Faye Kellerman has written another in a long line of mystery novels about Rina Lazarus and Peter Decker, the wonderful Jewish couple who solve crimes. The series started with Peter coming to solve a murder case at a mikvah where Rina was working. He solves the case, protects Rina and of course falls in love. Over the course of time and books, Rina and Peter have married, blended their families and had children of their own all while living in Los Angeles, Ca. They now have retired and are starting again in New York state with grown children and grandchildren.
They have moved from Los Angeles to upstate New York for their retirement and to be near all their children and grandchildren who are the New York City area. But of course Peter cannot sit around and he takes on a part time role in the local police department. In the last novel he also takes on a young partner who comes from a wealthy family. The young partner was shot in solving a crime and his father has given him an ultimatum to go to law school if he wants to inherit.
In this novel Tyler McAdams, the young assistant, is visiting the Deckers in Greenbury, NY to study for his finals at Harvard. He is a sarcastic young man with a distaste for money and doesn't live the fancy lifestyle he could be. He is hard working and loves working to solves mysteries with Peter.
Rina also gets involved because she loves to take in strays, as in young adults, and mentor them.
She is always feeding the detectives with good kosher meals. Along with the delicious food she also offers advice. Peter relies on her for support and appreciates her input.
This time the case they are working on looks like a suicide of a college student but when a college professor who this student was working with also turns up dead the questions turn from suicide to murder. There are a few red herrings as you are led to question the behavior of a few of the students and professors who are still on campus. There is a lot to learn both about the characters in the story and Kellerman adds in complicated information about what the students are studying, and writing their thesis on. We enter the world of vectors and math theories and secret cyphers that are very complicated. McAdams gets to shine as he explains these enigmatic formulas to Decker and helps him solve the crime.
Monday, November 30, 2015
The Hours Count
Jillian Cantor, has written another fabulous novel based on a real event in history but telling the story from a completely different viewpoint. Her last novel, Margot, is the story of Anne Frank, and what could have happened had they lived, taken from the sister's point of view. In this new book, The Hours Count, Cantor has written a plot that tells the story of the Cold War from the American perspective, and the paranoid fears Americans had toward Russian American citizens. This story is told by Millie Stein, a fictionalized neighbor that could have lived in the apartment building with the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
World War Two has ended and Americans have come home, but their celebration is short lived. Now there is the threat of Russia developing the atomic bomb and attacking America. Senator Joe McCarthy creates an atmosphere of paranoia that has citizens unable to trust their neighbors. He starts the House Un-American Activities Committee, holding hearings that accuse 200 US government employees of being members of the American Communist Party. There are trials where friends accuse friends and relatives turn in their relatives as communists.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the only two Americans to be executed for espionage related to sharing information with the Russians, during the Cold War. To this day there is a question as to whether Ethel was really involved and to what extent Julius was involved. This novel uses the facts of the case and the descriptions known about Julius and Ethel and expands on those facts to create a story of what might have happened. Based on the premise that Ethel left her two young sons with a neighbor when she went to testify in court about her involvement with her husband, who had been arrested days before, Cantor develops her neighbor into Millie Stein and creates a back story that builds a tentative but friendly relationship between the two women.
The lonely housewife Millie is home with a son, who today would be diagnosed autistic, is trying to figure out how to take care of him and make friends with the other mothers in her apartment building. She is married to a Russian immigrant, older and uncommunicative. Millie realizes that she is stuck in an unhappy marriage while her new friends, Ethel and Julius seem to be so in love.
So many issues of the day are presented in this wonderful novel. Along with the Cold War and who you could trust are the ideas of marriage and divorce, birth control and abortion.
Though the lines can seem blurred between what really happened historically between 1947 and 1953 there are many actual references that are woven into the story. The Rosenbergs really did live on the 11th floor of a building in Knickerbocker Village, on the Lower East Side of New York. Also accurate are the references to the smallpox outbreak, the killer fog, the Dodgers vs Yankees World Series of 1949. Other references to Ethel making a voice recording for her son and participating in psychoanalysis along with the tensions between Julius and her brother David in their business are also factual.
