“I hope they will leave some men behind, to make sure she doesn’t kill us in our sleep.”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn  (APR 10, 2014)

Twenty-eight-year-old Australian author Hannah Kent spent time in Iceland while in high school, chosen because she wanted to see snow for the first time. She fell in love with this island country south of the Arctic Circle, and returned several times to do extensive research on Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman to be beheaded in Iceland, in 1829. Kent imagined the interior psychological states of various characters, especially the enigmatically alluring Agnes, and has successfully penned a suspenseful fiction tale that transcends the outcome. It reveals a complex love triangle and double murder, and a provocative examination of the religious and social mores of the time. Knowing the fate of Agnes prior to reading the novel won’t change the reader’s absorption of the novel. The strong themes hinge on the backstory and viewpoints that are woven in and reveal characters that go through a change of perception as the circumstances of the crime come to light.

Each chapter begins with official or private correspondence or testimony, which reflects the judicial process and established standards of the time, which was then under Danish rule. The title refers to whether the dead are fit to be buried on consecrated ground. Agnes is sent to northwest Iceland, to stay with the district officer, his wife, and two daughters, pending her execution. The family members are outraged at first, some more than others. The farmers in the area are also hostile to her. Over time, as her story unfolds, I became emotionally engaged with Agnes, and touched by the young cleric, Toti, Agnes’ appointed spiritual advisor.

Kent is a poetic writer, whose descriptions of a grim, harsh, bleak landscape and a socially rigid terrain are told with a striking beauty.

“Now we are riding across Iceland’s north, across this black island washing in its waters, sulking in its ocean. Chasing our shadows across the mountain.”

“They have strapped me to the saddle like a corpse being taken to the burial ground.”

“…waiting for the ground to unfreeze before they can pocket me in the earth like a stone.”

The restrained savagery and cruel irony reflects in those that persecute Agnes and accept the official story of her acts as gospel. The gradual overtures of Toti and certain members of the family were organically developed, allowing for tension and intimacy in equal measure. The slight stumbling block for me was accepting Agnes’ relationship with her lover, Natan, one of the men she is convicted of killing. I understand that very smart women can often make poor choices in men; however, Agnes was depicted as a self-contained woman. I had a difficult time accepting her bottomless apology for Nathan’s consummate cruelty and selfish barbarity.

Despite my tenuous acceptance of Agnes’ love for Natan, I did register the isolated, punishing terrain of 19th century Iceland, especially in the winter months, when loneliness was crushing, and reaching out for companionship a pressing need. The landscape came alive as a character, and Kent folded in an Icelandic Burial Hymn and bits and pieces of the Nordic sagas and myths, such as “I was worst to the one I loved best.” Poet-Rosa, who also loved Natan as passionately as Agnes, writes a bitter poem to her. (Interestingly, I have just read the first 80 pages of the Laxness novel of Icelandic sheep farmers, Independent People, in which a character named poet-Rosa is described.)

This is an impressive debut novel, easily read in a few sittings. The point-of-view shifts back and forth from third to first skillfully. By the end of the novel, I was able to answer the question of whether a condemned life can have meaning, and whether the person who is condemned can change the perceptions of others –for the better. I will be looking out for Kent’s next novel.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 699 readers
PUBLISHER:	Back Bay Books (April 1, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Hannah Kent
EXTRAS:	Interview and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve

Bibliography:

• Burial Rites (2013)

“Later, two cops would ask, more than once, how it was she didn’t see her. She could have offered up any number of theories: the dirt and mud on the woman’s back, the distance of twenty or thirty yards between the fence and Caren’s perch behind the driver’s seat, even her own layman’s assessment that the brain can’t possibly process what it has no precedent for. But none of the words came.

I don’t know, she said.

She watched one of the cops write this down.”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn  (MAR 22, 2014)

The past and the present are inextricably bound, and history is examined, re-examined, and refined within the context of a changing world of ideas, new evidence, and reform. Attica Locke demonstrated this in her first crime book, Black Water Rising, (nominated for an Orange Prize in 2009). Once again, she braids controversial social and historical issues with an intense and multi-stranded mystery.

Locke artfully informs Cutting Season with the dark corners of our nation’s past and the ongoing prejudices and failures to live up to the enlightened ideals of equality and justice. Her fiction tells the truth through an imaginative storyline, and she enfolds these issues and more in this lush historical novel of murder, racism, and family. The title of the book refers to the season of sugarcane cutting.

Between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a pre-civil war sugar cane plantation, Belle Vie, sits on eighteen acres of land, owned by the affluent Clancy family. The Clancys are descendants of William Tynan, who was hired by the federal government after the civil war to oversee the plantation. Tynan did such an outstanding job, he was eventually deeded the land.

Converted to a tourist attraction/historic preserve, with restored slave quarters and dramatic re-enactments of plantation life, Bell Vie is also a favorite setting for weddings and other festivities. Caren Gray, a single mother, manages everything at Bell Vie– the grounds, events, and personnel. Caren also has ties to the early descendants of the plantation, a complex history that unfolds gradually and evocatively. She is the great-great-great granddaughter of a slave named Jason who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and was never found.

Abutting the land to the west sits 500 acres of actively farmed sugar cane, also owned by the Clancy family and run by the Groveland Corporation. Since Groveland started managing the land, the families that worked there for generations were pushed out and replaced by migrant workers.

The book starts off with a bang, just like Locke’s earlier book did. On the border between Bell Vie and the sugarcane land, an employee stumbles on a murdered women, a migrant worker. When the local sheriff prematurely accuses a Bell Vie employee with a criminal past, Caren resolves to solve the crime herself. She subsequently learns that there have been sinister shenanigans involving Groveland, including support of the budding political interests of Raymond Clancy.

The atmospherics and setting of this novel, as well as the increasing tension and artful story, keep the reader attentive. Locke is not just skillful, but fragrant in describing the landscape of this largely provincial community. Her prose is sensuous and plump, and the visuals are ripe and resonant.

