Excellent literary achievement digging deep into human morals

The Glass Kingdom by Lawrence Osborne

Book Reivew:  5 out of 5 star review

American Sarah Mullins has come to Bangkok, Thailand looking to hide away.  She rents an apartment in the high-end complex called The Kingdom.  She soon meets three other mysterious women there:  the married Nat, who is a British hotelier; Ximena, the Chilean chef; and Mali, the most mysterious of them all.  But political unrest causes upheavals and violence in the streets surrounding The Kingdom that begin to work their way inside the complex, causing feelings of insecurity for the residents and revealing its inhabitants’ secrets.

This is one of my favorite modern authors and he has not disappointed with this gem of a book.  Mr. Osborne is a master at subtly creating uncomfortable, unsettling atmospheres that will send chills up your spine as you are pulled into his stories.  He also is a master at describing settings that will pluck you right out of your easy chair and place you directly in the heart of the location, where you can clearly see each and every detail, smell each and every scent and odor, hear each and every sound.  I lived in Bangkok every time I picked up this book.  This authors’ books are completely unpredictable and I find them fascinating.

Do know that the book starts out slowly but don’t give up – there is much more here than there first appears.  Excellent literary achievement digging deep into human morals.

Most highly recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

 

Implausible but lots of fun!

29 Seconds by T.M. Logan

Book Review:  4 out of 5 star rating

It has not been an easy road for Sarah.  Her boss, Alan Hawthorne, has been sexually harassing her, threatening that she’ll lose her job if she doesn’t sleep with him.  She’s worked long and hard and is deserving of an upcoming promotion.  Plus she’s not sure if her husband is ever going to come home to her and she has two children to support.  Sarah is not only up against Hawthorne but also his old boy network and Hawthorne’s advances have become more and more threatening.    One night she witnesses an attempted kidnapping of a little girl and takes steps to prevent it.  The little girl’s father turns out to be quite influential with some dangerous connections and believes he is now in Sarah’s debt.  He makes her an offer that’s hard for her to refuse.  A 29-second phone call is all that it will take to make all of her problems disappear.

I seriously could not stop turning the pages of this addictive thriller and flew through it in a day.  The position that Sarah found herself in with her boss was very believable and horrifying.  When it came to the attempted kidnapping and the little girl’s father’s offer, it did become quite implausible, at least to me, but I was still glued to the pages.   The author had me a bit fooled at the end and I thought, oh, no, don’t let it end like that!  The end twist is an ingenious one.  This is a well-constructed, suspenseful thriller.

Recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

THIS is why I love to read!

Pursuit by Joyce Carol Oates

Book Review:  5 out of 5 star rating

Abby Hayman has not had an easy life.  When her parents disappeared when she was 5 years old, she went to live with an aunt, who had troubles of her own.  Abby grew up confused by her memories of things she had been too young to understand.  She has a recurring dream of walking in a field of skeletons, which she finds completely terrorizing.  She’s 20 years old now and has just married William Zengler, a devout Christian who is madly in love with her.  That makes it all the more difficult to understand why she steps out into traffic the day after her wedding when she was so happy to be William’s bride.  Was it an accident or a suicide attempt?

The first two pages of this book proves, once again, that Joyce Carol Oates is a master at her craft.  Those pages were so chilling and pulled me right into this compelling, heartbreaking tale.   This is a very intense, dark story with some extremely brutal moments.  It’s more of a novella at only 144 pages, but Ms. Oates knows how to make every word count.  It punches your heart with a powerful emotional wallop.  Ms. Oates writes compassionately about the long term effects of war on soldiers and the devastating effect of violence on a family.  This one is going to haunt me for a long time to come.

Most highly recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

A fun, fast read

The Escape Room by Megan Goldin

Book Review:  4 out of 5 star rating

Vincent, Sam, Sylvie and Jules are at the height of their profession.  They have worked hard and their ambition knows no bounds.  They have received an email telling them that they are to meet for an escape room test.  They get into the elevator hoping that this won’t take long and they can get back to their busy lives.  But the elevator stops, the doors won’t open and the lights go out.  That’s when they realize that this isn’t a game and they’ll have all they do to survive. But these four people have always been dangerously competitive and the stress and fears from their confinement are soon combustible.

