Becky's Books –

The Fear Artist
by Timothy Hallinan
2012/ 342 pages
read by Victor Bovine – 12h 2m
rating:   A / crime

Poke Rafferty – a travel writer living in Bangkok with his Thai wife, Rose,  and their adopted daughter, Miao.  is in real trouble now because although Poke was minding his own business a man lands in Poke’s arms,  gets shot and dies.  Just before dying the man whispers the words,  “Eleanor,”  “Eckersley”  and “Cheyenne.”   He also drops a laundry ticket which Poke is able to pocket.

The police arrive, haul the dying man away, deny there was a shooting and harass Poke about his papers.  He gets home and tries to get on with his painting, but the police arrive there and this time Poke is taken in and interrogated rather harshly.  Nevertheless, he manages to be released.  During his absence his apartment has been searched and the cops are returning yet again.  This time he escapes out the window and starts living as a fugitive on the streets of Bangkok while looking for answers.   Meanwhile,  Rose and Miaow are up north visiting her relatives to escape the intense rains which threaten to flood the river and city. >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Tell No Lies
by Greg Hurwitz
2013/ 382 pages
read by Scot Brick  12h 39m
rating:   B+  /  crime thriller

I finally got around to this book which has been on my wish list for eons –  I guess because I’m on a crime kick and I really enjoyed the two priors I listened to which used the combination of Hurwitz and Brick.  Now Hurwitz has a new book out with Brick reading although it might be a bit before I get to it.  There are other Hurwitz/Brick books I haven’t read.  After this one I’m not sure how much further I want to go with Brick (more below).

Daniel Brasher is a councilor of violent felons who are trying to make something of themselves on the outside.  He’s pretty straightforward with them and although it’s dangerous,  this method usually gets good results.  Then one day he gets a letter in his home mailbox which was intended for someone else – it’s a serious threat to a life.  And someone dies.  Then he gets another letter – and someone else dies. >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Safe House
by Chris Ewan (Brit)
2011 / 448 pages
read by Simon Vance  10h 53m
rating B+  / crime

The story starts out with a bang and Rob Hale,  our 1st person protagonist,  finds himself in the hospital following a motorcycle wreck.  The trouble is that Lena,  the drop-dead gorgeous young woman who was his passenger, (or he thought was his passenger)  is not there – the doctor tells him there was no passenger found.

A bit of a back story shows that Lena was a rather mysterious character and Hale had only known her for a very short time,  a matter of hours.

Turns out someone, or everyone perhaps, is hiding something –  it starts with who called the ambulance,  goes on to who picked up Lena,  and who were those other people in the house where he met Lena?  But there’s the question of who is Lena anyway and why is she apparently being hidden away?  Was she escaping when she asked Hale to take her for a ride?  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>>

Falling in Love
by  Donna Leon
2015 /  256 pages
read by David Colacci 8h 23m
Commissario Guido Brunetti series #24
rating:   C+  / crime –

I think this is my first Guido Brunetti books and I enjoyed the first part but …  – I got it because I love the voice of David Colacci (see the John Lescroart books) and the book was on sale!  … Well.  What’s a good girl to do?  lol

Flavia Petrelli, a world-renowned opera singer, is apparently being stalked by a flower-thrower – a fan? – Who is bombarding the opera star with bouquets and bouquets of yellow flowers?  They come to her in the dozens in London and St. Petersburg and in Paris – now she’s in Venice.   There are even flowers inside her apartment.  she calls Brunetti. >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Gate of Angels
by Penelope Fitzgerald
1990 / 178 pages
rating – 9
(2nd reading)

I forgot a bunch so I had to reread – I knew what was going on and what was coming up,  so it was deeper than a recollection memory.  But I focused more on the themes this time – the first time just trying to get ahold of the plot and characters.

I like the setting,  pre-WWI in Cambridge, and the main characters,  Fred Fairly and Daisy Saunders.  I enjoyed the plot of how those two finally got together although there were obstacles.

On second reading I was more interested in the themes of religion vs science in the earl 20th century when invisible forces were wondered about,  atoms and ghosts and so on.  Also of note is the subtle feminist tone which pervades parts of the book.   >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>> 

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
by Joel Dicker  (Swiss)
2012 (US 2014) – 656 pages
read by Pierce Cravens – 17h 54m
rating  9.25  / literary crime

It’s a rare book which can come off as both a murder- mystery crime novel and literary fiction with some great satire in it.   The book was a hit in Europe where it was originally published but, unsurprisingly,  not so much in the US .  Well,  the US  is satirized a bit – but not in any kind of mean-spirited way -and it is a huge leap from James Patterson to Joël Dicker.

The story:   Back in the 1975 the eponymous Harry Quebert, a published author and professor then 35 years old,  had some kind of love affair with Nola Kellergan, a part-time waitress,  age 15.  She then went missing and now,  33 years later (2008) ,  her dead body has been found buried in Harry’s yard along with a copy of Harry’s most famous book,  The Origin of Evil.

