A Fire in the Night

A Fire in the Night by Christopher Swann
9/7/21; 288 pages
Crooked Lane Books

A Fire in the Night by Christopher Swann is a highly recommended thriller.

Since his wife's death a year earlier, Nick Anthony, a retired professor of medieval history, has lived a quiet secluded life in the North Carolina mountains. When county Deputy Joshua Sams shows up at his house to inform him that the bodies of his estranged brother, Jay, and sister-in-law have been found after their Tampa, Florida home was set on fire, Nick learns that it appears to have been a double homicide and that their daughter, Annalise, a niece he didn't know existed, is missing. When an intruder later turns up on his porch, obviously ill and feverish, it is Annalise. After he brings her back to health, she has information, a map and thumb drive, that her dad wanted her to get to Nick.

At the same time Cole and his team of private military contractors have realized that Annalise was not killed in the house fire and has escaped with the information they are being paid to recover from Jay. Now the lethal team must find Annalise and recover the information. They will let nothing stand in their way. As they try to track Annalise's location, what they don't know is that Nick exists, let alone that he has some skills and abilities in his past beyond his academic career.

Perfect reading for escapism, A Fire in the Night is a fast paced literary thriller that is tightly plotted without a lot of extraneous details or multiple plot threads, which works well in this story. The writing is excellent, which I expected after Swann's last novel, Never Turn Back. There might be a little suspension of disbelief over some of the skills the characters possess, but not enough to detract from the narrative. The descriptive writing perfectly sets up the locations and scenes. The characters believably inhabit the world created here. The threat Nick and Annalise face is real and tension will mount as the men searching for Annalise get closer and closer.

Both Nick and Annalise are fully realized, developed characters who are realistically depicted. They are not perfect people, but you will like both of them, believe in them, and hope they both live to see another day. Annalise is portrayed as a believable teenager under unbelievable stress. Nick is grieving and surprised by Annalise's existence, but manages to do the right thing while thinking about the dialogue he and his wife would have had about the situations. The bad guys are seriously scary and threatening, but also feel like real individuals, which makes them more menacing in many ways.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Crooked Lane Books.

Deer Season

Deer Season by Erin Flanagan
9/1/21; 320 pages
University of Nebraska Press

Deer Season by Erin Flanagan is a very highly recommended character driven novel wrapped around a mystery. This is a beautifully written novel!

In Gunthrum, Nebraska, the 1985 deer season is opening and Alma and Clyle Costagan's intellectually disabled farmhand, Hal Bullard, 28 years-old, has been invited to join two other local men on their weekend hunt. Alma, a pessimist by nature, is concerned for him considering who invited him along. Instead of staying away the whole weekend, Hal returns Saturday night and is seen at the OK bar. When he shows up at the Costagan's Sunday he claims he shot his first deer and came home early. He also has a dent in his front fender, which he may have gotten hitting his garage again on Saturday night, and blood in the truck bed from the deer.

On the same weekend 12 year-old Milo Ahern is being confirmed in church that Sunday. When Milo goes to wake up his 16 year-old sister, Peggy, she's not in her room and later, when she can't be tracked down anywhere, she is reported missing. Gossip begins to swirl around Milo's early return and the condition of his truck. Residents of the small town quickly spread rumors and gossip that accused Hal of violence against Peggy, in spite of the lack of proof. It does not help matters that Hal has a crush on Peggy. Milo is much more observant and thoughtful than most of the adults around him.

Deer Season is an exquisitely written literary novel. While the plot follows the reaction of the citizens of the town during the search for Peggy, the focus of the novel is an honest and compassionate character study full of attentive, intelligent observations. The characters are fully realized, complex individuals with faults, shortcomings and emotional damages, but also with honest knowledge and awareness of the small community around them and their faults. There are heartbreaking revelations and thoughts shared by both Milo and Alma and they will have your total empathy.

Alma and Milo are the primary narrators in the novel and the plot unfolds through their points-of-view and their observations of the events surrounding Peggy's disappearance. While the mystery of Peggy's disappearance gives shape and purpose to the plot, the rich characterizations give the novel a depth and sensitivity that propels it to a standout mystery novel. Underlying themes include the contemplation of what it means to be a family and a question of how far would you go to protect those you love.

With the complex characters and the satisfying and surprising conclusion, Flanagan has written a stunning, extraordinary debut novel. Deer Season would be a wonderful choice for book clubs that like to discuss literary fiction.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the University of Nebraska Press for TLC Book Tours.

