkiest in White, and are possibly my favorite moments.

There’s a point where he describes how a dachshund climbs up and down stairs and the optimum height for said stairs. I don’t know about the height, but he described perfectly how our pug uses the stairs and it’s something I’m going to borrow. He had, over the course of his life, multiple dachshunds and his affection for the breed is evident. But you can tell that Fred had a big impact on White—both during and after his death. The piece White wrote after his death is possibly the highlight of the book.

There’s a long (for this book, anyway) piece about taking a dog on its first coon hunting trip—it’s just wonderful. It’s tonally different from most of the book, which probably helps it stand out—but it didn’t need much help.

Some Non-Dog Moments

Not everything in this book is focused on dogs but involves them tangentially. The best of these pieces are about contemporary politics—I knew some of the names, but not all of them, but that didn’t change things really.

There’s an essay from The New Yorker that I’d probably have paid half the purchase price of the book for—it’s called “Khrushchev and I (A Study in Similarities).” Some newspaper published a feature on the Soviet premier, and from what I can tell, it was the puffiest puff piece around. White takes some parts of that feature to show how much he and Khrushchev are alike—they’re devoted to their families, like walking in the woods, and so on. The last paragraph points out some important differences, too—size, amount of hair left on their heads, the fact that White has never threatened to bury America…the usual differences. And just as he has you chuckling in a different way than he has for a few pages, the last line or two are somber and sober. Fantastic stuff.

So, what did I think about E. B. White on Dogs?

Overall, this was a great collection. It does feel like Martha White hit “Ctrl-F” on an electronic version of everything her grandfather had written and pasted the entire contents of that search into this book. Some of the letters contain one sentence about a dog—not always that cleverly written or interesting—and I had to wonder why she bothered, outside of a drive for thoroughness.

I don’t recommend reading too much of this at once—but maybe that’s just me, my attention waned after too many entries. But if you’re familiar with White’s non-children’s writing, or have the desire to be, and enjoy reading about dogs (and a couple of cats, and a squirrel or two)—you’ll enjoy this.

Speaking of his non-children’s writing—in her note to the reader describing the impetus for the book, and their approach to editing, keeping the pieces “largely as they appeared originally, not attempting to mesh the inconsistencies.” (including some phrasing I don’t think you’d get away with today). Martha White says,

The letters…are more casual in style and my Tillbury House editor was surprised to find that the co-author of The Elements of Style did not always get his that and which correct, especially in the early years. Our hands-off policy nearly killed her.

I feel for that editor and can’t help but chuckle about E.B. White’s divergence from his own book.

All in all, this book delivers what the title promises, and if that’s up your alley, you’ll enjoy it. I sure did.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader along with a Q&A with the author (who had some great answers).

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What’s Killer Story About?

While studying journalism in school, Petra acted as a counselor for a high school journalism camp. In that role, she met and befriended a young girl named Livvy Anderson. Over the years since then, the two forged a strong friendship—almost like sisters. At some point though, the relationship faltered—in college, Livvy started posting videos online spouting (in Petra’s view) extreme right-wing politics, hateful speech, and the like. For example, she defended a star football player accused of raping a woman on campus by trashing her reputation and exposing personal details. Rather than pushing back or even arguing with her friend, Petra chilled communication, assuming it was a phase, and focused on her own work.

And it might have been a phase if Livvy hadn’t been killed. The murder was fairly sensational—it happened while Livvy was recording a video (but she paused the recording so no one saw it or the murderer). The accused killer was acquitted—and most of the country (including Petra) assumed it was a travesty of justice and that he got away with it. The Court of Public Opinion definitely found him guilty.

Years later, Petra has found herself (like most young print journalists) bouncing around from newspaper to newspaper, trying to stay employed. She’s now at a major Boston newspaper and thinks that life is stable—the subjects of her stories might not be that glamorous, but she’s working, and the big story is around the corner.

Until she’s laid off. She panics at this point—her boyfriend (who moved cross-country with her for this job, changing the course of his career) isn’t going to put up with the lack of stability much longer, and it’s going to only get harder getting a job at the rate she’s going. So she throws out a mad pitch to her editor—what if she could definitively prove who killed Olivia Anderson? She tells him this story isn’t just the kind of thing for the paper—it’d make a great podcast.

Visions of the kind of revenue that Serial and similar podcasts could bring to the paper, not to mention the publicity of this kind of story, he gives her two weeks to firm up the story, start producing the podcast, and they’ll see what happens.

Petra heads off to find the evidence she pretended to have during that meeting—and hopefully much more.

The Journalism of this Novel

I’ve talked before about how I’m a sucker for a novel about a driven journalist—typically a print journalist, too. I’m always ready, willing, and able to embrace and fall into the romance of the crusading reporter. Or just one who does the job well, without a crusade.

But those kinds of stories are getting harder to tell and to believe in our current media landscape. Not just because print journalism is dying (for worse or for worser). It’s definitely not the track that Witten takes here. Petra is desperate and acts desperately—she lies to her editor at every turn, overstating her case and the evidence she has at each step of the way. Almost every fictional reporter* cuts a corner here and there and bends a rule and the truth in pursuit of the story and/or the truth. Petra amputates corners and forces the truth about her actions into positions only the most experienced yogi can handle—at least when it comes to what she tells her editor, coworkers, the police, her boyfriend, and so on.

* Lawyers, please note that I’m not saying anything about the methods of actual reporters or the companies they work for. Please don’t sue me.

When it comes to her actual reporting, however—in print, podcast, and elsewhere—Petra is much more honest. Bowing to editorial pressure she may say something earlier than she should* and while she never lies, she sure edges close to it. Her scripts feature incredibly well-chosen words—true, but open to interpretation.

* There are a few hundred words I could write about other journalistic ethical moves here, but I’d be getting sidetracked.

The journalism—both in print and in the podcast—we see here is very likely what fills our screens and earbuds. It’s sensationalistic, click-driven, and not necessarily all that honest. It’s depressing to think about, and it’s not great to read about if you think about it in those terms—but it makes for a thrilling (and realistic) read. Still, I think I need to go watch Deadline – U.S.A. or something to restore my faith in humanity.

The Alt-Right Depiction

Thanks to Livvy’s online persona, even now, she has a good number of fans. Many of those fans are not happy about Petra’s podcast—and make that displeasure well known online. At least one goes further than that. Between them and Livvy’s videos (and other online activities), Witten has to walk a careful line—he needs to depict them in an honest and believable way without turning them into a convenient punching bag for a reader or character to spend a lot of time venting about their politics (perhaps even himself). Or, to go in the other direction, too.

I really appreciated the restraint he showed in this regard, it’d be easy to slip here, but on the whole, he simply reports on the views espoused—sure, it’s clear that Petra and her colleagues (and many of the witnesses that talk about it) disagree with Livvy and her fans/defenders, but with only one exception, we don’t get details their differences with the alt-right views.

That exception comes from Petra having to do a deep dive into their activities and to try to interact—so it comes about organically. Even then, Witten doesn’t let Petra go too far.

I mention this to say that readers shouldn’t let the politics involved in the book dissuade them—it’s there, but it’s just part of the atmosphere. And it’s fairly evenly handled, and I can’t imagine many readers having a problem with it.

So, what did I think about Killer Story?

Early on in the novel, I made assumptions (as you do) about the kind of story that Witten was telling and what kind of things the reader should expect from the plot and characters. I was wrong on just about every point. It was a very different kind of story, the characters ended up going in directions I wouldn’t have guessed (Petra’s editor, boyfriend, and best friend were probably the exceptions to this), and every theory I had about the killing was wrong.* And the result is a richer, deeper, and more satisfying novel than what I thought I was going to get (and I anticipated this being a good one!).

* Well, almost. I did have the motive and killer right for a chapter or two, but Witten and Petra got me off of that path.

Witten’s story in last year’s Jacked was one of the higher points in a collection full of high points, and this novel solidified my appreciation for his writing. Before I got to the point where I realized that the novel wasn’t telling the story that I thought it was and shifted my expectations, I spent a good deal of time not liking the book—but I couldn’t stop reading it or thinking and talking about it when I wasn’t reading it. It was just too well done. It got under my skin. Actually, it’s still there—I can’t stop thinking about Petra and her choices. I even emailed Witten to ask a couple of questions I had about some points—points that I think the reader could have divergent opinions on, but I wanted his authorial take on it. I’ve never done this before. But I had to know—and even having his take on them, I’m chewing on it.

I’m going to be haunted by Killer Story for a bit—in the best way. If you’re looking for a mystery you can sink your teeth into and chew on, look no further.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Her Name is Knight About?

I’m struggling here (and have been for a week or so) to come up with something succinct and yet descriptive. So I’m going to cop out, and borrow the description from the author’s website, because I want to get this posted (if only so I can get this book back to the library). I don’t know if I’d have said everything the third paragraph does myself—feel free to skip the first sentence of it—but I figure if Angoe is willing to say it, it can’t be that spoilery.

Stolen from her Ghanaian village as a child, Nena Knight has plenty of motives to kill. Now an elite assassin for a powerful business syndicate called the Tribe, she gets plenty of chances.

But while on assignment in Miami, Nena ends up saving a life, not taking one. She emerges from the experience a changed woman, finally hopeful for a life beyond rage and revenge. Tasked with killing a man she’s come to respect, Nena struggles to reconcile her loyalty to the Tribe with her new purpose.

Meanwhile, she learns a new Tribe council member is the same man who razed her village, murdered her family, and sold her into captivity. Nena can’t resist the temptation of vengeance―and she doesn’t want to. Before she can reclaim her life, she must leverage everything she was and everything she is to take him down and end the cycle of bloodshed for good.

The Dual Timelines

So it turns out that this novel is told in two timelines. There’s the “After,” describing the present time (everything that the description above talks about), and the “Before”—the things that happen between her village was attacked and her being brought into the Tribe. This had all the makings of a problem for me.

This feels like it’s a confession—maybe it is—books with two timelines making up the plot aren’t for me. I’m not talking about flashbacks, or anything like that. Or a big time-jump somewhere along the line. But where you have Story A taking place in one time and Story B taking place some in some other time and you have to follow each of them along for the entirety (or just about) of the novel until one timeline takes over or they merge. I’m not saying I don’t read them, or that I don’t enjoy those books. But they’re really not my thing—if for no other reason than I almost always only care about one of the timelines. Which one I care about might change while I read, but when we switch from A to B, I almost always begrudge it because I just don’t care about B and just want to get back to A.

This is particularly true when we’re dealing with the past of a character (as we are here). If I can’t guess or assume pretty much the major events in a protagonist’s childhood from what I know of them in the present, then the author either failed in their depiction of the present or is deliberately withholding something (which usually backfires in these situations).

That’s absolutely the case here with Nena Knight. You knew the bulk of what was happening in the “Before” timeline—it’s her origin story and in the “After” story we’re told about some of these events/people prior to them coming up in that timeline, or we get allusions that are clear enough that we can assume the rough outline.

However.

Angoe pulls it off—both timelines are gripping throughout (okay, it took a little bit—maybe a chapter or two—for me to get into the “Before” just because I assumed Angoe would have the problems that 90% of writers have with this setup). I did resent jumping from “After” to “Before,” because I wanted to know what happened next, but I was also glad to get back to the “Before,” because I was on tenterhooks about it after the last jump. When that chapter ended, I didn’t want to leave that timeline, but I had to know what was going on in “After.” It was a vicious cycle. A delicious one, too.

Don’t ask me how Angoe succeeded where so many falter. Skill? Magic? Both? Sure, why not?

Also? The two different voices for the timelines are an excellent choice. Angoe describes her approach:

During her childhood her story is in first person present tense so that you see the world and her journey through her eyes. As an adult, her story is in third person past tense to give you a panoramic view and scope of what this kick-ass assassin can do.

This works so well—I was a little skeptical going in, but she made a believer out of me quickly.

Now, if Angoe tries this again in the next book, will it be as effective? It beats me. I’m leaning toward no, because so few can repeat the same trick. But I’m prepared for her to prove me wrong.

So, what did I think about Her Name is Knight?

There are so many elements here that we’ve seen dozens of times before—Nikita, Black Widow, Hanna, Villanelle, etc.—young female with a traumatic past, raised by people other than her parents, trained to be a spy/assassin/etc., starts to wonder if/discovers that she’s been lied to by her handlers, and makes some connections outside of her organization that feeds their desire to get out/question. Now, there’s a reason we’ve seen these things so often—they’re reliable, there’s something about them that people enjoy. Angoe does something new and different (even if only a little) with these tried and true elements so that they feel fresh and inventive.

I’ve said it before—and I’ll say it again, and keep saying it—I don’t care if you’re telling me a story I know (unless it’s book four in a series and you’re telling the same story each time), as long as you tell it in an entertaining way. This is what Yasmin Angoe has done here.

There’s a strong—very strong—chance for Nena Knight to become my favorite kick-ass female in the near future. Lily Wong, Charlie Fox, Vanessa Michael Munroe—you’re on notice. There’s something very compelling about her, her values, and how she’s living them out. Her ass-kicking abilities are pretty compelling, too. (I’m not really a fan of that phrase, but after quoting Angoe earlier, I can’t think of another way to put it)

The supporting characters—I’m not sure how many of them will reappear in the series, so I’m going to hold off talking about them in any kind of detail—are just as well done. I could take a lot more focus on any one of them in a future book and have a blast with it. The Tribe, too, is a fascinating take on a shadowy international cabal employing our assassin-protagonist. I’m hoping to see a lot more about how and why they work in the books to come. There, too, I’m not sure how much to say. I have to see the future installments.

I’d better wrap things up because I feel like I’m spinning my wheels here—this is a killer introduction to a series. It’s so satisfying and so tantalizing at the same time—I need to know what happens to Nena next. How is she changed, and what’s stayed the same for her (that might be more interesting—what is she holding on to, or what’s so much part of her that she can’t shake it)? If you’re looking for your next thriller, you’d do well to make it this one.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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How I’m Going to Approach This

There is very little reason to believe that Veronica Chambers didn’t write this book. Obviously, Marcus Samuelsson provided the stories, the perspective, the passion, the insight—but I doubt he had much to do with the composition, the organization, and so on. I assume it’s his voice reflected in the style.

But the pronoun used to tell this life story is “I,” not “he.” Whatever agreement the two of them made didn’t even get her name on the cover (thankfully, subsequent editions do give her a “with” credit). She does get a couple of paragraphs devoted to her work in the acknowledgments, so there is that. Anyway, I’m going to follow along with the book and talk about “him” and “Samuelsson” when I talk about the book—but let’s all imagine a big asterisk each time I do, okay?

(I thought about actually putting an asterisk each time with a little footnote—but there’s the potential for that to get really messy)

What’s Yes, Chef About?

In Meki, the small farming village where ’m from, there are no roads. We are actually from an even smaller village than Meki, called Abrugandana, that does not exist on most maps. You go to Meki, take a right in the middle of nowhere, walk about five miles, and that is where we are from.

