Fiction
The idea of Widowland, by C.J. Carey, is interesting. The book is set in Great Britain, 13 years after Britain agreed to be ruled by Hitler's Germany. Women have been divided into several castes that define how they live their lives. King George and his family have disappeared, and King Edward (he of Wallis Simpson fame) is about to be re-crowned, an event that will end some aspects of the British-German agreement (including protection of British Jews). The protagonist Rose works rewriting literary classics to reflect the new views of women's roles. All that is interesting. But then the book goes off the rails when Rose receives a special assignment to investigate whether a group of widows (a disrespected caste) is responsible for anti-regime graffiti. That could also have been interesting but it just didn't work (e.g., why would Rose have been chosen for this assignment, for which she had no discernible skills?). Disappointing.
People Person, by Candice Carty-Williams, is an entertaining but completely unbelievable story. Dimple has four half-siblings (same father; the five have four different mothers) whom she has met exactly once, when she was a child and their narcissistic father decided they should all meet. When her ex-boyfriend falls in her kitchen, hitting his head on the counter and apparently killing himself, she calls her eldest sister, who brings the rest of the crew alone to help dispose of the body. The rest of the book is about the five of them helping Dimple and building a family relationship. I found this so unlikely as to be a fantasy--but perhaps I am just a bad person.
The Every, by Dave Eggers, is a sequel to The Circle, a cautionary tale about what can happen when your life is lived entirely in public via social media. In The Every, the Circle (essentially a combination of Google and Facebook) has merged with an on-line digital retailer named for a South American jungle, and the merged company's cultural influence is even greater than in the The Circle. A technocritic named Delaney decides to destroy The Every from within by getting a job there and proposing terrible ideas that will ultimately bring about economic failure. But the ideas are not only adopted by the company, they become wildly popular, albeit with some bad effects. The book is more satirical and less frightening than its predecessor, perhaps because the plot isn't strong and aspects of the company's practices and culture seem so ridiculous. But I enjoyed it.
Up until a couple of years ago, I had never read much Stephen King--but I've picked up several of his books recently and I do admire his writing skills while occasionally wondering how his brain works. Billy Summers is interesting because it's a story in which the main character is a hired killer (although he only kills truly bad people, so there's that)whomt I sometimes found myself liking. Then I remembered there was a lot not to like about the man--but he was dealing with so many worse people so maybe that meant he was all right. At any rate, Billy was a fully realized character. I don't know if Stephen King actually knows how assassins work, but the details mostly seemed plausible. Somewhat uncomfortably enjoyable.
Mysteries/Thrillers
What She Saw, by Diane Saxon is evidently the third entry in a series featuring D.S. Jenna Morgan. I listened to it because it was free on Audible and, while I didn't hate it, was glad I hadn't used a credit on it. It opens with a man murdering his family members and setting his house on fire. One of his daughters survives and hides in a neighbor's barn. Why she thought she should hide is not entirely clear, and it's kind of a distraction from the narrative about the work of the police. On the other hand, it's key to the climax, so maybe that's why. Probably won't read any more of the series. BTW: What She Saw is the title of multiple books.
The Guilt Trip, by Sandie Jones, which was advertised as a mystery but seemed more of a domestic drama, had me wishing someone would die a lot sooner than they did--and I wouldn't have cared which character it was. In sum, the narrator is happily married until she goes to her brother-in-law's destination wedding and becomes convinced her husband is having an affair with the bride. She spends the weekend melting down, arguably too late, until she figures out what's really going on. Not recommended.
In Righteous Prey, by John Sandford, Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers take on a band of bitcoin billionaires who have decided to become vigilantes, killing "assholes," sending out press releases on their kills, and maintaining a Dark Web presence. Interestingly, Virgil's presence seems to prevent Lucas acting like the vigilante he himself has become in other recent books. The story is entertaining enough but is a clear set-up for a sequel, which I generally find annoying.
I'm not a fan of Harlan Coban, but Gone for Good was available on Libby, so . . . I checked it out. It revolves around a 15-year-old crime that might have been committed by the protagonist Will's brother, Ken, who has been missing ever since. Now, with a new crime at hand and evidence that the brother may be alive, Will must figure out what is going on. If it sounds similar to my description of Alex Finlay's The Night Shift, that's because there are similarities. But The Night Shift is better.
The Last to Vanish by Megan Miranda is not a particularly great mystery about a series of disappearances from a North Carolina inn. For me to think something is a great mystery, it has to have interesting twists -- but give the reader enough information as they go along to think the twists make sense at the end. The twists in this book are so out of left field that they don't seem believable. However, I did learn about an interesting concept from the book: trauma tourism. Trauma tourists go to places where bad things have happened and wallow in the horror. I guess this is really a thing!!
The Judge's List by John Grisham is one of those books that starts out strong--a woman whose father was murdered believes she has identified the killer--a sitting judge in Florida. She takes her evidence to Lacy Stoltz, an investigator with the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. Since the Board doesn't generally handle murders, Lacy initially refuses to take the case--but the law demands that they look into every complaint, so she begins an investigation. Around the time the judge figures out he is being investigated, I thought it broke down and became a typical "chasing the bad guy" scenario. And the ending--truly hated.
Cajun Kiss of Death, by Ellen Byron, won the Agatha Award for 2021, Byron's second win for the Maggie Crozat series in four years. The series is set in a small Louisiana town and is just way too cutesy for me--even though people are dying, being stalked, getting food poisoning, etc. all around. I thought it might be interesting because it was all about food--a chef was murdered, other chefs/cooks were suspects, there were recipes at the end. But nothing redeemed it for me.
Nonfiction
Although I don't live in Broomfield any more, I'm still in a Broomfield-based book group and interested in the town's literary goings-on. This year, the One Book One Broomfield selection is The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees, by Meredith May. As one might guess from the title, there's a lot about bees and the beekeeping grandfather who taught Meredith about the habits and wisdom of the bees. Sadly, others in her life were less supportive--her mother barely leaving her bed for years after she was divorced from May's father and her grandmother--perhaps from some guilt complex--defending her daughter when she abused Meredith and her brother. I guess the book is well done for what it is, but I found the bees as a model for human community overdone and the family dysfunction of a piece with so many other memoirs that it failed to provoke the outrage it deserved. Again, perhaps I am just a bad person.
Favorite Passages
He knew there should be a balance between the taking and the giving a person does in one lifetime. That a good relationship, between bees and humans, or two middle school classmates, or between a mother and daughter, needs to start from a mutual understanding that the other is precious.
--Meredith May, The Honey Bus
People liked the idea of a strong leader--they didn't much care what that leader stood for. What citizens wanted above all things was a quiet life. They didn't mind shrinking their horizons. They didn't object to not travelling, as long as nobody else was travelling either. They wanted an orderly life with everyone knowing their place. Plenty of rules, the more of them the better.
--C.J. Carey, Widowland
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