Every Heart a Doorway - Seanan McGuire

I really fell in love with the Wayward Children series when I picked up a "prequel" giving the backstory of Katherine Lundy in In an Absent Dream (you can read that review here). I hadn't realized it was a part of a series until halfway through but a prequel is a decent way to start a series anyway.

In Every Heart a Doorway, we are first introduced to The Home for Wayward Children and its headmistress, Eleanor West. It seems some children are special. Disappearing through doorways and down wells and into other lands and other realities where the rules are different. Sometimes there are no rules. In Lundy's case, she had gone to the Goblin Market, a place of high logic and wickedness. It seems every world that children fall into go into one of four cardinal directions - nonsense, logic, wickedness, and virtue, as they are explained to Nancy on her first day at the Home.

While In an Absent Dream was a very specific journey into the land of the Goblin Market, Every Heart a Doorway introduces many different worlds through their former inhabitants. Those former inhabitants now reside at the Home, mostly waiting, wishing to return to the worlds from which they were expelled. Having lived in a reality particularly crafted for their personalities, existing in our world, the normal existence is painful.

Lundy is a teacher there, trying to help the children cope with the reality that most of them will not be going back. Nancy refuses to believe this. She has come from the Halls of the Dead and wants very much to return. "Be sure" all the doors tell their travelers and Nancy's was no exception. But how can you be sure when you go only the one time? How can you be sure when you don't know what is lying beyond the door? The Lord of the Dead wants Nancy to be sure. So she heads home where her parents are aghast at her black clothes and bleached hair. They pack her off to the Home with a suitcase full of clothing that would make a flamingo blush.

But once she arrives at the Home, she is quickly shunned by the other students except her new roommate Sumi, Sumi's friend Cade, and the odd twins Jack and Jill. And this would be fine to bide her time while she waits for the Lord of the Dead to send another door, but... Sumi is murdered. Then another girl, and another girl. So this doesn't seem like it's going to work out very well.

So this is part fantasy and part mystery and all just very very good. Because at its core, the Wayward Children series takes those things about us that as teenagers or younger we had such a hard time defining and living with, identifying them as special and then making those traits work somewhere else where we get to really be ourselves. It shouldn't be a surprise that LGBT themes are prevalent in the books or that the characters come from diverse backgrounds. It makes the series really great. There's so much richness in the language and the visuals of the created worlds. Seanan McGuire is a treasure.

4/5 Stars. 

Girls Like Us - Christina Alger

I like a quick police procedural and Girls Like Us did not dissapoint on that level. In brevity it cut a few corners that required suspension of disbelief, but otherwise didn't impact the overall pace or enjoyment of the story.

Nell Flynn has returned to Long Island, NY to bury her father, a homicide detective who has died in a motorcycle accident. Marty Flynn's detective buddies accompany her to the Long Island Sound to scatter his ashes. Nell has avoided returning for ten years, ever since a falling out with her father. Their relationship was strained by her mother's murder during her childhood and her father's continual drinking.

Nell, on medical sabbatical from the FBI, is asked by a young detective she knew from high school, to assist in a murder investigation that hints of a serial killer. A young woman has been killed, dismembered, wrapped in burlap, and buried in a state park, mimicking a murder one year earlier.

The details of Long Island and Suffolk County are well done. The books does a great job drawing distinctions between the Haves who populate the Hamptons, and the Have-Nots, who scrape out a blue collar life in the smaller areas of the island. 

Nell begins to uncover a trafficking ring and corruption that implicates her own father. In investigating the case, Nell learns more about who her father truly was. The ending snowballs pretty quickly and involves some rather dramatic sequences that don't really fit the overall tenor of the crimes but don't alter the overall enjoyment of the read.

3/5 Stars

Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered - Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark

I enjoy podcasts although I prefer audiobooks so I don't stay up to date on many. I'm familiar with the My Favorite Murder podcast mostly through other readers I follow on the bookish side of Instagram - what those of us with book accounts like to call "Bookstagram" - although I'm not an avid listener myself. I find it hard to listen with any regularity to podcasts in general unless I'm commuting to work and I'm really in the mood. Part of it must be that there are just so many different pods to listen to. And if they update their content regularly, which is good for their avid listeners I guess? I just get overwhelmed by anything I've missed.