I really should think of another way to start off this post—because really, it’s all on the cover: “Marcus Samuelsson” and “A Memoir.”

This is about the life of Marcus Samuelsson—there’s a brief description of his life in Ethiopia for the first few years of his life. What he’s reconstructed about his mother, as well as her journey to get medical care for herself, Marcus, and his sister. She died before she could get help, but her children got the help, recovered, and were adopted by a wonderful Swedish couple. We spend a few chapters looking at his life in Sweden—family, friends, soccer, and then cooking—before moving on to him beginning his education and career.

He spends a lot of time on the early days of his training and career, talking about his struggles, his opportunities, his drive. There are highs and lows—somehow cooking for one chef’s dog becomes a high “I did my best. That old, ill-tempered retriever ate better than anybody: I’d take a piece of tenderloin, salt and pepper it and sauté it off quickly, then maybe put mustard on it.” Samuelsson’s attitude, optimism, humility (frequently self-conscious and/or self-imposed), and drive made a lot of these lows into highs—or at least not terribly low. We get a little bit about his personal life here—but not much. Part of that is because the focus is on Marcus Samuelsson the chef, but it’s also because Marcus Samuelsson the would-be chef sacrificed almost every moment of his life to become the chef he is.

Then he talks about his time in New York—the early struggles, the big opportunities, and how he (with help, he’s always quick to talk about everyone who helped). As we get to the last decade or so of his life, the chronological approach is largely discarded for a topical approach—reconnecting with his family in Ethiopia (and the foods of Africa), race in high-end restaurants, his wife, meeting his abandoned daughter, professional failures (big ones), preparing the first state dinner for President Obama, and his (then) new Harlem restaurant.

A case could be made that this entire book is a sales pitch and mission statement for that restaurant, Red Rooster. As that (at the point this book was written) was the pinnacle of his career, what the whole thing was leading to, that makes sense. It almost comes across as one of those books that presidential hopefuls publish right before they announce their candidacy. I do wonder a bit what this book would’ve looked like if he’d written it now, a full decade later, would the philosophy behind and mission of Red Rooster be as prominent, or would it be a stepping stone to whatever his new project is? Or would it get the same kind of treatment it did, with a “at the same time, X, allows me to express this, too” kind of feel?

Food

This food has as much integrity and power as any French food I’d ever eaten. Why did people fly in Dijon mustard when they could make their own, fresher and better? I started to ask myself, Who lied? Who started the lie that France had the greatest food in the world? That question ran through my head every time I bit into something new and that changed my notions of what “good food” is.

The book starts with an element of cooking—an Ethiopian spice mix—and it doesn’t stop from there. I doubt something about cooking, flavor, or food is mentioned on every page. But I’m going to say it’s on 95% of them. (and if you told me I was wrong and it was on every page, I would believe you). Part of this is the branding, but most of it is this is the way that Marcus Samuelsson looks at the world (that might be changing later in life, but from his teen years to the age he starts making time for family, that’s it).

Now, almost no one is going to pick up Samuelsson’s memoir unless they care about high-end cuisine, his particular type of cooking, or anything like that. No one is saying, “I love that guy’s taste in hats, I want to read about his life.”* This book will reward that food-conscious reader—I loved the parts about his training, the kitchen struggles, the story of working up through the ranks—and how he’s helping others through that process now. And the food? Wow. Anytime you read about someone caring so much about something—regardless of what it is—you can’t help but get energized about it.

* Sadly, there’s almost no discussion of his fashion choices—just his food—I could never pull off his style, but I wouldn’t mind picking up some tips on hat and shoe selection.

I’m not a gourmet—I enjoy watching chefs at work, hearing—and occasionally reading—about their work. But most of the food in this book would not be something I’d enjoy. That retriever’s dinner sounds pretty good to me—as does a lot of the street food Samuelsson tried out in his early NYC days, and the Ethiopian food he’s exposed to when he first visits. But the stuff that Samuelsson prepares? No thanks. I’ll read about it any day, but you can leave it off of my plate.

Before I forget, there’s a great story about this executive chef with multiple restaurants (at the time) being schooled by a woman in Ethiopia using a dented can as a ladle while preparing injera, “her words of encouragement were delivered with the patient tone you take with a not-so-gifted child.”

Race

Growing up when and where he did, Samuelsson knew he was different—but by and large (and he describes why), this wasn’t an issue for him until he left home. But doors were closed for him because of his race, and he knew it.

It’s worse in the U.S. than it was in Europe, but it wasn’t a cakewalk there.

Between his life experience, his success, and seeing other people’s struggles/successes, Samuelsson has a lot to say about race and its place in restaurants (front and back of house). Because of his upbringing, when it comes to the U.S., he’s an informed outsider—but when it’s about restaurant culture, he’s an insider through and through. He has valuable insights on both fronts.

The Organization of the Book

I would eventually learn that all chefs worth their mettle have their own styles and their own passions, but every single one of them can go from zero to asshole quicker than the average Joe. You have to be willing to be a jerk. Otherwise it’s not worth it, the years of apprenticeship, the never Wall Street—level money, the ungrateful diners, the misfit miscreants you count on to execute each service flawlessly, not to mention the prima donna behavior of all those raw ingredients—the coquettish egg whites that may or may not fluff properly for you today; the potatoes that may decide that today is the day that they will burn, not crisp; the tomatoes that didn’t ripen because of an unexpected heat wave. As a chef, you are at the mercy of the farmer, the butcher, the fishmonger, the weather, and God.

I thought I had more to say about this than I do, but I want to give a little time for this—when we get to fairly contemporary events, the book becomes more topical than chronological. I understand this to an extent—here’s all his professional failures, here’s his professional/personal failures, here’s his personal growth and failures, etc. Also, it’s harder to consider “current events” in your own life chronologically.

But I really wish that wasn’t the approach—all the backtracking makes it hard to track how this professional shortcoming feeds into this personal triumph (and vice versa). For me, that would’ve been better storytelling.

So, what did I think about Yes, Chef?

Food memories give people something to talk about—our food, our culture, our journey. The North Star here is Harlem. The restaurant had to be a place that honored and mirrored the mystique of the renaissance but showed the new Harlem—inclusive of both old and new. The menu had to tell the story of all of Harlem’s residents—Latin, Southern, Caribbean, Jewish, Italian. When I cook, I see faces: When I make meatballs, I see my grandmother and her smile. When I make my flan with condensed milk and whipped chocolate, I try to honor all the young Latinas from Spanish Harlem for whom this is a signature dish. My take on dirty rice—shrimp with curry rice—is a tribute to all of the many multiracial Jamaican families who are a mix of black, Indian, and Chinese. I want to do them all justice.

I ended up enjoying this more than I expected to—I picked it for a Reading Challenge because I knew a bit about Samuelsson having watched him on roughly 17,000 various things on Food Network and Netflix, and figured it couldn’t help but be an interesting read just for the biography part alone. But I really didn’t expect to connect with the food parts as much as I did (but I really should have)—and I thought what he said about the people, places, and history he’s connecting with and helping with Red Rooster was pretty inspiring.

I said that thing about a presidential campaign book earlier as kind of a quip, but I haven’t been able to get that out of my head. That’s really what this is—here’s Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s mission statement. If you’re on board with it, go visit his restaurant(s), try to think about these things as you cook yourself (or evaluate other people’s cooking).

If you’re into food at all—beyond fuel to keep going—you might want to give this a read. Samuelsson (and Chambers) will reward your time.

 This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries About? 

Emily Wilde is a dryadologist. Imagine, if you will, what post-Darwin scientists and naturalists were doing for the study of plants and animals in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries; or what Carter and the rest were doing in Egypt; but dryadologists are studying fairies (oh, in this world, they are as real as the tomb of Tutankhamun—she’s not a literary theorist). Humans have been dealing with fairies for centuries, but what we know about them is really limited. Mostly left to legends, tales told around the fire or in an inn—where a third or fourth-hand account is rare and as close to an eyewitness as most people will ever get. Emily and her counterparts throughout the world are seeking to bring that to an end. She has a position at Cambridge but is hoping her current project is the kind of thing that will secure her tenure and allow her to further her research. 

Her project is the first comprehensive Encyclopedia of Fairies (hence the title). She could publish what she has now and probably receive scholarly acclaim—and tenure. But she’s driven. She’s a completist. And, to be honest, she has a little bit of an ego and she wants more than probable acclaim. So she rents a small shack in a Norwegian village for a few months to try to find, interact with, and document the least-understood fairies in the world. The northern Hidden Ones (both the common and regal varieties) are powerful and secretive. They don’t interact much with humans—and when they do, it’s generally bad for the humans. If Emily can be the first to get any scholarly research done, it will definitely put her on the map. 

Sadly, as good as she is at dealing with and understanding Fairy, Emily is bad with humans. She has no people skills, is aware of it, and doesn’t care. But in this inhospitable climate, she really needs help to survive—much less to learn a lot about the Hidden Ones. 

Thankfully (?), soon after her arrival, a colleague/competitor—and her only friend—gatecrashes her trip and takes up residence in her shack with her. Wendell Bambleby is the very picture of a Victorian gentleman-scholar. He’s a charmer, and soon has the villagers eating out of his hand. He’s also pampered and demanding (would probably have been considered a bit of a dandy at the time)—and has a really hard time not wrapping his head around things like cooking for himself, working to keep the fire burning, etc. He’s decided that he’s going to collaborate with Emily (not really caring if she agrees) and that their work in Norway will be the thing to help him reclaim some academic respectability following a scandal. 

He may be under a cloud, but Wendell has connections and can open doors for Emily to get her the audience she really needs. So she accepts his proposal to collaborate, assuming she’s going to do almost all of the work. 

Things ensue. I really can’t say more than that. 

Poe 

The first fairy that Emily meets is a young brownie—she ends up referring to him as Poe. It’s great to see her in action with him. it shows that she does know what she’s doing—we don’t just have to take her word for it (not that we have any reason to think she’s lying, but it’s good to know). 

Poe really ends up showing us so much about Emily—and other characters, too. He’s ultimately so integral and important to the novel—and in a very real sense, not important to the plot in any way. But through his interactions (both that the reader sees on the page and those that happen “off-screen”) with various characters, so much of the plot becomes possible and the reader gains a whole lot of insight. Really, he was well, and cleverly, used by Fawcett. I can’t say it better without spending a few hundred spoiler-filled words, but the more I think about him, the more impressed I am by Fawcett. 

Knowing More than Emily 

Around the time—probably a little before—I figured out that the story of the novel isn’t really what you think it is, I figured out a couple of things that Emily is utterly blind to for a very long time. 

Knowing more than a protagonist can be frustrating—I spend a lot of time yelling at detectives in mystery novels in particular. But sometimes, it can be fun watching them catch up to the reader. Fawcett’s able to draw humor from us knowing things that Emily doesn’t. It also helps us empathize with both Emily and other characters as we see her work through various situations and conversations. 

And then, when Emily catches up with the reader—and reality—it’s all the more satisfying. Most/all of what we know that she doesn’t really wouldn’t be that believable if we learned it when she does. We get to spend many pages urging, “Come on, come on, come on…open your eyes/pay attention/etc.” And then, finally, cheer when she does. It’s the closest many readers will get to the position of a sportsball fan yelling at their TV to communicate to someone in a stadium miles/states away. 

Slamming on the Brakes 

I did have one significant problem with this book. As part of her research—part of her life, really—Emily specializes in stories about faeries. She shares some of them as part of her journal. It makes sense, they serve both the character and the overall novel. They’re truly fitting. 

However. 

It was like slamming the brakes on. Everything that had been building, all the tension, the momentum, the development, and so on all came to a rapid stop. And then picked up again after the stories. It reminded me of a time in Kevin Hearne’s Hammered when everything stopped for some of the characters to tell stories. As fun as those stories were, it really made that novel hard to get through (that series went on for 6 more books, two spin-off series, and a number of novellas and short stories—so the jarring stop was obviously not too catastrophic). 

If the transition to them had been smoother—or maybe they had been more spread out. Just something, I probably wouldn’t have mentioned them—or I’d have talked about what a great way it was for us to get an understanding of the Northern Fairies without an infodump. Instead, it came across as a stumble—one that the novel recovered from nicely. But in the moment, it really bugged me. 

So, what did I think about Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries? 

Stick with me for a minute—I could tell from the opening pages that this was a well-composed and well-structured novel full of fantastic world-building. But it took longer for me to move beyond appreciation and admiration for what was being done to really care about it. I did, though, the book started out slowly and picked up momentum as it went—and as it did, I got more and more invested (and my appreciation and admiration increased, too). Somewhere around the mid-point, maybe a little later, I was as invested as is possible and only my notes tell me it took time for that. 

I think I just used too many words to say—it’s a slow burn of a novel in almost every conceivable way. Not unlike Emily’s rented shack—it takes a while for a fire to really start heating the place, but once it has time, it’s nice and toasty warm. 

There’s a lot I’d like to talk about, but I’m not sure how. I can see later installments being easier, but so much of the novel is about beginnings. To really talk about it would be to discuss the last 20% of the novel. And no one wants me to do that. 

Just because of my own prejudices, I could spend a few paragraphs on her dog, Shadow, too. As much as he deserves them, I’m going to leave it with “he’s a very good boy.” I hope to see more of him in the books to come, too. 

This book is rich in character, story, world-building (and world-revealing), magic, and subtlety. I’m not sure if you can be rich in subtlety, but Fawcett pulls that off. This is absolutely something I recommend and imagine the next few months are going to be filled with people gushing over this. Readers of this post might as well get in line now to be one of those gushing. 

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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Also, the problem is, when you think you’ve been without monsters for so long, sometimes you forget what they look like, what they sound like, no matter how much remembering your education urges you to do. It’s not the same when the monsters are gone. You’re only remembering shadows of them, stories that seem to be limited to the pages or screens you read them from. Flat and dull things. So, yes, people forget. But forgetting is dangerous.

Forgetting is how the monsters come back.

What’s Pet About?

Jam and her best friend, Redemption, live in the city of Lucille—a city that’s evolved beyond things like bigotry, crime, inequality, and more. Just ask anyone who lives there—that’s what they’re told, that’s what they believe.

But then Jam is visited by a creature from another world. This creature is there to hunt—not everything is as good and pure as the people of Lucille believe, and this creature is here to hunt someone hurting someone. And the creature (Pet) wants Jam to help with the hunt. Pet can’t tell Jam what the issue is, their prey is at Redemption’s home.

Redemption tries to tell his family about the problem, but no one believes him—that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore. Everyone knows that.

The World

Lucille is in many ways a dream city—some sort of revolution occurred (it wasn’t entirely peaceful, but we don’t get details). And a Progressive utopia has been established for a generation or so. No sexism, no bigotry, full equality for all, no ableism, no crime, no want. And everyone (as far as the reader can see) buys into the vision for the city.

Am pretty sure those who aren’t that interested in this vision for life aren’t in Lucille anymore, whether voluntarily or not.