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Nice Girls

Nice Girls by Catherine Dang
9/14/21; 352 pages
HarperCollins

Nice Girls by Catherine Dang is a so-so murder mystery.

Mary left Liberty Lake, Minnesota for Cornell with the moniker of "Ivy League Mary" given to her by the locals. Now she is back at age 22 having been expelled during her senior year from the university for assaulting another student. Mary, who was a quiet chubby girl before she left, is now much thinner but still carrying much of the anger she had when still living there and apparently all through her time at Cornell. When Mary's father brings her home he expects her to get a job and she does, as a cashier at a local grocery store. Right after Mary arrived back in Liberty Lake, a previous friend, Olivia Willand, goes missing and the town is searching for her when Mary discovers that another girl, DeMaria, went missing months earlier and didn't receive the same attention and care by the police.

Perhaps this is more of a mystery for young adult readers because of the simplistic writing and predictable plot. Mary is truly an extremely dislikable character so it was a struggle at time to keep reading the novel. She's immature, cynical, carries grudges, and constantly recalls wrongs done to her in the past. She is only 22, so it is not like she has a life time of being down trodden. I could go with all of this but when she starts working at a grocery store, which, horrors, is beneath her intelligence and capabilities, the whiny protagonist lost me. Then when she calls in sick to start doing her own investigating, I was over it. There are plenty of stereotypes presented and the characters are all more caricatures in Nice Girls. The last third of the novel heads off into an unbelievable direction and the ending takes a whole lot of suspension of disbelief. I finished it, but this one wasn't a winner for me.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.

Snowflake

Snowflake by Louise Nealon
9/14/21; 336 pages
HarperCollins

Snowflake by Louise Nealon is a highly recommended coming of age story.

Debbie is eighteen and commuting from the family dairy farm in rural Kildare County to attend Trinity college in Dublin where she is overwhelmed, learning how to hide, and depressed. While her life on the farm with her Uncle Billy and her mother, Maeve, hasn't been without drama and problems, they all love and support each other. At college in Dublin, Debbie makes one friend, Xanthe, although the two are seemingly opposites and Xanthe is the one who pursues Debbie's friendship. At home, although Debbie wants to pull away from her family, they offer comfort in their familiarity, although they drink too much and their behavior is often odd. Debbie also begins to drink too much in Dublin and is depressed. When a tragic accident shakes up her whole family, they all have to face some harsh realities.

The quality of the writing is excellent. The contrast of Debbie's rural life on the farm versus city life in Dublin is depicted realistically as is her uncomfortable transition between the two contrasting worlds. This contrast is also captured in the differences between the lives of Debbie and Xanthe, who have a connection in spite of their differences. The closeness and relationship between Billy and Debbie is believable and beautifully rendered. There is an element of magic realism in the plot. The growth and depth of the characters is wonderfully captured.  Everyone in the family have special gifts - Maeve and Debbie in their dreams and Billy in some special abilities. The frank inclusion of depression and the abuse of alcohol is realistically depicted in how it affects the characters. This is a very good debut novel and it will be interesting to see what Nealon writes next.

At the beginning of this novel I felt like it was more a new adult/young adult novel as the focus felt to was targeting a younger reader versus a mature adult reader. This evaluation did change as the novel progressed and the characters experienced some growth, but it needs to be mentioned. Once we learned more about Debbie's family and their struggles and gifts, it slowly became a better novel. I still feel that the target reading audience skews young, although I appreciated the character growth.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.

 

Greenwich Park

Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner
1/4/22; 384 pages
Gallery Books

Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner is a highly recommended psychological thriller.

Right from the opening, which is a letter sent to Helen from someone in prison, you know that something is going to go terribly wrong. Helen, Rory, and Charlie are siblings, adult children of a well known decease architect. Helen is married to Daniel and the two are now expecting their first child after several previous miscarriages. Rory and his wife, Serena, are also expecting and due around the same time. Rory and Daniel are partners in an architectural firm, which Rory inherited from his father. Helen inherited the Victorian house where she and Daniel reside. Charlie inherited cash. He is the family outcast and is dating Katie, a friend of Helen.

