The rest of the month I filled with my usual comfort read - mysteries. I was excited because there were new books released in some of my favorite series and I also discovered a new writer.
These are the books I finished in October.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
This very long book was on the Booker Prize longlist so I ordered it from the library with trepidation. Not because of its length (I like long books) but because reviews had said it was a saga across generations and I don't necessarily like those kinds of stories. I should not have worried. This is an exquisitely written novel. As the story starts, Sonia and Sunny, from India, are living in the United States. Sonia is studying at a college in Vermont and Sunny works in New York for the Associated Press. Each is lonely. Back home in India their families worry about them. Through the novel we learn the backstory of both of their families but the novel remains in linear time. It also takes its characters all over the world from the United States to different parts of India, to Venice, to Mexico. But the backstories and the changes of venue flow naturally out of the characters Desai has created. This is also a novel of ideas, it studies loneliness in all of its forms. To name just a few: loneliness due to being alone, loneliness due to being surrounded by people who don't think like you do, loneliness due to being surrounded by people of a different cultural background, loneliness felt when a lover betrays you. If that sounds depressing, be assured this is not a depressing novel. Not at all. At one point a character tells Sonia, who wants to be a writer, don't write "magic realism nonsense" and don't write "phony pseudo-psychology" or "orientalist rubbish" and don't write about "arranged marriages". Kiran Desai includes all of those things and it works perfectly. Of all of the Booker Prize shortlist novels I have read so far, this is my favorite and so far the one I think deserves to win. (I have not, however, yet received the Andrew Miller book and I really liked the last one of his that I read.)
Murder at Somerset House by Andrea Penrose
The latest in the Wrexford and Sloane series set in England during the Napoleanic Wars, this series usually features a mystery that involves a scientific discovery or work in progress of the time. This time it involved the theory of electromagnetism and the attempt to invent the electrical telegraph. But in addition there was another plot that involved the London Stock Exchange and how it worked back in the day (which may have gotten a little too "into the weeds" for my taste). I always learn something from this series. I also like the characters. This book saw the welcome addition of a new character - a young girl. It will be interesting to see how she interacts with The Weasels going forward. I recommend this series. The novel can be read as a standalone but as always I recommend starting with the first book.
The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
This is the latest novel in The Thursday Murder Club series (which has now debuted on Netflix as a movie). Some time has passed since the end of the last book but the gang is still together. In this novel, Joyce's daughter plays a largish role. I always enjoy each of these books because they provide a respite from the world around me and remind me that old age doesn't mean you can't still live your best life. If Osman proves that theory by having the gang solve mysteries (which is a little unrealistic) that's ok with me.
A Fountain Filled with Blood by Julia Spencer Fleming
Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer Fleming
To Darkness and to Death by Julia Spencer Fleming
I am continuing to read the Claire Ferguson / Russ Van Alstyne mystery series. Clair is an Episcopal priest in a small town in upstate New York and Russ is the local Chief of Police. They team up to solve mysteries. These novels were published in the early 2000s and it shows (lack of reliable cell phones) and some of the plot points are a little melodramatic. But the combination of a woman priest and a chief of police keeps me hooked and I intend to read all the books in the series.
Flashlight by Susan Choi
Another novel on the Booker shortlist, this one is, I suppose, a historical novel even though much of it takes place during my early lifetime (which makes me feel old). The main characters are a family. The father is a Korean who does not feel Korean because his parents left Korea for Japan during WWII. As an adult he eventually leaves Japan for the United States where he works as a professor. The mother is an American who had a child out of wedlock before she got married. She eventually develops MS. They have a daughter, Louisa, who is surprised when she discovers that she has a half brother. The main thrust of this novel is (eventually) an historical event that I can't talk about because it would be giving away a great deal of the plot of the novel. The novel starts when Louisa is 10 years old. She and her father had gone on a walk along the beach and only she returned. She can remember nothing about what happened. It sounds like a good premise for a novel but I found myself struggling to finish. It wasn't even that I found all of the characters dislikeable (I did, especially Louisa) but that I found myself uninterested in what would happen to them. I can tell that a great deal of research went into this novel because, especially later in the novel, there was a lot of exposition. It wasn't specifically that she "told" me and didn't "show" me, but that the "showing" felt expository. The point of view of the novel shifts among the characters chapter by chapter and each chapter seems to cover a number of years so occasionally I would feel lost in time, which was frustrating. I learned about a historical situation I didn't previously know about, but that wasn't enough for me.
Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent
This debut novel surprised me by how much I enjoyed it. Similar to The Dictionary of Lost Words, it involves people in Oxford who work on a dictionary (a thinly disguised Oxford English Dictionary). Martha Thornhill is in charge of a small group of word researchers. Ten years previously her sister Charlie disappeared in Oxford. Now mysterious letters and post cards begin to arrive at her office and the homes of her co-workers. Is Charlie alive? Or is Charlie dead but the writer knows a secret about Charlie? This is a novel full of words and definitions and I loved that. The mystery itself is fine, the characters are interesting and she evokes Oxford wonderfully. I look forward to her next novel.
A Christmas Witness by Charles Todd
Charles Todd is the pen name of a mother/son writing team who wrote two of my favorite mystery series: The Inspector Rutledge series and the Bess Crawford series. The two series take place in the same universe but in slightly different time frames. Rutledge is a survivor of WWI and still suffers from PTSD. Bess is a nurse who served in WWI. Unfortunately the mother portion of the writing duo passed away a few years ago and fans have been waiting to see if there were going to be any new novels. From what I read, the time was taken up by trying to settle her estate because ... no estate planning changes were made after the mother's circumstances changed and she became part of the writing partnership. (Let that be a lesson to everyone!) Now Rutledge is back. There is to be a whole new novel next spring but in the meantime this novella was released. It has a Christmas title and takes place over Christmas but isn't very Christmas-like - I suspect the title may be a marketing ploy. Frankly this novella was a disappointment. I'm not a huge fan of novellas although I like them better than short stories. But I would have preferred this to have been a short story - the amount of padding in the story needed to get the book to about 100 pages was astonishing. At one point three pages are taken up by Rutledge asking someone for directions and driving to the location. The mystery itself wasn't very good. But mostly what disappointed me was the writing. When Todd was describing scenery or locations it was fine, as good as it ever was. But the descriptions of actions were choppy short sentences (he did this, he said that). And the dialog was incredibly boring and didn't seem to me to reveal character. On the whole I cannot recommend this and I am so disappointed to say that. I hope that the full length novel in the spring will be better.
The Black Wolf by Louise Penny
At the end of this latest mystery by Louise Penny she acknowledges that many people have written to her saying that they don't like when she moves the story away from Three Pines. Personally, I have enjoyed most of the stories that take place outside Three Pines. My problem with this book and the preceding book is that she seems to be moving away from writing straight mystery stories and moving into the 'political thriller' territory. ( Does this date from the book she co-wrote with Hillary Clinton?) I'm just not interested in those kinds of stories, especially in these dark times. In addition, I find it ludicrous that the head of a division of the provincial police force would be the main person involved in these kinds of stories. If she had moved Gamache to head whatever the Canadian equivalent of the FBI is, I could buy it. I have to give her credit though. She points out in an Author's Note at the beginning of the book that she turned in the final edit of this book last September. So this was before the US election and the inauguration of the new President and those first two months of the Presidency. In the afterword she says she worried that the plot could be farfetched. Hah! It might be that I did not care for this book because it reminded me too much of reality. This was not my favorite of this series, I thought it relied too much on the reader remembering what happened in the last book, the plot was overly complicated and at the end I felt there were a lot of holes (although I couldn't bring myself to go back and see if maybe I had missed things.).
