Back to the Swedish zen detective

Donna Leon's story about a Venetian detective was told at a ponderous pace. Håkan Nesser's story about a grumpy, northern-European detective moved at about the same pace, but seemed more lively. Nesser is a successful and popular Swedish writer, but only 5 of his books have appeared in English. All five feature Inspector Van Veeteren, who seems not to have a first name.

The last time I read about the investigative work of Inspector Van Veeteren, I called him a zen detective, because he seemed to spend nearly all his time contemplating the crime he was investigating. Very little actual investigating went on. In fact, little action of any kind took place. The book was long on characterization and scenery and very short on events.

It's been three years. I saw Nesser's name on the Northfield library bookshelf, and picked up The Inspector and Silence. I'd forgotten my impressions of Borksmann's Point.

Inspector Van Veeteren is more active in this investigation of the murders of two young girls from a summer camp in isolated woods near a lake. He's called away from his home "precinct" to help a rookie rural police chief with a case far outside his basic training. Van Veeteren actually goes to the crime scenes. He actually interviews people trying to piece together what has happened and how and why. He pursues leads and travels more to interview more people.

Meanwhile, there's a rag tag assemblage of forensic experts, detectives, and investigators called in from around the country to help the tiny local cop shop deal with tragic and dramatic crimes and an influx of reporters. One reason the murders were the focus of so much press attention was that the victims were attending a "summer camp" run by a messianic leader of a secretive religious cult. The suspicious leader disappears and the three women who were helping run the camp and the "confirmation" program for the near-adolescent girls refuse to talk to the police.

It's lucky so many helpers were called in to carry on the investigation (and carry the story forward). Because, Inspector Van Veeteren spends lots of time contemplating. At one point he rents a boat and some cushions, takes a couple bottles of mineral water, and rows up the local river. At some point, he ties the boat up the river bank and spends most of a day contemplating. Other times he walks in the woods or takes long drives. That might not be bad for the story telling, but Nesser offers no real hints about Inspector Van Veeteren's thoughts during these zen retreats from reality.

No wonder the ending was such a surprise to me. Somewhere in his meditations, Inspector Van Veeteren gets a clue that sends him (and some associates) running after a suspect, who had hardly been mentioned in the book. They catch him on the verge of another murder.

Okay, I'll stop complaining. This time Nesser included enough story telling to keep me more interested than the last time I read one of his mysteries. And at the end of this one, Inspector Van Veeteren, who has been contemplating retirement throughout the book, walks into an antiquarian book store that is for sale. According to the Nesser fan site, listed below, the inspector does retire to the bookstore, even though he keeps getting involved with old colleagues in more investigations. Nesser also began writing mysteries about another Swedish detective. Swedish television produced a series of Inspector Van Veeteren programs set in the years after his retirement.

Have you read The Inspector and Silence? What did you think? Write and tell this little bit of the world about your reactions.

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• The author's web page (in Swedish)
• A Håkan Nesser fan site
• Jane Jakeman's review at The Independent (UK)
• Maxine's review at EuroCrime
• Online episodes of the Swedish Van Veeteren television series

A four-minute interview with Håkan Nesser (in English)

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Big Venetian Flood

If it really mattered, I suppose, I'd keep track of how book titles and authors' names got on to my reading list. But it's just a "to read" list.

Donna Leon

So the name Donna Leon is on my list. I don't know how it got there. Perhaps Dale mentioned one of her books. Perhaps I read a review somewhere. Maybe Dan or Bird mentioned her. It really doesn't matter unless I owe someone a thank you. And I do owe someone a thank you for this recommendation.

When I was last at the Northfield Library, I found Leon's book, Acqua Alta. It was one of several of her books on the shelf and it was the oldest one. I thought I'd begin with an early book, so I could continue with her oeuvre if I liked this one.

Well, I liked this one a bit. I liked it enough that I'll go back and read another of Leon's mysteries. It's a story about an investigation by Venetian Inspector Guido Brunetti. I liked the inspector, in part because he went home for lunch with his family and he was actually at home with them in the evenings. This guy was not a workaholic like so many investigators.

When an American archaeologist, away from her research in China, is attacked by two thugs from the south of Italy (i.e. mafia guys), the inspector who had met the victim a couple years earlier at an exhibit of Chinese artifacts in Venice, is drawn into the case. Just as his boss is warning him not to get involved, the mayor calls and asks that the police assign one of their very best to the investigation.

It seems that the American's lover, a famous diva in European opera, is a friend of the mayor. So, Brunetti is assigned to the case.

As he investigates, there is another murder and the suspicious death of an archaeologist in China that seems related. There are stolen antiquities and cleverly made fakes. And there's a rich guy without a job from the south of the country who has just restored a big old fancy palace in Venice.

Lots of elements and clever links between them. Believable work and discoveries by Brunetti and his colleagues.

Flooded Piazza San Marco

But, the story telling plods along like someone trying to wade across a flooded piazza. (Catch the title? Acqua Alta. It's Italian for high waters.) Whenever there is heavy rain or exceptionally high tides, Venice is filled with sirens warning about acqua alta. City workers quickly go out and set up raised boardwalks so people can walk around the city without wading in knee-deep water. The high water keeps people from moving around quickly and somehow it keeps this story stuck in first gear most of the time.