“…beneath its loamy topsoil…two centuries of breathtaking wealth and spectacle—a stark beauty both irrepressible and utterly incapable of even the smallest nod of contrition—lay a land both black and bitter, soft to the touch, and pressing in its power. She should have known that one day it would spit out what it no longer had use for, the secrets it would no longer keep.”

Like Locke’s first book, the plot is multi-faceted, with subplots often taking center stage and progressively weaving into the main intrigue. The theme centers on the uneasy link between the past and present, and how they must be reconciled. Caren’s desire to protect her child and expose corruption across echoes of time struck a deep chord in me.

The pacing is initially taut, although the characterizations gravitate toward standard. I was a bit disappointed in the relationship between Caren and her ex, Eric, because Black Water Rising’s main character, Jay Porter was so arresting—tilted, ambiguous, and most of all, unpredictable. The action between Caren and Eric is stilted, and feels convenient to the arc of the story. However, Caren’s voice is sensitive, intimate, and tenderly portrayed, despite being easily anticipated.

As the novel progressed toward the climax, Locke veered to formula. Perhaps she tried too hard to please readers of conventional genre. Cutting Season lumbered as it neared the final moments, becoming too ungainly and stitched together. The past and present fall into place too readily, yet I appreciate what Locke was trying to do in the juxtaposition of time and circumstance. Her intent was poetic; she strove for equanimity, but it got too exorbitant and contrived.

Despite these complaints, Locke’s talents are evident on every page. Locke’s sensual approach to language and narrative filters her flaws, mitigating them. The joy of reading comes from being absorbed in Bell Vie and the sumptuous layering of story. There’s a fine line between writing platitudes and conveying an awareness of racial issues and conflicts. Locke is generally nuanced, but she occasionally turned toward heavy-handedness, especially toward the finale.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 172 readers
PUBLISHER:	Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (September 17, 2013)
REVIEWER:	Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Attica Locke
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Black Water Rising

Bibliography:

• Black Water Rising (2009)
• The Cutting Season (2012)

“You knew my mother?”
“Not really. I only met her that once.”
“When was that, Birdie?”
Birdie Grackle sucked his dentures for a moment and then said, “The night I done killed her.”

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale  (MAR 7, 2014)

Justin Chase has adjusted to his life as a barkeep (and the Zen lifestyle) after several years of living without his mother and the man he believed murdered her, his father. However, a strange man, going by the odd name of Birdie Grackle, enters the bar where Justin works and tells him that Justin’s father did not murder his mother. He alleges that Birdie himself murdered her at the request of a woman who hired him to do it. Birdie says he doesn’t know who paid him but that for $10,000 he will track her down. Justin does not agree to pay Birdie and does not immediately believe what Birdie is telling him. With his brother Frank’s urging, Justin visits his father in prison for the first time since his father was sent there 6 years ago.

After meeting with his father, Justin decides to do some investigating of his own. He hires his friend Jody to follow Birdie to see what he can learn. Jody doesn’t really find anything useful, just that Birdie likes to drink and doesn’t have much money. Justin looks into the various people in his parents’ life that may have wanted his mother dead. Justin knew that his father was having an affair with Annie Overmeyer, someone who may have wanted his father all for herself. Annie at first appears to be a likely candidate but Justin is not sure after meeting her and actually starts to feel some attraction for the woman. Annie appears to have moved on from his father, although generally with one night stands, but maybe her attraction with Justin is different. His father also tries to convince Justin that he and his mother had an open marriage which seems to be confirmed when he reads old letters that his brother gives him that implies that his mother had had an affair as well. This leads Justin down other paths to people in his parents’ life to try to find out if his father is in fact innocent.

Although Justin studied to be a lawyer, he was just fine being a good barkeep. However, he has to rethink his life along with his thoughts about his father. Many of the other people in Justin’s life are stressed with the possibility that his father is not the killer and that his father may return (which is not necessarily what everyone wants). Lashner’s characters are so realistic that you can really understand how and why they react to the changing circumstances as Justin unravels what appears to be the truth about his mother’s murderer. Of course, Lashner throws in a few twists to not make everything quite be as they are first presented which makes for an even more enjoyable book.

The Barkeep is told mostly through the third person perspective of Justin Chase, although Lashner also occasionally presents the book from the perspective of other characters such as Annie Overmeyer. This gives the reader a little more perspective and also allows the reader to know a bit more about the characters and the truth before it is learned by Justin.

I really enjoyed this book as Lashner presents realistic, different and often flawed characters that are placed in difficult situations. Some of the other characters that Lashner includes are a couple of attorneys (Lashner is an attorney himself, after all), including the attorney who wonders if she was right in putting Justin’s father in prison. Another interesting character is Derek, a man with limited mental capabilities but with the ability to open any locked door and who uses violence to solve his problems.

William Lashner has had success with his Victor Carl stories, but lately he’s been writing stand-alone books such as The Barkeep. I’ve read most of the Victor Carl books (and am looking forward to the next Victor Carl novel, Bagmen, due out later in 2014) and I really enjoy them; this was the first non-series book of Lashner’s that I’ve read. The Barkeep certainly has some of the same writing style and well-written somewhat flawed characters that I enjoyed in the Victor Carl books, but it does not quite have the same amount of humor (which likely would have been out of place). The local Philadelphia area color is also a bit less obvious. However, no one will be disappointed in this fast-paced and enjoyable book by William Lashner.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 1,497 readers
PUBLISHER:	Thomas & Mercer (February 1, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	William Lashner
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: A Killer’s Kiss Falls the Shadow Fatal Flaw

Victor Carl Series:

• Hostile Witness (1995)
• Bitter Truth (1997) (Originally titled Veritas)
• Fatal Flaw (2003)
• Past Due (2004)
• Falls the Shadows (2005)
• Marked Man (2006)
• A Killer’s Kiss (2007)
• Bagmen (August 2014)

Stand-alone:

• Blood and Bone (2009)
• The Accounting (2013)
• The Barkeep (February 2014)

Writing as Tyler Knox:

• Kockroach (2006)

“It’s not every day that you attend the funeral of your husband as organized by his other wife. Or, rather, the funeral of the man you’ve been calling husband for six months. Who was John Taylor? I no longer have a clue.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (MAR 4, 2014)

John Taylor does not fit the stereotype of a polygamist. Although he is handsome, charming, and charismatic, he is not selfish and arrogant, nor does he seem obviously abnormal or deviant. On the contrary, Taylor is a doctor who uses his impressive skills to perform reconstructive surgery on children who have facial deformities. His partners are unhappy that Taylor insists on doing pro bono work, since the big money is in cosmetic procedures for the affluent. Still, Taylor is a complex individual who, for reasons of his own, married three women who live in Palo Alto, Los Gatos, and Los Angeles; he somehow managed to juggle his myriad professional and personal responsibilities. It is only after Taylor dies in his hotel room of an apparent heart attack that his trio of wives become fodder for the tabloids.

