Book Review: THE SILENT WIFE

THE SILENT WIFE: A NOVEL (Will Trent Series #10)
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Karin Slaughter
ISBN: 978-0-06-285810-8; paperback; 6x9in. (August 4, 2020)
496pp, B&W, $28.99 U.S., $35.99 CAN

The Silent Wife: A Novel is a 2020 crime novel from American crime writer, Karin Slaughter.  The Silent Wife is the tenth novel in Slaughter's “Will Trent Series,” which stars Will Trent, a special agent in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).  Another star characters is Sara Linton, a doctor and medical examiner from Slaughter's “Grant County” novels.  The Silent Wife finds Trent and Dr. Linton investigating a possible serial killer in a case that connects to Sara's late husband.

The Silent Wife finds the GBI investigating the killing of a prisoner, 38-year-old Jesus Rodrigo Vasquez, during a riot inside Phillips State Prison, a medium security state penitentiary in Buford, Georgia, not far from Atlanta.  During the investigation, GBI investigator Will Trent is confronted with disturbing information.  One of the inmates, Daryl Nesbitt, claims that he is innocent of a brutal attack on college student, Rebecca “Becky” Caterino, eight years earlier, for which he has always been the prime suspect.  Nesbitt, imprisoned for possessing child pornography, insists that he was framed by the corrupt law enforcement city police department of Heartsdale in Grant County.  The primary target of Nesbitt's accusation is Sara Linton's late husband, Jeffrey Tolliver, the former chief of Heartsdale.

Nesbitt claims that the real culprit in the attack on Becky Caterino is still out there – a serial killer who has systematically been preying on women across the state for years.  If Will reopens the investigation and implicates the dead police officer with a hero’s reputation of wrongdoing, the opportunistic Nesbitt says that he is willing to provide the information GBI needs about the riot murder of Vasquez and about an illegal phone distribution system inside the prison.

Only recently, another young woman, Alexandra McAllister, was found viciously murdered in a state park in northern Georgia.  Is it a fluke? Or could there be a serial killer on the loose?  Will realizes that he will have to crack a cold case to catch a killer that still might be active.  Will needs his girlfriend and Jeffrey Tolliver's widow, Sara, to help him hunt down a possible serial killer.  But when the past and present begin to collide, Will realizes that everything he values is at stake . . .

THE LOWDOWN:  I read a “galley copy” of The Silent Wife that William Morrow's marketing department provided to book reviewers and bloggers.  So this edition contains a kind of introduction and also a kind of afterword in which author Karin Slaughter emphasizes to readers that she decided to write a novel that was frank about violence against women.

Last year, I read Slaughter's novel, Pieces of Her, a most delicious read that was also filled with dangerous plot twists and crazy-ass characters.  The Silent Wife easily surpasses Pieces of Her in terms of being a pot boiler thriller that is demented fun to read.  That the killer is a sadistic freak, a savage rapist, and monstrous killer of women did not make me forget that the novel was trying to convey the reality of the almost casual threats of violence and actual violence that many women and girls face everyday.  One of the many things that Slaughter expertly gets across to her readers in The Silent Wife is the everlasting physical and psychological damage that women suffer as a result of the violence done to them by males.

And The Silent Wife is still a great entry in the suspense and mystery genres.  Slaughter does not have to preach to you, dear readers.  She simply crashes into your imagination with a mind-bending plot and superbly executed narrative – with a real-world purpose.  The Silent Wife is one of the best mystery thriller that you will read this year or any year.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of crime thrillers and of Karin Slaughter will want to read The Silent Wife.

10 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


https://www.karinslaughter.com/
https://twitter.com/WmMorrowBooks
https://www.facebook.com/WilliamMorrowBooks
https://twitter.com/HarperCollins
https://www.harpercollins.com/


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: WANDERING IN STRANGE LANDS

WANDERING IN STRANGE LANDS: A DAUGHTER OF THE GREAT MIGRATION RECLAIMS HER ROOTS
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Morgan Jerkins
ISBN: 978-0-06-287304-0; hardcover (August 4, 2020)
304pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots is the new nonfiction book from Morgan Jerkins, magazine editor and writer, cultural critic, and bestselling author of the book, This Will Be My Undoing.  In Wandering in Strange Lands, Jerkins journeys across the United States in order to understand her roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America.

At the center of Wandering in Strange Lands is the fact that between 1916 and 1970, six million black Americans left their rural homes in the South for jobs in cities in the North, West, and Midwest.  This movement is known as The Great Migration, and it was an event that transformed the complexion of America.  The Great Migration brought black people to new economic opportunities, but Morgan Jerkins argues that this massive movement also left African-Americans disconnected from their roots, their land, and their sense of identity.  Both sides of Jerkins family made the Great Migration, but to what extent?  Who were the family members left behind?  Who are the founders of her family lines?

Jerkins decided to fill in the gaps in her own personal story and in the gaps in the history of both her mother and her father's families.  She decided to do this by recreating her ancestors’ journeys across America, following the migratory routes they took from Georgia and South Carolina to Louisiana, to Oklahoma, and to California.

Jerkins follows in her people's footsteps, backwards and forwards, as she seeks to understand not only her own past, but also the lineage of her family and of the entire group of black people who have been displaced, disenfranchised, and disrespected throughout our history as a nation.  Jerkins conducts interviews with family, with friends, and with new friends who might be family.  She takes photos and collects hundreds of pages of transcription – all of this to gather those loose threads of her family’s oral histories that she might make something whole and hopefully complete.  Along the way, she is disabused of some of her notions, and she starts to wonder – who controls our stories?

THE LOWDOWN:  My paternal grandmother supposedly had American Indian heritage.  Her and her siblings were of so many different skin tones that when I met some of them, I did not realize that they were her siblings.  Three of my grandmother's brothers were part of the Great Migration, heading to Detroit for jobs in the automobile industry a long, long time ago.  I met them at my grandmother's funeral decades ago.

My maternal grandmother turned out to be the child of former slave, which means my mother was the grandchild of a former slave.  Also “the old white man” who came to play with me whenever I visited my maternal grandmother was actually her wayward husband and my mother's father.  My mother, who died a few years ago, was the keeper of detailed histories of both her and her husband's families.  Mama always had a story.  I never recorded them, and now, that she is passed, I feel helpless as I try to rediscover the stories from which I will regrow the family tree.

Wandering in Strange Lands is the story of someone, in this case, a young woman named Morgan Jerkins, who wants to braid the loose threads of the oral histories of both sides of her family.  She backtracks across the Great Migration to learn about the Gullah Geechee.  She plumbs the mystery of water, of root work, and of root doctors in the Lowcountry of Georgia and South Carolina.

Jerkins heads to Louisiana and visits Natchitoches and Cane River to meet the “Creole” people she once dismissed.  She travels south to the Louisiana cities of Lafayette and St. Martinville and discovers her connections to Voodoo.  Then, it's on to Oklahoma where threads of her family lead back to North Carolina and Florida and to the stories of the “Freedmen,” “by-blood Indians,” and the “Dawes Roll.”  Finally, Jerkins returns to California and to Los Angeles where the Great Migration took black people to a place where things were supposed to be much better than in rest of the racist United States... or so they believed.  But it wasn't.

