Glass Houses

Louise Penny has written another fabulous mystery novel about our friends in Three Pines.  Chief Superintendent of the Surete du Quebec, Armand Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie.  His second in command and son-in-law, Jean-Guy Beauvoir and head of homicide, Isabelle Lacoste.  Of course there are all the citizens of the small hidden village; Ruth Zardo, Olivier and Gabri, Clara and Myrna.  Then there are the guests and newcomers to the village, who help create the cast of characters that will be the victims and suspects in the murder case.

Each murder mystery that Penny writes is fantastic as a mystery novel in its self.  But also it is a work of art in fiction literature.  It does not just rest on the laurels of being a good whodunit, it takes the reader on a literary journey with beautiful descriptions of the forest and life in a small village.   As the reader you go between two types of feelings.  First, you like you are right there with the friends sitting at the table in the bistro sharing a bottle of wine or drinking your own hot chocolate to warm up in front of the fire on a snowy day.  You are sharing a meal with Gamache and Beauvoir  discussing the clues of the case.

"Olivier stood at the window of the bistro and watched the Surete officers walking down the road from the church.  He wasn't alone.  The rest of the village, and those from outlying farms, had gathered in the bistro, the focal point for the community, in good times and bad.  ...They watched silently as Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste walked toward them through the cold November drizzle that turned, every now and then, into sleet.   Then back again.  Olivier and Gabri had been handing out coffee and tea, juices, and fresh, warm cookies from Sarah's bakery.  No alcohol.  No need to feed already heightened emotions.  ...Both fireplaces, on either side of the bistro, were lit. And now the only sound, besides some labored breathing, was the cheery crackle of the logs.  The place smelled of woodsmoke and rich coffee.  And wet wool form those who'd arrived late, hurrying through the damp afternoon."

The second feeling could be jealousy, the feeling that you want to have that kind of place to go, to feel the warmth of a small pub or cafe, where you can go and replicate the cosiness that is described by Penny in this place and with the friends that you can always count on like these people seem to be able to trust and rely on each other.

So in this book, the murder plot revolves around the idea that a strange figure appears in the center of town who looks like the Grim Reaper, and is called a "cobrador", acting as a conscience for someone who has done something bad and gotten away with it.  This figure follows the person around until the pay their debt, either money or with guilt and embarrassment.  Things go wrong and after watching the cobrador stand on the village green for two days, someone is found dead. 

The book starts in the middle with Gamache on the witness stand in court testifying about who the murderer is.  The interesting concept in this book is how it travels back and forth in time, between the trial in the present tense, with Gamache telling the story as he testifies, and a kind of flashback, where we are back in Three Pines as the case is being investigated.  In this back and forth style the entire case is revealed slowly, explaining how the murder occurred and how they discovered who committed the crime and what the motive was. 

Again just a wonderful literary mystery novel to sink down into the couch and imagine you are in  Myrna's book shop, in Three Pines, on a rainy, or snowy afternoon with some comfort food and hot chocolate reading about the case with Armand and Reine-Marie.

Born a Crime

Trevor Noah has written an incredible book.  I listened to him read the story of his childhood on the audiobook and it just made his story even more amazing.  He talks about his childhood growing up in South Africa explaining the incredible segregation between not only black and white, but also the prejudice against "colored" people, who are born of mixed heritage. 

I love watching Trevor Noah on late night television.  His show is clever and he is such a cute young man. I also love listening to him at night and on the audible book, his voice has such a soft lilting cadence and wonderful accent to it. 

What a life story he has lived in such a short time.  He has become so successful, but that is not what the book is about at all.  the book takes us back to his childhood, growing up with a black mother and a white father, who is not really involved in his upbringing.  He describes all the members of his family, from his mother, to his aunts and uncles and cousins in such a colorful manner.  They are all interesting characters.  His mother is very religious, believing that her faith will carry her through any disaster or trouble in her life.  He has two half brothers , when his mother marries another black man.  This man is abusive to his mother and he spends his youth defending and protecting her. 
He runs with a rough group of boys for a while as a teenager.  he gets into trouble along the way, but always seems to land on his feet.  Some of the time it seems like he is just lucky.  Other times it could be his easy going personality helps him win people over. 

He has lived through things our children here in America will never have to experience.  He has amazingly come out of it all to be very successful.  He has experienced hatred, and bigotry, physical abuse and even a stint in jail.  But the man you see on television seems like such a sweet likeable person, it is hard to imagine the life he describes in this book.