Twenty-eight year old Samantha Adams is a detective in the Palo Alto Police Department in California. She has been living for ten years with her boyfriend, Peter, an anthropologist whom she dubs “an academic wannabe.” Sam is ambivalent about her feelings for Peter, a fact that is driving a wedge between them. When she is assigned to the John Taylor case, Sam has little time to devote to Peter, since there is evidence that the doctor may have been murdered. Did one of his wives do him in? If so, which one?

In lesser hands,  A Circle of Wives might have been little more than a cliché-ridden mystery with sensational overtones. Fortunately, Alice LaPlante is a talented and intelligent author who creates spellbinding and well-rounded characters; writes witty and realistic dialogue; and constructs plots that are clever and surprising. In addition, her prose is straightforward and effortless; it is refreshing to read a novel devoid of heavy-handed similes and metaphors. LaPlante gives voice to the aforementioned Sam Adams (who is eager to prove that she can solve her first major murder case) as well as the three Taylor wives, Dorothy (a poised and elegant woman to whom John was married for 34 years); MJ Taylor, an accountant (John’s wife for six years); and Helen Richter, a pediatric oncologist who was married to John for six months.

Among the memorable scenes in this book is the funeral mass for Dr. Taylor. All three wives are present, each lost in thought, remembering the man they loved. Dorothy, MJ, and Helen could not be more different from one another, but they all cared deeply for John, and each provided him with something special that he needed. Alas, A Circle of Wives is marred by an over-the-top ending with too many twists and turns. Still, most readers will enjoy this generally well-crafted and entertaining page-turner that proves once again how little we know about the people who are closest to us.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 90 readers
PUBLISHER:	Atlantic Monthly Press (March 4, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Alice LaPlante
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Turn of Mind The Making of a Story

Bibliography:

• Turn of Mind (2011)
• A Circle of Wives (March 2014)

Other:

• The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing (2007)
• Method and Madness: The Making of a Story: A Guide to Writing Fiction (2008)

“It is natural law that all complex systems move from a state of order to disorder. Stars decay, mountains erode, ice melts. People get off no easier. We get old or injured and inevitably slide right back into the elements we were first made from. The organized masterpiece of conception, birth, and maturation is really only two steps forward before three steps back, at least in the physical world. Sometimes when Charlotte lost a patient she thought about that and found it comforting—a reminder that she hadn’t failed in what was ultimately an unwinnable game. But if she thought about it too long, she had to wonder if her entire medical career was an interminable battle against the will of the universe.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie (MAR 3, 2014)

Gemini is an intensely absorbing novel which I found difficult to put down. It is a very human tale which delves deeply into subjects like love in its many shapes and forms, and time – too little time, not enough time, counting time, too late. The author, Carol Cassella, uses time to move her storyline back and forth in years, seamlessly weaving together the characters and the events which impact them.

The novel is narrated by two characters in alternating chapters: Raney, (Renee Lee Remington), an adolescent when the story begins, unfolds her life over the years. She is an illegitimate child, abandoned by her mother and birth father. Raney lives with her extremely eccentric grandfather, who adores her, in the small town of Quentin, WA, near Olympic National Park. He goes so far as to build an underground bunker, fully supplied for TEOTWAWKI, (“The End Of The World As We Know It).” Raney shows artistic promise at an early age and paints on plywood with house paint because she cannot afford canvas and oils. This girl/woman tells of her teenage friendship with Bo, a rich, awkward and shy boy from Seattle who is visiting his aunt for the summer while his parents are off somewhere getting a divorce.

Dr. Charlotte Reese, is a physician who specializes in the care and treatment of patients in intensive care at Beacon Hospital near Puget Sound, WA. She is a committed doctor, who cares deeply about her patients. Charlotte is in a long term relationship with Eric Bryson, a science journalist, who loves her but has a hard time committing to marriage and, eventually, to having children.

There is an important 3rd character here, one without a voice. Jane Doe.

Charlotte is on duty when a horribly injured woman is admitted to the hospital. It is 3:00 A.M. when the woman, whisked in a medivac helicopter to Beacon’s intensive care unit, is given into Charlotte’s care. As the patient has no identification on her she is tagged with the moniker of Jane Doe, until someone comes to claim her and provide the necessary background information. On arrival she has “no fewer than five tubes: one down her throat, another in her neck, two in her left arm, and one looping from her bladder. She arrives with a splint on her right arm, a scaffold of hardware stabilizing her lower right leg, and so much edema that her skin is pocked with the medics handprints.” She is the apparent victim of a hit and run. Her body was discovered by a truck driver who found her in a ditch beside the highway. He immediately called 911.

In the beginning Charlotte’s only goal is to keep her patient alive. Charlotte becomes deeply involved in solving the mystery of “Jane’s” identity and in locating her family. But as days and weeks pass, Jane Doe remains in a medically induced coma to allow her brain to heal while her body tries to heal itself also. Because her coma is medically induced it is impossible to test for brain death as it would involve removing her life support. So, the test would, in fact, kill her.

“Earlier Charlotte had had a conversation with her boyfriend, Eric, who’d more than once watched her throw the weight of modern medicine along with her single-minded will against all natural forces to keep a patient alive, only to lose in the end. Eric had challenged her on it that day. ‘Should quantity of life always trump quality? Maybe you set your goals too high.’ ‘”

When no one comes forward to give information about Jane Doe, an ethical and medical dilemma occurs. Ought “the plug be pulled.” Jane is assigned a professional guardian ad litem – someone to act on her behalf as her next of kin.

