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Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Book Review: Charming by Elliott James, Urban Fantasy

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Charming (Pax Arcana) is a refreshing take on the fantasy theme of a secret society that protects the world from bugaboos, vampires, werewolves and things that are out to kill us.  The difference is that this secret society, the Knights Templar, isn’t trying to rid the world of dangerous supernatural predators; it is charged with keeping the rest of humanity oblivious to the creatures. The rule is called the Pax Arcana and it is a geas that compels the society to rid the bad guys that get too obvious, such as vampires that start serial killing young women in a rural town.  They are obsessive about maintaining secrecy – and the purity of their group.

The hero is John Charming.  By birth he is a member of the secret society, but he has one big problem.  A werewolf bit his mom when she was 9 months pregnant with John.  She died the first full moon but John was infected.  The society tolerated him until a few years before the story opens when apparently they decided he was too much at risk to turn wolf.  Now John watches his back while he lives in a small rural college town, tending bar under a different name.

World Building

Charming is Elliott James’s first novel and the first in the Pax Arcana series.  The book is set in our world, rural America, so the primary world building is the background for the Pax Arcana, the menagerie of supernatural folk, and making it clear that John Charming is not a supernatural cop nor a Harry Dresden type with plenty of magic power at his disposal.

James dis a great job laying out his world by showing it, with no long explanations.  John Charming narrates the book in the first person, so we see everything through his eyes, which must be a challenging way to describe a whole magic system.  I was impressed with how natural the flow was in the story.  The only part that was challenging to follow was the knights from whom John Charming is hiding; we learned little about how they operated or were organized.

Besides the usual vampires and werewolves we have Naga and Valkeries with other creatures suggested.  It was great to see that the vampires were sexy only if you liked corpse-dead looks and bad breath and that werewolves feel great pain when they transform and that Naga like heat but can burn if you work at it. These were refreshing, and even better, gave the book depth and authenticity.

Characters

Some fantasy novels are all action and setting and unpronouncable words with clip art characters who have zero personality. Charming delivers real people who suffer and feel and rejoice and fear.  Besides John Charming we have Sig, a Valkerie, Molly the Episcopal priest, Ted Cahill the snarky cop, Chauncey Choo, a pot smoking semi-normal guy who got into monster hunting doing his day job of professional exterminator, and Dvornik the Eastern European kresnik, similar to the Knights that John came from.

Let’s look at Choo.  A professional exterminator who got a few houses with more than mundane pests, he teamed up with Molly and Sig to hunt a vampire nest operating in John’s peaceful college town.  If you think about it, who better to see through the Pax Arcana illusion than a professional exterminator?  If you’re killing roaches and rats, focusing on removing icky critters, you will be less susceptible to the Pax Arcana illusion.  The novel is full of these innovative touches.

The villains are equally well done, from the nasty teen aged vampire Anne Marie working on developing a whole nest of vampires and vampire wannabes, to Ivan, to Dvornik and his nephews who played both sides.

Anne Marie has only a few lines but they are great:  “Do you know what it’s like being me?  I’m a damned corpse!  I can’t feel anything except cold, and I’m cold all the time.  Except when I’m drinking blood.”

Series Intro

Charming is the first in the series. Daring is book 2 followed by Fearless which is due out August 11.  This was a series with rich characters and back story and strong foundation for follow up novels.  I am off to reserve Daring now!

Down Where My Love Lives, Two Books by Charles Martin, The Dead Don’t Dance and Maggie

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First, know that Down Where My Love Lives is a compilation of two novels, The Dead Don’t Dance (Awakening Series #1)
and Maggie (Awakening Series #2). Also The Dead Don’t Dance was the first book Charles Martin published. I read these within a couple weeks of reading Where the River Ends, an excellent novel with many of the same themes.  Unfortunately Down Where My Love Lives felt like the rough draft.

Many reviewers describe Martin’s writings as sentimental, but I don’t agree with that assessment.  Martin includes emotion and he writes about love as the center point and reason for being.  Unfortunately this duology has a big dose of melodrama, but it is still good enough to be an enjoyable read.

The Dead Don’t Dance Book 1

The Dead Don’t Dance starts out with Dylan and Maggie, married for just a couple of years, expecting their first child.  Maggie seems compulsive, unrealistic and controlling, and Dylan’s devotion to her was puzzling.  She sure wouldn’t be my first choice of a spouse.

