A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe

A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe caught my interest for it's setting in 1930s Indochine (later, Vietnam) under French colonial rule. 

Tanabe's protagonist Jesse plotted a life to escape the crushing poverty and abuse of her childhood. She achieved an education and became a teacher, then travels to Paris. When she catches a wealthy relation to the Michelin family, she is set up for life. They are in love and have a daughter.

She has kept her past a secret, so when a woman from her previous life shows up in Paris she is desperate to flee and convinces her husband Vincent to request a position overseeing the Michelin Indochine rubber plantations.

Tanabe's portrait of Indochine's beauty, tropical climate, and decadent expat society is vivid and beautifully rendered. High society--white and rich only, of course--has a veneer of respectability. The men indulge in sexual freedoms with the local women, the women indulge in leisure and alcohol, and everyone uses cocaine freely. 

Vincent's success depends on keeping production high and expenditures low. He works to improve the quality of life for the local workers--the 'coolies.' But overseers deal out cruel punishment to any who try to unionize and fight for humane treatment, the leaders tortured or murdered.

Jesse is taken under wing by the beautiful French woman Marcelle. Marcelle has an agenda. She is a communist and hates colonization and the Michelin family, who were responsible for killing the Indochine man loved by her best friend. Her Indochine lover Khoi is wealthy and gorgeous; by law, they are not allowed to marry. The couple lure Jesse into compromising situations. Marcelle plots to drive Jesse and Victor back to France.

Jesse strives to help her husband in his work, but also experiences strange psychotic episodes and struggles with self-doubt. 

I enjoyed reading the novel for it's setting and the suspense kept me turning pages. As readers come to understand the characters and their motivations deeper, the delineation between good and evil become blurred. 

Colonization and unbridled capitalism are shown to be the true evils. The 'coolies' are virtual slaves, contracting to work for three years in brutal conditions. When workers strive to organize for better treatment they suffer dire consequences, while the French are given lenient punishments for crimes. A corrupt system corrupts those who participate in the system. 

There are scenes of sexual activity and a glimpse into the torture of communist leaders on the plantation, and stories of abuse suffered by Jesse and her siblings. 

The novel will appeal to a wide range of readers--historical fiction, women's fiction, suspense and thrillers, and those who enjoy exotic settings. It is the perfect beach read.

I received a free book from the publisher through Book Club Cook Book. My review is fair and unbiased.

A Hundred Suns
by Karin Tanabe
St. Martin's Griffin
On Sale: 03/16/2021
ISBN: 9781250231482
$17.99 trade paperback

from the publisher

On a humid afternoon in 1933, American Jessie Lesage steps off a boat from Paris and onto the shores of Vietnam. Accompanying her French husband Victor, an heir to the Michelin rubber fortune, she’s certain that their new life is full of promise, for while the rest of the world is sinking into economic depression, Indochine is gold for the Michelins. Jessie knows that the vast plantations near Saigon are the key to the family’s prosperity, and though they have recently been marred in scandal, she needs them to succeed for her husband’s sake—and to ensure that the life she left behind in America stays buried in the past.

Jessie dives into the glamorous colonial world, where money is king and morals are brushed aside, and meets Marcelle de Fabry, a spellbinding expat with a wealthy Indochinese lover, the silk tycoon Khoi Nguyen. Descending on Jessie’s world like a hurricane, Marcelle proves to be an exuberant guide to colonial life. But hidden beneath her vivacious exterior is a fierce desire to put the colony back in the hands of its people––starting with the Michelin plantations.

It doesn’t take long for the sun-drenched days and champagne-soaked nights to catch up with Jessie. With an increasingly fractured mind, her affection for Indochine falters. And as a fiery political struggle builds around her, Jessie begins to wonder what’s real in a friendship that she suspects may be nothing but a house of cards.

Motivated by love, driven by ambition, and seeking self-preservation at all costs, Jessie and Marcelle each toe the line between friend and foe, ethics and excess. Cast against the stylish backdrop of 1920s Paris and 1930s Indochine, in a time and place defined by contrasts and convictions, Karin Tanabe's A Hundred Suns is historical fiction at its lush, suspenseful best.

