A Good Season for Mysteries: Blue Heaven, Famous Last Words, and More

Titles. First of all, I'm bad at titles. In picking titles for workshops, I was never the one who came up with a catchy, clever, or evocative title. So if I wrote a book that needed a title more exciting than, say, Teaching the Social Sciences and History in Secondary Schools, I would need a lot of help. But I do sometimes wonder if marketing departments are providing a little too much help. This suspicion was strengthened at an event a few years ago at the Broomfield Library. Author Cynthia Swanson was asked why she had titled her book The Bookseller when that didn't really describe the book in any meaningful way. She replied that she had titled the book something else (I don't remember what her proposed title was, but it was much more evocative of the story), but the publisher suggested the alternative title because books with bookseller, bookshop, bookstore, or library in the title were very popular. Now, I suspect the new word that is sneaking into lots of titles is river. Just Google "Titles including river" and you'll see what I mean.

This story came to mind this spring when I read The Night We Lost Him, by Laura Dave. I immediately thought that title had been chosen to remind people of her previous book, The Last Thing He Told Me, which was very successful, made into an Apple TV series, etc. But the second book was not in any way a follow-up to the previous one, the title didn't fit the book all that well, and it certainly didn't add anything to the experience of reading the book (perhaps that's asking a lot of a title but at least try!). A couple of the books I liked this spring had titles that lived up to this expectation, so I think it's possible!

Okay, on to spring's favorite reads. 

Fiction

Fully two months into spring, I was afraid the Fiction section of this post might be empty, but luckily I came upon two good novels in a row in May! First was My Friends by Fredrik Backman, an author whose work I don't always love. But I loved My Friends, which, as you might expect, is an exploration of friendship--and art and surviving one's family. Louisa is an almost-18-year-old who has recently lost her best and only friend. She has found her way to an auction house where a painting she has loved since she stole a postcard depicting it from a foster home frig; she just wants to see the painting before it is sold but ends up causing a bit of a stir at the event. She escapes to an alley where she stumbles across a man who seems to be homeless but is actually the artist who created the painting. He recognizes her as a kindred spirit, buys the painting himself, and (when he dies the next day) arranges with his friend Ted to give her the painting. She freaks out and begs Ted to take her with him in his and the artist's home town to dispose of the artist's ashes. On the very lengthy train trip, amidst a number of adventures, Ted tells her the story of their group of four childhood friends. Ted and Louisa are both quirky characters but their stories and their evolving relationship are engaging and touching.

The relationship at the heart of Rental House by Weike Wang is less touching, but it is engaging. Nate and Keru are a couple who have decided not to have children. Nate is a white guy from a lower class Southern background; Keru is the only child of perfectionistic immigrants from China. When the book opens, they are on vacation at a Cape Code beach house. They have invited their parents to visit (not at the same time) and the visits reveal generational and cultural gaps that torment the couple. Five years later, they are on a different vacation, this time at a luxury bungalow in the Catskills, where they can't escape prejudices (the European couple in the next bungalow labels them DINKs and makes various assumptions about them) or their families. Rental House presents two slices of a couple's life and it doesn't reach a neat conclusion, which kept me thinking about families and how they affect relationships after I finished the book. 

Mysteries

I recently went to a great event sponsored by the Jefferson County (CO) Library System that featured several mystery writers, including C.J. Box, who I didn't realize had written a stand-alone mystery that won the Edgar award. So I immediately picked up Blue Heaven (an evocative title with an unexpected meaning) and quite enjoyed it. Two kids, mad at their mom and her boyfriend, decide to go fishing when they have an early release day from school. They have the misfortune to see a murder and then become targets of the killers, a group of retired LA cops (not a spoiler--it's revealed in the blurbs on the back of the book). Luckily, they happen to find a hero, rancher Jess Rawlins, a wonderful character. The book ends with a bloodbath followed by a kind of mystical series of conversations, an odd juxtaposition that somehow works. Definitely glad I read it.

