Do you have a book you read in school that you swore was the worst book ever? Have you ever thought that maybe your teachers weren't out to torture you, and there may have been a method to their madness after all? Then the July Challenge is for you!

Details on the challenge can be found here...check it out, and join us!

Book 66: The Polysyllabic Spree
Author: Nick Hornby
Genre: Non-Fiction
Summary: "Books are, let's face it, better than everything else," writes Nick Hornby in his "Stuff I've Been Reading" column in The Believer. "If we played cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go 15 rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time. Go on, try it. The Magic Flute v. Middlemarch? Middlemarch in six. The Last Supper v. Crime and Punishment? Fyodor on point And every now and again you'd get a shock, because that happens in sport, so Back to the Future III might land a lucky punch on Rabbit, Run; but I'm still backing literature 29 times out of 30." This book collects Hornby's popular columns in a single, artfully illustrated volume with selected passages from the novels, biographies, collections of poetry, and comics under discussion.
My Rating: 7/10
( My thoughts: )

Book 67: The Penelopiad
Author: Margaret Atwood
Genre: Fiction, Mythology
Summary: Margaret Atwood returns with a shrewd, funny, and insightful retelling of the myth of Odysseus from the point of view of Penelope. Describing her own remarkable vision, the author writes in the foreword, “I’ve chosen to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids. The maids form a chanting and singing Chorus, which focuses on two questions that must pose themselves after any close reading of the Odyssey: What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to? The story as told in the Odyssey doesn’t hold water: there are too many inconsistencies. I’ve always been haunted by the hanged maids and, in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself.”
My Rating: 8/10
( My thoughts: )

Book 68: Death Angel
Author: Linda Howard
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Suspense
Summary: A striking beauty with a taste for diamonds and dangerous men, Drea Rousseau is more than content to be arm candy for Rafael Salinas, a notorious crime lord who deals with betrayal through quick and treacherous means: a bullet to the back of the head, a blade across the neck, an incendiary device beneath a car. Eager to break with Rafael, Drea makes a fateful decision and a desperate move, stealing a mountain of cash from the malicious killer. After all, an escape needs to be financed.

Though Drea runs, Salinas knows she can’t hide–and he dispatches a cold-blooded assassin in hot pursuit, resulting in a tragic turn of events. Or does it?
My Rating: 7/10
( My thoughts: )

Book 69: The Blind Assassin
Author: Margaret Atwood
Genre: Fiction
Summary: “Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.” These words are spoken by Iris Chase Griffen, married at eighteen to a wealthy industrialist but now poor and eighty-two. Iris recalls her far from exemplary life, and the events leading up to her sister’s death, gradually revealing the carefully guarded Chase family secrets. Among these is “The Blind Assassin,” a novel that earned the dead Laura Chase not only notoriety but also a devoted cult following. Sexually explicit for its time, it was a pulp fantasy improvised by two unnamed lovers who meet secretly in rented rooms and seedy cafés. As this novel-within-a-novel twists and turns through love and jealousy, self-sacrifice and betrayal, so does the real narrative, as both move closer to war and catastrophe. Margaret Atwood’s Booker Prize-winning sensation combines elements of gothic drama, romantic suspense, and science fiction fantasy in a spellbinding tale.
My Rating: 10/10
( My thoughts: )

Book 70: Around the World in 80 Days
Author: Jules Verne
Genre: Classic, Fiction, Young Adult
Summary: On a wager, the eccentric English gentleman Phileas Fogg accepts a challenge to circle the globe in eighty days. Follow Phileas and his faithful valet Passepartout, in this classic fantastic adventure.
My Rating: 5/10
( My thoughts: )

70 / 74 books. 95% done!

35 - ( Let There Be Blood by Jane Jakeman )

36 - ( The Hunted by Andrew Hollerman )

37 - ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer #17: Time of Your Life pt 2 )

38 - ( Spike #2: After the Fall pt 2 )

39 - ( A Push and a Shove by Christopher Kelly )

40 - ( Out by Natsuo Kirino )

 

22 / 50 (44.0%)

Per request, I'm putting most of this post behind an LJ-Cut.

