Craig Johnson: The Western Star, 9780525426950, hardback, Viking / Penguin Random House US

Craig Johnson’s sheriff Walt Longmire, one of the most likeable characters in crime fiction, has been turned into a successful Netflix series but I prefer to keep my own picture of him in my mind’s eye when reading a new crime novel set in Absaroka County Wyoming.  

“The Western Star” has two parallel story lines; one is set in the past when Longmire, just back from his Vietnam duty, started working as an Undersheriff to Lucian Connolly.  Before he boards the train, his pregnant wife Martha has decided to leave him throwing him into turmoil about his life choices.  During their pleasure journey on the Western Star with 24 veteran sheriffs on board, two murders take place, something hardly anyone thought possible on a train full of lawmen.  Young Longmire is suspected of the murder at first but after being cleared, he starts investigating who of the sheriffs or staff might have a motive .  

The second story finds Walt on his way to a parole hearing of one of the most dangerous criminals he ever arrested.  Walt has every reason to fear that the long arm of the person in question will endanger the lives of his daughter Cady and his granddaughter Lola as he was responsible for killing Cady’s husband Michael. 

 

I am usually quite enthusiastic about Craig Johnson’s crime novels but I have to say, he lost me switching between these two stories. They eventually connect but I found this confusing during the reading, particularly the one set in the present.  The novel ends with a cliffhanger which was unsatisfying but I guess Johnson is laying the ground for his next novel. Sorry, only a 3 star rating this time,  one of his weaker ones in the series in my opinion. 

Tom Hanks: Uncommon Type, 9781785151521, Trade paperback, Heinemann (Penguin Random House UK)

Tom Hanks is one of the most likeable and successful Hollywood actors and known to be an avid reader.  He has now tried his hand at writing and has chosen one of the most difficult categories, the short story.

I really looked forward to checking out how he had fared and my verdict after reading the books is he can most definitely write and tell a story. But let’s put it this way; he did not knock me of my socks, his stories are solid, entertaining and moving.  Bestseller author Ann Patchett gave him a flaming review.

 

All his short stories center on old typewriters and I am not quite sure why he chose to do that as I could not find it adding anything to the stories.  The stories vary in subject and mood. One of my favorites is that of a second rate actor who is plunged into fame all of a sudden which portraits the craziness of the film industry just as you might imagine. I am sure real life experiences flowed into this.  A surfer teenager discovering his father’s secret is a sweet, melancholical story as is that of a woman adjusting to her new neighbors after a divorce and move. 

All the characters are well observed, his stories are easy, entertaining reading. 

Colin Whitehead:  The Underground Railroad, Little Brown UK, 978-0708898406, paperback
Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction 2017,

German edition:  Underground Railroad, 978-3446256552, Hanser Verlag, gebunden
 

Colin Whitehead is a new discovery for me and what an exquisite book he has written with “The Underground Railroad", one of the finest I read all year. Do not miss reading this novel.  

I have to confess I was very reluctant to read this Pulitzer Prize winner at first as descriptions of cruelty usually stay with me for days.  A book dealing with slavery in 19^th century America I knew would contain scenes  I would find difficult to Digest. But for some reason Whitehead’s writing did not affect me this way. The cruelty committed by the white population and American Southern plantation owners towards their black slaves were truly incomprehensible.  One of the sentences in this book that really stuck with me is that “evil soaks into the earth”, an explanation for why many countries and former colonies that have treated some of their citizens in the most brutal manner have been unable to shed this bloody heritage, racism and hate still sticking in people’s behavior and minds.  As one of the critics I read said so correctly, Colin Whitehead perfectly portraits “a road movie into the heart of America’s darkness”.

 

“The Underground Railroad” is a literary but highly accessible novel telling the story of Cora, a slave runaway and the history of the American Underground Railroad aiding slaves on their way into freedom up North or into Canada. Cora’s odyssey and her journey from inhuman plantation life in George in the mid-19^th century and her escape with Cesar , a fellow slave, left me often almost in tears and despair for their plight. The journey she undertakes trying to stay ahead of Ridgeway, a slave catcher, experiencing passages of utter misery and many throwbacks but also encountering selfless abolitionists and members of the Underground Railroad risking their own lives to help others, make for unputdownable reading. The cruelty and brutality human beings can inflict on others in this novel are sometimes unimaginable including other slaves telling on their own kind, behavior we encounter worldwide into the present when victims side with their oppressors.  “The Underground Railway” and all the characters in this book captured my heart and mind until the very last word, particularly that of Cora’s fate. 

Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Sympathizer, 9781472151360, Corsair (Atlantic Grove) paperback

German: Viet Thanh Nguyen: Der Sympathisant,  9783896675965, Karl Blessing Verlag, Gebunden

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s „The Sympathizer“ won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016 and several other internationally important literary prizes. It is one of the most unusual books I read all year with the 
potential to become a classic about the Vietnam War and the aftermath years, written from a Vietnamese viewpoint. 

Often the novel feels like an espionage thriller but especially towards the end the book turns into a philosophical, psychological and political reflection on what happens to societies once revolutions, ideologies and uprisings succeed. This was the most brilliant part of the book for me.

I read Nguyen’s follow up first, a book of short stories called “The Refugees”, centering on Vietnamese refugees in the US in particular before reading his debut, loving his exquisite storytelling and language.  The author fled Vietnam with his parents as a young boy and is now a Professor at the University of California.

“The Sympathizers”  I had to read with interruptions not finding it easy at times which was probably due to the fact that his writing is unusual in every  sense requiring dedication and concentration, very few characters appear with real names but most are referred to as “The General”,  “The captain” etc.  with very little direct speech throughout the book. 

The book is a confession by an unnamed narrator, a Vietnamese army captain with divided loyalties. Born to a Vietnamese mother with a French priest as a father, his  rank is with the South Vietnamese army but in secret he belongs to a Viet Cong cell in Saigon working for North Vietnam's victory.  With the fall of Saigon he is told to leave his homeland together with his general on one of the last planes out of Saigon heading for the US.  The descriptions of the fall of Saigon, the agony and misery of those lucky or unlucky enough  to make it having to start a new life in the US with all privileges of their  Vietnamese past gone,  are intense yet often funny.

The almost 500 pages never let up on intensity; they make for riveting reading,  humorous on occassion and at other times difficult to digest.
The description of murder, torture and the brutality of war made me take a deep breath several times.

Having visited Vietnam a few years ago, I knew why I did not want to 
visit the museum of war in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) displaying all the atrocities committed. 
This is a book which will stay with you for some time. Anyone visiting this buzzing, beautiful country still affected by the Vietnam War would do well reading this novel before they leave. 

Cara Hunter: Close to Home, Penguin Viking UK, 9780241283097, paperback, pub date 14. December 2017

Cara Hunter: Sie finden dich nie, Aufbau Verlag, 9783746633589, 17. August 2018

One nightmare of anyone with children is that your child goes missing. This is how this debut crime mystery of Cara Hunter begins; Daisy Mason disappears during a costume party her family is throwing for their neighbors and children under everyone’s watchful eyes. 

Oxford Detective Inspector Adam Fawley and his team are assigned to the case and soon realize that something is utterly wrong with the Mason family.  A mother who is more concerned with her appearance then with what happend to her lost 8 year old, a very disturbed brother Leo and Barry, the father who is falling apart faster than his wife. As DI Fawley starts scratching at the surface of Daisy’s family, more questions popp up than answers.  Is it possible someone in her own family had a motive?

 

Despite Cara Hunter keeping a fast pace flowing between various suspects depending on new findings by the police, I would only give this debut a four star rating.  I was never bored but felt the novel was more of a kind that had been told before.  Perhaps the publisher intended to feed the appetite of readers of this genre with a new author. The ending is good but not totally unexpected as the author did not leave too many possibilities by the time the last chapter arrived. 

Jane Harper: The Dry, 978034914211, Abacus (Little Brown UK), paperback

German edition: Jane Harper: The Dry – Aaron Falk ermittelt, 9783499290268, Rowohlt Paperback

WINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER AWARD 2017
The Gold Australian Book Industry Award for Book of the Year
Australian Book Industry Award for Fiction Book of the Year

I discovered Jane Harpers breathtaking thriller when checking who had won the Gold Dagger Award 2017 – she did with “The Dry”.  It is hard to believe this is her debut, not too many crime novels set in the Australian hinterland make it into the International publishing circuit taking away major prizes. “The Dry” is not only a superb thriller but a precise, atmospheric portrait of the Australian small town community Kiewarra experiencing a 2 year draught and facing an atrocious killing.  Luke Hadler, a well-liked farmer, shot his wife and child, sparing his baby daughter Charlotte before turning the gun on himself.

