Whale Rider

Ihimaera, Witi. Whale Rider. New York: Harcourt. 1987. Print.

First Sentences:

In the old days, in the years that have gone before us, the land and sea felt a great emptiness, a yearning.


Description:

This first sentence in Witi Ihimaera's Whale Rider perfectly exemplifies what the book will bring to each and every reader: a dreamy tone, a personification of powerful elements, and an intriguing concept that those elements are somehow feeling unfulfilled. There is the teasing hint that this story will poetically describe the reasons behind the feeling of the land and sea, the journey to address this sadness, and the resolution, whatever that might be.

I was grabbed immediately by the writing. It reads as if you were eavesdropping on the retelling of an oral history of an ancient folk legend that was a key part of the Maori people and culture of New Zealand. I just settled into a comfy chair, curled up, and let myself be absorbed by the rich narration and the musicality of the Maori words sprinkled in. It seemed a privilege to overhear this story from the words of a master storyteller like Witi Ihimaera.

The sea had looked like crinkled silver foil smoothed right out to the edge of the sky....This was the well at the bottom of the world, and when you looked into it you felt you could see to the end of forever.

The story outlines two narratives. One, of the current life of the people of the coastal village of Whangara, New Zealand. It is guided by its ancestral leader, Koro Apirana, and his granddaughter Kahu. The second parallel story recounts the legend of Kahutia Te Rangi, the ancestral Whale Rider, who could talk with animals and, while astride the back of a huge bull whale, rode from the ancient grounds of Hawaiki to settle Koro's village of Whangara. The Whale Rider is said to return someday to re-establish the Maori culture that is fast being lost in the modern world.

The village leader, Koro Apirana, a descendent of founder Kahutia Te Rangi, is concerned that there is no male heir to take over his leadership role and preserve the Maori traditions. Only Kahu, his granddaughter and a girl, is a direct issue of his blood. But as a girl, Koro feels she is ineligible to fulfill that blood destiny. He rejects her love, bars her from his school where he teaches boys the Maori knowledge, and prays that his son and wife will give birth to another child, this one a male.

But Kahu has boundless love for her old Paka grandfather and sneaks around outside the school to learn for herself the Maoi lessons before being run off by Koro. She has a sensitivity to her environment and even seems to be intricately tapped into the Maori culture.

Maybe you saw the 2002 movie, Whale Rider, based on this book. While it's a visually stunning depiction of this story. But as is the case with every movie-from-a-book, the written tale is vastly superior. The details, conversation sprinkled with Maori words, the reverence for the legends, and the power of internal thoughts makes the book deeply involving. Still, I highly recommend watching the movie after reading the book as it gives viewers a beautiful image of the people, events, and elements. And hearing the Maori language spoken is wonderful.

I highly recommend this book for his poetic style, its familiarization of Maori culture, and its strong depiction of a people striving to understand the world and people they live with while trying to remain true to the ancient traditions and history of their culture.

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Goldsberry, Steven. Maui, the Demigod: An Epic Novel of Historical Hawaii   

Retelling the story of the Hawaiian gods, from the history of Maui, the Trickster. (Disclaimer: I met author Goldsberry in Hawaii while he was writing this, so wanted to give his fine book a plug. I found it a fascinating storytelling and a highly informative read. FR)

 

New Teeth

Rich, Simon. New Teeth. New York: Little, Brown 2021. Print.

First Sentences:

I am me own master and commander. I serve no king and fear no God. I would sooner cut a hundred throats than heed one order from a living man. When I strike, I take no quarter, for there be no mercy in me heart, just cold, black ice. Me cutlass is me only friend.


Description:

Bold words indeed from a dastardly pirate, in the opening story of  Simon Rich's wonderfully funny collection, New Teeth. This character, Captain Black Bones the Wicked, and his first mate, Rotten Pete, come across a three-year-old girl left onboard a ship they had just pillaged. They reluctantly agree to look after her (rather than have her walk the plank which Black Bones preferred), and soon find themselves going against the philosophy they hold most dear: they take demanding orders like "Up" from the girl. Of course, there is treasure to be pursued, but since only the girl can barely read, she must teach them a few letters to comprehend the treasure map. In return, naturally they teach her to say "Arrgh" a lot and whistle with her fingers, while the two pirates argue over parenting techniques. Loopy, crazy, and delightfully unexpected.

