Review 2760: Guide Me Home

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I believe I read somewhere that this book is to be the last of the Highway 59 series. Since it wraps up some things that have been threads in all three books, that makes sense.

The protagonist of these books is Black Texas Ranger Darren Matthews, and this one doesn’t start out very well for him. Although he intends to ask his girlfriend Randie to marry him, he is late getting home to meet her because of his drinking the night before. For several years, he’s had a threat hanging over him for obstruction of justice in a murder case. The fact is, he did worse than that, framing a hardened member of the Aryan Brotherhood to save an old family retainer. What with the disbanding of his unit fighting hate crimes and the general tenor of the Trump administration, Darren is tired, so he has just retired despite the arguments of his boss.

When he arrives home, more trouble awaits. Randie is there, but so is his mother, from whom he has long been estranged and whose actions in stealing the murder weapon from him and turning it into the police have created the situation with the D. A. that Darren is in. She has come, she says, to try to get him to look into the disappearance of a student at Stephen F. Austin University, where she works cleaning a sorority.

Darren has a big fight with his mother and after she leaves, another one with Randie when she tries to get him to see his mother’s point of view on the key issue—what has always been presented to him as her abandonment of him as a child. Randie then leaves.

Of course, he drinks again, but when he sobers up, he decides to look at the disappearance of the girl. There is no report of anyone missing, but his mother tells him she is the only Black girl in the sorority—that she was told the girl left the sorority, but she found all her things in the trash, including her cell phone.

Darren finds out the girl’s name is Sara Fuller. His reception at the sorority is hostile, with the two girls he talks to making it clear they didn’t like Sara but insisting she moved out. When Darren goes to talk to her parents, he finds they live in an odd community named Thornhill that is for workers in the Thornhill plant. The Thornhill guards are also hostile, and Sara’s parents insist she is at school. When Darren returns home, though, he finds that a boy has followed him home—a friend of Sara’s named Rey who has found a bloody shirt in the forest where he and Sara hang out.

Darren has a lot of things going on, including heat from the Texas Rangers because a couple of times he has reflexively identified himself as one.

I have liked the atmosphere and settings in these books and the strong attachment Darren has to the area. I haven’t really liked the ongoing plot of the murder gun or the cliché of the drinking. Still, the mysteries themselves are quite good ones, so overall, I’ve enjoyed the series.

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Classics Club Spin #45

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It’s time for another Classics Club Spin! Here’s how it works. Before this Sunday, August 16, publish a numbered list of 20 books you’ve chosen from your Classics Club list. On Sunday, a number will be chosen that will determine your next Classics Club read. Read that book before October 4.

I have only five books on my list left to read, so this numbered list will be very repetitive:. I saw someone combining their current list with their next list to give more choice, but I decided not to mix the two. I haven’t published my next list yet.

So, here’s my list:

  1. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette
  2. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Frances Burney
  3. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
  4. The Methods of Lady Walderhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  5. The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini
  6. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette
  7. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Frances Burney
  8. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
  9. The Methods of Lady Walderhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  10. The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini
  11. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette
  12. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Frances Burney
  13. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
  14. The Methods of Lady Walderhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  15. The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini
  16. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette
  17. Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress by Frances Burney
  18. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
  19. The Methods of Lady Walderhurst by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  20. The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini

Review 2759: Pastel

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A few months ago, I found there were several of Georgette Heyer’s books that I hadn’t heard of much less read. I managed to get ahold of a few, but so far, I’m finding there’s a reason why they haven’t been reprinted.

A puzzle about my copy of Pastel (not the one pictured) from Buccaneer Books is its listed copyright date. I wanted to see how old Heyer was when she wrote the book, so I looked at the copyright date, which says 1910! Heyer was only eight years old then! Her Wikipedia page says her writing career began in 1922, and a Google of the book’s publication date shows 1929, and judging by this cover, she was already well-known. So, where they got that date, I don’t know.

Now to the plot. Frances Stornaway loves her younger sister, Evelyn, but she can’t help feeling that she wants to be more like her. Frances is pretty, but Evelyn is beautiful. Evelyn does everything effortlessly, while Frances tries hard but doesn’t do as well. Evelyn is sparkling and outgoing and attracts people while Frances is shyer. Only their old friend Norman Acre doesn’t prefer Evelyn. He is in love with Frances, but Frances is too romantic to want to marry an old friend.