I also enjoyed Famous Last Words, by Gillian McAllister (also a good title with multiple meanings in the story). On her first day back at work after nine months' maternity leave, Camilla is interrupted by a visit from the police, who inform her that her husband Luke is involved in a hostage situation--as the hostage-taker. After releasing one hostage and shooting the other two unidentified victims, Luke escapes and is not heard from for seven years. But then things start happening; Cam is in the process of having Luke declared legally dead but suddenly starts to think he might be alive and begins trying to figure out what really happened. The same events prompt Niall, the hostage negotiator who felt he failed during the initial siege, also begins investigating new leads. Working separately, the two move towards a more complete understanding of why Luke acted as he did and what has happened since. I figured out who the real culprits were before the end--something that I am not particularly good at (despite having read thousands of mysteries)--but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the book.

Presumed Guilty, by Scott Turow, is more of a legal thriller than a mystery, although there's certainly a whodunit aspect to the book. Here, Rusty Sabich, the falsely accused protagonist of Presumed Innocent, takes on the job of defending his fiancee's son, who is accused in the murder of his on-again/off-again girlfriend, a brilliant, beautiful, and deeply troubled young woman. Around 70 percent of the book focuses on the trial, so if you don't like reading testimony, cross-examination, etc., you'll probably be bored--but I like that sort of thing. The book has a lot of similarities to its predecessor, beyond the title, which for sure is meant to evoke that earlier bestseller, which Apple TV recently remade as a series. But the title fits the story, and the legal maneuvering and mystery of who killed Mae kept me interested. 

The Examiner, by Janice Hallett, is presented in messaging app posts between and among a cohort of art students working on their master's in multimedia art, their instructor, other staff at the college, staff at a company for whom the students are creating an installation as their final examine, and the titular examiner, who reviews all their work to be sure it is being graded fairly. At first they seem like a fairly normal group, with people vying for the teacher's attention, accusing each of other of cheating, and the like. But gradually we learn more of their back stories and begin to suspect that some are not in the class to improve their artistic skills. I don't want to include any spoilers, but I'll just say I was impressed that Hallett used the unusual format well, giving the characters depth and surprising me with plot developments. I read another of her books with a similar format, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, which I did not like quite as much and made me think I don't need to read a lot more books constructed in this manner--but I still respect the author's skill in constructing character and plot in this innovative way.

My online book group (University of Illinois alumni) chose Look Closer by David Ellis for its spring into summer book. It's set in a fictional Chicago suburb and features a U of C law professor as one of its highly unreliable narrators. I don't want to say much about the plot because it's so incredibly twisty (though it takes a while to get going). I'll just say a woman is found hanged the day after Halloween. Was it suicide? Murder--by a lover (but who?), a jealous wife, an intruder? If you can figure this thing out before the end, you're way smarter than me.

Nonfiction

Over the past several years, I have come to admire Adam Kinzinger's moral compass and courage, even though we disagree on many issues. Reading his book Renegade, I especially appreciated his commitment to service and his willingness to admit his mistakes/flaws. I also felt compelled to rethink my views on some folks (e.g., John Boehner), but most of all felt real sorrow for moderate Republicans who basically lost their party to nut jobs and people who place power over principle. I recommend reading his book and checking out what Adam is doing with his group Country First.

The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time, by Jane Bertch, provides an interesting take on French culture and relationships as the author reflects on her decades living in Paris, first as a banker and then as the proprietor of a cooking school, La Cuisine. The most moving part of the book for me was her recounting of how she and her business partner dealt with the COVID pandemic, the ways in which small food businesses worked together to survive, and the joy she felt when they were able to reopen and see beloved clients again. I'm not sure what I learned from reading the book would make me a better visitor if I ever return to Paris, but maybe. And I'd definitely take a class at La Cuisine.

