I knew early on this was not going to be the book I expected and I mean that in a complimentary sense.
I thought this would be a cozy-esque female housI knew early on this was not going to be the book I expected and I mean that in a complimentary sense.
I thought this would be a cozy-esque female housewife in the 50s using her wiles to navigate Manhattan cocktail parties and deduce who may or may not be a Soviet sympathizer.
There’s nothing cozy about this, however. It’s a raw, intriguing look at the perils of motherhood for women in the 1950s, with a spy story tacked on in the background.
The espionage part is done well enough but it’s a stretch to call it suspenseful. Rina, the protagonist of the story, is recruited to reunite with an old flame and use her language skills to inform for the FBI. But of course, she has to content with a demanding husband and two little ones. Finding excuses to be free of domestic responsibility is tough for her so she has to get creative with varying degrees of success.
This is a messy book in the best way because Rina is a complicated person. She’s in transition of her life trying to figure out what she wants from it, while desiring to use her skills in the best way possible. She likes her husband and kids but she doesn’t particularly like being a wife and mother and the way Karin Tanabe teases this out felt very real, especially because I can somewhat (though, obviously, I have no idea what it means to be a woman, I am our kids primary caretaker).
The ending could have been better and I don’t buy the romance angle but there was enough here that really made me appreciate Tanabe as a writer. Her books are on my radar. Pass on this if you do want the cozy-esque spy story but if you want a real, honest tale about womanhood, motherhood, and trying to use your talent in less-than-ideal circumstances — plus some really fun 50s Manhattan locales — give this a shot....more
It’s a mostly competent spy slow burn that probably deserves 3-stars but it falls into the trap of retconning 9/11 where everyone who wasn’t fired aftIt’s a mostly competent spy slow burn that probably deserves 3-stars but it falls into the trap of retconning 9/11 where everyone who wasn’t fired after was the smartest person in the room who knew better but no one believed them. Sick of these takes, both fiction and non. ...more
Giving this the first book bump because there's a lot to like here in terms of how David Young writes the story. He creates a vivid Berlin and GDR, onGiving this the first book bump because there's a lot to like here in terms of how David Young writes the story. He creates a vivid Berlin and GDR, one that is frigid literally and metaphorically. He captured the era well. I did have a hard time connecting with the protagonist, who seems interesting but wasn't well sketched out. And like a lot of male writers, Young leans too hard on sexual trauma as a means of characterizing the women in the story. But again, enough works that I bumped it and will check out book two. ...more
I picked up this book because it wasn’t supposed to be connected to the Slow Horses series. But I’ve read in other places that it might be? I don’t knI picked up this book because it wasn’t supposed to be connected to the Slow Horses series. But I’ve read in other places that it might be? I don’t know, use your own judgment if you want to avoid the most minute of spoilers.
Some writers are like exercising: you just have to push through the initial strain in order to get the good stuff. I hate exercising but I can’t think of a better example.
I’ve tried Slow Horses several times and I can’t focus on Herron’s style. I find it overwritten and this is too. But there was something that compelled me to keep moving forward, amidst all the unnecessary digressions and character details. That something is Berlin.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Berlin, and not just because my wife and I honeymooned there. It’s a cosmopolitan oasis in a desert of trash politics. The Nazis never finished higher than third in the city before Hitler took power. And now, it stands as a bulwark of progressivism against the horror that is Alternative für Deutschland, the most right wing party in Germany since the Nazi movement, that currently dominates the territory once comprised by the GDR.
So I held out for Berlin and I was rewarded with one of the best things I read this year. As the plot began to fall into place in past and present, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Herron’s style still frustrates me but he knows the moments he needs to pull back and those moments really shine. Parts of this book rocked me.
I guess I’m going to have to try Slow Horses again, huh?...more
Was prepared to dock it a star because I hate two-cases-at-once mysteries. And it wasn’t great. But I love how well Sansom evoked Reformation era EnglWas prepared to dock it a star because I hate two-cases-at-once mysteries. And it wasn’t great. But I love how well Sansom evoked Reformation era England, complete with politics and paranoia. Also really liked the ending. This is a cool series. ...more
I really wanted to like this one more than I did. Private investigator, historical crime fiction, southern setting, Dixie Mafia, politics, yes yes andI really wanted to like this one more than I did. Private investigator, historical crime fiction, southern setting, Dixie Mafia, politics, yes yes and yes. And parts of it are really good. But it took me two tries to glom to the author's writing style and by the time I was in rhythm with it, the book begins to peter out. I liked it but I think it would have been solid with better editing. Two things in particular...