Aaron Falk, a financial investigator with the police in Melbourne, returns to Kiewarra for the funeral of his childhood friend Luke in disbelief of what Luke supposedly did.  Barbara and Gerry Hadler, Luke’s parents, beg him to give the closed investigation by the Clyde police a second check for the sake of their old friendship believing their son to be innocent despite incriminating evidence.  Aaron is reluctant wanting to flee his former hometown remembering why he and his father were driven out of town, him an innocent suspect around his girlfriend Ellie Deacon’s drowning death. Gerry Hadler reminds Aaron of the note he mailed to him “Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral”.  When Aaron decides to face the past starting his investigation with the financial records of his friend’s farm, he encounters another policemen, Sergeant Greg Raco who is not convinced the official murder investigation is air tight having come up with too many question marks around the case. The two man team up against a farming town full of violent men and an explosive atmosphere fired by economic decline, hate  and suspicion.

What follows is a breathtaking peeling away of layers, every page reveals mysteries and betrayals of the past and present  leading eventually to the truth.  I could not put this book down, the plot and the characters are not only very well drawn out but I did not suspect the outcome, well at least not one. Highly recommend “The Dry”, one of the best thrillers I have read all year.

Karen Cleveland: Need to know, 9781524797362: International edition, 9781524797027 Hardback, Ballantine/ Penguin Random House US, Pub date: 23. January 2018,

I  was lucky to receive a pre publication proof, thank you Penguin Random House,  and can guarantee once you start reading “Need to know”, out in January 23, 2018, this thriller will keep you glued to your seat way past the amount of reading time you thought you would allow yourself. 

This is one of the fastest paced thrillers I have read in a very long time and the author Karen Cleveland who spent her time as a CIA analyst, some of them in counterterrorism, certainly knows how to apply her experience to the novel.  A fantastic, fast paced read from start to finish with an ending I kind of suspected towards the end but the twist is superb!  It seems unbelievable that this is her debut novel.

Film rights were sold to Universal Pictures for Charlize Theron and rights to the novel sold in more than 20 markets which is a very strong indicator of the quality of the book.  

Here is what happens: Vivian Miller works as a career CIA counterintelligence analyst assigned to uncover Russian sleeper cells in the US. She is also happily married and the mother of 4 children, juggling parental duties with Matt, her husband of 10 years.  Vivian develops a program that allows her to filter out possible Russian espionage suspects who lead a completely normal life within the US. The system also grants her access to the computer of probable sleepers.  One day she logs herself into the computer of a Russian suspect we later know as Yuri detecting a promising file.   Within  the next clicks through the dossier her entire life falls apart demanding impossible personal and professional choices.

I realize this reads like a blurb of the book but it would be cruel if I revealed any more than what is only the very first chapter. Go out and buy the book  once it is published January 23, 2018, you have great suspense ahead of you.

German edition: Martin Suter: Montecristo, 9783257243666, Detebe (Diogenes) Taschenbuch, 13, €

English Edition: Martin Suter: Montecristo, 9781843448228, paperback, No Exit Press/ Old Castle Books

Martin Suter is a Swiss author I have enjoyed 
reading immensely for some time. He is regularly in the top section of the German bestseller lists, I am really surprised he is not more successful in England. Working originally as a copywriter and creative director in advertising, this training still transpires in his writing: his sentences are clipped, short and to the point mixed with a dry, black sense of humor which I love. The plots are always unexpected and twisted.  “Montecristo”, a thriller set in the world of Swiss finance, is no exception.
 

Jonas Brand is making his living as a video journalist working for a People style magazine in Zurich while trying to raise financial backing for his film project “Montecristo”.  Then two seemingly unconnected events unsettle his carefree existence.  While riding the train, he involuntarily  witnesses  a suicide or “Personalschaden”/”human damage” as the Swiss train company refer to it.

Jonas soon discovers that the dead man was working as a top trader on the floor of one of Swiss's leading banks.  When he gets home and leaves two 100 Swiss Franc notes for his cleaner, he notices both bills showing the same serial numbers, something his bank manager Mr. Weber assures him is impossible yet at the same time confirming both bills are clean and no counterfeits.  When he is attacked while walking home and his apartment is broken into after meeting up with a high ranking Swiss banker to discuss his unusual discoveries, Jonas contacts Max Gantmann, a former TV economics front man now working behind the scenes as an investigative journalist and a trusted friend.  Max does not believe that burglary and assault are not connected as the police want Jonas to think. What unfolds is a high caliber thriller set in the ruthless world of finance which kept me turning over pages faster and faster until the very last page. 

I read the book in its German original but an English Edition is published by No Exit Press.