But when it comes to the who and why behind murder, especially serial murder, I'm intrigued. What makes people so depraved? Why do people do these things to others? Back when my husband and I were both still travelling for work (what I wouldn't give for a king size Hilton bed about now) and I had the time, I torched my way through Mindhunters and various other Netflix murderer shows.

I don't know what I was expecting from Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered. But a joint memoir about the podcast creators was not it. Not to say I didn't enjoy hearing about Karen and Georgia and their upbringings. They were very honest about their lives and their addictions - where they had succeeded and where they had gone wrong. Sometimes reading a memoir is interesting because you find out that people who have had some success also have some of the same underlying issues and insecurities as you. And that's helpful. I really liked reading the chapter on Fucking Politeness, because I definitely have had some trouble with that of my own and I want to make sure I don't pass down to my own daughter a bad and dangerous people pleasing habit.

So this was a decent book but I definitely was expecting more murder.

3/5 Stars. 

The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas

I'm going to say this one more time in case anyone missed my multiple IG posts, but I'm going to be an Angie Thomas fan for life. The Hate U Give (THUG) is the second Angie Thomas book I've read this year and I stand by my earlier review of On the Come Up that her writing feels real and her characters are authentic. Too many times YA novels get teens wrong, or work too hard to teach lessons that the authors forget to include real people with real issues. Kids are a lot like adults in that they're complex and full of conflicting motivations - they just haven't figured out how to fake it yet.

THUG wastes no time setting up the central conflict - namely that the protagonist Star Carter is present when a police traffic stop ends with the murder of her friend Khalil. Star tries to process her heartbreak over the death of her friend, her own trauma of witnessing it first hand, and the complex social set she's created for herself by attending an exclusive private school. All of these things inform who she is and how she reacts to the situation.

Star's mother and father present as strong parental figures in the story, with both of them providing stability and strength to Star in her time of need. That her father is an ex-gang member who is constantly battling with figures from his past, complicates their family life, but the love they share between them is real and deep.

I basically loved every character in this book (except King and Haley obviously) but each character is used for a specific purpose and creates such a vivid picture. The overarching theme of police shootings is timely and presented in a way that even real dummies should be able to understand the human cost of police violence.

I'm planting my flag in the Angie Thomas fan club soil. I'm going to read whatever she comes out with next. 

5/5 Stars. 

One of Us Is Lying - Karen McManus

Seriously, the title of this book could be "All of Us Are Lying." Every single one of these kids had something to hide and was lying about something throughout the book. But, I actually grew to like them.

One of Us Is Lying follows five kids in detention - Bronwyn - The Brain, Addie - The Princess, Cooper - The Athlete, Nate - A Criminal and Simon - The Basketcase. By the end of detention, Simon is dead and everyone else is a suspect.

The narration skips between the "Bayview Four" and does a really great job slowly teasing out their hidden secrets. I really liked trying to figure out what they were hiding and how it made a difference in solving the mystery of who killed Simon. I also liked the way McManus shows the developing relationships between the four as they bond over their shared experience.

The book read true to teenage issues and the narrator's voices were genuine. Sometimes YA literature can go to the bad condescending place or be overly cerebral. My favorite character was Addie because I thought she grew the most out of all the characters and she ended up being a bit of a bad ass at the end.

I know there is a sequel, and I'm going to read it. But I'm not really sure where they can go from here.

3.75/5 Stars.

For Better and Worse - Margot Hunt

I'm not sure why people still think they can plan and complete the perfect murder. Listen, I realize the murder clearance rate in our country hovers just under 60%. Wait, that's pretty bad (that's actually really bad, but is a story for another book). But usually, the people who are committing and getting away with murder are somehow involved in the criminal enterprise. But this whole, let's commit the perfect murder thing goes all the way back to Leopold and Loeb and look where it got them.

You know who doesn't get away with murder? White collar suburban intellectuals who think they can PLAN the perfect murder. Because if you don't have the background to either not care about getting caught, or live in an environment where people who could help you get caught don't care about communicating their knowledge to authorities, you're likely going to get caught.

So this is one reason why I had very little doubt that Natalie Clark, a criminal defense attorney, was going to get caught. She thought she was smarter than everyone else, and as I saw her plan out the various aspects of "the perfect murder" she casually looked over all the loose ends she was leaving and believed no one would weaver them together.

The broader aspects of what could drive a suburban mother committed to defending those accused of misdeeds to take another person's life are lost in the shuffle of the plot here and the book would have been better served to delve into these aspects a bit. Otherwise it reads like a thriller which is quick on page turning, but left me feeling like I'd consumed a lot of empty book calories.

