Tompkins County Public Library

Friday, December 31, 2010

29. The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald

In 1946, Henry House is an orphan who has just been selected as Wilton College’s newest practice baby.  All across America, colleges have set up practice houses for home economic students to learn about keeping a proper house for their husband, including taking care of a new baby.  Program director Martha Gaines has had many practice babies over the years, but Henry is different and she soon finds herself unable to give him up at the end of the year and take care of a new baby.  Breaking college rules, she adopts Henry, and raises him in the practice house as her own child.  Their lives run smoothly until Henry learns who his birth mother is, and decides he wants to explore the world on his own.  From being an animator for Walt Disney, to working on the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, and to finally learning to deal with women and his unusual childhood, this fictional account of a most unusual life is an irresistible read.

Grunwald got her idea for the novel by looking at a Cornell web site that studied the history of practice babies.  In fact, Cornell received their first “practice” baby in 1919, and over the next fifty years, hundreds of students helped raise numerous infants at the Cornell practice house.  The Irresistible Henry House is a charming, well-written account about a little known practice in America, as well as a wonderful, historically accurate account of a man struggling to find love and meaning in his life.

28. Blacklands by Belinda Bauer

Unhappiness is all 12-year-old Steven Lamb knows.  He lives with his mother, grandmother, and younger brother in Somerset, England, in a house with tremendous grief.  His family has never gotten over the fact that Steven’s uncle was abducted and probably killed by a notorious child killer, Arnold Avery, who now is in jail and won’t admit to taking the boy years ago.  In order to make his grandmother happy, Steven spends all of his free time out on the moors, or the blacklands, digging, trying to find his uncle’s body so that the family can finally have closure.  When he gets frustrated by his lack of progress, he decides to tempt fate and write to Arnold Avery in jail, which changes everything in Steven Lamb’s life.

This is the type of psychological mystery that slowly sneaks up on a reader and takes their breath away.  Bauer creates a riveting and realistic story that slowly builds in a very believable tension until the horrifying end.  The cat and mouse manipulation between the older, and sinister Avery, and the young and naïve Lamb adds to the growing, sickening tension that readers know is coming.  While the end might be a little over the top, readers can’t help but cheer for Steven Lamb.  With a strong debut, Bauer is definitely a writer to watch.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

27. The News Where You Are by Catherine O'Flynn

Life for Frank Allcroft is changing.  He has a loving wife and eight-year-old daughter, Mo, and a successful career as a local news anchor, but around him things are causing him to question his life.  His mother is in a nursing home, living with past memories, and all around his hometown of Birmingham, England, buildings his late architect father build are being demolished.  His on-screen partner and father figure, Phil, who transitioned successfully into primetime television, was killed while out jogging.  Frank needs to know what happened to Phil that fateful day, and along the way discovers his own life is better than he thought.

This sophomore effort by O’Flynn is another winner.  At times funny, and at times sad, it is also an observation on family, friendship, aging, and loss on many levels.  O’Flynn’s stripped down, stark writing works well to show Frank’s struggle to find happiness again.  For a review of O’Flynn’s excellent first book, What Was Lost, please read http://tcplpicks.blogspot.com/2008/11/what-was-lost-by-catherine-oflynn.html

26. Shadow Woman by Ake Edwardson

August in Gothbenburg, Sweden means the hedonistic Gothenburg Party.  While people are partying during the weeklong celebration, there is also growing ethnic tension in the area.  When a woman’s body is found in a local park, with a strange symbol drawn on a draw near her, Chief Inspector Erik Winter has little clues to go by.  He knows that the woman has had a child, but when a neighbor reports a woman and her small daughter missing, the investigation takes a sudden twist.  Where is the dead woman’s daughter?  And how does her death tie into a bank robbery in Denmark that happened years ago?

While the popularity of the Stieg Larsson books have more and more people reading Scandinavian mysteries, Ake Edwardson has been writing and winning awards in Sweden for a number of years.  He is one of my favorite Swedish authors because of his complex stories and beautiful settings.  The Shadow Woman is the fifth book in his Erik Winter series to be translated into English, but the second book in the series (an unfortunate occurrence that happens frequently to translated books).  This psychological mystery is enhanced by the stark Swedish setting, and slowly builds tension throughout the book.  For a review of an earlier Erik Winter mystery, check out my review at http://tcpl.org/sarah/2007/03/13-never-end-by-ake-edwardson.html.  For readers of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson.

25. Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

Annie O’Sullivan seems to have it all.  She is 32, has a terrific and caring boyfriend, great friends, and is working hard to succeed as a realtor.  During a slow open house, she agrees to show the house to a man who pulls up in a van at the very end.  Suddenly the man who introduces himself as David, kidnaps her and holds her captive for a year in a remote cabin.  Subjected to daily rapes and psychological torture, she ultimately escapes and tells her horrifying story in flashbacks to an unnamed therapist.  Her kidnapper may be dead, but Annie feels a part of her life is still missing, especially since she can’t understand why she was kidnapped.  When the truth slowly comes out, it is a shocking and brutal surprise.

Readers may be surprised to learn that this is Steven’s first book.  While dealing with a difficult subject matter that involves pain and fear, the book is written in a very realistic way, until the ending.  I enjoyed the book until the end, when I was shocked to see how the story turned.  Still, the book is an engrossing, powerful tale of what people do to survive.  For those who like Jodi Picoult, and who have read Room by Emma Donoghue. 

24. Portobello by Ruth Rendell

Portobello Road in London is famous for its outdoor market and numerous shops.  It is also the setting for Rendell’s latest creepy psychological novel and brings a mixture of Londoners violently together.  While walking to the shops one day, Eugene Wren finds an envelope full of cash on the street. Instead of calling the police, he decides to post a “Found” sign in the Portobello neighborhood and question callers to see if they were the ones who dropped it.  A series of coincidences leads to a number of Londoners caught up in violence, and even death, because of these motions.

Rendell is the master of psychological novels that draw people in because of detailed characters and building suspense.  She writes with ease about street people, criminals, and the English upper class, lending credibility to her stories.  While I usually enjoy all of her books, this was a struggle because of repetitive details about main characters and a disjointed story that doesn’t truly come together until the end.  This may have worked better as a short story, something Rendell is also famous for.

23. I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson

The world is changing in 1989.  Communism is crumbling, and Arvid Jansen’s life is crumbling around him also.  His marriage is ending and he has just learned that his emotionally distant mother is dying of cancer.  When she decides to travel back to Denmark, where she grew up on the coast, Arvid leaves Oslo to follow her there.  Over the next few days, mother and son reminisce about their lives, weaving past with the present.  Arvid especially recalls his decision to leave college, join the Communist party, and spend his life in Communist factories, a decision his mother bitterly opposed.  His struggle to fully commit to communism, and to find purpose in his life while never truly understanding his mother, comes full circle during the Denmark trip.
This is a gorgeously written examination of two lives that are evolving while struggling with what has happened in their past.  Full of melancholy and failures, but also of love and hope, Petterson once again proves he is a writer that draws readers in and then holds them transfixed.  The stark Scandinavian scenery is described in a poetic way that adds to the starkness of the story.  There is a reason that the Los Angeles Times calls him a “master at writing the spaces between people.”  One of the best books I have read this year.

22. Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner

Boston police officer D. D. Warren is back in Gardner’s latest heart-pounding thriller.  A family is found brutally murdered in their Boston-area home, and all clues point to the barely alive father.  But why would he kill his family?  When another family is found dead, and the police end up at a locked-down psychiatric center for young children during their search for the possible killers, new theories begin to trouble Officer Warren.  Could young children, in the grips of severe mental anguish, be the killers?
Gardner tackles a disturbing plot that raises the uncomfortable subject of children capable of extreme acts of violence against their own families.  Yet the subject is never sensationalized, and fits into the overall story she is trying to tell.  Readers will be kept guessing almost to the end in this psychological page-turner.  For fans of Harlan Coben and James Patterson.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

21. The Postcard Killers by James Patterson

Young couples are disappearing in cities around Europe, including Paris, Rome, Copenhagen,  Frankfurt, and Stockholm.  When their bodies are found, they are staged in elaborate displays of famous works of art that correspond to museums in that city.  NYPD Detective Jacob Kanon knows this only too well, since his daughter was one of the victims in Rome.  Kanon travels to Europe hunting the only clue he has about the killings, a postcard is send to a city newspaper shortly before a murder.  When Swedish reporter Dessie Larsson receives a postcard, Kanon knows they have little time before a new couple is found.

This new thriller from Patterson has him co-writing with Liza Marklund, a popular Swedish journalist and crime writer who is set to have her first English-translated book appear in the US in February 2011.  The story has a great premise, and short chapters hook readers into reading just one more chapter before stopping for the night, but the writing is stiff and clumsy.  In other hands, this could have been a great mystery.  Here’s hoping Marklund’s new mystery on her own is better.

