I know I keep saying this every month but concentrating on anything these days with everything <waves hands around> is difficult. Last month I said that I've pretty much given up on reading anything that takes a lot of concentration. Despite that, I surprisingly did read more than just mysteries this month, mostly because a lot of library wait lists came through. I also managed a book of poetry this month.
These are the books I finished in April.
My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor
This book was on the Walter Scott Prize longlist last year but since I'm not drawn to WWII as a topic I didn't rush to pick it up. Eventually I put my name on the library wait list for it and am I glad I did! Wow! I thought this was an excellent novel. The hero is Father Hugh O’Flaherty, a resident at the Vatican during WWII. Rome is occupied by the Nazis and Father Hugh and his intrepid band of helpers (calling themselves The Choir), are doing what they can to help thousands of people being hunted by the Nazis make it out of Rome. The local German commander is desperate to find them and shut the operation down. This is one of the most suspenseful novels I’ve read in years; I truly never knew what was going to happen. This was partly due to a very smart structure that O'Connor adopted. I've been recommending this novel to everyone I know. I highly recommend it if you like good plots, good characters, a sense of place and good writing. I understand that O'Connor has written a follow-up novel but I think I will wait to read that one for when I feel calmer. (As an aside, I learned that the author is the brother of Sinead O'Connor - what a talented family.)
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Another BlueSky readalong book, I really enjoyed this one. I've never seen any of the movies or TV series based on this novel but from reading reviews I basically knew the plot going in. That didn't matter. Highsmith was brilliant in making me care about finding out what happened to Tom Ripley and whether he could get out of his responsibility for his actions. I didn't LIKE him, but I wanted to know what happened to him, which is the mark of a great book for me. This book was shorter than I expected and it has good pacing. Ripley is a complex character. In terms of a sense of place - at times it was almost like a travelogue of Tom's journeys through Italy. Recommended.
A Few Right Thinking Men by Sulari Gentill
On the recommendation of someone who knows I love historical mysteries set in other countries, especially if it is part of a series, I picked this up and I'm glad I did. Set in 1930's Australia, the amateur sleuth in this series is Rowland Sinclair. As a member of the upper class he is relatively unaffected by the Depression that is sweeping the country (the world). Living in the family home in Sydney, working as a portrait (and sometimes a landscape) painter he allows his artistic but poor friends to live with him. Although Rowland is somewhat apolitical but left-leaning, Rowland's friends are (pre-Stalin) Communists who want to change the world for the better. When Rowland's uncle is murdered and the police seem to have no suspects, Rowland goes "undercover" suspecting that the villains are a fascist militant group. I liked this book and I'm sure will read more in the series even though my library has no more of the series in e-version and I'll have to find the hard copies. (By the way, apparently this is a reissue and the original name of the book is "A House Divided").
A Death in Door County by Annelise Ryan
Death in the Dark Woods by Annelise Ryan
Beast of the North Woods by Annelise Ryan
I'm combining these into one description because I read them in order, one after the other. Morgan Carter, the owner of Odds and Ends Bookstore in Door County, Wisconsin is also a cryptozoologist - someone who hunts creatures that have never been proven to be real, like the Loch Ness Monster. When a couple of bodies show upon the shores of Lake Michigan, drowned but with giant teeth marks and all of their internal organs crushed, she is brought in to investigate. At first I thought I wouldn't like this premise, but Morgan is a skeptic and she also has an adorable dog named Newt. I enjoyed it more than I expected. It was a quick read and, since I was at a point where I really needed distraction (a recurring theme these days) and the next two books in the series were available on Libby, I downloaded them. The second book takes place in northern Wisconsin near Bayfield, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior. Strange deaths have been occurring in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest and maybe it's Big Foot? I was a little confused by the geography of this one until I figured out that the national forest had different sections in Wisconsin and although the main section is down near Rhinelander (2 plus hours from Bayfield) there are smaller sections including one near Bayfield. Once I figured that out I could relax into the story. I didn't figure out the mystery before the end and I thought it was clever. The third book does take place in Rhinelander, Wisconsin (a place I've flown in and out of) and involves a death supposedly caused by a creature that was long ago proven to be a fraud. This is not the best mystery series I've ever read but it does have a good sense of place and the premise is unique. Be warned that there is a lot (a LOT) of exposition and I often thought that the dialog was clunky. But I liked the main character and I found it entertaining during a time when I pretty much wanted mindless entertainment.
