I’m Tired of Keeping My Mouth Shut 

Here I go again. 

I’ve been way too quite for way too long. I’m tired of seeing radical opinions from both sides. I’m tired of the co-opting of the English language by people who want to say something bad about someone else. I’m tired of the flim-flam and the misdirection. I’m tired of the lies and the liars. 

I’m an independent because I make up my own mind on every candidate and issue when I vote. I don’t care if they’re a democrat or a republican - and yes, I made those lower case on purpose – I’m not of the opinion that either party has stayed true to their historical claim of what they stood for. When I first started voting, it was the Republicans who felt they had to watch out for the marginalized, the people of color, and the poor. At that time, Dixiecrats were the party of States Rights who were segregationists. They didn’t like the idea that Truman, a Democrat, ordered the military to integrate. They wanted to retain the Jim Crow laws and promote white supremacy. Does this ring a bell about some of the Republicans today? 

At the time, most ‘blacks’ (and remember if you had the slightest trace of African blood, you were called black and worse) were disenfranchised by the Dixiecrats and were members of the Republican party. As people of color migrated to the North and the West, they found the Democrats in those areas more accepting. 

When I started voting, the word conservative meant you were careful about making radical change or spending what you couldn’t pay. Now it seems to have taken on additional meanings like bigotry and trying to disenfranchise the poor, the minorities, the elderly and claiming that anything said by anyone else to be fake or a lie simply because they don’t agree. 

Here's my advice to everyone who thinks they can’t do anything about the ‘politics as usual’ – VOTE, and do it in every election. 

If you don’t like laws that prevent a woman from standing up for her own body for whatever reason, then vote for candidates who want to change those laws 

If you don’t like that people find ways around security and psychology checks and are able to buy arsenals of weapons, and laws that say they must be allowed to do this, until and only until, they take those weapons to a public place and shoot innocent citizens and children, then get out and vote for candidates who will change the laws. (Read the second amendment carefully and then decide yourself what it says and what it doesn’t say). 

Yes, I’m an independent, that means I don’t take the word of other people to make my decisions. I read the source material; I check the candidate's voting record. Then I make up my mind. 

If you don’t vote, don’t cry about who got elected, you could have made a difference. 

-Ben Firetag

 

A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (1937) Alfred A. Knopf

A classic detective story about a man who wears many names.  He is wanted for the murder of a Jewish money lender, an attempted assassination of a Prime Minister, various robberies, drug smuggling, even the betrayal of his own criminal gang.  A British writer of detective stories becomes friends with Turkish commander of secret police who shows him the body of the notorious Dimitrios.  The writer, Latimer, wonders if such a man’s activities can be traced backwards, as an academic exercise to see how his own story plots match with reality.  This quest takes him from Istanbul to Athens, to Bucharest, Geneva, and Paris.  People help, but people are suspicious of the motives of a man looking into such a criminal.  During his quest, he meets one of the people Dimitrios betrayed and is caught-up in a blackmail scheme.  Will he survive?  Was the corpse he saw really Dimitrios?  If not, will Latimer become the next victim in this sordid tale?

Crescent City by Sarah Maas (2020) Bloomsbury Publishing

In a world where there are shapeshifters and vampires and fae and angels, Bryce, a half-human-half fae is the illegitimate daughter of the Fairy King.  Her best friends are an alpha wolf shape shifter, an assassin and a faun who is a famous dancer.  It’s the angels who run things and they’re not very nice.  Mix this with someone causing rifts into Hel, letting demons into their world who kill people.  When the wolf is killed along with her entire pack, by a demon, Bryce is blamed by the wolf’s mother who is in line to be the Prime wolf.  When a vampire is killed the same way, Bryce becomes a suspect.  The Angel’s fallen angel assassin is assigned to help her find who is summoning the demons.  Only things don’t go the way anyone expects.
The Plot is well done, the basic outline is that of a murder mystery, but there is too much bodice ripper imagery and way too much unnecessary foul language that does not move the plot forward.

Stick by Elmore Leonard (1983) Arbor House

In which Ernest Stickley, or Stick, has just got out of prison for armed robbery and is back in Florida hoping to see his little girl.  He is riding with his friend who is delivering a package to a drug dealer.  They don’t know they’re supposed to be killed.  His friend is shot down and Stick escapes.  He goes to work for a very rich guy who drops hints about who to invest in on a regular basis.  His advisor is also an advisor to the man who wanted Stick killed.  People are crazy to invest in things they can’t pass up.  Stick is no dummy and he finds a way to make the killer his friend and invest in a movie that will never be made.  He’ll be rich if he can stay alive and ahead of the law.

The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly (1995) Little Brown

Bosch has done an almost unforgivable thing by attacking his lieutenant.  Now he is on paid involuntary leave pending a report from the department’s psychiatrist.  And he’s trying to get around his home having been condemned because of an earthquake.  To keep busy, he starts investigating the twenty‑five-year-old murder of his mother.  But there are people still alive who don’t want that done.  Old detectives are either dead or clear across the country.  Witnesses and workers start getting killed – including Bosch’s boss.  How can he uncover the truth without losing his job and his self-worth.

The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas (2020) Berkley Books

In which Charlotte Holmes, the pretend sister of the fictional Sherlock Holms, is seen through by a former friend of Mrs. Watson.  They embark on a dangerous mission to retrieve a particular piece of artwork that will be up for bid at auction.  The auction takes place in a chateau in France outside of Paris and has heightened security.  Which seems reasonable since it is owned by Moriarty. 

Blue Moon by Lee Child (2019) Delacorte Press

In which Reacher comes into a town run by two rival foreign mobs and sees an old man treated unfairly and harshly by a loan shark.  When he helps, he finds a much deeper problem going on that involves a whiz kid who didn’t pay his employee’s health plans – and the old guy’s daughter is in the hospital with cancer and no coverage.  When he tries to provide help, it spirals into the kind of situation only Reacher can solve.