20. Audrey Wait by Robin Benway

What if you were the inspiration of a popular song?  When 16-year-old Audrey decides to break up with her boyfriend, Evan, she has no idea he is going to write a song about it and perform it with his band.  When record executives happen to hear it at a show, the song becomes an overnight sensation, and Audrey is suddenly famous – for the wrong reason in her opinion.  Instead of normal high school stuff and her boring job at an ice cream shop, she is now fighting off paparazzi, finds herself in gossip magazines, and dealing with jealous classmates.

While written for teens, this is a light, fun read that works well for adults also.  Audrey is a likeable character trying her hardest to have a normal life in not very normal circumstances, and the characters of her best friend and her parents are very realistic too.  A fun, charming look at fame.

19. Faithful Place by Tana French

French has a habit of writing books about characters she has introduced in her previous books.  Her latest offering, Faithful Place, showcases this talent the best.  Frank Mackey grew up in a violent, alcohol-fueled house in Faithful Place.  He and his childhood girlfriend, Rosie, knew that the only way they could escape to a better life would be to take the ferry to England and not look back.  When Rosie doesn’t meet him on the planned night, he assumes she has left him, so moves on with his life and becomes a policeman.  Now an undercover police who still stays away from Faithful Place, Frank finds himself back in his childhood territory when Rosie’s suitcase, and then remains, are found in the house where they were supposed to meet that fateful night.

More of a psychological exploration than a mystery, French continues to gain strength as a writer with each book.  From bitter sibling rivalry that has never disappeared, to the long but never forgotten memories of a first love, French uses classic themes to draw her characters out.  My review for French's first book, In the Woods, can be read at http://tcpl.org/sarah/2007/07/36-in-woods-by-tana-french.html

18. This Must be the Place by Kate Racculia

When Arthur Rook’s wife, Amy, dies in a freak accident on the movie set she is working on, he suddenly realizes how little he knew about his mysterious wife.  Searching through her belongings, he stumbles across a shoebox full of childhood memorabilia and a cryptic postcard to her best friend, Mona, which Amy never sent.  Arthur flees Hollywood and his confusion about losing his young wife, to the quaint upstate New York town of Ruby Falls, where Amy grew up.  Hoping to learn more about his wife, he moves into the boarding house run by Amy’s childhood best friend, Mona, and her teenage daughter, Oneida, who are themselves mysteries in their hometown because Mona has never disclosed who Oneida’s father was after she and Amy ran away as teenagers and Mona came back to town with an infant. Arthur soon realizes that maybe childhood secrets aren’t meant to be exposed.

In this debut novel by Racculia, a writer who grew up in Syracuse and uses the area in her book, Amy’s world is slowly uncovered by everyone who knew her.  The truth about who Oneida’s parents are is easy to guess, but doesn’t distract from the story.  Through vivid characters that you grow attached to you, this quirky yet complex novel perfectly explores grief, love, humor, and hope and makes readers wish Racculia would write more in the years to come.

17. Dead Like You by Peter James

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is finally moving on with his life.  His wife, Sandy, disappeared ten years ago, and he has fallen in love again and is about to be a father for the first time.  Life is suddenly going smoothly, until a series of brutal rapes take place in Brighton that are very similar to rape cases he was working on right before his wife went missing.  In 1997, one of the victims was never found, and Roy always thought that the rapist accidently committed murder, but could never prove it.  Could the new cases help him finally solve the decade old case?

As with James’s other novels, Dead Like You is full of fast pacing, action, and intrigue.  The thriller moves easily between the past cases and the present cases, effectively building up drama.  Although a long book, readers easily get caught up with the cases and the pages fly by.  An international bestselling author from England, Peter James deserved to be better known to US mystery readers.

16. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philp K. Dick

An influential post-apocalyptic novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was written in 1968 and was the basis for the cult classic 1982 movie Blade Runner, by Ridley Scott.  Set in San Francisco in 2021, World War Terminus has left the planet devoid of almost all life except for humans and some pets.  The ownership of pets is highly coveted by the remaining humans, and extremely expensive, so many turn to owning electric animals.  Richard Deckard owns one of those electric animals, and is also a bounty hunter called to “retire” androids that have escaped from Mars and have returned to Earth.  Since the androids have become increasingly like humans, Deckard must use skillful questioning to determine if they have empathy, one of the last traits that distinguishes humans from androids.  The novel offers readers a reflection on the meaning of human life, the role of artificial intelligence, our responsibility for the environment, and what is real or artificial.