Each of Rich's stories is similarly fetching, such as:

• The narrative from a laser disk player about the past good times he experienced with his owner trying to woo girls, to the present and his looming obsolescence to a DVD player and an iPad;

• A tough-talking three-year-old detective trying to solve the mystery of his baby sister's missing unicorn doll;

•  A woman who was raised by wolves, but now leads a normal life...except on Thanksgiving when her wolf parents are invited to dinner;

• The psychologist who rescued and is now studying David Merrick, the "Elephant Man," now begins to fear his wife and Merrick are falling in love;

• An incredibly naïve and innocent Babe Ruth joins his first minor league team and tries to understand baseball, fearing he has made mistakes like when he hit a ball and it exploded, or when he missed the cutoff man and threw the ball so hard from centerfield on a fly to the catcher that it knocked the man over.

Simon Rich has become my new go-to author of unpredictable, laugh out loud (hate that expression, but here it is true) situations, people, and dialogue. Really? A toddler talking in Philip Marlow's hard-bitten noir detective speak? A pirate who gives his peg leg to a child as a doll which she in turn names "Peggy"? An escaped experimental 12' tall half-man, half-gorilla who saves his city from alien attacks, is given a medal, and then forced  into a desk job? A screenwriter who becomes cursed to listen to the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack with his child and pretend to be the beast every minute they are together?

I can't wait to read more of Rich's work, and wonder why it took hearing a random NPR reading of one of his stories to clue me in on this creative writer. He's written for Saturday Night Live, The New Yorker, and Pixar, and is the creator of the television series, Man Seeing Woman and Miracle Workers based on his books. He even won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Where have I been all this time?

Anyways, please give New Teeth or any of his other short story collections a try. Quirky? Yes. Unexpected? Always. Laughable? Of course. Thought provoking? Yes, yes, and more yes. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Rich, Simon. Hits and Misses.   

Although I have not yet read this, it is the collection of short stories that won him the 2019 Thurber Prize for American Humor. Got to be great, so I've reserved it and it's now waiting for me to be picked up at the library. Can't wait to delve into his unusual mind.

 

West with Giraffes

Rutledge, Lynda. West with Giraffes. New York: Lake Union. 2021. Print.

First Sentences:
 

...I'm older than dirt. And when you're older than dirt, you can get lost in time, in memory, even in space. I'm inside my tiny four-wall room with the feeling that I've been...gone. I'm not even sure how long I've been sitting here.

Description:

 

Lynda Rutledge's West With Giraffes is delightful, compelling, romantic, and thrilling novel rooted in actual historic events. The novel depicts a cross-country journey from New York City to San Diego, California during the Great Depression, transporting two giraffes in a small truck. Rutledge brilliantly re-imagines that trip, backing up her narrative with historical news articles which documented the journey at that time and described the fate of the giraffes to the very interested public. 

 

On September 21, 1938, a hurricane hit New York City. Besides the usual destruction, the storm damaged nearby cargo ships, one of which, the SS Robin Goodfellow, was transporting two giraffes, Miraculously, these animals survived, although they had been abandoned as dead during the storm by the freighter's crew when the crates housing them were crushed.

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, now 105 years old, remembers that day and storm as the start of his adventure with the animals, and thus serves as the novel's narrator. As a 17-year-old orphan, Nickel had fled with Dust Bowl dryness of Texas where his family had died. He landed in New York City only a few weeks before the hurricane hit.

 

The giraffes, judged to be healthy after the storm, still need to be transported to the San Diego Zoo in California. Head Zoo Keeper, Riley Jones, gently talks and strokes the crated animals onto the make-shift truck that young Nickel stows away on. He is familiar with animals and, once he is discovered, is given the job of driving the truck and caring for the animals during the long trip.