The Awakened Kingdom by N.K. Jemisin (2019) Orbit

Sieh, the Trickster god, has gone away.  A new godling is born and unsure how to be his successor.  After hurting the world, she (because they decided to present themselves as a girl) meets a much older sibling who can negate all the hurt she did so she can start over.  But he doesn’t want to babysit her, so he takes her to the Darre to have a mortal companion that can keep the destructive tendency in check.  There, she encounters wrongness and want to make it right.  But can she do that without destroying the world and herself?

Shadow Cursed by D.K. Holmberg (2016) CreateSpace

The second installment in The Shadow Accords.  Carthenne Rel, the shadow blessed girl from Ih-lash whose parents were killed has been spending the last few years being trained by the A’ras.  But that type of magic is different and burns her so much she is slow.  Inside the palace training grounds, she cannot draw on the shadows.  Until the grounds are attacked, and a part of the wall is collapsed.  Then she helps to defeat the invaders by focusing the shadows through her found A’ras knife.  But will the A’ras think her an enemy because of her shadow magic?  Can she keep her secret of will it lead to her being ejected at best, or executed as a suspected motive?

Robert Parker's Kickback by Ace Atkins (2015) G.P. Putnam's Sons

A Spenser novel – where our hero is called upon to find out why a kid was sent to an island on a misdemeanor where his mother cannot see him.  Turns out a lot of other kids are being sent to the same corporate rehabilitation island – enough to pay for the judge to get a nice mansion in Florida and a share in a fishing boat.  But Spenser can’t let a thing like that go, even if the mob is involved.

I didn't think at first that I would like the Spenser novels written by someone else, but Mr. Atkins keeps true to Spenser's voice and Parker's style.  A very satisfying read.

Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman (2013) HarperCollins

In which a man goes to the store to get milk for his children’s breakfast and is kidnapped by aliens, then space pirates, then rescued by a stegosaurus in a time-machine balloon.  He endangers and saves people ready to sacrifice to a volcano god, gets attacked again by the aliens, saves the day by opening a window and taking the bottle of milk from his own hands a few minutes ago, then threatens to end the universe (or having three little people with flowerpots on their heads dance), by touching the two bottles of milk together.  The space police come, and they’re all dinosaurs, the milk bottle touch, the three people with flowerpots on their head appear, dance, and disappear.  He reopens the window into the past and tosses a bottle of milk to himself.  Of course, his children do not believe a word.  But fortunately, the milk is on the table.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (2016)

At first glance, this book may seem off-putting in that the subject appears to be rather boring.  It is anything but boring.  We follow the life of a Russian Count after the Bolsheviks have come to power.  If not for a poem attributed to him, they would have summarily shot the aristocrat.  Instead, they exile him to the Metropol hotel for life.  Instead of going crazy in his confinement, he makes friends.  He dines with a man from the KGB.  He lets a little girl drag him all over the hotel.  She grows up and has a child, which he must raise after the mother follows her exiled husband to Siberia.  He waits tables in the hotel's restaurant.  All through the narrative, his observations, his wit, his charm is evident.  Mr. Towles has done such a superb job with characterization, that it takes but a sentence to know who is speaking or thinking.  Easily the best book I've read in the past year.

Master Magician by Charlie N Holmberg (2015) 47North

The culmination of Ceony Twill's apprenticeship in magic.  By this third installment, it became predictable that she would place her life and someone else's in deadly circumstances.  But this does present her with new abilities.  Still a reasonable read and a good conclusion to the trilogy.

An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire

In which our heroine changeling is called upon to rescue missing children from Blind Michael's Hunt. Everyone wants her to succeed, no one thinks she'll live through the experience, not even her.  

Ms. McGuire continues to evolve as a writer with her characters.  Even the worst of the fae can be seen to have a heart.

Shadow Blessed by D.K. Holmberg (2016) CreateSpace

A girl gets separated from her parents in a foreign city while playing a game of following and being followed.  Her parents are brutally killed and she, as a stray, must learn to use her sills to steal coin purses from unsuspecting tourists.  But her skills go beyond thievery and there are those who search for her.  She does not trust people and that helps to keep her safe, mostly.

Conspiracy in Death by J. D. Robb (1999) Turtleback Books

In which Eve Dallas discovers a conspiracy to remove damaged organs from homeless people – but why, and who is involved and how high up does it go?  And how is she going to solve the case when she’s been suspended and had to turn-in her badge and gun?

The Glass Magician by Charlie N Holmberg (2014) 47North

In which our heroine, Ceony, an apprentice paper magician, is pursued by evil magicians and finds a way to do what no other magician has done before.

Darker than Amber by John D McDonald (1970) J.B. Lippincott Co

In which a girl is thrown over a bridge with intent to kill, but Travis McGee saves her, only for her to try

to get her stash of money and get killed for the effort.  That angers McGee and he has to see justice done,

for her and for other victims of the same villains.

Incubus Dreams by Laurell K Hamilton (2004) Berkley Publishing Group

Not as good as the previous 11 books in the series.  Too much sex, not enough vampire hunter.  The title is revealed late in the story and seems to have no relationship to the purpose of the book.  Sorry, Ms. Hamilton, I like the other books.

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman (2015) Harper

In which sleeping beauty is not who you think, and Rose Red knows how to fix the problem.

Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman (2019) Dark Horse Books

An eerie retelling of the Snow White story from the viewpoint of the Queen in which there is no innocence to be lost.

The Dig by John Preston

On an estate in England, a widow commissions a local amateur archeologist to dig into barrows on her land in hopes of finding something of significance.  What they find is more that they expected and that attracts the attention of rival museums and the attendance of notable professional archeologists.

Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio (2010) William Morrow & Company

A collection of stories by some of the best writers, including Gaiman's The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, a masterpiece told in the isles about a man who lost a daughter and sought revenge.  

It also features Joyce Carol Oates, Joe R. Lansdale, Walter Mosley, Richard Adams, Jodi Picoult, Lawrence Block, Peter Straub, Gene Wolfe, Jeffery Deaver, Michael Moorcock, Joe Hill, and others.

