Catch Me by Lisa Gardner, 2012

Read as an ARC in 2012

Synopsis:  Detective D.D. Warren is hard to surprise.  But a lone woman outside D.D.'s latest crime scene shoks her with a remarkable propsition:  Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant believes that she will be murdered in four days.  And she wants Boston's top detective to handle her death investigation.


Charlie tells a chilling story: Each year at 8:00 pm on January 21, a woman has died.  The victims have been childhood best friends from a small town in New Hampshire; the motive remains unknown.  No only one friend, Charlie, remains to count down her final hours.


But as D.D. quickly learns, Charlie Gran doesn't plan on going down without a fight.  By her own admission, the girl can outshoot, outfight and outrun anyone in Boston, which begs the question; is Charlie the next victim or the perfect perpetrator?  As D.D. tracks a vigilate gunman who is killing pedophiles in Boston, she must also delve into the murders of Charlie's friends, racing to find answers before the next gruesome January 21 anniversary.  Is Charlie truly in danger, or is she hiding a terrifying secret that may turn out to be the biggest threat of all?


This is my first Lisa Garnder.  I thought I’d read one before, but I couldn’t find it in my records so I don’t think I have.  While I did like the story and the characters, I don’t think I’ll be picking up any more in the series.  Maybe some older ones if I see them somewhere, but now I know D.D. ends up eschewing her life to take up the oh so tired and traditional role of wife and mommy, it’s kind of a waste of time.  I’m sure the author, her editor and her publisher think that adding these predictable storylines for their tough female cop will make her more identifiable to the masses, but for me it’s a miss.  Every time D.D. went home to coo and gurgle and lactate I went into skim mode.  Just not my cuppa.

The crimes, though, were fascinating as was Charlie, aka Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant.  Luckily we get a lot of time with her and a lot of the story is told from her perspective.  She’s tough, haunted and incredibly damaged, but wants to fight and bring justice to the person who killed her friends and wants her next.  The parts about Tulip, the dog that wasn’t her dog, shone some light into what kind of a person Charlie could become if her demons could rest.  While the story unfolded many suspects came under suspicion in my head.  Her mother, her sister or even Charlie herself could have two personalities in there, one of them being the killer.  At first the pedophile killer even seemed plausible, but then things started to unravel a bit.  There were a lot of strange things happening and a lot of cops involved.  Oh and the whole other storyline with Jesse and his vulnerability to possible predators on his online game.  It got a bit tight in there.

Just before the killer is revealed in all identities, I figured it had to be that person in the sense of that person’s relationship to Charlie, but not in that person’s other identity.  It was a neat trick and I’m a bit ashamed of myself for not being more suspicious and open to all the possibilities.

Worst Reads 2011

If there’s a best there’s got to be a worst, right?  Well here they are in all their warty glory.  Links lead to my full reviews if you really want the gory details.

1. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (1997)
Surreal fantasy choked with the most annoying characters ever, written by an author stuck in adolescence and still fascinated by wet dreams.  The completely nonsensical plot is supposed to be all allegorical, but it tries to jam so many literary themes into the pot that it comes off as pathetic and lacking in vision.  Like the writer had a million ideas and no patience so he threw them all in at once.  Also it was really forced in terms of trying to shock the reader and after a while that fell totally flat.  Sorry Mr. Murakami, you fooled me once, never again.

2. Gideon’s Sword by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston (2011)
Disappointing isn’t strong enough a word, but it will do.  Character development is non-existent.  Instead they drop Gideon into the story fully-formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus.  I didn’t buy it.  There was too much telling and too little showing.  Everything seemed to happen without effort and without me believing this guy could come even close to pulling off the stuff he does.  Ugh. I really hope the suckfest doesn’t drift over into the Pendergast books.

3. Defensive Wounds by Lisa Black (2011)
I like my thrillers more thrilling than this one was.  Testosterone-driven plots are at least exciting even if they might not be too plausible.  This one was estrogen-soaked and the main character had a poor-poor-pitiful thing going all the time.  That and her mother-hen fixation made me roll my eyes enough to ache.  Then there was a cast of characters, some family, that just didn’t gel into a team whatsoever.  Boring, boring, boring.