Space travel is not necessarily an interest of mine, but Adam Higginbotham's Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, made many best of 2024 lists, so I checked it out--and I'm glad I did. I must admit that I was an adult when the Challenger disaster occurred, and I remember it vividly, but in terms of what happened after, all I really remember is that O-rings were somehow responsible. But, of course, humans were responsible. As Higginbotham documents, people knew that  the O-rings could--and perhaps even were likely to--fail in cold temperatures and they recommended that the mission be scrubbed when temperatures at Cape Canaveral were below freezing that January in 1986. However, decision-makers did not heed the warnings and the result was disastrous. And, perhaps even worse, NASA did not seem to learn the lessons of this series of events, as there were problems that signaled what would happen to Columbia years later. As Higginbotham says, these disasters are a testament to "man's overconfidence in his own ingenuity" or as Richard Feynman wrote, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."  

Poetry

Still City by Oksana Maksymchuk is a collection of poems inspired by or about the war in Ukraine. As you might expect, most are grim, either through very literal descriptions or metaphor. In fact, I found myself reading the book much more quickly than it deserved because focusing too intently was debilitating. While reading, I couldn't help thinking about the program at the Longmont Museum I went to in February, at which curator Jared Thompson shared what he had heard from Ukrainians when he visited their country: they are tired of seeing and creating art about war. Let's hope they can move on to other themes soon. Meanwhile, here are a few of Maksymchuk's poems:

Drone Footage

When a shell strikes a person
there's a scattering

 resembling a flock of birds
taking off

hands flying in the air
signaling

feet levitating
in mid-ick

their avian shapes
casting shadows

lithe and carefree
from on high

Mother's Work

The remains
buried hastily
in the yard
recently ran about

with a shaggy dog
sewed a dress for a doll
bombed at Scrabble
sang a lullaby

Duck-Rabbit

a field, dry reeds
a path of ice

like a blot of ink--
a child on the ground

bright red on white
her arms reaching out

shot dead or 
making a snow angel?

New and Collected Poems, by Marie Howe, won the Pulitzer for poetry this year. I had only ever read a few of her poems, so I definitely wanted to read this collection. It's good, very good, but it's sometimes as depressing as the Maksymchuk collection written about an ongoing war. Death is a theme in many of the poems--the death of Howe's brother, our own inevitable deaths, the death of the planet. The first poem in the collection goes through the process of accepting one's age while recognizing that one does not understand death. Later, her dying brother focuses her attention on her own mortality.

Prologue

In the middle of my life--just past the middle--
walking along the street with our little dog Jack on a leash
--OK--just past the late-middle--

in what some might call early old age,
on a street crowded with children and tourists

my father dead, my mother dead,
my young husband gone from me and grown older (a father,
a husband now to someone else),

Jason dead, John dead, Jane and Stanley and Lucy and Lucie
and Billy and Tony and now Richard dead,
I came to the edge
and I did not know the way.

The Last Time

The last time we had dinner together in a restaurant
with white tablecloths, he leaned forward

and took my two hands in his and said,
I'm going to die soon. I want you to know that.

And I said, I think I do know.
And he said, What surprises me is that you don't.

And I said, I do. And he said, What?
And I said, Know that you're going to die.

And he said, No, I mean know that you are.

Many other poems draw on Biblical characters, stories, or themes, with an entire section inspired by Mary Magdalene, including a poem about the diversity of penises she experienced. These were not my favorites. I felt more positively about a number of poems about children and the experience of mothering and learning from children. I found this one particularly evocative:

Hurry

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?
Today, when t=all the errands are finally done, I say to er,
Honey I'm sorry I keep saying Hurry--
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.

And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hand.

And here's one of the most fabulous lines I've read in a while, though I'm not sure I know what it means: "and the wind makes music of what water was."

Favorite Passages

Nothing weighs more than someone else's belief in you.

The world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else's belief in them. 

He feels like telling her that the artist didn't give her the painting because it was his inheritance, he gave it to her because he realized that she was the inheritance. Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people. But he doesn't quite know how to say that.

    --Fredrik Backman, My Friends (kind of love the contradictory truths)

Playground, The God of the Woods, and Other Favorite Winter Reads

Some notes on mysteries that weren't great but had something interesting about them . . . 

