Last Week in Books

Three books last week, none quite enthralling enough to get their own post.

First, Fred Vargas’ latest Adamsberg mystery, An Uncertain Place. I really enjoy this series – there is something appealing about the quirky, odd cleverness of the crimes and how Adamsberg solves them. But this one just didn’t satisfy. Maybe it was my mood this week, maybe it was the vampire theme (I’m really not into vampires)… all I know is several times I felt like putting the book down and giving up, and towards the end I was skimming awfully quickly just so I could get to the end and move on. I’m not even going to try to summarize the plot. If you like Fred Vargas then you’ll probably read this regardless of my plot description. If you’ve never read her books, don’t start with this one unless you find the vampire theme intriguing.

Next up, The House at Riverton by Kate Morton. I put this on hold at the library after a blogger (sorry, I can’t recall who!) compared it favourably with Downton Abbey. It’s an accurate comparison and this was an enjoyable escapist read – I even found space in my bike bags for the enormous hardcover copy so that I could read it on my lunch break at work (which means that for once, I actually took a lunch break!). But… nothing spectacularly memorable about it. It would have been perfect airplane reading, so I have put holds on the e-book versions of Kate Morton’s other books, in the hopes that I may be lucky enough for them to arrive in my inbox just in time for my fall travels.

And lastly, I motored through Mockingjay on the weekend, to finish off Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. Two unfortunate (to me) facts about this series: 1) The Hunger Games was definitely the strongest book in the series, and 2) the three books are so tightly connected that they are really three parts of one story, not three separate books. Which meant that it was all downhill after the first book, but that one was so good that I had to keep reading in order to find out how everything would end!

The Hunger Games books are not my usual cup of tea; they’re young adult, dystopian fiction. North American as we know it no longer exists, blah blah, divided into thirteen districts run by the Capitol, blah, each year the districts have to hold a ‘reaping’ where a teenage boy and girl are randomly chosen to represent their district in the Hunger Games – not blah! The Hunger Games are reality tv, kind of like Survivor, but instead of being voted off, the teens (“tributes”) have to kill each other until only one is left. Now that’s a page-turner of a plot! However, I didn’t much care for the dystopian parts of the series, and that’s pretty much all Mockingjay was.

The Water Rat of Wanchai by Ian Hamilton

What a book!

It has been over a week since I read it, and I’ve struggled to write about it because all I really want to say is, “Read it! It’s like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, only better!”

I put this on hold at the library on the basis of a rave review in the G&M, but I had my doubts about whether it would live up to the review. Mostly, I’ll admit, because of the title. “The Water Rat of Wanchai” didn’t mean anything to me, and if anything, made me think of some mysteries I have read that took place in India or Thailand and just didn’t resonate with me.

But I gave it a chance, and am I ever glad I did! Again, it’s like Stieg Larsson, but better. It’s just as engrossing, the lead female character is just as impressive but a bit more normal, it’s shorter, and the writing is better.

Ava Lee is a Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant. She lives in Toronto and jets around the world tracking down stolen or embezzled funds for Chinese clients. The money in this case took her to Seattle, Hong Kong, Thailand, the British Virgin Islands, and Guyana (and now I never want to go to Guyana). Ava is smart, strong, and confident. And yet, she isn’t invincible – the plot was so well-done that just when you think Ava is two steps ahead, you find out she’s one step behind, and more than once, I really wasn’t sure how it was all going to work out.

I learned a lot from this book, but it never felt pedantic (again, better than Stieg Larsson). I particularly enjoyed the cultural insights, especially when they pertained to Ava’s very entertaining mother. And the insights into the world of fish processing were also interesting, not dull like you might expect.

There are several more books planned in the series, and the second, The Disciple of Las Vegas, is already out! I added myself to the library’s holds list before I finished The Water Rat of Wanchai, and I am definitely looking forward to more Ava Lee.

This is 5/13 for me in the 5th Annual Canadian Book Challenge.

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

This novella was the perfect summer reading: funny and light-hearted, with just enough of Austen’s trademark wit and keen observation of social norms that I didn’t feel like it was completely escapist. Also, I love epistolary fiction, and the letters that made up this novella were just the right length for me to dip in & out of over the past few busy days.

Lady Susan is not at all a likeable heroine, but I did find her fascinating. She is incredibly manipulative and selfish. In the letters between her and her friend Mrs Vernon, it’s all about how hard done by they are, but how they have plans to make it all right by weaving stories and twisting circumstances. If she has any redeeming quality, it’s her ability to put the past behind her and not dwell on things that didn’t turn out the way she had hoped – although it does seem like she’s just moving on because she’s selfish, not because she is forgiving or learning from her experiences or anything so edifying as that.

In the letters written by Lady’s Susan’s sister-in-law Mrs Johnson, we see the respectable lady’s opinion of Susan’s behaviour. Of course, Mrs Johnson’s perspective is the one that feels ‘right’ to the reader. She’s not as conniving or self-centred, but in the end, every woman in the story is concerned with the same thing: orchestrating the right marriage (for herself, her daughter, or her niece, as the case may be). The respectability of the end goal comes from the means used to achieve it.

This light little book has therefore left me feeling very reflective about ends and means, respectability and transparency. A charming and thought-provoking novella – definitely a winner!

This is my second book in the Art of the Novella Reading Challenge. I am pretty sure it will be the highlight, but we shall see.

A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert

I wanted to like this novella. The first sentence intrigued me:

“Madame Aubain’s servant Félicité was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l’Évêque for half a century.”

As did this sentence that begins part II:

“She had had her love-story like another.”