Abir Mukherjee: A Rising Man, Vintage (Penguin Random House) Paperback, 9781784701345 /

German edition:  Ein angesehener Mann, Heyne
 

I cannot remember how I discovered “A Rising Man” by Abir Mukherjee but I am very glad I did, he is a true find. I really fell for this captivating historical thriller set in 1915 Calcutta which had me turning the pages rapidly making it very hard to tear myself away from the book.  The novel was shortlisted for the CWA Gold and Endeavour historical daggers and was selected Book of the Year of the Daily Telegraph in 2016. A German translation is out already and the sequel “A Necessary Evil” was published this year cannot wait to read it, the second one in a new series.  The atmosphere of the book reminds me a great deal of M.J. Carter’s “A Stranglers Vine” but Mukherjee’s novel has a more realistic feel to it, painting a vivid portrait of the British Raj.

 

This highly atmospheric novel opens  in Calcutta of 1919 were the British Raj is affording many British a life they would never be able to dream of in England, all at the expense of  India’s treasures  and its citizens. Captain Sam Wyndham is thankful for his new Calcutta posting hoping to leave his nightmares of WWI behind.  Travelling with him is the ghost of his wife Sarah who died during an influenza epidemic and his addiction to morphium and painkillers, consequences of the war. Previously employed at Scotland Yard he comes with high recommendations but has barely time to settle in when he is called to his first murder victim in the darker parts of Calcutta. 
 

A senior British Official, Alexander MacAuley, aid to the Lieutenant Governor and problem fixer par excellence, was found brutally murdered with a note stuffed in his mouth signaling the British to leave India to the Indians. The murder is first attributed to rebel movements but Sam has his doubts once he starts digging.  Arrogant English Inspector Digby and a very smart but disadvantaged Indian Sergeant Banerjee, also known as “Surrender-Not”, are part of his investigative team.  I am not going to go into much more detail as it would spoil the fun, but from the opium dens of Calcutta to the Lord Governor of Bengal, a cast of very colorful characters paint a rich portrait of the early 20^th Century Calcutta and the first uprisings of the Indian independent movement. 

William Boyd: The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, 9780241295878 hardback and outside the UK 9780241295885, C format paperback / publication date: November 2, 2017, Viking (Penguin Random House)

Those who have been following my blog know that William Boyd is one of my absolute favorite contemporary authors.  “Any Human Heart” (Eines Menschen Herz) and “Sweet caress” (Die Fotografin: Die vielen Leben der Amory Clay) sit on my shelf of beloved books.  I was very happy indeed to get my hands on his upcoming book of short stories “The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth) pre-publication date and what a treat it was.  Boyd is simply a master story teller.  

“The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth” is by far the longest short story in the book, a small novella in itself, a story of how chance encounters with different man shape the direction of Bethany Mellmoth’s life repeatedly.  I loved the one of the frustrated film director/screen play writer whose life situation is revealed bit by bit through the letters he writes to his girlfriend, brother, banker, producer and his leading actor, really had me laughing at times. The book begins with the story of the philandering husband who has resorted to kissing only which he doesn’t consider cheating . Then there is the story of the couple whose relationship starts with the end and ends with how they met.

Almost a small thriller in itself is the last story.  A mediocre actor is offered 1.000 pounds during an audition by a stranger if he drives a small glass container of liquid, supposedly holy water for a baptism, to a remote church in Scotland.  All these stories are William Boyd at his best, he describes human weaknesses so very brilliantly, you just keep turning the pages furiously. I cannot wait for his next book, he is said to be working on a novel due next year. 

Daniel Silva: House of Spies, 9780062669049, large format paperback (C-Format), Harper Collins US, available

I am a huge fan of Daniel Silva who in my opinion is one of the best thriller writers at the moment. What really blows me away is the clairvoyant foresight he seems to have about looming terrorist attacks and how well connected Silva must be to the world of spies and counter intelligence. 

When another horrible terrorist attack shakes the world, I occasionally find myself wishing for men like Gabriel Allon and his team hoping they truly exist to protect us and our democracy from religious zealots who are threatening freedom as we know it.

In “Black Widow” he wrote about ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris before they actually happened, by publication date they had much to our horror become reality.  As is the case with his latest novel, “House of Spies”, centering on terrorist attacks in London. Silva writes in his always very informative afterword that he turned in the draft of this book on March 15 and on March 22 ISIS struck down many innocent tourists on Westminster Bridge. Although fiction, it is apparent his books are very much based on research and facts. 