4. In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff (2009)
Put a basically dull and unlikely cop into a derivative novel with pretty stupid ‘smart’ men and what do you have?  A snore-fest that lacks heart and with a plot the reader can easily figure out before the supposed geniuses in the novel do.  If you liked The Alienist and think this is going to be just as good because it’s constantly compared to it; don’t bother.  Re-read Carr’s masterpiece instead.

5. Star Island by Carl Hiaasen (2011)
Even Skink couldn’t save this mess of an uninspired book.  It had potential, but I think Hiaasen is bored by his own outlandish shenanigans.  Compared to Stormy Weather and Tourist Season, this is a yawn fesitval of overblown characters, weak plot and little humor.  And Chemo...did we really need him back?

Best Reads 2011

Ah, it's that time of year again.  Even though I read a number of non-fiction books this year, the top five are all fiction.  So as to recognize the good non-fiction I read, I’ll list the best one all on its own.  Also I’m going to add the best new-to-me author who might not have made the top five, but whose books I’ll be purchasing in future.  And like I’ve done in the past I won’t be including re-reads in the top five.  Those get their own award because sometimes they hold up and sometimes they don’t and I think a re-read that does ought to get some props for that.  Most books are not as good the second time around.  So without further ado -

1. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844)
If you followed my Monte Cristo journal you won’t be surprised I’ve chosen this as the best book I’ve read all year.  It epitomizes and in many was is the progenitor for a lot of other novels yet was never boring or wholly predictable despite that.  I’m sad that it took me so long to read it.  Don't make the same mistake! (5 stars)

2. Dr. Haggard’s Disease by Patrick McGrath (1994)
I’ve been a McGrath fan since around 1990 and am embarrassed it took me so long to get around to what I think is his best book.  The pacing, the word choices, the relationships between the protagonist and his circumstances and environment - all of it embodies the best of what gothic literature can be.  The narrator may be unreliable, but McGrath delivers book after great book. (5 stars)

3. The Scapegoat by Daphne DuMaurier (1957)
If all you’ve read is Rebecca you're missing out.  Yes the premise is a stretch, but it’s only the vehicle for an insightful story that makes at least one of its characters unhappy with what he wished for.  Multi-layered and subtle, it’s not for everyone, but if you like reading between the lines and aren’t afraid to wonder what happened at the end of a novel, go and scour the used bookstores for this one. (4 1/2 stars)

4. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (2009)
Memorable not only for its cast of distinctive and intriguing characters, but for the location itself which became a character in its own right.  It’s only the second novel to make me cry, but it’s not sappy, not in the least.  Some of the medical details will make you squirm, as will the political situation of Ethiopia at the time, but overall it’s an excellent book about survival and family. (4 stars)

5. Palace Council by Stephen L. Carter (2008)
Carter goes from strength to strength with his loosely connected series of novels involving the darker nation as he puts it.  This time we’re caught up in trying to get at the heart of a decades-old conspiracy involving the highest levels of government.  Also this time, the way the story is told meshes perfectly with the character doing the telling and the story itself.  Perfect pitch, no gimmicks. (4 stars)

Best new-to-me author is Amanda Kyle Williams and her book The Stranger You Seek.  Despite a character who is (yawn) a recovering alcoholic and ex-cop with a really annoying name, I liked Keye Street.  I liked how she treads the world.  I also liked that Williams understands her audience and doesn’t drown us in details we already know from reading countless thrillers and watching zillions of episodes of NCIS.  I’ll BOLO for her next installment for sure.

Best non-fiction is Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (1997).  Why I waited so long to read this probably has to do with its hype.  I remember an old boss using quotes from it in his presentations.  That alone put me off.  And I’d already tried to read another Diamond book and couldn’t because the writing was so awful.  This one though is better and very, very thought provoking.  It didn’t make my overall five because it was too repetitive in the end and I felt it could have gone down other avenues instead of just pounding the same old things over and over.  Still very much worth reading.

Best re-read is The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre (1963).  It had been so long since I last read this that it was almost fresh and the novel held up very well.  There's nothing extraneous in this story; no inner monologues, no sub-plots, no flashbacks.  Everything we're shown, told and everyone we meet is important.  And there's something rhythmic about Le Carre's writing that struck me this time around that I missed the first time.  Great stuff.

