Blue Monday by Nicci French

source: public library

Blue Monday by Nicci French
series: Frieda Klein (1)

At the public library I usually select books from the new acquisitions areas. Last time I was at my local branch looking for books I happened upon Nicci French's Tuesday's Gone in the adult fiction new titles section. It seemed intriguing, but it was obviously part of a series so I decided to see if the first installment was available. It was.

Blue Monday is the first in the fairly new¹ mystery (psychological thriller) series starring Frieda Klein, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. It's action revolves around the kidnapping of of five-year-old boy, which echoes a similar crime from 22 years earlier.  When Frieda Klein begins to suspect that one of new patients may be implicated in the crime, she decides that she must give what information she has to the police. DCI Karlsson has little use for such unsubstantiated claims, but he decides to follow up on the lead anyway when Klein suggests there may also be a tenuous link to the earlier crime.  Once he appreciates the usefulness of her skill set, Karlsson asks Klein to consult on the case.  As she gets more personally invested in the case, Klein starts working on it independently. 

All is all, I think Blue Monday is a promising start to a series. The protagonist as psychoanalyst invites all sorts of possibilities in terms of crimes perpetrated and methods of investigation.  The author(s)² have included a nice variety of significant secondary characters that will no doubt be involved in both side stories and the main action in future installments.  They've also hinted at a complicated backstory for Klein.

I won't say too much more about the plot of the novel itself for fear of including spoilers, but I will say that I found the realization of the ending was particularly creepy even though it was just a confirmation of something I already suspected.

1. Blue Monday was published in 2011 in the UK. The series' third installment, Waiting for Wednesday, is not yet available in the US.
2. Nicci French is actually a husband-wife writing team.

Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa by Benjamin Constable

source: Netgalley (review copy)

Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa by Benjamin Constable

Ever since writing was invented, people have been documenting the contents of their brains, giving names to ideas, noting their dreams, and distorting their memories and making up new ones. Lifetimes of scribbling, and oceans of ink. Whole forests of trees reduced to pulp for us to collect our words. What if nobody reads them? I think we write to be read, even if we tell ourselves we don't. But the vast majority of everything written fails in its most basic purpose and has never been read by another. Where are you to read my works, Tomomi Ishikawa? Are we talking to ourselves? (175)

One day Benjamin Constable, a 38-year-old Brit living in Paris, comes home to find a letter from his friend Tomomi (Butterfly) Ishikawa, an American expatriate, slipped underneath the door of his apartment. In that letter, Butterfly informs Ben that she's committed suicide and that he is "the inheritor of a thing, or many things, [she's] been making for years, since long before [she] knew of [his] existence--since [her] childhood, in fact" (21). Ben follows a series of clues that lead him to places in Paris and later New York that had special meaning to Butterfly. The more clues Ben follows, the more he learns about his friend. If the disturbing tales contained in the series of notebooks Butterfly left for him to find are any indication, Ben didn't know her well at all.

Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa is a difficult book to describe. Horrifying and playful are the first two adjectives that come to mind. If I had to categorize it, I'd call is a literary psychological thriller.  It is also a bit of a love letter to both Paris and New York City.

In a way I think Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa may be more about the process of writing than it is about anything else, or rather the tension between fact and fiction that is inherent in writing, autobiographical or not. Butterfly's clues and the way they are presented to him make Ben question the truth of what he is being told. Constable forces his readers to experience that same uncertainty by making himself the protagonist in his debut novel.

The novel is compelling, but I can't say that I enjoyed reading it.  After a certain point,¹ I dreaded picking it back up again each time I set it down. Though early on in the novel, I imagined how wonderful it would be to be in Paris with Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa as a guidebook.² I also didn't quite care for the ending, though I understand why Constable decided to end it the way that he did.³

I can imagine Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa being the source of a particularly fruitful undergraduate literature seminar discussion.

