Review: MRS POLLIFAX AND THE LION KILLER, Dorothy Gilman - audio book

• originally published in 1996, #12 in the Mrs Pollifax series
• available from Audible
• narrated by Barbara Rosenblat
• Length: 6 hours, 16 mins

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Part-time CIA agent Emily Pollifax accompanies her young friend, Kadi Hopkirk, to Africa on a mission to stop terrorists from disrupting the coronation of Sammat, Kadi's childhood friend, as the new king of Ubangiba.

My Take

Beneath the rather cozy exterior of this story are some quite serious considerations related to issues surrounding small African nations trying to establish their place in world affairs, and viable lives for their citizens, in the late 20th century.

Kadi Hopkirk is a reminder of the violent past of the improbably named Ubangiba for she is the daughter of white American doctors killed during a revolution. Sammat on the other hand is the overseas educated grandson of the old king. He once imagined that he could set up a democracy but finds that he is actually king-to-be.

The country of Ubangiba has been impoverished by megolomaniac rulers since Sammat's grandfather was assassinated and even now there is a group murdering people but making it look as if they have been killed by a lion. But there are no lions in Ubangiba. We are talking here of a population that still believes in witchcraft.

On the surface Emily Pollifax is an elderly woman, but, some years before, at the age of 60 she became a part time CIA agent, and she has rather Marple like qualities of observation.  Soon after their arrival young Kadi is attacked in the palace grounds, and, having survived that attack, she is abducted. Mrs Pollifax thinks king-designate Sammat is altogether too trusting of those around him.

My rating: 4.2

I have also reviewed #13,  4.0, MRS POLLIFAX, INNOCENT TOURIST

About the author
Dorothy Edith Gilman (June 25, 1923 – February 2, 2012) was an American espionage and mystery fiction writer. She was best known for the Mrs. Pollifax series. Emily Pollifax, her heroine, became a spy in her 60s and is very likely the only spy in literature to belong simultaneously to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the local garden club.

In 2010 Dorothy Gilman was awarded the annual Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.
She died in New York of Alzheimer's disease in 2012, aged 88.
More at Wikipedia.

Review: NORWEGIAN BY NIGHT, Derek B. Miller

• published by Scribe Publications Pty Ltd 2012
  
• ISBN 978-1-921844-88-1
• 305 pages
• source: library book

Synopsis (Scribe Publications, Melbourne)

Sheldon Horowitz — 82 years old, impatient, and unreasonable — is staying with his granddaughter’s family in Norway when he disappears with a stranger’s child. Sheldon is an ex-Marine, and he feels responsible for his son’s death in Vietnam. Recently widowed and bereft, he talks to the ghosts of his past constantly.

To Norway’s cops, Sheldon is just an old man who is coming undone at the end of a long and hard life. But Sheldon is clear in his own mind. He’d heard the boy’s eastern European mother being murdered, and he’s determined to protect the child from the killer and his Balkan gang. With an endearing combination of dexterity and daring, Sheldon manages to elude the police in what is hostile, foreign territory for him. But what he doesn’t know is that the police and the gang both know where he’s heading.

Norwegian by Night is the last adventure of a man coming to terms with the tragedy of his own life as he tries to save another’s. It combines laconic, deadpan humour, moral seriousness, visceral grief, and narrative tension in a remarkable way. An extraordinary debut, featuring a memorable hero.

My Take

Sheldon Horowitz's wife Mabel kept telling him in her last months that he had dementia. He certainly often confuses the past with the present, and sometimes it is hard to work out whether snippets of the past really happened or whether Sheldon just wanted them to happen that way.

His trek through Norway to what he sees as safety with a seven year old whose language he can't speak has a really cinematic quality; by that I mean I think this story would make a great film.

Sheldon lives with a lot of guilt. He couldn't tell Mabel, or anyone else what he did in the Korean War. He told her he had a clerk's job in the Marines, and he hid from her the medals he brought back. Similarly he feels responsible for his son Saul's death in the Vietnam war, believing he goaded him into a second tour of duty.