Well, that's it; the best stuff I read this year.  And have no fear, a Worst Of will be coming up shortly. Muhahahahahaha!

11/22/63 by Stephen King, 2011

Read in 2011

Synopsis:  On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, 
President Kennedy died, and the world changed.

If you had the chance to change history, would you?
Would the consequences be worth it?

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. 

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

Overall I liked this a lot.  It has an interesting premise despite being one that gets used a lot; time travel and alternate history.  For me the Kennedy assassination is a historical detail of importance, like Pearl Harbor, but it is not personal.  I wasn’t born yet.  So I think this book doesn’t touch me like it does people of my parents’ generation.  You can tell it was written by someone that age, too, because while it does attempt to show the nasty bits of the late 1950s and early 1960s, mostly it’s a wistfully nostalgic look back at those times.  Jake LOVES it there despite dying for his cell phone a couple of times.  Clearly from this book and others (IT and The Body mostly) King does, too.  The funny part is that he doesn’t take any responsibility for his generation also destroying the whole culture from that time.  If it was so wonderful, why’d you wreck it boomers?  For a generation so wrapped up in themselves it is the height of irony that they’d be so non-aware about this point.  I find it funny anyway.

Mild spoilers -

As usual King doesn’t explain the phenomenon that drives the whole book.  Michael Crichton he is not.  The time tunnel just exists.  It has certain “rules” as Al and Jake understand them.  It does certain things.  If you want more you’ll just have to make it up yourself.  This is why when suddenly at the end he pulls rules out of a hat it upsets the whole tale rather than enhances it.  We’ve been going about our mission, moving forward with an idealistic goal in mind and then out of nowhere *bang* there are repercussions.  Consequences.  Shit happens.  And they happen almost precisely in the way they did in Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder.  So much so that I laughed.  And the Yellow Card Man - what was up with that?  What inept “guardians”.  If the fabric of time is so fragile and subject to fuckery, why give it such weak protection?  It makes no sense.  Also, if being such an ineffectual time tunnel keeper is soooo taxing, maybe someone should rotate them more often.  Seriously; the inebriated bum act complete with nonsensical ramblings and lack of baths is pretty stupid if you’re trying to prevent someone from wrecking the known universe. Obviously there’s some governance at work here because we get a new Yellow Card Man and he’s got the gift of coherent speech and gives us the big reveal.  Jake’s comings and goings and all the big changes have put actual reality in jeopardy.  Then why the sweet fuck did you let it get that far?  The mechanics are ludicrous.  Seriously this needed a Science Fiction editor to help him frame the story.  

And what a story it is.  Jake is an excellent accidental hero.  His passion for righting wrongs is palpable and his dedication is stunning.  Besides his own independent fix (aside from the Kennedy thing which is the main event), he tries to right Al’s independent fix as well and keep the girl from the stray bullet which would land her in a wheelchair.  Admirable.  I like that he remained normal the whole time and didn’t suddenly turn into Jason Bourne.  He made mistakes, miscalculations and outright stupid decisions, but that’s what we’d all do.

The time spent in Derry is comforting and fun to the King fan who read and loved IT.  No, we don’t see everyone again, but we do come across Bev and Richie and there is still that awful vibe of wrongness about Derry.  Later Jake draws parallels between Derry and Dallas and how they both have that same hostility and creeping cruelty in their citizens.  It’s nice to be on the inside of things in this respect.  We wonder what tortures Dallas as It tortures Derry.  

An aspect I hadn’t expected was how human Oswald became in this story.  For me, because of my remove from this event, he is nothing more than a cartoon villain...like Charlie Manson and Hitler.  Yes, they all did reprehensible and world-altering things, but they’re so exaggerated by the popular media that all proportion is lost and so their humanity.  King didn’t make Oswald likable exactly, but he made him human.  The monstrous mother, the nasty apartments, the low-grade psychosis, the poor-me effect, the communism, the disillusion and low wage jobs; all of it made him more rounded in character and less of a cardboard cutout.  Parts of his life were even portrayed as tender and caring.