Frances’s godmother invites just Frances for a visit. Lady Twyford has been matchmaking, so Frances is met at the station by a man who looks to her like a Viking god, Oliver Fayre. She falls in love with him at first sight, and he seems to like her. However, when he comes to call on her, he meets Evelyn, and soon they are engaged. Frances keeps up a brave exterior so that no one knows she cares for Oliver.

Frances eventually decides she’s never going to be in love again. She is fond of Norman, so she decides to marry him.

This novel shows none of the sparkling wit of Heyer’s historical romances. I believe she was hoping to write a realistic book about a certain level of society. As in her other contemporary novels (not counting her mysteries), there are a few “intellectual” conversations meant to reflect what young people are discussing in those days. One was a pretty good satire of an avant-garde art scene, while the second was heaped with sexist assumptions made by both men and women.

But basically, the story follows Frances through very mundane scenes and conversations. The book is well written but predictable.

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Review 2758: Wandering Stars

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Wandering Stars is both a prequel and a sequel to Tommy Orange’s previous novel, There There. The novel begins in 1864 with the massacre at Sand Creek. A young boy, Star, escapes the massacre but is sent to school to eradicate all traces of his culture. He becomes the great grandfather of Opal and Jacquie Red Feather, characters from There There.

The novel follows Jude Star and his descendants as they suffer childhood mistreatment and cultural annihilation, many of them ending up as substance abusers.

About halfway through, we get to the Red Feather family that we already know, and particularly the grandsons of Opal and Jacquie: Loother, Orvil, and Lony. Slight spoiler—in There There Orvil ended up accidentally shot while dancing at a Powwow, the robbing of which provided the tension. As a result, Orvil, just beginning high school, ends up addicted to pain killers.

The family has been through one tragedy after another. Jacquie, the boys’ genetic grandmother, has just left a life of substance abuse and moved in with her sister Opal, who raised the boys after their mother died. The family was just beginning to be in a good place when the shooting occurred.

Much of the book deals with the characters’ struggles but also with their reflections about what it means to be an indigenous person, especially if you’ve been robbed of your traditions.

Orange’s writing style is unusual. At times, he likes his sentences to be very long. That didn’t bother me so much as the feeling that I felt closer to these characters in the previous book, except for Lony, who although very young is super intelligent but tends toward magical thinking. Yet, it turns out, he sees his family very well.

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Review 2757: The Hollow

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For the weekend, relatives are gathering at The Hollow, the home of Lord and Lady Angkatell. Midge Hardcastle is already there. She’s a pleasant girl who works an unpleasant job as a clerk in a dress shop rather than depend on or borrow from her relatives. As a child, she and her cousins spent their summers at Ainswick, Lucy Angkatell’s hereditary estate, but it was entailed and now belongs to another cousin, Edward Angkatell. Midge loves Edward and Ainswick, but Edward loves another cousin, Henrietta Savernake.

Henrietta has not left town for the Hollow yet, because she is working on a sculpture. Her cousin John Christow is finishing his work at his doctor’s practice before he leaves for The Hollow with his wife, Gerda. Gerda worships her husband but at the same time seems terrified of doing anything that displeases him. John is described as a person with good looks and charisma who is about to make a breakthrough on an important medical discovery. He is also having an affair with Henrietta. The other visitor that weekend is David Angkatell, a young man in the throes of university superiority.

Once they have all arrived, a neighbor thrusts her way into an evening gathering. She is Veronica Gray, a famous actress and an old fiancée of John Christow whom he hasn’t seen in 15 years. She has made the excuse of needing matches to interrupt their evening. John Christow has recently been dwelling on the time they spent together, so he sees her home and does not return until 3 AM.

In his absence, John finds that Veronica assumes he will drop everything and return with her to Hollywood, but he suddenly sees her for the grasping and selfish woman she is and refuses.