I initially didn't like the way this one ended because (so what this lady is just like a serial killer now?) but then I got over myself and allowed myself to just enjoy the ridiculousness of this final note.

3/5 Stars. 

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer - Michelle McNamara

Two nights ago, I woke up out of breath, my heart racing, trying and failing to catch the tail end of whatever dream I was just having. I looked out my bedroom door to the top of the stairs and realized I had just seen someone standing there with a flashlight. This is the kind of thing I'll Be Gone in the Dark does to you. It makes you see things that aren't there. It makes you live, again and again, the terror of almost 100 victims of the Golden State Killer. 

Michelle McNamara's exhaustive research is evident on every page. That the book was published after her death is also evident, for while the chapters themselves flow flawlessly thanks to her unique prose and steady cadence, the way the chapters are laid out feels a bit out of sync with the rest of the book.

For ten years, Joseph DeAngelo stalked victims up and down the Golden State - raping more than 50 women and killing almost a dozen. Now that he's been caught, you get a sense of just how onto him Michelle really was. No one would have been more delighted by his capture than her, except of course this terrible person's many victims and their families. I also think Michelle would have done an amazing job piecing together DeAngelo's travels and motivations. I'm sad we won't get to read that book. And I'm sad to think Michelle is likely DeAngelo's last victim, having worked herself into a constant state of anxiety and exhaustion over the research and writing of this book, would she have been led to take the deadly combination of prescription drugs that, together with an unknown heart condition, led to her death? 

I'm glad her friends and family worked to get Michelle's book published. Some people wouldn't want their name forever connected to a serial killer, but somehow, I can see how this would have honored her memory.

4/5 Stars. 

The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith

It has been a very long time since I read Cuckoo's Calling, the first Cormoran Strike novel by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling). I didn't remember much about it other than I had enjoyed it and there was a private detective, a dead model or something and the detective was an amputee. 

The Silkworm picks up in the aftermath of CC, in which Cormoran finally has paying clients and is a little more financially stable. All of the private detective novels I've ever read have described the razor thin budgets in which these folks work, why do they do this to themselves? I was so concerned about this that even after I finished the book, I kept wondering if Cormoran was even paid for the work he does in The Silkworm.

The fact that the events of The Silkworm involve a missing author and his weird publisher and agent are pretty delicious as Galbraith gets to turn "his" eye on the very industry in which this book is going to be published. 

But in essence, an author who has produced mediocre work and was of questionable character has gone missing. His wife has hired Cormoran to find him, which he does, but in a very disgusting and mutilated form. So then Cormoran turns his attention to catching the killer. Along for the ride is Cormoran's secretary, turned novice gum-shoe, Robin and Cormoran's knee, which is mentioned so much it should be considered another character. (Actually it was mentioned a bit too much - he goes on and on and on about the pain and discomfort and inconvenience of a prosthetic leg but never mentions to visit the damn doctor). I digress, because it really is this issue that makes the book feel overlong.

There are portions that move a bit slowly through the narrative but Galbraith's solid prose keep it interesting. I did figure out a few of the plot points ahead of time although I wasn't completely sure about how the entire murder worked out until the end. I'm glad J.K. Rowling is continuing to write these stories amid her massive Fantastic Beasts and HP fortunes, because they are entertaining mysteries even if this one ran a little long.

4/5 Stars. 

Behind Her Eyes - Sarah Pinborough

I finished Behind Her Eyes on a flight to California this week and after I shut the book, I couldn't quite get the final images out of my head, the bad bad thoughts, the worry about future events (helllllo! the characters aren't real, their fates end with the last page - but man I was really worried about them). 

This book is filled with a lot of cool twists and turns and comes at the reader from two points of view. Louise, a part time secretary at a psychiatry office is out at a bar after work and meets a handsome man who she chats with and ends up kissing. They have great chemistry and she's really into him. 

But, when he shows up to the office the next day as her new boss, with his WIFE, she's mortified and hides in the bathroom. Knowing she needs to confront him she eventually does and agrees it meant nothing and that she can remain professional at work, but oh the chemistry is still there. So as she's thinking all this through she literally runs into another woman outside her child's school. 

Well this other woman happens to be the boss (David)'s wife, Adele. A shockingly beautiful woman, Adele invites Louise to coffee and they strike up a friendship which is super awkward for Louise. 