I had to include a featured word, because I love how Constable defined tickety-boo within the narrative:

'Tickety-boo?'
'Yes, it's British English. It means everything is running perfectly, or according to plan, and portrays a sense of contentedness with the current situation.' (173)

footnotes:

1. The discovery of the first notebook and the revelation of its contents.
2. While I live close enough to New York City to use Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa as a guide to some of its special places, the combination of the summer weather we are experiencing now (I can't even imagine tromping around the city in this heat) and the onset of the horrifying aspect of the novel put me off the idea.
3. To leave room for the uncertainty of which he seems so fond.

disclosure: I received a review copy of Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa from Gallery Books (Simon and Schuster) via NetGalley.

a few multiple POV novels

Or, short reviews of books read during June 2013, part 1

The Blood of the Lamb by Sam Cabot (source: Netgalley)
forthcoming: August 6, 2013

Catholic Church conspiracy thriller with vampires.
The novel is well-written, but its subject matter is divisive. Obviously if you dislike and/or are offended by books of this type, you should give The Blood of the Lamb a miss. Its multiple point-of-view narrative may also turn off some readers (for what it's worth, there's nothing especially problematic about how Cabot handles the various characters and their points of view). Otherwise, I think this cerebral thriller is definitely worth a read. It's written by two people¹ who clearly know how to write and, in the context of the novel, the paranormal elements don't seem unrealistic. I particularly recommend The Blood of the Lamb to fans of vampire novels, as I think they'd appreciate Cabot's take on them.

The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell (source: public library)

Debut novel by award-winning screenwriter.
I discovered The Death of Bees while browsing the new arrivals section of my local public library. I was intrigued by the book-flap text, but unsure as to whether I'd like the novel or not. The Death of Bees is dark and gritty (set in a Glasgow housing estate²), but compelling.
I, for one, like multiple POV narratives and I really appreciated how O'Donnell created such distinct voices for her three point-of-view characters: a fifteen-year-old breadwinner, whose straight-A average belies her rough-and-tumble make-it-work attitude about life; her gifted, but maladjusted twelve-year-old sister; and their doddering, Scarlet-Lettered neighbor.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (source: public library)
series: Lunar Chronicles (2)

Little Red Riding Hood set in a dystopian future.
The sequel to Cinder (see post), Scarlet introduces the eponymous character (and her Wolf) in addition to continuing the overarching story begun in Cinder.
After reading Scarlet, I'm even more keen on this series (the Lunar Chronicles) and recommend it to both adults and young adults who like science fiction, paranormal fiction (romance or not), retellings of fairy tales, dystopian fiction, or any of the above. Cinder is the book that I gave my dad for Father's Day this year and I may try to lure my reluctant-reader-due-to-dyslexia sister with the audiobook.

footnotes:

1. Sam Cabot is a pseudonym for the writing team of Carlos Dews and S.J. Rozan.
2. Housing project.  When I read "housing estate" in a British-authored book, my first instinct is not to think of the projects.  "Estate" sounds so much nicer, but I'm sure that's because I don't have the relevant cultural baggage.

More Disclosure: I received a review copy of The Blood of the Lamb from Blue Rider Press (Penguin) via NetGalley.

Codex by Lev Grossman

source: Bookcrossing

Per the Bookcrossing journal for my copy of Codex, I've had it in my possession since March 5, 2006. Now that I've finally read the book, I feel badly for keeping it so long. And, it's not that I enjoyed it so much that I wish I had read it sooner. I didn't like it nearly as much as I thought I would and I feel badly that this copy waited six years for me not to like it. That may not make very much sense, but there you have it. I'll be wild-releasing this book shortly and I hope that it finds itself an amenable new reader soon.

A 25-year-old investment banker who is inexplicably asked to catalog the extensive library an aristocratic family, for whom he'd made some good investments, in the two weeks he has before he starts a new position. As he begins working on the project, Edward Wozny learns that his real mission is to locate an extremely rare (possibly mythical) 14th century text. His employers have a vested interest in whether or not this text comes to light and they will do everything to help (or hinder) him in his quest. At the same time, Edward starts playing an open source computer game on the recommendation of a longtime friend. As he navigates further into the world of the computer game, Edward notices echoes of the story that's meant to be contained within the book for which he's searching.