The second thing that gave me pause was Venice and its floods. The city's reputation is of a beautiful and civilized city. But, with regular floods of its piazzas and the "ground" floors of buildings? I can't imagine living in a house where I had to wade in the front door and go up a flight of stairs before I could remove my knee-high boots. (Of course, I can't imagine living in a flood plain either, but many people do. Meanwhile I live in a place where snow and cold dominate the weather for 5 months of the year.)

Maybe the next Donna Leon book I read will be told with better meter and in a different season.

Have you read Acqua Alta or another of Donna Leon's books? What did you think? Write and tell this little bit of the world about your experience.

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• Donna Leon's web site
• Howard Dratch's review at Blogcritics
• kimbofo's review at Reading Matters
• The trailer for the German TV production of Acqua Alta

Donna Leon interviewed at the Toronto Library

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Good story telling in the Peak District

I've been recovering, just not very quickly. I keep feeling guilty because I haven't excelled at recovering. (Will the docs give me bad grades?) Now that I'm not sleepy all the time, I do have energy to read.

From the Northfield library I picked books by two authors who have entertained me before: Thomas Perry and Stephen Booth.

I started the Perry book, Silence, first, but I didn't finish it. It reminded me of his Jane Whitefield books that I have read. The good guys are practically super heroes. The bad guys are practically super villains. Silence is a chase story, like the Jane Whitefield stories. About half way through the book I got bored with the cat and mouse chasing.

Booth

Then I picked up Stephen Booth's Scared to Live. I read all of it and enjoyed just about every minute I spent following the stories and "listening" to the characters. Like his other books, this one is set in the UK's Peak District. It's an area of hills, lakes, mountains, and abandoned farms which is dominated by the UK's first national park. It's a park that has 4 to 5 times as many visitors per year as the USA's Yellowstone. (It's near metropolitan Manchester.)

But there are villages and towns, private dwellings, and private farms within the park. So there are also British police. Booth's stories revolve around the crime fighting of Derbyshire force. DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry are the main cops on the job, but there are others on the force. And, whenever things get busy, people are called in from other places. In this story a cop from Bulgaria even joins the hunt for bad guys.

A reclusive woman is murdered. A mother and her two children die in an arson fire. Two people are killled by hitmen in Bulgaria. A Bulgarian immigrant dies in his isolated caravan on a farm where he had been working. A baby disappears, her nervous father is attacked, and her uncle jumps off a tower meant for sight seeing.

Once again, Booth tells several stories, some seemingly related and others not. However, before everything comes to a conclusion, some of the stories that seemed related turn out not to be and others turn out to be connnected. Booth does this well.

None of the stories get neglected or falter. The connections that appear and disappear seem unforced. The ending, when everything has to be explained seems a little contrived (as with the other Booth novels I've read), but I can live with that since the rest is so well done.

Did I say I really like reading Scared to Live? Well, I did.

Have you read Scared to Live? How did you react to it? Write and tell this little bit of the world about your reaction.

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• The author's web page
• Andy Plonka's review at The Mystery Reader
• Missuswolf's review at StoryLand
• Sjhigbee's review at Brainfluff

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New from Quebec

Dale Stahl wrote that the new Louise Penny novel, The Beautiful Mystery, is a good one. (He also takes credit for getting Fred Vargas' name on my to-read list.)

"[Penny's new novel is] not, like the earlier ones set the little village of Three Pines. Instead the story takes Chief Inspector Gamache to a remote monastery in the wilds of Quebec. Gamache and his assistant Beauvoir move in to the monastery to figure out which of the monks killed one of their brethren. The investigation is complicated by the fact that the monks have all taken a vow of silence -- except for their chanting during midnight masses.

"There is a side mystery about the origins of Gilbertine chants, and, as in earlier books, a strong undercurrent of the simmering feud between Gamache and the corrupt hierarchy of the Sûreté du Québec (Quebec Provincial Police). There's definitely a sequel to follow, hopefully in which Gamache finally makes his play to rid the Sûreté of corruption!"

That recommendation might send me back to read another Louise Penny novel.

Has anyone else read The Beautiful Mystery? How did you react? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought.

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One other part of Dale's note was that he's begun a book by Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Keeper of Lost Causes.  He also likes this one. Set in Copenhagen, it features Detective Carl Mork and Dept Q. It's Adler-Olsen's 2007 novel that was titled Kvinden i buret in Danish. We'll hear more later. Won't we Dale?

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• Louise Penny's web site
• Robert Wiersema's review in The Toronto Globe and Mail
• Maureen Corrigan's review in The Washington Post
• Nina Sankovitch's review in Huffington Post

Jussi Adler-Olsen at Good Reads

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Video based on literature

I don't usually write about visual media. But I've had some health problems for the last month and have not had enough energy to read much more than newspaper headlines.

This afternoon I logged on to Netflix looking for a couple old favorites (think The Prisoner and SCTV; they're only available on DVDs).

What I did find was Wallander, the Swedish TV series. I enjoyed the BBC series starring Kenneth Branagh as Henning Mankell's dyspeptic detective, so I decided to take a look at the original.