I have been steadily writing reviews for almost twenty years, yet I don't have the words to describe the epic scope of Morgan Jerkins deeply personal story.  I can't describe the power this book has; sometimes, I thought it put some hoodoo on me.  Jerkins' journey to connect the disparate parts of her family history and their origins is her own story.  Somehow, she connects me with and into her story, and I think that she will do that to everyone who reads her book.

Morgan Jerkins makes Wandering in Strange Lands a nonfiction work of black history and of American history.  It is a book of religion and of culture, and it is an indictment of America's systemic white racism and pernicious white privilege.  The lens through which Jerkins tells this story is a microscope for her family's history and a telescope gathering in the star fields of black history.

In the awful year that is 2020, Wandering in Strange Lands might seem to be the book that was meant to be here.  It is not a prophetic work, but the prophets wanted it to be here now.  So...yeah... I'm saying it's a must-read.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Readers interested in the stories and oral histories of African-American families will find an essential book in Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots.

10 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

https://twitter.com/MorganJerkins


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: BTS: Blood, Sweat & Tears

BTS: BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITER: Tamar Herman
DESIGN: Evi-O Studios
ISBN: 978-1-97471-713-2; hardcover; 7.875 x 10.5 (August 2020)
312pp., Color, $27.99 U.S.

BTS: Blood Sweat & Tears is a new hardcover book about the worldwide musical phenomenon known as BTS.

BTS (also known as the Bangtan Boys) is a seven-member, South Korean boy band.  The group was first put together, beginning in 2010, by “Big Hit Entertainment,” a South Korean entertainment company.  The members of BTS are RM – leader and rapper; Jin – vocalist; Suga – rapper; J-Hope – rapper; Jimin – vocalist; V – vocalist, and Jungkook – vocalist.  The members write and produce much of their recorded musical output, and while BTS was initially a hip hop group, the members have embraced a wide range of musical genres.

BTS's debut musical recording was the “single album,” 2 Cool 4 Skool.  A June 2013 release, it contained seven singles and two “hidden tracks.”  August 2014 saw the release of the group's debut, Korean-language studio album, Dark & Wild.  December 2014 saw the release of their debut, Japanese-language studio album, Wake Up.  In December 2015, BTS's 2015 album, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 2, became the group's first album to make the “Billboard 200” United States' album sales chart.  On May 27, 2018, BTS's third studio album, Love Yourself: Tear, debuted at the number one position on the Billboard 200 chart.  It was the first time a Korean album had topped the U.S. album sales chart, as well as being the highest charting album by an Asian musical recording act.

And there is something... almost... magical about them.  BTS's music videos are visually striking with dazzling effects, imaginative production design, and alluring colors  Their songs embrace familiar hip-hop and electronic popular music (“electropop”) sub-genres.  They also sing R&B-inspired ballads, which should be familiar to fans of Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.  BTS's music also sounds like something different and new – sounds from a future that is leaving behind the funky phantoms of pop anthems past.  And a seven-member boy-band slash vocal group is just hard to ignore.

Well, BTS has a story to be told, and the New York City-based journalist, Tamar Herman, is telling it in the new hardcover, illustrated book, BTS: Blood Sweat & Tears.  Part music-bio and part analysis, this new book is a thorough exploration of BTS's approach to music in the age of globalization, as this super boy band has brought Korean music to the world.  Focusing on the members, the music, and the fans, Tamar Herman brings forth the extraordinary story of these young K-pop idols:  Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, V, Jimin and Jungkook to life as they transcend the limitations of language, geography, and genre in a way not seen since, perhaps, The Beatles.

THE LOWDOWN:  Author Tamar Herman starts her book, BTS: Blood Sweat & Tears, with an informative “Intro” and  first chapter, “BTS Meets the World.”  In Chapter 1 is a crucial subsection, entitled “What is K-Pop?”  Herman uses this essay to inform the readers about the basics of “K-pop,” including that it is more of a brand than a genre of music.

As such, Herman explains how BTS has used songwriting to distinguish itself within the brand.  Two members of the group were already writing songs before joining BTS.  With other members writing songs plus a dedicated team of songwriters, the group has been able to evolve its songs and sound.  Through their own songwriting, BTS produces music and performances that rally against societal norms, express poetic ideas of romance, and praise self-acceptance in the face of adversity.  Being involved in the songwriting also allows BTS to stand out both within K-pop and within the larger, crowded, global music scene.

Overall, this book has over 80 photographic images, most of them color and many of them oversize.  Herman goes into exacting detail about BTS's collaborators, and she breaks down the group's albums, song-by-song.  Herman puts such effort into talking about BTS's music that this book, BTS: Blood Sweat & Tears, is as much a reference book as it is an overview of the band's public life to date.

It is through Tamar Herman's analysis of the who, what, when, and how, as well as the analysis of the music that BTS: Blood Sweat & Tears stands out as a serious book about a group that is serious about its music, it performances, and its public face.  BTS: Blood Sweat & Tears is a thorough exploration of an extraordinary musical act and is certainly not some thrown-together paperback looking to make a quick buck off BTS's fame.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of BTS who are looking for a book that will take them inside BTS and its music will want BTS: Blood Sweat & Tears.

https://www.viz.com/viz-media
https://www.tamarherman.com/
https://twitter.com/TamarWrites
https://www.instagram.com/tamarwrites/

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: ELEVATOR PITCH

ELEVATOR PITCH
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Linwood Barclay
ISBN: 978-0-06-267828-7; hardcover; 6 in x 9 in; (September 17, 2019)
464pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S.

Elevator Pitch is a 2019 novel written by Linwood Barclay, the author of such bestselling novels as No Time for Goodbye and Trust Your Eyes.  In Elevator Pitch, two veteran New York police detectives are trying to unravel the mystery of a strange and brutal murder, while a straight-shooting journalist attempts to discover why elevators in New York City are killing people, both of which may be the work of a notorious American terrorist group.

Elevator Pitch opens in New York City on a Monday when it all begins.  At the Lansing Tower on Third between Fifty-Ninth and Sixtieth, four people board an elevator in the Manhattan office tower, each pressing a button for their floor.  The elevator, however, is contrary and proceeds straight to the top floor... before plummeting non-stop right to the bottom of the elevator shaft.  Three of the passengers are killed and a fourth is mortally wounded.

One of the victims is a young woman named Paula Chatsworth.  Three years earlier, Paula had been an intern for the online publication, Manhattan Today, where Barbara Matheson reigns as the top columnist who has a reputation as a straight-shooter.  At first, Barbara's focus is on the tragic death of Paula and on her grieving parents, but then, Paula discovers that mysterious men in black SUVs don't want Paula's parents talking to the press.

Still, the elevator accident at Lansing seems like nothing more than a random tragedy, horrific though it is.  Then, on Tuesday, at the Sycamores Residences, below Sixty-Third, there is another elevator-related fatality.  This time, the incident seems to have a ghastly and macabre sense of humor about it.  When Wednesday brings more elevator death, this time at the Gormley Building on Seventh Avenue between Sixteenth and Seventeenth, New York City, America's capital of finance, entertainment, and media, falls into a state of fear and chaos.  NYC is a vertical city; it cannot function without elevators.  If this is an attempt to terrorize the city, who is behind it?

Meanwhile, Detective Jerry Bourque and his partner, Detective Lois Delgado, are investigating the homicide of a man whose body was found on the “High Line.”  His face was beaten in until it was unrecognizable, and his fingertips have all been removed.  A lucky break leads Bourque and Delgado to believe that their victim might be connected to the elevator sabotage, and the victim could somehow be connected to a domestic terrorist group, “the Flyovers,” that has been targeting cities along the coasts of America.

