Unwind - Neal Shusterman

Although he knew it was possible, Connor never believed his parents would make him an Unwind, until he found the paperwork. He plans to run - if he can survive until his eighteenth birthday he'll be safe.
Pianist Risa knew she'd blown her latest assessment; as a ward of the state she's only required to be supported as long as she's exceptional - now she's not, she's an Unwind.
Lev grew up knowing he was a Tithe, the tenth child of religious family who've chosen to give back to the community. All his life he's been prepared for the day after his thirteenth birthday when, after a tithing party to celebrate his joyous sacrifice, his body parts would be reallocated to worthy recipients, allowing him - in a way - to live forever.
A bloody Civil War between the Life Army and the Choice Brigade was resolved when a compromise was suggested - life is sacred from conception to age thirteen, but for the five years until children reaches adulthood their parents may retrospectively abort them, provided the child doesn't technically die. Known as Unwinding, the unwanted teen's organs are redistributed according to need and merit. Three youths of different backgrounds are thrown together by chance, and have the potential to make a difference.
Unwind has a fascinating premise (though the idea that either side would see this compromise as acceptable, this is acknowledged in the text), and a new twist on this months' inadvertent theme of teens in dystopia. There are some lovely moments, chief among which was the letter writing scene in the Unwind underground railway sequence.
There's also some imagining of the consequences of this policy: without termination an option for unwanted pregnancies, society has created 'storking' - leaving a baby on the doorstep of a stranger, who is then obliged to take it in, a practice that has its own consequences. There's a mythology around Humphrey Dunfee, whose distraught and repentant parents tried to reconstitute him post-Unwinding. And there's social commentary, including an observation that, were it not for Unwinds, science would be working on improving health instead of relying on quick patch-ups (with the assumption that immunosuppressent medications have been improved between now and then). Finally, opening each chapter is a news extract or factual nugget supporting the direction the narrative takes from that point. This last reminded me a little of Tepper's Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
It's a little distressing, then, that I found the whole delivered less than the promise of its parts. I think this may be because more attention was paid to the world-building than the characters - I just didn't warm to the central trio, and found reading the novel more an exercise of intellectual interest than engagement. - Alex

Matched - Ally Condle

Cassia has looked forward to being Matched for as long as she can remember - and that it's scheduled for her seventeenth birthday makes it even more special! She's picked the perfect dress for her Match's first vision of her, and though it will be returned after the Match Banquet she'll get to keep a sliver of the fabric.
Cassia's Match is even more special than she anticipated - in an amazingly rare happenstance, Cassia is Matched with someone she already knows, rather than a boy anywhere in the country. Xander's not only someone she knows, he's her best friend, and Cassia knows she truly fortunate. That is until she puts her microcard into the home port the next day, to look at Xander's picture in private. Instead of his face she sees another, and it's also a boy she knows - Ky, who lives down the street. And just like that, everything in Cassia's life begins to change.
Condle has created a well-crafted world that is reminiscent of a number of dystopian novels set in a totalitarian future (like This Perfect Day, Collin's Mockingjay trilogy and Westerfeld's Uglies triology, with elements of Logan's Run) while still being unique, engaging and entertaining. We learn about a way of life wholly unlike ours, as Cassia passes through what is utterly familiar to her, in a seamless example of show don't tell.
The flicker of Ky on her port viewer is a mistake, an Official tells Cassia, but Society does not make mistakes. She's not to talk of this error to anyone, and that alone triggers a shift in Cassia's outlook. And her increased awareness of Ky goes hand in hand with an increased awareness of problems in a Society that she's been trained to believe is perfect. As Cassie sees her world with new eyes, the reader uncovers layers of reduction, repression, manipulation, secrecy, injustice and cover-up.
Matched is a brilliant example of how perception and society shape reality, how restricting art (to the One Hundred Poems, for example) limits thought, how language frames ideology and the capacity for innovation, and how removing the ability to write has multiple repercussions. This is the kind of book I was hoping The Maze Runner would be - rich, textured, layered, grounded, unique, with a completed narrative arc that holds promise of a sequel. Just perfect. - Alex

Barbara Erskine: Daughters of Fire

From the back of the book
The Romans are landing in Britannia... Cartimandua, the young woman destined to rule the great tribe of the Brigantes, watches the invaders come ever closer. From the start her world is a maelstrom of love and conflict, revenge and retribution. Cartimandua's life becomes more turbulent and complicated as her power grows, and her political skills are threatened by her personal choices. She has formidable enemies on all sides as she faces a decision which will change the future of all around her.
In the present day, historian Viv Lloyd Rees has immersed herself in the legends surrounding the Celtic queen. Viv struggle to hide her visions of Cartimandua and her conviction that they are real. But her obsession becomes ever more persistent as she takes possession of an ancient brooch that carries a curse. Bitter rivalries and overwhelming passions are reawakened as past envelops present and Viv finds herself in the greatest danger of her life.
I have long been a fan of Barbara Erskine. I particularly like her intertwined past/present story lines. But to be honest, this isn't one of her best.
The historical aspect is brilliant: well researched and rich with detail, she brings Celtic Britain to life. The past characters are vibrant, complex and wonderfully drawn. The past story line is gripping and intense.
Sadly, the present day portions of the story are not a shadow of their past counterparts and let the whole down. The present day characters are flat and so inconsistent in behaviour as to be completely unbelievable (even for people possessed). I simply didn't care what became of any of them. The modern story line felt forced and contrived. The pacing was painfully slow and the delightfully eerie mood that Erskine usually does so well was completely missing.
This is a great historical novel ruined by an overlay of deathly dull present day patina. A hard slog even for a long time fan.-Lynn

Call Me Irresistible - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Meg Koranda has a lot in common with her best friend, Lucy Jorick - both the daughters of famous parents, they have reacted quite differently to being brought up in the spotlight. For while Lucy is sensible, mature and always considers the needs of others, Meg is almost thirty, dependent on her parents, and drifting. She is, however, not only loyal but able to see what nobody else has - though her groom-to-be seems perfect in every way, Lucy doesn't love him, and from what Meg can see, Ted doesn't love her, either. Which is why, even though she only arrived in Wynette, Texas, the day before the wedding, Meg feels comfortable telling Lucy that it's time to live her own life. And, in an upset reported by media worldwide, the daughter of America's first female President leaves the son of golf's finest star at the altar.
Call me Irresistible weaves together multiple characters from previous Phillips novels - we met Lucy in First Lady, jilted fiance Teddy's parents' story was told in Fancy Pants and we met them again in Lady Be Good, while Meg guest starred in What I Did For Love (a small part that didn't appear in my review) and is the product of the couple whose story's told in Glitter Baby.
This is something I've quite enjoyed in other series, particularly Brockmann's SEAL Team series. For some reason, though, I found the constant allusions to previous plot lines really irritating, perhaps in part because I haven't read Glitter Baby. I suspect, though, that it's more likely because in Brockmann's series the characters are all present in one another's stories, with different protagonists in the spotlight from book to book; Phillips' characters, however, have inhabited separate universes until now, so keeping their stories straight and present is harder work.
For me this overshadowed what was otherwise a very good romance - though the pie-eyed esteem of the locals toward Ted was a little hard to swallow, I found the central premises of Call Me Irresistible believable within the confines of the genre, the plot hurdles were plausible, I really liked the central characters, and I particularly enjoyed the way Meg pushed Ted past his own people pleasing, as she did Lucy. Phillips also adroitly handled the potential squick factor of a heroine moving in on her best friend's ex.
It's been a while since I read a good romance, and I'm a little disappointed that I found the references to previous narrative threads getting in the way of my enjoyment. Readers less distractable than I, or with a better grasp on Phillips' oeuvre, may not find this to be an issue. - Alex

Craig Harper: Your Perfect Body-A State of Mind

From the back of the book-

Most weight-loss books advocate that creating your best body is all about diet and exercise. Exercise scientist and personal trainer Craig Harper says that for most people it is more about having the right attitude than it is about choosing the right nutritional philosophy or exercise program.While many books focus on food, Harper teachers that creating life-long change is more about the dieter than the actual diet.
"Once we fix the psychology, then we can address the physiology," he says.
Australia is a country which now offers more weight-loss options than ever before, yet as a society continues to get fatter by the year. More experts, more information, more gyms, more health retreats, more dietary options, more media hysteria and more fat Australians.
This book is written for those people who have a history of almost getting in shape.