The Swedish series is made up of 29 episodes. The one I watched was Hämnden (The Revenge). It was the first episode of the second season and released to theaters before it was broadcast. For that reason, it might not be fair to compare this with the episodes of Wallander produced by the BBC.

Henriksson as Wallander

In any case, it was so much more satisfying than the BBC episodes. There were several themes: immigrants to Sweden; women's rights; the role of the military in a system that runs on rule-of-law, and how to preserve civil liberties in the face of terrorism. Oh, and there's some personal stuff about Kurt Wallander.

Krister Henriksson, who plays Wallander in the Swedish version, portrays a more human, less depressive detective than Branagh. The detective still has no life beyond his job and his dog -- even though he had just bought a house on the coast outside of Ystad, the small town he works in.

I look forward to watching other episodes of the home-grown Swedish version of Wallander, even if I have to read sub-titles keep track of what's going on.

Have you seen any of the episodes of the Swedish series, Wallander? What did you think? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought.

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Or go to Netflix.

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Comic book wannabe

The other book I read in the past week was a novel. It was labeled "A Thriller." What it really wanted to be was a comic book. Either that or a Jason Bourne movie with a female superhero. (I wasn't surprised to read that she thought Robert Ludlum was a writing role model.)

Taylor Stevens

The Informationist is a first novel by Taylor Stevens.

The hero of the tale is a young woman with as many lives and deadly skills as Jason Bourne. And she survives as many plots against her as he did.

The words regularly get in the way. It begs to be a comic book or a graphic novel. It probably really begs to be an action movie with a superhero star.

Hired to find a young woman missing for four years in Africa, Vanessa "Michael" Munroe assembles her resources and support team and heads off for some of the deadliest countries on earth to find the missing girl.

Double crosses, ambushes, unbelievable resources, suspect supporters, and really, really evil guys chase her, tie her up, dump her in the ocean, shoot at her, kill her helpers, but Munroe survives and carries out her mission -- even though her employer doesn't want her to.

Yawn!

It's all too much a fantasy world. I skimmed as much as I could. I would have paid more attention to a graphic novel of this story.

Now I'm off to the library to look for new things to read.

Have you read The Informtionist? How did you react? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you think.

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• The author's web site.


• Taylor Stevens writes in Huffington Post, On Writing 'The Informationist' and Coming from a Cult Background


• Carol Memmott's review at USA Today


• Irma Heldman's review at Open Letters Monthly

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Reading while ill

Somehow I had this notion that if I were ill enough to limit my physical activity but not my mental acuity, I'd probably read a lot.

Well, not this time.

For a couple weeks now I've been physically limited. I don't think I recognized how much the stress and anxiety was limiting me in other ways until yesterday. Now, I'm trying to relax until the doc "does a procedure" next week that promises to make things a lot better. We'll see.

I did struggle through two books, but it shouldn't have taken 3+ weeks to get through them.  

Fred Vargas

Fred Vargas' name got on my to-read list somehow -- probably because of a New York Times review.

When I saw her name on a book at the library, I pulled it off the shelf. When I got the book home, I wondered about it. Although it was labeled a "Chief Inspector Adamsberg" novel, the title was Seeking Whom He May Devour. And the cover art included two wolves.

I was worried I might have latched on to a werewolf novel. Not quite.  

Seeking Whom He May Devour is set in the eastern French mountains. It's a confusing story of shepherds, their composer friend, a Canadian bear researcher, and (in the second half of the book) Inspector Adamsberg. Did I mention that the advertised main character didn't show up until I was half done with the book. And then, he went off to read police reports for a lot of the rest of the book.

It's not about werewolves, but the shepherds are convinced that the bad guy they're chasing is one. It is a chase story as well as a mystery with lots of "off-screen" death (mostly sheep) and unexplained actions. It's confusing. If it wasn't for the cell phones that some of the characters pull out once in awhile, it seemed as if it was set in the 1930s.

I never got terribly interested in or attached to any of the characters. I never got involved in the story. There's lots of description, but most of it seemed unnecessary. The ending was more bait and switch than being distracted by red herrings. (Of course, my distraction might have been caused by my not feeling well.)

Then I discovered that Fred Vargas is actually Frederique Audoin-Fouzeau, a French archaeologist. (Following the footsteps of Kathy Reichs of Bones fame?) Her novels have won awards from the Crime Writers Association.

I don't think I'll pick up another Vargas novel if I come across one unless someone convinces me that Seeking Whom He May Devour is atypical of her work.

Have you read Seeking Whom He May Devour or another of Vargas' novels? What did you think of it? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you think.

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• Anonymous review at Brothers Judd
• Karen Meek's review at EuroCrime
• Anonymous review at chasing bawa

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Once again, Maisie Dobbs

The last couple times I read a Maisie Dobbs novel by Jacqueline Winspear, I almost despaired of reading another really good one. One of the books I read was more a romance novel than a mystery. The other, unexpectedly, neglected lots of detail and reality. It's been a year, and I was tempted by nostalgia and picked up Elegy for Eddie from the new books shelf at the library.

I'm glad I did.

