Category: Reviews

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This will be a review for people who, like me, have not read Louise Penny before, A friend loaned me a stack of books, including Bury Your Dead, which is itself 6th in a series about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Normally, I’d dutifully plow through the earlier books so as to be able to appreciate this one the more. But this time I decided to try an experiment, see if the book stood on its own.

And I’m happy to report that it does. Penny manages to stack four mysteries on top of one another: Who killed Augustin Renaud? Who kidnapped Agent Morin? Did Olivier really kill the Hermit? And just where is Champlain buried? Some of the mysteries are intertwined with one another, but some are not, serving more to thematic support the other mysteries, and help develop Armand Gamache for the reader.

Which is why the book stands on its own. I don’t know what Gamache is like in the earlier books, and maybe I wouldn’t be able to travel with him on his journey of sorrow and shame if I knew him already. Here is man, seemingly, intelligent, thoughtful, and heroic, who is nevertheless all too human and therefore fallible. And what do they say about the mighty when they fall?

But for all that, Bury Your Dead can be taken as just a good cozy who-dun-it. It’s a murder mystery, a history mystery, and book mystery. There’s also a little bit of politics but only a very little if, like me, you’re an apathetic American who can appreciate neither Catholic vs Protestant nor French Canadian versus English. In that sense, the novel’s somewhat exotic, but not too rich to give you a toothache.

I suppose I’ll get around to the earlier Gamache novels eventually. Although I’m tempted to leave my memory of this one intact by not getting to know the younger Chief Inspector more. Perhaps when I’m ready, I’ll try another experiment. As for you who have not read Penny yet: go ahead.

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The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve got this problem where I don’t read enough books by non-white non-mail authors. This, despite the fact that two of my all-time favorites are Percival Everett and Hillary Mantel. However, when it comes to (so-called) genre fiction, I don’t wander enough. But can you blame me? A friend loaned me The Spellman Files, and this is what it says on the back of the book: “She’s part Bridget Jones, part Columbo.” Another blurb gushes: “Isabel Spellman… the love child of Dirty Harry and Harriet the Spy.” Those quotes come from USA Today and People, by the way.

You see, that’s my complaint a(my lame-ass excuse if you’re being critical). A few blurbs clearly written to intrigue what the publishers feel are female readers. That’s an insult to women, if you ask me, but let’s move on. This is supposed to be a review. I’m here to tel you that The Spellman Files is nothing like Bridget Jones, Columbo, Dirty Harry, or Harriet the Spy. “Jason Bourne is part James Bond, part Good Will Hunting.” You see how ridiculous that sounds.

I read the book anyway. Thank goodness. A lot of fun, but pretty tense in places. I think it’s supposed to be considered funny, and while there are some characters that make you grin, for the most part it’s sort of dark. The Spellman Files takes the whole dysfunctional family trope and exploits it to the nth degree. But it doesn’t come across as cliché’d or trite. If anything, this is a coming-of-age novel for character who comes-of-age in her late 20s.

I say “novel” but it’s not really a novel. There’s a loose over-arching plot, but it’s stop-gapped with what amounts to short stories, which themselves are sometimes not plotted at all, but are just long character studies. The book’s title has “Files” in it afterall, which sets the right tone. Me, I like that sort of thing. I’d read more of that sort of thing if it became it’s own subgenre.

Altogether, this is a good read, and I’ll be reading the sequels, which I think is praise enough. As for non-white non-male “genre” authors, I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t read blurbs.

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No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Remember a few months ago when Slate sparked a minor controversy among book lovers? That article about Young Adult fiction, and why adults who read it are lazy and stupid? You can probably guess which side of the debate I was on: pro read-whatever-you-want. Read Harry Potter, read Hunger Games; hell, read Twilight if you want to.

So here’s me, a copy of No Easy Way Out in my hands, thanks to a friend who gave me a stack of books to read. This was a ‘thanks’ and a returned favor for when I gave her a stack of books during her pregnancy. But wait—No Easy Way Out is a sequel. I’d better read the first book in the series, No Safety in Numbers. (Grabbed it from the local library.)