The main thrust of this book reinforces a message that I have lately come to myself, losing weight and getting fit is more about habit and consistency than motivation, so naturally I thought it was good.
I quite liked that the perfect body of the title is not measured by some external standard but is a reference to whatever the reader is wanting to achieve.
The author delivers a kind of tough love telling the reader that the results they get are entirely dependent on the effort they make. But unlike many other diet books he doesn't 'blame the victim' if they don't achieve the results they were promised by a particular program. He, rather sensibly I feel, points out that not all programs will work for all people. If you have honestly stuck with a program, followed it to the letter, and not got the results you want, then maybe it is time to reassess what you're doing and try something else.
Your Perfect Body is a no-nonsense book that tells it like it is, unapologetically stating that attaining your perfect body and keeping it is hard work but achievable for anybody if it's what they really, really want.-Lynn

The Maze Runner - James Dashner

The first thing Thomas is aware of is the noise - a boom, then a horrible crushing, grinding, scraping sound that reverberated through his body. That was frightening enough, but when Thomas realised that the sounds were not only the first thing he was aware of but also the only things he remembered, he became terrified. He knew facts, but all he knew of himself was his name and his gender - not where he came from, who his family were, or where he was. When the shuddering, shaking container he awoke in finally opened, Thomas was confronted with a confusing world where nobody would explain the arcane and clearly important rules. Run by boys apparently aged around twelve to eighteen, each has a defined role, all of which support the Runners - they race around the maze that surrounds the Glade, frantically mapping the stone walls' twists and turns, avoiding the deathly Grievers and racing back to the safety of the Glade before the massive stone Doors slide closed. Though he knows nothing of this, Thomas senses that he's meant to be a Runner, too. The Maze Runner has a Hunger Games-like potential. Certainly the elements are there, but somehow they just didn't come together for me. A significant part of that is because Thomas was too much of a cipher, but far more was because not nearly enough the world-building was revealed, even in an oblique way that would allow the reader but not the protagonist to guess at a reason for the maze. All the boys come to the Glade like Thomas did - with no memory of anything personal, but a broad general knowledge. Some of them have been there for two years, and all have learned the value of routine and discipline, But Thomas' arrival triggers something new, including the arrival of the only girl ever sent. She carries a note saying she's the last, and something about her is familiar to Thomas; odd in a world where nothing is familiar. But although Thomas and Theresa can communicate psychically, we're never given an indication of why they're so different, or what that means. I was disappointed but not surprised to find that The Maze Runner is the first in a series, most likely a trilogy. I have no problem with trilogies, provided at least part of a story arc's completed at the end of each section. I had the same reaction to that discovery as I did last year when Skin Hunger abruptly concluded with "end of book one" - the pay off wasn't worth the effort,. Though it means I'll never know what happened to Thomas, nor why he means anything, I'll not lie awake at night wondering. - Alex

Those Faraday Girls – Monica McInerney

Juliet was fifteen, Clementine just eight, and their three sisters Miranda, Eliza and Sadie strung like beads between them, when Tessa died unexpectedly from a post-operative complication. Her widower, Leo, did everything in his power to keep her memory alive and his family together – eight years on everything seemed fine, until Clementine announced first that she was pregnant and second that she had no intention of marrying the father. Maggie would instead be raised at home, with input from her aunts and her adoring grandpa, Tadpole.
Twenty-seven years later Maggie has moved from London, her post-Australia base, to New York. A combination of distressing events has forced a reevaluation of her life, and though she's concentrating on her career and how she could have managed to be living a life so incompatible with her beliefs, she also explores her history, which is inevitably entangled with that of her very close family, and discovers secrets including why her aunt Sadie vanished when Maggie was only six.
Those Faraday Girls unfolds more chronologically than my synopsis; though there are occasional flashbacks, for the most part it runs from the morning in 1979 when Clementine breaks the news to her disbelieving father through to the present day (or at least the present day of its 2007 publication), with almost half the novel taking place between 1979 and 1985, before taking a leap to the twenty-first century.
The themes of the book, in common with McInerney's other works, cluster around family - illustrated by the epigraph

No family can hang out the sign: 'Nothing the matter here' -Chinese proverb

They include: interconnectedness, love, forgiveness, dishonesty, brutal truths, unacknowledged hurts, deception, and the mistaken belief that we know our relatives better than we do. We're most often unkindest to those we're closest to, and this truism is clearly illustrated by McInerney, whose sisters are carelessly oblivious to each others' pain.

Anyone who decided there weren't favourites between sisters didn't have sisters, Miranda decided. Of course there were. The truth of it was, though, that the favourites changed constantly, the alliances shifting back and forth in some unspoken parody of a folk dance, two of them close for a time until a change in tempo forced them to break up and turn to different partners.

Trapped in roles both self- and family-created, another theme is transformation as a result of examining how true and applicable these constructs are. While Maggie is the focus in this regard, long-absent Sadie has recreated herself in a way unimaginable had she remained part of her family, but at a cost.
The sad and powerful legacy of sibling rivalry is echoed gnererationally - while the ostensibly focus of this is the repositioning of the sisters, the subtle driving of a lot of the narrative arc is Leo's relationship with his brother Bill. Tied with that is the invisibility of Sadie in her family, a person none of her siblings is rivals with.
The distortion, manipulation and fracture of truth runs through the novel - Leo lies to his daughters about Tessa, in large part out of fear he'll otherwise discover a truth to painful to contemplate; Sadie lies about her past, backing herself into a corner she can't possibly avoid; Miranda and Eliza lie to their families about their relationships and their secret lives; and Juliet lies by omission to her husband, wrapping herself ever more heavily in pain in the process.
Motherhood is heavily present throughout the text, both in its presence and in its absence - though long dead, Tessa is as influential a character as any of the others, while the inability to be a mother (through infertility or circumstance) is a burden and a blessing depending on the character.
All of this sounds as though the novel must be depressing and wearisomely heavy, but Those Faraday Girls is triumphant, accessible, and deeply satisfying. McInerney manages to avoid any number of cliches, and though the ending is somewhat bitter-sweet, it's all the more satisfying for the triumph of reality over neatly bowed plot ribbons. I've enjoyed all of McInerney's novels (and reviewed two thus far); perhaps it's because it's still fresh in my mind, or perhaps because it's more recent and therefore more accomplished, I think Those Faraday Girls is my favourite. McInerney does a beautiful job of recreating the complexity of relationships, particularly those of larger families.
Though in many ways very different from the Faraday's, some of my friends have expressed bewilderment at the closeness of my siblings and parents in my life, and mine in theirs, while I'm surprised by their ability to maintain distance. I think it's echoes of this in the lovingly claustrophobic, inextricably intertwined relationships of McInerney's characters that particularly resonates with me. You need not have this in your life to enjoy Those Faraday Girls, however - the character development, plot, dialogue and writing are brilliant whatever your viewpoint. - Alex

Fiona Mountain: Pale as the Dead

From the back of the book-

Natasha Blake is a detective with a difference. She's an ancestor detective, an ambitious young genealogist with a passion for history, whose choice of career is partly driven by the mystery of her own roots. Natasha's investigations involve family secrets, forgotten tragedies and buried crimes and her clients are anyone for whom the past affects the present-the haunted, the hopeful or the just plain curious.
Natasha is contacted by Bethany, a troubled young woman who is strangely reticent about her past-and then she disappears. As Natasha investigates, she uncovers a connection between Bethany and Lizzie Siddal, the haunting, ethereal Pre-Raphaelite model and artist, whose life was cut short by an overdose of laudanum. Was it accident or suicide? And why is Bethany so obsessed with her, and at the same time so determined to put herself beyond the reach of her lover, Adam?