There's a lot to like about NORWEGIAN BY NIGHT. There's humour, but also some pretty serious assessment of the impact of war on those who fight as well as those left behind.

My rating: 4.6

Other reviews to check

• Scandinavian Crime Fiction 
• Crime Fiction Lover 
• The Game's Afoot
• The View From the Blue House

About the author
Derek B. Miller was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and has lived abroad for over fifteen years in Israel, England, Hungary, Switzerland, and Norway. His interest in fiction began a few years after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College.

Currently, Derek is the director of The Policy Lab and a senior fellow with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. He has a PhD in international relations from the University of Geneva, and an MA in national security studies from Georgetown University, in cooperation with St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. He lives in Oslo with his wife and children.

Review: PRIMAL, D. A. Serra

• Print Length: 224 pages
  
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1478198036
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Perry Street Pictures, Inc. (May 13, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.Kindle
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00839M7AQ
• Source: review copy supplied by author.
• Read an extract on author site

Synopsis (Amazon)

The writer who made you laugh with Punky Brewster, who made you cry with Just Ask My Children, will now make you cringe with PRIMAL. This story was originally purchased by one of America's most prestigious storytellers James Cameron.

What if the worst happens and you are not a cop, or a spy with weapons training and an iron heart? What if you're a schoolteacher - a mother? In this gritty crime thriller a family vacation takes a vicious turn when a fishing camp is invaded by four armed men. With nothing except her brains, her will, and the element of surprise on her side, Alison must kill or watch her family die. And then - things get worse.

My Take

Alison is just an ordinary Mum, an elementary school teacher in fact, who isn't much of an outdoors person, who would rather sit in an easy chair while her husband and son enjoy boating and fishing. But the Burne family put an end to those plans when they invade the fishing camp where Alison and her family are meant to be spending a few days.

The real tension in PRIMAL begins where most novels would wind the story up. Even so what happens initially to Alison and her family is horrifying enough to evoke Alison's primal instincts to protect her family. But then, perhaps a bit predictably, the horror isn't over, and Alison's primal instincts remain at the surface. Alison's husband and son are making a good recovery from their ordeal, but, just as clearly, Alison is not.

Perhaps, like me, your mind will come up with a scenario for the second half of the novel, but you'll  have to keep reading to see if you are right.

I'm not sure whether "enjoy" is the right word for reading a novel like PRIMAL. One review site I saw had it rated as "R". That seems a rather extreme reaction to me, but it certainly is a novel that requires the reader to make a personal response, to question whether their own primal instincts would surface in the same way under similar provocation.

My rating: 4.5

You might like to also read

• an author interview
• Book review: Buried Under Books

Visit Deborah Serra's website

Review: PAGO PAGO TANGO, John Enright

• published by Thomas & Mercer 2012
• ISBN 9781612185002
• 255 pages
• source: library book

Jungle Beat (Fantastic Fiction)
1. Pago Pago Tango (2012)
2. Fire Knife Dancing (2013)
3. To'Aga (2014)

Synopsis (Amazon) 

Detective Sergeant Apelu Soifua spent seven years in the San Francisco Police Department, where the job was just a job and solving crimes required cool detachment. But back home on American Samoa, life is personal—especially for a cop. Because on a small island where no one is a stranger and secrets are widely known but never discussed, solving crimes requires a certain…finesse.

Here, Apelu must walk the line between two cultures: Samoan versus American, native versus new. And that gulf never yawns wider than when a white family’s home in Pago Pago is burglarized. And what appears to be a simple, open-and-shut case turns out to anything but. As the evidence piles up, Apelu follows a tangled trail between cultures, dead bodies, hidden codes, and a string of lies on his hunt for the ugly truth buried at the heart of paradise.

My Take

I read this title as part of the 2013 Global Reading Challenge and through a suggestion made by Debra who follows my blog. I needed a book set on an island to complete my "7th continent" reading.

This book is set in American Samoa, on the island of Tutuila, at Pago Pago. PAGO PAGO TANGO is a police procedural, the first of a series centred on Detective Sergeant Apelu Soifua. The island is small, where every one knows everyone else. Samoan culture and values struggle to survive in the face of onslaughts by palangi (North American culture). Many of the traditional ways have already died, although Apelu can remember them being active when he was a boy, before his father took the family to San Francisco.