1. We get it. It's Reagan's America. I think you can remind us in other ways that we're set in 1985 besides telling us on every other page that it's Reagan's America.
2. I'm often critical of white writers writing Black characters, especially Black female ones. I think Snowden Wright does a great job with Clem about 85% of the time. The other 15% is similar to the previous point: he can't stop being didactic. I know Black women. Heard many of them tell their stories. None of them have said to me every five minutes: Well I am a Black woman in America. And yet, some variety of this is in every Clem POV chapter. I found it to be condescending, especially since Clem is otherwise a well-developed protagonist. ...more
1. The Swagger stuff is whatever to me. Always has been. Big man, big guns, etc. Don't care don't care don't care. Apparently, this is almost Ok so...
1. The Swagger stuff is whatever to me. Always has been. Big man, big guns, etc. Don't care don't care don't care. Apparently, this is almost a direct sequel of the book Hunter wrote that got turned into the Mark Wahlberg movie. Might read it, might not.
2. Hunter using the Kennedy Assasination to tell a George Smiley by-way-of-the Cigarette Smoking Man was fun. He doesn't get close to Le Carré's style — and his try-hardness can grate. But it was enjoyable and I wish he had just made the whole book out of the assassin plotter ruminating on the past and present, while lamenting the future. ...more
I’ve been enjoying the tv show Lodge 49. It’s a very low-stakes but entertaining show about a guy at a dead end in his life who joins a secret societyI’ve been enjoying the tv show Lodge 49. It’s a very low-stakes but entertaining show about a guy at a dead end in his life who joins a secret society and gets entangled in some things while learning about life. It’s more character-driven than I thought it would be and I think that’s why I’m connecting with it.
At any rate, when looking up books to read for fans of the show, this was the top recommendation by far. I can see why. It can accurately be billed as a prequel to Lodge 49 in a sense that the origins of the Lodge are not yet clear (I’m halfway through season 1 so don’t spoil if you’ve seen it) and the origins of the movement here are kind of murky.
Portis is a legendary writer whose small but memorable output has inspired many. In addition to the aforementioned show, Michael Schur based a lot of humor from The Office on this one, Conan O’Brien blurbed my copy and a few other entertainment writers have given it high praise. Not to mention the fact that Portis’ True Grit inspired the Coen brothers movie.
I realize I’m making this sound more like a book report than a review but this is less a book about plot and more about people in a time and place. There’s not much else to talk about aside from the experience of reading it. Like Lodge 49, it’s low-stakes but says a lot about pre- and post-war America and the way we glom into mass movements in order to believe something, even if their foundations are creaky. I enjoyed it and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time....more
What you must never forget about this one is that you’re still in Wolf Hall.
That’s trite, I know! But I can’t think of what else to say because as I rWhat you must never forget about this one is that you’re still in Wolf Hall.
That’s trite, I know! But I can’t think of what else to say because as I reoriented my perspective on reading this, its power really hit me.
I read Wolf Hall five years ago, at a different period in my life and thought it was just ok. Appreciated what it was doing but I didn’t have the focus to engage with it like I should have. Time and age tend to confer those things. I had the hang of Mantel’s style and after reading CJ Sansom’s wonderful Dissolution, I was ready to continue on with the trilogy.
Now I might have to go back and read Wolf Hall again because, wow, this is genius.
The way Mantel writes Thomas Cromwell’s inner monologue as a wary but determined reformer, convinced that he is on the right side of things, willing to let Henry VIII play his sex games at the cost of lives if it means changing England for what he sees as good can almost, ALMOST, detract from the fact that this is a schemer doing terrible things at no cost beside his own ambition.
Watching Cromwell make and break alliances with all the subtlety of a snake (or a wolf on the prowl, if you will) left me enraptured even as I knew what was coming. I was heartbroken for his victims, many of whom happen to be convenient scores for Cromwell to settle, even though they too have gladly stepped over other people’s bodies (!) to get where they are.