I didn't love House of Correction by Nicci French, but I was impressed by the author's ability to write a legal mystery from the standpoint of the accused, who is planning her defense from a jail cell and then acts as her own attorney in a manner that is entertaining (although certainly would not be allowed by an actual judge). It's really just another take on "ditzy girl solves the case when the dense police can't," but the ditzy girl is usually loved by everyone; here, she doesn't have a friend in the world except for her cellmate, who turns out to be an effective sleuth/lawyer. An interesting twist if not entirely successful.

I am not a huge fan of William Kent Krueger, although I know he's beloved and I do respect that he deals with important issues in his mysteries. Among the issues that underpin Spirit Crossing is violence against indigenous women and girls (and law enforcement's lack of attention to this epidemic). Somehow I wasn't as moved as I feel like I should have been by the book--but I cried at the Author's Note at the end, which was about a real woman who was trafficked, was rescued, built a life, and then was killed by a boyfriend. Reality has an impact.

Kelley Armstrong is an incredibly prolific Canadian novelist best known to me as the author of a mystery series set in a secret Yukon town where all of the residents are hiding from something, usually the law. Thus, I was interested in reading her YA novel Someone Is Always Watching to find that it had a somewhat similar underlying idea, except that it involves children. It's hard to say more without including spoilers, but it's entertaining. I'm not including it in the "favorite" section because the "surprise" is obvious fairly early to an adult reader and there are too many red herrings--but wondering about why the similar underlying theme is important to this author interested me. I might also note that I read several YA books in February, perhaps trying to escape the horror of being an adult in the current political situation. 

On to my favorite winter reads.

Fiction

I have to wonder at myself for really liking The World After Alice, by Lauren Aliza Green, because the two families at its core are so dysfunctional it should be painful. But somehow, it's not. The titular Alice committed suicide as a teenager (or at least we think she did). More than a decade later, her brother Benji and her best friend Morgan are getting married, after keeping their relationship secret from their family for years. Meanwhile, Morgan's father Peter is in love with Benji's mother Linnie, who is bringing a date to the wedding, a man who might have had an inappropriate relationship with Alice. And Benji's dad Nick has been let go from his job but hasn't told his second (younger) wife. Alice's presence hangs over the wedding like a monstrous cloud, and the conflicts are as bad as you might imagine. Yet, it's still somehow a good read. 

Long Island, by Colm Toibin, is a sequel to Brooklyn, a much-lauded book that I didn't love. However, I did really enjoy Long Island, despite the fact that, as the book progressed, the three main characters in the novel--Eilis Lacey, Jim Farrell, and Nancy (forgot her last name)--morph from sympathetic characters dealing with loneliness (among other challenges) to dishonest manipulators of their supposed friends/loved ones. Eilis, the heroine of Brooklyn, is already feeling alienated from her husband Tony's family--all of whom live on the same Long Island cul de sac--when a man shows up at her door to tell her his wife is having Tony's baby and that he will drop the baby on her doorstep when it is born. Unwilling to raise the child and unable to convince Tony and his family to have no part in raising the baby, she decides to retreat to her native Ireland for the summer. There, she reconnects with her fling from Brooklyn, Jim Farrell, who has become secretly engaged to her former best friend Nancy. The secrets the three are keeping erode their relationships and decision-making to a serious degree. The book's ending is abrupt--some readers clearly see it as a set-up for another sequel but I'm not so sure; Toibin may simply be illustrating what happens when bad decisions intersect.  

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson is a book I resisted for a long time, even though I would see it on Libby or at the library--or being read by someone in public. A book about children who burst into flames seemed dumb. And maybe it is a little dumb, but it's also really good. Upper crust Southern girl Madison and scholarship girl Lillian are roommates at a boarding school when Madison gets framed by a rival; Madison's wealthy father then pays Lillian's mother to have Lillian take the fall. Expelled, Lillian falls back into a trailer park kind of existence, but she is still in sporadic touch with Madison, who is married to an older U.S. Senator. When Madison calls and asks Lillian to serve as "governess" for her husband's children by a previous wife--a position that will pay much more than the series of hourly jobs she's been working--Lillian agrees. She then finds out the reason the children need care is that they spontaneously combust from time to time and must be kept out of the way because Madison's husband may soon be nominated for Secretary of State. Crazy set-up, right? But what develops from there is touching, funny, occasionally infuriating--just really enjoyable. I've read reviews that say the novel is about female friendship, but I think it's about learning to care and be cared for.  