Gabriel Allon, now the head of Israeli intelligence, is still hunting down Saladin, one of the most dangerous ISIS masterminds.  A primary source of funding ISIS’s deadly missions comes from profit made through the drug business which leads Allon and his team to wealthy French multi billionaire Jean- Luc Martel who owns many businesses, all rumored to be screens for laundering drug money. One such business is a famous art gallery run by Martel’s model partner Olivia Watson. I am not going to spill the beans about what is happening next in this page turning thriller but you are in for 526 pages of guaranteed fast paced plotting and action of the best kind.

Elizabeth Strout:  Anything is possible, 9780241287972, Viking (Penguin Random House UK) Hardback

Elizabeth Strout’s “My name is Lucy Burton” became an instant New York Times Bestseller with the success continuing across the Atlantic landing on several  European bestseller lists.   In May 2017 her short story collection “Anything is possible” was published, all stories are connected to Amgash/Illinois, the home town of Lucy Barton.

 I love Elizabeth Strouts subtle, precise description of the lives of ordinary people, the horrors and hurts hidden behind the most ordinary small town facade.  Most stories start very innocently until wham, a real twist in the story shakes you.  As most of Amgash’s inhabitants are well known to each other or even related, the stories reveal interesting angles of previous characters in other stories. “Dottie’s Bed and Breakfast” for example is one of them as is “Sister” where Lucy Barton makes an appearance.

 

I greatly enjoyed each and every one of the short stories; Elizabeth Strout is a fantastic short story writer, go out and buy a copy. The German edition is not available yet. 

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney: The Nest, 9780062666420, Harper Collins, paperbackGerman edition: Das Nest, Klett Cotta, 9783608980004, hardback 

Right up front:  I greatly enjoyed “The Nest”, got sucked in from the very beginning. This is such a cleverly constructed novel, it is hard to stop reading it is so intoxicating, you just want to find out what happens next to all the Plumbs.  Full of gossip, very funny at times but serious and dark in other parts, a very New Yorkish family portrait in my opinion. 

The four Plumb siblings try hard to hide their less than perfect lives from each other, desperately waiting for their trust fund to bail them out once Melody reaches the age of 40 to ease some of their severe financial strains.

Leo, the notoriously bad boy of the family with a trophy wife who is about to divorce him, has been freshly released from rehab and is summoned to a lunch with his three other siblings Melody, Beatrice and Jack. To their horror the Plumb siblings were informed that their sacred trust fund was slashed into by their mother to bail out Leo from a disastrous car accident with a nineteen year old waitress while driving intoxicated filled to the brim with alcohol and coke.  A seriously smaller payout would be a disaster to them all.  What plans does Leo have to repay his siblings?   Melody has college tuitions at a private university for her twins coming up and a mortgage the family budget can no longer handle. Jack’s antique business isn’t what he has led his partner Walker to believe secretly borrowing against their summer cottage and Beatrice is a former writer with a decade long writers block wasting away as an editor at a New York literary magazine on a ridiculous salary. 

I will not reveal how this clever, witty story unfolds, but I could hardly believe this is D’Aprix Sweeney’s debut novel it is so masterfully constructed. I loved her fluent style of writing, her sharp sense of humor and how all the characters become part of your life as you keep wondering what’s next.  The book fully deserves to be in the bestseller lists, the German edition, also called “Das Nest” came out early in 2017 and is available. 

Reed Farrel Coleman: Where it hurts, Putnam (Penguin Random House), 9780425283271, paperback

Reed Farrel Coleman is a new discovery for me, although a seasoned thriller writer, a former colleague at Penguin Random House US only pointed him out to me recently.  “Where it Hurts” is written in the best tradition of Chandler and Hammett, American Private- eye, modern noir crime fiction. It does not come as a surprise that the novel has been nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel, not his first nomination. Farrel Coleman was also chosen to continue writing Jesse Stone novels after Robert B. Parker passed away.

The book develops tempo from the very beginning, never lets up, there are no boring stretches to bridge in this thriller and the main character, Gus Murphy, a former Long Island cop, is a very likeable guy.  The next book “What you break” was published in February 2017 and is already sitting on my ever growing pile of books to read.  “Where it hurts” also comes with very strong recommendations from fellow thriller writers such as Lee Child, Linda Fairstein, Jeffrey Deaver and CJ Box.