Gemini is set in a time of incredible medical technology, (late 1980s), when bodies can be kept breathing even when other physical functions are shutting down. New research in DNA testing and genetics began to emerge in 1985. Researchers did not understand until then exactly how traits were passed to the next generation. Genetics plays an important role here.

Gemini is filled with mysteries, so much so that I was kept guessing until the end…which is not predictable, at least not to me. There are family secrets, medical mysteries, and ethical dilemmas. The author carefully ties the characters and various storylines together and the complicated puzzle that involves the lives of Jane Doe and Charlotte Reese is originally resolved.

The title “Gemini” refers to the heavenly constellation of the same name. The star configuration is related to a Greek myth about the twin brothers Castor and Pollux. Both were mothered by Leda, but they had different fathers: In one night, Leda was made pregnant both by Jupiter in the form of a swan and by her husband, the king Tyndarus of Sparta. The most common explanation for their presence in the heavens is that Pollux was overcome with sorrow when his mortal brother died, and begged Jupiter to allow him to share his immortality. Jupiter, acknowledging the heroism of both brothers, consented and reunited the pair in the heavens.

I found this book to be one of the best I have read in years. The narrative just flows. I identified with the characters and the complexities of their relationships. I wouldn’t recommend it as a light beach read, however. Although not necessarily a “downer,” I found myself feeling terribly sad and thoughtful at times. But Gemini is about real life, and real life isn’t always an “upper.”

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 65 readers
PUBLISHER:	Simon & Schuster (March 4, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Carol Cassella
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Healer Oxygen

Bibliography:

• Oxygen (2008)
• Healer (2010)
• Gemini (March 2014)

“Shouting himself hoarse, sweat-soaked and exhausted— ‘Cressida! Honey! Can you hear me? Where are you?’

He’d been a hiker, once. He’d been a man who’d needed to get away into the solitude of the mountains that had seemed to him once a place of refuge, consolation. But not for a long time now. And not now.

In this hot humid insect-breeding midsummer of 2005 in which Zeno Mayfield’s younger daughter vanished into the Nautauga State Forest Preserve with the seeming ease of a snake writhing out of its desiccated and torn outer skin. “

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (FEB 28, 2014)

Carthage is quintessential Oates. It is stylistically similar to many of her other books with the utilization of parentheses, repetitions and italics to make the reader take note of what is important and remind us of what has transpired previously. The book is good but it is not Oates’ best.

As the novel opens, the Mayfield family resides in Carthage, New York in the Adirondacks. Zeno Mayfield, once mayor of Carthage, and a political bigwig in a smallish town is the head of the family. His wife, Arlette, along with his two daughters, form the whole. Juliet, 22 years old is the “beautiful” daughter and Cressida, 19 years old is the “smart” one. Juliet is still living at home and she is an obeisant and sweet child, a devout Christian. She is engaged to marry Brett Kincaid, an Iraqi war hero who has been seriously injured in battle. He has suffered head injuries and walks with a cane. His face is badly scarred and he suffers from myriad problems requiring many psychotropic medications. However, Juliet’s love for him has never faltered. She drives him to rehab and stands by his side in all ways.

Cressida is the “difficult” child, always a loner and finds it difficult to look others in the eyes. Her parents have wondered at times if there is something wrong with her. She finds solace in drawing pictures reminiscent of M.C. Escher. She does not like people and is witty but sarcastic, cruel at times. She wears primarily black, avoids colors, and does not smile for the camera; for one day, she says, her photo will be her obituary photograph. She is an impulsive student in high school, doing very well in some classes and poorly in others because she thought the teachers did not like or respect her. She ends up going to St. Lawrence University where she lives mostly inside her head, continuing to be a loner, an “intellectual.”

In the book’s beginning pages there is an allusion to Brett’s temper and the fact that he has hit Juliet. She, however, has covered up for him by stating that she bumped her face.

Brett breaks his engagement to Juliet who is heart-broken. Secretly, Cressida is in love with him and one night she goes to a bar to see Brett who is not happy to see Cressida at all. He is drunk and Cressida gets drunk as well. He offers to drive her home but she never gets there. There is evidence of a struggle in the car – blood on the windshield and some witnesses who saw them arguing outside the car. What happened to Cressida? There is a huge search and eventually Brett confesses to having killed her despite the fact that Cressida’s body is never found even after a comprehensive and ongoing search.

Oates does a remarkable job of examining the fallout of Cressida’s death/disappearance on her family and the community of Carthage. Zeno never gives up hope that his daughter is still alive. Arlette becomes more involved in her church and volunteer activities, working on forgiveness and moving on with her life. Juliet is never the same due to the circumstances surrounding Cressida’s disappearance. Additionally, the reader is privy to the horrors of the Iraqi war including subsequent injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder that soldiers incur. Brett Kinkaid’s life is explored in depth before and after his deployment.

Thus we have the foundation for the novel. On another level, it is not likely a coincidence that Ms. Oates chose the characters’ names at random. Zeno is a famous pre-Socratic philosopher who is known for his paradox of never reaching one’s destination. If you are going somewhere and divide your destination by half, half of the distance will always remain. There is quite a bit about Plato, Sophocles and the early Greeks in this book. Juliet, of course, is the star-crossed lover in Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. Cressida is also a character in a play by Shakespeare. However, “Cressida has most often been depicted by writers as ‘false Cressida,’ a paragon of female inconstancy,” according to Wikipedia.

The novel has some fascinating turns but, ultimately, it did not ring true to me. I can’t go into specifics without giving spoilers so I will leave it at that.