Then we switch to Adele's voice and we realize she KNOWS! How she knows, we don't know yet, but she KNOWS. And therein lies the mystery as we try to figure out what game Adele is playing at. Because she is planning something. And as we get more of her backstory, we realize there is something very off about Adele.

But listen, David and Adele have a crazy marriage and Louise is content to put herself right in the middle and try to be a hero all the while not recognizing this may put her SIX YEAR OLD son in danger. So, no girl, this is just bad bad. And I got a little judge-y of Louise about this. I got a lot judge-y actually. 

In the end, this book has a lot of twists and turns and there's an element of supernatural (reminiscent of Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger). But it's well written and moves well. I enjoyed reading it and didn't think too hard about who did it so I could maintain surprise for the end. A good summer read.

I can't say much else without ruining all the surprises, but it's getting a 3.5/5 rating because it went to a place that always makes me feel some things I don't like feeling, but I can't really say much about that because it's part of the ending. 

3.5/5 Stars. 

November Road - Lou Berney

November Road started out a little uneven for me. The opening chapter introduces us to Frank Guidry, who runs some of mob boss Carlos Marcello's small time business in New Orleans. We encounter Frank in one of his Bourbon Street bars making deals and turning on a friend. We learn that Seraphine is looking for Mackey and Frank is quick to sell him out after Mackey begs Frank for protection. The first chapters with Frank come out uneven as characters are introduced and discarded without knowing just who will be an important player and who is part of the disposable set up of Frank's character arc. 

Then comes a chapter with Charlotte, a woman dissatisfied with not quite meeting her potential in her marriage to her alcoholic husband Dooley and her misogynistic boss, Mr. Hotchkiss. Charlotte has two daughters, the precocious Rosemary, and the almost silent Joan. After a particularly awkward dinner with Dooley's parents, Dooley runs out to get a drink and Charlotte packs the girls into the car and hits the road.

In the meantime, John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Frank realizes he had been in Dallas setting up a get away car for the assassin. And it turns out that all of the pawns in Carlos' scheme to assassinate the president are turning up dead (most at the hands of Paul Barone - Carlos' heartless and indiscriminate killing machine). So Frank realizes he's likely next and starts to run.

Well you can't have two story lines involving Frank and Charlotte and not expect them to get intertwined, so they do when Frank realizes hiding as part of a family may make more sense than continuing to run on his own. So he gently ingratiates himself to Charlotte and they begin travelling together. 

Now the whole thing might be an annoying story deeply cliched in the story of redemptive love (because Frank needs redeeming) except that there is something ultimately likable about Charlotte. She grows in her own strength and confidence and is smarter than 99% of the other characters give her credit for. And for that, Charlotte brings this up to a 3-star read for me. 

We never really get what made Frank into the person he was at the beginning of the book, although it's hinted at. The stakes never feel very high for any of the likeable characters and the ending felt forced and predictable, but not very realistic. And the epilogue seemed overly contrived. So it was a fine quick read, but not necessarily memorable.

3/5

Every Man a Menace - Patrick Hoffman

I have to admit I wasn't into this one. Every Man a Menace benefits from short declarative and perfunctory sentence structure. It's pace is quick and it moves well. Based in five parts from five different points of view, the book works backward in time, with the first part introducing the character of Raymond Gaspar, a recently released prisoner who has a simple job to perform for his protector on the inside. He needs to figure out which of two people involved in the drug trade have lost their edge. It becomes obvious early on that Raymond is being played by both the distributor, Gloria, and the dealer, Shadrack who are not too keen on letting Raymond in on their well run enterprise. We are told a lot that Raymond is frightened or scared. And then he's dead. 

Part two steps back in time to before Raymond's death to tell us about the two Miami club owners who are the importers of the ecstasy eventually distributed and sold in San Francisco by Gloria and Shadrack. Isaac and Semion are old friends from the Israeli army who have landed in Miami and have cut a nice niche for themselves in the ecstasy game. We are told when their Belgian supplier falls through, they start to wholesale out of Thailand. Determined to remain small, Semion is at odds with Isaac who has grander plans. So we know that's not going to work out well for Semion who is eventually set up and played by a "crazy" Brazilian woman who he knows is lying to him, but doesn't seem to care.

