The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  was a favorite of mine last year (reveiwed here a few months ago).  A generous friend who read my review handed me a copy of The Girl Who Played with Fire soon after it was published. I devoured that one in a couple of sessions, and pondered again how much I wish Stieg Larsson were alive and still writing. Really engaging thrillers—ones with intriguing characters, an unusual setting, a fast pace, but also some social or political issues of interest, and a high quality of writing—are not so common. Sometimes I imagine there are dozens of them on our shelves, just waiting until I have some free time to settle in with a great book.  And then, as I browse, I find that many of them are just not so great. The Girl Who Played with Fire is as riveting as the first entry, with more of the back story on Lisbeth Salander, the fascinating protagonist of the series, who lives by her own moral code, snooping at will through computers and standing off against some truly scary villains. Her history is compelling, and gives us sympathy with her even as she sometimes seems to care little for other people. Her utter refusal to give in or lose is really fun to see played out. Larsson brings in the world of journalism with the character of Mikael Bloomqvist, the clever investigative reporter who happened into partnership with Salander in the first novel, and who spends most of this one chasing her shadow. The final installment, The Girl Who  Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, is due out in May of 2010. I will be in a quandary—once I read it, the series is over for me. (If you missed the story, Stieg Larsson, a Swedish journalist, submitted the manuscripts for the three novels, but died before the first was published.) If you like edgy, fast-paced thrillers with a lot of style and you haven’t read this series, you have some fun in store.

The Laughing Policeman is one of a series of police procedurals featuring Superintendant Martin Beck and Detective Lennert Kollberg as well as several other detectives. Written in the late 60’s and early 70’s by a husand and wife team, these are really wonderful slices of Swedish society, police work, and a darkly comic view of the human animal. Nearly every person in The Laughing Policeman behaves in predictably irritating and selfish ways, the weather is miserable and gets worse, and solving the case requires hours of boring, tedious investigation. Nonethless, Beck and Kollberg are engaging precisely because they, too, are fully human. They persist despite the tedium of the work, and the rare moments of connection and delight are rewarding. This and the others in the series are exceptionally well-written and a great antidote to the endless “thrill-ride” of most current mysteries and thrillers. The series has recently been re-released in trade paper. Those who enjoy the classics of the genre and those who enjoy dark comedy will love this series.

Below are  fiction and non-fiction books with dog characters, training and care information, or other information about dogs.   All of them are available through the libraries of the CLEVNET Consortium — many are owned by the Cleveland Hts-University Hts. Public Library System. You can click on the title if you’d like to order the book through the CLEVNET webcatalog.

Fiction:

Adams, Richard

Plague Dogs

*Ault, Sandi
The Jamaica Wild Series

Wild Indigo

Wild Inferno

Wild Sorrow

Auster, Paul

Timbuktu

Koontz, Dean

The Darkest Evening of the Year

From the Corner of His Eye

One Door Away from Heaven

Watchers

Markoe, Merrill

Nose Down, Eyes Up

Walking in Circles Before Lying Down

Stein, Garth

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Wroblewski, David

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Non-Fiction:

Dodman, Nicholas

The Dog Who Loved Too Much: Tales, Treatments, and the Psychology of Dogs

The Well-Adjusted Dog: Dr. Dodman’s Seven Steps to Lifelong Health and Happiness for Your Best Friend

Katz, Jon

Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm

A Dog Year: Twelve Months, Four Dogs, and Me

The Dogs of Bedlam Farm: An Adventure with Sixteen Sheep, Three Dogs, Two Donkeys, and Me

A Good Dog: the Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life

Izzy and Lenore: Two Dogs, an Unexpected Journey, and Me

Katz On Dogs: A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living With Dogs

The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family In a Changing World

Kerasote, Ted

Merle’s Door: Lessons From a Freethinking Dog

Markoe, Merrill

What the Dogs Have Taught Me: And Other Amazing Things I’ve Learned

McConnell, Patricia

For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend

Tales of Two Species: Essays on Loving and Living with Dogs

Millan, Cesar

Be the Pack Leader: Use Cesar’s Way to Transform Your Dog-And Your Life

Cesar’s Way: The Natural, Everday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems

Dog-Focused Mystery Series:

(As opposed to mysteries that happen to include a dog)

