Jocelyn Nicole Johnson: My Monticello, 9781787303027, Harvill Secker (Penguin Random House UK), hard copy
 

It is rare that I am so completely blown away by a book uttering “Wow” several times when I finished “My Monticello” by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson.  This debut will stay in my head for some time.  What a powerful, electrifying story, what an incredibly beautiful use of language, a chilling account put into narration what  has been a nightmare of mine ever since the rise of Trump and his administration.  Picture the US in a civil war like state with black neighborhoods burning, brown skinned people driven out and turned away at clinics hunted down by white supremacists, a world in chaos set on fire.  

Da’Naisha, a young black woman manages to escape these violent attacks with some neighbors, her white boyfriend Knox, her frail grandmother MaViolet and her former lover Devin high jacking a bus and driving it through chaos to Monticello, the ancient home of Thomas Jefferson, a museum now  outside  Charlottesville / Virginia.  Naisha worked there as a guide during her semester breaks and subconsciously ended up on this route.  Ironically she is also an acknowledged descendant of Sally Hemings, a black slave with whom Jefferson had several children.  What follows is Naisha’s  moving 19 day  account  of life with a group of people randomly thrown together in survival mode,  escaping with nothing but the shirts on their backs trying to hold out on Monticello  as long as possible in a collapsing state.  5 stars from me! 

 

Donna Leon: Give unto Others, 978152915119, Heinemann UK (Penguin Random House) trade paperback, publication date: March 3, 2022

As is often the case when I start a new Donna Leon novel, I find myself almost slightly bored by the seemingly insignificant story line during the first 20 % of the book but am amazed  at the same time  at her precise  observations and  careful description of human  psyche and behavior. 

“Give onto Others”  is no exception, the favor  Commissario Brunetti  does for his former neighbor Elisabetta in looking into something seemingly private and unimportant around her daughter’s life  branches out into all directions leading nowhere.  Only in the middle of the book, when her daughter’s veterinarian office is vandalized, does Brunetti step into action and the book gathers speed when he decides to look into his neighbor’s family background and motive.

I like Donna Leon’s subtle way of developing an often non bloody but psychologically astute plot. And of course there are always scenes of Venice, food, drink, Brunetti’s family and colleagues and reflections on Italy’s or Venice’s shortcomings which   always makes for a fine, escapist  reading time. It is a bit like visiting friends.

 

 

Sophie Haydock: The Flames, 9780857527639, Transworld (Penguin Random House UK) pub date: March 22, 2022

 

My first read of the year, journalist Sophie Haydock’s debut novel “The Flames” was a true hit. Thank you Transworld for the early galley. 

“The Flames” is based on four women in Egon Schiele’s life; he was one of the most controversial Austrian painters  in early 20^th century Vienna, a close friend of Gustav Klimt and known for his unusually explicit erotic paintings and sketches.  I saw them at the Albertina in Vienna and even today they are provoking. 

Schiele painted them all:  his headstrong sister Gertrude, his very first model with whom he shared an unusually close bond.  Vally: his muse, lover and model during his early year as an artists, an exceptionally free spirited, proud woman who stood by him when he was thrown into prison for his pornographic paintings and then the bourgeois, wealthy Harms sisters who both had a crush on him: Adele the older, more eccentric, possessive troublemaker of the two and Edith, the gentler, more conventional of the sisters who eventually became Egon’s wife.  

Haydock does an excellent job in painting the hard, often turbulent lives of each of them, overshadowed by WWI, taking fictional liberties with her narration but staying close to what actually happened.  She adds their biographies as an appendix and shares with the reader  what spurred her to write this excellent  novel  which I found so captivating. Egon Schiele, around whose life all four rotate, ends up being a side character. This is a book about four unusually strong women during a time when the world held very different values and female lives were very restricted, a wonderful read , sometimes heartbreakingly tragic .

 

Isabel Allende: Violeta, Bloomsbury UK, Trade Paperback, publication date: January 25, 2022

 

The last review of the year:  between Christmas and New Year’s Eve I finished Isabelle Allende’s upcoming  novel “Violeta”, a perfect read for the “in between days” as I call them.  I am always amazed at the sheer limitless fantasy Allende seems to possess ever since her world famous “House of Spirits”. I have been a fan of her unique storytelling talent whether her narrations are set in South-,North America or Europe, they all have fairy tale, magical, epic qualities.   

“Violeta”, her latest book coming out January 25^nd (thank you Bloomsbury for the early galley) is firmly moored in that tradition. Violeta Del Valle, the heroine of the book, reaching the end of her tumultuous, rich life shares her memories in a letter to a male,  Camillo, you find out later who he is.