Step back in time to their contact in Thailand, a man who's name I cannot now recall has also been set up by the police as a shake down for a bribe after his grindr date ends up being a plant (by the police). He calls in a favor from the manufacturer of all this ecstasy and the favor ends up being called in right away in the form of forcing the contact to get Semion and Isaac to agree to a bigger order. 

So the last part of the book then fast forwards through all this back to Raymond and Gloria and Shadrack to make some kind of sense of who is cutting out who in this cut throat industry of the drug trade. The book is gritty without texture and full of interesting characters that are a complete blank. 

I'm good with non linear timelines. I'm good with morally bankrupt characters. I like diversity among characters. Check, check, check. But here, it felt like EMaM was merely checking off boxes as I have done here on a list, without taking the necessary steps to weave anything together. The extra piece is missing here to turn this from a page turning crime drama into something in which to become invested.

2/5 Stars. 

A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of the Columbine Tragedy - Sue Klebold

I've been putting of writing this review. Reading A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of the Columbine Tragedy left me feeling pretty raw. 

In April 1999, I was well ensconced at my freshman year at college. I had graduated from an all-girls Catholic High School in Cincinnati. The fact that I had once been to Colorado to visit the US Air Force Academy is about as familiar as I was with Columbine, in that I knew it was also in Colorado. Like basically anyone else at the time (which seems quaint now, by the way), this kind of act seemed beyond imagination to me. How could something like this possibly happen? I have never been the kind of person hungry for macabre details. Honoring victims by hearing their names and reading their stories yet, but I don't want to know the details of their last moments. And I'm extremely uninterested in providing the perpetrators of such acts with a platform to spew their demented hatred.

But then this. This book. Which does nothing of the above except to lay open bare the fallout such an action has on the family left behind. I, like probably a lot of people at the time, gave barely any thought to the Klebold's except to assume they did something terribly wrong to raise and not recognize such a predator in their midst. But with age comes something like wisdom (if by wisdom, I mean that I actually realize I'm not quite as smart as I thought I was, and I get a lot of things wrong). 

So here I was, willing to accept that Sue Klebold may have something vital to say. And willing to listen because as the mother of a six year old boy, who will someday be a teenager, who will one day go to High School, who will hopefully someday leave that high school without having to fear for his life, or consider taking his own, or someone else's - I may learn something important.

And I did. Learn something important. Maybe not specifically about me per se, but about the depths of deception people go to hide pain and anger. About how the children you have are known and utterly unknown to you at the same time. I should have known this. A lesson from my own teenage years, about what I shared and what I hid. Something not unlike the carefully cultivated social media identities we all create. Glennon Doyle said in Love Warrior that she spent a lot of time sending out her "representative" to interact with the world, protecting her true self. My own representative got me through high school. Sometimes still gets me through awkward parent events. 

Dylan Klebold sent his representative out into the world, allowing only a journal and perhaps Eric Harris to know the depths of his despair. Certainly his parents were never aware. Only now, Sue Klebold realizes there were definite signs she missed - things she passed over as typical teenage mood swings. She reassured herself that everything was fine. And inside her boy, the child they referred to as their "Sunshine Boy" was dying. And in his place, a callous unfeeling person took root. A person who wanted to die, who cared so little about living, the manner of his death (who he took with him) meant nothing. 

That a mother would still grieve her child, even after such a hideous act, seems obvious. I am constantly telling my children that I love them no matter what. No matter how they act or what they do, to reassure them when they've lost control of themselves that my love can be an anchor to hold them in place or bring them back, help them fight against the currents. But it's not enough. Sue Klebold has told me it's not enough. Because she knows. And the price she paid (and many children paid) for that knowledge is unthinkable.

4/5 Stars. 

Y is for Yesterday - Sue Grafton

I want to give Y a 3.5 star review mostly because this is the final one. The last alphabet mystery due to the passing of Sue Grafton. And I will say that although I usually rate these books around the 3-star mark. The body of the work itself is a 4-star effort. Grafton kept Kinsey consistent and interesting. Her writing evolved and got better over time. The stories were entertaining.

In Y is for Yesterday, Kinsey is asked to track down an extortionist who is threatening to release a damning video tape implicating a recently released felon for sexual abuse. The felon's parents, not eager to part with the $25,000 demand, and also not eager to see their only son head back to prison, hire Kinsey to figure it out. 