Are the incidents of elevator-sabotage, the High Line murder, and the Flyovers connected?  Working separately, Barbara Matheson and the team of Bourque and Delgado will have to answer all those questions... and son.  NYC's latest “big event” is a ribbon-cutting, on Thursday, for the city's newest, and tallest, residential tower, “Top of the Park.”  Practically, everyone who is anyone will be there.  So, it's the perfect time and place for terror, mayhem, and elevator mass murder.

THE LOWDOWN:  Inside the front cover flap of the book jacket, the cover copy declares that Elevator Pitch is “...an edge-of-your-seat thriller that does for elevators what Psycho did for showers and Jaws did for the beach...”  This is a bit of expected salesmanship on the part of William Morrow's marketing division, but I would not call it an overstatement.

Psycho and Jaws are movies, and they were, relative to the time of their respective releases, big hits at the movie theater box office.  Both films were based on books – Psycho a 1959 novel of the same name and Jaws a 1974 novel of the same name – and both films have overshadowed, outlived, and out-shined the books that were their source material.

Elevator Pitch is only a novel, but if it were also a movie, a lot of people would be scared shitless of elevators after seeing it.  Yeah, they would still get on elevators, but some of them would start to think that being in an elevator is like being in a shower with a knife-wielding great white shark.  If a studio could make an Elevator Pitch movie that is as chilling as Elevator Pitch the novel is, movie audiences would have a brand new thrill ride to terrorize them into the summer.

Seriously, though, Elevator Pitch, which was released in hardcover in 2019 and in paperback earlier this year, is such a stone-cold killer of a novel because its author, Linwood Barclay, is an especially effective writer of suspense fiction and of thrillers.  When Barclay starts killing his characters on elevators, there comes a point when readers will believe that any part of the story that takes place even in the vicinity of an elevator will soon turn from character drama to character butchery.  I know that I started to feel a sense of dread every time the story moved into a building with an elevator.

Elevator Pitch even has a quote from Stephen King on the front of its book jacket, which says, “One hell of a suspense novel.”  That is certainly true, and Elevator Pitch is one of those suspense novels that won't let you stop turning the pages.  You can't stop, and you “can't hardly wait,” to get to the next page and to the next chapter.

A synopsis of Elevator Pitch really doesn't do justice to the entirety of the narrative.  There are a lot more characters than I mentioned above, and there are a few back stories and several sub-plots.  They all serve the story, and a few act as effective red herrings to keep the readers' imaginations on overdrive.  The only fault that I find with the novel is that I wish it had focused a little more on the personalities of a few of the characters, for instance, Detectives Bourque and Delgado.

That aside, Elevator Pitch is the perfect pot-boiler novel for any book season.  As long as there are elevators and other vertical transportation machines like that, Elevator Pitch will have a spot in our imaginations, in the places we like to be scared.  Elevator Pitch will be waiting for us... it's sliding doors always open.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of Linwood Barclay and of suspense thrillers will want to read Elevator Pitch.

8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


https://www.linwoodbarclay.com/
https://twitter.com/WmMorrowBooks
https://www.facebook.com/WilliamMorrowBooks
https://twitter.com/HarperCollins
https://www.harpercollins.com/


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.


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Book Review: THE CONTENDER: The Story of Marlon Brando

THE CONTENDER: THE STORY OF MARLON BRANDO
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins @HarperBooks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: William J. Mann – @WilliamJMann
ISBN: 978-0-06-242764-9; hardcover (October 15, 2019)
736pp, B&W, $35.00 U.S.

Who is Marlon Brando?  Some would, will, and will always tell you that he was and is the greatest American film actor of all time.  Marlon Brando won two Academy Awards, for his performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954) and again for his performance as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972).  His performance as Terry Malloy is considered the performance that changed film-acting in American motion pictures.

Marlon Brando the Hollywood legend was born Marlon Brando Jr. on April 3, 1924 to Dorothy Julia “Dodie” (Pennebaker) and Marlon Brando Sr. in Omaha, Nebraska.  He grew up in Libertyville, Illinois (where he met Wally Cox, an actor who would be a lifelong friend), and even attended a military school.  But who was Marlon Brando?

The award-winning film biographer, William J. Mann (Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn), presents a deeply-textured, ambitious, and definitive portrait of Marlon Brando.  The greatest movie actor of the twentieth century was also elusive, and Mann brings his extraordinarily complex life into view as never before in the biography, The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando.

The most influential movie actor of his era, Marlon Brando changed the way other actors perceived their craft.  His natural, honest, and deeply personal approach to acting resulted in performances, especially in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, that are considered to be without parallel.  Americans hailed Brando as the “American Hamlet.”  He was the Yank who surpassed Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson, the holy trinity and the royalty of British stage and screen, as the standard of greatness in mid-twentieth century acting.

Brando’s impact on American culture, however, went beyond acting.  He was was also one of the first American movie stars to use his fame as a platform to address social, political, and moral issues, and he courageously and boldly called out the United States' deeply rooted, persistent racism.

The Contender illuminates this cultural icon for a new age, and Mann, its author, argues that Brando was not only a great actor, but also a cultural soothsayer.  Mann reveals that Brando was a Cassandra warning America about the challenges to come.  Brando’s admonitions against making financial gain the primary purpose of nearly every aspect of the nation's culture, and his criticisms that the news media's obsession with celebrity and other shallow and ultimately unimportant subjects were prescient.  Many public figures, from fellow Hollywood actors to politicians and media figures, criticized Brando's public protests against racial segregation and discrimination at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Yet less than half a century later, Brando's actions as an activist and an advocate have become the model many actors follow today.

In The Contender, William J. Mann shows the sides of Marlon Brando that many moviegoers never imagined him to have.  From his childhood traumas to the evolution of his professional life and the growing mess of his personal life, Marlon Brando is revealed anew.

THE LOWDOWN:  William J. Mann's biography of Marlon Brando is a story that runs over 600 pages.  That is not counting the section entitled “Marlon Brando Stage and Television Credits;” a two-page “Sources” section; and a 60-page “Notes” section.  Mann's The Contender is not only “psychologically astute” as the book's press materials state; it is also painstakingly and masterfully researched.  Mann's research is based on new material, previously revealed material, and interviews with the people who knew Marlon Brando, some of whom died during the time Mann worked on this book.

Mann's book is not a Hollywood tell-all, nor is it a celebratory festival of Brando's work.  The Contender explores the man that Brando was, and being a ground-breaking, celebrated, and revered actor was only part of the man.  To that end, The Contender and its author told me things that I did not know about Brando.  I did not know that he was “sexually fluid,” having sexual relationships with both men and women.  I did not know that he was a hopeless philanderer and womanizer; Brando cheated on every woman he dated or was married to – often with multiple women.

I did not know that Brando did not consider acting to be something important.  He certainly had a fidelity to his vocation, as seen in his numerous performances on film, but he did not take the profession seriously.  He did not tolerate people whom he believed took acting too seriously.