It feels oppressive, honestly. A benevolent oppression, it seems, but I’m not sure that’s really that much better.

One danger of this thorough monoculture, complete with everyone buying into the belief, is that humans aren’t good. There will be problems, criminals, broken people, and those who will find ways to get pleasure from hurting others (in various ways)—in short, sinners (however you want to define sinners). If the cultural orthodoxy is that this has been fixed, no one will look for the outlier. No one will look out for the victim, either. As mentioned in the opening quote—that’s a danger.

Harry Harrison painted a similar picture in his Stainless Steel Rat novels (although his outliers were frequently the heroes of the story as often as the villains—and the government was on the look for them).

Pet

I really liked Pet—particularly as he is in the last third or so of the book. I’m not entirely convinced by all his actions and what he tells Jam about himself at the beginning—it’s not that I think he was lying, I just wonder how consistent he is from beginning to the end.

I figure if I re-read the book a time or two, I’d end up being convinced, though. He’s probably the same being throughout, and I just understood him better at the end. Either way, he’s definitely someone you don’t want hunting you.

So, what did I think about Pet?

I bounced all over when it came to what to say about this novel.

It’s too short, really. Problems arise and are solved too quickly. And some of the rich, deep, thoughts weren’t given enough time and space to breathe—really, everything seemed like it was given short shrift.

But.

Oh man, this was just so wonderfully composed. Not a wasted word. Such a rich amount of world-building went into this—all the characters were so fully realized. And Emezi doesn’t need 3-4 paragraphs to do something like most writers—a sentence or two will do. Lovely and efficient prose.

This makes me think I’m wrong, and the book isn’t too short and everything is given enough space and time. But I’m not.

The worldbuilding alone is fantastic—no matter what I might think of the world. The story is haunting and disturbing in all the right ways. I can easily see why someone would become a big fan of Emezi based on this work, and I’m intrigued by the sequel/companion novel. If this wasn’t so abbreviated, I’d imagine that I’d be a giant fan (or a massive naysayer, come to think of it).

Either way, I’m glad I read this and do recommend it—there’s a lot to chew on here, and I’m looking forward to discussing it with Nisha, who recommended it to me for this Challenge. (I expect a lot of “you just don’t understand, Uncle H.” And I probably don’t)

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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“The same, but different.”

Despite it being on my list since High School, I’ve never gotten around to watching The Thin Man or the sequels. I haven’t read Hammett’s novel, either (on a similar list for almost as long). I know enough about them to catch the occasional allusion and to make the right guess when it comes up in a trivia game or crossword puzzle.

Still, when I saw Kowall’s piece on CrimeReads last month, “On Writing a New Take on The Thin Man, Set in Space“, I was intrigued and my library put it into my hands a lot sooner than I expected.

So, all I know about the comparisons between this novel and the source/inspiration material comes from this piece. So I can’t judge how much is Kowall being clever and inventive with her reworking and how much is just Kowall being clever and inventive. I can tell you there’s a whole lot of Kowall being clever and inventive, though. I’m going to write this pretending it’s all Kowall so if I give her credit for something I shouldn’t have…whoops.

So I’ll tell you now a couple of things before we dive in: 1. I won’t appreciate everything she did in the way I maybe should. 2. (more importantly) You don’t have to know anything about the movies or the book to appreciate this novel. You just have to appreciate goodness.

With that out of the way, let’s dig in.

What’s The Spare Man About?

Tesla Crane—heiress, noted inventor, and celebrity—is on her honeymoon. Her new husband, Shalmaneser Steward, is a retired detective and isn’t exactly a non-celebrity either. They are traveling under assumed names and in disguise to stay under the radar. They do get their fair share of attention, however—thanks to something we don’t get to know about at the beginning, Tesla has a service dog—an actual dog, which is apparently a very big deal to see.

They’re on a cruise from the Moon to Mars, and the ship they’re on puts the lux in luxury (wow, that’s a lame line). They plan on spending their time drinking ridiculous cocktails, having fun with various activities on board, and other honeymoonish activities. Sadly, someone is attacked while they’re nearby and Shal’s old instincts kick in and he chases after the assailant. The victim dies and Shal becomes the prime suspect because running away from the victim in pursuit of someone only you see tends to make the ship’s security think you’re lying.

Shal is content to let the authorities take care of things, certain that by the time actual law enforcement gets involved, he’ll be exonerated. Besides, he’s retired. Tesla cannot sit by and wait and she investigates on her own (ultimately Shal will get on board, but Tesla will do the bulk of the work).

Tesla and Shal

The best part of this book is probably the relationship between these two newlyweds. She shows a couple in love. Not a meet-cute followed by chapters of misunderstandings and near-misses, not a love unrequited for whatever noble/stupid/bureaucratic reason, not a couple in the first blush of infatuation and love, nor a couple trying to recapture something or having doubts. They are in love, they respect and support each other, and they actually like each other. I see this so, so rarely in stand-alones or series that it just fills me with joy to see.

They’re not perfect (who is?), they bicker a bit—and there’s some lying back and forth—mostly of the “I’m not in that much pain” type (which they generally readily admit to when asked). But even then, it’s typically a lie told so the couple can accomplish something without the other being distracted by worry.

Sure, it’s their honeymoon, so they are a little extra-lovey-dovey. But you get the impression they’d been together for a while pre-wedding and that this is pretty much the way they are together (if only because of the way Gimlet interacts with them).

I cannot express just how much I loved this couple. I wish I could see things like this more.

Fantine

The only element of this book that I liked almost as much as their marriage was Tesla’s lawyer, Fantine. Fantine isn’t crazy about the way that Tesla and Shal are being treated and starts threatening various lawsuits.

Depending on where they are in the journey, there’s a communication lag between the ship and her office, so she’s continually responding to people 3-8 minutes after they’ve said something. The comic opportunities from that alone are great.

Add in Fantine’s aggressiveness and you have gold. Think Dr. Perry Cox, but angry, her gift for creative insults and threats are gold. Fantine is clearly a power to contend with and has lawyers and security officers on the ship jumping to keep her from making the lawsuits she’s planning from becoming even bigger. I could read a novella full of nothing but her yelling at people.

So, what did I think about The Spare Man?

I feel like I should be raving over this, shooting up fireworks, and putting on a song and dance show here, but I can’t quite. The entire time I was reading, I wondered why I wasn’t liking it more.

The dialogue was great—especially when it veered toward the banter (between Tesla and Shal, either of them bantering about the other, between them and a particular security officer). The characters leaped off the pages and were practically alive. The setting and all the SF accouterments were perfect. The mystery…was pretty good. Everything else I can think of to point to was outstanding.

But I never felt engaged with the work—I admire it, I can praise a whole lot of it, but I was never grabbed. It felt like an exercise, like someone executing a recipe or equation. Wonderfully executed, but it left me cold.

I expect I’m a minority report on that—at the same time, I want to stress that this is a really good book. I’m just saying that I feel I should be giving this 5-Stars, instead of the 4 I’m giving it. There’s just so much to relish, so much to enjoy in this book that you should really ignore this last section and go get the book. It’s taken a darker turn than I intended—or want to leave you with.

This really is a great mixture of SF and Mystery, with a classic feel to both elements and yet it’s very much something that could only be produced in this moment. Kowall captured something here and you should really check it out.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Vinyl Resting Place About?

Tired of all the corporate buyouts and reshuffling in the software business, Juni Jessup returns to her home—a small town just outside Austin, TX. There, she and her two older sisters invest in a record/coffee shop. Years before, the digital music revolution had forced her parents to close the shop that had been in their family for decades. But now, the resurgence of vinyl has given them the chance to reopen—adding a coffee counter is a clever move and something that the neighborhood could really use, too.

The sisters are energized the night of the Grand Opening party—there’s a huge crowd (free tacos from a local food truck and beer from a microbrewery helped). Not only are they optimistic about the business, but the family is back together again, after Juni’s time in the Northwest. They know the future will have challenges, but for the moment, life is good.

Sadly, that first challenge is less in the future than they realized, and it’s a big one. While they’re cleaning up after the party and getting ready to open for their first day of business, Juni finds a murdered girl in the closet with their cleaning supplies. Very quickly, the police focus their investigation on the sisters’ uncle and arrest him. The family puts up the Sip & Spin as collateral for his bail, convinced that the investigation will clear him.

Then Uncle Calvin disappears and the business is in jeopardy—not to mention the three life savings they invested. The sisters, led by Juni, take the investigation into their own hands—determined not to go down without a fight.

Juni and Everyone Else

I’ve only mentioned Juni so far because of space, but the book isn’t just about her. Juni is clearly the protagonist—but the book isn’t just about her. The sisters are the core—with their mother and the husband of the eldest sister rounding out the immediate circle. The emotional core of the novel is about Juni’s return to the family and the way they’re welcoming her back (it’s not that things were ever tense, but hundreds of miles and only brief visits aren’t the same as living near each other). It’s the sense of family, the way they come together for each other, that makes sure this book (and the series, I’m sure) is filled with the warmth and comfort you need in a cozy.

Of course, you can’t have a character come back to a small town without a love interest or two popping up, too. There’s the lifelong best friend, who apparently carried a torch the whole time—he’s grown into a pretty attractive man. And then the high school/college boyfriend who suddenly and unexpectedly broke up with her one day. He’s clearly got his eyes set on reestablishing the status quo.

Also, he’s the police detective in charge of the murder. Because why should things be easy?

It’s a great recurring cast, and one that’d be easy for a series to use in new and fun ways as the series progresses—mostly because the reader can’t help but find them all endearing.

A Tiny Bonus

The music-inspired punny drink names for their coffee counter are just perfect. Too many more would’ve been too much, but I could’ve used an additional handful. They’re the kind of little touch that adds so much to a scene—you get an idea of the characters behind them, if nothing else. Like the names of the stores and restaurants in The Good Place, they add a layer of enjoyment on top of everything else.

I’m not saying I’ll pick up book two just to read what names Blacke comes up with. But I’ve had worse reasons to pick up a book.

So, what did I think about Vinyl Resting Place?

I’m a little concerned about how this can be a series—how many murders can happen in one small town record store or involving the family that owns it? I’m sure Blacke can get another one or two out of the premise before it starts to get creepy, but suspending that kind of disbelief is part and parcel of cozies like this, right? So what do I know?

The premise and genre promise certain things about this novel—and Blacke delivers exactly that. The best word to sum this experience up is pleasant—the mystery was clever, the characters are charming, and I like the overall setup for the series. And the book was exactly what a cozy should be—an entertaining and pleasant time.

I don’t see how this book won’t find fans all of whom will be more than ready for the next murder this family stumbles across.

 This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s The Legend of the Christmas Witch About?

We open with a couple of twin children, Kristoffer and Kristtörn, both of them have some magic which they mostly use in the games they play with each other. They have no parents when we meet them, and don’t appear to remember them.

They’re separated at one point, and Kristoffer is taken in by a couple from a nearby village and grows up among people—eventually delivering baked goods from his adoptive mother’s bakery. Kristtörn is heartbroken by their separation, and a witch from the woods comes along to raise her.

Time passes and Kristoffer becomes Santa Claus. Kristtörn tries to make contact with him but is unable to. So she starts visiting places just before Christmas Eve, hoping their paths cross. A legend around her (mostly misunderstanding her) grows at the same pace as her brother’s does.

This all leads somewhere, but I’m not going to go further than that.

The Artwork

Iredale’s work struck me like a classic storybook, the kind of art that was in the books I read as a kid—especially the books that were old by the time I read them. It was fitting for the kind of story. It wasn’t knock-out gorgeous, and I think it would’ve hurt the book overall had it been. There’s some sharpness to the art—almost the kind of thing that would’ve been carved into wood.

It’s vibrant and I can’t imagine a kid who won’t want to pour over the pictures as much as the story.

So, what did I think about The Legend of the Christmas Witch?

The best way to describe this book is—imagine that the Grimm Brothers wrote a story about where Santa came from as well as telling us about his sister. Now imagine that someone took that Grimm’s Fairy Tale and sanitized it for contemporary kids. That result would be a lot like this. A little dark, a little light…

Because of that tone, I do think that parents/caregivers/etc. should exercise some judgment in who gets to read this one—some of it is going to go over the heads of young ones of a certain age, and some of it could be considered too dark for some little ones. But for the right reader, this take on Santa’s origin is going to be a lot of fun.

I’m glad that I indulged my curiosity, I’m not going to suggest that this filled me with the Christmas spirit or anything, I’m not off to buy the biggest goose for anyone and my heart is the same size as it was before. But when it comes to a reworking of the Santa Myth, this was a very satisfying one.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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It’s almost as if I’m sending mixed messages, like valuing privacy whilst also being the author of a second book of personal essays.

What’s Have I Told You This Already? About?

This is a collection of essays—mostly personal—about Graham’s career (or things surrounding it) during various stages, some thoughts on filming a TV show and directing, and there’s one essay that’s devoted to just being funny.

She reflects on aging, friendship, making marmalade, and the ridiculous things that women in Hollywood have to do to maintain certain standards of appearance. She opens the book talking about memory and story-telling—where accuracy is necessary and where details can fudged because it makes a story better, and ends up with a tribute to New York City.

Whoops

I should’ve been patient and waited for the audiobook to become available. There’s nothing wrong with reading the paper version of this book—it’s perfectly charming and Graham’s voice shone through.

But.

Hearing it in her actual voice (not just what I assume it would sound like)—a few passages in particular—would be so much better. I listened to her previous book of essays (and the graduation speech) and I think this would’ve been more entertaining in audio format.

So, what did I think about Have I Told You This Already??

He said this as if his memory of the matter was not at all disturbed by something as inconsequential as fact. For years, my father told the same story about how a momentous occasion felt to him; the facts had faded over time, maybe because they weren’t the most relevant part of the day. Sometimes we polish an experience to make facts line up more closely with feelings or exaggerate moments to make a better dinner party tale. And sometimes, mercifully, details become blurry over time, maybe because the sharp reality is too painful to carry.

This was a fast and breezy read. Graham’s really skilled as a writer and her prose sings. She’s funny as you want her to be. The closing paragraph of the second essay is a work of comedic art, a string of puns that I couldn’t believe she was able to keep going as long as she is. I’m never going to quote any part of it—but I’m telling you, it was great.

There were a couple of chapters that didn’t do much for me—the chapter on various health retreats or the chapter on NYC as a friend (although I thought it was some of her strongest writing). And a couple that I was surprised I enjoyed as much as I did—like the chapter about her relationship with the department store, Barney’s. The chapter where she uses Nora Ephron’s essay, “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” to talk about aging in the Entertainment industry, was particularly effective.

Even the essays that underwhelmed me were well written, and I could see what she was trying to do—they just didn’t connect with me–but I found something to grin about or chuckle at in them. The essays that did click with me made me laugh (sometimes a lot). The rest fell somewhere between—but they were all funny (when intended to be), and I’m glad I read them all.