Gus Murphy lost everything he once held dear when his son dies unexpectedly sending him into a downward spiral of grief and rage, eventually costing him his marriage and leading to his resignation as a Long Island cop.  He now drives a courtesy van for a run- down hotel spending each day in a grey, depressed fog not caring whether he lives or dies.  He is shaken out of his pain when Tommy Delcamino, a small time criminal, looks him up trying to hire him as a private eye to look into the 4 month old killing of his son TJ, as the Suffolk police do not seem interested to solve his son’s murder.  Gus brushes him off rudely despite feeling sympathy for the man’s grief. When Tommy is killed himself, Gus feels he owes it to father and son to check into whether Tommy’s original accusations against the Suffolk PD hold true. Once he starts digging,  there is no turning back.  

Farrel Coleman introduces a whole cast of bad ass, low life characters in "Where it hurts"  with a counterbalances of Gus's new friends, broken figures such as Father Bill and Slava who like Murphy have experienced the vinegar taste life can leave.  Great modern noir crime fiction at it's best.

Nelson deMille: The Cuban Affair, Simon & Schuster, 9781501101724, $ 28, - pub date: September 19, 2017

Thanks to the courtesy of Simon & Schuster I was able to read the proof of Nelson DeMille’s latest book, “The Cuban Affair”. I had read previous thrillers by him and liked Plum Island in particular.  His style of writing reminds me a little of the late Robert B Parker but America's greatest living thriller writer he is not.

To my great disappointment I never got into “The Cuban Affair” however much I tried, the plot felt improbable,  too far stretched , the sex and romance too matter of fact and not romantic at all (perhaps guys will disagree with me here) to qualify for the turn of events later  in the book.  We need a little work here Mr. DeMille.  The story as such sounded interesting when I read the blurb but having read the book, I feel the concept was put together too quickly to coincide with reader’s interest during the defrosting period of American / Cuban relations under President Obama.  Having visited Cuba myself,  I found his descriptions of the island and political atmosphere authentic and well written.

Dan MacCormick, Mac for short,  is a former army veteran who fought in  Afghanistan  and is now  the owner of “The Maine” , a charter boat sailing out of Key West whenever tourist book her for fishing cruises or other expeditions.  When mysterious Carlos, a lawyer from Miami, approaches him on behalf of an older Cuban exile Eduardo Valazques offering him very serious money for a dangerous mission into Cuban territory to retrieve 60 million hidden US dollars, Mac accepts against his better judgement as this would bail him out of financial issues.  Sara Ortega, a beautiful Cuban American woman appearing as the other client Carlos represents, makes the deal even sweeter for Mac. But as I said, perhaps this is a “wham bam thank you Madam” type of thriller meant for guys mainly; it did not do it for me.  

A bit of summer escape-ism,  just sheer entertainment:

Louise Penny: The Nature of the Beast, 9781250022103, Minotaur Books, Macmillian,

paperback

Louise Penny always delivers with her Canadian setting with retired Chief Inspector Amande Gamache in Three Pine. This one however, a bit too drawn out for my taste, 376 pages of a tightly woven plot based on a real life story of George Bull, a particular ruthless arms dealer and engineer.

Margaret Coel: Killing Custer, 9780425264645, Berkeley Crime, Penguin USA, paperback

Since Tony Hillerman passed away, Margaret Coel provides for my arm chair trip to Native American territory. Coel's is Arapaho Wind River country in Wyomning with Vicky Holden, Arapaho lawyer and Father John O’ Mailey  as very likeable chief protagonists. A reenactment of Custer's killing at Little Big Horn sees history repeating itself with the impersonator of Custer shot dead from within a group of young Arapaho horsemen. 

For more serious reading, prize winning Native American author  Louis Edrich “La Rose” will be next……

B.A. Shapiro: The Art Forger, Algonquin Books, 9781616203160, US paperback

“The Art Forger” is not a new publication, it came out in 2013 but a friend pointed the novel out to me recently knowing my interest in art and my love for mysteries. B.A. Shapiro’s “The Art Forger” combines both. 

“The Art Forger” provides one with a lot of insight into why art is stolen , ( not only for the love of looking at a beautiful painting I learned)   about art history,  prominent forgers, painting techniques and the incredible skills and talents art forgers have to master.  What has always fascinated me is how someone with so much talent gets sucked into doing this for a living accepting the danger going along with the job.  Money is an obvious incentive.