I had no idea that Brando supported human rights causes for African-Americans and supported the Civil Rights movement, both financially and in person, up to the time of his death.  He participated in numerous marches, including some in the American south.  Brando was also a participant in the 1963 “March on Washington.”  Brando was also a vocal and tireless advocate for Native Americans, which including him declining his best actor Oscar for The Godfather at the 45th Academy Awards on March 27, 1973 in protest of the way the U.S. had treated American Indians.

It is not so much that Mann tells Brando's story in vivid detail, which he does.  It is also that Mann uses his prose to transport readers back to the times and places of many key moments in Brando's life.  Mann puts us there, right next to his subject, and the result is the story that makes you think and feel the man, his life, and his times.  This is a big book for a monumental figure in American culture.  The Contender is a dazzling biography, the kind befitting our nation's greatest actor.

It took me forever to read this biography – seven months.  By the time, I finished, however, I wished there were more.  The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando is for all time the biography for Marlon Brando fans and admirers, present and future.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans and students of Hollywood films and of Marlon Brando will want to read The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando.

[The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando includes sixteen pages of photographs.]

A
8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


https://williamjmann.com/
https://twitter.com/WilliamJMann

Facebook: @Harper1817
Instagram: @HarperBooks


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: THE THIRD DAUGHTER

THE THIRD DAUGHTER
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins @WmMorrowBks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Talia Carner
ISBN: 978-0-06-289688-9; paperback; 5.31 in x 8.00 in (September 3, 2019)
432pp, B&W, $16.99 U.S., $21.00 CAN

The Third Daughter is a 2019 historical novel from author Talia Carner (Jerusalem Maiden).  The novel illuminates a little-known piece of history – the sex trafficking of teen girls and young women kidnapped from Russia and sent to South America in the late 19th century.  The Third Daughter recounts this story via the fictional story of a fourteen-year-old year Jewish girl whose family is sold a fairy tale, the first of many lies that enslaves a girl into prostitution.

The Third Daughter opens in Russia, 1889.  Fourteen-year-old Batya and her family:  her father, Koppel; her mother, Zelda; and her youngest sister, Surale, have been exiled from their home in the Russian village of Komarinoe.  As Jews, Batya and her family have just suffered the latest round in the centuries-old Russian pogroms, and this one has found Batya and her family thrown from their home and land.  Batya is the third daughter of four, and as the elder daughter still living at home, she is determined to do everything she can to help her family.  At the same time, she prays to God for a miracle, perhaps a wealthy man who will come and take her away from all her suffering.

Fate brings a wealthy man who arrives by carriage to rescue Batya and her family from the hard traveling of the road.  This apparently, worldly, wealthy stranger is Yitzik Moskowitz, called “Reb” Moskowitz, by the Russian Jews who know him.  Reb makes a generous financial offer to Koppel for a chance to marry Batya, and her father leaps at the opportunity to give his third daughter to a man who can guarantee her an easy life and passage to America, as Reb claims he can do.

Batya feels like a princess in a fairy tale as she leaves her old, impoverished life behind.  But that all soon turns into a waking nightmare.  Her new “husband” does indeed take her to America – South America!  Batya is kidnapped to Buenos Aires, Argentina, a vibrant, colorful, growing city... where prostitution is not only legal, but is also deeply embedded in the culture of the city.

Reb Moskowitz turns out to be a pimp, an influential pimp in an organization of pimps known as “Zwi Migdal.”  And Batya is one of the thousands of girls and young women from Eastern Europe who are tricked and sold to the brothels of Buenos Aires.  Over the next five years, Batya takes on the identity of an alluring older woman named “Esperanza,” and uses her body to bring sexual pleasure to hundreds of men.  When an opportunity to bring down Zwi Migdal arises, however, Batya takes it, but will saving herself mean abandoning her family that is still suffering the antisemitism of Russia?

THE LOWDOWN:  I was totally unaware of that little-known piece of history that chronicles the sex trafficking of young women from Russia to South America from the late 19th century and into the 20th century.  It turns out that the modern scourge of sex trafficking is not something new.  Girls and women have been trafficked into sex slavery long before the Internet made it easier and more wide spread and perhaps, more underground.

I began reading The Third Daughter during the high heat of the summer, and this historical novel is a true summer potboiler.  It is as much a thriller and perhaps, as much a horror novel as it is a historical novel filled with the details of Jewish religious life.  Author Talia Carner's historical detail and evocative prose will force many readers to tear through the book, always trying to find out what happens next.  Will Batya finally find a man to rescue her?  Or will she finally end up getting killed by her madam or pimp... if they find out that she is involved in a conspiracy against them?

Carner's vivid prose brings late 19th century Buenos Aires to life, but her best writing is in her character work on Batya.  Carner makes her readers feel what Batya feels – the highs and lows, the sorrow and the despair, the fear and the bravery, and ultimately, the determination.  By the end of The Third Daughter, Carner will make sure that you don't want to leave Batya.  The third daughter is the heroine and inspiration of this heartbreaking, wonderful, and redemptive novel, The Third Daughter.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Readers interested in historical fiction, especially related to Jewish history, will want to read author Talia Carner's novel, The Third Daughter.

8 out 10

This book contains the following:
An “Acknowledgments”
A glossary of Yiddish, Hebrew, Latin, Polish, Russian, and Russian terms
“Meet Talia Carner”
“Buenos Aires, 1996,” which details the 1994 bombing of “Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina” building
“The Historical Background of The Third Daughter”
“Ezrat Nashim Poster”
a “Reading Group Guide”

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


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The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.


--------------------------

Book Review: SURRENDER, WHITE PEOPLE!

SURRENDER, WHITE PEOPLE!: OUR UNCONDITIONAL TERMS FOR PEACE
WILLIAM MORROW/HarperCollins

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHORS: D.L. Hughley and Doug Moe
ISBN: 978-0-06-295370-4; hardback; 5.5 x 7.25 (June 30, 2020)
256pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S., $34.99 CAN

Surrender, White People!: Our Unconditional Terms for Peace is a 2020 non-fiction, humor, and social commentary book written by D.L Hughley and Doug Moe.  Hughley is an actor, comedian, and longtime social activist, and Moe is a writer and an actor and performer associated with the “Upright Citizens Brigade.”

Surrender, White People!: Our Unconditional Terms for Peace works under the premise that America is about to become a majority-minority nation, and Hughley has a warning for White people.  White people are not only going to be a minority themselves, but they are also going to face a reckoning.  It is time for White people to sue for peace, and have some fun while D.L. holds them for accountable and lays out the details.  Have a laugh and Surrender, White People!

Hughley says that in a browner America black and brown people are not going to take a backseat anymore.  Thus, it is time for White people to surrender their unjust privileges; face their history, put aside all their visions of superiority, and open up their institutions so they benefit everyone in this nation.

Luckily for America... and for White people, D.L. has a plan.  If White people go along with it, the might actually get Black people (finally!) to stop talking about oppression, discrimination, and their place in America

THE LOWDOWN:  I have never read any of D.L. Hughley's books, including How Not to Get Shot, but after reading Surrender, White People!, I feel that I need to do so.  I am a longtime fan of Hughley's stand-up comedy and especially of his political and social commentary. He is one of the sharpest and most honest commentators on race relations, race awareness.  He is especially good speaking and writing on the inequalities in the United States and of the historic and systemic oppression of African slaves and their descendants at the hands of White people in America.

The premise of Surrender, White People! is that we need a peace treaty between Black folks and White people.  However, D.L. says there can only be peace and reconciliation if White people give up their “White privileges” and renounce “White supremacy.”