Benjamin, Carol Lea
The Rachel Alexander and Dash Mystery Series

This Dog for Hire

The Dog Who Knew Too Much

A Hell of a Dog

Lady Vanishes

The Wrong Dog

The Long Good Boy

Fall Guy

Without a Word

The Hard Way

Berenson, Laurien
The Melanie Travis Mystery Series

A Pedigree to Die For

Underdog

Dog Eat Dog

Hair of the Dog

Watchdog

Hush Puppy

Unleashed

Once Bitten

Hot Dog

Best in Show

Jingle Bell Bark

Raining Cats and Dogs

Chow Down

Hounded to Death

Doggie Day Care Murder

Conant, Susan
The Dog Lover’s Mystery Series

A New Leash on Death

Dead and Doggone

A Bite of Death

Paws Before Dying

Gone to the Dogs

Bloodlines

Ruffly Speaking

Black Ribbon

Stud Rites

Animal Appetite

The Barker Street Regulars

Evil Breeding

Creature Discomforts

The Wicked Flea

The Dogfather

Bride and Groom

Gaits of Heaven

All Shots

Guiver, Patricia
The Delilah Doolittle Pet Detective Mystery Series

Delilah Doolittle and the Purloined Pooch

Delilah Doolittle and the Motley Mutts

Delilah Doolittle and the Careless Coyote

Delilah Doolittle and the Missing Macaw

Delilah Doolittle and the Canine Chorus

The Beastly Bloodline

Henry, Sue
The Jessie Arnold Mystery Series

Murder on the Iditarod Trail

Termination Dust

Sleeping Lady

Death Takes Passage

Deadfall

Murder on Yukon Quest

Beneath the Ashes

Dead North

Cold Company

Death Trap

Murder at Five Finger Light

Degrees of Separation

Henry, Sue
The Maxie and Stretch Mystery Series

The Serpents Trail

The Tooth of Time

The Refuge

The End of the Road

Moore, Barbara
The Veterinarian Gordon Christy Mystery Series

The Doberman Wore Black

The Wolf Whispered Death

O’Kane, Leslie
The Allie Babcock Mystery Series

Play Dead

Ruff Way to Go

Give the Dog a Bone

*The dog in these mysteries is actually a wolf, but the relationship is very much a human-dog relationship.

This book has had great recommendations and widespread publicity. Nonetheless, some may imagine that it is political, religious, dull, or predictable. It is none of these. A well-written account of Mortensen’s amazing journey from world-class mountain climber to bridge-builder with fellow human beings in remote corners of Pakistan and Afghanistan, this is a riveting story and an amazing view into the lives and conditions of people we have been asked to call our enemies.

Beginning well before these areas were part of the daily news and conversation of people in the U.S., Greg Mortensen stumbled into the village of Korphe in northern Pakistan after losing his equipment, direction, and companions in an attempted assent of K2, the second highest mountain in the Himalayas. There, he found help and care. He also found his life’s mission, and has spent the years since then building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan where schools were non-existent or too ramshackle for year-round use. He has emphasized education for girls as well as boys in all his projects, and he has made friends of the people and leaders in the areas where he has worked. This is a riveting, harrowing, and moving story about one human being who, with help from many others, has forged connections that could in fact change the world. Mortensen has taken what I believe is the best of the American spirit and represented us in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the most positive ways. His book has certainly changed the way many of us understand our relationship to the challenges of extremism in the Muslim world. You will never regret picking up this book.

Beginning with “Open Season” in 2001, C. J. Box has published 11 books. Seven of them star Wyoming Game Warden Joe Picket, an introspective and gentle man who works to make his wife and daughters a good life on the meager salary his job commands. The Wyoming setting is well-realized, and anyone who has spend time in the Rockies will recognize the landscape. Box’s themes are serious and his characters grapple with life’s challenges. Still, these are great escapes and good for packing in the suitcase as you head for the beach or the mountains. Box’s later stand-along titles, while more in the thriller vein, are still well-written and plotted. Any of his books will grab and hold your attention.

War and famine and slavery as they come to us in newspaper headlines are troubling events that we puzzle over or analyze or ignore, and often soon forget. When a novelist like Eggers brings us such events in vivid description and detail through the experience of a given individual, a boy on the verge of manhood, we remember.

I almost skipped reviewing this book here, just because I’m so far behind the curve in reading it. And then I realized that other people may have, like me, missed this one when if first came out at the end of 2006, and may, like me, be grateful to find this amazing novel.