A fun study of the short story in the twenty-first century.

Four Blind Mice by James Patterson (2002) Little Brown & Company

An Alex Cross episode where men in the Army who served in Viet Nam are being framed for murders.  This is not the best of the series.  It does move, though it seems a little stiff.  Yet it ends on a happy note.

Zero Day by David Baldacci (2011) Grand Central Publishing

The first Puller book.  An investigator in the army has to call on his incarcerated brother to prevent a nuclear disaster.

Bacchanal by Veronica G Henry (2021) 47North

I love finding new authors who write so fluidly that I can get lost in the reading.  Bacchanal is set in the Depression, a unique black carnival populated by performers with real talents, and some with burdens that they cannot help or shake.  But we learn that even when our family connections seem to be too hard to bear, they can also give us strength we did not know we could wield.

The Magician’s Lie by Greer Macallister (2021) 47North

An interesting take on magic and illusion.  A woman who performs illusions runs from the scene where a man who is assumed to be her husband has been killed with the tools of sawing the man in half.  But is she a murderess, or the victim of domestic violence who has been pursued by a man who is not her husband?

One of the best books I've read this year.

The Twelfth Card by Jeffery Deaver (2005) Simon & Schuster

A Lincoln Rhyme novel about a 140-year-old case, a descendent, and people who want to kill her.  These are today’s Nero Wolfe novels.  Lincoln Rhyme as the shut-in Amelia Sachs as his Archie, doing all the footwork.  There is a space-filling part that grows and is repeated a dozen times in the book, taking up at least 10% of the pages.
In this one, a high-school student wants to write about an ancestor, whom she feels was wrongly accused of stealing a foundation’s treasury in the days just after the civil war.  Other people are also trying to find out about the incident.  A professional hitman wants to find her, there’s a potential terrorist involved, two different accomplices, an estranged father who wants to reconnect, and a banker who will do anything to protect a secret.

The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin (2011) Orbit

In which Sieh’s story is told – he is the oldest of the Gods’ children, a trickster and in love with a mortal brother and sister – and when they mix their blood in a ceremony as children, Sieh becomes increasingly mortal.  The sister is the heir of the powerful family that rules the world.  Her brother, an inconvenience is sent away to learn how to be a scrivener.  But they are not ordinary mortal children.  They are also the grandchildren of a godling, which makes them demons and makes their blood poisonous to gods and godlings.  While The Three have exiled one of their own, the parallels between the two sets tells potentially the same story.

The Paper Magician by Charlie N Holmberg (2014) 47North

A woman, Ceony, is apprenticed to a paper magician and must save him when another magician literally steals his heart for dark magical purposes.  She follows the woman (Lira, his former wife) who stole the heart on a magically enhanced glider to the seashore.  There Lira uses blood magic to put Ceony into the heart and she must go through all four chambers to find her way out.  She sees some of his memories and learns a magic ritual from him.  When she gets out, she performs the ritual, freezing Lira and manages to take the heart back to her teacher.

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett (1934) Knopf

A Nick and Nora story wherein Nick, a retired PI, is approached by a young woman to find her father, an inventor and prior client of Nick’s.  He doesn’t want to be involved, but between a scam and getting shot, he decides to pursue the mystery.  Nora is a device to get him to explain, which he avoids until the end. 

Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes (2003) Greenwillow Books

Olive died, but she left a note for Martha, whom she saw as the only person who was nice to her, she wished she’d seen an actual ocean.  Twelve-year-old Martha is about to visit her grandmother, Godbe, at the ocean.  Martha has some growing up to do and wants to be a writer, but her father is already trying to be a writer and not doing very well.  A local boy takes advantage of Marth’s naivete while filming things and films himself kissing her, then reveals it was a bet.  Marth feels terrible and wants nothing to do with the older boy after that.  She collects a bottle of water to take to Olive’s mother as Olive’s Ocean.  The boy’s brother, who is Martha’s age steals the film and gives it to her at the end of the vacation.  When Martha gets home, she goes to Olive’s house to give her mother the bottle of ocean, but she has already moved too far away.  So, Martha paints Olive’s name with the ocean water and watches it evaporate in the heat.

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume (2015) Knopf

In 1952, three airplanes crashed into Elizabeth, New Jersey in a span of 38 days.  We follow Mira, a fifteen-year-old living with her single Mom, while she navigates school, summer and getting introduced to the father she’s never known.  This is all about coming of age.

Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs (2017) Ace

Mercy, a descendent of Coyote, a shapeshifter and wife of the Adam Hauptman, a werewolf and alpha of the Columbia Basin pack, is intentionally hit by a semi and kidnapped by the Lord of the Night, the master vampire of Milan, Italy.  This launches a panic search for Mercy by the pack.  When she comes-to in Italy, she escapes, is chased by a local werewolf who is in thrall to the vampire.  Mercy leads her into the path of a bus.  Riding in the luggage compartment of a bus, she makes her way to Prague.  There, she runs into the golem made by rabbi Loeb.  She asks for protection from the local wolfpack.  One of her ‘talents’ is being able to see ghosts and communicate with them.  She can also command them.  The golem is dead.  While under the protection of the second and third wolves in the Prague pack, she wanders into a second seethe of vampires and too late, realizes there are wards that prevent the wolves from seeing the building.  To them, she just disappeared.  She is captured and placed into a magical cage that she cannot get out of in a basement that is filled with ghosts.  The golem appears and gets her help to consume all but one of the ghosts.  This gives him the power break down the wards protecting the building.  It’s even more complicated than that.  In the end, of course, she is rescued.

Britt Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman (2016) Simon & Schuster

A woman who was cheated on insists on making a new life elsewhere and finds it hard to change, and then finds herself changed anyway, by life, by people, by understanding more about herself.
Britt Marie has let life pass her by, watching her father, then her mother, give-up over time since the death of their other daughter, spending her time raising her husband’s children, and taking care of him  Then he had a heart attack and the other woman called her.  Britt-Marie saw that he was on the mend, then went home, packed a bag and left.  Now she’s in Borg, a small town that has been shutting down, working as the caretaker of the Recreation Center.  She’s inherited a soccer team, actually just a group of local kids.  She likes things to be neat and tidy.  So, she changes Borg, and it changes her.