Dylan farms a large plot in South Carolina that he inherited from his grandparents, but they live on only $20,000 a year. Maggie spent several hundred on nice-but-not-essential baby things at the local baby store, far more than Dylan could afford, and freaked out when she found a black hair growing on her chin.

Their son is stillborn and Maggie hemorrhages and goes into a coma.  The novel alternates flashbacks to Dylan’s life before and with Maggie with his response to her long coma.  In the meantime Dylan starts a new job teaching English at the community college (which Maggie applied for unbeknownst to Dylan), delivers Amanda’s baby in the freezing rain, tries to make friends with Maggie’s pet pig Pinky, and tends Maggie every day.  He lets his farm go and loses his crop.

Throughout we see Dylan through his thoughts and actions and how others respond to him.  He is deeply committed to his wife, overall kind and thoughtful, caring, not terribly interested in money or worldly success.  He’s the type of guy you want to know and be friends with.

The exception was the episode that seemed completely pointless, cruel and had no place in the book, the raccoon hunt.  Raccoons can be vicious and pests in a city but the hunters went into a wild swamp to hunt the coons.  The raccoon in the swamp was surely no threat or pest.  Martin describes how Amos shot the coon – deliberately NOT killing it – so that it fell down through many feet of branches to get attacked and and eaten while alive by the coon dogs.   I don’t have a problem with hunting animals you plan to eat or to remove pests like the bazillion rabbits in our area, but first why would they hunt a wild raccoon they don’t plan to eat and second, why deliberately be that cruel?  And what was the possible reason to include this in the novel?  It gave no insight to Dylan or his friends except to make me dislike the bunch.

The Dead Don’t Dance was overall mediocre and had I read it before others by Charles Martin I would not have pursued any more of his novels.  It was OK at best.

Maggie

Martin wrote a sequel that picks up 17 months later, after Maggie awakens from her coma.  Dylan experienced serious emotional events while she was in the coma and finds it very hard to tell Maggie about them, partly because he doesn’t want to make her feel even worse than she already does about their stillborn child.  This part of the novel felt authentic to me.

Maggie had an intricate and ridiculous plot, picked up the story of Dylan’s love for Maggie and threw in the complication that Maggie may be unable to carry a child to term.  Oh, and throw in the fact that Dylan’s best friend and across-the-street neighbor married Amanda whose father’s enemies – former partners in crime – are after him and everyone close to him.  That leads to kidnapping Amanda, torching Dylan’s house, killing his dog, assaulting Maggie, burning down the father’s church.

The book is overly complex. Dylan and Maggie need to get acquainted in some sense; Dylan lived 4 months alone, buried their son alone, dealt with a new job alone.  Maggie missed all that and woke up with the fear for her child top of her mind.

Maggie gets pregnant but miscarries and she and Dylan decide to adopt.  However the agency looks askew at their finances, overall life style (truck instead of a mini van) and mostly at Maggie’s emotional health.  Dylan takes steps to become acceptable to them, borrowing $40,000 to finance the adoption, trading in his truck for a van, but Maggie is oblivious to the problems.

Now add the neighbor and best friend, Amos, whose father-in-law gave evidence that put his former partners in prison for years.  Those creeps are violent and want to destroy the father-in-law, his entire family, and for some reason, Dylan too.

The last plot point is about Bryce, a former US marine who is rich but lives in a trailer in a closed drive in movie theater.  Bryce is generous with time and money and likes Dylan and Maggie, and in return they take care of him to the extent he allows it.  The twist in Maggie is that Bryce changed; he is bathed, trailer picked up and repaired, he is back in shape.  Someone from the military comes to advise Bryce’s financial adviser and Dylan to keep away from him, that Bryce could snap.

Just like the first book, Dylan is interesting, someone you want to know.  Maggie seems selfish and controlling.  Amos is a great guy, Amanda too good to be true.  Characters are partially developed, not complete people.

Summary

Charles Martin shows flashes of the good writer he later proves to be.  He writes of the most ghastly places imaginable, swamps, South Carolina farms with swarms of mosquitoes, places where a “cool” evening is 78 degrees, and makes them almost seem desirable.  He emphasizes the heat and mugginess and bugs, that summer last 6 months or more, but you can tell that he loves it.  It’s home.  All of his books are set in these horrible places.

He writes of love, especially the committed love of true marriage, but from the husband’s perspective.  Most romance books are from the wife’s point of view and it is lovely to see a man confessing his love.