But it went downhill from there, as far as I’m concerned. This is the kind of story that, when I try to write about it, reminds me that there is a reason I was not an English major. I don’t know what to say and I feel like I’m missing something. Is there supposed to be some kind of symbolism or something with the parrot? Or is it just a parrot?

Needless to say, I did not like this as much as I thought I would, and I can’t find anything else to say about it. But I’m glad I read it. And I think that part of the beauty of a novella is that even if you don’t love it, you can still finish it and not feel like you’ve wasted time doing so.

This is my first book in the August Art of the Novella Reading Challenge. Now on to the next one!

The Survivor by Sean Slater

This is the second debut crime novel by a Canadian that I’ve read in as many weeks, and another one where the main character is a police detective whose wife has died and where the criminals aren’t Canadian. But this is quite a different book from Erasing Memory. Sean Slater is a police officer in Vancouver, and he has written about what he knows – his character Jacob Striker is a detective with the Vancouver Police.

Striker’s wife has been dead for two years, and his teenage daughter Courtney isn’t coping very well. Striker gets a call from the principal at Courtney’s school, and while he is at the school learning that his daughter has skipped class yet again, there are gunshots. Fortunately, his partner Felicia is there with him, so the two of them go into cop mode and proceed to track down the source of the shots.

Unlike most school shootings, there are not one but three gunmen. Two are taken down, but one gets away. Not only that, but it quickly becomes clear that this is no ordinary school shooting and these are no ordinary gunmen.

The point of view shifts throughout the book – we see events unfold as Striker sees them, of course, but we also see what his daughter Courtney is up to (and therefore know much, much earlier than Striker how his daughter is connected to the shootings), and we see the perspective of the gunman who got away. While he’s not an easy character to like, the glimpses we get of his past are shocking, and go a long way to explaining why he ends up shooting at teenagers.

Vancouver has a lot of gang activity, and so it’s no surprise, really, that an Asian gang is at the root of this school shooting. I would like to believe that in real life, there are no gangs that carry out this kind of heartless revenge with such awful torture and violence. But Slater’s writing feels so authentic that I’m pretty sure real life is really this messy and ugly. Ugh.

I know Vancouver well, and love reading books that are set there. This was a compelling story, full of action, and a solid debut. Definitely worth a read.

This is 4/13 for me in the 5th Annual Canadian Book Challenge. All crime fiction so far, and #5 (The Water Rat of Wanchai, currently in progress) will be too… I do like my Canadian crime fiction! I’ll be branching out from that genre soon, though, since I have several non-crime-fiction Canadian reads waiting patiently on my shelf.

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers

“Unpleasantness” is such an innocuous word compared to “murder.” And it isn’t even misleading, not at first, because when Lord Peter Wimsey discovers General Fentiman’s body in the library of the Bellona Club, it doesn’t seem to be anything other than an ordinary death, albeit one that is a bit of an inconvenience to members of the Club.

The first complication around the ‘unpleasantness’ arises when it is discovered that the General’s sister, Lady Dormer, died that same morning. Lady Dormer’s will left a considerable sum of money to the General if he was still living when she died, but if he predeceased her then the money would go to her niece, Ann Dorland. The General did not have his sister’s fortune, so his will left a small amount to his two grandsons, George and Robert. They would therefore inherit Lady Dormer’s money if it could be determined that she died first. The problem is that no one knows for sure when General Fentiman died, only when his body was found.

Enter (or rather, re-enter) Wimsey, who sets about figuring out when the General died. That’s a good puzzle in itself, and then it becomes clear that the General was murdered, and Wimsey has a whole new puzzle to solve.

I enjoyed The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club very much. The plot has some good twists, and everything fits together in a very satisfying way at the end. I’m looking forward to more Wimsey (and next is Strong Poison, in which the infamous Harriet Vane is introduced!) but am rationing the books in order to draw out the pleasantness, and also so that I can make time for the many other books on my shelf and on the library hold list. I should also note that I started the first collection of Wimsey stories, but as I suspected, I couldn’t really get into them, so I’m going to stick to the novels for my “As My Whimsy Takes Me” reading.

Erasing Memory by Scott Thornley

A young woman is found dead in a cottage on the shores of an Ontario lake. Next to her, a portable record player is playing the second Schubert Piano Trio on repeat. The only clue to her identity is a bruise-like mark on her neck that indicates she is a violinist – Detective MacNeice recognizes that because his late wife was also a violinist. (Aside: I have played the violin since I was 6 years old and don’t have that mark… maybe I never practiced enough, maybe I have a tough neck, who knows!)

This was a gripping crime novel with plenty of action and great characters, who are clearly set to come back for another novel. There’s “Mac” MacNeice, detective extraordinaire, still feeling like a pice of himself is missing after his wife’s death three years earlier. There’s Fiza Aziz, the beautiful junior detective with a PhD in Criminology, and the hints of sexual tension between her and Mac; Michael Vertesi, ambitious and dedicated detective who charms one of the residents of a nearby cottage into going out with him as he’s questioning her about what she did or didn’t see the night of the murder; Marcello, owner of the Italian restaurant Mac loves.

My only quibble is with the setting, the fictional Ontario city of Dundurn. It is so clearly Hamilton that I don’t understand why Thornley gave it a different name. The street names, the geography of the city with the escarpment on one side and the lake on the other, the location of the university (name changed though) – all those are Hamilton’s. I could maybe understand if Thornley was describing it as an awful city where nothing good ever happens, and I have heard many people speak disparagingly of Hamilton for being gritty and industrial, but Thornley clearly loves it and describes it with care. It seems to me that using its real name would have made Hamiltonians proud to read about their city, and would have given the book an added touch of reality.

This is 3/13 for me in the Canadian Book Challenge 5.