I’m telling you all of this because I want no one to think I am judging that friend of mine in the least when I say, wow, No Safety in Numbers is terrible.

It’s not the plot: a bunch of people trapped in a mall that’s been quarantined by the national guard. I’m fine with the main characters: mostly teens. Government conspiracy? Count me in. Chaos and the slow decay of humanity? Check.

But the writing. Implausible situations, very hard to swallow. Inaccuracies that were laugh-out-loud funny. And the word-choice- ugh. The word “butt” occurs more often than can be justified. This reads less like a YA novel and more like a teenager’s fever-fantasy. I’m all for adults writing things that teens can relate to, but I’m not for writing in what one assumes is the idiotic manner in which teens think.

Because they don’t. Stereotypically, on TV and in movies, teens are histrionic and aloof at the same time. IN real-life, not so much. Me, I expect more from narration. No one witnesses murder and mass death with that kind of casual, almost flippant attitude.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: the reason we adults like Young Adult novels now and again is because when it’s written well, the only thing that makes it YA is, usually, the characters. But when YA is written this poorly, it’s not fit for anyone of any age.

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BioShock: Rapture by John Shirley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Bioshocks ranks as one of my favorite video games of all time, if only for the artistry. I dig that decayed art-deco look it has going, the juxtaposition of hope and doom that offers an excellent tension to the game play. As well as the look and feel of it, the game’s a decent little shooter, tells a good story, and, for a several hours experience, entertains quite well. When I came I across this novel in the book store, I dutifully filed it away under “to be read.”

So far, books based on video games have not offered up very good reads, and alas, this one doesn’t either. Oh sure, it gives lots of background on the personalities one encounters in the game, which was enough to get me to download it and try for a replay. But the writing is fairly flat, for my taste. The anti Ayn-Rand sentiment is fairly shoved down the reader’s throat, at the cost of any real character development, or plot for that matter.

I mean there’s “plot” in the sense that we see the how the city of Rapture goes from a bad idea to a haunted graveyard, but everything along the way is fairly hack. The characters are a bit cartoonish. The scientists who too gleefully experiment on human beings, the murder and torture that cause passerby to stare in shock—then move on and forget.

Of course, that’s kind of the video-game way, isn’t it. You play a violent game, you kill people, (bad guys) and there’s no real remorse or regret. I guess I want more from novels than I want from games. The irony here is that I know better, but I was seduced by the artistry of the game, and I thought the novel could live up to that depth.

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The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was part way through The Men Who Stare at Goats and I was thinking: “This is early Ronson. He gets better in his later books.” I just thought this early Ronson was a little bit silly. Not irreverent exactly, but… I don’t know. Just not taking things very seriously. Which is not to say that later Ronson is overly somber or serious or even academic.

But I was wrong. This early Ronson is every bit as good as later Ronson. I learned quite a bit from The Psychopath Test and Lost at Sea, and I learned maybe even more from Men. And even though the book is now 10 years old, it’s still very relevant, given new talk in the media about the CIA and torture.

Whoa, you say, torture? I saw the movie, what’s this about torture? Yeah, you see: like I said, I was wrong. Ronson’s not silly or something like irreverent—he was just setting me up. As I read more, and as I finished the book, it just got darker and darker. There’s the goofiness of conspiracy theories, there’s the smug satisfaction in rejecting them, and then there’s that terrible, dark place, the root of truth from which these theories are born. That’s where Ronson goes. Torture, ritual mass suicide, government-sanctioned murder.

What a like about Ronson, along with his engaging writing style and gung-ho approach (as opposed to ‘gonzo,’ if you’ll forgive me) is how he inverts cognitive dissonance. Human beings have a way to dismiss the terrible things that make up every day existence, and Ronson gets in there and lays it all out—accept it as terrible or call him a liar. There’s no dismissing the truth.

I can’t say that “fans of Ronson will enjoy The Men Who Stare at Goats” only because I’m pretty sure that fans of Ronson have already read it. I will say that newcomers to Ronson should read it. And those who don’t like Ronson, or haven’t read Ronson? What is wrong with you people?