Richard Powers has the mind of a scientist and the soul of a poet, and they come together to create novels like those of no other authors. In Playground, his most recent book, the science is multifaceted--the importance and incredible diversity of the ocean ecosystem as well as AI and the threat it poses (oh, and Lewy body dementia--Powers is not averse to including odd human infirmities). The poetry emerges in the relationship between the sea and humans and in an exploration of a deep and ultimately painful friendship. The narrative goes back and forth in time and location, involves numerous characters, and can sometimes be confusing, but a twist at the end brings it together. The human/sea relationship is mostly seen through the character Evie, who is an obsessive diver, scholar, and author of an enchanting children's book about the sea (one reviewer described her husband as a Doug Emhoff-type character, which I found amusing). One of the young people enchanted by her book is Todd, a bright Evanstonian who very early sees the potential of computer games. He becomes friends with Rafi, a scholarship student at his prestigious high school. Rafi is a gifted poet and a lover of literature. The two obsessively play chess and then Go and head off to the University of Illinois together, but they have a falling out after graduation. Todd moves to San Jose to start his company, Playground, a platform something like Reddit but with a competitive element. Rafi stays in Urbana, working on his dissertation and eventually taking a job at the U of I library (one of the best in the country!). Eventually, all the main characters end up on a French Polynesian island where Todd has proposed building a modular floating city and the island's residents have been trying to figure out how to decide democratically whether to agree to the project (should children vote? how should animals' views be considered?). Despite saying a lot about the book, I haven't really captured it, so I'll just end by saying it's highly recommended.  (I feel compelled  to admit another reason that I love Powers' work is that it often involves the U of I as a setting--just reading a phrase like "north of Green" sparks memories. And the character Todd was involved with a project based on the groundbreaking Plato project, where a friend of mine was the art director for some years. How can I not love this, no matter how bad a reason it is for loving a novel?)

Mysteries

Winter started with a mystery that made a lot of "Best of 2024" lists--The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore. It opens in 1975 with camp counselor Louise discovering that 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar, the only surviving child of her wealthy family, is missing from her bunk at the camp near the Van Laar's estate. Years ago, before Barbara's birth, her brother Bear disappeared. A serial killer has escaped from a prison not too far away, and the Van Laars have been hosting a huge end-of-summer party, meaning suspects--both guests and an expanded staff--are numerous. The story switches between the times around the two disappearances and between multiple perspectives. One of the most interesting is that of a young police officer, Judy Luptack, who in 1975 has become one of the first female investigators in the New York State Police, who must navigate strict gender expectations of both the rich and the working class while following her instincts and the evidence to unravel what happened to the two Van Laar children. Moore introduces a variety of serious themes, including family dysfunction and dating violence, but she also knows how to plot a mystery. Very enjoyable.

I was probably first taken by Emiko Jean's The Return of Ellie Black because it was so entirely different from her YA book I had recently read, which was basically Princess Diaries in Japan. But then I got pulled in by the story. In the opening chapter, a young woman missing for two years suddenly reappears. Police detective Chelsey Calhoun, daughter of the late police chief and sister of a girl killed as a teenager, is determined to find the man or men who took Ellie. But, as she tirelessly works the case, the reader gradually begins to learn, through chapters narrated by Ellie, key pieces of information she has not told the police. These pieces of the story lead to several surprises that actually surprise to varying extents. Complicated and entertaining.

