At The Water's Edge

I think I pinched a nerve in my back and spent the day on the couch trying not to move in order to avoid any pain.  Susan Gruen's book At The Water's Edge help make the day pass quite quickly.  I started the book int he morning and finished it as the sun went down.  With a few breaks for food and such I could not put this novel down.

This book by Susan Gruen, author the Water For Elephants, has done what many authors find hard to do.  She has written a second book that, I think, is even better than her first.  Water For Elephants was a national best seller and told terrific story.  She has outdone herself in this new novel.  At The Water's Edge grabs the reader right from the Prologue and does not let you go until the very last page.

It is a story of love and betrayal beautifully portrayed by the main character, Maddie Hyde.  It is 1944 in Philadelphia and while a war rages in Europe the wealthy families of Pennsylvania are living a blissfully ignorant lifestyle parties and worrying only about their social standing.  When young Maddie's new husband, Ellis and his friend, Hank find themselves embarrassed by their behavior at a New Year's party they decide to reestablish their good names by traveling to the Scottish Highlands to hunt the Loch Ness monster.

Gruen uses factual newspaper stories from the time period to create the story of these three oblivious young socialites stumbling into the realities of World War II in the Europe.  Gruen admits to playing loosely with dates but she does a wonderful job of creating the atmosphere of small town life during the blackout and food shortages the war brought to every town.  The war continually runs through the background of this story.  Slowly Maddie becomes aware of how real the war is as she sees wounded soldiers being shipped home and reads articles in the newspaper as the concentration camps are liberated.  These incidents along with blackout curtains, food rationing and trips to the air raid shelter help to change Maddie into the likable character she becomes as the story progresses.

By the end of the book you are rooting for her,  hoping the book will give her the ending she deserves to live happily ever after.    This book is a terrific character study of the different people confronted by hardship, war and money.  We are shown the motivation of the privileged society and how that can destroy you.  The book is about the Maddie's awakening to the realities of the people she has surrounded herself with.  There are monsters everywhere, some hidden like the Loch Ness monster, some out in the open like real life monster, Adolf Hitler and some that you find out about as you experience life.

Two Bronze Pennies

Author Chris Nickson writes about Leeds, England at the turn of the century in a very realistic light.   He writes historical mysteries with an attention to detail that makes the story come alive in the reader's mind.  This reviewer has also been watching The Murdoch Mystery series on television recently, so the as Nickson describes the atmosphere of the area and places the characters in the historical time period, I can picture a similar scene from my television viewing.

Two Bronze Pennies takes place in Leeds focusing on the Jewish quarter of the city, the Leylands.
As Nickson describes the area the people are living in, the pubs, the housing and the police precinct the reader gets a feel for the poverty level and the way of life there. Our main character, Police Inspector Tom Harper is newly married to a pub owner, who also has opened bakery businesses in the area.  She is a successful business woman, which it seems is unusual for the time, and a widow.
Harper is also not a wealthy man, he is a copper who works hard and long hours using whats available at that time in history to detect and solve murders.  Criminology is much more simple and harder to solve then.

The case be investigated in this novel, the second int he series, is about a young Jewish man that has been murdered.  The book exposes the undercurrent of anti- semitism that was event at that time in England.  Also brought into this story is the disappearance of Louis Le Prince, a gentleman who was working on a motion picture camera invention.   Le Prince disappeared and it was rumored that Thomas Edison living in New York had something to do with his disappearance.  Edison was also at this time developing his moving motion picture camera.  History has Le Prince getting the first patent for the camera, but Edison trying to dispute it.  This book touches on that rivalry.

A fun mystery with wonderful attention to detail of the time and place in history.  It would have been a bit better if it had tied the Le Prince mystery into the main murder mystery that Harper is investigating as a plot twist at the end.  This reader was actually waiting for that to happen.

A Marriage of Opposites

A Marriage of Opposites is the newest book by the author of many incredible novels, Alice Hoffman.
Two of my favorite books, The Museum of Extraordinary Things and The Dovekeepers are her other most recent novels.  All of these stories are based on real life historical situations that she has elaborated on to bring their stories to life.  Hoffman has the wonderful ability to weave together threads of history into a vibrant, colorful fabric that catches the reader's eye.

This is the story of life on the island of St Thomas for the small Jewish community that had escaped the European Inquisition.  It is the story of the Pizzaro family and the changing world of the early 19th century. Alice Hoffman has taken a story forgotten to history and brought it to life.  Now we will now never forget the lives and love affair of Rachel and Frederic and the artwork of their son Camille Pissarro.  She has introduced many of us to the painter Camille Pissarro and chronicled his family's history, imagining the intimate details of their everyday lives.