Along the way, they pick up a young red-haired woman photographer interested in documenting this unusual journey. The giraffes had caught the nation's attention as hurricane survivors, so any accounts of their health and travels, she felt, would be major news.

Of course, the journey is full of surprises. Traveling across America in an old truck with two gangling giraffes was a sight to see for the people of every small town they pass through. And these gentle giants bring a sense of peace and quiet to Riley, Nickel, and Red, the photographer, as they meander over the back roads.

 

But they are pursued by men with more evil intentions. Percival T Bowles, a cruel circus ringmaster, and Cooter, owner of a decrepit roadside animal zoo, both want the giraffes for their own profit. It's up to Riley, Nickel, and Red to thwart these baddies.

 

West With Giraffes is a wonderful read, full of unexpected events, gentle (and not so gentle) characters, descriptions of life during The Depression, and the calming power of  two gigantic beasts on the people and world they encounter. Need a great, quiet, adventurous, can't-be-put-down read? Here's your answer. Highly recommended.

 

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Helfer, Ralph. Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived

True story of seven decades in the life of a remarkable elephant and the boy who bonded with him, from the giant's early life as a circus attraction, to his survival and  rescue of the boy during the sinking of a boat, to his work in teak forests and eventual stardom in an American circus. Simply a great read.

Go As a River

Read, Shelley. Go As a River. New York: Spiegel & Grau 2023. Print.

First Sentences:

He wasn't much to look at. Not at first, anyway.


Description:

It's an intriguing title to Shelley Read's debut novel: Go As a River. In this compelling story of a young woman's life in the tiny town of Iola, Colorado in the late 1940's and beyond, this phrase pops up to describe a way to survive and continue living:

I had tried...to go as a river, but it had taken me a long while to understand what that meant. Flowing forward against obstacle was not my whole story. For, like the river, I had also gathered along the way all the tiny pieces connecting me to everything else, and doing this had delivered me here, with two fists of forest soil in my palms and a heart still learning to be unafraid of itself.

Victoria Nash, a seventeen-year-old girl, lives with her father, uncle, and younger brother on their generational peach ranch, serving the men in her family and helping with the crops after the deaths of her mother, aunt, and older brother in a auto accident five years earlier. She has no dreams of another life or the world outside her home and nearby woods until a young stranger drifts through town...and she is smitten.

God will bring two strangers together on the corner of North Laura and Main and lead them toward love. God won't make it easy. 

The consequences of her love for this outsider drive the remainder of the story as she leaves her home and family to be with this young man. But soon the reality of life in that era intrudes on the couple's world and both young people and their lives are forever changed.

 

That's all I will reveal of the compelling plot. But please know this is a very special tale of choices, survival, love, and family as seen through the narrator's (Victoria's) eyes and senses. She is passionate about her family and the natural world that surrounds her, and works to nurture and preserve both by whatever means available to her strength and determination. Her voice is true and strong, whether describing her surroundings or contemplating her doubts and obstacles she faces in her present and future life.

The old house smelled like only old houses do, like stories, like decades of buttery skillet breakfasts and black coffee and dripping faucets, like family and life and aging wood.

This is completely Victoria's story, although other major characters are depicted with skill and honesty by author Read. It is a dreamy book in some ways, but always under laid with the reality of the challenging world surrounding this young girl and her later adult years.

I was completely caught up in Victoria and her world, her intense will to survive as well as her heartfelt doubts about whichever road she decides to take. read's prose is simple and clear as the orchard and woods Victoria inhabits, exactly setting the tone on both innocence and gritty determination.

He would teach me how true a life emptied of all but its essentials could feel and that, when you got down to it, not much mattered outside the determination to go on living. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Doig, Ivan. The Whistling Season.   