About the Author

Karin Tanabe is the author of The Diplomat's Daughter, The Gilded Years, The Price of Inheritance, and The List. A former Politico reporter, her writing has also appeared in the The Washington Post, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, and Newsday. She has made frequent appearances as a celebrity and politics expert on Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and The CBS Early Show. A graduate of Vassar College, Karin lives in Washington, DC.

The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn/ Queen of the Owls by Barbara Linn Probst

The library book club read in October was A. J. Finn's suspense thriller The Woman in the Window.

I have read several suspense novels in the past and am pretty much over them. I dreaded reading 488 pages! Luckily, the chapters are short, there is lots of blank space, and I read it in a few days.

Of course, there is an unreliable narrator. Not one but two 'unexpected' twists. A murder, threat of death, mental instability, and all the stock noir memes. Finn saturates the novel with references to the classic, black and white, noir movies, the narrator's obsession. 

I thought it overwritten, too many cute descriptive words. And I early guessed the real villian.

Over all, the book club readers said it was a quick easy read that kept their interest, full of the expected thriller twists. One thought it contrived. Entertainment, if nothing more. 

Maybe. One reader appreciated the insight into agoraphobia. 

And yet the book spurred a great discussion. Was too much space given to Anna's drinking or movie watching? Did we feel sympathy or disgust by her behavior? What spurred her self-destructive behavior? How soon did we predict the real villian, if at all? We talked about bad parents, red herrings, and how familiar Anna's homebound life felt during COVID-19.

Readers did find the book very cinematic with detailed descriptions that brought the book to life, and learning a movie was made of the book, we were all interested in viewing it.

*****

The Queen of the Owls by Barbara Linn Probst came to my attention on Facebook's Breathless Bubbles & Books page.

The main character, Elizabeth, struggles with her dissertation on Georgia O'Keefe, trying to connect her time in Hawaii as a transition point in her art. 

Elizabeth's marriage lacks physical passion and emotional intimacy. She finds herself attracted to a photographer and together they discuss O'Keefe and her modeling in the nude for Stieglitz. She accepts his challenge to recreate the photographs with him as a way of coming to better understand O'Keefe and her motivation for modeling, if she was a co-creator in the art.

Plot-wise, the novel felt inevitable and unsurprising. The real interest is in Elizabeth's internal struggle for self-realization. She and her sister were early pigeonholed into narrow roles. Their husbands keep them confined to those roles, Elizabeth the 'owly' intellectual, her sister the fun and pretty one. Elizabeth is a good teacher and she believes in her work and can defend it. She has to learn to believe in her beauty, free herself to find real love, and take charge of her destiny.

Much of the novel's space is centered on O'Keefe's art and life, which I did enjoy.

The sexual issues are addressed with great honesty, from the marriage bed's coolness to Elizabeth's intense, unrequited attraction.

The novel is well written and an enjoyable read. Fans of women's fiction, stories of young women's self-actualization, or the art world will enjoy this one.

I purchased an ebook.

The Ancient Nine by Ian Smith

The Ancient Nine by Ian K. Smith is a book for people who like to work out puzzles and mysteries.

A poor black kid from south side Chicago, Spenser Collins worked for academic excellence, supported by his single mom. He is also a talented basketball player. His acceptance by Harvard University starts him on his way to medical school so he can pay his mom back and support her in style.

If getting into Harvard seemed like a stretch, receiving an invitation from an exclusive final club, the Gas, totally puts Spenser outside of his comfort zone. His friend Dalton, whose family has deep Boston and Harvard roots, encourages him to go for it. There is a mystery behind the Gas involving a secret chamber and a dead student in 1951. Dalton encourages Spenser that from inside the club he can solve the mystery of what really happened in 1951.

Elaborate parties with endless drinks and gourmet food, and sometimes even 'provided' women, is the social norm for the Gas. While the other boys overindulge, Spenser stays dry and trim for basketball.

Spenser and Dalton go on a chase that involves day jaunts to talk to elderly Gas members and hours spent in dusty libraries. They create a patchwork quilt of evidence, but none of it adds up.

Meanwhile, Spenser has met the love of his life, a townie who doesn't date Harvard men. She is also from a poor single mom and smart and determined to get an education.