He used some similar elements in Maggie as in Where the River Ends.  Both have a sick wife, a disparate couple, committed marriage, no children, icky hot muggy swampy southern setting, lots of emotion.  In fact Martin uses the term “indomitable” to describe both Maggie and Abbie in Where the River Ends.  Martin learned to tidy up his plots and show his characters far better by the time he wrote Where the River Ends.

Overall I’d give this 2 or 3 stars.  A mediocre but tolerable first novel, ragged around the edges and not a good introduction to an excellent author.

Big Disappointment – He Drank and Saw the Spider by Alex Bledsoe

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After enjoying The Sword-Edged Blonde (reviewed here) I was eager to read more Eddie LaCrosse adventures by Alex Bledsoe. Unfortunately He Drank, and Saw the Spider: An Eddie LaCrosse Novel disappoints.

We still have Eddie, now on vacation with his girlfriend,  Liz Dumont, traipsing through the world, we have the refreshing modern names and vocabulary, we have other characters and flashbacks to Eddie’s first years as a mercenary.  We also have gaping plot holes, boring secondary characters, and a force-fit sets of problems.  Overall the book was boring with a predictable conclusion.

I read several other Amazon reviews and most enjoyed the book, giving it a 4 1/2 star overall rating which is darn good.  No one commented on the gaping plot hole, which means either it didn’t bother anyone else or the answer was in the book and I missed it.

In the flashback to 16 years before, Eddie encounters a group of soldiers sent by Crazy King Jerry with orders to kill the baby girl he protected.  We never found why the soldiers were sent after the baby, particularly puzzling since Crazy King Jerry wasn’t even aware there was a baby.  I was pretty sure who the baby would turn out to be, but kept reading because I couldn’t see why Jerry would want her dead.  This wasn’t answered and frankly, I don’t really care enough to go back through and see whether I missed it.

This was a big enough let down that I doubt I’ll look for any more books in the series.

Review: House of the Last Man on Earth, Science Fiction with Time Travel

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I wasn’t sure what to expect with House of the Last Man On Earth. Science fiction? End of the world?  (Please no , we’ve had a lot of these lately.)   The blurb was intriguing when I read it the first time, less promising on the second read.   “Convinced that his bizarre neighbor might be a part of a hostile alien agenda, college student Richard Johnson, along with his mathematics teacher and her brother, embark upon a soaring and treacherous journey…”  Oh my.

House of the Last Man On Earth turned out to be excellent, a combination of science fiction with the requisite aliens, time travel, escapes, species annihilation (us that is, humans get killed off.) The characters were easy to keep straight and the plot was internally consistent and the setting was part in beautiful Colorado and part in outer space.

Characters

Our hero, Richard Johnson, is a normal guy, a little bit of a loser.  He joined the marines right out of high school, discovered he had no knack or desire for war and shooting people but was able to get into the Marine Corp band which he enjoyed.  When he left the marines he went to the University of Colorado but wasn’t sure what to major in.  He liked lots of things but no one enough to concentrate.  Forced by his need for cash and parental approval he declared aeronautical engineering and was taking several hard math classes (and not doing well in them) when the story opens.

I could relate to Richard.  He wanted to do the right thing, wasn’t sure exactly what that was, was inordinately curious, broke, and had a crush on his set theory teacher, Summer Jacklyn, Mrs. Jacklyn.  Richard walked his land lady’s dog, Genghis Khan daily in exchange for reduced rent and he and the dog had an agreement.  They didn’t like each other but they were willing to go for short walks.  And both were wary of the Ghoul, true name Dr. Thaddeus Rumpkin.
One day Khan got away from Richard and ducked into the Ghoul’s bathroom, through a shimmer in the shower and into another world.  Richard followed and quickly realized he was in the far future.  There was no one around but there was a house, reachable by climbing over 700 steps in a driving rain.  That kicks off the action.

Richard is kind, funny, thoughtful, smart and very well drawn.  His character was one of the highlights of the book.  In the course of investigating the time curtain Richard runs into Sam Robinson, who is a genetics post doc and had his own reasons to be curious about the Ghoul.  Sam happens to be Summer’s brother, and the three end up on a great adventure.

The other two main characters, the Ghoul and Tao Benrobi were both biologically human but created by warring groups.  The Ghoul was placed on earth to insert genes into humanity that would make everyone sterile, eliminating humans within a few hundred years.  Benrobi was placed by the opposite side because they determined that Richard and our time was a flux point.

