Sunday, July 31, 2011

BW31 - D is for Donohue


A couple months back, Keith Donohue's publicist sent me an email asking if I wanted to review his latest novel Centuries of June.   She said:


Created out of myths drawn from all across America, the novel is both a murder mystery and ghost story that takes place entirely in the bathroom of an old house on one night in June, yet it covers five hundred years of American history. It is a tale with nine narrators: the victim and eight suspects, each of whom narrates her own story, explaining why she has a reason to bump off the protagonist. There’s an old man in a bathrobe who may or may not be the ghost of Samuel Beckett, and a baby who goes from newborn to toddler in the time it takes to tell the tale.


The story is a collage of styles—folklore, a shipwreck account, archives of historical documents, oral histories, the western, silent film, hard-boiled murder mystery, erotic fantasy, dreams, and allusions. Evocative and, at times, madcap, the novel has everything from flying feathers and dancing flappers to baseball and vaudeville, and has received four glowing trade reviews—two calling it a tour de force.

Of course, who wouldn't be intrigued by that.  I looked up the book on Amazon which fortunately and Yippie for me had the look inside feature so I could read the first few pages.   If the first pages, heck if the first paragraph doesn't grab my attention, then I know the rest of the book won't.  I started reading and kept reading and decided I wanted to read the book and accepted her offer.  So guess what's next on the nightstand?  


In an interview about the book, Donahue has said:


"The Novel is a kind of mash-up and I'd be happy enough if people read it as historical fiction or magical realism or a black comedy or a murder mystery or an existential ghost story.


Likewise, the inspiration for Centuries of June is a mash-up of ideas and images.  I knew I wanted to write about American myths and came across the painting of The Virgin by Gustav Klimt--which depicts a group of naked women resting in a clot beneath these wild and colorful quilts.  I began to think about what their stories might be and how those tales might be interwoven with this speculation on time, memory, and the American story.  In the actual writing, all sorts of other notions shoehorn their way into the book--from Bachelard's The Poetics of Space to the stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera.  The novel becomes a mosaic, like the patterns in the Klimt painting."
Even more intriguing.   If you want to find out what other folks think about the story, check out the TLC Book Tour participants reactions.  I'll let you know what I think when I'm finished reading it. 

He's also written two other books that look equally intriguing:

Inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem that tempts a child from home to the waters and the wild, The Stolen Child is a modern fairy tale narrated by the child Henry Day and his double.


On a cold night in January, a stranger appears on the doorstep of Margaret Quinn, a widow living a solitary existence in a small Pennsylvania town.  A nine-year-old orphan named Norah, dressed in tatters, claims to have found a welcome there.  Margaret’s own daughter, Erica, ran away 10 years earlier, and the orphan appears at first to be an answer to a mother’s prayers. Margaret passes off Norah as her granddaughter and enrolls her in school, where Norah reveals to the other children her mysterious, unearthly powers.

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Sunday, July 24, 2011

BW 30: C is for Cara Black

Butte Montmarte, Paris, France by Julie K

I just finished reading the first book in Cara Black's Aimee Leduc Series called Murder in the Marais.  I had heard about her stories and when I came across them while wondering through Book Passages in San Francisco, just had to check out the first book in the series:



Synopsis:  It is November 1993 and the French prime ministerial candidate is about to sign a treaty with Germany that will severely restrict immigration, reminiscent of the Vichy laws. Aime Leduc is approached by a rabbi to decipher a fifty-year-old encrypted photograph and place it in the hands of Lili Stein. When she arrives at Lili's apartment in the Marais, the old Jewish quarter of Paris, she finds a corpse in whose forehead is carved a swastika. With the help of her partner, a dwarf with extraordinary computer hacking skills, Aime is determined to solve this horrendous crime. Then more murders follow. Her search for the killer leads her to a German war veteran involved in the 1940s with a Jewish girl he was supposed to send to her death. It takes Aime undercover inside a neo-Nazi group, where she must play a dangerous game of current politics and old war crimes. Many of the older Jews in the Marais are afraid and prefer to leave the past alone, but the horrible legacy of the death camps and the words "never forget" propel Aime to find out the true identities of the criminals past and present.
Murder in the Marais was her debut novel and the first in a series of now 11 books following the exploits of Private investigator Aimee Leduc in Paris, France.   I discovered Aimee is a feisty chick who jumps into situations fearlessly, throws herself body (literally) and soul into her investigations.   She isn't afraid of a few bruises and once she's on somebody's trail, doesn't let go.   I was amazed at this character's tenacity. I was exhausted just reading the story.  Paris is more than just the setting, it is also a living breathing character that helps bring the story to life.  The rest of the books in the series are:

Murder in Belleville 


Murder in the Sentier
Murder in the Bastille 

Murder in Clichy
Murder in Montmartre


Murder in LLe Saint Louis
Murder in the Rue De Paradis

Murder in the Latin Quarter
Murder in the Palais Royal
Murder in Passy


If you like murder mysteries, this is one series well worth checking out. 

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Sunday, July 17, 2011

BW29: B is for Books and Blogs





Books, books, books. We all love books and blogs about books and websites about books and authors talking about books. So, today, I'm going to share a few blogs, websites and author sites I enjoy reading.

I went to Bouchercon a couple years back and one of the panels I attended was the introduction of MULHOLLAND BOOKS, an new imprint of Little, Brown and Company. The imprint would focus on suspense novels: crime novels, thrillers, police procedurals, spy stories, even supernatural suspense. And the authors: Marcia Clark, (yes, the one of OJ fame), Mark Billingham, Duane Swierczynski, and Sebastian Rotella to name a few. New to me authors that definitely piqued my interest. Mullholland's website is great and chock full of original fiction to read including Mark Billingham's original short story, THE WALLS which is available to read or listen to in audio book form.