I knew nothing about Harvard or final clubs or Cambridge. It all sounded pretty over the top to me, but a Goggle search confirmed these clubs are elite, with the 1% of the wealthiest and most prestigious families being members. The parties at mansions, the money, the exclusiveness, the white male predominance-- it's all real. I sure hope the bussed in women for the parties are not real, but I likely am hoping in vain.

The story dragged about mid-way. I was getting tired of late nights at libraries. The mystery involves King James I and puritanical writings and Knights of the Garter protecting the reputation of the King. It's all about libraries and books and a coverup.

For all the tension over perceived threats, it was all talk and little action. There is a revelation about corrupt money and power and Spenser learns about his family history.

One aspect of the story I liked was how it addressed the African American experience in this nearly all-white exclusive world of movers and shakers.

Overall, The Ancient Nine was an entertaining light read.

The Ancient Nine
by Ian Smith, M.D.
St. Martin's Press
Pub Date 18 Sep 2018
ISBN 9781250182395
PRICE $27.99 (USD)

Suspenseful Reads: In the Garden of Blue Roses; Truly Madly Guilty; The Marsh King's Daughter

Summer is a good time for genre fiction, novels that are plot-driven and compulsive reading. If they have great characters, that's all the better. 

I needed something completely different to read and so picked up my Goodreads friend's novel The Garden of Blue Roses. I found it to be a stylish, creepy story with an unreliable narrator who may be insane. Thankfully, the atmosphere of horror and mayhem is mostly in the narrator's imagination, but for a final bloody deed. The story moves at a good clip, nicely suspenseful.

The novel opens just after the narrator Milo and his sister lose their parents in a freak car accident. Their father was a well-known horror writer. Both children are damaged by their childhood with a distant mother and father who used them in various nefarious ways.

Klara decides to create a garden. Milo does not support her idea, and worse, he distrusts the gardener she has hired who seems to use his charms to manipulate women clients. Milo is convinced that Henri is mimicking one of his father's murderous creations.

With many twists and turns, the plot resolves without just deserts, the wily villain mastering all.

Michael Barsa grew up in a German-speaking household in New Jersey and spoke no English until he went to school. He's worked as an award-winning grant writer, an English teacher, and an environmental lawyer. He now teaches environmental and natural resources law. His scholarly articles have appeared in several major law reviews, and his writing on environmental policy has appeared in The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times. His short fiction has appeared in Sequoia. The Garden of Blue Roses is his first novel.

*****

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty was a book club read, suggested by my hubby who had enjoyed the book.

Our club members mostly said the same thing: the book was easy to read, the author knew how to keep us flipping pages, but the book was pure entertainment without a message to take away. One lady wanted to edit 100 pages out of the book. Another loved, loved, loved it and said it was her favorite we had read in a while.

Then we discussed the novel for another 45 minutes. Which is interesting, since it had been decided the book had nothing really to say!

It turned out that we had a lot of strong feelings about the characters and their actions. And we talked about good and bad parenting and who was truly guilty. And how the author had perfected a style that pulled the reader along.

My hubby loved the book because it was a close study of three couples and he loves books about interpersonal relationships. I also enjoyed the book as a character study.

In the end, everyone agreed it was a nice summer read.

*****

After I read The Marsh King's Daughter on First Look Book Club, and did not win a copy of the book, I requested the galley but did not get one. It has garnered rave reviews. It is set in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan and mentions places I have seen on vacation: Tahquamenon Falls, Seney, and Newberry. Karen Dionne is a Metro Detroit author.

Last spring, I put my name on the waiting list to borrow the ebook from the library through Libby. It finally came to me this week!

I read it in two evenings, staying up late to finish it.

Helena has kept her past a secret from her husband. She needed to escape the public eye so she changed her name and created another past. Her carefully constructed world come toppling down when the police come to her door because her father has escaped from prison. Helena's husband learns she is the daughter of the infamous Marsh King who had kidnapped her teenaged mother. and held her, and their child, hostage for years.

Helena grew up in the marshes, admiring her father who taught her to hunt and survive on the land. He had a brutal side and dealt out harsh punishments.  She did not know anything else until she saw a happy family at Tahquamenon Falls--the first outsiders she had ever seen. When Helena was fourteen her mother tells her the truth, and Helena orchestrates their escape.