All five main characters and the many minor ones are set up as real people, with good and bad traits, quirks and attitudes.  Richard hooked me in the first chapter and then the action and other people kept me reading.

Plot

The story line is convoluted, happening in three different times, several locations and with unclear enemies.  At one point the Ghoul tells Richard that HIS side is the good guys!  This is by the way, the group that caused humanity to go extinct.
We have time travel, murderous biologic constructs (think flying mouths), marching armies of 10 foot tall warriors, space battles, narrow escapes, an opportunity to commit genocide (that is refused), red Porsche cars, highway chases, deluges, house fires, irate ex-girlfriends.  What’s not to like?

The ending was among the best parts of the book.  It wrapped up the story nicely without completely answering every single question.  The good guys win and we have hope that perhaps Earth and humanity can escape the coming centuries of misery and the oncoming Enemy.

Summary

House of the Last Man On Earth is not a super fast read, it took me about 4 hours, but it was a lot of fun.  I wanted to know what was next and what happens to these neat people that are just like friends, and will look for more by authors Robert B Marcus, Jr and Ryan B Marcus.

I was given House of the Last Man On Earth from Net Galley with the request for an honest review.

Witches Protection Program, Urban Fantasy by Michael Phillip Cash

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If you are in the mood for a cute, easy to read e-book then try Witches Proection Program by Michael Cash. I read it as an early reviewer through Net Galley and it’s on Amazon with quite good reviews.

Unfortunately I can’t recommend this book more than halfheartedly.  It is too silly and the characters are two dimensional, caricatures of evil witches, earnest young men, bitter old men and ambitious corporate execs. The plot starts out OK but the last quarter gets ridiculous as do the characters.

The story has two types of witches living among us regular folks, Davina who are good and Willa who are bad.  In this case, thoroughly bad, greedy and wanting to take over the world and put all the men in concentration camps type bad.  That’s the background.

The dialogue is partly good and partly wince-worthy.  That’s the basic problem with the book, it varies between being quite cute and reasonably entertaining and making me wish I never downloaded it.

Review: Notes From A Small Island, Bill Bryson, Thoughts About England

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Bill Bryson wrote Notes from a Small Island after his farewell tour of England in 1995, detailing his thoughts and reactions to the countryside and the people.  The book blurb says it is hilarious, I don’t agree.  Funny, yes in parts.  Insightful, yes.

Parts of the book were appalling, especially when Bryson describes his rude response to waiters and hotel clerks.  He admitted he treated people poorly a few times but other times seemed almost tone deaf.  One example was when he got soaked in a rainstorm walking back to his his hotel and had to wait a few minutes for the clerk to open up.  He recognized his rudeness but didn’t seem particularly ashamed or sorry.

I enjoyed reading about the countryside very much.  He spent most of his time in scenic, wilder places or small towns, not the typical London/Tower of England tour, and I loved reading about the beautiful countryside.

Bryson had interesting insights into the British character.  I was particularly struck by the “one mustn’t grumble” attitude he described several times.  It’s a refreshing change to see people who are content, even if they don’t have a lot of extras, and who appreciate what they do have.  I wonder whether this attitude is still prevalent or has shifted to the “I want” and the “more” attitude we see too often.

I liked reading about the walks; I would enjoy some of that although 10 miles is probably a bit much.  Bryson took public transportation or walked, and hired a car for only a few days out of a 7 week trip.

Some of his musings on politics and economics were worth reading.  He doesn’t see why certain things need to pay for themselves, and includes public transit, museums, national parks in that group.  I agree although I think public transit should make some sort of sense.  On the flip side he worked through a very long strike by the various printers/news workers unions early in his time in England and had nothing good to say about groups that insisted on ridiculous work rules and over staffing.

Late in the book he visits Durham and fell in love with the place.  I read about him online and saw that he did indeed go back to England after several years back in the US and settled in Durham.

I recommend this book although it didn’t inspire me to seek out more of Bryson’s writing.  He has a keen eye for place, the nuances of character that people display, interesting thoughts and ideas.   The downsides were the slow pace, glacial in spots, and the occasional display of mean temper.  Otherwise it was interesting but I wouldn’t call it a fun read.