See Claire Roth, a young talented Boston based painter whose own art career was cut short by an unfortunate incident and relationship with a much older successful painter, Isaac Cullion.  What happened in her past with Isaac and why it still affects her to the present day is one of three storylines Shapiro has running throughout the novel. Claire makes a living reproducing famous artists work for a reproduction company specializing in Degas.  When Aiden Markel, owner of the prestigious Markel G gallery, looks her up offering her an exceptionally amount of money for a  reproduction job which would free her of debt, she accepts.  To her utter shock she is looking at Degas “After the Bath” when Aiden brings her the canvas, a painting stolen some 25 years ago from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, an art heist still unresolved.  The Faustian plot tightens when against all scruples she agrees to paint the forgery for her very own show at Markel G gallery.  As she starts her work, an uneasy feeling comes up that she might be looking at a master forgery herself instead of the original.

The second story line in the book , apart from the third current story,  are the letters  exchanged  between Isabelle Stewart Gardner, a wealthy US art collector and her niece Amelia  during the Nineteenth Century, recounting stories of times spent  with famous European artists and Edgar Degas in particular. The three parallel stories in the book, who all come together in the end, are cleverly set in different typesetting . 

 

I enjoyed “The Art Forgery”, the plot is a little stretched at times but it is a good solid thriller.  Would say however, you definitely need to be interested in art and paintings, otherwise you get bored, I learned a lot about painting techniques used forging old masters. 

Ann Patchett: Commonwealth, Harper Perennial US, 9780062491831, paperback (beautiful rough cut edition, perhaps not everyone’s taste but definitely mine) German Edition: Die Taufe, Berlin Verlag, hardback

I had never read anything by Ann Patchett’s but I had followed news about her involvement with independent bookselling and her own bookshops Parnassus Books in Nashville when I was still in publishing. And what a fine writer she is, I totally fell in love with “Commonwealth” which won the 2016 Best Book Award by the New York Times, Washington Post. San Francisco Cronicle, Time etc. “Commonwealth” is one of these books you long to return to, it goes on my shelf of all-time favorite books.

When Bert Cousins shows up uninvited at Franny Keating’s christening party and kisses her mother, the beautiful and irresistible Beverly Keating, he sets in motion life changing events affecting four adults and six children. Without giving too much away, Bert and Beverly fall in love with each other, leave their spouses Fix Keating and Teresa Cousins , starting their married life with six children to raise:  Caroline and Franny Keating,  Beverly’s daughters ,  and Bert’s tribe,  Holly,  Cal, Albie and Jennifer.  The kids become a fiercely loyal little tribe, something they hold onto their entire lives. This could have all turned out a terribly kitschy story but Ann Patchett’s creates a jewel of a novel, a masterpiece.  Each chapter sheds light on past and present happenings by ten individuals and follows them for many years of their lives.  It is as much a story of what could have happened if the fork in the road would have been taken differently and how every action we take has consequences for others, the famous ripple in the pond.  322 pages of sheer reading joy, often funny, sometimes deeply touching and sad, but mostly an uplifting book, all told in her lean, beautiful language.  I had a great time reading “Commonwealth”, definitely checking out more of her work. I love the cover of the US edition, a beautiful bibliophile edition with a rough cut and superior paper. 

Jennifer Mc Veigh: Leopard by the door, 9780241247617 , Penguin Books UK, paperback

 Jennifer Mc Veigh’s novel „Leopard by the door" is set in Kenya in the 1950ties, the time of the bloody Mau Mau rebellion. The book draws on facts of the Mau Mau uprisings which the author adds in an informative afterword.  This is a really good holiday read for those looking for an East Africa story line, its comes laced with betrayal, an inter- racial love story and historical background about the Mau Mau movement which ended British colonial ruler ship leading to the birth of independent Kenia. 

Rachel Fullsmith returns to her beloved Kenya and her parents farm Kisima after having been sent to England for schooling,  with her grandparents as guardians when her beloved mother dies suddenly. When she finally returns to Kenya, she finds the world has changed even in this remote corner of the world she calls home. Her father has found a new partner, Sara, who has brought a teenage son with her, Harold, a sensitive boy interested in photography and a love for animals. They strike up an immediate comradery.  Sara is the exact opposite of her mother and the two women have a strained relationship from the very beginning, Sara has no taste for life in the bush, a place Rachel dreamed about during her emotionally and atmospherically cold years in England. Having grown up among the Kikuyu tribe living on their land, people she calls family, she has little tolerance for the new racist talks and beliefs of her soon to be step mother who seems to have influenced her father and changed his formerly liberal views. Harold and Rachel share a love for Africa, but things start to come to a head when Mau Mau killing sprees move in closer to the neighboring farms.  After her return, Rachael fell in love with Michael, her former teacher, a Kikuyu who seems to be linked to Mau Mau and the Labor movements. As colonial Africa is beginning to fall apart, the political developments have dire consequences for Rachel, her family, Harold and the Kikuyu. 