There is a noticeable lack of historical detail in this new book compared to the earlier ones. Maybe that's because the author has moved from London to Los Angeles. But, it might just seem that way because the coin-operated gas fire places and 1930's fashions are no longer such novelties to me. However, I complained about the reliability of Maisie Dobbs' 1930 MG. The reputation of those cars is/was that they practically required a ride-along mechanic or a driver skilled in small repairs. But until this book, Maisie never experienced a break down. This time the car broke down while parked behind the city home of her lover, who had to call in a mechanic to get it running again.

I really was unhappy with the romance of The Mapping of Love and Death. Well, this time Maisie's romantic relationship is still around, but Maisie is obviously doing some inner work to come to terms with her desires for independence, her desires for the man in her life, and the contradictions between her working class background and her elevation to high society. It wasn't just her smarts and skills, but the generosity of her former employer and her late mentor that brought her wealth and position. Part of the work Maisie has to do is figure out how to best use her good fortune to help people around her without becoming a benevolent dictator.

And the story around which this is told fits with Maisie's inner struggles. Working class people and newly rich industrialists are involved. A young man, Eddie, who we might now call an autistic savant dies in what appears to be an industrial accident. However, there are suspicions that the accident might have been part of the factory owner's struggle to keep unions out of his plant. Eddie had a way with horses and the costermoners (fruit and vegetable sellers who made the rounds of London neighborhoods) regularly called on him to deal with sickly and unruly horses. Since Maisie's dad was once a constermonger, a local group calls on Maisie to sort out the questions surrounding Eddie's death.

Ah, but the resistance to unionization might not be the real intrigue. Eddie, the savant, was also able to sketch things in great detail from seemingly casual glances. (See the story about Stephen Wiltshire.) What did Eddie see? And was all this connected to the death of a crusading journalist who bought Eddie drinks once in awhile? And why did the bully who was suspected in Eddie's death also kill himself? Or did he? And was the reporter's death an accident?

I thought it was a well-written, complex mystery. I also enjoyed the fact that Maisie Dobbs once again had an inner life that was interesting. In earlier books she struggled with PTSD from her years as a front line nurse in France. Now, she was working through more fortunate, but still difficult, changes in her life.

I'm glad I didn't let my disappointments of a couple earlier novels discourage me. If you're looking to begin reading about Maisie Dobbs, I do recommend starting with the earlier books. And you have my permission to skip the couple that preceeded Elegy for Eddie. (See the Wikipedia entry for Jacqueline Winspear to see the books and publications dates.)

Have you read Elegy for Eddie or another of Winspear's books? How did you react?

 Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought.

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• The author's web site
• Anonymous review at How Mysterious!
• Lesa's review at Lesa's Book Critiques

Jacqueline Winspear, speaks at Politics & Prose
Bookstore about Elegy for Eddie and writing

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Back to the Peak District

I picked up another of Stephen Booth's book at the Northfield Library. I'm glad I did.

The Dead Place is set, like Booth's other mysteries, in northern England's Peak District. Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry are, once again, primary characters. The highland moors and the frenemies status of the cops are important features in the plots and the progression of the stories.

Part of the Dark Peak District

Like the Navajo Nation in Tony Hillerman's masterful books, the northern, Dark Peak District is an overwhelming presence in Booth's stories. There are many isolated places and people, but there are many people around. That seems to me a necessity for a long series of books. Similarly, the people who live in the rural Peak District are "outsiders," like the Navajo. DC Cooper is a native and understands a lot about the locals and their culture, much like Navajo cops Leaphorn and Chee did on the rez.

I'll press the comparison a bit farther. Both Booth and Hillerman created interesting characters, plotted stories that held my interest, and told those stories well. Hillerman's stories were usually less complex than Booth's, and I liked them for that. Booth seems to revel in complicating stories and alternating between telling threads of them. I do like the way that Booth's telling brings all the disparate people and events together, but getting there is a bit frustrating at times.

(All this about how Booth's writing reminds me of Hillerman is also reminding me of how much I miss those novels about the people of the Navajo Nation. I might have to do some re-reading.)

Ah, but The Dead Place. DC Cooper and DS Fry begin by searching for a crime after a body is discovered in the moors. But, the person discovered died of natural causes and was supposedly cremated by a local funeral director. Then there are anonymous letters and phone calls hinting at other bodies and predicting murders. There are Booth's usual diversions and the development of the working relationship between the two main cops. The book kept me reading throughout, even when we hosted a couple of wonderful toddlers and their mother from California for a week. Maybe it was the distraction of the little ones, maybe it was the hangover from the awfulness of the previous book, or any number of other things, but I didn't think The Dead Place was as good as the earlier books by Booth that I'd read. But, it was enjoyable. I will look for another when I return to the library.

Have you read The Dead Place or another of Booth's mysteries? What did you think?

Write and tell this little bit of the world how you reacted.

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• The authlor's web site
• Karen's review at AustCrimeFiction
• Sleepy's review at Sleepy's Book Talk

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Pretty damn stupid

If you asked me about Lunatics by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel, I'd tell you it is pretty damn stupid.

If you asked my why I read most of it, I'd tell you I am pretty damn stupid.

The trouble is that I suspect the authors would be delighted with that description of the book and me.

Take two guys. One of whom spent years writing humorous newspaper columns. That's a way of saying he was two (or three) clicks short of funny. (That was my stupid attempt at being as humorous as Dave Barry.) The other guy wrote for Saturday Night Live, Gary Shandling's Show, Monk, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. (That's my second attempt as being as humorous as Dave Barry.)