At the same time, I need to stress that this is not all comedy. There are some real emotions and some thinking behind some of these essays—and it’ll provoke some, too. I think in the end you get more comedy than anything else, but it wouldn’t take much for the balance to go the other way.

She has a real gift for a killer last line, too. Openings are important, but with essays of this length (especially if you’re going for comedic), a great last line is essential, and Graham knows what she’s doing there.

In the end, this was a very pleasant and engaging read that makes me really want to see more from her (which goes for pretty much everything she’s written). When her novel was published, I picked it up because I was curious about what this actress could do—I’ve picked up the 3 works since because I like the way she writes. This collection works as evidence that we should maybe think of Graham as a writer who can act.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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…maybe the others were right. With Reacher running around out there, maybe the full ceremony isn’t the smart way to go. Maybe It’s time we switched to Plan B.”

“We don’t have a Plan B, We’ve never needed one.”

“Maybe it’s time to think of one.”

What’s No Plan B About?

Reacher sees something in a newspaper about a museum display nearby, so he goes to check it out. This leads to him being in just the right neighborhood to see someone being pushed in front of a bus. While others are calling 911 and trying to tend to the victim, Reacher pursues the pusher. This leads to a confrontation where Reacher’s size works against him for once, and with the help of his partner, the man gets away (a Tom Cruise-sized character probably would’ve got at least one of them). Before they slipped away, Reacher got a glimpse of something the man took off the victim that made him curious.

That glance starts a whole machine working—that man, his partner, and their bosses can’t have what he saw become public. They don’t know how much time he got with the information, how much he read/understood—but if he saw anything, it could make things go very wrong for them. So they dispatch another team to take care of Reacher (the two that escaped aren’t in any shape to do anything after tangling with our hero).

Meanwhile, Reacher tries to convince the police that the woman had been pushed. But there’s already a witness who’d been swearing she jumped, and no one confirms what Reacher saw. The detective in charge sympathizes with Reacher and wants to follow up on his statement, but his superiors like the tidy answer a suicide brings. He feeds Reacher a bit of information, and the former M.P. is off on his own investigation. When the new team tries to take him out, Reacher knows he’s on to something and digs in for the long haul. This will take him from Colorado to a small town in Georgia, home to a prison the murder victim worked at.

Two other parties are making a trip to that same town. One is a teen who just learned that his father is imprisoned there—in the same conversation that he learned his father’s identity from his dying mother. He steals some money from his foster mother (money that should’ve been used to care for him, I should note) and buys a bus ticket from LA. He’s in over his head, and as we follow him on his journey it becomes clear that the fact that he survives long enough to get to Georgia is a sign of divine blessing or dumb luck.

We also track a father out for revenge. He’s a professional arsonist—actually, he employs professional arsonists at this point in his career. Something happened that killed his son—the details are kept vague for the reader. The grieving father backtracks the supply chain that provided the product, determined to destroy the man at the top.

So, what did I think about No Plan B?

After last year’s Better Off Dead, I was prepared to put this collaboration/Reacher 2.0 in the “Not for Me” category. I’m glad that the brothers continue to have success, and that many, many readers are satisfied, but it might be time for me to disembark. I wanted to give them one more chance—everyone has an off-novel, right?—but I’d decided that this would be my last Reacher novel. This was good enough to get the brothers another. I guess my fandom is no longer a long-term lease, but the equivalent of a month-to-month rental.

One strategy I employed going into this was ignoring half of the names on the cover—this is an Andrew Grant/Child take on Reacher, not a Lee Child*. That adjustment to my expectations, helped a bit, too.

* I’ve heard and seen multiple interviews/features on the pair describing how they work together, so I know it’s not entirely true. But, it helped me.

The action was good—but hallway fights might be better left to Daredevil than print. I wondered for most of the book if they had one too many storylines, but I ended up buying into the idea. The first hundred pages were great (at least the Reacher vs. conspirators storyline, and maybe the foster kid)—particularly the first couple of chapters, it was a very effective hook. Pages 100-300 were good enough—some “meh” bits, enough good bits to keep me engaged and to push the narrative along, with a really nice uptick over the last chapter or two. The last 50 pages were rushed—you want things to move quickly in the end of the thriller, you need fast action to go along with the adrenaline of the big finish—but this was just too much happening, and it was hard to appreciate it all. There’s a fast momentum, and there’s careening out of control, and this came close to that.

Still, it was in those pages that I came around to liking the revenge storyline and getting why the Childs went with it.

This was a decent thriller with some really good moments featuring a character that reminded me a lot of that guy from 61 Hours, The Hard Way, and One Shot. It’s a fast, entertaining read that will do the job.

 This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader. 

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…whatever we’re here for, Lamb’s not being punished. Or if he is, he’s enjoying it.”

“So what’s your point?”

He said, “That he knows where some bodies are buried. Probably buried a few himself.”

“Is that a metaphor?”

“I failed English. Metaphor’s a closed book to me.”

“So you think he’s handy?”

“Well, he’s overweight and drinks and smokes and I doubt he takes much exercise that doesn’t involve picking up a phone and calling out for a curry. But yeah, now you mention it, I think he’a handy.”

“He might’ve been once,” Shirley said. “But there’s not much point in being handy if you’re too slow to be any good at it.”

But Marcus disagreed. Being handy was a state of mind. Lamb could wear you down just standing in front of you, and you wouldn’t know he was a threat until he was walking away, and you were wondering who’d turned the lights out. Just Marcus’s opinion, of course. He’d been wrong before.

“I suppose,” he said, “if we stick around long enough, we might find out.”

Squirrel!

I read the first book in this series over 2 1/2 years ago. Since then, my friend Paul has been hounding me, nagging me, and generally pushing me to keep reading them. Insisting that I’m missing out. Etc. Etc. Etc. While I suspected he was right—and even if he wasn’t, I wanted to based on Slow Horses and everything I’d heard from Paul, Jeff at Barbican Station, and from several other fronts.

But we all know how easily distracted I can be. So…here we are 45 months later. And I know when I post this I’m going to get at least one text from Paul, saying things like: “I told you so!” and “It’s about time.”

I deserve both of those messages because he did tell me so; and yes, it is.

What’s Dead Lions About?

Jackson Lamb gets suspicious when an old, low-ranking spy from the Cold War era dies on a public bus. He follows Dickie Bow’s last movements and finds reason to indulge that hunch a little longer, bringing in one of Slough House’s new additions to do some more legwork. What they find doesn’t make him any happier—a bogey-man from the old days might be back. And that can’t be good.

Meanwhile, Spider—pardon me, James—Webb recruits Louisa Guy and Min Harper to help him with a little project he’s got going on. He’s trying to recruit a Russian oligarch—one with political aspirations—as an asset, and he needs some security work done by people who won’t get the attention of any of the bigwigs in MI5. Neither wants to work with Webb, but if they do, there’s a chance…not much of one…but a chance that at least one of them will be the first Slow Horse to move back to Regent’s Park. Both of them are ready to be that one—even at the expense of the other, no matter what relationship might be budding between the two of them.

Best of Both Worlds

While I have an appreciation for British Cold War Spy novels—they’re really not my thing. I’ve tried, both in print and on film—and they just don’t work. But that’s the kind of world that River’s grandfather, O.B., represents—and that Tavener and Lamb represent the end of. They have one foot in that world still, it defines them—but they’re both (especially Tavener) also part of the War on Terror, financial crimes/terrorism, etc. of our current moment. River, Ho, and the rest of the Slow Horses belong to the latter.

What this book does so well is to marry the two schools—we have a very Cold War holdover storyline, and a Putin-era storyline. Now, I can’t imagine that Herron is going to be able to pull this off regularly, but getting to do it in the second novel, solidifying the series’ identity as being able to work in both eras. I thought that was a great move that welcomes in fans of both eras of British Spy Fiction.

So, what did I think about Dead Lions?

So, back in 2019 when I read Slow Horses, I liked it and was impressed by it, but I only gave it 3 Stars. When I listened to the audiobook last year, I think I “got” what Herron was doing a little more. But I still wasn’t as impressed with this as everyone I knew seemed to be. I’m fine with that, but I wondered a bit if I was missing something.

I think I found whatever it was in the pages of Dead Lions. Because…wow. Herron does it all here—there’s some satire, there’s commentary on human existence, on the politics (and espionage) of the Cold War, on the politics (and espionage) of the 2000s, a real and slowly-building tension, there’s subtle wit, less-than-subtle wit, a plot that is impossible to predict, characters that are the most human you’ll find in spy fiction, dialogue and narration that are impossible not to endlessly quote…and fart jokes.

One lesson that readers of the first book should’ve picked up is that they shouldn’t get attached to anyone—look at the number of people assigned to Slough House at the beginning of the book and then at the end. Percentage-wise, it’s safer to be a George R.R. Martin character. Herron ensures that no reader of Dead Lions thinks that’s a fluke. Right now (and I’m ready to be disproven), I figure the only safe characters are Jackson Lamb and (sadly) James Webb—he seems to have the survival capabilities of a hardy cockroach.

Herron surprised me on multiple occasions—I think at this point, I’m going to just permanently suspend my reflex to predict what’s coming when I spend time with him. They weren’t just surprises—they were the kind that I absolutely didn’t even think of expecting—and then in retrospect, I don’t know how I could’ve imagined anything else happening at all.

From time to time, TV Critic Alan Sepinwall will recap an episode saying things like “if we only got X, that would be enough. If we only got Y, that would be enough,” and so on. I felt like that while thinking about this book. If we only got Lamb tracking the final movements of Dickie Bow, that would’ve been enough. If we only got the Louisa Guy/Min Harper storyline, that would’ve been enough. If we only got the Diana Tavener/Jason Webb scene, that would’ve been enough. If we only got River Cartwright going undercover, and everything he goes through…you see where I’m going. Any one of those would’ve been enough for me to realize I need to take this series seriously and get on with reading them all. You combine these points with all those that I decided not to list for space/spoiler reasons? I’m on the verge of being rabid.

Everything I thought was a bug about Slow Horses was a feature, and I see that now. Everything I thought was a fluke about Slow Horses wasn’t. Everything I thought was good about Slow Horses was at least a little bit great. How do I know that? I see all of those elements here and have a much better appreciation for them in Dead Lions so I can better understand its predecessor.

I had other things in my notes that I really wanted to cover. But…I’ve said the essentials, and am at the point where I’m trying to gild an already gilded lily. So, I’m going to leave all that unsaid. Yes, I may have overhyped this and doomed you to not appreciate it. I get that and apologize in advance. Just chalk this up to a new and rabid fanboy—go into this series expecting something good. And then when you’re ready to join the rabid throng, I’ll be waiting for you.

And now, I’ve got to start waiting for messages from Paul.

 This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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A Word About this Post 

If I approached this novel the way I typically would, you wouldn’t read it. I wouldn’t blame you, because I wouldn’t either. It would just be too long to bother with. There’s just too much that I want to talk about here. So I’m going to do this differently, I’ll provide a little setup, give a couple of pros and cons in bullet points (many of these bullet points would be 2-3 paragraphs otherwise), and then a wrap-up thought. 

There’s still a good chance that this is going to be too long, but I tried. 

What’s Wistful Ascending About? 

For some time, Rohan was one of the most feared warriors in the il’Drach Fleet. As a human/il’Drach Hybrid, he had powers and abilities beyond what most are capable of—flight, super strength, speed, stamina, healing, etc. He tires of that way of life and retires to the space-station Wistful, just outside the empire, and gets a fairly menial job. Work, a couple of beers, and sleep—before starting it again the next day. That’s the kind of life he wants. 

And it works for a while. Then a previously dormant wormhole opens up and refugees from the other side of the galaxy (or further) show up. Then scientists from the Empire arrive to study that wormhole. Dangers, soldiers, spies, and assassins are suddenly all over Wistful and Rohan is called upon to defend his home, his friends, and himself. 

The Cons 

• The Title. Yeah, it's fitting. But it's not really an eye-catcher, is it? 
• The Prologue is one of those action-packed intros that stops just before something major happens before giving us "X Hours Earlier," "Y Days Before," etc. Twelve Days, in this particular case. I don't get the appeal of this kind of introduction, and while I can't say that I've never seen it done well, the percentage is pretty low. I don't understand why writers keep going back to that device, someone must like it. 

The Pros 

Basically everything else. 

• However accurate, that’s probably not that helpful. So let me share some highlights.
•  In the tradition of William Munny, John Rambo, John Wick, Clay Cooper, and countless others, you have a man of war, a man of violence who has made a conscious decision to leave that to pursue a quiet life, a peaceful life—a life of no notoriety. Then circumstances compel them to return (hopefully temporarily) to that life they had forsaken. Who doesn’t like this kind of story?
•  Before he joined the il’Drach Fleet, Rohan was a super-hero on earth—or tried to be, he apparently didn’t get much attention due to being on the weaker side. Which is just a great idea for an origin. If nothing else, it makes Rohan instantly accessible to the reader—we get his humor, his references, and have heard stories like his before. Also, by “weaker” think Invincible/Mark Grayson compared to Omni-Man/Nolan Grayson. So technically weaker, but not a major downgrade. Also, hold on to that Invincible comparison—we’ll be coming back to it.
•  So his father was an alien, but his mother was from India and she relocated to Canada when he was very young. That’s a lot of cultures to draw from, it explains his tastes in food—and it keeps Rohan from being a Clark Kent/Mark Grayson/etc. clone.
•  Not only does Rohan have nifty superpowers (as do some of his opponents)—the way that Berne describes their use is just fantastic—really. If it’s not the best description of super-powers in prose that I’ve read in the decades I’ve been reading them, it’s so close as to be negligible (and I’m too lazy to dig up the couple of contenders that I’m thinking of to do the comparison).
•  Beyond that—his explanation for the source of the powers in the metaphysical sense? Think of the Force in episodes 4-6, and then do a better job of explaining it.
•  (there’s a later explanation of how those abilities manifest themselves in the Hybrids that’s pretty clever, too)
•  There are kaiju. Or kaiju-esque creatures.
•  Wistful, the space station Rohan lives on and works for, is the kind of multi-species hive of activity and commerce that’s catnip for Space Opera/SF junkies. And the alien races/cultures that are represented there are well-designed and interesting. Really, if Berne gave us an illustrated guide to his aliens, I’d snap it up.
•  Wistful is a sentient space station (I’m on a roll with these lately), who actually has legal jurisdiction over the solar system she occupies. Can be a party to treaties, etc. How cool is that?
•  It’s not just space stations, either. Ships of a certain size are sentient, too. They grow and develop. They have wills and desires of their own—for example, there’s a ship that got tired of being a troop transport and changed themselves (with the appropriate approvals, etc., I’m sure) into a science vessel because they wanted to learn and explore. I’d take a novel just about that ship.
•  The explanation behind the way the ships/stations act and have sentience, etc. in contradistinction to those of other cultures is interesting and fits in with the world that Berne created so well.
•  I don’t know how I’ve made it this long in this list (which is longer than I anticipated and makes me all the more certain I shouldn’t have tried a traditional post) without mentioning the humor. Think Jim Butcher. Think Invincible. Think Peter Parker at his best. Think MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Think Nicholas Eames. You get that humor throughout the novel and it’s shown through all the characters in some way (at least those not trying to kill someone at the moment), but it’s particularly expressed in Rohan’s point of view and the way he talks to himself.
•  But more particularly Rohan’s banter with just about everyone—it’s almost at the level of the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League
•  Most of the characters—from Wistful’s security chief to the staff at Rohan’s favorite place to get breakfast are so well-developed and distinctive, with such interesting points of view and characteristics that you almost want every scene to be twice as long just to spend time with them.
•  This is related to the depiction of super-abilities. But these fight scenes are dynamite. One of the problems a lot of writers have with Superman, for example, is when someone like him lets loose and say punches a guy—bad things happen. I remember an old DC role-playing game when I was a kid—no one wanted to be Supes because it was too easy to kill someone. Now, people like Robert Kirkman embraced that, and the pages of Invincible (I told you to hang on to that) are dripping with blood, gore, bits of bone, and the debris of buildings/mountains everywhere. We get the same kind of power on display here with the same kind of consequences (also, several displays of Rohan not letting that happen).
•  Related to those fights. Seriously. Don’t make Rohan angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry (he sure doesn’t—see the first bullet point in this list)
•  One more Invincible note—doesn’t that cover kind of look like Chris McGrath did a take on a Ryan Ottley cover? I don’t know who the cover artist was, but I loved it.
•  Lastly, aside from the Prologue issue (which is my personal taste, but it’s my blog so I get to call it an issue), the way Berne plotted this thing, constructed the story, doled out information, and everything else along those lines was so well done, so impressive that you have to believe that he’s been at this a long time. 