Now the Samoan economy is also struggling to survive and traditional goods have been replaced by a thriving drug trade. In reality the palangi are the controllers of the trade and the profits. Natural resources have been plundered and the fishing is almost gone. Serious crime like homicides are rare, but in PAGO PAGO TANGO a relatively unimportant burglary has connections with much more serious money making.

What is interesting about this novel is the way the author describes Samoan culture at every opportunity. The reader gets a look at Samoan traditions and past, contrasted with what it has become.

An interesting and instructive read, as well as being a tightly plotted novel.

My rating: 4.3

Other reviews to check

• Samoa News
• Mysterious Reviews
• Kittling Books

About the author

John Enright was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1945. After serving stints in semi-pro baseball and the Lackawanna steel mills, he earned his degree from City College while working full-time at Fortune, Time, and Newsweek magazines. He later completed a master’s degree in folklore at UC-Berkeley, before devoting the 1970s to the publishing industry in New York, San Francisco, and Hong Kong. In 1981, he left the United States to teach at the American Samoa Community College and spent the next twenty-six years living on the islands of the South Pacific. Over the past four decades, his essays, articles, short stories, and poems have appeared in more than seventy books, anthologies, journals, periodicals, and online magazines. His collection of poems from Samoa, 14 Degrees South, won the University of the South Pacific Press’s inaugural International Literature Competition. Today, he and his wife, ceramicist Connie Payne, live in Jamestown, Rhode Island.

Review: THE MADONNAS OF LENINGRAD, Debra Dean

• published by the Fourth Estate, London 2006
  
• ISBN 0-00-721505-3
• 228 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. An elderly Russian woman now living in America, she cannot hold on to fresh memories—the details of her grown children's lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchild—yet her distant past is miraculously preserved in her mind's eye.

Vivid images of her youth in war-torn Leningrad arise unbidden, carrying her back to the terrible fall of 1941, when she was a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum and the German army's approach signaled the beginning of what would be a long, torturous siege on the city. As the people braved starvation, bitter cold, and a relentless German onslaught, Marina joined other staff members in removing the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, leaving the frames hanging empty on the walls to symbolize the artworks' eventual return. As the Luftwaffe's bombs pounded the proud, stricken city, Marina built a personal Hermitage in her mind—a refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more. . . .

My Take

Note: this is not crime fiction: it is one of my ventures this year outside my preferred genre.

There are many things to like about this book: the insights it gives into the siege of Leningrad in 1941 and how it affected the population as their food stores were bombed by the Luftwaffe; its gentle treatment of Marina's oncoming Alzheimer's as her mind constantly interchanges the present with the past; the irony that a woman who had such a good memory decades before, who could mentally recreate the long galleries of the Hermitage museum where she worked, can now not identify her own daughter; the way Marina and her husband have never told their children of their war time experiences; and much more.

Even though it covers so much territory, this is not a long book. There is a startling clarity as Marina remembers the various Madonnas that hung on the walls of the museum, describing them in detail.

Most enjoyable. My rating: 4.6

Review: ICE COLD, Tess Gerritsen - audio book

• available from Audible
• Narrated by Tanya Eby
• #8 in the Rizzoli and Isles series
• Length 9 hours 51 minutes

Synopsis (author site)

In Wyoming for a medical conference, Boston medical examiner Maura Isles joins a group of friends on a spur-of-the-moment ski trip. But when their SUV stalls on a snow-choked mountain road, they’re stranded with no help in sight.

As night falls, the group seeks refuge from the blizzard in the remote village of Kingdom Come, where twelve eerily identical houses stand dark and abandoned. Something terrible has happened in Kingdom Come: Meals sit untouched on tables, cars are still parked in garages. The town’s previous residents seem to have vanished into thin air, but footprints in the snow betray the presence of someone who still lurks in the cold darkness—someone who is watching Maura and her friends.

