In Philadelphia, amidst the ravages of the opioid epidemic, police officer Mickey searches for her addicted sister, Kacey, who has gone missing. Has Kacey finally fallen prey to her addiction? Or is she a victim of a killer who is targeting vulnerable women in the area? Mickey endeavors to find her, while trying to keep her own life from spinning out of control.
It’s hard for me to categorize this book because while it has elements of a police procedural and of a slow-burn mystery/thriller, it’s such a smart, emotionally resonant novel that it’s more of a literary novel (that happens to be a page turner). I loved this novel, though it was at times hard to read, given the stark depiction of the opioid epidemic. Liz Moore’s writing is exceptional. Highly recommend!
In Depression-era rural Kentucky, five women defy convention and take WPA jobs as “pack horse librarians,” riding arduous routes through the hills to deliver books to needy families. As a result, the community and all of the women are forever changed.
I loved this book from the very first page and was sad when it was over. The characters were so well developed, I felt like they were all real people and I was completely invested in their stories.
The Night Fire, by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch # 22, Renee Ballard #3)
Michael Connelly’s Bosch series is one of the longest-running and most consistent series around. As with all series, some installments are better than others, but the recent addition of detective Renee Ballard, who works the night shift and partners with a now-retired Bosch, has breathed new life into this series. Bosch’s brother, Mickey Haller (the “Lincoln Lawyer”) also makes an appearance in this book.
Connelly is great at what he does — his police procedural and courtroom dramas are first rate. This latest installment of the Bosch series is quite good and I highly recommend it. Also, if you haven’t read his novel The Poet (which is not a part of the Bosch series) run out and do it now!
Bloody Genius, by John Sandford (Virgil Flowers #12)
Bloody Genius is the latest in this spin-off series from Sandford’s “Prey” series. The last Prey book was so bad that I’ve sworn off that series (we’ll see if that lasts). But this series, featuring police officer Virgil Flowers, is consistently good. Bloody Genius is actually one of my favorites in the series.
Flowers is a detective for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He has a penchant for vintage rock band t-shirts, would rather fish than work, and has a successful side-hustle as a nature writer/photo-journalist. So, he’s not your typical cop. He’s got a unique point of view, while being a good detective.
Most of these books are more crime thriller than mystery, but this book is an exception. It’s much more of a typical mystery (with a clever underlying theme, which I will not spoil for you here), and because of that, I think I liked it even more than the usual crime/thriller Flowers books.
This is easily read as a stand-alone, though you might enjoy it a bit more if you’ve read some of the previous Virgil Flowers books. It’s not a deep novel but it is fun. Perfect for a vacation or weekend read.
Land of Wolves, by Craig Johnson (Walt Longmire #15)
Johnson’s mystery series featuring Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire is one of my very favorites (as is the really good TV series based on the books). That said, the last couple of books in this series fell short of my expectations, and as with most long-running series, it’s really hard to keep the series fresh and interesting as it ages. Happily, this book returned to form in very nice fashion: Longmire is back in Wyoming, surrounded by his usual cast of characters, solving a Wyoming-based mystery and coming to terms with his age and his uncertain future.
I enjoyed this book very much! Johnson is a talented writer, and almost every sentence in this novel is either funny, touching, or profound, without being fussy or overly wordy. I was so happy to fall back into the Longmire world for a few hours. I look forward to the next installment in this series, and I highly recommend it (this book in particular and also the series) for anyone who enjoys mysteries.
In The Death of Politics, Peter Wehner argues that our uniquely American political tradition is dying, and that the death of that tradition is having and will have terrible consequences for our country. Wehner worked in three different Republican administrations, spending three decades in the highest levels of government. Ultimately, he spent seven years in the George W. Bush White House as deputy director of speechwriting and then as Director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives (which was basically an in-house think tank). He also worked on the staff of two presidential campaigns – George W.’s re-election campaign and Romney’s 2012 campaign. So, it would not be an overstatement to say that he spent the vast majority of his working life as a committed Republican.
Wehner begins by analyzing “how we ended up in this mess.” He believes that Trump is unfit to be President, and in fact is “precisely the kind of person our system of government was designed to avoid, the type of demagogic leader our founders feared.” If that’s the case, how did we get here? He argues that Trump’s election is the result of a toxic combination of a contempt for politics and politicians, along with demographic disruptions, economic anxieties, and political polarization.
After analyzing how we got to the current state of our political discourse, he provides detailed suggestions for ways that we might move forward toward healing. He argues that we need to restore the idea that politics is a serious craft, deserving of respect and also of candidates who are worthy of that respect. He thinks faith, civics, moderation, compromise, and civility should be modeled by each individual in their own communities, in an attempt to raise the level of our public conversation and move the culture to a more positive place. He explains:
“The task of citizenship in America today is not simply to curse the political darkness but to light candles. This can be done one person at a time, in your neighborhood and city, at a homeless shelter and a school board meeting, at neighborhood gatherings and city councils, and in countless other settings.”
The Death of Politics stands as a reminder, and maybe a harbinger, that the “qualities that the most active and engaged Americans demand in politicians is what they will get. If enough citizens lend their hands and hearts, their voices and votes to men and women who embody, even imperfectly, intellectual rigor and wise judgment, mastery of government and moral integrity, our politics will be transformed. But we have to care enough to act. We can’t be a nation of onlookers.”
Wehner believes that the problems we currently face as a nation are not beyond our capacity to repair, but that in order to do so we must “recover a sense of the importance of politics, a respect for the craft of governing and the value of competence and excellence.”