Helena knows she is the only person who can find her father. While she tracks her father through the territory she explored at his side we learn of her childhood and understand her turmoil. Helena knows too well her father is a narcissistic psychopath, but she also recalls how she loved him and the wilderness survival skills he taught her.

The novel is informed by Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale The Marsh King's Daughter.

Michigan is beautifully portrayed in Dionne's descriptions. The wildness, the flora and fauna, the tourist traps, and the brutal deforestation are all encountered.

The Marsh King’s Daughter is in development as a feature film.

Book Club Kit can be found at https://randomhouse.app.box.com/s/4wcjrvzj3f869qucg8gi6wxaee2rihs9

Mini-Reviews: Crime and Suspense Thrillers

What was I thinking when I put my name in to win a book titled Dead Bomb Bingo Ray?  First, the blurbs enticed me: "Hard-boiled, hilarious, and as serious as a straight razor. It has more good ideas, great jokes, and splendid writing on one age than most books have in a full chapter" --Tim Halliman; "Jeff Johnson writes with a poet's rhythm, a boxer's attitude, and an artist's sense of style and flair."-Norman Green; "A rare treat." -Publisher's Weekly.

Plus, it was set in Philadelphia. We lived in Philly for fifteen years. I love reading about Philly.

And it is a Forward Indies finalist and a Library Journal Pick.

So I put my name in and lo, soon the book with a grenade on the front cover and a gun on the back was at my doorstep.

I opened it with trepidation. What if there was graphic violence? Was I up to reading a crime novel, this Neo-Noir genre? I had read Chandler and Hammett. But this is 2018...

In short, I loved this book. It was so much fun. It had a clever, convoluted plot, great characters, and stylish writing. It is hard to admit that a killer for hire, with a poker face and criminals for friends ends up being likable. He is good to his kidnapped dog.

Ray fixes problems. He got his moniker in Detroit when he took up a bingo card and wrote "Dead Bomb" on it to warn someone what was coming up. His reputation is such that the mention of his name causes fear and trembling. Maybe some soiling of pants.

Ray's secretary Agnes was a drop-out, drop-acid hippie in the '70's but passes as a sweet, little, old lady. She can get philosophical, hates Woody Allen, and has a son, Cody, who, after trying to kill each other, Ray took up and mentors. Skuggy is Ray's Kensington right-hand-man--well, left-hand-man since his right arm has been useless since a bad combination of drugs nearly killed him when he was a kid.

I was familiar with all the Philly locales. When Ray considers the particular smell of SEPTA, the acrid stench I too well remember even thirty years later, or how from a high building the trash blended in with the snow--oh, Filthadelphia!-- I thought, he was spot on.

Like Kensington where Ray's partner in crime lives. We lived there in 1979-80, back when it was a white working-class neighborhood. In those days the unemployed youth hung under the corner street lamps, smoking, and watching out for the 'hood. There was a bar on every corner. The sidewalks sparkled with broken glass. The empty factories were playgrounds.

"This is Philly for goodness' sake. Every other monster on Market Street would pull a pistol for twenty bucks. Kensington even less."

Ray takes his girl for a winter picnic at Clark Park in West Philly (home of the world's one and only Charles Dickens statue). They sit on the very bench where he once offed a man. (That's cold.) He hangs at 30th Street Station, where I often picked my hubby up from his travels, and the Reading Terminal Market, where we used to shop, and the posh Rittenhouse Square area where my hubby worked for five years. Ray goes to East Lansdowne, not far from where we lived in Darby.

The one point of contention I have is the romantic moment when Ray is with Abigail considers the stars at night. No way. I don't recall seeing stars, ever, in Philly.

The plot goes something like this: Three years previous, Ray burned a hedge fund manager who had stolen the money of retirees. The guy wants revenge and plans to set Ray up to take the fall for his newest scam. Meantime, Ray has met the girl of his dreams, the smart and beautiful physicist Abigail. She falls head over heels in love with Ray. As Ray unravels the Russian Doll plot of double-crossing double-crossers, he needs to protect her from them and from the truth of who he is. (She thinks he is scouting locations.)