A young, mysterious woman takes on work as housekeeper to a man and his sons on a small Montana farm. Along with her brother, she ingratiates herself into the family and community with long-reaching affects. Narrated by one of the young sons, it is a highly descriptive, delightful story of the people and events in a rural town. Absolutely one of the best books I have ever read. Highest recommendation.  (previously reviewed here)

 

Our Missing Hearts

Ng, Celeste. Our Missing Hearts. New York: Penguin. 2022. Print.

First Sentences:

The letter arrives on a Friday. Slit and resealed with a sticker, of course, as all their letters are: Inspected for your safety --- PACT. It had caused confusion at the post office, the clerk unfolding the paper inside, studying it, passing it up to his supervisor, then the boss. But eventually it had been deemed harmless and sent on its way. No return address, only a New York, NY postmark, six days old. On the outside, his name -- Bird -- and because of this he knows it is from his mother.


Description:

Seems like almost every week lately I have come across a new book that makes my top 10 all time list. Such was the case with Celeste Ng's Our Missing Hearts, a story that often hints at out current fearful society today in America and its repercussions on the people who must bend their lives to accommodate restrictive rules, government, and even neighbors intolerant of anything not patriotic or accepting of their new world.

You see, 12-year-old Noah (Byrd) Gardner lives in the United States under the laws created and enforced for the past ten years by PACT (The Preserving American Cultures and Traditions Act). These patriotism laws were overwhelming enacted in response to the worldwide Crisis, an international depression with joblessness, poverty, inflation, and ensuing riots. It was determined, without evidence, to have been brought on by the Chinese government and its people.

The Three Pillars of PACT: Outlaws promotion of un-American values and behavior: Requires all citizens to report potential threats to our society. Protects children from environments espousing harmful views.

Therefore, PACT forces everyone to promise allegiance, support, and love for the American government, while ostracizing anyone not meeting these goals in action or speech. Neighborhood Watch groups are everywhere, seeking out dissident opinions of actions and, if found, intensively questioning (or removing) the suspects. 

Children can be forcibly taken from homes of parents determined to be a bad influence and relocated to more suitable couples, never to be allowed to communicate with their biological parents. There are no protests of this action by parents since any questioning would contribute to the suspected parents' anti-PACT leanings, risking the real possibility that the children might never be returned.

Bird's mother had left him and his father three years earlier, never letting him know she was leaving and never corresponding with him until this note. It was a mysterious single sheet of paper without any words, filled with multiple drawings of cats and a tiny cupboard. 

Margaret, Byrd's mother, was a noted poet who had written the line "All our missing hearts" in one of her obscure poems. With these words, she had inadvertently created a slogan, a rallying phrase, that was taken up by an underground anti-PACT network. Her words appeared scrawled on walls, on signs, and other locations as the network tried to raise awareness of the seized children.

Margaret, despite knowing nothing about this loose organization, chooses to leave her home and go into hiding, protecting her husband Ethan and son who must now disavow all ties to her, her and especially her writing to insure Byrd (now called Noah) is not taken from his father as an "unsuitable influence."

With this new note, however, Noah takes on the challenge to find out more about his mother and hopefully locate her. 

Along the way, we read of Margaret's backstory, her life with Ethan, her word-loving husband and Noah's father, and the life she chooses to pursue while in hiding. Along with other notable friends, enemies, and "citizens" looking for any misstep by neighbors, Our Missing Hearts is both a gripping and heartfelt story, one filled with seeming hopelessness against a government of fear, and yet containing  a glimmer of hope from individuals trying to survive and make a difference in a twisted world.

Yes, yes, yes, I would recommend this book. It's a mystery, a warning, a breath of hope, and a gripping tale celebrating family strength. It's a book of friendship and secrets, fanaticism and consequences. But most of all, it is a deeply personal tale of perseverance toward achieving personal goals in order to understand one's self and the world, and how those two fit together now and in the future. Highest recommendation.

  

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Orwell, George. 1984.   

The classic and still important story of a totalitarian society and one man who tries to fight back.

 

She's Come Undone

Lamb, Wally. She's Come Undone. New York: Washington Square Press 1992. Print.