Review: Let It Burn, by Steve Hamilton, An Alex McKnight Novel

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Steve Hamilton created a special character with Alex McKnight, and it is the character’s interaction with his friends and antagonists that make the series so special.  The other point that makes Hamilton’s books special is the setting in a remote part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Synopsis

With Let It Burn: An Alex McKnight Novel we have Alex but it is set in Detroit instead of Paradise, Michigan.  The book flips between Alex’s last big case the year his life changed and today as Alex learns that the man he helped get convicted of murder, Daryl King, is getting released from prison.  That gets Alex thinking and he mentally goes back to the few points on the case that didn’t strike him as quite right.

Alex drives to Detroit to have a drink with his old sergeant and see his would-be girlfriend, and on the way stops in Houghton Lake to see the detective he worked with on the murder case.  He ends up driving around the area in Detroit where they hunted and found the young Daryl and Alex even stops to meet Daryl’s mom.  Something about her conviction that Daryl could not have killed anyone brings all Alex’s reservations to the fore and he continues to dig into the case.

Then he finds his former detective co-worker murdered and the work shifts to be a hunt for Daryl Young.  Alex still is not convinced Daryl killed the woman years before and even less convinced he killed the detective, but Daryl is the obvious suspect.

Time Flashes

At this point Let It Burn starts flipping between 30 years ago and today as Alex first learns that there are other unsolved murders with the same MO as the first lady.  The comparisons between Detroit 30 years ago and today are sad but fascinating (and I think a little outdated given some of the improvements in the last year) and we go along with Alex as he retraces his thinking and the past case.

The Ending

The very first time the eventual killer was introduced in the story he struck me as the killer, although with no real reason.  Alex eventually stumbles around, as he usually does, and resolves the whodunit and nearly ends up dead himself.  I had mixed feelings about the ending.  It was good suspense, very much in character, fit all the other books.  However, there was no earthly reason for the real murderer to attack Alex.  He could have gotten away with it.

Then the after action seemed a bit misty.  Alex was concussed and the way he narrated the action fit the concussion.

Characters

As usual Alex made the book.  Leon, his erstwhile PI partner, and Jackie, his host at the Glasgow Inn, made small cameo appearances.  Vinnie did not show up at all.  I missed the usual cast.  Daryl’s mother and the detective and Alex’s former partner were good but not as quirky or as interesting as the usual Yooper group.

Overall Let It Burn: An Alex McKnight Novel was very good, certainly better than many suspense/mystery novels.  It wasn’t quite as compelling a read as Hamilton’s other Alex McKnight books but still excellent.  The time flashes were very well done and the shift in mood from pensive to active were spot on.  It also was a little less dark than some of Hamilton’s other books.  I just missed the usual quirky characters and the Upper Peninsula setting.

Irene Hannon – Guardians of Justice Series, Fatal Judgment, Deadly Pursuit, Lethal Legacy

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I’m not sure how we never encountered Irene Hannon before, but after reading her novel Deceived (Private Justice, Volume 3), Dave and I got more of her books from the library.  This review covers the three books in her Guardians of Justice series, Fatal Judgment, Deadly Pursuit and Lethal Legacy.

This series covers two brothers and their sister, all involved in justice-related fields, and their close encounters with vicious or deranged nut cakes.  The books re-use the characters, with each sibling taking the spotlight in one book each.

Fatal Judgment

Jake Taylor is a US Marshal charged with protecting a US federal judge, Liz, the widow of Jake’s college best friend.  Jake has bad feelings for Liz based on her husband’s comments before he died that blamed her for being a workaholic and cold, unloving.  Liz needs security while the FBI and marshals investigate the murder of her sister which occurred at Liz’s home.  Although everyone assumes that her sister’s estranged husband did the murder, they take no chances.

The book has two plot lines, one a straightforward suspense story about finding who was trying to kill Liz and why, and the second is the more interesting, the romance between Jake and Liz.  Overall both are well done, although the suspense part was a bit implausible.

Hannon develops strong and likable characters.  She puts a face on the villain and we see him as a person, not just a foil for Jake and Liz.  I was a bit incredulous that the St. Louis police could drop everything and chase after one person like that, and I wondered what would have happened had the Liz not had the good fortune to have Jake involved.  Jake’s brother Cole is a detective on the St. Louis force and I was struck several times at how they were able to call upon the resources of that police force even when uncertain that a crime was in the works.

Deadly Pursuit

Allison, sister to Jake and Cole, is a case worker at the Children’s Family Services.  Like Liz, Allison gains the fatal attention of a disgruntled man, angry because his ex-girlfriend won’t take him back after he gets out of prison, and blames Allison for the girl friend’s stance.

