Month: November 2016

The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are some folks who love books and I don’t mean reading them. They love the physical things themselves, and the older the better. Leather bindings, heavy paper, oh that smell, oh that heft. Books are better than the stories inside them because stories are about people and people are awful.

The Club Dumas is about these folks, these book lovers, and if you’re a book lover too this is going to read like pornography for you. I am not a book lover, myself, preferring the easy accessibility of my trusty e-reader. That’s how I read this book about books, bringing my can of soda-pop to the Queen’s banquet, as it were.

But I do like stories about books. Umberto Eco and Ruiz Zafon and those fellows. The Club Dumas almost holds up to those guys, at least in scholarship; even if everything that Arturo Pérez-Reverte wrote is made up, it sure feels smart. Where it loses me, though, is in the story: you know, that thing I like most about reading.

There’s a lot going on, stuffing together Alexandre Dumas, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dante Alighieri, Dan Brown. But for all that, it seems a bit mashed together. Like the author got two ideas and decided to write them at the same time and see where they’d link up. But they didn’t.

Sex, gin, satan, rainy nights. There’s enough here to keep you going until the last page, I guess, but at the end all I could think of was, that’s it? Thankfully I didn’t have to reshelve the thing when I was done. I just turned my e-reader off.

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The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I’ve read a lot of terrible books in my day, and this is one of the better ones. My wife listened to the audio version, and this is how she described it: “The woman reading it sounded like every word coming out of her mouth was a curse word.”

We’ve got multiple points of view, which is fine, and lots of introspection, which is fine too. But these individuals characters, thinking to themselves, hide things from us, the reader, until it’s convenient to add a little twist to the plot. That, in my opinion, is not fine. I’m okay if it’s a book about people dealing with deep, hidden emotions, struggling to reconcile with some terrible truth or deep trauma in their pasts… but the shenanigans that were pulled literally hours before the events of the novel even began? No. That’s just sneaky.

And then there’s the simple inconsistency between what people say they want, and what they do. I’m being vague because I don’t want to give it away. My point is: not believable. Not for a second. I guess that’s the problem with these heavily plotted novels where all of the plot happens before the book begins. All we have left is characters mooning about “reacting.”

All of it narrated in a terse prose, which, I’ll allow, was at least tight, and reads very quickly. Like I said, a pretty well crafted novel for how awful it was.

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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This review is 18 months late. So don’t read it. Just go read the book. I gave it three stars, but then I’m picky. You might like it. I’ll tell you this: if you’re going to hate it, you’ll figure that out in the beginning before you’ve invested too much time.

At least, that’s the way I remember it. It’s not the sort of book I tend to pick up, but I like to read the books my wife listens to on tape. (We still call them books on “tape,” even though they’re downloads straight to her iPhone, blue-toothed through her car speakers on the way to work).

Which leads one to the topic of “women’s” lit versus literature in general, this idea that there are books that “women” read. Yeah yeah, the man writing this review said sardonically. The thing is, I think there’s more women getting published these days, and there’s more women buying books too, which might just be just the way the dice roll these days. My point is, you don’t have to be a woman to get into The Girl on the Train.

I mean, this is no Lee Child, no Tom Clancy. But it’s not Catherine Coulter or J.D. Robb either. Even if the marketing people at Massively Profitable Publishing like to spin them all that way. But you, you’re a discerning reader, you don’t judge books by their covers, or the shelves they sit on, or the company they’re forced to keep.

(Full disclosure: I’ve never read Coulter or Robb. But I’ve met them. Literally shaken their hands. These are a couple if really smart people. And I know more than one person who loves their stuff, and these, too, are discerning readers who don’t put up with bad writing. My point is to denigrate the marketers, not the authors).

The Girl on the Train will get you through a plane ride, or a few hours on a balcony at your hotel, or a lazy weekend when there’s no good games on the TV. There’s a twist ending, which you’ll see coming from a mile away, and there’s a few women’s issues themes that are very trendy to write about these days. So it’s not breaking new ground, but so what. Books don’t have to be brilliant to be good reads.

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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This review is 6 months late. So don’t read it. Just go read the book. I gave it three stars, but then I’m picky. You might like it. I’ll tell you this: if you’re going to hate it, you’ll figure that out in the beginning before you’ve invested too much time.