Meanwhile,  Harry’s s former student and long-time  friend Marcus Goldman,  our first person narrator,  has written a best seller and is being pressured by his agent and publisher,  but can’t come up with a second.  Then he finds out that Harry has been arrested for Nola’s murder and goes to New Hampshire to help him. Maybe he could write a book on the situation?  >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>>

The Queen of Patpong
by Timothy Hallinan
2010 / 320 pages
read by Victor Bevine –  11h 50m
rating –  A+  – literary crime
(#4 in Poke Rafferty series)

One night while Poke, Rose and Miao Rafferty are eating dinner in a Thai restaurant, a man approaches and seriously threatens them – violence ensues.  The guy turns out to be Howard Horner,  a man from Rose’s unfortunate past, who has returned to get revenge.

After getting all that straightened out and meeting a couple of current bar girls,  the narrative moves to Rose’s background and the transformation from her life as an impoverished farm girl  named Kwan to being Rose,  the “Queen of Patpong.”   (Patpong is a red-light district in Bangkok.)

Rose’s past takes up about half the center of the book and it’s the riveting, gritty  story of how it happens that farm girls from northern Thailand become bar dancers in Bangkok,  There is a very authentic feel to this whole section of the narrative,  not in the specifics but in general because while relating the tale,  Hallinan brings to life some characters we really care about.  These are not just reflections of the statistics or cardboard pornography we usually see. Parts of The Queen of Patpong are grittier than others as it deals with the essentially  forced prostitution of underage girls in Bangkok.   I had a hard time with the subject matter for awhile.  It’s not light or easy reading.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>> 

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry
by Fredrik Backman
2013 / 385 pages
read by Joan Walker – 11h 02m
rating:  6  / contemp fiction – fantasy (I think)

“There is no such thing as coincidence in fairy tales.”

Back in August of this year I read and very much enjoyed Bachman’s A Man Called Ova about a stubborn  and  eccentric Swedish man so  the premise of this book was intriguing.  Too bad – mostly.  Because I’m not a fan of fantasy and this book is chock full of  superheroes and witches and warriors and dragons and trolls etc. and so on.

The “Grandmother”  of the title belongs to Elsa, a precocious, imaginative, annoying and insecure 7-year old girl who lives with her mother and step-father in one upscale flat while her mother’s mother (the “Grandmother”)  lives next door.  And although Grandma has always been eccentric,  she appears to be edging up on bonkers.  Oh well,  Elsa is a bit eccentric herself even at the age of 7.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

The Short Drop
by Matthew FitzSimmons
2015 /  395 pages
read by James Patrick Cronin –  11h 54m
rating:  A++  /   thriller crime – political/techie

Ahhhh!   🙂

Ten years prior to the main story line Senator Benjamin Lombard’s daughter Suzanne went missing and hasn’t been seen since then.  She left some seriously grieving people and the whole country was on the lookout but no matter –  she was never found but there was some fallout.

Now Lombard is Vice President and running for President and the missing daughter story  has come up in the news again – Suzanne, or her body, must be found.  Oh yes, the Senator’s office and others have  been looking for years, in fact there is a special group looking,  but …

Then one day via computer geekdom up pops someone who seems to know something about Suzanne.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Brooklyn
by Colm Tóibín
2009 / 282 pages
read by KIrsten Potter 7h 37m
rating – 8  / contemp fiction

This is the reread of a book I first read probably in about 2010,  when the paperback  was first published.  I wasn’t all that impressed at the time and although I’ve read all of Tóibín’s books since,  only Nora Webster really makes me sit up.  It’s okay though.

On the second reading,  the setting of   Brooklyn in the early 1950s and through the eyes of a young Irish immigrant girl is really the most  interesting part.  On my first reading I was s0 involved  with the characters and the slowly developing plot that I kind of missed the wonderful way Tóibín has with sights and sounds of a mid-century Brooklyn.

The plot:    In accord with her family’s wishes,  Eilis  (Eye-lish) Lacey has come to New York from a tight-knit family and  a close community.  She leaves her sister Rose to care for their widowed mother.  Actually,  Rose is denied the opportunity Eilis doesn’t really want,  so Eilis expects herself to do well.  And she has the assistance of the kindly and visiting American Catholic Father Flood who relocated years prior.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
by Anatole France
1881 / 234 pages (Kindle)
rating:  7.5  ?

“The poor man who has no desires possesses the greatest of riches; he possesses himself. The rich man who desires something is only a wretched slave.”  (p. 17 – Kindle)

I read and quite enjoyed France’s  Penguin Island years ago so when the 19th Century group chose this for the discussion I rather looked forward to it.

And it started quite well,  I was promptly involved in Part 1,  The Log,  where Sylvestre keeps a diary and tells the story of how he desired a certain book so much,  he obsessed over it.   In the meanwhile he befriends a poor neighbor by giving them a large log for their Christmas fire.  Years later he’s still desiring the log and travels to Sicily to find it but it wasn’t there – instead a series of rather mysterious events took over.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Near to the Wild Heart
by Clarice Lispector – (Tr: Giovanni Pontiero)
1943 / 192 pages (new trans 2012)
rating – 8.5  / existential lit?