But the real sweetness at the bottom of it all is Jake’s time with Sadie.  It starts out with a spark that ignites a conflagration and we hope against hope that it will last.  I don’t know what it is about the way King describes romance or romantic relationships, but it always rings with the most enviable honesty.  No one is perfect, yet the love is intense and the connection very strong.  There is a lot of sex, but no smut; he never goes all the way into the bedroom with them and I think that’s a big part of it.  The pair is secretive at first, but eventually everyone knows and mostly everyone approves.  I LOVED the way Jake put that busy-body woman in her place after Sadie’s attack and injury.  Despite knowing that something must happen because of all the foreshadowing about Clayton,  I hoped she’d escape.  Jake’s beating and subsequent nursing were easier to take somehow and the two incidents balanced each other and made the relationship more about equals supporting and healing each other rather than one being grateful and somehow beholden to the other.  I also liked Jake’s innocent slip-ups.  Stuff I’d fall into as well; using 2011 slang, making references to things that hadn’t occurred yet, singing as yet unwritten songs.  It made the situation much more believable.

The ending is sad, but understandable.  Living in what the world has become would be too much agony for anyone who’d lived in this one.  As bad as it seems sometimes, it could get a LOT worse and I think just the little bit King described was enough to make me wish Jake would go back for his “reset”.  He did, but not without more heartbreak and anguish.  The dance with an elderly Sadie afterwards was a nice touch.  Funny how she thinks she knew him from somewhere.  Must be those darn harmonics again.

The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman, 2011

Read in 2011

Synopsis:  Years ago, they were all the best of friends.  But as time passed and circumstances changed, they grew apart, became adults with families of their own, and began to forget about the past - and the terrible lie they all shared.  


But now Gordon, the youngest and wildest of the five, has died and the others are thrown together for the first time in years. 


And then the revelations start.


Could their long-ago lie be the reason for their troubles today?  Is it more dangerous to admit to what they've done or is it the strain of keeping the secret that is beginning to wear on them and everyone close to them?


Each one of these old friends has to wonder if their secret has been discovered - and if someone within the circle is out to destroy them.

At the end Lippman admits this to be her most autobiographical novel in the sense that she set it in her childhood neighborhoods.  Clearly she got lost in the nostalgia of her memories because she didn’t write a thriller or anything even close to it.  Long, meandering and mostly pointless she delves into the lives of her characters in both the past and the present.  The unknown, dark and ostensibly dangerous secret is none of those things.  The unseen and malign presence that is supposed to be threatening the long disbanded group of friends is non-existent.  There is no dread, no fear, no cringing doubt.  It’s a flat story about an unattractive bunch of kids who (surprise) grow up to be an unattractive bunch of adults.  I won’t say it was unreadable, because I was drawn into the story, but in the way that appeals to my inner voyeur, not because there was any kind of mystery or big revelation waiting for discovery.  That aspect was a yawn-fest, but the differing points of view were pretty interesting and the writing was strong as usual.  I just wish Lippman hadn’t gotten all misty-eyed on us and had given us a story with meat on its bones.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre, 1963

Read again in 2011

Synopsis:  The story's central figure, Leamas, whose mission is to trap the top spy of East Berlin, is a creation of astonishing reality and authenticity.  The plot he sets in motion, and later becomes the principle victim of, is a thing of magnificent complexity.  Also of far-reaching implications.  For the tension within Leamas is strikingly contemporary.  It is the tension of a committed man unable to come to terms with the utterly ruthless machine he serves.  

Because it’s been so long since I first read this, my re-reading was blank enough to be essentially a fresh one.  One thing that struck me this time was the terrific rhythm Le Carre’s prose has.  I even read some of it aloud to better appreciate it.

Leamas is a tough person to root for because he doesn’t really seem to root for himself.  He does his masters’ bidding without question and sometimes even enthusiastically.  I disagree with whoever wrote that old synopsis up there that Leamas is trying to come to terms with his Service. To me he seems all too aware of what they'll do and how little he means to them in the grand scheme of things. Only when it comes to Liz does he muster any outrage or rebellion. The overall tone of the novel isn’t uplifting and so while the very end does give us glimmers of hope in our sentimental selves, our rational selves know there is no hope.  The audacity and casual cruelty is the real cold in the title, I think.  It is pretty galling how seemingly without compunction the Circus can set up and do away with one of their star performers.  Considering what happened to Karl though, it isn’t surprising at all.  