At least, that’s the way I remember it. It’s not the sort of book I tend to pick up, but I like to read the books my wife listens to on tape. (We still call them books on “tape,” even though they’re downloads straight to her iPhone, blue-toothed through her car speakers on the way to work).

Which leads one to the topic of “women’s” lit versus literature in general, this idea that there are books that “women” read. Yeah yeah, the man writing this review said sardonically. The thing is, I think there’s more women getting published these days, and there’s more women buying books too, which might just be just the way the dice roll these days. My point is, you don’t have to be a woman to get into The Girl on the Train.

I mean, this is no Lee Child, no Tom Clancy. But it’s not Catherine Coulter or J.D. Robb either. Even if the marketing people at Massively Profitable Publishing like to spin them all that way. But you, you’re a discerning reader, you don’t judge books by their covers, or the shelves they sit on, or the company they’re forced to keep.

(Full disclosure: I’ve never read Coulter or Robb. But I’ve met them. Literally shaken their hands. These are a couple if really smart people. And I know more than one person who loves their stuff, and these, too, are discerning readers who don’t put up with bad writing. My point is to denigrate the marketers, not the authors).

The Girl on the Train will get you through a plane ride, or a few hours on a balcony at your hotel, or a lazy weekend when there’s no good games on the TV. There’s a twist ending, which you’ll see coming from a mile away, and there’s a few women’s issues themes that are very trendy to write about these days. So it’s not breaking new ground, but so what. Books don’t have to be brilliant to be good reads.

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The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling by Lawrence Block
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wanted to read this book, but not yet, dagnabbit. I wanted to read Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte first. But somewhere between the library website, my PC, and my e-reader, some wires got crossed. So, in a fit of pique I grabbed Bernie #3 instead.

And by coincidence, like Club Dumas, The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling is also a murder mystery about books. (I mean, I think that’s what Pérez-Reverte’s novel is about. I’ve only read a few pages!) Block’s novel is about a burglar who moonlights as bookseller, gets involved in a scam that goes sideways, and has to solve the crime to keep from being convicted of the murder himself.

So, yeah, like I said, I didn’t want to read this one yet, even though I was going to get to it eventually. But at least it’s kind of in the same realm. And while a good book in a cozy room on a frosty day is a treasure, when the book is about books, it just makes it that much more satisfying.

I’m not going to say that Block wastes the subject matter on his silly little thief, because Block writes too well for any of his reads to be a waste. But I do have to wonder what a writer of his talents could do if he decided to go full Pérez-Reverte. Or Ruiz Zafon. Or even full Eco. Because this quick little book (I polished it off in a few hours while work was slow) is chock full of either precise research or an obvious love of bibliophilia.

If that’s not your bag though, never fear: it’s also chock full of lock picks and stolen cash and semi-crooked cops. Also, we get a new side-kick for Bernie, a good-luck Pontiac, and a Polaroid camera to keep us rooted in the late 70s.

I’m going to try the library website again, but don’t surprised if my next read is The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza, because what else am I going to do this afternoon?

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The Burglar in the Closet by Lawrence Block
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

How many books has Lawrence Block written, a thousand? And this is one of them. Bernie is back, making good on the promise Block saw when he finished the first novel. A gritty one-off turned into a fun little romp, and Bernie had enough stuff going for him to try his hand at another murder. This one has a dentist in it, an artist, a lawyer, and a bartender. I’m pretty sure these books write themselves.

You have to love the contrast between Rhodenbarr and Scudder, Block’s other murder-mytsery solver. Bernie picks locks, lives off the wages of this ill gotten gains, makes jokes wouldn’t hurt a fly. Whereas Scudder mostly knocks on doors, reluctantly takes the money clients give him, only allows for some gallows humor now and then, and has killed more than once.

And both of them in Manhattan in the 70s. It’s a very different Manhattan, Upper West Side versus Hell’s Kitchen. Bernie’s corner has few prostitutes, more momsers.

Like I said, a quick read, and if you’re wondering if you should bother: sure, why not. You read the first one, and as slim as these Burglar novels are, they could all be bound in the same volume. Call this one chapter two.

