Five stars?!? The thing is, this novel takes place in Philadelphia and I live in Philadelphia, so I was predisposed to enthusiasm for Long Bright RiveFive stars?!? The thing is, this novel takes place in Philadelphia and I live in Philadelphia, so I was predisposed to enthusiasm for Long Bright River. Nevertheless, it actually exceeded my (high) expectations: As I mentioned in one of my status updates, it's like Tana French before she got all ponderous. Long Bright River does take a bit of time to get going, but it's time well spent, building a world of vivid place and character, and by the time the plot picked up I was fully invested. There are a couple twists along the way but nothing cheap, and this novel manages to say a few things about the state of the world while never sacrificing story. If you're not as interested in Philadelphia as I am, you may not see your way clear to five whole stars, but if you're looking for a distinctive, page-turning police thriller with characters worth rooting for, you can stop looking and just head toward the river.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway; thank you to the publisher. My opinions, as always, are my own....more
Hope Never Dies is a fun but fairly standard mystery-slash-buddy comedy, and that's just fine, because if the story tried to be more unusual it would Hope Never Dies is a fun but fairly standard mystery-slash-buddy comedy, and that's just fine, because if the story tried to be more unusual it would only distract from the fact that the two buddies are Joe Biden and Barack Obama. The depictions of both men ring true: Biden, the narrator, is likable, prone to using corny similes, and has much to say about the State of Delaware and the state of the world. Obama, on the other hand, is cool and inscrutable but with a strong moral code. The body count is much higher than I was expecting, but the dynamic of Obama and Biden's relationship is the heart and soul of this goofy book. I'd sign up for another round of this (in reading and in life). As for fictional Joe Biden's assertion that he could've beat Trump in the last presidential election... from your lips to god's ears, fictional Joe Biden.
Full disclosure: I have freelanced for the Quirk Books, the publisher of Hope Never Dies, but they've never given me any free books in that capacity, and I didn't work on this one. My opinions, as always, are my own....more
How often does a reader have a 30-year relationship with a character and an author, taking place over 25 volumes read sequentially? It's the only one How often does a reader have a 30-year relationship with a character and an author, taking place over 25 volumes read sequentially? It's the only one I've ever had, and unless I start a new series right this minute and like it enough to keep up for three decades, I'm never going to have another relationship like this again. I can't pinpoint the exact moment when these books started to feel like home to me, I just know that at some point Kinsey's neighborhood, her studio apartment, her office bungalow, her neighbor Henry, Rosie's restaurant down the street, and Kinsey's voice and personality all became a place where I could settle in and know I was among friends. Like good friends do, these books helped me through some hard times. Last year I eulogized Sue Grafton in my review of X, and now my review of Y Is for Yesterday will serve as my eulogy for this series. Like many other readers, I wish this wasn't the case. I wish Sue Grafton were still with us and putting the finishing touches on the volume that would give us all the closure we want and, let's be real, deserve after all these years. Instead we're getting a different kind of closure: Sue Grafton was taken away from her family and from her readers, there's no denying that, and finishing Y with no Z to look forward to is our moment to feel the loss and grieve it.
The plotline of Y Is for Yesterday scarcely matters. It had the usual Sue Grafton flaws—primarily, for me, the overexplaining and the way the characters all kind of sounded the same—but also the usual vivid recurring players and absorbing storyline. It wasn't her best, but I'm not really interested in criticizing it. Again, at this point it hardly matters. My relationship with this series has had its ups and downs over the years, but it was a significant part of my reading life. Now that it's over, all I can say is that I'm already missing it....more
On page 284 of my copy of The Marriage Pact, our narrator, Jake, contemplates the high, gated walls of a federal prison building.
Jake (thinking): "TheOn page 284 of my copy of The Marriage Pact, our narrator, Jake, contemplates the high, gated walls of a federal prison building.
Jake (thinking): "The gate opens and we drive through. As I hear it roll closed behind us, I calculate whether it is too high for me to climb. And, if I could, how long would it take? What would they do if I tried?"
Me: Are you kidding? You have meekly agreed to every single batshit crazy thing that has been proposed to you for nearly 300 pages, and NOW you think you're going to grow enough initiative to escape your cell, bust out of prison, and scale a high wall? I really don't think so.
Jake: "Escaping this place would be like swimming from Alcatraz. Once you're out, how do you survive? The desert is too remote, too unforgiving. Without water, I'd be dead within hours."
Me: Probably. But it doesn't matter, because there is NO WAY you're escaping.
Jake: "What is a better way to die: in a prison, at the mercy of your captors, or alone in the desert?"