This is a wonderful story of the Rosenbergs and whether you know the history or not you will enjoy this novel. Jillian Cantor gives the reader a very sympathetic side to the story of the Rosenberg family.
World War Two has ended and Americans have come home, but their celebration is short lived. Now there is the threat of Russia developing the atomic bomb and attacking America. Senator Joe McCarthy creates an atmosphere of paranoia that has citizens unable to trust their neighbors. He starts the House Un-American Activities Committee, holding hearings that accuse 200 US government employees of being members of the American Communist Party. There are trials where friends accuse friends and relatives turn in their relatives as communists.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the only two Americans to be executed for espionage related to sharing information with the Russians, during the Cold War. To this day there is a question as to whether Ethel was really involved and to what extent Julius was involved. This novel uses the facts of the case and the descriptions known about Julius and Ethel and expands on those facts to create a story of what might have happened. Based on the premise that Ethel left her two young sons with a neighbor when she went to testify in court about her involvement with her husband, who had been arrested days before, Cantor develops her neighbor into Millie Stein and creates a back story that builds a tentative but friendly relationship between the two women.
The lonely housewife Millie is home with a son, who today would be diagnosed autistic, is trying to figure out how to take care of him and make friends with the other mothers in her apartment building. She is married to a Russian immigrant, older and uncommunicative. Millie realizes that she is stuck in an unhappy marriage while her new friends, Ethel and Julius seem to be so in love.
So many issues of the day are presented in this wonderful novel. Along with the Cold War and who you could trust are the ideas of marriage and divorce, birth control and abortion.
Though the lines can seem blurred between what really happened historically between 1947 and 1953 there are many actual references that are woven into the story. The Rosenbergs really did live on the 11th floor of a building in Knickerbocker Village, on the Lower East Side of New York. Also accurate are the references to the smallpox outbreak, the killer fog, the Dodgers vs Yankees World Series of 1949. Other references to Ethel making a voice recording for her son and participating in psychoanalysis along with the tensions between Julius and her brother David in their business are also factual.
This is a wonderful story of the Rosenbergs and whether you know the history or not you will enjoy this novel. Jillian Cantor gives the reader a very sympathetic side to the story of the Rosenberg family.
Friday, November 20, 2015
The Next Best Thing
Jennifer Weiner, the master of the chick lit novel has written another fun plot line.
This time her heroine is a young woman who comes to Hollywood, a naive, pure, ingenue.
Ruth Saunders was in a fatal car accident as a child. Her parents are killed and she is physically deformed. She is brought up by her grandmother who works hard to develop in Ruth a strong sense of positive self esteem despite scars on her face.
So this becomes the story of beauty and whether it is skin deep or who you are as a person. This light, fluffy plot takes on the larger issue of how people treat each other. How people react to a person when they can see a physical flaw. Whether it is scars on your face, color of your skin or sitting in a wheelchair, it can alter your first impression of the person you are talking to.
But also in the novel the author shows how fickle Hollywood can be. You can age out of popularity in this business, also how much you weigh and your body type are important to whether you will work or not in this industry.
Told around the story of Ruth and her vivacious grandmother, who pull up roots and move across the country so Ruth can try her hand at writing scripts for television. Her grandmother works as an extra and meets Maurice the new man of her dreams. "As it turned out, senior citizen like my grandmother, the ones who were both ambulatory and with-it enough to get themselves to the set, read a script, and take direction, were in great demand as extras."
So between funny episodes that tell the behind the scenes story of trying to make it big time in a competitive, back stabbing world, there are some tender moments as Ruth and her grandmother negotiate their lives together and in the world at large.
This time her heroine is a young woman who comes to Hollywood, a naive, pure, ingenue.
Ruth Saunders was in a fatal car accident as a child. Her parents are killed and she is physically deformed. She is brought up by her grandmother who works hard to develop in Ruth a strong sense of positive self esteem despite scars on her face.