MC Veigh writes fluidly and keeps you on edge, particularly towards the end. I really enjoyed the novel but some of the storyline is rather predictable. The cover is simply dreadful in my view,  far too schmaltzy and kitschy which belittles McVeigh’s work. 

Paula Hawkins: Into the water, Doubleday, large format paperback 978085752440,

(German edition: Into the water. Traue keinem. Auch nicht dir selbst., Blanvalet Verlag, broschiert, 9783764505233, € 14,99 )

Paula Hawkins success with “Girl on the train” has catapulted her to the front of bestseller lists in many countries, recently also released as a film.  “Into the water” is her much awaited second novel, a psychological thriller.

I really had my problems getting into this book, I did not like most of the characters and still don't but the book gathered speedy as far as the plot is concerned towards the middle of the book and the ending does have an unexpected twist.  But all in all, many developments where far too predictable for my taste. 

The novel is set in the small village of Beckford were several “troublesome” women have found their death by either committing suicide or being drowned in the “Drowning pool” going back to the days of witch hunts. The story is told from the view point of several characters in the novel. Nel Abbot, a photographer who decides to document the story of these women, is found drowned in this very river. Before her death she has tried in vain to get in touch with her estranged sister Julia called Jules whom she claims to have saved from drowning. Jules has her own troubled history with the town of Beckford and her sister Nel in particular. But when she meets her sisters Nel’s teenage daughter Lena for the first time, Jules finds they both are not convinced that this was a suicide as the  police have determined. Sean Townsend and Erin are the leading investigators into Nel’s death who soon discover that Nel’s death might be connected to past victims such as Lauren, the mother of  Sean Townsend.

Although Paula Hawkins knows how to spin a yarn, the novel never really captured me and has left me unimpressed.

Stewart O’Nan: City of Secrets, Penguin USA, 9780143108948, 

available in paperback

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"City of Secrets” Stewart O’ Nan takes us back to the early days of a yet nonexistent Israel, 1945 to be precise, when it was still part of the British Mandate.  The 194 pages of this highly atmospheric novel are a masterfully constructed mixture of noir espionage thriller, a love story and a historical recounting of the Jewish underground resistance in Palestine.  A gem of a book, I loved it from start to finish.

Brand is a survivor of the Holocaust, his wife Katya and the rest of his family has perished. For him there is no reason to return to Latvia, with a false identity as Jossi he sets off for Palestine to join the underground movement.  As a car mechanic, he was useful to the Nazis guaranteeing his survival and this profession makes him equally useful to the Haganah cells he joins.  As a taxi driver he encounters Eva, called the widow , a former actress now working as a prostitute gathering useful information for his cell.  He falls in love with her as they start spending more time with each other. Brand is used more frequently as a driver in dangerous missions by their cell leader Ashton and he begins to suspect that Ashton might be setting him up for something even bigger. 

I will not reveal more of this wonderful book. I have become a big fan of O’Nan’s measured prose and his sparse, moody storytelling. 

Leonardo Padura:  Adios Hemingway
English Edition: 9781741955414, Canongate, paperback,

German edition: Unionsverlag, 9783293206144, paperback

Leonardo Padura is a Cuban author living in Havana whose Mario Conde crime novels reveal much about present day life in Cuba.  In other words, perfect holiday reading.  “Adios Hemingway” was written in 2006 but I only bought it recently and thought I share my view of this light hearted, clever novel.  I saw his latest book “Heretics” in Waterstones in the UK, another excellent pick for holiday reading.

Forty years after Hemingway’s death, a corpse is discovered on the grounds of Finca Vigia where Hemingway spent many years of his life.  In all likelihood the person found was murdered as two bullets from Hemingway’s famous weapon collection are the cause of death.  Could it be that Hemingway was a murderer?  No one is interested in soiling Papa Hemingway’s image and additionally this old cold case is too delicate a subject for Havana’s police to deal with, particularly in view of manpower shortages.  Teniente Manolo entrusts his old colleague, former policeman and now author Mario Conde with this delicate investigation.  In synchronization with Mario Condos findings, the book has another layer and tells of Hemingway’s last days on the Finca in 1958, ultimately leading to Hemingway’s departure and the event and puzzle Conde needs to solve.

This is very cleverly plotted. Obviously not all facts about Hemingway’s last days are true but close enough,  one wonders if this could not have been another last unpleasant adventure in Hemingway’s  troubled depressed last years.