I didn't find Codex particularly thrilling. In fact I really only finished it out of laziness. It was easier to just continue reading the book than it was to give up on it and start something else (I wasn't near my book collection at the time). I was not rewarded for my perseverance: the novel's ending is particularly unsatisfying. Even if (especially if) I'd liked the book all along I would have been disappointed with the anticlimactic nature of the ending.

scent and a review of The Book of Lost Fragrances

I reviewed Chandler Burr's The Perfect Scent almost exactly two years ago (see review). Since then I've nearly finished a bottle of Hermés' Un Jardin sur le Nil, one of the perfumes whose development Burr chronicles in the book, and developed a fascination with perfume. Reading about perfume can be quit difficult because it requires fragrance vocabulary (chypre? that means: with citrus top notes and woodsy base notes) and an extensive flavor knowledge (vetiver? that's a grass native to India; no idea what it smells like) in order to describe something that is highly experiential. I follow a number of fragrance blogs and make note of perfumes that sound like something I might like, but I'll admit that it really still is all Greek to me. I'm beginning to figure out how scents I enjoy are commonly described, but I'd never be able to a purchase a perfume scent unsniffed.

A week or two ago my friend Nancy (another fragrance enthusiast) pointed me to author M.J. Rose's new book, The Book of Lost Fragrances, and the fact that individuals who preorder it can get a free sample of a perfume inspired by the novel (this promotion ends March 1, details here). I really love the fact that there is a fragrance tie-in to this book and I think it might actually get me to preorder the book if I had a budget for personal book acquisition and made a practice of buying hardcovers when they first came out. I'd already requested a review copy from Atria Books, a Simon and Schuster imprint, via NetGalley so I decided that I'd read it sooner rather than later.

The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose

After the death of their father, Robert and Jacinthe L'Etoile inherit the family's distinguished perfume house, which is on the brink of financial ruin. Tensions between the siblings are high. Jac wants to sell two of the house's signature fragrances to keep the business afloat, while Robbie believes that he can find another way to save the struggling firm.

Family lore holds that a L'Etoile ancestor traveled to Egypt where he found a book formulas from Cleopatra's fragrance factory, which included a soul-mate perfume. When Robbie disappears after discovering what seems to be an priceless antiquity in their father's studio, ever-sceptical Jac is forced to consider the fact that the ancient memory aid might be more than just a legend and that people are willing to kill for it.

The novel's prologue takes the form of a 2007 newspaper article about a new regulation issued by China's State Administration for Religious Affairs that bans the reincarnation of Tibet's living Buddhas without permission. The Book of Lost Fragrances' narrative follows a number of different characters including a few Chinese and Tibetan throughout, but the direct connection to House of L'Etoile is made when Robbie, a practicing Buddhist, announces his plan to give the artifact to the Dalai Llama.

The Book of Lost Fragrances is compelling reading, but I think that it could have been better. I don't mind the choppy narrative, that happens when perspective changes as often as it did, but there seemed to be a bit too much in the way of digression which is problematic in a thriller where tension is so important. Additionally some things about the plot felt forced or too convenient and some of the twists were obvious to me quite far off.

I did like extent to which scent was incorporated into the story and I loved that the siblings had a special scent language that they developed as children. I also appreciated the author's note, in which Rose separates fact from fiction.

There's a description of Sleepy Hollow that I'll highlight in a separate post.

The Book of Lost Fragrances will be released in mid March.

disclosure: I received a review copy of The Book of Lost Fragrances from Atria Books via NetGalley.