The story starts in 1807 on the island of St Thomas in the Jewish enclave of the port city, Charlotte Amalie.  There the families of the congregation live, work and pray together.  Secrets are kept and families help each other.  In the greater community families help or shun each other.   Rachel Pomie grows up with her best friend, Jestine, the daughter of the family cook, Adelle.  Her father teaches her to read and write in not only English but also Hebrew, Danish and Dutch and to speak French.  She is also educated in the finances of their family business.  When she turns seventeen she is married to a widow to strengthen the two family businesses. Rachel is a strong willed woman who speaks her mind and takes control of her life.  She finds true love and has 10 children, her youngest son becoming the famous artist, Camille Pissarro, who will later be known as one of the fathers of Impressionism.

Camille grows up to become a strong personality who speaks his mind and defies respectability.  He is so much like his mother that most times they are at odds.  They quarrel over his passion for art,  "I see you did a great deal of work,' Rachel said, as she examined the contents of the trunk. 'If art can be said to be that.'  She threw a look at her son and he shrugged, annoyed.  'It's a calling,' he said. 'Whether or not you wish to think of it as work is entirely up to you."  Rachel asks him what he thinks about his art and he replies, "I think of it as salvation."

He thinks far ahead of his time to when people will be equal and difference of race, religion or social standing will not matter.  He is an outcast among his peers.  Rachel had aways wanted to go to Paris. Camille also looks for escape from the island of St. Thomas in Paris.  The story will take the reader on a journey from St. Thomas to France through the generations of this fascinating family.
 
There are many relationships in this story and each one is a union of opposites.  Each marriage is a connection of opposite personalities.  So many of the relationships in this book are not recognized by the society they live in.  So each of the main characters in this book develops the ability to stand up for what they believe in and defy the standards and conventions of the times.

This is a story of the hardships of the time and a love story between those of different classes, ages and religions and how society accepted or rejected the connections.  A story of relationships and their conflicts that repeat themselves from generation to generation.  Another wonderful novel by a masterful storyteller.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy

Rachel Joyce has done a remarkable job of intertwining two completely separate books into feeling almost like you are reading one story.  After reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and enjoying it for the beautiful writing style and descriptive passages where you felt like you were walking along side Fry as he walked to see his old work associate Queenie, this story just further develops the story.  Where the story of Harold Fry ended without complete answers, The Love Song of  Queenie Hennessy adds in the details and fleshes out the tale.

Again, Joyce writes with beautiful attention to detail.   Queenie writes to Fry about creating a garden behind her seaside cottage.  You can see the garden as Queenie sees it in her mind, ",,,the rock pools, the winding paths, the shell beds, the figures, the wind chimes, the flowering gorse topiaries that smelt of coconut when the sun was on them."

Queenie is spending her last days in the hospice, as she is dying from cancer.   When Sister Mary Inconnu, one of the nurses caring for her, comes in one morning with a peach, Queenie tries to remind her that she cannot eat.  The Sister has been helping Queenie write her memories down so that if she is not there when Harold Fry finally arrives her story will be there for him to read.  She offers her the peach to distract her from the long wait for Fry.  You can almost taste a peach as Queenie is encouraged to eat it. The description of the peach paints an almost sensual picture in the reader's mind, "I stroked the velvety red blush if its skin.  I felt the give of its flesh as I pressed it with my fingertips.  I traced the well-defined crease.  The dimple at its center where once the fruit was attached to a stem, a tree, and grew there.  This may sound strange, but I forgot briefly that you could eat a peach as well as touch it."

Then of course there is the interplay between Queenie waiting for Harold Fry as walks to visit her and Fry walking to see her.  This could have easily have been written in alternating chapters in one book, but that might have taken away from the wonderful drama of each story.  This book is cleverly written to remind you of the story of Harold Fry as the letters and notes he sends arrive at the hospice. There Queenie and the other people living out their last days wait with anticipation for each letter. The Sisters read the letters and post them on a bulletin board.  The reader is reminded of locations and events that Fry encountered on his route.  In this novel, as a letter from is delivered from each location, Queenie recounts more details of the story of their relationship.

Life tries to stand still while the patients in the hospice wait for Harold Fry to arrive.  In the first book Harold Fry attracted a following and made an impact on peoples' lives as he was walking.  Again in this book, Fry walking to see Queenie has an impact on the people in the hospice with her.  This is a story of how the actions of each individual affect others around them in both positive and negative ways. That love is an emotion that can change lives and every act of kindness has repercussions.
A tender, feel good love story.

The Curse of the House of Foskett

This is the second in the Gower Street Detective series by M.R. Kasasian.  In this mystery series we follow the life of Sidney Grice, a personal detective and his ward, March Middleton.  It is set in 1882 Victorian England on the streets of London.

In this story March Middleton is recording the case of the Curse of the House of Foskett.  She is also assisting her guardian, Grice in solving the deaths that are occurring through this book.  The case appears on the surface to be a simple fact that the members of the group, the Final Death Society each are dying off in turn.  According to Grice, what would you expect if you have signed up for a group whose purpose is to leave the fortune of all the members to the last person standing after all the others are dead.