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Shooting Star/Spiderweb by Robert Bloch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes I get a craving for mac n cheese, and I mean, nothing fancy. Just a box, a boil, a stir, and eat it straight out of the pot. Fiction can be like that too. Sometimes I just want to read. A plot, some characters, an ending. Nothing too complicated or meaningful.

These Hard Case Crimes reprints are starting to fulfill that need. That need for a few hours of reading, that need to actually finish a book. I’m like a lot of you. I start way more books than I finish. If my eyes are too big for my stomach at the buffet, I guess my brain is too big for my pocket watch at the bookstore.

Don’t like the metaphors? Don’t read Hard Case Crime books. Don’t read Robert Bloch’s Shooting Star/Spiderweb (it’s two novels in one binding). Not that he’s given, as such, to these kinds of metaphors. But cheesy writing? You know how we like to make fun of an over stylize the mannerisms and speech patterns of certain time periods? Talk about cheesy. But I’m pretty sure, at the time of original publication date, Bloch was one-hundred percent sincere.

But that was then and I read this in the now. Cartoonish characters, implausible scenarios, a plot taking out of Plotto. And imagery that, I’m sure, was supposed to make the reader queasy, nervous, scared: titillated. Nowadays it borders on camp.

And yet, for all that: an okay box of mac n cheese. I’m not going to say “fun” or “good,” because, when the pot is empty, resting on my protruding belly in my chair, I can’t say I had fun and I don’t exactly feel good. But the craving’s been satisfied. The book’s done it’s job. That’s always can ever ask of pulp fiction.

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Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain by Steven D. Levitt
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Was waiting in a bar for a friend to show up, so I sipped a beer and read a bit of Think Like a Freak. I had already read what I thought was half of it—and then suddenly the book was done. I had been fooled by the page count, not realizing that the end notes would take up a quarter of the pages. A bit of an anti-climax.

Which is sort of what this book is overall: anticlimactic. Not that it’s bad. But after the “cool” factor of Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics, Think Like a Freak was a bit thin. Like a good broth—a good broth can be very delicious, but not after a buttery baked potato and a thick steak.

The writers do offer a few examples to illustrate their lessons on “thinking like an economist i.e. consider people’s motivations” which are fun an interesting, and would make the book a decent bathroom read or something to pick up for a few bucks off the remainder shelves. But not nearly worth the full price I paid.

I don’t know if “publish or perish” is a compelling motivator for non-fiction writers like these, but that’s what this book felt like: something they needed to put out there so their names stay relevant and they get more folks listening to their podcasts. I know writing isn’t their full-time job— and Think Like a Freak feels like it.

This is a gimme, a side-bar, perhaps a fat appendix at the end of the of the SuperDuper Freakonomics Compendium. Read it if you’ve got disposable income and nothing better to do. Or you want to kill an evening. But don’t, like the other books, think of this as an investment at all.

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Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Got this one from a friend who loaned me a whole stack of books. I’ve been out of the reading rhythm for a while so I decided to start with this one since it seemed light-hearted and silly. It really wasn’t. It was kind of tedious, but I chalked that up to my being a rusty reader. Having just finished it though, I’m not so sure if it was me or just the novel.

Ostensibly a re-telling of the baby-Jesus story and His flight to Egypt. But what do you expect from a re-telling: is it an homage, a parody, straight-up plagiarism? None of these in Unholy Night, I’m afraid. Just a loose framework used to tell a hack-n-slash adventure story.

Which is fine, and don’t get me wrong—if there’s cyberpunk and steampunk, why not history-punk? I’m all for innovative genres. But everything Unholy Night got from this “history” was also the only thing it had going for it. And that included a lot of deus ex machina.

I mean, a lot. A story about one of the three wise-man using his sword and hatred to protect the Messiah as they try to escape Herod- and whenever it looks like they’re trapped, voila, a miracle happens. Please. I feel as if a great opportunity for parody was utterly missed here. I get it—this is The Living God wrapped in his arms, so “deus ex machina” is almost obligatory. Maybe that’s why it felt flat.

Too many conveniences, too many coincidences, too much horror with too little consequence. I guess the best thing I can say about Unholy Night is that, like the Bible itself, it ended up just being a bunch of words, words words.

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