The Forsaken -- Ace Atkins

One of the dangers of following any writer for any length of time is running up on that inevitable book that misses the mark, sometimes just by a hair. You can forgive this, of course, because no matter what it is a person does, nobody doesn't have an off day. It was with a certain level of trepidation, therefore, that I cracked open The Forsaken, the new Quinn Colson novel by Ace Atkins.

In order to finish this one last night I shooed my husband out to the picture show. Finish it, I did. I thought better of writing my review last night, because I really needed to think through what I could say about it that would make you want to read it.

I've had a good night's sleep, and now, in the light of morning and two strong cups of coffee into the day, here's what I have to say about it.

Oh. My. Stars. In. Heaven.

How does Ace do this?

How does he consistently make his well-limned characters even more interesting every single time?

If you're waiting for Ace to trip over his own success, you're going to have to keep waiting, folks.

Sheriff Quinn Colson is compelled to investigate what appeared to be a closed case from 1977, one in which two young girls were brutalized, and one of the girls was killed. A man was hanged by a lynch mob for that crime, but now survivor Diane Tull has come forward to say that her assailant was not the man who was hanged all those years ago.

Quinn soon meets with plenty of tightly locked lips, and a growing realization that his father may have been a member of the motorcycle club who was responsible for the unjust hanging.  The leader of that club, Chains LeDoux, is still so feared that his imminent release from prison has series bad-guy Johnny Stagg practically begging for help from Quinn.

All of this sets up a mighty powerful and moving story about how hard, and how necessary, it is to make past wrongs right.

If that's not enough, The Forsaken made me fully appreciate how strong Ace Atkins' women characters are, strength that comes from a place of quietude and necessity. That he stays well clear of making these women caricatures of the Steel Magnolia variety is even more remarkable.

Oh -- and it appears Atkins has introduced a new and, I hope, recurring character who should provide even more interesting plot developments down the road.

If you have not yet read any of Atkins' Quinn Colson novels then you now have your summer reading list. Start from the beginning. (The Ranger, The Lost Ones, and The Broken Places)

Trust me.

A very, very solid ***** of ***** 

Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken

I hate when reading slumps happen. Last time I had one, I quit even trying to find a book that would grab me. Once it became clear I was in a slump this time I determined I was not going to let that happen.

The stack of books I started and tossed aside may have upset the delicate balance of my home's foundation. I'm not listing those books, because when I'm in a slump I can't ever be sure if it's a me thing or a them thing, and it wouldn't be fair to be dismissive if there's not really a good reason to do so. (And you know how much I like to wreck a book that has it coming.)

My coworker suggested that a collection of short stories might help. This is where I need to say that while I do enjoy the occasional short story upon which I stumble, I have never been a particular fan of collected short works by a single author. I don't know why. I'm not proud of it or anything. It just is whatever it is.

On her suggestion, though, I brought home Elizabeth McCracken's Thunderstruck & Other Stories, and as with most collected works by one writer, I found some of the stories to be just wonderful and rich and full, and others to be more on the meh end of the scale. In some fashion, all of them have to do with losses --what we do to work them into something that will remain in some way, and how much more we stand to lose if we allow ourselves to be defined by them.

The title story was so good it will resonate with me for a long, long time, for it spoke of crazy hope and perception stained by love and guilt, and it was as fine as any short story I've ever read.

I've considered carefully how to assign a star rating to this one. I didn't read every story through, which makes this something shy of a read book. Rating it, therefore, doesn't feel like the right thing to do...but go back and read that last paragraph. Nobody writes a story that good who is not a fine writer.

What can I say? I own this blog and I can change my rules whenever I want.

Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot - Ace Atkins

This is going to be one of those short and sweet reviews. Ace Atkins' Robert B. Parker novels are just a pure-tee treat, and this 42nd in the series (Atkins' third) was just perfect for a week filled with book signings at the store, and a sudden, mostly inexplicable but very welcome cleaning frenzy.

I particularly like this one because Hawk was back, although it is fair to say that Z is growing on me as well. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you just need to take yourself to school (or your local indie bookseller) and find out.

A much-in-the-headlines New England Patriots football player (who spent his college career at Auburn University, a nod to Atkins' storied past) is as tough as they come.... until his son is kidnapped. Spenser has not a thing to go on, but it's not long before he's getting grief from every corner from the Pats organization to local law enforcement and the FBI, and the suspects begin to stack up.