First Sentences:

In one of my earliest memories, my mother and I are on the front porch of our rented Carter Avenue house watching two deliverymen carry our brand-new television set up the steps. I'm excited because I've heard about but never seen television. The two men are wearing work clothes the same color as the box they're hefting between them. Like the crabs at Fisherman's Cove, they ascend the cement stairs sideways. Here's the undependable part: my visual memory stubbornly insists that these men are President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon.


Description:

Wally Lamb's debut novel, She's Come Undone, follows Dolores Price, a challenging narrator to say the least, from age four until early adulthood. She has more than her share of obstacles in life, including a father who deserts her to start a new life and family elsewhere; a mother who plies her with sweets and junk and eventually is admitted to a mental institution; and a strict grandmother who ends up raising her. Dolores deals with her world cynically and judgmentally from the confines of her bedroom until her depressed eating brings her weight to over 270 pounds. Although she is accepted into a college, this is her mother's dream, not hers, and she is reluctant to attend.

 

She does meet and retain several acquaintances and eventually a husband who assists her mentally and later financially. But really she meets the world alone, on her terms, and confidently chooses her own pathways.

Sounds depressing, huh? Well, it can be. But honestly, you just have to pull for Dolores amid all her troubles, both those inflicted on her by circumstances as well as those she pursues willingly to disastrous ends. You just have to stick with her and see how she can find a way to pull herself into the woman she has inside her, buried under layers of cynicism, doubt, fear, and false confidence.

 

Lamb is a captivating writer, a master of inner stream-of-consciousness narration, dialogue, and insightful depictions of characters. He keeps you reading page after page to see what new dilemma or person will come into Dolores' life that she will have to examine (often superficially), judge (usually harshly), and react to (angrily). Lamb makes readers feel the conflicts, fears, and hope of Dolores with every situation she finds herself thrown into.

I was fully invested in Dolores and this book for its honest presentation of a young girl coming of age, trying to find herself, and confronting the world and people she faces. It's a modern re-imagining of The Catcher in the Rye, but with a female lead who reveals herself and her angst much more clearly and empathically, in my mind, that Holden Caulfield ever did. 

[P.S. For another great coming of age novel, please read one of my favorites, Brewster by Mark Slouka (see below)]

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Slouka, Mike. Brewster.   

My favorite coming of age book with four remarkable, memorable characters who loosely bond together and battle against their personal struggles as teens. A fine successor to The Catcher in the Rye. (previously reviewed here)

The Librarianist

DeWitt, Patrick. The Librarianist. New York: HarperCollins. 2023. Print.

First Sentences:

The morning of the day Bob Comet first came to the Gambell-Reed Senior Center, he awoke in his mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon, in a state of disappointment at the face of a dream interrupted.


Description:

For fans of books about slightly crusty, interesting, but lonely men such as found in A Man Called Ove, here's a much better story (in my opinion): Patrick deWitt's The Librarianist. Of course, I might feel that way simply because the protagonist, Bob Comet, is a former librarian and also because I did not really enjoy reading Ove.

But The Librarianst is a very compelling story with likeable, quirky, unpredictable characters. And this book made me gasp out loud with two words at the end of one section. That's a real rarity for me. You'll have to read it yourself to get those words, but believe me, you won't miss them or fail to be caught completely unprepared for their revelation and implications.

 

Comet, a retired librarian, lives alone after his wife ran off with his best friend decades ago. He enjoys walking aimlessly around his hometown until one day, in a convenience store, he notices an elderly woman staring into a stand-up freezer window, motionless for many minutes. He talks to her without any response before noticing a tag she is wearing around her neck. Her name is Chip and she is a resident of a nearby eldercare home.

 

When Comet walks her back to her home, he is met by a small group of residents and staff who intrigue him right from the start. He wants to know them more and begins volunteering to work in the center, reading and interacting with the people there, however they will let him. 

The book then jumps back to provide a narrative of Comet's early life, why he became a librarian, his marriage, future plans, and disappointments, before returning to his present day life with the senior center's inhabitants.