I grabbed this book at the library but soon after starting it I wished I had bought it instead, because I found that I wanted to underline something on almost every page. I will probably buy a copy and re-read it with a highlighter handy. This book really spoke to me on an emotional level — not only because I can indentify with Wehner ideologically, but also because I have become so discouraged about the state of our politics that I sometimes wonder if I’m actually teetering on the verge of clinical depression. This book provided a necessary spark of hope for me, as well as an important reminder about the critical importance of our political traditions. Maybe it can do that for you, too.
I highly recommend this thoughtful book. Let’s light some candles!
The Fragments, by Toni Jordan (available September 10)
Thanks to Toni Jordan, Text Publishing Company, and Netgalley for providing me with a digital advance copy of this novel. The Fragments is a mystery involving the death of a celebrated author in the 1930’s, her much-anticipated novel that was almost entirely destroyed in a fire, and the young woman in 1980’s-era Australia who endeavors to find the missing manuscript.
I was intrigued by the description of this novel, and it did not disappoint! Historical mystery, academic intrigue, a hint of romance, and a love of books — all mix together into a captivating read in The Fragments. I was not ready for it to end – so I found the ending a bit abrupt and that was disappointing, but not so much that it changed my overall impression of the book. I very much enjoyed this novel and look forward to reading more from this author in the future! Highly recommend!
29 Seconds, by T.M. Logan (available September 10)
Thanks to T.M. Logan, St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for providing me with a digital advance copy of this novel. In 29 Seconds, Sarah is given the opportunity — by a powerful and mysterious man who is suddenly in her debt — to take revenge on someone who is systematically destroying her life. Will she take him up on his offer? And if so, what consequences will she face for her choice?
29 Seconds is an enjoyable thriller about the choices we make and about the consequences that necessarily follow from those choices. It kept my interest throughout, even though I found the premise a bit hard to believe and also found the protagonist’s actions (or lack of action) frustrating at times. Not too deep on substance, but a good vacation read.
Heaven, My Home, by Attica Locke (Highway 59 #2). (Available Sept 12)
Thanks to Attica Locke, Serpent’s Tail/Profile books, and Netgalley for providing me with a digital advance copy of this novel. This is the second novel featuring African-American Texas Ranger Darren Matthews, following Locke’s Edgar award-winning novel Bluebird, Bluebird. Here, Matthews is sent to a small east Texas town where a young boy has gone missing, to try to find the boy and also to investigate a gang of white supremacists.
Locke is a gifted writer, as evidenced by the first few pages of the novel which are a master class in description and suspense. She does an excellent job creating characters and situations that seem real. I appreciated those aspects of the novel, but I had the same overall feeling that I had reading Bluebird, Bluebird, which was that as much as I wanted to like Ranger Matthews, I didn’t like him much. It’s really hard to root for the hero of the story when you don’t find him likeable. Matthews seems petty, insecure, and most troubling, ethically compromised. These are all problematic character traits for any protagonist, but in particular for a Texas Ranger. I don’t expect a main character to be perfect — indeed, most successful series characters are flawed in some respect — but there must be something about them that makes us like them. Sadly, that is lacking here.
Also, Ranger Matthews does things that as a Houstonian, I find incomprehensible – like reading a case file on his steering wheel while driving up Interstate 59 at eighty miles an hour….. Seriously, what?
Locke is a talented writer with a unique point of view, but this series has not worked for me so far. Your mileage may vary!
The New Girl is the nineteenth book in Daniel Silva’s excellent spy/thriller series featuring Israeli spy Gabriel Allon. Over the years, Gabriel has progressed from aspiring artist, to recruited assassin, to head of the Mossad. In this latest installment, the daughter of a Saudi prince (loosely based on MBS) has been kidnapped, and Allon agrees to help find her.
As I have often observed, it is very hard to keep a long-running series interesting. Readers want stories about the characters they’ve come to love, but reading about those same characters over and over often makes new novels in a series stale and repetitive. Silva is a very good writer and even he sometimes falls into this trap. This time, however, I thought he did a good job of mixing things up and keeping the story interesting.
This novel involves a lot of Russian intrigue, which is particularly timely. The only note here that didn’t ring true for me was the idea that Allon — now head of the Mossad! — would be jumping on trains, etc. around Europe without a protective detail. But that’s a small quibble. Overall, this is a very good installment in the Allon series.
If you enjoy smart, timely, well-researched and well-written spy novels, give this series a shot. As always, I recommend starting with the first book in the series, though The New Girl can be read as a stand-alone. (The earlier books, where Allon worked undercover in Italy as an art restorer are still my favorites.)
Librarian Amy Byler, a single mom of two teens, gets a chance to have a “momspringa” when her estranged husband suddenly returns and convinces her to take a vacation to New York City.
This book is charming, fun, laugh-out-loud funny, and also touching. I enjoyed it from start to finish — reading it was kind of like attending a fantasy camp for moms. Perfect summer read! Highly recommend!
This was our book club pick for this month. It had been on my to-read list for awhile but I’m so glad I was finally required to bump it to the top of the list!
The Great Believers is an emotional, powerful novel that goes back and forth between the mid 1980’s, as a group of Chicago friends is devastated by the AIDS crisis, and the present day, as those who remain continue to deal with the fallout. I found this book profoundly moving and I think it will stay with me for a long time. It was searing and painful – not at all easy to read.
I really liked this book and highly recommend it. I thought the present-day Paris timeline was less compelling than the 1980s timeline, and that sometimes dragged the narrative down, as did the earlier Paris story. I think both of those storylines could have been streamlined a bit and the novel would’ve been even better. Overall, a wonderful novel and quite an achievement for the author.