Me: Why are you still talking about this?
Three pages earlier:
Jake: "Experience, time, and education have taught me how to read people and situations."
Me: They really have not.
I was excited to win this book in a Goodreads giveaway! I read Richmond's earlier novel, No One You Know, several years back and really enjoyed it—I still remember its great characterization and vivid detail. Of course, I knew The Marriage Pact, being a thriller, would be a different reading experience, but I expected Michelle Richmond's obvious writing talent to carry the day, regardless of genre. I turned out to be both right and wrong about that.
The Marriage Pact is completely preposterous. When Jake and his wife Alice are invited to join The Pact, ostensibly a club of like-minded married folks interested in having great marriages that last a lifetime, it is obvious from the very beginning that something is off about the group. There's no honeymoon period where everything seems great—everything seems totally off the chain (in a bad way) right from the start. There is literally no way two characters as (supposedly) intelligent as Jake and Alice would actually join a group like this, much less stay in it, much less constantly rationalize the weirdness and authoritarian aspects of it, much less agree to so much of what they agree to, much less never go to the authorities. It makes zero sense, and for a long time I thought about DNFing but kept reading out of sheer amusement at the preposterousness of what we were meant to swallow. It was absurd! Totally absurd.
But the thing is, eventually I started to care. The characterization, the detail, the plain old good writing Michelle Richmond is capable of wore me down, and at a certain point I couldn't deny it: I was fully invested, and the fact that I would finish the book was now a foregone conclusion. Finish it I did, and I was satisfied by the ending. But the thing is, I'm also angry. I'm angry that Michelle Richmond made me care about a premise that was so ridiculous as to be insulting to the intelligence. So I'm mad. I'm mad at this book. I look at it and I feel anger.
So The Marriage Pact has its good points. It's genuinely well written and it keeps you turning the pages. It does have the vivid details and great use of setting I'd expected from Michelle Richmond. But in addition to the lunacy of the plot, it's overlong and contains extended (view spoiler)[elements of torture (hide spoiler)], which I wasn't down for. Still, I thought by thriller standards it was probably better than a lot of the more poorly written books out there, and I considered giving it three stars. Then I thought of Gone Girl, another thriller about marriage that felt way less forced than this one did, and which messed with the reader's mind in a much more genuine way. I consider Gone Girl the gold standard for domestic thrillers, and I gave that three stars. So The Marriage Pact gets two. I'd definitely read another book by Michelle Richmond, but definitely not another book like this one....more
Ugh, this was such a disappointment. A fairly uninteresting crime. A lot of early focus on someone who obviously didn't commit the crime. An uninspireUgh, this was such a disappointment. A fairly uninteresting crime. A lot of early focus on someone who obviously didn't commit the crime. An uninspired wild goose chase that means that by the middle of the book, you still don't know much more than you did 220 pages ago. Absolutely ENDLESS conversations and very little action. Interviews with suspects where murder detectives' tactics are explained over and over and over again. A protagonist who was SO unlikable for so much of the book that when she finally had her redemption, I was well past caring. A LOOOONG conversation with the victim's best friend where she explains absolutely everything for us. An anticlimactic reveal and then pages and pages spent wrapping it all up. Major overuse of the word "hole." The only thing I liked about The Trespasser was the conversation at the very end between the gaffer and one of the detectives, but it was definitely too little, too late.
Don't get me wrong—a bad Tana French novel is still head and shoulders above most mysteries/thrillers out there, but by the standard French herself has set this is not a particularly good book, and definitely not gripping in the way her books usually are. My least favorite in the series by a very wide margin....more
I wavered between three and four stars for this, but settled on four because it's just so darn likable. Essentially a whodunit with some supernatural I wavered between three and four stars for this, but settled on four because it's just so darn likable. Essentially a whodunit with some supernatural elements, this book is like a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys mystery with more gore and sex. I totally loved the setting and thought King did a great job of making it come alive. I think he should turn this into a series where the protagonist travels around in a groovy van, solving mysteries at various carnivals and amusement parks across the country....more
I tried reading X over a year ago and thought it took forever to get going. I actually gave up at page 86 and honestly wasn't sure if I'd go back, butI tried reading X over a year ago and thought it took forever to get going. I actually gave up at page 86 and honestly wasn't sure if I'd go back, but for some reason this holiday week I was inspired to go back and start over. Happily, it went much better this time, and I was enjoying the book immensely when I learned that Sue Grafton had died of cancer. I hadn't even known it she was ailing. I'd spent the first half of X looking at her picture on the back cover—where she appears to be in radiant good health—and wondering what she'd do when when she finally finished Z. Would she just enjoy her retirement, or write another type of book altogether? I spent the second half of the book acutely aware that there would be no Z.