The books you'll find within:

#13-#15 is actually an ominbus edition of all three books in the Wraeththu trilogy by Storm Constantine, and I'll review it as one book.
#16 was Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser
#17 was Notes from an Incomplete Revolution: Real Life Since Feminism by Merideth Maran
#18 was Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore
#19 was Food and Feast in Tudor England by Alison Sim
#20 was The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
#21 was Folly by Laurie R. King
#22 was House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

31. Breaking Dawn Stephanie Meyer [8/10]

I've heard a lot of mixed reviews on this book. Personally, I enjoyed it very much, though perhaps not as much as the previous three parts of the saga. It didn't have the same flow and feeling that the others had, but I don't mean to say it wasn't well written. It was just different.

I also think I should mention that I was very impressed with the way Meyer handled the more adult scenes. For those you who have not read it, I won't go into details, but I think those of you who have read it will pick up on what I mean when you consider the age range of the twilight readers.

32. Bizenghast v5 M. Alice LeGrow [3/5]

I really enjoy LeGrow's work, but this was not her best. The art was off, which technically you can't really fault an artist for trying to grow and improve their style, but it was in the middle of the series :| And I didn't like that nothing was really accomplished in the book, it was all about Dinah struggling and coming to terms with what had happened in book 4. She didn't actually solve anything or complete any mausoleum tasks, which is what the whole series is about...

33. Ink Exchange Melissa Marr [9/10]

I really enjoyed this! I thought it was a fantastic addition to what will hopefully become a fae series by Marr. It was very dark, but will played out. The dual romance was kind of a repeat from the previous book, Wicked Lovely, but it was excellent just the same :]

33 / 50 (66.0%)

So, now I'm almost done Dune. I have about 90 pages left... And then I have to work on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Which is like. Huge. I bought my mother a copy of Emma as part of her birthday gifts, so I might have to read that too...

Well, that's all for now.

#10. Velocity - Dean Koontz



From the publisher:

Dean Koontz’s unique talent for writing terrifying thrillers with a heart and soul is nowhere more evident than in this latest suspense masterpiece that pits one man against the ultimate deadline. If there were speed limits for the sheer pulse-racing excitement allowed in one novel, Velocity would break them all. Get ready for the ride of your life.

Velocity

Bill Wile is an easygoing, hardworking guy who leads a quiet, ordinary life. But that is about to change. One evening, after his usual eight-hour bartending shift, he finds a typewritten note under the windshield wiper of his car. If you don’t take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours.

It seems like a sick joke, and Bill’s friend on the police force, Lanny Olson, thinks so too. His advice to Bill is to go home and forget about it. Besides, what could they do even if they took the note seriously? No crime has actually been committed. But less than twenty-four hours later, a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered, and it’s Bill’s fault: he didn’t convince the police to get involved. Now he’s got another note, another deadline, another ultimatum…and two new lives hanging in the balance.

Suddenly Bill’s average, seemingly innocuous life takes on the dimensions and speed of an accelerating nightmare. Because the notes are coming faster, the deadlines growing tighter, and the killer becoming bolder and crueler with everycommunication—until Bill is isolated with the terrifying knowledge that he alone has the power of life and death over a psychopath’s innocent victims. Until the struggle between good and evil is intensely personal. Until the most chilling words of all are: The choice is yours.

My thoughts:

This book could have been better. Velocity, although managing to capture my interest in wanting to know 'who-done-it', is poorly written, slightly tacky, and while starting on a good foot became progressively boring. Also, as a California native, I found myself saying, "No one around here says THAT" whenever the characters supposedly from California spoke. I've never read a Koontz novel before this one, so I may be misjudging his ability as an author; however, I found this book to be one of those typical "popular novels". So unless you want a break from a book with substance...you know, something that requires your brain to work as you read...I wouldn't recommend it. Instead try someone like Agatha Christie because, well...she's awesome. 2/5 stars.