So this becomes the story of beauty and whether it is skin deep or who you are as a person. This light, fluffy plot takes on the larger issue of how people treat each other. How people react to a person when they can see a physical flaw. Whether it is scars on your face, color of your skin or sitting in a wheelchair, it can alter your first impression of the person you are talking to.
But also in the novel the author shows how fickle Hollywood can be. You can age out of popularity in this business, also how much you weigh and your body type are important to whether you will work or not in this industry.
Told around the story of Ruth and her vivacious grandmother, who pull up roots and move across the country so Ruth can try her hand at writing scripts for television. Her grandmother works as an extra and meets Maurice the new man of her dreams. "As it turned out, senior citizen like my grandmother, the ones who were both ambulatory and with-it enough to get themselves to the set, read a script, and take direction, were in great demand as extras."
So between funny episodes that tell the behind the scenes story of trying to make it big time in a competitive, back stabbing world, there are some tender moments as Ruth and her grandmother negotiate their lives together and in the world at large.
Monday, November 16, 2015
The Lost WIfe
Alyson Richman seems to be turning out novels at an amazing speed. The Lost Wife is a wonderful story, full of historical accuracy of what life was like for Jewish families in Europe leading up to the takeover of Czechoslovakia and then in the concentration camp, Theresien.
Richman talks in an interview about overhearing a woman explaining at the hairdresser that she knew about a man and woman who found each other many years after the war, who though they were married they each thought the other spouse was dead. Richman who had been working on the idea for a book about an artist living in Theresien camp decided to use this idea as her jumping off point.
What a beautiful story she has written. The two elderly people meet for the first time in sixty years.
They have both lived long full lives thinking the other had died during the Holocaust. But through it all they never forgot the other. Richman tells the story of what happened and how they reach their current circumstances with alternating chapters telling the story from each perspective. The reader sees what happened throughout the war years and how the couple came together and how they ended up apart.
Her historical accuracy and descriptions of being in a concentration camp give the reader a way to really relate to the experiences of many people who lived through that time. Richman intersperses real people and events that happened in Theresien to give the reader a real understanding of life in that horrific environment.
A wonderful love story and a story that shows that a feeling of strength and determination can have such a strong effect on one's life. That people who overcame terrible odds, won against the war machine of WWII by having families and bringing new generations of children and grandchildren into the world to carry on their family names. That brave people risked everything to let the world know what was happening in the camps.
Richman talks in an interview about overhearing a woman explaining at the hairdresser that she knew about a man and woman who found each other many years after the war, who though they were married they each thought the other spouse was dead. Richman who had been working on the idea for a book about an artist living in Theresien camp decided to use this idea as her jumping off point.
What a beautiful story she has written. The two elderly people meet for the first time in sixty years.
They have both lived long full lives thinking the other had died during the Holocaust. But through it all they never forgot the other. Richman tells the story of what happened and how they reach their current circumstances with alternating chapters telling the story from each perspective. The reader sees what happened throughout the war years and how the couple came together and how they ended up apart.
Her historical accuracy and descriptions of being in a concentration camp give the reader a way to really relate to the experiences of many people who lived through that time. Richman intersperses real people and events that happened in Theresien to give the reader a real understanding of life in that horrific environment.
A wonderful love story and a story that shows that a feeling of strength and determination can have such a strong effect on one's life. That people who overcame terrible odds, won against the war machine of WWII by having families and bringing new generations of children and grandchildren into the world to carry on their family names. That brave people risked everything to let the world know what was happening in the camps.
Willful Behavior
Donna Leon has just published her 24th book in the mystery series following the police work of Commissario Guido Brunetti. I just discovered this author and character and read completely out of order book number 11, Willful Behavior.
This is a wonderfully written mystery story. The characters are well developed and you can get a great idea of who they are even jumping in the middle of the series. Leon writes such descriptive dialog and character representation that you feel like you know them even though you are meeting them for the first time. Leon does say that the time is irrelevant in her books. She does not really age her characters in real time. Brunetti loves to come home and eat lunch with his family. His wife Paola, a college professor, works in her home office and cooks gourmet meals for her family. Their son and daughter are typical children who in this book are just there in the background to help create the loving family life that is the back drop for Brunetti at the end of the day.