Okay, I lied. I have one more point:

•  Talking bears in space. Well, an alien species that happens to look like sentient, talking bears, who have the strength of large bears, and enjoy catching/eating fish. So….close enough. I’ll say it again: talking bears in space. 

So, it’s pretty clear already, but what did I think about Wistful Ascending? 

I want to say more—believe it or not. I don’t think I’ve captured how excited I was reading this and am now while trying to talk about it. 

I was talking to a friend about Wistful Ascending the other day, or maybe I was just trying to—like with this post, I struggled. I said, “It’s like he’s doing “Scenes from a Hat” from Who’s Line is it Anyway?, but instead of transitioning from one idea to the next, it’s like Berne takes each idea as it’s pulled out and adds it to the story. He says ‘Yes, And’ to everything.—’Sentient Space Station? Okay. Golden-Age Super-Hero Sidekicks who’ve become old scientists? Fine. Kaiju? Sure thing!'” I’d honestly love to know what he thought wouldn’t work in this novel. 

And the maddening thing, the thing I can’t wrap my brain around is that it somehow all works. Because that was my friend’s first reaction—”oh, that’s just way too much for one book, the guy needs to edit.” I had to say no, it somehow all comes together just fine, “I don’t understand how, but it’s working great. I’m loving it. I want to become his new best friend.” 

And readers, I was at the 52% point when we had that chat. I still didn’t know everything he could do with the book. I wasn’t kidding when I listed two things as cons to this book. I couldn’t think of anything else that I didn’t like. 

I’m not saying this is the best thing I’ve read this year (but it might be). I’m definitely not suggesting everyone’s going to relish it the way I did. But, boy howdy, this hit all the right spots for me. I couldn’t get enough of this. And yeah, I want to be JCM Berne’s new friend. 

Nevertheless, it’s getting 4.5 stars from me because of the Prologue, because I round up for Goodreads and Amazon, and because I like to give an author room to get more stars as a series progresses and they get better at their craft. And if that half a star dissuades anyone from reading the book, they weren’t paying attention to anything I said above. 

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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First Things First

Back in Down the TBR Hole (18 of 24+) (January 2021), I removed a form of this book from my “Want-To-Read” list, despite everyone I’d ever talked to about Sullivan being a fan. In response, Bookstooge did offer a pretty convincing counter-argument, “BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!!” I should have listened. Sorry, Bookstooge! Thankfully, Micah recommended this for the 12 Books Challenge, so my compounded errors (not reading it as soon as I put it on my “Want-To-Read” shelf, removing it from my list, and then ignoring that Bookstooge) were corrected.

It’s pretty obvious already, but let me officially spoil the conclusion of this post: I heartily encourage picking up this book.

What’s Theft of Swords About?

The Riyria are theives—so proficient, so renowned that they might not actually exist. They may be the Fantasy World equivalent of Urban Legends. Except they really do exist—they are Hadrian Blackwater a mercenary fighter who’s about as skilled a swordsman as you’re going to find, and Royce Meborn, a thief who’s probably better at that than Hadrian is with a sword. Together they can steal just about anything. Hadrian has a strong impulse to do the heroic action, he wants to help. Royce is a misanthrope who is only interested in helping himself and a few friends and acquaintances. Except when he’s not.

This book is about two jobs they should not have taken but do. And then all the things they have to do after taking those jobs. At the core, each job is about stealing a sword. That’s pretty much where the similarities end.

The first has them hired to steal a sword from the King’s castle (it doesn’t belong to any member of the royal family, but someone who is visiting there). This job lands them in prison, in the middle of an investigation into the murder of a royal, in an effort to save two other royals, and freeing another prisoner or two.

The second involves them helping a damsel in distress and her family—and it’s Royce’s call to take this job for far less than it’s going to cost them to carry it out. That job lands them in the battle to save a small village, in the middle of a conspiracy to wrest power from the rightful possessor, and in danger of being eaten by a magical lizard.

What will see them through is a very strange assortment of allies and each other. And a whole lot of luck—much of which they have to manufacture or steal from themselves. In the end, it will put the pair on a path that may lead to changes in the broken empire they live in—very unbeknownst to them (or they’d probably run screaming in the other direction).

The Dialogue

As a genre, Fantasy isn’t well-known for having snappy and witty dialogue. Of course, there are exceptions—and I can point to a number of them on my own shelves, you don’t need to point out all the ways I’m wrong. But come on, let’s be real here—from Tolkein on, it’s rare that you read dialogue that really grabs you outside of a line or two. It’s what the characters are and do that attracts you, it’s the stories, it’s the settings, etc.

Put the Riyria Revelations down as one of those exceptions. I was pretty sure of this on page three, and the 646 following pages didn’t change my mind. It’s strongest between Royce and Hadrian—they’re the veterans who’ve seen enough that they can have a wry detachment from danger and drama to joke their way through it. But there’s plenty to get a kick out of in the conversation of others.

The narrative voice that shows us what the characters are thinking and not saying is good, possibly better.

The Politics

In addition to your nobles of various ranks and importance of land-holdings vying for prominence against each other, there are three political movements running around this world—I’m not going to describe them much because I’m afraid I’m going to miss a nuance or two and give a skewed description given my space constraints. I’m not accustomed to seeing something like this in Fantasy—seeing two competing political philosophies/contingents within one Empire/Kingdom, sure—but the way it’s set up here (and we really have only scratched the surface up to this point) seems pretty novel.

On top of that, there are some ecclesiastical machinations and divided camps within the same religion (or one religion with two divergent streams…I’m not one hundred percent sure the fairest way to describe this)—a mix of conviction and connivance for political power. There are a lot of earnest believers within the clergy, some that may believe, but are more convinced they’re right when it comes to affairs of this world, and some that are really good at using the belief of others to get their way.

Adding the ecclesiastical politics into the mix with the wholly secular stuff? Sullivan’s really given us a treat here. In this particular book, it’s largely (but not wholly) a backdrop to the main action—but I doubt it’s going to stay that way for long.

Then there are the relations between races like Dwarves and Elves marked by prejudice and distrust all around. I can’t wait to see how some of this plays out.

The Wizard

There’s a Gandalf/Allanon/Bayaz-ish wizard in the middle of all of this. I really want to like him, and think I do. I really want to distrust him deeply. And I definitely do.

Is he Gandalf or is he Saruman? I’m not sure. He may be a little of both. He may be neither. Don’t know. Don’t care (at least for now). He’s a fantastic character to watch at work.

In retrospect, I guess that makes him more like Bayaz than the rest of the names I’ve tossed around. But Bayaz might be more trustworthy.

So, what did I think about Theft of Swords?

I’ve enjoyed being exposed to works I probably/definitely wouldn’t have gotten around to because of this challenge. Personally, Micah‘s recommendation has solidified a lesson I will definitely learn from. He’s now recommended the DI Eva Harris series, the DC Smith/Kings Lake Investigation series, and this one. I need to start following his recommendations blindly.

Okay, that personal note out of the way, let’s focus on the book—by mid-way through the opening scene, I was hooked—and had basically signed up for the trilogy. While not really being the same kind of scene, it evoked the same kind of feel as the opening of “Our Mrs. Reynolds” (the “if your hand touches metal, I swear, by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you.” scene). That feeling continued to grow through the first book. I don’t think it deepened in the second book, but it didn’t falter.

I’ve already invoked Firefly, and this hit the pleasure center in the brain as that show did—also Kings of the Wyld and The Lies of Locke Lamora. I think the storytelling of this is more straightforward than Lynch’s, but there’s a similar vibe. The relationship between Royce and Hadrian is as tight as you’re going to find in the aforementioned works—they might as well be brothers (they’re closer than, say, the twins Caramon and Rastlin Majere). But they’re quick to add others as friends and allies—or even to their “family” group. Remarkably, this also extends to those they’d planned on killing at the first opportunity. This gives the whole book this warm glow of camaraderie that just augments the likability of all the characters—and the novel as a whole. I fully expect this to continue throughout the series.

The action is great, I loved the sword fights, in particular. We get character deaths that might as well be punches to the gut (when you don’t want to cheer them). The imagination showed in the magic system, the magical creatures, and the politics—between races, within the remnants of the human empire, and the ecclesiastical politics—are really well conceived and effectively portrayed. On that last point, I really want to stress how nicely (not perfectly, but good enough) Sullivan catches us up on hundreds of years of history and backstory without making the infodumps painful and/or dull. These villains are truly foul, and yes, it’s typically pretty clear who’s a White Hat and who’s a Black Hat from the initial meeting—but Sullivan also gives us some characters that could easily go either way before this series ends—possibly bouncing back and forth, too. I relish a good combination like that.

In a very real sense, there’s almost nothing that someone who’s read/watched a handful of fantasy series hasn’t been exposed to before. It’s the way that Sullivan has assembled these tried and true elements that is going to make you happy—that and the characters. Not just Hadrian and Royce, but especially Hadrian and Royce. Their banter alone would be enough to sign me up for two more books.

I think I’m in danger of just finding new ways to say that I really dug this work without adding anything worth reading, so I’m going to cut myself off. If you haven’t read this yet, and you enjoy a good fantasy adventure—this is me adding my voice to your friends who have probably already told you to read this. If you don’t have any friends who’ve given you that advice already, I’ll loan you a couple of mine.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s A Hard Day for a Hangover About?

Wow, this is hard to do. This is the third book in a trilogy, so let’s start off with this—all the ongoing storylines are progressing—barrelling to some sort of conclusion, we get to know everyone a little better, we see the ramifications and ripple effects of the deaths, arrests, plots, and everything else from book 1 and 2, secrets are revealed, lives are changed, and….well, it’s a third book. A lot happens, many things end, and some things start.

There are a couple of new/book-specific plotlines: the town flasher gets stabbed by an unlikely weapon; a prisoner escapes from state custody, which leads to some uncomfortable questions for Sherrif Vicram; someone breaks into the home of one of the town’s elderly residents (and she wants it covered up); a young woman is found beaten and hanging on for dear life—and she may not be the first woman in that situation; and a group of grade schoolers starts a boy band (you won’t believe which of those storylines intersect).

All in all, this is a bad week for Sunny to start hungover.

Hot Ones

I’m not a die-hard fan, but my wife and I watch a lot of Hot Ones—and we frequently buy and use the sauces we see on the show. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should fix that, and this illustration won’t make much sense. Sorry about that.

When I’m eating those sauces, I generally prefer the ones that are in the 1-3 slots, but occasionally, I can enjoy up to a 5 (and, yes, I’ve eaten sauces in all 10 spots—and have consumed “The Last Dab” more than once). If you convert Hot Ones‘s sauces into sex scenes in books, I think you’d find my tastes for those pretty well align. Keep things mild, close the door before things go too far, and let these people have some privacy.

Jones clearly has no designs to do anything like that. This book (like the rest of the series) is definitely not erotica—but it’s far too spicy for my taste. It’s not so distasteful that I have to stop reading, but my skim-reflex does kick in. As I said when I talked about A Good Day for Chardonnay, All I could think of as I read those sections was, “My mom is going to read this.” She’s going to read it because I bought her the first book. Not only is she going to read this book, but she’s also going to know that I read those scenes. And then I wanted to burst into flames.

I would guess that there are fewer spicey scenes in this book, but they rank higher on the Scoville scale. That’s going to please some (most?) fans, but others should know that going in.

Too Much?

Like the previous two books, Jones keeps the action jumping back and forth between Sunny and Auri, from case to case, or from case to personal arc constantly. And every time you think you’re about to settle into one of the stories for a while, she yanks the focus from you to something else (quite possibly something you’d forgotten was going on). There are times I felt like a lab dropped into a herd of squirrels, never sure what I should be focused on because there were so many things to watch.

And, on the whole, I found this as effective and fun as before. I don’t think Jones could write a boring story, but I’m not sure because she never gives you the chance to start to get bored with a storyline, before she changes things.

But…I’m not sure it was the right choice for this book. She’d given us so many great characters, so many wonderful ideas and plots, plus the new ones we that she introduced in this novel. I think it was just too much. There were (at least) two great characters that we never got to see this whole novel—they were mentioned, but the life-changing nature of what transpired in the storyline they’re attached to could’ve used their presence. Mostly, I’m bothered because one of them was one of the brightest rays of sunshine in the series (and in this series, that’s saying something).*

* I take that back. Sort of. One of the two I’m thinking of shows up for one scene. The fact that I remembered this just before publishing both illustrates what I said about this being overstuffed and undercuts my complaint.

Then there are storylines that seem to be given short-shrift—I can’t get into specifics without spoilers—but there were a couple of storylines that we’d spent so much time over the previous two books that I expected something major to occur here—but we get token bits of instead. That’s largely true for some of the storylines introduced in these pages, too.

Still, there’s just so much happening—so much to enjoy and get caught up in—that other than the absence of that bright ray of sunshine I mentioned, I didn’t notice and/or care about this until I sat down to think about and write about the book. I do think that this novel could’ve benefited from another 70-100 pages to give us all the characters readers expect to see and give adequate space for all the storylines. But in 350 pages for Jones to accomplish all that she does is an impressive feat and I don’t want to complain about that.

I guess I’m just feeling like someone who goes to a concert for a favorite band and they don’t play as many of their hits that you wanted them to, just most of them—and seemed to cut off the encore a little sooner than you’d hoped.