This book presented an interesting spin on the usual detective story. It was a little difficult to believe that somebody would go to a geneologist to find a modern day missing person rather than, I don't know, the police or a detective, but once you get over that hurdle the past and present mysteries intertwine, making it impossible to unravel one without solving the other. And I didn't see the final twist coming too far out.
The characters, particularly the main character, had some substance to them, however I had trouble connecting with any of them. At least I didn't care enough to follow up with the next book in the series.
Not that this was a bad book, far from it. It just didn't pull me in.-Lynn

All Together Now - Monica McInerney

This collection of short fiction covers a range of topics but has several universal themes, chief of which is female relationships; this is unsurprising, as these connections also form the mainstay of McInerney's novels. There are also varyingly successful attempts to twist the tale in the last paragraph or two. In the introduction she briefly discusses the origins of each story, where her observations of events around her sparked creatively.
"Hippy Hippy Shake" is the shortest piece, at just over three pages; it describes a brief interaction between adult sisters, one of whom is going through yet another phase. The twist ending wasn't quite as dramatic as I suspect the author intended but it was fairly effective and a nice introduction to the collection.
Sisters also appear in "Spellbound" - Jill's attempts to bolster Lucy's spirits after yet another bad date pay off unexpectedly after she finds an old love spell int he bottom of a trunk: could magic be real?
In "Just Desserts" caterer Libby has rebuilt her career in Melbourne, after being betrayed by her business partner. When the opportunity for payback unexpectedly appears, Libby takes the higher ground; her younger sister Sasha, however, feels less constrained.
"Sweet Charity" revisits eccentric Lola; the interfering and well-meaning grandmother from The Alphabet Sisters sees the chance to turn the tables on a careless, self-important teenage boy more interested in being the centre of attention than in the feelings of those around him.
"The Long Way Home" tells the story of Shelley, who decided that the best way to recover from a secret tragedy and the end of her marriage was to join and 18-35 European tour group; the respite from her life gives her opportunity for reflection, and a chance encounter at an Edinburgh shopping centre helps her realise what's important.
"The Role Model" is the only non-family-centred story in the collection, and also the second-longest; it opens with four old friends who are relatively happy with their country town lives but tired of their frequent, fruitless attempts to lose weight. When the arrival of a new doctor and his much younger, very glamorous wife coincide with a new weight loss method the four women discover a very uncomfortable kind of success, that comes at a price too high for all of them to keep paying.
Jeannie took up cleaning to pay her way through school; she never expected that working for sisters Kate and Amanda would bring up issues so relevant to her own life, where family disharmony had also been the result of "Wedding Fever."
"Odd One Out" is a novella, previously published as a stand alone title and reviewed here.
The collection is light, though it deals with topics as serious as humiliation, judgment, death, divorce, and self-discovery. Though this is good if the aim is holiday reading, I felt as though the two most weighty contributions ("The Long Way Home" and "The Role Model") fell a little short of their potential. In the first I didn't connect with Shelley, which is always difficult in a story this short any way, and so her situation didn't resonate deeply enough with me to feel a connection with her; in the second both the diet instructors' approach and the total lack of empathy of the friends for someone outside their circle distanced me from the narrative, even though I recognised that was supposed to be the point. I was very pleased to revisit Sylvie Devereaux by rereading "Odd One Out" and quite look forward to reading more of McInerney's novels, which I think are stronger than her shorter fiction. - Alex

Amanda Quick: Don't Look Back

From the back of the book-

As if a head for business and a nose for trouble aren't enough to distinguish Lavinia Lake from other women, Lavinia is also well versed in the practice of mesmerism. Nobody knows this better than Tobias March, who has fallen hopelessly under her spell. But Lavinia has retired her powers in favor of their partnership-providing "discreet private inquiries for individuals of quality." But when Celeste Hudson, the wife of a family friend and fellow mesmerist, is found murdered, with a gentleman's cravat wound around her lovely neck, Lake and March get on the trail of the killer. Any number of ruthless types-which may include the grieving husband-are after Celeste's priceless bracelet, said to possess legendary powers. And soon they will be after Tobias and Lavinia too, as the investigation leads them from the glittering ballrooms of the ton to the darkest reaches of men's psyches.

I've always enjoyed Quick's work in the past and this was no exception. Humour, intrigue and romance are beautifully blended together and presented against a well researched historical background.
However, having said that, there were a couple of blinding linguistic anomalies that pulled me out of the story with a jerk. How the reference to biscuits for breakfast (I'm sure she meant scones-dietary habits couldn't have changed that much) slipped through to the keeper I don't know but it was the presence of a trash basket (not waste paper basket or rubbish bin) that I found intolerable.
Apart from these minor, though irritating, slips, the story lived up to expectations. Enjoyable historical romance.-Lynn

Lady Be Good - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Lady Emma Wells-Finch is on a mission – ostensibly in Texas to research one of St Gert’s Old Girls, in truth she has a far more important aim: to discourage the martrimonial interests of the Duke of Beddington an unpleasant man looking for his third wife and the mother of his heir. Sadly his few requirements are neatly met by Emma – well-born, comely, thirty or under, spotless of reputation, and virginal. Emma must somehow manage to disqualify herself, without allowing him to realise this is her intent, for if she refuses him outright, the Duke has unambiguously threatened to sell St Gertrude’s, the only place that was ever home to her, and where she is now a beloved principal.
Emma has a number of options – she’s considered getting a tattoo, or being seen drunk in public, but losing her virginity will be a move the Duke can’t possibly overlook. The mildly subnormal man her friend Francesca has arranged to escort her in Texas looks as though he’ll do nicely – virile, rugged, but a little slow on the uptake. When she discovers Kenny’s only chauffeuring her around as a favour to Francesca, and is really a golf pro on hiatus after being suspended by the PGA commisioner, Emma is taken back but not dissuaded – he’s still no intellectual giant. But all is not as it seems.
Lady Be Good returns us to Wynette, Texas, home of previous SEP couple Francesca and Dallie Beaudine from FancyPants. Despite the romance novel trope of a heroine both in her late twenties and virginal despite being personable, intelligent and without a moral imperative to wait, Emma is fairly convincing. Her habit of assuming facts not in evidence is a little surprising given her job, but for the most part the hurdles between the characters are believable, and the one moment when my heart sank over a Tragic Misunderstanding was resolved on the following page, instead of irritatingly hanging around for a chapter and a half.
Though not my favourite of Phillip’s novels I did enjoy Lady Be Good, which is without question an above average romance novel that combines convincing protagonists, well developed secondary characters and two strong secondary plots against a background of romance between people of seeming incompatibility. - Alex

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures - Vincent Lam

From the cover:

Dr. Vincent Lam's literary debut delivers an unflinching portrait of his profession, following a group of four ambitious young doctors as they move from the pressures of medical school into the intense world of emergency medicine, evacuation missions, and terrifying new viruses.
Through the eyes of Fitz, Ming, Chen, and Sri, Lam finds conflict - and humanity - in the most surprising moments. Together these doctors test the bounds of intimacy as they cope with exam pressure, weigh moral dilemmas as they dissect cadavers, confront police who assault their patients, and treat schizophrenics with pathologies similar to their own.