The next day, new neighbor Hercule Poirot comes over for lunch and finds what he first assumes is a tasteless tableau set up to greet him. John Christow is lying bleeding by the pool, and Gerda, who is regarded by everyone as slow, is holding a gun. At the same moment, Henrietta, Edward, and Lady Angkatell appear from different directions. John, dying, says Henrietta’s name. Henrietta attempts to take the gun from Gerda, and it is dropped into the pool.

Inspector Grange is inclined to believe that Gerda killed John, but Gerda says she found him and picked up the gun. Poirot thinks things are more complicated than they appear, and as it turns out, the gun Gerda found is not the one that killed her husband.

This is a situation with lots of undercurrents. Lucy Angkatell is outwardly warm and scatty but perhaps ruthless. Poirot begins to believe that the family knows who the murderer is.

The biggest problem I had with this novel isn’t to do with the mystery so much as the veneration everyone has for John Christow, who may have been a great doctor but was also completely selfish and oblivious to what others were feeling. Maybe Christie was drawing an accurate sketch of a particular type of person, but why are all these women in love with him?

However, the mystery was difficult. I had my eye on one character, but I was wrong. If a mystery writer can fool me, that’s all to the good. As usual, Christie’s characterization is excellent.

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WWW Wednesday!

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It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

  • What I am reading now
  • What I just finished reading
  • What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

I bought Klotsvog after enjoying Margarita Khemlin’s The Investigator, a mystery set during the Soviet era. I haven’t gotten into it much yet, but it’s supposedly about the effects of anti-Semitism on a Jewish woman in post-World War II Soviet Union.

What I just finished reading

I just finished a book that I read for my Booker Prize project. It’s Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, about an Australian atheist who nonetheless goes to live in a monastery near where she grew up. There was a lot of talk about it a couple years ago, but I am not a contemplative person and have a black hole when it comes to religion, so maybe not the best book for me. It’s also going to be very hard to describe in my review.

What I will read next

I’m not absolutely sure what I will read next, but I’m thinking I’ll want to go a little lighter. The next light book in my pile is Roman Nights, a 1970s mystery/thriller by Dorothy Dunnett featuring Johnson Johnson, previously named Dolly and the Starry Bird. All of the original books were named after Dolly (Johnson Johnson’s yacht) and some kind of “bird,” that is, woman, and I suppose that’s why they are renamed.

What about you? What are you reading?

Review 2756: The Captain’s Daughter

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Of course, Alexander Pushkin is a revered 19th century Russian poet, but I’m not much of a poetry reader. So, I was interested when perusing the offerings of NYRB Classics to see that he had written a novella.

The Captain’s Daughter is a historical novel that ends in 1774, and Pushkin’s intent was to write about Pugachev’s Rebellion in terms of a romantic adventure novel popular at the time. Perhaps not its intent is the occasional glimpse of the power of wealth and position at the time. I didn’t really find the novel comic, although some of the dialogue is clearly meant to be, but the NYRB edition includes an article by one of the translators about the difficulties of translating the wit in the novel.

The opening, though, is probably meant to be comic. Pyotr Andreich Gunyov, son of a nobleman who is extremely wealthy (he is said to own 300 souls [i. e., serfs] at a time, a note informs us, that most landowners owned less than 60), informs us he was enrolled as a sergeant in the Semyonov regiment before he was even born and considered to be on leave until he was old enough to serve. I was too taken aback by this to find it funny when reading it but now I realize it was probably an exaggeration. Maybe?

However, once Pyotr Andreich is seventeen, his father decides he needs toughening up, so instead of sending him to the Semyonov regiment to live it up in the city, his father sends him to serve in Orenburg under his old friend Andrey Karlovich. Orenburg is apparently in the middle of nowhere at the time, protected by a small outpost.

On the way there, Pyotr Andreich, accompanied by his servant Savelich, is caught in a snowstorm with their guide. The guide not being suitably dressed, Pyotr Andreich gives him a hare-skin coat and some vodka. This encounter will prove to be significant.

At Orenburg, Pyotr Andreich finds a pleasant commander and not much to do at Fort Belogorsk. He almost immediately falls afoul of another officer, Shvabrin, who has been transferred there because of dueling. Pyotr Andreich also falls in love with Masha, the captain’s daughter, and wants to become engaged to her. Unfortunately, his father doesn’t agree.