This was a fun, fast read.  Although some of the plot didn’t come as a surprise to me and the book didn’t get my heart racing, I enjoyed the story.  It was like watching a train heading for a wreck – you knew there was going to be a blow up scene and you couldn’t look away.  The author does a very good job of bringing her characters to life and slowly building the plot.  The only likeable characters were Sara and Lucy but it’s fun having Vincent, Sam, Sylvie and Jules to despise.  And such an excellent moral lesson is in this book.  Watching these people claw their way to the top with the only goal being to make more and more money was sickening.  They worked so many hours, they never had a chance to enjoy what they were earning.  Completely crazy but the author ensures that her characterizations are believable.  She takes great care to show how these people got to where they are. The scenes in the stuck elevator are the best parts and the author has great fun getting these four ruthless people to turn against each other even more as their suspicions and distrust grow.

Recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

 

Dark, gritty tale

Bad Axe County by John Galligan

Book Review:  4 out of 5 star rating

Heidi Kick’s parents were killed fifteen years ago.  The police said it was a murder/suicide incident but Heidi has never believed that.  She’s still looking to solve the mystery of her parents’ deaths.  Heidi is now acting as Interim Sheriff of Bad Axe County.  While people think she’s doing a great job and want her to take over as fulltime Sheriff, there are many others who will do anything to stop that from happening.  There’s now a missing girl that Heidi is investigating, who most likely has been caught up in a sex-trafficking ring.  She’s also led to information of the disappearance of another young girl four years ago and is determined to find her, even if finding more about that disappearance implicates her husband, Harley.  All of that while facing a dangerous ice storm that’s headed their way and trying to find time for her husband and three children is a heavy burden for Heidi to carry.

This is a dark, gritty, intense, violent book dealing with some of the cruelest characters I’ve ever read.  At times, I thought, “No, this really isn’t my type of book at all”.  But then there was Heidi, the former Dairy Queen, in all of her brokenness and I had to love it and keep reading.  She was the heart of this book and made it an excellent one.  Bad Axe County was one horrible place to live and even Heidi often questioned why she would want to raise her children there.  The author is adept at character development and his depiction of the hard side of the human heart.  I absolutely raced through the final chapters.  I chose this book to read because one of my favorite authors, William Kent Krueger, said it was a dark, beauty of a book and he was right.

Recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

Second book in unique reverse order trilogy

The Island by Ragnar Jonasson

Book Review:  4 out of 5 star rating

Four longtime friends decide to have a reunion at an old hunting lodge.  They haven’t been in touch for a long time but this is the tenth anniversary of the murder of one of their friends and they agree to get together in her honor and to re-connect.  When death re-visits this group of friends, Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir is determined to find out the truth.

This is Book 2 in the Hulda Series by this author.  Interestingly, this series is told in reverse order so this second book takes place many years before the events in the first book, “The Darkness”.  I enjoyed this book, but wasn’t quite as impressed as I was with “The Darkness”.  I became very emotionally involved with “The Darkness”, possibly because Hulda was close to my age and approaching retirement so I related more with her in that book.  But regardless of that, I really liked the mystery in “The Island” and had trouble putting the book down.  I liked all of the suspects and felt the author did a great job detailing how good people’s lives can be derailed.  And I loved the additional insight into Hulda’s life.  I’m very much looking forward to the next book in this series, “The Mist”, which is to be published next year, and spending more time with this interesting protaganist.

Great series.  Recommended.

Dark, chilling tale of race violence and the KKK

Gone Too Long by Lori Roy

Book Review:  4 out of 5 star rating

Beth is 10 years old and lives with her alcoholic mother in Georgia.  She’s been told to stay in the house and not go to the door when she’s home alone.   But she’s not alone one fateful day.  Her babysitter is there and that babysitter does go to the door and opens it.  That’s the day Beth disappears and thus begins a horrendous journey for her.

Imogene Coulter’s family is known for its connections to the Ku Klux Klan.  Edison Coulter, the man she calls Daddy, is one of its local leaders.  He’s being buried now but his legacy with the Klan continues with his son, Eddie, his daughter, Jo Lynne, and her husband, Garland.  Imogene tries to distance herself from this part of her family but when she’s asked by her mother to get rid of a wire that leads to her grandfather’s house, she’s tragically pulled into the family’s past and history.