Allison meets Cole’s friend, Mitch.  We have the same combination of a suspense story and romance.  This novel has the same strengths – excellent character and good story telling – as Fatal Judgment, and the same weaknesses.  I thought it a bit over the top that someone would decide to kill a social worker to pay her back for the girl friend’s rejection.  Even with the villain being a meth addict, this seemed a bit extreme and once again Mitch and Jake were able to call upon the resources of the police department in the nick of time.

Hannon makes her characters so believable that we can go along and ignore the weaknesses in the plot.  I thought this villain was particularly well done, especially the parts where he realizes that he is walking a precipice.

Lethal Legacy

Younger brother Cole, police detective, is asked to look at a case that the prior detective, Alan, already closed as a suicide.  The suicide’s daughter Kelly does not believe her father killed himself and pushed to get the case re-opened.  Cole is attracted to her immediately and agrees to look further despite being skeptical that they will find anything to show murder.

Lethal Legacy had a few interesting twists and I enjoyed it as well.  There were two villains, the murderer and the man who hired him, and neither was sympathetic.  Had the murderer not tried to eliminate Kelly’s questions by killing her, he would have gotten away with it.  There was not much evidence to overturn the suicide determination.

Maybe it was because this was the third in the series and I read all three within a few days, but I didn’t care for Lethal Legacy as much.  The romance seemed a bit more contrived and the villains more hurriedly sketched than the others.

Overall

All three novels shared similar strengths and weaknesses.  The would-be victim in all three was female (and it would be interesting to see Hannon turn it around and have the girl save the guy sometime) and all were in the right place and time to attract a man who was looking for the next step in life, ready to find a wife, come back to church, start a family.

The romance was well done, understated and not at all steamy, and we could see the characters falling in love as if it was inevitable.   The suspense part was also done well, assuming we bought into the basic premise.

I am glad I picked the first book, Deceived, up off the end cap at the library!

Short Stories From a Favorite Children’s Author – Disconcerting Tales for Adults

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One of my favorite authors as a kid was Elizabeth Enright.  I read her books about the Melendy family, The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, Then There Five and Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze, over and over. I identified with Randy and felt Rush was just like my brother Bob. Thimble Summer and Newberry winner Gone-Away Lake  were favorites too, although I read each of them only a half dozen times or so.

I recently ordered the Melendy books for our granddaughter to read when she visits and came across a book of collected short stories she wrote for adults, Borrowed Summer.  Had I not seen the author’s name I would not have guessed these were by the same author as the serious but oh-so-much-fun children’s books.  All the stories are set in the late 1930s to mid 1940s.

The title story sets the tone.  Raymond Lantry is a clerk, living at a mean boardinghouse in the city who has no money, no family and no prospect of ever having anything more than a dreary life all alone.  He has one radiant memory, of a week in the country so long ago, visiting his aunt.

One day Raymond decides to abscond with one of the firm’s payments instead of depositing it as he should.  He goes west, leaves the train on a whim somewhere in rural Wisconsin.  Raymond tells everyone he is Raymond Beemond, looking for a quiet place to write a book, and takes a room with Mrs. Meinhardt at her farm.  Raymond spends the golden summer building memories.  Helping with the harvest, spending time fishing with little Marvel, eating with the family.  There is growing interest with widowed Mrs. Meinhardt.

It ends when Mrs. Meinhardt’s son, Earl, is wounded in the Pacific war and is coming home.  Raymond says good-bye, leaves all the rest of his embezzled money in an oriole’s nest in Earl’s room and goes back east to face the music.  The story makes you question what you would do if you had no memories, no summers of joy to recall and no hope.  It’s excellent.

Another very good one is Home to Grandma’s, where we see Fenella traveling south on the train with her mother to visit her grandmother.  Fenella is precocious, smart, polite, and six years old.  She is also African-American and bewildered by the strange way people treat her mother and her, especially when they reach their destination.  As her mother says “I forgot where I was.”  All Fenella wants to do is go home where things are normal again.

Most of the characters in the other stories are not good people.  Olivia in The Maple Tree is desperate to live in a ghostly fantasy.  In The Bureau of Lost and Found Mrs. Persin tries to confess her terrible cruelty and trouble-making to her dying brother-in-law.  She tells him how she made it look like her sister had an affair (which in the end caused her sister to commit suicide), but her brother-in-law is too busy dying to even listen.  Another character tells fortunes for a living and decides to frighten everyone, for no better reason than she fears her lover is casting her aside.

