Six Years by Harlan Coben

Six Years by Harlan Coben

Six years ago Jake attended the wedding of Natalie and Todd.  A normal occurrence, attending a wedding; but Natalie was the love of Jake’s life and not a day goes by that he doesn’t think of her.  Yet he has kept his distance and never tried to find her or spy on her online.  After the wedding she made him promise that he would leave her and her new husband alone.  And he did.  But today he saw the obituary of Todd in the alumni newsletter and Jake breaks his promise.  Some promises should never be broken.

Coben does a great job with the twists and turns in this one.  Jake is utterly confused and freaked out and we’re right with him.  Things are revealed little by little, but the more you learn the less sense it all makes.  Of course it all is clear in the end, but you will be in a fog (in a good way!) for most of the book.

A great choice on audio; Scott Brick is a great reader and he does confused and flabbergasted extremely well.

Crossbones Yard by Kate Rhodes

Crossbones Yard by Kate Rhodes

Psychologist Alice Quentin seems to have it all together.  She has a great job, a nice flat, and a loving boyfriend.  She’s just not happy.  And things don’t seem to be looking any better when she discovers the body of a young girl while out for a run.  The body is in the Crossbones Yard, a small overgrown lot that a century ago was a graveyard for prostitutes, and it is estimated that hundreds, maybe even a thousand bodies are buried there.  What does the location have to do with the crime?  Is it connected to notorious serial killers who preyed on the lonely and weak only a decade before?

Why is it that psychologists in fiction seem to have more problems than their patients?  I liked Alice, but she was frustrating as well.  She admits to her faults.  She talks about how she works with patients with extreme phobias yet she can’t use her own advice to get over her fear of enclosed places.  Granted, having to jog up twenty-four flights of stairs to your office will keep you in great shape, but it’s odd to be a psychologist with extreme phobias.  That’s just a taste of the baggage that Alice is carrying, which is nothing compared to some of the other characters you meet.

All in all it is an enjoyable thriller that will keep you guessing.  Like Alice you think you have discovered the identity of the killer, and I’m pretty sure that like Alice, you’ll be completely wrong.

The Burn Palace by Stephen Dobyns

The Burn Palace by Stephen Dobyns

Small town Brewster, Rhode Island is typically a sleepy place in the off season.  This October proves to be very different.  It all begins with the kidnapping of an infant from the nursery of the small local hospital.  The nurse was only gone a moment but when she went to check on the two babies in residence in one of the bassinets an infant no longer soundly slept, snakes writhed and wriggled in its place.  Couple this with marauding vicious packs of coyotes, hints of cults meeting in the woods, ghastly murders and signs of witchcraft and Satanism and little Brewster is terrified what Halloween may bring.  Is something supernatural to blame?  Or is it something mundane, yet so horrid it is beyond imagining?

I chose to read this book because it was recommended by Stephen King.  And it definitely has that small town horror vibe King is great at.  I dare say that Dobyns does it one step better. (King agrees with me).  I normally don’t notice the quality of the writing unless it is exceptionally good or really bad.  The writing is great.  I just loved the way the book is written.  It’s only March, yet The Burn Palace surely has a place on my best of 2013 list.

Mile 81 by Stephen King

Mile 81 by Stephen King

This novella is only available to libraries in audiobook and it is one not to be missed.  Coming of age horror story is the best way to describe it.  What starts off sounding like Stand By Me turns into a really messed up Christine like tale. 

A young boy is deemed too young to play with his older brother and his friends.  Annoyed by being left behind he wants to have an adventure to brag about to the older kids.  He decides to visit the abandoned rest area on the Maine Turnpike at Exit 81.  Unfortunately he isn’t the only one who decided to visit the place that day…

If you are a bit squeamish, I wouldn’t recommend this one.  It’s pretty gory in spots.  And if you happen to drive a station wagon do NOT listen to this one.  Especially if you are driving it while listening. You may need to abandon your car on the side of the road.