This came up in a reading group and because I’ve never read anything by Lispector and she’s from Brazil I thought I’d give it a shot.  I expected a lot of stream-of-consciousness and I’m not fond of being all taken over by the workings of the mind of a fictional character – however the author thinks that character thinks.  It feels really claustrophobic. (I’ve never met a stream of consciousness character who thinks anything like I do.)

Anyway, it’s certainly not all stream-of-consciousness from a character known as Joana but it’s close.  There is no real plot – just a fairly young woman remembering chunks of her life while experiencing a few other chunks and focusing on her interior thoughts and feelings.  She really wants to be free but can’t find the self and she’s seeking an authenticity of a physical self as well as an emotional,  mental and spiritual self.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>>

The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
by Edward Dolnick
2011 / 416 pages
read by Alan Sklar – 10h 7m
rating 7  / history of science/math

I should have finished this before the New Year,  but here it sat, half finished and waiting for me.   I don’t know how I missed it in trying to clean up unfinished books.

This is basically a rather lively portrait of Isaac Newton and that era of history in which he and other scientists worked.  That era which used Decartes’  idea that the world operated like a clock – a self-regulating universe where God had set up everything in perfect order and they could measure it and come to know it.   Some scientists were more enamored with that idea than others but in general that’s the way it was with cutting edge math-science- philosophy or  “natural science” as it was called then.  Still there was was much that was clouded in the mystery of the unknown,  so there was still plenty of belief in angels, superstitions and miracles. >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>> 

The Life We Bury
by Allen Eskens
2014/  303 pages
read by Zack Villa  8h 24m
rating – A / crime – amateur detective

When Joe Talbert is given a biographical writing assignment for a college class he chooses  Carl Iverson,  an old man in a nursing home as his subject.  As it turns out Carl is on parol from a life sentence in prison because he’s in the final stages of cancer. He was convicted of the rape of a child and murder.

As Joe and Carl get to know each other they each have other issues.  Joe’s mother is an alcoholic and now that Joe has moved out his teenage brother Jeremy has no protection from Mom and her boyfriend.  Meanwhile,  Carl is still trying to cope with the hell of living with Vietnam War memories. >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Losing Faith *
by Adam Mitzner *
2015 / 369 pages *
read by David Colacci *
rating:  A+  / legal thriller *

AHHHH …the year is off to a good start with an excellent legal thriller, my favorite kind of crime novel.  I’ve read Mitzner’s two prior books,  A Conflict of Interest  and  A Case of Redemption and both were solid “A”s.   Being read by David Colacci is an extra treat because I’ve followed his narration of John Lescroart’s books and imo, there’s no one better.

Nicolai Garkov, a millionaire criminal from Russian who is living in the US,  has been charged with funding terrorist activities and he wants Aaron Littman for a defense attorney.  Littman works for a very prestigious firm and really doesn’t want to do it but Garkov knows how to get him.  There’s lots of money up front but more importantly,  Garkov knows the little secrets Littman keeps.  Knows that Littman knows the judge on his case, Faith Nichols – Littman knows her very well,  too well for his Littman’s wife’s comfort. And Garkov will use this information to ruin a lot of lives if Littman and Nichols don’t do what is requested of them – get him off basically but it starts out with bail.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Dear Readers,  🙂

I just noticed that my little addition to the lit-blog world has been getting lots more hits every year.  I started over on Geocities in 1998 thinking that maybe I could keep track of what I read – just for my own info. I’d never been able to keep a log for long but perhaps online I’d do it.

Yes – I was keeping a record!   But that first site crashed and the second one (iWeb) where I started writing little blurbs and reviews went out of business. That was about 4  years ago and so I moved over to WordPress and have been satisfied so far.  It’s a LOT easier than the old Geocities with no templates.

Anyway,  one of my goals for 2016 is to improve my review writing.  I don’t need to read more books or do more challenges.  Instead,  I’d like to slow down a bit and ponder what I’ve read, maybe reread the good stuff,  and then write a more thoughful review.  Easier said than done,  but we’ll see.

Anyway,  Happy Reading in 2016 and thank you again.

Playing God
by Kate Flora
2006 / 414 pages
read by Terry Rose  11h 47m
rating C-   / crime – police procedural
(Book #1 in Joe Burgess series)

I’m really not sure how I feel about this book – It’s certainly not an auspicious beginning for the new year!

Although it’s told in  3rd person, much of it is from the point of view of a a male detective and it’s not believable.  There’s a lot of sex in the book – I suppose Flora talked to detectives to get some kind of input on how they talk about women in their bantering but as far as I  know,  having 3 brothers and reading a lot, that’s not how it goes unless there’s one instigator.  Is that Joe Burgess? – Not good.  – The sex talk places really interrupts the tension.  Note that the author has a female name.   Too much sex gets really boring – it rarely advances the plot unless it’s a romance –  I wasn’t aware that the Joe Burgess mysteries were romance novels (heh).
>>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>>