Is that the consequence of true reform? A sort of social Darwinism where the powerful play musical chairs until the next reformation, with the losers facing the noose or guillotine?
Either way, Cromwell will soon find out.
Wolf Hall begins with one of the great opening lines ever: So now get up. Cromwell will again-and-again because he is a fighter, because a commoner doesn’t become the king’s closest advisor by being passive, because he thinks he must be a wolf to survive. We rise and we rise and we rise until we do not. If our ambition is shared with might, we will sacrifice whoever we need to in order to keep it. It’s what makes these such great political novels. Bring up the bodies, indeed....more
Christopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires isn’t the kind of book I’d normally read: gonzo fantasy. But it came highly recommended and — in spite of itsChristopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires isn’t the kind of book I’d normally read: gonzo fantasy. But it came highly recommended and — in spite of itself — it worked. The imagery was overpowering and the narrative eventually caught up with it near the end. It made sense for the kind of story it was trying to tell: take the apocalyptic overtones of the Bubonic Plague and turn it into an actual apocalypse.
So I had high hopes for this one even though I’m not a vampire guy: crime novel set in 1978 New York City. Yes and yes.
But this didn’t work for me as well as I would have liked, mostly because the gonzo style that was so effective in the first book is wasted on a first person POV of a character that’s insipid and annoying.
And I could have lived with that if this was just a crime novel but it’s also a vampire novel so we have to engage with the whole, y’know, vampiric aspect of it all. And that got old fast, along with the narration.
There are still moments of visual beauty, as well as an interesting ending. But I think Buehlman missed the chance to do something better with the story. Even a third person narrative would have helped to get me out of this guy’s head. I liked parts of it but overall, I’m glad to be done....more
I kid, I kid. Apologies for the pandering. It's very good until the final act, when you're just waiting for Brutus, et al to get wMen are so dramatic!
I kid, I kid. Apologies for the pandering. It's very good until the final act, when you're just waiting for Brutus, et al to get what's coming to them. A lot of familiar Shakespeare themes in an unfamiliar setting but it still makes sense as the actual Roman political scene was similar, only with more bribes and fewer melancholic soliloquies. ...more
Bold words to be sure. French is my favorite writer and the person I’d argue is our greatest living crime writer. HeHas America found her Tana French?
Bold words to be sure. French is my favorite writer and the person I’d argue is our greatest living crime writer. Her character-driven mysteries are sumptuous masterpieces. The Hunter, her 2024 release, is an early favorite for my personal best book of this year. At the very least, I can’t imagine it falling out of the top 3.
French is an imitator of the genre but no one I’ve found has been able to duplicate her.
Until now?
I mean, Liz Moore is damn close, with both this and Long Bright River.
There’s just not much more you can ask for in a book like this if its style is your thing as it is mine: the pacing is incredible for 476 pages, the characters wholly three-dimensional, the clues parsed out just enough to tease without being pedantic, the story rich and easy to fall into.
But perhaps what I’m most impressed about here is how well Moore transitioned from the solo POV of Long Bright River to the multiple POVs here. Each person whose POV we get felt genuine. I didn’t look forward to reading one over another.
I also like how Moore is subtle in exploring female queerness, something unthinkable in upper-crust and working-class mid-state New York in the 50s and 70s. It felt physical and personal while being honest (and fortunately not tragic).
I do think the story falters a bit at the end and I think there’s one subplot that’s wholly unnecessary and could have been discarded without loss (can’t say why cuz it’s a major spoiler). That’s what maybe makes this fall just shy of the greatest of French’s work. But it’s not shy by much. Moore isn’t a prolific writer but I really hope it doesn’t take another four years before we get another work of hers. She’s making a name for herself....more
Imagine if Harriet the Spy was a high school girl of Hispanic descent in 70s Brooklyn and you’d have the vibe of this one.
There are two stories here, Imagine if Harriet the Spy was a high school girl of Hispanic descent in 70s Brooklyn and you’d have the vibe of this one.