So, what did I think about A Hard Day for a Hangover?

I had such a blast with this. I seriously didn’t want it to end—not just because of what I talked about in the last section—but unless this trilogy spawns a sequel or becomes a longer series, this is the end of the road for these characters. I don’t want to be done with them—especially not Auri and her friends. We’ve gone so far with all of these characters and I want to see what happens to them next.

That doesn’t seem fair to this book—it’s funny, it’s charming, it’s sweet—probably sweeter than the rest just because of where various storylines resolve. Even the silly raccoon storyline will elicit a few “awwww”s. The banter between Sunny and Auri is as great as ever—ditto for Quincy and Sunny. I don’t need plots, Jones can just release occasional 30-40 page collections of conversations between those pairs every now and then as they go about their daily lives, and I’ll buy every one.

The mysteries were resolved nicely (and I got one pretty large surprise along the way)—although I thought the missing prisoner story was resolved a bit too neatly (space issue, I’m sure). It’d be easy to overlook most of those stories in the midst of all the other stuff going on, and that’d be a shame—Jones really can tell a mystery story well and I hope she returns to the genre soon.

I’m honestly at a loss for what to say beyond this—if you’ve read A Bad Day for Sunshine and A Good Day for Chardonnay, of course, you’re going to want to read this—and you’ll be so glad that you did. If you haven’t read the previous novels—do not start here, go back and start from A Bad Day and you’ll thank me. This book—like the series—is a little bit Moonlighting, it’s a little bit Veronica Mars, it’s a little bit Gilmore Girls, and it’s a lot of warm-hearted fun.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Snowstorm in August About?

Joaquín Alboroto is the head of Mexico’s largest drug cartel—and is a character straight out of Winslow’s Cartel Trilogy (and, likely, reality). He’s powerful, ruthless, calculating, and vengeful—and right now, he’s angry. His anger is directed at New York City and the family of one judge from NYC, and he goes after both.

The first step in this process is blanketing Central Park in cocaine—it looks like a snowstorm swept over the park. Horses, dogs, squirrels, birds, children, and adults out for a fun day in August are killed or hospitalized—countless lives are irrevocably damaged at once. And Alboroto promises more to come.

The NYPD is totally unprepared for this—the current commissioner isn’t the right man for this moment, he’s better known for working the political and bureaucratic sides of things. Preventing attacks of this type isn’t in his wheelhouse.

A former counter-terrorism officer in the NYPD is recruited to head up a group of retired officers to confront Alboroto and similar threats. This is a vigilante group with private funding, but in their hearts, they’re still NYPD and want to serve the city. Using old contacts (on both sides of the law), liaising with the Mexican government, and armed with the best hackers and technology that money can buy—plus their own experience and grit—this small group just may be able to stop Alboroto before his next strike.

The Baltic Avenue Group

This right here might be my favorite idea in this novel. So you’ve got a non-governmental anti-terrorist strike force—you need to fund them if they’re going to be effective at all. So, sure, you could have one of them be a super-genius inventor/entrepreneur (like Tony Stark), an orphaned heir of a super-rich man (Bruce Wayne), a group of thieves and con artists turned Robin Hood (Leverage), or a Powerball winner. Something.

Karp gives us a group of billionaires who know the economic impact that a terrorist attack can bring on the city—and on themselves. They don’t want to go through that again, so they’re willing to spend a lot of money to keep them from losing much more. They’re benevolent and out for themselves at the same time. That’s as close to a perfect description of heroes for our time as you’re going to find anywhere.

So, what did I think about Snowstorm in August?

This book made me flashback to a book that I hadn’t thought of in years—I posted about it on October 25, 2013, so probably the last time I gave it any thought was the 26th (though probably the afternoon of the 25th)—Dick Wolf’s The Intercept. There’s a very similar elite group of cops ready to take down terrorist threats with all the fancy tech and everything. That group, however, was part of the NYPD and should’ve been controlled by things like the Constitution, the courts, and the city’s budget. This book, however, features retired cops acting as vigilantes with a budget that probably shames even all of The Big Apple’s. Also, the writing is crisper, the characters aren’t cardboard, and it’s more entertaining. My intent wasn’t to find another excuse to disparage The Intercept, but because the books were similar in so many ways, I had to figure out why I really liked one and had little good to say about the other.

Sometime after 9/11 I remember reading about (and I think I heard one or more of the participants discuss this), some governmental agency brought together some thriller writers, movie makers, etc. to think up some possible, but unlikely attacks that could be launched on the U.S. so contingency plans could be thought up as well as ways to deter this. Does anyone else remember this? Anyway, a lot of what Albortoro gets up to in this book feels like the product of those meetings—possible, but unlikely. Still, if you picked up your phone tomorrow morning and whatever social media feed gives you your news described the attack on Central Park (or any of the other things in this book), you’d believe it. I’m not so sure how willing I am to believe that a handful of ex-cops and federal agents could stop it. But I’d like to think it could happen. (I clearly have more confidence in the ingenuity of criminals and killers than I do in people who’d want to stop them).

There’s an incredibly cinematic feel to this—if your brain doesn’t project a lot of these scenes onto a mental movie screen in your head, something’s wrong. That cover shot alone deserves a Wagner score (although that seems overused, maybe substitute Harold Faltermeyer*). That cinematic feel lets Karp get away with a few things that I’m not sure that other thriller writers could get away with (and some thriller writers use all the time)

* Composer of Top Gun‘s score.

Combine all of those two paragraphs, and what Karp has given us is a blockbuster novel with a very realistic grounding, but it doesn’t necessarily play out that way. But Karp hooks you quickly and keeps on hooking you—he’s not content to get you invested just once, he wants it all. There’s a romantic subplot that works well and rounds out Danny’s character, but I wondered a couple of times if it messed up the pacing a bit (and made me wonder about Danny’s priorities at least once). Aside from that, the pacing was spot-on, and the novel kept picking up speed as it goes and you barrel into the conclusion—I don’t know how someone is supposed to put this down during the last 50 pages (it’s slightly easier in the 50 before that—slightly).

Satisfying action, well-executed plot twists and turns, characters you want to see again, and very believable villains. Snowstorm in August is the action-adventure novel you need to read.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s NYPD Red 7: The Murder Sorority About?

Part of this feels like too much to say, but it’s right there in the title (also, the publisher’s description), so…

Practically simultaneously, two wealthy and well-known producers are killed. One was shot by a sniper pulling off an incredibly difficult shot. The other was killed by a knife attack in broad daylight with no witnesses. These two were brothers, and each had given some people clear motives to kill them. But both at the same time? It’s difficult to tie them together. The NYPD Red squad—with Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan in the lead—is assigned to these cases and they want to consider that there’s one person behind the killings—with two accomplices doing the killing. But can they actually establish a link?

During their investigation, a theory begins to surface about a team of assassins operating under the name of a sorority—Kappa Omega Delta. KOD—Killers On Demand. It sounds farfetched to the partners (and their captain), but they keep running into the idea. And soon, they might start to find some actual evidence pointing to it.

Meanwhile, in a probably unrelated incident, Kylie’s boyfriend is shot. Officially barred from investigating (and she is front-and-center on a case the media and City Hall are focused on), Kylie is mostly watching this from the sidelines—but manages to help the detectives on the case while worried about his recovery.

The KOD Story

I’m both annoyed and glad that the description of the book tipped its hand so much about the assassins. I prefer to discover that kind of thing in my mystery novels—don’t tell me what the characters are going to figure out, let me do it with them. But knowing it was coming did make it easier to buy into.

Up to the point that Zach and Kylie really start to take the notion seriously this novel had the feel of a pretty by-the-book procedural. They were being methodical, beating the bushes, checking off the things they needed to—and that’s the kind of thing I really appreciate seeing in detective novels. I’ve said it before, I’ll keep saying it, too.

Then there’s a shift in the way the novel worked once we get to that point, though, and it takes on a heightened reality*-sense as the detectives try to work out the details of the KOD group—how they operate**, who they are, and how to track them down. The shift isn’t a qualitative one, really, it’s more subjective—it’s a different feel to the book. One that is probably more in line with the rest of the series. The transition jarred me a bit, but not so much that it took me out of the book—but it reminded me what kind of book I was reading.

* I really need to find or develop a synonymous phrase for that, because I use it too often in this post. Sorry about that.

** I fought off the temptation to really dig into this part here, you should read it for yourself.

Looking back over this whole thing, I’m really impressed with it—at several points Karp plays against what you believe is happening. I don’t think he ever pulls the rug out from beneath the reader—but he gives it a good, strong tug, and makes you stumble a bit. It may not be as flashy as a huge twist but can leave the reader just as discombobulated and unprepared for what’s next.

The Personal Subplots

I thought these were handled pretty well. There were elements of Zach’s story that seemed like pretty large coincidences, but if a reader isn’t willing to accept a convenient coincidence here and there, it might be time for a new hobby. I do think that story was handled pretty well.

The same goes for the plot about Kylie’s boyfriend and the shooting (and what that suggests about the ongoing story about her now-missing husband). I think this shooting, the investigation, and the resolution was actually the strongest storyline in the novel and Karp developed it well. Especially in the heightened reality of this series, this came across as pretty grounded.

I’d have to go and look at my posts about the first two books in this series to see if I say anything about it—but I don’t want to. I’m pretty sure that at the time I thought the books spent too much time on the personal lives of these two detectives. To an extent, it made sense while establishing the characters, but I still thought the balance was off. Perhaps it’s because this is a later book in the series, perhaps it’s the shift in authors, maybe it’s just the way things worked out here in NYPD Red 7—I’m not sure I care—but that problem is gone. I even paused to note a couple of times how compared favorably to my memories of the first two books.

So, what did I think about NYPD Red 7: The Murder Sorority?

I went into this book with apprehensions—I dropped this series after two books and while I don’t remember being opposed to coming back, I sure wasn’t in a hurry to. But when someone mails me an ARC, I tend to read it. And I’m really glad I did—it won me over pretty easily, I got invested and caught up in the story, and generally had fun reading the book.

The best thing I can compare this to is an episode of Castle—but with two Detective Becketts and no novelist. Detectives—and their friends, lovers, contacts—who are impossibly attractive and extraordinarily bright on the trail of implausibly effective and skilled killers. And it’s just as entertaining as that series was at its best.

The heightened reality of this series works well in the cases these detectives are involved with—Entertainment personalities and the super-rich. I’ve always liked the idea of a squad like NYPD Red (see also, The Closer‘s Priority Homicide), and halfway assume something like this actually exists. Given media scrutiny and politics, it makes sense for cases of this profile to be handled differently (as long as no one’s ignoring other cases per Bosch’s maxim). I enjoy seeing detectives work in this world as much as I do seeing them in more “everyday” settings belonging to the middle and lower class.

There’s part of me that wants to harp on the implausibility of KOD. But I don’t know why I would—it’s a fun idea and works well in this novel. Karp’s version of this thing that we’ve seen and read about in other books/shows/movies/comics is as successfully conceived and executed as I’ve seen it. And as I said before, if you accept the world of this series, the outlandish nature of the KOD works well. So, I don’t know why I feel like I have to make excuses for it or justify it, but I do feel that way. The KOD is a good challenge for Kylie and Zach and the way they confront it is entertaining. Which is what this book is about. He’s not attempting to tell a gritty story like Winslow’s The Badge (which has parts that are just as implausible)—this is an action-adventure story.

This is a fun read—I raced through it because Karp’s writing and pacing wouldn’t let me put it down until I had to. I thought the novel was stronger than the first two in the series and I’m tempted to go back and see where the series started improving. I’m definitely interested in NYPD Red 8, assuming that Karp gets to do another one and I hope the sales without Patterson’s name on the cover allow it.

Even if you’ve never read this series (maybe particularly), pick this up if you’re in the mood for an adventurous Police Detective novel, I think you’ll be glad you did.

What’s Treasure State About?

Cassie’s a bit better situated as a private investigator now, she’s not raking in the dough, but for a private investigator in Montana, I can’t imagine she could be doing much better. This book focuses on two independent cases—I don’t mind a good two-cases-turning-out-to-be-related-after-all mystery, but I really like seeing an investigator juggle two cases like this.

The first case is initially something that Cassie’s not interested in at all, but she gets sucked into things. A woman from Florida wants to hire her to find a con man who has bilked her out of a big chunk of change. She’d hired a local P.I. who traveled all over the country, seemingly milking her for expenses before ending up in Montana and ghosting her. He suggested that he was zeroing in on the target, and the client wants Cassie to take over from there.

Cassie focuses on the P.I.—if she can figure out what he was doing there, where he went—maybe even finding him—she can use that as a launching pad to finding the con man. This leads Cassie to find several other victims and a pretty solid lead on her target.

The other case is something she’s been working on off and on for a while—and will pay off significantly if she can successfully close the case. Years ago, someone left a cryptic poem on the whiteboard of a Montana restaurant, promising a pile of gold to whoever could crack the clues in the poem and find it. Someone claiming to be that poet hires Cassie to see if she can figure out who he is. He’s worried that someone could find the gold by figuring out who he is, rather than deciphering the clues. So he wants to see if he left himself open that way.* A couple of things break Cassie’s way while she’s working the con man case, and she starts to put two and two together. She just might be on the right path now

* I hope that made sense in summary—it’s clear in the book, I assure you.

There’s a teeny-tine Joe Pickett cross-over here that will bring a smile to the face of Pickett fans (even those as behind as I am, and thankfully really doesn’t spoil anything for me). For people who haven’t read those, it’s not going to alter anything—you won’t even notice.

The Narration

This is now the third Dewell novel that Delaine has narrated, and while I don’t remember having a problem with the earlier female narrator, Delaine has definitely got this character down—and the recurring supporting characters, too.

When the perspective changes from Cassie to some others (the criminals particularly), she does a great job harnassing their characters, too, helping me to get into their headspace and like them even less than I was inclined to (well, in the case of the criminals, that is).

So, what did I think about Treasure State?

I liked coming back to this world for a bit. It was good to see Cassie’s son doing well and Cassie getting more stability in her life. Even better, her mother wasn’t around much, so she couldn’t get on my nerves. I don’t know what it is about Box and mother/daughter relationships, but I’m pretty sure a book could be written on it between this series and the Pickett series.

I was initially worried about some aspects of the con man case hitting some of the same notes as earlier Dewell novels—but I was glad to see that while they might have been the same notes, it was a different song. That’s a sentence that will make sense to people once they’ve read/listened to the book, but hopefully, it’s reassuring if you start to have the same concern.

The treasure hunt/poet storyline was nothing but fun for me. Simple, dogged, investigation that follows one trail after another. Yeah, she catches a break—but there’s reason enough to think that without the lucky break, she’d have gotten there anyway—it just would’ve taken longer. Give me this kind of story any day in a PI novel and I’ll be happy.

There’s a lot to like in this latest adventure with Cassie Dewell and nothing really to complain about. Give this a shot—whether or not you’ve spent time with her before, this PI novel will satisfy.