Subtitled Stories, this is a collection of interconnected short stories that combine to create a complex narrative whole greater than the sum of its parts. And the parts all sound completely up my alley - health care, the evolution of practitioners, exciting scenarios realistically portrayed, ethico-moral decision making, and even interaction with the dead (my current research focus).
Sadly, I was unable to enjoy the panoply of the whole, because I found the trek into Lam's literary debut entirely too arduous a journey to complete, stopping at page 69, roughly half way through the third story. I therefore can't render a review of the whole, but will quite happily discuss the parts I managed:
The first story, "How to Get into Medical School, part 1" is about Ming and Fitz. He's American, she's the daughter of Chinese migrants who have very traditional beliefs which don't include their daughter either distracting herself from her pre-med studies or her dating a white boy. Though Ming pretends to herself that she's only spending time with Fitz to improve her study, she's really attracted to him, and knows he is to her. what Fitz doesn't know - what nobody knows - is that Ming is dirty, and her academic success rides on the back of sexual abuse.
"Take All of Murphy" picks up when Ming, Chen and Sri are partnered together in the cadaver lab. They're cautioned to treat their cadaver, who they name Murphy, with respect; they're also expected to dissect him with care and according to the text book. But the text book doesn't include an ornate and clearly symbolically important tattoo right over an intended dissection site. The students have to decide whether respect for Murphy trumps their academic requirements.
"How to Get into Medical School, part 2" picks up Fitz's narrative - he didn't get into medical school with Ming, and since she started they barely speak. He feels as driven by his need to see her as by his desire to study medicine/be a doctor, until a chance accident gives him the first peace he's known in months. I have no idea how that ends or him, though, as I put Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures down at that point and just couldn't bring myself to pick it back up.
This was for two reasons. The first is that I didn't connect with any of the characters, and so I just didn't care at all what happened to them. I found Lam's creations self-oriented, relatively two-dimensional, with tragic histories included not as extra depth but in lieu of character development (Ming's aforementioned abuse, Fitz's motherlessness). This might have been alright if there was an emphasis on plot, but Bloodletting is Literature, so (at least in the part I read) plot isn't a huge narrative driver.
The second issue is that I was frequently snapped out of the book by the writing. Fitz in particular is overly analytical, self-conscious and introspective, his every move accompanied by an exploration of its deeper meaning and possible interpretations:

Fitz picked up a shrimp chip by its edge, dipped it in the peanut sauce with red pepper flakes, and crunched. His face became sweaty and bloomed red as he chewed, the n coughed. He grasped the water glass and took a quick gulp...
He coughed to his right side, and had difficulty stopping. He reminded himself to sit up straight while coughing, realized he wasn't covering his mouth, was embarrassed that his fair skin burned hot and red, wondered in a panicky blur if this redness would be seen to portray most keenly his injured emotional state, his physical vulnerability in choking, his Anglocentric intolerance to chili, his embarrassment at not initially covering his mouth, his obvious infatuation with Ming, or - worst of all - could be interpreted as a feeble attempt to mask or distract from his discomfort at her pre-emptive romantic rejection.

A couple of page later, after Ming has gone and Fitz begins to drown his sorrows,

The pain of rejection was a significant shade different from the longing of desire, he noted, though drawn from the same palette. This somber phase could generally be gotten through withal few more, and therefore justified the third drink. A washroom break. With the third pint came the brink between anger and the careless release that could sometimes be attained and was the goal of the drinking. Fitz tired to will himself into this easy release, to tip over the meniscus of anger that grew like water perched higher than the rim of a glass, but it didn't work today.

Really, a 'meniscus of anger'? I found the writing style pretentious, the characters flat, and felt that insufficient use was made out of potentially strong scenarios. Of course, this is a literary work, and these elements aren't exactly out of place in this genre.
It probably didn't help that my expectations going in were more in line with a House of God type work, perhaps without the awful first chapter of that classic work, and I anticipated the lucid writing of some of my favourite medical authors (like Gawande, Groopman or, if we're going for the purely literary fiction, Klass). This is my own fault, and not that of the author, for whom my expectations were raised by the reviews favourable and plentiful.
And I'm clearly in the minority - Bloodletting has not only been compared with medical television dramas like ER, Grey's Anatomy and House, it's been optioned as a similar series itself. With, I can only assume, significant changes. - Alex

Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon

Lou Arrendale is a bioinfomatics expert. Though high functioning, he and his colleagues in Section A are also among the last people in Section A to have autism, a condition now corrected in infancy. The autists have tools that help them to manage the effects of their disability, like music rooms and a giant trampoline - when Lou returns from his quarterly psychiatry interview, for example, he spends some time bouncing:

No one interrupts me while I bounce, the strong thrust of the trampoline followed by a weightless suspension makes me feel vast and light. I can feel my mind stretching out, relaxing, even as I keep perfect time with the music. When I feel the concentration returning, and curiosity drives me once more toward my assignment, I slow the bouncing to tiny little baby bounces and swing off the trampoline.

Their new supervisor, Mr Crenshaw, resents what he sees as frivolous and indulgent extras; though Section A boast the highest level of productivity in the unnamed corporation which, through their employment, is able to claim significant charitable tax deductions, he believes the company would be better off with normal employees.
Lou works with abstract symbols, finding patterns and connections invisible to most people. The patterns of human interactions, though, are predominantly mysterious, despite a lifetime of being told how he ought to act and what he ought to do. He knows that Dr Fornum thinks he ought to exchange pleasantries with his co-workers as they wait for dinner, for example, but

we are all, in our own way, settling into the situation. Because of the visit to Dr Fornum, I'm more aware than usual of the details of this process: that Linda is bouncing her fingers on the bowl of her spoon in a complex pattern that would delight a mathematicians as much as it does her...

Unbeknown to Dr Fornum, Lou has also taken up fencing in his recreational time - though not great at interpreting the interpersonal aspects of the sport, he's very good at recognising the patterns of players, and disciplined about his approach. He's also attracted to one of the fencers, Marjory. He doesn't know if she likes him in any special way, but he's interested in finding out.
He's not able to concentrate on this, though, because he's under siege at home (where he's the target of an escalating series of vandalism attacks) and work - Mr Crenshaw has discovered an experimental 'cure' for autism (well, it works on chimps) and is pressuring the autists to enroll.
The title comes from a conversation between Lou and his co-workers over dinner, early in the novel:

"I was wondering about the speed of dark," I say, looking down. They will look at me, if only briefly, when I speak, and I don't want to feel all those gazes.
"It doesn't have a speed," Eric says. "It's just the space where light isn't."
"What would it feel like to eat pizza on a world with more than one gravity?" Linda asks.
"I don't know," Dale says, sounding worried.
"The speed of not knowing," Linda says. I puzzle a moment and figure it out.
"Not knowing expands faster than knowing," I say. Linda grins and ducks her head. "So the speed of dark could be greater than the speed of light. If there always has to be dark around the light, then it has to go out ahead of it."
"I want to go home now," Eric says. Dr Fornum would want me to ask if he's upset. I know he is not upset; if her goes home now he will see his favorite TV program. We say goodbye because we are in public and we all know you are supposed to say goodbye in public.