Then they all begin hearing about a revolt of Cossacks and peasants supporting Pugachev, who claims to be the Tsar. When the fort is eventually surrounded by a huge number of insurgents, they defend themselves as best they can but are overrun. Pyotr Andreich would have been hung with the rest of the officers (except the rotten Shvabrin, who has gone over to the other side), but it turns out that Pugachev is the guide that Pyotr gave his coat to, so Pyotr is set free, but he has to leave the now orphaned Masha, in disguise as the priest’s daughter. Pytor is determined to rescue her somehow.

Although a sort of adventure novel, it isn’t really exciting, and Pushkin misses some opportunities to make it more so and to build suspense. It also makes an assumption that readers already know about the rebellion, so that the short novel has quite a few annotations. Of course, a 19th century Russian audience would probably know all about it.

The short novel is very readable and entertaining. I was just surprised at the omissions.

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Review 2755: The Heart in Winter

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Kevin Barry is certainly an evocative writer, but after reading my second book by him, I’m still not sure I like him. The Heart in Winter combines romance with brutality and some readers deserve a warning about foul language.

In 1891 Butte, Montana, the mines are booming, and the town is full of drunks and whores. Tom Rourke, a boyish Irish immigrant, spends his days helping a photographer or writing letters for illiterate miners and his nights drinking and doping. One day, mine captain Long Anthony Harrington comes in for a wedding photo of himself and his brand new wife, Polly. Their romance has been an exchange of letters, and Tom can tell that the wife dislikes her new husband. Tom is smitten.

Three weeks later, they put into action Tom’s poor excuse for a plan. While Polly’s husband is at work on the night shift, Tom will burn down the rooming house where he lives so that in the confusion he can steal the landlady’s money, and then they will steal a horse and escape to San Francisco. It’s turned toward winter, the perfect time to be traveling in the mountains. (I’m being ironic here.)

Of course, their plan fools no one, and the outraged Harrington hires three Cornishmen to track down the fugitives with the instructions to bring back Polly and do whatever they want to Tom. For their part, after a first burst of speed, Tom and Polly are honeymooning in someone’s cabin.

Of course, there’s a feeling of doom throughout the novel, and things don’t go very well for the couple. The novel is adventurous, with quirky characters, and gritty.

Another caveat, though. Barry seems to know nothing about what it would be like to travel in these mountains in winter. His inexperienced travelers would probably be dead in days.

I read this for my Walter Scott prize project.

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What I Added to To Read in July

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I’m stealing an idea from Liz of Adventures in reading, running, and working from home. She’s started listing the books she adds to her wish list each month. I think this is a great idea if only for myself, to keep track. In my case, I’d be working with the To Read list on The Storygraph, but I ran into an unexpected hitch. In The Storygraph, you can look at your To Do list in order of most recently added, but what it does not do is keep track of the date you added something to your list. At least, not that I can figure out. And I looked at the Stats page to see if I could run a report, but as soon as you select To Read for the books you want to look at, the date function goes away. So, you can only look at stats for the To Read list in total.

I have a question in to customer support, but in the meantime, I figure I’ll have to try to remember which books I added in July, and then going forward I can keep track by looking at my last post about it.

I also thought this would be a nice way to keep track of why I added books to my list, that is, where I heard about them, but I find I already only remember this information for a few.

Going backwards from the most recently added:

Who Killed the Curate? by Joan Coggins

Kaggsy of Bookish Ramblings wrote a review of this Golden Age mystery and another in the series, Why Did She Die? I was sufficiently intrigued to add the first book to my list

Furious Violet by Sarai Walker

I often read the reviews of books from The New York Times, and their review five days ago interested me enough to add this psychological thriller.

A History of France in 21 Women by Katherine Pangonis

This’ll teach me. Because I know I read about this book on one of the blogs I follow, but I can’t remember which one, and looking through my comments doesn’t help. Perhaps it was mentioned by one of the blogs I follow that posts reviews of a bunch of books at a time. If you recognize that you reviewed this one lately, please let me know! You should get credit! Perhaps this was a book for Paris in July?

One Two Three by Laurie Frankel

This week I finished reading the book for the September session of The Marriage Plot (Literary Wives rebranded), which was Family Family by Laurie Frankel. I enjoyed that book so much that I decided to look for another book by her and came up with One Two Three.