Don't get it? Neither do I. And it makes more sense than the book.

I think what happened is that these two guys had too much to drink one night and challenged each other to collaborating on a book. Somebody wrote the first chapter with a humorous cliff hanger ending and passed it to the other guy. The other guy wrote a second chapter building on the humorousness of the first and ended it with a humorous cliff hanger, and passed it back to the first guy for the next chapter. Both of them were intent on stumping the other with their chapter non-endings and stupid developments.

Much of the humorousness reminded me of absurd things my 6th-grade buddy and I would make up after reading a new issue of Mad Magazine (25¢ Cheap). Pretty damn stupid.

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Television and published fiction, 2

The other TV series that became a favorite in our household in the past couple years was Bones. The series was created by Hart Hanson and based very loosley on a character created by Kathy Reichs.

Reichs is a forensic anthropologist who works in North Carolina and Canada. When she's not identifying bodies and causes of death, she writes mystery/adventure novels featuring a forensic anthropologist named Temperance (Tempe) Brennan. Brennan, coincidently, works in North Carolina and Canada. Just to complete the circle (as is done on Castle), the Brennan character on television writes mystery/adventure novels in her spare time featuring a forensic anthropologist named Kathy Reichs.

 Convoluted enough?

Emily Deschanel (TV's Temperance Brennan) and Kathy Reichs

We sort of discovered Bones a couple years ago, and liked it well enough that we have now used our Netflix subscription to watch all the seasons we missed. That led me to Déja Dead, Kathy Reichs' first novel. Mostly I was curious about the translation from printed pages to episodic television.

1. Any similarites between Reichs' main character and the title character of Hart's TV series (except for the name and occupation) is purely coincidental. I find the television character -- annoying know-it-all, Asperger-like robot, and all -- much more interesting.
2. The television series is better written.
3. There is a virtual absence of humor in Reichs' book. The humor on the tube is one of the big attractions for me.
4. Reichs' character is a loner. She's always assuming responsibilities that are not hers and venturing out on her own to do things she believes no one else can or will do. As a result, she's frequently in danger and in trouble with her bosses and colleagues. Since I never developed any sympathies with the character, I keep thinking about how stupid she was. (She reminds me of Sara Paretsky's and Sue Grafton's heroes. I often thought they were pretty stupid too. That's the main reason I don't read those authors' books any more.)
5. The book is full of procedural detail that seem to come right out of textbooks used by physical anthropologists or medical examiners. (Hint: it's dull.)

So, now I've seen the origin of the television series. Hart Hanson must get nearly all the credit. Kathy Reichs is still involved as a technical advisor with the title of a producer.

I won't be going back to another of Reichs' books. Will you?

Have you read Déja Dead or another of Kathy Reichs' books? How did you react? Write and tell this little bit of the world.

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• The author's web site
• Colette Engel's review at bookreporter
• Dr. Amy Rogers' review at Science Thrillers
• Anonymous review at The Crime Scene

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Fiction and TV

I'm sort of embarrassed by how much TV I watch. It's a default activity even more common than trolling the Internet. One attraction is that it is so passive, although it's not as passive as it was when there were only half a dozen channels available. (I won't go on about remembering when two broadcasters in Minneapolis/St. Paul shared one channel. That was really ancient times, i.e. before 1955.)

The permanent residents of this house have become fans of a couple television series that remind us of the screwball comedies starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The "remind" is crucial because neither Bones nor Castle is a full-fledged screwball comedy, but they do feature couples, ambiguous relationships, and adequately snappy dialogue. Close enough for network TV.

Both also have links to novels. Temperance Brennan, the main character in Bones, is based on the protagonist of Kathy Reichs crime novels. And the Brennan character is a successful mystery writer, as well as an irritating polymath. Things are more complicated in Castle.

Andrew Marlowe

Andrew Marlowe is the creator and producer of Castle, the television series. One of the main characters in that series is Richard Castle, a writer of mystery and romance novels. But, if you look in a book store or at Amazon, you'll find that Hyperion has published four crime/mystery novels featuring the main characters of the television series, Kate Beckett, a New York City detective and Richard Castle, author. The televison series characters in those books are called Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook. And just to cement the illusion, actor Nathan Fillon, who plays Richard Castle on TV is pictured on the back cover as Richard Castle, the author of the Nikki Heat books.

I get seriously confused if I try to keep this all straight when watching television. It's worse when reading one of "Richard Castle's" books. But that's what I did. I read Naked Heat by "Richard Castle." (Online speculation about who actually writes these books is rampant. The best one I read suggests that creator Andrew Marlowe is the writer. He credits his wife in the acknowledgements as "co-conspirator." And Marlowe gets writing credit for 79 of 81 episodes.)

 Naked Heat reads like a book-length treatment of an episode of the series. There are the requisite snappy lines once in awhile. There are the murders, the suspects, the bad guys, and the red herrings. The relationship between Heat and Rook is not as ambiguous as the one between Beckett and Castle. The ambiguity is reduced in ways you might expect the Castle character to write it.