10 / 50 books. 20% done!

x-posted hula_lullaby

Book Two
Title: Folly
Author: Laurie R. King
Page Count: 432
Genre: Suspense

Synopsis/Thoughts: Being a huge fan of Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series, I picked this up in an attempt to branch out into some other things she’s written. When I started reading this, I was expecting a typical mystery story, and nothing more. How wrong it was to assume that! This is the saga of Rae Newborn, who at fifty-two years old has been through hell and high water. In addition to coping with severe depression, which has caused her to make numerous attempts on her own life, she is also dealing with the horrible deaths of her husband and small daughter in a car wreck. In an attempt to purge herself of the thoughts that torment her, she retreats to a small island in the Northwest, called Folly. Here on Folly, many years ago, Rae’s great uncle Desmond retreated for the same reasons…he was a shell-shocked soldier looking for escape. On Folly, he distracts himself by building a house with his own hands. However, one night the house burns to the ground, and Desmond disappears, leaving behind a mystery that has lain unsolved for years. Until Rae arrives, that is. It is Rae’s aim to rebuild her great uncle’s house on her own, but it is impossible to do so without disturbing the ghosts of the past. The question throughout most of the book is whether there is actually an outside antagonist, or if the only enemy Rae faces is her own troubled mind. I won’t spoil the ending, but I felt that the main focus of the book was right where it should have been…on Rae and her inner struggles. That was really what the book was all about, and that I feel sets it apart greatly from most other novels in the genre. I also admire the author for tackling the serious issue of severe mental illness unflinchingly. It is an off-putting subject for some, but I felt that in this book it was handled very well. While Rae is sometimes overtaken by her sickness, she is an incredibly strong woman, and for that she garners respect from the reader. Instead of wallowing in angst and whining, she gets up and does something about it. All in all it was a complex book, with a complex main character who is forced to tackle complex issues, while still being a page turning mystery. I would highly recommend it, and it has only made me want to read more by Laurie R. King.

Well, I'm horribly behind so far this year in both my reading and my posting. I'm officially up to fourteen books (pathetic, but I'm working on it). Initially I had planned on doing a long post (behind a cut, of course) with thoughts on all of these. However, the task has proved to be rather daunting, so I think I'm just going to do one at a time, whenever I can find a spare minute to sit down and actually post.


Book One
Title: The Mysteries of Udolpho
Author: Ann Radcliffe
Page Count:: 704
Genre: Gothic Romance/Suspense

Synopsis/My Thoughts: As a fan of Austen's Northanger Abbey, I wanted to read this just to find out what all the fuss was about. It features the standard pure-as-the-driven-snow heroine, Emily St. Aubert, who, after the tragic death of her parents, is shipped off to live with her nasty aunt, who has no greater joy in life than to torment Emily, and keep her from her beloved suitor, Valancourt. Just when the nasty aunt finally agrees to let Emily be wed to Valancourt (after it becomes clear that Valancourt is actually a rather well-connected young man with Important Family Ties), in steps the villainous Montoni. Montoni is the smooth Italian Don Juan type, and in record time he manages to seduce the aunt and marry her. Immediately after the marriage, it becomes clear that he is actually a villain and a cad of the highest order, and he wastes no time in whisking Emily and her aunt away to his terrifying castle lair in the mountains of Italy. What horrors await her here are beyond imagination. In addition to the various scoundrels attempting to sully her virtue, Emily must cope with everything from mysterious prisoners to sinister locked rooms, not to mention the assorted corpses and possible ghosts scattered about for good measure. As the foreword to my copy of the book so helpfully points out, on average someone (usually Emily) faints every forty-eight pages in Udolpho. What will become of poor Emily? Will she EVER be reunited with her stalwart lover? Or will she perish alone in the moldering, gloomy hallways of Udolpho? *dun dun dun* In its day, this book was condemned as a "horrid novel". Nowadays, they'd probably call it fluff. All in all, I thought the book was great fun, but I probably won't be reading it again anytime soon. At seven hundred pages, with some very dense descriptive passages, it's a rather exhausting read (no wonder everyone was always fainting). I definitely felt it was worth the trouble, and will be keeping it on my shelf for when I recover (in a few years) to possibly re-read then. It has also given me a desire to read more of Ann Radcliffe's works, which I no doubt will be doing in the future.

The Dracula Dossier - (7/19) - James Reese 343p

The Dracula Dossier (published in October 2008) answers the age old question:  Who was Jack the Ripper?  And what if he were acquainted with Bram Stoker? I actually liked this better than Twilight.