What’s Terry’s Crew About?

Our protagonist, Terry, is a bright, energetic (very energetic) kid with big dreams. Huge dreams. He even has a name for them, and when he speaks, you can hear the capitalization—Big Dream Plan.* He is basically the living embodiment of joie de vivre. We meet him the day before he starts a new Middle School on the other side of town—he’s qualified for a scholarship and his parents are hoping this is his ticket to a better life.

* Yes, this is a graphic novel, so you can literally see the capitals, but those around him hear the capitals.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the life he has—demanding, strict, but caring and supportive parents. An older brother who always has his back (although he’s human and stumbles), who has the same hopes for Terry that he does. He even has a small-time criminal from the neighborhood looking out for him. It’s a good life, but his parents still hope that his talents and ambitions can give him a better (read: financially secure and in a better neighborhood).

Okay, that’s more space than I thought the introduction was going to take, let’s get moving. His new school is dazzling—there’s clearly money being spent on all levels here. And most of the students come from it, too. It seems to take Terry a while to figure that out, and when he does, it doesn’t seem to phase him.

Terry has a hard time making friends at first but is given a chance to get in with the “in crowd” (I’m sure no one says that anymore, but I’m not going to try to pretend I know what people say), by bullying a kid. It goes well enough, but he feels horrible about it and tries to make things right the next day. This leads to Terry landing a small group of potential friends (including the kid he bullied) and puts him firmly in the “out-crowd.”

An extra-curricular group activity proves the perfect outlet for Terry’s creativity (which needs a large outlet, the kid cannot stop creating), but it seems to be damaging his grades. His mother puts an end to that—which causes some family tension and forces Terry to be even more creative in his approach to the extra-curricular activity.

Things go on from there—basically, this is about Terry getting his feet wet in a new world of opportunity, learning how to navigate it, making some real friends, and learning to appreciate the support and direction of his parents.

The Tone of the Book

Terry’s pretty naïve—or at least he comes across that way. He’s so caught up in his dreams and the possibilities of the future that he really doesn’t seem to notice or understand the harsher realities around him. His big brother does a good job of helping him navigate through this without opening his eyes.

This gives the whole book a similarly hopeful and almost starry-eyed tone and feel. But the art is thoughtfully used to make sure the reader sees the reality—the looks on the faces of characters around him, the changes in the economic status of his environments, the run-down nature of his neighborhood’s buildings, and so on. Terry’s eyes are on the bright future, but he’s living in a very real now, and the art serves well to show that both of these things are true.

It feels like I’ve already transitioned out of this section into the next, let’s make it official:

A Word About the Art

Cory Thomas is a huge part of what makes this graphic novel work. From his capturing the dual worlds that Terry lives into his character designs and the sense of energy conveyed on the page, Thomas really brought this to life.

As usual, I struggle to describe the artwork, so forgive me if any of the positive things I’m trying to say here don’t sound positive.

Thomas’s artwork isn’t polished and full of fine detail—these aren’t beautiful panels like you’d get from George Pérez or someone in his school. The penciling and inking are rough, the lines are jagged—they convey an energy, a youth, and a vitality more like Bill Watterson (and the more I think of it, the more I like my floundering here landed on Watterson as a comparison).

The expressions on the character’s faces alone make me want to commend his artwork here, from Terry’s almost ever-present smile (in various wattages) to the doubt or cynicism depicted on others, these characters pop off the page.

So, what did I think about Terry’s Crew?

In interviews (and in many of his performances), Terry Crews comes across as someone with an indefatigable optimism, an infectious enthusiasm, and a near-unrelenting positivity. I get the impression that this is a fully intentional outlook on his part and I can’t help but admire it. This book encapsulates that outlook and brings it to life in this fictional Terry.

Yes, I wondered if the book ends up being a little Pollyanna-ish in the end, but I think that was the goal—and who doesn’t need a little sunshine? I had a lot of fun reading this—I think it’s difficult not to. Terry, his friends, family, and others (including the nefarious neighborhood supporter) show that with support, encouragement, and teamwork, small dreams can come true—with the assurance that comes from that. If you can make enough of those small dreams come true, even a Big Dream Plan is possible.

This worked for me, someone decades past the target audience, I’d like to think—and I hope—that this will bring some encouragement into the lives of the Middle-Grade audience, too. I recommend picking this up and putting it in the hands of the Middle Grade (maybe even younger) reader in your life.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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I am probably going to say an awful lot of seemingly contradictory things here, so the tweet-length version of this post is: Less is full of gorgeous prose but the character and story never interested me one whit.

What’s Less About?

From the back of the book:

Who says you can’t run away from your problems?

You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes–it would be too awkward. And you can’t say no–it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

What would possibly go wrong?

Thus begins an around-the-world-in-eighty-days fantasia that will take the novelist Arthur Less to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, and Japan and put thousands of miles between him and the plight he refuses to face.

Why Didn’t I Just DNF This?

Three reasons, none of which hold any kind of water, but seemed to carry the day.

1. I hate to DNF books, holding out hope that they’ll win me over eventually. Enough have that I can’t shake the habit. (as I explained here)
2. I really hate to DNF books I spent money on. I also refuse to DNF books that I receive from an author or as an ARC. So basically, I’ve learned via this bullet point that I’ll only DNF library books (with incredibly rare exceptions)
3. I finally took this off my TBR shelf because of a reading challenge, and it’d feel strange to cross this off my to-do list without having read the whole thing.

But I came close frequently over the first hundred pages or so, but then I figured while I wasn’t going to have a good time, there were enough gems along the way, that it was worth the bother. Also, there was one thing I was mildly curious about (although I forgot about it until the answer was revealed).

The Metanarrative at Work

This may get too close to a spoiler for the truly phobic, although I’ll be as vague as I can be, so feel free to skip to the next heading.

Throughout the book, Arthur hears some hard things about his work. Someone that he meets along his travels is very frank about the problems with his novels as a whole—although she adored one of them—and their criticisms, he hears a lot about what is wrong with the novel his publisher had just declined to buy from him.

Their words stick with him and at some point, he accepts their argument (at least about his new book) and dives in to rework it in light of those ideas. In his view, at least, saving the novel and maybe producing something his publisher would want—perhaps something that would find success both with the critics and the market.

It could be said—It shouldn’t (probably), but it could—that Greer took an early draft of Less and saw (or was shown) the same things in it that Arthur saw in his new novel, and then took the same approach that his character did, reshaping the work until it resulted in what I just read. I’m sure Greer just came up with this device for Arthur (perhaps started from it) and wrote for it.

Instead, what we really have is the Author coming alongside the reader and telling us “Here’s how to read this book. All those things along the way up to this point? This is what I’ve been doing with them.” I can appreciate why he’d do that, I think it worked pretty well for this book—and I generally like it when authors do that (although I usually think it’s unnecessary and often self-indulgent). I don’t know that the book needed that done, but I think it helped.

It didn’t change my opinion of the novel much, if at all, but it did make me a bit more certain about Greer’s intention and themes.

So, what did I think about Less?

I started with this point, and I’ll wrap up with it here at the end—the prose is gorgeous. If you can go more than three pages without admiring a sentence or paragraph (if not more), it’s because you weren’t paying attention. I can see why readers and critics who connected with the material raved about this and threw awards at it.

But I never connected to Arthur. It’s not his lifestyle, it’s not his indolence, his pretentiousness, his…cluelessness (it’s not the right word, but it’s close enough). I’ve read and enjoyed characters like that before (and will again). It’s just Arthur and his story that didn’t work for me. I found his strategy for dealing with the wedding foolish and cowardly. I didn’t find the humor in the whole less-fluent-than-he-realizes-in-German schtick.* I’m not so sure I ever bought into whatever self-discovery he made. I really think the ending—and what it suggests is about to happen—undercut whatever Less had achieved through his travels.

* On the other hand, DeLillo’s Jack Gladney being unable to read or speak German absolutely works for me. I am not anti-satire involving Teutonic languages. I just thought I should make that clear.

Because I appreciated the writing so much, I can’t bring myself to give this the 2.5/2 stars I’d have otherwise given this. Read other people raving about the book, read the book if you’re curious, but I really can’t recommend it.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What Happened Before Kestral’s Dance?

This is the second book in the series, but don’t let that stop you from reading it first (although, I’m sure Massey wouldn’t mind you buying both before you do). Here’s some of what I picked up that will help you understand what this book is about before you decide.

Obviously, this is going to involve a spoiler or two for Mad Kestral, so read at your own risk, I guess.

Kestral was orphaned when she was pretty young and lived life on the streets with similar children before she found herself being taken in by a pirate. She grew up amongst them, eventually becoming rather skilled. So much so that she’s named captain when the previous one retires. She also helps that captain save the life of the king and is named privateer (perhaps The Privateer—I’m a little vague on that).*

* I think the chronology of those events is intertwined and different from the way I laid it out.

Kestral also has a bit of magic ability, tied to her whistling. She really doesn’t understand it and has learned to keep it under control and only uses it rarely (frequently tied to filling the sails with wind). During, or just before, that last adventure one of the King’s spies helped her establish a bit more control over her abilities. Now, I’m not particularly sure (even after reading Kestral’s Dance) how McAvery knew how to help her, but it doesn’t matter. Also, helping her in this way is just one of the several reasons that Kestral is attracted to him and can’t stop thinking about him as the sequel opens.

Oh, there’s also the Danisobans. They are the official league of wizards. Kestral has tried to keep her abilities (and her person in general) off of their radar since before she lived on the streets. There’s a harshness and a cruelty to them evident right from the get-go in Kestral’s Dance and it takes the reader only a sentence or two to adopt Kestral’s prejudice against them.

There’s a little more I could probably say, but that’s enough to get you going. Maybe more than I need to say, really, but I don’t have time to edit today—so you get a stream of consciousness.

What’s Kestral’s Dance About?

The Danisoban that Kestral knows best and likes least, comes to her with a message from the King. She’s to head out to a certain area and retrieve an animal she’s never heard of or seen for the King’s menagerie. This is the time of year that her ship should be in the dock, the men on leave, because of the stormy season. The neck of the woods that this creature lives in is particularly dangerous now. However, this is not a negotiation, it’s an order, so Kestral takes off with whatever crew that will go along with her.

Underway, she learns that McAvery is in some sort of trouble in a different direction than their goal. She wants to go to his aid, but has no time and is unwilling to make her men face the king’s wrath (and isn’t that keen on facing it herself). Her quartermaster and closest friend assures her that McAvery can look out for himself and she tries to find comfort in that.

While she’s struggling with the decision, they come across another (smaller) ship than hers that Kestral believes is tied to McAvery’s predicament. Privateers do what privateers do and that ship is soon under her control—they find a woman, a dancer who was supposed to be sold as a slave, who tells them that McAvery is about to be sold in an illegal slave market. She can help Kestral get there in time.

This dancer has magic that seems to work similarly to Kestral’s, except she doesn’t whistle, she dances. This blows the pirate’s mind. She’s not alone? In fact, the dancer seems to know a lot about Kestral’s abilities and promises to teach her how to use them for a lot more than just filling the sails for a price. Her home is a year’s journey away, if Kestral will sail her there, she will instruct her. This will strain the crew and definitely put them out of the King’s good graces, but it might be worth it.

But first, they have to rescue McAvery.

Kestral

She is a great character, and I’m annoyed that I didn’t get to know her in Mad Kestral. At this point in her life she’s confident (occasionally cocky—or at least acts as if she is), capable, and loyal (and loyalty-inspiring). She knows her limits—she’s not afraid of pushing them—but is clever enough to find ways around them.

It can take me a while to warm to a character who’s a professional criminal, but I liked her straight off. There was something about her that clicked right away and I grew in my appreciation for her. Yes, it’s somewhat overdone to have the strong, confident, capable woman being a disaster when it comes to her love life. But (like with most overdone things) when it’s done well, I like it. Massey pulls it off here, and it adds to Kestral’s charm.

The Magic System(s)

I want to say I’ve encountered a magic system like Kestral’s before—tied to music and rhythm—but beyond zombie-control in The Dresden Files—I can’t remember where.* This is a great idea, it’s distinctive, and I’d love to hear more about it. Using the rhythms and sounds of life, of the world around us, to shape, mold and direct energy just makes sense.

* Just before publishing it hit me—some of the Earth magic in the Jane Yellowrock books is shaped by music, but I think that was one particular practitioner, not the whole system. There are likely other examples, but they’re not coming to mind.

On the other hand, the Danisoban’s magic is about blood, entrails, suffering, and power. There’s a sacrifice involved (whether or not is actual deities that empower them in response to the sacrifice I’m not sure). And really, it’s as off-putting as their personalities are. I’m not sure which comes first, but in the end, keep me away from those guys.

So, what did I think about Kestral’s Dance?

I can sum up the reason to buy this book with one phrase: Pirate Battles with Magic Users. Sure, there are more (and possibly deeper) reasons to read this book, but come on…a good Pirate Battle at sea is enough justification to spend a few hours with a book, but Massey includes magic users with hers. I could only post this paragraph with a link or two directing you to a place to buy the book and that’d be enough.

But we all know I can’t stop talking after only a paragraph, right?

This book features some great writing—yeah, there are a couple of sentences that are clunkers. But for every one of those, there are four or five sentences/passages that are just dynamite (and the rest of the book is simply good). Massey is particularly strong when she’s describing Kestral’s view of/appreciation of the sea, sailing, or her ship. I guess you could say it’s the romance of the sea, or something like that. I cannot relate to it—I can get violently seasick almost as fast as a fish can get wet. But after reading Massey for a bit? I can almost imagine enjoying being on an old sailing vessel.

The romantic/love triangle subplot tried my patience for a bit (as triangles do 99.4% of the time), but it did eventually win me over. And people who don’t have a triangle-aversion will probably enjoy all of it.

I thought Kestral’s crew were great and my only real complaint about the book is that we didn’t get more interaction with them—I’d like to say we just needed a couple of more scenes with them at work or at play, but I’m pretty sure that if we had those, I’d ask for a little bit more. I’m really drawn to characters like that interacting the way they do, and would eagerly read a few chapters of daily life at sea without the drama.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that I was going to really enjoy Kestral’s Dance, but I figured I’d just read this for the Book Tour and move on, but somewhere along the way, I decided that I needed to read more about her, this world, and the rest of the crew. I don’t know that I’m convinced to go back to Mad Kestral to see how we got to this point (but I might just to see more of the pirates in action), but I’m definitely keeping an eye out for the next volume in this series.

For swashbuckling adventure, a dash of romance, a great magic system, and some compelling characters—you’d do well to grab Kestral’s Dance at your first opportunity.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s For We Are Many About?

It’s been around 40 years or so since the Bobs started their mission of finding a place for the tiny sliver of humanity that’s still eking out a survival on Earth. They’ve started colonizing one planet and continue to look for others.