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke (2017) Mulholland Books

An Edgar winner, yet hard to get through.  Not because the writing is obscure, or the craft is poor.  It’s mostly that the writer does not get me to care about the protagonist.  He’s a Texas Ranger, he’s black, and his status is questionable.  His wife has kicked him out, he’s being looked-at by his boss and the Rangers because of how close he was to his uncle, who has killed a man on his property.  In the meantime, at a small town, if you can even call it that, there is a place that isn’t quite a juke joint, where multiple murders of its patrons have happened.  Who kills whom is a longer story?

The Witches by Roald Dahl (1983) Jonathan Cape

Witches are real.  And they’re not like you and me.  They’re bald, so they wear wigs, which makes their scalp itch.  Their hands are claws and don’t really have five fingers, so they hide them with gloves.  They don’t have toes, so they wear these terribly uncomfortable shoes to hide that fact.  And they hate kids.  To them kids smell like dog poo – especially if they’re clean.  So, a young boy, who is being raised by his grandmother (because his parents are dead), finds himself trapped at a witch’s convention and turned into a mouse.  Now he must save the rest of the kids in England from being turned into mice too.

The movie that was remade in 2020, Directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer and Stanley Tucci is worth watching.  We did this in our Book and a Movie club.

Dance of a Burning Sea by E J Willow (2021) Montlake

The three Musai are back.  This is the story of the middle sister, the dancer, who can spring the heat of magic from her dance.  Only she got herself, and her sister’s secret in danger.  She revealed who she was to the worst pirate the Thief Kingdom as ever known.  And her father, the King, has put a bounty on his head.  She has no idea what he would do if he found out his middle daughter let the pirate learn their secret.  It takes a bet, lost by the dancer, which has committed her to a year’s service on the pirate’s ship to induce the Thief King to rescind the bounty on the pirate’s head.  Only during that year, she finds that he is really a prince in a kingdom he was supposed to rule but stole its magic artifact to force the kingdom to save his sick, younger brother, and let him rule.  Now, he has to restore the artifact to save his kingdom.

The Painted Girl by D K Holmberg (2014) CreateSpace

A paid assassin captures a girl she is to bring back, but decides not to kill the abductor, the girl’s brother.  There is plot within plot and she draws the dangerous man out who would pay her or kill her.  In the end, it turns out that the man’s competitor arranged the whole thing so the assassin would have no choice but to kill the man who hired her.

The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas (2018) Berkley

The third volume of Charlotte Holmes brings her closest friend, Lord Ingram, in danger of the hangman’s noose.  She takes on not just two personalities; herself and Sherlock Holmes, but adds a third, a brother named Sheringford.  It’s a cold and calculated plot that involves characters at all levels of intrigue.  And she makes use of her companion’s contacts to create an elaborate setting to help her oldest sister.  We also get to meet Mrs. Hudson.

The House on the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune (2020) Tor Books

A book about how prejudice and hatemongering affect the most innocent of lives.  In a world where there are magical beings, a government branch is responsible for the orphanages where magical children are kept – ostensibly to keep them safe from the world and the world safe from them.  An inspector, who has closed some orphanages because they abused the children, is sent to the most secret of these on an island.  There, he encounters beings like he never has before.  These are considered the most dangerous of magical beings.  But they are all children and they’re just doing what children do; they dream of a better life.

Best Books I Read in 2021:

This year I read 75 books.  These are what I consider the best of the list (in the order I read the books).

1.       The Left-Handed Booksellers by Garth Nix (2020) HarperCollins 

The first book I put on this list didn't come until the end of the first week of February.  I read good books, but none of them quite turned the key.

This book is an interesting twist on urban fantasy and mystery.  The story takes place in London where a young art student goes to visit her 'uncle' only to find herself thrust into a war of sorts where left-handed booksellers are authorized to kill fantastical creatures posing as humans.  Only it turns out that the young woman has some fantastical connections of her own.

2.       The Boy, The Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (2019) HarperOne

This was a difficult choice only because I also read so many other good books in March.  But this one stands out. It's a Jonathon Livingston Seagull for this generation.  A simple feel-good book that could not have had better timing than to come out at the beginning of the pandemic.  It encourages self-worth, and a feeling that no matter what we face, we can go on.

3.       The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin (2015) Orbit 

I have read much less Science Fiction on the past few years and have missed out.  This is a fantastic, complicated book that deserved getting the Hugo and the Nebula.

On a planet, much like Earth, maybe it is Earth, where the continents have drifted back into one giant land, there are still changes that occur.  The people on this planet call the times that last after a change, anywhere from months to years, seasons.  Most settlements last only through one season.  The capital of the empire has lasted through four such seasons.  People with special abilities are shunned and recruited by the capital and trained to use their abilities to try to stave off earthquakes.  The main heroine is one such person.  We follow her in three different timelines: as a child, as a four-ring practitioner, and as a refugee.  In the middle timeline, she is paired with a ten-ring practitioner, almost unheard-of, as her mentor and is ordered to bear his child.  He is less than cooperative.  They are sent to a city on the coast to clear coral from a harbor.  She finds an artifact blocking the harbor.  Trying to move it, she raises it and doing so destroys the city.  She and her mentor find themselves transported to an island where life seems idyllic, and they can raise their child.  But the empire finds them.  In the third timeline, our heroine feels the start of another season and escapes as a refugee.  She is reunited with her mentor on his deathbed.  He has started the fifth season and wants her to finish what he started and destroy the empire.