D.L.'s treaty is a kind of new constitution that has a preamble and six articles.  Hughley and Moe fill the articles with facts, history, and examples of why each article is necessary.  There is triple truth, Ruth, and genuine, even uproarious humor.  Laughs aside, the first two articles, “White People Shall Consider Reparations” and “History Books Shall Be Aligned,” unleash a savage broadside on White privilege and on the history of the United States of America... which is essentially a White (washed) story.

It would be too easy to say that Surrender, White People! is the perfect book for our troubled times.  The truth is that the time is always right for what D.L. Hughley has to say about racism in America.  Surrender, White People! is an opportunity to laugh, to learn, and to move us a little closer to real, substantial change.

But considering what has happened in the year 2020, we will need more books from D.L. Hughley and Doug Moe... and probably some amendments to this peace treaty.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of D.L. Hughley cannot and must not miss Surrender, White People!: Our Unconditional Terms for Peace.

10 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


https://twitter.com/WmMorrowBooks
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https://twitter.com/HarperCollins
https://www.harpercollins.com/


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.


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#IReadsYou Book Review: ON THE CORNER OF HOPE AND MAIN

ON THE CORNER OF HOPE AND MAIN (A Blessings Novel)
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Beverly Jenkins – @authorMsBev
ISBN: 978-0-06-269928-2; paperback (March 3, 2020)
304pp, B&W, $15.99 U.S., $19.99 CAN

[On the Corner of Hope and Main is available in a trade paperback edition and a “hardcover library edition.”  This review is of the paperback.]

On the Corner of Hope and Main is a new novel from bestselling author, Beverly Jenkins.  This is the tenth novel in Jenkins' “Blessings” series (following 2018's Second Time Sweeter).  Set in the fictional small town of Henry Adams, Kansas, the book follows the lives of its citizens who never know a dull moment in their historic little town.  On the Corner of Hope and Main finds Henry Adams caught up in a mayoral election, while a former trickster returns with new tricks.

On the Corner of Hope and Main opens with Trent July, mayor of Henry Adams for the past four years, ready to stop being mayor, so it's time for a new mayoral election!  Right from the beginning, two slightly unsavory candidates throw their hats into the ring, including the town's perennial pariah, Riley Curry.  Barrett Payne, a former Marine who directs the town's security infrastructure, decides he wants the job.  When a surprise candidate also enters the ring, however, Barrett is shocked, offended, and thrown for that proverbial old loop that shakes him down to the core of his being.

While the town has opinions on who would be the best candidate, Leo Brown, the ex-husband of Henry Adams' owner and savior, Bernadine Brown, is back in town... with a new scheme.  He hopes to make inroads with his new employer, Mega Seed; gain some closure with his former employer, Salem Oil; and get a measure of revenge against his ex.

The election and Leo Brown's schemes are not the only drama in town.  Malachi “Mal” July continues to make reparations for the damage he has caused and to the people he has betrayed, but his biggest reclamation project will be restoring some kind of relationship with the love of his life, Bernadine.  Is she finally ready to forgive him and let the past go?  It will be a blessing if she does.

THE LOWDOWN:  I had heard of author Beverly Jenkins, but had never read her work until I read her 2016 novel, Stepping to a New Day (the seventh “Blessings” novel).  I immediately fell in love with the characters and with the town of Henry Adams, the kind of small town that Norman Rockwell or Walt Disney could have loved.  Unlike a Disney small town idyll, however, Henry Adams has a diverse, but predominately African-American population and was founded by freed slaves.

On the Corner of Hope and Main is the fifth Blessings novel that I have read.  I've read the previous three novels, and last year, I went back and read the first book in the series, Bring on the Blessings.  Although On the Corner of Hope and Main has a few dark moments, it is radiant, hopeful, and positive, a sharp contrast to 2018's Second Time Sweeter, which I found to be a very dark, but hugely enjoyable read.  I think the new novel also encapsulates author Beverly Jenkins' theme of “blessings.”

Jenkins' characters in this series can work toward, gain, and find blessings if they deal honestly with other people and especially with themselves.  In the “Blessings” series, a blessing isn't just getting some material satisfaction, nor is it always manifested physically.  A blessing can be spiritual and mental, or it can be a personal enrichment that comes indirectly to a character when his or her family, friends, co-workers, etc. directly get a blessing.

Invariably, characters who embrace wickedness and selfishness and those who trade in hubris win curses instead of blessings, sometimes with devastating, even tragic consequences.  When one cannot love others as one loves oneself, what seems like a blessing will eventually turn out to be a disaster... or even a curse.

The struggle between getting what you want with good intentions and getting what you want at the expense of others is a winning formula for storytelling.  That is because the struggle is played out by the vibrant characters that Beverly Jenkins creates.  The good, the naughty, and the just-plain-bad are the kind of great characters that everyone says a successful novel needs.  There are no duplicate characters in Jenkins' “Blessings” novels.  Each character is unique, and no matter where he or she measures on the hero-villain or protagonist-antagonist scale, you will love reading about that character even when you can't exactly love the character.  These characters have literary depth and weight because Jenkins has fitted them (each and every one) with wants, needs, fears, and motivations.

On the Corner of Hope and Main exemplifies that.  I wanted to know more about what was happening in the lives of every character and player, even the ones that only appeared in a scene or two.  There may be no better small town in modern fiction than Henry Adams, Kansas.  If you need a good book to get you through this crazy time, you will find it On the Corner of Hope and Main.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of Beverly Jenkins and of stories set in wonderful small towns will want On the Corner of Hope and Main.

10 out of 10

The paperback edition of On the Corner of Hope and Main contains the following William Morrow “P.S. Insights, Interviews & More...” extras:

1. About the author:  “Meet Beverly Jenkins”

2. About the book:  “Author's Note” and “Book Club Discussion”

https://twitter.com/WmMorrowBooks
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https://www.harpercollins.com/


Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and  syndication rights and fees.


--------------------------------

Book Review: FULL THROTTLE: Stories

FULL THROTTLE: STORIES
WILLIAM MORROW/HarperCollins – @WmMorrowBks @HarperCollins

[This review originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Joe Hill
ISBN: 978-0-06-220067-9; hardback; 6 x 9 (October 1, 2019)
496pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S., $34.99 CAN

Full Throttle: Stories is a 2019 short story collection from author Joe Hill.  Originally a hardcover release, Full Throttle: Stories, which is Hill's fourth short story collection, contains 13 short stories of varying lengths.

Hill, whose birth name is Joseph Hillström King, is the son of legendary horror novelist and dark fantasy author, Stephen King, and novelist, nonfiction author, and poet, Tabitha King.  Hill is also a novelist and comic book writer (best known for the Locke & Key series from IDW Publishing).

Joe Hill collaborates with Stephen King on two of Full Throttle's stories.  Hill will never be the author that his father is, nor does Hill have to be Stephen King, who is one of the greatest short story fantasy authors of all time.  Hill only has to be himself, and Hill is quite the inventive, ingenious, and imaginative short story writer himself.