To be hurt so graphically by the only two people he loved was such a perfect cruelty, and he couldn't comprehend it as a reality. He learned that if one's heart is truly broken he will find himself living in the densest and truest confusion.

One cannot help but like Bob, feel a bit sorry for him, praise his attempts to reach out to the residents and staff, and begin a new life that fills the void he has been feeling since his wife left. He is good guy, a caring person. 

But what the future has in store for him and the residents of the senior center is completely unforeseen, at least to me, especially after those rwo unexpected words. The unknown is what drives the book's narrative and my consuming interest in Bob Comet and company.

 

I really liked it and the characters, odd as they might be, and feel many other readers might respond to Bob Comet and company in a like manner. Hope you enjoy this gem.

Part of aging, at least for many of us, was to see how misshapen and imperfect our stories had to be. The passage of time bends us, and eventually, it tucks us right into the ground.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Jonasson, Jonas. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.   

An old man decides, on the spur of the moment, to escape his senior living home and take to the road. Within minutes, he mistakenly grabs a gangster's suitcase full of money. Chased by the mob and helped by various quirky friends, he has the adventure of a lifetime ... until he slowly reveals his previous adventures experienced in his century of living. (previously reviewed here)

 

Girl in Ice

Ferencik, Erica. Girl in Ice. New York: Scout Press 2022. Print.

First Sentences:

Seeing the name "Wyatt Speeks" in my inbox hit me like a physical blow. Everything rushed back: the devastating phone call, the disbelief, the image of my brother's frozen body in the Arctic wasteland.


Description:

I'm a big fan of intriguing storylines in novels and Erica Ferecik's Girl in Ice, comes through with just such a page-turning concept. 

Scientists in northern Greenland have discovered a young girl frozen in an icy crevasse, decide to cut her body out of the solid ice, and bring the ice block with her inside back to their outpost. They then slowly melt the ice cube surrounding her, shock her heart, and somehow miraculously revive her.

She is now somehow alive, living in the outpost, and actually speaking, although in an unknown language.

Enter the plea emailed to narrator/linguist Val Chesterfield to travel to the far north and attempt to communicate with the child. Val, while excited by such a unique challenge, is also hesitant. It is at this same Greenland outpost and under the same lead scientist that her twin brother worked until recently when he unexpectedly committed suicide.

Of course, Val takes on the challenge although she hates travel and is highly suspicious about the people and conditions to be found at the station. But attempting to communicate with this child is too much a temptation, so off she goes.

To find out what happens next, well, you'll just have to read for yourself. To say more on my part would ruin the anticipation, process, successes and failures Val finds in Greenland working with the child and the scientists. Suffice to say, if this brief plot outline, interests you, you won't be disappointed by the developments and the story unfolds to its unexpected, yet highly satisfactory conclusion.

  

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Harper, Kenn. Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo

At the turn of the century, arctic explorer Robert Peary brought back seven Eskimos (his words) to New York City. After a few weeks, only one survived, a young boy named Minik. His story of living the the New York City museum with his father's bones on display nearby, is fascinating, heartbreaking, and challenging on every page. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)

 

Man in the Queue

Tey, Josephine. Man in the Queue. New York: MacMillan. 1929. Print.

First Sentences:

It was between seven and eight o'clock on  a March evening and all over London the bars were being drawn from pit and gallery doors. Bang, thud, and clank. Grim sounds to preface an evening's amusement. But no last trump could have so galvanized the weary attendants on Thespis and Terpsichore standing in patient columns of four before the Terpsichore standing in patient columns of four before the gates of promise..


Description:

To me, there is nothing that beats a quiet police procedural murder mystery. I love the methodical, by-the-book process of tracking down a murderer using the only advantages a police force has: manpower and time.

For this her first mystery novel, author Josephine Tey begins simply with a large group of people standing in tightly-packed lines awaiting the opening of the cheap seats on the last night of a hit play. As the gates open and the line presses forward, one person, the titular Man in the Queue, slumps over and falls to the ground. Upon examination by others in the line, he is found to have a knife sticking out of his back and is, of course, dead. 

