Mysteries are my television. While others are watching CSI Whatever or some scripted reality show, I'm reclining with a good mystery and playing cops and robbers in my head all over the world. Lately I've been spending a fair amount of time in Scandinavia in the company of authors like Ake Edwardson, Jo Nesbo, and Karin Fossum among others. Soon I'll be visting Thailand again when the latest John Burdett comes out in January. The other night I took a trip back in time to 1583 and Oxford University for a bloody good time with Heresy by S.J. Parris. I'll definitely be talking more about this one the closer we get to its release date in February. Now though, it's time to share of my favorite mysteries of the year 'cause it's time for some Christmas buying and theses are all good picks for any mystery fanatic.
I think I'll start with the most pleasant surprise I had reading all year. Go With Me by Castle Freeman Jr. is a tiny book, only 160 pages long, but what a story those 160 pages tell. Set in small town Vermont, it is the step by step adventures of some good 'ol boys doing their chivalric best to help a young lady in distress. Great characters, awesome dialogue, humor, some violence but nothing worse than what's on TV, and, to me, a perfect ending (a rare thing) that eased me down and out of the story with no disappointment and a smile on my face.
This next one is perfect for any adrenaline junkies out there. This one starts fast and doesn't slow down. Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis is the story of Inspector Jian, a Chinese cop who can't speak a lick of English. One day he gets a phone call from his daughter at school in London. "Help me," are her only words before the connection is cut. Next thing you know, he's in London tracking down his daughter using his cop smarts to get around the language barrier. From one end of England to the other he caroms, wrecking cars, shooting up bars, and slowly, but surely,
moving ever closer to her until the explosive finale. I gotta tell you, I can't wait to see where Inspector Jian visits next.
Maybe he'll go to Gothenburg, Sweden and hang out with Chief Inspector Erik Winter, though I don't think they'd get along too well. Death Angels by Ake Edwardson finally introduces us to the Chief Inspector after four previous books already published here in the States. Why publishers do that, publish a foreign series out of order, I'll never understand but at least the wait in this instance was worthwhile. When we first meet the Chief Inspector he's mourning the death of a friend but is soon caught up in a series of bizarre murders that take him to London where all the clues lead to an old school chum. Out of all the Scandinavians I've read in the last couple of years I'd have to say that Ake Edwardson is the best stylist. Not a word is wasted, the plots are subtly devious in escalation, and the characters so well drawn, that you're not just reading the book but living it, the pages coming alive in your imagination in the way only the most gifted writers can make it. That is Ake Edwardson.
Speaking of stylists, my favorite mystery writer is James Lee Burke, one of the best writers in this country bar none. Year in and year out he amazes me with his brutally eloquent consistency. This year is no exception except, instead of brooding with Dave Robicheaux in Louisiana, we're in Texas chasing down human traffickers in Rain Gods, a modern western featuring a seventy something year old sheriff and a bad guy who goes by the name of Preacher Jack Collins. When the two finally meet is some of the best stuff Mr. Burke has ever done. Intense and morally ambivalent, Preacher Jack is the best bad guy since Legion Guidry in Jolie Blon's Bounce and HackberryHolland, the sheriff, is no slouch as a character either. The two complement each other so well that the rest of the story orbits around them without any disconnect in what is a pretty complicated plot that roils up plenty of Texas dust and makes for hours of good reading.
Finally we come to what I consider the most imaginative story I've read all year and that is Darling Jim by Christian Moerk. It is the story of a love triangle gone really, really, really bad. Jim is an itinerant storyteller rambling through the Irish countryside stealing womens hearts before literally robbing blind. Within the story is the story Jim shares as he wanders from town to town regalling people with an epic tale of love and honor that seduces listeners until he meets three sisters who see through his dangerous facade. The best word to describe this book that I've heard is 'mesmerizing'. How true. From page one Darling Jim doesn't let go, beguiling the reader like no other book I've read this year.
There you have it. My favorite mysteries of the year. May at least one entice you enough to come out and visit McIntyre's for a chat and maybe some other suggestions because, while these five may be my favorites, this is only the tip of the iceberg of others I could just as easily reccomend. People like Fred Vargas, Bryan Gruley, David Peace and Ann Cleeves, among others.
Until next week,
Cheers,
Pete
Friday, December 11, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Well, it's that time of year, the holiday season, when everyone with an opinion creates an end of year best of list. I'm no different. So here they are, my favorite books of the year in no particular order, minus any mysteries because I'll be writing about those next week.
Blame by Michelle Huneven (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)
This is a hard one to describe. My brother hated it, not enough action moving the plot along but that was fine with me because this is a book of consequences that had me thinking long after I finished. Patsy MacLemoore is a young wild child of a history professor who after a long night of drinking finds herself in jail accused of running over a mother and daughter, something she has no recollection of at all. She accepts the blame and goes to jail. The rest of the book is the morally ambivalent aftermath of that horrible event, how it shaped her life, and all the what if? questions that come with never really knowing the truth. A hard book to read but well worth the effort.