From the tale of a vengeful trucker ("Full Throttle," co- written with Stephen King) to the funky, near-future, have-and-have-not sci-fi (“All I Care About is You”), Joe Hill takes readers on a non-stop, break-neck journey through his own version of “The Twilight Zone.”  This is Joe Hill's trip through “Tales from The Darkside” in such edgy fare as the cautionary faerie fable (“Faun”) and the historical parable (“The Devil on the Staircase”).  Once you sit your ass inside this crazy ride, you won't have any choice but to go along Full Throttle, dear readers.

After being part of the British pop music recording duo, Eurythmics, for a decade, singer-songwriter Annie Lenox embarked on a solo career, beginning with the 1992 album, Diva.  I remember reading a review of her second album, Medusa (1995), in which the author of the review stated that every album should have two “great” songs.  I don't remember the name of the author or the place of publication of that review, but the review has had a deep influence on how I regard short story collections.

I insist that every short story collection have at least two stories that I consider great in order for me to consider the collection worth reading.  I also need to find two great stories in order for me to honestly recommend the collection to people who read my reviews.

Full Throttle: Stories only has one story that I consider piss poor, the werewolf-ish tale, “Wolverton Station.”  It is the kind of misfire that a published author can get published, but a novice author would need a miracle to get a recognized literary journal or fiction publication to publish such a minor tale.  “Wolverton Station,” the third story in the collection, is Full Throttle's “unlucky number 13.”

Otherwise, Full Throttle: Stories is one of the few great short story collections that I have read that are not written by someone named Harlan Ellison (1934-2018) or Stephen King.  The collection's best story is “Late Returns,” the lovely fable of the complexities and misunderstandings in parent-child relationships.  The Hallmark Channel could mine this story for a long series of made-for-TV movies.  I think what makes the story so memorable and exceptional is that it deals with the unasked questions, but also with the answered questions we don't realize were answered ages ago.

It was hard to choose a second favorite or second best, but I am going with “You Are Released,” an eve-of-apocalypse tale about Captain Leonard Waters, his crew, and the passengers of the 777 commercial jet airliner, “Delta 236.”  It puts readers in a front row seat to nuclear Armageddon, but it also exemplifies the hope, love, and reconciliation that humanity can have if it so chooses.

Joe Hill's two collaborations with Stephen King are heartbreaking, but for different reasons.  The first, the title track, “Full Throttle,” is a crime thriller that recalls road-rage-revenge films like Duel (1971, Steven Spielberg) and Joy Ride (2001, John Dahl).  The second Hill-King collaboration, “In the Tall Grass,” recalls King's short story, “Children of the Corn” (1977) and that classic tale's dark blend of blighted small town America, Americana, and paganism.

Hill actually tops the Americana of “In the Tall Grass,” with a brilliant spin on American separatism and inherited mental illness in the crazy and crazily brilliant “Mums.”  That story summons the is-it-or-isn't-real surrealism of Henry James' “The Turn of the Screw” (1898) and plants it in the black soil located in the dark corners of American culture.

So there is all kind of good stuff in Full Throttle: Stories.  It is a must-have for fans of dark fantasy short story collections.  I think the stories in this collection also suggest that, while he is in his late 40s, Joe Hill is just hitting his stride as a master of speculative and fantasy prose short fiction.

9.5 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


www.joehillfiction.com
www.facebook.com/joehill

The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.


--------------------------

Book Review: STAR WARS: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor

STAR WARS: LUKE SKYWALKER AND THE SHADOWS OF MINDOR
DEL REY/BALLANTINE BOOKS

[Visit the "Star Wars Central" review page here.]

AUTHOR: Matthew Stover
COVER: David Seeley
ISBN: 978-0-345-47744-6; hardcover (December 30, 2008)
331pp, B&W, $27.00 U.S., $32.00 CAN

In the Star Wars® Expanded Universe (EU), there were apparently, at one point, six eras, measures of time in which the Star Wars stories were set.  The Expanded Universe was rendered moot a few years after the Walt Disney Company bought Star Wars' parent company, Lucasfilm Ltd. in December 2012.  The EU eras were Sith, Prequel (Star Wars: Episodes I-III), Classic (Star Wars: Episodes IV-VI), New Republic, New Jedi Order, and Legacy.

Star Wars: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, is a 2008 “New Republic” era novel from author Matthew Stover.  Stover has penned other Star Wars novels including the Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith novelization.

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor opens six months after the events depicted in the film, Return of the Jedi.  The victorious Rebel Alliance is still struggling with the remnants of the Empire.  These surviving Imperial forces are determined to crush the rebellion, and now there is a new enemy.  Calling himself Lord Shadowspawn, he commands black-armored stormtroopers and launches raids and acts of piracy and terrorism against the New Republic, and their path of pillaging and wholesale slaughter leaves a wake of destruction.

General Luke Skywalker and the NRDF (New Republic Defense Forces) trace Lord Shadowspawn to a strategically advantageous base on the planet Mindor and launch a raid that actually plays directly in Shadowspawn’s hands.  Using ancient Sith knowledge and secret Imperial technology, Shadowspawn decimates the NRDF forces, and Luke Skywalker is seemingly lost during raid, possibly killed.  Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, See-Threepio, Artoo-Detoo, and the Rogue Squadron rush to the rescue, but are they in time to stop Shadowspawn’s power play for galaxy-wide dominion?

THE LOWDOWN:  It’s been almost 10 years since I’ve read a Star Wars novel (the last being Vector Prime), but I was ready for Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.  For one thing, this book features many of my favorite characters from classic Star Wars.  In Mindor, author Matthew Stover seems to have written a book with two minds.

One of them is a space opera with non-stop action; the other is hard science fiction that is jargon-heavy and has enough dogfights to feel like a sci-fi flight simulator.  The former is a page-turner – an exciting read for a Star Wars fanboy like me.  The latter is sometimes dry, sometimes mildly interesting.  Luckily, both sides come together to create a potboiler of a novel by the middle of story.

The characterizations, in general, are good, and I especially like where Stover has Luke Skywalker at in terms of the post Return of the Jedi character.  Luke in this book is the confident last Jedi, the hero we saw in ROTJ, but he is conflicted about his place in the New Republic, especially about the lives of the men that are placed in his hands when he becomes a general.  As many reasons as there are why this book is fun to read, it’s Stover’s take on Luke Skywalker that makes Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor a quality Star Wars novel.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  People who read every Star Wars novel or who come close will, of course, want Star Wars: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.  Fans of the original trilogy will definitely want to give this a read, precisely because the story takes place so close to the “Classic Era.”

B+
7 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and  syndication rights and fees.



----------------------------------------

Book Review: "88 Names"

88 NAMES
HARPERCOLLINS/Harper – @HarperCollins

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Matt Ruff – @bymattruff
ISBN: 978-0-06-285467-4; hardcover (March 17, 2020)
320pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

88 Names is a 2020 comedy, science fiction, and mystery novel from award-winning novelist, Matt Ruff (Lovecraft Country).  88 Names is an immersive virtual reality story, part cyber-mystery-thriller and part near-future speculation, set in a world in which identities can be worn and changed like clothing and things are not necessarily what they appear to be.

The lead character of 88 Names is John Chu, a “sherpa.”  As a “sherpa,” John is paid to guide players into the world of “massive multiplayer online role-playing games or “MMORPGs.”  The difference is that this online world is not the version we know today in the real world, but is instead a near-future, advanced VR (virtual-reality) version of online gaming.