My complete 2008 list can be found here

38. The Lion’s Game by Nelson DeMille. Written in 2000, this book takes Detective John Corey (from the novel Plum Island) and places him in a case involving the FBI, CIA, and NYPD when a terrorist is extradited to the United States. The suspense builds page by page, and the ending is unexpected. It is a bit disconcerting to read of terrorists wanting the World Trade Center destroyed in a post-9/11 world (references are made to the 1993 bombing) but the characters are sharply drawn and fairly realistic. Ignore the few plot holes and enjoy the ride.
39. Carved in Bone by Jefferson Bass. Fiction by Dr. Bass of the Body Farm and novelist Jon Jefferson. Set in Tennessee, the book boasts a decent plot and some red herrings, but the redneck characters wear thin after a little while.
40. Amazonia, by James Rollins. A rollicking adventure set in the Amazonian rainforest where the potential cure for a lethal virus exists with two teams of researchers racing to find it. Any book with carnivorous locusts, giant caimans, and prehistoric jaguars can’t be all bad.

Wow, only ten more to go!

Currently reading: The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr

71. Watermusic Sarah Sargent (3.5/5)

I first read this book when I was in middle school, and it made quite an impression on me, so when I was able to rediscover the title and author through whatwasthatbook, I picked it up through Interlibrary Loan.

It was much shorter and the plot was much more slight than I recalled, which was interesting -- I seem to have fleshed out the book in my mind. There are some marvelous images in it, and it's a pretty cool metaphysical fantasy, but it wasn't quite as good as I remembered.


72. The Face in the Frost John Bellairs (4/5)

I've long been a fan of Bellairs' wonderfully creepy novels for children, so when I discovered that early in his career he'd written a fantasy novel (ostensibly for adults), I was eager to check it out.

This feels like a first novel, or an early one, and all of the great elements don't always come together into a solid whole. On the other hand, it's marvelously funny, and the wizards herein might remind some readers of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It also has some genuinely creepy moments, and I think had I read it when I was younger, it would have spooked me a bit. Definitely worth reading, especially if you enjoyed The House With a Clock in Its Walls and other classic Bellairs. I would say that this is equally entertaining for older children and for adults.

73. A Good and Happy Child Justin Evans (3.5/5)

George Davies can't bring himself to hold his newborn son, to the point that it is destroying his marriage. Entering counseling for what he views hopefully as "more of a hang-up" than anything serious, he uncovers strange and frightening events from his childhood that he had willfully shut out of his memory.

The young George Davies' father died when he was 11, under mysterious circumstances. Now George is experiencing strange hallucinations of a Friend who comes to him at night and tells him sinister things about his father and mother. Is he experiencing a psychotic break, or is there something supernatural at work?

There are some nicely creepy elements to this story, and the author manages to inject quite a bit of suspense, despite most of the story being told in flashbacks. The flashback mode of storytelling has an unfortunate distancing effect, however. Since it is adult George Davies recalling the events when he was eleven, the accounts of young George Davies' thoughts and feelings sometimes seem jarringly adult, even for an unusually sophisticated eleven-year-old. In addition, just the knowledge that this all happened twenty years ago mutes some of the tension. In all, this is a good read that will have you turning the pages quickly, but it doesn't quite live up to what it could be.

8. Startled by His Furry Shorts - Louise Rennison

Teen Fiction/Humor

On the rack of romance. And also in the oven of luuurve.

Woe is Georgia: Dave the Laugh has declared his love for her (at least she thinks he was talking about her), and she has finally given Masimo an ultimatum to be her one and only and he has to think about it. And will she ever be able to stop thinking about the Sex God plucking his guitar strings of loveosity?

278 pages

This book seemed like it took me forever to get through. The series is sadly just not holding my attention anymore. Once again, it feels as though time never moves. Yes, Georgia is almost 16 years old at this point, but it feels like she's still a 13 year old. I don't like how her character has shaped up. She's shallow and a bit too sarcastic. I'm really only going to read the next book because of the surprise (although not completely unexpected) ending to this one.

Overall, I give Louise Rennison's Startled by His Furry Shorts two and a half stars out of a possible five. It was pretty much a colossal waste of time with knobs.

---

9. The Bone Garden - Tess Gerritsen

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

Unknown bones, untold secrets, and unsolved crimes from the distant past cast ominous shadows on the present in the dazzling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.

Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil—human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time. . . .

Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College has joined the ranks of local “resurrectionists”—those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect.

To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city—from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power—on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected . . . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity.

370 pages

The book wasn't too bad. It wasn't as good as I'd expected, but it was decent. Still better than some of Gerritsen's other works.