Alan Grant, London's chief inspector, has little to go on. The dead man has had all his labels torn from his clothes and nothing in his pockets ... except for a loaded revolver.

All Grant can do is try to locate the queue people standing near the victim, interview them, and hope they offer some means of identifying this dead man, and ideally help Grant find the killer. No easy task this, but Grant is the man for the job.

He is an unusual police figure in mystery literature. He is generally happy, well-dressed, sophisticated, and enjoys his work. So unlike the troubled, angry, brooding detectives often found in other criminal novels. 

And piece by piece, Grant gains small insights into the victim and the case, although he does follow some dead or misleading trails. The story involves romance, jealousy, secrets, and mansions. Tey even  provides Grant a chance go fishing, his deepest love, during a stakeout, giving the author a chance to wax eloquent:

The river babbled its eternal nursery-rhyme song at his feet, and the water slid under his eyes with a mesmeric swiftness.

Grant is the main figure of several other of Tey's mysteries, notably The Daughter of Time (see recommendation below). In that novel, Grant tries to unravel the true facts behind the actual historic case involving King Richard III and his alleged murder of his three nephews. But Man in the Queue is Grant's worthy introduction into the literary mystery world, and it's a solid case to challenge the inspector in his debut.

A police officer who was impressed with a hard-luck story, however well told, would be little use in a force designed for the suppression of that most plausible of creatures, the criminal.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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Tey, Josephine. The Daughter of Time.   

Probably my favorite and most unusual mystery stories ever. Alan Grant, police inspector, while laid up in a hospital recovering from an injury, researches the mystery of King Richard III and his reputation for murdering his nephews. Historical research, original documents, and records are examined by Grant to determine the facts and actual murderer, whether it be Richard or someone else. Absolutely fascinating and very highly recommended.

 

The Old Woman with the Knife

Gu, Byeong-Mo. The Old Woman with the Knife. Toronto: Hanover Square Press. 2013. Print.

First Sentences:

So this is what it's like on the subway on Friday nights. You feel grateful to discover space just wide enough to slide a sheet of paper between bodies stuck together like mollusks. You're bathed in the stench of meat and garlic and alcohol anytime anyone opens their mouth, but you're relieved because those scents signify the end of your workweek.

Description:

I cannot recommend Gu Byeong-Mo's assassination novel, The Old Woman with the Knife, to just everyone. Some readers may be put off by the idea of the elderly woman narrator who is actively-employed as a professional assassin. 

 

But for those who are intrigued by this concept of a 65-year-old "disease control specialist" (as the company terms its contracted killers), this is a calm, not-very-violent story that will keep you alert right up to the last sentences. It might help to know she has an equally old dog named "Deadweight." Well, maybe not.

 

Hornclaw, the elderly female assassin, is the founder along with her lover Ryu, of this "disease control" elimination business forty years ago. She was the first person Ryu trained to effectively knock off evil people. The motto on their business cards is: "Extermination of vermin and pests." Corporate enemies, double crossers, cheating spouses all fall into these categories, so are contracted by outsiders to have them eliminated. 

 

Hornclaw often uses a variety of razor sharp knives, hence her nickname. The book opens with her completion of an assignment in a crowded subway. Naturally, no one notices, much less suspects an elderly woman of utilizing a quick, poisoned jab into an unknown passenger, or pays attention to a man who seemingly faints in the crush to exit the subway.

She is anonymous and prefers to know little about her victims. But an accident causes her to seek medical attention and contact an outsider doctor, potentially risking her anonymous life and profession. Throw in an upcoming, brash fellow assassin from her organization who brags of his own prowess and boldly hints that Hornclaw should retire due to her age, diminishing speed and skills, and you have the barest bones of this gripping story.

 

Don't worry, there's less blood and graphic violence than in any Jack Reacher novels or Jo Nesbo's detective tales. The Old Woman with the Knife is subtle, quiet, almost soothing read in its precision and spare style.