The game in which John is most likely to guide players is the popular “Call to Wizardry.”  For a fee, John and his crew:  Jolene, Ray, and Anya, will provide players with a top-flight character, equipped with the best weapons and armor.  They will take players dragon-slaying in the “Realms of Asgarth,” hunting rogue starships in the Alpha Sector, or battling hordes of undead in a zombie apocalypse.

Chu’s newest client is the pseudonymous “Mr. Jones,” who claims to be a “wealthy, famous person” with powerful enemies.  Mr. Jones is offering John a ridiculous amount of money for a comprehensive tour of the world of MMORPGS because they “may have applications beyond the realm of mere entertainment” and such applications are “relevant” to Mr. Jones' profession... or so he says.

For John, this is a dream assignment, mainly because of the money.  As Mr. Jones' tour of online gaming gets underway, John begins to suspect that “Mr. Jones” is really North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un.  John also has to worry about “Ms. Pang,” an interloper in John's contract with Mr. Jones, and she may or may not be an agent of the People’s Republic of China.  As John's whirlwind online adventure with Mr. Jones eventually spills over into the real world, he must be more savvy than he has ever been.  Lives are at stake, and unlike the gaming world, the real world does not have a reset button.

THE LOWDOWN:  Matt Ruff's 2016 novel, Lovecraft Country, is one of my all-time favorite books.  Not only is it a brilliant fantasy novel, but it so captures the existential threat that America often is to African-Americans that one might assume that Matt Ruff is an African-American writer.  He is not, but that did not stop readers from being enthralled by Ruff and the “black magic” he weaved in that amazing great American novel.

While I was reading 88 Names, I found that it had elements that reminded me of a number of works of fiction that dealt with altered realities and VR.  That includes author William Gibson's landmark 1984 novel, Neuromancer; Christopher Nolan's 2010 film, Inception; Douglas Trumbull's 1983 film, Brainstorm; Alfred Bester's 1953 novel, The Demolished Man; David Cronenberg's 1999 film, eXistenZ; and maybe the film, Tron (1982).

I don't know if there is anything new or interesting about virtual-reality / VR that Ruff introduces in 88 Names.  I don't engage enough VR fiction to know.  In fact, the identity of the villain behind the machinations of “Mr. Jones” is pretty obvious early one, if for no other reason than the fact that John Chu suspects this person from the very beginning.

Thus, the fun I found in reading 88 Names came from John Chu.  Like the best novelists, Ruff has a gift for creating superb lead characters that grab the reader's interest.  Chu “takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin,” and, as I see it, he is open to the myriad possibilities of both the world real and VR, even if he can be occasionally clueless.  John is a guy I could follow from one novel to the next.  This novel's title, “88 Names,” apparently comes from the number of online identities that John has created, so he could be someone else in one of Ruff's upcoming novels, if he hasn't already appeared in an earlier Ruffian work of fiction.

Truthfully, I think that the audience for 88 Names is limited to two groups of people.  First are those readers interested in stories about living and playing in VR worlds.  The second group is composed of people who either are already fans of Matt Ruff or are just discovering him.  I fall in the latter category, and although I don't think 88 Names is a great novel, I will unashamedly recommend it to those readers looking for authors who aggressively demand a lot of their readers' imaginations.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Readers looking for works by visionary authors will want 88 Names.

7 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

http://www.bymattruff.com/


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and  syndication rights and fees.


------------------------------

#IReadsYou Book Review: THE BIG LIE

THE BIG LIE
HARPER (HarperCollins Publishers) – @HarperCollins @HarperBooks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: James Grippando – @James_Grippando
ISBN: 978-0-06-291504-7; hardcover (February 25, 2020)
368pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

The Big Lie is a 2020 legal thriller novel from author and attorney James Grippando.  It is Grippando's 28th novel and also the 16th novel starring Grippando’s Miami-based, criminal defense attorney, Jack Swyteck.  Grippando is the 2017 winner of the Harper Lee Prize for legal fiction (for 2016's Gone Again – Jack Swyteck #12).  In The Big Lie, Swyteck lands right in the middle of an Electoral College battle to determine the Presidency of the United States.

The Big Lie opens at the 2020 Democratic National Convention in Miami, Florida where the Democratic Party is crowning its latest candidate for president, Florida's junior U.S. Senator Evan Stahl, Jr.  There is, however, a persistent rumor that Sen. Stahl is having an extramarital affair and that his lover might be another man.

Cut to November, and the Machiavellian incumbent, President Malcolm MacLeod (an obvious stand-in for President Donald Trump), is claiming victory.  However, he will need the Electoral College to win re-election, because he lost the popular vote by over five million votes.  Now, the Electoral College battle for the White House lands in a Florida courtroom, and Jack Swyteck finds himself with a new client, Charlotte Lee Holmes, a “faithless elector.”  Holmes is a member of the Florida's Electoral College contingent, bound by law and by oath to vote for the winner of Florida, President MacLeod... by the slimmest of margins  Holmes has announced that she will cast her Electoral College vote for Sen. Stahl.

Jack is the caught between a corrupt president (MacLeod) and his manipulative opponent (Stahl).  President MacLeod was recently spared from impeachment only because his political foes were certain they would oust him at the ballot box. Now, he appears to have secured a second term, thanks to a narrow victory in the Electoral College, and he and his allies, including a duplicitous Florida state attorney general, will do anything to keep Holmes' decision from turning others into “faithless electors”.

The president and his Florida machine drag Charlotte Holmes into court on felony charges, which are not enough charges for some.  Jack Swyteck may be the only attorney that can keep Charlotte from being ruled unfit to remain an elector.  Meanwhile, Stahl refuses to concede the election and hopes to convince other members of the Electoral College to become “faithless electors.”

But the media frenzy around Stahl's affair is getting worse, and soon there are threats of violence and actual violence.  Salacious details about Charlotte's life are dredged up, and Jack and his client may have to make their last stand in a stand-your-ground state.

THE LOWDOWN:  I read my first Jack Swyteck novel, Blood Money, back in 2013 when it was first published, and since then, I eagerly await each new Swyteck novel.  The Big Lie is the seventh Swyteck novel I have read and the ninth novel by James Grippando novel that I have read and reviewed.

The Big Lie is many things and is the most genre-bending or genre-crossing Grippando novel that I have read.  It is a legal thriller (of course), a political thriller, a crime thriller, and an action thriller (of sorts).  It is also a family drama and melodrama; for instance, The Big Lie delves into Jack Swyteck's relationship with his dying stepmother.  The families of Charlotte Holmes and Evan Stahl, Jr. are also each a cauldron of hot mess.

I have to be honest.  The Big Lie is a riveting, page-turning read, but it does not quite meet the high standards that Grippando set with the previous four Swyteck novels.  However, Grippando continues to create engaging new characters with each novel, while making returning characters all the more lovable.  So quality characters drive the narrative of The Big Lie, which is why it is another hugely enjoyable James Grippando novel, and that is the big truth.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of political thrillers and of James Grippando will find that The Big Lie is a must-read.

8 out of 10

www.jamesgrippando.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and  syndication rights and fees.

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#IReadsYou Book Review: SWORD OF KINGS

SWORD OF KINGS
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Bernard Cornwell
ISBN: 978-0-06-256321-7; hardcover (November 26, 2019)
352pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

Sword of Kings is a 2019 novel from Bernard Cornwell, a bestselling British author of historical novels.  This is the twelfth book in Cornwell’s “Saxon Tales” series, his epic story of the making of England and his continuing story of pagan Saxon warlord, Uhtred of Bebbanburg.  “The Saxon Tales” series is also known as “The Last Kingdom” series (named for the first novel in the series), which is also the name of the television series adaptation.  Sword of Kings finds Lord Uhtred bound by an oath to insert himself in the middle of a war to determine who will rule Anglo-Saxon Christendom.