Days later, Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli receives the grim news that Maura’s charred body has been found in a mountain ravine. Shocked and grieving, Jane is determined to learn what happened to her friend. The investigation plunges Jane into the twisted history of Kingdom Come, where a gruesome discovery lies buried beneath the snow. As horrifying revelations come to light, Jane closes in on an enemy both powerful and merciless—and the chilling truth about Maura’s fate.

My Take

I really haven't read enough Gerritsen titles in recent years. ICE COLD is a good reminder of what satisfying reads they are, often a mixture of murder mystery and thriller. The plot of ICE COLD moves seamlessly from setting to setting and the assured writing enthralls.

The point of view swaps from that of Maura Isles to that of Jane Rizzoli. The two stories effectively advance in tandem towards a stunning conclusion.

The narration is excellent but not intrusive.

My rating: 4.8

I've also reviewed THE SURGEON

Mini-reviews

THE MEPHISTO CLUB (4.6) and THE BONE GARDEN (4.6)

THE SINNER (4.8)
This is the novel immediately before 'Body Double'.  Not even the icy temperatures of a typical New England winter can match the bone-chilling scene of carnage discovered at the chapel of Our Lady of Divine Light. Within the cloistered convent lie two nuns–one dead, one critically injured–victims of an unspeakably savage attacker. The brutal crime appears to be without motive, but medical examiner Maura Isles’s autopsy of the dead woman yields a shocking surprise: twenty-year-old Sister Camille gave birth before she was murdered. Then another body is found mutilated beyond recognition. Together, Isles and homicide detective Jane Rizzoli uncover an ancient horror that connects these terrible slaughters. As long-buried secrets come to light, Maura Isles finds herself drawn inexorably toward the heart of an investigation that strikes close to home–and toward a dawning revelation about the killer’s identity too shattering to consider.  Also available as an abridged audio cassette, abridged audio CD, an abridged downloadable audiobook, an abridged downloadable audiobook and an eBook.

VANISH (4.5)
The last thing that Boston medical examiner Maura Isles expects to find in her morgue in a zipped up body bag is a Jane Doe that is still alive. And the last thing that Boston police detective Jane Rizzoli expects to happen when she goes to hospital to have her baby is to become a hostage. When these two threads combine you have an explosive mixture.   

 

Series: Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles
1. The Surgeon (2001)
2. The Apprentice (2002)
3. The Sinner (2003)
4. Body Double (2004)
5. Vanish (2005)
6. The Mephisto Club (2006)
7. Keeping the Dead (2008)
     aka The Keepsake
8. Ice Cold (2010)
     aka The Killing Place
9. The Silent Girl (2011)
10. Last to Die (2012)

Review: THE LAST POLICEMAN, Ben H. Winters

• This edition published for Kindle 2012
• published by Quirk books 2012
• #1 of a pre-apocalyptic trilogy
• ASIN: B0076Q1GW2

Synopsis (Amazon)

Winner of the 2013 Edgar® Award Winner for Best Paperback Original!

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?

Detective Hank [Henry] Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.

The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?

Ebook contains an excerpt from the anticipated second book in the trilogy, Countdown City. 

My Take

How will people behave when the end is near?

THE LAST POLICEMAN depicts a world assessing what is important. Everyday in the city of Concord, Massachusetts, people are committing suicide, or going off to do whatever they've always wanted to do, or just not going to work.

Public infrastructure is collapsing. Fuel supplies are almost nil. There is no public transport, telephony is collapsing, there are very few cars on the road. Outside public buildings people hand out pamphlets urging citizens to pray. And all the time the asteroid gets closer. The exact location of where it will hit, and exactly what day are still unknown.

In the midst of it all Concord Police Department still functions although many crimes like drug possession are being overlooked. Henry Palace is CPD's newest employee and for him crime detection, particularly the investigation of homicide, is still important. And his bosses and colleagues humour him, although at times his persistence is infectious.

So when Peter Zell is discovered dead in the toilets at the local MacDonald's Henry Palace sees signs that he believes indicate murder not suicide.