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
trans. by Tiina Nunnally

Copenhagen homicide detective Carl Mørck has just returned from sick leave. He's physically recovered from the bullet wound he received while investigating his last case, but not emotionally. One of his partners is dead, the other is stuck in the Hornbaek Clinic for Spinal Cord Injuries, and it's his fault (or near enough).
Mørck's a bit perplexed when he's made head of the newly formed Department Q on his first day back. Department Q (staff: 1) is located at the Copenhagen police headquarters (in the basement) and tasked with investigating cold cases of national interest. It's a cake job for Mørck. He can slack off all he wants because no one really expects him to solve any of the cases he's assigned.
When Mørck discovers the Copenhagen homicide has co-opted the 90% of the 8 million kroner earmarked for Department Q, Mørck successfully lobbies for a departmental vehicle and an assistant. When his assistant (a pleasant, but enigmatic Syrian political refugee) arrives for work, Mørck realizes that he hadn't thought that request through. Now that he has an assistant, he's accountable to another.
Mørck chooses his first case at random. It is the mysterious disappearance of a MP and Vice-chairperson of the Social Democrat party, Merete Lynggaard, five years before.

After the success of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, I suspect that publishers will be keeping Americans in Nordic crime novels for the foreseeable future. No complaints from the corner, especially if we keep being feed prize-winning works of the caliber of The Keeper of Lost Causes.

The Keeper of Lost Causes is the first in Adler-Olsen's Department Q series. The novel is an opener that doesn't get too bogged down in setting the stage for the entire series.

Mørck is a flawed, but sympathetic protagonist. He's understandably morose at the beginning of the novel, but working on the case invigorates him. One of the things I like about him is while nearly all of the others who work in the police headquarters find him difficult and unlikeable, we as readers get to see the kindness of which he's capable. Mørck's assistant, Assad, is a bit of a mystery himself. As the novel progresses, both Mørck and the reader discover that Assad has many hidden talents.

As much as I enjoy the CSI television programs, they tend to lack authenticity. I was quite pleased when reading The Keeper of Lost Causes the the detectives were described as "already wearing the white disposable coveralls, masks, gloves and hairnets that procedures prescribed" (23) when they begin to process a crime scene. That gave me faith that Adler-Olsen was going to provide me with a more accurate picture of this kind of police work.

As for Department Q's first case. Readers learn fairly early on that Lynggaard did not commit suicide (as was held when the case was first investigated). The narrative focus switches between Mørck and Lynggaard throughout (near the climax, the villains get their chance in the spotlight as well). At the beginning of The Keeper of Lost Causes, the two timelines are separated by five years, while at the end they become parallel before they intersect.

The mystery had depth. Readers don't figure out whodunnit before the other characters do and there's no out-of-left-field deduction by the investigators. The pacing is quite good (The Keeper of Lost Causes is nearly 500 pages long, but those pages fly by). It would have been very easy to get bogged down in Lynggaard's chapters, but Adler-Olsen manages them with aplomb.

A note on the title -
While I love the novel's American title¹ and find it very compelling, it's interesting to note that the original Danish title translates as The Woman in the Cage. The original title emphasizes the case where the title we (Americans) encounter emphasizes Mørck and Department Q itself.

The Keeper of Lost Causes comes out on Tuesday (August 23, 2011). The second and third books² in the Department Q series have already been published in the original Danish so hopefully we'll have access to English translations soon. I know I'm eager to get my hands the next installment.

1. Apparently, this book is published under the title Mercy in the UK.
2. Their Danish titles translate as The Pheasant Killers and Message in a Bottle.

disclosure: I received a review copy of The Keeper of Lost Causesfrom Penguin via NetGalley.

series reading

I finished the second and third books of Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series. I have to say that things got better for me after City of Bones (see post). I'm definitely interested in reading the other books in the series (and in the Infernal Devices series, which is set in that same world; the books are supposed to be prequels, but they're all steampunky), but I think I'll be relying on the library rather than purchasing copies.

I should be reading Wings of the Dove, as it's the Buffalo book club selection for this month, but I'm neglecting it in favor of Steig Larsson's Millenium trilogy. I enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (see post) so I know what I'll be getting from Larsson and I just had a hard time getting into Wings of the Dove.