As Sword of Kings begins, Lord Uhtred is ruling his part of Northumbria from his family's fortress, Bebbanburg.  It is once more a time of political turmoil, and the first indication of this is that fishing ships in service to Uhtred begin to disappear.  Before long, Uhtred has evidence that his old political enemies want him dead.  Why?

King Edward is “Anglorum Saxonum Rex” – King of the Angles and the Saxons – King of Wessex, of East Anglia, and of Mercia.  His dream is to create one realm for everyone who is Christian and who speaks the “Ænglisc” tongue, a kingdom to be called “Englaland” (or England, of course).  But Edward has fallen ill... again.  Rumor has it that he is dying... or is already dead.  Because of such rumors, news, and speculation, Uhtred feels the tug of an oath he made to Æthelstan of Mercia, Edward's eldest son, that he would protect him.  Because Uhtred is certainly no oath-breaker and since Æthelstan will undoubtedly make a claim on Edward's throne, Uhtred must leave his beloved Northumbria and travel south to join the young would-be-king. 

However, the most powerful Saxon of Wessex, Ealdorman Æthelhelm, is a supporter of another candidate to be king, his nephew, Ælfweard, King Edward's second oldest son.  Uhtred would love to leave the Anglo-Saxons to sort out their own issues, but he has made an oath to one royal candidate, been attacked by the supporter of another, and received an unexpected appeal for help from still another candidate.  Thus, Uhtred leads a small band of warriors south, into the battle for kingship, a struggle that may finally see him dead.

THE LOWDOWN:  I have read the seventh through this twelfth entry in “The Saxon Tales” series.  I love these books, and as soon as I reach the last page of one book, I dearly wish the next book was immediately available.  George R.R. Martin, the author of A Song of Fire and Ice (the inspiration for HBO's Emmy-winning “Game of Thrones” television series), says that Cornwell writes the best battles scenes he has ever read.  I can say that Cornwell's “Saxon Tales” are kind of like a real life “Game of Thrones,” with Cornwell taking liberties with the story of the creation of England.

In my review of the previous novel in this series, War of the Wolf, I wrote that I had practically run out of ways to praise Cornwell.  Eleven books into the series, Cornwell's narrative should have run out of steam, but it did not.  This twelfth novel, Sword of Kings, finds the series as strong as ever.  In fact, Sword of Kings may be the best “Saxon Tales” novel yet.

Sword of Kings borrows from several genres.  It is at once a sea-faring novel, with tales of adventure and war.  Next, it is an espionage thriller with daring scenes and sequences of infiltration, entrapment, and escape from enemy territory and strongholds.  Sword of Kings is, at its heart, historical fiction that delves into the world of kings and nobles, oaths, families, relationships and bonds, religious strife, and most of all, the world of power gained, lost, and consolidated on the way to making history.

To be downright crude dear reader, Sword of Kings is a page-turning, pot-boiling, compact literary beast that “goes for your nuts” (to employ a euphemism).  It is brutal and savage and as alluring and as enchanting as the powers of the gods these characters worship.

Bernard Cornwell is the lord king of historical fiction and the undisputed master of writing battle scenes.  And the sequence in which Cornwell depicts the final move by the winner of this game for Edward's throne is the bloody cherry on top of this breath-taking literary cake.  Sword of Kings wants to be the king of your holiday reading list.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of historical fiction and of Bernard Cornwell must have Sword of Kings.

A+
10 out of 10

www.bernardcornwell.net

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.



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#IReadsYou Book Review: AFTER THE FLOOD: A Novel

AFTER THE FLOOD: A NOVEL
HARPERCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins @WmMorrowBks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Kassandra Montag
ISBN: 978-0-06-288936-2; hardcover; 5 in x 9 in; (September 3, 2019)
432pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S., $34.99 CAN

After the Flood is the debut novel from poet Kassandra Montag.  A post-apocalyptic drama and sea-faring novel, After the Flood is set on an Earth almost entirely covered by water.

After the Flood opens a little more than a century from now, and the Earth has been utterly transformed.  It began with the so-called “Hundred Year Flood,” in which rising floodwaters slowly overtook the North American continent.  Then, the so-called “Six Year Flood” obliterated America’s great coastal cities and then its heartland.  After which, all that was left was an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water.  [That may also be the situation with all the other continents.]

Sailing what is left of the United States is a stubbornly independent woman, Myra, and her precocious seven-year-old daughter, Pearl.  They fish from their small boat, “the Bird,” and only visit the dry land of the mountaintop colonies when they need to trade for supplies and information on those few remaining outposts of civilization.  For seven years, Myra has grieved the loss of her elder daughter, Row.  She was stolen by her father, Myra's husband, Jacob, after a monstrous deluge overtook their home in Nebraska, an event that occurred before Pearl was born.  During a violent confrontation with a stranger, Myra suddenly discovers that the man has seen Row in a place called “the Valley,” which is located on the Eastern coast of what had been Greenland.

Throwing aside her usual caution, Myra plots a perilous voyage to those icy northern seas to recover her daughter.  Myra and Pearl find an ally in a mysterious man named Daniel, a cartographer and navigator.  Eventually, the three of them join another ship, “the Sedna,” and Myra tries to convince “the Sedna's” captain, Abran, and his crew to travel to “the Valley.”  However, the secrets that Myra, Daniel, and Abran hold may derail the voyage and lead to everyone's death.

If you, dear readers, peruse After the Flood's book jacket, you will find other authors praising this novel, including bestselling author, Karin Slaughter, one of America's best writers of thrillers and crime novels.  You can take all these authors' praise for After the Flood to heart; author Kassandra Montag's novel is indeed an excellent read.

After the Flood pushes against being pegged as belonging to one or two genres.  It is a sea-faring novel, full of adventure and gripping sea battles.  As post-apocalyptic fiction, After the Flood offers a frightening and implausible scenario for the destruction of civilization as we know it.  In this novel, we find humans basically reduced to dog-eat-dog survivalists, killers, thieves, rapists, and wannabe leaders engaging in biological warfare.

However, I think that After the Flood is, at its heart, a work of modern fiction, and it focuses on the lead character, Myra's personal journey, from trauma and grief to discovering the nature of hope.  In that sense, After the Flood is about characters, conflicts, and personalities, while also offering strong genre trappings and elements.  It is an irresistible read because Myra is an endlessly fascinating character.  Once you start reading this novel, dear readers, it will be hard to stop reading.  When you do, you will find yourself wondering about Myra and perhaps, even being concerned about her.

As a bonus, Myra's daughter Pearl is an equally endlessly fascinating character.  I think Kassandra Montag could write another version of this novel that focuses on Pearl, and it would be just as gripping and engaging... dare I say an even better novel?  For now, I will highly recommend After the Flood to readers looking for something different and also for something familiar in novels that deal with troubling futures for mankind.  Readers looking to delve into the interior and exterior lives of the characters that must survive these future shocks will want After the Flood.

9 out of 10

https://kassandramontag.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKassandraMontag

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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