The book is the slightly fictionalized account of the journey of Valentino Achek Deng (actual name), a young refugee whose village was destroyed in the Sudanese Civil War. Deng was one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” tens of thousands of boys who walked from villages in southern Sudan to Ethiopia and Kenya for refugee in the wake of fighting and famine. They lost their homes and families, their childhoods, their trust in the world. Having once read this novel, one knows the magnitude of this horror, and the headlines take on new meaning.

But I don’t recommend the book only because it brings world events vividly alive. This is also a wonderfully realized novel, with a protagonist whose observations and understanding are unique and whose longings for his dead family, observations on the behavior of hungry lions in the wild, and musings on the behavior of Americans (as the novel begins, he is working and living in Atlanta) light the novel’s dark events with comic wit and compassion. Deng in fact does not belabor his suffering but reaches constantly for life and human relationship. Eggers has done an amazing job of creating a novel that is true to events but also a full artistic creation. Give this book a try and share it with your friends.

How do you imagine Paris? I think of the city of lovers, sophisticated women dressed with style, bridges over the Seine, the Louvre, artists sipping wine, writers gathered at coffee houses, and so on. All those may be available a few blocks away, but the fascinating characters in  Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog could be living in any city. Locked in by loss, disappointment, and deeply-held cynicism, Renee Michel and Paloma Josse keep themselves apart from the world, observing others with wry, intellectual criticism.

Renee  is the middle-aged concierge of an elegant Paris apartment house. She has adopted an intentionally exaggerated version of the stereotypical dress, demeanor, and behavior of a concierge, but behind that mask she is intelligent and educated. She disdains the self-important behavior of most of the tenants, but she is also sympathetic to those who are lonely or suffering. Paloma Josse is the 12-year-old daughter of wealthy parents, residents of the same apartment building. Like Renee, Paloma is far more intelligent than the people around her realize, but she also hides her thoughts and feelings behind a mask.

The novel is narrated by these two characters (who know each other only superficially). It is cleverly written and full of philosophical and intellectual musings. I’ve made the book sound very serious, and it is, but it is also laced with comic scenes and quirky characters. Not in the least plot-driven, it is meditative and inward-searching. I am really amazed (but delighted) by how popular it is, and I thoroughly recommend it to any who enjoy well-written novels with good character development. Not for the impatient, Hedgehog is indeed a rare treat nonetheless.

I read Geraldine Brooks’s three historical novels in reverse order–the most recent, People of the Book last–and given the way Brooks likes to scramble the chronology of her books, she would probably think that was just fine. 

Brooks uses the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript of mysterious origin that has survived several potential destructions, as the inspiration for People of the Book, in which Australian archivist Hanna Heath is tapped to restore the manuscript in Sarajevo in 1996. Hanna is both scientific and intuitive in her approach to restoration, and as she examine the mansucript, she reveals and intuits layer after layer of its long history, a series of escapes of near-destruction during several of humankind’s more violent upheavals and conflicts. Critical moments of the book’s history take place in 1940 Sarajevo, late 19th Century Vienna, 15th Century Venice, Spain during the Inquisition, and 1480 Seville. Hanna is an appealing character,  an independent and intelligent woman who is deeply committed to the work she does. During the course of the novel, she explores her personal history in parallel to the steps of studying this extraordinary manuscript, and the constant juxtaposition of past and present keeps the narrative engrossing.

Brooks’s second novel, March, is the story of Mr. March, the father whose absence is a central issue in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. March is a Unitarian abolitionist and pacifist who serves in the Union army as a chaplain. Before the War, he and his wife, Marmee, use a hidden room in their home in Concord as stop on the Underground Railroad. The events leading into the Civil War, some of the conditions and experiences of the War, and particularly the intellectual climate of New England in the mid 19th Century are wonderfully realized here. Apparently for some readers, March’s intense idealism and naivete are irritating, but I found him wonderfully appropriate to Alcott’s novel and the Transcendentalist movement of the time. It is, of course, the challenge of the historical novelist to recreate not only the nature of a particular time and place, but also the consciousness that would be a possible and even plausible human experience of that time and place, and while March would be harder to believe in the world of the 21st Century, he seems to me quite plausible and even endearing in his 19th Century Bostonian passionate distaste for human slavery and violence.  I was inspired to re-read some Thoreau and Emerson after finishing the novel and to read about the Utopian experiment of Brook Farm. Brooks does an extraordinary job in each of her three novels of gathering together details of geography, people, events, and the texture and smell of life. 