In the meantime, Ned Lowe, the big bad from X is back in play and he wants his trinkets (you know the nice mementos from all those teenage girls he killed). So Kinsey plays the two things together, her paid gig, and her private matter. I can't believe I read X way back in August 2017, so it's understandable why this all seemed so vague. 

The book gives us a bit of backstory on the video tape issue. Turns out (forgive my terrible spelling of names, I listened to the audio), when Iris Loehman steals the test answers for her friends and Climping Academy, it sets in motion a chain of events that lead to the tape and Kinsey. Iris gives the test answers to her friend Poppy Earl and Poppy's boyfriend, Troy Radamacher. Those two are turned in for treating and an influental and grade A A-hole, Austin Brown, points the finger at fellow junior Sloane for ratting out the two. Everyone shuns Sloane. To get them to stop, Sloane steals a video tape of four boys, Troy, Bayard Montgomery, Fritz McCabe and Austin sexually assaulting and documenting the assault of 14 year old Iris. 

Sloane threatens Austin with the tape and he calls off the shunning, then inviting Sloane to his house to get the tape and smooth things over. When she doesn't bring it, the four boys take Sloane up the mountain to an abandoned camp and she is killed by Fritz with Austin's father's hand gun. The boys try to hide the body and lie about the circumstances, but Fritz, who was 15, rolls over and confesses. Bayard exchanges his testimony for immunity. Austin disappears. Troy and Fritz both go to jail. The tape is lost, allegedly until it shows up at Fritz's house with a demand for $25K. 

There are so many possible players on this. Kinsey does her best even though she knows it's a small chance she can figure out who has the tape. The flashback chapters do a good job of teasing out the murder story, even when it seems this would be inconsequential as the murderers and circumstances are more or less known. But they do a good job of establishing who knew what and what the stakes are for the individual players. 

That being said, there is a hefty bit of repetition a good editor should have caught. Things told in real time to Kinsey still appear in the flashbacks in almost the exact format. Also, remember in X when I complained about the voracious details regarding Kinsey's car wash? Well here we're treated to a multiple page description of Iris' chicken dinner preparations. Not needed. 

It's kind of sad that Grafton wasn't able to write a final Z novel (her family has confirmed that Y will be the last Alphabet mystery) but the 25 novels following Kinsey Milhone is not a bad life's work to hang it up on, some never get such an opportunity. RIP Sue Grafton.

3.5/5 Stars

Into the Water - Paula Hawkins

For a final book of the year, Into the Water by Paula Hawkins did not disappoint. I had read and liked, for the most part, Girl on the Train a couple of years ago  (you can read that review here). Despite not liking the main character in that book, Hawkins writing was strong and the plot was well laid out. 

The same can be said for Into the Water. While it may suffer from a few too many narrative voices, Into the Water is a double murder mystery. 

Nell Abbott has died in the drowning pool, a bend of a river where witches were once sentenced to death and drowned. Nell has a bit of a fascination with the spot and the women who have died there, Lizzy Seaton, a young 16th Century girl condemned for withcrafter, Anne Reed, a murderous wife, Lauren Townsend, a distraught and spurned mother, and finally Katie Whittaker, a young classmate of Nell's daughter, Leena. (I listened to the audio of this one, I never know quite how to spell names).

Nell's sister, Jules has arrived in town to take charge of her 15 year old niece, Leena. Jules and Nell were estranged and the circumstances were not good. But that's nothing compared to all the baggage people in this town are carrying. 

Illicit affairs, old grudges, twisted senses of protection - it's all there in this small town and it all works to first mask and then unravel the mystery of Katie and then Nell's death. Hawkins piece-meal deals out her facts and hints like a miser and then in a rush develops the secrets into plot twists. I was entertained even after I had figured it all out, until I hadn't. So that was fun. 

I'm glad to have made my reading goal. Especially because a bad case of plantar fasciitis kept me off the running kick that has fueled the last two years of my audiobook consumption.

4/5 Stars. 

Spider Bones - Kathy Reichs

I haven't read a Temperance Brennan book since probably before Bones became a TV show, so it was kind of like visiting an old friend. I'm not sure where in the series I left off, but lucky #13 Spider Bones seemed as good a book as any to start back with. 

A man found floating in a pond in Quebec has fingerprints traced back to a KIA from Vietnam. The investigation takes Tempe all the way to Hickam Air Force Base on Oahu where exhumed and discovered remains are identified and laid to rest by CIL. Additional remains become involved and well, no spoilers right? 