Lou is the purest form of light in the novel - despite his differences in cognitive processing, his motivations are easier to understand and relate to though most of the apparently normal characters in the book. Moon asks us to consider deeply philosophical questions about worth, contribution, difference, normalcy, disability and about the richness of infinite variety. I was reminded, for two reasons, of Sack's Seeing Voices, a non-fiction account of American Deaf culture that had part of me longing to be born Deaf of Deaf parents and that considers the merits of reversing a 'disability' that, to the affected, is no restriction and that has value.
It is perhaps inevitable that I compare Speed of Dark to that other famous autist-perspective novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night; they are both well crafted narratives written predominantly in first person by an author who has clearly spent a lot of time talking with people at the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, and contemplating their thought processes, and common to both books is a mystery that contributes to the drive of the narrative.
Speed of Dark, though, is deep and textured well beyond that. In the Curious Incident Christopher's father has difficulty understanding how his words are literally interpreted; in Speed of Dark Lou and his cohort are surrounded by people driven to normalise them, not for their benefit but to ease societal discomfort, including the discomfort of those supposed to be helping and supporting them - Dr Fornum is, of course, the greatest culprit here, but Lou and his fellow autists have since childhood had experts telling them how they ought to behave, interact and think. Though Lou for the most part accepts this, I found myself becoming angry on his behalf.
Even his safest refuge, fencing class (where the trainer, Tom, not only accepts Lou for himself but supports, nurtures and appreciates him) is tainted by the knowledge that Dr Fornum would disapprove:
I met Marjory at fencing class, not at any of the social events for disabled people that Dr Fornum thinks I should go to. I don't tell Dr Fornum about fencing because she would worry about my violent tendencies, If laser-tag was enough to bother her, long pointed swords would send her into a panic.
There are so many striking, interesting, note-worthy elements in this book that, were I to discuss each time I inserted a flag this review would be almost as long as the novel itself. One of the aspects I flagged most often, apart from the multiple incidences where Lou has been remolded to better fit inside the parameters of 'normal,' is the presence of the neuroscience of autism.
Lou studies neurology and related fields to better understand the trial methodology and technique, discovering in the process not only a lot more about the way his perceptions operation and their similarities to other neurological conditions (like PTSD) but also how expectations of his abilities have directed and restricted his potential.
This is my second reading of Speed of Dark and, if anything, I enjoyed it more than on its 2003 release. I know that Lou is a rare exception, and that for the majority of people with autism this kind of independence of living, thought and employment are never going to be possible. Were an intervention that helped them process sensory cues better available I would be more conflicted about its use. This, though grounded in reality, is fiction, and it is the best kind - it enhances understanding of ourselves and others, prompts thought and introspection, offers a different perspective, and presents these aspects in a palatable, entertaining, engrossing form. I just wish I could read it again. - Alex

Fall Girl - Toni Jordan

Ella Canfield is a slightly nervous evolutionary biologist. Part of her nervousness is because her project is fairly left of centre - she's seeking funds to research the possibility that there are Tasmanian tigers in Wilsons Promontory National Park, Victoria. The last known thylacine died in captivity in 1928, but there have been sightings ever since - Ella's proposal, made to the eccentric and well-funded Metcalf Trust, set up to support unusual scientific projects, is that thylacines may be a Lazarus species - thought extinct but still alive. She's seeking $25,000 to fund a three month project looking at scat, bone fragments and spoor. Though the Trust's administrator, Carmichael, seems sceptical, the person to convince is Daniel Metcalf, the heir of a fortune. Ella knows he's long had an interest in thylacines, and that's not her only unfair advantage.

Because Ella Canfield is fictitious - she's a creation of Della Gilmore, a third-generation con artist chasing the high of her first ever scam some twenty years earlier and desperate for a high-paying scam that will show her family she can do more than penny-ante short-cons. But Della didn't bank on Daniel being more than a superficial rich boy with more dollars than sense, and it might be Della who gets taken for a ride.

I so wanted to love Fall Girl - Jordan's debut novel Addition was excellent, and the topic of grifters (in fiction, at least) appeals to me. But I found virtually every aspect of Fall Girl irritating, from the set up to Della's family to the wholly unbelievable ending.

To take one example - Della's at lest third generation grifter, yet her cousin Timothy (who's somewhat jealous of Daniel) is more focused on his own agenda than this potentially very lucrative (for the whole family) con - his repeated interruptions while she's on the phone to Daniel in character are annoying, unprofessional and unbelievable.

Part were certainly appealing - I enjoyed the scenes setting up for Daniel's visit to Ella's university office, which reminded me of similar executions in Hustle, while other parts reminded me (sadly unfavourably) to the brilliant series Good Guys, Bad Guys, and the occasional line sparkled: "the dresser is white reclaimed timber that was once distressed but is now hysterical."
Overall, though, I was disappointed, but have high hopes for whatever Jordan writes next. - Alex

An Abundance of Katherines - John Green

Early in his life child prodigy Colin fell into a habit that became a defining characteristic - he had an extremely short-lived relationship with a Katherine. Now seventeen, and freshly dumped by his nineteenth and most profoundly meaningful Katherine, Colin faces a turning point. Rapidly reaching the age where 'child prodigy' becomes 'failed to live up to his potential' Colin is obsessed with contributing something meaningful, having a 'Eureka' moment, and perhaps the Katherines can help him. In the break between high school and college Colin and his best friend, Hassan Harbish, take a road trip, wind up in the middle of nowhere, and not only undergo change but help change the lives of those around them.
I'm a little conflicted about An Abundance of Katherines - I enjoyed the ride, but had several issues with the believability of several key elements. Central of these is the improbability of anyone, particularly a teenage boy, being both able to have nineteen relationships (albeit some very short-lived), all with girls named Katherine, and yet be so wholly clueless about appropriate human interactions that he closely abuts having an autism-spectrum disorder:

"Do you sometimes feel like a circle missing a piece?" his dad wondered.
"Daddy, I am not a circle. I am a boy."
And his dad's smile faded just a bit - the prodigy could read, but he could not see. And if only Colin had known he was missing a piece,that his inability to see himself in the story of the circle was an unfixable problem, he might have known that the rest of the world would catch up with him as time passed. To borrow from another story he memorized but didn't really get: if only he'd known that the story of the tortoise and the hare is about more than a tortoise and a hare, he might have saved himself considerable trouble.