Another thing I really appreciated is how focused the story is.  Unlike a lot of writers today (and even of yesterday, I’m thinking of Eric Ambler here) Le Carre doesn’t fill out his story with a lot of inner monologue, back-story or sub-plots.  All the action has purpose and moves the story along at a relentless pace.  All the people, their actions and their interactions have meaning and are important to the story.  Remove any one of them and the whole operation comes apart.  I wish more writers told their stories this way.

Defensive Wounds by Lisa Black, 2011

Read as an ARC in 2011

Synopsis:  In this fourth novel in Lisa Black’s captivating suspense series, forensic investigator Theresa MacLean finds herself embroiled in a case in which everyone has a motive and everyone is a suspect—especially when high-powered defense attorneys start turning up dead.

When Marie Corrigan, a Cleveland defense attorney with a history of falsifying evidence and no shortage of enemies, is found dead in the presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton, most people would agree that she had it coming. Forensic investigator Theresa MacLean is summoned to the crime scene by her daughter, Rachel, who is working the front desk. But even before Theresa enters the room, she knows that she’s walking into a forensic nightmare—for crime scenes at hotels, even the most luxurious, are teeming with trace evidence that has been left behind by innumerable guests and may or may not be related to the murder. But what Theresa finds is even worse than she imagined.

Given the positioning of Marie’s body, everyone assumes the same thing—that it’s a lovers’ tryst turned lethal. But large questions remain: How did the killer gain access to the room without anyone’s knowledge? And has the scene been staged for their benefit? The little evidence Theresa has is conflicting at best. What’s more, a legal convention at the hotel provides an endless list of suspects—and potential victims.

When two more bodies show up in quick succession, each in a similar state, Theresa’s investigation takes on a whole new urgency as she fears they may have a serial killer on their hands—a serial killer with a vendetta. But as she searches for the threads that tie the cases together, Theresa begins to suspect that she and her daughter are closer to danger than they realize. And a mother will stop at nothing to protect the life of her child.

Although she’d come to my attention before, this was my first Lisa Black and unfortunately I won’t be coming back for more. It wasn’t an awful book, I’m sure she has her fans, it’s just it wasn’t quite what I look for in a thriller of this type. First of all it didn’t really thrill. Theresa is whiny and overprotective all the time; the poor me schtick got old fast. As did the mommy thing. Rachael is 18 years old and is constantly referred to as a child. I got an eye ache from all the rolling I did. By the time she was in real danger it didn’t matter anymore; Black had already wrung as much emotion from that rag as she could. All Theresa’s worrying and maneuvering blunted it prematurely.

Then there were the red herring suspects and surprises, neither of which were effective, at least not for this veteran thriller reader. I did like the deduction used for each, minimal though it was. The teamwork was also minimal though and none of the characters seemed to have any ease with each other. The family and cousin thing was beaten to death, but not effective in creating a fluid working unit of the members. Weird.

Last was the awkward language that kept leaping out at me and jerking me out of the story. Starting on page 31 with someone’s (Neil’s?) muscles glimmering under his skin. Really? Glimmering? What was he, transparent? Then this whole paragraph on page 73; I still don’t know what the hell she’s trying to convey and why it’s important -

“Between the rows of overhead lights and the tiled walls and floors, washed down at the end of every day, the autopsy room was the brightest, cleanest room in the building. (ok, that sentence isn’t so bad) And, as the dieners could go home when the day’s cutting had been completed, whether that was sooner or later, the most efficient. (Huh? ugh..just ugh) The assistants had no reason to lollygag and every reason not to. (is there an echo in here?) Plastic jars were labeled, flesh cut open, tables hosed down with the highest possible proficiency.” (why do we need to know that? Oh where was the editor?)

OMG what a mess. Then there’s the one on page 290 that talks about the inside of lungs and inhaling black powder. Like we’d think it would somehow end up on the outside of the lungs. The last one I took note of was on page 329 where Theresa muses that she “didn’t know him that well and had never been able to read people like a book”. Ig.

Sorry Ms. Black, although most of your ballistic, ordinance and forensic details rang true, I just couldn’t get past these clunkers and Theresa’s worried mommy fetish.