I try to read as much Oates as I can but she seems to write faster than I can read. She an an amazing and prolific writer. Even when she is not at her best, she is extraordinarily good.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 75 readers
PUBLISHER:	Ecco (January 21, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Joyce Carol Oates
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read reviews of more Joyce Carol Oates books: A Widow’s Story Give Me Your Heart Sourland: Stories The Little Bird of Heaven The Falls I’ll Take You There The Female of the Species

Bibliography:

• With a Shuddering Fall (1964)
• A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967)
• Expensive People (1968)
• them (1969)
• Wonderland (1971)
• Do With Me What You Will (1973)
• The Assassins: A Book of Hours (1975)
• The Triumph of the Spider Monkey (1976)
• Childworld (1976)
• Son of the Morning (1978)
• Cybele (1979)
• Unholy Loves (1979)
• Bellefleur (1980; 2013)
• Angel of Light (1981)
• A Bloodsmoor Romance (1982)
• Mysteries of Winterthurn (1984)
• Solstice (1985)
• Marya: A Life (1986)
• You Must Remember This (1987)
• American Appetites (1989)
• I Lock My Door Upon Myself (1990)
• Because It is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (1990) Highly Recommended!
• The Rise of Life on Earth (1991)
• Black Water (1992) Pulitzer Prize Nomination
• Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993)
• What I Lived For (1994)
• Zombie (1995)
• First Love (1996)
• We Were the Mulvaneys (1996)
• Man Crazy (1997)
• My Heart Laid Bare (1998)
• Broke Heart Blues (1999)
• Blonde (2000)
  
• Middle Age (2001)
• Beasts (2002)
• I’ll Take You There (2002)
• The Tattooed Girl (2003)
• Rape: A Love Story ( 2003)
• The Falls (2004)
• Missing Mom (2005)
• Black Girl, White Girl (2006)
• The Gravedigger’s Daughter (2007)
• My Sister, My Love: The Initimate Story of Sklyer Rampike (2008)
• Little Bird of Heaven (2009)
• A Fair Maiden (2010)
• Mudwoman (2012)
• Daddy Love (2013)
• The Accursed (2013)
• Carthage (January 2014)

Tales:

• Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque (1994)
• The Collector of Hearts: New Tales of the Grotesque (1998)
• Faithless: Tales of Transgression (2001)
• The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense (2006)
• The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense (2008)
• Tales of Wonder (2010)
• Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense (2010)
• The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares (2011)

Stories:

• Heat and Other Stories (1991)
• Where is Here? : Stories (1992)
• Where are You Going, Where Have You Been: Stories (1995)
• Will You Always Love Me: And Other Stories (1996)
• Small Avalanches and Other Stories (2003)
• I am No One You Know: Stories (2004)
• High Lonesome: Stories 1966-2006 (2006)
• Wild Nights: Stories about the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemmingway (2008)
• Dear Husband : Stories (2009)
• Sourland: Stories (2010)
• Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories (2012)

Written as Lauren Kelly:

• Take Me, Take Me with You (2004)
• The Stolen Heart (2005)
• Blood Mask (2006)

Written as Rosamond Smith:

• Lives of the Twins (1987)
• Soul/Mate (1989)
• Nemesis (1990)
• Snake Eyes (1992)
• You Can’t Catch Me (1995)
• Double Delight (1997)
• Starr Bright Will Be With You Soon (1999)
• The Barrens (2001)

Younger Readers:

• Come Meet Muffin (1998)
• Big Mouth & Ugly Girl (2002)
• Little Reynard (2003)
• Freaky Green Eyes (2003)
• Sexy (2005)
• After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (2006)
• Naughty Cherie! (2008)
• Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You (2012)

Nonfiction:

• Where I’ve Been, and Where I’m Going: Essays, Reviews, Prose (1999)
• The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art (2004)
• Uncensored: Views & (Re)views (2005)
• On Boxing (2006)
• The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982 (2007)
• In Rough Country: Essays and Reviews (2010)
• A Widow’s Tale: A Memoir (2010)

“He was asleep there behind the door.

The guarded hospital room smelt of medicine and paint. The monitor beside him registered his heartbeats.

Isabelle Skoyen, the Councillor for Social Affairs at Oslo City Hall, and Mikael Bellman, the newly appointed Chief of Police, hoped they would never see him again.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie  (FEB 7, 2014)

Suspects abound and deceit, lies and corruption are the order of the day from everyone – criminals and cops – in Police, an enthralling follow-up to Jo Nesbo’s previous Harry Hole novel, Phantom.  Police  actually takes up where Phantom leaves off. And my question, for over a year, while waiting in angst for this book to be published is…”Is Harry Hole still alive?” Obviously he is…or this book would not have been written. But still…there was some doubt.

I must say that Jo Nesbo has become a familiar name on my favorite author list and I cannot quite pigeon-hole his work into the “mystery,” “police procedural or “crime” genres.” His books, with their well developed characters, exceptional and unusual plots defy, for me, any one single genre. Perhaps, “body of literature” would fit the bill… and I consider his work, his prose, to be literature.

Nesbo is a master of very complex plots, an expert at exploring human motivations, the choices people make and their consequences. He has a talent for taking the usual crime thriller trope and twisting it into deranged scenarios. Harry Hole defies authority. He is a self-made outcast within his own organization and is best left alone to do his job. He is more of an anti-hero than a hero. His romantic life is nil – he usually lives alone and likes it that way, and his definition of “justice” may differ from what is defined as the “LAW.” For me, Detective Hole embodies the classic character from American hard-boiled fiction…but more hardboiled. His attitude is conveyed through his detective’s self-dialogue describing to the reader what he is doing and feeling. He witnesses, on a daily basis, the violence of organized and non-organized crime that flourishes, while dealing with a legal system that has become as corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, this detective of hardboiled fiction is a classic antihero….that would be Harry on steroids.

If possible, I believe one gets the most from Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series by reading the books in order. This way one can observe how Harry and other characters develop or grow, and sometimes die. I would say especially that I would most definitely read Phantom before picking up Police. These two novels should be read in order. However, if sequential reading is not possible, do not be discouraged. Once one has completed the first few pages of any of his other novels, it is difficult to put the book down…no matter where it falls in the sequence.

As Police begins we find Harry in relatively good shape as compared to how we left him in Phantom. He’s off active duty in the police department where the stress and danger almost killed him. He is teaching at the police academy and much healthier and happier, if this is possible. He is back , for the moment, with Rakel, his longtime, sometime love, and her son, Oleg, whom he considers his own.