The Summoner

The Summoner by Layton Green

"Grey was no saint, but [...] he stuck to the vices that only affected himself" (20)

When William Addison, retired head on Consular Affairs at the US Embassy in Zimbabwe, disappears under mysterious circumstances, Zimbabwean officials refuse to allow the Ambassador to bring in federal agents to investigate. That's when Dominic Grey, a diplomatic security agent whose time is usually spent escorting government officials around the capital and dealing with passport and visa fraud, is put on the case.

Grey will be shadowed by Nya Mashumba from Zimbabwe's Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the investigation. Though Nya is easy of the eyes, she's reticent to the point that Grey suspects that she may be withholding important information about the case. His only other assistance comes in the form of an expert the Ambassador brought in from Interpol. Viktor Radek is a professor of religious phenomenology and an expert on cults. The deeper Grey and Nya delve into the mystery of Addison's disappearance and the people behind it, the more they realize just how much they need Radek's expertise and the closer they come to becoming targets themselves.

The titular character, N'anga ("the summoner" in Shona), is a babalawo (priest) practicing a perverted version of Juju, the traditional Yoruba religion. He uses human torture and sacrifice to garner favor with the most malevolent of Orisa spirits. Because of this The Summoner is not for the faint of heart. I'm a bit on the squeamish side and had to skim through some of the more disturbing passages.

While I do read this type of book occasionally, the thriller genre is not one that I particularly favor (and I generally prefer my mysteries on the cozy end of the spectrum). I did think The Summoner was very well done. The novel's protagonist is a complex and compelling character with an interesting backstory. I appreciated how Green was able to incorporate the culture, history, and current political milieu of Zimbabwe and Nigeria into the story without being heavy-handed. I can think of quite a few people to whom I'd recommend this novel.

The Summoner is the first book in a series, which I assume will follow Dominic Grey as he investigates other crimes committed by fringe religious groups. The way things are left at the conclusion of the The Summoner, it seems that the novel's two most interesting secondary characters (Radek and Nya) will be reappearing in future installments.

book clubbing in January

I first read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last summer (see post). I'd been wanting to read the other books in the trilogy, but I held off since I knew we'd be discussing Dragon Tattoo this month.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I'm happy to report that Dragon Tattoo was generally well-liked (it even lured someone who isn't a regular to our meeting). It also led to a pretty fully discussion. We talked about:

• the two main characters and how we felt about them
• what we do and don't know about Lisabeth's past
• Mikael's je-ne-sais-quoi appeal
• the Swedish movie and the casting decisions made for the American version
• the novel's pacing and length
• the two storylines
• how we felt about the ending of the novel
• why the author referred to his characters by their last names
• Mikael's relationship to Erika
• the relative merits of listening to the audio version of the novel
• the novel's title and why it was chosen (the original Swedish title translates as "Men Who Hate Women")
• and why we thought the novel was so popular

among other things. What was particularly nice was that one of our book club members had been an exchange student to Sweden. She was able to give us some insight into Swedish culture.

15 december

I love to have hardcover copies of books that I really like and am planning to keep longterm. Many people have enjoyed these books so a boxed set might be just the thing.

Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy

I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (see post) over the summer. I haven't continued with the series because The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is our book club selection for January, but I plan to start The Girl Who Played with Fire right after our book club meeting next month.

A Novel Bookstore

I have a confession to make. I rarely love any of the books I'm assigned to review for Library Journal. I expect that's partly due to the nature of the books they send me. It seems like my niche is literary fiction in translation with an emphasis on Scandinavian and German-language authors. I don't get light, fluffy, fun reads, I get hard-core literary stuff that is sometimes hard to get through. That's not to say that the books aren't accomplished, just that reading them often feels more like work than pleasure.

Earlier this week a novel I reviewed for Library Journal and really enjoyed was published.

A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé

Heiress Francesca and bookseller Ivan don't expect to make a profit when they open a bookstore in Paris that sells nothing but the best fiction. The store's unexpected success produces a powerful backlash: outcry from pundits, negative ad campaigns, targeted competition, and threats that escalate to physical violence. When members of the store's secret inventory selection committee are attacked, barely escaping with their lives, it becomes imperative for the owners to find out who is behind the intimidation.