But, an episode of Castle lasts 43 minutes. The book is nearly 300 pages. Things move slowly in the book. Discussions among the detectives are much more interesting when they quickly take place on screen than when they drag out in print. Quick cuts between scenes on TV work better than blind transitions on the printed page. This plot might work well as an episode on TV. Maybe it has, because I haven't watched all 81 episodes.  

Naked Heat was entertaining if not engrossing. I don't think I'll go looking for the other "Richard Castle" books. I will probably watch new episodes on TV, although I expect there aren't many left. As the Castle-Beckett relationship becomes less ambiguous on the television screen, one element of the tension that holds things together (or apart, if you prefer) will disappear. And so will the television series.

 I'm sure I'll find something else to watch (if not read).

Have you read Naked Heat or another of "Richard Castle's" books?  

Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought.

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Scott D. Parker's review on his blog.

The publisher's YouTube promo for Naked Heat

        

The television cast and writer at Comic Con 2010. 

       

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Unnatural forces

C. J. Box and friend

Our family book pusher visited again and dropped another book in my lap. It was C. J. Box's latest, Force of Nature. I have really enjoyed reading some of Box's books and others I have decided not to even begin. Old Charles James Box knows how to write adventure and action and the tension and fear that lead up to scenes of murder and mayhem. I've learned not to read them in the late evening, when I usually read. Even if the action is all on the pages and in my head, the adrenaline hits my bloodstream and keeps me awake.

Force of Nature is no exception, but it wasn't threatening enough to keep me from reading it in a few afternoons. The main characters are the usual cast: Wyoming game ranger Joe Pickett and his family and mysterious recluse Nate Romanowski. It's set in fictional Twelve Sleep county of northern Wyoming (probably near the real towns of Worland and Ten Sleep, about half way between Yellowstone National Park and the Black Hills of South Dakota). There are beautiful, rugged mountains, dry prairies, and small streams. There would be a lot for a game ranger to do, so I don't think a ranger would have time to mess around with things the local sheriff or the FBI would take charge of. Joe Pickett finds the time, especially when his friend Nate is involved. No wonder he's often in hot water with his penny-pinching Wyoming bosses.

Nate's up to his neck in this story. He's a former Army special forces guy who was involved in black ops. He deals with his PTSD by living off the grid and acting as a law unto himself. One of his former commanders is trying to cover up things that only Nate knew about and organizes a private "little" strike force to eliminate Nate (and use anything Nate cares about, like Joe Pickett and his family, to do it). Collateral damage is pretty extensive.

So, the "good" guy has to be paranoid and fend off every unexpected attack, warn friends to "get out of Dodge" until the heat is off, and not run out of ammunition. He does this ruthlessly and without regret. After all, he can't go to the authorities for help since they are the ones out to get him.

The story is well told. I'm glad I was reading during afternoons.

There are fewer of those pesky improbabilities than Box sometimes drops into his stories. There are more awful bloody scenes than suspenseful build up scenes, and I can skim the gory stuff more easily than I can skim the fear-inducing tension.

I liked reading this one. Box is a great story teller. The back story of Nate Romanowski is about what I expected it would be, but the capabilities of the "bad" guys' strike force stretch my imagination. (A couple times I thought of The Bourne Identity. It's the only one of those movies I've seen, and the action in Force of Nature reminded me of the chases and gun fights in that Bourne movie. That was also a reminder that the forces at work in this story are anything but forces of nature.)

What did you think of Force of Nature? Or of C. J. Box's other books? Write and tell this little bit of the world how you reacted.

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• The author's web site
• Leslie Doran's review at The Denver Post
• An anonymous review at Petrona
• Luanne's review at A Bookworm's World

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Back to the moors

I was comfortable picking up another book by Stephen Booth at the Northfield Public Library. I checked it out at the same time I checked out Kate Atkinson's Emotionally Weird. I've had mixed experiences with Atkinson's books and Booth was, I thought, a sure thing.

Peak District National Park

I was right. Set in the highland moors of England's Peak District, like Booth's earlier books, the story is contained and limited. The Peak District National Park is an area of pasture land, farming, old mines, and mountains. It's lightly populated and carved into many valleys. Booth made me think of Appalachia when he described the place and the isolated people who live in those valleys. But the area is near major cities of Manchester and Sheffield and millions of visitors show up in good weather. The stories in Blind to the Bones are set in late fall/early winter, so there are few tourists to muck up the stories.

And there are stories. That's one of the things I like about Booth's books. There's a story about a university student, missing for two years, and her parents who stubbornly maintain that their daughter is merely missing and likely to walk in their door at any moment. Then there's the very recent murder of a local man who had been one of the missing girl's housemates. Oh, and there is the rash of burglaries at remote farms and ramshackle villages. And I can't neglect to mention the cult-like extended family, whose repertoire of ways to get along with outsiders is very limited.

The glue that ties all these things and Booth's other books together is the cast of the local constabulary. The main people are Detective Sergeant Diane Fry and Detective Ben Cooper. As usual they are engaged in an enigmatic power struggle while working "together." There's enough individual character development to keep me interested, but not so much as to engage my soap-opera early warning alarms.  