One of the recurring themes is the daughter (or daughter-in-law) caring for an invalid mother.  The one of these I liked best was A Ton of Pitchblende where the daughter-in-law takes comfort in a night flower which is ready to bloom its once-a-year blossom.

If you read this book you will remember the stories.  Not all of them of course, some did not resonate with me.  But the tales of women deciding to take revenge for some slight or hurt by grossly hurting everyone they can, or caring for an elderly mother or getting the news of a son’s death in war all have strong emotions.  The characters all try to solve the problem of alone-ness, alienation, whether by taking revenge or finding joy and storing memories.

I got this on inter library loan from Wayne State University.  Amazon has a different book of Elizabeth Enright’s short stories, The Riddle of the Fly & Other Stories, which I did not read.

 

 

Wild Horses – Dick Francis – Movie Making, Racing and Danger!

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If you like Dick Francis you’ll love his Wild Horses, a novel featuring film director Thomas Lyon who is making a movie loosely based on a true life unsolved hanging death that scandalized the English racing world 25 years before. If you haven’t found Dick Francis then this is a great introduction to his novels.

All of Francis’s novels are linked somehow to the English horse racing world, whether the main character is a jockey or trainer, or a chef with a fine restaurant in the racing countryside or a financier who backed the syndication of a prime stallion for stud. Wild Horses is one of two where the characters are making a movie.  (The other is Smokescreen set in South Africa.)

Synopsis

The novel starts with Thomas Lyon visiting an old family friend, Valentine, who is nearly dead of cancer.  Delirious with pain, Valentine mistakes Thomas for a priest and confesses to killing “the Cornish boy”.  Valentine is rambling and Thomas has no idea what he is talking about.  Thomas befriends Valentine’s widowed sister, Dorothea, and helps her with her overbearing and pompous son, Paul.  He also inherits all of Valentine’s books and papers.

Thomas’s movie, Unstable Times, is made from a successful novel that is rather dreamy and amorphous.  Thomas forces the stuck up author to revise the story to make it more intense, adds in steamy scenes and paints Cibber as the villain who killed the girl and is trying his best to frame the husband for murder. Thomas’s movie is completely untrue to the novel or the historical situation.  The author has a fit and so does the family of the real-life “Cibber”.

Thomas nearly loses his job as director, which would have finished his career, but by using the smarts that all of Francis’s heroes share, manages to keep his job.   Someone attacks Dorothea and nearly knifes her, attacks the star of the movie, and finally attacks Thomas himself.  Thomas figures out that the real life hanging so long ago and the fact he inherited the papers somehow are behind all the attacks.

Characters

Francis always does a great job with the primary male characters in his novels.  They are smart, resourceful, not too constrained by rules, and driven to succeed.  Our hero here, Thomas Lyon, fits the mold.  He is climbing the Hollywood ladder with Unstable Times, and is working with a top sletar, top cinematographer, producer and several excellent supporting people.  He brings his own vision of the story and adds elements that raise it from Hollywood schlock to a memorable film.  For example, he wants the woman who ends up hung to have a dream sequence with wild horses on the beach.  He manages to import horses from Norway and films a spectacular sequence with the stunt man standing on the wild horses as they stream out of the sunrise.

The side characters are also excellent, especially leading male actor Nash Rourke and doctor Robbie Gill.  Dorothea Pannier also is well drawn.  Even minor characters feel real.

Setting

Dick Francis always did thorough research and created realistic settings and back stories.  No doubt he talked to several real life directors and producers to get the movie backdrop just right. It’s one of the traits that make his books so memorable.  All his characters are a bit alike but we can separate them by the deep background and easily match each to the right book.

Writing

Overall Francis’s style is easy to follow, crisp with strong dialogue.  What always impresses me from a technical perspective is how he slides in the back story / setting and does it so well that you end up feeling like an expert on the subject without ever being lectured.

I wish science fiction and fantasy authors would develop back story /setting skills like Dick Francis.  (Don’t you get tired of all the techno mumble jumble about hyper this and gravity that?  I do and it’s also a glaring weakness in almost all the books with a military setting.)

I’m a big Dick Francis fan and can only praise Wild Horses. Read it. It’s good.