Bombs go off, people are killed in various ways or given up to be tortured, Ray picks up seafood and cooks for Abigail, and when he isn't sleeping with Abigail, Ray sleeps under his dining room table and the weapons he has stashed on the underside of the table. With his dog.

In the end, Ray has a big decision to make when Abigail invites him to follow her to L.A.

All that violence, and yet the novel reads like a joy ride on a roller coaster. Johnson doesn't glory in gore or over detailed sexual contact.

In the end, I was very happy I won Dead Bomb Bingo Ray from Turner Publishing.

*****

Bring Me Back by B. A. Paris is a quick breeze of a read with enough suspense to keep pages turning.

The story is told by Finn and his missing girlfriend of twelve years previous, the mysterious and troubled Layla. Finn has moved on and is engaged to Layla's grounded and stable sister, Ellen.

But of course, everyone has a secret and no one is reliable.

Strange occurrences make it appear that Layla is back and Finn slowly gets sucked into paranoia and doubt about who he loves. Layla communicates by email and through leaving tokens. Finn tries to logic it all out on his own--is Layla back or is someone setting him up? Then turns to his ex and his best friend, who are not above suspicion. Ellen senses he is retreating from her, but he does not share what has been happening with her or the cop who had investigated Layla's disappearance.

I had a hunch of the truth in part two, and was nearly dead-on. The ending came quickly and was lackluster.

I felt there was less substance in Bring Me Back compared to the author's earlier novels. Still, for those who want a quick summer read, beach or cabin, this could do the trick.

I received an ARC from St. Martin's Press.

Publication June 2018.

*****

Thistle Publishing reached out to me with widgets for Jack Was Here by Christopher Bardsley. I downloaded the book and forgot about it for a week. Until a thunderstorm caused a power outage in the middle of the night.

I reported the outage to the power company and, knowing I would not get back to sleep for a while, opened Kindle and saw Jack Was Here on my downloaded books. Why not give it a look, I thought. 

Bad idea. My attention was caught right off by the main character, Hugh, an Australian Marine whose time in Afghanistan has left him wounded body and soul. He has just about hit rock bottom, with alcohol as his favorite coping device. I did get back to sleep but finished the book before noon the next day.

Hugh's brother forces him out of his catastrophe of an apartment with a challenge: family friends want to hire him to find their son Jack, missing in Thailand. Hugh has been to Thailand and they hope he can aid the hired detective in finding their son. The Thai police have been useless; besides, there are sixty-eight other missing Australians.

Jack was a smart, underachieving kid who was using drugs. His folks thought a trip abroad would be good for him. He took off for Bangkok. It's been six weeks since they heard from him.

Jack's parents offer Huh ten thousand dollars to find Jack, with five hundred a week expenses, and fifteen thousand if he brings Jack home.

"Thailand had been playing on my thoughts over the last few months. It was a mecca for losers like me, a warm climate to piss away your troubles. (...)I didn't expect that finding Jack would be all that difficult." Jack was Here

Hugh accepts the offer. It was, he thought, the "best possible thing that could have happened to me at that point. It was a bit of direction in my life."

As Hugh follows the paper trail of phone and banking records, readers get a deep look into the seamy side of Thailand, the prostitution and party life that attracts kids and middle-aged office workers looking for unbridled freedom from the drudge of their lives. And into the criminal organizations that run drugs from Cambodia through Thailand, and the police corruption that benefits with colluding with the criminals.

Getting Jack involves some pretty ugly things, including murder. But Hugh is determined to save one young man, an expiation for surviving what his fellow soldiers did not. 

I liked how Bardsley allowed Hugh to be the damaged person he is. I can't say readers will 'like' him and all his choices but we understand his struggle and pain. 

Winston Graham's Disturbing Suspense Novel Marnie

A few years ago we went to see Alfred Hitchcock's movie Marnie at the Redford Theater, a historic theater with an organ that shows classic movies. The theater is located in Detroit draws hundreds out for every show.

We went partly because Tippi Hedron was appearing in person, with talks before the movie and during intermission and autographing photos and posters. And we went because when I was ten years old I saw Marnie from the back seat of our family car at the local drive-in movie theater. I was supposed to be asleep. Just like when I was supposed to be asleep during The Birds and The Incredible Shrinking Man. Each movie left me with bad dreams, but it was Marnie that left me struggling to understand it.