On Earth terrorists upset with the evacuation priorities—and some that think humanity should die off—harass the efforts and cause a little trouble. Extra-terrestrial life (some sentient and some others) cause other problems for the Bobs. The Brazilian probes are still trying to attack, too.

Then they encounter an alien space-traveling species—their first. This group (soon dubbed the Others) are enough to make Star Trek‘s the Bord look warm and fuzzy. Naturally, the Bobs quickly annoy them.

But really, the biggest problem comes from within. The Bobs are having a hard time coping with their virtual invulnerability as they deal with humans (and others) who aren’t so long-lived. Some of the Bobs begin calling them “ephemerals” as they try to find ways to cope. Whatever the problems that come from their opponents throughout the universe, it looks like this one may be the biggest challenge.

Ray Porter’s Narration

Porter was the deciding factor for me trying out the series in the first place, and he’d be enough of a reason to stick around. I don’t need him to be—the story and characters are really what are keeping me around—but him doing narrating is a nice bonus.

I really don’t know what to say beyond that—I’m becoming a real Porter fan here (and got excited a couple of days ago when I saw he’s done some work on another series I just started).

So, what did I think about For We Are Many?

This is exactly what a sequel to We Are Legion (We Are Bob) should be—the action picks up right where we left off, the stories continue to develop well and we get some good resolution, the stakes get raised, and the characters develop in ways that are natural yet unanticipated. The laughs are still there as is the tension—and maybe both are a little sharper. I love how all these Bobs are variations of each other, and yet come across as so distinctive (while Porter barely does anything different for almost all of them)—that’s in the writing and the performing, and it’s just great.

The last hour or so was the best writing and character work in the two books and made me eager for the next one.

This is great popcorn fun, and something tells me that I’m going to spend a lot of time with Mr. Taylor over the next few months (at least) (and hopefully more time with Mr. Porter, too).

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s The Sense of an Ending About?

This is a short novel with a very simple story—well, a pair of them. The temptation at this point is to talk in detail about everything that happens—and I could still do that in fewer paragraphs than some longer novels I’ve written about.

The other option is to be very sketchy about the stories—I think that’s the way to go, it’ll be easier to cover things without tying myself in knots to avoid spoilers and it feels like it’s the spirit of the novel.

We meet Tony Webster and his friends in their teens, a new student comes to their school and they work hard to bring him into their circle of friends, and we stick with them for a few years—largely through the way the group dissolves as they disperse to various universities and make the attempts to stay in touch. Add some girls into the mix and the end is inevitable. Tony has one significant relationship that he spends some time relating with a young woman named Veronica—it’s a bad match from the outset, but both of them try to make it work. They eventually split, he travels America for a bit before coming home and getting a nice, comfortable job; getting married and divorced; and raising a daughter. (the post-America part of his life is covered in one paragraph).

All of this is told through the perspective of Tony as an older man recounting his younger days and comparing what he and his friends experienced to what “kids these days” have. This is really the introduction to the novel, the foundation—and takes roughly sixty pages to cover. He’ll breeze by a lot, and then stop and focus on a conversation or an event. Much like a conversation with my parents and grandparents about their lives (or, increasingly, how I find myself talking to my kids).

The second part builds on that foundation, Tony is now on the other side of marriage, divorce, career, “the fall of Communism, Mrs. Thatcher, 9/11, [and] global warming.” He’s contacted by a lawyer about a small item left to him in a will. Veronica’s mother, of all people, has left something for him. He has to work to find out what it is and then to actually get it from Veronica, who actually possesses the item. This leads to him having to revisit his past, re-examine friendships, their relationship, and how little he understood things then (and now).

So, what did I think about The Sense of an Ending?

While I feel an impulse to do a deep-dive on this book (like the kind of thing I’d do for a 400-level Contemporary Novel class or something, with all the journal articles, books(?), professional reviews, etc.), I’m going to resist that. I’m not even going to go as deep as I typically would because I’m not sure how I’d stop.

Bear with me, this is going somewhere positive. I think.

Tony and his friends initially struck me as the kind of protagonists you’d find in an Updike, Franzen, or Brodesser-Akner* novel, and I had to find solace in the fact that this was going to be shorter than my time with them. Well-written, crisp prose that would likely lead to something thoughtful and insightful—but I’d have to wade through some pretension, a lot of amoral callowness, and more masturbation than I really want (both literal and philosophical).

* I could’ve made the list longer, but I think I made my point. I feel bad about using the last name, but I just saw the trailer for the Hulu series, so she was on my mind—and I thought it would be nice to mention someone who wasn’t a white male author, even if they’re worst offenders.

Here’s where you expect the “But, I came around to…”, right? Well, I don’t really have one. I did grow to have some sympathy and understanding for Tony—even if I did think he’d be better off with a different hobby than obsessively trying to get his hands on the item (and trying to understand Veronica). With one exception, my opinion of everyone else in the novel went down. I probably would’ve liked a lot more time with Tony’s ex, actually. And there are some characters we spend very little time with that I might like to read about. But the named characters that we get to know are really not the kind of characters you want to get to know.

My other quibble with the book is how often Tony’s narration will say something to the effect of: “at least that’s how I remember it now.” The shifting of memory, interpretation, and perspective when it comes to relating events is clearly a theme of the book, but we don’t need to get hit over the head with it like a 2×4 in the hands of a 1980’s professional wrestler.

Once I got to Part Two, I was hooked. I was only mildly curious about the item and Veronica, and (again) thought that Tony’d be better off putting it behind him. But I couldn’t stop reading about his efforts to get to the bottom of it—it wasn’t quite the way you have to stop to look at a fender-bender on the side of the road, but it was close. His reactions, his recalculations, his reinterpretations—and the way he was forced to make them—kept me engaged and thinking. I didn’t care about the destination, I wasn’t thrilled with the journey, but I enjoyed the route and the mode of transport (to stretch the metaphor beyond use).

In a mere 163 pages (and it’s a small book in the other dimensions, as well—it could’ve been a much smaller novel had it been a more standard size), Barnes gives the reader a twisty little story with some solid character development (I refuse to commit to the word “growth” here, but it may be appropriate) and squeezes in some discussion on the nature of, and how we think about: narrative (both personal and fiction), metanarrative, history, relationships, life, death, memory, time (and its passage), aging, and other themes I didn’t pick up on during my first read or forgot to note.

Believe it or not, I do recommend this book. There was a lot I didn’t particularly enjoy (I think I made that clear), but it’s going to stick with me longer than many novels do. I think there’s a better than even chance that were I to write this post in a month that it would end up saying something different. The writing is compelling, there’s a quality to it that is clear from the opening pages, and you can see why it would be in the discussion for some prizes (many of which it apparently won). This is definitely the kind of “literary” reading I want to do—I just wish Barnes had filled it with people I wanted to read about, spend time with, and get to know.

And yes, I said first read, I think I’ll return to this in a couple of years. I’m pretty sure I’ll read more Barnes, too.

I’ve given this three different star ratings since I finished reading it, so I’m going to skip that shortcut and just let that muddle of an evaluation stand.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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“Amari,” says Maria. “It’s not your job to save the world every summer.”

“I don’t have a choice!”

What’s Amari and the Great Game About?

Amari has spent the last school year looking forward to one thing: it being over so she can go back to the summer program for the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. Not only will she have the chance for regular contact with her brother, but it’s at the Bureau that she has found purpose and a place. She’s eager to start the second summer of training as a Junior Agent and whatever work she’ll get to do in that role.

But the day before that summer is supposed to start, something happens that reignites anti-magician rhetoric and sentiment. So much so that the new Head Minister bans her from the summer program. The PR surrounding that is decidedly bad, so Amari is admitted, but the ban is just the beginning of her problems.

Magicians and people with similar profiles are under the microscope, however, and those in power are engaged in all-out persecution–because of their reputations and records, Amari and Maria are spared this. At least overtly.

Meanwhile, Amari is given the opportunity to fill an office with the League of Magicians that would put her in charge — because of her age, she doesn’t think she’s right for the position and passes. She’s not who anyone should be looking toward if it comes to war against the Bureau. But when the opportunity passes to someone else — someone who needs to be kept away from it — she steps up. Starting the Great Game — a series of challenges where these candidates face off against each other for the role.

Amari decides she has to clear Magicians of responsibility for the event that kicked off this new wave of harassment as well as compete in the game. She has to play the game on her own, but she’s going to need the help of her friends and allies (including one very unexpected ally) to pull everything off.

So, what did I think about Amari and the Great Game?

I think Middle Grade readers are going to have a ball with this–it continues the fun and voice of Amari and the Night Brothers, raises the stakes, and includes some great moments for Amari’s friends as well as for Amari. Alston’s able to address misinformation/”Fake News”/propaganda and prejudice in effective and age-appropriate ways while telling a rollicking story.

For me, and I think others who fall out of the demographic will have a similar reaction, this isn’t quite the experience the previous book was. It really felt like Alston was cherry-picking elements from similar MG series and mashing them up into this. If you’ve ever wondered, for example, what a hybrid version of Dolores Umbridge and Rita Skeeter would be like, this book will show you. If you can read the Great Game segments and not think about The Tri-Wizard Cup, you’re a better person than I am. I’ve only mentioned Potter references, but to me, the whole thing had more of a Percy Jackson-vibe.

Readers better versed in MG Fantasies might have other parallels to offer, too. And there is nothing wrong with this–authors do this all the time, and I enjoy seeing the results. Stories lift elements from others because they work well and people enjoy them (and/or they need to be skewered). Outside of parodies, I prefer not to see the influences quite as easily as I did here. But…and this is an important point…a dude pushing 50 is going to read this differently than Alston’s target audience is going to. He shouldn’t be writing to please me.

I did enjoy this–and can’t wait to see what comes next. I wasn’t prepared for the way this book wrapped up, but think it was a great choice on Alston’s part. I really like the way he’s developing the characters as well–both individually and in their relationships with each other. Yes, I’ll go into Book 3 with lower expectations than I went into this book with (I think that’s because the first novel was just that good)–but I’ll be towards the front of the line to read it when it comes out.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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When you’re given the opportunity to confront your mother’s killer, do you take it?

I did.

No words were spoken though.

I just killed him.

Was it worth it?

Absolutely.

Do I have any regrets?

Only that I didn’t make him suffer longer.

What’s 6 Ripley Avenue About?

6 Ripley Avenue is a Probation Hostel—similar to what we call a halfway house in the U.S.—focusing on probationers convicted of violent crimes (including murder). It’s been plagued by controversy since before its opening two years ago. The concerns go beyond the typical NIMBY protests because of the violent nature of the residents.

Sloane Armstrong, a freelance investigative journalist, and Helen Burgess, an elderly woman who lives next door to the house, have been at the forefront of the effort to move and/or close Ripley House Approves Premises from the start. Their friendship was forged by this effort but has grown since then.

Now, a resident there—a convicted murderer—has been killed. The investigation into the murder highlights many of the concerns Helen has voiced and Sloane has published—poor staffing levels, inadequate security, malfunctioning CCTV, and more. Helen and Sloane see this as their opportunity to close the facility once and for all and work to uncover as much as they can about the crime and the systemic problems it exposes as possible for their purposes.

On the other hand, Jeanette Macy is the Senior Probation Officer on staff—she learns of the same problems (and more) during the investigation and sees this as the opportunity to improve things both at Ripley House and throughout the system.

The narrative bounces between the perspectives of these women as they investigate the happenings of that fateful night and interact with each other and the police during the inquiry. Will any of them be fast enough in their investigation to ensure the murderer is caught in time to save more lives?

It’s almost a locked-room mystery—but if you can’t trust the locks on the room…

The Prologue

I see a lot of hate/antagonism toward Prologues online lately. I’m not sure I get it, but if people want to skip them, I guess that’s their prerogative. However, anyone who is anti-prologue probably hasn’t read a Noelle Hotlen prologue—they’re consistently very good. This is one of her best—it’s not Dead Perfect—good, but it’s close.

If you read this book, don’t gloss over/skim/skip it.*

* I think that should apply to Prologues/Epilogues in general, but whatever. You do you.

On the Other Hand…

I think the last two chapters could be cut and the book would be stronger. I get (I’m pretty sure) the impulse for them, and they do make sure that some of what was suggested/implied in the text was nailed down. I also wonder if she answers a question or two that would be better left lingering. But I think most readers would either assume almost everything contained there—or wouldn’t care. It’s like watching deleted scenes from a movie and thinking “yeah, that was good to see, but I see why it didn’t make the final cut.”

Okay, the last six paragraphs of the penultimate chapter—they’re a distinct section—would’ve made a good, punchy last chapter on their own. But the rest felt like overkill.

Your results may vary, and it’s not like these chapters hurt the book significantly. But for me, they took a little of the luster off.

So, what did I think about 6 Ripley Avenue?

“Sometimes the places where you are meant to be safe are the ones you should fear the most.”

The violence in this book centers on those places you’re meant to be safe—home and family—and what happens when that safety is disrupted. The whodunit of the novel is the focus—but there’s a lot said about the ripple effects of (many, but not all, of) the crimes talked about. How the repercussions of a moment of violence or other dangerous choices are long-lasting and alter the lives of those only indirectly affected by them. Crime Fiction in general is getting better at showing this, and few do it as well as Holten does.

Holten’s signature style of terse chapters and paragraphs is well-evident here,* jumping from perspective to perspective to make sure the plot is always steadily advancing. This makes the pacing almost relentless and it’s hard to put the book down, no matter what the reason for doing so may be. I’m not saying that I burned any meal or let a pot boil over while reading this, but I’d absolutely understand why someone would. Thankfully, the style also makes it incredibly easy to pick back up and get fully immersed in the story immediately. You could easily read 6 Ripley Avenue in one sitting without intending to.**

* Really, does she draft on cocktail napkins? What would happen if she invested in a couple of reams of 8.5 x 11/A4?

**The fact that it took me as long as it did to read this is a commentary on my schedule this month, not the book.

The only problem with the pace is that we don’t get quite enough time to see enough of Helen and Sloane’s friendship—it’d be easy to see their relationship as Sloane exploiting the lonely woman for ammunition and Helen as desperate for an emotional connection. That’s what I saw it as initially. But as the novel progresses, we see actual affection between the two and it’d have been nice if circumstances had allowed us to see more of it. On the other hand, things do allow the reader to change their initial impression of Jeanette over the course of the novel (at least this one did).

This is one of those novels that is strengthened by the use of multiple POVs—the overlapping motives, agendas, and methods of the women looking into the crime and its repercussions, sometimes in alignment, sometimes at odds, but leading to getting at the truth was really well done. I’m not sure that, outside of the first bit of narrative from the Killer’s point-of-view that having their perspective present is that helpful—but I’d say that about at least 98% of those that I’ve read, so take that comment with a boulder-sized grain of salt.

This standalone solidifies Holten as an auto-buy for me, it’s a pleasant departure from Holten’s series work, displaying her already visible strengths and giving her a chance to show new ones. 6 Ripley Avenue is a fast, compelling, read that will stay with you for a while—you can’t ask for more than that.