There is a new series of executions in Oslo. The killer seems to be duplicating murder cases previously solved by Harry; the victims are all police officers. There are no loose ends, no tracks, no evidence – only revenge with a capital “R.” The police officers are not just shot in the commission of a crime, but lured to the scene of former murders and killed in an imitation of the previous crime. The killer is promptly dubbed “The Police Killer” by the press. Again, these are crimes, murders, previously solved by Harry. And, can it be possible… Oslo’s Crime Squad actually misses their top crime solver? But Harry is not around. Therefore, Krimteknisk and Crime Squad must now team up to solve the murders of their own. So…what we have is a conglomeration of four of the best detectives on the Oslo police department, all of whom have been introduced as Harry Hole’s well trained partners and colleagues over the last few novels. Among them are forensics specialists Beate Lønn and Bjørn Holm, brilliant researcher Katrine Bratt, psychologist Ståle Aune – but not Harry Hole, the one detective in Oslo who has solved virtually every case that’s crossed his path. The new group of crime stoppers…or solvers…constantly wonder “what would Harry do here?” “What was it Harry used to say? Intuition is only the sum of many small but specific things the brain hasn’t managed to put a name to yet.” The only thing predictable about this book is its unpredictability. It’s almost as scary as it is surprising.

And, deep down Harry and the reader know that he misses his old job – the department and active investigations. When one is good at something, like solving horrific crimes, one doesn’t let go easily…or at least Harry doesn’t. As the murders start striking closer and closer to him and targeting his former colleagues, Harry is pulled back into the investigation. I mean, he solved the crimes the first time around…so why not the second? Because, Harry is an alcoholic. He has a taste for drugs. His girl friend’s son, Oleg, while on drugs, shot and nearly killed Harry. And Harry has promised Rakel, that he will not go back to the police force. BUT…he does have his own unique and effective way of investigating murders. Ways not always condoned by the police manual. Harry is in a bind. He can come back to the police and risk losing his girl friend and her son or stand by while police are systematically being murdered. With corruption running rampant at City Hall, a vicious rapist escaped from prison, and the shifty Chief of Police, Mikael Bellman, exercising control over the force, the team will do what it takes to draw Harry back and unravel the mystery before another officer becomes a target.

This is the tenth Harry Hole mystery, and, as usual, the reader turns the last page eager and impatient for the next novel. Police reads differently from other Oslo Sequence books. It is longer and more nuanced. As ever, Nesbo is a master of giving us a difficult puzzle to solve and a flawed but likeable main character to take us there.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 522 readers
PUBLISHER:	Knopf (October 15, 2013)
REVIEWER:	Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Jo Nesbo
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Snowman The Devil’s Star Nemesis

Bibliography:

• The Bat (1997; 2013)
• The Cockroaches (1998; 2014)
• The Redbreast (2000; 2006 in UK; 2007 in US)
• Nemesis (2002; 2008 in UK; January 2009 in US)
• The Devil’s Star (2003; 2010 in US)
• The Redeemer (2005; 2009 in UK; not in US)
• The Snowman (2007; 2011 in US)
• The Leopard (2011)
• Phantom (2012)
• Police (October 2013)

Stand-alone Novels:

• Headhunters (2008)
• The Son (May 2014)

“She felt she had been created by the demands of others, by their insatiable appetite for something beyond ordinary life. They craved a world without death and they had spotted her, in their hunger, like wolves alert to any poor sheep that might stray from the fold and stand gazing ignorantly up at the stars.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie  (JAN 30, 2014)

FACT: “The Mary Celeste,” (or “Marie Céleste” as it is fictionally referred to by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others after him), was a British-built American-owned merchant brigantine famous for having been discovered on 5 December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean, between the Azores and Portugal, unmanned and apparently abandoned, (the one lifeboat was missing, along with its 7 member crew, the captain, his wife and small daughter). The ship was in seaworthy condition and still under sail heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. She had been at sea for a month and its cargo and provisions were intact. The crew’s belongings including valuables were still in place. There was no sign of foul play. None of those on board was ever seen or heard from again and their disappearance is often cited as the greatest maritime mystery of all time. There was nothing written in the ship’s log to account for the vanishing. ” (Wikipedia entry)

I was riveted from page one by this very realistic fictional account of the “The Mary Celeste.” The story and some of the book’s fascinating characters are quite eerie and mysterious. There are scenes, especially those at sea, which are terrifyingly lifelike. I could hardly put the book down. Many have speculated and written about the real life story of this ghost ship, including investigative journalists and authors, one of whom is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a character here. There are many theories about her disappearance but none have proved to be true and none have proved to be false, either. For the seafaring families of New England who captained and crewed the ship, the nautical mystery has haunted them for generations. No one, to this day, knows what happened to “The Mary Celeste,” and all who sailed on her.

The Ghost of the Mary Celeste opens with a vivid account of a shipwreck in which the captain and his wife, Marie, are lost overboard. Back in Massachusetts a thirteen year-old girl, a relative of the ill-fated couple, is convinced that she sees and hears the cries of her cousin Marie.

The reader is then introduced to the Briggs and Cobb families from Marion, Massachusetts. The two families are intimately connected in an intricate sort of way, which I won’t try to explain here. Let it suffice to say that the Briggs and Cobb children are cousins. The Briggs family has always made its livelihood from the sea, however by the time young Captain Benjamin Briggs marries his first cousin, Sarah, (Sallie), Cobb, his unfortunate family had already lost many members to the ocean. Benjamin plans to retire his captaincy after his marriage. However, he does decide to accept one more command and Sallie and their two year-old daughter Sophy accompany him on this last voyage. Their son, Arthur is left home with his paternal grandmother, “Mother Briggs.”