I've been reading Sue Grafton for almost 30 years, and like any long-term relationship, it's had its ups and downs. I loved the first 15 or so books, but at a certain point I started to get irritated with the high level of detail they provided. Had they always been this tedious, I wondered? Or had I just outgrown them? When Sue Grafton started incorporating flashbacks and other points of view into the novels, seemingly looking for something new herself, I almost always enjoyed them, but found that I was always anxious to get back to Kinsey Millhone, the detective herself.
Thinking about all this after learning of Grafton's death, I suddenly remembered my first few years in Philadelphia. Because of a job transfer, I moved here only a month after my father's unexpected death, and while I held it all together okay, I was pretty lost for a while. I remembered that during that time, whenever I saw there was a new Sue Grafton book available, I would buy it and read it immediately. I needed the comfort they provided. I'd known Kinsey Millhone for so long, she was like a friend to me when I needed one. That was something Sue Grafton did. It was something she did for me.
Like I said, I wasn't entirely sure I'd go back to X, and I don't really know what prompted me to try it again this week. It's like nothing else I've read this year, but in its broad and deep encapsulation of the long-term relationship between an author and a reader, it's the perfect book to close out a year. Rest in peace, Sue Grafton....more
The setting for this book was really great. I loved the idea of setting a mystery/thriller at a former plantation turned plantation-themed tourist attThe setting for this book was really great. I loved the idea of setting a mystery/thriller at a former plantation turned plantation-themed tourist attraction; the haunted quality of such a place could only increase the level of menace in the proceedings. And that aspect of the book worked very well. In addition, the characters were quite vivid for a book of this type. Unfortunately, it seemed to take forever for anything to happen, and I got frustrated with the way the main character withheld possible clues from the police for seemingly no reason (not counting (view spoiler)[her daughter's bloody shirt, of course (hide spoiler)]—I understood why she hid that, and that particular element of the book was quite effective). I was also able to figure out the culprit reasonably early on, which I was excited about, but let's get real—I'm usually never able to figure out the culprit, so if even I could do it, it was unfortunately probably a pretty obvious solution for any reader.
I wish I could say I'm willing to give Attica Locke's other books a try, but given how this one didn't live up to its potential for me, I don't think I'll be reading her others anytime soon....more
When the 1999 film adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley was released, I remember reading a lengthy magazine article that discussed all the things aboWhen the 1999 film adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley was released, I remember reading a lengthy magazine article that discussed all the things about the book that were changed for the movie. I don't remember now what any of those changes were, but I do remember that I came away from the article thinking the book didn't sound very good. Thus, even though I had a copy of it, I avoided reading it for years and years. In 2017 it finally occurred to me that the book wouldn't have the staying power it does if there weren't something to it. I finally gave it a try and was amazed by how absorbing it was. The Talented Mr. Ripley is like an elaborate puzzle that Tom Ripley is constantly working, figuring out how to get himself into and out of treacherous situations entirely of his own making. While he's obviously some kind of psychopath, Ripley is also oddly sympathetic; Highsmith delves into his past and his psyche just enough to help the reader understand him, but thankfully without crossing over into sentimentality. It's a fantastic portrait, and I rooted for him the whole way through despite his pileup of bad deeds and appalling rationalizations. I truly loved every minute of this and was sorry when it was over. This isn't the kind of book I'm generally compelled to reach for, and I doubt I'll read any of the sequels. But I recognize perfection when I see it, and for what it sets out to do, The Talented Mr. Ripley is just about perfect....more
This was a good novel, but not a good thriller--it just wasn't the page turner I've come to expect from Tana French.This was a good novel, but not a good thriller--it just wasn't the page turner I've come to expect from Tana French....more
Talking, talking, talking. So much talking. So many characters saying so many things as wordily as humanly possible. Don't get me wrong, they were usuTalking, talking, talking. So much talking. So many characters saying so many things as wordily as humanly possible. Don't get me wrong, they were usually talking about interesting things, and I don't mind a lot of talking in novels in general. But mystery novels should have more action than talking, and this one was about 90 percent talking, 10 percent action. This is the fourth Amanda Cross mystery I've read but, I believe, the earliest one I've read in terms of when she wrote them. Now I'm wondering if I was too easy on her other novels, or if she just got better at writing them as time went on. Probably the latter, but that didn't make this one any more fun to read....more
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