CJ Box : Dark Sky

 C.J. Box: Dark Sky, 9780525538271, Putnam (Penguin Random House US), hardback

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett always guarantees a great armchair trip into the beautiful Rocky Mountains,courtesy of C.J. Box's writing skills, delivering a clever plot combined with wonderful nature descriptions.  

"Dark Sky" reminded me a lot of a Western, it is one of the more violent books in the series, with a plot that I would consider mostly directed towards a male audience. But then the characters around Joe Pickett such as his friend falconer Nate Romanowski, do not hesitate too long when threatened before making use of their weapons.  When the governor of Wyoming orders Joe to take a spoiled tech billionair Elch hunting, he has little choice but to make the best of the situation.  In true Joe Pickett fashion, it does not take long before the trip turns into a dangerous nightmare requiring all the survival skills at his disposal to make it back to his family in one piece. 

This latest book  wasn't one of my favourite CJ Box novels, too much violence for my taste but still a solid page turning read. 

 

Ajay Chowdhury: The Waiter,  Harvill Secker (Penguin Random House UK), 9781787301832, paperback, pub date May 24, 2021

It was hugely entertaining to read an early proof of “The Waiter” by Ajay Chowdhury, publishing in May 2021.   This refreshing first novel reminded me in style and story line of Abir Mukherjee’s historical crime novels set in pre Independence  India which I love, so little surprise here that I give “The Waiter” a thumbs up.

Kamil Rahman is a former detective of the Kolkata police who ends up working as a waiter in a Brick Lane restaurant owned by his father’s friends Maya and Saibal. Rahman had refused to be corrupted in the murder investigation of a famous Bollywood actor in his home town losing rank and privileges which gave him little choice but to make a fresh start in London. 

When Kahman has to cater a birthday party for his boss’s rich friend Rakesh married to the much younger Neha, the evening takes an unexpected turn. At the end of the party Rakesh is found murdered by his swimming pool and all fingers point to Neha. The police take her into custody much to the gratification of Rakesh's first wife and son.  Saibal, Maya and Anjoli, their daughter, plead with Kamil to investigate on their behalf as Neha was like a second daughter to them und an improbable murderess. The book switches back and forth between the current murder investigation and the old memories of the case that brought Kamil to his knees. 

“The Waiter” is a non-bloody, atmospheric, clever and often funny crime novel, a perfect summer read.

Cara Hunter: The Whole Truth, 9780241985144, April 29, 2021, Penguin, paperback

Cara Hunter can count me as one of her fans by now; this is her fifth book in the series set around the Oxford police team headed by inspector Alex Fawley which gets better with every book.  It happens rarely that I am left so completely in the dark about whodunit and Cara Hunter manages it perfectly. 

Hunter’s mysteries usually have two crimes going, the prose of the plot is interwoven and spiced up with emails, twitter snippets, WhatsApp messages and police investigation reports.  In “The Whole Truth” , out in paperback April 2021, Fawley’s team is called in to look at an unusual accusation: a male student for a change, Caleb Morgan, accuses his female professor Marina Fisher, a leading expert on Artificial Intelligence and rising star of his college, of assaulting him sexually while babysitting her son.  The second crime is a murder which derails the Fawley team completely; I will not reveal more as it would ruin the nail biting part of the novel.  

If you are in the mood for a very clever British crime novel set in Oxford with plenty of twist and turns that will keep you guessing how on the earth the author is going to  resolve this one, ”The Whole Truth” is a very good pick. Hats off to Cara Hunter for creating such a terrific, tense crime story.  A tiny piece of critique: I like my crime novel endings very tidy and this one felt a bit too lose for my taste but perhaps just right for others.   

 

Jedidiah Jenkins: Like Streams to the Ocean, Convergent (Penguin Random House US), 9780593137239, hardback, available also by Penguin UK, Ebury

During the first lockdown in March 2020, I read Jedidiah Jenkins wonderful travel memoir “To Shake the Sleeping Self” which allowed me to travel with him in spirit through the Americas from Oregon to Patagonia on bicycle. I loved his honesty, reflectiveness and adventurous spirit paired with his struggle on this trip to come to terms with his evangelical upbringing and being gay. 

My eyes lit up when I heard that a new book was in the works, “Like Streams to the Ocean”, a very different book, essays with the under title “Notes on Ego, Love and the Things That Make Us Who We Are”.  Jedidiah examines what made him the person he had become at age 38, “talks” warmly with his readers  about ego, work, death, love, being gay, denying himself sex for a very long time due to his Christian upbringing, the meaning of family, friendships and the importance of chosen family. The book is written in snippets, an ongoing conversation one would have with a friend.  

I am probably not the target age group as a reader, could be his mother age wise really, which made some of his musings less relevant to me than it would to a younger person  but most essays are definitely universal, authentic and thought provoking. “Like Streams to the Ocean” did not mean as much to me as his travel memoir but then it is such a different book. His philosophical, kind and open thoughts made me reflect upon things in my own life during these grey days of a long lockdown winter.