Year of Wonders was Brooks’s first novel, set in the village of Eyam, “the plague village,” in England in 1666. Narrated by Anna Firth, a young woman who suffers the loss of her husband and children to this bloody and painful death and then becomes the maid to the village minister and his wife. Again, Brooks’s detailed research and the wealth of information she weaves into this riveting novel are notable. She describes in sensual detail the life of the farmers and miners before and during the year of the plague and creates a set of characters whose challenges, conflicts, failures, and sacrifices are both particular to this time and place and reflective of that which is common to human experience past and present.

These are novels for those who enjoy sensual, descriptive prose and complex characters and conflicts as well as those who love well-researched historical fiction. If, like me, you managed to miss them as they were published, rush to the Library for one today! I can’t wait to see what Geraldine Brooks writes next.

After a hiatus of nine years, Thomas Perry has written the sixth Jane Whitefield novel. I don’t know when I have been more excited to read a new entry in a favorite series. The first Jane Whitefield book, Vanishing Act, is one of the most intense, fascinating, and thoroughly satisfying mysteries/thrillers I’ve ever come across. If you haven’t yet discovered this series, start with Vanishing Act; Jane grows, learns, and changes through the series, and you want to follow that process. Living in upstate New York, she is part Seneca with strong ties to the culture and religion. That heritage is part of the foundation of her work: she helps people “disappear,” just as the “little people” in a traditional Seneca story remove people from the world for a period of time. Jane is not particularly interested in meting out justice or punishment, but she is powerfully drawn to the task of helping people who are pursued by stronger, tougher aggressors drop from sight and begin again. Perry details with great care the complex steps in Jane’s creation of a new identity, so that the process seems utterly clear, yet magical. Her strength, certainty, and determination are quite convincing.

From Perry’s webpage, it’s clear that many of his fans have urged him to return to Jane since the fifth installment, Blood Money, in 1999. 

I don’t know if you have had this experience, but sometimes a long-awaited book is a major diappointment when I finally read it. Not Runner, and I suppose I should have expected that as excellent a writer as Perry wouldn’t disappoint, but in fact, Runner is beyond good. Jane has been married for ten years and is fully engaged in being the wife to surgeon Carrey McKinnon, including wanting a child. When young, pregnant Christine turns up in fear for her life, Jane doesn’t hesitate. Every character is pitch-perfect in this wild ride of a novel, and Jane is fully her ten-years-on self. Fantastic!

Render Up the Body, A Suggestion of Death, and Chilling Effect

I don’t know how I missed these mysteries as they were published (1998, 2000, 2004 respectively). A friend from my days in Boulder recommended them, and I was delighted to read this great series by Marianne Wesson starring Cinda Hayes, a young Boulder lawyer. In the first novel, Render Up the Body, Cinda has just moved from work as a DA to heading up the Boulder County Rape Crisis Center when a former law school professor and current State Supreme Court Justice asks her to review the trial record of death row inmate Jason Smiley, convicted of rape and murder. Cinda reluctantly accepts the assignment, only to find her colleagues are shunning her and that her review of the trial is not at all perfunctory, as promised–in fact, she begins to question Smiley’s guilt. So in addition to antagonising the Rape Crisis Center staff, she is also running afoul of her former colleagues in the DA’s office. Even her closest friend, Tory, also on the DA’s staff, seems to be avoiding her. This is a great series with the Boulder setting, serious issues, complex and entertaining characters, and plenty of suspense. The issues are significant ones-capital punishment in this first novel–and Cinda’s take on them is informative and detailed. The law part seems far more accurate (to my unlawyerly eyes, at least) than in most legal novels, and Cinda is satisfyingly intelligent, resolute, and open-minded. She also has a sense of humor.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of visiting Boulder, some of the scenery may be hard to imagine. You have to see the Flatirons to believe how magnificent they are, rising seemingly straight up from the edge of town. Wesson seems to see the Boulder the way I remember it, even though she lives in its current, more yuppified incarnation. I was thoroughly enjoying my nostalgic return to Boulder, when in the middle of the second book (I think), Cinda’s partner Tory turns up with a Bouvier ( a fairly unusual breed of dog and the breed of my last two, wonderful dogs). Even though Cinda isn’t much of a dog lover, I was delighted with this cameo appearance. Oddly enough, another mystery series set in Boulder, Stephen White’s Alan Gregory mysteries, features Bouviers. Maybe it’s a Boulder thing!

 At any rate, whether you know Boulder, love Bouviers, or just enjoy a good mystery, these are great reading!