This was an intriguing mystery about a young college student who is killed and as the plot unfolds, it is suspected that she has connections to lost or stolen Holocaust artwork. We learn about the war years in Venice and how the government turned a blind eye to what was happening in Italy during the war. In this book Leon writes about the different attitudes Italians had during the war and afterwards. There is reference to resistance fighters, secrets of collaboration and the exploitation of the Italian Jews.
Leon writes with attention to detail, both in the meals Paola cooks for Brunetti and in the historical events she references throughout the novel. She expertly offers twists and turns that leave you surprised at the end of the book, about what really happened to victims in this case.
This is a wonderfully written mystery story. The characters are well developed and you can get a great idea of who they are even jumping in the middle of the series. Leon writes such descriptive dialog and character representation that you feel like you know them even though you are meeting them for the first time. Leon does say that the time is irrelevant in her books. She does not really age her characters in real time. Brunetti loves to come home and eat lunch with his family. His wife Paola, a college professor, works in her home office and cooks gourmet meals for her family. Their son and daughter are typical children who in this book are just there in the background to help create the loving family life that is the back drop for Brunetti at the end of the day.
This was an intriguing mystery about a young college student who is killed and as the plot unfolds, it is suspected that she has connections to lost or stolen Holocaust artwork. We learn about the war years in Venice and how the government turned a blind eye to what was happening in Italy during the war. In this book Leon writes about the different attitudes Italians had during the war and afterwards. There is reference to resistance fighters, secrets of collaboration and the exploitation of the Italian Jews.
Leon writes with attention to detail, both in the meals Paola cooks for Brunetti and in the historical events she references throughout the novel. She expertly offers twists and turns that leave you surprised at the end of the book, about what really happened to victims in this case.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
The Collector
The Collector is a artistic mystery written by Anne-Laure Thieblemont and translated by Sophie Weiner. Not only does the plot revolve around some ancient artwork being sold at auction and then disappearing, but the author writes in a very descriptive artistic style.
This is the story of Marion Spicer who works for an organization called Search Art with her best friend Chris. Marion spends her days looking through auction catalogs trying to spot works of stolen or lost art for this company and its clients. It is very apropos then when Marion finds out the father she thought had died when she was a child, was very much alive and had created a whole new persona for himself as Edmond Magni, a wealthy and well known collector of pre-Colombian art. Now he has really died and she las been named as his sole
Marion is left to inherit Magni's extensive collection of unique and famous sculptures if she can find three missing pieces within a time limit. This sets her off to face danger and intrigue where some unscrupulous dealers will do anything to protect their secrets.
The Collector is a fast paced story following the mystery of the artwork and the dealers who will do whatever it takes to protect the value of their collections. Though the characters are not well developed it is a fun novel with many twists and a surprising outcome. This book has all the elements of a good mystery, a few deaths and a cast of dangerous characters. You will be routing for Marion Spicer all the way to the end.
The author Anne-Laure Thieblemont was an investigative reporter in art trafficking and has met many famous art collectors. The Collector was her first mystery novel. When Anne-Laure was not writing she was out searching for gems and designing jewelry that she had made in Istanbul. She made her home in Marseilles. Unfortunately she passed away suddenly in 2015. This is sad on many levels including that there is a second book in this series, yet to be translated into English and then the series will end.
This is the story of Marion Spicer who works for an organization called Search Art with her best friend Chris. Marion spends her days looking through auction catalogs trying to spot works of stolen or lost art for this company and its clients. It is very apropos then when Marion finds out the father she thought had died when she was a child, was very much alive and had created a whole new persona for himself as Edmond Magni, a wealthy and well known collector of pre-Colombian art. Now he has really died and she las been named as his sole
Marion is left to inherit Magni's extensive collection of unique and famous sculptures if she can find three missing pieces within a time limit. This sets her off to face danger and intrigue where some unscrupulous dealers will do anything to protect their secrets.