4.       The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern (2011) Doubleday

This is an urban low fantasy.  There are no elves, no trolls, no orcs, no hobbits.  But there is magic and illusion.  Two very old magicians have an ongoing game they play with other people’s lives.  Each finds a special child with inherent abilities.  They adopt the child and train them.  Once the bet is placed, each child receives a ring, which burns itself into their finger.  Neither will be introduced to the other.  In this case, the venue becomes a circus which opens at night.  Those people who are involved with the circus find that they have become virtually frozen at the age they were when they first agreed to conceive and build the circus.  But they are not immortal.  One of the contestants enhances his own looks to make himself seem ordinary and serves as the assistant to the circus proprietor, who is not one of the magicians.  The other, a superb illusionist has her own act in one tent of the circus.  Each think that it is their work that sustains the circus.  Little by little they recognize that the other contestant is making changes and additions to the circus.  For years, this is how they compete.  Eventually they find each other and go beyond mere introduction to becoming lovers.  The problem is that there is only one way for a contestant to win.  The other must die.

5.       Tears of Amber by Sofia Segovia (2021) Amazon Crossing (english translation)

A group of people are thrown together during World War II in East Prussia, what is now the far-western Russian oblast of Kalingrad.  A Polish man and a Polish woman are sent as slaves to help on a German farm.  A second German family is torn apart by the enforced enlistment of the father.  The history of the war works out its tragedy amongst these innocent bystanders just trying to survive a terrible time in history.  But you will not forget it.

6.       Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (2021) Knopf (7/26)

Klara is an Artificial Friend who longs to be picked by a young girl.  She resides in a store where the manager tells her how to do her best to represent the store and other artificial friends.  She receives nourishment from the sun (she is solar powered) and while in a storefront window, watches a homeless man sit each day with his dog across the street.  One day, neither the homeless man nor his dog rise and Klara is afraid they are dead.  But when the sun comes out the next day, they  rise and seem to be better than before.  A machine is parked in front of the store that produces terrible pollution.  When  it is moved, Klara sees the homeless man become reunited with a woman as they embrace.

When Klara is picked, the girl who asked for her, Josie, is a 'lifted' youngster (genetically edited) who has trouble with her health.  From Josie's room, Klara observes the sun sets, goes to rest, on the far side of the field in a barn.  Josie has a  friend, Rick, who is not lifted, but is brilliant with drones.  They play and squabble.  But Josie's health gets worse.  Klara comes up with a plan to ask the sun to heal Josie with his special restorative nutrition.  So she travels to the barn with Rick's help.  She offers to destroy the pollution machine in exchange for Josie's improved health. 

The family, including Klara go into the city for Josie's 'portrait' where Klara discovers it is a replacement artificial friend body that upon Josie's death is to become a new body for Klara.  Klara is convinced that her bargain with the sun will result in a healthy Josie.  She finds the pollution machine and with the help of Josie's father, takes some of her own lubricant and pours it into the exhaust of the machine, disabling it.  Now Klara plans to watch the sun restore Josie.  But Josie does not get better.

While the family surround Josie, expecting her to die at any moment, odd weather comes through the area where the family lives.  Klara suddenly gets everyone to go into Josie's room and she open's the blinds so that the sun floods the room.  Josie sits up and says she is feeling better.  Klara's sacrifice has not been in vain.

Josie eventually gets well enough to go off to college.

The book ends with the manager finding Klara in a storage yard, discarded, but spending her time reminiscing her time with Josie.

This is a tour-de-force of writing.  Ishiguro has a simple style that flows very swiftly and makes the story amazing.  You won't forget Klara.

7.       My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman (2015) Atria Books (8/5)

Backman’s masterpiece – almost eight-year-old Elsa loves her grandmother, and her grandmother loves her back fiercely.  Her grandmother is an odd duck who tells fairy tales from the land of almost asleep and defends Elsa like no one else.  But her grandmother is sick and dies.  Elsa is given a quest to deliver letters, which she must find to the people who live in her building.  She finds out it really is her building because her grandmother owned it and left it to her.  

We meet people who were rescued by the grandmother when they were just children, except for one woman who was rescued after a tsunami killed her husband and two sons.  There is Wolfheart who is a warrior who doesn’t like to fight.  There is Britt-Marie, who took care of Elsa’s mother while her grandmother was off saving other people.  There is a set of brothers who were both in love with the same woman.  There is a family taking care of their grandson, hoping their son gets some help.  And there’s a wourse who is a hero.

A delightful read.

8.       Billy Summers by Stephen King (2021) Scribner 

King turns his storytelling talent to a thriller and does such a good job, it should get an Edgar.

Billy is a hitman - has been since he returned from Iraq.  He wants to retire, but there is one last job to do, it's to hit a hitman who got too visible and killed someone he shouldn't have.  The client wants Billy to follow a specific escape plan.  Billy does the job, but he does his own escape, which is a problem for the client.  While hiding in the same town as the hit, he sees a van stop and toss a body across the street.  He checks and it's a girl who has been drugged and raped.  He hauls her into his hideout and cleans her up.  When she comes to, she thinks at first that he hurt her.  But as her memory returns, she gets mad at her 'boyfriend' and his buddies.  When it's time to go on the run, she goes with Billy.  There is still one more job to do.  Billy was stiffed because they never intended to pay him, they intended to kill him.  So he hunts down the client to find out why.  That results in a couple of deaths and a brain-dead thug whose mother is outraged.  But the client gives-up the real money behind the hit, a billionaire who likes little girls.  And that angers Billy and his rescued girl.

9.       Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (2021) Scribner 

I am in awe of Mr. Doerr's ability to weave a story.  The main theme is a simple story.