There aren't many writers who can make me crack up out loud even when nobody's in the room, but Atkins does.  One of my favorite passages....

I had to park nearly a half-mile away because of the news crews and onlookers, sports fanatics and nutcases. Not to mention the probably assortment of Hare Krishnas, Moonies, and those who follow Glenn Beck. 

Here's the only complaint I have about this book, and it's a weird one. I do not know the name of the font used (and I looked for it), but the Q's that are used are godawful, an irritant made worse because of a character in the story whose name starts with that. I wish I could describe it, but let's just say it made my eyes hurt. 

I'm giving this one **** out of ***** stars, mainly because of that Q. I'm going to have nightmares about that thing. 

Remember Me Like This - Bret Anthony Johnston

Justin Campbell was kidnapped four years before this book opens. Laura, his mother, and Eric, his father, have chosen different coping mechanisms that help them avoid the weight of his absence, at least often enough to give them the energy to be parents to Griff, Justin's little brother. Even so, the empty place in their home, and in their hearts, makes getting by an act of will. Johnston crafts this dreary, weighted existence with subtlety, and makes the reader an active voyeur. 

When Griff is found and returned to his family, no longer an 11 year old child, but a strapping teenager, the family discovers that in the place of expected peace is a cloying sense of circling one another lest the re-balancing act in which they are engaging begins to fall to pieces. 

Johnston doesn't overplay any of this, to a fault at times. As a mother, I identified, sometimes viscerally, with Laura, but the most poignant character in this novel is Griff.  He's spent 4 years being the brother of the Boy Who Went Missing, which comes with a certain degree of celebrity. He's managed to begin carving out his own identity when Justin comes home, and he's now the brother of the Boy Who Came Home. 

This wasn't a flawless novel, but it was a most thoughtful and thought-provoking one, in which the strength of a family, one depicted with great authenticity,  is pushed to its limits. 

3.75 out of *****

 

Believing the Lie -- Elizabeth George

I was never a fan of Nancy Drew nor the Hardy Boys when I was a kid. I don't know why mysteries didn't appeal to me then, but it was an aversion to which I'd remain devoted for many, many years. It lasted until I was planning a weekend away in New Orleans, and I asked the owner of the bookstore--an avid fan of mysteries--to recommend something of that genre to me to read.

She handed me Elizabeth George's A Great Deliverance and I was hooked. I devoured every other book in her Thomas Lynley series as quickly as I could get my hands on one (except for What Came Before He Shot Her, a pass many of her other faithful readers took as well). When Believing the Lie came out I was in the early months of what would become a very long reading slump, but even when I began to emerge from that a few months ago it's heft (just over 600 pages) gave me pause. When you stop reading for whatever reasons there may be, you really do have to recondition your mind and your attention span, and I wanted to feel ready to take it on before taking it on. 

I was fixin' to head out on a vacation weekend with a bunch of my girlfriends when I finally picked this one up, but I had a bad feeling about it. My history with books and vacations is not good. Oddly enough, I never have been much of one for reading when I'm away from home, because I am distracted by the excitement of being anywhere but here.  I wondered whether taking a book from an author who commands attention be paid was a kiss of death, but turns out I did just enough reading during my days away to keep me in the story, and when I got home I zeroed in. I finished it this morning while my granddaughter watched Frozen for the thousandth time (and no, I'm not a bad grandmother... it's raining outside so we'd have been watching cartoons anyway).

The various books in this series have always been a bit uneven. I like the books best where Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers are front and center. I find Deborah St. James to be a pill most of the time, and have tended to be bored by her husband Simon, but they come in handy, I'll admit. All the skaters were on the ice this time, and each of them had a big role to play in one of George's most convoluted offerings yet. 

The setup is that Lynley's been asked to take an unofficial look into the suspicious drowning death of the well-placed Ian Cresswell. He enlists the help of the St. James', as neither of them are part of Scotland Yard and can do as they please with their time. Havers gets involved on the sly, per Lynley's request. From this spring so many subplots that I felt I was reading a fireworks display at times.... and yet each of them held my attention.  

