Saturday, July 24, 2010

The Best Detective Books Anywhere!

I believe that Bill Pronzini is the best author of detective books anywhere.  His latest, Betrayers, does not disappoint.  Tamara is off sleuthing on her own case, Bill has a case that sounds like it will be a waste of time, and Jake is working a skip trace.  No major cases this time, but the same taut writing and ever-evolving characters.  Added to this book is a side story concerning Bill and Kerry's thirteen-year-old daughter who has found and brought home a box with cocaine inside.  Where did this come from and why does she have it?  Bill will figure this out as well. 


I recommend all of the books by Pronzini, especially his "Nameless Detective" series.  I would recommend you read an earlier book first so that you can get a better idea of who each character is, especially since Tamara and Jake are not in the earlier books. 

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Caper!

Parnell Hall, the writer of both the Puzzle Lady and the Stanley Hastings series of mysteries, has released his latest in the Hastings series: Caper.   Stanley is a private detective whose only detecting ability is in his expertise with trip and fall cases in his work for an ambulance chasing, sleazeball lawyer.  In this newest book, Hastings is approached by a young woman looking to have him track down the movements of her teenage daughter, who she says is working after school as a prostitute.  She tells him that she wants her daughter followed and brought safely out of her situation.  What Hastings does not know, is that the "mother" is not the mother of the girl in question, and when the daughter's supposed John is found dead, who looks the guiltiest?  Stanley Hastings himself.  The bumbling private eye then spends his time working out how to clear his name without revealing his close involvement. 

I used to read these and thought it might be fun to read a new one.  But now I find that the detective's bumbling ways just annoy me.  Perhaps I have read one Stanley Hastings/Parnell Hall too many.

Isabel Allende's Latest Book

I finally read a book by Isabel Allende, Island Beneath the Sea.  It had marvelous reviews in all the sources I saw, so I thought I would give her a try.  The book was quite long and at times seemed to drag, but I would still recommend this story about Zarité, a slave woman on the island of Saint-Domingue.  Zarité is bought by a sugar cane plantation owner, Valmorain, to care for his house and family. 

The story follows Zarité as she becomes further intertwined in the lives of the Valmorain family.  Following the major slave rebellion on the island (and the subsequent renaming of the island to Haiti,) the family relocates to French owned New Orleans.  It is there that Zarité wins her freedom, but conditions continue to throw the fates of her family and the Valmorain's together. 

The conditions on the plantation are brutal and ugly; the mix of voodoo and Christian religion in the lives of the slaves fascinating.  Since I am not doing justice to the scope of this book, I can only ask you to please consider adding this book to your "to read" pile.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Girl in Translation

Jean Kwok's Girl in Translation is the story of eleven-year-old Kim Chang and her mother, who emigrate from Hong Kong to the United States hoping for a better life.  When they arrive, they find themselves indebted to Aunt Paula who is charging them for their air fare and controlling where they live by putting them in an unheated, broken windowed, unfurnished apartment and collecting their rent money besides.  The only work they can get is also controlled by Aunt Paula - backbreaking labor in her sweatshop in Chinatown.  Kim attends the local school and works to excel but finds it difficult, since she, too, must work in the factory. 

The sweatshop scenes are heartbreaking as Kim is not the youngest worker; many other children must work there to help their parents.  Despite her age, Kim assumes adult responsibilities - even filling out her mother's tax forms.  This is an interesting and worthwhile read about the tensions of being between two worlds.  The story rings true.  I recommend it highly.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

"I need you to understand how ordinary it all was."

The year is 1963 and the place is small town Mississippi.  Eleven-year-old Florence Irene Forrest has an anything but ordinary life as the daughter of a mentally unstable mother and a father with dark secrets.  The first we realize that her father's night meetings are anything but benign occurs when immediately after he leaves, Florence's mother takes her on a trip to the bootlegger - not the white bootlegger, but the black bootlegger - and gives this man a warning to "get everybody inside, and the boys in the woods."

As Florence becomes more aware of the conditions of her life, the story grows ever darker.  The book is a look back at her life from the viewpoint of her adult life, and her dawning recognition of what she witnessed that year.  The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin reminded me of The Help but with a much harsher view of race relations in that violent time.