With A Novel Bookstore, French novelist Cossé gives readers a truly literary thriller. Eminently readable, A Novel Bookstore is a love letter to the novel (literature junkies will find within its pages a seemingly endless supply of book suggestions) and a profound exploration of human nature.

On a side note, I love what translator Alison Andersen [by the way, she was the translator of The Elegance of the Hedgehog (see post)] did with the novel's title. In French the title is "Au bon roman" ([place] of good novels), while the English title drops the good modifier, it plays very successfully on the double meaning of the word novel.

See full review at Library Journal.

The Little House

The Little House by Philippa Gregory

It was easy for Elizabeth. She married the man she loved, bore him two children and made a home for him which was the envy of their friends. It was harder for Ruth. She married Elizabeth's son and then found that, somehow, she could never quite measure up... Isolation, deceit and betrayal fill the gaps between the two women and between their two worlds. In this complex psychological thriller, Philippa Gregory deploys all her insight into what women want and what women fear, as Ruth confronts the shifting borders of her own sanity.

I read the book all the way through, but I have to admit that I found it horrifying (that was the intent, I think) particularly in as much as what happens to Ruth could really happen. shudder.

The Sonnet Lover

The Sonnet Lover by Carol Goodman

As I mentioned in this post, I've read and enjoyed quite a few of Goodman's books. At this point, the only one I haven't read is her most recent: Arcadia Falls.

I was excited about reading The Sonnet Lover because I tend to find Goodman's novels compelling and atmospheric. I thought Shakespeare would be an interesting addition to her literary thrillers. By the way, I must point out that the novel's synopsis (which you can see in this post) is a bit misleading: the previously-unknown poems that are discovered were not written by Shakespeare, but supposedly by his "dark lady."

Unfortunately for me I'd read The Night Villa (see post) fairly recently. The Sonnet Lover was published before The Night Villa (in 2007 and 2008 respectively), but they their plots are very similar: different location, different rare literary documents, but more or less the same plot. I knew fairly early in the story, who the bad guy was. The person in question was one of a few candidates for that role, but because his/her counterpart in The Night Villa ended up being the villain, I paid closer attention to his/her words and actions than I might have if I hadn't been familiar with The Night Villa.

While disappointed with The Sonnet Lover I'm still open to reading more of Goodman's work in the future. I'll just need to be sure that I allow myself larger gaps between readings of her work.

hiding in the bookshelves #4

When I found this absolutely perfect candidate for a hiding-in-the-bookshelves post, I realized that I haven't done one of them for a couple of months.

I didn't rediscover The Sonnet Lover while browsing my bookcases, I happened across it while digging around in our coat closet of all places. I can't help, but wonder why it is that I stuck the novel in the closet. My educated guess is that it arrived smoky- or musty-smelling and I thought hanging out in the vicinity of the dryer sheets might do it good.

The Sonnet Lover by Carol Goodman

Did Shakespeare pen a series of passionate sonnets, unknown to modern scholarship, ardently praising a mysterious dark-haired beauty? This tantalizing question is raised in a letter to literature professor Rose Asher. But the letter's author, Rose's star pupil, is not telling. A troubled, enigmatic young man, he plunged to his death in front of the college's entire faculty, an apparent suicide. Determined to find the truth, Rose journeys from New York to Italy, back to the magnificent Tuscan villa where as an undergraduate she first fell in love.
La Civetta is a dreamlike place, resplendent with the heady scent of lemon trees and the sunset's ocher wash across its bricks and cobbles. Once there Rose finds her first love still in residence. Torn between her mission and her rekindled feelings, Rose becomes enmeshed in a treacherous tangle of secrets and scandal. A folio containing what some believe to be one of Shakespeare's lost sonnets has vanished, and literary immortality awaits whoever finds the manuscript — as do a vast Italian estate and a Hollywood movie deal. Uncertain whom she can trust and where she can turn, Rose races against time and unseen enemies in a bid to find the missing masterpiece.
Lush, lyrical, and enthralling, The Sonnet Lover vividly brings to life the Tuscan countryside and the fascinating world of the Renaissance poets. Unmatched in her ability to evoke atmosphere and intrigue, Carol Goodman delivers her mostambitious and satisfying work to date, a seductive novel that skillfully propels its reader headlong to the final suspenseful page.