The novel covers six story lines based on character:

Diogenes original story that is only partially available that he sent to his sick daughter,

Zeno, the son of a Greek immigrant, whose father died in World War II, was raised by his almost step-mother, went to war in Korea and fell in love with a British soldier at a POW camp, who translated ancient Greek, and was separated from him when the Brit escaped, then went on to translate Diogenes’ story, and then help a group of fifth graders put it on as a play, and became a hero by running a bomb to a lake before it could kill anyone else,

Seymour, an autistic young man who was infuriated at the destruction of his Trusty Friend’s habitat and wanted to strike back at the developers who caused it and planted a bomb in the library where Zeno was watching a dress rehearsal of the play, he goes to prison for his crime and becomes a programmer for a company that is trying to present a view of the earth that is pristine.  He evaluates anomalies and marks them to be revised with something pleasant.  He eventually gets out of prison and goes to work for the company.  He begins putting easter eggs in the views that have an owl as a hint and if you click on them, you will see the original view before it was modified.  He finds that Zeno published a translation of Diogenes’ story and has them bound and gives a copy to the grown kids from the library play,

Anna, a young girl in Constantinople in 1483, when it fell to the Ottoman empire, who found a copy of Diogenes’ story and told it to her husband and sons,

Omeir, who was born with a cleft palette and whose grandfather refused to put the child to death, even though the child’s father died on the day of his birth, causing the family to have to move way out of their local town in order to survive – who raised two oxen and was pressed into the service of conquering Constantinople, but when the oxen died, he gave up and on his way home discovers Anna and takes her with him, marries her and raises two sons.  When she dies, he makes the journey to Italy with her poor copy of the story,

Konstance, who lives on a deep space ship with her parents and a group of people trying to find another home for humanity and finds the tale on a vast electronic library when a plague kills everyone else on the ship and her father stowed her in the computer room with enough nutrient powder to last her 5 years of a 567 year journey.

All these story lines do come together, but in unexpected ways.  It's a historical novel, it's science fiction and I found it very satisfying.

Strangers by Dean Koontz (1986) Putnam

A priest has a crisis of faith.  A writer starts having nightmares.  An ex-marine cannot stand the dark.  A surgeon starts having fugues and running away.  A thief gets a sudden need to give the money he's stolen away.  What do all these strangers have in common?  And who is sending them clues about a motel they stayed at two summers ago?

DaVinci's Cat by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (2021) Greenwillow Books

DaVinci tried to create a machine to travel from one place to another using a cabinet.  His tests did not produce the results he expected, so he discarded the cabinet, making a gift of it to the Pope.  What he did make was a time machine.  But his cat entered the cabinet before it was shipped and came out as a kitten when a young man, a hostage, or a guest of the Pope on the condition that his father, leading the Pope's armies might not go over to the enemy, opened the cabinet.  He was delighted.  When the cat went back into the cabinet, it disappeared.  When it returned, a man came with it.  He was interested in getting his hands on discarded sketches from Michelangelo or Raphael.  One was of a girl no one recognized.  This, of course, upset the Pope that there was a thief running around in the Vatican.  This man returns several times, bringing the young man chocolates with peanuts.  But the last time he comes, he ventures out of the Vatican Palace, which he should not do, and finds a sick girl.  He runs back to the cabinet and disappears.  The next time the cabinet is used, a young girl comes out with the cat.  She is the girl in the sketch.  Only she wants Raphael to do the sketch and sign it so she can save the sick girl, who has grown old by now.

Selfish Love by Cheryl Terra  (2021) Lit 

A single mother struggles to provide for her precocious and talented daughter.  They're friends with a family where the father manages a recording studio, whose daughters are best friends and the mothers are also best friends.  When an opportunity to get tickets to a concert comes-up, the mother feels she will do whatever she has to in order to send her daughter to the concert.  But the tickets are super expensive and at the last minute, the mother is in an accident and has to call her ex to get the money for the tickets.  He uses this as an opportunity to demand more time with his daughter. 

A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire (2010) DAW

October "Toby" Daye is a changeling, the daughter of Amandine of the fae and a mortal man.  Like her mother, she is gifted in blood magic, able to read what has happened to a person through a mere taste of blood.  Toby is the only changeling who has earned knighthood, and she re-earns that position every day, undertaking assignments for her liege, Sylvester, the Duke of the Shadowed Hills. Now Sylvester has asked her to go to the County of Tamed Lightning—otherwise known as Fremont, CA—to make sure that all is well with his niece, Countess January O'Leary, whom he has not been able to contact. It seems like a simple enough assignment—but when dealing with the realm of Faerie nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Toby soon discovers that someone has begun murdering people close to January, whose domain is a buffer between Sylvester's realm and a scheming rival duchy. If Toby can't find the killer soon, she may well become the next victim.

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (2010) Orbit

The second book in the Inheritance Trilogy – in the city of Shadows beneath the World Tree, Oree Shoth, a blind artist, who can see magic, takes in an apparent homeless man on impulse.  Someone is murdering godlings, a feat that should be impossible, as her homeless man can attest to – he dies, regularly, trying to do impossible things.  But he resurrects each time.  But the murdered godlings do not.  It does not take all that long in the story to figure out that her roommate is a fallen god, being punished for the way he treated his brother and for killing his sister.  But the murders continue, and the godlings refuse to ask their father for help.

Billy Summers by Stephen King (2021) Scribner

Billy is a hitman - has been since he returned from Iraq.  He wants to retire, but there is one last job to do, it's to hit a hitman who got too visible and killed someone he shouldn't have.  The client wants Billy to follow a specific escape plan.  Billy does the job, but he does his own escape, which is a problem for the client.  While hiding in the same town as the hit, he sees a van stop and toss a body across the street.  He checks and it's a girl who has been drugged and raped.  He hauls her into his hideout and cleans her up.  When she comes to, she thinks at first that he hurt her.  But as her memory returns, she gets mad at her 'boyfriend' and his buddies.  When it's time to go on the run, she goes with Billy.  There is still one more job to do.  Billy was stiffed because they never intended to pay him, they intended to kill him.  So he hunts down the client to find out why.  That results in a couple of deaths and a brain-dead thug whose mother is outraged.  But the client gives-up the real money behind the hit, a billionaire who likes little girls.  And that angers Billy and his rescued girl.

One of the best books I've read this year.