Who Will Remember by C.S. Harris
This is the 20th installment of the Sebastien St. Cyr mystery series by C. S. Harris set in Regency England. This is one of my favorite (if not my absolute favorite) mystery series mostly because I just love the way that Harris writes. Mysteries are my comfort reads and I don't get picky about them but when I find an author that entertains me AND I like the way she writes, it's a win for me. In this installment, Sebastien is approached by a waif who tells him of a dead man hanging in an abandoned church. The dead man turns out to be the son of a Duke and it is clear that his body has been staged to match the picture on a Tarot card. It's a decent mystery; I didn't guess the whodunnit. But I mostly read this series because of the time and place that Harris evokes. This installment takes place in 1816 - The Year Without Summer. Crops are failing not only in England but all over the world. The rain is never-ending. The weather is cold even in August. Although not part of the story, over in Switzerland Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron are passing the days of terrible weather writing gothic tales, including Frankenstein. Although we know now that the massive eruption of Mt. Tambora in the Dutch East Indies caused the bad weather, many people of the time thought the world was coming to an end. This story hit pretty close to home because the dead man was of the "judgmental religious" type that we see all the time now. He even threatens heresy to a geologist who posits that the weather could be caused by a natural occurrence. This is not my favorite novel of the series (not enough Hero in it) but I always enjoy these books and always look forward to the next one and I always recommend this series. Although you can read each book separately, the series is one you really should read from the beginning.
The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane
It is the Southern Australian Outback in the late 1800s. In a fairly new but already dying town, the community tries to raise sheep and grow wheat. One day a farmer and his hired man (an aborigine) are out working in the fields, the five daughters have gone into town for a wedding, the mother is doing laundry and the little boy (6 years old) is collecting tinder, when a dust storm comes up. The boy gets turned around and is lost. The town rallies to search for him. The novel is structured as a series of days and nights. As the story unfolds McFarlane's focus shifts in 3d person omniscient between all of these characters and the other characters searching for the boy. This is a well written novel but the constantly changing perspectives interrupted the flow for me and it took me longer to finish than I expected. McFarlane evokes a strong sense of place and that is probably the strongest point of the novel. The characterizations are good but, in the end, the number of characters kept me from becoming engrossed in the story. Recommended with reservations.
Double Negative by Vona Groarke
As the back of the book says: a double negative equals a positive. It also says that Groarke is one of Ireland's leading poets, and I have no reason to doubt this. I enjoyed this collection of poetry. Many of them are on the theme of aging, which I relate to. I wish I understood more about poetry so that I could say something intelligent about her poetry rather than simply "I enjoyed it." Given that I haven't enjoyed the last few books of poetry I've read, I was relieved to finally read poems that I (mostly) understood.
The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry
This is an odd little work of historical fiction. It is set in Idaho (Butte and environs) but most of the (male) characters are Irish or Cornish. Were there that many Irish who came over to work the mines? (I actually understand the Cornish, they had mines in Cornwall). The plot is very basic, local (Irish)man falls in love with another man's wife and they run off but are pursued. Neither of the main characters (in fact none of the characters) is very likeable, but that's never been a problem for me. I kept reading because I wanted to find out what happened to them all (and, this is a relatively short novel). Annoyingly Barry doesn't use quote marks for his dialog and the structure of the novel is a shifting perspective among the characters where their thoughts (and the story) is presented in short little bursts of paragraphs. On the whole I can't say that I liked this novel but I guess I appreciated it. Perhaps my biggest problem was that the whole thing seemed like fan fiction based on the TV series Deadwood. Yes, I know Deadwood is in South Dakota not Idaho and I know it involves prospecting for gold, not copper mining, but the whole ambiance that Barry created seemed to be taken right off the visuals of that TV series. (Maybe that's because Deadwood was so good at evoking the Old West in all of its horror.) I can't recommend this but if you want to read it because it has been nominated for some prizes, know that it is short and it did keep my interest.