The Collector is a fast paced story following the mystery of the artwork and the dealers who will do whatever it takes to protect the value of their collections. Though the characters are not well developed it is a fun novel with many twists and a surprising outcome. This book has all the elements of a good mystery, a few deaths and a cast of dangerous characters. You will be routing for Marion Spicer all the way to the end.
The author Anne-Laure Thieblemont was an investigative reporter in art trafficking and has met many famous art collectors. The Collector was her first mystery novel. When Anne-Laure was not writing she was out searching for gems and designing jewelry that she had made in Istanbul. She made her home in Marseilles. Unfortunately she passed away suddenly in 2015. This is sad on many levels including that there is a second book in this series, yet to be translated into English and then the series will end.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
The Rosie Project
Wow is all I can say to the wonderful world you fall into when you start reading this book.
The author, Graeme Simsion, really makes makes you feel like you are walking in Don Tillman's shoes as you follow his process to find a wife. Tillman is a professor at a small college who, it seems clear, is not only a science geek, but has some of the exact qualities of being somewhere on the autism spectrum that he is studying and is oblivious to that fact. As a running joke through out the novel characters keep telling each other, "Humans often fail to see what is close to them and obvious to others."
There is a wonderful cadence to the story as Don goes through the process of setting up his questionnaire based on his likes, dislikes and routines that he thinks will help him find the perfect woman to be his wife. He sets up the Wife Project with the help of a friend. His friend sends a young beautiful psychology student his way and he meets Rosie Jarman who is looking for her "real" father. Rosie's mother, before her death, told her that she had sex with a man in her graduating class from medical school and Rosie was the product of that escapade. Rosie has decided she wants to find this man and Don helps her with genetic testing, creating the Father Project.
Along the way on the their search Don and Rosie have many adventures. Don is having the best time of his life and is willing to postpone the Wife Project while helping Rosie. Through a series of well paced, funny hi -jinks and clever dialog, Simsion creates a moving, creative love story.
Though the ending starts to become clear early on the solid writing style and witting repartee keeps the reader engaged all the way to the end. Romantic but not sappy this is a fun book to read.
The author, Graeme Simsion, really makes makes you feel like you are walking in Don Tillman's shoes as you follow his process to find a wife. Tillman is a professor at a small college who, it seems clear, is not only a science geek, but has some of the exact qualities of being somewhere on the autism spectrum that he is studying and is oblivious to that fact. As a running joke through out the novel characters keep telling each other, "Humans often fail to see what is close to them and obvious to others."
There is a wonderful cadence to the story as Don goes through the process of setting up his questionnaire based on his likes, dislikes and routines that he thinks will help him find the perfect woman to be his wife. He sets up the Wife Project with the help of a friend. His friend sends a young beautiful psychology student his way and he meets Rosie Jarman who is looking for her "real" father. Rosie's mother, before her death, told her that she had sex with a man in her graduating class from medical school and Rosie was the product of that escapade. Rosie has decided she wants to find this man and Don helps her with genetic testing, creating the Father Project.
Along the way on the their search Don and Rosie have many adventures. Don is having the best time of his life and is willing to postpone the Wife Project while helping Rosie. Through a series of well paced, funny hi -jinks and clever dialog, Simsion creates a moving, creative love story.
Though the ending starts to become clear early on the solid writing style and witting repartee keeps the reader engaged all the way to the end. Romantic but not sappy this is a fun book to read.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
The Mystics of Mile End
Sigal Samuel has created a beautiful love story in her first novel, The Mystics of Mile End.
Written as a coming of age story, we hear the story from four viewpoints. First we hear the story from the point of view of a child, Lev. The Hebrew translation of Lev is heart. This is a story of the heart and how it can fall in love and how that love can be shattered. After hearing the story told by Lev we hear the story through the eyes of David, the childrens' father. Then we hear the story retold from Lev's sister, Samara's interpretation. This is always a terrific way to read a book, so that you are comparing the same life experience from the minds of many different characters. In each narration new perspectives of the same facts help to flesh out the reality of the situation. Then just when we think we have all the facts we hear the story from a fourth influential voice. Chaim Glassman, their neighbor, Hebrew teacher and Bar/ Bat Mitzvah tutor. From his vantage point both literally as he watches the comings and goings of the people in the neighborhood through his window, and also figuratively because he has the ear of his students. Glassman has an influence on the young minds he helps to mold.