I've read and enjoyed quite a few of Goodman's books--most recently The Night Villa by Carol Goodman (see post), but also The Drowning Tree, The Ghost Orchid, The Lake of Dead Languages, and The Seduction of Water--so I might as well put The Sonnet Lover on my to-be-read list.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I was really curious about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo after hearing all the buzz about it. Because of some of the subject matter I can't honestly say that I enjoyed reading the novel (it's interesting to note that the original Swedish title translates as "Men Who Hate Women"), but I will say that it is very good.

The multilayered The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines a closed-room murder mystery with financial intrigue, family saga, social commentary, and some truly memorable characters.

The story starts out slow, but overall it is well-paced. While Mikael Blomkvist is the novel's protagonist, his accidental assistant Lisabeth Salander (she of the dragon tattoo) is just as compelling and sympathetic a character. I'm much more interested in what will happen to her in the following books than I am in Blomkvist's future.

Mapping the Edge

I finished this book earlier this week, but being under the weather couldn't see attempting to pull my thoughts about it together. I'm still not particularly coherent, but I figure I might as well give it a go anyway.

Mapping the Edge by Sarah Dunant

One of the reviews of Mapping the Edge describes it as "like a European film--cool, highly sexual, creating a dazzling surface of translucence." Another said "but the subtext of the novel--how loyalties are strained, how relationships change--is every bit as important as the surface excitements".¹ Both are true and they really give readers an idea of what the book is like.

Anna takes a spur-of-the-moment trip to Italy and doesn't return on the day she's expected back. Mapping the Edge, the story of Anna's disappearance, is told through three different storylines. The first is that of those left behind: Anna's two best friends and her young daughter. The second storyline is one possible version of the events that happen in Italy: Anna is abducted on her way to the airport for her return flight and is being held against her will by a mentally-disturbed man. The third is an alternate version: Anna's married lover convinces her to stay on in Italy; she isn't aware that her delay is cause for concern.

At first I was quite put off by the two possible "away" narratives told simultaneously even though I understood what Dunant was trying to do. As I settled into the book, the jumps were less problematic and I started to get invested in Anna and her possible futures. Of course at the end of Mapping the Edge we don't know if either of the away-narratives were true (very foreign-movie like).

1. these are from the back-cover blurbs of my (British) edition), credited to Observer and Literary Review respectively.

Day of Confession

Day of Confession by Allan Folsom

In Italy, the Cardinal Vicar of Rome is assassinated during a papal celebration. In Los Angeles, entertainment lawyer Harry Addison receives a desperate message from his long-estranged brother, Father Daniel Addison, a Vatican priest. Hours later a tour bus with Father Daniel aboard explodes on the road to Assisi.
When Harry arrives in Italy to claim his brother's body, he discovers that not only may Father Daniel still be alive, but he is the prime suspect in the murder of the Cardinal Vicar. In a sudden turn, Harry finds himself framed for the murder of an Italian policeman. Now on the run and on his brother's trail, Harry is thrust into a terrifying world of horror and deception where an international terrorist hunts Father Daniel as relentlessly as the authorities...and where a monstrous conspiracy arises from the very heart of the Vatican.

I've been listening to Day of Confession (read by Michael Kramer) while in the car for quite a while. I finally finished it this afternoon.

Day of Confession is another one of the inside-the-Catholic-church conspiracy thrillers. I liked the book overall, particularly how layered its plot is, but I'm not sure it's one that I would have chosen to read had it been in traditional book form.

The one thing that I found most interesting is that the two biggest villains both suffered from some sort of mental illness. I'm not sure if Folsom is using that instability to justify their actions. Is he trying to imply that people can't be evil by choice, that all depraved behavior is a result of mental imbalance?