Helen is 24 weeks pregnant and attending her first prenatal class when she meets Rachel. After Daniel said he had to work late and Serena said she changed her mind and was attending a different class, Helen was left alone until a single woman, Rachel, showed up and sat next to her. Rachel quickly inserted herself into Helen's life. Helen, a quiet, socially awkward, insecure woman who has a difficulty making friends, is ripe for Rachel's friendly overtures so even though it sometimes makes her uncomfortable. Rachel's friendship is also welcome in many ways, in spite of the fact that Helen is being very careful with her pregnancy, while Rachel is still drinking and smoking during hers. The only trouble is that something seems off with, well, almost everyone and everything else.

Helen is a sympathetic character, but her lack of self confidence and doubt in herself is sad. She keeps making excuses for how busy Daniel is and puts up with his excuses. She is so clueless that her gullibility is a bit unbelievable. As Serena and Katie always seem busy, she is ripe for a friend and Rachel fills that need. Rachel is an outlier; you don't know what she thinks and there are plenty of reasons to not trust her. Serena is clearly untrustworthy, arrogant, and very self-assured. You will neither trust nor like her. Katie is a very appealing, likable character and the most authentic character in the novel.

The writing is excellent and the plot and pace of the revelations are perfectly timed. Greenwich Park is told through the point-of-view of Helen, Serena, and Katie and follows along Helen's pregnancy, starting at week 24. The multiple narrators and breaking the novel down into the weeks of Helen's pregnancy works very well in this novel and serves to keep the plot moving forward and increasing the sense of dread, that something is wrong. And there are plenty of indications that something is terribly wrong and that everything isn't right. Faulkner keeps you guessing, though and the true nature of what is going on is revealed very slowly and carefully. The ending of Greenwich Park is very well done and shocking. The very end of the novel is absolutely perfect.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Simon & Schuster.

More Bad Days in History

More Bad Days in History by Michael Farquhar
6/8/21; 464 pages
National Geographic

More Bad Days in History by Michael Farquhar is a highly recommended compendium featuring a bad event for every day of the year. This follows Bad Days in History published in 2015.

Organized by month and day this is not so much a book you read cover to cover as one you dip into for a daily or monthly dose of misfortune, mishaps, and misbehavior. The entries range from ancient Rome to recent history, with more recent dates favored over earlier times. The historical anecdotes cover a wide range of subjects, from politicians, to writers, celebrities, pop culture figures and notable personalities. This is the book for those who derive pleasure from another person's misfortune. The events are not horrific or tragic; they are bad days, just like a bad day you might have only perhaps on a larger scale because most of us won't have our bad days recorded for posterity. The events covered are mostly that of a person but some tangentially involve a city or region.

Recently during a small gathering I brought out the book and we had an enjoyable time just thumbing through the book, looking up suggested dates (birthdays are always fun). This was a fun approach to using More Bad Days in History as an entertaining diversion. It must be noted that the group found some bad days more amusing than others, which is to be expected with any collection of what are essentially short stories. It was also noted among the group that some of the wording was a little more prejudicial or politicized than it needed to be. It's a collection of bad days in history so extra editorializing shouldn't be needed to tell the story.

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from National Geographic for TLC Book Tours. 

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Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper
9/14/21; 128 pages
Ten Speed Press

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson and illustrated by Jay Cooper is a very highly recommended, hilarious guide that would make a perfect gift for anyone who enjoys British mysteries, especially cozy mysteries.

As a cozy mystery lover, you are finally taking that long awaited trip to England and look forward to seeing the quaint villages you have read about for years. There are some important things to consider and thankfully there is this guide to help you decide and plan your course of action. As Johnson points out in the introduction, "It is possible that you will find yourself in a placid and tedious little corner of England; it is just as possible that you will end up in an English Murder Village." You won't know if it is a murder village until it is too late, and that is precisely where this handy illustrated guide will help you find your way through the traps that await you at every turn and hopefully keep you alive. For example "The Village Shop: It sells cheese, stamps, and death." The author warns you that the best course of action is to stay in the urban areas, stay out of the countryside and continue on with your life.But if you decide to venture forth, hopefully the guide will help you survive.

This entertaining, hilarious guide is full of allusions to classic literary crime scenes and British lore. Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village opens with a note to the reader and then is divided into two sections with specifics following. The first section is The Village, which covers: Building & Spaces; Residents; Events, and a Quiz over details. The second section is The Manor, followed by sections on: Buildings & Spaces; Rooms & Architecture; furnishings & features; Residents; Frequent Guests; staff; events; and a Quiz section. Alas, based on my performance on the quizzes, my chance of survival is under fifty percent.

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village will make a perfect, funny gift to give to all those British mystery lovers in your life.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Ten Speed Press via NetGalley.