Archive for the ‘Morality’ Category

THE AMATEURS by Marcus Sakey

The titular novices of Marcus Sakey’s recent novel, THE AMATEURS, are four friends, three men and one woman, who band together against the frigidity of Chicago’s winters and the loneliness of urban life to form the Thursday Night Drinking Club. But amateur drinkers these four are not – experts in the art of throwing back martinis, the first thing any of these four do in a time of crisis is reach for a bottle of vodka. If only the same could be said for their foray into the criminal underworld.

August 6, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Con or Caper, Life Choices, Morality, Thriller/Spy/Caper, US Midwest

THIS BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Helen Schulman

Somewhere on the journey from the comfortable upstate college town of Ithaca to the glistening moneyed world of downtown Manhattan, the Burgamots have lost their way.

August 2, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Life Choices, Morality, NE & New York, New York City, Reading Guide

THE SOLDIER’S WIFE by Margaret Leroy

The quotation shows Margaret Leroy at her best, describing the ordinary routines of everyday life, in a strongly realized setting, and an acute emotional sensitivity. The place is Guernsey, one of the British Channel Islands nestling off the French coast between the arms of Normandy and Brittany. The time is 1940, when the islands came under German occupation, after being more or less abandoned by the British as indefensible. The sadness comes from the fact that man of this little farm has been one of the few inhabitants killed in the bombing that preceded the invasion. One of the very few, actually…

June 28, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Life Choices, Morality, Motherhood, Real Event Fiction, Time Period Fiction, United Kingdom, War

THE DESCENT OF MAN by Kevin Desinger

THE DESCENT OF MAN could be used as Exhibit A in how to write a taut plot-driven story. The story catches you from the opening line and just never lets you go. If you’re looking for a fast beach read, look no further.

Jim Sandusky is an everyman holding down a steady job when one day, he looks out the window of his house and sees thieves trying to get away with his car. He tells his wife to stay away from the window and call the police, while he goes down to investigate. Instead of leaving the police to take care of the thieves, in a split second, Jim gets into the thieves’ truck and drives it away. What’s worse, he abandons the truck a short distance away and totally bashes it in.

June 22, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Debut Novel, Life Choices, Morality, Mystery/Suspense, Thriller/Spy/Caper

THE STRONGER SEX by Hans Werner Kettenbach

The German novel, THE STRONGER SEX, by Hans Werner Kettenbach is ostensibly about a lawsuit–a very grubby lawsuit, but the story is really about the tangled relationships between the people involved in the case. Lawyer Alexander Zabel, in his late twenties, is rather surprised to find himself pressured into representing the elderly, ailing German industrialist, Herbert Klofft in a case involving his former employee, 34-year-old Katharina Fuchs. Katharina, an engineer who has worked in Klofft’s company, Klofft’s Valves, for eleven years was fired after requesting sick leave.

June 17, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Character Driven, Courtoom Drama, Germany, Morality, Mystery/Suspense, Psychological Suspense, Translated, World Literature

LONG DRIVE HOME by Will Allison

It’s rare that I start a book that is such a page-turner that I almost have a panic attack if I have to put it down. LONG DRIVE HOME by Will Allison is just such a book. It starts with a bang and the explosives just continue. It’s not that the book is a thriller, per se, though there is that element to the novel. It is just that Will Allison is a born story-teller and he gets the reader in his grips from the first paragraph. And he does not let go.

May 18, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Morality, Psychological Suspense, Reading Guide, US Mid-Atlantic