The Historian

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Historian, Kostova's debut novel, was published to much acclaim in 2005. The novel is full of archival research (what I mean here is that the characters spend lots of time in archives, not that Kostova did archival research for the novel though maybe she did) so it's been on my must-read list. It's just taken me years to get around to it.

I started reading the 642-page novel last weekend. I didn't mind that it was long and mired in historical detail (like others have), I was just a bit disappointed in the ending. With all the build-up, the final encounter was a bit anticlimactic. Not to mention the fact that the climax, short-term tie-up, and epilogue are all accomplished in 25 pages. After reading 600+ pages of build-up, I felt a bit robbed.

There were a number of things I liked about the novel: the prominence of archives,* the fact that main characters were sympathetic (and many of the secondary characters full-bodied and interesting), pondering the meaning of the title (who is the historian), and the epigraphs. I enjoyed the interplay of the two storylines, but while I was following Helen and Paul I was wondering what the narrator was up to (and vice versa). That tension, wanting to know what was going to happen (especially wanting to find out what became of the narrator's mother) is what kept me reading, but based on my general dissatisfaction with the ending I don't think I'd recommend The Historian.

* One thing that I just have to share -
Dracula: "I will put many archivists at your disposal--the finest of them--and you shall bring more under our power" (577). Yes! who wouldn't want to serve evil if they were promised an army of archivists.

City of the Sun

City of the Sun by Sarah Bryant

Ravaged by nuclear war and the most terrifying dictator since Stalin, Russia's future lies in the hands of one gifted child.

In the aftermath of nuclear war, Russia cowers in the shadow of Solntse, a dictator with a chilling idea of utopia and a plan to bring it to life. The lynchpin of his plan is Sifte Pierson, a child so gifted that he has gambled his entire future on her obedience. Confined at Institute 1, an isolated school which produces the most powerful minds and bodies to serve Solntse, Sifte has grown up without knowledge of her parents or the life she was stolen from. When a new teacher arrives with a dangerous agenda and clues to her past, Sifte and her closest friends uncover a secret history with the power to destroy Solntse's empire. When the secrets leak to the Socialist rebels in the slums of St. Petersburg, their dreams of revolution begin to take solid form. And as Sifte and her friends work to uncover Solntse's plans for Utopia, she comes to realize that her identity and future are vital not only to Russia's freedom, but to all humankind.

I had to include the publisher's synopsis in this post because when I tried to explain City of the Sun's premise to Russell (I think he'd like the book) it took me ten minutes and the result wasn't particularly coherent.

City of the Sun is one of those novels that defies categorization. It's a political thriller, it's science fiction, but it's so much more. In a way City of the Sun is like a grown up version of Harry Potter with Sifte as Harry, her friends are Institute 1, Dumbledore's Army, and the Soviets, the Order of the Phoenix (at least that's a thought that occurred to me while I was reading it).

I really enjoyed City of the Sun. Of course, I also liked 1984 and it's definitely in the same vein. For me City of the Sun was a page-turner, but a thought-provoking one.

traveling, part 1

I'm away for a week, visiting family and going to the Society of American Archivists conference. I decided to pack only books that I could wild-release once I was done with them. I stuck two books in my carry-on bag and two in my suitcase.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress was a quick read. I left my copy in the seat pocket of the plane at the end of the first leg of my trip.

I didn't enjoy Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress as much as I thought I would. I can't really put my finger on what didn't work for me: the novel was too short? the ending was unexpected and not particularly satisfying? I hadn't previously known all that much about the re-education that went on during the Cultural Revolution so I found that part interesting.


The Absence of Nectar by Kathy Hepinstall

I packed The Absence of Nectar because it was a mass-market paperback. I gave it the old college try (80 pages or so) on the trip. I do enjoy some thrillers, but this one just didn't appeal to me.

I bought a copy of The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory at the bookstore in O'Hare during my unplanned extra-long layover and left my copy of The Absence of Nectar in the seat pocket of the plane on the second leg of my trip.