THE LAST POLICEMAN reminded me of the detective stories set on the battlefields of World War One. How important is it to solve a murder case when death is all around?

My rating: 5.0

Other Reviews to check

• Slate
• Lightsabers and Surfboards
• Ben Whitehouse

Check the author's website

Review: THE SOUND OF BROKEN GLASS, Deborah Crombie

• Published by William Morrow 2013
• ISBN 978-0-06-199063-2
• 359 pages
• #15 in the Duncan Kincaid / Gemma James series

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Scotland Yard detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James are on the case in Deborah Crombie's The Sound of Broken Glass, a captivating mystery that blends a murder from the past with a powerful danger in the present.

When Detective Inspector James joins forces with Detective Inspector Melody Talbot to solve the murder of an esteemed barrister, their investigation leads them to realize that nothing is what it seems - with the crime they're investigating and their own lives.

With an abundance of twists and turns and intertwining subplots, The Sound of Broken Glass by New York Times bestselling author Deborah Crombie is an elaborate and engaging page-turner.

My Take

The Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series is one I have dabbled in over the years. This is #15 and I have read maybe 8 of them. Each time I read a new one, I castigate myself for not having read them all. That's how much I enjoy them.

There are really three time frames in the novel. The main action is set in the present. A male body is found in a cheap hotel near Crystal Palace. Having established this is a murder Gemma James and her team set about establishing who the man is and how he came to be in the hotel. Less than 48 hours later a second murder occurs. It appears to be similar to the first, although it takes place in the person's home.

The common thread between the two appears to be a young guitarist who played at hotels that the two victims were seen at on the nights before they died.

The second time frame is the young guitarist at the age of 13, living as a latch key kid in Crystal Palace, and being bullied by kids from a public school.

The third time frame is really only a sliver - snippets about the original Crystal Palace appear at the beginning of each chapter.

Duncan Kincaid is taking a spot of parental leave while his wife Gemma James has taken on an acting DCI position. She has a new boss and it is important to her that this case of the double murders is successfully solved.

There's a human interest thread that gathers pace from one novel to the other in the series. One of the foci in THE SOUND OF BROKEN GLASS is Duncan and Gemma's foster daughter Charlotte. (I missed reading the title when she first came into their lives). Relationships form a solid background to the murder investigations, and serve to point out that these detectives are only human.

My rating: 4.4

• Read an interview with Deborah Crombie
•  Review at Reviewing the Evidence

Other reviews on MiP
4.8, WATER LIKE A STONE
4.6, NECESSARY AS BLOOD
4.7, WHERE MEMORIES LIE

Duncan Kincaid / Gemma James series (Fantastic Fiction)
1. A Share in Death (1993)
2. All Shall Be Well (1994)
3. Leave the Grave Green (1995)
4. Mourn Not Your Dead (1996)
5. Dreaming of the Bones (1997)
6. Kissed A Sad Goodbye (1999)
7. A Finer End (2001)
8. And Justice There Is None (2002)
9. Now May You Weep (2003)
10. In a Dark House (2004)
11. Water Like a Stone (2006)
12. Where Memories Lie (2008)
13. Necessary as Blood (2009)
14. No Mark Upon Her (2011)
15. The Sound of Broken Glass (2013)
16. To Dwell in Darkness (2014) 

Review: BAMBOO AND BLOOD, James Church

• Published in 2010 by Minotaur Books
• ISBN 978-0-312-60129-4-51399
• #3 in the Inspector O. series
• 294 pages
• library book

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

The critically acclaimed A Corpse in the Koryo brought readers into the enigmatic workings of North Korean intelligence with the introduction of a new kind of detective---the mysterious Inspector O. In the follow-up, Hidden Moon, O threaded his way through the minefield of North Korean ministries into a larger conspiracy he was never supposed to touch.

Now the inspector returns . . .