Nonfiction

Whether you think you know a lot about how social media operates or haven't a clue why you see what you see on FB or IG, I recommend Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, by Renee DiResta. DiResta looks at how influencers, algorithms, and crowds/mobs/cults have created "bespoke realities" that challenge the public's understanding of what is true and what is a new form of propaganda. Herself the victim of online character assassination by conspiracy theorists whose false narratives about the work of her then institution, the Stanford Internet Observatory, resulted in threats to her family and a congressional subpoena, DiResta makes clear the toxic effects of the new media environment by detailing conspiracies around the COVID pandemic and the 2020 election. A must-read in our current screwed-up environment.

The Small and the Mighty, by Sharon McMahon, has a subtitle long enough to provide a good synopsis of the book: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement. Some of the "unsung" are actually fairly well known--Daniel Inouye, Norm Mineta, Booker T. Washington, Katharine Lee Bates. But McMahon adds depth to the stories we know, and it's rewarding to learn of the truly unsung (at least to me). For example, Clara Brown was an enslaved woman whose family was sold away; following emancipation, she searched for her family members while building a successful business in Colorado. Virginia Randolph was an African American woman who built a system of schools for black children in Virginia in the late 19th and early 20 century. Julius Rosenwald was one of the owners of Sears, who funded vocational/technical schools for African American children across the South. I recommend listening to the audio version of the text, as it is read by the author who sounds just like your favorite opinionated high school social studies teacher--wound up in her topic and ready to convince you it matters. As someone who took black history and lit courses in the late 60s/early 70s, I have a view of Booker T. Washington that doesn't necessarily align with McMahon's, but I appreciate the argument she makes. Very enjoyable read. 

Poetry

I've got two poem-a-day books I'm trying to keep up with in 2025 but I've also been reading some other collections (yes, I might be tooting my own horn a bit). I am a big fan of Kwame Alexander, so I picked up This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets, which he edited. It includes a wide range of poems--poems celebrating African American culture, political poems, poems addressing the sacred, and more. Every reader is likely to find something that resonates. Some of my favorites include a poem celebrating butter by Elizabeth Alexander, a very funny prayer for a COVID-denying family by Frank X Walker, a comparison of hanging laundry with poetry (Maritza Rivera), and a Ruth Forman poem calling for resistance. Here's the Rivera poem for your enjoyment:

Hanging Laundry
by Maritza Rivera

Of all the chores
I did as a child

the one I hated most
was hanging laundry.

Clotheslines, clothespins
a basket of wee tee shirts
towels and bed linens:
my penance,
I saw nothing wrong
with just tossing them all
into the dryer and letting them
tumble into submission

but my insistent grandmother
would just not have it.
Why waste the warmth of the sun
she knowingly asked. Smell the tropical
breeze in the sheets she proclaimed.

I would say she had a point except
for the sudden downpour that always
followed once everything was
neatly hung and almost dry.

Running to rescue
hanging laundry
from the tears of angels
seemed so useless.

Now, here I am so many years later
seeing words hang like laundry

watching them bask in the warm
of an unsuspecting page awaiting
a cloud burst of ink.

Favorite Passages

Hope and truth could not be reconciled. The things that had filled her with awe were passing away. There was no other honest ending.

Without the ability to feel sad, a person could not be kind or thoughtful, because you wouldn't care or know how anybody else feels. Without sadness, you would never learn anything from history. Sadness is the key to loving what you love and to becoming better than you were. A person who never felt sad would be a monster.

    --Richard Powers, Playground (I could pick many more passages as well--these choices may be influenced by the fact that I am writing this early in Trump's second term.)

You know, at Vanderbilt, there was a kind of boy who wore pastel shorts and boat shoes. They wore seersucker, like they were racist lawyers from the forties. I hated them. They seemed like children but they already looked like middle-aged men. I called them Mint Julep Boys, like they missed the Old South because, even if there was horrible racism, it was worth it if it meant that they could be important by default.

     --Kevin Wilson, Nothing to See Here (see note above re Trump's second term)

American has been just, and it has perpetuated injustice. We have been peaceful, and we have perpetrated acts of violence. We have been--and are--good. And we have done terrible things to people who didn't deserve them. It has been the land of the free while simultaneously sanctioning oppression.

     --Sharon McMahon, The Small and the Mighty (note applies yet again)