The characters were amazing. You can't help but fall in love with Rose and Norris, or Julia and Tom. The facts and history are accurate as well. Very well researched. Besides that, the plot line was very good. No major loopholes to report. Everything came together at the end and as predictable as some elements were, they still came as enough of a shock to be noteworthy.

Overall, I give Tess Gerritsen's The Bone Garden three stars out of a possible five. It was fairly good. I'd recommend it to those interested in historical fiction and mystery.

#10: Code Orange by Caroline B. Cooney

Anybody heard of a little book called Face on the Milk Carton? Same author.

This is TOTALY a good read. Ripped through it in a few days (and it's not a comic or anything small. It's a novel). You know I like a book when I get that focussed on it. Anybody who is into thrillers stories, especially ones involving terrorism, should give this a shot. It's good hearted and interesting. Grips you till the end.

 

12 / 50 (24.0%)

I have to be forgetting a book or two, it's been so long since I updated. I'll check my stack when I get home and add any stragglers later.

Book #5 was An Instance of the Fingerpost by Ian Pears

From the Publisher:
We are in Oxford in the 1660s - a time, and place, of great intellectual, scientific, religious and political ferment. Robert Grove, a fellow of New College is found dead in suspicious circumstances. A young woman is accused of his murder. We hear about the events surrounding his death from four witnesses: Marco da Cola, a Venetian Catholic intent on claiming credit for the invention of blood transfusion; Jack Prescott, the son of a supposed traitor to the Royalist cause determined to vindicate his father; John Wallis, chief cryptographer to both Cromwell and Charles II, a mathematician, theologican and inveterate plotter; and Anthony Wood, the famous Oxford antiquary. Each witness tells their version of what happened. Only one reveals the extraordinary truth.

An Instance of the Fingerpost is a magnificent tour de force: an utterly compelling historical mystery story with a plot that twists and turns and keeps the reader guessing until the very last page


Book #6 was Wrestling with the Angel: Faith and Religion in the Lives of Gay Men, edited by Brian Bouldrey

From the publisher:

In Wrestling with the Angel, twenty-one authors - gay men who are Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, and Mormon - explore in moving and powerful essays the paradox at the center of their faiths: If God creates each of us in His own image, then how can that image be "wrong"? In vivid descriptions of their paths toward spiritual and sexual identity, such eloquent contributors as David Plante, Mark Doty, Lev Raphael, Alfred Corn, Andrew Holleran, Frank Browning, Michael Nava, Brad Gooch, Fenton Johnson, and Felice Picano reveal the joys and frustrations of communicating with one's excommunicator or, in some cases, of constructing a faith of one's own. Heightened by the urgency of this brutal age of AIDS, their essays are both intensely personal and partisan. They rise off the page like rambunctious prayers, reflecting not only the spiritual hunger brought on by the new millennium, but also the fact that we can no more choose our God than we can our sexuality. 

Book #7 was Tales of the Lavender Menace : A Memior of Liberation by Karla Jay

From the Publishers Weekly:

Jay writes with wry humor and astute historical analysis in this memoir of her early days as a feminist and gay liberation activist. Currently the director of women's and gender studies and professor of English at Pace University, she was raised in a middle-class Brooklyn home by an emotionally disturbed mother and a father who didn't believe she was his daughter. Jay's political life began in 1964 when she entered Barnard College; by 1969 she was a member of the Redstockings radical feminist collective and a leader in the newly formed Gay Liberation Front. With a canny eye for detail, she creates a vivid, realistic portrait of early 1970s feminist and sexual radicalism, from communal living to group sex to the watershed feminist protest in the offices of Ladies' Home Journal. She charts how women's and gay liberation were made possible by the black civil rights and antiwar movements and is careful not to idealize or whitewash complex, sometimes petty and factional, political struggles, while clearly expressing the joy and excitement she felt in the moment. Nor does she hesitate to contradict the memoirs of luminaries such as Rita Mae Brown and Betty Friedan, taking them to task for what she considers historical misrepresentation. Jay has turned out a political and personal memoir that succeeds in its aim to convey "what it was like to live then and what some of us did to forge social change." Photos not seen by PW. 