Despite the many possible roads she could have taken to relax and sink into an armchair, she has insisted on hands-on disease control work all this time....What gets in the way of safe retirement is the unique nature of disease control....Trying to picture someone who has been killing people for forty-five years frying chicken or dry-cleaning clothes is like trying to imagine an old wolf incubating an egg.

If it sounds interesting, it definitely is. If it sounds intriguing, mesmerizing, subtle, unpredictable, and captivating, it is all of these and much more. A rare gem of a story, with plenty of action and complex characters to fully engulf you.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Swanson, Peter. The Kind Worth Killing.   

A thrilling, suspenseful yarn of pride, disrespect, and revenge involving a woman plotting to kill the men who wronged her. (previously reviewed here)

 

Mouth to Mouth

Wilson, Antoine. Mouth to Mouth. New York: Avid Reader 2022. Print.

First Sentences:

I sat at the gate at JFK, having red-eyed my way from Los Angeles, exhausted, minding my own business, reflecting on what I'd seen the night before, shortly after takeoff, shortly before sleep, something I'd never seen before from an airplane.


Description:

Reading Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson was a bit like overhearing a storytelling session with Shahryar, the fictional Persian king as he listened to Scheherazade tell her 1,001 tales to her little sister Dunyazad. Like Shahryar, Mouth to Mouth's unnamed narrator raptly listens to and records for us a long story told to him by a vaguely-remembered college acquaintance. 

 

The well-dressed storyteller, Jeff Cook, and the listening scruffy narrator have a chance meeting in the Los Angeles airport while waiting for their flight to New York. Over drinks and snacks in the first class lounge, Cook unravels a secret he has been carrying for years, one that completely changed his life.

 

Early one morning while walking on a California beach, he relates, Cook noticed a swimmer gesturing from the water, then not moving. He swam out to the man who was now floating face down, struggled to pull him to shore, and then, when he saw the swimmer was not breathing, administered a clumsy CPR, pushing on the swimmer's chest (breaking some ribs) and somehow blowing life back into the victim's blue lips.

 

After the swimmer is helped into an ambulance for the hospital, Cook, then a scraggly-looking figure, was ignored and forgotten by everyone at the scene. But as the swimmer was hauled off by EMTs, Cookthought he saw the victim make eye contact from the stretcher and even tried to wave to Cook with his strapped down arm. 

 

So what were Cook's next choices? Walk away as the anonymous do-good lifesaver? Or find the swimmer and introduce himself? And what did Cook really want? Recognition? Thanks? Money? He admits he was very confused until he decided to try to find the swimmer. 

He was not even sure why he was pursuing this course of action and what the consequences might be, but tracking down the swimmer became his goal. What followed after Cook found the swimmer is completely unpredictable, a wild ride of mystery, skulking around, love, art, and, of course, plenty of lies.

 

Early on, Cook had hinted to the listener that his life story was full of risky chances, missed opportunities, and decisions made that now are viewed with regret. The narrator once even asks Cook:

"If you [Cook] could zero out everything that got you here, to this moment, you really would?

He nodded

"Everything you've just told me about?"

"Without a second thought."

I was completely involved as the listener/narrator recorded Cook's long, sometimes sorrowful, often rambling tale about his past. At the end of each short chapter, I was anxious to hear more, just like Sharryar following Scheherazade's tales. What would happen next? Who else might become involved? What consequences would be faced by Cook and others in this chase after the swimmer? And how would it end? I was kept guessing until the very last sentence of the tale, a twist that makes Mouth to Mouth an even more deliciously-tempting read.

It's a quiet story, a mystery, a thriller, a love story, a series of questionable decisions, and a morality play about the pitfalls and consequences encountered in the pursuit of an all-encompassing  goal: to understand the truth about who the drowning swimmer was and Cook's ultimate role in his life.

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Highsmith, Patricia. The Talented Mr. Ripley.   

A young man is hired to report on the activities of a wealthy man's son living in Italy. But Ripley begins to envy the son and becomes obsessed with a scheme to kill the rich son and take his place in the life of luxury.  (previously reviewed here)