Born into a wealthy, entrepreneurial family in the 1920ties with a typical patriarch of a father, the family fortune is lost during the Great Depression due to her father's reckless risk taking.  After his sudden death, the family is forced out of their mansion and Violeta and her mother find themselves in a remote rural part of the country.  Her oldest brother becomes the fixed star in her life providing the support for her astonishing talents who are the source for her  financial independence giving her the freedom to love whom she pleases  during a time when this was extraordinary.   Allende never names the country but in my view it is modeled on Chile, her home country, as are actual historical events in South America she weaves into the narration.

The book provides perfect escapism;  a great story  full of colorful characters,  drama, passion, heartbreak, love and historical events.  

 

Alafair Burke: The Girl She was, Faber & Faber UK, 9780571345595, paperback, Jan 13, 2022

This is my first crime mystery by Alafair Burke who is the daughter of James Lee Burke whose atmospheric thrillers set in the Louisiana bayous I really digest.  She has clearly inherited his writing talent; Alafair Burke has her very distinct voice and is a crafty storyteller.  

“The Girl she was” tells the story of Hope Miller who survived  a serious car crash with total amnesia and no memory of her past life. In her new life Hope develops  an exceptionally close bond with her  friend Lindsay Kelly, a lawyer who is surprised when Hope decides to start a new life on Montauk.  When Hope gets entangled in a murder case, the need to find out who she really was before becomes very pressing for Lindsay. 

“The Girl she was” keeps you in suspense for a very long time, with many twists and turns until the last pages.

 

Colson Whitehead: Harlem Shuffle, Doubleday (Penguin Random House US) 9780385547758, large format paperback

I previously read Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning “The Underground Railroad” and was completely blown away by the power of the book, language and story in equal measures.  His latest novel “Harlem Shuffle” is far more lighthearted, a great portrait of Harlem life and that of small time crook and businessman Ray Carvey from 1959 to 1964.  Greatly enjoyed reading this unusual novel although I occasionally struggled with the slang specific of Harlem and the lingo gangsters used having to re-read sentences twice to catch the meaning.

Ray Carvey unlike most of the very colorful characters in the book is trying hard to be an upstanding citizen and businessman having started  his own business selling furniture to Harlem clientele.  His cousin Freddie however has opted for a career as a thief and unloading merchandise from suspicious sources at Carvey store is proving to be the extra business Ray needs to stay afloat with his start up.  When Freddie drags him into robbing the Hotel Theresa which of course does not go as planned, Ray’s career as a sometimes crook is propelled into another dimension. Shady cops, Harlem gangsters and lowlifes, jewelers who look the other way become part of his daily life.  At home he maintains the front of a caring father and businessman / husband although his father in law, not completely kosher himself, suspects that not all of Ray’s business is legal…

For me one of the great fun parts of the book was to see how Ray learns to use the curveballs that regularly land in his yard to his own advantage. There are several terrific characters that shape this book but Ray and his cousin Freddie stand out the most.  “Harlem Shuffle” is a terrific mix of a crime novel and a Harlem life saga of the early Sixties with the first race riots causing havoc and changing the social landscape not only of
New York. 

Ray Celestin: Sunset Swing, Pan Macmillian UK, 9781509839001, large format Paperback

 

Since stumbling across Ray Celestin’s debut “The Axeman’s Jazz” set in 1919 New Orleans, I have been patiently waiting for each installment of the “City Blues Quartet”.   

“Sunset Swing”, the latest in the series, is set in 1967 Los Angeles; it held me firmly captive for 560 pages.  Rarely have I read such incredibly atmospheric period crime novels set in the world of mobsters and Jazz, all centering around Ida Young, a colored female detective, one of the very first and a childhood friend of Louis Armstrong.   

Not one book in the series is weak, recommend them all wholeheartedly. I am always blown away at how Celestin strings along such complex, multilayered plots told from the perspective of mostly 3-4 characters that reappear in the follow ups, ending mostly in an emotionally very charged finale. I love them all, absolutely fascinated by the mobster stories based on real life characters, the excellent writing and the details that went into the research of these period setting. “Dead Man Blues” takes the reader to Al Capone's Chicago in 1928 and “The Mobster’s Lament” to New York in 1947. It is hardly surprising that Axeman’s Jazz won New Blood Dagger Award and every other title has been short listed for prestigious awards.

In “Sunset Swing” Ida Young has retired, she is 67 and has no longer any taste for the world of crime and mobsters.  When a young woman is found murdered in her hotel room with Ida’s name written on a paper slip she is brought into the investigation by the LAPD.  Meanwhile her old friend, the former mobster fixer Dante Sanfelippo , is brought in by the mob to find the missing son of an Italian mobster boss, a last favor before Dante's retirement to a vinyard  in Napa Valley.  Kerry Gaudet, a Nalpam disfigured Vietnam veteran nurse is flying in to search for her missing brother fearing that something terrible has happened to him.  A spider web of connections ties these three people together in a hunt for a brutal serial killer who takes Ida back to a nightmare  case in New Orleans. Celestin surpasses himself with a great plot, anything more would spoil the reading fun of this gripping but sadly final novel in the series. Five stars from me.