This is a dark, chilling tale of violence against race.  This isn’t a typical thriller but rather an in depth character study of people whose oppose all that the KKK stand for but whose family members are involved in it.  Their lives and families are torn between these opposing forces.  My heart broke for Beth and the life she led after being taken from her home.  And Imogene, who is no stranger to tragedy herself, is so courageous and broken, she’d melt anyone’s heart.

What makes this book even more disturbing are the true life historical references the author places between chapters telling the history of the KKK.  The most chilling historical fact of all is the most recent one – the 2017 United the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

 

A mind-bending tale of memory and time

Recursion by Blake Crouch

Book Review:  5 out of 5 star rating

A new phenomenon has started throughout the world – False Memory Syndrome.  Victims have memories of a whole other life they’ve led and it’s driving many of them completely mad. One of those victims is Ann Voss Peters and she’s sitting on the edge of a high rise building ready to jump.  Detective Barry Sutton tries to talk her off of the edge but he isn’t able to save her.  Barry understands despair as he lost his 15-year-old daughter, Meghan, in a hit and run accident.  Barry begins to look into this False Memory Syndrome and is unwillingly pulled into a life-altering experience.

Eleven years before, neuroscientist Helena Smith is working on a memory chair that she hopes will help her mother who has Alzheimer’s as well as others with this disease.  When she’s approached by Marcus Slade with an irresistible offer of full funding for her research, she readily accepts.  She lives to regret this decision when Slade’s concept of her memory chair differs greatly from hers and she may have to destroy her dream to save the world.

You always know that when you pick up a book by Blake Crouch, you’ll be in for a unique experience.  This is his best work yet.  My fascination with this thrilling story never lagged at any time.  This book has a beauty to it that I didn’t expect.  This is an in depth study of grief and time and memory and is so much more than a thriller.  The love story is an emotional one.  Crouch never fails to make his readers look at the world in a whole new way.

Most highly recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

Intelligent and compassionate

The Body in Question by Jill Ciment

Book Review:  5 out of 5 star rating

A teenage girl has been accused of murdering her toddler brother in a horrific way.  The jury for her murder trial has been chosen and sequestered in an Econo Lodge.  Jurist Hannah, known in much of the book as juror C-2, is a 52-year old married well-known photographer.  She’s married to a much-older man, an 85-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner.  She finds that she’s very attracted to one of the jurists, Graham (known as juror F-17), who is a 41-year-old anatomy professor.  Hannah and Graham find ways to be alone, which is prohibited by the court, and they begin to have an affair.  They don’t discuss the case when alone but find that the affair causes some distraction during the hearing of evidence.  However, the effects of their affair are not seen only during the trial and deliberation but for long afterwards.

This is an intelligent and compassionate look at two people drawn to each other during a time in their lives when they’re asked to weigh some heavy issues that will result in finding a young girl innocent or guilty of a horrendous crime.  I found these characters to be true to life and believable.  The author handles the plot with delicate finesse and never makes a misstep.  The case at trial is a heart-breaking one and the jurors are not always given all of the facts, which is the way it often happens in trials.  The story of Hannah and her elderly husband is a touching, faithful rendition of the effects of old age in a marriage.  And the affair between Hannah and Graham is portrayed with a non-judgmental hand.  I loved reading this book and thought it was very well written.

Most highly recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

 

Addictive, well-written thriller

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Book Review:  4 out of 5 star rating

Alicia Berenson is a famous painter.  Her husband, Gabriel, is a well-known fashion photographer.  They have it all and Alicia loves her husband.  That’s what makes it hard to understand why she would have shot him five times in the face.  Alicia hasn’t spoken a word in years and has never explained why she did this terrible act.  Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who is determined to help heal Alicia and to get her to talk about the murder.

OK, I never saw THAT ending coming!  Quite an interesting book that moves along quickly.  I became very engaged in the story and liked the characters.  I can’t say it was very suspenseful because it’s one of those books that’s more interested in the “why” since we already know the “who” and the “what” but the mystery certainly held me in its grip.  This debut author knows how to captivate his audience and I think this may well be a huge success when it’s released next February.   I definitely want to see how the movie is handled (yes, the film rights have already been snatched up, by an Oscar-winning producer no less) and will be on the lookout for what this author writes next.

Addictive, well-written thriller.  Recommended.

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.