Book #8 was Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present by Lillian Faderman

From Amazon.com:

First published in 1981, this feminist classic began modestly as an academic essay on Emily Dickinson's love poems and letters to her future sister-in-law, Sue Gilbert. In her original introduction, Faderman recalled her surprise at finding these records of an erotic attachment between women that showed no evidence of guilt, anxiety, or the need for secrecy. Yet 60 or 70 years after they were written, the original letters had been bowdlerized by a niece of Dickinson's, who clearly found them too shocking for publication. Why, Faderman wondered, was passionate love between women, once almost universally applauded in the Western world, now almost universally condemned? She learned that the love between Dickinson and Gilbert had many precedents, and that it was only in the late 19th century that medical literature and antifeminism combined to rank women who loved women "somewhere," as she puts it bluntly, "between necrophiliacs and those who had sex with chickens." For this new edition, Faderman explains that she has resisted the urge to update her text, hoping that her exploration of romantic friendship, from French libertine literature through the dawn of feminism through the lesbian panic of the 1920s will still serve as "solace and ammunition" for those hoping to find "a usable past.


Book #9 was Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Divine Feminine by Sue Monk Kidd

From Amazon.com:

The author's journey to capture her feminine soul and to live authentically from that soul makes a fascinating, well-researched and well-written story. Kidd's successful pilgrimage from her Southern Baptist roots and away from the patriarchal and fundamentalist Christian religious systems surrounding her is an account of anger turned to courage, creativity and love. A mid-career realization that she had lived without "real inner authority" and with "a fear of dissension, confrontation, backlash, a fear of not pleasing, not living up to sanctioned models of femininity" produced in Kidd the new mindset that made her journey possible. Additionally, her extensive knowledge of many subjects, including theology, mythology and the arts, made possible the copious references and cross-references that will prove invaluable for readers who wish to follow her in this same search. While Kidd cautions that each woman's path will be unique, there is no question but that many women will find in her book a mirror of their own present conditions and a hopeful call to self-discovery


Book #10 was Standing at Water's Edge: Moving Past Fear, Blocks, and Pitfalls to Discover the Power of Creative Immersion by Ann Paris

From Amazon.com

Echoes in the Darkness by Joseph Wambaugh, 1987, 370 pages.

Genre:true crime, suspense, non-fiction
Basic Overview: This book is the tale of 'The Main Line Murders', in which young Susan Reinert and her two young children, Karen and Michael, were slain in 1979. The story features the strangely charismatic teacher Bill Bradfield, a disciple of Ezra Pound, a womanizer, and a man who could get people to do almost anything he asked of them. Certainly he had disciples, and women who took him back time after time. The other main character is Dr. Jay Smith, the child-hating principal of the school where Bill Bradfield taught, a man with an aura of evil, whose character the reader never fully understands.
Personal Opinion: Honestly, although I enjoyed the book, I was expecting it to be better. My husband has been telling me about the book and the mini-series for years, and reading it paled in comparison to his stories about it. As he painted it, there was a real connection between Bradfield and Smith, and this book never really explored that connection, although I am sure that it existed. So much of what happened in the story is left unexplained - to me it felt like an Ann Rule book, minus all the satisfying details. I won't deny that I liked his writing style, and that it was interesting, but in the end, I was disappointed by this book.

  

Before the Frost by Henning Mankell, 2002, 383 pages. English translation copyright 2005 by Ebba Segeberg.

Genre: mystery, suspense, international, fiction
Basic Overview: Set in the Swedish city of Ystad, the book features Mankell's Inspector Kurt Wallander, and his daughter Linda, who has just graduated from the police academy and will soon be his co-worker. Linda's missing friend Anna, a decapitated corpse, a sadist who sets fire to animals and the Jonestown, Guyana suicides all find their place in this novel.
Personal Opinion: This is a reread of the first Mankell novel I read, which I borrowed from the library. Unable to get any of his other books through the library system, I ordered several online, and last weekend was delighted to find a hardcover copy of this novel in a discount bin at the bookstore. It was even better the second time round. Mankell's novels are really good. His characters are believable, his plots unusual but not beyond the pale, and the writing taut. There is also the added attraction of reading a book where the character, street, and city names are decidedly different to my own, as are many other things, such as food, and traditions - it makes the story more interesting. Mankell has become one of my favourite mystery writers over the past year - he and Mark Billingham share top billing [no pun intended]. I definitely recommend him for mystery/suspense lovers looking for something different.