His parents might also have wanted to work on that a little.
The writing was in places very powerful - on the same page as the extract above, a young Colin is portrayed trying to interact with his peers in a way that made me cringe with the recollection of a similarly socially inept school mate. If only she'd had a Hassan - he lets Colin clearly know when he's veering off into the realm of the dull with a series of "not interesting" interjections whenever Colin pontificates his way into tedium.
I also found increasingly grating on its every encounter the heavy use of 'fug' (as in 'motherfugger' and 'what the fug..'), a word not addressed until midway through the novel, when I was heartily sick of it.
By the last third of the novel I was at the point where the use by Green of specifying gender when Colin and Hassan visited a woman in a retirement home jerked me out of the narrative as much as another 'fug' would have.
I'm quite pleased to have added several new words to my vocabulary, though I suspect it'll be some time before I can use abligurition or sillage, I also found the contemplation about the adult lives of gifted children interesting, though not new - borderline gifted at school myself (enough to get placed in the gifted stream, not enough to be started out there) I was surrounded by pushy-parented prodigies.
Colin has a fascination with anagrams I don't share, and though I suspect those who do enjoyed the sections they appeared in, I skipped over them along with the mathematical formulae that evolves through the text. This last section is also discussed in a mathematical epilogue - it was all way over my head, but there's also a link to a fairly accessible Slate article on actual research on relationship formulae, if you're interested.
Despite these aspects, there was much to enjoy in An Abundance of Katherines, from the premise to the character development and the bizarre but often believable world Green's built; that may be why I was particularly disappointed by the ending, which trailed off. However, I had a similar response to Green's YA novel Paper Towns, so perhaps this is common to his work. - Alex

Kerry Greenwood:Murder on a Midsummer Night + Dead Man's Chest

Murder on a Midsummer Night
From the back of the book-
Melbourne 1929. The year starts off for glamorous private investigator with a rather trying heat wave and more mysteries than you could prod a parasol at. Simultaneously investigating the apparent suicide death of a man on St Kilda beach and trying to find a lost illegitimate child who could be heir to a wealthy old woman's fortune, she needs all her wits about her , particularly when she has to tangle with a group of thoroughly unpleasant bright young things.
But she is a force of nature and takes in her elegant stride what might make others quail. Including terrifying seances, ghosts, kif smokers, the threat of human sacrifices dubious spirit guides and maps to buried pirate treasure.

Dead Man's Chest
From the back of the book-
Travelling at high speed in her beloved car accompanied by her maid and trusted companion Dot, her two adoptive daughters and their dog, Phryne is off to Queeenscliff. She's promised everyone a nice holiday by the sea with absolutely no murders, but when they arrive at their rented accommodation that doesn't seem likely at all.
An empty house, a gang of teenage louts, a fisherboy saved, and the mysery of a missing butler and his wife seem to lead inexorably towards a hunt for buried treasure by the sea. But what information might the curious surrealists be able to contribute? Phryne knows to what depths people will sink for greed but with a glass of champagne in one hand and a pearl handled beretta in the other no one is getting past her.

Greenwood's stories were, as always, a complete delight. I could wax lyrical for hours about the depth of the characters, the development of Phryne, the complexities of plot, the technical skill demonstrated by the writing and so on-take it all as said.
If you're not already familiar with the series, what are you waiting for? Go! Read!-Lynn

For Alex's reviews of Murder on a Midsummer Night and Dead Man's Chest click here and here respectively.

Kat Richardson: Greywalker

From the back of the book:

Harper Blaine was slogging along as a small time PI when a two bit perp's savage assault left her dead.
For two minutes, to be precise.
When Harper comes to in the hospital, she begins to feel a bit strange. She sees things that can only be described as weird-shapes emerging from a foggy grey mist, snarling teeth, creatures roaring.
But Harper's not crazy. Her "death" has made her a grey walker able to move between our world and the mysterious crossover zone where things that go bump in the night exist. And her new gift or curse is about to drag her into that world of vampires and ghosts, magic an d witches, necromancers and sinister artifacts...
Whether she likes it or not.

I read this quite a while ago and I remember enjoying it at the time but now I come to review it I find the details escape me. Sadly I cannot distinguish between my memory of the events of this story and those of a dozen or so like it I have read in the past couple of years.
Not standing out amongst the explosion of works in the paranormal/urban fantasy genre isn't necessarily a bad thing. I rend to remember the complete dross of authors I want to avoid at all costs more than those that I liked. And for me it is a rare thing in these overpopulated shelves to come across a real standout.
This is an author I will read again but not one that I've sought out since.-Lynn

Claudia Dain: The Courtesan's Daughter

A woman's infamous past is preventing her daughter from attaining a suitable match. Her pragmatic solution is to buy the girl a husband. She chooses an acceptable man, buys up his substantial debts, then offers him a clean slate if he agrees to her proposal. The daughter is outraged by her mother's action and refuses point blank to marry a man who could be bought for the purpose.
Then she sees him. And wants him. But only if he wants her in return, not her mother's money. And she can see only one way he could prove his devotion. He must be willing to pay for her.
She attempts to set herself up as a courtesan with dramatic consequences. Needless to say, in the end she gets her man.
This was, dare I say it, a genuine romp. A believable, well written romance with plenty of fun along the way. The naivety of the daughter to the realities of her mother's premarital way of life, together with the unglamorous details of the mother's memories of her courtesan days felt true. The hero managed to be heroic in spite of his less than ideal situation.
Sure, this is no accurate portrait of social history but let go and enjoy a frolic with this novel twist on the historical romance genre.

Angela Knight: Jane's Warlord

A time travelling serial killer is on the loose in a small town with a genetically engineered warrior hot on his trail. Knowing he has only days before the next murder, he decides to set a trap for his quarry, using the historically recorded next victim as bait.
But he doesn't expect to have such strong feelings for the victim, let alone that those feelings would be returned. He must convince her of his identity and mission and enlist her help if they both are to have nay chance of stopping a madman and surviving. But history says she died. Should he change that even if he can? What would be the consequences?
Naturally all is resolved successfully and they get a happy ever after, way after, three hundred years into the future.
Generally I like time travel as a plot device and I enjoy romance so this should have been a winner, sadly it didn't live up to its potential.
I got a strong "Terminator" vibe all the way through that had me feeling like I'd seen it all done bigger and better before. The characters, plot, the whole story really, felt thin and second hand which is a shame because occasional glimpses made me think the author has the talent to deliver better. This story needed to be bigger than a romance and the hero more than a knight in shining armour. Fleshing out the moral dilemmas of time travel would have been a good start.
Overall a bit disappointing because I could see so clearly what might have been.-Lynn

Jane Rule: Against the Season

The death of an elderly woman sends quiet ripples throughout her tiny community. Her sister copes with her loss by reading her sibling's diaries. Her shy grandnephew, sent to assist his surviving great aunt, learns courage from their pregnant and unwed housekeeper. A couple of lonely middle-aged friends turn to each other for comfort and are finally able to admit to wanting something more. An elderly couple throw caution and public opinion to the winds in order to be together. And the reclusive town butch is courted publicly by a very determined social worker.
It has been months since I read this and my memories of it are warm, almost affectionate.
As is the nature of Literature very little actually happens within the pages of this book but it is so deftly written that I barely noticed.
This is really a character study examining how people of various ages, experiences and inclinations react to love in all its forms. The characters slowly and gently unfold to the reader, beautiful in their complete ordinariness.
Well worth the effort if you're in the mood for mellow.-Lynn

Paper Towns - John Green

Eighteen-year-old Quentin has always had a mild crush on his neighbour Margo - once close, their paths diverged when they were eight and discovered the body of a man in a nearby park, for while Q was apprehensive, freaked and concerned about zombies, Margo Roth Spiegleman was invigorated. Ten years later, Margo Roth Speigelman appears at his bedroom window, like she used to, encouraging him to join her on a midnight adventure. There wasn't any question that he wouldn't do what she said, and though Q doesn't really understand most of what they're doing, he has more fun, mixed with more terror, than he can ever remember having before.
The next day Q's convinced that he and Margo Roth Speigelman have a future, of some kind. When she doesn't show at school he figures she's tired from the adventure of the previous night. But Margo's gone.
Paper Towns is in part about Q's search for Margo Roth Spiegelman, but it's also a coming-of-age novel about his search for himself, and his dawning discovery that who people are and our perceptions of them are very different things - a journey in which Walt Whitman's Song of Myself plays an integral role.
There are many things I really enjoyed about Paper Towns, from Q's clueless psychologist parents (who "generally believed that I was the most well-adjusted ... person on the planet, since my psychological well-being was proof of their professional talents") to the epic roadtrip Q, his best friends Radar and Ben, and Margo Roth Spiegelman's former friend Lacey. Mostly, though, I liked the lovely lines and valuable passages strewn through the novel, like Radar's insight that

You know what your problem is, Quentin? You keep expecting people to not be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and never being interested in anything except Margo Roth Spiegelman, and, for, like, never asking me about how it's going with my girlfriend - but I don't give a shit, man, because you're you.