But in every mystery things are not always what they seem.    Author, Kasasian, has created a wonderfully colorful character in Grice, a bristly, irritable personal detective who is  investigating the murders.  His style of speech is sharp and witty.  He is nasty and argumentative with everyone, even his ward, who I really think he likes.  This rapier wit is delightful to read and really lends substance to Grice's character.

Grice on the hunt for clues puts the housekeeper in her place, "...'Hold still woman.'  He picked a piece of fluff out of her wig and popped it into an envelope.  'I am most particular about whom I follow, why, when, and where, and I shall not have witnesses dictating the sequence in which I collate evidence.  At best your suggestion is impertinent.  At worst it might be construed as suspicious."

March Middleton who seems to be a young woman in her early twenties is a great match for her guardian.  She is feisty and quick tongued also.  She can match Grice's cutting repartee, comment for comment.  Over dinner they banter back and forth, "He swallowed.  'You know March, your excursion seems to have done you some good.  You have constructed an entire sentence of rational thought.'  'You are the only man I know who can turn a compliment into an insult.'"

The writing style is in this book is quite syncopated, with a quick fascinating style.  Wonderfully engaging and fun to read.  This reader will go back and read book one and look forward to another mystery featuring Sidney Grice and March Middleton.

Gangsterland

How funny is Tod Goldberg's new novel, Gansterland?  A laugh a page funny.
A book about a gangster who is relocated from Chicago to Las Vegas and given a new identity as a Rabbi!!

This is a really fun summer read.  Sal Cupertine is a legendary hit man with the Chicago Mafia Family. He is the best at getting in and out of a crime scene without a trace.  Then in a job gone wrong he kills three FBI agents and leaves behind evidence to link him to the crime.  His cousin Ronnie sells him to a Las Vegas gang to make him disappear.  He undergoes some reconstructive surgery and resurfaces as Rabbi David Cohen.

As Rabbi Cohen studies to Talmud and Torah so he can minister to the congregants at Temple Beth Israel, former FBI agent Jeffrey Hopper is on the trail of Sal Cupertine.   This is a fun book that shows the dark side of the Mafia in a funny light.  Describes murder, then describes the Jewish thoughts on death, all in a light manner.  Tod Goldberg says in an interview, "I knew I wanted it to be a mordantly funny book, but I also knew I wanted to deal with serious issues, and to strike that balance was hard, because if you do either one poorly, the other one feels gratuitous."

I think Goldberg has hit the mark, he has used a topic that is real, the Mafia in Las Vegas, Chicago and other major cities and he has made it funny.  Rabbi David Cohen is finding his way in his new life, "It didn't matter to David what Ruben was paid.  He just wanted to know how Bennie was keeping him quiet and what David would need to do if he wanted to keep him quiet..."  He continues to work both as a hit man and a Rabbi, "It dawned on David then that he wouldn't just be presiding over the funerals of the war dead, that he might not know one body to the next who was a natural death verses a murder."

This is definitely a fun book to read and really got me thinking about the Jewish players in the history of the mob.  I will be doing some more reading about this topic.  Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and many others, Tod Goldberg has whet my curiosity about this topic.

The Book of Speculation

Author Erika Swyler has used her extensive imagination to create the history of the Simon Watson's family.  Simon Watson is a young librarian living in a small beach town on the Long Island Sound. He is living alone in the house he and his sister grew up in.  His parents have died and his sister moved out. The story begins with the house crumbling around him as he is let go from his job as a research librarian due to budget cuts.  He is unable to find the funds to fix up the house and he is contemplating leaving town himself.

Involved in a romantic relationship with Alice, the girl next door, he feels unable to borrow the money to repair the house from her father, but Frank McAvoy seems intent on keeping the house in one piece.

Then one day a mysterious book arrives.  It is the diary and log of a traveling circus that seems to have faced an unfortunate end.  Simon's mother was a mermaid in a traveling circus before the children were born and his sister, Enola has gone off with a modern day traveling carnival.
In the book Simon finds mention of names he remembers his mother mentioning.  This sets him doing what he does best, researching the characters in the book and finding out family secrets that have been hidden for generations.

When his sister announces she is coming for a visit and shows up with her electric performer boyfriend all the cards are now on the table and the pieces of the family history start to fall into place. Past and present start of come together and it is up to Simon to find out the common thread between the book and the Watson family.

In a story of parallels between Simon's modern day family tribulations and the historic traveling circus the reader gets the flavor of what it was like to travel with those 18th century circuses. Throughout the book there are also crude pictures and descriptions of the Tarot card readings, interesting to those who are intrigued by the psychic, spiritual world.

Written in similar fashion to Marisha Pessl's Night Film, and The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman, Erika Swyler has written a wonderful novel about the power of books, magic and families.