Lady of Ashes by Christine Trent

Lady of Ashes by Christine Trent

The main character of this story set in Victorian London is a figure rarely discussed in literature.  Violet is an undertaker.  Yes, you read that correctly, she is an undertaker.  It may be her husband’s business, but she has learned all there is about the trade and has made a name for herself in the funerary business.

This story is chock full of Victoriana culture and history.  The Victorians took mourning and all its ceremony and accoutrements very seriously, and you learn a lot about the stages of mourning and such here.  Quite fascinating actually.  It is also interesting to see the American Civil War from the English perspective.

The only fault I saw in the book was the number of plotlines running through the narrative: the undertaking business, train wrecks, illegal smuggling, the death (and funeral) of a royal, a disappearing husband, a found daughter, and illicit love affairs.  Wait!  I missed one.  A serial killer is at work in London as well.  While the serial killer was interesting (and an actual historical person) I think it could have been left out.  There was quite enough going on in Violet’s life already!

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

The Burgess Boys, Jim and Bob, fled small town Maine and never wanted to return.  Jim, the eldest, left after winning a high profile case for New York City and a big money job as a corporate lawyer.  Bob, who idolizes his brother, follows and gets a job working for Legal Aid.  Many forget that there is a Burgess sister named Susan.  It is Susan, more exactly the trouble her son Zach has gotten into, that summons the Burgess Boys back to Maine.

I saw this novel as exploring the ideas of the incidents and actions, some small, some large, which define us forevermore.  What makes people from the same family so different, and what makes family dynamics so difficult to unravel and comprehend.  I thought I was picking up a legal drama, but instead I got an intense character study.  I was pleased.

The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

This is the biographical novel of Anne Morrow, following her through all her incarnations – ambassador’s daughter, aviator’s wife, mother, a strong-willed independent woman.   The author does take liberties with condensing timelines (which she fully admits to in the afterward) and her artistic license makes the story flow.  We see what Anne’s life as the wife of Charles Lindbergh, a real life hero, was like, and I can’t help but wonder if any other woman would have been capable of holding things together like she did.

The most striking part of the narrative to me was just how invasive the press and the general public were in the Lindbergh’s lives.  Their addresses (with maps!) were printed in newspapers.  People would just show up at their door for an audience.  Of course, the kidnapping of their firstborn is in the novel, and it seems that after that incident the media attention got worse. 

While this is Anne’s story, we do see the hero through her eyes and can empathize with her and how difficult it must have been to be the aviator’s wife.

Telling the Bees by Peggy Hesketh

Telling the Bees by Peggy Hesketh

Albert Honig is an elderly bachelor beekeeper, content living alone with his bees as his constant companions.  Once he was friends with the girls next door, Claire in particular, but an incident years ago suddenly ended their relationship.  Years have gone by and all three continue on with their lives, never interacting.  Albert senses something is wrong next door and discovers that the Bee Ladies (as his next door neighbors are now known in the neighborhood) have been killed during a burglary.  Who would want to rob the elderly sisters?  Can the secrets of the past solve the mystery of the present?

Told by Albert, the novel leisurely moves between the present and the past unveiling aspects of the main character’s lives little by little.  Albert can be frustrating at times to both the investigator and the reader, fixated on his bees more so than on the investigation, or so it seems.  Each chapter opens with a bit of bee lore or knowledge and everything he relates does have meaning.  A well-crafted mystery and study of family.

Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman

Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman

Brigid Quinn, former Special Agent with the FBI, now retired, tells you to never trust a woman who tells you her age.  She then tells you that she is fifty-nine.  This uneven footing is how the story starts.

For Brigid the one that got away was the Route 66 killer.  The agent she was training was taken by this serial killer and her remains were never found.  Now it looks like the killer is in custody and he will lead them to the body.  Has this horrible saga finally come to an end?  Or is it just the beginning of another mystery?

This is a well-crafted thriller that will keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat.  I really loved the main character.  While she does occasionally feel her age, she’s also fit and still packs quite a wallop.  I hope the author figures out a way to get her involved in another thriller soon.

Place your holds now -- it is released on March 12th!