Every character in Believing the Lie has something they are hiding from others and, most importantly, from themselves. It is true that there was way too much candy for a nickel in this story, but George kept me interested in every side story and character. My biggest complaint is that when the ends began to get tied up, they did so too quickly and neatly. I would not have minded a few Susan Hill like dangling threads, quite frankly, even though the book did end with an emerging mystery that I know to be taken up in the next one in the series.  And yes, I'll be reading that after I finish physical therapy to fix the sore muscles in my neck and back, put there by holding this book in my hands for so long. 

3.5 out of 5 stars

Books to Go?

Here's a true thing about me. 

I almost never travel anywhere, but when I do, I find I do very little reading unless it's on in the car on the way (a problem if I'm driving, of course) or on the plane from Point A(tlanta) to Point W(herever), so I don't really spend much time selecting books to take with me. 

Maybe I should explain that when I do go someplace it's usually for a purpose that involves being with a whole lot of people with whom I usually don't get to spend time in person, so there's not much down time for propping my feet up and diving in to a book.

In fact, so lousy am I at reading on vacation that as best I can recall, all but one book that I ever taken along with me on a trip was ever even finished and I never went back to read anything else by those authors. To wit: I took a Carl Hiaasen on a trip many years ago, got halfway through, got busy, put it down, never picked it up again. EVER. Likewise, Ann Patchett's Bel Canto.... which was crazy, as I had read every single thing she'd ever written hot off the presses and adored them all, but it got bit by the vacation bug.  I'm so, so sorry. 

The only book I can recall taking along on a vacation and actually reading was this one, and if you care to read my review, here 'tis.  

Well, here's my current dilemma. I'm playing catch up with Elizabeth George right now, just about 100 pages into Believing the Lie, which, as you fans of George know, means I've hardly scratched the surface. There is no way I can finish it before I leave later this week with so many things left I have to do to get ready, so while most folks stress over wardrobe and luggage options and flight confirmations, I'm stressing over whether to put this down now or keep it up and take it along with the hope that I'll be so far into it that I can finish it on the flight. 

As the young people say, I believe we file this one under First World Problems. 

The Starter House - Sonja Condit

One of my favorite review blogs is Whimpulsive. The woman who writes it encouraged me to start my own several years ago, and encouraged me again recently when I was trying to decide whether to strike it back up after a hiatus. What I most admire about her is how disciplined she is about it, how she is willing to try new things with it, how unmarried she is to her format when she decides to change things up. She's quite prolific in her reading: she adores the printed word, but also plugs in to audio books, downloads books to her not-an-Amazonian-monopoly-product, and is an unapologetic fan of graphic novels as well. Her tastes are eclectic. I've had the honor of turning her on to a couple of my favorite southern writers, and she's more than returned the favor when she's "sold" me on an author I might have been avoiding.

I'm inspired to mention her today because I sometimes find myself wanting to be even briefer than usual when reading a book about which I'm lukewarm, or one of the older titles I grab when there's nothing new or forthcoming begging to be read. The Starter House by Sonja Condit is a pretty good book to begin to employ that same strategy.


I might mention that I'm also *cough* sort of copying a couple of Whimpulsive's headers, which are actually two bits of information I think are always interesting. I'm the least creative person I know, but I'm very good at giving credit where credit's due. Plus, she lives way too far away from where I live to hurt me.

Why I Read This Book:  The author was a writing student of a friend of mine, a fact he pointed out to me when I was wondering what I might read next.

What the Jacket Tells You About the Story (in paraphrase): Newly expectant parents Lacey and Eric Miszlaks have been hunting for their first home when they come across exactly the sort of place Lacey has dreamed of, "Triangles...Gables. Dormer windows." Even their realtor tries to dissuade them from buying it by uttering the words, "People died here."

Well, there's your sign... especially when she offers up no further explanation... because inexplicably, the prospective buyers don't bother to press for details. Really? And when a creepy little boy begins insinuating himself into Lacey's life -- only Lacey's, mind you, not anyone else's -- I did a bit of time-traveling back to every creepy movie I ever saw where I spent too much energy yelling, DON'T GO UP THE STAIRS at actors who couldn't hear me.

There were at least three very good Shirley Jackson-ish short stories in this novel. It is my considered and singular opinion that they should have stayed in their separate corners, because mixing them together watered each of them down.

Ms. Condit did write a very readable scary story, though, and for those who don't mind being able to anticipate each twist and just want something a little creepy, this one will do just fine.

** of ***** 

(Click on the stars if you want to read about my very loose, non-scientific, sometimes not very consistent rating system.)