New in Paperback
”Rebel Island,”By Rick Riordan
Bantam Books ($6.99 paperback, 330 pages)
It’s just a measure of how well endowed the mystery bookshelves are at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library that I am just now getting to read anything by Rick Riordan, a New York Times bestselling mystery author from my old stomping grounds of South Texas.
When the new library opened up, I reveled in the old books — S.S. Van Dine, Brett Halliday — that used to be hidden away in the stacks.
That’s my excuse for not being up on the latest mystery bestsellers, and I’m sticking to it.
But I’ve clearly missed some fun, because this latest Riordan opus has enough twists and action and interesting characters to definitely make me want to go back and peruse his previous work in the Tres Navarre private eye series.
In this case, Tres Navarre has officially given up his private investigation business to work as a full-time faculty member at the University of Texas at San Antonio (whence my nephew graduated — he’s now a Texas State Trooper). And Tres has just married his so-pregnant-she’s-ready-to-pop lawyer girlfriend, Maia, who happens to be a Chinese American.
50 States of Literature, Adventure, Bestsellers, Mystery, New in Paperback, Review, Suspense
“The Black Hand: A Barker & Llewelyn Novel,” by Will Thomas
(2008, Touchstone, 289 pages, $14, paperback)
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At last, I find a new story and cast of characters after my own heart — albeit with a Sicilian dagger.
This is the fifth in a series of historical mysteries set in England in the 1880s. The heroes, Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn, would have been contemporaries of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson (no relation to yours truly, although that happens to be the same name as my father, and my grandfather was a doctor — of veterinary medicine). Also, Barker and Llewelyn bear a surface resemblance to the venerable duo.
But while Holmes shows his remarkable mental acumen (e.g., concluding people’s activities from pet hair on a pant-leg) regularly throughout a story, Barker, who plays the lead sleuth in this series, spends much of this story, at least, teaching his apprentice, Llewelyn, about the sociology of London’s underworld.
And that’s just fine with me.
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Adventure, Historical Fiction, Mystery, New in Paperback, Review, Suspense, Uncategorized
“Spook Country,” by William Gibson(2007, Penguin Group, 373 pages, $15, paperback)
I confess that I’m one of many people who have not read William Gibson’s first novel, “Neuromancer,” so I had little more than the cover art and blurbs on which to build preconceptions when I sat down to read this book.
“Neuromancer,” according to Wikipedia, is one of the seminal works of cyberpunk science fiction, some of which I’ve enjoyed very much.
But “Spook Country” is not science fiction. In fact, it more resembles highly tech-oriented noir.
The book begins with a former rock musician — still famous in the story — named Hollis Henry, who is trying to get started as a journalist. In her first big assignment, she visits the scene of River Phoenix’s death with an artist who asks her to don a visor that looks like a welder’s face-guard. She then sees a three-dimensional virtual-reality recreation of Phoenix’s death scene.
This brings us into the concept of linking virtual reality with global positioning systems, creating the possibility of somehow inhabiting a world that is not at all what it seems.
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”Indiana Jones and the White Witch,” by Martin CaidinBantam Books (paperback, 1994, 329 pages).Those of you who saw my review (which you can see HERE) of a previous installment in this series of adventures based on the George Lucas-Steven Spielberg movies may remember that my standards aren’t very high.
I don’t ask for much.
Just don’t bore me.
This one failed on that score.
Btw, these paperbacks were reissued this spring to capitalize on the latest movie.
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”Shinjuku Shark”By Arimasa Osawa
Translated by Andrew Clare
Vertical Inc.
Paperback, $14.95
285 pages
Both my kids have taken four years of Japanese under “Irigashi Sensei” at White Station High School, and I sincerely hoped I would like this book, the first English translation of a series of police procedurals that are extremely popular in Japan.
I do like the characters and the story, but the translation has serious problems.
The Shinjuku Shark is the nickname of the book’s hero, Samejima, a rogue, loner cop who won’t kowtow to his go-long-to-get-along superiors in the Japanese police hierarchy.
He has a beautiful rock singer girlfriend, Sho, who seems to be poised to launch into stardom.
The plot involves a gay, sadistic maker of illegal firearms and a mysterious serial killer who targets young police officers.
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“Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates”
By Martin Caidin
First published December 1993, Bantam reissue April 2008
Paperback, $6.99
311 pages
Just in time for this week’s release of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” Bantam has reissued a series of adventure novels based on the George Lucas movie character.