The Good House by Ann Leary

The Good House by Ann Leary

Hildy Good is the premier real estate agent in the small New England town of Westover.  At least she was.  Until she lost her protégée to Sotheby’s after the inquisition…intervention…that her daughters arranged.  Living in a house she can’t afford unless she gets some choice listings Hildy is under a little stress.  But she knows everything and everyone in her small town and knows that she can use her knowledge to her advantage.

I recommend this book on audio.  The reader has a great “let’s sit down and talk” type of voice.  I couldn’t stop listening!  Even though the main character has a myriad of faults you can’t help liking her and wanting her to get herself together.  She just seemed so real.  Getting the point of view of an alcoholic in extreme denial (and getting in her head to hear all her justifications for her own actions) was eye opening.

This story really gets to the underbelly of this idyllic small town showing that nowhere is a perfect as it may appear.

Schroder by Amity Gaige

Schroder by Amity Gaige

Young Erik Schroder was born in East Berlin and came to the United States with his father to Boston.  When applying to attend summer camp he decides to recreate himself taking on the identity of Eric Kennedy.  This is a persona that he likes and in the mid-80s it was easy to create a new identity for oneself so he became Eric Kennedy.  As Eric Kennedy he got married and had a beautiful daughter named Meadow.  All is not well in his marriage and the two divorce with his ex-wife all but getting full custody.  Eric loves his daughter and wants to be with her but he knows that if he starts to fight too hard his true identity will be revealed.  While he never did anything horrible in his past, the fact that the past he has always told his family and friends about is a lie.  So Eric spontaneously takes his six-year old daughter on an adventure: an adventure that his ex-wife and the authorities call kidnapping.

This book is written as an apology to his ex-wife.  The chapters are short, each detailing episodes from his life as well as what he and Meadow were doing while on their adventure.  He knows that as a parent his ex would want to know everything her daughter experienced while not with her mother. 

While some reviewers say there is nothing to like about Schroder I found myself not only liking him, but empathizing with him.  He dreamed of a better life for himself and things just didn’t work out the way he envisioned.  A quick, interesting read that really allows you to get into the head of the main character.

Harvest by Jim Crace

Harvest by Jim Crace

In a village somewhere in Medieval Britain the master’s dovecote is burnt to the ground.  The day before a hearth fire was sighted where one never was before.  Strangers have established a hold in their insulated village.  If there is disaster it must be the fault of the strangers, even though most are quite certain that residents were involved.  The strangers are punished, not harshly some judge, but misfortune seems to spring from the incident.  How did life in this perfect village go so badly so quickly?

A sociological study of the feelings of us and them as well as the motivations and rationalizations of groups rather than individuals this is a quick and interesting read.

The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler

The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler

Lily Azerov is a refugee from World War II in Europe.  She makes her way to Israel and brokers a marriage arrangement with Sol Kramer in Montreal.  Upon her arrival in Montreal her fiancé takes one look at her disembarking from her train and walks away.  Thankfully for Lily, Sol’s brother Nathan steps up and marries her.  Soon after their marriage a baby is on the way.  When their child, Ruth, is a few months old Lily goes out to get milk and never returns.  When Ruth is six years old a rock comes in the mail from her mother.  The family now knows she’s alive but has no idea where she is or why she left.

Told in alternating chapters by Lily and Ruth we slowly learn the story of both women.  What happened to Lily in Europe?  How does Ruth deal with being abandoned by her mother?  This book asks a lot of questions, and while is answers most, I don’t think it completely answers the most pressing questions brought up in the narrative.

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

While Caleb is an extremely important character in this story, it is Bethia Mayfield, his very good friend, who narrates and shares her innermost thoughts in her diaries with us.  Through her eyes we see what life on her island, what we know as Martha’s Vineyard, was like in the late 1600s to the early 1700s.  She also journeys to Cambridge to work as a housekeeper for a school and sees how life there differs from her beloved island where she could more freely communicate with her Indian friends and the “rules” were much different.

Inspired by Caleb Cheeshahteaumauck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, the grounding of actual historical events makes this read a well-crafted history lesson as well as a well-written novel.