So when at a local book sale I saw a battered paperback of Winston Graham's novel Marnie, released in conjunction with Hitchcock's movie, I spent my quarter and picked it up. Perhaps the book would help me to peg down the story.

Graham is best known for the Poldark series which inspired the Masterpiece Theater series of that name, which my husband has been reading. Marnie is set in England not long after WWII, and is told in the first person. We learn that Marnie grew up in a tough neighborhood with a dad lost in the war and a strict but distant mother. Marnie gets into fights and steals and lies. Her mother insists her daughter avoid men.

When Marnie buys a horse she must find a way to support him, and being a smart gal, she plans and executes a series of thefts, assuming false identities to obtain jobs where she can get her hands on money. She is twenty-three when she has finished another heist and her employer Mark Rutland tracks her down.

Mark has fallen in love with the beautiful Marnie. She warns him that she is a liar and thief, but Mark insists he can't control his heart. He offers her an ultimatum: he can turn her in and she will be imprisoned for her crimes, or she can marry him and he will cover for her.

Marnie can't stand to be close to anyone, is unable to love, and hates the thought of men and sex. Her horse is the only creature in the world she cares for. Forced to marry Mark, she won't submit to him as a wife should. Frustrated, he forces himself on her once, then they learn to live together in distant animosity and distrust.

Mark forces Marnie into counseling, but she is too clever for even the psychologist, continuing her habit of lies and false stories. Over time, men recognize Marnie from her past lives. And at the death of her mother, Marnie learns her mother's secret history and double life.

Different from Hitchcock's version, Graham's version of the mother's crisis is not of Marnie's doing. And Graham includes a co-worker of Mark's who tries to cozy up to Marnie, and ends up betraying her.

Marnie is one messed up girl, but Mark is perhaps even sicker. He marries Marnie for her physical beauty in spite of her inability to feel emotion that allows her to plot crimes without a sense of wrongdoing. He entraps Marnie and even rapes her when she is not complicit. He is willing to cover up her crimes and endeavors to even enlist the help of a retired judge to figure out how Marnie can avoid the consequences of her crimes.

Marnie returns to her mother's house to discover she has died.  She finds a newspaper clipping telling that her mother had murdered her newborn baby, which had been kept from Marnie.

Graham offers a moment of hope for Marnie near the end of the book. At a fox hunt, she feels revulsion of the cruelty of those around her, questioning why their killing for pleasure was legal when her crimes would merit jail. She turns from the death scene of the fox, allowing her horse his head, Mark chasing after her. Unfamiliar with the landscape, her horse jumps over a hedge and onto a riverbank, suffering a fatal injury. Marnie also falls, and so does Mark, his face in the mud. Marnie leaves her suffering horse to save Mark, lifting him from the mud and wiping it from his nose. There is a glimmer of morality and compassion in her choice.

She later meets a bereft boy who has lost his mother and she holds him.

"I thought, that's right, be a mother for a change. Bite on somebody else's grief instead of your own. Stop being to heartbroken for yourself and take a look round. Because maybe everybody's griefs arent'that much different after all. I thought, there's only one loneliness, and that's the loneliness of all the world."

Just before the twisted ending, Marnie, feeling all 'emotional and female and hopeless,' wonders if she was in love with Mark.

Marnie is the story of trauma, mental illness, crime, deception, and a man's sick obsession with a woman.

It is little wonder that I have been disturbed by this story for about fifty years. And it is little wonder that the twisted Hitchcock wanted to film it. Poor Tippi-- Hitchcock derailed her career when she rebuffed his sexual advances. Her studio contract gave her no options, including legal ones.

Fifty years later, Tippi at age 87 cheered the actresses standing up against the abuse suffered under Harvey Weinstein, as seen in her Tweet of October 2017:

Now I am filled with compassion and respect for Tippi's standing up to power, speaking out her truth, and for introducing a film that was at once her triumph and secret tragedy.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent? Damaged by Lisa Scottoline

Mary DiNunzio, South Philly born and bred, has risen to partnership in Bennie Rosato's legendary Center City law firm. If Bennie is the strong and sure leader of her practice, Mary is all heart--and lots of righteous indignation.