Or the observation that "Talking to a drunk person [when you're sober] was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year-old." Or Margo's statement that

That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people would wwant to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast cereal based on color instead of taste.

Although, as a believer in random capitalisation (because "the rules of capitalisation are so unfair to words in the middle") she and I will forever be at odds.
The title, incidentally, comes from a copyrighting trap of map creators, which is only one of many interesting trivialities Paper Towns furnished me with.
Despite all these elements in its favour, I did close Paper Towns with a slight sense of anticlimax, though a happy-ever-after ending would have run counter to the whole premise of the novel. I suspect that, though I enjoyed the ride, some of that was because the characters, particularly the protagonists, are far more self-aware and perceptive than feels credible, though perhaps I'm just not spending enough time with young adults. I also have a copy of Green's YA novel An Abundance of Katherines, and hope for more joy with that. - Alex

Ellen Hart: Hallowed Murder

Although a young woman's death is ruled a suicide her sorority sisters are certain she was murdered. They request the help of their alumnae adviser to uncover the truth. Together with her best friend, the woman begins to search for clues to what actually happened. She soon discovers the women are right. There is a killer on the loose and she must risk everything to stop them before they kill again.
I read this back in November 2010 and already the finer details escape me.
I remember thinking that the main characters were well rounded and their lesbianism delicately and realistically handled. I have no particular strong recollections of the mystery itself, so I can only assume it was reasonably well written with twists not signposted too well in advance. The identity of the murderer seems quite obvious to me now but I can't honestly say whether that is attributable to hindsight or not.
I recall enjoying the story at the time but not so much that I've been inspired to track down the author's other works.-Lynn

The Lost Quilter - Jennifer Chiaverini

Hiring newcomer Gretchen was an even better decision than the Elm Creek Quilters initially realised, for she comes with a husband adept at woodwork and repairs. When Joe tries to repair a long-abandoned desk, he uncovers a small stack of letters addressed to Sylvia's great-great-aunt, Gerda Bergstrom. The first, sent in 1868, is a response to her repeated queries for information about a servant named Joanna - the name of the author is familiar to Sylvia from her earlier reading of Gerda's diaries, it sheds no light on what happened to Joanna, a recaptured runaway slave. The remaining letters, written almost thirty years later, are enquiries about a Douglass Frederick, a name unknown to Sylvia but clearly connected with the events of 1859.
Despite Joanna's best efforts, Josiah Chester - her owner and the father of her newborn son - recaptured her. Determined she not run away again, she has only a night or two at Greenfields Plantation, Virginia, the only home she's ever known, before being sent further south to live with his brother in South Carolina, where another escape attempt would be impossible.
Set primarily in the years leading to, during and shortly after the American Civil War, The Lost Quilter is a spell-binding, horrifying, triumphant novel of trust, betrayal, cruelty, kindness, humanity, prejudice and survival. Chiaverini manages to capture the casual disregard that results from believing other human beings are inherently unequal, describing barbarism that is more striking in its contrast to the illusion of Southern gentility. I found one scene, where Joanna attempts to escape during her return to Virginia, particularly effect - the change in attitude when a woman realises she's aided not a freed woman but a slave is fascinating and horrifying. And of course, quilts and quilting bind the narratives of the past and the present together.
One of the aspects I found most interesting is the justifications for slavery,

Negroes don't feel love or sadness the way [white people] do. They may give the appearance of true feeling, but they understand these sensations only in a brute, rudimentary way, such as a dog or horse might.

What culturally-mediated prejudices do we similarly harbour and justify?
This is a companion piece to The Runaway Quilt, where we first learned of Joanna and of the Bergstrom connection with the Underground Railway. - Alex

The Elm Creek Quilt series:
1. The Quilter's Apprentice
2. Round Robin
3. The Cross-Country Quilters
4. The Runaway Quilt
5. The Quilter's Legacy
6. The Master Quilter
7. The Sugar Camp Quilt
8. The Christmas Quilt
9. Circle of Quilters
10. The Quilter's Homecoming
11. The New Year's Quilt
12. The Winding Ways Quilt
13. The Quilter's Kitchen
14. The Lost Quilter
15. A Quilter's Holiday
16. The Aloha Quilt

'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy - Leslie Langtry

Gin Bombay loves her work, and (mostly) loves her family - both are unusual, and they're inextricably intertwined, for though Gin is a single mother who's somehow been roped into leading the local Girl Scout troop, she's also a member of long and proud line of assassins who "invented the garrote, the ice pick, and arsenic."
The family usually meet every five years, but even though the last meeting was just over a year ago, Gin receives a summons in the mail. This can mean only one thing – someone’s in trouble. In her family, that also means someone’s going to die.
While assuaging her angst with a slice of Death by Chocolate cheesecake, a handsome Australian approaches her, intrigued by her assassin-related reading material. His name is Diego Jones, he’s gorgeous, and he seems interested in her. The only problem is that when she tells him her cover identity – bodyguard – he reveals that he’s one, too. Well, that and the fact that all Bombay kids are inducted into the family business after their fifth birthday – and Gin’s daughter Romi, who would have been nine at the next reunion had this unscheduled one not been called, now qualifies.
It will come as no surprise that Gin’s latest project happens to be the man that love interest Diego’s guarding. This is combined with her being tapped to discover which of her generation (among her brother, her best friend/cousin, and a wider circle of cousins) is betraying the family to law enforcement, creates tension and intrigue. Theoretically.
I really liked the premise of ‘Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy – assassins are interesting in the abstract, and the concept of relatively-ethical wrong-doers skirting the boundaries of conventional behaviour is a rich area to explore. However, I had several issues with the novel.
The first was that Gin is scatty and disturbingly casual about her work – she leaves the envelope with information about the hit sitting on a table for a day, shares confidential information, and is lead by her convictions rather than her intellect. She’s also bossed around by another mother, which seems unlikely in a career killer.
I could have overlooked these issues, though, had it not been for two other aspects. First, there were a number of gaps in the world building (nobody has ever known about this centuries-old assassination family? There are enough jobs to keep at least twenty-five professionals in America and Europe not only employed but able to live well? No government body has noticed or been concerned about a radar-blocked island in the middle of the ocean? Everyone’s successfully inducted in to the family around age five, every partner’s comfortable with full disclosure, and no family member has an issue with dissenters being killed?)
Second I found the writing style laboured – there are ‘witty’ little asides (“Every time there was a reunion, any one of us could be marked for termination. And I don’t mean with a pink slip.”), clumsy phrasing (“A stab of guilt hit my stomach…”), entirely too much coincidence, a neat and tidy ending in the last chapter, with a gift-wrapping of an epilogue, and an irritating family custom of naming family members for places. So in addition to Virginia “Gin” Bombay we also meet Dak[ota], Liv[erpool], Roma, Flo[rida], Cali[fornia], Missi[ssipi], Lon[don], Phil[adelphia], Coney [Island], Rich[mond]ie, Clinton, Savannah, Asia and Dehli, among others.
'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy is relatively formulaic chick lit. It gestures toward urban, but is fairly frothy despite its potentially gritty setting. Good for a beach novel, when the sun makes deeper thinking not worth the effort, it’s not bad for what it is. Although I finished, and didn’t hate, 'Scuse Me…, I’m not going to be breaking land speed records to see what else Langtry’s written. - Alex

