October Books

October wasn't the reading month I hoped for, either in quantity or in really loving the books. There were a couple of very good ones -- and some that really weren't up to what I was hoping. 

 

 "The Raging Storm" by Ann Cleeves

 

"The Raging Storm" is the third book in Ann Cleeves' Matthew Venn series. A storm has come to the Devon coast and the Greystone rescue team, under the leadership of Mary Ford at the helm, have been called out to rescue a dinghy that appears to be damaged. When they arrive, they discover the body of television adventure host Jem Roscoe, a native to the area.

Roscoe had returned to Greystone several weeks earlier, renting a flat in a house behind the village pub. He appears to be well liked by the townsfolk who are a bit in awe of his celebrity status. He has said that he is visiting the town, waiting to meet someone. When his body is found, stabbed, it is a shock to the town and the police team under DI Venn are called in. 

Venn's team includes sergeants Ross May and Jen Rafferty, and they are discovering that it is pretty difficult to get information in the tightly knit village. On top of it all, many of the residents are members of the Barum Brotherhood, a religious sect. It is one Venn knows well. He was raised in the church and has since broken with its people and the faith. He also knows the town, from his years visiting for church events with his parents. His connection is both a help and a hindrance in this case. He is uncomfortable with it, and at times his judgment is clouded.

But, his history allows him somewhat better access to the townsfolk, many of whom remember his family and are guarded in their thoughts about the young man who had left the church. There are countless people on the interview list -- the magistrate/yacht club commodore Barty and his wife Eleanore, both of whom had known Roscoe during their youth; Davy, the cab driver and his sister Gwen, who manages the flat Jem Roscoe was living in; Dr. Smale and his wife, whom Venn knew as a child; boat crew members Ford, who had once had a crush on Roscoe; Sammy, a rescue boat worker who had his own axe to grind, among many others. 

But the investigation is slow going and when a second murder occurs, Venn and company realize that there may be far deeper motives than simply envy of a famous man.

As always, Cleeves' characters are well drawn and the plot is a tight, if sometimes slightly confusing one. There are many villagers, many suspects and once again, just when you think you have it figured out, you realize you don't. And, once again, her command of the environment -- a small seacoast village with its cliffs, inlets, raging sea and relentless rain -- is spot on, to the point where it is yet another character in the story. 

It's a good one. 

"The Stranger Diaries" by Elly Griffiths 

 

Erika had recommended this, the first book in Elly Griffiths' Harbinder Kaur series, and I was eager to read it -- all the more so because I've enjoyed the past two Kaur mysteries I've read. Add to it the fact that it is October and the book is built around a ghost story and it made for a good pairing. 

Claire Cassidy is a teacher of English at Targarth, a comprehensive school in England. She has a teen daughter, Georgie, and is working on a book about R.M. Holland, an author who wrote a  ghost story called "The Stranger." 

When Claire's friend and colleague, Ella, is brutally murdered, the school is thrown into shock. Ella's body is found with a piece of paper in her hand with a quote from Shakespeare -- "Hell is Empty." Claire recognizes the quote not only from "The Tempest," which she teaches, but also from Holland's most famous work, "The Stranger."

DI Kaur is brought in to investigate and she has more than her share of suspects, including the lecherous head of English, Rick Lewis, a student who had sent Ella a valentine, and other teachers, including Claire. But when mysterious writing begins to show up on pages in Claire's personal diary and another body is found with the same message, the case becomes even more baffling.

The book is written in three voices -- Claire's, that of her daughter Georgie and Harbinder Kaur. Through their words, one sees conflicting emotions, hidden secrets and a clever detective sorting things out, one piece of evidence at a time. Griffiths has delivered a Gothic-style novel in a contemporary style and it has all the fun of a good ghost story and tricky mystery.

"The Modigliani Scandal" by Ken Follett

 

What I wrote in the end," Ken Follett says in this book's intro, " was a lighthearted crime story in which an assortment of people, mostly young, get up to a variety of capers, none of which turn out quite as expected."

He goes on to say the critics described it as "sprightly, ebullient, light, breezy, cheery and fizzy." He didn't like that assessment. But they nailed it. 

That about sums it up. Sort of. Those words describe something fun to me, a champagne, of sorts. This was more like a never-ending quantity of diet Coke, when the bottle has been open long enough that the fizz is fading and you just want to get that last gulp so you can go onto something else.