There is the familiar on-again off-again romance between Detective Andrew Ryan and Tempe. Daughter Katy makes an appearance as does Ryan's daughter, Lily. It's been a while so I didn't remember him having a daughter but well whatever. Some of those details seemed rushed and so did the overall story frankly. Reichs almost seemed just as done with the tedious details that have made the books interesting to read. 

Maybe it's just hard to write a book a year, but this well done story ended up feeling to rushed at the end and garners only three stars. If you've read these, you know what you're getting into already. It's my first "summer" read of the season and it was a perfect beach read, even though pool side will have to do for now. 

3/5 Stars. 

Since We Fell - Dennis Lehane

Since We Fell was such an uneven book it has to come out at 2 Stars. I'm not sure where to start on this, and maybe Lehane was not either. The first 40% of the book is the backstory of Rachel Childs, daughter of an overbearing mother who was a psychologist and a famous author. Having never married she wrote a best-selling marriage advice book. Okay sure Lehane, I'll suspend reality for a while here. Rachel spends 80% of that early section of the book lamenting over her inability to know the identity of her father, a man her mother hid for some reason that is explained, but I don't recall. She even hires a private detective named Brian Delacroix (I listened to this one, I never know how to spell names). She is an investigative reporting and becomes a TV news reporter. She goes to Haiti and witnesses unspeakable horror. She has a panic attack and nervous breakdown, gets divorced, and becomes a shut-in. 

So I'm thinking, okay this book is what, a think piece on the semi-annoying character Rachel. Then Rachel reconnects with Brian, gets married to him and remains a shut in based on her anxiety, except when she goes out with Brian or whatever. It's all really unclear. They are married for about four years when one day she sees him on the street in Boston when he's supposed to be in London. She confronts him, kind of, and is satisfied he was really in London, except when she's not. So all these things start happening that make her suspicious he's living a double life. Despite her anxiety she rents a car and follows him to a small Rhode Island town and sees him with a pregnant woman. Then the story takes this wide turn and becomes a thriller with contract killers and some kind of scam and oh yeah you have to suspend your belief in basically everything to go on with the rest of this book. 

Possibly the most irritating parts is when Rachel is following Brian around trying to determine if he's been lying to her. You get to hear pages and pages and pages of internal monologue about all Rachel's thoughts and feelings, with misplaced flashbacks and frustrating self-doubt. I just didn't need this much Rachel. This book just was way too long.

Some people I know and like rated this book much higher than me. Perhaps the narrator missed the mark here. Every male character sounded the same. It was annoying. 

2 Stars. 

Galveston - Nic Pizzolatto

Galveston was a good start for a new writer. The pace moved well. The writing, for the most part, was smooth and well structured. 

In essence, the story is about Roy Cady, a strong man for a New Orleans criminal organization run by Stan Ptiko. Stan's new girlfriend had a prior fling with Roy and it appears that Stan is not about to let that go. Right after Roy gets some bad news about a terminal illness, Stan asks him to go do a job, but to go "unarmed." Hmmm.... Roy gets suspicious and doesn't listen. Which is good because it turns out to be a setup. In the process of rescuing himself he also rescues a teenage prostitute.

The two head off to Galveston where Roy wrestles with his prognosis, a drinking problem, and a desire to do something good with the days that are left to him. Both he and Rocky, the prostitute are broken people, trying to figure out how to live life on the straight and narrow when neither have had any experience at it. 

So the elements of a good story are all there, and it was in the end, fulfilling to watch these two broken people be broken, but try very desperately to get something, anything right in their lives. Some scenes stretched credulity and some of the flashback writing style led to a lot of confusion. Some elements of the characters and some plot points didn't make sense. All in all this was a solid book, but lacked some finer tuning which would have made it really good.

3/5 Stars. 

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

I give up. I'll admit it. I love Neil Gaiman. I seem to like everything he writes. Ever since American Gods was my top book of 2015 (you can read that review here), I've delighted in the bizarre and funny stories he weaves. Neverwhere was no exception. The result is a look into "London Below" - a place where the forgotten live parallel lives to those in London Above, the paths never really crossing.