It is important to mention that Sallie has a younger sister, Hannah, with whom she is quite close. The fey Hannah “sees things.” She has strange dreams/nightmares and is quite fantastical. “As a child she always had her dreamy side. She talked to trees and made up stories. She wrote sweet poems about the dew being dropped from the drinking cups of fairies, or enchanted woods where elves had tea parties using mushrooms as tables.” However, with the loss of her beloved cousin Marie, 13 year-old Hannah sees and hears Marie calling to her. Her family disapproves of her “visions and fantasies.” Sallie rebukes her after one bout of almost hysterical lamentations that Marie is there and “wants to come inside.” Their father is concerned, naturally.

Late-19th-century spiritualism plays an important role here. Spiritualism, the belief that the dead communicate with the living, became a fad throughout America and Europe during the 1850s. Spiritualism was a cultural and religious phenomenon which swept through the sitting rooms and village halls of Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Basically dead people were all the rage. Sallie’s and Hannah’s father, in particular, is worried about his youngest daughter’s fervent beliefs and visions. “It’s this insalubrious craze with talking to spirits: it’s loose in the world.” He fears that, as she grew older, Hannah would become involved in this movement.

Author Valerie Martin employs multiple voices, styles and points of view. She takes the reader through time and place, in a variety of means, to tell her tale through a straightforward, third person narrative, and also through her characters, their conversations, diaries, letters, newspaper clippings, legal court findings, ship’s log, etc. We are introduced to a young Arthur Conan Doyle, who, intrigued by the entire incident of the ghost ship, writes a fictitious and “scurrilous story,” supposedly told to him by a crewman who said he survived the incident. The actual story, “J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement,” was printed anonymously in the British journal Cornhill. The story sparked Doyle’s literary career. “He was thirty-five years-old. With scarcely a hint of what he might achieve, but driven by a furnace of ambition to strive in every field that opened before him. He made himself up.”

Doyle’s tale travels across the Atlantic to America where Violet Petra, a famous medium of extraordinary powers, reads it and threatens to sue Doyle for his lies about the Briggs family and the nautical mystery. And, Miss Petra, one of the famed spiritualists of her day, spiritual society’s darling, who is she? Has this inscrutable woman also invented herself?

Phoebe Grant, a journalist employed by the Philadelphia Sun is to investigate Violet Petra for fraud. The intelligent and business-like Miss Grant is a quick-witted skeptic who finds herself totally confounded upon meeting and speaking with the woman. They eventually become friends “of sorts.” She says this about Violet and her supporters,

“The spirits they peddled had no mystery; they were ghosts stripped of their otherness. In their cosmography, the dead were just like us and they were everywhere, waiting to give us yet more unsolicited advice.”

The books has several characters, the primary ones being Violet Petra, Mr. Doyle and Phoebe Grant, the ghost ship, and of course the sea. All the characters are eventually tied together by the “Mary Celeste.” The novel spans decades and the author fleshes out her characters and allows us to see how they grow and change.

I really enjoyed The Ghost of the Mary Celeste and am mystified by the mystery. Ms. Martin creates an extraordinary fiction from facts. This is a page-turner written with intelligence and originality. The author uses as much historical detail as possible and, in fact, at times the book reads more like a history than historical fiction. I was surprised by the ending. Although one has to use the imagination to figure out parts of the story, the finale is indeed unsuspected…at least by me. I am left with a head filled with questions. Kudos to Valerie Martin. I now want to read more of her books.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 25 readers
PUBLISHER:	Nan A. Talese (January 28, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Jana Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Valerie Martin
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Confession of Edward Day  Trespass Another New England unsolved mystery: The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve

Bibliography:

• Set in Motion (1978)
• Alexandra (1979)
• A Recent Martyr (1988)
• Consolation of Nature (1988)
• Mary Reilly (1990)
• The Great Divorce (1994)
• Italian Fever (1999)
• Love: Short Stories (1999)
• Property (2003)
• The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories (2006)
• Trespass (2007)
• The Confessions of Edward Day (2009)
• The Ghost of Mary Celeste (January 2014)

Nonfiction:

• Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. Francis (2001)

Movies from books:

• Mary Reilly (1996)

“Everyone has a Cordova story, whether they like it or not.

Maybe your next-door neighbor found one of his movies in an old box in her attic and never entered a dark room alone again.  Or, your boyfriend bragged he’d discovered a contraband copy of At Night All Birds Are Black on the Internet and after watching, refused to speak of it, as if it were a horrific ordeal he’d barely survived.  

Whatever your opinion of Cordova, however obsessed with his work or indifferent—-he’s there to react against.  He’s a crevice, a black hole, an unspecified danger, a relentless outbreak of the unknown in our overexposed world.  He’s underground, looming unseen in the corners of the dark.  He’s down under the railway bridge in the river with all the missing evidence, and the answers that will never see the light of day. 

He’s a myth, a monster, and a mortal man.”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn  (JAN 11, 2014)

This psychological, genre-bursting/ busting literary thriller took me on a high-speed chase into a Byzantine rabbit hole into the quirkiest, eeriest, darkest parts of the soul. Investigative reporter Scott McGrath is on a quest to exhume the facts of a young piano prodigy’s tragic end. Ashley Cordova, 24, daughter of cult-horror film director, Stanislav Cordova, was found dead–allegedly a suicide. The now reclusive director (30 years isolated from known whereabouts) is the reason for McGrath’s ruined reputation five years ago, and Scott is hungry to turn things around, upside down, and inside out to pursue Cordova again and save himself. And to disinter the “truth,” which itself can be an illusory concept in this cat and mouse thriller.

Along the way, McGrath assembles a motley group of two with their own agendas for chasing after the true story of Ashley’s death. It’s almost unbelievable that Scott would let these potential loose cannons join up with him, a virtual loner, but Pessl gives it cred by keeping the reader in an ever-tunneling and tumbling maze of intellectual, emotional, and horror-filled murk. Whatever mental notes you take as the narrative builds, the ever-widening cast and real, random, red herring, or suspect clues keep you from perseverating too long on the questionable partnerships. Each untangled knot corkscrews around to create ropier more entangled ones.

Mind games and magic, or mind games vs magic, is explored in a way that transports you to the most subterranean reaches of the human psyche. Pessl’s penetrating use of symbolism, allegory, literary allusion, and metaphor saturates the story with a weighty unease and anxiety that reflect her incomparable understanding of the human condition–(not to mention a rarefied channeling of hallucinogenic experiences). In Night Film, mind over matter is a daring question with a dangerous reckoning.