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Burglars Can’t Be Choosers by Lawrence Block
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was the first Lawrence Block novel I ever read, way back in the early eighties, which means it was still ten years old at the time. I went on to devour as much Block as I could, and I might even go so far to say he had a subliminal influence on my thinking I could write, someday.

(Everyone’s a writer, I know. Or an actor or a musician).

I just finished it again, and my feelings are more or less the same. The book is light, fun, easy, despite being about grand theft larceny and murder. The afterword talks about the struggle Block had writing it, which is hard to believe, as there’s no evidence of that in the story. It breezes right along through less than 200 quick pages.

Bernie is a likable guy, maybe a bit on the shallow side, which is to say, not encumbered by any kind of deep flaw that wants to work itself out on the page. And the story is basically of a kind with Mr. Rhodenbarr, which makes for a nice arrangement.

If there’s anything that distracts from the story, it’s one heck of a coincidence that pops up; not deus ex machina, per se but maybe close enough if what you want is a devilishly clever series of diabolical twists.

But if you don’t take it too seriously, and just jump in to have a nice time, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers gets the job done. That it’s by a modern master of fiction just makes it all the more satisfying in the end.

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Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A few months ago I had a brief panic attack about ever having anything to read again. Which is very silly. But you know how it is when you have so many things to choose from, you feel like there’s no way to decide. I’d read in the newspaper about a TV series for people who love those old muddy BBC detective serials, and one of them based on the Rebus novels by Ian Rankin. I dutifully checked my local library and put myself on the list for the first book in the series.

When I finally got the notice via email that the book was available, I downloaded it, started reading, and finished that same evening. This is a quick, by the numbers little book. It’s got your detective with a dark past, his daughter, his new gal, his brother the stage hypnotist, an errant reporter, a bad guy, strangulation, a cheesy puzzle, and everything capped off at the end with some mayhem and bloodshed.

Here’s a book you can pick up at the airport on your way to somewhere you don’t want to go and, when you’re done with it, leave in the seat-back pocket for the next poor schmuck schlepping it from Hoboken to Billings. And if you like this sort of thing, if this is your bread and butter, or tea and crumpets or whatever, there’s nineteen more books in the series.

Go hang out in the means streets of Edinburgh and help Detective Sergeant Rebus catch the bad guys, deal with his own dark history, and woo the pretty (but smart and tough) gal. Or don’t. There are a whole heck of a lot of books out there to devour.

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Faithful Place by Tana French
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Got this book mailed to me via a pyramid-thing on Facebook. So it came from a friend-of-a-friend, and I have no idea if said friend related my reading tastes to the FoaF. I suppose murder mysteries drenched in Irish poverty-culture IS the sort if thing I’d read, but I don’t know if anyone knows me enough to discern that. Let’s call it a coincidence.

This one was a chore because I’m lazy. More pages than I’m used to, and a real book, not an e-book, so no staying up late with the lights off the soft glow of my Nook taking me through pages. But then I think Faithful Place goes on longer than it needs to, and drenches itself maybe more than it needs to. The book straddles the fence between good old fashioned who-dunnit and atmospheric sidewalk voyeurism.

There’s the main character, an undercover cop who’s really very good at his job, which is he’s happy to tell us. And thirty-year mystery, a skeleton found under a slab, a fresh corpse to go along with it, and a few twists to keep the reading happy. But that’s more or less it, in terms of mystery.

Then there’s the main character’s back story, which gets dredged up and all too quickly updated, and we’re assured that things haven’t changed a bit. We’re immersed in squalid streets of a poor Irish neighborhood, complete with alcoholic das, overbearing mammies, slappers and cans and cigarettes. Like an anthropologist hanging out with the aborigines. And to what end? Nothing’s different when all’s well and solved.

I’ve been given to understand that Faithful Place is the third in a series, but that each book features different characters. And so it’s a few poor Irish neighborhoods that are the main characters throughout. I don’t know, maybe Tana French is doing the modern murder-mystery version of Dubliners. Okay fine. But not my cup of tea, after all.

But for all that it’s well written, and not boring. Even a lazy reader like me managed to get through it in daylight hours and the occasional work break. Given all of the books that could have been Amazoned to me, I suppose things went fairly well.

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