A Peak District mountain top

 Booth does a good job of telling the stories, describing the scenery, and maintaining the characters to keep me reading. His descriptions of the hills, mountains, moors, and pastures led me, while reading the book, to check out the area with Google Earth. What I saw online is what Booth describes. I even found the Street View photo of the entrance of an abandoned railway tunnel Booth refers to. Gradually (perhaps too gradually this time) he weaves the various stories together. The resolutions are a bit too neat and tidy by my lights, but there will be other mysteries to solve for these characters in my future.

I liked reading Blind to the Bones. I could get attached to this series of books and these characters in the way I got attached to Tony Hillerman's mysteries. I've only read four so far. According to his web site, there are twice that many waiting for me.

 Have you read Blind to the Bones or another of Stephen Booth's other books? What did you think? Write and tell this little bit of the world.

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• The author's web site
• Andi Shechter's review at Reviewing the Evidence
• B. Morrison's review at her web site

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Secretly pleased

Tatiana de Rosnay's name appeared on my to-read list. I don't know how, but it was probably because somebody recommended her best seller, Sarah's Key. When we stopped at the Amery (WI) library on the way to Sidetrack, I didn't find Sarah's Key, but I did find de Rosnay's newer book, A Secret Kept.

I really liked reading this book.

de Rosnay grew up in the US and the UK (her degree from the University of East Anglia was in English literature) and lives in Paris. There's no translator listed in the book, so I assume that de Rosnay translated her French book, Boomerang, herself. The language is very American and very descriptive. In fact, her descriptions -- of people, emotions, clothing, rooms, houses, and Parisian neighborhoods are very suggestive. They often brought realistic images to my mind. In fact, de Rosnay's adeptness in describing relationships is part of what makes this novel work:

I see Pauline appear over her [his daughter's] shoulder. Her best friend since they were small. Except that Pauline now looks like a twenty-year-old. A minute ago she was a scraggy little thing. Now it is impossible not to notice her full bosom and womanly hips. I don't hug her they way I used to when she was a kid. In fact, I don't even kiss her on the cheek. We sort of wave at each other from a polite distance.

The story in the book is about family and family secrets. The narrator is a forty-something son of an old, rich Parisian family. His sister is important as are his children and some of their friends. But the story is really about a huge family secret involving the narrator's mother, who died 30 years before the setting of the story, and about the hard work required for a group of people to be family.

de Rosnay theatrically weaves the stories of past and present, of generations and places, of habits and family "rules" into a book I didn't want to put down and didn't want to end. Every character in the stories is respected by de Rosnay, even the ones I didn't think deserved it. Neither suffering nor happiness was denied characters. In the end, that made the book better. So did the fact that not every loose end was tied up and not every story was complete when the book ended. If this were a television soap opera, there would be many story lines to follow in the future.

The book jacket says that de Rosnay has written ten novels. Only two have been published in the USA. There are probably more novels to come to America. I will look for Sarah's Key and for future books with Tatiana de Rosnay's name on the covers.

Have you read A Secret Kept? Tell this little bit of the world what you thought of it by sending us a note.

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• The author's web site
• The author's Facebook page
• Kate Ayers review at Book Reporter
• Jocelyn McClurg's review at USA Today

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Comically weird

I am really lucky. If I'd read Kate Atkinson's first novel before reading her mysteries, I might never have had the great pleasure of meeting Jackson Brodie and getting involved in the messy realities of his fictional life. That first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.

That book didn't win any awards from me. I couldn't get through it.

But I really enjoyed reading the four mysteries she wrote. And I enjoyed the BBC rendition of a couple of them. I enjoyed them so much, that I picked up her third book when I was last at the library. It is Emotionally Weird, A Comic Novel.

Okay, I'll give it the comic label. There are some funny bits. Not many, but some. While reading the first half of it, I was reminded of what I've heard about Seinfeld. You have to understand, I've seen bits of Seinfeld, but never a whole half hour's worth. I've chuckled at some bits, but not many. I've heard it said that it was a situation comedy about nothing. As a very casual observer, I'll buy that. And Emotionally Weird, A Comic Novel is also about nothing -- at least in the first half that I read.

The narrator's boy friend epitomizes the book for me. She said in an early chapter:

I shut the door and went back to bed and the warm, slack body of Bob with whom I lived in urban squalor in a festering tenement attic in Paton's Lane...

Bob, known by some as "Magic Bob,"... was in fact an unmagic Essex boy Ilford born and bred...

Like me, Bob was a student at Dundee University... He seldom handed in an essay and considered it a point of honour never to go to a lecture and instead lived the slow life of a nocturnal sloth, smoking dope, watching television and listening to Led Zeppelin...

Bob's sense of humour... had been developed the Goons and honed by The Monkees. Bob's screen hero was Mickey Dolenz...

Bob was an unreconstructed kind of person... he had a complete lack of interest in anything that involved a sustained attention span... He was prone to the usual obsessions and delusions of boys his age -- the Klingons, for example, were as real for Bob as the French or the Germans, more real certainly than, say, Luxemburgers...

In the first half of the book, Bob is easily the most distinct character. If you read the quote above, you got a good taste of Atkinson's humor. And, for me, the description of Bob could be a description of the book.

Now, I can't assert that with any assurance because I didn't read the whole book -- just the first half. By page 200, I was tired of reading about an unmagic group of people who lived slow lives of nocturnal sloths. As much as I appreciate some science fiction fantasy and the craziness of The Monkees, I would rather have watched a Seinfeld marathon than finish the book about nothing.