Pessl is obviously familiar with Hitchcock’s work, as well as the films of David Lynch and Stanley Kubrik. Additionally, the iconic 40’s noir films infuse Night Film with oblique shadows and moral ambiguity and imbue it with mixed media from the Internet age. Throw in a little Stephen King to the mix, too. However, Pessl’s use of pastiche is brushed and buffed into her own variegated style, with a voice that is strikingly poetic. She winks at and pays homage more than she mimics.

The gritty and shadowy streets, railway tracks, bridges, and warehouses of New York; the dark silhouette of the Adirondacks against a night sky; mansions sitting like a pit bull on a bluff; the mist obscuring the hand or a face or the gnarled limb of a tree–all Pessl’s ethereal images suffuse the story with an almost sepulchral ambiance. There were times I jumped while reading, certain I heard a cup rattling on a shelf, or saw a light flickering behind a curtain. At other times, my heart melted, especially when Scott would successfully enlist his five-year-old daughter to help his investigation. She was uncannily guileless but aware and persuasive.

The overriding theme can be found in the first lines of the book, a quote from Stanislav Cordova that begins the prologue:

“Mortal fear is as crucial a thing to our lives as love. It cuts to the core of our being and shows us what we are. Will you step back and cover your eyes? Or will you have the strength to walk to the precipice and look out?”

What happens when we break through our cocoon and walk to the edge and back? Are we blinding ourselves to our true nature, and to the nature of others, when we attempt to hold desperately onto those we love?

“Life was a freight train barreling toward just one stop, our loved ones streaking past our windows in blurs of color and light. There was no holding on to any of it, and no slowing down.”

This is at turns comical, disturbing, terrifying, tragic, tender, and spiritually poetic. The pace is breakneck and pitch-perfect electric, despite its florid and exuberant sentences, and the prose is evocative, aphoristic, savvy. It’s relentless and addictive, no time to catch your breath before you are falling through another black hole.

If you prefer a straight-up horror or crime-solving genre, this may not please you. Pessl breaks the rules and the mold, and the narrative is as much philosophy and metaphysics as it is mystery and mysticism. I was chasing shadows and rainbows in equal measure.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 562 readers
PUBLISHER:	Random House (August 20, 2013)
REVIEWER:	Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Marisha Pessl
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Bibliography:

• Special Topics in Calamity Physics (2006)
• Night Film (August 2013)

“I got into trouble a long time ago. I was a kid. Then the other thing happened and I went to prison. I don’t steal, I don’t hurt people – that other stuff, it’s like someone else’s history.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (JAN 4, 2014)

I’ve become an avid fan of Gene Kerrigan’s Irish mysteries. They are literate page-turners that are complex in plot with wonderful characterizations. This is the second one that I’ve read and I plan on reading each of them.

In this novel, Danny Callaghan has gotten out of jail seven months ago after serving an eight year term for manslaughter. He beat a man to death with a golf club when he was 24. He is now 32 and trying to live by the letter of the law, working for his bar-owning friend Novak, doing pick-ups and deliveries of people and materials. While he was in jail, his marriage to Hannah ended in divorce and he is alone with little support except for Novak, who is his confidante. While he was in jail, Novak was basically the only person who visited him there.

One evening, Danny is sitting in the Blue Parrot, Novak’s bar, when two gunmen come in. Danny isn’t sure if they are coming in to kill him or someone else. It happens that they are trying to kill a small-time punk named Walter Bennett. The gun doesn’t fire properly and Danny ends up saving Walter’s life. This puts Danny in a very precarious position because Walter is wanted by some big-time gang who feels like he’s been snitching on them to the police. Now Danny is in the middle of things. However, Danny is also worried that they were coming for him because when his trial was going on, the cousin of the man he killed told Danny that he would seek retribution: “Blood for blood.”

The two gunmen, Karl Browse and Robby Nugent are young and bad, looking for people to kill. They have been hired by a mob boss named Lar Mackendrich who controls a portion of Dublin’s territory. This is the first assignment he’s given to these two and he’s not happy with the outcome. He wants it rectified, and soon. He wants to see Walter dead and wants to know why Danny got himself in the middle of things.

Danny lives in a small apartment, so small that you can probably touch the walls on each side by standing in the middle and holding your arms out straight. He misses his ex-wife, Hannah, and many nights he drives by her house and parks nearby just staring at it. It’s not that he wants her back but he misses the warmth and love that he once had.

There is a lot of blood and gore in this book and it is not for the faint of heart. It is remediated a bit by some humor but it is hardcore through and through with a noir bent.

The environs of Dublin, where it takes place, is after the real estate bust, and people are clamoring for work. The economy is up the creek and there is no more easy money to be had. This is a sharp contrast to the way things were before Danny went to jail. Prior to being incarcerated, he had a kitchen cabinet business and was happy working with his hands. He no longer wants to be an entrepreneur. Passing the time picking up people and packages with a car is perfect for him at this time in his life.

Kerrigan can really write. He knows how to get deep into a character’s soul and put him out there with all the accoutrements for the reader. That’s what I like most about this author. I have a feel for each and every one of the characters in the book. There are no red herrings and everyone in the book is there for a meaning and the reader gains a depth of feeling for everyone.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 13 readers
PUBLISHER:	Europa Editions (October 1, 2013)
REVIEWER:	Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Gene Kerrigan
EXTRAS:	Europa page on Dark Times in the City
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Little Criminals The Midnight Choir

Bibliography:

• Little Criminals (2005; 2008 in US)
• The Midnight Choir (2007)
• The Rage (February 2013)
• Dark Times in the City (2009; October 2013 in US)

Nonfiction:

• Hard Cases: True Stories of Irish Crime (1996)
• Another Country: Growing Up in the 50’s Ireland (1998)
• Never Make a Promise That You Can’t Break: How To Succeed in Irish Politics (2002)
• The Big Lie: Who Profits from Ireland’s Austerity? (2012)