In the winter of 1997, trying to stay alive during a famine that has devastated much of North Korea, Inspector O is ordered to play host to an Israeli agent who appears in Pyongyang. When the wife of a North Korean diplomat in Pakistan dies under suspicious circumstances, O is told to investigate, with a curious proviso: Don't look too closely at the details, and stay away from the question of missiles. O knows he can't avoid finding out what he is supposed to ignore on a trail that leads him from the dark, chilly rooms of Pyongyang to an abandoned secret facility deep in the countryside, guarded by a lonely general; and from the streets of New York to a bench beneath a horse chestnut tree on the shores of Lake Geneva, where the Inspector discovers he is up to his ears in missiles---and worse. Stalked by the past and wary of the future, O is convinced there is no one he can trust, and no one he can't suspect. Swiss intelligence wants him out of the country; someone else wants him dead.

Once again, James Church's sparse, lyrical prose guides readers through an unfamiliar landscape of whispered words and shadows, a world wrapped in a level of mystery and complexity that few outsiders have experienced. With Inspector O, noir has a new home in North Korea, and James Church holds the keys.

My take

This book and I didn't easily rub shoulders. I found the "sparse, lyrical prose" hard to read and the action hard to sort out.  Eventually, just over half way through, things began to jell, but even so I am not sure that, most of the time, I knew what was happening.

I kept feeling that I was missing out on understanding some events and references because I have not read the first two books in the Inspector O series (see the list of titles below).

Inspector O is sent to join a North Korean delegation conducting negotiations in Geneva. The delegation resents his presence and he is given a cryptic message to pass on, but he never sees his orders in writing. This all adds to the mystery of what he is supposed to be doing, and, for me at least, confusion about the various threads of the plot. I guess I could probably make more sense of it all, if I read the book again, but the inclination is not there. What is clear is that a number of people in Geneva believe Inspector O. is a very influential member of the North Korean secret service, but others are constantly suggesting he should go home.

The book gives a depressing view of North Korea in winter 1997-8, where food is scarce.

The next morning, we were in my office, and Pak seemed a little ill at ease. It wasn't unusual these days. All of us were that way - a little at ease all the time. Bad stories were coming in from the country side. Here in the capital, people were disappearing from offices, food was scarce, heart was random, electricity was unpredictable and even when there was some, it didn't last very long. No one pretended things weren't bad, though we didn't talk a lot about it. The question was whether we would get through it.

North Korea is well equipped with military weapons and selling missiles appears to be the main purpose of the Geneva delegation. The Americans want some say in who these weapons are sold to. The situation gives rise to whether the North Korean rural population would not rather have food than the national security that the missiles provide.

This is one of those books that I really haven't enjoyed but the fault is probably mine.

My rating: 3.7

About the author

James Church is the pseudonym of the author of four detective novels featuring a North Korean policeman, "Inspector O".Church is identified on the back cover of his novels as "a former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia". He grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the United States and was over 60 years old in 2009.His "Inspector O" novels have been well-received, being noted by Asia specialists for offering "an unusually nuanced and detailed portrait" of North Korean society. A Korea Society panel praised the first book in the series for its realism and its ability to convey "the suffocating atmosphere of a totalitarian state". A panelist as well as The Independent's and the Washington Post's reviewers compared the protagonist to Arkady Renko, the Soviet chief inspector in Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park, for providing "a vivid window into a mysterious country".

Inspector O
1. A Corpse in the Koryo (2006)
2. Hidden Moon (2007)
3. Bamboo and Blood (2008)
4. The Man with the Baltic Stare (2010)

Review: TURN OF MIND, Alice LaPlante

• Published by Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2011
• ISBN 978-1-921758-42-3
• 305 pages
• Source: my local library

Synopsis (Amazon)

A stunning first novel, both literary and thriller, about a retired orthopedic surgeon with dementia, Turn of Mind has already received worldwide attention. With unmatched patience and a pulsating intensity, Alice LaPlante brings us deep into a brilliant woman’s deteriorating mind, where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse.

As the book opens, Dr. Jennifer White’s best friend, Amanda, who lived down the block, has been killed, and four fingers surgically removed from her hand. Dr. White is the prime suspect and she herself doesn’t know whether she did it. Told in White’s own voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these life-long friends—two proud, forceful women who were at times each other’s most formidable adversaries. As the investigation into the murder deepens and White’s relationships with her live-in caretaker and two grown children intensify, a chilling question lingers: is White’s shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it?