I came across five of them in what could be called the “slush pile” of books considered inauspicious candidates for reviewing in TheShelfLifeBlog.com.
I’d had my fill of reviewing books outside my reading “comfort zone,” and wanted something I was pretty sure to enjoy — at least not to actively dislike.
My modest expectations were not disappointed by this book by an accomplished British aviator whose earlier novel, “Cyborg,” was developed into the “Six Million Dollar Man” and “Bionic Woman” TV series.
2 Comments
Books on Film, Historical Fiction, Mystery, New in Paperback, Review, Science fiction, Suspense
“American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America”By Chris HedgesCopyright 2006Free Press
Paperback, $14
274 pages
The sentence that’s key to understanding this Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter’s book appears on the last page of the new paperback edition, which is actually part of an interview of the author that appeared Jan. 8, 2007, in Salon.com:
“I don’t know how much it’s apparent, but it’s an angry book.”
That it is.
But it’s not particularly informative about the link between the Christian Right and the “fascist shift” described in Naomi Wolf’s “The End of America” (see my review here).
The vast majority of Hedges’ book describes the various ways in which pillars of the Christian Right condemn the left, the independent woman, the homosexual, the Muslim — and exploit the poor, the female, the old and the non-white.
In this, Hedges is, ahem, preaching to the choir, I think.
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BSI-Starside: Final Inquiries
By Roger MacBride Allen
Bantam Spectra, 2008
Paperback, $6.99
421 pages
If you’re looking for something light, not too disturbing, that combines police procedurals with speculative science fiction, this may be worth picking up.
“Final Inquiries” seems to be the second in a series about a couple of “space-cops,” as it were, in an organization called the Bureau of Special Investigations, which has the duty of looking into crimes involving humans outside of the Earth system and those that involve interactions between humans and alien intelligent beings.
Allen is the spouse of a U.S. Foreign Service operative, and he uses that experience to build interesting details into this particular work, involving high-stakes interstellar diplomacy and death.
The human heroes of the story are Hannah Wolfson, the senior BSI agent, and Jamie Mendez. (Romance isn’t really a factor in this story.)
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First sentence: It was Edwin who wanted to build a new house.
Love affairs, architecture, fame, feminism, scandal, arson, murder, despair. The true-life story of the ill-fated love between Mamah Borthwick Cheney and famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright is so rich with sexy topics it’s hard to believe it’s barely more than a footnote in most Wright biographies.
It’s even harder to believe it took so long for a writer to mine the story for a novel, but Nancy Horan does it beautifully in her debut work, ”Loving Frank.”
The book took seven years to research and write, and Horan’s meticulous fact-finding and storytelling was rewarded with a spot on the New York Times Bestseller list and an interest from book clubs when it was only out in hardcover. With the release of the paperback today, it will likely become the next book club favorite.
While much is known about Frank Lloyd Wright — his genius, his flamboyance and his ego — Horan chooses to tell the story through the perspective of Mamah Cheney, an intelligent, well-educated woman who embraced feminism and was not content to idly watch her life float by in the genteel Chicago suburb of Oak Park in the early 1900s.
This we know is true: Mamah (pronounced MAY-muh) and Edwin Cheney commissioned a house from Wright. As it was being constructed, Mamah and Wright fell in love. They each abandoned their families — he with six children and she with two — and lived together in Europe for awhile. Edwin Cheney divorced Mamah, but Wright’s wife, Catherine, refused to believe it was more than a fleeting affair and would not grant a divorce. When they returned to the states, they set up house on the Wright family land near Spring Green in Wisconsin. Here is where Wright would build the famous Taliesin for Mamah, and where she would die a few years later at the hands of a crazed, disgruntled worker, who set fire to Taliesin and axed those trying to escape.
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Readers have reached for Anne Lamott when they wanted to learn to be a better writer (”Bird by Bird”), when they needed help — or just a laugh — when parenting (”Operating Instructions”), and for thoughts of faith.
“Grace (Eventually)” is Lamott’s third book that details her sometimes painful, sometimes humorous journey through Christianity (”Traveling Mercies” and “Plan B” are the others). Always frank and personal, sometimes angry, sometimes quirky, her essays are plain and simple, and refreshingly honest.
This third installment finds a mellower, more forgiving Lamott, who says she no longer hates President Bush, who she railed against in “Plan B.” If you didn’t pick up the hard cover — I know a lot of devotees buy her stuff as soon as it’s published — the paperback is out today.
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