There are two stories here, one about Holly and the other about Xander. I don’t want to spoil them but the dueling narratives do not imply an unlikely friendship. In fact, for a book that is stylistically young adult, it’s a bit edgy with Xander’s character, which I didn’t expect. I admire the swing but I’m not sure it fully worked for reasons I can’t spoil.
Holly is great and I loved reading about her trying to figure things out. She has a fun curiosity about her and it was enjoyable reading her cook.
The mystery is interesting enough but what I really enjoyed was the 70s Brooklyn setting, brought to life by someone who knows it. Back before Brooklyn was overrun by the hipsters and then the trust fund/venture capitalist vultures, a time when it had a true multicultural soul and disco reigned.
Narvaez writes this like it’s the first of a series. I’d be open to it but again, I wasn’t as engaged with Xander’s POVs as I should have been. I would have loved to read the story alternating from the perspective of Holly and her NYPD Detective mom. Although YA books rarely use adult POVs, they can be effective. In fact, my favorite YA novel of all-time — a mystery novel, no less —The Westing Game did this quite well.
Still, it’s Narvaez’s series and if he wants to write a second, I’d be interested to see where it goes.
First of all: RIP CJ Sansom. I didn’t know until I started this that he had recently died, and sadly just before Shardlake, a tv series based on theseFirst of all: RIP CJ Sansom. I didn’t know until I started this that he had recently died, and sadly just before Shardlake, a tv series based on these books, was released on Hulu.
I read Sansom’s Dominion years ago and thought it was decent. I grabbed this not long after but eventually gave up on keeping it, as I just needed to clear space and didn’t think I’d have time. But when a writer I like suggested it, I went back and I’m glad I did.
The mystery is interesting enough, I suppose, but for me, what works here is how well CJ Sansom creates a paranoid atmosphere. England is changing politically and in those days, a political change was liable to come about due to a religious one. Being the product of a church that was part of the reformation, I loved how Sansom baked in the theological tensions that were simmering between Catholic monastics and English reformers. Sansom also does a good job of making clear that these tensions were part of land grab designs from the Crown on Rome.
Few of the side characters worked for me and I kept getting the Brothers confused but I liked Shardlake well enough. He can occasionally be a bit too mopey; a little Tyrion Lannister-esque humor would have helped. But he’s determined to follow his call to the bitter end. And it does end bitterly. Sansom makes Shardlake confront the reality of the larger situation and how there are no heroes here.
This is a series I’ll be reading more of and I may even check out the show.
What kind of book is Rainbow Black supposed to be?
I speculate here because I finished it three days ago and still don’t know the answer or how I fullyWhat kind of book is Rainbow Black supposed to be?
I speculate here because I finished it three days ago and still don’t know the answer or how I fully feel about it beyond, “I really liked it, loved it in some parts, wish I was moved by others.” It’s such a rigidly unsentimental book from beginning-to-end and I’m not sure if that’s what made me dock it or not because the writing here is so good.
The book starts off with a bang. I was enthralled by Lacey’s story and how she has to navigate a horrid stateside bureaucracy that is persecuting her and her family in the wake of the Satanic Panic. Not putting the book down was an understatement, I was physically angry when I had to. And yet, midway through that first part, it loses the thread a little, draws out certain angles too much and then doesn’t handle the transition well between part one and part two.
That got part two started off on the wrong foot for me in which I couldn’t fully buy the book’s central relationship. But there are still a lot of dramatic and painful moments that work. The book zips and zags, sometimes in frustrating directions but Thrash never loses the energy to tell the story.
Reflecting on it a few days later, I think more than anything this book is a story about how the institutions that are supposed to serve us often let us down. And when they do, that causes irreparable harm. I suppose part of why I found the unsentimental nature of the story off-putting is because I wanted good things for Lacey for all she had been through. But Thrash takes a realistic view of the world and institutional overreach and it works.
So I’ll need more time to think, haha. But this isn’t what I expected, for better and for worse. It did give me a lot to think about in a good way. And it is very well-written.
There’s always a risk in going back to a longer book after failing with it the first time. You may invest too much of your time without the payoff youThere’s always a risk in going back to a longer book after failing with it the first time. You may invest too much of your time without the payoff you were hoping for. American Psycho is a rare exception that worked for me. Most of them didn’t.