A Tightly Ravelled Mind

OK this is probably the craziest book I have ever read.   When I looked back at reviews after finishing the book I saw that many people put it down without finishing it.  I did think about a few times, but I kept thinking that there would be a good twist at the end, so on I plunged.

I will say that it is not the worst book, it did keep me reading to the end.  It did have some clever plot points and funny, in a awkward way, scenarios.  I will be recommending this book to a friend of mine who is a psychologist.

But I will say that it is not a good mystery in the sense of a whonunit.  It does not really build suspense and there is not really any good character development, so that you are really basically just shocked with the ending, but the author has not done a good job developing any of the characters so that you feel sorry for anyone or that justice has been dealt.

This is the story or Nora Goodman, who is a Freudian therapist, separated from her husband, also a therapist, taking care of her two young children.  She has half a dozen clients and they are starting to die.  She becomes convinced they are being murdered.  She hires private detective, Mike Ruiz to find the killer.  

As Nora is working with her patients, trying to help them understand their neuroses, she is also still trying to work out her own psychological issues from her childhood.  Her first patient to die is Howard, which catches her by surprise.  Nora thinks,   "The media presented Howard's demise as accidental - a little chemistry experiment in his home workshop gone wrong. But Freud didn't believe in accident sand neither did I.  Deep down no one believe s in accidents. We all want meaning.  We prefer the illusion of control over what matters in our lives, no matter how irrational the explanation."

This is a story of a neurotic woman who has never resolved her harmful relationship with her father and mother, and is not really able to help her patients.  The people you, as a reader, are most concerned for in the end are her children.  Parents who never resolve their own problems can just pass the problems onto the next generation. 

Young Jane Young

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like today if you had decided to go to a different college, chose a different career, marrying a different person?  Have you ever thought about what makes us go in one direction or another.  How we choose when we reach in a fork in the road?  Young Jane Young, is the newest novel to come out of the imagination of Gabrielle Zevin.  These are the very subjects explored in this novel.  More to the point, Zevin shows us how far reaching those actions are.  Because when we make pick an option, it has repercussions on many people around us.

Written from the the perspective of three different characters in this story we learn the story of young love with a married man from three different viewpoints.   Each character has a very distinctive voice.  First from Rachel Grossman, Jewish mother, has retired to Florida.   She is a widow now, always looking for a new relationship.  She and her best friend  go out to meet men, or on dates with the men they have met.  There is always something wrong with the men they are involved with.  With a few Yiddish words and phrases to pepper her New York Jewish dialog, Rachel tells the story of her daughter's disgrace.

As you read each interpretation of the events Zevin does a great job of making each voice unique and fitting to the character.  The story told from the perspective of Jane Young, now in her forties, living in a small town in Maine with her daughter.  She has remade herself into a event planner.  She creates the perfect wedding for new couples starting out in life.  Jane explains this way, "...To be clear, even if it's not what I thought I'd do, I like planning weddings. I like the ceremony.  And people invite you into their lives on what they believe to be the most important day.  It's a privilege."    That is her standard spiel for how she ended up in Maine as a wedding planner.  Her young daughter, Ruby goes to school and assists her mother in the afternoons.  They have become powerful and yet beloved fixtures in the town. 

Ruby writes the story from her point of view.  Her section of the book is written like a child writing letters to her pen pal.  Well written emails carry on the one sided conversation with a pen pal across the ocean.  She writes about school and working with her mom.  She writes about finding out her mother's secret and feeling she just cannot condone her behavior and sit by quietly.  She needs to speak out.

We hear the details of the embarrassing stigma of Jane's past.  She tells the story of Aviva Grossman, political intern.  The mistakes she made and how it has affected her entire life since.  this is the most cleverly written section of the book.  Written in the style of a choose your path stories.  At the end of each short chapter there is a choice, would you choose to stay or go?  Would you break up or stay involved?  Would you turn right or left?  With each choice you turn to a different page.  Each choice offers a different ending to your story.  It shows the uncertainty of life.  How each avenue we choose leads to the next crossroads.  How our decisions affect our life and the those whose lives we touch. 

Gabrielle Zevin has connected all the women in this novel around the congressman in a complex way.  Se has presented each woman's story in a personal viewpoint so that you can relate and feel supportive of each of them.  Life and love are complicated and the lines of right and wrong are blurred. 

Truth and Consequences

This is the story of the Bernie Madoff crisis and scandal.  I know we all know this story and it is out of the news now but I ran across the book this week and sat down to see what it was.  I was pulled in and by the way Sandell writes the story.  It reads almost like you are friends with the family and you are talking to them about what happened.  This is the personal side of what happened to children and grandchildren who did not question their rise to the top.  Who believed in their father and his business abilities and were not prepared for their fall to the bottom.