A startling portrait of a disintegrating mind clinging to bits of reality through anger, frustration, shame, and unspeakable loss, Turn of Mind is a remarkable debut that examines the deception and frailty of memory and how it defines our very existence.

My Take

This is the second of two books chosen by my book group for our current read. (The other is BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP by S.J. Watson which I read last year.) Both books deal with memory loss but that is where the similarities really end.

Dr. Jennifer White is an a retired orthopaedic surgeon struck down by Alzheimer's at a relatively young age. The story is told primarily through a journal in which Jennifer and those who care for her or visit her record the events of the day. The other main "voice" is Jennifer's own mind as it reacts to the people who visit her, whom she doesn't always recognise, and the conversations that take place around her.

Through Jennifer's recollections of her adult life we are able to piece together details of her marriage to her husband James and their relationship with the couple, Amanda and Peter, who lived just 3 houses down.

From time to time Jennifer's world is peopled with family members and friends who have long "gone", and at times she thinks she is much younger, still working in a busy practice, while at others she is troubled by mistakes she made. The events in the journal make the reader aware of changes in Jennifer's circumstances as she is moved out of her home and into a care facility. Her children visit with motives not always driven by concern for her.

Through the persistence of Detective Luton who is investigating the death of Amanda the reader is eventually led to an understanding of what happened.

This is crime fiction because a murder appears to have taken place, but the focus of the story is less on the crime than on what has happened to Jennifer's mind, and on the deterioration still continuing. I suspect for many who have family members stricken with Alzheimer's it will come very close to the bone. The unusual structure of the novel is very effective.

My rating: 4.5

Other reviews to check

• Bernadette @ Reactions to Reading
• Maxine @ Petrona

Review: MURDER IN A BASKET, Amanda Flower

• published by GALE CENGAGE LEARNING 2012
• ISBN 978-14328-2567-4
• 281 pages
• Source: my local library
• India Hayes mystery #2

Synopsis (author website)

College librarian India Hayes thought the worst thing about the Stripling Founders’ Festival was her pink gingham pioneer dress until she discovered the body of a free-spirited basket weaver on the festival grounds.
The basket weaver leaves behind an angry blacksmith husband, a confused adopted son, greedy siblings, a dysfunctional artists’ co-op, and a labradoodle with a two-million-dollar trust in his name.

Despite the wrath of her college’s provost and protests by handsome police detective Rick Mains, India finds herself playing sleuth as well as foster-owner to the two-million-dollar dog. With her own eccentric family commenting from the sidelines and her Irish-centric landlady as volunteer sidekick, India must discover the truth before she has a permanent canine houseguest or ends up the next victim in the basket weaver’s murder.

My Take

A tightly plotted comical cozy with threads and quirky characters that connect it to the author's debut mystery novel MAID OF MURDER and that ensure there is plenty of scope for #3 in the series.

Librarian India Hayes can't help herself. If there is a mystery she is drawn to investigate it, and a murder is irresistible. There are plenty of reasons, two million dollars worth in this case, why someone would have murdered basket weaver Tess Ross, but in the long run I was caught surprised. For most of the book I thought the perpetrator was pretty obvious and that India was just being thick. The police predictably arrest the wrong person. In the long run India gets it right.

A light enjoyable, sometimes fluffy, read. If you like comedy with your murder you'll like this, possibly a bit more than I did (I like mine a bit more noir).

My rating: 4.0

About the author

Author's website 
 
India Hayes Mystery #1 MAID OF MURDER was a 2010 Agatha Award Nominee for Best First Novel.
Amanda Flower is an academic librarian for a small college near Cleveland. She also writes mysteries as Isabella Alan.

Review: KINGDOM OF STRANGERS, Zoe Ferraris

• Published: Little, Brown UK 2012
• ISBN 978-1-4087-0365-6
• 313 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Amazon)

A secret grave is unearthed in the desert revealing the bodies of 19 women and the shocking truth that a serial killer has been operating undetected in Jeddah for more than a decade.

