In this instalment of the "alphabet mysteries" series, Grafton's fiesty PI heroine, Kinsey Millhone, is hired to more or less babysit the wayward daughter of a rich old man. Reba Lafferty has served nearly two years in prison for fraud and her dad is worried that she'll violate the terms of her parole if he someone doesn't keep an eye on her.
Kinsey doesn't realize that when she takes this job, she'll be drawn, by her liking for Reba and by her own curiosity, into a chain of events that is beyond her control, as Reba tries to pick up the threads of her past and exact revenge on a man who has betrayed her.
While I found this book enjoyable and entertaining, I don't think it stands out as one of the best in the series. The main player in this story is Reba, and Kinsey's detection skills are not put to much use as she is swept up into Reba's maelstrom. I hope Kinsey gets to flex her PI muscles a bit more in the next book, S is for Silence.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Divorcing Jack by Colin Bateman
One look at the cover of this book and you know you're about to read something a little bit different. On a bright red background stands a nun pointing a gun straight at you, a Jack Russell terrier cradled in her free hand.
In this, Colin Bateman's first novel, we meet:
Dan Starkey, a strangely likeable journalist with a drinking problem, a reputation for off-the wall social commentary, and a tendency to do very stupid things on impulse, only realizing (and dealing with) the consequences later - preferably by lying his way out of the situation.
Patricia, Dan's wife, who has spent a great deal of time rearranging Dan's face in between joining him in drinking and partying hard, but who is thinking it's time for the relationship to mature.
Margaret, a sexy seductress who puts Dan's marriage on the rocks and causes a wee bit of trouble for him in other areas of his life.
Patrick "Cow Pat" Coogan, a mean ex-convict and terrorist, who got his start cattle rustling, has many other mean fellows at his beck and call, and has taken bit of a dislike to Dan.
All these colourful folks meet and change the course of Dan's life against the harsh and vivid backdrop of Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the height of the "Troubles". It's a gritty, fast-paced novel, which offers a serious depiction of the cruel reality of living under threat of terrorism and yet at the same time it's one of the funniest books I have ever read. You know when you read in book reviews (the real kind, you know) that a writer has a "fresh and original voice"? Here's a case where that is actually true. I leave you with a few choice passages from this wonderful novel.
In this, Colin Bateman's first novel, we meet:
Dan Starkey, a strangely likeable journalist with a drinking problem, a reputation for off-the wall social commentary, and a tendency to do very stupid things on impulse, only realizing (and dealing with) the consequences later - preferably by lying his way out of the situation.
Patricia, Dan's wife, who has spent a great deal of time rearranging Dan's face in between joining him in drinking and partying hard, but who is thinking it's time for the relationship to mature.
Margaret, a sexy seductress who puts Dan's marriage on the rocks and causes a wee bit of trouble for him in other areas of his life.
Patrick "Cow Pat" Coogan, a mean ex-convict and terrorist, who got his start cattle rustling, has many other mean fellows at his beck and call, and has taken bit of a dislike to Dan.
All these colourful folks meet and change the course of Dan's life against the harsh and vivid backdrop of Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the height of the "Troubles". It's a gritty, fast-paced novel, which offers a serious depiction of the cruel reality of living under threat of terrorism and yet at the same time it's one of the funniest books I have ever read. You know when you read in book reviews (the real kind, you know) that a writer has a "fresh and original voice"? Here's a case where that is actually true. I leave you with a few choice passages from this wonderful novel.
I sat down ... and began sorting through her record collection. She had maybe fifty albums. A lot of Van Morrison, some Bob Dylan. A worrying series of Status Quo records. There was a Chris Rea album which was also a bit of a minus. I preferred diarrhoea; it wasn't very enjoyable either, but it didn't last as long and you could read a good book at the same time.
(Dan orders a taxi...)
It arrived within five minutes. A middle-aged woman was driving, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.
"Starkey?" she asked, her voice an angry rasp.
I nodded. "That's me." I climbed in. The back seat was thick with dog hairs.
"That's some fuckin' crap you write in the paper."
"Thanks."
"Mind you, the husband loves it."
"Good."
"But then he's a stupid fucker."
"I see."
"But not stupid enough to drive a fuckin' taxi, that's for sure."
"No."