Laurie Sandell the author of this non fiction book relates to the family she is writing about and believes their view of events.  She also found herself in a similar situation when she discovered her father also had been practicing a financial fraud.  So she brings across a feeling of believability to this book that makes you want to see it from that point of view.

It is interesting because the reader can feel you are a voyeur without fear of getting caught.  Like the paparazzi that followed the family to bring the public pictures of them we can read this story in safety and not feel guilty for peeking.

But in the end, I will say that, I do feel sorry for Madoff's sons and their families.  Each son has an ex-wife and children from those marriages that were still very much a part of their everyday lives. They also had a current relationship with a woman.  All the women cared very much and were not in these relationships for the money.  The grandchildren were affected just by sharing the last name.

Each son suffered in their own personal way and reacted to the situation differently.  Andrew seemed to have been able to try and get his life back on track and create a better atmosphere for his children and fiance Catherine.  Though he has passed away from cancer since this book was written.

Unfortunately, Mark reacted much more harshly to the discovery of his father's deceit, and could not recover emotionally.  It is no spoiler to say that he took his own life in 2010.  But you feel his pain when you read this book.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Lisa See, the author best known, I think, for her book, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, has written another wonderful novel, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane that brings the world of China and its very diverse regions and populations to an American audience. This novel focuses on the remote mountains where families make their living tea farming.

When the story begins the village of the Akha hill tribe have kept to themselves, isolated by the mountains that surround them.  They with their tribal customs unaware of the changing world around them.  They grow and pick tea leaves which they travel to sell at market.  But they live with their own rules and traditions among their village.

Li-yan, the only daughter in her family starts to question the way of life she is growing up in.  She goes to school and her teacher encourages her to continue her education further than anyone in her family has before.  She falls in love and defies her parents in an effort to marry the boy she thinks is right for her, even though her parents are against the marriage.  Li-yan also defies Akha customs when she has a child out of wedlock and gives her away.

She goes off and learns all the aspects of tea planting, harvesting and making tea.  As she learns and becomes successful she is able to bring her village into a more modern era.  They become acquainted with ways of life in the larger cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou.

This is a novel about mother daughter relationships, family dynamics and rural Chinese customs and traditions that have lasted for generations.  See has written an incredibly informative story that you can just hear the people speaking in your head as you read.  The dialect and speech patterns are wonderful.

Bringing the story full circle with Li-yan's daughter being brought up in America and learning how to deal with not only being an adopted child, but adding in the stigma of being Chinese in an American family.  See has delved into many interesting dilemmas that face modern teenagers.
So many subjects so artfully tackled in this novel.  It starts off slowly but builds to a wonderful story.

Closed Casket

Finally got around to reading the second of the Sophie Hannah versions of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.  Sophie Hannah is the only mystery author who has been given permission to write as Poirot by the Christie family.  So as I am reading I am trying to see if I have the same feeling as when I am actually reading a mystery written by the master of mystery.

The books are fun to read.  They have very well concealed answers to the crime presented.  They are set in the right time period and with a similar cast of characters.  And, of course there is the satisfying ending with Poirot gathering all the members of the house who could be suspects, in a room, to reveal the killer and how and why he committed the crime.  There is the pleasing feeling at the end that yes you as the reader was right there with Poirot and Police Inspector, following closely all the clues that were presented and almost quite sure of who the murderer was, with just a few new facts thrown in at the end to make the reason he or she committed the crime reasonable.

In this novel we are at a country house for the weekend.  The elderly widow who has inherited the family fortune, and also in this case is a mystery author.  Tonight at dinner she announces to the guests who have been invited that she is changing her will.  Of course around the table are her children, her solisitors, other close friends and Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool.
The cast is set, the plot in motion and off we go to see if we can solve the crime that, of course, will be committed after this thunderous announcement.

Hannah has written a clever and entertaining mystery, I am going to go back and study Agatha Christie in much more depth to see if I think personally that she has lived up to the accolades she is gathering that say she is filling Agatha's shoes.  Hannah said in an interview I read, that she is not trying to replicate Christie's style exactly.  So she brought in a new narrator.  She is looking to present a gift to Christie fans,  " That’s what I want people to feel about this too: it’s a proper Poirot novel.”

I will be reading about Agatha Christie and rereading some of her early mysteries over the next few weeks.  I will review what I find out.