Tree of Smoke didn’t work either. This was my third attempt with it and I powered through it because there was enough interest in the characters to see where it was going but no. I don’t want to say it was a colossal waste of time, I just don’t really know what the point of this book is. A hangout novel for people involved in the Vietnam War? If so, the characters weren’t interesting enough.
And it’s weird because going back and reading the plot abstract on Wikipedia, it sounds like such an interesting book! Stuff happens and some of the writing is good. But it still feels like…nothing really happens. I’d get into 2-3 pages and then my attention would wane and I’d glaze at a few more before realizing that I had lost my footing of a book that, fortunately, is not plot dense.
If the book is supposed to be about psy-ops in Vietnam, then I think this worked because it psyched me up for 700 pages to thinking I might be reading a better book than I am. It’s clear from all the love Jesus’ Son gets that I need to read it some day. But this did not work for me at all....more
I was disappointed in the quality of the last couple of Quarry novels so I wasn't expecting much...but this was good. One of his best plots and I realI was disappointed in the quality of the last couple of Quarry novels so I wasn't expecting much...but this was good. One of his best plots and I really enjoyed it. Could've done without the racism. Big believer that you can show the casual racism of the past (1970s) without wallowing in it and the book does that. Otherwise, it's good. ...more
One of the strangest things to those who study the European theater of World War II is why the Nazis didn’t send their militarized concentration camp One of the strangest things to those who study the European theater of World War II is why the Nazis didn’t send their militarized concentration camp troops to the front lines in the east.
I don’t know enough about history to know if it would have made a difference or not; probably not. But Berlin certainly knew that the Soviet Union wouldn’t be seeking a simple armistice after Operation Barbossa and the atrocities of Stalingrad. One would think that preserving the safety of the Reich would be more important than the continuation of the holocaust.
Except, as history (and this book) make clear: the safety of the Reich was inextricably linked to racial purity.
The Nazis didn’t just make antisemitic laws to gain Jewish possessions, though that was a large part of it. They made them to criminalize the existence of Jewish people (and LGBTQIA+, and Romani, and slav, and many others). Nazi Germany would not have been able to exist as an autonomous state with their existence. It was the fulcrum on which the Nazi Party lay: Jewish folk were to blame for the hated Treaty of Paris. The Stab in the Back Myth. Etc.
Taking all of this into account, I think Martin Amis did a helluva thing with this book. In telling of the every day lives and frivolities of some of the high command at Auschwitz (with some short gleanings of a Jewish sonnenkommando), Amis does a fantastic job of showing Nazi morality: they do this because the state cannot otherwise exist. And in doing so, Amis shows the horrors of Auschwitz in terms of labor complications and logistical issues to the indifferent Nazis.
And what’s amazing is that the plot is almost secondary, or at least it was to me. Because I couldn’t help but picture how these conversations, machinations, etc. were going on in the midst of the wholesale slaughter and misery of thousands of human beings. Amis forces you to confront the fact that evil is sometimes really simple and that we’re all content to go about our lives if we think we are doing the right thing. It made my stomach turn plenty of times but I couldn’t stop reading.
Now there is an argument to be made that you can write any book but should you? And that’s totally fair of this one. The world has plenty of antisemitism as it is. I don’t know that it needs this kind of fictionalized examination to further consider its horrors.
All I can say is from my (non-Jewish) perspective: I think Amis takes a big swing and hits hard here because he’s not willing to present a simple narrative. These are not people worthy of a deeper reflection; there is no such things as a humane Nazi. These are people, people you know, who have an incredible capacity for evil not because they were born that way or seduced by the devil but because they are answering the call of the state. That’s a hard thing to look at. This book forces you to do so....more
Denise Mina writing a queer Marlowe tale? Denise Mina writing a queer Marlowe tale! I’m not a Mina diehard but the stuff I like I REALLY like and she’Denise Mina writing a queer Marlowe tale? Denise Mina writing a queer Marlowe tale! I’m not a Mina diehard but the stuff I like I REALLY like and she’s on her game here. Wouldn’t mind seeing her try her hand at another one of these and also wouldn’t mind seeing it become a movie. ...more
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