In the Woods by Tana French (2007) Viking

I know a lot of people like this, and it won an Edgar, but to me it's a story that drags.  It could have been told as a short story, but the pages are filled with a whiny-baby detective who can't remember what happened when he was ten years old and had a horrific experience where two friends disappeared forever.  Now he is trying to solve the murder of a ballet prodigy in the same place he grew-up.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (2021) Scribner

The novel covers six story lines based on character:

1. Diogenes original story that is only partially available that he sent to his sick daughter,

2. Zeno, the son of a Greek immigrant, whose father died in World War II, was raised by his almost step-mother, went to war in Korea and fell in love with a British soldier at a POW camp, who translated ancient Greek, and was separated from him when the Brit escaped, then went on to translate Diogenes’ story, and then help a group of fifth graders put it on as a play, and became a hero by running a bomb to a lake before it could kill anyone else,

3. Seymour, an autistic young man who was infuriated at the destruction of his Trusty Friend’s habitat and wanted to strike back at the developers who caused it and planted a bomb in the library where Zeno was watching a dress rehearsal of the play, he goes to prison for his crime and becomes a programmer for a company that is trying to present a view of the earth that is pristine.  He evaluates anomalies and marks them to be revised with something pleasant.  He eventually gets out of prison and goes to work for the company.  He begins putting easter eggs in the views that have an owl as a hint and if you click on them, you will see the original view before it was modified.  He finds that Zeno published a translation of Diogenes’ story and has them bound and gives a copy to the grown kids from the library play,

4. Anna, a young girl in Constantinople in 1483, when it fell to the Ottoman empire, who found a copy of Diogenes’ story and told it to her husband and sons,

5. Omeir, who was born with a cleft palette and whose grandfather refused to put the child to death, even though the child’s father died on the day of his birth, causing the family to have to move way out of their local town in order to survive – who raised two oxen and was pressed into the service of conquering Constantinople, but when the oxen died, he gave up and on his way home discovers Anna and takes her with him, marries her and raises two sons.  When she dies, he makes the journey to Italy with her poor copy of the story,

6. Konstance, who lives on a deep space ship with her parents and a group of people trying to find another home for humanity and finds the tale on a vast electronic library when a plague kills everyone else on the ship and her father stowed her in the computer room with enough nutrient powder to last her 5 years of a 567 year journey.

Some people question Konstance's story, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the best book I've read this year.

Star Mother by Charlie N Holmberg (2021) 47North 

Some years, the Sun demands a random village provide a consort for him, to become a star mother so he can replace a star that died.  This year, the village of Endwever needs to provide a moral womb.  Ceris Wenden is chosen.  The birthing of a star is always fatal for the mother.  But Ceris survives.  When she returns to her village, it’s not nine months later, it’s seven hundred years.  She hardly recognizes the village because it has changed so much.  But she is recognized since there is a statue of her in the town’s cathedral.  She determines to find some of her family’s descendants.  She encounters a desperate godling, Ristriel, who leads her to her destination, but not without finding themselves in the middle of the war between the Sun and the Moon.

Lisey's Story by Stephen King (2006) Scribner

Lisey Langdon survived her famous novelist husband, Scott Langdon.  It’s been two years since his death, and the converted barn that he used as his writing office needs to be cleared-out.  There are people who would give anything to get hold of his unfinished manuscripts and his notes.  There are people who would do anything to get them.  One is a thug who comes and hurts Lisey as a threat that she better turn over Scott’s works to him or else.  There is a fantasy aspect to the story known as Boo’ya Moon.  There Scott had special abilities, and a creature there posed ultimate danger.  It seemed an imaginary world to Lisey until Scott took her there.  Now she may have to return to use one predator to defend herself from her another.

Anxious People by Fredrick Backman (2020) Atria Books

The story of a desperate would-be bank robber who unintentionally takes hostages and feels trapped in a play written by someone else.  A local policeman is determined to figure out who the robber is.  He’s conflicted ever since as a child he could not prevent a young lady from jumping to her death from a bridge.  His partner, who is also his father, interferes mostly by questioning everything his son does.  A wealthy lady who was also present at a suicide she could not prevent at the same bridge, goes to apartment showings, and is trapped in the situation.  Another couple also goes to apartment showings on the pretense of looking for an investment.  And another couple, two women, one who is pregnant, also are at the showing.  And an old lady, who seems to know where everything is in the apartment.  All turns out quite unexpected.

Win by Harlen Coben (2021) Penguin

A mystery in a wealthy family.  Twenty years ago, Patricia Lockwood was kidnapped when her family’s home was robbed of valuable art, and held for months, then managed to escape.  None of the artwork was ever recovered, until now.  A piece is found in the home of a recluse who has died and Win Lockwood, Patricia’s brother was called to identify the piece.  Now he wants to know where the other pieces are and will go to great lengths to find out, in spite of being warned off, even by his father.

Book: Beast in View by Margaret Millar (1956) Random House

This is a tightly woven psychological thriller that surprises all the way to the last sentence.

There is a limited cast and limited locations, which lent itself to becoming an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour..  This book got the Edgar Award in 1956 and is considered on of the 100 best mystery novels of all time.

Mrs. Millar is an excellent craftswoman and all of her fiction is worth reading.

Holiday in Death by J.D. Robb (1998) Berkley Press

Eve Dallas, recuperating from a wound suffered in the previous volume, has to go after a killer who is using the Twelve Days of Christmas as a theme for killing people.

Who wouldn't open their door to Santa Claus, bearing gifts?

King's Mountain by Sharyn McCrumb (2013) MacMillan

A historical faction on the events leading up to the battle on King's Mountain where the American Whigs fought British Loyalists under the command of a Major Ferguson.  The narrator of the story is a man who founded Sevierville in what is now Eastern Tennessee and who later became the first governor of the new State.

Force of Nature by Jane Harper (2018) Pan MacMillan Australia 

Five women go on a team building hike in the Australian bush - only four return.

Federal Police Agent, Aaron Falk wants to find her because she is the whistleblower on a case he is building against the company where she works.

The story's tension is built through the landscape and the discordant personalities of the women.

Will searchers find the woman?  Did one of her coworkers do something to her?  Did she really leave on her own?