Poor Richard Mayhew is going nowhere in life. Engaged to a domineering woman with whom he has nothing in common, and plodding along in an everyday job, it seems that Richard will continue on his life of mediocrity until one evening, as he's walking to work with his terrible fiance Jess - sorry, Jessica - he happens upon a bleeding semi-conscious girl on the street. Richard, being a meek, but overall good person, decides to help the girl, despite Jessica's protestations that they are going to be late for dinner. In picking up the girl and choosing to help her, Richard tumbles into the confusing and disorienting world of London Below. 

Pursued by two incredibly creepy assassins, Richard must help the girl, Door, get in contact with someone she can trust. And because he's useless, Door aims to leave him behind and hope that she hasn't caused too much damage to Richard. Unfortunately, Richard becomes unrecognizable to those in London Above and must search out Door in order to regain his life. 

Along the way he meets with very interesting people and creatures of all kinds. What a rich, vibrant other world Gaiman has created. I can't wait to go watch the BBC series. You can read my review of Ocean at the End of the Lane here. 

5/5 Stars. 

The Monster of Florence - Douglas Preston

Yikes. What more can you ask for in a book like this.... serial murders in the beautiful Tuscan countryside, conspiracy theories, blood feuds, clan mentality? It's all in here. In The Monster of Florence, Douglas Preston chronicles at first the murders beginning in 1981, later connected to 1968 and 1974 killings, which are investigated and covered by journalist Mario Spezi. 

Spezi watches as the investigation makes several missteps including the basic fundamentals of crime scene security. Suspects are arrested and then freed after the killings fail to stop. The brutality of the murders create panic in the countryside as young lovers are targeted in flagrante delicto. And the police seem unable to stop the carnage. 

A Sardinian clan affiliated with the 1968 murder comes under suspicion, but the investigators are unable to make anything stick against the experienced criminals. However, as it's clear the family was involved in the 1968 killing and the same gun is used for all the subsequent murders, the family and the Monster must be connected, but how? 

Unable to make any of the convictions stick, aside from the 1968 conviction of the victims cuckolded husband, the investigators give up on the "Sardinian Trail" and disband letting a new crop of investigators pick up the pieces. 

Instead of a thoughtful review of the evidence, the new inspector Guittare, along with a Perugian judge Menini, embarks on a twisting conspiracy theory involving satanic cults and fancifal explanations for simple facts. The ridiculousness of their pursuits is highlighted in insisting a Perugian drowning in 1985 is related - the proof, the fact that the body buried was not that of the drowned man - but when he's exhumed and found to be the same man the investigators claim there was a double body switch. If this seems far fetched and hard to understand then you get the drift of how absurd their investigation became.

Eventually even Preston and Spezi come under scrutiny for their vehement disagreements with the investigators theories. Spezi is jailed and Menini insists he was involved in the 1985 Perugian drowning. If Menini's name sounds familiar, it's because he used the same satanic cockamamie theories to arrest and convict Amanda Knox in the killing of her roomate back in 2008. The complete autonomy with which Menini operates leads to many miscarriages of justice and wrecks many lives. 

The book is fascinating and blessedly well written. A very good read for true crime fans and law nerds alike.

4/5 Stars. 

Thunderstruck - Erik Larson

First things first, Erik Larson knows how to research an issue. Sometimes you forget that these things in his books happened to real people. Like Deadwake (you can read that review here), Thunderstruck involves ships and transatlantic crossings. But the similarities really end there.

Thunderstruck follows the progress of two seemingly unconnected events. First, the development of wireless telegraphy by inventor Guglielmo Marconi and the turbulent marriage of Hawley Harvey Crippen and Cora Crippen. 

As Marconi races against critics and arrogant scientists to achieve wireless transmissions across the Atlantic, Crippen and Cora move from New York to London to pursue Crippen's career in homeopathy and mail order pharmaceuticals. Cora, unable to accept her lack of talent, spends copious amounts of her husband's money in pursuing Opera and then local cabaret gigs to little result. She is presented as domineering and belittling of her husband, engaged in extramarital flirtations and affairs. Crippen, small and meek finally takes up with his secretary. And, well, then Cora goes missing, Crippen gets on a Marconi equipped vessel, and the gory remains of a body are found in his basement. 

Crippen and his secretary are pursued through wireless technology over the Atlantic Ocean and arrive, unwittingly, to be delivered in to the hands of the authorities, while a rapt public follows their 11 day journey through news reports made possible by the Marconi technology, thus cementing the use of Marconi's system into the hearts and minds of the once skeptical public. 

Thoroughly researched and well written, Larson does not disappoint.

4/5 Stars.