However, lead inspector Ibrahim Zahrani is distracted by a mystery closer to home. His mistress has suddenly disappeared, but he cannot report her missing since adultery is punishable by death. With nowhere to turn, Ibrahim brings the case to Katya, one of the few women in the police department. Drawn into both investigations, she must be increasingly careful to hide a secret of her own.

Portraying the lives of women in one of the most closed cultures in the world, award-winning author Zoë Ferraris weaves a tale of psychological suspense around an elusive serial killer and the sinister forces trafficking in human lives in Saudi Arabia..

My Take

According to the police in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has never had a serial killer, but now it appears that at least one has been operating for over ten years. For the police hierarchy it is a matter of shame that such activity has gone undetected, but the clue to that is in who the victims are. It helps explain why no connections have been made. But then the murderer makes a mistake and a disappearance is reported within hours of it happening.

The situation of women in Saudia Arabia is one with which Zoe Ferraris is very familiar but it will shock most Western readers. Katya Hijazi is a scene of crime technician, although she has ambition to to become a police detective, and the restrictions on her because she is a woman are an enormous barrier that she fights constantly. She is about to marry and her husband-to-be is both horrified and in awe of the work she takes on. It doesn't stop him being complicit in her activity.

There are two main stories: the one of the 19 bodies, and the other is the disappearance of a woman who has been working for the police undercover and has become involved with Inspector Ibrahim Zahrani. Katya attempts to help Zahrani find out what has happened to his mistress.

I was probably a little less shocked than some readers will be by the restrictions imposed on women in the name of religious purity in Saudi Arabia, mainly because I have experienced some at first hand when visiting Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia is a much more restrictive place than the United Arab Emirates, but even so in Abu Dhabi you get a glimpse of what might be.

Zoe Ferraris translates the reader very successfully into a very non-Western culture. If you can, read this series in order. There is a lot to take in and you'll get much more out of the sequential story of Katya Hijazi and Nayir Sharqi.

• Read an excerpt from KINGDOM OF STRANGERS.
• Zoe Ferraris' website

My rating: 4.7

I've already reviewed:
4.8, THE NIGHT OF THE MI'RAJ (aka FINDING NOUF)
4.8, CITY OF VEILS 

Review: GONE GIRL, Gillian Flynn

• source: a Christmas Gift
• Published by Crown Publishers (Random House) 2012
• ISBN 978-0-307-58836-4
• 419 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

 Marriage can be a real killer.
One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed that her work “draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.” Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit and deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge.

Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?
As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

With her razor-sharp writing and trademark psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.

My Take

The first focal point of GONE GIRL is the disappearance of Amy Elliott Dunne on the morning of their 5th wedding anniversary, with husband Nick later unable to satisfactorily explain where he was between just after breakfast and noon when he turned up at The Bar which he owns with his sister Go.

The novel is narrated alternately by Nick and Amy and between them they fill in the details of their backgrounds, courtship, and marriage, their loss of their jobs as journalists in New York as a result of the 2008 financial meltdown, their move to Nick's home town to assist with caring for his parents, both critically ill. Nick's narration basically begins with Amy's disappearance while much of Amy's story is told through a diary she has written. It is quite late in the book before the two time frames catch up with each other.

Gillian Flynn says "You might say I specialize in difficult characters. Damaged, disturbed, or downright nasty."
Just how damaged and nasty the main characters in GONE GIRL are, including Amy's parents, psychologists who have written a best-selling series of nauseous children's books about Amazing Amy, is revealed as the narration progresses, and the tension mounts.

Has Nick Dunne killed his missing wife? What amazed me was how successfully the author manipulated my opinions and how I swung like the proverbial pendulum.

Of course there is more to the novel than this but my lips are sealed.
Was it a good read? Well yes, particularly when it makes a few wayward turns, and has an ending that probably no reader would predict.
It isn't the best book I'll read in 2013 I'm sure, but it's not a bad start to the year.

My rating: 4.8

Another review to read: Reading Matters
Comments by the author on Amazon
Author's website