I thought I'd like this book, which looked to focus on art, and one of my favorite artists. The premise is that a young art historian has learned about the existence of a missing Modigliani, somewhere in Italy. She sends a postcard to a friend that she is on the trail, and a message to her art dealer uncle, who is most interested. Meanwhile, a struggling new gallery owner spots her postcard and decides he'd love to do a show and feature it. So, he is on the hunt, along with a detective hired by the woman's uncle. While this is occurring, two failed artists decide to forge paintings by well known artists and come up with a scheme, with an altruistic twist to it. 

Fizzy. I'm not so sure about the "ebullient," "breezy" cheery, but it's definitely light.

And for only being 279 pages, it felt very long. I kept wondering "when is this going to come together?" And, in the last chapter it did. But I'm not sure it was worth the time to get there. 

"Wreck" by Catherine Newman

 

"Wreck" is a family story focusing on a period of life in a loving, connected family that is faced with dilemmas with which many of us may identify. Rocky and her even-keeled husband, Nick, are the parents of two young adult children. Willa, is in her early 20s and a scientist who identifies as queer. Jamie is a consultant with a New York  firm that advises on risk assessment. Rocky is a food writer, who manages her family with good humor (parts of this book are laugh out loud funny). She's over anxious about many things and her anxiety is kicked into full gear with two incidents that lead to the title, "Wreck."

The first is a train accident, in which a former classmate of Jamie's is killed when a train hits his car on -- or crossing -- railroad tracks. Rocky and Willa become obsessed with the incident, lurking on both the victim's and his mother's Facebook pages, absorbed in newspaper articles as to who is at fault. Was it an accident, a suicide or was the railroad company negligent in safety precautions? 

The second is the mysterious appearance of a rash on Rocky's skin that is spreading all over her body. Much of the book deals with her relentless anxiety as she continuously is searching the internet for the definitions and information on the overwhelmingly large and alien words that appear in her seemingly endless lab tests, XRays, CT and MRI scans. As she is consumed with finding out what is wrong with her, she is also managing her semi-live-in father, a recent widower and dealing with her own grief following the loss of her mother, along with tending to her own family. She is, in a word, a wreck. A funny one who seems to have things well in hand, and yet we all know that appearances can be deceiving. (Ask me how I know.)

For me, Rocky was an extremely relatable character. Not that I've ever poured over AI interpretations of medical tests (since yesterday). She loves the people in her life, she wants to protect them, she worries about them. But she also laughs with them, can communicate with them on a deeper level. I loved her relationship with her daughter and son, loving them despite some challenges in their relationships.Her connection with her husband, their ease together, his support of her as she negotiates the medical system, speaks to me of very real life. 

Perhaps I liked this book because I could see a lot of me in Rocky. Newman draws lively, true to life characters with all the joy and neuroses that many of us share. Her earlier book, "Sandwich" is about this family, and I think I may need to read it.  

"Faithful unto Death" by Caroline Graham

 

Boy, this book was long. I'm not sure where this fits into Graham's "Midsomer Murders" books, but I didn't think I'd ever get through it. And I'd seen the television episode too, though not too recently. But enough to know it moved along well and they did it all under two hours. 

In the small village of Angels Rise, Sabine Hollingsworth has gone missing, terribly upsetting her husband, Alan, who is acting oddly. Of course, it's a little village with snoopy neighbors and everyone knows everyone else, even though the Hollingsworths were fairly private. Simone attended activities for a short while and then stopped. Alan was said to be keeping her on short leash. 

But then Alan disappears from view. When he is found dead in his home, attention in Simone's disappearance turns to solving his murder.

Meanwhile, there's the usual bunch of characters -- Gray Patterson, a business associate of Alan's; the Buckleys, whose daughter suddenly goes missing as well; the local doctor and his wife; Sarah Lawson, an artist who taught Sabine pottery in her adult education class, and Constable Colin Perret, who cannot seem to get on the good side of Barnaby and Troy no matter how hard he tries.

If you like the "Midsomer Murders" series, you might think you can whip through this book. I was speed reading and it seemed to take forever, mostly because Graham's use of detail, which is both frustrating and excellent, (she paints wonderful "word pictures"). But her descriptive paragraphs seem never ending. And, if you are also familiar with the series and like the character of Sergeant Troy, I can almost guarantee you that you will seriously dislike Graham's version. She paints him as tough, cruel, having a wandering eye, and sort of a wannabe strongman. I'd give it a pass.

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