Sweet and Deadly - Charlaine Harris

Catherine Linton became curious about the flies around the house her parents had rented out; her discovery of a bloated body was a shock, though not as great as the local sheriff's identification of the woman as Leona Gaites, who worked as a nurse for Catherine’s father for over thirty years, until his death in a car accident, alongside Catherine’s mother, six months earlier. Catherine had never liked Leona, but her curiosity was piqued. A reporter for the local paper, Catherine decided to dig a little deeper – in to the town where she grew up, and the people she had known all her life. One of them was a killer, and Catherine suspected Leona was not their only victim.
Sweet and Deadly is a recent re-release from 1981, and it shows, in two ways. Unlike many dated novels reviewed here (eg Dead Beat, Ice Station Zebra), the first is less by technology or fashion than community attitudes, to women and (more strikingly) blacks. Though this aspect did provide somewhat confronting food for thought, on each occasion I was rather forcefully jerked out of the narrative.
The second reminder that some thirty years have passed since Sweet and Deadly was written is the writing. Despite some concerns I’ve raised about recent novels in her long-running series, Harris is without question a more adept and able writer now than in her youth. The writing is clunky (eg “She itemised his heavy shoulders and thick chest, surprising on a man of his height”), the characterisation cursory even for our protagonist, the romantic secondary plot rapid and not particularly believable, and motive for what ends up being four murders seems like something of a stretch, though admittedly inventive and not one I’d previously encountered. It seems a little unlikely to me that Catherine could have put the pieces together as easily as Harris portrays, and her decision to confront the killer rather than involve the police doesn’t feel consistent with her character, but she’s not my creation.
I can’t say I’m sorry I read Sweet and Deadly (a title that bears no relation to the plot), but I didn't get the novel I hoped for. I suspect readers who know Harris primarily through the steamy television series based on her Sookie novels will be particularly disappointed, as there's not a single amorous scene here. All in all I think this is probably not a bad reminder of my decision to read my own books this year, with less recourse to the library. - Alex

Blues in the Night - Rochelle Krich

Molly Blume is a freelance reporter in LA - her beat is crime, not Hollywood, and she moonlights with some success as a true crime writer. When reading the daily dispatches, her eye, and then her imagination, is caught by one fact in an otherwise unremarkable report - a woman in a nightgown was the victim of an hit-and-run. Intrigued by the nightgown - at two in the morning, on Laurel Canyon? - Molly decides to investigate a little further.
Between the trauma and surgery, Lenore Saunders doesn't remember the accident. Drugged on antidepressants to begin with, when Molly visits she's disoriented and confuses her with someone named Nina; Lenore is preoccupied by Robbie, who's angry with her even though she's sorry. Interest further piqued, Molly digs deeper, but before she gets anywhere Lenore is found dead in the hospital, apparently by her own hand. Molly, however, suspects foul play.
The first in what is evidently a series, Blues in the Night is well crafted - with only one appearance of Lenore in the flesh, she is primarily portrayed through the lenses of those who knew her, and Molly's psychological autopsy. Molly discovers Lenore's tragic past, the cause of her estrangement form the husband she loved, and an increasingly sinister picture emerges. But which Lenore is the right one - injured, damaged innocent, or conniving, predatory schemer?
This aspect of Blues in the Night is particularly compelling, in part because of its controversial subject - Lenore was charged with the murder of her infant son, and found not guilty because of post-natal psychosis, but the prosecutor believes she was faking, and suspects her therapists came to the same conclusion after he testified on Lenore's behalf. It's also fascinating to see the changing images of Lenore, as Molly works through new evidence, weighing the validity of disparate sources and slivers of information.
I was less impressed with Molly, however. I think this was in part because of the somewhat ponderous interweaving of her Judaism into the text. This surprised me, because I am very interested in Judaism, particularly the more Orthodox variety practiced by Molly, and some of my favourite authors have increased my interest and my knowledge of the topic through a similar marrying of characters of faith with mystery novels - Kellerman is a perfect example of this done seamlessly, so the faith and the character and the direction of the plot are inseparable. In Blues in the Night, however, many of the details seem forced, particularly the translations:

Bubbie G calls Edie a a bren (a dynamo) and Mindy, five-eight,a hoicheh (tall) and a kleiegeh (clever). Liora is a neshomeleh, a sweetheart. Judah is a lamden, an erudite person. Noah is a brillyant, a diamond, and Joey a mazik, a rascal... I'm a kochleffl, a busybody, as if you didn't know, but I'm also a lebedikeh, a lovely one. Ron is a choleryeh ( accent on the second syllable), which is the Yiddish for 'cholera."

In typing this I realise that part of my irritation is that it feels clunky and added on, but part is also that Krich is using these terms as characterisation for Molly's family - Ron is Molly's ex-husband and Bubbie G is her grandmother, while everyone else is a sibling, and the whole is a paragraph of tell don't show.
There's a surfeit of metaphor and analogy - "every time I thought I had it figured out, it fell apart in my head like a meringue" - and a paucity of detail in Molly's significant history. We know why she and her husband divorced, and we know her best friend was killed when Molly was a teen, causing her to lose her faith, but we know nothing about that time except her reaction, nor why she decided to embrace religion once more.
Renewing a romantic relationship with an ex-turned-rabbi, Molly is late for a dinner date, loses track of time, picks a fight, lies, and won't leave it alone. Instead of having any sympathy I found it all disrespectful (of Zack as a man, not a rabbi), and irritatingly inexplicable. This wasn't helped by the way the scene ended:

Romance is like a soufflé - delicate, light, magical. I'd poked a hole in it, and once collapsed, no amount of air would revive it.

Chapter forty-one opens with Molly reflecting on the difficulty of dealing with real life in comparison with writing crime fiction:
you can go back before the book's in print and change things you don't like, things that don't work. You made a character to old, too nasty, or too nice?Change it. You don't like the dialogue on page 127, or the facts of a case, or a clue you planted, or the way characters behave or interact or dress? Change it. You can change it all. It's just words on a computer screen or paper.
But I wasn't writing crime fiction, I was writing about real events and real people whose actions and words were inconsistent. And I couldn't go back and change anything. Not words I'd heard from those who had no reason to lie, but words in court transcripts. I was writing true crime and was stuck with characters who wouldn't ring true. My editor wouldn't buy them. I didn't buy them either.
Molly then points out the inconsistencies between various characters' actions and their personalities, but for me this section served only to underscore that this is a novel, wholly created. And while this section is pivotal to Molly uncovering the truth about Lenore, it's the self-conscious metafictional aspect that stayed with me. While I enjoy this when well done (I thoroughly enjoyed the film Stranger Than Fiction, and was absorbed by my first encounter with metafiction, Calvino's renown If on a Winter's Night a Traveler), this was just coy and clumsy.
Surprisingly, this is not to say I didn't enjoy Blues in the Night - multiply published prior to this 2002 release, the novel feels simultaneously like the work of a developing writer (the rough edges, clunky patches, exposition and telling) and an established one (primarily the complicated and rewarding mystery). I'm interested in where Molly (and Zach) is going, and interested to see if the cultural and religious elements are more deftly incorporated in the rest of the series, of which Blues in the Night is the first. - Alex