The story is dark in a dreary environment.  Like Harper's book, The Dry, Falk has his own demons to deal with while he methodically goes about solving the case.

Burn Bright by Patricia Briggs (2018) Penguin Random House 

Bran Cornick, the Marrok, or leader of the North American werewolves, is out of town and unreachable.  Charles, his son, has been left in charge and Anna, his wife, an Omega whose presence can calm the wolf inside someone who is having trouble with control, are given an emergency that threatens not only wildings, but the entire pack.Someone has captured one of the wildings, one who is married to a high elf and living in seclusion in the mountains in Montana.  When Charles and Anna go to see what is wrong, they find their captured werewolf in a cage and are ambushed by other werewolves with a witch gun and rifles.  Rather than let their captive escape, they kill her.  The elf’s response is to cause earthquakes as he takes his own life.

There is a traitor in the pack.

Leah, Bran’s mate, makes assignments to check on the other wildings and pairs Charles with another wolf, Sage, and pairs Anna with Asil, the Moor.  Each of these have their own history.  This is part of what makes the series interesting to read.  There are no flat or cardboard characters in the world of the story.

Every book in the series is a page turner and I watch for more stories by this excellent storyteller.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (2000) A Corgi Book

Robert Langdon is at it again.  The professor is called early in the morning and invited to Cern in Switzerland.  There is an extraordinary jet waiting for him that gets him to Cern in an hour out of Boston.  There he is asked to look at a dead man because of what happened to him.  He was murdered and branded with a Illuminati done as an ambigram; it can be read upside down or right-side up.As usual there is a beautiful, vulnerable, and strong woman at his side throughout the story.  In this case, she is the victim’s daughter.  There is also a memorable directory of CERN, and the key players in Rome as they prepare to elect a new Pope.

Brown certainly leads the story with almost constant rising action, never letting Langdon have a moment to relax.

The Dead Town by Dean Koontz (2011) Bantam Books

The fifth and final book in Koontz’s Frankenstein series.  Like the rest of the series, the story is set in our timeline.  Victor Frankenstein is still alive and wants to take over the world.  Deucalion, Frankenstein’s creature, plans to stop his creator.

Over 200 years have passed since lightning infused Deucalion with life.  Now he must face his creator in a showdown that will either destroy the world or save it.

Dean shows us that people can have faith in each other in the darkest of times.  They can choose to give in to fear, or they can stand-up for each other, their family, and their community.  Even at the ultimate cost of doing what is right.

The writing never drags.  All five of the volumes keep you turning the page.  Reading this book will reveal how and why Frankenstein and Deucalion have survived.  It also reveals how imperfection sometimes is only a mask over a good heart.

I’m hoping Mr. Koontz continues to write such engaging characters in his future titles

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (2009) DAW Books

October Daye is a changeling, her Mother is a Daoine Sidhe and her father is human.  She was a licensed private investigator in San Francisco, then she was hit with a curse and spent 14 years as a fish in a pond.  Eventually the curse wore off and she returned.  But she was declared dead and her former partner and her daughter won’t see her, and she lost her license.  She thinks everyone is mad at her and refuses to see anyone else or answer her phone.  But when she does check her messages, a powerful Sidhe has left another curse on her and she must find the fae’s murderer and bring them to justice or die herself.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jamisin (2010) Orbit Books

Yeine is the ennu, the leader of her tribal region of Darr.  They are considered barbarians.  Her mother, though, was the heir of the man who rules the world.  But they were estranged, and her mother has died.  Yeine is called to her grandfather’s city where he informs her that she is to be named one of three heirs to his seat.  She does not like the Sky city or the people of that land, though she is a half-blood of the same people.  These people, the Aerimeri rule with the weapons they made of gods when the gods were enslaved to them.  Yeine discovers that she has been named an heir so that she can be sacrificed in the succession ritual.  But she also befriends the enslaved gods and discovers that one of the original three gods was killed, but a part of her soul was left behind.  In a bargain to save her father, her mother agreed to let them put the last remnants of the goddess’s soul into her baby, Yeine.

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

A good example of how it's hard to write a sequel.  Half the book covers how the main character pushed further development of a headset that the founder of the game world designed but did not manufacture, how his income is unimaginable, his money spending is out of control and how he finds a new quest, which one of the founders tells him not to pursue and then he pays someone a million dollars to find the first clue.  This takes place over a decade.  The second half of the book takes place of eight hours.  In that half, a simulation of the one of the founders comes back to 'life', steals the Robes of Anorak back and infects the firmware of millions of players so they cannot log out and risk brain damage or death if the quest he puts forth to the hero is not completed within the time limit so the simulation can be reunited with a simulation of the girl he was never able to woo.  In the end, it turns out that both Anorak and his unrequited love are full uploads of the consciousness of those people.  To defeat Anorak, the founder who warned against the quest, Og, gives up his own life and our hero 'resurrects' him and he 'lives' with his love happily ever after in a computer sent to the stars.  Footnote: there is an element of embryo here that is not explored but could lead to a third book.

Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen 

She likes to rear-end cars for hire and when the angry driver comes back to yell at her they are confronted with seeing her, skirt hiked-up, panties around her ankles and a razor in her hand, apologizing for shaving while driving on her way to a hot date.  She asks for a ride, then gets the driver to pull over in an out-of-the-way location.  This allows whoever hired her to grab the guy for whatever purpose they had in mind; extorsion, punishment, etc.  Then there’s Yancy, an ex-detective on Key West, trying to get his badge back, working as a health inspector, who’s girlfriend, a medical examiner in Miami is tired of the daily dead and goes to Norway.  Somehow, Yancy and the Razor Girl, Merry Mansfield, so she says, end up together.  Meanwhile there is a duck-dynasty look-alike show, whose main character is booked for a stand-up at a bar on Duval Street.  Merry rear-ended the wrong guy, the actor’s agent, and without proper coaching, the actor tells inappropriate jokes for the area.  He is chased out, only one of his chasers is his biggest fan, ala Misery.  And it gets funnier from there.