4 Recommended Books
This is a first: 4 incredible books in a row; I’m on a literary roll. Here’s a brief summary of each:
· When Will There Be Good News? By Kate Atkinson. You may recall several years ago I called her book, Case Histories, one of the best books I had read in some time; it still remains one of the top 5 of the last 5 years. Jackson Brodie and Det. Louise Mason are back, on a case that began 30 years ago with the slaughter of an entire family…..except one, the daughter, who is now missing. Atkinson makes me laugh out loud with her descriptions: Gil from CSI: Las Vegas—“he walks like a bear wearing a nappy.” Taking place in Scotland, it takes you all over the place—where the heart lies, where humor tempers, and where fear and mystery ride side saddle.
· The Black Tower by Louis Bayard. An incredible historical fiction writer, Bayard wrote one of the finest examples of this genre with The Pale Blue Eye, about Edgar Alan Poe while he was at West Point– a gripping mystery. Taking place in Paris in the mid-19th century, it “stars” the real-life first modern detective: Vidocq. The essential question is: what really happened to the son, a mere boy, of Marie Antoinette, Louis-Charles? Did he die in the Black Tower, or did he escape through the efforts of his doctor and a mystery “helper”? Was the 10 year old smuggles out and has Vidocq and a young medical student found him, 20 years later, and who does not want him found…if indeed it is he? If you have ever been to Paris, you will love the descriptions of its streets, parks, life. You must read through to the very last page. Gripping to the end.
· The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti: I love Dickens, so if you do, too, dive in. 12-year-old Ren is missing his left hand, which leaves him “unplace-able” at St. Anthony’s Orphanage, but a stranger/con man arrives and snaps him up, and together they go on a perfect PBS journey through the New England of the mid-19th century. Shakespearian in his characters—scan artists, grave robbers, and petty thieves—it is a delightful romp. This is an author to watch; I learned about the book in The New Yorker.
· Wolf to the Slaughter by Ruth Rendell: Along P.D. James, Ruth Rendell is one of the grande dames literary mystery writers, and this is a race of a read. CI Wexford is back, a party girl is missing, there is a bloody room but no body….and off she goes. She is psychic in the way she reads her characters’ minds and gives us psychological insights into human motivation. She is always the perfect “airplane” book to read. You will be riding the wave mystery till the very end.