"Not that stupid to know he's onto a winner by gettin' me to drive the fucker 'cause he's scared of getting topped."
"No."
As we turned onto Great Victoria Street she wound down her window and spat. Not so much a question of Finishing School as never having finished school. She was maybe forty. Gnarled-looking. She wore a creamy-white cap-sleeved t-shirt that revealed a blotchy tattoo: the letters UVF, only her arm was so thin that the F was lost round the horizon and all you could really see was UV, like she was advertising a sunbed. Her hair was wild and greasy, tinged red. Or maybe it was the world's first nicotine-stained hair.
(Dan, running from some unsavory characters bent on foul deeds, notices a passing car coming to a halt...)
The car door was unlocked. I pulled it open. A nun sat dwarfed behind the wheel, resplendent in brown and cream.
I said, "In God's name help me."
She gave me a look that was more Armalite than Carmelite and said: "Fuck off."
There was a sudden crack and a bolt of pain shot up my leg; I fell back from the car clutching at a hole in my jeans. I grabbed hold of the car door and swung myself up before I touched the ground. I tumbled into the passenger seat.
"Drive," I said. I held my hand up to the nun. It was soaked in blood.
"Jesus Christ," she said and threw it into first. "What did I do to deserve this?"
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
housekeeping
I'm doing some work this week to "polish" the look of this blog. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the new template!
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Megan shoved this book at me while I was trudging along with Sons and Lovers, and told me I "had" to read it. This isn't the first time she's done this with a Cornelia Funke novel - last year, she bought a copy of Dragon Rider with a bookstore gift certificate, and urged me to read it for months before I finally picked it up. I'm pleased to see that, in spite of her current manga obsession, Megan still has a knack for choosing well-told children's fantasy novels.
Inkheart is the story of Meggie, a twelve-year old bookworm, and her father, Mo, a book restorer. If you have ever wondered what it would be like if characters from a book came to life and tried to live in the real world, you'll want to read this book, as that is exactly what Meggie learns about during the course of this exciting story. In fact, Meggie discovers that her father has a very special book-related ability (aside from restoration) that affects the lives of quite a few people, both real and fictional.
I found this book quite as good as any adult fantasy novel. The story is fast-paced, the villians are evil and quick-witted, the protagonists are brave but real. The book was a bit slow to pick up - Megan felt that nothing really happened for the first hundred pages or so - and there are places where the storytelling is a little uneven, dragging on a bit too much and I felt that the writing could have been tightened up somewhat. The wording is sometimes a little "off" too and I wonder if this is related to the book having been originally written in German; sometimes I felt the descriptions didn't quite ring true and that the characters' motivation was not 100% believable. (To be honest, I felt that one of the major characters, Elinor, should have been cut from the book altogether... she really didn't do anything to move the plot forward!) However, these passages were more than compensated for by the storytelling, which Funke excels at. Besides, I loved reading a book about a family even more obsessed with books than I am.
Inkheart is the story of Meggie, a twelve-year old bookworm, and her father, Mo, a book restorer. If you have ever wondered what it would be like if characters from a book came to life and tried to live in the real world, you'll want to read this book, as that is exactly what Meggie learns about during the course of this exciting story. In fact, Meggie discovers that her father has a very special book-related ability (aside from restoration) that affects the lives of quite a few people, both real and fictional.
I found this book quite as good as any adult fantasy novel. The story is fast-paced, the villians are evil and quick-witted, the protagonists are brave but real. The book was a bit slow to pick up - Megan felt that nothing really happened for the first hundred pages or so - and there are places where the storytelling is a little uneven, dragging on a bit too much and I felt that the writing could have been tightened up somewhat. The wording is sometimes a little "off" too and I wonder if this is related to the book having been originally written in German; sometimes I felt the descriptions didn't quite ring true and that the characters' motivation was not 100% believable. (To be honest, I felt that one of the major characters, Elinor, should have been cut from the book altogether... she really didn't do anything to move the plot forward!) However, these passages were more than compensated for by the storytelling, which Funke excels at. Besides, I loved reading a book about a family even more obsessed with books than I am.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
At last! At last, I have finished the torturous process of reading this book. I remember reading it back in high school when I became interested in exploring classic novels, and at the time I thought it was dreary and awful. That feeling stayed with me so that when I saw it was assigned reading for the English class I am taking this semester, I almost wanted to drop the course. However, common sense won out, and I thought maybe a decade of life experience would help me to appreciate the book more.