Mary was the Neighborhood Girl Who Made Good, so she got her self-esteem from being universally beloved.

Mary has a big case and a wedding weeks away when an elderly grandfather comes into the office. His orphaned grandson, an engaging ten-year-old with Dyslexia, is accused of attacking a school aide and they are being sued. Patrick reveales that the aide molested him. Mary takes the case. Discovering the school has failed to offer Patrick the help he needs to learn to read and become successful she arranges for his admission into a private school.

That evening Mary stops by their house to find the grandfather has died and Patrick is in denial. Stepping in to help, Mary becomes emotionally attached and can't let go. She decides to become Patrick's foster parent to ensure he gets the help he needs.

But is Patrick as innocent as he appears? When a fraught Patrick holds a gun on the Department of Human Services case worker who wants to separate him from Mary he is classified as a threat. The police even suspect Patrick of causing his grandfather's death by an overdose of insulin.

Damaged is the newest Lisa Scottoline book in the best selling Rosato & DiNunzio series. It is geared to shed light on the complexities of child welfare, the intricacies of the foster system, and the challenges facing special needs children. Most of the novel revolves around Mary's fight to become Patrick's foster mom.

The subplot offers suspense and thrills after Mary starts piecing things together. Meanwhile, her fiancée is out of town and unaware of Mary's decisions. What will Anthony think when he returns to find Mary is committing to parenting a child without his input? Will their relationship end as they realize they are not operating as 'married', but as individuals make decisions alone, not jointly?

The issues Scottoline address in the novel are important and readers learn along with Mary. This does slow the book down, but the tension of what will happen--and what did happen--drives the reader's interest. Mary's delightful family and neighborhood friends are always fun and add lighthearted comic moments.

Read the first chapter at http://scottoline.com/book/damaged/

Read my review on Scottline's previous book Corrupted here

I received a free book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Damaged
Lisa Scottoline
St Martin's Press
$27.99 hard cover, $14.99 ebook
Publication August 16, 2016

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley: Information vs Entertainment

With the all the buzz about Noah Hawley's Before the Fall I got in a NetGalley request at the last minute and the publisher quickly responded. Two days later I had finished the novel.

Yes, it is that good a read. I gave up going to see Love and Friendship so I could finish the book.

The book begins with a private plane that crashes into the ocean. One man survives and rescues a child. The rest of the book explores, person by person, each passenger 'before the fall', alternating with the investigation and lives of the survivors. This stretches the suspense and drives the reader.

So, its a good beach read and will soon a movie coming to a theater near you.

No, wait, there is more to Before the Fall than plot-driven suspense. Hawley uses the story to explore the role of television journalism and its propensity to manipulate news--to drive profits via increased viewers, even at the expense of the innocent.

Scott Burroughs is climbing back up from a complete meltdown. His early promise as an artist was frittered away with partying and playing the field. Only after reaching rock bottom and dealing with his alcoholism was he able to recreate himself. His sister had drowned as a child. Scott's new series of paintings probes the disasters that await us.

At the farm market Scott had an informal friendship with a wealthy mother and wife, Maggie Bateman. Maggie learns Scott is going into New York City to organize a show of his paintings on the same day her family are taking a private plane there. She invites him to tag along. Eighteen minutes after take-off the plane dives into the sea. Scott thinks he is the only survivor, and as a swimmer hopes to make it to shore. Scott hears Maggie's son JJ calling, and with grit and determination he miraculously saves them both.

Scott should be considered a hero, or a victim of a terrible disaster. To Bill Cunningham, David Bateman's television network star, Scott is an opportunity. Cunningham is arch conservative, a bulldog, who promotes his opinion as 'news.' He begins a campaign that questions if Scott is the villain behind the tragedy. Scott's heroism arises again as he takes arms against notoriety. Even imperfect failures can be heroes.

I was glad to have read this novel and will recommend it to my book club as a great discussion book. Those who like a character or plot driven novel will like it, and it will spark discussion of contemporary media/news practices.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.


Before the Fall
Noah Hawley
Grand Central Publishing
$26 hard cover
ISBN: 9781455561780