I know I've probably mentioned them before, but they bare mentioning again. MURDERATI is a group blog of murder mystery authors who enjoy discussing everything from, what else, murder to what's going on in their lives and how it relates to writing. There have been a few new additions to the group so be sure to check them out. I'm slowly making my way through reading each author's books and they keep making life difficult for me by adding new authors. *grin* I'll never run out of reading material.

Since I'm involved in A Round of Word in 80 Days, a writing challenge, I've discovered some great independent and self published author you should check out.




Also book bloggers whom I've been following it seems like forever and love talking about books.

Candace of Beth Fish Reads: She covers the books offered by several imprints.

Staci of Life in the Thumb: She loves all things Darcy.

Jackie of Literary Escapism: I've discovered many fantasy and paranormal books through her posts.


That ought to keep you all busy and your wishlists feed for a while.

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If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.



Sunday, July 10, 2011

BW28: A is for Art Mysteries

Painter's Palette at the Ready by Cobalt123
A couple years back I was introduced to the writings of Iain Pears, a writer and art historian.   I happened to stumble across The Titian Committee in our local used bookstore and since I was taking an art class at the time, thought it would be interesting.    Which started my love affair with art mysteries.   

Pears wrote a series of art mysteries centered around  a couple art historians Jonathan Argyll and Flavia di Stefano of Rome's Art Theft Squad.    His books are a fascinating, interesting and educational way to learn about art within a fictional mystery.   The books in the Flavia Di Stefano mystery series are:

The Raphael Affair


The Titian Committee


The Bernini Bust

The Last Judgement

Giotti's Hand
Death and Restoration
The Immaculate Deception



Pears has also written four other stories including  An Instance of the Fingerpost, The Dream of Scipio, The Portrait, and Stone's Fall.   

I had the opportunity to review Stone's Fall and discovered myself entrenched in a fascinating story.  


It is told through the view points of three men, in three different time periods and revolves around John Stone, his widow, Elizabeth Ravenscliff, and a mysterious child mentioned in Stone's Will.

In the year 1909, Matthew Braddock is hired by Elizabeth to find the child. In the course of his search, he meets numerous characters involved in Stone's life. One is Henry Cort. Henry Cort takes over the story in Part two beginning in 1890 and tells how he also became involved in the life of John Stone and Elizabeth. He tell the story of his evolution as a spy and how he played a roll in John Stone's life. He leaves a mysterious package for Braddock to open at a later point. John Stone takes over the story bringing the reader back to 1867 and how he evolved as one of the most richest and powerful men in the world. The story ends with a shocking twist that was totally unexpected.

I've since acquired An Instance on the Fingerpost, The Raphael Affair, and Death and Restoration.   An Instance on the Fingerpost is a chunky book at 750+ pages.  It's one of those books you need to clear the decks for because it will take a while to read. 

Amazon synopsis: "The year is 1663, and the setting is Oxford, England, during the height of Restoration political intrigue. When Dr. Robert Grove is found dead in his Oxford room, hands clenched and face frozen in a rictus of pain, all the signs point to poison. Rashomon-like, the narrative circles around Grove's murder as four different characters give their version of events: Marco da Cola, a visiting Italian physician--or so he would like the reader to believe; Jack Prestcott, the son of a traitor who fled the country to avoid execution; Dr. John Wallis, a mathematician and cryptographer with a predilection for conspiracy theories; and Anthony Wood, a mild-mannered Oxford antiquarian whose tale proves to be the book's "instance of the fingerpost." (The quote comes from the philosopher Bacon, who, while asserting that all evidence is ultimately fallible, allows for "one instance of a fingerpost that points in one direction only, and allows of no other possibility."
If you love art and you enjoy mysteries, there are quite a few other authors who also write art crime novels.  Check out the list from Amazon.

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Sunday, July 3, 2011

BW 27: Z is for Zhivago


I'm getting closer to reading Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.  I kind of have a mental as well as written list of books I want to read and since I am doing the A to Z challenge by author, two books away from the P's.  If I decided to do it by title, I'd never get to it.  I've already read Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina.   I don't know what it is I find so fascinating about Russian Literature. Maybe it is the time period, the characters or just the writing.  Pasternak himself has an interesting history.

He was born in 1890 in Moscow and studied philosophy at Moscow University.   He worked in a chemical factory during world war one and then ended up working for the soviet commissariat of education after the revolution.   His first book of poetry was published in 1913.  He had to turn to translating European writers works for 10 years from 1933 to 1943 because his political viewpoint was opposed by the soviets and didn't meet the communist party line.  During this time, he wrote Dr. Zhivago, but it was rejected by soviet publishers in 1956.   His manuscript was smuggled out of the country and published in Italy in 1957.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958  but he was unable to leave the country to accept it.  He was forced to decline the prize by his government.  The book was on the New York Times best seller list for 26 weeks in 1958 and 1959.   One of the reasons I decided to read the book is because of the Take a Chance  challenge to read a book from my birth year. I discovered it was on the list.   Pasternak died of natural causes in 1960 at the age of 70.  The novel was banned in Russia until 1987.  

Dr. Zhivago is a political social romantic drama about 5 young people during the Russian Revolution spanning from 1901 to 1943. Sounds similar to War and Peace so it will be interesting to compare this one to them.  Here's an interesting piece of trivia.   Boris's father, Leonid was a Russian Impressionist painter and not only painted portraits of Tolstoy but illustrated War and Peace.   

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Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you have multiple reviews, then type in (multi) after your name and link to your general blog url.


If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.