Well, it sort of did and sort of didn't. I thought this book was pointless and uncompelling. Supposedly it's an important novel in many ways, but to me, the mark of a *good* novel is either a strong story, or compelling characters, presented with good writing. I guess I can grudgingly admit that "Sons and Lovers" has the last characteristic; I didn't find myself feeling any interest in the main characters or their lives (I mostly found them exasperating, or self-absorbed, or both), and I could barely discern any kind of plot here, so the story wasn't all that great, in my opinion. The saving grace of this book is the very fine writing, which made it bearable for me to keep picking it up and plugging away at it, page after page. I can't remember the last time it took me over a week to finish a novel; I certainly was aware of this as I read. You know you're in a desperate situation when you are constantly checking the page number of the last page of a book, and then counting how many pages are left to slog through before you're finally done.
So. This is the story of Paul Morel, an egocentric and excessively emotional young Englishman, and his relationships with his mother and two other women (the "lovers" of the title). To a lesser degree it is also a book about Paul's other family members and friends. It's set in a late nineteenth century coal mining town in the English midlands, and the activity of the coal mine is an ever-present backdrop to the events of the novel; as a sort of counterpoint, there are quite a lot of descriptions of the natural beauty of this part of England, which I enjoyed reading. The book is autobiographical, which made me particularly critical of the way Lawrence portrays the various secondary characters and the effect of their behaviour on Paul. Often it seems he blames the women in Paul's life for treating him in such a way that he can't grow or fully express himself. Picture me rolling my eyes here.
Nothing much happens in this book. Paul's parents go about their unhappy marriage, Paul is born, grows up, gets a job, tries to figure out if he wants to marry the two women to whom he is closest (aside from his mother) and ultimately -- well, I won't tell you how the book ends in case you ever read it, but remember what I said at the start of this paragraph! There were some very poignant moments here, and I can appreciate in a detached sort of way why so many people admire Lawrence's writing. Ultimately, though, having failed to really grab me or affect me deeply, this book is going back on the shelf with a fervent hope on my part that I can avoid having to write a paper about it before the semester is over.
Well, it sort of did and sort of didn't. I thought this book was pointless and uncompelling. Supposedly it's an important novel in many ways, but to me, the mark of a *good* novel is either a strong story, or compelling characters, presented with good writing. I guess I can grudgingly admit that "Sons and Lovers" has the last characteristic; I didn't find myself feeling any interest in the main characters or their lives (I mostly found them exasperating, or self-absorbed, or both), and I could barely discern any kind of plot here, so the story wasn't all that great, in my opinion. The saving grace of this book is the very fine writing, which made it bearable for me to keep picking it up and plugging away at it, page after page. I can't remember the last time it took me over a week to finish a novel; I certainly was aware of this as I read. You know you're in a desperate situation when you are constantly checking the page number of the last page of a book, and then counting how many pages are left to slog through before you're finally done.
So. This is the story of Paul Morel, an egocentric and excessively emotional young Englishman, and his relationships with his mother and two other women (the "lovers" of the title). To a lesser degree it is also a book about Paul's other family members and friends. It's set in a late nineteenth century coal mining town in the English midlands, and the activity of the coal mine is an ever-present backdrop to the events of the novel; as a sort of counterpoint, there are quite a lot of descriptions of the natural beauty of this part of England, which I enjoyed reading. The book is autobiographical, which made me particularly critical of the way Lawrence portrays the various secondary characters and the effect of their behaviour on Paul. Often it seems he blames the women in Paul's life for treating him in such a way that he can't grow or fully express himself. Picture me rolling my eyes here.
Nothing much happens in this book. Paul's parents go about their unhappy marriage, Paul is born, grows up, gets a job, tries to figure out if he wants to marry the two women to whom he is closest (aside from his mother) and ultimately -- well, I won't tell you how the book ends in case you ever read it, but remember what I said at the start of this paragraph! There were some very poignant moments here, and I can appreciate in a detached sort of way why so many people admire Lawrence's writing. Ultimately, though, having failed to really grab me or affect me deeply, this book is going back on the shelf with a fervent hope on my part that I can avoid having to write a paper about it before the semester is over.
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