They Stole a City by Lauren Collins

I’m pretty sure I heard about this book on an NPR radio program (OPB, Oregon Public Radio) while I was driving to art class. It’s about a shameful event in 19th century Wilmington, North Carolina, that was subsequently so suppressed that people don’t know about it. Look at that! Two nonfiction books added to my list this month!

The South by Colm Tóibín

I don’t really go looking for Tóibín’s books, but when I see one mentioned, I always get it. This one is an older work by him, and I think someone either reviewed it this month or just mentioned it, and I thought, here’s one I haven’t read yet. I don’t even know what it’s about.

Unseen: Blind spots and why we miss what matters most by David Lewis

Three nonfiction books! I heard about this book on one of the science programs on OPB. It sounded intriguing.

The Great Wherever by Shannon Sanders

I have no idea. I could have heard about this on NPR, but I think I actually saw it on one of The New York Times lists of the books they liked so far this year.

Blunt Instrument by Amy Bloom

Amy Bloom wrote a mystery? What’s not to like?

Heather by Caitlin Mullen

I have no idea where I heard of this book. If you reviewed it lately, fess up!

Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr

Ditto! I know that Simon of Stuck in a Book went to Canada lately and bought a bunch of books. Maybe there? Yes! Here’s his review.

The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U. S. History by Ned Blackhawk

I think I know where I heard of this book. I follow blackhawkfitness on Instagram, which despite its name is posts by a knowledgeable indigenous person about native culture. I’m pretty sure he talked about this book. If not, it got mentioned on NPR. Four nonfiction books!

I am stopping here, because the next book on the list is Solace House by Will McLean, and I’m pretty sure it’s been there for a while. On the other hand, the next one after that is Hunger & Thirst by Claire Fuller, and that seems more recent. But I’ll leave it at that. Next month, if people seem interested in this post, I will know exactly where to stop!

Review 2754: The Dead Room

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I like Catriona McPherson’s thrillers. I call them cozy thrillers because they usually involve a friendly community. The Dead Room is a little more dire than usual, and one plot point didn’t work for me at all, but I still enjoyed it.

Lindsay Hale in her mid-thirties is a new widow, her beloved husband Kai having died from a brain tumor. When he was dying, her old friend Chloe came out to their home in Hawaii to help. Finally, between her brother John and Chloe, she was convinced to move back to Scotland, to her hometown which she has never revisited since she left. There are hints of a traumatic childhood.

Lindsay arrives a day earlier than expected, and when she gets to her hometown, she breaks down while talking to an old lady, Peggy Marsh. Peggy takes her inside her beautiful, old, slightly rundown house and gives her tea. She falls asleep and arrives at her brother’s house very late, surprising her relatives.

Lindsay wants to find a house, but her brother tries to convince her to stay with them. Despite their welcoming, they seem to be concerned about her behavior. It is true that Lindsay starts having some visual perception problems and also doesn’t recognize people she’s supposed to know, but her behavior seems pretty normal for a recent widow, and her family overly concerned. They seemed to be trying to make her doubt herself.

A few days later, Lindsay returns to Peggy’s home only to find it empty. When she asks a neighbor about it, he is hostile. A while later, she learns that Peggy entered a nursing home and died shortly afterward, but when she goes to the nursing home, the man at the desk is hostile and the home oddly empty-seeming.

Lindsay begins to believe that she has something wrong with herself. She is able to buy Peggy’s house, but she hears noises at night as if someone has come in and actually sees a man leaving her house at night. But all the doors are locked, and the police obviously think she is being silly.

Periodically, we hear from someone else who is being held prisoner. Is it Lindsay at a later time or someone else?

My biggest problem with the book is that the gaslighting seemed so obvious to me, and it seemed as though Lindsay was too quick to doubt herself. Also—spoiler alert—once the plot comes out, it’s almost impossible to believe that some people would have wanted her to return to Scotland. Despite a brief statement of explanation, it makes no sense.

Despite my caveats, the novel is suspenseful and the main character appealing. I would just rate it slightly lower than some of McPherson’s more compelling cozy thrillers.

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