This is a story of Kabbalah and the mystical traditions of Judiasm intertwined with the disappointments in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the feelings of loss in a family after a death. Looking for answers to the meaning of life and the reasons for loss, Kabbalah gives the characters in this book something larger than life to strive for. Each of the main characters in this story is searching for meaning in the hardness of everyday life. Each of the characters in this novel are struggling with their religious beliefs.
Mr. Glassman gives Lev and Samara the explanation of Kabbalah as the ultimate source of knowledge of the Jewish religion. Eating from the Tree of Life , Mr. Glassman explains will give
you the secret of how to live forever. Lev asks, "The Tree of Live is one of those secrets? What does it do". Mr. Glassman explains, "The most important one. Centuries ago, it became a very popular kabbalistic idea. You should better ask, what does it not do! The Tree of Life does everything! It is what God used to create the universe out of nothing. It has ten parts—ten vessels—and when God poured His light down into them, the whole world appeared. And so our holy sages taught that a person who wants to go back up to God has only to climb this same Tree."
The story takes place in Mile End, described as the half hipster, half Jewish religious neighborhood of Montreal Canada. This is where Lev and Samara are growing up with their father, the college professor, David and all the flawed neighbors. This is a sometimes humorous but always touching novel about the nature of life and the reason to exist. It is about family relationships, how fragile and easily misunderstood they can become. It is about silence and sound, looked at through a mathematical and scientific lens, and the need for human relationships.
Written as a coming of age story, we hear the story from four viewpoints. First we hear the story from the point of view of a child, Lev. The Hebrew translation of Lev is heart. This is a story of the heart and how it can fall in love and how that love can be shattered. After hearing the story told by Lev we hear the story through the eyes of David, the childrens' father. Then we hear the story retold from Lev's sister, Samara's interpretation. This is always a terrific way to read a book, so that you are comparing the same life experience from the minds of many different characters. In each narration new perspectives of the same facts help to flesh out the reality of the situation. Then just when we think we have all the facts we hear the story from a fourth influential voice. Chaim Glassman, their neighbor, Hebrew teacher and Bar/ Bat Mitzvah tutor. From his vantage point both literally as he watches the comings and goings of the people in the neighborhood through his window, and also figuratively because he has the ear of his students. Glassman has an influence on the young minds he helps to mold.
This is a story of Kabbalah and the mystical traditions of Judiasm intertwined with the disappointments in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the feelings of loss in a family after a death. Looking for answers to the meaning of life and the reasons for loss, Kabbalah gives the characters in this book something larger than life to strive for. Each of the main characters in this story is searching for meaning in the hardness of everyday life. Each of the characters in this novel are struggling with their religious beliefs.
Mr. Glassman gives Lev and Samara the explanation of Kabbalah as the ultimate source of knowledge of the Jewish religion. Eating from the Tree of Life , Mr. Glassman explains will give
you the secret of how to live forever. Lev asks, "The Tree of Live is one of those secrets? What does it do". Mr. Glassman explains, "The most important one. Centuries ago, it became a very popular kabbalistic idea. You should better ask, what does it not do! The Tree of Life does everything! It is what God used to create the universe out of nothing. It has ten parts—ten vessels—and when God poured His light down into them, the whole world appeared. And so our holy sages taught that a person who wants to go back up to God has only to climb this same Tree."
The story takes place in Mile End, described as the half hipster, half Jewish religious neighborhood of Montreal Canada. This is where Lev and Samara are growing up with their father, the college professor, David and all the flawed neighbors. This is a sometimes humorous but always touching novel about the nature of life and the reason to exist. It is about family relationships, how fragile and easily misunderstood they can become. It is about silence and sound, looked at through a mathematical and scientific lens, and the need for human relationships.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)