Any chance that you have read Emotionally Weird, A Comic Novel? What did you think of it? Write and tell this little bit of the world about your reactions.

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Other reviews (there are distinct differences of opinion here)

• Stephanie Zacharek's review in the New York Times
• Steph's [an obvioulsly different Steph] review at Steph & Tony Investigate
• Greg Villepique's review at Salon.com
• Theresa's review at Shelf Love

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Living history

Forty-some years ago I had to do a quick study of a culture I'd never heard of: the Kalahari Bushman. That hunting and gathering culture was to be the "stand in" for prehistoric, stone age hunter-gatherers in a World Studies course I was to teach.

The ethnography of anthropologist Richard Lee and the teaching materials developed Malcolm Carr Collier and her team from the American Anthropological Society were wonderful. The Bushmen became the first unit of study for the course I taught for twenty years.

Over the years since then, the Bushman or San culture has come to my attention now and again as one of those quickly vanishing ways of life. Governments have tried to fence them in and get them to be farmers. Those plans were very difficult to fulfill since the people are independent and used to moving from place to place every few weeks and since the Kalahari is a great sandy desert.

Michael Stanley (Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) have used the Bushmen and their dying culture as a central feature in their latest Detective Kubu mystery, Death of the Mantis. Kubu, if you've forgotten, is a huge man with a huge appetite who, when he's not eating, is Assistant Superintendent of Detectives David (Kubu) Bengu in Botswana.

A number of suspicious deaths in the Kalahari bring Kubu into contact with a Bushman friend he'd gone to elementary school with. The deaths also cause Kubu to deal with a policeman who is convinced that Bushmen are amoral, lesser beings capable of any evil deed. Kubu, with an educated Bushman friend, sees himself above such prejudice.



As police procedures go, the big city cops in Botswana are as sophisticated and well-equipped as those in American cities. The small town cops, not so much. (Sound familiar?) With helicopters, GPS units, bullet proof vests, desert-ready four-wheel-drive Land Rovers, and satellite phones, they pursue the bad guys.

All the equipment doesn't keep them safe or guarantee they'll find the bad guys -- especially when there are at least a couple kinds of bad guys. But it all makes a very good story -- especially when mixed together with the desperation of people whose culture is dying before their eyes.

Once again, the Michael Stanley men have written an intriguing and entertaining story. Add to that the cultural insights offered by two South Africans with remarkable appreciation for the people and the landscapes of southern Africa. This is the third Detective Kubu novel. If you haven't read the others, Death of the Mantis is a good place to start, but you might want to begin witht the first book in the series, A Carrion Death.

 Have you read Death of the Mantis or another of Michael Stanley's books? What did you think of them? Write and tell this little bit of the world about your reactions.

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• The publisher's web site
• Forty-sevem reviews and 116 ratings at Good Reads
• Beth's review at Murder by Type
• Karen's review at AustCrime

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What a waste

I should be taking notes about how books get to my "to read" list. Books achieve standing because a someone familiar recommends them, because I're read an approving review, or because I've enjoyed reading another book by an author.

There was this mysterious entry on the list: A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. I don't know how it got on my list, but somehow my system failed me.

On the other hand, maybe it's good for me to read a book I don't like once in awhile as a contrast to books I like.

This novel is subtitled, "A Flavia de Luce Novel." Flavia de Luce is a precocious eleven-year-old who solves crimes. She's as obnoxious as the Sheldon Cooper ("I know everything.") character on television's The Big Bang Theory, but without comic double takes. She's as carelessly daring as [Sue Grafton's series heroine] but without a gun.

The setting is a run down country house in post-WWII rural Britain. A widower with three daughters whose most prominent characteristic seems to be his ability to write articles for a stamp collectors' magazine. Flavia is the youngest of the three daughters. The role of the older two seems to be confined to tormenting their younger sister.

There are clever thieves abroad in the countryside. A gypsy woman is murdered and her niece is attacked. Although the local police seem to be on scene and investigating, the pre-adolescent Flavia is the only one really able to identify suspects and locate clues.

Who reads this stuff? It's not Harry Potter fantasy. It's thin treacle poured over gruel. Literate eleven-year-olds aren't about to dive into the small type and dense text. Young readers aren't going to pick up this 400-page book about their little sister. Teenagers or young adults aren't going to spend time reading a book with no vampires or zombies. It's certainly not for adults like me. It's not a romance. The plot is inventive, but in my mind it's wasted on the characters and the setting. The writing is descriptive of both setting and action, but I never cared about either. Or the characters.

So why did I read it? That's a good question. If I'd bought it, I'd be sending it back to the author with a request for a refund. I read it because the weekend was rainy and windy. Television reception was awful and there really wasn't anything to watch. I'd finished two other books. I plowed on thoughtlessly. What a waste. I should have re-read the old Zane Grey that's on the shelf at the lake.

Do you have some thoughts about A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley? Write and tell this little bit of the world -- especially if you found reasons to like it. It is part of a series. Somebody must like them.

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• Nicki's review at Fyrefly's Book Blog
• Helen's review at She Reads Novels
• Swapna Krishna's review at S. Krishna's Books

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