Selling Your Father's Bones: America's 140 Year War Against the Nez Perce Tribe by Brian Schofield (Simon & Schuster)
One of the first books I read and still one of the best. Brian Schofield is a British journalist who followed the 1700 mile flight of the Nez Perce from the U.S. Army in 1877. Part travelogue, part history lesson he tells the story of the conquering of the west, warts and all. Along the way he talks to descendants of the survivors who surrendered to the Army only forty miles from Canada and shares the bitterness over the lies, the broken treaties, and the ecological degradation, that still imbues their lives a century and a half later. An excellent addition to the library of anyone who cares about the history of the west.
Spooner by Pete Dexter (Grand Central Publishing)
For some reason all the novels I seemed to pick up this year were full of family angst. A suicide here, a dead brother there, a family sitting shiva, dysfunctional brouhahas everywhere. While Spooner isn't a walk in the park it at least moves forward at a positive pace which is something I need when when I read fiction. At it's heart the story is about relationships, specifically father/son relationships. It's also the semi-autobiographical story of Pete Dexter himself, one of my favorite authors, as he puts himself into the shoes of Warren Spooner who grows from teen reprobate to baseball phenom to newspaper columnist to successful author, all with the help and support of his step-father who was the only one to see hope in Spooner when he was a boy. Thank you Mr. Dexter for finally finishing this grand opus.
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
This is my favorite book of the year! I came in work one day and saw it sitting on the counter, a single copy looking all lonely. Being the kind bookseller I am I took it home with me and boy am I glad I did. One night, that's all it took, for me to read it from cover to cover and I've been singing it's praises ever since (in fact someone is buying a copy as I type this). Ostensibly it's about running, ultra-marathons in particular, but it is also the story of an eccentric American and a reclusive Mexican Indian tribe considered some of the best long distance runners in the world and a race no one saw. Think John Krakauer (Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven) except without any tragedy and you'll have a good idea how good this book is. Reading, for me, doesn't get much better.
Well, there you go, a few of my favorites out of the many I've read over the year. Let me know what you think. Also, tell me what some of your favorites are. I'm always interested in suggestions. Next week, my favorite mysteries.
See ya,
Pete
Blame by Michelle Huneven (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)
This is a hard one to describe. My brother hated it, not enough action moving the plot along but that was fine with me because this is a book of consequences that had me thinking long after I finished. Patsy MacLemoore is a young wild child of a history professor who after a long night of drinking finds herself in jail accused of running over a mother and daughter, something she has no recollection of at all. She accepts the blame and goes to jail. The rest of the book is the morally ambivalent aftermath of that horrible event, how it shaped her life, and all the what if? questions that come with never really knowing the truth. A hard book to read but well worth the effort.
Selling Your Father's Bones: America's 140 Year War Against the Nez Perce Tribe by Brian Schofield (Simon & Schuster)
One of the first books I read and still one of the best. Brian Schofield is a British journalist who followed the 1700 mile flight of the Nez Perce from the U.S. Army in 1877. Part travelogue, part history lesson he tells the story of the conquering of the west, warts and all. Along the way he talks to descendants of the survivors who surrendered to the Army only forty miles from Canada and shares the bitterness over the lies, the broken treaties, and the ecological degradation, that still imbues their lives a century and a half later. An excellent addition to the library of anyone who cares about the history of the west.
Spooner by Pete Dexter (Grand Central Publishing)
For some reason all the novels I seemed to pick up this year were full of family angst. A suicide here, a dead brother there, a family sitting shiva, dysfunctional brouhahas everywhere. While Spooner isn't a walk in the park it at least moves forward at a positive pace which is something I need when when I read fiction. At it's heart the story is about relationships, specifically father/son relationships. It's also the semi-autobiographical story of Pete Dexter himself, one of my favorite authors, as he puts himself into the shoes of Warren Spooner who grows from teen reprobate to baseball phenom to newspaper columnist to successful author, all with the help and support of his step-father who was the only one to see hope in Spooner when he was a boy. Thank you Mr. Dexter for finally finishing this grand opus.
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
This is my favorite book of the year! I came in work one day and saw it sitting on the counter, a single copy looking all lonely. Being the kind bookseller I am I took it home with me and boy am I glad I did. One night, that's all it took, for me to read it from cover to cover and I've been singing it's praises ever since (in fact someone is buying a copy as I type this). Ostensibly it's about running, ultra-marathons in particular, but it is also the story of an eccentric American and a reclusive Mexican Indian tribe considered some of the best long distance runners in the world and a race no one saw. Think John Krakauer (Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven) except without any tragedy and you'll have a good idea how good this book is. Reading, for me, doesn't get much better.
Well, there you go, a few of my favorites out of the many I've read over the year. Let me know what you think. Also, tell me what some of your favorites are. I'm always interested in suggestions. Next week, my favorite mysteries.
See ya,
Pete
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